Posts Tagged rpg

6 results.

D&D Gameshare: The Time L’Eau Dur Messed Up (Part 1) – Big Fish

by on January 24, 2018 at 7:52 pm
Posted In: Homepage, Jon, Keith, Perspicacious Geek

Where the heroes of the Big Fish adventure find themselves running around Baldur’s Gate looking for magical children’s toys.

If this is your first time checking out our little D&D Adventure Blog, you might want to check out this post that explains the setup and format of the game. As always, I’m in black and Jon (our DM) is in blue. Our last adventure was “The Treasure Map“. You can check out all “Big Fish” content on this nifty landing page.

The last time we had a little session in the tavern as our future selves, a mysterious voice came out of the shadows and informed us that the next adventure would not be one of the good times.

It would be the story of the time that L’Eau Dur (our Genasi Warlock) “messed up really badly”.

Ominous. ↓ Read the rest of this entry…

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Big Fish – The Fancy Party – A D&D Adventure Blog

by on December 13, 2017 at 3:20 pm
Posted In: Blogs, Gaming, Homepage, Jon, Keith, Perspicacious Geek

A Lizard at a Fancy PartyHere it is! The first “official” Adventure Blog from Jon’s new D&D campaign! Unfortunately we missed the first few sessions since we didn’t think about doing this until a few weeks ago. Get to know the setting and characters in our Prologue. You can also check out our mini-adventure it Tragidore here. You can check out all “Big Fish” content on this nifty landing page.

In this week’s adventure: Our resident Lizardfolk Monk, Jaxo, decided that his adventure would be “that time we stumbled into a room we shouldn’t have at a fancy party.” That was my suggestion for an adventure! We should have a little bonus if our pitch gets selected. That would be a fun incentive.

That’s a great idea.  Maybe they start with inspiration?  That’s pretty appropriate.  We’ll start that in phase 2.  Remind me.

I’ve kind of decided to try and pitch adventures where combat isn’t evident. I’m sure Jon will probably work combat in most of the time since it’s D&D and people love them some combat. I think it’s fun for the starting point to not inherently resolve with a fight. Last game I suggested “that time we played baseball in the rain.” I realized as I made that suggestion that it was a scene in a Twilight movie. The shame.

What we ended up with was being trapped in a pocket dimension by Ice King Glacius Rex. The pocket dimension had us being bodyguards for a Dwarven princess at a fancy party and time seemed to reset every 30 minutes. Like Groundhog Day. But every 30 minutes instead of 24 hours.

Was this your first fancy party idea? Anything on the cutting room floor worth mentioning?

I stole every bit of this. A couple of games had party type scenarios like Dragon Age or FF6, there’s some fundamentals there. I think the 2nd edition Strahd module (Root Of Evil) had a time reset party scene. They’re usually slow affairs with lots of descriptions of NPCs and long discussions. That’s good RP, but I felt like things hadn’t been madcap enough in the game.  When it came to me it kind of fell together… who doesn’t want to play a Groundhog Day D&D session?

So the adventurers are basically serving a bratty self-important Dwarf princess and our main goal at the outset was to make sure that the party she is throwing goes off without a hitch.

Our Lizardman Jaxo is the star of the show and after consulting with another awkward Lizardbro attending the party decides that the Dwarf princess could be of assistance with curing his people of the genophage that is killing off the Lizardfolk.

So he’s like “Ok, I will convince her.” Convincing her for some money becomes his main priority for the rest of the adventure. My happy-go-lucky pirate character promptly tries to pocket some silverware since it’s made of fancy silver. ↓ Read the rest of this entry…

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Big Fish – The Terrible Trouble at Tragidore – D&D Adventure Blog

by on November 29, 2017 at 2:57 pm
Posted In: Blogs, Gaming, Homepage, Jon's Junk, Keith, Perspicacious Geek

The Terrible Trouble at TragidoreA side-quest where a small contingent of our beloved heroes tackle probably the most critically panned module from D&D past: The Terrible Trouble in Tragidore.

Hey there! In case you missed it, here’s the intro to Jon’s new D&D Campaign “Big Fish” You can check out all “Big Fish” content on this nifty landing page.

Years ago, Jono ran the Drunken Step-Dad of all D&D Modules “The Tomb of Horrors” for us (and you can read the epic 4 part retelling of that particular adventure here) and it was great. The old school, seemingly off the cuff vibe of it was a delight.

While I do have a pen and paper pedigree (today’s theme is alliteration), my time with D&D in any form has been limited to the past few years. That means that there are all these great little pieces of in-game and out of game lore that I know nothing about.

I don’t know the pantheon of The Forgotten Realms, I don’t know about the Lords of Waterdeep or the comings and goings of Baldur’s Gate. Hell, throughout most of my life I didn’t even know what a Beholder was.

Also though, I know nothing about the out of game history. I don’t know what THAC0 really means (it’s like Armor Class or something). I don’t know about the classic modules or why they’re so beloved (or in this case, disliked). I know that the “Expedition to the Barrier Peaks” is batshit sci-fi insanity-meets fantasy but I’ve never gotten a chance to play it.

To Hit Armor Class 0.  Your THAC0 started at 20.  Naked AC was 10, and best AC is -10.  So a level 5 fighter with a THAC0 of 16 needs a 10 to hit AC 6.  Easy as fuckin pie.  It was changed in 3rd edition, though how it stuck around in 2nd baffles me to this day.  In 2nd edition saving throws went down as they got better as well.  One of the design decisions they made for the 3rd edition release was “if a number goes up on your character sheet it should be a good thing”.  Why would anyone care about all this?  You should probably edit this out.

Nope, going to leave it in. I don’t know, maybe because stats going up is a lot easier to get your head around? Wait a second, in old editions did some stats go up while others went down as you leveled? That’s super weird.

Yep.

Anyways, when we don’t have at least 4 players available for a session, Jono has decided to run some classic modules for us. And this brings me great joy. It’s like getting to see some of the history of the game.

So What’s All the Trouble?

↓ Read the rest of this entry…

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GenCon 50: MetaArcade`s Tunnels & Trolls

by on September 13, 2017 at 9:37 am
Posted In: Blogs, Gaming, Homepage, Sophie

Ah yes. Tunnels & Trolls.

The ideal alternative for Dungeons & Dragons players yearning for a simpler rule set. This game was originally published in 1975 and became a very real competitor for the a fore mentioned game. Designed by a player, for himself and his friends. I think they were all surprised to see how it spread like wildfire, and endures to this day. They`ve released several editions and adventure books, and are now branching out into the digital RPG world.

This year, MetaArcade has launched a T&T app for mobile devices, allowing anyone 24/7 access to some straight up old school gaming fun. It`s free to play, with in-app purchases of course. They will be publishing a new adventure every week, so it`s worth checking back even after you`ve completed all the currently available stories.

This plays somewhat like a “Choose Your Own Adventure” book, with the added dice rolls, sudden deaths, random encounters and new artwork from the most excellent Liz Danforth, T&T`s original artist, as well as Peter Laird and Josh Kirby.

 

You get to choose from the pre-made characters, or customize your own. The traditional races and classes are available for your min-maxing pleasure. Your characters even get to level up as you complete adventures, which range through several level difficulties.

 

But guys, guys.

I haven`t gotten to the good part yet.

 

 

You will also soon get to create your own adventure… as Dungeon Master. This app has a unique feature that allows you to build a playable story, from quest start to random encounters to main baddie! You can then make it available for other players to download and play. It is highly customization and looked really fun to mess around with.

This feature is currently still in development, but you can sign up and get an invite for the Adventure Creator Beta. Riiiigghhht here. Click me.

 

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Running My First RPG, Session 1 of Space Puncher – The Perspicacious Geek

by on November 25, 2014 at 11:51 am
Posted In: Blogs, Homepage, Keith, Perspicacious Geek

RPG1So, as I mentioned a few weeks ago, I’m running my first ever tabletop RPG for a few friends. I chose Gamma World for the system, but tweaked the setting a little for my own designs (I included the general setting email I sent the players at the bottom of the article). The plan is to run a 5 to 6 game story arch that is open ended enough that if people want to keep going I can do it again. I am very inspired by comic-book story structure, where smaller adventures with a beginning, middle and end potentially make up a bigger storyline. I guess we’ll see. I’m trying not to be overly ambitious after only a single session.

Let’s do a quick roundup of the players and their characters for reference (obviously keeping anything secret about their characters out of it since let’s face it, they’ll probably read this):

  • Jon (from 9ES): Playing Navison, a robot who has some information on a job for the other characters.
  • Sarah: Playing Mr. Gordo, a psychic monkey who makes a living as hired muscle.
  • Pat: Playing Mr. Salvatore, a nightmarish swarm of insects who makes a living as a spy and sometimes hit man.
  • Eric: Playing Skraw, a wheeled hawkoid who is a sort of eco-freedom fighter, willing to do anything to make money to save the beloved forests of his home world.
  • Ève: Playing Lee Ken, a mythic plant who resembles an elf who is also the sworn protector of said forest, looking to do anything she can to save living creatures and make money to keep her operation going.

Both Ève and Sarah have never played a tabletop RPG before, but both have some experience with some more complex board games (Arkham Horror to name the big one). Jon DMs my regular D&D game and Eric and Pat play in it. The other caveat was that Sarah and Ève both only agreed to play one session to give it a shot. If I didn’t win them over I would be inviting two new players to the next session. ↓ Read the rest of this entry…

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Running My First Tabletop RPG – Perspicacious Geek

by on October 28, 2014 at 3:58 pm
Posted In: Blogs, Homepage, Keith, Perspicacious Geek
dice

I actually own these steampunk vanity dice, but in beige.

I was really, really tempted to chime in and contribute my two-cents regarding the whole Jian Ghomeshi scandal that is sweeping our great Canadian nation. Then I realized that I would have nothing to add to the conversation and would just be offering my opinion based on hearsay and speculation. And hey, that’s what 9ES is for, am I right?

Instead, I will talk a little about the process that I am employing to build up to the first “proper” RPG that I will be running. This game is going to be the basis of a few articles about how I decided to run my first game, what I want the feel of the game to be, how I hope to achieve it and whatever other stories might come from running an RPG for the first time.

First bit of clarification, I’m talking about pen and paper RPG here, not some new-fangled computer role-playing game. Nor am I referring to bedroom roleplaying. I say “proper” RPG since in the past I used to run a terrible pick-up game that I called “ZOMBIES!!!!!” (and I am showing restraint with the number of exclamation marks employed in the title). I think it’s worth pointing out that I employed the all-caps, multiple exclamation marks titling before the Twilight Creations version of the game came out. Theirs was probably better.

Anyhow, the formula was pretty simple and based heavily on narration. Character creation took about 5 minutes: you would decide what formulaic character from a zombie movie you were, attribute a pre-selected amount of points into various stats, add bonus points that would kick in for “hero mode” (which was when some incredible act would probably save the team and kill your character) and then roll a few D20s on an ever increasingly large list of random items your character might have on them at the time of the zombie outbreak. These items could range from paperclips to a bazooka. The game was nearly always based in a high school and I would force the players to roleplay through a high school lunch hour for about 30 minutes (the goal being to create some character tension between the two dimensional characters; the jock hates the dweeb, the pretty girl is secretly a lesbian, the quiet kid is really a knife expert or whatever else the players came up with). ↓ Read the rest of this entry…

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