Sundays in the Shire #1: First Thoughts

Last month Josh McCrowell published 'Under Hill, By Water' an RPG that had been gestating for a a couple of years on his blog Rise Up Comus (which I would highly recomend for a variety of good stuff).  It's a game about being a Hobbit* living a quiet, pastoral life: "Adventure! No, thank you!". 

*I use the term advisedly - 'Under Hill...' doesn't use that word of course.  'Hobbits' are the IP of the Tolkein Estate.  Still it is clear that McCrowell is talking about, and in homage to, Tolkien's creation.  These aren't the 'Halflings' that have grown out RPG culture: McCrowell explicited says "a lot of fat from dragons and/or dungeons has been trimmed off".  

As an aside to this footnote, I would point to McCrowell's excellent blog post in which he considers how one would RPG The Hobbit if the Middle-Earth IP had solely consided of that book.  It gives a nice feel of his style.

How JRRT saw his Hobbit

As the description says, "this is an OSR(ish) game that’s about living in the cozy under-hill homes of the halflings" going back to 'the source material of Tolkien and the eclectic, rustic, anachronistic little British gentry that were the center of his stories".  The adventure promised is on the level of delaing with awkward aunts and ornery goats, rather than defeating dragons.

Well, for a Hobbit-botherer like me, this sounds like fun, and luckily I know a few like-minded people.  Accordingly, last week we sat down for the first of what I hope will be many Sundays in the Shire.

The Village Map

The first step in playing is to create a Hobbit village and populate it with both PCs and NPCs.  The books suggests that this is done with all players together, in order to build relationships and family ties in at this early stage - in effect to have a Session Zero.  We didn't quite do that.  Dave and his co-GM Scarlett (aged 6) created the village beforehand.  Fortunately, Dave recorded the process and has put it up as the first episode of his new podcast My Kids Will Kill You.  You can listened to this 40min process here, which I'd advise as it gives an excellent overview.*

*And if like me, you like to shout at your podcasts, rest assured that Prof Aldridge does now know that peat-cutters cut peat (and why).

Character Sheet

Although there are some basic attributes, character-generation - like village-creation- is mainly based on a series of random tables.  Perhaps most important of these for a Hobbit is the family name, which potentially makes PCs and/or NPCs relatives (though it didn't in our case) and reference to an Ancestral Home.  Each PC begins play with a dream (the fulfilment of which is a means of acquiring XP).

In order to give a taste, here are our three PC's:-

Dolfin Tukkish

• Occupation: Cook.  
• Dream: To meet an elf and learn to sing one of their songs.
• Personal complication: A great-uncle had died (but has left him a bottle of particularly nice vintage of wine in his will).  We added that the will was being contested.
• Attributes: Dolfin rolled highly in CHA - he was 'Comely'.

Harvey Tunneler

• Occupation: Antiquarian.
• Dream: To steal his rival's apple-pie recipe.
• Personal complication: One of his more unpleasant relatives is visiting.
• Attributes:  Harvey rolled particularly badly in CHA: this meant that he had a Bad Reputation.  The player decided that he had used his knack once too often in stealing pies (this is before he rolled the Dream, which proved to be a nice tie-in).  He also rolled badly in INT, leaving him illiterate (an interesting complication for an Antiquarian!).
• In addition, Harvey was of a 'Stock' of Hobbit that has a 'knack' - in his case the ability to manipulate something that he can see as if he had his hand on it.

Jemmy Gaggler

• Occupation: Chandler.
• Dream: To publish his family's geneology.
• Personal complication: His parents are complaining that he's not living up to his full potential and wondering why he never visits (which we made into a prompt for his Dream - to show them that he did consider Family important).
• Attributes: With a high roll in WIS, Jemmy was a 'Greensinger' and able to use more skill points in Wrangling/Woodcraft.

As can be seen, the process of character-generation provided a lot of back-story and some good plot-hooks.  In addition, for each season a Current Event, a Worrisome Thing and a Village Event are rolled.  We ended up with late, heavy snows; the fact that an elderly aunt in a neighbouring village isn't answering her letters (this Thing was allocated to Jemmy's character); and that a petition against wearing large hats to public events was going around.

There are mechanisms for skill checks, combat, and particlurly Hobbit-like activities such as Feasting (restores HP), Singing (gives inspiration) and Party-Giving (increases prestige).  I won't discuss them now as, frankly, we hardly used any in this first session.

So how did the play go?

It was fun!  Gentle fun.

We quickly established that our activities needed to revolve around meals.  Luckily there was several inns in the village and our cook friend was renowned for making the best muffins in the South March.  The only drawback was that pesky pie recipe!

And, although we did make some progress on the other Dreams, I think it's fair to say that the Pie-Quest took centre stage.  Harvey's rival turned out to be a wretched fellow called Tylo Splistening.  Activities including souring his courtship with the fearsome Walda*, who was behind the hat petition**; interaction with the local fencibles***; and orgainising a violent snowball fight between rival fraternal societies; the last as a diversion for a spot of light breaking-and-entering.

*Walda is the subject of the romantic interest of a surprising number of NPCs.  It is yet to be established why.  She may prove to be an heiress.

**Jemmy took against the petition as likely to upset his many elderly female reatives.  Jemmy is the PC I played.  Although Lobelia Sackville-Baggins is in the mix, my concept of his aunts owes a lot to P G Wodehouse.

***Who, quite properly, wear very fancy large hats.

Gaming in May 2020

WARGAMING

Blood, Bilge and Iron Balls

17 May - Battle of San Domingo, written up here.
27 May - Single ship action, written up here.

It's been an age since I've done any wargaming, so I was pleased when I finally got my act in order to do some solo naval wargaming (a very long-term aim!).

As I've been reading about the C17th and C18th navy recently, I pulled out Blood, Bilge and Iron Balls, which is an age of sail (well, Napoleonic) set of rules.  It's a nice, simple set of rules, without the complexity which is the bane of naval wargaming.  Way back in 2014 I took part in a play-by-post game, which I enjoyed (there's some eye-candy in the blog archives if you want to look at it - Clint, the host had some rather nice models he set up for us).

Wanting to do a fleet action, but wanting to keep it manageble, I played using the order of battle for the Battle of San Domingo.  It was a learning experience, but BBIB plays well.  I'd like to master this before I try any of the more complex rulesets.  I'm going to have to do a bit of work making my own aide-memoire before I play again.

Sir Henry Fearless
 in command

On 27 May I cleared the decks (well, the kitchen table) for a quick ship-on-ship action, with two 38-gun frigates meeting.  It was a bit of an eye-opener, showing how the draw determining the turn action can seriously affect the outcome.  The British figate was completely out-classed.  She had lost two masts and three-quarters of her effective crew, with damaged steerage and four fires.  Her captain had no choice to strick her colours at the end of the six turn - without having fired a shot!  

A demonstration of superior French seamanship and gunnery.


ROLE-PLAYING GAMES

• 3 May - Call of Cthuhlu
• 8 May - Dark Sun
• 17 May - Melcher's Vale
• 22 May - Dark Sun
• 30 May - Gordon's Alive!
• 31 May - ODD Sci-Fi

Call of Cthulhu: Forget-Me-Not

3 May

RIP Charlie

Well our Call of Cthulhu game came to an end.  And it was suitable climatic.  Our party of investigators from the tv programme 'The Supernatural Files' finally got to the bottom of what had happened in the Cooper House and met the Big Bad.

It didn't end well for the party or for the world as a whole (upon which we unleashed a great evil).  My character Charlie was likened to the cook from The Shining: he spent four weeks trying to get back into the action only to meet a particularly interesting death (but not before killing a cop and developing a new form of madness).

This was my first taste of Call of Cthulhu, which I'd been wanting to play for some time.  I enjoyed it a great deal, helped of course by being among a fine group of players and having Andy Goodman (a master of the art) as a Keeper.  I certainly would like to play again.  I know the contemporary setting isn't typical of CoC, and might want to try something a little more jazz-age and pulpy next time.  That might yet happen.

Episode 4: Lung-Flesh and Toad Gods which we played on 27 Mar is now on-line.

Dark Sun/Dying Star

8 May.  Written-up here.
22 May.  Written-up here.

Met a beastie...

This fun campaign continues.  We completed our first job, but have been comissioned to do a follow-up that involves high matters of state...

The Black Hack2/Melcher's Vale

17 May

This was our last venture into Melcher's Vale for a while.  Having run an average of two sessions a week for the last six months, Dave wants to rest and rethink.  He promises to take us back once the creative juices have refreshed.

Lady Elvira

This session focused on one of the patrons we have been dealing with - Lady Evira Bund.  Two of us - my character Bolton and a fighter called Bodar - had fallen under her shadow.  We'd been feeling rather drained of late, developed an aversion to sunlight and an appitite for spiders.  Perhaps to boost our spirits, Lady Elvira had annonced a masked ball at which we would be welcomed fully into the Bund clan and 'the most ancient form of nobility in Shroudwick'.

Well, we were shocked (shocked!) to discover that the Bunds were really vampires.  Bolton and Bodar received Lady Elvira's 'kiss' and were turned.  We were then invited to drain the blood of a victim to complete our initiation.  As these victims were our companions, much to-do followed.

In the end the Lady was killed, leading to the destruction of her followers (Bolton and Bodar escaped this fate as they hadn't completed the ritual).  Having been Turned, Bodar fled the mansion, and drained the lifeblood of the first passerby he met (fun was had with random NPC generation).  He has completed the transformation and is now completely a vampire (though without a without a sire - does that make him a Ronin?).

Bolton, who had been caught in a web, didn't complete the transformation.  Unfortunately, during a skirmish with the Bund retainers he was staked and turned into a pile of ash (a one-in-six chance once he was reduced to 0 HP).  However, one of our party has a pot which will re-incarnate the soul of a cremated being...

Dave has indicated that if the resurection pot is used, Bolton's soul might end up transmuted into Stuart the Monkey Porter.

Gordon's Alive!  (ICRPG)

30 May

I played Ditmo, robotman

Another one of Pete the Dragon's one-shots using the very playable Index Card RPG system and using a nifty virtual table top (I thought the images Pete selected were particularly good).

In this one Andy, Spencer and I were prisoners of Ming the Merciless on our way to a life of servitude in the Radium Mines. During our inevitable escape, the rocket-ship we were in crashed into one of the swamps of Arboria.  What will our heroes do next...

Cracking fun!


ODD Sci-Fi

31 May - Written-up here.

And on the last day of the month we started a new game, the first episode in a new campaign.  This was a sci-fi adaptation of the Electronic Bastionland ruleset.

Dave's pitch is

• The core worlds are owned by the corporations.
• The savage frontier is inhospitable. Adapting to life on the fringe means becoming something not quite human. You have to go into deep space to get anywhere. Some parts are better travelled than others, but all the same deep space warps people in terrifying ways.
• There was an ancient race of alien precursors. Their technology was far superior to ours, but that did not stop them from being utterly destroyed.
• You are damaged goods.
• You have incurred a colossal debt and have a share in a spacecraft.
• Now get trucking

The rag-bag crew of the Bastion took up a contract from a collector to extract an alien artifact from under the noses of one of the mining corporations.  There was a distinct frontier feel to the game, this session being book-ended by bar fights.

My character was a mutant with an uncommonly fierce firearm.  I picture him as Jayne Cobb with chicken feet.

Gaming In March 2020

For obvious reasons Face-to-Face gaming has been on hold, but as regular readers will know I've been lucky enough to have been getting in to playing RPGs on-line.  These are generally aranged through Discord and played using Google Hangouts, Zoom or Roll20 (or a combo of these).  If anyone wants an invitation to join any of the Discord chanels, let me know.

Black Hack

1 Mar
15 Mar
22 Mar
27 Mar

Our Black Hack game continues.  Because of the Open Table Dave runs, we jump around various areas of his Melcher's Vale setting from game-to-game.  We've therefore been exploring dungeons under the ruined temple, delving into the sewers and had a martial arts tournament (with added intrigue between bouts).

A relatively new development has been that introduction of faction rules.  It's early days yet as none of us have earned enough points to progress very far in any of the factions.  They all seem to have major drawbacks though!

It turns out that the Patron my Mage has attached himself to is quite probably a vampire and, having received her Kiss, he might have been Renfield'ed.  At the end of each session I've having to pass a CON Check to avoid loosing HP.

Lady Bund a vampire?  Who knew?

On the other hand he has now made contact with the Eunuchs' Guild, so that's a positive...

Call of Cthulhu 

7 Mar
22 Mar

Our modern-setting (c.2003) of CoC run by Andy Goodman (of the Expedition to the Grizzley Peaks podcast) continues, and the plot thickens.  Having said that, in our last session we lost said plot and went off on a complete tangent.  One of our party  attempted to cast a spell, went permanently insane and ended up summoning an Old One, Tsathoggua.  Decapitations were involved.  We closed the session just as the cops arrived...

Meantime, Episode 2 (which we played back in Feb and in which we go a bit mad) has hit the airways.  Reminder, I'm playing Charlie Hogan, the cameraman.

Index Card RPG

This was a one-off run by Pete (of the Dragons Are Real podcast).  It was my introduction to the system, which is very simple and easy to pick-up.  It's Pete's go-to system for a number of genres, but we were playing a low-fantasy style.

M'mm, pie...

The plot rotated around a raid that had been done on a pie shop (Mrs Miggins' Pie Shop of course).

The obvious culprit was the owner of a rival establishment, but that seemed too simple.  My character was convinced that the rival was a small cog in a larger plot who had taken advantage of the removal of magical wards for his own purposes.  We therefore spent some time talking to to other establishments and testing wards (my chap walked into them until he was knocked out).  At least we established that it was a lie that all the wards were down.

In the end it turned out that the obvious solution was the right one.   The pieman had stolen Mrs Miggins pies in order to reverse-engineer the recipie in a lab he'd set up in a cabin in the woods.

Anyway, the game was a blast and ICRPG works very well.