Our third session found the players delving deeper into the haunted keep both literally and figuratively. They pretty much finished exploring the ruins of the eastern tower and then delved below the keep. What they found below may likely take the campaign in a different direction than if they had handled it differently. I don’t want to mention spoilers above the break so if you want to know what I’m talking about, go read the recap of the third session or continue reading here.

Jason and Jon were missing this session. Rather than have two of the three players play two characters, Alok and Thorbird were essentially missing in action. More on this below. My DM comments, as usual, are in [brackets and italics]. There are potential spoilers for The Haunted Keep from the Moldvay Basic D&D set, The Haunted Keep from Dragonsfoot, and N1 Against the Cult of the Reptile God.

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During our second session, the adventurers explored the village of Bronby a bit and met various residents before heading back to the haunted keep. They learned the mayor trusted pretty much no one, the constable was ready to arrest them for trespassing at the haunted keep, the Golden Grain Inn was much cleaner with a more gregarious staff than at Odgi’s establishment, and that the whole village had a bit of an eerie vibe to it. At the keep, they found goblins! We pick up this session with some goblins attacking the party below the break.

Jon was missing this session and so Jason played Alok. My DM comments, as usual, are in [brackets and italics]. There are potential spoilers for The Haunted Keep from the Moldvay Basic D&D set, The Haunted Keep from Dragonsfoot, and N1 Against the Cult of the Reptile God.

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In our first session of the Gränsomrad Dale Campaign hosted by Fallout Comics, we created characters and jumped in. The adventurers arrived in Bronby, found an inn, made it their own, shared lots of rumors, and started their exploration of the nearby haunted keep. They defeated four hobgoblins, saved two men from the southern lands, and found some sacks of coins before retreating back to their inn and settling down for the night. So they didn’t make it too far in their explorations but somehow I think that’ll get corrected in this session as we’ll find out after the break.

My DM comments, as usual, are in [brackets and italics]. There are potential spoilers for The Haunted Keep from the Moldvay Basic D&D set, The Haunted Keep from Dragonsfoot, and N1 Against the Cult of the Reptile God below the break.

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We began our first session of the Gränsomrad Dale Campaign hosted by Fallout Comics with character creation…3d6 in order (although I did allow the players to swap one score with another if they so desired). It took a little longer than I had expected but all but one of the players had never played Basis Fantasy RPG and most either had no experience with pre-d20 versions of D&D or haven’t played them in quite some time. Once the characters were created and everyone had read their rumors (see the Intro post for more on these), we jumped right in with each of the PCs separately arriving in the village of Bronby and being directed to a nearby inn (I know…rather trite, isn’t it?).

My DM comments, as usual, are in [brackets and italics]. There are potential spoilers for The Haunted Keep from the Moldvay Basic D&D set, The Haunted Keep from Dragonsfoot, and N1 Against the Cult of the Reptile God below the break.

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I started running a new campaign at my friendly local comic and games store, Fallout Comics, a few weeks ago. For a little over a year I had run a 5e game at the store. My dissatisfaction with 5e had already grown enough that I had stopped running it for my home campaign months prior. I gutted it out a bit longer with the store game before I spoke with the owners and got their permission to switch systems. As I did with my home game, I decided to switch to Basic Fantasy RPG (BFRPG)…with some house rules of course. BFRPG has quickly become one of my favorite D&D systems. All but one of the players who had been playing 5e decided to keep playing and we were joined by a new (old) player. We rolled up characters at the first session. Here is the list:

• Edda: A female human fighter with a bubbly personality played by Jen.
• Laila: A female half-elf fighter with a high level of naïveté (given her Wisdom score of 4) played by Rachel.
• Gabor: A male human cleric played by Todd.
• Thorbird: A male dwarven thief with a definite preference for free ale played by Jason.
• Alok: A male half-elf illusionist played by Jon.

The premise of the campaign is relatively simple. I put together a map which will serve as the sandbox for the campaign. It is a frontier type area that is sparsely populated with lots of wilderness for who knows what could be hidden or lurking. A small version of the map is to the right (click on it for a large version). Why yes, it does look remarkably similar to the Nentir Vale, doesn’t it? (The Nentir Vale served as the first 5e campaign setting.) I’ve populated with it with a few settlements where the PCs can rest, relax, recuperate, shop, and, of course, interact with various NPCs…some of whom will invariably have their own interests in mind. Perhaps more importantly, I’ve also populated it with various “adventure locales.” Each of these locales is based on a classic D&D module. I’ve placed five or six of these locales on the map so far. I’m sure some more will get added. Outside of this, I have no preconceived notion of how this will play out…no metaplot or story waiting to be played.

More about the campaign below the break.

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