Terrible Troll Thursday!

A vicious cave troll awaits unlucky or unwary delvers.

Terrain Tuesday

Just a small forest piece that I made. Note the woodsman tracking his prey.

Miniatures Monday

From the deepest depths of the earth, crawls a dreadful Blue Wyrm to feast upon unwary delvers!

The Upper Ruins of Cyclopentaxor's Castle

The grand entrance hall. This is the main entrance to the castle of the mad Wizard Cyclopentaxor. Most of the above ground parts of his residence have been reduced to rubble. The stairs at the right lead up to the few remaining upper chambers. The crack in the floor was a source of great merriment for the last party to pass through here...

Terrible Troll Thursday!

As I've gotten older I'm finding it easier to paint BIG miniatures. Like Trolls! Keep an eye out in March for more Terrible Trolls.

He's the man!

In case anyone has forgotten, Yor is the man.

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Terrain Tuesday

Welcome to a new feature here in the Dreadful Dungeons. Terrain Tuesday. I'm going to attempt to post weekly pictures of my home-made terrain. This week we begin with the Foul Fortress of Foam!



Another angle:

D&D Gamma World in actual play

So, yesterday I participated in the Wizards of the Coast Gamma World Game Day and I have to admit, it was a blast. Sadly we didn't have a lot of players so we ended up having two tables each with a GM and three players. We were charged by he mayor of the town we were in to investigate some mysterious happenings at an old medical laboratory just outside of town. I was playing a psionic Yeti, and we also had an earth shaking cockroach and a doppleganger. Character creation in the game is quite a bit different from regular D&D 4E. Each player rolls 2d20 to generate random primary and secondary origins. Your origins determine two of your ability scores and each provides one power. Your primary origin allows you to place an 18 in one of your ability scores, while your secondary origin awards a 16 in another. after that, your remaining scores are generated by rolling 3d6 in order, which I love. I actually like that chance that I could roll a 3 for an ability, but then I'm weird. Equipment isa lot more generic than in D&D, but that makes for in some cases more interesting equipment. Weapons are grouped into light and heavy by class, (melee, ranged) and then one-handed and two handed. This means that I can have a 2 handed weapon and say that it's a huge club, while someone else can have one and say that it's a garden rake, which I think adds to the overall amusing feel of the game. Armor works in a similar way, being classed as light, medium or heavy.
My character as I said before was a psionic Yeti and my main weapon was a parking meter. Combat is very much D&D 4E, but there is no magical healing and there are no healing surges, making the game far more dangerous. To counteract this somewhat, each character is permitted to use their second wind, which is now a minor action, once per encounter. Second wind in Gamma World heals 1/2 of your total hit points. Additionally, short rests after each encounter allow for full healing.
For each encounter, every player is dealt one alpha mutation which provides some for of special ability. The player can use this card once during the encounter and then it becomes "tapped" much like a Magic the gathering card. At the end of the encounter, the mutation card are turned back in and each player draws a new one for the next encounter. When using an Alpha Mutation, players also have the option to attempt to overcharge them by rolling 10 or higher on 1d20. Successful overcharging enhances the power, while failure can lead to some hilarious side effects. I used a time shift power and failed my overcharge roll, which led to my character vanishing for 1d6 hours. Of course I rolled a 6. :-) There has been a lot of debate around this mechanic, but I for one am a huge fan of it. I love the random element and while players are allowed to build their own custom mutation decks with a minimum of 7 cards and no more than 2 of the same kind of card, I think that I prefer the wackiness of using random cards drawn from the master deck that comes with the game.
Treasures in the game fall into 2 categories, ancient junk and Omega Tech. Ancient junk isn't exactly what the name says. Some of it is junk, but some of it can be useful too. One of the players found tape, while I found a saxaphone. The treasure system sort of reminded me of the random equipment table in Aftermath. Omega Tech are the real "treasures" These are more akin to magic items in D&D and are usable once per encounter. My Yeti found a Leaky Fusion Rifle, which did 7d8+1 damage, but caused 2d8+1 damage to the user.
I have to say, I'm a big fan of this game. I'm not convinced that it would be completely viably for a long-term campaign, but o while a way a fe weeks, I think it's splendid.

Requiem for the Rail Rat Kid

Well, last night's gaming session saw the demise of Mortimer the ratling, better known as Manchego's sidekick, the Rail Rat Kid. No The RRK was hardly adventurer material, and he was somewhat of a magnet for disaster, having been horribly burned, blown up, nearly downed in sand and finally impaled by a somewhat hormonal, totally psychopathic, and fully cybernetic wench named Mila Mars.  He wasn't particularly effective, but he was earnest and always tried, and damn it he was Manchego's sidekick. Now Manchego's not really the sidekick having type of dude, but somehow he clicked with the RRK. In the end, Manchego hauled his corpse out of the collapsing dome city so that he could at least have a decent burial. He was a member of our party and he will be missed.  So, roll on Rail Rat Kid, and may your afterlife be filled with willing rat ladies.

Miniatures Monday

In memorium to Frank Frazetta, I present yet another barbarian.

Another spooky thing from the crypt to go with the one from a few weeks ago.

Miniatures Monday

Lurking in dank corners of the earth, green slime has been the bane of many an adventurer.

Set the Wayback Machine for 1984

A while back, in my travels through the internet I came across two games that whisked me back to what was, for me, the heart of the golden age of computer gaming, 1984. The first is the Adventure Creation Kit, which is a free version of the old Electronic Arts Adventure Construction Set, which was to toolkit for crafting computer RPGs in the vein of Wizard's Crown and Ultima III. I have very fond memories of spending hours playing around with this in high school. My friends and I always hoped to use it to create adventures to share amongst ourselves. Sadly, that never panned out, but this might just offer a second chance. The Adventure Creation Kit is available for both Windows and Mac OSX. Additionally, a version is provided that is suitable for use under DOSBox for those of us who are Linux users.

The second game is Oolite, a clone of the old space trading game Elite. It's probably not the most apt description, but I think of Elite as sort of Star Raiders on steroids. Now Elite wasn't a game that I had ever played back in the day, but a friend of mine who grew up in the U.K. has regaled me with tales of the hours that he spent playing this on his Spectrum Plus. Oolite is available for Windows, Mac OSX and Linux.

Oh, and both of these games are free as in beer.

Quick Links:
Oolite
Adventure Creation Kit

Miniatures Monday

So last week while I was in Vegas, there was a glitch of some sort with my post scheduling, so this week there Will be two!
Here we see two valiant knights, exploring the unplumbed depths of the ear in search of riches.
The topmost miniature is a 1999 Reaper Miniatures casting, but the one on the bottom is a special treat. It is a 1981 lead casting from a company known as Wizards and Lizards. I distinctly remember picking this miniature up in the early 1980s at the hobby shop on the lower level of Century III mall. This was the same shop run by the crabby dudes who once told my friends and I that we were, "cluttering up the store." Never mind that there were only four of u,s and no one else was in the store. Hard to believe that they went out of business isn't it?

Survivor: RPG Island

The other night I was perusing my collection of RPGs, and while not as extensive as many that I have seen, my collection has two closets and several additional shelves dedicated to it. Every few months I lovingly rearrange the books, moving those that I find the most interesting to me at the time to "The Shelf of Prominence", where they are made easily accessible. Sadly the collection has become unwieldy. This is not to say that I have any plans to reduce the size of my collection. Far from it. It just got me to thinking about which of those games are the most important to me. If I could only keep one RPG, which one would it be? Well, that was just a ridiculous question as I could never possibly settle on just one. But what about three to five? That would seem like a more reasonable number. Reasonable, but by no means simple.

Slot 1: Advanced Dungeons & Dragons: (1st Edition) plus the Holmes and Moldvay Basic D&D sets. Yes, this is cheating, since it's technically 2 or 3 games, but these are such an integral part of my childhood that I can't let them go. Besides, it's my list and my rules. ;-)

Slot 2: Savage Worlds. This was a tough fight with the Hero System. I need a generic system and while I love Hero (at least up to 5th edition), I'm old and don't have as much time as I used to, so Savage Worlds wins here.

Slot 3: Labyrinth Lord. Yes, it's just a retro clone of Moldvay & Cook's Basic and Expert D&D, but I still like it. The artwork is cool and players can buy a copy without going to ebay. For a quick, fun dungeon crawl with easily replaceable characters, this is my game.

Slot 4: The Dying Earth Roleplaying Game. This is the weird one of the bunch. I'm quite fond of Jack Vance's Dying Earth stories and Pelegrane Press did a wonderful job capturing the feel of that bizarre and doomed world. It's a shame that it's out of print, but they are in negotiations to reacquire it. The Scaum Valley Gazerteer remains one of my favorite RPG reads of all time. Definitely not a game for those who love combat. In fact, the game tells you that if you find yourself in combat, something has gone very wrong. Deadly, ;-)

Slot 5: Dungeons and Dragons (4th Edition) Hey, it's grown on me.

Slot 6: Justice Inc. Whoops! I did 6. :-)

Slot 7: Tunnels & Trolls. I've always loved this game, but rarely been able to find players who were into it enough to play it with me. Take That You Fiend!

Runners up:

Hero System (5th Edition)
Warhammer Fantasy Roleplaying (2nd Edition)
RuneQuest II (Mongoose Edition)


Dishonorable Mention:

Powers & Perils What was up with this game? Seriously.

I should really just have made this a top 10.