Messages from the Far Havens

As I meander through the plethora of RPGs in this the golden age of gaming I bump into whole genres and philosophies, re-arrange the furniture as I blunder, and amble on. So it is with the Old School Renaissance, reinventing and rediscovering the joys of early D&D with light, elegant re-interpretations that preserve the free flowing and mechanically straightforward systems. I have been aware, but ignored, as I’ve left D&D behind these days, though happy to play, and saw little need to explore this movement.

Bump!

I’ve arrived into a vibrant community of bubbling creativity, how could I not be enamoured and entranced? My first delvings have brought me to The Black Hack, an incredible 19 pages of solid gaming goodness. Outstanding. Pared to the essential bones and summoned from the earth to wreak gaming havoc on tables across the kingdoms, The Black Hack has everything you need to get started for fantasy adventures with four classes, two blocks of spells, a simple roll under your familiar six stats on d20, ten levels and damage dished out by monsties based on their HD.

Of course hacking the Hack is not only allowed, but encouraged. Mine is going to include ‘Race selection’ providing a bonus to one stat, a bonus to one type of saving throw, and some colour abilities that should provide ‘advantage’ (roll 2d20 and pick the best result). I’ll also be looking at introducing some more spell lists, though this dude looks to be considering this too. His additional classes will see some use at my table, though I’d have liked some revised spell lists to go with the spellcaster classes.

This is going to be the game that I use for my 10 year old youngling and his group of mates…

I also have The Front, a WW2 hack of The Black Hack. This game has all sorts of potential, especially when the 2nd edition comes out with more explanations and a tidied up vehicle and aircraft system. I shall await to see how it looks and report back from The Front…

To complete this most recent binge, I have ordered, through Lulu, Whitehack. What is it with Sweden? I just got eternally co-joined with Symbaroum in a blasphemous ceremony, and now this. I’ll compare and contrast and potentially blend. Perhaps we will have a Gray Hack before you know it…

Well, that was all a bit of a surprise.

I’m at Seven Hills RPG convention in Sheffield and typing this update late from my hotel room with a cheeky cup of tea to my side. The hotel WiFi looks to be easy to access and lets my Chromebook sing and fly along with ease.

So, this is the end of day one and I’ve had tremendous fun. The Garrison Hotel is the venue, a place that has become a home from home as it serves as the location for both Seven Hills and Furnace in October. As I opened the hotel room door the memories flooded back of the many times I have been here and these pleasant rooms.

There are continual small improvements at the hotel every year. This time around the cooked breakfast seemed larger and all the options were open for selection. Good start to the day!

My first game was in Pete’s Iron Edda – World of Metal and Bone, a Powered by the Apocalypse game of Norse themed settlements facing inimical Dwarves riding constructed steel giants. A really fun game and great start to the event. My character, a noble skald with sculpted hair and a lightning powered electric lute was crushed under the foot of one afore mentioned steel behemoth. I liked the game Moves and atmosphere, much of which I think could be played in a dark fantasy setting of your own devising. I’m resolved to take a further look at the game if hobby budget allows.

Lunch was my usual sojourn to Morissons for their medium self select salad and flavoured water.

My second game was Paul Lawrence’s wonderful Savage Worlds: Lankhmar, where we investigated the strange summonings of deadly flocks of crows that killed priests from up and coming cults in the very heart of the city itself. Nice plot, heroic level characters and super gaming bling, including bespoke and unique poker chips themed to the setting. I always forget how much fun Savage Worlds is. With the cards and poker chips and sturdy and fun rules mechanics you can’t help but have fun.

After an over indulgent beer battered fish, chips and mushy peas, followed by apple crumble and custard, I ventured down into Dungeon Table 1 for my Uncharted Worlds game. I had a group of absolutely top players, an initial setup, some images and some ideas on the outcomes. It was all very ‘let’s play to find out’ with the most minimal of plotting, so just a little bit nerve wracking. This game was a heist of the rare element Uridium, on the Near Dark system. The game was very well received, full of increasingly riotous action and raucous laughter. A bit relieved, as these are highly experienced top players, which was probably a good portion of the reason that the game worked so well.

Although the bar was a considerable lure, I set off to bed with a cup of tea before midnight, so showing my age there! But it was a late one anyway as I tapped away at this blog.

Another wonderful breakfast and onto my next game as a player and one that I had particularly anticipated. Paul Baldowski’s Cypher system set in the A|State setting. Paul put together a slow burner investigative scenario that we did our best to hijack by taking forever to get out of The Three Bells pub. I thought for a fanciful while that Steve Elves’ character might be tied to a chair for the whole scenario. There was no map to stroke (Paul will understand), but otherwise top notch stuff!

Finally, I ran a game of Everway. Yes, Everway! I really love this game, not only for the three interlocking resolution mechanisms but for the positive and restorative quality to the stories as heroes seek to heal the realms that they encounter. The Winds of Whitefall proved to be a good scenario, with lots of opportunity for good roleplay from a great team of players who were still giving their all right to the end of the scenario. It was probably a good decision to keep the game tight to running length and squeeze as much creative juice out of the moments as possible. Everway still holds up for me and it was great to be able to bring the game to the table once more.

In summary, Seven Hills was another really good gaming convention, with great games and super people. The Garrison continues to be a nice venue, providing us with an ongoing home over the years. There were more games than players this year, so we found that some GMs didn’t get to run their creations and teamed up to form groups in others. Everyone had a game if they wanted one.

April 2017 has the theme of ‘Urban Legends’. So many possibilities!

Tremendous times and rock on for Furnace in October!

Currently my regular game night is on Fridays. It just happens to be where it has ended up and it has been there for a good long while. A group of friends gather and we play a wide range of RPGs. Recently we’ve run shortish, maybe eight to ten sessions, tasters, which have included: Houses of the Blooded, 13th Age, Marvel Superheroes, Traveller, Dragon Age and Uncharted Worlds.

There are some advantages to the set-up. The principal one being that it is not a school night, however it is right at the end of a full week of work. I’m usually exhausted by about Thursday afternoon these days, so getting the creative juices flowing, focussed and immersed in a system, setting and story can be difficult. I’d also like to go deeper and run or play in a good long game, with lots of character development and plots that materially affect the characters and setting.

We have lots of options. Forking off and running on another night, in another place, is a possibility, as is the lure of Hangouts, a format that has worked very well before. We have no shortage of games that could run long and well between us, indeed with sufficient enthusiasm most of them would. I have innumerable on my shelves right now. Here are some current contenders:

• Symbaroum – I’ve pitched this for a Longcon in July, so that may sate my needs.
• Yggdrasill – full on Scandia heroics following the in-house campaign from the books.
• The One Ring – so much excellent material to mine.
• Qin – I’d need to put in some serious preparation, which has slightly put me off, but there is an awesome game of loss and hope in that strife ridden setting.
• Traveller – wheel out the new Mongoose edition and let fly. Just because it has always been my playable backstop.
• Mindjammer – Fate in the Far Havens setting.
• Honor+Intrigue – swashbuckling action in 17th Century France. I have no plot but with prompting we’d be away with many an intrigue. I love the Barbarians of Lemuria system.
• Fading Suns – an oldie and a goodie.