Welcome to Brightwater Castle!
UPDATES:
October 7th, 2012
* Added the Background and the first Act of an Event I'm working on, "The Golden Bands", to the Marvel Heroic Roleplaying section. Hoping that it will be the first in a related series of Events, depending on what free time presents itself.
* Added player characters for the campaign in the same section as well.
* Added our first semi-"throw-away" session ("Bank Heist") in this campaign, featuring David Thomas' (aka Grimmshade) "Bank Heist" action scene. [You can find both it and a lot of other cool MHP stuff here.]
September 30, 2012
Added the very short second session of our Breakout Event in the Marvel Heroic Roleplaying section.
September 29, 2012
Added the first session of our Breakout Event in the Marvel Heroic Roleplaying section. Got rid of the Dreamer campaign stuff, since that's been put on hold (Johnny's suddenly gone indefinitely.)
September 27, 2012
Tinkered with the site a bit for a new theme and new default header. That's...about it. More on our dabbling with Marvel Heroic Roleplaying sometime after this weekend.
September 23, 2012
Added a breakdown of our second session in our Dreamer campaign, Trouble in Summerville.
September 21, 2012
Added a Marvel Heroic Roleplaying section for our newest favorite game system! I've added details of our first gaming session (last Saturday) and will add our second session (scheduled for tomorrow, Sept 22) sometime this weekend.
And, wow, it's embarrassing and a little horrific how long it's been since I did anything to this site! Yikes!
I'm also going to have to tinker with the site a bit in response to the recent layout changes.
June 22, 2011
Made some additions here and there, mostly Atomic Highway stuff. Currently my regular group of many years just isn't playing much anymore. I have managed to pick up another group of younger players, my step-son among them. They play fairly regularly but are still in the process of trying different things out and seeing what they like. Haven't nailed anything down just yet, so until we hit a game system they like I won't post much more than a few odds and ends as we go along. Right now we're jumping from Atomic Highway to Star Trek (Decipher), but our play so far has produced small handful of interesting tidbits for the Atomic Highway resources section.
December 5th, 2010
Added Episode III: Sheba's Bathhouse Bar-B-Que to our Atomic Highway campaign section.
Medical issues have delayed our gaming recently but we should be back on track now for a while.
Hope you enjoy!
November 12th, 2010
Added Episode II: Scraptown, of our Atomic Highway campaign, to that campaign section.
November 11th, 2010:
Added our one-shot, "Gas Gouging", to the Atomic Highway campaigns section.
Added "Watership Down", a campaign outline for Atomic Highway.
Added our first session "Expedition", from our current Atomic Highway campaign: Retribution.
November 9th, 2010:
Wrapped up our last Cortex campaign (won't be shown on this site, for good and sufficient reason - just trust me there), so we've started up an Atomic Highway campaign. Here's a sneak peek at the mechanics of the V6 engine and a link to the AH forums, if you're interested in a nice little cinematic post-apocalypse, Mad-Max kinda game. This is not Gamma World, which was a major selling point for me.
So far, we're one game session in (two, if you count our throw-away, one-shot the weekend before last). We're lovin' it but still getting used to the mechanics. I'll have our last game session up in a bit, once I've set up a nice, new section for Atomic Highway around here. You'll be able to see it went a little too easily for our players (with the exception of one being almost killed in the first half hour of the session) but I've got a better handle on things now. I'll be bringing more of a challenge to the table for my players this coming weekend, I think.
More to come on this front! Hope you enjoy. ;)
March 24, 2010:
Added "Buck and Terry", a very rough (and very angsty) adventure outline, in the Cortex: Supernatural Material section.
Added details on "Croachers", a big smart breed of bug for your Cortex campaigns, in the Cortex: Homebrew Material section..
March 17, 2010:
Much delayed, as usual these days, but I have the next Supernatural: Roadwork session up. It's also the next to last, as our Roadwork campaign came to an abrupt end with an TPK (our first in a very long while) in Episode V: Red Caps. I'll try to get that abbreviated and bloody session up when I can. No promises there.
At the moment we're in the midst of a second Supernatural campaign that my husband is running. I probably won't be covering that campaign on this site, however. Following that (soon, I think) I'll taking the reins as GM again, probably with a Cortex homebrew campaign of some sort. That's still under discussion, so we'll see what comes.
December 01, 2009:
The November 28th gaming session was postponed and the December 5th session looks to be as well. I expect we'll play again on the 12th and I'll have an update for the Cortex: Supernatural campaign Roadwork soon after that. Until then!
November 24, 2009:
Added our latest session "Chances Are" to our Roadwork campaign section, under Cortex: Supernatural campaigns.
November 14, 2009:
Added our latest session "The Hunt Begins" to the Cortex: Supernatural campaigns section, under the Roadwork campaign.
November 8th, 2009:
Added game brief from the first session of our Cortex: Supernatural campaign, "Roadwork"
November 5th, 2009:
Added new section; Cortex: Supernatural Campaigns as we're starting up our new Cortex: Supernatural game "Roadwork" this Saturday. Added player characters stats for the campaign in that section.
November 1st, 2009:
Included stats for a new critter for Cortex: Supernatural, the Scarecrow. Also included a rough outline for an adventure featuring the Scarecrow.
Both can be found in the Cortex: Supernatural section.
Have fun with 'em!
October 31, 2009:
Seein' as how it's Halloween and all, I thought I'd drop a couple of things in here for my newest favorite rpg: Supernatural. Naturally, it's a Cortex system RPG from Margaret Weis Productions. Hence the coveted "newest favorite rpg" status it now enjoys.I've included a new section to Brightwater Castle, "Cortex: Supernatural". Therein now reside rules for Shuar Magic and a very rough outline for an adventure featuring that kind of magic called "Headhunter". Hope you enjoy!
July 24, 2009:
Wow. I've been gone for a while.
So. Updates then.
First, the Savage Tide campaign has officially been put on the backburner. We've finished The Bullywug Gambit and The Sea Wyvern's Wake, and that's where we've cut n' cauterized. Now, if you've actually read through the material on this site or even browsed just a bit, this probably doesn't surprise you. We've an awful habit of not completing something like two-thirds of the campaigns we start.
The reason is simple. We play for fun. If the game seems in any way like something we need to do, need to finish...well, that's not fun. Especially if something else catches our fancy. So "pfft", backburner. I admit I feel a little guilt and disappointment at myself and my group whenever we do that but...we do play for fun. Still though, in this case it's a bit of a heartbreaker. That's three major adventure paths we've started and not finished. "Three's a charm", they say, and so I'm forced to pretty much just accept we'll never finish one. And so I doubt we'll ever start another.
Second, our Mutants and Masterminds campaign never even got off the ground. That's twice we've set out to start a campaign with that system and not followed through. This puts any future for this game with our group in serious jeapardy. Likewise I doubt we'll ever start another. We might decide to but I wouldn't take bets on finishing (or even starting) it. As a group, we all share this odd habit when it comes to our games.
Third, we've got our hands on Margaret Weiss's new Cortex game "Supernatural". And though not a one of us have ever seen more than two or three episodes of the show (I've only seen one myself) we're all hankerin' to get a campaign with that system up and running. Mostly just because it's Cortex. And though we've dabbled with some other systems recently, that's still our baby. We are very excited. So you can expect the next addition to this site will likely involve that.
Now, a note from me personally concerning the content of this site.
I realize there's a lot of half-done material scattered about all through here. Several projects, large and small, left undone even after promises to complete them. Everything from old campaign journals I never got around to uploading to that monster Handsome Ranch campaign.
I can only offer my apologies. Yes, I'm a terrible person. I admit it. But in my own defense I've just had a lot of medical issues and assorted other personal issues that have seriously cut into my hobby time. And let me assure you, the details you do not want to be privy to. One of those "you'll really wish you hadn't asked" kinda things.
Frankly, it's all I can do most weeks just to play the game. And we as a group aren't able to do that as often as we'd like. We're averaging two Saturdays a month that we have to cancel or skip. And for us, that's extremely unusual. We used to practically never miss a game.
But we're still gaming. And we likely always will. So I'll be around and I'll do my best to post something as we go along. Myself, I've always felt that of all the free gaming material on the net the absolute best source is simply looking of the shoulder of other gamers at what's on their table. So I've tried to provide that here. Hope you've found it useful in some small way.
In closing, I'll do my best to get some more of Handsome Ranch up on the site when I can. And I'll try to post some more adventures and other gaming material as well. I can only assure you that I will do what I can do.
June 14, 2009:
I've added a new section, Mutants and Masterminds, as it looks like we might be dabbling in that a bit when we need a break from the Savage Tide campaign. So far we've whipped up some nice super-characters and we have a general campaign idea for them. It's a campaign we started long ago (never got past the first session) and dropped in favor of the Cortex system when we finally got our hands on whichever rulebook we were waiting for (cant' recall now). We also haven't decided yet who'll run the campaign, though it looks to come down to either me or Matthew. Either way, we both have the same general idea from before of starting out as villains, running a few criminal adventures, eventually going good and turning ourselves in (or just getting caught), going to super-villain prison for a while then getting out and going forward as superheroes.
The character generation process is a bit complicated and the system is just different enough from your standard D20 that we decided to play test a bit to see if we ganked ourselves or not. We ran a few individual one-on-one battles and one big team battle to sort of test the waters. You can check out the results of that in the Mutant and Masterminds section, since it's the only thing there at the moment.
That's all for now! Probably have something more next week!
June 13, 2009:
Posted the session brief for yesterday's game, our third session in the Savage Tide campaign! I'm also adding Ferra's trophies for each session now as well (already editted the first two sessions!)
June 9, 2009:
Posted the session brief for Saturday's game session, our second session in the Savage Tide campaign. Hope you enjoy!
June 1, 2009:
Well, I'm pretty bummed out. It seems the group is already burned out on the Star Trek campaign and when Ally decided she'd like to try her hand at GMing our next campaign, they decided to go ahead with that plan right away. Which means our Star Trek: Vigilant campaign officially goes on the backburner. Which, considering this is the second Star Trek campaign to go on that backburner, means there likely won't ever be a third.
That really sucks. But what can you do? Nothing but whine about it. And since I've done that, let's move on.
The good news? Well, that means with Ally GMing then me and my boy finally get to play together. Which is awesome! Please excuse me for a moment while I do my banana-dance...
Okay then. So since Ally wanted something relatively easy to GM we went with something we all know pretty well for now. AD&D, of course. Not exactly a good opportunity to try out the 4th Edition either, so we're going with good old 3.5 Edition.
Which means the logical choice here was our as yet untried Savage Tide adventure path. Already prepacked for our fledgling GM and everything, right? The only anxiety I have here is...this is our third attempt at an adventure path. We've already played The Shackled City (completed a little over two thirds of that one) and Age of Worms (didn't quite get a third of the way through that one). So while we really want to finish this one and finally have a completed adventure path under our belts, the odds aren't looking good. These prepacked adventures tend to bog down pretty badly once you get into the higher levels.
Still, we'll wait and see. If Ally enjoys GMing as much as I predict she will, she might well push us on through. And it really would be great to finally say we finished one of those things.
Seriously. That'd pretty darned awesome.
So! Anyway! I've got a brief on our first session in the Savage Tide campaign up in the "our D&D campaigns" section. We even had to stop before finishing the thing, since we got our first PK right there in the first adventure! Which didn't sound the death knell for the campaign, as one might expect. Melissa (whose character bit the dust) is pretty gung ho to play this campaign now and avenge her fallen PC. So far it's pretty fun so we'll see how this goes!
May 21, 2009:
Sorry, folks. Game day is officially cancelled for tomorrow so there won't be any updates until next weekend at least. We'll pick up the Star Trek: Vigilant game again then, no worries! :D
May 17, 2009:
Uploaded logs from yesterday's Star Trek: Vigilant session, Cloak and Dagger. Had an excellant time with that one and things are getting a little wild amongst the PCs. This is shaping up to be another one of those campaigns that you geek about for months after.
May 10, 2009:
Uploaded details on today's Star Trek: Vigilant session, Cheleb-khor.
May 3, 2009:
Uploaded details on yesterday's Star Trek game, our pilot episode for the campaign, Widow's Well. We uncovered a conspiracy, rescued a ghost (?), arrested the Captain for murder and got rammed by a Romulan Bird of Prey! Very fun game so far!
May 2, 2009:
After nearly a month away from gaming we're getting back into the action with a Star Trek campaign, using Decipher's CODA system. As you might suspect that means I've stepped down as GM for a while due to some medical concerns and turned the reins back over to my hubby. Handsome Ranch then will be put on the backburner for a while. Apologies to whomever might be following that adventure path, waiting for the next installment. It'll be a while before I'm able to get back to it I'm sad to say.
Nevertheless, I'll be opening up a new section here for Decipher's Star Trek CODA system and posting info on that campaign as we go along.
March 30, 2009:
Since yesterday's gaming session was cancelled (the gang spent the weekend pitching in with some church activities instead) and all my other free time has been spent on my Cortex: Fallout conversion, I haven't anything new up on the site recently.
So I decided to just put up what I've managed to stitch together for the Fallout conversion. It's almost done but it may be as much as a week before I find enough spare time to brush it off completely, and I figured I'd go ahead and let whoever's interested toy around with it in the meantime.
Check out my unfinished Cortex: Fallout conversion then under Cortex: Homebrew Campaigns and Settings. Hope you enjoy!
March 22, 2009:
Added session briefs for Spyin' and Framed in the Cortex: Serenity Campaigns section, under Handsome Ranch.
March 14, 2009:
Added session briefs for Hardacre's Deeds and The Whiny Dog in the Cortex: Serenity Campaigns section, under Handsome Ranch.
March 12, 2009:
Added Handsome Ranch Episode V: Hoedown at Huckabee's to the Cortex: Adventures section.
March 10, 2009:
Replaced Handsome Ranch Episode III: Hardacre's Deeds with another copy, with a font more in keeping with my usual style.
Uploaded Handsome Ranch Episode IV: Framed to the Cortex: Adventures section as well.
I'm about halfway through with Episode V: Hoedown at Huckabee's, too. I'll have that up as soon as I brush it off and it should put me ahead of the game by two whole episodes, which will be awfully nice. Though it's probably planning too far ahead, considering how flighty I can be about such things, I'll probably detour and put out a couple of generic adventures, campaign settings or some sort of gaming material after that.
March 07, 2009:
Combined all three "adventures" section into one - Cortex: Adventures. They're all Serenity adventures so far anyway and my focus is on the Serenity: Handsome Ranch adventure path primarily.
Added Sidestep II: Spyin' to the Handsome Ranch adventure path in the Cortex: Adventures section.
Added another generic Serenity adventure Wild Logic to the Cortex Adventures section as well.
We played our last session in the Crazy Horse campaign today, which was based on the Margaret Weis adventure Out in the Black. We're aiming to take up the Handsome Ranch campaign again this coming Saturday, picking up where we left off with Hardacre's Deeds and probably The Whiny Dog as well. I'll keep yah posted and have our episode brief up on in the Our Cortex: Serenity Campaigns section a.s.a.p.
March 03, 2009:
Added Episode III: Hardacre's Deeds to the Handsome Ranch adventure path as well as Sidestep I: The Whiny Dog.
February 25, 2009:
Added some new background material to our Handsome Ranch adventure path (under the Cortex: Adventures section), including a basic background for the campaign, notes on Advancement point gains and an adventure synopsis for the first six chapters. This should cast a little light on where the adventure path is heading and just how big a project my little monster really is.
February 20, 2009:
About a third of the way through the third adventure on the Handsome Ranch adventure path for the Serenity RPG and currently pondering what to do about a town setting. So...I'm back at work. I should have something up on Handsome Ranch this coming week!
February 12, 2009:
No updates to report, just wanted to let folks know that I'm back around after a months-long hospital stay. I'll be back to work on the site and its content when I've had a chance to lay about and be lazy a bit more.
Unfortunately all of my gaming material was lost when my last computer bit the dust, so all of the unfinished material is now not only unfinished but flat out gone. Most notably all my Handsome Ranch campaign material for the Cortex system is kaput. So it will be some time before I can get that back on track. I may well even sidetrack onto other project paths before working up the nerve to tackle that Gargantua again.
In the meantime I'll be redesigning the site a bit (probably dropping everything but the various Cortex system gaming material, or at least consolidating the non-Cortex stuff). But no worries. I'll get back around to Handsome Ranch eventually. My apologies for the delay, though.
October 24, 2008:
Campaign briefs for session I and II of the Handsome Ranch campaign are up in the "Our Cortex: Serenity campaigns" section. These detail our own playtesting of the Handsome Ranch adventure path from the "Cortex: Adventures" section.
October 23, 2008 (more stuff):
Added the session brief for the first episode of "Handsome Ranch" to the "Cortex: Adventures" section.
October 23, 2008:
Transferred our D20 Modern campaigns (Rise of the Valkyries and Diehard Trinity) to our "D20 Modern campaigns) section.
Transferred top-down and side-view system maps for Cortex: Battlestar Galactica as well as the "New Traits" Adobe file.
Transferred all 13 of our Badger's Bulletins to the "Cortex: Serenity Material" section as well as Wydraz's system map, which we use in our Serenity campaigns.
Transferred our new traits for the Pangaea setting and the Madness rules from our Slaughter campaign into the "Cortex: Homebrew Material" section.
Transferred parts I and II of the Terrifying Space Monkeys adventure trilogy and the two-part pilot episode of the Handsome Ranch adventure path to the "Cortex: Adventures" section.
October 22, 2008:
Transferred our second Cortex: Serenity campaign (Flashback) to the "Our Cortex: Serenity campaigns" section.
Transferred our first Cortex: Homebrew campaign (Pangaea) and our second (Slaughter) to the "Our Cortex: Hombrew campaigns" section.
UPDATES:
October 7th, 2012
* Added the Background and the first Act of an Event I'm working on, "The Golden Bands", to the Marvel Heroic Roleplaying section. Hoping that it will be the first in a related series of Events, depending on what free time presents itself.
* Added player characters for the campaign in the same section as well.
* Added our first semi-"throw-away" session ("Bank Heist") in this campaign, featuring David Thomas' (aka Grimmshade) "Bank Heist" action scene. [You can find both it and a lot of other cool MHP stuff here.]
September 30, 2012
Added the very short second session of our Breakout Event in the Marvel Heroic Roleplaying section.
September 29, 2012
Added the first session of our Breakout Event in the Marvel Heroic Roleplaying section. Got rid of the Dreamer campaign stuff, since that's been put on hold (Johnny's suddenly gone indefinitely.)
September 27, 2012
Tinkered with the site a bit for a new theme and new default header. That's...about it. More on our dabbling with Marvel Heroic Roleplaying sometime after this weekend.
September 23, 2012
Added a breakdown of our second session in our Dreamer campaign, Trouble in Summerville.
September 21, 2012
Added a Marvel Heroic Roleplaying section for our newest favorite game system! I've added details of our first gaming session (last Saturday) and will add our second session (scheduled for tomorrow, Sept 22) sometime this weekend.
And, wow, it's embarrassing and a little horrific how long it's been since I did anything to this site! Yikes!
I'm also going to have to tinker with the site a bit in response to the recent layout changes.
June 22, 2011
Made some additions here and there, mostly Atomic Highway stuff. Currently my regular group of many years just isn't playing much anymore. I have managed to pick up another group of younger players, my step-son among them. They play fairly regularly but are still in the process of trying different things out and seeing what they like. Haven't nailed anything down just yet, so until we hit a game system they like I won't post much more than a few odds and ends as we go along. Right now we're jumping from Atomic Highway to Star Trek (Decipher), but our play so far has produced small handful of interesting tidbits for the Atomic Highway resources section.
December 5th, 2010
Added Episode III: Sheba's Bathhouse Bar-B-Que to our Atomic Highway campaign section.
Medical issues have delayed our gaming recently but we should be back on track now for a while.
Hope you enjoy!
November 12th, 2010
Added Episode II: Scraptown, of our Atomic Highway campaign, to that campaign section.
November 11th, 2010:
Added our one-shot, "Gas Gouging", to the Atomic Highway campaigns section.
Added "Watership Down", a campaign outline for Atomic Highway.
Added our first session "Expedition", from our current Atomic Highway campaign: Retribution.
November 9th, 2010:
Wrapped up our last Cortex campaign (won't be shown on this site, for good and sufficient reason - just trust me there), so we've started up an Atomic Highway campaign. Here's a sneak peek at the mechanics of the V6 engine and a link to the AH forums, if you're interested in a nice little cinematic post-apocalypse, Mad-Max kinda game. This is not Gamma World, which was a major selling point for me.
So far, we're one game session in (two, if you count our throw-away, one-shot the weekend before last). We're lovin' it but still getting used to the mechanics. I'll have our last game session up in a bit, once I've set up a nice, new section for Atomic Highway around here. You'll be able to see it went a little too easily for our players (with the exception of one being almost killed in the first half hour of the session) but I've got a better handle on things now. I'll be bringing more of a challenge to the table for my players this coming weekend, I think.
More to come on this front! Hope you enjoy. ;)
March 24, 2010:
Added "Buck and Terry", a very rough (and very angsty) adventure outline, in the Cortex: Supernatural Material section.
Added details on "Croachers", a big smart breed of bug for your Cortex campaigns, in the Cortex: Homebrew Material section..
March 17, 2010:
Much delayed, as usual these days, but I have the next Supernatural: Roadwork session up. It's also the next to last, as our Roadwork campaign came to an abrupt end with an TPK (our first in a very long while) in Episode V: Red Caps. I'll try to get that abbreviated and bloody session up when I can. No promises there.
At the moment we're in the midst of a second Supernatural campaign that my husband is running. I probably won't be covering that campaign on this site, however. Following that (soon, I think) I'll taking the reins as GM again, probably with a Cortex homebrew campaign of some sort. That's still under discussion, so we'll see what comes.
December 01, 2009:
The November 28th gaming session was postponed and the December 5th session looks to be as well. I expect we'll play again on the 12th and I'll have an update for the Cortex: Supernatural campaign Roadwork soon after that. Until then!
November 24, 2009:
Added our latest session "Chances Are" to our Roadwork campaign section, under Cortex: Supernatural campaigns.
November 14, 2009:
Added our latest session "The Hunt Begins" to the Cortex: Supernatural campaigns section, under the Roadwork campaign.
November 8th, 2009:
Added game brief from the first session of our Cortex: Supernatural campaign, "Roadwork"
November 5th, 2009:
Added new section; Cortex: Supernatural Campaigns as we're starting up our new Cortex: Supernatural game "Roadwork" this Saturday. Added player characters stats for the campaign in that section.
November 1st, 2009:
Included stats for a new critter for Cortex: Supernatural, the Scarecrow. Also included a rough outline for an adventure featuring the Scarecrow.
Both can be found in the Cortex: Supernatural section.
Have fun with 'em!
October 31, 2009:
Seein' as how it's Halloween and all, I thought I'd drop a couple of things in here for my newest favorite rpg: Supernatural. Naturally, it's a Cortex system RPG from Margaret Weis Productions. Hence the coveted "newest favorite rpg" status it now enjoys.I've included a new section to Brightwater Castle, "Cortex: Supernatural". Therein now reside rules for Shuar Magic and a very rough outline for an adventure featuring that kind of magic called "Headhunter". Hope you enjoy!
July 24, 2009:
Wow. I've been gone for a while.
So. Updates then.
First, the Savage Tide campaign has officially been put on the backburner. We've finished The Bullywug Gambit and The Sea Wyvern's Wake, and that's where we've cut n' cauterized. Now, if you've actually read through the material on this site or even browsed just a bit, this probably doesn't surprise you. We've an awful habit of not completing something like two-thirds of the campaigns we start.
The reason is simple. We play for fun. If the game seems in any way like something we need to do, need to finish...well, that's not fun. Especially if something else catches our fancy. So "pfft", backburner. I admit I feel a little guilt and disappointment at myself and my group whenever we do that but...we do play for fun. Still though, in this case it's a bit of a heartbreaker. That's three major adventure paths we've started and not finished. "Three's a charm", they say, and so I'm forced to pretty much just accept we'll never finish one. And so I doubt we'll ever start another.
Second, our Mutants and Masterminds campaign never even got off the ground. That's twice we've set out to start a campaign with that system and not followed through. This puts any future for this game with our group in serious jeapardy. Likewise I doubt we'll ever start another. We might decide to but I wouldn't take bets on finishing (or even starting) it. As a group, we all share this odd habit when it comes to our games.
Third, we've got our hands on Margaret Weiss's new Cortex game "Supernatural". And though not a one of us have ever seen more than two or three episodes of the show (I've only seen one myself) we're all hankerin' to get a campaign with that system up and running. Mostly just because it's Cortex. And though we've dabbled with some other systems recently, that's still our baby. We are very excited. So you can expect the next addition to this site will likely involve that.
Now, a note from me personally concerning the content of this site.
I realize there's a lot of half-done material scattered about all through here. Several projects, large and small, left undone even after promises to complete them. Everything from old campaign journals I never got around to uploading to that monster Handsome Ranch campaign.
I can only offer my apologies. Yes, I'm a terrible person. I admit it. But in my own defense I've just had a lot of medical issues and assorted other personal issues that have seriously cut into my hobby time. And let me assure you, the details you do not want to be privy to. One of those "you'll really wish you hadn't asked" kinda things.
Frankly, it's all I can do most weeks just to play the game. And we as a group aren't able to do that as often as we'd like. We're averaging two Saturdays a month that we have to cancel or skip. And for us, that's extremely unusual. We used to practically never miss a game.
But we're still gaming. And we likely always will. So I'll be around and I'll do my best to post something as we go along. Myself, I've always felt that of all the free gaming material on the net the absolute best source is simply looking of the shoulder of other gamers at what's on their table. So I've tried to provide that here. Hope you've found it useful in some small way.
In closing, I'll do my best to get some more of Handsome Ranch up on the site when I can. And I'll try to post some more adventures and other gaming material as well. I can only assure you that I will do what I can do.
June 14, 2009:
I've added a new section, Mutants and Masterminds, as it looks like we might be dabbling in that a bit when we need a break from the Savage Tide campaign. So far we've whipped up some nice super-characters and we have a general campaign idea for them. It's a campaign we started long ago (never got past the first session) and dropped in favor of the Cortex system when we finally got our hands on whichever rulebook we were waiting for (cant' recall now). We also haven't decided yet who'll run the campaign, though it looks to come down to either me or Matthew. Either way, we both have the same general idea from before of starting out as villains, running a few criminal adventures, eventually going good and turning ourselves in (or just getting caught), going to super-villain prison for a while then getting out and going forward as superheroes.
The character generation process is a bit complicated and the system is just different enough from your standard D20 that we decided to play test a bit to see if we ganked ourselves or not. We ran a few individual one-on-one battles and one big team battle to sort of test the waters. You can check out the results of that in the Mutant and Masterminds section, since it's the only thing there at the moment.
That's all for now! Probably have something more next week!
June 13, 2009:
Posted the session brief for yesterday's game, our third session in the Savage Tide campaign! I'm also adding Ferra's trophies for each session now as well (already editted the first two sessions!)
June 9, 2009:
Posted the session brief for Saturday's game session, our second session in the Savage Tide campaign. Hope you enjoy!
June 1, 2009:
Well, I'm pretty bummed out. It seems the group is already burned out on the Star Trek campaign and when Ally decided she'd like to try her hand at GMing our next campaign, they decided to go ahead with that plan right away. Which means our Star Trek: Vigilant campaign officially goes on the backburner. Which, considering this is the second Star Trek campaign to go on that backburner, means there likely won't ever be a third.
That really sucks. But what can you do? Nothing but whine about it. And since I've done that, let's move on.
The good news? Well, that means with Ally GMing then me and my boy finally get to play together. Which is awesome! Please excuse me for a moment while I do my banana-dance...
Okay then. So since Ally wanted something relatively easy to GM we went with something we all know pretty well for now. AD&D, of course. Not exactly a good opportunity to try out the 4th Edition either, so we're going with good old 3.5 Edition.
Which means the logical choice here was our as yet untried Savage Tide adventure path. Already prepacked for our fledgling GM and everything, right? The only anxiety I have here is...this is our third attempt at an adventure path. We've already played The Shackled City (completed a little over two thirds of that one) and Age of Worms (didn't quite get a third of the way through that one). So while we really want to finish this one and finally have a completed adventure path under our belts, the odds aren't looking good. These prepacked adventures tend to bog down pretty badly once you get into the higher levels.
Still, we'll wait and see. If Ally enjoys GMing as much as I predict she will, she might well push us on through. And it really would be great to finally say we finished one of those things.
Seriously. That'd pretty darned awesome.
So! Anyway! I've got a brief on our first session in the Savage Tide campaign up in the "our D&D campaigns" section. We even had to stop before finishing the thing, since we got our first PK right there in the first adventure! Which didn't sound the death knell for the campaign, as one might expect. Melissa (whose character bit the dust) is pretty gung ho to play this campaign now and avenge her fallen PC. So far it's pretty fun so we'll see how this goes!
May 21, 2009:
Sorry, folks. Game day is officially cancelled for tomorrow so there won't be any updates until next weekend at least. We'll pick up the Star Trek: Vigilant game again then, no worries! :D
May 17, 2009:
Uploaded logs from yesterday's Star Trek: Vigilant session, Cloak and Dagger. Had an excellant time with that one and things are getting a little wild amongst the PCs. This is shaping up to be another one of those campaigns that you geek about for months after.
May 10, 2009:
Uploaded details on today's Star Trek: Vigilant session, Cheleb-khor.
May 3, 2009:
Uploaded details on yesterday's Star Trek game, our pilot episode for the campaign, Widow's Well. We uncovered a conspiracy, rescued a ghost (?), arrested the Captain for murder and got rammed by a Romulan Bird of Prey! Very fun game so far!
May 2, 2009:
After nearly a month away from gaming we're getting back into the action with a Star Trek campaign, using Decipher's CODA system. As you might suspect that means I've stepped down as GM for a while due to some medical concerns and turned the reins back over to my hubby. Handsome Ranch then will be put on the backburner for a while. Apologies to whomever might be following that adventure path, waiting for the next installment. It'll be a while before I'm able to get back to it I'm sad to say.
Nevertheless, I'll be opening up a new section here for Decipher's Star Trek CODA system and posting info on that campaign as we go along.
March 30, 2009:
Since yesterday's gaming session was cancelled (the gang spent the weekend pitching in with some church activities instead) and all my other free time has been spent on my Cortex: Fallout conversion, I haven't anything new up on the site recently.
So I decided to just put up what I've managed to stitch together for the Fallout conversion. It's almost done but it may be as much as a week before I find enough spare time to brush it off completely, and I figured I'd go ahead and let whoever's interested toy around with it in the meantime.
Check out my unfinished Cortex: Fallout conversion then under Cortex: Homebrew Campaigns and Settings. Hope you enjoy!
March 22, 2009:
Added session briefs for Spyin' and Framed in the Cortex: Serenity Campaigns section, under Handsome Ranch.
March 14, 2009:
Added session briefs for Hardacre's Deeds and The Whiny Dog in the Cortex: Serenity Campaigns section, under Handsome Ranch.
March 12, 2009:
Added Handsome Ranch Episode V: Hoedown at Huckabee's to the Cortex: Adventures section.
March 10, 2009:
Replaced Handsome Ranch Episode III: Hardacre's Deeds with another copy, with a font more in keeping with my usual style.
Uploaded Handsome Ranch Episode IV: Framed to the Cortex: Adventures section as well.
I'm about halfway through with Episode V: Hoedown at Huckabee's, too. I'll have that up as soon as I brush it off and it should put me ahead of the game by two whole episodes, which will be awfully nice. Though it's probably planning too far ahead, considering how flighty I can be about such things, I'll probably detour and put out a couple of generic adventures, campaign settings or some sort of gaming material after that.
March 07, 2009:
Combined all three "adventures" section into one - Cortex: Adventures. They're all Serenity adventures so far anyway and my focus is on the Serenity: Handsome Ranch adventure path primarily.
Added Sidestep II: Spyin' to the Handsome Ranch adventure path in the Cortex: Adventures section.
Added another generic Serenity adventure Wild Logic to the Cortex Adventures section as well.
We played our last session in the Crazy Horse campaign today, which was based on the Margaret Weis adventure Out in the Black. We're aiming to take up the Handsome Ranch campaign again this coming Saturday, picking up where we left off with Hardacre's Deeds and probably The Whiny Dog as well. I'll keep yah posted and have our episode brief up on in the Our Cortex: Serenity Campaigns section a.s.a.p.
March 03, 2009:
Added Episode III: Hardacre's Deeds to the Handsome Ranch adventure path as well as Sidestep I: The Whiny Dog.
February 25, 2009:
Added some new background material to our Handsome Ranch adventure path (under the Cortex: Adventures section), including a basic background for the campaign, notes on Advancement point gains and an adventure synopsis for the first six chapters. This should cast a little light on where the adventure path is heading and just how big a project my little monster really is.
February 20, 2009:
About a third of the way through the third adventure on the Handsome Ranch adventure path for the Serenity RPG and currently pondering what to do about a town setting. So...I'm back at work. I should have something up on Handsome Ranch this coming week!
February 12, 2009:
No updates to report, just wanted to let folks know that I'm back around after a months-long hospital stay. I'll be back to work on the site and its content when I've had a chance to lay about and be lazy a bit more.
Unfortunately all of my gaming material was lost when my last computer bit the dust, so all of the unfinished material is now not only unfinished but flat out gone. Most notably all my Handsome Ranch campaign material for the Cortex system is kaput. So it will be some time before I can get that back on track. I may well even sidetrack onto other project paths before working up the nerve to tackle that Gargantua again.
In the meantime I'll be redesigning the site a bit (probably dropping everything but the various Cortex system gaming material, or at least consolidating the non-Cortex stuff). But no worries. I'll get back around to Handsome Ranch eventually. My apologies for the delay, though.
October 24, 2008:
Campaign briefs for session I and II of the Handsome Ranch campaign are up in the "Our Cortex: Serenity campaigns" section. These detail our own playtesting of the Handsome Ranch adventure path from the "Cortex: Adventures" section.
October 23, 2008 (more stuff):
Added the session brief for the first episode of "Handsome Ranch" to the "Cortex: Adventures" section.
October 23, 2008:
Transferred our D20 Modern campaigns (Rise of the Valkyries and Diehard Trinity) to our "D20 Modern campaigns) section.
Transferred top-down and side-view system maps for Cortex: Battlestar Galactica as well as the "New Traits" Adobe file.
Transferred all 13 of our Badger's Bulletins to the "Cortex: Serenity Material" section as well as Wydraz's system map, which we use in our Serenity campaigns.
Transferred our new traits for the Pangaea setting and the Madness rules from our Slaughter campaign into the "Cortex: Homebrew Material" section.
Transferred parts I and II of the Terrifying Space Monkeys adventure trilogy and the two-part pilot episode of the Handsome Ranch adventure path to the "Cortex: Adventures" section.
October 22, 2008:
Transferred our second Cortex: Serenity campaign (Flashback) to the "Our Cortex: Serenity campaigns" section.
Transferred our first Cortex: Homebrew campaign (Pangaea) and our second (Slaughter) to the "Our Cortex: Hombrew campaigns" section.