Sunday, March 31, 2019

Postcard Labyrinth Contest

Steve Jackson Games finally announced the rules for their Postcard Labyrinth Contest this past week. I've been thinking about entering ever since they first mentioned it. The trick is to come up with something unique. You say, "Well duh."

I started mine in a strange way. I'm not going to give too many details, but I started by laying out some of the new mega hexes that came with the Legacy edition. I decided to make it an outdoor encounter rather than underground or inside a building. The goal is for a party of 4 - 5 characters to kill the guards, fight the bad guy and his personal bodyguard and save a princess.

I created stats for all the baddies and wrote the whole thing up with the map to fit on a 5 x 7 inch postcard. Today I laid it all out on the dining room table and chose 4 beginning characters from the selection of character cards (Alden, Edulf, Jon of the Isles, and Yvvan) along with a beginning wizard. For that I chose Yzor, from the basic Wizard rules.

It was an ugly battle. People fell down and dropped or broke weapons. They had to fight uphill and cross hexes of fire. But in the end they managed to cut through the defenses and rush the boss. I was satisfied that beginning characters could win and a more experienced party could do well. In the write-up I added a couple of tougher guards to challenge a more experienced party.

Now I'll take the file to a copy shop and get it printed on a good card stock, put a stamp on it and send it in to the contest. Then I'll start thinking about another one. After all I have until May 1st to do one or more additional entries.

Tuesday, March 26, 2019

More Counters & Dice

The final part of my I Want It All order arrived today. I added on a duplicate set of counters for Melee, Wizard, and Death Test as well as six extra dice.


Also, we had a really exciting game last night. We took a large party which included five PC and 12 NPCs into the woods in search of the band of Dark Hobbits who have been raiding the fields of the village. It was the biggest battle we've had to date with arrows, javelins, and bolos flying everywhere.

But more on that later.

Saturday, March 23, 2019

It's Finally Here!


Box # 1733 has arrived. I'm so excited to open it up and look at al the components. The wait is over.

Tuesday, March 19, 2019

Farming In TFT

I don't know where or when I'll use this information, but I can see this used for an isolated tribe of humanoids as part of the subsistence living. Our Native Americans forbearers lived in peace and harmony with nature for hundreds (thousands?) of years prior to the arrival of European explorers.




Monday, March 18, 2019

There they are!


Boxes and boxes of The Fantasy Trip Legacy Edition freshly arrived in the warehouse. My "I Want It All" box is in there somewhere. Domestic shipping begins on March 25. From the 25th until it arrives at my door I am going to go freaking crazy!

Saturday, March 16, 2019

Rabid Marsupial Dire Weasels

The first night our group got together to play The Fantasy Trip, we had never played together before. I met two of our group online and I brought along my 30-something son who previously only played D&D. After introductions and some general small talk about gaming we agreed on what kind of sandbox we would place our adventures in. Then we played a scenario.

We placed a hex grid on the table and Joe, our GM, drew a small fenced area, the chicken's coup. We created 32-point characters and placed them around the coup to protect the chickens and more importantly their eggs. Our goal was to protect the eggs from weasels.

Not just any weasels, but dire weasels, and not just dire weasels, but rabid ones. Besides being quick and vicious, their bite was poisonous. They charged the coup from off the map. Our team responded with almost no coordination whatsoever. Our swords and arrows missed their marks. The wizard struggled to cast an illusion. Weasels jumped the fence and grabbed eggs. But when they did that they realized that they couldn't run if the eggs were in their paws and they could fight if the eggs were in their mouth. At that point we decided that they were also marsupial and were able to put an egg in their pouch to carry.

I forget exactly how it all ended. I think we killed one, but I'm sure we lost a couple of eggs. It was a start. The next week our GM had maps, etcetera, and our adventure began with new 32-point characters, but we now had a name for our group or a really cool rock band.

Thursday, March 14, 2019

Creating A Character For TFT

Or How Not to Die In Your First Fight

In the Fantasy Trip games of MELEE and WIZARD it is easy to die in combat. Really easy. So how do you create a character that will survive more than one battle?

A lot of people have asked that question, and the fact is no matter what you do your PC is going to get killed. If you are playing arena combat and Ragnar the impetuous dies, you adjust his stats and try again. If you're in a campaign you might want to cross your fingers and hope the GM is a nice guy.

The fact is beginning 32-point characters are easy to kill. In a campaign there is safety in numbers, so don't charge straight ahead into battle and don't split your party. If you have a experienced GM, he/she will hopefully give you a challenge within your PCs capabilities, but if your tactics are faulty you will pay the price. If you fight well or come up with a creative solution, the GM will reward you with the experience points that will let you keep improving your character.

My experience is with warriors so I'll talk about them. If you are building a human fighter in the basic MELEE game you start out with strength (ST) of 8, dexterity (DX) of 8, plus 8 more points distributed as you wish. If you are playing a campaign game using the more advanced In The Labyrinth rules, you'll have ST and DX plus intelligence (IQ) of 8 plus 8 more points for a total of 32. You will also have a number of talents based on your intelligence.

Melee counterAlos Krupke is the fighter I currently have in our campaign. If you have read this blog before, you know he has died and been revived several times, so he might be a well balance character, but I am not the best player, although I am getting better.

I created him as follows: ST 11, DX 11, and IQ 10 (a total of 32 points).
I gave him the following talents: Knife (1), Sword (1), Polearm (2), Shield (1), Shield Expertise (2), Unarmed Combat I (2), and Alertness (2). The numbers in parentheses are the number of IQ points the talent requires which totals his IQ of 11. My talent choices were guided by my plan that Krupke would be a police officer and the jobs table says he would need four weapon talents plus Unarmed Combat I. I added Shield Expertise to make him harder to hit, and Alertness to make it easier to spot things like ambushes. I armed him with a police billy club (1d+1), a spear (1d), a small shield, and cloth armor.

Cloth armor absorbs 1 hit of damage, but also reduced his DX by one. The small shield absorbs 1 hit as well. Shield expertise brings the protection from damage up to three points. I chose the spear as a weapon because if Krupke charged a foe he could do double damage with it if he hit.

Like I said before, Krupke had his bad days on the battlefield, but over time he gained experience (XP) and added to his attributes. See the Experience Points on page 45 of In The Labyrinth. First I raised his DX to 12 making his adjusted DX 11 to improve his ability to hit. When I accumulated more points I raised his strength to 12 and changed out his spear for a broadsword. Krupke just never was any good with that spear. Once I had another 200 points I raised his DX again, and with the next 300 points I increased his IQ.

Why did I raise his IQ? In the long run I want Krupke to become a woodsman and gain Weapon Expertise with the sword. These are talents that require and IQ of 11. One of the really good things about the new TFT rules is that you can use your XP to gain more talents, but you still need the IQ level for that particular talent. Krupke has reached the 36-point level of attributes with ST 12, DX 13, and IQ 11. For now I am collecting 1000 XP to give him Toughness which will allow him to take one more hit without damage. He may yet die permanently in combat, but I hope not.

Wednesday, March 13, 2019

Decks Of Destiny

Steve Jackson has just announced their plans for another TFT kickstarter, Decks of Destiny. They haven't set a date yet, but I'm sure lots of gamers (and me) will jump on it quickly. It will include "hundreds of cards for use with The Fantasy Trip, ranging from characters to rumors to treasures to even more great tools for the GM" Check out the announcement here.


Tuesday, March 12, 2019

Did I Say Encounters?

Remind me not to complain about encounters with nuisance creatures. In our regular Monday night adventuring session using The Fantasy Trip, our party had more road encounters than we normal do, and all without the help of our healer who was out of town on a business trip in real life.

First off we started with only two characters because we had left our magic user in a vanishing tower that only appears one day a month in our space and time. He was spending his time helping the mage Imago reorganize his laboratory and library in the tower that had been unused for over 100 years while trapped in a struggle with a demon. he also was trying to learn new spells and produce two scrolls.

We had a month of game time to do something, so we took jobs to make some money, and helped to train the lord's new militia. As the party's unofficial scribe I came up with a backstory for our healer, Jack Swifthand. In past sessions when someone is absent our GM declares that they are sick with dysentery and are stuck in bed within close reach of the chamber pot. But Jack was going to be sick for 30 days at least! No one wants dysentery for 30 days.

Jack was exposed to a toxic smog during the previous session so I decided that his bad cough would progress into pneumonia. To stretch the illness out he is being treated by the only other healer-of-sorts in town, the town barber, who treats him with poultices, leeches, and finally bleeds him. When Jack's friends realize that Jack is on the verge of death from this incompetent bumpkin, they send him running and start feeding the poor halfling a hardy soup and he slowly recovers.

Now to the encounters. Our GM rolls for encounters every 5 mile hex on the maps. Most of the towns are 20 to 25 mies apart. We usually get 1-2 encounters per trip.

When we went to the tower after a month's wait we take our friendly NPC ogre, Ralph. All is quiet on the outward bound day trip, but once we pick up our mage and begin the return trip we run into (1) a giant that we kill, (2) orcs that decide not to fight, and (3) an ogre that wants to fight Ralph. The party is too much for him and he surrenders. He turns out to be Ralph's third cousin, twice removed. We make friends with him and finally get back to town.

Two days later we leave on a longer trip. The first half is again quiet, but then we get three encounters in a row. The first is mostly a nuisance encounter with furry little creatures called Bandersnatches. Don't bother looking them up. Our GM created them from some other game system or possibly his own mind. They burst out of the woods and try to snatch our food bags and run. We lose one bag of food, but kill two. Then we run up on a party of goblins. We kill a couple and the third surrenders. Right after that we meet a troll. He is bad tempered and hungry. He charges us and knocks two of us down. We manage to get up and run, but he is as fast and catches us again. We spread out and surround him and by hitting him from all sides finally kill him. We immediately burn the body before it regenerates.

By this time we have gone past our normal quitting time and our GM refuses to roll for any more encounters. He declares that the road is clear for the remainder of our trip. We hardily agree and head home for the night.

Sunday, March 10, 2019

Some Different Random Road Encounters

Moebius - Octotyr - From "La Faune
de Mars"  - Moebius Productions,
Stardom - Paris (March 2011)
Not to criticize our GM, but I'll probably scream the next time our party is on the road and we get attacked by stergis, goblins, wolves, or bears. Random encounters lose their interest when the same ones are repeated too often. With that in mind, I have tried my hand at creating some new encounters. I hope you can use some of them.

1.    Dog just off the road is barking. He does not act aggressive. As you get closer you see that he is wounded and keeps running back into the brush. There you find a young maid lying unconscious.
2.    Tracks cross the road indicate a large herd of beasts has crossed the road recently (dung is still soft). A naturalist in the party can identify the hoof prints (saurian).
3.    Vultures are circling the woods up ahead. Two corpse have been stripped of all valuables. They have been brutally hacked possibly by axes.
4.    A skunk has recently dropped its scent nearby. Your sense of smell is assaulted for the next quarter mile of travel.
5.    Sudden gale. Seek shelter in the nearby rocks. It lasts an hour and the party is completely drenched.
6.    Spot a bush of ripe blackberries beside the road.
7.    Cross a small, clear running stream.
8.    An ancient road marker indicated a crossroads, but there is little left to show of the old road that once crossed here.
9.    Just off the road you see a couple of fat rabbits grazing in the grass.
10.  A halfling tinker riding a goat cart. He will tell you rumors he has heard while sharpening your weapons.
11.  A family of prootwaddles (1d+2) camping in a gully just off the road.
12.  A wandering priest. He will ask for alms and give a blessing to each member of the party who contributes.
13.  A small trail leads off perpendicular to the road’s direction. You see heavy boot prints in the dirt.
14.  The wind picks up as a sylph (air elemental: ST: 20, DX: 12, IQ: 8, MA: 20) appears and begins dancing around your party. She will throw leaves and sand in your faces for 3d+2 minutes below leaving.
15.  The party takes a few minutes to rest in the shade of some rocks beside the road. One member disturbs a small one-foot Scolopendra (ST: 2, DX: 13, IQ: 2, MA: 8, Bite: 1 hit, DX -2) in a rock crevice. If captured alive it is it is worth $200 when sold as a pet. Its poison is a spell ingredient.
16.  You come upon a party with a broken wagon wheel. Two female figures inside the wagon refuse to get out even though it would make the repairs easier. The rest of the party contains a driver, an armed footman, and an intimidating looking man-at-arms.
o  Driver – ST12, DX11, IQ9, MA10, Brawling, crossbow, knife, lasso, animal handler (2), driver, toughness (2), light crossbow (2d), dagger.
o  Footman – ST9 DX12(11) IQ11 MA12, Knife, Sword, Alertness(2), Silent Movement (2), Courtly Graces, Horsemanship, Fencer (3), Rapier(1d), Dagger, Cloth Armor(1).
o  Man-at-arms - ST10 DX13(10) IQ13 MA10(6) Knife, Sword, Shield, Alertness(2), Charisma(2), Diplomacy, Unarmed Combat I, Tactics, Business Sense(2), Strategist(2), Cutlass(2d-2), Dagger, Small Shield(1), Chainmail(3).
17.  A bear cub walks out and sits in the middle of the road in front of you and calmly begins eating a large piece of fruit. Where is momma? 
o  Cub – ST: 10, DX: 10, IQ: 6, MA: 10, fur: 1, Claws: 1d
o  Momma - ST: 20, DX: 11, IQ: 6, MA: 10, fur: 2, Claws: 2d
18.  A saddled horse stands grazing in an open meadow. Upon searching the party finds a dead military officer. He has an arrow in his shoulder and it is apparent that he bled out after escaping an ambush. He has $40 in silver in his belt pouch, and sealed messages in his dispatch bag addressed to Sir Whitney. He is also carrying a saber and a dagger. The horse’s saddlebags contain a week’s rations, blanket, extra clothing, and a canteen of water. Light horse is ST: 28, DX: 13, IQ: 5, MA: 20 and is fully trained. Worth $1100. 
19.  A ring of mushrooms is growing in a dark spot next to the road. A Naturalist must make a 3-die roll against IQ to identify them; anyone else must make a 5-die roll. They are hallucinogenic. Anyone taking a couple of bites will loses 5 IQ for 24 hours and see a lot of strange things.
20.  Your party meets an elf. He does not speak the common tongue, only a strange dialect of elvish. An elf in your party will understand him, but with difficulty. Others who have elf as a second language will have more trouble. He is heading in the opposite direction of yours.

After The Big Fight

Adventuring has its busy days as well as its slow ones. Just the previous week we had fought and defeated a major monster (the Spider Queen). We didn't find any treasure when it was all done. We returned to the town to the cheers of the residents, the poor residents. It will take time for them to get the old cider works going again and making any money.

It's not totally unprofitable for our brave adventurers. We were named knights of the town and given 40 acres of land each. We had already made a deal for a cut of the profits from the cider works once it goes into production, but for now there is little silver jingling in our belt pouches.

Oh well, there is always delivering the mail. We actually have a good thing traveling from the wizard Imago's Vanishing Tower once a month to the alchemist Grizbane's tower about 70 miles away. The two mages have been playing a game of Chess by mail for hundreds of years. They pay us well to carry their letters. This is not high adventure, but it gives us reason to travel.

So after resting for a week we visited Imago and got a new letter from him to deliver. Our own wizard stays behind to learn from Imago. We will return for him in a month during the next First Quarter moon. Then it's back on the road again.

Only two things of interest happen on the trip. When we arrive in the town of Gromly where we started out so many weeks ago, the Ogre lord's steward shows up at our door and demands more tax money from us. He has a band of brigands with him so we pay unhappily. When we arrive in Grizbane that night an orange, globular, orcish figure attacks a hut killing the occupants. Krupke kills it with one blow from a torch that ignites it and then it explodes.

These incidents will lead to more adventures. The Ogre Lord, or more precisely his steward, Snidley, need to be removed from Gromly. They need to be replaced with a civil government. Grizbane the alchemist is running dangerous experiments that are poisoning the villagers and creating monsters in the swamp where his chemicals runoff. This also needs to stop.

So what will happen in our next session?