January 27, 2006
January 4, 2006
Impromptu HackMaster Game
We got together last night (Friday). Nathan, his wife Kristie (probably butchered the spelling), and his brother Tim came over for a one-off. They were going to bring another family member, but he wasn't feeling well.
They had a decent enough of a group....a ranger, a fighter, and a fighter/thief/magic user. They really needed a cleric, but that was what the missing player was going to bring.
They started off in Goblin's Tooth, like most of my games do, and had no problem getting into the game.....I won't post details in case I do some HackMaster editing and re-run the game for my regular players.
Needless to say, they started out strong. The first PC hit was a crit and that was followed up by several others. The trio took out the two worst baddies quite easily. Their only "mistake" was rushing into a larger group of baddies without a game plan. They were down HP, but the magic-user did have a very useful spell still available. When confronting the larger enemy group, they did take down the leader and another baddie, before losing one member. Another member went down and was left behind by the third member who had to flee (couldn't take the downed member with him).
All in all, we had a good time and I got a couple more skulls....
Hoody Hoo! Another HackMaster Session **Possible Spoilers**
Carolyn (my wife) had to work last weekend, but agreed to GM for us starting at 4 PM on Sunday a couple of hours after she got of work. We figured that we could get 4 hours or so in. I think the biggest reason we gamed was to help get the momentum back so we could get even more gaming in next weekend when she was off, and get back in the every-other-week cycle.
We left our PCs just barely inside the Mines of Chaos from Little Keep on the Borderlands. Our party consisted of Prince Poger, a Half-Ogre fighter specialized in the use of a huge battle-axe; Urd, a Grel Swashbuckler extrodinaire (a least in his mind); my DS Invoker Urddas and his sidekick cleric "Dude"; and Dusty's Halfling Thief whose name totally escapes me.....has a Scottish accent and keeps blabbering about "the Halfling Liberation Front". The Thief has decided to get a couple of halfling peons, ...er torchbearers, that he's promised a portion of the treasure (yeah, out of his share!). We had knocked about some kobolds and been set upon by some pretty big weasels. Poger just shrugs off damage and Urd is pretty darned good about not being hit. My mage is about useless....problem of being a one-trick pony (no matter how good the trick is!).
We clear out another room and then call it good for a night, thinking we will just check out a different cave. The GM forgot to tell us there was a door in the newly discovered hallway.
Hey guys! Look! I found a not-so-secret door!
Oh well, mistakes happen......I'm glad she just sucked it up and we continued on. The party poked around a bit and we found a larger room that was serving as some sort of bar. There had to be a good dozen kobolds in there with a still. Poger decides to be friendly and just saunters in, grabs a drink, and tries to chat up the locals. Never mind the fact that we've been slaughtering their brethren in the beginning of this complex....
I'm thinking this is gonna get ugly, but Poger is huge and these kobolds are a little tipsy. While I'm (Urddas) getting some spell components ready, Poger just walks up to the apparent "leader", pats the bastard on the head and tries to say "hi". This kobold slowly tries to go for his weapon and Poger just takes it from his hands, pats him on his (?) head, smiles and goes "cheers". Of course the kobolds have no clue what this massive, ugly, brute of a creature is saying.....
Eventually some others in the group try to brandish weapons and Urddas engulfs the room with a web spell. The roomisn't big enough to contain the spell and it spills out into the hallway, catching most of the party. Poger is big and strong enough that he doesn't have too many problems, so he extricates himself and those party members who need help and we continue on. We find a room or two, nothing special, and we eventually come to another door.
Poger steps up after the Thief does his thing (its good that the party is starting to develop standard tactics) and when he opens the door he finds some bedchamber with a much larger kobold ready to lay some smackdown. Poger just blocks the doorway and calls "dibs" on this guy (sure thing big guy.....). After the battle we get to ransack the room and find some goodies.
Hey guys...here's another door!
We open the door leading from this room and find a harem of kobold women dressed in finery and lounging about on fine pillows. We tell Poger that the "ladies" may be very gratefull that they are now free....and maybe those guys in the other room drinking may be looking for some "companionship". Poger and Urd corral the females into the still webbed room and Poger places them into the webbing next to the others, setting them up with drinks. When they return we loot the room. Aside from some jewelry, Urddas manages to snag a rather nice purple pillow!
We decide to go back and explore a path we passed by before. At the end of the hallway is a door covered in some of the cobwebs from Urddas' spell. Poger wrenches it open, after the obligitory trap check, to find an unusual dining hall. Half of the room looks normal, while the other half has a large pile of rubble. There is a clear demarcation line down the middle of the room where kobold and giant rat bodies have been piled up.
Finally, Urddas gets to help out some (he was kind of criticized by Poger for the excessive amount of webbing). He has the party back way up to the end of the hall and lets loose a fireball. He assumed that there'd be a large quantity of rats to contend with and he was right. The fireball took care of over a dozen and only two are left barely alive. Unfortunately the fireballs backlash ignited the remaining web and singed the large group of kobolds for around 16 damage (lots of penetration on that roll). The still fails a rather easy saving throw and explodes for another 5 or 6 points, almost killing some of the kobolds.....in the end that Fireball caused 496 points of damage, either directly or through secondary effects. Poger wasn't happy that Urddas nearly killed his "little buddies".
Once past the dining room we tried to enter the kitchen, but couldn't due to the massive number of kobolds crammed in there. Urd seems to be miffed that Poger is getting all of the action and stands in the doorway, declaring that he'll take care of the lot. Ulnar (the cleric also known as "Dude") decides that is a dumb move and casts Command on Urd, telling him to "retreat". Once Urd is out of the way Poger and the Thief move up and allow the kobolds to come out of the kitchen to fight us. The next round Dude manages to fall back some and Urd steps back to the "front". Urddas lets loose with some Magic Missiles and we slowly whittle the number of kobolds down to one. The Theif decides he wants some of that mano-y-kobold action and takes on the last kobold solo. He keeps trying to pull off a cricket-in-the-peapod & jugular swipe combo that is damned near possible with what he has to roll. Eventually he just gives up and stabs the kobold.....
We ended the session then...
Mountain Con 2005
The Mrs. and I just got back from Mountain Con, which was held at the Salt Lake City Airport Hilton. This was the first year for the con and it showed. Actually anything I might have to say about the con specifically probably isn't the best source for review since I went there to game and its NOT a gaming convention. We ended up being able to field one table and there was one other table with a guy running some miniatures battle using pretty much whatever toys he could come up with.
As far as HackMaster went, well it didn't go very well. I GM'd the sole table and I don't think I did all that well. Fortunately neither did the players. It was very easy to bumble along in this particular adventure and it was practically a set-up for the PCs. Taking everything into consideration from the GM side of the table, the players who were actively involved did well. I should have gotten two kills, but I was denied. There were a couple of clarification issues with the adventure that helped deny me my kills, but I'm almost glad nobody died because the adventure was very unfulfilling, so adding some PC deaths could've been just insult to injury.
There was a punk band by the name of Switchblade Kittens playing at the Con. They sucked. We bought their CD well before the gig (it was cheap) and just listened to it this morning. They were OK. I think they are probably only as popular as they are because they glomed onto two popular schticks: doing a punk cover of "My Heart Will Go On" and singing a Harry Potter song. Actually some of the songs were OK, but their performance seemed contrived and sounded terrible. We couldn't make out more than half of the words and the lead singer didn't sing.....it was more of a spoken-word act.Of course I can't get some of the lyrics out of my mind, so I'll probably end up liking them after a while......
After the game we got a very small amount of other gaming in. On Sunday we went over to the Tolmans for lunch and a good round of Ticket to Ride. We ended up leaving way too early (at 5:40 PM) because our flight was delayed until 9:15 PM. Oh well, if we dind't leave early we'd have had some dumb problem come up.
I should give a special thanks to my boss, John Southworth, who pretty much paid for our entire trip. He needed me to visit a treatment facility in Orem and knew that I was going to be in the area. Added all together it was still cheaper to pay for Carolyn and I to spend the weekend than it would have been for he and I to go down. Thanks, John!
Fandemonium Post
Fandemonium 2005 Convention Report
This last weekend, the 6th and 7th of August, the Fandemonium Convention was held at the Nampa Civic center, Nampa Idaho. Three tournaments, two local and a regional, were hosted by The “Boise Incident” Instigators and The Gemstate Gazebo Hunters. Attendance was better than expected due to most of the local home groups’ members having inconvenient family issues pop-up just before the con. Fortunately some other non-HMA local players and a couple groups from Salt Lake City came to the event. We were able to field two tables and 10-12 players per event. Preparations had been made for three tables to be run, but that proved unnecessary.
For those unfamiliar with Fandemonium, this convention is very heavy into video games, anime, and cosplay. I’d guess the average age of participants hovered around 17. Lots of young girls running around in scanty dress, big foam swords and fox ears. The cosplay got to be a bit much when some tried to interfere with a tournament in progress. Unfortunately tabletop gaming was rather limited and we had a HUGE room…..which was right next door to a big costume ball. The music from that event started up halfway through the second game and called for a time-out while we dealt with the situation. Overall, the gaming situation was much improved from last year’s con, but it seemed that the loud and cramped quarters from last year hampered gaming this year.
Speaking of cramped quarters, we had 5 players from the SLC area staying at my home fro the convention. The original plan was to put up as many in the house as possible and lets some camp out in the yard, but the change in weather from hot to damn hot brought everyone inside. Really wasn’t an issue except for getting into the bathroom in the morning, although at least one cat would beg to differ.
The first Tournament started 11:30ish on Saturday. It was the level 2-4 adventure Clockwork Grunge by Davis S. York. Table GMs were Chris and Carolyn Stogdill. HMA members in attendance were: Joe Tolman #439, Bethany Tolman #494, John Rollins #1804, Tommy Harper #1841, Ruby Harper #2159, Dusty Emmen #2157, Chris Bethel #2126, Darren Rich #2160, and Wil Maurice #2161 [Darren and Will joined the HMA at the con with the help of Joe and his laptop!]
Highlights of the adventure (both tables): One PC would’ve died just after the flavor text starting the adventure if not for the benevolence of her “enemy” (enmity to race quirk). Evil Dioramas were violently dispatched in the honored tradition of the Gazebo Hunters. One baddie had insult added to injury when Commanded to disrobe after having its eye put out by a called shot.
One table suffered a TPK while the other scraped by with but one loss. MVP was Wil Maurice, whose PreGen Cleric seemed divinely destined to miss most incoming blows.
After a two hour break the second Tournament got underway. This level 2-4 adventure, Little Outhouse on the Prairie, Episode 2 “Teacher’s Pets” by Carolyn Stogdill was GMed by Chris and Carolyn Stogdill. All the same players, save Tommy, returned for this game. Three choose to play home PCs (many were lost in the previous tournament) while the rest played PreGens.
Highlights of this adventure: One player was noted for his patience and good sportsmanship in the face of a table with……issues. The other table had some issues with “undead” that weren’t in the adventure. Seeing some “ghosts”, one PC bravely faced them only to be shrouded in darkness as the light source gave out. Since that spooked a couple of PCs, they pulled back for a few rounds, grabbed the cleric, and shoved him inside and shut the door. Never mind the fact that the real baddies had worked their way over to the door while they were manhandling the cleric. This group, managed to throttle the boss in the final encounter through a generous helping of luck and bad GM dice rolls. Their tactics were sound though and they deserved to win.
There were no PC kills in the second adventure.
Sunday morning we ran the final adventure as level 3-5 Regional Tournament: Little Outhouse on the Prairie, Episode 4 “The Final Farewell” by (yours truly) Chris Stogdill. Chris and Carolyn Stogdill GMed again, switching up some players so that everybody played at both GMs tables at least once. As there was a SNI up for grabs, we were a bit more strict about timing issues and how long players had to review pre-gens.
Highlights of that game: One table had 10 crits (against them), four fumbles, and four PC deaths before wisely deciding to run for the hills. The other table refused payment of any kind and even returned found money! One PC lost all of her equipment when deciding to take up another PC’s offer to “toss her across the river”. Guess she didn’t catch enough air. There was some confusion as to who was claiming all of the kills because the swashbuckler was carving his initial upside down on the corpses. One PF Thief managed to rack up three kills by nickel-and-diming some baddies with his Xbow.
Joe Tolman was the Tournament MVP and gets to take home “Goblin Cutter” a Longsword +1/+3 vs Goblins that had some other abilities. The losing table’s MVP was “Goblin #3” who was a very helpful NPC in one encounter because he kept firing into melee and hitting his own guys. The adventure will be edited to award him a name……we’ve decided on “Terrence”.
All in all we had a good time. Exhausting, but a good time nonetheless. Carolyn and I enjoyed our company and are looking forward to the next time we get to game with our new (and old) friends. For those of you who couldn’t show, you missed out. Of course a special shout-out goes to Jake……you can’t get MVP if you don’t play.
Another kill sheet that I can link to for the kenzerco forums....
Just a quick glimpse of my weekend...
Actually, while I did get a lot of kills, that in and of itself wasn't fun. Carolyn and I just enjoyed having company come up from Salt Lake City for the weekend and we just liked being able to make new friends, strengthen bonds with old one, and just play a game we enjoy.
GMing is hard work and both of us feel like we got our butts kicked. Home game sare easy since you know your players, PCs, and adventure and it is a much more relaxed environment. A tournament is all "Go! Go! Go!" and you have to be "on" for 4 hours straight. I learned a few things (always do) and got to teach a few things, so next time will be easier and more fun.
One thing we will change for next time is only 1 game per day, unless it is playing one and running one. Next year's CONduit if we have two games in one day I'm going to run one 'cause that is a lot to do. One exception I can think of is if you run the same tournament twice. This might work at CONduit where we are in a small room. Have two different tables running different tournaments at the same time. Once over the tables switch GMS. This way the GMs only have to prepare for one tournament and get "better" with the second table. The players would be at a disadvantage, but they'd have a bit more experience playing togther. For logistical reasons, the tournamnets should probably be different levels, but if there is overlap AND the PCs lived through the first encounter they could play the second....just a thought,
Another fun weekend
I did get to play in another HackMaster online tournament. That was quite the challenge. We started out with 6 players, added one more, and were down to 5 players before the first encounter and 4 players after the first encounter. All three players had to leave (they weren't killed). Luckily we had a decent group left: my DS Invoker, a Grel Magic-User/Thief/Fighter, a Gnome Fighter/Thief, and a Gnome Cleric/Thief. I was able to kill/nuetralize about half of the monsters we encountered as I had spell-jacked my mage as much as I could. Urddas Nerthol (My DS Invoker) was in Great Honor, so I had a mulligan in case I caused a spell mishap due to spell-jacking. Lucky for me, cause I needed that mulligan to divert a mishap.
I personally defeated one each of these:
And blew a good chunk out of one of these that had popped up on my when the rest of the party was seeking a quest item. Unfortuantely my PC is a bit paranoid and would not enter an area that would most
likely have ruined his spellbook.Lucky for me I had a good defensive spell or two prepped as mister ugly here would have made short work of me otherwise. The rest of the part was able to save me before I could become a tasty meat snack.
In the final encounter we had to face 4 potentially nasty opponents and my DS was able to kill one (with help from the cleric) and nuetralize two others. The one mobile bad guy came after me and slice up Urddas pretty good before getting pummeled by the cleric. In the end the PCs were healed of any long-term damage, including scars.....Urddas made a comment that chicks dig scars so he got to keep his.....and sent to recieve a feast. At said feast we were offerred membership in some secret society. I was a bit reluctant, but the rest of the group joined and I managed to get an opt-out clause, so what the hell. The "bribe" to join was a very valuable book.
EP, Honor, and loot should be handed out today. I can'y wait as this will determine how I decided to develop my DS. He may have to go to school for a while and I'm interested to know if he will have enough money.
Next weekend is the Fandemonium Convention in Nampa. We have a lot of visitors coming up to play...hope everybody has fun.
My current kills.....
This is my current "skull sheet" for HackMaster. I need to get some more kills.....
Got Another Kill!
Well, I thought I was going to get to play yesterday, but instead I ended up GMing. I have met all the requirements for a level 3 GM and will be upgraded soon enough. I don't think I deserve the title yet, but I'm working on it.
I did manage another kill yesterday though. I know that I shouldn't be proud of them (the kills), but proudly displaying my kill stickers helps a bit with the us vs. them mentality that is important to the game. I had a decent enough level 2-4 adventure planned out. I'll give the players credit that they (for the most part) had some good tactics and played it smart. If they dived in like I had planned, I may have gotten a couple more kills in. I really wasn't too concerned that the players would have problems because they are slightly munckined. Nothing wrong with that as they are all sanctioned PCs. The party is made up of a Level 2 Grel Swashbuckler (very hard to hit -3 AC), a Level 2 Half-Ogre Fighter (specialized in a Giant Sized Battle -Axe), a Level 1 Zealot of Kishjonen (Gawdess of Luck), a Level 1 Magic-User, and my wifes 5th Level Cleric. Between the tank and the cleric, they don't have much to worry about. Sure they'll walk through most lower level adventures, but they role-play well and as the difficulty level rises, they wil have more to worry about.
I had already capped one Half-Ogre who didn't do as much damage as the current one, but who was a healing machine........I just remembered that the Cleric still has his magic items. The players withdrew and had a second go at it. They found the evil temple and decided to rest up before going in.
I'll be the first to admit I wasn't very sharp on the temple as I hadn't prepped as much as I would have. Fortunately I had a lot of legwork done previously. The players missed only one magic item on a corpse and did a good job of looting the place. The only thing they didn't do (not for lack of trying) was open up one tomb which they really didn't want to if they knew what was in there. There was only one way to do that and they tried about everything else.
On getting back to their home base of Goblin's Tooth, the Half-Ogre goes off to get armor repaired and tries to use that chance to increase his skill with blacksmithing tools (failed) by helping out the blacksmith. The rest of the group exchanges all the artwork they've found in exchange for having their 2 magic items (a potion ID is thrown in) identified. The magic-user retires to a private room to examine the scrolls they found.
The last scroll is cursed, and the GM is supoosed to determine the effects of the curse. As they give 16 examples in the GMG, and I have a 16 sided die......I let the player roll it, and he gets "monster is summoned and attacks" curse. I roll on the random monster chart and get Perpetual Sword. After rolling for the sub-type and other pertinents, I determine that this rogue sword fights as a level 6 fighter (2 attacks per round) and only needs to be struck twice to become inactive.
The poor mage is suprised for two rounds worth of actions but gets capped in two blows from the sword (penetration can make even the strongest PC die quickly if rolled often enough!). He lets out a scream that alerts some of the other party members. The Grel makes it to the room first and a rather long battle ensues. Even with a -3 AC the sword is kicking his butt and he lands only 1 blow in the first 5 rounds. If not for the cleric and the zealot behind him trying to lob in cure spells (lots of misses) and heal spells, he'd have gone down too. The player needed a roll of 9 or better but was having difficulty getting better than a 5. On the sixth round he managed another lucky blow that causes the sword to fall to the floor.
Now the PC has a sword that happens to match his alignment, but there will be issues. A meta-game issue is that the sword is too powerful (EPV wise) for a sanctioned character of his level. I would need a way to rid him of the sword, but something else came up when rolling specifics that'll solve this issue without me needing to do much.....things would happen even if he was sufficient level. I feel kind of bad since what makes the most sense would seem like favoritism...so I'll probably run it by my fellow GMs.
CONduit 15?
We drove down late Friday morning so we'd have plenty of time. This year we didn't park in the parking garage because the hotel gouges you $10 a day for parking, which makes sense unless you are a guest of the hotel. There's a small lot next door that goes for $2 an event. We also didn't reserve our room until the day before and ended up getting a cheaper rate with online reservations than we would have if we pre-registered and got the convention rate. Crap like that'll sink a convention over time if people don't register through the con. Oh well. They originally had us in a room next to the ice machine in 2 full beds so I asked to be switched to a king and they obliged by putting us across from the ice machine. Yeah....
We registered much more easily than in the past, because there wasn't a line, and $80 later (way too much for the service given) we were done. I registered us for the first HackMaster tournament which was a joke as their registration has always sucked ass. The first year at CONduit they didn't even man the registration desk, which sent me into a major fit 'cause I thought we'd miss out on the games we can to play. This year they had one small notebook with pages for each game occurring in the next two sessions (labeled Day 1 event 2 and day 2 event 1). Tough if you wanted to sign up for something on Saturday night or Sunday. You basically had to get in line to look at the book. Gaming isn't a focus at this con and it shows. Fortunately for us, one of the local SLC GMs arrange for us to have our own game room for the entire weekend. Registering for an event was an unnecessary formality.
Our first tournament went by rather easily. It's a bit of a blur since I was rather tired. My fellow players were Carolyn (my wife), Bethany Tolman, Chad (Thunderbear on the KenzerCo boards), and Tommy. John Rollins was our GM. It was an ok adventure that I think John wrote. It may actually have been very good, I just don't remember as much as I should. It was a level 1-3 adventure and those are really hard to write. Our table beat out the other table by a matter of a point or two and I was elected table MVP. The tournament organizer bought display weapons for prizes and I got this cool dagger. I almost turned down the MVP vote, but came to my senses when I realized that MVP came with some serious experience. I also had a huge amount coming from the "big hit" award.
I ended up with so much experience that even with funneling half of it to my proteges I had enough to level up. The next tournament was a level 5-7 adventure and the rules let you bring in a PC that is one level lower than the recommended levels. We leveled up my DS Invoker to level four and I prepared to play him. It was going to be touch and go if I was going to play him or not, but in the end I decided to risk it.
That tournament went well enough. We were pretty much doomed from the start. I'm not complaining, mind you, just stating a fact. Our table had two 6th level PCs, 3 5th level PCs, and my 4th level DS Invoker. The other table consisted of a group that regularily plays together and they pretty much had 6th and 7th level PCs. I forgot to mention that we had to players with pre-gens that had never played before. Because of our group make-up.....we had two clerics, my magic-user, a battle mage, and the pre-gen fighter and thief. I suggested we put the fighter an thief in the first rank while one cleric stayed at the back with my mage. The second cleric would move up to swap out with the thief and engage any combatants while the dwarven battlemage stayed in front of my PC (so we could both lob spells with mine going over his head). I spell-jacked my mage as much as I (basically crammed more spells into memory at the risk [10%] that I might incur a spell mishap) could and off we went. I figured that if we limited the combat damage to just a couple of PCs (at the risk of losing them) our clerics could maximize their healing spells (neither cleric had follow-through healing so any "extra" healing above what was needed would be lost).
Despite our lower average level and party make-up, we did quite well. The thief ended up dying (HUGE hit) in the next to last encounter and we lost the fighter in the last battle. We would've lost one cleric if not for the battlemage purging his honor to step in front of the cleric and receive his fatal blow. As it was the battlemage just missed dying by a couple of HP. My wife's cleric was about to cast a Dispel Magic spell, which might of helped, but we ended up running out of time. Good for us 'cause we were about to get our asses handed to us. The final boss was just too powerful. The other table only defeated it by sheer luck. A spell they used had it's saving throw failed and they had but a 10-15% of it working. In the end, of course, the other table beat us out. The way tournament placement goes (and it usually doesn't matter), the MVP of the winning table is the tournament champion, the MVP of the next table is 2nd, and so-on-and-so-forth until all the tables are represented, then comes the rest of the winning table, the second table, third, etc. This is pretty much only used for swag distribution, by the time the MVPs get done, usually the table comes up as a group, selects what they want and then the next table.
On Sunday we I played in the Gronde Mondre, but that was more of having something to do and to probably kill of a PC that I was going to retire. Since I'm technically only a player in one group, I an only have three registered PCs. I actually have 4 PCs, with one being an orphan from a group I was in that dissolved.
Carolyn and I bid on more pieces of art this year and we got most everything we bid on. We got two pieces from one artist that I really liked. She is Japanese and does these wonderful ethnic pieces. I was sorry that we managed to get some of her work because for the third year in a row we were the only ones to bid on any of her stuff. When we bid on her pieces I knew we could easily get by with the opening bids. Kind of a shame, but her stuff wasn't fantasy so that probably hurt her chances of selling off more art. 90% of the art sold is a donation to the con's charity-some reading advocacy group in Utah. Again, picking up our winning bids was a pain. They were totally unorganized this year, again, and they had some lame excuse. You'd think after a decade and a half or so they'd figure out the learning curve.
I almost entered in some minis that I had painted into the mini contest. The con book said they had to be turned in by noon on Saturday, so around 11:00 AM I took my figs down to the showcase. As expected nobody was there to take the figs, there was no paperwork out to enter your figs, and nobody had a clue what was going on. I talked to several staff members and the response was to find some guy (pretty much a different person each time). After 10-15 minutes I gave up. Even if I did find this "magic guy" and gave him/her/it my minis, they lost my trust. After all, I did want the figs back afterwards. I don't think I'd have won, but I would've been in the running. Most likely the more serious painters decided their work wasn't worth the risk.
Probably the best part of the con this year was the food. The last two years we were clueless as to where we could go and eat without spending all our money. The restaurant in the hotel is a steakhouse and for what they charge, it'd be better to raise some meat myself. Also, most of Salt Lake City shuts down big-time on Sunday, so we were usually SOL. This year the con did a good job of posting a map of local eateries. Just a couple of blocks away is a big (and expensive) mall that is hidden behind the facade of the old train depot. In 30-45 minutes we could leisurely walk down, grab a bite, and be back. Totally changed my perception of the con.
Overall, we had a lot more fun this year than we've had in the past. We got to eat, play, sleep, and have a good time without too many hassles. We've pretty much "broken the code" on some problem areas and we didn't try to do too much. I'm looking forward to next year.....if I register now it'll only be $40 for both of us.
Gronde Mondre Arena of Death
The Gronde Monde arena is a high-stakes battle royal for honor and swag. Contestants try to obtain some of the five rings available on some 12 platforms spread throughout the arena. Most of the platforms are guarded by fierce monsters and the rest by fiendish traps. This was slated to be a high level Arena match and the other contestants had an average level of 6 ½. I entered in my 1st level Half-Ogre fighter known as “Big Guy”, who was a dishonored PC who wished to die an honorable death. Since the odds were stacked against him, Big Guy made changes to his Will and bet 1,000 GP on a Troubleshooter he thought might win. Insurance was made available to try to cheat death, but there was no point in that. Big Guy had the best odds at the betting table: 10 to 1 on winning. It was a sucker’s bet and only one person took that bet.
Right off the bat I played a game effect card that gave Big Guy 1d20 base honor and rolled a natural 20! Unfortunately the GM didn’t allow for penetration (which was fine by me as I just hoped for a 3 or better so Big Guy would be out of the dishonorable Honor window. At the start of the match, all of the contestants ran off towards different platforms. Big Guy ran towards a teleport stone that would place him on a very tall pedestal over-looking the entire arena. Three contestants managed to get onto another elevated pedestal together to face a beholder-like creature, while two others faced different elementals. I lost track of the last contestant.
In the second round several elementals went down (facing a 9th level fighter with a Ring of Elemental Resistance) and that beholder-thing got in some good blows, totally obliterating one 5th level Cleric. Big guy made it to the top of the pillar and didn’t become disoriented, allowing him to search the pedestal for one of the rings. As he placed his hand over the pedestal, a wall of force roughly pushed him over the edge of the platform to almost certain death. As I wanted Big Guy to go out in a blaze of glory, I beseeched the GM to let me grab my second two-handed sword I had tucked under the other arm while searching for the ring. He had me make a DEX check, which I made. Now Big Guy was 120’ up in the air, swords in each hand and spread eagle staring death in the face with a big ‘ol grin. The GM picked up 12d6 and with an evil chuckle (these dice can penetrate!) managed to roll a whopping 38. Oh, by the way, don’t forget that Half-Ogres have Dense Skin and only take ½ damage from crushing blows. Sixteen points of damage later (the now-shredded leather armor absorbed 3 points) and Big Guy was brushing himself off and showboating for the crowd. That stunt managed to get him some favor from the crowd.
The next round had Big Guy making a mad dash to the same platform in an effort to find a ring, since he didn’t get a chance to search for it before his impromptu flying lesson. A little more wary this time, Big Guy wrapped his arms and legs around the pillar (from the backside, putting the pillar between him and the edge he “fell” off of before) and groped his way upwards until he could search the top. Again the force tried to propel him from the platform, but he managed to hold on tight. Unfortunately there was no ring to be found and Big Guy was stuck up there for two rounds until the force subsided.
As soon as he was able, Big Guy ran for the random teleportal on the edge of the platform and found himself in the middle of the arena on a checkerboard surface which held four smaller pedestals. These pedestals had a 25% chance of delivering healing when touched and a 75% chance of randomly teleporting an individual to another area. Big Guy went to touch a pedestal on the way to running over to the opposite side of the arena to the other 120’ tall platform and just before he touched the pedestal, he was shocked by a bolt of lightning, which dropped him down to 6 HP. Unfortunately the pedestal didn’t heal him but instead transported him to a small platform surrounded by fire.
The arena game ended before Big Guy could take any more actions. There was a three way tie for first place, with one of the three being the Troubleshooter he had bet on. Unfortunately the crown decided to choose another as champion. Technically Big guy lost 1,000 GP, but since he expected to die, it was more like “winning” the other 3,000 GP he still had. All-in-all a good day.
Mini HackMaster Post
I ran some HackMaster Saturday. Some of the same people that played the night before, but we dropped one person and added one of my old players. We plan on playing every other Saturday. I think that'll help keep our players in the game since they will still have half of their Saturdays free. Also, it'll be some cheap entertainment on Carolyn's weekends off.
HackMaster Chapter Organization
Since I've been in the Dragon Lords of the Great American Desert (Dragon Lords for short) I've yet to see a Chapter meeting or an election. The same guy has been "in charge" for the last how-many-ever years. For all I know he doesn't mind, or even likes being in charge, but it shouldn't be forced on him. Even if I totally blamed him, which I don't, I know just how hard it is to run a Chapter, and the OA Chapters are much more active than HMA Chapters (but we have very regular meetings and process set in place.........that sentence seemed contrary to what I was trying to say).
I put a posting on the KenzerCo forum boards that we need to have a Chapter meeting, elect new (even if we elect the same guys) officers, and have a formal charter. I was helping the old secretary out with a charter last year. It was way to verbose-luckily I've had to help re-write charters and amend constitutions, so it wasn't too difficult. I suggested that the Chapter adopt the charter pro-temp until we can discuss and vote in a new charter at the meeting. Hopefully my suggestions will be well met. I just hope we can get everybody involved who will not be attending the convention. I've set up a gmail account and I'm willing to mail off ballots to everybody. At most it'll cost me about $40, but I think the number will be closer to $20. More to follow.
The proposed charter:
Constitution of The Dragon Lords of the American Desert Hackmaster Association Regional Chapter
ARTICLE I – NameThe name of this organization shall be The Dragon Lords of the American Desert Hackmaster Association Regional Chapter, hereafter informally referred to as Dragon Lords.
ARTICLE II – PurposeThe purpose of this organization shall be to:
Promote Hackmaster, the Hackmaster Association, and Kenzer & Company.
Allow members to reap the full benefits of Hackmaster Association affiliation.
Develop and support player groups at local, state, and regional levels.
Unite and foster a sense of community, support, and fellowship amongst all Hackmaster players within the region.
ARTICLE III – Affiliation
This organization shall operate according to the most current rules, regulations, and policies of the National Hackmaster Association, and in compliance with all local, state, and federal laws regardless of contradictory material that may be in this document.
ARTICLE IV – Membership
Section 1 This organization shall not discriminate on the basis of age, race, color, religion, gender, national origin, ancestry, disability, veteran’s status, sexual orientation, marital status, or political affiliation.
Section 2 All Hackmaster Association members residing in the states of Colorado, Idaho, Kansas, and Utah are considered full members, or Councilors.
Section 3 Until the Hackmaster Association clarifies the regional system for online players, all Hackmaster Association members playing in online games run by Dragon Lord Councilors shall be considered chapter members for the purpose of regional tournaments.
Section 4 Those players meeting all qualifications for membership other than Hackmaster Association affiliation are considered Hatchlings. Hatchlings are eligible to participate in all Dragon Lord events that are not specifically restricted to Hackmaster Association members.
Section 5 Each Councilor is responsible for:
*Playing to the best of their ability in all Hackmaster games.
*Maintaining their knowledge of Hackmaster rules.
*Retaining good working relationships with other Hackmaster players and Game Masters (the gaming table is neutral territory).
*Providing proper documentation of their characters for any chapter event.
*Abiding by the Rules of Fair Play and other portions of the Hackmaster Code of Conduct.
Section 6 Members who fail to live up to their responsibilities and commit gross violations of conduct may be expelled from the chapter by a three-fourths vote of the membership at a special or annual meeting. Members accused of expellable offenses will be allowed an audience with those councilors voting upon the matter.
ARTICLE V – Sanctioned Groups
Section 1 Councilors who play Hackmaster games with a certified GM using only official Hackmaster rules may have their gaming group sanctioned, pursuant to the
additional qualifications set forth in the HMA Bylaws. Properly registered characters from sanctioned groups are eligible for use in Dragon Lords tournaments.
Section 2 While the primary method for maintaining required information on players and characters is the HMA Website (http://www.kenzerco.com/hma/main/index.php), each sanctioned group needs to submit a roster of active and inactive members to the Dragon Lords’ Wrack Gut (Secretary/Treasurer) at the following times:
*January 1st
*July 1st
*At the time of each Dragon Lords Regional Tournament
*When ever a Councilor joins or leaves the group
Section 3 A sanctioned group that does not send required information to either the HMA or the Wrack Gut may be suspended from the Dragon Lords until updated information is received. Sanctioned characters from suspended groups are ineligible to participate in Dragon Lords events and may be ineligible to play in other HMA tournaments.
ARTICLE VI – Player Character, Protégé, and Sidekicks
Section 1 All Player Characters (PCs) must be registered on the HMA website while all Protégés and Sidekicks (Potential Player Characters, or PPCs) must be registered with the Wrack Gut. Registration must occur at the time of PC or PPC creation.
Section 2 All PPCs must be eligible for future use as sanctioned PCs and designated by the home GM as belonging to a specific sanctioned PC. No PC may have more than four Protégés at one time or more than one Sidekick (ever). PPCs may not advance more than one level per home game session.
Section 3 The following information must be submitted to the Wrack Gut on PPCs:
During PPC creation: Councilor name, PPC name, status (Protégé or Sidekick), race, class, level, and mentor (sanctioned PC).
When transferring experience: Donating PC’s name, receiving PPCs name, amount of experience received, and date transferred.
With PPC status change: PPC name, status change, and date of change.
Section 4 PPCs are an important part of Hackmaster, but are NOT to be used abusively to have characters eligible for tournaments. Any player or GM doing so is considered to have committed a gross violation of conduct and subject to expulsion from the Dragon Lords as per Article IV, Section 6.
ARTICLE VII – Chapter Officers
Section 1 The Dragon Lords will maintain a number of officer positions to assign responsibility for carrying out chapter business. These officers, collectively known as the Dragon Committee (or DC), are Councilors in good standing elected to one-year terms of office at the Dragon Lords annual meeting.
Section 2 Rot Gut (President)
The Rot Gut is responsible for overseeing Dragon Lords business and is the primary contact person for the Dragon Lords with outside entities. The Rot Gut serves as the Chair for any Dragon Lords meeting and has the important responsibility of organizing volunteers to aid Dragon Lords efforts.
Section 3 Gnarl Gut (Vice President)
The Gnarl Gut’s primary responsibility is to assist the Rot Gut in all of his/her duties and to serve in the stead of the Rot Gut when unavailable due to absence or conflict of interest.
Section 4 Wrack Gut (Secretary/Treasurer)
The Wrack Gut is responsible for maintenance of Councilor records, Dragon Lords records & history, and Dragon Lords correspondence.
Section 5 Iron Gut (Player Advocate)
The Iron Gut is a HMGMA member whose primary responsibility it to help Councilors with various rules calls, except for when those calls occur within the Iron Gut’s home group(s).
Section 6 Black Gut (Arena Managers)The Black Gut is responsible for maintaining the Dragon Lords arenas, to include both the rules and physical arenas. Each state in the Dragon Lords is allowed to have its own arena and Gut in addition to the chapter’s arena and Black Gut.
Section 7 Appointed MembersThe named officers of the Dragon Committee have the right to temporarily appoint new members to the Dragon Committee for a limited time to in order to meet the needs of a specific purpose. Once these members have fulfilled their purpose, they will have their DC membership revoked. These appointed members are considered full members of the Dragon Committee for all purposes other than appointing new members.
Section 8 Nominations for elections of new officers will be accepted by the Wrack Gut no more than six weeks and no less than two weeks prior to the annual event. Election will be by simple majority of all Councilors present at the annual meeting.
ARTICLE VIII – Chapter Meetings
Section 1 The Dragon Lords will conduct an annual meeting at least once per calendar year in order to elect new officers and conduct general business. In addition to the annual meeting, the Dragon Committee may call for a special meeting to conduct additional Dragon Lord business.
Section 2 Due to the area covered by the Dragon Lords chapter and the personal expense and hardship imposed upon Councilors to attend meetings, any Dragon Lords meeting may be held through electronic means deemed acceptable by the Dragon Committee.
Section 3 Notice of any Dragon Lords meeting must be given to Councilors at least four weeks prior to any special meeting and at least eight weeks prior to any annual meeting. At a minimum, this notice will include the time, date, location, and preliminary agenda for the meeting.
Section 4 All Councilors present at a meeting, either in person or by proxy, will be allowed to vote on any resolutions presented to the membership. While Hatchlings are encouraged to attend and contribute to the success of the chapter, they are not eligible voters. All matters brought to a vote will be resolved using a simple majority. There is not a specific number of Councilors required to meet a quorum for any meeting established with proper notice.
ARTICLE IX – Changes to the Chapter Charter
Section 1 The Rot Gut and the Wrack Gut must receive all potential changes to the Dragon Lords Charter in writing. In order to be considered at the annual meeting, proposals must be received no later than four weeks prior to the meeting.
Section 2 Once a proposal has been received, the Dragon Committee will decide if a special meeting needs to be called or table the proposal until the next annual meeting. All proposals submitted will be forwarded to the Councilors for review no less than two weeks prior.
Ghengis Con
I know it's been a while since I've posted. Not like I have a legion of adoring fans to dissapoint.
These last couple of weeks have been leading up to the Genghis Con gaming convention in Denver (held 17-20 Feb). I was putting together two Hackmaster local tournaments and that was taking a lot of time out of my days. The tournaments went well (enough) and unfortunately they weren't challenging enough for the players. I knew that the first tournament would be a bit on the easy side, since it wasn't intended to be a killer. Part of the problem was that we ended up only running two tables, one with six players and the second with seven. If we had gotten one more player we could have had a table of four and two tables of five which would have helped immensely. The second tournament should have gotten a PC kill or two easily and I had one at my table. For both tables the luck of the dice were not with the GMs. Whenever I had the oppourtunity to stick it to the players I rolled very, very low. In the player's defense, they played very smart at the right times, protecting the weaker PCs so I couldn't have as good of an attack.
I still have some after-con stuff to attend to before I can get to posting more....
HackMaster!
After CONduit we started out our own group. Actually we started two groups, but one has since been de-activated since my wife really hasn't GM'd yet. She'll be starting up a game this weekend though! Hoody Hoo! I get to play some HackMaster!
It has been slow going so far as most of the players who seem interested are invloved in other games/long standing groups and finding time to game is difficult. I probably haven't been too helpfuk in that regards as I have tried too much to be accomodating to every player. For a while when it seemed that Saturday morning was the only available time for everyone I arranged for a 9 AM game with an 8 AM free breakfast for everyone. To get ready I had to be up at 7 and I made sure to have lots of pancakes/french toast, bacon/sausage, milk/juice/coffee ready to go. That didn't last long. Now we are just running a game on our schedule and if they want to play, come on by. If not, we aren't going to hold our breaths.
One thing we also did, partially for bragging rights at conventions, is come up with a kick-ass banner for our gaming group. My wife did the artwork which I scanned in and colored on the 'puter. Using an old display rack from Fred Meyer, this thing stands about 5 1/2 feet tall and is topped with a giant black d20. On the bottom we hand streamers signifying every con out group's members have gone to. As I'm experimenting with posting pics to the blog, here's a shot of the artwork:
Another thing (or two) of interest might be the skull stickers that HackMaster GMs sometimes put on their GM screen to signify the number of PC deaths they have managed to rack up. Jolly and the boys over at Kenzer & Company (the guys who publish HackMaster) use them in their home games and put them "out there" for everyone else to use. They have a fairly easy coloring scheme which has been udated a bit by our British players. Using their conventions I made myself a master set of skulls:
In this example, the green background signifys that the PC dies due to a trap. The fact that the skull is blue means that the PC was subsequently raised (why shoudn't the GM get credit for the kill?), while the X stands for a Total Party Kill and the T means it happened at a tournament.My wife thinks the skulls are just a bit too much and asked me to touch up something else for her. On so many levels I think what she wants is so wrong, but at the very same time I love it as I think it does a better job that the skulls. Judge for yourself:
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