Graph Paper Games

So, as I have said before, I started this gaming group in my local community through Meetup.  There is a area gaming enthusiast's group on Meetup, although they are primarily interested in board games and CCG's.  But I scrabbled a small group together who were able to play on Sundays, which is the worst day for me and I can barely squeeze in a three hour session every other week. Well now, that three hour session has had a wrench thrown into it and it'll be easily a six weeks before we play again, after missing the last bi-weekly session.  I could be playing if it were not for the time, a factor dictated by the available players (including, cheekily enough, that they play in other games to which I have not been invited). So I am about to pitch the whole thing and start over.  Recruit new players, even take the dangerous step of hanging out a sign at local comic book and gaming stores.  I say "dangerous" because one time I did that and got shackled with this ve...

Okay, so over the past month I've both three D&D Essentials books: the core rulebook and the two "player's handbooks" or whatever they are being called.  I picked them up more out of curiosity as someone who's been playing 4E for the past few years to see what's changed, and because the Borders in my town is closing and everything had been significantly discounted. I would just like to express my outrage at the fact that the original three hardbound 4E books have been replaced with three softbound books and two box sets, all of which you need for certain parts of the game, but a lot of stuff that you don't.  I'm talking in particular about the box sets, which contain both the treasure tables in one and the monsters in the other.  But I have to get a ton of dungeon tiles and ridiculous cardboard tokens I neither need nor want, making me think I'll just stick with the 4E treasure from the DMG and the MM1-3 I already own. I understand the math...

I said in the last post "how I'd structure my D&D Campaign (if I was still running one)."  Perhaps I should have said, "How I would structure my FRPG" campaign, because there's nothing to say that I'd use D&D if I was to shackle myself to the task of running a megadungeon.  There are some other options, with a lot to offer. First, there are all the OSR (Old School Renaissance) clones out there, e.g. Basic Fantasy , Swords and Wizardry, or  Labyrinth Lord .  OSR clones of early editions of D&D feature spartan stat lines for monsters, encourage exploration over "room cleaning", etc.  The downside is that you might not want to get too attached to your character, since in all likelihood he's going to die from a goblin's arrow to the throat. Second, there's Earthdawn , the second edition of which is for sale over at Half Price Books right now.  I honestly think Earthdawn got people believing they could do something differe...

Naturally, having yielded my responsibilities as DM, I now miss it.  One of things I wish I had done was construct the campaign around a mega-dungeon, rather than use episodic pre-generated adventures.  Part of my decision to use pre-writ adventures was because I was frankly unsure whether a group could develop out of this.  So I didn't want to commit a ton of time to a campaign only to see it fizzle, and I instead focused on painting miniatures that will never see a tabletop.  Sometimes my internal "logic" amazes me. Megadungeons have several appealing qualities.  First, they are extremely easy to organize and facilitate.  As many have pointed out, dungeons (mega or otherwise) are essentially narrative flow charts, with the decisions made in its exploration determining the course of the adventure.  Unless they are deliberately designed as such, they are nearly impossible to "railroad," although most of WotC's free Game Day adventures with their point...

With all the terrible weather, I've been looking for ways to entertain my kids.  One thing I have done was start a Mutants & Masterminds  campaign.  I thought it would be fun to post various villains here using the format from the old DC Comics "Who's Who" series.  Here's the first installment: Name: Tarantula Alter Ego: Esteban del Rio Occupation: Supervillain Marital Status: single Group Affliation: Dr. Mutato, Shadow Compact, other criminal enterprises Base of operations: Europe Height: 6’ 2”   Weight: 250 lbs. Eyes: red  Hair: black Background: Esteban del Rio was a up-and-coming member of an organized crime syndicate in Spain when he came to the attention of the criminal genius Dr. Mutato.  Dr.  Mutato offered to give him superhuman abilities in return for his assistance in various schemes.  Esteban agreed, and Tarantula was born. Tarantula assisted Dr. Mutato in several attempts at world domination, usually being foiled ...

I had lunch recently with a gamer who lives in my new hometown.  He's been running a 4E game for a while, but for many reasons is having to stop running the campaign.  I told him I'd be willing to sit behind the screen and take over running something. One of the many reasons he stopped running the game, however, was a lack of committed players.  He described the community as "in flux" and said that having people attend with any regularity was rare.  There were also veiled references to "edition wars" and the like. What does this mean for me?  Well, for one thing, I'm not going to rush out and buy anything for this, nor am I going to go whole-hog and plan a whole campaign.  I'm thinking just one Level 1 Quest and let's see what develops.

Well I got an email today from the GM running the game at the local store. Apparently the game is off. He has had some stuff come up compounded with sporadic attendance which equals no game. So my current plan is to see if his group might like a new GM. We will see what happens.