Campaign Design in Two Days

 

Sometimes the best laid plans fall to ruin.  Sometimes the best campaigns fall short.  Sometimes you end up behind the screen under less than ideal circumstances.  But if RPGs teaches us anything it is that the old saying is true, "You roll the dice and take what you get." All you can do under tough circumstances is your best.  Sometimes it isn't as good as you want it to be, but you live with it.

The Professor's Call of Cthulhu game has fallen by the wayside, at least temporarily, and I'm taking up the reigns in the meantime.  This won't be a long campaign, just long enough to take us to Gen Con, so eight weeks exactly.  I have no plan, no plot, not even a rules system I plan on using.  I've been thinking about it since last night when I found out that this might be a possibility, but so far... nothing.  I keep pretty organized notes on games that I'm working on.  I have no fewer than eight in my "Under Construction" folder, but none seem like a good fit.  The problem is that two months is longer than most of my mini-campaign ideas, and shorter than any of my full campaign ideas.  

So it looks like I'm going to be starting from scratch.  No sudden inspiration has hit me as of yet.  Hell I don't even know what system I'm going to use.  Hackmaster and Pathfinder seem like front runners.  Fantasy gaming is our thing and we've been away from it for a while, after-all.  Hackmaster is my preference, the initiative system alone is hard to step away from, but there are at least two members of the group who prefer Pathfinder so it is an option as well.

Since I have a decent idea of genre and system I guess I'll go work on ironing out a plot.  Wish me luck.  

The Accidental Antagonist

Recently I was looking through my notes of an old but beloved campaign my group played years ago called Nordis.  It was a cool campaign about an untamed wilderness full of treasure that hid a dark past that the party had to uncover.  It was a lot of fun, and has a lot of my favorite gaming memories but the one memory that really came back to me while looking through the notes was more of a humorous one. The story of the Accidental Antagonist.

As I said the game predominantly took place in a dense and unnatural jungle and the party spent a lot of time trudging through said jungle and battling its inhabitants.  I had a series of random encounter charts for the various parts of the jungle and the first time the party entered section 2 I rolled randomly and found that the party had come across a Troll.

Before

A Troll is a pretty standard opponent in a game of D&D, certainly nothing new for any of my players, but no one was prepared for the fallout from this seemingly innocent battle.  It didn't take long for the battle to turn against the party.  Trolls are dangerous and can pump out massive amounts of damage with their claw attacks and Rend ability.  Unfortunately for the group this problem was compounded with a crit or two and before anyone realized that they were in for the fight of their lives one of their members had already gone down.  The group ended up fleeing and escaping the troll with their lives, but certainly not their dignity, intact.  In my mind it had been a rough encounter for the group.  The dice had gone against them, but they had escaped and would be able to heal up and continue their quest.  No harm done.  Ah, how wrong I was.  If I only knew what was to come.  

When the part got back safely to town they spread word a Demon Troll roaming the woods, I figured they were just trying to save a little face, it had just been a regular random encounter troll out of the Monster Manual after-all.  Still, they went on for a few days as they got themselves back into fighting form, telling those who would listen to beware the Demon Troll lest it smite them, etc etc.  After everyone had recuperated I figured they would resume their quest when they reentered the forest.  They had other ideas.  When I asked which way they were headed they stated that they were making a bee-line for the spot where they had fought the troll.  I sighed, now realizing that the fight wasn't over that only the first round had ended.  The group was determined to deal with the Troll reciprocating the kindness that he had shown them. 

When they reached the spot of their first battle I rolled to see if the Troll was around.  He wasn't.  I figured that might be the end of it, but the Ranger decided to make good use of his tracking skill and hunt it back to its lair.  Once they arrived Round 2 issued.  The party was hindered by the entrance to the Troll's Dwelling, a decent sizes cave, which meant only two of them could really get in there and and mix it up with him.  This bottle neck turned to be the deciding factor in the battle and again the Troll gave the party a whipping they would never forget.  This time they barley escaped a TPK situation by one of the characters with enhanced speed making the Troll chase her through the woods while the rest of the party limped back to town.  

At this point one might have had hope that the issue was over and that the party would move on with some meaningful exploration of one of the many ruins, but I could see it was way past that.  Either the party was going to die, or this Troll was.  It was, "On Like Donkey Kong" as they say.  

After

Round 3 saw the party defeated again in the open forest.  Having narrowly escaped a TPK in their last encounter they had a much more itchy trigger finger on the eject button.  Round 3 was a turning point because at this point thing were starting to get ridiculous.  This damn random Troll had taken up over an entire game session all on his own.  He had defeated a party of adventurers three times.  It was time for him to get his own character sheet and a level of Barbarian.  His character sheet with the name Kraahn written at the top was what I came across in my notes that really brought this story to mind. 

The forth time the party found the mighty Troll Kraahn he had taken leadership of a tribe of Orcs who he had subjugated by force and intimidation.   This gave the party a chance to back out rationally.  Now they weren't just dealing with their hated enemy but also with a small tribe of Orcs!  Surely reason would kick in and the part would get the hell out of dodge.

Nope.

They charged into the camp screaming vengeance like a bunch of maniacs.  They mowed through several Orcs but eventually Kraahn made his appearance.  I made a point of describing him anew as seemingly more mighty than ever before but the party took no heed.  One of the characters, the one who had led the charge for the death of this Troll from the first, Harold Scarbottom dashed at the Troll with reckless abandon.  He battled the Troll alone for a time while the others held off the Orcs.  However, Kraahn had grown so strong that Harold had no choice but to feign death in the hopes of escaping.  Escape he did, and the rest of the party with him, but their defeat only strengthen Kraahn more.

Another level in Barbarian?  Check.

The Evolution

The fifth and final battle saw the party pull out all the stops, spend all their money on fire, acid and other supplies, and expend all of their resources in an attempt to smite their hated nemesis once and for all.  They were more clever this time, picking off as many of the Orcs from the tribe as possible when they left camp to hunt.  They also set up an ambush and lured Kraahn out of town.  Two levels of Barbadian or not, the guy wasn't the sharpest sword on the rack.  Even with all of these things together Kraahn didn't go down without a fight.  He KO'd one party member and literally ripped Harrol Scarbottom in half before finally dying for good. 


At the end of the session I was kind of floored at what had become of a simple random encounter Troll.  I wasn't too happy about it, but the group seemed to feel otherwise.  The yells of triumph when Kraahn went down in a flaming bubbling heap were nearly deafening.  Even Moox whose character Harold Scarbottom had died in the quest was ecstatic about the victory.  At his request we started a PC graveyard and had little sayings with which to remember how the character died.  Harold's read, "Never play Ahab to a Barbarian Troll's Moby Dick."  I think that summed up the series of events nicely.  The players happiness over the entire affair was only compounded when they saw the small fortune that Kraahn and his Orcs had accumulated and how much experience the Troll himself was worth.  Though I had never planned any of it, everyone had had a great time and left with a sense of real accomplishment for finally beating the bad guy. 

The moral of the story is that the best laid plans of Mice and GM's don't always work out, but sometimes this is Serendipitous.  Some of the very best things that happen just happen accidentally.  Certainly that is the case with Kraahn, the Accidental Antagonist.  He started off being just a Troll rolled on a random encounter chart but became one of the most hated and most memorable enemies our group has ever seen.

Getting Old and Taking Stock

I'm getting old.  Today is my birthday and now I find myself firmly entrenched in my late 20s.  As is typical for someone celebrating a milestone, I've started to take stalk of things.  Among those things is where I fit in the Gaming Community.  

I guess if I had to put myself into a category I'd say I fit into the Gaming Moderates... Alright fine that isn't really a widely recognized subgroup, but maybe it should be.  Hear me out... 

You have the new school, those who have migrated on to 4th edition D&D.  They play video games, and MMOs and don't mind when they spill into their table top gaming.  Well I don't fit in here.  I love video games as much as anyone but my WoW days are far behind me, and even when I was playing it I had no interest in a table top version.  Nah, 4th edition isn't for me and neither is a membership card in the "New School"

Then you have the "Old School."  These are guys who love their old D&D, especially first edition AD&D and retro-clones like Labyrinth Lord and Castles & Crusades.  These guys are likely to be in their 30s and 40s, and have been playing for a long time.  Well I don't fit in this group either.  It's a closer fit, but I still don't think I get in.  The biggest reason is that, though I've played AD&D and I think it's a great game, most of my play has come at conventions and one shots.  I haven't played any retroclones unless you count Hackmaster 4th edition (which people should, but often don't).  Nope I guess I don't have the Old School Cred to apply for my Grognard membership card.  

So where then does that leave me?  I don't fit into either of the two extreme ends of the spectrum I'm somewhere in the middle.  I've played (and enjoyed) far too much 3rd edition gaming to be old school, but I won't touch 4th so I can't be new school.  I like Pathfinder, but I don't like many of their changes especially the unnecessary power boost.  I really like the new Hackmaster, but Kenzerco has made so many changes and innovations that I'm not sure it counts as old school anymore, and I certainly wouldn't classify it as a retroclone.  I also love Kenzer's Western Aces & Eights, and I have no idea where that falls on the scale.  I'm really enjoying Chaosiums Call of Cthulhu (6th edition) that we are playing now.  CoC seems to be a game that appeals more to the old school crowd.  It is very rules light which is something that probably appeals to that audience.  

So as you can see, I just don't fall neatly into either camp, but somewhere in between.  I'm sure I'm not alone, I'm sure there are many other Gamers out there who find themselves caught between the two more easily identifiable Gamer subgroups.  Maybe it would help to have a scale laid out that people can place themselves on, I might just make one.  Until take just take my word for it, I'm a Gaming Moderate.  We might not have a cool name (yet) but I'll think of one.

Bolstering the Ranks: Why the Hell is it so hard to find new players?!

I've played with the same group for about eight years now.  We have had many people come and go for various reasons over the years, but the core four members of the group have remain unchanged.  Recently we lost two members in quick succession and found ourselves down to just the aforementioned four players.  While it is certainly possible to play with four, and we have done it many times, it was the general preference that we add a few more members to fill out the table.  

Normally when we need new members we will invite a friend of one of the already existing members.  This is the easiest option for both the group who is getting a known quantity, and for the new player who already knows someone at the table.  However, after eight years we seem to have exhausted this option; none of us could think of a single person to invite to the game.  After a bid of head scratching we examined our options.  We do live in the information age after all, how hard could it be to reach out and pluck a prospective gamer from the orchard of the internet? 

As it turns out, pretty hard.

Now there are various ways to find new members, many of which I'm sure we weren't aware of., but of the ones we did know the three that seemed the most promising to us were message boards, Obsidian portal,  and Pen & Paper Games. 

Message boards for specific games have worked really well for people I know.  I once knew a guy who would hit the D&D boards and within a week would have a whole new group.  That man had a talent for finding people that it quickly became clear that I, and the other members of my group, lack.    The problem is that my group no longer plays just D&D anymore.  When 4e came out it became clear that the game was not for us and so we started looking elsewhere.  In the time since 4e came out we have played Hackmaster 4th Edition, Hackmaster Basic, Hackmaster Advanced, Aces & Eights, Pathfinder, Call of Cthulhu, 1st Edition D&D, 2nd Edition D&D, and D&D 3.5.  So though it was cool that the release of 4e caused us to branch out and leave our comfort zone a little bit, it no longer made it possible to hit the D&D boards looking for players.  Similarly, Paizo has prolific message boards, but by and large those players are Pathfinder players who might not be interested in switching systems should the need arise.  So in the end we didn't have much luck with message boards and decided to forgo others like ENWorld, RPGNet, and others. 

Obsidian Portal is an awesome site and a great resource for many things including finding games.  We used Obsidian Portal as kind of a passive way to look in the months leading up to our active search.  We listed the campaign we were playing along with some information on our group and tossed our line out, hoping some Gamer without a group would bite.  Alas, we had little to no luck.  We considered contacting some of the other groups in the immediate area, but many of them were playing 4e, so it was unlikely they would have been a good fit.  However, all was not lost.  Obsidian Portal partnered with Pen & Paper Games, a site dedicated to helping Gamers find Gamers.  We all figured this would be our best bet. 

It was at Pen & Paper Games that we made our last  ditch effort to find some new blood.  We threw a wide net over the area, opting for a "spray and pray" philosophy.  Rather than working our way down a long list of people one at a time, we just emailed everyone we thought might be a good fit.  So just how many was that? 

Thirty two.

That's right, thirty two people got messages from us offering them a seat at our table.  This was not just a quick "hey you don't know us but join our game" email.  No, this was thorough.  We talked about our group, how many members, what ages, our play styles, what games we play, what times, how long we had been together, what we were looking for, what we would be playing, and a host of other things.  We added a "no pressure clause" by stating that it was just a trial to see if the person was a good fit for the group and the group a good fit for the person.  When we finished writing the email (a group effort) I was sure that we had emailed too many people and would be bombarded with responses.  This was a little worrying because the table we play at is only so big.  Turns our I shouldn't have worried.  Go ahead and guess how many responses we got.

If you guessed one and a half, you are correct.  

What do I mean by that?  Well we got one ligit response by a guy who was interested, and one quick email from a guy who said he might play if we change the day we play on.  To say we were disheartened would be an understatement. 

Now I should mention that all of the people who we emailed were not held in equal regard.  We rated each person on a 1-10 basis and only emailed the top 32 people.  So naturally where was our one response from?

If you guessed the very bottom of the list, you are correct. 

Needless to say it was more than a little disheartening, but we emailed the guy (Doodle, by handle).  Doodle seemed nice enough via email and was very prompt in his responses so we invited him to come down for the start of our Call of Cthulhu game and roll up a character with us.  When he showed up we were all pleasantly surprised, he was friendly and very normal.  Hey, don't look at me like that... it's the internet you never know what you're gonna get.  Doodle had played CoC before so he was a help with some of the rules and his sense of humor really seemed to mesh with the rest of the group, something of underrated importance in my opinion. 

As I write this we are two weeks into our CoC and things are going great.  Everyone is very happy with Doodle and he seems reasonably happy with the group.  Still when I think of the process we went through to find and recruit him I have to ask myself, why the hell is it so hard to find new players? 

If you have a story of your own trials and tribulations of finding new group members please, let's hear it!  If you have any advice on finding new members, please share that too!

Diary of a Gamer: Advancing Hackmaster

As I mentioned in my last Diary entry, my group has started participating in the Advanced Hackmaster playtest.  Obviously I can't discuss specific rules, but I can keep you up to speed on the general happenings in the campaign and my experience GMing it.

As usual I've been bad about keeping my Diary up to date.  At this point we have played four sessions and are deep into Frandor's Keep.  These entry won't be entirely spoiler free so readers beware.  For those of you who have already played Frandor's I'll make reference to the various adventure tittles to make it easier to follow our path.

.

Week 1

The first week started with character creation.  In any incarnation of Hackmaster, even Hackmaster Basic, character creation is a serious investment.  Some people see this as a weakness, preferring character creation to be a quick and easy process that get's you right into playing, but I favor the dissenting viewpoint.  As I said I view Hackmaster character creation as an investment.  A player invests time and effort into creating his character, this leads to an immediate sense of worth.  The character has value to the player, a value he is keenly interesting in protecting.  Personally I don't want to run of play in a game where characters are discarded like used tissues only to pluck another from the box without another thought.  A player should feel the death of his character acutely, and strike to prevent his characters demise at all costs.

With that little rant over with let me get down to brass tax on how things went down.  There are five players in the group and things worked out like this

Donovan Krell - Human Fighter/Mage (Revil)
Leland Bronson - Human Ranger (Prof. Obsscure)
Hendrix Jinn - Human Cleric of Risk (Moox)
Steven Jenkins - Human Thief (FunTrip)
Ivar Greenstone - Human Mage (AngryBear)

Right away you may be blown away that they are all human, I kind of was.  One a single Elf or Dwarf among them.  However, since Jenkins ended up being racist this all worked out for the best.

I had the group start off a few days march from Frandor's Keep, deep in the wilderness of the Hinterlands.  The Hinterlands are a sort of colony of the Kingdom of Therin, but travel back and forth is almost impossible at this point and only small groups are able to make the perilous journey through the mountains.  The Hinterlands are kind of an untamed area on the edge of civilization making Frandor's Keep something of a Keep on the Borderlands (har har).  The game picked up with their making their last few days of travel to the keep.  On the way they were waylaid by a Kobold ambush, but dispatched the creatures with very little effort.  Before that happened though the Ranger took a critical hit from a Javelin that penetrated a few times and did some serious damage that would prove important later.

Camping the following night the group was set upon by a rabid boar that nearly whiped out the whole group.  The Ranger especially, who was carrying a big wound from the fight with the Kobolds was taken down to but one hit point in the wake of the battle.  Eager to rest the party left the boar carcass in their camp and just tried to sleep.  The carcass however drew the attention of a black bear...

Now a quick aside.  You may think that me introducing this black bear means that I had it in for the party, but that simply isn't so.  Rather I have a desire that each character get a chance to shine doing what they do best.  That is to say that I present the group with a situation that draws on the talents of one of the characters and allows them to save the party or advance the story in some big way.  In this situation it was me giving the Ranger a chance to do his "man of the woods" thing.  Let's see how that worked out...

...The bear tossed the boar carcass around sniffed at the party, rearing up on its hind legs to challenge the Ranger, who was closest, for the carcass.  The Ranger promptly tattooed the bear with one of his throwing axes.

I think you can guess how this one ended.  The rest of the group watched from high atop a tree while the Ranger's dead body was mauled for about 10 minutes before the bear drew the boar carcass away.  That's where we ended it.

Character Death Total: 1


GM Reactions 
I left this one feeling pretty low. I still am not sure what possessed the Professor to behave like a lunatic.  However, character creation went well and the other players were happy with thier characters.  The party seemed well balanced to me, covering all four basic areas combat, stealth, arcane, and divine.  But as you'll see a little less balance might have availed the group better, but more on that next time.  

Diary of a Gamer : The End of Pathfinder as we Know it

Last night my group's Pathfinder game came to an end.  The campaign started in October, was relauched in January and has run more or less steady since then.  Perhaps it was the relaunch effect, but it doesn't seem as though we've been playing Pathfinder for about seven months. 

The climactic conclusion of the campaign (or at least this part, there is still hope that we will return to it later) was the party storming the castle of an evil witch to rescue the King... Well, technically he's a general, but he is the game's King Arthur equivilent.  The game got off to a rough start with one of the players (Moox) not being able to make it, and got worse when another (Revil) had to leave.  This left just your faithful narrator and AngryBear to face off against the Big Bad, a CR 15 Green Hag Witch.  Fortunetly we had some NPC backup including a faery who was able to break the Hag's mental hold on the King.  He joined us in the fight and we put a wooping on the Witch, Evard's Black Tenticles be damned! 

I was glad to see the game (or at least this chapter) get a good end to it.  The game started off great and had a lot of really fun moments, but started to get bogged down after the Witch kidnapped the King.  We found outselves battles Derro left and right with no way of knowing we were going the wrong way.  What should have taken a few weeks instead took us months, and that sapped a lot of ethusiasm and energy from the game. 

So after months of playing Pathfinder what do I think of it?  Well first off I find it damn confusing! The rules are so close the 3.5 rules that I often find myself almost shocked when they made a rule change.  For example, they changed DR a bit, making it so that you consider your total weapon bonus in the case of a magic weapon when determining if it passes a certain DR type (this is a great change in my opinion).  For example, my weapon was a total of +4 so that passes the Cold Iron DR (which came up as we were fighting this strange Nyph creatures).  I didn't know that, nor did anyone else realize it until the fight was pretty much over.  These types of mistakes were common during the campaign, and I'm sure happen all the time to people who have a lot of experience playing 3rd edition. 

Overall the Pathfinder rules are good.  They fixed some really big problems that 3.5 had and added some more flavor to some of the classes, like the Sorcerer.  Upgrading the DR system and introducing CMB and CMD for Combat manuevers was also a welcome change.  That having been said not all the changes were for the better.  Pathfinder knocked the Ranger back down to suck-town, did nothing to address the fact that the Monk is a crap class, and left several broken spells in place.  So between 3.5 and Pathfinder you can find things that are better about each. 

But at least for now, Pathfinder is the past.  The future is Hackmaster, Advanced Hackmater (the playtest).  I'll be making what I hope to be a triumphant return to GMing... If not at least I'll have a screen to hide behind.  I'm really excited about this playtest, but nervous as well.  It's been a while since a I ran a game, and a while since I played HM so I'm concerned about getting the kinks out.  I'm plan on taking time this week to review the rules and brush up on the setting we'll be playing in, Frandor's Keep.  With a great setting and a great Rulesystem if this game fails no one will have to look far for who to blame. 

Because I wanted the players to have some time to consider their options I let them roll their stats ahead of time to mull over their options.  One player (ManOnFunTrip) is rejoining the game and wasn't there so he'll be doing all of his character creation next week.  Those who have already rolled had some mixed results.  Both Revil and the Professor did well, but AngryBear barely qualified as a PC. 

I promise to try to do better with this damn diary.  I may have epicly failed for Pathfinder, but its a new campaign and a fresh start.  Plus, ever GM wants an audience to complain to, right?   Obviously I'll be limited what I can discuss rules-wise, but the general narative will be fair game.

Diary of a Gamer: Relaunch Edition

As you have no doubt heard the very popular film franchise Spiderman has opted not to continue with its next planed installment, Spiderman 4, but has opted instead to relaunch the franchise.  Relaunches for comic book series are not new.  Many franchises have been relaunched, and though results vary, the motivation behind these resets are largely the same; long term success.  In that respect it is not so different from the recent relaunch of my group's Pathfinder game.  The game was moving along, and did not require that we restart, but the group believed that for long term success it was in our best interest to restart.  

Diary of a Gamer: Pathfinder Begins

My group has officially moved from Hackmaster Basic to Paizo's Pathfinder.  We have had two sessions of Pathfinder now, a session dedicated entirely to character generation and the first session of play.  

The character generation session really didn't go as well as I would have hoped.  My biggest problem was deciding what kind of character to play.  I had originally planned on playing a Half-Elf Druid and had a character concept in mind, but when I really considered the Druid I decided I didn't want to deal with all the paperwork that went with the class.  Keeping track of an animal companion, stat differences for various Wild Shapes, etc was just not for me.  At least not on the first run through the new system.  Before I move on I should clarify, I don't dislike the Pathfinder Druid.  If anything I like it much MORE than its 3.5 counterpart.  Paizo did an amazing job making the class a balanced one.

Diary of a Gamer: The Best Laid Plans

My group had aspirations on finishing this Hackmaster Basic Game, but as I said in my last post, those went awry. One of my very good friends once said this of an unfortunate situation, "It was like a train wreck... you could see it coming, but you just couldn't stop it." And so it was with this game.

For weeks the game has been... off? I think that is the only way I could put it. The reason I haven't been updating my 'Diary of a Gamer' section is because for a few weeks there we just weren't playing. We all got together, we had our books and dice out, but the game just never started. Instead we would just sit around all night and talk about a variety of things.

That was the first sign that the game was in trouble. If the game takes a while to start it is usually because the group and/or the GM isn't that interested. In our case maybe it was both but for whatever reason the game just never started. That happened 2 or 3 times, but it wasn't as noticeable as it might have been because of the group camping trip, and problems with attendance for some players. Yet going into this week's game there was this sense that the game could end at any minute.

We were exploring a slavers dungeon and we were short handed. Bryan was at a work training event so that left only Christian, James, and myself as players. We were holding our own until we came into a chamber with a river running through it. There we were attacked by a giant crab. The crab killed MacDougal (James' character), annihilated Billy Mays (Christian's character), and nearly killed Gorman as well. Only my trusty battle axe and a well timed critical saved me from the same gruesome fate as my comrades.

In the aftermath of the fight I was unsure what the group's intentions were. I thought that was the end of the campaign right there, I was the only one left alive and not by much. But Christian and James gutted it out and rolled up new characters.

Diary of a Gamer 10/08/09

It's the end of Hackmaster Basic as we know it. At least for my group. Last night the campaign came crumbling down around our ears. I'll get into details later, but let's just say it was a slight disaster that claimed the lives of five characters... for three players. So it looks like we will be starting the Pathfinder game a little earlier than we thought.

My opinion of Hackmaster Basic is extremely high. I remain greatly impressed with the system and eagerly await the release for Advanced Hackmaster. But for now, we turn our attention to Paizo's recently released Pathfinder RPG. I have some concerns about the system, but you really never know until you play the game.

Diary of a Gamer: 8/31/2009

For the last two weeks our characters have been stranded in a small keep besieged by a band of 100 Orcs. Our characters, being heroes for the most part, did our best to prepare the keeps defenses and command the small garrison of troops.

The orcs had a catapult they were using to damage the keep's defenses so we rode out with Tojamo the mage who used his magic to destroy the siege engine while we fought the orcs. After our surprise attack we rode back the keep and recommenced hiding and hoping the orcs would go away. Instead they blew their warhorns and summoned reinforcements. We sent out a running to sneak though their defenses hoping to summon some reinforcements of our own.

But the reinforments did not have time to arrive before the orcs attempted to storm the keep from all sides. It looked as if we would be able to keep them at bay at first, but our lack of many power meant some sections of the wall had to be manned by women and children. Their lack of skill in warefare (and low HP totals) meant that they were completly unable to hold the wall against the orcs. In addition, the orcs had an ogre ally who battered down one of the gates enough for two orcs at a time to get through.

In short, all hell broke lose.

I was fighting on the section of wall with the women and was quickly swarmed by orc after orc. I almost died in a battle with the leader. Fortunetly I was dealing enough damage to knock back the enemies, sending them tumbling back over the wall. Even more fortunate was the fact that our reinforcements finally showed up and tipped the scale of battle in our favor.

We finished off the last of the enemies, healed up, and collected our reward before moving on. Personally I couldn't wait to be well away from that place.

Diary of a Gamer 8/20/2009

Right at the beginning of last week's game the GM informed us that we would be in the city for some time prior to the start of the adventure and would have plenty of time to take care of any business we might have. I immediately made inquiries into purchasing some chain mail armor. It took some haggling, but eventually I was able to purchase a set, albeit for a bit more than it was worth. My group made some other acquisitions as well, with both clerics upgrading their armor, and the group pitching in to buy the Elf a Longbow that he claimed he was very skilled in using. As it turns out we never got to witness his alleged prowess... more on that in a bit.

The adventure we played was an old one from Dragon magazine, but I'm not sure which issue or the name of the adventure. It basically consisted of someone holding some very powerful fireball spells in stasis inside of rubies and hiding them all over the city. The person then sent us a note explaining that there were seven scattered though and we must figure out the riddles which served as clues to the seven hiding places or many innocent people would die. It sounded a whole lot like Die Hard with a Vengeance to me.

We began following the riddles that were to serve as our clues to each of the seven gems. We found them all, save one, with about 20 minutes of time to spare. It was a timed adventure so when I say 20 minutes I mean 20 minutes of real time. The final clue led us to a candy maker's shop. We searched the basement and thought we had found the last gem, but it turned out to be a fake. It did open up an underwater tunnel, however, so we sent the Elf in to investigate.

We tied a rope to him and sent him down, but he eventually had to untie himself to reach the end of the tunnel. What happened to him after that is a little hazy for me. My character wasn't there, and I tend to zone out when that happens, basically because I don't want to know anything my character doesn't know. I don't want to be tempted to act on any information I might pick up, I'm not fond of metagaming. The basic gist of it was that Kaliban (we all just call him "The Elf") faced the final riddle on his own and actually did quite well. He solved it in enough time to return to the street carrying the gem. When it started to glow and grow hot it was obvious what was about to happen. The table went silent and then suddenly burst out with screams of "THROW IT!!!" After clarifying his options with the GM, Christian (who plays Kaliban) picked up his dice and prepared to meet his fate.

As it turned out his fate was to critically fumble.

Even given the disaster he might have survived if not for his hit point total. He was at full hit points, but unfortunately old Kaliban maxed out at a not-so-stellar 14HP. Alas, the poor Elf was dead.

The rest of us were faced with trying to figure out what happened and with investigating another explosion a few blocks away. The second explosion turned out to be at the prison, where a jail break was in progress. It seems the criminal we had arrested the week previous, and one of his confederates, were in the process of finishing off the last of the prison guards and making a break for it.

Finally, a fight!

I moved straight to engage to leader who seemed to be both more skilled and better armed. I took a few hits, but nothing major. My shiny new set of Chainmail protected me well enough and we were able to dispatch both criminals without any more party members dying. We collected our reward and called it for the evening.

Oh and Christian finished his new character. Another Elf... I wonder what we'll call this one.

Diary of a Gamer 8/12/2009

Ah, level 2 at last! As this is my first Hackmaster Basic character this was also my first experience with leveling up in HMB. It was an easy process that only took a minute.

As Gorman is a second level fighter he received a +1 Attack Bonus. That was great, because my +3 attack bonus was causing a lot of misses. Gorman's damage bonus is +5, but it hardly matters when he keeps missing. Increased hit points upon leveling up is no guarantee in HMB. Every other level you gain a another hit die (d10 for fighters) and you do not get any bonus from your CON (CON only affects you HP at 1st level when you get your entire CON score added to you HP). At levels where you do not gain a new hit die you re-roll your old hit die and if you roll higher then the new higher number replaces the old one. If on both rolls you roll lower than half the max on your HD (i.e. 5 on a D10 for fighters) then you automatically get that number instead.

Sound complicated? It kind of is. It's also kind of difficult to explain. I love most of the rules for HMB but I'll admit that the HP rule is one rule I don't like and really hope they change when they go to advance.

At 1st level with Gorman I rolled a 6 on my HP roll so I got to re-roll that 6 and hope for something higher. Unfortunately, I rolled a 5 and gained no hit points. Oh well, thems the breaks. I really hope I roll well at the next level. Gorman's 33 hit points were impressive at 1st level, but much less impressive at level 2.

To finish off the leveling process I received another 15 Building Point (BP). Those of you who have been keeping up with my Diary know that Gorman has 2 skills, both of which he got for free. His BP was spent on weapon specialization in the trusty Battle Axe. This strategy has worked like a charm thus far and I saw no reason to change it. So I took the 15BP I got at level 2 and the 5 BP I carried over and bought 2 second tier specializations. As I said earlier my attack bonus was too low so I bought the tier two attack bonus to bring my overall bonus to +5 with the battle axe. That cost 10 BP so I still had 10 BP to purchase another second tier bonus. The two left available to me were Speed and Damage. My damage bonus is high enough, and opponents with faster and lighter weapons represent the bulk of opposition thus far. So I spent my final BP on tier two speed bringing my weapon speed down to 9, and that concluded the leveling process.

From there it was straight to the adventure. We hit the road at the beginning of the night and after some time on the trail we entered a small, almost abandon town in the middle of nowhere. Once there we learned about an escaped criminal hiding somewhere in the area. Being as we are lawful types and followers of the true we set to work trying to find the scoundrel. Of course it didn't hurt that we were low on funds and there was a reward offered.

We tracked the crook and his gang to a cave. Exploring the cave took a while. It took much longer than it would have because none of us were able to find the secret passage to where they were hiding until our third search of the cave. The secret passage led to a zip line which carried people over the underground river that separated the passage we were in from the crook's underground safe house.

Bryan's halfling, Lyle decided to go across first. Being a thief he is generally sneaky and thought to scope things out for us. That didn't work out for us and he stumbled across the gang playing cards. They went after him drawing cold steel while he shouted for us to come help. Stalling for time Lyle even tried to hide in the river, but was swept away by the current.

Being the front line fighter I was first across. There were five of them with shields and scimitars, against me one dwarf. I'll be honest if there was a place to run to I might have done it, but short of jumping in the river and getting swept to god knows where there was no option but to fight like a man.... or in this case, Dwarf. Things got pretty hairy fast, my shield was saving my hide, but a fourth attacker was able to get to me which meant only a d12 defense and no shield. I took a few wounds in the early going but was able to take one of them out with a massive non-critical hit (thank you penetration!). Before everyone's weapon speed came back up James' cleric McDougal came across. With the two of us battling the odds seemed much better. The fight was very close, especially when MacDougal went down, but in the end we won.

I had accumulated half a dozen wounds and wanted nothing more than to spend a few days healing up. Fortunately we did not have to battle the gang's leader as he was already quite wounded himself so we tied him up and brought him back to town where we turned him over to the authorities. They gave us a fat 500 silver piece reward for our efforts and invited us to travel with them to a near by city.

Goodbye Studded Leather, Hello Chainmail!

Diary of a Gamer 7/31/2009

We got the game started pretty late last night, about 8:30 or so, and immediately sought to return the cave we had been exploring. It didn't take long to get to the night's first battle, as there was a group of kobolds lying in wait just inside the cave entrance.

This wasn't a really tough fight, and I was pleased to see that our game returned to more of a fast fluid pace. We dispatched the kobolds without much trouble and continued deeper into the cavern. We explored the entire complex battling both kobolds and a few goblins along the way. Despite being sure we had explored every nook and cranny of the place we still did not have any answers. We did, however, have a TON of wounds. Even with the ever useful first aid skill Gorman still had accumulated wounds amounting to 25 of his 33 hit points. For those of you unfamiliar with HMB I should point out that Hackmaster has a much more gritty and realistic approach than modern versions of D&D. There is no going into negatives and coming back to tell the tale. If you hit zero or go below you are simply dead, end of story.

With that reality in mind we decided to head back to town to heal up for a few days. Natural healing is realistically slow. You won't progress from being near death to in full fighting condition in a few days without the aid of magical healing. To give you an idea of just how long it takes to recover Gorman's most grievous wound was 9 points when the group returned to town. It takes 9 days for the wound to progress from being a 9 point wound to an 8 point wound. So basically for the wound to fully heal it would take 9+8+7+6+5+4+3+2+1= 45 Days. That is the kind of brutal realism this game goes for. I love it.

I also love that we have 2 clerics. My group (mostly) follows The True. All of us save Christian's elf Kaliban are anointed followers of the True. In HMB this has a very tangible benefit. Non-followers of the clerics deity receive a lesser die than anointed followers. The first level healing spell (cure trifling injury) heals 1d3p for non-followers and 1d4p for followers. It may not seem like much, but in Hackmaster learn to take what you can get. Even with two clerics it took a few days of healing to get us back in prime fighting condition.

When we re-entered the cave we set about exploring again and still could find nothing. Fortunately we had picked up a map last week and it showed a passage where only a wall stood. We investigated the wall and found it to be a false one concealing a passage behind. We moved down the corridor and battled a few Goblin sentries that were posted there. Gorman and Bryan's theif Lyell took some damage in that fight but we moved on down the corridor hoping to find some answers.

What we found was the murderer and the rest of his minions. To be exact there was five kobolds, four goblins, and an evil murder mage. I rolled max on my initiative. This wasn't all that surprising as my dice were again failing me big time. I had to swap out signatures on my Dice Cradle to Gary Gygax's sig. Yeah it was that serious. Knowing that numbers were against us we decided to let the enemy come to us, causing a bottleneck in the narrow passage and negating their numbers advantage. This worked well enough until Tojamo (Josh's second mage in three weeks) caught an arcane projectile to the face. This very nearly killed him outright and he was forced to burn through half his honor just to survive. The rest of the group was going fine. With my Gygax's help my dice rolling turned around big time and Goman was slicing though kobolds and goblins alike. Lyell fed Tojamo (Yeah, I know that is a ridiculous name, but really it's just par for the course for Josh!) a healing potion and the Mage was back in the fight. He made an immediate impact by loosing a Scotch spell on a group of goblins setting them aflame and even killing two of them outright.

With that the tide of battle seem to wholly in our favor. Soon only one goblin and two kobolds stood in the way of us getting to that mage. I made an aggressive attack against the goblin who was in my way and he gave ground. I was thinking to keep pushing him, so when he aggressively attack me I refused to give ground. This turned out to be a mistake because he critically hit me. Unlike many of the other enemies in this fight this goblin was armed with a quality short sword and he teed off on me for 18 points of damage. Even after the damage reduction from my armor the hit exceeded my threshold of pain and I failed my check. I went down like a sack of hot taters, but that was fine by me... I only had 2 hitpoints left. Fortunately the rest of the group was able to finish the battle in the 35 seconds I was on the ground.

Finishing up was a breeze. We looted the bodies and the wizard's treasure chest. Not only did we get the answers to who committed the murders (the Wizard who's name was Foster) and why (So he could seem to solve them and be a hero) but we got plenty of money in the process.

Maybe I should take that money and invest in better armor...

We leveled at the end of the night (Yay!) So hopefully I'll get some more hitpoints, but that isn't a guarantee in HMB. I'll explain why next week and talk about what Gorman spent his loot and new BP on.

Diary of a Gamer 7/25/2009

Session 2 of my group's new Hackmaster game took place this past Thursday. The beginning of the night saw two new characters introduced. Josh, who's mage famously died last week introduced a new human mage. Though largely the same this new character distinguished himself by having a better spell selection and swearing less (no filthy mouth flaw). The other character, introduced by Christian, did have a filthy mouth, so there was no less profanity being used at the table. Christian's character, an Elven fighter immediately impressed everyone with his 14 hitpoints, and within five minutes had everyone at the table making bets about how long he would live.


After the first round of betting died down our GM got the game started. Our party had traveled from the village of View where the first adventure had taken place and come to a new city ravaged by a recent murder spree. This new city refused to admit us after dark so we were forced to wait outside until morning. Upon entering the city we secured lodging at the inn and met our new comrades. The meeting almost broke out into a bar room brawl when Christian's Elf, Kaliban, got a little too liberal with his language. Bryan's halfling thief (Lyell) took offense and threw his breakfast in his face. Fortunately the entire thing was resolved and everyone was ready to start fighting monsters instead of each other.

We began looking into the murders by meeting with Captain Flint (No, alas it was not the legendary pirate of Treasure Island fame) who explained how the murders had begun a few weeks ago and see a person killed every seven days. The original murder victims were the Burnett family and the Captain graciously offered to have one of his guardsmen show us where the victims were found.

The only clue we discovered at the murder scene was tracks leading off away from town. We followed those tracks to a cave and prepared for action. We didn't have long to wait, shortly after beginning our exploration of the cavern we were set upon by Spiders, Centipedes, and all other manner of vermin.

This brings me to one of the curiosities of the night. Already having one smoothly run HMB game under our belts you would think this night would run just as smooth if not more so, but this was not the case. Combats dragged certain rules needed to be looked up, and in general the game was slow and choppy. I believe that a good deal of the difference can be accounted to the new player at the table, but certainly there were other factors as well. I think I feel slow downs more acutely in a game of Hackmaster because one of the things I prize most about the system is its fluidity. Combats move naturally and realistically fast, things happen simultaneously, and generally every player is very active.

Things began to pick back up in the night's final battle, which was against two dwarf skeletons. This was a truly more dangerous encounter than any of us realized going in, partially because the skeletons were more potent opponents than we gave them credit for, and partially because we were misplaying the engagement rules for melee attacks. Essentially we were playing that any time an opponent faced a new enemy both got attacks against each other regardless of whether or not either were already engaged. This lead to a lot more attacks, and thus a lot more damage being handed out. My fighter, Gorman, had not been seriously threatened up until this point, but the skeletons certainly put him to the test. The first wound he took in the battle was for thirteen points of damage over his threshold of pain mark of eleven. Fortunately my dice were really serving me well that night and I made the check to stay on my feat. Despite surviving that wound Gorman was stuck a few other times and fell below ten hitpoints. I was forced to use the give ground combat option which added five to my defense roll. This turned out to be a crucial move as it probably saved Gorman's life. Thanks to that plus five bonus Gorman was able to block the blow with his shield. The seven points of damage the skeleton handed out were absorbed my his shield and his studded leather armor. Eventually we defeated the skeletons but it was a very close fight.

I learned two lessons in that fight...
1. Do not underestimate skeletons
2. Get a crushing weapon

Fortunately no one died as a result of our rules errors or our lack of proper weapon selection. The worst part? Christian's fighter lived... so I'm out five bucks.

Diary of a Gamer: Midweek Edition

Normally I only do my Diary of a Gamer articles once a week. This week I was doing a little tweaking of my new Hackmaster Basic Character, Gorman MacGregor, and it afforded me an excellent opportunity to talk about Weapon Specialization in Hackmaster Basic.

Specialization in HMB is far different than in the previous edition or in any edition of Dungeons and Dragons. For starters, any class can specialize, only the costs are different. When purchasing a specialization the player must choose one of the four aspects of the weapon; attack, damage, speed, or defense. A character must progress evenly though the four aspects, that is to say that if one purchases a +1 to attack he cannot buy a +2 to attack until all other aspects are at +1. Additionally the cost of specializing goes up incrementally. For example, the fighter pays 5BP to increase his specialization in one area (20 for all four areas). Once he has purchased all aspects at +1 he can move on to +2, but a +2 bonus costs the base BP cost (5BP for fighters) times the bonus of the weapon. So in our example a fighter purchasing a +2 bonus would cost 5BP x 2 = 10BP. Following that formula a +3 bonus would cost 15BP and a +4 bonus 20BP.

As for probably guessed a Fighter's 5BP price tag is the cheapest for any of HMB's four character classes. The Thief pays the second least with a base BP cost of 7, next is the cleric with 8, and most is the mage who pays a whopping 10BP base cost for specialization. So those of you shocked and appalled that a mage can specialize at all should remember that just to get a +1 bonus in all areas of a weapon it would cost them 40BP, and a staggering 80BP for all their second tier bonuses! So even though it is an option for the mage, specialization is a much more realistic option for the fighter class.

And that brings us back to my fighter. Gorman just picked up some extra BP (15 to be exact) for the backstory I submitted to the GM. I now need to decide how to spend them. My character is extremely weak on skills, and I like it that way. I'd rather spend my BP on weapon specialization! So far Gorman has a +1 in all aspects of the Battleaxe. He also has a spear, but no specialization in it thus far. So I can spend the 10BP to a +2 in one of the four aspects of the battleaxe, or I can begin to specialize in the spear. With 15BP I can buy a +1 in three out of four aspects of the spear.

Given the way my group has formed though, Gorman is the only front line fighter. Because of that I don't think I'll be using the spear anywhere near as much as I'll use Battleaxe. So that's it, I'm spending my BP on the Battleaxe. The only decision I have to make now is which of the four to go with. I'm going to eliminate damage first. Obviously damage is important, but Gorman is already getting a +5 to damage. That is good enough for now. I'm going to eliminate speed next. My weapon speed right now is 10 (the Battleaxe normally has a speed of 12 but I'm getting bonus from specialization and a talent I bought) and that isn't too bad. I'm ok with that too for now. That only leaves Defense, and Attack bonus.

Now we have only played one game session thus far, but during that session I would have loved to have a +1 in either of those. I think the real tipping factor again is the fact that I am playing the group's only fighter. For that reason it seems very important that I don't go down and that I draw and maintain the attention of the bulk of the melee opponents. So it looks like it is going to be defense. The remaining 5BP I am going to bank and will spend when I level up.

So there you are. I'll let you know how my decision worked out in my next segment. Wish me luck!

Diary of a Gamer 7/17/09

So last night was my first session of the new Hackmaster Basic game my group is running.

It was blast!

Character creation was a lot of fun. The stats are rolled with 3d6 so obviously they are going to be noticeably lower than your normal D&D 4d6 stats.

So how did I do?

Str 10
Int 10
Wis 15
Dex 11
Con 12
Looks 6
Cha 7

Not terrible, but certainly nothing to write home about. Fortunately Hackmaster Basic gives you some option as far as your stats go. The first thing I did was swap Strength and Wisdom since I wanted to play a fighter. Later on I was able to add to my scores by using building points. For my race I selected DWARF! This means, in addition to playing my character with an annoying accent, that I got a +4 to my CON and a -2 to both Looks and CHA. In the end my abilities looked like this.

Str 16
Int 10
Wis 10
Dex 12
Con 17
Lks 4
Cha 3

Which made my character about as ugly and unlovable as you can get. That worked for me though, I wanted to play a pretty standard surly Dwarf, who need Looks or Charisma?

The Answer? Anyone who cares about their starting honor. Mine suffered a massive penalty because of my far below average score in those stats. Unfortunately that meant that I began the game in the dreaded dishonorable category. I was to suffer a blanket -1 to all die rolls.

Let me tell ya... that sucked.

I used the rest of my BP getting my Fighter ready to... fight. I purchased a number of fighter related talents (and got them half off because I was a Dwarf), and did as much specializing in the battle axe as I could afford. I didn't have many skills, but dammit, I was a ready for when a fight broke out!

The rest of the party consisted of a Dwarven Cleric, a Human Cleric, a Human Mage, and a Halfling Thief. This was good as we had all the classes covered and even had an extra cleric, which is always a good thing. We had three of the four races covered, but no elves. One of the regulars from our group was absent for the game, so I kind of hope he plays an Elf so we can get a look at all four available races in HMB.

We moved straight from character creation to beginning play in the small town of View. We were sent by a local artist to recover some cargo he had shipped via caravan to him, but was lost somewhere along the road to the town. We followed his directions and found the broken down caravan with signs of battle. As we investigated to find who had attack the caravan we were set upon by wolves.

I was eager for a fight wanting to give both the fresh combat rules, and my new Dwarven Fighter (Gorman MacGregor by name) a test run. Neither Gorman nor the rules disappointed. Battles in Hackmaster Basic run smooth and are very active. There is a lot of tactical movement around the battlefield, but it doesn't slow down gameplay. I was forced to use the aggressive attack option several times in this battle, mostly because my dice we failing me big time. Fortunately my armor and shield protected me from the minimal damage the wolves were putting out.

After finishing off the animals we tracked the caravan raiders to a cave not far off. The cave was home to five Kobolds who had raided the caravan and took the goods for themselves. We entered the cave intent on getting the goods back and handing out some justice. Unfortunately the Kobolds were ready for us and our Mage took several arrows in the chest in the opening volley. He was dead before he hit the ground. The rest of us managed to finish off the kobolds and returned successfully to View.

We wrapped up the game there, but not before treasure, xp, and honor were handed out. The best part? I got out of the dishonorable category. Woohoo no more -1 to all die rolls!

Overall I had a great time playing Hackmaster Basic, as did the other members of my group. I am looking forward to next week when we will resume the game and will introduce two new PCs to the group. Stay tunes for next week's diary entry as well as Revil's GM perspective article!

Diary of a Gamer 7/12/09

So for those of you new to the blog this is a weekly diary when I talk about what is going on in my gaming life.

Since none of the old posts transferred over let me recap what has been going on the last few weeks. I was previously running a 3.5 game called Legacy of New Lago. We finished the game a few weeks ago in fantastic fashion with a huge climactic battle. Now I am stepping out from behind the screen and going back to being a player for a while.

I am excited.

I love running games, but it gets taxing after a while. I've found that time as a player is both the perfect way to recharge the batteries and learn to be a better DM. So I'm sure all of my regulars are thinking that I'm going back to playing D&D.

Nope.

We are trying something new this week. Something that I have been drooling over since I heard it was in the works. Hackmaster Basic.

I know what some of you are saying, "Lab, you played Hackmaster 4th Edition and didn't seem very happy with the game." This is true, I wasn't very happy with the game especially toward the end, but that had little to do with the system and more to do with the way the game was run. I actually like the system in many ways and loved the character class I was playing (Cavalier).

I won't be playing a Cavalier this time around. I would if it were available (and I hope it is in the advanced rules!) but this is Hackmaster Basic. A barebones system to get everyone acclimated to the new way of playing before releasing the more complex and involved rules.

So what am I going to play? A fighter I hope, but maybe a thief depending on how my stats come out. The new edition of Hackmaster has you roll 3d6 for all stats straight down. You can move them around, but if you don't you get a huge building point bonus. You can use those to buy skills, talents, weapon proficiency, etc. That is done to encourage people to use the old school method of "playing em where they lie" which is cool. But it also gives an option for people to play the character they want by rearranging their stats, which I also think is cool. They also did away with racial restrictions on classes. Rather you must buy your class and the less common it is among that race the more it costs. For example if you are a Dwarf it only costs 20BP to purchase the fighter class, but it costs a whopping 75BP to purchase the Mage class! Since I am planning on playing a fighter I think I'll choose the Dwarf. That way I have more BP to spend on talents. I would also get a lot of cool combat related talents at half off because of being a Dwarf. I think I'm just about sold on my Dwarven Fighter, now all I have to do is come up big on my Strength Stat!

Tomorrow is character generation. The GM has wisely insisted that we all make characters together so he can answer any questions we might have while making characters. Speaking of the GM he has graciously offered to come on board as a staff writer for this blog. He will be giving you a GM perspective on the game even as I give you my players perspective in my weekly 'Diary of a Gamer' posts.

So be on the lookout for my initial reactions to the game, as well as his, in the coming week!