February 2012
7 posts
#dnd Black Key of Naberius, Level 1
Here’s the map!
Black Key Report #3 Giant Beavers, Hans the...
So the “mashup edition” I’ve been running was originally supposed to be Labyrinth Lord but includes elements of other editions. (I can’t help it, but the inconsistency has been kind of fun for me). Figuring prominently in the mix, due to player demand and my own long familiarity with the material, I have added a ton of First edition AD&D.
In the last adventure there...
#dnd And then the Bodies Started To Pile Up - ...
This is an ongoing report of the Black Key- a Cyclopedia/Labyrinth Lord megadungeon campaign that takes place on Thursdays. The characters are first level, and it’s kinda starting to get real.
Our gang (Hafrazyn the fighter, Aelfwine the magic-user, Beldrin the thief, Dariel the thief, Trugilio the fighter, Balinor the dwarf), headed back into the Black Key after recruiting Bloody Rose Red,...
The Black Key - Level 1 Down
#dnd I love multi-level dungeons. Two or three levels of 10-30 rooms each is a nice minimum for me (I know there’s something in either the 1st Ed DMG or the Holmes Basic D&D book that suggests 10 levels is a good minimum). I have built more than a few of these structures for every edition over the years, not counting the OD&D booklets. (If you count basic D&D in all of it’s...
Kicked Off D&D/AD&D Mashup last night... Black Key...
So returning from DDXP, and at the last moment my older kid and I trashed some of the details about class and race unlocks and so on.. and came up with the campaign map (which had a place called Suldrun’s Crossing) as the central town, the tavern (“the Green Devil”) and the location of the main dungeon- the Black Key of Naberius. We did a short one on one adventure together, and...
DDXP - The Report!
Hey all, DDXP ran great- I DM’d 8 slots and played in 3. I was literally gaming throughout every single slot except the very last one (we had to leave before the final slot on Sunday in order to catch our plane).
Here’s what I did: I played in 3 games:
1. Mark Bradley’s ‘Strangers in the Night’ 4e adventure (which was very good, and had an interesting riddle/puzzle...
January 2012
6 posts
Labyrinth Lord: The Warping Effects of Magic
In my upcoming Labyrinth Lord campaign, magic is known to be a warping and destabilizing influence. Each time a spellcaster casts, he rolls a 1d20, and on a critical fail (a roll of 1) the spellcaster will begin to develop a mutation of some kind.
These mutations are not powers! They also don’t happen immediately. The only immediate manifestation will be a nosebleed (or something similar).
...
Origin of the Robe of Eyes- post apocalyptic...
So, I was wrong.
I had suggested to some guys earlier that the Robe of Eyes was probably based on Argos (the many eyed giant servant of Hera, the greek myth about peacock feathers, etc).
Instead, it’s actually an item that appears in The Dying Earth, by Jack Vance.
I have been reading a lot of Jack Vance lately, and to explain the item I have to kind of explain that the Dying Earth is a...
Labyrinth Lord: Just One Town
This is continuing my campaign-out-loud series. I’ve come up with character options, a pantheon, I’m in the process of a dungeon… and just one town to start.
So most games start in the one town, and then the structure of a game will be whatever the players want to do, probably involving forays to the dungeon (which is currently 3 levels deep with a surface map).I’m...
5E: Here's to No Living Campaign This Time
I emailed off an offer to volunteer to help in future organized play efforts for 5e, but just as soon, the doubts started to pile up, and I had this conversation with a friend via email:
> > I bet you five bucks there will be no living campaign this time around. > > All Encounters, all the time.
For about a microsecond I was taken aback and then I suddenly realized he was...
Labyrinth Lord Campain-Style: Make a Small...
In my previous post I have been talking about opening up character options slowly.Each player starts with fighter and thief and gets one additional option.
Similarly, I am working on a megadungeon style conceit for the campaign — same concept- I just have three levels and a surface area for the dungeon mapped out, and I’m going to detail it outwards as it expands.
The Pantheon of the...
Achievement Unlocked: An Idea about Metagaming...
I’m working on setting up a Labyrinth Lord campaign for 2012. My original plan was AD&D (which is also somewhat driven by laziness- I know AD&D very well), but there are certain elements I wanted to not include.. eventually it became clear that if I started more stripped down I could form things up from scratch a bit easier.
Two things that I really like from 4th Edition are the...
December 2011
6 posts
Secret Santicore is out!
Itt’s great and there were a million contributors!
10 MB Download!
(I painted the cover! and a few other parts.. ;)
Isle of Dread: In the Clutches of the Siren Queen
I ran an adventure last night- that was meant to be a dry run for one of the adventures I’m running at DDXP. This one ended up being cut from my schedule (it was supposed to have run in slot 12, but my flight is leaving out of Indianapolis too early for me to squeeze in this last game)
So I get to tell you about it here:
I wrote a 2-part series about characters that ended up shipwrecked on...
Twitter is a Frustrating Medium, plus Why Wasn't I...
First, the fundamental question of the web. Why Wasn’t I Consulted?
Ok, you read that?, good.
Here’s my guilty confession. I think someone should actually listen to me about DMing, because I’ve been hammering away at it for a while. And I also think a lot of people are doing things wrong (not a crime), but then you’d have two wrong people get together and validate each...
Skills Are A Description, ..not just a mechanic!
I see a lot of this:
DM presents a situation..which could be anything.
Players look at how they can use their highest skill to apply it. They roll history at pit traps. They roll arcana against a lock. They roll athletics against a math problem.
Stop the madness.
Obviously, the solution (as in most solutions) lies with the DM to handle, but here’s an easy way to think of it:
The...
LFR Adventures to be Retired
LFR produced 109 adventures in the first 18 months of the campaign. Most of those adventures have a retirement date of Dec 31st of this year. That is a lot of adventures to retire at one time. Therefore we have decided to retire the Year One adventures in two waves.
The first wave includes all regional adventures with the code 1-1, 1-2 or 1-3, CORE adventures 1-1 through 1-9, and SPEC1-1 and...
Re-Imagining the Races for 4E- Shardminds and...
I”ve posted this picture before, but here it is once more: It’s a Dragonborn! Except I respun it as a sort of Ki-Rin-ish Dragonborn.
Because.. why not?
The other day (this was Thanksgiving weekend) my older son and I got a notebook and started hammering out a “worldbook” for a future D&D campaign. I wanted to show him how I did it, and I wanted to see his feedback....
November 2011
9 posts
Come Play Hidden Shrine of Tamoachan backed with...
Greetings adventurers, DDXP approaches this year and as you may know, we judges are encouraged to submit our homegrown adventures as well as classic D&D. This year at DDXP, I am running some SPEC4-2 (which is Living Realms), as well as a few original adventures of my own, but I got it into my mind to go back to some of the classic adventures (and rules) of my youth. AD&D1e was my...
"Shards of Selune" 3 round adventure released!
ADAP3-2 “Shards of Selune” is now available for download from www.livingforgottenrealms.com. This is an LFR adaptation of a Neverwinter adventure from Dungeon online issue 193. The adaptation is for AL 4 (character levels 1-7) and should take about 12 hours / 3 rounds to complete.
This year DDXP is offering an "Any Edition" D&D...
Check it out!
We are also really looking to mix in home-brewed games of D&D and especially older editions. If you are interested please choose that option and put details in the notes section. You can earn a badge running your own game the whole show if you want!
I’m really looking forward to this- in addition to some of my usual 4e Games, I have a plan to run AD&D Hidden...
Magazine cartoon style...
This was a quick drawing I did the other night while I was watching Dexter- it was meant to be a sort of homage to the DMG cover. Figures in foreground battling a large monster (in this case a sort of giant ghoul thing).. This was done with just watercolor pencil on cold press, and then I hit it later with sepia ink outlines. I almost want to do some Dan Decarlo homage stuff. I’m so messy.
There's something interesting going on in this...
No, seriously, check it out.
I find the bile and resentment about 4e mostly idiotic, because - for one thing- it’s mostly just noise (and a lot of it is just vicious and stupid when it doesn’t have to be). The real problems in D&D4 are almost impossible to talk about because they are always overwhelmed with the shrieking of people who are engaged in a pointless cultural struggle....
Kill Things and Take Their Stuff is not my...
Check out the Fallenstars Quest Page:
http://fallenstars.wikidot.com/individual-quests
I can’t take total credit (well, I can, but I’m very devious). My part was to allow the PCs to invent their own quests and then I assign an XP value. I also created a few unique quests (Come Sail Away is a quest where you have to train to be able to pilot the PCs Spelljammer).
Also, much of the...
Another art drop...from the sketchbook.
This is an Illumian Archive ship- the Illumians are a 3e race (from Races of Destiny) that I repurposed as pacifist knowledge-keepers, and sworn enemies of the changelings.
This is an Abyssal Maraudership. The players have encountered one of these near the gateway between the Elemental Plane of Void and the Elemental Plane of Air.. they outran it, but barely.
Shou Dragonborn wizard. Did I...
October 2011
3 posts
more art...
Deva (above). This was kind of a fail…aaaand a dumb hat.
This was meant to be a callout to one of DiTerrlizzi’s famous Planescape drawings- it’s a tiefling wizard in the Dustmen faction. Just a sketch right now.
A goblin making a deal with an ettercap. Or rather- strike that, reverse it- an ettercap making a deal with a goblin.
Some recent (D&D) art I've done...
All of these are (C) Peter Seckler (email me at peter(at)the-never.net) if you are interested in using my art or commissions, etc..)
September 2011
10 posts
School Dazed, Save Ends; The Return of the...
On October 17th and 24th The Majestrix Academy makes a triumphant return to Living Forgotten Realms! This is a combination of an adventuring company (the students of the Majestrix Academy) and a series of MyRealms adventures set in and around the grounds of the prestigious magic academy and the floating island mote (located high above the Dragonmere in Cormyr) where it is located. Under the...
LFR Writers -- Stop Trying To Script Skill...
Seriously. They are doing it wrong.
The concept of skill challenges is great- you have to really go back and think about what they are trying to accomplish: which is the gamification of a non-combat scene into something with a bit of excitement and tension. Gamification for all intents and purposes means “includes the possibility of failure”.
So let’s use that as an axiom: The...
Quests in 4E
I really like 4e’s quest rules because— used correctly and abundantly, you never have to keep creating the justification for adventure at the open of each game (ie, the Tavern scene- I hate the tavern scene)— or worry too much about the clumsy manipulations to get the adventure to end.
The reason is- quests let you avoid all of that clumsy stuff, because they create a...
MOAR PLANESCAPE
Ran the official kickoff adventure of the Planescape campaign-here’s the short story.
The Conqueror Worms: The players find themselves in possession of a damaged planejammer- an antique cargo ship built to traverse the Inner Planes. After a quick stopoff (for repairs and fuel) at a Githzerai outpost (home to around 600 people, including a group of around 60 pacifist monks) floating in the...
(art) Here's a picture of my Warforged character
I drew this yesterday…
Waterdeep 2-4 "Stage Misdirection" released
Download it here.
“The performing arts have always been popular in Waterdeep, but the competition for best actor has become cutthroat. Can you make sense of all the drama and find the true plot? A Living Forgotten Realms adventure set in Waterdeep for characters levels 1-4 (H1 level band).”
August 2011
6 posts
Messing around with the Mythic GM Emulator
The hurricane (or tropical storm, or whatever it was that his us this weekend) did not affect where I lived too badly, but it did keep us indoors. I spent the weekend catching up on Doctor Who (I plan on attempting to watch the surviving episodes of the entire series to date) And I also decided to look at some gaming stuff, including a collection of the Fasa Doctor Who RPG and some sourcebooks I...
Free Calimshan Adventures released
All three parts of the new LFR Calimshan Heroic Tier trilogy, the Battlecloak Saga, are now available for download from www.livingforgottenrealms.com Blog post: http://community.wizards.com/lfr/blog/2011/08/18/calimshan_presents_the_battlecloak_saga
ELTU3-5 It's in the Blood and ELTU3-6 True Blue...
ELTU3-5 It’s in the Blood and ELTU3-6 True Blue are now available for download from www.livingforgottenrealms.com. These two Heroic Tier adventures conclude the Major Quests that have been running throughout the Elturgard Story Area all year. Blog Post: http://community.wizards.com/lfr/blog/2011/08/12/two_major_quests_conclude_in_elturgard
Planescape! Adventure Report
I pulled a bunch of tricks out of the bag for the startup of this campaign- new campaigns are hard to pull together- you have to maintain some kind of creative cohesion amongst the players, meet expectations (this is a Planescape campaign- certain features and quirks have to be met), and still take the players someplace new.. and I didn’t have prior knowledge of what the PCs were going to...
LFR at GenCon: We have some great DMs, and at...
My first three LFR..wait..four! (Because I got in a game on Wednesday..) slots at GenCon this year were perfect.Seriously! They were great. I played the entire Calimshan series, and on Wednesday we squeezed in Heart of the Desert.
I can’t say enough good things about those DMs. They are making the campaign great, and know what they are doing.
The last one- Spec 3-3, run by a Dm that was...
Champion of the Tower!
This is two years in a row for me!
June 2011
2 posts
Retro-Raygun//Sword and Planet
This is the cover of the John Carter collection I have (strangely, it is a Dark Horse collection with the “Marvel” logo removed, but inside it’s all still Marvel).
I want to do a Sword and Planet campaign myself, but not one based on any particular series.I have a bunch of notes, but no organized thoughts just yet.
It’s kind of important for me to establish that the...
(one of) the Main thing(s) wrong with LFR
Wow, take a few weeks off of gaming (for work and travel, and uhh.. pursuing an alternate hobby in two-wheeling adventure..) and what do you get? Maybe an insight check.
My son and I (both longtime LFR players) just got back from Origins and I have some insight to share:
1) Not everyone DMs like our groups out here. We’re lucky.
2) I can’t *quite* put all the blame on the DMs, but I...
February 2011
2 posts
Two sessions in to my paragon Planescape LFR...
So amongst the usual gaming (Monday Virtual table, Wednesday encounters, Thursday LFR) I wrote a 5 adventure series that touches on Planescape and then heads back into the Realms.
The idea is that there’s a planar group known as the Farwalkers that have annoyed some of the powers that be. The Farwalkers are a group I’ve used in several other campaigns- they are sort of a fantasy...