Remembering One of My Briefly-Lived PCs

I was completely planning on putting this on my other blog, but wisely decided against it because.....well the because will become readily apparent. I may have told this story before, but I doubt everyone has heard it (I might like it, but it isn't that good)....

I was reading a RPG-themed post on Facebook asking about "epic" skill check failures. Now some games, or maybe just some GMs, don't allow you to completely screw the pooch, but I remember 4th Edition HackMaster sure did. Heck, you could fail so bad when trying a skill untrained that you could never....every, learn that skill because the earlier failure was so traumatic.

Now this isn't a HackMaster story, but a D&D 3.5 story. I didn't play too much 3.5, but this edition saw the beginning of my "infamous" PC that started out as an inside joke about what would happen when two gamers had a kid and treated him like a PC. The mythical tyke's name was BALADAR and he would refer to himself in the 3rd person. BALADAR wants a juice-box! BALADAR wants his blankie! Yes, BALADAR is always fully capitalized....just like on his birth certificate.

After a game session of laughing and having a fun running commentary about this poor mythical kid I had to create my next PC in honor of the joke, but I went with the subtly different "Baladar". He was a 1st level cleric and we were off to our first adventure, once we could overcome the usual DM dickery. Our DM wanted out first obstacle to be actually getting to the adventure location, which was on the other side of this desert. The quickest and easiest way was to get hired on as caravan guards, but the caravans were already full up when our Sorcerer went to make arrangements with the caravan matron, an older woman of "generous" proportions and appetites, according to the DM. Think a female version of Jabba the Hut, but not worm-like. Evidently she was more than willing to hire on a few more guards if the Sorcerer was willing to "satisfy her". Yes, this is the part where I'm to go

Well neither the player or the PC was willing to partake in the means to an end and instead offered up my PC to do the deed. Now I'm trying to think quick on my feet and see something to my advantage so I agree to it. The DM smiles like he's going to roll 3d20 to see how many STDs I get and I just point out that I had prayed for the "Command" spell today. "No problem," I state triumphantly......"I got this." My PC casts the spell and commands the caravan matron to "orgasm".

Now at this point I'm pretty smug with myself and the DM lets me have my 10 seconds in the sun before "politely" pointing out that we are playing D&D 3.5 and not AD&D or even HackMaster. Evidently what used to be a pretty multi-purpose spell was "nerfed" to one of something like 4 command words that could be used. Instead of choosing any one word the recipient had to unfailing try to act upon, I had t pick one of the four. I think I remember him managing a "nice try" as he laughed in my face.

So Baladar figuratively had to take one for the team. It was no surprise to me that in our first combat my dice turned on me an Baladar died a quick and painful death. It wasn't a curse or twist of fate....it was a blessing for that PC because he didn't have too long to live with his shame.

Needless to say, I'm a little more careful about spell selection when I play...especially if it is a new system. I'll just stick with archers until I get the spell mechanics worked out, thank you very much.

$5 Says DM Rob still thinks about that and laughs.....that bastard.

Two Gaming Pictures

I was going through some pictures, trying to find one particular picture I had taken last summer. I haven't found it yet, but I did come across two somewhat geeky pictures that put a smile on my face.

It's been an "interesting" week, to say the least, with a variety of ups and downs. I've blogged a bit about both ends of the spectrum this week, so I won't get into it too much.

I was able to pick up our Knights of the Dinner Table #199 from Captain Comics and was surprised to find a picture Carolyn and I sent in to Jolly gracing one of the pages. This is a special issue because Carolyn's adventure submission (KoDT had a contest) was inside, but seeing the picture was icing on the proverbial cake.

Game On!

Some mutual friends of ours (we all belong to the same Toastmasters Club) went on vacation and asked Carolyn and I to house-sit their cats. We had full run of their rather large house full of a LOT of cool toys. Since we were going to be there during game night we asked if it was alright for the rest of the group to come over. We decided it would be way too cool to don our HackMaster Association volunteer shirts and play some HackMaster in the hot-tub. We didn't really play so much as "play" with the minis and dice, but we did have a map and some terrain. I was actually surprised just how much of our gaming gear is waterproof.

Dice Don't Fail Me Now!

This was the second picture that I had all but forgotten about. A couple of years ago I decided to buy into the hype and go with Gamescience precision dice. I love my dice and I think they roll better than anything else I've had. By "better" I don't mean "high".

As you can see in this picture, the d4's are squared off at the corners. I don't remember the roll, but I was tossing out 3d4p for some reason and one of the dice landed on it's "point". My rolling surface is the lid from a cigar box that has been lined with stiff, thick leather. The dice don't roll over as much, and I tend to toss them a bit harder to compensate. Imagine my surprise when this happened. Luckily I had witnesses and my camera to document the occasion.

My wife isn't the only one in our family that gets excited by dice.....

GaryCon V Photos

I realized I had never posted about my trip to GaryCon last month.

In short: awesome convention.

I ran one Learn-to-Hack game at the convention and spent the rest of the time either hanging out or playing.  I got in more HackMaster in this one con than I have in the last 5 years of game conventions combined, and I've been to more than a few cons.  The last half-a-decade I'd been volunteering at the Origins Game Fair and a couple of GenCons, organizing the HackMaster events for Kenzer & Company.  All my time had been spent running events (working) and not playing in any.

To say that GaryCon was an enlightening experience is an understatement.  Not only did I get to meet and play with a bunch of old KenzerCo friends, I got to meet some legends of the industry.  Yes, these are relatively normal guys, but still....their work has given me so much enjoyment over the years.  I didn't really sign up for any games since I was there more to chill, but I was able to jump into several and there was a big pick-up game I got into.  I didn't loose any PCs, but there were a few close calls.

I didn't take a lot of pictures, but here are some of the better ones.....(click for larger pic):

There's No Crying in HackMaster

HackMaster PHB

Last night we had a short HackMaster session.  Short, but brutal.

We had four PCs "relaxing" at a waystation, the very waystation we had liberated from a nasty plague of zombies a few months prior.  Our "business" minded Elven Rogue was giving the young new owner some mentoring and the rest were just there.  My PC is a bit greedy and basically getting free room and board isn't something he'll pass up easily.

A man comes in badly wounded, practically passing out on the door to the waystation.  While the others scoop him up and take him to an empty room for first aid, my character, a Dwarven Fighter, runs to his room, strips down to the waist, and grabs both his battleaxes before running outside.  Once there he starts calling out to the woods something to the effect of, "Here Zombie, Zombie, Zombie...fresh Dwarf for supper!" all the while clanging his battle axes together.

Return to Garweeze Wurld, Part I

This last week has been a bit busier than I had anticipated, and it isn't even Borderlands 2's fault this time.

Between being out of town for two days, a larger than normal homework load, and prep for my new HackMaster game, I was busy.

Carolyn is pretty busy herself, participating in National Novel Writing Month and I agreed to alleviate her other obligations as GM for our Sunday Night home game.  I'll be running things this month and at least once a month after.  To be honest, I haven't had to GM since last summer and I need to keep those skills sharp.  What might seem like an obligation to fill-in for Carolyn really is a opportunity to flex my GM muscles.

Running HackMaster Again!

I'm getting to GM for our group during November.  My wife is participating in NaNoWriMo again this year which means she doesn't have a lot of time to prep for our game.

I'm relishing getting to run again and I have some ideas for the game.  I'm going to run in Aldrazar, the game world for 4th edition HackMaster, but it will definitely be a current edition of the game.  My ideas have to do with the transition of the high-magic old edition to the low-magic current edition.

I totally think I can pull this off.

Of course, the game I want to run might not be the game my players wish to play in.  Since this campaign will be for all of November and then at least once a month thereafter, I'm not going to be the type of GM who simply makes his players "suck it up" and play the game I want to run.

To this end I gave my players a questionnaire about the future game to gauge their interest in what they would like to play.  I figured that I kind of knew what they'd want after gaming with them for a couple of years, but you never know......

These were the general results of the ranged-scale questions, all prettied up in a graphic.

Creating HackMaster Pre-Gens

A question I see pop up now and then is "How do I create HackMaster pre-gens?"

I've tried to answer how I create pre-gens (pre-generated characters) for HackMaster, but the general advice is applicable to other gaming systems as well.  You'll just have to make some adjudications with the instruction specifics.

I think I've easily made 100 pre-gens in my day, not all of them for the current version of HackMaster.  I've done everything from taking my home PCs and slapping another name on it to creating a bank of pre-gens from scratch as if they were my home PCs.

Gamers With English as a Second Language - by Choice

First off, I apologize to anyone who does actually happen to speak/read English as a second language and to those who have some sort of reading disability.  My commentary simply does not apply to you.

The rest of you....not necessarily you dear blog reader, but those gamers who choose to ignore their basic English and reading education....listen up.  This is as close to an "open letter" that you are going to get.

Random Gaming Thoughts......

I haven't subjected my 12 readers to a good PC story in a long time.........don't worry this won't be a "good" story anyway.

I've had to cut back on a lot of my gaming recently.  Some of it was because of school and some of it was just because I wasn't having as much fun as I used to.  I was in a weekly game that traded off GMs and it was just "meh" for me.  I liked the GM and the players, but it was just too complicated for me and the whole affair seemed more like an obligation than recreation.

Right off the bat.....I'm not "dissing" the GM or the game.  The GMs had their own game worlds and a whole slew of new rules.  While I actively encourage GMs to play the game they (and their players) want, I prefer to stick as close to by-the-book as possible.  Since I do occasionally get to playtest and I do a decent amount of convention work, I find the RAW (rules as written) to be quite comforting.  If a GM wants to use a bunch of new rules, go for it...but make it as transparent for me as possible.

Free RPG Game!

Now that the HackMaster Player's Handbook has been released, the folks over at Kenzer & Company have decided to make the HackMaster basic PDF available for FREE!

This is HUGE!  I cannot think of a better free GM resource than a whole fricken game!

One of the criticisms that I've heard over the years is that HackMaster Basic isn't a "whole" game, which is complete and utter BS.  This one pdf has everything you need to run a group up to 5th level.  Everything for the players and the GM is in there.  5th level might not seem like much, but to put it in perspective, my highest level PC is 7th and I've been playing this game for the last three years.  Granted it hasn't been all with one PC, but that has been a lot of gaming.

Kenzer & Company have also put out everything needed to transition from levels 5 to 10 in Knights of the Dinner Table and in a few issues of HackJournal.

Even if all you get out of it was a couple months of playtime.......that is a couple of months of FREE GAMING!  I think you'll get a lot more that a couple of months, that is for certain.  I tell you what, if you download the free copy of HackMaster Basic and don't get a couple of months of gameplay out of it, I'll personally refund your money!

To top it off, the PDF comes with three free adventures and an excerpt from the Hacklopedia of Beasts.

I've peppered this post with links to the download page for the free HackMaster Basic book, but in case you need it spelled out:

CLICK HERE!

Another Delta Epic Fail

Last weekend the wife and I made a "quick" trip to Waukegan, IL for the 1st Annual KenzerCon, a one-day mini-convention held by the fine folks (and friends) at Kenzer & Company.

We had decently priced tickets lined up, but we needed a day to be able to put them on the appropriate credit card for the bonus miles and ability to not have to pay for baggage.  In that day the price of our tickets doubled.  That sucks, but it happens.  With a fair amount of work we were able to get close to our original price by accepting a messed-up routing that meant we had to drive 6 hours to & from the airport and fly to Milwaukee through Atlanta.  That puts us at about an 18 hour travel day.

That isn't even the bad part!

HackMaster PC Kills at Origins Game Fair 2012

I got back from my annual pilgrimage to Columbus Ohio for the Origins Game Fair.  Attendance was way down, so much so that I didn't even see the people I knew who actually lived in Columbus.

We had four HackMaster games scheduled, but ended up only running three.  The games were a tournament in name only and the "prize" was that a member of the KenzerCo D-Team was going to run a game on Saturday for the "winners" of the previous games (determined by player vote).  The "Final" had to be cancelled due to real-life issues for the D-Team, but since we only had two players show up for the Thursday night game, I pushed back the games one session and ran the last "regular" game on Saturday and invited everyone who had played in previous games that I could get a hold of.

I think everyone had a good time and while it was a bit disheartening to be running one not-quite-full table for most of the time slots, we didn't have any problems.  There was one thing that came up though that I felt needed to be addressed.

Blogography Guest Post

This isn't Christopher, this is Dave2 from Blogography! Christopher is off testing a new kind of rocket fuel made from nitroglycerine, napalm, and Charlie Sheen's urine this week, so who knows if we'll ever see him again.

When I was asked to guest-post for Not-So-Random Musings, I wanted to do something topical and appropriate. But then I changed my mind and wanted to do something depraved and totally inappropriate. And why not? This isn't my blog... what do I care if Christopher gets arrested for not-so-random indecent blogging? But then I changed my mind again, because his wife might get upset and come after me for revenge. That would be a bummer... so what can I blog about that won't end up with me assassinated by attack ninjas for hire?

I know... HACKMASTER!

As anybody who has read this blog knows, Christopher is kind of into that game. And by "kinda into it" I mean he's totally obsessed with it.

But what is HackMaster? I didn't really know... until I tracked down a friend who's into gaming. "Is it like Dungeons and Dragons? I've played Dungeon and Dragons before!" I asked. "Well, yes... it's a role-playing game that's derived from Dungeons and Dragons, but it's a lot more detailed," he replied. "Huh?" I said... "I've played D&D where the Dungeon Masters have been pretty darn detailed. One DM I campaigned with even tracked when characters needed to go to the bathroom so they had a chance of having to pee in the middle of battling a dragon or something."
"Ah, but only in HackMaster would the GameMaster roll to see if you sprinkled on the toilet rim, then go on to tell you how many squares of toilet paper it took to clean it up." 

"Wha-? Are you serious?"

"Yes. That's why people who play HackMaster are crazy."

And then, just like that, everything became clear. Now I completely understand why Christopher would post a sixty-two-page blog entry detailing how to convert Dungeon and Dragon characters to work with HackMaster earlier this month... he's crazy! Or he just really likes obsessing over HackMaster.

But probably because he's crazy.

I'll have to roll a 2d4 to get his base sanity, then subtract a 3d6 + 5d8 for brain damage to know for sure.

NSRM Note: This is HackMaster 4th Edition Dave's friend is referring to.  The current edition isn't derived from any "lesser" game and you only have to lose 2d6p brain damage if you are a grognard.

Origins HackMaster Playtest Complete

We finished the initial playtest for the Origins adventure tonight.  As can be expected, the players didn't flow through the encounters quite like I envisioned and the dice were either hot or cold.

The biggest change I've noticed in the new "advanced" rules over the rules laid out in HackMaster Basic is that of morale.

With the new morale rules encounters rarely last until one side is dead.  Smart PCs can roll through some enemies with the proper tactics which could cause them to route.

There were several battles during these playtests where I thought the PCs were outmatched, but when you factor in propensity for failing morale checks, they were evenly matched.

Now that the initial playtest is complete I have a lot of writing to do to put all my notes into a finished form and to add the numerous game aids to assist the GM.

Converting Pathfinder/D&D 3.5 PCs to HackMaster

It is an odd day today since we stayed up to 3 AM watching the new Avengers movie and today is an overcast and rainy day.  I've been on the KenzerCo forums off and on and saw an interesting post regarding converting Pathfinder player characters (PCs) over to the new HackMaster game.

The problem is that there really isn't going to be a straight conversion "formula" for converting between disparate game systems.  There is a lot of variation between almost any two systems.  Pathfinder is close enough to D&D 3.5 that you could go back and forth between them much more easily, but that is because they have the same basic foundation.

Converting over a 3.5 or Pathfinder PC to HackMaster can be done, but it wouldn't be without difficulty.  Most GMs would say "screw it" and make the players start over.  There is nothing wrong from converting PCs over from one system to another, assuming the players are willing to make that switch.  As a GM I'd allow the group to be converted, but future PCs in the campaign would need to be created by-the-book.  While there is nothing wrong with house-rules and GMs running whatever game works for them, I prefer to keep things by-the-book because it generally makes my life easier.

This is how I would start the process:

Found an Old Game

This morning I was looking for a particular file, a map actually, and I came across this PDF transcript of an old play-by-post campaign that only lasted a month or so.

Playing RPGs in a play-by-post medium can be quite difficult and while I've been in three or four now, only one has lasted any significant amount of time.  The GM has to work a bit more and the pacing is often s---l---o---w.  The upside is that there is usually a lot of room for superior role-playing, and a lot less roll-playing.

I spent a half-hour or so this morning reminiscing about a game long since dead and players I haven't really communicated with in years.  It makes me look forward to Origins at the end of the month.

PC Free Will

Tonight we had another playtest for the Origins adventure that we are planing on running next month.  The group did fine up until a one of the battles where they got wiped out.  Actually, since it was a playtest I stopped it when the stronger half of the party was dead.  It would have been a TPK.

Adding the morale rules into the game make encounters much more interesting.  I think that if encounters were all fought to the death they would be a tad boring and the party would be overwhelmed much more often.  It is surprising how many creatures don't want to fight.....imagine that.

After the game we talked and some of the players stated that if they knew X or Y, they'd want to leave the adventure...in character.  They weren't upset as players, just that they figured their PCs would say "screw it" and leave the first chance they got.  My wife's response was an old in-character gaming quote of mine, "If we don't like it we can always leave."

I was a little serious in my response along the lines of, "so?"  With the exception of the initial railroad setup the PCs had a way out should they choose to take it.  I brought up that pretty much anytime outside of combat in all of the adventures we've played so far we could have left whenever we wanted.

A tournament game is no different...you don't have to play along.

Origins Playtest with Miraculous Dice Roll

Our first Origins 2012 playtest was cut short due to a couple of unavoidable factors, so we picked things up last night.  Were were short a player, but had a schedule to keep so one player had two PCs.

At the conclusion of the session it occurred to me that I have a pretty decent group because they pretty much maxed out the available experience points.  I wasn't expecting them to actually take some of the actions they did and I wonder if some of that is due to the break between the 1st encounter and the subsequent five.

I ended up killing two PCs.  It isn't that glorious of a victory as a GM because I screwed up a rule about critical hits.  It has been a while since the critical hit rules came out in HackJournal and of course I got them wrong.  I think I may have managed to kill one PC if I got it right, but I'd have been just as fortunate to just severely maim the fighter instead.

As a GM I'm more interested in just hurting a PC really bad as opposed to killing the PC, and this is why:

Origins 2012 Playtest

Today is the first of three sessions where my HackMaster group will be playtesting the Origins adventure.

Today is also the day I have to take all my notes and convert them to a more usable format.  In the past I have done a rough draft of the final adventure in word and used that to take notes and do a re-write. Since this a HackMaster Association event that isn't an über-competitive function, I don't think I have to go through the hard work of writing a massive tome that endeavors to make the whole game standardized across all tables.  Instead I'm going to attempt a more organic approach that gives the GameMasters a lot more leeway to play like it was more of a home game.

HackMaster PHB is Almost Off to the Presses!

I've been spending most of my blogging time on my "regular" blog and I've considered moving all of these posts over to it, but I doubt I will.

Linian and Balen have been quite busy adventuring.  If I get the inclination to I'll share some of their story.

What I wanted to come on now and let you know is that the new HackMaster Players Handbook (HM PHB) is a day or two away from going to press.  The folks over at Kenzer & Company aren't calling it Advanced HackMaster but simply HackMaster.


If you want to get a deal on what is going to be one of the most drool-worthy gaming books of the decade (if not century) you better head on over to Kenzer & Company immediately.  Once the book goes to press the free PDF copy will be no more.

The HM PHB runs $60 and with shipping comes to something like $72 domestically.  The PDF will run $40 on it's own and you'll definitely want both if for no other reason to keep the wear & tear on your PHB.  If you haven't seen their Hacklopedia of Beasts I suggest you run out first thing in the morning to your Favorite Local Game Store and view a copy.  If they don't have it, demand that they get one...or two since you will want to buy one.