Music Review: Skylarking by XTC

         When I first created this blog, this was one of the first things I wanted to do. Not specifically this album, of course, but I have always had a big interest in music. I decided that this would be a good foray into that, even if this is the only time I do this, because this is a phenomenal album.

Basedstein: Turn 4

         I actually had this all ready to go yesterday and I never clicked publish. Oh well. I think things will start to heat up soon, hopefully. There is some inaction on the parts of some players, which might partially be my fault for screwing up the pacing, though the actual cause of that in reality wasn't because of me. Anyways, here are the GOSS/SEEN reports: 

The Great Dungeon Crawl, Session 13: Attack of the Jotunns!

September 27th, 1084 Korlai Reckoning.
Recap written by Vic

Characters:
Krusher as "Fleck"
Omegaman as "Kojack"
Vic as "Buckles"
Teragen as "Bea"
A Paid Actors off the Street as "Gary" and "Steven"

        Kip Ironhead, a female thief, approached the delvers and came with a peace offering of a single blunt of orcweed. (Orcweed reduces the user’s IQ to 7, but gives the user extra levels of ST equal to the amount of IQ lost for a number of minutes equal to 10 x IQ-20.) Kip explained that her group is planning on sharing the cost of the Old Watcher Keep with the party as well, with Bea also funding the work on the keep.

The Great Dungeon Crawl, Pre-Session 13: Strange Happenings in Town

September 26th, 1084 Korlai Reckoning.

        In the afternoon of the 26th, a few adventurers from an unidentified party started climbing around on the statue of Skafith II in the center of town. Quite quickly, they managed to screw off one of his fingers and claimed whatever was inside, and didn't bother to put it back.

        While it wasn't clear who they were, many note that the adventurers were associated with the missing adventurers which Bob's Berserkers returned previously. They were five in number, or six if you count the mercenary which they had with them.

        On the evening of the 26th, a group of Antresian soldiers (6 in number) wearing thick hauberks along with lamellar wandered into town, joined by two Sternmen wearing similar armor but with furs along their shoulders. The group of eight were led by Jonas of Kent, an awfully smug Shireman. He is visiting the local area, probably surveying opportunities for mercantile connections.

        The group do carry the banner of the Kent family and are led by a Shireman Baron's Son, so harming them would either incur a hefty wergild payout for the Kent family or death for anyone trying to mess with them. In the meantime, however, they have taken up a few rooms in the Lonely Crest in Rosethorp, as both Rage Against the Wizard and the Princes of Agony have not been in town recently.

Doing Things in Downtime

         My players haven't been using their downtime very effectively. I think this is partially because I haven't really gone in-depth on what they could do in their downtime. So, here is a good list of what they could do in their downtime/offtime, sorted alphabetically. 

The Great Dungeon Crawl, Session 12: Those Who Seek The Infinite Treasure

September 20th, 1084 Korlai Reckoning.
Recap written by Vic

Characters:
Krusher as "Fleck"
Omegaman as "Kojack"
Vic as "Buckles"
Zomniak as "John"
A Paid Actor off the Street as "Gary"

        Fleck, Buckles, Kojack, and John headed out to the dungeon with their “specialist” Gary in tow. On the way there we see about seven orcs riding some spiny kind of large flightless bird-like creatures. They had a banner bearing a copper border with a boring brown backdrop, looked like it was part of a carpet ripped off and put on a pole. When they saw the party, they fled.

Basedstein: Turn 2 & 3

     We had the first hiccup in the game. Some personal things came up for me and disrupted my normal flow of things, which threw off turns 2 and 3. Which sucks, but hey, sometimes life happens. Things should hopefully get back on a normal schedule hopefully. Anyways, here are the SEEN reports for this week!

    Players: If I missed any, let me know ASAP and I will make a follow-up post remedying this!

My Thoughts on Template Toolkit 5

     Holy crap. This book is amazing. This is practically an entirely new game, changing how GURPS works fundamentally. I am still breaking it down, but I think that if the GM puts in the leg work they could easily make a DFRPG Lite (or similar) which would play similarly to how Douglas Cole of Gaming Ballistic's Mission X will hopefully play.

    Something that I think people haven't quite thought of yet, is making a version of GURPS made to be fast, simple, and fun. Something like a mid-point between Ultra-Lite and Lite. A potential character sheet could even list all skills on the sheet saving writing time! For my pen(cil)* and paper players, imagine how nice it would be to not have to spend a half-hour writing skill names!

    I will see if the mood strikes me to write things up for this, perhaps even a ruleset, but I do not see an interest among my players and I to go past the base-line complexity of GURPS into something much simpler, as we (I assume by their excitement from spreadsheets and complex rules) enjoy complexity more.

    I think the only thing I would nix is Destiny Points, instead offering Luck as a leveled ability. I personally don't like Destiny Points, and only allow Luck, because my players would hunt me down and skin me alive if I didn't let them take it.

    Overall this is a good splat and Kromm has once again produced a great thought experiment that has made me engage the grey mush between my ears. 

Basedstein: Turn 1

 This turn lasted from the 31st of August to the 6th of September.

    Some interesting things this week, ladies and gentlemen. Some wars are a brewin' in the County. Plus, we had our first battle this week!

The Great Dungeon Crawl, Session 11: On a Mission from God

September 6th, 1084 Korlai Reckoning.
Recap written by Vic

Characters:
Krusher as "Fleck"
Omegaman as "Kojack"
Vic as "Buckles"
A Paid Actor off the Street as "Robert"

    The party members (Fleck, Buckles, and Kojack) attended a memorial service at the temple for the fallen Grimnir, and Buckles was Blessed by the encounter. While the party tried to hire a cleric, they found none. They did hire Robert, however—a “specialist” of sorts—for 1% of the loot. After some time hiking, the party found the Halls of Horror’s secret staircase entrance, hidden under brambles and such.

Why Do They Keep Dying?

         In my games, death is something that kind of happens a lot. It has gotten to a point where I have a stack of character sheets in my bedroom of characters that have died, all labeled "dead" at the top in big letters. "Why?", you are probably asking at this point. The answer is: I hate my players with a burning passion!

Basedstein: Turn 0

    This turn lasted from the 1st of August to the 31st of August.

    This was the first turn of the Basedstein! Awesome! Things are going fine for now. A lot of the communication between players has been interesting and I am glad the messaging-scheme we are using is working out well. Below are some tidbits of information (GOSS/SEEN posts) that have some actions that players have been doing. Turn one starts on the 1st (it will be a shorter turn), which is exciting.