So we go back to Davy’s/ Big Rab tells us on the way back about the girl in the petrol station. She had some sort of spectre floating around her and it seemed to be causing her pain even though she was totally unaware of it. Another weird one. We get to Davy’s and Laura, Stuart’s girlfriend, calls us on the mobile. Apparently Stuart threw a fit in Hudsons and started screaming about monsters and shit. She needs us to help him. If only she knew she’d think we’re all crazy. So we pile into the the van and get back to EK as fast as we can.We pile out at the Town Centre, none of us packing any big weapons, and head for Hudsons. Laura is outside crying. The bouncers threw Stuart out and he took off. Some guy walked past with his girlfriend and we asked him if he’d seen Stuart. He takes an interest in why we want to know and that’s when it hits us, and I mean hits us, headache, tunnel vision, hurts like fuck. This guy is a vampire. He waved over a crowd of his friends, they were vampires. Inside Hudsons, four more vampires. The guy took Graeme aside and asked him some questions and he didn’t look to happy about the answers.

My mobile goes off. It’s Leia. She’s inside Hudsons and figured that was us outside. How she knew I still can’t say (something about powers). We walked in effectively cornering ourselves. Leia is pretty ute, earliy thirties, good figure. We bombarded her with questions but again she was vague. Yes they were vampires. Yes she saw Stuart. No she didn’t know where he went. Apparently we are the Imbuded or something. Blessed or cursed with the power to see evil, and boy is it everywhere! On the plus side we should get some cool powers. I hope wine is to become invisible cause that’s about all I want right now.

She sneaks us out the back way and we stop off at the security office. They seemed to buy our story about Stuart stealing my wallet but their tapes didn’t show Stuart ever leaving Hudsons. With all the vamps about I was pretty worried. That’s when Clare phoned to say Stuart was at our house. We piled into a taxi, hoping to avoid the vamps, and called Davy with instructions to meet us at my place.

Stuart’s in some state. He is wild eyed and swinging from hyperactive raving lunatic to a completely catatonic state. The door knocked and Clare went to answer it. I had to catch her in the hallway to stop her. I’m getting really fucking paranoid at this point! Through the glass I can make out the figure of a fairly big person. I drew my pistol just to be safe. The bedroom window burst in and I could see two of these fucking vampires trying to climb in. The vamp outside started slamming on the door trying to break his way in. I threw Clare into the living room and took a few pot shots at the vamp behind the front door. Big Rab slammed the living room door shut behind us and not a minute too soon as the fuckers burst the front door down. Davy was trying to hold the table against the big picture window as bottles and bricks were flung at us. Graeme shouted at us to get into the kitchen. I pushed Clare ahead of me when a vamp sails through the window at an impossible speed and lands right in front of me. I thought I was a fucking goner. He raised one big clawed and took a swipe but something really fucking odd happened. Graeme took a step forward and yelled ‘Stop!’ and it missed me. I don;t know how it could have but somehow it did. I wasn’t going to stand and worry about it though.

I ran through the kitchen and leant out the window with Graeme and Big Rab close behind. Our escape was only brief. Stuart started screaming and pointing as the vamps ran round the side of the building. We took off again running through all the flats. One of the fuckers moved like lightening again and almost got Big Rab before he stabbed it with a bit of wood. I pulled him back and the others knocked it on it’s ass. Wish we had the shotguns handy for that. It was then that I noticed Davy had joined us. Apparently he warned the others from the kitchen window just as the attack started. One more favour we owe him. We got our asses out of there. Ran till I felt I would burst or puke, nearly did both. Lucky for us Rab has an uncle that lived nearby. We basically went round and invites ourselves in. I’m currently sitting in his living room writing this. I’m gonna have to start carrying some crosses in this knapsack.

Outside the night is alive. Windows are smashing, cars and house alarms are wailing unattended. It’s like living in a warzone. Those fuckers outside must be pretty unhappy that they lost us. I know I’ll feel a lost better when daylight gets her.

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This was one of the weaker days. It’s always hard crossing over from the players knowing nothing to them starting to learn more and more about the enemy. In this case Willie kept us grounded in the surroundings that we knew intimately from the pub to the homes used in the story. Every location we could draw with our eyes closed.

I heard movement outside and peeked out to see four or five well dressed guys getting out the back of a truck. They went straight for our borrowed flatbed. The door knocked again. I came up with the idea of storming out like in a movie. Rab was to pull the door open while me and Big Rab jumped out to surprise whoever was there. The hallway was clear apart from one big guy looking back at us as he turned the corner. I raced up the corridor and looked round. The motherfucker had been waiting for me. He waved his hand across his chest and walked off. I was having trouble moving like my breathing was restricted and my chest felt tight. He got about halfway down the stairs before turning back. He motioned as if he throwing something at me as sure as fuck felt like he had. Something smashed into my chest hurling me backwards, my ribs are bruised to fuck. By the time Big Rab got to me the guy had gone. The others joined us at the top of the stairs and Big Rab filled them in. We could only assume the whoever it was would be waiting with his buddies downstairs, we were as good as trapped. Grame and Rab set off the fire alarm to try and buy us some time and as people started flooding out One Punch Wonder and a couple of his henchmen were trying to push past them to get back up the stairs to us. We all pretty much decided the window was the best way.

Running back into our room I was shocked to find a head looking over our window ledge, especially as we were on the second floor. I grabbed a chair and rammed it legs first through the window and into the guys face. The guy screamed and dropped out of sight. I climbed the ledge and jumped, landing as I’d hoped onto the roof of a car below. The drop didn’t seem that high but try it sometime. It seems our peeper had been standing on a friends shoulders and when I hit his buddy they both fell. I scrambled over and held a gun to the guys head to cover everyone’s escape. Once they were all clear I smashed the guy in the face with my gun and ran for the truck. We hit the motorway and fled.

So who were these guys in the suits? I remember seeing a car further up the motorway when I was peeking out. We passed it as we fled and it looked empty but I’m sure it hadn’t been. They weren’t the cops. Highland patrol would never have done anything like that. They didn’t seem to look like the werewolf, I didn’t get the same feelings of revulsion or anything. And what the fuck did that guy do to me? It was like a psychic punch or something. This shit is just getting weirder and weirder.

Patrick Down @ Flickr

We wanted some answers, hell we needed some, so we decided to go back to where it began. Back to Shotgun Guys cottage. We pulled up outside. Didn’t look like anybody was home. Big Rab burst open the front door and the smell just rolled out. One of Shotgun Guys buddies had been pinned to the wall and gutted. There was blood everywhere. I almost threw up, had to fight with my stomach not to. Without anyone to give us answers we started looking about for the black bags Rab had claimed to see yesterday. In a few we found handguns but I know you can’t buy these to go hunting deer with. On the wall was a great looking longbow which Rab claimed for himself, no big loss, I’d be more likely to hurt myself with it. In the corner was a road map with lots of notes. Towns and villages were marked with names and phone numbers. There wasn’t any here but East Kilbride had a number and two names.

The smell was really starting to get to me. I was gonna step outside when another van came bouncing down the trail and screeched to a stop. Five guys piled out and ran for the cover of the tree lines. Before long their intent was clear when they started firing arrows at the house. Fucking trapped again! So we back ourselves, ready to make another last stand. Five of them storm in, straight into a hail of our gunfire. The first gets blown back out of the doorway, the other four leap towards us. I spy the one at the back has a gun while the others only have chunks of wood(I say only, still wouldn’t like to get thumped with one) so I level a shotgun and blow his head clean off, well not so much off as apart. One minute there was a head the nest it was just a cloud of blood. Someone else offed another, Big Rab smashed one unconscious with the butt of his gun and Rab got one in the leg with the bow. We grabbed our new captives under to have another arrow fired at us from the doorway. Our new attacker broke cover and ran to their van. Rab got him through the neck with the bow. It’s a good thing he wasn’t a decoy or Rab would have been an easy target. From the leaders body I recover a strange amulet shaped like a pentagram and looking all occulty. I take his wolfskin sash as well. Graeme tries to get some answers out of the arrow perforated captive but in a lapse of concentration the guy pulls a knife and swings for Graeme’s face. He was real lucky the butt of the handle hit him instead of the blade! I took the other hostage into the back of the van. I figured we could scare him a little. These guys think they know about werewolves, I figure if I poke him a little with the silver knife, a couple of shallow cuts could get him singing. I think I’m making some headway when Rab and Graeme drag the guy from the van and take aim at him.They were going to execute him. Just shoot him in cold blood. Now I know that with everything that’s happened we’re no angels but every crime we have committed has been in the interests of survival. They don’t seem to be bothered with my reasoning. While Graeme and I are arguing Rab just simply shot him. I actually puked. The whole thing was like a nightmare, worse than anything that has happened to us.

We stole their van and found a mobile in the glove compartment. They had been following us the whole time, had people keeping watch for us. Apparently Mr Monstro has a brother who’s heading this was. I for one don’t want to meet him.

Right now we are heading back to East Kilbride. Home sweet home. We took the van up to Inverness, ditched it and hired a car and we’re driving back down the east coast. Once we hit Edinburgh we can head back west. Better safe than sorry.

I’ve got a shitload of questions and no fucking answers. I’m bruised, cut, tired, sore, confused and worst of all scared. What the fuck did we get into? And why can we see these monsters now?

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I’ve always wondered how Willie does it. He managed to make combat feel like part of the story rather than a break away where we have to roll dice until folk run out of hit points.

I should point out that during all gun fights we missed far more than we hit but as with all things you only ever remember the successful attempts which this journal highlights.

Looking back on it I’m still a little confused as to who the bad guys were and who the good guys were. I know we found out in the end but I’ll be buggered if I can remember who they were.

PSD @ Flickr

We had been walking by the river, acting like big drunk kids, pushing each other into the water, hitting each other with sticks, stupid childish things that drunken guys do. When the dog came out of the bushes it came as quite a shock. Now personally, I fucking hate dogs. I’m pretty scared of them and they don’t seem to like me much either. This was a dog from my nightmares. Fucking huge, looked like it could take a chunk from any of us. That stupid bugger Davy starts waving a stick at it. Fearless it was too, just kept coming towards us growling. forced us all back to into the river. Then it turned tail and ran off, but that sure as hell wasn’t our doing.

When we got back to the camp things didn’t get any better. Someone had been there, going through out things. Nothing was missing but nobody likes getting their shit disturbed. Me, Rab and Stuart jumped in Davy’s van and followed the tyre tracks. They led us to a little wooden cottage, falling apart with age. Rab started nosing about when the owners turned up. Five folk with shotguns (and that fucking dog again) tell Rab that it’s in our best interests to clear out. Wish I’d taken that advice.

So we hurry back to the others and get packed up. The campsite is cleared in five minutes, tents are just pulled up and thrown into the back of the van. We get turned around and the fucking van dies. Davy jumps out and starts tinkering with the engine. Stuarts getting really nervous by this point and climbs up on to the roof to keep lookout I suppose. Big Rab gives him some company. Then it starts to get dark in the middle of summer, late evening and it’s getting dark. Heavy clouds were rolling in and the wind was building up to a gale. You could just feel the change in the air, kinda like how you can feel a thunder storm coming. In fact it was exactly like that. From the inside of the van we all heard Stuart’s mobile phone beep. Now his phones loud but to hear it above all the wind and engine noise? Not possible. Next thing Stuarts phone hits the windscreen in pieces as Big Rab jumps from the roof of the van and takes off at a run up the road. We can only look on with a bemused ‘What the fuck?” Then the wind picked up, whipping all the bushes and trees into a frenzy. One of the shotgun welcoming committee bursts from the treeline screaming at us to run. He turns and lets off his shotgun into the trees, but we can’t see if it hits a damn thing. So I jump and start shouting at Davy. “Come on the fuck man, we need to get the fuck out of here.” Davy slams down the bonnet and runs around the back of the van. He jumps and gets a big fucking machete, sticks it in the ground and jumps underneath. All the phones start beeping and they sound very loud for small phones. One text message. RUN. Shotgun guy runs back into the trees , shooting at god knows what. More shots ring out from further up the road. I run to the front of the van to see Big Rab standing over a dead body shooting at some big fucking thing.

If I thought that mutt from earlier was the worst thing I would see today then I was very fucking wrong. This thing stood eight feet tall and was covered in black fur. It’s forearms were as think as my head, it’s claws were the length of my forearms. Big Rab let off a few more shots then this thing takes off heading for the bushes. Big Rab runs back towards us. The monster appears back on the path behind him. The whole time Day’s still under the van and I’m kicking him. Then Stuart takes off like a fucking bunny and flees into the woods. Shotgun guy bursts from cover and heads for the two Rabs at the front of the van and starts taking shots at the big fucking beast again. Davy jumps out from underneath, jumps in the van and guns the engine into life. I run off after Stuart I’m able to catch up with him. He was crying, just sitting by the river and crying. We gotta go I tell him as I drag him back. I throw him into the back of the van and the shotgun guy throws his knapsack in behind us. He shoots this thing in the chest at point blank range, I swear I could see right through it. It must have been knocked back about ten feet by the blast. Nothing could survive that. He grabbed the door to pull himself in and the beast spears him from behind with those big fucking claws.It was horrible, blood was pissing from the guys chest all over the back of the van. It ripped out his stomach. Davy floors the van and we spend the next ten minutes bouncing about like fuck before we hit the main road. We pull into a layby and breath a sigh of release. Then we take a collective ‘What eh fuck’ before letting loose with questions that none of us can answer. Rab tells us to wait there and runs off up the road. Stuarts found himself a bottle of vodka and is well on the way to unconsciousness which is probably for the best.

So Big Rab starts ripping the tents up and using the canvas to clean up the van as best we can. I grab Shotgun guys knapsack and start nosing about. There is a journal (my inspiration for this), a file of computer print outs from the net, some chocolate, some ammo, a few handguns and a big ornate silver knife. Flicking through the file one word jumps out at me, Werewolf. How the fuck are we supposed to accept that? What the fuck tried to warn us? Mostly I wanted to know what the fuck was going on.

We take some time to tally up and find that we now have three handguns, a shotgun, a machete and this big silver knife. A Fiesta comes flying up the roaf and screeches to a halt beside the van, out steps Rab. “I stole it” he proudly announced. So Big Rab and me jump in the back. Graeme and Rab up front. We tell Davy to take the van and meet us at the travel lodge in Aviemore. Then another car pulls up. It’s like a flatbed farmers truck. This big guy steps out and asks us “Is that your car?” So I get out the passenger seat and say “No mate, it’s a rental.” He walks over to me, grabs me by my collar and says “You only had a van!” He throws me over the car with one arm. Graeme jumps out the passenger seat and gets knocked aside. The guy starts changing, growing, sprouting hair. I’m back on my feet and rooting around in my (Shotgun Guys) knapsack for a weapon when I grab the big silver knife. Mr Monstro jumps in to the car making a grab at Rab who managed to get his door open and jump clear. The thing grabs the front seats and pulls himself round till he’s level with Big Rab. Big Rab levels the shotgun and fires. In the enclosed space the sound is immense. All the Fiestas windows blow out. Mr Monstro fires through the windscreen and collapses across the bonnet before sliding off in the blood. I jump forward and ram the knife through the back of his neck. He throws me back but I keep a grab of the knife, ripping it out as I fall. Rab jumps back in and guns the Fiestas engine, flooring it and pinning Mr Monstro between the fiesta and his own truck. Big Rab levels the shotgun at his head and blows it off. Before we can register any of this police lights appear further back, from the way that Rab came. We root around on the dead body for car keys. Davy Takes off in the van with Stuart and we follow in the flatbed.

We caught up with Davy,got out stuff and headed out to a more out of the way travel lodge on the motorway. We’ve booked in and barricaded the door with the bed. We’re all really tired but none of us reckon we can sleep. I had a bit of a look through Shotgun Guys journal and files, it’s all cray shit about werewolves and vampires. I hope none of this is real, but if you can’t trust your own eyes… I just want to go home. Some of us feel like we should go back to the cabin and find Shotgun Guys friends, they might need our help but then again what can we do? I just want to stop feeling like my head is up my arse.

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This game was run by Willie. He has never been the biggest fan of rules and if I recall correctly it was his first time running a World of Darkness game of any kind. I think the WOD system suited him perfectly as he is a very story led GM. He relied on Mark and myself for rules clarifications and didn’t worry about what you could and couldn’t do with the rules. It was a better game for it.

It should be noted that in this game I am known as Big Rab for those that haven’t known me in real life for the last 15 years. You can tell where someone knows me from by whether they call me Big Rab, Robert or Bob.

All our characters had the skills we ourselves had. When I fired that shotgun I was doing so at huge minus to my rolls where as Davy was doing really well fixing that van using his own experience and skills to give him bonus dice.

Mollycakes @ Flickr

Many many moons ago when our group averaged six or seven players per game we decided to run a Hunter game where we played ourselves. Willie would be the storyteller and everyone else drew up a character as close to themselves as possible. It’s been one of the few times that I’ve gamed where the trip home at the end of the night still had me on edge.

As part of his character Mark wrote a journal detailing his findings and what had happened to us. Rereading it still gets the hairs on the back of my neck standing.

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And God said “Let there be light” and there was light.
And God said that light was good and God separated the light from the darkness.
God called the light Day and the darkness Night.

To whoever finds this journal.

The entries in this journal may seem like a fantasy story, the ravings of a lunatic, nothing more than an imagination at wild. I can assure you that it is not.

I am fully expecting to die or disappear in strange or suspicious circumstances. Paranoia has become my watchword. If you are reading this then it is most likely that I already have. Perhaps what you read here may sound outrageous but stop and think. Do you know anyone who might be interested in this journal? Perhaps the strange guy at the office who talks about monsters. Perhaps your brother-in-law who attacked someone while shopping last week because the voices told him to. If you can pass them this journal you will be doing them a far greater service than you can ever imagine.

“There are more things on heaven and Earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”

I’m babbling now, so it’s best that I stop now. Be careful out there.

Without boring you guys with to many personal details between health issues and finishing up work after Christmas I’ve had absolutely no time or opportunity to write. I’ve got so many posts half written or or game content part designed and no chance to finish them. In the new year I have a couple of businesses to set up and hopefully I’ll be going back to university later in the year so something has to give. That basically means in the short term my time is going to be spent on getting money in my pocket and giving these businesses the best start I can give them.

Hopefully once they are up and running I’ll have the time to get this place back on track and maybe even improve it a little. If your that desperate I’ll still be around on twitter on either the @thedicebag account or @bobzilla and I’ll occasionally be updating my personal blog with well..personal things like how I’m doing or how well the businesses are going. Until that day however this is Bob at The Dice Bag signing out.

Wish me luck!

This month we’re looking back at a previous carnival hosted by unclebear where we commented on our resolutions for the year. This isn’t something I normally do so I took a different slant on things and talked about how I thought the year would go both for myself and for everyone else in the RPG Bloggers network.

ChrisL AK @ Flickr

So to cut to the quick I have to say that I failed but you guys took the ball and ran with it. From a personal view point almost everything I touched and took part in has remained unfinished and in some case have been forgotten about. I signed up for the RPGBN collaborative campaign setting which seems to have died a death. I had to pull out of helping start up Nevermet Press and my contributions to Geek Dad have dried up as well.

I could lay blame on a lot of things but it comes down to two very significant events in my year. In April I was diagnosed as dyslexic and despite feeling good about finally understanding my failings and realising I wasn’t as stupid as I usually felt I was at the back of my mind it’s became the new excuse. It’s my go to answer for not being able to do anything. It really isn’t an excuse but I’m only just beginning to come to terms with what it means and after fighting with my work for the last 8 months to get help has mostly fallen on deaf ears I’m now taking voluntary redundancy in order to start a business up and look into returning to university later in 2010. I’ve lived for 33 years without knowing I was dyslexic and managed to get by so why should that knowledge change matters now.

The second event was the birth of my daughter. I just didn’t have the time for writing and gaming in 2009. She’s great but only now am I able to do anything other than look after her and her brothers and sisters. We had so many worries with her sister that even the slightest cough or illness gave us sleepless nights.

So why, I hear you ask, does this have anything to do with gaming and blogging? Well my involvement with the groups I pulled out of and my Geek Dad articles were aimed at pushing people towards others great work. I managed to help out a little bit but nowhere near as much as I’d liked to have.

Nevermet Press has had a hugely successful year and with the upcoming work they are about to release I can only wish them even more success especially as I can’t be as involved as I’d like to be.

The RPG Bloggers Network has grown that huge in such a short period of time that they now have the writers of the games we play joining us in our blogging ways.

The RPG Circus podcast has taken off and has found many followers as well and wouldn’t have worked without collaboration between the bloggers involved.

There were many more collaborations this year that ended well and it didn’t just have an impact in our blogging field. The building of grassroots following of games helped launch new systems and places like GenCon managed to see just what can be done when gamers and writers from across the world can do when they get together.

I may not have been involved directly with most of these success stories but I like to think that indirectly I helped out in any way I could.

ANYWAY… Today I overheard possibly the funniest encounter I’ve overheard in a long while. They are playing what appear to be vampires in a modern day setting that sounds more like True Blood than WOD Vampire.

One of the players was following someone into a kwikimart style shop but didn’t want anyone to know he was there so turned into a shadow and followed the next customer in through the sliding doors. I missed what actually happened as the canteen queue had moved by this point but on the way back I could see the player was getting very frustrated.

by akuban @ Flickr

Whilst the player was in the shop the lights went out and everyone ran out the front door leaving the vampire standing in the middle of the shop. With his target gone he went to leave as well only to find the automatic sliding doors wouldn’t open. At first he thought it was a powercut until he noticed the register was still working as were the overhead fans and air con. This was where his problems started.

He followed a belief system not far from The Masquerade and so he couldn’t use his powers in case someone noticed. He was quite happy that he wouldn’t show up on the CCTV cameras but he couldn’t force the door open. He jumped up and down on the door mat hoping to flick the switch to operate the door. He pushed over stacks of beer cans onto the mat hoping to trigger the same switch. It wasn’t until he lit his lighter to double check the lock on the door that it opened. He was going completely mental by this point.

I wonder just how many people that play vampires in roleplay games remember that in most systems they very rarely give off body heat and so infrared sensors will not work for them?

It made me laugh on a day that really needed it so I thought I’d share.

The Rocketeer @ Flickr

In later years we moved on to Vampire:TM where your actions had an impact on your humanity stat. This was the closest we ever came to a system that mirrored real life in that you could in theory do anything you wanted to but for every bad action you had a chance that you would start to spiral down into the abyss and lose touch with everything that made you human. Again though this was very black and white.

I guess what I’m getting at is why should we be relying on mechanics to mimic something that is so complex in real life that very few folk understand it fully anyway. Without being a psychologist do we need the system dumbed down that much that we revert to using lists of sins to judge how far we’ve moved from our original alignment? Why can’t it be roleplayed out? If a player chooses to make that jump it’s going to have a different affect on them than on another player and it should be worked through with the GM. That’s all you need. The repercussions of an evil/good act can range from simple self loathing to something far worse but it should be specific to that that character and not drawn from a table ina rulebook.

These are just a few quick thoughts that I might expand on later once I get back into the swing of things. Hopefully November will be a busy month here at The Dice Bag.

This post was brought to you by the letters N and E and the RPGBN carnival which this month is being hosted by Seamus over at Games of State on the topic of Morality: In-Game and Real Life.

During my Cyberpunk days we would run one off trauma team days. It would be a fun way to spend a few hours and every call out would be have a glut of combat as well as plenty of other things to keep the non-solos happy. From pilots bringing in the team to the medics working their magic under covering fire. I’ve never tried to move this format to any other setting or system with the exception of a Twilight 2000 game where we kitted the team out with every skill on the planet I think.

Plug1 @ Flicker

So is it possible to transfer this format over to a fantasy setting or even have it run successfully in a modern day system? I guess what I’m getting at is without the combat element just how do you keep your players interested in what amounts to constant skill checks in most systems? Is it possible to maintain the players interest in a gaming session without having an in depth knowledge of accidental wounds and a copy of Gray’s Anatomy sitting beside you?

How does a player roleplay first aid? It’s going to get old very quickly if every time someone comes across an injured body they have to run through first aid drills. Checking for dangers before checking the injured person. Checking breathing and circulation. Looking for obvious wounds. Performing CPR. Injecting them with whatever they need and getting in the ambulance. But if they just end up rolling dice and say they ‘perform the usual drills’ then it takes the feel out of the game. I’m actually watching the new TV series Trauma to see just how they keep it fresh week in week out. So far it’s working but I’m not sure how well it would work in game. Do you really need to have a slutty ‘nurse’ in your team to keep the guys interested?

I guess I’ll be writing more on this once I get the idea clearer in my head on how it might work.

Fast forward to today and I’d been invited along to my World of Warcraft guild ’s Guild Master’s house to play in his regular Talisman game. Also playing was another friend and another WoW player. If I get this right my experience until today had been almost all 1st edition with three or four games of 2nd edition before I stopped playing. We would spend all our RPG downtime playing this game so when I walked into his house and seen the 2nd edition box sitting on the table it started to come flooding back. They use the 4th edition board with the 2nd edition cards and we also had to the 4th edition Dungeon expansion set to play with.

Flicking through the character cards before we started brought back so many memories and so I picked my favourite from all those years ago… the Dwarf. Back in the day we played the game slightly differently from how most might play it. We actually played the characters as if it was an RPG we were playing. The Dwarf would like to go to the Tavern for a drink or two and the Druid would be more likely to go to an outdoor square than one of the corner ‘civilised’ squares. so when I chose the Tavern over another square because it’s what a Dwarf would do I was told, “Hey… this isn’t an RP server”.

My game started slowly but everyone else managed to die off pretty quickly and once they were reincarnated one of the players started to surge ahead. After we realised we could survive in the Dungeon it started to heat up pretty quickly. I found myself a horse and with a strength and craft pool almost next to one another I managed to get my character a good foundation before heading for the boss. I hadn’t read much about the implications of beating the boss so once I had received my loot and we worked out where I would teleport to we soon realised that I was going straight to the Crown of Command. The end game had started and noone had even started trying to get there. My dice rolling was that bad however that by the time I won almost everyone had found a way to knock on my front door. I cut it fine but I won in the end. It was a nice way to get back into playing.

Now should I continue playing with the RPG element to my characters or play it completely as a board game?