Adventurer's Guild

As we began, Bregan our illustrious human ranger was overlooking a goblin camp. Nothing like starting a campaign in the middle of an adventure. He's posted up on a hill stealthily looking down at around twenty five goblin warriors. They are travelling light, just bedrolls, weapons and armor, a mixed band of what seems to be raiders. They are fairly close to the sparse ring of civilization surrounding the southern border of Lendos Berkshire and the country of Goland. We all knew goblins lived south of the mountain range. It is even listed on the big map ( here ), but in general it is a relatively large force for the area. Now as a relatively inexperienced DM but dramatically long time player, I should have expected my player to test me out here. I know better than rushing down the hill and slicing into twenty goblins at first level. Everyone does. D&D Next (I hate the term 5e) looks pretty good for hammering lots of monsters even at low level, but solo and without anyo...

Lendos Berkshire is a walled trading post near Goland’s border. As the southernmost defensible position an army garrison is always well maintained. The town supports several surrounding villages, farms, and silver mines. Many of the trade goods arrive and depart via river portage. A southern road leads to the small outpost along the river. The town itself boasts two taverns and an inn, a blacksmith, stables, an armory, and even an elven bakery. NPCs of Note Morgan Trapnul - the sheriff of Lendos Berkshire. She is a tall, beautiful woman with fiery red hair who is known to have a bit of temper. A widower herself, she is a bit of a shrew. Her devotion to following the letter of the law is well known, and she has little patience for those who do not. The soldiers stationed here often give her a hard-time but they know better than to cross her. More than one has learned that lesson the hard way as she trounced them in front of their fellows. Constable Ruskal - the commander ...

“Allow me to pose a riddle to you my friend,” the elf took a long draw from his pipe and gazed intently at his human guide, “what matters more to a man, wine or bread?” Bregan smiled back. He knew Oroderu would not be satisfied with a quick answer. Many of their conversations were just like this. The elf always tested his reasoning ability as much as his cleverness. He knew the minstrel was making a study out of this as much as anything else. “Well my friend, that depends on what matters most to the man,” Bregan’s response was welcomed by a warm smile. “You see many men would prefer to eat, but only if they are hungry. If one was in the company of several beautiful women, then that would be another story.” “So you are sure that your environment determines your response?” “Indeed,” Bregan took a bite out of the fresh pastry he had picked up before they set out from Lendos Berkshire earlier in the day. The bakery there was lovely and while this trip was a fairly short one the...

Okay, I don’t do an awful lot of table-top gaming these days. I truly don’t. I have massive well painted armies, a pile of terrain, and honestly enjoy the hobby. But it just seems like whenever I want to head down to the game store, I just don’t take the time to do it. I could make the argument that most of the stores are very hard from my house. I could complain about packing everything up and driving out to get ass-raped by someone who built a really cheesy list is slightly annoying. But then again maybe I am just lazy. One of the weirdest things I have noticed however is all of the little conventions people do at the stores around me. First and foremost I hate small point value games. To play 500pts is the equivalent of taking a very serious chance that your opponent is not a total jerk. When I competed in the Kill Teams at the GW store we were split down the middle with people fielding cheese and not fielding cheese. In a 200pt game you brought a terminator squad? Really...

The first army I ever inherited from my brother was his Eldar force. Since then I have added models left and right, tried to keep it inline with a winning list. I have often heard complaints over the years about Eldar cheesiness and despite now owning Tyranids, Chaos Daemons, and even a borrowed Crimson Fist force- I will always be a Xenos player and the Eldar are my first love. So much cool as fluff and what is more they have always been pretty effective. The world of tournament players aside, my friends really don't like fighting them. The reviews of the Eldar book have been a little off-putting to me so far. This cat over on 3++ wrote a terrible bit picking out the biggest problems in his opinion . I don’t actually have a copy in hand, but to me it seems like the forum trolls are just basically unhappy people. Why is the internet like that. I understand it is a competitive game as opposed to a cooperative game, but all the min/max-ing is what turned my brother away fr...

I had this memory come back to me the other day. I usually never write about things like this on my blog. Especially because I wasn’t actually present during this game session, but we were playing the original Marvel Superheroes RPG and my buddy had a character named Ultraman. He was very similar to everyone’s favorite DC comic book character, but toned down slightly for the system. He was roughly as strong as Rogue and Electro, so able to lift/press 50 tons. Ultraman had ultra-vision, ultra-hearing, ultra-breath. He was fast, more agile that a trained human and possessed super human endurance and healing abilities. The thing that I remember most was his ability to fly and resist damage for powers, and he was vulnerable to sonic attacks. But what made Ultraman awesome was his personality. This was roleplaying not roll-playing. It wasn’t all about statistics and being the best dice roller because the way your character was built was better than anyone else. His personality w...