Tuesday, December 31, 2024

Year in Gaming 2024

Here we are at the end of 2024. How was it for gaming for me?

Running Dungeon Fantasy

I GMed 13 sessions of DF Felltower this year.

Session 190, Felltower 128 - Exploring Level 1
Session 191, Felltower 129 - Troll Treasure & Orc Holes
Session 192, Felltower 130 - Down, down, down the GFS
Session 193, Felltower 131 - Olympus Gate II, Part I
Session 194, Felltower 131 - Olympus Gate II, Part II
Session 195, Felltower 131 - Olympus Gate II, Part III
Session 196, Felltower 132 - Wells, Pools, and Cultists of the Good God
Session 197, Felltower 133 - Chimera, Stone Bulls, and Baby Mira
Session 198, Brotherhood Complex 6 - Gnolls & Doors
Session 199, Brotherhood Complex 6 - Gnolls & Doors, Part II
Session 200, Brotherhood Complex 7
Session 201, Brotherhood Complex 8 - Raid, Part I
Session 202, Brotherhood Complex 8 - Raid, Part II - War of the Robots

This was good, but far less than the 20 I'd hoped for. In fact, this might be the lowest total we had any year since we started. I think it's because we now have a solid core of players, and instead of playing as often as we can, we play as often 75% of more of the core players can make a session. I'm giving some thought about to deal with this.

We lost a few players this year - well, one, and it's clear some of the others aren't coming back. Kevin left the group due to a difference in play style (I think.) I think I can pinpoint the moment it occured. It's okay - my game isn't for everyone, and I don't let players create problems for themselves (say, by trashing entrances to the dungeon so they're hard to use) and then solve them for them (by handwaving the "hard to use" part.) If that costs me players, it's okay. It's just a bummer because I think he left just before the PCs went off and did something he'd be have been terribly interested in.

I was pleased with a few things in-game this year:

- a return to Olympus. There is one more era left, now, and it's a doozy.
- an attempt to do things with the pools. Mostly wasted, but still, it was actual methodical exploration.
- a successful attempt to re-open ways into Felltower.
- the PCs finally found the domed city at the bottom of Felltower.
- a persistent attempt to wipe out the Brotherhood Complex's inhabitants.

Good stuff overall.

Playing RPGs

None. Not one session.

Other Games & Gaming

I was able to play some other games this year:

Board Games:

Third World War: Persian Gulf - I had a great time playing this one, but the randomized system I used for card selection left the Warsaw Pact (okay, USSR) with very little time to really seize the gulf. They ended up with a substantial, but unsustainable, advantage, before logistical breakdown left them in the lurch. A player-chosen diplomatic approach would have placed far more emphasis on getting forces into Iran early. Oh well.

Revolt on Antares - I didn't get to play but I did finally replace my set. I'll play this year.

Video games:

GTA 3: Vice City Pathfinder: Kingmaker (Lawful Good Paladin aimed at getting the "best" ending)
Fantasy General (one battle left)
Grand Tactician: The American Civil War - played a short bit, I need to play more.

Not a great year for these games. I did get more done in Pathfinder, but as always I stall out in the complicated and not-terribly-fun phase-state House out of Time.

Writing

Almost none. My work-work got busy . . . I set myself a goal of +50% business for the year and met it. No time for writing with that going on.



Other stuff? No painting, although my readers (glasses) make it possible now. Lots of Felltower work. Some new gaming things I can enjoy to read and play with. But that's about it.

As years go for gaming . . . not bad, but not up to par. Next game is 1/12 and I hope to keep some kind of rhythm.

Monday, December 30, 2024

GURPS Session 202 - More Notes & Rulings

Just a few rulings from last session.

Can you do a swing/impaling attack to the eyes? Probably yes according to the rules, but no, we've long ruled that you can't. The angle required is just too specific to make that work and it breaks my suspension of disbelief badly - especially because it's likely going to be spammed out turn after turn.

How do armor divisors stack? We take the highest level, and then stack from there. So [2] and [2] become [3]. [5] and [2] become [10]. Those are the two you'll mostly see - bodkins vs. chinks in armor, or our version of Lightning vs. chinks in armor. By the way, I don't love the clunky way the Chinks in Armor rules work, and the name is clunky, too. I'll post some ideas on Thursday.

Can Knights learn Fast-Draw on the fly, even mid-combat? No. Per DF11, p. 29, Knights have access to "Melee Weapon skill improvement whenever points are available – even in battle!" That's not the same as "new combat and combat-related skills even in combat." We've (generously) interpreted "improvement" to include learning something, but it has to be a Melee Weapon skill.

Sunday, December 29, 2024

GURPS DF Session 202, Brotherhood Complex 8 - Raid, Part II - War of the Robots

Actual Date: 12/29/2024
Game Date: 12/12/2024
Weather: Cold, clear, dry.

Characters
Chop, human cleric (301 points)
      Brother Quinn, human initiate (125 points)
Duncan Tesadic, human wizard (335 points)
Hannari Ironhand, dwarf martial artist (316 points)
      Amlaric, human squire (125 points)
Persistance Montgomery (303 point knight)
Thor Halfskepna, human knight (306 points)
      Leon the Eye, human archer (125 points)
      Aaron, Brandon, Cedric, Dortmund, Ernie, Ferd, Grunlark, and Hansel, human guards (62 points)
      Bullworth and Oxford, human laborers (62 points)
      Honest Charles LeGrand, human squire (125 points)
Vladimir Luchnick, dwarf martial artist (298 points)


We picked up where we left off - the PCs had retreated from the second level of the dungeon to the first level to regroup, and meet up with latecomers Percy and Duncan. The full crew assembled, they headed back in, looking for the robots they'd glimpsed the last time, hoping to stomp on the group of them and take whatever treasure they had, while using their hired goons to watch the door to the stairs in case the wizards came up from below to bother them.

Perhaps surprisingly, one of those things happened. The PCs went back to near where they'd unleashed the mold, moved forward, and spotted a mechanical knight - one of the robots.

They enagaged it as it moved up to attack them. Vlad pinged a few arrows off of it and into it, inflicting some damage but not disabling it. It was joined by three more identical robots. The mechanical knights are fast and well armored, but very noisy. Giving off hisses, clanks, and grinding metal noises, they charged the PCs.

In a close-in slugfest the PCs beat the robots down, but it took time - they bounced many attacks, blocked more, dodged many, and just refused to go down. The PCs tried mobility kills, but even taking out a leg left them pulling themselves along the floor in a seated position to attack. They couldn't be disarmed as their weapon and shield are built-in. The PCs tried chopping legs, arms, feet, smashing the head, piling up damage on the torso, and the occasional Lighting and Stone Missile spells, but it took time to put them down. Chop helped with Curse -1 on robot after robot. Honest Charlies held off Percy and Thor's flanks until he was badly wounded, healed, and then wounded again and knocked out. The PCs realized that maybe while they were "holding the line," so were the robots.

Just as the PCs were putting down the 3rd of the 4, more showed up . . . followed shortly by another 10-12 more. Leading the larger pack was a metallic woman with blonde hair, a red robe with a blue sash, and an orb and a wand. They recognized her from rumors heard before about an iron woman who was in charge, and most recognized her description as the infamous Iron Witch of Cornwood.

The PCs kept fighting as the enemy piled up close. Even after they'd put a couple down, they sat back up. Hannari spiked on with a Liquid Ice grenade and froze it pretty badly, after which it didn't seem inclined to get back up. Same with one that Thor decapitated. Otherwise, they generally kept fighting despite disabling-seeming strikes.

The Iron Witch attracted their attacks as soon as she showed up. Hannari tossed a Magebane grenade at her, and she just laughed after it detonated around her. Clearly, she didn't need to breathe and was thus immune. She put up a shimmering shield around herself. Vlad tested for Missile Shield with two arrows - which missed, of course. Duncan tossed a 14d Explosive Lighting into her hex at the floor, and she dove to the floor to get further from the impact point. She was stunned, but only briefly, and cast spells as soon as she was able to get back to position to do so - only a couple of seconds. She cast a couple of spells on Percy and Almaric but they resisted.

As the session drew to a close, Percy drew Agar's Wand and let it dance, the Iron Witch readied a Stone Missile, and the PCs braced for more battle.

Notes:

For those not keeping track, "Robot," often pronounced "Robut" in Cornwood, is Cornwoodian dialect for golem or construct. So naturally, a Cornwoodian Mechanical Knight is a robot. Amusingly, the players pretty much started to see them as tech-based, and tried lightning (to short out the wires), stabbing the heart (perhaps where the power comes from), looking on their backs for a switch, box, or other vulnerable point. I won't spoil it, but it's worth noting that while mechanical in nature, they're not high tech, they're magic and magic-based engineering. No one is going to pull wires and battery packs out of them. Also, shout out to Gort of the Shining Force, who also used to call golems robots.

MVP was Percy for at least 10 critical hits. He got at least 7 in the first 4-5 seconds of the fight, and only missed outright once. He was crit-fishing with a 16 net skill, but that doesn't explain why he was critting at well over the predicted 10%.

There was some discussion about sending Agar's Wand to attack the Iron Witch, but the sword is more defensive than offensive. It can't be sent like an attack dog, and besides, it will protect its owner and fight evil in that order, so "rush through a bunch of unaligned golems to try and kill a wizard while your wielder is getting mobbed" isn't likely. My ambivalence on giving out magic items with any kind of self-will is that this happens - people seem to assume or at leas hope they're like super-PCs that do whatever a player would want. They never are.

Friday, December 27, 2024

Weekly Roundup 12/27/2024

Friday roundup.

- Does a game need something "heavy" to be sustainable? Interesting post and even more interesting comments.

The Fiction Becomes the System for Advancement; Or, Something Needs to be Heavy

- Yet another tiny buried rule - determining if your character is keen-eared in AD&D.

How to Read the AD&D Rules: Keen-eared individuals

If you want to check the rule at home, it's on pg. 60. So is the answer to the question posed in the post, too. Like surprise, this is one of those cases where a 1 is good, a 2 better, and a 3+ sucks. Freaking Gary Gygax, man.

- Game is Sunday. Last game of 2024!

Tuesday, December 24, 2024

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas to those who celebrate. I'll be back in a couple-three days.

Sunday, December 22, 2024

Felltower Work Today & Looking ahead to next session

Felltower

I spent today doing maps - not in the VTT, but on paper, for a few areas of Felltower and it's connected regions that I hadn't mapped out yet.

I also have a nice binder of graph paper that I am using to do small-scale maps I could potentially put in a VTT for when certain areas get explored. It's quite enjoyable, although I did realize I need a good L-ruler and small metal ruler, so I ordered those. Otherwise the artitecture templates I have from one of my players will do nicely for just about all mapping.

Brotherhood Complex

Next week the PCs will continue their delve into the Brotherhood complex, with the likely additions of Percy and Duncan. I figured I'd get a few potential questions out of the way with that.

More hirelings? Yes, Percy and Duncan can come with additional hirelings. They'll need to make the rolls themselves, bankroll it themselves, and otherwise equip them, if necessary. They can't have any retroactive help from the other PCs because they technically left after the others did, even if only shortly. I don't allow retroactive action in my games, with very few exceptions.

Extra consumables? Sure. They can bring whatever they want. If players want to order stuff on the sly through them and have them just happen to bring someone someone else suddenly realized they need . . . that's very meta, very lame, and very disappointing, but how would I know? I trust people to play the game they want.

XP for the full delve? Yes, everyone gets XP as if they participated from the beginning.

Friday, December 20, 2024

Friday Roundup

It's Friday, hurrah!

- So you want much more detail when you do dungeon stocking?

d4 Caltrops has you covered.

- This is one weird-looking Otyugh figure.

- I really enjoyed this issue of Dragon, #115. I was inspired to try and set up a thief-centered game. We did some character generation but we never did finish setting it all up.

- Next Felltower is 12/29.

Thursday, December 19, 2024

Stock up on GURPS PDFs

SJG is doing 15% on $20 or more of electronic goods:

Solstice Sale

If you need suggestions, I wrote a bunch of stuff. I highly recommend DFT3 if you're trying to figure out the magic items I hand out.

Enjoy.

Sunday, December 15, 2024

It's Almost Time for Another Felltower Questionnaire

It's been, oh, 7 years or so since I last did a player questionnaire.

I discussed the concept here:

Player's Campaign Feedback Questionnaires

I was vaguely considering this around session 200. We're now on 201. So my plan is, after the PCs finish either this next session or finishing sacking the Brotherhood Complex, I'll hand out a new set of questionnaires. Much will be the same, but I may add or change some questions to reflect current questions I have brewing around.

It's really a good time to take the temperature of the campaign and survey the players. So be on the lookout for that. And I'll post a questionnaire link at that time for anyone who wants to play along at home, or use the concept with their own games.

Saturday, December 14, 2024

Epic Games Free Game: Return to Moria

I haven't played it, but I grabbed it - Epic Games is giving away this game:

Return to Moria

Given that it's free, and I already have an Epic Games account, I went for it. Just passing along the news in case anyone is interested.

Friday, December 13, 2024

Friday Roundup 12/13/2024

End of another busy week.

- Computer RPG as a training device, perhaps? This 1979 CRPG has you play a doctor and prescribe treatment for patients. Pretty neat. Part of me feels like this is what were doing for nuclear reactors playing SCRAM! It didn't come up in my line of work, though. Probably for the better.

- Beowulf, as a DF Wrestler template GURPS character.

- Illustrations from Wizardry: Proving Ground of the Mad Overlord. I'd forgotten about Mordorcharge.

Tuesday, December 10, 2024

OSR Christmas at Tenkar's Tavern

Tenkar has a list up of what will be in the OSR Christmas. Have something you want to give away? Contact him at the email in the post.

Updated With More Gifts! OSR Christmas 2024!

Monday, December 9, 2024

More rulings & notes from session 201

Yesterday was session 201.

More notes!

Mocking their best option. At one point, Thor moved up into the guards vs. cultists fray, and a cultist stepped up from 2 hexes away to adjacent to Thor. Thor's player said, "Are you seriously stepping close to the human Quisinart?" and I said, "Yes." I mean, what an idiot. This fool was stepping from 2 hexes away from Thor, who has a 2-hex sword, into 1-hex range, where the cultist's club can hit. Thor's player instantly retracted it, but it was a funny moment - the cultist literally did the most combat-effective move he could do in the situation - stepped into a gap in a line, closed in on a fighter with a longer reach weapon than him, and attacked.

The fact that he was totally doomed was a whole different manner, but hey, with cultists resisting intruders, "Surrender because I'm probably overmatched" was about as much of an option for him as "Go home empty handed" was for Thor.

So if throw with both hands . . . Yes, I allow Dual-Weapon Attack with thrown weapons. It's about as silly as can be (just picture it), but I allow it. You must target the same or adjacent hexes unless you have Enhanced Tracking, which allows seperately aimed ranged attacks. There was a suggestion that cone rules could be applied to determine an appropriate spread of potential targets, but that'll be complex and I don't think any better from a play perspective. It'll be even harder to rationalize, and harder to actually implement. Same with "one automatically scatters." That's easier but I'm not sure it's really more believable that one always misses by 1 at a minimum.

More VTT notes. It would be nice if the character in a hex that is "up" on the turn order would be automatically selected. It would be nice if I could put names on tokens Always on Top. It would be nice if I could apprend a random 3-digit number in () after each name of duplicated characters so I can tell them apart. It would be nice if I could drag-and-drop damage onto the characters on the turn tracker. Also, it would be nice if status was a drop-down menu unconnected to a token - drag and drop status effects would vastly speed up dealing with mooks.

Hirelings cost how much? The PCs spent around $4K on 8 guards, 2 laborers, and 4 125-point hirelings. That's 14 people, some with substantial pay asks. Also, they promised higher pay in order to help find them (see, "Where did you find these guys?" in DF15) - and that adds up. It would have be a lot less if they'd offered normal rates.

Do we get a bonus to find known guys? No. If you took a -3 to get an elf with broadsword and Fireball it's -3 to find that same guy again. It's not -0 because it's a known person. It's just pure luck and GM laziness that makes it the same character next time, not because it's easier to find the guy the next time. Maybe realistically it would be, but it's a game and I don't want to reward gaming the system by jacking up the bonuses to find a specific type of character and then not needing those bonuses net time for that same character. No thanks.

Ho, Ho, Ho? Next game is likely 12/22, and/or 12/29. We'll see.

Sunday, December 8, 2024

GURPS DF Session 201, Brotherhood Complex 8 - Raid, Part I

Actual Date: 12/8/2024
Game Date: 12/12/2024
Weather: Cold, clear, dry.

Characters
Chop, human cleric (301 points)
     Brother Quinn, human initiate (125 points)
Hannari Ironhand, dwarf martial artist (316 points)
     Amlaric, human squire (125 points)
Thor Halfskepna, human knight (306 points)
     Leon the Eye, human archer (125 points)
     Aaron, Brandon, Cedric, Dortmund, Ernie, Ferd, Grunlark, and Hansel, human guards (62 points)
     Bullworth and Oxford, human laborers (62 points)
     Honest Charles LeGrand, human squire (125 points)
Vladimir Luchnick, dwarf martial artist (298 points)

The PCs hired up a bunch of able-bodied men, purchased sacks and backpacks and rations, and headed off to the Brotherhood Complex. They reached it in due course, and headed in.

Long story short, they tried to head "left" towards "the gnolls." Naturally this entailed going straight and right, and going right back to where they fought the guards last time. There, thanks to confused guidance by Vlad, they headed to the "barracks," only to find a hallway to a storeroom. As they took a look at it, their mass of guards yelled, "We're under attack!" as shouts of "Get them!" and "Attack!" rang out.

The PCs turned to find their rear guards fighting a mass of robed, club-and-shield bearing cultists.

In a short, sharp fight, one of the guards was knocked out (and two had their cheap swords break) and most were wounded . . . and all 12 of the cultist guards were down - dead, crippled, or just out. Hannari and Thor took out a couple, Vlad a bunch more, and their guards and Honest Charles a few as well. Chop used Command to keep the enemy off balance until they were all downed.

The PCs left their NPCs to loot the guards and searched the rooms they came from. They wanted prisoners to question, but didn't bother to bind up with wounded . . . and left them in the care of NPCs that include one with Bloodlust (6) . . .

The PCs found some coinage, a box of spices, and a food and drink. They dumped out the food, spilled a barrel of vinegared water on the mess, and dunked three corpses in the water, wine, and vinegared water. Once everything was ruined, they headed around the complex.

They found a dead end (checked with See Secrets), and a few more doors that all led back to the room with the black hand on the floor. From there, they checked a few more corridors, and found a door. Thor forced it open . . . and suffered a massive wave of cold that chilled him to the bone. In front of him was a sizeable room full of brown mold. They fled as the mold expanded, accidentally running into a dead end and then back out. Only Thor was harmed, and they backed off.

Needing a short break, they retreated to the entrance to fully regroup. We ended there.

Notes:

- the whole fight was under 9 full seconds. Fights in GURPS are ridiculously fast. For a small, cloe melee, it makes sense, but in actual play, 1 second turns means a guy search a room takes 3 seconds to turn, run down a hallway to a fight, find foes, and kill about one per second for 5 seconds. It took longer to write this sentence than for 30 combatants to fight until 12 of them were down or dead. It just feels too short. Part of me sympathizes with people who just say turns are 3-5 seconds but don't allow any additional actions. The whole brawl taking 30-60 seconds would feel brief but not crack versisimilitude like this does. The whole fight took about, oh, 3 hours to play out. Long for a mook fight, but with 30 combatants, it was slow to resolve. That makes it feel doubly weird when it turns out to be only a few seconds long.

- MVP was Chop, who used Command very effectively to break up the cultist's attempts to keep fighting.

- the whole "stop and regroup" thing is a way to allow us to let the PCs continue their delve - they spent a lot on NPCs - like $4000 - and want their money's worth, but also to allow our missing players to join next time. Since it wasn't in a fight or even in a crisis situation, it seemed reasonable to allow them to regroup for 15-20 minutes, heal and recover fatigue, and then head further into the complex.

Fun and productive session, even if it looks short on the summary.

Saturday, December 7, 2024

Final game prep

I had only a little to do today for game, and not a lot of energy to do more. So I:

- ensured the VTT is up to date

- updated the rumors for Felltower

- ensured my manuals, maps, and so on are ready to go.

Nice bit about a persistant dungeon game is that I don't have to do too much.

Friday, December 6, 2024

Friday Roundup 12/6/2024

It was a good week for reading:

- Echoes from the Geekcave has a post about why he uses the 1 gp = 1/10 lb standard. I don't love it, but I understand his arguments for keeping it.

- Tom Van Winkle wrote "The Historical Argument about Racial Diversity in D&D." I present it mostly as a post of interest - I stay out of the whole discussion of gaming as a whole as much as possible. I like our game, and how we do it, and the silliness and whatnot that comes with it. I won't pretend it's a model of any particular ideology or worldview, but it does produce a lot of fun. When I do take a look around at gaming as a whole, it always seems to be like it was in the past - a lot of people fighting about who's way of playing is right and why it's right. I'd rather take a pass on all of that these days . . . but I always like to see TVW's take on subjects.

- I finished Jon Peterson's book, that I started back in August.

I'll stand by my description in that link - it's a more readable story of the development of D&D and roleplaying games. I just liked the detail more in the 1st edition; this read more like his later work, Game Wizards. I enjoyed it well enough, but I don't think I'll return to it again in the way that I did and do with the 1st edition.

- Felltower is Sunday . . . small group - 3-4 players? - and we'll see. It's likely they'll skip the Brotherhood Complex without the firepower of Duncan and Persistance Montgomery. NPCs just can't provide enough to make up for a couple of 300-point PCs.

- Iron Llama on how to play GURPS!

Monday, December 2, 2024

More VTT questions for Felltower

I've had a little more time, so I've been spending it on learning my VTT of choice more in order to enhance Felltower. I found a good source of tokens, so I'm largely good there. And for terrain, too, but that opens up a whole new set of issues.

I do have some things I need to learn:

- How to put down a tile as a texture on the ground, rather than as a moveable object.

- How to use images as terrain features without making them moveable tokens. Maybe that's the same as what I just noted.

- How to attach light sources to objects without having to make them actors/tokens.

- What the heck Region does.

- How to make light sources visibly working even when you can see without them. Right now, guys with Dark Vision can't tell you there is a torch lighting an area, which is odd.

That's about it for now. I'm working on these.

Sunday, December 1, 2024

Felltower Update

Next game of Felltower is 12/8, so today I:

- finished some VTT work

- tried out some mapping software for battlemaps

- updated a few monsters

- did a final update pass on the Brotherhood Complex as of 12/7/24, so it'll be ready to go next Sunday.

Should be fun!
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