new blood!

     Well sad to say the new year brings the group total down two. One person is being a good father and staying home with their new baby. The other chap was promoted and now his work schedule conflicts with the game time. We had played a few games and then decided that a game with just 4 people, including the gm was not as much fun. So we posted notices at all the gaming shops in town. The only one we confirmed that actually posted our group was down in Bellevue. Ground Zero is awesome. The rest thought that our Sunday group would take customers from their shop games. PUH -Lease. There are no Sunday games in the game shops, so we would pull zero people from them. needless to say i'll be doing all my shopping with the Ground zero chaps.
     As soon as we post the signs, we get one old player back to the group and then other events got in the way. So finally I decided that I would get on the player finder databases as well as the local craigslist. I don't remember how many emails I sent out but we did get three responses. Two of the three were for solid players and the last decided he didn't like our game mix. We have filled our two spots.
     But the question comes up, what if the other two chaps come back. One assumes that as the baby grows, it will free up the Dad, but how soon would that be. Also what happens if another person higher up leaves and suddenly his work schedule opens back up again. We don't have enough chairs for all of them. So the question is how long do you keep a seat open for a player?
      We don't have a good answer for that, but the point is for us that are still playing, to have fun. And just 3 players is not as much fun as seven players. Odds are that we have nothing to worry about. but what do you say?

Bit of a Dogs breakfast

So yesterday was not as fun as expected. We ran in Death Frost Doom instead of my helfrost campaign. Also my son rolled up a Traveller character with help from Ryan. I'm not a big space game player. Too often they are all about mortgage payments or old characters or a re-enactment of firefly. Now I Loved to watch firefly. There was Great acting there and the dialogues were great. I am an average person though and don't come up with spiffy comments like Mal would. So I know I'm a neanderthal but I love cinematic RPGs. I might get into Star Wars or some space combat, but puzzles with no experience awarded or treasure is a waste. Ironically I think Mal and Jayne would agree that they want straight forwardness with some advancement at the end.
     That also rolls into what I thought of Death Frost Doom. It was a Tomb of Horrors type module with no advancement possible. Sure maybe if you flapped your arms in the third hour and slapped your head against a wall dislodging a tooth and opening the secret door to Tiamat's bathroom. Then you could roll yourself in toilet paper and flush yourself before the apocalypse started. I did thoroughly enjoy Ryan's GMing in character though.
     Next week we'll go back to Deadlands and continue our jaunt across Europe. It will be fun I think.
Until next time, keep your powder dry!

Inspiration

Last night I was at a rough bar with a local band. They were all blonde haired guys or nearly so. The crowd all around were blondes as well. For a second I could feel like I was in a smoky viking hall, filled with singing bards, burly warriors and buxom maidens. It was quite a charge. I hope that I can still visualize that when the characters next go into a town for a bit of relaxin.
What are some real life moments that translated into your RPG? Do you have any tricks to help you memorize those moments?

Realism? Are you sure?

   We're going to swap out duties this weekend and I'm going to do an extra installment of the game, I think. The GM that I swap out with, who has a Deadlands game, is going to be gone on Sunday. Ah when Life intrudes,,
But I'm thinking I add a bit of realism to the campaign. Last time, the crew started a big bonfire to distract a large work crew of Orcs, Ogres and Worgs. The question was, how dense was the undergrowth and was it green enough to start a fire. I really only made a wire-frame of the world and filled in more and more as I localized where the characters are at. So deciding about the foliage in that area was left off my to-do list.
     Now you may think, Dude, that is a bit too nitpicky! But I think weather is pretty crucial in a campaign. Don't you in real life have blah days, where the clouds are everywhere and there is a cold drizzle. Then you think, I would rather stay in bed or go to a coffee shop and read a book or something diverting. What would characters do if they encountered blah days? A big part of the flavor in this world is that an Ice age is coming and the characters are in the "North".  When I think of Norse I think of bitterly cold, wet weather, and blazing fires in halls with warm drinks and barmaids.
     So I've decided to "cheat" once again and found a website that has weather history called the Weather Underground. You pick the location, year and month and it tells you temp, winds, precipitation, wind direction, etc. Everything you need to know. Best thing is that you can download it to a CSV and put in a spreadsheet. Now I just have to read off the spreadsheet what the weather is like for that day!
     I've also used Google earth to find the topographical layout of the area they are in. They are going to assault a fort of Orcs, but I couldn't find the perfect fort location. So I found my own area. It maybe nitpicky but I think it will add a Great deal to the game's realism on Sunday.
Wish me Luck!

Game finally comes together

Been GMing an AD&D 2E game every other Sunday now for a few weeks and it seems like everything clicked last night. The campaign is set in a world in the midst of an ice age. There are two human empires, the Vikings and the Romans. But they are being pushed towards the equator by the unusual cold and the Humanoids. Orcs, Ogres and Giants are the main lifeforms on the planet and they want the humans, elves and dwarves exterminated. The Roman capitol was squashed in a war with Dragons on the eastern side of the world. The Vikings and the Dwarven communities co-mingle a great deal in the West. The Elves are more numerous to the East with the Roman Empire but they do not like to mix. The Viking dieties keep a close eye on their human followers, while the Roman gods are getting more and more hedonistic. Odin wants a good battle, while Zeus just wants a good time.
The characters started out in a viking boat together, traveling north across and inland sea, much like the Mediterranean but Much colder. They were all given a dream sequence, by Bragi, of a village being raided for souls by a giant army. In the morning, they found the village had been sacked sometime ago and was mostly a shell. They skirmished with some orc looters but did not manage to kill them all. The ones that got away warned their brethern in a watchtower some distance away. The PCs had a running battle with the Orcs as they made their way to the watchtower. They managed to draw out a large group of them and squash them. Taking the tower was a very near thing.
Afterwards they traveled on to another fortified village. Along the way they found the Orcs like to send out patrols quite often. Once in the village, the towns people were eager to hear their stories of battle, while the women tried to bed the male adventurers as much as possible. The players found that women in Viking culture are encouraged to have as many babies as possible and consider men their trophies. After some delightful roleplaying the characters decided to travel to a fort Haugr to the north and kill as many Orcs as possible.
Last night the party was visted by Bragi, Thor and Odin. At least three of the characters were given quests with possibly large rewards at the end. The next day, they ran into an Orc work party that was creating a checkpoint. The characters managed to get a small group away from the checkpoint and decimate most of them. The escaping worgs alerted the checkpoint that something was wrong and they charged out to find what was the matter. The bard was able to cast entangle twice and immobilize 2/3 of the group. The party still had a close time of it battling the rest with the head orc in the lead. They had one round before a large group broke free of the spell and managed one last entangle and barely escaped with their lives.