Upcomming RPGA Cape Town Events

So,

Sorry about the silence over the last while, Mass Effect 2 has been eating my free time, and alongside Dragon Age Origins.  Both these games are master classes in setting design, which I am planning to blog about later today.

I am involved in the RPGA in Cape town and we have some events coming up that I would like to highlight:

20 Feb 2010: Intro to D&D 4th Edition

This event is aimed at people who are interested in D&D and have never played before, or who are interested in seeing the 4th Ed ruleset in action.  Modules with pregenerated characters will be provided, see the Facebook event for more details.

20 March 2010: Word Wide D&D Game Day: Players Handbook 3 Launch.

After having 3 successful Game Days last year, the PHB3 day features new classes and races from the PHB3, including the new Psionic power source.  The module, Beneath the Lonely Tower, offers an opportunity for new and current players to test the abilities of the new classes, as well as affording roleplaying opportunities.

More details in the Facebook event.

RPGA Cape Town has a group page on Facebook where we keep event details up to date, as well as a group in Wizards Community.

Patrons

So,

WOTC have released the second part of their articles looking at using a Warlock’s Patron in a campaign to help provide and move plot points.  Very interesting reading if you have a DDI subscription.  The articles are available here and here.

This got me thinking into other classes in 4e which don’t have the built in Patron.  Here are a few ideas for both a player and a Dm to look at when designing a character.

Here are a few ideas for Patrons:

• Guild – An organisation that takes in youngsters and trains them, they typically require some kind of loyalty in return for this training as well as assistance where they have influence.  A guild will also generally have allies and enemies where it is situated, as well as competitors.  Benefits for staying in the good books of a guild can include influence within an area, access to goods and services as well as information, help in quests and extra manpower for specific missions.  However, falling afoul of the guild can make life difficult where they have influence, higher prices, ambushes, refusal of service.  Also not all guilds are too happy to see people leave and might exact vengeance.  Fighters, rogues, wizards might typically come from a guild.
• Master – A powerful person might take on apprentices to teach and provide help with his work.  Apprentices will be treated similarly to the master, respected if he is or possibly despised and loathed if the master has a particularly loathsome reputation.  Similarly to guilds the master might expect services from his apprentices.  Depending on the master, there might be several apprentices who might be encouraged to cooperate of compete for his attention.  Wizards, rogues, rangers, sorcerers and bards might be trained by a master.
• Noble Patron – A rich noble might hire talented young artists, warriors, woodsmen or arcanists and provide them training.  This might be purely philanthropic in nature, looking to provide for talented youngsters, or for the gain of the noble, being able to show off a particularly talented bard or have a well stocked and protected hunting area.  Does the noble consider the character to be his slave or property, owing him for the elevated status?  There might even be something more sinister at work.  If the character leaves the employ of his sponsor is it on good terms? Would the sponsor harbour a grudge believe the character not to have shown enough gratitude, or might he even be paranoid, worried that his onetime shining star might sell information about his estate and affairs to rivals?  Bards, rogues, rangers, druids, wardens or fighters might have a noble patron.
• Cult – A cult might take in promising youngsters to train for their own purposes, which might not always be nefarious in nature, a cult dedicated to the old religion might train druids, wardens, rangers and seekers.  Cults tend to have both public and hidden agendas and the character might not be aware of the true nature of the cult.  Depending on the cult, most character types could be trained by one.
• Church or religion – A church could act like a guild or cult in training a character with a divine power source.  The allies and enemies of the church or sect within the church can be used to help or hinder the character.  Divine characters are obvious scions of a church, but fighters and rogues are also a possibility.  IF arcane magic is under the political control of the church then arcane characters might also fall into their domain.
• Primal Spirit – a primal character could have a close association with a specific spirit who manifests in his powers or as his spirit companion, this kind of bond might be interesting to do as a boon from DMG2 or as an artefact with a concordance rating.  The happier the spirit the more it will give the player.

Having a patron in the characters back story come into the game can help give a player a sense of belonging to the campaign world.  The patron can help by providing quests or hints.  Where the patron has influence things might be easier with access to rare and expensive goods.  Allies, enemies and competitors to the patron can involve themselves in the affairs the of the characters, either helping or hindering them.

If the characters find themselves at odds with their patrons there should be repercussions, depending on the patron, can they come to an amicable agreement?  Will the patron be overbearing and demand the pcs tow the line?  Will the pcs have enough influence with the patron to be able to convince the patron that they are in the right?  Will this lead to a falling out with more dangerous repercussions?  Previous allies becoming active foes or just hindering or refusing to aid the characters?

Dragon Age uses patrons and organisations in your companions backgrounds in their personal quests, which helps bring the world to life.

Many thanks to Rechan from Enworld for some inspiration

How have you used patrons in your games?

Dragon for DMs 365

So,

The second issue of the 4e run of Dragon has some nice bits ready to steal for a homebrew.  Including 1 article that caught me by surprise.

Backdrop Cormyr

I will admit that Cormyr is one of my favourite kingdoms in the realms, full of realmsian flavour, but still generic enough to transplant into a homebrew if you need a standard faux European kingdom.  This article brings some nice flavour to the realm, with some really nice plot hooks in the descriptions of the nobles and military.  Well worth a look if you going to be designing a chivalrous state.

Ecology of the Dragonborn

What looks like an article for players is full of ideas for a Dm to plunder,especially in the Dragonborn culture section.  Nice way to bring a dragonborn tribe, town or kingdom to life.

Codex of Betrayal Beleth

This article discusses Beleth, the spymaster for Glasya, daughter of Asmodeus, a powerful demon who excels at being overlooked while keeping his fingers in as many plots as possible. More plot hooks and adventure ideas for a high paragon/low epic adventure than you can shake an imp at.  This article is definitely going to see some use in my campaign as Asmodeus might just be involved somewhere...

Roll vs Role Snake Tongue: The Coils Below
A neat article looking at a typical cult of Zehir.  Suitable for a low paragon campaign as written you can easily stretch the cult out as a long running for into mid paragon.

Dolruths Dawn
An unexpected treasure of an article, a town populated by reincarnated epic NPCs who remember nothing but their names.  I could easily see this being used as a setting in itself for a short epic tier campaign, the characters waking in the village, with no memories of their past.  Plenty of opportunities for social intrigue as well, as the npcs cover the full range of alignments.

Not as many articles as 364 to highlight, with 2 aimed solely at characters (The Artificer playtest and Character Concepts).  Bazaar of the Bizarre is worth looking at as a DM for ideas for giving magical items back stories and histories.

Till next time good gaming and may the dice spirits be kind.

Running Iron Heroes 4E style

So,

I have an Iron Heroes game set in the L5R setting coming up shortly.  While we are going to running the system fairly untouched for the players side, on the DMs side of the screen I am importing some 4E elements which should hopefully help me minimize prep time.

Please note the following is still a work in progress and is subject to change as the game progresses.

These are my initial thoughts, which will be modified as they are playtested in the campaign.

The biggest issue I have with running D20 games is preparing npc and monster stat-blocks for sessions.  Iron Heroes immediately helps simplify issues, by not relying heavily on spell casters on either side of the screen.  I am looking at totally redesigning the monster stat-blocks.

The first thing I am stealing is monsters and npcs have the stats, ac, hit-points, skills and abilities I as the dm feel they need to have.  I am not going to spend time tweaking equipment, feats and class abilities and levels to get them where they need to be.

At the moment I will be looking at my player's attack bonuses and setting npc/monster ac according to the following guidelines: Hard will require a 12 to hit for the highest attack bonus, medium will require a 10 to hit for the average attack bonus and easy will require a ten to hit for the character with the lowest.

Saves will be set similarly, looking at the DCs of characters abilities.

As for hit-points, I will be using minions to bulk out fights, standard npc's should be able to last 2 rounds of focused attacks by the party and leaders should be able to last 5.

When it comes to npc attacks, I will be using an at-will/encounter/recharge system similar to that of 4e.  Attack bonuses and damage will be appropriate the strengths of the party.  Spell casters will be given 5 to 8 spell like powers, depending on their level and the role I want them to fulfill in the encounter.

Thoughts?

Till next time good gaming and may the dice spirits be kind.

Greetings!

Welcome to Cape of Games

Unknown to most there is a small but vibrant role-, board-, war- and cardgaming community hidden within the shadows of Table Mountain.  There are even more gamers who are not aware of the community.  Cape of Games is aimed at reaching out these poor lost souls and bring them into the community, as well as promoting various gaming events happening in Cape Town.

Please come check the calendar regularly for new events which will be updated as I get the information.  Feel free to send me information on events, either via comment, twitter or email via my profile.

I will also add new links to South African gaming related websites and blogs as they come to my attention.

The blog will include previews and announcements of upcoming events, reviews of the events and some of my thoughts on various aspects of the hobby.

Upcoming events to take note of: Warhamer and Warhammer 40K regional tournaments, as well as the Worldwide D&D Games Day Dungeon Masters Guide 2 Launch, details here and here.

Till next time good gaming and may the dice spirits be kind.