ben wenham's page

Red Markets is a game of economic horror, where the world has ended and the rent is still due.

This game was put together by Caleb Stokes, one of the most interesting Horror scenario authors of the last decade. Caleb Stokes, wrote No Security: Horror Scenarios in the Great Depression, and the better angels campaign, No Soul Left Behind , as well as material for eclipse phase and delta green.

You can check out one of the play test campaigns here

Premise: Methuselah's Price starts with a wake. A collection of activists, philanthropists,corporate mercenaries, hipsters, and artists, have gathered in the spiders nest, a bar, perched atop the bricks, a shanty down built from shipping containers abandoned in the former port of L.A. in the wake of the collapse of international shipping caused by the first generation of vacuum dirigibles.

You play one of the mourners, attending the wake for Badk!tty, a renowned designer and key member of the creative commons movement.
Badk!tty has spent the last five years generating original designs and placing them into the creative commons, raising money to defend the status of various designs and helping with infrastructure elements of Cobweb, a free ubiquitous internet project using Stratospheric Satellite and mesh networking.

Her death was sudden and as yet unexplained, and many of her friends suspect she was murdered.

This is the recruitment thread from my Cyberpunk 2020 game.

I will post the campaign brief tomorrow.

So with a beginner's set, a bestiary pawn set and a rise of the runelords set, what pawns are missing that are needed for rise of the runelords?

My wife and I have been playing in a 4e adaption of rise of the runelords for a while no.

She has apparently lost her mind, and is writing fic about her character from the campaign. The setting isn't Golarion, because you know, product identity, but yeah.

I thought I would share it with you. Please be nice to her ;)

echoes of bethaira

Well, having looked at all the maps and taken some time to think, I have to ask, is anyone else left deeply disappointed by the general level of quality?

A place for the spill over about all things meat in the climate and conspiracy theories thread.

So, I have been doing some voting this year and....it seems like their are 3 of 4 items that just keep coming up for me.

Anyone else experiencing this?

Does anyone have a good source for the physical dimensions of various medieveal buildings?

So a while back, WOTC put out some mass combat rules.

Has anyone tried them out yet? What are they like, what were your first thoughts on them?

I am trying to figure out if they are the right rules for my table, and your imput would be helpful in that decision.

So I have been working on some 5e stuff, and I thought it might be fun for you guys to see what I've been working on.

Campaign Premise

Campaign Insperation

The Fey Realms

The Underworld

Item Cards

Welcome to the Borderlands

Hi guys,

I thought you might like to have a look at some of the Cartography I have been doing lately.

This is a map I have been working on for an next time I run a fantasy game. It has a 1/2 mile to a hex scale

Hi guys,

So, I recently started mapping as a hobby. On of the expressions of this growing obsession has been the production of a number of Geomorphs. Well I have been tidying them up, and posted them on my blog.

You can find them at Save vs. Cosmic Horror.

Now it might just be because I am only really watching form here and the WotC boards, but this edition change over seems a lot friendlier to me.

Okay.

I'd like to see what you guys think hypothetical.

You have signed up for a horror game, which you have been told ahead of time is being run in the Purist mod of Lovecraftian gaming.

During the game you discover that the best possible outcome of the scenario, is your characters death or incarceration at an asylum. That one of these outcomes is the intended ending of the scenario, and was from the start.

Now would you mind letting me know how you would react if:

A, it was a one shot game.

B, the intended outcome of a scenario run in the background of an ongoing campaign.

I was wondering if there was a feat or archetype that allows bardic performance to affect mindless undead.

Hey guys,

I am starting to put together a scenario for a new group. One of the core elements of inspiration is Mononoke-hime(Princess Mononoke). Giant animals spirits, Kodama, Samurai, that kind of thing.

Any suggestions for monsters that might be fit into the game, would be very useful.

So I recently contributed to a Call of Cthulhu e-zine called the arkham gazette. You can check it out (with my scenario "the bosworth house") Here

So, I am giving some thought to running legacy of fire as a Fate core campaign. I am still in the early stages of conversion. So far I am looking primerally at the Issues for the campaign. I would appreciate your feed back.

What do you think of love conquerors all, and be careful what you wish for?

The undead make their position on NHS sell off known at Tory party conference.

Huge plumes of methane in the arctic ocean.

The stealth rules have me a little confused, when it comes to movement. Specifically with how it interacts with the us of

Your Stealth check is opposed by the Perception check of anyone who might notice you. You can move up to half your normal speed and use Stealth at no penalty. When moving at a speed greater than half but less than your normal speed, you take a –5 penalty. It's impossible to use Stealth while attacking, running, or charging.

So does this mean

a, A rogue with a move of 30' uses a move action to move upto 15' in a turn without stealth penalty. If he uses a second move action, to move a further 15', he cannot stealth; as within the turn he has moved a distance equal to or greater than his movement value

b. A rogue with a move of 30' uses a move action to move upto 15' in a turn without stealth penalty. If he uses a second move action, to move a further 15', he can make a stealth check without penalty, because he has moved half his movement rate or less, on each of his actions.

So, post-human press have a kickstarter up for Transhuman, an eclipse phase players guide. Check it out here

A woman so loved, entire communities will turn out to mark her turning.

What is the social contract at your table?

Is it unspoken or is it formal?

How do you enforce it?

The social contract from my CoC gaming group.

- We are playing in a public space, don't embaress the rest of us.

- We are playing in a pub, feel free to drink, but moderate your in take.

- Please don't smoke around the rest of us (A we are playing in an enclosed public space, it is illegal for you to do so, and B, it is common decency not to.

- The pub is Geek friendly, not only do we game here, but it is an Esports spectator venue. Don't bring in your own food or drink, they let us use the space for free on the understanding we buy food and drink.

-Take time to answer questions from the public, about what it is that we are doing.

- We have gathered to game, and to socialise. Lets not let either dominate the day.

- What we play is a group decision, no one is in charge of the group.

- The person running the game has put in effort to prepare something for you to enjoy, do them the service of playing by their rules, and within the spirit of the kind of game they are running.

- The players are trusting you to run a game they will enjoy, do your best to not abuse that trust. Show no favouritism, nor abuse your power to settle scores.

- When pitching a game. Be as honest as you can about the nature of the game your putting forwards. It is not always possible to be totally truthful in a game setup, but be as sure as you can that any lie you tell, will not upset the players.

I have had a thing for magic lanterns since my days of playing Wraith: the Oblivion. It is a love that has been rekindled by the resent Kingdom Death: Monster kickstarter.

I might in the near future have a chance to build a new character in our 4e game.

I am thinking about maybe playing a swordmage next, and given that I will likely be entering an established game with a little bit of my own loot, it would be a great time to scratch that magic lantern itch. Are their any items which either are lanterns or which could easily be re skinned to be.

Oh, the carrying of said lantern is a pretty fundimental part of what makes them cool, so your average hovering magic lantern that follows you around, isn't really what I am looking for.

nuff said really

So kickstarter is producing some seriously good models at the momment. Well here are some more

Okay, so just finished Accelerando by Charles Stross, however I have read a lot of charlie in the last two years, and I want a rest for a while. However, it was a great book. I have also been checking out eclipse phase a lot lately.

The net result of these combined facts...

I want some suggestions for good transhumanist science fiction. As a result putting out this simple query to the mechanical turk that is the Paizo forum.

"Where would you suggest I go next in my reading?"

Some around two and a half years ago, my dad had a heart attack. I posted about it here.

I am posting now, because well, mostly because it is 2am, I can't sleep and my dad is back in hospital suffering from kidney failure. The primary reason for me posting is I could really do with some of the same support that members of the paizo community offered me last time dad was this ill.

But their is another side to it.

I am getting another look at British medicine, but things arn't quiet as they where last time we talked about this.

The NHS does not exist anymore, at least not in the same form it did. While service are still free at the point of use, and most of the service is still centrally provided, the service is being prepared to be cut up and sold to private companies.

I am terrorfied. Where once my father would have been treated by a single institution who could ensured a co-ordinated treatment, as his condition worsens(and it really only can get worse), he is going to be moving into a world where his care is divided between a gutted NHS, and numerous private healthcare providers, motivated by profit, not his best interest, and I don't know what to do about it.

I don't think I have ever been so scared as I am right now, not even during his heart attack. Even when I was rushing to his side, I knew that everything was being done to help him, and while the panic griped me fiercely, I didn't have the deep gnawing fear for the future I have now.
What can I do, when my fathers well being in the years to come is ultimately going to be determined by men like John Nash(chairman of care uk), who I wouldn't trust with my own health, let alone my fathers.

A unified, social healthcare, run largely without profit motive butchered and served up to industry, by a man(lansley) receiving massive donations from those most likely to benifit from the changes(John Nash).

What do I do?

So, "Things you just don't like in your fantasy RPG", left me feeling more than a little excluded. When it comes to fantasy, I have one hard and fast rule, so long as it feels like it could work in the specific setting, I'll happily go with it.

There basically isn't a fantasy trope i won't play with, if the setting is compelling and it is well done.

Dinosaurs don't drive me nuts! Guns don't get my goat! and i can enjoy grimdark(though I hate the term) and get behind "happy-fun-time-adventure-world" too.

I do however have preferences, things I default to if left to my own devices. It is pretty late, so I am not going to share them right now, but until I can, I'd love to here what elements you love, and why you love them.

Horror on the oriental express Kickstarter

This is awesome news.

Shadowrun Online.

hi guys, I thought you might be interested in this. I know a lot of you got interested in shadowrun returns, and Shadowrun Online looks like it might be just as interesting.

I know what your thinking. I don't like MMORPGs. But Shadowrun Online looks like no MMORPG that has come before. Game view is isometric, game play is turn based, the rules system designed to be as close as possible to the rules of shadowrun. It looks like the thinking mans MMORPG, and the early tech demos are very interesting, with game play that looks similar to fallout 1 and 2. Check it out.

Str3d6 ⇒ (6, 3, 2) = 11
con3d6 ⇒ (4, 1, 5) = 10
pow3d6 ⇒ (6, 4, 1) = 11
dex3d6 ⇒ (6, 5, 2) = 13
app3d6 ⇒ (5, 6, 6) = 17
siz2d6 + 6 ⇒ (1, 2) + 6 = 9
Int2d6 + 6 ⇒ (4, 1) + 6 = 11
edu3d6 + 3 ⇒ (5, 3, 3) + 3 = 14
income1d10 ⇒ 10

Hi all,

Thanks to a very silly promise made to Shane Hensley from pinnicle, I am pleased to let you scumbags know that the first two of you to let me know of your interest, will be getting a copy of a PDF copy of the Savage Worlds Deluxe core rules, purchased by me to reduce my guilt at being given a free copy as part of the Deadlands Noir Kickstarter, and because I love Deadland.

Now before I go any further, a couple of nitty gritty details. First off, it goes without saying but if you already have a copy it would be polite to let someone who hasn't got one get it.
Secondly, and this is very important, I will not be purchasing it for you until the 29th/30th of this month, for reasons of money.

So come on you skum bags let me know if you want it.

Regards,
Ben

Oh, P.S. If you haven't checked out Deadlands Noir yet....go do it.

Okay, so for her birthday, i am about to give my other half a bottle of two year old slow Gin I made with her. Its label will have upon it the following

image

The text and images contain a coded message. I would appreciate it if you would have a go at cracking it, just so that I can be sure that it is possible to solve.

Hi guys.

I thought you might be interest in this.

I have started up a Podcast called Geeksourcing, to spot lighting cool Kick starter initiative such as Mobile Frame Zero: Rapid Attack and The Monolith from beyond Space and Time plus The God that Crawls.

We already have interviews with both of the above mentioned projects, and hope to have a bunch more in for you in short order.

We should as of next week also start to bring you computer game, music, film and comic projects, for you other varieties of geekery.

The waters of the river Reik swirl and churn in great eddies around the bough of the ‘Harlot of Mordenheim’. The forces of wind and river battle one another, across the barge’s rotten hull, drawing out groans from the wood. The damp of the river has permeated ship, crew, and cargo. A cargo of men and woman crammed into the hold, so tightly they can scarcely move. They clutch at a few possession like seamen holding to the mast of their shattered ship. To the aft, two of the passengers, a married couple, lay covered with furs, breathing in wet, ragged gasps, occasionally coughing up phlegm and blood. There is a clear space around them, where other passengers will not sit, even the couple’s own daughter does not approach them, leaving them to what is likely to be a slow death.

On shore, lights blaze in the hundred taverns, brothels and pot shops of Nuln’s wharfs. The twinkling luminescence guiding the barge in to the land, like a wreckers fire. The crew can be heard, hard at work on the deck above, though they keep quiet as they guide the harlot towards her birth.

The doors of the nearest of the wharf pub burst open, and muffled shouts followed by the crack drift out across the water. Moments later, a loud splosh echos out to the barge.

All the PCs are currently in the cargo hold. You have been on the river for days. You are cold, wet, tired, and very likely hungry too. There is also a good chance fear dwells in your heart too, thanks to the outbreak of river cough. You are in Nuln hoping to find employment. The eastern empire is suffering both a recession and significant hardships thanks to several locally bad winters, which has led you to seek pastures new.

This is the discussion thread for The Enemy Within and other tales of mud, blood and mutation.

Here you will find character creation guidelines, links media such as hand outs and music, as well as all sort of discussion about the campaign. enjoy, and please use responsibly.

"And at the appointed time we shall rise from our secret
places and throw down the towns and cities of The Empire.
Our brethren shall pour forth from the forests to slay
and burn. Chaos will cover the land and we, the chosen
servants, shall be exalted in HIS eyes

Hail to Tzeentch, Changer of the Ways
- Njawrrthakh 'Lzimbarr Tzeentch."

Excerpt from The Book of transmutation

Welcome to the recruitment thread for my run through of The Enemy Within campaign.

One of the greatest campaigns of all time(it is so good that even the french like it! Casus Belli Magazine having voted it the best campaign ever). The Enemy Within is a richly written and entertaining journey across the Old World setting of Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay. It mixes dark humour, horror, intrigue, investigation and bloody combat to produce a story that has something for every one.

Originally written for the first edition of Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, and in a setting that has changed a great deal over the years, I will be running a version convert for second edition and with some updated setting elements. I have also included a number of excellent first and second edition adventures to muddy the waters, and to provide interesting red hearing and side treks. However, the spirit of the original is alive and kicking.

A word about books:
While it will not be necessary to own any of the Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay books to take part, I would advise getting at least a PDF of the Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 2nd Edition Core Rulebook.

I also heartily recommend Sigmar's Heirs, if you wish to learn a little more about The Empire.

Sign Up
Sign up in this thread if your interested in playing.

Christopher Hitchens dies aged 62.

I hope you will all all join me in raising a glass(preferably johnny walker black label), to one of the great jounralists and writers of our time.

To Hitch.

So I got my first look inside "the magic of reality" written by Richard Dawkins and illustrated by Dave McKean.

It is one of the most beautiful books I have seen in ages, and the little snatches I read tickled me pink.

Has anyone actually gotten a copy yet? What did you think? Are you getting a copy for a young family member? I am giving serious thought to get it for my Nephew, though I might look after it for him. Not quiet one is about the right age to start explaining how the sun works, and why their are earthquakes, and where matter came from, right?

I've been thinking about this a bit recently, and I thought I would get your opinions on it.

What do you think makes for a good adventure in Pathfinder?

Please don't just say "stop playing with him" or call him names. Despite his flaws, he is a friend, and I have no desire to see him slagged off. Constructive advice on how to improve the situation only please.

We are about to dive into exalted again. I love exalted, more than most games combined, only mage, wraith and call of cthulhu sit higher on the totem pole for me.

However the guy we have Storytelling, who always seems to story tell our exalted games, cannot/will not hold back from spoilers.

We have just played through much of Carrion Crown, and at every step of the way, we have had spoilers heaped on us from on high.

Now we are going to be digging into return of the scarlet empress for exalted, and one member of our group as already revieved over an hours worth of spoiler.

What can we do to stop this?

Okay, I am working on an idea for Lantern Lodge pathfinder based on Edo period blind minstrel, called Goze.

Does any one have any advice on how to make a bard/Oracle mystic Theurge work well.

Additionally, it would be very cool if you could suggest a way to make using a spear effective with such a character.

It is one of the oldest and most played call of cthulhu investigations going. The haunting, has been around for close to as long than I have been alive, and this afternoon I ran it for the second time ever, as part of my newly started Tatters of the King campaign.

I am running it, but with slight change of setting(London 1922) and premise (Checking out a friends newly inherited property, after he heard some rum rumours about the place)

It's a really cool little scenario.

The very best moment of the night for me moment was when Gilbert Colegrove and Ruth Bradstock (who have been long term romantic partners), arranged to meet early at Corbitt's house early, believing the whole haunting thing to be a lot of old piffle, and started to have a 'picnic' in corbitts former bedroom, without the slightest hint of guidance from me.

Midway through their "activities", it seemed only right to conform with the rules of the great british summertime. If their is a picnic, it must rain. Nothing like a three large heavy drops of blood to change the mood, I always say.

Oh, and I drew one of the PCs to the window with the scratching noice.

Bet session in a long time.

So, developments in the social sciences over the last few years provide a fairly solid theoretical frame work for understanding the causes of the London riots.

Individuals and groups of individuals stealing high value goods for personal use, or resale. These individuals largely coming from the poorest segments of society. It fits the model of engaging in criminality to release pressure of stress caused by social evaluative threat. It was an activity undertaken largely by those most likely to be effected by social evaluative threat related stress, at a time of record income inequality between the richest and poorest in society.

But, according to David Cameron biological/economic drivers are not to blame. Rather he sees it as an issue of a break down in morals.

"The greed and thuggery we saw during the riots did not come out of nowhere, there are deep problems in our society that have been growing for a long time: a decline in responsibility, a rise in selfishness, a growing sense that individual rights come before anything else."

Other conservative politicians have laughed of the idea that the behaviour of the rioters might be caused by the rioters economic circumstance. (As a side note Cameron has suggested a shopping list of changes to the law that any dictator would be happy to have...curfew powers, bans on masks and hoods, powers to block social media )

Cameron and his cronies offer no cogent explanation for the cause of this break down, or for why the break down led to riots

Yet...

Those few attempts to seriously talk to those involved with rioting list economic pressures and social disenfranchisement as the reasons for their behaviour. Or as one rioter put it, when challenged that rioting was unacceptable, "You wouldn't be talking to me now if we didn't riot, would you?"

Such concerns are also rife in the media being generated by young people in london.

So Mr Cameron, why should I believe you when the evidence controdicts your, and your hypothesis provides no causative link between cause and effect and agree to give up my Guy Fawkes mask, and twitter account?

Or should I go with the well formed theory, which describes cause and effect, and is supported by evidence, and defend my self from your authoritarian wish list, especially when fighting to improve levels of income equality, should also improve many of the issues of broken homes and the like, that you consider to be to blame.

Okay, we have just completed trail of the beast with a three person team. Evoker, sword and board fighter and gunslinger.

Following the advice of NPCs and OOC advice from our DM, we wimped out and took advantage of

However, both I and the fighter where curious, so we also kept track of the combat. The result would have been the same either way.

After such a build up, it feels a little anticlimactic that we took it down in tree rounds. There are a few possible explinations. We are a level higher than expected thanks to being short a party member, and we are built with 25 points rather than 15. The DM is also not hugely experienced and might be that he wasn't playing the BBEG well.

However, I can't help feel that it wasn't really that tough. What where your experiences fighting this thing, or running it.