World of Alidor

Fun Way to Run We Be Goblins for New Players and Old

shent_lodge — Sun, 19 May 2013 21:27:07 +0000

I ran We Be Goblins at Megacon 2013. I think I ran it four times and each table seemed to enjoy the dungeon. I have been running dungeons for so long that I wanted to ensure people had fun with this Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Introductory module. I came to the game prepared for fun. I brought a list of contingencies, mainly lists and table rules, for times when a dice rolls bad and for times when a player dies. Added to this, was a cool 3D map from the very supportive RPG game room staff. Here are my notes on what I did in case you want to play We Be Goblins for a new group, or for folks wanting to try it again, this time with feeling.

From Rise of the Rune Lords, I found some cool guidelines on goblins that I read to each table before starting the dungeon, this is a quick list, taken from Rise of the Rune Lords, the complete list with complete descriptions is printed in that game. Buy it, it is really fun to run and play.

1. HORSE HATE: Goblins hate horses
2. DOG HATE: They hate dogs too.
3. GOBLINS RAID JUNKYARDS: Love garbage piles
4. GOBLINS LOVE TO SING: Goblins love to sing creepy songs.
5. THEY’RE SNEAKY: They like to hide in odd places like stacks of firewood, rain barrels, under logs, under chicken coops, in ovens….
6. THEY’RE A LITTLE CRAZY: They are goblins… they don’t think things through.
7. THEY’RE VORACIOUS: Goblins eat more than they make so they raid to get more to eat.
8. THEY LIKE FIRE: They love to burn things especially other peoples things.
9. THEY GET STUCK EASILY: Their big heads get them stuck sometimes.
GOBLINS BELIEVE WRITING STEALS YOUR SOUL: Enough said.

If a player died in We Be Goblins, I added a twist so they could keep playing, because it is an intro mod and I had plenty of pregens.

Roll 2d6
2 or 7 Goblin in a woodpile
3 or 8 Goblin in a garbage pile
4 or 9 Goblin in a rain barrel
5 or 10 Goblin under a log
6 or 11 Goblin in a chicken coup
12 goblin in an old oven.

Roll a d4 to determine goblin type
1. Cleric
2. Fighter
3. Alchemist
4. Rogue

When a player needed a re-roll they had to sing a goblin song. Each goblin pregen came with a goblin song on the page, along with all the stats to play the character. After the re-roll, if the result was bad, the player could ask for an encore of their goblin song and they could roll the dice one more time. The encore had to be a table vote, where all at the table agreed to allow the goblin to sing again. If the roll was bad still and the goblin player died, well, then they could roll for the location of their new character and then for what class it would be. The new goblin would join combat on a new combat roll. This way no player was left out and I felt it fit better with the not thinking things through behavior, number 6 on the list above. Plus goblins are everywhere so why not have on pop in and let every one play and roll dice until the end of the game session.

I heard a rumor that there may be another adventure with goblins coming soon like a We Be Goblins II.

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Judging and Player Death on the First Day of a Con

shent_lodge — Sun, 14 Apr 2013 16:19:35 +0000

I ran 4 games at Megacon 2013 for the Florida Pathfinder Society. I had a blast and hardly killed any players. On opening night, one guy, a wizardly type nearly died, I should point out here that in Pathfinder rules, spell casters do their best work from behind the line of fighters or aiding to that attack after the fighters are engaged in melee; these guys are not meant to be front line people, and bad things usually happen when they step to the forward. I think the player didn’t get the memo on that. It was opening night, the game was mostly role-play for the first 2hours of the 4-hour table session, so maybe the guy was not in sync with his character yet. Maybe he did not hear me well when I mentioned the big burley barbaric looking fighters with battle-axes looked restless and ready for battle.

The combat started well with the group taking up traditional roles and using their individual skills as a team; fighters in front, thieves flanking, witches hexing and then one player broke ranks and ended up and alone on the field of battle. The big leader barbarian had help back away from his henchmen saw the lone, weakly armored opponent, and quickly closed in in and attacked. The rest of the table watched intently and listed to the damage results 12 points on the first hit. As the game master, I could see them doing the math, “the GM rolled a 4, and the damage was 12” and from the expression on their faces, I could see, they knew, they could not get to the guy in time to help, and he was going to be in big trouble. The next round of battle and the lone player missed and the big bad guy did not, 9 points of damaged. All other players were locked in combat with their own opponents, though, one was on his way to help, after defeating the barbarian he had engaged, still, he was a round and a half away, in movement alone, and an actual fighter type. Round 3, and I should point out I always roll my dice in plain sight, I rolled and confirmed, a critical against the low AC, low hit point, sole player. As I was adding up the damage out loud and got to 24… the player said, “I’m dead.” I stopped adding.

Some GMs would say you’re dead. Some would, I would, but it was the first game session of the convention and everyone worked hard and played well together, considering none had played at the table before. I looked at everyone one, and said “this is opening night and I am in a good mood, and I want to know if it is OK to try a different solution to the attack” After a quick table vote I rolled a 4 sided dice and it came up 3; I told the player “you are down and bleeding and will be dead in 3 rounds.” “You can roll to stabilized on your turn.” That was enough to reinvigorate the group and combat wet well, in the end, the party one the day and the player who almost died was saved. I broke the rules, and let a guy survive an encounter he should have never faced on his own in the first place; in the end, the player was more cautious in the next combat.

I just wonder how well he did at later tables. Over the next three days, I did kill players at the table, but they were goblins, so it was OK, plus, I had a solution for them that ended up being fun for everyone.

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Megacon 2013 Starts for Us Gamers Today

shent_lodge — Thu, 14 Mar 2013 15:26:12 +0000

Megacon 2013 in Orlando starts today for us roleplaying folks. Officially it starts tomorrow March 15th, but the game room opens today. I will be running the Pathfinder Society game, The Blakros Matrimony this afternoon. The module has a focus on role play with a smidgen of combat added in. I am not going to give anything away, I am just stoked to be running that game today, and then We Be Goblins the rest of the weekend. If you are in the area check out the convention which has a strong focus on Star Trek this year, maybe I will get Wil Wheaton at my table…

MEGACON 2013
March 15-17, 2013
Orange County Convention Center Hall D
9800 International Drive, Orlando, FL 32819

Happy Gaming!

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Running We Be Goblins at Megacon 2013

shent_lodge — Mon, 25 Feb 2013 02:35:53 +0000

I volunteered to run the quick and fun We be Goblins Pathfinder module at Megacon 2013 this year. People who play the Pathfinder Role Playing Game know this mod as a fun one to play, because the player characters are the iconic goblins found in nearly every Paizo published rule book. I will be running the module everyday of the con Friday, Saturday and Sunday.

The table will run four players like a typical intro module. I will have the pregens which are a fighter, rogue, cleric and alchemist.

You can make your own level 1 goblin. I was thing of bring a couple extras like a barbarian or witch. I will post if someone brings their own to the game like a samurai

This guy would be a great barbarian

If you are in Orlando area, come on out to Megacon and be a goblin.

MEGACON 2013
March 15-17, 2013
Orange County Convention Center Hall D
9800 International Drive, Orlando, FL 32819

You can sign up for games on Warhorn where plenty of other gaming events are also posted.

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I Knew Keeping My Old Game Books Would Come in Handy

shent_lodge — Sun, 03 Feb 2013 17:34:36 +0000

Ok, this morning at breakfast, my son, wife and I were having a discussion about gods. It came about from a segway that started with the Avengers movie we had watched last night with relatives, somehow, they had not seen any of the earlier Avenger prequels; blame it on Thor and Loki to totally confused our guests. Anyway, we had been talking about the gods at breakfast and my son said there was a mod to make gods in Minecraft, and he was talking about a wolf, or coyote faced god, we wanted to know it’s name but could not figure it out from his attempts to describe it to us and our poor replies; my wife and I were guessing Set or Horus and then we drifted into Zeus and Prometheus and Odin, we are bad at guessing gods and get distracted easily; our conversation came back to the dog faced god, and I was about to google dog faced god, (I did, it was a band) when I realized I had the classic Advanced Dungeons & Dragons book Deities & Demigods somewhere in my game collection. I pulled out the book and solved our god problem.

We found Anubis, guardian of the dead, and that satisfied my son’s curiosity, looking at the picture, he said yup, that is the one I am talking about. He also looked at the rest of the book, and I fear I may have lost it to him.

As I was looking through the book with him I came across Surma, demigod of death, and thought wow; I have Surma the god of dragons in my home game that I named after a river in Bangladesh; now I see that Surma was in one of my old books as a Finnish fiend. Actually a demi god but a quick google of the god Surma came up that it was basically a fiend

described as being a large dog with a snake-tail and can turn you into stone

I like my version of Surma but I am biased.

It was cool to see another version out there. I noted that after I shot the picture of the page for Surma, that the image on the back of the page shown through. I checked, and it was Loviatar, one of the coolest gods of all, and one that has made it into many versions of Dungoens and Dragons and is also a great “go to” god for lawless towns in my game world. Loviatar is the goddess of hurt or Maiden of Pain; later in my game carrier I played Planescape, and I always associated Loviator with the Lady of Pain from that RPG system. I still have a bunch of those books too.

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