Pathfinder 2e remaster beginner box session report/ review

Our current GM was ill this week so I rummaged out myS Starter Box collection for something to run and we decided to try Pathfinder 2e.

To save time my players picked from the pre-gens provided so Valeros the Fighter, Kyra the Cleric and Ezra the Wizard prepared for their first adventure.

The basement of the fishery in Otari had been broken into and the owner sought out the help of some adventurers. The party, suspecting bees were the culprits, readily agreed to help for some gold and ventured into the basement.

The session ran for a couple of hours or so and in that time a couple of obstacles were overcome and three battles were fought.

The beginner box contains lots of useful material- a complete map of the dungeon below, standees representing all the PCs and monsters, cards showing all the actions covered in the rulebook, pre-gen sheets, dice etc. all of it seemed quite well constructed.

The box also contained a players rulebook and a gm’s rule book. The players book has a choose-your-own style solo adventure at the start and the GM book has the dungeon crawl we started.

The books cover a fairly complete set of rules for running a game and also generating characters (albeit from a limited selection). In many ways this is much like the D&D basic set from the 1980s. 

The adventure itself is a bit basic… literally starting with rats in the basement. It’s no Lost Mines of Phandelver. On the other hand it meant I could run it with no real prep - I had only skimmed the scenario hook and first room before starting.

There were a few clunky bits - the fighter didn’t have a shield listed on their character sheet even though they clearly used one. The party tried a couple of obvious things that would have tripped up a novice GM trying to run it from the text.

There is also the issue that one of my players had the older 2e books which aren’t totally compatible with the remaster rules.

However, we all seemed fairly impressed with the system and want to try some more. However, I probably wouldn’t continue the adventure for my group and dig something else out for some PCs made with the full rules. Unless they really want to find those bees.

So on the whole I think this is a really good product. It’s almost up there with the Call of Cthulhu starter set for me. The pathfinder box is a bit more expensive than other starter sets but is packed with a lot of good stuff.

As for the pathfinder 2e rule system - it seems good to me. I suspect I may like it more than D&D 5e.

Ars Magica - review, retrospective ?

 Imagine a medieval Europe where everything that people believed then existed or could exist. Magic is real, Dragons are real…

No wait… come back… this isn’t Game of Bloody Thrones.

This is your actual Europe with France and popes and all that too. Welcome to Mythic Europe.

I heard Adrian Tchaikovsky (off of books) talking about Ars Magica the other day and, with the imminent release of the definitive edition, thought to myself, why not spew forth a load of pixel words on the subject.

So Ars Magica (which as we all know is Latin for Anus Sorcery) is commonly held to have the best magic system of any TTRPG. The deceptively simple combination of 5 verbs and 10 nouns that allows you to define pretty much any spell you could think of.

But there is much more to it than that.

Much like Traveller, it has a fairly simple dice mechanic that is then used to power a range of sub-systems adding complexity to the game, from researching spells to improving your covenant (i.e. base).

And you are in for the long run. Pendragon may have campaigns that run for generations but your wizard can live for 300 years. Typically the game will start in the early 13th century but I am aware of campaigns where the mages had relocated to the new world.

The setting does pretty much cover everything that people thought was real in Medieval. So your wizards will have to deal with petty nobles, malevolent faeries and the church. And yes, God is definitely real here but similarly so are demons. And both are likely to be bad news for mages. 

There is a wealth of setting material covering Iceland down to Africa and from Iberia to the Middle East (albeit some books are nominally for earlier editions).

Another thing that makes the game out is that it pretty much invented the idea of troupe style play, where each player has multiple characters to play - a mage, a competent non-mage companion or one of a shared group of red-shirted soldiers and servants called grogs.

So why play these non-magical characters? Well Ars Magica is a fairly unique RPG in you don’t really get more powerful from doing adventures. You get more powerful from doing research. In fact, going off on adventures just wastes valuable experimentation time.

In most scenarios I played, much of the first session would be the mages bickering about who would have to go and do the adventure. Once that bit was settled, the unlucky mage plus the other players companions and a bunch of grogs would head off to do the adventure.

Furthermore, nobody likes mages much - this is an effect of the magical ‘gift’. So you tend to need companions and the like to help with interactions  with normal people.

When I played we took the troupe style play to its extreme and rotated the GM role too. This had the advantage that everybody got to play all the roles but the downside was that… well I was pretty terrible at GMing it.

So what about the downsides. Well some of these may turn people off.

Well it is quite a daunting game. There’s a lot of setting (albeit one you are likely to have some idea about) and there’s a lot of maths involved - some dice can double and there’s a lot of point buying with numbers that can get quite high. I think the latest edition (5th) is slightly less complex than the 4th edition I played but it’s still likely to be an issue for any maths-phobes.

It’s also fairly easy to make yourself a Magus who is a load of crap. Particularly, if you are a new player. I think the 5th edition character creation helps with this and indeed many disadvantages you pick up can drive the story forward.

There’s a lot of Lore too. The 5th edition is “complete” covering almost the entirety of the setting in 40-odd books (with any exceptions covered in earlier lore books). However, I found a lot of these to be fairly dry reads. On the other hand you can ignore it - we played for over two years using only a core rulebook, an AA roadmap, a couple of errata printed from the internet and what we knew about the Middle Ages.

The game is designed for campaign play so a one-shot is unlikely to show it off in its best light. 

None of those issues were big problems for us. In fact, Ars Magica gave me many of my favourite gaming moments.

So in summary, should you meddle in the affairs of wizards and play Ars Magica? Well yes… if you have the time to play a campaign.  The new revised rules are pretty pricey but there’s a lot of game there if you want.

As for me… well,  it would be good to GM it properly. Maybe I’ll play around with the rules a bit.

Hey, if you’ve got any questions or comments get in touch.

Nights Dark Terror - Review, links and thoughts

Review 

At long last my run through of Night’s Dark Terror is over.

36 sessions over 10 months. Each session around two to two and a half hours long. YMMV - I thought I’d be done by Christmas when we started. 3 PCs and many monsters dead.

I think it went quite well given my lack of experience behind the screen. I made a few mistakes along the way and I was lucky that my players knew the rules so could help me out.

But is the module actually any good?

I still think so. There’s some great set pieces, the first half is particularly good as there is the siege and then loads of places to explore.

The second half is more of a railroad and I think my players struggled with the plot - we were selling horses but now we’re looking for treasure somewhere.  Why is this NPC tagging along again? And why are you killing off our mules?

There is such a variety of stuff in this module that with a bit of work you can fit it all together. And there is a lot of adventure for your money as can be seen from the number of sessions.

In comparison to modern adventures, the short descriptions can be a bit of a pain but on the other hand they give you hints to improvise - I could play up the trader aspect of Fyodryll (and also decided she was the half-sister/black sheep of the family of Prestell in Riflian).

 From a 5th Edition D&D point of view, some of the fights are a bit unwieldy. In particular, there was a fight between the PCs and their allies in the Lost Valley that ended up as me pretty much playing against myself, which was no fun for anyone. 

I do have some ideas for some changes to make the whole thing more cohesive. I'll stick the at the end of the article as they'll likely include spoilers.

I do heartily recommend this adventure. I’m not sure all the encounters are needed when you run the adventure but there are a lot that would work as short standalone encounters or adventures - elves tormented by pixies, strange tombs, gnome mines and even with a little expansion the Threshold bits that I didn’t run.

 

 

Useful links  - Note that DTRPG/DMs Guild links are affiliate links (sorry)

 

The complete module can be purchased here as pdf and/or POD:

 https://www.dmsguild.com/product/17119/B10-Nights-Dark-Terror-Basic?affiliate_id=307673

 

 Some  5e conversions are also available to buy, which I found very useful:

 Classic modules today (DMs Guild)

 Iconic Encounters (DMs guild)

There's lots of useful free stuff on the Vault of Pandius, including:

https://pandius.com/B10_Nights_Dark_Terror_5E.pdf - a free conversion document

Maps for VTTs in Italian

Many other maps...

And it's also worth checking on The Piazza Forums

 Mystara forum at the piazza

Possible changes to the adventure... (probable spoilers ahead)

From the module as written, several months before the adventure starts, the Traldar defeat the Hutaakans and force them from this temple. It is implied that this prevents the Hutaakan from conducting the rituals required to stop the dead from rising in the valley.

The majority of the undead are not dangerous - instead just mindlessly repeat actions they carried out during their lives.

Now what happens if this doesn't just occur in the lost valley - there are sightings of strange undead activities in the wilderness regions of western Karameikos. Now the authorities in Kelven may not be too bothered but the homesteaders (possibly also gnomes and elves) are concerned and ask the adventurers for help.

Meanwhile, Golthar is also interested. I've got this vague idea of the Iron Ring's goal is to unlock the forbidden secrets of the Nithians or maybe they're all ghouls and thouls. Maybe they only have half a tapestry and think Xitaqa is where they need to be. 

Anyway, they need prisoners for some purpose and trick the goblins into attacking the homesteads to get them. And then the PCs arrive at Sukiskyn...

The Dublin Murder Squad by Tana French -review/inspiration

Over the past few months I’ve been reading the excellent Dublin Murder Squad novel series by Tana French

Unlikely most crime fiction, each novel is told in a first-person point of view of a different detective (except The Secret Place which is half flashbacks told in third person). However, the protagonists aren’t isolated - for example,  the main character in The Likeness is the partner of the lead in Into The Woods. And the lead in Faithful Place has a significant role in a couple of the other books.

Each story has a crime that has a personal connection to the detective - they all end up changed in some way. And the stories don’t have happy endings that are tied up in a neat bow.

However, the main draw is the writing. I really felt engaged with the characters and plots and have read them all at a rapid pace (at least rapid for me lately).

Finally, from a Role-Playing Game point of view most of the books have ideas that you could steal for investigation or horror scenarios. Why is there a large animal trap in the attic of the house where a murder occurred? What actually happened to those kids that disappeared in the woods? Why does the murder victim have the fake identity of an undercover cop?

2024 Retrospective

As is traditional (well not on this blog yet because it’s the first time but anyway) it’s time to look back at the year and reflect on what we’ve done. CW: there’s quite a bit of personal stuff and mentions of mental health and death and general ramblings of a grumpy middle-aged man.

So this year:

On a personal side, the year started with my father’s funeral. Then the cat died at the end of February.  Unfortunately, I’m at the age where a lot of people I know have also lost love ones through the year.

On a brighter note, 3 kittens arrived in May bringing total madness and 1 dead bird (so far). Also, 3 people I roleplay with have got married.

I have been suffering with depression for a while now but a number of things have helped me this year.  I attended a number of sessions with a mental health nurse and talking through things has helped.

I started collecting and painting miniatures. I’m not very good but it’s quite relaxing. This really started with the gnome blood-bowl team but I’ve painted loads of things for my D&D game.

My partner requires carers but we had funding problems at the start of the year. When this got resolved, I was able to go into office for a couple of days a week, which has made me more productive at work

I started this blog back in January, which has been a good outlet for my terrible puns of nothing else.

So onto roleplaying games:

My Monday group passed 15 years of playing together - online since 2020. I’ve played numerous sessions of Space 1887 using Hero system rules and also Dr Who..

I ran one session of Call of Cthulhu for them, which seemed to work out ok. No-one died.

On Fridays, I was a player with my face-to-face group as we finished off Strahd (5e). My monk-librarian decided to become a Lich.

I then ran 24 sessions (including session 0) of Night’s Dark Terror (also 5e). This has run even longer than I thought it would - it’s amazing how much content some of those old modules had. However, there were several memorable bits that emerged from play or I added in: the dual between the half-elf and a goblin king, Droop the snake-worshipping goblin and of course, the goose hydra.

I’m really enjoying being a DM again despite getting more and more disenchanted with the 5e rules. 

On my blog I also wrote one review and one rant about D&D.

I think my favourite rpg book that I got this year was the WFRP 4e Imperial Zoo, which was fun to read.

I bought a number of good minis, including a massive pathfinder Gold Dragon, the goose hydra (obviously), the warhammer darkoath marauders especially the chief’s New Romantic horse and a number of weird 3D prints by Vae Victis. Special mention must go to the gnome blood bowl team that started all 

Other stuff from this year: 

I managed to read quite a few books this year - I started trying to read in the evenings before bed. Highlights included Anna Smith Sparks grim-dark Empires of Dust books, a couple of Tana French’s Dublin Murders books, The Boys in the Valley - horror novel by Philip Fracassi and also Kim Newman’s Guineveve warhammer stories (some of which I hadn’t read before).

I think the best tv show was Shrinking on Apple.  There were quite a few other things I watched that weren’t as good as previous series.

Podcasts I’ve enjoyed this year include: what would the smart party do, how we roll, grizzly peaks radio and Hell or high rollers.

I didn’t play many video games of note. The Arkham Horror video game with props Road to Innsmouth and my colleague’s game PrinterSim are the only ones that spring to mind.

I didn’t manage to go to the theatre or cinema as my partner is a bit housebound at the moment. I think the only album I bought was the final Shellac one.

I was going to look ahead to next year but I’ve already gone on too long so I’ll do that later.

So with that, 2024: off you pop. Happy new year.

Review: 264 Corbitt Street

264 Corbitt Street is a modern day scenario for Call of Cthulhu from Shadowlands Games games. This review may contain some spoilers but I’ll try to avoid the big secrets. 

This scenario is, as you might have guessed, an homage to a famous starter scenario for Call of Cthulhu. It’s also a kind of sequel - what happens next if the investigators totally mess it up The Haunting.

I have run the start of this scenario from the pdf and the players used the pre-generated characters.

Scott Dorward (of various Cthulhu publications and many decent Cthulhu podcasts) came up with a game called We Call the Police, in which players don’t engage with the scenario and call the police. 264 Corbitt Street gets around this by having the police already been called and the investigators are the police. 

The investigators will learn that the homeowner had hired another group of (non-police) investigators but things have gone wrong.

After the initial investigation of the house, the scenario has a fairly open structure which will lead up to a final confrontation. However, the scenario also provides a more structured version of the events for keepers who would prefer that.

Some of the places are familiar from the original scenario but there is a lot of new people and places to visit. The opponents have motives of their own and will change their plans according to how the investigators act.

There are some pregens provided: a couple of uniformed police officer, a couple of detectives and also a forensic scientist. It would be difficult to fit the scenario as written into an existing campaign unless at least some of the investigators worked for the police. The first scene only involves two investigators to start with (the first responders) but the others could be brought in sooner if needed.

The scenario would take some tweaking to work in an earlier timeframe. It is set in the US (Boston) but one piece of art for a pre-gen is of a police constable from the met police in London. However, as the scenario starts with reports of gun-shots this would have been tweaked to work in the UK. 

Structurally, the scenario seems quite well written. There are handy summaries through-out. No maps are provided which I found a bit tricky - I used the one from The Haunting. 

I initially couldn’t find any stats for basic cultists (when everybody else has stats even some characters the investigators should never meet) but then I realised that they were there but the sub-title hadn’t been translated. Otherwise the translation is pretty good.

Overall, I think this is quite a fun scenario - a variation on a classic that makes it more than just a haunted house. Some of the ideas could also be nicked for a true sequel to The Haunting, depending how that had played out.

It has also made me think of the potential of a  string of scenarios where the police are called out after classic CoC scenarios, e.g. investigating reports of a lorry load of salt being dumped at a house. Or for most of the times I’ve played: reports of arson.

I purchased a copy of this as an add on to The Howl of the Chimera. At time of writing, it only seems to be available (in English at least) as an add-on to one of Shadowland’s Cthulhu crowd-funding campaigns.

Session report: Call of Cthulhu Christmas 2024 Mash-up

Warning: contains spoilers for a couple of CoC scenarios and a 1990 Christmas film. And possibly Christmas.

I just ran Call of Cthulhu for the first time and online for the first time via Skype. 

So, around this time last year, I had a spark of inspiration. In the classic beginner scenario, The Haunting, the investigators enter the house of someone who has set up traps to catch intruders and hilarious hijinks ensue. Now, my very warped mind realised that this is very similar to the plot of Home Alone. 

However, I couldn’t quite see how to fit them together without the joke wearing a bit thin.

This idea percolated for a year until recently I got a copy of the Shadowlands Games’ scenario, 246 Corbitt Street, which is a modern-day scenario that is both a homage to and a sequel to The Haunting. This starts with the players being police personnel getting called in to effectively have to deal with a bunch and of investigators who have made a complete hash of completing The Haunting.

I realised I could use this start for a two-hour one-shot, getting the players into the house without doing prior investigations. Pregens were supplied in 246 Corbitt and I managed to persuade my Monday night group to let me run something for them.

So we started with an on-duty uniformed police officer giving lifts home to two detectives and a forensic scientist on snowy Christmas Eve 2024. However, the policeman gets diverted to a suspected burglary at a seemingly abandoned house.

The detectives offer to provide backup and they soon find a dead body in the dark house. The man had been killed by a crowbar and also had significant burns to his head. The forensic scientist began investigating.

In the living room, there were many broken Christmas ornaments on the floor. A blood trail was spotted leading upstairs to a locked bathroom. When the door was kicked in another man was found, babbling about traps and crowbars and basements. He became violent but was swiftly restrained. He was suffering from cuts to his feet from broken glass and an old nail. He also had a large bruise and burn on his face.

His identity was radioed in and the dispatch said he was a known petty criminal and burglar.

Also up stairs was a room with a bed that moved for no reason but the policeman dodged it. It was now time to enter the basement.

The policeman carefully went down the stairs, avoiding any nails and ball bearings. His torchlight revealed a load of old junk, some open boxes and a large hole that had been broken into a wall with a sledgehammer.

At this point, the crowbar rose up from the corpse and struck the forensic scientist knocking her unconscious. 

While the detectives rendered first aid, secured the wounded man and stop the flying crowbar, the policeman was horrified to see the dedicated, wizened figure of a boy appear in the opening.

The child did not respond well to the policeman’s attempts to play ball with it although it was briefly distracted. 

The detectives managed to grab the crowbar and revive the scientists and then made their way down to the cellar opening fire on the child-thing. It soon went down in a hail of bullets and crumbled into dust.

After that things returned to normal. The surviving by burglar was detained in a secure hospital and the police personnel made it through various reviews and suspensions.

However, a year later, Christmas Eve 2025, they all found themselves in a police car being called to attend a suspected break in at 246 Corbitt Street. After all, this is a Christmas film, it gets repeated every year.

The Haunting is available in the Call of Cthulhu QuickStart rules from Chaosium.

At time of writing, the English version of 246 Corbitt Street seems to be available only as an add on to the Scions of the dark goddess backerkit or the Howl of the Chimera kickstarter from Shadowlands Games. I intend to post a review of this soon.

If you are reading this around Christmas then Home Alone is probably somewhere on your telly right now.

Finally, I’m going to award bonus points to Mark for being the first player to say it was Home Alone.