"I Wasn't Dead 'Til I Had No Head!" - an Ambition & Avarice Session Recap

"I Wasn't Dead 'Til I Had No Head!". Say that to yourself in your best Jackie Mason voice. That's what I did when the party found the undead talking skull that had just spent the last 100 years staring at an empty room. An unlit empty room.

I had no idea how this encounter was going to play out. Talking skull that wants to see ANYTHING besides the room he's been stuck in for a century. He wants out. He wants company. He really has nothing to offer the party, but I could sense there was a lot of potential to this encounter, so I winged it.

The best Mister Skull could offer the party was the idea that he never slept and could see 360 degrees around his skull. Was that part of the encounter text? Nope, but seemed reasonable. Besides, the idea of a talking skull (with horns no less) being part of the party was just too good to pass up. Not to mention that I love playing with accents and voices, and it was quickly decided that Mister Skull was a very lonely Jackie Mason - with one liners and everything.

At the moment the skull is tied and strapped to the head of the party's Dark Elf. Don't ask. Sometimes you just run with it. The player wants to see if he could wear the skull instead of his helm. Not a request I had expected, but one I'm willing to work towards.

Oh sure, there was combat and negotiations and a severed foot found, but Mister Skull ruled the night.

As for the quote that I titled this post with, it was the answer to the question "How did you get like this?" or something similar. Said in my best Jackie Mason voice, the line was a killer ;)

Into the Eagle's Den - Putting My Players Thru Their Paces in Another Dungeon

Last night was my group's third session using the Anarchy & Ambitions Ambition & Avarice playtest rule set. For this session, the players began that exploration of The Eagle's Den, part of a future OSR release by Greg Christopher.

There is an issue with using pre-release material that is still in flux (as I previously learned) - some things are still in flux and I really need to make sure I have the latest release in front of me. Apparently I downloaded the latest release to my laptop, but my desktop had the one prior. No earth shattering changes, but things could have played out a bit easier (potentially) for the PCs. Not necessarily a bad thing, but I'm happy with how things played out.

The hot topic last week was loot, which took on a life of it's own. This time around, the loot was mostly merchant supplies and historical scrolls - which means the PCs are going to have to work on getting some of this stuff back to town. 125 pound crates do not walk themselves, nor can the PCs carry them for any significant length of distance. Interesting problem for them to think on between sessions.

Early on they got themselves into a situation where they had to negotiate with a summoned demon (not their own, but bound in a circle and wanting release). The negotiations themselves were priceless, as was the party split on dealing with the demon or not. In the end, they released a powerful demon into the world in exchange for a magic item and dealing with the party's immediate threat. It played out in a way I hadn't foreseen, but it certainly made the event memorable.

Part of the reason things played out as well as they did is that I wasn't constrained by running things "By the Book". Not that I didn't run things by the book, I actually did, but there were enough encounters that required interaction and roleplay by the party that I was able to expand on things a bit. It didn't hurt that the encounters had a snippet of background and / or tactics included with each to give me a seed to work with as I improvised.

The party took a beating, but no one was lost - we came close more than a few times. Amazingly, we only had 2 natural 1's rolled, so Attacking the Darkness had a minimal effect on expo and had no opportunity to have an effect on in game dice rolls.

After running back to town at the end of the session to lick their wounds and rest, the party will pick things back up next week. We'll see how things work for them, as the first session in a dungeon has historically gone well - and the second session has a recent history of derailing ;)

Adventurer Conqueror King or Die! - May Have Passed On...

Tonight will mark the 3rd session of Ambition & Avarice, or as I like to call it - Anarchy & Ambition ;)

I'm no longer even sure when was the last time that we ran a session of ACKS at this point, and the summer wasn't friendly to the weekly sessions. That, and the original Adventurer Conqueror King or Die! campaign lost an original member, then we added two players to the group for A&A playtesting, who I assume are sticking with the group even after we end the playtesting.

So, when a decision becomes: "Do we stick with the ACKS campaign or move on to something new?", I've got a feeling we'll be moving on to something new.

There are, of course, an abundance of options.

We could stick with using ACKS in a new campaign, but I think ACKS will be easier to run (and have more internal consistency) when the default campaign for it is released. There are lots of references to a default setting in the classes, but little actual info in the core book itself. It makes it awkward at times to fit it into other available pre-written settings without some crowbarring into place. I'd like to avoid that.

I'd prefer to run a system that is available for free, so my players aren't obligated to purchase the rules. When you game at a physical table, sharing one or two copies of the rule book isn't an issue - over G+ hangouts it is virtually impossible. This would leave me looking at LL and S&W (or even A&A) for the most part. Yes, there are others that are free, but these would be the big two.

We could also go with a game that has a nominal cost in PDF - AS&SH and Crypts and Things would allow for a different game feel - more Swords & Sorcery. If I went that route, I'd offer to purchase the rules in PDF for any player in the current group that doesn't have access. Why? Because I'd hate to drag along a bunch of friends to a system that might not click for them and charge them for the act of getting screwed ;)

I'm also tempted, ever so slightly, to take the 3e setting of Midnight and strip it down to OSR friendly levels. Just an idea, as it is a dark and almost hopeless setting to put the players in. Less heroism and more pure survival.

Ah well, just thoughts for now - A&A in about 6 hours or so. Lets see how it plays out when they hit a new dungeon location.

Ambition & Avarice Session Recap - Closing the Door on Dwimmermount

Martin McKenna

We literally just wrapped up tonight's session of Ambition & Avarice using the first level of Dwimmermount as the dungeon location.

First, the highlights:

Last week we added Mike G from Occult Moon Games to the group and this week we added David P from White Haired Man. They're a pleasure to game with and no, I'm not trying to stack the deck by adding game and adventure writers and publishers. I just happen to be lucky to know some creative types ;)

Ambition & Avarice is a really tight system. Nothing noticeably off balance (but I do know why Greg put extra attention to flaming oil in his game designed - it's come up in both session - heh).

Now for the rest of it:

We've closed the door on Dwimmermount, at least for now. By my best estimate, the party has completed about 35% of the first level and have found the stairs leading to the next level of the dungeon. There were two party casualties tonight - one in combat and one to a poisoned trap. Two out of five PCs, in just over 2 hrs of actual game play. A bit higher in lethality than I would have hoped for, especially as I allowed the players to start at second level.

The lethality would have been significantly higher if more than 21 of the 68 number locations had adversaries. While that is roughly 31%, and the AD&D DMG sets it at 25-30% (depending what you consider "special" to include), it's a much thinner population than other adventures I've seen. That, and the repetitive dungeon dressing was frustrating some of my players.


I will say this, the best gamer rant I've heard in a long time was to the effect of the following:

"What the fuck! 2000 copper pieces in a rats' nest? What the fuck are rats doing with 2000 copper pieces? Can they even count to 2000 copper pieces? Did Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser have to pick through rat shit to find 2000 rat shit cover copper pieces?"


Little combat and little loot leads to low experience points rewards. I've done low rewards in the past, but this was a bit painful. Under normal circumstances, I'd change and add things in advance and adjust to my group, but we were trying to playtest both A&A and Dwimmermount, and to be as true to both as we could. Currently, Dwimmermount is not a match to my gaming group's style of play.

Could it be they're more comfortable in the sandbox styled game I was running with ACKS? It's possible, but the last few sessions we played of ACKS were using Barrowmaze 1 and there the only concern was the sheer amount of undead. I've also put them through smaller dungeons without issue.

So, we're closing the door on Dwimmermount for now and moving on to a different dungeon adventure next week.

We'll see if the change of setting does the party good.

Tomorrow Night There Will Be Ambition & Avarice

Adventurer Conqueror King or Die is in a holding pattern for now. Instead, I am running Ambition & Avarice, Greg Christopher's new OSR styled game currently in an open beta playtest. This Saturday's session we are weaving in David P from White Haired Man.

I am probably the least creative guy in the group. Which is a good thing, as it pushes me to be at my best. Hard to slouch when you are surrounded by game writers, adventure writers, publishers and artists.

You know what sucks? My self imposed "No Drinking Rule" when I GM. I need the edge of sobriety to keep one step ahead of the highly skilled players in my group.

Ah well, plenty of diet root beer in the cupboard ;)

Attacking the Darkness - A Way to Get Value Out of "Natural 1s" (Hat Tip to Greg Christopher)

So, last night I ran a session of Greg Christopher's Ambition & Avarice is James Mal's Dwimmermount (you can read a sort of recap of last night's session here).  There was a point in the session where it seemed like Natural Ones were coming up every other attack for the PCs. It was so damn depressing that someone yelled out "I attack the darkness!" and someone else suggested "roll damage" and they did.

It was at this point that Greg half jokingly said something to the effect of "You know, you should get a benefit for "attacking the darkness". As gamers are known to do, we passed ideas back and forth real quick. In the end, we decided to convert the damage to an expo poll, at straight up value. So, if the party "attacks the darkness" 13 times during the course of the session for 47 points of damage, there's 47 points of expo to distribute to the players. It's kind of like "learning from one's mistakes".

I'm going to take it a little further in the next session, because I like the idea of finding value in failure. This will be a "beta rule", which works as we are beta testing Ambition & Avarice.

Attacking the Darkness: On a natural roll of 1, the character in question "Attacks the Darkness". Roll damage as if you had a successful hit. These points are added to the Attacking the Darkness Pool.

Attacking the Darkness Pool: Points are placed by the party in the Attacking the Darkness Pool as described above. Points are accumulated in a per session manner, and unused points will be "cashed out" at the end of the game session. At 25 points (and each interval of 25) the party has the option of converting 25 points into a "bennie". The bennie can be used to reroll a single attack roll (but not a natural 1) or saving throw. Points spent on bennies can't be cashed out at the end of the gaming session.
Cashed out points are converted into expo on a 1 to 1 basis multiplied by the receiving character's level. Everyone in the party gets the full value of the cashed out points - they are not divided amongst the players

Dwimmermount - Session 1 Recap - Knocking Heads

So, last night I ran a party of six into Dwimmermount using the Ambitions & Avarice Ruleset. We used 2nd level characters, as I really didn't feel the need of picking bodies off the floor right from the start ;)

Greg, designer of A&A, has also played a session of Dwimmermount with James Mal, so it was decided the party would go in a different direction (as they had gone east in his session previously).

There are a few things I've learned in my years of gaming, but sometimes it takes a dungeon like Dwimmermount to drive the ideas home, such as:

- Given an assortment of levers, someone in the party will start randomly pulling them. If curiosity killed the cat, and cat's have nine lives, PCs invariably have more. In this case, the levers didn't kill any PCs. This time.

-Given an assortment of valves and spigots (or gods forbid, a Decenter of Endless Water), players will converse about the improbable ways in which they could flood all levels of the dungeon, as the PCs sit back at the pub watching their expo roll in. It ain't going to happen, but I've seen this scenario get brought up many a time before.

-Given an assortment of statues, someone in the party will attempt to start breaking off heads, prying out eyes, cracking off limbs or whatever it takes to get to the to the center of a tootsie roll tootsie pop. Just like in the commercial, getting to the center makes noise, which brings the risk of Wandering Monsters.

-Given an opportunity to use fire against an adversary, PCs will use fire. I look forward to my next opportunity for my NPCs to respond in kind.

-Given an opportunity to recover a hostage that the hostage takers believe the PCs are looking to rescue, someone in the party will invariably ask the hostage: "Dude, what's your name" before negotiations even begin.

-Halflings are squishy, no matter the rule set.

So yes, we'll be picking this back up next Saturday. It was a blast and Dwimmermount and Ambitions & Avarice go together like peanut butter and chocolate ;)

Tonight's ACKS Game is Being Interrupted By Ambitions & Avarice - Dwimmermount Found to Be an Accomplice!

Tonight's mostly weekly ACKS game is going to be put on hold for a bit longer. Tonight I will be running James Mal's Dwimmermount, using Greg Christopher's Ambitions and Avarice ruleset. As Greg will be  player, this should be damn interesting. Can a game's designer try to be a rules lawyer in a game session where he designed the game? Is Greg foolish enough to try?

Tune in tomorrow when I give a game recap / update ;)