Gaming Swag from Japan

Over the weekend, my family took a little trip to Fukuoka, Japan. My wife currently has a broken toe, so she almost didn't go, but decided to go anyway. It wasn't easy managing things, as there was a lot of walking involved, but we got through it. [And the doctor exam yesterday showed no problems.]

The last two times I'd been to Fukuoka, my mother-in-law was with us. That meant a lot of the things we did were focused on her desires. This time it was just us, so the boys and I got to do a few things that WE wanted to do. One of them was to visit a geeky resale shop called MANDARAKE which was sort of like a vintage geek Mecca. Steven, my 10yo, is already planning to save money for our next trip so he can purchase a used gaming console. They had a SEGA MegaDrive (J-version of the Genesis), PS2 through 5, an original X-Box, and a few others. Plus games, of course. He wants one...not sure if he'll get his wish, but we'll see. 

They had manga, US comics trade paperbacks, old CD/DVDs of music, anime, etc. Lots and lots of toys: action figures, cars, model kits, and so on. Oh, and books. 

I finally, after years of (not very extensive) searching through used bookstores in Japan, found a copy of Sword World RPG. 

 So far, I've only had time to skim through it. My Japanese is pretty rusty, but I did read through the "What is an RPG" section. Luckily, the few kanji I didn't remember were easy to guess from context. That is probably one of the most straightforward, concise, and effective explanations of what RPGs are and how they play I've ever read. I took notes for my revised Flying Swordsmen game. 

When I get more time to go through the game, its mechanics, and what not, I'll probably have more to say here. 

Also at the shop were three boxes of vintage Grenadier Star Wars metal minis! The first I noticed was a Bounty Hunters set. Then there was one with the Heroes of the original trilogy (plus Vader). And the third was an Imperials set. I ALMOST bought them. My boys were encouraging me to get them. I wanted them. But all three sets together would have been close to $100 and my wife would not have been happy. And at 1980s 25mm scale they would be so tiny next to my 54mm plastic SW minis from my previous time in Japan. So I didn't get them. 

I'll probably be kicking myself for that decision years down the road, just like I sometimes kick myself for not spending $100 to get the Japanese Basic Set shortly before I left Japan for Korea. But such is life.

Additionally, at the 100 yen shops Seria and Daiso, I picked up some dice (two sets of 4 d6s at Seria), and some condition counters for RPG or board/card games (4 sets of 8 counters at Daiso). 

At Daiso, I also found two copies of the Werewolf game, with really cool art. There are some common cards in the two sets, but each also has some unique characters. 

Next to the Werewolf cards were these cards called "Biology Card Game: Cell". I had no idea what they were, but they looked like a CCG. My wife said to go ahead and get them, since they're only a dollar each. The cards are themed around viruses, diseases, organelles, medical tech, and various biological fluids each illustrated with a cute anime girl. 

The QR code on the box and on each card leads to a video tutorial which I haven't watched yet. Because I'll probably never play the game. But a fun curiosity for $2. 

Finally, in the books section of Daiso, I found this book about yokai. A lot of my players aren't familiar with them, so this is something I can use in my Jade Campaign to show off what some of the creatures they encounter look like. 

That's the extent of the gaming related stuff I picked up. Other than that, we met my friend Keita, bought some clothes, lots of snacks, saw a few touristy things (finally went up in Fukuoka Tower, rode swan boats in Ohori Park again), and ate a LOT of good food. 

All in all, a fun trip!

First Turn at Mapping, and Using His Head

 Last Sunday, I ran my TS&R Jade campaign. Only three players showed up: Steven (my 10yo), Charles, and Nate. They hired half a dozen men-at-arms, purchased a few torches, and headed into the Pits of Lao. For some reason, Nate and Charles thought it would be fun to let Steven be the mapper this time. It took him a bit of practice to get used to translating the descriptions into lines on the map, but once he got the hang of it, he did really well.

Steven had been thinking about the campaign rumors over the weeks (scheduling nightmare) we weren't playing, and he had a plan. We'd been discussing the use of his locate object spell. One rumor was from a former adventurer who had located a machine that allowed him to find a big score of treasure and retire. He wanted to find that machine. I told him that his locate object spell could help with that. 

When they got down to the second level of the dungeon (there is a set of stairs leading down from the entrance room), they bribed a group of bakuto (gambler yakuza) who collect tolls there with some wine, then went on their way. At first, the spell didn't detect the machine. It has a radius of 120', and the target was a little out of range...but none of them realized they had explored and mapped to just a room or two away from the target. Luckily for them, they decided to explore east instead of west or south, and moving to the next room allowed Steven's PC to get a ping with the spell. 

The next room had some low level Taoist mages and their ashigaru bodyguards. Reactions were positive, so they discussed trading information. I had to come up with a reason why the mages were examining the room they were in, and I decided they were doing an inventory for the Lao family (the last Lao, the crazy wu jen daughter of the Venerable Lao, having died 100+ years ago). This led to a brief discussion of the Dungeon as Underworld for the benefit of Charles, who is new to RPGs. After the game, I sent him a link to Oakes Spalding's blog, which has a copy of Philotomy's Musings on the subject. He was thankful for that. 

Anyway, the party found a well with treasure but the "water" was actually acid, and didn't try to recover it after Saro, Nat's PC, got singed. Then they wandered up and fought some giant toads, but had a surprise round so they weren't in any danger. Finally, the locate object spell led them to the Fighting Ring, an area they'd been to before, where you can summon a Level 2 Random Encounter to fight for cash prizes, while phantasmal fans cheer on the fight. They'd been here before. 

Just beyond it was the room with the Potion Transmuter machine. The machine has two settings: healing potion and potion of treasure finding. After a bit of examination and experimentation (a healing potion poured in became a potion of treasure finding, wine poured in became ruined wine). Nate's henchman had another healing potion, and he decided to convert it as well as Saro's (the first experiment). Then Saro drank his potion and off they went, trying to find treasure. 

Pro Tip: I had marked my dungeon map with gold dollar signs using a colored pencil in any room with monetary treasure, and with blue stars for any room with magical treasure. That made it easy to let them know which direction the nearest treasure was. Of course, the nearest treasure to the transmuter machine was the gold down the acid well that they had already found... But there was more treasure beyond that. 

They ended up with a really nice haul in the end. Slider, Charles' Thief, made it to Level 4, so Charles can make a henchman for him. He's considering a Wu Jen. Niko, the henchman of Citizen Snips (Steven's character), also leveled up. It was a good session, and I'm really happy to see Steven getting into the game a bit more, rather than just trying to make jokes and do silly kid stuff.

More Star Wars (and other gaming) Coming

My May the 4th game went well, but I'd still like to try and get a few more people interested in the campaign. So I'm gonna try again. May 25th is the anniversary of the release of A New Hope, and it's also a Saturday. Perfect timing. 

I've got a very busy gaming schedule at the moment. Tomorrow evening, Richard is running his Call of Cthulhu game. Taking a cue from me, he'll be running it face-to-face instead of online. 

Sunday is my regular TS&R Jade game. For the past two sessions, the party has been trying to reach some dimension door portals in the Pits of Lao (the micro-mega-dungeon) to restore companions who were bitten by spectral hounds. They finally achieved that, and there are seven portals in that room, and they only know the destinations of two of them. There's also a lot more dungeon to be explored. But some players mentioned that they want to return to the 18 Chambers of Lotus Fist temple to continue clearing it out (that's where there met the hounds). So I have no idea how this session might play out! 

Wednesday next week is a public holiday (Buddha's Birthday), so I'll be heading down to my friend Adam's house to continue the Swords & Sorcery board game campaign. 

And then there will be Star Wars on the 25th. The 26th should be my next Jade game, too, but we'll see if my wife will allow me to spend that much time gaming on a weekend. Hopefully, she'll be busy with her badminton club! 

 As Wayne and Garth famously said, "Party on, Wayne!" "Party on, Garth!"

___________

In other news, I was watching a Bob Worldbuilder video on YouTube where he was praising the 5 Room Dungeon. For D&D, I find the format a bit too stiff, because it's purposefully made to mimic the rising/falling tension of a movie's five act structure. If you don't use the encounters in that order, you don't get that rising/falling tension, so why not just create a small dungeon as you like? And if you do the dungeon rooms in that order, it's railroady.

For Star Wars, however, I think it might work a bit better. The d6 game is designed to be "cinematic" and the modules I've looked at so far seem to be saying "Choo Choo, Motherfuckers!"

I may not go full on railroad with these adventures (my game the other day was set up as presenting the challenges, but not expecting any particular attempts at solutions), but the idea of an initial "guardian" encounter, followed by an unexpected complication, then a trap/setback/lateral thinking challenge, then a confrontation, and finally a reward or twist seem reasonable for a cinematic style game. 

Of course, I won't force the plot on the characters, and I'll give them plenty of opportunity to flip the script or make an end run to skip stuff, but for my notes, having a chain of encounters set up for the most passive play style seems handy. I can riff off of that when the players go "off script."

Alright, time to decide what exactly the next adventure should be about! I've got an idea involving the death of Jabba the Hutt. The campaign started shortly before the Battle of Hoth, and it's probably been going on long enough that they're coming up on the Battle of Endor (not that the players have ever had much interest in joining the Rebellion).

Combat As War

 On Sunday, I was running my TS&R game, and the party was exploring more of the mini-mega-dungeon. They were basically looking at their map, and trying to fill in gaps on the 1st level. 

The party consists of: 

Koles' Human Wu Jen 4 and henchman Holes' Human Wu Jen 1 (my son Flynn's characters)

Citizen Snips Human Blade Mage 4 and henchman Niko Human Fighter 1 (my son Steven's characters)

Fei Mao Crane Hengeyokai Kensei 4 and henchman Snakebite Human Mudang 2 (Denis' characters)

10 Bad Habits Koropokuru Yakuza 4 and henchman Savage Poko Raccoon Dog Hengeyokai Fighter 1 (Justin's characters)

4 Men-at-Arms, wearing leather armor with axes and short bows. 

They returned to the Underground Garden and bought some fruits, vegetables, and flowers from the treants that tend the garden. They made peaceful contact with some tengu and got a tip that it might be possible to get some swordsmanship training at the tengu encampment south-west of town (I need to flesh out that spot on the map now!), fought some astral projecting evil spirits called berbalang and got some treasure, discovered a secret door that led to one of the areas they'd explored in the previous sessions where a black bear was snacking on dead goblin rat and giant rat corpses (they used some purchased fruits and flowers to discourage the bear from following as they retreated), and then they came to the first of several locked doors. 

10 Bad Habits picked the lock, and there was a short corridor with another door. He was unable to pick this one, so they bashed it in after listening and hearing nothing. 

This was a subsection of the level that has been taken over by bandits as their lair. And a random roll showed me that no bandits were in the common area, but that there were 60 bandits plus their leader, a 3rd level Xia (martial artist/monk) in other rooms of the lair. The bandits were in three rooms, 20 per room, and the leader in his quarters.

Bashing the door made noise, but a surprise roll gave the players time to set up their forces. There were four doors into the common area that they could hear unlocking. They arranged their men-at-arms in the center of the room to fire arrows, and each pair of PC and henchman took a different door.  Koles' and Holes' weren't next to a door, but they had spells prepared for the door the others hadn't covered. 

When the bandits opened their doors, Koles' used phantasmal force to make the floor lava, and after 20 saving throws, all but three thought they were being incinerated and fell unconscious to the floor, as the arrows from the men-at-arms eliminated two more bandits in the 'lava' room. 

Holes' turned to use his sleep spell at the southern door where 10 Bad Habits & Poko were waiting, and his sleep spell took out nine more bandits. 10 Bad's backstab missed, unfortunately, as did Poko's attack. 

Meanwhile, Fei Mao used his Sweep ability to attack four times against 1HD opponents, and took out three of the 20 in the room he and Snakebite were at, while Snakebite went defense mode to avoid taking massive damage. 

Finally, at the leader's door, Niko hit the leader with his magari-yari +1 doing some decent damage, and Snips used cause fear to make him run back  into the room and cower. 

With their leader running in fear and half their forces eliminated before they knew what was happening, I rolled morale for the bandits and they failed. They surrendered, and were all tied up. 

One 4th level party took out an encounter with five times their numbers without taking a scratch. And the bandits had a Type A treasure, which was mostly jewelry and art objects, so it was easy to transport back to town with their captives. The treasure from the berbalangs and the bandits was around 34,000gp, so everyone but the Blade Mage leveled up, and Niko the henchman is 1xp shy of 3rd level due to the rule on gaining only one level per adventure. 

And now that they have access to the bandits' secret entrance to the dungeon and that easy to seal off section of the dungeon, the players are thinking to convert that to their dungeon delving base. 

This was much more fun and exciting than if it had been a 5E style "balanced encounter" with just a handful of bandits attacking at a time. Oh, and for anyone wondering how fair it would have been if the party had discovered this area while they were 1st level, the bandits aren't killers. They would have used non-lethal attacks, disarms, overbearing, etc. to try and capture the party and demand ransom from town if that had happened. I don't mind it when PCs die in my game, but I'm not out to kill them. That's just too easy.

Planting Seeds of Adventure

Sorry I haven't been posting about the War Machine revisions I've been working on. I did check out the version in Dark Dungeons X, which was recommended to me. It's simplified many aspects (including making it opposed d20 rolls instead of d% rolls, so smaller numbers to work with overall), but has some layers of complexity that I've gotten rid of in my current version. Anyway, I've been too busy with grading assignments and other real world stuff to bother much with it this week. Probably not this coming week, either, but who knows. 

Today (my final day at the ripe young age of 49), we had a really fun session of my TS&R Jade campaign, and I think it illustrates some of the things I'm doing to enrich my campaign world and plant seeds of future adventures, including setting up potential for "end game" domain/war game/planar adventures type things in the future. 

Before I talk about today's session, readers will need a bit of background on the campaign. 

So it's an Asian goulash fantasy setting, and I've started it from a home town area with a 1 mile per hex scale (although there's a local region map at 6 miles per hex, and the PCs have ventured off the initial map once to visit the daimyo, more on that below). The home town is called Pine Bridge Town because it sits at the confluence of two small rivers into a lake, and has a large bridge across one of those rivers. Near the home town are some smaller villages, and plenty of ruins and monster lairs, including The Pits of Lao, the local "megadungeon" although it's only 3 levels deep and I don't plan to increase that. 

Early in the campaign, there was a group of martial artist bullies who came to town. They were disciples of Coiled Serpent Bao, a martial arts master warlord (BBEG type). The PCs managed to kill or capture all but the leader of this group, who fled back to Coiled Serpent Fortress (on the regional map, not that close to Pine Bridge). Because of another early adventure hook in which the constable of Pine Bridge was neglecting her duties (actually an Asian doppelganger called an aswang), the party decided to visit the daimyo, tell of defeating the ruffians, and get some support to protect the town. This succeeded, and the daimyo sent a troop of soldiers to guard things while the PCs sorted out the aswang menace (eventually). 

Meanwhile, they did make a few light forays into the Pits of Lao. They also explored some other local adventuring sites, like protecting the Holy Tree from yasha (small annoying demons), battling bandits and finding out that the local Imperial garrison doesn't care about the bandits or the bakemono menace, and visiting the local Yokai Village and making some friends there. 

Oh, another rumor that they initially started to follow up on but dropped was that the local Temple of Morning needed money, and would provide sohei to support they group if they would eliminate a lair of nasty bakemono that were causing trouble. 

Most recently (the previous three sessions) they were following up on a rumor. The nearby Nabeoka Village had a plague, but the local wu jen (magic-user) Seung had read of healing waters in the abandoned Nishino Iron Mine. They also encountered some ninja who also were seeking a plague cure (a potential seed for later) He sent the party to get the waters so he could make medicines. In the process, the party made an alliance with some bakemono (goblins), found out that koropokuru (dwarves) had set up shop in the upper levels of the mine [bakemono and koropokuru don't get along], and that various dangerous giant bugs lived below. Well, long story short, after three sessions and several slain henchmen, they recovered the waters, along with a magical spear, a spellbook, and a foreman's tally book. 

I'd originally put the tally book in just as a bit of color. But one of the players kept asking questions about it, hinting that possession of it might lead to information on who has claim on the mines, wondering if the PCs might take it over. Well, I wasn't going to let that go to waste. Over the break, I gave them a rumor that says the Nishino family served the Hasegawa family, so any deed to the mine is probably in Ghost Castle Hasegawa (long time readers may remember that name from my Chanbara playtesting--yes, I'm reusing it). The name has kept them away from that dungeon despite other rumors trying to draw them there. 

Additionally, the magic spear, I decided on the spot during the previous session, was forged by the legendary Huang the Swordsmith (a special encounter in the Pits of Lao), as was the magic blade of the koropokuru leader. More seeds. I gave the party a rumor that Master Xu, the Lotus Fist, might know more about Huang. The 18 Chambers of Lotus Fist is a location on the local map that they were curious about, but hadn't visited before.

Finally, now that Seung the Wu Jen has made medicine and the residents of Nabeoka are recovering, the 12 yangban (aristocrat) families of the town invited the PCs for a celebratory feast. But Uncle Chiu, who runs a noodle stand in Pine Bridge and always has lots of rumors and inside information, warned them that the yangban families probably just want to give them some bothersome mission or other. That was the third rumor I gave them. 

OK, lots of long set up done, but it is necessary to demonstrate how all of these seeds, interconnections, and rumors can play into each other. Sometimes I have these things planned in advance, other times I make the connections on the fly, as demonstrated above. But you can't make any connections if you don't have more of the world planned out than just enough for the next dungeon delve. 

Today's session in brief. After discussing rumors the party (level 5 vanara thief/ninja with level 1 dog hengeyokai sohei retainer; level 4 crane hengeyokai kensei with level 1 human mudang retainer; level 4 human wu jen with level 1 raccoon dog hengeyokai retainer; level 4 human blade mage with level 1 human fighter retainer; plus one man-at-arms that they more or less forgot about and dismissed after the first day) set out to the feast at Nabeoka. Arriving at night, they learned a little about the village (12 aristocrat families, other lower class families serve them, mostly rice farming going on), and the feast would be the next day. 

With plenty of time on their hands, they set out to the 18 Chambers of Lotus Fist, which was only 9 miles away. They met Master Xu, and found out that the temple was overrun by monsters. He had cleared out the main hall, but in order to train others, the 18 Chambers (training halls) would need to be cleared. The party set out to clear the Hall of the Foot (Dex related), fighting ethereal marauders in the Chamber of Balance (harder than expected fight, they lost the wu jen retainer), and quicklings in the Chamber of Reflex (hard but manageable). 

They decided not to press their luck, and headed back to Nabeoka for the feast. They found out that yes, the yangban want them to get some bakemono who have been kidnapping children (the same as the Temple of Morning rumor mentioned above), and they would like the PCs to investigate. 

The next morning, the PCs, refreshed with new spells, and having recruited a new 1st level wu jen henchman, decided to return to the Lotus Fist temple and finish the job on the Hall of the Foot. They fought two flailsnails in the final chamber to clear it out, and collected some loot. Master Xu told them that Huang the Swordsmith can be found on the third level of the Pits of Lao (they've explored about a quarter of the 1st level, but have a map bought from a thief with some vague indications of areas they haven't explored).

But on the way, they had a  random encounter with "martial artists" which presented me with a nice opportunity. I decided on the spot that if reactions were unfavorable, they were Coiled Serpent martial artists coming for some payback. If they had positive reactions, they were looking to become students of Master Xu. They ended up being Coiled Serpent lackeys. The party avoided them (they managed to surprise them), but considered returning to take them out after battling the flailsnails. 

In the end, they decided not to go after them at this time, but they had another random encounter with bakemono. They first tried to fast talk the goblins, but that didn't work and a fight broke out. After slaying the bakemono, they went through their belongings looking for evidence of kidnappings. There were none, but now they seem hooked on that. 

On the return trip to Pine Bridge, there was one more random encounter. I rolled for 2 duelists. Well, of course they were not a friendly pair, it was a stand-off! I've been waiting for this result to come up for a while now. The party stopped to watch. My 9 year old, Steven, wanted to interfere, but everyone stopped him. Then the players started taking bets. Denis (who plays the kensei and mudang) bet on the samurai, everyone else bet on the ronin. Then I gave control of the duelists to Denis and Steven. They played out the duel, and the ronin won. Everyone had a lot of fun with that encounter. 

Nate (playing the thief and sohei) commented that they shouldn't try to ally with a disgraced ronin, and I commented, maybe he just earned his honor back. Anyway, the ronin waved to the party then headed on his way. But that's another potential seed for adventure in the future. 

So after this one adventure, we have all sorts of potential for future adventures. 

• There are bakemono kidnapping children. 
• There are 15 more chambers of Lotus Fist to be cleared out, and potentially training with Master Xu some time in the future. 
• There are more areas to explore in the Pits of Lao, and they have yet another rumor to follow up (there are several outstanding rumors about the Pits), one which could result in custom made magical weapons. 
• There is the tally book, pointing to Ghost Castle Hasegawa. 
• There are Coiled Serpent martial artists in the area, apparently looking for revenge. 
• And there's this mysterious ronin duelist. What's up with him? I have no idea yet. But he may well return some time in the future.

Experienced old school DMs probably don't need to hear this, but if you're new to DMing, or you've just been playing the WotC way, this is how you start building up that campaign world. Make connections. Tie this to that. Think of ways to turn random encounters into adventure seeds. Give the players rumors and hooks. If they don't follow them, maybe let the laps. Or maybe, find a new way to get them interested. 

My players weren't interested in fighting bakemono with help from the local temple, if they had to split the profits. But rescuing kidnapped kids? They're all about that. 

The players have ambitions about making their place in the world (using the mine operation as funding, for example), and I've given them hooks to follow to make that happen. 

One player has his wagon currently undergoing renovations to become a battle wagon. There is a tanuki armorsmith who can make mastercraft armor, who is doing the work. Another session or two and the battle wagon will be ready. 

Another player wants to head down to the coast on the regional map to buy a junk (Chinese ship, not garbage) and maybe become a pirate captain. 

If the players can end the curse of Ghost Castle Hasegawa, the Hasegawa clan can reclaim it. Daimyo Isenoumi would like to send his army to check the growing power of renegade warlord Han Ji Shen (haven't mentioned him yet to you guys, but I've dropped rumors to the players -- another potential BBEG). Having the Hasegawa clan restored would help that effort. 

Exploring the Pits of Lao, the PCs may encounter all sorts of other encounters which can lead to further adventure (dragons, planar portals, treant gardeners, evil cultists, allies and enemies...)

Some of these things I've had in the works since I made the regional map (Warlord Han Ji Shen, Coiled Serpent Bao, a few other potential BBEG types). Some since I made the local map (The Pits of Lao, Ghost Castle Hasegawa, the 18 Chambers of Lotus Fist). Some I've thought up based on previous PC actions. Some I just make up on the fly. No matter where they come from, they can all make the world richer, and more lived-in. And they get the players into a situation where they have more goals and ambitions than they can handle at one time. And my campaign is just transitioning to the mid-level sweet spot zone. 

When we get to high levels, I plan to continue to put as many irons in the fire as possible for the players, to keep the campaign fresh.

Back to the Grind, Plus Gamma World and Call of Cthulhu!

I'm in the final week of summer vacation. As a professor, I get a nice long summer vacation, but I'm actually usually busier during the vacation than during the semester. So I'm looking forward to things slowing down a little. Not too much, though. I've got a couple of composition (academic writing) classes this semester, plus a study I'm hoping to finish up by October for fingers crossed publication in December. But despite that, my schedule, and my boys' schedules, will be regular, so gaming should be more or less back on track. 

My TS&R Jade game has been going well. Yesterday, my boys and Denis were the only players, and they followed up on a rumor that took them to a location just beyond their abilities (if other players had been there, it likely would have been fine). But with some good strategy, a bit of luck, and negotiation, they managed to complete their objective (rescuing 3 kidnapped children from monsters) and only lost one henchman in the process. 

I haven't run Star Wars in a while. Steven, my younger son, has been asking when I will. And with the new Ahsoka series on Disney+ now, I'll likely fire up those Star Wars creative neurons and get something worked out soon. I need to get on the players, though. I gave them a bunch of leads after the last session, but the only feedback I've gotten so far was one player saying, "Yeah, any of those look fine." Gonna have to pester them a bit more.

Richard, a friend who played in my West Marches game back when I first started it up (as a 5E game), and who I've played with a bit in some of Dean's games, is starting up a new Call of Cthulhu game. We had a session 0 last Friday, and the first game will be this coming Friday. I rolled up a rum runner with a boat and skill at driving a car, so I'll be the party's wheels. We've also got a prizefighting boxer, an Italian anti-mafia spy, and an investigative radio reporter as our party. Should be fun!

On the play-by-post website I use (RPOL.net), I made a Gamma World game last October, but it's just been sitting there unused. I made a few last minute updates and changes (I'm running 1992 4th edition, but with some house rules and mutations from other editions/games, including some of the house rules I used in GamMarvel World a few years back) and opened it up for players. So far, I've had five players ask to join. Two of them are already rolling up their characters: a mutant webspinner (an insect) and a mutant armadillo. I'm hoping to recruit around 10 or 12 players, since RPOL games have a high attrition rate.

Oh, and my boys are still working on their airplane simulator! They've been working on 3D models this past week. If you want to support their efforts, please check out their GoFundMe page! Thank  you!

A productive weekend

Last week (this week, too) I was teaching at an English camp for elementary students. Lots of fun. Usually pretty draining, but last week it was a small camp with great kids and I came out of it with plenty of energy. So I ran my TS&R Jade game yesterday.

My boys were there of course, but only two other players were free. With a smaller group, and the mapper absent, they decided to hold off on the Pits of Lao (my micro-megadungeon), and instead followed up on a rumor that there was a "dark force" in the Yokai Village. This is something they'd heard about quite a while back when they visited the first time, when they found out that the mujina weaponsmith in the village can make silvered (good vs lycanthropes & some undead) or jade-inlaid weapons (good against incorporeal creatures). 

Traveling to the village took several hours, since the large group of henchmen they hired didn't have horses and Nate's thief PC has a wagon. On the way, they were ambushed by bandits who surrounded them, covered them with repeating crossbows, and demanded payment. The party feigned paying up while the spellcasters (my boys) put 1/3 to sleep and distracted another 1/4 with a phantasmal force of a dragon. After a brief exchange of missile fire and some melee by Denis' kensei PC, they were victorious but one man-at-arms was killed. 

Carrying on to the Yokai Village, they got rooms at the inn to wait out the day for nightfall, when the village came to life. They did a bit of shopping at the bakemono market, Nate's thief inquired about turning the wagon into a battle-wagon and was directed to the Tanuki Village further off, then they went to the shrine to confirm that the 5 really nice crossbow quarrels of the bandit leader were magical (+1), and to get information on fighting undead (which they assumed...correctly...the "dark force" was). 

After meeting with the village chieftain (a six-tailed kitsune), they got some more information and a promise of one of the chieftain's magic items as payment if they could cleanse the threat.

They set off to the village's former noble estate just south of the village (the yokai took over a human ghost town), and the wu jen's (my older boy) ESP spell identified two hungry, angry semi-sentient beings inside. After checking out all the side buildings and rooms to make sure there weren't any non-sentient threats, they went in. 

There were two corporeal undead, which they had surprise on. Rather than rush in and attack, they poured holy salt around the door to fence them in. The undead rushed them -- a ghoul and a jiang-shi (hopping vampire) -- but they were stopped by the salt. My younger boy's blade mage and the kensei went in and tried to put o-fuda (paper prayer strips) on their foreheads, but failed, and were attacked back. The kensei was paralyzed by the ghoul. 

Holy salt was thrown, another phantasmal force of a burly guy slapping o-fuda on their foreheads was cast, with the jiang-shi failing its save and falling for the illusion, standing paralyzed. The ghoul was finished off, but it took time to whittle the jiang-shi down. Luckily, the illusory o-fuda couldn't fall off from a breeze or a blow. Eventually the hopping vampire was taken down. 

There was no treasure, but they chose a nine-ring sword +1 as a reward, giving it to the blade mage. Then they headed back to Pine Bridge Town (the home town) without incident. My younger boy's blade mage had been damaged by the jiang-shi, but made his save vs corruption, so he won't become one himself.

It was a fun session. They didn't get much monetary treasure, but they got a decent chunk of XP, a magic sword and some magic ammo. And it was a lot of fun. The undead were just the right level of challenge for the party, and they prepared well and survived. 

____________________________________

After the session, we came home, had dinner, and got my younger boy ready for bed. Then I sat down to work on my TS&R Game Master Guide, and made some good progress. I got over two pages written, including advice to new GMs about how to set up a 'home town' for a campaign, and how much to prepare before starting the campaign depending on how experienced the GM is and how deep they need the town/home base to be for the type of campaign they plan to run.

Motivating the Players

The assumption of traditional D&D play is that the PCs are after treasure. The assumption of more modern D&D is that the PCs are going on a heroic quest. Now, these two objectives can be merged, but it's not easy. The object of a quest can easily be a piece of treasure. Just look at any Indiana Jones movie for an example. The problem is that, if the treasure is the end goal, why collect all this incidental treasure along the way? Why give up searching for the MacGuffin to haul a load of coins back to town? Or if simply making that One Big Score is the goal, why keep adventuring once it's been achieved? 

In my current D&D game, the TS&R Jade campaign, I have a feeling that the players are waiting for me to drop a plot on their heads. That there will be a Big Bad Evil Guy to defeat, or a grand quest for the Great Googly Moogly MacGuffin, or some big Earth-Shattering Apocalypse to thwart. But I've just got a local area with towns, castles, caves, ruins, and factions waiting for them to explore it.

The game has been on hiatus due to various events and the holidays, but when we start it up again in January, I want to make a few small shifts in the game to hopefully bridge this gap. 

1. Give the players the DM map. No, not the dungeon maps and keys, but the overland map that has all the dungeons they could have found if they'd gone out to explore the wilderness. West Marches was all about going out to explore the unknown, and I started this new campaign still in that mindset. But the players aren't in a "go out and see what's over that hill" mindset. So best to pull back the curtain and show them the places near town where they can find adventure and treasure. 

2. Ask the players to provide their motivations. I got this idea from the Bandit's Keep YouTube channel. He suggests, after setting up an adventure, just asking the players directly what their motivations would be to actually engage with this, whether it's a dungeon, an event, a faction, or a quest. Get them involved. So when we start up again, I'm going to ask the players to answer these questions: 

• Why does your character need to find treasure?
• What would your character like to find?
• What would your character like to achieve?
• What is the party's current goal?

Hopefully, answering these questions will help get the players in the mood to treasure hunt, and also to feel more engaged with the world. When they can't answer a question, that's when I can provide them with some setting information to help them find an answer and get a better sense of the world. Or point them to a location on the map and let them know that they might get their answers there. Also, I can use their answers to tailor some of the locations that I haven't fleshed out yet to their desires.

Session 0

Had Session 0 for the new Asian fantasy campaign today. 

It didn't go off exactly as planned. One player was out because she has a friend visiting this weekend. Another is recovering from covid. 

But we met up and made some PCs for those that could attend. My boys have each made one PC already, both fighters. Flynn's PC is human, Steven's is cat hengeyokai. I asked them to make a back-up PC, and Flynn rolled up a human wu jen. Steve is attached to the idea of his character and refused to roll another. Well, we'll see how things go. 

Justin rolled up a koropokuru yakuza and a human wu jen. 

Nate rolled up a yeongno sohei and a vanara thief. 

It looks like an interesting group already. I had planned to do a little mini adventure after the character creation, but it took a while for Flynn to decide on his wu jen taboos. And we were short two players. So Justin pulled out a card game and we played that. The boys had a lot of fun with it. 

This evening, I called Denis and we talked about the session (and his work on an upcoming Gamma World campaign). He's now thinking of a samurai or noble warlord type PC (probably fighter, but maybe kensei or xia), and a mudang (shaman) of some sort. 

I have no idea what sorts of PCs Lisa might roll up, but she always has a lot of fun and high energy when she plays, so I know they'll add to the campaign. 

I'm going to allow the players to use their PCs as a stable, if they wish, alternating between PCs from session to session if they want. Or they can keep the backup as a spare in case the main PC dies. 

In other news, I think I finally have my next Star Wars d6 adventure idea down. I have an idea for what will follow from the events of the previous session now, but I need some input from the players about what they'd like to do next. Once I have that, I can merge their plans with my plans for the enemies, set up a situation, and then let the players mess it all up!

Working on the New Campaign

Haven't been blogging much lately because I'm prepping for the new campaign. I'm slowly building up the personalities, factions, and services available in the home town. I finished the third level map for the local "micro mega" dungeon. Three sprawling levels, lots of access points between the levels, and several key locations on each level. Stocking might take a while, but with the map done, that's half the battle. 

I've got several micro dungeons and challenges/rivalries/factional moves (some recycled from previous games, some new). Have to flesh out a few more, but I've got enough done, or nearly done, that I will feel comfortable starting the campaign in September. 

Of course, I'll be working at an elementary school English camp the next two weeks, so not much time to prep during those. They're pretty intense, and I doubt I'll get much work done on this campaign during the camp period. But I think I have enough in place to start. 

Also, my younger son made his character, a cat hengeyokai fighter. My older son will probably roll up a PC this weekend. I've got four or five more players lined up. 

The only problem is that this week, I've been looking at Southeast Asian folklore/mythology a bit, and finding lots of cool ideas for monsters from Thailand, Vietnam, and the Philippines that I'd like to add. Since I've already got the monsters & treasure book done and mostly formatted, so maybe I'll have to make a supplement already to add more monsters! 

Update: My older boy made his PC this evening. Another fighter, but a human this time, named Shi Jinping (ha ha)*. He's got lamellar armor, a heavy crossbow, a straight sword, and a backpack. He says he wants to take the game more seriously this time, but then starts drawing a picture of Winnie the Pooh in lamellar on his sheet. :D 

Son #2 doesn't want to have the same sort of sword, so says he wants to switch to a katana. He's got the cash, so that's no problem. 

*I told him it's spelled Xi, but he decided to keep this spelling.