I’ve started prepping encounters by outlining menus of things that the antagonist/s might do in that encounter. I suppose this may be a beginner-to-intermediate point for many GMs these days, but if that’s where you’re at in your gaming journey or if, like me, you started GMing with a game/edition that didn’t explain this technique,… Continue reading Monster menus (School of Adventure Year Five part 2)
Category: Journal
Posts describing my activities
School of Adventure—Year Five part 1
I’ve been running the Year Five mission for the School of Adventure for several weeks now. I was maybe going to let it finish before I posted a write-up of the whole thing, but there would be a lot to cover. And now I’ve drafted a post about an idea I used while running it,… Continue reading School of Adventure—Year Five part 1
Chivalry & Sorcery—opening the book
I fairly recently got a new game so here are some notes of my first impressions. Chivalry & Sorcery, for those not familiar with it, is a venerable tabletop roleplaying game, first created in 1977 in response to Dungeons & Dragons, with the intent of bringing more historicity and realism to tabletop fantasy adventure. It… Continue reading Chivalry & Sorcery—opening the book
Oak of Honor – Updates
The blog has been quiet for a few weeks, but not because there’s been no activity here at Oak of Honor. I have acquired a new game, Chivalry & Sorcery, and have been working through the rulebook. It’s right up my street, in that it drinks deep from the well of medieval history to nourish… Continue reading Oak of Honor – Updates
School of Adventure – Year Five prologue
Following on from the mayhem of the Year Four adventure, I narrated a ticking-off that our Lunar house team got back at school for attacking the team from the Farseer house. To be fair, the Farseer team also got a ticking off for starting the dirty tricks. Anyway, I didn’t make a big deal of… Continue reading School of Adventure – Year Five prologue
School of Adventure—School Rivalry (Year Four part 2)
I did a brief outline of the first leg of the Year 4 adventure in my last post, along with the outbreak of Player vs Player hostility that featured then. The PvP has stopped once dealt with, so I will let that episode recede into the past. The mission is to escort a wagonload of… Continue reading School of Adventure—School Rivalry (Year Four part 2)
Race in fantasy: signpost
Race has been an issue in fantasy world-building and gaming for a while now. Since the beginning really, but it has been a slow burner in terms of how much attention most gamers have paid to it (as a topic of discussion rather than just as a box to fill on the character sheet). I’ve… Continue reading Race in fantasy: signpost
School of Adventure—Player vs Player (Year Four part 1)
I’ve spent the autumn running the School of Adventure’s Year Four mission online. With about half my original players now off at different secondary schools, I’m down to a core of kids who are now all in the top year of the same real-life primary school and I think pretty much all friends in school… Continue reading School of Adventure—Player vs Player (Year Four part 1)
School of Adventure—Year Three
And so the students at the School of Adventure have completed Year 3, and my older kids have now left the school where the club takes place. Back to the dungeon I decided to go back to the dungeon format for the Year 3 test, with monsters, tricks, traps and puzzles. It seemed to… Continue reading School of Adventure—Year Three
School of Adventure—Year Two
We have now finished Year Two at the School of Adventure. The club has been conducted entirely online in April and May as the players have not been attending real-life school and aren’t allowed to meet up to play. Keeping it simple The (real-life) Year 6s are leaving at the end of the term, and… Continue reading School of Adventure—Year Two