Gaming Time

Signs of life

2009-05-17T18:46:00.001+03:00

I've managed a few posts on our group's blog even though it's been quiet as a grave here. Same user name and all.

Ennui

2009-02-11T22:12:00.004+02:00

I haven't even tried to write any RPG-related material this year, which is quite an underachievement. It might result in part from me getting more responsibilities at work, but I don't believe that's the reason. I'm even having a hard time coming up with a character for my friend's Wraith: the Oblivion game.

I do hope that this is just a phase and sooner or later I can get cracking on the projects mentioned two posts ago, or something else. One good thing about last year's Project 52 was that it gave me a drive to push things forward.

Wings of War

2009-01-24T21:24:00.003+02:00

I finally got to try out the Wings of War: Burning Drachens card game which I have owned for a couple of years. It was as expected: quick to learn and fun to play. I liked the old GDW WWI air combat game Blue Max well enough, but WoW is definitely an improvement on it. Hopefully we get to fly again and add some more players into the mix.

42

2008-12-31T00:59:00.004+02:00

As it is now one hour past midnight and there won't be any gaming today, it is apparent that I missed my goal for 2008 by ten sessions. I think that gaming once a week can only be accomplished if your group consists of people with lots of free evenings or weekends, or if you have at least two ongoing groups that do not overlap much personnel-wise.

I am not embarking on a similar project, or any so-called project, next year. If I get to run some games that have been rolling about in my head and to play in other GMs' entertaining campaigns, that'll be good enough. By that yardstick this year was certainly a success, too, despite the numerical failure.

A wish list of things I'd like to do this coming year, just off the top of my head:

Some more Angel 1957 adventures
A good western
Trying out some of the more interesting indie games, such as A Dirty World, Duty & Honour, The Barbarians of Lemuria or Agon
Getting actual writing and playing done on my blaxploitation Cinematic Unisystem campaign
Maybe, just maybe, trying my hand at RPG system design again... I haven't really done it since 2002

See? That's not a project plan, it's a letter to Santa. Have a great New Year!

Bruised, bloodied rock'n'roll

2008-12-17T22:07:00.002+02:00

The second part of the Angel adventure was played today. We had to reschedule so many times that today we went on despite one player being ill. Everyone survived Shadow Pass (from White Wolf's Midnight Roads) and managed to play a great gig in Hot Springs after the singer-guitarist had recovered from her wounds.

The players who were there expressed an interest in playing a few more times, so we might have a short campaign in our hands instead of a single scenario. I would certainly like that and I do have one or two ideas for the future adventures of Ellen Hart with the Sonic Rockets.

Game Count: 42/52

Dungeon job

2008-12-13T01:38:00.002+02:00

Started the D&D game this week by investigating the ruins of a wizard's keep. Found a single kobold priest surprisingly hard to take down. Did eventually succeed without losses to our group of three heroes and two NPC helpers. Will continue next year.

Game Count: 41/52

A hit and a miss

2008-11-21T17:28:00.002+02:00

We had to reschedule the second Angel session, but Godlike started as planned and went pretty well, I think. The first session did not require many rules or dice rolling, so the system has yet to really prove itself.

Game Count: 40/52

Sharpe's Game

2008-11-12T20:25:00.002+02:00

No, you haven't missed a novel in Bernard Cornwell's highly entertaining series. I'm talking about Neil Gow's new indie RPG Duty & Honour. Sharpe is his biggest single source of inspiration and from what I've read so far (the book only arrived from Lulu yesterday), it seems to capture the spirit admirably. The game says right out of the gate that it is not a strict historical simulation of Napoleonic land battles, trying instead to follow the exploits of Sharpe, Aubrey & Maturin, and other fictional heroes of the era.

I like the physical appearance of the book, too. Someone commented that it's close to the size of Osprey's military history books, and that may not be an accident. It's easier to read than a small paperback, yet handier to carry than a traditional full-size RPG. The layout is unexceptional but clear (important to me) and editing seems to be pretty good. Wellesley's name is misspelled in the in-character introduction, but that is the only typo I've spotted so far.

I hope I get to actually try this game out instead of just adding it to my collection.

Godlike to set sail

2008-11-08T18:58:00.002+02:00

Finally we have a date for the first session. In 10 days, we'll see if I have written crap or gold. Angel part II also has a date, even sooner than Godlike, but I'll still be 11 games short of my target afterwards and weeks are running out...

A rogue shall be born

2008-11-03T21:33:00.002+02:00

Created a D&D 3.5 elf rogue yesterday for a Dungeon Crawl Classics game. Probably my very first thief-type character. Although he doesn't see himself as a thief; he's actually pretty good-natured and more of an expert on fine mechanisms such as traps and locks. Hell of an acrobat, too, but cannot sneak or fast-talk worth a damn.

Game Count: 39/52

This is rock 'n' roll

2008-10-26T17:01:00.003+02:00

I ran Cinematic Unisystem for the first time this week, having only played it (Buffy) before. The working title for this endeavor is Angel: 1957; kind of boring but gets the point across. It's a two-part scenario: first half my own making and the second taken from World of Darkness: Midnight Roads. The characters form a three-person band called Ellen Hart with the Sonic Rockets. They have been touring southern states for a couple of months and have one single released on Meteor Records. And then, of course, Something Happens... but that'll be in part two. In the first session they drove from a disastrous gig in Texarkana to Hope, Arkansas and performed successfully there.

Period music was played from my laptop, people seemed to have a good time, and the system stayed nicely out of the way. To be continued!

Game Count: 38/52

Gaming Weekend III: the outcome

2008-10-12T20:59:00.002+03:00

I had great fun as a player and as a GM. I played in a post-apocalyptic game titled Cthulhu 2100 in which we literally saved the world, and ran a Boot Hill 3rd edition game whose plot was ripped off from a Tex Willer story (Finnish issues 9-10/1991, in case you are curious). The setting and NPCs were used basically without changes, and the story was only modified enough to work with the four PCs I created instead of Tex and Kit Carson (who, for example, are Texas Rangers, while the PCs were without law enforcement powers). Roughly halfway through the events started to go their own way instead of following the comic, and that was perfectly all right and what I expected, really. If anything, I think our version was a little more plausible.

I think Boot Hill is still my favorite RPG gunfighting system.

This was my first attempt to translate an existing story into a RPG scenario so directly, and the results were so good that maybe I should steal/adapt more often...

Game Count: 37/52

TPK

2008-10-12T20:54:00.002+03:00

The second part of that AD&D adventure ended in every character perishing. Mine was slain by a zombie, the others died soon afterwards under a swarm of poisonous centipedes. Dice know no mercy.

Game Count: 35/52

Two shots for the price of one

2008-10-05T20:40:00.003+03:00

It got to be a little late, so we are going to finish the AD&D adventure next Friday. Fun was had by all participants as we vanquished skeletons, fire beetles, kobolds and a poltergeist.

Game Count: 34/52

Apparently, it pays to complain

2008-10-01T23:36:00.004+03:00

A friend of mine suddenly got an idea of running an AD&D 2nd edition one-shot this Friday. I've now finished creating my character, and I must say that it was quite entertaining in and itself - good retro fun. Amrond Elensar, a cleric of the very vaguely defined Elvish faith, is not going to set the world on fire with his amazing abilities, but that's part of the old school experience, I think.

For the upcoming gaming weekend, I've dusted off my old idea of combining Angel and blaxploitation films with late 1960s Detroit as the setting. Cool music, hot cars, and dark nights. The main problem is that my so-called plot can be written up with a couple of words and I've got nothing worked out beyond that. Some published adventure may turn out to be the only possible solution with the time I have left.

Obligatory September post

2008-09-29T21:58:00.002+03:00

I shouldn't let a month slip by without a single post. But the fact is that it's been slim pickings on the roleplaying front. I'm still inching towards finishing the Godlike adventure, and I should somehow come up with another one-shot for another gaming weekend in the countryside - inside two weeks. "Project 52" seems wishful thinking now, but at least I got a lot of good gaming done during the first half of the year.

Powergame has a new home

2008-08-29T23:30:00.004+03:00

So, once upon a time I wrote this little game and spent a few years tinkering with it. It's been a long time since I touched the text, even though I flirt with the idea occasionally, but since the university quite reasonably closed the old site down after more than a decade of service I wanted to make the files available somewhere. It's not as if the traffic will be overwhelming, so I put it in my home directory for now. Behold, a blast from the past: Powergame.

PT-48 seems to have a crew

2008-08-13T22:31:00.002+03:00

I've received three solid character ideas from the players, so it seems that Godlike is go. I have to finish writing the scenario and stat some NPCs, though. Hopefully we can start in a few weeks.

Join the Navy and see the world!

2008-07-17T00:52:00.003+03:00

I'm planning to test Godlike with an adventure that will probably last a couple of sessions and is kind of in continuity with our finished Shadows of Yog-Sothoth campaign. I wrote an entirely too elaborate introduction to assist in character creation, if you care to take a look.

I don't intend to bring Cthulhoid monstrosities into Godlike. The sole surviving PC from earlier is going to be an NPC talent in this game, that's all.

Quickie update

2008-07-09T17:15:00.002+03:00

After another longish break, we continued the NWN campaign. The fifth module awaits.

Game Count: 33/52

Howardian summer

2008-07-01T09:41:00.003+03:00

No, I don't intend to conquer myself a kingdom this summer and rule it by my mighty thews and this axe. Pitiful, I know. Instead I shall test The Savage World of Solomon Kane on some friends who are fans of Conan and Robert E. Howard in general. It seems that PEG have pulled out all the stops when creating Kane. It's a very handsome and sturdy hardback, certainly the best-looking book of theirs I have seen. The writing feels appropriate for the theme, too, and Kane should be exactly the kind of game the Savage Worlds rules were made for. We're going to have a character generation session tomorrow.

I'll also get to play a Howardian hero, as our Call of Cthulhu GM has promised to run a few sessions of Mongoose's d20 Conan.

To make sure I don't suffer any withdrawal symptoms between sessions, I have ordered no less than three collections of REH short stories and a like number of The Savage Sword of Conan reprint collections.

Madness ends in madness

2008-06-13T23:59:00.003+03:00

We played the last session of Shadows of Yog-Sothoth yesterday. One character survived from the beginning to the end, and, by a considerable amount of sheer luck, it was mine. Jack Paulino was also the only character who survived, period. Now he's got to live with the physical and mental scars, having seen R'lyeh rise, Cthulhu himself wake up, and all his friends and companions die. Although he did not see these events that well, running away in the grips of terror as he was.

But we did save the world. Stanford's cult was completing their ritual when we started ours. Sam Brockwell read the spell while others stood guard. Initially it seemed like we had failed spectacularly, as Cthulhu strode out of his tomb, devouring people left and right. But the island sank behind Jack as he ran away, and the Great Old One retreated to sleep once again. It seems likely that Jack will live the rest of his days in peace as a priest for the natives of Easter Island.

Now I am not participating in any ongoing campaign. Something must be done about that...

Game Count: 32/52

Boxes of retro

2008-06-07T23:53:00.003+03:00

I decided to get my hands on some properly old school RPGs. The highly non-scientific decision process finally led to me ordering FGU's Year of the Phoenix and Task Force Games' Crime Fighter from Noble Knight Games, whose service was nice and fast, by the way. Both games come in a boxed set, which I kind of miss these days.

Phoenix is about American astronauts in the year 1997 (the near future when the game was written), who encounter something and end up 200 years into the future in a world where Zoviets control most of America. Yeah, one of those games. :) The rules and layout are very much 1980s, but the color poster map of the occupied USA is nice, and I like the idea of presenting one view of the game in the player's book and then turning everything upside down in the GM's book. The latter includes a series of short scenarios that form the start of a campaign. And there's a sheet of colorful counters featuring futuristic vehicles that you can cut out.

Crime Fighter is the only dedicated police RPG I know of. It's written by the renowned Aaron Allston, and while the combat rules seem a little clunky, the unified base system is oddly reminiscent of d20. The six stats are immediately familiar (Wisdom is called Willpower here) and you always roll 3D6, trying to beat a target number of 11. The stats give you plusses to the roll (in fact, they do not have a numerical score besides those plusses). Skills are bought with points, and they include things that are called advantages or edges in other systems, such as Attractiveness and Ally. There are chase rules, information on police procedures, guidance on writing police scenarios in both realistic and melodramatic TV style, two scenarios, and various other tidbits - all of which fits in 64 pages. There are also map tiles and punch-out vehicle and person counters. Cops and perps get their own colors!

Year of the Phoenix is entertaining to read, and the rules are not as terrifying as some other old systems (they even devote some space for your character's personality and history), but I don't know if I'd want to run the game as such. Gotta love the cover, though. Crime Fighter, on the other hand, might be fun to play. It is pretty much Hill Street Blues: The RPG, but could probably handle Miami Vice as well, and NYPD Blue if you updated the technology a bit.

All in all, a successful blind purchase.

Shadows of Yog-Sothoth: The End, part 1/2

2008-05-30T13:58:00.003+03:00

Easter Island sure is an interesting place. After we talked to the last priest of the birdmen and learned all kinds of interesting stuff, it fell to Jack, the only proficient swimmer of the group, to undertake the ancient test for prospective priests and swim three miles from the main island to a smaller one. He didn't do it for kicks, but to retrieve a crystal that was supposed to help us in the climactic battle against the cultists (of whom we haven't heard a peep yet). Now, Jack did have a mask the priest loaned us, which let him breathe underwater, but he still had to swim there and search for the crystal cave 50 feet under the surface.

A full day's work already, but Jack got into an underwater fight with a deep one who was either guarding the crystal or looking for it, too. He was badly clawed but managed to get a Tarzan-like grip on the monster and cut its throat. He even made it back to the main island without passing out. Barbarian king material, obviously.

The next day Jack stayed in bed to heal while the others found the cave complex where the deep ones had taken their prisoners. Much fighting ensued, and they managed to rescue all the humans the found. We didn't have time to celebrate, though: a Star-Spawn of Cthulhu attacked the Chilean warship anchored nearby and sank it. It suffered grievous injuries but still managed to take flight, only to fall to the concentrated fire of the Chilean marines. The gigantic corpse fell on the village, killing dozens if not hundreds. We ended the session with this widescreen action ending. The next one should be the very last - maybe the real Mr Cthulhu will show up!

Oh, I almost forgot to add that we finally got around to continuing the Neverwinter Nights campaign.

Game Count: 31/52

Gaming Weekend II: the outcome

2008-05-30T13:23:00.002+03:00

Turns out there were only two games: my WoD: Vice City and then a freeform urban fantasy story set in Rovaniemi. I was quite happy both as a player and a GM. We wouldn't really have had time for a third game, so things worked out fine.

Vice City was mostly style and little substance. Rolling in fancy automobiles and frequenting the Malibu Club were the characters' most important activities, and since they were trying to infiltrate the illegal street racing scene it was par for the course. The best action scene was the big Friday night race between one of the PCs and a prominent local racer. The hero had a Lamborghini Countach while the other guy drove a 1971 Boss Mustang, but some good rolls on the NPC's part kept the race tense to the last straight.

The big drug deal and subsequent gun battle & arrest at the end went so thoroughly according to the plan that it didn't feel as tense somehow.

Game Count: 29/52

Gaming Weekend Part II

2008-05-20T23:16:00.003+03:00

This upcoming weekend me and a bunch of friends will again retreat to the countryside for Saturday and Sunday to play RPGs. The first such undertaking was highly enjoyable. As far as I know, the other GMs are prepping something Changeling: the Lost-related and an almost systemless freeform thing I know little about.

My concept aims higher. I hope to be able to run a little thing called World of Darkness: Vice City. Basically, use the city as a setting (the console game comes with a nice map and tourist guide), rip off Miami Vice and 80s action movies as much as I can, and use the new WoD rules for a system. How can it fail?

I may not have enough time to prepare a scenario properly, that's how.

Roleplaying resumed

2008-05-17T11:36:00.003+03:00

As you can see, it's been quiet for a while. But 1920s Cthulhu continued this week and we sailed to Chile and eventually Easter Island. Jack is in Crusade Mode now and was very disappointed when the Chilean occupying forces confiscated most of our firearms. A single revolver just doesn't cut it when the final confrontation is approaching! At least we weren't shot as spies or thrown in jail.

We are trying to finish Shadows of Yog-Sothoth in May, hopefully that works out as planned. It is currently my only steadily ongoing game, so I better get working on those summer gaming plans one of these days. I am not holding my breath while waiting for Buffy or Delta Green to resume.

Game Count: 27/52

A big pile of Chaosium

2008-05-14T15:48:00.007+03:00

Our April Fools Sale package finally arrived from Chaosium. Actually it had already arrived in the country in late April, but I don't have the energy to recount the story here. I got it in the end, so everything's cool.

My share of the spoils consisted of:

H.P. Lovecraft's Arkham
Mansions of Madness
Secrets of Los Angeles
Secrets of New York
The Yellow Sign and Other Stories (fiction by Robert W. Chambers)
Trail of Cthulhu (the new Cthulhu RPG from Pelgrane Press)
a set of Pallid Dice to go with the fiction

It's going to take me a good long while to digest all that.

In other news: GTA IV is still awesome at 35 % completion. It is not a roleplaying game as such, but feels more like an RPG than many supposed CRPGs even without the character development system that San Andreas had. I tend to feel Niko's anger when he is unjustly treated (which happens often), and the action scenes get the adrenaline pumping.

"Nobody fucks with my family!"

Halfway there!

2008-05-01T21:47:00.004+03:00

Since the last update, I ran Tatterdemallion (one dead PC, one insane, two somewhat okay) and played one session of the 1920s Cthulhu. That takes me to 26, two months ahead of schedule.

I also bought an Xbox 360 with Grand Theft Auto IV - now there's an impressive game. The best open world I ever saw.

Game Count: 26/52

Back on track

2008-04-20T17:52:00.002+03:00

This week we continued Ptolus and Shadows of Yog-Sothoth, wrapping up in California in the latter game. It was nice to have a pretty straightforward case to investigate after Cannich. Foolhardy Jack almost perished in the final fight with spectral hunters, but our Native American guide Anoki arrived just in time to save his bacon.

Game Count: 24/52

One shots

2008-04-10T14:09:00.004+03:00

Until I get another regular game going to replace Delta Green, it seems that one shot efforts are going to be the order of the day. I already mentioned the Godlike "demo" a while back; these are some of the other candidates.

Call of Cthulhu: Tatterdemallion (from Fatal Experiments). I've ran this once and had a great time. Investigator casualties were high but not total, and I recall it actually ended fairly well - for the world at large, if not the surviving heroes. In a one shot this is, of course, not so important... if no one gets out alive, the players cannot pester me into continuing the story! I can only hope my Carcosan Pallid Dice arrive from Chaosium before we play.
D&D: Underdark. I was asked to run a mini campaign (okay, technically not one shot; so sue me) featuring the archetypal underground races such duergar and drow as PCs. I did not promise anything (and if the person in question happens to read this, I'm still not promising anything), but it could be interesting. However, I don't have an Idea for such a game yet.
That Western Game. My "Serenity Project" is not intended to be a one shot either, but it could begin with one to familiarize people with the rules and give them a chance to fine-tune their characters before kicking off the actual story. Perhaps a prequel set during the Civil War?

What to do, what to do...

More downs

2008-04-09T20:30:00.003+03:00

Looks like this will be the first week this year without a single roleplaying session. It's a pity, but I had a pretty good run, I guess.

Delta Green is indeed going on a break until late spring or early summer because of scheduling conflicts. By that time who knows if all the players still want to continue. So that lasted for 4 sessions, if I'm not mistaken.

The Buffy game is going to lose a player. As her character was the slayer, we are now looking for a replacement player, which will cause a break of yet undetermined length. Hopefully it's not the end of the campaign.

Not a good week for roleplaying.

Ups and downs

2008-04-05T22:50:00.007+03:00

Buffy continued this week. We laid the smack down on a few cultists, a byakhee and a smallish flying polyp - I'd like to see that happening in Call of Cthulhu! My character's social life got more complicated again, thanks to an unfortunately timed hug from a fellow student (a computer geek like him, and a cheerleader) which Will's girlfriend witnessed.

Delta Green's future is uncertain. It is really difficult to find a time that suits everyone, and I don't want to run a game where some player is missing almost every time. It might be summer before we can even finish up the current scenario.

On a tangent: the Most Impressive Game In A Good Long While award goes out to Company of Heroes, the PC wargame which came out in 2006 but which I tried only now. It looks surprisingly good on my dated machine, and the gameplay is captivating enough to have pushed me to buy another gigabyte of RAM and a new graphics card. This upgrade should take me past the Recommended hardware into the realm of Damn Pretty. I thought I wouldn't be updating this old warhorse anymore; shows what I know.

Game Count: 22/52

Seems it's always Sunday when I update

2008-03-30T22:30:00.003+03:00

This week we continued Ptolus (narrowly avoiding a TPK) and 1920s Cthulhu (in which the group traveled to Hollywood to investigate the strange death of a famous director).

In other news, I have a hankering to run a "demo game" of Godlike to see how the system works in actual play. Right now I'm thinking about a scenario set during the early war, possibly during the Phoney War period. For this I'd use characters without any superpowers, both because it would be easier for players with no One Roll Engine experience (and for me, too) and because if I later run another game with powers, their significance would perhaps stand out better. This is slowly percolating in the back of my mind with the Serenity in the West project...

Game Count: 21/52

I can sleep!

2008-03-23T12:10:00.003+02:00

I don't know if it is because of the melatonin pills I was prescribed or for some other reason, but I can now sleep properly at night. That's a boost for morale, let me tell you.

In other news, Delta Green continued with the investigators flying to the East Coast in the adventure A Victim of the Art. The first session was low-key, mostly gathering clues and interviewing people.

My friend kept his promise to start running Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay... finally. :) I had never played it so I was quite curious. We got off to a rousing start, hacking down a group of mutants but failing to capture a mysterious sniper who had shot at Captain Schiller. My Student was surprisingly effective with his sword, although luck played her part there. The system and campaign world seemed quite all right on this first glance.

Game Count: 19/52

Really getting tired of being tired

2008-03-16T22:30:00.003+02:00

Today marks three weeks of sleeping badly. I'm too tired to write a proper post, so I'll just note that we wrapped up in Cannich in the 1920s Cthulhu campaign (sadly losing one investigator to madness, at least for some time) and are about to embark on a journey back to the USA.

Game Count: 17/52

Another counter update

2008-03-09T16:38:00.003+02:00

More Buffy this week. Also participated in a Paranoia one-shot scenario, which predictably ended in the whole troubleshooter team being executed for failing the mission.

Still cannot get a full night's sleep.

Game Count: 16/52

Just a counter update

2008-03-02T21:55:00.003+02:00

D&D Ptolus continued with us finally hitting level 2. We found a seemingly endless series of corridors punctuated by the occasional appearance of a couple of zombies.

In 1920s Cthulhu (the campaign is Shadows of Yog-Sothoth, I don't remember if I mentioned it previously) we somehow managed to avoid a total party kill in Cannich and kept on stumbling after the cult and the third piece of the R'lyeh Disk.

Game Count: 14/52

Finding Serenity

2008-03-02T15:48:00.004+02:00

With all due respect and apologies to Joss Whedon:

Take my love, take my land
Take me where I cannot stand
I don't care, I'm still free
You can't take the blue from me

I've been thinking about running a second game in addition to Delta Green, and have pretty much settled on a western. Not just any old horse opera, however, but something heavily inspired by Joss Whedon's most excellent and all-too-quickly canceled show Firefly. The necessary ingredients are roughly as follows:

A ship called Serenity. In this case, a Mississippi riverboat.
A bitter war with the main characters on the losing side. Obviously we're just taking back the American Civil War which Firefly borrowed.
A collection of colorful and possibly dangerous places for the characters to visit. The Jefferson-Missouri-Mississippi river system is the largest in the USA, and if necessary, the heroes can always venture inland. Natchez Under-The-Hill alone is as wretched a hive of scum and villainy as a GM can hope for.
Memorable characters. I believe I'm going to recycle Mal, Jayne and Kaylee into the game as NPCs, and I trust my players will come up with something interesting, too.

System-wise, the leading candidate is Boot Hill, 3rd edition. I've always liked it a great deal. Now, if only those books about riverboats would arrive from Amazon faster!

A slayer discovered

2008-02-24T16:04:00.003+02:00

In the third episode of Buffy vs. Cthulhu the others finally learned what a slayer is, and that Selena was the slayer. We managed to work together with the mysterious Eva to prevent the mi-go and the janitor (apparently some sort of a cultist) from completing a ritual to do who knows what. Got to burn an old house, too.

Finally got around to continuing NWN as well. Level 6 looms near as well it should: we're going to need every trick in the book to defeat a certain necromancer and his bodak.

Game Count: 12/52

Didn't sleep too well

2008-02-17T09:42:00.001+02:00

So, very briefly. Continued 1920s Cthulhu. Survived brief contact with Tracon III.

Game Count: 10/52

On slayer hunters and tiny space aliens

2008-02-10T11:02:00.000+02:00

This week on The Roleplaying Channel:

The second episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer - Cthulhu Crossover! In which our heroes discover a grisly corpse in the high school basement, run into a teacher who carries a first edition copy of Unaussprechlichen Kulten in his bag, hunt for information on a yeti/fly/alien creature, and finally find an old church under the school, complete with a crazy caretaker and the abovementioned monster. Enter a mysterious German girl who claims that an apocalypse can only be averted by killing the slayer! TO BE CONTINUED

The final installment of Puppet Shows and Shadow Plays, our first Delta Green adventure! The agents organize a manhunt and finally track Master Sergeant Santana into an old mine, abandoned a century ago. Well-armed search parties enter, and six FBI and state police men die before Santana is literally shot to pieces and collapses. US Army INSCOM and CIC officers show up and take custody of the curious orb Santana was carrying. The forensics experts of the team perform an autopsy on his corpse at the FBI Phoenix laboratory, and finally meet the Traveler face to face. It paralyzes Winifred Dashner and Maxwell Blinn barely escapes a similar fate. He runs to get help and they arrive just in time: the alien has slit Winifred's belly open and is about to enter its new host when a hail of bullets cuts it down messily. I know I went kind of soft on the investigators, only hospitalizing one and traumatizing another, but this was the first adventure, after all.

Game Count: 9/52

Struggling in the name of the God-Emperor

2008-01-30T21:46:00.000+02:00

I've never played any Warhammer wargame, nor did I play the old Warhammer Fantasy RPG (our group usually played D&D and MERP when we wanted a fantasy game in those days). I do have two rather nice Citadel miniature packs from way back when, the Adventurers Starter Pack and the Monsters Starter Pack, that I bought around the time me and my brother got the Red Box of D&D... so it must have been in 1988. But that was the extent of my Warhammer-related history before the relaunch of the roleplaying game a couple years ago by Black Industries. I still haven't played it because a friend of mine keeps slipping out of his promise to run it, but I did buy the core rulebook and think it's a very well written and designed product.

Which leads me to the game I wanted to say a few words about, the brand new Warhammer 40,000 Dark Heresy RPG. The publisher sold out the entire first printing (20,000 copies as far as I know) on preorders alone, which is rather remarkable for any RPG that isn't D&D. Less than a week after this announcement, we were told that Black Industries would cease all production of this and other game lines later this year. This, to put it plainly, sucks.

I had gotten interested in the game because the fantasy version was such a strong book. I called and reserved the very last copy from the local gaming store - only to hear that they had accidentally sold it to someone else. Needless to say, I was not amused after limping there on crutches (I busted my ankle two weeks back, thankfully it has almost healed now). They did promise to ask all the other chain stores if they had any copies left. While I waited I heard the news about the cancellation. Today I got word that a copy had been located and picked it up with mixed feelings. Originally there were going to be three core books: Dark Heresy, which is about the Inquisitors, a second one about Rogue Traders, and a final one about the Adeptus Astartes Deathwatch. Now we would only get the first game and the three supplements that BI has promised to release regardless of the cancellation.

After leafing through the book and reading the first two chapters, I feel sorry for the creative team behind the game. It is a beautiful, well written tome. It must be galling to labor to release such a fine book and have it sell extremely well, only to have the carpet yanked from under your feet by the parent company. It kind of reminds me of dying in the service of the Emperor's Inquisition on some nameless alien planet, having never received nor asked for recognition or reward...

(We also played Ptolus this week.)

Game Count: 7/52

The counter keeps ticking

2008-01-27T01:33:00.001+02:00

Just a quick posting now, lest I forget this week's achievements: we continued the D&D Ptolus campaign and finished Shadowlords module 3 in NWN. I'm ahead of schedule!

Game Count: 6/52

Circus freaks and Scotch whisky

2008-01-19T14:33:00.000+02:00

This week we got the Buffy campaign under way and continued the 1920s Cthulhu.

It was decided to change Buffy's location from New Orleans to Arkham, as Cthulhoid elements were slated to appear anyway, and we felt that a fictional small town would perhaps fit the game better than a large existing one. The starting date was 16 January 2008, the same as that of the game session, and the opening scene was set at Arkham High where every character was sitting in the English class. What follows is just a list of randomly selected events, as a blow-by-blow account belongs elsewhere.

A circus was in town and Selena Flores' (she's the slayer) watcher told her to investigate it as some star conjunctions indicated that something evil would happen in that park within days. She seemed to be more worried about missing cheerleader practice.

Will managed to inadvertently anger Elianor on the very first day (he's not very good at reading's ladies' intentions between the lines) but luckily they made up the day after. He was even invited for a dinner at her home before they went to see the circus. A nerve-wracking event for the young man, to be sure. Matthieu, Elianor's father had earlier visited the bookstore which Selena's watcher owned. Meanwhile, Vin had learned that one of his teammates was missing...

The circus opening night saw everyone but Vin in attendance; he was hanging out in the park, drinking beer (shocking, I know) with his buddies. Elianor experienced a psychic vision and worried Will in the process. She tried to investigate the main tent with Selena after the show, but they were chased off by circus workers. After Will drove Elianor home, she told her father - who is also a sorcerer, by the way - about her vision and they began a ritual to try and find out more about the park. It indicated that magical forces were converging on the location! Her dad grabbed a sword and left to investigate, telling Elianor to stay out of it.

She called Will immediately and asked for a ride to the circus. What, you thought we actually obeyed? Will was clueless but snuck out of the house anyway and drove to meet his girlfriend. While these events unfolded, Selena was again investigating the circus and ran smack into what looked like a ritual sacrifice of the missing student. She called her watcher for help and then went on the attack. Soon the main tent was really busy with magical clowns, the circus director, his female companion, the slayer, her watcher, Elianor, her father and poor Will all embroiled in a fight.

We won. The big boss got away. The student was saved. Will accidentally decapitated the mysterious woman with the watcher's sword. He really didn't mean to. Selena kicked ass and got hers kicked a little. Elianor used a crossbow instead of magicks. Vin? He scored on an entirely another front. As Will and Elianor drove the rescued guy to the hospital, they got into a meaningful discussion of the nature of courage and mysterious visions, each discovering that the other had also experienced them! The rest of the gang cleaned up at the scene and interrogated a weird height-challenged person. Cue credits.

Back in the 1920s, the team, reinforced by a friend of the deceased Thomas, traveled to Scotland to look for a missing big game hunter at the request of his nephew. No Prohibition, yay! We found the missing man's corpse and a piece of an artifact we'd only seen in a picture before. A ghost tried to eat Jack while Roy was happily cooking dinner in the next room. Sam picked a lock with a supposedly magical toothpick. We did not blow anyone's head off and were friends with the local police. Must be that genteel British air.

Game Count: 4/52

Deck of Many Games

2008-01-07T00:37:00.001+02:00

My New Year's promise to myself was to try and have some roleplaying activity once a week, every week, in 2008. I'm allowing myself two things to make it remotely possible:

As long as the number of games is 52 when the year ends, it doesn't matter if there have been two games on a given week and none on the following week, for example.
MMORPGs do not count. But Neverwinter Nights multiplayer games do (see the previous post for more on that).

The second week of the year started less than one hour ago, and so far I've ran Delta Green once and played NWN once. We're hoping to continue Delta Green already this week and 1920s Cthulhu is scheduled for the next. So, thus far it looks promising. But I have no doubt that there will be bumps on the road later on.

It's a nice dream.

Game Count: 2/52

Winter nights in Neverwinter

2008-01-06T23:49:00.000+02:00

A little before Christmas I started to play Neverwinter Nights online with two of my friends: my 1920s Cthulhu Keeper and a fellow player. Everyone bought (well, I already had) the game and both expansions, and then we went to Neverwinter Vault in search of a suitable multiplayer module. We ended up choosing Adam Miller's massive campaign consisting of Shadowlords (5 parts), Dreamcatcher (4 parts) and finally Demon (a single module), as it came highly recommended in the Hall of Fame. It was particularly nice that the creator had made it available as a single .exe file - no need to mess around with haks and video files.

I have attempted to play NWN with some other friends in the past. It was fun, but some technological problems always came up. Either the game was unstable for someone or the network connections lagged. Apparently some performance hurdle has now been crossed, as you can turn the settings to eleven and everything still runs smoothly. NWN is not a new game, but quite pretty enough for me with maximum settings.

We have three long sessions behind us now and it's been even more fun than I expected. Our cleric-rogue-sorcerer team has been quite effective and the modules are not in the Hall of Fame by accident. We've already discussed what we could play next when Demon is concluded some months into the future. ;)

Here's to Celdor Willenden and Teira - long may they run!

It doesn't have to cost a thing

2007-12-23T23:23:00.000+02:00

I once gathered a selected list of free roleplaying games for a wiki that me and some friends used for various gaming purposes. Because that was in Finnish, I thought I might as well repost the best bits here. What else is there to do while waiting for midnight and Christmas Eve? So, with a full belly, laptop in my lap, and classic rock on the earphones, here we go.

Wushu Open Reloaded has earned the minuscule honor of first mention here. I myself have bought the various Wushu PDFs which have lots of genre-related information, but all you really need to play is in that free wiki. Wushu is my first choice for a truly rules-light system when one is required. It has proven itself in games for both complete novices and experienced roleplayers. Its one driving idea, the principle of narrative truth, takes some getting used to, but when you do it just sings.

Forgotten Futures bills itself as the scientific romance roleplaying game. The system is very traditional and fairly light. What really shines is the supporting material: each game collection includes a lot of reading from luminaries such as Kipling, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and William Hope Hodgson.

Fudge is a rules-light, do-it-yourself game that has been around for a long time. The Nags Society Worldbook is a free example of a Fudge campaign world. Fate is based on Fudge. Its newest variant is used in Spirit of the Century, which happens to have a free SRD available for your perusal.

Risus is by default a comedy game, but it's also worth looking at for more serious purposes if you're looking for an ultralight system.

Powergame is a superhero RPG I designed myself. Some people still claim to like it. It is available in English, Hebrew, French, and Brazilian Portuguese.

Moving on to more commercial stuff, Eden Studios's has made WitchCraft free. The game uses their proprietary Unisystem, which also powers Armageddon, Conspiracy X, and, in a lighter form, Buffy, Angel, and Army of Darkness. The latter is called Cinematic Unisystem and it is my favorite of the two variants. Happily, you can get a free look at it by checking out the Buffy roleplaying page of the BBC - yes, that BBC.

Ars Magica 4th edition and Tri-Stat dX are also available for zero bucks, as long as you register to the store.

There are many others, of course. But this should get a person started. Now, it's past midnight, the Christmas Eve has arrived, and that Meat Loaf song (Paradise by the Dashboard Light) is finally winding down, so I might finish up as well.

Teen drama goes to eleven

2007-12-17T14:48:00.000+02:00

We had a character creation meeting for that upcoming Buffy game this Saturday. If it was any indication, the campaign is going to be a hoot and then some. It was so nice to focus on things that usually get a short shrift in the games I play or run, such as:

What's my social status in high school?
Am I seeing anyone and how serious it is?
Are my parents and siblings cool or not?

I ended up with a 16-year-old son of black Haitian immigrants called Wilbert "Will" Price-Mars. He's a nerd, meaning he's smart and good at most school subjects but hasn't got that many friends. He's also a slightly paranoid conspiracy nut and a pretty good hacker. His dead grandmother was a famous Haitian Vodou Mambo from whom Will inherited "the sight" - the ability to see magic and supernatural things. He's got a big brother, Vincent (another PC), who is not so good with the bookish stuff, but who is the captain of the basketball team and who's done all kinds of juvenile crimes without getting caught yet. Will helps him to pass the grades and Vincent kicks the ass of any bully who messes with his brother. Naturally, Vincent is a handsome and popular guy.

Will has also got a girlfriend, a fellow good pupil who is an ambitious blond cheerleader and one of the more popular kids in school (also a PC). He's kind of baffled how they have ended up together, but he likes Elianor and vice versa and they are both interested in the occult. What Will does not know is that she is a beginner witch. Finally, we have a latina slayer PC, of whom I don't know much yet. But you can basically multiply Will's history by four to have an idea of how much social and emotional baggage the characters are packing before we run into a single monster. Sounds like Buffy to me!

This character creation session would not have been remotely as fun if we had all done our PCs separately. It would have been more difficult to come up with the connections between characters, and they are very important for a game like this. It also helped that the TV show was familiar to all, so we were on the same wavelength even though people have differing amounts of roleplaying experience (I think the guy playing my brother has only played computer RPGs previously, for example). Cinematic Unisystem is mercifully free of obscure terminology and number-crunching. Almost everything on the character sheet was immediately obvious to everyone.

We'll go live in January. I can only hope that the great atmosphere from the first meeting is carried over. I want to play something where it's more important to worry about calling my girlfriend than about whether it's best to load JHP or FMJ in the trusty old MP5, or about agonizing over the absolute best spell selection for the day (both of which can be fun, too).

Eyes Only

2007-12-12T23:30:00.000+02:00

The long-awaited reprint of the Delta Green: Eyes Only chapbooks hit my mailbox this week. A pretty thing it is, too. They've made it a hardcover book which not only contains all three Eyes Only booklets of old, but also brand new material in the form of two scenarios and some supplemental writing. Daniel Solis worked on the layout, so it is the best looking of the three main Delta Green books. Not that the previous two were shabby in any way.

I only owned the Project Rainbow chapbook previously, so most of the old text is new to me, too. I haven't had a chance to properly read any chapter yet, but initial glances promise much. I did manage to read the short Tradecraft section, and it was very useful information for players and Keepers.

My Delta Green campaign is only beginning: the second session of Puppet Shows and Shadow Plays, which we are starting with, was supposed to take place this week. Sadly I had to cancel it because a bout of cold took away most of my voice. It might be good for the mood of a horror game if the Keeper sounded like the Cryptkeeper of Tales from the Crypt, but it would not help me get better, I think. So we will return to San Carlos in January. I am not planning an indefinitely long campaign in any case; if we get through 5-6 scenarios I'll be happy. If we can get to the end with, say, half of the original investigators (we have four players) it would be a nice surprise.

Now, if only Detwiller, Glancy et al would find the time to write a proper update of the Delta Green world for the post-9/11, Iraq war era... At least this book is selling well: the thousand-copy print run is almost sold out now, which is very respectable for a small-press RPG product available only via mail order. I would even settle for a PDF supplement. Fingers crossed!

Old dog, new tricks, and so forth

2007-12-12T01:26:00.000+02:00

This is my first actual blog entry if one doesn't count some journal entries on Last.fm. So bear with me while I learn.

It recently occurred to me that I haven't done this much roleplaying since the glory days of high school when all the players lived very close to each other and were usually available whenever somebody wanted to GM. I am currently running Delta Green and playing in a 1920s Call of Cthulhu game and a D&D Ptolus campaign. Moreover, I'll be a player in a Buffy game slated to start some time after the New Year and I have a hankering to run another game myself. Too much of a good thing will possibly be a bad thing, but we shall see. Maybe it will be an extraordinarily good thing. :)

About the title: no big story there. I just thought that this, more so than ever before, is a time of gaming in my life. My groups include some old players, some new, and some in-between, which I guess is an ideal mix. And the same applies to the games we play. Call of Cthulhu is an old hat. 3rd edition D&D is quite familiar by now, but CoC has it beaten by more than a decade. Finally, Buffy I have yet to play, even though I have owned the books for several years. Again, the selection couldn't be much better.

Enough rambling for now; time to hit Publish Post and get this show on the road! A small step for me, and even smaller for mankind.