Finally saw The Desolation of Smaug

Have to say that in spite of it being the holiday month, this December has not been all that great.  I'll spare folks the drama and just say that there was much sucking of pink twinkies (to borrow a phrase from R2-DToots).  Work has been leaving me mentally tapped out, which is probably why a few updates I'd hoped to make in the prior weeks never happened.

Also, the future of the Gamer Security Agency is currently up in the air, with none of the writing staff (those who are left at any rate) really sure what's going on.  Wayne Basta, author of the Arestia series of books (go check them out, as they're pretty good) has noted he stopped submitting articles as he wasn't sure if the site was going to just fade away in the wake of former editor Brian "Fiddleback" Casey having moved on to do his own version, the Mad Adventurer's Society... which is pretty much the same thing as the GSA, just without the overwhelming focus on Edge of the Empire material that the GSA fell into.

But enough of my whining.  It's the holiday season, and that means Christmas to look forward to.  I opted to give myself an early Christmas treat and go see the newest installment of Peter Jackson's Hobbit trilogy, the Desolation of Smaug.

Let me be honest, from the time it was announced it was going to be a trilogy of films, I wasn't a fan of the idea, and truthfully felt that while including material from the LotR Appendices was cool, making The Hobbit into three films felt more like a money grab.  Of course, that doesn't mean I wouldn't go see them, having been practically raised on Tolkien, with The Hobbit being one of the first books that I had read on my own.

I'd originally planned to go see the latest film on opening day, but car troubles and lackluster response from the repair shop pretty much nixed that whole plan.  And deciding I wanted to see the film sooner rather than later, I opted to brave the Christmas shopping crowds/traffic and head to the theater.

Despite only being the middle film of the trilogy, overall the movie didn't disappoint.  I will say that I thought the movie could have done with a lot less time spent on "oh hey, here's Legolas being all awesome and stuff!"  I will admit to being leery about the addition of Tauriel to the film, but her scenes didn't feel at all forced, and the scenes between her and Kili were sweet without being mushy.  The way that Bard was presented was quite different, and I actually don't mind the change.  Stephen Fry as the Master of Laketown was certainly entertaining to watch. The Dol Guldur/Necromancer story arc was also done well, with Radagast making another appearance.

But the thing that would make or break the film was Smaug, greatest of calamaties.  While I loved the Rankin-Bass take on the scene and the dragon, I felt the film did it just as much justice.  The CGI work on Smaug was incredible, and though processed to sound deeper and more menacing, Benedict Cumberbatch's voicework for the dragon was incredible.  Peter Jackson and his crew did an amazing job of bringing life to the old wyrm, and the scenes inside Erebor were excellent.  And though a change from the books, it was really nice to see Thorin and company make an earnest attempt to take down the beast; naturally they were doomed to fail, but they get an A for both effort and ingenuity.

One element that I think could lead to an interesting scene in the next film is the fact that Legolas is currently the one in possession of Orcrist, having taken it from Thorin when the dwarves were taken prisoner by the wood elves of Mirkwood.  As I said, could lead to an interesting scene where Thorin is either handed back the blade during the upcoming Battle of Five Armies or has it laid to rest when he perishes after said battle.  And don't whine to me about spoilers on that last bit; the book's been around longer than I've been alive!

So overall, the movie was very enjoyable, though not without its faults.  I will probably wind up seeing it a second time, if only due to taking my mother as I've done with all the prior films, and I won't mind doing so in the least.

Though on a gaming related note, I really do hope that Cubicle 7 can get back into producing and releasing supplements for their One Ring RPG.  While I may not be actively playing said game, I do very much enjoy it, and would like to see more of Tolkien's world through the game's filter, as I honestly believe it's the best attempt to reflect the setting while staying true the professor's work.

And lo, there was a flurry of writing...

Not too much to say, other than it can be pretty amazing how much writing one can get done if one simply sets aside the time to do so and sticks to doing said writing.  Also amazing how much pizza one person can eat while doing that writing; it's been many a year since I polished off a 12-cut pie in the course of a single day all by my lonesome.

I'd decided a few days ago, after realizing that I had nothing prep'd for a weekly Heroes on Demand entry for the Gaming Security Agency.  Quite a shock, as I'd gotten used to having a few buffer articles just in case I hit a dry spell.  After a coin toss, taking a break to go watch a move, and then a brief scramble to get an article together, I decided it was well past time to correct that.

But I also figured that if I was going to spend a day doing nothing but writing articles, why limit myself to just character builds?  Per a Twitter conversation with Brian Casey, aka Agent 00 on the GSA or more commonly known as Fiddleback on Twitter and d20 Radio forums and former host of the Game On! podcast, it came up that something he'd like to see is vehicle and equipment articles.  They didn't have to be for Star Wars, but seeing as how I'm such a Star Wars junkie, that's what I ended up going with.  I've got a handful of vehicles written up for FFG's Star Wars: Edge of the Empire game (primarily the Beta, but I don't think there's going to be any huge changes between the Beta version and the final product when it comes out in a few months).  I'm sure there are plenty of other players and GMs that have compiled homebrewed stats for various creatures, rides, and gear that have never seen print in an official supplement, and there's probably a lot of other gamers that might benefit from your creativity.

For the Heroes on Demand series, while I've been the primary contributor to it (seems fitting, since it was my brainchild to being with), there's been a few other folks that have made some fine contributions.  I don't know how many of my fellow Agents at the GSA will read this, but you guys are more than welcome to make your own contributions, and they emphatically don't have to be for Star Wars.  Ben Erickson aka Agent 66 aka Cyril did an entry for Pathfinder, and I've done entries for Warhammer Fantasy Role Playing 2nd edition, Cubicle 7's One Ring, Evil Hat's Dresden Files RPG, and AEG's Legend of the Five Rings.  Frankly, there's been a real dearth of D&D builds, and though I'm pretty much out of D&D at the moment, I know there's folks that are still actively playing many versions of D&D, from 1st Edition to 4th Edition, so there's room for GSA Agents to contribute their own Heroes on Demand articles for D&D characters, regardless of where you fall in the D&D Edition War.

And I know there are plenty of older RPGs that are still being played even though the companies that produced them have either dropped the line or simply gone out of business, and what better way to encourage folks to check out the games you've loved for so long than to do a review on it?  I myself did just that, taking a look at what is on my gaming shelf as opposed to being boxed up in my storage closet, and why it's sitting on my gaming shelf.  While only Dresden Files has so far really hit the "you really gotta play this game!" button for me, games like Green Ronin's Dragon Age and Wildfire Studios' CthulhuTech are on my shelf alongside such notables as Star Wars (various editions) and Deadlands for a reason.

Also, as I mentioned to a couple of friends via Twitter, contributions don't have to just be reviews of active/hot RPGs or character builds.  The GSA has some great articles on campaign advice and fleshing out character backstory, as well as a very informative look into how Edge of the Empire's dice pool system came into being by none other than Jay Little, the man responsible for said system; talking about getting your dirt straight from the horse's moutth, you can't do much better than that.  Dave Villegas aka Agent 42 aka GM Dave has started up a designer blog about Hauler, a new card game that Gamer Nation Studios as a follow-up to their very enjoyable Edition Wars card game.

Ben and his ever-so-charming wife Nateal had a Build-Off Competition series of articles going, noting their respective efforts in designing their own campaign.  It was really neat to see their respective thought processes, and while I myself am not currently working on any sort of campaign, I'm sure there are other people who are.  One thing that can always be useful to new GMs is advice and examples by old-hat GMs on how to go about building a campaign or setting of their own.  We even have at least one professionally published author amongst the GSA Agents who could probably offer some insight into creating your own setting and telling stories within that setting.

So I guess maybe this is my attempt at a call to arms, both to my fellow GSA Agents that are already signed-up and to those that have yet to jump on board.  If you're interested in providing resources to your fellow gamers, be they board gamers, table-top gamers, or card gamers, the GSA is on the lookout and in need of submissions.  The submission guidelines are pretty straight-forward; keep it fun, keep it informative, keep it honest and fair (while my review of the EotE Beginner Box was overall very positive, there were a couple of minor quibbles I had), and pictures are nice as are links to the companies involved in the game you're talking about, though in a number of cases Brian has proven willing and able to do the picture hunting.

The GSA has been in existence for six months, and while we've covered a pretty impressive amount of ground in that time, there's the feeling that we could cover so much more.

Okay, really didn't mean for this to turn into a long-winded soap box speech.  Sorry 'bout that.

Oh, and some semi-obligatory links if you are interested in signing up to be a GSA Agent:

GSA Article Submission Guidelines
http://gsa.thegamernation.org/article-submission-guidelines/

GSA Writers Wanted!
http://gsa.thegamernation.org/writers-wanted/

Honestly, when the GSA first started, I wasn't sure how much of a commitment I'd be able to make, or for how long.  So I was quite surprised to learn that in the course of six months, I've written almost a full fifth of the site's articles... not bad for a part-time gig.

Been awfully quiet 'round these parts...

Not to much meat here, just a quick post to explain why it's been fairly quiet of late.

Main reason is work, plain and simple.  Mandatory OT and amount of stuff that needs to get done (everyone else in the company can dawdle and twiddle their thumbs 'til the cows come home, but gods forbid I don't get everything done ASAP) pretty much doesn't leave me with a whole lot of mental bandwidth after the working day is done.

Also, a decent chunk of my time has been spent writing articles for the GSA website, ranging from homebrew species stats for Fantasy Flight Games' Edge of the Empire beta to RPG reviews (latest being one on for the 4th edition of Legend of the Five Rings) to the weekly Heroes on Demand column, which itself covers a gamut of RPGs.

The other big thing that's been gobbling up a lot of my time of late has been the Edge of the Empire beta, both in analysis of the official rules and experimenting with various rules tweaks, to say nothing of playtesting when and where I can.  Though with the final update having been posted a few days ago (I even did a couple GSA articles running through the updates week by week), I imagine that will be quieting down a bit, now that the rules are more or less "stable" until the final product is released sometime next year.

Gaming wise, the Sunday Star Wars Skype game I play is still going strong, and there's been a positive reception to the notion of alternating between the existing Saga Edition campaign (which has proven quite interesting so far) and an Edge of the Empire campaign.  It was even suggested that we might record the EotE sessions as a live-play podcast, a notion that's both exciting and daunting.  If said live-play podcast does occur, it won't be the well-edited sort of podcast that Garrett of Threat Detected produces, but probably something more akin to Brev's Real Gamers podcast (though hopefully with far less Skype issues).  But, we'll see.

I've also been playing in another Edge of the Empire game via Skype, this one a weekly game occurring on Friday nights.  In this one, I'm playing a Clone Wars veteran named Auron Riggs (Hired Gun/Bodyguard/Mercenary), and he's proven to be quite badass.

There's also the bi-weekly Wednesday group, in which we're playing the Marvel Heroic RPG.  The party are comprised of teenage heroes, with three out of the five players using existing characters (Darkhawk, Slapstick, and Patriot) with the two ladies are using (mostly original) concepts.  As much as the MHRPG system didn't wow me when I first read through it, I must say it's really started growing on me, and I've still amazed at how much variety is available in the system with what a character can do, particularly when Slapstick (living cartoon) and Miss Hex (teenage spellsplinger) use their various abilities to create complications and assets.  Me?  I mostly just break stuff, including an film!Iron Monger knock-off.

Saturday gaming has seen some changes, as the One Ring game I was has pretty much come to a screeching halt.  I was pretty darn sick that particular Saturday, so I don't know the full details, only that I wasn't the only missing player and that the remaining PCs wound up either dead or incapacitated and in the hands of some very savage goblins.  But, in lieu of that, most of us are delving right back into Legend of the Five Rings, something that we had a lot of fun with, using modules from the Heroes of Rokugan II: Champions of the Sapphire Throne living campaign as the basic framework, though with some very different NPCs.  I must say I missed playing my Hare Bushi, and getting the chance to let the "killer bunny" get back into the thick of things was a blast.

There's still the monthly Dresden Files game on Saturdays, with the GM promising a suitable holiday-themed session given it's the last session before Thanksgiving, and quite possibly the last Dresden Files game for the year.  Looking forward to seeing what sort of mischief my "freelance paranormal consultant" aka White Council Junior Warden gets embroiled in next, particularly since the GM has moved the campaign to Chicago and has made it clear that she's diverting from the novels after the events of Changes.  So no Harry Dresden, leaving me as Chi-town's resident wizard.  Yeah, it's about as enjoyable a role as you'd expect, but at least there aren't prolonged periods of boredom.  Granted, Danny might really like some boredom after the events of the past few sessions (such as getting dragged into a pissing match between the Black and White Courts of the Vampire Nation), but you don't get to be a respected member of the magical community by collecting bottle caps.  Still haven't had a run-in with Gentleman Johnny Marcone, and I think I'd like to keep it that way for at least a little while longer.

So, that's whats been going on since I posted here last.  I can at least look forward to a few days' respite thanks to being able to take all of next week off, so maybe I'll work on developing some material for this wee little blog of mine.

BTW, if you're interested, here's a few links to some of my recent work on the GSA website:

Star Wars: Edge of the Empire: The Game has Changed
http://gsa.thegamernation.org/2012/09/27/star-wars-edge-of-the-empire-the-game-has-changed/

Star Wars: Edge of the Empire: Is the Game Still the Same?
http://gsa.thegamernation.org/2012/11/15/star-wars-edge-of-the-empire-is-the-game-still-the-same/

RPG Review: Legend of the Five Rings, 4th Edition
http://gsa.thegamernation.org/2012/11/14/rpg-review-legend-of-the-five-rings-4th-edition/

RPGs You Need to Play: Dresden Files
http://gsa.thegamernation.org/2012/10/09/rpgs-you-need-to-play-the-dresden-files/

Well that was a busy Saturday

Been a bit quiet here, so thought I might change that.  Nothing earthshaking this time around though.

Supposedly the weekend is a time to relax and unwind from the hustle and bustle of the work week.  Well, my Saturday was anything but a chance to relax and unwind, but at least it was due to fun activities (mostly).

It started off the way most of my Saturdays for the past year have, with me waking up to go to work.  Honestly, the paycheck is nice from all the mandatory OT they've got us doing, but doing so week after week after week burns a person out.  Thankfully, things went pretty smoothly, and I was out of there by 2pm.

After that was some errands that needed running (including grabbing lunch) and the quick check on a few different forums, amidst which the FFG Edge of the Empire Beta forum and D20 Radio, as well as get up to date on my Twitter feed.  And then it was off to game night.  Thankfully, it wasn't a repeat of last Saturday, with me only finding out things had been cancelled at the very last minute due to sudden appearance of in-laws at the GM's house.

Once again, I'd brought the starter set for FFG's X-Wing game, hoping to get that on the table and see how the final game turned out in comparison to how it played when I got a chance to play a few rounds at GenCon 2011.  Turns out, it was still fun, and I managed to squeak out a victory as a Red Squadron Pilot in a lone X-Wing with a trusty astromech vs. a pair of Obsidian Squadron TIE pilots thanks in no small part to a very lucky critical hit.  I'm actually glad I pre-ordered all the boosters when I made my purchase of X-Wing, as I guess the X-Wing and Y-Wing boosters are vanishing fast.  Sadly we didn't have time for a full-fledged game, but maybe that will change for next weekend.

After that was a burger run to Five Guys (gods do I love their burgers, and their cajun fries are pretty darn tasty as well) for dinner (GM's wife really didn't feel up to cooking anything, which is fine), and then once the rest of the gaming group arrived, it was time to venture back to the realm of Middle-Earth for another session of Cubicle 7's The One Ring.

Once again our GM pulled from the Tales of the Wilderland adventure path, this time running us through "Of Leaves & Stewed Hobbit."  As many an adventure has done, this one started out in an inn, specifically a Hobbit-run establishment called the Easterly Inn that's fairly new to the region, and provided a taste of Hobbitish comfort for the two Hobbits (Mirabella and Rorimac) in our group.  The dwarf (Bruni) found the mead to be "acceptable" in quality, the elf (Caranlas) was rather aloof, and my psuedo-Ranger (Brander) was simply content to be sleeping next to a warm fire after a warm meal, the group having been "on the road" for some time, with most of the weather having been damp and dismal during the trek.  As the night wears on, many of the patrons get ready to turn in; sadly there wasn't enough open rooms for any of our company to get a bed, so we got stuck sleeping in the common room.  During the wee hours of the pre-dawn morning, there's a thunderous pounding on the inn's door, waking most of the sleeping patrons and putting the Ranger and elf on high alert (the dwarf was too busy sleeping off his mead and the Hobbits not really sure what to do).  The owner of the inn, a cheerful Hobbit named Dodinas (Dody) Brandybuck was quite glad to have some backup when he went to go check the door; any would-be brigands would have an archer and a swordsman to deal with rather than a halfling.

But the unannounced guest turned out to be a rather harried looking youth that claimed to be a survivor of a trade caravan that was coming across the Misty Mountains, with the innkeeper's brother Dinodas (aka Dindy) being amongst the caravan, but whose fate was unknown to the youth, who answered Dody's frantic inquiries with news that the caravan had been attacked by goblins just after they'd settled in for the night.  But before he could go into any more detail, the band of goblins that had been chasing him came up, weapons drawn and cruel intent plain to see on their faces.  At this point, the dwarf and the Hobbit PCs had been awoken, and the dwarf quite eager to spill goblin blood.  After the goblins had all been dispatched (with the elf archer ably dropping the two torch-carriers so as to prevent them from setting the inn on fire), Dody offered our company a job, seeing that we were capable folk; in short, a small amount of coin for finding news of his younger brother, and an offer of free room and board for a week should we bring the young Hobbit traveler back to the inn alive.  From what the youth told the company, the caravan had been attacked just as it was nearing the end of the High Pass, just on the edge of the Misty Mountains.  It would be a few days' journey, and the youth was in no shape to accompany us, so once the sun was up, off we set.

The journey was thankfully without peril or hardship beyond being dreary and gloomy, perhaps fitting for early summer, though being able to make use of a small boat to take us down the Carrock rather than making the trek on foot probably helped.  We reached the foot of the High Pass as the sun was setting, having followed the trail instructions that Dody provided to the ruins of a Mannish town.  The sharp eyes of the elf spotted the presence of a shadowy fiend, one that sought to snatch away wee Mirabella.  The dwarf and elf found their axe and arrows did little more than annoy the creature, but Brander recalled a story his grandfather had told him of night-haunts, and replaced his sword with a torch, forcing the monster to recoil in fear until it eventually fled back into the night to trouble us no more.

However, the night sky cleared, and again the sharp eyes of our elven archer proved their merit as he spotted signs of a bonfire further up the pass.  Given we were already awake and knowing that the night did indeed hold dangers, we made best possible speed towards the alleged bonfire.

What greeted our sight as we approached was not a happy vision, as we found the remains of the caravan holed up in an old ring-fort, with a substantial number of goblins making ready to attack, and signs that the caravan survivors had been under siege for several days.  We play the role of Big Damn Heroes and force the goblins into fighting a battle on two fronts.  It was at this point that teamwork proved a huge boon, as Rory and Bruni had made each other their Fellowship Focus, enabling the Hobbit to remain on the defense and spend his Hope to protect Bruni, freeing the Dwarf up to go for an all-out offensive that left dead goblins in his wake.  Mirabella proved to be a true shot with her sling, with Caranlas and Brander working in tandem to take down as many goblins as they could, all while caravan archers from the ringfort peppered the goblin force with arrows.  Brander ended up drawing the attention of a rather brutish looking Orc, who sought to challenge the manling in a one-on-one fight, going so far as to telling the other goblins to leave the Human warrior to him.  Dumb move, as a critical hit and a couple tengwar runes lead to the Orc's swift end on the third exchange.

It was a tough fight, but in the end we proved victorious, with only a few minor cuts and scrapes suffered.  The caravan leader, a stern fellow named Iwgar (a Beorning) was quite glad for the help, but unfortunately related that Dindy had been taken prisoner during an earlier attack on the ring-fort, due mostly to the "fool of a halfling" running off in a panic rather than staying with the wagons as Iwgar had instructed him.  From what the Beorning knew, the goblins likely had a lair in a cave nearby, as it was a short distance from where the caravan had been initially attacked, costing them half of the six men he'd hired in Bree, leaving only three defenders for the rest of the trek.  Feeling obligated to at least try and mount a rescue of young Dindy, the heroes agreed to get what rest they could before trying to track the goblin raiding party to its lair and hope the Hobbit traveler was still alive when we got there. And so ended the first part of "Of Leaves & Stewed Hobbits," with us slated to hopefully finish the adventure either next Saturday or the Saturday after.

Myself and a couple others hung around a bit later to get another couple rounds of X-Wing in, and I really wish I had brought the boosters along in order to let more people play rather than having to settle for one-on-one battles.  But like I said before, it's a fun game, and I managed to score an Imperial victory, putting the final tally at Rebels 3, Imperials 1.

So like I said, a busy Saturday, but ultimately a fun one.

Other Campaign Updates

In light of the New Jedi Order campaign having pretty much wrapped up (GM said he wants one more session to 'tie up a few loose ends' this coming Wednesday), I thought I might review the other campaigns I've been playing in, as well as ones that I might be planning for the future.

Sadly, it seems that the Dresden Files game I was in had fizzled out due to the GM having no clue where she wanted to take the story as well as some difficulties handling a couple of characters (my Dresden-esque wizard being the lesser of the two offenders),  There may be some hope of this picking back up once the Paranet Papers supplement comes out, but if not, then at least it was fun to play a smart-ass young spell-slinger for a while.

My friend's The One Ring campaign is still going strong, though I never did make a post about the last session we played a few Saturdays back.  Our odd group of would-be heroes were tasked by Gloin to deliver an urgent missive to none other than Radagast the Brown, member of the Order of Wizards and White Council.  We had a pretty "interesting" trek through wilderness along the Old Forest Road that cuts through Mirkwood, including a chance encounter with a group of Wood elves, a few run-ins with goblin raiders, as well as a pack of spiders that had pretty much subdued a feisty Woodman lass and slain what we presumed to be her two male traveling companions.

After coming to the comely lady's rescue, she introduces herself as Derawyn, apprentice and ward of the Brown Wizard, but when teased by both the elf and dwarf as to why she didn't just use her magic to banish the spiders, she grew a deal more modest when replying that the magics she knew were more subtle and better given to tending the ills of body and spirit, which she proved by using a song of healing on Brander, who'd taken some nasty hits from the spiders during the attempted rescue.  She was returning to Rhosgobel after concluding a task for her mentor, and would be much appreciative if the Company would permit her to travel with them the rest of the way.  Well, we reach Rhosgobel without further incident, only to find that scouts returned only hours before with word of a massive orc raiding force that will likely strike that night. Better still, Radagast is absent on "some wizard's errand," leaving the Woodsman village without it's most powerful protector.  Gee, if only there were a group of stout-hearted adventurers in the neighborhood... oh, wait there is.  So we wind up joining in the defense of Rhosgobel, and many an orc was slain that night, with Brander, Bruni, and Caranlas making like Aragorn, Gimli, and Legolas during Helm's Deep :)  Finally, just when it seemed we were about to be overwhelmed by one last desperate surge of orcs, the dawn came and with it Radagast, with the combined presence of the two forcing the foul minions of the Shadow to flee back into the depths of Mirkwood.

Once the injured had been seen to, Radagast gathers the Company so that he might hear the message we were tasked to bring.  The message was from Dain Ironfoot, King Under the Mountain, and concerned a rising number of orcs spilling down from the mountains as well as those that survived the Battle of Five Armies, and the Brown Wizard concurs that some fell power had caused the orcs and goblins of the Wilderlands to stir in such numbers; he fears the attack on Rhosgobel will not be the last settlement of the Free Peoples to be laid siege to by such reckless hate.  Fearing that a new threat lurks on the horizon, Radagast asks that we ferry a message for him, only this time we are to bring that message to none other than the King of the Elves of Mirkwood.  The wizard also makes it a point to thank us for coming to the Derawyn's aid, and as such he owes the hero a minor boon to be named once they have delivered his message to the Elf King, though we were permitted the chance to rest.  The Company agreed to make Rhosgobel a sanctuary as our Fellowship undertaking, so at least we've got an additional base of operations, one that's closer to Mirkwood even.  We gather once more on July 7th to continue the adventure, and I'll admit to being very curious as to where this is going.  Timewise, we've passed through spring and are into early summer.

Back to Star Wars, the Skype-based game that Ben "Cyril" Erickson is running is still going strong, with our next session planned for this coming Sunday night.  The session before last ended with us getting knocked unconscious after a prolonged fight aboard a supposedly derelict freighter, only to have us wake-up next session with a (most likely) drug-induced dream sequence that left a few of the characters freaked out and us apparently trapped in a compound someplace.  We finally managed to escape our freaky captors (vestigial heads for extra freakiness) and made our way to a docking bay, just in time for another firefight.  Which was where the last session ended.

While I've stepped out from behind the GM's screen after the last two Star Wars campaigns I was running pretty much fell apart due to lack of player interest, I've been getting an itch to run something.  And spurred by a bit of gaming nostalgia and a recent Kickstarter for Deadlands: Noir setting, I picked up Savage Worlds and Deadlands: Reloaded.  Just so you know, I was a huge fan of Deadlands back in the day, though I'll confess a minor preference for Hell on Earth, the post-apoc Deadlands setting.  While I wasn't all that impressed by Savage Worlds on the first go-round, I picked up a hardcopy of the Savage Worlds Deluxe book, and I must say I'm pretty intrigued by how much quicker and cleaner the system runs compared to Deadlands Classic.  Big handfuls o' dice for skill checks are gone (generally a good thing in my opinion), and the Edge/Hindrance system looks to have been very nicely streamlined.  I've got a bunch of notes pertaining to a Deadlands Classic mini-campaign that I never got to run, and while it needs a bit of polish, I might just be able to get that sucker into play-worthy shape.  Trick will be rustling up a posse of players, but on-line gaming might make that task a mite easier, though time'll tell.

Also on the horizon is our SW NJO GM is looking to giving the Marvel Heroic RPG a try as a campaign, with the agreed upon theme being "TeenAgents of S.H.I.E.L.D."  Yeah, we're playing teenage supers that are working for/with S.H.I.E.L.D. in some capacity or another.  X-23 and Darkhawk are already going to be part of this group, but not sure yet who the others will be, though I'm sure it'll be interesting.

So that's whats going on campaign wise for me.  How about you guys?

One Ring - House Rule notions

As was discussed in my last blog post, our Loremaster for One Ring has chosen to implement a few house rules to the game.  Several prospective changes were proposed, discussed amongst the group both before and after, with some kept and some not.  Those of you that know me from various Star Wars message boards (particularly the HoloNet or D20 Radio) will know that I largely seem unable to avoid tinkering with the rules of any RPG for very long.  So even though I'm not running a One Ring game, why should that natural tendency be suppressed?  So, that said, here's some notions that our group came up with to tinker with the rules for One Ring.

House Rule #1: New Weapon and Weapon Skill: Slings
Rationale: This actually cropped up during character creation, as Mirabella's player didn't see her Hobbit as being an archer but also wanted her to be good at throwing things.  There's been a few takes on slings as weapons, but the GM wound up basing his take off a version offered by a chap under the handle of "Voidstate," and does the same damage as a short bow but has a lower Injury difficulty, making it easier for armored foes to avoid being wounded, though this is offset by it having no Encumbrance value to speak off and a largely limitless supply of ammo.  The weapon itself is covered under the Slings skill, and the GM permitted Mira to swap out  Bows for Slings.
In Play: Since Mira has yet to even get a threat of a critical hit with her sling, the lower Injury difficulty hasn't really meant much, though apparently she's got less range with her sling than if she had taken up a short bow, not that range really plays much of a part in One Ring.
Outcome: Here to stay, at least as long as Mirabella's a part of the Company.

House Rule #2: Endurance = Base value + Heart score + Body score
Rationale: The GM felt that character "hit points" were a tad on the low side, and that the Body score was something of a dump stat.  Personally, I've seen over on Cubicle 7's One Ring board the house rule of reducing a hero's starting Fatigue score (pretty much the weight of all carried gear) by their Body score as a means of giving Body more value, but our group felt that would step too much on the toes of any Dwarf PCs, as they already get a break on their starting fatigue as their racial perk, to say nothing of most Dwarf backgrounds already providing a pretty healthy Body score.
In Play: Since the fighter-types (Brander and Bruni) had decent Body scores, a few extra points of Endurance helped, particularly for Bruni who took a few more hits than anyone else due to a slightly lower Parry value compared to Brander or Rory, who get by with a stout shield and a high Wits score respectively.  And given the prior fight with the swamp troll, we all agreed that having a slight buffer was a good thing.
Outcome: We're keeping this one.

House Rule #3: Add Body score to base weapon damage
Rationale: Again, a way to make Body mean something outside of certain Common skill checks.
In Play: Frankly, the heroes were doing way more damage than they should have, particularly Brander and Bruni, who were able to kill a swamp dweller on just a basic success on our attack rolls, something neither of us was having trouble with achieving, turning what was meant to be a tough encounter into a veritable cake walk for the party.
Outcome: Kicked to the curb.  We may revisit this in some fashion or another, as the GM would like how strong/burly a character is have some impact on their damage output, but that might just be a hold-over from D&D that needs to be let go.

House Rule #4: Making the Healing skill more useful to recovering lost Endurance.
Rationale: Mostly from the group's perspective that barring Wounds (which can take a bloody long time to heal if you've got a high Endurance total), the Healing skill in One Ring really isn't all that useful.  So, the GM proposed that at the end of a combat encounter, if the heroes are able and willing to take a "short rest," then a PC can attempt a TN 14 Healing check. On a basic success, one patient (including the one making the check) recovers Endurance equal to the healer's Wits.  A great success lets the healer treat up to three patients, while an extraordinary success lets the healer treat a number of patients equal to their Heart score.
In Play: This only cropped up once, as Mira wanted to do what she could for the minor scrapes and scars that Balin, Bruni, and Brander had suffered at the claws of the marsh-dwellers, but given she has a pretty high Heart score (one of, if not the highest in the group I think), that meant we all recovered quite a bit of Endurance on top of what we'd get from a normal recovery; this resulted in Brander being fully healed up after the short rest.
Outcome: We still want Healing to be of more use, but the initial implementation was just a bit too good.  We're going to try a different take for next time we play, this one being that instead of the degrees of success determining how many folks you heal, they determine how much Endurance is regained, starting with 2 on a simple success, 4 on a great success, and 6 on an extraordinary success, and that you can only tend to one patient per roll, though we're not quite sure on how many rolls would be permitted during a post-combat short rest.

House Rule #5: Reduce Experience and Advancement Point costs by half.
Rationale: From what I've read and how the GM feels about level advancement in level-based games, we both agreed that character progression in One Ring can take a long time.  So, to facilitate more rapid character growth, the GM opted to cut the listed costs in half (rounded up where necessary).  This was spurred by the fact that we've really only garnered about 12 Advancement Points and 5 Experience Points, so there's not much we can do with our points other than save them up.
In Play: During our third session's Fellowship Phase, we actually started to see some development with our characters, particularly in our common skills.  Brander is now better at calling upon his force of personality as well as Ranger-type traits such as stealth and looking for clues, and is a tad wiser than he was prior to this adventure, netting him a Virtue due to increasing his Wisdom rank.
Outcome: We're doubtless going to see our characters advance a lot faster, than they might under the usual progression, so it's just as well that the GM also instituted a "can't raise a skill or trait more than one step per Fellowship Phase" rule, thought that might already be in the books.  But since we each have a taste for "instant gratification" when it comes to games with point-based advancement, we're cool with that so long as the GM is.

House Rule #6: Armor reducing Endurance loss from enemy attacks
Rationale: This sparked up from Grimbald's (now Bruni's) player about how armor was generally useless unless the enemy scored a "critical hit," and that unless you were decked out in heavy armor, a lot of crits would still result in wounds.  So, we agreed to try out a house rule that any Endurance loss you suffered from an enemy attack was reduced by the number of success dice of protection your armor provided.  So Brander in his leather corselet (which provides 2 success dice on Injury tests) would suffer two less points of lost Endurance when struck by a goblin's sword.
In Play: This was part of why Bruni, in spite of getting mobbed by marsh dwellers, wasn't taken out in spite of starting low on Endurance, as his mail shirt simply absorbed so much of the damage they were dealing.  Even Brander (was still hurting from the swamp troll fight) wasn't hurt much.
Outcome: While we do agree that armor could stand to be a tad more useful, going the route of "damage reduction" isn't for us, particularly if the GM had chosen to let it apply to the bad guys as well, as that would result in combat slowing down quite a bit, especially against a very heavily armored foe or one with truckloads of Endurance, or worse yet a foe with both.

House Rule #7: Increased Injury TN from a great or extraordinary success
Rationale: Rather than simply going with "more successes equals more Endurance loss," C7 forum member cheeplives offered the idea of rather than adding your Body score to the damage dealt when you get a great or extraordinary success, you could instead increase the Injury TN of your attack by +2 (great success) or +4 (extraordinary success).  Granted, you first have to roll well enough on your Feat die to possibly wound your target, but it would provide a better chance to injure a well-armored foe.
In Play: This actually showed up in our previous session against the swamp troll, with the GM allowing me to put the extraordinary success I rolled to better use, as the troll still had plenty of Endurance and the fight was starting to drag on, giving Brander better odds of ending the fight right then and there.
Outcome: This one is also a keeper.  So thanks to cheeplives for this one.

House Rule #8: Special Training during Fellowship Phase
Rationale: As you might recall, I mentioned that there wasn't many uses for Treasure (the method that One Ring uses to track accumulated wealth).  However, cheeplives struck again with the optional undertaking that permits a character to raise a single Common or Weapon skill, paying in Treasure points rather than Advancement or Experience points to reflect the costs of finding a suitable teacher and/or training facilities.  Cheeplives set the costs a bit higher than our GM, who opted for New Level x4 for Common Skills and New Level x8 for Weapon Skills.
In Play: None of us are wealthy enough to really take advantage of this, but it is nice to know that the option is out there.
Outcome: As yet to be determined.

So there you have it, eight House Rules that our group considered and (for the most part) tried out.  Maybe you'll find something of interest in the above, maybe not.  There's also a thread with various house rules on the Cubicle 7 forums to be found here for further reading if you are so inclined:
http://cubicle7.clicdev.com/f/index.php?trk=cubicle7&showtopic=3018

One Ring: Marsh Bell, Part 2

So this past Saturday, we finished up Marsh Bell, the intro-adventure included in the Loremaster's Book for The One Ring. As with last time, spoilers abound, so consider yourself fore-warned.

When we'd left off, the Company had defeated a swamp troll, but at the cost of one of their number, the Beorning Slayer Grimbald falling into shadow.

The survivors took the time to at least build a cairn out of what rocks and debris we could find for the fallen warrior before taking a brief rest for the night to recover the Endurance lost from fighting the troll, with Mirabella helping to treat the nasty injury that her cousin Rory had gotten during the troll fight from an errant swipe.

One thing I'd not really touched on before was how healing in The One Ring works. Unlike a lot of other recent RPGs, the Healing skill has fairly limited usage, and the primary means of recover is time and rest. If you don't have a Wound (pretty much a nasty hit that hampers your effectiveness, you can recover pretty quickly, while an untreated Wound means you heal at a snail's pace, and a treated Wound only heals slightly faster. One Wound means you're badly hurt, two Wounds means you're unconscious. Wounded and out of Endurance means you're at risk of dying (but at least you've got 12 hours for help so long as a baddie doesn't get a chance to finish you off). Getting a second wound and being reduced to Zero Endurance (what happened to Grimbald) means your hero has now joined the choir invisible. So getting banged up in this game can be a big deal, something our group discussed after the fact and plan to address via a house rule (to be discussed later in a post).

Come the morning, with one less hero, we proceed to follow the trail (such as it is) of Balin and his traveling companion. After an hour or so, we enter very dark and dismal (even for this portion of Mirkwood) copse of trees, only entering this portion of the forest as we'd found a wrecked Laketown boat not too dissimilar from the one we'd used, only the dwarves must have attempted to go further along than we had. As we continued the search, we found not only dwarf-tracks, but various bones of differing ages, past victims of the dark things that lurk within Mirkwood. It was Caranlas' sharp elf-eyes and memory of tales that enabled him to spot and recognize the threat of the sinister gallows-weed, a tree-hanging plant that coils itself around the necks of the unwary before pulling them up to strangle them. So warned, the Company managed to avoid the deadly vines, with Brander and Rory occasionally slashing at errant vines that got too close.

After some time, the dwarfs' trail lead to a wide pool of dark water, with prominent ruins suggesting a town of some sort once stood at this spot, though it had long been claimed by the swamp. The cawing of crows in the treetops helped to set an eerie mood, particular after Caranlas spotted one of the carrion eaters feasting upon an eye. Before we could really discuss how next to proceed, the slow and soft ringing of a bell can be heard. The menfolk are unaffected, but little Mira succumbs to some enchantment, and moves to enter the pool. Brander is easily able to prevent the Hobbit lass from entering the dark waters, and as Caranlas listens to the sound, can detect an ancient magic in the ringing of the bell, though why only Mirabella was affected he cannot say, though Rory suggests she always had a great fondness for music and song, and maybe that might be a factor. The elf does what he can to snap Mira out of her trance while Brander and Rory check for signs of where the dwarves had gone, but it is clear their tracks end at the pool.

With no other choice but to proceed, Brander carefully wades into the pool, with Rory close-by and Caranlas' bow at the ready. Searching the pool, the young Barding finds an underwater opening that only requires the briefest of dives to reach, though how long you'd have to hold your breath he can't quite tell. In a sing-song voice, Mira cites a lyric she heard as a child back in the Shire, about traveling over the muck and under the waters where sunken halls be found, and she finally comes out of the trance that the ringing of the bell put her under. It's clear that this was the path the dwarves took, though the Company is skeptical that they entered of their own free will, particularly given that Mira would have dove in regardless of danger had she not been stopped.

Taking point, Brander went first, followed by Rory, then Mira, and finally Caranlas. Only Brander had no trouble due to his upbringing in the wilds and on the shores of Long Lake, with the other three needing a few moments to catch their breaths. Entering into a flooded chamber, the Company set out to slowly and carefully explore, with dim lighting provided by the sun through cracks in the ancient stone roof. The first room we entered appeared to be a main cellar with a surprisingly high ceiling and a small alcove at the far end with a rope hanging from the ceiling. There are several options to further explore, and Rory's idea of splitting up to cover more ground is quickly shot down. Sword and shield at the ready, Brander checks the first two exits on the right, finding what appear to be disgusting sleeping quarters of some wretched thing; not even goblins would abide such rampant filth he concludes. However the third exit is a decorated archway with stairs that lead down a few feet and ending in a stout door defaced with claw marks. Brander tries to budge the door, but finds it is quite secure, gaining only a sore shoulder for his efforts. Shrugging, he turns to rejoin the others only to be stopped when a gruff yet worried voice asks who's there.

Surprised, Brander answers with his name, and that they were sent to find the dwarves Balin and friend, and the human's words bring Caranlas and Mira closer, leaving Rory to keep lookout for any of the inhabitants. The door opens, and a voice informs the Company that they are Balin and Bruni, son of Beli (new character for Grimbald's player). They have been trapped here for close to five days as far as they can reckon by the passing of the sun, and their meager provisions have long since run out. When asked why they simply haven't left, Bruni answers that they've tried, but the foul things that live here kept them from making their escape, to say nothing of the foul enchantment of the bell that drew them here in the first place.

Sadly, as this discussion is occurring, Rory's curiosity gets the better of him, and he decides to "take a quick peek" down an twisting and tight (or at least it would be for non-Hobbits) tunnel that soon ends in a wooden gate of dubious worth, with a thick and putrid stench filling his nose. Rory finds the locks on the gate quite simple to undo, and with barely a creak looks inside to see a huge pile of looted treasures, though its gleam is muted by a layer of muck. Rory debates trying to snag some, but figures he best not tarry and with a sigh heads back as quick as he can.

Balin and Bruni, informed that the Company was sent by Gloin, are quite eager to return to Laketown with the heroes, agreeing that attempting the Old Road was not the best path to take, with the older dwarf remarking that short cuts make for long delays. Bruni does inquire about a box that Balin had left for safe-keeping, and is openly relieved to learn that the heroes have both recovered it and left it unopened. Balin explains that box contains a gift meant for the King of the Eagles, and asks that it be returned, something Mira does gladly. It is then that Caranlas notices their look out has gone missing, but also hears scraping and shuffling sounds from several different directions. Though Bruni is weary with hunger and fatigue, he hefts his two-handed axe as best he is able while Balin informs the heroes that those are the sounds of the dwellers of the marsh. Deciding they need to leave and quickly, the Company makes for the flooded chamber and the passageway out, spotting Rory just as he exits the twisting tunnel. Mira prepares to scold him, but Brander and Caranlas both note that there is no time, as a dozen or so twisted mockeries of menfolk come shuffling out of the unexplored passages. Caranlas and Mira waste no time in letting fly with arrow and stone, the elf slaying one of the foul things outright while Mira dazes her target. Weapons in hand, Brander, Gimli, and Rory engage more of the foul things, with Brander's sword and Bruni's axe easily hewing their targets in twain while Rory finishes off the beast that his cousin injured just moments before. The monsters respond, raking with their claws at the three heroes in front, but can find no purchase on Brander's stout shield or Bruni's stiff armor, while Rory is simply to quick and nimble to be stuck. Hearing the sounds of more marsh dwellers, the Company know they can ill-afford to stay and fight it out. Caranlas spots one of the monsters heading for the rope hanging from the ceiling in the alcove across from them, and quickly shots the creature dead, informing the others of his suspicion the rope is tied to the bell that bewitched Mira and the dwarves. Noting this, the heroes hew into the monsters as Mira sings a brief song to embolden the heroes' spirits, a song that indeed seems to put fire back into the younger dwarf, as Bruni mows two of the marsh dwellers down with a broad sweep of his axe (he rolled a Gandalf rune and got an extraordinary success, which the GM permitted to let him take down two foes at once) even as Rory cut the innards loose of another while Brander sliced open the face of a fourth. The two of the remaining marsh dwellers attempt to claw and bite at Bruni, but the dwarf only suffers minor scrapes, while the third leaves itself wide open as it tries to lunge past Brander's shield.

With the aim for which his kind are known, Caranlas unleashes two arrows in rapid succession, cutting the rope at point well above what a slow moving beast such as these marsh dwellers could possibly leap and thus preventing them from being subjected once again to the bell's enchantment. Balin picks up a rock and hurls it, but has no success in that endeavor while Mira makes her way towards the flooded room, pausing only to hurl a stone from her sling at the marsh dweller that tried to attack Brander, catching the monster in the eye and downing it instantly. After a quick backward glance and a grin at his little friend, Brander engages one of the two marsh dwellers remaining and easily cuts it down before Bruni cuts down the last with a single blow from his axe. Knowing they've no time to linger, the Company quickly makes for the flooded room and the underwater tunnel. Knowing the difficulty she had before, Brander tucks little Mira under one arm and dives into the dark waters, swimming as fast as he is able for the other side of the tunnel and freedom. Once the Hobbit girl is safe, he then does his best to aid the others, prompting Bruni to cry "watch the beard!" as the young Dalelander attempts to heave the younger dwarf out of the waters, while Caranlas and Rory each help Balin through. Noting that the sun has begun its gradual descent into the horizon, Balin voices the very real concern that the marsh dwellers might give pursuit, causing the Company to agree to make as much haste as possible away from this place and back the way the came.

The rest of the journey is relatively peaceful, with the closest thing to excitement being a sudden rainstorm that left the heroes quite drenched, but they eventually return to Laketown with the two dwarves. Gloin is overjoyed to see his friend Balin returned home, as well as his cousins' nephew Bruni. As promised, he grants the heroes a princely sum, especially as the Eagle King's gift was also returned. Having had his first real taste of adventure, Bruni is intent to experience more, and after several days in the company of the others, asks if he might join them. There's a mild stink about the presence of a Wood Elf, but Bruni is willing to give the elf the benefit of the doubt, having not been a "guest of the Elfking." The heroes decide that they will each remain in and around Laketown, enjoying some well-earned comforts.

Treasure and wealth in The One Ring is handled in a very abstract manner, especially compared to fantasy games such as D&D and Warhammer Fantasy RP (1st and 2nd editions at least). Instead of counting out coins or magical items, characters track their relative wealth by something called Treasure Points, which represents coins and jewels and other valuable trinkets they've either collected or been rewarded with. There's not much you can really spend them on, other than raising your standard of living for a few months or your status with your culture (though that option is fairly expensive). Our reward for completing this adventure was 5 Treasure Points. A nice bankroll, but not much for us to officially spend it on, though the GM did offer a couple house-rule suggestions to bear in mind.

And that concluded the Marsh Bell for us, with each of us opting to take our Fellowship/Rest Phase in Esgaroth. The GM had tried out a few house rules, and for the most part we're keeping them. But this post has gone on long enough, so I'll save the house rule stuff for tomorrow.

One Ring: The Marsh Bell, Part One

My Saturday night group played our second session of the One Ring this past Saturday, kicking of the "Marsh Bell" adventure from the back of the Loremaster's Guide. Needless to say there will be some mild spoilers ahead.

Our band of would be adventerur were each in Esgaroth, each of us kind of doing our own thing. As it happened, Rory Hornblower heard through his uncle Mungo (a Hobbit that had left the Shire years before Bilbo to indulge his queer sense of wanderlust) that Gloin, one of the surviving members of Thorin's Company from the Battle of Five Armies, was seeking to hire a group of adventurers, and was offering a princely sum for success in the endeavor. Rory discussed the idea with Mirabella Bracegirdle about showing up and offering their services, though Mira felt they'd have better luck if they brought some stouter folk along with them, which lead to the wee folk getting word to the rest of us about the prospect of adventure and riches. Brander was doing a bit of restocking before heading out once more into the wilds on his self-appointed patrols, and had no qualms about assisting the Hobbits.

We got our first task of One Ring's Interaction system, used to handle social contests with plot-critical NPCs. We had to make a good impression on Gloin, which Mirabella did by nominating herself the party spokesperson as her Hobbit-sense suggested that Gloin was a busy and gruff man, and would have little time to waste on elaborate pleasantries, but she was very polite, even when Gloin seemed skeptical that a pair of Hobbits would be much help, though Rory did posit that "Uncle Bilbo" had been of much help to Thorin's company, and that the aid of Hobbits should not be so quickly overlooked, a remark that got the somber Dwarf to chuckle in admiration of the Hobbit's boldness.

Suitably impressed, Gloin explained that two of his fellow Dwarves, one of whom was his cousin Balin, had left on an errand for King Dain Ironfoot to deliver a formal invitation to the King of the Eagles for a celebration marking the 5th anniversary of the Battle of Five Armies, but Gloin had received troubling news that the two Dwarves had not arrived, though he did not say how he knew this. We agreed to the request, figuring that those interested in such matters could haggle over payment after the dwarves were brought safely back to Esgaroth. Gloin provided us with a rough map that marked the path Balin planed to take as well as arranging for us to make use of a pair of long boats to speed us on our way. As it was late in the day, we opted to get a night's rest and head out in the morning.

And so came another round of One Ring's Journey system. In addition to the assigning of roles (Guide, Scout, Look-out, and Hunter), each character is required to make a Lore check when planning the Company's route, with the best roll of the group used, but each failure adding a day. The GM gave us a bit of a break as our path was pretty much laid-out, but Caranlas (whose main specialty is Lore and rolled an extraordinary success) was able to plan a route that would be less wearisome for the less hardy members of the Company, even in spite of some less than helpful advice from Grimbald (who blew his Lore check).

So the next morning, off we set, traveling down the Running River with what should be a four day trek until we reached the Long Marshes on the edge of Mirkwood near the Old Forest Road. We did managed a brief stop-over at a small port village, where the Hobbits proved to be quite entertaining with a rendition of some Hobbit folk songs for the villagers, though Caranlas also proved some skill in that realm by reciting a tale dating from the Second Age regarding the valor of the Men against the fell powers of The Enemy. In exchange, we were introduced to the village's wise man, an ancient walnut of a Lake-man named Nerulf, who seemed a bit out of sorts but recited an old rhyme he'd learned as a child regarding the marshes, that "if south you dare to go, into the marshes then take heed, lightly should you tread, and fear the gallows-weed," though he couldn't really offer much of an explanation. The next three days were uneventful, and we reached the edge of the Long Marshes at the edge of Mirkwood, where even Caranlas, who called the woods home for most of his long life, admitted the unsettling nature of the woods, yet in spite of the oppressive nature of the place, we were able to move forward, though Grimbald seemed the most disturbed.

In game terms, the Long Marshes and Mirkwood are considered "Shadow Lands," meaning that we needed to make Corruption tests to resist the insidious nature of such blighted places. They're not anywhere near Mordor level of bad, but the portion of Mirkwood we were traveling through was not a happy place. Allegedly we should have been rolling once per day, but the GM only called for one roll upon entering the Marshes, which was probably just as well to prevent us from either racking up a lot of Shadow points or burning Hope, since we're still pretty much starting level heroes.

We did have a duece of a time navigating the Marshes, as we stuck to the river as long as possible, and it fell upon Brander to steer the boat through the many river-paths, though he performed admirably. Caranlas' keen elf-senses learned that we were being shadowed, though he couldn't be certain by whom. We were able to pick up a sign of Balin's trail, though before we could get very far, the Company was accosted by a scouting party of Wood Elves, who had been the ones trailing us since we'd entered the Long Marshes.

This lead to another Interaction test, this time with the Elf leader, who was quite unhelpful, particularly when Grimbald plainly stated why we were in the marshes in the first place, but Caranlas was at least able to convince the scouting band that we were no threat to the Elves, and so they agreed to leave us in peace. It was here that Brander's Ranger-training proved itself, as I was easily able to pick up Balin's exact trail, which in turn lead to a campsite that only recently seen use. Taking a look around, we were able to confirm that while the dwarves had indeed set up the camp, they had not slept there. Rory, being the inquisitive soul that he was, managed to find tucked within a rotten stump a small box, an ivory jewel cass with intricately carven images of regal-looking birds. Caranlas, upon checking the stump, found Dwarf-runes which suggested a protective enchantment, one perhaps to keep would-be thieves from finding the locked box, which he and Brander agreed was likely meant to be a gift to the Eagles, and though Rory wanted to see what was inside, Mira convinced him to leave it be, as stealing from the very dwarves they'd been asked to find wasn't the sort of thing a sensible Hobbit did, and with a fair bit of reluctance Rory gave the box over to Caranlas for safe-keeping.

Being very late in the day, the Company decided they'd camp here for the night, though the Elf was very wary, saying that the trees whispered of a threat nearby, though more the would not say. We soon learned what that threat was when Mira went to see about finding some potable water and passed too close to a lake of stagnant water. She was just barely able to avoid being snatched up by a large arm, and her scream brought the rest of us quickly to the scene to find a monstrous brute emerging from the lake, intent on turning the halfing lass into a late night snack.

I figure this was a planned combat encounter in the module, as nobody had seriously failed any of their Travel checks to avoid fatigue. And it though it was five against one, it was not an easy fight. Apparently this was a swamp troll, and it was able to withstand one heck of a beating, as Brander and Grimbald were mostly left to hack away at the monster, with Rory focusing on keeping his cousin Mira safe from the beast while Caranlas hung back and peppered the thing with arrows.

A note about combat in One Ring. Most opponents tend to drop when either their Endurance is reduced to zero or they suffer a Wound. Trolls apparently don't drop anywhere near that easily, as we had to Wound the thing twice, which was made a bit more difficult by the fact it had a high Armor rating (representing it's thick hide) and the GM was rolling well against each Piercing Blow the Elf made, as he chose to attack every other round to use the option to aim and get an automatic Piercing Blow with his bow. Grimbald kept to a Forward Stance, literally focused on just hitting this thing and doing as much damage as he could, which came back to bite him as the troll soon realized that he was doing the most damage with his long-handled axe (even if he never once managed a Piercing Blow, he still managed a great success on each attack, doing a lot of damage) and was also the easiest to hit. I went with an Open Stance, not hitting as often but also being a lot harder for the troll to hit in turn, even after it grabbed a stout tree branch to use as a club. Caranlas did managed to score a Wound in the fourth round, but then the troll responded by grabbing it's club and squashing Grimbald, who was already wounded from the opening round, got Wounded again and reduced to zero Endurance (the GM rolled a great success for loads of damage and triggered a Piercing Blow, which even with a Hope Point the Beorning was unable to save against). This was enough to incite Brander to hew into the monster, and I scored the second Wound needed to slay the beast, slashing it's throat open with my sword after it failed to flatten him with its club.

And that was pretty much where we ended the session, with the heroes taking the time to bury the brave Beorning's remains and Caranlas offering an ancient blessing to help shepherd our ally's spirit to the West. Brander had a few bruises as did Rory, so we definitely needed some time to rest and recover, but our journey was not that much more difficult with the lose of one of our Company.

One Ring: A handy list of resources

Over on the Cubicle 7 Forums, Jon Hodgson was considerate enough to create a sticky thread with a plethora of resources for One Ring players and Loremasters.

TOR Resources Thread

Here's some of the highlights as I see them:

Online Character Generator
Made by forum-user Azrapse (and apparently with Cubicle 7's unspoken blessing), this pretty much has all that you need to make a character for The One Ring, including the option to get pretty detailed descriptions of just about everything. Granted, this may be in part to what I bore witness to back in the days of the Revised Core Rules for Star Wars d20 and that which is referred to as the "nameless blessing" (aka a character gen program that was really frikkin' awesome), in which the creator of said program was issued a cease & desist letter from WotC by way of LucasArts and their control over "electronic Star Wars media" (aka the reason why even when they were doing PDFs of their books WotC never put the Saga Edition books up for sale as PDFs), but it does seem surprising that the parent company doesn't mind that a healthy chunk of what's in the Adventurer's Book is pretty much up for grabs for anyone that wants it. Then again, there's next to nil about how the game works mechanically beyond character stats, so maybe it's a moot point. Anyway, great resource if an aspiring Loremaster with a handy internet connection needs to create a bunch of heroes on short notice.

Unofficial GM Screen
This time forum user Kaltharion steps up to provide a GM/Loremaster screen to be used until such time as the official one is released, or possibly even after depending on the individual GM's tastes. Seeing as how I'm not actively GM'ing TOR at the moment, I've not delved too deeply into this, but I know from many years of GM'ing that having a handy reference screen is great, especially when a viable index is lacking (much as I love The One Ring, the index is not the greatest, but at least it's there).

A Collection of Old Norse Names
The big thing with this thread, other than the plethora of Norse names, is further down in the thread, namely a post by a chap under the handle of jefferwin. In his post is this link: Names of Middle Earth. If you recall, our TOR group's GM provided a spiffy list of Middle Earth names for us to use. Here's that list ;)

There are some other neat finds on the Cubicle 7 forums, including a few stabs at adding a magic system to the game (neither of which I care for to be frank), unofficial "race stats" for Rangers of the North (presentation is awesome, overall looks pretty good), High Elves (pretty much a reskin of Mirkwood Elves with very few tweaks), and Riders of Rohan, amidst other odds and ends. So bop over and give things a look. Particularly as there's a thread discussing their release plans for the remainder of the year.

One Ring: And then there's tweaking the default archetypes...

In my last post about One Ring, I discussed about how I could tweak the fluff without modifying the crunch-parts one bit.

Well, seems that at least one player in our group convinced the GM to allow him to tweak a bit of the crunch to. Figures it was the bloody elf :D

Now rather than come up with a new background or racial skill set or anything like that, what Caranlas' player did was ask the GM if he could reduce one of the ranks of his starting skills, citing that while Silven Elves start off with a pretty good grasp of battle-tactics, he really didn't see his character has having that kind of battle-savvy, being more of a book-worm and his knowledge of warfare largely limited to a "I studied something about this once" compared to Brander having a practical grasp of such things due to his psuedo-Ranger training. So instead, Caranlas spent the extra points gained to pick up a single rank in other skills that he'd at least have some passing ability with.

I was talking with my friend, and discussed my post on building Brander, and was surprised when he asked me why I didn't ask the GM if I could drop his skill level in Spear and replace it with a skill level in Bow. In retrospect, I almost did, but opted that I wanted the option of a cool spear toss like Eomer pulled in the Return of the King during the Battle of Pelennor Fields when he took down two Mumikul with one spear throw (suck on that, foofy elf-boy!).

Moral of the Post? If you're not entirely happy with the sort of character the default character creation method provides, ask your GM if you do some minor tweaks to better fit your concept. Then again, there can be a fine line between "a slight tweak" and "just re-write the whole thing from scratch," so I'd suggest Loremasters be a tad wary as to just how much "tweaking" they should allow.

One Ring: Character Creation and going outside the lines

A few weeks ago, my Saturday gaming group made characters and played a session of Cubicle 7's One Ring RPG.

I thought I might take a moment to go through the process of building a character, and the bits of wiggle-room you may not think to have the way it's set up.

To preface, there's no dice rolls involved with building a One Ring player-hero (the term the books use for Player Characters), but instead you go through the following checklist:

Step 1) Determine Race
There are six to choose from: Barding of Dale (aka stock human), Beornings, Dwarves of Erebor/Lonely Mountain, Elves of Mirkwood, Hobbits of the Shire, and Woodmen of the Wilderland. Your choice of race provides your racial perk (for example, Bardings get to roll their feat die twice and take the better result on Fear tests) as well as a couple of Traits that describe what sort of skills you've picked prior to becoming an adventurer. It also provides you a base list of skills that your character has, including one favored skill, which is the same for each player-hero of that race. So our two Hobbits, Rory and Mira, had identical skill lists at this stage in making their respective Hobbits.

Step 2) Select Background
Each race provides 6 different background options, which determines the base values of your three Attributes, provides you with second favored skill. This is where characters of the same race can really start to differentiate themselves. For example, Rory choose the Bucklander background while Mira opted for Restless Farmer, giving them quite different attribute scores. Background also provides the choice of a couple character traits, things that set you apart from most folks.

Step 3) Select Calling
This would be your class for those coming from a traditional RPG background, and in effect determines what sort of adventurer you are. My character opted for Warden (for reasons I'll go into detail about further on), while Rory chose Treasure-Hunter and Mira took Wanderer (both were inspired by Bilbo's stories, but each in different ways). Your Calling provides what might be called your "central class feature" in the form of a distinctive trait that's generally not available to anyone outside of that Calling, as well as the choice of two more favored skills from specific groups, allowing you to further tailor what your player-hero is good at doing.

Step 4) Customization
This actually encompasses a few different steps, but I'm rolling them together. Next part is selecting your favored attributes (which of the three you're really good, pretty good, or above-average, in that order), spend an allotment of 10 XP to tweak your starting skills (such as raising ones you already have or buy ones that your starting racial skill list didn't provide), then choosing your starting gear (typically three weapons, some armor, and traveling gear), before determining whether you place more value on bravery or wisdom, and then finally determining your character's staring Endurance and Hope scores, whose base values are determined by your race.

So all in all, which of the 6 races you play has a lot of impact what sort of character you're going to wind up with, and in fact your Calling/Class has very little impact, which can be a bit of a shock to some die-hard D&D gamers.

It also doesn't look like you have a lot of room to expand past that point, at least in terms of what's officially out there. So no Elves of Lothlorien or Rivendell, no Dwarves of the Iron Mountains, or even Riders of Rohan or Men of Gondor or Rangers of the North. Right? Not exactly ;)

I'll be honest in that I've long held a fascination with the Rangers of the North, as personified by Aragorn, and even more so after the movie given the way that Viggo Mortenson portrayed the character in the films. So I was initially sad that I didn't have the option to play a Ranger of the North. But then I thought the matter over. Who was to say that I couldn't have my Ranger player-hero right out the gate, but without introducing any drastic changes to the rules?

So, I sat down with the other players and our GM/Loremaster to make our characters. As the Rangers of the North were Dunedain (humans with vague traces of elvish ancestry), I opted to start with a Barding of Dale, mostly as the stout-hearted nature really fit with someone that was trained to fight nasty things in the course of protecting folks from orcs and such. But instead of my character having crossed over the Misty Mountains and into the Wilderlands (the default setting of One Ring for the moment), I instead asked the Loremaster if it was okay that one of my character's ancestors had made the trek, himself a Ranger of the North that had eventually come to settle in Esgaroth? Loremaster said it was cool; so far, so good. I also chose to focus on swordsmanship rather than archery, in large part because being a ranged combatant isn't a truly viable option a lot of the time, but also because we already had the Elf as an archer and Mira with her sling (a bit of house-ruling the Loremaster introduced as it fit Hobbits to be good with slings rather than just bows). No archery skills for me, but my player-hero would be good with a sword, and passable with a spear or dagger.

So I had my race, now onto Background. I knew I was going to tweak the fluff, so I was a bit more focused on mechanics at this point. I went with Dragon-Eyed, which made Awe a favored skill (useful) and said that my character had ashen/grey eyes which gave him an intimidating gaze that had been passed down from my hero's great-grandfather, allegedly from bearing witness to Smaug destroying the Kingdom of Dale a great many years prior. Here's where the tweaking of fluff began. Although the old folks might say the ash-grey eyes and gaze came from seeing Dale razed, the truth was that those traits are signs of my hero's own Dunedain heritage, passed down through the men of his line from his great-grandfather, who for reasons yet unknown chose to settle in Laketown. Background selected, I dutifully copied down my hero's attributes and chose two character traits (Adventurous and Eager).

Now onto Calling. Easy one for me given my concept. So, Warden it was. Wardens are described as being those folk that actively fight and defend against the various threats to the Wilderlands, namely the minions of The Enemy Sauron. Again, this fit with my notion of a Ranger of the North, or at least someone that had similar training, passed down from father to son over the years. I chose outdoorsy skills as my two favored skills, again keeping to a Ranger theme, though I noted one of them I didn't start with any ranks in, but I knew that I'd have those XP to spend in a bit to address that shortcoming.

Being a warrior-type, I made Body (physical) my main focus for my Favored Attribute, giving me a respectable value for when I really needed the boost (such as eventually for weapon skills), followed by Wits (mental) since my starting background had left me with a fairly low value, and lastly Heart (spirit/will), as my background gave me a very good score in that and I'm not likely to ever gain any of the skills related to Heart as a favored skill. XP was spent to bolster a couple skills and get some needed ranks in Rangerish skills (though not great at them, he'll get by). Equipment choices were a basic sword (was sorely tempted to take a long sword, but maybe later on, a spear, a dagger (filling out my three staring weapons). For armor, I chose a leather corslet (decent protection but not as encumbering as mail) and a medium shield, and finally traveling gear (which is a very simple package that assumes the basic supplies one would need for venturing out in the wild as opposed to going into detail about what's included). Again, being the sort that would facing various threats, I opted to focus on bravery over wisdom to start with. And finally, my player-hero's starting Endurance and Hope were calculated (my high Heart score really helped on both of these). Looking over the list of Middle Earth names the GM had kindly provided (great list, no idea where he got it from, but will see if he'll send me a copy for me to toss a link to up here), I went with Brander, a Dalish name that equates to "Fiery Sword." Cool.

Now, one bit I didn't mention earlier was that your choice of whether to focus on bravery or wisdom also provides your character with an extra perk, be it an item of greater-than-average quality or some special talent, both of which can be influenced by which race you chose to play (told you selection of your race was very important in this game). As I'd chosen bravery or Valour, that meant I got the choice of an item upgrade. None of the specific options for Bardings appealed to me, so I perused the generic section. The weapon options were nice (more damage, better chances to badly injury a foe), but I went with a reinforced shield, which not only boosted the defensive bonus provided by my shield, but I tied it into my altered background by saying this shield had once been used in service of Arnor before its destruction by Angmar and the Witch-King, and thus bore the six star sigil of that ancient kingdom, having been carried by my great-grandfather when he made is journey to the Wilderlands, and was now passed on to Brander for him to use.

And so, without the slightest bending of the mechanics involved in character creation, I now had my psuedo-Ranger of the North. At some point I really would like for him to met up with the true Rangers, though meeting Aragorn is unlikely given he's just starting his own heroic career at this point in time (not sure if the GM is using the default timeline for us or setting things later), but that's not bound to be for a while yet. And even then, Brander is more likely to stay near the Wilderlands to protect the land and people that he knows from childhood rather than a foreign region to which he has few ties. So far, he's definitely felt as a good fit for the Aragorn/Faramir type of character, but time will tell if he'll keep that mold, or diverge to a different course.

For a bit more concrete information on One Ring, be sure to check out Cubicle 7's website for the game:
http://www.cubicle7.co.uk/our-games/the-one-ring/

They're taking the Hobbits to... Mirkwood?!

Well, it was a bit ahead of what I thought was going to be the schedule, but my Saturday gaming group had our first go at playing Cubicle 7's One Ring RPG. Seems the GM really was eager to back behind the GM screen for the first time in almost twenty years. A short summary would be to say that we had a lot of fun and the game mechanics generally worked really well. But this particular tale is going to grow in the telling ;)

At the GM's request, all five players sat down at the same time to build our characters (he expressly told me not to make a character as he knew I had the PDFs) so that we'd have an idea of what each person's strong points were and where the others might shore-up their less-than-stellar aspects. So after a half-hour or so actually putting pencil to paper (we'd spent an hour previously just discussing what sorts of characters we wanted to play), we had our Company, consisting of a Human Warden, an Elf Scholar, a Beorning Orc-Slayer, a male Hobbit Treasure Hunter, and a female Hobbit Wanderer, with the Hobbits being cousins as a way to connect the two of them. We've got a broad skill base to draw upon, with my character jokingly being dubbed "proto-Aragorn" due to how many of the journey and combat based skills I'm pretty good at. Brander's still going to need to work on getting his stubble up to Viggo's impressive standards though :) The GM had done some online research, and provided a plethora of names from Middle Earth for us to use as a resource, including translations. I ended up choosing Brander (Fiery Sword) for my Human Warden's name. I have to say that character creation is generally painless, but I'll go through that process another time.

Our characters at the ready, the GM ran a short intro-adventure to let us get used to the system and have our characters met up. We didn't met at an inn, but rather at the site of an attack upon a trade caravan that was a few days out from Esgaroth (near Long Lake). The Hobbits (Rorimac aka 'Rory' and Mirabella) and the Beorning (Grimbald) were traveling with the caravan, fresh from a stop at Beorn's place, with the later serving as a guard and the Hobbits as fellow travelers. The Elf (Caranlas) was simply gallivanting in Mirkwood (he apparently does that a lot according to his background), with Brander the proto-Ranger having been tracking a group of raiders that had been harassing travelers of late. The bad guys turned out to a group of orc raiders that attacked just as the sun had begun to set.

The way One Ring handles combat is really neat, with your base Target Number to hit or be hit determined by how ferociously you decided to attack the enemy, so the more offensive you get, the easier it is to hit and be hit, while playing it safe and fighting defensively means you're going to miss a whole lot more. It can also be fairly nasty, as armor only helps against attacks that have a chance to deal an injury. As a group, we weren't overly thrilled with that notion, Grimbald's player most of all as his armor proved to be of no help whatsoever against being nicked at until he dropped (orcs pretty much spent the first round ganging up on him), so we might adopt a house rule to make armor a bit more useful in general. As expected, Grimbald with his long-handled axe dealt out horrific amounts of damage per swing, while I wound up being the most difficult to hurt in melee thanks to my high Parry rating, though the Elf went unscathed due to his own high Parry score and distance. What's also cool is that you have the option to use various skills to help your allies with a quick burst of recovery or overawing the enemies and causing them to lose their own fighting spirit, which I did to end the fight by pretty much scaring off the few remaining orcs after we'd taken down the orc boss. So bonus points to the designers for having codified rules for using some of the more social-based skills to do more in combat than just attacking the bad guy. I'll admit that damage output looked a tad low, but after a couple of combats, I now see that it's quite easy to rack up some impressive damage if the dice are on your side (which I bore witness to by taking down a warg in one blow thanks to a phenomenal check result).

I suppose I should give mention to how dice work in One Ring. It uses a single d12 (called the Feat Die) and you add a number of d6's (called Success Dice) equal to your rating in whatever skill you're using. So Brander, with a Swords skill at 2, would roll 1d12 + 2d6 when trying to cut down an orc. Now, the part where One Ring gets a bit tricky is that the 11 and 12 on the d12 and the 6 on the d6 have different effects. On the Feat Die, an 11 represents the Eye of Sauron, and counts as a zero for your hero's check as well as potentially triggering something nasty, but a 12 represents the rune for Gandalf, which means you automatically get a basic success at whatever you were trying to do. Now with the Success Dice, each 6 you roll increases the degree of the success and makes the task you were attempting that much more successful, such as dealing a lot more damage in combat or learning extra information when searching an area. However, in case this seems a bit swingy to some folks, particularly the d20 crowd with their long-standing use of modifiers to a die roll, each character has three Attributes, called Body, Heart, and Wits, that can be added to a roll by spending what's called Hope Point, of which a hero has a finite supply and represents their courage and ability to keeping going when lesser folk would give up.

What's also neat with One Ring is they actually give a structured set of rules for traveling, which does fit as journeys play a big part in both the Hobbit and Lord of the Rings, with each hero taking at least one particular role (guide, scout, look-out, hunter) and then making checks to see if any hazards or troubles come up, as well as the occasional check to see if you wind up exhausted from traveling, and depending on how the heroes roll on their travel checks, you might have a random encounter, which I think is a better way than the GM rolling randomly on a chart; the better the heroes roll, the easier their journey. It's here where Brander's proto-Aragorn status showed up, as he's pretty decent at each of those roles, with the GM permitting me to act as both guide and scout (dunno if that's allowed by the rules though). Since we were only a few day's out from Esgaroth, we didn't have to make many rolls, and it went pretty smoothly. We largely used it as a chance to roleplay a bit and get a feel for our characters; it would seem that Mirabelle is quite taken with the brave Human that had come her rescue and slain the nasty orc-hound that was going to make a meal of her (something she needled her cousin Rory about, seeing as how Rory's player was to busy trying to finish off a different orc rather than come to her aid). For his part, Brander seems bemused by the halfing girl and has become a bit fond of her, much the way an older brother is fond of a kid sister.

Which brings me to another important part of the game, the Company. Now in most RPGs, the PCs are simply lumped together, with few perks for sticking together as a group other than strength in numbers. Not so with One Ring, as it takes a cue from its source materials and introduces two important group-related traits. The first of these is the Fellowship Score, which can help keep a member of the group from losing all heart when things look bleak, but there is also a hero's Fellowship Focus. Much like Samwise Gamgee was devoted to Frodo in Lord of the Rings, a hero's Fellowship Focus has several key effects. The first is that if your Focus gets through a battle without being injured or killed, you regain a spent Hope Point, while the second is that if you spend a Hope Point in some way that benefits your Fellowship Focus, you get that Hope Point back. So, from the bit of roleplay that occured during the journey, Brander selected Mirabelle as his Fellowship Focus, kind of like how Aragorn might have taken Frodo as his Fellowship Focus when the Fellowship set out from Rivendell on their quest.

The GM did manage to spring a surprise encounter on us in the form of a pair of overly large wolves, which were made quick work of though their dread howls left both Hobbits badly shaken, though the Beorning was able to use his knowledge of beasts to quickly suss out that the beasts were afraid of fire, urging the little folk to use tree branches to make impromptu torches and hold the wolves at bay while the rest of us set about dispatching the monsters. Which brings up another aspect of One Ring, something that may look a tad familiar to FATE players, that of Traits, which describe certain aspects of your character, be it things they know or certain skills they have. These traits can be used to allow a basic success on a fairly simple action or as a basis to permit a roll or to help earn some experience after making a successful roll. You don't have to pay anything to invoke them, but you do need the approval of both the GM and the rest of party to gain any sort of benefit. So in the above example, Grimbald used his Beast-lore trait to see if there was a simple way for the Hobbits to protect themselves from the wolves other than cowering away. Being a man of the wild, we all agreed that the trait would fit the scene, and so the GM suggested that most wild animals are quite afraid of fire, and that these wolves were trying to avoid getting too close to the campfire we'd just built.

Two days later, we roll into Esgaroth, the trade caravan leader quite thankful for the extra aid, and giving each of use a bit of treasure as way of payment (even the Hobbits, as they'd helped out quite a bit along the way instead of just being along for the ride). Instead of the usual method of breaking out monetary rewards into different types and coinage, One Ring simply uses Treasure Points, which can represent just about anything from sacks of gold to precious gems to pieces of art and most anything in between except for special items such as magical swords or mithral armor (no rules on getting those outside of character advancement as of yet). The journey over, we then entered what is called the Fellowship phase, or the stuff that heroes do once the adventure is over and they head back to base to recover. The Fellowship phase when you spend your gathered experience and accomplish a particular undertaking, be it making some subtle tweaks to your character's Traits (within reason), raising your standard of living, or finding/contacting a patron.

So, that was our first adventure in the realm of Middle Earth using the One Ring RPG. And it was quite fun, with us getting into the spirit of things and talking in a manner not too far removed from how Tolkien has the various characters talk. The GM's already got the next adventure planed out, but that will have to wait until April, to which I'm very much looking forward to.