Redbeard's Gaming Blog

Howdy.

This blog will mostly be about gaming, with occasional other nerdy cultural topics. I've got plenty of other interests, but lately I've been typing more and more about gaming.

Current Gaming Interests
I've been running a 3.5 campaign for nearly three years. I love the group, and I love the depth that these players tolerate and that the long running campaign allows. However, I am more and more hateful of the system. You'll likely hear what I do and don't like about 3.5. You'll also hear me enthuse (and occasionally complain) about this group of friends, and my devious laughter (or painful tears) regarding schemes I'm plotting.

I also play and run in a Castles and Crusades sandbox. It is set in Greyhawk, using Yggsburgh and Castle Zagyg. This is actually where my gaming passion lies these days. This campaign is co-DMed and has a large community of players (14!) so you'll likely hear about the unique situations that brings up, as well as my thoughts on C&C rules and my creative process in this campaign.

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Pondering: Getting to the Good Parts in a Megadungeon

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Thinking out loud:  suppose you’ve got an episodic megadungeon campaign.     Each session, the group picks a location in the megadungeon to explore.   Sometimes these locations are already deep within the dungeon.   Now, a well-designed megadungeon has multiple entrances, some of which provide ready access to deeper parts.   But what if those entrances haven’t been found yet?   Reality impedes our gaming quite enough – how much time do we spend just “getting to the good parts”?    I'm pondering a game mechanic - whether a random roll, skill check or something more or less involved that can shorten that process.  I haven't made one yet, but I'm putting this out here for feedback. Some groups may spend precious game time working through the map (newly restocked as a megadungeon should) attempting to avoid encounters.   Other games or groups may just hand wave away this difficulty and start play deep within the dungeon.   I’d consider that, but it seems to remove
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A Traveller Campaign: DM ADD

The sandbox co-DMed Castles and Crusades game continues.  With school I'm not there every week, but the game goes on.  I'm also playing in a bi-weekly Hackmaster game, thankfully not DMing on that one. But a buddy bugged me about running a Traveller game.  What the hell?  Why would he do that to me?  Not that I've never done that to him (twice, for the record).  But then I couldn't get it out of my head until I'd written 3 pages on it. Here's the first, the overall setting "What has the Galaxy gone up to now?"  If I get around to it, I've got campaign assumptions, and a page on initial location and characters and a bit on some initial hooks. The big question: does this make you want to get out 2d6 and a sheet of paper and roll for survival?  Or yawn at all the tropes? * The Directorate is over.   It’s done.   Its fuel tanks are empty and its lost and adrift.   Ain’t no refueling this sucker. It wasn’t the Free Federation of Plane
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Faction Connections in a Megadungeon

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Yes, I do indeed have a blog and have content to post! I spend more time running games and playing them than I do blogging and commenting, though I have wasted time on that recently. To make amends, I offer something constructive to the blogosphere: a blatant rip of Zak's NPC connection diagram from his excellent Vornheim the Complete City Kit . It's a common trope that the population of megadungeons are divided into factions involved in a byzantine web of interconnected rivalries and alliances. This is necessary since otherwise the megadungeon inhabitants would react to the external threat of the PCs with united force, and there would be no rational for open by-ways allowing freedom of movement necessary for player choice. The PCs explore the megadungeon and are primed to take advantage of the splits to divide and conquer. Giving these relations substance allows for roleplaying and negotiation as a player choice. The tribes in Caverns of Thracia, the factions w
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