#RPGaDay2019 Day 23: A Bucket List with a Guy Named Hoyce

Day 23 of #RPGaDay and the word for today is "Surprise."

I'm usually not slack-jawed surprised in games, but I was part of the greatest gaming surprises ever: The great gaming bachelor party of Hoyce.

I've already written this up on the blog (see the end of this post), but the skinny of it is:

1. We surprised Hoyce with a house rental for the weekend in the Poconos.
2. We gifted him and his beautiful bride with a collection of boardgames and booze.
3. While most played boardgames all weekend, I got first dibs on Friday evening and ran a very meta Call of Cthulhu game with everyone there, the first time I ever had the pleasure of playing CoC with him after all these years of friendship.
4. I left Sunday morning, not to go home, but to run another Call of Cthulhu session with my regular group, another epic session that brought the words Operation: Hobo Justice the infamy they deserve

Read about it all here!
The Gaming Weekend of Hoyce!

Stag Party Gone Awry!

The Half-Moon

(Kickstarter) DuckQuest Fantasy Miniatures by Star Hat Minis

Star Hat Miniatures has launched a Kickstarter for figures to use with the DuckQuest Fantasy RPG.

Figures look pretty hefty, so that helps the US$ 8 cost (Fear not Americans, the Kickstarter is in New Zealand dollars - the US conversion at time of this post was NZ$1.00 = US $0.64.  Shipping is not included, and might be crazy, coming from New Zealand and all...

#RPGaDay2019 Day 22: The Inhabitants Know Exactly Where the Lost City Has Always Been

Day 22 of #RPGaDay and the word "LOST"  and my mind takes the circuitous route to the topic of Reverse Dungeons.

The concept of the reverse dungeon, where you are the monsters, defending against threats from "heroic" humankind have been around far longer than "We Be Goblins" and the Complete Book of Humanoids.

In my own D&D-speak, GAZ10 The Orcs of Thar introduced humanoid races are playable characters to my group.  The comedic interior Jim Holloway art and simplistic and sometimes parodying sections of the sourcebook turned off some (not me!)  and we put it on the back burner to be forgotten.

The next time this concept came to the limelight was literally the dying months of 2nd Edition AD&D, with the quite obviously titled Reverse Dungeon.

Historically, the concept of the Reverse Dungeon goes about as well,as a party of all dwarves, or a party of all thieves.   Once the novelty wears off, there's a party with overachieving strengths and glaring weaknesses.  It's not impossible to run a game, but certainly not the easiest.

After a great yet-to-be documented Hackmaster TPK, we were still looking for a game to fill in our monthly session.  The plotline of the ending campaign was in the midst of the early portions of B10 Night's Dark Terror, and as I am wont to do, I realized the bad guys had won and would eventually work their way into the Hidden Valley of the Hutaaka.  A game about the inhabitants meeting such a threat didn't sound like such a bad idea, so I statted out some of the Hutaaka and the Traldar and decided to playtest this at our monthly session, using Basic D&D

It wasn't a total disaster, but between the host's wife demanding to cook some Thanksgiving dinner (or at least a meatloaf) in the heat of Summer, the inner-city crime spree going down, the fact the rotation of Traldar characters' body count creating replacement with over-simplistic names like Fug, Hug, and Lug, it was an experience.

The one conversion that has worked was a Reverse Dungeon of B4 The Lost City  Using Hackmaster, the characters were common Cynidecians and of the common folk who just encountered a breach from "Hell Above."  They put down the armored demons from there, but slowly pieced together that their world was not how it seemed.   I'd love to expand on this concept, and I hope that the recently announced Original Adventure Reincarnated #4: The Lost City, being published by Goodman Games, will have more data, but I'm not holding my breath.

The only other true example of a Reverse Dungeon I want to experiment with is more a Reverse Wilderness.  I have pages of material to convert the X1 The Isle of Dread into a campaign using far more interesting material that just the original module and 3rd Edition entries in Dragon and Dungeon magazines.  Using the islanders as player characters allows for more freedom, more role-playing, and a much higher bodycount.

Of course, I've been using a good portion of my level 1-3 plot in my forthcoming Adventures in Gulluvia Basic D&D game, so I'll need a new group of players to try it out, until we get beyond the Great Wall.

...and let's not tell my players that the entire Adventures in Gulluvia setting is a reverse dungeon of the original "naughty" version of B3.  We just haven't gotten near the palace yet, or the added twist I have in store.

Mwahahahahahaha!

(341/120)

Goodman Games Announces OAR #4: The Lost City

Goodman Games announced at GenCon that the fourth installment to their "Original Adventures Reincarnated" line will be B4: The Lost City, originally by Tom Moldvay.

The Lost City will have the original scans of the module, as well as conversion of the material to 5e, PLUS new material.

Release date is scheduled for June of 2020.

#RPGaDay2019 Day 21: The Vast Pile of Lead

With Day 21 of #RPGaDAY2019, the word "Vast" sent me back on an erroneous nostalgia trip.

My first thought was the slogan of the FLGS I worked at many moons ago, Dreamscape Comic.  "Vast and Diverse Selection" described the owner Nick's business plan to fill the store from shelf to shelf with a wide variety of stock.  When he had a staff to wrangle him in, it wouldn't be the overflowing collections of boxes it was in the last few years before he passed away.

Of coure, a quick search corrected my memories....

So let's talk about another vast topic, my lead pile.

Originally this blog was going to cover Gnome Wars, Legions of Steel, and playing games with my kids.  A decade later I'm still active in Gnome Wars, Legions of Steel is looking for playtesters for a Kickstarter relaunch, and I've played dozens of games with my kids, plus further expanded in historical wargaming.

This is the stuff I normally paint, German Schutztruppe - Pulp Figures

My Units for the Second Samoan Civil War Games I Run - More Pulp Figures

If we discount green army guys and GI Joes in the backyard, my first foray in miniatures for games would be all the lovely Grenadier figures at Hobby Hangout in Easton, displayed above the D&D books, Avalon Hill games, and right around the corner from the Lionel trains I was still interested in.

The first time I remember using figures was post-high school, running the test run of what would be the village of Eding.  A few Grenadier heroes on the grid of the castle from The Castle Guide and Dragonmen, because they were so gosh darn cool.

Dragonmen ala www.mikemonaco.wordpress.com

I survived most of my 2nd Edition AD&D days relying on dice for figures.  A cube of d6's was cheaper than any models back then.  With Hackmaster, I did buy into the Hackmaster minis.  Still have a couple  floating around, they're just big bulky, and a bit pricey.  IronWind actually still produces them.

One of the old Grenadier Wizards fighting a Reaper Bones "Oxidation Beast"  The fighter cowers in fear behind the wizard.

Thanks to Hackmaster I missed the glut of poorly pre-painted plastic minis with 3rd and 4th edition.  Not saying I wouldn't like two dozen old WotC kobolds to slap on the table at a moments notice, I just don't like the randomness and the ensuing aftermarket.

But even with a focus on gnomes, pulp era figures, historicals, I'm not immune to a Reaper Kickstarter:

Reaper Bones

I've never pledged for a "Vampire" level $100 box of goodies. Everything I've done has been a la carte, either stuff I thought I needed, or stuff that's pretty cool.

Reaper Bones

And let's not forget that thanks to Reaper, minis are now an under $5 impulse buy again at your FLGS.

Reaper Bones

Still, between Reapers, other Kickstarter deals, and random purchases, I've still acquired about two shoe boxes of loose minis still to be painted. (and that's not even including the other two boxes of just giant miniatures.)

Reaper Metal

It's nothing compared to hundreds upon hundreds of historical, sci-fi, and Battletech/OGRE figs sitting in even more shoeboxes, awaiting for the glorious day that paint will finally be applied.

Reaper Bones in front of a RAFM CoC Windwalker

Work, family, and the kids' schedules have been worse than previous years, with no signs of slowing down.  Couple that with water issues in the basement, where my painting bench is located, and it's just not been conducive to any relaxing project time. 

Some of the Reaper Bones Mouslings

Still, I try to have hope that I'll get some time to paint, and the it's either the fantasy figures, or a large scale unit that usually breaks to doldrums. There are giants to paint, or there are 30 Zulus for our Pulp Adventure game that need assembly and priming.

A random collection of wolves

My original three Grenadier heroes, surrounded by painted up Dollar Store spiders.

Lost Dispatches of Feraso #41 - Death from Above

8th of the Month of HexDec in the Imperial Year of 1023

Town of Reisenhain, Gran Duchy of Vrianos, Kingdom of Ras-Prythax

To His Lordship, the Viscount Wilfrick of Verbobonc,

We emerged from the chasm in the Soten Forest and arrived in the Town of Resienhain.  We expected our adventures to net us some free drinks at least, but we were largely ignored.  An elf had dropped an explosive tale onto the townsfolk and everyone was still reeling.

No, it was not that "infernal elf" that seems to taunt me.  Rather,  another elf, Fingeln Finnoggan, a "magician", arrived in town raving about discovering the body of a dead blue skinned giant into the wilderness.  Of course, we resupplied and followed the crowds far out of town.  

I'm still amazed the elf was telling the truth.  After working through a crowd of gawkers, we found ourselves in front of a massive 20' blue corpse with a foul smell about it.  

Most of the others ripped apart the surrounding countryside for clues, but we bid our time and we given an opportunity to examine the corpse, we discovered something the others had not.  

The fall hadn't killed the clould giant.  His fall to earth had been quite recent, but he had been dead for days prior.  

A quick scan of the crash area netted us one important clue others had missed:  this cloud giant was tossed from a moving, flying vehicle, heading into Hermetus.  

Yours in Service,

Sir Elsderth, Lord of Greyhawk
SageSword of the The Order of Merit
Wielder of the Legendary Betrayer.
Defiler of the Temple of Tiamat.
Freigraff Vagabundieren of the Totenlinden Amberstoll

NEXT:  #42 - Sky Marauders!

#RPGaDay2019 Day 20: Noble

Day 20 of #RPGaDay brings up the word "NOBLE."

And that brings up sharp recollections of "Why ViscountEric doesn't like Rifts anymore..."

Let's start in the near past.  I pledged for the original Rifts for Savage Worlds Kickstarter.   Nothing crazy just the pdf and hard copy of the Tomorrow Legion Player's Guide.  I figured I like Savage Worlds, warts and all, and I tend to appreciate Rifts, with all its warts, blemishes, and pre-cancerous skin tags.  Upon receipt of the PDF and all the other cool stuff that came along, Savage Rifts was always on the back burner of something I wanted to run.  

Heck, I even wrote out a mini-campaign using old war comics as the basis fro the plot, leading into a fun East Coast campaign that dabbled with A.R.C.H.I.E., Atlantis, and a bit of a Logan's Run feel mixed in for fun.

Yet, at the last local game convention, my hardcopy of Savage Rifts and the small collection of Rifts books, went into the charity auction, a victim of a mini-gamer purge.

Why? I blame my Cyber-Knight. 

Circa 1991 or '92, at least one of us in our high school group bit the bullet and purchased the original Rifts rulebook.  We rolled up the regular retinue of characters, and if I remember right, our friend Charles ran a scenario introducing... the Mechanoids....

It's safe to say that we encountered the Mechanoids near an abandoned farm and the regular Rifts slugfest occurred. 

Except I was playing a cyber-knight, good guy, MDC armor, psychic sword.  As we neared the traditional farmer's barn, I had my first moment of calm in the fight and decided to dash through the barn to make sure (a) there wasn't something we could use in the fight and (b) make sure no civilians were in the area.  

Low and behold, both my hunches were right.  The neighboring community was hiding an MDC weapon to protect them in the barn and that same community was huddling next to it because when stuff got real, they gathered their senses at the last minute. 

I spent the rest of the combat fighting off the Mechanoids, and keeping the barn from collapsing on the very delicate SDC civilians. 

In the end I remember Charles doling out xp at the end of the session, coming to me, and essentially saying, "You get max role-playing credit.  You were the only one to do something heroic and in character."

Therein lies the greatest flaw with Rifts.  It's not the system.  It's not MDC vs SDC.  It's not the power creep.  It's essentially players wanting a four hour long Voltron episode, except just fighting.  It honestly feels worse than traditional hack'n'slash dungeon crawls with D&D.

And I hoped with Savage Worlds, I'd see more characters like my Cyber-Knight, wanting to help people/their group/even themselves.  But as I saw the actual plays videos, as I saw the write-ups, as I listened to the podcast, I kept seeing cheesy character building segment, COMBAT, segue-way into next cheesy character building segment, followed by more COMBAT!  The game simply degrades to collateral damage the RPG.

I know, I know, I'm the antithesis of any Rifts player you ever saw in your FLGS, but the world looks fun enough to play some low level, boots on the ground, but not all Rogue Scholar type gaming. 

In the context of another game, I think I want Rebels vs Stormtroopers, rather than Star Destroyers. 

I haven't given up hope entirely yet.   I still have the pdf of the SW book and all of the other downloadable, plus Rifts books go through the local con auction scene pretty cheap (and if they aren't, Palladium still has some crazy affordable prices.).

I might need to introduce Rifts as a cool Post-Apocalyptic setting without the key elements like Glitter Boys and Baby Dragons that make Rifts the game everyone can love and despise at the same time.