Tag: Greyhawk

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Old Dwarven Forge Pictures-Misc

Another repost with pictures… This was probably the biggest layout I had made up until that point. I had been collecting DF for a several years, but didn’t really have chances to use it reguarly or often until then.

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[Originally posted on Dwarven Forge forums 2007 Dec 15. Game date 2007 Jan 27.]

More random pics from the days before that Star Wars game…

This was taken during a Living Greyhawk mod I was running

1) The two parts (i didn’t have enough room to connect them): The abandoned mines the goblins were using as a hideout (in the background) which led to the underground pool slightly lower (in the foreground)

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2) Even before entering into the mines, the PC’s have discovered the goblins’ penchant for traps…

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3) … especially for Stump, the dwarvedn rogue/fighter who manages to fail something like 15 Reflex saves in a row.

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4) Fighting one of the goblin shaman’s and his pet

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5&6) The pool room which even the goblins avoid…

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7) … because of the Otyugh that lives there!! (well… ok, so i didn’t have to correct mini… 😎

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8) AJ having fun with the DF afterwards

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Old Dwarven Forge Pictures–Fane of Tiamat

This was originally posted on the Dwarven Forge forums. At the time I had been playing a lot of Living Greyhawk, and they had allowed some of the commerical products to be used in home LG games. The Red Hand of Doom was a well written, and quite fun module that I ran my home group through. Looking for the pictures to repost, hard to imagine that was almost 10 years ago now!

There was also a project undertaken by the forum folks to build a mapping program by taking pictures of the tiles from above and make renderings from them. It was called TileMapper and worked very well. Its not in development anymore as there is a DF produced version with the successful kickstarters now.

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Hey guys! Sorry I haven’t been around – been having a great gaming since I got a regular group together…

For the past 9 months, I’ve been running them through Red Hand of Doom as a Living Greyhawk campaign. It’s been a blast, and now they’re about ready to head off to the BBEG’s HQ, so it’s my chance to show off some more DF once again!

Thanks the TileMapper crew, I’ve been able to preplan the map and I wanted to get some feedback about it before we play in a couple of week. Rater than try to recreate the map exactly, I went for a similar feel while making it doable with DF. Specifically, are there any suggestions for the hallway between room 3 and 4?

Fane of Tiamat level 1

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Fane of Tiamat level 1_Draw

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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
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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!
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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.