Author: Justin Hamilton

Session Reports

A big kick in the pants for updating this blog more frequently was the roll-over from a home campaign to my current Barrowmaze game. Initially I had a lot of fun writing the session reports, but as time went on I found that the way I was writing with how I remembered the sessions did not necessarily line up. I also kind of felt bad about the games that I did not do session reports for, primarily only writing for my two open table games.

That said, I look back over the gap of Barrowmaze and feel bad that I didn’t at least minimally note every session. Sure I have scribbles in my GM notebook, but I often forget to annotate the date, and honestly if I don’t consciously have to comb over these notes immediately after session they become near unusable down the line.

I think I want to start writing session reports, but with the idea that they may not be read at all, not even by me. But mostly as a means to mark a date and time, say who it was with, what we played, and maybe a few sentences about what I thought about that. This way I can be look back and be reminded of all the cool people I had the opportunity to game with, or make note of all the various games I am fortunate to play.

What I will change is not trying to write for other people. I also won’t feel bad if I don’t remember every awesome quip or jokes the players have. I love the creativity, but its too hard to catalogue in the moment. That said if you read this blog and are a player in my game and want to highlight moments, definitely comment and I will add them.

Failed Career: Mercenary

You get

Gambeson reeking of body odor, a spear with a notched shaft, one stale sausage.

What is your shame?

  1. Fired: Your routine shirking of duties, going AWOL, and just plain ornery nature led to you getting kicked out of the company. Everyone but one of your old sympathetic pals look down upon you.
  2. Shell-shocked: Your crew was one of the first to acquire a prototype canon. Not completely sure how it worked, they launched you from it. You now reek of gunpowder no matter how much you wash.
  3. Snitched On: The blink dogs that your mercenary group used as scouts saw you stealing a bit of extra from the company’s coffers, and dutifully did their best Lassie impression to point you out. Despite being thrown out, one still pursues you to this day.
  4. Last Mercenary Standing: You were ordered to slay one man in a set of ruins. The figure transformed before your eyes, taking the shape of a massive minotaur, brutally slaying your friends. Somehow you were hidden in the rubble and the gore and were survived, but swore vengeance upon this shape shifter.
  5. Laughing Stock: Your preference for ridiculous and sometime self-injuring weapons such as massive flails, impractical whips, chain staves, and the like got you laughed at by all your companions. You decided to wander off, the lone wolf that you are, to prove to them that your prototype boomerang-crossbow will be the next advancement in warfare.
  6. Undead: Your previous mission to the Crypt of the Dread Necromancer ended, unexpectedly, with your gruesome death. What was surprising, however, was that your arose that very night, a member of the unliving. Aside from stinking a bit and being unable to bear the sight of holy symbols you seem to be mostly the same. You feared persecution and decided to flee from your company.

What treasure did you find on your final mission?

  1. Sarcastic Suit of Armor: You found a set of pretty decent plate, but it seems to be related those fabled singing swords as it always has some disparaging remark or joke about whatever your doing. This is especially annoying because whenever it talks it flaps its visor up and down, even while you’re wearing it.
  2. Rodent of Radiant Charisma: While marching through the marshlands you fell under the enchanting spell of a capybara. This creature seems to have a calming effect on most mundane animals when not too much of a commotion is going on.
  3. Handgonne: An extremely rare metal tube set into a heavy block, if you stuff this full of blackpowder and a variety of sharp or metallic objects, you’re able to produce an extremely dangerous blast. Sometimes that danger affects you and your friends. You weren’t fortunate enough to discover a user’s manual as well.
  4. Reverse Umbrella: You drew the shortest straw so all of your companions got first pick of the (murdered) wizard’s armory. This is an umbrella that produces a localized rainstorm when its open, pouring continuously out of the umbrella.
  5. A Really Opulent Hat: Full of feathers, pins, adornments this massive hat is always the center of conversation.
  6. Harpy Egg: Everyone told you not to take it. Anger the harpies they said. You’d be the death of us they said. Well turns out they were right, but that’s not gonna stop you from being a momma soon.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Quick Update

I have been a bit quiet on this blog, as I’ve just been very busy with work and glued to the television as the election was occurring, but I am still (fortunately) gaming.

I am a bit behind on my actual plays, hopefully I will catch up, but they are definitely less of a priority for me than actually gaming, and to be honest they’ve kept me from returning to other articles I’ve wanted to focus more energy on.

In terms of new games, I am running a hack of Into the Odd using some tools I hope to assemble into a pdf to help people run a more feudal/medieval fantasy game. A little like what a lot of the Coins & Scrolls blog has, but I’m trying to focus on trimming down up front prep time and build things more generatively.

Hopefully as I collect the tools I’ve been scribbling down to run this campaign I will be incentivized to put them in one place and actually explain how to use them.

Barrowmaze Open Table Session 14

Summary

Finding their way into an old noble’s tomb, a wizard is possessed by the spirit of an ancient squire and joins forces with their liege wraith. The party’s courageous self-proclaimed knight is cursed with ghostly undeath by the lord’s blade, and the oddly-friendly skeleton swears fealty to him as he fades from the mortal realm. A thief is found wandering the tomb, having fallen into a portal trap elsewhere, and the party enters into combat with the approaching death cultists and their zombie horde.

details follow

Odd ReDuel – Techniques

A few years ago I made a post about a dueling system I was using to run a less abstract, tactical version of Torchbearer/MouseGuard’s rock-paper-scissors conflict resolution. So very much not in line with the stuff I have been posting about recently, but if you find a set of rules that add fun to your game, include it. This is definitely verbose, but sometimes I have fun with very crunchy mechanisms once and a while. While at the time I wrote this “for” Into the Odd (because thats what I was running) this could obviously be used in many old school or adjacent systems.

So while I still would run a majority of combats closer to freeform, sometimes its fun to have the suspense of flipping over a card to find out your opponent has blocked when you feinted. This can be a fun minigame for knightly duels between a player character and their hated rival, or even maybe a system to throw into a small miniatures game to play out a fencing bout between generals. I definitely wouldn’t break this out for every single combat (if you could model them with roughly Into the Odd stats).

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Failed Career: Mariner

You get

A heavily knotted rope, a hooked push pole.

Why is it hard to get you to step on a boat?

  1. Abandonment: The deal you made with the merfolk to marry one of their own in exchange for sea-riches turned out to be a double disaster – the riches was just a decade supply of pungent kelp, and your betrothed was a ravenous deep one. Leaving a fish beast at the alter is slight the sea shan’t soon forgive.
  2. Disfigurement: Deciding that two peg legs are enough, you’ll try your lot on land.
  3. Fired: Your cantankerous shanties were decreed a nuisance, and your constant chugging of rum despite your penchant for sea sickness had fired from your position on the ship – literally, as your captain stuffed you into the cannon and launched you onto the nearest shore.
  4. Cursed: Ever since you decided to use gulls as target practice you’ve felt that the sea itself had it out for you. Constantly toss overboard by storm, harassed by sharks, even once an octopus climbed aboard simply to attempt strangling you, you feel keeping your distance from water is for the best.
  5. Jonahesque: Your ship smashed and you swallowed whole by a leviathan, you became accustomed to the horrors of the dark as you traversed the belly of the beast. Only by joining a party of a wood golem, a miniature thri-keen and a wizened craftsman were you able to make your escape.
  6. Change: You just found yourself tired of the constant rocking of waves, fish, and the salty air, you decided stable ground would be far more adventurous than long months on a urchin-crusted vessel.

What memento do you carry with you?

  1. Clam of Devouring: A small mollusk with a serious appetite, this shelled creature will clamp down on anything you it can get its shell around. It will then, extremely slowly, begin to digest whatever it has caught.
  2. Sea Monkey: Despite appearing as a flask of salt-water, when splashed the watery contents transforms into an only moderately-disobedient monkey, who desperately doesn’t not want to be reconfined to its vessel.
  3. Boat Terrorizing Flag: A black flag you stole off of a notorious pirate ship, this flag allows you to turn boats as a cleric turns undead.
  4. Eye-Patch of Night Seeing: This mystical eyepiece gifts you minor low-light vision, at the cost of your depth-perception.
  5. Land Remora: Not entirely clear how this fish survives outside of water, this being wriggles all around your body nibbling at crumbs, flakes of dried skin, loose threads that you have.
  6. First Mate: A not particularly bright sailor from your marine days follows you around as long as they are fed, providing low quality manual labor and high quality commentary on all of your mistakes.

Inspired by Electric Bastionland, Knave, and Ten Foot Polemic.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.