My Favorite NPC: Rohan Tomat

It's weird - when I think of NPC's that I've really liked, none of MY NPC's come to mind.  Which is actually pretty concerning.  Note to DM self - you need to spend more time on NPC's.

The NPC that really stands out from all the years of gaming was from our numerous Vampire: the Masquerade games in university.  My buddy Nic was a truly standout DM - able to manage complex political plots, multiple well-fleshed-out NPC's and basically playing really good Vampires.  His games were always tons of fun, even if we were often the simpletons among the scheming, subtle Kindred.

But of all the manipulative bastards that we encountered in those games, Rohan Tomat was by far the most bastardly.  And he was truly horrible because he was likable.  You KNEW that Rohan was fucking you over, but the smile and the carrot were always too much to resist.

We never learned much in the way of specifics about Rohan - his allegiances, history and motives were things he kept close to his chest.  I think he was some variety of Sabbat, but certainly not a very invested one.  Rohan's loyalties were generally to Rohan - or to whatever plot, scheme or machination Rohan was cooking up.

This is how I picture Rohan.

I remember several times that the party decided that they needed to call in Rohan to help out with an
insoluble problem.  It was always an agonizing decision, because you were aware that you were going to get screwed, and that it would *seem* like it was worth it, yet deep in your mind, that niggling feeling that you were getting short, poo-encrusted end of the stick was always there.

I don't remember ever putting one over on Rohan, although I'm pretty sure we defeated his minions a few times.  He never hung around for that, though - when the fangs came out, Rohan was never around for the shit-storm.

We liked him, hated him, fought against him and allied with him.  He was sly, slick and utterly unscrupulous, and we never, ever out thought him.  The very best thing about him was that Nic played him utterly fairly.  No DM fiat, "magical" protection or anything.  Just cruel smarts and the willingness to use them.  I'm sure now he was kind of a "mary-sue" NPC for Nic, but that doesn't matter.  When the topic of NPC's comes up, Rohan stands above them all.

Next Playtest: Dwarves - Session 1.5

We did a couple of introductory sessions in the last few weeks to do character creation, basic introductions to the setting and background.

The party are individually recruited into the Paths Command as part of a new scouting initiative.  The dwarves of Goldenhills have been isolationist under the Ironhammer Clan for the last 100 years - only limited trade with humans and gnomes to the north, other remnants of the Old Kingdom of the dwarves to the south and elves to the west has occurred, and there has been almost no outside contact at all in the last 25 years.

In the introductory sessions, the characters are recruited into Paths Command.  Khidre Eigar, by benefit of his clan relationship with Ragkon Eigar, the Paths Commander, is appointed as squad leader.  Hilbo Huggins, recently released from his service with the Goldenhills Guard, is recruited and re-instated to his previous rank of sergeant.  Korrum Kargonath, having completed his training as a storm-priest of Moradin, is recommended to Paths Command by his superior in the priesthood, High Hammerer Morim, and decides that his previous experience with underdark guide and messenger work makes the position appropriate.

Finally Stalagmite, the feral dwarf found in the southern tunnels by Paths Command scouts, is assigned to the squad. His uncanny skills and odd elemental magics seem like they would be useful.

In the first briefing, Senior Scout Duggan Kammering lays out the assignment.  All communication with Shalecliff, the northernmost mining settlement , has been lost.  Nothing has been heard in the last 2 weeks, and 2 squads of soldiers sent to investigate have failed to return.  Paths Command has advocated a stealthier approach, and the new squad's assignment is to head to Shalecliff, investigate the situation and return with a report as quickly as possible.

Accordingly, the squad gears up and heads out immediately, taking the Great Tunnel northwards before breaking off into the High Pass tunnel and climbing the 2,000 stairs to High Pass Watch, a small 3-story tower manned by Scouts from Paths Command.  The party heads out into the pass to make a bit more ground before dark, then camps and set out in the early morning.

Stalactite checks in with the local wildlife, which he seems to be able to communicate with.  The pikas which live in the pass prove to have little useful information, other than mentioning the recent passage of groups of armed dwarves, headed north, which the party assumes were the previous Guard detachments.  Nothing has come south, although the pikas note the presence of several golden eagles with considerable alarm.

In the morning, Khidre does a quick forage for supplies, coming across several large pikas, who seem both distracted and unconcerned about his approach. Some handy crossbow work nets a hearty breakfast for the party, and they set off across the alpine valley towards Shalecliff.

About half a days hard march brings them close to the entrance to the colony, but the group pauses out of sight of the watch-towers that guard the outer gates.  Khidre, Korrum and Hilbo have all been to Shalecliff before, and Hilbo spent many years with the guard detachment there.  After some discussion, they elect to not approach the gate directly, but instead to enter the mines through a tailings dump, then work their way back to the hold.

Initially, this approach works well, although the normally busy mines are eerily quiet and abandoned.  After a few hours, they come to the main hoist, a platform lifted by geared pulleys that drops from the back entrance of Shalecliff all the way through the processing and smelter areas, down to the mine layers, where the party enters Shalecliff proper.

5E Playtest: Dwarves!

We're currently getting ready to run another round of 5e Playtest, using roll20.net.  This is going to be a dwarf-only campaign, and we currently have 4 characters confirmed and ready to go, with a couple more on-deck.


Stalac(tite/mite) - Guide/Circle of the Moon Druid.

Hilbo "The Hammer" Huggins - Soldier/Reaver Fighter.  

Khidre of the Eigar - Noble/Ogre Hunter Ranger

Korrum - Underdark Guide/Thunderpriest Cleric of Moradin

Current Campaign Background:

The Kingdom of Goldhills is ruled by Andrik Ironhammer, of the Ironhammer clan.  When the Old Kingdom fell, the Ironhammers were the noble house who controlled the gold and iron mines around the Goldhills settlement.  They consolidated themselves quickly and Andrik's grandfather, Falrik, set himself up as the king of Goldhills.

Their main competition since has been from the Eigar Clan, another Old Kingdom noble house who control many of the upland farms, ranches and logging operations.  Several other smaller clans make up the balance of power.  Generally speaking, the Ironhammers control mining and forging operations, and make up the bulk of the Goldenhills Guard, and the Eigar control food production, trade and logging, and make up the majority of the Paths Command and Traders Guild - however, both those organizations are severely restricted in size and budget due to the century or so of isolationist policies of the Ironhammer clan.

Goldhills Hall and surrounding valleys are the main settlement, population is about 7,500 - 5,000 in the hall and 2,500 in the immediate vicinity.

There are also 4 smaller settlements, Greatrock, which is built alongside the river and has a number of waterwheel-powered sawmills, Coalbellow - a  mining settlement at a major coal seam further down the valley, High Grass - surrounded by most of the highland farms, and Shalecliff, a new mining outpost on a major silver and gold find.

I also set up a Campaign Tumblr to post pictures and maps:  http://kootenaymurph.tumblr.com/.

Lots of good tools out there right now, hopefully this will be successful.

Oh, WotC, You're SO Close.

So WotC just put out their contest to create a character sheet.  Which is nice and all.  If you're into that sort of thing, I encourage you to submit one - the world can always use more cool-looking character sheets.

Just one little problem.  Section 4 - must be submitted as a 300 dpi jpeg file.  Presumably so you can make a FUCKING NON-EDITABLE PDF FILE out of it.

I went straight to the yelling pretty fast there, so I'm going to back up a little and take it slowly.

I must assume that you know of these things called computers, which people have and use now, right?  I mean, the whole playtest is digital.  Digital sign-in, digital feedback, digital files only.

So why in the NAME OF FUCKING IUZ THE GREAT AND TERRIBLE are you sending me character sheets that I have to print out and write on in PENCIL?

It really isn't that hard to create a fill-able, savable form that I can type my character information out on, save like a grown-up and email to my DM.  The community is stepping up and making these things because we need them.  They aren't hard to make.

Please - listen carefully to me.  I don't print any of the playtest material in hardcopy.  I don't want or need character sheet hard copies.  I play full-digital.  Work with me here.

D&D Next Character Sheet Form

Yes, yes.  Don't distribute.  Hardcopy forms are not useful for those of us that play online.  Fillable forms, though.  Much better.  If WotC had half a brain, they would provide them.  But then, the terms of the playtest are "in-person games only", so they clearly do not have half a brain.

So - a fillable pdf form for the new character sheet.


Update 4/11/13

I figured out Adobe Acrobat 11.  Here is the fillable, saveable form:  D&D Next PDF Character Sheet.

Couple of things:  First, you don't need to share it to play with it.  Open it in your browser, go to the File Menu option and select Download or Save a Copy.  Then you have your own copy to play with.

I won't be sharing it, so don't request that.  Just make a copy.

Second, saving problems, tab order, issue with it putting +1's in multiple fields are all fixed.  But let me know if there are other issues.

Malazan Character Background

So a DM on Reddit/r/lfg wants to run a Malazan-themed campaign.

Thought up a character and decided to share.  This is about as much background as I feel a PC needs - notice that it doesn't have tons of history - just a little flavor, a basic description of the guy and some hints about class/stats (mage, high dex).

For you Malazan fans, Tanner Rhyse is a low-level squad mage, Malazan Army, and practitioner of Serc, the Path of the Sky.

Tanner Rhyse

Everyone comes out of Malazan Basic with a nickname.  Braven Tooth makes sure of that.  Since most recruits are interested in leaving their past behind, a new name is OK with them.

Another Malazan Basic tradition is the obstacle course.  It’s a horrible course.  Mud, walls, rusty spikes, iron-heavy logs to carry, rough hemp rope to swing on.  It’s designed to break down a recruit so that they can be rebuilt as Malazan soldiers.

For Corlis Rhyse, the obstacle course was a revelation.  He’d always been too tall for his own comfort – a lanky connection of sharp knees, elbows and bony angles.  On the obstacle course, he discovered that he was, quite simple, the best.  Flowing over and around and through and under like some sort of clockwork mechanism tuned to this specific task.

His competency annoyed the drill instructors.  The obstacle course is a place for exhaustion, pain, filth and ultimately, failure.  Redemption and competency are supposed to come later – not on the first run on the first day. 

So they made him run it again.  And again.  And again.  He did.  Happily.  Easily.  Smoothly.  Corlis Rhyse was so overjoyed to be GOOD at something that he couldn’t do what the instructors wanted.  Couldn’t slow down.  Couldn’t get filthy and exhausted and clumsy.  He just blew through it twenty or so times while the rest of the recruits stood there and gawped like the farm-boys most of them were.

That wasn’t the worst thing, though.  Oh no.  The worst thing was that Corlis Rhyse was supposed to be EVEN WORSE at the obstacle course than regular recruits.  I mean, he’s tapped to be a squad mage, for Hood’s sake.  They only put the squad mages on the obstacle course for the first few days, so they’re happier about going and doing other squad-magey things.

It was Braven Tooth himself who really put his finger on what pretty much everyone – from the training sergeants right down to the gawping farm-boy recruits was feeling.  “He really chaps my hide,” said the master-sergeant, at one of the training officer meetings (held at Smiley’s – per long-standing tradition).  Everyone agreed. 

And so Tanner Rhyse – generally known at Tanner or “that fucking mage from the obstacle course” – emerged from Basic. Still too tall and gangly.  A loosely attached collection of overlong parts with a pale face, perpetually surprised expression and a warren which seemed to mostly be good for messing up his hair, blowing away important pieces of paper and making him sneeze at very inopportune times (like when a drill instructor is right up in his face yelling at him about how good he was at the obstacle course).  But a squad mage, right enough.  And one that understood the principle of the even trade.

7 RPG's (and 20-Something Years)

Red Box D&D:  Aleeta... Nooooo...  Hey, this is a lot of fun.  Oh, I have to DM?  Seems like a lot of work, but whatever.

1E:  There are so many rules I have no idea what I am doing.  I like the random treasure tables.  Monty Haul ensues.

TMNT: Character creation is awesome.  Making up adventures/stats for enemies is BRUTAL.  I will play this game but I won't DM it.

2e:  Soooo much content.  Activate collector mode.  Hey - I can do ANYTHING with this ruleset and all the splatbooks.  I'm going to make an Iron-Age Celtic-themed low-magic game in my homebrew world/rules and run that for YEARS.  2e, I still love you.

Palladium:  Kinda like D&D but with parrying and armor damage and psionics that actually work and I CAN USE TMNT CHARACTERS!  I love to play this game, but I still won't run it.  I won't RUN anything by Siembeda, but I'll play them all day.

Vampire the Masquerade:  Ouch, I have to unlearn my D&Disms.  This is a really fun and flexible game.  We still do quite a bit of combat.  Man, lots of the other people that play this game are pretentious, condescending douches.

4e:  As a DM, I love this stuff.  Easy to build, easy to run - scratches my tactics itch.  But I can't really homebrew.  It moves soooo slooowwlyyyy...  Roleplaying feels somehow harder.  Not EXACTLY doing it for me.