So I'm in a Youtube video...

Posted by: Jason Silverain / Category: , ,




I found myself online with an old friend Haxmonster for the first time in ages the other day and ended up recording a few Payday 2 videos for his Youtube Channel.


No script, no practice and no sense in some sentences, I must admit I was rather nervous since it was the first I've been recorded for Youtube video. In addition it has been a long time since I had played Payday 2 so I was running around a little clueless here.

Hopefully we'll not have too long before our next game and you'll be able to see us in some of our more chaotic moments.


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“I have a dream” or more accurately described as “My brain goes to strange places when I'm ill”.

Posted by: Jason Silverain / Category: , , , , , , ,




Good evening everyone, for some reason I'm possessed to write this post now at near 00:30am but you can't accuse me of been slack on getting my posts done this month.  

Ladies and Gentlemen I have a dream.

However this is not a dream of equality and friendship, no this is a dream brought on by light dozing sleep patterns, ear infection created nausea, moments of fever, prescribed medication and most likely some suppressed anxiety.

Ladies and Gentlemen I have a dream to create a horror based fantasy campaign in Basic Roleplaying (BRP).

Now this has hit some snags from the start, first of all I've never Dmed Basic Roleplaying and most of my group have never played it either but my choice to run the game in this system is due to the following three factors:

  1. Other roleplaying systems such as Dungeons and Dragons and Pathfinder traditionally tend to empower the hero's so even monsters that in lore and roleplay terms a character should be scared of soon become hardly challenging to the typical adventurer. I want to shake up the party a little a draw us back from this, I want pull us away from been well oiled murder machines or the perfect diplomat (other known as diplomancers in my group ) and get a little more human and vulnerable.

  1. Basic Roleplaying has an inbuilt sanity system which is relatively simple and saves me from having to create an experimental system or using the Tome of Horror Corruption/Taint Systems. It also has the additional effect of having a reputation for destroying characters thanks to Call Of Cthulhu and this will give me additional groundwork for setting the campaign mood.

  1. We've had access to the Basic Roleplaying Book and Fantasy 1 for a few years now and not yet used it and I want to make my friend feel that it was not a wasted purchase, in addition the system is rather more flexible for ad-libbing character stats than most of the D20 systems I traditionally play.

The other issues I'm facing include the fact that the Basic Roleplaying book is a huge unwieldy beast which is a pain to flick through and that its supplement isn't much better and is missing a context page and appendix, I have taken measures and downloaded the quick start guide but I suspect a lot of photocopying is still in order.

Whilst looking for online support for BRP I have notice it it seems to lack any central wiki and that it only has a minor presence online other than BRP Central and I'm not particularly willing to sign up to the forum as I'm in the middle of reducing my existing accounts online as it is after 15 years on not doing so.

I've managed to avoid getting side tracked in map design thanks to Adroit-Tellurian's post on the map making SubReddit as the city of Bromwich is ideal for my needs so now I can focus on the encounters for the game.

While this will be horror themed and will lend heavily from inspirations such as Darkest Dungeon I am planning on making it rather a traditional dungeon crawl style adventure (though initially the party will have to make their way through a contested haunted city) and I've plans for various sub objectives so the party has a little free roaming if they so wish.


So why am I posting this? Well the two people in my group I would traditionally brain storm with are quite likely to be players so I don't want to spoil the surprise so I'm turning to the online community of my fellow roleplayers for suggestions or heck if you feel like you've got a few NPCs you don't mind going crazy or encounters you think would be appropriate I would be very grateful to see them.

Finally this months post should be the last of the How To Host A Dungeon Series for now though I would like to return to it and craft a few more alternative rules beyond civilisations in the future.
So next month I've got a number of possible topics to turn to, ranging from Green Text Stories of my groups current online game and its hijinks, a overview on how to run a monstrous/evil campaign since that was popular in the FAQ and I've also been delving into the more casual side of gaming so a series of short reviews is in the works.

By the way if you've not seen the FAQ page yet please feel free to check it out and post more questions in the comments. 



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Chapter Master Update: Always Bet on Duke

Posted by: Jason Silverain / Category: , , ,


Just a warning folks since this post references the /tg community several of the links with go to sites with strong language.

When ever a fan made game is created there is always the worry of a cease and desist letter halting everything or project members lacking the skill and time to develop the game growing bored and abandoning it.
That was almost the fate of Chapter Master and even when I reviewed it I must confess I thought it wouldn't progress much further however it seems to have risen up once again with the hard work from the user known as Duke with a new version available: [Link Here] 

Not everything has gone well however and Duke had nearly decided to drop the project after financial difficulty and needed to actually support himself.
Not wanting to abandon the project completely and his attempts to find replacement coder not meeting much success a new solution has been proposed by the community and Duke now has a patreon [Link Here] through which he can be contacted and donated to.

In other Chapter Master news its main page over on the the 1D4 Chan wiki has been updated and now has some more information on the diplomacy options within the game and basic tips.
Since some of you would rather understandably avoid the wiki here are the handy gameplay tips below:

Tips

  • Don't donate a chaos artefact to anyone but the Inquisition.
  • Use tech marines to pick up STC fragments; just unload them from your ships down onto the planet with the STC on it to pick it up. Artefacts can be retrieved in the same way.
  • Ancient Ruins can be explored in a similar way to retrieving an STC, as mentioned above. They contain all sorts of useful stuff, so explore them whenever you can. BE WARNED! Ancient Ruins are often infested with Chaos Cultists and even Daemons, so always send Terminators if you can! Make sure the landing party has:
    1) A good selection of both ranged and melee weapons. Assault Cannons, Heavy Flamers, Meltaguns and power weapons are a good choice, but don't load up the landing party with too many of a particular type of weapon - a few heavy weapons dispersed throughout the squad is the best way to go.
    2) At least one Techmarine and one Apothecary in the landing party to retrieve any STC fragments and/or relics, and to make sure that the gene-seed is recovered from any marines who are killed.
  • Add Bionics to wounded Marines to quickly heal them and get them back in the fight.
  • Never have your entire chapter in a single fleet as warp storms are full of terrors and pop up at most inopportune times.
  • THOU SHALL NOT SEND THE ENTIRE CHAPTER:
    1) On a Crusade
    2) To a Space Hulk
    3) Into a dormant Necron Tomb
    To do so will result in bad things.
  • Sisters of Battle are a cheap and effective addition to your forces. They have the same Armour Class (AC) as marines in Mk 7 power armour, though they do have less health, and you can't (yet) re-equip them to give them anything other than bolters (So no Retributor Squads, Boo!)
  • The Sisters Hospitaller make good(ish) replacements for Apothecaries. Though they can't recover Geneseed from dead marines, they can still prevent deaths and decrease healing time for wounded marines in the same way that the Apothecaries do.
  • Techpriests work in much the same way as your Techmarines, repairing vehicles damaged in battle. They can be re-equipped with better armour and weapons (Though the conversion beam projector they come with is usually enough). Add bionics to them to give them more health and increase their combat effectiveness.


Rather than debating if fan games should be legal I'll just be thankfully Chapter Master seems still low on Games Workshops radar since Games Work is well known for its outright relentless IP guarding to the point of destroying their own rules. 


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Tales to be told once more: The Bards Tale IV backed by kickstarter

Posted by: Jason Silverain / Category: , , ,



Some of the older gamers amongst you may remember the original The Bards Tale also known as Tales of the Unknown Volume I: The Bard's Tale from way back in 1985.

For young reader unfamiliar with the series it was written by Michael Cranford of Interplay Productions and published by Electronic Arts (back before EA became the complete scourge it is today) and was widely available across several platforms including MS-DOS, Apple, Commodore 64 and Amiga to name a few, it even had a release for the NES  which was admittedly a scaled-down version of the game. 



The general story behind The Bard's Tale, is that your home town, Skara Brae, has been taken over by the wizard Mangar and his evil minions. He has frozen the surrounding countryside with a spell of Eternal Winter. Your goal is to build a party of adventurers to eventually destroy Mangar and free your town from his grasp.  

 One of the better 3d games of the time

The game had a pseudo-3D viewpoint of the city and dungeons which was popular amongst adventure games at the time and had gameplay loosely based on Advanced Dungeons and Dragon. 

Your party may have consist of up to six characters, plus a special slot for non-player party members (such as summons and illusions). There are ten character classes, four of which are magic users and it was even possible to import characters from the Wizardry series of games and Ultima III on some platforms which was impressive for its time.  

It later had a pair of sequels The Bard's Tale II: The Destiny Knight and the vastly superior The Bard's Tale III: Thief of Fate both of which allowed the players to import previous characters along side adding new races and character classes and expanding the game world.
Unfortunately no further games were created as Michael Cranford the creator of The Bards Tale had left the video games industry prior to the third game to pursue graduate studies and The Bard's Tale III programmer Bill Heineman who had wished to create further games was unable to obtain the rights to the series from EA.


Now after all these years however inXile Entertainment who seem determined to try and bring back all the great classic roleplay games announced a Kickstarter for Bards Tale IV.
This post may seem a little as there is only a week left to go but I believe it still worth some attention and for those of you worried by the screen shots of the the previous game above check out the game engine trailer:

 

 However we all know plot is just as vital for an RPG as its appearance but from what I've read I can only say it has me in high hopes:
"In mist-shrouded Skara Brae, in the darkest hours of a winter's night, sometimes can be heard a voice on the wind. The Song of the Maiden the locals call it, a song sung since before the standing stones grew moss, a song of ill fortune, that lures those who hear it to their doom, and drives the melancholy to madness, a song, they say, that must never end, for if it does, the world ends with it."

What did the wizard Mangar seek when he cast his spell of Eternal Winter, locking Skara Brae in ice? Why did the invading archmage Lagoth Zanta shatter the Destiny Wand and end seven hundred years of peace? Why did the mad god Tarjan cross the outer planes to burn Skara Brae to the ground and slaughter its people? What secret could drive beings of such great power to again and again lay waste to these ancient isles?

The adventurers who put a stop to these fiends never learned the answer to these questions, but now, a hundred and fifty years after its destruction, and the building of a new town on top of the old, another power, greater than all those before, has turned an eye once again to Skara Brae and the time-lost catacombs beneath it, seeking the secret its predecessors failed to find - and once more, a small group of hapless adventurers are all that stands in its way.
Want to know more well then keep track of the project at either: 
Kickstarter for Bards Tale IV or inXile entertainments homepage

Interested in the original trilogy? Then learn more at:
The Bards Tale Compendium: A fan community for the Series
The Adventurers Guild: A fan community with several emulators and versions of all three games available for download.

Have trouble with emulators www.old-games.com easy installers may be the solution but remember you can only have 2 free downloads per day.
The Bard's Tale, (Amiga Version)
The Bard's Tale II: The Destiny Knight, (Amiga Version)
The Bard's Tale III: Thief of Fate (Dos Version)


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How To Host A Dungeon: Kobold Civilisation.

Posted by: Jason Silverain / Category: , , , ,



For this article on Tony Dowler's How To Host A Dungeon I will be highlighting one more civilisation which I actually created in 2012, I released this ruleset onto the Giant in the Playground forums at the time and had the good fortune for Mr Dowler himself to try them. Considering the positive feedback I had at the time I am proud to rerelease them here.

 The following rules are written in a style that requires reference to the either the avaliable free version of the rules or the full ruleset for use.

How To Host A Dungeon
Kobold Civilisation
Kobolds are cunning, dragon worshiping, industrious  and somewhat spiteful race of creatures whose constant violent encounters with adventurers of the surface races has left them with a xenophobic paranoia and a simmering lust for revenge.
Draw caves of the Kobold civilization in brown. Kobolds prefer to make square or rectangular rooms and tunnel in straight direct segments.
If you don’t have a gold vein or a good sized mithral deposit, create a gold vein right now as described in the Primordial Age rules. In addition in the bottom 4 inches of the page draw two bead sized natural caverns within a thumb of each other connected by a passage, treat these two caverns as Gemstone caverns as described in the Primordial Age rules.

There are two methods for setting up a Kobold Tribe:
1. If there is an empty cavern within 1 inch of the surface the Kobold Tribe begins here and treats it as a warren, if there are several caverns available place the tribe in the largest.
2. If there are no caverns pick a spot on the surface above a gold vein or mithral deposit to create a small village.

Draw a Kobold shaft vertically or horizontally from the Warren (or vertically from the village) until you hit the mithral or gold. Draw a mine 1 bead in size and put a  in it. If starting from the village draw a Kobold warren 1 bead in size connected to the shaft, place 2  in it or the starting warren.

Each  in a Warren represents 1 unit of Kobold population, with each warren holding up to 3. Each  represents some form of treasure.
Make up a name for your Kobold tribe and write it somewhere on the map in pencil.
It is now year zero in the Kobold Era.

Kobolds are lawful creatures but are always hostile towards adventurers and should they ever encounter an Ancient Wyrm on the map they ignores the standard rules and it becomes a Dragon Patron (see Kobold Construction table). Should they obtain a Dragon Patron this way before gaining a Dragon Patron through population size they do not gain a further one when reaching the population size required.
Should there ever be no Kobolds left the Kobold age ends and the Great Disaster occurs.

The Kobold Year 

Spring: In the spring Kobolds gather, mate, and lay their eggs while the leaders plan the year ahead. Gather up all  that are connected to Kobold tunnels and are not Kobold Treasures. Draw a new room to store each  gathered, or place them in existing rooms where there is space.
For each  gathered place a new  in a warren, drawing additional warrens as needed. (remember a warren can hold 3 ) Kobolds don’t like to be too near to the surface or dangerous tunnels, so try putting them as central as possible in the network of tunnels. 

Summer: In the summer Kobolds mine. If possible, draw a tunnel a half finger long that connects to a source of ore or gems. Draw a mine chamber 1 bead in size and put 1  in it. If there’s no ore or gems in reach, draw a tunnel 1 finger long towards the nearest source of ore or gems. If there’s no un-mined ore left on the map, 1  immediately emigrates off the map looking for a new home for the tribe 

Fall: In the fall, Kobold build their defences. Tally the current Kobold population. Find the entry matching this population on the Kobold Construction table. If that construction hasn’t been added yet, the Kobolds build it now. 

Winter: In winter, the Kobold rest, celebrate and offer tribute to their patrons while their crafters compete making the deadliest traps. If any Kobolds died this year the Kobolds spend 1  to add a trap to the room (or the nearest room under their control) where the Kobold died. This trap deals 1 to any non kobold passing through it before the trap is disarmed or destroyed.
A Kobold tribe with a Dragon Patron offers 1 as personal servants to the dragon, building a warren connected to the dragon's cavern for these servants.
The Kobold Servants no longer count towards the tribes population and during the Age of Monsters these Kobold Servants act as breeder monsters but with some key differences (See below)
If a tribe has multiple Dragon Patron’s servants are offered to each of them in the order they were obtained.
If any Dragon Patron ever gains 9 of servants (3 full warrens) then the tribe move on having firmly secured their Dragon Patrons position in the the area, likewise if the offering of servants reduces the kobold numbers to zero then the dragon(s) have completely subjugated the tribe and the Kobold Era ends.

In the case of multiple Kobold tribes they can share the same Dragon Patron and each tribe gives an offering to the dragon patron. (the dragon not been picky)

When the Kobold Era ends remove all kobolds (except Kobold servants) and treasures that are not Kobold Treasures, however leave all remaining traps.


Population
Kobold Construction
3
Workshops: Draw a collection of rooms filling a thumb sized area connected to Mine
4
Personal Chambers: Draw a narrow bead sized room connected to a warren, give it the name of the kobold it belongs to and write it on the map. Place 1 inside this is a kobold treasure.
5
Hall of Traps: Draw a tunnel or room one finger long, this room is the pinnacle of the trap smithing arts. This room is permanently trapped dealing 1 to any non kobold entering. Place 1  inside this is a kobold treasure and bait.
6
Temple of the Wyrm: Draw a rounded chamber half a finger long and a bead high, connected to the Personal Chambers, warrens or Hall of Traps. The Temple contains 2 kobold treasure and a one use 2 trap.   
7
Great Hall of History: Draw a hall 2 beads long and a bead high connected to the main Kobold shaft. This hall is carved with the history of the tribe and the contains 1  kobold treasure
8
Dragon Patron: Create a Ancient Wyrm as described in the Primordial Age rules however take the 1  required from the kobold tribe, connect this chamber to the Temple of the Wyrm or Hall of Traps.
9
Sorcerous Chambers: Draw a Bead sized room connected to the Great Hall of History. Place 1  inside this is a kobold treasure and most likely a magical item
10
The Grand Defence: Select an entrance to a kobold warren, draw a defensive work at this location. Any creature defending a warren as its lair gains a +1 its encounter roll however the defense is destroyed. This may be built multiple times.



Kobold Civilisation Conflict

Kobold Supremacy: If one of the civilisation is kobold it kills 1 and traps the location causing the non kobolds to automatically lose an additional 1 regardless of the result during the next encounter roll in that location. If both sides are kobolds, the kobold tribe whose turn it currently is loots 2 from the other. If neither side are kobolds then both lose 1
New Monsters 

Kobold Servants:
These are breeder monsters under the rule of a dragon and follow these additional rules:
1. They use their Dragon Patron’s ZOC (Zone of Control) rather than their own.
2. They may mine unmined ore within this ZOC however they can not keep more than 1 for themselves, any additional   is given to the Dragon.
3. If their Dragon Patron becomes an Alpha Villain it may spend 1 to have the Kobolds add a single use 1 trap to any defensive works, this uses the Kobolds activity for that year.

 I hope these rules are clear enough to understand for all you would be Dungeon Masters but I welcome any feedback as always and will be providing a downloadable version of these rules in the future. 


For further posts on How To Dungeon here are links to:
The Original Game Review
Dsyon Logos Muck Dweller Civilisation 
The Great Spider Civilisation


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Magna Carta 800th Anniversary, Comic Culture Pokemon TCG Tournaments and Nintendo relases more Smash Fighters.

Posted by: Jason Silverain / Category: , , , ,



Well I was visiting a friend and took a trip into Lincoln and walked right into the Magna Carta 800th Anniversary events which began that weekend and I have to say in spite of the rain the bands and paraders that were running all day performed amazingly even when most of the market stall owners gave up and left early.

Apart from the amazing fireworks on the Saturday evening I think my favourite little event is the Lincoln Barons Trail in which 25 statues representing the barons that were present at the signing of the Magna Carta in 1215. Each statue has been painted to represent different aspects of life in Lincoln past and present and vary widely in design.

Some of the Barons that are scatter across Lincoln [Source: Lincoln Council Website]

If people are interested a nice walk through central Lincoln, the Lincolnite has posted a guide to the Baron locations though I have been hearing rumours that someone may of vandalised one of the Barons near Lincoln Castle already which is greatly disappointing if true.

Also while I'm on the subject of Lincoln, while the Battle Bunker was forced to close its doors a few months back Comic Culture has taken over the location since and while known for hosting roleplay games and Magic: The Gathering and Yugioh card tournaments has now on request of its customers begun friendly Pokemon Trading Card Game tournaments on Sundays beginning at 12pm.
While there is no prize and no entry cost the owner has managed to obtain a large amount of promotional event cards with everyone taking part gets one free and all ages are welcome.

 Finally just before bed last night I saw the Nintendo announcement regarding its Smash DLC


The next post this month will be my How To Host A Dungeon Kobold Civilisation but for those of you that can't wait it is available over at the Wiki. 


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June Already!?

Posted by: Jason Silverain / Category: , , , , ,




I can hardly believe its already June and it seems that both in the real and digital world we live in interesting times.

These last few weeks have been a flurry of news with the positives been the announcement of a new Mega Man animated series in 2017 and the release of a trailer for Fallout 4 (See Below)



On the flip side more invasive internet monitoring and censorship laws are been passed or suggested under false pretences of terrorism prevention in America or protecting children in the UK meanwhile the detestable entity known as ISIS continues to destroy relics of the Middle East in a brutal if futile attempt to eradicate 2000 years of history.  

Overall I've been left in a sense of melancholy by the last month, this hasn't been helped by the mental block that is drain all my creativity which is been caused the medication I've been taking to minimise the symptoms of an ear infection I've developed after been caught in a pair of thunderstorms in the last week.

Returning to the blog I'll be finishing my posts on How To Host a Dungeon this month though I may return to it with more custom content in the future, I will also be updating the index page for easy browsing of previous posts.


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