Attending

Clockwise round the table, starting with the Labyrinth Lord:

• T.K.B., the Labyrinth Lord.
• T.A., playing
  • Glen the Strategist (a wizard) and
  • Dooley the sly (a thief).
• M.A., playing
  • James the Cleric and
  • Jeffrey the Monk.
• E.A., playing
  • Curufin the Elf and
  • Drusilla the Ranger.
• L.B., playing - Taffy the Halfling and - Alice the Cleric

Finishing the Orcs

C. 6 orcs from 14: 5sp 12sp 3sp 7sp 6 scale armor, 2 light crossbows, 6 morning stars.

Curufin found the secret door to 13, then kissed Taffy's hand.

Bow, quiver w/20 arrors, 2 swords, 2 daggers, 2 shields, 2 gems, 20 gp, 40sp.

Guard from 16: 8 sp 1 gp, Chaimail, short sword. Girl: ivoery bracelet (100 gp). Orc leader: longsword, plate mail (to Alice), shield, magic +1 hand axe (to Taffy), silver belt w/gold buckle, sword ???

Dru & Curufin took shields, Dooley took 2 swords, Glen took the daggers, Taffy took bow & quiver.

On to the Hobgoblins

Attending

Clockwise round the table, starting with the Labyrinth Lord:

• T.K.B., the Labyrinth Lord.
• M.A., playing
  • James the Cleric and
  • Jeffrey the Monk.
• T.A., playing
  • Glen the Strategist (a wizard) and
  • Dooley the sly (a thief).
• L.B., playing
  • Taffy the Halfling and
  • Alice the Cleric
• E.A., playing
  • Curufin the Elf and
  • Drusilla the Ranger.

More Orcs

C. Net: 2 rounds. Killed male orcs from rooms 14 (9 orcs) & 15 (6 orcs) at the entrance. Dooley, Jeffry, & Alice went to below zero HP — Alice healed Jeffry, James healed Alice, and James bandaged Alice's wounds. Looted bodies and fled.

(This appears to have been the first session recorded in my moleskine.)

Attending

Clockwise, starting with the GM:

• T.K.B. — GM
• E.A. — Aspen Thistledown & Sigisund Thorinsson
• T.A. — Sir Deelan the Ignoble & Belinda Warmhearted
• M.A. — Alfros Bladesinger
• L.B. — Sir Leopold Drakehelm & Cassandra Lightfinger

Unfortunately, D.B. wasn't available.

L.B. had been dissatisfied with the character she had been playing, Belinda Warmhearted (a pacifist with a low Fighting skill), and switched her for Sir Leopold Drakehelm.

She and E.A. both wanted to try playing two characters.

Actual Play, Afternoon

As they rested, they heard noises approaching from the unblocked side of the tunnel, and prepared for battle, but it turned out to be the remains of another group the criminal syndicate had sent to find Jeck Lightfinger, Sigisund Thorinsson and Cassandra Lightfinger. They gladly joined forces against the ghouls of the tunnels.

After resting, Aspen Thistledown was able to track her way back to where they had left the tracks of the dragged body. Once there she had no difficulty tracking them to the ghoul's feasting room, where they found many bodies in the various stages of decay, including that of Jeck Lightfinger. Unfortunately, the item they sought was not on what little remained of the body. Search the room, they noticed that many of the corpses showed the signs of having died from the blood plague, which lead them to the thought that someone had broken into the burial tunnels where the plague bodies had been interred. They hurriedly left the ghoul tunnels and headed back to report.

▶ Here we broke for supper.

Actual Play, Evening

▶ After supper we picked up again.

The criminal syndicate gave them all medallions to protect them from the blood plague and sent them off to the plague burial tunnels. They found that the seal on the door to the tunnels had been broken, and someone had been coming and going. They spent some time exploring the tunnels, and eventually came to area where another had broken into the plague tunnels, coming from further in the mountain. They followed this tunnel until they heard chanting from ahead. Sneaking up, they found an ancient temple carved into the mountain, with rat men chanting and praying.

The kids knew that they needed a plan, or they'd get wiped out by the rat men, but it took them a little while to agree on one. They decided to sneak onto one of the balconies that ran along the sides of the temple, so that they could only be attacked through two places, the hallway leading to the balcony from the tunnel at the back of the temple and the stairs leading up to the balcony at the front of the temple. They positioned their ranged fighters to target the rat man shaman leading the chant, their melee fighters to hold the entrances, and started off their attack with Alfros Bladesinger casting fear on the area with the greatest number of rat men.

It was a good plan, and it worked out well for them. The fear spell drove away many of the rat men, back into their tunnels deeper into the depths. They managed to Shake the shaman, and keep him Shaken most of the time. The melee fighters kept the other rat men off the ranged fighters long enough for the ranged fighters to finish off the shaman and dispose of several of the other rat men, and they the finished off the rest as they came up the stairs and down the hallway.

They searched the shaman and found the item they were looking for, so they left to report.

Reflections

I really need to start a regular Savage Worlds campaign for the kids.

Attending

Clockwise, starting with the GM:

• T.K.B. — GM
• E.A. — Aspen Thistledown
• T.A. — Sir Deelan the Ignoble [1]
• M.A. — Alfros Bladesinger
• D.B. — Sir Leopold Drakehelm (later played by T.A. after D.B. had to leave)
• L.B. — Belinda Warmhearted

Actual Play

An unsanctioned thief, Jeck Lightfinger, had fled with his ill-gotten gains into The Widow's Hold, a local haunted house. The characters were charged with finding Jeck and

They entered the ill-omened house and soon found the entrance to the tunnels below. They were soon ambushed by ghouls (in this scenario a type of undead), but fought them off. When the last ghoul fled, Sir Leopald

Attending

• T.K.B., the Labyrinth Lord
• M.A., playing Niall, a cleric
• L.B., playing Caramel, a halfling
• T.A., playing Angrim, and Elf

Overview

This was another short session, and since one of the regular players was missing (E.A.) I decided to run something other than B2.

Attempt #1

Took SE branch, to room S. Eventually fled, jumping and pulling Caramel up, and back to town.

Attempt #2

Took SW branch to G, retreated to passage, then ran through to SW branch, killed 2 goblins, then killed goblins from other side who came up behind. Loot: 14 cp, 9 cp, 12 cp, 4 maces, 2 crossbows, 4 scale armor.

Attending

• T.K.B., the Dungeon Master
• M.B., playing (with T.K.B.'s help) - Red Gorm, a human fighter
• M.A., playing - Bub, a male human cleric, soon surnamed the Naked for skinny dipping - Cedric, a male human fighter
• T.A., playing - Nameless, a male human magic-user - Wolfgar, a male human fighter
• E.A., playing - Errin' (as in erring), a female human fighter with a 3 INT - Bob-Jo, a female human magic user

Bathing and Blood

E.A. had fun playing an immensely strong character with no sense at all, clearing the steps down to the first level with ease, but taking no care to avoid her comrades when flinging the boulders up out of the stairs.

They were suitably creeped by out the goblin head in the entrance room, but eventually moved on through the door to the left, and entered the first room. There M.A. decided he was going to bathe in the fountain, and stripped down to nothing and splashed about. The splashing and the resultant argument attracted the attention of a couple of striges resting in a large crack up near the ceiling, and before it was over Bub was jumping around in combat naked and and Nameless was down to 1 hit point.

After that Bub got back into his clothes and armor.

And that was all we had time for that afternoon. Everybody seemed to have fun.

Attending

Clockwise round the table, starting with the Labyrinth Lord:

• T.K.B., the Labyrinth Lord.
• M.A., playing
  • James the Cleric and
  • Jeffrey the Monk.
• T.A., playing
  • Glen the Strategist (a wizard) and
  • Dooley the sly (a thief).
• E.A., playing
  • Curufin the Elf and
  • Drusilla the Ranger.
• L.B., playing
  • Taffy the Halfling and
  • Alice the Cleric

Kobolds are Dead

Still out for revenge, they went after the kobolds again, but set off the alarm bell, and ran back to town. They came back on the second day and were attacked by female kobolds in the tree, who were joined by six more from inside the kobold warren, but the day went to the adventurers, who wiped the kobolds out, and proceeded to clean out the kobold warren as well.

Attending

Clockwise round the table, starting with the Labyrinth Lord:

• T.K.B., the Labyrinth Lord.
• M.A., playing
  • James the Cleric and
  • Jeffrey the Monk.
• T.A., playing
  • Glen the Strategist (a wizard) and
  • Dooley the sly (a thief).
• E.A., playing
  • Curufin the Elf and
  • Drusilla the Ranger.
• L.B., playing
  • Taffy the Halfling and
  • Alice the Cleric

Kobolds are Stubborn

The group spent most of their loot on a high level cleric who fixed Dooley up, even regenerating his fingers. Dooley now is a bit more rough-hewn, but not really any uglier than he was originally.

Out for revenge, they went back and went after the kobolds. This time they got past the pit trapped and killed lots of kobolds, but were run off again. Dru and Dooley were both dying when their friends dragged them out and healed them, but the kobolds were in no shape to pursue them.

Attending

Clockwise round the table, starting with the Labyrinth Lord:

• T.K.B., the Labyrinth Lord.
• M.A., playing
  • James the Cleric and
  • Jeffrey the Monk.
• T.A., playing
  • Glen the Strategist (a wizard) and
  • Dooley the sly (a thief).
• E.A., playing
  • Curufin the Elf and
  • Drusilla the Ranger.
• L.B., playing
  • Taffy the Halfling and
  • Alice the Cleric

Kobolds are Sneaky

They decided to try the kobolds that surprised them on one of their earlier trips. Luckily the kobolds weren't in the tree branches this time, so they went down the tunnel. Unfortunately, Dooley fell in the pit trap. James pulled him out with his belt (since they didn't have any rope or pole). The guards attached them with ranged weapons, and the party fled the kobold warren. Once outside the stopped for a moment, but giant rats boiled out of the tunnel, soon followed by kobolds. Eventually the group managed to defeat the rats and the kobolds, but in the process Dooley was overcome by the rats, and lay unconscious while they chewed on his face. His comrades healed him as well as they could, but he was horribly scarred and lost two fingers from his left hand.

Attending

Clockwise round the table, starting with the Labyrinth Lord:

• T.K.B., the Labyrinth Lord.
• M.A., playing
  • James the Cleric and
  • Jeffrey the Monk.
• T.A., playing
  • Glen the Strategist (a wizard) and
  • Dooley the sly (a thief).
• E.A., playing
  • Curufin the Elf and
  • Drusilla the Ranger.
• L.B., playing
  • Taffy the Halfling and
  • Alice the Cleric

Healing and Hunting

After their narrow escape from the valley last time, they decided to find a safe place away from the valley and rest and heal. James and Alice spent their days healing the wounded, while Drusilla spent her days finding food for everybody. After five days they were ready to try again.

This time they made a plan: they'd lure out the orc guards into an ambush, some staying outside out of immediate sight of the tunnel entrance, while a couple went in and apparently got scared and ran out. Luckily the orc guards fell for the deception and headed outside. The P.C.s slaughtered the guards, then moved in and systematically cleaned the orcs' tunnel complex out, ending with the orc chieftain. They even found the secret door. Then it was back to town with their loot.

Reflections

It was nice to see them have a solidly successful session, after having two sessions in a row of spectacular failure. They were so excited that they were finally taking the monsters down.

We had more time to play this time, which helped a lot. And having the fourth player (and thus two more characters) made things move along more smoothly, too. These old-school modules really do need a larger party of adventurers.

Attending

Clockwise round the table, starting with the Labyrinth Lord:

• T.K.B., the Labyrinth Lord.
• M.A., playing
  • James the Cleric and
  • Jeffrey the Monk.
• T.A., playing
  • Glen the Strategist (a wizard) and
  • Dooley the sly (a thief).
• E.A., playing
  • Curufin the Elf and
  • Drusilla the Ranger.

Manual Labor & Shopping

Last session they'd been captured by goblins who stripped them of all their equipment and most of their clothing, but did accept a ransom offer.

Following up T.A.'s suggestion last session that they look for work, I decided they would stay around the keep for a while and try and find work, so they could get enough money to buy some new equipment. They found some work as guards, some work digging sewers for the keep, and some random odd jobs around the keep.

T.A. suggested that they'd have probably cached the hides from the three deer Drusilla killed the week they were camping, so that they could pick them up on the way back. I allowed that it was a likely thing for them to have done. Then T.A suggested they'd probably have cached the 6 shortswords from orcs they killed, and I allowed that it was a reasonable thing for them to have done. Then T.A. suggested that they'd cached the money they were carrying, and I said no way, no how.

Anyway, after a month of work, they pooled their money and figured out that each person had about 25 gp to buy equipment. James sold the shortsword and 2 javelins he got as loot. Jeffrey sold the javelins, but kept the shortsword. Glen sold the shortsword and javelins as well. The others kept them, so they didn't have to buy a weapon. After this the players worked at reequipping themselves. At first they didn't think they'd be able to afford any armor better than padded, but by cutting down their lists and the non-armor-wearing characters loaning the other characters a little bit of money, they ended up being able to afford leather armor, and slings and sling bullets for ranged weapons. [1] Eventually [2] they were all outfitted, and ready to go.

Oops, Take 2!

So, they set out east and then north along the road leading into the borderlands. When they got to the area of the road nearest the valley where they'd found the goblins, they again left the road and pushed their way through the thick undergrowth of the forest until they reached the semi-clear valley. This time they decided to explore the other side of the valley, climbing up the hill above the first thicket in the valley. There they found another cave entrance. Having learned from their mistake last time, they decided to try stealth. The three that had Move Silently, Jeffry the Monk, Dooley the Sly, and Drusilla the Ranger, would try to sneak in, while the other three would wait at the cave mouth for a yell.

Unfortunately, Dooley and Drusilla made a lot of noise as they went in, so they motioned for the others to follow them in. The first thing they saw, in the light of their torches, was a section of wall covered with niches, which all contained severed heads in various stages of decomposition. Fearing for their lives, they immediately ran out of the cave and Dooley, looking for somewhere to hide, lead them further into the valley, downhill slightly, to another large thicket.

As they rushed into the thicket, through the heavy bushes at the outside into the lighter undergrowth of the inside, they noticed it concealed, at its lowest point, just above where it edged onto the flat valley floor, another cave entrance. Then they noticed the kobolds in the tree throwing javelins down at them. Before they got out of the thicket they had two men down, Dooley and Jeffry. Once out of the thicket they ran full speed for the road, only to see that orcs had come out of the first cave mouth, and were throwing javelins, as well as the kobolds on the edge of the thicket throwing another round of javelins. Luckily, nobody else was downed, and they saw the orcs and kobolds laughing at them as they vanished into the brush.

They made it to the road, and not hearing any immediate pursuit, stopped to let James cast Cure Light Wounds on Jeffry, the worst hurt, and luckily M.A. rolled pretty well, healing enough of Jeffry's wounds so that he was conscious and able to get up. At the same time Drusilla attempted to bind Dooley's wounds to keep him from bleeding to death. Drusilla succeeded, so Dooley stabilized. And that's were we left them.

Attending

Clockwise round the table, starting with the Labyrinth Lord:

• T.K.B., the Labyrinth Lord.
• M.A., playing
  • James the Cleric and
  • Jeffrey the Monk.
• T.A., playing
  • Glen the Strategist (a wizard) and
  • Dooley the sly (a thief).
• E.A., playing
  • Curufin the Elf and
  • Drusilla the Ranger.

Camping

Since everyone (pretty much) had been wounded, the characters spent 7 days camping and getting Cure Light Wounds cast on them by James. Drusilla spent the days hunting in the nearby forest, and kept them feed reasonably well, although there were a couple of hungry days.

By the 7^th day the orcs started to stink, so they buried them, still in their leather armor. After they buried them they realized they could have sold the armor, but after several days of decomposition the armor was probably not salable any more.

They divided the coin up, with 10 sp each, with 4 left over for the party treasury. Glen paid his 10 sp immediately to Dooley, which after the interest left him still 12.5 sp in debt.

Oops!

On the eight day they continued north along the road that lead into the borderlands. Before the valley closed in, they could see the outline of the hills under the trees curving in sharply on the west, while the east side continued straight and steep. As they walked along the narrow valley, Drusilla noticed some light tracks leading into the thick forest to the west, although she couldn't tell what had made the tracks. They decided to follow the tracks through the forest. After a lot of bending and crawling and scraping through the thick undergrowth they emerged in a small, partially forested valley. One of the first things that they saw was a cave opening on the south side of the valley. Whooping and hollering they headed straight for the cave. They'd only gotten 30 feet in and had noticed that the original cave had been turned into tunnels carved from the rock, when they ran into a group of goblins, who yelled “Bree-Yark!” and attacked. The characters, though several had been injured, were doing pretty well, having killed 5 of the 6 goblins, when two more groups of 6 goblins appeared, one in front and another behind, an they heard something big stopping its way down the corridor toward them. The new goblins all threw javelins, and by the end of the round Glen and Dooley were on the ground dying, and the rest of adventurers were severely wounded, though still standing. And that's when the ogre arrived, stomping down the corridor. With the goblins behind them blocking their way out, things were looking grim.

At this point I suggested to the kids that perhaps surrender would be a good idea, if the goblins thought the adventurers could be ransomed. Luckily, Curufin knew how to speak goblin, an quickly offered surrender and ransom, which the goblins accepted. They quickly stripped and tied the adventurers and negotiated a 10 gp ransom each, to be paid no later than 2 days from now.

The PCs picked Jeffry to go back to town and get the ransom, as he actually had enough to ransom everybody [1], and although he had a close call on the way back, having to hide from a group of orcs out looking for something, he managed to get back in time, and the goblins kept their word and released the adventurers, wearing nothing but breech-clouts.

The adventurers hurried back to the Keep to regroup. They expected the townsfolk to be mad that they'd stirred up the monsters, but the townsfolk said that the monsters had been killing people already, and at least the adventurers had killed some of the monsters. The townsfolk did suggest the adventurers should be a little more careful next time.

So, the adventurers are safe, but they've lost most of their money, all of their equipment, and somehow have to reequip. T.A. suggested they look for work around the Keep to help get money for new equipment. And that's where we left them.

Introduction

Fudge Bunnies & Burrows is the first RPG that I played with any of the kids, and was probably the first RPG that I played with most of them. It's ideal for introducing kids to RPGs: bunnies are familiar enough for them to grasp the idea quickly, but different enough so that it's neat.

[This is an after-the-fact post. Again, I could have sworn I'd written something about this before.]

I found my notes on this, which reminded me of some of the things that happened.

I ran the first example adventure from GURPS Bunnies & Burrows, “The Herbmaster's Plea”, p. 94. I used Steffan O'Sullivan's Fudge Bunnies characters, and let the players pick the ones they liked best. Several of the players had probably played this scenario before, but it was enough years ago that they'd forgotten it, and I changed things around a bit. I still had the map I drew of the barn from the farm from “The Herbmaster's Plea” for a B&B game on 2003/01/18 with B.B. & T.A. [1], so I could reuse that.

Attending

• M.B. & C.P.B, jointly playing Chamomile, a bunny with healing powers
• L.B., playing Raspbery, a storytelling, risk-taking bunny
• T.A., playing Stripe, a capable young King's Scout bunny
• D.B., playing Oakroot, a solid and reliable, very strong but somewhat dim member of the Owsla.

Actual Play

They went through the forest on the way to the farm, and were attacked by mongooses. In evading the mongooses they ran off separately and all of them but Stripe got lost. Oakroot and Raspberry eventually got back together and were bickering so much (in character) that I figured their bunnies must be brother and sister. Oakroot and Raspberry made so much noise that the didn't notice the bear, and almost ran into him. Oakroot was so confused that he ran into a tree! Raspberry had dashed ahead and hidden behind another tree, and when she say the bear approaching Oakroot she used her skill Throw your Voice to distract the bear long enough for her and Oakroot to escape. Stripe had tracked them down and had been watching them from a safe distance, and soon joined up with them. They found the others at the edge of the forest, and headed off for the farm. They went into the hedge, but just managed to stop before one of them got caught in one of the traps in the hedge. They sneaked along the hedge, and then stuck across the new-mown hay field to the pig pen, where they spent some time talking with the pigs, who were very bored. They decided to let the pigs loose as a distraction, but they needed a lever to open the gate to the pigpen. They went through the pigpen, through the chicken house (asking the rooster first), and into the tractor shed, where they found a screwdriver. They eventually got the gate open, with the cooperation of the pigs, and in the confusion while the dog was distracted they dashed across into the barn.

In the barn they eventually found the herbmaster in one of a set of rabbit hutches in the hayloft of the barn, and they managed to figure out how to open the hutches and set all the bunnies inside free. Oakroot and Stripe accidentally scared the hutch rabbits, and one set didn't want to escape to the warren and were making lots of noise to alert the cat that something was wrong. Raspberry used her Storytelling skill and Enthrallingly Charismatic supernormal power to calm them down by telling them a story about .. FIXME: spelling? Elharairah and convince them to come along quietly.

They eluded the rats and all made it back safe to the warren, which welcomed the new rabbits joyfully.

Attending

• T.A. played Nektar
• E.A. played Betheny
• L.B. played Erica
• M.A. played Gorge (pronounced “George”)

Actual Play

The characters followed the Teleks to the Tooth Decay, where Nektar kept trying to keep them away from the ship. Luckily by the time the others caught on they were too close and got snagged by the arm. Inside they wasted no time aggravating Bob, so when Torgo told them he'd be sending troops to imprison them Bob dumped them out of the Tomato and told them they were contractually obligated to foil Torgo's fiendish plans. They went out into the corridor and were immediately run over by the robot car carrying fruits, and were riding it back to the source when a ragged dentist spotted them and jumped and grabbed Bethany off Erica's back, tucking and rolling into a nearby bubble. The others followed quickly, and soon everyone found themshelves the targets of primitive dentists. At one point everybody was being dragged by one or more dentist toward dilapidated dentist chairs of one unpleasant sort or another, but in the end only Betheny ended up in a chair and had her teeth drilled — after being anesthetized, of course! It was at this point that a terrible noise was heard in the distance and the dentists and their chairs and even some of the trees ran off.

And that's where we left them for the time being.

Aftermath

As usual I found Toon to be very tiring to run, but worth it.

Attending

• T.A.
• E.A.
• M.A.
• L.B.

Character Creation

For some reason Toon and Buggin' are the games we've done character creation in the most. (For the Savage Worlds games I've been letting them choose from pregenerated characters, probably because most of them have been one-shots.)

We spent most of the evening doing character creation, and everybody ended up with neat characters.

• T.A. created Nektar, a three foot tall blue alien with golden eyes and antennae like Shrek's who was kidnapped and forced to join the Car Blazers and who just wants to escape.
• E.A. created Betheny, a 2 inch tall mini-me with wings who always has to be in the middle of things and joined the Car Blazers because she didn't like the orphanage, and who with a Muscle of 3 ended up the strongest character!
• L.B. created Erica, a bunny with a jetpack who was in it for the carrots, belives everybody should have a special blankie, and who has the urge to defeat villans and protect friends and their possessions.
• M.A. created Gorge (pronounced “George”), an alien from the sun, a humanoid solar flare with a belt with two holsters and flame guns who joined the Car Blazers to get to burn things.

E.A. started the orphanage idea, and when every single last one of them rolled a 3+6=9 for Hit Points, I decided that they must have all been orphans from different orphanages that the routine medical workup on joining the Car Blazers proved conclusively that they were quadruplets separated at birth!

I got the kids to laugh uproariously even before character generation was over. E.A. kept going on about how horrible the orphanage had been, and everytime she did an orphanage matron would pop out of nowhere, show evidence that the orphanage had actually been a great place, and then disappear. E.A. kept making up things that were more and more difficult to disprove, and the orphanage matron would go to more and more absurd lengths to disprove them, pulling the younger Betheny out of pictures of luxury and comparing DNA from her blood to that of the older Betheny, etc. This was really fun, and helped keep character generation from dragging too much.

T.A., an alien, wanted to make sure that the Car Blazers' unbreakable 5-year contract used normal-length years — which made me laugh sinisterly.

Actual Play

After character creation we only had 45 minutes to play, but we went ahead and started on the “Car Blazers” Series Pilot. They got introduced to the Teleks and eventually blew two of their battleships to pieces, and then spotted two other Telek ships leaving the system, and that's where we left them for that evening.

Attending

• L.B. playing Nancy Hestletwain
• T.A. playing Lucius Munroe
• E.A. playing Samantha Hardcastle
• M.A. playing Oscar Whitfield
• T.B. playing Arthur Abrahams
• O.B. playing Brent Hardcastle

Actual Play

We played through Act 1 and Act 2, though I compressed much of Act 2 because we had a very limited amount of time for the session; I skipped Scene 3 entirely, and wrapped things up completely differently.

I was definitely off my game, and six screaming kids didn't help things — for some reason I had more trouble keeping them settled down and on track than usual.

There were some good moments, though, and I think the kids had fun.

As for the adventure itself, I had a few problems with it. I suspect that if I'd had more time to adapt it things would have gone better. Oh well.

We'll probably finish this off this summer, when T.B. and O.B. are back visiting.

Attending

• T.A. playing Isaiah Kestrel, former captain of the Lady Faire
• E.A. playing Alice Pettigrew
• M.A. playing Captain (Scarred) Jack
• L.B. playing Phelicity Gujon

Recap

Last time out the kids had lost their ship, lost the treasure, and deposed their captain. They'd had to build themselves a new boat to escape the once-cursed island.

Actual Play

This time out I decided that they'd forced by their dismal economic situation into working for another pirate delivering smuggled goods, and ran them through the Pirates of the Spanish Main one-sheet Smuggler's Song.

They did pretty well, though they did end up running from the watch several times. And they mostly got paid.

Amusingly, my sister was not happy when they told her they'd been fighting in a bar, so I've promised to steer closer to a “G” rating next time…

Reflections

Add Wound Penalties to Fatigue Penalties and things really start getting grim fast.

Introduction

Unfortunately my notes for this session aren't very good. I'm not entirely sure if everybody who played the previous session was here to finishing the adventure off in this session, but I think so, because L.B. was here and all the pre-generated characters for this one-sheet were in use.

Attending

• M.A. played Gar IronHelm;
• E.A. played Merula Lanus;
• B.B. played Marcus Two Hands (when he wasn't helping out with baby C.A.);
• D.B. played Ramel Ramelson; and
• T.A. played Fox.
• L.B. played Serena, Aevakar Priestess (from the Shaintar: Immortal Legends free download Heroic Archetypes)

L.B. joins the group with a shiny new character

L.B. was here, and wanted to play, of course. Since all the pregens were in use, I pulled out the characters from the Shaintar: Immortal Legends free download Heroic Archetypes and had her look through and see if she liked anything. She found Serena, the Aevakar Priestess, and fell in love. (L.B: “Look! An Angel!*” T.K.B.: “Well, not an angel, but she is magical and can fly…” L.B. “Cool!”) I swapped out a few *Shaintar-specific items and adjusted her XP up to match the “Tomb of Terror” pregens, and we got down to play.

Actual Play

Like I said, my notes for this game were…not good, so I don't have much to report. I do remember that they tried to burn the obviously magical journal of the insane necromancer, which put out a poison cloud that forced them to evacuate the village, and L.B.'s character Serena got to fly above the evacuees and make sure they were headed away from the poison cloud.

The kids seemed to have fun, and L.B. really wanted to play with her character again, so we might come back to these characters at some point. Certainly I have my doubts as to whether the journal could be destroyed by a simple fire…

Reflections

We played in my living room around a low, 2 foot diameter table, keeping dice, tokens, and cards on the table and character sheets off. We didn't bother to user miniatures. I used gaming stones to represent wound and shaken statuses, and check track of the skeletons just by removing the d6 that I rolled for their fighting attacks, so there was no book keeping. I thought that all worked well.

(My bones and joints, on the other hand, did not work well when getting up off the floor after a couple of hours of play.)

Reflections

I should have looked up all the details of the edges and hindrances and wrote them on the kids character sheets, and on my copies, before the kids came over for the game. I had to do it while they were there, and of course they wanted to get on to the gaming. However, I knew we'd be looking them up in the middle of game if I didn't.

We also need to play more often so I can keep the details in mind better. Maybe next weekend.

Attending

Around the table, starting with me as the GM at 6 o'lock, going clock-wise:

• M.A. played Gar IronHelm;
• E.A. played Merula Lanus;
• B.B. played Marcus Two Hands (when he wasn't helping out with baby C.A.);
• D.B. played Ramel Ramelson; and
• T.A. played Fox.

Actual Play

We got through the first encounter with very little difficulty, largely because I forgot the very important surprise packages the zombies had that should have gone off when they died, and then nearly had a TPK when I set them all off at once. They got to where they could hear the next encounter when we had to quit.

Maybe we can finish this at Thanksgiving.

Attending

• L.B., playing Amy and Josiah
• T.A., playing Billy and David
• E.A., playing Catherine
• M.A., playing Devlin

Actual Play

The PCs in this adventure are all kids, and T.A. wasn't any too happy that none of the characters had any weapons more effective than a slingshot! Still, they all had fun with the first two sections of the adventure. In the first they raced small sailboats, and they managed to split the characters up so that all the characters run by the two boys were in one boat and all the characters run by the two girls were in the other boat, and each had fun taunting and distracting the others. I ran it as a chase and let good taunts and distractions affect the Boating rolls of the two captains, and I let every success and raise on the Boating roll move the boat one range increment forward [1], which may not be strictly by the book, but did allow for dramatic changes in position. The girls won on the last Boating roll, and then it was time to eat a picnic lunch. They observed the thug hide the map and papers, dug them up, figured out the notes were in German, reburied them, followed the man who picked them up back to Rydel Mount & figured out that he was the gardener, headed back home (very, very, late), saw the Gypsies cooking fire beyond the old Roman fort & traipsed over to see what was happening.

Attending

• T.K.B. — GM
• B.B. — Playing the Pirates of the Spanish Main pregens, Alice Pettigrew, Isaiah Kestrel, Phillipe Gujon, Scarred Jack

Actual Play

I let B.B. make 18 bombs out of powder and kegs and nails, etc., from the Solarah and blow up most of the village. The PCs got away with Isabella and two small chests of treasure.

Attending

I'm guessing at who attended (although I know B.B. was definitely there) based on player names printed on the character sheets, but they may or may not have played in this session. I think they did, because I wrote something “They did manage to gather some vegetables as they fled.” in my original notes.

• T.K.B. — GM
• B.B. — Chamomile, a bunny
• C.B. — Nimble, a bunny
• P.B. —

Actual Play

I ran the first example adventure from GURPS Bunnies & Burrows, “The Herbmaster's Plea”, p. 94, for my nephew B.B. using Fudge. [1] He successfully rescued Rosin. Ended up in the Orchard on the way to the bean field, after a run-in with the thugs. They did manage to gather some vegetables as they fled. It looks like I named the captain of the Owsla Bayberry.

I think this was the first time I ran a roleplaying game for one of the kids. I ran at least four Fudge Bunnies & Burrows for B.B. and various of the kids and their parents.