My First Public Game

A few weeks ago I ran my first public game at the monthly Tucson RPG Guild Gathering.  It was only my second time as DM. I ran a modified version of the module Rescue at Rivenroar.  This is a free adventure for D&D 4th edition put out by Wizards of the Coast and is the first adventure in the Scales of War adventure path.

The gathering was more sparsely attended than ones I’ve attended previously.  I’m not sure why that is.  It might be due to the success of the weekly 4th edition Living Forgotten Realms nights.  Or it was summer.  Or who knows? But, there were enough people there to have  a full five players in my game and enough players for another game running.  Only one of the players had ever played 4th edition before.  The rest were RPG players with experience in the various other versions of D&D.  This didn’t present too much of a problem since 4th edition is pretty easy to pick up.  A couple of guys from my gaming group came out to play including my DM which was fun.

First of all, I’ll talk about what I think went well.  I think I did a good job of keeping combat moving and flowing.  One of the biggest problems with 4th edition in my (and many others) opinion is that combat can get really bogged down.  I enjoy tactical, crunchy combat.  I detest long, tedious combat.  In my experience 4th edition can easily swing from one to the other especially in the hands of a poor DM and/or indecisive players.  I think I succeeded in keeping the rounds quick and moving along.  I used the initiative tracking method of writing all the PC names on slips of paper and hanging them on the DM screen.  This worked well for me and helped keep things moving.  I also tried to encourage creative thinking and players trying crazy things in combat.  I gave bonuses for stunts and crazy ideas (after the appropriate skill check of course).  I also played somewhat loose with the rules.  For me, fun trumps rules.  And with people new to 4th edition who are getting used to the new style of combat, I wanted to allow for some leeway on things.

Some things didn’t go quite as well.  The session was very combat heavy and there wasn’t a lot of role playing.  Partially this is due to being a public game with pre-generated characters.  But, I think I could have done more to encourage RP and my RP skills aren’t exactly strong.  RP one of things I struggle with at times in RPGs. Also, tThe session was very railroady.  Again, it was a public game with a limited amount of time and I was running a module.  My ability to encourage players to forge their own paths was very limited.  It was also hotter than hell in the room where we played.  Of course, I had no control over that, but it did make things a little uncomfortable.

One thing I was surprised about was how difficult the first two encounters were for the PCs.  I ran the first two encounters as written in the module.  Rescue at Rivenroar starts with an encounter in a bar and then an encounter in the street with a fire wielding ogre.  These encounters are what drew me to the module in the first place because of interesting elements such as fire and they take place in interesting environments.  In the first encounter, the cleric was dropped a couple of times.  This was due to a unlucky placement of the cleric and some really bad rolls by the players and good rolls by me.  Also, everybody was getting still settled in to their character and 4th edition combat in general.  In the second encounter with the ogre a pc was actually killed.  Like, killed killed.  That really surprised me.  He was taken down by a massive hit from the ogre.  To keep things moving, I let that player jump back into the game as the PCs twin brother.

I ran the module pretty much as written (except for taking out the skill challenges which didn’t add anything) until the players got to the dungeon.  The dungeon in the module is massive, rather grindy, and many of the rooms are really uninteresting.  It would take multiple sessions to crawl through this dungeon, so I cherry picked and modified two encounters.  I took one encounter and changed the layout a little.  I used some 3D dungeon tiles from the Harrowing Halls to give the encounter some elevation.  The last encounter was with Sinruth, the modules “Big Bad”.  I completely changed the layout of this encounter.  I lowered Sinruth’s AC a little because the players weren’t at level 2.  I think the module assumes that the players are at level 2 when they get to this encounter.  I also gave Sinruth a new power, an invocation to the god Tiamat that shook the room and created pits.  It made things a little more interesting.  These encounters went much more smoothly and the PCs had less trouble with these.

I had help modifying Sinruth and the module from the folks at RPG.net.  Thanks to all the feedback in this thread.

Overall, I think things went well and I hope the players had fun.

June 30, 2010 | Level 1 Gamer | 1 Comment »

Tucson RPG Guild Gathering Report

For the first time in a long time I made it to the Tucson RPG Guild Gathering.  The gathering is the monthly meetup of Tucson RPG Gamers sponsored by SAGA (the Southern Arizona Gamers Association).   It was well attended with about two dozen gamers partaking in RPG gaming goodness.

Games that were run include:

  • Lady Blackbird sort of a steampunk Firefly adventure
  • Dark Heresy a Warhammer 40,000 RPG
  • Primetime Adventures an RPG where you create TV shows and act them out.  This one is very popular with our group.  I’ll have to try it sometime.
  • D&D 4th Edition Dragonlance game
  • D&D 4th Edition conversion of Tomb of Horrors, which is what I played.

Tomb of Horrors is a classic and infamous dungeon module written in the late 70′s by Gary Gygax.  It’s notorious for being an extremely difficult and very deadly dungeon.  This was an update of the Tomb of Horrors for 4th edition.  I was curious about the dungeon, because I’ve heard about it and wanted to experience this classic.

The DM had 11th level pregens created for the adventure.  This was my first taste of the paragon tier.  I’m sure it easier to handle all the options when you’ve slowly built up the character over time, but there is a lot going on.  While some of the options are cool, others seemed a fiddly.  I played a human fighter, so he wasn’t too complicated.  I can definitely understand the complaints about the slow combat in the paragon tier when you have so much to consider.

As for the adventure itself, for most part it was pretty fun.  I liked the puzzle nature of the dungeon.  How each room was an obstacle to overcome and there were traps at almost ever step.  It certainly had an old school feel.  Yet, I think it loses a little in translation.  I never felt in grave danger.  Maybe due to the sturdiness of 4th ed characters.  Single monster fights don’t play well to the strengths of 4th ed either.

It’s great to get out to the guild gathering.  The tough part is choosing which game to play.  I want start running 4th edition games as a DM, so I want to play it as much as possible to become comfortable with the rules.  But, I’d also like to try out as many other game systems as possible. So many games, so little time.

http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_minisite.asp?eidm=50
January 6, 2010 | Level 1 Gamer | 2 Comments »

Level 1 Review: Car Wars

Saturday the 21st, I made it out to Tucson Ides of Gaming, a monthly gaming event hosted by SAGA.  The event focuses primarily on board games and card games.  I got the chance to play Car Wars.  I liked it so much, that I decided to write a review.  Now, I know Car Wars isn’t exactly an RPG (there a some RPG rules out there, though) and this site is primarily about RPGs, but I wanted to write about it.  And it’s my blog.  So, there.

Car WarsCar Wars is a game of vehicular combat.  Each player drives a car loaded out with armor and various weapons and equipment  in a no holds barred grudge match to the death.  It was originally published in 1980 by Steve Jackson Games.  Since then there have been a total of five editions.  Apparently, the game grew in complexity over the first four editions.  The fifth edition, the edition I played, reduced a lot of that complexity.  Which was probably for the best, because the edition I played seemed like just the right level of complexity to me.  The 5th edition is still in print and available here.  PDFs of various editions are available here.  There hasn’t been any new material published since late 2002.

You start out by choosing a car.  All the cars come pre-made (prior versions had vehicle creation rules, but the fifth edition never did).  Each car has various strengths and weaknesses.  Some had more armor, but fewer weapons.  Others had better weapons and better handling, but lightly armored. I ended up choosing a car with a few heavy rockets, decent armor, a ram plate, and some smoke screens.

Armor is divided among front, back, sides, top, and bottom.  Each car has a Handling Class (HC) which determines how often and how easily you can make difficult maneuvers.  There is a wide variety of weapons: rockets, machine guns, ram plates, flamethrowers, laser beams.  There is also fun equipment like smoke screens, oil slicks, and paint sprayers.

Each car was represented by a little card stock car.  But, you could use matchbox cars or micro-machines.  Movement is determined by your current speed and measured in inches.  There is a turning key that you use to measure your movement.  It also determines the cost to your HC for making manuevers.  A 30 degree turn costs you 1 HC whereas a 90 degree will cost you 5 HC.  Go below a certain threshold on your HC and you could lose control of your car where you could fish tail or roll it.

The rules are pretty straight forward and pretty easy to learn.  So, it is pretty friendly to new gamers, but you really need some well versed in the rules to teach it.  We actually had someone running the game for us as a sort of GM.  This isn’t really necessary, but it does help to have someone familiar with the rules and who can act as a referee.

I had a great time playing the game.  There are lots of fun little touches in the rules that lead to great moments in the game.  Like the random events that can happen when a daring maneuver goes bad.  Or how you determine the position of the cars after a collision (you pick the cars up and drop them).  You can blow off tires which cripples you HC.  You can roll down your window and shoot at the driver with your machine game.  (My driver met a gruesome death after rolling down the window, catching an incendiary bullet in the face, then catching fire.) The cars felt well balanced as no one seemed to have a clear advantage.

Car Wars also brought back warm memories of good car combat video games of yore.  Spy Hunter, Twisted Metal 2, and the old arcade game Demolition Derby come to mind.  I wonder if these games were influenced by Car Wars.

The game time is supposed to last around 45 minutes to an hour.  Our game clocked in at well over 3 hours.  I don’t think that is typical though.  We were all learning the rules.  And a couple of nasty hits early on knocked out a couple weapons on two of the cars, so there was a lot of cat and mouse. So, it did get a little tedious towards the end, but I think it was due to circumstances in the game that weren’t typical.

I recommend checking this game out if you can.  It’s too bad that it is not widely available and no new material is coming out for it.  Steve Jackson Games would do well to reissue all the 5th edition stuff in one streamlined package.  It may regain some popularity.   It is a well balanced game that runs smoothly.

There are rockets, flying shrapnel, frickin’ laser beams, and cars smashing into each other.  What else do you want from a game?

Mad Max

Photo from the game on Saturday


November 28, 2009 | Level 1 Gamer | 3 Comments »

First. Game. Ever. The story of my first RPG experience.

Way, way back in June of the year 2009, I played Dungeons and Dragons for the first time.  This was my first experience with a pen and paper RPG.  (Actually, it’s not quite my first experience, but that’s a story for another time.) Since it was not very long ago, I thought it would be a good idea to write a post about it before the memory melts into the recesses of my brain.  Without further ado, here is my gamer origin story.  Although, don’t expect any radioactive spiders or super-soldier serum.  It’s not that exciting.

I’d been interested in RPG’s for a long time, specifically D&D, since it was the only one I was really aware of .  I’ve been a computer gamer since I was a wee lad and I’m into many other geeky things.  Also, my mom and dad played D&D for a while before I was born.  I even have my mom’s dice and set of minis that she painted.  So, D&D was in my blood and it seemed like it would be right up my alley.  I just never had the opportunity to play.

Tucson RPG GuildIt is actually pretty difficult to get into the hobby if you are completely new to it and know no one who plays.  I’ve walked into game stores out of curiosity, but I barely knew what I was looking at let alone knew how to get into a game and actually play.  Thankfully, here in Tucson, we have a very active Meetup group called Tucson RPG Guild sponsored by SAGA, the Southern Arizona Gamers Association. I’m going to go off a little bit of a tangent here, but this is important to the story.  If not for the existence of the Tucson RPG Guild and SAGA, I wouldn’t be a gamer right now.  It brought me into the hobby.  From what I’ve read, tabletop RPGs are waning as a hobby.  The peak of the hobby was two decades ago.  Sales are down, etc.   With that in mind, I believe organizations like SAGA and meetup groups like Tucson RPG are vital to the future of the hobby.  I have more to say on this subject, but I’ll leave that for another post.

On to the story: Finally, in June, I had a free Saturday that happened to fall on one of the monthly Tucson RPG meetups.  My wife and daughter were out of town, and I had no other commitments.  I’d done a little research before hand.  I knew there was a new version of D&D called 4th edition and that the last edition was 3.5.  I came in wanting to play 4th edition because it was the shiny new thing.  Alas, when I arrived at the meetup, the 4th edition table was full.  Luckily, that week, there was someone running a 3.5 game and there was room at the table.  A young woman named Erin and her boyfriend, Nick were at the table.  Erin was the DM.  They had pregenerated 10th level characters.  With Nick’s advice, I chose the human rogue, because he was the least complicated mechanically.  A third player, Paul, joined us and chose a cleric. Nick played human ranger and also played a warrior to round out the party.

Once acquainted, we started to play.  I was bewildered at first.  The character sheet was a mystery to me.  I didn’t know what a D20 was.  The first call to roll initiative was met with a blank stare from me. Everyone was helpful and I picked up things pretty quickly.  The session started with all the PCs magically transported to a clearing after being bitten by a magical golden snake.  We introduced ourselves and set out to try to discover where we were and why we were there.  After finding various strange clues (dead bodies with plants growing out of them, giant glowing foot prints) and overcoming a few obstacles, we made it to another clearing.  The DM got out a battle mat.   A fairly long, but fun combat ensued between us and several magical wild animals.  We used quarters for our PCs and little pipe cleaner figures for the monsters. Despite my confusion and flailing about, I had a great time and managed to be fairly effective in combat.  At the end of the session, we all exchanged information and agreed to continue on the game as a home game.

Several things about this first session really clicked with me and drew me into the hobby.  First, I really liked combat.  I’ve always been a avid computer gamer.  In fact, my favorite computer of all time is X-COM, a tactical, turn-based game that features combat quite similar to D&D 3.5 combat.  So, combat really scratched that gaming itch for me.  Second, it’s a social hobby.  Most of my hobbies are solitary and it’s not always easy for me to make new friends.  So, it’s a great way to be more social and meet new people.  Third, I immediately recognized the creative outlet that D&D can provide.  I have an active imagination and like to plot out stories in my head.  I just don’t have the ability and/or the discipline to write them out.  The framework of D&D (and RPGs in general) for creating and telling stories really seems like it can be a creative outlet for me.

We continued to meet throughout the summer to continue the campaign.  Somewhere along the way, role playing really started to click for me.  My character started to crystallize in mind and I began to make decisions based on what the character would do instead of what makes the most sense from a meta-gaming standpoint.   Meanwhile, I ravenously browsed the internet to learn more about D&D and RPGs in general.   I attended another meetup and got to play 4th edition finally.  While I really enjoyed the 3.5 campaign I was in, I found I preferred 4th edition as a system.

After quite a few scheduling conflicts, the campaign ended with a satisfying conclusion in August.  Nick and Erin moved to Chicago.  I’m now playing Paul’s home brew campaign using the Swords and Wizardy system. He is chronicling it on his blog, The Warlock’s Home Brew and I’ll be writing about that soon.

This campaign was a great introduction to the hobby for me.  I’m actually glad I ended up at that table during that meetup.  I got play in and finish a D&D campaign.  I got to play 3.5 which, while it’s not my preferred system, I’m glad to now have experience with the system so I have the frame of reference.  And, of course, I was introduced to a great hobby which I hope to enjoy for many years to come.

November 10, 2009 | Level 1 Gamer | 6 Comments »

So, Who Is This Guy and Why Is He Writing a Blog?

I am a brand new gamer.  When I say “brand new”, I mean I never rolled a D20 in my life until June of this year.  Since then, I’ve become hooked on pen and paper RPG’s.  I don’t want to sound overly dramatic, but I feel like a whole new world has opened up to me and I want to dive right into it. I am having a such a great time, that I want share my experiences in the hobby.

Thus, I am writing a blog.

I’m lucky to live in Tucson which has a vibrant gaming community.  Thanks to this community and specifically Southern Arizona Gamers Association (SAGA), I have played some great games, made new friends, and had some wonderful experiences.  I attended the world’s first gamemaster’s conference.  At Rincon ’09, I played in Wil Wheaton’s 2009 Dwarven Dungeon Delve of Doom among other great experiences.  I’ve played in several great home games.  All of which, I’ll be writing about in this blog.

Now, I am fully aware that a few months of gaming means I cannot speak authoritatively on the subject of RPG’s in any way.  I absolutely do not intend to try.  I’ve just scratched the surface on all this stuff.  So, this blog will mainly focus on my experiences getting into the hobby.  Any advice or tips will be directed more to new gamers like me.  Any reviews will be firmly from the perspective of someone new to the hobby.  Hopefully, this will be an interesting perspective to new gamers and seasoned gamers alike.

Thanks for checking out my blog.  There’s more to come.

October 24, 2009 | Level 1 Gamer | 4 Comments »