scorpionkiss's page

My all time favs apart from richard pett
have been anything by Nicholas logue
I converted Chimes at midnight to 1st level 4th ed it was a briiliant weekend game and good for both newbies and experienced players who all played it together
Tides of dread by Stephen greer and gary holian
Here be monsters by jason buhlman
The cahampions belt by tito leati

sadly my players have been thru all these great ones........

So any more suggestions?
old edition TSR WOTC 4th ed?
any that can be turned to the dark side?

I have been Dming my group thru Quest for The Ashen Crown in my own home brew world not Eberron, and basically they are 3 unaligned and 1 lawful good but they are role playing it that way, The party are becoming more evil, selfish and blood thirsty,
basically i can see it ending where they piss off their employers have the Ashen crown to them selves,
Then are going to go on the run with the crown ,
so both good adventurers and evil parties will be chasing them to get revenge and their hands on the crown,
SOOOOOO
In all my years of dming from 1st ed ive never really seen adventures based around an evil unaligned party,
no bank jobs
assassination plots
even though since 1st ed you have characters like the rogue and assassin who by defintion engage in illegal actvities
any ideas of old adventures out there that can be rejigged to be evil versus good rather than the other way?
I have lots of the old printed dungeon magazines
any it does not really matter what edition I just want good story flavour some of my fave advebtures have been old dungeon magazines ones by Richard Pett especially!

I've posted this on the Wizards boards but my players lurk there so to get advice and cool plot ideas i'm posting it here to ask the advcve of the great Paizo Gamer community,

I am DMing my party thru the Ashen crown, while we don't play Eberron, I think its a cool adventure full of cool twists and encounters. Anyway, I adapted it to my campaign world for my players. There are similarities in my world, such as having the player's homeland formerly besieged by an army of giants, which were beaten back in my previous campaign, based on Revenge of the Giants. Two of the players had high level characters in this campaign.
In the wastelands north of the homeland there are rival factions of humans, orcs, goblins, etc etc.

Anyway, the party has made a mistake in telling Molric about what they were searching for in Ashturas tomb, so Molric sent some dwarves to get the treasure first. However they got in a fight with the PCs and the party beat them. I'm trying to teach the party to be careful, because the world is a dangerous place and they shouldn't go about letting potential enemies in on their plans.

Captain Kaleas has been changed slightly in my campaign, and he is now the head of the City guard, but the players disrespect him and his junior officers anyway. They manage to secure a deal in the meeting, but I have the Gnomish junior officer and his guard wait for them to give them a strict talking to, and a chance for the party to apologize. Of course the Barbarian just shouts out "Who wants a beating!" and the players have a scrap with the elite guard, who proceed to smack them around handily, all the while giving the party a chance to yield and negotiate. The barbarian goes into a rage and the party ends up trying to fight to the death, and the guard ends up on top.

The party is now wounded and bound by the guards, and they are told to concentrate on their true enemies and are let off. The captain is promised to have their supplies ready in a few days.

However my party is more interested in trying to find ways of getting revenge on the city guard, which while fun, is pretty suicidal.

Give me a few ideas where this can go....
They've already fought the undead at Nephters abode, but that doesn't seem to interest them as much as the city guard.
The party consists of 3 unaligned characters and one lawful good cleric, who is convinced the city guard are evil, even though the party attempted to use lethal force on them. I'm not sure where to go with this, but in real life, insulting and threatening a squad of marines or riot police isn't exactly a smart move.

LOl yeah I its 4th ed I play now but ive played all versions of D&d and really its relevant to all editions,so i dont know if people playing other versions would ignore it if its in 4th ed version.
so 10 pound head + 180 pounds kind of what i reckoned
a giants head would weigh as much as a weell built man
Cheers Snorter

I actautly Dm 4th edition with my group but I guess this applies to all versions of D&d and Pathfinder games.
In my group I have a character who has a bad history with giants. To get revenge and impress people he likes to take their heads put them in a bag of holding and empty them out.
In 4th ed a Bag of Holding can take 2000 pounds of weight,
How much does a a giants head weigh.
Due to bone mass muscle structure I say its a lot heavier than merely doubling or tripling the weight.
Estimating the weight of an elephant or rhinos is a better example
so what does everyone elswe reckon if a large mans head is 8 - 11 pounds how myuch would a frost giant head weigh?

I actautly Dm 4th edition with my group but I guess this applies to all versions of D&d and Pathfinder games.
In my group I have a character who has a bad history with giants. To get revenge and impress people he likes to take their heads put them in a bag of holding and empty them out.
In 4th ed a Bag of Holding can take 2000 pounds of weight,
How much does a a giants head weigh.
Due to bone mass muscle structure I say its a lot heavier than merely doubling or tripling the weight.
Estimating the weight of an elephant or rhinos is a better example
so what does everyone elswe reckon if a large mans head is 8 - 11 pounds how myuch would a frost giant head weigh?

crowjoe wrote:

I also am actually kind of happy in an odd sort of way that WOTC has done this and pissed even more people off. I also wish that they would continue to screw things up and piss off even more people to the point that Dungeons & Dragons can the long overdue rest it deserves.

I think you're absolutely right. The writing is on the wall...

I'm going over to the storage unit I contain my Palladium/Rifts sourcebooks in right now and drafting up a new character to play. I'm thinking half-dragon half-leprechaun juicer superhero glitterboy pilot with tattoo magic. I'll need to pick up about six more pounds of d20's so my fellow party members don't need to wait so long for me to execute my attack rolls...I can just roll them all at once.

I'm glad there are still products out there which encourage roleplay and don't focus so much on crunch.

Ha ha Ha LOL

C'mon you guys,
Its d&d
And dragons are cool , strafe their enemies breathing fire, high AC and spells to boot.
demons and devils are uber bad guys they have so many abilities but players fear them.
Undead especially level draining undead strike fear into players.
But the coolest has to be the beholder,
a weird alien floating eye that can blast the party with all manner of spell effects.
and how can a rogue sneak up and backstab?
The thing is covered in eyes! and zap you with something if you sneak up behind me you pesky ~~@###ing rogue.
Beholders are the coolest and UNDEAD beholders even cooler!

I am absolutely devastated by losing both dungeon and dragon magazine.
I would purchase Pathfinder but here in the Uk i put in a regular order through my newsagent. Will pathfinder be available through these usual outlets???
otherwise as I speak as a UK GAMER, WHERE WILL WE GET NEW D&D AND THE BEST NEW ROLEPLAY STUFF?
making table top roleplay more and more spec ialised and niche as i have seen in my 25+ years playing d&d makes its more and more a dwindling thing.Gamers need more of an open suportive network, not make it so specialised that you have to hang on what WOTC decides to publish.Paizo was doing a fantastic job.
Keep supporting the worldwide network of role players!

I am playing with two newbies, one is the stepson of my old time gaming buddies and he wanted them to join in with d&d.
So we are playing "There is no honour"
They reach the toture chamber and I lay it on thick that this guy is twisted up on the rack with the torturer looming over him. They kill the supposed torturer,
Newbies first words to Kersh on the rack
"Have you got any money?" He is a neutral good ranger
My reply "What do you think ! I am on a ~***ing rack!

I am starting the savage tide with 2 experienced players and two newbies and I must admit they are loving it, " There is no honour" has been played for about 2 sessions now.
Its got enough to make it more interesting to long time players, its not just another dungeon crawl-
I have been putting on the funny voices and i have exp;lained as pirates of the caribbean meets d&d , They all think COOL

Warduke!
He looks like one of the village people,
Hey that's like happens in games a lot, you stroll into the village and talk to one of the village people.

R-type wrote:

I think those Fighting Fantasy books may have been my first exposure to fantasy and roleplaying, it seems like I'm not alone there.

I tried the Titan and Out of the Pit books with a couple of school friends as a ten year old but we simply could not understand the rules and got quite frustrated if I recall correctly.

Later came the Games Workshop stuff. :)

I really liked the Fighting Fantasy stuff - I have very fond memories of the Sorcery series, which was a triumph in the medium of solo quest-type game books.

I also loved all of the steve jackson , ian livingston stuff. I have even converted death trap dungeon into a Dm and one player game. it was great!

Hi there here in Portsmouth
Starting gamimg when i was in school early eighties and tried to puzzle my way through gygax's prose
Played with 4 friends by the mid eighties, and we still game now , one has moved away past cambridge.
We still play 1st edition though i play them thru the ,modern dungeon adventures.I have a lot of 3.5 rules,they are still playing some of the same characters from the mid eighties but obviously they are high level now.
We have had breaks because of uni , careers etc travellimg across australia etc, but my players have
21st level cleric, saint david ,
16th lvl ranger lord captain ansi,
16th level cleric archbishop cuth bert
12th lvl paladin lord tokagawa
and kalcyn 15th lvl ranger
we also game with one players step son and his mate as low level
starting
the savage tide campaign.
The two 17 year olds love it. to them its like pirates of the carribean meets d&d.
Recently met as new gamesclub in pompey and shock horror , they play no d&d but lots of one off horror gameslike c&c, kult , werewolf, warhammer fantasy role play and lots of independant stuff i have never heard of.

I used green stuff to craft the worms. The mace was crafted from an old paint brush, cardboard, green stuff, and plastic spikes.The mace isn't quite as good as I'd like it to be, but it should be sufficient to scare the hell out of my players.

You are too hard on your self i think it looks excellent,

Black Baron wrote:

I've crafted my own Kyuss Mini from a ring wraith figure. I thought I'd share it with everyone.

http://i31.photobucket.com/albums/c379/rwaluchow/Kyuss1.jpg

http://i31.photobucket.com/albums/c379/rwaluchow/Kyuss2.jpg

Cheers,

Black Baron

Wow, that's fantastic! Where did you get that particular figure?

Its a lord of the rings toy action figure Cool!

Just ask your Dm before you start.
i would consider the core three books. PHB, MM, and DMG,
after that if you want a specific class , prestige class or feats from any of the other books ask your DM first.
If you are bringing a character from another dms game ask him to look over your sheet and say its ok,
don't be offended if he says no or you can't have such and such. each DM like player is different. accept their decisions , if you don't like the way they dm or the rules they use join another group

Valegrim wrote:

Yeah, I forgot to mention the GM that makes up a character who is more or less their avatar in the game under some guise of an npc so this guy has the gms RL personae and is more or less him in dreamland; you cant kill him or do anything to him ever and you practically become a demigod if you think he is cool and hang out with him and just ignore that he is a normal human that can pick up and shake a maxed out greater treant in one fist and tell him off. yep; gm abuse like that is cheating in my book; but, really just wanted to say it goes both ways and that players are not the only ones that abuse the rules and the game; just trying to make a point since so many people seem to be so hostile about this whole thing.

I agree that the DM can seriously stretch the rules to the point where the game is almost unrecognizable to the experienced player, but I still believe that the DM cannot cheat. I have dealt with those NPCs that are average on the outside but a god once in combat and I hate them with a passion. A DM who does not consider how the players might feel in a situation he created is only DMing for himself.

Yep, I played in a few games like that, where different Dm's have this super character who is recruiting us and is super hard.

Contact this player and tell him that if he isn't going to turn up then he should drop off the character sheet so you can run it. If this is not an option let him read the cleric's vitals to you over the phone or get him to e-mail you the info. If he is not willing to do any of these things and he doesn't turn up to the game then he's obviously not worthy of being a part of your group.

If for some reason you are forced into this situation again, make up his stats on the spot. You can't have a character being present without being present - it makes no sense. What is the cleric doing while everyone is beaten up by zombies? Going to the toilet? His character needs to be there (even if you have to make stuff up) for the game to be logical.

No its just like in The Gamers movie, the missing players character stands there motionless looking blank and when they turn up they go ,"I enter barbarian rage!!!"

Hey, thanks for the bragging rights, the Dragotha Project was freakin awsome, no one expected that. I lost my Barbarian for the 7th time there, but it was worth it.

I was suprised with the cavernous setting the same day I suprised him with the Kyuss mini. All the other PC's knew about it, I was just holding out, for the beginning of the final installment.

-Stabbity
:)

Excellent work stabbity, obviously your game is full of creative people,

very nice

Wow that is great!

I would go with the band of good heroes, paladins, summoned outer planar creatures hunting the pc's down.Its got a really nice twist, battling good instead of evil. Maybe a gold or silver dragon polymorphed in human form at the head of the party.

Fletch wrote:

Wait, you put your students to work building props for your home game? What kind of sweat shop you got running there?

"If you don’t make the ships, you can’t have role playing. How can you have any role playing if you don’t make the ships?"

Pink Floyd

Well i hope i'm not the kind of teacher who sticks them in a meatgrinder and grinds them into worms (well maybe just the naughty ones)

I let characters keep sheets, they up date them as sometimes i send xp through email and they level up between sessions -

All rolls in front of DM

however i award xp bonuses for characters who have up to date neat sheets.I check sheets at the start of each session. Sometimes we had that old chestnut of healing potions never running out and spells used from previous sessions not crossed off.Now no funny business and the players get a reward for being good.(This way the cheater who adds stuff or "forgets it" loses xp )

I give xps for roleplaying as well as for usual stuff.
At the end of a session the player who roleplayed the best( In a vote from all at the table ) gets xp bonus. I find this keeps players focused on their characters and in good spirits.A;lso I have noticed its not the same guy who gets it every week its been kind of spread around which encourages camradrie

I had a player I suspected was cheating on dice rolls so I sat another trusted player next to him to keep and eye on his rolls. Turns out he was cheating... the trusted player slipped me a note that said "How does a 1 to hit and a 1 on the damage dice equal 20 points of damage?"

This players was the husband of another player who was a good friend of mine. In the interested of keeping the peace and not creating a rift between friends I just decided to cheat back towards him in the exact same way. The monsters would sometimes hit even if they actually missed based on the die roll. I would sometimes add extra damage to a die roll against him. And I would sometimes just not record the damage he did agasint creatures.

This isn't a perfect solution because you never actually call the cheater out but it worked in this case because it kept the cheating from affecting the game and allowed everyone to remain friends outside the game.

I find this strange, as Every game I have ever played in The Dm can see the dice rolls as they are do in front. Perhaps there are some Dms who are gnomes behind their screens and cannot see over them.When I DM i stasnd up a lot look down on the players when describing and watch them roll dice in front of me.Players who wanted to roll in secret would soon be sussed on our table.

PulpCruciFiction wrote:

I'm starting the SCAP this coming weekend, and I really don't want to break trust by forcing everyone to roll in a box in front of me or something that extreme.

Hmm, when I game and the players sit on a table the rolls are typically made in a box. Habit started from red box D&D and now when the game no longer has a box we just pick a cover from some boardgame. If the die bounces off the box, it is rerolled. I don't really suspect anyone of cheating, it just results to less clutter when dice are not randomly flying across the table, knocking down miniatures (or whatever) or rolling under the couch...

If we don't play on table but more like lounging in room the game is less about rolls then, so cheating doesn't matter that much and since rolling the dice is less common it grabs everyone's attention and cheating becomes more difficult.

Oh, and when I DM I fudge dice rolls. Players know that. The monsters really don't throw 1's and 2's that often in damage rolls.

#I recommend roling in box, sometimes if its a saving throw keep the suspense up, give the player a gruesome description of whats happened, "The slavering poisonous ichor from the creatures maw drips onto your skin!" then make them roll in a box in front of you.Sometimes i keep the box above their eyeline that way i see the roll, they don't, Perhaps they have been charmed, would the character know they have been charmed? would the rest of the party? no! so maybe those rolls should be in secret. What about sense motive , do you just say you failed your roll, then the party meta games, "maybe he is going to betray us , we just failed our roll!"

So I have this father and son duo in one of my games that are always trying for an added advantage. The son was easy to deal with because he cheats by hiding and fudging his die rolls. I just stayed on top of seeing his dice and second guessing his math.

His dad was/is more difficult. I run a lot of published material due to time constraints. While running City of the Spider Queen a few years ago these events clued me in:

1. While passing crypts that did contain vampires, the party checked out the sealed over doors and discovered the tiny gap at the bottom. The offending character, a gnome shadow dancer, said he can get in, but won't. Why? He thinks there are vampires in there.

2. He has never done it before and has never done it since, but right at an illusion wall he stopped and threw a rock at it.

3. At the bottow of a drow city I described all the things he could see, including a stream that flowed into a crack in the cave wall. He ran right to it, where a free treasure waited.

4. The party never takes prisoners, but he did, just once. In an area with a ghost that could only be put to rest be dragging a drow in there and killing it.

5. Dungeon Magazine published a side trek for the adventure concerning an illithid prison. There were several trapped rooms in it, save or die stuff. He opened every door except for the trapped ones.

It was frustrating at first. I didn't want to be a jerk in case he was just guessing really lucky. So at first I just started adjusting stuff, changing trap and treasure locations, etc. As it continued over the months the adventure lasted, I finally talked to him about it... and he denied cheating. What could I do? Well, I finally figured it out. If he wants to play this way, then let him. If it's fun for him to know how it's going to play out then, ok. I still move around or otherwise adjust some stuff, and he has entirely lost my trust. Whenever I feel something is amiss I take note and later the monsters give him a special treat. Btw, I still think he's doing...

I would read the adventure you are playing in detail.Find an area where there is the nice treasure goodies etc and put a really nasty kick ass trap. That way when the cheater goes to grab the goodies kapoweee! and do it regularly so he either gets the hint but in no way can he accuse you of bias.He should not know any goodies are there unless he is cheating and so he cannot whine that the trap should not be there unless he admits to reading the adventure beforehand.

Sobustooms,
~Your scenery pics are ace! as one scenery builder to another I have already posted what my school kids are making for my savage tide campaign, here

http://www.flickr.com/photos/98565490@N00/

Lets have a gallery of all those scenery buliders out there who love to build their own props to the game.
C'mon guys post your pics!

Scorpy now all you need to do is introduce them to the game and you will have an batch of new D&D converts!

And just wait until they hit thier teens and start painting minis! These kids are gonna rock!

Oh yeah Jib, don't worry about that I got plenty of projects in the pipeline to get them into it.

Firstly I love both Dragon and Dungeon magazine,
Secondly if I have an in game problem I can post for advice here and get some answers
I like reading other gamers comments and ideas
Lastly I have visited the wizards boards and I did not find them very friendly or helpful (Which is a bit wierd as role playing is a SOCIAL activity).
The posters here seem a cool bunch and supportive of other gamers.

When is it? Sell it to me/us.

Here it all is

http://www.consupport.com/index.asp

Hopefully I will see youn there Rtype!

This is great. I will have to see if I cannot come up with a similar idea for my students, as I teach Drawing, Printmaking, and photography at a high school. Maybe my drawing classes can take a side trip down 3-D design road.....

Hi Sol to a fellow art teacher,

Big shout out to all the uk gamers out there!
Who is going to Gencon in reading this year.
I am trying to organise a demonstration game, so hopefully I will be there for the full four days so may be it will good for people on the boards to say hello.
i don't know what the reading venue will be like.
bognor was great and only 20 miles away from portsmouth, so a bit longer this year.
So who's going?

Wait, you put your students to work building props for your home game? What kind of sweat shop you got running there?

You ain't seen nothing yet,If you go lower than the pirate ships you see some model houses.

Is that a flinstones mobile? :)

Ha Ha HA!

I also got some of the kids to help me with the islands, made from polystyrene painted black
drybrushed grey and white then flock and vegatation which you can get really cheap a couple of pounds or dollars i guess from model shops that sell stuff for model railways.
Really quick andc easy to make and light weight too!

Hi all!
Starting the savage tide adventure path tonight, but have been getting ready for it for a while.

I am a teacher of Art and Graphics and one of my projects i set my 11 and 12 year olds is to make pirates ships for a game based on Wiz Kids pirates game. I love that game and its been mentioned before they make great props for the game but check these out: http://www.flickr.com/photos/98565490@N00/

My kids made them from balsa wood with card sails and masts made from cocktail sticks.

So now I have a fleet for my adventures - I am going to love dmimg their sea faring parts of the adventure now!

Lots of yanks, a few Aussies and a German,

Where are the rest of the Brits?

Actually this could be a cool post. It would be great to know how many nationalities are into their roleplaying.

Risk the game of World Domination!

Monopoly should be called the game of how to piss people off and lose friends

Fizz

Yeah! why isn't risk on the poll,many meglomaniacs love it.Its the game we play the most when not d&ding

The LOrd of the rings game is cool too but a bit long winded and complicated if you are not an experienced gamer

Does Heroscape count, I love that game!

mmmmm, beer....

And I am looking forward to a few beers myself tonight as we game,

At School
(I am a school teacher of Art and Graphics)
Free period waiting for the tech guy to fix the colour printer so I can print some stuff
Looking forward to my game tonight, starting the savage tide campaign
Portsmouth UK

me -Shaven head,
Due to receding hairline, not to trying to be cool,
players only one has an impressive beard.
I have loved the odd spot of facial hair myself but with a bald head it makes me look like my head is upside down!

We play a mish mash of 1st edition rules with some 2nd edition adds ons as as I am DM 3rd edition adventures (Including some of the mighty adventures that are found in Dungeon Magazine)
Thats mainly because my players are tight have all the 1st edition manuals,( and we have been playing some of the same characters since the mid eighties off an on with breaks for colege, university and careers) and don't want to invest in new PHB's.
As they say they don't want to learn a new set of rules, they want to keep their characters as they are.
I myself would like to play 3.5 as I can see each character can be tinkered into an individual. In my campaign the clerics are just the same, the rangers are just the same and fighters are all the same.
The wide range of feats and skills give you lots of options, so you can pretty much tailor make a character whose style you want to play.

Valegrim, was the example of the NG rougue hacked up by two CG vikings a real incident from your game?
Would not the rogue and the bard discuss with the other members of the party what they were attempting to do?

With all the interest on a d20 modern cross over, What about an adventure like Barrier peaks or temple of the frog where D&d characters go through some sort of time vortex ans end up in the future or modern characters are flung into the past!

A collaboration between Richard Pett and Willie Walsh, I'm so there...

I'm Intrigued ,I am an old schoolplayer from the early eighties and used to have and play through old dungeon magazines.

The Jade Wrote.

I hope you know you single handedly ruined my Marzipan Golem submission. It's in the mail already. Thanks a heap.

I think this got missed in all the messageboard sparring,
Now that is funny!

DMaple wrote:

Manure Castle.

By the way--giving demeaning names to something that lots of other people like won't make you any friends on these boards.

Talking about that I went on the Wizards boards to post something and get feedback, explaining I was an experienced DM blah Blah ..... When someone called Zombidragon posted that he doubted I had much experience because I had only posted once on there ... How rude I thought... He was slapped down by another poster. But on these boards everyones pretty civil and friendly, If there is any verbal duelling it all in good fun.

Oh and no more Styes
ONLY KIDDING!
I love the Styes and and Richard Petts adventures

Well the last thread I started about what kinds of adventures you want to see in Dungeon Magazine is proving really popular but as a reflection of that what don't you want to see anymore. Is some stuff really cliched and you don't use it because x is too close to that adventure you ran last year for your party.It would be great if the contributers pitched in too as its great to here all the spicy bits that are coming.

I'll start, I am bored of the basic dungeon crawl. Maure Castle adventures are good and CHallenge of Champions is different enough but I think there is an over saturation of the old trapped tomb adventure.

Over to you guys