13/7- A rant about our Group
It has been really good years but now we are meeting resistance!!!! It sounds grim but in reality it is not. Henrik is moving away as he cannot study the desired course in our city and Rasmus is doing the same actually. We have discussed playing sundays but as Claus pointed out, the married players will have problems in the weekend, but I am certain that we will find a way to include the 2 when they have time, playing weekdays or weekends.
From August 1 we will be down to 3 players and 1 Dm in our bi weekly Savage Worlds game. Not too bad, I am Dm, and do not consider it a big problem. In fact I find it easier sometimes to get the players involved when they are 3. I will Dm for 2, also nice, but Solo-play I do not want so i I hope that we will avoid the last minute cancellations (well not last minute, the players are good at cancelling at least a days before) and cancellations in general. The other bi-weekly game is on hold as Rasmus begins his studies in our Capital (hopefully being home to play some weekends though)
We discussed what we are going to do last session and luckily both Andre and Claus would love to DM!!!! I am actually Thrilled to play with them as a DM. Claus was the DM for the 3 first years we played and had a great time. Andre is a wild card!! Have never played with him as a DM but look forward to it. He plans to run different adventures and I am sure we are in for something exiting and different, cannot wait!!!!
From the ashes a Pheonix have arisen. From loosing 2 players we are getting new input and ideas . Things change and we adapt. That said there is still hope that Rasmus only will be away for 4 months and will join us every monday!!!!
23/10-A rant about our switch to Savage Worlds
The switch was relatively easy as some of the players, as me, were tired of D&D (We have played it almost exclusively for 15 years!!) and took a shot at it. The campaign i created was an adventure set in the victorian era and was a bit more investigation than we were used to. In hindsight i would have chosen a more martial oriented adventure as it was a great leap from the kill and loot style we were used to.
That had to be fixed and we embarked on a campaign, the Fourth Reich, feturing the players as S-gene bearers of the allies (street level super heroes) against the hidden secrets of the Nazi regime. It is going well and they are close to the end of the first leg of the campign. The first leg was created as a dungeon- bash as no system will survive in our group if the combat was not fun, it is!!!
Later on they will see something grand and the game will be more freeform, from their perspective at least.
Our party is adapting well, all of them have the explorers edition now and 1 have bought super companion. But no switch without glitches!!!! I know that D&D is far from Savage Worlds especially when it comes to tinkering with spells, pres. classes etc. but hopefully the enthusiasme from me and the other players who love it, and hard work, will carry it through!!
A couple of weeks ago i have started converting Fading Suns to Savage world. Fencing Schools, Professional edges, races, skill options and a brief introduction have been finished and hopefully we will someday try it out...
5/9-My Buddy and long time fellow-players Rasmus turns 30
5/5-Call of Chtulhlu
We started in the cellars of the order we were investigating. The halls were moist and dark. Our search were filled with dread as more foul clues and a the feeling of been watched from the shadows. We also found a dark picture of a great monster which mananged to enthrall our Lawyer but he managed to tear himself free. We found a catacomb with cells on the sides and cells in the floor, pillars covered in chiseled tentacled revealed the ceiling as a huge squid trailing stony tentacles around the pillars.
In a cell we found a broken man, barely alive and found evidence that he was one of the missing men we were searching for. In the lower cells we found creatures, humanoid but still not humans!!!!!!!!! Thay we feral and wild and we wisely decided to leave them alone to their misery.
As we investigated a torture chamber, where our historian found a spell and a slate in Latin explaining that we now were able to summon creatures known as custodes and destroy them as well, our Lawyer was standing guard when he was knocked out. We suddenly realized that something was wrong and my charater, a PI and our journalist went to the rescue. I tried to body tackle the assailant, a creature as the ones in the cells but seemingly more intelligent. I failed!!!! but our journalist managed to land a solid blow on the creatures which let Montgomery, our Lawyer go. A fistfight ensued but we were overmatched bu the creatures massive strenght and Timothy, our Journalist was knocked out. Josef our historian went to the rescue but lacking a weapon he tried to ignite a oil filled lamp we had found but his trembling hands botched the luck rolls to ignite even the matches!!!!!!!
Having almost been knock-out myself i decided to shoot the bastard with my colt!!!!!!! I hit three times doing 10 and 11 in damage on my last 2 rolls, killing the creature by blowing its legs off.
We managed to help Montgomery up and Timothy was patched up and we decided to get the hell out when a figure talked to us from the dark. After some tense minuts we learned that the man was a operative of a group of government men called DELTA GREEN and they had followed our exploits. They had decided to storm the order and he warned us that if we wanted more information we had to move quickly.
We left the house returning later the same day. We gained entreance to the secluded upper floor by the means of Timothy our journalist who after failing open lock 1 time never missed again that night!! Upstairs we found morte clues and a strange metal object the size of a handball. The rooms were filled with dreadfull pictures of starry nights, decomposing living humans and vague foul salutations to greater evil. We saw the name PIKEMAN of each picture, but could now quite place the name in our growing pile of clues. And bu the way Timothy went mad as the evil of the pictures of overwhelmed him and he begun talking about using the evil things we found for ourselves, conjuring and offering to the great old ones!!!!!! Luckily er were almost finished exploring and fled the order in our cars aiming at the doctor with the happy pills.
Then we were back stabbed, by our own Montgomery!!!!!!! He drugged us feared that we were not willing to freely agreeing to a stay at Arkham Insane Asylum. We woke in the Asylum and decided to stay, just to let Monte know that he had erred. He was also an "inmate" and the only way to "get" to him was staying!!!!
2 months later we left, saner than ever and started gathering our clues. We had found some book which we read gaining a spell: Elder Sign!!!!!!!! and some Mythos and a lower San score in return, Thanks!!!! We have also learned of the greater plan of our unknown adversaries, they plan to raise the corpse city R´yleh where the great old ones are buried... That must be stopped!!!
The clues led us to believe that we were going to scotland and when we were contacted by a man asking us to go to scotland for him. We learned thet he was working with the DELTA GREEN operative we had met ans our clues also pointed in the direction of Scotland and it seemed that the two tasks were linked we jumped at the chance and left Boston by boat to Clanfiddich, Scotland.
We concluded our chapter and improved our skills, some more than others (Henrik playing Montgomery almost succeeded in all rolls)
It was fun and nerve wracking and are looking forward to next time in 2 weeks
21/4- Call of Cthulhu
The master, Rasmus, has been kind and created 2 characters for me and i went with a 38 year old Private Investigator. The plot is filled with riddles and dead-end and much investigation(loved it) and we are member of a secretive order in Boston investigating the disappearence of 2 members of the order. The oder is perhaps led by a man convicted of witchcraft in the 1800`s and their agenda is less than friendly.
We investigated the hell out of the clues and managed to disguise ourselves to attend a sorcerous ritual in the order. It was very cool as all, but 1, of us became tempoarily insane. I was certain i was being stalked and became extremely paranoid. Our anthropologist lost 42 sanity and went stark raving mad!!!!!!!!! Henriks character, a lawyer, was relatively unaffected and managed to get us to a psychologist who gave us happy pills hehe to counter the dread things we had seen...
We ended the sessions as we had forced our way down to the lower levels of the order which mysteriously rests at the exact spot where the leader of the order was burned several hundred years ago!!!
The evening was cool, cool, cool and it was refreshing to play with a new set of players and i felt welcomed. I have been mastering 12 years primarily D&D and has these past few years yearned for something different to play, perhaps something completely not D&D.
Was i satisfied???? YES SIR!!!!!!!!! it was a complete different pace (loved it)and the other player were used to it and helped me with the clues i have not seen as it was my first time. The master was very very good and rolled the story along in a pace suited to investigation and the roleplaying was the primary instead of endless rolls known from D&D, all in all the revelation i had hoped!!!!! Cannot wait to explore the cavern and go crazy as my curious character cannot help himself as new terrible mythos is revealed to ous poor frail minds!!!!!
23/3-10 Dark Heresy
I play Irun Volvode, a feral world assasin taken from my home world by the enigmatic imperial Death-cult Whispers of the night and have been selected to serve in an imperial guard regiment to uncover heresies against my beloved Emperor. My 2 other buddies André and Henrik are playing an imperial psyker and a Bruntian Guardsman of the 123th Bruntian Longknives. My characters view on life is pure devotion to the god emperor and a single minded dedication to my employer as long as he is doing the emperors work, or else!!!!
We have been assigned to our fireteam on a planet wracked by a terrible civil war between a once loyal imperial cult and the forces of the empire. It has become a stalemate and whipers of treachery and foulness have reached the ears of my employer, a commisar.
We started last night and it was fun, had our first scrap with renegade soldiers (clipped one 2 times and only because of bad luck he survived, dying though) and met our allies. Have heard of patrol duty in a ruined city and hope we will be sent out so that i can use my sneaky skills and my impossible thin mono-greatsword and Berserk charge talent!!!!!
System-wise it is easy to learn and is fast paced and works. It is pretty much Basic Roleplaying at its finest although house-rules are advised as several things becomes unbalanced, psychics especially!!!!
Looking forward to my next session in 2 weeks time
9/6-09 Hellfrost campaign setting for SW
Hellfrost is Awesome and its idea about the magic and the frozen world are fantastic. I have allways wanted to run a fantasy Sw adventure and now I have found the right setting for it. The gods section is wonderfull especially the sins and spells section and of course the descriptions of each god. The only bad thing about the book is the references to not yet published books but it is only a minor problem as i know that know they will be published in a couple of months. I even sent an email to the company asking when they would come out and got a reply from the creator of the book Paul "Wiggy" Wade williams who was glas to hear from a fan. Nice touch and made me appriciate the whole hellfrost "experience" a lot more. I have even bought an adventure just to find out more of the dynamics of the game and it was great and i plan to run it in the future.
All in all an exelent product...
16/3-09 Fading suns rant
As i delved deeper into Dark Heresy, which i love,I could not help thinking back to a system which still remains one of the best i have ever played: Fading Suns. It is still great and i love it. It mixes Dune with warhammer 40k and manages to stand out. The designers were the creators of Vampire and werewolf and their influences are visible in the character "in-depth" creation and the overall rules section. The Fading suns setting is its greatest asset. They combine powerfull noble houses, alien races (many of whom are playable in contrast to Dark heresy), dark magics and off course foul entities waiting beyond the world barrier as well as a ton of cool background for the galaxy. The feeling of the game has a strong Dune-"feeling" and especially the noble houses of Fading suns have a strong Dune-like attraction.
The Fading Suns publishers Holistic Design, in my opponion, made a fatal mistake which spelled the doom of Fading Suns, as the D20 bomb hit the world in 2000 they went along with it and started publishing dual stat books with thie own victory point system( the best of the two) and D20 stats. But the market exploded with systems and settings for d20 and Fading suns got lost in the middle and lost its way. They stopped in around 2004 but a new company have signed a licence to produce fading Suns products and and a 3rd edition have been promised.
The game is a mile stone in the game design history and holistic design still have books for sale for bargain prices at holistic-design.com . The rule book can be found in Leisuregames.com for 20 pounds, buy it and check out the cool world of Fading Suns.
23/1-09 Rant about our group
I love our group and the dynamics it have, the players are serious and their roleplaying have improved greatly over the years of play and even though all of us make mistakes we accept it and move on.
Some of the players have allways prefered combat and some have allways prefered heavy roleplaying but we have an exelent balance between the two. Yes they like to be extremely powerful and have the right gear and they have become adept at finding those items that aid them in that regard but so have I hehe. I do not consider them "spoilers" but rather a natural development that 3,5 have made easy to delve into in regards to powerful pc´s. As my players know i like spellcasters, both clerics and wizards, as my players are heavy in that regard and it is neccesary to give them some measure of resistance hehe.
I like my players to be focused and most of the time they are but there must be room for fun and laughs, no game is complete without it and it also helps to aliviate some of the rookie mistakes we sometimes make...
I like huge epic style campaigns but have realized that my players sometimes loose the big picture in sub-plots and warped ideas and in this campaign i have tried to think smaller instead creating chapters that does not span years only months hehe
The world, forgotten realms, is my preferred world as it is huge and my knowledge about it is extensive and easy to incorporate every thought and adventure. i have over the years bought several other settings and they are very cool, minight and Iron Kingdoms especially, and have allways wanted to create my own world stealing the best ideas from every setting but so far I have only started creating the map but perhaps in the future i will get on with it and create the best world ever...
5/1-09 Rant about Dark Heresy
One of the coolest system available and one i am waiting to play with eager anticipation. My buddy Rasmus Standridder (see home) is planning a campaign and i cannot wait to try it out. I am planning a former gang-member scum from the gun-city of Mettalican with 2 pistols and a foul disposition hehe. The reason he has joined with the inquisition is by accident as he in a violent gangwar killed several enemies who turned out to be mutants. The inquisitor heard of the deed and mistook it for imperial devotion/a sign and hired him on.
5/1-09 Rant about the upcoming one-shot set i victorian england
I have ealier ranted about Savage worlds and i cannot get over how cool it is. I have to admit i have never played it but are thrilled at getting to play the uber-cool system.
That brings me to something i have been thinking about for some months now. I have been planning to write an adventure and submit it to a con in Denmark, and it will be a savage world system-adventure. the reason is that it is very easy to play even for a novice and when considering that it perhaps is players without knowledge of the system it seem like the right system to throw at them.
I have bought both the Rippers and Savage world of Solomon Kane and are planning to use a mix-match of both system but still usable with the explorers edition. I have also planned to incorporate both heavy roleplaying and a bit of combat, but the system makes combat easy and fast-paced instead of taking several hours and i hope that the roleplaying aspect will be the most visible...
I love the Victorian era in England in the late 19th century and it will be my setting for the adventure. I will not give anything away but the title of the adventure : Hell in London..
It will be played when my party TPk´s as they allways do at somepoint and because we usually try something different between our D&D 3,5 campaigns. To my faithfull players: this does not mean i plan to TPK you in the near future, hehe....
20/10-08 Rant about savage world system
I recently bought Savage world explorer edition at Fantask for only 10 dollars and I am thrilled. Buy IT is the only thing i can say, it is so cool and so easy. It is a Generic system where you can buy different settings. It is so easy and seems very balanced. I have been writing a scenario, set in copenhagen Denmark, for a while and were looking for a easy fun system to incorporate in it and Savage worlds fits perfectly. It has some magic but is easy to flavour with modern times and the options are varied yet simple. I can wait to try it out for real and see if the game is everything it promises. Character generations is easy and it is fun with a lot of options and i made 5 different characters in roughly 30 minutes all varied and full of flair. All in all i can recommend it if you are looking for something different and something fun and something afordable...
The different settings are very varied, from monster slaying in the Victorian era with Solomon Kane, to fighting pirates and cannibals if the High seas, to space combat and of course high fantasy. I have not bought ant settings yer but Rippers seem fun.
15/10 -08 Rant about 4th edition
I have earlier talked about 4th edition and thats exactly what i will do again. At first i was sceptical, then i liked it but now I am back to my originally view. I dislike it!!! It feels wrong!!! yes u can do a lot of nifty things and the system is easier for new players. But I am not a new players. I like miss chance I like the rules allthough they are a bit heavy, but theres no system without flaws and perhaps that is why I like it. 3,5 is most certainly flawed but a "Bigger" system than 4,0 yes yes they will come up with thousends of Paragon Levels, millions of powers, but in my world 4,0 is a "Light" version of D&D. Yes is probaly appeals to the masses and to younger players and that is where the bucks are harvested but for me it is too easy, too simplified, simply too...
P.s I am looking forward to see what the Pathfinder system is all about when it is finally finished