Gaming and More Gaming!

[Black Jack Rackham]

This weekend, its back to Laura's 7th Sea Explorer's game! So after I get done writing 7th Sea, I get to play 7th Sea before I run 7th Sea.

[Lady Grace]

Finally back to 3.5 D&D for us.

Well, we got paid for recovering the evil Urn for that cleric of Pelor -- who surprisingly did NOT try to screw us over in any sort of long game. Another thing we found was a strange old map written in an ancient dialect of Celestial (dwarf cleric w/Comprehend Languages FTW!) which seemed to point out various resting places of artifacts of certain deities.

We finally brought up the ogre mage and his demands to us to the cleric, who (not surprisingly) was concerned about the news AND this map. Since one of the artifacts shown on this map was the morningstar dedicated to the god of slaughter, we had the option of fleeing for the other side of the continent.

Tired of running, we opted to find this morningstar and see if we could put a stop to this ogre mage instead. Got some new gear before leaving (Goggles of the Ebon Hunter for me FTW!) and the quest was afoot!

This time, the creature we encountered was a nasty beastie called a "skindancer" -- which was EATING the remains of a hill giant. Poor Mike's dice rolls continued to suck, even if this time he shifted into a grizzly bear (Mike needs to stack more avoidance ), but eventually we took the monster down with some shifting of tactics. And again, bard + cleric = sick buffs. If we start facing creatures that I can safely get into melee range with, the combat buffs will be sicker (I have Expert Tactician).

Still waiting on the loot list, but we do at least have another disguise kit. Which led to a few jokes as to what a hill giant was doing with one ("Paint me like one of your ettin girls!"). We left it at there for the night, finally at level ten. I've picked up Giant as a language now -- and the skill trick called Clarity of Vision since the GM likes throwing invisible enemies at us.

Taking a week off since our dwarf really can't make the drive (he lives in Akron), so we're looking to see if we can set him up with Skype. Also, our bard has a new roommate moving in and she wants to make sure she's acclimated first. So, we're trying to figure out where would be the best place to hold the game.

[Black Jack Rackham]

Laura did the most awesomely evil thing to Loyosha today that she's ever done, forcing me to try and (gasp) do more with him than just hit things with my axe. I may even have to throw it away if we can't come up with some solution...

Kudos to you, Laura!

[smafdi]

I picked up Hanabi as well due to sals recommendation but have yet to play it. On another note I got ahold of Vampire Emprie, a 2 player bluffing game. You have the vampire lord who knows the identity of 3 vampires hiding in the city. The human player needs to kill those 3 vampires while only knowing the identity of 2 humans (out of a total of 9 characters). The vampires win if A. all humans die, b. all vampires have revealed themselfs and are all present in the castle (still undead of course). Played that only once while still trying to grasp the rules and while enjoyable i can't say weather it's really good or not yet. The other game i got was Legacy: Gears of Time, where you play time travelers trying to secure your legacy in time by going back and establishing technology. HOLY CRAP WAS THIS GAME FUN!. On the surface it's a simple area control game with a time travel theme, but the theme is SOOO strong it's fairly badass. You can only travel back in time you can't go forwards until the "Round" has ended. Each "round" has 4 phases of players taking 3 actions each. The actions you can take are drawing cards to dig for tech, move back in time, establish a tech or influence a tech. So even if my buddy plays writing, if i have enough influence to spend i can overwrite that and score it for myself at the end of the round. OR! if i have a copy in my hand too I can go back in time slightly further than him and establish it "first" thus canceling his out. damn game is almost brilliant. On top of that the art is all steam-punky. There's a tech "space flight" where it's literally a train in space! </gush>
Also sentinels is good mark you should pick it up at origins this year, tho with 1 base set 3 expansions and 1 mega expansion it will be slightly pricey. If you do decide to pick it up i have an extra set of the new promo char's and villains they released this past december so let me know. Especially if your little ones like super heroes (which if they don't you should beat them until they do) it's easy enough to play that they can get into it. Just don't play with the harder villians if they don't like losing. Seriously Iron Legacy can suck on a **** **** ****. Hate.

[Black Jack Rackham]

If I decide to go through with it (which I'm pretty sure will happen) my obsessive completionism requires that I get everything for it. So definitely bring those others along.

As for Gaming, I have some awesome and auspicious news. My oldest has been working on an adventure and just yesterday (in the midst of the latest snowstorm) we got to play with him as GM (*sniffle* I'm so proud).

[smafdi]

Very very nice, glad to bring another one into the fold.

[salamanca]

So this means I can retire, right? I'm sure he can handle the larp. wait, this means you are gonna retire? Wait, this means one of us gets a sidekick.

[Black Jack Rackham]

This week we're back to D&D 3.0, and as a bonus it's supposed to be warmer (so we won't freeze to death in the attic). We're going to find out what happened to the wayward lycanthrope priest who turned himself into the town officials...

[spizio]

A polymorphing lycantrhropic priest, how devious.

[Black Jack Rackham]

A polymorphing lycantrhropic priest, how devious.

Ok smart guy, I should have said, "turned himself OVER TO the local town officials"

And on that note, we'll be down three players today one sick, one work, and David will be late because he's going to the movies.

[Black Jack Rackham]

Fun interrum adventure for our Golden Age superheroes. While on their way through a secret underground passage (which one of the heroes arch-nemesis told them about) they SURPRISE got ambushed by an ancient lich and his ghoul minions. The fight itself was awesome but the best part was the Lich has a transform spell which turns you into his willing slave, I used it on Megan then forced her to say "Yes, Master." to me heh heh heh. In the end though my lich had to flee, and the heroes got the impression they did more harm than good (but that's a story for another day).

Next time, they'll finally be dealing with Mordgig the Terrible the terrifyingly hideous ruler of the pterodactyl riders of Garamese (I just loved typing that all out).

Next week we're having a break because I'm going to a small convention down in RI to run my Call of Cthulhu game, Lower 9.

So when we meet again, it'll be for D&D!

[Lady Grace]

D&D last Friday, where we're still trying to figure out where to hold the game best. We were sans dwarf due to us not having the Skype set-up at Nicci's place (we may have to return the game back to our place in order for that to work out). Hopefully, we might be gaining a new player in the form of Nicci's roommate.

However, we also gained another player...in form of the GM's girlfriend. Now, I've run games for my Mike. I've always had that lingering fear of people thinking I might show him favoritism, so he ends up taking a lot of abuse (sometimes not even from me! ). But I've also been in games where the husband/wife dynamic is fine and there's no bias involved...

...and I've been in games where said bias is quite blatant. And, while this GM is quite good, the hearts are clearly sparkling in his eyes (he just got back together with her). She's a newbie to D&D, so he designed a sorceress for her.

And gave her a unicorn. No normal familiar, but a unicorn companion. Now, so far, this is a dumb unicorn, but still -- UNICORN!

So, our session involved us meeting with the sorceress to rescue her unicorn from a traveling sideshow run by immoral halflings. We actually did well, with me shanking halfling butt, the druid and the bard causing chaos by spooking horses, Glitterdusting halfling rangers and applied use of illusions and the sorceress...um...

...well, yes, she was useful. The GM helpfully pointed out that he designed her to be a blaster. So, scorching ray, magic missile, cone of cold, fireball -- and something else. Meanwhile, one of the cages busts open, where we're confronted by a roc with the fiendish template. Mike tries to Soothe Beast, but it makes its save! Mike tries Baleful Polymorph, but it makes its save!

By this point, I have finished off the head halfling crone and the GM asks for me to make a search check in the middle of combat to find the wand on her body (which the GM had never done before). Found it, but before I can do anything about it, it's the sorceress' turn! Who has Charm Monster as well.

And the roc doesn't make its save. Funny that.

Oh yeah, the wand was a wand of Charm Monster. Huh. Convenient that.

Mike thinks I'm being paranoid. I probably am, but still -- UNICORN!

[salamanca]

You are being paranoid. The Roc already made two saves. Law of averages says the GM drops a lousy result the third time. The wand was there as the GM backup plan in case Mike blew his casting (which he did). And avoids turning this into a TPK. And a Unicorn is a fairly universal GM symbol to warn his vets that the new girl has absolutely no idea what she agreed to and gave minimal input on character design so be ready to offer helpful hints. I recommend coming at this sideways and use in character roleplay to nudge the player to smart actions that benefit YOU to the detriment of everything else. If you do it right, nobody catches on and you get to run a player character AND a player. With some practice, you can even run the GM, steal his game session, take it in a wild tangent for your entertainment and drop him back off at the goal without him realizing you skipped his adventure. (and, no, I have not done that to Mark in THIS campaign. I did it in a fantasy game he ran for MWP and a couple other Origins events however). And if she gets special treatment, abuse that by letting her deal with the really nasty problems.

[Lady Grace]

D&D 3.5!

So, just Rogue me, Druid Mike & Bard Nicci last night. The dwarf was shanghaied into a birthday party and the GM kinda-sorta is on the outs with his girlfriend (again). Sadly, this meant we were lacking the presence of Bernard, the World's Dumbest Unicorn. Likewise, Nicci had her son visiting, so she put him on dice rolling duty and he seemed quite interested in the dungeon crawl of the night (get 'em while they're young!).

We made it to the giant's burial mound! Well, I and Snafu made it to the giant's burial ground...the bard and the druid missed their spot checks and admired each other's shoes -- even though Dolenz doesn't wear shoes. In the meantime, I disabled the trap on the door that would have squashed a trespasser into road pizza. And into the depths!

Several dark corridors to choose from...another spot check had me noticing the rather LARGE and rather RECENT humanoid tracks going off a particular path, so we decided to follow them. This can't possibly be a bad idea! The tracks appeared to pause around one coffin before continuing on. We decided to not open that coffin yet. We had a small speed bump in the form of some yellow mold. As I wracked my brains to try to remember if it was OK to torch it, we instead went with Plan B, which was let the monkey pop it like bubble wrap and wait for the residue to settle. 10th lvl Druid poison immunity FTW~!!!

The tracks eventually led us to a door, where we heard arguing. Apparently, four hill giants and 3 cave trolls had issues with each other in terms of property boundaries. Lot of chest beating and posturing between the two sides. Gee, it would be absolutely horrible if a fight broke out...

Burned a charge on the wand of silence to prevent it from creaking just in case. Bard cast Invisibility Sphere and we snuck in to hide behind a statue. One giant actually made his listen check...

...and was the first to get zapped by the wand of Charm Monster: "Go Beat Up the Trolls".

So, we metaphorically ate popcorn as the melee between rivals ensued. The bard sang to try to assist our "side" (the giants), but the trolls were TOUGH. And the GM rolled a LOT of hits. Good thing they weren't against US. The hill giants got literally torn apart BUT they left some severe marks on the trolls. And then Mike did some more gratuitous damage with a flamestrike. I charmed another troll who wasn't in range of the fire and Nicci had the one-two combo of glitterdust and sound burst.

Yeah, Blind targets are so vulnerable to Sneak Attacks, especially since we were still buffed by the bard. We finished them off for good and made sure the trolls stayed dead afterwards. We didn't get hit once (though Snafu ran into a wall when he missed a charge on a blinded troll) and the GM was suitably impressed for the night.

[Black Jack Rackham]

LG how often does your group get together to play? It sounds like they are WAY more experienced than the group I'm running (Mine are just at 2nd level).

[Lady Grace]

Well, we started at 8th level, so it's not like the GM is giving away XP like candy.

We're trying to get back into a more regular schedule. As for experience, Mike knows 3.5 D&D like the back of his hand, I'm slowly getting there (though I remember minor details better than Mike) and Nicci's a newbie to RP in general, but she's learning quickly and enjoying herself immensely.

Likewise, the GM isn't going easy on us by any stretch. The challenges are intelligent, but he doesn't have the "Players vs. GM" mentality. And he appreciates it when we use strategy and doesn't just charge in.

[Black Jack Rackham]

Boardgames this week, and as a bonus Her Majesty has tentatively given her nod to joining us. It's about time we got back on schedule. And speaking of, I need to get back to doing our once a month FLGS Superhero game. I think our next scheduled one should be the 30th of May. I don't have anything scheduled, so I will see about getting that set up too.

[Lady Grace]

We actually got to do D&D 3.5 two weeks in a row!

Other Steve and his dwarven cleric were back so we started with him trying to figure out where the rest of us were.

*cut to him standing in front of a skull-shaped burial mound*

OS: Yeah, that looks like the sort of place they'd get in trouble in.

So, we reunite, but not before we mess with his head a little bit due to the fact the door where the Troll/Giant rumble took place in was still under the effect of the wand o' silence and I got to play mime. We then found an opening in the back of the room that forked into two distinct paths. Before we chose either path, we double-backed to check out that one coffin where the giants paused at. The cleric wouldn't let us open it (claiming we'd be "desecrating"), but a quick use of Clairvoyance from Nicci determined it only held a corpse, so we went back to the fork.

Detect Magic from Nicci got her sensing a faint blip on the right path, so off to the right we went! Eventually, we could hear rushing water -- and I could hear unknown voices murmuring something I couldn't make out. Me and the bard did our steathly scouting thing and came across approx. 16 scaly humanoids that smelled like fish gathered around a huge whirlpool. GM asks me to make a Knowledge: Dungeoneering check, which I fail, but OOC I'm thinking kuo-toa or sahuagin. Nicci, OOTH, makes her Bardic Knowledge check and determines that they are skum -- no doubt slaves to an aboleth.

Me (OOC): Oh [BLEEP]!
Nicci (OOC, when shown a picture of an aboleth): It looks like a turkey's [bleep]...

Nicci convinced me to not immediately bolt back to the others like a craven coward to at least check out the man-made tunnel opening at the far end of the cavern, where her Detect Magic pull was stronger. Once we did, THEN we retreated like craven cowards back to the others and notified them of what we found. Mike's druid was perturbed about the signs of this unnatural creature. Likewise, we felt the need to put these miserable skum out of their misery as we had nothing strong enough to reverse the transformation.

However, there was NO WAY we wanted to face them in that big, wide-open cavern -- ESPECIALLY near that whirlpool. We figured if we could get into the tunnel, we might have the advantage of forcing them into a more narrow formation if we had to fight and prevent us from being overbeared.

Or, avoid the fight entirely.

So, Nicci cast Invisibility Sphere and I burned a charge on the wand o' silence and we snuck past them and made it safely to the tunnel. A couple turns and corners later, we come across an intricately carved stone face with "HERE LIES THE GUARDIANS OF SLAUGHTER" written in Giant. Sadly, no one bought my attempts to claim that they were actually the guardians of laughter. I negate the silence field and get ready to check for traps. The stone face instead starts talking to us, claiming we had to answer 3 riddles correctly else we were gonna bite it -- as the pile of ashes and scorched outlines of adventurers past attested to.

It actually ended up being one classic riddle and two math problems, but the stone face opened up to us with a grinding scream. We start sweating the proverbial bullets in case it tipped off the skum in the cavern, but nothing...yet. It opens up into a large room where, despite there being dust on the floor, there appeared to be fresh, bloody flesh hanging from meathooks on the ceiling. There are four giant skeletons standing in the room as well.

And at the far end of the room is a morningstar.

Well, time to send the rogue in to be bait. I mean, check for traps.

Now, before I go, I switch out a weapon augmentation crystal on my acidic short sword. Normally, that's rockin' my greater crystal of cold assault (and my swordbow, which is usually my main weapon, has a lesser crystal of lifedrinking to help keep the healing to a minimum). But last session out we found a new crystal, that of an amethyst skull. OOC, I have a little idea of what it could be. IC, I know cold does bupkiss against potential undead, so I need to take the risk if those giant skeletons start moving.

With the rest of the group safely staying put in the doorway, I yet again check for traps. And the morningstar starts to rise from its position and laughs despite my epic roll. And the skeletons' eyes start glowing red as their heads turn towards me...

GM: You have one action to do something.
Me: BOOTS OF DIMENSIONAL STRIDING, DON'T FAIL ME NOW!

I bravely 'port back to the entrance. The dwarf starts laying down stone spikes because he knows the taint of evil in this room is too much for him to attempt to turn anything. Mike goes bearform and has Snafu guard our rear in case of skum ambush. Bard starts buffing us. I break out the wand o' magic missiles to start before they get into melee range. Mike summons a fire elemental behind them. Dwarf blesses us.

Stone spikes do their nickel & dime power on the skellies, but it sadly doesn't affect the morningstar. The fire elemental helps, but even being Huge, it STILL gets massacred by the giant skeletons and the morningstar. Fortunately, since we're in the doorway, they're not all able to get us. Likewise, before it poofs, the elemental gives me some flanking buffs once I can engage in melee.

And my dice start getting HOT. As in "confirmed crits" -- and the crystal lets those crits AND my sneak attacks affect undead! The closest skelly rolls a natural one and drops its weapon. Which is good, because it got some hits on me and Mike. Nicci starts shooting the morningstar and we then decide to concentrate our attacks on it in the hope that if it drops, so will the skellies. I get some more sneak attacks on the morningstar -- which torques it off to go after me. Its first hit doesn't do that much damage on me due to me being chaotic neutral, so I get cocky.

Mike summons another fire elemental. The morningstar gets set on fire -- which adds some extra fire damage to it. Which it shares with ME. I'm in the single digits HP-wise.

Me: THANKS A LOT, MIKE!
Mike: (not convincing in the least) Oops...

But we finally manage to drop the morningstar and the skellies. The morningstar is still muttering darkly in our heads. Our first plan is to see if the fire elemental can pick up the artifact and put it in my bag o' holding. Unfortunately, the elemental misses its will save and Mike immediately dismisses it. Bravely, the dwarf tries Plan B, which involves wrapping the morningstar up in his bedroll without touching it and makes his will save. He is now planning on casting stone wall in the tunnel while we rest up for the night.

Good news! We're now level 11!

Bad news! We've still got to get past the skum and the aboleth (and anything else that could be lurking here). However, I've a few ideas a-brewing in my head now that might come into play... But it's going to have to be in two weeks as our bard will be performing in a burlesque show next week.

[Black Jack Rackham]

LG, one of these days I swear, I'm going to just force you to sign up for NaNoWriMo.

As for us it was Boardgames this week. We had enough players that we split into two groups. Eric brought over Sentinels of the Multiverse, so I had to play that (along with my oldest). It was awesome. I'd forgotten how much fun it was. We just fought two of the basic baddies, Baron Blade and Omnitron, but we won both times (though it was looking a little tough with Omnitron since there were only three of us and we decided to fight him on Monster Island)

Yup, when I get on the dealer floor, I'm just going to have to say, "Give me one of everything!"

[smafdi]

Some sad news for you mark, greater than games are not going to be at origins this year. super sad here, but they are still going to be at gencon, so you might want to wait until then.

[Lady Grace]

Heh.

Sorry, Mark...I guess I just miss gaming regularly. Also, this is the first time I've been able to use intelligent strategy in a game in quite some time...

[Black Jack Rackham]

Some sad news for you mark, greater than games are not going to be at origins this year.

Of course they aren't... grumble

but they are still going to be at gencon, so you might want to wait until then.

Fine, just fine

[svensven]

Jen and I play Sentinels twice a week at bare minimum. We love that game. We've started playing Pathfinder Adventure Card Game as well for some marital cooperative fun. (and no, Sal, that's not a euphemism).

[Black Jack Rackham]

(and no, Sal, that's not a euphemism).

[Black Jack Rackham]

This week we're back to Forgotten Realms as we FINALLY find out (or at least start to find out) what's really going on in town that the locals are attributing to werewolves. Hopefully the PCs will do so in time to save the priest who actually IS a werewolf, but if not I'm betting none of them are going to be all that put out.