A to Z Challenge - A

Part of the Blogging from A to Z Challenge

Arli Wolgro

Adventurer - Paladin (Level 4)

Female Human

"Kerith, shine your light upon me revealing your path."

Description

The left side of Arli's face is covered in burned scars and she wears a patch over her missing right eye. She keeps the left side of her head shaved while on the right side her blonde hair rests on her shoulder. She wears bright green and yellow garments in honor of her goddess, Kerith. Underneath her armor and garments her body is covered in various scars.

Wants

Arli desires to return to her home village from which she was kidnapped and sold into slavery when she was but a child. She wants to show the light of Kerith to her family and villagers.

Fears

Years of torture has caused serious trauma within Arli causing her to be crippled with night terrors. She despises torture and slave traders.

Uncharted Worlds - Mackenzie Calhoun

Uncharted Worlds is a Powered by the Apocalypse space opera RPG.
I've been looking for a Star Trek style game to play with my wife. And then I remembered that I actually played this game a few years ago as a play-by-post game. You can find that game thread here (I believe it is open to the public to view).

While describing to my wife how simple and creative the character creation is I thought I would make Mackenzie Calhoun from the Star Trek: New Frontier series created by Peter David.

Mackenzie Calhoun
Captain
Brutal Military Personality
Scarred, Chiseled, Severe
Mettle +2
Physique +1 (+2 from Branded)
Influence +1
Expertise +0
Interface -1
Skills
Branded (+1 to Physique - max+2)
Leadership
Authority
Tactics
Advancement
A perilous order is obeyed
Assets
Captain's Starfleet uniform (Class 0 Attire)
Hand Phaser (Class 2, One-Handed, Close/Far, Stun, Penetrating)
Sword (Class 1, Melee, Defensive, Severing)
Soldiers (Class 1 Squad, Armed)

A to Z Challenge

Justin Isaac, of Halls of the Nephilim, introduced me to the Blogging from A to Z Challenge. After looking into it and some thinking of what I could do, I've decided I would give this thing a shot!

So, starting on April 1st I will post my first A to Z Challenge. The theme I am going to do is NPCs. There will be an NPC for each letter of the alphabet. The NPC will have a description, short bio, possibly some adventure hooks and even stats on some of them. Though, the stats would probably be focused more on Swords & Wizardry Complete and Continual Light.

A Review: The Silvery Moon Tavern

The Silvery Moon Tavern by Jayson "Rocky" Gardner of Silver Bulette is a system neutral supplement book that goes into great detail of a tavern that can be thrown into your own gaming world.

This books goes into great detail about a tavern, The Silvery Moon, including the history of the tavern, the surrounding area (though you can easily place the tavern in your world), the staff, customers/patrons, food/drink, entertainment, accommodations and magic items.

The Staff
There are twelve staff members described in this book and a portrait for each one. Each one has a small flavor text, description, personality traits and plot hooks. They each have at least two plot hooks, if not more. The plot hooks involve things such as things happening in the surrounding areas, the NPC's past, an NPC wanting to get something from another NPC and other situations. The information for each staff member is short but it's all you need to grow them into NPCs your players will love or love to hate. My personal favorite is Adriana Chastane. Though, I tend to play with kids so her situation might be a little too mature for them.

Customers & Patrons
In this book there are two types of customers/patrons: Adventuring Party and Commoner. There are a total of five different Adventuring Parties with a total of twenty-three adventurers that are named and include a brief description. Included is a table to create a random Adventuring Party Name. There are a total of forty-eight commoners that are named and include their profession, if any.

Food & Drink
There is a lot of information that details all the different kinds of food and drinks that are and can be served in The Silvery Moon Tavern. There is a huge list of different types of food and drinks and also there is a 1d6 roll rule that can be used to determine if the requested item is available. This is determined by the rarity of the item. The more rare/exotic the item the lease likely it will be available. Honestly, there is enough information on the alcoholic drinks that a GM could create a small drink menu that they could handout to their players.

Entertainment
There is information on nine different entertainers that could be found in The Silvery Moon Tavern. And there is information on five different games that are played in the tavern. Also, there is a dedicated room in the tavern for the games (the gambling area).

Accommodations
There are four different types of rooms in the tavern. The prices are not listed for them, though, the suggested price range are from a few coppers to one-hundred gold or more.

Magic Items
There is information on twelve different types of mundane magical items. For example, a knife that seasons the food as it is being cut. These are very cool items that are so basic but yet very creative.

Lastly, I want to mention that throughout this book there are text blocks, "Writer's Notes," that give suggestions, advice and tips on how to use everything in this book. A lot of it is for new GMs who are wanting to get into gaming. This book and your rule system of choosing is a great start for any new GM. There is plenty of information in this book for a GM to create their own sandbox style game from using the plot hooks and information on the surrounding area. Just take this tavern and create a small village/town around it or even just place it at a crossroads and let your players interact with the NPCs and they will quickly decide what adventures they would like to go on!

Birthday Fundraiser - Hydrating Humanity

My birthday is the 29th this month and I am going to be 32. I got a notification this morning from Facebook about doing a fundraiser for my birthday and that is what I am doing.
The Fundraiser is for Hydrating Humanity. Hydrating Humanity works to help make the world a place where all people have access to clean drinking water and sanitation; a world where people are not dying from water-borne diseases, but living abundantly, lives full of hope.
CLICK HERE to go to the Facebook Fundraiser Page.

Thanks for the support!

Game Session: Swords & Wizardry Super Light

Over the weekend I ran a session of Swords & Wizardry Light for my daughter (11 years old), little brother (11 years old), cousin (first time player) and my wife. This is also the first real time my wife played D&D.

I took Swords & Wizardry Light and made it Super Light. I asked them each what they wanted to play as and quickly wrote on a sheet of paper their Health, AC, Saving Throw + Bonus, Attack and Spell Slots/Special Abilities. I didn't even include the stats. I just rolled their HD to get their Hit Points.

My daughter and cousin were both Elven Magic-Users and so they decided that their characters were sisters. My little brother was a Human Thief and my wife was a Human Cleric. I told them that their characters already knew each other and that they wake up in a prison cell hearing a voice in their head telling them the direction of their gear and, "Act quickly and don't think." Which I explained that when things are taking a little longer than they should I will count to five and expect to have a decision. Fortunately, I never made it to five.

The premise was for the adventurers to escape from their cell and find a way out of the dungeon/fortress that they were in. They didn't know where they were or how they even got captured. The real point was just a quick dungeon crawl session to show the basics of the game and just to have fun. 

After forgetting to check for traps on a locked door they eventually get their gear and begin searching for the way out...

With some inspiration from Matt Finch's Swords of Jordoba, the adventurers encountered two human sized slug-like monsters that wield a shield and sword. One of the Magic-User's charmed one of the slugs and he killed the other slug without causing a scene. The charmed slug became their guide and henchman. Fortunately, he had some keys to the doors and knew the way out. They came across a corridor where the ceiling was becoming more narrow the further they went. This wasn't much of a problem to the party except for the cleric wearing bulky armor and a shield. It took her a little bit longer to get through. At the other side of the corridor was a room with a large portcullis blocking the path. In the room there were two vents, one on each side of the portcullis, they were large enough that a human wearing no armor could crawl through if needed to. They looked through the left vent and saw that on the other side was a prison cell with the remains of a human skeleton. Through the right vent was this small creature with spikes all over its back hunched over eating something in a prison cell. The slug opened the portcullis for the adventurers and on the other side was three wooden doors on the left, three on the right and a metal door straight ahead. When they passed through a loud scream can be heard coming from one of the doors to the right. They had the slug lock the doors on right side of the room. One of the Magic-Users went back and climbed up to look through the vent on the right side of the wall but couldn't see anything and then suddenly that creature was at the vent screaming in her face....I actually screamed in her face which causes my daughter to actually be frightened and almost fall out of her chair. It was a great moment. And because of that her character fell back frightened and the portcullis fell down causing a loud bang. Then through the narrow passage three slugs came through with the Magic-User stuck on the side with them. She was able to blast one with Magic Missile but then lost her staff when trying to fight another before the friendly slug could open the portcullis and the rest of the adventurers helped finished off the rest. Though, the other Magic-User got a little crazy and pummeled one of the slugs over and over and over with her staff until it was a nasty mess (she landed a critical hit). After this they wanted to go through the metal door and as they opened the door a nasty, vile, disgusting smell blew through the door causing both the Magic-Users to get really sick causing them to vomit for a few rounds. That smell was the food that the slugs eat. Through the metal door was a small spiral stairway that led down to the kitchen. The slug went first to see what was down there but after a moment he never returned and then adventurers in their head heard, "help!" They stormed down the stairs and found three slugs. Two of them were taking their friendly slug away and the other one had it's back turned against the adventurers. They managed to take down these slugs without getting hurt, though, in the process one of the slugs killed their friendly slug. It was a sad moment for the adventurers. They figured that this fight probably caused a lot of noised so they continued on through the next door...

The next room opened up into this large area where the opposite side didn't have a wall. There was a huge opening. On the right of the opening was this large creature that was double the size of a human. It was operating a large crank that was connected to a platform. The adventurers could tell that this thing was lowering down a platform. This monster had this metal plate across it's mouth and this weird green slime over it's head. One of the Magic-Users managed to charm this creature and realized that it couldn't speak because of the metal plate on it's mouth. The thief was able to unlock the metal plate from the creature's mouth. As it fell off the creature's jaw lowered revealing nasty sharp teeth. After having all the players make a roll we discovered that the Cleric was able to understand the demonic language this creature spoke. The creature told the Cleric that the only way out is through the lift but currently on the lift is something more powerful than him....

The adventurers agree that it is time to fight and prepare them selves as the creature continues to lower the lift. Once the lift was low enough a human was surprised to see the creature without it's metal plate over it's mouth. He saw the adventurers and targeted the Thief with a necrotic spell, fortunately it wasn't deadly. Then one of the Magic-Users cast sleep but wasn't able to cause the human to fall asleep but in trying to do so it caused the large creature to fall over asleep. Then the human began to transform into this large demon. It had massive arms and claws and on each shoulder it had tentacle-like spikes that would whip around. It jumped off the lift and landed in the middle of the room. Three of the Adventurers were together while one of the Magic-Users was on the other side of the room. She blast the demon with a Magic Missile which made him very angry. He swiped one of his spikes at her knocking her over and sliding her across the room next to the rest of the Adventurers. With his spikes he made an "arena" around the him and the Adventurers so they couldn't get away. After a round of fighting this thing the injured Magic-User cast web on the demon's spikes and it bound his spikes to the ground. When he couldn't break free from the web he bashed her with the back of his hand sending her across the room...dead. With that the other Magic-User, after seeing her sister's lifeless body fly across the room, shot the demon in the face with a Magic Missile which was the distraction the Thief needed. He successfully managed to get away from the demon's site and over one of the tentacles. After another round the Cleric landed a brutal hit to the demon's head which made him angry and he slammed his claws into the sleeping creature and drained it's energy. Though, it didn't matter when the Thief landed a Back Stab and I said the words, "How do you want to kill this demon?" Everyone cheered and was excited. And the Thief stabbed the demon through it's back and cut off his tentacles and his arms.

The Magic-User got her sister onto the platform and the Thief raised the platform while the two Magic-Users and Cleric were on it. Once it made it to the top the Thief climbed the walls and they made their way out of the dungeon and back onto the surface. The Cleric was able to cure the Magic-User's wounds and restore her to life. They gathered themselves and made their way to a nearby town.

And that is where this session ended.

A Review: Six-Shooters & Wagons

Six Shooters & Wagons by Justin Isaac of Halls of the Nephilim is a Swords & Wizardry Continual Light Hack.
Six-Shooters & Wagons ''lets you move away from dungeons and into the saloons and wagon trails of the old west.'' The game follows the same formula/structure as SWCL.

There are four key classes: Gunslinger, Scout, Soldier and Swindler.
There are also four optional classes: Deadeye, Moonshiner, Scrapper and Vigilante.
If you're not aware of how optional classes work in SWCL they are basically modified versions of one of the key classes. The drawback for selecting an optional class is that it takes longer to level up the character. But usually it is for good reason because some optional classes might have an advantage over the other classes.

Like I mentioned above, the game is very much like SWCL, but there are some special rules that are specific to the western theme. Now, this game does something that I love when it comes to the damage of guns: 1d6 ONLY! Now, the shotgun is 1d6+2 but it is still a single die being rolled. I love this about this game. Now, this game doesn't have armor, well except for a shield, which means there is a much higher chance of getting hit. Which is perfect for this game. The only thing I feel is missing from the combat rules are special rules when it comes to things like cover since there is no armor. For example: Receiving an AC bonus while riding a horse against an NPC who is not mounted on a horse. I mention that one as an example because in some Westerns you see the Cowboy hang from the side of his horse, using his horse as a shield, while shooting at the villains.

Included in the game are 16 Critters and Folks (The "monsters" of the system). Bandits, Outlaws, Wolves, Snakes, etc. But there is also nothing stopping you from using Zombies from SWCL.

Another great thing about Six-Shooters & Wagons (and other products from Justin Isaac) is the art! All of the artwork is Public Domain but he does a fantastic job with finding and selecting the perfect art. It has this wonderful Pulp Western feel to it. I love it!

What I would like to see in future supplements for Six-Shooters & Wagons is information about professions and town-building. A lot of Western shows and movies typically revolve around the entire town rather than all the gunslinger deputies. I feel with this information it lets the players create characters that are not only important to the session but also to the town-building aspect of the game. You could have a party where only one PC is actually a sheriff/deputy of a town while the other PCs are shop owners, or the native that works for one of the NPCs on the ranch, or the preacher of the town or whatever. Westerns aren't really about exploring the world and looking for treasure. It is about trying to make a living and surviving in a town/community. And often the adventures/dangers come to the PCs rather than them looking for it.

As I was reading through this I thought about how cool it would be to use miniatures and terrain for this game. Though, the miniatures can be something so basic and cheap as the packs of the Cowboys & Indians green army men style toys. While Lincoln Logs could be used to create sections of the town.

If you're already a fan of Swords & Wizardry Continual Light or you're just looking for a Western themed game then I would highly recommend Six-Shooters & Wagons. It is rules light and basic enough to expand and modify to make it fit for you and your gaming group. Also, did I mention that it is Pay-What-You-Want? So what are you waiting for? I'm sure you already clicked on the hyperlink before reading this review anyways. So go ahead and purchase it and throw in A Fistful of Dollars while you're at it to support Justin Isaac.

Tome of Adventure Design - March

As part of Twelve Months of Tome of Adventure Design I have rolled up March's monster for the next One-Page Adventure!

March's Monster
Physical & Special Attacks: 93 - Limb attack, Tail attack and One special attack
Special Defenses:  98 - One special defense and Two attributes.
Limb Attack: 76 - Piercing Limb
Tail Attack: 57 - Pierces
Special Attack: 88 - Sound damage (save for half damage)
Delivery Method for Special Attack: 5 - Appearance (normal appearance is dangerous)
Special Defense: 22 - Grows or shrinks
First Attribute: 77 - Recovers hit points
Second Attribute: 47 - Has a particular animal it prefers or even craves as food

Also for this month's One-Page Adventure I am using Book Four of Tome of Adventure Design, Non-Dungeon Adventure, to help create the story/theme.

Non-Dungeon Adventure
Adventure Type: 6 - Waterborne
Ship Type: 3 - Common (my own custom table)
Common Ship: 83 - Rowboats or coracles
Ship Cargo: 97 - Wood
Unusual Pirates: 5 - Humans or humanoids have special ability like teleport or water breathing
Unusual Island: 78 - Tip of an enormous man-made structure or wrecked vessel
Owner of Island: 23 - Ghosts in abandoned structures

Tome of Adventure Design can be found here

The Skyship of Smazah

It's the last day of the month but I still made my deadline....barely.
February's One-Page Adventure is here!

The Skyship of Smazah for Swords & Wizardry Continual Light
(Direct Link) (RPGNow Link)

"The Kingdom of Smazah is a small Kingdom, one not worthy of much notice. The recent crash of a strange vessel and the Strangers within has caused great excitement across the five and twenty countries of the Land. Lions Gate has become the center of interest as mages, adventurers and greedy opportunists seek to plunder the ship of its strange valuables and powerful artifacts."

This OPA incorporates two different things!
1) It is part of the Twelve Months of Tome of Adventure Design
2) It takes place in Michael Shorten's The Kingdom of Smazah. Which is part of his Three Hexes Campaign Starters. Which also means he is credited as a writer of this adventure because you must also have his work in order to properly run this OPA.

Included in this OPA is a new race and optional class for your Continual Light games. The Goblin and the Shaman.

I did have some technical difficulties while creating this PDF. For some reason I wasn't able to create the Hyperlinks like the way I normal would. So I had to go in after the PDF was completed and use some free web-based program to make the Hyperlinks. The Hyperlinks are not highlighted but they are there. I believe there are four of them. I tested them out and they all do work.

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It’s a girl!

It may not be gaming related but we found out today that our future gamer is a girl!

Say hello to Ora Estelle!

Highlight: Swords of Jordoba: An Old-School D&D Actual Play Series

I just finished watching Episode 6 of Swords of Jordoba.
Swords of Jordoba is an Actual Play series on YouTube. The game system being used is Swords & Wizardry which is essentially the D&D rules from 1974-1977. The GM of the series is, Matt Finch, the author of Swords & Wizardry and Co-Author of OSRIC.

It's great!

If you want to watch a current and unique (will get to this below) actual play of Old-School D&D this is the one you want to watch! This does a great job at showing how to run/play Old-School D&D. With the rise of D&D, thanks to 5th Edition and Twitch, people are getting more and more interested in the roots of D&D and seeing how the game was at it's development.

Now, this isn't a Critical Role. It isn't filmed and streamed live from a studio with a crew. The players and the GM are playing online from their homes using either Skype or Google Hangouts. But what makes this series so unique, other than the play-style one must have for Old-School D&D, is how they use miniatures and terrain. Yes, I know, those other series use miniatures and terrain BUT not like this!

Since everyone is playing from their own home and not together in a studio, the GM, Matt, puts the players AND viewers right into the middle of this game. He uses a small camera that goes through the inside of the terrain that would be eye-level to the characters. The players and viewers get this amazing first-person POV experience in this series. Unlike most other series, either in a studio or Roll20, there is always a top-down view of the table (virtual table) which allows the players and viewers to see the "GM POV" rather than the character POV. So when the Dwarf opens the door all you can see is what the character would be able to see instead of removing the fog of war or just adding on the entire room so all the players and viewers get that GM POV.

Here are some screenshots I took while watching Episode 6:

Definitely checkout this series! There are currently 7 episodes right now and it shouldn't take that long to catch up. The first episode is short and the others are between an hour to two hours in length. Go here for the YouTube Playlist of the series. If you enjoy it don't forget to subscribe and share with others! Also, they have a Patreon that you can help support the series for it to continue to go on and to increase the production value of the series!

Tome of Adventure Design - February

As part of Twelve Months of Tome of Adventure Design I have rolled up February's monster for the next One-Page Adventure. Last month I received requests to post the results of the rolls for those who have a copy of the book and want to look at the tables.

February's Monster
Physical & Special Attacks: 95. Limb attack only and two special attacks.
Special Defenses: 97. One defense and two distinctive attributes.

Limb Attack Only: 53. Talons.
Special Attack: 79; 13. Squirt liquid (Single target); Asphyxiation.
Special Attack: 60; 49. Smell (Squirted, single target); Emotion (Love or happiness).
Special Defense: 12. Chitin.
Attribute: 44. Inhabit wet areas.
Attribute: 14. Builds nests from sticks, branches, mud, bones or clay.

Now that I have the outline of this new monster I will begin to wear my creativity hat and produce a terrible drawing of what I believe this creature might be.

Remember, this monster was created by using the random tables in Matt Finch's Tome of Adventure Design.

GM Anxiety & One-Page Adventures

I suffer from social anxiety but I want to focus on GM Anxiety.
What is GM Anxiety?
- Fear of disappointing the players/friends/family
- Fear of never being fully prepared (which I know is never truly achievable)
- Fear of having all eyes on you (being the center of attention)
- Fear of being a complete failure

Obviously, every GM wants to make sure their players are having a great time and don't want to disappoint them. There is the fear of making mistakes while GMing that can cause the players to be upset or disappointed in you. And then there is the fear of not being as good as another GM and now with things like Critical Role and other successful Twitch RPG shows the pressure seems to be on GMs even more (it feels like that anyways). With someone who already struggles with social anxiety this puts so much weight on their shoulders that often it just becomes too much and the game they had scheduled for next week has now been postponed because, to quote Jan Brady, "Something suddenly came up."
Now, if something didn't come up and the game is actually happening then the GM made their save vs fear of running a game. But now all eyes is on the GM. And I know personally that this is one of the greatest challenges to deal with when you suffer from social anxiety. And just because it something you like/love and enjoy it doesn't make it any easier. There are still people that depend on you to run this game without completely screwing it up and having them throw their dice at you while yelling, "you are the worst GM ever! I am never going to play with you ever again!" (this is only a fraction of what runs through my head as the GM)

The main thing I want to focus on is never fully being prepared and how One-Page Adventures comes into play. I love reading game modules and campaign books. I have a lot of them on PDF and I often read through them and say to myself, "I am so going to run this module!" And then I sit down and go into preparation mode by taking down notes, writing out stuff and so on. But I also have this NEED to know EVERYTHING before I can run the module. Even those classic 32 page modules. I must know it all before I can run it. And of course that never happens. And the thought of running something like I6 Ravenloft fills me up with so much anxiety that it crushes me. Looking at dungeon maps, "Oh there are 83 locations. How am I supposed to know all of this before we play!?" And I know I'm not going to know it all. No one really does. But it is that NEED to know it all that drives me away from running modules.
Which is why I came up with the idea of my One-Page Adventures. I often get asked (or complaints) about why there are no maps included with my OPAs. But this is because it makes GMing so much easier for me this way. If I just have a page with the main goal of the adventure, stat blocks and some features that can be found throughout the adventure then this gets rid of a lot of the anxiety I have when it comes to being the GM. I can make up the "map" on the fly much easier than looking at a map and referring back and forth to the map and the text. Now room 23 can be whatever I feel like room 23 will be at the time of the adventurers entering the room. I could make it feel more natural or if I'm just stuck I can look at the list of features and use one I haven't used yet. Another benefit of not having a map is that if the adventurers are in a room with three doors I only need to know what's behind the door that they choose and if they never go back to see what's beyond those doors that's fine because nothing important that they would have needed would be there. I can control the flow of the game without the map and module. If I know that the adventurers need to find Barael's Blade in order for them to slay the Spider Priest I can allow them to find that when I feel it is necessary for the story.

I've thought about taking some of the classic modules that I have and put them in my OPA format for my own personal use. What's the main goal of the module? Are there any key (or cool) items that are needed? Take note of any key stat blocks and cool features already in the module. Would running I6 Ravenloft in this format take away from running it how it was originally written? Isn't the goal of I6 Ravenloft to kill Strahd? Would my players even notice that I didn't run it by the book (that is if they never read or played it before)? They probably wouldn't even care as long as they got to do what was advertised, "storm the castle and kill the vampire."

Would you be interested in a classic module in my One-Page Adventure format?