HackMaster 4e Headline: Adventuring Party Scammed by Magic Shop!

HM4 ROFLMAO Moment tonight! We were playing rbolive's game, I play a Gnomling Ill/Th, Last session(2 weeks ago) we had finally made it back to town. We had been in a Desert since the beginning of the campaign and we hired a merchant caravan(the same ones that we had been guards for) to help us haul the loot back to the nearest City. Some of us go through Training and the all of the party, except me, heads out to find a Magic Shop. They find 2 magic shops, one that had been around for years in town and had a good Rep, the other one had only been there a month and no one in the city knew much about the owner. The party(except for me) starts wanting to trade in magic items and spend their hard earned loot on some stuff. They focus in on the New Shop since he has much lower prices than the Old Shop. Something about the situation didn't sit right with me, so I stayed away from the wheeling and dealing.

This session started off with the PCs wanting to buy their "Wish List" of Magic. Some traded in items and gems to get the things that they had always wanted. I thought about it, and then still felt something was up about it. The GM was being just a little bit to accommodating with it all, the New Magic Shop owner was offering items for "Book Price"(and what Merchant does that?).

Turns out that ALL of the items were cursed. Furrball had his PC take the items across town to the other shop to get one identified/"Checked Out" and found the curse on it. They had my wife's cleric cast augury a couple of times and found that everything was cursed. So, the party went to the City Guard, who went and arrested the guy. During the night he escaped with Magic, even though the Party Leader(also he's the Primary Fighter), human named Rocky, was allowed to watch him all night in his cell. People ran back to the shop hoping to catch the guy, along with some guardsmen. And they entered the shop and had to chase down the Shop Guard, who it turns out didn't know much.

During this time, I had scouted the place and decided that I'd tell my buddies in the local Thieves Guild but they didn't have time to do anything about it before the Escape and "Battle of the Shop", as it were, but while the Guard and the rest of the party was chasing the guy down, I got in and opened the Cash Box and made off with about 6,000gp in Gems. Of course they didn't find the Owner, neither did they find all the money that the rest of the Party had paid him(or items traded in for 'credit').

We found out, due to a journal left behind, that the guy was a Arcane Merchant(HoB #1)!

So, by the end of it all the rest of the party, collectively, has lost about 100,000 gps value of coin and items(one player alone lost 70K) traded in.

Me? I'm up 6K in Gems plus getting XP for stealing stuff! And that XP alone means that I'm ready to train again as a Thief!


Oh and the party was very PO'ed at the GM and they weren't very happy with the fact that I came out on the positive side, although that's Player knowledge only. :)

Stars!

I broke out the old Stars! game from my computer archives, it wasn't that hard we just finished a multiplayer pbem game last August. We're getting ready to setup another game soon. Turns due in 3 times per week, and these games go at least 100 turns, so we're looking at another 6+ month pbem wargame. I really, really like Stars! It's like a Board Game/Wargame but with simultaneous computerized resolution every turn. Plus there's the whole diplomacy thing going on(you can make cooperative plans/alliances but aren't held to any agreements each turn). I like it because it includes so many game elements that I love in a game, Wargaming, Diplomacy, Econ/Resource Management, etc. Last game with had 11 players, this time we should have 10.

The Red Shirts!

Tonight was HackMaster 4th Ed. The group, The Red Shirts. We play this game every other Friday night.

They are in the middle of clearing out White Doom Mountain. For those who have played or read it, they've cleared out the Left and Right Main branches of the Dungeon, they only have the Center passage/section to go. No character deaths, yet, but it's a strong group. Maybe a bit too strong. As usual, they ran out of Spells and so they retreated back to town. One character is training so it will be a week before they get back into town.

The Wizard is going to have to come up with a kewl dungeon mod and he's got a Week to restock the dungeon on them!

Next game of The Red Shirts is in two weeks.

Next Game Night is this coming Sunday. This Sunday is rbolive's HM4 game. I actually get to play! I have a Gnomling Ill/Th.

Wednesdays=Board Game Night

Just back from Furrball's house. We play Board Games there every Wed. Tonight, I played two games, Through the Ages and Acquire.

Through the Ages: Got my butt handed to me again. Normally, I've been doing well when playing TtA, but this game everything that could go wrong did. I wasn't getting the right cards and every time I was about to catch up one of the other players did something that set me back a turn...

In Acquire I won. Beat Furrball by $800. Very good game.


I'm tired, gotta go to bed now...

Frandor's Keep: Arrival

GM'ed our AHM playtest group last night.

I moved the campaign over to Frandor's Keep. Mostly because I wanted to start using the awesome setting that I bought but also it helps me so I don't have to spend a lot of time working on a Setting when I've got one better than I could normally create at my fingertips.

Characters arrived. Got to experience the introduction to the Keep. The one Half-Orc that we have in the group, Jayne(he's a male half-orc given a "girl's name" by his Human Father who hates him), was refused admittance, "Was his mother an Orc?" "No, his Father was..." :)

The characters killed some Leech Men and was able to get the reward for it. Now, the Keep will let the Half-Orc into the Lower Bailey and over to the Bounty Master to turn in ears and then leave. They've got a line on a couple of more jobs.

Next Game Night is Wednesday. Board Gaming over at Furrball's House!

Here it starts...

So, I've decided to start a blog. I decided that I play enough games in a month that I could start chronicling the games that I do play. For example today at MidSouth Game Center(Memphis, TN) I played;

Railways of the World
Dominion
Alhambra


Railways of the World
I won Railways of the World. We had six players of which a couple were new people and the cubes came out right. I got the Richmond to Atlanta Major Line(the only Major Line completed) and was able to make 2 and a half turns of 5+ link deliveries and I got my Baron Card, least number of Bonds. Probably my best Railroad Tychoon/Railways of the World yet. Railways of the World(and the older Railroad Tychoon) is one of my favorite board games.

Dominon, I got my butt kicked, but that's probably I've only actually played the game 3 or 4 times and I was playing against two people who play it alot. I like the game, but never get a chance to play it much.

Then I played Alhambra, which I've only played a couple of times, but it is an easy game and the last two times I played it I learned some stuff. Like going for as many connected Walls as you can because you aren't competing with anyone else that can deny you from getting those points. The last scoring round I got 27 points just for walls. I had set that up and almost messed it up by blocking myself in with all walls without a way to expand but I caught it in time and was able to expand nicely and keep my continuous wall that went all the way around my Alhambra.

Then I went to a GameCon Memphis meeting and at the end of it we played a quick game of Felix the Cat in the Sack, which is a very simple game but I'd never played it before. We had 5 players and I came in third, which isn't too bad. However the two people that scored higher than me almost doubled my score...

That was it for today. Tomorrow evening we have our Adavnced HackMaster Playtest Game. I'm taking the group to the Frandor's Keep area. Mostly because I'm finding that I have less and less time to write all my own scenarios AND fill out a Region and Village. I want to concentrate on playing and making notes on the game to turn into Kenzer&Co.


As Jolly says, "Play a Game, Have FUN!"