Return to Castle Ravenloft!

Howdy folks!

A couple of weeks ago, Jerry brought us a real treat.  He had been to a local game store near OKC, and saw something that hearkened back to adventures of old.  Seized by a sudden impulse, he grabbed up a copy of one of Wizards of the Coast new Dungeons & Dragons boardgame, Castle Ravenloft.  It had been his experience (and my own) that boxed games of this ilk tend to be very fun, and remain collectors items for years.  Oh, woe to us, how we didn't keep up with our Heroquest and Warhammer Quest and Dragon Quest and maybe even First Quest.

I'll cut to it...Castle Ravenloft is a blast!  We first tried it out back during Halloween's festivities, and it proved a huge hit right off the bat.  What I found interesting, however, is how close the game seems to be to Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition.

It plays fast and quick, and it's easily taught to new players.  If those players are gamers already, it swiftly becomes second nature to breeze through a turn.  The mechanics are simple yet elegant, but are very similar at the same time to the new edition of it's parent game.  I had sworn never to get 4th Edition, but it was this game that changed my mind about that.

It plays fast, and there are a lot of cool components like Power, Treasure and Monster Cards to tinker with, as well as the miniatures for the heroes and monsters that come in the game.  There is an Adventure Book that presents a series of missions that form sort of a campaign.  We've been playing through the adventures here at the Wargate, and they are far from easy, which makes for great re-playability.  I think we had to try the first group mission four or five times before we succeeded, and the next time we play it will be the third time for the group to try the specific mission we are attempting to finish!

There are Encounter Cards that create nifty effects like traps or magical dangers such as the Icy Corridor.  It has a randomness to it that likens it to Diablo the video game a bit, but it's still a huge hoot.  It even provides gamer nostalgia, because after all, it is Castle Ravenloft!!

It's almost like Speed D&D.  The game can turn deadly very quickly should the heroes become separated, and some of the monsters and other dangers are quite nasty in and of themselves.  The game uses a system for Healing Surges that gives the party a certain number of "resurrections".  You decide how many Surge Tokens your party will take (between 3 and 5 usually), and every time a hero goes down, at the beginning of his next turn he spends one of the party's tokens.  When a hero has fallen and cannot get up (due to there being no more Healing Surges), the game is over and you lose. HAHAHAHAA.

The Dungeon Tiles are another interesting bit.  A lot of those old boxed games came with large dungeon boards or tiles, and Castle Ravenloft does not disappoint.  The squares are the perfect size for a tactical map, if you're into using a grid.  If you're not, they are still well illustrated and can serve alongside your other gaming utensils to provide you with even more RPG or wargame fodder!

After playing the game, I found out it had kin!  Wizards has done another boxed game that is almost identical, except it has different heroes, monsters and a different setting!  It's called Wrath of Ashardalon, and it's all about dragons!  Set at Firestorm Peak, another iconic dungeon, I've heard that the two of these games can be combined into a giant mega dungeon!

I'm considering getting it just for the components, but the games themselves present hours of fun in and of themselves.  So the next time we go vampire hunting, try not to use up all the surges if one of Strahd's goons comes over and lures you into a secret hallway teeming with undead monsters.  Regroup!

Warband Briefing: The Pharoah's Mace

The

Pharoah's

Mace

By Scriveners Hannan and Potter

Land of the Dead, 2522 I.C.

Awakened by a call of unknown origin, Atekh-ra-amon, the most High King of Numas, rose from his thousand year slumber.  Impelled by a renewed desire to fill his coffers and assert the might of Nehekhara upon mortals, he called for his priests to assemble his army at once.  The High Priests set to work, and after much labor raised a great army that pleased their master, Atekh-ra-amon.  The King of Numas would once again feel the thrill of battle and feel the glory of victory.

Mighty Atekh-ra-amon summoned his eldest son, Prince Armaeus.  He spoke at length with him, and called forth the Liche-Priest Zaphnath-Paaneah.  They were dispatched with an important mission, to the lands far from their home in Numas.  The Prince and the Liche-Priest departed from Numas to parts unknown, searching for strange treasures and arcane secrets.  For many years they traveled, and recently have come upon a place called Khazid Grimaz.

The Doomforge

Armaeus and his undead warriors have found gold and treasure, even warpstone.  However, the rumors of something called the Doomforge has captured their attention.  It is said that the dwarfs of the Khazid Grimaz possess the ability to channel the power of the Realm of Chaos using this magical item.  Zaphnath-Paaneah is certain he can understand the magics of this strange contraption, and use it for the High King.  Armaeus himself only wishes to please his father, for that would greatly increase his power and standing.

It is unknown as yet whether the Doomforge can be found, or if it will even be useful.  At least there is a treasure to be had, and many enemies to garner glory from in tireless battle.  Only time and prowess will tell if the Pharoah's Mace will successfully return to their home in the Land of the Dead, laden with riches and gifts for their deathless King.

Josh's Adherents of the Repeated Mean

Welcome back to the Wargate!!

Today we're going to talk about Josh's new Mordheim warband, the Adherents of the Repeated Mean.  A few interesting things about this warband, and Josh took a moment to tell us a few interesting things about his warband.  

Firstly, this warband has been formed of two separate Mordheim Possessed boxed sets.  Half the models once belonged to Dirty Greg, but with all of that stuff on his Mountain of Models, he never quite got to them.  Josh loves pointy hats, and well....

Another nifty thing about this warband is that it's the first project at the Wargate that was completed entirely with Army Painter supplies.  The primer and paints were all purchased in one of their Wargamer Starter Paint sets.  The paints checked out great.  Some settling did occur, but when they were shaken (not stirred) they performed admirably.

Josh used a nifty gimmick to break up the monotony of the figure's poses.  These are pretty old, and they only cast a few different warriors.  Check out the pics above and you'll see an alternating paint scheme that is really cool.  In practice, this gives him the ability to dictate different statistics or skills for individual warriors, as they are each unique (even though they are twins).

  

The models were shaded with Quickshade Strong Tone, and the bases were made to resemble greasy, green warpstone!  All in all, the project looks slick as all get out.

We're going to be taking a look at some of Josh's other projects, as well as some other stuff by the guys here at the 'gate.

And remember, Magister Kakikak sez "Get your Warbands painted, nerds!"

Divergence from Canon

Howdy folks!  Thanks for dropping by the ol 'gate for a short chat with your buddy, Dave Bone.  I have some things to say today about how we're going to be approaching an issue that's plagued gamers for as long as there have been games.  I'm talking about that scourge of the plotline, that eater of good ideas - canon!

For those that aren't sure, canon is defined by Wiktionary as "Those sources, especially including literary works, which are generally considered authoritative regarding a given fictional universe."  Of course, in the context of Middle-Earth, that means pretty much anything that Tolkien (either one) ever published is accepted to be true.  At the Wargate, we extend this canon to most works that involve Middle-Earth, including the rpg's by Iron Crown and Decipher, and also the wargames by Games Workshop.

However, we're going a further step with our divergence from canon.  We're going shy away from canon, for the most part.  We can do this by telling stories that are "allowed" to exist within the auspices of the established works.  We can even use characters from the canon to fight our battles and explain away what has happened to exist within the canon.  Take Elrond in our Goblin King campaign last summer.  He was slain by a horde of goblins during a battle near the borders of his kingdom.  The ages are long, this totally could have happened sometime during the "downtime" presented in the novels as a minor event.  Obviously, Elrond was not killed, but wounded perhaps.

In other cases, we intend re-write the history of Middle-Earth as we go.  Consider the Wargate's Middle-Earth to be a parallel dimension to Tolkien's Middle-Earth.  We'll keep careful track of what changes, much the same way we keep track of things happening in our Old World or Mardannon Sector.  Quite a lot can change, but there are other questions to ask also.

The Age of Middle-Earth that we decide to inhabit will probably remain the Wargate's "official era".  I'll talk about the different opportunities and challenges the particular Ages present in a later post, but for now do consider that even with sweeping changes, in certain ages the effects of particular events may or may not have as much meaning as in an earlier or later age.  I hear that time paradoxes tend to work themselves out.

As the stewards of the many realms of the Wargate, it's our duty to look after the folk of this Middle-Earth as well.  Our armies gather, and a very different world and story can emerge that we can enjoy just as much as the original works, because we get to be a part of it.  It's time to embrace divergence from canon.

Warband Briefing: Adherents of the Repeated Mean

The

Adherents

of the

Repeated Mean

By Scriveners Hannan and Swearingen

Altdorf, 2493-2522 I.C.

Pythagorus was a moneychanger who made a fair bit of coin plying his trade in Altdorf, until one day he was offered a rare tome by a client who could not pay.  He accepted the expensive looking tome, and began his research into it's contents - a radical new theorem of mind-bottling mathematics.  As he applied  it's teachings to his trade, he was able to achieve a vast amount of wealth in a short time.

In addition to it's practical elements, the tome, Theoretical Algorithms for the Applied Abrogation of Limitations, was full of proposed theories that bordered on the insane - and worse, the heretical.  As he would intone the litanies and scrawled the profane diagrams and symbols contained therein, Pythagorus was mildly surprised when he began to sprout mutations.  As his acceptance of the Chaos contagion grew, so did his physical markings, which included his easily recognizable third and fourth arms.

A Lord of Change

As Pythagorus was forced to flee Altdorf due to his inability to conceal the growing taint within himself, the daemon of the book began to speak with him.  Zimiz, a daemon who had been trapped within the book to calculate the exact number of pi for all eternity for a transgression against his master, had finally found a human  to carry on his work in his stead.  Pythagorus had calculated the mythical number to the ten thousandth decimal (per the book's instruction) and Zimiz grew strong.

The daemon made contact with his nearly-gibbering devotee, and charged him with a new task that was crucial to his plan to escape.  The mutant mathematician would be set to scour the world for sets of identical infant children.  Pythagorus, under the auspices of his new master, set about creating a cult.  Nearly thirty years later, the children that were stolen by the mutant in the night would grow strong and demented in their devotion to their daemon master.

The cult's ultimate goal is to summon their master to the mortal world, and destroy the prison that binds his master.  They search far and wide for money and wyrdstone to fuel this mighty endeavor, for it is no trifle of a ritual to do this.  Pythagorus has been promised many gifts for his servitude, which he hopes might include the favor of his fickle and capricious god.

The truth is often different for the servants of such entities, but when Pythagorus has calculated the ten millionth decimal of pi, time will tell which of his hopes and fears prove to be true.

Wargate Swag!!

Howdy folks!

We've had a bit of a buzz around the club the last few weeks, and with good reason!  We've actually legitimized our club with a fair bit of sponsorship, what with Krampusfest last weekend and the Wargate Christmas events we have planned.  However, I want to talk about something that's truly given a bit of identity to our club and created a wave of enthusiasm so radical I think every club should give it a try.

Of course I'm talking about club swag!

We've gotten a bunch of items printed, from the postcards you see above, to a decidedly R rated (for coarse language) poster for the club!  Jerry's been on top of our design team and has put together t-shirts for the club,  gotten postcards, some invitationals (which might show up in your mailbox around Christmas time) and even a huge banner that's on it's way now!  Expect to see it in the background of upcoming posts, and above the table during game nights!

Here's the original staff of the Wargate, posing in our awesome new club tees!  These T-shirts are available to any club member (just ask one of us, or better yet ask Jerry), so grab one up to support the Wargate in the community!  Or just to represent whilst bangin' around town!

I think that this has been one of the straight-up coolest things we've done so far.  Yeah, it costs some money.  However, if you're truly dedicated to your game and your game club, why not try out being a sponsor for events or swag production?

I'll tell you, there's nothing better than being a sponsor of the Game Club.

The Wargate's Krampus Day Special, 2010!

Yesterday was Krampus Day, 2010 and the Wargate is happy to announce that the Krampusfest will be an annual event every year!  Yesterday we had gaming all day long, and our bratwurst dinner had tummies quite fat and the end of the evening!

There was all manner of grub laying about, including the standard holiday fare of pies and Krampus cake!

We even had a visit from Krampus himself! Appropriately enough, he decided to show up during our game of Castle Ravenloft!  Maybe we could make a special villain card for him next year.

You can see some of the guys stuffing sausage in their mouths, absolutely unperturbed by the presence of the Germanic boogeyman.  They must have been good this year!

Next year we'll be doing an even more grandiose Krampusfest, but you'll have to wait until next yuletide to get in on the fun.  Anyone who wants to help make a better Krampus Day, just get with the Wargate staff and we'll put you on the Krampus Day committee!

Make sure to tell your little chitlin's about the Krampus, because it's not just coal you get if you get on Saint Nick's 'bad' list.  You get beaten with a birch branch by a monstrous creature of yore.  

Then you get put in a sack and thrown in the river.  This is truly a children's holiday.

Dark Heresy: Under A Vast Grey Sky Characters

Greetings!

For the last few weeks we've been playing in a Dark Heresy game called Under A Vast Grey Sky.  In this game, the players have been charged by the Ordo Hereticus to root out the taint of heresy on the planet Lucruzu Prime, deep in the Vae Salubrious subsector of Mardannon.  Here they have run across several issues, and the investigation hasn't gone according to plan at all - mostly because there hasn't been one.

I've been trying to compile some data on the characters, but they are quite - elusive.  I present here a short primer on a few of the agents of the Inquisition present on Lucruzu, from the point of the view of the Ordo Hereticus, going clockwise in the photo-log above. This represents Inquisitor Mandera's main operative cell.

---

• Able - One of the 'Sons of Vittium' hive gang, this youthful acolyte was given to Mandera as part of a tithe from the gang itself.  Assigned to Lucruzu mission with the rest of the hive gangers.
• Kull - Not much is known about where this feral warrior originated, but he has been one of Comptroller Bosch's bodyguards for several years.  Assigned to Lucruzu Prime to provide added muscle to the unit.
• Khan - An acolyte drawn from the holds of the Abyssinia, an ancient Chartist vessel, this adept bears Inquisitor Mandera's rosette.  He has been involved in the Inquisitor's machinations for some time, without knowledge of such.  Activated to act as liaison to Imperial institutions planetside.
• Lizzie -  Originally from Attono Vittium, this plucky hive scum somehow managed to stow away aboard the Abyssinia after the Inquisitor gathered his agents from there.  She was sentenced to death by the ship's security ratings, but Comptroller Bosch noted that she had enough wit to get aboard the ship in the first place.  Lizzie was made to swear allegiance to the ordo, and sent planetside with the others to test her value.
• Shi-319 - A death cult assassin long sworn to the service of the Emperor, this mysterious figure is absolutely unfathomable.  Even the gender is unknown.
• Murkul - The tech priest of the group has also only been recently activated to direct Inquisitorial service, and was aboard the Abyssinia for the last part of it's long trade route.  Since arriving planetside, he has spent a great deal of time securing weapons from the manufactorums in Domagoshch.
• Caine - Another hive ganger from Attono Vittium, this older warrior served in the Xenos Wars on that world against the vile Eldar.  Activated along with other elements from Attono Vittium, this acolyte was added to the unit for his extensive military training.
• Metalus - A hardened Arbitrator, Metalus is a highly devoted servant of the Emperor.  Inquisitor Mandera noticed the Metalus' faith during a policing action, and seconded him to his retinue as he returned to the Abyssinia. Activated on Lucruzu Prime to add knowledge and influence with various Imperial institutions planetside.  

---

Feel free to comment on your characters to add details I may have left out that you want recorded for posterity!

Tomorrow is Krampus Day!  Make sure to tell your little ones the old tales, just in case they get the idea there's no downside to being bad!

Dungeons, Dragons & the Wargate

Howdy folks!

It's Dave Bone again, writing to you from the Pandemonium of the Internet.  This time I'm going to talk about something that's going to become relevant once more at the Wargate, after a long long absence from the table.  Of course, I'm talking about that Grand Daddy of all things RPG - Dungeons & Dragons!

It's been a while since we left our D20 Realms, but we'll be reviving that old tradition of classic races and classes with a vengeance!  You see, here at the Wargate, we don't believe in "Edition Wars" - arguments over which edition of the game is better.  Each edition of every game is different, and in some cases the new editions are better.  In others, they are not.  Realistically speaking, I think the Edition Wars are fought between an "old school" or "old guard" who are steeped in a current or previous editions and who feel let down that the line is being discontinued and a new one being supported - and the fresh blood of those who aren't as vested (monetarily) in an older edition.

Over the next year, we'll be running through several Dungeons & Dragons games here at the Wargate.  A lot of those games will be run by different GM's, and I'll have the schedule for the games and GM's coming soon.  However, many of those games that will claim to be Dungeons & Dragons will seem to be very different games to those of you who aren't as familiar with the different materials we'll be using.

To that end, I present to you the Wargate's 2011 D&D primer, packed with plenty of edition history and sneak peeks at what's to come!!

Well, lets start at the beginning.  I'm going to run through this briefly, without too much detail.

---

In the early 1970's, some guys in Wisconsin were playing wargames.  They played all kinds of games, from a popular game at the time called Napoleonics to homebrewed rules for medieval wargames. Some guy named Gygax thought wizards would be cool in his medieval wargames after reading the Dying Earth novels of Jack Vance.  This was a club of gamers, like our own, but they wanted to make money.  They called themselves the Lake Geneva Tactical Studies Association, and they developed the game known as Chainmail in 1971.  When the club went commercial it changed it's name to Tactical Studies Rules, but would later be known in the gaming world simply as TSR Hobbies, Inc

The creation and demise of TSR, and it's being bought by Wizards of the Coast over a decade ago, is a matter fraught with all kinds of backstabbing, slander, incompetence and general SNUTLINESS.  That's another matter however, and not the subject of this article.  However, the drama between the shareholders, owners and others who were involved in the industry at it's very start is quite compelling, and I encourage readers to seek out this information for themselves.  It's a very interesting, cautionary tale of why you must be careful when "friends" and money are involved.

However all that would turn out 25+ years later, in 1974 Dungeons & Dragons came about as an 'evolved' version of Chainmail that included the fantastic elements we all know and love.  This is what I consider to be the beginning of the modern gaming era.

In 1977, TSR got the "great" idea that it would be necessary to adopt a "two-pronged" strategy.  That is, there was Dungeons & Dragons, but now there would also be Advanced Dungeons & Dragons.  In '77, the Basic boxed set for D&D was published, and from '77 to '79 would see the main rulebooks for the advanced version published for the first time:  the Player's Handbook, the Dungeon Master's Guide, and the Monster Manual.

TSR's practices really got silly in the 80's and 90's.  Different lines, different editions and the apparent inability of the TSR marketing department to put forth cohesive themes all contributed to the downfall, but the current management at the time was mind bogglingly incompetent.  In 1989, the 2nd Edition was published, but the line was still not unified and this confused a lot of prospective gamers.  Hell it even confused veterans at times.  To illustrate this point, and the fact that TSR was driven squarely into the ground by the management over a number of years, the 2nd Edition books were republished in 1996.  These books were the first to have a cohesive design template (they all looked like they belonged together in a set).  I bought these because they looked cool, not because I needed them - the 1989 books were the exact same text.

The next year, 1997, TSR was put out of its misery.  It and it's intellectual property was bought out by gaming giant Wizards of the Coast.

In the year 2000, the D20 version of the main rulebooks were published.  What followed was a renaissance in gaming, and for nearly a decade D&D 3.0 / 3.5 was the absolute ruler of the realm.  The Open Game License was put into place, and third party publishers who had no love under the reign of TSR now flooded the scene with all kinds of interesting 3.5 sourcebooks.  To this day, I know no other game system which so much material has been generated for.

In 2003 the 3.5 editions of the basic rulebooks were published.  I felt like Wizards was trying to rape me, then beat me and take my money.  This was when our game club went to town on the first "Edition War" we had to fight.  Even today, I feel that this particular iteration of D&D wasn't meant to fix anything wrong with 3.0.  Yeah, yeah...I've heard it all before.  This is unbalanced and that doesn't work right - but in all our years of gaming I never encountered anything that I felt required a new edition of the game to be built, so that I could continue to game.  

No no.  What ruined my love affair with the D20 system was Wizards of the Coast's coercion of me to buy new books just a few short years after the publication of a brand new edition.  Sigh.  That is also a conversation for another topic, but suffice to say that soon after 2003, we quit playing D&D.

Then came 2008.

What was to be the 4th Edition of Dungeons & Dragons didn't even resemble what I knew.  Even the D20 system (3.0/3.5) looked more like the game I knew and loved than did - whatever the hell that game was.  4th Edition was universally reviled at the Wargate, and I think I know why.

The artwork and design.  The artwork is very anime style and a lot of us don't like that with our Swords & Sorcery, preferring to save that particular imagery for Samurai & Ninjas or Robots & Spaceships.  Also, a lot of "sacred cows" had been abandoned during the development of the new edition.

It didn't feel like D&D, so I couldn't play it like it was.  However, at the same time, something else happened...

Pathfinder was published.  This game, published by Paizo Publishing in 2008, extended the OGL and the 3.5 edition as an entirely different game by a different publisher.  Yeah, that's how drastic the 4th Edition transfer was - the Edition Wars spiraled so far out of control another game was created.  One game, but now with two different versions.  Kind of like Basic D&D and AD&D way back in the 80's and early 90's.

Similar, all of these...but very different in practice.  So, we shall ascend above the Edition Wars with the Wargate's new Dungeons & Dragons initiative, spearheaded by GM's Shawn, Skim and Greg!

I can hear you asking, "how are we going to do that, Dave?" or "What Edition will be the official Wargate Edition?"  The answers are easy:  delineation of tasks!!  We've put these editions in their places!!  

If you look back through the editions at the massive amount of material that has been published, you can see a lot of stuff only existed for a certain amount of time, or were only recently brought back.  To that end, we're going to use the native systems for the campaign settings.  There has been a lot of talk about 'converting' material from one edition to another, and I have to say that I really hate doing that crap.  However, since we are gamers of the highest caliber and are familiar with most of the material anyway, we will be playing ALL OF THESE EDITIONS.

Each one has a use it is best put to!  We've been planning far far ahead with what will be happening at the Wargate, and you'll see that we'll be riding along through each edition in time!  Below is what we'll be using different editions to do over the next few years!

• AD&D 2nd Edition will be used to run the Spelljammer setting, as this is the only edition it exists in.
• D&D 3rd Edition will be used to run the Greyhawk setting, as it is the default setting this edition.
• D&D 4th Edition will be used to run the Dark Sun setting, as it has recently been republished.
• Pathfinder will be used to run Pathfinder Chronicles and certain homebrew settings.

It took me a while to warm to D&D 4e, but when I saw the new Dark Sun books I knew the flavor I was looking for.  4e didn't sit well with me when it was published, but my heart is on Greyhawk.  It wasn't the right fit.  4e's flavor and mechanics just seem to - fit - the setting of Dark Sun and we'll be gating back to Athas for the first time in over 13 years!!

We will be able to explore in a full manner the merits of all sides of the Edition Wars.  We will explore the worlds of classic and current Dungeons & Dragons as they were meant to be explored - with the original materials for that Edition.  By the time this next year is done, you'll all be experts in the evolution of gaming by retroactively experiencing it.

Thanks for reading, and remember: this Sunday (Game Day) is Krampus Day!!  So roll on over to the Wargate to get in on our Krampus Day Feast!!  Dinner is served at 6:00, so try to be here for all the Krampus Day cheer!!