East Texas University: Freshman Year - Meet The Cast!

So we have started East Texas University, and I am probably going to post my ETU stuff up here on the blog, for those interested. With this campaign, I went the route of having the group "cast" their characters with actors and such.

I'll try to keep up with at least rudimentary actual plays as well.

SO...let's meet the cast of ETU: Freshman Year!

Russ "Bad Moon" Rison, Pinebox Texas' Favorite Son!




Russ "Bad Moon" Rison (three time State Champion Quarterback) had his season - and dreams of being a Texas Longhorn - ended when he tore up his knee his Senior year. His cannon arm and football mind, combined with an intense rehab schedule, left him in prime position for a scholarship from the ETU Ravens, especially when his old Wide Receiver "Racin'" Mason Holmes transferred from Texas University after being cut from the Longhorns for disciplinary reasons.

"Bad Moon" and "Racin'" Mason are dead set on leading ETU to its best football years ever...even if players keep mysteriously disappearing.

Major: Agriculture (But really football)
Extracurricular Activity: Athlete
Agility: d4
Smarts: d6
Spirit: d8
Strength: d8
Vigor: d6

Cha: 0     Pace: 6     Parry: 5     Toughness: 5     Academics: 0

Edges
Local Favorite
Command

Hindrances
Overconfident
Party Animal
Trouble Magnet
Minor Phobia (Woods)

Skills
Knowledge (Agriculture) d6
Fighting d6
Tracking d6
Boating d4
Driving d4
Shooting d4
Throwing d6
Knowledge (Football) d6
Notice d4

Transportation
Used Pick with slick tires (-1 to Driving)

Becka Nicole Lane, Just a Girl, Trying to Make Her Way in the World



Becka came to ETU mostly because it was affordable. Here for her teaching degree, she gets pulled along into wacky adventures by her roommate Brandi, who is a Pinebox native and Bad Moon's biggest fan. Becka and Brandi are a liiiittle on the scatterbrained side, though Becka takes life and college a little more serious than Brandi does. Becka hasn't talked much about her life before ETU, but her sweet appearance seems to hide a harder edge.

Major: Education
Extracurricular Activity: Tutoring
Agility: d8
Smarts: d6
Spirit: d6
Strength: d4
Vigor: d8

Cha: 0     Pace: 6     Parry: 5     Toughness: 6     Academics: -2

Edges
Ambidextrous
Fast Healer

Hindrances
Major Phobia (Bugs)
ADHD
Annoying Roommate (Brandi)

Skills
Knowledge (Education) d4
Fighting d6
Shooting d6
Driving d6
Healing d4
Notice d6
Lockpicking d6
Streetwise d4
Persuasion d4

Transportation
Used Midsized Car with an engine that slips (-10 to top speed)

Jonathan T. Wolfwood, aka Europe, The Vampire of Pennsylvania



Jonathan T. Wolfwood, Anthropology Major and son of the East Coast Wolfwoods, has come to ETU to get out from under the thumb of his overprotective parents (yeah, right). While he is genuinely curious about the mysteries of the world, he is quick to rationalize anything out of the ordinary, even when the supernatural is staring him in the face. "Racin'" Mason and "Bad Moon" Rison are convinced he's a homosexual European vampire, but they don't care, as long as he can kick a football (which he can't, and has no interest in doing).

Major: Anthropology
Extracurricular Activity: Part-Time Job (Teacher's Aide)
Agility: d6
Smarts: d8
Spirit: d6
Strength: d4
Vigor: d6

Cha: +2     Pace: 6     Parry: 2     Toughness: 5     Academics: +2

Edges
Noble
Test Taker
Brave

Hindrances
Curious
Doubting Thomas
Overprotective Parents

Skills
Knowledge (Anthropology) d6
Healing d4
Investigation d6
Notice d6
Repair d4
Driving d4
Shooting d6
Swimming d4
Taunt d6

Transportation
New Pick-Up Truck

With Special Guest Stars (aka NPCs)...

"Racin'" Mason Holmes



Mason Holmes could have been a huge college star if he had kept his head on straight, but his freshman year at Texas University ended with him kicked off the football team for disciplinary issues, and him transferring to ETU, where his former High School Quarterback "Bad Moon" Rison was about to start school. Mason...isn't the brightest tool in the shed, laser focused on football above all else, and his views towards women are a bit...suspect...but he is loyal to a fault.

Major: Undeclared (But really football)
Agility: d10
Smarts: d4
Spirit: d6
Strength: d6
Vigor: d6

Cha: +4     Pace: 8     Parry: 5     Toughness: 5

Edges
Very Attractive
Fleet-Footed
Quick

Hindrances
Loyal
Clueless
Misogynistic
Major Phobia (Fire)

Skills
Climbing d6
Driving d6
Fighting d6
Notice d4
Intimidation d6
Persuasion d6

Brandi Jo Miller, Becka's Roommate and Bad Moon's Girlfriend (Maybe)

Brandi is Pinebox born and bred, and has a huge crush on "Bad Moon" Rison. They had Chemistry class together and she once accidentally caused Bad Moon to fail a test, because she let him cheat off of her notes, which were kind of bad. She has decided that her and Becka will be besties, and her and Bad Moon are totally going to be a thing, to the point that she's considering trying out for the Ravens Cheer Squad.

Major: Criminal Justice
Agility: d6
Smarts: d6
Spirit: d6
Strength: d4
Vigor: d6

Cha: +2     Pace: 6     Parry: 2     Toughness: 5

Edges
Attractive

Hindrances
ADHD
Fraidy Cat

Skills
Driving d6
Knowledge (Criminal Justice) d4
Notice d6
Persuasion d6
Taunt d6

And there's the main cast! Stats actually reflect two adventures down (which I'll try to get recapped soon).

Tommy's Take on Star Wars Force and Destiny Beginner Game

Star Wars is kind of a big deal. I tend to be kinda ambivalent, though I love the idea of Star Wars. I own (and have played) Star Wars d6 2nd Edition, d20 and Saga Edition, and have enjoyed the former and the latter. As a belated birthday present, I received the Star Wars Force and Destiny Beginner Game, which I ran for my 11 year old son and one of my longtime gamer buddies.

Three Kickstarters and a Sale

Hey all, just popping in to boost the signal for three Kickstarters and a sale that you need to be aware of (see, it's right there in the title)!

DARKMOOR RPG

The Darkmoor RPG is a zany, over the top, video game inspired RPG that pulls from all kinds of pop culture elements. You define your race and class, and even have to provide all of your own drawings (actually talent hopefully not needed). You beat the cash out of enemies, level up in glowing bursts of light, and create hyper awesome special moves. Paul "Wiggy" Wade-Williams, of Triple Ace Games, has agreed to write a minisupplement for the game, and you can download an Introductory Guide that gives you a better idea of how the game works. The project is already funded, though not by a comfortable margin, with four days left to go, and you can pick up digital, softcover or hardcover rewards.

RIPPERS RESURRECTED

With five days left to go, Rippers Resurrected has demolished its funding goal and all but one of their stretch goals - a print compilation of the adventures unlocked as stretch goals, which will be given free to backers of the print levels. Rippers Resurrected as a sequel to the Rippers setting/plot point campaign (which is included as one of the stretch goals) in which Victorian monster hunters find and defeat monsters and "rip" their body parts and special abilities and add them to their bodies to gain an edge against the monsters...all while trying not to lose their grip on humanity. Pinnacle has a stellar track record on Kickstarter fulfillment, and the PDFs are set for delivery before Halloween so you can run Rippers for your group if you like. You can also add Savage Tales of Horror to your pledge, including my Deadlands adventure in vol. 2!

THE NINJA CRUSADE 2ND EDITION

Hot on the heels of the fulfillment of the Apocalypse Prevention Inc. 2nd Edition Kickstarter, Eloy Lasanta is overhauling Wu Xing: The Ninja Crusade into a slightly less "crunchy" and more cinematic RPG. I have made no bones about what a fan of the first edition I am, and I was both nervous and intrigued by this upcoming 2nd edition. Dispensing with the d20-based Dynamic Gaming System, the 2nd edition will use the Chakra System, a d10 die pool system. Another huge improvement is supposed to be a system for making enemies up on the fly, very useful for a game such as The Ninja Crusade that leans heavily on PC-like foes over a bestiary. The Ninja Crusade still needs over $3,000 to hit their funding goal, but they have 19 days left to hit it. Third Eye Games has a sterling track record for Kickstarter fulfillment as well, so you can pledge with confidence.

NEOPLASTIC PRESS PAY WHAT YOU WANT SALE

In the Halloween spirit, Rafael Chandler - one of the sickest, most twisted RPG authors I know, and I mean that as a compliment - has offered seemingly everything in his back catalog (aside from SlaughterGrid, it seems) as Pay What You Want (including nothing) through Halloween. I, personally, recommend Pandemonio, which is his revision of his Dread and Spite RPGs, but you really don't have anything to lose by taste-testing any of his stuff, do you? And if you like what you read, go back and "buy" the PDFs. That's kinda how Pay What You Want works.

A Year With D&D Fifth Edition

So, a little over a year ago, I talked my friends into humoring me and giving Dungeons & Dragons Fifth Edition a try. They knew I had been staunchly anti-D&D for years and I don't think they took me seriously. Since I don't know how to do anything small, I set out to run The Hoard of the Dragon Queen for the group.

We are now closing in on the end of The Rise of Tiamat and the entire Tyranny of Dragons campaign. As appealing as Princes of the Apocalypse and Out of the Abyss look, odds are good that we are playing something other than D&D when this is finished, but we haven't decided for sure yet (and I am probably running at least a short campaign for my son).

So, I thought I would blog about my experiences as a DM for the last year. I have ran Rules Cyclopedia D&D, AD&D 2e (a LOT) and D&D 3/.5. I have read all kinds of books up and down the D&D lineage, including 4th Edition. I grew bothered by the rigidity of the 2e rules (though I loved the settings) and the insane amount of math and modifiers for 3rd edition (this being a huge part of the reason why I have never indulged in Pathfinder).

• The backwards compatibility is amazing. I have managed to pull items and monsters from Labyrinth Lord, 2nd Edition and 3rd Edition with only minor modifications and drop them into my 5e games with no fuss. This means that my available content was loads larger than the five books in the initial wave. I have peppered the campaign with magic items from the 2e Encyclopedia Magica and the 3e Book of Vile Darkness, and used Small Niche Games' Inn of Lost Heroes as a side trek in Hoard of the Dragon Queen to hugely dramatic effect. Huge win on 5e's part.
• Critical hits are bland. Doubling your dice roll and adding modifiers was too boring for us. We agreed to double damage after modifiers, and I added a critical hit chart I found online. This had led to great moments, like powerful enemies mortally wounded and bleeding out, and even one PC losing their hand in a fight. Everyone agreed that this was an improvement over Rules as Written.
• Despite simplifying things, it can still be easy to get lost in the Action, Reaction, Bonus action cycle. No one at the table gets too bent out of shape about anything, so if there's confusion, we just kinda roll with it and I look up the actual rule after the fact. This particularly comes into play when extra attacks are involved. Still better than trying to track a Fighter's 3 attacks every 2 rounds.
• Advantage/Disadvantage in place of the various fiddly modifiers is absolutely brilliant and I love it. Simplifying +/-  into "Roll 2d20 and take the highest/lowest"? Wonderful. And yes, it IS still possible for players to whiff a roll with Advantage, as one player in my game has rolled double 1s more than once while rolling with Advantage.
• The math for Challenge Ratings and the like is absolutely and gloriously borked. I learned very quickly that CR 5 may well mean that the beast will get smoked by a single level 5 Barbarian, while a couple of CR 1 guys may absolutely shred a group of level 4 characters. I *like* this. This makes the world feel more "real" and less like a well-balanced game, and causes level 12 characters to go "Let's see if we can sneak around that ogre" instead of "Just one ogre? Let's bag him".
• When the DMG came out, we added in Proficiency Dice (a die you roll instead of flat bonuses, that scales up as you level up). Coming from Savage Worlds, it made my group feel more comfortable with the mechanics. It also helped the whiff factor early on. Now that they are on to d10s as Proficiency Dice, though, I feel like it's a touch overpowered. Not sure I would use it in another game.
• We also added Hero Points, which are a number of points you can get per level that allow you to add a d6 to your die roll. Similar to Savage Worlds bennies, these were also met with universal approval. I would keep them in the future, but I think I might add the "scaling effect" of Proficiency Dice. Roll a d10 to try to make a Saving Throw still has a ton of risk, but also has enough reward to make you seriously consider it.
• Speaking of the DMG: Their Horror/Madness rules are frightening, and nearly led to a TPK in Ravenloft when most of the party was disabled by them (one PC was paralyzed with fear, while another was driven to rage and left attacking the closest thing to him...which was party members more than once).
• Legendary Actions are extra actions that certain monsters can take in a fight, giving them multiple actions on a round. Not only does this make certain monsters (looking at you, dragons) absolutely terrifying, but it also largely prevents a group of PCs versus a monster from turning into a one sided gang up curb stomp when the monster is attacking multiple times around (and then getting multiple attacks on a round). Throw in Lair actions and the PCs have had to earn their victories.
• Attunement is another great feature. Essentially, some magic items (namely really powerful ones) require Attunement. You can only attune to three items at a time. This prevents PCs from having loads and loads of items. The number of items our group owns has crept up through the campaign, but they are also level 15 now, and I have tried to keep magic items a little more rare but a little more powerful.
• I ditched the requirement for Spell Scrolls that state that the spell must be on your class' spell list and allow anyone to use the scroll...but if they fail, they risk the Scroll Mishaps table. I like my magic being just a bit more dangerous, what can I say?
• Combat isn't as fast as Savage Worlds, but it's not horribly slow. Much better than I remembered 3rd Edition being by a long shot. Even with the PCs at level 14-15, everything tends to run pretty quickly. I did give everyone index cards so they could write down the details of their spells and abilities for easy reference. That helps.
• I did think they needed Mass Combat Rules, so I ripped off the Savage Worlds/Army of Darkness Combat Rules. When they actually released Mass Combat Rules, I still preferred mine...but I love the Savage Worlds Mass Combat rules.
• God, I love the release schedule. So glad they aren't just flooding the market with books. A few adventure books, followed by a bunch of stuff released for free online? That's aces in my book.
• The Tyranny of Dragons campaign has been fun, and I have found it terribly easy to add my own flourishes to it (including adding in involvement from the Drow, a Lord of Hell and a side trek to Ravenloft). Are there parts that weren't detailed very well? Well, yes. But I have been GMing over 20 years. I can fill in a few blanks here and there. We have had epic moments, I have nearly driven one player to tears with story twists, and we have laughed hysterically at some of the events that have occurred. I call that a success, folks.

My initial reactions to the 5e Player's Handbook were very positive. This is why I cancelled my planned 13th Age game and ran 5e instead. A year later, nearing the end of a campaign that was fairly broadly panned online (for both being a "railroad" and for being "too open", somehow), we have had a blast, and I feel very secure in calling this my favorite version of D&D ever made, even if I'm not willing to call it my favorite RPG.

Great job, Wizards. I was looking for something to scratch that "D&D itch", and I found it. Keep up the good work.

Savage Tales of Horror is Here!

I have been a pro wrestling champion, I have published comic books, and now I have an honest to God official Deadlands adventure under my name.

If I die tomorrow, let it be said that I achieved goals that I reached for in life.

Melodramatic? Maybe. What do you expect from an ex-pro wrestler turned comic book writer turned RPG writer?

Inspired by a folk song, Love on the Mountain is written with Deadlands in mind, but is completely compatible with The Sixth Gun RPG or playable with just the Horror Companion, and it is found in Savage Tales of Horror volume 2, along with several other amazing horror adventures.

You can preorder the bundle today and get the first two volumes in PDF right now!

And I would dearly love to know what you think.

#RPGaDay Day 31: Favorite Non-RPG Thing to Come Out of RPGs

A sense of community.

God knows this hobby can get up its own ass at times with edition wars and you're playing it wrong and that book shouldn't be for sale, but then you see publishers and creators banding together, rallying around community members who have lost children, or spouses, or have learned they are very ill, or who have lost their homes due to natural disaster. Many times, our hobby rallies around people in times of disaster even when we don't know that even a single gamer was affected.

It really tends to make the standard weekly drama bearable when you remember the love and beauty that people are capable of.

#RPGaDay Day 30: Favorite RPG Playing Celebrity

You can keep your Wil Wheatons and Vin Diesels and Stephen Colberts...this one was an easy pick for me:

Credit to Stezak for creating this image.

Tim Duncan of the San Antonio Spurs has not only won all of the awards and accolades listed above, but he's a HUGE Dungeons & Dragons fan, and - by most accounts - is a completely selfless teammate and a gentleman to deal with.

#RPGaDay Day 29: Favorite RPG Website

Honestly, I don't have a lot of destination sites. As a reviewer, I avoid other reviewer sites, especially if it's a book I haven't reviewed, so their impressions don't paint my own.

That said, there are great resources all over the internet for games that I wind up stealing from, and I access almost all of that from my Google+ stream...so Google+ it is.

#RPGaDay Day 28: Favorite RPG I No Longer Play

Cheating again on this one and adding two:

I don't think I have ran this since my friend Kenny moved to Boston. Sad, really, given how much I love it.

The next one is...

I thoroughly enjoy the Cinematic Unisystem, and my favorite incarnation is the Angel RPG with the Buffy Magic Box supplement. Anytime I run this game, people tend to enjoy it, but it never lasts for more than a couple of episodes. I'm so frustrated I no longer even try. =/

#RPGaDay Day 27: Favorite Idea for Combining Two Games

More like a setting and a game, but Midnight was sure satisfying when I used Jeff Scifert's conversion to Savage Worlds.