JCC Amph Rocks Fall, Everyone Dies - The Tabletop RPG Discussion Thread

So today I was the DM for first time. We went through 2 of my side quests things. Again, this was to give the DM more time to plan his campaign.







*SOME SPOILERS*







Well first they went into my Tavern, met the three choices of what quests to do. And surprisingly they chose the option I thought be last. But I took them for their first quest to find a moonrock at a Haunted House essentially.







A couple things about it though. Like when they entered they lost all their equipment and most of their magic by statue of the house, so they had to find it in there. So they could only punch their way.







Thing is, I was trying to frighten them, like actions would give disadvantages, but one player couldn't be frightened and allies within 10 ft of him couldn't be either so that idea never materialized. Like a head on a chain popped down and a guy wasnt frightened, and he took they head to use as a uh..."self pleasure device". I kept trying to destroy the head to take it away, but nothing worked. They also didn't trigger a fight because of the way they treated something, so they avoided a fight and a trap towards the end.







I had them face various things. I think I creeped a few out due to my description and the music I had playing, lol.







Odd way to solve something though, they faced one thing, and the barbarian's thought was to try an exorcism on it. I mean, it worked, but anything would have the way I had it set, but it was just a weird thing to do for it.







Took a small break, they wanted to play more, so they chose another option. I won't spoil because I had the most fun I think, as I made a physical map on paper with grids and bottle caps with numbers on them to simulate the players. See the other quest I just posted stuff in the app we use for communication out here. But I liked this physical map idea, and the others really liked the caps and stuff too.











My last idea we'll do next week they said before jumping back into regular campaign. Since I have time I'll try to make a physical map for that one.







So yeah fun stuff. I don't want to spoil everything cause if possible, I'd like to learn the online stuff to maybe run this with people online one day. Hey maybe with people here even, but I got see how stuff works.

 

So today we started a new campaign. I'll keep my extra stuff for another day in case. We went to this new city called Waterdeep. While in a tavern they kill a troll and we get asked to help find a missing royal who got Kidnapped. The next day we go to a shop, get some new gear. Like I get an upgraded bow, sword, and a dagger that lights up in case there is danger nearby like Frodo's sword in LOTR.

Well we discover 2 different types of gangs basically are causing trouble, go to one of their hideouts, but these bird things wiped out almost everyone. Once we get rid of them, interrogating one to find info, we discover another Kidnapped guy. Both info shows the missing one was taken to the sewers area. We get there, and clear some rooms, but we find the guy, kill the baddies.
For our heroics we got a house basically to stay there so yay. I did go up two levels, cause we caught some sleeping goblins, I took one out by myself meeting the criteria of this card thing I got which gave me an extra level, so now level 9.

All throughout though there are hints of a big bad creature around that's hard to kill. So hopefully we level up more, but it seems we will have to deal with it. From what I know it's called a Beholder? It's covered in eyes and its powerful, idk.
.

 

I’m a traditionalist and call short campaigns “series.”

 

So found this solo rpg I can play, but man it's hard with one player. The other one I found gave you an npc to play as to help you, but so car this one doesn't. I'm going to use my backup character I think along with my main to get through it better

 

So my new dice came in. See I thought I lost a couple pieces so I ordered another set just like but refound them. Oh well. But I ordered another set too, this one was fall dice themed and they're so memorizing. Like so pretty. I need to be careful or I could become a dice collector lol. But how many sets do you all have? And where could I get a good dice bag?

 

Hard to count in sets at the point I'm at, since it's well over a thousand dice...

 

Edit: At about 14 minutes he makes a comment about working with Wizards to bring Dragonlance to life. This has made a internet splash that perhaps there will be a tv series.

 

Rogue Prof: *throws soup can at unwary student*
Rogue Student: Ouch! Prof, I don't get it. How does this help us against magic?
Rogue Prof: If you can dodge a soup can, you can dodge a fireball.
...later...
Rogue: And that's how I learned Uncanny Dodge.
Wizard: This explains NOTHING!

 

My first thought is that would be amazing. But I also wonder how much the original would have to be altered to appeal to audiences today and think it may be best to just leave well enough alone. Plus if the D&D movie coming out is any indicator, WOTC mainstream direction seems more ironic and self-deprecating than epic and heart on the sleeve that the Chronicles tended to.

 

Good to hear. I guess the marketing is trying to sweep in the admittedly large MCU audience. Despite my own reservations, I actually bought some tickets for next week for me and the family. Mainly because I had a rare weekday off align with Spring Break. I think it will still probably appeal more to them as a mainstream type audience than myself, but am willing to keep an open mind. Certainly any of the clips they have showcased have leaned HEAVILY into ironic humour and I was worried that I would be sitting through alot of jokes I've now already seen (the advertising is heavy for this on youtube).

I am more of a Dragonlance fan than TTRPG fan but am still happy to see some classic monsters on screen (I will hold out for someday an Elmore type red dragon versus comedic fat dragon showing up onscreen somewhere in the future...).

 

Learned an interesting fact today - a proto-TTRPG was created back in 1937 by some college guys having fun. And who was one of those people? Why, Fritz Leiber, the creator of Fahrhd and the Grey Mouser sword-and-sorcery novels, which were one of the main influences on the creation of Dungeons & Dragons (and the saga which I am going to read in its entirety for the first time this year).
While Gygax was unaware of the game (it was never published), a stripped-down version of the game, Lankhmar, was one of the first things that TSR - the company that published Dungeons and Dragons - ended up making, back in 1976 (although after the development of D&D).
TSR eventually published adventures set in his universe in the 1980s. I played in a campaign in that setting for a brief time, but sadly the campaign existed solely to get revenge on a person so it did not continue after its intended purpose was fulfilled.

 

Welcome to this new section called "pictures from my last RPG session without context"

 

So our dm told me today he's trying to make a full campaign. Making a world based off heavy metal music. We've been operating off pre-made campaigns for now.





But he told me that out of everyone, I'm the only one who made any type of backstory for my character at all. Like I've made 4 characters on the dndbeyond page, 3 of them are actually characters for a fantasy series of novellas I want to write. There's a certain thing he wants to do with my rogue character's background. Like my character was basically bad, but something happened that traumatized him, so he turned himself in. He gets brought by a priest to basically Christianity, and now years later he's out of prison, trying to do things to redeem himself. (Also I have a side thing of how he's like bouncing around between worlds. Like he's been to many different places, and that if he "died" he's just brought to a different place instead. A good excuse to use him for other campaigns if I ever played any, but an actual thing of his story in my book ideas.)



But his past associates, they're going to come looking for him he said. I mean this does happen in my idea, but his interpretation of it to play out will be interesting, so let's see how it goes.

 

SCORE! My visit to the used book store netted a copy of the Rebel Alliance SB...

 

The one from WEG? I just about wore out my copy.

 

Yep. While I have a massive RPG collection, my WEG section is haphazard.

 

I just got me my own copy of the ALIEN RPG wooo

 

Fantastic game system. Highly recommend the Colonial Marines SB as well.

 

So, my visit to the used bookstore was to see if I could get books to complete my collection for my reading project for the year. What is it? Well, it's reading book series that were formative or paralleled the development of RPGs, Dungeons and Dragons especially - some of which I had never read, and some that I haven't in decades.
Witch World - Andre Norton - I discovered her in middle school, with a collection of her seven initial volumes in the library - I discovered years later that she lived in the area at the time, and likely was responsible for donating them! The series began in the early 60s and continued to her death in the early 2000s, with collaborations and short story collections by other authors dominating the later years. They have an interesting blend of magic and science.
Conan - Robert E. Howard - I'm talking the original stories. There's been a lot of Conan material from other people, from comics, to novels, to movies, but I was hard pressed to say if I've ever read the originals!
Cthulhu Mythos - HP Lovecraft and Others - I discovered the cosmic horror of the Mythos thanks to my copy of D&D's Deities and Demigods, which gave game stats for some of his concepts. The shared conceit of the universe means that I'll be reading the various core stories by the most important authors.
Newhon - Fritz Leiber - One of the earliest sword-and-sorcery sagas, and a major inspiration for Dungeons and Dragons - and one of the three mythologies from fiction in Deities and Demigods! I've only read one of the collections.
Elric - Michael Moorcock - The third of the fiction series appearing in Deities and Demigods. Another powerful influence on early D&D (where the whole Law-Chaos axis came into play). Never read them; I finished the first five novels in January and February. Chaosium (of Call of Cthulhu fame) made an Elric RPG in the earliest days of RPGs.
Thieves World - The first shared universe in fantasy, very popular in the early 80s, with spinoff novels of popular characters, briefly revived in the early 2000s. Chaosium (again) made an RPG setting for it in the early days.
Lone Wolf - The choose-your-own adventure RPG books set in a fantasy setting created by Joe Dever. He passed away a few years ago, but his final books are still being published.
To be honest, I could probably read all the books on my list in a couple months. However, my point is to do a very detailed, thorough readthrough of all of them. Notetaking and all (which I did when I was younger, without the benefit of computers, just tiny, barely readable scrawls and hand-traced maps).

 

Nice list! I've unsurprisingly read all of the above. You could also include the Hyperborean cycle by Clark Ashton Smith. It's just a handful of short stories, all of them legally available on the Internet for free, and they were ridiculously influential on D&D. Satampra Zeiros is even more of your default murderhobo than Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser.

 

It's a good list. The Hyperbore stories are decent fun.

 

I'd recommend these golden oldies from Poul Anderson. The D&D is strong in them.

Amazon.com: Three Hearts and Three Lions (Holger Danske Book 1) eBook : Anderson, Poul: Books

Amazon.com: The Broken Sword eBook : Anderson, Poul, Dirda, Michael: Kindle Store

 

Thanks, Sarge! I'll throw those in there. I just remembered, too, that the 1st edition Dungeon Master's Guide had an appendix - "Inspirational and Educational Reading", and you'll be glad to know that those books are in the list. (Not surprisingly, most of the series I'm reading are on that list).

The CAS Hyperborea stories I associate with the Cthulhu Mythos, so already on the list JTS!