Shared GMing

+Tim Shorts, +Chris C. and I have been doing some round-robin GMing with a shared world. It has been a good time. Here is a bit more about what have been doing in bullet point form:

• Using a Simple Rule Set: We are using Pits & Perils and it has been serving us well.
• Keeping the Group Small: This was a hard one for us, but we had decided to restrict our group to just the three of us. We had been talking about this style of play for several months and decided that it would work best with the three of us. As far as gaming goes, it was the right decision. Personally and socially, it was difficult thing to do.
• Short Adventure Arcs: We have been rotating the GMing duties every 2-4 sessions. Each time, whoever is GMing starts a new arc for the next 2-4 sessions.
• Not Quite a Sandbox: Each adventure arc has started with a specific problem to solve or task to complete. Rather than spending time with the players figuring out what the characters are going to do, each arc has started a bit more railroady. Sometimes it is as simple as an NPC asking for help (we have all used this at least once). Other times, the PCs travel into a village with a major problem to be solved. We made a conscious decision to start off each adventure arc with a specific task or goal. 
• Not Much World Building: We have not done much world building, except what was needed to support each adventure arc. The minimal world building was not intentional but I think it has worked fine so far.
• Same Characters: Each of has been using the same player character throughout. When one of us is GMing, the GM's character simply sits out those sessions. 

Gaming Prep But No Blogging

I am working on a small sandbox setting for an occasional Pits & Perils game with my wife. I had posted about it a few weeks ago, but do not have much new to add. My wife reads my blog and I do not want to be posting spoilers since we are doing a mystery-based campaign.

Mail Call

It seems like ages since I have purchased gaming stuff. I did get the 3 core rule books to D&D 5e, but nothing since then. My hard copy of Pits & Perils arrived on Wednesday, just in time for me to run a Pits & Perils game on Wednesday night. I actually didn't the rules for last Wednesday's session, but I will need them now. Having participated now in 4 sessions of Pits & Perils (3 as a player, one as a referee), I can say that I love the game. It is also working very well for our round robin GMing pilot program.

Hard on the heels of this purchase, I will be ordering a print version of Bloody Basic. I think I have settled on Bloody Basic as my rule set for my next Montporte Dungeon campaign.

Pits & Perils Session 4: Murder at Crossing Church

We had Session 4 of our Pits & Perils Round Robin on Wednesday night (Sep 23, 2015), with me running the game as referee (my first session as ref in our round robin). +Tim Shorts posted an excellent summary, so no sense in being redundant.

I wanted to run a short mystery adventure. Mysteries can be tricky to run, particular when the focus of the rule set is combat and spells. I ran The Melford Murder several years ago, a Dragonsfoot adventure module written by Stuart Marshall that I used in a Castles & Crusades campaign. Not we have blast playing it, I also gained some valuable experience in running a mystery adventure. Playing The Esoterrorists, a GUMSHOE-based game, was also a huge help.

It is actually easier to run a mystery adventure with a simple non-mystery rule set, like Pits & Perils, than it is with a more complex game, like D&D 5e. The characters have few abilities to provide an unwanted shortcut, so the players are forced to strategize and discover solutions.

I will post more once we have finished with this part of our round robin. I can't really say much about how I am doing it without tipping my hand about the mystery itself.

Pits & Perils Prep 2

I finished my overview map of the area. I haven't figured out the exact scale, but I am thinking that each hex is like a half of a mile. It is a small area. At first glance, it appears densely settled, but there is only one village, Twiggleton, with a population of about 150 (the solid circle). The other settlements on the map are very small agricultural hamlets of 10-40 people. Few people live outside of these settlements, as the area is surrounded by danger on all sides.

The road leading south from Darkness Bottom, the Ravensburg Pike, connects this area with the area that was the setting for our first three Pits & Perils sessions (run by +Chris C.).

Visual Tour
Here are some pictures that capture how I envision the area on the map (complimentary tour by Google):

Hill top ruins (ignore the fence, etc)

Imperial fortress ruins

The valley

A hamlet

Another hamlet

St. Amber Parish church at Crossing Church (ignore the modern stuff)

Pits & Perils Prep 1

I started preparation for running Pits & Perils with +Tim Shorts and +Chris C., now that it is my turn to run a few sessions. I decided that it would be too difficult to run a 3-4 session campaign with the Montporte Dungeon, so I am opting to create a small setting that I can also use if my wife and I decide to follow-through on our recent gaming discussion.

I have a rough draft of my map (above) but I will use a small area with Tim and Chris, so I will only detail a few areas. I also have my hooks ready...just need to add detail there as well.

In-House Campaign: Anglo-Saxon England, Merrily Watkins, and Pits & Perils

Several years ago we had a Castles & Crusades campaign that involved my wife, my then-teen daughter (the family's most serious gamer), a friend, and the friend's two then-teen sons. It was a blast but came to end when the kids went off to college. Since then, my wife and I have occasionally talked about getting back to gaming as a couple. Nothing came of those conversations... we could not decide if it would just be the two of us or if we would invite others. We also were not sure what we want to play, although we had lots of ideas. One of those ideas was to base something on Anglo-Saxon England. We never did do anything with it. Until now.

Tonight, we were out for dinner and we talked again about gaming. We decided that Pits & Perils would be the ideal rule set for us. We both agreed that a setting based on Anglo-Saxon England would work well. The conversation drifted to other topics and my wife told me that one of her favorite authors, Phil Rickman, is going to have his Merrily Watkins novels made into a British television mini-series (actually, the series has been recorded already and will be released soon).

Phil Rickman describes Merrily Watkins in this way: Merrily Watkins has what is very much a night job. She’s Deliverance Consultant or Advisor on the Paranormal for the Diocese of Hereford. Or Exorcist, as it used to be known. It’s a real job; there’s at least one in every diocese in the UK. They work with psychiatrists, social workers… and also the police. Inevitably, in this series, this is the aspect of the job that predominates. The Merrily Watkins series is set in modern Great Britain and we wouldn't try to duplicate the setting or the characters, just the focus and style of play.

Our game would look something like this:

• Rules: Pits & Perils, plus an infusion of GUMSHOE (maybe just a simple allocation of investigation points to used)
• Inspiration From History: Anglo-Saxon England
• Inspiration From Literature: Phil Rickman's Merrily Watkins novels
• Focal Points: Mystery, folklore, religion, and the supernatural

Session 2: A Weekend at Fenric's (Pits & Perils)

In Our Previous Session (Session 1)
The summary of our first session of Pits & Perils:

• We entered the little hamlet of Inwood. Our group consists of two player characters, Chevor (fighter) and Phrandohr (magician). We also have four henchpeople with us: William, Juliet, Elizabeth, and Hogarth.
• We discovered several things: (a) a young woman named Rose was missing; (b) a young troublemaker named Fenric, Rose's suitor, had also disappeared and was the prime suspect in Rose's disappearance; (c) the well in Inwood had gone bad; (d) Fenric's mother offered to pay us 10 gold pieces to find Fenric.
• We talked with some villagers, which gave us the lay of the land. In addition to Rose, Fenric, and the well, the village was troubled by a pack of wolves of the area.
• Fenric's mother told us that Fenric might be hiding out in a nearby abandoned abbey so that is where we went. Underneath the ruins we found a small complex of tunnels and ruins. As we explored, we discovered a trail of blood that led us to a dead human and a dead wolf. Based on the evidence, we decided the dead guy was Fenric.

In Tonight's Session (Session 2)

Session 2 went like this:

• We continued to explore the underground tunnels beneath the abbey. We were attacked by a wolf, which after many whiffs, a few of us finally connected with our weapons and felled the animal.
• We explored the rest of the complex and found one more dead wolf surrounded by rats. We left this wolf corpse alone, but removed the heads from other two. The bounty on a wolf? 5 gold pieces for each head. 10 gold pieces would give us one more night at the inn (we are that broke).
• We returned to Inwood with the corpse that we believed to be Fenric. Sadly, his mother confirmed this for us. We returned her down payment of a finders' fee of 5 gold pieces.
• We discovered that the mysterious problem with the well had been solved. There was a small amulet fashioned in the form of a wolf's head found in the well. Phrandohr (me) examined the item and determined to be cursed and representing the wolf demon, Lycaon. Some townsfolk had seen Fenric with a similar item. However, a stranger traveling from Ravenswood was also seen with a like item right around the time the well went bad.
• We decided that we needed to find the wolves' lair in order to find Rose and get to bottom of the problems plaguing Inwood. Session 2 ended with us approaching the lair.

Impressions of Pits & Perils

I am really liking this very simple rule set. It offers a different take on an early D&D style game, using 1d2 and 2d6 for resolving actions. First level characters are more powerful than their early D&D equivalents, but the Pits & Perils' power curve is not as steep. Characters grow in might as they gain levels, but to a much lesser degree than D&D. 

First Session: Pits & Perils

We played our first session of Pits & Perils, run by +Chris C. (The Clash of Spear on Shield). My character, Phrandohr, is a magician. Most of our session was spend exploring the local, which included a small village. We concluded the session by exploring underneath the ruins of a monastery.

I am intrigued by the Pits & Perils rules. It feels like my earliest days of D&D (Holmes) but it is not a d20 system. Character generation was a snap as I only rolled dice twice. The first roll was to determine which attribute of the six attributes my character has (you only get one of the six attributes). It turns out that I have constitution, which gives me a bonus on poison and disease saves.

The second roll was for my starting treasure. I rolled a "1," which gave me 10 gold pieces to start. Fortunately, I did not need armor and I my weapons were inexpensive. My three spells are bolt, heal, and know.

We did not have the opportunity to test the resolution rules but I am sure we will in short order, as we are following a trail of blood. I certainly like what I have experienced so far.