Two new 1st level characters, one ran by my brother, Robert, the other I ran. All I recall is that my character was a magic-user. Robert posits to the DM that his character’s goal is to eventually go after this high level character.
The DM tells the player of the evil high level character about this. There is no way for the high level character to even know who we are. Let alone know that we want to set our long range goals on him.
Next session , the DM says that the high level bad guy shows up in town looking for us. He trashes us and the only thing my 1st level M-U can do is shoot a magic missile in his eye before he kills me.
I don’t recall now if the revenge story coming tomorrow was before or after this.
Metamorphosis Alpha, Gamma World. Hiero’s Journey was recommended reading for Gamma World. To me, reading it sounded like a script for what play transpired in a game session or sessions of Gamma World.
Star frontiers, Traveler.
Gang Busters, Top Secret
Villains and Vigilantes, Marvel Superheroes.
Boot Hill
Games we invented back in high school: Space Pirates and Scout. As I recall pirates was more about ship combat and getting the cargo off the target ship. Scout was role playing and small ship combat.
I once owned rules for Metamorphosis Alpha, Gamma World, Boot Hill, Top Secret. I don’t recall if I had Star frontiers, or just played it.
I own Mega Traveler, but never played it. I got is so I could have an RPG without grief from my now ex.
I also once had a game about being a carton character, Toon. It was a simople booklet like in the blue box D&D or Metamarphosis Alpha rules. I could never get anyone interested. I lost it in the leaky pipe disaster that trashed a lot of my gaming materials.
The Awful Green Things From Outer Space is a TSR board game by Tom Wham. I have my original game. I only lost one weapon effect chit over the 30+ years I have had it. I just made one from the boarder for the card stock chits. Tip:Always keep the boarder for cardstock chits so if you lose some, you can easily make new ones that are the same thickness. All the pieces are still in the pre-ziplock sandwich bags from the 80’s. All the original five red minidice are still there too.
When looking for a Wikipedia link, I discovered that the game is back in print, thanks to Steve Jackson Games. the SJG version is here. You can find a PDF of the SJG rules online. They have added other combat options for outside the ship. I have not read the full rules, but it looks like it takes some of the devastating effects of a totally random game out of the mix and gives the crew more options.
My son, David, came over Saturday to spend the day with me, since his girlfriend is out of town for ten days. Also his dog, Picard, a pit bull, and my dog, Lucy, a lab-pit mix were both going stir crazy because of all the cold and snow. When they get together an play, they are quiet and peaceful for the next two days.
David wanted to spend the day playing boardgames. He did not want to try rolling up a new character and try solo adventuring. He did not want to try Waterloo (It is only in a list of Avalon Hill Games on Wikipedia, there is no separate article.), or Imperium. I always beat him at Risk, so he wanted to try Awful Green Things.
So while he took the dogs out to do their business and run and play, I got out the rules and read them quickly and got out the crew pieces and made placements. I would have let him change the placement of the crew for those that had alternate placement options, but David wanted to be the green things. So he separated them into adults, babies, eggs and fragments and rolled a die for starting, and he rolled a 5, then rolled a die for placement. The AGT basically cut the ship in two. One of my crew was trapped in a room with the only exit into the area with the AGT. David knows strategy pretty well and he played the AGT very well. He grew the right group of AGT into the best next category for continued expansion.
Every game is different in such a way that any advantage of the AGT starting with a lot of adults can easily be offset by weapons effects. However, the weapons effects are random for every game. There are some great area of effect weapons, but they can either have no effect or make fragments, which is another way for the AGT to spread. I had a couple crew grab rocket fuel, but I drew the “no effect” chit. At least that was better than fragments. For the Comm Beamer I drew “3 dice to kill”. Unfortunately, he only had adults in most of the areas I could get those crew to and I could never roll a 16+ on 3d6.
Since we just jumped in and started playing, and we had only played the game once together over five years ago, the last time I had played; I did not pay attention to the Electric Fence and Fire Extinguisher being available in any area. I finally noticed this towards the end of the game when the AGT had trapped the captain and three other crew in the central corridor with them totally surrounded and cut off from the means of escape. I did have the Mascot and two crew get away in saucer and the scout ship saved another crew member. I drew well for the Electric Fence and Fire Extinguisher effects. The Fire Extinguisher did “5 dice to stun”, and the Electric Fence did “4 dice to kill”, but it was about two rounds to late to make a difference.
Once the AGT had eaten the surrounded crew, I then had to roll to determine the fate of the crew that escaped. The crew in the saucer were within a year of running out of food when they contracted a fatal disease and died. The crew member in the scout ship managed to make it home.
David was amazed at how easily he beat me. He usually doesn’t beat me very quickly or easily. I pointed out that the totally random nature of the effects of weapons and number and placement of AGT’s made every instance of the game unique.
We only played the one game, but I suspect we might play it again sometime.
My brother, Robert, and I played this game non stop for dozens of games in a row. We laughed at how ridiculous it was for some of the random effects. Robert is an artist and he even made a few of his own comics about the crew and AGT. I remember one where he had all the crew amazed that something killed all the AGT, and one crew said, “Sarge farted.”, and it showed Sarge blushing. LOL good times.
Below are some pictures of the setup from Saturday’s game:
Cover
Back
StoryGame BoardSetupState Of Game Before The Effects Of Fence And Extinguisher KnownWeapons Effects
This is only one of two modules from the glory days that I own, the other is Village of Hommlet.
I bought Ravenloft because the maps are cool. When I got back into planning my own campaign a few years ago, when I found a copy of the Dungeoneers Survival Guide and it has a section on how to do those kinds of maps, I bought it.
I think one of our gaming group from the 80’s had his own copy of Ravenloft and ran it. I know that I never ran it. I did read it, but the maps are what got me.
I love maps. I could get into trouble buying maps. When I was in college, I was too poor to take advantage of a USGS office in town. I love all kinds of maps, just to look at them. I can draw OK maps by hand and modern graphics programs make it easy to do decent maps, but I am addicted to well done maps done by others.
I think we played Ravenloft and maybe the sequel. I don’t recall when it came out. Maybe we did our own return to Ravenloft, it has been too long to recall for sure.
I have downloaded several free modules from various places across the internet and like the ideas I get and the maps I can use from the OPDC.
I also prefer the “classic” vampire to what many modern authors and movies have done. See my article on playing 1st level vampire hunters for a laugh.
This would by my brother, Robert’s, “Quest For The Dice Of Destiny.” We did not finish it, but we did have a lot of fun up to that point. Prior to that it was someone made a dungeon and those that didn’t make a dungeon bought modules.
There was a lot of build up as to what we would do, but the game stalled and we never got it going again. We were having fun with it. As I recall, Robert got bored with it and dreamed up something else.
It would be best described as a complete world with ecology, weather, calendar, places, plots, NPCs and lots of ideas with lots of materials to back it up. There are lots of places we have never explored, and only one character has ever gone off the map. The area is about the size of France and Germany. It also has a sandbox quality as Robert has planned out enough of it that he does not have to make it all up as he goes along, but he is creative enough and go with the flow enough to make it all up as he goes along. I have a hard time telling when he is making it up as he goes and when he is going off planned information he has in his head.
I can sort of do that with the campaign I developed for my sons. It surprised me how ideas just came to me to fill in the gaps and make things happen. I still find it a challenge to scale things to be appropriate for low level characters, but we are having fun with it.
My character, Griswald, in my brother Robert’s game is the highest level character I have ever had.
Griswald is a half-elven Cleric/Fighter/Magic-User. He is 10th level cleric/10th level fighter/11th level M-U. I think it was Dragon Magazine where we read how to figure the level equivalence of multi-class characters. The divisor I recall is 1.5. Add up all the levels and divide by 1.5. That makes him 20.666… level round to 21st level equivalent. I am not sure if that applies to both those with two and three classes, but that’s how we have interpreted it.
His ability scores were mediocre. STR: 13, INT:12, WIS:14, DEX: 12, CON: 14, now 12 due to being raised twice, and CHAR: 13. I rolled 100% on the skill level for his secondary skill of bowyer/fletcher, which the DM, my brother, Robert, interpreted to mean he was so good he could make any kind of bow he wanted and develop a crossbow from scratch as it is unknown to the races in his game. He also said if I rolled 100% that he could have psionics. I told him I rolled 100 just to see his reaction, but soon fessed up.
I then have played Griswald using everything he would know based on his classes and skills, and played smart. At times it is like 007 sneaking around, and others it is like facing the Zulus at Roarke’s Drift.
I had a fifteen year hiatus in playing Griswald. Robert and I were talking on the phone one day and he had a situation that affected Griswald, the orcs he had pushed out were trying to come take him out. He wanted to let someone else play it out, but I convinced him to do it Memorial Day weekend a few years ago. We got close to making it through, but it was too big. We put that off and it took a few years to finally finish it which we did last summer. That is an epic all by itself, but is best left to another story.
Way back in high school, we went through a phase, maybe it was only one weekend’s activity where our characters in AD&D were vampire hunters.
The thing is, we were all first level. We took a page out of the movies and waited until daytime, on clear sunny day,s and would enter the lair, rip open the coffin, and drive a stake in their heart. If we won the surprise roll or the initiative roll, AND we rolled high enough, we plunged the stake into the vampire’s heart and defeated him. If we missed, one of us was an instant vampirical minion, since a vampire drains 2 levels, a first level character couldn’t take a hit.
I don’t know how many vampires we killed, but there were several, and I don’t remember anyone becoming a vampire. I think we advanced in levels quickly, so that we could take at least one hit, LOL.
While I think using a house rule that one could kill a vampire in this way, it should require that there be minions and other precautions a vampire takes to protect his or her most vulnerable times.
Also why are all vampires simply level drainers who make more vampires? What about NPCs who are wizards or illusionists who have other abilities, or henchmen with such abilities to thwart or delay the plans of PCs who are vampire hunters?
I know their are vampires in my brother’s current campaign. I know that some current players would be facing them. I am sure it will not be easy.
My brother, Robert, seemed to have a knack for learning about interesting things that I also found interesting. I am ten months older and the way our birthdays fell, we went through school in the same grade.
He convinced my parents to pay for a subscription to Science Fiction Book of the Month. I think he also got Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine. I’m not sure if that is where he learned of D& D, but that was in 8th grade in 1978. I’ll have to ask him. He still plays with his wife & kids and a classmate from our high school graduating class. Robert is my favorite DM and can handle anything the players do and can ad lib any situation. I wish I lived in the same state so we could play more than once every year or two or three.
I mowed lawns and did other things to bring in money, so I was the financial backer to our endeavors.
We went to the hobby shop at the nearest mall, Independence Center, in Independence, MO. (More on that in a later day for the challenge.) I bought the blue boxed set and we both consumed the rules. He was DM and we soon had others playing with us. We were frustrated that it only went to 3rd level. I don’t think we managed to get any characters past that point for a long time.
In 9th grade one family moved in with three brothers the same ages as my brothers and I. They played D&D and lots of other games. My brother, Robert, and the oldest brother of the other family, David, took turns DMing. We ended up with trains of adventurers, war dogs, mules, and hirelings navigating dungeons. Not very practical or realistic, but we had fun.
I do not recall my first character. My oldest character that I still have the character sheet, is Kad Staglar, halfling fighter/thief. We had a set of characters that we rotated between two or three DMs, one was my brother, Robert. It was Monty Haul, as this character ended up with a girdle of storm giant strength, gauntlets of ogre power, and a ring of regeneration. In dungeons we just had him run through locked doors and knock the bottoms out. For a thief, not very responsible. I don’t recall having any death traps to stop that behavior. More on this in Gladiatorial Combat. This would have been about tenth grade.
We had a lot of fun and I remember a lot of laughter about things we said not coming out right and repeating something that we found funny until it became a catchphrase for the group, even if only for the session.
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Have not posted any RPG remembrances. Instead, I have been making new memories with my sons. We started playing last July, and did not play again until Christmas. I am taking a two week staycation since gas is high and money is tight. We have played the last three days and I have been rapidly filling in information using various hexcrawl methods and suggestions. That really helps to plan what is available so if and when the players encounter it, things are ready to keep moving. I am still rusty as a DM, but digging through the various Monster Manuals and coming back to the DMG and other books (AD&D) have re-familiarized myself with the creatures and their statistics and game mechanics. Before July of last year, I had not game mastered anything in nearly 30 years. I had only played one marathon session as a player for the first time in about 15 years a few years ago. Reading about the whole OSR movement got me to harking back to the days of yore.
It has been a slow process with fits and starts. It is easy to get side-tracked and follow side links and get lost in learning about new things online on various RPG blogs, or reading about different types of tombs when building your own tables.
I find that building my own tables is fun but very challenging. I want to build tables that are level appropriate until the boys get better at the game. They are 15 1/2 and almost 21, so it’s not like they are little kids, but I want them to figure out the mechanics without getting totally slaughtered. They are both playing split class demi-human spellcasters, so they have the mechanics of figuring out the spells, etc. They are doing very well with minimal input from me.
Charm person seems like such a feeble spell that in my playing I have stayed away from it. However, my oldest has used it to great effect when they were in situations that it was good they used it. Having a creature that is basically a slave with inside information has been very good for them.
The youngest was mad at his brother and used it as an excuse for his character to go off by himself. He stumbled upon the clue they were looking for and nearly died trying to get back from his adventures. It was fun seeing him wracking his brain trying to figure out what to do to handle the situations he got himself into. I think he has learned his lesson to not run off into the forest by himself. While he can handle simple things, charging into a tomb at night without a torch lit, even for an elf is a bad idea. Statues in the dark seem like the undead when your mind is filling in the blanks. His 2nd level FTR/2nd level MU happened to stumble upon the tomb that only had 3 centipedes and a skeleton in it, and came out wounded, poisoned but alive. This after stumbling across a lair for 20 giant rats who by dice roll were not there and he got their loot before they got back. He had fun and learned his lesson at the same time. Meanwhile the parallel time line with his brother and the NPCs, they ran into nothing but the NPC they were going to get more information.
Then little brother’s Character, Fang, happened to come charging into them on his horse as he was riding like mad to get to the NPC Druid’s house for help. He passed out and fell off his horse at their feet, thus he was saved. He was passed out the next day, so big brother’s 2nd lever Druid/2nd level MU Half Elf, Descartes, and a 1st level Dwarf fighter and 3rd level human thief went back looking for an object they left behind that the sage back in town is willing to buy from them, hoping it is still there. Now, their rolls turn bad and they come to the burrow for the giant rats, but speak with animal allows them to pass without a fight. However, the next encounter at the edge of a large pond, a giant crayfish kill’s the dwarf’s horse. But a quick, entangle from the Druid/MU traps the crayfish, that failed its save and they kill it while entangled. There is more, but it was fun to watch them encounter the things that they encountered and they want more!
I am stocking hexes and making sure to cover all the bases for whichever direction they plan to head. I look forward to finding out how they plan to deal with the goblin lair they learned about. The NPC druid wants it out of her forest, and they will use a charmed goblin to help them find it. They won’t have the help they had fighting the last group of goblins, so it will be interesting….
