Soooo.
Soooo. One of players turned up at tonight’s game after having documented the story so far, as I had offered an XP for any who would act as scribe.
He came up this this!!
I love this game! All this player made ephemera – It takes me back to High School in the early 80’s. And well done Tris😊😊
Episode 24 – RECAP!!!
Episode 24 – RECAP!!!
http://dungeoneerspodcast.libsyn.com/recap-brandt-isnt-anne-frank
Halwyr in the Valley Of The Titans, AP #2
Halwyr in the Valley Of The Titans, AP #2
This AP is written by one of my players, in the voice of his character, Halwyr the Wizard, with only minor edits and comments by me. Warning, it’s long. 😉 Commencing copy-paste!
“After trekking across the Valley of the Titans towards the “City above the Labyrinth” we discovered a lot about ourselves and each other. For example, Halwyr the wizard makes an excellent football, while Flobee the Paladin can be easily tricked into healing Titans who throw Halwyr like a football. It was a strange night…
Dringa, our guide from the village was distraught when we came across a village that had been flattened – literally – by a Titan who likes to stomp things. We didn’t see a lot of bodies, but there were a few and these were friends to Dringa. As we searched for the landmarks that would take us to the City, we came across a group of villagers that were clearly carrying everything they owned. [The quartermaster rolled badly. -JW]
We offered them our food and rations (because, you know…Flobee). And as they were telling us about the Stomping Titan who tried to kill them all, Flobee promised to protect them and slay the titan. (Hey, it worked last time…). Of course stomp, stomp, stomp…here he comes now. /sigh
He laughed heartily as Flobee informed him of his impending death. Halwyr got smushed under his ginormous feet and when he tried to defend himself, the Titan picked him up and threw him across the valley. Fortunately, he was able to divert his magical energies to buffet his fall. Meanwhile, Rill noticed that the Titan’s wings were crippled by old injuries. So she convinced Flobee to work together to heal the Titan so that he would leave the valley in peace and thereby protect the villagers.
There was poor Halwyr, abused and misused, charging back into the fray, quarterstaff held high, ready to strike, a warcry on his lips as he crests the rise… only to see Flobee and Rill patting the Titan gently and bandaging him up…Unfortunately, Halwyr does not yet know how to turn people into toads…but soon. Very soon…
We camped with the villagers who were so grateful for our assistance that they provided us with some…uh gifts. The elder presented Flobee with a wooden box full of his ear wax. Yeah, you heard me. Magic ear wax. He’s been collecting it for like 30 years. Apparently if you drip it into someone’s ear, they are compelled to fully answer 3 questions truthfully. Halwyr has taken to staying up on Watch most of the night…
Rill received a large pewter coin with the power to prevent death one time. And Halwyr received a book with 5 blank pages in it. Yeah, I know. Halwyr had a rough night…
(Ok, apparently the pages are magical and if you fold them into animal shapes, they become giant paper animals. I mean it’s cool and all, and it’s better than ear wax. But it’s not like a Coin of Defying Death or anything…).
Anyway, middle of the night, Halwyr goes to wake Flobee for his Watch shift, but he’s gone. We find him wandering around in the desert. As we try to wake him, we’re attacked by the undead shadows that are trying to convert him to one of them! Man, if that Paladin hadn’t one-shotted a Titan the other day, I tell ya…
Anyway, Rill finally turns the undead and Halwyr tackles the idio…Paladin, before he gets too far. So yeah, Flobee’s cursed. Lovely. When we get to the City the next day, we determine that Halwyr can cast a ritual to cure Flobee, but we need this Nannorian thingy – basically the jewel heart of a Titan. Awesome! Cuz we didn’t just kill one 3 days out and could have killed another yesterday, right? No, we learn this NOW. So we gotta go find another one and then figure out a way to kill it too.
Freaking Flobee…
So then we find out that there’s this “Order” who “administer” the City. And what they mean is that they round up trouble makers and sacrifice them to the Labyrinth so that it doesn’t come alive and eat the whole city!
So we’re trying to figure out how to get in to the Labyrinth, where we believe this Angelic Sword is, when this guy Cameron convinces Flobee to rescue his friends being held by The Order for sacrifice the next day. So that’s where we stopped. I do hope this Angelic Sword inside the Labyrinthe is worth it. Cuz Flobee is really getting under Halwyr’s skin. On the plus side, we’ve almost convinced the Paladin that a sun tattoo on his ass would be COOOOLLLL. :)”
Sabe Jones
Halwyr in the Valley Of The Titans, AP#1
Halwyr in the Valley Of The Titans, AP#1
This AP is written by one of my players, in the voice of his character, Halwyr the Wizard, with only minor edits and comments by me. Warning, it’s long. 😉 Commencing copy-paste!
“We found ourselves heading towards the Valley of the Titans, a land of death and destruction where the gods sent their titan-servants to do battle for them. [I’ve since drifted this interpretation a bit. Titans can ascend to become gods, and gods can fall, becoming titans again. Both were involved in the War Of The Gods that preceded our adventure in the Valley. -JW] Many of those titans still roam the lands and the people of the valley have inked themselves in shimmering tattoos to identify which Titan they belong to (and to make sure they are seen and not smushed as the Titans walk by).
Early in our travels, a group of such valleyfolk got incensed with us for trespassing on their land and for eyeing their sacred fruit. Let me tell you, we should have heeded their warnings. After threatening to eat one of their precious fruit if they didn’t leave us alone, they attacked. So I ate the fruit and turned into a woman. I’m not sure if Flobee the Paladin was jealous or aroused.
I also had a vision that showed me the ancient Angelic Sword – a key to finding out if I was part of a prophecy that would make me take the place of the existing god of magic.
I was able to convince the villagers that their god Pria had given me the vision and described the sword. They want the sword back for themselves, so we were escorted to their village. They mocked Flobee for his simplistic devotion to Pelor. And Kila the Bard sang songs of valour and combat to entertain the villagers. We watched and then participated in a ritual test of strength, which I won. (I’m strong for a wizard, plus I turned the spear into a snake which helped).
Overnight, Flobee was attacked by some kind of darkness and we don’t know what it did to him. Meanwhile, I returned to normal in the morning. It was a mystery whether the Angelic Sword was still in the belly of the dead Titan Arkus who had swallowed it, or stolen by villagers and placed inside the Crawling Labyrinth. I summoned the spirit of Arkus who demanded that the sword be returned to his belly at once! So we made tracks towards Labyrinth.
Then things got…interesting. It was several days journey to the Crawling Labyrinth and we chose to go through the Hills, risking awakening Pengi – the Titan of Hills and Smoke, who actually looked like a small hill. Well, wouldn’t you know it, we found him. And as usual, Flobee’s adherence to the Truth nearly got us all killed.
See, he had promised Pelor to SLAY A TITAN! In return, Pelor promised him the ability to discern lies. So wouldn’t you know it, as soon as we see this giant hill, stand up, shake the boulders from its back and attack us with a freaking giant tree, Flobee goes CHARGING IN! I mean this thing wasn’t the size of a hill…it WAS a hill!
The tree bounces off Flobee’s shield and with one mighty thrust, he stabs Pengi right through his baby toe – the only weak spot the Titan has! The entire hill collapses on Flobee and we spent the next 2 hours digging him out from underneath all the rubble and rocks. Well, I’ll never doubt Pelor again, that’s for sure. But that Paladin is still nuts, I tell ya. Who in their right mind charges a HILL???
– Halwyr The Wizard
First real play session of our new #Stonetop group.
First real play session of our new #Stonetop group.
Some of the young girls in the village were daring each other to grab pretty stones from the Stream (a thing local kids do, apparently). One of them, the Blessed’s cousin, grabbed something silvery and shiny and wandered off into the Wood, ignoring the other.
The Ranger and the Would-Be Hero set off in pursuit, but (because the Ranger’s player cancelled unexpectedly), we said that they somehow got separated. The Would-Be Hero just turned away for a moment and BAM, the ranger and her saber-toothed lion were gone. So the Would-Be Hero made her way back home.
Following morning, the Blessed, the Seeker, the Would-Be Hero and the missing girls parents outfitted for a search party.
They went down to the Stream and the Blessed called up the Quiet Twins (local ghosts; he thinks they were once sacrificed to Danu) to ask where the girl went off to. After meeting their demands (that they give the Stream something sacred to Danu), the Twins told them that the girl had picked up a “madding stone, like quicksilver, shunned by all that is natural” and wandered off.
The Seeker, holding on to the Azure Hand, studied the ebb and flow of energies as the Twins manifested and departed, and he sensed some other presence nearby, watching them. It vanished as soon as he noticed it, though.
Some lore was spouted. Quicksilver is known to be associated with the Things Below, and madness. (A miss on a Spout Lore caused the Would-Be Hero to remember her days selling slaves to the Southerners, and the sub-human wretches they sometimes brought with them, the remains of less-useful slaves.)
The Seeker then tracked the energy trail that this “madding stone” left behind. They got to where the Would-Be Hero lost the Ranger, and found themselves near a large gray stone, smooth and covered in ancient Maker runes, moss-covered and overgrown with vines. The Seeker, still studying the flow of energies in the area, detects a… ripple in space, like a crease in a sheet. (“What’s a sheet?” asks the Blessed. “Is that some fancy southern contraption?”)
They Seeker reveals that the fae are often associated with distortions in space & time. Maybe this is related to them?
They back away from the big stone and fold in space, wondering what to do next. The Would-Be Hero hears something in the trees, biffs a Discern Realities check, and gets tackled by a nailadd, a giant jumping spider. The Blessed Moves to kick it off her, but gets tackled by another one!
There’s a desperate fight. The missing girl’s father stabs one of the spiders and gets his spear stuck in the thing. The girl’s mother freaks out and runs off into the woods. The Would-Be Hero gets poisoned and starts mildly hallucinating. So does the girls’ father. The Blessed realizes that their quicksilvery poison indicates they are perversions of nature, so he restrains one with Danu’s Wrath. The other he drives off with a spear, and it disappears inside the space-fold (but the iron axe that was stuck in its eye remains, dropping to the ground).
They pulverize the restrained spider, then set about treating the poison. The girl’s father is near death, and the Hero isn’t doing great either. The Blessed has to use all his remedies up to treat them, and the girl’s father is all groggy and barely able to stand. They track the girl’s mother and discuss what to do.
The Blessed mentions the iron axe remaining when the spider disappeared. The Seeker checks the area over and finds the Ranger’s steel-tipped arrows! This confirms that fae magic is involved, and they crack a book to learn more. It’s one of the Seeker’s old books of children’s stories, and they find a tale about this sort of “Waystone.”
The story involves a man who becomes enamored of a fae and sees her vanish near such a stone. He pines and pines for her, never able to find her until finally, in old age, his wits leave him. Finally, he finds the fae pathways and leaves. And according to the tale, almost a hundred years pass before he is seen again by his kin… and he hasn’t aged a day.
The Blessed brings up the idea that they could drug themselves with a little bit of the spiders’ hallucinogenic poison and make they’re way through the fae path. The Seeker suggests, perhaps, alcohol instead. The Would-Be Hero, still sort of tripping from the dose she got, is like “that’s ridiculous! I’ll prove it to you!” and she walks through the fold in space and disappears.
BUM BUM BUM!
So why do people play Dungeon World? For a fun time like this.
So why do people play Dungeon World? For a fun time like this.
Heroes of the City 2.0 This game is for personal use only. Playtest report.
Heroes of the City 2.0 This game is for personal use only. Playtest report.
The goal is to create a superhero genre game that people can sit down, create a character, and be ready to play in about 15 minutes. The rules should be simple enough to explain the basics in 5-10 minutes. I want it to have quick, non-random, character creation and a detailed powers system (what’s a superhero game without a good powers system?). The aim of the game is to fulfill the need for a quick to learn, episodic, alternate to a D&D game that attracts too many players. In other words, when the D&D game has too many players, the extra players would be able to slip seamlessly into another game. I extensively looked around for a superhero genre game with a ‘pick-up-and-play’ factor and couldn’t find one that met my specific need.
I hit upon the idea of using Dungeon World after holding a character creation workshop where DW playbooks were on the table. Three of the players spontaneously picked up a playbook, started reading, and had a character ready in about 15 minutes. That made a very strong and lasting impression on me. I checked out the other Apocalypse World published systems and hacks that tackled superheroes, but couldn’t quite make them meet my needs. I started to make my own AW hack supers game trying to fulfill my specific needs. My first AW incarnation was bad, and I started looking at other systems again and seeing if I could hack them to my needs. I kept coming back to DW.
Then I hit upon the concept of ‘why reinvent the wheel?’ DW works the way I want it to, so why not directly hack DW into a supers game? Use the same moves, stats, object tags, GM principles, bonds, alignment, etc. and re-skin them as superheroes. I tried version 1.0 out after 10-14 days of copying, pasting, and formatting. It went okay, but there were many questions. How I presented the game, specific ways to handle situations, and how powers worked exactly. I got great feedback from my randomly appearing players and most importantly, we had a good time.
Enter version HotC 2.0. For this version, I hit upon the idea of using powers as moves. “When you use ice control…”, “When you use fire blast…” etc. I was originally thinking each power would be its own move, but was encouraged by members of the DW community to make a Use a Power basic move, instead of a bunch of moves. I created 10-11 powers for each of the five archetypes (with some overlap) over the next fortnight. I rewrote the basic and special moves for clarity and usefulness. I reworked the starting moves to keep the flavor I wanted, but be a little more useful. I read the play test notes repeatedly until I felt better about covering some of the gaps.
Character creation 2.0: I happened to be able to split my playgroup into several different scenarios. Case 1: 7 minutes of basic AW system rules explanation using examples. Players created characters in 15 minutes or less. One player had played DW once, and another had not. Case 2: Two players who had played DW once. No explanation of basic rules and concepts. They grabbed playbooks without prompting and character creation finished in 12 minutes or less. Therefore, I’m very, very happy with that! 🙂
Play test 2.0. The good: powers system worked well, there was little spamming of moves, all the characters felt balanced, I did a better job on the front end rules explanation, characters were created in 15 minutes or less, we found some more holes, we did stupid stuff and made memorable quotes, so everyone had a good time. The opportunities: clarify, clarify, and clarify. Reformat one or two things. Reexamine powers for usefulness of some of the stunts and try to qualify and quantify the powers better in the descriptions. Inspiration system or use needs reworking. KO rules need to be altered. Villains need to be able to counter moves with damage.
Therefore, I’m going to proceed with a version 3.0.
Episode 11: Intrigues of Parsantium. NEW cast!!! NEW adventures!
Episode 11: Intrigues of Parsantium. NEW cast!!! NEW adventures!
Come check it out!
Ok, I am having some interesting problems with the system. I am running a hack for Shadowrun using the Dungeon…
Ok, I am having some interesting problems with the system. I am running a hack for Shadowrun using the Dungeon World mindset. When I was approching the game, I found 4 different versions of Shadowrun Hacks for DW. Each had errors and were incomplete in some way, so I took what I thought was the best of them and tried to complete it, but that isn’t my issue.
I have two players that have different issues with the game.
Player A had poor dice luck in the game and ended up failing the roll a good portion of the time. He got 8 experience from one short game session on it due to rolling 6 or under. One comment the player had was the he has trouble with a system that you fail 50% of the time: he considered it a failure when he got a 7-9 and I chose to exchange damage with him. And when I can make a Move, he considered it a failure on his part. It was hard to explain it to him, definitely used to tactical gaming.
Player B, had the opposite response. He was playing a stealthy character that spent most of the session sneaking around and didn’t fail at anything, hardly needed to make a role due to no opposition, it didn’t trigger a Move. So he ended up with just 2 xp in the game. 1 for my end of game and 1 for a single 6 that he got.
Fiction of the situation was a bunch of gangers busted into a store and started threatening people. Nearly pure combat as they were just there to make havoc and rob the place and didn’t mind killing anyone that got in the way.
Player A was a Mage that had poor Luck, Player B is an Adept that is sneaky and snuck around back and avoided most of the fight.
So here is the problem: One Player is frustrated in his failure but sees anything I do in response on a 7-9 as a failure and the Other feels that he doesn’t have opportunity to gain the experience points because what he was doing was not triggering Moves. Jumping on a person that is completely unaware doesn’t require a move.
An Odd mix of both spectrums. I also needed to come up with more alternatives than Damage on a 7-9 in a firefight. The bad guys want to control the situation and kill any opposition so I was doing damage more often, so they were exchanging damage a bunch. So a bit of a failing there on my part.
Is anyone interested in a One Shot Tonight; Starting at 8;30 Eatern Time Zone.
Is anyone interested in a One Shot Tonight; Starting at 8;30 Eatern Time Zone. You will be playing as/Making a Samurai Class that is Level 7 and have a small army under your command. As you storm the Ghoul Queens Capital.