Thursday, July 12, 2012

Ultima Forever


From Ars Technica:

"If the eight virtues of Honesty, Compassion, Valor, Justice, Sacrifice, Honor, Spirituality, and Humility mean anything to you, then today's announcement that BioWare is launching a revamped version of Ultima IV probably means something to you as well.

Ultima Forever: Quest for the Avatar promises to be a "lovingly restored" version of the 1985 original that will be free to play on the PC and iPad, with cross-platform support allowing for cooperative play between the two platforms. Players will take over for a fighter or a mage on a quest retold with what the press release calls "trademark BioWare storytelling." We suppose this means a lot of dialogue choices, most of which lead to the same point via a slightly different route.

Development is being handled by BioWare Mythic, the team behind Dark Age of Camelot, but EA's Paul Barnett told Massively the game is not an MMO. He compared the title to single-player and small-group RPGs like Baldur's Gate and Dragon Age, instead. As for monetization, the team plans to primarily sell vanity items like "golden galleons" and "bigger hot air balloons" to make up for giving away the basic game. "We don't keep poking you for cash; we just leave you alone," he said, no doubt to the relief of many.

BioWare is currently taking sign-ups for a pending beta test."

Just when I'm playing at waveinabox.net a campaign set in the Ultima world! :)

Wednesday, July 11, 2012

Rust - TPK


What follows is Greg Chrstopher's recap as posted in G+:

"[Alex] avoided a TPK last night. [His] character survived by going back to town with a cough. "

"First, they tried to go aggro on the ghouls again. This resulted in Gerardo being shot at point blank range by two guys with shotguns. He survived only by the grace of metal armor. But he was captured, along with Gabriel, and the door was closed again. Gabriel was offered a deal to go south and kill some farmers, if he did that they would release Gerardo after he healed up from his wounds (they treated him).

So they went south, pretended to be nice to the farmers, got a warm meal, and then had a whispered conversation on the porch about killing all the farmers. They didn't realize one of the farmer's kids was under the porch until he tossed a grenade up there.

Ray grabbed the grenade but couldn't throw it in time. He was reduced to a bloody mess with 1 hp. Gabriel opened the door into the house, unloaded a full clip and hit only... 1 dude. For 4 damage, which was stopped by armor. So.... Gabriel took a barrage of fire from 8 people and was critically wounded. Then Jason, sensing he was about to die, threw Ray's broken body over his shoulder and ran to the end of the porch. The chief farmer came around the corner with a shotgun and dropped him, killing Ray with the splash damage.

Then, standing over the two wounded PCs, he said....

"Bobby, go fire up the woodchipper".

And then the session ended.

Well, it ended after I described Gerardo getting a fighter jet that the ghouls had in their base up and running, but he crashed it into the ground. There is an inside joke there, but I have written enough here for now :)"



EDIT:

whoop whoop
whoop whoop
terrain terrain
pull up
pull up
whoop whoop

:)

Tuesday, July 10, 2012

Castle Zagyg - session 7


Session #7 (July 4th)

And once again David Brawley on his blog wrote it first. :)

The party:

Kellan (human illusionist)
Kip (human fighter, Kellan's follower)
Nick the Pike (human fighter)
Gimli of Geoff (dwarven fighter)


"Returning from the jousting fields of Harflur, Nick the Pike again joined Kellan and Gimli in cleaning out the caves and corridors under Castle Zagyg. Much of the time was spent mapping out areas that had been previously skipped, and most of these areas had recently been cleaned out. The adventurers that the group had chased into the elves’ cave seem to have survived. Finding a back entrance into the elves’ cave Kellan and Gimli checked what the elves had in stock. It turns out it was some fairly impressive items, including one that I don’t even want to mention. According to the elves most of the items had been traded in/sold to the by the other adventurers! The party was in utter shock and disbelief that the other adventurers would sell such a potent item…

After a relatively uneventful day spent mapping out empty corridors, they returned to the castle via the canyon path. The sounds of battle caught their ears as they approached the gate. The goblins standing guard yelled out that adventurers had broken into the castle! Opening the gate the party rushed in to see a gnome illusionist, a human wizard, two plate armored fighters, and a plate armored cleric. Kellan cast Fear, causing one of the fighters to flee, while Nick tossed his Javelin of Lightening, dropping the gnome and injuring the cleric. Kip shot an arrow, hitting the wizard.
Gimli poisoned his war hammer.

In return the wizard dropped a massive fireball on the party, killing the goblins and men-at-arms, and seriously injuring the party. The cleric attempted to blind Kellan, but he shrugged darkness off. The remaining fighter positioned himself between the party and his spellcasters. Nick and Gimli charged at the fighter who fended off their blows. Kellan blinded the enemy fighter while Kip slipped around stabbing the wizard.

Again seizing the initiative, the enemy cleric blinded Kellan, and the wizard held Gimli. Kip skewered the wizard, while Kellan conjured a goblin hero to attempt to rally the terrified goblin defenders of the castle. Unfortunately the fact that Kellan was blind caused the phantasmal goblin to alternately float several inches above the ground, or sink knee deep into it. Nick pushed past the blinded fighter, sinking his ax deep into the cleric who dropped his mace and fell to his knees in surrender. The fighter and cleric were stripped, bound, and interrogated.

The captured adventurers told the party that they returned their treasure to the town, hence their lack of gold. It was decided that the blind fighter would be escorted back to the town to get ransom for the cleric and for the removal of the blindness. When after 3 days the fighter did not return, the cleric was executed and given to the remaining goblins."

Sunday, July 08, 2012

Rust

Last Tuesday (July 3rd) night we continued playtesting +Greg Chistopher's RUST RPG.

A tiny UAV appeared near the antenna, so Alex and I decided to follow it. It went south across Highway 40 and into some hills. It reached a small valley where it met a robot and it perched to its shoulder, then walked away until they came to what looked like a storage door on the side of a hill. The door opened and the robot entered. As the door came down we ran for it, but Alex fell behind. I entered just as the door closed behind me. Pitch black. Just the sound of the robot walking ahead. I lit a flashlight pointing down.

"What's that light?", says a voice in the dark.

I turned it down and moved to the side following the door. Footsteps approach. The sound of a lever being pulled and the door starts to open. On the outside Alex moves closer to the side of the door pistol ready. Two ghouls (like in Fallout), one with a shotgun and one with a pistol, point their weapons at me.

"Who are you? What are you doing here?", the ghoul with the shotgun asks.

"Nothing, just exploring. I followed the robot", I answer holding my hands up.

"He looks suspicious, let's take it to Ames. Got any gun?", say the other ghoul.

I slowly got my pistol out and throw it outside. BLAM! BLAM BLAM! The ghoul with the shotgun gets shot in the head and drops dead. BLAM! BLAM BLAM! The other ghoul goes down heavily wounded. I pull out my combat knife and put it on his throat.

"Drop your weapon or you are dead!", I say to the wounded ghoul.

The sound of a lever being pulled and the door starts to shut. BLAM! A shot hits near me as I roll outside. The door shuts down.

We've pissed the ghouls. Next time we'll send the guy with the fireman's axe.

Saturday, July 07, 2012

Castle Zagyg - Sesisons 5&6 recap


Session #5 (June 22nd)

The party:

Kellan (human illusionist)
Kip (human fighter, Kellan's follower)
Carma (elven fighter/thief?)
Grimclaw (human cleric, Carma's follower)
Celmar(?) (human magic user)
Deerbeer (Celmar's war dog)
Gimli of Geoff (dwarf fighter)

Before continuing exploring the caves below Castle Zagyg, Gimli has to get a new armor, so he ordered a chain mail suit from the pirate city of Freeport. After it arrived, the party went to the see the elven traders to see what other magic items they had. Kellan and Carma bought Gimli a shield (+1) and a ring of protection (+1). Now with the dwarf properly set, the party with a group of goblins went tot clear a bat cave under one of the towers. Before the cleansing we scrapped a couple of buckets of a strange phosphorescent lichen from the walls. A net was set on the entrance to trap any fleeing bats and fire grenades thrown into the cavern ceiling. We didn't want all the guano on the floor to catch fire and explode.

Maybe it was the smoke, the smell of burnt bats or the commotion that attracted an ogre to investigate. As the goblins fled, Carma, Kip and Gimli charged at the ogre while Kellan, Grimclaw and Celmar casted spells at it. The ogre seemed to resist every spell and landed a vicious hit on Kip! Finally we managed to hit the ogre enough to make him flee, only to face an owl bear. While he two beasts fought each other we and our goblin minions threw arrows, spears, javelins and bolts at them. The owl bear killed the ogre and we killed the owl bear.

We then went off to find the ogre's lair. It was one of the many caves in the ravine surrounding the castle. This one was blocked by a heavy portcullis and led to a dungeon that connected to the orc compound we've previously explored. It's good to tie lose ends.

And at the end of the session Gimli reached level 3!



Session #6 (June 29th)

The party:

Kellan (human illusionist)
Kip (human fighter, Kellan's follower)
Corkin (human bard)
Gimli of Geoff (dwarf fighter)

Continuing with task of clearing the caves, the party went to get rid of some snakes that were holed up in a nearby cave with a pond. As soon as we entered the cave snakes came out of the walls into the pond and begun swimming towards us. We retreated and poured the content of some alchemical grenades in the water, and set in on fire. The smoke made the snakes come out of the cave but the goblins hacked them down. We took the bodies of the snakes to the goblin shaman who managed to extract 3 doses of venom from them.

We told the goblin shaman about the grey ooze that lurked behind a secret door in his shrine. He didn't know about it, so we invited him to come along with us since we were going to kill it. Last time fire and cold didn't harmed it, so this time we took salt and goblin moonshine. Upon arrival to the place we threw that at it, but it didn't worked. It was then when Corkin took out his wand (some kind of laser gun actually, from another FLAILSNAILS game) and shot at the thing making a hole in it! He shot it again an the ooze melted away.

(At this point Corkin left)

We continued exploring the passage and it ended in a cavern with a pool of water. There were some strange mushrooms and an unconscious rat beside them. We threw the rat into the water and some snails crawled out of the water. A goblin delicatessen since they feasted on them. A sinkhole could be seen at the bottom of it about 40' down. A corridor with some stairs going up was opposite to us across the pool. We sent some goblins across and up the stairs. Soon we heard horrible cries of pain and we hurried to the spot. A couple of goblins we covered in a green slime that was eating them alive. Kellan used his wand of cold on one and Gimli threw a couple of fire grenades to the other, killing both goblins and slime. Up the stairs we found the corpses of some gnolls and following the corridor we came outside to the ravine.

Then we came back to the pool and Kellan casted invisibility to Gimli. Gimli stripped of his armor and dived for the sinkhole. A short underwater tunnel led to another cave with an iron door. He carefully opened it and some stairs going down led to an archway with runes. He closed the door and went back to inform. Soon all the party was in this new cavern. After donning his armor Gimli went exploring ahead and as soon as he reached the archway all the party was teleported to an unknown place!

The party was in a corridor in front of a door. We opened the door and we found... an armory! We took everything we could, the goblins armed themselves to their teeth and we wet exploring. At some point we killed some spiders, found a golden ring, some gnomish whiskey and half a dozen potions. Then Kellan drank a potion of treasure finding and we begun following his directions. We explored for a log time until we found 4 dwarves and 6 gnomes in a chapel to the dwarven god of gold, gems, greed, avarice, cunning and treachery. Gimli was so excited to see his kin that forgot he was invisible and ran to hug the leader. This surprised the dwarves and gnomes who drew their weapons. The spell broke and Gimli apologized for his behavior. The dwarves offered food and drink and asked for news from outside since they lived there and guarded the passage to other parts of the castle. After that Gimli made an offering to the god and on his way back noticed a secret door. It was the door that led to the treasure they were looking for! At that point the atmosphere was thick with distrust so we left.

Only to came the following day with almost two dozen goblins and attacked the dwarves and gnomes. We opened with a volley of fire grenades and javelins before charging into melee. A huge fight followed with several dead goblins, as well as all the gnomes, and all the dwarves except two. Kellan wanted to kill them but Gimli opposed, so we looted the treasure and the bodies, tied up he prisoners and left.

Gimli got a plate mail (+1), a shield (+2) and a war hammer (+2), and also loads of gold and XPs that took him right to level 5!

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