As you can see

I decided to incorporate 2 other things into this blog that are not RPG related,  just for the simple sake that I spend an inordinate amount of time on blogger, it only made sense.  These are static pages, so you won't be getting a jumble of updates, do however keep an eye on the OSR Compatible page, as I will be posting my adventures there as soon as I finish some.  The other 2 pages are the following;

One Blue Door - I play in a local "prairie rock band" called One Blue Door, if your into music check it out

Patchbay.tv - I do a weekly podcast about audio production with my co-host Whisker, there's some information on the page about what we do.

Thanks for listening.

-Shane

New sexy logo!

I got bored, made a new logo! I still got the bad assed green color from the old maps in it :) If you need a new logo, send me a message.  shanepatrickward@gmail.com

Shout Out! Dreams of Mythic Fantasy

Thanks for the traffic buddy! I'm listed under the "666 Layers Of The OSR Blogsphere" Check it out James site http://dreamsofmythicfantasy.blogspot.ca/ lots of good links and discussions.  He has a guide to free OSR resources right here - http://dreamsofmythicfantasy.blogspot.ca/p/guide-to-free-osr-resources.html

Update

A few quick little updates for Monday.  I'm still working on my Greek themed adventure module, I'm hoping to get that done by December.  I'll keep you posted on it.  I'm trying to get as many historically accurate references into it, which is taking a bit of time as far as research goes.

After having a discussion with my players, we are going to take a break from playing some Old School D&D type games, and move to a campaign using Advanced fighting fantasy, (you can grab a starter copy on drivethrurpg)

I've briefly discussed this idea before, the premise is going to be based on Terry Brooks books about the magical world of Landover.  I'll be posting a bit about the campaign as time goes on.  However it is a copyrighted work, so probaly not a ton of information.  The big reason for this is that my players want to "grow with experience" and the way AFF deals with experience this will allow them to have PC's for a bit longer than one adventure.  To a degree it will be slightly railroaded, however I'm planning on setting up 3 or more options for adventures at the start that will all eventually coincide together.  Because the players start out a bit tougher I can throw a few tougher things at them.  This is what I have so far (planned ideas).

A "plane of hell" type dungeon crawl, where they have to fight demons
A actual full scale battle 
A trip into a fairies realm, sort of a very misty forest where the border's end in mist. 
A meeting with an old Dragon, (either to fight or to negotiate with).  
A sandbox map that is bordered on all sides by the faire mists

Should be interesting.  The other thing I'm doing is writing this old school, pencil & paper, no computers, just a notebook.

TPK & Dice Rollin'!

During my recent game, the PCs had a lot of monsters to battle 2 PC's vs 8 goblins with 3 HP's each.  Due to the fact that the PC's were rolling horribly, they couldn't hit the AC whatsoever, they kept both rolling like 3,4,5,6s meanwhile I was rolling 17's and 20's the whole time.  

I used damage by weapon, but since I was rolling AMAZING, I ended up using D4's for all monster damage, just so it wouldn't be a total TPK.  I was running Blueholme rules, and had realized that blueholme has all damage as D6's which I found a bit odd, as I had always been used to damage by weapon.  "Its a puny dagger!"

Couple of things I'm wondering 

1 - Have you ever used the Holmes system were you only use D6's for damage?  (You can pretty much play this game with percentile dice, 1D20 and some d6's) 

2 - In the above example where there were 2 PCs vs 8 Goblins, and in some cases 2 PC's + 2 Hired Goons Vs 10 or more goblins, there was an INCREDIBLE amount of rolling, and as I said they were rolling horribly.  Have you ever got tired of rolling? it seemed like "K you miss, they miss, I miss, damn it!".  And these were only goblins with 3 HPs! What in the heck woulda happened if I threw a monster at them with 20 or more.... that would have been the whole night.  Have you ever speed this up? and if so how? 

Have the DM roll for the hired goons? 

decrease the hit points of the monster? 

The Cult Of The Black Fist

After this last weekends game session I've had a few more thoughts on role playing the Keep on the borderlands.  +Johua De Santo  had suggested that the Priests that inhabit the keep are bringing all manner of evil minions to help with the resurrecting of a evil god (in his version of the game).  Taking that premise, I created the "Cult Of The Black Fist", All of the Evil Priest's in the "Keep on the borderlands" are members.  Most of the goblins, etc are seen wearing smocks, that cover there armor with a fist squeezing a world, (ala LOTR).  The Cults main mission is to gather together enough Monsters to help them to take over the keep and run the commoners out of the borderlands for good.  This way the Cult can continue with there weird experiments, etc.

In the next adventure I've decided the following things as a beginning premise,

1.  The Captain of the guard at the keep has been mysteriously assassinated, leaving the troops leaderless

2.   Hordes of monsters wearing the black fist's logo are starting to convene near the keep, balista's and war machines are moving.

3.  The lord, wants the PC's to consult with the Elves, to see if they will come to the Keep's aid.

4.  The Cult is also consulting with the Elves.

5.  The PC's need to escape the keep thru an underground network of tunnels, and then make it thru a forest adventure to find the Elves village.  There the Elven king will send them on a quest for an ancient relic to prove the "worthiness of men".  When the PC's get there they will meet up with a member of the Cult, who is also trying to gain favor of the elves.

6.  a dungeon or some kinda crawl to find the Ancient relic.  There are cultist's within the dungeon, some dead, some actively trying to stop the PC's from finding the relic.  Other's searching for it themselves.  At one point I would like to have one of the Cult have to work with the PCs.   (much like Storm Shadow in GI JOE 2 Retaliation movie).

This is what I have so far.

WOW Did I learn a lot this weekend. (keep those dice a rollin!)

I was finaly able to play a game this weekend, and here are a few thoughts about it, future endeavors (ie Dungeon Delves), and some seriously hysterical things that happened during the adventure!

First things first the hysterical things!

Whilst playing the PC's had hired some mercenaries to accompany them back to the Caves Of Chaos, this was there second time being there, and had nearly died the first venture out, so they figured it was best to have some extra muscle.  I rolled up 2 quick "minions"... I was trying to come up with names for these guys (I need a names list!)  and one of my players turned to me and said "just call em Hired goons"... ala the simpsons.  So that's what ended up on the paper, Hired Goon #1 AC6 HP6 etc.  hahaha!

During the second raid on the caves, the PC's fought thru the goblin caves, I extensively used BREE YARK! Which I absolutely love btw.  They finally ran into the room with the Ogre, the goblins paid him his 250 GP for help, and he decided to come lumbering into the room and give them a hand.  (as I really don't like killing PC's off to early, see below) I decided to decrease the Ogre's HP total and his treasure to give the PC's some experience and some fun.  As they were getting a touch bored with just killing goblins (you walk into a room, there's more goblins....) I had talked to one of my players and said here's how the game sorta works, if you roll up a low intelligence you need to play a bit dumber than you normally would.  And also to think outside the box when killing monsters,and playing etc.  Well he did just that! He suggested he take the 50 ft of rope, give it to the hired goons and have them run around the ogre, just like in Star Wars 5 with the Walkers and the A wings.  I rolled some dice behind the screen, said yup that'll work.  I gave them some experience, and had them test the dexterity skill of the hired goons and viola! dead ogre.

So I'm hoping that was entertaining.  now for the meat and potatoes of the evening.

We started out the evening creating characters, which my wife found quite boring soon enough.  However they pressed on, and after they were done creating I introduced them to the keep.  Actually scratch that one of my players, did, he read the opening from the "Keep On The Borderlands", but the real funny stuff in-sued, as he read each paragraph in a different accent!

After I made them go around the town and meet the smith , trader and the Inn, buying equipment and stuff.  I started giving them rumors.  One of which was the mad hermit.  They preceded to go out and try and find him.  I gave them some time searching and then had the hermit show up out of the blue, claiming he was a priest of the church of nature.  He of course had to have a nervous tick, so I had him say "meow" at the end of ever sentence.   He decided to come with them on an adventure,  about 10 to 20 minutes later, on the way back to the keep I the mad hermit's mountain lion appear out of nowhere and start attacking.  As the first round closed the PC's were surprised that the old hermit had pulled a dagger on them!

At one point during the adventure both mercenaries died, and one of my PC's said "Okay we drag them back to the keep by there beards, and if they want more money we will take it out of there Inn money". Meaning they would pay the hired goons week's stay at the Inn. 

Thankfully I had the smarts to write down some names for the Inn , trader,etc in the Keep, here they are...

The Tavern - The Balding Minotaur 

The Smith - Blackened Tongs.... although as time went on it became Blackened Thongs

Trader - Gradak's Fine treasures from near & far. 

Thoughts on DMing

I couldn't quite decided on which adventure I wanted to run, as I had about an hour before one of the PC's was going to show up at our house.  What I've come to realize is that I like fast & light systems, with a bit of back story.  Not that there is anything wrong with OSR D&D B/X , and as a side note I'm still planning on purchasing the B/X downloads.  But here's the issue I was having.... 

I kept looking at the Chaotic Caves & Basic Fantasy, since I hadn't ran any Basic fantasy, I had originally thought I'd give it a go, but the bigger rule book & the not having much experience playing it, made me think otherwise.  (ascending AC and lots of extra pluses) 

I decided instead to grab Blueholme prentice rules & the Keep on the borderlands, as it was 2 small books, I was already pretty familiar with the rules and descending AC, etc.  

I did a bit of mashup, using mostly the Basic D&D information inside the Keep on the borderlands, (weapon damage, thaco's etc) and any other information I needed I found in the Blueholme book (seriously its like 15 pages! super handy) 

Alright now for the complaining (damn it this is a long post!) 

This isn't so much complaining as "I need to become a better DM!" 

First, while running the keep on the borderlands , I really should have read thru the whole adventure once or twice, and written some more parts to it.  A few times the PC's would come into a room, and I'd be like "okay give me a minute"... and then it would take longer than that, and I'd start getting "Loading....."  Obviously being a good DM takes practice first and foremost.

Further to that, Even though I quite liked the Keep, it left a lot to be desired on the part of the PC's, Which is why the next adventure I run is going to be more along the lines of "you need to do this", rather than an open ended sandbox.  For me, I think its more imperative for plot lines and NPC's.  when I think of it, the keep, its really just a meat fest.  I mean don't get me wrong, I really like it as a module.  But I need a little something more, (OR I SHOULD HAVE WRITTEN MORE!) 

Another thing I have to really get better at is combat, thaco, calculating hits, etc. 

remind me one day to have a discussion about proper role playing of monsters. 

Three - Never tell your player's under any circumstances that you've fudged some numbers here and there. 

Four - do you ever find combat tedious? the whole time it was okay "we attack" and rolling rolling rolling.... keep those dice a rollin!

Five - Yesterday I had a discussion with my wife about playing D&D and she hadn't realized that its not a game about winning but a game about having fun.  I made her read the opening to Blueholme on "winning", (you can find the same type of paragraph in countless other retroclones) but it really does put the game in perspective.  The biggest point for me was the Character death thing, I always have a tendency to want to keep the players alive, atleast for a little bit.  But in the little write up it says "PC death is just one thing, you can always roll up another player and continue.. the campaign isn't over till everyone agrees its over". 

So inclusion, I have a lot of work to do, to be a better DM.  I still plan on playing B/X, but I think in the future I'm going to work on more story oriented adventures rather than straight hack n slash, (which is what the keep felt like). 

The biggest thing is becoming a better DM.