Rashemen and beyond (adventure writeup)

Yesterday I just found my way back onto the Dungeonmaster’s seat at our gaming table. In short words, it was great. In longer ones I’ll give you a brief but still depth review of yesterday’s happenings…

Our gaming group consists of 6 players + 1 dungeon master, mostly 1-2 players are missing, so we had a party of four characters yesterday afternoon and evening, of which 2 were newly introduced. The initial meetup was in a tavern without me steering or adding more than a bit of atmosphere (food and drink served by the tavern owner himself), the tavern is located in the capital Immilmar (of Rashemen – Forgotten Realms – Toril – D&D setting…) and called A Stormy Night’s Tavern (Sturmnachttaverne). The initial meetup was disturbed by a young fellow carrying an informal and friendly invitation for Daec (one of the characters) to join the local (lonely) Oghma cleric who’s attending a library inmidst a land of barbarians, he received two gifts (handmade copies of writings he was more or less asking for) and parted in best spirits with the librarian. Currently we’re closing in on winter in the campaign, therefore light snow and freezing wind was adding to a tense atmosphere whenever someone entered or left the tavern. The young, 12-yearish nephew of the librarian seemingly caught the sympathy of several characters (and their players) when he mentioned that he was not very happy with reading all day long. (Even Daec understood his point, being more than an bookworm himself)… It was a busy day on the streets of Immilmar, one of the market celebration’s that take place only a few times a year, traders from far away places (even Halruaa) were participating and enjoying. So was Enelya (another character), herself a barbarian from the north and already enjoying Jhuild (rashemi firewine) for quite a while, when she first came to taste the real stuff, Jhuild from Urling. Seemingly happy with the content and good price she could achieve on the market she headed back to the tavern to meet with the others later that evening. Lysalis (the half elven warrior) and Wuhrynia (herself a dwarven cleric of Moradin) were back in the tavern as well… With growing hours the tavern was filling up to approximately 30 people, most of them traders from the vincinity of Rashemen and beyond, a handful of immilmar berserkers from the giant stag’s lodge and two warriors, who were probably swords for hire and accompanying a few of the traders. This is when Lysalis and Daec both recognized a feeling they had already had earlier that day, someone was watching them – and then – hell broke loose. Continue reading Rashemen and beyond (adventure writeup)

of Wizards and Men

After pointing to a nice and probably for some of you very interesting link of a shared project by E of Geeksdreamgirl and SR of Stupidranger– they try to gather as much information on female gamers out there as they can, and as I am in one of those groups with 50% female gamers and hoping andrea, beatrix and jenny will read this, maybe you feel like helping them out and fill out this survey. Just up front, I didn’t feel like it was that uncommon to have female gamers around nowadays, but it seems like over the big sea the things are still different – maybe you feel like giving them input. The direct links to the surveys are right here. By the way – they are interesting in our opinions (the male counterparts) as well – so if you’re from the other gender like I am – take this survey here.

So much for the advertising campaign ;-), back to my first idea –

Of Wizards and Men.

Maybe you’ve experienced that one yourself and I have to admit, I’m anxious to get that very little bit of feedback from a few readers here, since I’m honestly not sure what I should think in this regard: Wizards (here the wild-card for spellcasting classes) are superior in every regard. Not only the general status they have got. It does not even depend a lot on the world, unless wizards are heavily sought for under penalty of death (did I mention that I really enjoy campaign settings like Midnight? and I love playing wizards there as well). Continue reading of Wizards and Men

Adventures of Latizan the Dwarf

Latizan, I know a pretty uncommon dwarven name, isn’t it? Well, guess what – his profession of choice is even more uncommon where he’s from, but not unrespected and far from not-needed. He’s a tailor and he tends to be a real good one, but what’s tailor worth if he hasn’t seen the world and learned to know all the various fabrics out there? Right, not very much. So Latizan, Son of Bodrok Shieldsplitter found his way to a small but very nice adventuring party. I won’t go into details but it all started a bit like cliché – but it wasn’t – it was a really good and nice bar brawl back then…

Well no matter what, the dwarf has been a few days with his new companions, one of them claiming to be a dwarf himself (Brorim)… Continue reading Adventures of Latizan the Dwarf

TPK – lost to evil

General RPG
General

 

Good morning,
I had the pleasure of dungeon mastering my current Ptolus campaign and yesterday was one partial end of the story but everything came a bit different than it was planned…

As a sidenote, when we started the campaign we started with seven players, with the latest two adventures we only saw three players – so a few adjustments were made and the lethality of the campaign grew due the general path on which it is set.  So I’ll split this posting in two parts – one will deal with the adventure yesterday, the second will deal with TPK (total player kill) in general. Continue reading TPK – lost to evil

Pathfinder Beta shipping date

Bonefinder over at the bone scroll posted a nice little update (for me) on the supposed or expected shipping date of Pathfinder beta. Honestly – I hardly can wait to hold the book in my hands. I’ve preordered it at Planetharry – the dealer of my choice – in Vienna. As Bonefinder reports, it’s quite likely that we find a few old skills and other typos from paste & copy errors that they made when integrating the SRD into this document. On the other hands, it’s a beta version and the game-system itself was very promising so far, it does hold a few expectations of mine for the future.

And yes, it’s really one of the hottest topics for me, so I had to dedicate that article to it. I hope a lot of you feel the same way and – will enjoy the Pathfinder beta when it’s out. (I hope the PDF version goes online soon – since shipping to Austria will take until beginning of September I fear.)