Fringes of Khorvaire, Session 3
The third session of Fringes of Khorvaire was a mini-session more than anything else. Just a social encounter with Qolleb, the leader of a band of treasure hunting orcish freelancers. In all honesty, this really served a[...]Read on >>
[TotalCon 2010] The Unexplained: Spirits Among the Ruins
This, regrettably, is where Saturday unraveled for me. Back when I preregistered, I hadn’t considered the effect of scheduling three investigation-heavy role-playing games in a row. It got rather tedious to go thro[...]Read on >>
Federation-Apocalypse Session 105 – The Chill of the Night
March 12, 2010 from The Emergence Campaign Logs
Filed under: RPG, RPG Hub, campaign log, dungeons & dragons
So, they’d been traveling across Necropolis to reach Necropolis. Bloody confusing of the realm’s discoverers to simply give the place the name of the first city they’d arrived in there.
OK, it was hard to[...] Filed under: RPG, RPG Hub, campaign log, dungeons & dragons
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Races of Eden: The Athirua
The Athirua set the standard for physical perfection that all of Adel aspires to, their beauty said to transcend even that of the Spirits. Throughout the history of Eden the scattered Athirua were whispered of as artifac[...]Read on >>
Blowing in to Beregost
We left the Friendly Arm Inn the next morning and headed south for Nashkel. All the talk at the inn of bandits on the road had everyone on edge, but eight hours of travel passed without a single encounter. I urged everyo[...]Read on >>
It’s Called Tabletop Gaming Not “Rebooting My Laptop” Gaming
Watching my fellow players and their fixation with technology in the past months has got me thinking quite a bit about the place of technology at the gaming table. They use their iPhones to store their character stats, r[...]Read on >>
Newbies, Glorantha, and Magic
It was Alter Ego’s weekly club night on Tuesday. They’re the Helsinki University RPG club, one of the two RPG clubs I hang out with (it’s not that one club isn’t enough for my geekiness, it’[...]Read on >>
Lost in Space
In scifi, even if you can travel between planets, systems and stars, space is huge. Even if you can travel long distances relatively fast, it doesn't take away the fact, that space is infinite. Even if humanity has found[...]Read on >>
The Hidden Cure of Teziir
Characters: Cheynar, Illdric, JadeBlade, Janora, Torvic NPCs: Theo Miltan Synopsis: At the Smelted Horse, Janora gathers together several transplants of the Adventurers Guild of Threshold. The ranger has used her [...]Read on >>
The Westgate Extraction – The Tower
Characters: Alyssic, Aramir, Forkbeard, Sentalial, Trizoon,NPCs: NoneSynopsis: With the office level silent, the Defenders of the Dragon Coast stand in the Tower of Westgate facing two flights of stairs. There is some m[...]Read on >>
Stock Characters In Your RPGs
March 10, 2010 from The Spirits of Eden
Filed under: Campaigns, D&D 4e, Fluff/Inspiration, Legacy D&D, RPG, RPG Hub
My NPCs never die. This is not to say that they are invincible. They can surely be reduced to 0 HP and never seen again in that particular game. But that only gives them new life, a life beyond the confines of any single[...] Filed under: Campaigns, D&D 4e, Fluff/Inspiration, Legacy D&D, RPG, RPG Hub
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For Those Of You Playing Along At Home
The question’s been raised as to precisely which books I’ll be using for our upcoming Traveller campaign. The following are what’s being counted on as of now.Traveller Core Rulebook OR Pocket Rulebook (Mongoose Pub[...]Read on >>
Recordings from the Holocron of Kira Keldav – Session 3
Here we have another player log submission for the Star Wars game. As always, such submissions are worth bonus experience points. – in this case, of course, for Kira Keldav. We returned to the planet of [...]Read on >>
Chapter 17, Part 1 "The Acid and Radiation Storm"
The Adventurers:Buzz Brazelhach - Womanizing Australian Fightin' BlokeCorporal Radar O'Reiley - Naive Earth Boy Rocket SoldierDickie Dee - Bone Man Sorcerer Junkie"Doctor Death" - Mutant SorcererJedediah - 1850s Hayseed [...]Read on >>
Chapter 16, Part 2 "The Arrogant Sorcerer and the Smirking Guard"
Part I Here.The next day Buzz Brazelhach sets out into Canyx with two goals: To meet with the Baron of Canyx to discuss his collection of guns; and to hustle up some female companionship.The guards at the Baron's Manor e[...]Read on >>
Gaming With Significant Others: An Addendum or My Response to Having the Lightning Train Swallowed By An Elemental
So far, so good has been my motto. My husband and I have been gaming partners for going on 3 years with no incidents. He’s often the DM or GM and I never feel singled out, either for positive rewards or harsh p[...]Read on >>
(3.5) The Company of the Combustable Commode Pt 3
So, as I stated in the first post, the summary is pretty much how this long running group got their name. It’s been, probably, the best D&D campaign I’ve ever run and the first game in general in my yea[...]Read on >>
Weekend Breakdown
Blimey, I had a busy weekend of gaming and gaming-related activity. In particular order — that is, chronologically sorted and neatly placed in nested lists — this weekend, I: Carb and protein and fat and oil[...]Read on >>
(3.5) The Company of the Combustable Commode Pt 2
The bard’s presence, of course, served as a distraction for the rest of the taproom and very few people took notice of a small group of adventurers coming in from the cold. A Dwarf was in the lead and upon hearing [...]Read on >>
Black Rose, Part 2
March 8, 2010 from The Other Side
Filed under: Character, Other Systems, Play, RPG Hub, World Building
Continuing on one of the things I need to figure out is how Ravenloft and Aldea come together. This is a two parter really. I need to figure out game-wise how the fit; is Aldea pulled into Ravenloft, is Raven[...] Filed under: Character, Other Systems, Play, RPG Hub, World Building
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Enter Traveller
I can count on one hand the number of Total Party Kills I've had as a Game Master over the years. Friday night, I almost added one to that number.I won't go into all the gory details, save it to say the group rolled two[...]Read on >>
Can There Be A Perfect Roleplaying Game?
March 8, 2010 from Roleplayingpro
Filed under: Game Sessions, RPG, RPG Hub, dungeons & dragons, roleplaying
One of the struggles my gaming groups have gone through ever since I started playing was finding ‘the perfect game’. We always seemed to be in search of a game that has the perfect setting and perfect system for our [...] Filed under: Game Sessions, RPG, RPG Hub, dungeons & dragons, roleplaying
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Genegrafting, Genetic Engineering, and Anthropomorphics in d20, Part II
Avian – and Chiropteran (Bat) – genegrafts, anthropomorphs, and hybrids, are possible under the game rules. More practically, however, they’re mostly undesirable, at least in comparison to other select[...]Read on >>
An Example of How Shorter Games are Cinematic Games: A New Hope
So, previously I mentioned how only having a couple hours a week to game makes things more cinematic (aka, like a movie). For proof, I offer up A New Hope. We’ll cover the first couple sessions, then fill out the r[...]Read on >>
Playing it right
Well, I have hit a stone wall (or is that a duracrete wall?) in regards to the Star Wars Saga Theatres of War campaign. It’s been flagging for more than a while now, I was starting to worry and then I heard back f[...]Read on >>
Ask The GMs: Penetrating the veil of mystery
March 7, 2010 from Campaign Mastery
Filed under: Adventure Prep, DM Advice, Game Mastering, Inspiration, RPG Hub
Why are mysteries so hard?
Campaign Mastery was asked,
I’m making a Hero System 5.5 campaign for some of my friends. I wanted to do a non-power game that was mystery based. First session went off fine, and I [...] Filed under: Adventure Prep, DM Advice, Game Mastering, Inspiration, RPG Hub
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A Visit to the Land of Imagination
Good morning, I hope everyone’s Sunday is going well. Today, we’re taking a little tour of the Land of Imagination, where we’ll take a look at some of the retro and cool toys, put out by Fisher Price’s Imaginex[...]Read on >>
Rob Conley’s Awesome Map
For the Middle Isles campaign that I've been working intermittently on, Rob Conley was awesome enough to take my crappy map here:And turn it into something like this:Needless to say, I am ecstatic--the res is much higher[...]Read on >>
Chapter 16, Part 1 "Certain Essential Salts"
The Adventurers:Buzz Brazelhach - Womanizing Australian Fightin' BlokeCorporal Radar O'Reiley - Naive Earth Boy Rocket SoldierDickie Dee - Bone Man Sorcerer JunkieJedediah - 1850s Hayseed Southerner Fightin' ManJek-Mor -[...]Read on >>
Where do you game at?
When we first started gaming in our current home, I would set up one card table to DM from, one to put my battle-map on and everyone else would sit on the couches and use TV trays. This set-up worked just fine, except it[...]Read on >>
Tim’s Campaign – Session 4 Podcast
The druid Blindheart has been tainted by a black crystal and after the group destroys it he is released from its power. [...]Read on >>
Mapping Methodology Update
I now have a 'player map' for the surrounds of the Keep. I have given this to the players and said this is what they can see from the lookout towers at the keep. Note that I have brushed out all the numbered encounters t[...]Read on >>
The Characterisation Puzzle: The Thumbnail Method
March 5, 2010 from Campaign Mastery
Filed under: Adventure Prep, Encounter Design, Game Mastering, Inspiration, RPG Hub, advice
This is technique number 1 for getting inside your character’s heads. It’s something I was taught in a Graphic Design course that I completed back in 1992 – so here we are 18 years later, and it’[...] Filed under: Adventure Prep, Encounter Design, Game Mastering, Inspiration, RPG Hub, advice
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Star Wars: Episode 3, Session 2
Here we have another player-prospective segment of campaign log for the Star Wars game. It’s always revealing to compare two different player logs for the same session… In any case, like pretty much any game[...]Read on >>
[TotalCon 2010] Call of Cthulhu: Curse of the Betrothed
Call of Cthulhu beckoned me on Saturday morning. It’s one of those games that inspires as many different interpretations as there have been of Lovecraft’s mythos in general. Pulp adventure with tommy guns and[...]Read on >>
The opening crawl, the perfect campaign intro
As a Level 1 GM, I have not had the opportunity for much table time as a player. So I think I have witnessed three campaign intros at the most in-person, two done by experienced people. Everyone basically had the same so[...]Read on >>
Recordings from the Holocron of Kira Keldav – Session Two
Here we have one character’s view of the events of the second Star Wars session with only one small edit. After coming to the surface at the end of the second day, we took stock of the situation. I wan[...]Read on >>
Sir Arden Hardane
Here we have the background for one of the early, playtest, Eclipse characters – in this case a young nobleman from a vaguely Arthurian world who possessed a modest (and quite acceptable) healing talent –[...]Read on >>
Our Next Campaign: Alternity
For our next campaign, we’re going Sci-Fi. We’ll be using the Alternity ruleset. Written by Bill Slavicsek and Richard Baker it was published by TSR in 1998, it had a short but bright life. There’s stuf[...]Read on >>
Review: Kingdom Builder Generator Pack
March 3, 2010 from The Spirits of Eden
Filed under: Campaigns, D&D 4e, Fluff/Inspiration, Legacy D&D, RPG, RPG Hub, news
Chaotic Shiny is well-known for its many generators, so a product like this is long awaited. While opening up a web browser is not exactly inconvenient, having a bunch of generators in one place is a lot better an option[...] Filed under: Campaigns, D&D 4e, Fluff/Inspiration, Legacy D&D, RPG, RPG Hub, news
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(3.5) The Company of the Combustable Commode Pt 1
So, earlier, I made mention that I had plans to revive my old, long standing 3.5 campaign that went on hiatus several years ago. In preperation for this undertaking, I began fishing through my old notes today, trying t[...]Read on >>
Races of Eden: The Iomadi
At the twilight of humanity, another race rose to take their place. The Iomadi were the most fertile and prosperous of the new races, and now have the largest population in the world. Most of any crowd one looks at will [...]Read on >>
Mapping Outdoors: What’s the best way?
I have worked the original module B2-Keep on the Borderlands, into my group's D&D3.5 game. The party are trying to find the lair of a White Dragon, which is ravaging the lands and cities held by their patron, Lord Le[...]Read on >>
Federation-Apocalypse Session 104b – The Loco Parentis
The outfitters simply decreed her to be eighteen, to have inherited a lot of money from her now-deceased parents, and that she had custody of her adopted younger brother. It wasn’t like he couldn’t keep up with [...]Read on >>
Federation-Apocalypse Session 104a – Explosive Investigations
Ruth headed for to Pops office. She REALLY had to find out more about “Kevin” – even if that wasn’t much of a name for a false god! She half expected Kevin’s pantheon to be a bunch of teenage g[...]Read on >>
Federation-Apocalypse Session 103b – Malignant Operations
Brenner was quite glad that he’d decided to condition the crew. Otherwise they never would have agreed to sail off the edge of a world… Even for him it was a shock as the ship changed around him, picking up [...]Read on >>
Virgin DM Monologues: A Tale of Two Suspects and Five Unlikely Pirates
Did you know that warforged can come down with lycanthropy? Neither did we.[...]Read on >>
Federation-Apocalypse Session 103a – Dr Brenner Unleashed
Over in the Linear Realms, Dr Brenner was stretching the limits of his organization… He didn’t want to try and move too far up the existing syndicate chain of command, or he’d risk losing control – b[...]Read on >>
Ask The GMs: Essential Game Master Skills
March 2, 2010 from Campaign Mastery
Filed under: Adventure Prep, DM Advice, Game Mastering, Play, RPG Hub, advice, behind the screen, campaign setting
What are the essential skills of a GM?
Loz is a frequent contributor to the comments here at CM. So when he submitted a question to Ask The GMs, we were inclined to pay close attention. Here’s what he had to [...] Filed under: Adventure Prep, DM Advice, Game Mastering, Play, RPG Hub, advice, behind the screen, campaign setting
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Stonehell: the Joys of Megadungeons
We had a very good session with the kids exploring Stonehell last night, and it was gratifying to see that one of the primary features of a megadungeon that you return to again and again has started to p[...]Read on >>






















































































































