The 48 Hour Game Or How I Pulled My Shit Together and Got the Job Done

Last week I wrote about some recent adversity that had befallen my gaming group.  Out Call of Cthulhu campaign had suddenly come to a half (at least temporarily) and there was an urgent need to fill the gap.  I had two days to come up with a campaign that needed to last at least two months.  I worked through my options logically, and when I left off last time I thought I had a good idea of what genre and rules system to use.

I was wrong.  

I really tried to come up with something great to put into the fantasy genre that could be played with Hackmaster Basic or Pathfinder, but nothing would come to me.  Every time I thought I had a good idea I always ended up back at one of the other fantasy campaigns I'm currently developing which had already been deemed unsuitable for one reason or another.  I've come to a realization recently that I'm just  not very good at running any campaign but the one I am most passionate about at that time.  I just can't seem to focus and my attention just begins to wander back to the campaign I really wanted to be working on.  

Fortunately it was about this time that I got kicked out of the house.  My wife is the Maid of Honor in an upcoming wedding and bridesmaids were coming over to do bridesmaidish stuff so I had to make myself scarce.  Feeling that what I needed was inspiration I made a beeline for the nearest bookstore.  Now admittedly the store's RPG section (like most these days) was small and modest to (put it kindly) but there were still a couple of books I thought might spark my imagination.  The first book I picked up was one I had wanted to check out for a while now, Mutants & Masterminds.   It may as well have been the only book I picked up because it is the only one I ever looked at.  

It was perfect.  The game looked great, my group had wanted to play a Superhero game at Gen Con but wasn't going to get to, and perhaps most importantly all of the other ideas I had for a fantasy RPG wouldn't distract me because of the leap in genre.  I've never run nor played in a Superhero RPG, but I had a number of ideas.  I have read comic books after all.  Before I had even bought the book and returned home to my Bridesmaid free home, I had selected a simple and straightforward campaign idea that I thought would serve as a great introduction to the rules and Superhero RPGs in general.

Now it was time to buckle down and get to work.  I had already spent  some of what precious little time I had just picking a rules system and coming up with an idea for a campaign.  At this point it was time to do what needed to be done to get the game ready to play.  To do that I employed five strategies to make sure I got to where I needed to be.

#1 - Cutting Corners
Normally I don't advice cutting corners.  It's a shoddy thing to do that can some times ruin a game or a setting, but early on I decided it was a necessary evil.   I cut corners in a number of ways, but the two major ones were with the Pre-Generated characters I made for everyone, and the map I used for the games' setting, Empire City.

Mutants & Masterminds offers a number of templates for characters that serve as a great starting off point and I took advantage of those by giving each of the four PCs one of those templates.  Lowering their power level meant more work than I initially had thought, but in the end cutting this corner took much less time than building the character from scratch.

As for the map of the game, as much as I wanted to build a city map from scatch I just didn't have time.  So I cut a massive corner by taking an old map of Chicago and modifying it.  The map that I came out with looked pretty good, though when it shifted to gray scale to be printed it lost some of its detail.  Color wasn't really an option as the printer allows for massive printing (the map is 3ft by 4ft) but only in black and white.

#2 - Relying on Technology
Unlike Cutting corners I fully advise taking advantage of technology to save time in any game.  The first way that I did this was to purchase Hero Lab.  Now it might not look like much, but believe me this is a pretty cool program.  The one problem I have with it is how expensive it is.  If one were to get all the games offered, and there are several, with the base program then I wouldn't have a problem with it, but that isn't the case.  When you buy the program ($30) you get a single rules system.  Oh well, I needed it.

 
With the help of Hero Lab I was able to make the four pre-gens I needed, and could be sure that each was balanced and within the confines of the rules.  M&M can be very tricky in this last regard so that alone with a huge help.  Hero Lab also creates it's own character sheets for each player which is also cool.
 

Those sheets have a spot for a portrait for each character which was something I really wanted to do.  I once again took advantage to make this happen.  I used HeroMachine 3 to quickly and effectively create character portraits for each of our heroes.  Each had its own unique look which spoke to their powers and personality, and helped to introduce each player to the character that they would be playing. 



#3 - Not Getting Fancy
There were a number of cool ideas that I had or cool things that I wanted to do that just weren't possible in the limited time I had.  For example, normally I favor complex with layers of intrigue, but given the short length of the game, the limited time I had for preparation, and the fact that everyone was was learning a new rules system, I thought it was best not to get too fancy.  I created a fairly basic and straightforward Superhero plot in which the heroes battle a number of Super Villains on their way to the climactic conclusion.  Getting fancy can be a sure road to defeat when you are in a time crunch.  Get the job done simply and effectively and your players will be grateful for the game that you put together; spend all your time on a cool but possibly unnecessary idea and you'll be explaining to a group of angry and disappointed players why you had to cancel the session. 

#4 - Surprise!
I love surprises.  I think they are a fun way to get everyone off balance and excited about what is coming.  To that end I never told the group that we would be playing Mutants & Masterminds.  When they arrived everyone expected the same old thing, and no one was too exited about the game.  When I handed out the folders with their characters and set up my M&M GM screen momentary confusion gave way to excitement.  As I mentioned earlier, we had really wanted to play a Superhero RPG at Gen Con this year, but were unable to get into one.  It was a nice surprise that got everyone into a good mood and ready to have a good time.


#5 - Relax and Have Fun
In the end number five is the simplest and most important one.  You won't have finished everything you wanted to finish.  There will be things that you wish you could have done a better job on.  In the end you have what you have and you have to make the most of it.  When I sat down at the table I wasn't wondering if what I had would be enough, but thinking about how much fun the night was going to be.  As it turned out I was right.  The first night went really well with the PCs defeating the Villain and rescuing the hostages. 

Lead Your Players Not Into Temptation

I've been thinking recently that I'd love for a way to tie religion into the Alignment system in my Caliburn setting. The battle between law and chaos in the wake of the King's death is a large setting wide conflict, but on a smaller and more personal scale it is the battle between good and evil that plays a much more important role. Obviously no one, in the real world or a fictional setting, is perfect.  We each have our vices and our virtues.  To emphasis this fact, and to track each for the PCs, I've made a Temptation Mat.

This is kind of a rough draft of the Seraphist version (A religion that blends of several real world faiths and includes many Judeo-Christian beliefs and values) which pits the Seven Deadly Sins against the Seven Heavenly Virtues on a sliding scale.  At the beginning of the game each player will be given thirty five points that they are allowed to assign to one of the seven scales.  Since the starting point for each scale is the -5 spot you could either start with a totally blank slate (all Zeros) or you can have some virtues and some vices. 

During play the scales with shift depending upon the actions of the character.  If a character murdered someone who slighted him his Patience/Wrath would slide a point toward the Wrath side.  If a character gave a poor stranded man his horse his Charity/Greed would slide a point toward Charity.  Only significant events or a multitude of smaller events would result in a shift. 

Alternate Ability Score Generation 2

I talked previously about coming across an ability score generation table based on percentages rather than a 3d6 or 4d6 roll.  One of the principal things about this method that intrigues me is the great degree of flexibility it offers.  I made an initial attempt at what at graphing the altered probabilities of the various stats which looked like this:

 

What I really wanted to do from there was create graphs for each individual ethnic group Caliburn game to see what that might look like.  I used a bar graph this time since the line graph was getting a little hard to read.  Here is a look at that attempt...

A lot more tweaking is going to be required before finalizing these, but I think they are a step in the right direction.  I think I want to go even further in making each group's stat probabilities unique, reflecting the different circumstances in climate, technology, and genetics that each group sees. I also need to complete a graph for the fifth ethnic group, the Prydainians who I left out.  Oops!

Alternate Ability Score Generation

There are a lot of ways to figure out a characters ability scores.  If you are old school then you probably use the first method, rolling 3d6 (Probably in order, though some generous DMs allow for arranging to taste).  If you are more new school you probably roll 4d6 and arrange them however you want.  A third method that has become popular in the last few years is point-buy, where you get a pool and invest the points from your pool into your various stats. 

Personally I've used the first two methods and always found them to work well.  I don't, and I don't think I ever will, play with point-buy.  It just lends itself too much to cookie cutter characters.  Characters with the same class have more or less the same array of stats to accommodate a certain "build" instead of being unique. 

Another options that I recently read about on Grognardia that I was unaware of is a percentage based chart like the one used in FGU's Space Opera.  Rather than rolling the traditional d6s, player break out their percentile dice and roll on a chart that favors higher numbers.  Additionally players have a number of points they can allocate toward certain stats based on their class.  It's a very interesting approach. 

A percentage based chart really gives you an exceptional amount of flexibility.  I think that is what intrigues me most about it.   Using multiple small dice you are going to see a traditional bell curve but with this the probability curve can be whatever you want it to do.  What's more each individual statistic can have its own unique curve. 

That was what I set out to do when I made a preliminary version that I might consider using in a future campaign.  I wanted certain statistics, Constitution especially, to have a higher basement.  The idea is that with rampant disease, starvation, and other hardships anyone with less than an 8 con died off.  Other statistics, like Intelligence also see an increased minimum because those who would only be a burden to their families are often cast out and allowed to perish.  Infantcide is an accepted practice and if a father finds the baby deformed, inferior, weak, or if he suspects that he may not be the father, it is a generally accepted practice that the child would be abandon in the wood and left to die of exposure.  All of this horror and death adds up to higher minimum statistics for starting characters. 

Here is my first attempt:

It obviously needs work, and I'm not sure that I'd like to keep all of them as near normal bell shaped curves.  Again, it's the flexibility that I find intriguing about this method.  One could have a separate chart like this for each race, eliminating the need for bonuses and penalties for each race since it would be built right in.  Though I wouldn't play with the first attempt I think it warrants further attempts.  With a tweak here and a tweak there I think this method could work out really well. 

XD&D: The Grand Experiment

Step 1: What do you want out of your game?:

Dungeons and Dragons and house rules seem to go hand in hand. I’m sure some people have house rules for Monopoly and Candyland, but by and large most people pick up the rules to these games and play them according to the rules. With Dungeons and Dragons, the Dungeon Master tends to start off with a set of rules variations and as he learns the ins and outs of the game often adds more and more house rules. This gives DMs and the group they play with a unique experience. Sometimes these house rules get so comprehensive that they rival the size of the original rules themselves.

Since I’m a RPG Orphan, and having finished running Pathfinder for the time being, I would like to attempt to create my perfect D&D game. Using 3.5 Dungeons and Dragons as my base, I’ll take all the house rules, all the other systems, any source I can think of, in a possibly foolish attempt to create the “perfect D&D game”. Since I plan to draw from many sources and it is a massive undertaking, the first step must be figuring out what I want out of my game.

Put the Role Playing back in RPG: This has got to be the most important consideration. If players are not encouraged to role play their characters, the game can easily deteriorate into XP grinding. I have to assume that if people are sitting down to play a table-top RPG rather than World of Warcraft or another MMO (notice how people don’t even bother calling them MMORPGs anymore?) that they are interested in role playing. Its hard to know from the outset how to promote role playing in the rules, but I feel there were more role playing opportunities before the detailed skill system of third edition D&D. Why role play out how your character intimidates the prisoner when you can just roll a die? This will be the hardest and most important aspect of my re-write. Every addition or subtraction from the game must be preceded by the question “Does this enhance the role playing experience?”

Low Magic & Unique Magic: Magic hasn’t felt special in my weekly games for some time. Magic can solve all problems and magic is by far the most effective means of combat. In Lord of the Rings, Gandalf seldom uses magic, and when he does its not particularly game changing or impressive; Its useful. When my players find a magic item, I want it to be this amazing special event. These days its more like “Another magic dagger?! (dropkick into the pond)”. Magic is an important part of the genre, and it certainly shouldn’t take a back seat to the rest of the game mechanics, but when I see the kind of spells available in most RPG’s, I can only imagine the world they live in as very different from the traditional sword and sorcery world. Why have castles if mages can fly over the walls? Why harvest crops when clerics can create food? Why buy a lantern when you can create light at will? I want magic to be special again, and I will make every effort to change the first night someone casts a fireball into a moment of stunned silence and awe, rather than prompting the question “How many more of those can you do today?”

Dynamic Combat: So often melee combat becomes very static and stale in 3.5. Dungeons and Dragons. You charge in and then just stand there, wailing away at each other. In fencing (something I know a little about) there is a lot of back and forth, waiting for an opening and moving at just the right time. I like the abstract feel of the current combat system in 3.5, as it can go towards good role playing so I’m reluctant to go with full detailed combat, but I want combat to move around more. I want positioning to be more important without worrying about necessarily facing. I want there to be more than tumbling and five foot steps.

No One is Born a Hero: One thing I really miss from my early gaming days was the sense that my character was trying to scrape a living as an adventurer, not that he was born an epic hero on an epic quest. I think there has been a change to the genre, from Sword and Sorcery to Epic Fantasy (but I’m not that good with labels). Most DM’s these days are sending their PC’s on quests that ONLY the PC’s can accomplish. I’m sure this makes for good stories, but what happens if one of the PC’s dies? I think the best heroes are made, not born. In terms of game design, this means a character that starts with a stat above 16 should be rare, not the norm. Recently in Pathfinder there were characters at first level with a 20 or better in some stats! But it’s not only about stats. Many classes also make you epically powerful with only a couple of levels under your belt. Like magic, it takes away some of the mystique if an 18 Dex rogue who starts with sneak attack and a +15 to hide in shadows is ‘garbage’. Any changes I make will be to make the PC’s a little more like the common man, and less like a demigod.

Simple Math = Fast Game Play: If 3.x (and as I understand it 4th edition follows the trend) does anything right over past editions, it’s simplifying the math and cutting down on the tables. Now I love a good table. But once its initiative I want all my players to look at the board and their character sheet and not to be flipping through books. Perhaps in some places the math has been little too streamlined and simplified, but I want to keep things fast. For the player, I don’t want them loosing interest in combat waiting for their turn to come around, and for the DM I don’t want it to take several days to generate a 12th level wizard. This might be the hardest goal to achieve, but I think it’s important.

Core Races & Classes: Up until 4th Edition Dungeons and Dragons, the core races and classes for D&D came from the same source material. Sure there have been some additions and subtractions along the way, but the basic cast has remained the same. I think one reason why some people are critical of 4th Edition is that the “Core Races & Classes” were incomplete until, what, Players Handbook 3? The house rules I hope to create will not omit a base class or race unless there is an amazing reason for it. I also don’t think I’ll be including anything too exotic. These rules will be meant to be a base Dungeons and Dragons game. So no robot warriors here, just the standard fare of Elves, Dwarves, Gnomes and the like.

End of Binary Condition: Funny title, simple idea. You know what the coolest thing about mageknight/heroclix is? Your character’s stats change the closer they are to getting knocked out. Up until 4th Edition Dungeons and Dragons, a character was exactly the same at full hit points and at 1 hit point. Same attacks, same armor class, etc. I think an average character should be impaired in some way the closer they are to getting knocked out. Its high time this kind of thing is added to the game.

Balance Shmalance: I’m not interested in creating game balance. I don’t care if the Monk sucks or if the Druid is overpowered. I am WAY more concerned about all of the above ideas than I am about game balance. After I finish my sweeping rules changes there are sure to be some winners and some loosers and I’m sure there will be a few broken combos before I’m done. I’m of the opinion that those types of issues will be discovered in play testing and shouldn’t be the focus of my rewrite. Second guessing myself all the time wondering if I’m dumping on the Wizard too much or making the Ranger too powerful will only lead to mediocrity when I’m shooting for excellence.

Hopefully these few personal axioms will keep me from wandering too far from my goals. In the end, a game that is fun for all involved is the most important thing. However, it is not the only thing. Too often rules are made or changed to ensure that the players are all having fun. Every time World of Warcraft is patched or a new sourcebook that makes everything before it obsolete is released it seems to be done in the name of making everyone happy. That is no way to create (or even edit) a game! So stick with me over the next few weeks as I go chapter by chapter in my re-write of Dungeons and Dragons. I doubt many of my choices will make everyone happy, but if you stick around for the final product you might really like the end results.

A Gamer's Bibliography

"Cite your sources!!!" Mrs. Marsh, my 10th grade English teacher, shouted at us over and over again.  While I'm not doing a paper on Mark Twain anymore that doesn't mean that I'm done with research.  In fact I find myself doing more research for Gaming than I ever did in school, and enjoying it far more.

Research can add depth and a sense of stark reality to your games.  It provides rich details, and insights you wouldn't otherwise have to the setting in which the game's adventures take place.  For my current Caliburn game I've found myself doing a host of research on everything from Knights to the Black Plague.

We are fortunate to live in the information age.  The amount of information we have access to is simply mind blowing if one stops to think about it.  Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia, is a perfect example of this.  In just a few seconds one can search about nearly anything they want from astrophysics to pistachio nuts. It is a great tool for getting general information and finding refence material to continue your research.  Google books is another great research, with over 10 millions books scanned. 

Here is a list of books I am using for research for my Caliburn game, while they are by no means all equally useful sources they have all had some important information to offer.

Armies and Warefare in the Middle Ages: The English Experience

Sword in Hand

The Archeology of Weapons

The Politics of Enchantment

Medieval England

The Landscape of Britain

Archeology of Medieval English Monarchy

Medieval Castles

Woman in Early Britain

Early Metallurgy

Food in Medieval England

The Norse Colonization of the North Atlantic

Ancient Europe

the Archeology of Medieval Ireland Armies

For those with less time or inclination for in depth research you may find some shortcuts.  For example TSR did some really great historical setting books during 2nd Edition's reign.  I've found some very good information in the Celtic Campaign Sourcebook as well as the one for Vikings, Romans, and Crusaders.  Books such as these have done a good deal of the research for you and help save a lot of time. 

The Camping Trip - Part 1: Pregame

My group's first annual camping trip is over. It was a short trip lasting from Friday night to Sunday night, but it was a great time. The weather was a little cold at night, but we huddled around the fire for warmth, and had flashlights for light. Rest assured very few dice were lost during this trip!

As I have mentioned previously, the group decided about a month ago who was going to run what game. Our group is a fairly democratic one so those who wanted to put their name in the hat to run a game did so, gave a brief explanation of what they wanted to run, and a majority determined the winner. I volunteered to run a Hackmaster Basic campaign. The group thought enough of my proposal to pick my game and so I set to work fleshing out some of the general ideas that I had outlined.

The setting is one that was planning on using in the future, called Caliburn. I've had Caliburn kicking around in my head for a while and was very glad to get the chance to expand on some of my ideas. I started with my original inspiration, Spirit of Excalibur, a game I loved when I was a kid, and built off of the Arthurian myth. Along the way many other inspirations, such as GRRM's A Song of Ice and Fire and historical sources, played a vital role in the creation of the game. The older I get the more I seem to want to play low magic games with more a more "realistic" and historical feel. That is why I opted to run this campaign with Hackmaster Basic, and why games like Iron Heroes, greatly appeal to me.

Even though HMB has magic that I would consider to be much lower than D&D 3.X or more recently Pathfinder, I found that I wanted to make magic even more rare. To that end I increased the BP cost of the spellcasting classes. Clerics were increased to 50BP and Mage was raised to 75BP.

Flavor wise, I justified these changes by describing the the limited number of clerics and mages in the world. Though there are many priests in the world, Clerics who wield magic are very rare. Because of their limited numbers Clerics are simply too limited to stop things like plagues or other widespread suffering. This was important because I felt like to get the grim and gritty feel I wanted for the game I couldn't have thousands and thousands of Clerics running around. As for mages, I took a route from old Sword & Sorcery sources like Conan, I made them not only rare, but feared and often hunted. Witch hunts are a reality in this setting and secrecy is a nessesary part of playing a Mage.

Here is a quick list of other house rules I used...

• Spend 5BP to get out rolling a quirk or flaw or 10BP to get out of both.
• Since we are playing straight though XP and honor will be rewarded in an ongoing fashion and not in bursts.
  
• The spear can be used with a shield, but only using the jab option
• Clerics can prepare duplicate spells
• Ability scores increased per the Advanced Hackmaster rules
• While under spell fatigue walking speed is max speed.
• Attacking while spell fatigued is not possible.
• A Mage can end any spell requiring concentration "at will." Such spells also end if the mage dies or falls unconscious/asleep
• Time required to stand depends on armor worn. When wearing no armor it takes one second, two for light armor, three for medium, and four for heavy.
• The Less sleep talent does not help Mages recover their spell points any faster.
• While actively hiding behind a shield jogging is the maximum speed that can be maintained.
• If you desire a skill not in the book speak with the GM about it. Some skills not found in the book that would be useful to someone of the nobility include Heraldry and Etiquette.

This information, along with a lot of additional information I put in a packet for the players. I working on getting a PDF that can be posted here to share. Though I put a lot of work into it, much of the packet's information was not crucial to memorizing prior to the game. Rather, it helped establish a general vision of the setting that made it feel like a real place that the players could interact with. That was a central idea for Caliburn. I wanted it to be a character driven game, a sandbox game, if you will, rather than the type of plot driven game I normally run.

Much of the setting focuses on the realm of Caliburn at large which has been fractured into many smaller Kingdoms after the death of the former King Gareth (the game's eqiveillent of King Arthur). For Basic the players were not playing Great Lords or Knights, but rather residents of a small village in a place called the North Vale. So in a way the setting was like Luke at the beginning of Episode 4. I provided a detaled map of the town, along with information on important persons living in the town in the player packet.

As I have mentioned previously the players created their characters prior to the game. Of the seven players five opted to be fighters, one opted for the theif, and the last chose to play a Cleric. These class selections fit perfectly with the setting, and all was set up to have a succesful game and a fun trip...

Fireside Gaming Part 2

So my group's camping trip is a week away. Based on the low number of posts over the last week or two I'm sure people have realized that I've been busy working on my game. Did I go overboard? Yes. Could I have gotten away with far less work? Yes. But as I've said, I plan on running a longer game in this setting later. So it isn't as though all my work is for this particular game.

At this week's game we decided to do character creation so we can jump right into playing next Friday. I started by asking if there were any questions about the setting, house rules, or anything else. I cleared up a few minor questions, and the players broke out their dice. I had the players roll their stats round robin style, with each stat being rolled by each player before moving on to the next. Here were the results...

	Mike	Christian	Josh	James	Bryan
Str	7	11	6	6	10
Int	11	14	10	10	10
Wis	13	7	7	8	10
Dex	10	11	13	13	12
Con	13	18	12	9	14
Lks	8	15	12	8	13
Cha	13	13	14	11	11

Everyone, save Bryan made changes to their stats. Josh and James swapped two, while Christian and Mike rearranged everything. So Bryan got +50BP, Josh and James got +25BP and Christian and Mike got +0BP. Completely rearranging stats proved to be a very limiting decision for Christian, as I'll explain in a moment.

Choosing a race went very quickly as the player's only choice was human. This was a hard decision when designing the campaign, but adding non-human races just didn't seem to fit.

Next came the finalizing of stats. Bryan spent some BP to boost his Intelligence and Wisdom, James Boosted his Strength, Josh boosted his Wisdom and Dexterity, Mike boosted his Constitution, and Christian left his alone. Overall everyone's stats look pretty good. Chritian has the best stats overall, with his 18 looming large. Even his 15 is superior to the stats rolled by the other players.

Then it was time for the players to choose their class. This is where I should note that campaign factors caused me to modify the BP cost for some classes. Fighter and Thief cost the normal amount for the human (25) but Clerics and Mages are far more rare. While priests are quite common in the campaign world, priests who wield divine magic are quite rare. To reflect this Clerics have a BP cost of 50. Mages are feared, hunted, and killed throughout the world. As a result they are extremely rare and have a BP cost of 75. So Christian's decision to rearrange his stats completely meant that it required all of his 50BP just to purchase his Cleric Class. James, Bryan and Mike decided to play Fighters. Finally Josh decided to play a bow toting theif.

For Priors and Particulars I had several charts for things like social class that the players had to roll on. By the time they all finished rolling they each had an idea of who their character was and how they wanted to play them. Overall this part was a lot of fun for them and me.

Next up was quirks and flaws. I offered an option to pay 5BP to get out of one or 10BP to get out of both. No one wanted to pay the BP so they all rolled. I offered rerolls for duplicate quirks or flaws so each person got something different.

Starting honor took some time to calculate because we only had one calculator at the table and no one wanted to do it by hand. In the end honor varied from a low of 9 for Mike to a high of 14 for Josh and Bryan.

Skills, talents and proficiencies were next. Christian had almost no BP left (he picked up four for having two loving parents) and used it to buy a single weapon proficiency. Luckily Clerics get a number of free skills, so he didn't have to go completely without. James bought mostly weapon specialization with what he had left. Mike and Bryan bought a number of trade skills, specifically Blacksmithing and Leatherworking.

Money was hard on the group. Most were lower class and received very little money. This problem was compounded with inflated prices, especially for weapons and armor. A great deal of leather armor was purchased, as well as varied kinds of weapons.

After the characters were finalized we did some story stuff to jump start the character's backstories. We started with a round robin story. Essentially the first person begins a tale about the characters and passes it around to the next person. The tale, begun by Josh, centered a round a day of celebration six years prior to the start of the campaign. We went around the table twice with the story before finishing up the exercise. We then moved on to a very short story about how the PCs rescued a young girl who was lost in the forest from some starving wolves. We played out the majority of the story, which only took about a half an hour. It was fun and a good little introduction to running the game for me.

Overall making characters was a lot of fun and got me even more excited for the upcoming trip. I can't post too much about what I have planned for campaign because my players read this blog, but rest assured I'll post the play by play when I get back!

GM's Corner: Going Overboard

I've haven't been very good about posting as of late. My lack of posts is due to lack of time as of late. As I mentioned in a previous post my gaming group and I are going on a camping trip soon and I've been picked to run the game during the trip. I want this trip to be great, and for that the game will have to be great.

Despite that even I can tell I'm going overboard.

Here are some quick facts...

• The game is a Hackmaster Basic Campaign (The first HMB game I will run)
• The game is set to go from level 1 to level 5 over the course of the weekend.
• I am planning on running a Simplified version of a game I have been designing called Caliburn.
• Those of you up on your Arthurian mythology will probably have surmised this based on the game's name, but for those of you who aren't, this is an Arthurian inspired campaign. The original inspiration was actually the computer game Spirit of Excalibur, which I loved when I was a kid.
• I want this game to be a "grim & gritty" kind of game. Kind of a Thomas Malory world that has fallen from grace and has been reduced to something that more resembles GRRM's war torn Westeros.
• I want to keep house rules to a minimum, but I'm not counting providing my own campaign setting, including my own deities, as house rules.
• My main goal is for everyone to have fun.

The last one is one I'm working hard not to lose sight of. Anytime a GM loses sight of that goal (the ultimate goal of any good GM in my opinion) disaster may ensue. Yet, like I said I can already feel myself going overboard on campaign design. The problem is that this setting was originally intended for a full length game, and I don't want to cut anything out. For that reason I think I'm going to end up overwhelming players with the amount of background information available.

For example, the last few days I have been working on the various religions available for those who wish to play clerics. At the moment the religion section is over 10 pages long. At first I had intended to only include one major religion, but soon found myself adding more and more options to make sure someone could find something they liked.

The first religion, called Seraphism, is a blend of Judeo–Christian ideals with the polytheistic element of Hinduism. In short, they worship seven Archangels in order to better understand the One God. So I set about creating the seven Archangels and figured I was done. But then I realized that I didn't really give players an alternative to this one religion. What if, for example, someone wanted to play an evil character? All seven Archangels were good... So I needed to include their opposites, The seven Demons that are worshiped in secret cabals around the world. Then I though I was done, but then I realized I still didn't give people an option outside the religion of this single religion, which even the Demons were a part of in their own way. The game's religious turmoil is going to center mostly around the conflict between the old religion (The Druidic religion) and the new religion (Serpahism). Yet Kenzerco has not yet released any information for Druids, so that just wouldn't be an option.

Damn.

So I created the world's third major religion which is centered around worshipping gods similar to the Greek and Norse pantheons. The gods would be constellations in the night sky, and would be worshiped by people all over the world, though each region would have their own names for the gods. As the north men (think Viking Norsemen) would be the closest group to worship these gods I decided to go with their names only for the basic version of the game. With this religion I would have 12 more options to add to what I had already. Yeah, I know. I told you I was going overboard.

I figured it was important to have a picture of what the night sky might look like and what these constellations were composed of. This is not as easy as it would be for anyone with some artistic talent, but after reviewing what the real world constellations looked like I figured I couldn't do any worse! For those unfamiliar take a look. Anyway here is what I ended up with...



So overall, not too bad. I'll post the game information for the deities when I finish. That's right I'm still not done. I'm sorry guys, but I promise I'll stop being so lax when it comes to posting.

Just as soon as I write 45 pages on the knights of the realm.

Just kidding.

Uh... probably.

Fireside Gaming

I didn't get to go to Gen Con this year. In fact, I never get to go, which sucks. Maybe next year will be my year, but for this year I'm taking another gaming related trip.

My whole gaming group and I are going on a camping trip. We'll be spending the weekend gaming and attending King Richard's Faire. We are getting to the campground on Friday, gaming that night, all day Saturday, and attending the faire on Sunday. What we were going to play during the trip took some deciding.

Essentially the choice of games came down to D&D 3.5, Pathfinder, and Hackmaster Basic. Bryan (who plays Lyell in our current game) volunteered to run any of the three systems. I offered to run a HMB game. It took awhile but eventually the group decided on me and HMB. So it looks like I'll be running my first ever Hackmaster game. Am I nervous? A little.

The game I'll be running is an introduction to a campaign I've been working on off and on for a while. It is called Caliburn and was originally inspired by the classic PC game Spirit of Excalibur. The setting isn't finished so I'll be running a kind of Caliburn Basic to go along with Hackmaster Basic, kind of fitting really.

The group just made the decision on Thursday so I haven't had a lot of time to figure out what the general plot of the game is going to be. The good news is that I have about a month to get everything ready, which should be plenty of time. I'll probably post about my progress leading up to the trip and then a review of how it went and my impressions of running a game in the system.

First things first... I have to read the GM section of the HMB manual!

Anatomy of a Campaign: Legacy of New Lago - Part 3

When deciding which modules I wanted to add to my campaign I began with Dungeon's list of the top 30 modules of all time. Here is the list in its entirety...

1. GDQ1-7: Queen of the Spiders: Compiling the giants G series, the drow D series, and Queen of the Demonweb Pits
2. I6: Ravenloft
3. S1: Tomb of Horrors
4. T1-4: The Temple of Elemental Evil
5. S3: Expedition to the Barrier Peaks
6. I3-5: The Desert of Desolation
7. B2: The Keep on the Borderlands
8. Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil
   
9. S2: White Plume Mountain
10. Return to the Tomb of Horrors
11. The Gates of Firestorm Peak
12. The Forge of Fury
13. I1: Dwellers of the Forbidden City
14. Planescape: Dead Gods
15. X2: Castle Amber
16. X1: The Isle of Dread
17. Forgotten Realms: Ruins of Undermountain
    
18. C1: The Hidden Shrine of Tamoachan
19. N1: Against the Cult of the Reptile God
20. A1-4: Scourge of the Slave Lords
21. Judges Guild: Dark Tower
22. S4: The Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth
23. WG4: The Forgotten Temple of Tharizdun
24. Forgotten Realms: City of the Spider Queen
25. DL1: Dragons of Despair
26. WGR6: City of Skulls
27. U1: The Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh
28. B4: The Lost City
29. L2: The Assassin's Knot
30. C2: The Ghost Tower of Inverness

After looking at the list some of the names jumped out at me. Classics that I had head of, but had never played in or run before. They were...

G Series: Against the Giants
I6: Ravenloft
S1: Tomb of Horrors
T1-4: The Temple of Elemental Evil
B2: The Keep on the Borderlands
S2: White Plume Mountain

Going back to the basic idea that I wanted this to be an episodic campaign where the party gathers items of great power, I knew that I had to choose the modules that such items in them already.

The first module to jump out at me was White Plume Mountain. For those of you unfamiliar with the adventure let me give you the general plot. An ancient wizard who many had believed to have been a myth has stolen three powerful artifacts; Wave, Whelm, and Blackrazor. The party follow the only clue left by the offending mage, a letter which leads them to the volcanic White Plume Mountain. Once there they must pass through some great traps and battle some strange creatures to recover the items. Basically this module was absolutely perfect. It was even updated to 3.5 by WotC in 2005. Its lead villain, Keraptis, even got me starting to think about my big villain... more on that later.

The next module I decided on was Keep on the Borderlands. Somehow this became #7 on the list, but just about every gamer I've ever talked who played it rated KotBL as the best or second best module they had ever played. I could think of no better way to begin the game than this adventure, but it needed some tweaking. Not because there was anything wrong with it, but rather because it didn't fit the formula of the game. Some quick changes took care of this and it fit seamlessly into the game. Just to show you how good it is Kenzerco made their own version of the adventure called Little Keep on the Borderlands for Hackmaster 4th Edition.

Of all the modules on the list the one that I most wanted to run was Ravenloft. I had never played it, nor ran it, but everyone raved about it. Those who said the Keep was the second best module all set Ravenloft was number one, and I was determined to find out if it was true. Ravenloft has also been converted to 3.5 and even expanded to be an entire campaign. I stuck to the Old School 1st edition Ravenloft adventure for the most part, but did use the 3.5 book for stat conversions.The adventure was very easy to adapt to the campaign format. I simply had the players sent there seeking the symbol of Ravenkind. Though the adventure did not quite go as expected I will say it was a lot of fun to play. Strahd is a classic villain, perhaps the greatest in D&D. His character also left his mark on my BBEG (Big Bad Evil Guy)

These adventures were a lot of fun to run and I highly recommend integrating them into your game if they fit. Here are the letters I used as props in during the adventure. You should have seen the players faces when they read the first letter from Ravenloft!

Speaking of that letter from Ravenloft check out this amazing video done by a guy running Expedition to Castle Ravenloft (The 3.5 adventure/campaign).

So that's it for now. In part 4 we'll look at the dreaded BBEG.

Anatomy of a Campaign: Legacy of New Lago - Part 2

Just to recap the last segment...

• I am going over my design for my Legacy of New Lago campaign
• LoNL continues the story of two previous campaigns
• The players are playing the children of former PCs
• I went over the basic plot of the campaign
  
• The campaign is episodic and has several classic modules integrated into it
  
  

The Outline

I am pretty anal in my prep and design. I always want to have an outline with the major plot points spelled out so I can keep the story moving and organized. For LoNL I decided to go with the three act structure one often seen in plays, movies, and books.

Here is the general outline with my goals for each Act...

Act I

The PCs begin their adventuring life and have to deal with the shadow cast by their parents. They struggle to establish their own identities in the face of the prejudices that precede them based on the reputations of their parents. Their early successes will be in stark contrast to Act II when things take a darker turn and the young generations learns more about the flaws of their parents.

Goals:

· Introduce key NPCs to the game

· Give easy examples of what the game is going to be like

· Time of innocence, everything should be smooth and happy at the beginning

· Give hints of future, find a way to introduce the villain in a non confrontational way

Act II

The longest of the three Acts this one has the low point in it. Act II should be about innocence lost. The PCs realize that their parents are people and see them with all their flaws and imperfections. The villain is introduced and his identity is uncovered leading to a host of moral and ethical dilemmas. The PCs also find out about the Prophesy and the truth of their role in things. With this knowledge comes the truth about how they are the way they are, age, skills etc. The PCs have to rise above their doubts and pull themselves out of the hole they are in.

Goals:

· Disillusion the PCs in the aftermath of “Trinity”

· Turn up the difficulty rating of the game

· The Big reveal of the central villain

· The Villain is unmasked, literally, and the PC find out the truth about a lot of things.

· In the aftermath of Trinity Aken takes the group to his Command Center and clears up anything that is still a mystery.

· PCs real test comes in the aftermath of these revelations when they have to put it all aside and spring into action to save one of their own.

Act III

The PCs are now battle hardened adventures cut from molds similar to their parents. They are in (almost) full knowledge of Aken’s Plan to rid the world once and for all of the Dark God. However, now that all the cards are on the table their lives are more dangerous than ever. The Players must hurry to secure the final item needed for the rebinding ritual before their Arch-Enemy gets it. Then finally they must go though the Portal to Old Lago and secure the anchor so that the final confrontation can take place.

Goals:

· The final item is secured.

· The Final Climactic battle takes place.

· Epilogue where Aken grants each PC one wish

Now you may be saying, "you didn't make that at the beginning of the campaign design process." Actually, I did, but it looked very different. I added more and more to it as I created more plot elements for the game. It started off pretty bare, but over time it was fleshed out until it looks like the one above. Now obviously this is a guide, not a script. I can tell you, of the above, not everything worked out as I planned. Even the best planner must be ready to improvise. Knowing your players is key, but players will surprise you, so stay alert.

This isn't the only outline I made for the game. Here is a chapter by chapter breakdown that I used to keep track of individual adventures...


Act I: Ascension

• Chapter I: "Graduation Day" (Last Battle of Theine 1-2)
• Chapter II: "Horns of Chaos" (Keep on the Boarderlands1-4)
• Chapter III: "Hells Bells" (Murder Mystery at a wedding 4-5)

Act II: Sins of the Father

• Chapter IV: "Descent into Darkness" (Ravenloft 4-7)
• Chapter V: "Trinity" (White Plume Mountain 7-9)
• Chapter VI: "Sunstone" (Dragon Strike Adventure (8-9)
• Chapter VII: "Salvation" (A Rescue 9-10)

Act III: Once and For All

• Chapter VII: Coup De Tat (Military Takeover 10-11)
• Chapter VIII: Fracture (Put Kingdom back together 11-12)
• Chapter IX: All-Father (Gather last artifact 12-13)
• Chapter X: End of Days (Final Battle 13)

You may wonder what those numbers are, those are expected PC levels. If the PCs fell behind the level assigned to the chapter it was a sign that they may not be ready for the next part of the game. This never really became a problem even when a few PCs did fall behind. There were seven players so what they lacked in levels they often made up for in sheer numbers. This outline also changed a little as I added or dropped adventures from the game.

You'll notice several classic adventures in the second outline. I knew I wanted to run some classic modules. Now that I had an idea of the plot and the structure of the game I was free to choose which ones fit the campaign best.

Coming soon... Part 3 where we discuss which modules I chose and why.