AP: Beyond the Breach Session 8 (Burning Wheel)

Session #8 is the second to last episode in the game as we are quickly reaching the end of the campaign.  I entitled this episode Connections since my plan was that each of the group’s members would spend most of their scenes working their individual connections or relationships to prepare for the coming battle.

Here are the scenes as they occurred.  Game mechanics are shown in italics.

It’s that time of the year again: It’s time to go through my podcast feeds and decide what will go and what will stay.  Here are my mini-reviews of the RPG podcasts I’m currently subscribed to and whether they will stay as part of my regular feed.

New since last time

The Power Source - exclusively 4E content. It’s relatively new and has very high production values – despite the fact that the two hosts are recording in two locations via the internet there are none of the normal phase or signal/noise problems many other podcasts have.  Of all the 4E-related podcasts, I think this one is the best since they seem to focus more on the story elements of the game and less about optimization. My main criticism of the show is that it’s simply too long (some of them are 2+ hours!) which makes them hard to listen to on the go and they are at risk of the all too common phenomenon of burning through all the good topics early and running out of steam by the end of the first year.

Session #6 of our ongoing ToEE campaign was a short one due to the fact that I got stuck in a meeting so we got a late start.  We picked up with the cliffhanger from Session #5 – namely one half of the group being ambushed by the treacherous Zort while the other assaulted Lareth’s lair.  As I’ve bemoaned before, I had two players missing and two of the missing players from last week show up, meaning we once again had a rotating cast.

It’s Zort!

Zort and his new friends (the orcs the group had subdued only 10 minutes earlier), attacked Howell and Xander.  Xander, now out of spells, turned to his quarter staff, cracking one of the orcs over the head and killing him outright.  Unfortunately another cut down the elf wizard, mortally wounding him.  Olaya (the druid), Kira, and Enzio rushed to the others aide, but got bogged down in the battle and Xander bled to death before the others could help him. Enzio went mano-y-mano with Zort, the two trading blows and barbed comments. Part of the exchange involved Zort repeatedly yelling “My name is Zort!” because the group has continued to refer to him a Zurg for some reason.  However, Zort eventually realized that he was outnumbered 4-to-1 and surrendered. Enzio promptly hit him over the head of with the pommel of his sword. Meanwhile, Howell ran off to get seek help from Salladhor and Tor.

Lareth’s Lair

Balder, Ada, and Irma took out the first couple of Lareth’s ..read more

Continue reading about Gaming with Kids: Temple of Elemental Evil (Session #6) »

I played some Dominion, sold a bunch of stuff (including every v3.5 D&D book I had), and bought over a dozen Reaper minis that were on clearance to diversity what the selection of PC minis I have.  Reaper’s Legends line, as well as some of their Exalted minis, has some really great minis; I even found one a “Battleguard Golem” that is for all intents and purposes a Warforged.  My one regret from the day was that I waited on buying Dawn Patrol box set I found at one dealer’s booth – I came back a couple hours later and it was gone – oh well, you snooze, you lose.

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I’ve been getting ready to run Tribe 8 for my regular group and so I’ve been slowly working my way through the books I’ve amassed over the last year. While I liked Tribe 8 from almost the minute I discovered it (which admittedly is a decade late), even more so now that I’ve read the first five books in the series.  I’m planning on reviewing the books as soon as I get a chance but here’s an overview in case you’ve never heard of it (which is highly likely).

Tribe 8 is a post-apocalyptic RPG and setting put out by Dream Pod 9 from 1998 until about 2004; while the game isn’t technically gone and even gets mentioned in DP9’s ezine from time to time, nothing new has come out in half a decade and it doesn’t look like that will change any time soon.  Which is a shame considering how rich, vivid, and evocative the setting is. So what is the setting about? Here’s how DP9 describes it:

Tribe 8 is a world of dream magic, supernatural horrors and Godlike figures called Fatimas — all painted on the backdrop of the ruins of the modern world.

The world of Tribe 8 was once the one we know today — skyscrapers, modern medicine, nine-to-five existence — but all that was wiped away by the arrival of supernatural terrors. Some called them demons, monsters or horrors, but their proper name ..read more

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I haven’t had the chance to write up the full story, but I went through hell recently while trying to get some RPGA/DCI cards for the students at the after-school club:  While we’re currently enjoying playing the Temple of Elemental Evil using OSRIC, I have run and am planning on in the future to run again, 4th edition so being able to run organized play events and get the students involved in the RPGA seemed like a good idea.  Suffice it to say that the WPN website is buggy and a freaking nightmare to navigate – the fact that there are multiple separate, but related, programs each with its own website and interface, alone makes it difficult to figure out what you need to do.  Throw in the fact that some links don’t work, the interfaces are all different, and some of the instructions contain errors or are outdated and it’s a total disaster.  In any event, despite following the directions on the WPN network, I kept getting the same error and contacting customer support the first couple times got me nothing but canned responses in which the service rep had cut & pasted the exact instructions had been using on the WPN website. Finally, after a very long, rational but clearly angry, email to them I got some help and a week later got my cards.

However, to my surprise, I came home today to find 4E ..read more

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Session #5 took place yesterday and saw the group make some rather rapid progress in exploring the dungeons thanks to the fact that they decided to take some prisoners.  The encounters described below are keyed to the map key of the image to give readers an idea of where the action took place.

Forget the ghouls

The group decided to leave the ghouls lone in their warrens since the narrow, low tunnels looked like a good place to stage an ambush. Instead they decided they could probably find where the tunnel lead by exploring the main dungeon. Towards that end, they set off down the corridor and came to a T junction. After some debate (during which Enzio announced “Never go down a level until you go up a level!” paraphrasing some Order of the Stick wisdom), the decided to turn left and head, according to Kira, north.  At the junction of the door and side corridor, they opted to head through the door but not before Howell noted that the door itself had been recently replaced.  Heading in to the room (#11), they discovered a living area, including a trestle table covered in dirty, pewter dishes. Again a short debate started over which way to head, which drew the attention of several of the dungeon’s inhabitants very quickly.

Orcs!

More than a half dozen orcs rushed from the adjoining room (#12) and attacked the group.  Irma and Irma rushed to the front and held ..read more

Continue reading about Gaming with Kids: Temple of Elemental Evil (Session #5) »

We picked up where we left off in Session #3, with the group continuing their exploration of the moathouse’s dungeon level.  I’ve referenced my commentary to the map key to give you an idea of where the action was happening.

It’s an undead….ogre?!?

A few of the group headed north in to a small room (#4), while others searched behind the piles of debris (#1) and amongst the torture chamber (#5) that adjoined the row of cells where the group had just defeated the skeletons.  Xander, Howell, and Salladhor discovered a pair of doors leading to several storerooms which were stocked with cheap, but new armor and weapons – clearly someone had recently stored them here. Meanwhile Olaya, Tor, and Irma uncovered a secret door hidden in one of the columns that supported the torture chamber’s ceiling and set to trying to figure out how to open it.

However, the real excitement awaited Kira, Enzio, Ada, and Balder who lifted a bar blocking a heavy door and stumbled upon the huge, rotting corpse of what appeared to be an ogre (#7) – half its face was a ruined mess, its left forearm bones jutting out of torn flesh, and a cloud of flies surrounding it.  The creature shambled forward as the group entered the room and a melee broke out.  In the end the foul creature was destroyed but not before its fetid breath had managed to cause Balder to ..read more

Continue reading about Gaming with Kids: Temple of Elemental Evil – (Session #4) »

Update: and I guess a lot of people loved the pictures ;op

Check out all the other pictures here.

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I’m late publishing this AP which is from our January game – I started writing it up and then forgot about it.  The good news is session #8 took place last night and I’ll be writing that up this week as well so I’ll be caught up and this week will be a two-for-one on Burning Wheel APs.  The episode’s title was The Tower for reasons that will be obvious once you read what happened.

Here are the scenes as they occurred. I’ve once again not included most of the info on game mechanics unless it was crucial since they break up the narrative.

This weekend my oldest son and I finally got a chance to play Dominion.  I bought the game last fall at Spiel 2009 but just haven’t had the time to sit down and play it. Luckily Niklas has been nagging me for us to try it and so I finally made some time – now I wish I had done so sooner.  What a great game.  The mechanics are super simple, and though they can be a bit difficult to follow on your first read through of them (they cover all of maybe 4 pages), the game is super intuitive if you start playing it at that point.  Niklas, who is 7, picked up the game very quickly and has no problems reading the text on most of the cards although I needed to explain what each meant the first time we played it.  An added benefit is that it’s taught him some pretty esoteric but useful vocabulary like estate, militia, and moat.  It also has a ton of replayability:  Our two games were nothing alike in terms of strategies, pace, or outcome. In any event, I probably will post a short review/description at a later date, but the game is well worth the price.

Continue reading about Finally played Dominion: I love it »

The Event brought the Sea of Leaves into our world, an immense forest that choked cities and drowned civilisation overnight. From the trees came the Call, a lure to the weak that decimated the population. In the aftermath only pockets of humanity remain, resisting the woods’ siren song. In the endless forests lurk the Lost – whose wills were drowned by the Call – and the Wild, who have forgotten they were ever human.

You are one of a select few who can resist the Call. A Drifter, hardened to the lure of the woods by the scars of the past, you cannot let go. Your torment shields you, but drives your isolation. More than anything you crave welcome in a community, but can never be truly accepted without leaving behind your past. To do that, you must confront and defeat the demons that haunt you.

Publisher: Fire Ruby Designs

Availability:

I’ve been looking at this game for some time, and recently picked up a copy of the PDF for the Revised and Expanded edition. The concept is simple and post-apocalyptic: the world as we know it is gone. Unlike most post-apocalyptic games though, it wasn’t our fault. The catastrophe is an unknown and mysterious Event. Overnight an ancient, mystical forest, filled with a siren’s Call, covers the world. Most people have succumbed to the Call and have disappeared in to ..read more

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