Gamed Last Night!

Well managed to actually have a game last night, It went well sorta.  First things first we ran Blueholme rules with a slightly modified version of the "tales from the laughing dragon" adventure set from Basicfantasy.org  Blueholme, semi confused me (just ascending AC vs descending AC).  I know that the tales from the laughing dragon is based on AD&D 3.5 rules, however I did do the switerchoo's before we sat down and gamed.  Here's the rest of my thoughts on the game.

1 - I'm writing all my own adventures from this point on.  Run a pre gen sucks.  The best part of the evening was the role playing at the start of the adventure and the end when we ran thru history of characters, how they met up etc.  The actual dungeon was so boring, and I got bogged down with some of the rules, so I'm officially switching everything over to Fighting Fantasy for the ease of use, etc.

2 - That  being said when I start writing adventures I'm going to keep the descriptions down to very basic elements and let the PC's explore more, I never liked the idea of the PC's having to do this so that this can happen.

3 - IF i ever run a pre gen again I'm going to do a ridiculous amount of prep, which was the problem this time around

Now to re-write the second part of the adventure for FF and get ride of the boring dungeons

AFF Villain! - Death Succubus (Demonic Nymph)

Skill 9

Stamina 15  

Magic 10

Weapon: Claws (As sword) 

Armor: Medium Monster

Special: If successful hit, will drain one point of Skill from PC

Intelligence: High

In folklore traced back to medieval legend, a succubus is a female demon or supernatural entity that appears in dreams, who takes the form of a human woman in order to seduce men, usually through sexual intercourse. The male counterpart is the incubus. Religious traditions hold that repeated intercourse with a succubus may result in the deterioration of health or even death.

In modern fictional representations, a succubus may or may not appear in dreams and is often depicted as a highly attractive seductress or enchantress; whereas, in the past, succubi were generally depicted as frightening and demonic.

A Death Succubus could be considered a Demonic Nymph.  These creatures are very rare, and come from different planes of existence.  They normally prey on single wandering adventurers.  If encountered a Hero must save vs skill at -2 every other round, or fall into a deep trance (lasting until she kills you!).  Death Succubus can be found in any region of the world.  There common goal is to mate with humans and demi-humans creating demonic offspring. 

picture from

http://witchscoffee.blogspot.ca/2012/07/nymph.html 

The not so secret addiction

Just as a side note, this is entirely ADD... read on. 

Alrighty, I've been basically having D&D rolling around in my head, for the last 4 or 5 weeks.   I ask myself where did it come all of a sudden? And I have no idea.  I was off of it for a really long time.  The last few days I've been mad searching campaigns, maps, finding all these awesome resources that I WISH I had when I was a kid.  I've finally settled myself down however and created a small campaign for my upcoming players.  The only problem I've had the last little while is the amount of paper i"m going thru at the office,  I just downloaded Blueholme rules and I'm going with them.  There the most straight forward D&D type rules I've found.  (I own the 3 main books for AD&D2ed) but this is a nice little package I can put into a binder, which is helpful.

My recent find is the text and graphics for L1 Secret Of Bone Hill.  So I'm slowly putting that together for myself to print.  I've already printed the Laughing Dragon, Morgansfort and the Adventure Compilation from Basicfantasy.  In all honest I probally won't use Bone Hill, but the idea of having it is cool, plus I'm such a "doc" nerd, I'll spend time working on text and etc.  ieyeyeyye man!

Just start playing already!

So officially, even though I've been back and forth a bit latetly, I'm doing the "tales from the laughing dragon" and then probally "keep on the borderlands" or "morgansfort"

I know as a DM you will never be totally prepared.  but hey who cares, its fun imagining all this stuff right?

Right.

Turning it off

Unfortunately I cannot turn my DM brain off.   Which is a great thing! I suppose to a degree.  Had a few interesting thoughts already this morning, the following I posted in a google plus forum

Just a quick little note, I love source books! even if there not part of the game system you are using, highly valuable.  I was reading through my old assed copy of "keep on the borderlands" last night, and found a wonderful table of "NPC personality quirks" i guess you could call it.  I'll see if I can re-write the table, I don't have it in front of me however.  I'm currently planning on running a campaign using the new revised Advanced Fighting Fantasy rules that I just bought (use to play when I was younger) anyways, just going thru 2e source books and I keep finding all this gold to use, like that little trinket.  Eventually I'll be making a binder like the one guy posted with tables and extraneous things to have on hand.  Another one I'm thinking about using is the Menzoberranzan setting, atleast the bits of it to create a Duegar setting that's similar.

The other thing that just came up was the idea of using Cobra Commander as an NPC, his character anyways, and the flaws etc.  It actually works perfectly into the campaign I have going in my head involving Gilabrand The Stout.  Possibly a relative that works for the thieves guild.  How he ever got in far in the guild really doesn't make sense, since he's such a wimp.  Possibly because of the influence of Gilabrand, and the respect that he used to carry within the ranks.  

The return to my youth.

As you can tell I've been really getting back into fantasy gaming.  I used to do it a lot when I was a kid, but over time it just sorta lapsed.  My original introduction to RPG's was thru Fighting Fantasy novels, which we similar to choose your own adventure books.  Eventually I found that they created an RPG version of the FF books called "Advanced Fighting Fantasy".  Wow that opened the flood gates.  As all my friends were heavily addicted to the FF books, this was the next logical step.  Eventually we moved to AD&D 2ed.  During the last few months I've re-opened all my old AD&D books and poured over them, re-writing adventures, creating characters, worlds etc.  I think now that I'm a little older, DMing again should be a lot of fun! new ideas, just being a bit more mature will help.  (as you can tell by my post's I'm a bit manic when it comes to changing my mind).  However, I've decided on running a AFF campaign again.  I just recently purchased the new up to date version of "Dungeoneer" from Arion Games 

You can read some reviews of the new version of AFF below

http://www.rpg.net/reviews/archive/15/15307.phtml

http://rpgpundit.xanga.com/753603956/item/

The forum - http://arion-games.com/bb/viewforum.php?f=13

The absoutle great thing about this game is it can be as rules heavy or rules light as you want it to be, it has a real focus on role playing rather than dice rolling, making combat straight forward.

Along with the New updated version of Dungeoneer they have re-released the wold book "Titan" and the monster manual "out of the pit" all available from Arion games.

I strongly recommend getting the extra books, titan is absolutely an amazing world to adventure in, and the monstrous manual is ridiculously handy.

The thing that got me super excited is that Arion is accepting adventures! I'm planning on sending in some stuff as soon as its been playtested.

On this page will be hosted adventures, rules, new races, new spells, new weapons and much, much more.  

And all of this will be created by you!

First up is “Raiders of the Desecrated Temple”, an adventure submitted to the Fighting Fantazine competition, and one of the excellent runners up.  In fact, so good that we had to have it here.  

If you have any created material you would like to share with others fans of the game, please email us here:

http://www.arion-games.com/aff-fan.html

its a pandemic!

Just been looking into the recent Version 2.0 of Advanced Fighting Fantasy, and I think I'm sold.  Just gotta do a bit more research, but that might be the ticket.

Maps!

Here's a map of Debinshire & the surrounding lands.  I'm planning on creating the world as time goes on, so I'm not forcing myself to put too much stock into it yet.  I'm just working on the world history slowly.

Debinshire is coming together

History 

Debinshire was founded only a few short years ago by Lord Gilabrand, an ex adventurer, who 

was looking for a place to settle down after he decided to retire.  The main source of income for 

the town is trade with merchants and the Local Mill.  Gilabrand is a just & fair lord.  The Town 

has been a gathering place for Demi Humans, most of the local inhabitants are Dwarf’s, 

Halflings and Half Elfs.  There is also a local iron mine that has seen much work grow for the 

inhabitants of the town.  There is a local guard, basically for keeping the peace in town (although 

sometimes they are the cause of unrest, unruly drunkenness!).  The local guard is made up of 

ex mercenaries hired by Gilabrand, although not evil per se, they are not military men and only 

owe as much loyalty to Gilabrand as his pocketbook.  Debinshire is technically a free town. 

There are yearly taxes payable to Gilabrand, and there are houses for sale. 

Rumor Mill 

1.  Guyzel is looking for hard to find ingredients 

2.  The Iron mill has had some trouble with monsters 

3.  The giants to the east have had an uprising 

4.  Kobolds have been seen on the outskirts of town 

5.  A few of the local guard have caused trouble in town

6.  Mysterious cloaked men have been seen in the late evenings. 

7.  Falcar the merchant is hiring caravan guards 

3.  Lord Gilabrands House 

 Lord Gilabrand’s (6th Halfling Thief) house is a modest 2 story 

thatched house.  Normally he doesn’t have visitors and meets with 

town inhabitants at the Three Toadstools in.  On rare occasions his 

house is guarded by the Local guard.   Gilabrand is a ex theif 

adventurer, with ties to the thieves guild in one of the bigger city’s.  (he 

owes them money!) He’s quick witted and mysterious for the most 

part.  He will make deals to better himself or his town. 

4.  Town Barracks

Small barracks located fairly close to Gilabrand’s house and in the centre of town.  This is where 

the guard sleeps and resides.  There are 5 members of the local guard all ex mercenaries.  The 

captain, “Erathor” is a mean old dwarf (5th Fighter, Dwarf), he is the only member of the guard 

that is loyal to Gilabrand, he actually owes him a favor.  Depending on the situation the guard can 

go down to 2 or 3 members, as they have no loyalty to Gilabrand and if a better opportunity 

comes up they will take it.  Most of the guard also work in the Iron mine. (4 ­ Town Guard 1st 

Level Fighters, Half Elf, Dward, Halfling) 

5.  Fonkin’s House 

Fonkin is a gnome sage (11th Illusionist) who has resided in 

Debinshire since its inception.  He spends most of his time deep in 

study or walking thru the north forest in search of herbs and 

ingredients.  (Fonkin may or may not be a Steel dragon).  He busies 

himself in his work and doesn’t spend a lot of time out and about in the 

town.  When he is out its usually dealing with a local merchant or 

having a quick drink at the Three Toadstools. 

6.  Falcar The Merchant - “Varieties Of Goods” 

Falcar is a Half Elf.  Semi travelling merchant, he owns a small store in the town of Debinshire 

where he keeps most of his goods locked up in a underground warehouse.  More often than not 

he is in town, but will hire adventures to guard his merchant caravans, normally twice a year he 

leaves Debinshire on a trade mission to purchase more stock for his store 

7.   Guyzel’s Alchemy 

Guyzel’s is a half elf alchemist, who mostly makes potions to aid natural complications like gout, 

sore knees, etc.  She does have a few magical potions including Healing & Bless in stock.  She 

sells her potions out of her house.  Having only been an alchemist for a few years, some of her 

potions can be a touch wonky.  When taking a Guyzel potion double check that it succeeds it 

has a 25% chance of failure.  Guyzle is currently looking for adventurers to seek out hard to find 

ingredients.

Goings on

Mentioned to my wife's cousin about D&D and it looks like he's into it! yah.  So now I have 2 players, which is friggin awesome.  I have the dungeon crawl basically ready to go, just a few little touch up and I need to write down some treasure and XP for the monsters.  I'm still working on the D6 idea, but taking a break from it for a bit I think.  Just got in over my head.