Simple questions, leave your answers in the comments
1) What tabletop RPG are you playing?
(We're playing D&D in Cube World, as usual)
2) What are the players up to?
(The girls just went into a shark god temple, got to the last room, decided "we're too low level for this" turned around and started a raid on a bandit camp in some ruins.)
Also, there's a new module up in The Store.
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51 comments:
Just finished a thoroughly enjoyable little discord session of Vampire Dark Ages, run by the manager of my local comic book store, including some other workers and friends. Setting was Jerusalem 1197, August. I played a Setite from the cold north, one of the Varangian guard left in Constantinople after Sigurd Magnusson sold the rest of his ships after his crusade. The vampires of the city were called on to investigate the murder of the sheriff, a Setite. Long story short, I killed her, got away with it with the help of my coterie, implicated the Tremere and ran them out of town, then got appointed to the position of sheriff where we are now running a very profitable trade in smuggling out fake relics and arming all sides in the sectarian violence that plagues the city. Good fun all around. Game lasted for most of the Covid lock-down, and I'm very much looking forward to sitting across a table with some friends and facing down some eldritch horrors.
1) A - Basic D&D campaign with a group that meets twice a year or so (stopped before the pandemic since the DM, who lives in France, has adopted a child)
B - AD&D 2nd Edition Planescape (on hyatus since the pandemic)
C - 5th Edition D&D played through Discord/GoogleMeets
2) A - almost finished Night's Dark Terror
B - the four-armed Harmonium drow has set in motion events in Bytopia after having exterminated all drows in the multiverse (he is a drow no more after the events in The Shadow Rift)
C - just finished Lost Mines of Phandelver, don't know what module the DM will choose next
1) Traveller, Pirates of Drinax campaign
2) We're trying to get aboard this wealthy, seemingly naive trader's ship to sabotage his jump drive so we can rob him when he leaves the planet to make a jump. We're new to this space pirate gig.
Playing D&D, and the group just entered Arkhanos, an abandoned human city that had been taken over by Tritons. They had just discovered an alcohol bootlegging operation (alcohol is banned in the city) run by two enterprising Kenku.
Playing in our Hogwarts/Wizarding World homebrew game, now in its fourth or fifth year. Investigating performance enhancing magic rumored to aid students in passing their tests but some of it has nasty side effects.
Running Star Trek Adventures, our sixth year aboard the USS Prosperity. The crew has encountered an alien lifeform in a high tech sarcophagus. Initially believed to be dead, the alien may have been resurrected through contact with a nearby spatial anomaly.
Running Star Trek Adventures, only a few sessions in to a new campaign aboard the USS Perseverance. Alien delegate murder mystery.
Also running a couple other short campaigns all coming to an end soon.
@Sean Whittaker
I didn't know they had Sheriffs in jerusalem
@Luca
it must be nice to have 3 games on
@Jeff
I played a 40k Rogue Trader game like that
@david
are the players pro or anti bootlegging?
@adam
hi adam. hogwarts: ew. sixth year on the prosperity irl or in the game?
In both cases, Hogwarts and Star Trek Prosperity, our real time and game time roughly coincide. We are 'Fifth Years' after roughly five years and on our second 5-Year Mission/Season 6 after six real years.
@Adam
i see
@J walkaway
While I don't think I can do anything about people knowing Harry Potter exists despite its shitty author, I deleted your last comment because the game you mentioned at the end was written by a harasser and I do think not letting the blog comments be used to advertise it is best.
White box DnD retro clone.
My players will be heading to the formerly abandoned lair of a white dragon in search of a (teleportation) gate key to the lost dwarven citadel of Caer Bannon. The portal is currently being used by a demonic cult to bring demons into the world. The dwarves in Caer Bannon have been twisted and corrupted by an unknown force. This will be my current campaigns final chapter.
1. B/x (playing)
2. The royally-warranted expedition just negotiated a tentative alliance with a tribe of bullywugs to allow further exploration of the vast ruins so long as we stay out of their living area and kill any undead we come across.
1. b/x (running)
2. The mushroom-mutant elves just fled into a previously-unknown apocalypse-survival vault at the bottom of an abandoned mine to escape a slow-spreading collapse.
1. 5e (playing)
2. The players put their finishing touches on an elaborate plan to host a high-society auction night aboard a famous flagship to cover up a heist of the captain's safe.
1. Running 5e and Art of Wuxia currently
2. One of the 5e groups (I run three of the things as part of my job) just raided an abandoned wizard's laboratory on behalf of a snake spirit. After fleeing the Frankengorilla they accidentally reanimated, they picked up the tome that had been opened to the last page with a clearly written curse upon thieves. When they grabbed the tome, those with failed saves had their consciousnesses replaced with one of the various brains in jars - one character thinks she's a monkey, and the weakest character thinks he's a giant. Hilarity ensued.
What are we playing... well, the players have been using Fate for everything for years, and want to stick to it because they're used to it. I'm not quite happy with it, so I a) hack the system here and there, mostly using some tricks I picked up at D&DWPS, and b) remind them time and again that the creators of this system have done rather bad things.
And when we switch to superheroics, I offer them FASERIP instead, which they seem to like.
The players are heading for a kenders' settlement to get some guidance from their god, and to get as far away as possible from the scene of the crime (they were hired to bring a very rare magical turtle from the Immortal Zoo, and ended up transforming 1/12 of the world into living flesh. Coincidentally, this destroyed their city). I offered them the "level up locally" trick, and they picked the kenders because paladin wants to get closer with their god.
Last time we used FASERIP, we ran TSR's old Breeder Bombs module.
Advanced Labyrinth Lord with home'ish/adopted-brew bits.
A party of 8-10 pretty regularly now gaming every other month former in-person at varies NorCal, present Discord & Roll20. Mean level about 5th or 6th (hard to tell with a lot of multi-class), rotating refs through "loosely" shared world (technically I initiated as "Wilderlands of High Fantasy" 20,000 years after a Tekumelian-like world-wide apocalypse, Sick Rick later introduced flat disc-world idea). So beginning our 4th ref (J.A.S.) April 17th, game #10. Last episode discovered secret lair of the Mystic Donkey cult where cultists cooked townsfolk in this huge brass donkey. Found evidence linking cult to Set. Freed folk back to Blackdog Farmstead, but strange shamanistic goat disappeared.
Left off back in in the desert city of Peccatum Urbe we had drifted into a bizarre neighborhood of mind flayers, neogi, giff, and even some Dune-like steersmen. Looks like our new ref is spelljamming...
Playing Pathfinder 1st ed in the Forgotten Realms. Our party is in a ruined elven city in the High Forest, trying to free some elves from a demonic breeding program. We just cleared out one of the bigger manors and have been spotted by a group of humanoids.
Running Shadowrun 5e, but set in 2054. The runners have just helped one immortal elf one-up another immortal elf in a hidden sanctuary under an erupting volcano. Their next plan is seeking permanent employment working for Dunkelzahn, one of the great dragons. They don't know it yet, but they're going to help him become president of the United Canadian and American States.
1)
a. D&D 5E, Tomb of Annihilation (DM)
b. Warhammer Fantasy RPG, The Gathering Storm (Player)
2)
a. The players visited a cyclops seer for a divination about the origin of the death curse. Next, they want to go on a pirate hunt.
b. The players just trashed a goblin camp and managed to kill a troll. Later this week we will deal with the aftermath.
1, Playtesting my D20 Hack.
2, The characters are lost in a ghoul-infested desert. Orientation and pathfinding checks failed a lot...
@thekelvingreen
You're not allowed to comment until you publicly apologize for supporting the smear campaign.
Well, last time we played Night's Dark Terror was december 2017...
And none of the 3 games is Rolemaster :(
We were playing Vampire the Masquerade in person once a week before quarantine.
Been a while.
A Malkavian was attempting to get information to get to peru and find their master. A Gangrel was here because of obstensibly working, a sometimes present Tremere working for the local female prince. I am a Nosferatu named Dog Lubomir, a fugitive from Romania after vampire hunting and cutting edge science went awry.
I am famous in our group for constantly booby-trapping doors in our house with butter knives so no-one could come and go without replacing them.
Except mist form, or by other magic I guess, it has helped us once or twice.
We collectively have made garbage napalm, an illegal dirt basement, a possum farm attempt, and our current greatest ally is a Nosferatu taxi driver.
"I deleted your last comment because the game you mentioned at the end was written by a harasser"
Who was the harasser?
@j walkaway
j harper
@ Luca Lorenzon
Love for Rolemaster! So glad to hear that. ICE produced some amazing MERP modules back in the day. Their maps are still some of the best in the industry.
1) Runequest on Roll20 and D&D 5E on Fantasy Grounds
2) In RQ, the party just got attacked by ogres in the middle of the night at an inn, due to carrying an artifact of chaos that every evil cult around wants. Despite having no armor, we kicked ass, although one player nearly lost a right leg to a critical.
In D&D 5E, the party is investigating a cult of Elemental Evil in a city divided into three political/religious groups. Currently doing some fetch quests for locals into sewers and caverns while investigating one of the town's leaders as a potential cultist.
@ Sean Whittaker
Over the years I've found difficulty in interesting people in Rolemaster: many players think it is too difficult (while it can be run more smoothly than many other rpgs!)
Yes, MERP modules were great, like those of the Shadow World line, but I've been told the Italian version ("GiRSA": Gioco di Ruolo del Signore degli Anelli) had some bugs due to bad translation. I owned many but sold almost everything.
First edition AD&D.
Half orc Cleric/Assassin planning on making off with the just acquired shield of Nergal. Elsewhere my Druid just assisted a group of mushroom men to defeat a group of frog men as part of gaining allies for my eventual plan to raze the nearby city and return it to forest.
1.Running Pendragon with eight players.
2.I'm in for the long haul in the Great Pendragon Campaign. Right now most of the players are coming back from a successful pre-Arthurian military campaign against East Anglia, while one split off to follow an ordained quest to slay Black Annis.
Playing ACKs but with pirated material.
@alephus
unfortunately, I can’t publish your comment due to the “don’t promote abusers’ matterial” rule.
@anon
No anonymous comments
I was not aware that answering the first question with the name of a product by someone that you've designated an abuser constituted "promotion". Perhaps a master list of abusers you've identified would be helpful? I'm not being glib or sarcastic. If my answer to question #1 is the entirety of the offense, I would not be offended by it's exclusion from my post. If the knowledge that my game uses these mechanics is enough to render my answer unproductive or otherwise offensive, so be it.
@Alephus
1. It's not your fault if you didn't know.
2. If even one human being reads the name of the game and then looks it up and then either plays it or tells someone it exists, you might have (even accidentally) "promoted" it and ended up putting money int he pocket of abusers. That's a terrible outcome for everyone.
3. They're not people "I've designated" abusers, they are, 100% totally and objectively abusers. They committed abuses that are easy to prove and there is no dispute that they committed abuses. If you're unaware, again, that's not your fault. If you're curious, check the names of the authors and their internet behavior in february 2019. Or just email me: zakzsmith AT hawtmayle dawt calm .
4. Since one of the abusers literal harassment tactics is to say that listing them is "harassment" and make dark allusions to Nixon's "enemy's list" making a public list is a rhetorical risk which I don't need to take right now (they are so busy cancelling each other at the moment that it would be silly to risk more harassment for the sake of call-outs that will be moot in a few weeks or months).
5. In this case, since the inconvenience was minor (you posted, it got erased, we are talking about it, no harm no foul) it doesn't seem to require a radical solution.
6. However if you ever have a question about whether an RPG person participated int he smear campaign, just ask me.
1. I don't know.
2. I understand your reasoning.
3. I was not meaning to imply anyone was not an abuser, but you have designated them so, hence the reason their products will not be mentioned on your blog. Since, as mentioned in #1, I don't know, I am unwilling to hang that label to them myself. Should I feel compelled to post here again and include the name of a product or creator, I will email you beforehand.
4. Solid agrument. I recind my suggestion fully.
5. Agreed.
6. I will.
I try to be careful with my words. I regret my use of quotes on the word: promotion. I feel it reads counter to my attempted use, which is to say it reads as a complaint or dismissal of your claim. I only meant to identify the precise grounds on which you objected to my comment
@alephus
all good -- no problem
Update on the D&D game... our first encounter was with some intelligent chimeric monstrous roosters who charmed us one by one into serving them. We awoke two days later in an alley smelling awful, (they had us clean the coop up and then help them escape the dungeon as they were disinclined to serve the cult there) and had spent the last couple days handing out flyers and literature on the benefits of accepting your rooster overlords.
AD&D2E. The party has just lifted the curse on the crew of 'Phantom's Wake' and is now exploring a treasure island ruled by ape pirates. I'm looking forward to use the goofy Ape King figure I got from a dime store,it even has an expandable ribcage to snatch unwary attackers with!
1. Taking a break from running my old Pathfinder campaign (the party is breaking into a safehouse owned by a kabal of rakshasas and about to get an education in evil quasi-Hindu monster lore).
2. Teaching myself Stars Without Number to build a possibly ongoing adventure heavily borrowed from Peter Watts and Vernor Vinge.
3. Playing in two 5E games: Princes of the Apocalypse and a homebrew campaign as a modron-patronized warlock ex-sailor and a dissolute, wet-brain alcoholic fighter, respectively. The PotA group has investigated all four elemental cults and is heading underground to stop them from summoning everyone's favorite Fiend Folio monsters. I'm still not sure what the homebrew group is trying to accomplish... but there's fighting and undead cyborgs are involved! My bottle is empty. Why is my bottle empty again?
4. Playing in my 30+ year AD&D group in a border setting that blendsg Oriental Adventures and Lyonnesse-like, Arthurian rules. We have blundered into a conspiracy of various factions trying to keep/destroy a world-wide magical ban on gunpowder. It's complicated.
Fonkin,
you mean that the cults are summoning the BLLLLINDHEIM?!
1) Dungeon Crawl Classics in a really weird gonzo post-apocalyptic setting
2) We're camped by a healing spring where we're recovering from the last adventure, so we're exploring the surrounding area in shifts. The wizard (me) and our cleric went out exploring while the thieves held down the fort and rested up. We found a candy-themed police state ruled by clockworks, an archaeological dig site, and a literal hedge-knight (made of shrubberies) who's guarding a 600 foot stretch of road that was a holy site before the apocalypse
@Simon,
HOW could I forget the blindheim??? I am of course referring to the Elemental Princes of Evil, everyone's SECOND most favorite FF monster.
I'm currently running isle of dread with basic fantasy for some work friends. They were chased by pirates and should land on the island next session. Prior to that we had a brief 5e homebrew game.
Weekly I play in a old school essentials game. It's a homebrew hexcrawl. We took a,brief break to playtest a zinequest submission.
I was unaware of J Harper, my apologies.
On the subject at hand, the primary thing I've been currently playing (with the same group I've been playing with for 25-ish years in one form or another) is a 5E hack that incorporates a lot of B/X for some old-skool play. Our group has built up a campaign setting from the ground for about 10 years (from a sad foray into 4E then a happier delve into 5E) and we take turns GMing, each person adding their own thing to the world. I'm currently GMing (and the group is mostly around level 7) so since I'm into Weird Lovecraftian-esque Horror, and Strange Fae, there's a lot of that.
Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 4e or Zweihander?
@hams
play Warhammer--Daniel Fox, who did Zweihander, is an abuser
Running 3 groups in New Feierland; the system is really doing what I want it to now, I'm pretty excited to finish it:
Group 1 - Have just extracted an strange artefact/altar from ruins beneath the Winterward Mountains in the East. Currently scheming how to get the huge thing back to New Feierland through the New Forest that they desecrated a shrine in. Being stalked by three twisted monster-men who worship the altar.
Group 2 - Just stole some documents from a the town hall of Thirteenth Wood, facilitating a fabricated claim by a neighbouring Knight. The evaded the Baron's Hogriders and escaped his jurisdiction over the hilltops. Currently awaiting the return of one Patterson Shukrani, presumably a liegeman, who brings another opportunity.
3 - Have just taken a swaddled child from the sacrifical altar of the village Howling Hills, interrupting whatever ritual they were conducting. The consequences are unknown, but the storm as they fled in the night was pierced by the cries of wolves... They then gave the baby to some Emaciated Goatheads in the Frankenwood, in an attempt to appease the creatures for some pact the party inadvertently violated... They fled the wood with the clamour of rage and infighting behind them... Now, as they stumble through the mist desperate to escape whatever boils behind them, the party considers how to cross the torrenting river that hampers their passage north... the clods of hooves on forest floor grow louder to the south.
Playing in 1 game of friend's homebrew Space Thing.
- We just (barely) escaped a crystal planet of millenia-old synthoids, who tried to destroy us with their advanced technology to defend their isolation and hidden world. We just tried the location of these escaped-synthoid-slaves to the Imperials for the location of a replicator to create our slain companion a new body.
damn Trent you do keep busy
Indeed! Designing it to be low stress and high quality to run, so if I can't handle running 3 good games at once I've failed. It's been fun to iterate the systems to find the balance of vibe/fun/easy-to-run/longevity.
1. An ongoing campaign that has started as The Village of Hommlet played with OSRIC rules, and has after 3 years mutated into a globetrotting (well, Oerthtrotting) campaign to stop the spread of Elemental Evil, played with the DCC ruleset.
2. A Masks of Nyalathrotep campaign that keeps getting interrupted with player absenteeism. The cancelled sessions are replaced with a round-robin DM game of:
3. Old School Essentials sandbox, played to the hilt. PC casualties are high, but so is the level of fun.
Currently Dming a Demon city campaign set in 1987 Paris. Due to the pandemic, had to import a whole tarot set into roll20 which was a bitch.
Currently my players have discovered where the horror lies.thanks to their ties with shady street thugs and crafty usage of interdimensional artifacts.
One pc has been captured and is being slowly fed upon and another one doesn't know they have been infected and could turn any moment if their calm reach zero. 😈
@atarcante
glad to hear it!
@Anon
While that's very charming, anonymous comments are not allowed.
I'm a player in this fantasy anime France LotFP dungeon crawl plundering a castle with a lizard and overpaid henchmen. I'll soon (HOPEFULLY. we've had a gazillion delays now) be running an AD&D game set in pseudomedieval americana land
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