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Coming to prominence during the reconstruction years following World War II, Shotokan has become synonymous with Karate. Time for our take on this iconic style.

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This was meant to be the last session of our campaign; players get into the city, convince the nobles to let them lead the defence, have a minor speedbump fight against a traitor in the city, then big set-piece battle. Easy.

Except the dice had other ideas. I like to roll in the open anyway so that players can see they have a fair chance, and we're playing via Discord so we have a dice bot to handle that (Some of the players roll their own physical dice sometimes, but I don't really mind - if people are stressed enough they need to cheat in my game, whatever, it's stressful times). It's easy.

Except today the dice were really against the players - what was meant to be a minor inconvenience before the battle turned into a near TPK as the dice really turned against them. Even with a few NPC allies, most of the PC's ended up on deaths door, and with open rolls I really didn't have any opportunity to fudge anything even if I wanted to. One of my players is incredibly calm in real life, but after losing yet another combat round, he swore more in a few minutes than I've ever heard him in the twelve years I've known him. It was pretty funny in a grimly comic way, but I felt really bad for them because they weren't doing anything wrong, the dice just decided to screw them over. After the fight we agreed it was a good time to end the session, as there definitely wouldn't have been time for the final conflict even if the players had been up for it.
 
Picked back up with the Basic Fantasy game yesterday afternoon, with the teens leaving the village they holed up for the winter now that spring has sprung, eager to leave behind the memories of the villages having their heads forcibly removed by the Mi-Go. Some of them are starting to scout out locations for strongholds and the like, specifically the M-U wanting to build a wizard's tower and the cleric trying to determine where to build a new temple when they both hit sufficient level to do so.

Got part way through the adventure where they investigated a hidden, isolated valley where a meteor impact years earlier had altered and mutated the surroundings with the waters of Wormwood. Now, there was already plenty of indication once there that they probably shouldn't do so, but with one of them basically able to use True Sight at will, I figured it was a given that none of them would drink from the mutating waters.

So of course one of them did.

"There's too many secrets, too many questions and riddles we don't know the answers to. We need more information. We need all the information." *pause* "Also, I'm a dwarf, which means I'm pretty much an alcoholic anyways, so drinking away the pain is already kind of a given."

Also, I think our 5e DM has turned a corner. He knows the rules very well, but he's occasionally struggled a bit when we do something his scenario doesn't account for. So when we went off the rails in last night's game (it's not like it's something we deliberately try to do, it just happens), there was that brief pause where I could see he was trying to mentally figure out how to square the circle with our actions diverging from what he had expected... and then he just gets that "ah, fuck it" look in his eyes, and he just starts to roll with it. By the end of the session he seemed a lot looser, and we were all having more fun as a result.
 
More Basic D&D, this time the kids rolled up elves named Mystic and Iron Will and helped travelers recover a treasure stolen by goblin bandits. They trailed the goblins to a cave hideout and found a hidden passageway in a storeroom to a secret treasure chamber. Iron Will smashed an innocuous statue of a goblin hero "because sometimes statutes come to life." They killed three goblins and the others fled after being injured. Mystic suffered barely a scratch while Iron Will was down to his last hit point by the time they returned the treasure to its rightful owners in exchange for a reward.
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Belatedly realizing that, rather than continuing to hope for the days when my Savage Worlds group will play 4-hour sessions, which will never come, I should just plan my games to maximize the fun in the 2-to-2.5 hour sessions we do have.
 
Belatedly realizing that, rather than continuing to hope for the days when my Savage Worlds group will play 4-hour sessions, which will never come, I should just plan my games to maximize the fun in the 2-to-2.5 hour sessions we do have.
I run a weekly 2 hour D&D 5e group. We plod along but everyone is having fun. What might easily be a 4-5 hour single session becomes a three week affair. I suspect though it will get faster as everyone gets more comfortable. It also keeps everyone very focused.
 
This was meant to be the last session of our campaign; players get into the city, convince the nobles to let them lead the defence, have a minor speedbump fight against a traitor in the city, then big set-piece battle. Easy.

Except the dice had other ideas. I like to roll in the open anyway so that players can see they have a fair chance, and we're playing via Discord so we have a dice bot to handle that (Some of the players roll their own physical dice sometimes, but I don't really mind - if people are stressed enough they need to cheat in my game, whatever, it's stressful times). It's easy.

Except today the dice were really against the players - what was meant to be a minor inconvenience before the battle turned into a near TPK as the dice really turned against them. Even with a few NPC allies, most of the PC's ended up on deaths door, and with open rolls I really didn't have any opportunity to fudge anything even if I wanted to. One of my players is incredibly calm in real life, but after losing yet another combat round, he swore more in a few minutes than I've ever heard him in the twelve years I've known him. It was pretty funny in a grimly comic way, but I felt really bad for them because they weren't doing anything wrong, the dice just decided to screw them over. After the fight we agreed it was a good time to end the session, as there definitely wouldn't have been time for the final conflict even if the players had been up for it.
Sounds like a memorable fight to me!
 
By popular demand, the adventures of Mystic and Iron Will continued today. The duo ventured to the next village to deliver a message to the cousin of the merchant traveler whose treasure they rescued last outing. While in the village Mystic stole a cat from the inn and Iron Will found an old wizard to conduct three tests on the sword he selected as a reward: after passing the acid test, the tar test, and a Detect Magic spell, the wizard was able to read an inscription in Ancient Dwarf, which revealed the sword to be named "Orcslayer." (Mystic wanted to have her cat tested as well, but didn't want to subject it to the acid test so ended up giving it a pass.)
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Mystic now has a cat named Lilliberry on her character sheet
When Iron Will came back from the wizard's tower and started shouting about his sword, he attracted the attention of two displaced monks of Anubis from the Temple of the Dog, who sought the elves' aid in taking back their temple from the orcs who took it over and now occupy it.
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Iron Will took off his helmet and started being called "Kel"
The duo rode in a covered wagon to the monks' boathouse by the valley river and then took the boat across the river to the small island where the Temple of the Dog stands upon a hill. When they arrived at the dock on the other bank, they argued about whose job it was to secure the boat to its mooring: the end result being their boat floated away on the current and they were ambushed by orcs with spears and bows.

After the injured orcs fled, Mystic and Iron Will tracked them through a trapdoor in the island boathouse and up a tunnel by following the trail of green orc blood. Smashing through a gate at the end of the tunnel, they gained access to the lowest level of the temple and investigated a wine cellar-cum-storage room and a sauna/Turkish bath where they happened upon the injured orcs receiving medical aid from three more orcs. In the hands of Iron Will, Orcslayer split one orc vertically down the middle while Mystic disemboweled a second and decapitated a third, whose head splashed into the Turkish bath and oozed a cloud of green blood into the water. The two already-injured orcs surrendered and were allowed to flee via the tunnel after revealing there are three orcs remaining in the upper levels of the Temple of the Dog.
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My son's illustration of an orc with a bloody axe
We left off there and they want to resume tomorrow...
 
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My son asked me what orcs look like and I always go with the old porcine-style orcs. I didn't show him any pictures, though, so I thought it was pretty neat when he drew this dude complete with tusks and green flesh yesterday:
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I'm informed this is "Bob the Ork" [sic]. My son went ahead and assigned him attribute scores as well:
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Not to be outdone, his sister is also developing a slew of NPCs and drawing a map of the elf village their PCs come from. I don't currently have permission to snap photos as they aren't done yet, but I do know that Mystic now has a sister named Amber and there's apparently a magic-user with "every spell" and "4,000,000,000,000,000 hit points." Kind of reminds me of those kooky letters we used to see in old issues of The Dragon and the ensuing forum arguments about "Monty Haul campaigns." :hehe:
 
You want to ship it to one of us and have is forward it on? Not sure how hard or easy that would be but we could explore it.
I appreciate the offer - if it was something special, maybe, but this isn't worth it. I'm just annoyed at Nobleknight for this because 1) it's a used item, and they aren't a storefront for GW, and 2) its a Mordheim miniature, meaning it predates 2012 by quite a bit, so it's all just a big ball of bullshit, wrapped in a bullshit burrito and smothered in bullshit sauce.
 
I appreciate the offer - if it was something special, maybe, but this isn't worth it. I'm just annoyed at Nobleknight for this because 1) it's a used item, and they aren't a storefront for GW, and 2) its a Mordheim miniature, meaning it predates 2012 by quite a bit, so it's all just a big ball of bullshit, wrapped in a bullshit burrito and smothered in bullshit sauce.
What does Taco Bell have to do with this?
 
I worked in an air-gapped lab, but when I was randomly typing and waiting a few times, I piled up a list of "threads I'll have to start on the pub sometime".

I dropped by the lab today and was reminded this doc existed.

I may need to drop some threads soon.
 
In related news, one of the teens in my Basic Fantasy group took his first stab at DMing last night, running D&D 5e for the other teens.

It seems three of the five PCs died in the first combat. I jokingly told him that was 'a good start', but he's annoyed with himself because he thinks he screwed up and did something wrong.
 
In related news, one of the teens in my Basic Fantasy group took his first stab at DMing last night, running D&D 5e for the other teens.

It seems three of the five PCs died in the first combat. I jokingly told him that was 'a good start', but he's annoyed with himself because he thinks he screwed up and did something wrong.

I have definitely been in games where the GM was responsible for a TPK / near TPK but in most cases the players are at fault. In one of the classic blunders the GM had a situation set up with the intent of capturing the party. There was an absolutely overpowering force demanding the surrender of the party, no way any of the players should have expected a hard fight could win. Half the players were like LEROY JENKINS!!!! and the other half were like wait what, ah hell. It was so bad the GM just stopped the game and suggested we play Talisman for the rest of the night. Picked up the next session with the PCs captured, no questions asked or answered. :tongue:
 
In related news, one of the teens in my Basic Fantasy group took his first stab at DMing last night, running D&D 5e for the other teens.

It seems three of the five PCs died in the first combat. I jokingly told him that was 'a good start', but he's annoyed with himself because he thinks he screwed up and did something wrong.
Well, he did! That's only a 60% kill rate. :devil:
 
Stupid game Ark is taking up way too much of my game. Stupid game and it’s stupid stuff thar makes me play way too much. Stupid.

also niece living with us likes Skyrim (Xbox *hiss*) so I might get her into roleplaying games now. Skyrim I can do. I can almost do it off the top of my head. Hundreds of hours of it.
 
Stupid game Ark is taking up way too much of my game. Stupid game and it’s stupid stuff thar makes me play way too much. Stupid.

also niece living with us likes Skyrim (Xbox *hiss*) so I might get her into roleplaying games now. Skyrim I can do. I can almost do it off the top of my head. Hundreds of hours of it.

I know your wife's pain. My wife has recently gotten back into Ark. She had given up on it following a massive server glitch that wiped out years worth of effort. At her sister's wedding a couple months back our nephew was having trouble with Ark and she got on to show him how to do some stuff. The bug bit her hard and she is back in. I'll miss her. :grin: I won't play because I know I would be just as bad and I have stuff that needs to get done.
 
I have definitely been in games where the GM was responsible for a TPK / near TPK but in most cases the players are at fault. In one of the classic blunders the GM had a situation set up with the intent of capturing the party. There was an absolutely overpowering force demanding the surrender of the party, no way any of the players should have expected a hard fight could win. Half the players were like LEROY JENKINS!!!! and the other half were like wait what, ah hell. It was so bad the GM just stopped the game and suggested we play Talisman for the rest of the night. Picked up the next session with the PCs captured, no questions asked or answered. :tongue:
It seems that in 5e being even slightly outnumbered (six goblins vs the five PCs) can be a big deal. I've got the DM for my adult group messaging him, to give some advice, feedback, and encouragement.

To be fair, they tried to use stealth for an ambush, but rolled poorly, and then lost initiative, and then it apparently really went south from there. With those not slain barely escaping.

Now that I think about it, with the adult 5e group I can only think of one time when we were numerically outnumbered (by orcs, just as most of us had hit 3rd level), and even so there's been a couple of deaths and quite a few close calls. At first I didn't think 5e was particularly deadly, given that the classes have more powers and capabilities, but I guess the monsters have been ramped up in deadliness, as well.

He (the new DM) is going to see if the group wants a reboot, or continue on with new characters in addition to the two survivors.
 
Covid shut down face to face - so the new (three sessions in) HARP Fantasy using Discord is go - all new to HARP but we are having a good time - meanwhile I'm trying to learn Campaign Cartographer to get maps onto Roll20 for the upcoming night attack.
Welcome to the pub Peter the Sane Peter the Sane ! We were using MSpaint for maps in my discord D&D group, but the DM finally got a jury rigged webcam mount setup over a table for regular maps last session. Just in time to get murdered by a red dragon! The mount is made out of Legos and uses a battery and matchbox to hold up the camera.
 
This afternoon we finally finished off my AFF campaign. This week's session had the party planning the defense of Kaad using their improvised army (Goblins, swamp people, and townsfolk) against the combined forces of Elim (Two orc tribes, a warband of human cultists, and their evil priest leader). I'd put together a simple mass combat system so I could run the battle in the background, but with enough scope that the PC's could easily interfere; most of the group decided to sneak through the battle to take on the evil priest personally, but the recently-crowned King of the Goblins rode into battle with his troops, on the biggest and meanest wolf the goblins could find.

The armies clashed between two woods, with a few human and goblin cavalry units hiding in a wood for flank charges, while the PC's and most of the goblin wolf cavalry made straight for the Elimite cultists. The swamp people had the upper hand against the orcs, while the goblin cavalry slammed straight into the cultists, swiftly breaking them. The main battleline continued to grind away at each other while the PC's charged into the priest's personal bodyguard, and the successful goblin wolf riders charged into the orc tribes from behind, trapping them between three forces.

The PC's made short work of the bodyguards and then engaged the priest in combat; while he was immune to non-magical attacks, they could still pin him down for long enough for a swamp man shaman to get behind him and hit him with the powerful Staff of Ashra, resulting in his total destruction... maybe... and the remaining orcs fleeing the field.

Everybody agreed it had went really well, and they'd enjoyed the battle planning and the level of involvement they had in it without it being a full-on wargame; it had felt like their decisions influenced it a lot, and had bought everything to a satisfactory conclusion (The session really did just fly by). They also enjoyed the campaign and the storyline through it.

A job well done, I reckon.
 
Metahuman News
A teen born of two spirits and trapped between two lands. Will they be a pawn or will their story help expose corruption seeking to erode the laws when it's so easy to overlook the nations within the nation. How does it begin?
The Story Of Wolf and Bear

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#Metahumans #MetahumansRising #Superheroes #RPG #TTRPG
 
These days:

GMing:

RQ1.5 every other week on Roll20
Starting soon Classic Traveller 1977 every other week on Roll20
OD&D play by post
Classic Traveller 1977 play by post, 2 campaigns

Playing:
AD&D 1e play by post
Classic Traveller play by post
Classic Traveller set in age of steam (with some steam punk) play by post
L5R 1st ed play by post
 
He (the new DM) is going to see if the group wants a reboot, or continue on with new characters in addition to the two survivors.
A small update - the players whose PCs got ganked all decided to create new characters to (and I quote) "avenge the fallen."

As an aside, when I first ran the BF game for these kids I gave a "I am not Matt Mercer" speech to help manage expectations. I am both amused and flattered to find out that the young DM in question gave a "I am not Tulpa Girl" speech before beginning his game.
 
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