for me it just reinforced why i dont like 3e related games.
Doug Williams wrote:My point is if the group isn't roleplaying, it is the fault of the group, not the game.
FormCritic wrote:And, on a totally non-political or religious topic:This week I ran the first "module" I have used in a while:1) I purchased PDF maps of a citadel, a wizard's tower and a pirate ship from 0one games, and I printed out the maps I needed in blue ink. (Oone products are $1.65 or $1.99 apiece on RPGNow, and they are highly utilitarian...you can take out or put in the grid lines and there are other options.)2) I used the Jamis Buck online NPC generator to create advanced stone giants and bugbears (and copied them to Word so I could modify to taste). 3) I got the advanced harpy stats from D20 Online and also modified using Word.4) I printed out two exotic monsters from a PDF of the Monster Manual III 5) I quickly drew a large scale map and a local area map on 11x17 graph paper (from Staples) and....presto! I put all of it in a folio notebook and the entire effect is very much like holding a module in my hands. Except for the larger 11x17 maps, the entire adventure was created electronically. Having barely survived the previous adventure in my campaign...which is located on a moon-sized planet half in darkness and half in light...the party walked out of Nightside's frigid sea of ash, the Mare Frigoris, toward the Mons Phyrrus and the darksider steading of Piraeus. They found Wako Pass garrisoned as expected...but not by darkside elves. Instead, a force of bugbears and stone giants occupied the old guard tower. Three of the player characters moved into overwatch on the tower with dune rifles while the other six reached its main gate cloaked by invisibility. They stormed the tower.... This is a lead-in to the steading of Piraeus, which has been occupied by powerful humanoids. The players are about to discover what has only been hinted at so far....the existence of The Stormbringer Juggernaught (right from Goodman's Dungeon Crawl Classics, but modified to fit my campaign). Owning The Stormbringer Juggernaught on PDF allows me to lift and modify portions of that module to meet my storyline needs. Anyway...interesting to me because most of the adventure is printed from electronic format...allowing me to mix and match and saving me much time. Also, the flexibility of the 3.5 rules allows for highly varied monster stats and unpredictable challenges. What are you up to at the moment?
killjoy32 wrote:i hear ya i love the role-play side of it and i like the combats nice and fast so peeps have to think fast or it doesnt happen the way they want.i just like a good game, simple as that.Al
Plaag wrote:Hum, why do I get the feeling the show Man vs. Wild would be good for your players to watch Mike ShaneG.
FormCritic wrote:Your Night Below campaign is set...I take it...on a large, underground ocean?I like it. My players have always resisted the Underdark. Except for a few new guys who like the R.A. Salvatore novels, the rest positively hate the drow...and I find them a bit thick myself.I think the drow have been overused to redundancy...so I never use them. The exist on my world, but above ground in heavily forested areas, and not underground at all (they would be heavily outnumbered by the dwarves, derro and duergar in my world and wiped out if they tried to go underground). I haven't had a drow as a foe in over 7 years of play...I like your idea of the huge swamp island ruled by a black dragon. I did something similar several campaigns ago, incorporating the basic ideas found in the Judges Guild module, Portals of Torsh.Thanks. I go the idea for that when I was drawing out a large archepelago to set a island chain on, and couldn't figure out good idea for the last island, so just drew a bunch of cross hatching on it and told my players "That island is just one giant swamp, the king has troops there, you don't want to go there". Then started thinking what was on that island and why no one would want to go there..and why the king would covet it. Led to a bunch of plot twists and interesting secrets, and a few cool campaign ideas sprouted forth...about that time I was also reading ICE's Shade of the Sinking Plain, which had a lot of good ideas...and the Dungeon magazine series "Mere of Dead Men"...so it all just came together. And of course my now documented predeliction of nasty terrain and/or weather to adventure in (not a lot of plate mail clad warriors stomping through the swamp....)I have tried to float the idea of "Hey, let's all be dwarves!" My players aren't very enthusiastic...especially the female players...and I hestitate to foist a whole campaign of short and ugly on them.Ditto, no one wants EVERYONE to be a dwarf, so I had to find a way to shoehorn at least humans and halflings (still no elves or half elves, though) into the setting, just to gain any interest at all. I hope to run this one someday, I've already worked up the dwarvish priests and the gnomish mages and how their spell lists would be very different from an above ground party...and have a pretty cool (IMO) campaign arc worked up. My players have been pretty good about the whole thing...putting up with two campaigns in a world where almost all of the fantasy genre cliches have been turned on their sides.They have also taken well to the specialized equipment of my current world....primitive firearms, flamers, primitive grenades, bomb golems, ships that sail on land, magic wheels, etc... They've been pretty good sports.Hey, they can ALWAYS campaign in the standard stereotypical 1000th take on Tolkien's middle earth or the Forgotten Realms or Greyhawk or any number of pseudo medieivel settings out there, I think experienced players especially enjoy having a twist or two to deal with...I have the next campaign on the design table. It will be set in The Empire...a sort of alternative Dark Ages in which Germany was a part of the splintering Roman Empire and Scandanavia is a stronghold of humanoid and giant kingdoms.I figure next campaign it will be time to allow my players to have some fun in a more traditional fantasy setting....one where you could ride a horse, for instance. Also, it will continue the fleshing-out of my inter-connected world setting.Very cool idea, some Dragon mags in the 250s or 260s had a couple of good articles about adveturing in the dark ages...Always thought that would be an interesting settingAlso...two of the most intriguing 3rd Edition fantasy settings I have come across...both by Atlas Games....are Nyambe (fantasy Africa) and Northern Crown (colonial fantasy America). My fantasy campaigns have been to alternative Africa before, but Nyambe is the first complete setting for it I have seen outside of Aesheba, by Fantasy Games Unlimited, which was good but less ambitious.
FormCritic wrote:Your Night Below campaign is set...I take it...on a large, underground ocean?I like it. My players have always resisted the Underdark. Except for a few new guys who like the R.A. Salvatore novels, the rest positively hate the drow...and I find them a bit thick myself.
I like your idea of the huge swamp island ruled by a black dragon. I did something similar several campaigns ago, incorporating the basic ideas found in the Judges Guild module, Portals of Torsh.
I have tried to float the idea of "Hey, let's all be dwarves!" My players aren't very enthusiastic...especially the female players...and I hestitate to foist a whole campaign of short and ugly on them.
My players have been pretty good about the whole thing...putting up with two campaigns in a world where almost all of the fantasy genre cliches have been turned on their sides.They have also taken well to the specialized equipment of my current world....primitive firearms, flamers, primitive grenades, bomb golems, ships that sail on land, magic wheels, etc... They've been pretty good sports.
I have the next campaign on the design table. It will be set in The Empire...a sort of alternative Dark Ages in which Germany was a part of the splintering Roman Empire and Scandanavia is a stronghold of humanoid and giant kingdoms.I figure next campaign it will be time to allow my players to have some fun in a more traditional fantasy setting....one where you could ride a horse, for instance. Also, it will continue the fleshing-out of my inter-connected world setting.
Also...two of the most intriguing 3rd Edition fantasy settings I have come across...both by Atlas Games....are Nyambe (fantasy Africa) and Northern Crown (colonial fantasy America). My fantasy campaigns have been to alternative Africa before, but Nyambe is the first complete setting for it I have seen outside of Aesheba, by Fantasy Games Unlimited, which was good but less ambitious.
killjoy32 wrote:the group were in a passage plotting how to overcome some guards way down the end of the passage, when suddenly the dwarf took off, charging down the corridor to attack. he had got fed up waiting
JohnGaunt wrote:LEEROYYYYYY . . .
Badmike wrote:I get some good idea from that show (Anyone for drinking elephant dung?)
Agent Cooper wrote:Badmike and Formcritic-I really like the campaign ideas. Well thought out, very interesting. As a DM I'm humbled and shamed just reading about them. I just use the Greyhawk Gazeteer with some ad hoc homebrew changes here and there. Badmike: When you mentioned your core rules program, you are speaking of something you created yourself, yes? Is it like a reference or more of an active rules cruncher tool.Either way that's quite an undertaking! Very cool.