category: After Action Reports

Apologies for the delay on this writeup, it’s back from October. The Barrowmaze campaign continued on a little longer, but then fizzled out to be replaced by the Evils of Illmire one in December. I realised I had too many small RPG groups. I know why this is, I like small groups of people in person - I’d much rather go out with three people than eight. The problem though is with a party of eight, it matters a lot less if someone can’t make it. ...

Treated myself last night to something out of my pile of 2020 Kickstarters, The Wretched, now in its second printing The Wretched is a game about human resilience in the face of overwhelming odds and almost certain death. It is a game about isolation, fear, and perseverance. You’re the last survivor on a spaceship, with a dead crew and a creature crawling around trying to get in and finish you off. What could go wrong? Everything. ...

Time to start The Evils of Illmire! I got this via its kickstarter earlier this year as it looked nice, and more importantly, it was cheap for digital. It’s the sign of a good one that I wish I had it in print as well now! Handily, it also has a D&D 5th Edition conversion, that came a little later than the main booklet. It is a sandbox set around the town of Illmire. As the title hints, shenanigans are afoot… ...

STAAHHN THE CROWS, IT’S AAHNLY THE BLEEDIN’ TOWAAHH OF LAAAHNDAAAN This is an actual line from the video game of ‘Vampire: the Masquerade’. It has always stuck with me as an ARPG that wasn’t that bad, but with some cracking voice acting. So for Grant Howitt to make one of his monthly one-page games actually called STONE THE CROWS, and then actually have to raid the bleedin’ Tower of London - well, I was sold pretty quickly. Also it’s based on Guy Richie’s ouevre of Cockney gangster films, which is certainly a fresh change from eurofantasy or scifi, where I typically end up. And finally, I bought FoundryVTT to move from roll20 and self-host. Helps get my nerd-cred up, I’ve always wanted to run a NodeJS server. So a nice light game to start with, why not? ...

Finally, finally, I pulled the trigger and tried running a Hypertellurians game. This was done in Discord, with three players. It took about three hours, including us all learning the game. We used Avrae for rolls and I made a Google sheet character keeper but we ended up using the provided pre-gens on the Mottokrosh website. Unfortunately, this means no pictures. ...

I like a spooky Halloween game. Now unfortunately, I have not found a good way of actually setting a creepy tone over the Internet. I normally use something like Dread or Ten Candles to do that for me, but both are very physical games. The former uses an actual Jenga™️ tower and the latter uses ten actual candles as your strength against the metaphorical as well as physical darkness. Well, COVID has fucked that. 😷 So, instead, here’s the next best thing, a pumpkin-themed 1st-level one-shot. As usual all arts and assets are from 2 minute tabletop. Ironically not the adventure they’ve published this year, 2020, but from a few years back (I think). Pumpkins because of course. ...

Time for another impromptu game of The Quiet Year! Much like last time, I offered it into a roll20 session when we realised we didn’t want to continue a campaign without one of the players. Steampunk guinea-pigs need water and coal.. ...

BEHOLD! Marvel at the majesty of the Barrowmaze! Gaze in awe at its breadth, its depth! It has hundreds of rooms, leaving years of material to play in!!! The party triggered a trap in room 2, and died, fleeing, in room 1. As a GM, not my finest hour. Again. This is the same group that I killed before! ...

I wasn’t enthused about the third adventure in the Bree-land Region Guide — but saying that, I haven’t run it. Also, I wanted to keep doing something with Berelas, as at least one party member was quite attached to her, and there’s no further published material on her, to my knowledge. So, instead, I asked the group where they wanted to go (ahead of the session), and then offered some hooks. Berelas wants to go to Radagast, which is quite a trip away. The players offered to escort her, and I prepped a long Journey and had some vague ideas for some things to do in Rhosgobel when they arrived. Although, hmm, how to get there. ...

Finally, finally started a UVG game! 💜💜💜 This is mainly running as a play-by-post on Discord for the moment, although we’ve had some short live sessions: To say “hi” and discuss Slovak culture To have an encounter lick some rocks I didn’t really intend to start a new long-form game, but I couldn’t see a good one-shot that would still use the travelling mechanics for more time than it would take to introduce them. SEACAT as a pure encounter engine for me does not hold the same appeal. ...