What happens when a group of Japanese students have a school camp and play a simplified role-playing game? Watch and find out. This episode starts with an explanation of the rules for the kids, and a little sorting through the miniatures that will be used.
This adventure occured prior to the events of the campaign proper, while Deadweight and his merry band of drunkards were escorting Isley to his sister.
Never Travel Alone
Deadweight was fighting a hangover, and consequently, the urge to strangle his latest paycheck Isley who kept talking about how things would be under the rule of a good Eladrin dictator. It was only a matter of time before he took a swing at something, so perhaps it’s just as well that he looked up and saw a solitary reddish creature in the middle of the road in front of them.
It had a reptilian head and snarled at them, waving a spear clearly made for utility rather than beauty. Deadweight didn’t have to think twice. Looking back, he couldn’t remember actually charging the kobold, he just found himself in front of it screaming goblin curses and swinging his sword more to emphasize the curses than to actually cause damage. It was a comment about the kobold’s heritage containing goats that actually killed it. Deadweight had a sweet moment of peace in his mind before he realized what he had done. Kobolds aren’t particularly bright, and a kobold trap is easy to spot, but not so much when your head is pounding like a foundry.
Of course his friends ran up to … help him, but that just put them in the middle of a kobold ambush. They came from both sides of the road screetching in their own painful tongue. Perhaps they showed their foolishness however, when they targeted Giljew. Five kobolds surrounded him, but in their frenzy he was barely scratched. He slipped away before the kobolds could even trip over themselves.
Isley and Wang threw themselves into the kobolds coming from the Eastern side of the road. Each tried to out-do the other cutting through the kobolds as they appeared from the bushes. Giljew managed to catch them and found a more … appropriate place from which to exploit the naunces of battle.
As his head cleared, and his gut fell, Deadweight was surrounded by the kobolds who had just been given the slip by Giljew. He brought every goblin and halfling curse he could think of to punish the ears of his foes. Unfortunately it wasn’t quite enough. Deadweight fell, though for years latter he claimed it was from the drink, not the kobolds. Suddenly the fight had turned all messy.
Perhaps the most prudent of the group, Giljew kept a keen eye on the situation. He watched as the kobolds piled around them; He watched as Isley and Wang pulled every trick they could to tear through the kobold ranks; He watched as Wang tried to break away, only to be stabbed in the back; He watched as Isley made a heroic stand – forcing 5 kobolds to curse him for his seeming immortality; He watched Isley fall; He watched as he slowly snuck away until it was safe.
The kobolds didn’t hang around long, and Giljew came back to look after his wounded troupe. Chunks of flesh lay around Wang, it was difficult to tell whether they came from him, or from one of his victims. Isley’s clothes had been soiled, and would need a very good cleaning before he could be taken seriously in public. Deadweight was snoring.
I haven’t got any more character histories to post yet – although I might get Deadweight to send me a copy of Wang’s if he has the chance. In the meantime tonight I’m going to detail the world for this 4th edition campaign a little more.
Zeus battles the malevolent XXXX
Tonight’s topic will be religion within the Empire. I don’t want to give away too much of the campaign story-line, but there is some significance to it. I think most of it will be basic knowledge to most of the players (more details will need a successful religion check) so everybody gets to read it.
Filed under: games, Organized Event | Tags: D&D, Deadweight, history, Isley, Rob is awesome, war of the dragonborn
Here’s what I’ve learnt so far about the history of Isley the Improportionate. To quote the book of Origins:
I was thinking he may see all lands that was once eldarin as being rightfully belonging to the eldarin, and the current occupiers as uspurpers, and the eldarin leaders as weak and not taking what should be theres…
This description was supplied by the local Tavern owner, Hesiod the Uncooth, talking about Isley, then known as Isley the Local. Needless to say this barely covers the strange, heroic past of Isley.
Isley himself is only 25. Although he has already reached manhood by human standards, and is physically mature, by Eladrin standards he has a lot ahead of him. As a child Isley took a great interest in the stories of the Eladrins past and origins. He would spend time pestering elders or perusing books under the disapproving eye of his Father. What fascinated him the most was the War of the Dragonborn, almost 1000 years ago. 
He developed a great pride for Eladrin kind, and was especially proud of their victory in that monumentous war. Unfortunately Isley couldn’t help but notice the disparity between the Eladrin’s status in the world now, and their previous glory. Why hadn’t they faught as valiantly against the encrouching Imperium as they had against the draconic forces? Why didn’t they even seem bothered by their place in the world now?
A fire burned deep within him and he decided that one day he would emulate those great heroes he had read about so often. When the orks took the coast of Rhudgecloth he chose to stay and fight rather than retreat with the rest of the Eladrin defenders. He has decided now to find glory for the Eladrin race, although at the same time, he’s unsure about his place in his Hometown after that battle.
One more note. He’s still rather young by Eladrin standards, and when he first met Deadweight he gave his name as Isley of the Apricots (rather than revealing his actual home), but changed that frequently afterwards. Deadweight siezed this slip and ruthlessly applies suffixes to Isley as they come to mind.
Dungeons and Dragons. Considering the name, there are an aweful lot of dungeons without dragons these days.
The consensus seems to be Friday or Saturday Sunday night. That means starting at 9pm QLD time for a 3 hour run. If you have a particular preference for either night let me know.
I can’t expect everybody to know all the rules by then either, but what would really help is if you could be familiar with your own character’s powers. The rest of the stuff I’ll try to explain as w
e go along.
Oh and on Monday we’ll be looking into the history of Isley, one of the new members of our band of adventurers.
Which one is he? I’ll give you a hint… you can see his chest!
Filed under: games, Organized Event, Real Life Adventures | Tags: 4th, campaign, D&D, first mention of Eljarg the Mingler
The plan is to start the 4th edition campaign this weekend. IF more players come after this session, then that’s ok, but we’ll be starting as long as there are at least 3 players. So far we have some definites – Tim, Chris (from work) and some maybies – D, Yhetti, Doug, j00ls and Rian.
Please leave a comment, or somehow let me know both your race and class.
Here’s what you need to know to put together your characters.
A. Everything is core 4th edition.
B. RACES
All races described in the Players Handbook (PHB) are fine. Even Dragonborn. You can’t use alternate races from the Monster Manual at this time.
In the descripton of Halflings, replace the word ‘nomadic’ with the word ‘sedentry.’
Ignore any history for dragonborn. In this world they’ve been around for about 1000 years, no longer.
B.Classes
All classes are ok. I wouldn’t worry too much about the party balance they try to push in this edition. That only applies in strictly combat situations, and in my opinion doesn’t make for a very interesting game.
C.Alignment.
You have to be good. Sorry Pace.
D. Abililty scores
We’re using points buy (method 2). Don’t forget your racial bonuses.
E.Religion.
This is a largely polytheistic world. Think Ancient Greece / Rome. Even a priest of a particular deity can pray to other gods. Different gods serve different purposes. You have one god that you might favor, but that’s based more on your profession and personality than anything else.
In this world, as in Ancient Greece there are many stories of the gods meddling in the affairs of men (and turning into swans to rape their women). Are they true in this world? Well your characters have never had the experience of meeting them.
F. You have to decide how you know the rest of the group. Maybe you just met, maybe you’re brothers, maybe one of you saved the other’s life. Think of something.
SOFTWARE
You will need access to RPTOOLS Maptool. You can find it HERE. Follow the links and download the 1.2 version. You also need java for it to work.
If you like feel free to bring your own token. Token Tool, on that website will help you make one from any picture on your computer. Then just drag and drop when we start the game.
They also have a character tool to help putting the charcter sheet together, but I couldn’t get it to work. Sucks to be me I guess.
As far as voice-chat goes… I’ll see how many people Skype can handle… otherwise we may use teamspeak. I’ll link it soon.
Final call
Last thing I need:
Please leave a comment, or somehow let me know both your race and class. That is all.
Filed under: games, Organized Event, Real Life Adventures | Tags: 4e, 4th edition, D&D, Rob is a monster
The software is working, the campaign is ready and we’ve got enough players now to run a game. There has been a slight change of plans though. There’s going to be a race against time in the games, which directly favours 4th edition over 1st. In 1st remember you have to rest normal to recover from certain types of wounds, no ‘at-will’ powers, and you have to study for a certain number of weeks (!) before you can even go up a level. In 4th you level as soon as you get that xp, mysteriuosly acquiring the new powers with no training whatsoever – tanks can heal themselves – magic users can cast magic missile continuously for days at a time (and beat down vault doors in a matter of minutes!) and you can have more than 1 000 000, 5-minute rests in one day.
As such I’m going to be running slightly different campaigns for 1st and 4th, but with similar themes. The 1st edition guys get a bit more time too.
Tentative date is Saturday Afternoon!
More info for character creation and so on soon.
Filed under: games, Organized Event, Real Life Adventures | Tags: 4e, D&D, Rob is a monster
I’ve mentioned previously that the new 4th Edition is out. A lot of people are having different reactions to it – unsurprisingly considering all the changes. Rather than complain or poke fun at every little change in the system however, I’ve decided to do something different. I’m going to run a campaign in both 1st edition and 4th edition. 1st being AD&D circa 1979.
The campaign itself is going to be essentially the same, with the same events occuring, the same antagonists and maps and so on. There will of course be some differences. For example monsters don’t always exist in the same manner in both / magic and magic items are very different, and there is the matter of pace. I wont get into the details however, because that would ruin the story.
What I will do is type up a rundown of each sesson along with any player comments I can get. At the end of each chapter of the adventure I’ll try to type up some notes too so that you can play the adventures yourself and see what you think.
Filed under: games | Tags: 4th, D&D, gaming, Sheriff Frogtooth and the Foxtold murders, tf2
I’ve been pretty disconnected from the rest of the CGH group lately, and with no reason other than the bewitching rasta of a busy life. During that time though, I have had time to explore a few things.
I have been driven to play TF2 to a great degree. The sheer variety of the classes, and the fact that all of them are useful, is a feat of design that I have not seen matched. Not even in those MMORPGs that some people get hooked on.
Valve have taken a page from microsoft and a lot of school teachers, by starting to use achievements. To this day I can still hand kids at school a sticker for completing a task, and they are happy. That’s all the motivation they need. Similarly, the average xbox gamer needs only the carrot flavoured achievement, the little ‘ding’ that sounds, letting them know they’ve completed some arbitrary task. As an experiment in psychology, it’s fantastic. Now it’s in Valve games too. Somehow, providing a heap of achievements for medic players is all that was needed to bring them back into prominence.
For some time I played an engineer, hunting for the 10 sentry kills achievement. I have yet to get that one. The medic achievements come hard and fast – but unless you have a good partner you’re somewhat ineffective. Few and far between are the medics that can help more than one player. In a social group the medic is the guy who isn’t so cool, but spends a lot of time with the most cool person. When the cool person isn’t there, they find that they have no social responses for most things. When the cool person is there, they can make snide remarks about those outside their cliche knowing they have the safety of Mr Cool to back them up. That’s how medics work.
4th Edition
If I need to say what it’s the 4th edition of, then you wont be interested in this paragraph. I’m eager to play it, but there are features I immediatly dislike. I don’t like the ‘class roles’ they’ve gone for. That’s nothing but a combat oriented approach to gaming, and doesn’t encourage people to take different groups into gaming.
There’s no place for non-combat characters either. How do you run a local sheriff trying to solve a series of murders in his small town? You don’t. not. in. 4th. You take a party with exactly one Striker, one Controller etc and hack the badies apart.
There are things I like about it too, but I’ll talk about them more after my campaign has started and I have a chance to playtest everything.
