Actual Play Podcast

The other night we recorded our game.  We are on session 11 of Isle Of Dread using basic fantasy.  Both PCs are level 5 currently, one is a human thief, the other a dwarven cleric.  They have 2 hireling NPCs with them, Zarot a Chimpanzee MU and Royan a human fighter.  This session is the 2nd part of the PCs wandering around the Lakeside Temple from Monkey Isle  (Basic fantasy adventure module).  

You can listen here: 

https://anchor.fm/gilligans-isle-of-add/episodes/Actual-Play-Episode-e14h8an

I need a ruling!

Dear Dragon Magazine: 

One of my players was in a boat and wanted to attempt to backstab a shark that was attacking the boat. 

I posed this question to the google hangout old school grognard chat that I'm a part of.  For the sake of argument I was playing basic fantasy.  Here my friends are the wonderful answer's that I received.  To keep with the anonymity of the chat group, I've just labelled everyone who took part in the conversation with numbers. 

1:  Does the shark have a backside? 

Technically the sneak attack is because the target is unaware of the attack about to hit.  I don't see why the thief would not be allowed to sneak attack target who was not aware.  

2:  Backstab is only with discernible "back" so shark is eliminated altogether. 

Grognard's quoting different editions....

2:  old school technically "unnoticed"  but considering a sharks eyes depending on species are positioned in such a way as to see above their back, the point is moot.  It's called  BACK stab, so it is clearly meant for humanoids only! 

1:  sharks have a spine, and therefore a back. 

3:  and you have to account for the fish's lateral line being able to detect living creatures in the vicinity.

2:  a spine not a back so WRONG! take a biology class again.

3:  the shark is always hunting, always hungry killing machine.  your pathetic sneaky monkey skills have no power over 400 million years of predation perfection! 

1:  I was going to say that a shark's eyeball positioning actually allow it to see nearly 360 degrees around its body and would therefore almost be impossible to attack it unawares. 

HERE'S THE MOST IMPORTANT PART 

1: So while the rules would probably allow the attack a common sense approach to biology would probably prevent the attack  However any good DM worth his salt would probably make a judgement call in this situation and allow the sneak attack to happen for the sake of the story and fun of the game. 

Here's the official rule from Basic Fantasy SRD.

Finally, Thieves can perform a Sneak Attack any time they are behind an opponent in melee and it is reasonably likely the opponent doesn't know the Thief is there. The GM may require a Move Silently or Hide roll to determine this. The Sneak Attack is made with a +4 attack bonus and does double damage if it is successful. A Thief usually can't make a Sneak Attack on the same opponent twice in any given combat.

The Sneak Attack can be performed with any melee (but not missile) weapon, or may be performed bare-handed (in which case subduing damage is done; see the Encounter section for details). Also, the Sneak Attack can be performed with the “flat of the blade;” the bonuses and penalties cancel out, so the attack has a +0 attack bonus and does normal damage; the damage done in this case is subduing damage.

The one thing that I didn't realize was that a sneak attack only applies to Melee weapons.  In the case of the shark the player was attempting to use his bow.  I've decided that I'm fine with missile weapons as well.  In my game I will allow a sneak attack as long as the player can remain unseen, or the monster is unaware.  the only weapons not useable for a sneak attack would be two handed weapons. 

What I ended up doing was allowing the attack because when I described it the sharks were only aware of the boat and were running into it trying to flip it over.  I allowed it for one round.  There were 2 sharks and after 1 died I made the other shark make a morale check (which it lost).  It decided to swim away.  I mentioned it to the Grognard chat, which brought up a whole lotta "sharks shouldn't make morale checks! they are sharks, they are hungry, they should have a morale of 12!". 

In BF the bull shark has a morale of 7. 

What would you have done? 

 

Here's another post that rambles

I am probably like a lot of games masters, in that I want to infinitely tweak things.  I find that I can never decide on a system, an adventure, or a world to use.  When I do make a decision, it only lasts for a little while and then I either get A.  Bored with it, or B. Annoyed with it.

Last night while I was trying to fall asleep I had a thought about creating a random table for myself and then just going with the results.  Here's the example

The system that shane will run (Roll a d8)

1.  B/X with descending AC
2.  Whitebox FMAG
3.  Basic 5e
4.  Advanced Fighting Fantasy 2.0
5.  2nd Edition AD&D
6.  BFRPG
7.  Blueholme
8.  LOTFP

There is literally nothing wrong with any of these games, they all run pretty decent.  The problem I have is that I blur the lines between them more often than not.   Which gives rise to "Hey I'll just write my own system".  Example I really like FMAG, but I'd like it to be more swingey and use +/- 3 for attributes.  I really like 2e but feel I'd get bogged down with all the extras that's in the book, and run it more like basic D&D with thaco and NWPs.  Basic 5e is alright, but I haven't run 5e in awhile and would likely run it a lot more like an OSR game (which is fine).  BFRPG is probably the one that is as close to what I'd like, BUT I really dig the single saving throw from FMAG. 

Not to mention the infinite amount of hacks out there.

Like this one: https://www.reddit.com/r/rpg/comments/b11syu/here_is_some_fucking_dd_a_micro_rpg_in_four_pages/

You see my problem.

Here's another good one....

WORLDS THAT SHANE SHOULD RUN

1.  Greyhawk
2.  Mystara
3.  Black Marsh
4.  FR

This list could be longer....

I like all of them, but canon gets in the way sometimes (in my head).  Creating a home brew is the best option, but of course I'd steal bits from all of the above. 

The problem with using a world/adventure/game is that there's always going to be something that you really like and things that you don't quite like.

What I have learned using roll20 is the easier the system the better for playing online.  You get less bogged down with the minutiae.  Which throws out a few of the systems above.  It's too bad there isn't a FMAG character sheet (Not that anyone has used a character sheet in my games yet). 

What is probably the absolutely best bet is to create a straight up dungeon crawl and use BFRPG, and just roll with it....

Those are my ramblings for the day.

Note: Thus far I have not been laid off, it appears to be biz as usual until we are told otherwise. 

Session 0 - we are off to the arena? Mega dungeon Mondays

Tonight we started a new game, playing a house ruled version of basic fantasy. (the gist is that we use adv/dis and inspiration from 5e the rest is the bf chassis).  We all started as fifth level characters but had no equipment or spells.

First scene we were stuck in metal cages on a cart going thru the country side. A halfling npc named Jeff managed to escape but was quickly killed by the "cannibal forest" that we were going thru.

Obviously no escape.

We quickly realized that we are on the way to a large coliseum. Where it appears we will be fighters in the arena.

Waves of Thor ragnorok.

While in the cages we started talking to a few people and meet this nice dude named Randy, who is a fisherman (whoever there are no rivers or bodies of water close by).  We get to our destination and are quickly put in cells.  All the rest of the prisoners don't have any recollections or memory of how they wound up in the cart.  The next morning we are introduced to a orc named MORGUK, who has apparently been in the fighting arena for a long time, and is now our trainer.   We proceed to the arena to train to fight.  A few days go by and we are finally given weapons (still no equipment however). 

The arena is large stadium seating etc.  In the centre is a LARGE BLACK tower.  Apparently the winners go there, and get the fruits of their labours (ie big orgys, all you can drink etc).  The tower is very phallic shaped.....

The big day finally comes and we are ready to fight.  We make our way into the arena and have to face off against another pile of prisoners led by a large orc (similar to MORGUK).  Unfortunately there was no chance to escape as we were being watched closely by guards.  The battle enues!

The wizard and the cleric start to slowly remember spells (only 1st level ones).  After a few rounds of battle, the wizard wanders off to the east trying to find a way out, or a secret passage.  He is successful in finding a way up into the stands.  We keep fighting, slowly backing our way over to the east wall. 

There's a joke made about the "great big spaghetti god in the sky", to which my cleric now believes is the deity he follows. 

Finally we get to the wall and start trying to climb up.  We have to face off against orc guards wearing leather armour with "security" written on their lapels.

There's mass panic in the crowd.  Much of them wear MORGUK jerseys (apparently he is a fan favourite).  In the mean time he is slaying people left and right (including members of our team) He wants in the black tower.

We make our way up the stands, kill the guard and make a break for it.  I charm the rest of the guards and we escape onto the road with all of the audience. 

Talking with a few NPCs in turns out that we are on our way to "Fleshmound" a small village not far from the arena. 

We get to the town and goto the one tavern (which I can't remember the funny name).  There we find a few games of chance including one called Gold Fish!  Which the gist of is:  You put a fish in your mouth and attempt to drink a pint of ale without swallowing or spitting out the fish.  This continues with 2 fish, etc.  Since I have nothing to bet but my mace, I put that on the line.  And sadly loose it. 

At this point we decide to call that a session and make our way home for a good rest.

Hilarious!

New stuff from BFRPG

I might be a bit late to the party here, but there are 2 new releases on the basicfantasy.org downloads page.  As always the good folks at BFRPG have open playtest documents for new releases, prior to releasing them as books.  Both of these are the case currently. 

The Basic Fantasy Field Guide Volume 2! Even more monsters for basic fantasy.  There's some pretty cool ones in here, check it out.  The pdf clocks in at 93 pages! 

The Adventure Anthology Number 2 is also available.  It contains 15 mini adventures, and is over 100 pages.  Just looking thru the pdf, there were a pile of them that caught my eye.  I love a lot of the maps in this!  There's quite a few hand drawn ones, and hex maps (also hand drawn).  Cool stuff. 

Another time when I'm thinking it would be a lot of fun to take a hexmap and start placing these adventures within it.  It would make being a GM super easy. 

As usual if you catch any typos, etc you can comment on the BFRPG forums or directly on the downloads page. 

As you may know Strongholds Of Sorcery is now available on createspace.  I also believe there was an issue with Morgansfort that has now been resolved, you can get that at lulu as well.  Morgansfort is one of my favourite modules.  It however needs some reviews! So if you have already purchased it, jump on over to lulu and give it some stars!

Strongholds of Sorcery - Basic Fantasy NEW Adventure!

BF3 Strongholds of Sorcery, Release 31 -- July 31, 2017: This is the first "complete" release of this large adventure series for mid to higher level play.  Here is the download. 

Strongholds of Sorcery: The Glain Campaign is an adventure series for the Basic Fantasy Role-Playing Game. The adventures herein are intended for 4 to 8 player characters of levels 4 to 8. These adventures were all created for use in my campaign world, Glain. Of course, you may wish to use the adventures herein with a different campaign world; there is no reason they can't be tailored to fit well into any Basic Fantasy RPG campaign.

Let me just point out this is a pretty big adventure! There are four adventures detailed in the 113 pages, and a pile of maps!

This appears to be a bit of a sequel to the BF2 Fortress, Tomb, and Tower: The Glain Campaign adventure.  As usual there is some fantastic artwork within the adventure.  As of today there is only the pdf download, the book is not available thru createspace yet.  My guess is that having the pdf out there will allow for any bugs to be found. (Which I'm planning on doing a read thru as soon as I find some time!).   

For more information on Glain you can go here.

To download basic fantasy rules you can go here. 

Basic Fantasy on facebook. 

Basic Fantasy G Plus community. 

and you can follow there here: +Basic Fantasy Role-Playing Game