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RPGs / Tuesday the 17th, 8pm GMT Call of Cthulhu Skype Game.

« on: August 15, 2010, 05:23:30 PM »

I'm intent on running a Call of Cthulhu game this Tuesday over skype. It would start around 8pm GMT as I'm a brit. I've got two games in mind; set in WWI mainland britain, players will be civil servants or soldiers. Off the west coast of Scotland is a little island. In 1911 when the census was taken the officer never returned. Now it's 1915 and the war needs young men, the island is going to be conscripted but first they need to document the inhabitants.

The other is from The Stars Are Right! book because everyone needs to use their books at least once, right?

My skype username is ali.dogfish, feel free to add me to skype.

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Resources and Templates. / Resources/Tips for Skype Gaming.

« on: June 07, 2010, 12:57:37 PM »

After listening to the latest podcast, in particular Arje's little interlude, I decided to make this thread.

Recently I've moved from doing quite a bit of PbP to more Skype games. It's been a real blast and as a consequence I've met people I now think of as my regular gaming buddies. So if people are wanting to do some gaming over the summer simply look up ali.dogfish. However that's not the sole reason I'm here, I want to provide you guys with some resources I've picked up and have found indispensable.

First off, www.rptools.net.

Combining their Maptool (a much better programme compared to OpenRPG) with Tokentool has made me feel like I never have to buy a battlemat and miniatures. A nice, clean, simple programme with a lot of scope for more complicated things as you feel you need them (such as complicated vision and light settings).

To connect easily I'd reccomend another free programme, Hamachi. It allows you all to connect directly to the host and I believe it's just a time saver that really helps streamline the above.

There are more bits and pieces out there but they mesh with just general gaming tips and toolkits.

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Under the Red Mountain / Fluff thread "Who knows upon what soil they fed their hungry roots?"

« on: May 21, 2010, 05:58:40 PM »

As a time line...

ca. 300 years ago: The goblins and the dwarves live in a mountain, Great Stone, with the dwarves keeping the goblinkind at bay. During the next fifty years one goblin began to slowly gather the clans together under a banner of a mastery of the mystic arts.

ca. 250 years ago: Goblins march on the dwarven expansions. Fighting them back further and further into the home they had carved out. Eventually the goblin horde, expanding rapidly and with great luck on the field forced the goblins out of the mountain.

ca. 150 years ago: Fighting erupts onto the plains and valleys that had been human occupied lands for some 100 years. The dwarves saw this coming and began to fortify the towns with large granite walls. The citys and towns are sieged with not just the goblins in the war but all manners of mountain creatures and dark monsters (though the orcs left the mountain as soon as goblins expanded, becoming nomads on the plains).

100 years ago: The final stand of the now joint human-dwarven-elven-halfing army against the goblins meeting on a field before the last city now a massive refugee camp. As the battles lines are drawn a massive spell erupts above the battlefield, slaying the leader of the horde and many hundred thousand goblins and also crippling whatever force the less monstrous races had left. With the leadership in disarray the goblins never finish the job retreating back into the mountains.

16 years ago: The last goblin is born. Some pestilence is killing goblins and making the females barren. In response to this a cult has risen up claiming to give new life, through the rumours you have heard this new life involves being slain and 're-born' as some hideous aberrant creature.

Now: You are members of the one of the last goblin tribes, the cult has been searching for you and it won't be long before they're knocking on your 'door'. You live in one of the deeper parts of the dwarven ruins, far away from the traditional goblin homeland (where this cult seems to of arisen).

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Under the Red Mountain / Out of Character thread; "We must not buy their fruits"

« on: May 18, 2010, 04:23:10 PM »

Just if anything comes to mind that you don't want to break the flow of the game with but don't think it warrants a PM. Also a place for you guys to discuss any group actions when you can't do the same thing in character.

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Under the Red Mountain / In Character thread; "We must not look at the goblin men."

« on: May 18, 2010, 04:20:44 PM »

Hey guys this is where we shall post the in-character stuff. I'll post fluff in another thread. I'll make my first post later in the week.

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Role Playing Public Radio Podcast / Episode 45: Of Dice and Men

« on: May 05, 2010, 08:19:11 AM »

Listening to this reminded me of two things. One of them had happened earlier that week and the other is a 4th ed. game I was a player in that made my ears bleed.

In the last session of a friends Eberron campaign I came up with a way to meet a dragon-esque creature before it could do a fly-by attack. We had been travelling in a caravan, it was coming up behind us and I (being a paladin) had a mount riding ahead. Seeing it would take 2 rounds to get close enough I did two actions. First; I split the front axel of the caravan dropping it down to be like a ramp. Second action, ready to charge off of the ramp at the dragon.

This clearly caught my GM off guard but he's good at what he does and allowed it. As soon as I hit the thing I made my mount go back to the celestial plane so it didn't take falling damage and the GM ruled my lance had stuck into it and that I was desperately hanging on.

To do this I merely had to make an attack roll, a ride check (he later said he wanted to include a jump check for my mount but it had around +10 anyway) and several reflex saves to keep hanging on to the creature.

I also wanted to try and get on the things back and stear it's plummeting massive corpse toward the party, he put it down to reflex saves again but I failed them.

That's my example of someone dealing with player zanyness well.

Here's my example, similiar to the Star Wars super-guard story, from a 4th ed. D&D game.

Our party was trying to gain passage onto a boat in which we believed a hostage was being kept that we needed to rescue. The problem was there were 4 guards at the gang plank. My character had fairly high charisma so I try and go up and convince them I'm the new customs officer for the port and need to make a routine inspection. Failed my roll but they just brushed me off. Then the wizard comes up with the idea to use ghost sound to make it sound like someones saying inflammatory comments about the guards from behind some bushes. Two guards go looking. We threw a couple more ideas around, eventually looking like we were settling on simply hiring a boat, going abreast their ship and climbing up the side. This is when the GM intervenes, has a rogue-ish type NPC come along, whisper for us to follow him and ends up just immediately slaying the remaining two guards.

This game was pretty rail-roaded and that was just a beginning sign.

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Recruitment Board / Under The Red Mountain [Pathfinder: 2-4 players]

« on: May 05, 2010, 06:56:13 AM »

Game Title: Under The Red Mountain
System: Pathfinder
Players Wanted: Frankly I'd be happy with any number however the more you get the slower the posting rate, so stick to topic title for now.
Posting Rate: At least one every other day, more (including PMs/e-mails) are of course welcome.
Special Rules: I dislike Pathfinders 1 skill rank per hit die skill system, beyond first level it will be ignored. Alignment is not mandatory but in its place I'd like a small paragraph detailing your characters normal motives.
Advancement Rules: Levels will be granted, not exp. If you wish to play a wizard request the items you would like to make when we get to that point.


Hey there fellow forum-goers. Most of you won't know who I am but a small number will. I used to post a lot on another forum, TSE, in which I participated in several PbP games and have one that's just shy of it's one year anniversary. I've slowly been building a game world by running campaigns and short-lived games in various locales and trying to draw everything together. There is a vague meta-plot but it is unlikely to come into play until the characters themselves have stumbled upon it. I am being open about this because I don't want you to despair when it rears it's ugly head in game. There is some fluff that you guys can request but it's not necessary to know.

Now for my game I'd like everyone to play Goblinoids (goblins/hobgoblins as played from the bestiary) that have lived in the same series of tunnels all their lives. I know this doesn't give a lot of room for backstory but I've found in the past that Play-by-Posts are excellent for character development as it plays out and that with the slow pace it's hard for everyones backstory to get a moment to shine that's not in the way.

I know so far this may seem a little negative in it's presentation but I have high hopes for the game and hell look at it this way, how often do you get to play a goblin in a potentially 'morally ambiguous' party?

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General Chaos / "I'm in love with my grandson and we're having a baby"

« on: April 30, 2010, 06:27:08 AM »

Where I initially got linked to is here http://www.comedycentral.com/tosh.0/2010/04/29/im-in-love-with-my-grandson-and-were-having-a-baby/

But the full article is here http://nz.lifestyle.yahoo.com/new-idea/real-life/article/-/7124792/im-in-love-with-my-grandson-were-having-a-baby/

And the mind-scrubbing is...oh damn forgot about that part.