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The Furyondy Living Greyhawk Resource
Many of my adventures take place around the area of Furyondy or because of events there. A majority of the PCs have origins connected to the area, making the draw much stronger. For newer player, this may offer the best introduction for the moment. Note that there are differences between Living Geyhawk canon and Campaign canon.
The Furyondy Gazetteer can be found here. The PDF file is hosted on scribd.
The Furyondy Living Greyhawk site in Freewebs.
Tuesday, September 9, 2008
Sunday, July 27, 2008
Session Two
Approach with Caution
Kendric and Helmut emerge from the tomb to better prepare for an expedition. They delve deeper only to find more traps and humanoid corpses. Their exploration ends at a mysterious underground shrine. Above ground, the Liberation Army of Baron Lea approaches One Well.
Mal’ahk has not finished his paladin but at least he has a concept.
That left Aodhan [Kendric] and Helmut to play this session. The traps provided more problem solving situations than mere dice rolling. And this being First Edition flavored, there was a death trap. It was in the first room. It was also designed by Aodhan. The conversation afterwards was very interesting.
There was also some tension due to the arrival of the Army's main force. Fortunately, the players didn't fall for the Fog of War mood completely. With the town and Army in agreement, the area would be more secure against the Giants. Unfortunately this makes things a bit more difficult for Aodhan[Kendric].
The next session Mal’ahk finishes up his paladin [we hope].
Kendric and Helmut emerge from the tomb to better prepare for an expedition. They delve deeper only to find more traps and humanoid corpses. Their exploration ends at a mysterious underground shrine. Above ground, the Liberation Army of Baron Lea approaches One Well.
Mal’ahk has not finished his paladin but at least he has a concept.
That left Aodhan [Kendric] and Helmut to play this session. The traps provided more problem solving situations than mere dice rolling. And this being First Edition flavored, there was a death trap. It was in the first room. It was also designed by Aodhan. The conversation afterwards was very interesting.
There was also some tension due to the arrival of the Army's main force. Fortunately, the players didn't fall for the Fog of War mood completely. With the town and Army in agreement, the area would be more secure against the Giants. Unfortunately this makes things a bit more difficult for Aodhan[Kendric].
The next session Mal’ahk finishes up his paladin [we hope].
Tuesday, June 10, 2008
Quickie Character Flavor
Spicing up the game persona
I use three methods to immediately impart flavor to characters. One or two significant traits should be enough for regular NPCs. For PCs, the traits just tend to pile on as you keep playing.
Details, Details
This is when you delve into the background of a character and write in as much info as you can. You note down favorite foods, catchphrases, signature moves, maybe even
whole family trees. You can also create thematic details like Otto’s musical spells or Bigby’s hand spells. One of Helmut’s men keeps starting his comments with “my grampa told me…”
The Not aka The Exception
The lawful good Lich. The happy-go-lucky dwarf. The stocky elf. Melee hungry mages. Take one or two stereotype traits and turn them around. Depending on the effect you want the characters can be effective or ineffective, funny or serious. They will be surprising though if you don’t overdo it.
Cyborg
It’s a term I use for tech driven characters, those that use metagame ideas to make them unusual. Sometimes, but not always, they are created to be combat monsters. This includes those half-giant spiked chain masters with spring attack. Note that it also includes multiclass commoner/rogues. Technically, lawful good lich is also a cyborg but categories overlap anyway.
I use three methods to immediately impart flavor to characters. One or two significant traits should be enough for regular NPCs. For PCs, the traits just tend to pile on as you keep playing.
Details, Details
This is when you delve into the background of a character and write in as much info as you can. You note down favorite foods, catchphrases, signature moves, maybe even
whole family trees. You can also create thematic details like Otto’s musical spells or Bigby’s hand spells. One of Helmut’s men keeps starting his comments with “my grampa told me…”
The Not aka The Exception
The lawful good Lich. The happy-go-lucky dwarf. The stocky elf. Melee hungry mages. Take one or two stereotype traits and turn them around. Depending on the effect you want the characters can be effective or ineffective, funny or serious. They will be surprising though if you don’t overdo it.
Cyborg
It’s a term I use for tech driven characters, those that use metagame ideas to make them unusual. Sometimes, but not always, they are created to be combat monsters. This includes those half-giant spiked chain masters with spring attack. Note that it also includes multiclass commoner/rogues. Technically, lawful good lich is also a cyborg but categories overlap anyway.
Monday, June 9, 2008
Session One
The Well of Adventure
Kendric is hired to travel to Geoff in search of a rare item. Helmut is asked to seek the aid of the [very small] town of One Well in the fight against the giants. The two meet and investigate the town’s mysterious immunity to the Giants’ incursion. They stumble upon an old Oeridian tomb being explored by orcs.
Finally! After schedule conflicts pushed back our starting date, we managed to get the game rolling.
The first session establishes two of the PCs: Kendric the rascally halfling and Helmut the beer brewing cleric [diety to be announced]. Sure enough we manage to get everyone in the same tavern in a small town in Geoff. From there it took less effort to actually have them work together. In this case Kendric needed some religious sigils interpreted.
Aodhan [Kendric] was a bit surprised about how it played, noting that a lot of important things did happen before they even got to the tomb. We played out a lot of establishing scenes just to immerse ourselves in the setting. Then I had to convey the strangeness of the town. It seems I did give them enough information to mull over.
He also liked the part about characters acting according to internal logic. During the first encounter they were not fully armored because they were busy searching the countryside. When they discovered the tomb and the orc sentries, it was too late to gear up.
Helmut was all over detailing his band of fighting men which added much flavor and humor. Most of them were Perrenland natives except for new recruits from the Ulek coast. The potential for cultural comedy is present.
The next session Mal’ahk finishes up his paladin.
Kendric is hired to travel to Geoff in search of a rare item. Helmut is asked to seek the aid of the [very small] town of One Well in the fight against the giants. The two meet and investigate the town’s mysterious immunity to the Giants’ incursion. They stumble upon an old Oeridian tomb being explored by orcs.
Finally! After schedule conflicts pushed back our starting date, we managed to get the game rolling.
The first session establishes two of the PCs: Kendric the rascally halfling and Helmut the beer brewing cleric [diety to be announced]. Sure enough we manage to get everyone in the same tavern in a small town in Geoff. From there it took less effort to actually have them work together. In this case Kendric needed some religious sigils interpreted.
Aodhan [Kendric] was a bit surprised about how it played, noting that a lot of important things did happen before they even got to the tomb. We played out a lot of establishing scenes just to immerse ourselves in the setting. Then I had to convey the strangeness of the town. It seems I did give them enough information to mull over.
He also liked the part about characters acting according to internal logic. During the first encounter they were not fully armored because they were busy searching the countryside. When they discovered the tomb and the orc sentries, it was too late to gear up.
Helmut was all over detailing his band of fighting men which added much flavor and humor. Most of them were Perrenland natives except for new recruits from the Ulek coast. The potential for cultural comedy is present.
The next session Mal’ahk finishes up his paladin.
Wednesday, April 9, 2008
We’re Playing What?
DnD 3.x = AD&D 1e + ADnD 2e
Choosing the Greyhawk campaign is a tribute of sorts… but I couldn’t leave it at just that. Aodhan, one of our more experienced gamers, wanted a twist, a theme or idea which fired the imagination. Simply stating “we play DnD in Greyhawk” doesn’t appeal to him. I had to come up with a description of the Adventure Track/ Setting for this mini-campaign.
One time, after visiting a bereaved friend, we got to talking about the game. I like talking to Aodhan, he gets your mind working and doesn’t let you take things for granted. After the talk, the new campaign idea quickly crystallized. This is the blurb I emailed the players:
I wish I could have seen the players’ faces.
Choosing the Greyhawk campaign is a tribute of sorts… but I couldn’t leave it at just that. Aodhan, one of our more experienced gamers, wanted a twist, a theme or idea which fired the imagination. Simply stating “we play DnD in Greyhawk” doesn’t appeal to him. I had to come up with a description of the Adventure Track/ Setting for this mini-campaign.
One time, after visiting a bereaved friend, we got to talking about the game. I like talking to Aodhan, he gets your mind working and doesn’t let you take things for granted. After the talk, the new campaign idea quickly crystallized. This is the blurb I emailed the players:
DUNGEONCRASH!
Our stalwart heroes meet in a tavern, form a party
and enter the forbidden tomb of an ancient sorcerer...
Genre: DnD
3x Fantasy
Period: Greyhawk CY 586
Category: high fantasy techno-thriller,
some humor
Theme: not what it seems, RP and tech challenge
Yes
you heard that right - For some reason a band of adventurers gather and sally
forth to plumb the depths of a monster populated, death trap laden dungeon.
There will be mysterious patrons, orders from great rulers, requests from
powerful wizards and priests. There will be a dark elf ranger with a scimitar.
There will be ninja. There will be randomly generated hoards. There may even be
randomly generated dungeons.
Except, this time, the events
happening before and after the expedition may be more important than the orc
mugging and grave robbing. And, if you survive, it will make sense.
A skewed tribute to Old School Gaming and the Grand EGG himself;
some cheekiness included.
I wish I could have seen the players’ faces.
Friday, March 28, 2008
Its OK, Gary Sent Us
Tribute to the creator of DnD and the RPG hobby
I won’t hide the fact that the passing of Gary Gygax influenced the choice of game world. He was after all one of the founding fathers and, for a long time, its premier spokesperson. In a sense Gary led all of us to the world of gaming. It seemed fitting I used his world this time.
I have fond memories of getting my 1st edition Advanced Dungeons and Dragons books. The sense of wonder. The sense of adventure. The sense of confusion at the words. Hey, it wasn’t a perfect system. And it seems Gary was equally quirky. I reread his “Up on a Soapbox” columns from Dragon Magazine. Some of those stories make me shake my head. Melf turning dual classed midway in an adventure. The adversarial GM mindset. Heck, he admitted he used house rules. [And I forced myself to use “weapon speed”!]
But looking back, he understood then what it was all about. Sometimes you just have to cut and paste, hack and sew at the rules and traditions. It’s because there are no standard players. The individual quirks and passions will always come out.
So here’s to you Mr. G. Thanks for showing the way.
I won’t hide the fact that the passing of Gary Gygax influenced the choice of game world. He was after all one of the founding fathers and, for a long time, its premier spokesperson. In a sense Gary led all of us to the world of gaming. It seemed fitting I used his world this time.
I have fond memories of getting my 1st edition Advanced Dungeons and Dragons books. The sense of wonder. The sense of adventure. The sense of confusion at the words. Hey, it wasn’t a perfect system. And it seems Gary was equally quirky. I reread his “Up on a Soapbox” columns from Dragon Magazine. Some of those stories make me shake my head. Melf turning dual classed midway in an adventure. The adversarial GM mindset. Heck, he admitted he used house rules. [And I forced myself to use “weapon speed”!]
But looking back, he understood then what it was all about. Sometimes you just have to cut and paste, hack and sew at the rules and traditions. It’s because there are no standard players. The individual quirks and passions will always come out.
So here’s to you Mr. G. Thanks for showing the way.
Wednesday, March 26, 2008
One step at a time...
DM starts up a mini-campaign
That's how things usually start. Funny how difficult it is to take that step.
I had been toying with the notion of starting a new rpg campaign. Not that there's anything wrong with our current campaigns, its just that the "Old Guard" is experiencing schedule difficulties [aka Real Life]. Inviting some of my newly acquainted rpg buddies to a game seemed like a good idea. And since I wanted to break out of the gaming drought, I figured a short mini-campaign would be easier to prepare. Of course that was before I actually started to work on the game but that's getting ahead of myself. Keeping notes and journals online seemed like a good idea as well. Its something I didn't have when I started this hobby.
So for starters, I had to decide on which game to run. To keep things simple I settled on this criteria:
Accessible rpg system
Ideally a system familiar to most of the gamers around here. If I needed to explain the system I should be able to do it with as little effort as possible. Ideally, It should also be "gear light". I don't want to lug a small library around and I don't think the players would want that either.
That ruled out Rifts and the Palladium system. Same with Shadowrun. Too bad, I kinda like Shadowrun. And the Rifts setting is always entertaining.
Comfortable game premise
Considering all the gut wrenching drama and tales of moral ambiguity we're seeing in the daily news not to mention the special coverage in the Senate, I decided to go full out escapist. So I say bye bye to Worlds of Darkness.
Familiarity with the game world
Custom crafting a world is enjoyable but takes time. That means its either a published setting or an offshoot of a current campaign. That pretty much left me with two choices - Dungeons and Dragons 3rd ed. Greyhawk or our custom Big Eyes Small Mouth anime cyberpunk game. From the title of this blog, you know which game won out.
That's how things usually start. Funny how difficult it is to take that step.
I had been toying with the notion of starting a new rpg campaign. Not that there's anything wrong with our current campaigns, its just that the "Old Guard" is experiencing schedule difficulties [aka Real Life]. Inviting some of my newly acquainted rpg buddies to a game seemed like a good idea. And since I wanted to break out of the gaming drought, I figured a short mini-campaign would be easier to prepare. Of course that was before I actually started to work on the game but that's getting ahead of myself. Keeping notes and journals online seemed like a good idea as well. Its something I didn't have when I started this hobby.
So for starters, I had to decide on which game to run. To keep things simple I settled on this criteria:
Accessible rpg system
Ideally a system familiar to most of the gamers around here. If I needed to explain the system I should be able to do it with as little effort as possible. Ideally, It should also be "gear light". I don't want to lug a small library around and I don't think the players would want that either.
That ruled out Rifts and the Palladium system. Same with Shadowrun. Too bad, I kinda like Shadowrun. And the Rifts setting is always entertaining.
Comfortable game premise
Considering all the gut wrenching drama and tales of moral ambiguity we're seeing in the daily news not to mention the special coverage in the Senate, I decided to go full out escapist. So I say bye bye to Worlds of Darkness.
Familiarity with the game world
Custom crafting a world is enjoyable but takes time. That means its either a published setting or an offshoot of a current campaign. That pretty much left me with two choices - Dungeons and Dragons 3rd ed. Greyhawk or our custom Big Eyes Small Mouth anime cyberpunk game. From the title of this blog, you know which game won out.
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