A Life Full of Adventure

The Manor is a labor of love OSR 'zine put out by Tim Shorts of Gothridge Manor . Contents: Mine of Rot & Disease - A short undead-centered poisoned water supply adventure. I could see running this at a convention. Simple and a good set up for old friends getting together to game and socialize. Oddly, it gives an introduction to a Townsfolk section, but then never lists the townsfolk. Pog Nog's Cart - An NPC goblin who sells supplies from a cart. I want to start using Pog Nog in my games immediately. Adzeer: God of the Monster Hunt - A specialty ranger/cleric class for Blood & Treasure RPG. I am not familiar with the RPG. However, I think I would design the class a bit differently from what I see. Either way, it could be fun. Now to see if I can submit something to the Rusty Battle Axe Poetry Slam section of the 'zine....

Kryphon Felix Drexle is a half elf rogue, built using the Bounty Hunter kit. He has a half elf brother, Kerun, with whom he adventures. Their backstory is as follows; Our father was a sylvan elf who met our mother in a glade during a full moon. He was intoxicated with wine due to a revelry he clan partook in that night. In the moonlight, our mother was a comely enough sight for our father, and they had a tryst. Afterward he left, leaving our mother pregnant. She took up the mistletoe she had been collecting for a druid friend and returned to her home. Our mother was a poor servant of a middle class household and was sickly quite often. Since she only worked for a middle class house, she didn't live with them but returned to her own hovel daily.  When we were 20, she died, leaving us with practically nothing and no one. I turned to hunting out food from people I figured had more than enough, and you started going around trying to find a job as an armsman, watchman, house gua...

My PC Vaervenshyael - Female Elf Protagonist My companions Tankred "Silver Bear" Tenneckermann  - Human Mercenary Wilhelm Hechland - Human Engineer Johann Wilhelm Woeller - Human Barber Surgeon NPCs Ludovic Hasselhoff - Human Prince Maximillian Morningglory - Halfling Witch Hunter and Master of the Horse Pieter Adler - Human Miner ( Previous Notes ) The sheik of Ubain has sent his messengers to repeat his claim on our land, Padua-on-Avon. Maximillian stopped in to Vaervenshyae's dwelling early in the day to alert her than she may hear about a horse rustling later. She is welcome to investigate it prudently, but she should not be able to find the culprits. (It also just so happens that Tankred and his group are hired to steal the visiting Sheik's horses.) We learn of a place in town called The Old Homestead. It's an area partially burned down by orcs. and now treated as haunted house by the locals. Sounds like a great place to investigat...

Today the topic of timekeeping came up:  Timekeeping is essential, without it things like spell durations, light sources, and so on become much less important than otherwise. I WANT TO KEEP TRACK OF TIME. But damn if it isn't hard as hell. Especially when the DM has so much other stuff to worry about. With the question: If you were redesigning the core chassis, what could you do to make timekeeping easier? My reply: The players have a caller, a mapper, and a timekeeper. In other words, recruit the players to help. I've been giving this a little thought lately, because I think I'm about to return to using a caller. All these roles serve to help the GM. Mapper: As a GM, I draw the room/corridor/whatever on the party map and hand the party map to the players. The mapper could be in charge of labeling, asking for clarification, searching the map for possible secret rooms, etc. Caller: Players like to all blurt out different things they want to do, often all at...

My Character Vaervenshyael - Elf Protagonist (Female) My Companions Tankred "Silver Bear" Tenneckermann - Human Mercenary Wilhelm Hechland - Human Engineer NPCs Maximillian Morningglory - Halfling Witch Hunter Ludovic Hasselhoff - Human Prince Most Reverend Scholar Roderic Leer - Verenan Priest, Librarian, Antiquities Curator Setting In the Border Princes, a Princedom dubbed Padua, upon (or overlooking) the river Avon. Tales of ruins to the south. The abutting prince, an Arabyan sheikh, claims he is the proper ruler of our land. The Lonely Mountain in the distance to the north is claimed to be a dormant volcano. There are often geysers of rotten smelling water that erupt nearby. There are Badlands to the north, beyond the mountains. They are inhabited by goblinoids. There are supposedly elvish ruins to the north. Padua is a relatively prosperous crossroads with approximately 100 settlers. The Story Begins A group of adventurers/treasure see...

My PC Maximillian Morningglory , Halfling Vampire Hunter My companions Udrin Sor-Valdir  - High Elf Wizard Ludovic Hasselhoff  - Human Entertainer NPCs Abelhardt Mullberger  - Journeyman Apprentice Brother Dieter - Priest of Morr Sir Ortolf Eiche  - Magister and Wizard Lord of the Azyr Wind, Professor of Antiquities of the Celestial College, First Adviser to Baron Valken of Reikland The gates of the estate opened and Sir Eiche rode through, with several other riders behind him. He circled us, surprised to find us there. Instead of joyfully welcoming us, he actually threatened us into the house...the house we just spent a lot of energy trying to get into while looking for him.  While Eiche's compatriots were dismounting, Maximillian noticed tails and claws. They were skaven! They were instructed to take our weapons, and we headed to the parlour. (Note: Maximillian did not give up his stakes [he's a vampire hunter] and Ludovic didn't give...

I know henchmen and NPCs are a big part of RPG history, but I never used them to their fullest potential. As a GM, I never really felt like playing a dozen or more personalities at the table each night. After a while, all the NPC personalities blend into one...unless the GM is really good. I am not yet really good, so the NPCs remain minimal. One the one hand I feel my groups miss out. On the other hand I sure am glad I don't have to play so many characters each sitting.

My PC Maximillian Morningglory , Halfling Vampire Hunter My companions Udrin Sor-Valdir  - High Elf Wizard Ludovic Hasselhoff  - Human Entertainer NPCs Brother Dieter - Priest of Morr (GM's Write-up, edited for my blog). Tonight the Winds of Chaos erupted. It started with doubles and triples rolls for Udrin, who's player was absent the GM played best he could: basically aloof and the better of the rest of the party. The party began at the walled estate of a patron whose Azyr wizard (Sir Eiche) turned up missing over a week ago (game time).  Things got weird. Udrin cast the Skywalk spell on himself so he could scout the other side of the wall...and he rolled doubles. This results was a 91 on the Minor Chaos Manifestation. A 91 is two (2) chaos events. The first caused the party to break out in a cold sweat. The second roll was a 98 to occur on the next spell cast. Well, that had to happen quickly as the Skywalk had to be followed by another so Udrin could ...

My PC Maximillian Morningglory , Halfling Vampire Hunter Magnus  the Pony My companions Udrin Sor-Valdir  - High Elf Wizard Ludovic Hasselhoff  - Human Entertainer Durak Braksson  - Dwarf NPCs Tegort  - Ogre bodyguard Abelhardt Mullberger  - Journeyman Apprentice Mordrin Skorkinson , Giant Slayer Brother Dieter - Priest of Morr Bianca - Our boat ( Previous update ) Mullberger's visions at the burned down inn were mere hints and shadows only. A subjective eye could make out Skaven, but then a subjective eye can see whatever it wishes. He scattered the ashes he was using for his spell and returned to the Bianca. We were again hit with the enormity of a city proper as we sailed into Altdorf. It took time to get to a proper berth, Mullberger anxious to disembark all the while. When we docked, he took off for the University. Tegort also took his leave to return to his family, but let us know we could call upon him if we needed him again. Af...

In my WFRP 1e game I have a player with two knife-throwing characters. His goal is to have the two characters across the room from each other, throwing knives at the enemy in between, and catching to re-throw the knives that don't hit. I think he could tell I wasn't immediately sold on the idea. My friend knows more about weapons than I do, albeit mostly modern-day ones. He was excited about the idea, but I didn't think it would work. It seems to me that you need to throw a knife differently if you want to hurt someone than you would throw it if you were expecting someone to catch it. We play fantasy games, but we like to have some realism involved. Anyway, I've decided to look past the lack of verisimilitude. We are here to have fun. What he wants to do sounds cool to him. It's not going to break our game. What the heck, let his characters form a blade barrier and let's all enjoy the game!

I have this blossoming desire to play a long term D&D game. I can't really add another session to my biweekly schedule, so I'd need to convince one of my current groups to play and someone in my group to run it. That goal should last me through the year.

Started with the party coming upon the shrine and getting their first view of the ogres. Many Cool checks were failed as they got an idea of what they were up against: ogres. They set up camp off the trail and figured out a plan of approaching the shrine. The human entertainer was shoved out to talk to the ogre guards. He found out they were residents of the shrine and they were hungry (surprise). This gave the halfling, Professor Brambleburr, the opening he needed to get in. He walked up and offered his services as a cook if he could explore the locale in a professional archaeological manner. The ogres loved the idea of a cook and assumed his fancy words meant he wanted to see the shrine. The halfling and a dwarf checked out the shrine finding a large, dark stone on a plinth as well as a random hole in the floor. The halfling then cooked for the two ogre priests. The meal was so good that the ogres allowed him to bring in his friends to explore the complex if he would cook for ...