A Life Full of Adventure

A character’s first adventure can really shape the path they take for their whole career. If the characters take the job cleaning rats out of the tavern’s basement, then the town may think of them as monster hunters. After a few monster hunter jobs, the characters may think of themselves as monster hunters. Alternatively, clearing the basement may just have been one job of an errand-boy type career. Perhaps it’s clear out the basement one day, and deliver a message to a town a couple dozen miles away the next day. The errand-boy job may be less interesting, but is it profitable? Speaking of profitable, was the character’s first job for a merchant? Are they then set up favorably in the merchant guild? A guild may have a wider variety of more interesting jobs. But they characters in the party would still be thought of as errand-boys.  Perhaps the first job the party took was a task for the church. Will the church outfit the party, provide blessings, and maybe even provide healing? Th...

I play a lot of clerics. I know that may not be a popular position…I read a lot of blogs as well. Each deity has strictures that are just different enough to capture my attention. And they make the characters different enough so the class never quite gets old to me. Sure I take breaks, but I’m always ready to roll up a new cleric or go back to an old favorite. What the running of clerics gets me also are holidays. There are certain days of the year that are holy to the cleric or to the church. Some could even be considered a New Years Day.  These holy days, besides possibly some specific clothes and proscribed festivities, should come with an opportunity for the cleric to do some introspection. Is the cleric following the strictures of their deity? Is their focus wandering? What sort of goals should the cleric set for themselves in the coming month/season/year to get closer to their deity? Does the cleric need to renew some oaths? Those are all questions that could be asked through...

Regor the Sated, Hoarder of Ramen and Mice! "My eternity is spent trying to keep the mice away from the ramen."  I have to make these tiny cages to try to contain the mice. I can't even do it in dragon form; I have to polymorph into a gnome! Alternately, the low intelligence dragon spends his days combing the land for ramen, while his high intelligence mice spend his time away selling his ramen out from under him for profit...or cheese. 

Role playing games (especially these days) tout 3 main ideas: Social encounters, exploration, and combat. Large sections of game books are devoted to combat rules, and what makes combat in this game better and/or easier. Key locations are fleshed out for player characters to explore: dungeons, towns, and wilderness. That leaves the final idea, the one I hear the most people complain about: social rules and a frequent lack thereof. The reason there aren't as many social rules for D&D (an other similar RPGs) is that most players just ignore the rules in favor of their own social skills. Your character has a Charisma, Fellowship, or Leadership score? Who cares?! Players just sit down and act however they want instead of playing to their characters social abilities and social skills.  They play as smart as they want to be, as wise as they want to be, and as smooth tongued as they want to be. And most GMs allow this.

As a follow up to my Cat Summoner idea, I compiled this list from the various AD&D 2e Monstrous Manual and Compendiums (Compendia?). "Normal" cats would stick more to the spirit of the idea, but I also included optional monsters with cat parts. The list goes up to level 13, but the Monster Summoning spells only go to level 7, so that's where I stopped. To give you a taste of the rest, the only monster I listed at Level 13 is a Render. I, personally, would consider summoning a Render to either be a final act of life-or-death desperation or an act of Chaotic Evil. Enjoy! Monster Summoning 1 (Level 3 Spell) Level 1 Cat, Crypt : Normal (Compendium 2) Cat, Small: Domestic Cat, Small: Wild Cat, Winged: Lesser (Compendium 1) (Optional) Tiger Squirrel Monster Summoning 2 (Level 4 Spell) Level 2 Cat, Great: Giant Lynx Cat, Winged: Tressym (Compendium 1) (Optional) Feystag (Compendium 1) (Optional) Tabaxi Monster Summoning 3 (Level 5 Spell) ...

What is the feasibility/playability of a Summoner who only summoned cats? I bet you could find different strength cats in various monster books to equate to every summoning spell: House cats, lynx, bobcat, cougar, cheetah, jaguar, leopard, lion, tiger, sabertooth, etc. I think it would be fun, but I'm a big cat fan (that is, a fan of cats larger than house cats).

Your recent travels have brought you to Barak Varr. If you're lucky, you have some time to yourself but have no idea what to do on a day off in a dwarf hold. Here are some ideas to keep you busy (but not necessarily out of trouble). Indoor Treasure Hunt: Barak Varr is filled with dwarven riches! Dwarves have so much gold that they can't even contain it in their massive treasure vaults. Check every nook and cranny of the hold. Don't forget to look under the throne cushions! Scrub Last Year's Filth Off! Slip into a soothing bath laced with your own moisturizing soap blend. In a clean container, mix together ½ cup lye, 1 tablespoon beef tallow or pig fat, and 1 tablespoon of honey. Pour the entire mixture under the running water as you draw your bath. Honey is a natural humectant, which will attract and retain moisture in your skin. Create a Recipe Book You won't be in Barak Varr forever, and who knows when you'll have access to these wonderful recipes again. T...

I don't always want to use kobolds, goblins, and giant rats for first level adventures. Let's see what else I can dredge up out of the 2e Monstrous Manual, not including psionics or good creatures: Bat, Common 1-2 hp Bat, Large 1/2 - 1 HD Beetle, Fire 1+2 HD Bird (various) Bullywug 1 HD Cat, Wild 1 HD Centipede, Giant 2 hp Crawling Claw 2-4 hp Dog, Wild 1+1 HD Dwarf, Duergar 1+2 HD Fish (various) Frog (various) Fungus, Gas spore 1 hp Gibberling 1 HD Gremlins (4/6 listed are 1-1 HD or less) Grippli 1+1 HD Hatori (sand crocodile), Lesser 1-5 HD Hobgoblin 1+1 HD (yeah, a goblin, but it may be considered a change still) Human (various) Insect, (various, each with interesting abilities) Insect swarm Ixitxachitl 1+1 HD Leech, giant 1-4 HD Mammal (various) Merman 1+1 HD Mold Men 1 to 6 HD Mongrelmen 1-4 HD Muckdweller 1/2 HD Myconid 1-6 HD Piercer 1-4 HD Plant, Intelligent, Obliviax 1-2 hp Poltergeist 1/2 HD Skeleton 1 HD (don't forget animal skel...

"I believe the site we're looking for should be right over that rise." http://lanebrownart.blogspot.com/2013/02/i-recenely-illustrated-some-characters.html

It's war time and Karl Franz dies. The elector counts choose a completely inadequate emperor, hoping to be able to mold him to their will. However, the dwarves (of all people) don't think the human newly elected to the position has what it takes to beat the concerted attacks of chaos. The puppet emperor keeps issuing orders that gets dwarf troops killed. The dwarves seize control of the human government in order to assure their own survival. They proceed to (very ably) control the empire's armies, turning the tide against the armies of chaos. The humans and the dwarves end up in a civil war in the midst of all the (literal) chaos.

http://drawcrowd.com/macsmith/projects/0f68101569d067868ff28cf28dce6082884e5b2b?pos=15

http://faxtar.deviantart.com/art/Crocodile-Warrior-313703938 These savage creatures are quicker than they look and more likely to use their jaws to crush prey (that's you).

Every town needs one. http://powerandmight.blogspot.com/2014/03/thorsmithing-what-hell-is-that.html "It's going to be a week before I can get to your armor. Farmer Dan's horse broke a shoe, and Paul's plowshare broke..."

http://scifi-fantasy-horror.com/post/108933328661/by-xiaodi It's always risky, carrying the Old, Great One from one ziggurat to another, but the skinks remained wary at all times...

I like the idea of posting a picture on Sundays that might inspire imagination. Here's a start: http://scifi-fantasy-horror.com/post/72658859704/garruk-by-ainoko I see a barbarian out in the world trying to make a name for himself. I'd suggest 1) beware the mushrooms, and 2) find a group to adventure with.

The other day someone said, "Sell me on WFRP." Here's what I came up with: Low(er) magic. Magic users distrusted by the normal people. Grim and perilous (dark and deadly). A world fighting destruction at the hand of chaos. Percentile rolls rather than d20 rolls. Careers that ignite the imagination (like D&D 2e kits).. If these topics don't interest you, I won't bother with a longer sales pitch. He was, in fact, interested, so I continued: The Empire. A disparate collection of tribes united under a charismatic leader with a deadly warhammer. Forests filled with chaos beastmen, mutants distorted by chaos. The populations are kept a bit in check by the elves, but, honestly, it's almost as bad to encounter an elf in the woods as it is a beastman. Waves of pure chaos drift from the north, corrupting everything it touches. The city of Prague is burned a rebuilt periodically due to it's proximity to warping chaos. Twisted champions of chaos gods...

The group was adventuring in Dwimmermount, using the Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 1e rules. They had just fought a large group (three rooms worth) of lizardmen (substituted for orcs) on level 2A. They were tired and wounded and needed to head back to base camp to heal and rest. The expedition's surgeon sewed wounds and applied poultices. He asked if there was anything else they needed. One player spoke up: "Do you have anything that can give me more Wounds (hit points)?" I paused, not wanting to just say no and move on. My mind raced:  energy...adrenaline...adrenal gland... "Well, other surgeons don't know this, but I've been doing a little research on my own. I'm pretty sure if you eat a lizardman kidney, it will give you more energy. You have to do it right before your fight, but I can preserve one of the ones you brought back...I'll have to do it quickly before the energy is all gone. What do you think?" The play just stared at me, shocke...

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...

In Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, fate points separate your character from all the other people inhabiting the game world. When something tragic happens to the character, you can spend a point, indicating that your character had dodged fate and lived to face another day. With this in mind, I think fate points should be something special and epic that happens, not just a generic "the attack misses you; your turn." In the past, we've had experiences where a character uses a fate point so that the blow that kills them never lands, just to have the GM kill them on the next attack. I feel that cheats the idea. When a player uses a fate point, I like to have something occur that changes the whole tide of the battle. Losing characters suddenly find themselves winning the fight due to a very improbable occurrence. Characters crushed by a rock slide instead find that rocks fell everywhere around them, miraculously sparing them. It might take a moment to stop and think, but the mo...

Is it just me, or are the best random encounters not truly random? In our WFRP 2e game, the party was merrily tacking upriver just trying to get from one location to another. Out of nowhere, in the middle of the night, the boat was attacked by skaven. It seemed like the attack was completely random, and we almost lost my ogre bodyguard and the ship ran aground as nobody manned the rudder. From our point of view, the GM rolled "Skaven" on a random encounter chart. However, a sitting or two later we found out that a passenger on board was carrying warpstone, unbeknownst to everyone else. Therefore attack was in no way random, and we were able to look back and have an "ah-ha" moment. It was oddly disjointed, but not completely inappropriate, when the skaven attacked. This is the feel for many random encounters rolled by GMs. However, linking it back to the warpstone shows just how planned the encounter was. It was actually a clue to the bigger mystery. It was pos...