Hexcrawl High: Coming home to a place he’d never been before

It was about a week ago when the urge struck. I wanted some old school fantasy. I wanted D&D with alignment penalties, with arguing the merits of a Bec de Corbin versus a Guisarme-Volgue, with THAC0 and big swords and helmets with wings on them, with Larry Elmore art and half elven stablehands molesting horses (that last one may be specific to my own AD&D history). This urge was pretty odd to be honest. For two reasons, the first is that fantasy is a genre that I have very much cooled on, I honestly cannot remember the last time I read a fantasy novel and I have no urge to change that. The second reason is that while I have very fond memories of AD&D there is absolutely no rose tint to those memories. Modern systems with unified mechanics are infinitely preferable and while I do miss Stoneskin being amazing I have no urge to return to older mechanics. But still the urge was there. Continue reading…

This desert life

My faux-Lenten retreat from the insidious snares of the online world has run into a few snags. Nothing apocalyptic but enough to besmirch the pure wall of restraint I was hoping to build. At least my few small indulgences were so replete with vestigial Catholic guilt that they didn’t absorb too much time. Which was the main thing I wanted to avoid. Continue reading…

End of the Metaverse campaign and role-playing in general

*Cross-posted from the forum* Well it looks like this has wrapped up. Still we got four or five enjoyable sessions out of it so it wasnt entirely wasted. I suppose we started at a poor time of year, after illness, false starts and holidays delayed the game we ended up too close to the end of the year and 1/4 of the player base leaving. Which sort of killed my interest, so I suppose its really my fault the game fell through. A pity I suppose. I did learn a few things though. Continue reading…

Up, up and Away

I’m starting a “super’s” game next Tuesday (25/01). I was going to start it this week but Im likely going to be too “busy” (certainly not playing Dead Space 2). In theory the game will run Tuesday night from 8-11. But Im not too tied to that day and time so thats up for negogiation. I’m looking for two to six (hah) players, though if you cant make it and still want to get involved (or just fuck with whoever is playing then read on). The game will be taking place in the icy depths of Springmount on ye olde dublin road (a.k.a the house I’m renting). Continue reading…

Ninja’s, Gladiators and [Third Thing]’s, Oh My!

I think it’s fair enough to say that everybody likes (or is at least ambivalent towards) ninjas. If at this point you’re thinking to yourself “I don’t like ninjas” then you are a) simply being contrary, b) insane or c) the victim of real life ninja violence (which you likely brought on yourself for being a or b). I’ve liked ninjas for a long time, since I was a wee fellow watching the wildly age inappropriate Sakura Killers (which I’ve just found on Isohunt), up through a slew of other terrible movies (most of them starring Michael Dudikoff), Ninja Assassin choose-your-own-adventure books (while googling for a link it turns out the series was called The Way of the Tiger), various comic book’s, films and then on to stuff like Ninja Scroll, Tenchu and various other anime, manga and video game franchises. Though upon reflection while I feel ninjas are omnipresent I find it rather hard to call specific examples to mind (no doubt because they’re so stealthy!) Continue reading…

An explanation of Arm’s

Apparently clicking on embedded links is to onerous a task for some of my busier readers. So as opposed to linking inspirational images and summaries of the games and campaign worlds in question I’ll try and briefly outline why Im interested in running the various campaign ideas in my previous post (and what kind of commitment, nay burden, I expect potential players to undertake). Continue reading…

A call to arms

Well my plans for Iron Kingdoms via Legend of Anglerre have been scuppered by lack of players. But I still want to run something, even if it is just to shake the image that I come up with a new campaign idea every few months and never get it off the ground. After seeing this (scroll down to D&D in the Elemental Chaos part 1) and this (again scroll down) I have the horn to run a massive “classic” D&D game where its all big damn heroes on big fucking adventures. Continue reading…