Pirate Game

Old Glory makes a line of 25mm pirates, including ships. I just joined their discount program, bought 60 pirates and two sloops. I'm starting a piratical D&D campaign with a world of my own design. Players will be privateer explorers who stumble upon a fantasy world in a distant sea. Fun should be abundant, along with adventure! So if you know me, and you're interested, just give me a ring, or an email, or a comment, or whatever.

Third Session

The PCs (two more friends played today) helped a group of giants kill some marauding orcish pirates, and collected the necessary adamantium weapons for use against the main villain's golems. Together, they defeated almost two hundred orcs. Facing a siege they would lose, they charged up a staircase and killed enough to make the rest surrender. Not much humor in this session, but the combat was intense. They fought the good fight, and fought it well. More challenges await.

Second Session

The characters move to counter the golem threat: they're collecting adamantium weapons. The PCs met some more quality NPCs in the form of a healer and a fighter. They also struck a deal with a powerful collector of items, and have agreed to be his agents. Most of the session was set in the Valley of the Dead Gods: it's a carnival run by Gnolls with Italian Mafiosi names. I like a bit of humor in the adventures I run. Now, the characters are on a quest to Adamantium Island, an island run by giants who forge adamantium mined from the island in the island's volcano. I've got a little surprise for them; we'll see how they react.

First Session

We've got a gnomish bard and a half-orc barbarian. I've introduced the main adversary, and introduced the conditions of the conflict: massive inflation caused by devaluing the gold standard present in so many fantasy games. Twenty golems and thousands of peasants threaten the PCs and their social classes. It should be fun to see how they work through it.

Dungeons and Dragons

This is the rebirth of Jacob's Brother. I'm starting a D&D game with some friends; it should be cool. I ran the same introductory module a long time ago for a different set of friends; I liked it so much that I decided I'd do it again.

The setting is a world of my own design that doesn't follow the usual power to responsibility scale of most D&D worlds. In most D&D worlds, ninth level characters are disproportionately powerful to their stations in life, particularly spell casters. Ninth level characters should make most people quake in their boots, and hold all kinds of power. To accomplish this redistribution of power, I made the environment very small: there aren't a lot of people around. I also put an absolute cap on challenge ratings for any figure with interests on the world, including deities. There's nothing above CR 24 in my world. If you're ninth level, you usually have a settlement or two under your domain; thirteenth level characters usually become important vassals to kings or part of a ruling oligarchy. I also slowed down character level progression. I'm going to reduce xp by half. My adventures tend to be combat-oriented, so that means level advancements about every other sessions.

The plot will be cool. If the game goes through, I'll post an update after every session. For readers of Struggles with Words, this blog will be a welcome departure from my real life. I love distractions.

Update

Wow, it's been a while. I'll start from the top

My bloodbowl playoff game went horribly. I lost both bull centaurs and the minotaur at the beginning of the second half; the other team lead 3-1 despite my scoring first. He failed one roll the entire game. When dice are that hot, there's nothing I can do about it.

I'm playing in a 40k storyline campaign. I just trounced my first opponent. I'm playing the Khorne Daemon army; I haven't mentioned it before. Basically it runs on getting one squad somewhere near the enemy deployment zone, then summoning in my demons: flesh hounds (think of them as cavalry), and bloodletters (very deadly, very hard-to-kill infantry).

I'm also playing in a Warmachine league. I'm off to Other Realms shortly to buy some more figs for my army, and get in a league game or two. My army for this league is Cygnar, and my general is Captain Victoria Haley. She slows down opponents and makes them easier to hit. I'm trying to cram as many guns as possible into this army for obvious reasons.

Blood Bowl Playoffs

ugh. I accidentally posted this over at my other blog. It's here now, though.

My Chaos Dwarf team, throuh head bashing, intimidation, and only winning required games, managed to have a losing season but make the playoffs with the highest team rating. Blood bowl is a screwed-up game, especially under Other Realms rules. Basically, my bull centaurs take the ball and run with it, taunt the opposing team to come and take it, and run it into the endzone as my blockers, minotaur, and hobgoblins cause problems for the defense. I think if I might try to be the next league's commissioner, and run Blood Bowl with the Vault rules (that's the latest play-tested rules for those not in the know). I think I'll try my hand at a skaven team while I'm at it. team list follows:

7 line rats (basic nobodies, they're fast and cheap)
2 passer rats (think of them as a pair of quarterbacks)
2 stormvermin (these guys would play fullback and linebacker on a real football team)
2 gutter runners (wide receivers, the fastest in the game)

Basic strategy: play tough and fast, score as often as possible. The main goal of the team is to get as many star player points (think of them as levels in D&D) as possible, and hope to roll doubles (two dice with the same result on both) so I can get mutations instead of the standard skills availiable on non-doubles. Gutter runners will get two heads, stormvermin and line rats will get claws, and the passer rats will get strong arms. It's a plan, I suppose we'll see if it works.