Halloween... Traumatizing The World One Child At A Time

Wait... It's happening NEXT weekend?

There are gaming conventions all around the world.  Some are big, some are small, but all of them have one thing in common; a need for organization.  A few years ago Las Vegas had the distinction of getting its very own "big" gaming convention called Neoncon.  Last year, they even hosted the Iron GM event and I was really excited when I heard that they would have the Iron GM again this year.  I subscribed to their site and eagerly waited to find out more.

Time went by and very little information appeared so I set a message to one of the event organizers asking specifically about the Iron GM event.  If I could make it to the whole con I really wanted to make sure I at least made it to this.

More time passed.

Now the con is one mere week away and instead of being giddy with anticipation, I was mildly surprised to hear that it was happening so soon.  The Neoncon website still says to pardon their dust and that the site will be tested and ready to go by August 24th.

Is this really a way to host a con?  Maybe a local event, but for one that (as I understood it at least) was trying to become one of the bigger gaming events this is an utter fail in my book.  Too bad as I had been really excited to get back to a gaming convention as its been years.  Ah well, maybe their site will be ready for next year...

One Of Those Defining Moments

Opening Up With The Beginning Of The Path

It turns out that this video has been up for a week or so but I definitely wanted to share it in case anyone missed it.  This is the unboxing of the new Pathfinder Beginner Box by the folks over at Paizo Publishing.  So without further ado, let's check it out!

Personally I'm really looking forward to getting my hands on this one. I will admit that I have some concern about the stand up pieces instead of the counters that you find in most of the 4e products nowadays but they look like they are extremely durable so I'm more than happy to give them a try. It also sounds like you get a good amount of other things in the set as well. In particular I was surprised at just how many monsters they stat up in this Beginner set. Almost 100 monsters is a pretty impressive number and shows that this set has a lot of potential for replay and customization.

This is one that I'm definitely looking at picking up soon so I'll post more about it once I actually have it in hand.  Plus if you're interested in getting this yourself and haven't done so yet there's good new!  Just click on the Amazon link at the top of the page and it will take you right there so you can get your own copy.  Until next time...

Wait... What The...?

More On The Pre-painted Paizo Goodness!

Way back in August I posted about the soon to be released pre-painted miniatures that are being produced by Wiz Kids for the Pathfinder RPG.  (Here's a link in case ya missed it.)  With the release now lurking on the horizon, Paizo has released pictures of the actual production run of the hero miniatures from the Beginner Box.

As you can see these minis are really nice looking for pre-paints especially since these are actual production miniatures.  Are they Golden Demon winner quality?  No, but considering you get all four of them for about $13 they are really nice.

As for the rest of the line they are going to be blind box purchase which normally I'm dead against but in this case they really have me interested.  The price isn't too bad for what you get and it sounds like there is a good mix of minis within one case so you probably won't wind up with too many repeats of the more powerful monsters.  This does mean that getting the more common beasties will be a little tricky but Paizo has mentioned doing encounter packs in the future that won't be blind box so it shouldn't be too hard to fill out the ranks of cannon fodder.

 Ya just gotta love the Pathfinder goblins!

Personally I'm definitely looking forward to getting some of these once they come out.  Who knows, maybe I'll really luck out and Santa will throw me a brick of them for Christmas!  All I can do is hope he doesn't aim for my head.  Until next time...

Preparing For The Scaring

A few posts back I mentioned that I have been preparing a one shot Call Of C'thulhu adventure for my gaming group so I figure its time to take a look at just what I'm talking about.  The adventure that we are going to play is actually one of the most played adventures for CoC ever written (makes sense since it has been their introductory investigation for years).  Only seems fitting since no one in my group has ever played the game, not to mention you have to figure they would have the bugs worked out of the adventure by now.

In the book they give you a basic layout of the story (including plot hooks for further investigations if your players want to pursue them) but a lot of it is left open so that you can give the adventure your own personal touch if you want.  To do this I decided to focus on a few things so that I could add a little flavor to the game and also make it easier for my players to get into the swing of things.  The first thing I did was take a look at the location.

The investigation is set in Boston, Massachusetts in the year 1920 and I decided to stick with this.  The game can easily be changed to other time periods but I like the idea of using the twenties.  Technology was definitely on the rise but no where near as advanced as the present day.  As for the location I really like the idea of this all happening near Arkham since it is the heart of Lovecraft country and Boston does have a rich history to draw form as well.  A few quick Google searches were enough to not only help me find some of the key locations but also give me a basic idea what the city was like then.

Another point in favor of setting it near Arkham was the fact that most of us had played Arkham Horror recently.  This made coming up with the mostly pre-generated characters a snap as I based most of them off of characters that we'd used in that game.  This gave me a loose background for each of them that I was able to work into a back story so the investigators actually had a reason to be together.  With it being a one shot the last thing I wanted to deal with was trying to get everyone out of the tavern and into the adventure.

You may have noticed that I said the characters were mostly pre-generated.  In Call of C'thulhu your character has occupational skill points that are assigned to specific skills and personal skill points that can be used for anything.  To give the players some freedom to add a personal flair to their character I left most of the personal skill points unassigned so that the players can add their own personal touch without having to go through the whole process of building the character from scratch.

I also took their character sheets one step further by making them into small files about the different characters.  In addition to their character sheet I included a one page bio about each investigator complete with picture.  This was all put into individual manila envelopes that were labeled with the character's name and occupation.  Since they are based on the Arkham Horror investigators, I was also able to get some pre-painted minis for all for of the characters as well.

When it comes time to play I'm going to lay out the four envelopes on the table with their respective minis, let the players choose which one they want to be, then crack open the envelopes to see just who they are playing.  All of this was very easy to do and I'm excited to see just how the group reacts to it.

This particular investigation also makes reference to some newspaper articles that the players might stumble upon that could give them clues about just what they are dealing with.  Unfortunately there isn't an actual handout for these bits of information but after a few minutes on Word I was able to whip up my own articles instead.  Admittedly I could have just verbally given them the information but I really like the idea of being able to actually hand them to the players.

With all of these bits of prep done, the only thing left is find a time when we can get the group together for a game.  Not exactly sure when that will be but I'll definitely be doing a write up for it so expect more on this in the not too distant future.  Until next time...

Man Does This Look Familiar...

Me be Vorka and you be dinner!

The goblin goodness continues!  With the party finished, its time to take a look at the critters those lucky goblins will get to meet on their quest for fireworks!  First off is Lotslegs Eat Goblin Babies Many.  Bet you can't guess what she is!

Lotslegs Eat Goblin Babies Many

Technically Lotslegs is only a giant spider so this figure really is too big but I like the idea of at least making the spider visually scary and what better way than making it frickin' huge?  Unlike most of the other minis, this one is not from Reaper Miniatures though they do have a very good selection of spiders to choose from if you're looking for them.  Instead I decided to use a spider from my Descent game as it seems appropriately creepy, not to mention the fact that I already own it (always a plus in my opinion).

Next we have Scabtongue, Tickletooth, and Cuddles.  Don't they sound lovable?

Scabtongue, Tickletooth, and Cuddles

According to the scenario these three are a group of vicious dogs.  Reaper does have some pretty sweet looking figures for war dogs but I decided to go with the slightly more fantasy generic wolf pack.  With wolves and goblins almost going hand in hand for most fantasy worlds it just seemed more versatile.  I don't know how often I would have players encounter guard dogs but wolves?  I'm just wondering if three is enough....

Finally there is the crazy cannibal herself, Vorka, and her pet frog, Lord Longtung.

Vorka the cannibal and Lord Longtung

Vorka is yet another mini from the goblin pyro pack.  This is another one that could be easily modified so that it has a more human looking hat but I decided that the goblin "helmet" would work for her in this case.  To differentiate between the PCs and Vorka I painted her clothes grey plus she has a pretty distinctive pose which is always a plus.

For Lord Longtung I actually went to another Fantasy Flight Game and pulled out one of the frogs from the Talisman Revised 4th Edition game.  Again this was a case of convenience for me but if you don't have this and are looking for giant frog minis I'd recommend hitting Reaper for them first.

And there we have it!  Well, almost anyway.  There is one mini left for the adventure but when my daughter saw that I was prepping a horse she asked if she could paint it.  Haven't had a chance to sit down with her to get it done but I plan on doing it soon and then we can have the big reveal for the final critter in the game, Stomp.

With all of these now finished I just have to wrangle the group together for a game.  Hopefully that will be in the next couple of weeks and I'll be sure to pass on the word of just how successful this "merry" band of goblins makes out.  Until next time...

The Ultimate Celebration Of Beer

He be Mogmurch! Chuffy be me!

The goblin goodness continues as I have more minis painted!  Here's the rest of the party...

Chuffy the rogue and Mogmurch the alchemist

As I mentioned before I'm trying to use the paint schemes to make the different characters really pop though I must admit that I really didn't do anything special for Chuffy.  He has the wonderful goblin feat pustular which means he has a serious case of teenage acne.  I was going to paint his face so that it looked pretty nasty but I like how he turned out so I'm just going with the generic goblin look.  The only other one that is close to being so generic is Poog but he is easy to pick out as he has the spear.

Mogmurch is a different story.  He has a skull face mask so I went with skull face paint for a quick and easy solution.  Of course he's also supposed to have a club instead of a sword but I think that the face paint is enough to make him stand out.

With the party done, now its time to get to the various NPC critters but more on them later.  Until next time...