13th Age Fillable Character Sheets

Just a quicky, i'm not sure if there are any fillable character sheet pdf's already available - but just encase you there aren't or you haven't found them - I present to you some rather lovely sheets courtesy of +Ade Sant (i've been using them for my weekend Roll20 game, so I can testify they work a treat!)

You can grab the colour version here, and a printer friendly version here.

Have fun!

D20 Icons - Purple Worm

Each week I'll be taking a crack at converting some of the most iconic d20 monsters that, for one reason or another didn't appear in the awesome 13th Age Core rulebook. This week - Purple Worms

Purple Worm
Level 7 (Huge Beast)
Init: +10
HP: 324  AC: 23  PD: 20  MD: 16

Swallowing Bite : +12 vs PD (3 nearby enemies) 84 damage Natural even hit or miss: the target is swallowed and is stuck and hampered (save ends both), every time a save is failed the creature takes 52 acid damage.

Writhing burrowing : A purple worm travels by burrowing, when it fails a roll to get under ground it may re-roll and choose the second result.

Thrashing Tail : (When a melee attacks hits the Purple Worm) +12 vs AC, 36 damage and the target pops free.

: If you like this monster check out the other Iconic classic D&D monsters I've converted here :

Roll20 Paizo Pawn Style Tokens

I've been playing on Roll20 recently with the awesome +Ade Sant and company, so naturaly my brain got thinking how I could create cool looking stuff for it. A bit of 3d Software and some Photoshopping plus an hour or two I came up with these:

I've made it so its a template setup, all you need to do is a quick google image search for the creature/npc you're looking for and insert it into a layer and boom, you're done. As always if there's interest i'll share the Photoshop file, but wont be able to share the art shown above - but a quick google search will do that for you.

Here they are 'in action' on Roll20 :

Im aware i've only got medium sized creatures here, i'll knock up a large variant tomorrow if I get time.

The only issue is when moving tokens infront/behind each other you might sometimes needs to send them to the front or back through a quick right click, but they do look good in play so I guess its down to you if you're willing to put up with it.

Anyways Happy gaming all.

13th Age Hazard/Trap Table Aid

In my previous posts (here and here) where I gave some options for the creation of traps and hazards on the fly, I mentioned putting it in a pdf if there was interest - so I have. I've also put together a printer friendly version too. Grab them here

Let me know if you have any ideas on how to improve it or how you got on with it - until next time.

An awesome alternative to the initiative order.

Thought this was worth talking about, albeit briefly.

This is an awesome alternative to the standard initiative order I suggest you read it all, didn't? (you should) but basically everyone rolls initiative and then it is passed around between the players. Its very descriptive and story driven but is heavily waited towards the players, which is fine but i'd like to add more of a chance that a monster can interrupt  the flow for dramatic purposes.

Easiest way in my mind to do that is have everyone roll a D6 when they declare who the initiative will be going to next, if they roll 5-6 the initiative is passed to the GM to assign to a monster,  they then must roll a D6 in public before declaring who goes next and on a 5-6 the GM may choose another monster, anything else it goes to a Player.

Elements for Generating Traps on the Fly.

So 13th Age is an improvisation heavy game, or at least thats how the authors suggest it be played and how the main text suggests you play. Which is fine, but I know a lot of players prefer running pre scripted encounters and scenes, or at the very least like to have some concrete information to draw upon. And whilst the suggested numbers work fine, they lack a mechanical uniqueness that some players and GM's will miss. Thats half the reason i'm making my NPC Kit, to give me a set of tools to generate stuff at the table without having to pause or trip over myself if i'm drawing a blank.

I wrote a couple of posts about tactical gameplay and creating traps and hazards, and thought I would expand on that by providing some options to help generate traps with solid mechanics. I've presented them below a series of steps to creating a trap/hazard with some random tables too.

Step 1

Assign a Level and Name, make a note of all the baseline stats (you might need them later)

Step 2 

Choose a Trigger 

1. When a creature moves nearby the trap make an attack against it.
2. When a creature moves so it is now behind the trap make an attack against it.
3. When a creature moves through an area the trap makes an attack against it.
4. When a creature spends an action (choose Quick/Standard) on a trigger, such as a switch or lever the trap makes attacks against creatures nearby it. 
5. When a creature spends an action (choose Quick/Standard) on a trigger, such as a switch or lever the trap makes an attack against a creature of your choice
6. The trap rolls initiative and makes an attack against creatures nearby it.

Step 3

Create an attack 

A. Choose a Defence for the traps attack to target, in the examples below AB represents the Attack Bonus from the baseline stats you copied down earlier.

1. AB vs. PD 
2. AB vs. AC  
3. AB vs. MD

B. Choose a triggered effect for the attack, the percentages represent a percentage of the Strike Damage value from the baseline stats.

1. 100% damage and 50% ongoing damage. Miss: 50% ongoing damage.
2. 125% damage, Natural even hit or Miss: The creatures pops free from all engaged creatures and is knocked down.
3. The creature is stuck (save ends); Every time the target fails a saving throw they take 50% damage.
4. 75% damage and the creature is affected by a condition (save ends)
5. 100% damage, Natural 16+: Target loses 1 recovery.
6. 75% damage, Natural even hit or miss: Make an additional attack against a different creature.
7. A nearby creature is affected by a condition until the end of its next turn.
8. A nearby creature is affected by a condition (save ends) the first time they fail a save they are affected by an additional condition.
9. Nearby creatures are affected by a condition until the end of their next turn.
10. Nearby creatures are affected by a condition (save ends) the first time they fail a save they are affected by an additional condition.

C. If during Step 1 you selected an option where the attack is against creatures decide how many, either a fixed number (2, 3, 4 etc) or a randomly generated one (d4, d6, d8 etc)

D. If during step B the target(s) of an attack is affected by a condition, choose from the following:

1. Confused
2. Dazed
3. Hampered
4. Stuck
5. Stunned
6. Vulnerable
7. Weakened
8. Fear
9. Helpless
10. Must make Last Gasp saves as they turn to stone/goo/another equally gruesome fate.

E. You're done, but repeat A-C if you want more attacks.

Step 4

Determine the difficulty required for any skill checks made to disable and spot it, if you want specific methods to be harder or easier record those too. 

Step 5

Fill in the blanks, if you want the trap to be destroyable give it AC, HP and PD - reserve MD for things like sentient traps and hazards. If you don't want it to be destroyed or immune just leave that stat blank. Also establish its initiative as per guidelines in the book, if it doesn't have initiative decide on the time it takes to reset

Finished! You should have enough information to run a trap in a scene/combat encounter as long as you paste a cool and creative skin on the mechanics or vice versa, spend some time thinking you're own up or roll on the lists above for on the fly situations.

Remember these charts are only really giving you a mechanical framework for the trap, make sure you add on cool elements of flavour, and thematic elements to tie it into your adventure. Also as a word of warning I would urge caution when using various conditions, its quite possible to cripple an entire party and possible get a TPK with a badly timed effect. 

Given enough interest I might put this info onto a nicely designed .pdf for use at the table, so let me know if you want it.

Background checks should be situational and cool

A couple of threads on G+ recently talking about using backgrounds skill checks, i'm not going to go on at length about them i just wanted to share my thoughts on some good use guidelines for people to mull over.

Players should be able to attempt to shoehorn almost any check into one of their backgrounds as long as it doesn't contradict existing 'game fiction'. It s up to the GM to decide whether you can use it, if i'm running a session the more creative and developed reason a players gives me the more inclined i will be to go run with it.

Likewise as a GM if your going to say no to a particular bonus you better had be as equally or more-so creative/developed in your reason why it cannot be used.

All of these things get easier with time as more and more game fictions is created, fleshed out and explored. And of course a player wont need to continually create new reasons for familiar situations, although I think it would be great to start reference past events for characters to achieve the same bonuses.

Another thing I like to do is to directly inform my players how hard a task is, I don't give them the DC but I'll inform them of of a rough difficulty range (Easy, Challenging, Hard, Impossible etc) Then I can change this between players based on the background bonus they give me, allowing more background checks to apply, but also making harder/easier based on its suitability.

How do you work your Background skill checks?

D20 Icons - Umber Hulk

Each week I'll be taking a crack at converting some of the most iconic d20 monsters that, for one reason or another didn't appear in the awesome 13th Age Core rulebook. This week - An Umber Hulk

You should also check out Aaron R's Umber Hulk over at the Vault of the 13th Age

Umber Hulk
Level 4 (Large Magical Beast)
Init: +2 (+8 Whilst burrowing)
HP: 87  AC: 22  PD: 18  MD: 14

Claw Attack : +9 vs AC (2 attacks) - 14 damage; if both attacks hit the same target it is grabbed, save ends. 

Crushing Grip : When a creature starts its turn grabbed by an Umber Hulk it takes 10 damage, and if it fails the save against the grab it takes a further 4 damage.

Rapid Burrowing : The Umber hulk can travel by burrowing. In addition it adds +5 to all saves made to Get Under Ground.

Confusing Gaze : When a creature makes an attack against the Umber Hulks AC or PD and it rolls a natural 1-5 it is dazed save ends.

: If you like this monster check out the other Iconic classic D&D monsters I've converted here :

D30 - Days 18-19

Favourite Monster (Immortal/Outsider)

I'd go with the Astral Stalker, its basically some astral henchman that can just pop into existence, even when you're on the can because thats what it does.

Awesome.

"Astral stalkers are abominations created during the Dawn War by the gods as  weapons. Devious and bloodthirsty killers, astral stalkers have served since the Dawn War primarily as bounty hunters and assassins, though they often hunt simply for the sake of the challenge in cornering a dangerous prey"

Favourite Monster (Elemental/Plant)

I like all the elementals, they're great for scene's with .. err. elements? Like having a bunch of water elementals ambush people and create violent water vortex type thing. Basically what i'm trying to say they're super useful and can unpredictably change their environment which is great.
So yeah, any will do - i'll find a way torment my players with them.

D30 - Days 12-17

I've been a little slack what with working late and being generally swamped so i've let the D30 challenge slide a little. Never fear im doing a cathup!

12 - Favourite Dungeon Type 

I like tombs, they're pretty cool - but they get old fast. What about a tomb in the astral plane? Perhaps set inside the consciousness of  an unborn god? Dont ask me how that works but its cooler than just a regular tomb.

13 - Favourite Trap/Puzzle

I haven't run this yet, but I like the idea - its bastardised from an encounter in "Halls of the Undermountain' A room of mirrors, when the PC's enter make sure you impress upon them how grand and opulent the room is, each wall has a tall mirror on it. When the players enter have their reflections come alive, out of the mirrors and attack them. Pretty standard right? Here's the twist. Have their reflections kills them, total party kill. Breaking the mirrors doesn't help, nor does doing damage. And you should seal them in too.Then when they think they're all dead, have them wake up at full HP. But this time describe the room in a dilapidated state, a shell just remnants of its former glory.

The PC's wont trust anything in the dungeon from that point onwards.

14 - Favourite NPC

This is a hard one, There are several NPC's i've got a soft spot for. My current favourite is Manfred Copperspark - a homebrew creation, part friend, part thorn in the players side - always mischievous. The players have just decided whether they can trust him or not (they decided they don't know if they can)

15 - Favourite Monster (Undead)

Knock Knock. Who's there? Crawling Hands. Crawling Hands whooOaArghH!

16 - Favourite Monster (Abberations)

Mind Flayers. I'll bet this is a pretty common Favourite. I mean seriously, they have octopuses for HEADS. So much so this was my first monster conversion for 13th AGE here.

17 - Favourite Monster (Animal/Vermin)

Meh. Im not a massive fan of vermin/animal monsters unless its giant albino subterranean crab men hybrids or something equally bizarre.

NPC Kit Updates

I spent some time working on the page layouts for the NPC Kit, thought I would share:

I'm also working through a second pass of the draft this week, so expect some more news later on in the week regarding a finish date. Im still looking for testers and feedback - if your interested get in touch on G+!

D20 Icons - Helmed Horror

Each week I'll be taking a crack at converting some of the most iconic d20 monsters that, for one reason or another didn't appear in the awesome 13th Age Core rulebook. This week - Helmed Horrors

Helmed Horror
Level 1 (Construct)
Init: +4
HP: 27  AC: 17  PD: 16  MD: 11

Flaming Greatsword : +6 vs AC - 7 damage, the Horror may choose to deal fire damage instead of untyped damage.

Heavy Crossbow : +6 vs. PD (1 nearby enemy) - 8 damage.

Enchanted Strike : Once per battle when a creature is hit by the horror it takes additional 6 damage and the horror teleports itself and the creature far away as a free action. The creature ends this teleportation engaged with the horror.

Arcane regeneration 4 : Once per per turn as a quick action the Horror may heal 4 hit points. It may do this 4 times per battle.

: If you like this monster check out the other Iconic classic D&D monsters I've converted here :

D30 - Day10/11 Craziest thing/Favourite Adventure

I didn't get a chance to do yesterdays - so i'll blog it today.

Craziest thing that's happened that you saw (to party/character/your players etc)

This ones pretty easy, my wife went into labour whilst I was running a game of 4e. Labour can take a long time, Our (I say our, I really mean my wife's) first was around 30 hours. So when she got the signs that our second was on the way - we were advised that we might be in for a wait and I ,y wife suggested I should continue with my normal saturday night game as planned. Half an hour into the game I got a phone call that actually I better come down to the hospital. Thats not an everyday D&D story right? And hopefully doesn't make me look like a giant chauvinist either (she told me to play okay??)

Favourite Adventure I've run

A hard one this, I can tell you which adventure I hated - Pyramid of Shadows. The players are locked into essentially what is a old school wacky mega dungeon until the BBEG is defeated, and whilst thats not a problem (its actually kinda fun premise) mix that in with 4E which is a system where combats can be excruciatingly long - and you got a module that can take weeks and weeks to complete (with no respite). Not fun. Although I may try and run this in 13A or Next.

Favourite? There are too many highlights to pick but a recent favourite was the Mines of Madness. I ran it for my group on my birthday weekend, we pulled an all day'er - which is rare (we normally play in the evening) got some beers and ate cake, the silliness and old school feeling of the dungeon fitted the occasion perfectly. Great fun was had by all. We'd been playing 4e since 2008 at this point so a old school romp was a breath of fresh air. Good times.

D30 - Day 9 Favourite Character you Haven't Played

I'm not really sure how to answer this one? I suppose being a regular GM there are plenty of characters concepts I haven't played.  I wouldn't mind playing a mad wizard for a change of pace - he'd have to be really mad, it would be great to have an invisible familiar that he talks to just to emphasise the crazy. But maybe the WotC PAX podcast is in too recent memory. Perhaps he could be a bit like Macros the black from the Magician series? The bit where he's has his mind wiped, becomes a hermit and spends all his time eating oranges and dancing like a monkey is cool. Yeah, thats definitely my "Favourite character I haven't played". At least until I think of another one.

D20 Icons - All the Icons to date

Each week I take a crack at creating an iconic D&D monster for the 13th Age system, most haven't appeared in the 13A corebook due to licensing, others are request from regular readers.

In preparation for creating this weeks d20 Icon, I realised that now i've been doing it for a couple of months that all the various monster entries are spread out across my blog and as such aren't that easy to find. Here's a list of all the monsters i've created, in no particular order:

Slaad
Yuan-Ti
Kuo-Toa
Mimic
Purple Worm
Umber Hulk
Helmed Horror
Piercer
Stirge
Beholder
Rust Monster
Displacer Beast
Gibbering Mouther
Carrion Crawler
Rotgrub
Mindflayer

The list is ever expanding, so i'll endeavour to keep it up to date - also if you have a request, let me know in the comments or find me on G+

D30 - Day 8 Favourite Character You Have Played

My favourite character would be the last I played, Reed - an androgynous looking female Halfling Thief. She joined an adventuring group after going on the run from her former criminal fraternity and spent the remainder of her life looking for ways to get back to her safe house (to make sure no-one had stolen her mattress stuffed full of cash)

She never did make it back, although travelling across planes and saving a demi god from destruction, foiling a dark gods plans to submerge the world into darkness and surviving the destruction of a dragon empire may have made up for it. Im not sure where she is now, but I cant wait to find out.

D30 - Day 7 Favourite Edition

You know when you hear a mum say something "I love all my kids equally" or "I love them all for different reason"? Well that analogous to the way I feel about D&D, apart from it being my offspring. I love the old school killer DM feel of OD&D and the various coloured boxed sets, I also think that 4e is the easiest system to mechanically DM. Each edition has something great about it, they all brought something new to the table - there is no BAD edition.

So favourite? Hmm I guess it would be 4th. But then there are massive problems there too - I guess thats why i'm playing 13th Age. It fixes a LOT of those problems, give me a storytelling game with ease of play and mechanics of newer editions. Im eagerly awaiting the playtest packet for Next, that's shown some real promise, still some issue's but its definitely looks fun.

D30 - Day 6 Favourite Deity

This is also a short a simple one to answer. Rather than write about it i'll let an image give you my thousand words, summing up why this particular God is totally badass.

...

Need I say more?

D30 - Day 5 Favourite Set of Dice/Individual Die

This is easy. I love the Chessex precision edge dice.

I like to throw them at my players to simulate the pain their characters suffer during combat. Really. Well not really but they are cool. Check them out 

D20 Icons - Piercer

Each week I'll be taking a crack at converting some of the most iconic d20 monsters that, for one reason or another didn't appear in the awesome 13th Age Core rulebook. This week - Mollusc? Rock? Who knows, it's a Piercer.

Piercer
Level 2 (Creature Hazard)
Init: -
HP: 28  AC: 18  PD: 14 MD: 11

Impale : +7 vs AC - 14 damage and the target is stuck save ends, every failed save deals 7 damage

Spot : The Piercer remains completely hidden unless spotted with a successful Hard difficulty Wisdom background. Until the Piercer is spotted it has +4 to its Impale attack bonus.

Trigger : When a creature moves and they have moved underneath the Piercer it makes a Impale attack.

Crawl : Once a Piercer has a made an Impale attack it is effectively inert, all it can do is make a slow crawl to return to its position on the cave ceiling which take approximately 60 minutes depending on the size of the room - During this time the Piercer is Helpless.

: If you like this monster check out the other Iconic classic D&D monsters I've converted here :

D30 - Day 4 Favourite Gameworld

This is a real toughie, when i'm running a game its usually homebrew or at least an amalgamation of different things. My major problem with canon is that its exactly that, canon. As my usual games are a mixture of me feeding players info and them coming up with stuff its really hard to fit that inside a strict cannon setting, hence things usually become a hodgepodge of stuff re-labelled or changed slightly.

I like the current Nentir Vale setting for 4e, aside from the actual Vale very little is documented, there are hints of stuff which is great - threads I can spin a story from. Aside from that if I had to choose a very detailed setting it would probably be Darksun? Maybe even Ebberron? I like both. So whats my favourite gameworld? Heck if i know, they're all pretty good i suppose!

Hazards and Obstacles in 13th Age

So i've been thinking about injecting a more tactical 'feeling' into combat and i've been looking at movement and how to track it, but I guess its due to a a bit of disappointment in how traps and hazards are handled within 13th Age.

Now I do totally get that 13A explicitly doesn't place an emphasis tactical combat, thats the whole point and one of the reasons combats run so fast and I love it. But I do think there could be a way of handling hazards and obstacles that perhaps treats them more like 4e giving them pseudo monster attributes, something given the way monsters function in 13A could be very rewarding.

Hazards and Obstacles as Monsters

Creating a Hazard or Obstacle is going to be pretty simple, the easiest route is to use information we have available to us already. The monster tables give us statistics, such as HP Defences and Damage. We also have impromptu damage for single/multiple targets. I'd go with the damage numbers from the Monster stat table - they're less swingy and you have a better range of results, but its worth considering both options.

Another great thing about the monster stat tables is that it lets us balance the number of offensive hazards within the system of building encounters. Its up to you if you feel the balancing values are equal to monsters, remember that a monster will always act and attempt to do damage but an obstacle or hazard wont necessarily unless its triggered.

The main thing we have to look at is movement and how other creature move around and interact with the hazard. First its obvious that a Hazard or Obstacle should occupy a space in the world in a similar way creatures do, you can be engaged with it, nearby, far away and behind it. The only ones really worth explaining are engaged and behind. It makes perfect sense  that a creature could be behind a hazard or obstacle, and the the hazard or obstacle would intercept ANY creature moving to engage.

Its worth noting that I dont really think that the creature needs to make a disengage check to get away (unless thats part of the trap, such as an iron maiden) it just makes sense to think of it this way.

And if the hazard or obstacle is successful in intercepting the creature then its engaged with it, this would typically trigger an attack, check or some sort of status effect - you would record these as you would attacks and powers for regular monsters. You could also have powers that trigger an attack when a creature moves behind a Hazard or Obstacle if they don't know the location of a trigger mechanism (to represent a blow gun trap) The powers could also determine difficulties for certain ways of disarming OR you could leave it freeform and judge each attempt to disable them as you see fit (Normal, Hard, Ridiculously Hard)

Some Hazards and Obstacles wont move, a non-magical pit trap stays where it was built so we don't have to worry about it moving but of course we can use movement if we want, again i'd take exiting creatures lead on movement rules.

I think that pretty much makes sense, but to further illustrate i've come up with a couple of verysimple examples of traps we probably all recognise:

Example Traps

Hole in the ground
Level 1 (Trap) 
Init: -
HP: -  AC: -  PD: - MD: -

Fall : +6 vs AC - 5 damage and the target is stuck save ends.

Spot : A creature spots the Hole on a Regular wisdom background check.

Trigger : The hole makes a Fall attack against any creature moving to be behind it that has not spotted it

Flame Nozzles

Level 4 (Trap) 
Init: +7
HP: -  AC: -  PD: - MD: -

Gout of Flame : +9 vs AC (1d6 nearby creatures) - 14 damage and 7 ongoing damage.
Miss : 7 ongoing damage.

Spot : A creature spots the Flame Nozzles on a Hard wisdom background check.

Trigger : The hole makes a Gout of Flame attack when any creature moves Nearby it. 

Disarm : Once spotted the Flame Nozzle can be disarmed with 2 Hard Dexterity Background checks.

I've purposefully left the details of spotting and disarming, ie the logical real world elements of the traps very vague. Some people are happy with this level of abstraction, but you can easily build upon it to devise something more tangible that players could disarm (proper mechanism's, control panels etc) Its your call.

I hope this give some food for thought! Happy gaming all!

Bringing tactical combat back to 13th Age.

So after some time playing 13th Age my friday night group has come to the realisation that were missing using miniatures for more in depth tactical combat. The group definitely enjoys the speed of fights, especially seeing as we've just come off a long stint of 4e (where the combats were excruciatingly long) and the slightly more abstract rules handling placement are great but we like maps and terrain, obstacles and hazards and other fun stuff like that.

So in order to slake the players thirst for tactical combat, and crucially without having to add substantial houserules and hacks - so i've modified the standard 1inch grid to fit in with the Engaged/Nearby/Far away format. It features much bigger squares (roughly 5" x 5") so that anyone in the same square as you is nearby and if they're in any other square they're far away.

I've got an A3 Battlematt for you to download (see the bottom of the post) featuring 6 large squares, each divided up very faintly into the normal 1 inch squares (for mapping corridors and straight stuff) but its worth considering how we use the maps with the rules designed for theatre of the mind play. Currently you can move anywhere that is far away in two moves, but the matt is 3 measures long, so how do we handle maps like this? This is what we do at our table:

A move will let you go anywhere inside your current square, or move into an adjacent square. You cannot however engage an enemy if you move into an adjacent square as you have just moved to be nearby them. In order to engage them you would need to make another move inside that square so you are in base to base contact (basing?) creatures that are more the 1 square away still are treated as 'far-away' - although we like to add a -2 modifier on attacks for the extreme range.

This lets me as a GM do a couple of things, one it keeps the players happy - they have their grid and meaningful movement decisions. Secondly and possibly more importantly it lets me keep track of hazards and scenery elements such as pit traps and the like. By putting them into the squares they are given a proximity and i can track whether a player moves nearby and whether an attack or roll is required. 

We'd tried the standard 1" grid and it was too confusing when a player moved around an obstacle or hazard as its unclear as to how close they would be moving to it (and of course if asked the player would have given it a wide berth, thus removing any risk and as such any point in the obstacle being there, to a degree)

Grab the Battlemat here and you can see what it looks like below before taking the plunge :

EDIT : Since writing this post I've also looked at giving Hazards and Obstacles a more 'tactical' 4e feel, read it here.

D30 - Day 3 Favourite Playable Class

Again i'm more of a GM than player, but if I were to roll up a class that I know and love it would be the Rogue/Thief. The earlier editions of D&D were great for a Thief, but its really the later editions that I like better, Martial characters have been brought up to speed combat wise so i've always felt like I could contribute more inside combat than before. (not that it hasn't always been fun mechanically, it has)

Im not always about acrobatics, although thats cool - for me its about the knowledge of how to detect and disarm traps, knowing the best way to get in and out - and crucially being able to do it silently.

I especially like the thief class because of the ambiguity it inherently offers, i've always found character with questionable or undetermined moral compasses much more appealing to play. I tend to play the good guys, albeit ones who keep everyone guessing that fact. Maybe thats the GM in. Keep 'em guessing.

D30 - Day 2 Favourite Playable Race

Hmm, tough one. I'm usually behind the screen 95% of the time when playing but when I d get the chance/compulsion to play i'll usually lean towards the Githyanki/Githzerai - sometimes it can be a struggle to fit a character in more 'vanilla' fantasy campaigns but its always fun trying to get a cohesive backstory. Space pirates. Whats not to love?

D30 - Day 1 How you got started

How you got started

I think it was around '94 with this awesome box of goodness :

Heres the link to it over at BoardGameGeek.com, its basically a variant of HeroQuest (or at least that how I remember it) it also came with a VHS that i think we watched once, maybe. It was definitely the gateway drug for rpg's for me as you were able to photocopy the blank maps and create new scenarios for your players. I remember spending many happy saturdays round my friends house painting the miniatures and playing through the different scenarios until it was time for my parents to pick me up.

I remember some of the other box sets, the classic red dragon on black box rings a bell, but this is definitely the one I remember vividly.

After that my next 'proper' systems was AD&D, I was definitely a kid of the TSR 90's golden era. I've still got the 3 black books and they take pride of place on my bookshelf as my first edition of 'the game'. And from there all sorts at school: Vampire, Heavy Gear, Dark Sun Al-Quadim, Cyberpunk and a few others i cant remember -  But it was definitely Dragonstrike that got me hooked.

D&D 30 Day Challenge

If you haven't seen it in the blogosphere here's what i'm doing:

I forget where the original image came from as I was surfing blogs during my lunch break and came across it (and completely forgot to note down where it came from!) so if anyone can enlighten me that would be great! 30 days in september so a barrage of post here we go!