Still snowing here on Martin Street. I've canceled the game for this weekend. Most of my players could gather over Google Meet but a couple of my players from Memphis don't like remote gaming and always drive over. I didn't want them to risk it. There's over a foot of accumulation and it's still falling really fast and heavy. Not sure how much the final total will be, but let me tell, people around here just don't have a friggin' clue about what to do with themselves. Read a post yesterday where a mom was asking if the movie theater in town was open because her kids were bored and "driving her crazy". Of course, it wasn't and other posters on that thread just roasted her.
People here will tell you all day long they are "too scared to drive in snow" but expect delivery drivers to risk their lives and vehicles to bring them food (why is it during periods of bad weather do people stop cooking? I'll never figure that one out). And if they're told that whatever restaurant they want to order from is closed or the delivery "takes too long" to get to them, they b*&~~ and bawl like the drivers did it to them out of spite or something.
I know that compared to much of the country the amount of snowfall that can cripple Arkansans (two inches or more. Seriously) that this isn't much, but south of the Mason-Dixon line people don't have any common sense when it snows. The forecast is calling for the snow to end overnight, with possible total accumulation up to 16" here in central Arkansas. By Tuesday the highs are supposed to be back in the 60s and I promise you people here will find something to gripe over about that, too.
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The forecast is calling for the snow to end overnight, with possible total accumulation up to 16" here in central Arkansas. By Tuesday the highs are supposed to be back in the 60s and I promise you people here will find something to gripe over about that, too.
Yeah: Flooding!
No game for us this weekend. Probably not until March 6th, the way it's looking. How about everyone else?
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This past week in gaming: Both my scheduled Monday night Pathfinder game and my Wednesday night Flotsam game were cancelled because their respective GMs weren't feeling well.
The GM of the latter game also cancelled next week's session, so that game is now over with a single session that mostly consisted of world-building. As an aside, I am absolutely going to use some of that world-building in a future scifi game: What we'd set up was really, really cool!
I wrapped up my 5-game series of Back Again From the Broken Land on Tuesday. I absolutely love this game: We ended it on a perfectly bittersweet note.
Next week, my 22-year-old daughter will be taking the helm of our Tuesday night game, as we begin a new series playing a band of scurvy pirates sailing the high sea in Rapscallion. I've GMed for her many times over the years, and this is the first time I'll be a player in one of her games!
My conversion of the PFRPG module The Godsmouth Heresy to the RPG Trophy Gold continues! I will be running that game a week from tomorrow at the online mini-con Gauntlet Community Open Gaming.
And, work progresses on the GM section of my in-development 1940s hard-boiled detective RPG Naked City Blues. I'd hoped to have a new rev available before GCOG, but I don't think that's going to happen.
One of my players can't make it this week so my plan to pick up exactly where we left off last time has been changed. And one of my players can't make it NEXT weekend, so I'll still have to postpone the pursuit of the BBEG that we had to stop at the last session. Fortunately, I've had this idea banging around in my head for a few days now about an assassin known only as The Weeping Man. No one has ever seen his true face and all that is known is that he seems to mourn his victims once they are dead before disappearing again. I know my group well enough to know that just the idea will creep them the heck out.
I remembered a monster I used several years ago in a game and looked it up, and with a bit of rule-bending I can add some Assassin levels to it and it should be what I need. Still need to hammer out whether or not it's pursuing a party member or if they need to stop it from killing someone else, but that'll come to me at the last minute as things usually do.
What about the rest of us? What's going on this weekend?
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I have no idea, this is the first weekend in months without a snow storm to shovel so I'm a bit adrift.
I have no idea, this is the first weekend in months without a snow storm to shovel so I'm a bit adrift.
"Snowstorm" "a-drift". Heh.
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If anyone asks it was intentional.
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If anyone asks it was intentional.
And my eyes read "intentional" as "international". I'm now trying to force "international" to make sense in context.
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Viva La France!!
Had to postpone tonight's game. Everyone was going to be playing remotely which we're slowly getting used to. But when I went to get everything set up for the Google Meet session the mic in the laptop I use decided to just do its own thing. It wouldn't turn on for any remote meeting service that I tried, though looking at it behind the curtain it said it was functioning normally. And then it began doing something it's never done before. When I have players in-house and remotely, I run the audio through my sound system so that everyone in the living room can hear the other folks. But this time it began running my own voice and every tiny sound the mic detected through the system, something it's never done before. So when I spoke, a fraction of a second later my voice would boom out of the sound system and then begin to feedback. I tried using just the speaker on the laptop itself since I was going to be the only one listening and then it wouldn't work at all.
Grr. Stupid pandemic. Stupid remote gaming.
I had one hell of a weekend in gaming!
I jumped right into the Winter 2021 Gauntlet Community Open Gaming mini-con, which ran from Thursday 2/25 through Sunday 2/28.
I was in 7 games!
I GMed 4 and played in 3.
Thursday
Morning:
I ran the "Powered by the Apocalypse" game Escape From Dino Island. Our heroes were a survey team sent by an eccentric billionaire to map and survey this newly-acquired uninhabited private island so that said billionaire could build a "doomsday bunker." But they found it had a number of recently-abandoned high-tech facilities that appeared to be of Chinese construction... and dinosaurs! Luckily, they found a still-working seaplane on the other side of the island and made their escape!
Evening:
I played in a session called "Batman: The Final Rogue". This was a hack of the slasher-movie story-game The Final Girl, where the "victims" are replaced with a dozen members of Batman's "Rogue's Gallery" and the killer is replaced by Batman who's taking them out! Batman (and Nightwing and Batgirl) sent the following villains to Arkham, Blackstone, or Earth-2: The Penguin, Harley Quinn, The Pied Piper, The Riddler, Owlman, Talia al Guhl, Clayface, Condiment King, Poison Ivy, Scarface, and gangster Harry E (a character we creted at the table) In the end, the Ghostly Maiden managed to escape, and our epilogue showed her basking in the sun by a pool at a luxury resort in Monaco.
Friday
Morning
I ran a session of Swords of the Serpentine, with the free adventure "The Dripping Throne," available at the Pelgrane Press website. The heroes were hired by a ghost to solve his own murder... and they learned that the murder was part of a dark ritual to a tentacled fish-goddess for ensuring good catches by the local Fisher's Guild.
Afternoon
I played in a session of "Monster Squad!", a hack of the PbtA RPG Monster of the Week, re-tooled to be about young teens tangling with monsters in the 1980s, Stranger Things-style. My character was 13-year-old nerd Peter Ennis. We rescued a hyper-intelligent spider monkey from the clutches of an evil military contractor.
Saturday
Morning
I played in a session of The Burning Wheel RPG, run by celebrity GM Jahmal "Mad Jay" Brown. We played an orc hunting party seeking a traitorous half-elf whom we'd once given shelter in our town. We ended up tangling with an elven war-band... and those elves were jerks. Thankfully, only one got away... but so did our quarry. The game was a delight, and it was my first time playing Burning Wheel, a game that's always intimidated me more than a little.
Afternoon
I ran a session of the PbtA RPG Spirit of '77, the game of 1970s pop-culture action/adventure. I ran the module "BEAST-Bound and Down!" (which I'd previously run at PaizoCon 2019). While investigating the crooked mayor of The City, the heroes stole a beer truck laden with bootleg suds out of a warehouse owned by one of the Mayor's holding company... not realizing the truck itself was a ruse to transport a captive Bigfoot!! High-speed shenanigans ensued! That's a big 10-4 good buddy!
Sunday
Afternoon
I ran a session of the OSR/story-game hybrid Trophy Gold with my own conversion of the Pathfinder module "The Godsmouth Heresy". It just sang.
Recordings of many of these sessions are hosted or linked from my YouTube Channel.
"Batman: The Final Rogue" sounds awesome!
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We had Hell's Rebels last night, with a lot of our new abilities finally coming online. Apparently someone thought our city needed upgraded hell hounds, which we considered rude.
We went patroling for puppies and happened across a pack. My vigilante used his new pounce ability to flurry one into very low health before the bard lasered it away. Then the paladin decided we all needed smites to clean up the rest of the fight. I proceeded to pounce the doggo for 250+ damage then head out to get pizza.
Next time we'll be dealing with ghosts!
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"Batman: The Final Rogue" sounds awesome!
Back in the Before Times, The Final Girl was my go-to pick-up game for gaming conventions. I've had tons of fun with it, although the premise of "'80s slasher flick" does turn some people off.
I'll be using "The Final Rogue" version in the future if and when we can convene once again.
Gaming for my group is a complete unknown at this time as I'm still having trouble with the computer I use for our sessions. I'll probably have to just do a complete reinstall later today to see if it fixes things.
How about everyone else this weekend?
Welp, it's Friday. What's everyone doing this weekend? I have absolutely no idea where my group is concerned. Still having issues with the computer I use for gaming and no one has answered my emails about availability. Everything just seems to be floating around in some sort of exercise in gaming Brownian Motion.
Sorry, but it's only Thursday.
Though I will admit with how long this week has been it should definitely be a Friday.
"Batman: The Final Rogue" sounds awesome!Back in the Before Times, The Final Girl was my go-to pick-up game for gaming conventions. I've had tons of fun with it, although the premise of "'80s slasher flick" does turn some people off.
I'll be using "The Final Rogue" version in the future if and when we can convene once again.
So, I did a search for The Final Girl rpg but couldn't find anything on either Noble Knight Games or Amazon.
Does it have another name? Do you know who publishes it?
Sorry, but it's only Thursday.
Though I will admit with how long this week has been it should definitely be a Friday.
GAAAAAAHHH!! It IS only Thursday! (puts on sackcloth shirt, wails, gnashes teeth).
"Batman: The Final Rogue" sounds awesome!Back in the Before Times, The Final Girl was my go-to pick-up game for gaming conventions. I've had tons of fun with it, although the premise of "'80s slasher flick" does turn some people off.
I'll be using "The Final Rogue" version in the future if and when we can convene once again.
So, I did a search for The Final Girl rpg but couldn't find anything on either Noble Knight Games or Amazon.
Does it have another name? Do you know who publishes it?
The Final Girl was published in 2011 by Gas Mask Games. The author is Brett Gillian.
The game is available on PDF at DriveThruRPG. The fee is "Pay what you want". (Suggested fee is $8.)
I'm pretty sure that the game is PDF-only: I don't think there ever was a print run.
It's only 28 pages long and in half-sheet "zine" format. So... 8 sheets of 8.5" x 11" paper, printed double-sided. I printed out a copy on my home inkjet printer, using cardstock for the cover.
As for gaming this week... I played in my Tuesday night group's first full session of Rapscallion. We are a crew of scurvy pirates sailing the high seas in search of plunder and adventure. My character is Jackson "Four-Fingers" Drace, swashbuckler extraordinaire.
The other cool thing about this game is that I've handed off the GM responsibilities to my daughter! She's been playing with this group ever since she moved back home after her college went full-remote about a year ago. (She has since moved out, but is still in town.)
My Monday night Pathfinder game was cancelled: I had received the Johnson & Johnson COVID vaccine that morning, and by game-time was having a bit of a reaction, so I said I couldn't make it. Two of the other players couldn't make it either, so the GM called off the game.
I had been planning to play in a four-game series of Alien RPG on The Gauntlet in March, but the GM's schedule changed and he had to cancel the whole series.
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For materials, you need the rules, writing implements, a stack of index cards, and a deck of playing cards.
The players first collectively make some decisions about their "movie":
What's the setting? (e.g. a community college in 1985; a tropical island resort; a spaceship)
What's the tone? (i.e. Action-horror; Dread-inducing slow-burn; Black comedy)
What is the killer? (e.g. A homicidal maniac; A shapeshifting alien; Ghosts; A swarm of super-rats; Zombies)
Once that's decided, the players take turns making characters for the movie: These will be the victims of the killer. Depending on the number of players, each player should make 2-4 characters each such that there are between 10 and 15 victims. So, if there are 4 players, each player will make 3 characters, for a total of a dozen.
Characters are paper-thin: Just a name and a one-sentence description. Go around the table with each player describing one character, write down the info on an index card, and put the cards in the middle of the table where everyone can see them. All characters are available for all players to use: Just because you made the character doesn't mean you'll always play them.
One player then frames an intro scene (e.g. "Getting ready for the Big Dance"). In Intro Scenes, the Killer does not show up at all. The other players each pick a character to play, and the player who framed the scene picks last. Play through the scene, with an eye to establishing relationships between the characters. The three relationships are "Allies", "Rivals," and "Lovers." Play out the scene until you reach what feels like a decent ending; scenes should run 5-20 minutes of real time play. Note the relationships on the cards.
Run two or three more intro scenes.
At this point, some characters have one or more relationships, and others won't. It's now time for First Blood. The player frames the scene as usual, but does NOT pick a character—They now play the Killer! The other players pick characters with the least number of established relationships. Then play the scene as normal, EXCEPT: The Killer will interrupt the scene at any point to say "The Killer Strikes!" They then describe how the killer dispatches all of the characters in the scene. It's a foregone conclusion: These characters are dead.
When the scene is over, we're now in regular play. A new player takes the Killer and frames the scene. Other players choose characters and run through the scene as normal. This time, each player draws a playing card, plus one card for each relationship on the character's index card. Play proceeds until the Killer says, "The Killer Strikes," and narrates how the Killer enters the scene and tries to kill the characters in the scene. The Killer chooses a victim and turns over the top card of the deck. If the victim can beat the card, they live... for now! The player describes how they get away. They also mark one "Escape" point. The Killer then attacks a different character. If the Killer wins, they describe how the victim dies. The scene ends when a victim is killed. (Aces high; deuces low; if cards are same value, red beats black; sharp beats round (i.e. Diamonds > Hearts > Spades > Clubs).
Character relationships become important in these scenes: Other characters can help or hinder the victim in the killer's sights. An Ally can play a card from their hand to try to beat the Killer's card when attacking their Ally. A Rival can play a card from their hand to replace the Killer's card. And a Lover can do either.
Also: During a scene, new relationships can form or existing relationships can change; make notes as appropriate on the character cards.
At the end of a scene, all cards are collected and reshuffled.
The Killer shifts to another player, who frames a new regular scene. A character can use an Escape point to draw an extra card. The points reset each scene.
If you are playing a character who gets killed by The Killer, write "DEAD" on the card and retain it.
This goes on until there are a number of victims equal to the number of players minus one. This triggers the Final Scene. In the Final Scene, play continues as normal, until there is but one victim remaining. They are now "The Final Girl," and get to narrate how they confront the killer and survive. The player with the most "DEAD" characters then narrates an epilogue for the film... which could set up the sequel!
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This weekend is looking light. Our Rise of the Runelords game is canceled as the GM isn't ready to move to our new Sunday morning timeslot. (My brothers night shift was cut and he is now on days, so we start at 9am going forward. This also means our evening Sunday APs are on hiatus.) I've floated some PFS tables to finally level some of our crew to Seeker arc eligibility but haven't confirmed yet.
Canceled my game. I've been out of my pain meds for 8 days now and I still can't get my pain doctor to call me back or send in a refill order to my pharmacy. When I hurt this much I can't sit still because I fidget trying to find a less agonizing position.
Well, I'm kind of bummed. I just attempted to volunteer to run some games at PaizoCon Online 2021, but it appears to be an all-Society convention this year.
They are willing to entertain non-Society Pathfinder and Starfinder games, but aren't interested in people running games not published by Paizo. I had hoped to run my conversion of The Godsmouth Heresy for Trophy Gold and my adaptation of The Conquest of Bloodsworn Vale using the mechanics from Fall of Magic.
I kind of understand why Paizo doesn't want to spotlight games they don't produce, but I've run/played in non-Paizo RPGs in past PaizoCons. Heck, one of my highlights of PaizoCon 2019 was a Call of Cthulhu scenario run by James Jacobs.
I've had several less-than-good experiences playing at Organized Play tables, so I think I'll be bowing out of PaizoCon entirely this year.
I've been feeling disillusioned with Pathfinder the game and Paizo the company for a while now, and this feels like the final nail in the coffin.
Dang, I hate to hear that.
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And as I've been feeling more and more alienated from the Pathfinder/Paizo community, I've been feeling more and more at home in a few other online TTRPG communities.
In particular The Gauntlet Online Gaming Community, the Magpie Games Discord, Gehenna Gaming, and the Exalted Funeral Discord community.
I've been at least a semi-regular here on the Paizo boards for 10 years, and I've met some truly amazing people here. But I'm starting to feel like my relationship to Paizo/Pathfinder is a friendship that's pretty much run its course.
No game for my group again this weekend.
How about everyone else?
Happy Birthday, TOZ!
Happy birthday!!!
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Happy birthday, TOZ!
As usual, no weekend gaming for me this week.
This past week: I played in our PF1 "Shattered Star" game. We've made it to the final dungeon level of Shards of Sin, but haven't yet made it too far. Our PCs are still at Level 4. (I'm playing a half-orc/half-Varisian cleric of Desna.)
I handed the reins of our Tuesday night group to my daughter. We're playing the PbtA pirates RPG Rapscallion. Our ship plundered a merchantman last week and recovered some weird magical artifacts that just might allow us to navigate the treacherous Wardens' Waters... a place haunted by ghost ships, sea monsters, and worse. We've just put into the pirate town of Skullport to follow up a lead... and for my character to meet up with his former captain, who's retired here.
For non-gaming weekend plans...
My wife and I both got the Johnson & Johnson one-shot COVID-19 vaccine on the 8th of this month, which means we're almost at full immunity. We've decided that it's time to go do something outside the house! We're meeting up with another couple who've also been fully vaccinated and are attending an outdoor "beer and cheese" event at a local brewery. This will be the first out-of-the-house event we've done with people outside of our COVID-pod in over a year! We are super-excited!!
I've put all our game nights on hiatus for the foreseeable future. With my son and his gf staying with me until they find a new place I'm a complete train wreck of high blood pressure, anxiety, panic, and insomnia. Hell, right now my pulse rate is 111 and my hands are shaking because of my nerves as I write this. I can't focus on writing and running games like this, so I've asked my players for their patience and understanding until either I adapt to things or they move out.
Cal, feel free to ignore this if you don't want to answer, but why is your son and his girlfriend staying with you causing those issues? Unless that's not what you're saying.
Cal, feel free to ignore this if you don't want to answer, but why is your son and his girlfriend staying with you causing those issues? Unless that's not what you're saying.
I don't mind answering. I'm a person who craves solitude. I grew up with my family, went away to college, eventually lived with roommates in various places, then got married. Then during a period where my wife and I separated I discovered that I am just much, much happier and healthier when I live by myself. I was married for 30 years and for nearly 15 years of that time we lived in separate places. I've lived at my current residence eight years and half of that time my son, sometimes along with a friend or two of his, lived here as well. I love my son and I'll never tell him he doesn't have a place he can come to if he needs it, but it takes a heavy toll on me. When he moved out last summer to get a place with his girlfriend and a buddy I thought I was finally going to have the place to my own again, sharing it with only my dogs.
Not many people really understand how much happier I am living alone, but I just do. I really dislike not being able to listen to my music as loud as I want at 3 am (it's rare but it happens...lol), having to put a pair of sweats or something in the middle of the night just to go to the bathroom because someone else might be up, the messes are mine to worry about, and so forth. I just want my home to be MY home.
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I'm the opposite, I couldn't live by myself, even when people are gone during the day i have to have some sort of chattering in the background before I can relax.
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Sending good vibes your way, Cal. Please forgive the presumption for offering unsolicited advice, but some meditation or breathing exercises may help. Just a way to help condense your focus away from what's around you may help giving you an "alone" feeling, if only for a little while.
Sending good vibes your way, Cal. Please forgive the presumption for offering unsolicited advice, but some meditation or breathing exercises may help. Just a way to help condense your focus away from what's around you may help giving you an "alone" feeling, if only for a little while.
Thanks for the advice! I'll see if they help!
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They do help, surprisingly.
I was always skeptical but I tried it out once and it does help lower blood pressure and allows you to think more clearly.
What's everyone up to this weekend?
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I have a dresser to put together and probably some sore muscles from working the first three days of the season which was spent hauling 80 pound marble blocks up and down a muddy hill to cut or hammer chisel.
Edit: Technically, only one day was spent cutting and chiseling, the day before was loading the trailer and taking inventory, yesterday I delivered it all and hauled it down the hill while starting a separate cinder block wall and then today I hauled them up the hill for cutting and chiseling.
My gaming still in an indefinite holding pattern. There's too much chaos in my life for it right now. In the quieter moments I have been considering some changes to several things in an effort to help get things going more smoothly once we eventually start back up.
So how about everyone else? Whatcha got cookin'?
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I still have to put that dresser together.
This is the weekend, I know it. Maybe.
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I think it's Easter this weekend. Right? That's a thing to do for the kids.
Ooh! Google calendar says it's time to change the a/c filters! Maybe I'll ignore that like I have the past 3 times it's come up! Livng large.
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Last week in gaming...
Pathfinder: We got to the final encounter areas in Shards of Sin, and have a good idea of where the Shard of Greed is located in the dungeon.
Rapscallion: Our ship successfully navigated a cursed reef and made it to the pirate haven of Skullport. As we pulled into the harbor, my character, Four-Fingers Drace, noticed that The Golden Marlin was also at anchor... the ship of his former fencing teacher and now rival Captain Marla Livingstone.
I also played in the first session of a two-shot of Masks: A New Generation with the Magpie Games Curated Play program. My character is the latest incarnation of Kid Caliber, teen sidekick to long-standing Halcyon City hero Captain Bullet.
This past week in gaming...
Pathfinder: We concluded Shards of Sin with a pair of knock-down, drag-out fights: One against a deranged derro alchemist, and another against a pair of Thassilonian spider-monsters. The Shard of Greed is ours!
Rapscallion: We sold off our captured loot. My character successfully won an invitation to the Skullport Harbor Master's high-stakes poker game... in a low-stakes poker game.
Masks: Our GM got his second COVID shot earlier in the day and didn't feel up to running the finale to our two-shot game. We're still trying to reschedule.
This weekend in gaming...
I'm hoping to finish the latest rev of Naked City Blues for public comment/playtesting. I also need to do some prep for a game I'll be running in two weeks for Magpie Games 10th Anniversary Mini-con. I am running a Dungeon World one-shot set in Magpie's campaign framework/setting The Last Days of Angelkite.