Post a link to your game report. We'll keep this post updated.
R.E. Davis: Maidens of Moordoth
Hisham: The First Quest
BareBones Fantasy RPG is not associated with Skaldcrow Games' Bare Bones Multiverse, despite similar names. Check out Glenn's products by clicking here.
I posted a game report of Maidens of Moordoth on http://www.explodingdice.com
Disclaimer: Steaming bowls of awesome chili is NOT required to make characters. lol
Great report, it's good to hear the players had fun and want to play again. I can assume you had a good time?
I had a very good time GMing BareBones Fantasy RPG. It was my first time running it and I referenced the rulebook exactly twice in a 6 1/2 hour game! (once was to get an idea of what a Cleric could do to remove the evil magic, and the second was to get a handle on basic fire damage) That speaks volumes for what you've created here. An rpg that can be run with next to no referencing the rules is a terrific design. That said, you can't run the game without the book, but during play itself you don't need it much. Most everything we needed was on the character sheets and adventure. The players, are asking for more BTW. :)
Upon further reflection and talking with the players BareBones Fantasy's greatest strength is that the rules facilitate good fun role-playing. The rules not only get out of the way, they act as a role-playing springboard.
So you're going to go easy on them :D
Christopher wasn't able to run his BBBrawl game so I GM'd a small skirmish, in a bar!
I was primary spellcaster and ONLY got to cast 5 times. To much other stuff going on. Lots of fun!
Here are the first few play reports of my Tamriel campaign.
http://www.epicwords.com/dominion
http://www.epicwords.com/attachments/13009 - BBF/Tamriel Player Guide
http://www.epicwords.com/attachments/11437 - 1
http://www.epicwords.com/attachments/11492 - 2
http://www.epicwords.com/attachments/11652 - 3
http://www.epicwords.com/attachments/11758 - 4
http://www.epicwords.com/attachments/11757 - Brahnlor's Background Story he shared at the campfire.
http://www.epicwords.com/attachments/11827 - 5
http://www.epicwords.com/attachments/11906 - 6
http://www.epicwords.com/attachments/12045 - 7
http://www.epicwords.com/attachments/12225 - 8
http://www.epicwords.com/attachments/12669 - 9
http://www.epicwords.com/attachments/12672 - 10 End of Part I
http://www.epicwords.com/attachments/12386 - Journal of Ja'Darr
http://www.epicwords.com/attachments/12829 - 11
http://www.epicwords.com/attachments/13063 - 12
http://www.epicwords.com/attachments/13396 - 13
http://www.epicwords.com/attachments/13417 - 14 - Dragon Slaying
http://www.epicwords.com/attachments/13568 - 15 The Dominate Adept
http://www.epicwords.com/attachments/13619 - 16 Dealings in the Dark
http://www.epicwords.com/attachments/13687 - 17 Starblood
http://www.epicwords.com/attachments/13687 - 18 A Party in Your Honor
http://www.epicwords.com/attachments/14053 - 19 Dragonrift
http://www.epicwords.com/attachments/14230 - 20 Through The Eras
http://www.epicwords.com/attachments/14330 - 21 Black Tower
http://www.epicwords.com/attachments/14515 - 22 Hour of the Wolf
http://www.epicwords.com/attachments/14799 - 23 Wheels Within the Wheel
Last night I snapped a pic of one of my local gaming groups. We play Star Frontiers and BBF mostly. We started a new BBF campaign and rolled up some new characters. We are using Flesh & Blood and started Trouble Brewing.
Some of the things that we defined in our Keranak Kingdom setting;
Dwarf saying, "By my mother's beard!"
I asked how everyone knew each other;
The dwarf and goblin are good buddies. Isore explained his patched eye and I said when your in the dark do you star at people and say, "But is it my left eye or my right eye?" lol
Pik is half-sized sprite and magically appeared in the world, in Greyrock's beard where she lives. She's called a 'dwarf sprite'. Greyrock (played by Craig) says, "Once, every thousand years a sprite pops out of a dwarf beard." hahahaha
Pik is nicknamed Sprite-0, she has no calories and is beard-born.
Having a array of different races can be a challenge. I kicked it off by telling they players they've been traveling throughout the Keranak Provence separately (besides the goblin, dwarf and sprite), a melting pot of the kingdoms and have all wandered into a hobbit area. The hobbits decided to round up all non-hobbits and captured 64 and placed them all in a huge holding cell. All the prisoners were then divided by iron-curtains, and it just so happens the players character have been separated into their own holding cell. They broke out, ran for the woods, camped and the next day found themselves in the vineyards near Tenkar. :) Seemed to work well.
Looks like a fun group!
Here's my summary from Friday's Trouble Brewing.
Slovenly dwarf, drooling goblin, very rude dark elf, characteristically funny wood elf and a male winged lilithii who keeps his familiar nestled between his wings are hired by Constable Brunswick. He tasked them with finding the cause of the violence.
The sprite and the human were missing, but you might recall the sprite was always hungry, first order of business, order food. They head to the inn ran by Lilly who feeds them and answer questions that a "easily learned). They then head strait for the Bearded Badger and all take a table (after the dark elf pushed drunk/sleeping occupants on the floor).
The dwarf orders two flagons, dark elf smacks him (it's obviously a trap), goblin heads off to find open doors (no problem, its a madhouse full of mostly dwarves drunk dwarves), wood elf and lilithii head outside and check the back entrance.
Dwarf likes the smell and takes a sip. Makes his resistance check and almost pukes it up. Realizing his fellow dwarves have been duped he draws the attention of the nearest 5, makes a leader check using courageous word to allow them a log check to fend off the brew made form dark magic. 4 succeed and 1 fails, the 4 all puke uncontrollably on the dark elf, lucky for her it got all over the back of her coat and end of her hair, the 5th just keeps drinking. The dwarf calls Jarred over and starts telling him how rotten his drink it and what a fool is for serving it to his brothers. Jarred gets angry, tries to pick up the dwarf to bounce him outside, jarred fails, dwarf roll crit success - so he punches jarred in the face which dazes him for a couple turns. The 5th dwarf takes offense to the proprietor of his merriment and attacks our hero dwarf, fails, our hero rolls auto success and plops a mug on his head knocking him out. Next round he takes his axe, jumps up on Jarred and puts it to his throat which accidentally cuts the string holding the totem. Before their eyes jarred is transformed into his true self at which point his head became a dwarven bowling ball.
Dark elf, took off her jacket, through it into the crowd, grabbed her dagger and cuts off her lower hair which had puke on it.
Goblin found a locked door, picked it and found a room full of old rotting store goods, he spied a peephole and looked through....
Elf and lilithii went behind tavern and found the delivery door was still boarded up, they broke it down *Crash* just as goblin looks through the peephole. The enter the main store room which leads to the basement.
Everyone assembles in the store room and proceeds to the basement. The goblin attempts to read the writing on the barrels and can only make out "snail ale".
Taking some damage from the rats (hahaha) they plop into the sewers. The goblin takes the lead, spots two inattentive guards and starts yelling at them in his own native tongue, and then pointing back to the basement. They aren't sure what to think and follow him, only to be impaled and whipped by the party. They have a good setup for the next goblin room and take them out easily with the exception of the elf enchanter who got himself too close to the action, lucky for him his dog-familiar saved him from certain death.
We had a really punny time, and I got to show off my Covert Ops boxed set. We also discussed some plot hooks for an upcoming project Bill and I are working on as well as "what's in that pocket your picking"
GM Notes
I handed out DP for the previous session, before we started playing.
The first session was mostly role-play, everyone earned 2DP. I think I might have set a record.
Such as it is, here's a link to the first quick report of a new campaign I'm running; a weekly BBF game set in H.P. Lovecraft's Dreamlands!
Barebones Dreamlands Session 1
"Untitled #57". I like it. :D
Neat to see some F&B races. :)
It's neat to have some F&B races! Our 'Untitled #57'-bot (he was created as a work of art and is rather lovely to look at, it turns out) has a skill from Flesh & Blood too: he's an Artificer, so he can patch himself up after getting knocked around.
That is really cool!
That is really cool!
It is, isn't it..? Although my GM-brain panicked a bit at the prospect of a robot who can repair himself, make other robots and then repair them too... Because the players are great (as they always are) I needn't have worried; the player in question is just interested in exploring and enjoying himself along with everyone else.
(Plus nobody in the party can heal - yet - so in actual fact, they'll need all the help they can get at this stage...) :)
Larry, I keep on forgetting to say how great your Trouble Brewing group look, and if you're having even half as much fun as those game reports and character line-ups sound like to read, every session must be a riot!
A write-up on the latest session of my Dreamlands game -
Dreamlands BBF Session 2
Where I intended to write, "The party go in to a cave and meet some monsters." and ended up writing a flippin' novel.
Which I then had to cut short.
BBF GM-fu I learnt:
I'll try to read tonight.
Post-scrap -- if players don't remember to treat their wounds, tough luck. I'm not there conscious. lol
IMO, it feels more real if they help tell the story instead of me telling them everything, its like reading from a book "And then you patch your wounds and travel a mile to the stone krag."
Very interesting story - I'll have to keep up on this
Just finished reading, looks like a blast.
Do you require a cleric skill check to detect auras?
Post-scrap -- if players don't remember to treat their wounds, tough luck. I'm not there conscious. lol
IMO, it feels more real if they help tell the story instead of me telling them everything, its like reading from a book "And then you patch your wounds and travel a mile to the stone krag."
So true, as long as the GM gives them time enough to think. Sometimes GM's get so caught up that they move to the next part of the story without a breath between story points, and if the players are caught up with the GM's story, then they might forget that they have things to do before moving on.
Ah, thanks guys! It's just a lil' adventure, this was a kind of quick, basic dungeon to get everybody up to speed before we get onto more story-based stuff and proper Lovecraft weirdness.
Post-scrap -- if players don't remember to treat their wounds, tough luck. I'm not there conscious. lol
IMO, it feels more real if they help tell the story instead of me telling them everything, its like reading from a book "And then you patch your wounds and travel a mile to the stone krag."
Absolutely. That's what I do, to be honest, put them in the driving seat.
It was only after everyone had gone home that I remembered that the party were owed about 10 BP..!
Do you require a cleric skill check to detect auras?
I tend to make the cleric roll, yeah. Just because... It's nice to roll dice..? Whether they pass, fail or crit either way, my answer is much the same, just with little bits added or removed.
Some highlights from last Friday's table top with my local group. We had two guests, 8 players in total. I made a 4'x6' map, penned some large statues, a teleport gateway and then covered it with real moss and cake-columns. This was a one-shot adventure.
Players were hired by Unn University to be the first to scout an area connecting a teleport gateway recently discovered in the city. I asked for a marching order, as they went through I tossed them a condition card. The funniest condition was "Unconscious", the player that received this card had just wrote "clumsy" as a descriptor and bam, went the the gateway, fell down and hit her head on a rock falling unconscious. lol
I used the old "rescue the maiden who is really a vampire" adventure. The beautiful elf maiden was in a glass top sarcophagus. Dried roses lined the floor, as the players stepped on them they crushed essence which floated to the ceiling.
Goblin, "I push off the glass."
Me, "It won't budge."
Dwarf, "I smash the glass."
Scott, "Break glass in case of fire."
Me, toss Scott a bone.
Glass breaks up and they push it off before it collapses on elf maiden, it falls to the floor crushing more flowers release essence.
Blind troll, "What do they smell like?"
Me, "Roses and an unearthly small you can't identify."
Human, "Is she alive?"
Me, "You don't know without checking for a pulse."
Human, "I touch her boob."
Me, "Give me a boob skill check."
Later the blind troll wants to attack a skeleton but the goblin is in the way, I ask "How do you target the skeleton?"
Blind troll, "I swing above the order."
Still later, the goblin is running away from 15 zombies and 15 skeletons, you might remember he found a finely silk ascot while pick-pocketing in town.
Goblin, "I'm hauling ascot back to the group."
All in all a good zany time as usual.
Damn, Larry! A 4'x6' map?! You had me at a 4"x6" map, but... Wow, good on you. Sounds like great fun as always.
Here's a quick write-up of the latest Barebones Dreamlands I ran the other night. Just a fairly quick session, so only a few room's-worth of tunnel-crawling done:
Barebones Dreamlands Session #3
Meanwhile, I leant that since everybody seems to have found their feet with the system, the monsters in this little intro-dungeon need to get harder now the players know what they're doing. I don't think the guy at the back of the marching order got a swing in this session...
I GM a short Star Frontiers game tonight using Covert Ops, swapped out Technician for Tech (technician, computers, robots, spaceship tech).
Full post here.
Barebones Dreamlands Session #3
Meanwhile, I leant that since everybody seems to have found their feet with the system, the monsters in this little intro-dungeon need to get harder now the players know what they're doing. I don't think the guy at the back of the marching order got a swing in this session...
Two points:
1. I want to play in this game;
2. I really want to play in this game.
Seriously sir, you need to publish your material. This looks like way too much fun not to share. Very nice work.
Thanks for sharing.
1. I want to play in this game;
2. I really want to play in this game.
Seriously sir, you need to publish your material. This looks like way too much fun not to share. Very nice work.
Thanks for sharing.
Haha! Erm, thank you! Much appreciated! If you were anywhere near our tables, you'd be welcome to join in too.
As for published material... Er, if you're looking at the Obsidian Portal page, you're looking at the published material! It's just Lovecraft's Dreamlands with BBF doing all the system work, for convenience.
(Thinking about it, I could have had player Ghoul, Nightgaunt, Gnorri, Cat, Deep One and so on characters for the proper Lovecraft flavour, but I just found it easier to wave the Flesh and Blood book under players noses for them to choose from instead of a notebook of mine with some untested scrawlings in.)
Meanwhile, here's the...
Barebones Dreamlands Session #4 Writeup
Just one set-piece room this time. Some nice stuff happening that's not just enter-room-kill-monster-get-loot-move-on, players being great as always and taking it to all kinds of places I'd never think of.
Full post here.
Love the set-up in this one! Love how Covert Ops is so malleable to settings.
Another game report of our almost-weekly BBF Dreamlands game -
H.P. Lovecraft's Dreamlands with BBF - Session #5
Finale of the lil' intro dungeon. Only intended this thing to last about two sessions and it's taken four. Ah well. Off to some open-ended stuff and maybe the big cities, intrigue and all that sort of thing next..!
Another session of the Dreamlands game I'm running:
Lovecraft's Barebones Fantasy Dreamlands, Session #6
Nothing major, just getting into the nearest city and setting things up so the players can do whatever they want next time. I might even be half-prepared.
Thinks: Why, if only that charming DWD Studios did a BBF towns supplement... Ah, they do..!
How are you doing initiative? With cards dealt for initiative each turn, it should shake things up for order.
Yep, exactly that. (This lovely deck here, in fact.) The bit I was bemoaning a while back was my own fault really: narrow tunnels plus easily-squishable creatures a couple of times in a session meant that even if the character at the back of the party/queue got good initiative, there were other PCs in the way and he just couldn't reach to swipe at the monsters.
Lesson learned!
Another couple of H.P. Lovecraft's Dreamlands with BBF session writeups... Two at once this time because there's been lots of feet-finding in a great big city and less dungeoneering:
Session #7
Session #8
While I'm trying to get a bit sandboxy here, I think my hooks could be a bit... Hookier. ;)
H.P. Lovecraft's Dreamlands with Barebones Fantasy, Session #9
And now here's me actually giving the players some straight jobs to do instead of wandering around taking a city in...
Interesting as usual
What is the typical length of your sessions?
What is the typical length of your sessions?
Thanks! The sessions tend to last about two and half hours, sometimes more. (Apologies if they sound like they never end when you're reading the write-up versions...) :)
No, I was actually guessing they were shorter sessions like your describe (my group is typically 4-6 hrs) based on the amount of story covered each time
4-6 hours? Whoa! Must be a good way to get people to settle into their characters...
We've always been a week-day evening kinda group, so by the time everybody's turned up and some actual gaming's happened, it's then time for sensible sorts to retire for the evening...
I like that set up - our group is every other Sunday afternoon when we can all get together, so less often is more typical