Living Greyhawk/RPGA

Bright Sands

2006-05-03T07:32:00.000-04:00

Last weekend, I played Gateway on Bright Sands (Core 5-09) and Dark Deceit on Bright Sands. We played this at the Keep in Ft. Wayne, IN. We only had 9 players for the mod. 2 tables, one of 4 and the other of five.

I was in the table of 5 with another cleric, a druid, a wizard and a ranger. Lots and lots of healing possibities. Gateway had an interesting story to it. At APL 2, there aren't a whole lot of resources. One big hit can take part of the party down. We stuck together and kept each other up.

Kobolds, damn kobolds. That's all you need to know. It's an intersting mods with lots of knowledge possibilities.

Dark Deceit was the next installment (actually the 4th if you count the core special before it). The story arc has caught my interest and I will be sad to see it end at the end of the year. Again, the Paladian contact gives you a task at hand.

I think I may be confusing the two mods. They were back to back over 4 days ago. This time, tattoos! Crazy tattoos. Beware of the Duck Adventuring Company! An interesting twist to the mod. I like it

Internet Down

2006-05-01T22:07:00.000-04:00

I'm just getting the net back after a few weeks without it. I will be updating soon.

COR 5-14 All Roads Lead to Rauxes

2006-04-22T09:51:00.000-04:00

Unfortunately, I haven't played the mods that lead up to this one. There is a lot of back story for the mod. The plot is crazy. I can't even begin to help you understand this one. There is a lot going on and you need to listen. Lots of knowledge skills will make this mod a lot easier.

We played thsi mod at APL 6 and it is a grinder. There were a lot of tough battles back to back in this mod. It's somewhat like your typical RPG where you fight something and then fight something else before you get to save. We had a six person table with a 9th level cleric of Pelor to help us out. His maximized augmented healing became extremely vital as we spend a lot of our resources.

The story is all over the palce taking place in lots of different locations. You get assigned, recruited and have to deal with the circus. That's right, I said the circus.

All in all, this was a pretty good mod to play. I recommend setting aside a full 8 hours if you want to get everything out of this mod. We had time constrants, so some of the role-playing aspect was taken out of the mod.

I would recommend not playing up without an extremely strong table. Bad juju man, bad juju.

Verbobonc new storyline

2006-04-19T06:48:00.000-04:00

We got to play the new Verbobonc mod 6-01 The Discontent of Winter. The story in this mod is fantastic. As this story line will be playing out over the next few years, Verbobonc has become a low level campaign. I highly suggest dedicating a character to this plot line. You will want to play every mod with the same character to take advantage of some of the benefits of the AR's. This is HIGHLY SUGGESTED. I started it with a 4th level character, and I hope that I can keep him from leveling too much out of the story arc.

I can't tell you too much about the story wtihout giving it away. A man is trying to become a noble. You help him. Other nobles are trying to stab him in the back. There is a lot of political intrugue in this. It's great!

I'll be telling you more about the series as I get a chance to update.

Long Weekend at South Bend Game Con

2006-04-14T18:19:00.000-04:00

Saturday morning, we started with the 2 year 6 Verbobonc intro mods. I played my Barbarian to level him to level 2. We didn't know going into this that these were really 2 round mods. They were going to cost 4 TU's a piece.

(VER Intro 6-01) This was an investigative mod (The Paper Chase), but it had an interesting twist to it. We got to learn all about the nobility and regions of Verbobonc. I won't go into the whole detail, but it gave us an idea about the royalty of the realms and helped us place names and faces to the characters in Verbobonc. It also helped us to identify some of the places on the map.

The DM isn't into LG, so he wasn't too interested in the mod. The fights were overly easy and we walked right through it. We didn't get to do much RP'ing, but I would blame the DM for that. They were pushing mods through.

I think this was a great intro to the new storyline that will be playing out in the next few years in Verbobonc. It's too bad that this put me to Level 2 and I had to start a new character for the second intro mod.

(VER Intro 6-02) I started a Scout for the second mod. I had an idea for spring attack and mobility. Anyway, this mod was pretty interesting as well. We had a 14 year old kid as a judge. First, I thought you had to be 18 to judge at a convention. Secondly, he was the son of the person in charge. I think you can see where this is going.

I'll give the kid some credit. He did use some different voices and go excited during the role playing and battles. He was more interested than the first guy (who looked like Kevin Rose from Diggnation) in the whole mod. This mod was called Forest for the Trees.

Again, more knowledge of the area, but this time the battles were a little more difficult. This leads right into the new storyline starting out this year. The kid did ok, but he got on our nerves very quickly.

I will post more in the next few days about the other mods we played, VER 6-01, 6-02, 6-03, and 5-01

2006-04-11T07:01:00.000-04:00

I have so much to catch up on I'll need a few posts to do so. It was a long weekend for me, lots of LG in the mix. I'll start with Friday.

Friday I played Core 5-03 Atonement. I played this in Hastings with our beginner group. Everyone at the table was first level, I was playing my 3rd level ranger (archer) to help the group out. It's an investigation mod, so there aren't as many combats as you would expect.

My table did a lot of investigation. They tried to gather information, intimidate witnesses and ask the right question at the right time. We discussed matters in formal ways with the informants and didn't give us information to those who asked us. I was quite surprised of this from my group. They were shy at first, but once you got them talking, they were on board.

The combats weren't overly hard, but they used numbers to make up for this. We were out numbered, not out-manned. I picked most of them off with the bow before our guys moved up. Our guys don't have hit points, so I tried to wound them as much as possible.

The storyline was pretty interesting. I had heard from other people that this wasn't a very good mod, but I would say on the contrary that it is. The story was quite interesting. It's built enough to get you to suspect people, or really everyone. Kept us on the edge of our seats.

I'd rank it as one of the better core's from year 5 that I have played. It's a good mod at APL 2, I'd like to see how it progresses at other levels.

My next post will go over the mods I played at South Bend Game Con (yes, all 6 of them). Have a great day!

This weekend

2006-04-06T22:25:00.000-04:00

Tomorrow I will be traveling to Hastings to play Core 5-03 Atonement. I hope to play this with my archer. We are helping some low level guys get started in LG. It should be a blast.

Saturday and Sunday I will be in South Bend at GameCon playing 2 new Verbobonc intro mods and the first 3 Verbobonc mods of year six. It should be pretty interesting. I'm not sure what levels we are looking at yet.

I will have a full report when I return.

On a side note, I have no idea how many people are visiting my blog. I'm still working on various aspects of this blog. If you happen to stop by, just let me know what you think and that I can do to improve this blog. I appreciate it.

Somewhat off topic

2006-04-04T22:12:00.000-04:00

Tonight I tried something new. I tried to paint a miniature. I've been playing D&D for a long time. We've used dice, Mage Knight figures and even the new D&D Mini's. So now, I tried to paint a mini.

Even more than that, I tried to get my non-gamer girlfriend into doing this with me. Surprisingly, we had a great time. I picked out a few guys I play for Living Greyhawk and started to paint.

We started with an elven archer. I only have a few paints, so we had to do some mixing, but I think it came out ok. She was having fun trying to mix and match colors. She started on my mage while I finished the archer.

I hope to get some pictures up to go along with this post.

There is hope for you guys out there with a non-gamer girlfriend. There are ways to get her into the game with you.

Product Review

2006-03-30T21:55:00.000-05:00

The Living Greyhawk gamer has to always be organized. You have lots of different books for your characters/classes, you have Ar's to keep track of, minitures, dice and pens. This is what most people have. Some people bring the kitchen sink.

I just made a wonderful new purchase. I bought the Battlehive from Crystalcaste.com This thing has been a pretty good piece of equipment. It's quite durable. There are lots of foam inserts to keep your minis. They are not precut, so you can cut them to fit any custom minis or to the depth that you choose.

Underneath the foam, you can store books. I currently have the DMG, MM, PHB, MH, CW and CD in this with 3 inserts and the tray on top. The tray holds my cards, dice, pens and other goodies.

I wish they would have made this big enough for a binder, as most LG players keep there characters in binders and sleeves so they can be written on with dry-erase markers.

I suggest this product to anyone with under 100 minis. It comes with 4 or 5 inserts that you could put at least 10 minis on. Plus you can order more from the web.

For you who like to carry every mini you own, there is a Battlehive II that is twice a big and is on wheels. If you need this, you might want to consider how many minis you may actually use in a session.

Review of Marmalade Dog Convention Part 2

2006-03-28T18:21:00.000-05:00

Saturday evening, I got sick, came home, enough said.

Sunday morning, I ran a table of Bestill My Beating Heart for a table of mix-matched levels to get the mod in for them. It was quite difficult to DM for, but it was a great time.

Sunday afternoon, I finally got to start my beefcake. I started a Half-Orc barbarian named Kardex. He's a Barbarain on his way to Occult Slayer. I don't have a melee fighter, so there he is. We played FUR Intro Mod from year 6. Meals on Feet. It was an interesting mod. Our DM, who we know, was so hyped on caffeine I though he was going to blast off. We had a lot of laughs in that mod, but we were all ready to go home.

While the coordination from the event was lacking, it seems that the event was pulled off as a success. I didn't hear too many negative comments, except those that were player vs. player. I got some serious DM time in, which was quite due.

I highly suggest checking the con out next year.

In two weeks, I'll be on my way Game Con in South Bend, IN April 15-16. They will be premiering a few of the Verbobonc mods plus there will be two intro mods. It's a good chance to get in the mix if you haven't already started it.

Review of Marmalade Dog Convention

2006-03-28T06:59:00.000-05:00

Let's break it down by days, shall we?

The first slot started at 3pm on a Friday. It's a bit early for most of the working world. I was able to get out of work early so I could come and play the only mod I needed so I could judge everything at the event. I needed to play Furyondy 5-03 Time Will Tell. We didn't have as many people as expected. I couldn't get a table together. Instead we ran an into mod, Tears of the Garaseth. It was an interesting mod. I didn't die, Wizard made it to level 2, woot!

The second slot I was able to get a table of Time Will Tell in. The author, Morgan, ran this for us. Always and honor to have the author, who really knows the mod, run the table for you. We had a blast, even though we got blasted. We didn't finish up in time before the slot ended, but we pounded out the last combat and finished the mod. Thanks to you Morgan for putting up with us.

I had to slot zero, at midnight, the interactive so I could judge this mod. Talk about a crazy, psycho, grinder of a mod. Monsters everywhere. Not much roleplaying in this one, but they really didn't need my character anyway. I feel asleep at 4am in the middle of the mod.

Saturday morning. The organization of this convention wasn't as good as I expected it to be. I ended up not running the interactive and running a table for some guys from out of region. I ran Blood and Bones for them before I had a chance to prep it. I wasn't supposed to run it at the mod, but we made do. I think they had a good time. They were good sports about it.

Saturday afternoon, I ran the Falcon for a group of low level players. They enjoyed the investigation of the mod and the characters got really involved. Maybe too involved, but they beat the mod anyway with very little fighting. They were a great bunch to DM for.

Ack...I got to make it to work. Check back for Review, part 2!

Tools for gamers

2006-03-23T06:55:00.000-05:00

Since getting my video iPod for Christmas, I have been all over the web looking for great podcasts to listen to. In my journey, I have found a few podcasts that deal with gaming, geekdom and other interesting tidbits.

The easiest way to get these podcasts is through the iTunes music store. For those of you who don't have an iPod, hate Apple, or refuse to conform with society, there are other ways to get the podcasts.

One of my favorite podcasts is The Dragon's Landing Inn This podcast is all about roleplaying. They take emails and comments from the public and talk about them on the podcast. They are pretty funny guys and have lots of good ideas. They are also working on their own open-source game system right now that is roleplaying extensive. Check out their podcast at the above link and you will be hooks.

Though this next podcast isn't about roleplaying, it will fill your geek hear with goodness. Diggnation is from our old TechTV buddies Alex Albrecht and Kevin Rose. You may remember them from the Screen Savers! Anyway, there website is called Diggnation. Users submit stories. If you like it, you click on the digg link and it adds a vote to the story. The stories with the most votes are on the front page and most likely will be talked about on the next podcast. They have an audio and video podcast. Podcast feed is here

There are many other great podcasts that I haven't mentioned yet, but this post is getting longer than expected, so I will will create part two next week.

Off topic

2006-03-22T18:42:00.000-05:00

This is a little off topic, but I'm pretty excited about my recent purchase. I purchased a Battlehive to carry my minis and books. As soon as it comes in, I will review it for you. It looks like it will be an effective tool for all of my gaming goodness.

I have purchased some other things recently to help with my gaming. I will talk about those in my next few posts.

TELL A FRIEND!

Reflection

2006-03-20T21:56:00.000-05:00

I have so many mods to catch up with. I was looking through my AR's today and I found a mod that I really enjoyed. Fur 4-03 Bells in Gold. We played this mod at APL 2. It was a pretty fun mod.

Since it's retired, I can give you some of the specifics. My character was a level 2 Marshal. I wasn't sure where I was going to go with this character. I had no real purpose for this character.
My character had to help some of the Knights of the Hart. He met an NPC that changed his path. My character became a paladin and now is part of the Order of the Hart. I plan to take him into a knight prestige class.

Sometimes the story of these mods can shine through the hack and slash mentality of Living Greyhawk. Most of LG is about the fighting, but sometimes, the story captivates the table.

It was from this mod, getting the Ire of Nakky, one of our party members died in anothermod (not too long later) because of the cat. We ran into this NPC cat in a later mod (which isn't retired) and it took him out in one turn. It was a sad day, but my character with this Ire didn't play the mod he was in. Good for me I guess.

In the next few weeks, I hope to look back at some older mods and let you know how I felt about them.

Also, getting a remove curse, remove disease or restoration free of charge couldn't hurt the mod too much either right?

Marmalade Dog Convention

2006-03-18T22:54:00.000-05:00

The Marmalade Dog Convention held at the campus of Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo will be held next week, Jan 24-26. Website: http://www.marmaladedog.org/index.php

There will be most of the Furyondy year 5 mods, the tail end of the Bright Sands mods will also be available.

Premering at this convention will be FUR6-01 Master of Bronzeblood (a two round mod)
By Morgan Meachum & Michelle Sharp. Evil abounds in Bronzeblood as the Master stirs again. Undead hordes pour into neighboring towns and fields. Can there BE that many undead in the old keep? It’s your job to find out. This very dangerous Furyondy adventure is designed for PCs levels 7 to 15 (APL 8 to 16) and is recommended for Green Jerkin Rangers, Furyondy Military and members of the Order of the Hart and Furyondy Church of Heironeous.

Also, there will be a Furyondy interactive on Saturday morning. They will also offer Core Special 5-02 Mines of the Eye, part of the Bright Sands series. If you haven't played any of the Brights Sands plot, you should definetly look into getting these mods in. They are great fun and more mods will come out this year.

New LGCS guidlines

2006-03-18T22:52:00.000-05:00

New guidelines are up after the revision from Winter Fantasy. Mostly typo corrections. Also to make sure all regions were added, correct contacts for triad, and also to correct some spells listed in the wrong column.

Here is the link: http://www.wizards.com/rpga/downloads/LGCS_596.zip

COR 5-12 Return to the Slave Pits of the Undercity

2006-03-18T21:28:00.000-05:00

I played this mod last night with a group of 4 at APL 4. I won't talk specifics about the mod so I don't spoil it for anyone.

The storyline was quite compelling. It is part of the new slaver series and also has a run-in with a character from a year 4 mod. I can't remember the name of the mod off-hand, but I will update as I find out more information.

The basic premise is helping the elves get back some people who were taken as a slave. Playing as an elven ranger (bow), I hightly enjoyed this mod. Not many times do us elves get to help our own people instead of humans. I would recommend playing with an elf if possible.

The access gained on this mod was quite good as well. Even at APL 4 we were way over the gold cap. I am excited to buy a few of the times we gained access too.

The fights were quite tough at times with 4 people. I would guess that a party of 6 would have a much easier time.

We finished this mod in a little over 5 hours as we were sidetracked in the mod a few times. I HIGHLY recommend you play this mod when you have a moment. Remember, it will retire next year.

Welcome to Living Greyhawk

2006-03-18T20:32:00.000-05:00

Welcome to my blog. I hope to post my thoughts on adventures as I play them. Also, I hope to let you know what is going on in the world of RPGA: Living Greyhawk. Also, Iwill try to keep you up-to-date on my region, Furyondy and it's happenings. I have a big task ahead of me. So, at last this first post is underway.