What we played this week, and what we enjoyed about it.

[w00hoo]

Friday - Ran the first session of a Candlewick Manor game, mainly generating characters and getting a feel for the setting. One player completely new to rpg's but I think she was hooked enough to come back next time. ORE/Monsters character gen still doesn't get any easier to explain despite which I think everyone is happy with who they've got. Looking forward to putting some meat on the bones next month.

Saturday (ConCrete Cow so talked about elsewhere)

Sunday - UA Serenity. The fallout from the PvP last session was pretty much sorted out and things are looking a lot more coherent for the characters, helped somewhat by the 'will eventually show his colours' antagonist pinning them to the mast to a degree that should stop any debate on the matter (well, most of it anyway). The small child who is also a Reader (an NPC) was finally outed as such to her protector (a PC) when he realised that the conversations they'd been having for the last 2 or 3 sessions had all been in his head and not out loud. Next session should see some big confrontation scenes with the villagers. Very happy with how this is turning out, especially after the shaky start.

[ncmreynolds]

Another good session of Dark Heresy on Tuesday where we're being carried along on a tide of narrative from the GM thus avoiding all the tiresome whiff of starting DH characters. He forgot the character sheets but it really didn't matter as I think we made two rolls all evening.

Last night a good second session of the episodic Corum campaign at Phoenix Games Club where again there was relatively little recourse to the system. Which was a marked contrast to last weeks PvP intro where one characters embrace of Chaos in previous episodes came fatally home to roost.

[w00hoo]

CoC, At the Mountains of Madness continued last Friday with our three characters sailing down to Melbourne and dealing with various shenanigans on the ship. For once we appeared to hit the expected timescale of the plot and did a nights gaming in one night (apparently we are a bit ahead of schedule having taken two sessions to play three sessions worth or some such, not that anyones really counting.) There's a nice mix of characterisation and game going on and I like the slow burn of the scenario.

Exalted again last night, we've started another published adventure so did a fair bit of box text sight seeing then had a very one sided fight with some pirates which saw us all beating their initiative and pretty much destroying them before they got their first attack in. Finished early so the GM could sort the plot out as he'd had a last minute change of mind over what we were going to do and we'd blown through what he'd got prepared. As a bonus, my character has upgraded his normal breastplate to a magical one which is great 'cause it means I can't forget to take the negatives off of his stealth skills as there aren't any any more. Yay.

[w00hoo]

CoC, At the Mountains of Madness continued last Friday with our three characters sailing down to Melbourne and dealing with various shenanigans on the ship. For once we appeared to hit the expected timescale of the plot and did a nights gaming in one night (apparently we are a bit ahead of schedule having taken two sessions to play three sessions worth or some such, not that anyones really counting.) There's a nice mix of characterisation and game going on and I like the slow burn of the scenario.

Exalted again last night, we've started another published adventure so did a fair bit of box text sight seeing then had a very one sided fight with some pirates which saw us all beating their initiative and pretty much destroying them before they got their first attack in. Finished early so the GM could sort the plot out as he'd had a last minute change of mind over what we were going to do and we'd blown through what he'd got prepared. As a bonus, my character has upgraded his normal breastplate to a magical one which is great 'cause it means I can't forget to take the negatives off of his stealth skills as there aren't any any more. Yay.

[thenovalord]

Last thursday continuation of GURPS/spacemaster Tech Level 9, UN of the future/Gangs of New Glasgow. bit wierd at times and discovered there is an 268M! crit doable is SM

Friday. WHFRP, death on the reik. slow start but good finish. Gavynne Denzag, angry initiate/priest of Sigmar, rox

Tuesday. GMed the beginning of the rather excellent Kingmaker AP for Pathfinder. it went real well and look 4ward to more

No more games till saturday at that Conquest thingy

[dpmcalister]

First bit of roleplaying in a while, but I got to "stand in" for a missing regular player in the WFRP game that thenovalord was in. It's a bit difficult to get into the roleplaying when you're picking up someone else's character in the middle of an ongoing campaign (especially for a one-off and in a campaign (The Enemy Within) that I'd run and read more than a few times in the past) but I thought it went very well. The first half of the session was taken up with a bit of roleplaying as the guys sold off some of their ill-gotten gains ( ) before heading further upriver to find a mystery lady.

My character, who is a very sneaky thief-cum-cat burglar, managed to make friends with a couple of extremely smelly dwarves (thanks to the unwitting charity of Gavynne ) before proceeding to decimate a tribe of goblins (OK, not quite a tribe, but he silently killed 8 of them before the halfling cook gave the game away )

[Evilgaz]

Hellfrost this week, AK's Skald really started to develop. Aside from needing the Big Mouth Hindrance (which AK carries as default), its a good character in terms of numnbers on the sheet as a balance to the more martial characters the Masonator and I are carrying.

It was cool to see him squirm as bait for the Frost Giant initially and then in short order be capering in front of the 10' tall beast distracting it as we tried desperately to cut it off at the knees. Also Siphoning is Good (rather than using PP), as AK was at first quite free and easy with his magic and then more cautious as the Siphoning ocurred, and then brave again, only to have his songs removed in the first round of the final battle.

I'm still finding it frustratingly impossible to go Berserk, as I'm always passing my Smarts roll (despite it being d4). I'm not sure how else to improve my chances - I was taking wounds willy nilly in the hope that the penalties would help me fail, but I just couldn't help but roll well. Grrrr

The Masonator was quiet this week, looking forward to seeing some character from him in the next session and how our respective knack merchants diverge as the XP and Glory adds up.

[andrew_kenrick]

I don't believe in keeping quiet in games (or real life) - what's the point in that? And there's no point in keeping secrets (or treasure) to yourself either - blab them out or give them away.

As fun as a skald is, I'm hitting a brick wall with character development - most of the songs are dull or boring utility spells. I've got all the useful/fun ones for Novice so am now biding my time waiting for Seasoned.

But Hellfrost is cool. Bez has done a good job bringing the setting to life, and I felt we really earned our way by bargaining with the Dwarfs to get across the mountains, rather than it being a natural path that the GM have us follow. Plus, working together in combat really does help.

[thenovalord]

the skald is great background, boost trait is cumulative so you can get d12+1 in some traits!! how is that dull

we have a beserk in our party too. i think hes managed twice in the same session, but that was the only session of 4 or 5 sessions he has played

[Evilgaz]

the skald is great background, boost trait is cumulative so you can get d12+1 in some traits!! how is that dull

I can't speak for AK, but personally, that's just made it sounds well dull. Dullerusterer. You can cast the same spell twice and stack it. Snore. Why cast the same one twice when you could have loads of different ones?

Love you man, but, less stato and more Look At This Cool Shizzle! Its style as much as content with our lot.

there's no point in keeping secrets (or treasure) to yourself either - blab them out or give them away.

You could at least wait until someone asks you though...

biding my time waiting for Seasoned.

Totally. I'm struggling for what to spend my XP on if I'm not going to follow MM's path. Essentially Seasoned is where it gets good and loads of options open up. You need to petition Bez for more XP for the Boys.

But Hellfrost is cool. Bez has done a good job bringing the setting to life

Word up.

Gaz

[w00hoo]

the skald is great background, boost trait is cumulative so you can get d12+1 in some traits!! how is that dull

I can't speak for AK, but personally, that's just made it sounds well dull.

With Gaz here, one of the problems I think some of us are having with the Exalted is that some of the table think merely getting to roll 20 d10's is cool while others are looking for something more than lots of dice to count from it...

[thenovalord]

now i dont understand..........

the background reeks cool/fun and if you cant find exciting development in the skald , even at novice, then im at a loss. My skald has lots plans in store

plus

given the trait booting access you then have the dice/skills/stat/numbers to back up all the groovey rhymes ya skald busts out?

plus boost trait is a great way to help someone out of berserk!!

win all round

the skald is great background, boost trait is cumulative so you can get d12+1 in some traits!! how is that dull

I can't speak for AK, but personally, that's just made it sounds well dull. Dullerusterer. You can cast the same spell twice and stack it. Snore. Why cast the same one twice when you could have loads of different ones?

Love you man, but, less stato and more Look At This Cool Shizzle! Its style as much as content with our lot.

Gaz

well they mentioned needing more xp and wanting to be seasoned!!

[Rich Stokes]

Geez, I've neglected this thread for AAAAaaaages!

Recently:

Hot War/Vampire: the Masquerade was a cracking game. We played for 4 weeks, plus the initial set-up session, and it hit the ground at 90 mph and didn't really let up until everyone was either **** or victorious. But mostly varying degrees of ****. The system worked wonderfully with the setting and really got the players at each other. The fact that one player managed about two complete sessions without succeeding at a single die roll was unfortunate, but lead to some really powerful scenes (for example, a failed Desire lead to an important NPC falling under a tube train as she backed away in fear).

D&D: Paragon Tier continues along, and continues to be good fun. Last session saw us exploring our characters ancient past, and it turns out we're all descended from the people who spawned the "evil" versions of our races. Except the Tiefling, who turns out to be the guy who first made the pact which created Tieflings. Playing as our past selves (in my case, getting to create basically a Drow version of my usual Eladrin character) has been a blast. In an earlier plot we pretty much rohypnol'd an entire town of gnomes so we could steal their Dragon as part of our hair-brained scheme to escape the feywild, while my character's sister (the queen) hunted for me for crimes I probably did commit.

D&D Heroic Tier is shaping up and so far is exceptionally fun and quite silly. The idea that my character (a Changeling Assassin) is thought to be just a perfectly normal human merchant by the rest of the party is proving to have lots of comedy potential. Plus, Assassins are **** (even if they have bugger all hitpoints).

[ncmreynolds]

Tuesday night, more Dark Heresy. The Psyker and Arbiter went off to assess the claims from a group of despised mutants that they were in fact the true heroes of an uprising against the forces of the Arch Enemy. As opposed to the human nobility who claimed to have led the uprising. This ended with them storming a hospital in a bloody mutant-led raid to deal with some cultists. All the while my Auditor was rubber-stamping the citizenship of another group of mutants as we're currently wielding the carrot more than the stick. If we're wrong in this, we're screwed.

Thursday night, more Corum. We're trapped in a dog-eat-dog prison dimension and have started dealing with an unsavoury character in an attempt to secure our escape. Last night we broke in to the trap laid by a champion of Law for the prisons most dangerous occupant but which had contained them both. This did not go well as we're still trapped and now he's free, having escaped back to my home plane. If we crack open the trap and release the aforemention champion of Law she's gonna be pissed.

It's notable that while playing both of these two very trad system games we're not getting into the usual 'two hour long fight with some tough but plot inconsequential mooks' and 'player vs environment make your climb roll or fall' trad stuff and are rather narrating our way through with the odd skill roll to colour the way things go. Last night we had one and a half games of chess and a chat with the Chaos Sorcerer before the (very short) fight kicked off.

[dr_mitch]

Heroquest, 2nd Edition on Sunday. A game involving the oceans and islands of Glorantha. I really enjoyed it- it handily deals with most of the things that upset me with first edition. My only complaint is that augments are now a little clunky.

So no more negativity from me about Heroquest.