S&W Whitebox screen complete!

The screen is complete!  The linen tape worked very well, and when unfolded it stays put but can be adjusted.  The tables are "ok", I am not a spreadsheet master after all.  Basic stuff like to hit table and saving throw tables for monsters and PC's.  Also a movement cheat sheet and clerics turning undead.

As you can see it folds down and could actually fit in the box, if I had room.  I do have the mailing box that Brave Halfling mailed the WB set in, and it works great for extra digest sized books and home made booklets.

I am happy enough with the final product.  :)

Labyrinth Lord campaign update, and an update in general

Session 11 of the campaign was played on Saturday.  The players found that returning to Larm on Hallows Eve was not as warm and welcoming as was expected.  The Main Big Bad of the current campaign sent his forces to Larm to pillage and murder.  Ghouls, goblins, hobgoblins and bugbears assaulted the town from all angles.  I used some of the ideas from the Under Siege module by Moritz and it worked pretty well. 

Combat intensive for sure, but big in scale and fun.  I love ghouls as a DM!  Of course I hate them as a player.  Watching them paralyze village guards one after another, and the look on the VERY depleted players at a pack of 20 ghouls overrunning the west gate...priceless!  Several prominent NPC's died as well, much to my surprise. 

As for other notes of late, I am working on a "digest sized" DM screen for S&W Whitebox.  I am using magazine sized comic book boards cut in half, and I think I found the solution for binding them together.  Tape could work just fine, but a product called linen tape (available at stores that rhyme with Hobby Robbie) could be just the ticket.  Flexible white cloth tape.  I have yet to try to stick them together with it, but it looks promising. 

I also have all but one page of tables set up for printing, and the Mullen art from several rule books for the outside.  Now if I could just figure out what to put on the fourth panel of the screen...

Quiet on the Blog front

I have not been posting much at all on the ole blog-o-reno.  I expected this.  I am not really a writer and sometimes, I just don't feel like it!  :)

I did just post up the session 9 recap from my local game.  We are now all set for the next session next Saturday.  Of course I have work to do, several hooks and plots are out there, and I do not know which one they are going pursue.  A new player may join us for the next game, another friend of mine who DM's a 3.5 game I am in.  I am excited to get some new blood into the game, it always makes it interesting for me and the normal group.  Here is hoping he brings some good stuff to the table!  I have no doubt he will, he is a very good DM and just a good guy all around.

Session 10 means that the campaign has been going on for 1 year real time!   I am proud of this, as when I started I thought it may just be a one off game when most of the group could not make a session.  It is cool when things take off and run!

Valnwall Campaign update, and update in general

The last session (session 9) was canceled due to a lack of players.  I want 4 players minimum to play the campaign, and we only had 3.   However, a total of 5 of us showed up to play something anyway.  :)  We ended up playing a few games of Descent Journeys in the Dark, which is a fun hack and slash board game, and a good break from role playing.  The Valnwall game is reset for later this month.

On other fronts, I am now playing in a D&D 3.5 face to face game every other week.  Its been a while, since I have been DMing Labyrinth Lord for almost a year now, and going back to 3.5 rules is sort of a shock to the system.  I hope I can just go with it, but I find the constant skill checks annoying, and character management as well.  The story and background and the DM are all fantastic however.  This makes up for a lot.  :) 

I have also started playing in a AD&D\LL AEC game over skype with Scalydeamon, Father Brian, and some other fun guys.  This is the first time I have tried playing over skype, and I have to say it is going better than I thought.  I was worried about it feeling a lot different than a face to face game.  It does feel a bit different, but it still feels like good ole D&D most of the time!  Sometimes I get WoW flash backs like I am talking on Teamspeak or Vent, but those are few and far between.  Now if I can just get my Druid to survive to 2nd or 3rd level...

Between Session Communication

This past weekend my Valnwall campaign just finished our seventh session.  At an average of 10.5 hours each, that is 73.5 hours or their lives they will never ever get back!  :)  We have character levels of two (2), three (3), and four (3).

I sent an email to all the players for feed back, critique, constructive criticism, or plain ole gripes (or kudos).  I wanted to give the players a chance to let me know what they thought, and more so, to help me as the LL\DM.  Alas as seems common, I did not get many replies.  I did get a few "having a great time" or "its great keep it up" statements, but I was really hoping for more "constructive criticism" type remarks.  What would make the game more fun or interesting?  "You always seem to pick me when there is a random happening."  "You stink at funny voices."  "The world needs more spidergoats."  Some things like that would be nice as well.

It does appear that when trying to communicate between sessions via email that some people are almost allergic to it.  Seems strange that most of us use it every day in our work and personal lives.  Sometimes too much.  Perhaps that is a reason for NOT using it in between face to face sessions, separation of work and hobby life.

I suppose I will soldier on, and hope there is not a player mutiny brewing in the shadows.  :)

Losing My Muse

I guess it happens to all of us as DM's\GM's at one time on another. Losin it, general suckatude, lost for ideas, burnout. Whichever it is, when it hits me, I have a hard time breaking though it. Sometimes while under this malaise, it makes me feel like a bad or incompetent game master, and you swear that your players will see right through the carefully crafted DM mojo and realize "Hey! This guy is floundering!" DM confidence "plop" right in the toilet. Thinking about this the past couple days (yes, I am in a little slump right now) I thought back to my gaming past for some insight.

When I first started playing D&D many moons ago with the Holmes basic set, my friend Mike was the DM. I had convinced him to do it, as I saw that blue book with the dragon on it in his room, and begged and pleaded to play. So Mike DM'd that first summer, me having one character, and much fun was had. B1 In Search of the Unknown was my first module. Thinking back, I am sure we made up a ton of rules, and I remember getting a Pegasus (!) mount at one point (Clash of the Titans, the "real" one with crappy special effects, probably just came out).

After that summer Mike quit playing, and I had to convince the rest of the guys in the neighborhood that hey, this D&D thing was cool! So, with a bunch of friends as first time players, guess who got to be the DM? This is probably a familiar situation for many people. I don't think I ever "wanted" to DM. To my young mind playing was soooo much cooler! So throughout grade school and into middle school I was mostly a reluctant DM, playing only occasionally when I could convince one of my friends to do it.

Now comes the part where I think my problem starts. In middle school, I started attending Saturday game sessions of the local college gaming group. Wow, I was blown away. These guys had more creativity in their pinky toe than I had in my whole soul. I was the youngest person there, and I HOPE I was not just that young annoying kid to them. It was here that I saw what a "campaign" was, we had always just played modules and one off games often with different characters. It was now that I thought "Boy, I really sucked as a DM"! Also I started thinking we had been doing it all wrong for years. I do not think that way now, but that may be for another post some day.

Flash forward to the more present day, and the current situation. Our gaming group of six or seven people has been together for about 8 or nine years, playing 3.5 edition Dungeons and Dragons. I was a player up until about 8 months ago, when I ran a one-off Labyrinth Lord session one day for a couple of them, including our usual DM, Dave. That sort of did it, and Dave really wanted to play more and had a good time. As our 3.5 campaign came to a close, it was decided that I would be running the next campaign. So now I am the DM (LL) running our monthly marathon sessions (10 - 12 hours plus). I am now running a game for the first time since college, almost 20 years ago (holy crap I am getting old).

After seven sessions , the ole Muse has left me a little bit. I think I know why. I always feel that other people have such a wider imagination and ability at creating things than I do. My confidence wains and I start to feel like maybe another guys game would be better. The little devil on my shoulder says "My players are not having as much fun with me. If only I could come up with better stuff like Dave. Nobody likes me, everybody hates me, I will just eat worms and die." :)

Well you know what? Forget that! This is my game. I bring unique things to the table that others may not. Just go with it and do not compare or hold yourself up to others. Have fun. Learn from mistakes. Try something that you feel as a player, you would love to face. Start writing, drawing a map, whatever just to start working. Get started, and many times you snap out of it and the stuff flows like water.