P.H. Dungeon's page

Gameplay thread.

This will be the discussion thread for this game.

I am considering running a sword and sorcery pbp set in Hyboria using the Barbarians of Lemuria system. Barbarians of Lemuria is a very rules lite system that is designed with sword and sorcery adventure in mind, and I think due to its rules lite nature it would be well suited to running in pbp format. I find more complex systems can bog down in pbp, but I think this one could allow the game to move along at a pretty good pace, which in theory would help keep it engaging for all involved.

The system can be downloaded for free:

Bol

Let me know if this interests you.

I'm wondering how much 3.5 material groups let into their Pathfinder games (ie. prestige classes, feats, spells etc.)?

I've played lots of 3.5, but for the past few years I've been running 4E games. I haven't tried Pathfinder yet. We're starting a new campaign and we've decided to take a break from 4E. I've been trying to decide whether to use Pathfinder or True20. I like a lot of the flavour and such in Pathfinder, but I'm a bit hesitant to use the system because on the surface it looks like it would have all the same balance issues that 3.5 had (primarily- magic dominating the game at higher levels and melee characters having few combat options beyond "full attack, again"). For those of you who have played the game past level 9 or so, is this the case or have they managed to make some changes to alleviate that trend?

For those of you are familiar with FATE. Has anyone had any issue with players trying to continual rely on or two aspects or does anyone have any house rules about how many time you can invoke an aspect during a scene?

I have yet to run this system, but I am planning on doing so in a couple of weeks, and it seems like this could be an issue (probably not so much for my group) with the system.

I'm considering running another Pathfinder AP (I've run second darkness). I'm trying to decide which one. Any thoughts on which one is the best and why?

I'm looking for a new system to run D&D style fantasy games (for instance running/converting a paizo AP). I'm burnt out on 3E/pathfinder and 4E.

I've checked out Savage Worlds, and I like its relative rulesliteness, but the magic system just isn't evocative enough for me to really want to use in the long term for fantasy.

I've considered checking out Dragonage, but I haven't yet. I'm concerned that it doesn't have enough options to build the classic character archetypes I'm used to with D&D.

I've played and ran a bit of Warhammer 3E, and though I like it, it is a little too setting specific to recreate the feel of D&D.

I've had a look at Castles and Crusades, but I don't think it's quite what I'm looking for.

I'm strongly considering using the FATE system (Starblazers/legends of Anglerre more specifically), but I haven't actually tried to run it yet, and I'm a little worried about how well the magic rules will work in it.

I'd appreciate any suggestions. Ideally I'd like a system that is balanced but still versatile enough to create a wide range of D&D type characters, can do magic in an evocative way without unbalancing the game, and does combat in fairly quickly and simply while still being interesting and exciting. I realize that all that is probably a lot to ask.

I'm trying to understand what it is that some people seem to have against this organization.

I'm a school teacher, and what I see in the school system is that the people who are least well equipped to properly care for and raise children are producing the most kids. Over time this single fact places an enormous burden on society. Such children are more likely to have health problems (diabetes, obesity, fetal alcohol syndrome etc..), they tend to have more difficulty in school, struggle more to get gainful employment after school, and are more likely to end up in the criminal justice system.

Having an organization like planned parenthood that helps to educate people about taking steps to ensure that they don't have children when they aren't equipped to raise them can only be a good thing for society. The savings a country will see in the long run for investing in such education will more than pay for itself.

Is anyone out there an expert on Colony Collapse Disorder. I have only recently heard of this, but apparently it's been going on for several years now. Essentially, bee colony populations are rapidly declining. The exact causes haven't yet been determined, but it seems to be a result of a number of factors including wide spread use of commercial pesticides.

Why should we care?

Because bees pollinate a large percentage of the food crops we eat, and without them there will be enormous food shortages and vastly increased food prices.

If the bees go, we go.

This is question for dms running 4E games. How do you rule powers when they don't make sense?

I've noticed a lot of situations in 4E play where a player wants to use a power, but the way the power is described doesn't make any in game sense that it would actually work in the situation the player is trying to use the power in.

Here's a classic example: The fighter "come and get it" power lets the fighter pull nearby enemies to him, so that he can take a big sweeping swing that will hit them all. It's a cool power, and makes a lot of sense in many situations (like when he's in a fight with a bunch of savage orcs), but what about when he manages to get near an enemy wizard with a very high intelligence who is smart enough to know that he doesn't want to be anywhere near a fighter? Why would an enemy like that suddenly run up to the fighter so that the guy can take a swing at him?

Another Example: There's a couple of rogue powers that let a rogue temporarily blind a foe by apparently slashing the foe and thus causing blood to get in his enemy's eyes. Well what happens when the rogue tries to use such a power on a creature like an air elemental that has no eyes and doesn't bleed?

It seems to me like the dm has two options. Either he nerfs the power and says that the power doesn't work in that situation (or more fairly says that it can't be used ahead before hand so that the player can go with something different) or he lets it work but has to try to come up with some ridiculous justification for why it would have functioned under such circumstances.

So far I've done a bit of both of these. I'll try to justify a power most of the time, attempting to come up with (often with the players help) some reason why it would work, but there have been times where it just seemed too ridiculous and I've told the player that this power just can't work in the given situation. The players have generally accepted such decisions, but usually there is some grumbling.

I find that there is definitely a sense of entitlement among many players that powers should work no matter what as long as the player succeeds with whatever attack roll is needed.

I'm interested to know how other dms have dealt with such situations and how players feel about a dm reserving the right to nerf there powers if he thinks it doesn't make sense in a given situation.

This was the title of a thread on the dnd forums. It got me thinking about the nature of the 4E system, and I think from my experience running it that it has gotten far removed from what a dnd game should sound like, at least during combat. I'm finding that 4E is ruining the sound of my game. At least these days.

This is not intended to be a dig at my players. I blame it on the system.

For example in combat this what a typical player's turn sounds like in my game these days (12th level characters):

Gm: okay you're up what are you doing?

Player: I attack with _____ power. I get to move 3 squares first, so I go here (moves mini). I rolled a 17, so I hit (rolls some dice). I do 26 damage, but add another 5 because last round I made him vulnerable to cold because of my feat. Oh yeah and that gives me combat advantage, so add another 12 for sneak attack. And wait, is the target bloodied? Okay then add another 2 points for that. Next I'm going to shift 5 squares with ____ power as a move action. And I also get to make a stealth check now. Okay so I got a 27 on that, so I probably have concealment.

Gm: okay...

Player: Wait. I have another power that let's me do another attack as a minor action. So I'll do that now. Same target. I have combat advantage again (rolls dice). Okay that's another hit. So that's another 32 damage. Oh yeah and the 5 more for being vulnerable to cold. And the target is also blind until the end of my next turn and slowed.

Gm: okay....

Player: I think, I'm also going to spend my action point. So I'll make another attack.

Gm: don't you need an action to load your crossbow or something.

Player: No I have a feat. I can load a crossbow as a free action.

Gm: Of course you do. I sometimes forget how easy it is to load a heavy crossbow.

Player: Well it is magic. Anyhow, for my action point I think I'm going to use one of my daileys. Okay I hit again. He's still vulnerable to cold, so I still get the extra 5 damage and combat advantage. Except this time I don't get sneak attack damage. Anyhow, it's another 34 damage, same target. Now whenever he moves, he falls prone if he moves more than half his speed. That lasts until the end of the encounter and there's no save.

Gm- So are you finished?

Player: Almost. I get a free basic attack whenever I spend an action point because of the warlord. So I take another shot....

Now normally after a player's turn either the player or the gm would follow up with a quick bit of flavorful narration regarding the player's actions and what just happened. However, after hearing all that as a dm, all I want to do is take a gun to my head.

I just got a hold of the monster manual 3 and I'm really pleased with this product. I wish the first monster manual had been as well done. You can tell that over the past couple of years they've learned quite a bit about monster design, and the monsters in this manual feel significantly better designed than MM I and better than MM II (which were better than MM I). In generally the badies tend to dish out more damage and have an extra trick or two up their sleaves. The increase in damage output especially at higher level was certainly needed, as I've often been having to upgrade this on my own to make the monsters competitive.

It also feels like the monster entries contain more fluff, which I had been missing in the earlier monster manuals.

They've also tried some interesting things with their solo villain design (Lloth, Imix and Ogremoch all look pretty awesome).

All and all, a definite must have addition to any dms 4E collection.

Is it just me, or are non HD movies getting worse in picture quality. I was just using my on demand feature to order Daybreakers; I selected regular instead of HD. However, the picture quality is all glitchy and crappy. I don't remember regular movies looking this bad in the past. It almost feels like they are intentionally making non HD worse just so people are more inclined to order HD. Maybe I'm just being paranoid, but it does seem possible that in order to make HD look better it is easier just to make non HD look worse.

Falling makes a good drinking card game. If you are the first person to hit the ground you do a shot, but you get to deal the next round, which prevents you from ever having to do 2 shots in a row. If you want to make it more complex you can tally points for first place, and for every two to three points (depending on what you agree on) you accumulate, you can spend those points to prevent from having to drink for that a round if you lose.

When I read reviews of the bestiary people were raving over how the monsters have been improved and "fixed". I bought the pdf and have been looking through it, but I don't see a lot of differences between the 3.5 monsters and these ones. Can someone point out some examples of where some significant changes or improvements have been made because I'm not seeing them.

We recently finished our Second Darkness campaign, which followed on the heels of our Savage Tide campaign. It was very enjoyable, though I liked Savage Tide a little better, and now I've decided to take a break from the APs and go with my own homebrew.

I'm using the Nentir Vale from the 4E dmg as a starting point, but I've given it a much more Norse feel. I won't be writing journals of the sessions because I don't have the time, but I will post the ones my players write and hopefully through those anyone who chooses to read this will be able to piece together the jist of the storyline.

Our party is beginning with the following characters

Darren Androsax- human, male fighter 1
Deryl Androsax- human , female sorcerer 1
Belladonna- changeling, rogue 1
Bjorn- human, male cleric of Thor 1
Torfinn, deva, male Invoker of the Aseir gods 1

The heroes begin the campaign having made their way north to Fallcrest from the city of Grimsburg. Bella is on the hunt for a killer name Randall Flagg and has tracked the man to Fallcrest.

Has the feel/style of your game changed since you started playing 4E? I started playing 4E about one year ago. My group completed the Savage Tide campaign using the 3E rules last July and it was awesome. I decided to give Second Darkness a shot, but run it using the 4E system (I was leery about doing this and having to do conversion work, but I wanted to try the new game, and I didn't really like the adventures I'd seen by WotC). We have about 2 game sessions left and so far it's been great fun. I'm not sure if I liked it quite as much as ST, but that's more to do with the AP than the game system. I recently got to thinking whether or not the feel of our game has changed with 4E. Certainly there are some big differences to the mechanics of the game, so the potential for a big change to the feel of the game is there. However, overall I haven't noticed a big difference in the feel of our game sessions or our play style. I have found that 4E runs a little smoother than 3E especially during combat, and it feels more balanced in terms of power level between PCs and power level between PCs and monsters. The magic is probably what feels the most different in terms of the feel of the game and how it plays. There aren't as many crazy things the heroes can accomplish with magic. There are fewer PCs flying around, conjuring invulnerable walls of force, and summoning hordes of magical minions etc... I can certainly see how some people might see this as bad thing, and part of me misses it a little, but as a dm its made my life much easier (some of those things could easily derail an entire encounter I'd spent hours putting together or just get too cumbersome and bog down the game). That being said, the heroes still seem to come up with some crazy and effective tactics. Anyhow, I'm just wondering what things other people have noticed about their play styles now that they've played it for a while (this question is posed towards people who have actually given the game a chance and played it for a while, as opposed to people who think they know it but have only played it a couple of times at a convention or read through the rule book).

So I'm a school teacher, and I have some 5th graders who are very into fantasy books. They've read all the Harry Potter books. I introduced them to the Dragonlance Chronicles and they loved those. They are eating up the Hobbit etc... They have also been deemed gifted so their reading and math skills are all well above grade level.

I want to give them some extra enrichment and I can't think of anything that would be more stimulating than dnd. So my plan is to start a once a week lunch hour gaming group with about 4 or 5 of them. However, they have no experience with rpgs, and I'm looking for advice on the best way to introduce the hobby to them. I'm thinking starting with pregenerated characters and a simple dungeon crawl to show them the basics, but I'm trying to decide which system would be easiest to teach and how much to simplify the game for them, and if I do simplify it what rules do I ignore for now and what rules do I keep. As I said above they are very bright kids, but even so dnd can be pretty overwhelming until you've had some time to absorb it. I've never tried to teach kids how to play dnd before (though I did teach this group to play Settlers of Catan and kill Doctor Lucky), any advice would be most welcome.

I'm starting this thread a place for 4E dms to post tips for other 4E dms based on their experience running 4E.

Monster Stat Blocks Monster stat blocks should be considered as being relative to the party. In 3E a monster's stat block was essentially a static thing that reflected the entirety of a monster's capabilities. In 4E this has changed, and is important for 4E dms to get their heads around it. A 4E stat block is intended to show a monster's abilities relative to a party of comparable level, and it doesn't show the entirety of the monster, only what is necessary to run monster in combat and rp the monster in a typical social encounter. Because the default assumption is that most monsters will be used in an encounter group with other monsters their abilities have been simplified.

Example 1: In heroic tier gaming you might have the stat the local militia of a town as level 3 skirmishers or soldiers. This is a good reflection of their capabilities relative to a heroic tier party. However, as the heroes advance this stat block becomes obsolete, so when they are at paragon tier if you had need of the town militia again, you might consider restating them as higher level minions.

Example 2: If you look at the stat block of powerful fiendish foe- let's say a balor demon, you will note that it's abilities have been simplified compared to the 3E balor. If you intend to use a balor as part of an encounter group this might work well. However, if you intend to use a balor as a major solo type villain, you may want to alter the stat block to suite the needs of your story.

The bottom line is that you shouldn't look at a stat block and think that's the be all and end all of that type of creature. A published stat block is merely one incarnation of that creature that the designers feel capture's the essence of the monster but at the same time will provide the most utility to the most dms. This was somewhat true in other incarnations of the game as well, but it is particularly true in 4E.

Ruling Powers

There has been much debate about how powers should be justified in terms of how they fit into the world of the game. The phb explains the mechanics of powers with clarity, but is very sparse in describing how might be interpreted in context of the story (beyond a line of flavor text above each power). I feel that this is one of the flaws of 4E, and something that has turned many people off of the game.

First of all Martial powers can be hard for some people to justify. The first question that always comes up is, "Why can I only use this power once a day or once an encounter?"
Well clearly the answer is for game balance, but in terms of the story it can be justified by saying that the opportunity to take advantage of that particular power or "exploit" only comes up only every so often, and when a character uses that power he is seeing that opportunity and capitalizing on it. In this respect the player has been given some of the narrative power that was once mainly the privy of the dm, and he can now say when in the story of the fight he sees the chance to pull off that cool "exploit". It's called an "exploit" because you are exploiting an opportunity in the fight.

I think as a dm you need to consider each power in play, and sometimes use your own judgment to decide how well a power might work despite what its stat block might say. You should make it clear to players that you reserve the right to do this before play begins or else they might feel bitter if you suddenly do it in the middle of the game.

For example, I have a fighter in my game who has the "Come and get it power". The mechanics of it allow him to pull enemies closer to him. It doesn't give a lot of detail about how he is doing this, but presumably he is trash talking them and calling them out, so that they are enraged enough that they swarm him. In most cases this is reasonable enough, especially when facing other melee type opponents. However what if the fighter happens to be near an intelligent, cautious, villainous wizard. Realistically, the last thing a wizard would want to do is close into melee with a fighter. Here's a time where as a dm, I might take some step and say "sorry the wizard does not respond to your heckling and stays right where he is." This makes sense from a story point of view, but it nerfs the PCs power, which is going to make the player unhappy. As a result, I think you owe it to your player to appease him in some way. I use something I call "action chips" in my game, and I would give him 2 of these if I ever nerfed a power. There is some good info on this sort of thing in the mutants and masterminds core book. It basically says that sometimes a dm needs to cheat a little on behalf of the villain, but when you do so you should compensate the heroes. They suggest doing that with hero points, which are what they use in that game (similar to an action point)

Action Chips: This is a house rule I have in my game. I give out poker chips to players when they do something cool, rp well, make me laugh etc... You can only ever have up to 10, so they are encouraged to spend them, not horde them. The rule is that each action chip can add 1 to a die roll, and you can only spend up to 5 chips to enhance a single roll. After a roll is made and if it is determined it has failed a player can add action chips, but he has to declare many chips he puts in right away and if adding the chips still results in failure the chips are considered spent and he's out of luck. I have certain instances where I always give a chip- rolling a natural 20 on a check earns a chip. Rolling a 1 might also earn a check, but his is more of a pity chip. Slaying an important monster will earn 1 or more chips depending on how powerful the monster was. If I nerf a PC power I will give at least 2 chips to the player. Of course good rping, clever ideas, making me laugh, bringing me snacks and beer, these sorts of things also earn action chips.

Here's Critical Hit table that I put together for 4E

Critical Hit Table (Roll 1d20 to determine effect)

1-10- no special effect

11- The target is pushed back 1 square

12- The target drops an item it’s holding

13- The target falls prone

14- The target grants combat advantage until the end of its next turn

15- The target takes a –2 to all defenses until the end of its next turn

16- The target takes a –2 to all attack rolls until the end of its next turn

17- The target takes ongoing 5 damage (save ends)

18- The target is dazed (save ends)

19- The target takes ongoing 10 damage (save ends)

20- The target is stunned (save ends)

I'm hoping that this thread may be place for dms to discuss how they wish to build new monsters or convert monsters from previous editions to 4E.

I need some help. I'm running second darkness, and I want to convert the Feasting Damnation from Descent into Midnight into 4E. The monster is fairly complex and has some potent abilities including tentacles that can draw a wounded character from the material plane into the Abyss.

I know for sure that I plan to make this a solo monster. My main concern is trying to figure out how to recreate its ability to pull characters into the Abyss. None of my party members has any easy means of planar travel, so I'd like it to be possible for a character to have a means to get back to the material plane, but I want it to make sense.

I'm also considering having the tentacles have separate hit point totals so that characters can fight individual tentacles and either destroy them or be force them back into the Abyss. However, there is no real precedent for that sort of design in 4E monsters, so I'm not sure how well it would work.

I'm hoping that there are some fellow dms out there who are playing 4E but have the pathfinder books and can help me with this little project. I also need to do the Moldering Emperor from the same adventure, but I think that creature will be much more straightforward to design.

I have a subscription to the pathfinder adventure path and I just received pathfinder #23 in my downloads. However, I have not received pathfinder #22. I would like to make sure I get this issue. I don't know if I have a been billed for it or not. Please help.

Cheers.

Has anyone bought or run this module? Is it any good?

I just noticed in the PHB II that with the vicious mockery at will power you can literally tease your enemy to death... Sorry, but that just seems kind of stupid. No more "sticks and stone can break my bones, but words will never hurt me".

I like minions because I can lay down a ton of them and I don't have to keep track of hp and thus monitor which one is which. However, I don't like that they are always one hit wonders.

To make them less predictable, I'm play testing a mechanic whereby if a minion takes a hit I roll a d6. If the roll is 5 or 6, then the hit is negated and the minion is still fully functional. If the roll is anything else the minion takes the hit and goes down. This makes minions slightly tougher and less predictable, but still very simple and easy to manage. I don't see the mechanic slowing the game down much, because even if several minions take a hit in a round, I can still roll the die real fast to check for survivors. If I want tougher minions I could always increase the threshold for survival. As an alternative to the d6 you could just have the minion roll a saving throw and if it makes it dodges/negates/survives the hit.

As a thought for tracking xp, you could just keep a tally. Every time a minion takes a hit tally 1 and every time a minion lives tally 1. At the end of the fight add up the total and this would be the equivalent number of minions killed for determining xp.

One of my players just picked up martial power. He's been playing a fighter, but wants to swap out his fighter weapon talent class feature and get the battlerager vigor.

It is as follows:

Battle rager vigor

Each time an enemy hits you with a melee or a close
attack, you gain temporary hit points equal to your
Constitution modifier (after the attack is resolved).
When you gain temporary hit points by hitting
with an attack that has the invigorating keyword,
those temporary hit points stack with any other tem-
porary hit points you already have.
When wearing light armor or chainmail, you gain
a +1 bonus to damage rolls with melee and close
weapon attacks whenever you have temporary hit
points. This bonus increases to +2 if you’re wielding
an axe, a hammer, a mace, or a pick.

To me this power seems a little too powerful as a trade off for the weapon talent, and being a dm who is ever on the look out for broken rules and power creep, I've said no to this for now. What do others think about this ability?

I'm curious about how challenging people think this AP is for PCs in terms of combat. I'm currently running the AP, but I'm converting it to 4E rules with a party of 6 PCs, so I'm not running it as written. However, from what I've read through, the encounters look pretty easy for the most part (with a couple of exceptions here and there). Of course, easy is relative to your group, but most gaming groups I read about on-line tend to tap into the splat books pretty heavily and generally have pretty tough PCs. For instance, I think that the 3E party I ran through Savage Tide would crush most of the encounters in the AP without breaking a sweat. One of the reasons for this is that many of the encounters I see are just a solo baddie against the party, and from my gaming experience I have seen over and over that a solo 3E monster will often have be destroyed in a round or two by PCs, even if it has a CR equivalent (or even higher) than the party's average level. If I were running this AP in 3E, I can't imagine that I could run it as is. I'm sure I'd have to upgrade the difficulty of most of the encounters. Does anyone else feel this way? Has anyone run any of it and found that this has been happening? Does anyone feel the opposite?

I've had three deaths so far

Name: Torin
Race: Dragonborn
Class: Warlord 1
Adventure: Shadow in the Sky
Location: Gold Goblin

Catalyst: In the first combat of the campaign Torin charged forward to stop the thieves who were trying to make off with the prize money. He took was swarmed by Riddleport thugs and due to flanking and sneak attacks was killed.

Name: Shabeer
Race: Human
Class: Cleric 2 of Serenae
Adventure: Shadow in the Sky
Location: Depora's lair.
Catalyst: Depora's pet carnage demon tore into the party and brought down Shabeer. Shabeer clung to life for several rounds, but eventually failed 3 death saves before any party members could perform a heal check.

Name: Lord Soveliss
Race: Eladrin
Class: Wizard 2
Adventure: Shadow in the Sky
Location: The base of the Cyphergate
Catalyst: After the carnage demon killed Shabeer it started chasing down Soveliss. He fled up the ladder and there he found his warforged fighter companion Elric, who had been pursuing Depora. Elric put himself between Soveliss and the demon, and though he was badly hurt Soveliss stopped running and attempted to hurl a spell at the demon. It failed to cause the creature any harm. Elric and the demon faced off in battle. Elric was already wounded and the demon clawed and bit at the warforged wounding him horribly. Elric had no choice but to flee and he dove into the harbor. With no one left to protect Soveliss the demon charged the wizard and ripped him into pieces, feasting on his mangled corpse. Afterwards the demon gleefully entered the nearby streets and started killing civilians.

If it weren’t for your shiny new red
jumpsuit, you might almost think
this was a day like any other in your
life, here in DMM Sector. After all,
you’re sitting at the same processing
line you’ve always worked at in your
service firm, alongside the same
INFRAREDs you’ve always known.
And yet, it’s not like any other day.
For one thing, the hint of jealousy
in your co-workers’ eyes is certainly
new. You wonder how long it will be
before Your Friend The Computer
asks you to heroically serve it and all
Alpha Complex.
Suddenly the RED-Clearance
supervisor for your shift appears,
waving a small printout at you.

"Looks like our high and mighty
Troubleshooter has to go have his first
mission," he says to the others. "Don’t
worry. I’m sure the rest of us will enjoy
making up the difference in today’s
quota."

Your hands tremble for just a
moment as you take the printout and
see the RED border around it. This is
it, Troubleshooter! Your first mission
assignment!

If you wish to join this game post to report for duty under your regular alias. When you do I will send you a package of info regarding your secret society, and you can then make your first Troubleshooter.

In this game my goal as a GM will still be to run a really fun game. However, I will be taking on the role of a much more merciless gm than normal. As a player one of your goals will be to entertain me. The better you do at entertaining me the more successful your character will be in the game (maybe). There are many ways you can do this, but here are couple of very important ones.

1. Post ammusing and interesting "in character" posts on a regular basis (players who fail to do this will find that they go through a lot more clones than the ones who do)

2. Make extensive use of the spoiler tags. To foster an air of Paranoia there will be massive ammounts of spoilers going on. You will be conspiring with fellow players against one another, as well as passing spoilers about sneaky things you want to try back and forth to me. I will try to respond to your intentions promptly, but if I'm getting overwhelme by the volume of individual requests I will respond based on which ones I find most interesting.

I have a Call of Cthulhu pbp that is going fairly well (we started about a month ago). However, have a pretty small group, and none of the investigators have any real combat abilities. We could use one more player to round out the group. The investigators are currently in Dunwich (so if you are overly familiar with the Dunwich material you might not want to participate). Let me know if you'd like to get involved.

The place is New York City. The year is 1923. It is late May.

You are standing outside on old warehouse on the Lower Westside, at the intersection of West Street and Murray Street. West Street is a bustling street that runs along the bank of the Hudson River. The riverside is lined with piers and the inland side of the street is mostly warehouses, shops and market stalls. Slightly further inland are the larger skyscrapers of Manhattan’s financial district. The neighborhood is a busy place where white collar business folk bump elbows with blue collar laborers.

Zoltov has just rented a building that he hopes to convert into his new workshop, and you have come with him to check the place out. The place sits on the corner of West Street and Murray, on the north side of Murray street. It was once a brick warehouse of modest size, as far as warehouses go, and it has been up for rent for some time now, or it was until Zoltov leased it. According to the real estate agent, the building hadn’t served as a warehouse in ten years. Most recently it had been converted into a meeting hall/studio of sorts for a society of playwrights. She couldn’t tell you much more about it than that. But the group had apparently disbanded or found a new residence, and thus the building has been vacant for about a year. It will need some work to make it into a suitable workshop, but Zoltov has some money and plenty of time.

On the other side of Murray street, also looking out onto West Street, is a sailors tavern called the Gangplank. Due to the prohobition it’s probably not much of a tavern these days- probably more of an eatery. Still, it seems to draw at least a few regulars. A man dressed in the clothing of a dockworker stands outside of the Gangplank. He seems to be watching you as you stand staring at the façade of the warehouse.

Warehouse area map

This will be the discussion thread for our New York based Call of Cthulhu game.

The game will begin on June 1st, 1923.

I started a Call of Cthulhu pbp recently, but the players aren't posting as often as I'd like. I'm interested in starting a second CoC game- ideally one that could move along a little quicker. If you're interested post here. I'd probably prefer 1920s, but I could also be persuaded to do a more modern Delta Green style one if there was more of an interest in that.

This is your big chance. The computer is looking for a new batch of trouble shooters. Citizen it's time to leave your mundane infrared clearance lives behind, and take this opportunity to be promoted to red citizen status, so that you may better serve the all mighty computer.

Any takers?

Well we started a second Darkness campaign today. I'm currently trying to run a couple of pbp's right now and at the same time cut back on my evening computing time, so I don't see myself being able to maintain the level of journalling I did with Savage Tide.

However, I am going to try to keep a bit a recap of our sessions, and focus on a few of the highlights without trying to cover all the details. Hopefully I'l be able to get some in character journals from my players as well.

For now we are giving this AP a go using 4E rules. Given that this is my first real experience with 4E, some of this journal will focus on discussing my thoughts on how the system runs/converts. As far as we are concerned the system is on trial, and if we find we aren't liking it we'll convert to 3E/Pathfinder rules and likely keep going from there.

Toronto’s SCARE offices are located on the west side of University avenue, not too far north of College street. They are housed in a nondescript building marked only with a Government of Canada sign. The building is home to several other government offices as well, including ones for the ministry of health, ministry of foreign affairs, and even the ministry of culture and heritage. The building blends in well with the area, as University street runs past the provincial parliament buildings, and has a number of government related offices on it, as well as several hospitals and buildings belonging to the University of Toronto. There is little in the way of shopping to be had on this downtown street, so it tends to be fairly free of tourists and shoppers.

The SCARE offices occupy the 11th, 12th and 14th floors of the building. A private elevator accessible only from the 14th floor can take one directly to three subbasement levels that also are used by SCARE. The subbasement levels require much higher security clearance to access, as they house more secretive and sensitive facilities than what can be found on the upper floors, which are largely administrative in nature.

It is a cold March morning in the year 2008, and you find yourselves sitting in one of the conference rooms on the 11th floor. Water and a platter with muffins and doughnuts sits on the long rectangular table. You know that you have been called in for mission briefing, and from the looks of it you might be here a while.

Your boss walks into the room. He’s a norm, and his name is Justin Crawford. He’s the director of operations for the Toronto branch of SCARE. He’s a well dressed man in his late thirties, and he has a military physique.

He has a dark expression on his face, and from the looks of things his mood is all business.

“Good afternoon gentlemen,” he says as he looks you over.

please post a brief introduction to your character, and we'll continue

It is a gray, rainy Thursday in the March of 1929, the kind of day where it seems almost pointless to come into the office. Evelyn, you watch out the second story, water streaked window; the cold spring rain water rushes through the culverts; big puddles form in the middle the street, a street that is nearly deserted. Arkham feels almost like a ghost town. You loose yourself in your thoughts as you wait for Fergus to come back from his run to the diner to grab you some lunch. As you wait, you see a figure making his way through the rain. It’s not Fergus. It’s a man dressed in a trenchcoat carrying an umbrella. From your angle the umbrella obscures his face; however he is headed for your building.

A couple minutes later you hear the sound of his footsteps coming up the creaky stairs that lead to your offices on the second floor. The door to your own office is closed, but you hear him step into the reception area. You can hear the muffled sounds of Rita greeting him.

feel free to make some introductory posts. Fergus you can come back with lunch whenever you feel like- write in your entrance when you see a good spot

Valegrim, Psionic Fox, Courtfool, Razavel, and Set

Feel free to post thoughts on the kind of campaign you'd like to see and the characters you wish to make on this thread.

I'll be posting more ideas of my own over the next couple of days.

I should let you know, I've just started running a Shadowrun pbp, and a Call of Cthulhu pbp, plus I'm starting Second Darkness in my face to face campaign. I'll try to give this campaign the time and effort it deserves, which hopefully means I'll be able to post daily, but it might be every other day depending on how much work I find this all to be.

Anyone interested in doing some superheroes gaming?

Okay guys you can do your posting hear.

I'm thinking of going with the PI concept, but I think I'll focus on the Dunwich material instead of the Mansions of Madness stuff, since we have a player who is pretty familiar with mansions of madness.

Hopefully you guys can find a way to differentiate your characters. Start thinking of some ideas for concepts we can bounce them around a little.

I'll post a few more ideas once I look at the material a bit more and decide how I'm going to mesh the PI and Dunwich stuff together.

I'm thinking of starting a Call of Cthulhu pbp (1920s, BRP rules). Is there anyone on these boards that would be interested?

Location: Emerald City Investigations office, Downtown Tacoma (Seattle Metroplex).

You find yourselves sitting in the new conference room of the new ECI office. The solid fauxwood table and the stylish office chairs are all new, all part of West's Life's vision for a new and "improved" ECI. In the corner of the room there is an out of place ceiling tile with some capped off wiring dangling down- the electricians still have work to do, but the place is coming together. One wall is dominated by floor to ceiling windows that offer a stunning panoramic view of the waterfront. Unfortunately, the weather is s+$&. It's been a rainy spring, and it seems the forecast calls for more of the same.

ECI was bought out by West Life about four months ago. One thing you can say about West Life is that they don't waste time. They have already restructured the management of ECI and moved your offices into the their own building. Your new location is on the 11th floor of the West Life building in downtown Tacoma, a building that houses their own offices and rents floors to other corps.

As you sit at the table, your new boss strides into the room. Her name is Jessica Baron. She's a tall attractive woman in her mid thirties. Her skin is pale, her hair long and dark. She has a great pair legs that she like to flaunt, and an equally spectacular ass. Too bad she hasn't bothered to put forth the nuyen to upgrade her rather mundane t~+$. At any rate, her body and personality are well suited to management and PR work.

She strides into the room, a big smile spreads across her narrow face.

"Good afternoon gentlemen. You'll be happy to know that I've finally got a case for you folks that doesn't involve insurance fraud."

"I'm sure you've heard of the simsense starlet, Julia Avalon. In fact, you probably get hard just hearing the name. That last flick she was in was pretty steamy, as I recall. Er ah from the reviews I heard of course. Well guess what? She is now one of our clients, and in a few minutes you are going to be meeting with her. If you need to go the washroom to "take care of any business" I suggest you go now."

Feel free to give a brief description of your character and feel free to include any important details your coworkers would already know about your character.