Saturday, October 31, 2015

Gregory Goyle and Vernon Dursley in the Dewdrop Inn


Continuing the theme of sending Harry Potter characters into T&T games, these two unlovables ventured into Ken's Dewdrop Inn. Both are L1 characters with no strong attributes. Now, this little solo is pretty brutal so what to do?

When they get into trouble, Goyle makes a L1 SR on WIZ to attract the Dark Lord's attention so that they get rescued. Why does the evil V bother? He wants them to recruit more Deatheaters.

The intrepid pair have managed to sign up Toad Killer Dog, an uruk adventurer, and a succubus. Without Voldey's interventions, they would have been very dead very often.

The big problem they have is the Vernon just will not believe in magic and it is a problem for more than just Tinkerbell...

Tuesday, October 27, 2015

Cluedo meets Tunnels & Trolls (with a little help from Buccaneer)



Here is the game, set up on one of the thick rugs I dragged over to NZ from the UK many moons ago (it and its partner came from a place called Trago Mills in Devon).

Here's how the game works:

You deal one treasure card and one crew card from Buccaneer to each room on the Cluedo board. The crew cards indicate MR of the room's guard. There are red and black cards in Buccaneer with 1,2 or 3 crew showing. Red 1 = MR 10, Red 2 = MR14, Red 3 = MR 18, all the way up to Black 3 = MR 30.

The treasure cards may mean you find treasure in the room or there may be a penalty. Where they speak of 'reducing your crew card' total, I play you may have to reduce your combat adds via one or more attributes.

The aim of the game is to be the one who has most treasure safe in the bank at your home town (the board space you start from). Guard cards and treasure cards are not replaced once the guard is beaten.

All attributes are rolled up with 4d6 QARO.

SPD is used to move on the board. You can move up to 3 spaces per turn plus 1 extra space per L SR made on SPD - a critical fumble means you trip over.

DEX allows you to get out of a room before a fight starts (if you make a L1 SR). Remember, you only see the number on the back of a crew card but you do not know if it is red or black!

STR determines how long you can fight for. After 2 rounds of combat you must make progressively higher STR SRs or lose 1d6 adds each round.

LK determines anything else! Can you locate the secret passages, are you Born Again if slain, etc.

Oh, and there are weapons and armour. I used all the Cluedo implements as weapons: the candlestick, spanner and lead piping as 3d6 bludgeoning weapons, the rope for DEX SR lassoing, the dagger as a 2d6 stabbing or throwing weapon (DEX SR) and the revolver as a 5d6 +15 nuke! The revolver requires an appropriate DEX SR to hit plus a roll to see if it backfires or explodes per the 5th Edition rules. The treasure cards offer the opportunity to gain crew and you should read that as weapons or armour. I used cufflinks for 3 hit shields.

All the treasure, weapons and armour are placed on the stairs, which must be visited to get anything you are entitled to.

You can attack other players to kill and rob them. You may give victims the chance to rise again ion their home town square.

Of course, you can add in other attributes - WIZ for a deus ex machina intervention, CHR to convince a guard or another player to make nice, INT to find the secret passages or to impersonate another player at their home town bank. CON is need to see when you die!

And there you have it - a simple way to have a cool family Sunday evening without stress when you're tired or wined out ")



Monday, October 12, 2015

A Little Bit of Rules Tinkering

Charlie wanted to roleplay a character inspired by Rita Skeeter from the Harry Potter books. I suggested she work for the Khaboom City Chronicles and we went from there.

It led us to thinking about talents which don't relate to adventuring, mainly in the context of citizens.

What we came up with was spendable EPs (Experience Points) which work like APs (Adventure Points) but can be spent only on upping the particular talent.

Let's suppose you have a 'Nose for a Scoop' talent and that it is based on LK. Let's further suppose the talent is +4 and your LK is 20. You get a particularly good scoop by making saving rolls on the talent and you have garnered 250 EPs. You can now spend these EPs to up the +5 to +6 by spending ten times the current LK value (since LK is the attribute the talent is based upon). You spend 200 EPs leaving a balance of 50 and now have the talent at +6.

It wasn't complicated and we liked it.

Friday, October 9, 2015

Dilemma

We advanced three games over the last 24 hours. They all seem to head in the direction of dilemmas rather than combat or even saving rolls.

First off, is a long-running Skype game featuring Angel, van Persie and Rooney (all based on ex-Man Utd players although some might quibble at me classifying the last in this vein!) and set in the small city of Qadouche. These three low level character4s, none a wizard, have survived a pyramid expedition and now own a tavern. Having seen off a jealous rival owner (Bob Scraggit of the Raged Glass), they have set out again with captain Studley and his men, delivering a cargo of statues to a temple.

They came across a band of slavers with 30 captured elven children, all bound for the same temple. The twists and turns of mischievous fortune saw them holding the slavers' wagons and the children while the slavers hold the Captain and the statues. After setting up a successful ambush in a canyon (the slavers took their cargo to the temple and sold it on), they face the dilemma of what to do with the children. Do they seek to return them to their homes (which would mean a sea journey with no ship known of), do they seek to rescue Studley and his men, do they raid the slavers' camp (and possibly free more slaves) or do they return to Qadouche and try to find a good home for the children?

We shall see...

Secondly, we have a party of 4 elf wizards (one a ghost) who received a free pass on the underground dwarven canal system to any destination...

They arrived in the small city of Vulgaria, having had to row the barge for the last week because the khremmstone power unit was lost overboard (Captain Bluddengutz is distraught with the shame!). They were told by the first person they met that the ruling Baron was crippling the city and people with excessive taxation for his own entertainments and glory. Thereupon they decided instantly to seek to kill the Baron in his palace.

He is now safely in a bunker, they have just murdered the senior wizard from the local Guild in the Wizards' Guild offices and Bluddengutz is in prison for collusion with the elves. The ghost is being tracked by a ghost hunter and his ghost hounds while the visiting Canzoni's Circus is in dire straights, seeking private investigators to look into a series of disasters befalling the troup since the started their week-long stint in Vulgaria.

The dilemma here seems to be do they just make a run for home and abandon their hopes of treasure or do they seek an alliance with a new Guild head and continue to go for the Baron?

The third game involves the resurrected slave of the oldest pcs we have. Is he still 'owned' after years of death? What will the pcs make of his return. At the moment, he is trading off looking like a very wealthy lord and charging everything he can to his account at Khaboom's plushest hotel. Surely this will come back to bite him... He seems to be considering buying up slaves at the market to release them.

On we go!

Wednesday, October 7, 2015

Friday (Game On!)

Come Friday, we start a new game. Four PCs, I think and a murder/sabotage mystery employing Mad Roy Cram's cast from Calzoni's Circus. The cast has been involved in various adventures I have participated in so I know (and love) them well.

Here is some of the data Mad Roy provided:



26 roustabouts
26 roustabelles
their 21 children of various ages
27 circus stars
13 side show folks
54 horses, including Tzamba and Lady Songway's pair
27 sturdy large circus carts and coaches

Haynee Canzoni and his wife Karlota who shared duty as Ringmaster and Ringmistress
Morgo the Ogre who did feats of strength
Blumphoma the 600 pound fat lady
Mergal the Mysterious - a rogue hedge wizard and stage magician. Old and arthritic, he tends to drink a lot. He resents Perry as a possible replacement.
The Juggler brothers, Jok and Johjo
Doomian the Knifer who has a dagger tossing act, and his assistant and partner, Dumia
The very popular clowns: Saphira, Bonk, Boink, and Boodles. They are VERY funny.
Wikam and Marjo, the trained dog act and their canine octet
Saldo, and his wife and kids who do a good horse act with trained horses
The Acrobats: Felippo, Fafonna, Foxey, and Fedorah
Krusha the Great with his animal act: a Bear, a Cougar, a Wolf, and a Bear
Lupini and Messanga the high wire tight rope act
The Trapeze group: Block and Dekkar, and Avera and Santa.
Studger -  ahobbit who works the ticket booth part-time.

Tuesday, October 6, 2015

dT&T - I think my hardbook copy is in the mail!

It's like being a kid again, waiting for the mailman to show up!

DT&T Release Party at Game Depot

KY8-29
I had 3 pieces. One of them was small. :-).
We sold about 40 copies of the paperback edition. This one:
T&Tcover6

Flying Buffalo had a table set up to sell books and give autographs. The entire Fellowship of the Troll was here, but Bear and I were out running games. Visible: Rick Loomis, Liz Danforth, and Steve Crompton.
KY8-29gd1
We ran 3 games of T & T. Bear Peters is probably the best T & T GM in Arizona–I might have said the world, but I have gamed with a few really awesome people who can give him a run for his money–Thessaly Chance for one, Mark Thornton for another. (And I’m not bad (grin)). Everyone seemed to have a great time.

Saturday, October 3, 2015

Magic City Mayor

Just finished another proofread of my novel - that's it, can't do any more!

Here my first draft of an agent query:



(This is exactly how the story was told to be by the wizard, Souza Fortescue, who appears in my fireplace some evenings when the moon is hidden. I have not deviated at all from the facts as he gave them because that is one way to make him bad tempered – and bad things happen when he gets grumpy.)

How do you maintain law and order in a city full of wizards? The Mayor of Khaboom has his hands full at the best of times but now has a pressing problem. It was his decision to let goblins migrate to the city and now the electorate are in an ugly mood, worried about their jobs and giving the newcomers a hard time. What makes it worse for the Mayor is that a renegade wizard is plotting to use the ‘Goblingate’ problem to seize control of the city and destroy the Wizards’ Guild at the same time.

The Mayor gets sucked into a deadly trap by his unseen enemy and neither his magician allies or his mighty bodyguard can save him this time. It is only the entanglement of three ordinary citizens in the web of intrigues that offers a lifeline to the one man who can keep anarchy in check in this magic-rich world. A satyr intent on seducing a medusa, a school girl aiming to graduate from Wizard School and a rabbit trapper wrestling with his prejudices against goblins all spiral out of control in the hurricane  blown by the forces of greed and darkness.

The Mayor is under pressure to reverse his policy of racial tolerance if he wants to be elected again for a 6th straight term – do you sacrifice your principles to stay in office? The satyr, Panticles, needs to choose between reeling a big new corporate client for his boss, Kelba the Centaur so that he can make partner or follow his nose and chase the girl – his client’s niece, a rather glamorous medusa. The girl, Mea, is kicking her heels after being caught up in the death of a classmate she had a running feud with - which closes down Wizard School, leaving her to choose between finding a tutor or lend a helping hand to the many that reach out to her. As for the ordinary man on the street, Wobbly Blunt can carry on hating the slimy goblins or work with them to rescue the Mayor – a man he knows, likes and admires but seems to have badly let down human folk with his latest political strategy.

In the background lurks an arrogant, callous man, hurt by rejection by his peers in the Wizards’ Guild, now willing to commit genocide, not just for power but for the greatest prize, revenge. As Strangebrew skirts round cementing a risky alliance with the Arch-Demon, Ashgoleth, the pawns in his game fall into his dungeon trap like dominoes lined up for his grim amusement.

Can this motley assortment of citizens of this magic city overcome the challenges hurtling at them from all sides and rescue the Mayor before the city falls?


Thursday, October 1, 2015

It's Been A Long Time

Too much GMing, not enough blogging. Been on a run of finding new players - never in the same place, so quite a few games on the boil - more girls than boys for once.

Anyhow, here's a map of the Kraken continent drawn by my daughter...