Round Up of Events

I ran, what was supposed to be the final episode of Freeport (Rolemaster rules) and we missed the ending by an hour. So last session will happen this week and will have to dovetail with Deadlands. We did have a seat reserved for GG had he been watching in on the session to view the action and adventure. The session, whilst playing too long (i.e. the players got sidetracked and spent a lot of time doing heroic stuff not related to the adventure, but still important to them) did generate some fantastic solutions to difficult problems.

For instance, the docks of Freeport were locked down by Black Orcs who had occupied the town ensuring no boats entered the port or left. This left the players with a massive problem as they had an injured member of the party who they couldnt move (due to some serious criticals - thanks Rolemaster :-) ). But they injured party member could only be reached by boat as they had recently explored a rocky dungeon just off the coast of Freeport. What made matters worse was that the identity of the injured party member (a cleric no less) was well known to the black orcs and they had themselves offered a large reward for the cleric's capture.

One player, our resident rogue, went up to a pair of black orcs and offered the cleric up as a bounty as long as they shared the reward with him. The other players complained as they thought the rogue had sold the cleric up the river. This was made all the more tense as the rogue and cleric had had a long standing disagreement and had discussed this very situation before, i.e. selling the cleric out to the bad guys.

In return for helping the orcs and sharing the reward, they would need a boat to get there. And the rogue pretended to be "weak" meaning the orcs not only stole a boat to aid the party, but also rowed to the cave.

Suffice to say that the party ambushed the poor orcs and the cleric was saved, but not before choice words were spoken between the two protagonists.

Freeport Trilogy Coming to an End

Ill post links to the full review of the trilogy, but generally my feeling to the adventure trilogy is I feel let down. I was hoping for some piratey naval high fantasy adventure, but what I got was down and dirty low fantasy more akin to Warhammer FRP

Freeport then Deadlands

The Freeport/Rolemaster ship is finishing its final leg of its journey, as the Deadlands cruiser warms up in the dock.

Everything is ready for Deadlands, chips, dice, books, laminated reference sheets, maps, even sweets! But can I find a shop that sells playing cards? Can I fuck.

w00hoo (193.60.52.11)

5th Feb, 2008 13:49 (local)

If this is still the case, are you looking for something special?

Only I bought quite a few for the 1st ed Deadlands game I run at Cons.

Corner shops tend to sell dirt cheap packs of 'plain' playing cards if you just want cards.
Board Games shops (and so I guess some toy shops) sell funkier cards if you're after something a bit nicer. Compendium in Greenwich where I work has a load, for instance.

If you look around on line you can buy 'proper' 19th C style poker cards with no indices, just the shapes (i.e. 8 hearts on a 'blank' card). The only thing to be careful of is that those sort don't always have Jokers. With one of the packs I have I've had to 'create' jokers by amending the 'history' cards that came with them. Generally an internet site will tell you the number of cards in the pack and provided there are 54 you'll be able to do something.

For more flavour, there are decks out there with the Confederate and Yankie generals pictured on the playing surfaces. I've a particularly nice set with stills from Wild West films on them.

I've only come across one deck actually made by Hoyles but it was a jumbo print one. I still look around, but haven't become obsessed enough to actually seriously search them out. I have to admit to owning a copy of Hoyles card games though... :-)

Hope some of that helped.

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lawbag (90.206.245.211)

5th Feb, 2008 20:09 (local)

thanks for the info. havent seen your entries on livejournal of late, mustbe on holiday or summfink.

I did manage to get a couple of decks from a cornershop as you suggest. I felt like a dodgy desperate gambler desperate for a new deck of cards to help my next fix.

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lawbag (90.206.245.211)

5th Feb, 2008 22:47 (local)

just found your shop on the internet.

does it not drive you mad that they dont sell or stock RPGs?

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Ghost-Towns and Deadlands

As you may know I am about to finished the 3rd part of my heavily de-railed Rolemaster/Freeport campaign. After that I head back to the Wild West with Deadlands, probably my favourite game after 7th Sea.

Having not looked online for several years, its been that long between running sessions, that I tried again online to ponce some ideas and adventures from websites and fan-created sites.

Like the proverbial ghost town, most of the sites are dead, usually displaying a proud moniker of "Last Updated xx/xx/1997".

Which is either a fitting tribute to the game or just something that is very sad.

L5R - Whats Next

Seeing as its not me who is running Legend of the Five Rings, it does give me a chance to reflect and get ready for next games to come.

I have the desire to finish the Freeport Trilogy as it has an ending worthy of the effort - even if the group are heading in the wrong direction.

But as to what comes next, well thats an open book as far as I am concerned, but I do have a few "pages" bookmarked.

Firstly, Serenity. I really would like another player or 2 to join in the boost up the crew numbers. There is a story to tell and I suppose Id be happy to finish that off with the current group, but I doubt I'll continue as part of the success of the game is the dynamics of the group.

Here are a few of the other games that I have chosen to run, and curious to know what other people think of whats on offer.

Werewolf: The Dark Ages - yes I know I said Id never run this 3rd part, but I find the idea alluring still to run a game set in the dark ages. Not because the skies were black, but rather the period of history where we know so little of the occurings.

Twilight 2000 - there are enough military and gun nuts in the group that this could be fun, I think having grown up in the 80s, calling myself a child of the bomb, its fair to say I'd like to run a game set in the era (which is now history rather than the future.)
Engel - angels and demons in a devastated future, I've wanted to run this the moment I heard about the game, let alone actually now owning it. I am not 100% sure Ill run it as a D20 game or use the Arcana system which is available online

Orpheus - a role-playing game about a ghostly detective agency, limited short run campaign written by White Wolf

Deadlands - carrying on from where we left off

I have a few one-shots lying around that might be interesting;

Judge Dredd - the original Games Workshop flawed edition

Paranoia - the new XP edition

&

Warhammer 40,000 RPG Demo Adventure - we are all fans of the WHFRP game, and this should just be a perfect extension of the game. I loved Fading Suns RPG, and this game will be even bleaker than that little effort.

Rolemaster - Thats Roll Master to You

Well the penultimate session of Rolemaster has been completed, and everything is back on track.

Having met a brutal wall of violence in the previous session they decided to walk away from the Freeport 2nd part and pursue something to amuse themselves. With a cleric losing her faith I had help from a fellow player in getting the party back on track, but in the meantime I still had to deal with getting them finished with Freeport.

I told them that there is a 3rd part, and that Im putting it on hold after the 2nd part to give another GM a shot (L5R 3rd Edition), and will return once that has been finished.

I did give them a break, but with a proviso of which they have no clue about.....................

Rolemaster Continues

I am really enjoying running my Rolemaster campaign. A straight up mixture of classic high and low fantasy, borrowing heavily from 1st, 2nd and 3rd edition (A)DND modules. I chose RM as it is a system I know and love, and enjoy the thrill of random combat, especially its legendary critical tables. But I choose the DND modules as it represents classic Dragons and Dungeon type adventures, neither of which ICE (publishers of RM) managed to encompass.

I have the Freeport trilogy well under way as I enjoy town based adventures, but as a short interlude we are going to be playing the Warlock or Firetop Mountain DND3.5 conversion by Myriador Games.

Once that is over, they will return to Freeport for the 2nd and subsequent parts, and I have an itch then to take them through either the Drow War Trilogy or the Temple of Elemental Evil. I believe Im up for running both with ease as I have a good group, albeit only 4 players, but no one has yet to have played in any of these adventures so far.

I wont be writing an actual play of the events as (a) it doesnt really matter what we do I doubt many people will be interested and (b) I dont think the events of the game are worthy of a write up. I tend to reserve write-ups to games I create out of my head and those developed by the players.

So I Started Gaming Again...

No this isnt a smoking story, but a great feeling akin to smoking, in that our group is back together again. After last weeks character generation session, this week we began our first full on session, which despite reading the adventure, turned into one long ad-lib session.

Its Rolemaster, but running classic ADND, DND and 3rd Edition DND adventures for that dungeon crawling, dragon-slaying feeling. After a couple of dodgy moments I feel in control and back in the swing of things again.

As always, now the adventure is underway, let the rule-reading begin.