Fantasy Hero 101

[Chris Goodwin]

Re: Fantasy Hero 101

 

You're running Keep on the Borderlands.... at Borderlands!

[CTaylor]

Re: Fantasy Hero 101

 

Indeed, I thought it was particularly appropriate Plus, since it is a familiar, yet very old module it might interest players but not be so familiar people have it memorized (although I've made enough changes that this would be only a minor advantage).

[Maur]

Re: Fantasy Hero 101

 

I participate in a Shadowrun Missions event at my FLGS and it took about 4 months before the table grew beyond myself and 1 or 2 others. Part of that is everyone that might be interested might have other things going on at that time and can't make it (e.g. SO's that want weekends for things other than gaming) and reminders so that they all remember that the game is happening. The GM came with a ton of prebuilts, or if you emailed him and sent him a copy of your character then you could use it in the game, and gets the missions from the Shadowrun website (he's a demo playtester so he gets the missions a few months or more before they go public).

So, don't be discouraged if it takes time to get more people to show up. Just keep running the game at a consistent time and eventually those that really want to will find a way to be at the table. Of course, you might want to set up a reservation system if you start getting too many people.

[Zeropoint]

Re: Fantasy Hero 101

 

Well, I apologize for participating in "overwhelm the newbie"--I'll try to restrain myself next time.

 

We had a great time, with the exception of the Wolfen "ranger" not being able to hit ANYTHING with the crappy Goblin arrows we looted. Seriously, NOTHING. It was obviously the arrows' fault.

 

As long as were were killing anything that wasn't a PC in the Goblin caves, our races didn't seem to matter much (although things were kind of cramped in there for a large centaur). However, when we finally made it to the keep/town, we started facing a little bit of prejudice. I realize that it comes with playing non-humans, but as long as it doesn't get too obnoxious, it should make for interesting roleplaying.

 

Speaking of roleplaying, the guy playing the ratling (whose name slips my mind--Sorry! ) is doing a great job of playing the scavenger mentality; it's fun to watch.

[CTaylor]

Re: Fantasy Hero 101

 

Yeah, that's Kevin, he's doing a great job but I worry he and the druid might be a bit too antagonistic :/ If it's just role playing, that will be great - they do come from rather opposite ends of the spectrum both philosophically and in terms of background.

 

The racial prejudice thing is part of the price for getting those nifty abilities, although there are Centaur and Wolfen and Zhai and so on areas where being a human tends to get you the cold shoulder.

[Zeropoint]

Re: Fantasy Hero 101

 

And I have to put up with human architecture with all its narrow passages, low ceilings, and tight corners . . . and don't get me started on LADDERS.

 

[CTaylor]

Re: Fantasy Hero 101

 

This week was a little different. Because I had a new player who'd never tried the system before, I wanted to give him some experience in combat and using his abilities but in a setting where it was of no consequence. So after helping a player finish his Dwarven Paladin character build, I pitted the entire party against each other in a big arena in a dream sequence.

 

The druid climbed the wall like a squirrel and avoided the group entirely. The Ratman ran from everything and everyone while successfully avoiding attention by seeming harmless. The archer managed to plug some people very well with his heavy longbow but eventually got his clock cleaned.

 

The group was having so much fun and laughing so much another fellow joined the table to join in and I tossed him the floating NPC big bruiser, basically a fantasy brick. He was rapidly dropped by a combined attack by two party members, but since he'd not had a chance to do anything I brought him back full life and he proceeded to walk around and hammer everyone down like a tent peg; the poor Ratman was a rogue type and really wasn't able to hurt the big warrior unless he got really lucky, so I called it for the warrior and ended the sequence. The warrior wasn't so much super effective as fully healthy and rolling well while everyone else was pretty beat up. Still I think it gave him a nice feel for the system and how to fight.

 

It is interesting because when you describe how Hero combat works, people inevitably say "wow that's complicated" but when they play Hero, they say "well that's not hard at all." The best way to learn is, as I've seen over the years, to get a very basic idea, then sit down and do it - like for most people. Unfortunately as it took so long to get the character built and so much time (as always) was taken up telling stories and chatting that there wasn't a lot of time after the fight was over for much of the real game. Still, everone had fun and I was able to end the game at a cliffhanger point.

 

One point of concern was the Centaur. The player didn't set out to build the ur-character, but he combined a character with a lot of strength with a heavy shield and armor to give him 9 DCV (he's really hard to hit) and he can wield a great axe in one hand. I'm using him to playtest the race build since nobody had made a centaur before in my campaigns and he's showing me some problems with the concept. He's really tough, mobile, and strong, he hits incredibly hard (3D6 KA) and is hard to hit, then when he is hit, he's hard to hurt. He doesn't have an enormous chance to hit, and he's so big that he's limited in his mobility in enclosed areas. He can't handle ladders, if he falls in a pit it takes a block and tackle to get him out, and armor costs a fortune, so there are serious limitations on the race, but the combat ability is a serious concern.

 

At this point I'm inclined to clip the upper strength max down from 30 to 25, giving the class -1 DCV due to size (which I should have done from the start) and I think that probably would be balance enough: still very tough and strong, but not overwhelmingly so.

 

The party made it back to the Caves of Chaos, so next week, it's hardcore dungeon crawling - something that doesn't actually come up much in Fantasy Hero to be honest.

[CTaylor]

Re: Fantasy Hero 101

 

This week was almost entirely game; I have six players now which is the most I'm comfortable with running (3 is the minimum), and all of them are at least somewhat familiar with the system and have characters built. The bulk of the session was taken up with a fight between the six characters and over twenty Goblins, six of whom were in back firing light arrows.

 

The problem these Goblins had is that they're poor and weak, the weakest in the area and so their weapons are minor. They're pretty hard to hit because of their size, but don't hit very hard. The heavy fighters could more or less ignore a lot of what the Goblins dealt out, although a solid hit with the bows (armor piercing) did give them some pause.

 

The Centaur charged into the room and was quickly surrounded, his tower shield wasn't much help with the multiple attacker bonus (and the guys on the side his shield would not cover), so eventually he was nickle-and-dime'd to unconsciousness. In the end the party did manage to deal with the Goblins despite the numbers but it took a very long time to deal with that many.

 

The party seems to be getting comfortable with each other as players, and while there was a small squabble at the beginning (unrelated to the game) it went pretty well overall. At this point my main concern is the hack'n'slash nature of the Keep on the Borderlands; that's fun for a while but eventually the lack of variety might get a bit wearing. While it's true each of the monster "modules" is different and has different sorts of challenges, there's not much mystery or role playing built into the story, it's just find the bad guys, figure a way to beat them, restock at the keep. I plugged in several quests and different things that can happen, but it might get a bit long by the time all 11 modules are cleared out, if we get that far.

 

Still I knew that going in, and the primary purpose of this was to find new players and teach the system so it should work well to those ends.

[Chris-M]

Re: Fantasy Hero 101

 

Sounds cool -- and thanks for the update.

 

You could always try to work in a little roleplaying/social skill-oriented stuff into the modules. My memory of the Keep is misty at best, but maybe in an orc area the players could rescue/interrogate a hobgoblin prisoner and get a little side quest that way that was more RP-oriented. Or if you want to keep the "slay evil races on sight" vibe going, have the players run into some clueless townie boy who's out there trying to find his older sister whom he thinks has been captured by the hobgoblins. That encountered could be roleplayed and then when the players find the sister it can turn out that there's some reason why she doesn't want to go home and that encounter can be RPed. Just some different ideas you may or may not find useful at your discretion.

[Zeropoint]

Re: Fantasy Hero 101

 

Note to self--charging into the middle of the enemy is not ALWAYS the best move.

[CTaylor]

Re: Fantasy Hero 101

 

Sometimes, despite all the preparation and everyone having a good time, it just doesn't work out. Usually this will happen around holidays, such as late November and into December, but the summer is always a risk because of family vacations. Every so often someone can't make it to a game because of illness or another pressing engagement such as a birthday or emergency. And every so often a lot of people have this happen at once.

 

For me, three players is the minimum, any fewer than that and it loses the role play feeling and starts feeling like a bunch of adults sitting around playing "let's pretend" which makes me and everyone else uncomfortable. If you get enough people, it starts feeling more like improv theater to play a role playing game, and you lose that weird childish vibe.

 

It is especially problematic if you ended - as I always try to - in the middle of a cliffhanger, with something dire or exciting happening. I view each session of a role playing game as an installment of an adventure serial: always leave them wanting to see what happens next, but with a feeling of accomplishment. Sometimes, of course that doesn't work out due to timing issues, but that's the goal. However, if the next session not enough people show up, you have all these characters without a player. As long as the number of players outnumbers the number of characters without a player, it's worth going on: I can run one or two guys, someone else can pick up a character and run him or her along with his own. Too much of that and it's just a mess.

 

This time two players showed up. The others had illness, scheduling conflicts, and so on. One might not show up again because of a personality conflict with one of the other players; that's always a possibility in any gathering. I wish him well, he seemed pretty upset. As far as I know, everyone else seemed happy, but it does open up a seat in the game so I'll have to pack the "make a character" stuff and a few pre-made characters again, makes the ol' pack a bit heavier (and with all the books and laptop its fairly ponderous as it is).

 

Since I pack in everything to the game I didn't have any extra stuff with me like cards and I didn't care to do some side issue just to give the guys something to do. If we'd been at the house here we could have played some board game or watched a movie, but until I know people fairly well I've become somewhat hesitant to throw the doors open these days. Past experience has taught me that sometimes you'd just rather not everyone knows where you live, fair or not to the rest.

 

So far as I can tell this is a pretty good group of guys, but yet again I'm saddened by how few women play RPGs. I'm not looking for a hookup I just would like to have the different viewpoint and approach to play that a feminine mind brings, plus it tends to make us boys behave a little better. Better luck next week, I trust, and I certainly am not the worse for wear.

[Maur]

Re: Fantasy Hero 101

 

Since I pack in everything to the game I didn't have any extra stuff with me like cards and I didn't care to do some side issue just to give the guys something to do. If we'd been at the house here we could have played some board game or watched a movie' date=' but until I know people fairly well I've become somewhat hesitant to throw the doors open these days. Past experience has taught me that sometimes you'd just rather not everyone knows where you live, fair or not to the rest.[/quote']

 

Depending on how you pack it all in (e.g. drive, bike, walk, etc...), you could consider getting a collapsible dolly and some stackable crates to carry the RPG stuff and some extras (e.g. card games like Chez Geek or Munchkin) rather than all of it in a backpack.

 

So far as I can tell this is a pretty good group of guys, but yet again I'm saddened by how few women play RPGs. I'm not looking for a hookup I just would like to have the different viewpoint and approach to play that a feminine mind brings, plus it tends to make us boys behave a little better. Better luck next week, I trust, and I certainly am not the worse for wear.

 

Actually quite a lot of women play RPGs. More than half the groups I've been in in the last decade have had at least 1 or more female players in the group. They were either SOs of one of the other players or friends of the other female players in the group. My guess is that they are less likely to join something like a pickup game of strangers at a store than to play with friends for reasons such as personal security and comfort.

 

I don't think I've seen very many single female players (or even just single females) in my 15 years of hanging out at my FLGS. Almost all the females that come into the store come in with someone else (usually their SO). Probably helps keep us single guys at bay, heheh.

[CTaylor]

Re: Fantasy Hero 101

 

I have noticed that as well. Girls will show up at the game store, but only in bunches or with guys. Its like they are going into enemy territory and fear assault by geekdom, or something.

[drunkonduty]

Re: Fantasy Hero 101

 

For role playing possibilities in the Caves of Chaos: you can always play up the evil clerics and the temple. IIRC in the original module they're just there, another combat encounter. But if you make them the secret masters of the place with a wider aggenda then that will open up other options. Do they have spies in the Keep? Are they targetting specific NPCs for human sacrifice? What are they're long term goals? Do they have ties to other temples?

 

Just some thoughts. Cheers.

[CTaylor]

Re: Fantasy Hero 101

 

Well I've added in quite a bit more back story and information; more hostages held, more quests, more stuff at the keep so if people get tired of just slaughtering things I have options. As for the priests and the rest... I'd answer but players are reading this

[CTaylor]

Re: Fantasy Hero 101

 

Well... this is the final Fantasy Hero 101 post on the game. I tried my best, but if the players won't show you can't have a game. I know that several probably want to keep playing but I have been really pushing it physically running an extra game like that each week and the last two sessions were 2 players each and people aren't even telling me why they are not showing up. I try not to take that kind of thing personally, but it's hard not to think you did something wrong or said something you shouldn't have, even if it is not rational. Sometimes people just can't make it or aren't as committed - it is just a game, after all. It was fun while it lasted.

[Gawain]

Re: Fantasy Hero 101

 

[Chris Goodwin]

Re: Fantasy Hero 101

 

Well... this is the final Fantasy Hero 101 post on the game. I tried my best' date=' but if the players won't show you can't have a game. I know that several probably want to keep playing but I have been really pushing it physically running an extra game like that each week and the last two sessions were 2 players each and people aren't even telling me why they are not showing up. I try not to take that kind of thing personally, but it's hard not to think you did something wrong or said something you shouldn't have, even if it is not rational. Sometimes people just can't make it or aren't as committed - it is just a game, after all. It was fun while it lasted.[/quote']

 

Wow, I wasn't aware you were running it weekly. That is a pretty big commitment on anybody's part.

 

I think that the idea of running a regular public demo of the system is a good thing, and it makes me sad that it's not going to continue. But it is your time and energy.

 

So, if I didn't say so before, thanks for doing it.

 

If I were going to do it myself, I'd make much less of a commitment, maybe biweekly or monthly, and maybe bring a couple of people along -- two friends/gamers I know who are willing to be helpful and help teach the system. That way even if you do get only two people interested, you've still got enough for a game.

[Zeropoint]

Re: Fantasy Hero 101

 

Alas, mighty muscles, stout armor, and a big honkin' axe are no use against the end of the universe.

[CTaylor]

Re: Fantasy Hero 101

 

Might not be completely over for you, Zero

[Zeropoint]

Re: Fantasy Hero 101

 

Might not be completely over for you, Zero

 

I must have misinterpreted this, because I showed up at Borderlands thinking something was going to happen!