+1 Thread of Tabletop Roleplaying

I am gonna be there on Saturday hooray.

Excellent!

Yes! I remember going there so long ago I think, uh, Killzone 2 had just come out? Hapi was complaining that it was infecting all of his WHFRP writing.

I thought Haley's Comet returning made me feel old.

Had a great time at Conpulsion over the weekend. I ran a couple light PbtA games for a mix of kids and adults. I bought a bunch of cool RPG books including some weird OSR stuff, and the James Bond RPG. I bought a two player mini wargame called The Cousins War which I then played and it was awesome and kind of exhausting!

I had lunch with Luscan which was lovely. I was in a panel where the audience almost outnumbered us 2:1. Me and my friends had a massive, heated, alcohol-fuelled debate about the nature of games and RPGs. And then we won the pub quiz!

The players finally engaged with the cult stuff propertly in this week's Dragonbane session, but are starting to second-guess their enthusiasm for helping the "paladin" hanging out in the town bar after her religious fervour came out full-force in an extremely quick (and maybe too brutal?) battle.

Spoiler - click to showAfter capturing a cultist last time, the Mallard Bard let slip to the paladin that there was a cultist in the town jail. The paladin headed immediately to the jail to execute the captive, but was followed by another cultist who attempted (along with his mates) to ambush the paladin when she came out (having failed to convince the sheriff's deputy to allow the execution). The bard and thief tried to stop the mugging, but I'd underestimated how powerful this knight is; she shrugged off the cultists' attacks and decapitated one in a single hit. To avoid her rendering the players useless, she continued to beat the corpse on her next turn while the mallards dealt with the second mugger.

The paladin has now been arrested for attempting to murder a fourth (officially only "suspected") cultist in front of the deputy. Next session I want to emphasise that she's one of the more reasonable ones, and have her superior arrive to complicate things even further.

They're still on the fence about the precise alignment of their would-be employer – is she part of the cult, or just doing things that happen to align with their wishes? – so I'm trying to figure out how to manoeuvre her so that they can't get a firm grip just yet.

The 13th Age 2e Kickstarter has opened – I'm a little iffy about paying £90 for the hardback books, but I'm sure I'll justify it to myself somehow.

More importantly, they've sent out the updated playtest packet, which includes a ton of changes even from the earlier alpha (which, admittedly, I only ever skimmed).

It's really making me want to run another 13th Age game, but that seems highly unlikely with my current schedule and obligations.

Another one to add to the pile, I guess!

I've never done much more than skim the first edition of 13th Age, though it's a game that one of my D&D players really likes - albeit one of the only non-D&D games he's played.

I've run 30-40 sessions of 13th Age. It's my favorite modern D&D. But… I'm not in any hurry to run modern D&D just now and those pledges are expensive! £40 for PDFs? No thanks.

One thing that really caught my eye with the packet they sent out today is that, at 10th level, all characters get an extra +30 to their attack rolls (on top of 4x the ability mod). I've not checked the monster math yet, but part of me wonders if the idea is just "you're max level, you're not gonna miss".

+30 sounds like a typo.

Yeah, that seems extreme. Why even make it a modifier, rather than just say "you can't miss"?

I've started a DnD campaign! Final geek level proudly unlocked after all these years.

Everyone is brand new to it, and I assume a bit shit. Our DM is great but has never DM'd before, so we're all figuring it out as we go along. Doing Phandelver, which I think is basically a My First DnD? It's fun!

I'm an undead Bard with a surprising amount of sex appeal for someone with no lower jaw. I've tried to Speak with Animals twice, and both times I've been knocked unconscious.

One of us! One of us!

Doing Phandelver, which I think is basically a My First DnD? It's fun!

There are two Phandelvers - Lost Mine of Phandelver (the original 5e starter set adventure), and Phandelver and Below: The Shattered Obelisk (part update of the original, part new adventure). I've not read Shattered Obelisk, but I ran LMoP, and yes, it's great! A really solid intro to the game, and easily one of the best prewritten adventures 5e's produced.

I've tried to Speak with Animals twice, and both times I've been knocked unconscious.

What did you say to those animals!?

I think we're doing Shattered Obelisk.

What did you say to those animals!?

The first time I asked a horse a question and got shot by a goblin.

The second time I was trying to inspire a pack of wolves. It didn't work.

Ah - the goblins in the first encounter? Those can be brutal. Good idea with the wolves, though!

I like running games for new players. They (you?) tend to think outside the box a bit more, whereas long-term players, I feel, can sometimes fall into the habit of not looking much beyond the specific actions listed on their character sheet.

I just ran a session of Mausritter for the kids (plus Sarah for guidance) , and it went pretty well! I stole the gist of the setup from LMoP (friend asked you to meet him, but you get there and he's been kidnapped), so they had fun chasing down a group of rats who were trying to force their fellow adventurer to open a magical vault for them.

Along the way, E revealed a mildly alarming determination to shoot everything in the heart with her mouse's bow, L tried to squash a surrendering captive with his warhammer, and they set fire to a spider's web before Sarah added injury to insult and skewered it with a spear.

In the end, they rescued their friend, got some cool loot, and were just barely talked out of committing any war crimes - so they're TTRPG naturals, basically.

They've already asked when we can play again; I'll have to see if I can come up with something that has less combat, perhaps?

Sounds great! In my experience kids veer suddenly and randomly between befriending everyone they meet and genocide.

There's some good adventures in The Manor which are light on combat.

Yeah, I've hovered the Buy button on The Manor a couple of times, but having bit actually run the game couldn't quite justify it to myself. I may take another look…

The playtest/starter for Embers of Humanity just launched on itch.io: https://johnthehedge.itch.io/embers-of-humanity

It's a light and versatile post apocalypse RPG using stripped back BRP rules. It's mostly written by a friend of mine but apparently I wrote enough to get a full writing credit. Give it a look tell us what you think!