What are y'all up to these days?

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This is what I like about this vagueness. Some will read it as "The half on the Left" , some will read it as "The half on the Right" , some will read it as "The 1/4's on the Far Left and Right!" And still some others will say "Those 'Moderates' in the middle!"

We had a politician, Dennis Skinner (The Beast of Bolsover), who allegedly said "The trouble with that lot is that half of them are liars!" when told to retract the statement, he reluctantly did so, saying "The trouble with that lot is that half of them are not liars!"
 
Playing Jacks (Part 2), Page 20: Fine Print
This isn't your standard villain monolog, Dr. Green is fully capable of doing two things at once.
 
Third session of the all-thieves game heated up a bit, as the local Thieves' Guild finally learned of the existence (although not the identities) of the PCs. The players now have to be even more careful moving forward to try to avoid the Guild's attention, even as they work long-term to weaken and eventually overthrow the Guild.
 
Third session of the all-thieves game heated up a bit, as the local Thieves' Guild finally learned of the existence (although not the identities) of the PCs. The players now have to be even more careful moving forward to try to avoid the Guild's attention, even as they work long-term to weaken and eventually overthrow the Guild.
Well, that means they were doing a great job, if you ask me. Two sessions without alerting the Thieves' Guild is pretty good, and them not finding (yet) who they are is even better!
 
Well, that means they were doing a great job, if you ask me. Two sessions without alerting the Thieves' Guild is pretty good, and them not finding (yet) who they are is even better!

Well, that was a priority for the group, even as they knew that their activities would eventually draw the attention and ire of the Guild, as they're still low enough level that they can't yet seriously threaten the Guild (yet).

So far their main 'jobs'/heists have been locations that the Guild weren't going to target anyways, but they also have started to assault and rob Guild members who were in the process of shaking down and collecting protection money from the local businesses - all of the PCs have 'day jobs' in the city as part of their cover, and two of the three work for businesses that the Guild collects its 'tithes' from.
 
Well, that was a priority for the group, even as they knew that their activities would eventually draw the attention and ire of the Guild, as they're still low enough level that they can't yet seriously threaten the Guild (yet).

So far their main 'jobs'/heists have been locations that the Guild weren't going to target anyways, but they also have started to assault and rob Guild members who were in the process of shaking down and collecting protection money from the local businesses - all of the PCs have 'day jobs' in the city as part of their cover, and two of the three work for businesses that the Guild collects its 'tithes' from.
Just how funny it would be if the Guild decides that these shaken members have been shaken by regular workers unhappy with the "tithes", and targets a colleague, I wonder...:grin:
 
Paging Skarg Skarg :shade:!

Hey, man, take a look at https://www.oldmapsonline.org/ and tell us if it makes a maps-lover happy :grin:!
Yeah, it's a very nice site. (I've had the app for that site on my phone for about six years now, I think. It's improved a lot since I first used it. BTW, the scrolling zooming world map UI puts Google Maps to shame, how responsive it is and how it's designed to actually help you see the terrain, but it only zooms in so far and has so much data at that level.)

It's great for finding multiple old maps of a place for comparison, history, how places developed over time, old place names, etc. Not only does it have tons of maps of so many places, but its UI is amazingly responsive, compared to doing web searches and dealing with other typical map resource web sites.

The web site is a better experience (and of course full screens are better than small device screens).

Oh, and the feature to overlay different maps of the same place to compare them (and so, compare changes over time), and fade them in and out, is wonderful. I've done that manually with Photoshop, and having it do it for me . . . I can feel the savings in time.
 
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Third session of the all-thieves game heated up a bit, as the local Thieves' Guild finally learned of the existence (although not the identities) of the PCs. The players now have to be even more careful moving forward to try to avoid the Guild's attention, even as they work long-term to weaken and eventually overthrow the Guild.
Just curious, does your city have Beggars, Homeless, Street Urchins, etc?
 
Just curious, does your city have Beggars, Homeless, Street Urchins, etc?

Oh yes. Said city draws inspiration from both Sanctuary and Lankhmar, and has seen better days from when it appeared in my previous two AD&D games. The Guild has some connection to some of the beggars and urchins, but there are plenty more who aren't tied to the Guild in any way.
 
Oh yes. Said city draws inspiration from both Sanctuary and Lankhmar, and has seen better days from when it appeared in my previous two AD&D games. The Guild has some connection to some of the beggars and urchins, but there are plenty more who aren't tied to the Guild in any way.
Heh, I LOVE Sanctuary and Lankhmar. Do the PCs have themselves a good relation with the independents? Are they taking steps to avoid or subvert the ”Guild Urchins”?

Intel and counter-intel in fantasy street-level guild/criminal warfare is awesome.
 
Heh, I LOVE Sanctuary and Lankhmar. Do the PCs have themselves a good relation with the independents? Are they taking steps to avoid or subvert the ”Guild Urchins”?

They've made some tentative connections, but they're also erring on the side of caution as they don't want to tip their hand to someone who might be Guild-connected.

Intel and counter-intel in fantasy street-level guild/criminal warfare is awesome.

Heh. The other main inspiration for this campaign is the gang warfare setup from the Gangbusters RPG.
 
Oh yes. Said city draws inspiration from both Sanctuary and Lankhmar, and has seen better days from when it appeared in my previous two AD&D games. The Guild has some connection to some of the beggars and urchins, but there are plenty more who aren't tied to the Guild in any way.
That's a game I'd want to play in. :smile:
 
So after surveying Cthulhu by Gaslight, Casting the Runs, Raiders of R'lyeh, and Trail of Cthulhu, I've decided that the mechanical base for my Victorian/Edwardian Supernatural/Mythos/etc game is actually going to be a reskin of Swords of the Serpentine. I like the Gumshoe base of ToC, but I wanted better and more functional magic, which SotS does in spades, and frankly, SotS is cooler than most other Gumshoe games. So, having had that epiphany on the way to the beer store, I'm very excited.
 
So after surveying Cthulhu by Gaslight, Casting the Runs, Raiders of R'lyeh, and Trail of Cthulhu, I've decided that the mechanical base for my Victorian/Edwardian Supernatural/Mythos/etc game is actually going to be a reskin of Swords of the Serpentine. I like the Gumshoe base of ToC, but I wanted better and more functional magic, which SotS does in spades, and frankly, SotS is cooler than most other Gumshoe games. So, having had that epiphany on the way to the beer store, I'm very excited.
I’m very interested to hear more about this. SotS is on my short list, as my crew seems keen on some investigation stuff.
 
I’m very interested to hear more about this. SotS is on my short list, as my crew seems keen on some investigation stuff.
It's one of my favorite games. I like Gumshoe ok, but SotS is something else. I don't remember the last time I read a new game and got that excited. I couldn't recommend it more. :thumbsup:

As far as the project, I'll post something when I've gotten something (anything) done. I just decided on this about an hour ago, so I haven't done much. :grin:
 
Does SotS keep the basic Gumshoe issue of investigating all day leaves you unable to shoot a gun by nighttime?
Sort of? You spend pool points to add effect and damage, it is Gumshoe based, but in terms of combat (social/sorcery) you'd still be capable of smashing mooks left and right. You'd only be in trouble against a major villain type. The design goal is swords and sorcery and it does that quite well IMO.
 
Sort of? You spend pool points to add effect and damage, it is Gumshoe based, but in terms of combat (social/sorcery) you'd still be capable of smashing mooks left and right. You'd only be in trouble against a major villain type. The design goal is swords and sorcery and it does that quite well IMO.
You also get refresh more often (after defeating foes) so you don't really have that problem as much.
 
Getting ready to head out to my weekly DCC rpg game. :smile: Looking forward to the game, it's been a fun time for the past 14 months. DCC is a hot mess and the developers need a competent editor but is is a blast over all for a DnD variant. Basically the only DnD/DnD variant that I have any real interest in continuing to play.
 
Adventure Seed: Gobbler: Miniler’s Flight
As Turkey day approaches there's been an accident at the Gobbler Containment Zone. The child of one of the researcher's has gone missing, and it's up to you to find them.
 
We played No Honor Among Thieves in a Pub board game session. It was a ton of fun and there were some really awesome, tense moments. Interestingly, there was no betrayal and the most passive, quiet player was victorious in the end. If there weren't so many interesting games to try I would want to play this again next session.
 
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The trio of thieves in my AD&D game decided to take some time away from the city, giving the Guild some time to hopefully think about other things, as they opted to rob the manor house of an eccentric silk merchant.

Bad news, they all had to deal with being poisoned to varying degrees. Good news, they now have a Ring of Spider Control.
 
It just hit me today that it's apparently time to admit to being a lapsed gamer, and leave RPGs behind, at least for a time. Maybe things might look differently some years from now, who knows:angel:?

I mean, I'm not playing anything, I'm not running anything, I'm not even reading my giant "to-read" list, RPGs keep getting jumped over by...well, pretty much everything else, from martial arts and history to local SF books:shock:!

And lately even discussing RPGs seems less and less fun:shade:.

Funny, that - I started writing in the MA and fitness threads because I was visiting the forum most to exchange ideas for my games...and now those are the only ones where I have something new to contribute instead of relying on "old glories". And I'm really not into rehashing:grin:!

...well, I might at least read a new RPG while I'm still taking the decision. Preferably one in Portuguese, to test how well I've been doing with learning the language (I finished the Duolingo course:thumbsup:)!
And hey, this would at least count as something RPG-related, so I might explain to myself why I'm still here. Other than for the MA and fitness threads, that is.

OK, make that three threads - the food thread is a real gem, too:tongue:!
;
Right. Someone actually looks at my game, says he likes it, stops gaming without even trying to play or run it. ;-)
 
The trio of thieves in my AD&D game decided to take some time away from the city, giving the Guild some time to hopefully think about other things, as they opted to rob the manor house of an eccentric silk merchant.

Bad news, they all had to deal with being poisoned to varying degrees. Good news, they now have a Ring of Spider Control.

Is the entire group thieves, or just some of them?

I ask because I find that D&D groups can be hesitant to have multiple of the same character type -- mine tends to be of the opinion that we need the cleric, we need the rogue, etc, and is wary of not having what they see as a crucial role filled (even though my opinion is that there are always methods to work around that).
 
Just a tad bitter. Sales are better than I expected when I started this but I never get any feedback, other than from people I already knew.

New Product

Hehe, feedback. Yeah, that just doesn't happen.

I'm not in the business or anything but I got a few complete games that make available for free. In terms of downloads the figures look pretty healthy, Bounty Hunters of the Atomic Wastelands has 3000 or so downloands, Cyberblues City pushing 2000. But other than accidentally spotting a recruitment post for BHAW and a Polish fan-made scenario for Cyberblues City which I can't even read, I really have no idea if ofout of all these downloads anyone actually read the games.

But that's just the way it is. I write the games I want to run and writing it up properly and illustrating the game means I can get a few copies printed on Lulu and pretend to be a game designer.
 
Is the entire group thieves, or just some of them?

I ask because I find that D&D groups can be hesitant to have multiple of the same character type -- mine tends to be of the opinion that we need the cleric, we need the rogue, etc, and is wary of not having what they see as a crucial role filled (even though my opinion is that there are always methods to work around that).

It was specifically pitched as an all-thieves game.

More specifically, the group consists of a human thief, a dwarven cleric/thief, and a half-elf M-U/thief.
 
It was specifically pitched as an all-thieves game.

More specifically, the group consists of a human thief, a dwarven cleric/thief, and a half-elf M-U/thief.

Hehe, feedback. Yeah, that just doesn't happen.

I'm not in the business or anything but I got a few complete games that make available for free. In terms of downloads the figures look pretty healthy, Bounty Hunters of the Atomic Wastelands has 3000 or so downloands, Cyberblues City pushing 2000. But other than accidentally spotting a recruitment post for BHAW and a Polish fan-made scenario for Cyberblues City which I can't even read, I really have no idea if ofout of all these downloads anyone actually read the games.

But that's just the way it is. I write the games I want to run and writing it up properly and illustrating the game means I can get a few copies printed on Lulu and pretend to be a game designer.

Good point. However, my friend C.J, who was a game designer for years, told me that nothing given away for free is ever reviewed. I had originally planned to give away the stuff needed for running the game and decide on whether to charge for modules later. As long as the poker players at the Isle Casino are generous, it's not about the money.
 
Good point. However, my friend C.J, who was a game designer for years, told me that nothing given away for free is ever reviewed. I had originally planned to give away the stuff needed for running the game and decide on whether to charge for modules later. As long as the poker players at the Isle Casino are generous, it's not about the money.

At the risk of name dropping, back when I was working on Bounty Hunters of the Atomic Wastelands, Simon Burley was insistent that I should not give the game away for free on basis that free lowers people's perception of its value. He's probably right, but I kind of like having nice, clear boundaries between what I do as work and what I do as a hobby.
 
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