Podcast: Starting Characters in a Campaign

I just released my latest episode, Starting Characters in a Campaign. I'm planning on starting a B/X Essentials campaign soon. I go over a few of the things I like to do to introduce players and their characters into my campaign world, disseminating information without (hopefully) overwhelming them, but enough information that characters can confidently act within the world.

Shared World

The Wednesday night group of +Ken H, +Chris C. and myself are finally getting around to doing our experiment of round robin GMing.  Chris finished a three session adventure that I wrote about in previous posts.  Ken is taking up the reins next.  While we agreed to do the round robin we really haven't setup any rules inparticular.  Other than deciding to use Pits & Perils for the system to use.

Here's my strategy on how to use the imagination of my fellow players to my advantage:

Chris generated a handful of colorful characters that live within a small village of Inwood.  What we know about Inwood is they are fairly friendly, but are quick to judge.  Their judgement of a young boy caused him to flee into the forest and shortly after he was killed by wolves.  This may not have been the first time these villagers have banished someone falsely.  Could be used for future fodder.

Chris also mentioned a Cult of Lycean (I am probably spelling that wrong).  He did not go into detail, but he created a symbol for it and it played a critical role in the adventure.  A wolf cult!!!  Shit yeah that is something I can run with.

A few things Chris mentioned was a larger settlement, Raventown, to the east.  While I won't presume anything about the town I can use the location to tie in other NPCs. While using a shared world I want to create a cohesiveness within my adventures. And using locations that Ken and Chris create will do a lot in that area.

Abandon abbey in the hills.  Loved that setting.  That's where we hunted the wolves during the second session.  And within that abbey was a saint, whose name I cannot remember.  So this is a twofer.  This makes me think, why is there an abandon abbey?  What happened?  Lack of funds?  Killed?   The saint lost favor with the church?  No clue.  But this is area I can mine for ideas and add to our campaign's religious background.  I've already seen Ken's map and he's using a saint something or other, so I think the religions of our world are going to be some psuedo-Christianity with a heavy sprinkling of pegan gods.  Still, religious oriented adventures are some of my favorites.

The lack of any guards or patrols or noble presence...a loosely ruled region?  There were no Sir Buttercups being bossy anywhere.  While Chris is not going to detail every little detail, I tried to pay attention to the details he thought were important to include, but also the details he decided not to include, that lacked importance.  Maybe the kingdom is struggling?  At war?  Maybe the local nobility only interferes if it doesn't get its taxes?  This is a blank slate that can be expanded on later.

Chris used only a gold piece system.  I'm cool with that.  Keeps things simple.  I like to play with currency sometimes, like different eras of coin and values, but in this case I'll probably stay away from that element.  I think our primary goal for this game is keeping things as simple as possible.  Despite what this post may seem like.

And knowing Ken's pssion for real world history, he loves to infuse that into his games and has done a masterful job in the past.  I'm sure I will have a ton of material to chose from once Ken's sessions are done and it becomes my turn.

Three Levels of Campaign Description

One of the skills I'm trying to hone as I am developing my campaign world is editing it.  Leaving out details while they may be cool, not necessary at this time.  Keep it focused and develop the cool stuff in small quantities so the players are not overwhelmed with information. 

When I write up information for my world it tend to come in three different levels.

First, is the the overall definition. 

Gorsdale - A mining village in the heart of the Formas Hills.  It is run and protected by the merchant lord Tyberius. 

Formas Hills - These hills are rough and unforgiving.  The deadly, silver serpents make their home here, but because the ground is rich with ore people risk it all to find riches.

Tyberius - A merchant lord, friend of the king on sits on the council of the merchant guild.  He is responsible for most of the mines in the southeast region of the kingdom. 

Second, I get a little more specific with the information.  Someone who has had some dealings with the person place or thing would know.

Gorsdale - This mining village is populated with slaves.  Tyberius has the gold mine surrounded with his hired army, fortifications have been erected to protect from attack.  No one is permitted entry.

Formas Hills - Some of the smaller hills are hollow and that's where the silver serpents make their home.  Their skins are highly valued at the market and their poison is highly valued on the black market.

Tyberius - The merchant lord has no scruples about keeping and increasing his wealth.  He owns a small army that he uses to intimidate others to get what he wants.  Those who oppose him disappear or become very agreeable.

And the final stage I write something is more intimate details.  Only those who have been there or dealt with the person for an extended period of time.

Gorsdale - Just as many wagon loads of corpses come out of Gorsdale as gold.  The bodies are dumped in a pit a few miles away.  Some of the corpses are marked with red.  The pickers go through the corpses to find the marked bodies.  It's inside these bodies that Tyberius hides the gems.  The pickers gather the gems and bring them into town.

Formas Hills - There is a shrine in one of the hollowed hills.  Its an ancient shrine with cryptic writings, but should some take the time to study they will find they no longer need to fear the silver serpents. 

Tyberius - The gems he is smuggling out from his mines are what allows him to pay for his army.  He sells most of his gems to the sea kingdoms as to not bring any unwanted attention.  With his increase of power he's gotten a little sloppy and isn't focusing on his businesses and instead trying to become friends with nobility.

Not the best examples, but I think they demonstrate the different levels of information in a campaign.  Some people and locations may only have two levels.  A farmer in a village may only have one level, My name is Hank.  I'm a farmer.  I work the fields.  His next level may be he works the north fields on odd days and south fields on even days. 

Writing information like this helps me keep the places and people mysterious and have some depth.  Players can assume, but it won't be until they start investigating that they'll find the next level of knowledge.  And if your a good GM, they may regret knowing it.

Beginnings of a Character

One of the things I like to do when I start a game/campaign is to provide the players pre-gens.  Pre-gens tailor made for each person.  I ask a few questions ahead of time like what class they would like to play and personality.  Then I create the characters around what they want to play then, I take the time to construct a loose background, give them information about the world they are about to explore so they are not going in cold.  I provide them with allies, family and enemies. 

I've done this in the past and it has worked very well and the players seem to like it.  It provides a character backstory before they get started, helps them get an idea of the world, provides knowledge footholds of villages, people and businesses.  I send them their characters a few days ahead of time so they can read through and they can ask any questions.  If time allows I have in the past run them through solo sessions.

During the first night the players all should have had their characters and read through them enough to know the backstory.  I always have connections or hints at things during the session that refer to their backstory. 

Next Thursday night I'll be running a session with three, possible four players and tonight I'll be working on creating them.  I'm looking forward to actually playing it instead of writing about it. 

Gods and Classes

I was going to write a post about gaming complexity balance.  I should say, I did write it, but deleted it cause it sucked and a little too pedantic.  So I wrote this instead.  It's your fault for reading.

This campaign I'm opening a couple things up, classes and gods.  I'm opening up the classes because they're are so many available and the variety is a lot of fun.  While there will be a lot of choices the classes a fairly straight forward.  I've added a few culture based classes to reflect the region and what they hold valuable.  You won't find any race class stuff.  I've never been a fan of elf or dwarf being a class.  I'm beg, borrowing and stealing ideas out of my gaming books and all your blogs out there.  Once I have a collection of them I'll edit them for the region, but I won't put limitations on the PCs.  They like to feel special.

Gods.  I normally run a 10 god pantheon with a long back history, tales and lore that go along with it, but being inspired by the Petty Gods project I've been creating a lot of nook and cranky gods.  It's been a blast creating them.  I like the weirdness that infuses into a world.  The clerics will reflect their god instead of being cookie cutter clerics.  I'm going to leave the interpretation up to the player to figure out and then we'll role-play it out.  Example, if a cleric of Lavinia, a goddess of Mercy and Healing tried to cause light wounds its not going to work and the cleric will lose his spell for that day.  But if they are healing someone they'll get a bonus to their roll.  And the gods are fickle, I'll roll reaction rolls each month to determine the god's mood.

What do you do to differentiate your religions and/or clerical abilities from one another?

Filling In My Campaign One Pebble at a Time

For the past few days I've been developing small sites the players can find in my campaign.  I like to do this because the work up front isn't all that much, they are little surprises if the players find them and it helps me flavor the immediate area.  It doesn't take a lot to get the player's interest.  While I'm stopping short of "Squirrel!". it's pretty close.  I say this with confidence since I am mainly a player.

A couple of examples:
As the party hacks away as the undergrowth this section of the forest gets darker.  The canopy of leaves blocks out most of the sunlight.  One of you notice the slightest of trails.  It winds towards a thicket of trees.  Within the trees you spot a battered shack with a severed arm at the peek pointing toward the sky.

The road looks to have been cared for at one time.  Even in rough shape it is better than most of the main kingdom roads.  Along the eastern edge of the road is a shallow swamp.  Several dozen blacken stumps jut out of the dark water.  As you continue the swamp gets larger and the swamp noises increase.  It reaches a point where you have to shout to speak to the person beside you.  Its then you notice, a half buried obelisk stands tilted about fifty yards in. 

As a player, I'm checking both these places out.  Might be nothing.  Might be just a old thing along the way.  Might be the start of an adventure.  You don't know until you investigate.

Say I decide to make the shack the home of a witch.  All of sudden the nearby villages might have animals come up missing.  A child that wandered off into the woods has not returned.  I'm about to say something corny, forgive me, but its like throwing a pebble into the pond and watch it effect the surrounding area.  Then again, it may be nothing.  And having sites like this that are mundane are very important.  Not every cabin in the woods should be an event.  Same with the obelisk, maybe its just an old decoration left over from a sunken building and that building is all but gone. 

Anyway, that's what I've been working on.  To help ease the work load I've been using maps that I've drawn, +matt jackson, +Dyson Logos, +Simon Forster, and +Rob Conley.  I've been using various gaming products too numerous to name here, but I will in a later post.  Give some shout outs to those who made my campaign better.  And I'm also plugging in a few pre-made adventures by others because I liked them a lot.

Okay, time to go throw another pebble.

Campaign Development Progression

I've been working on a campaign for a while now.  What I thought would be a simple...well, not simple, but a little more simple, I would draw a map of the immediate region.  Hex crawl style.  A handful of villages, maybe a town, ruins (gotta have ruins), a few lairs and places of interest.  Write them up.  Go.

Something happened along the way.  I decided to do an extensive house rule game.  My foundation of the game is Swords & Wizardry Complete and Blood & Treasure.  I've included a small skill system because the GURPs side of me always likes to see how much you succeeded and failed by.  Probably the biggest challenge has been the spell system.  I'll be using a point system with for spell casters.  And with that I've created different types (classes) of spell caster.

Clerics are a little more easy.  But I've been creating a vast amount of deities to meddle with them stink'n lesser races.  That inspiration came from Petty Gods project and showed me I could have a lot of fun with them and I have.

I created a handful of adventures that were made specifically for the campaign area.  Easy to write, adds to the color of the local lore.

The other part of the campaign that has been taking up time is the back story, the history.  I've always done a generalization, but not this time.  While it won't matter to the player at first (or maybe at all) they will find things that hold significance to another time and place.  And with that knowledge they will understand what is valuable.  Or where to find things that are.

I'll share more down the line.  Not too much.  I have players who will peek.  I plan on running games after the New Year on Google+.  I'll run games for my home group, but would like to explore it with others.  When it gets closer to me running a game I throw out a ad and see who is interested.  I'm fine with playing with just two people and I think i would cap it at four.  Seem anything over four players and a GM the noise factor starts to increase drastically.  If you think you might be interest email or IM onGoogle+ so I can send out a specific invite and see if you are able to make the time, 6:30pm to 9:30pm EST, is game time.  I usually get on a half hour early to answer question or BS for a bit.

Campaign Map Funneling

Here's my, I guess I would call it a regional map.  It's not a world map, but its a chunk of it.  I don't think I've ever drawn a world map.  Never had a campaign where that was required and to tell the truth, I'm not all that interested drawing one at this time.  This is my largest scale map.  Hexes are 12 miles or 124 square miles. 

This will be the main campaign area out of all that above.  Hex 1010 is where the players will start.  I have that hex and all the surround hexes detailed.

This is Hex 1010 in detail.  Towns, villages, camps and places of interest are noted.  Along with names of the major geographical features in the hex.

The I select one of the town or areas of interest and draw another map.  It's like Google Map, we keep getting closer and in more detail.

Here's the Village of Bad Water.  And then below is a map of one of ruin locations.  Both get the same funnel level maps.

This one is nearly like the level above, a snap show of area and places of interested are noted with numbers.  But most of these will just have written entries as to what is there.  Unless, say number 10 is a set of stairs leading down to a dungeon.

Then there will be the last level of the funnel map.  I have been known to do detailed maps of the rooms, but for my campaign this is the smallest map I'll draw. 

So here is my campaign map funneling and the reason why I've been drawing a lot of maps lately.  While I won't probably draw maps for every village/camp/town, I'll still do a rough sketch and notes on what is in town and NPCs. 

Map funnel complete.

Day 4 and I Already Hit the Wall

I'm a fricking lightweight.  Last night was the 4th night and I already wanted to pass on doing my writing.  Tired from work and just wanting to watch Netflix...nope.  Whisk coached me into starting.  Grind.  Grind.  That's me grinding on my writing...not the other kind.  I know, TMI.  Fast forward, around 10:30pm I had the b button buried in my forehead from falling asleep and hitting my head on the keyboard, but I got my 1700 in last night.

What I worked on is the village of Bad Water.

I believe I posted this map a little while ago.  I'm going through and adding who is in each building their background, secrets and possible adventure hooks with the hard working villagers of Bad Water.  I got through 11 buildings last night and just started working on the next batch.

Back to work.

The Gladiator Class

I've been lax in blogging, but I've been working on stuff over here.  This new campaign world I'm working on is going well there are a lot of parts to it.  I'm sure I am over doing some things (like the classes), but I'm enjoying the process.  Last time I posted the Guard class and everyone was very helpful.  I need to update it to the newest version.

This time I'm posting the Gladiator class.  Some of the...who am I kidding, I watched a ton of Spartacus and that's where my inspiration comes from.  Arenas are fairly common in my world.  That or the simplified version of pit fighting.  And this time around I will be using the one silver earned equals one experience point.  Never did that before, but for the gladiator and earning money in fight becomes more of an experience pool than just thumping opponents.

If you've got the time please take a look.  It's one page and should you have any suggestions please put them in the comments.

Once I get a few more done I'll add a page to above for my campaign material reference.  I've been working on dungeons, towns, NPCs, mapping, class building and trying to untangle how I want to use the magic system in different ways.

1st Hex Completed

I final finished detailing my first hex.  It took longer than expected.  I lost the work I'd done on the map twice.  Once because the program I was using crashed and the second time the electric went out.  So the first map hex is done, I'll have smaller detail maps to do, but now that I know the layout I can get more serious with the write ups.  Especially the background/history and the way the villages/towns/critters interact. 

The starting village is complete.  The players will start there and I'll have the area developed enough that they can do some true sandbox exploration.  I'll develop random tables and I already have a stack of maps to use for dungeon or ruin adventuring.  I've marked where 'set' encounters will be, but there is a lot of room for other things and places to be added.  And that's the fun of this exercise.  The map that I have now will be completely different when its over.

What I am doing different this time it creating more specialized classes.  It's more work, but I am enjoying the process because its something I never did before.  I will ask the players what kind of guys they want to play then create their characters based around the concept.  Like the Majestic Wilderlands, I plan on using a simplified skill system in addition.  So any class can pick a lock, but a class who specializes in it of course will be better at it.

The one thing I am struggling with is the magic system.  Both the arcane and clerical sides.  Originally I wanted to do a spell point based system, but the more I get into the development that idea causes more problems.  For the clerical side I've got a gob of gods that aren't very interested in devotion.  People make offerings out of fear to avoid notice and retribution. 

My general concept of the world is a cross between the Thieves World series/game, Conan, Cthulhu and a touch of Pendragon sprinkled in.  I'll send out invites to players within the next couple of weeks and ask for character concepts.  I believe I'll be running on Google Hangouts using the Roll d20 VTT.  Seems easier for most folks and for some reason Fantasy Grounds has been very buggy lately.

Late for work.  Very late.  But I haven't posted in a while because of work.  So its only fair. 

Is it Friday yet?!?! 

Campaign Map Time!

I finished a region of my campaign world.  Here's the colored pencil/sharpie version without names and sites.

As you can see, Whisk was doing coupons on the kitchen table, but I still took the picture.  The overall region is the picture below.  Then maps of the four of the hexes are above.

Hex 0910, 1009, 1010 and1110 are the four hexes I did area maps for so far.  The campaign will start in hex 1010.  Each of those hexes are 14 miles across.

Here's what they look like cut out and put together.  I forget where I found the hexes in a big hex paper, but I made several copies.  I think I would like to at least have the central hex and all the surrounding hexes finished.

I showed a version of this one in an earlier post, Game Night Chat. 

This is what it looks like after I put the names and mark the sites on the maps using Xara.  To my players, go ahead and print this out if you think it will help. 

This is hex 1009.  I some how managed to make every hex a little crooked.  It takes skill to be the consistently inept.  I make it look easy.

Okay, why does blogger keep flipping my photos?  I have to save them on there side so when I download them here they are right side up.  That is not a pube in the lower left hand corner...I think.

Last hex map.  I couldn't get the color to work that well for this one. 

After I finish them they will go in the scanner.  That was if I spill ice tea on the originals I have a copy.  I learned that lesson the hard way a few times.  Then I open Xara and start naming and marking sites.  But before that I like to write up a few details just looking at the blank map.  I don't want anything defined at that time.  I just write what comes to mind and try to weave it with the other things I've written. 

Picture Inspiration

Just wanted to share one of the many pictures I've been collecting to help inspire the campaign I'm working on.  This one is for an adventure.  Gave me a great idea. 

Off to work.  Have a great one folks.  Tonight I write this encounter.  I love having something to look forward to when writing.

Game Night...Chat

Last night was game night, but we didn't play.  Two of the four in our group had real life obligations.  We've gamed with two of us tromping around, but considering where we are in the megadungeon, meaning, we have to clue where we are, we decided it might be too dangerous with half the party.  So instead we talked about gaming for our session last night.  Sometimes I even like doing that more than playing. 

Some of the topics we covered is what adventures didn't work.  +Ken Harrison ran a canned module, I won't mention which one, but it was awful.  Ken had thought he could save a little time and run an series of these adventures.  We never got past the first one.  As a player one of the first things I noticed is the adventure had a very narrow scope of choices.  Railroad, but it wasn't even interesting.  Our party started out unconscious and when we awoke the first thing we wanted to do was track down who thumped us.  That wasn't an option.  The premise was to go into the nearby village and do the tasks they asked of us and discover the secrets along the way.  The problem was the tasks they asked us to do were not interesting.  I went along with it, but even as we reached the climax of the first adventure in this series even the map was boring.  Poor Ken couldn't even hide his distaste for the adventure.  While the adventure was not at all interesting it did teach me a few lessons on how not to design an adventure.

We discussed all the things that work in Ken's current megadungeon campaign, Montporte.  I've written about it a few times, but Ken continues to add layers onto it which keeps me and my character seeking the answers to the mysteries.  And the great thing we discussed is Ken will be able to carry over much of what he's developed into other campaigns.  

+Rob Conley he is working on a different system to implement for his Majestic Wilderlands.  A Fudge version.  I've never had the chance to play and look forward to how it works.  Rob always does an good job on his projects.  He's splitting his time between a couple of projects and currently this one is on the back burner. 

I shared the campaign I was working on.  I showed them a map of one of the hexes.  I have drawn the region map, but haven't had time to scan and detail it.  This map will change once I get around to detailing it more.  The players will start in the village on the edge of the lake, Baludor. 

Each of the smaller hexes is 1 mile, making the larger hex 14 miles.

One of the main topics Ken and I discussed was developing a consistent group of gods.  Not necessarily a pantheon because this world has many gods from many cultures.  For example the one thing I've established it there are seven gods of death.  While not all gods will not have an aspect they influence, but good many will super powerful beings.  I'm still not sure how it will work out.  Usually I just start writing about one thing and eventually some idea will spring from my pen and I'll run with it.  I've got a few adventures I'm working on the first few sessions and I've gotten some very interesting images from the web to help me realize some of the locations and monsters. 

So while no game occurred on game night we had a good time talking about what we were working on.  How things in gaming worked or didn't work for us.  Next week we head back to Montporte.  The Steelers are playing Monday night.  I have conflicts.

The Guard Class: Updated

UPDATED: I've redone the Guard class with the assistance of some very good suggestions.   Should you have any more thought please add them.

Last night I was at the bookstore, not writing my campaign, but came up with something else.  I created a Guard class.  I placed it in my Dropbox for you to take a look at.  Class design is not my strength.  I always tend to make them too powerful.  I did a short write up.  I gave the class a few special perks/abilities to give it its own flair.  I plan on using this for my own campaign for the city guards/caravan guards and so on.

Please take a look and if you have an suggestions please let me know.  I'd like to add this to my class arsenal.  Thanks ahead of time.

I'm a guard and now I've got class, but not until after this nap.

Campaign Story Lines/Plots

When developing a living campaign world it's important to have stuff going on.  Maybe there is a border war with another kingdom.  Orc raiders razing farming villages.  A cult of necromancers  littering the landscape with undead.  The point is, there is something going on when the players enter the scene.  There is movement to the world.  A life of events that exists beyond the characters. 

How much of that infringes on what the players do?  There is no right answer.  I guess the rightest answer for me is, as much as the players want.  Events will occur whether players chose to be involved or not.  Say those necromancers attack a town and the players have chosen to go after some rumored treasure.  When they return, a good chunk of the town is burnt to the ground.  Unloading all their treasure becomes more difficult.  So the attack affects them indirectly.

I'm developing a new campaign world (very slowly it seems) and I like to have a few over arcing story (plot) lines that are shaping the current landscape of the world; politically, spiritually and monetarily.  The players can chose to be as involved as they want.  The side quests/story lines/plots are usually developed during play.  I might have a vague shadow of an idea, but it's the players that flesh it out.  Players make the best story lines accidentally.

As of now, I've have some of the smaller things figured out, such as, developing a few interesting cultures and how they interact.  A little history to add some depth to the world.  If you're going to have ruins for the players to explore there should be a reason why they are there originally.  It helps shape the adventure.  Plus, I can add artifacts from past cultures or kingdoms.  I like adding that sense of history to a campaign.  I learned this important lesson from the Majestic Wilderlands.  Rob Conley has developed such a rich history that it is a pleasure to explore.  So I like to offer that same option to my players.

As I develop my campaign, and I might add, I am ripping off ideas from blogs left and right, I'll post some of what I'm working on.  No spoilers for the players though.  I need to do something like Trey Causey did with his Weird Adventure and develop an index.  

Crafting in Game

Years before World of Warcraft I played a game called Ultima Online.  Spent way too many hours on that game.  Probably the reason why I don't play them any more.  What got me hooked on the game was the crafting system.  It was a blast.  Go mine up the ore, find a forge, smelt the ore, find an anvil and forge a sword.

I found the mining and collecting of leather very calming.  I was a collector of rare materials in game.  I also ran my own shop.  The game, when I first started, had a very real economy.  It was a blast trying to figure out what people would buy.  Player crafted weapons and armor were highly sough after.  That is until the made it easier for the casual gamer and screwed the game forever.

This is an area in RPGs I rarely explore myself.  I've played a blacksmith in a campaign.  My job was to steal secrets from a rebellious baron.  So fighting was not primary, blacksmithing was the focus.  It was a unique campaign.

Imagine running a campaign where the player or players are craftsmen and their job to to create items to sell.  Dealing with getting raw materials and developing a market for their goods.  I think it would work well with a one-on-one campaign.  I think this type of campaign would work well with a points based system.

Even if you have a system to make the crafting challenging you still need to make it interesting.  Interesting enough to last over a length of time.  I think it could happen.  Granted, there would be a lot of fetching quests.  The player would need to go get this or that to make their item more powerful.  Conflicts with business rivals, possibly a local gang pressing for protection money and of course you can always throw in some political mumbo jumbo.

In the campaign I'm building crafting will be apart of the game.  The players can of course choose to indulge in it as much or as little as they choose.  But I think it adds a depth to the world and to some of the adventures.  Those who've read my adventures there is always a little thing in there that can tweak the effect of a spell of potion.  Find a large spider web and cut the center out to see your web spell double in area.  Those little red berries when added to a healing potion increase its effectiveness.  These of course can be added without going into detail, just interesting bits the players can use, but when used with a crafting system then I think it become more interesting.

Developing a Campaign

Over the past few weeks or so I've been tinkering around with developing a campaign.  This one will use a system that I've put together.  Nothing new, mainly me taking bits and pieces of what I like and gluing them together.  I'm not sure if everything will work, but that's part of the fun.  I plan to inflict it on my group in a couple of weeks.

I've been using a lot of help from blogs and supplements so I don't have to do all the heavy thinking.  I want to make a page to show which products and whose blogs I'm using.  I am nearly finished with the initial village in which the party will be starting.  This includes 11 detailed buildings, right now 25 NPCs, a handful  of geographical locations and possible adventure sites.  So a mini hex crawl is what I'm developing.  While I have the village map I don't have a hex map yet.  I'm getting some of the details worked out in my head before drawing the map which is opposite of how I normal do it.

One of the biggest changes I'm doing is classes are shaped by the culture from which the character comes from.  This is borrowed from Dragon Age RPG and a few supplements.  Each culture will have their own version of a fighter, mage, cleric or thief class.  Some may have multiple versions.  Especially with clerics, I haven't defined the gods.  While I have some they are a long way from being detailed.  My guess is I'll complete a batch and run with them, have a batch of other names not detailed and then make up others as needed.  More on this later.

I could go on for a very long time about this, but I won't.  I'll set up a page soon to direct you where my inspiration is coming from.

End of Another Campaign

Last night the Monday night group completed another campaign.  I hear a lot of other talk about starting and stopping games a lot.  That its difficult to complete a campaign.  I know I am spoiled with the group we have because we are dedicated to make Monday night, Game Night.  Holidays, work and family sometimes keep us from our Mondays, but its not too often.  We've developed a GM 1 and GM 2 system.  We have a main campaign then a backup game in case the main GM needs a break or can't make it. 

Last night we completed our 4th or 5th campaign in as many years.  Our group was originally formed to be mercenaries and king slayers, but the main focus of that game left.  The rest of the group were much more humble characters.  I played a naive forester who often did the wrong thing for the right reason, we had a guy in our party I still have no idea what he did, a grumpy dwarf who complained about being around humans all the time, but would never leave, a disgraced squire, and a half demon puppeteer.  Together we agreed that we would build an inn with the money we received from ransoming the Scanadian king. 

The focus of the campaign turned toward completing the inn and resolving the problems.  Location was an issue because we built our inn next to the Plain of Cairns.  A little miscalculation that turned out well.  After discovering undead and demonic influences within the plain, last night we were able to assist the elven taig (think of a primordial spirit that protects a certain section of land) into reclaiming the Plain of Cairns.  In return we have the gratitude of this ancient spiritual thing and it has extended its protection area to include our nearby inn.

These are some of my favorite type of campaigns.  A few campaigns back the end of the campaign was capturing a god.  My campaign previous to this one concluded with the resurrection of a god.  They were cool and dramatic endings, but having the simple goal of completing an inn was just at satisfying and fun.  Small scoped campaigns are sometimes the best and most memorable. 

Ken Harrison takes on as GM 1 and Dan takes on GM 2.  Ken's campaign is a mega-dungeon called Monteporte.  I've never played in a mega-dungeon campaign.  While you think it may be go room-to-room and collect all the loot you can, which it very much is, Ken has layered in a historical feel for Monteporte.  It's not just a simple hack and grab.  It's important to understand Monteporte.  While we are still building a foundation on what this place is about, the campaign is just as much about exploration and discovery. 

Dan will be running a GURPS 4th edition campaign.  No idea what it'll be like since I've never had Dan as a GM.  I'm looking forward to seeing what he comes up with.

And I'll be recruiting players for off night adventures once in a while.  I've got an adventure I want to playtest.  The adventure I'm writing is almost in a tournament style.  The goal is to get out with the highest valued loot possible.  I wrote a little about how I'm writing it here. 

To conclude, another great campaign by +Rob Conley .  I always enjoying mucking around in the Majestic Wilderlands.  I have a lot of footprints in that place.  Already looking forward to the next time I get to play.  Thanks for the game Rob it was a blast.

Four Things to Put in Your Pipe

Four Tobaccos to Try 
(tobacco being used a generic term of something you smoke)

1. Viper Weed, is a hanging weed that grows on the trunks and branches of a Hospicus Tree.  Curvy leaves form on the vines and these are harvested and dried out.  Viper Weed is slightly poisonous and causes auditory hallucinations.   If too much is smoked it will cause a person to get sick, that acts identical to food poisoning.  Upper class and nobility have made is a fashionable tobacco.  It is not uncommon that after a meal that pipes packed with Viper Weed are provided as they discuss issues of little importance.  The process to make Viper Weed smokable is time consuming and expensive.  It is usually sold in wet pouches that contain five uses for 25sp.  
2. Rillian Leaf, comes from the large variety of the Compose Flower.  When the pedals fall off at mid-summer they are collected and mixed with Whisper Seeds to bring out its fruity flavor.  This is mainly grown in the north where the Compose Flower grows wild.  Their pouches, measured in handfuls, are used just as often as coins. It's average value is 5sp.
3. Prutter Smoke, is a cheap tobacco that many of the poorer folks smoke, especially fisherman.  The leaves are harvested from Malcus Seaweed that grows in shallow waters.  It has the distinct flavor of rotten fish and those who handle the tobacco will reek of it for days.  It does have anesthetic effect, numbing the lips.  A pouch of Prutter Smoke costs a few coppers.  
4. Dulca Long Leaf, is a fine smoke.  Some say the Dulca plants are from the races from before.  Scholars have found ancient texts that have pictures of them harvesting Dulca plants.  Dulca plants grown in hot weather and require a lot of attention.  They attract insects and any farmer must take precautions or they may find their entire crop wiped out.  This tobacco has a mint flavor.  Some alchemist use it in their remove poisons potions.  If a farmer can protect the crop of Dulca he will be rewarded with ample leaves.  A pouch of Dulca Long Leaf sells for 10sp.