Author Archives: Jeffrey Tadlock

The Players Speak: Patrice and Dandelion

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DCC RPG Rulebook Cover w-HeadphonesToday’s post is part of an in-between DCC RPG Actual Play session postings to provide a little more insight into the cast of characters and players that make up the campaign.

Kelly started out from the funnel days of the campaign with his characters described below. His characters make cameo appearances since he has returned to school during his breaks. Patrice and Dandelion make for an interesting lense to view this rather chaotic party from.

Kelly’s Characters

Jeffrey’s DCC Campaign was the second time I had played DCC RPG. I was introduced to Matt (Meffridus) through DCC and thus several of his friends including Aaron (Baptist), who I now game with regularly over Google Hangouts.

My three zero-levels were Patrice (Confidence Artist), Dandelion (Elven Chandler) and Delbert (Potato Farmer).  Delbert was by far my favorite, based on his ability scores alone. The others were to be my ‘throwaways” protecting my buff soon-to-be fighter.  Still, the DCC concept of the funnel made me build personalities for these lame ducks.  Delbert was just a dimwit. Gullible and sort of a ‘gentle giant’ type. Patrice I played like a reluctant adventurer. He was NOT used to doing things himself, rather tricking people to doing things for him. Dandelion I played like a teenage mall employee. I gave fantasy inspired scents to her special items (20 candles). She was pretty much disgusted by everything we encountered and tried giving Baptist mud facials and telling people they were ‘autumns’ and such.

Well, Delbert died. A victim of friendly missile fire (did I mention never fire into a melee?). I played the other two very conservatively, and grew a good HEALTHY fear of magic of most types. Both survived the funnel and Jeffrey allowed me to continue playing both characters.  I play Patrice as the classic adventuring thief now: Checking traps, backstabbing, etc. and he’s good at it. Baptist and he make a good working pair, we always have somebody finding the secrets Jeffrey has put in our path.

I play Dandelion as a support mage. None of her spells are damaging really (some could damage, if I roll right, but she is much better at boosting or assisting others and that’s fine). She’s saving up to buy a spa or salon and never cast another spell again, as far as she is concerned. Finding how to fit in a group that goes through casters and fighters pretty regularly, that is lead by a power hungry wizard and has a cannibalistic thief watching your back (and immediately devouring any fallen comrade) can be difficult. I like to think my characters bring an ounce of stability to the group. Patrice is all business, he avoids patrons like the plague (as he’s watched his partners grow roots, boils, and worse).

Memorable Moment

One of the most memorable moments for me was when we were investigating an odd swamp community within the Ooze Pits of Jonas Gralk and Patrice had gone into an enemy stronghold to snoop around. I had made all my sneak checks and such and was going to support from the opposite side when Meffridus decided to Spellburn all his stats in order to increase a spell’s result to a massive, building devouring earthquake that pretty much swallowed the keep and everything inside it. Jeffrey had me make several reflex saves. I made each one (with a little luck) and survived by the skin of my teeth.

Cameos

I’ve returned to school to complete a degree and have had to drop out of the game, but I come back for cameo sessions. In the time I’ve been gone another friend Adam (Jargon) who plays in my Dungeonslayers game on Hangouts (along with Matt and others), has joined.  In my most recent return, Dandelion is pregnant. A festive and drunken night in the Great City with Patrice led to a bun in the oven. Patrice, not wanting to be tied down, has tricked Dande into believing the pregnancy was virgin birth, divine gift from her patron the King of Elfland.  They were both recently sucked back into the group and are experiencing a Planetary Romance type sci-fi adventure not unlike John Carter’s. I hope the arc finishes before I go back to school in February, and look forward to returning full time to “Satan’s Glee Club” in the spring!

What is Iron Tavern Press?

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Iron Tavern Press Teasers

During the previous few weeks I have slowly been dropping teasers for one of my 2014 projects – Iron Tavern Press. First the Iron Tavern Press ads you might have seen popping up here, in your social media streams, and even over at d20swsrd.com. Then there was last week’s blog post about Pocket-Sized Encounters explaining a little more about that product line. This week we look at Iron Tavern Press itself!

Iron Tavern Press LogoWhat is Iron Tavern Press?

Iron Tavern Press is a venture I have wanted to try out for a while. Over the years I have read a lot of advice about RPG publishing and I’ve also experimented with several different aspects of the RPG world – some public and some not so public. 2014 is the year I bring Iron Tavern Press to life.

The initial product offering is the Pocket-Sized Encounter line which I’ve described previously. I have several products in this line already lined up and they will be releasing on a semi-regular basis over the course of the next several months. Pocket-Sized Encounters are something that would handily fill a niche in my own gaming and campaigns. Shorter scenarios that can be run in single session or dropped into an existing campaign as an option without derailing the whole campaign.

While Pocket-Sized Encounters are the initial focus point for the launch of Iron Tavern Press – I do have some other products in mind as well. Some are one-offs and some are entire lines. Some are already in motion and others are waiting until the time is right (or perhaps more appropriately – for a gap in time!).

Keep an eye out for the first release from Iron Tavern Press coming later this month!

Episode 6: Tentative Steps on a New World

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dcc_rpg_cover_small‘Tentative Steps on a New World’ is the sixth episode of a Dungeon Crawl Classics RPG actual play podcast. Additional information can be found at http://irontavern.com/podcast.

Session Synopsis

The party finds themselves on a new planet that was the focus of both Emirikol’s and the mysterious wizard Erecark’s research. Stranded in a cave high along a cliffside the group attempts to recover the best they can as a battle rages outside. With no choice but to push onwards the party finds a cave passage that leads them to the first alien world encounter and further into the cliffside.

Notes: Roll20 gave us a few issues on the night we recorded and we ended up doing it the old school way – no maps on the screen and players rolling real dice at home. It played out just fine!

Download Link: http://irontavern.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/Episode-6.mp3

Credits
Intro and outro music is ‘Wrecking Ball’ from 137 from http://music.mevio.com.

Pocket-Sized Encounters

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Iron Tavern Press

 What are Pocket-Sized Encounters?

Pocket-Sized Encounters are compatible with Swords & Wizardry and easily adaptable to other OSR systems or even your favorite modern fantasy RPG. They are written to fit into the shorter gaming session slots that are so prevalent today. Designed to be run with minimal preparation, this line of products can be run on a moment’s notice for when your party takes a turn in an unexpected direction.

Or maybe you want to provide additional depth for your campaign. You want to present the players with options and choices that help your campaign world come alive around them. But at the same time, you don’t want these other options to derail the main theme of your game. You need something that can be run in a single session. The Pocket-Sized Encounters line fills this niche.

Each Pocket-Sized Encounter provides possible Adventure Hooks you can use to integrate these encounters into your existing campaign. They also offer seeds for expanding what is presented in the Pocket-Sized Encounter into something spanning more than one session if you want to expand upon what is presented.

The Pocket-Sized Encounter line provides random treasure tables, new monsters, or new magic items that can be used with the encounter area or borrowed for your own campaign.

Pocket-Sized Encounters from Iron Tavern Press bring this to you in a digest sized PDF. This format makes for easy reading on your favorite tablet based device and easier to keep a library’s worth on-hand for those times you need something to run at the spur of the moment.

Keep an eye out for the first Pocket-Sized Encounter to be released later this month!

Happy Holidays!

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Happy Holidays!And here we are at the end of 2013 and rolling full steam into the holidays! The Iron Tavern wants to wish everyone a Happy Holidays and hope you have an enjoying and relaxing time!

I have had a great year with The Iron Tavern and the friends I make through this blog and the many social media networks. Over the course of the year I have had many great discussions with people and lots of great gaming – both online and with my local group.

I will be taking a short holiday break from posting to the blog and will return after the first of the year. I will be using this time to make sure I have things in place for the unveiling of Iron Tavern Press, get ahead on a little freelancing, and just generally recharge the batteries a bit!

Happy Holidays!

Iron Tavern Press

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Some may have seen the mention made over a few of the social media networks last week of an up and coming project I have been working on – Iron Tavern Press. The official unveiling will happen in January, but an update or two releasing some additional information will occur before the official launch.

If you are interested in following only posts relating to Iron Tavern Press and not the myriad of other topics here at The Iron Tavern, you can use the following feed to only see Iron Tavern Press information.

Iron Tavern Press RSS Feed

Here is a teaser…

Iron Tavern Press - Coming Soon

 

Episode 5: Out of This World

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dcc_rpg_cover_small‘Out of This World’ is the fifth episode of a Dungeon Crawl Classics RPG actual play podcast. Additional information can be found at http://irontavern.com/podcast.

Session Synopsis

The adventurer’s continue their search through the wizard’s tower in search of the elusive Emirikol. Making their way through rooms that appear to jump from level to level in the tower the party eventually finds their way to the wizard’s main chamber.  Mass chaos erupts with a stunning finale as the characters spellburn their way out of a hot spot.

 Spoiler Warning: This session concludes our play through of Emirikol Was Framed by Michael Curtis from Goodman Games. If you do not want to hear potential spoilers for that module, you might want to skip this episode.

Download Link: http://irontavern.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/Episode-5.mp3

 

Credits
Intro and outro music is ‘Wrecking Ball’ from 137 from http://music.mevio.com.

Whisper & Venom Unboxing

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Lesser Gnome Games ran a Kickstarter earlier this year for what they called a boutique adventure box set. The boxed set was to include lots of minis to go with it, an adventure written with the OSR community in mind (though a conversion to Pathfinder is forthcoming in the Spring), dice, poster maps, etc – all in a box!

I interviewed Zach Glazar, the man behind the project, here at The Iron Tavern. I also posted the unrolling pics of the signed poster map back in November.

Earlier this week the rest of my Kickstarter arrived. A carefully bubble wrapped boxed set that was graced with awesome artwork from Jeff Dee on the front and packed full of gaming goodness.

Before we move to the unboxing pics (and there are lots of them!), I just want to say this was probably the best run Kickstarter (right up there with the Dwarven Forge Kickstarter) I have participated in yet. I’ve actually had a good run with Kickstarter and not had the bad experiences that many others have had. I am fairly picky in choosing what I wish to back and that has paid off. Lesser Gnome Games delivered well within the time frame they said they would and everything was included with the product they said would be included. Given this was a print product including a box to hold it all – I found this quite impressive. Communication during the project was phenomenal and the product actually exceeded my expectations.

I rarely rush to show my wife the cool things I received today in the mail from Kickstarters, Lulu deals, and such. But this time once I finished the pics I took it to her to show her how cool the set was. Definitely an impressive product from Lesser Gnome Games and I am glad I was in on the Kickstarter.

I hope you enjoy the unboxing pics!

Deus ex Historica – Pay What You Want

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Deus_ex_Historica_coverPurple Duck Games acquired  4 Winds Fantasy Gaming several months ago. As part of this acquisition they inherited the Kickstarter for the Deus ex Historica product, a Mutants & Masterminds supplement.

Deus ex Historica is a 376 page book that explores the ages of the super-hero from the golden age of the 40’s to the modern age. The book is full of heroes, villains, and even adventure seeds for a superhero campaign.

Purple Duck Games just announced yesterday that this book has gone to a Pay What You Want pricing model. If you are an active supers RPG player, or curious about the genre you can get a look at the product and if you like what you see come back and pay for the product.

 

The Perils of Cinder Claws

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perils_of_cinder_clawsPurple Duck Games has just released The Perils of Cinder Claws by Daniel Bishop. This is a Dungeon Crawl Classics module ready for some holiday gaming! The product actually contains two adventures – The Thing in the Chimney and The Nexus of Yule. The module comes in at 32 pages with artwork from Jacob Blackmon and cartography by Kristian Richards.

The Thing in the Chimney is suitable for a wide range of character levels with the level appropriateness determined by the number of characters. Anything from 1st level to 4th level is covered. The adventure takes place on the shortest day of the year in the winter and starts in a great hall that can easily be placed in the middle of the wilderness or small village or town.

I do not want to spoil too much of the adventure, but suffice it to say that the adventure contains all types of holiday themed components. Fruitcakes, snowmen, reindeer, and more! All are blended in an interesting adventure that would play well as a one-shot or holiday diversion for your ongoing campaign. You just might get to meet Cinder Claws himself!

The Nexus of Yule is the second adventure in the product. It can be used stand-alone or as a follow-up to the first adventure, though this one is listed as being suitable for four to eight 3rd level characters. This is another easy one to bring a separated group of characters together as the characters are brought together in this Nexus.

Avoiding spoilers again, there are many holiday themed elements throughout. The adventure can conclude in a variety of different ways depending on the group’s or individuals desire to help Cinder Claws.

And finally the Appendix includes a Patron write-up for Cinder Claws, a Yuletide Spirit. Invoke Patron check results, Patron Taint, and Spellburn results are all included. The names of three Patron Spells are included, but the details of those are left up to the judge. The names of the spells should provide enough to convey a general sense of what would be appropriate.

While I have not had the opportunity to run the adventures in this product, they look like great choices for someone wanting to run a holiday themed DCC game. The product is available at RPGNow.