The fourth session of Murder in Baldur's Gate saw my D&D Next table having eight players whilst Paul's 4E table had five players. I would have much preferred to have fewer players, but I wasn't willing to turn people away. Thankfully, I'm not unused to running such large tables – the last year of my AD&D campaign has made me quite familiar with those numbers … Continue reading Murder in Baldur’s Gate – Unrest Rising
An explanatory note: Ultimate Campaign is a relatively recent release from Paizo Publishing for their Pathfinder Game, a 256-page hardcover book. It's not the first supplement to the system they've done, but I personally think it's the most significant, as it really extends the system into areas that most Fantasy RPGs often don't cover, or don't cover well. This makes it particularly interesting, as it … Continue reading Ultimate Campaign – Character Backgrounds
We returned to my AD&D campaign last Saturday after a break of four weeks. In some ways, the break was even longer because I’ve run a lot of session for the new players recently; this was the first session where Paul and Jesse were able to play their high-level characters, which are 7th and 9th level respectively. The rest of the group ranged from 3rd … Continue reading A funhouse dungeon session in my AD&D Viking campaign
We’ve finally reached Stage 1 of the Murder in Baldur’s Gate adventure; it only took us three sessions! The first two were consumed by the introductory material as expanded by the Launch event. We had two tables of six players and a DM for this session, with Paul running 4E and me running Next. The table composition was slightly different from last week with Callan … Continue reading Murder in Baldur’s Gate: Stage 1 report
Fangwood Keep is a stand-alone Pathfinder adventure for 4th level characters by Alex Greenshields. It uses the tried-and-true approach of presenting what initially appears to be a standard adventure which transforms into something else in its second half. The adventure begins with the characters charged to recover a contested keep on the border between Molthune and Nirmathas, which has been seized by a rebel soldier, … Continue reading Review of Fangwood Keep (Pathfinder adventure)
Quests & Campaigns is a 32-page book in Pathfinder’s Player Companion series, which expands on a number of concepts first explored in the Ultimate Campaign book that look at options for detailing the background and goals of player characters. In theory, a book containing a lot of background and goal-related options for a character is a good idea. However, the book fumbles the ideas badly. … Continue reading Review of Quests & Campaigns (Pathfinder supplement)
Every so often, I go through a phase of buying old D&D adventures I don't have yet; I've now got most of the 1st edition releases, along with a lot of the Basic/Expert line, but my 2nd edition AD&D collection is very poor indeed. My last spasm of purchasing found me picking up the three Marco Volo adventures: Departure, Journey and Arrival. (Journey hasn't actually … Continue reading Review of Marco Volo: Departure (1994 AD&D 2E adventure)
Oasis of the White Palm is an AD&D adventure for 6-8 characters of sixth to eight level. It was originally written by Philip Meyers and then rewritten and edited by Tracy Hickman as he combined it with his adventure, Pharaoh, as part of the Desert of Desolation series. There are several problems with how it is written, but my play experiences with it allow me … Continue reading Review of I4: Oasis of the White Palm (1983 AD&D adventure)
I had my first chance to play 13th Age yesterday. The session was quite abbreviated – by the time we’d started and created characters, it was close to 9pm, and so we only had about two hours of actual play. I can’t say I’m really that familiar with the system yet, so I’m sure a lot of 4e-isms made their way into my running of … Continue reading 13th Age: Blood and Lightning report (spoilers)
Murder in Baldur’s Gate continued with me running the remainder of the Introductory Stage; the Launch Weekend event expanded a small part of the stage into a 2-hour session, but there was still a major part of the stage to run: the meetings with the movers and shakers of the adventure. The characters had been invited to three meetings, but the timing and distance between … Continue reading Murder in Baldur’s Gate: Introductory Stage report
