Castles & Crusades at StruebCon V

I ran Ruins of Ramat for a group of five players at StruebCon V (thanks again to Polymythic Steve for hosting this kick-ass event).  I had some nice goodies from the Troll Lords to hand out, including rule packets and a free Players Handbook for one lucky player. It was a blast and I highly recommend Ruins of Ramat to anyone looking for a short old school adventure.  It's available for both C&C, Original Edition (aka Swords & Wizardry compatible), and Labyrinth Lord.

Hans snapped some photos as we played and here they are:

A nice shot of the Castle Keeper Screen. The players seemed to be a fan of the archer for some reason....

Yours truly preaching the good word.

I love this shot.  This sums up what great gaming is all about for me.

Behind the screen.

Hans's poo-flinging druid.

Miniature Terrain and Painting, the Polymythic Way

My good friend Polymythic Steve (not to be confused with Steve the Yuan-ti Party Hound) has  posted an excellent “how-to” series about creating terrain and painting miniatures for miniature wargaming.  Steve shows how he made his terrain and painted his miniatures for Ambush Alley, but this stuff is applicable for any game involving miniatures.  I think the terrain creation is particularly ingenious. 

Give it a look:

• Miniature Wargaming Series- 1 Building the Board
• Miniature Wargaming Series- 2 Making Terrain
• Miniature Wargaming Series- 3 Painting the Insurgents
• Miniature Wargaming Series- 4 Painting the Marines

Garhelm – More Setting-Specific Rules

I’ve been digging through my old files (both paper and electronic) and have realized at some point I revised my initial rule-set.  Both of the Garhelm campaigns were played over four years ago (egad, time flies), so I’m not certain when certain rules were in effect.  I am fairly certain those in my first rules post were used consistently.  I’m not sure about the following ones, unless otherwise noted below.  In any event, here are a few more rules, again with annotation.

Detect Chaos/Evil/Good/Law

• The detect chaos/evil/good/law spell and similar spell-like abilities do not function in regard to sentient beings. What is evil to one may be not be evil to another. However, the spell does function for insentient entities, such as magic weapons or locations, because such effects are typically a function of magic.
• From a gaming standpoint, detect chaos/evil/good/law and similar spells and abilities often rob role-playing encounters of their worth. 
• [I believe this rule was used throughout both campaigns. I have never liked the problems that result from this spell. On one hand, it makes things easier: “If it’s evil, we kill it.” On the other hand, it makes things more complex:“Is it really a good action to kill an evilly aligned orc child?” or “Is it really a good action to harry any NPC in the bar that detects as evil?” 
• Given that I did not mention *protection* from chaos/evil/good/law spells in the rules, I likely let them work normally.  I might tweak that and let such spells work only for outsiders or other beings that are inherently tied to their alignment.  For example, a demon is in a sense Chaotic Evil incarnate, so it seems logical that wards against a demon should work.  A gnoll, on the other hand, is more of a natural being and not inherently evil from birth.
• Quite frankly, I’m ready to pitch alignment altogether.  It feels too forced and it seems players and DMs always find a rationale for a character’s/NPC’s action, regardless of his alignment. Polymythic Steve and I had an interesting IM chat a few weeks back about alignment.  One of these days I’ll get around to blogging about it, but it started from this question: “In a democracy, if you can detect evil, should evil people be allowed to vote?”]

Raise Dead [I had two versions of this rule, both are included below.]

• [Version 1] The raise dead spell is available, but has been modified.  A raised character does not lose a character level, but instead, as with previous editions, loses a point of Constitution.  If the character’s Constitution reaches zero, he cannot be raised.  The material component for raise dead is no longer a 1000 gp diamond. Instead, the caster must sacrifice a quantity of magic items relative to the strength of the character’s soul (i.e., his level).  There is not a hard and fast rule regarding the proper sacrificial amount.  The DM will use his discretion in such matter.
• [Version 2] The raise dead functions as described in the 3.5 Player’s Handbook except for the material component. Instead of a 5000 gp diamond, one or more willing participants much sacrifice some of their life force to restore the life of the recipient. In game terms, they must sacrifice a total of XPs equal to the minimum XP for the recipient’s former level (i.e., before the level loss of being raised). For example, to raise a 2^nd level character, four PCs would lose 500 XP each. Note: each participant must sacrifice an equal share. The caster can choose to participate in the sacrifice, but can only do so if the XP loss would not cause him to lose access to the raise dead spell.
• [At the time I believed players weren’t sufficiently penalized for PC death and I didn’t like the whole concept of buying back your dead. Version 1 also doubled as a handy way to ensure the party didn’t become overly loaded with magic loot.  I quite like the role-play concept of Version 2: the party giving of its own life to bring back the dead makes more sense (in a fantastical way) and is a much greater sacrifice than loot.  On the other hand, it sort of feels like that scene in Full Metal Jacket where the rest of the troop is punished for Private Pile’s actions (NSFW link).  I’ve come full circle on raise dead and now make it fairly easy for players to bring back the fallen (see my current house rules).  I’ve embraced the “game” part of “role-playing game” and don’t sweat it.]

PC Death

• If a PC dies and cannot be raised or resurrected, the player must roll a new PC. To ease matters for the gaming group (DM and players alike), the new PC will start at 2nd level. The PC will receive the standard HP for first level (i.e., maximum), but must roll his 2^nd level hit die in the DM’s presence. The PC will begin with the standard 1^st level starting money for his class.
• [I’m not sure what this was about because I can’t remember what level the PCs started at.]

Dice Rolling

• All die rolls that fall off the table must be re-rolled on the table. No exceptions.
• If a rolled die comes to rest without a discernable result (e.g., the die lands in a crack on the table, etc.), the die is to be re-rolled. No exceptions.
• [This might seem like overkill, but I include this in my house rules to this date.]

Action Points (from the d20 Modern SRD)

• [I don’t remember anyone actually using these points.  It seems like the players kept saving them for a rainy day that never happened. Again, although I originally had some house rule luck points in mind, I opted for what I now consider overly complex official rules. If I ever wanted something like this again, I’d just let the players earn luck points for good game play and let them use it to re-roll a die roll.]
• Characters gain a number of action points equal to 2 + one-half their character level, rounded down, at 1st level and every time they attain a new level.
• Action points provide characters with the means to affect game play in significant ways. A character can spend 1 action point to alter a single d20 roll used to make an attack, a skill check, an ability check, a level check, or a saving throw.
• When a character spends 1 action point to improve a d20 roll, add 1d6 to the d20 roll to help meet or exceed the target number. A character can declare the use of 1 action point to alter a d20 roll after the roll is made—but only before the DM reveals the result of that roll (whether the attack or check or saving throw suc­ceeded or failed) [I find this bit particularly lame. It turns into a game of How Well Can the Players Read the DM’s Reaction]. When possible, the player should state his intention to spend an action point before the die is rolled.  For example, “I may use an action point on this attack roll.”
• A character can’t use an action point on a skill check or ability check when he or she is taking 10 or taking 20.
• A character can only spend 1 action point in a round.
• Depending on the character level (see the table below), he or she may be able to roll more than one d6 when spending 1 action point. If the character does so, apply the highest result and disregard the other rolls.

Character Level	Action Point Dice Rolled
1st – 7th	1d6
8th – 14th	2d6
15th – 20th	3d6

Late Night Castles & Crusades at StruebCon IV

My C&C session at StruebCon IV started around 1:00 AM. I was very pleased that nearly all StruebSquad members participated, despite the late hour. I think only two attendees (myself included) actively play RPGs (although I think a couple guys played their share of D&D back in the day).

It was Saturday night (err.. Sunday morning) and the last night for gaming. DohJoe was wired from winning the game of Battlestar Galactica in Machiavellian fashion, but the rest of the group was hurtin’. True gamers, they bellied up to the game table anyhow.

Genius that I am, I decided to grab their attention with a PowerPoint presentation. I had good intentions. When I ran C&C at StruebSquad III, I was geeked out and more or less just threw the players into the game without really explaining the rules. It went okay, but I wasn’t pleased with my performance. This time I had vowed to myself that the players would get the rules and actually know what the hell they were doing. I had envisioned some big screen to present this on (I’m not sure where I got that idea), but ended up showing it on a laptop which I hassled out of Polymythic Steve. I’m sure at the time he was thinking, “Dude, seriously?” (understandably so), but I was determined. I got about half-way through and realized “Uhm, yeah, this is freaking boring” and just grabbed a character sheet and walked them through the essentials.

Anyhow, you can find the PowerPoint (and the half-ass jokes within) at Google Docs: link. You can preview it at Google Docs, but to get the full effect (i.e., transitions and graphics), you’ll need to download it. I should note that the “subtraction” method I used for SIEGE checks is an alternative to the traditional way of handling them. I haven’t gotten enough C&C games under my belt to determine if its the easiest way to go.

I ran Dwarven Glory III: The Winding Stair, which is a nice short module. I provided miniatures (mostly pre-painted DDM ones from Wizards of the Coast) and I had pre-drawn the dungeon on large, drafting graph paper (with 1 inch squares). That saved me from having to halt the game to draw rooms when combat kicked in.

In hindsight, I should have done without the miniatures. While they do help with visualization, I think the minis kept the players in “board game” mode. One of the perks of C&C is that, due to lack of Attacks of Opportunities and such, there really is no need for miniatures and a battle grid. The game likely would have gone faster and I think it would have really driven home how an RPG is different from your standard game.

Regardless, I had a lot of fun and I think the guys did too. At the end, I had them all vote for the player they thought played the best. DohJoe won the vote, given the zest with which he took to his rogue character, and was awarded a set of “official” D&D dice.

Time to start planning for next year… this time without a PowerPoint presentation.

StruebCon IV

In mid-May, I attended StruebCon IV, a gaming convention hosted by Polymythic Steve. By "gaming convention," I mean a bunch of dudes taking over his house, playing games non-stop, and drinking his beer (also non-stop). The attendees are members of the StruebSquad, most of which are DC area gamers that Steve has assembled over the years. Others, such as myself, are from PA.

So what is with the “Strueb” stuff? It’s derived from Steve’s name. I should point out that Steve himself named neither the event nor the squad, but rather the group named both after him because he brought both the ‘con and the group together.

The guys do a great job with this. Hans worked up convention badges and DohJoe (of LaserPup fame) had commemorative dice made.

It was a lot of fun, although Chaos learned to ride her bike without training wheels while I was gone. It's not easy knowing I missed that. It wasn't intentional (Mrs. Frost didn't make the attempt without me), but was simply a matter of Chaos trying out a neighbor kid's old, smaller bike and taking off on it.

Anyhow, StruebCon is mainly a board game event, with a smattering of miniature gaming and one RPG event (mine). The board game library amassed by the Squad is damn impressive, so it's a nice chance for a RPG guy like myself to play games I've never heard of before.

The big hits of the convention were:

• Dominion – This is non-collectable card game that is a deck-building game. You have to balance amassing action cards with point cards in order to win in the end. I get the sense it’s the Settlers of Catan of the moment (i.e., it’s the hot game going around).
• Ricochet Robots – A real brain tester of a game. You can play with as many people as you want, as long as they can see the board. Players must mentally find the shortest way to move a pawn to a randomized board location. The concept is amazingly simple. Finding the short path (or any path at all) is amazingly tough.
  
  
• Werewolf – This is a blast of a party game. Players sit around accusing one another of who are the werewolves while the wolves silently execute the others. It’s funny, I completely forgot I had played this before as Mafia until Hans mentioned this alternate name on the way home.
• Battlestar Galactica - I didn’t play this myself (I opted for a game of Puerto Rico and Ambush Alley instead). I don’t know much about other than it’s a cooperative game based on the popular TV show remake and involves one or two Cylon (i.e., traitor) players. From the shouts and rants I heard, it looked like a great game. DohJoe played a Cylon and from all reports played it like a damn master. He used the fact that it was everyone’s first time playing (himself included) to his advantage, using his seeming naivety to throw off suspicion.
• Ambush Alley – I’d been looking forward to playing this game and was happy to finally
  
  
  get a chance to do so. As advertised, it was a down-and-dirty miniatures, modern warfare skirmish with a high body count. I played once as the insurgents and once as the US forces. I lost both times, but enjoyed the hell out it. The rules are a bit sketchy at times, but I’ve grown to see that as a plus. We just settled ambiguity with a die roll and move on (e.g., “I’m not sure that is enough cover or not. Hell, evens it is, odds it is not.”)

I myself ran a Castles & Crusades event and I officially became a C & C Ambassador for the event (well, for this and for GASPCon coming up in the fall). I’ll write more about that particular event in a separate post, but in short, it was some good late night fun and God bless the guys for staying up to play.

StruebCon IV was another rousing success. Many thanks to the Polymythic Steve and Mrs. Polymythic Steve for the beer, the brats, the omelets, and the kick-arse gaming.

Modern Warfare on your Tabletop - Ambush Alley

Polymythic Steve (not to be confused with this Steve) has clued me into a pretty sweet miniatures game called Ambush Alley.  Basically, the game is an in-your-face, down and dirty modern skirmish rule set (think "Black Hawk Down" with minis).  You can read more about it at their About Us page.  I haven't played it yet, but I am eager to and will when I visit him next month.

Steve submitted a scenario for Ambush Alley's "To the Last Round" contest.  You can check out his submission ("...Because We Got Intel Saying") and its sweet layout here: link.  You can also see him smack himself in the head with a jump rope here: link.

He created the scenery and painted the minis himself. Here are some of my favorite shots: