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Introductions

Stephan Hornick

Community Goblin & Master of the Archive
Platinum WoA
Wizard of Story
Wizard of Combat
Borderland Explorer
Ok. You're just going to have to believe me on this. I'm not paid for this opinion, and I don't get any reward or anything....I'm just going to say it because it's true for me.

"My adventures have always lacked flair and creativity and am hoping to change that."
I really do like being on the email list over at https://www.roleplayingtips.com and look forward to the weekly emails. They are interesting, just the right size to consume easily enough, and if nothing else gets those creative juices flowing. They have several "free" tools that are good for any game, so pick them up as well. I also like system-neutral and OSR things being put out by Creighton Broadhurst over at https://www.ragingswanpress.com there are a lot of free things to sample over there as well which helps with descriptive and interesting things to build imaginative encounters with.

"My other games all fizzled early and I tend to bite off more than I can chew in picking epic-length adventure cycles."
Many of us GM's have been there and done that. We learn to take smaller bites. We learn to let the players often end on a "win" or "high note" many times so that they enjoy the game and can handle the losses and downturns when they come. Sometimes we can string some smaller encounters together rather than launching an epic-length adventure until the players have found a comfortable stride with their characters which makes them happy. Keep enjoying the shared story with your players and friends. Enjoy!!
Happy Birthday, @BoramereWrath !
A happy and healthy and lucky year for you!
 

RickJ

New member
Platinum WoA
Hello and happy new year.
I'm Eric from St-Jean-sur-Richelieu (Qc), I've been a player since the 90s: Ad&d, Heavy Gear and VTM

My MTA:Sorcerers Crusade game is on hold currently, my campaign is a homebrew I called Adventures in colonization. Its about stopping a demon from waking her slumbering mate over in the new world. Im also a player in two exciting 5e homebrews.

Being an avid fan of the classic World of darkness, its no surprise my favorite die is the the d10.
 

DG54

New member
Platinum WoA
Hello
I am new here but I have been getting the rpt newsletter for a couple of years. I guess my start in fantasy role playing came in1982 when my mother
bought Warlock of Firetop Mountain by Steve Jackson and Ian Livingstone. It was one of the endless quest books where you just needed some D6's
to play out an adventure. Looking at the bookstore for more of these I found Dragon Magazine#59 and the Red Box. and so it all began.
Soon I had the AD&D 1St edition books and anything else I could find. I spent a couple years working on my own campaign world then I found Forgotten Realms which meant I could spend more time on gaming then designing. I also used MERP and Warhammer RPG's.
Now after many new editions of the books I run a home brew mix of all of them. Over 40 years I learned what worked and what didn't so My aim was for fun gaming sessions not rules fights. A great learning tool was the old Knights of the Dinner Table cartoon that ran in Dragon Magazine years ago.
It poked fun at all the ways a game can go wrong.
I live on the edge of The Northeast Kingdom in Vermont.
My best to all
DG
 

pbianchi

Member
Gold WoA
Wizard of Story
Happy Birthday, @pbianchi! Have a nice day!

By the way, how do you celebrate Christmas in Belgium? Do the kids open their presents in the evening of the 24th or on the next morning? Are there some typical Belgium traditions?

Further, I see you are well invested in CL for the last months.
Is there anything that you miss and that would be great for us to implement?
Hi Stephan, thank you for your wishes.
I would say that here in Belgium Saint Nicholas 6th of December is bringing gifts to children. But I'm not Belgian, Italian who moved here 11 years ago.
I used CL the last year for my campaign with Ars Magica and I liked it a lot and found it useful. There are a lot of CL features that I would love to see implemented. First, the possibility to have logs that can be modified by many users. In this way more people (GMs) could potentially start to use that. Ars Magica has this troupe style game where every player takes the GM role in turn. So could be a nice way to spread its use.
Expansion of templates use/definition is another interesting field of CL evolution.
Another thing would be to have CL integrated in Foundry VTT since I recently moved to it. :)
 

JohnnFour

Game Master
Staff member
Adamantium WoA
Wizard of Story
Wizard of Combat
Gamer Lifestyle
Demonplague Author
Borderland Explorer
My mom gave me Warlock of Firetop Mountain for a Christmas present too! I do not remember if this came before or after my exposure to TTRPG though.
 

DG54

New member
Platinum WoA
It might seem limited now but it was a lot of fun back in the day. I was up all that night trying to get through. You learned the value of good mapping.
There was only a couple of the Jackson books but I got the feel of how to run a game from them. They can be found as a pdf on the net if any one else would like a blast from the past.
 

Stephan Hornick

Community Goblin & Master of the Archive
Platinum WoA
Wizard of Story
Wizard of Combat
Borderland Explorer
Greetings, Fellow Travelers and Dreamers!

Though I am using my full, real name, many in the gaming world have come to know me as Big Irish. I've been in this world a pretty long while - it's generally believed I was the first Dungeon Master in Smyrna, GA (1976), and my professional career as a writer and designer spans back over 34 years.

If you are keen to know the full bio, some folks kindly put a Wikipedia page up for me, for which I remain intensely proud and humbled at the same time.

Currently, I am the Founder, President, and Chief Creative Officer of Evil Beagle Games; the Chair of Design Practice and Senior Fellow at Liminal Research & Education (LoRE), and Chief Game Master of PORTALIS.

It's in that latter role that I come by this community and the Campaign Logger tool, quite literally in the last 48 hours. As long as I've been at this, I really, truly wish to "up my game" as a GM, and I feel the way to do that is to become much better at tracking All the Things my players will come to expect and wish to interact with in a truly rich and fulfilling immersive experience.

The system that drives all of my efforts right now is Prowlers & Paragons Ultimate Edition - which, yes, I co-designed, and I consider it my best work to date*. Superhero games (and related experiences) tend to invite a great deal of "deep dives" into world lore, personal stories, and more, so I am really hoping I figure out how to use these tools to maximize my unique purposes. Any advice in that direction is welcome and appreciated.

(*) - The original creators of CHAMPIONS are huge supporters and speak very highly of it; Ray Greer went so far as to say much of what we did points the way towards what they might have done had they continued developing the system.

I look forward to being part of this community, and am grateful to Johnn and Johchen for what they have crafted here.

- SPF
Happy Birthday, Sean!
By the way, I'm still interested in testing your Prowlers & Paragons system, if you ever feel inclined to offer a short demonstration to this community.
 

Stephan Hornick

Community Goblin & Master of the Archive
Platinum WoA
Wizard of Story
Wizard of Combat
Borderland Explorer
It might seem limited now but it was a lot of fun back in the day. I was up all that night trying to get through. You learned the value of good mapping.
There was only a couple of the Jackson books but I got the feel of how to run a game from them. They can be found as a pdf on the net if any one else would like a blast from the past.
Could you post a quick link? I'm not sure I know what to search for. My exposure to our hobby was surely different (being a German and all), although I seem to remember (oh, my memory is so bad!) that I played "something" in "a" box that was D&D first edition as my first TTRPG... just reading through the book I found on a flea market, and imagining what it would be like to play it with others, while my parents moved us to the big city and I was angry with them, because I had just lost all my friends...
 

Stephan Hornick

Community Goblin & Master of the Archive
Platinum WoA
Wizard of Story
Wizard of Combat
Borderland Explorer
No, I definitely did not play that. But it looks great!
 

DG54

New member
Platinum WoA
[Links to copyrighted material have been removed.]

These game books gave a taste of what rpg could do and for those of us living back in the woods a chance to try out this new kind of game.
The wizard on the inside of City of thieves makes me think of Elminster of later FR fame.
Cheers all
 
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devonapple

New member
Hi, folks! My name is Devon. I'm transmitting from the Bay Area of California, United States. I'm a one-time English major and voice-over artist. I enjoy comedy, science fiction, video games, and crafting game aids.

I currently run D&D 5e. I have also run Fate games (Dresden Files mostly), a lot of LARPs, and small indie games. I've been running a variety of games for 28 years, starting with Champions. My current project is a completely unpublishable Fate adaptation of Fallout.

I like the d8 most for its blend of readability, complexity, and symmetry.
 

GMJoe

New member
Hello, Joe here, also have been getting the newsletter for years, but just recently joined here!
I have been playing since 1982, and GMing since 89.

I currently GM mostly D&D5E now, but have ran and played so many different systems, Gurps, marvel, Rune quest, WEG Star Wars, Star Trek TRPG, starfleet battles, battle tech, gangbusters, boot hill, and ever D&D edition.

My favorite die is actually the D8, primarily sure to playing clerics and rangers back in the day.
 
Howdy to all! The name's Dave and it appears I am the apprentice in a dungeon full of arch mages. Played my first RPG 3 years ago after six decades of board games and video games for fun. D&D 5E is all I've known. Play virtually almost exclusively now. Currently GMing a game for my adult nephews and another for my grown children. Found Johnn Four and his newsletter just last year, its great! Love the creative outlet of world building and campaign running.

Never thought about which dice is my favorite before... but the d12 may be it. Not used a lot, but when you get to use it, you know you've earned it.
 

redmonk100

New member
Hey all 👋🏻 redmonk here. Based in the UK. I’ve been playing D&D with work friends for just over a year, and have been DM’ing a game for my kids for about 5 months.

Warlock of Firetop Mountain was my introduction to RPGs back in the 1980s which led me to board games, video games, and Warhammer 40k, and in the last few years finally brought me round to D&D. I’m actually running Warlock of FTM as a D&D module for my kids!

Favourite dice… d20 for its influence in a game, but the d12 has the most pleasing shape.
 

DG54

New member
Platinum WoA
I user Warlock of Firertop as a way to introduce new players to rpg gaming in the 80's. I would give them a player sheet from the book and some graph paper fog mapping and read the book to them from behind the DM screen. It mad an easy start to gaming then I would run the old D&D red box with them.
 
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