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Thank you ever so much - it even came with the interactive maps too!
I've advised Joseph, so he can prepare for Saturday!
I'm so glad! I didn't know it came with interactive maps; that's really cool. I'd love to hear how their adventures go. You're doing a wonderful thing, Ben Parkinson.
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Game resumed in fact this Monday night. There are six players. I'll try to get a run-down on what happened and where they are.
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Patrick's latest idea is on Crowdfunder at the moment, based around the Nyambe books - even the writer of Nyambe is taking an interest in the project!
Here's the link - http://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/koro-has-gone-wild-/?
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Quick update - Joseph advised that the kids (most are quite a bit younger and Under 13) have started the Battle of Bloodmarch Hill, but he didn't sound too confident that they would survive!
My group tonight on ROTRL seemed to have fun trying to think through getting onto the Thistletop Island and not doing all that well, having been also torn apart by the bunyip...at least I hope they enjoyed it!
Next week, I have two of the members captured - the monk and the sorceress - and on the island, while the remainder still have to break in (a bit like Alcatraz).
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Patrick took over Bloodmarch Hill battle last week and I think it went well.
I ran a semi-satisfactory session of ROTRL to try to re-unite the party members last week and, by luck rather than judgement, they are almost back together. Actually I roleplayed Orik as a very friendly inquisitive person, ready to help them escape, without actually saying so, but Patrick and Agnes were far too suspicious of him and bull-headed to get into a conversation. Arnold was away in Jinja, so Kenneth stepped in to take over the halfling rogue and did a good job, as I had Gogmurt help ferry them across the gap to the island at night, silenced (by Brian) and stealthed and camouflaged to the waves. They even bought invisibility potions to make treble sure.
Kenneth rolled a 1 on the "lock door" roll. I had him shout out in pain, as one of his lockpicks slipped, but the silence spell kept him from revealing their presence. Then they locked Bruthazmus in his room, who is now pounding on the door.
So what will happen next?
We head to Northern Uganda tomorrow for the Nyambe Project. This has been a much more challenging process than I expected, but we will be having Daniel join us, to focus on the story-telling aspects of the activities. Daniel lives and grew up in Koro and his aim will be to blend the Nyambe storyline that Patrick has dreamt up with actual local legends. We'll keep you informed of progress in this exciting development...
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Well we have now almost wrapped up the Nyambe initiative. For me it has been a frustrating week of illness and so I have missed almost everything, but for Patrick and Daniel, who have as a result taken the "lion's" share of the responsibility, it has been a challenge, but a success.
The theme of the story lies in a war between orcs and humans. The orcs were led by a shaman of huge power, who even when defeated was able to lock up his power in the heart of an ancient dire lion. The children had to find and then destroy the heart, to release the soul, which then found another lion. They searched for plants, researched texts and visions (videos) for information on the big cats and different tribes were all competing against each other.
The children also shared their own local stories, which they knew and Daniel, one of Patrick's friends and also a Butterfly member, took charge of the storytelling aspects, as he is from that particular area. Patrick has lived in the slum most of his life, and has not grown up with these stories and one of the aims of the project is to develop a mini adventure based on these stories, which we will submit to Atlas Games, when it is written up.
The fundraising was so inspiring, that we were able to expand what we were doing to include an incredible trip to Murchison Falls. This place has 4 of the big 5, including lions and leopards and people travel across the world to visit the beautiful and powerful falls, paying $000's for game drives. For the kids of the village, it is just 50km away, but may as well be the other side of the planet for the likelihood of them visiting.
Part of our village programme is to expand the vision of the children there. We've only been working there for just over a year properly, but I've learnt that apparently lifeless, quiet, frightened ignorant village children aren't anything like some seem, when you first meet them. Boosting their confidence, giving them a place to visit (our centre) which is their own, providing regular activities, encouraging talents, has all led to a transformation in the way they think about themselves and their self confidence and roleplaying, while it is only a small part of what we have been doing there has enabled much of this vision expansion.
Travelling to Murchison Falls (today) for them will be an incredible treasure and inspiration. It is just a shame that we could take only 15 of the original group of about 50 children.
Sunday night, we are going to do some Nyambe rpg face to face with a new group of 5 children - Elvis (11), Edmon (12), Joanne (14), Brenda (14) and Walter (11). I'll update you on that one next week...
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It's been a while since I posted, but we have been continuing to run Rise of the Runelords with the kids. They ask me continually to go back to doing Kingmaker (Part 4) and I guess I will do that soon.
I rather like ROTR, but it hasn't captured them like Kingmaker or more especially, the Silver Ravens, though we have only part one of that adventure path.
We more or less completed Part 1 of ROTR, though they didn't manage the gold piece puzzle at the end and missed a few secret doors. However, I do feel they did well and fathomed some of the more tricky rpg moments well. Joseph and Patrick are, for now, taking a break from GMing and I think the main issue is the complexity of the language in the modules, which requires really a lot of work from them, with dictionaries, or consulting me, which they would much rather not do. Something with much simpler language would really help, or perhaps shorter adventures, so perhaps some of the really short PFS adventures (Silverhex Chronicles) might be the ones to work with. Patrick is very good at running Blackfang's Dungeon and we are thinking to run this as a tournament at a new initiative we are planning for late August - Kampala Games Day 2.
The first convention we ran ourselves in 2010 with a meagre few boardgames and some connections with Makerere University. While the Games Day did not attract very many visitors in 2010, Kampala has changed dramatically since then and we expect a much enhanced turnout this time around. We also have a team of young people we have trained who will work on the marketing. We'd love also to include some video games, like Hearthstone, for people to try, so this should attract more people into the hobby.
Patrick is still working on the Nyambe blog at the moment. The event was really very good - even though I missed much of it through illness - and we now know what works much better than the previous event. He's actually like most of the kids here slowly getting into Star Trek, where we are showing currently Series 3 of Enterprise (CD3). If you've not seen it, Enterprise is much-maligned but the later series are really so good at teaching leadership and ethics. Last night's episode discussing the morals and ethics of growing a clone that lasts only 15 days was so interesting...
Anyway, thanks for continuing to read this posting. We continue with our roleplay and gradually it evolves. I think soon we will be able to run PFS. Time will tell...
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One of the most enjoyable parts of the game is killing the monsters and also seeing the photos of the creatures they face. Paizo were generous enough to give us some pawns a while back and these also help very much in developing this imaginative side. Mind you they don't like being killed in the game and this is also an important learning side, as it shows how teamwork is so important. Even the rogue and flanking is helpful in developing teamwork skills.
I would say that they rarely overcome obstacles with diplomacy. I quite often offer these options, as I would like to encourage this, but they rarely pick up on it, even when severely outnumbered, so I have to be careful to ensure that battles are challenging, yet winnable. That's not to say diplomacy is absent, but that it is different. The kids do pick up on situations that require an empathic response. They do like to intervene where injustice is taking place. They enjoyed a recent scene as the Silver ravens where a player was being chatted up by the daughter of the shopkeeper and his negativity caused a huge bust up, eventually resolved by their thoughtful words and good assessment of the situation...
With the kids, never presume a course of action. They rarely take it, unless it is a learned behaviour, like see monster, monster attacks, kill monster! In other situations, it might just be outside their knowledge experience, so be careful...
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Our project has been running the Kampala Kids' Olympics over the last few weeks or so and time has been at a premium. Uganda managed a haul of zero medals but in our work on talent development, we also include those with sporting prowess and we have very many brilliant young athletes here, some of whom are roleplayers too.
So, we have not actually continued much on Kingmaker, though I expect to run a session on Wednesday. I have also started a new group on Saturday nights, where we have run one session on the Emerald Spire Superdungeon, which was generously donated to us.
Holidays are here again and we have been thinking hard how to establish dome kind of foothold in the rural areas, as it makes little sense to give rural children things like roleplaying which they cannot continue with when you are gone.
So, we got our heads together and we decided that the children needed to learn how to make dice, specifically d4, d6 and d8. Then we would teach them how to convert their stories into adventures that they could run using their imagination. Connecting the dice with the roleplaying elements is to be the next step and with these tools we hope that the children can start to enjoy these games.
While we have a basic idea how to do this, we'd welcome any organisation or individual that has expertise in this area to help advise.
Everything needs to be be able to use local materials and we think they can note down adventures in their school books - those that have them. We may even be able to fund this bit, as part of the project.
Funding all these things is simply impossible on our own and, as readers will know, we have had support from Paizo and some great support from the RPG players around the world. So for this project, we are asking again for some support at http://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/spreading-rpg-in-rural-uganda-to-solve-problem s
We haven't too much time to go with the project and the target is £275, which will take three new roleplayers into Koro to continue the work that Patrick and others have started. Patrick has other things lined up for this holiday and will be at school by that date.
Can anyone help publicise or support the project directly as we just need to kick it off?
Many thanks.
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I've been following this thread here and there for a while now. I've been trying to not read ahead and spoil any Kingmaker developments for myself, but the time has finally come where my group has pulled ahead! I just want to say that I love what you're doing, and I'd be shocked if it didn't have a lasting impression on these kids, and indeed, on anyone who comes across this thread!
Cheers!
I'm always happy to see this thread resurface, and hope to hear more about it, later!
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Kingmaker has gone quite slowly this year, so I am sorry to hear that we have been overtaken! We hoped to finish Part 4 before Christmas, but did not quite manage it, with just one session left to go. We had been running one session a month, so hence the slowdown.
It looks like I haven't written things up much, so I will give a rough outline of what happened in Part 4.
Firstly, I should say that I wasn't sure that the kids would like this part. It seemed complicated, with less adventure and more politics, but in practice that's not what happened. We also had a few changes to the participants in the sessions, as I wanted to give some new people a chance to prove their enthusiasm. Agnes (13) took over Lini from and Droogami from Barbara and Arnold (13) started up Amiri. We still had Imrijka (Brian - 15), Balazar (Joseph - 16) and Damiel (Patrick - 14). For now Sajjan (Oswaldo - 16) has not been available much.
Part 4 started with quicksand and it demonstrated that the kids liked to be able to fly. It's been a very critical part of most of the battles that someone could fly and they have all tended to go for this option. They have also learnt about dispel magic and how powerful this can be under certain circumstances, with people magically levitating or flying above lava pits! They negotiated the quicksand very easily as a result and met with a very unusual creature that tried to drown them, which again was countered by flying upwards.
They took the long way around the lake and enjoyed smashing up a boggard town. The kids seem to need to have easy battles mixed in with the very tough ones, as it gives them confidence and they enjoy the confidence (and bragging). Next they fought another strange creature, which was trying to eat Lini's eyes, but it was too weak to trouble them too much.
Arrival at Fort Drelev was another matter and this proved really very difficult. They arrived by boat and found themselves dodging boulders from hill giants. Damiel, afraid that his folding boat might be smashed to pieces, drifted to the shore, and folded it up. By now archers had spotted them and were firing from the fort, so they moved out of range to consider their next move, which was to sneak up to the town in disguise and....
Herein lay a problem. Outside the fort was a wagon train, that was waiting until morning to enter the fort. The leader of the caravans seemed friendly enough, but the group did not trust them and let them enter on their own, with the group staying behind. They didn't use their disguises to find a means to enter and kind of gave up and bypassed the town, battling a few creatures with long arms whose name escapes me in a cave by the lake. Upon slaughtering these, Damiel decided to turn them into alchemical zombies, so two new party members were born.
Arnold, who is a very new player, playing Amiri, is the least likely barbarian you would expect. He avoided combat at all costs and was rarely in the front line. The rest of the group had started to pick up on this and sort of goaded him into action. He wandered off from the rest of the group and I rolled a wandering monster for him. It turned out that he had stepped on a flower, which was the friend of another flower and he found himself becoming a victim of frosty triffids. Superior barbarian speed saved him and he managed to return back to camp, frozen to the bone, remembering that you should never split the party...
Next morning our adventurers had by then decided to storm the keep, with their new chuul footsoldiers leading the way. They forgot to heal the barbarian and were spotted at a distance by the archers of the fort and soon after a powerful wizard appeared on the battlements. This wizard seemed to have enormous numbers of spells and was starting to take them out before any had of our party could get close. The barbarian had by then rushed into the trees to find cover. I could see where this was leading and I decided to roll a wanderer, ending up rolling 4 x adult black dragons on the table, so I advised the group that as they advanced they could see a mass of some black flying creatures in the far distance.
The battle showed the kids creativity. Damiel summoned swarms to distract the wizard, then turned into water to hide in the river. Imrijka greater commanded the archers to jump into the river and then turned invisible. Balazar, sent his eidolon flying up onto the battlements with a fireshield. Lini spent her time healing and calling down lightning storm bolts. The zombie chuuls were easily climbing up the walls. Amiri hid in the woods and would not come out.
However, the battle was still not going all that well. The wizard was eliminating the swarms, the hill giants were pounding on the eidolon and the proficient archers were picking people off effectively, so Amiri felt compelled to make her move, drinking up a couple of cure moderate wounds potions. She raced across the battlefield and started climbing the walls, only to find herself under fire from 20 odd archers. She fell down off the walls....dead.
Now some people might be saying which battlements and you would be right. I made a mistake and had thought that the fort had walls on each side, which was not in fact the case, but still our fort did!
Suddenly, the black dragons decided to make their move and swarmed the town on all sides, one of them flying around to the side of the fort where our players were. It landed next to Imrijka and decided to bargain for the players' lives, while the other dragons distracted the troops and the wizard teleported away to who knows where.
Now some may remember that Imrijka is a half orc inquisitor of steely resolve. Brian who plays Imrijka was playing himself and no imaginary dragon was going to intimidate him! Most of the rest of the group was far away or incapacitated, but Damiel also appeared and similarly stood his ground. "One magic item from each of you will do", the dragon said, "or you will be a sticky mess on the floor". I'm not sure how the rest of the conversation went, but shortly afterward the dragon took the meaty half orc and flew away with him to his lair. Continued lack of cooperation from Imrijka meant he later ate him.
By now though the other dragons had decimated the town, taken away the Baron, who led the town, enabling the remaining party members to step in and talk to the population. They met a woman named Satine who reassured the rest of the population that these were friends not enemies. They met their friend Sajjan in the local inn (now to be played by Brian) and a new urban ranger dwarf named Balaric Agarum.
Balaric was a character designed by Rabid Hamster Workshop. Since most of our kids lack the experience to make high level characters, this was a good option for them. We need more of these pickup characters on the market.
The newly-formed group set to work exploring the fort and met with some of the captives there, discovering the fact that the Baron was in league with some barbarians who had a camp nearby (apologising for spoilers). In the meantime, they also discovered a massive black pudding and had a lot of fun dispatching this, with Balaric having his silver warhammer dissolved by the pudding (should this have happened?)
They decided to explore the swamp further and after killing a pack of chimeras they stumbled upon some barbarians guarding a cave entrance. They weren't friendly at all and Balazar, now 11th level, tried the magic jar spell and picked up one of the barians souls in a jar. I'm not too familiar with this spell and feel that I might have to deal with it moving into the future - what are the strengths and weaknesses of the spell?
Entering the cave, they had a very hard battle against some evil clerics and two powerful demons. Arnold once again made a poor decision and was killed by the demons - experience really pays in these high level adventures - but the clerics were finally dispatched and the demons returned to their home plane. Arnold's character was reincarnated as a human of two levels lower by Lini and continued to play.
They negotiated the traps and puzzles really well in the next section and we had an epic battle against their first iron golem, which was really fun, as they discovered its powers and vulnerabilities. Then DM revealed a secret door and tempted the players into the most dangerous creature perhaps in the whole adventure, some kind of metal spider demon. Lini tried heat metal on the thing, but it summoned swarm after swarm. Balazar had decided not to use the eidolon, so summoned a massive rhinoceros dinosaur, which was able to bypass the damage resistance better than anything and eventually the creature was dead, a whole session later! They continued along to a large cavern where there were a lot of skeletons, but these were not fearsome at all and were quite easily managed.
So, that is where we are right now, on the cusp of completing this module and likely starting War of the River Kings next.
Next year, we have a new group of trainees and I plan to introduce all of them to the RPG at some point, starting three separate groups. I am hoping that Patrick will run one, Joseph the next and I will take on the third. Hopefully, we can continue with Kingmaker, as before...
If you want to correspond with me, Patrick, Agnes, Arnold or Joseph, then write to me at socentafrica@gmail.com
So glad this is back!
Another suggestion is to replace the magic jar spell with the possession spell - much easier! I'll link it later, if I remember and someone else doesn't beat me to it!
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Gosh, that is quite complicated. When we did it, I randomly chose one of the barbarians, so we got that sort of right, but it is quite a bit weaker than I had imagined. I have forwarded your text across to Joseph, as he is the one with the spell.
The silver hammer is gone for now, then. He will have to buy himself a new one! I just felt that acid might not have a lot of effect against the silver.
Possession - is that like domination?
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Next year, I hope we will run three separate campaigns with the new group:
Reign of Winter - Patrick
Hell's Rebels - Ben
Rise of the Runelords - Joseph
I really like the Hell's Rebels Adventure Path (though I have only the first part), as it fits so closely with our own vision for changemaking - mobilising youth to tackle corruption and solve social problems using enterprise.
Kingmaker we will run monthly.
Anyway, happy Christmas to all who have contributed to the thread. Thank you for all your ideas and enthusiasm for what we do for fun in Uganda.
Possession - is that like domination?
Eh... sort of?
It's a new spell - it doesn't exist in the Core rulebook, even though Paizo published it.
Here's a link to the possession spell.
Here's a link to the magic jar spell.
Notice that the two spells are both the same level, are both necromancy, both have the same range, same duration, same Will save (except possession is easier to understand), and same spell resistance?
The differences are: possession is far less complex, doesn't require a rather arbitrary gem, and is much easier to deal with.
I recommend copying and printing and/or writing the description of possession and just having that as the spell instead of magic jar because, as much as I liked the concept of that old spell, the new one is superior in every way, including making it easier on the GM to make decisions.
Next year, I hope we will run three separate campaigns with the new group:
Reign of Winter - Patrick
Hell's Rebels - Ben
Rise of the Runelords - Joseph
Awesome! Sounds exciting!
I really like the Hell's Rebels Adventure Path (though I have only the first part), as it fits so closely with our own vision for changemaking - mobilising youth to tackle corruption and solve social problems using enterprise.
This is great! That said, be aware that it does turn to more violent traditional combat-focused anti-evil-authority AP within short order. It's still all about the people, but I just wanted you to be aware.
Kingmaker we will run monthly.
Sweet!
Anyway, happy Christmas to all who have contributed to the thread. Thank you for all your ideas and enthusiasm for what we do for fun in Uganda.
Glad to!
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Sorry for the delay on this update.
We have now run 2 sessions with our new group of kids from remote Ugandan villages. These children are generally very bright and quite eager to learn new things. Roleplaying is, however quite challenging to them, as their upbringing to date has been restricted by their environment and also they are still struggling a little with their English aural comprehension, because in reality they have only been in a fully English speaking area for 2 months. The age of the children vary between 11 and 15, though they are all in the first year of secondary school.
We made a couple of changes to the programme and we have two groups of four and one of five, all mixed gender.
I am running Hell's Rebels, as planned. However, Patrick decided to run Giantslayer, as this adventure had piqued his interest and he had already run some of it successfully. Joseph has joined with Arnold to run the other game, which was initially going to be TC1 and then we decided to run Hollow's Last Hope, with a view to following on with D1 Crown of the Kobold King and then maybe D1.5 and Hungry are the Dead. E1 is just too gruesome!
We did some excellent preparation sessions with them and they chose the type of character they would like to play balancing to ensure every group had a fighter type and a healer type. We also asked them to write a character background, which some did really well.
Next we split them into groups and I ended up with a group of 5 for Hell's Rebels. I thought this adventure would be relatively straightforward for them to envision. Evil overlord takes over the town - residents need to work together to send him back where he came from. However, the opening session outside the Opera House was very challenging and it was hard for them to see their character doing actions such as rabble rousing and pickpocketing. We ended up with completely the wrong outcome, with Rexus Victocora having to rescue them with some Dust of Disappearance. Subsequently, he sent them down the next exploration area and the team are really still learning how to work together. The ranger seems to run away from everything and the cleric thinks they are invincible. The rogue is doing quite well and the sorceror has picked some very specific spells, which need changing. However, they defeated the first couple of bunches of adversaries and we will see what next week brings - hopefully the Livery Stables will be completed by then.
Patrick's session in the first week started really well. They enjoyed the tug of war, then the investigation session started and the group did not bite at all. This was always a worry but Patrick resolved this for week two by presenting it in new ways and even little Ben (11) was clear on what had happened in Session 2.
Arnold and Joseph seem to be having the most fun and they have nearly finished Hollows Last Hope, with just a few more mushrooms to find. This great adventure has proved just what was needed and works a treat to bring the kids in more gently. They have not done everything perfectly, but have enjoyed everything so far and are eager for the next session.
We had a surprise for them this week, as we incorporated a game of "The Chocolate Game" into the session for Easter. These kids had never tasted chocolate, so it was a great experience and a fund ending to the whole evening.
Will try to keep the thread updated...
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Forgot to mention - Patrick, Beckham, Arnold and Joseph are hoping to go up to Northern Uganda in mid-May to inaugurate the first Village Boardgame Convention. They will join a team - if you are interested in finding out more about this unique event, then please go to http://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/the-ugandan-village-boardgame-convention
Patrick will be running a new competition Dungeon there too!
Huzzah! This thread is back! Hopefully I'll get to come back and read/comment more later!
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Last night's session for me was quite tricky. My group had had exams most of the day and seemed a bit tired, but we plugged away and I set myself the task of completing part 1, where they finished the Livery Stables. They hadn't remembered too much of the Silver Ravens story from last week, so we had to recap a bit and re-explain who they were and that the party was hoped to be the new Silver Ravens. They liked the concept, but still seemed a bit reluctant to embrace the rpg idea.
Francis (12) was the one that seemed the keenest to get into battle, while Susan the cleric seemed more intereted in spells. Ronald the sorceror seems a bit non-plussed by everything, but he's very diligent and will be the first to level up his character to Level 2. I taught them about Channel Positive energy and we also talked about damage resistance, as everything they fought had this. We also talked a little about disease...
So, little by little, we are building up the game scenario. Daniel, the rogue, is quietly assimilating everything and smiles surprise, when his character does something useful, like unlock a grating or kill off a small creature. Next week, they are going to have to understand things a bit better and I can tell they are still struggling a little bit with accent, as Susan re-explains things to Rose in her local language.
The other groups fared mixed again. Arnold/Joseph running D0 Hollows Last Hope, finished this in double quick time and when I checked on them were well into D1 Crown of the Kobold King. The 2xDM system seems to work for them and their players definitely had a great time, while the monsters didn't roll well at all...
Patrick's group finished a bit early and he is in a very difficult part of the adventure - the investigation in Battle of Bloodmarch Hill. Will let you know how they fared next time.
My players were after chocolate this week too, but I told them the chocolate game was once a year!
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Dotting
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This week's Saturday session I decided to just focus on a single battle and take some time to explain some of the rules to the group. They seemed to be having difficulty with melee and ranged and the rogue was not understanding "flanking" so a map and some Pathfinder pawns was needed.
For the first time, I think the group were genuinely worried about their characters and taking precautions to ensure their survival. The cleric (Susan - 14) was in the thick of things and went down early, gradually bleeding to death, so I had a chance to explain the heal check and also the slowcoach paladin from the other end of the room managed two lay on hands, to bring her back up.
Bolso (Rose - 13) was panicking about her half orc ranger and seemed too scared to get into melee, with the tengu, but eventually gained her confidence. The rogue (Daniel - 13) did some serious damage and the wizard (Ronald - 13) finally took out some creatures with his 2nd level Burning hands.
So, all in all, a successful session and thumbs up to Pathfinder's pawns for making the game more real. I ended the session by asking them to think about how a group like the Silver Ravens should expand, just as I will ask them in future to expand their social projects. So we will wait to hear their ideas.
The other game on Saturday was Arnold and Joseph's and they had a lot of fun trying to rescue the kids in Crown of the Kobold King. The group had to wipe out several ghouls before they were all paralysed, which again showed the group the importance of preparation and ranged attacks against some. This adventure is still proving brilliant for newcomers and they really enjoyed the session.
Patrick (14) was not around this week and he has also been preparing for travelling to Koro again, where he plans to run a mini adventure he has developed, known as the Caverns of Koro. It's going to be a 1 hour competition session, where the best group will win a prize each day, depending on their success. This will be at the Uganda Village Board game Convention, which we are holding 18th to 20th May. We're looking forward to this...
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Sorry for the delay in posting - we have just been up north delivering the Uganda Village Boardgame Convention!
Time flies!
As previously SPOILERS below
We're now no longer running the Silver Ravens game, but have replaced it with a new group who have started the Crypt of the Everflame adventure. Ben, Marvin, Sione, Allan and Elvis are taking part and the game is being run by Patrick and Arnold.
Meanwhile our Rise of the Runelords game is continuing with the older group and we are currently in he midst of storming Fort Rannick - the characters are Level 9 - Arnold - a dastardly cleric who loves to animate his enemies as zombies, Patrick, an overly brave paladin, who has ploughed his life savings into dragonhide armour, Agnes, an irritable druid, who likes burning things down, Kenneth, a wizard, who longs to be a sorceror and Joseph, a samurai, who always seems to be out of the action and spend his time asleep or knocked out.
We've found this campaign quite challenging, ok very challenging and there have been quite a lot of new characters, though, at level 9, I hope they are a bit more resilient. The game has been throwing a lot of ethical dilemmas at them (which I like) and I have been impressed how this group has matured into them, as they grow older. They might just be some of the most capable roleplaying teens around - any others you know of aged 15-17?
However, they are still learning about teamwork and coordination and have had a grea deal of trouble with handling these "too hard to handle at one go" battles, like the storming of the keep and previously in Kingmaker a similar very large unwinnable battle, which required a less direct approach.
In the last session, they tried to smoke out shocker lizards in the underground caves of Fort Rannick, but split the party, then found themselves trapped in between rocks and a very tough boss, without any ability to force heir way past this boss into the fort.
We have been focusing a lot more on board games this and last year, thanks to some brilliant support from international gamers and gaming companies, so we devote a little less time to RPG, but we still really love the fantasy boardgames and have been reviewing them on our Youtube channel - Uganda Boardgame Pioneers.
In May, we are going to run the Second Village Boardgame Convention, an event we will hope will grow every year into something very special, as hundreds of children and young people from Uganda remote villages are given the chance to learn to play boardgames on our residential site in the North. If you want to see more information about this, then go to:
https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/uganda-village-board-game-convention
We need a bit more support to include all of the Districts into the programme.
Feel free to message me on socentafrica@gmail.com, if you would like any more information about this or anything else we are doing.
Time does fly. Glad to know you've been using it well and that Patrick and the others are still putting in time to work with the younger children. I enjoy hearing the stories, though I have not read or played the adventures myself. I am glad that there have been others offering you help and support with your project.
Thanks for your continuing feedback on this long-term thread!
Hi Ben! I'm glad to see you're still active on the forums. I'm currently on a medium-term volunteering stint in central Africa. I'm interested in possibly starting an RPG group with local students as part of my work here and I had some questions for you about how you implemented your project. I've sent you a PM, but I understand that those get missed more frequently as people adapt to the new site layout, so I wanted to post here just to notify you.
EDIT: And I've noticed that you posted an email address. I'll shoot one off to you there as well.
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It's been a gruelling few weeks, as the group have been aiming to retake Fort Rannick from he ogres - a more dangerous group of ogres would have been hard to find. Yesterday, a double critical on the Samurai brought him down to -50 HP, only for him to find a greater resolve, which allowed him to negate one of the critical, so only -11 and surviving.
The cleric (Arnold) has been having a field day animating all of the dead ogre foes seemingly without recourse only to find that the local town Turtleback Ferry no longer wants to have anything to do with the party, despite their protecting the town from danger. "Ungarateful" he pronounced, but I think he learnt that some actions have consequences and that perhaps you cannot do good doing evil things.
Our wizard (Kenneth) has turned out to be a greedy wizard and the other members were very irritable with him yesterday, which feels also like a good learning point, as the real life impact of his greediness was also felt by the real life person. Nevertheless, he continued his actions and we will wonder whether his soul has been lost to Kharzoug!
All in all, I would say the campaign is working better now than it has historically, though they feel that perhaps another campaign might be more suied to them.
Next week we are taking a short 2-week break to dabble with 5th edition - Banquet of the Damned. We will resume the Runelords Saga thereafter.
Patrick (now a paladin) will be running an RPG competition adventure at the Uganda Village Boardgame Convention - https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/uganda-village-board-game-convention if you would like to find out more or support.
Gosh, has it been this long since I have posted here?
So much has happened since last year. We now have a new group of trainee changemakers and we have been starting to introduce roleplaying to them ahead of a special roleplaying convention being held to support us this October - more info at this link - https://conplus.live/
Patrick and Arnold are taking their O levels, but they are sill finding time to each run a roleplaying campaign with thier younger counterparts. Arnold is DMing the Crypt of the Everflame. I think there was a trap there that caused a TPK, so not sure how they are going to continue with this....
Patrick has started the Shattered Star campaign and he has had a good time with his group so far - I think! I am running a couple of campaigns - Storm King's Thunder and some 5e Adventurer's League. The last couple of days we have been trying out Starfinder, which the more experienced players are really enjoying. I picked up a PDF of the Pathfinder 2 rules recently, but there doesn't seem to be too much available for it quite yet? I also feel that Pathfinder 2.0 seems to be geared more to experienced roleplayers - we love it, but it's less easy to bring it to new players, not sure what others think?
By comparison the Starfinder has been very well received and the tech side of things has really inspired the kids.
This year, we had another large Board Game Convention in the village, which was once again really successful. You can tell from the faces of the kids, that they enjoyed the event so much - if any have a Facebook account, then you can see these pics at http://www.facebook.com/chrysaliscentre - just browse down and you will see them!
So, we are still going strong and, if anything, building up the roleplaying and boardgaming year on year. Message me, if you're interested to know any more information or post here!
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So sorry it has been such a long while since I posted on this thread. So much water under the bridge and so much roleplaying that is being done still here in Uganda.
Yes, I am still here and we are still playing. I am currently running Serpent's Skull here at the Chrysalis Secondary School and Patrick, who was so young, when we started this thread, is now an ICT teacher at the school and is also running a weekly campaign.
We built a secondary school here in a remote location in Northern Uganda during the pandemic and our intention is to turn it into a centre for innovation, where we demonstrate so many new and exciting activities, some entrepreneurial, some developing vision, others helping problem-solving and others, like RPG, developing imagination.
The school now has 150 pupils and needs to grow to 250 to be sustainable, but we are gradually getting there. Our teachers are growing with us and many are becoming involved in our boardgaming (we have about 200 boardgames here in our library) and some are exploring with RPG. If people are interested I can talk about the challenges in developing roleplaying and boardgaming in this environment and our successes.
If you want to know more about Chrysalis, we have a new web-site http://cyen.online or http://www.chrysalisschool.org where you can see the magnificence of what we have built on 12 acres of land. We even have a 400m athletics track! Gaming for everyone is always on Friday nights and the RPG is currently on Sunday and Monday nights, for those involved.
Serpent's Skull I have found an interesting and immersive adventure so far. I just have the first adventure, so will run out of adventure by the end of next term, but the group is a relatively new group of players, though it includes Arnold, from our original group to guide them - he is now in his A level year and wanting to be an architect! The others are also A levellers and one is in Senior 3 (of 6). I wanted to run the adventure with a party of four, to provide a significant challenge and they have made good decisions so far, avoiding the barbarian camp, while still at Level 1. They've just handled the vegepygmy area, though it was quite hard for them. We're using just the iconics - Ezren, Merisiel, Valeros and Kyra.
We very much like Pathfinder 2 and have gone through much of Age of Ashes, which I do want to return to, though many of our players have spread apart. I don't have the other P2E adventures, as yet, so will wait for those to come in time. We've also been playing Starfinder, which as GM has been a lot of fun, though surprisingly lethal to the new group handling it.
Anyway, let me know, if you want to hear more.