What are y'all up to these days?

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Didn't get as much done with the teens yesterday as we normally do. No one thing slowed it down, just a lot of little things that drug things out more than they should have been,

They currently want to explore this new world a bit... oh, who am I kidding, they want to try to acquire some high-tech weapons and other devices for their characters. They currently have a couple of Drow tagging along with them, acting as guides and exposition-fodder..
 
Today I drew some dungeony stuff, and lit my WHFRP1e party on fire when they followed the secret passage into the castle, but forgot that the spy from the bandits had already made it back to the castle to WARN them that there was a previously unknown secret passage.
 
The kids were not content with just 2 Star Wars sessions, so after family games of Risk and Clue, and after dinner, they requested a 3rd session before bath time.

Han and George accepted an assignment from Rebel leader Tokara to try to rescue General Golbo (a Mon Calamari), whose Y-wing was shot down recently. His copilot was killed but the Rebels at Delphine received intelligence that General Golbo was transported to an Imperial detention facility on Grimbor 2, the second moon of the gas giant Grimbor. It was made clear that the general needed to be rescued before he was transported to Coruscant for interrogation by droids, for he has knowledge of the personnel, matériel, and locations of several Rebel bases.

Their ship repaired and their astromech droid R2-D9 (now nicknamed "Geodome" for reasons only my son understands) in tow, George left his pet chim-chums (now named Caramel and Cream) in the care of Tokara and the group left Delphine without event and with useful new allies and a possible base of operations. (Before departing Delphine I awarded Skill Points for the prior 2 sessions and explained how to spend them to increase their skills.)

The Hunter dropped out of hyperspace in Grimbor System only to find a patrol of TIE fighters.
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Han immediately opened fire on one even though George wanted to try to con them and get by without a fight. After Han missed the TIE fighter, George tried anyway, but the TIE patrol wasn't in the mood to listen (and my daughter rolled very poorly on top of a terribly bad lie no one would believe) and opened fire on the freighter, which then attempted to flee into the atmosphere of Grimbor 2.

Han managed to disable one TIE fighter and shoot down another, which crashed on the planet below, but The Hunter was likewise damaged and forced to crash land nearby in some hills not too far from the Imperial detention facility that they could see in the mountains overlooking a forest.
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George and Han and R2-D9 ventured into the dark forest of towering trees, where they were soon set upon by large, hungry, fanged, orange-furred anthropoids. Not wanting to kill animals if they could avoid it, the duo managed to scare off the beasts with a warning shot from George's blaster and a threatening display of Han's lightsaber.
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As they continued through the forest, they heard the sound of mechanized transports and discovered a road ahead. Peering through the roadside brush, they observed an AT-ST and an armored repulsorlift heading uphill to the Imperial detention facility.
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With some very lucky rolls, Han used his lightsaber to disable the AT-ST and damage the cannon mounted on the armored repulsorlift, which then fled.
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George and Han then walked to the Imperial detention facility--it apparently didn't occur to them that they had just eliminated any possibility of infiltrating the place with surprise on their side. Coming to a massive metal door with a bulbous probe protruding from above, they were advised by a mechanical voice to drop their weapons and put their hands in the air. They instead blasted the probe and sliced a way through the door and rushed inside.
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Unfortunately for them, they were immediately confronted by 8 stormtroopers as well as a cloaked figure wielding a red lightsaber. A very brief lightsaber duel ensued and Han was outclassed and knocked unconscious and George surrendered in the face of overwhelming odds.
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George was then knocked out as well. The pair awakened strapped down to slabs in a vast interrogation and/or torture chamber, and discovered General Golbo was also a captive. The cloaked figure was the only other person there, and it was apparent R2-D9 had been deactivated and left in a corner while their captor humiliatingly wore Han's lightsaber on his belt. He tried to make them divulge who they were and who sent them, etc., and threatened that he had unpleasant ways of making them cooperate. Mocking Han's weakness and proclaiming him a phony Jedi, their captor laughed and placed Han's lightsaber atop a cabinet just beyond Han's reach and told them he'd be back to make them talk before leaving the chamber--but first he had to inform Lord Vader of the supposed Jedi he'd captured.

While the villain was gone, Han used his Force powers to escape his bonds (using a Force point to double how many dice he could roll, which I deemed dramatically appropriate as well as heroic since he was also doing it to save his friend and General Golbo). He retrieved his lightsaber, reactivated R2-D9, and freed George and General Golbo. R2-D9 managed to pick the electronic locks to get them back to the courtyard, where George jumped into the repulsorlift just as the bad guy and his stormtroopers were returning.
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The good guys fled and got a decent head start, but then heard and felt the earth-shaking rumbling of an AT-AT pursuing them down the road.
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Han leapt atop the armored repulsorlift and managed to deflect the first shot by the AT-AT, but the second shot caused some damage to the repulsorlift's maneuverability. George turned off-road and made some lucky rolls to avoid ploughing into trees, causing the AT-AT to lose sight of them amongst the dense foliage (the trees were described as the size of sequoias), although it still followed in their general direction.
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Luckily AT-ATs are comparatively slow, so George, Han, R2-D9, and General Golbo had sufficient time to repair necessary controls to make The Hunter spaceworthy before the AT-AT was upon them. We left off with The Hunter blasting out of the atmosphere. I reminded the kids there may be TIE fighters patroling....
 
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My son desperately wanted to pay Star Wars again last night after he and his sister had their baths, but time was limited due to the lateness of the hour so it was perhaps a one-hour session at the longest. I didn't get a chance to take many photos this time. (I mainly take them to document locations and names so I don't have to write everything down and try to remember what building interiors looked like.)

Picking up where we left off, The Hunter blasted out of the atmosphere of the Imperial-occupied moon of Grimbor 2, where it was almost immediately set upon by two TIE fighters on patrol.
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Blaster fire was exchanged and the faster TIE fighters looked to have the upper hand until George managed to perform some evasive maneuvers and Han disabled one of the two TIEs with a hit that ionized its controls. George then made the jump to hyperspace and trusted to the Force for astrogation without running figures through the nav computer.

Arriving back at the Rebel base on Delphine, Han and George turned over General Golbo to the Rebels and had a maintenance and repair crew resupply and repair The Hunter, damaged as it was from blaster fire and the crash landing on Grimbor 2. It took a couple of days, during which time General Golbo was debriefed by Tokara and her aides.

It turned out that although General Golbo was not fully interrogated as he was not transported to Coruscant by the Imperials for interrogation by specialized droids--thanks to the intervention of Han and George--he did, under duress, inadvertently identify Beebub Tinoco as an arms supplier. Tokara requested Han and George return to the Rubar System and do one of three things: (1) retrieve Beebub Tinoco before the Imperials got a hold of him and made him reveal the contact on Loko, which in time would likely expose the Rebel base on Delphine, (2) rescue him if he were already in Imperial custody, or (3) if they could not rescue him, kill him before he could talk. The kids were especially uncomfortable with the idea of (3).

So Han and George returned to Rubar where our campaign began and landed back in Hangar 16, where they were immediately recognized from their last visit (about 30 days ago in game time) due to their shooting their way out of the spaceport. For a small bribe and recompense for damages caused to the spaceport, however, the official and his droid were more than happy to forget the whole thing and not mention it to the authorities, Imperial or otherwise. They left R2-D9 aboard The Hunter to keep an eye on things and returned to Rick's Café to look for Beebub.
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They were remembered here for their unpaid tab, but smoothed things over by paying Rick. They soon spotted Beebub seated at the bar and made their way to him, paying his tab as well to speed up his consent to leave with them, but before they could explain they realized they were being watched by the mystery man from Session 1. Uncomfortable with the surveillance, Han, George, and Beebub decided to leave the café. Beebub left through the rear exit, quickly followed by George. Oddly, the mystery man and his two companions made their way to the front exit. Han decided to exit that way as well.

Unfortunately for Han, the mystery trio were waiting outside to confront him. Han almost flashed his light saber, my son saying he was going to "cut him in half," but then thought better of it and waited to see what they wanted. It turned out the guy was just shady and looking for a payoff not to contact Imperial authorities about a self-proclaimed Jedi on Rubar. He wanted 10,000 credits. Well, Han didn't have 10,000 credits plus my son tried to lowball the guy and offer 1,000, but the mystery man laughed and said he could get more than that as a reward for reporting on Han. He said the least he would take is 1,000 per month not to inform on Han. Han refused to increase his offer, so the shakedown committee laughed and said he'd be sorry before they strode away presumably to get a line to Darth Vader about a Jedi who got away.

Meanwhile George was following Beebub but got sidetracked by the new fruit-vendor droid. Beebub went inside a vehicle rental agency, and George decided to see what the mystery man was up to as their paths converged. The mystery man made an offer to George not to report him as well, but George declined to pay anything so the mystery man went on his way. Will he be heard from again? Or will Darth Vader or his agents perhaps show up in pursuit of the self-proclaimed Jedi?

Han made his way back to the spaceport while George set about retrieving Beebub and giving him the lowdown on why they need to leave Rubar ASAP before Beebub is captured. But then Han stopped to buy fruit from the droid's fruit stand! He came away with a small crate of fruit (20 kimbari and 20 shimbari) and then arrived at the spaceport after George and Beebub despite having headed that way first. And just in time, too, for a quartet of stormtrooopers appeared at the entrance, asking questions of the spaceport official and his admin droid. Fortunately for Han and George, they had earlier bribed the official and he saw possible future benefits to continuing their friendship so he stalled the nosy stormtroopers just long enough for Han, George, and Beebub to get aboard The Hunter and start closing the ramp.

The stormtroopers got off a few useless blaster shots at the ascending freighter. Han, at the gunnery station per usual, had his aim spoiled by George's fancy maneuvers so the stormtroopers were equally unharmed by the exchange. We left off with The Hunter exiting the atmosphere of Rubar and entering the black of space...

We might pick it up from there tonight, but my daughter is also asking about playing Ghostbusters, so we shall see!
 
Once again, Dumarest Dumarest and his commitment to visuals and detail makes me feel bad about everything I post. Well done sir.
 
The plan was to wait for the weekend so I would have time to customize a scenario I knew they'd enjoy more, but my kids wanted to play Ghostbusters today while my wife worked late. First, I put appropriate music on the turntable.
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Then I explained the basics and had them create their Ghostbusters.
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Since we only had two players and really you need three Ghostbusters to operate proton packs and a ghost trap correctly, my daughter's friend also played.
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I adapted the "30th and Lexington" scenario from the rulebook, changing it to "University and Spring St" and setting it in La Mesa instead of New York.
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It's a fairly straightforward scenario where the Ghostbusters need to zap Grrrauauff, the ancient Hittite dog god who was awakened from a stolen mystic idol. The kids wreaked havoc and destroyed thousands of dollars in public infrastructure as well as private property, as well as overturned a parked car and fried the boxes a pizza delivery man was carrying out of Lido's. It was all so frenetic and most of the funny stuff is "you had to be there," so there's not much else to recount. I did find we had a nifty little toy dog I could use to represent Grrrauauff when he materialized in the intersection in all his twenty-foot-high shimmering glory and rage.

They prefer the scenarios I create, though, so I agreed to come up with adventures for both Ghostbusters and Star Wars for this weekend. I told them they can rearrange their Ghostbusters' traits and talents now that they have a better idea of how the game works.
 
I'm on a burnout, getting a break from all the games at the moment. But still checking what folks are up too.
We all have been there, I'm on one of those moments where people you know just aren't interested in investing time to play, so It doesn't make sense for me to spend time preparing games for now, nor do I have the time to go hunting for players. Online play just doesn't cut for me, It was fine when the covid situation started, but personally It just doesn't feel the same.

To make things more complicated I'm working full-time now and still haven't finished college. So I decided a break was a wise choice.
When the situation is better, I will probably start light and simple with B/X and Barrowmaze.
 
My B/X Rom'Myr Dying Earth game is closing in on two years running! My new Champions game is shaping up nicely at 10 sessions. Various game books are hanging over my head begging to be finished and it haunts me, haunts me I say.
 
Ran a homemade Ghostbusters scenario for my kids. They are the La Mesa franchise of GBI and have a contract with La Mesa Police Department to be on-call for any supernatural disturbances that arise in the city. It's an easy way to push them into a scenario: the phone rings, it's the LMPD calling, etc. And I like to use local landmarks to orient them so they can envision the scene better.

Today they were called out to a defunct local Toys "Я" Us store that was all lit up from within by a spectral glow, with strange flickering lights and ghostly cackling echoing from within. The kids knew the location well since we used to go there fairly often, plus I wanted to make sure they were invested in the scenario and it worked like a charm.
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Arriving on the scene, they were hassled by the policewoman who called them out, as she was the same one they worked with last time and she remembered well how much property damage the Ghostbusters caused last time.
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The team had to slip past seemingly possessed automatic doors that deliberately tried to close on their bodies, and immediately realized the shelves were all stocked as if the store were still in business. Except all the merchandise had an eerie glow. In the Halloween costumes display the Ghostbusters were attacked by zombie and skeleton costumes come to life, but they managed to take out the manifestations without too much difficulty. (They didn't know these were just objects controlled by the real entity inhabiting the store.)
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Next they were assaulted by angry volleyballs and basketballs rolling down the aisles at tremendous speed, which caused my son's character to inadvertently start a fire in the store.
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Then they heard creepy giggling and shuffling feet approaching from the dolls and board games sections. I didn't mean to but I scared my daughter a little bit with the wicked laughter I did. Turns out a group of evil Care Bears armed with Nerf guns were attacking. Fortunately the Nerf darts didn't cause any real harm and the Care Bears were blown to bits of stuffing and ash.

More worrisome was the enormous fat child riding a giant Big Wheel with spiked wheels, wearing a dunce cap, sucking on a lollipop, and laughing deeply as he tried to run down the Ghostbusters. My son's character was in fact run down, but he spent Brownie points so it turned out that rather being caught under the spiked wheels, instead the spikes caught on his trouser legs and he heard a loud RIIIIP! but ended up none the worse for wear aside from having no trousers on and being left to bust ghosts in his boxer shorts. My son was not amused but his sister found it hilarious.
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The fat child disappeared through a wall as he laughed in mockery of the Ghostbusters.

Next up were the possessed Star Wars plush dolls who marched forward with dead eyes and malicious grins. My son tried to stop them by creating a wall of fire via burning carpet, but the nasty little Ewoks passed through unharmed. The Ghostbusters managed, with some difficulty, to contain two of the three with proton streams, but the third got away.
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The obese child on the Big Wheel came back and this time my son targeted the Big Wheel while my daughter and Pumpkin (her stuffed animal who also runs a PC) targeted the kid himself. The Big Wheel was destroyed and the kid seemed a bit fazed, but the kid kept pumping his legs like he was still riding and passed through a wall and disappeared.

He soon came back riding a large stuffed dinosaur and eating candy from the checkout stands without even unwrapping it. His face was dripping chocolate and caramel and he had cotton candy in his hair. As it was getting late, I made things a bit simpler than originally planned and the Ghostbusters managed to trap him after destroying a good portion of the store interior as well as spending more than a few Brownie points to save their own skins. They were both delighted and disgusted when the ghost kid, like a smashed piñata, vomited up all the candy he had consumed. Once the ghost was trapped, all the merchandise in the store vanished, which disappointed my kids.

Since the manifestation ceased, the exits returned to normal as well, which meant the doors were all locked and the Ghostbusters smashed their way out of the tot store. The policewoman was quite miffed at how much damage was caused and the Ghostbusters left the scene without bothering to deal with her, though my kids do like having her as an adversarial figure in the game as she always berates their work. When they drove away, she was calling out the La Mesa Fire Department to attend to the blaze inside the store.

(I left out a few bits here and there that I don't remember exactly, but suffice to say many Ghosts were rolled and lots of silliness and slapstick ensued, and Brownie points were spent to avoid serious injuries.)

Anyway, it seemed to go better than last time even though, as I pointed out to my kids, the Ghostbusters still have no idea what caused the specter to appear at Toys "Я" Us, or whether this is just part of something bigger, so that piqued their interest for the next game. I pointed out how in the movie Ghostbusters the team did research on the building and consulted literature like the Spates Catalogue and Tobin's Spirit Guide, and how in the end they couldn't just catch the bad guy in a ghost trap, so they need to be prepared to do more than just zap 'em and trap 'em.
 
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I also ended up playtesting my son's new creation Tank Wars, which is apparently set in the year 2033.
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He's got a whole future history I didn't quite follow.
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The rules call only for regular six-sided dice and use a pool system not unlike Ghostbusters and Star Wars, but there also levels and hit points (called "Damage") and different tanks are essentially classes.
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He tells me he's also going to work up rules for air and sea combat expansions. The working titles were "Aircraft Wars" and something like "Ship Combat," but I suggested he keep the concise format of Tank Wars and we came up with Jet Wars and Aqua Wars after he didn't like "Sea Wars" and "Ocean Wars." (I still think the first word in each name should be a type of vehicle so they are all thematically consistent.)
 
I'm currently knee deep in running Masks of Nyarlathotep online for five players online with the sessions every other Sunday for 2 hours and once a month on Saturday for four. We're currently in England and, as I suspected would be the case, it's the most involved and time consuming of the chapters so far; I can't see the others offering quite so many choices to the players and leaving me with so many decisions to make on behalf of the antagonists. I decided at the start to take as naturalistic an approach as possible to npc responses so keeping careful note of what has been said and done to each of the npcs was important. I've enjoyed running this to date and it's living up to its reputation as a great campaign; I would definitely say though that you get out of it what you put into it.

In the once a fortnight weekday slot I'm running a 5e version of Against The Cult of the Reptile God. This is the first time I've run 5e and my plan here was to see how well that system delivers the feel that I like in my fantasy. We're only one session down so far and there's not been much system intrusion so the jury is still out. Basically, Greyhawk was my first setting and it will always be the one D&D setting that I return to as it hits my taste to perfection for that style of fantasy - I still cleave to the belief that it was 2nd Edition that fit Greyhawk best but I'm totally open to seeing where this goes. We have five sessions to go in the experiment.

Planning ahead, the weekend sessions will remain MoN but I'm going run a second Delta Green mission over four sessions when the D&D is complete. Myself and the four players really enjoyed our first run through of the new version of DG and they've all signed up for the next game so it must be a good one. After that I'm planning on tackling the beast that is Eternal Lies for Trail of Cthulhu, figuring that Masks should be sufficiently advanced by that point. With EL I plan to limit it to three players to make the whole thing a little more personal and I'm trying to figure out how to stage it in terms of sessions as I think it's too big to be an ongoing game; it may be that will cover each location, take a break and then return. Either way, this is one I've been thinking on for a while.

Finally, I've been organising our group's annual Dragonnot online con which was added to our games list when enough of us decided that we weren't slogging into London for the annual Dragonmeet convention.

On the reading side of things I've just finished The Black Madonna campaign, ostensibly for Kult and have just started Harlem Unbound 2nd edition. The former was decent, albeit with a few issues, and the latter seems pretty inspiring stuff so far.
 
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I'm currently knee deep in running Masks of Nyarlathotep online for five players online with the sessions every other Sunday for 2 hours and once a month on Saturday for four. We're currently in England and, as I suspected would be the case, it's the most involved and time consuming of the chapters so far; I can't see the others offering quite so many choices to the players and leaving me with so many decisions to make on behalf of the antagonists. I decided at the start to take as naturalistic an approach as possible to npc responses so keeping careful note of what has been said and done to each of the npcs was important. I've enjoyed running this to date and it's living up to its reputation as a great campaign; I would definitely say though that you get out of it what you put into it.
I've run it three times. It is really a sandbox, giving you NPCs and locations, but leaving the players and GM a lot of room to decide how things will play out. The events of the game have been very different each time I ran it.
On the reading side of things I've just finished The Black Madonna campaign, ostensibly for Kult and have just started Harlem Unbound 2nd edition. The latter was decent, albeit with a few issues, and the latter seems pretty inspiring stuff so far.
You've got two latters there.
 
Adventure Seed: Poisoned Apples, Part 1
Who is the Dog Catcher, and why did the police let him go after being captured? It starts with a cellphone video, but quickly spirals into more. Can you uncover the truth, without being framed as a criminal?


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The teens were much more focused this week, and we covered a fair amount of ground. They explored some ruins, and acquired a few hi-tech devices. More notably, the dwarf had the effects of the Wormwood waters purged from his system by a semi-intelligent healing machine. Also, the elven druid/ranger, who had part of his arm sliced off by a laser defense system, had the limb regrown by said device... but there was a screwup with the available DNA, so now his left arm is that of a spacefaring feline humanoid race.
 
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.
I'd say we are now moving on par to in person speed. Due to the right time 8-10 we have eliminated all chit chat between those hours. If there is OOG conversation it happens before or after the dedicated gaming hours
 
I got my group onboard with giving our main campaign a break to give Carcosa and B/X a spin. I was expecting a hard sale but they were sympathetic to my need to try something else out. I'm doing a limited sandbox prominently featuring a reboot of B2: The Keep on the Borderlands. I need a little more time to get things game-ready but I'm really excited about this.
 
HEPCATS Episode 22: Let the Rhythm Hit ‘Em
27 November, Rhino Year
Real-life date 17 September 2020, online
Present: Baron von Braun, N0-5R, Zera

Part 1: Are We TV Stars Now?

Ayu, Baron, Zera, Jenny, Agent Shoe, a not-quite-dead Vallatrex, and Ayu’s hacked Terror-Dactyl arrive at the team’s under-construction Vacation Palace. A second rocket sled arrives, carrying N0-5R, DJ-Q2, Pierre, and Dr. West.

Spankin Fresh (who’s name is not Fresh Spanks or Juicy Fresh or Juicy Spanxxx) invites everyone to a production meeting about the show he’s making. The show has been focused on Prince Erwin and Lucas McNord acting as foremen while Evil Emperor Zeke’s former bodyguards build the Vacation Palace.

McNord is now proudly owning the “McNerd” moniker Zera gave him and wears a diamond nameplate necklace that says “MCNERD.”

Spankin Fresh says the show “isn’t poppin” and asks for brainstorms to make it better. Zera suggests they add cross-dressing, a talking dragon, and songs (Mulan was the only movie they had in Zera’s home Shard).

N0-5R suggests they add some of DJ-Q2’s high quality music and Jenny’s costumes. N0-5R tells about the great movie that the Space Station Kids made, and Spankin Fresh says he will send them a pro-level editing bay, since he has more money than he knows what to do with and likes to encourage young people in the arts.

McNerd suggests that they change the show so that it just focuses on the bodyguards and call it “The Real Bodyguards of Planet Kelsey.” No one likes that idea. Also, they’re not bodyguards anymore, so it would be an inaccurate title.

Spankin Fresh addresses DJ-Q2 as just “Q2,” and gets corrected that it’s DJ-Q2. N0-5R apologizes that he’s been just saying “Q2.” Q2 touches N0-5R on the arm and says “I don’t mind when you do it.”

Spankin Fresh says that since it’s a reality show, Jenny’s costumes won’t be useful. Baron tells him that if his reality show is filming things that really happen, he is doing it wrong.

Impressed with Baron’s eye for drama and family lineage, Spankin Fresh gives Baron a video camera and asks him to get some footage.

Baron does some talking head interviews. Zera says her favorite thing is “Eating to kill… no, killing to eat.”

Spankin Fresh says he’s also working on some other shows, including one about the Royal Spouse-Finding Contest. He reiterates the rules: events are scored out of five. Teams are allowed. If a team wants to perform as individuals in an event, their scores will be averaged. If a team wins the contest, Princess Bluela may choose any number of the members of that team to be her spouse(s), as long as they’re still interested in the position. Zera is unhappy that someone could win and still opt out of marriage. Spankin Fresh makes a note of it.

It remains unclear what exactly the overlap of the Venn Diagram between Royal Spouse Competition Team Diet Greg and HEPCATS Team Zero is. What seems certain is that Zera plans to compete in the Spouse-Finding Tournament and Baron does not.

Agent Shoe and Dr. West say they are Team Mad Science, but they won’t be entering the competition because they are already married to science.

GREG the ship calls and asks if he’s on Diet Greg. Team Zero says yes and Team Mad Science says they will make him a hard-light hologram body so it’s easier for him to participate.

Pierre encourages Prince Erwin and McNerd to join Diet Greg, but McNerd convinces Prince Erwin that the two of them should form their own team, Team Dragonbois.

Zera “You want to marry your cousin?”

McNerd: “No, we wouldn’t be marrying each other, we’d just both be marrying the princess.”

Team Zero is unconvinced by this and dubs Team Dragonbois “Team Cous-bands.” Since polygamy has only come to Planet Kelsey in response to Zera asking if the contest could have multiple winners, no one is sure exactly how it works...

Someone asks what they should name the Vacation Palace, and Zera says “Greg.” The rest of the team says that, since the ship is already named GREG, they should name the palace “G,” and put a giant “G” on the front of it.



Part 2: Impromptu Rapid Deployment Palace Defense Squad!

While touring the palace, it comes up that construction is going slowly, since only four people are working on it and they don’t have construction experience. Baron offers to hire a proper construction crew with some of his personal wealth to speed up the process.

Some scaffolding collapses and Ex-bodyguard Sera falls and gets a concussion. Ex-Bodyguard Lela gets in Sera’s face and says that Sera had no right to speak for all of them, saying they would “build this palace as long as we get to wear reasonable outfits,” because Lela liked wearing the sexy armor and hates construction.

Jenny is inspired by the notion of sexy armor and pulls Lela aside to collaborate on making some.

N0-5R heals Sera’s concussion, but also tells her she should let people wear what they want. Ex-bodyguard Emi and Ex-bodyguard Tami, who don’t mind construction work or construction outfits, take Team Zero up to the battlements, where they spot a Glitterboi setting up a Boom Gun to shoot at the palace.

Everyone hops in rocket sleds and zooms to the Glitterboi and the two laser machine gunners accompanying it. DJ-Q2 continues to be super-into N0-5R and comes along, deploying giant speaker wings no one knew he had so that their battle can have a wicked soundtrack. Lela comes along in a brand-new chainmail bikini that Jenny just fashioned for her.

Zera damages the Boom Gun and N0-5R gets the pilot, Steve, out of the Gitterboi. Steve is an ex-soldier from Evil Emperor Zeke’s army who has been hired by some Blue Supremacists to sow discord with the Dragonfolk. Baron turns the swords into ploughshares damaged Boom Gun into a huge sword (Boom Sword?).

Baron encourages Lela to take a job as protector of the Vacation Palace, using the Glitterboi armor. Lela is unsure because it’s not sexy power armor. When Baron points out that some people find power sexy, she seems more convinced.

Back at the Vacation Palace, Prince Erwin asks Zera, “Since you’re good at killing, do you have any advice on how I can kill my cousin and be the contest’s sole winner?” Zera asks him if he really wants to kill his cousin so he can be married to the woman who took him hostage.

Prince Erwin: “When you put it like that, it doesn’t seem like the best idea.”

The team is encouraged to promptly return to the Palace of the Blues for the tech rehearsal of Royal Spouse-Finding Contest Round One: Talent Show.

Also, there was something with Team No Suits, but I don’t remember what that is.

XP: 4, so totals are:

Zera: 77, Heroic, Levels up!
Ayu: 72, Heroic.
Baron: 69, Heroic.
N0-5R: 65, Heroic, Levels Up!
Wren, off in the Fairy Realm: 40, Veteran.
Pierre Delecto: 35, Seasoned.
Sargoth Trio: 35, Seasoned.
Kurt Warlock, semi-retired: 32, Seasoned.
 
I think I'm going to need to change my plans for tomorrow night's game, as a player I thought would be coming can't make it.

My version of "plans" is generally just a very loose outline, so it shouldn't be hard, but I'll still be mildly stressed until I get it done.
 
I have a business card I keep in my wallet that has all my prep for most games on it. It's a wonderful cream colour, with some antiquey looking font, and it says "cool shit happens". On the back, in smaller font it says "oops, now youre fucked". I use it a lot.
 
I ran my first adventure in the big city of Old Meos since the late Nineties. That was when the city was lousy with vampires. It's quieted down but the first-level characters in today's party wouldn't have fared well in the city then. One of them is a Brother (sort of a fighting cleric) another is a carnival strongman/wrestler and the third is a professional gambler. They rescued a young woman who was going to be sold to trolls.
 
Steel Aces #Comic and Metahumans Rising #RPG Patreon Update
The Patreon tiers have been revised to make exclusive content more accessible to fans.
Early Access
Story Polls
Bonus Adventure Seeds
And Beta Content
#webcomic #comics #superhero #TTRPG
 
Last night's session was ... not super. It wasn't awful or anything, but it was a bit low-energy on the players' side and disjointed on my side. A lot of this was due to folks having Real Life Stuff on their plates this week, so hopefully next time will be better.
 
Tonight's Champions game was postponed on account of the GM forgetting to let me know it was going to be face-to-face instead of over Discord. :trigger:

Maybe I'd better check that tomorrow night's L5R game hasn't done the same.
 
I had an all-night RPG session last night. It started late and would have ended at dawn if it wasn't wintertime here:thumbsup:.

I'm not as sleepy as can be expected, though. It was fun and relaxing, and I got a couple hours of sleep before going to the night shift:shade:!
 
Gaming kind of sucked last night. One of the invested players was gone, and one of the better players Was goin to be late and didn’t show. This left me, the GM, another guy who GMs and two others. The GM was good to go, the other GM did alright. The other two players were just not there. One is the nice sort of person who is just happy to be there, but also doesn’t really contribute at all. The other one had literally 1.5 months to make a character and was working on it at the end with my my help. I’ll cut him SOME slack because the rules are alpha, but 1.5 months! Lastly, the late but didn’t show guy regularly is missing from the game. 50%. All legit stuff, family, etc.

this leaves me unhappy, as I’m driving pretty hard, and have little support (the GM helped). we coined the phrase “they have no initiative until we roll initiative” to describe the problem. It’s a heist. It’s a puzzle solve.

so I’m sort of at a point where I want to take the 3 strongly interested players and do a game with them. Of course, this still has to be online, though with that few we might be under the guidelines. Something smaller, with some deeper characters. Kind of feels bad because I like them all and all are friends. But damn, it is a bitch to get them engaged
 
Session 0 of Carcosa was a success. I am fortunate to have an invested player who helped me explain the setting along with some of the key differences between B/X and 5e. We had one player who was 100% new to RPGs and I was a little concerned that neither the setting nor the system would meet his expectations of a fantasy RPG. Turns out he was cool with all the talk of mutants, dinosaurs, human sacrifice, lasers, space aliens, and Great Old Ones which was a huge relief.

Even though there are only two classes in Carcosa (Fighters and Sorcerers) I was able to offer plenty of choice at character creation by expanding the talent system in Gavin Norma's excellent The B/X Warrior (big shout out to Voros Voros for the recommendation!). BX Options: Class Builder greatly assisted in my understanding of how to balance various options and abilities.

Ada, Neutral Purple Woman Sorceress​
Agroth, Lawful Green Man and Mutant Hunter​
Exor, Lawful Green Man and Beastmaster​
Foss, Neutral Black Man Cyborg​
Malgar, Neutral Black Man Sorcerer​

The party turned out pretty interesting although I was surprised that not single player took the ability to wear heavy armor (plate mail) despite me repeatedly stating that plate mail+shield was beast mode. I suspect there are going to be some PC deaths when the players pass through the Vaults of Man on their way to The Keep.
 
Gaming kind of sucked last night. One of the invested players was gone, and one of the better players Was goin to be late and didn’t show. This left me, the GM, another guy who GMs and two others. The GM was good to go, the other GM did alright. The other two players were just not there. One is the nice sort of person who is just happy to be there, but also doesn’t really contribute at all. The other one had literally 1.5 months to make a character and was working on it at the end with my my help. I’ll cut him SOME slack because the rules are alpha, but 1.5 months! Lastly, the late but didn’t show guy regularly is missing from the game. 50%. All legit stuff, family, etc.

this leaves me unhappy, as I’m driving pretty hard, and have little support (the GM helped). we coined the phrase “they have no initiative until we roll initiative” to describe the problem. It’s a heist. It’s a puzzle solve.

so I’m sort of at a point where I want to take the 3 strongly interested players and do a game with them. Of course, this still has to be online, though with that few we might be under the guidelines. Something smaller, with some deeper characters. Kind of feels bad because I like them all and all are friends. But damn, it is a bitch to get them engaged
I used to play regularly with the "They have no initiative until we roll initiative" group and was part of the problem as much as anyone. All I can say is even though it might look like it to you people might be still really enjoying it and look forward to it. If it keeps happening you might just have a quick talk with them.
 
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