Recent content by John Dallman

The session was mostly waiting for the High Priest of Zeus to show up. He was being scryed regularly, and it was clear that he wasn't making his best speed. He took a diversion to the Temple of Hermes, and arrived with a Priest of Hermes in tow. While we were waiting, Aster and the Bow of...

AD&D1.2e, Avalon campaign, in Artemisia: Zeus annoyed, High Priest thunderstruck.

AD&D+MAD system, convention game Kid rescued, evil temple destroyed.

Well, that all turned out quite well. The empress came out to address the convocation about 10:00 the day after we arrived. She's in her early forties, with a son in his early twenties. Her husband died in a war about ten years ago. There wasn't much ceremony. She read a speech welcoming the...

Having a single, fungible, advancement currency is simpler once the number of possible advanceable traits is considerably larger than the actual number of traits on a typical character sheet. That's why systems like Hero System or GURPS use character points. If every character sheet includes...

AD&D1.2e, Avalon campaign: Deception revealed, war plan aborted.

I think the clunkiness is coming from advancement being an interruption to play. Both methods seem to require significant knowledge of the game system. This is more work for the players, but that may not be appreciated by the system designer. In experience point systems, awarding experience...

This really depends on what you're trying to accomplish. I've never seen it as a priority for the hobby to try to be truly mass-market, like TV or supporting sports teams. It's intrinsically an activity of small groups, and while I've seen attempts to create plots and stories that extend over...

The only Werewolf: the Forsaken book I read was the setting book for the British Isles. They are simply not a good place for werewolves, since all of the land is owned and managed. There just isn't anywhere for large carnivores to live without people noticing them. Werewolves are forced to live...

I didn't read very much of NWoD and never wanted to play it. I got the overall impression of an editorial stance of "This game is all about angst, and we're going to make sure you have plenty."

Notes from the session-before-last of my Weird War II in India game. Some additions from the session. February 1941 News from January 6-13th: New Fourth Army incident in China ends significant military cooperation between Nationalists and Communists. 10th: German–Soviet Border and Commercial...

We have assembled our collection of priests and sacred beasts. We took them to nightside, along with the Empress' captain who had orders to escort us to the capital, and his troops. He had not been aware of how many sacred beasts we'd got, and wanted to send a messenger on dayside, but we...

Most of the Mage I've been played has been under GURPS. There were GURPS 3e versions of Mage and Vampire produced back in the 1990s. There was a falling-out between White Wolf and SJ Games. which means those books have never appeared as PDFs, but they work OK. GURPS Thaumatology for 4e...

AD&D1.2e, Avalon Campaign: Crystal Balling yields useful clues.

Is southern hemisphere still alive?