Meet the Myconids- 5E Campaign Session 9

     Happy to say we had our 9th session of our 5E Campaign last night.  May seem like a minor milestone to many, but for our group of folks with hectic jobs, families, busy schedules and other obligations, nine consistent 4 hour+ sessions is pretty good.  I honestly think that having a true Session Zero has made a huge difference in the overall quality of the campaign. The players had input in the setting and we all had clear expectations of the game and group from the beginning.  The party has had several close calls, and lost a gnome henchman in session 8.  I'm more of an OSR DM, so running 5E has been an interesting process for me.  I've applied my Old School mindset to the game and the players have learned to avoid combat where they can, fight on their own terms when they can't.  Early on they went into a few encounters "guns blazing" and about had a couple of TPK's (when you are at 0 hit points, the monsters can and will continue to attack if the situation fits, leading to failed death saves very quickly!).

    This session had a lot of roleplay. They have managed a loose alliance with a small group of Myconids, dealt with some renegade mercenaries preying on innocent folk, and have established a community/encampment (at the old farm site they cleared in Session 2) for a growing group of refugees that the party freed from a hobgoblin fort back in Session 5. They have crossed the local (rogue) prince of the Kingdom of Valorn and are now wanted for crimes against the kingdom in that region (They determined early on the prince was corrupt and had his own agenda seeking power and domination, while he worked to undermine his father the king). The group also managed to find a "Stargate", now getting it to work reliably and whom (if anyone) to tell about it, is another matter entirely... 

D&D 5E Campaign The Humble Travelers Session 8

 

     I'm a few sessions behind posting about our 5E Campaign, we had session 8 last night (9 if you count Session Zero).  We had a lot of fun.  This one was a lot of combat!  Session 7 was all role-play and interactions, leading up to this one, a big fight with Morlock infested tunnels.  I had to put my DM Dice in the Time out/Dunce Hat chair, I kept rolling 1's and 2's.  The party lost a brave henchman, err I mean Henchgnome...Selby the Rock Gnome was felled by Giant Roaches ! Ewww after he had bravely held the line against multiple Morlocks.  Eventually the party was triumphant, though almost all were seriously hurt and had burned through most of their spells.  The party has accomplished a great deal during the campaign so far. They reached level 5 by end of the night.  

The Entrance to the Morlock Tunnels....danger and death await!!

Selby the Rock Gnome (RIP) and Aldebaran the Sorcerer

The Humble Travelers Session 4 (5E Campaign)

 We played session 4 of our 5E Campaign last Saturday.  Below are some pictures.

Hope everyone is doing well have a great weekend!

5E Campaign Session One

 Hello everyone,

 Last night we played our first session of our new 5E Campaign.  

     Everyone agreed that having had a Session Zero really helped them get into the scope and intent of the Campaign, as well as, have solid character concepts and builds prior to last night.  Part of our Session Zero involved me asking the players their preferences in game play. I realized while I like a lot of combat in my games, my players were more of a mixture of role play, puzzles, exploration and some combat. In my preparations for Session One, I factored all of these into the session and I think it worked out well.  

     I let the player's know that this was not an adventure path type of campaign, instead their characters would be driving the story, in a sandbox type of setting.  In our Session Zero the players had helped develop the starting region, the small Kingdom of Valorn, in the small human (mostly) town of Bastion right on the edge of the kingdom near the dangerous Borderlands.  I provided several different potential adventure leads to the characters prior to them leaving town, and they got a lot more accomplished in the 4.5 hours of play than I expected. Fortunately I had done a good bit of prep and was prepared. 

I present our party "The Humble Travelers"    back row from L to R  Orreg "Bearkiller" Thuliaga - Goliath Fighter, Adria- Aasimar Druid,  Sallouisa "Sally"- Human Cleric of the Raven Queen, and on front row, the mysterious Aldebaran- a half-elf..that claims to be a simple woodsman, but has shown some spell casting abilities...

     We play again in two weeks and everyone seems to be excited!   It felt fantastic to be doing in person gaming again!

Good Gaming - B.B.

5E Session Zero!

                 Yeah, my DM Dice box has gotten out of hand....

 
 This last Saturday was interesting on the gaming front for several reasons.  First and foremost a return to face to face gaming after a long hiatus. Second, I was asked to run a 5E game for a group of good friends.  I'm an OSR guy, but after discussion and thought I agreed to run 5E.  For me the most important thing is the people at the table, and this was a chance to run for a great group of folks.  The last, but not least item of interest was we met but did not actually play per se. Instead I had an official Session Zero. I've never actually organized or done a true Session Zero before.  I've done group campaign building, and variations of that, but we followed a pre-worked agenda/outline I worked up, asking players key questions about their gaming styles, preferences, likes and dislikes.  Even learned some new things about people I've known for years.  Then we worked in broad strokes on the starting campaign area, then we did character creation. Gaming schedules were hashed out, house rules, what to do in event of character death or player absence. Etc...

Bit of organized character creation

My Dice of Death & Dismemberment arrived that day, so we had a serious chat about using them or not...we worked out a compromise.

     By the end of the evening, everyone was excited about their characters and the campaign. Since Saturday,  I've received multiple messages from the players saying how much they enjoyed having a Session Zero and how it helped them better formulate their character and how to come together as a group.  Looking forward to this campaign!

- Good Gaming! B.B.

Mos Eisley Vice

 To the tune of:

Low Rider

Spock,"This is highly illogical!"

Greedo,"Hurry up! I'm late for an appointment at the Cantina with a tramp freighter pilot!"

Thallo,"What manner of chariot is this?!""

Bionic Bigfoot,"Can I have a ride?!!...They act like they don't even see me!"

Threepio,"You said these were good seats?!"

Threepio 2," Why is this full of wine??"

Fantasy Gaming Minis!!!

I haven't posted pictures of my miniature collection in awhile.  But, I've still been steadily picking up new (well many old ones from back in the day) miniatures and thanks to some awesome talented friends have been able to slowly but surely get a good % of my growing collection painted up! 

I think I have a problem!   (no, not too many minis, not enough shelf space!  LOL)
I still have a pile of unpainted lead, but I now have a good solid assortment of painted minis to run a diverse range of D&Desque adventures.  Now that the kids have all moved out (Yippee) my wife has agreed to let me turn a room into a true game-room!  I have these minis currently in a small  room that isn't big enough to allow for more than a couple of players, so moving my collection to a bigger room will allow me to dig my stuff out of storage, add more shelves, and maybe get to use some of my Dwarven Forge stuff that has been in storage for far too long.  This will be a long project, as the kids haven't quite gotten all of their stuff out of the room I intend to use, but it is going to happen!  I am currently running a Stars Without Number game at a friend's house, our SWN game is more of a theater of the mind experience, I'm hoping by the time it wraps up I will have the game room ready for a Fantasy Campaign and we can go full blown with miniatures, terrain and more! 

My Man Cave!!

 After alot of time and effort, and scoring some great deals on shelves, books, etc... I'm finally "done" with my Man Cave...well your never really done, are you?  But anyways I'm happy with it.  Now to work some gaming into my schedule!!!

What's going on in the Gameroom??

 Things have been quiet up in the gameroom of late... Let's go take a look and see what Old Bill has been up too shall we?
  

  Well looks like some new stuff on the wall, I see a Greyhawk poster, lets take a closer look...

 I loved the above map from the original Dungeon boardgame, I spent hours and hours moving my minis around on it, I dug it and the above Greyhawk maps out of storage awhile ago and took them today to get them laminated.  Figured they needed to go up on the wall.

While out and about today I stopped at the local Comic Shop, I've got a confession to make, I never read the D.C. Warlord series, I know I'm terribly ashamed, but to make up for it I got the Showcase compilation  (it was on sale at the shop) and a couple of other issues of the comic.  Dang how did I miss this one after all of these years!  Good stuff.  And perfect fodder for a campaign idea I'm working on.

Just a random shot of what's on my gametable these days...hmmm looks like some old school stuff, and a cool Marvel Universe guide to the Conan Universe. 
I've got some ideas percolating, probably gonna be posting a bit differently in the future on the blog.  I'm gonna take a break from Mutant Future for awhile.  Mutant Future has been fun, but my old stuff is calling to me...so who knows what may develop.
In the meantime I hope everyone has a wonderful Good Friday and I wish you and your family a very special Easter, for those of you who believe, as do myself and my family, remember to take the time out to reflect on the reason for this holiday weekend.
-Good Gaming

Gameroom Development Continues! The Minimates

Work has kept me pretty busy lately.  I did have time to dig my Minimates out of storage and display them in my Game Room. Also on the right end are some of my Pheydens from Onell Design.

Here's another view of them:

 I've had these for a bit, but they've been sitting in storage.  I have a few more but they are on my desk in my office at work.  Yes, my co-workers think I'm a bit "different".

Major Score at the Goodwill Store!

Was out running errands all day, happened to be by the local Goodwill/Thrift Store so I zipped in.  Boy am I glad I did! Some great books for $1-2 bucks a piece! Ya can't beat that!

Gameroom Continued!

More shots of the shelf unit my wife got for me.  My Dragon Mags are on top along with some Heroes Unlimited books. To the right are the remians of my once Mighty Mego Army.

All that's left of my original Mego Forces, my little brother destroyed most of my collection while I was off at college.  Oh well. I've still got these guys! My grandfather would play with these guys with me for hours and hours!  He loved being The Thing!  Glad I still have that figure, great memories!

 Here's a different wall-shot of the gameroom, I've added a few more items.  The miniature shelf was hand made by my uncle, at one time it was big enough to hold my entire miniature collection. I've expanded a bit over the years.  The comics on the wall are my original G.I. Joe comic, X-men issue where Wolverine and Sabretooth fought for the first time, top comic is the X-men issue where Phoenix dies (my other grandfather bought that one for me at the local drug store, remember when you could get comics most anywhere, for dirt cheap??). Also I have a map of the Isle of Dread, there's a Campaign map of Aereth the Goodman Games setting we played alot of C&C and 3.5 in back in the day.  The Darth Vader poster is from when my son treated me to Star Wars on Father's Day (he even paid for it), you can see Green Lantern on guard duty ready to use his ring on any intruders that try to sneak into the lair!

Success! Gameroom Work in progress...

My wife got this shelf unit for me for Free!  How cool is that?!  I should have taken a "before" picture.  When she first brought it home I wasn't so sure about it. It was covered with cobwebs, dirt and had alot of loose pieces and stuff.  After a little pledge, alot of cleaner and some hammering, I now have the perfect shelf for my books.

My Gameroom, a work in progress...

 I posted a few pictures of my Gameroom awhile back, I cleaned it up a little bit and added a few things since then.  It still is a long way from where I want it to be, but I'm quite pleased with it thus far.  I think my wife rocks for being cool with me converting a whole room over to geeky stuff. Course she's a gamer too!

My Sci Fi/Fantasy novel collection. Dang I need some shelves.

My RPG books, well some of them anyways

Pretty Eclectic!

Too Many Minis?? That's not possible!

Several pictures of my "Gameroom" As you can see I've got a "few" miniatures. I've been collecting since 1979.

Some more minis! Second shelf from the top has several Dwarven Forge Lizard Men vs. Dwarven Forge Orcs! My mini Graveyard! Some Dwarven Forge Skeletons amongst other undead and gravestones. The smaller statues are conversion work I did from some old busted Ral Partha miniatures.

Close-up of bottom of main miniatures shelf. Lot's of painting to do. *Sigh* : )

Another shot of the minis shelf. Including a few "toys" I've acquired that work perfectly.

And here's a few more. My painted ones I keep in containers to ward off the evil Dust Elementals lurking in the house.