Vintage

Finally got to put the newest edition of Hackmaster to the test, WE LOVED IT.

The three boys (aged 12, 13 and 14) as well as the esteemed Mark Caliber played while I GMed.

It’s hilarious to see the old cycles repeat. Two of the boys rolled thieves, and sure enough, were trying to figure out ways to steal from party members.

Our brave Fighter (with Intelligence 6 and Wisdom 7) died in a nasty fight with an orc pack. The expected arguments over looting his body broke out.

They tried to screw each other out of loot, NO ONE wanted to play the cleric. (Funny enough, the replacement character is a cleric)

Its definitely old-school, in all the right ways.

Attacker rolls an attack die, defender gets a defense die. Armor doesn’t stop you from getting hit, but helps you from getting hurt. We GURPS-heads loved that. I like that weapon speed is actually playable easily, and that there’s no distinction in artificial ‘turns’ ’rounds’ or anything else.

Magic is improved greatly over first edition AD&D with the mage having spell points available to beef up his casting (at a cost) or even cast spells he may not have memorized (at greater cost).

We’ll get to see a cleric next session.

Handy, handy alignment links for the young n00bs: Goblin Hollow and a great one fro

While I’m still thinking of it;

So the party managed to beat the Sea Giant, Scare off the Sea Witch, and capture Nos’ brother, Vetok.

Next session: Rashida will be in command of 10 of the knights, and 100 dwarven mercenaries.

The Knights
Rashida
Bedemere
Nos
Jaerik
Tash
Jor
Fang
Fist
Gwynn
Beth

The poor D&D halfling… talk about an identity crisis.

Lets see, they’ve gone from pure tolkien rip-off (D&D, AD&D)

… to a wierd chameleon species AD&D
Tallfellows (vaguely elf-looking that lived near elves)
Stouts (vaguely dwarf-looking that lived near dwarves)

… to being made setting specific and being made into Kender (AD&D Dragonlance setting)
… to being cannibals (AD&D Dark Sun Setting)

Back to being Kender in D&D3e (and I presume 4e).

Boggles the mind. They’ve gone from a pastoral homey (not homie damnit) folk where an adventurer would be an odd duck (role playing potential assh**es, think about it) to a gypsy folk where every one of them is eager to see whats over the next hill etc. (i.e. every halfling is an adventurer by temperment. Great.) and if the art is to be believed, are indistinguishable from elves except for size.

Jeez.

Also, when did gnomes loose the beards and all get nose jobs?

http://x.delcarsdungeon.com/components/com_mojo/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/derail.thumbnail.jpg
Ok,

Let me set it up for those of you that A) don’t know me personally and/or B) aren’t mind readers.

With me? Both of you? Good.

I’m grateful to have new players for my World of Greyhawk campaign. ‘Mark Caliber’s’ missus, their spwan, my son, and his buddy are now all playing as well as my wife.

File that away, we’ll get back to it.

I’m flirting with disaster already; the game is chock-full of GMPCs - they literally ARE my old PCs.

Delcar, Neltara and Turgor.

Add to the mix the fact that my wife’s beloved half-orc pitfighter is happily married and has spawned two kids.

So; Missus ‘Mark Caliber’ (hereafter MMC) has taken over MC’s character Shethba, evolving her from a manipulative, greedy, selfish twit, into a manipulative, greedy, selfless lady.

The whole family are munchkins, MMC just smiles and disarms me. Her shopping trips are endless lists that make my eyes glaze over and when I handwave and say ‘Yes, you can have all of it.’ I later regret it bitterly.

So ANYWAY. The lady Shethba (now a baroness) is long overdue to find a husband. (Queue the theme to Jaws someone)

To my growing horror, my story-heavy style of game has gone heavy on the romance and I haven’t noticed it.
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GMPCs: Used lightly they’re a tool for the GM to join the group socially as a peer. Typically though, they’re just there to feed the ego.

I was going to start by saying ‘Used correctly, they’re an important mouthpiece for the GM as storyteller.’ but then they’re not GMPCs, they’re NPCs.

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