Building a dungeon, and a bit of the Story So Far with our Avalorr game.

As I mentioned in my last post, I played in a game of Swords & Wizardry at ReaperCon that was a lot of fun. So that made me start thinking about the old days of D&D, with dungeon crawls and treasure and healing potions aplenty and lots of monsters to kill. Nowadays I prefer more role-playing than hack-and-slash, but after thinking about the old days I thought it might be fun to throw a bit of that in for the fun of it. So I'm working on a dungeon now, using maps from Oone Games Blueprints line. Those are cool stuff, ready made maps, all you have to do is stock it up with baddies and treasure. Pretty handy.

I'm almost done with the first level, and will be starting on the second pretty quick. There will probably be a third also, but it will most likely not be accessed intentionally.

So, The Story So Far, Part 1.

A rundown of the main characters-

Radec, a Volar. They are a winged race with human appearance overall, hailing from high in the Draketeeth Mountains. Radec is fairly young and impetuous, and tends to forget he's part of a team from time to time. Played by my step-son Anthony. He's 13 so that would explain the impetuous nature of his character.

Tarina, the half-Elven Ranger who hails from rural Anhur. Her father is a human farmer and former adventurer who wanted his daughter to have a "normal" upbringing rather than one with the flighty elves. Or so he sees them. Her mother is one of the elves of Tirithilia, and agreed to her living with her father so she would know both sides of her heritage. Tarina is cautious but brave and a fierce fighter. Played by my wife Karen.

Aturu Greykeld- an "urban survivalist" from the rough streets of Port Gangrel, the wretched hive of scum and villainy that every world seems to have one of. Aturu is quiet and practical, one who dwells in the shadows but has a good heart for taking care of his companions. Played by my friend Mike.

Thomas DeValier- a paladin of Anarion, the Goddess of Light and Truth, and a member of the Knights of the Temple like his father and grandfather before him. He is a very devout man with absolute faith in his Goddess and he will die for her cause if she wills it. He is more experienced than the others in the party and is the wise leader at times. Played by Mike until Aturu showed up in the game, now played as an NPC by me.

Steven Augustus- a young Knight of the Temple, under the tutelage of Thomas DeValier. Steven is a brave young soul with a youthful exuberance and sparkle in his eyes that has dulled a bit after being exposed to the toll of war. Also played by me.

May be joining the Old School thang.

At ReaperCon this year I played in a game of Swords & Wizardry that was GM'd by Steve Page, an old timer grognard kind of guy. Much simpler than my beloved Hero System, but that's not a bad thing. Pretty fun, especially when a combat comes up and it was "Who's doing what? Everybody start rolling!" 20-sided dice flying everywhere.

So I'd never really heard of the Old School thing, and started looking at some sites and forums, like the Original D&D discussion forum, Labyrinth Lord's forum and web site, and Mythmere Games, the makers of Swords & Wizardry. Lots of activity and effort put into the games by the fans, which is cool.

So after some deliberation I ordered the Labyrinth Lord hardcover and their Original Edition Characters book. (I forgot how much Lulu's shipping was. Choke!) I have some old modules from way back when, including B1- In Search of the Unkown and B2- The Keep on the Borderlands. I've seen a few modules for LL that look alright too so I might have to check them out.

Back when I played D&D it was first edition AD&D, but we used Basic and Expert modules and didn't know the difference. I'll use the Labyrinth Lord/Basic/Expert rules for this whenever we end up playing it. I looked at OSRIC but thought, nah, I played enough AD&D way back when. Let's try something a little different even though it's really the same. Huh?

I know I've done some D20 bashing in the past, but that was after being away from D&D for quite a while. I still like the freedom of Hero, and its' granularity and dramatic realism. There was something fun about that game with Steve though. Not too many options to explain to newcomers, just describe what you're trying to do and roll.The GM decides if you can do it. Different but fun.

So we'll hopefully have some fun with it. I have a bit more planned at the moment for our Avalorr campaign, which could be at a good stopping point in a bit if Mike wants to run a Turakian Age game for a while. We'll get to it.

I'm getting old, and I have the glasses to prove it.

Well, I have to admit I'm getting old. Over the last year or 2 I've had trouble with my eyes developing, namely that I can't focus as well as I used to on things that are a foot or so from my face. Like a miniature being painted. A while back I got new glasses and had the optometrist give me a second prescription for a pair of "hobby" glasses.

Last weekend my wife and I were doing some painting and I was alright for a while, but after I took a break for a bit my eyes were crap. Even with a magnifier I just couldn't see to finish painting a face. The eyes just would not focus on something that small. And the closer I get it to me the worse it gets.

So I gave in and got that other scrip put in my old glasses. Picked it up yesterday, and WOW, I can actually see the mini again. I might still have to use a magnifier for eyeballs but it's a hell of a lot better than it was.

Man, special glasses, grey hair. Gottta love it.

I like the players- they give me ideas.

I've noticed that taking cues from the players can lead to interesting situations, things I might not have thought about before. Not necessarily major revelations, just a different twist or two I might not have been thinking about to take things a little different way.

Last night's game, the PCs are travelling south into the kingdom of Vestonia when faced with a choice- Go around the hilly/mountainous area at the border or cut through it.
I hadn't thought of making the hill region a particular obstacle until one of the players called it out on the map. Okay, then it is the faster to cut through the hills, but it's rough and slow going, taking most of the day to cross with the horses through all the rocks.

And since one character has wings, guess what, the orcs hiding in a cave during the day see him flying about. A non-conflict encounter happens, with the PCs deciding to avoid this fight and put as much ground as possible between them and the orcs, with the ogre they have in the cave with them.

As the Pcs ride away, they hear the orcs take a long blow on a horn. "Oh crap, what does that mean?"

All this leads to it being late in the day and them thinking maybe they shouldn't camp tonight, no telling what that horn was alerting someone of. So now they're moving through a grassland area at night without a whole lot of cover and with a 70% full moon. Luckily they have two people with night vision. Hmmmm, what will happen next?

Yeah, I like the players.

Our campaign- The Legends of Avalorr.

Our Fantasy Hero campaign is based on the continent of Adon in the World of Avalorr. This is the world created by Reaper Miniatures for their old tabletop miniatures wargame Dark Heaven Apocalypse. This has been expanded on a bit in their newer game Warlord.

The rulebook for DHA is only about 25% rules with the rest of the book being fluff laying out all the major kingdoms on the continent of Adon, which is all very well written with a lot of flavor to the different kingdoms. For the most part it's standard fantasy, with humans, elves, dwarves, etc. and so forth. There's a lot written about the undead of this world though, with Reaper's own take on how they all came into being. I'll detail all that later if it comes into play at some point.

There is one race that i added, which is the Volar, borrowed from Iron Crown Enterprises game HARP, or High Adventure Role Playing. My step-son wanted to play a winged character, so POOF the Volar appear.

This is where I decided to set our game world to start. I have some ideas for what the other continents may be, one of which is a hodge-podge of my own making called Faethis. Who knows, maybe Middle Earth will be in this world too.

I've done some tweaking to the world at large, putting my own twists and ideas to parts of it. I'm a big fan of H.P. Lovecraft, so there will be some Mythos elements worked into it in places. The PCs may have to venture to the far northern reaches of the world at some point, journeying to the forgotten lands of Khadath in the Cold Waste and the Plains of Leng. The PCs have already had one hint of activity of a cult of a certain Great Old One.

Lots of idea theft going on, but hey, I'm new to this right? ;-)

Why are three dice better than one?

I used to play a lot of D&D back in high school and for a few years after, first edition AD&D to be exact. I also used to read comics, and made some friends through the comic shop I used to go to. My buddy Mike, who plays in the game I'm running now, had been playing D&D with some other guys from the shop and found fourth edition Champions to play a super hero game with. Myself and another friend Dave played in some supers games for a while with Mike as GM. I really liked the way the game played, with the Hero System's touted ability to create any character you could think of. Combat rocked, with lots of options for hand to hand and powers to do just about anything. And the 3d6 used for actions was a lot different.

In the meantime Mike had gotten some other books for Champs/Hero, one of which was Fantasy Hero for 4th ed. "You mean we can play fantasy with these rules too?! My mage can have a sword if he wants, and my fighter can do a whole lot more than 'I hit him with my sword!' ? Well sign me up."

I haven't rolled a d20 since.

Hence, three dice are better than one. Not meant as a slam on anyone's preference's, but it's catchy I guess, right?

Hmm, a blog eh?

Yup.

Why? Because I see lots of other people with them and think "I can do that." Must be the guitar player in me.

Also so I can collect my game related thoughts and hopefully get some input to help make my games better.

Games I play?

Right now I'm GMing a Fantasy Hero game, using the Hero System, with my wife, step-son, and friend Mike. Hero is really the only game I have any interest in playing since I discovered it about 15 years or so ago, and that was thanks to Mike. Actually I was introduced to it a loooong time ago, probably 6th grade, by another kid I went to school with at the time. I had discovered the world of role playing games through Marvel Super Heroes, and this classmate and I started talking games. He tried to get me to play Champions, but my 12 or 13 year old brain thought it was too complicated. Ironic, since now it's the only game I really care for.

I'm not really doing anything with the miniature wargame thing right now, so I'll go over that in another post.

Why am I GMing?

Because somebody has to start the damn game!
I've been playing with a few mini games for a few years now, probably 4 or 5, but I've been wanting to get back into some RP action for quite a while. I don't know anyone around that actively plays Hero, so I finally said heck with it, I'll get a game together my damn self!

My wife and step-son and I have fiddled with some Hero stuff, but not a lot. What little we did was their first RP experience. They were up for a real game though. I called Mike, who hadn't gamed in several years now, and he was up for it. So Yay!! a regular game. Tuesday nights at my house.

I'm a very green GM, still working on ideas and adapting on the fly. But my 13 year old step-son comes up with some very off-the-wall things to do that help me to go in different directions pretty easily a lot of times. And sometimes to get to say "Heh, heh. You walked right into that one!"

The game's going well though, 3 sessions into the campaign. Everybody's having fun. Details in a bit.