A D&D Anecdote

I am running D&D at Bounce Milwaukee, a local indoor play park as part of my Dungeon Master on Demand services. Here's what happened the first night we played:

Three boys played tonight. They were sent to recover a dwarf who had not reported back home. They came across a wagon that had been turned into a goblin battle fortress with a goblin patrolling the roof.

The boys decide to talk to the goblin (since one of them discovered he could speak their language). After a brief exchange, they ask him his name. The goblin says he has no name, because he hasn't killed anybody yet. One of the boys goes into a heartfelt monologue about the goblin doesn' t need to kill somebody to get a name. I ask the kid to roll a Persuade check to get the goblin to point out where the rest of his tribe had taken the dwarf.

Natural 20.

The goblin, stunned by this revelation, sits down on the edge of the wagon and has a serious change of heart. He stands up, ready to help these Tall Ones find their friend.

And that's when another goblin sneaks up from behind and stabs the first goblin, pushing him off the wagon to bleed out.

"You guys," says the kid, "we have to save the cool goblin!"

"Okay," I say, "roll initiative."

Once we set the order, I point out to the paladin, the only healer in the party, that he's their best shot at saving the cool goblin. He can get to the goblin first, but he's putting himself in harm's way and will likely have to deal with goblin attack while he's out there healing. Also, if he uses his healing on the goblin, he won't have any for the rest of the group if the battle goes poorly.

"We gotta save him," say the others.

"We do," says the paladin and runs out from behind cover. After a round of poor rolls from the goblins, he drops all 5 points of healing into the friendly goblin, who pops up, grabs a knife off of a dead ex-comrade and says "Ok, what do you need me to do?"

The players ask the goblin to lead them to their friend, which he does after they tear up the goblin battle wagon. They ask him what his name should be. He tells them the goblin lord is the one who gives names based on deeds, and the boys say he's earned the right to take his own name. He pauses, asks about the meaning of this Common word they keep using to describe him, and decides to choose it as his name.

That is how the power of friendship and loyalty can make a nearly 40 year old man get choked up in front of strangers.

That is how Kuul the Goblin Rogue was born.

Harry Potter - Fate Accelerated Hack

When I talk about licensed games, one of the IP that I always get questions about is Harry Potter. This setting has an immense, passionate fandom. Why is there no tabletop RPG? The answer to that is a lot of heresay plus my own conjecture. The follow up question is: Well, what system would you use to run a HP game? My answer is, inevitably, Fate. Specifically, Accelerated because I think its abstractness does a good job at modelling established fictional characters.

So, after years, of suggesting it, I finally decided to do it. It's not a heavy hack, which its why I shied away from it for so long, but the itch to design it finally irritated me enough to put it down on blog paper.

Follow my Harry Potter Fate Accelerated (Fate Accio?) hack after the jump!

Actual Play - Extra Life at Gamehole Con

I had a fantastic experience this weekend at GameHole Con. It's become one of my favorite conventions throughout the year.

On Friday night, I took a rare opportunity to sit on the player's side of things for a chance to play D&D 5th. I raised over $1000 bucks for Extra Life by drinking and playing an RPG.

I was a last minute add, so I had to improvise ways to get people to give money. I figured hey, I'll do a shot at $250 a pop because I'm playing a drunken master monk. Nobody would be crazy enough to do that!

I raised over $1000 that way. I remember we all went up to Mearls' room after the game, talked gaming and ate pizza, but that could just be the caramel vodka talking.

If you want to see the whole thing, the archived Twitch link is here.

Appearance - Extra Life

I know I've already talked about Gamehole Con here, but something happened today that is worthy of its own blog entry.

I will be part of the Wizards of the Coast live stream on Friday night playing D&D with Mike Mearls!

The other folks at my table include:

• Chris Lindsay
• Satine Phoenix
• Pat Kilbane
• David Ewalt
• Ruty Rutenberg

I think I'm going to play a monk? 

Anyway, tickets are available here if you are going to the show.

If you want to donate money to encourage me, go to Mike's page and tell 'em I sent you.

The livestream should be here if you want to watch on Twitch

Convention - Gamehole Con

Gamehole Con returns to Madison from November 2nd through November 5th this year. I'll be a special guest again, but there are plenty of other reasons to check out this growing convention.

Dungeons & Dragons Fifth Edition

If you really want to see how popular the current edition is, this show has a lot of things going on. There are Epic level con games with massive amounts of players, a variety of Adventurer's League storylines (including one I had a hand in), and guests like Mike Mearls and Jeremy Crawford.

Xanathar's Guide For Charity

Gamehole has hooked up with Extra Life to provide a couple of  'celebrity D&D' games to raise money for charity in the style of Acquisitions Incorporated. They are also offering early copies of the highly anticipated Xanathar's Guide to Everything, proceeds of which will go to charity.

True Dungeon

Last year was the first year True Dungeon appeared outside of Gen Con. It's back at Gamehole Con this year, set in the universe of Patrick Rothfuss's Kingkiller books.

Milwaukee Company of Gamers

The always impressive board game library of MilCog will be on the road. It's an excellent place to try board games before you buy.

Come play games with me

I'll be running Firefly and Chill this year as part of my Guest of Honor duties. All my games are currently sold out, but the vagaries of con attendance usually mean I have one or two open seats when the time comes for game. Will I run two full boat sessions for Firefly with 9 players each? Only time will tell.

Star Wars Adventure Review - The Game Chambers of Questal

This is an ongoing series of reviews of classic West End Games Star Wars RPG adventures. I've run a few, read a few more and not touched a few since I bought them over the past 30 years. I'll look at them for a few different angles, including what I would change to bring the adventure to my table.

Adventure title: The Game Chambers of Questal

Author(s): Richard Kern 

Published: June 1990

The Pitch: The Rebels come looking for an old friend on a planet run by a Moff who loves to play games with his adversaries.

Summary: An adventure that's part James Bond, part "A Most Dangerous Game", part dungeon crawl and, on the whole, less than the sum of its meager parts.

In-depth review with SPOILERS after the jump!

Star Wars Adventure Review - Otherspace

This is an ongoing series of reviews of classic West End Games Star Wars RPG adventures. I've run a few, read a few more and not touched a few since I bought them over the past 30 years. I'll look at them for a few different angles, including what I would change to bring the adventure to my table.

Adventure title: Otherspace

Author(s): Bill Slavicsek 

Published: 1989

The Pitch: The Rebels must journey into another dimension to locate a lost Rebel prison transport and come across the death-obsessed aliens who live there.

Summary: An adventure that attempts to bring the claustrophobic terror of the Alien franchise to the Star Wars universe. Instead, it shows that two great tastes don't always go together.

In-depth review with SPOILERS after the jump!

Kickstarter - CHILL Undead

It's Friday the 13th, so it's time to remind everyone that the latest book for Chill, Undead, is on Kickstarter.

Why is this book cool?

1) +Matthew McFarland  and +Michelle Lyons-McFarland  are good people.

2) The Chill monster books are set up epistolary style, which deliver information but not truth. Even if your players read the entry on a specific type of monster, they won't know its secrets chapter and verse.

3) My entry focuses on the Unknown possessing dead envoys and using them to sow discord within SAVE.

4) The company has a dozen free cases available on its website (mine is here). That's a whole campaign right there, for free, which they add to every time they do a Kickstarter. They've already unlocked two more cases through this campaign and are aiming for three more by the number of backers. That doesn't include the cases in the book or that every monster entry has hooks at the end for using it in your game.

5) CHILL's design hits a sweet spot for me. The percentile system is easy to explain and the light and dark tokens invoke genre while making monster power management a breeze. I like that, when the tokens are all dark, everyone leans forward a bit, waiting for the shoe to drop. It creates a Dread-like tension at the table.

The Kickstarter runs until October 31st, but backing it on a day known for hockey-masked killers and black cats seems like a good call.

Star Wars Adventure Review - Tatooine Manhunt

This is an ongoing series of reviews of classic West End Games Star Wars RPG adventures. I've run a few, read a few more and not touched a few since I bought them over the past 30 years. I'll look at them for a few different angles, including what I would change to bring the adventure to my table.

Adventure title: Tatooine Manhunt

Author(s): Bill Slavicsek and Daniel Greenberg

Published: June 1988

The Pitch: The Rebels must find an Old Republic officer before bounty hunters collect a huge bounty to bring him in dead or alive.

Summary: An influential adventure on not just the RPG but Star Wars canon. It lives up to the hype and offers a fun adventure on the planet that seems to be in the middle of nowhere, yet everything happens there!

In-depth review with SPOILERS after the jump!

Star Wars Adventure Review - Crisis on Cloud City

This is an ongoing series of reviews of classic West End Games Star Wars RPG adventures. I've run a few, read a few more and not touched a few since I bought them over the past 30 years. I'll look at them for a few different angles, including what I would change to bring the adventure to my table.

Adventure title: Crisis on Cloud City

Author(s): Christopher Kubasik

Published: November 1989

The Pitch: The Rebels are framed for murder on Bespin and have 24 hours to clear their names before being arrested by Lando Calrissian and turned over to the Imperials.

Summary: Many of the adventures of this era steer clear of anything directly related to the movies. This one heads right for Bespin, wrapping up the players in a mystery that they need to solve to avoid Imperial justice. Also, the only appearance of a full deck of Sabacc cards, with rules to play!

In-depth review with SPOILERS after the jump!

Star Wars Adventure Review - Battle For The Golden Sun

Cover photo courtesy Wookieepedia 

This is an ongoing series of reviews of classic West End Games Star Wars RPG adventures. I've run a few, read a few more and not touched a few since I bought them over the past 30 years. I'll look at them for a few different angles, including what I would change to bring the adventure to my table.

Adventure title: Battle For The Golden Sun

Author(s): Doug Kaufman

Published: June 1988

The Pitch: The Rebels crash-land on a waterworld in search of a Rebel ambassador. Instead they find seatroopers, warring natives and a giant piece of Force-sensitive coral.

Summary: A decent adventure that throws the PCs in the battle between two factions of natives that, despite showing off an Imperial garrison poster and a seatrooper on the cover, puts the Galactic Civil War in the background for a session or two.

In-depth review with SPOILERS after the jump!

Star Wars Adventure Review - Scavenger Hunt

This is an ongoing series of reviews of classic West End Games Star Wars RPG adventures. I've run a few, read a few more and not touched a few since I bought them over the past 30 years. I'll look at them for a few different angles, including what I would change to bring the adventure to my table.

Adventure title: Scavenger Hunt

Author(s): Brad Freeman

Published: January 1989

The Pitch: The Rebels have to deal with the annoying Squib to set-up an ambush on an Imperial transport containing sensitive information that could seriously damage Rebel operations. The Rebels needs to visit an iconic location from the films and do the Sqiubs dirty work to get their cooperation.

Summary: This adventure has a lot of harsh design decisions through out as well as weird encounters with Star Wars elements and new elements that don't quite gel. There's some stuff in here that might be useful, but much like the setting, you've got to sort through a lot of trash to get there.

In-depth review with SPOILERS after the jump!

Star Wars Adventure Review - Riders of the Maelstrom

Cover courtesy of Wookieepedia

This is an ongoing series of reviews of classic West End Games Star Wars RPG adventures. I've run a few, read a few more and not touched a few since I bought them over the past 30 years. I'll look at them for a few different angles, including what I would change to bring the adventure to my table.

Adventure title: Riders of the Maelstrom

Author(s): Ray Winninger

Published: July 1989

The Pitch: Another big ship based adventure, this one based on a Mon Calamari luxury cruiser. The Rebels stumble across a plot that involves pirates, other pirates that are also Rebels, and rival Moffs looking to put everyone out of business.

Summary: There's a lot going on in this adventure which depends a bit too much on coincidence  and has problems projecting a straight plotline. But there's a lot of neat NPCs, factions vying with each other and a big location that's dying to be explored.

In-depth review with SPOILERS after the jump!

Star Wars Adventure Review - Starfall

Cover courtesy of Wookieepedia

This is an ongoing series of reviews of classic West End Games Star Wars RPG adventures. I've run a few, read a few more and not touched a few since I bought them over the past 30 years. I'll look at them for a few different angles, including what I would change to bring the adventure to my table.

Adventure title: Starfall

Author(s): Rob Jenkins and Michael Stern

Published: May 1989

The Pitch: Depending on how old you are, this is either Die Hard on a Star Destroyer or The Poseidon Adventure on a Star Destroyer. The Rebels are trapped inside a Victory-class Star Destroyer that's been wrecked by a surprise Rebel ambush. While they make their way through collapsing corridors, they also find out the captain of the Star Destroyer plans to take the Rebel fleet with him when the ship explodes. Can the Rebels save themselves AND the Rebel fleet?

Summary: This is my favorite Star Wars RPG adventure of all time. It still holds up after all these years, even if, as written, it's pretty linear. I've run it with every official Star Wars system and it's been a ton of fun every time.

In-depth review with SPOILERS after the jump!

Actual Play - Numenera

I donated some of my time to run Numenera as part of Button Mash Bash.

It's a charity marathon video game stream that plays unusual games. Numenera certainly fits in that category.

I adapted Vortex for the run and the Technophiles helped me cut it down to three short episodes. You can still make donations if you enjoy the actual play.

Shadowrun Classic - Fate Core Hack

I've noodled around with a few fate hacks of Shadowrun before, but a mixture of circumstances allowed me a little time to put down my thoughts on the matter in more detail. This time of year is innately frustrating for freelance designers since projects talked about at Gen Con are slowly rolling into production but much of the time is spent waiting for that pivotal "Okay, go!" email. There's a lot of unpaid words here, but sometimes you have to clear the decks before you can focus on new work.

This hack was built for running Shadowrun during the 1st through 3rd editions of the game, set during the 2050s and 2060s. My intent was to run classic Shadowrun adventures like Bottled Demon without houseruling the hell out of the original rules. It doesn't have everything out of every book, but it has enough that converting your favorite piece of equipment should not be difficult. Fans of technomancers should be able to do them by reskinning Magic as Resonance, but I didn't tackle them here because they fell out of the time period. (I may return at a later date to do it.)

The rules for setting up the run take a lot of inspiration from +John Rogers amazing CrimeWorld setting from Worlds in Shadow. You should read it anyway if you're planning on running any game where your protagonists are criminals, because its densely packed with information and inspiration.

I wrote down these rules in advance of the next meeting of Adventurer's Guild Local 42, a series of RPG events I'm running at 42 Lounge in downtown Milwaukee. I'll be running it on Sunday, November 13th at 3 pm. You might also see it added to the mix of games I run at conventions.

Click here to check out the complete Fate Shadowrun Classic rules.
Click here for characters ready for aspects based on some of my favorite classic Shadowrun archetypes.

Geek & Sundry - Heist RPGs

I love heist stories in case you couldn't guess from my Kickstarter, my most popular RPG blog, or this article about some sweet RPGs for Geek and Sundry.

Geek and Sundry - Vengeance

A game's theme is an important draw. If a game is about something, it needs me to feel like I'm doing that something. That's why I never got into Magic - I never felt like a wizard in a duel.

Vengeance has theme oozing out of every corner of the box. I love how it handles the roaring rampage of revenge genre, so I wrote it up.

Geek and Sundry - Shadow of the Demon Lord

One of the best RPGs from 2015 was this dark fantasy game from one of the developers of D&D. I talk about why I like it over at Geek and Sundry.

Geek and Sundry - Deadlands Kickstarters

One of my favorite RPGs has not one, but two Kickstarters running at the same time!