Goodies in the Mail

I have been playing a lot of music lately on the weekends which, when combined with work, has cut into the blogging time. On the flip side, more musical gigs means more gig money. And this has been reinvested into some game-related items. I did get the PDF version of the AD&D 2e Dark Sun setting, but the real joy comes when hardcopy gaming stuff arrives in the mail. Here is what has arrived recently in my mailbox:

The Hollow Ground: A Novel by Natalie S. Harnett: Okay, this is not gaming stuff but it is the debut novel written by +Erik Tenkar's (Tenkar's Tavern) sister. I figure that it makes it gamer-related (maybe? sort of?). My wife, Deb (World So Sweet), just finished reading it and gave it two thumbs up. Once she started, she didn't put it down. It sounds like she will be recommending it to her book club the next time they meet. It is on my "To Read" shelf for this weekend, right behind the latest Jim Butcher Dresden novel, Skin Game.

A Magical Medley (Fudge): A collection of magical systems for Fudge-based games, although it would fairly simple to convert to GURPS or Fate. African, Celtic, Chinese and Occult magic are all included, plus Bioenergetics (which seems like a bit of an outlier here).

A Magical Society: Silk Road: A supplement with lots of info and tables for using the Silk Road as an RPG setting (or at least borrowing from it). The print version is out-of-print, but I was able to order it used from Amazon for less than $15 (including shipping). The PDF version is still available for purchase/download. I have toyed with a Silk Road based setting that could be used with GURPS, Savage Worlds, or a D20 rule set. 

Red Tide: Campaign Sourcebook and Sandbox Toolkit: I decided to get this in print and PDF. It is quite good and it has a lot things that could be lifted to incorporate into another setting.

Five for Friday 26: An Updated RPG Product Wish List

I don't really buy much in the way of RPG gaming products anymore, with our money pit of a house, a child in college, and the expensive hobby of playing music (which never pays for itself despite getting booked a lot). However, a kid can dream so here is my wish list of hard copy gaming items (in alphabetical order):

• Fantasy Companion (Savage Worlds): I haven't played Savage Worlds, but I'd like to, assuming I will have the time and get the opportunity.
• Fudge, 10th Anniversary Edition: I like the idea of Fudge and it has been fun to be in on some of +Rob Conley's (Bat in the Attic) recent Fudge-based playtesting. I know that Fudge is available for free, but the Fudge website is not particularly user friendly.
• GURPS High Tech: Unfortunately, this has gone out of print and the prices for used copies on Amazon is sky high. But when the price drops, I might be there to scope one up.
• NOD #4: This is one product that I will be ordering in the near future. +John Stater's (The Land of NOD) materials are uniformly awesome. I have no idea how one person can crank out so much high quality material, especially as he is a husband, a father, and appears to hold down a job. The early NODs use Swords & Wizardry as the base ruleset, but I am already seeing in the first few issues of NOD how he was developing the Blood & Treasure ruleset (which we are currently using for the Montporte Dungeon Campaign).
• Tome of Horrors 4: This is a bit pricy, but one can never have too many monsters (in the humble opinion of this blogger).

When it comes to gaming, the reality is that all I truly need is a set of dice, some paper and a pencil or two. I try to remind myself of that from time to time.

Monday Night Playtesting

We had a couple of players absent from our Monday Night Gaming Group, so we decided to postpone Session 26 of the Montporte Dungeon Campaign. Instead, we took this as an opportunity to do more playtesting of +Rob Conley's (Bat in the Attic) embryonic Fudge-based rules for his Majestic Wilderlands setting. We focused on the rules for arcane and divine magic. I played Horace Spindlemeyer, a human mage, and Dan played Benit Vache, a dwarven cleric.

We had the simple task of tracking down some bandits. A timely use of a charm spell in an inn provided us with some inside information. We were able to find their most recent victim and we tracked them back to their hideout. A sleep spell read off a scroll took out all of the bandits, except for the one hiding in the cave. Unfortunately, I rolled -4 on the Fudge dice (----), so the casting of the spell wiped me out too.

Benit tied up the sleeping bandits but then he had to take on the remaining bandit in the cave. The remaining bandit got the drop on us but critically failed when he attempted to shoot Benit with a crossbow (another ----). There was actually a second bandit and Benit found himself in a bad way.

Fortunately, I regained my senses just in time and cast another sleep spell, this time from my own inventory of spells. I managed to keep myself put together after casting the spell. We tied up the final two bandits and loaded them on the bandits' wagon so that we could take them back to the proper authorities.

This process was interrupted by a hungry owlbear. We didn't really think we could put up much of a fight so we let him make off with a dinner of two tied-up bandits. Horace felt a bit guilty about that, but not guilty enough to take on a hungry owlbear.

We ended the night by taking the remaining prisoners back to the authorities. We kept their booty for ourselves, with the hopes that no one would ask about it.

After we finished playing, we spent a bit of time tweaking the rules, which was as enjoyable as playing.

Five For Friday 25: Dungeon Campaign Ideas

"Underground City" by Elias Lewinsky

We have made it to Session 25 of the Montporte Dungeon Campaign and our sessions are still going strong. It has me thinking about some other ways to use the dungeon setting that I have already created for some future campaigns (this won't happen for a while because the other four guys in our Monday Night Gaming Group are all chomping at the bit to GM). Here are five thoughts that I have had, in no particular order:

• Montporte Dungeon + GURPS Dungeon Fantasy: I really like what I have been reading about GURPS Dungeon Fantasy on other blog posts. More specifically, I have thought about GURPS templates based on the Holmes version of D&D (or maybe B/X), except I would drop halflings and add gnomes (based on what has already transpired with the Montporte Dungeon. I'd be tempted to start at 175 points for characters, but I think I would be fine with 250. I had also thought about a American Wild West or Victorian smash-up and then an hour later saw Peter D's (Dungeon Fantastic) review of Pyramid #3/60: Dungeon Fantasy III, I am definitely interested in checking out the article by David Pulver, "Eidetic Memory: High-Tech Dungeon Crawl."
• Montporte Dungeon + Fudge: I have been really interested in watching +Rob Conley adapt his Majestic Wilderlands setting to Fudge. I have played two campaigns in the Majestic Wilderlands, with Rob as GM--the first campaign using Swords & Wizardry and a second using GURPS. I have been in on one playtest session with the Fudge version of the Majestic Wilderlands and really liked it a lot. 
• Montporte Dungeon + Savage Worlds: This just looks like loads of fun (no apologies to those gamers who hate fun). I am not sure how Savage Worlds would hold up under a long campaign, but it would be groovy to do a shorter mini-campaign perhaps just to see how Savage World works (I haven't actually played it yet).
• Montporte Dungeon + Heavily House-Ruled Swords & Wizardry: I would combine the human classes of Crypts & Things (warriors, barbarians, thieves, and sorcerers) plus dwarves, elves and gnomes (using the race-as-class concept). Maybe I would drop the non-humans and just go with a slightly modified version of C&T.
• Montporte Dungeon + Onyx + GURPS: I thought about combining my half-baked idea for a medieval urban fantasy campaign (Onyx) with the dungeon by placing the city of Onyx deep in the Underdark. GURPS would be my preferred system. This seems like a lot of work, but I have parts of it already done.

Not sure if any of this will happen, but a boy can dream.

Playtesting Rob Conley's Fudge-Based Version of the Majestic Wilderlands

Our Monday Night Gaming Group is taking a little break from the Montporte Dungeon campaign to do some playtesting of +Rob Conley's (Bat in the Attic) Fudge-based version of the Majestic Wilderlands. It was a blast.

I really like Rob's approach to character creation. It took very little time to get up and running, thanks to his character templates. My initial thought was that our group was not very tough--two fighter types and a burglar, with me playing the burglar. However, we beat the snot out of party of orcs, despite being outnumbered two to one. Like GURPS, being outnumbered taxes a character's defensive options, but the potential consequences didn't seem so dire.

I really enjoy playtesting and providing feedback. I already am putting together a list of my thoughts for Rob, which I will give to him after our next session tomorrow night. 

As a side note, I am enjoying playing a burglar who has a bit of a Jeff Spicoli vibe to him. His name is Ampersand and he always finds himself between "hard luck & trouble."