Playing
Last Updated February 2020
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I'm using Pathfinder rules, modified by a few tweaks from Trailblazer, for my ongoing World of Samoth campaign.
- Role: Dungeon Master
- Length of Campaign: May 2001 - present
- Status: Active
- Number of Players: 4
- Character Level: 19th
- Players: Brian (Human Cleric/Sorcerer), Cal (Human Fighter/Sorcerer), Jeff Franz (Monk), Nick (Human Holy Warrior / Knight Protector)
- February 2020 Update - the players now consist of Brian (same Cleric/Sorcerer), Cal (now playing his original character, a Holy Warrior), Nick (also playing a Holy Warrior / Knight Protector), and my wife, Jody (playing her original character from way back in May 2001, a Half-Elf Rogue/Fighter/Shadowdancer).
- Frequency of Play: Scheduled to be bi-monthly, but usually ends up being once a month
- February 2020 Update: We are still playing, but we're down to much less frequent than once a month, and Cal has moved, so he usually joins the rest of us by Skype
- More Information: Visit my World of Samoth Campaign Website
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Achtung! Cthulhu
This game just started last year (2019) and we've only had three sessions. My friend Jeff Ferguson is running this one; he used to play in a "regular" Cthulhu game (see below) and wanted to try his hand at running a game (this is his first time). He was intrigued by the Achtung! Cthulhu kickstarter from a few years ago and has been itching to run the game since he got his hands on it. We're using Savage Worlds for the game mechanics, and luckily the books are all dual-statted so he didn't have to do any conversion work.
- Role: Player
- Length of Campaign: Began in summer 2019 with one session; two sessions to date in 2020 (January and February); currently we are playing through Assault on the Mountains of Madness
- Status: Active
- Number of Players: 6-7
- Character Level: "Novice"
- Players: Martin (a female Romani operative), John (a Japanese-American soldier), Bill (a Scottish soldier), Robert (an Australian parapsychologist bushwhacker), Desiree (a Southern Belle investigative journalist), Sean (a French partisan), and it looks like we're adding a new player, the "other" Jeff (character TBD)
- Frequency of Play: After a long hiatus following the first session, it looks like we're going to try to play monthly, most likely on Saturday evenings
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"Unnamed" Old School Essentials Game
This is a game I'm going to be starting for my 10 year-old daughter and three of her friends that she picked to play. I've been wanting to do this for awhile, but I think my daughter is now old enough and showing enough interest that it could work. She's already invited her friends and I've spoken with their parents (one of whom is going to join the game as well), and I've done a "house rules" document along with some short background to help the girls create their characters. Our first session, where the girls roll-up their characters and I explain the basic rules, should be coming up shortly, after Girl Scout Cookie Season is over (three of the girls are in Girl Scouts and their weekends right now are taking up with staffing cookie booths and selling door-to-door). I chose Old School Essentials because it's a very faithful recreation of the B/X version of D&D that I started with way back in 1982 or so, but with much cleaner layout. I've also decided to have them start with adventure module B2: Keep on the Borderlands, because to me it's just a classic way to get introduced to D&D.
Role: DM
Length of Campaign: (in preparation)
Status: Upcoming
Number of Players: 5 (four 10-11 year-old girls and one dad)
Character Level: 1st
Frequency of Play: Ideally monthly
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This was a game my buddy Sean started on Friday nights after the completion of Brian's first Andalusia campaign (which wrapped up a few years ago; see below). We started out using d20 Call of Cthulhu because that was the system we were all most familiar with, but around 2012 or so, we switched over to Savage Worlds. This Friday night game actually takes turns rotating with various other games including a few old-school AD&D games, a Warhammer 40k RPG game, and my friend Brian's Andalusia II Campaign (below). We are currently playing through the massive Masks of Nyarlothotep campaign.
- Role: Player
- Length of Campaign: Began in 2006 and still going
- Status: Active
- February 2020 Update: We finished Masks of Nyarlothotep last year after about 13 years of playing. Recently, Sean has started a new Cthulhu game, but so far I haven't been able to attend (many times because it's on the same weekend as my Achtung! Cthulhu game and with family responsibilities I can't do two games in the same weekend)
- Number of Players: 5
- Character Level: "Seasoned"
- Players: Brian (Archaeologist and Scholar of the Occult, ala "Indiana Jones" type), Curtis (Detective), Jeff Ferguson (MFA and Antiquities Dealer), Jeff Franz (Catholic Priest), Martin (formerly sequestered Secret Society "monk/soldier")
- February 2020 Update: this is all changed now that our Masks of Nyarlothotep campaign is over, so the characters and players have changed. Curtis and Jeff Ferguson no longer play in this game, but we added two new players (Tad, who also had joined the tail-end of the Masks game, and Wes).
- Frequency of Play: Scheduled for once a month on Friday night (update: This has no changed to Saturday night)
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Andalusia II
- Role: Player
- Length of Campaign: Two "prequel" one-shots set in the Past (May 2011, June 2011), followed by a 13 "episode" campaign arc scheduled to begin July 2011
- Status: On Hiatus
- Number of Players: 6
- Character Level: 16th
- Players: Cal ("human??" fighter), Curtis (Half-Elf Paladin), Jeff Ferguson (Night Elf Sorcerer), Jeff Franz (human barbarian), Martin (Originally an Aasimar Champion from Arcana Unearthed but later converted into a Cavalier from Pathfinder's Advanced Player's Guide), Sean (Human Rogue)
- Frequency of Play: Once a month on Friday night
Warhammer 40k: Deathwatch
- Role: Player
- Length of Campaign: Two sessions (October 2012 and January 2013)
- Status: Finished
- Number of Players: 5
- Character Rank: Unknown (I actually don't own the system in question so I'm not sure how it quantifies character level)
- Players: Brian (devastator marine), Jeff Ferguson (assault marine), Martin (tech marine), Sean (tactical marine), Jody (Imperial officer)
- Frequency of Play: Two Friday night sessions
Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth
This is the rules system I chose to use for another old-school AD&D type game through Module S4: Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth. This was another "fill-in" game in the same Friday night "slot" as Sean's Call of Cthulhu game and Brian's Andalusia game (see above). I'm using the Advanced Edition Companion to emulate how we used to play AD&D back in the day (which is so say, we didn't actually play AD&D "by the book" but instead as a mish-mash of Basic/Expert D&D with the classes from AD&D).
- Role: Dungeon Master
- Length of Campaign: Three sessions total (June and July 2012, and another one sometime in late 2012 or early 2013)
- Status: "Finished"
- Number of Players: 5
- Character Level: 10-12th
- Players: Brian (Human druid), Cal (Dwarf fighter), Nick (human thief), Jeff Franz (human cleric), Sean ("red elf" fighter/magic-user)
- Frequency of Play: Scheduled for once a month on Friday night
- More Information: The recaps are linked above. I really like this game because this is another module that I've had ever since I can remember back in the early 1980s but have never played or run it before. I created pre-gen characters for everyone based on their requests and once again gave them instant "role-playing hooks" in their backgrounds. None of them is quite what they seem from first glance.
- February 2020 Update: This game died after the third session, for reasons explained in the "another one" recap linked above, but in general, the players were not looking for a longer-term old-school game with both an open-ended wilderness segment and a dungeon crawl - they wanted to just jump straight to the caverns; they didn't enjoy needing to explain their searches or actions, as they had become used to simple d20 "Search" rolls from 3rd Edition; and they didn't enjoy getting into role-playing a pre-gen character when it wasn't someone who was going to level-up over time and become "important"
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Earth Reborn
Earth Reborn
My friend Wil hadn't played Savage Worlds before and wanted to test it out as a player with the intent of later running his own ongoing campaign. We haven't seen his campaign yet, but we did get together to run a quick post-apocalyptic one-shot that I put together that was an amalgamation of Kamandi comics, Hiero's Journey, the Horseclans novels, "Thundarr the Barbarian", old school 1st Edition Gamma World, and some other random elements I threw in, including bits and pieces from the TV shows "Fringe" and "The Event." Good stuff. I'd love to revisit the world and characters sometime if anyone is willing.
- Role: GM
- Length of Campaign: An actual honest-to-goodness one-shot that finished in one session. April 2013
- Status: Finished
- Number of Players: 3
- Character Rank: Seasoned
- Players: Cal (human Primary Rover & Senior Killman of the Frontier Guard, with latent telepathic powers ), Wil (Doctor with a big secret and a thick German accent), Boyan (human barbarian raised in a bunker by his grandfather), plus one NPC (human Sorceress)
- Frequency of Play: One Tuesday night
Expedition to the Barrier Peaks
This is the rules system I used for an old-school AD&D type game through Module S3: Expedition to the Barrier Peaks. This game was run on the same Friday night "slot" as my friend Brian's Andalusia game (above). Although we finished that module, I'm planning to run another old-school game either concurrently with, or following, Brian's Andalusia game. The rules system is still under debate.
- Role: Dungeon Master
- Length of Campaign: Four sessions (September 2010 - April 2011)
- Status: Finished
- Number of Players: 5
- Character Level: 10-12th
- Players: Brian (Half-Orc Assassin and Human Monk), Cal (Elf Fighter/Magic-User and Halfling Thief), Jeff Ferguson (Human Paladin and Human Fighter), Jeff Franz (Human Illusionist and Dwarf Fighter/Cleric)
- Frequency of Play: Scheduled for once a month on Friday night
- More Information: Read my recaps of the last session, which includes links to the first three sessions.
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The Mud Sorcerer's Tomb
This is a game that my friend Cal invited my friends Steve, Wil, and me to play. He wouldn't tell us what system we were playing, and he said that he'd designed characters for us, so we didn't need to worry about bringing anything to the first game. Cal is using a 3.X era module from Necromancer Games as the basis for the action/story/campaign, but the rules system is basically a mash-up of Pathfinder, 4E D&D, and Savage Worlds. The players all decided to call it "Cal & D" and I designed this really goofy logo above to go with it.
- Role: Player
- Length of Campaign: Two sessions so far (early 2011)
- Status: On hiatus
- Number of Players: 3
- Character Level: ? (as I mentioned, Cal basically "made up" the rules, and they're not codified anywhere, so we're not really sure what level/rank/whatever we are)
- Players: Martin (gnome Paladin/Holy Warrior of the Travelocity god, converted to worship of William Shatner of Priceline), Steve (spriggan gnome Thief), Wil (human "fire mage")
- Frequency of Play: Random weekend afternoons, depending on people's availability (Steve lives in San Francisco and Wil travels a lot for work)
- More Information: Read more about Cal & D here and here. You can also read Wil's post on his blog over at WilWheattonDotNet.
Mythical Ancient China Campaign
This is a new campaign that my friend Cal tried to start up on Tuesday nights after work. We used to have a pretty regular bi-monthly Tuesday night game that started with about eight players but slowly dwindled down to just Cal (the DM), Nick, and me. After a number of years, Cal wanted to resume his Tuesday night game, but it's going to be monthly now, and I'm the only player. The biggest change is that we've left D&D and Dawnforge (the campaign setting Cal was using) behind for a wuxia-type campaign in mythical ancient China, using Savage Worlds.
- Role: Player
- Length of Campaign: Two sessions so far (April and May, 2011)
- Status: On Hiatus (indefinitely; I highly doubt we'll ever revisit this unfortunately)
- Number of Players: 1
- Character Rank: Novice
- Players: Martin (Human outsider martial-artist type)
- Frequency of Play: Once a month on Tuesday night
