Random Table: Ship Names

Posted on March 28, 2013 by Jeffrey Tadlock

Art – Johnny Automatic

This week’s random table is a list of ship names. This is certainly not the first random table of ship names or even the biggest. But the ship names here should all drop easily into a campaign. So the next time your characters are looking for passage or simply strolling along the docks, you have some handy ship names at hand!

Roll a d20 on the below table and the ship in the harbor has a name!

Have suggestions for next week’s table? Feel free to leave some ideas in the comments of this post or over on Google+!

Roll (d20)	Ship Name
1	Wolf of the Waters
2	The Swimming Rat
3	The Oaken Cask
4	The Shimmering Sea
5	Green Emerald
6	The Three Mistresses
7	The Lillian McKursky
8	Angel’s Asylum
9	The Twilight Star
10	Fawnra’s Pride
11	The Plying Pauper
12	The Two-Hearted Mermaid
13	Wayward Siren
14	The Lucky Albatross
15	The Whispering Sail
16	Adelaide
17	The Tempest Tempter
18	The Trinity
19	Silver Sea Spider
20	The Raging Prophet

G+ Event Banners

Posted on March 27, 2013 by Jeffrey Tadlock

I started converting some of the maps I have drawn into G+ Event Banners for my own games. I think they came out looking pretty good and more banners for use in scheduling your RPG related events is always a good thing!

To use these banners for your own events right click and save the image to your own computer. When creating your G+ Event you can choose Change Theme and select the Upload option. Drag the uploaded image to the box or browse to the location you downloaded the map banners to.

Enjoy!

Lesser Gnome Games Swag

Posted on March 26, 2013 by Jeffrey Tadlock

My Lesser Gnome Games swag arrived late last week! Lesser Gnome Games had a presence at Gary Con this year, but circumstances prevented me from attending as I had hoped. Instead Zach of Lesser Gnome Games shipped me a T-shirt for his upcoming Kickstarter, Whisper & Venom, and the Thopas the gnome mini!

If you haven’t heard of Lesser Gnome Games or their upcoming Kickstarter, Whisper & Venom, it is well worth following what they have in the works.

The Kickstarter for Whisper & Venom is coming in June of 2013. The product is a boxed adventure bundle for use with fantasy RPGs. The adventure and setting will not be system specific, but it seems it will have old school sensibilities.

From the Facebook page for Lesser Gnome Games:

“Whisper & Venom is a small setting and adventure that describes the coming of a great evil to a pastoral village in a remote valley. The signs of danger are subtle, but as a intrepid party of adventurers makes a investigation, great mysterious and terrifying secrets reveal themselves.”

Included in the Deluxe box set will be an Adventure Book, Setting Guide, Poster Maps, unique miniatures, and more.

Folks are getting more leery of Kickstarter these days, but I think this is going to be one to watch, especially with the OSR crowd. Zach at Lesser Gnome Games has been planning the execution of this Kickstarter for many months now, hence the June 2013 launch on Kickstarter. The Facebook page notes the adventure has already been written, so this is not a case of put the Kickstarter up and then write the project. Commissions for the artwork has already begun as well as Lesser Gnome Games gets everything lined up.

Lesser Gnome Games has also wrangled in some big names for some of the work inside this Boxed Adventure Bundle.

Jeff Dee is doing the cover and illustrations. Jeff is in that first-generation D&D artist group having done art in the early days of AD&D. The gnome in the pictures below was done by Jeff Dee.

Alyssa Faden is doing the full color poster maps. Examples of her work can be seen on The Cartography of Alyssa Faden Facebook. Excellent work and nearly guarantees the Poster Maps will be awesome looking!

Center Stage Miniatures is doing the 28mm figures for the set. The gnome (pictured below) was done by them and it looks great.

I will be keeping an eye on this one as it unfolds, so I am sure we will see some more about Lesser Gnome Games and their Kickstarter here as it evolves. Make sure you get the news straight from them though, their Facebook page is active and is great way to follow their progress as June nears. For those that prefer Twitter you can follow them @lessergnome.

The Iron Tavern also happens to have an extra mini that I plan on giving away in a contest. I just need to figure out what that contest will be! But keep an eye out for the contest announcement in the coming weeks to win a Thopas gnome mini!

And finally – a closer look at some of the swag. My good camera is in a box somewhere, so please bear with the cell phone pictures.

: Front of the T-shirt. Nice quality Hanes shirt!

: Back of T-shirt – Whisper & Venom

: Postcard and Blisterpack.

Postcard Front. Artwork by Jeff Dee

Postcard Back. What’s in the Box.

The mini. Excellent detail!

Random Table: Boot Descriptions

Posted on March 21, 2013 by Jeffrey Tadlock

This week’s random table is a list of random boot descriptions. Use these descriptions to spice up your next set of Boots of Speed or Boots of Elvenkind or any other type of boot in that treasure stash. Or maybe you just want to add a little more description to the NPC the party meets at the local tavern. The following table has you covered!

Roll a d20 on the below table and a boot description awaits you!

Have suggestions for next week’s table? Feel free to leave some ideas in the comments of this post or over on Google+!

Roll (d20)	Boot Descriptions
1	light brown leather, with black stitching
2	mid-calf leather boots, brown with black and red stitching depicting a phoenix on each boot
3	brown leather boots, oval “vents” along the sides, stitched in red thread
4	green and black reptile skinned boots, toes of boots have fangs engraved on them
5	suede boots, stained dark in several places, 3″ wedge heel
6	black leather, silver stitching forms crescent moon amidst many silver stars on the sides
7	reptile scaled skin boots, mid-calf length, very soft to touch
8	mid-calf boot, green upper with a pattern of leaves engraved in the uppers, mid-brown lower with thick sole
9	ankle high, dark red leather boots, thick, gold stitching, initialed DN
10	solid black boots, knee high with soft, supple leather
11	black leather boot, 1/2″ spikes protrude from various locations of the boot
12	heavy leather boots with six wide buckles, mid-calf
13	knee high boots, a pair of buckles secure them at the top, dark brown leather with black stitching
14	hobnailed boots, dark brown, ankle high, light brown stitching
15	boots border on tall moccasins, light brown suede leather, solid sole, a trio of white and black feathers hang from each boot strap
16	dark brown boots with metal rivets as trip along the edges and seams
17	over the ankle leather boots, leather woven together forming a “waffle” pattern
18	black and brown reptile skinned boots, an image of snake is depicted wrapping around the upper portion of the boot
19	gray leather boots with thick silver buckle across the ankle and smaller silver buckle at the top
20	mid-calf black boots with white fur lining them

The Cut-Scene Funnel

Posted on March 20, 2013 by Jeffrey Tadlock

Character Death

Character death is inevitable in Dungeon Crawl Classics RPG. The 0-level funnel DCC RPG games start off with practically guarantee it. These early campaign deaths are easy to deal with as the game is just getting started. The 0-level funnel helps form the psyche of these want to be heroes and is a valuable formative part of these adventurers.

As characters level-up it does become increasingly more difficult to “kill” a character. Between the luck mechanic, bleeding out rules, and recovering the body rules, even fights that go south quickly are frequently survivable with a little luck. Despite that there will be continued character death in a DCC RPG campaign, sometimes things just get a little crazy and luck is not with the player as their character fails a luck roll.

We have been trying to find a way that works well for our group for introducing new characters to our DCC RPG campaign. This post covers the path to what will be our upcoming experiment – the cut-scene funnel.

My Campaign

I have been running a DCC RPG campaign on G+ Hangouts for a little over six months now. The characters in the party are now 3rd level and have been there for a couple of sessions. We have three characters that were in the original 0-level funnel that have lived to continue adventuring.

Along the way we have had several opportunities to experiment with how we add new characters to the campaign. We are still trying to figure out the best way (well, the way that works the best for our game) to add these new characters to the campaign. The method that works best seems to change as the levels of the main characters increase.

Early Attrition

In our campaign the character deaths that occurred early in the game seemed to happen to players that still had two characters from the funnel. This led to not much needing done when a character died in the low levels as the player would still have a character to continue playing.

For the exceptions to this I would have the player roll up three new 0-levels, choose their favorite and then level that one to a matching level – in this case, 1st level.

This method seemed to work well as the main characters weren’t that far out from the funnel. The new characters were still early enough in their adventuring career that missing the funnel was not hugely detrimental.

During this phase of the campaign we also added a new player to the mix. For the new player I had him generate three 0-levels and play them. This worked out well too. In fact I could have easily swapped this method for the advance one 0-level to first level with no issue.

2nd Level Era

Eventually the group reached 2nd level with their main characters. Here 0-levels were already feeling a bit too far out of a reach for our group. A lot of the characters that we introduced during this stage of the game were brought in via the generate three 0-levels, advance your favorite to 1st level and join the party.

This seemed to work mechanically, but the new character seemed harder to get a feel for. They had not had a 0-level funnel experience for the formative stage of their character. Most of these characters eventually “gel-ed” with the group, but it seemed to take more effort to do so. Luckily I have a great group of players, but I could see this being an issue for some groups.

3rd Level Era

My campaign has only been in the 3rd level stage for a couple of sessions. At this point the players were realizing having a stable of characters to draw from might be worthwhile. We discussed how to do this and at first settled on bringing in 0-levels to complement the existing characters. Our group feels the 0-level play is what really turns a character from a cardboard cut-out to something with experience and formative events.

This experiment did not pan out very well for us. The 0-levels accompanying the 3rd level characters on an appropriate level adventure really didn’t stand a chance to survive. Using them as “trap detectors” was pretty much instant death. If they found themselves too close to an enemy, one hit was certainly all that was needed to put an end to them.

The 0-levels we introduced in this fashion all met their fate in the very first session.

What Now?

This led to more discussion on how we were going to introduce new characters to our DCC RPG campaign. We’d tried several methods along the way, some of which worked well mechanically but left us feeling disjointed story-wise and others that seemed to lack mechanically as well.

I offered the idea of a cut-scene funnel. What I proposed was that we would shelve the main characters for a session or two and “cut away” to a trio of 0-levels for each player. I will run these 0-levels through a special funnel session independent of the main characters. Once that session is finished we will have the surviving characters leveled up to main character level minus one. So in this case, the survivors will be allowed to advance to 2nd level.

These 0-levels are from the same area, “The Great City” in our campaign, and likely have even been hearing tales of the heroics of the main characters. Eager to find fame and success of their own and possibly catch the attention of the main characters with their own heroics, these 0-levels will set off to make a name for themselves.

There are several reasons for trying this approach. First, everyone in my group enjoys the funnel. They have a good time playing it, we get a lot of laughs and we all think it is a shame we only get to do it at the start of the campaign. So this new trial will let us play the funnel again without scrapping the whole campaign.

We also think the funnel really helps develop a character. So now the stable of characters we build will have actually played through a funnel and get the opportunity to play in this “development” adventure.

The first session of the experiment will be happening this week. Once we finish the experiment I will post more details of how it played out. Be sure to check back if you are curious about the results!

GameScience Inking

Posted on March 18, 2013 by Jeffrey Tadlock

I am a big fan of GameScience dice. Most gamers have seen the infamous videos Lou Zocchi made. If you haven’t go ahead and watch part one and part two of the videos. Even if not in agreement you will likely find them entertaining!

There has even been a “roll off” between GameScience dice and Chessex dice which does show a bit of an edge to the GameScience dice.

Regardless of statistical superiority – whether it be true or not – the dice stay on the table better for me due to their precision edges. These days I keep one dice bag full of of my Chessex and other miscellaneous dice and another with my GameScience. My GameScience bag is the one I grab most often.

Inking History

I tend to buy my GameScience dice un-inked. There are numerous articles out there on various inking methods and I have tried several of them. For my initial investment into GameScience dice I bought four sets. Two sets I did with crayon like I did when I was a kid. The other two sets I did with a sharpie marker as described at Jeff Rient’s blog.

I liked the crayon method and the two sets I did that way actually have lasted pretty well. There are some gouges from the wax from mixing with the other dice in the rolls. And some of the GameScience dice have circles around the numbers which I kept getting wax stuck in, giving them a slightly off appearance.

I then did two sets with a sharpie extra fine marker. These went pretty well. A little faster to do this way and they came out looking good. I thought this was going to be my preferred method for future sets. Over time though the marker method seemed to fade. The numbers had less ink in them and they became harder to read. In the past several months the inking job looked pretty bad.

The Inking Experiment

I could have simply redone them with a sharpie. I still have lots of Sharpie markers I could have done the job with. I was looking to experiment a bit. Jobe Bittman over on Google+ mentioned using Sharpie Poster Paint markers of the Extra Fine variety to ink the dice.

Most of the comments mentioned using the water-based ones. But after checking an office supply store, WalMart, and an Art Supply store in town I did not find a water-based version in black. I did found a two-pack of metallic, glitter paint ones, but I did not want to try those on the dice.

Today was the stop at the art supply store. After being directed to the paint marker aisle I saw lots and lots of markers! I still didn’t find a water-based paint marker though. Admittedly I was in a hurry as the family was waiting in the car. I decided to grab the extra fine point Sharpie oil based marker in black and headed to the cash register. The clerk mentioned another marker that could “erase” mis-applied paint. That sounded infinitely useful and I picked one of those up to.

Once getting settled in at home I tried my hand with the new Sharpie marker and seeing if I could fix up my GameScience dice.

As you can see the 20-siders show the most wear. The original marker is very faded. All faces used to look as solid and bright as the ‘6’ on the ten-sider in the upper right corner.

These are the markers I used. The Sharpie is on top, an oil based paint marker. The other is a Paint Marker Remover, chisel tipped. This was for the inevitable mistakes I would make along the way.

Ooops! Is that a smudge on the ‘4’ and fingerprint in oil-based paint? Yep. This one needs cleaned up.

I have run the remover marker over this side of the die. Still a touch of of the smudge visible, but looking better. This side needs re-inked as the remover seeped into the grooves of the ‘4’ during clean-up.

Re-inked now. Not 100% perfect, but much better than the fingerprint on the face. Barely noticeable during play.

Here are the dice after I re-inked them all. Not 100% perfect when scrutinized, but looking pretty good for table play. When compared to the first photo in the series I think they turned out pretty good.

Results?

I still need to see if I can clean things up a little more, but overall I am pretty happy with how things turned out. They aren’t perfect, but in comparison to my other inking jobs they are in the same ballpark as far as smudging or imperfections of my workmanship. Time will tell how they hold up, being oil-based paint I suspect it lasts much, much longer before showing signs of wear.

Random Table: Treasure Items

Posted on March 14, 2013 by Jeffrey Tadlock

This week’s random table is a list of random mundane treasures. There are lots of random tables for magic weapons and magic items, but sometimes you just need a little something to spice up some treasure the party has just found without resorting to magical items.

Now when the party finds some small amount of treasure on their most recent conquest you can roll up something with a little flavor. The trinkets and otherwise mundane items can make those smaller treasure amounts more fun than just “a pouch full of 9 gold coins, six silver coins, and lint”.

The table below lists a short description of the item and the approximate gold value in parentheses.

Have suggestions for next week’s table? Feel free to leave some ideas in the comments of this post or over on Google+!

Roll (d20)	Ale Name
1	wooden and cloth doll, small gems for eyes (3gp)
2	silver ceremonial knife, dull edged (5gp)
3	small silver metal box, ornate designs of sun, moon, and stars (20gp)
4	pair of bone knitting needles (1gp)
5	rolled up painting, depicts woman walking in a field, artist initialed as ~GH~ (45gp)
6	steel tankard engraved with warhammer and mine entrance (9gp)
7	oversized gold coin from ancient civilization, depicts large, pillared structure on one side, long haired, bearded man on the other (25gp)
8	Three six-sided dice, carved from stone and polished (12gp)
9	flask with gold embossing, intials SK engraved on one side (15gp)
10	belt buckle, with gold, roped trim, center carved in form of elk head (18gp)
11	bracelet, appears as if two snakes are entwined, one red, one blue (12gp)
12	small book, 100+ pages in length, fictional tale of a girl lost in the wild, author – Sakmir Arlondo (3gp)
13	pen with ink vial, pen is carved of a rare wood with intricate carvings (5gp)
14	mummified wolf paw (4gp)
15	gold rimmed monocle (20gp)
16	baby rattle, made of hollowed bone, textured pattern (2gp)
17	vial of deep red ink, hint of glittery material in the ink (6gp)
18	gold hooped earring with small silver chain with red ruby clutched in a claw (9gp)
19	spice shaker, thick glass with silver top, contains salt now (3gp)
20	silk scarf, embroidered in a silver thread (4gp)

Map: Bloodrock Canyon

Posted on March 13, 2013 by Jeffrey Tadlock

I drew this map a weekend or two ago. I started experimenting with a chasm effect, this particular one has a river winding through the bottom of it. Either side of the chasm has a series of caves winding their way through the rock.

The map was drawn on graph-lined copy paper and then scanned. After I scanned it I did some work in Gimp and Inkscape to clean things up and add a background. I have finally gone on the hunt for some more background patterns, which I think turned out well. I also added a graph to the map. I know some like their maps to have the graph lines on it. I do like the look of it with the graph lines included.

For those that would like to use this map, but prefer it without the grid, you can download a gridless copy as well.

Bloodrock Canyon

Nestled in a remote mountain range the Arinizak River winds down from the mountains passing through this chasm. Hunters venturing this far into the mountains call this area Bloodrock Canyon.

Decades ago a single tribe of kobolds made this area their home. The Bloodrock Kobolds utilized both sides of the chasm, using rope ladders and small rafts to cross the river and scale the walls to the caves perched in the canyon walls.

Thirteen years ago the Chieftain Kyro Bloodrock’s son was found murdered in his living area. The Chieftain Kyro suspected the Redskull family, also members of the tribe for this act. He claims it a power play to take over control of the entire tribe.

An intra-clan feud escalated under these accusations leading to bloodshed amongst the clan. The Redskull kobolds retreated to the western side of the canyon, slaughtering any Bloodrock kobold who did not leave the western caves, the Redskull kobolds soon controlled the western side, the Bloodrock kobolds the eastern side.

With a canyon separating the now two distinct clans, the feud did not end there. Both sides began constructing small wooden catapults. On a weekly basis one side or the other will initiate a launch of small rocks across the canyon towards the other. The rocks clattering against the far walls, on rare occasion actually inflicting a casualty.

Occasional skirmishes will break out along the river as one clan launches rafts to head downstream for foraging. These occur much less frequently as both sides seem more content to hurl rocks from one side of the canyon to the other than engaging in any form of actual melee combat.

This clan feud between the kobolds seems set to continue on for decades more…

Review: In the Prison of the Squid Sorcerer

Posted on March 12, 2013 by Jeffrey Tadlock

The Iron Tavern recently received an early release copy of In the Prison of the Squid Sorcerer from Mystic Bull Games. The book comes in around 44 pages not including license information and is written by Ken Jelinek, Daniel Bishop, John Humphrey, Jon Wilson, and Paul Wolfe. The book is a collection of short encounters, 12 in total, designed to be easily dropped into an existing Dungeon Crawl Classics RPG campaign. Each encounter comes with a map and a new creature. The book is available in PDF format at RPGNow. I believe a print-on-demand version is in the works.

Most of the adventures are 2-4 pages in length and can be played in a single session. A couple of the adventures are actually designed to have portions “sprinkled” in over a longer period of time. This style lends itself well to being used to add detail to existing campaigns. Filler for between the major plot points of a campaign that help a campaign feel like there are always things going on in the world.

The level ranges covered tend to be low-level to mid-level, though a couple of the adventures are suitable for any level. From what I have seen from my various social media circles the low to mid-level focus should cover a lot of the already running DCC RPG campaigns.

The adventures within do an exemplary job of hitting the Appendix N feel. Extra-dimensional imprisonments, time shifting, alternate realities bleeding through to the known world, and fantastical creatures all contribute to unique feeling adventures. The many threats contained with this book are sure to torment your players and keep them on their toes.

For the judge, the adventures are just the right size to drop into existing campaigns as noted above. Several adventures can make good side treks for adventurers on the road or passing through small villages. Others work well for adventurers operating from a city as the base of their operations.

A map is included for most of the adventures. The one’s that do not are not tied to any one particular location, so a map is not required or applicable. The maps are done by John Humphrey and are often isometric in style. I always enjoy isometric style maps and it is nice to see this style in this book.

Black and white art fills the interior of the book accompanying each adventure.

Even if an adventure does not quite fit in with your campaign, there are numerous bits ripe for plundering from the book. Unique creatures, new cults, or even maps that could be re-worked with your own story. There is certainly something a judge of a DCC RPG campaign can “borrow” for their own campaign.

Normally when reviewing an adventure module I try to provide some detail about the adventure itself without giving too much away. Given the shorter nature of the adventures in this book, I am hesitant to detail too much about each adventure. As I noted above, the very strong Appendix N feel of each adventure within makes it a perfect choice for DCC RPG judges.

I really like the nature of a book that has many smaller encounters or adventures for me to use. All too often I pick up a module, which may be great, but just doesn’t fit into my campaign well. Either the subject matter doesn’t fit in or it is simply for a level range not appropriate for my campaign.

With this book, I already have plans to work several of the adventures into my existing campaign. The adventures make it very easy to drop-in as the group heads from place to place or while they are hanging out in their base city of operations. Products like this help make my job as a DCC RPG judge easier by providing these easy hooks for adventures. In addition there are several monsters and possible patrons I can “borrow” for my own campaign, even from the adventures I might not run in this current campaign.

This is a very strong offering from Mystic Bull Games for the Dungeon Crawl Classics RPG. I definitely encourage DCC RPG judges to check In the Prison of the Squid Sorcerer out. I suspect you will find use for several of the adventures within. Even if you choose not to use an adventure as written, there is sure to be creatures, maps, magic items and more you can make use of in your game.

RuneQuest 6e Combat

Posted on March 12, 2013 by Iron Tavern Guest Blogger

The post below is written by UbiquitousRat, a guest blogger for The Iron Tavern.

Darryn and the Bear: RuneQuest 6e Combat

Darryn stepped into the cave. The darkness was palpable but he couldn’t scent anything dangerous, although the breeze was strong here at the entrance. Allowing his eyes to adjust slowly to the gloom, he took another step, and then another…

The roar was deafening. The bellow emanated from deep inside the cave. Darryn was transfixed in his place, instinct forcing him to freeze. Then he saw it. A bear. As large as he, should it choose to stand up, and more. Darryn watched it lumber forward, jaws wide and teeth bared. In that moment, it seemed to him, there had never been anything so terrifying.

Stepping backwards towards the cave entrance, instinct carrying him aware from the intimidating roar of the bear, Darryn lowered his spear as a ward. The bear, unimpressed it seemed, padded forward from the gloom. In a moment it was raising up its bulk and roaring again. Darryn felt a moment of gratitude for the bear’s delay.

Gathering his courage, Darryn stood. The bear moved quickly forward, towards the tip of his spear, and Darryn decided to strike. The animal raised its massive paw and, although Darryn’s spear struck true, batted the weapon away as though it were a twig. Before he knew it the bear was inside his weapon’s reach and biting down upon his unarmoured neck.

Darryn crumpled to his knees, pain searing through his body as the bear ground teeth into his shoulder and ripped flesh from his neck. Darkness swept up to surround him. He felt himself falling backwards. The cave floor beneath his back. A jolt of cold through his spine. And that was all…

RuneQuest 6e Combat

Animals make for nice simple encounters. They are also a nice way to test a combat system without worrying too much about the roleplaying encounter as an interaction.

In my last article we took a look at the RuneQuest Sixth Edition (RQ6) character creation system. This impressive and immersive design sequence was a positive experience that drew me into the system. Following the creation of Darryn, my hunter, I also went on to design Shanna, an initiate of the Moon Cult – a young girl who is learning the ways of Theistic magic (about which I will write in a future article).

Today’s task is to review the Combat chapter of RQ6. Besides reading the chapter, which is an obvious first step, I have also run through a solo engagement using Darryn; this was the tale which opened this article.

First Impressions

To be honest, on a first reading of the rules in Chapter 7, I was concerned that the game would lead to slow and over-detailed fights. I was, however, slightly heartened by a couple of statements in the opening couple of paragraphs which read as follows:

“Combat need not end in death: Although commonplace in some genres, battles do not have to conclude with the demise of opponents. It is as easy to end a fight with the submission or capture of a foe without necessarily killing them.”

What is here revealed is the intent behind RuneQuest combat: if it is easy to begin to fight, and this will always be a potentially deadly fight, then you must remember that it is also easy to disengage. For me the signal was clear that interaction will always be favoured over skirmishing. As is fitting with a system encouraging genuine roleplaying based upon potential consequences from the choices each player makes, RuneQuest mentions it upfront.

Slow? No!

Combat takes up 33 pages of the rules. That’s a fair chunk: Character Creation takes up 54 pages.

There are several elements of combat that are unfamiliar to the average fantasy RPG player. Combat Styles, in which expertise with a group of weapons is packaged together, is a new idea to most; weapon reach and size taking a prominent role in the rules, making it harder to attack a warrior armed with a long spear when you’re holding a dagger, are also innovative. These elements look, at least initially, to be complicated and slightly daunting – even to a veteran GM like me.

And yet…

As was noted in my first article, the thing to focus on here is that the whole system is written to be played. An initial read through, which took me about an hour with a minimum of reference back to earlier rules, was fair enough. But it wasn’t until I busted out the dice and ran an encounter that I got to experience how cool this combat engine truly is.

Running an Encounter

Rather than a dry exposition of the rules I thought it would be interesting to walk you through each step of the combat account of Darryn’s nightmare encounter with the bear. This way you can see how the game works and try to imagine how it would feel in play.

I chose a really simple animal encounter and simply pulled the stats for the Bear straight out of the Bestiary chapter in RQ6. I’ll review that chapter too in the future. For now, just stay with me.

Let’s enter the cave…

Darryn and the Bear

Darryn is my hunter character, imagined alone and seeking a place to hole up as night falls on the tundra. He spies a cave.

I rolled Initiative – a simple d10 added to each combatant’s Strike Rank (SR) value. Darryn’s base SR is 11 reduced by 3, because of his armour, to 8; a 4 rolled gave Darryn an initial Strike Rank of 12. The Bear has a base SR of 13, meaning it would always go first, but added 3 from its roll to total 15.

Each Combat Round is 5 seconds long and allows the characters to act in order of Strike Rank, from highest to lowest. The Bear acts first; Darryn second. Each Turn within the Combat Round allows the acting character to expend one of their Action Points to do something.

First Turn and the Bear, acting on SR 15, bellows a roar using the Intimidation special ability: Darryn must make a Willpower check (he had 20%) or suffer instinctive fear. Guess what I rolled?

Darryn must withdraw as his instincts carry him backwards. Darryn makes a Change Range action, aiming to put some distance between him and the Bear.

I made the Bear take a Dither action, allowing it a chance to assess Darryn as a threat: most animals seek to avoid a fight. I used this as a chance to get Darryn to spend his second Action Point on readying his spear, partly an instinctive response to the threat in front of him.

The Bear, seeing the spear as dangerous, decides to Change Range and move in to paw-bashing range. In game terms, the Bear and Darryn’s spear both have long reach, so the Bear is capable of slapping the man despite the length of that short spear haft.

Round 2 begins with the Bear bellowing intimidation again but Darryn making his Willpower check (I rolled an 11!). This first Action Point spent it was time for Darryn to make a desperate attempt to stab the Bear.

Darryn hit, beating his 68% Combat Style check with a 57, but the Bear spends an Action Point and attempts to Parry with its huge paws. A roll of 05 against the Bear’s Ursine Fury Combat Style of 78% places the defence inside the Critical Success range (7 or less): the Bear gains a Special Effect and selects the “Close Range” option, allowing it to move inside the spear’s long reach and enter short reach.

Before he knew it the bear was inside his weapon’s reach and biting down upon his unarmoured neck.

The Bear’s next action was to Attack using its Bite. Although only able to use the butt of the spear to Parry, Darryn knows he has to try and spends his second (and only remaining) Action Point to do so. Rolling a 91 means he fails… and the Bear’s attack roll of 19 gives it another Special Effect. Taking “Choose Location” means that the Bear can deliberately attack Darryn’s head location, which I imagined as it snagging the neck.

Darryn crumpled to his knees, pain searing through his body as the bear ground teeth into his shoulder and ripped flesh from his neck.

The Bear rolls its 1d8 damage but adds 1d12 from its massive Damage Modifier (Strength 25 and Size 34 make it very scary!), totalling 11 points. No armour on Darryn’s head location means that all of this damage goes into his 6 hit points on that location. Going under zero hit points, but not quite to a negative equal to his hit points, gives Darryn a major wound. He must test his Endurance or fall unconscious… and Darryn failed the roll.

Darkness swept up to surround him. He felt himself falling backwards. The cave floor beneath his back. A jolt of cold through his spine. And that was all…

In the next round I had the Bear bite again in towards Darryn’s head. An automatic hit against an undefended foe gave the creature another Special Effect. Choosing location again, aiming for the head, the Bear delivered another 1d8+1d12 damage… crushing Darryn’s skull.

How did that feel?

For the purposes of my campaign, which hasn’t yet started, this encounter will be nightmare that inspires a deep fear of bears in the hero.

For our purposes, however, I got to run a short encounter which took less than 10 minutes to play, even with many rules checks and page flips.

Combat in RQ6 is deadly. They say so and they mean it. The rules also mention that most fights last 3 rounds or less. This one certainly did. And I have a new respect for bears.

It was really easy to run, despite all of the extra detail. It was bloody, exciting and felt like the kind of outcome you’d see in a Swords and Sorcery-type story. Overall I loved it!

Points of Note

The game has a number of Proactive and Reactive Action choices that you need to remember to use. Each costs 1 Action Point to use. You’ll probably want a list on hand the first few games… and the free download Game Master’s Pack includes just such a listing.

Similar reference material from the GM’s Pack will help you remember the options for Special Effects. Basically, when you earn one, you can just look up the choices until you get used to the system. They are easy to apply once you start playing.

Overall, RQ6 Combat is really tactical and detailed. It’s also quite quick… which was a surprise!

Frankly I’m starting to think that this game is really nice. It’s one to try and I’m glad I did just that.

It’s just a good job that Darryn was dreaming, eh?

Game on!

Bio

UbiquitousRat is a long-time roleplayer and gamesmaster who has a history with gaming going back to 1979. In 1994 he joined Games Workshop, spending 12 years in the gaming industry at the coal-face of tabletop wargaming. In 1998 he founded the Friday Night Roleplay group at his home in suburban Nottinghamshire, UK, and ever since has been the primary GM. Oh, and he’s also a high school teacher during the daytime.