Starting a Lords of Creation Campaign!

I think I've talked about my teen players before... several of them run their own games now, which thrills me, even though I'm only a player in my son's OSRIC game right now.  I ask my son questions about the other games after he plays, and I'm always intrigued:  one runs a game called Tephra, several run mash-ups of different versions of D&D with pieces of other games thrown in, and one runs a rules-loose game he created using The Metamorphica to create characters.  All of them seem to mix genres freely.  It makes me happy see that creativity, and I enjoy hearing my son tell me about their games, even if I'm not playing.

It got me thinking, though, that if they don't care much for genre-specificity, I might be able to run a game of Lords of Creation for them.  Although I've owned it since it first came out, I've only run a few short one-shots; it really didn't fit the TSR mold we were used to.

I decided to give it a try.  On the 26th of April, I started small... just my son and one of his buddies, both high school seniors.  I told them both that rather than roll up characters, they were gonna be themselves.  I had them assign themselves values for Muscle, Speed, Stamina and Mental, but told them nothing higher than a 15 or lower than a 7.  They then traded character sheets, just to provide input to each other.  For Luck, I had them roll 2d10 three times and take the average.

I set the game in early June 2019.  That would make Mike a new college graduate, and Greg, who plans on a three year school, a graduate with one year of work under his belt.  I let them adjust their stats a little to account for the next four years, then had them pick skills based on their college and work plans.

We played several hours, and they both seemed to have fun.  Since I'd told Mike I could run the game for five players (until I was comfortable with the rules,) we planned to play again on Tuesday, the 28th, since they only had a half-day of school. When everyone got to the house, I sent Mike and Greg to the basement to play video games while I ran the same character creation scenario with Jake, Logan and Donald.

I'll write about the two sessions in the near future, but the one thing I wanted to point out now was a real surprise to me:  In spite of all these guys having played in my OD&D and Traveller campaigns, and in each others' games, playing as themselves brought an entirely different vibe to the game!  No matter what I described, or how poorly I described it, it was clear, especially with my son, that the experience was far more visceral now that it was happening to THEM, rather than characters they'd made up.  I had a blast and it seemed like they did too!

2015 Gaming Goals

I posted my 2014 Gaming Goals on 1 Jan 14.  As with my 2013 Gaming Goals, I didn't do so well, although I was a little better.  I didn't make my 26 sessions goal and I definitely failed in my blogging goal.  I started my OD&D Player's Guide, but didn't finish it OR print it for my players.  I didn't host any non-RPG game nights either, although we did play a horserace game as one of our non-game parties drew down to 8 people or so.  On the plus side, I created 5 player character sheets; one for each character class (warrior, mage, cleric, thief and adventurer) and included a bunch of class-specific information on the back of each.  I'll post them here in the near future, but each time we play, either I or one of my players points out another edit I've got to do.  Finally, I did manage to start a second group in my OD&D campaign world.  I'm now running both a teen group and an "adult" group.

So what are my goals for 2015?  Here they are:

• Run at least 35 sessions between OD&D campaign and my Traveller campaign
• Blog at least thrice weekly, on average, all year long 
• Finish my OD&D Player's Guide and distribute to my players
• Continue to invite new players to join my games, running additional session for subgroups as time allows
• Host non-RPG game nights to try out some other games 

What are YOUR gaming goals for 2015?

Fully formed?

The last two times we played OD&D, my players asked when we'd play Traveller again.  I wasn't ready, as I've been fully immersed in my OD&D world for a long time, but suddenly I find myself back in the Star Clans universe.  During our last Star Clans session, the characters misjumped to an empty hex far from home, and were out of fuel as we ended the session.  Part of the reason we haven't played for six months was because I wasn't sure what would happen next.  I don't tend to plan things out in my game worlds; random events occur because of die rolls during play, and between sessions, I won't give things much thought until something big jumps into my head, 90% complete.

That happened twice in the last two weeks with Traveller.  I knew exactly what to write up for the next session... until two days ago, when the first scenario was completely replaced!  Now it's just a matter of jotting down some notes and scheduling the next game!

Am I the only DM/Referee who "discovers" his world rather than creating it?

2014 Gaming Goals

I posted my 2013 Gaming Goals back on 23 Dec 12.  How did I do?  Well, the first goal was to run my Traveller game at least monthly... FAIL - I only ran 7 games!  The second goal was to start my OD&D campaign... SUCCESS - I ran about a dozen games.  Third goal was to start running OD&D with another group, not made up of my son's friends:  FAIL.  My final gaming goal was to do a better job blogging, both in terms of frequency and length/content... PARTIAL SUCCESS - Overall blog count was up, but I slacked off after the school year started, so frequency fell to zero.  Not so hot, 2013!


For 2014, my gaming goals are as follows:

• Run at least 26 sessions with my current gaming group, including both my OD&D and Traveller campaigns 
• Blog at least thrice weekly, all year long 
• Create a "players' guide" to my OD&D world, and print it for each of my players 
• Start a second group in my OD&D campaign, with a group of coworkers/friends 
• Host non-RPG game nights to try out some other games 

What are YOUR gaming goals for 2014?

A Great Week of Gaming!

Last week was a great week of gaming for our group!  On Monday, I ran my Star Clans Traveller game at V's house.  This was the first time at other than my house for this campaign.  V's older sister, L3, is home for the summer, and joined us as a new player.  V's Dad is around my age, and would have joined us, but he felt the table was too full.  Instead, he stood by commenting (both to me privately and to the players) and generally having a good time with us.  He was a big player of Traveller in college, so maybe next time, M2?

On Tuesday, I ran my OD&D game at my house.  For that game, I made two rule changes.  Since I recently found and downloaded a .pdf of Supplement I (Greyhawk), I converted the thieves to those rules.  I had been using Jimm Johnson's house rules for the thief class from his Planet Eris.  Of course, we've only had thieves for a few sessions, since it took most players far longer than I expected to level up from zero!  The other change I made was to do away with the OD&D experience awards in favor of trying out Alexis Smolensk's experience system from his "The Tao of D&D."  I liked it a lot, and several players commented in favor of it as well.  You can read about it in Alexis' own words here, but the short take is that you get 10 xp for every point of damage you cause, and 20 xp for every point of damage you take; and the party as a whole gets an equal share of another 20 xp per for all the damage the party suffered as a whole.  I'll use this system for a few more games and see how it goes, but at first blush I think it'll be a keeper for my OD&D campaign.

On Wednesday, we went to S's house (she normally Skypes in from college but she, too, is home for the summer), and my son ran his 2nd edition AD&D game.  M's game is the only one I play in, and I'm having lots of fun playing my rogue, Corrin Aledrinker.  We had no luck getting S's Dad to play (he's also right around my age), even though he played years ago... but we'll keep trying!

All-in-all, lots of fun last week!

Traveller game last night...

We played Traveller last night... first game since the first of March!  Rather than our usual 9+ players, we only had 7, and I think that made a huge difference!  While I could probably run 15 in my OD&D game, Traveller is a MUCH bigger sandbox.  With travel times between even the closest two stars of a week, it becomes far too difficult to run if the group splinters:  OK, you stay on planet X to look for a patron, while you book a high passage to planet Y to do the same.  That week in hyperspace is a single die roll (to check for drive problems), while that week on planet X could be daily activities, appropriate encounters, success of search, etc.  I don't like to have players sit at the table when they're not involved, for several reasons:  in-game, they learn things their characters shouldn't or wouldn't know, and out-of-game, they tend to get bored and become distracting to either me or the active players.  Even with just 7, this happened, but it was easier to deal with than when the group is bigger.

In my Star Clans campaign, I have them working directly for the O'er King (leader of the interstellar govt) but they're given wide latitude in terms of timing and specific actions, so I don't feel like I'm railroading them.  I use random events (the tables from the old AD&D Oriental Adventures are great!) to plan my "future history," and player actions directly affect the flow, so I'm as often surprised by the direction things go as they are.  Keeps it fresh for me as well.  

Their current "mission" is to expand the Ardeni Kingdoms... and they've done very well.  Each time they visit a system, I let them make their arguments with the local leaders.  If their argument rings true to the locals (given what I know of the govt type and my notes on the leaders), I give them a bonus on the reaction roll... if not, they either get a straight roll or even a negative modifier if they misjudge the locals.  

Of course, they could tell they O'er King they're done with that, and move on to something else, and I actually expected them to... Overall, the game did NOT go where I expected last night, but that's fantastic for me!  They opted to continue their diplomatic & trade mission, and were very successful.  And they all seemed to have a good time.  

Now, if only the larger group would believe me when I tell them they can opt out of one game (Traveller) and still be included in the others (OD&D, AD&D 2e, etc.)... Yeah, I know, it's the equivalent of a "First World Problem!"  We have TOO MANY players to run a single group!  (More on that later...)

Another Great Day of Gaming!

We met again today... this time to play in my son's DnD campaign world, then to play in my own Star Clans Traveller campaign.

We spent about an hour revising our characters to handle the move from DnD 4e to AD&D 2nd ed.  Some folks opted to start from scratch, others converted backwards, rebuilding 2nd edition characters as close as possible to the 4e characters we had.  For those who kept their characters, we recalculated experience based on the percentage from current level to next level... one of the kids said, "Wow, we actually CAN use algebra outside of school."

Once we got underway, the game was a lot of fun.  We played for about 4 hours and by sheer luck managed to work our way through the dungeon almost directly to the sceptre we were asked to retrieve by the local Big Wig.  We lost one character... one of the 4e retreads... a dragonborn.  We managed to find a cleric willing to resurrect the character, but a failed resurrection survival  roll meant another quick death... and no more chances to come back.

Afterwards, my son said he was thrilled with how much less time he had to spend on mechanics and how much more on interacting with us players.

In my Star Clans game, the party was asked to attempt to bring two more worlds into alliance with the Ardeni Kingdoms.  Two characters ended up in jail on one of the worlds in the middle of negotiationsr, and the rest of the group told the local government they should try them according to local law to show the Ardeni Kingdoms wouldn't interfere in local politics.  They were asked to head home, then come back a few months later, so headed back to their starship and took off for Arden.  In the meantime, one of the two party members who was in jail used his psionic telportation to jump directly from his cell to his stateroom on the ship before it lifted off... The game ended with the pilot rolling a misjump.  Odd whine from the engine, and after a week, they didn't drop out of hyperspace where they expected... in fact they didn't drop out at all!  We ended for the night at that point, with the party trying to decide if they could shove someone out of the airlock in hyperspace!  I'll post the game report tomorrow after work over on Star Clans.

2013 Gaming Goals

Tim, over at Gothridge Manor, asked this question the other day, "So now the world is not ending, what game are you hoping to get into this year?  What gaming goal, if you have one, would you like to accomplish?"

My gaming goals for 2013 are several... First, I want to run my Star Clans Traveller game at least monthly.  This will probably be the tough one, since the current players are my son's high school marching band friends, a group of young people with very little free time!  Second, I want to finally start the OD&D campaign that's been floating around in my head since summer.  I may actually run two groups there, my son's friends, and a group on the Air Force base where I work.  There's a nice cafeteria/lounge area that's available in the evenings, and I know of several folks there who might be interested.

Finally, I WILL do a better job of posting on my blog(s), both in terms of frequency, and length/content!

Mercator

While looking for ideas for interstellar trade in my Star Clans campaign, I came across a sweet little book translating the original Traveller ruleset to ancient Rome.  Very cool!

Here's the description that caught my eye:

A complete 56 page rules conversion of the Classic Traveller rules-set, turning it from interstellar trade to trade in the Roman Empire! New career tables allow you to roll up centurions from Rome, thieves fromAntioch and even tribunes from Caesarea! Of course there are rules for ancient trade, for sailing and weather and also for encounters and equipment in the Roman Empire. Trade in Aramis for Alexandria,Efate for Ephesus and Kinorb for Corinth!


The site has other interesting documents as well.  Check it out here:

Zozer Traveller Notes