Reggie's page

, greatly annoying the

tray, six chocolate covered gerbils!

response to the stunning Ashes victory elsewhere...

coloured blue. When

A bit of an update since Flood Season - the party is about to start Demonscar and still contain the original characters - although the cleric did need to be raised at the end of Flood -

Human Cleric 8
Human Rogue 9
1/2 Elf Sorcerer 9
1/2 Orc Fighter 7

Zenith was a great challenge for them, but they scraped through.

Reggie

said, "Pooh!" and ran off with Piglet.

from five metres.

Alan Alda, who had jumped

,but it must have been somewhere over

plain view, causing great confusion for many

thing." Anyhow, back

This all confused Obox-Ob terribly.

, should be all the rage.

The party I am running ended up deciding to buy the children off Kazmojen in the end, after V showed up and took Terrem away (which neatly interrupted them being soundly beaten on all fronts by K).

They managed to revisit the Malchite Fortress after completing Zenith Trajectory, and took great joy in taking Kazmojen to task for his evil ways.

Reggie.

by a corgi.

or go home.

to suspect; unfortunately for him

from a paper

over his head

As a Year 12 Physics teacher, there's generally only one spell that I'd need regular access to - Rouse.

Reggie.

Mind you - with my other hat as Assistant Principal, Mass Whelm would be a great attention getter for some of the little reprobates!

I've been running a home made campaign world for about the last 15 years, with new player groups adventuring in later time periods to earlier groups (giving a 'living' history). Right from the beginning it has had no halflings at all, and no PC elves - there's a cold war between elves and everyone else,even half-elves are unpopular (but available as PCs). This has all been about flavour, not stats. Gnomes have worked well as the 'small' race.

Reggie

Reggie
Lord of Brevity

...and changer of 1645 nappies.

wait a minute - make that 1646 nappies.

My party entered the temple last night and barely managed to crawl out. Nobody else seemed to mention this, but the unhallow effect managed to prevent the party's sorcerer from entering the room - she couldn't make her will save. Even though her fireballing the ground floor whips from the secret passage was very useful, she had no impact on Aushanna, who tore through the party grunt in two rounds without being touched - 4 arrows a round was lethal. The party cleric and rogue decided at that point to run for it, resulting in a party that was completely scattered through the complex.
After playing hit and run with the devil, I finally let the rogue (using his slippers of spiderclimbing) deface the statue of Blibdoolpoop and so prematurely end Ausshanna's reign of pain.
The party grabbed the fighter's body and fled.
Given that they were all 7th level( fighter, rogue, cleric and sorcerer) Bhal Hamatugn is one seriously lethal holiday spot.

Reggie.

First module played in - G1. Followed by G2 and then G3 (yup, the old individual modules)
First one run...after the little one in the back of the blue book, it was B2.

Reggie.

In my (Home Made) campaign world, Elves are loathed by all - there is in fact a state of cold war between them and pretty much every other race on the planet. The Elves have been working on global conquest for many centuries now, and as i set each new campaign group on the same world, about a hundred years after the previous group, some of the longer term players are starting to realise how the elves are going about this - controlled tree planting.
Seriously - if you live for several hundred years, whilst all those about you are dead within a hundred, you can see how the forest expansion is working in your favour, and none of the short lived individuals around the place are any the wiser - they just assume that the old maps were badly drawn.
Non-confrontational, so it keeps the risks low, but definately has long term gains.
It also explains why they are continually harassing non-Elven logging camps.
Of course, it makes life tricky for half-elves, who tend to be arrested as spies by both sides.
It is because of this that 'Elf' is pronounced 'Pointy-Eared Git - Pah' by my players.

reggie

Our party has finally managed to complete Flood Season, with only one fatality - but she got better. That Triel was very nasty!

We now have:

1/2 Elf Sorceror Lvl 6 - no familiar, but a staff as per Dragon 338

1/2 Orc Firghter Lvl 6

Human Rogue Lvl 6

Human Cleric Lvl 6 (reborn..well, technically raised)

This weekend we start looking for Splintershield.

Reggie

That makes three of us!

Reggie

Hi there, just a quick query and a comment.
For a period (up untill about issue 111) adventures included information on sound, light and auras in their location descriptions. I find these to be very useful (especially for detect spells) and was wondering if there was any danger of them being included again?
And just to add my name to the list of others who have praised Dungeon, I started gaming back in the early eighties, but ran out of time for it in the mid nineties. Years later I tripped over issue 95 and was impressed by the adult feel of Porphory House Horror. The general quality of the other adventures was also worth the cover price, so I kept an eye on subsequent issues. After reading the first few instalments of Shackled City, I called up a few of my old gaming group and we had a go with the new look D&D, and now have a regular monthly game going again, which is helping to keep us sane.
Thanks for the escape!

Sean Venning
Adelaide, Australia

I thought the spell description was pretty clear - if cast on someone, they get a chance to save if they want to, and that's it. Anyone else walking into the zone of its effect just discovers it the hard way, there is no save. Otherwise it would be the 'Silence 15' radius, unless you save' - and if that's the case, I'm going to give a whole bunch of nasties the chance to save against spells when they walk into the area of effect of a darkness spell. And can I give Strahd a save versus spells for the Daylight spell as well?

Reggie - who is sure that if players and DMs can come up with nasty uses for spells, they should be able to use them - because someone else will always come up with another combo to counter them!

BSc (Hons) MSc Grad Dip Ed

The first three from Flinders (in phys. chem), the last from Adelaide.

Now I've got them, I can't work out what to do with them!

Reggie.

Platipuses - no damage????

What about the poison from their heel spike????

At least worth a Fort save or feel grumpy for the rest of the day (due to the embaressment of being attacked by one).

Reggie - I think I saw one once, but one of us escaped.

Not hard to decide, really.

Human Commoner. Mind you, I did spend way too long at uni collecting pieces of paper, so maybe

Human Expert, ready to run at the first sign of impending nastiness.

Reggie.

At 37 (just) and with a 5 day old daughter, this isn't a big concern yet, but I still have the old red box set (with the 1 player dungeon!) plus most of the old modules ready to drag out and use when I'm ready to brain wash...I mean introduce her to the concept of rpging.

As for new sources, I've found that Dungeon works well - most of the adventures in them are on par with the old slip cover adventures from the eighties, as far as being site based, slot in almost anywhere scenarios. And to be quite frank, I think most of them are a lot more coherent and better laid out, too.

Reggie.

Still recovering from the first nappy change.

Well, I don't know about 128, but 126 arrived a fortnight ago at my local newsagent. Typical, I start holidays 2 weeks after the arrival of the last one and 2 weeks before the arrival of the next.

Big frogs, huh? Could I just use a Cane Toad?

Reggie

After having a read of the problem, I realised that my party is essentially the same, but we've sorted out what we're all looking for in a game and with only a little work ther's no problems. I provide the group with a brief write up of their previous session at the beginning of the next, including the broad outline of what happened, any important NPCs, any big clues they missed and anything else I just feel they should know. The games have every opportunity for a bit of hack and slash exploited and we keep to their threshold of complex plotness. Interestingly enough, their complexity threshold has increased as we've been playing to the point where they don't mind if we have the occassional session where there is no combat at all.

The big thing was finding out what we were all looking for and then aiming for a nice compromise.

Reggie

I know I'm old but...I've been using the originals of these articles since they came out...

Mind you, converted to new edition will save me from ignoring game mechanics and just saying - "It is so."

I can mis-use them with confidence!

Reggie

Just into Flood Season at the moment, with:

Human Cleric 4
Human Rogue 4
1/2 Elf Sorcerer 4
1/2 Orc Fighter 3

And the biggest hassle hasn't been Kazmojen's Bazaar - they just offered cash for the remaining three kids. It was actually the Undead Owlbear at the end of The Mad God's Key.

I threw it in to get them up to snuff for FS. Top adventure, and fitted in nicely.

It looks like they're having trouble with the Lucky Monkey, though. The were baboon's nasty.

Reggie

I once played in a long term campaign in FR where it was just me and the DM - and it worked brilliantly. The largest was a session with 14 and two DMs, as a special 'crossover' event between two gaming groups (tough to run, make sure the parties are the same levels, but very fun).

Am currently running a group of 3 plus DM, and having probably the most fun ever, as they are a cohesive group of roleplayers whose days of power playing are far behind them and the story thread of backgrounds and current campaign are developing into something none of us saw coming.

Reggie

I'm still running my players through the Shackled City at the moment, and even though I'm planning on running AoW later with all new characters (but the same players) I'm actually putting in some subtle tie ins already. Including the low level wizard they left for dead under Cauldron in the Kopru ruins, after hitting him with a Melf's Acid Arrow.

Reggie

My party are progressing through SC at the moment, and I intend to plonk them into AoW once that's finished, using the same world setting which is an ongoing home-made one I've been running since the late eighties...which isn't that long ago if you say it really fast.
Seeing as it's a mix of Karameikos, FR and Greyhawk, plus what ever else has taken my fancy and/or been invented by various players over the years, it isn't too hard to nudge pretty much anything into it!

Reggie.

Ok, colour me impressed! Having read the overview I can start tentative squishing of my own campaign's NPCs into the story line and start dropping long term hints. Now my players just have to finish Shackled City!

Damn you all for supplying me with so much useful stuff!

Well done, Dungeon People! Now get some sleep.

=)
Reggie

You have to love the Net. I get up on a freezing Saturday morning. The sun's shining in a blue sky (even if it is only 10C) and when I log on after breakfast, I find I received an Email at 4:30 this morning telling me Overload was ready. (Ta for that Dungeon People)

Now if only the little download thingy would count faster....

Reggie

I've started running the Shackled City AP with my group, and needed an adventure to slip in between LB and FS. After a quick scan, I selected Mad God's Key and with only a little tweaking to fit it into my home-grown setting, and to tie it into the AP, I have found it to be one of the neatest adventures I've ever run.
Jason's plotting is quite tight, there is action from the beginning, and the final couple of encounters have really made my players work hard together to get through.
And even better, all of my players have found it to be enjoyable as well.
So well done to Jason for putting it together, and a big Boo Yah! to the Dungeon Team to getting it out to where it can be used!

Reggie

Yes! 124 arrived at my local store today! Now I can finally find out what all the exitement is about!

Ok, I know this doesn't actually fit in with the whole 'Overload' topic here, but quite frankly, it's just as exciting as far as I'm concerned. And by the time I'm actually looking for the download, it'll have been available for ages!

Just remember this while you're all complaining about the delay - at least you don't have to wait nearly two months for your actual Dungeon mags to arrive...

Reggie

At 36, my gaming history pretty closely matches Eric's (above). In '82 a Pommy year 10 student introduced some friends and me to the first edition AD&D rules (he had a soft-bound MM!) and the rest was history. Didn't get much gaming in after uni, but have slowly gotten back into it the last two or so years, after tripping over Dungeon again - The Porphory House Horror was the first new issue I read, and it just worked for me. I guess I need help!

Reggie

As I mantioned above, my current players have a theme for their party, and with the prospect of a new player soon it is probable that they will be an old 'client' who is on the run from affiliated debt collectors.
However, I have also had parties that have absolutely no in game connection whatsoever, apart from wanting to adventure. They almost always end up forming a theme through their common adventures, becoming a unified group over time.
Both types of parties have worked well, and as DM I've not found either require more work on my part than the other.
The characters always end up with the strangest personal histories regardless!

Reggie

My current group actually has a theme, odd though it is. It sort of started out as a joke, but the players fleshed it out as they went along and now it's actually developed into a back history for the campaign.

The fighter and cleric are reformed 'Ladies-of-Negotiable-Virtue', the rogue had previously worked as their 'Manager' and the sorceror was a failed acolyte who had been living a servile life serving soup all night in the nearby church of the Redeemer when they all decided to leave the squallor of their lot and take to the road in search of action, adventure and really wild things.

This had led to an ongoing series of run-ins with affiliated guilds who haven't taken to kindly to the ugly precedent the heroes have set.

Regie

Quite frankly I find the large variety of art to be a bonus - call it low concentration span but I get bored if there's too much of the same style throughout the mag. Having said that, I do prefer that ongoing adventures (mini arcs or APs) have a consistancy to their art work, with only one or two artists doing the lot.
As for the maps, as long as they are able to be clearly read, I generaly pretty happy, although the Cold Wastes didn't do a lot for me, but I'd nudged it into my own campaign world and so was using my own area map anyway.
Mind you, whilst the glossy colour maps are great to look at; as a couple of others have pointed out, not much beats the trusty old black and white maps for clarity.

Just call me a Luddite.
Reggie

Ha! I can't see whyyou're all so worried about 124 arriving in the next day or so - my copy of 122 just got into the store today. So whilst I've got a whole bunch of Dungeony-Goodness (TM), I've still got another two months to wait for 124.
I sometimes suspect our last PM was right when he said Australia was the ass of the planet. We never get anything on time.

Reggie

Good Grief.
I lose net access for a month due to moving house and waiting for a new land-line to be installed and the place goes crazy!
Whilst all these hints about the new AP look like something big is in the offing, I'm left with a serious problem - I adapted the first AP to my existing campaign world.
It looks like I'm going to have to do a bit of terraforming to squeeze the second one in...
Maybe it's retcon time.