Category Archives: Gaming

This is a general gaming category. There are sub categories related to specific gaming items.

Gaming, GM Adventure Template, GM Advice and Information

GM Adventure Template: Sorcerer’s Apprentice

Leave a comment

A GM Adventure based on the movie, Sorcerer’s Apprentice

The Way I Would Run It.

– Me
Mini Boss!

The first part, create an Object of some kind that has a series of creatures captured in layers. The prisoners can be released under the correct circumstances, but only one after the other. The outer most creature is the Mini Boss, and the rest are sequentially lesser power until the last one trapped. That one is the Final Boss and a GM NPC. Make sure this item gets to one of the PCs who accidentally lets the Mini Boss out. (you made it happen, let’s be real)

Yes, you hit them with a Mini Boss fight as their first encounter. In a session 0, this can become the focus of a campaign for years, or just a short campaign thread, even concurrent with other quests. I would normally classify this idea as a Major Side Quest.

The second part is a Powerful Ally who knows about the Object because they helped make it. They have been travelling through the ages/lands guarding it, and adding enemies to the the Object as they are found, until he thought he got them all. But here comes the party who somehow let the Mini Boss out. Make it scary and funny, but be sure its seen as the party’s fault, at least in this fucker’s opinion.

Powerful Ally

So, have a memorable first encounter where you introduce your Powerful Ally (and you get a fun NPC!). This Ally knows the Mini Boss, a powerful villain, but with no knowledge of where or when they are. They will be disoriented with the situation, to be fair. They only know they have escaped and can continue their plan.

They have been trapped inside the Object, where they could not die. A long time passed — from a decade to centuries — while they were in prison. An Enemy at the party’s level, that can give them a real challenge, but in the end, gets away. The encounter should only last a few minutes at best. After all, the Mini Boss wants to get away and regroup to eventually steal the Object or use it if they successfully got it.

The Object

Third part. if you want a longer campaign out of this, try your best to make it believable that the villain barely got away. Write down any powers you used to make this happen You can fix it in post and draw up this NPC as a character, ensuring they at least have those powers. They will have a goal of letting the others in the prison loose, so they want the Object and know the process for freeing people. You can even have them do it multiple times, as they manage to steal the Object from the party and release another wizard. Give the Object a recharge for opening, programmed in for this sort of thing so the party has time to catch him and take it back. It was a prison, after all. It has some security.

The reason they were trapped is up to you, but this is commonly a prison break kinda thing. Someone or Something put them there and the why only matters if your players are into the long story. Prepare as much for that as you think your players will go for.

If you follow it to the Last Part, then the Big Bad will emerge from the Object, along with another surprise NPC who has some connection to the Powerful Ally that was trapped along with the Big Bad. Whether the party knows this depends on how they treated the Ally until now. 😂

And that concludes this issue of How I Would Run It. I hope you enjoy it.

Play to find out what happens next!

Challenge, Gaming

Day 16: Caveliers of Mars

Leave a comment

John and I made characters today. You can watch his video and then come back for my take on it.

A simple system for a simple mind today. I’m at a whiskey tasting and I’m trying to get this published quickly before I start drinking.

My character today is a caravan trader named Mau.


The Character

Mau is a merchant and physician, having worked off his indenture as a servant to the caravan doctor. He has known his friend from Vance, a merchant princess, for most of his life. When she approached him about running goods between Vance and Anger, he jumped at the chance.

If it wasn’t for the notorious bandit, Bori, it would be there easiest job ever. That bastard has robbed him more times than he can count.

The Experience

Other than some indexing issues in the book (that I hear is corrected in the next addition) it’s a pretty simple and easy process to make a character. Seems like a fun world to play a game in.

Off to taste whiskey!

Gaming, GM Advice and Information, GM Idea

GM Idea: Better Combat in D&D 5E

Leave a comment

A player might say, “I want less overall mechanical intervention into my awesome that doesn’t make me more awesome!“.

And I would say, “You are about to become more awesome.“

And we would have an amazing fun game, because you asked and I delivered. How you say? Why would it? This is my answer. It is a fairly long answer, so go get a drink or a snack.

I use D&D 5E for examples to be understood by a wider audience. I alter the base rules of every system for most games I run in similar ways.

I find the rules for 5E to be the first of the d20 versions that makes sense for TTRPG Fantasy storytelling. And with some tweaks, it can be an amazing narrative experience. I have similar rules updates for GURPS, Cortex, and others.

My opinion on combat

When we get into a combat in an RPG, it should feel heroic. We rarely are emotionally connected enough to combat (at least in d20) without some changes to spice it up. When you fight something it should be fun and at least a little bit tense.

Especially once you introduce sharp pointy things and long range death weapons. We do not want to be one-shot-killed in RPGs, even though we know that is how it happens IRL. We want to feel the rush from being the hero in a dangerous place. The stakes are all mental in an RPG. Instead of your actual life, its your emotional connection to that character that GMs want to threaten, at least a little.

For me, the deeply mechanical nature of the RAW just don’t fit that. There are some narrative systems that do fairly well, but never quite right for me. I don’t enjoy fully narrative games quite as much (Fate, AW, etc.), as I like the blow by blow nature of combat sometimes. I do like narrative systems and I play them as well. I mean, I will take what I can get to play with cool people. Unfortunately, I will never get to play in a game like mine (unless its choose your own adventure), but y’all might benefit from my Path of Madness in your games.

Normally, a high-level set of PCs can win and recover from virtually any encounter I throw at them if I give them a chance to rest before it starts. Or, I can hit them with a big boss that would take the entire session to defeat. Maybe, I will attack them many times to weaken them or steal their resources and not let them rest so they fight the boss barely able to stand.

And still spend the whole session in painful bookkeeping and dice-rolling where most of the group is not very active most of the night. A GM that cannot keep your attention easily will find themselves with a very distracted group and not nearly as much roleplay, and that tends to grind to a stop in combat if you let it. It needs to be exciting enough that they get involved in other people’s turns, if possible. It is harder for me to do that with RAW and I fudge dice alot more, which I don’t really like doing. So, I just changed the rules to match what I was gonna fudge anyway! I find its a better experience for the whole table.

I do that through a few large changes and a large amount of small ones that together make combat smoother, faster/deadlier and a lot more fun. Heroes should hit harder, more often, and have shorter combats that are memorable.

Here are Five Large Changes that I make to 5E as GM:

D20

First, I change advantage/disadvantage rolls to bonus/penalty dice. They work exactly the same mechanically except in one way: You can have more than one of them on a given roll. Already have advantage and want to spend inspiration? Do it and roll 3d20.

The same with disadvantage: How about a poison that does 2d6 every round until you succeed a DC 20 Con save with 2 penalty dice. This can be a very deadly poison. You roll 3d20, take the worst result and try to get that DC 20. You have a good chance of dying before you make it. If you have advantage against poison, though, you only roll 1 penalty die as it cancels out one of the penalty dice with the one you add. I sometimes use a lower DC for a poison and a success only removes a penalty die — a critical removes two). Once you save with no penalty dice, the poison is done hurting you. Both of these can last a while, and you are almost guaranteed to take damage from this poison.

Second, I overhauled Critical Hits. Well, I at least made them more powerful and more often. Any final roll that is 10 or more over the AC is considered a critical. A natural 20 does even more damage. If you can crit on a natural 19, you now crit on 9 or more over the AC, etc. The damage of a critical is doubled, but in this specific way: maximum damage with all modifiers + one roll of all normal damage dice. A natural 20 does maximum damage x2, dice rolled. This is the only time you will get your modifiers to damage added twice.

In most of my games, wizards can do devastating damage with critical hits on spells with an attack roll and that’s quite a few spells. Many of them are cantrips. A natural 20 on a single eldritch blast at 1st level could do over 20 points of damage, depending on whether they have modifiers. A warlock that can throw 3 eldritch blasts, that can manage to roll 10 over the required AC will do a minimum of 10 points on each one that hits. A Magic Missile never crits, but it never misses, either.

Sword of Power
Backpack

Third, I moved encumbrance, ammo, and other bookkeeping to Usage Dice. You might have d6 daggers and after each encounter or attack (depending on how scarce you want ammo), you roll for usage.

If you roll a “1” on the Usage Die, it steps down one level. Our d6 Daggers above, would go to a d4. If you get a “1” on a d4 usage, you are out. In the per attack mode (roll it with each attack), you can also roll it before you throw to know if this is your last one!

You can refill after combat, even take some from the enemy. The GM will increment the Usage die accordingly with what you find and you are done. A d20 Usage makes it pretty close to infinite, and you can use Hero Points on them to keep them from stepping down. I also cap certain items to smaller dice, because you can only have so many of an item available for combat. I am looking at you, spears. It’s less realistic, but it is also less bookkeeping, so I like it.

Fourth is Hero Points. It is a resource that only refreshes when you level up, and is 5+ 1/2 your level rounded up. You start with 6. Any d20 (or Usage) die roll you make, you can also roll an additional d6 and add it to that roll for one Hero Point. Most close calls can be avoided this way, thus allowing the players to have tense moments where they managed to get out of the way by sheer luck or just in time.

You can even spend them on another player by assisting another player when they need it and its in character for you. If you spend one on a player you are stabilizing, they stop dying AND it is only a bonus action. Every use of the Help action allows you to spend Hero Points on the roll as well.

Hero Points and Inspiration are what make you a PC, and they give you extra chances to be awesome. That’s cool, right? I thought so, too.

This one is from the DMG, pg. 264.

Sword in the Stone
Bloody Fangs

And the Final thing is Dire Peril. I stole this one from John Wick’s Play Dirty and took it to Eleven. I keep a card on the table in view at all times that says in bright green letters, “Plot Immunity.”

While this is showing, your character cannot die without your permission. I can do anything else to the character (within negotiated boundaries, of course) for the sake of the story but I cannot kill you unless you agree. If you want an accidental death that would happen from an unlucky moment, you can keep it. If not, I will find another fate for you, such as unconscious or exhausted or whatever to keep you alive until I flip the card over.

The other side, in bright red letters, says “Dire Peril.” This means our death contract is temporarily void and I can kill you without permission until I flip that card back over. I am not necessarily trying to kill you, but it can happen now for any reason.

As a GM, I am unlikely to – and have not had to – kill a character in Dire Peril. So far, they have worked extra hard not to get killed and most times just fucking ran.

What it really does is get the group’s attention. Phones get put up, dice are grabbed, and attention is focused on the game again.

Once, I described a dragon plying overhead and as I did, I calmly flipped the card over. Everyone sat up and worked on getting to cover fast. I had no intention of attacking them, but I wanted to show that the wilderness is dangerous. They took it seriously after that. I did not have to ask about watch order that night.

That is why I use Dire Peril, to focus everyone on a big moment that is eminent. The fate of the story is at stake, at least for some. It often is flipped for a Boss Battle, but not always.

Leonardo DiCaprio's line from Django Unchained, "You had my curiosity, but now you have my attention."

These are my Top 5 Changes to make RPG combat more awesome. At least, I feel it is and people that have gamed with me seem to enjoy it and keep asking for more. I also use a more People chosen Initiative system to encourage teamwork. More Fastball Specials and less missed opportunities for them. If you can choose who goes when most of the time, it is more fun. Let the players have control of the narrative and your game will get better. And that’s why we are playing, right?

Right?

 Of course, these are summary rules, as I did nail it down for the few times I need to police it — I may fancy it up for a “Pay what you want” PDF at some point. I’ll let you know and update this post if I do. 

Everything else I do is small tweaks to a class or an ability here and there to accommodate these new rules and the player’s desire. ALL of them are to make characters better and enhance them, rather than limit them. I know they make PCs powerful. This is the point!

Then I can take the gloves off as a GM, because the characters are no longer fragile. They are fucking Heroes and I can hit them hard all day long if I want to to tell a good story. They are less focused on the XP and more on the objectives if they know a combat isn’t gonna take all day.

All of these together mean that you hit more often and harder and take out opponents faster. You will also get hit more often and harder. You barely track ammo and gear, although you are aware when you are getting low. When you hit d4 rations, every bite might be your last! Lastly, a little saving grace built in for those times when you missed it by that much.

And, I haven’t even touched on my Magic system updates. Oh boy, is it fun – and dangerous – to play a spell caster in my games. I like high power and high stakes! Casting spells can kill you, if you want to take a risk for something Epic. It hasn’t happened yet, but a few have come close. And I’ll bet they remember that encounter. I recommend adding Spheres of Magic – its amazing.

All of this allows for a fast-paced game, even with D&D, which gets so much hate from so many people. I find with the changes I have made it becomes worth playing for me and I enjoy running it this way. Most of the players that have been at my table have given good feedback on it.

You don’t have to agree with me, but I hope it will open your eyes to what you can update, add or remove from your games to make them more fun for everyone at your table. Thanks for listening.

Challenge, Gaming

Day 15: Spheres of Magic

Leave a comment

Spheres of Magic is an alternate look at magic in D&D. Instead of spell slots and a spell list based on a class, you choose Spheres of Magic, each with their own base abilities and talents. These basic abilities always have a version that can be done for free. You can spent spell points to augment those abilities in various ways. As you increase in power, you gain access to more talents and spheres, giving you more options as a spell caster.

Although I own their books for Magic (and the more recent Spheres of Might for martial characters), they also publish all of their material for free on their wiki and on Drivethru RPG. They have versions for PF1, 3.5, and now 5E. I own all three.

I will explain some of this as I show the character for today, a Warforged Outlander who has escaped from his makers. As is their way, he is simply named Ward.

Character Sheet: Page 1 and Page 2

The Character

Ward has wandered far since his escape and before. He was created to deal with simple threats around his maker’s home. His destructive blasts and protective wards were useful in stopping things like animals or bandits that wandered into the compound. He was as happy as he could be, knowing no other life.

Until he realized he was a slave. When he had seen something outside through the gate one day, he attempted to follow and was hit with a shock by one of the makers. He was threatened and hurt, and suddenly became afraid of the makers. The next chance he got, he broke through the gate, and fought his way to safety. In the escape, he was damaged and now his magic hurts him if he augments a spell when he casts it, so he has to resist the urge to let it solve all his problems.

They were not ready for his escape that day and chased him for months until Ward finally lost them. Now, he wanders the lands, no other goal than to help free anyone that has been enslaved and to avoid the old masters until he is strong enough to come back and overthrow them.

The Experience

TLDR; I love this magic system, especially in 5E. Its the core D&D rules with the ability to create a very distinct spell caster, if you want. Have fun!

TL Part:

I had the concept of a warforged mage that was forced to fight for his makers. He escaped – how to be determined in game – and is a wandering wizard who acts like Robin Hood. That changed through character creation as I was making choices about talents and class and such.

He ended as an Incanter, the generic “sphere caster” class for a pure caster. I took the Outlander Background and choose the Kineticist as his Tradition. This choice changed the way I could cast spells profoundly. Kineticists were born with the ability to harness and channel destructive energy from within. It moves your Key Casting Ability (usually Int, Wis or Cha for caster) to Constitution because now, to use a spell point, you have to spend the same amount in HP (reducing your maximum) and roll 1d6 every turn until you roll a 6 before you can spend them again at all.

You also get the boons of Fortified Casting and Overcharge. The first is why you get to use Con and Overcharge lets you take a level of exhaustion (as part of casting) to increase your proficiency bonus by one for the next casting you do.

You see how neat that is? Ward has to be played differently, because he can kill himself by casting spells!

If you want the same feel as the normal casters, they have the a Traditional Magic tradition that simulates it, but still uses sphere effects. You can even create a tradition of your own, as they created a system to help you make it. And it can exist along side the standard spell system without any difficulty.

This is the reason I like the system, as I like personal magic use and this can create very unique spellcasters. It is a wonderful GMs tool as well, if you want to limit the ways of casting magic to only a few types, and have completely different traditions for groups that they meet on the way. You could create Avatar-style Benders with this system fairly easy with Mental Focus and Somatic Casting x2. Now you need a high level of discipline and skill in the martial arts to cast a spell. Then just choose Elementalist or Incanter, depending on your take.

The system does require knowing a decent amount about it (what the spheres/talents are and how they interact with each other) to make a good character, so I recommend you use the Quick Builds on your first go at it. After you have played it, you can see how things might fit together more and can rebuild or create another character.

That is what I do with my PCs after the first few sessions: just fix any of those synergy-related mistakes you made when you didn’t know how to play and let’s get back to the fun! I really hate video games make you earn a respec unless I get one for free. Being penalized for not knowing the system is a huge turnoff in games for me. If I want to play a certain character, I want them optimized for that. Not the same as min-maxing, just making sure that the cool things I want to do are supported by the stats on the sheet. I am OK with losing something else on the sheet to get the character I want, but I DO want a respec before the campaign gets set in, you know?

Alright. I am tired. I will let you go now. Have fun!

Challenge, Gaming

Day 13: GURPS Illuminati

Leave a comment

This is another co-creating with John Wick and Jessie Foster. You can watch John’s recording and come back to see my thoughts, if you like. But first, look at these cool fezzes:

John’s is on the left.

Today, we started a little newspaper with an editor, a reporter and a bouncer-for-hire. I created Marco Pascal, the insomniac, xenophilic reporter with a mission he didn’t intend.

The Character

A reporter for The Lighthouse newspaper, Marco wants to see new things. So much, that he got involved with the Discordian Society. When asked to spy on his boss, Marco gladly agreed, not really thinking of what he was agreeing to.

Now, with years of insomnia, long work hours and easily waking, Marco has found himself directly in the middle of Illuminati Machinations that he doesn’t fully understand. His Patron believes his editor is planning to leak dangerous information to the public. They would like to know about possible stories before they are published and that meant spying for Marco.

This is not what he wanted, except that he really wanted to see new things. Be careful what you wish for.

The Experience

The GURPS character creation system by itself is cumbersome if a) you are unfamiliar with it and/or b) you have no idea what character you want to create. For that reason, a group creation session is much better, as you aren’t worried as much about the points until you know a little about your campaign. You need to know more than a little about the character when you use GURPS, as it is a generic system. It is not designed for any given type of play, but for a more realistic look at whatever game you plan on running. You will fail spectacularly and often if you don’t know what you want your character to do.

I love GURPS. It is in my top 3 systems for one simple reason. GURPS rules help me explain the world better. If something someone does doesn’t make sense, I try to figure out what a given person’s disadvantages are and it helps me to understand how to deal with them. More than any other system, it is core to my understanding of reality. To me, it is a Programming and Query Language, since I needed some kind of structure to the way I examined the world. Thus, if I know your approximate GURPS stats, at least I can understand you enough not to do anything to hurt you. At least, on purpose.

The GURPS experience is always a good one for me, and I sometimes just make characters or rules in GURPS, before trying them in other games. I also try to pin down MY stats to make my world easier to deal with. If I had my character sheet and a CLI for my brain, I could make some serious changes for the better quickly.

That was a ramble. I will talk to you again soon. LLAP

Challenge, Gaming

Day 10: Quest

Leave a comment

This is another co-creating with John Wick. This might be more fun than anything I could write. Feel free to come back when you are done and see what I remembered from filming.

I forgot to get a picture of the character sheet on this one. 🙁

The Character

Invictus the Mighty came from the city in the mists and for 1270 years old, he doesn’t look a day over 900. You can’t not notice his sculpted hair that is braided into his knee-length beard. Where does the hair stop and the beard begin? No one knows.

His only goal is looking to be a capital-H-Hero, and so he takes risks to make sure he will be. So naturally, he hangs around with a Spy that is trying to save the world. Why? Doesn’t matter, as long as they remember him as a Hero.

The Experience

It was a simple system that I think I might use some of to start any roleplaying game. You can collaborate some cool backstories with it and I had fun in character creation. That can’t be said for a lot of games.

Challenge, Gaming

Day 9: The Forbidden Lands

Leave a comment

Still feeling a little low today, but I managed to get this one done. Had several appointments that I had to keep, but I got this done.

This game is also by Free League (Twilight 2000,Mutant Zero), so I guess its safe to say I am a fan? Anyway, I chose to use the Legends and Adventures book, which has a more life path oriented character creation. About halfway through, I realized I was making Willow Ufgood. lol.

I named my Halfling Sorcerer Brollo Bright, as I like alliteration. Fight me.

Character Sheet

The Character

Brollo grew up as a the Baker’s son and learned all about the process as her apprentice. When he was younger, the village Elders approached his parents to share that he had the Sorcerer’s Mark and was destined to be a great one. Brollo began training with the Sorcerers at once, but still made sure he did his work at the store. He did not want to let his mother do all the work alone.

Eventually, his mother suggested he leave to make his fortune. She had saved a map that his absent father had left her to buried treasure he had left behind in his adventuring days. Brollo found and dug it up to find quite a few silver’s worth of jewels and coins. This was enough to outfit himself to do something bigger.

As the magic he had learned required him to be in mountains or caves (Path of the Stone), he headed out to the nearby mountains to seek out adventure.

The Experience

This system is, as more modern ones are, severely lacking in the solo character generation area. There are several cool random events to help tie the players together, in addition to writing relationships with each other. I would have worked that part into this write-up, but alas, I was alone today. I mean, finding your adventuring party while plundering the same old ruins sounds like a fun way to meet!

Challenge, Gaming

Day 8: Star Trek Adventures

Leave a comment

I am feeling a little low today, so I decided on something easier for me to make.

Today’s character is One of Five (known as Juan to most people). He is a liberated Borg. I made the character with this online character creator made by Modiphious, the maker of the game.

Character Sheet

The Character

Juan was raised on a frontier colony of artists and philosophers. He tended to not be interested in the art and culture until the day the Borg came. Everything he knew was taken from him, and because they were not warriors, they were quickly assimilated. Many years went by until a Federation starship attacked and disabled his Cube. He was liberated from the collective and through rehabilitation, remembered who he was before the Borg.

He joined Star Fleet and went to the academy to become a Security officer, intent on destroying the Borg. Over time, he learned that it was more important to protect his new family, than it was to focus on a pointless vendetta. He eventually became the First Officer on a ship that he now calls home.

If Star Fleet felt he was worth it, then he would dedicate his new life to helping others get that chance as well. He would liberate everyone he could, Borg or not.

The Experience

This is a simple system to make a character, although you need to think about your values carefully. They have a mechanical effect in the game and it is a significant one.

Other than that, I was mostly looking for an easy completion to this challenge today, as I am not well. I feel a bit better completing it, however, so there you are.

Challenge, Gaming

Day 7: Twilight 2000

Leave a comment

I forgot to actually post this yesterday. Oops.

My kickstarter arrived recently for this game, so I made a character and see what it looks like. Also, I had a buddy (John Wick) participate, as he is still waiting on his copy to arrive. Feel free to watch that video and watch the process.

My character is James “Jimmy” Bachman, who met his best buddy Oscar Turner )john’s character) in college.

Character Sheet

The Character

James and Oscar lived within a mile of each other and never met until College. They met in orientation, where they happened to be in line together. They both decided to go into the CIA; Oscar went into intelligence and James gravitated to Sniper. From there they were inseparable until James dropped out to head into the military – one of his other colleague thought it would be a good idea.

After a term of that, he decided he missed his buddy and went back to the Agency to work with Oscar again. A few years after that, War broke out and the BTO (Bachman-Turner Overdrive) did their best to survive. They had the skills, but they were in war torn Europe now, with nothing but their backpacks, a few firearms and bicycles. Oscar felt they could make it home somehow, and Oscar was the only one James could trust.

So here they are on bicycles or on foot, working their way back to the USA. They had no idea what they would find their, but that wasn’t going to stop them. They were going Home.

The Experience

I really like this creation system overall. It has some issues, but it was a fun process and I created a neat character from the life path system they provide.

The one negative is the indexing. They reference a few things that they had not yet shown you how to handle and no page reference to do there. The life path process assumes you already know how to make skill rolls, but it is not explained how until after character creation in the book.

Also, they have everyone roll for War breaking out and aging separately, and it created quite a disparity in age when war broke out. So, we just started about halfway through rolling one die for them and applying the result to both of us. It seemed to work well for us. Small flaws, and not enough to make me dislike the process, but they existed.

I do like that they made sure every character has Range Combat skill regardless of your life path. It is the first required skill you take when you enter the military – which every character does before its over – so you won’t be unable to shoot a gun when the time comes. In this game, that is important.

It was a lot more fun with someone else — which is a common theme in character creation — so if you want to play it, I recommend you make characters as a group. It takes a little longer, as you might need to wait for someone to make some choices on skills and where their career is going to go.

Challenge, Gaming

Day 6: 7th Sea

Leave a comment

I had completely forgotten until this morning (and after I already started a character in another game) that I was going to be making a character tonight for the 7th Sea game we had planned. doh!

So, I am using the character from there, a Montaigne Sorcerer by the name of René Jean-Luc Lievremont.

The Character

René was the son of a farmer who lost his mind when René first Pulled. He sent René to a Sorcerer to be “trained” but he knew it was to get rid of him. His father did not want a Sorcerer in the family – some sort of superstition. It didn’t matter, as René went anyway and learned the basics of the Art. Eventually, he left to pursue Fortune and Glorious Fame to work its way back to his father’s ears. He took his dad’s musket, as a reminder of why he left. René loves to hit people with it or throw it at things, imagining its his dad. He rarely fires it anymore.

René is a thief, but one who doesn’t like the risks that normally come with it. Second Story work is for the amateur; Privateering was the way to go. He hooked up with a Captain who valued his talents, became the Quartermaster on a ship called – no shit – the Otter Nonsense. There is no doubt that this is an Omen for the future that René might get rich, but it will definitely cost him his sanity.

Still, there are worse places to be than being followed and fired upon by a Vodacce Galleon because he has their daughter on board. The daughter who he found at sea in a dinghy clutching a note, along with a dead Knight of the Rose and Cross. Said dinghy was floating next to a flaming ship that would not allow itself to extinguish, regardless of the sand and water used. Oh, and she doesn’t remember anything and she’s a Fate Witch.

So, yeah. The flaming ship was sunk, the daughter was picked up and the Otter Nonsense carried on its way. A little drama — and fire — later, he found himself here, pursued by the family because he want to help this girl.

The Character Sheet

The Experience

There was more to the story of René, but that is the overview of what happened to him. The rest of the crew had some fun experiences along the way. One was even in love with the villain and let her shoot him in the chest! Pretty cool.

Swashbuckling was definitely had, and I had fun. The experience was enjoyable and I think the character will be fun to play should we play again.

But, I built a generalist in a game that kinda works best with specialties. I have a lot of options, but without hero points being spent, I don’t have a lot of dice to roll. I built a sidekick and a plot twist, but I DO think its fun to be called René and I love his backstory, I just decided. I have always loved the French. 🙂

If I play again, I am playing a duelist, or an Knight of the Rose and Cross. I think I would enjoy that much more in this game.