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This past weekend was very eventful, from the Doctor Who season premiere to playing a third DW session and trying out Lady Blackbird for the first time.
PbPs are blooming on GotEXP, I got some fun artwork done, and I have some new products that I'm pretty excited for.
Time for This Geek's Week!
APs, Hangout Games
Dungeon World
Several days ago, I posted the AP for Session 1 of the DW campaign, Into the Desert, that I'm playing in over G+ Hangouts. I also created a pretty cool map with a lot of blanks, as is customary with DW.
We met even earlier on Sunday, due to scheduling conflicts, but we still had our usual, three hour session that went really well.
Our group spent most of the session fighting rogue, female bandits, posing as followers of Zawa, in a different part of the cave where we fought the giant scorpions. Yaygo immediately ran off and refused to join the fight due to his moral quandaries over invading someone else's home, especially when we promised not to unsheathe our weapons. Elohïr got on his case about it, because we had no choice but to defend ourselves. The rogues attacked us! Elohïr and Lux killed a portion of them and chased the rest out of the cave and into a sandstorm. Elohïr and Lux caved the place in and everyone met back in the bandits' hideout, where Valerius had converted some remaining heretics to see the light of Zawa. The unconscious woman, who Valerius healed last session, came to and displayed strange, magical powers. Objects levitated around her, she tried affecting Valerius with a calming spell, and she then turned invisible and ran off. We found a locked, treasure chest that was trapped, so Valerius had the converted heretics open it. Inside, we found 100 coins and a map with a new landmark, one of the last, living trees in the southland called Spirit Wood. It's cursed with poisonous fungi that drives elves feral and turns them into savage, mindless beasts. Finally, we left the cave to chase down the rogues' leader, Minerva, and the rest of the bandits who we suspected would steal the gold collected from the Harvesters. We braced the sandstorm, reached the Harvesters, and finished the session in a final battle between Yaygo, Elohïr, Lux, and the remaining bandits. Minerva tried to escape, but we called her out to come fight us, and the session ended on a cliffhanger with her about to attack.
Overall, it was a great session. The fight scene didn't feel as smooth as our battle with the scorpions, perhaps because there was a bit more confusion in terms of positioning and who was attacking who, but we had some interesting scenes. I felt there were a few, minor hiccups that could have played out better, but that didn't take away from the overall fun of the game. After all, I believe GMs and players learn more with each, new session they play.
The AP for last week's session is almost done and will be up soon, and I'll get the one for the third session up as well before the next game.
Lady Blackbird
The usual, Torchbearer game I play later in the afternoon on Sundays was cancelled again due to one player not being able to make it. It's been three or four weeks since our group played, and I was set on playing anything, so I suggested playing Lady Blackbird instead. I never played the game before, and +Lloyd Gyan loves running it, so we were fortunate enough to have him run it with some of us once again.
Immediate reaction - I freaking love this game!
I played with +John Evans, from the Torchbearer game, and one other player who had never played Lady Blackbird before, and we had a really great time playing a one shot that lasted almost four hours.
We had Naomi Bishop, Kale Arkam, and Snargle, leaving Lady Blackbird and Cyrus Vance as NPCs. Highlights included: a violent escape from the brig; disguising ourselves in Imperial uniforms and bluffing our way through the Hand of Sorrow; distracting officers and knocking out Captain Hollas to rescue Lady Blackbird and Cyrus after hearing morse code and deciphering that they've been recognized; trading a pistol with topaz, gold inlay, and a sapphire laser sight for fuel on Haven in a noir scene, where Snargle also set a dinner date with Janet Heelum, Goblin P.I.; Kale reacquainting with his brother, Tobias the Serpent, in the seedy underground in search of an antidote for Cyrus and Lady Blackbird; Naomi, Lady Blackbird, and Cyrus being captured by Xavier Firefly, Naomi's old slave master, and Naomi unable to punch through him after he spontaneously combusted like the Human Torch; Kale, Snarge, and Tobias finding the pirate king, Uriah Flint to storm Xavier's pit-fighting arena to find their captures friends; and a final stand-off between Xavier and his guards while escaping the arena and getting Uriah Flint to quickly marry Lady Blackbird.
The ending was a bit rushed, since some of us ran out of time, but overall, it was an immensely fun game and proved twenty times easier than any PbtA (Play by the Apocalypse) game I've played. The rolling mechanics are similar to Mouse Guard and Torchbearer (roll d6s with 4, 5, and 6 being successful) but still unique in that traits and tags add to the dice pool, and you can add dice from a personal pool that only replenishes after a Refresh scene in between major parts of the game. Total successes are compared to a difficulty score. If you succeed, your action goes as planned. If you fail, you get any dice back that you pulled from your personal pool plus one more and a potential condition. There's no HP to track, and you can't really die in this game, since you can get rid of one condition during a Refresh scene (including the dead condition). Earning XP by hitting Keys is an extremely easy and straightforward process. The GM really doesn't plan anything; they just ask a whole bunch of questions and run with the players' answers while providing obstacles and setting difficulties for actions. Finally, the steam-fantasy setting provides plenty of flexibility. Our game had some high-tech, steampunk flavor, noir scenes, fantasy magic, and a gladiatorial arena reminiscent of Ancient Rome.
Even though this was a one-shot, I'm hungry for more and would be down to play this game again in a heartbeat. I'm also fairly confident I can run it after just one session, so I brought it up again on GotEXP. I wanted to run it almost a year ago as a PbP, but nothing came of it. Now that I've played it, I'm bringing it up again. Two players have expressed interest so far, so if you're looking for a Lady Blackbird PbP, look for the Game Creation/Recruitment threads on GotEXP!
www.gotexp.com
GotEXP and PbPs
226 SoY 3443 (Adventures on Dungeon Planet)
The PCs are preparing for the arrival of Jaxx and his crew. B-T, the beat-boxing roboBard, and Rosalina, the alien Mutant, ran into some Grenba Orko (Emerald Orc) priests of Pu'scha, Herald of Omens, that were possessed by an excommunicated priest of the Arena who's allegedly traveling with Jaxx.
Ni'blu, the gnome mechanic, gave Howard, the Engine of Destruction (factory designation Droid Mall Inc. Limited Edition Killbot 4000 Heavy Weaponized Reinforced Self-Repairing Liquidation Droid XLE), more information on a Gobloid in Jaxx's crew equipped with an arachnoid, cybernetic system.
Finally, a new player joined the game who'll be playing Lerin, a human Psion. He sees the Grenba Orkos priests as heretics and has been targeting them all around Earth-3. I'm about to introduce Lerin to the game, and we're still waiting on another, PC to join in named Jimbo, the human Earthling.
The Caverns of Baal-Harrir (Dungeon World / Number Appearing)
Down in the sewers, while en route to the kobolds, an undead husk thing named Trolthep the Immortal asked Nok to give back the dagger that Skitch, the Ratkin Mastermind, stole in exchange for a favor. Chief Nok didn't understand Trolthep and chose to take him out so that Trolthep didn't alert the kobolds they were coming. Nok and Klopp, the Hobgoblin Barbarian, killed Trolthep and the party continued further into the sewers, where they're now on flatter ground and making camp before finally storming the kobolds' lair.
Aetheron (Dungeon World)
This game is starting to see action again, but we're still on two different scenes. There's a flashback, where everyone is helping ZoR, the Ettin Wizard, take control of a manticore they shrunk down to the size of a dog via a ritual. There's also the present scene, where the party is investigating the basement of a high-end tavern after discovering spider eggs and seeing a premonition (thanks to the Druid), where an NPC hireling in their party is actually a werespider and leading a horde of giant spiders to infest and destroy the floating city.
Grim City of Dis (Grim World / Dark Heart of the Dreamer)
I'm not involved in this game anymore, but I haven't seen any in-game action since the August hiatus. I'll have to catch myself up with what's happening, and if there's any development this week, I'll write about it next Monday.
Sagas of Mahr-En (Dungeon World)
I still haven't pulled this game out of it's hiatus, but I'm really going to try this week. Out of the four players, only 2 (maybe 3) are active enough to want to keep going. This game is in the middle of a long quest to imprison a cursed, bone wand beneath a temple dungeon, so that a great, demon god and his progeny don't get their hands on it. It's currently on Session 4.
If you want to join in the fun, leave a comment, send me a message on G+, or sign up on GotEXP and check out the Sagas of Mahr-En (SoME) threads.
Lady Blackbird / Tears of a Machine / Undying (Game Creation/Recruitment)
These games haven't started yet, but their GMs are trying to generate interest and look for players who are interested.
I proposed running either Lady Blackbird or Tears of a Machine via PbP if at least three players are interested. Max number for either game is five. If you're interested, comment, send me a message on G+, or sign up on GotEXP visit the Game Creation/Recruitment threads.
Also, another player/MC, Dean, is trying to recruit players for Undying, a PbtA vampire hack. Here's the link the thread if you're interested.
Artwork and The Prophet on DriveThruRPG
I didn't get as much artwork done as I wanted to this week, but as I mentioned above, I started working on a pretty cool map for the live, DW game, Into the Desert.
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| For the DW campaign, Into the Desert |
You might not be able to zoom in and see the names, so either check out the AP I posted for Session 1 of the game or click here to see the map directly.
Aside from that, remember the cover art commission I did a little while back? The DW playbook, The Prophet, by +Damian Jankowski is finally up on DriveThruRPG, so check it out! It's an awesome playbook that lets your character manipulate fate and use it to your advantage with plenty of room for customization, whether you want to play a psychic detective, a seer, fortune-teller, or more of a prophetic, cult leader.
http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product/134193/Dungeon-World-Playbook--The-Prophet?
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| "The Prophet" title text not included here. |
Finally, I forgot to mention that the ViewScream game I'd scheduled for this past Friday didn't go down again. Unfortunately, two of the players couldn't make it, so I'll try to host another game this week. I did create some cool, custom overlays in Photoshop, though, to upload to the Hangouts using the toolbox. +Robert Ruthven helped me test them out in the Hangout, while we were trying to recruit last minute players. Check it out!
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| Background filter from an image found on Google. Text, Bridge bar, and recording dot by me. |
Rewards, New Products, and Indiegogo
First off, I received a set of dice compliments of Silver Gryphon Games for their July Creativity Contest, so that was an awesome start to the week. I requested blue dice, and they even threw in an extra d6! If you're reading this, thank you very much!
I also purchased a few products this week thanks to some prize money I won for the Mystical Map Competition in the Library of Gaming Maps G+ community. Of course, the real thanks goes to +Gremlin Legions for holding the contest and being truly awesome!
One of the first products I picked up on DriveThruRPG is a mixtape-inspired anthology of short games called Indie Mixtape: Volume 1, where proceeds are going to help several members and game designers of the indie gaming community facing medical problems or challenges that are putting a strain on their resources.
I haven't checked the games out yet, but there are some awesome names I recognize in there (including +Gremlin Legions), and it's for a good cause.
Some other game designers I recognize (and am excited to see their game) are: +Eric Nieudan, +Jason Morningstar, and +J. Walton. I'm really excited to check out all the games and become familiar with some other designers too.
One of the recipients of the proceeds includes +Jackson Tegu, who I mentioned created the short game, Fall of Electricity: the Grunge Era, which you can receive with the album (feature band member and game designer, +Ross Cowman) by preordering it on the band's website: http://fallofelectricity.bandcamp.com/
Other purchases included: Unframed: The Art of Improvisation for Game Masters from Engine Publishing and the Machine Age for Ferguson [BUNDLE] from Machine Age Productions (featuring Amaranthine: Romance, Vendetta, Forever; Farewell to Fear: A Progressive Post-Fantasy RPG Regular; Flatpack: Fix the Future; Maschine Zeit Regular; and Apotheosis Drive X - Fate-Powered Mecha RPG SD MIX Regular). After running Tears of a Machine, I'm especially excited to read Apotheosis Drive X. I know two players from the Tears group who have it, so many we'll end up giving that a try, who knows?
Finally, I also purchased a hardcopy of Johnstone Metzger's new Monster Manual for DW, Terrors of the Ancient World, featuring monsters created by Johnstone for his Patreon and illustrations by Nathan Jones. As a Patreon supporter, I got a great discount on the book and only need to pay for printing and shipping. I'm a huge fan of Johnstone's work and I'm doubly excited for this new book. Johnstone is also the author of the pulp, sci-fi spinoff of Dungeon World, Adventures on Dungeon Planet, and he's written a plethora of fascinating adventures for DW.
Heck, I was all set to run Knives in the Dark this past Sunday, if our Lady Blackbird game didn't go through!
I highly recommend checking out Johnstone's website, Red Box Vancouver's Blog and his other products on DriveThruRPG.
OH! There's one last promotion I almost forgot about! +James Raggi and +Rafael Chandler have created a badass-looking adventure for Lamentations of the Flame Princess. It's a 64-page, hardcover adventure called No Salvation for Witches and it's Pay-What-You-Want. That's right. Pay-What-You-Want with shipping cost not included.
The Indiegogo campaign has only 10 hours left, so if you're looking for a crazy, R-rated adventure to scare your players with, this might be just what you're looking for!
https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/no-salvation-for-witches-a-pay-what-you-want-book/x/8506290
Phew! I had a lot more to write about than I thought I did!
I'd include some thoughts on the new, Doctor Who episode as well, but I might have to save that for another post. In short, I really enjoyed the season premiere and was generally happy with Peter Capaldi's performance as the new Doctor. I'm excited for the second episode this Saturday and may wait until then before posting a review of the season thus far.
Finally, in non-gaming related news, my youngest cat, Trinity, turned a year old a few days ago! I'm not a parent, but as a pet-owner, I see my cats as kind of/sort of like children perpetually stuck between two and three years old. Anyway, I've uploaded a total of 375 pictures of her I've taken over they year, from when she was 2 weeks old to just a few days ago.
https://plus.google.com/photos/116245899164381280330/albums/6050903517590516337?authkey=COfys9u2_fW5IA
With that said, I'm out. Keep gaming and keep having fun! Until next time!
