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Maybe it’s not 5E. Maybe I’m under a curse from my former gaming group.



I decided to give WOIN Old a shot. I talked in another thread about an odd conversation with the publisher I had last year, but I figured I already own Old, so I’d give it a try.



I spent my free time last night and today working up a party of four. It was a but of an effort, as much due to issues on my end as issues with the rulebook. Finally completing my characters about an hour ago, I looked at the sample dungeon crawl in the rulebook. It had:



  1. Several unique traps and an altered monster, with no value given to determine. XP from.
  2. A treasure that seems to break the rules on character advancement.
  3. A creature that my PCs may have had a chance to defeat, just because the mage of the group happened to have magic that can affect it. I don’t see how a non-caster party could defeat it, or if my PC didn’t have the magic she had.
  4. A creature with only one way to kill it, and out of the dozens of Careers and 100 or so Exploits, I didn’t take either of the Exploits two Careers have that would let my PCs know how to defeat it.


I’ve now achieved a hat trick of reading WOUN scenarios that I could never actually run.
 
My home game wrapped up the New York chapter of Masks of Nyarlathotep last night. I'm terrible about keeping track of actual sessions, but I think we've been playing NY since July, averaging 2 or 3 games a month. Even with that, they felt that they had left a lot undone (they had). Moving on was more of a flee the scene decision than anything.
Surprisingly, they've decided to head to
China first, to see if they can find Jack Brady and get some answers about what happened to the expedition before trying to retrace their steps.
It's a little bit unexpected, but I'm excited to see how the campaign plays out in a bit of an unconventional order.

Only downside to everyone enjoying this is that no one wants to take a break from the campaign, so Helvéczia is on hold for now.
 
My home game wrapped up the New York chapter of Masks of Nyarlathotep last night. I'm terrible about keeping track of actual sessions, but I think we've been playing NY since July, averaging 2 or 3 games a month. Even with that, they felt that they had left a lot undone (they had). Moving on was more of a flee the scene decision than anything.
Surprisingly, they've decided to head to
China first, to see if they can find Jack Brady and get some answers about what happened to the expedition before trying to retrace their steps.
It's a little bit unexpected, but I'm excited to see how the campaign plays out in a bit of an unconventional order.

Only downside to everyone enjoying this is that no one wants to take a break from the campaign, so Helvéczia is on hold for now.
I've run Masks three times. "Fleeing the scene" is the way chapters usually end, so you seem to be doing it right. I've always had everyone go in the most predictable order of locations so I'm interested to see how this plays out for you.

The big surprise will be if they go to Australia. Nobody ever goes to Australia. Cutting that chapter from the original release was evidence of what a good editor Lynn Willis was.
 
I've run Masks three times. "Fleeing the scene" is the way chapters usually end, so you seem to be doing it right. I've always had everyone go in the most predictable order of locations so I'm interested to see how this plays out for you.

The big surprise will be if they go to Australia. Nobody ever goes to Australia. Cutting that chapter from the original release was evidence of what a good editor Lynn Willis was.
They actually talked about going there. They met with the Professor's daughter in NY and got to listen to his lecture recording (another awesome prop from HPLHS), so right now they are tentatively planning to go visit him in person there after their first destination. We'll see if they stick to that plan or if everything goes sideways. I'm excited about it, because the only other time I ran Masks the group followed the predictable course and we didn't get far enough, so this is effectively new material for me.
 
I’m gearing up to give 5E a try again. I found an adventure that seemed novel and overall OK, but then I got to the end and found the authors apparently can’t handle math, as according to them the XP earned for the adventure is about twice what the creatures in it are worth. Now I’m left wondering if I should trust the encounter balance of the scenario, or if it’s as off as their basic addition.

Perhaps the author had the radical idea that accomplishing ones goals is just as important as slaying critters?
 
They actually talked about going there. They met with the Professor's daughter in NY and got to listen to his lecture recording (another awesome prop from HPLHS), so right now they are tentatively planning to go visit him in person there after their first destination. We'll see if they stick to that plan or if everything goes sideways. I'm excited about it, because the only other time I ran Masks the group followed the predictable course and we didn't get far enough, so this is effectively new material for me.
I love it when players surprise me.
 
Hey we've all played B1 at this point.

I actually haven’t. I got copy after copy of B2 as a gift back in the day, but only laid eyes on that fungus-fest once.
 
The SB&CS game for the teens got cancelled at the last minute due to some real-world stuff, but we did get in a session of Starship & Spacemen with the adult group Saturday night. Although we will probably get some specific time-sensitive 'missions' along the way, for the most part it's a sandbox setup, with us needing to explore and update our information on the various worlds within the subsector in question in a year's game time.
 
DCC this friday, some of the folks won't be there i expect, but some of the folks who weren't before will be. Sailors on the Starless Sea is up. we are a little constrained for time, so I might be pushing pretty hard to get it done in 3 hours. Still, I got one player who really likes it and the host likes it well enough. It's like and requires little involvement. Still, me and the other committed GM are sad long term campaigns (more than 10 session) feel not reachable for the group right now. We both have several longer term ones in our heads.

Mythras Shadowpunk has gotten some fire. bringing in more definite punk elements (think Sex Pistols to RATM to Ramones, a heavily political game), cleaning up parts that are "done" (cybernetics gained some consistency). Wireless is out, or at least out for most game important applications - you can wifi your way into research checks and whatnot, nothing that requires a hacking role. Sorcery is done, Animism is mostly done. And by done, i mean not touched an editor.
 
Currently planning to finish running my Delta Green adventure tonight:thumbsup:.
As a note, I've already proven I cannot estimate how long it takes to run a scenario (and probably need to work on that). My idea was that the scenario would have been a one-shot. That's the third session...:grin:
(BTW, Yeti Spaghetti Yeti Spaghetti reduced the material significantly for his game. I was wondering why, back then...now I kinda suspect he had it right:tongue:!)


On the bright side, the PCs are assuming, quite correctly, that they won't survive a fight with the golem, unless they have a plan. So it probably won't become a TPK...and it might even not become a fight:gunslinger:.
I mean, I know what I would have done, and it's auto-win with no fighting rolls. I just thought about it while running it, and no, I'm not going to change anything...actually, I'd gladly assume some details of the interior I haven't considered until now are of such a sort as to make it easier, because creative solutions should be rewarded:shade:!

Thing is, the PCs haven't thought of it. They've already thought of half of it, though (that's when I made the connection, and tried to keep my poker face). If they figure the other half...well, auto-win is the best win when facing supernatural creatures:devil:!
 
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Yesterday I decided I’d try Dark Times for my next solo RPG, as I’m rather fond of it, but have yet to play it. I made up two Blaster characters for the first time, and felt very stupid for a while, thinking I bungled the rules for them. Rereading everything related to the class, it turned out that there are contradictory rules for them throughout the book, with the way I created them supported by one example NPC, even as the character creation rules say otherwise..
 
DCC this evening. killed about 5 level 0s, but several level 0s from last time levelled up. one, a rope maker who got named Mr Roper, advanced to a wizard. He got Ropework as his first spell and got "Natural-born talent. Instead of rolling as normal on a spell check, the wizard rolls a die type improved by two steps on the dice chain (e.g., if he normally rolls 1d20, he now rolls 1d30)." on ropework.

well, we have our first completely memorable character of the game
 
I’m a big fan of Dark Times, and realized I’ve never run the adventure in the rulebook. I decided to solo it, and made up a quartet of characters for it. Then I sat down and read it last night.



Turns out the scenario has a problem I frequently encountered in the Rogue Trader RPG, where PCs would be built as rounded individuals, given they could encounter anything in their careers, while NPCs were regularly min-maxed for whatever role they had in the adventure. In this case opponent NPCs are armored up the wazoo from gear, implants, and powers, with several having multiple abilities to increase their ability to hit/increasing the difficulty to hit them.



As it is, there are several NPCs three of my characters could only hurt when they crit and then roll max damage, with the fourth able to do a d6 of damage every few rounds due to a special ability.



On to find something else to run.
 
We finally finished the Delta Green adventure. Only took us 3,5 more hours...OK, that includes a 15-minutes pause for tea, and a couple OOC sidetracks, so more like 3 hours IC - but it did last from 22:30 to 2 a.m. roughly speaking:shade:.
No agents died or went mad. The threat was contained successfully (and then destroyed).
Overall, it went well enough it should almost make them eligible for promotion:grin:!
 
Steel Aces Intrude 7
This week Frankie takes a deeper dive into the Chimera Drifters, looking at how the drift between subtypes impacts their appearances.
https://housedok.com/comic/steel-aces-interlude-7/

Also, the setting poll is still open if you haven't already voted, help decide the direction of our shared setting!
 
Curious what kind of support there is for Starships & Spacemen. Goblinoid seems to have gone dark lately. Are they still making anything for the game?
Not much of anything from Goblinoid, as far as I can tell, although there is 3rd-party stuff available from DriveThru. And of course, it's dead easy to adapt stuff from Labyrinth Lord and Mutant Future, as well as any other SF stuff based on B/X.
 
Second session of the New York chapter from Masks of Nyarlathotep last saturday. All we basically did was make phone calls and have appointments, though we did get to skim a couple of Mythos-related books eventually.

Warning: enlarging the pic may reveal spoilers!

1634419232845.jpg
 
Also, I am still prepping for a game of Infected! Currently started reading the rules. Looking pretty good so far. This is a really nice looking game. You want a gritty zombie infected apocalypse game, defintitely check out Infected! (Other options would be: Z-land and Era: Survival)
 
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I just got back from an RPG soiree/gameday sort of thing and it was epic:
  • I played Ten Candles (horror one shot RPG) and it was awesome and moody and I don't think I had quite this concrete of a handle on my character's motivations in my life. Well, until the next night...
  • I played Kingdom (history-building RPG by the designer of Microscope) with some old friends. We were asked to come up with a premise for the community. One of my friends and I both offered a generation ship in space that has lost contact with Earth. We laughed at our "so you like Piña coladas" moment when it was revealed we were both fans of Becky Chambers. Anyways, this one surprised me too. My main character was what we called an "Armstrong" (term I coined for a member of the crew who was actually born on Earth), and I surprised myself by totally flipping what I expected my characters goals to be (I pictured him as being someone to pull for returning to Earth, but he ended up prioritizing the mission). Quote of the game (by a player playing my character's son) "Was it easy when Columbus led the Vikings to America?" (which totally disrupted the group playing Blood on the Clocktower nearby with laughter.)
  • I played a FitD hack for cold war era spy thrillers called Mission Incredible.
  • I played a Ultraviolet Grasslands game ran using a Dungeon World hack.
  • I ran Sentinel Comics RPG, because I am sort of the supers GM of the event. It was fine fine. I ran a published module, which was fine but reminded me of why I kind of prefer running my own adventures.
 
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Had to cancel my last Savage Worlds session because I just wasn't feeling up to GM-ing. Still feeling a bit beat, but I am not cancelling this week's game. I will just be doing less prep and more improv than usual. This session will also be my de facto birthday party, as my birthday is the following day.
 
Continuing my attempts at solo play, I made a quartet of characters up for AMP: Year One. Being an avowed human supremacist, I made all the characters United Human Front members, the X-Men and Superman having taught me at an early age about the superhuman menace.



(I suspect the authors of the game are dirty superhuman sympathizers, since the line for your character’s real name on the character sheet has the slur for normal humans in-game on it. Disgusting, really.)



I ran the AMP Quickstart Adventure, having not read it before I made my characters. Hilariously, the scenario revolves around getting involved in the attempted kidnapping of a superhuman by government forces. The adventure assumes that all PCs would want to get involved, even mentioning UHF PCs at the end, without ever thinking about their motivation, or lack there of, to get involved.



So the PCs see some mysterious individuals plotting against a star athlete, one who keeps breaking record after record, and leading her team to victory against all who oppose them? And the mysterious fellows identify her as having powers?



Oh, hell no, they’re not getting involved. A superhuman who used her powers to crush the hopes and dreams of many a woman, who had no hope of matching her empowered abilities, to say nothing of the fame and financial success her cheating brought her? If anything, the PCs wish her teammates could be shipped off to Super-Gitmo or wherever she’s being taken, having ridden her superhuman coattails to success.



So the PCs left, happy the government was dealing with the super-cheat. And since the adventure hinges on the PCs preventing her kidnapping….Well, she got whatever fate her crimes earned her.



Now, going by the Quickstart, the PCs would have earned no XP. Good thing I have the Year One rulebook, with the full rules for bestowing XP.





+1 Showing Up To Play



+1 Moral of thr Story: Normal humans are perfectly capable of dealing with the AMP threat, and aren’t just helpless victims of them who can’t bring them to justice for their crimes.



+1 Loyalties…..Well, two of the character do have Loyalty to Self maxed out, so I guess they each deserve a point for putting themselves first.



And the best part is I finally finished reading the fluff in AMP Year One, and discovered there really is a Super-Gitmo in the game.



It was fun both having my characters not TPK, and being able to actually run an adventure with characters made before reading a scenario. Now I wish I had bought some of the supplements during the sale the last few weeks on DriveThruRPG, as I feel like my running through AMP adventures is going to be like the time I tried to run Vampire: The Requiem as a serious game, and my players turned it into a telemundo.
 
...so, like most WoD campaigns:grin:?

Most of my WOD experiences have been more hack-n’-slash or a perfect example of why someone shouldn’t be a Storyteller, as they try to use it as their personal therapy session. So it was a novel change for me.
 
Most of my WOD experiences have been more hack-n’-slash or a perfect example of why someone shouldn’t be a Storyteller, as they try to use it as their personal therapy session. So it was a novel change for me.
Fair enough:thumbsup:.


...would you say it was therapeutic to you:shade:?
 
Not rpg wise, but I published some interconnected micro-fiction on Wattapad (link in my sig), and am trying to get back to finishing a few rpg products I haven't finished thanks to the panedemic due to work.
 
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