Game On!

There has been a long silence on the gaming front for me, at least as far as my face to face group goes. I've been away from home for two weeks, but tonight is the night. It is time for some more Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay.

Gaming has continued for me. I've done a bit of solo delving into Tunnels and Trolls: City of Terror, which I need to do an update post or two for. More exciting then that is I have joined an play by post game, and more to come on that as well.

Come to think of it, I have lots of posting to do. So little time, so many dice.

Solo Delving - The City of Terrors - 2nd Delve

I sat in my hotel room tonight with the sad short delving life of Halk the Pretty eating at my soul. I couldn't let it rest. I rolled up a new character: Miss Greta the Ugly.

Greta was betrothed to Halk the Pretty. She knew that of all the trolls he could have had, she was the last he would want. When he ran off for the City of Gull several months ago, he claimed he was going to win his fortune then return. Greta didn't believe him. For months now she as sat in her cave stewing. She just knows that good for nothing pretty boy Halk is probably looking for a new trolless to share a cave with. So she has decided to go to Gull in search of him. If she finds him, oh is he in trouble. In fact. He is lucky that he is dead!

I rolled Greta up with the same method I used for Halk, 4d6 and drop the lowest die; however, I arraigned. I also stole a house rule from Cartomancer. I determined starting gold by rolling 3d6 and multiplying by my highest stat. The short life of Halk indicated to me that a starting character would need a few advantages. Is this cheating? I don't know. I don't care.

Miss Greta the Ugly
Kindred: Troll
Type: Warrior

ST: 42
INT: 14
LK: 15
CON: 48
DEX: 14
CHR: 8
SPD: 10

ADDS: Melee +35/Missile +37

Armor: Complete Mail (11 Hits doubled to 22)

Weapons: Doublebitted Ax (6d + 3 Adds), Common Spear (3d + 1 Add 40 yard range)

Trappings: Warm dry clothing and pack, 1 days rations

Gold: 3 gp

The wealth advantage was huge. I was able to buy some good armor for Greta and she has a massive damage wielding weapon. It was nice that I was able to buy her some sort of a missile weapon as well.

SPOILER ALERT, THE REST OF THIS POST GIVES AWAY DETAILS FROM THE SOLO ADVENTURE. YOU SHOULD NOT READ FURTHER IF YOU WISH TO PLAY IT YOURSELF.

Text in [brackets] indicates directions and choices made in the solo adventure The City of Terrors.

Text in italics indicates crunchy rules stuff.

[115] Greta arrived in the City of Gull by the same method as Halk. Standing outside her hotel Greta tried to determine which way that cheating Halk would have gone. Asking about, she was told the Black Dragon Tavern was nearby. If she knew that scoundrel Halk, he was most likely looking for drink. She went there.

[109] At the Black Dragon, she saw it was the type of establishment that one could buy anything for the right price. She was glad that she only loaned Halk a pittance of gold; however, after buying armor, weapons and trappings for herself, she only had three lonely gold coins in her purse. A gentleman to her left offered to arm wrestle her for a wager.

[73] The gentleman offered to make it more interesting, or she could just make a wager. Greta was supremely confident in her arm wrestling capabilities and told him "Three gold is interesting enough.

[15] The man's name was d'lcsta. He was a formidable opponent.

Each opponent was to roll 2 dice and add in adds. Damage was subtracted from constitution, but the first one reduced to half constitution lost. Greta's half con was 24, d'lcsta's was 20. He had 31 adds, I had 35. No damage was soaked by armor. The combat lasted nine rounds and went back and forth.

d'lcsta was a worthy opponent! However, in the end, Greta won and collected her 3 gold, doubling her wealth.

[109] Greta decided it was time for a drink.

[22] At the bar were two orcs who had obviously had a few. They remarked upon Greta's heritage saying that she could no doubt trace her ancestors back to the four legged variety. Being ugly is old news to Greta. She'd heard much worse from the other trolls while growing up. She decided to ignore them.

[60] That was a bad choice. Greta didn't notice that they had drugged her drink and now she had to fight them!

Greta's constitution was reduced to half for the combat. The orcs had a combined MR of 80, giving them 9 dice and 40 adds to her 6 dice and 38 adds (she was attacking with her doublebitted ax). The combat lasted for 20 rounds. After 8 rounds, it was pretty obvious that they were too evenly matched. They were winning every round, but Greta's armor allowed her to soak 22 hits per round. They would have to roll exceptionally high to do any damage to her. I decided to use "Spite" damage. Each 6 rolled would do 1 point of damage regardless of armor. After 12 more rounds, Greta received 9 points of spite damage total, and eventually she defeated the orcs. On round 19, she did enough damage to reduce their MR to 29 (killing one orc). The next round, she easily defeated the remaining orc.

[6] The orcs put up a good long fight, but in the end, Greta was victorious. Searching the orcs she found a pouch of Wombat Venom.

[115] Greta left the Black Dragon Tavern and returned to her inn where she decided to sleep off the effects of the drug the orcs slipped into her drink and call it a night.

Greta survived and earned 129 Adventure Points! 49 for d'lcsta and 80 for the orcs. Plus she doubled her gold and now has some nifty Wombat Venom! She is hurting; once the effects of the drug wears off she will have a current constitution of 39.

The armor is a huge advangate, but I will definetly be using Spite damage for all of my combats from now on.

Solo Delving - The City of Terrors

In anticipation of a play-by-post, Tunnels and Trolls game that I have joined, I decided to give a solo adventure a go.

I own a small number of them, but have never given them much thought. I've always intended to try them; however, I had not gotten around to it. I decided upon Michael Stackpole's The City of Terrors. From what I read, I knew I was picking a tough one to start out with, but I've wanted to dig into this one since I bought it. The edition I own is pictured in this blog. It is a Corgi edition.

From what I've read and the little I've chatted with other T&T enthusiasts, this is a classic. The adventure takes place in the city of Gull. From what I understand, this solo is detailed enough to stand as a gazette of the the city.

For those that care about such things, I used the standard rules included in the solo itself. One change I did make, is I rolled 4d6 for character creation stats, dropping the lowest die and keeping the highest three.

My stay in Gull was short lived.

My character:

Name: Halk the Pretty

Kindred: Troll

Type: Warrior

ST: 45

INT: 15

IQ: 13

LK: 16

CON: 36

DX: 11

CHR: 13

SPD: 11

Personal Adds: +35

Armor: Complete Leather (6 Hits Taken doubled for being a Warrior to 12)

Weapons: Scimitar (4d+0 adds)

Trappings: Warm dry clothing & Pack (I didn't have enough money left to buy anything else)

Money: 5 gold

Halk the Pretty, named so for his charisma score of 13, didn't last long.

SPOILER ALERT: For those that wish to play this solo, be warned I'm handing out spoilers beyond this point. The text in [brackets] indicates where Halk went and/or the decisions I made for him.

Halk, after finding himself a room and paying a rather exorbitant amount of money for it, made is way to the city square [115] just outside his hotel. Wishing to explore, he headed east on the Dark Way [152] .

On the Dark Way, Halk entered a room in the center of which was an old woman. The old lady was gray haired, wore a shawl and had cats everywhere. Halk decided to speak with her [8].

She told Halk her name was Madame Chayalla. Apparently, she does not like intruders and deals with them ruthlessly; however, Halk is "Halk the Pretty" (and since he is a troll, the old bat is obviously near sighted), she told him that since he was so handsome, she would grant him one chance to save himself. Behind her were two doors. Halk was told to choose one: left or right. Halk flipped a coin, and chance took him to the right [51].

Fate was not kind to Halk. Beyond the door was a vicious tiger with an MR of 100. Combat lasted two rounds, neither of which went well for Halk the Pretty.

Thus ended the short adventuring life of Halk the Pretty.

I do believe the next time I give this a go, I'll fight with two weapons. I may even find a solo meant for starting characters and give it a go first.

The Phoenix Barony: Session 4 the TPK!

Last night was our fourth, and alas, final session of The Phoenix Barony utilizing Tunnels & Trolls 5th ed. for our rules system.




I didn't intend it, but I had my first TPK (total party kill) in many years. It was not very well timed, but death never is, as we had a new player enter the fold, giving our dwindling numbers a much needed boost. I'm hoping a TPK on his first evening gaming with us doesn't scare him off.

The TPK came about because I am not familiar enough with T&T to judge what is a balanced encounter. I'm not a huge advocate of "everything should be balanced", I think that sometimes the characters should run-away in abject terror. Honestly, I didn't think the encounter I had planned for them would ultimately end in everyone's demise, but in retrospect, I didn't leave much avenue for escape.

After being joined by a new member, a dwarven warrior named Ashkore, the players decided to descend to the next level found in the previous session. The entrance was in the form of a hidden trap door that opened to a ladder which descended down. At the bottom of the ladder they found a narrow tunnel with a shallow ceiling. This forced them to crouch (even the dwarves) and they entered knowing that they could not easily turn, or fight effectively with anything other then thrusting weapons.

Twenty feet in, they were harried by Rattlings that attacked them with javelins through murder-holes. They managed to survive this, although Olga our female dwarf warrior only made it by Alesion sharing a Restoration potion with her.

They fought their way into an opening where they could fight the rattlings. Ashkore, who had all ready taken damage in the tunnel, tripped a falling block which brought him near death. The rest of the combat against the 8 rattlings lasted only two rounds. Alesion and Kilshalt both cast Take That You Fiend, managing to reduce the number of rattlings to 7; however, the group lost the first combat round so all four characters took wounds. Ashkore absorbed too many wounds and fell to the ground skewered by javelins.


Round two went the same. Alesion and Kilshalt reduced another rattling to cinders, but the players again lost the combat round and had to each take wounds. I rolled a windfall of spite damage, and all the heroes died.


Afterwards, we discussed making new characters and starting fresh; however, an out cry for a return to one of our main stand-by games was raised. The game in question being Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 2nd edition. It's been a year since we've played an WFRP, and as it is perhaps my favorite fantasy game of all time, I was not against the idea. I considered trying out 3rd edition with them, but decided I'm not ready to give up on 2nd edition just yet. I've read and own 3rd, and while there are some things I like, I have some deep reservations.


The best part for me is, all of the players presently active in the group have not been run through Shadows over Bogenhoffen nor Death on the Reik, two of my favorite WFRP adventures. I am out of town right now, but hope to be back in time to run WFRP next Tuesday, if not then the Tuesday next.


It's going to be a grim and perilous adventure.

The Phoenix Barony: Session 3

The group managed to meet for session 3 this past Tuesday and we had three players plus myself this week instead of the mere two we had for session 2.

The campaign world is The Phoenix Barony and the rules set is Tunnels & Trolls 5th edition.

I tried to get a bit more organized this session and recorded the characters' names for posterity: Alesian a Wizard Elf, Kilshalt a Warrior/Wizard Elf and replacing our dead elf from the second session (whose death brought an abrupt end to our Elven Trio) Olga a Warrior Dwarf. Our fourth player is still regrettably too busy with school work to join us and it appears he will remain so until June.

We picked up this session where we left off last. I quickly brought Kilshalt back into the action. He was grievously injured at the end of session 1 first from a failed attempt to make a make-shift staff and then from being pig-stuck by a goblin's spear. At the beginning of session two, his two elven companions camouflaged him in the woods near the goblin campsite before setting off in search of the goblin lair. At the end of that session Alesian ran from the goblin lair after watching his companion die with several goblins on his tail. He hid in the woods and was luckily not found by his pursuers. Meanwhile, as I explained at the beginning of session 3, Kilshalt had some tense moments of his own as several goblins passed nearby his hiding spot as well.

When it was obvious that the coast was clear, Alesian went to where he had left Kilshalt. The two of them then made their way to the village of Humble. All of this was prelude that I explained for the benefit of Kilshalt's player as he was absent during session 2.

In Humble they reported their encounter with the goblins to the local powers who, as reward for having slain some of the goblins, put them up at the Inn of the Sleeping Dog at the village's expense. The characters mentioned to Bobbert Tobit, the proprietor of the Sleeping Dog, that they were looking for a third or fourth companion to accompany them. They had decided that after either receiving magical healing, or failing that, waiting for time to cure their wounds, they would return to the goblin's lair for a second run at it. Bobbert introduced them to a lady dwarf drinking sullenly in the corner that was seeking adventure. Thus they met Olga. Bobbert then pointed them in the direction of Fizzer's House o' Majiks for possible healing.

At Fizzer's they encountered an enchanted floor mat that was disgruntled with them for standing upon his face. They found Master Fizzer Skudbaddoodle an agreeable, but scatterbrained chap. The inside of his house proved to be a definite bachelor pad, even worse, a wizard's bachelor pad. In short, it was a hot-mess of eccentrically organized disaster. He invited them in and striking up a conversation with them, divulged that the goblin lair which they had received their wounds at was long ago part of the lair of a Warlock Warrior. He did not mention the Warlock Warrior's name. Upon discovering that they were indeed near broke, he lowered his usual price of 500 gp for Restoration Majiks, and settled for the 40 gp's they had, plus the promise that they would do their best to retrieve a book for him titled A Treatise of the Three Tailed Cockatrice, which last he knew had been in possession of the Warlock Warrior who once resided at the goblin's lair. He also, explaining that he was in need of coin himself, encouraged Alesian to return when he was ready to learn some higher majiks.

Healed and ready, they set out immediately for the goblin's lair and explained to Olga on the way that they were also seeking a young Ind girl named Iris that had presumably been taken prisoner by the goblins and they accounted for how her dying father, whom the goblins had recently relieved of one of his legs, begged them to rescue her with his dying breath. They neglected to divulge that they were originally following the girl and her Merchant father with the intention of possibly robbing them. No sense in giving their new companion a sour disposition towards them.

Arriving once more at the goblin lair, they immediately noticed that there were no guards present. They proceeded with curious caution to explore first the caves belonging to the women and youngling goblins. Finding nothing of interest there but bedding and such fun goblin toys as rats on sticks, they proceeded to the main lair. They found the bodies of the goblins they had slain, still laying where they had left them. They proceeded to investigate those caverns they had visited in their previous foray, and took to thoroughly search them this time, along with looting the dead goblins and retrieving the possessions of their fallen comrade. Searching the rest of the lair turned up more dead goblins. They also discovered a hidden passageway that they presumed to be an escape route. It seemed it had been used. This required them to lift a portcullis that the goblins had lowered after their escape. The passage led to the other side of the sizable hill in which the caverns were long ago dug into.

The last room turned up their biggest discovery. They found Iris. The girl was still in the goblin's prison. The door leading to the prison had been spiked closed from the outside. Inside the prison lay Iris, sleeping, nude, covered in blood, but not her own. The rooms other occupants were all dead: a hobgoblin and two more goblins. All three had been slain by some sort of clawed/fanged beast that they did not find. They of course immediately suspected Iris of being a Were.

Iris did not speak common and none of them spoke Ind, but through trial and error, they discovered that the girl spoke Classical. Thus, Alesian was able to communicate with her. Their suspicions of her were deepened when she asked them to lead them to the Shaman's room. There she searched until she found something they had taken from her father: a sprig of wolfsbane.

They wished to clear the collapsed stones from a passageway that they hoped led deeper into the lair, but they would need tools. Alesian left Olga and Kilshalt to do what they could. Taking a list of items dictated by Olga that she would need to clear the rubble, Alesian left for Humble, accompanied by Iris.

In Humble, he first delivered Iris to Fizzer and delicately explained the young girl's plight to him. Fizzer put her in a pair of silver manacles, for her own protection, and took charge of her. At Grimlie's Gear, Alesian bargained for the tools that Olga wanted then set off at once to rejoin his companions.

Meanwhile, after muscling a bit of the stones out of the way, Olga and Kilshalt were attacked by two large spiders, one of which bit Kilshalt, but it's poison did little more then cause him an irritated wound. They easily dealt with the critter, then when further inspection revealed more webbing on the other side of the partially collapsed passageway, they set the offending webs on fire with oil and torch.

Rejoined by Alesian and armed with the tools requested by Olga, they spent the rest of the day clearing the passageway. This took them late into the night. They decided to sleep before exploring more, and settled upon camping in the goblin's escape route. They closed the portcullis to guard one side of the passage and took turns guarding the exit.

After eating a breakfast of hard biscuits and cheese, they set off to explore the unknown. This part of the lair, which they assumed was the unnamed Warlock Wizard's abandoned complex, was much better designed then the goblin's lair. It was obviously built by craftsmen, unlike the goblin's lair which was a crudely expanded natural cavern.

They did much exploring. The complex was, for the most part uninhabited. They did have a slight run in with two more spiders, and some odd purpled eyed white mice who created some sort of phantom ogre that only Kilshalt could see. Eventually, he realized it was an illusion. They did notice throughout the complex that there were any number of small tunnels near the floor. These tunnels were 2 1/2 feet high at most and no more then 1 1/2 feet wide. Most were concealed with loose rubble, but it was obvious that something uses or at least used them. All of them were too small for them to possibly explore.

An entrance to a lower level was discovered via a trapdoor hidden beneath an old bed; however, it is very narrow, so narrow that only daggers could be used for defense within it and even Olga the dwarf would be forced to slouch in order to walk within them. Alesian and Kilshalt would have to bend over in an exaggerated manner to follow her.

During their explorations of the goblin lair and the abandoned complex, they found a modest amount of treasure. Amongst those treasures was the book: A Treatise of the Three Tailed Cockatrice

That brought the session to a close. There was more exploration then combat, which after the combat heavy second session was a nice reprieve. I would like to note that Fizzer took the personality was inspired by Prospero from John Bellair's The Face in the Frost.

The Phoenix Barony: Sessions 1 & 2

With the death of our Darkling Ways campaign, we launched into David Bezio's The Phoenix Barony utilizing Tunnels & Trolls (5th ed.) as our rule system.

Three elves in search of something, were traveling east from the North West. Their temporary destination was a nearby inn. Along their route, they fought a not-too smart, but hungry troll, but dealt with him easily.

Staying the night at a travelers' inn, they caught the attention of a suspicious looking gent. The gent approached them and told them of a father and daughter, the father having a fat purse. He told them that retrieving said purse from the father, who had left earlier in the day heading east, and giving him a "piece" of whatever was in there, would put them in his good graces. He inferred that he was in a good position to send more prizes their way.

The three elves set off in pursuit of the father and daughter. All they knew of them was that the pair dressed and presented themselves as if they were from far off Ind across the sea. The road taken by the pair was obvious; however, two hours past night fall, they noticed a camp fire not a great distance from the road to the north. They investigated.

A path in the woods was found that led to an obviously often used camp site. The camp site was in use at the time by four goblins roasting a human leg over a fire. The element of surprise being in their favor, the three elves cast two volleys of arrows and a Take That You Fiend spell. One of the goblins was able to skewer one of the three intrepid elves with his spear, not killing him, but bringing him dangerously close to death.

After dealing with the goblins, the owner of the leg over the spit was discovered. He was a traveler from Ind who spoke broken common at best. He begged them with his dying wish to rescue his daughter.

Another path was discovered that led further north. Determining that their injured brother elf was too gravely injured to continue, they helped camouflage him near the camp site and the two others continued onward.

The goblin lair was found. With the wise use of some Panic! spells, entrance was gained. Six more goblin guards were dealt with. Things went well until a goblin shaman was encountered. With a Take That You Fiend spell of his own, one of the two elves (a female rogue) was killed. The last elf standing made a narrow escape from the complex with grievous wounds of his own.

He waisted no time leaving but did manage to collect his wounded comrade at the campsite. The two set out for the village of Humble, in need of healing and some more muscle.

Review: The Phoenix Barony

I was turned onto David Bezio's The Phoenix Barony by James Smith of The Underdark Gazette fame. He pimped it for the November 28th 2010 edition.

I would like to say whole-heartedly, Thank You Mr. Smith for tipping me off to this and thank you Mr. Bezio for writing it. tPB is exactly what I have been looking for. I wrote previously that my Darkling Ways campaign had come to an abrupt end. Much of the reason for that was, as much as I enjoy the concept of creating my own game world, the actual work involved requires much more effort then I am willing to put forward.

What I needed was a bare-bones world to place my adventures in. I wanted something generic. Now there are many "generic" worlds out there, but most of the more popular ones such as The Known World (or Mystara, if you must, but ONLY if you must), Greyhawk, Blackmoor etc.; however, a well known generic world comes pre-packaged with player expectations formed from years of supplements, be those professional or amateur.

I wanted, needed, a setting that was generic, but with no pre-expectations. Again, I could have gone to any number of sources available on the web, and many of them are well done. The problem with most is I have found very few that are well done for me personally.

The Phoenix Barony is a short work, about 30 some pages. The artwork is tasteful and suited to the subject at hand. I found few typos, if any. There are bits of flavor fiction through-out that are well done and add atmosphere.

I own the PDF of The Phoenix Barony which I picked up from Lulu here. There is also a paperback edition available here, that after having read and mucked around in tPB with my players a bit, I am keen on buying it for myself as a Christmas gift.

From the publishers blurb:

The Phoenix Barony™ is a high fantasy adventure setting for the Labyrinth Lord™ RPG or any Basic/Expert Fantasy Role Playing Game. It is a concise lighthearted setting covering an area 100 x 100 miles. In this book you will find details on the world the Phoenix Barony is set in, descriptions of all the major locations in the Barony, history, Religion, organizations, and NPCs that make the setting unique. If that isn’t enough you will also find the details of a smaller adventure area within the Phoenix Barony, hints of further adventures that take place there, and a complete 1st level adventure to get you started.(OSRIC friendly)

That is an apt description of what you get "out-of-the-box". It feels like a "high fantasy adventure setting" very akin to what a generic 0ld-school D&D campaign typically feels like. If you're looking for dark and moody with low-magic, look elsewhere. In the author's own words:

"(The Phoenix Barony's)...only real "unique" quality is that it doesn't try to be. This setting is hopelessly traditional vanilla flavored high fantasy...Still, it is my hope in sharing that it is just thing that some people have been searching for.

Mr. Bezio explains in his introduction that this has been a labor of love for him for 26 years. "I began role playing in 1981 with a basic version of the world's most popular role playing game. Through several years and several editions the setting you hold in your hands gradually developed". I assume from that statement that his world was used with Basic D&D, Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, possibly first and second edition (hence the "OSIRIC friendly" comment from the blurb), as well as possibly 3rd edition. Reading through it, it seems obvious that this is a setting that grew organically. What makes it work for me, where other borrowed home-brew worlds have not, is he has kept it generic for 26 years. I'm sure there are details not included in his document that make his own personal Phoenix Barony unique then say mine, but he has made, I suspect, some wise editorial decisions in not including too many of those.

The Phoenix Barony is written with the intent of using Labyrinth Lord™ RPG. Mr. Bezio also states "or any Basic/Expert Fantasy Role playing game". I don't know if he ever intended Tunnels & Trolls™ to be included in that list, but I took him at his word and T&T 5th edition is my rules set of choice for my personal tPB game. My group and I are two sessions in and it is working wonderfully. I see this as more proof that Mr. Bezio has done a wonderful job of keeping his setting uniquely generic.

As promised in the blurb, you the reader are given details of an area 100 x 100 miles. These details are just enough to give you what you need, without overburdening you with superfluous details. A history is given that sets up the major bad-guy, Geltrod the Vermin Lord, and gives enough detail on the political situation to spark a DM's imagination. The same level of detail is given to religion, organizations and non-player characters. There are side-bars throughout that give more information for many of these topics. Mr. Bezio does all of this with a mere 20 pages.

From there the focus is narrowed to an immediate adventure area. In this section are three population areas along with three different wooded areas, lakes and rivers, roads and mountains. All of these are staples of such classic campaign kick-off modules such as Keep on the Borderlands. There is also a section titled "Places of Interest" which describe possible adventuring locals (some of which Mr. Bezio promises to publish adventures for).

The Village of Humble is given a thorough treatment as a default town to base adventures around or in (again a future adventure Vermin of Humble is promised). This section is well done. There is a map that is more then sufficient and all the shops that an adventure will need in his early career are included, along with the NPC's which run them.

Lastly, included is a short adventure meant as an introduction to the realm called The Lost Daughter. I am currently in the midst of running this for my players and will give more details on it at a later date. I will mention that The Lost Daughter is available separate as a free PDF, and it is generic enough to slide into just about any campaign.

All of what I have stated is praise, so I feel I must point out some faults. One glaring thing missing to me is a table of contents. That is forgivable, but it would have made page flipping easier; however, in all fairness, this is a short document. I will survive without a table of contents. I have read complaints in other reviews of some of the names being too generic or cheesy. I disagree, but there is an easy fix: change them if you don't like them. My main complaint, is hopefully not a complaint at all. Mr Bezio speaks of four adventures that will give more detail to the immediate adventure area. These are: Vermin of Humble, The Legend of Jub-Jub Lake, Dragon Head Peak and The Lost Keep. Of these, as of my writing this, only The Legend of Jub-Jub Lake is thus far available. It is my highest hope that Mr. Bezio will provide the other three adventures as promised and soon. I personally would love to see Vermin of Humble ASAP!

In summary, David Bezio has done a wonderful job of presenting a campaign world that is generic, yet doesn't feel generic. There is just enough meat on these bones to allow a DM such as myself to jump right in.

Another Dead Campaign, but Gaming, Finally!

Due to a very much too long lapse in playing, my groups Darkling Ways campaign has come to an abrupt end. I promised myself I wasn't going to let this happen; however, my lifestyle, which includes too much travel at times, is not conducive for a long term campaign. In the future, I am aiming lower. I would be happy with a campaign more in the 12 to 15 session range. As that is about the number of times I get to game in a 52 week calendar year.

The campaign was not a dud. It was entertaining. I was happy with the rules system we as a group settled upon, Basic Fantasy Roleplaying Game. BFRPG is a good mix of Old-School with a dash of d20 thrown in. This works well for me, as I do prefer an old-school style of play; however, I appreciate things such as ascending AC for what they are: "easier".

I attempted to leave my game world setting generic and develop it as I went along. This worked to a degree. I think I would have done better starting with a "pre-packaged" generic world, such as The Known World, or Greyhawk; however, both of those with later supplemental material became loaded down with pre-expectations. Without having a bare-bones setting to work off of, I found myself floundering, as I am not good at maps and the big details. I do great with the small details, meaning, I can create an NPC on the spot complete with name, personality and quirks, but ask me "what's on the other side of those hills?", and I'm stumped.

A new campaign has risen from the old. Not from the ashes. I started over. We are two sessions in. This time out of the gate, I decided to use Tunnels & Trolls 5th Edition. My choice of T&T comes not from a lack of love for BFRPG, I like the later, and will most likely keep it as my go to system for D&D. T&T is fun.

I've used it little over the years. It is one of those games that sit upon my shelf and gets talked about, but very little play-time. I had been thumbing through my T&T 5 box set in between bouts of "Dungeon Master Block", by which I mean I was trying to think of a way to re-energize my excitement level for my Darkling Ways game and failing. I simply fell out of love with the old campaign and started jonesing to run some Tunnels & Trolls.

My choice of 5th vs 7/7.5 is simple. I own 5th and do not own any edition after that. AND, I'm happy with 5th, warts, bumps, silly-spell names and all. I added a couple of later edition house rules to my 5th edition and presto! Game on!

As for world settings, I was going to start a new campaign in my Darkling Ways world, but T&T just didn't feel right. Not wanting to repeat my previous mistake, I did some research and came across The Phoenix Barony. Thus far, I am more then happy with tPB, and will talk more at length about it in the future. I will say this now, it is an excellent bare-bones setting, with no pre-expectations from myself or my players. I kinda wish I had started my BFRPG in tPB.

We are two sessions into the new game, which is shaping up to be a "mega"-dungeon delving campaign. I put the "mega" in parenthesis, as it is not an unending dungeon. Thus far I have 5 levels planned with a possible 6. When it is explored, the campaign is over.

As always, I enter with high hopes, but this time with limitations.

Collection Showcase: Tunnels & Trolls

I love rummaging through my gaming collection. My wife would say that I have a large collection, I would disagree. The bulk of my collection is contained in 5 long white magazine boxes (the type you would use for comic books, except fitted for magazine sized periodicals). These boxes work out nicely for my RPGs, to include most of the box sets that I own. I thought it would be fun to show case some of my favorite games. I will start with Tunnels and Trolls by Flying Buffalo.

My collection is small, but I plan on growing it. Pictured here are: 5th (?) Edition Corgi Rule Book; two Solo Adventures: City of Terrors (Solo Adventure 9, Corgi edition), Caravan to Tiern(Solo Adventure 22), two GM Adventures: Castle Ward and Isle of Darksmoke; and I have one issue of Sorcerer's Apprentice #17. All of the listed items came in my box set that I bought directly from Flying Buffalo about eight years ago now. The box set also included Mages Blood and Old Bones, a collection of T&T fiction. I no longer have it, as it was destroyed by our family dog. I Also have Trollzine issues 1 and 2.

I plan on giving a more in depth review of my Tunnels and Trolls items, but that is not the intent of this post. My intent here is to give my history with T&T.

I heard of Tunnels and Trolls early in my fledgling gaming days (about age 10), but did not know much about it. I don't remember having an overall impression of the game at the time, as I was largely ignorant of it. I knew it existed, but not much else. I believe I largely wrote it off as just another D&D pretender. I thought of several games in this light, for instance RuneQuest was given the same treatment by me. RQ is a game I am to this day still largely ignorant about.

I did, a few years later (around age 13), have a passing interest in the game, as I was very much into Metagaming's MicroQuests. I played MQ utilizing loose leafed photocopies of Melee andWizard (both would later become The Fantasy Trip, another small part of my collection I am sure I will high light here at some point).

At the time, I was only aware of T&T through adds in gaming magazines and through these adds I learned that Tunnels & Trolls could be utilized for solo play. Near that time, I was one of very few in my small Pennsylvania town that still gamed, so I was having a hard time finding players for D&D and AD&D. I had largely turned to solo gaming.

My solo gaming started with hours of creating D&D characters and running them through the Monster Manual, Hit Die by Hit Die. Luckily, I discovered MicroQuests at Brass T-Shirts, a local store that sold a modest amount of games. MQ along with "Choose Your Own Adventure" books and a few odd Atari games, were my only gaming outlet. So learning of another Solo system with T&T excited me.

I would have liked at the time to have gained a copy of T&T and did try to, but was unable. About the same time I was seeking T&T, Brass T-Shirts closed, and a dark period of gaming began for me. However, that is a tale for another day. With the closing of Brass T, I did not give T&T another thought until many moons later.

Sixteen years after I wanted to play the game, I finally did so. Shortly after moving to Alaska, I began gaming with a fellow up here that was a T&T fanatic. I never played the game with him, but his enthusiasm for the game rekindled my curiosity enough that eventually I purchased a box set. So despite my wishes, Tunnels & Trolls is a game I did not try until about eight years ago, and I still have not played it much.

My only experience with the game is I ran a couple sessions. In both cases, I had my players roll up 1st level characters and I ran them through dungeons on the fly. I had plans to start up a T&T campaign, but it just hasn't happened.

Why do I like the game? It is easy to learn, I like the simplistic class options (Warrior, Wizard, Rogue - my favorite class, a very Fritz Leiber influenced class, and the rare Warrior-Wizard). There are no Clerics or Thieves, which I like. Clerics ,outside of D&D, always seemed forced to me, and would not make sense in T&T. Thieves are not needed unless a skill based system is being utilized. Most of all, I enjoy the inherent humor of the game. It never seems as if Ken St. Andre is taking things too seriously.

I think it is the humor/oddness of the game that now attracts me. It would work well for a humorous high fantasy dungeon romp. Someday I will run a T&T campaign. I think it would be a hit with my current players. I had one player before that refused to play T&T, and I will not knock him for it. He played it in the past, and had a bad experience. It happens.

Oddly, I still have not used Tunnels & Trolls for the reason I was initially interested: Solo play. I have decided to rectify that and plan on writing about my solo experiences.

However, I currently only own two Solo Adventures, so I must grow my collection. Gee darn, I must buy gaming products.

(By the way, I know there are several free solo's available on the web, but do me a favor and don't tell me wife that).