| Author |
 Topic  |
|
|
Gruff
United Kingdom
2 Posts |
 Posted - 13 Jul 2007 : 19:39:33
|
Are these open games or do you need have a "Living" character/player ?
If restricted, will there be the opportunity to join up at the Con ?
|
|
|
Kithran
77 Posts |
Posted - 14 Jul 2007 : 22:15:47
|
The Undermountain games are open to anyone - the character creation rules for the Undermountain module run at Origins are currently on the RPGA website, however the Gen Con modules will be with 4th level characters, an updated version of the rules will be released before then.
There will be nothing stopping you creating a character at Gen Con UK however you may want to create one in advance as you have such a wide variety of options open to you (pretty much every WOTC 3.5 rule source) but obvioudly will need to have a copy of whatever material you are using with you.
Kithran |
 |
|
|
Gruff
United Kingdom
2 Posts |
Posted - 16 Jul 2007 : 20:42:16
|
Thanks, looking forward to trip into the Catacombs already :)
|
|
|
|
kotinka
-
9 Posts |
|
|
Zebek
United Kingdom
13 Posts |
Posted - 02 Sep 2007 : 01:02:01
|
[[Apologies if this comes across as angry but an accidental press of ESC has just wiped out an hour's work so I'm retyping it all... in notepad...]]
The Undermountain sessions at GenCon this week were the first encounter I'd had with an RPGA event and I'd like to discuss my experiences to see if they are typical or I was just plain unlucky.
I managed to play "The River Sargauth", "The Citadel", "Belkram's Tomb" over Thursday/Friday with different GMs and players and had different amounts of enjoyment each time. I'd written up a Chaos Gnome priest (luck domain) in the same way I would for a campaign at my local club (i.e. focus on trying things out rather then min/maxing).
"The River Sargauth" (written by Chris Lindsay) went well. The environment felt "real" - we could visualise what the place looked like (good GM descriptive skills, caverns and passageways that made sense, monsters that had personalities (again, down to the GM)). We completed the objectives and felt we had put in a good few hours' work. This obviously set me up for a fall.
"The Citadel" (written by Eric L. Boyd, Ed Greenwood, Chris Lindsay, and Sean K. Reynolds) was an appalling example how to write a rail-roaded hack-and-slay scenario. The flow went as follows: arrive, fight random monster, find random magic item on monster, move to next location, fight random monster, rinse, repeat...
- The magic items would be both unused by, and inappropriate for, the monster.
- The combats would have no impact on the next encounter - were they deaf?
- Who lives in a dungeon where the drop-to-certain-death does not have a safety rail?
- The party was able to sell off all the treasure despite being physically unable to carry it - one suit of full plate would be significant for the party to carry but TEN suits? With shields? And no-one else batted an eyelid...
"Belkram's Tomb" (also written by Boyd, Greenwood, Lindsay, and Reynolds) was an equally appalling example of a tricks/traps/monsters dungeon crawl. There was no rhyme or reason to it - how it needed four people to write it is beyond me. Maybe one person had the squared paper, another the Monster Manual, a third had the Magic Item Compendium and the last made the coffee. Which of these guys decided that magic items should be randomly scattered on the floor for the characters to find?
Maybe I would have had different experiences with different DMs? The first seemed to be enjoying themselves but the second, though, didn't seem to be (hadn't prepared as much, got irritated by the poor adventure editing...). Or is it me? Am I expecting too much? Are the modules deliberately dumbed down to make them easy to run for GMs and accessible to novice players? |
|
|
|
Glaaki
United Kingdom
8 Posts |
Posted - 02 Sep 2007 : 23:07:19
|
I played these on Saturday with several friends who were there.
Yes we had slightly different experiences according to what table we were on, but we all enjoyed it.
Having realised what the source material is (not difficult), I've taken a look at the book and imho it isn't as bad as you think.
In a timed module the DM isn't able to give you all the background that is in the book, however there is some rhyme and reason if you take a look.
HTH |
|
|
|
Kithran
77 Posts |
Posted - 03 Sep 2007 : 15:41:55
|
Well I will say that most RPGA scenarios are like the River Sargauth. The Citadel and Belkram's Tomb are the first time that the RPGA have tried adapting sections of a published adventure specifically for convention play (with the time limits that this introduces). There have been other adaptations in the past couple of years but these were aimed at people playing the game at home (and thus having more time).
I won't pretend every RPGA adventure is perfect - there are mistakes in editing, sometimes adventures that don't work well for every person. Sometimes although the adventure can be fine the combination of party and adventure may just not mix - imagine an adventure involving machinations between two elven families as the main plot and a party consisting dwarven fighters, half-orc barbarians and humans from Ket where 'He threatened me' is a reasonable defence for killing an elf.
If you (or anyone else) has any more comments feel free to contact me directly.
Kithran |
|
|
|
Zebek
United Kingdom
13 Posts |
Posted - 04 Sep 2007 : 02:30:23
|
quote:
Originally posted by Kithran
I won't pretend every RPGA adventure is perfect - there are mistakes in editing, sometimes adventures that don't work well for every person. Sometimes although the adventure can be fine the combination of party and adventure may just not mix - imagine an adventure involving machinations between two elven families as the main plot and a party consisting dwarven fighters, half-orc barbarians and humans from Ket where 'He threatened me' is a reasonable defence for killing an elf.
I would say "provide the characters". This worked fine in the Call of Cthulhu games I played. The characters that some of the players were bringing along to Undermountain were just breaking the adventures. When I played the Citadel, no-one could speak Dwarven which should have been key to the session. But then my fellow players just attacked the dwarves anyway, regardless of the fact we were entering a dwarven area on behalf of a dwarf to gain a dwarven item.
I have some old Gamesfair tournament modules they reprinted in Imagine that I use as "icebreaker" games at my Uni's games society to break in new players. They work well because the characters that come with them are balanced, fit the storyline and - if things go wrong - their deaths don't cause any heartache.
The RPGA modules just seem to promote rampant gread and non-stop combat. I'm feeling a little too embarrassed to use my now-6th level character elsewhere due to the ease and speed of his promotion.
But maybe I'm just too old school. |
|
|
|
Zebek
United Kingdom
13 Posts |
Posted - 04 Sep 2007 : 03:14:27
|
quote:
Originally posted by Glaaki
In a timed module the DM isn't able to give you all the background that is in the book, however there is some rhyme and reason if you take a look.
HTH
Doesn't that indicate that these modules were not suitable for time-constrained use if you need the source book to understand the rationale? |
|
|
|
daviesdesign
-
9 Posts |
Posted - 24 Sep 2007 : 23:14:34
|
I was a GM for The River Saurgoth, and we all had great fun. There was lots of combat but it all linked together, the players all worked together and roleplayed their characters, to a degree that they even made an alliance with the frogmen.
The second party didnt take the Belkram's tomb adventure very seriously with one player practically committing suicide in the first encounter. Whereas in the first I was struggling to make the encounters enough of a challenge, in this the PCs were dropping like flies. they got wize later with some daring escapes from gellatinous cube and a pit of corrosive green ooze (becasue the characters misinterpereted the dwarven runes) con damage: ouch! but when the survivors met Belkram himself, it was clear they had not a chance, especially when the stongest fighter decided to make himslef vaporous and left the 3 others to face Belkram and the wolf. It was only a desperate tumble rolling gnome(?) who snatched the crown and made off while the wolf devoured his fallen comrades. Well split just one way makes a nice profit.. Need another 5 adventurers methinks. |
|
|
| |
Topic |
|
|
|
|
|
All Forums
Gen Con UK 2007
Undermountain Events
Forum Locked
Printer Friendly
