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.

GM’s Day Sale at RPGNow

Posted on March 9, 2013 by Jeffrey Tadlock

There are still 4 days left in the 25% off sale running over at RPGNow.com. There are a lot of RPG products on sale during this event and you still have this weekend to take advantage of the sale. So while you find yourself with some downtime over the weekend take a look and see what catches your eye.

To help you along a bit, I am going to highlight a couple of the products to save you some browsing time!

First up, the rulebook for Dungeon Crawl Classics from Goodman Games is included in this sale. The PDF has a reputation for being on the pricey side by many in the community, but with a recent price reduction and the 25% off sale it is now $14.06. This is a great chance to pick up the PDF and see what all the excitement has been about. Dungeon Crawl Classics has been a very fun game. Even if you decide not to play, the book is full of inspirational art to help give you ideas for your own game.

Goodman Games has their entire portfolio for sale this week as part of this sale as well. So if you need adventures to play with your newly purchased DCC RPG or want to pick up some of their older Dungeon Crawl Classics adventures, this is a wonderful opportunity to do so.

Engine Publishing has several of their products and bundles on sale this week too. Never Unprepared is a book to help a busy GM make the most of their prep time. I reviewed this book for The Iron Tavern and found it a very useful resource in adjusting how you prep for a game. They also have their Masks product for sale a wealth of NPCs to use for your game.

Castles and Crusades fans have plenty to choose from as well. Troll Lord Games has put their entire product catalog on sale. Here is your chance to pick up a great rules-light system to mimic that old-school feel. I have found converting either older 1e D&D modules or 3.x modules to C&C relatively easy giving the busy GM a tremendous number of resources to draw from with relative ease.

I have not picked up this next product yet, but have heard many good things about it, the Astonishing Swordsmen and Sorcerers of Hyperborea. Described as Swords and Sorcery at its pinnacle, this product is holding a 4.5 star rating at RPG Now.

There are many more gems to choose from during this sale. The above are just some of the sale items that caught my attention. Be sure to take a little bit of your downtime this weekend and see what you find!

Random Table: Ring Descriptions

Posted on February 28, 2013 by Jeffrey Tadlock

This week’s random table is ring descriptions. Rings of magical and decorative variety are quite popular in fantasy role-playing games. Use the table below to liven up the description of the next magical ring your adventurer’s find in that treasure trove.

The table is general enough to allow most of the descriptions to match up with any type of magical ring. In a future installment I might take a single magical ring type and do themed table around that type of ring. For today though, this more generic table should cover a multitude of situations.

And remember, if you have suggestions for next week’s table topic leave a comment on this blog post or a comment over on Google+!

Roll (d20)	Ring Descriptions
1	plain steel band, dented as if by some great force, the initials F.T. are carved into it
2	silver ring with raised wolf’s head with deep red eyes
3	smooth silver band, warm to the touch
4	steel band carved to appear as two arrows twisted together
5	ring is made of finely braided light brown rope, resistant to cutting
6	silver band with a sunburst signet
7	gold band with an intricate carving of entwined vines circling the ring
8	platinum band, the ring glows slightly in darkness
9	a waffle pattern of silver and gold compose this ring
10	black band with a crimson spiral going around the ring
11	steel band, painted white with a blue stripe circling the ring
12	gold band, two feline skeletons have been carved into it
13	wooden ring with oak leaves carved into the band
14	brilliant blue ring with flecks of yellow across the surface
15	obsidian band, the colors seem to swirl beneath the surface of the band
16	the band is formed of what appears to be unmelting ice, cold to the touch
17	band made of brass, severely nicked and stained with blood
18	a silver serpent wrap around itself to form this ring
19	plain gold band with a signet depicting a tankard
20	band is made of black and red marble in a swirling pattern

Map: Bandit Stronghold

Posted on February 27, 2013 by Jeffrey Tadlock

This map was drawn over the weekend. Unlike several of the maps I have posted so far, this one did not originate as part of the Friday Five Minute Map challenge. Rather it was some doodling during downtime over the weekend.

A lot of my previous maps have been done on plain sheets of paper, no grid lines to help square things up. This map was done on printed graph paper. The lines were faint and removed during the scanning/Gimp/Inkscape process I have been using to clean-up the maps.

I have been relatively happy with how my cave maps have been coming along. This map includes some cave work off the side. It also includes several man or dwarf created rooms as well. I am working on “spicing” these rooms up with some objects and such to keep them from being so plain. Still need some more work in this area, but the rooms on this map have a little more going on than in some of my previous maps.

Bandit Stronghold

This stronghold is nestled deep in the rocky hills just outside of town. A maze of game trails cross the hillsides, winding their way in and out of the the small valleys and hollows.

Several small caves dot the area, most only a chamber or two in size. The one’s closest to town are frequent play places for the children of the town. Others are protected by animal inhabitants who call the caves their own.

One hollow is particularly rocky, several deer trails leading in and out of the area. The rock covered slopes nearly make traversing the slope on anything but a game trail near impossible. The slopes keep the valley in the shade most of the day, the temperatures a good couple of degrees cooler in this hollow.

The entrance to this smuggler’s stronghold is obscured by an oblique stone. Behind it is the entrance to one of the more expansive tunnel complexes in the area. Apparently abandoned by dwarves of centuries past, a group of enterprising smugglers known as the Blue Hoofed Bandits found the location and began using it as a base of operations for their illegal activities.

The Blue Hoofed Bandits primary use this stronghold as a storage place for good in transit waiting to be fenced and as a rendezvous point before and after their operations. The front portions of the complex are used for short term storage.

Should the stronghold ever need defended the bandits use the worked dwarven carved rooms as an initial defense point. The group only makes a cursory defense in this front portion of the stronghold, preferring to fall back to the natural caves which act as a natural choke point.

Though there are no obvious exits from the back of the stronghold, the well in the northern cave chamber is said to act as a quick exit to a lower level of the caves. Where these lower chambers of the caverns lead are unknown to all but the bandits that call this stronghold their home.

Review: Gygax Magazine

Posted on February 26, 2013 by Jeffrey Tadlock

The Wait

On February 9th I received my shipment notification for my Gygax Magazine subscription noting my first issue had shipped. From about February 14th onward I began anxiously checking my mailbox every day for my copy to be here. I was frequently met with disappointment as each day the mailbox held no copy of the magazine for me.

On Saturday, February 23rd I received my notification the PDF copy of the magazine was available for download from DriveThruRPG. This was a welcome surprise as it seemed the word on whether subscribers received a free copy of the PDF went back and forth between yes and no. I am quite pleased that it turns out I do get a digital copy of the magazine as well.

I held out hope my actual print copy would arrive on Saturday as well and only downloaded the PDF to my iPad, not actually opening it. My patience paid off as the friendly postal worker delivered my magazine to my door just a few hours later!

I had been one of those people concerned about how long it had taken to receive the magazine. The PDF option helped lessen that concern a bit. The other thing I must remind myself of is even back in the Paizo Dragon days it used to seem to take a long time for me to actually receive my issue. There must be something about shipping a magazine at the periodical rate that equates to saying “send on the next mule that leaves the city”.

The Reading

So I immediately headed to the fridge to get the Dead Guy Ale I had held in reserve for this moment, I turned off all my electronic devices and settled in with the magazine I had anxiously been awaiting. I was a little nervous as I had read an early review or two that was not thrilled with all of the articles saying several seemed more ego filled, patting their own back than anything else.

First, this thing looks so much like the old Dragon magazine I grew up with in the 80’s it is uncanny. Opening up to just the table of contents further cements the this look. This look will bring a lot of fond memories flooding back for those of us who used to read Dragon many years ago.

I did a quick flip through, leafing through the magazine before settling in on the first article to read, The future of tabletop gaming by Ethan Gilsdorf. I really enjoyed this article, it too struck home on so many counts. After a depiction of what life was like as a kid in the 70’s-early 80’s, talk of Star Wars the movie and then his introduction to D&D. “I consumed the game and it rapidly consumed me.” is a sentence from that article. How many of us does that single sentence describe? He goes on to talking about D&D as time moves on and how it is today and how it will survive into the future. This article resonated with me on so many notes, it is easily my favorite article in the magazine.

From there I bounced around the magazine a bit. Gaming with a virtual tabletop by Nevin Jones was a good read. It focuses on Roll20 and how it helped bring some gamers together for online gaming.

DMing for your toddler by Cory Doctorow was interesting as I run games for my kids frequently. It was nice to see how he simply adapted on the fly to gaming with kids and seeing what tactics others use. I think it was cool to see someone not needing to purchase a special kids RPG product, but just adapt a game you already know down to the kid level with some tweaks.

There is a small section in the magazine labeled Kobold’s Cavern which is where some articles previously destined for Kobold Quarterly are going to appear, shepherded by Wolfgang Baur. A couple of AGE articles make their appearance here and a very nice alternative for Pathfinder feats with the introduction of scaling combat feats. This was an article written by Marc Radle and was an interesting take on tweaking how certain Pathfinder feats work. If I run a Pathfinder game again, I think I will be taking another closer look at this article.

Included as a special attraction is a writeup on a village by the name of Gnatdamp. Written by Michael Curtis it was an excellent location article. With a full page map of the village, an overview, a closer look at life in Gnatdamp, and much, much more this will be infinitely useful the next time I need a village for my PCs to find themselves in. It walks the delicate balance between enough detail to be useful without venturing into overly detailed territory quite nicely.

At the end of the magazine there are full color comics – Marvin the Mage, Phil and Dixie, and Order of the Stick. Yep – that is not a typo, Phil and Dixie are back!

The PDF

I did all of my reading for this review on the print copy. I did fire up the PDF on my iPad though just to take a look. The display and readability on the iPad was great. The downside was the magazine was not bookmarked. In today’s day and age of the PDF a non-bookmarked PDF was pretty unusual. Hopefully they either update the current PDF or at the very least improve that with the next PDF issue.

Thoughts

As is evident from the articles I touched on above I am really satisfied with my purchase of this magazine. My decision to purchase a subscription to it sight unseen has further been reinforced with this inaugural issue.

Yes, there was some people starting their article with a short blurb on their credentials. I did not find that out of place or obtrusive in the slightest. It felt more like gathering around the table a bit to hear from some folks that have been playing D&D and been in the industry for a long time.

There were some articles I was not fond of in the magazine. An article on science fiction in your game and an article on ICONS. I very much live in the fantasy RPG niche and I am not too into superhero games. But even the old Dragon of past used to have articles like this and I remember skipping those articles even then. There is enough value in the articles I did enjoy that the inclusion of these non-fantasy genres is not a significant issue. If nothing else it reminds me of the Dragon magazines I read as a kid!

I am quite pleased with the inaugural issue of Gygax Magazine. The magazine is available in print and PDF. I would recommend giving the magazine a chance and taking a look. I enjoyed my read through of it and am already anxiously awaiting next quarter’s issue!

RuneQuest Sixth Edition: Characters

Posted on February 25, 2013 by Iron Tavern Guest Blogger

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

Following the near-collapse of my home roleplaying group, saved only by the decision to drop our most recent campaign, I’ve begun to tinker with two convergent ideas:

Trying to build a solo-game using Mythic Roleplaying
Testing out two promising candidates for fantasy RPG systems in my home-brew setting.

This morning, in a bid to get things rolling and take advantage of a day off work, I decided to try out character creation using RuneQuest Sixth Edition. This article is a review of those efforts and my thoughts on the experience.

RuneQuest

A long time ago, in a city far far away, a young boy and his father bought a boxed game called “RuneQuest”. This was the first RPG we had bought and, frankly, Dad wasn’t impressed once he opened it and found out what it was. For my part, however, I was hooked.

I remember rolling up my first character and reading through the rules with avid pleasure. We had some resources from Glorantha too, such as Apple Lane, and I still recall being slightly amused by the idea of sentient Ducks.

RuneQuest, however, won a space in my heart. I only played it a couple of times with friends, who much preferred to play D&D and Traveller, but I was a convert to the style. It was a game for heroes – proper heroes – and not just a game. And RuneQuest gave birth to my first campaign world: Mykovnia.

Return to Mykovnia

Some years ago I had a recurrent dream. It was a dream of the same world that I used to dream about when I was a teenager: Mykovnia. I shared the dream with a friend (now since lost to the aether) and used the dream to write some very short pieces of fiction.

Wanting to return to Mykovnia as a gamer I ran a very poor, over-rushed game using the Rolemaster FRP games system. I realised that, for my home group, the world was forever tainted as a failed game. Yet… for me, the world lives on. I learned today that I should have used RuneQuest.

Today, then, as I sat down to begin a solo-game using Mythic it occurred to me to also pick up the book that has been gathering dust for too many months: RuneQuest Sixth Edition.

RuneQuest 6e

This is a beautiful soft-backed book. I would pay serious cash for a hardcover.

The book covers all that is needed to play a fantasy RPG: Character Creation; Skills; Equipment; Game Mechanics; Combat; Magic (5 systems); Cults; Creatures; GMing. It is wonderfully written and presented, with some very nice black-and-white artwork throughout. At 450+ pages it’s a weighty tome.

I began to read the book months ago. The problem was that, although excellently written, it is done in a style which was designed to support a “read along as you play” approach. To be frank, I found this hard to get in to and realised that it’d be best to wait until I wanted to try it out. That day took far too long to come.

RuneQuest is a d100 game descended from the Basic Roleplaying system. It is skill-based and flexible, being written so that it can fit any setting of the GM’s design. Gone are the days of Glorantha, although the HeroQuest 2^nd Edition supplements would be very easily adapted to the game. By the author’s own admission, “RuneQuest has always excelled at supporting Sword and Sorcery, Sword and Sandal, and mythic Ancient World sub-genres.” It’s this that makes it perfect for Mykovnia.

Character Design

Here’s where I picked up, working through the three-chapter process as written. RuneQuest emphasises background development and deeper roleplaying… so I started with an extract from my own writing:

“Out on the plains, away from the cover of the forest that would protect his tribe, the hunter was watching the lone wolf as it padded along the ancient trackway. Clutching his spear in his cold hands, chest and stomach pressed close to the snow-covered grass, he scented the air and squinted his eyes against the weak morning sunshine.”

This character is called Darryn. Later I described him as, “tall and powerfully built, with lithe form and pale skin.”

Characteristics

RuneQuest provides three systems for the core seven attributes, called Characteristics. I chose the third, a points-buy option, so that I could fully model the hero as I wanted. In truth, this was a quick process and the derived characteristics were really easy to calculate too.

What I really liked was that there is no obvious “dump stat” and that all the core Characteristics derive further stats that are essential. There are Hit Points but they are spread over seven hit locations, instead of being a simple total.

Adding Luck Points and Action Points to my sheet promised systems for creating the kinds of cool deeds Darryn might get up to in the future. I buffed up his Size and Constitution, gave a reasonable Strength and Dexterity, dropped below average with Charisma, and left Intelligence and Power roughly average.

The last step was to add two Characteristics together for each of a range of Standard Skills (which any character can use), giving Darryn some basic percentages from which to develop.

Culture

Here is where I started to think, “This is cool!”

RuneQuest provides a choice of four major Cultures: Barbarian (which I chose), Civilised, Nomadic or Primitive.

These cultures each give you some focused training in a selection of Standard Skills; they also add a choice of three Professional Skills (which cannot be used untrained) based on the given culture.

I chose Navigation, Survival and Tracking. I also gained a Combat Style – a culture-specific but highly flexible concept for choosing how your hero fights and defends – which is called “Wolf Hunter”.

What I really like about Culture, however, is the gentle flexibility of the system. Gamemastery is promoted as the player and GM work out how their characters fit into a system of cultural ideas. It’s really very simple but also very powerful in yielding character detail.

The section winds up with generating some background details. A random roll gave Darryn a mark of the gods on his body, which I interpreted as a symbol on his left shoulder blade which was associated with the Moon Queen (his patron deity).

On top of that, rolling on a couple of extra tables, we discovered he has a father but no mother; two grandparents and a cousin rounded out his family. We also found out that he has a friendly contact in the form of the tribal Shaman. This gave me the idea for a second character who is the Shaman’s apprentice. All good stuff, eh?

Career

RuneQuest offers twenty-four classic Careers – which are professional training packages, really – and for Darryn I chose “Hunter”. This gives the hero some more training in appropriate Standard Skills and a chance to add three more Professional Skills and/or a Combat Style. I chose to simply replicate Darryn’s cultural training, boosting those core skills even higher.

Careers are impressive. There are enough basic choices to provide for most campaigns. If this isn’t enough there are rules for creating new ones. Once again, the GM is given the tools to fit things to their own world very effectively.

What I really liked, however, was the way in which the Culture and Career choices potentially meld to create a unique character. Choice is maximised and, given the array of options, I would expect to see some very different heroes created from even the same combinations. This is a powerful and yet simple system.

Finishing Up

Final steps included spreading around some bonus skill points, including being allowed to choose either another Combat Style or an additional Professional Skill as a hobby. I added Lore (Beastmen) to Darryn’s skills and smiled as I boosted up his core training.

Characters get some basic equipment based on their place in the social order of their culture. They also get some Silver Coins to buy stuff with. Darryn started with a shortspear, knife and some quilted leather armour. I bought him a short bow, Hoplite shield and various basic gubbins. This too was very simple to choose and record.

Filling out the Character Sheet, usually a chore, was facilitated by a very simple yet comprehensive design. I didn’t need the Magical sections… but these aren’t really a distraction either.

All in all, given a total of around two hours spent in design, reading the book from scratch, this was a pleasant and easy-to-follow system.

Verdict?

Honestly, I expected the game to feel very Old School. In reality, it doesn’t… even though it is a worthy successor to a very Old School system. I am impressed. I want to create another character.

What I like is the easy-to-follow steps. It’s a book written to be used, not read and shelved. In retrospect, I like this.

RuneQuest isn’t, however, a quick pick-up RPG system. This is a game for the serious roleplayer who wants to take the time to “get to know” their character. RuneQuest facilitates this style. It’d probably drive traditional D&D types nuts with the background details, however.

Overall, I want to dig deeper now. Next steps include wanting to create a magical character. From there I plan to run a test combat… and then dive into some play.

RuneQuest has me convinced. Hopefully this review will help you decide if it’s worth a look too.

Game on!

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