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The wife just called up from downstairs, "I think your magazine is here" And so it is. Issue 139. I can start reading the Savage Tide now. Cool map of Sassarine. I've held off even opening 140 and 141, I'm in Dungeon heaven I have 3 issues to read. Right I'm off to the loo. Ta for sorting it all out. I
Cheers Jeff. Things sometimes get lost in the post, I think I've just had a string of bad luck here. Thanks for sorting it out for me. Cheers.
Got 141 today, still no 139. It's quite an important issue to me really, but doesn't seem like you're getting through to the Place for Games guys. Could you ship me one from there from your stock of back issues? Land will be fine as long as I can secure a copy I'm happy.
Vic, I'm still missing 139, although I have today recieved 140. Would you give those UK guys a nudge or two for me please. Cheers Iain
That is correct, Dungeon 139 is what I was expecting.
I have just received Dragon 348 instead of the latest Dungeon. Didn't notice at first, kept flicking through wondering where on earth the adventures were! What should I do?
Just coming out of the back end of Drakthar's Way after having already killed the Vampire my party come across Xoden and his mercenary half-orcs. So the party Bard decides to bluff his way out. Starts telling them about how they are here on behalf of Drakthar and are assiting him etc. etc. He forgot that standing behind him was the party sorceress and her spoils of war, prompting Xoden to reply. "Then why, prey tell, do you have Drakthar's head on a stick?" I can't believe they forgot! Doh!
I don't much care for the ranged attack either when you put it like that. I shall remove it.
How have other people dealt with players wanting to stake Draktar in combat. There's no called shot rules in 3.5e of course. I've cobbled these rules together from various sources. They are untested, anyone see a problem with them?
I used the trial to strengthen the idea that Vhalantru is good and trustworthy and enforce more hatefullness towards the Stormblades. The party were due to register for their adventurer badges on the Monday and attend the trial on the Wednesday. It was Saturday morning that Vhalantru contacted them to say that Lord Taskerhill had moved the trial to Saturday, mid-day. He arranged for their registration to be moved to Saturday morning as they would not be able to give evidence without admitting infront of the court to having been adventuring unregistered. I let them all give evidence and make their cases for guilty or not guilty. Presiding as judges were Lord Vhalntru, Lord Taskerhill and Lord Vanderboren. Taskerhill made it known he didn't agree with anything the party said. The party suspect that daddy's little girl had something to do with it. Vhalantru came down on the party's side as he's in the process of buttering them up. I allowed Vanderboren to be swayed by the party's RPing and subsequent diplomacy checks. Well all the party but one considered Keygan guilty and tried to sway the court in that direction. Only one pleaded for leniancy. Keygan was found guilty, but due to the one excellent plea of leniancy his sentance was reduced from death to banishment.
Action Points. Mainly being used to stabilize. My players appear to be unconsious a lot.
"...and SCAP begins." Ahh, we all feel that remembered excitement I'm sure. It certainly all just came back to me when I read that.
Why? Now I may be wrong but I get this sense that he felt humilated? Personally I'll never be able to look at Jenya in the same way again. Thanks :)
My group have been pondering a name for a while. They even asked Jenya. She kept annoything them from then on with overly Lawful suggestions for names everytime they came to visit and still didn't have a name. "The Stars of Justice", for example. When the party visited the Tipped Tankerd and heard people telling stories about how the Stormblades had rescued the children from an Underdark slaver they decided it was about time they came up with a name to correct them with. Well they kept going through lots of stuff and it was taking ages. I told them if they didn't come up with a name then people would just start referring to them as "The Others". Unfortunately they liked it and it came out as their top choice! I unthinkingly did a final Jenya-stlye lawful piss take name and said, "What about 'The Righteous Others'", I didn't realise what I was saying but everyone fell about laughing and claiming, "That's it!". Now they whistle Unchained Melody as their frickin' theme tune!
My thoughts are unprintable. Oh go on...
If you're players don't care about XP then don't care about XP, just level them up. Sounds like they are getting their fun in plenty of other ways. Also, discuss it with them of course!
I'd be interested in reading a journal of that, if you get one online at some time let us know here. I'm sure I wouldn't be the only one! --
After 6 sessions my players have almost finished the first Chapter, Life's Bazaar. I invite you all to come look at our SCAP Wiki website and read some of my players journals. The most complete at present is the Journal of Bran Lannister.
Sure, you can use any of mine that I post here. Just same as Zherog, as long as my name stays attached to it. I'll go though and pick them out tonight. It being just midday for me right now :) Once I'm done come have a look and tweak them if need be. Editing a page is a simple matter of double clicking, no passwords or accounts needed.
Steve, do you mind if I archive this into the Wiki we've been putting together?
I really like this, I'd want to play this for certain if we were running Eberon. > James wrote that he liked this one, but that it was too similar to something else in the works. So thats not bad, the idea didn't suck at least. You can't for a better rejection than that! Now it's interesting to keep an eye for what pipped it to the post.
Done John. Anyone else want their's archived? Easy to do yourself, or just give me the word and I'll hunt them down in this thread.
Anyone mind if I archive their Query onto the Wiki? http://subculture.teknohippy.com
Well it required such little effort to do I set it up. So I invite all you contributors to come and put your oar in. Have a look around and have and play. There's no rules except for "Be adult." A style will develop based on the majority consensus as it gets used. You can edit any page you like, if you're new to Wiki's checkout the guide mentioned on the homepage.
Christopher has previously mentioned sneaking it in, over on a thread on ENWorld I think it was.
I've read through I'm just not in a critical mood. I'll swing by again later. I reckon Zherogs thread here would make a good repositary of rejected queries somewhere. Like a reference people can refer to, with the query and reason for rejection. Could sit next to a collection of queries that have been accepted and published maybe? Perhaps even go further and have sections summarising all the helpful tips and things that crop up here with respect to writing and submissions. Sounds like a perfect candidate for a WIKI*. Shall I set one up for us? paizosubculture.com is available :) * A website or similar online resource which allows users to add and edit content collectively.
For our SCAP campaign we decided to use Action Points. So I used bonus APs as an incentive to write background info. It worked better for some peoples motivation than others but generally worked well. Initially I put together a quiz for them. After filling that out most did some backgrounds. Using stuff they'd written and told me I was able to write a short "Session Zero" intro to the campaign.
I quite like the idea, thinking of giving it a go. If it no one is having fun then I'll stop. If it turns out to work for us then we'll continue to use it. SirM's group are obviously enjoying it and it sounds like fun to me, I'll see what my players think.
I will probably still the idea one day for my own game one day. Gonna get together a Circle of Thirteen? *grins* Sorry.
It is something I have always considered doing as I think I'd like it. Is it time consuming to do and how did your players feel when you first started using it?
Then we do this thing where if you roll less than half you get a chance to reroll, have to keep the reroll though :)doesn't that give you very buff characters, hp wise? where's the fun in that? It really only boils down to people rerolling the real low ones in my group, ones and twos generally. And as to how much fun it is, well we're having fun, plenty of it. Rule Zero Ahoy!
Do not of course forget that Lord Vhalantru intends for the mission to be a TPK, so it's advantageous for it to feel that way. If they later find out the intent behind the mission and they recall it as being a deadly experience they are going to be seriously hacked off. A bit like eye stalks really.
I am nowhere near playing Flood Season. When thinking about it I've been concentrating on all the fun festival stuff beforehand, hadn't given much thought to the lowering of the waters. I was planning a kind of annual public ritual led by the big priests. So there is a big flashy cermony down by the water followed by Clerics wandering the streets night and day for the next couple of days doing the wand thing.
Maybe he's all victorious and cocky. "Ha me and my minions were too much for those pathetic adventurers! They had to run away, bet they won't be back. Someone might be back though so I'd better at least get some more goblins." Perhaps he would also stop the city harrassment acticities as well and lay low for a bit.
My missus got excitied enough by it to ponder running it. That's something.
I've always given max at level 1. Then we do this thing where if you roll less than half you get a chance to reroll, have to keep the reroll though :)
*makes a mental note to include more details in the plot section next query* I shall also make a note to pick you up on it if you forget John. I myself might have another query coming together soon. It's beginning to gel in my mind more now.
> I think the "plot" section is too short Yup, if you casually scan down it appears to be only one line, although much of the plots is interspersed over the other sections. > awesome advice That's cheered me up. Ta.
Thanks Eric :) My cheeky little wooden-spoon-wielding question didn't deserve such a response. Nice insight into the inner workings of the team, thanks. …has final say on which adventures make it into the magazine… Botherations! Perhaps I should be less cheeky. *grins*
Good points - our Heroes are from Cauldron, actually, but have spent the last few years away, "coming of age", so to speak. We did a very similar thing, you can see the results here: http://scap.teknohippy.com/default.aspx/TheShackledCity/SessionZero
I don't have nearly enough experience of running such high level adventures so I'm not really the best to comment on things that are specific to them. The story itself I certainly find interesting, as well as the use of some of less ubiquitous monsters. The most exiciting and dramatic sounding bit is climbing the chain from mountainside to fortress. Which unfortunately isn't something, as you say, a high level party will likely need to be doing. The chain thing does sounds cool and exciting. I always try to get the most cool and exciting bit to be the final scenes before the wrapping up denoument at the end. "If the characters defeat him", doesn't tell me anything about how much fun this final battle could be. Does he use the temporal doodad during combat? How does that work? Perhaps he recovers damage by using a localised "reverse time" effect on receiving a successful hit. What's the doodad look like, is it small, large, fills the room? Maybe it is so big you are actually fighting the final battle on it, or you have to climb it to get to the "control room". Those are the kind of hooks for the editors I try to throw in. Help people conjure up in their mind's eye what it would be like sitting round the table playing/running this with their group. Mind you, I am an unpublished nobody, so none of this comes from any experience of what does work, it is all just conjecture based on me putting myself in the editors shoes. Cheers Iain.
No dis-respect to Eric, but what does the title "Editor in Chief" actually mean you do. Frankly "Managing Editor" makes it sound like James does all the work. *grins*
But I really believe that the campaign works so much better when the characters are from Cauldron This really can not be stressed enough to DMs and players about to start their journey on the "path".
I just resubscribed, this time through Paizo instead of my local subscription provider. I didn't do the math though. Let's see, 61.95 USD = 35.83 GBP today. So that's £2.98 a copy. Cool that's much less than off the shelf at £5.99 or whatever it is Orc's Nest charge. Now just checked the local subscription providor here in the UK and they are charging £40 for a year. So was a good decision. And I get to have subscriber as a forum title to boot.
Ultradan: Spelljammer--his exuberance & sense of humour would be like adventuring in Star Trek IV Are you sure you don't want to change your mind?
Good luck. Just make sure you make absolutely certain how dangerous SCAP is and that they spend some money on mobile healing magic. Another thing I stressed to my players was not to be afraid of leaving a dungeon for the night.
I Bang my head against the table until my head is bleeding and the blood is flowing over my eyes so I am in a blood haze to prepare the death about to rain upon the enemy. Beats making sure you brought a pencil I guess. ;)
Lovely. It was quite bubbly :)
I don't get to play much as I'm always DMing. I do some prep for that though to get "in character" as it were. I go over all my notes and logs from last nights session. Then I do a little bit of quiet meditative mental preperation. Then I have to make sure our gaming cellar is stocked up with enough candles, incense and authentic trail rations. Finally I put on my DM Robes and contact lenses and get ready for people to arrive. ;)
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