uthoroc

Our fresh Deadlands Reloaded campaign has been a lot of fun. Last time we set an ambush for a posse of outlaws and mowed them down in a blazing gunfight.

In keeping with the Savage World philopsophy, we've been using miniatures (which is rare for our group). So far, it's been cheap paper miniatures, but now I've started painting as metal minis to at least represent our characters. It's the first time I'm painting Wild West figures, and it's been a lot of fun. I've done half the party by now.

( Take a peek if you want to see the minis... )

The third session is tonight, and it looks like for the first time we might face the supernatural part of the setting. Looking forward to it.

Monday evening, first game session of Deadlands: Reloaded coming up...



I had just too much fun with the Whitewash City paper model set by Eric Hotz. More images can be found in my Deadlands gallery.

Yesterday I finally had the chance to play some 3-16: Carnage among the Stars at a small convention in Essen, run by members of the DnDGate forum. I picked it up at Dragonmeet last year and have been itching to try it ever since.

So after playing in A Burning Wheel session, getting some food and bagging a copy of the Savage Worlds Explorer's Edition in a round of "Wichteln", I grabbed three players and off we went on our first ( bug hunt ).

The session took about two and a half hours including rules explanation and character generation. It went very well, although we were still feeling our way around the style and detail of the game. For example I was a bit hazy on the movement rules, and we missed the opportunity to move the troopers on the chart a few times. I had planned to run a second mission if the first went quickly and smoothly (which it did), but felt a bit tired from the day of gaming and not quite up to GMing again. Luckily one of the players (Trooper Daker) offered to take a shot at GMing a session himself, and I was happy to do a second session as a player. Another latecomer to the con showed up, and we drafted him into the game too. We rolled up a planet and off we went on the ( mission to the volcanic planet of the apes ).

Overall we had about 3.5 hours of of good fun. The game was definitely "about the missions", as expected for a starting game of 3:16. But I can see that it might develop into a very different direction with time. Unfortunately this was only a convention game, and we'll be unable to continue the story of Sergeant Bicker, Corporals Dox, Daker and Payne, and Trooper Crusher.

Good stuff.

You know how I came across his site? When doing research for my Congo-based Esoterrorists adventure I ran in 2007, I stumbled upon another article on war crimes in Congo of his. Read at your own risk. Truth is more horrible than fiction.

Just recently I became aware of boxninja's game "3:16 - Carnage among the stars", a small press rpg about space troopers fighting a never-ending war among the stars - obviously inspired by classics like Starship Troopers, Traveller, Aliens, Warhammer 40k, Space Crusade and others.

I read the the short-but-intriguing session report by robin-d-laws and consequently picked up a copy at Dragonmeet. I read it through on the train back home and really liked what I saw. Hopefully I'll get a session together here soon.

I really dug the combat system and the neat range placement mat. And of course the cartographer kicked in, itching to create a CC3 version. So I took the star system template from October's Annual issue and played around with some effect settings to create this little thing (posted with Gregor's permission).



I think it came out pretty nice. Click below to download the large version and see a shot of the printed map with some old Space Crusade minis I dug up.

( Click for more pictures )

The third session of my new Jhendor campaign is looming tonight and you will find the third map of the "a-map-a-session" program ( behind the cut ).

Remember my a-map-a-session program?

Well, my Jhendor campaign's next session is scheduled for tonight and I didn't have my map for the session yet. So I whipped up a quick village map with City Designer 3. This took me about 30-40 minutes, including printing.

( Map behind the cut )

We played our second session of DnD 4E on Wednesday night ... and I remain definitely underwhelmed.

I get the feeling that - at least for us - it is "neither fish nor meat" as we say in German. The role-playing veneer is extremely thin and cracks and blisters under the slightest stress, and the tactical combat aspect is done better in board games like Descent. The Hybrid that 4E attempts does not seem to work for me - although I admit that two sessions is probably not enough to give such a final verdict.

There's some specific criticisms I have though which I don't think time will be able to counteract:

1. As so many "modern" rpg designs, it demands that each player is fairly fluent in the game's mechanisms. A basic familiarity does not seem to be enough or the other players will be constantly telling you what to do or not to do. We have players that would rather say "I run up to him and swing my axe at him" as opposed to "with my move action I move these 5 spaces until I'm next to him, then as my standard action I use my encounter power Flashy Overhead Double-handed Power Strike to attack him." The game does not cater to this type of gamer.

2. The d20. *sighs* It's a nice die, sure. But its variance is way too high. There's nothing as demoralizing as using your super-duper, high-energy, once per-day, mega-power to give that master villain a good kick in the backside .... just to roll a 4. Oh, I missed. Well, better luck tomorrow. Yeah, the possibility of failure must be there, but with the spread of results on a d20 it's much too common.

Our DM had lost of fun it seems and I haven't talked with the other players about the session yet, but I'd rather play a session of Descent or a role-playing game like Delta Green or Savage Worlds next time...

The next role-playing campaign looms on the horizon ... and I have a new-campaign's resolution. I want to create at least one map for each session. I have neglected mapping for my own games (and my own enjoyment) far too much in recent years. It's time to change that.

Although the first game session is not scheduled before September 19th, I have the first map for the "A Map A Session" program ready. It's an overview of the general area the campaign will take place, and shows a lot of places the characters have visited in previous campaigns and their geographical relation to each other.

( See the map behind the cut... )

And the next session... slowly catching up.

( Read more... )

On we go with session 11 of the Cthulhu in Weimar campaign ... still in German I'm afraid.

( Read more... )

Well, there's a long hard road ahead of me to get this game journal uptodate. I don't know whether I'll go it all the way, but here I start...

( Read more... )