Menu
News
All News
Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
Pathfinder
Starfinder
Warhammer
2d20 System
Year Zero Engine
Industry News
Reviews
Dragon Reflections
Columns
Weekly Digests
Weekly News Digest
Freebies, Sales & Bundles
RPG Print News
RPG Crowdfunding News
Game Content
ENterplanetary DimENsions
Mythological Figures
Opinion
Worlds of Design
Peregrine's Next
RPG Evolution
Other Columns
From the Freelancing Frontline
Monster ENcyclopedia
WotC/TSR Alumni Look Back
4 Hours w/RSD (Ryan Dancey)
The Road to 3E (Jonathan Tweet)
Greenwood's Realms (Ed Greenwood)
Drawmij's TSR (Jim Ward)
Community
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Resources
Wiki
Pages
Latest activity
Media
New media
New comments
Search media
Downloads
Latest reviews
Search resources
EN Publishing
Store
EN5ider
Adventures in ZEITGEIST
Awfully Cheerful Engine
What's OLD is NEW
Judge Dredd & The Worlds Of 2000AD
War of the Burning Sky
Level Up: Advanced 5E
Events & Releases
Upcoming Events
Private Events
Featured Events
Socials!
Twitch
YouTube
Facebook (EN Publishing)
Facebook (EN World)
Twitter
Instagram
TikTok
Podcast
Features
Top 5 RPGs Compiled Charts 2004-Present
Adventure Game Industry Market Research Summary (RPGs) V1.0
Ryan Dancey: Acquiring TSR
Q&A With Gary Gygax
D&D Rules FAQs
TSR, WotC, & Paizo: A Comparative History
D&D Pronunciation Guide
Million Dollar TTRPG Kickstarters
Tabletop RPG Podcast Hall of Fame
Eric Noah's Unofficial D&D 3rd Edition News
D&D in the Mainstream
D&D & RPG History
About Morrus
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles only
By:
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Menu
Log in
Register
Install the app
Install
Community
Playing the Game
Story Hour
Wing Three
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Message
<blockquote data-quote="Richards" data-source="post: 6033147" data-attributes="member: 508"><p><strong>ADVENTURE 4 - SCOURGE OF THE HOWLING HORDE</strong></p><p></p><p>PC Roster:<p style="margin-left: 20px">Akari, human paladin of Hieroneous</p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"> Chalkan, half-elf ranger</p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"> Feron Dru, half-elf druid</p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"> Rale Bodkin, human rogue</p><p></p><p>It was time to start over with brand-new characters, and I decided to go with a Wizards of the Coast module this time, <em>Scourge of the Howling Horde</em> by Gwendolyn F. M. Kestrel.</p><p></p><p>The new initiative cards were interesting: Logan drew Akari's head and did a bit of light pencil shading; Chalkan was represented by a drawing of an arrow, I believe; and Dan did a quick drawing of a simple figure stabbing another simple figure in the back. As for Feron Dru, Vicki had gotten on the Wizards of the Coast website and found a PC portrait of a long-eared elf and printed it out as her initiative card. The problem was, all of the other cards were the size of a standard playing card, and hers was easily a good 4" by 6", much bigger than the others and difficult to use for that reason. At the end of this session I hunted up the image she had used and printed out a scaled-down version, and this became the template for my initiative cards. From this point on, I'd capture a digital image, scale it to the right size, and print it out on normal paper. Then I'd get a playing card (I habitually used one of the jokers, since we never used them for card games, pretty much sticking to 500 Rummy and Knock Rummy) and trace the shape around the image. That would then get cut out and glued onto the blank side of a lined index card, then cut out again. I'd write the name of the creature (or PC) on the back of the card, then cover it with clear Con-Tact paper, and then cut it out a third time, this time leaving about a 1/8" border around the card. Jacob shortly found an image he wanted to use for Chalkan and another for Slayer, so I made up new initiative cards for them. Dan stuck with his existing initiative cards, as did Logan (for awhile at least). And I decided to start building a "monster deck," so from this point on I started making initiative cards for the monsters the PCs would encounter in each adventure. This had the advantage of allowing me to decide what my monsters would look like. Not liking the 3E ogre illustration, for example (he always reminded me of that full-body Muppet costume that wore rags and had a thick, protruding lower lip), I used an image from an adventure module I had picked up but never actually ran. Likewise, my carrion crawlers would look like the Tony DiTerlizzi illustration from the 2E <em>Monstrous Manual</em> (still my favorite monster tome of any edition).</p><p></p><p>But getting back to <em>Scourge of the Howling Horde</em>: Vicki had a fairly good time of it, although we pretty much "threw her in the deep end and forced her to start swimming," having her ignore the game rules at first and just tell us what she'd like to have Feron do, then explain how that particular rule worked in the game and walked her through it. She was hesitant to have Feron attack anyone at first; I distinctly recall the PCs in a room after slaying some goblins and having a pair of female hobgoblins come rushing in. Vicki's PC was the first to react, and she didn't want to hurt the hobgoblins because she had no way of knowing for sure whether or not they were evil. Jacob, considering himself an old pro by now, was yelling at his mom, "Just kill them! They're hobgoblins! Hobgoblins are evil!" And sure enough, they were, and Feron helped kill them, although I think Vicki still wan't sure that was necessarily the best way to proceed. (Now, after years of gaming with us, she can be as bloodthirsty as the rest of my players.)</p><p></p><p>Vicki got involved in the roleplaying fairly well, and started getting the grasp of the basic combat game mechanics, but her biggest hangup - one that would haunt her for her first dozen gaming sessions or so - was remembering which dice were which. I'd ask her to make a saving throw by rolling a d20, and she'd look in confusion at her pile of dice (I had bought her a set of dice, part of my new tradition) until Dan or Jacob would hand her the d20 from her dice pool. We also had to keep an eye out so she wouldn't accidentally make an attack roll using a d12.</p><p></p><p>The end result, though, was that she had a good time with this first adventure. Dan had provided her with one of his old lead miniatures for her character, and she used that for several adventures until she went out and picked out a Feron Dru miniature from the local gaming store that better fit her PC (it was a female elf shooting a bow, which she uses to this day). We had a new gamer on our hands!</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Richards, post: 6033147, member: 508"] [b]ADVENTURE 4 - SCOURGE OF THE HOWLING HORDE[/b] PC Roster:[INDENT]Akari, human paladin of Hieroneous Chalkan, half-elf ranger Feron Dru, half-elf druid Rale Bodkin, human rogue[/INDENT] It was time to start over with brand-new characters, and I decided to go with a Wizards of the Coast module this time, [i]Scourge of the Howling Horde[/i] by Gwendolyn F. M. Kestrel. The new initiative cards were interesting: Logan drew Akari's head and did a bit of light pencil shading; Chalkan was represented by a drawing of an arrow, I believe; and Dan did a quick drawing of a simple figure stabbing another simple figure in the back. As for Feron Dru, Vicki had gotten on the Wizards of the Coast website and found a PC portrait of a long-eared elf and printed it out as her initiative card. The problem was, all of the other cards were the size of a standard playing card, and hers was easily a good 4" by 6", much bigger than the others and difficult to use for that reason. At the end of this session I hunted up the image she had used and printed out a scaled-down version, and this became the template for my initiative cards. From this point on, I'd capture a digital image, scale it to the right size, and print it out on normal paper. Then I'd get a playing card (I habitually used one of the jokers, since we never used them for card games, pretty much sticking to 500 Rummy and Knock Rummy) and trace the shape around the image. That would then get cut out and glued onto the blank side of a lined index card, then cut out again. I'd write the name of the creature (or PC) on the back of the card, then cover it with clear Con-Tact paper, and then cut it out a third time, this time leaving about a 1/8" border around the card. Jacob shortly found an image he wanted to use for Chalkan and another for Slayer, so I made up new initiative cards for them. Dan stuck with his existing initiative cards, as did Logan (for awhile at least). And I decided to start building a "monster deck," so from this point on I started making initiative cards for the monsters the PCs would encounter in each adventure. This had the advantage of allowing me to decide what my monsters would look like. Not liking the 3E ogre illustration, for example (he always reminded me of that full-body Muppet costume that wore rags and had a thick, protruding lower lip), I used an image from an adventure module I had picked up but never actually ran. Likewise, my carrion crawlers would look like the Tony DiTerlizzi illustration from the 2E [i]Monstrous Manual[/i] (still my favorite monster tome of any edition). But getting back to [i]Scourge of the Howling Horde[/i]: Vicki had a fairly good time of it, although we pretty much "threw her in the deep end and forced her to start swimming," having her ignore the game rules at first and just tell us what she'd like to have Feron do, then explain how that particular rule worked in the game and walked her through it. She was hesitant to have Feron attack anyone at first; I distinctly recall the PCs in a room after slaying some goblins and having a pair of female hobgoblins come rushing in. Vicki's PC was the first to react, and she didn't want to hurt the hobgoblins because she had no way of knowing for sure whether or not they were evil. Jacob, considering himself an old pro by now, was yelling at his mom, "Just kill them! They're hobgoblins! Hobgoblins are evil!" And sure enough, they were, and Feron helped kill them, although I think Vicki still wan't sure that was necessarily the best way to proceed. (Now, after years of gaming with us, she can be as bloodthirsty as the rest of my players.) Vicki got involved in the roleplaying fairly well, and started getting the grasp of the basic combat game mechanics, but her biggest hangup - one that would haunt her for her first dozen gaming sessions or so - was remembering which dice were which. I'd ask her to make a saving throw by rolling a d20, and she'd look in confusion at her pile of dice (I had bought her a set of dice, part of my new tradition) until Dan or Jacob would hand her the d20 from her dice pool. We also had to keep an eye out so she wouldn't accidentally make an attack roll using a d12. The end result, though, was that she had a good time with this first adventure. Dan had provided her with one of his old lead miniatures for her character, and she used that for several adventures until she went out and picked out a Feron Dru miniature from the local gaming store that better fit her PC (it was a female elf shooting a bow, which she uses to this day). We had a new gamer on our hands! [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Community
Playing the Game
Story Hour
Wing Three
Top