Disgruntled Wargamer's page

I do play with my kids (ages 11-14). We be Goblins is a good, quick PG romp, where the kids get to be the monsters, but not the bad monsters. They had a blast.

Kingmaker has some PG-13 drama in the first book, dealing with themes of abandonment and the villain having some father issues. Actually, if you're trying to avoid traumatic scenarios, avoid the adventure paths unless you're GMing. If you're GM, you can leave a lot out.

Master of the Fallen Fortress - PG for violence. Giant spiders, trog bad guys, straight forward plot with nothing more than "remove the monsters from the old ruin" worked great for us. I even let one of the kids run it, which resulted in dear old dad losing two characters and a single night of fun for everyone.

There are official solutions, even built in solutions to the Vendor Trash / Christmas Tree issues.

Firstly, the markets in most towns are fairly weak after a few levels, and the towns themselves don't have enough economy to purchase many of the mid-level items obtained by the players. Rather than strain the local economy, the players in the group I GM try to invest those items into their downtime pursuits.

Secondly, the downtime systems are wonderful at giving ways to remove the extra magic items. Vendor Trash = supplies and gear for followers. My players routinely collect those lesser items for their own stores, guilds, temples, bandit troupes, etc. Found an X of +3? Give your X of +1 to an NPC for a boon or use it as a recruiting tool. Let the town sculptist include it in the new statue of you in the town square.

We also allow adding new abilities to magical items. It's in chapter 15 of the Core Rulebook. It allows players to grow their items with them, burning their gold and time in the process. The time to create is usually spent working downtime storylines. Many of the players keep items throughout a game. Yes, they may trade up a cloak of resistance +1 for one of +2, but you have to admit that after a few months of adventuring, that original cloak starts to look pretty tattered.

Whether the game is kill/loot/level or a story of character growth in the midst of mystery/tragedy/sword/sorcery is really up to the GM, no matter what system you play.

I tried the Mummy's Mask box and was disappointed to find the exclusion of many of the creatures mentionned in the mini-bestiaries in the adventure. It still looks like the solution for the paper minis is to copy and paste the artwork from the adventure books into a file. I'd be more inclined to pick up minis like the ones done by (Todd Westcot or (Callous Jack).

Besides, we're starting Iron Gods this week. By the time this product's available, we'll be halfway through, and most of the figures won't be needed.

We have a level 10 rogue in the group I'm running. She's having a blast in Mummy's Mask. The issues boil down to the roleplay, combat, and skills. Roleplay is what you make of it. She really gets into her role, and the party actually enjoys her occasional solo antics. She is not a major damage-doer, but she doesn't see that as a need. She has other tactics which are used to devestating effect. Her skills really shine when dealing with magical traps. Her own out-of-the-box thinking has allowed her trapmaking skill in combination with the wizard's spells to effectively remove the threat of guards, patrols and even some wandering monsters. Here's more detail, but in essence, the core rogue is really a nice way of saying "thief." Think of the little guy in the Conan movies, the "Mouse" from Ladyhawke or even the Stainless Steel Rat.

The pawns need to come out earler, maybe after the second book. At the rate we're going, we'll be done running the Mummy's Mask before the pawns are released!

Not disappointed. Helped my daughter run half dead city, and we all had fun. We spent a lot of time in the tavern, interacting with the NPC parties after clearing the tomb. She really played up the Schorched Hand, which led to some foreshadowing. We also almost got side tracked with helping one of the other NPC groups with their assigned tomb. I think if that hadn't been her first game as GM, we would have had a second tomb raid before exploring the haunted manor.

The manor itself was pretty creepy, and laid out clearly enough that a first time GM could grasp the concept and run the haunts with ease.

However, the group disbanded for the summer, so we'll be starting over with a different GM for the Mummy's Mask.

From a player's perspective, I think a majority of the enjoyment factor will come from the GM and their ability to create good dialogue. From a GM perspective, I have flipped through the first two books and would enjoy running Mummy's Mask. The first book is a great intro, and I think the chariot race is classic MGM Silver screen style Egyptian cinema brought to the table.

Not disappointed.

I've seen these over and over, voted down, and they still made it past cull.

1. google glasses
2. playing card that belonged to someone famous
3. Item makes me incorporeal/corporeal, so I can rez myself
4. Cone of silence
5. Babbling blindness with blindsense
6. Portable firehose
7. Magic item made from cold iron
8. Giant plastic gerbil toy
9. I've got gnomish balls; they make good parties
10. Breath of life in a can.