Tag: rpg

Gaming

(Old) School’s In For Summer

Finn CullenLeave a comment

I recently discovered Lamentations of the Flame Princess mainly due to seeing it mentioned all over the Internet as something worthy of note – people talked about its high production values, innovation, boundary pushing etc and I thought I’’d see what all the fuss was about.


The basic rules are available for free online in an art-free version (which is a shame – the art is splendidly evocative of the feel intended by the author) and I will be honest and say that when I first read through the rules I was underwhelmed.   Yes it was an old school D&D clone, laid out very well, clearly explained and with some nice rule tweaks to tidy things up — but it didn’t seem to be anything special.   I was a bit nonplussed as to what all the fuss was about.     Then I saw a few reviews on YouTube – IvanMike and QuestingBeast do a lot of old school gaming posts and reviewed a number of LotFP’s products – and it dawned on me that the strength of the game isn’t from the system but from the adventures and supplementary material.   Articles I’ve read suggest that the author of LotFP really only published the rules as a vehicle for creating the sort of content he wanted to play.

Going back to the rules and giving them a fairer and more indepth reading with this in mind makes me appreciate them all the more.    The simple clarity of the game and the experience it will create is something that has piqued my interest.   Going back to a mindset of “Rulings not Rules” and rewarding clever play and exploration rather than focussing every adventure round combat scenes brings me joy.  I’ve never been a fan of combat for combat’s sake but many games have such detailed rules for combat that such scenes dominate gameplay, and often bring mechanical reward for fighting and overcoming foes rather than doing the rational thing and avoiding deadly encounters wherever possible.
I plan to run a home-made adventure for LotFP as soon as one of my groups gets a free space but I think I will need to impress on them a few changes of mindset before we do, in particular…

Player Characters don’t start off as heroes
They start as adventurers – people in a risky job out for gain and advancement.   If they think they can drop into the middle of an orc-nest and slay a dozen enemies using roundhouse kicks and pointy sticks then it will be a very short game.

It’s not the DM’s job to create a “Balanced Encounter”
I’ve seen this expressed as “Combat for Sport” versus “Combat as War” in articles online.    Modern D&D variants have elaborate and (to me anyway) impenetrable rules allowing DMs to set up encounters that are balanced finely against the abilities of the player characters, in short encounters that the PCs should be able to win if they roll well and play cleverly.   It’s almost seen as unfair if an encounter is “OP”.   However this is only unfair if the DM also forces the PCs into that combat with no alternatives.    Old school play suggests that when the PCs discover a big firebreathing lizard ten times the size of a man and with skin that drips venom that IT WOULD NOT BE A GOOD THING TO FIGHT IT.   Look for a way round.  Make deals with the Orc Tribe nearby to gang up on it.   Flood the cave by breaching the dam.   Go home.     In a more modern mindset the assumption would be “The DM will have built in a solution.”   Why?   Why would the Venom-Dragon’s cave automatically have a self destruct button.

When there’s a problem – Don’t look at the character sheet
“I search the room.. my Perception roll is…… 18, plus 2, 20!”
“You find a concealed panel in the flagstone floor – underneath it is a key”
Balls.
Tell the DM what you’re doing.   If you look for uneven spots in the floor or tap around listening for hollow sounding noises you’ll find the  panel.   If you want to convince the sceptical city guard tell the DM what you’re saying.   Charisma may help but the words count more.    If you think the wily merchant is trying to trick you then listen to what he’s saying, watch what he’s doing and decide that for yourself.
All these principles and many more are discussed more clearly and thoroughly in the Primer for Old School Gaming which is free to read and full of interesting ideas and which got me fired up to give things a go.
I’m looking forward to the challenge of running this way again –it’s been a long time – but I think it will bring a refreshing change of pace to things at least for a one-off.   The higher risk is something I’ll have to deal with in a way that won’t turn my players off but I’m sure I can come up with something.    And the default assumption and tone of LotFP that adventuring is a dark, dangerous and potentially horrific way of life suits my style of DMing anyway- most of my games bring at least a touch of horror here and there.
I’ll keep you all posted.

Gaming

Beasts of the Bone Coast

Finn Cullen2 Comments

BEasts of the bone coast
After the wreck of the ship carrying them into slavery, a small band of survivors face the dangers of the hostile land where they have washed up. Gigantic insects, abandoned temples to alien gods, impenetrable jungles – and worst of all a city of hate-filled ape-men marching against an isolated human township that is our heroes’ only hope of escape from this hellish new world

My latest adventure BEASTS OF THE BONE COAST is now available for free download HERE.

This is a short survival based adventure in the sword & sorcery genre with game suggestions and statistics for both Barbarians of Lemuria and Index Card RPG.   Starting from nothing can your heroes survive a hostile land and save a helpless town from a horde of crazed beast-men?

Comes complete with rules for a Mammoth-back chase and hero-focussed mass combat.

Gaming

Bride of the Rat King–an adventure for Barbarians of Lemuria

Finn Cullen2 Comments

Bride of the rat kingMy new adventure for Barbarians of Lemuria – Mythic Edition is now available free. 

Your bold heroes are engaged to investigate the disappearance of a young noblewoman in the shadowy underworld of the city of the Lich King.   Dangers, death, intrigue and some foul magic will surely await – as you would expect.

The folder includes the pdf of the adventure itself plus some .png files ready made and scaled for use as Roll20 battlemaps (the file name gives the size of Roll20 screen to create for an exact fit)

I’ve included some conversion notes for Index Card Role Playing Game the philosophy and mechanics of which have been inspiring me for a while now.

I hope you enjoy the adventure – please let me know what you think and how things go if you bring it to your table.

DOWNLOAD LINK

Gaming

Aru-Kamis–Return to the City of the Lich King

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I’m currently working on a new Barbarians of Lemuria adventure Bride of the Rat King which is tentatively located in my existing setting of the dreadful haunted city of Aru-Kamis (though it can be dropped into any setting that has cities with disreputable areas, which is pretty much all of them).   Because it’s been a while since I posted my Aru-Kamis setting online, and because when I originally created it I inadvertently and spontaneously created a gang of criminals that had the same name as a gang of criminals from another and rather wonderful game, I thought I’d tidy up the setting material, correct the coincidental plagiarism and reupload it.

So if your Barbarian heroes are likely to enjoy visiting a haunted city of shadows ruled over by an immortal lich, then you can find out all you need to know about Aru-Kamis (and hints about its sister cities) HERE

Gaming

Devious in the Dark

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I ran my first Blades in the Dark adventure last night and it was the proverbial blast.

The characters were three members of the same family, a pair of brother/sister twins of mixed Akorosi and Skovlan heritage and their cousin (mixed Akorosi/Iruvian), all former Imperial military and now running a small smuggling outfit out of Crowsfoot.

I decided to start with the classic “War in Crowsfoot” set up from the rulebook and Bazso Baz the Lampblack leader called them in for a nice chat.  He showed off a box of dirt grown carrots from the radiant farm that one of his contacts had procured for him, and enjoyed the gift of some nice whisky the smugglers (Hell Runner Corp) had brought for him.   Then he got down to business and invited them to join him against the Red Sashes, hoping that Pasha’s part Iruvian heritage wouldn’t get in the way of that.

“I’m suspicious of patriots,” Baz explained, “saw too many shitty things happen under flags during the war.”

Pasha assured him there’d be no problem and Baz sweetened the deal with a potential score – he’d got wind of a consignment of the narcotic dawnflower coming in aboard an Irvuvian ship two nights hence and destined for the Red Sashes.   If Hellrunner Corp could get hold of that the should sell it and keep half the money – Baz of course would take the other half as a finder’s fee.   He pointed out that he didn’t often offer carrots so they might be happy to take one while it was available.

So far so normal I guess.   Then Carioh, the Spider of the team, called up a flashback to the previous day.   Pasha had got him an introduction to Mylera, leader of the Red Sashes and a private interview in her office overlooking the training room of her sword academy.    The player asked if there was anything Mylera liked and I mentioned her love of art.   A Flashback-within-a-Flashback later and Carioh presented her with an exquisite Iruvian statuette – one of the Five Noble Djinn – which certainly got her attention.   No formal arrangement was reached (other than Mylera offering a casual non-hostility arrangement and asking pointedly for more of the same set of Djinn if they could be found) but it was clear that Hell Runner Corp weren’t planning to meekly go along with Baz and choose sides.

The plot got considerably thicker, and I was delighted by the character’s twisted strategy.

They had a friend who was a docker and pumped him for information about how incoming goods are treated.   They found out there was a new foreman who was a stickler for protocol but the local customs officer was as corrupt as any in Doskvol.  Offloaded goods should be stored until properly checked before being released but the corrupt customs guy often just rubber stamped things in exchange for a clanking backhander.

And then in what I consider a true masterstroke of playing both sides, Pasha in a subtle disguise playing up his Iruvian roots, went to meet the Fog Hounds in their favourite fighting pit in the Docks where he approached the rival smugglers with an offer.   He represented interests in Iruvia, he told them, who had decided the Red Sashes weren’t handling their merchandise properly.  He’d tip them off about where they could pick up some incoming dawnflower and they could distribute it as they wanted.   Margrette, leader of the Fog Hounds was interested, but Bear the big second-in-command was less impressed by how convenient all this seemed, and by Pasha’s reluctance to join them in some serious drinking.

Lacking suitable skills in Sway or Consort, Pasha’s player looked over the character sheet and took to heart the option to use any ability they could if they could justify it.   Bear, he said, clearly valued strength and courage above all things.   He invited him to a bout in the fighting pit.

One suitably punchy mini action scene later Pasha had beaten Bear to a standstill but not so much as to humiliate the man.   There were manly embraces between the combatants and the deal was done.  Pasha told the Fog Hounds where the consignment was coming in and when.

The next stage took place on the night of the consignment.   The team Slide arranged for the friendly docker to be assigned to the work gang and was the one unloading the small trunk of “personal items” that contained the narcotics.    As he made his way up the wharf a small hired steam ship full of drunken pedlars arrived at the wharf and started making a fuss about being unloaded.    The pedlars were the Hell Runner Corp’s cohort playing their role…    To add to the distraction, Pasha now decked out like a docker himself went and started pushing and shoving the drunks and a minor brawl broke out ending with Hix (one of the cohort) being dumped over the side and the drunks retreating with him yelling threats.

During that distraction the team Slide picked the lock on the trunk and removed the contents, replacing them with some low grade local narcotic worth marginally more than dried eel skins.

The friendly docker continued to place the re-locked box of crap in the holding warehouse and the team retreated to their HQ while the Fog Hounds shelled out some decent bribe money to the corrupt customs man to get to steal the worthless trunk.

The upshot of all this –

Hell Runner Corp are now in possession of a decent Score’s worth of narcotics

They are also in possession of a now cracked (a complication from the job) urn containing the ashes of Mylera’s late and beloved grandmother that was being shipped to her at her earnest request from Iruvia.      This, needless to say, makes the loss to the Red Sashes very personal.

The Red Sashes, because of the above two factors are now furiously hunting the Fog Hounds for the heist.

Carioh the leader of the Hell Runner Corp can act duly irritated with Baz for setting up a score that another crew clearly had better connections to.  He’s hoping this will make Baz feel obligated to help again (but as Baz said, carrots are a rare commodity and he is more familiar with sticks).

We played a little bit of Downtime and the team picked up the “gang trouble” Entanglement which was an easy one – Hix, the rover who had been dumped in the river and laughed at by the dockers went back to the Docks with his pals and beat the crap out of the man who had done the laughing.  Carioh had to give the team a dressing down and we ended up with a “Hix is pissed” clock for feeling unsupported by the boss.

*

I enjoyed the session greatly – particularly how devious the characters turned out to be.  What I’d imagined as a fairly simple heist job turned into a three party con that enriched the player characters’ crew and set the Red Sashes on a rival smuggling outfit.    I’ve never come across a set of rules that rewards play like this so effortlessly.

Session two next week and while I’ve got some basic ideas of what things may be around and happening I’m not going to plan too much – just enjoy the ride.

***

Finn Cullen’s first novel “A Step Beyond Context” is now available HERE.   A Regency drama/Cyberpunk thriller with dandies, rakes, Jillbots and jackbikes, sorcerers and mercenary units.

Gaming

Index Card RPG – Runehammer Games

Finn Cullen1 Comment

I don’t often review games – I’m usually too busy playing and find it hard to come up with things to say that aren’t just lists of rules that I like or dislike, but I’m going to make an exception now and make a suggestion:


You should buy Index Card RPG.

Not so much a suggestion as an unsubtle instruction I guess.   But let me explain why.
Some time ago, no idea how, my YouTube meanderings brought me across a channel about Dungeons and Dragons – The title was as unsubtle as my suggestion – “Drunkens and Dragons – How to play D&D like a big old bad ass.”    My interest piqued by the approach I watched, despite not believing anyone could tell me anything new about D&D.
Ah the folly of approaching senility.
The channel was run by one Hankerin Ferinale the nom-de-jeux of one Brandish Gilhelm whose real name is as player-character worthy as his assumed name.   Hankerin (for so I always think of him) presented a series of episodes about room design, rpg theory, rules essentials… all stuff I’ve been doing for decades.   But he still hooked me, fired me up and got me thinking.   Hankerin presented his ideas with an infectious enthusiasm that could not help but be inspiring.   His focus was on making the gaming experience more direct and more fun at the table and stripping away everything that got in the way of that.   And then he released an RPG that embodied all these principles.   I bought it right away.
Now here’s a confession, and an awkward one.   I’ve never run ICRPG.   I may never run ICRPG.   But was it worth the money?  Hell yes.   Let me tell you why:
If you do decide to run ICRPG you will get a system that allows you to quickly make up distinctive characters in a variety of settings – from the evocative fantasy world of Alfheim to the futuristic space opera of Warp Shell.  Or mix and match them.   Later iterations of the ruleset include a Weird West campaign background and rules for dealing with horror and suspense stories.   All using the same system, all without losing any of the flavour and efficiency of the system.
The rules are as simple as they come but they aren’t vague in the way some rules-lite systems are.  It’s a d20 Roll Over system but with a few tweaks.  Characteristics are reduced to the modifiers to that roll.  Character type adds more options and bonuses.    Loot gathered during the course of play gives bonuses with conditions based on what it is.     This same rulebase covers combat and non-combat skills alike.    In a move I haven’t seen anywhere else before every roll can be handled like combat with a result (success/failure) and an effect:  In combat as we’re all used to the effect is damage.  In other skill use you still make an effect roll based on who you are and what you’re using and complex tasks can be accomplished in stages… just like taking down a goblin would be in a fight.   Want to pick a lock, a complex lock?  Well make a roll to succeed each turn and each time you do another dice roll moves you closer to the lock popping open.     Since ICRPG keeps the focus within measured turns and there is always a timer ticking down this adds real suspense to any task.
Timers did you say, Finn?  Yes I said Timers.    

I Love Timers

Did I mention I haven’t run ICRPG yet and can’t see myself doing so for the foreseeable future?  I have about four or five campaigns on the go at the moment using a mix of homebrew and official systems.  I don’t want to start something new.    But what I am doing is stealing elements from ICRPG to make things more exciting and Timers is one such element.
What Hankerin does is give every scene one or more time pressures – making them known to the players and overt.   Usually a roll of a dice sets the starting number which ticks down each turn that the player characters act.  When it reaches zero something bad happens – reinforcements, collapsing ceiling, transformation of the floor into angry stoats, something.   It always escalates things.  And that simple little technique adds so much tension you have to try it to believe it.   
I used it recently during a game of Masks.   My group of teen supers were raiding a stealth-battleship to rescue some abducted kids and a climactic battle took place in a room where one of the kids was about to be experimented on (Seraphim’s kid brother Tomas, master of extortion and seeing things he shouldn’t).   An early move by one of the player characters badly damaged the big lit-up gizmo in the heart of the room and I decided there and then to employ a Timer.
“You can tell it’s going to blow in… three rounds.”
Now rounds in Masks are pretty vague but everyone kind of knew what that meant.   Suddenly they had to deal not only with the bad guy, the henchman and rescue Tomas from a surgical table where he was strapped but they had to do it all in a handful of actions.
In my favourite moment of the session on the very last round before the Timer ticked to zero, Two-Blade delayed their own escape from the room to slam the bad guy onto the table and lock their arm to one of the restraints.  One mad dash later and Two-Blade got out and slammed the door… the bad guy wasn’t so lucky (but you know the old rule – if you don’t see the villain’s body he’s halfway to Acapulco).
Without the Timer the urgency would not have been there.
Without the Timer that cool moment would have seemed like arbitrary fluff.
And Timers are just one of the things that make ICRPG so cool.

What’s the best bit?

The very best thing of all though is Hankerin’s ‘voice’ which comes through in every part of the game.   He clearly loves what he does and he communicates that with every bit of advice, every example of play, every suggestion for how the game can be used.    If you feel a bit jaded as a GM I challenge you to read this book and not be hungry to get to the table and revolutionise your games either by using ICRPG as is or, as I’m doing, stealing parts from it and frankensteining them into my own games.
He’s rebranded his YouTube channel as Runehammer now which you can find HERE and which I recommend to anyone who plays any roleplaying game.  His key mechanics playlist is one of my go to watches when I’m at a loose end and need to get myself thinking about gaming.
ICRPG is about to be released in its second edition, incorporating changes and refinements added since first edition was released, honing it still further.  I’ll be buying second edition too and reading it cover to cover.    Runehammer’s page on DriveThruRPG is HERE.
Hankerin’s very tuned into Thor, which is cool.  I’m more of an asshole Odin guy myself as this over-wordy post probably proves, but let me tell you about Thor.   The Norse saw him as a god who brought fertility and plenty, and of course the god of storms and lightning.    Stick close to Hankerin and you’ll give birth to ideas and wonderful stories, and if there is anything worth kindling in you his lightning will cause it to blaze.
Gaming

Where is Everyone At?

Finn CullenLeave a comment

For no real reason other than the growing impatience with myself for not keeping this blog updated more often I thought I’d pollute the pages with a brief run down of the campaigns I’m running at the moment.

In no particular order

Knight City Falls
(Cyberpunk – originally Fate Core, now a homebrew hack)

Grey “8.73” Stevens, quirky network troubleshooter for the Threshold Corporation has recently returned from a nerve wracking trip to the slightly less totalitarian Hong Kong on the edges of the entirely Orwellian China nearby.    There he located the oblivious daughter of the last generation’s most infamous (and deceased) Netrunner who still seems to be actively attacking Threshold.

Aisha, the daughter of Grayson Mason, had fallen in with a group of activists hoping to score a propaganda coup against the regime by disseminating seditious material into a scheduled propaganda broadcast.   That whole thing was a set up of course but Grey and his team managed to save Aisha – if not her team – and extract her to international waters.

The Sundered Seven
(Slightly Lovecraftian Sword & Sorcery – originally Fate Core, now a homebrew hack)

Lord Adriel of Genlith has avoided being framed for the murder of a young noble of a rival family and discovered that the victim was involved in a political intrigue against House Genlith.  He’s now trailing his coat as a potential contact for the conspirators by dropping hints of his own dislike for his family.    His servant Inyë is still struggling with the problems of having a mental contact with the Prince of Carcosa and the increasingly prevalent sensation that the world around him is just a play being put on in that imaginary realm and he is somehow both character and actor.     In the closing moments of the last session the dreadful Baron Lokran stormed the inn in which Adriel and Inyë were staying with a mob of cut-throats.  Lokran’s plan was to kill Adriel in dreadful ways in revenge for Adriel’s aid in securing the escape of the woman who had half killed Lokran during an encounter years earlier.    The scene ended with wounds on all side, but Lokran pinned down and Adriel cutting open his throat with barely a flicker of remorse for putting down that mad dog in human form.

Red Shift
(Night’s Black Agents)

Hans and Rowan, burned spies, have reached Istanbul on the night of the coup of 2016.   They found themselves in the middle of a conflict that seems to have been building for ages between the desert demon Gallu and his undying sorcerer minions on one side and the newly loosed Dracula and his Grigori servants on the other.   Operation Edom who had thought Dracula was on their leash is quickly learning how wrong they were.

Our heroes have managed to track down one of Dracula’s earth boxes in Istanbul and sterilised it – but they know that five more were brought into the city in preparation for his escape.

And just who are “The Crusaders of the Star” – a modern occult group claiming Templar roots – that also have a new presence in the city and have found themselves in Dracula’s crosshairs?

The Keyholders
(Was Trail of Cthulhu, now Cthulhu Confidential)

Daniel Crowther, detective of the Boston PD, now on extended sick leave after the trauma of taking down the bestial “Boston Devil” serial killer prior to the start of the campaign, is trying to make sense of the new world he is finding himself involved in.   From a simple missing person enquiry that led him to Arkham and to the strange bloodline of that particular person he learned of the break up of an old Hermetic Order based in Providence.    Following the trails of the former members he has found each has pursued the teachings of that Order in their own way.

Crowther has learned stories of ancient races of the earth that predate man, of the dangers of the Jansky Hiss at the heart of this galaxy (and why the strange fungus creatures wanted to shut down the radio telescopy experiment that was learning of it), of the dangers of writing arcane lore into play-form and then performing it in a strangely changing city (And just how did Crowther walk through the under-river tunnel.. which was not even completed in 1933… mind you neither was the public suicide booth in the park near the Obelisk).    Currently he is working to close down what appears to be a twist in time and space in a new hermetic lodge in New York opened by two of the men he was tracking down (now vanished) and the younger members of the cult are referring to him as  Magus.   Which is clearly insane… until Crowther realised just how much more of this crazy stuff he knew than these initiates.

The Death of David Wychwood
(Cthulhu Confidential)

Due to start shortly – the unexpected death of a likeable young man in New York and the confusing aftermath of questions and recriminations, leads somewhere very strange indeed.   Old old secrets and conflicting choices await.

Gaming

Night’s Online Handouts

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Since the valiant heroes in my Night’s Black Agents campaign ended up battered and bruised and in need of recuperation after narrowly escaping an Edom ambush, I decided to give them a bit of an information dump so that by the time they were fit to move again they had a few more leads.

In the spirit of modernity though instead of my usual faked up newspapers I decided to fake up news websites.    The trail began when a contact of theirs from Denmark, warned by them in an earlier adventure of the arrival of a military plane from the UK, contacted them with some information and relevant links.    First he let them know by text message that a source of his saw a strange container being unloaded from the transport and put on a truck heading southward…  and then on a train moving from Hamburg eastward through Budapest and Bucharest to Istanbul.

They found the rest themselves and managed to piece together a narrative…

Freak storms strike Flensburg, Neumunster, bring traffic chaos.
30 May 2016
Several areas of northern Germany experienced unusually violent rainy and stormy weather this weekend with unforeseen flooding and the closure of many roads.   The storm front moved southward from the Danish border bringing high winds and driving rain that overloaded storm drains and caused chaos to travellers.  Particularly badly hit was the area north of Neumunster  where the major A7 road was entirely closed from 19:00 until after midnight due to high water levels.   Traffic diversions onto minor roads proved unsuccessful due to the volume of traffic and the spreading floodwaters.    The extensive car parking space at the Autobahnmeisterei Neumunster was soon full to bursting and all rooms at the travel hotels were taken up.    Thankfully no major accidents were reported during this unprecedented storm and by the early morning the weather had cleared up enough that emergency measures could be lifted.
Police search for escaped patients.  “No need for public concern” – Police spokesperson
31 May 2016
Up to a dozen patients of the Dosenmoor psychiatric hospital are believed to have left the secure ward of that institution during the storms of 30 May.   The lightning storms in the area had overloaded the local power grid and the hospital lost power for approximately three hours.  It was only after power was restored that these patients were found to be missing.
Local police joined hospital staff in searching for the missing patients who were described as “no danger to the public” but who were considered themselves to be at risk due to the adverse weather conditions.    The majority of the patients were found safe and well within the grounds of the hospital shortly afterward and other than requiring dry clothes and a warm environment were none the worse for wear.   Only one patient remains uncounted for at this time.   Mr Markus Kollman, 42, is described as a man of medium height and build with unkempt dark hair and blue eyes.   He is not considered dangerous but police urge anyone encountering Mr Kollman to contact them at once so that he can receive necessary care and be returned to safety.