The Best of Games

[pyat]

Now, on to the best game I have run. I strongly believe that any game that comes successfully to a close with a majority of the player satisfied is a good game. However, certain games have offered a level of roleplay and fun that lingers in memory. I’ve had the good fortune to have this happen a few times. Yes, these are all high fantasy. I'm lame.


1. The Oakhurst Adventurers
I would be remiss in not mentioning, first of all, the Hamilton Underdark Exploration Society (HUES), a group of players I started gaming with in January 2002. The players are doc_mystery, mar2nee and her husband Daniel, shadow_maze, and velvetpage.

We started with the first Adventure Path module, The Sunless Citadel, and in 2007 we were just about ready to embark on the last module in that series. The player characters are now all 16-18th level, and embroiled in a massive interdimensional war. The campaign went on hiatus in 2007, but should start again in a couple of months. The years of gaming have produced a number of memorable stories, some of which you can read on our ancient website. I really look forward to getting back to this one, and tying up the loose ends. Though, I suspect we have a year or so of adventuring before we finish the Adventure Path.


2. Voyage of the Riddock's Dawn
Then, there was the campaign I ran that was turned into a published novel!

In the summer of 2002, I ran an Ironclaw game for velvetpage, wggthegnoll and redstorm. We were childless at the time, I was working fairly close to home, so we managed to play on weeknights and packed a lot of gaming into that summer. The campaign grew in the telling, from a few germs of intro adventures I’d run at conventions.

It turned into the Voyage of the Riddock’s Dawn, a globe-spanning adventure the uncovered and defeated an ancient evil. The game paused for several months when redstorm and wggthegnoll moved to England, then restarted when Wgg returned, with the addition of sassy_fae and etherlad. A complete summary (with pictures and everything) can be read here. And, of course, this is the campaign that inspired velvetpage to write her first novel.

3. The Battle of Angbad Way
Finally, I have to mention the game that, for a long time, was the yardstick by which I measured all other gaming experiences. I wrote about it in 2004 – The Battle of Angbad Way.

Conan: I remember days like this when my father took me to the forest and we ate wild blueberries. More than 20 years ago. I was just a boy of four or five. The leaves were so dark and green then. The grass smelled sweet with the spring wind.
*pause*
Conan: Almost 20 years of pitiless cumber! No rest, no sleep like other men. And yet the spring wind blows, Subotai. Have you ever felt such a wind?
Subotai: They blow where I live too. In the north of every man's heart.
Conan: It's never too late, Subotai.
Subotai: No. It would only lead me back here another day. In even worse company.
Conan: For us, there is no spring. Just the wind that smells fresh before the storm.

Comments

[tuftears.livejournal.com]

Favorite campaign I've run: Mirari (http://sinai.critter.net/mirari/index.html), a tale of children in a typical American town who stumble upon a world of the imagination.

Favorite campaign I've played in: Lunar Blues (http://sinai.critter.net/mutant/index.html), a dog police-detective on the moon with his friends.

Both links are to log libraries, since they were run on-line and are completely viewable!

[pyat.livejournal.com]

And art by Jordan Peacock, I see! I envy any gaming group with Jordan art to do his sketches.

[tuftears.livejournal.com]

He contributed some GMing to Mirari and ran the Mutant Chronicles game. };)

[leonard-arlotte.livejournal.com]

My gaming group has MINIATURES made from art by Jordan Peacock!

Long live Shrinky Dinks!

(He knows I'm doing this, and vehemently endorses it! :) )

[leonard-arlotte.livejournal.com]

The favorite campaign I've run is a toss up between a Mage: The Ascension game i ran for five years, set in Dark Lafayette. It is one of the most robust settings I've ever created, and I didn't have to do much. The characters would try to do something, and the setting would react to them, which would create weeks and weeks of play. One of these days, I'll have to post the setting document online.

The other campaign was an Ironclaw game that i ran for several years. I incorporated a lot of NPCs and story ideas from the setting books, and beefed them up. This culminated with a 2 year campaign to try to avert civil war on Calabria, and put Fabrizio Rinaldi upon his rightful throne. In this was created one of my favorite personal NPC groups, the Paludestris Coven, 9 witches, including Amalsand Jakoba, who harried the party for many years. Eventually I moved the campaign to Zhong Guo for a while, then the party amassed enough wealth to buy a ship, and start a Trading enterprise between Calabria and Zhong Guo. This led to one of the players one day gleefully exclaiming "Let's go buy insurance!" (I was pretty sure by this point that my campaign had jumped the shark)

It all ended because 3 of my 4 remaining players were graduating. (one of the troubles of running a game at a university) I set up a big campaign ending battle, than ended up going horribly for the party, with everyone either dead or mortally wounded. I wasn't very proud of that ending, but figure it worked for Blake's 7.

Several times a year I run a one-shot Toon game at conventions. This game is almost always hilarious, and is never the same way twice. Anything goes in that game, and I've ended up with battleships falling from the sky, and have had mounds of dirt in the end zone get stepped on accidentally, only to have a man in black, wearing white face paint, start walking against the wind, pull an invisible rope, and get trapped in an invisible box. Yes, I had land mimes. A couple times I tried to get rid of that joke, but my players wouldn't let me.

Because a mime is a terrible thing to waste.

[pyat.livejournal.com]

The characters would try to do something, and the setting would react to them, which would create weeks and weeks of play

I find that I'm best with settings like that, too.

One day, I shall play Toon with you!

[leonard-arlotte.livejournal.com]

I run it at MWFF every year! You could also come to PentaCon, and play Darkus Thel too.

[hossblacksilver.livejournal.com]

and put Fabrizio Rinaldi upon his rightful throne.

Ah, but is it the real Fabrizio? n_n

[leonard-arlotte.livejournal.com]

It was. That was the subject of two adventures in and of itself, to locate the remaining people who could identify Fabrizio for sure.

The whole civil war that almost happened was the build up of factions who were behind the real Fabrizio, and behind the imposter who was sitting on the throne.

[hossblacksilver.livejournal.com]

Cool.

Now, I've met the real Fabrizio in a campaign run by Arlene Meddler at my home con (ConCarolinas), basicly ran the campaign out of the back of the Rinaldi book. Found him, saved him, (got people that) cured him. The Black Baron (Blacksilver the Avoirdupois noble) and most of the other players simply got on his good side. One of the newish players had her noble vixen with the flaw of romance, and didn't fill in the details at the time, which was all that Arlene needed, Fabrizio ended up with a fiancee at the end of that campaign.

There was also the time at DragonCon where I was playing at a table run by Diana Wrayshavastak. The Black Baron managed to completely break the one scenario. But that's a tale for another time.

[madmanofprague.livejournal.com]

That cover reminds me of Henson's Storyteller for some reason...

[pyat.livejournal.com]

I believe the fox on the left-hand side is actually an image of an articulated mask redstorm uses in LARPs. And she does muppety type stuff professionally, in the U.S. now, so it's not surprising!

[doc-mystery.livejournal.com]

Those D&D sessions you did are among the best I've played in, Pieter.

I had fun at work reading over some of the session write-ups I did during our first few years gaming together. I think there is a sweet-spot for D&D around 4-9th level, and we probably hit it around the time of our Ossingtin adventure with the Standing Stones, ditto the Dwarf metal working competition scenario you wrote up.

::B::

[madmanofprague.livejournal.com]

3e's definitely best around there. The most fun I had with it was playing through "Rana Mor" from Dungeon and I think I hit 4th on the way in and 6th on the way out...

[pyat.livejournal.com]

Thank you, Brian!

I was especially pleased with the "Congress of Iron" adventures, which were done almost totally off the cuff, aside from some jotted notes.

I totally agree on D&D's "sweet spot". Up till level 8 or 9, I can internalize "power ups" and the abilities of key NPCs. After that, the paperwork starts mounting up exponentially every few levels.

That's part of the reason I called a hiatus. I was getting really sick of paperwork. Next campaign, everyone dies (or retires) at 10th level!