The Curse Of Calimah

A while back, on April 8^th, I had a chance to run my first Fantasy Grounds (FG) game during FG Con 10. I ran an adventure I wrote, titled The Curse Of Calimah. This Savage Worlds adventure was designed to be an introduction to the Pirates of the Dominions sourcebook from the Beasts & Barbarians setting published by Gramel. I would say that overall, it was a success. Unfortunately, I had to omit lots of information in order to try to finish the game on time. Even after that we still went an hour over the scheduled time. The players said they had a good time and it was fun but I’m not sure if they were just being polite.

I learned some valuable lessons. First is to make sure the images and maps are under 1MB in file size. The images I used were large and stopped the game for 5-10 minutes while the players downloaded them. Alternatively, you can set the images to be Force loaded to the players. This means when the players connect to your game all of the images will be downloaded at that time. This can take some time if the file sizes are large but that also means that the game will run faster for everyone during actual play.

Second, if at all possible, try to have a veteran Fantasy Grounds GM as a player. They can help tremendously for a first timer in FG. There were times I felt bad because the game slowed to a standstill. I couldn’t figure out some of the nuances of the combat tracker like adding multiple NPC’s under a single action. I’ll have to go back and revisit that. I know Eric Lamoureux has a video on YouTube about that here. You should go visit his channel because he has a good selection of instructional videos as well as recorded game sessions.

The third and last lesson I learned was that, if you make the players unnecessarily chase after a bad guy, they will either hate the NPC or you, the GM. There is a fine line here and hopefully I didn’t cross it. The first few rounds of combat during the final encounter were slow to say the least. Each player had an allied extra that were relatively close enough to engage an enemy but most of the players were out of range. Then the final bad guy is revealed and the players had to chase after him. They hated the NPC (or me, it’s hard to say for sure) so much that when one of the players killed him, they wouldn’t let him die until I spent all of my GM bennies to try and soak the damage.

I’m starting to come around to the idea that I ran a good game because the players had some laughs and by the end they got emotionally involved in making sure the bad guy felt every last wound. 

With the announcement of the Beasts & Barbarians Steel Edition crowdfunding via Indiegogo, it's fitting that I can announce I've finally gotten approval from Piotr Koryś to release this adventure. For anyone interested, you can download the adventure for free here The Curse Of Calimah.

Herald: Lovecraft & Tesla

Today I finally got around to downloading the digital Kickstarter rewards for Herald: Lovecraft & Tesla from Ravendesk Games. Part of the rewards were three Action Lab comic books titled, wait for it, Herald: Lovecraft and Tesla. I must admit that these comics do a good job of inspiring me to want to play this new game. The only problem is that I don't have the RPG yet. Eventhough the Kickstarter campaign has ended you still have a chance to get in on this and preorder a copy for yourselves. You can follow the link above to the Kickstarter page.

Warning: Spoilers Ahead!

The first comic of the History in the Making series, is an introduction to the characters and the beginning of the story arc. We are introduced to Amelia Earhart, Nikola Tesla, H.P. Lovecraft, Harry Houdini, and Albert Einstein. It starts out in October of 1923 and Amelia is taking flight in her history making trip to become the first female pilot to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean (its fun to read fiction that incorporates historical fact). As we break away to Nikola in his workshop, he discovers that a prototype engine has just disappeared in front of his very eyes. Now we break away again to see Lovecraft shaking down Houdini in order to get him to investigate a man called The Beast. The next day Nikola meets up with Albert Einstein at the local patent office where Einstein works. Nikola tells Albert that an unfinished prototype engine is in Amelia's airplane. Einstein informs Tesla that this engine will take her to a different dimension. As Nikola is leaving the patent office, a man waiting in line overhears the whole conversation and tells Tesla that H.P. Lovecraft can help him. Nikola then seeks out Lovecraft to ask him for help in finding his betrothed, Ms. Earhart. Suddenly they are attacked by a Mi-Go. The end. Ha-ha, hows that for a cliff hanger?

In the second comic, Nikola uses his Tesla pistol while H.P. uses some sort of arcane power to defeat the Mi-Go. After some arguing between Lovecraft and Tesla, the Mi-Go comes back to life and kills Lovecraft. The Mi-Go disappears out of sight and H.P.'s mother comes down into the basement to find her dead son. She scolds Tesla and tells him to not speak of this incident with H.P. whilst she revives her dead son through the use of magic. After some discussion on what to do next, it is decided that they would go to Brown University to seek out Lovecraft's former professor. He may or may not be in posession of a tome of Necronomicon, or at the very least know where to obtain it. Meanwhile, back at Nikola's workshop, Peter Mackleroy Esquire, a debt collector working for Thomas Edison is going through the inventions to catalogue and inventory Mr. Edison's new belongings. Back to Brown University where we meet Dr. Carlow, Lovecraft's occult professor. Howard Phillips Lovecraft is dismayed that the good professor doesn't remember him with his excuse being that he has lectured many students and can't be bothered to rember names. Howard tries to jog Dr. Carlow's memory of him only to incite an argument between the two, which reveals the location of the Necronomicon to be at the Anthenaeum Library. After leaving Dr. Carlow's office, Tesla and Lovecraft get into a squabble in which they decide to go their own ways. Unbeknownst to each other, they each break into the library after dusk. Tesla through a basement window and Lovecraft stealing the keys from a librarian. Both of them inadvertently walk into a trio of trouble in the basement of the library (as seen on the cover of the next issue).

The third comic begins with Amelia flying somewhere over the Atlantic Ocean and her plane disappears into thin air. Then we go back to the library where Nikola and Howard discover the three cultists who are trying to awaken the great Cthuhlu who's wrath will birth the world anew. Matilda, one of the cultists, discovers that the Necronomicon is a copy and she needs an original tome. Just then Dr. Carlow walks in to confirm his suspicion that Lovecraft wouldn't let go of searching for the tome and Matilda shoots him in the gut. Tesla and Carlow are then dragged into a small room and locked inside. Dr. Carlow proceeds to pass away and Nikola escapes from his cell. Then Tesla rescues Lovecraft from the cultists by causing an explosion in the basement of the library which allows the two to escape.

Overall the three comics are good. Some of the scenes need to be more descriptive or perhaps even more scenes added because I don't feel like I got all the information I needed. Who are the cultists and what about Edison's henchmen? What happened to Harry Houdini? I left out the last scene in the third comic because it doesn't make sense to me at all. It appears to be an everyday conversation between two older gentlemen and a younger man. One of the older men has a unique ring on his left ring finger which leads me to believe it is a much older Nikola Tesla but I'm unsure. They definetly left some questions that need to be answered. Maybe they will be answered in the RPG book but I sure hope the comics will continue into a full series at Action Lab Comics.

Memorial Day Weekend Update & Random Thoughts

I've been quiet for some time now on G+ and here at my blog. This past month has had me busy at work and at home. With the weather warming up and the weekly yard work I've had less time to think about RPG's. We are in prime construction weather here in Illinois which means I'm staying busy at work with airport improvement projects and the seasonal HVAC issues at many of my sites. At home I've been busy with getting my Chargriller Smoker put together and varnishing the wooden bits. This Saturday I'll be seasoning up Charlie for her maiden voyage on Sunday. She'll be smoking me up a brisket for this Memorial Day weekend.

Just yesterday I made a trip to Rockford to pickup a used Char-Broil grill. It's missing a door but not bad for $60 used. This 6 burner baby retails for around $300 new. Not bad eh.

Soon I will be fixing up my front porch which will require at least a full weekend to repair then on to painting. This will have to wait after our family vacation in a couple of weeks. We're going to Walt Disney World in Orlando Florida. I'm dreading the drive. Google maps says it will take 18 hours but my father-in-law says it is more like 22 hours. I'm sure it'll be a blast once we get there but 22 hours in a car, ugh!

In my last blog post I said I was going to try to run a game of Tales from the Loop, well that game fell through. I might try to get it going again but lately I've been reading Rippers Resurrected and I'm getting interested in trying to start a campaign for this. I've played in a game of this before but I really didn't know anything about the setting so it didn't really sit well with me. Now that I've had a chance to read the first half of the players guide I really like some of the mechanics. I need to get back to writing because Con on the Cob is just around the corner on Veteran's Day weekend and I want to run a great game. I also need to work on my second Beasts & Barbarians adventure for the Fantasy Grounds Convention coming in October.

For the online FG Con, I plan to run a follow up adventure to The Curse Of Calimah. This first adventure was an introduction to the Beasts & Barbarians Pirates of the Dominions. I tried to design it so that it would ease the players into this new setting materiel without feeling like it was overly swashbuckling. This next adventure will solidify the characters' path into the murky seas of pirates amongst barbarians. They will have been Pirates of the Dominions under the tutalige (perhaps miguided) of the crew aboard Etu's Manhood for more than a month. This will allow the characters to have "forgotten" some skills in favor of learning new, more seaworthy ones to replace them. Captain Kodar has a special mission for the newest members of his carousing crew.

Lots of members from the Nerds International G+ community will be meeting up at Con on the Cob this year and I've been doing some research for a one shot I plan on running. I'm not 100% sure that I can make this work but I want to run a game titled Attack From Mars!. I've had Steve Jackson's GURPS Mars Attacks source book for some time now and have read it several times. I hope to have this adventure ready for the Con, which will include miniatures, maps, characters, bennies, and of course the story. So far the basic premise is that the Martians have landed and the players need to get to the most defensable building in town to fend off the never ending wave of Disintegrator Ray gun toting Martians.

Please take a moment this weekend to remember those that gave their life to keep this country free. I wish everyone a fun and safe Memorial Day weekend. Post your weekend pics on G+ for me to see.