Some more talking and updating....

[seawasp]

I am, as many of you know, a long-term roleplaying gamer -- started in 1977. I have been gaming pretty much continuously since then, with only occasional short pauses. 

But after I concluded what I considered my ultimate campaign, in which I reached a powerscale and a scope beyond anything I'd ever before attempted, I was temporarily at loose ends for running anything. I'd been the pretty much constant GM for most of the years I'd been playing -- not that I hadn't also been a player fairly often, but there was almost never a time I wasn't running at least one and sometimes as many as five campaigns at once. My friends did pick up the slack, and we continued gaming in a few other campaigns, but I have to say that the best game I've been run in in a LONG time was the roughly five-year long campaign that my son Christopher started around the time I stopped posting here in 2018.

That game, set on a unique postapocalyptic magical Earth, started us PCs off at first level, and continued all the way up to 20th -- and then picked up again, bringing us to epic levels, reaching 30th by the end of the campaign. In that time the characters grew and changed, going from a group assembled more or less by chance to firm friends with a set of unbreakable bonds -- and a determination to do the right thing.

They were also a strange group -- Rockie, an Awakened giant tortoise mystical martial artist (nokizaru); Ignatius (Iggy), a humanoid warrior with some form of reptilian blood who eventually began to awaken psychic powers from his heritage; Briana, originally an enemy suffering from a terrible curse who had eventually joined us and had her curse lifted, a spellsword with literally inhuman speed; Nessie, a grick (four-tentacled snakelike creature) who Iggy had raised from an egg after we'd had to kill her assumed mother, and who ended up being a gunslinger -- slinging lead with all four arms from Desert Eagle .50s. And Kalama Lightfingers, wizard, old media fangirl, and corgi aficionado, who came to be nicknamed The Corgomancer for her summons, which were all corgi variants. 

We ended up protectors of several towns, and ultimately were troubleshooters sent by the regional authorities to deal with problems others couldn't handle. 

As a Christmas present to the group, I had a picture of our characters -- plus one NPC, Gladys the Opossum, an Awakened druid,and Gus the Corgi, a Corgi Construct made by Kalama -- made by Drachea Rannak. Here they are!


 

Comments

[leecetheartist]

This reminded me of Boundary and you.

https://www.atrandomcomics.com/at-random-comics-home/2023/5/5/dino-diorama

[seawasp]

Yes, that particular comic has been posted to FB for me many times. I like the new Diorama version!

[melchar]

The idea of the summoner is excellent! Yes, they have really gone to the dogs - and they will bring some along for you, too! The picture is gorgeous and the continuing campaign sounds like a lot of fun. Was it played under the Pathfinder system?

I will also restate my contention -made long ago on Usenet's gaming thread- that gaming regularly is the best sort of social life one can enjoy ... and that I've been doing it longer than you. ^_^

[seawasp]

You've been doing it longer than just about everybody.

It was mostly PF with some 3.5 included, and modern material since it's postapocalyptic. Iggy used an energy rifle for range, and Kalama had "Johnny", her enchanted double-barrelled shotgun.

Now, I'm running a game in my own world with my son's support as co-DM, and for the first time I'm trying out the PF "Mythic" rules.

[melchar]

Pathfinder -1st edition*- is surprisingly flexible. I've enjoyed all the games I've played, whether one-offs or campaigns. It's also surprisingly easy to referee. If you haven't tried Hero Lab, I recommend the ...now OLD version that runs on your desktop. The 'new' website version is 'meh' IMO, but probably more worthwhile if you use it a lot.


*I now have to specify 1st edition, since they have a 2nd edition out now. I've played 2nd ed and it is NOT a system I would recommend - unless I was a ref who wanted their players to suffer & be smacked down a lot**.

**We did the maths and there is never a point when the PCs have a better than 40% chance of success against a 'their level' challenge or opponent, unless buffs are stacked onto them.

[seawasp]

Yeah, I like 3/3.5/PF the best of all D&D editions. It's pretty close to what my homebrew Frankenstein of a system was before 3 came along, since 3 did a lot of the fixes that our group had put together over the years.

And it's got SO MUCH STUFF available for it that there's always new things to try. My son has been running an occasional short game with me and my younger son Gabriel, and in that one I've been playing a Kineticist, which I'd never even seen until recently.

[claidheamhmor]

Love the pic!