I was going to post about my hopes for roleplaying in 2021 a few months ago but I kept putting the post off. The reason? I wasn't quite sure I knew what I wanted. But now I know. I want to play in Glorantha, preferably Runequest: Roleplaying in Glorantha but if I'm honest the "system" is irrelevant it's the world I want to play in. Whether I GM or play I don't care (although I believe a mixture of the two will work best).

It's a feeling that has slowly been growing on me since I first purchased the RQG rulebook back in late 2018. You see, for me, this is the best RPG I've ever experienced and has now even eclipsed my love for D&D B/X. Sure I liked RQ 2e, my longest played, most experienced and best loved character was in RG 2e but I only ever played (back in the mid to late 80s) and never GMed and just as I was writing material to run myself the group I was playing with moved onto other systems.

I'm actually now wondering why we moved systems. If I'm honest I can't remember; it's too long ago but I can remember Shadowrun, Rolemaster & Aftermath! all being played and I while I enjoyed all those systems back in the 90s but I can't help feeling in an alternative universe, given a second chance I'd like to see what would have happened if we'd have carried on with Runequest.

Anyway, that's all irrelevant. What I have found since getting back into the hobby late in 2017 is that despite many enjoyable games under many different GMs and groups of players is the thought that I want to be playing in Glorantha. That's not to say I want to exclusively play in Glorantha, just that I want to playing it in the mix. I'm lucky enough that I've GMed a RQG campaign since around March 2020 which has been immensely pleasurable and up until recently this has allowed me to scratch that itch, 

However, the next step is to play in a regular Glorantha game. I joined a game run by Che Webster running Six Seasons in Sartar but that has just folded and I was hugely disappointed (but if you are reading this Che please take that as a compliment in that I enjoyed the game so much). I've reached out to another group and may join their campaign in RQ 2e if schedules match and joined a couple of Discord groups related to Glorantha that I've tracked down.

If I fail to find another game I think I will offer to run another campaign, but one starting with 16 year old characters in the old timeline of 1615ish. 

So what has attracted me so much to Glorantha? A number of things starting simply with the breath and depth of the information, the quality that Chaosium are producing at the moment, discovering the quality of the Avalon Hill 1990s supplements, and the intelligence and helpfulness of the Glorantha community. Chaosium themselves are active on social media. The people who run the company are active in various groups, answering fans questions and offering advice, keeping us up to date on what they are working on. The Jonstown Compendium has been a roaring success. This is fan based material published by Chaosium on DrivethruRPG.

I'm even writing a scenario for publication in the Jonstown Compendium myself, although whether I ever actually finish it is another matter ;)

My Glorantha shelf before late 2017 consisted of the softback RQ 2e book and for a reason I cannot explain a single Games Workshop hardback publication, Runequest, Land of Ninja (which I can't ever recall actually reading). It now contains probably 50 publications.

My current Glorantha collection guarded by Yinkin

I am firmly in the belief that we are in a second golden age of RPGs (if you take the late 70s/early 80s as the firs golden age) and this is lead by Chaosium. 

One of the things that truly puzzles and frustrates me is why other RPG players cannot see in Glorantha and Runequest what I see and why it is so superior to those other systems. But then I guess that what makes us different!

2020 GMing Review

So over 10 months since my last blog post. Where did the time go? Well mainly it got taken up with Covid related issues but also pleasingly a lot of table top roleplaying.

After re-reading my post, My Plan To Run Some RPGs, from November 2019 I was quite surprised to see I'd largely met the goals I set out, although in different ways than I'd outlined in the post.

Runequest: Roleplaying in Glorantha

First up was running Runequest: Roleplaying in Glorantha and while I did manage to run at least one session at Bean Gaming RQG really took off online when I ran a campaign with sessions every two weeks, on Saturdays, pretty much constant from April and still ongoing now. This included two players from our gaming group that started in the 1980s as well as Tim Challis, who I'd formed the East Midlands Runemasters with and two new players to me, Richard & Kevin.

The characters we have are:

• Dogmaz, a member of the Black Spear Clan and Humakti initiate
• Darin, a Grazelander and follower of Lankhor Mhy
• Ælfflæd, from Wilmskirk and a Chalana Arroy initiate
• Jarang, from the Narri clan and a follower of Orlanth
• Saronil, from the northlands around Alone and a follower of Odayla

We use Roll20 for the virtual tabletop; dice rolling, handouts and maps and Discord for audio. The sessions run from approx 12:00 until 16:00, although we usually try and wrap up once we get to 15:00 and we have a couple of 10 minute breaks during the session.

I'm currently running the third campaign arc, the first one was travelling across Sartar trying to find a way to destroy a chaotic musical horn they had discovered, the second arc was travelling and participating in the Battle of the Queens and the third arc is travelling to New Pavis, where they have just arrived, and acting as emissaries for Queen Leika of the Colymar with instructions to report on Argrath's movements and intentions.

I wrote all the scenarios/encounters myself, initially because the players were familiar with the published scenarios and later on because I actually enjoyed writing my own content. 

OSE Wilderlands

I also ran an OSE Wilderlands campaign weekly, every Thursday from April until mid December with only a handful of sessions missed. These sessions were based on map 6, The City State of the World Emperor starting Tell Qa. I started with three players and over the course of the 9 months we had at least 9 players and ended up with 5 fairly regular players.

I again used Roll20 and Discord to run the game online. Sessions ran from 19:00 to 21:00.

It was a very enjoyable experience. I mainly wrote my own material but did run The Palace of the Silver Princess, a module I last ran back in the early 80s. I think three characters died (including one in the very first session) and we potentially had one TPK after all the characters failed their saving throw versus a Harpy. However, I got the harpy to send the party on a quest.

I called a day to the campaign mainly because the latest lockdown in the UK meant my kids are being home schooled and with my wife's health being poor at the moment I am pretty exhausted in the week and just not up to preparing and running a weekly weekday campaign. I may try and resurrect it if the players are still interested once lockdown in the UK ends.

Summary

I've GMed more (around 50 sessions) in 2020 than any other year since I discovered roleplaying games back in 1981 so it's been a massively successful year. In fact I've probably GMed more than I've played.

I've also found that RQG has become my favourite RPG over the course of the year. It's not a case of liking OSE/Wilderlands less, I've just found I've liked the RQG ruleset and more importantly the world of Glorantha more and more as I GMed it more. 

OSE In Dolmenwood Sessions 1 & 2

My name is Pithwilder Dennygere, Dowser and a member of the retinue of Crump Ravious, Knight & third son of the family Ravious of High Hankel. I was assigned by my liege to Crump's retinue to assist him to return some holy relics.

 It was on the 13th day of Lymevald that we set out from High Hankel, taking King Pusskin's Road to the north. Our party was lead by Crump and consisted of myself, Jaspar a Friar of St. Clewed, Shank a Veteran and Crump's right hand man and three retainers;  Young Chaucer, a man at arms armed with a crossbow and armoured in chainmail, Urla a latrine digger & Bullan another man at arms armed with a club, dagger & hand axe.

As we travelled on the road Crump explained that our initial destination was Lankshorn, a village on the edge of Dolemwood where we were to meet up with Father Dobie, a vicar at the Church of St. Pastry. We met a centaur along the way who seemed friendly enough and offered us some advice. Arriving at Lankshorn Crump put us all up at the Horned Stouts rest.

The following day, 14th Lymewold, we located Father Dobie at his home, a short distance along the Ditchway to the east. He told us the story of St. Clewed fighting a Black Unicorn to both their deaths and at that location, on a hill, the ruined abbey stands, on the NE shore of Lake Longmere. Father Dobie said that the missing artefacts, still thought to be located at the ruins of the abbey, were a cross, a pattern & a chalice.

With the map that Crump had been furnished with we were able to see roughly where we thought the abbey might be and it was decided that we'd make our way first to Dreg, a village on the river with the hope of getting more information about the exact location of the ruined abbey and obtaining some waterborne transport to take us  as close to our destination as possible.

It was midday by the time we set off and within a short distance we met our first obstacle, two huge hawks landing on the path ahead of us feasting on some sort of animal. Our party backed off and Shank and Young Chaucer attempted to move up onto the north side of the Ditchway to take us out of the hawks line of sight and gain the protection of the dense trees should they decide to attack us. Unfortunately Shank stepped onto some sort of large worm and was attacked by it. Young Chaucer was so startled he set off his crossbow and landed a bolt on Shank. Crump might not be the brighest of leaders but his courage cannot be denied as he immediately went rushing up to aid his comrades and after landing a blow the worm constricted him and secreted an acid that reduced his polished plate armour to something that a lowly retainer would be embarrassed to wear. Fortunately the combined prowess of Crump and Shank was enough to defeat the worm.

Shortly after the battle with the worm the hawks flew off and so we travelled a short distance

eastwards along the Ditchway before camping for the night .As Shank & Crump were injured they rested up whilst the rest of the party performed the camping rituals of gathering firewood, starting a fire, cooking, pitching tents and I was given the task of filling the water skins.

A full nights rest meant Shank & Crump's wounds were able to heal a little and on the morning of 15th of Lymewold we continued along the Ditchway towards Dreg. The day was largely uneventful. The only event of note was finding owl carvings on some trees and passing through a major ley line! We made camp by the side of the Ditchway and spent another uneventful night, allowing Shank & Crump's wounds to heal some more.

On the 16th of Lymewold we made it to Dreg around midday. We noted a castle on an island in the river that had not been marked on Crump's map. There was some discussion how to proceed from here. Crump sent Shank out to garner information on what transport was available and  he reported that there was a ferry available over the river at 1sp per person, a river boat captain was prepared to take us as far as the entrance to the lake for 4sp or a merchant called Valan would be prepared to pay us the princely sum of 6sp per day for guarding his two wagons all the way to Fort Vulgar

Crump elected for us to stay at the Cock 'n Pig Balls Inn. I think Crump must be running low on funds as we all, including Crump, stayed in the common room overnight. Jaspar our Friar was delighted with the meal of sausages, mashed potatoes & pickled eggs and I concur that it was a memorable meal for all the right reasons. However, Crump now appears fully healed from his wound and Shank shows little signs of his wound. It was here that Crump awarded Young Chaucer the title of Hunter for his bravery in standing his ground against the Worm a few days earlier. I fancy it was put a ploy to bolster the young man's confidence as the wound he inflicted on Shank was taking many days to heal.

On the 17th of Lymewold we set off escorting Valan who had two wagons and two drivers with him. We took the ferry across the river and proceeded up Creek Road, northwards towards Prigwort, where apparently Valan intended to pick up some more goods and stop overnight when we reached it. Our sleep in our overnight camp was interrupted by a display of strange lights in the sky which started off in the distance but moved so they were directly over our camp for a short period. I was on watch when this happened and woke the rest of the camp as I had no idea if they would prove to be friend or foe. However, the lights proved to be neither and after a short while just disappeared. Our future description of this episode drew blanks from local people.

On the 18th of Lymewold we reached the town of Prigwort, by reputation the largest settlement in Dolmenwood. I felt somewhat sorry for Crump who is obviously somewhat impoverished. He has been unable to purchase any replacement armour for his current rather tatty plate mail and when faced with the cost of the first inn we tried elected for us to stay at a cheaper inn, The Rap & Tap. I was able to detect a ley line to the north of Prigwort.

On the 19th of Lymewold we set off from Prigwort around midday as Valan had business to attend to in the morning. Our path took us over a creek and through the forest until mid afternoon we were able to see a rocky hill with what appeared to be a ruin at the top. We believed this to be our goal for retrieving the lost artefacts of St. Clewed. It was very noticable that a large flock of black birds were circling the ruin and at sundown they appeared to descend into the ruins, presumably to rest for the night.Valan agreed to pitch up camp a short distance from the hill and we spent an uneventful night.

Early in the morning of the 20th of Lymewold Valan gave us permission for a short expedition to the top of the hill to explore the ruins. This we did and were fortunate to locate all the missing artefacts. We noticed what appeared to be young children digging in the graveyard that was part of the ruins at the top of the hill. Unable to get close to them before they took refuge in the Mausoleum, we elected not to pursue them as we had located the items we needed to return and were keen to get them back to Father Dobie as soon as could.

And this is where our current tale ends, ready to start off from the ruined abbey to Fort Vulgar!

We have gathered a number of rumours on our travels and I must speak to the rest of the party to gather the rumours together and put quill to paper so we have a written record.

System: Old School Essentials
Setting: Dolmenwood
GM:Che Webster
Players: Andy Sutton (Pithwilder, Crump, Young Chaucer, Urla, Bullan), Ian Roberts (Shank, Jaspar)

This is a play test of Nercrotic Gnome's forthcoming Dolmenwood player's book. The sessions played so far have been Friday 14th & 28th February 2020. Each session was around 3 hours.

The characters have currently gained just over 300 XP, about 15% of what they need for next level!

Dungeon Room Descriptions

I don't know whether it's just me but I generally find room descriptions in scenarios pretty poor. This thought was highlighted when I read through the "Tower of Zenophus" scenario in the back of the Holmes D&D Ruleset. It's a decent dungeon crawl scenario which I think still holds up today (as long as you can suspend your disbelief about why and how certain rooms are populated) and which I enjoyed running a few weeks at local games shop, Distinct Gaming, over in Belper. My beef with room description is more in the format than the content. They just generally seem to be written in a fairly haphazard way that requires reading the entire description before they can be summarised for the players.

I put some real thought into the actual format I think is the best after listening to Goblin Henchman's podcast episode, 12 - Audio Dungeon | not that one, which puts forward an idea of creating a dungeon based on audio messages of dungeon dressing sent into his podcast. (His blog also has a post dedicated to the idea - Collaborative Audio Dungeon). My initial room description was around two and a half minutes so I spent quite a bit of time refining it down to a minute. And this process of refining lead me to rethink the format.

Currently I working along the following lines for my ideal room description format.

Initial Description

I want a brief description of that the characters will initially see, hear and smell on entering the room. Variations between what characters with Infravision or with a light source see need to be noted.

Detailed Description

Each objection/area within the room should be described in turn, separated by paragraphs so depending on the order the party examines the room it is easy to access descriptions of what they find.

Events likely to occur should then be detailed.


Undoubtedly I'll refine this format as I get back into writing room descriptions but I think it's a good starting point.

Is Mapping Really Old School?

This post is to support my podcast of the same name, Is Mapping Really Old School?

I'm a big fan of player mapping but sadly it seems to be something I've seldom encountered in games, the exception being a monthly B/X game I play in where a map is produced each session.

Personally, I find mapping one of the most enjoyable parts of a session and enjoy mapping both Dungeons and Wilderness. I always find it particularly amusing when a map seems to go back over ,usually because of an error, and that in itself can often lead to amusing player character interactions and often ongoing jokes about map making abilities.

As you can see in the maps below the fact I have little to no drawing ability has not held me back from producing the maps. I have no definitive legend, although I try and stick to the old, "standard" symbols but I can be inconsistent at times.

I play a bi-weekly face to face GURPS 4e/Dungeon Fantasy game and a couple of sessions ago we ventured into the Dungeons of Thraal for the first time. I took it upon myself to do the mapping and came up with the map you see. It uses approx 10' per hex.

The Dungeons of Thraal

At the latest session I added to the original map and needless to say the map immediately went off the square paper, a common issue with mapping. When this happens I usually add the same letter on each piece to denote where they join together.

This map is one I did retrospectively of an online game I played in mid week using the Black Hack system. It was theatre of the mind so the map is produced from the written notes I took from the GM's description. The scale of the rooms should be fairly accurate but not the corridors.  I produced it mainly to see how difficult it was to produce a map from a written description, bearing in mind my written notes may have been inaccurate. It quickly became apparent to me that corridor lengths were something that we'd deemed unimportant. I made this 5' per hex to allow for more legible drawings to be added. 

My Plan To Run Some RPGs

Although I'm playing in plenty of RPGs at the moment, I play in weekly AD&D 1e, Bi-Weekly GURPs 4e, Monthly B/X,  D&D 5e, DCC & One Shots arranged on the Audio Dungeon Discord Server (Barbarians of Lemuria, Black Hack, Bushido & Low Fantasy Gaming arranged so far) and a proposed 13th Age Glorantha Duck Campaign, I rarely get a chance to GM a game. I really need to change this as I ran some D&D 5e, D&D B/X & RQG last year and enjoyed it very much, although I was very rusty for the first few games.

To rectify my lack of GMing I'm starting a three pronged attack.

1. I've setup three dates early Next Year, Jan 12th, Feb 9th, Mar 8th, all on a Sunday to GM some RGQ over at Bean Gaming in Leicester and agreed to run a RGQ at Glorantha Games in April. I've also tentatively had agreement from my long standing (30+ year) RPG group for me to run some RGQ in January.
2. I've put some feelers out on Audio Dungeon Discord to see if there is any interest in a Old School Essentials Wilderlands session.
3. I intend to put some feelers out to see if there is any interest locally in playing OSE. TBH I don't hold out much hope as most people seem only interested in playing D&D 5e.

Runequest Glorantha

To run the RGQ I need to re-read the rule book and concentrate on understanding Shamans and become more familiar with all the magic spells. I also need to re-familiarise myself with the Broken Tower starter adventure and finish writing up my own adventure, Bye-Tore & The Snow Dog as well as putting the next couple of adventures down onto paper as they are currently sitting exclusively in my head. I was intending to format my notes using the Jonstown Compendium Creators Circle templates, which I also need to look at.

Old School Essentials & the Wilderlands

Old School Essentials (OSE) is the system recently published by Necrotic Gnome via a Kickstarter. It's effectively a re-formatting of the D&D B/X which is my favourite RPG system. The Wilderlands is Judge's Guild campaign world which first saw the light of day as a published work in 1976 as The City State of the Invincible Overlord. I created my own implementation of it over at scabard.

My intention is to run the OSE including the optional Advanced Fantasy books. I intend to run it within The Wilderlands set in Map 6, The City State of the World Emperor, around Tell Qa in the Smyrsis province. My Wilderlands setting would be a sandbox faithfully using Bob Bledsaw's original version of the Wilderlands where ever possible but taking from other sources as appropriate as well as including a lot of my own fiction. I'll use James Mishler's version of Tell Qa as the base for the city.

My Wilderlands will have a mixture of scenarios I've written and also some published scenarios, each dropped in at set locations, so the Keep on the Borderlands exists in my Wilderlands campaign, as does The Isle of Dread.

Protecting My RPG Collection

Initially my RPG collection stood on bookcase in my bedroom at my parents house. When I left for college I can't recollect exactly where I used to keep the books & magazines. I'm sure the "essentials" went with me to polytechnic but I assume the bulk of them remained at my parents house.

I never really acquired enough RPG material for storage to be an issue in those early years but I can remember that when I finally moved out of my parents house when I was 26/27 I took my RPG stuff with me and have a vague recollection of it collecting dust in a spare room in the house I was renting before collecting more dust in a spare room in the first house I bought when I was 28.

Two moves later and more dust collection and in 2003 I found myself moving abroad to take up a job in Sri Lanka and looking to rent our house in the UK out so I boxed my entire collection up in a couple of boxes and dumped them up in the attic with only a minimum of precautions. I still rue throwing my collection of White Dwarf, Imagine & Adventurer magazines away thinking I would never use them again ..

And so there my RPG books remained, despite me returning to live in the house again in 2007, until 2017 when my interest in RPGs was sparked again and I braved the attic to locate my books. Certainly more than luck than judgement my RPG books remained intact with no water, rodent or any other noticeable type of damage.

So I cleared out the book case in my bedroom and brought my entire collection down from the attic and stored it on the bedroom bookcase. I started adding to my collection rapidly and decided not to leave my RPG books condition to chance but invest in some protection for it.

40 Sheet Plastic Wallet

I decided to leave the hard backs as they were but to place all the softbacks into plastic wallets. Looking around on Amazon I soon sourced two types of plastic wallets I liked.

150 Sheet Plastic Wallet

They both were A4 sized, had poppers to help seal the wallet, ring binder holes so they could be stored in ring binders and were side opening. The difference between them was simply the number of sheets they held, one held around 40 sheets, the other around 150 sheets.

The wallets easily held A4 sized sheets and booklets and the side rather than top opening meant that it was easier to slide the contents in. The poppers were easy to open and close so all in all they turned out to be an ideal solution as far as I was concerned. I haven't yet found a softback book too large to fit into the larger of the two wallets

Left is 15mm, Right is 25mm

The next decision was which A4 binders to use. There was a lot of choice but I wanted flexible rather than rigid folders with the ability to insert a label into the spine as I intended to create my own spine labels and print them off. I found what I was looking for on Amazon and settled on two sizes, 15mm and 25mm, the size the width of the spine and consequently dictating how many pages they could hold.












Fitting the plastic wallets into the A4 binders is easy and the only issue I really found was being ruthless in upgrading the size from 15mm to 25mm binders if the 15mm binder started to get full.

The spine inserts were fairly easy to create. I just used Word and created a table with the page in landscape. It took a little bit of trial and error by printing off the page , cutting up the spines, trying them in the ring binders and then adjusting them in Word and repeating  until I had them how I wanted them.

Screen shot of my Word document

Note that the spines also need to cover space on the front of the folder too. I sourced the logos off the internet.

Old Bookcase

As I mentioned above originally I had my RPG collection in a bookcase.

New adjustable shelving

But the bookcase was soon overflowing so I purchased some adjustable shelving (I used the Algot range from Ikea) and this was a noticeable improvement!

New adjustable shelving

Of course, all this comes at a cost. Each plastic wallet is approximately £1 and each binder £1.75 so any softback books I now purchase I add at around £3 per book to include protection for them. The cost of the adjustable shelving was several hundred pounds which will probably work out at less than £1 a book when the shelves are full.

However, all in all I'm pretty pleased with the system. It provides room for all my RPG books to stand vertically with the softbacks safe from damp and dust. Of course, I need to remember to take all the hardbacks off a couple of times a year for dusting but that's really no big hardship.

Printing my own spines means I can easily identify where any books are and can easily move books between folders as I can just print off an updated spine fairly easily.

Al-Qadim

For around the past 12 months I've been playing in a regular Tuesday group in the Al-Qadim setting. We have 5 regular players, Dan, Gareth, Jazz, Michael & myself, have lost one player Richard along the way (due to moving house out of the area) and Nathaniel is an irregular player. Ham is our DM. The group make up is quite different to most the other groups I play in as usually I am the oldest player but we have players from their 20s right through into their 50s. We play at Ham's house, around a table in his front "gaming" room and Ham kindly supplies the drinks (or at least Sophie his daughter does!) and the players supply nibbles. Sessions are 19:00 to 22:00 although we sometimes spill a little over.

I found this group via a post for another group in the East Midlands Roleplayers Gaming Group. The other group was also DMed by Ham and was looking for an extra player so I joined but after just a couple of months the group stalled due to a combination of illness and other weekend commitments. At around this time Ham started the Tuesday group so I asked if I could join this as I really wanted a regular old school group (as I was playing Pathfinder on a Wednesday at the time) and have been part of the Tuesday group ever since.

We use a Facebook group to communicate, usually just to confirm sessions and who is attending.

Although Al-Qadim is an AD&D 2e setting the Tuesday group uses an extensively home-brewed AD&D 1e rule set to play. As I cut my RPG teeth on AD&D 1e back in the early 80s this suits me as I've become increasingly disillusioned with D&D 5e as a ruleset.

In Al-Qadim I play a Sha'ir/Thief with a Djinnling Vamoosh (after Souki my first Djinnling met an untimely end). The other player's characters are:
Dan: Alard, MU & Jandolier, Cleric/Ranger
Jazz: Levandes, Paladin
Gareth: Ravi, Cleric & Azhbool, fighter
Michael: Ahmaan, Fighter
Nathaniel: Haroun, Magic User/Thief
Richard: Tze, Monk

As you can see some players have more than one character and it is expected that if any player is missing from a session another player will play their character(s). I seem to usually end up playing Haroun if Nathaniel is missing but have played Ravi, Tze & Jandolier. The characters are all around 6th level.

Ham maintains a campaign journal on Dragonsfoot, The Parsantine Expedition to The Land of Fate

We use miniature figures and each character has it's own painted figure. I believe Ham supplies & paints the figures, although it maybe that other players have brought/painted their own figures. I've no particular interest in miniatures so Ham has certainly supplied and painted mine.

The format of the games in Al-Qadim is usually Ham offers us a particular scenario via a patron or disguised genie (which my character Farouk is notoriously poor at detecting with his 25% chance to "Detect the work of genies") and we usually accept and play the scenario but occasionally we decline if we fancy exploring a different area of Al-Qadim.

We've also all met up socially as well for a few beers last Christmas and I've turned up at Ham's for a coffee and a natter on the odd occasion the game has had to be cancelled due to lack of numbers. All in all it's a great group, real old school, relaxed feel to the play with everyone committed to working as a team.

Call of Cthulhu Starter Set Sessions

The group I play Call of Cthulhu with on Friday nights is a select bunch of Che, our Keeper of Arcane knowledge, Ian & myself joined by Dave for the first time last night. Che, Ian & Dave have played as a group a while back, before I discovered the group earlier in the year. Che & Ian have been roleplaying together for around 20 years. We usually play once every two weeks & Che hosts us at his house.

I met Che via his forum posts, first via a Runequest related post and then via his excellent podcast Roleplay Rescue, which I can heartily recommend. I liked his old school approach to things and joined a short lived Castle & Crusades campaign he ran until an untimely TPK (See Vinster's Last Stand). Che will be running a new C&C campaign starting in September, once the school holidays are over as Ian & myself both have kids and between us are away for most of July & August. So the the meantime we've agreed to play some Call of Cthulhu .. Our sessions generally start around 19:30 but we tend to turn up at 19:00 so we can have a coffee and a chat for half an hour or so. The sessions end by 23:00, sometimes a little earlier.

I've played Call of Cthulhu since 2e back around 1983 & played a lot of 3e when I was at polytechnic. In fact I've written more scenarios for Call of Cthulhu than probably any other system although I've actually rarely run it. As usual, there are various reasons for this but the main one I guess was that at the time there was a much better CoC KoAK than me, Bryan, who ran some of the best RPG sessions I've ever played in.

Last night was the second session of our Call of Cthulhu 7e Starter Set scenarios. The first session was 3 weeks ago when we played "Paper Chase". Last night we started "The Edge of Darkness". In both sessions I'm playing Jessie, who is young black female history student with a reckless streak, a strong religious belief & excellent fashion sense. Probably as pretty much as far from my self as I could get. As always I take a while getting into a character, slowly building up the personality. I'm certainly not the greatest role player but I hope I do a passable job at creating interesting and memorable characters. Jessie is currently completely unconvinced about the occult and believes she is involved in a drugs war between rival gangs as the use of hallucinatory drugs seems to be the only way to explain what other people are reporting they have seen.

So far the sessions have been great. Che is a relaxed GM who encourages us to play our characters and is flexible when we go off on tangents. Ian & myself are fairly complementary players as I think it's fair to say Ian is less cautious than me and more combat/action orientated. As I've only played the once with Dave I've yet to get a feel for his preferred style but my initial thought is that he too is more direct than me. If last night's session is anything to go by the concluding session for  "The Edge of Darkness", which will likely be the last session before we break up for our summer recess  should be a blast.

Deserts And Dragons

I currently play in a D&D 5e campaign we call "Deserts & Dragons". We meet monthly over at Distinct Games, over in Belper (in Derbyshire in the UK). We have a pretty stable group but the sessions are structured so that each session we start out at a base and at the end we return to the base so there is no problem if any characters are unable to adventure in each session. I have come to appreciate this is an excellent strategy for keeping an ongoing campaign going as it easily handles not all players being available. I was unable to make last session (along with another player Glyn) but it's been the first session I've missed; we started in January 2019.

I've blogged before about this campaign, writing up the party's adventures from the perspective of Tarquin, my human bard. You can view the posts using the "Deserts & Dragons" tag.

We mainly use a Facebook chat group to communicate and have also used a full Facebook Group for another group (which one of the players uses for a campaign he is DMing) to communicate. We're all friends on Facebook (although it's not a requirement) so it makes it all very easy to communicate.

The members of our group are all reasonably local to Belper, where the game is hosted. The furthest away I think is Derby, 30 minutes on the bus or about 10 miles. When we can we organise lifts for one another. A few of us met up for a few beers a month or so back. It's all very social and laid back which really suits me.

All the players (as far as I can recall) met at Distinct Games as in 2017 Jono, our DM, setup a game as "resident GM" for the shop which was an open table where he ran loosely related one shots. I think there were around 12 of these and I joined about half way through. These were run as half day sessions and two sessions were run each day. Sometimes just one player turned up (which was still an excellent session with just me and Jono), sometimes I think we peaked at 7 players.

When Jono finished those one shots he had a break for a few months but the new campaign was started as full day (10:30 - 16:30) sessions with two groups, one was the "hard core" players from the previous sessions who had really gelled as a team and the other session was for the kids, allowing Jono to tailor the sessions accordingly. I believe there is another group  run in the week as well. Each session costs £5 and the shop keep a tab we pay at the end. They sell snacks & drinks but allow us to bring in our own food as we usually raid Birds or Greggs at lunch time.

One of the interesting things about this campaign is that the other groups play in the same world and the actions one group does are reported to the other groups so the world is fluid, even when we are not playing. The world is set after some sort of terrible apocalyptic even and all the characters live in a city in the middle of a desert. The city has reached capacity and the characters are tasked with exploring the surrounding area in the hope of finding resources for the city and possibly somewhere else to start a settlement. So its mainly a hex crawl with short encounters and is working out really well.

We usually level up after each session so I needed to level up Tarkquin to level 6 and I did so last night, choosing my local The Talbot to level Tarquin up and write him out on a new character sheet.

As with many RPG groups two of the players Chris & Glyn have also turned up to play RGQ at a separate venue, Boards & Swords.

So shortly I'll be off to Belper, catching a bus (as my car is in the garage) which takes about 30 minutes. Our session is 10:30 to approx 16:30.

Procrastination

It's been a while, over two months, since I last sat down and published a blog post. Originally, some time at the back end of a last year, when I created this blog my idea was to write an entry once or twice week. There are several reasons I have failed to do this; lack of time being a perennial problem, although strictly speaking it is not lack of time but the writing of blog entries being too low a priority for me to get them done. I have a wife, two kids, a full time job, an old house that needs work doing to it, a garden that is larger than I can easily cope with, extended family that live a fair distance away from me (a long day's round trip to see them) etc. but I do have spare time, it's just that I tend to spend it playing role playing games or drinking beer (both I am coming to realise I do to de-stress from my day to day life). However, one thing I that I have suddenly realised I have a real problem with is procrastination. It took me listening to The psychology of motivation and procrastination for this realisation to finally hit home. And looking back on my life it's become obvious to me that on and off and to varying degrees, sometimes chronically, I've suffered from this right back to school. So what is procrastination?

Procrastination is the avoidance of doing a task that needs to be accomplished by a certain deadline. It could be further stated as a habitual or intentional delay of starting or finishing a task despite knowing it might have negative consequences.

So I've decided to do something about this. I've started by making a list of the things I want to accomplish. Within this blog entry I'll keep it to RPG related tasks (although I'm applying it outside of RPGs too) as this blog is for RPG stuff.

1. Level up my D&D 5e character for tomorrow's session
2. Write up my RQG scenario, Bye Tore & The Snow Dog
3. Create & write up my Dragonquest scenario
4. Read up Cthulhu 3e and A Green & Pleasant Land & my old CoC scenarios
5. Develop my Wilderlands campaign 

To aid me deal with my procrastination I've sorted out a place where I feel happy working. One of the non RPG tasks I've kick started recently is clearing out my old office as we intend to extend our tiny bathroom into it. So I've relocated my computer desk into the our house's "box" room which previous was used as our boys play room. This has allowed me to dust, clean & reorganise the desk and make it a more pleasant place to work at. This appears to be working as I'm writing this blog entry!

I also intend to set aside some time as often as possible to sit down and work through the tasks I have identified as priorities. I'm going to try and do this shortly after I get home from work each day, around 16:00 and just spend as long as is practical on the task; the important thing being to keep momentum going.

Listening to Che Webster's excellent Roleplay Rescue has helped me make a few decisions to help deal with my procrastination as Che covers things like motivation within his podcasts. I can heartily recommend listening to them.

Vinster's Last Stand

This text was written by a diligent cleric of Mythras who spoke to the spirit of Vinster, cleric of Mythras as his last statement before leaving the material earth and passing on be with his deity.

My demise took place in a desecrated dwarven tomb as a member of a party investigating the Isle of Fire in an attempt to find a key to one of the Moongates. My erst while companions were a lovable rogue, Torvind, a stoic fighter Khaled & an impetuous half Goblin with both arcane and martial abilities called Slate. 

Our finals hours were spent exploring the tomb after defeating the cultists who were occupying it. It had been a brutal fight and we had barely escaped with our lives. The cultists were nine in number, some with sewn up mouths and lead by a much better armoured leader. We were all relieved to be alive at the end of the battle.

We had a brief discussion as to what was to be done with the bodies as we knew only too well that bodies on the Isle of Fire had a habit or rising as undead. We opted for beheading the bodies in the end, and burning the heads in two braziers that were smoldering within the tomb; my divine beliefs leading me to consider this a suitable compromise as burning the bodies was not practical underground and we could not leave as we had the front to the tomb barred as we had come under missile attack when previously trying to leave that way.

Our investigations into the the undiscovered parts of the tomb lead to us finding a room with horizontal niches in the walls and there were signs that these had once been used to hold bodies, another room with a stone tomb in the centre and a wood chest which Torvind discovered to be full of coin. We uncovered the tomb and found it to be empty. 

At this point we had a locked door we needed to open and so Slate went back to search the body of the leader. I wandered back into the room with the niches and was able to hear the sound of fighting and was able to see Slate engaging the body of the leader in combat so called out "Undead" and rushed to his aid, swiftly we once again killed him. We located the keys but were now perturbed as to what to do with the other bodies. Our decision was to try and find another way out of the tomb.

Further exploration behind the locked door revealed a staircase up to landing with a mural on the wall depicting a mighty dwarven warrior fighting. The mural seemed to depict how the battle went, showing the dwarf being joined by elven and human allies but in the end being defeated. The door on the landing obviously lead to a tomb and was still sealed so we decided for now not to open it as respect for the mighty dwarven warrior we assumed must be inside. We also moved the chest of coins to the bottom of the stairs and so behind the door which we locked on the way out.

We now returned to the main room, where the initial fight had been and the headless bodies remained. To our horror these bodies were now standing again and turned towards us as we entered the room. I thrust my mace in front of me and summoned the aid of my god to repel these abominations but for whatever reason Mythras chose to ignore my request. The combat was swift and Khaled was swifly overpowered by a number of undead swarming around him. Torvind and myself quickly succumbed too as the undead were each able to absorb several hits and still remain standing. My last memory is of Slate still fighting toe to toe with them as more and more of the undead now moved over to him.

It was not the way I would have a chosen to die but I hope Mythras will accept me in his halls of the dead as a man who tried to do the best for his deity and to fight the power of evil whenever he could..  

The game was GMed by Che Webster with Torvind & Khaled played by Pete Fenner, Slate by Ian Roberts and Vinster by Andy Sutton. We used the Castles & Crusades ruleset.

Tarkquin's Tale of Deserts & Dragons Part 2

The players and characters (all 3rd level) for our latest session of Deserts & Dragons were:
Ollie: Baern Ungart, Dwarven Cleric
Paul: Vigharthur Thorogod, Human Sorcerer
Glyn: Eric, Dwarven Ranger
Andy: Tarkquin, Human Bard
Chris: Norixius Kriv, Dragonborn Fighter

Jo: Torinn Danrdendaian, Dragonborn Rogue
And our GM is Jono

I am Tarkquin Kelt, storyteller & entertainer, accomplished player of the recorder and beater of drums. This story continues the tale, started in Tarkquin's Tale of Deserts & Dragons Part 1, of my exploration into the lands surroundings the city.

On hearing of the success of other explorations into the Outlands it seemed prudent to organise another foray into the badlands and so I tracked down my erstwhile companions; all except Lito III. We were also joined by Torinn Danrdendaian, another of these peculiar Dragonborn who seemed to have some history with Norixius. Talks with my fellow adventurers revealed the souldaggers and red fist gangs and the existence of an assassins guild.

Since our last foray other groups had reported back and the ruins we had located a few days travel away from the city are now a thriving outpost with crude structures, tents and even a garrison stationed there. Eagles and an obelisk had been discovered on the fringes of the hills to the west.

Eric our dwarven Ranger indicated as well as black smithing skills he was an expert in stone masonry. I remain skeptical of this claim until I see some evidence .. The crystals we left with the alchemist were not tough and crumble and break apart easily but the alchemist believes they might be of some non-mundane use and is investigating possibilities.

For our latest expedition we started off from the outpost and decided to head off to the north east, in the direction we thought the orc tribes were located. 

On the first day we came across a burial mound with smashed sarcophagus and two old suits of amour which gave off a magic aura. Norixius & Eric approached the suits and upon a close examination they started to move. This initiated a melee fight mainly noted for the resonate sounds produced by the dwarves' hammers hitting and bouncing off the armour and Vigharthur's continued obsession with fire; this time in the shape of a cone which damaged opponents and comrades alike. The suits were eventually destroyed by a few judicious hits and as I healed Eric's wounds I heard the approach of  two more sets of metallic feet. A further melee fight was initiated of which the highlight was probably my awesome hand crossbow shot which found a gap between the dwarves and embedded itself in a suit. Vigharthur unleashed some scorching rays and the usual mixture of melee hits and missile fire destroyed the two suits of armour. My detect magic showed the magic on the suits of armour was fading. As the metal contained in armour was significant we decided to bury them and pick them up on the way back.

A night in the tomb proved to be uneventful and so in the morning we continued to the north east travelling over rolling dunes. I kept spirits up with some songs on my recorder, something I think the other adventurers appreciated tremendously. As the sun began to set we found a huge 60' tall and 30' wide arch. Our dwarves were unable to figure out what sort of stonework it was. To be honest I am beginning to suspect they are actually short, bearded humans such is their lack of ability with stonework!

We opted to camp down for the night. I awoke during Baern's second watch, initially unable to decide whether I had been awoken by Eric's snoring or the sound of fighting. As I came to I found, to my amazement, I was able to fly through the air. My newly found ability enabled me to keep the rest of the party abreast of the situation which was that we were under attack by a party of orcs. As Baern & Norixius engaged the orcs in melee Vigharthur lit up his pipe and was able to produce a cloud of smoke between us and a couple of other orcs I had pointed out. Once five of us were all able to join in the battle the orcs were swiftly dispatched. Eric allegedly slept through the entire fight. I was able to heal up Baern & Norixius and Torinn was able to find 7 rations on the orc bodies his obvious relish at this a sign that Dragonborn are less fussy about their food than us humans. Sadly, my magical flying ability turned out to be a side effect of one of Vigharthur's spells back firing and so proved to be short lived. I guess I should be thankful there was no fire related backfire ..

In the morning some of the others climbed the arch and were able to see camp fires an indeterminate distance to the north. Our short, bearded humans were still unable to determine the stone arch's origins. We continued to the NE and discovered a smashed, black stone obelisk. It was apparently covered in writing but we cannot identify the language. Our best guess is that it was originally about 15' high. Vigharthur pondered if these obelisks could be some sort of anchor points as they do not appear to be changed by the periodic storm that does change so much of the desert. 

We decide to camp here for the night as some of the party are suffering the effects of a disturbed nights sleep. During the night Erik claims to have heard chanting and sees a large bonfire in the distance. In the morning Torinn spots some tracks that seem to indicate our camp was approached in the night.

We set off to the NE once more and the day reveals to us a forest of dead trees. There are thousands of trees but all obviously dead, although their death appears to be relatively recently. I checked for fungi and found evidence of a small amount, still living. Vigharthur started to dig declaring he was looking for signs of water; making me slightly nervous as I assume this was so putting out and fires he was about to create would be easier .. Eric spots orc tracks and it appears the orcs regularly travel through the forest. I am uneasy and it's not just the dead forest; there is something I can't put my finger on that is wrong. It soon becomes apparent what that is - I spot a tree moving! 

Although my instinct is to try and communicate with the moving tree Vigharthur's fire bolt dictates our course of action and within seconds we are involved in a fierce fight. Despite our party dealing out considerable damage the moving tree continues to fight, inflicting significant damage of its own. Eventually the party prevail and I heal the party with some help from Baern.

We take a short rest which ends with Torinn detecting the approach of what turns out to be orcs. There are 5 of them with 1 an obvious leader. The orcs use javelins before closing in. Our short, bearded humans bring one orc down and I bring another one down with my awesome hand crossbow. The battle is short but our party members suffer considerable damage which fortunately I am able to deal with with the help of Baern.

We elect to travel back immediately, travelling through the night as we wanted to avoid any attention from any other orc patrols. Eric covered our tracks. At dawn we camped at the broken obelisk. We rested successfully and set off again in the evening. Up until now various party members had successfully hunted for food but Torinn failed to turn up after his hunting trip and it was only some hours later that he located us with a tale of a ship wreck with a giant scorpion within. 

The rest of our trip back to the city was uneventful. We reported all our adventures except for the ship wreck & the scorpion, which we intend to investigate on a later expedition and the armour we obtained from the animated suits, which Eric intends to use to fashion us upgraded weapons and armour.

My Games System Wishlist

As a relative newcomer to the OSR scene I've been looking around at some of the systems available and have drawn up a shortlist of systems I'd like to read up on and potentially play the following games so I'm aiming to purchase a one of them each month over the course of this year

1. OSRIC
2. Labyrinth Lord
3. Lamentations of the Flame Princess
4. Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea
5. Dungeon Crawl Classics
6. Adventurer Conqueror King
7. Swords & Wizardry
8. Hackmaster
9. BLUEHOLME™ Journeymanne Rules
10. Mythras Classic Fantasy

I also have a list of games I want to investigate a bit more before committing to purchasing them

1. ZWEIHÄNDER Grim and Perilous RPG
2. Lion & Dragon
3. White Box : Fantastic Medieval Adventure Game
4. OS&R: Oubliettes, Sorcery, & Reavers
5. Blood & Treasure

Despite my passion for Moldvay B/X I prefer to purchase hardback rather than softback books & PDFs are just backups for me. I'm not one for using a computer at the gaming table.

Tarkquin's Tale of Deserts & Dragons Part 1

I am Tarkquin Kelt, songster and poet, accomplished player of the recorder and beater of drums. I live in what is called the City. It has no other name as we believe it is the one and only city remaining in what is left of Toril, a place we understand was once vibrant and full of life but is now largely wasteland. The city has survived for hundreds of years, slowly building it'a population back up until now it stands on the precipice. The under ground springs and fungus farms are struggling to meet the ever growing population and every scrap of land within the city walls is now taken up. One of the few releases from life's drudgery, alcohol, is now illegal. The city council of 11 have made the decision that the four city races of elves, dwarves, dragon born & humans must reach out explore the wasteland in the hope of finding additional resources and habitable land so the city can continue to expand.

It is at this point that I volunteered as one the explorers believing fame & fortune could be mine or at the very least I could earn some food for our families table. And the tales I could tell might fill the theatres with awestruck citizens, eager for news of what lies outside the city walls.

Six of us were assigned to work together and we were immediately lead through a single file corridor under the city walls. There were other groups and looking at my associates I counted myself lucky as some of the members of other groups looked like they shouldn't be outside the city walls. Probably debtors and convicts paying their debt back.

My other party members were 3 dwarves; Baern Ungart, a cleric and two rangers Eric & Leto III, a Dragonborn; Norixius Kriv, and another human; Vigharthur Thorogod, a sorcerer. At first appraisal a decent enough mix.

We headed off to the north west with Eric scouting. The day was hot with few clouds in the sky and the sun beating down on us. It was uneventful and traveled until shortly before nightfall when we  setup a camp. However, the night was not uneventful as a group of 7 lizard like creatures disturbed one of the watches. They appeared to be harmless and in awe of "the chosen", Norixius. No information could be gathered from them and they left.

On the second day we broke camp and not long after setting off, again towards the NW, we spotted some ruins. Rather than just noting them and reporting their location we decided to investigate. On closer examination the ruins appeared to be a village and our dwarven contingent identified them of human construction. Movement was spotted further inside the ruins and Leto demonstrated his credentials by sneaking up and identifying some giant centipedes. Our sorcerer, Vigharthur , made short work of them by frying them all in a burning fire that blew out the back wall of the building. He is obviously not a man to be trifled with! Baern & Eric seemed interested in finding some centipede remains to eat. the ways of dwarves will forever remain impenetrable to me!

I headed off to check around the perimeter while Vigharthur & Leto dug in the sand looking for crypts. They quickly became exhausted in the heat of the desert sun. Norixius  checked for wells and I sat down and drew out a map of the ruins. Whilst doing this I spotted a humanoid figure  up on a dune some 200m away. The figure dropped down as soon as it saw that I had noticed it. I passed this information on to the others and Leto & Vigharthur kept an eye on it while Eric & Baern  took up the work digging up the sand in search of crypts and find a trap door. Opening this up we found some steps leading down into pitch darkness.

The steps opened up into an underground room with a locked door. In an unusual move for dwarves it was asked if anyone could pick locks (rather than simply bashing the door down). I reluctantly admitted I might have some ability in this area. Thankfully the party asked no questions about how I had picked up this skill and I was able to successfully pick the lock.

Eric opened the door and found 5 grey shapes in the revealed a large room. The shapes appeared to be humanoid and breathing and had crystals in patches on their hairless, dry and cracked skin. Eric plucked up the courage to venture into the room and tap one of them on the shoulder. this caused the shape to turn and scream showing a green glint in their eyes. All the statues started to move.

I think it's fair to say that dwarven panic set in. Eric & Baern started swinging their weapons with Baern shattering on the the shapes head revealing it to be made of dust and bone. I cast my True Strike. Norixius  joined the fray and soon we had destroyed all five, but not before Eric had taken a significant hit. Fortunately I was able to heal him. I get the impression from looking around that this room was acting as a prison and that these "creatures" had been locked down here to keep them out of the way. I found some quartz like substance left over from the "creatures" which seemed to be worth enough to take back with us. We could find nothing else of interest in the crypt and so we headed back to the surface.

On getting back out in the fresh air we discovered that Vigharthur & Leto had set off to investigate the humanoid in the sand dunes, who turned out to be an Orc. They were able to subdue it and bring it back to the crypt. Vigharthur & myself continued investigating the ruins whilst the rest of the party interrogated the orc. In an exchange of information that seemed to involve both Baern taking some significant bruising the orc told us he was scouting and that he came from 3 days travel to the north and that there were hunting grounds off to the west. The orc said he knows who we are and his only information on the creatures in the crypt was that they were lost in a spiritual way. It was bovious to me that Baern held a grudge against this orc and I felt this would not be the last time they fought one another.

I found one other building that seemed larger than the one we assumed to be a church with the crypt underneath it.

We decided to stay the night, which was uneventful. However, in the morning Norixius   found some strips of meat and two arrows outside his tent. It appears Norixius has some Kobold admirers.

We set off the following morning and spent an uneventful day travelling before camping for the night by a statue we found. In the morning Leto informs us that on his watch there was a blue flash in the sky over towards the mountains. We decide to leave the statue and investigate the blue flash.

As we travelled and close to where Leto thought he saw the blue flash the dwarves spot white stone in the sand. These turned out to be the bottom half of ancient stone pillars, located every 20-30 meters. We located a roadway underneath the sand. We surmised that the statue was at the start of the roadway. Baern was able to locate a wall with some steps leading up and it appeared we were standing on the ruins of a massive temple.

Vigharthur spotted something blue moving and it appeared to be some sort of small dragon. We nominate Norixius  to speak with it as he knows some draconic. The dragon doesn't respond to any speech nor even when we throw some jerky over to where we last saw it. However, we overhear some familiar sounding noises and discover the kobolds we met a few nights ago are living in a hole. We manage to speak to the kobold elder who says the dragon is living with them but is too young to speak. It appears the kobolds came a long way from the north with an egg which hatched into this dragon. We believe the tunnel leads to the kobold and dragon lair under the temple. There is a lot of stone that could be salvaged in this area.

At this point, with our rations running low we returned to the city, informing the city guard of the hunting rounds, orc tribe, outpost possibility at the ruins with the crypt, mentioning the creatures we met there which we believe are called Stroguy. We did not mention the temple nor the dragon. For our troubles we were paid 7 portions of food.

The East Midlands Runemasters

So last weekend the first meeting of the East Midland's RQ Phalanx went ahead. This is a project I've been organising with Tim Challis, a fellow RQ fan I met online back in November. We were both a little frustrated lack of  opportunities to play Runequest on a regular basis and so decided to setup a Facebook group with the hope of gathering enough people within the East Midlands (a loosely defined area in the middle of England, UK consisting of the counties of Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire, Leicestershire & Lincolnshire) who were also interested in playing Runequest. We managed to get around 30 members and after polling them we agreed on a date, Sun 27th January 2019 & a location, Boards & Swords, in Derby. Initially we had 12 people who indicated they would attend with 3 possible.

Originally we had two GM setup, with myself as a reserve GM, just in case one of the other GM couldn't turn up or we got more players than two GMs could handle. In the event this was a prudent move as one of the GMs dropped out and I stepped in.

The event was organised between 11:00 & 17:00 as the shop was open from 10:00 until 18:00. As one of the organisers I got there just after 10:00 to ensure everything was setup and indeed a couple of tables had been put aside from us. I setup on a table with RQ books prominently displayed so the rest of the players could easily spot us. By around 11:00 we had 9 members present and decided to wait another 30 minutes whilst everyone got drinks, had a comfort break and we sorted out would would play in each game.

Tim ran one table and I ran the other. We split the players so Tim, as an experienced RQ GM took 3 of the "rookie" RQ players along with another player who had already played Broken Tower, the RQRPiG Quickstart scenario I intended to run. Tim ran Stealing the Eye.
This meant I had three players in my game, all of who were experienced RQ (if not RQRPiG) players.

Although I GMed a fair bit back in the mid 80s it was for AD&D 1e and Cthulhu and since then I can recall GMing GURPs once (in the late 90s) and a handful of sessions for my wife & kids; Hero Kids & D&D B/X (in the last 12-18 months). I'd played a lot of Runequest 2e back in the mid 80s to early 90s but never GMed it. So GMing a Runequest, Roleplaying in Glorantha was a bit of a step into the unknown for me, especially as I'd never GMed for people I hadn't met before, my previous GMing experiences had always been for players I already knew.

I'd chosen to run The Broken Tower as it was available as a free download from Chaosium's web site as part of the Quickstart package they provide.

Although I'd prepared the scenario I hadn't been able to spend the time I'd anticipated reading the rule book over Christmas as my wife was ill and had spent much of Christmas in hospital so I'd spent most of the time travelling between home & the hospital and looking after our boys. This showed up at times in the scenario as we had to discuss a few of the rules, look them up and needless to say I got a few wrong. However, having three experienced RQ players mitigated this somewhat as they were able to roll with the decisions.

So how did I find my session as a GM? Well first and foremost I enjoyed it. Yes, I made mistakes and probably cut short the scenario as the other group finished and we still a fair bit to get through so I "panicked" a bit but having said that the players came up with what I thought was an excellent ending. I thought my players were excellent; experienced role players who constantly kept me on my toes and who were focused, thoughtful and good company.

I learnt a number of lessons as a GM. These guys made decisions quickly and so left very little time for me to make notes and read ahead, just to remind myself of details. Something I definitely need to plan for in future. Previously I've always tended to run either my own scenarios or heavily modified bought scenarios and I discovered that no matter how many times I read a scenario it just doesn't stick in my mind like it does when I write stuff down. And names! Unless I come up with names myself I just don't seem to be able to remember them. Not sure how to overcome this other to maybe write up extensive notes before hand.

As an experience organising an event and meeting some new people as well as seeing some familiar ones in a new setting, all with shared interests it was fun. I have new respect for anyone who organises a large event as even this small one took up quite a lot of time. I fully intend to organise some more and to continue to GM RQ as I believe with a few more sessions I can get to a reasonable standard. I'd also like to play some RQ too! Certainly the feedback was positive & hopefully this was genuine rather than people being polite; I certainly asked for constructive criticism as I'm sure there was room for improvement. Needless to say I can't thank Tim enough for all his help and advice throughout this process of setting up this group - it is as much his project as mine.

I thought Boards & Swords were excellent hosts, a really friendly bunch of people. There were a couple of minor issues. As it was a really cold & windy day and sometimes when the shop door was opened a gust of cold air whipped up any loose papers on our table and as it is an open plan area there was a lot of background noise as the place was packed, largely with people playing card games from what I could see. However, both were minor issues that wouldn't stop me going back again.

One of the things that came out of the session was a desire to rename the group as The East Midlands Runemasters; the original name East Midland's RQ Phalanx was one I came up with on the spur of the moment when Tim & myself decided to setup a group.

CSIO City Map With Popup Text Project

I stumbled across the CSIO City Map With Popup Text Project over on Dragonsfoot. It looks an interesting idea so I've helped out where I can.

The idea is to use Rob Conley's excellent CSIO city map and include all the snippets of text from the original CSIO guide book and for any locations left with no text snippets make them up trying to re-create Bob Bledsaw's original style. It is this part that I am helping out with.