Tag: D&D

Posted on

Old Dwarven Forge Pictures–Arena

[Originally posted on the Dwarven Forge forums 2010 Jan 27. Game dates 2009 Dec 01 and Dec 29]]

In a Forgotten Realms game my friend has been running between my regular games (utilizing a completely home-brewed rules system he created), our characters were hired out to escort a group of cargo-bearing lizardmen north along the Sword Coast to Luskan. Turns out, we were part of the “delivery” to the slavers. After putting up a good fight – unexpectedly on the part of our GM, who thought we would just lay down arms, we were subdued and forced to fight in the arena.

I remembered having just seen an incredible arena on the forums, so I tried channeling dudebird as I hastily created one from the 2 cavern sets I have.

We were split into two “teams”, and were given descriptions of the other gladiators on the opposing team. We had to pair up and choose a duo on the opposing team to fight.

This was the slaver’s complex, with the natural cavern serving as the arena; one side held the “box-seats” for the boss, and a pair of elevated platforms on each side had archers ready to shoot anyone who didn’t participate or tried to flee. We actually ended the game getting put into the arena that day, so the pictures below was us recreating just the arena portion from memory.

Arena

The arena layout, and the teams facing off. The last is a picture of my minotaur weaponmaster laying the smackdown on two of the lizardscum who sold us off into slavery and had volunteered to join in the arena for fun; they didn’t expect us to rain on their parade. 😎

Enjoy!

BILD0948

BILD0946

BILD0949

Posted on

Old Dwarven Forge Pictures–First Battle

I’ve been going through my old Dwarven Forge posts on the forums and remembered that a lot of the old pictures were deleted during a software error around 3 years ago. I have many of them still, so decided to repost them to my blog for future interest. This was also incentive for me to go through my old pictures and files to clean up my hard drive and organize.

[Originally posted on the Dwarven Forge forums 2004 Nov 24]

My first real use of the Dwarven Forge stuff in my home D&D game. I didn’t have enough floor pieces to really re-create the large cavern, so I used the battlemat as the base and the DF stuff for walls and a raised area.

This was for our first and longest running D&D 3.0 game – the Frozen North. They PCs had ended up in Wallachia, Ravenloft, after tracking down the “funny man” – a Vampire that was kidnapping children. He lived in a cavern that was made of pourous volcanic rock. His “coffin” was inside the raised porous rock, and when reduced to 0 hp and turned into gaseous form, he retreated under it, making it quite an ordeal for them to get to his body before he regenerates.

Pictures Taken 2004 Aug 28

IMG_1421

IMG_1418

IMG_1417

IMG_1419

IMG_1416

IMG_1420

Posted on

AD&D A2 – Stockyards of the Slavelords, Part 2.1

My group wanted to finish playing A2, so this past holiday weekend, I continued where we left off last. As the party recuperated from the battle with the goblins, the Cleric/Magic-User and Paladin left to summon more help. In their stead, a human dual-classed Monk/Magic-User, a dwarven Fighter/Thief, a half-orc Fighter/Cleric and a human Ranger joined the group from among the rescued slaves. (The Paladin’s player couldn’t make it and the other wanted to switch PCs; three other players also joined – 2 first time AD&D players and 1 new to RPGs!)
 
Having rested up, the reinforced group opened the secret door concealed in the back of the surprisingly clean iron maiden. The rough worked stone passageway slowly filled with a mist as they worked their way forward. Some dozen yards later, it ended in a steep falloff to a new floor some 30 feet down. The scouts had no problem descending, and re-ascending 50 feet further ahead where the passageway continued.
 
As the group proceeded forward again, they unworked stone corridor began to once again show signs of having been worked.
 
Turning the corner and proceeding, a sudden horn blast echoed toward them from ahead as a net dropped onto the middle of the group. With only a moment to catch their breath, the forward guards raise their defenses just in time to see a group of wolf-riding goblins charge from around the bend into the entangled midst!
 
AD&D A2
Falling net trap!
 
A frantic battle ensued, leading to a defeat of the goblins, but not without casualties on the side of the heroes. The newly rescued Dwarven Fighter/Thief and Monk/Magic-User were amongst the dead; the former claiming some vengeance on his captors before this fall, but the latter falling to the charging goblins before he had a chance to act.
 
AD&D A2
 
AD&D A2
Fallen heroes
Posted on

New gamers!

My friend’s kids have gotten to the age where they can “get” TTRPG. As others have noted, with the popularity of MineCraft, many middle-school aged kids now are very familiar with the D&D tropes (hit points, experience points, leveling, skeletons and monsters, etc!), so it’s a small jump to tabletop RPGs.
This weekend, we had a little gaming convention with a bunch of friends; as a prelude, I ran the little ones through some introductory D&D games. I gave them free reign with Dwarven Forge tiles to build some layouts, then gave them a scenario.
The farmers from the outlying fields to the west failed to show at the last few market days; travelers from that direction gave reports of monsters lurking in the tall unharvested corn stalks. Since the Greyhawk Wars two decades ago, the adolescent PCs were the only able bodied men and women in Hommlett who could be spared to go an investigate…

First game for Lee boys!
First game for Lee boys!
Posted on

Why a Star Wars RPG is so fun

One of the most difficult things about starting up a new campaign is filling all the players in about the background of the setting such as important events and peoples in the world, all while doing so without boring them out of their minds. I’ve been recently reading through the Game of Thrones series (or, rather, the Song of Ice and Fire series for the purists) and would love to run a game in that setting; it’s dark and gritty, with many multi-faceted individuals all intent on their own goals and agendas. But, there’s no way I could convey even the basics of the background of Aegon the Conqueror and the Seven Kingdoms, Mad Aerys and Robert’s Rebellion, or the Seven gods and the weirwoods in a reasonable blurb.

I mean, face it, we have all had (or been) players that could care less about the difference between a Lannister and a Stark without just wanting to know whom to attack and which dice to roll for the attack. And, save all (or at least, the majority) having read some of the books, it would quickly and easily turn into a generic fantasy campaign without a great deal of work on the GM’s part to constantly drag the player’s into the world. It’s often hard enough to keep players focused on the game without going off on tangents as it is…

And so, that’s a HUGE reason I’m thoroughly enjoying running my Star Wars Dawn of Defiance campaign right now. Regardless of what players may think about the validity of Episodes I-III, or how the d20 Saga doesn’t do this right, ALL of us know the Star Wars universe. I don’t need to fill them in on how a senator named Palaptine was recently elevated to Emperor, or how there was once a religious order called the Jedi that was decimated by his right hand man Darth Vader, or even that a Twi’lek is a humoid creature with long head tentacles. We all have the same background knowledge of the world, and its as simple as saying the Wookie bounty hunter wears a bandolier of thermonuclear detonators that fills the same image in all the players minds (and identifies him as one mean NPC not to mess with).

Prior to starting this campaign last year, we’d been playing in the World of Greyhawk for close to the past 10 years, well, actually, probably longer than that; and even then, it was still very much “wait, Veluna is a theocracy also? I thought it was the Theocracy of Pale?” With this being the first time I’m regularly running a “shared background” game, the difference is so refreshing!

I think in the past, that was why I enjoyed running games like Shadowrun, Dark Matter, or more recently, Gamma World – I could set it in the context of the real world, a truly shared background. In the future, I think this could very well be a much larger draw to bringing in others who otherwise aren’t inclined to game with us. In particular, I’m thinking of all our wives/girlfriends, who wouldn’t come near our games now agreeing to play a game based in the Harry Potter or Twilight universe.