Circle of Dar Janix

    They convinced the goblin that there was not time for a nap and asked him if he wanted to replace Haud Srallac as the leader of the goblins.   He confirms that he is and mentions that “we could cook him.” As they walk to the camp, they begin negotiating with him for the terms of his betrayal, hoping to get to keep the gem. They are unable to reach an agreement before they reached the camp.   As they crest the nearby hill, they can see that there are only three goblins in the camp with Srallac. The goblin immediately walked through the gate and presented the gen to Srallac, telling him, “I have brought the stone master, these fools tried to convince me to betray you on the way here.”   Srallac turned to Kai and Vrail with a toothy grin and said, “Thanks for bringing me dinner.”   Kai leapt into the air to flee as we entered initiative and Srallac took a shot at her with his bow but missed. One of the goblins hit Kai with a shortbow and another hit V

 While the Monday night Wilderlands group did not meet this week because it was the 4th of July, I did manage to get some gaming in during the weekend with my daughter and niece. They are both 10 and do have some experience with RPGs. My niece has played with us a few time in the past. My daughter and I have played a lot of RPGs together and she has even GM'd the entire Pathfinder 2e Starter Set. She has played D&D 5e, so she was already familiar with the general concepts used in Anime 5e. Anime 5e is an adaptation of Dungeons & Dragons 5e to a generic anime system. It appears to be connected to the old Big Eyes Small Mouth game in some way. Honestly, we picked this up because the cover caught my daughter's eye, so I don't have much background information on the game itself. Prior to the first session of the game, we did a character creation session. Anime 5e uses a strange hybrid of D&D-style character creation and GURPS-style point buy. I have to admit that I

After seeing me run No Thank You, Evil at GenCon, my daughter became very interested in playing it again. We started out with the "Race Against Time" adventure found in the box set. She has actually played this one before, but did not remember it. At the end of that adventure, when Whizbang asked what time she wanted to go to, she answered, "Fairy Time". So I quickly sketched out Fairy Time. I decided I wanted something that would be simple enough for a 6-year-old to grasp, but complex enough for me to iterate on as she matured. This is in keeping with the way NTY,E is designed. The game rules are in tiers of increasing complexity. I decided that the fairies were created by the All Tree, the fruit of which is the source of all life in the world. The fairies were made to defend and serve the All Tree during its long sleep after taking root on Earth. As the tree has to be defended at all times, there must always be fairies defending it. Because of this, there are

I once again have let this blog lapse for over a year, mostly because the communities I used it to  interact with largely faded. One of the groups that I game with now has several people who write  gaming blogs, so I am incentivized to pick it back up again. GenCon has always represented the  beginning of the gaming year for me, so returning with a recap of that event seems fitting. GenCon has changed a lot over the last few years, both for me personally, and as a whole. I have  noticed a positive shift in the demographics to a younger, more diverse crowd. The convention has  also expanded its support for families, and “cons within the con” like Contessa. On the whole, it is  a bigger, better, and more interesting convention. For the last three years, my wife and daughter  have come with me, and there is plenty for them to do (my wife is not a gamer). Along with the change of bringing my family, the con has changed for me personally. The groups  that I traditiona

Today I read through The Impossible Dream's Dread . For those of you who are not aware, Dread is a narrative horror game where the main mechanic is pulling blocks from a Jenga tower. The idea is that as the session progresses things get more tense as the tower becomes more rickety. If the tower falls while you are pulling a block, which you are required to do for actions you might fail at, your character is removed from the game. The book is very well written, and pleasant to read on its own. Using a Jenga tower to simulate the tension in a horror game is a stroke of genius. The basic premise is so simple, and the book is so well written, that I was getting ideas for games the entire time. It is very easy to extend the game beyond the usual horror settings, and even beyond the idea of a small group working together. You could use it to have a game where some players played Mission Control and others are the astronauts in a capsule on the way to the moon. Obviously something will

Sir Kevin decided to follow the unicorn as it fled the goblin hut. He quickly lost sight of it in the forest though. It wasn't long before he realized that he was lost and it was getting dark. He decided to rest on a log while he got his bearings. Once he sat down he started feeling very sleepy. He managed to jerk himself awake and find a strange little man dressed in green nearby. "Who are you?" "I am a leprechaun, and I want to make a deal with you." "What is the deal?" "I will tell you where to find my pot of gold, if you will dig it up for me. You can have all the gold in it, I just need the pot." "Why can't you dig it up?" "An evil witch put a curse on me." "We should kill the witch." "I am afraid she is long gone. I have had this curse for 100 years." "That is horrible. I will help you get your pot back." "Very good. Just follow this path to the bridge, cross the river, and dig

Continued from Part I Sir Kevin was able to convince the mushroom men that he was not hostile through gestures, hopping around, and making funny noises. The mushroom men surrounded him and herded him down a corridor. Soon he was in the throne room of the queen of the mushroom people. He was surprised to see that the queen was a teenage girl named Ariel. She explained to him that she had fallen into a hole when she was a young girl and the mushroom men had raised her. As she got older they learned to trust her judgment and made her their queen. Sir Kevin explained his quest to rescue the unicorn and Queen Ariel ordered the mushroom men to escort him back to the surface. Once back above ground Sir Kevin set out in the direction of the Goblin's shack. As he made his way through the forest he saw what looked like a beehive dangling from a tree. Since there had been nothing to eat in the caves other than rats Sir Kevin decided he wanted some honey. He used his sword to knock down the hi

On Thanksgiving my nephew, 7, brought Risk with him so I could teach him to play. As expected it started out fun but eventually devolved into mindless dice rolling as giant armies clashed in lopsided conflicts. By halfway through the outcome was obvious and he was getting bored. He insisted on playing on to the bitter end, but was ready for adventure. In the past I have played Descent with my nephew and during our vacation this summer we played through The Lord of the Rings Adventure Game. This is an introductory RPG that follows the plot of the Fellowship of the Rings through three battle scenarios. We completed it and he even explored deeper into Moria. I did not have Descent with me and since playing another made up adventure in Moria would basically be playing D&D, I drug out the D&D 3.0 starter box. Sir Kevin was born! Sir Kevin was hot on the trail of some unicorn stealing goblins when he came across their cottage outside of town. He crept up to the splintered wood door a