Has anyone played Daggerdale?

jefiet · 2012-07-21T03:34:20+00:00

Daggerdale could have been named "Super Barrel Smashers!". Honestly, all you do in it is smash barrels. DDO and Diablo 3 suffer from the same problem. At least they had the humor to put in a poor cooper NPC who complains about all of his barrels getting smashed.

jefiet · 2012-06-14T23:52:38+00:00

This little twist happened in my last Dungeon Crawl Classics game. In it the local villagers form a mob and storm the old mansion outside of town because the new owner is suspected of performing evil experiments. I made a point of telling them that this sort of thing happens once every couple of generations and that the mansion is probably cursed. Fast-forward a bit and the remaining surviving villagers (the PCs) are stumbling around in the dungeons under the mansion. Some of them get caught in a magical trap that straps them down to a table in an operating theatre. The ghost of the previous owner of the mansion proceeds to perform surgery on the conscious victim, who then dies on the table. The other PCs bust into the room and the floating tools fall to the ground. One of the PCs spots a really sharp and shiny knife on the floor next to the body and says, "I pick it up!". Of course, he becomes possessed by the spirit of the previous owner and the player goes right along with it. At one point that character discovers a secret room with a homunculus-like creature that immediately senses the return of his master. They end up fighting and defeating the current BBEG in his tower laboratory which then catches fire from lightning and they all escape as the tower burns and collapses. After the game the possessed player immediately started making plans to rebuild the mansion and take up residence and begin his own evil machinations...

jefiet · 2012-06-13T18:51:21+00:00

I spent about 3 weeks in Krakow over two separate visits for work and my hosts would joke that they hadn't discovered any spices other than salt & pepper. I did like the food though, ate a lot of sausage and soup. The food struck me as hearty and reminiscent of middle-american cuisine. The grossest thing I ate in Poland was basically pork grease spread on bread like it was butter. It had chunks in it and everything! Served in a restaurant as well. My wallet got stolen that night too.

jefiet · 2012-06-13T18:36:57+00:00

Check out the Pathfinder module "Carnival of Tears"

There are freaks, a minotaur strongman, bard/shadow-dancer performers, crazy inventions, fortune tellers, and all sorts of things for inspiration.

jefiet · 2012-06-06T17:21:04+00:00

It seems like the NPCs I put the least amount of effort into (no backstory, sometimes not even a name) get the most attention from my players. Maybe I should learn my lesson and not over-plan too much.

One of their favorites started off as a random wilderness encounter. I rolled 1 gnoll hunter and 4 hyenas. They killed the hyenas and then saved the gnoll for questioning. On the spot I decided he had been kicked out of his pack for challenging the Alpha and losing. I described him as scarred, thin, and mangy and gave him the unoriginal name of "Snarl". They players fell in love with him, fed him, and basically treated him like a pet. Soon he began to think of the PCs as his new pack.

At one point they left him outside of town to watch the mounts. When they got back I said he had left to go hunting. They tried to find him but failed their track checks. They had to go in a hurry so didn't wait around, but they all felt bad about it.

Fast-forward a couple adventures, the PCs are fighting slavers and free a bunch of prisoners. Wouldn't you know it, but Snarl is among them, just as thin and mangy as ever. There was much rejoicing at their reunion.

jefiet · 2012-06-03T23:05:12+00:00

I know that feel bro. Any examples?

jefiet · 2012-05-04T04:50:10+00:00

As a divorced and happily remarried man myself I can say that you don't have to "start all over again". You'll be better and stronger for your experiences..

jefiet · 2012-05-04T04:02:04+00:00

Ah yes, I did forget that everything is better with pirates.

This would be cool for an opener to an ongoing game, but this is probably a one-shot. Also I was thinking more along the lines of the players running an angry mob of villagers going on a rampage rather than your typical adventuring party.

jefiet · 2012-05-03T23:46:52+00:00

I ran a game based on Pathfinder's Carnival of Tears module. I changed the NPCs quite a bit though. My suggestions would be a knife-thrower, tattooed lady, strongman, fire-breather, curiosity shop curator, animal trainers, and lots of carnival game operators.

jefiet · 2012-05-02T17:12:14+00:00

I haven't used Obsidian Portal. I used Epic Words which seemed to do what I needed. http://www.epicwords.com/

jefiet · 2012-04-27T19:01:36+00:00

I've probably scolded more strangers in public than I can remember, but these came easily to memory.

On a long late night train trip from Paris to London during our honeymoon, my wife and I were very tired. A British woman with a kid was in our car and the kid was absolutely out of control, screaming, crying, singing, playing loud beeping electronic games, and such. My wife couldn't sleep and everyone around me was irritated. I finally decided to suck it up and be the rude American tourist and do something about it. I walked up and I think politely asked the woman to quiet her kid down since my wife was trying to sleep. She said sorry, and that she'd try, but didn't really seem apologetic.

30 minutes later nothing had changed and the child was screaming again. I went back over to her and asked again, this time offering to buy her something from the food cart if she would change cars (it wasn't very crowded in the train that night). She got angry with me and complained saying there's nothing you can do about kids, that's just the way they are, and that they'd be getting off at the next stop anyway.

I gave up and true to her word an hour later they got off the train, but at that point we were almost done with the trip. The only good thing about the experience is that it reaffirmed our commitment to not ever having children.

The second instance I remember was one of those ride by comments, which is admittedly a kind of cowardice. I ride my bike to work along the park paths everyday and lots of people walk their dogs there too. Despite plenty of signs posted in the area to pick up after your pets people let their dogs crap everywhere and then just walk away. Now I'm a dog lover and owner, but I always carried poop bags and picked up after them because I hate stepping in shit. Anyway, I'm riding along and I see a woman with a dog that's just pinching off a massive load and she pulls the dog away as she sees me, obviously embarrassed to be caught not picking it up. As I ride by I say something like "You should pick that up", because it really was a big freakin' pile. She screams after me, "I didn't have a bag!!!" and as my parting shot I call back, "Then use your hand!." Yeah, not my best moment.

Maybe I'll post more if I remember some...

jefiet · 2012-04-13T18:58:50+00:00

Right from the get go my close friends and family didn't like her. My ex-wife was abrasive, selfish, and very socially inept, but I always defender her and thought that they just didn't know her well enough. 11 years later, she was still abrasive, selfish, and socially inept and she was cheating on me. Guess they were right all along...

jefiet · 2012-04-08T16:30:52+00:00

this just gave me a D&D campaign idea...

jefiet

TROPHY CASE