D&D 4th Edition on Google+: The Serpent returns, part 1.

After having gone through Scales of War's first dungeon we have decided to staart a new adventure. This time it was me DM-ing for the guys, and we got a couple of new players as well.

So I have decided to try and introduce a Hungarian-made adventure, designed for an event called "The Dawn of Heroes". This adventure is called "The Serpent returns", for level 1 adventurers.

So, here's the first summary of two sessions:

The adventure started in Escondite, an old pirate hideout, now transformed into a busy city. They party was chatting and drinking in the Treasure Den, an old and far from luxurious tavern in the docks. 

Suddenly, the wall shattered into pieces by a fireball, and in a few seconds some strange looking figures were stepping over the smoking debris. They were pirates for sure, but of the worse type, all of them undead, with their captain behind them. A fierce battle started between the adventurers and these marauders, and there were some times when victory didn't seem so sure. During the battle the adventurers noticed a strange tattoo on the neck of the pirate leader, but they couldn't just figure out its nature. The Warlord was close to death two times, but thanks to the Warlock's Flames of Phlegetos, the captain met his final death, and the party triumphed over these cutthroats. 

After the final blow the mysterius tatto on the captain's neck diappeared and the characters felt their necks burning. A few seconds passed and the pain was gone, but the exact same tattoo could now be seen on everyone's necks. To make things more frightetning, as they looked out of the taverns blow-off wall, they could see a ship, anchored not too far from the shore. They felt a strange familiartiy with it, so decided to have a look at it, after looting the corpses of course. They found 50 gold and a silver key on the captain's body.

On its deck they met Viktor, the first mate, an ugly little man, who called them "Massshterssh". They also saw many dead bodies lying around, and they got to know it was their crew, but their sould need some time to adjust to the new captains. Because they were the new captains of the Serpent, a thousand-year-old ship, endlessly cruising on the seas. 

The party decided to explore their new property, sending Viktor to scrub the  deck and make the ship look more decent. In the captains cabin they found his journal. It didn't make too much sense to them at first, but after some thorough reading they managed to decipher its main content: the captain was after five artifacts here in Escondite, following cloudy prophecies. The riddles were:

- "Down in the nest of the Kraken lies what has to battle storms on the highest point."

- "Find the Eye of the Serpent below the House of Treasures, on its journey follow the Path of the Wild."

- "The Shackle's Key is the key of your own destiny as well. It hides deep within the home of the imprisoned, and only the Elder knows its location."

- "Look for the Messenger of Destruction in the light of the Red Moon, its claw shows your path."

- "They think it dropped from the eyes of Sea Mother, but the fools worship my treasure."

The artifacts looked intriguing to them, so the party decided to go after these prophecies, and get these relics to themselves. They spread out in Escondite, each of them trying to find their contacts in the city and getting them to talk, and hopefully receive some useful information. 
Gallant Gregory, a retired old pirate helped them arrange a meeting with Kraken Erg, the leader of Escondite's thieves, and also told them that the Messenger of Destruction is "some voodoo-stuff" and directed them towards the Stinky Swamp, to look for answers there.
They also visited the temple of Melora, where they met Reverend Rosalia who showed them the Tear of Melora. After leaving the cathedral the party agreed that it will be no easy task to steal the gem from under the noses of a high priestess and several paladins. 
An Tsen Ji, the old librarian of Escondite told them that the House of Treasures is in fact the Tresure Den, the tavern which was attacked by the pirates. 
Doomsayer Dalgo, a dirty and fat dim-witted halfling was rambling about the Messenger of Doom, who will come and destroy all of them, but the party couldn't get any more useful out of him.
Long Leon, thug and distance-pissing champion confirmed, that the Kraken is in fact Kraken Erg, the old dwarf rogue.
So far the party didn't care too much about the home of the imprisoned.
So after a lot of talking and and some more footwork, they have decided to meet Kraken Erg, and try to gamble for the artifact he has. We will see if they succeed...

The party consisted of a Dragonborn Warlord, a Dwarf Fighter, a Tiefling Warlock, an Eladrin Mage and a Human Rogue. One more character will join them sometime, hopefully from the next session.
As a summary for the technical side, except for the confusion in the beginning for setting up the hangout, roll20 works perfectly in the Google+ Hangout, running the battles smoothly and the journal option is a great way to show my players the NPC, journals, other illustrations I dig up on the internet. 
I really hope we will continue like this throughout the whole adventure, I am having great fun so far DM-ing this adventure, I think this is a great module to run. 
Next session is going to be in early March, I'll try to write its summary as soon as I can.

AD&D - Mystery in Loudwater

As a warm-up for an AD&D campaign I am preparing I decided to run a one-shot game for the guys at the Kingston Gaming Group. I have taken an adventure I read in a Hungarian role-playing magazine and adopted it from D&D 3.0 to AD&D, luckily it didn't take too much effort. I also made 5 pre-generated characters for my players to save some time, and to solely concentrate on the story and the system, because they didn't play AD&D 2nd Edition so far.
In a gaming session of about 4 hours I managed to present half of the story, and I hope we can finish the adventure next time we play. So here is a little summary of the events occured so far:

The party started their adventure in the Scarlet Shield Inn. They arrived in Loudwater just the previous day to investigate some strange disappearances of which they were told on their journeys in the area. Of course, they weren't willing to do anything for the sake of some peasants, they were after some hard cash.
After a good luch Remarda the halfling was just getting warmed-up in the telling of how delicious could unicorn flesh could taste when her daydreaming was rudely interrupted by one of the local lumberjacks, who charged into the inn and made his plea to save his son from the clutches of goblins.
At first our mercenaries were really reluctant to help, not even the offered 200 gold pieces for each of them could sweeten the deal. After some begging of the locals they naggingly decided to set out to Southwood and try to help Pelok, the son of the lumberjack.
After about half an hour there they stood, at the edge of the Southwood, and with the help of the lumberjack, whose name they didn't even care to ask, they quickly found the place where Pelok was abducted by the little beasts. The track were easy to recognise, and they started to follow in a great pace to catch up with the monsters. They marched for the rest of the day, after a few hours they ran into a goblin ambush, but it was nothing they couldn't handle, and they even managed to capture on of their attackers, with Remarda's lucky shot shattering its knee. Fin, the elven wizard wasn't against causing some pain to the goblin, and he hit the injured knee a couple of times to make the little runt more talkative. In the end they found out that they were indeed on the right track, and Palok was still alive, but time was running out for them, because the goblins wanted to sacrifice him for their god, Maglubiyet. They also learned that somethng called "Messenger of Maglubiyet" was aiding the goblins, but they couldn't make it out what it could be.
After disposing of the now useless goblin, they decided to push on to gain on their prey, and with the firm lead of Tastil the dwarf fighter, they even managed to march on by night. Around midnight though they came accross some lost merchants, who were sitting beside a small campfire. Fletcher, priest of Oghma spoke for the party, telling the merchants they mean them no harm, but that they can't stay and share a bread, because they are after the goblins, who have quite an advantage.
While following the tracks of the prey, Fletcher came to a worrying discovery: it was too easy to follow the goblins, they didn't take the least effort to conceal their tracks. Maybe they were leading them? They found out soon enough...
Late in the morning they finally arrived to a great clearing at the feet of a hill. Crude, small huts occupied this space, surrounding a suspicious cave. 20 feet in front of the cave they found Pelok, tied to some totem-pole carved with primitive demonic figures. The most strange feature was the emptiness of the camp, but not for long. After the party entering the camp, more than a hundred goblins emerged from the bushes, surrounding the adventurers. With the lead of their shaman, they began chanting Mag-lu-bi-yet, Mag-lu-bi-yet...
A fearsome roar came as an answer from the cave, and a manticore emerged from its shadows! The beast didn't waste any time, he fired some tail spikes at the adventurers, and after Tastil charged in close quarters, it decided to take flight. Theo, the party's other fighter, who was swinging a greatsword, up to this point was so annoyed with the goblins that he didn't care about the manticore but charged the goblin shaman, inflicting a dangerous wound upon his enemy. But the shaman knew better to retaliate, and just withdrew. Fletcher meanwhile managed to convince the blood-thirsty fighter to seek prey elsewhere, and attack the manitcore. Fin hurled all his spells at the fearsome opponent, while Reamarda, Theo and Tastil attacked it with their ranged weapons. Fletcher cast a Bless spell at his comrades, but the hard marching took its toll on the priest, as he fumbled some words of his prayer because of exhaustion, and his spell fizzled.
With a supreme shot, Theo's arrow struck the manticore right in the heart and the beast fell onto a hut, and moved no more. The goblins, totally demoralized, scattered into the bushes, leaving the party to their triumph over a formidable adversary.
Is this the final victory, or has this adventure something more sinister to offer?

Project CELTICA - Skills

This time I'll write about skills a bit. Well, I mostly picked the "common" skills for an RPG, and I tried to tame it as much as I could to the system I had in my mind.
I am imagining the skills in a 5-scale system, and to improve to a new rank, one has to pay for the previous ranks too from his/her skill points.
Making a skill check is a d12 + dx + Ability bonus roll, "x" means the die given by the skill level.
So it would go like this:

• Beginner - d4 - costs 1 SP
• Apprentice - d6 - costs 2 SP (3 SP total)
• Journeyman - d8 - costs 3 SP (6 SP total)
• Expert - d10 - costs 4 SP (10 SP total)
• Master - d12 - costs 5 SP (15 SP total)

At character creation I'm planning not to let the players take skills above Apprentice level. The amount of skill points a character gets in the beginning and per level is still a think to be thought over, I would like to make the skill list first. 

A skill can't be improved more than one level at a level up. An exception is when a character decides to sacrifice 5-10 years of his to learn the trade, e.g. Blacksmithing. Then he can improve his skill more than a rank, but in the meantime, ha mostly focuses on learning the trade rather than chasing monsters and treasures.

About the DC-s of the checks I would set the following:

Easy - 8, Medium - 12, Hard - 15, Challenging - 18, Heroic - 22.

My method setting these numbers was to allow a character "skilled on that DC level" to have a good chance to succeed on his roll. So, for instance a Rogue is an apprentice in picking locks. He is trying to pick an ordinary lock, which is a  DC 12 check. With a Dexterity bonus of +2, his roll is d12 + d6 + 2, so on average this roll would be a 12. 

So these are the plans for the skills, I'll post the skill list sometime later, I still have to think them through. Next time I'm going to describe some general ideas I have in mind for the game, just as I have them written down in my little notes.

Project CELTICA - Combat system

It has been a long time since I last posted on this blog of mine, I have been busy with my other, Hungarian blog, plus I have been moving to England. Hopefully I'll have more time from now on to make posts here too. My aim is to write about Project Celtica more (I have made some progress since), plus some summaries about games I play here, with an English group I have yet to find.

So now, I'm going to write about the system of Celtica, first of all, combat.
As I mentioned, the core dice will be the d12, and the maximum ability bonus is going to be +3. So, according to this, the planned method for rolling an attack:
d12 + dx (weapon damage) + ability bonus + class attack bonus
Some remarks for this:

• With the attack roll we also get the damage, which speeds up battles. Maybe some weapons get some bonus damage (the big, heavy ones), which doesn't count for rolling attack. But that's just an idea so far.
• For ability bonus Strength or Dexterity could apply, depending on the weapon.
• Class attack bonus would be the following: Fighters - class level/2, Rogues - class level/3, Wizards - class level/5. This way the superiority of fighters could be working above the other classes.

So this way a 4th level Fighter with +2 Strength bonus wielding a bastard sword would calculate like this:

d12 + d10 + 2 + 2. The average roll would be 15.

On Defense we have agreed to having a fix score, also to make battles go faster. The character's Defense score would be calculates like this:

7 + half weapon damage + Dexterity bonus + shield or bracer.

Some thoughts:

• The base is 7, because it's the average roll on d12.
• We apply half of the weapon's maximum damage because in a fight, weapons are usually used to deflect blows. This doesn't cause any damage, just applies for defense.
• Dexterity bonus for dodging, parrying, etc.
• For shield and bracer I would use +1/+2, no more, because there won't be any tower shields, medium shield is the best avaliable.
• I would also like this score to improve like the attack, so far I'm thinking about character level/3. 

According to this, the defense of a level 3 Rogue with a +2 Dexterity bonus, equipped with short sword and bracers would be:

7 + 3 + 2 + 1 + 1 = 14. 

This way the chance to hit would be about 50-50%, which could mean high paced and deadly fights. So far we haven't figured out the amount of Hit Points the classes are getting. 

Armor won't give any Defense bonus, it will grant Damage Reduction instead. There won't be any heavy armors either, the best would be the chainmail. 

There are going to be 3 base classes, which will have different build options, with a talent system like the one in Star Wars: Saga Edition. At least, that's the plan so far.

The only playable race will be Human, that's almost sure.

For a start this much would be enough I guess, I hope to post again soon about the skills system of Celtica, and after that some general ideas about where I want this to be going. I have that already in Hungarian, but I'll have to get the time to translate it into English.

Project CELTICA - part 1.

So finally I have come to write a little bit about the new RPG I'm designing with a good friend of mine.
Sometime I'm going to give a decent name to it, but for the time being, I'm just gonna call it Project CELTICA. Sounds cool though.
So as the codename indicates, this is going to an RPG based on celtic mythology, mainly its creatures and its mood. The whole idea of making a new game came from an adventure I was writing for Dragon Age. It was supposed to be based on the system of Dragon Age, but with a celtic setting, I even designed my own backgrounds for the adventure. But instead of getting it played, we started other campaigns, and I decided that this whole celtic setting thing deserves an own system, and a new world around it. This is how I came to start working on it.
Some things we have already decided with my friend about Celtica:

• It's gonna be a d12-based RPG. Why? Cuz' we love this dice, and there are so few other games using this precius dice. First I was planning to use the good old d20, but there are so many systems already based on it. I guess that makes me bit of a hipster, cuz' d20 is too mainstream. :D
• I'm not going to introduce gods to the game, I'll be having five spirits as patrons for people. The four elements, Fire, Air, Water, Earth, and a fifth one, who will be the "evil" brother of these four.
• The moon will have great impact on things. Those born at full moon are "spirit-touched", and will bear the gift of being able to weave magic. 
• The only avaliable race is going to be human. Dwarves, elves exist, but in the dark cavern of the mountains and secret groves of the forests. They tend to avoid the long ones. 
• There are going to be 3 main classes (Fighter, Rogue, Wizard), divided into subclasses, using a talent system like the one in Star Wars: Saga Edition.

So far these are the pillar ideas of this celtic RPG, there are lots of ideas still that are almost ready, but these will come in bundles, so everything could be in one place.

Next time I'm going to write about the planned combat system, I guess it's gonna be pretty simple and make the battles go quick and deadly. 

I'll also start introducing the world of Celtica, the five spirits, the mood, the geography, etc.

Stay tuned, I really hope write again soon!

Hovel under contstruction

Who have we here? A visitor? Be very welcome in my little goblin hovel!
Due to my limited time to spend nowadays for making a solid first post here I will just give a taste of what is coming here on this blog in times to come.
This is going to be sort of a workshop diary of making a new role playing game, there will also be some cool stories about game sessions I had, and whatever that comes up.
Just a few facts and rumors about the author (myself): 26 years of age, tall, handsome, lives in Hungary, in a weird named town called Szekesfehervar. I work as a buyer's assistant for an international furnishing company, and I have been playing role playing games for about 10 years now. I love being a storyteller/DM, and also play usually. I'm also very lucky to have a girlfriend who tolerates my hobby.

Some systems I usually play:

Dungeons and Dragons 4th edition - since it was out, the new Essentials version is much more preferred.
Advanced Dungeons and Dragons 2nd edition - great oldschool games, I just started a campaign on the endless sea.
Dragon Age RPG - died a glorious death last time I played. Sadly, the death of my character was quite in vain...
Star Wars Saga Edition - my first character here was made useless by my buddies, because what is a Jedi Consular worth, when the others have higher Wisdom score and use the same powers?
Song of Ice and Fire RPG - had made the house, then we came to a halt and started playing something else. But we are planning on returning to this.
Sword and Magic by Gabor Lux - a hungarian oldschool OGL variant. Pretty cool stuff! Fast battles, good system, and an interesting world called Fomalhaut. Have a look here: Sword and Magic
M.A.G.U.S - maybe the oldest hungarian made RPG, my first to play with. Great world, with very interesting details. Had more editions, but the first is still the best in my opinion. Many novels have been published based on this RPG.
World of Darkness, Vampire the Masquerade and Requiem - it's been awhile since I last played in the WoD, but had great times then, and I really hope to play again someday.

So, if you are interested in role playing games, please do visit my blog once in a while, maybe you will read something you like. I started to develop an own system with my best buddy, so workshop journal will start when I have some more time.
Stay tuned!

P.s.: blog surface is under construction, so everything is going to improve! :)