Posts

Posted on

Gaming Resources Page Updated

New book uploads for a bunch of tabletop systems (and some comics) have been added over at the Resources page:

  • AD&D 2nd Ed.
  • Black Powder
  • Bolt Action
  • Chain of Command
  • HEMA
  • Knights of the Dinner Table
  • Necromunda
  • Warhammer 40K

Don’t forget to register and login to your account so you can get access!

Posted on

2024 Wrap Up

Overview

Two of our campaigns have come to close with the end of the year. We ended our Star Wars: Smuggler’s Run campaign on an epic note, with our player characters saving the Rebel Alliance and getting revenge on the Empire. The campaign started in 2019, making it the longest running campaign we have ever run.

We also tied all all loose ends in our HackMaster: Dragon Heist campaign, finally discovering the titular dragon hoard as our characters live a lavish life of riches and fame. It was our first attempt at using the HackMaster system, which had a rocky start due to the myriad of rule changes, but it ended up being a rewarding experience for all.

Future Campaigns

Starting with the new year are two new campaigns, as mentioned in a previous post. Both are two new TTRPG systems for us, so there has been a lot of book learning in the background for the last few months.

The new wild west-era themed game will be starting this Saturday, as can be seen on the events page. It is Aces & Eights: Shattered Frontier, and it be a cowboy adventure taking place in 1887 in an alternate past where the United States was not quite so united. The exact details are still a mystery, so we’ll have to wait and see.

The other game is Fallout: New California, based upon the popular videogame series. We have people playing vault dwellers, ghouls, members of the Brotherhood Of Steel, and even robots. The campaign takes place in the alternate world timeline in 2240, somewhere in California. Stay tuned for more updates.

Highlights from Star Wars: Smuggler’s Run

While boarding an Imperial Fuel Transport, we have run into a number of unforeseen problems. The most pressing are the remote traps set by the captain of the vessel in a John McClane like situation where the Rebel soldiers are being hunted.
Arvor mercy kills an Alliance officer, dead to a claymore mine set by the Die Hard captain.
Droids attack as the room starts to superheat, putting the pressure on our player characters to solve the crisis while avoiding claymore landmines.
Talon (far left) recklessly charges through claymore mine after claymore mine in his attempt to kill the Imperial captain. A choice that will eventually lead to his undoing a minute or two later.
Arvor takes on the Imperial droids as the rest of the group charges ahead to kill the Imperial captain.
Based upon intel gathered by our Bothan spies, we board the ISD Excalibur in a (failed) attempt to steal the plans for the new Death Star.
We couldn’t find the laser pointer so we started using the sword.
In our second attempt to secure the Death Star plans, we are ambushed in an Imperial trap at the Undercity of Coruscant.
We are surrounded by Storm Troopers, AT-STs, and even the Emperor’s Hand (Mara Jade).
We enjoy the new fog machine. Thanks again, Jack!
It might look like she is twerking, but in fact Mara Jade is in a deadly lightsaber duel with brother Ezra.
Arvor downs an AT-ST.
The lasers flash as we finish off the Stormtroopers.
In an attempt to free General Han Solo from carbonite, we were supposed to meet up with a wookie named Chewbacca at a nearby cantina on planet Tattoine. Chewbacca never showed.
…unfortunately, Jabba the Hutt’s men did.
Arvor wades into the bar fight.
Later, Arvor leads a team of elite troopers to the moon of Endor to shut down the new Death Star’s shields.
They are met with heavy resistance.
The damn doors to the shield won’t open!
Damion and Grant doing combat math.
Just we we are surrounded by Stormtroopers, Chewbacca shows up with an AT-ST.
Secretly following Luke to the Death Star, Ezra eventually loses track of Luke but ends up having a duel with another Jedi turned darkside. It’s the damn jewel thief from our diamond heist! Justice is served.

Highlights from HackMaster: Dragon Heist

We fight in the sewers of Waterdeep, hunting down the necromancer that has stolen the Stone of Dalore.
The sewer fight continues.
The sewers have an odd shape in certain areas.
We track down the Keys to the Dragon Hoard to an old tower in the Dock Ward. We meet heavy resistance from the Xanathars as we breach the tower.
Our cleric goes down in one unlucky hit as our thief drags him to the safety of the light. You can see Andy’s middle finger in the background. He was not pleased.

Random Photos

Grant shows us the way of the sword.
Taking a break, mid-session.
Andrew enjoying the fireplace.

Posted on

Wound Calculator 2.0, General Updates

Wound Calculator 2.0

Today I updated the code for the HackMaster Wound Calculator and made it so that it works with Master Level First Aid to accomodate Joram’s new skill levels. I also made it more Mobile-friendly and changed its web address, so don’t forget to re-bookmark it!

Plans On the Horizon

Next year, we are planning on running a cowboy-themed TTG called Aces & Eights, taking place in a fictional United States that never unified after the civil war, the Mormons have their own Theocracy, and Texas is its own country. There’s no leveling up per-se, and the system is as brutal as HackMaster, so character death is a strong, looming possibility. More details to follow.

The other game being run is one taking place in the Fallout universe. Ever since the hit show, I think everybody is a little excited for this one.

Both games are to be DM’s by Brett. See discord for more details.

Highlights from the Current Campaigns

Both campaigns are wrapping up at the end of the year. DM’d by Brett, so far both have been an amazing adventure that can be read about in the game notes. Below are some photos from our campaign.

Photos from Star Wars: Smuggler’s Run

Onboard the Nebulon B Frigate Revenge, we crash land on a planet full of a race of Seal people, called Sedrians. We found it from the crazy ramblings of Mon Calamari named Recara, driven mad by some sort of mineral. Around this time, Drake starts sharing his carefully crated rap songs with the rest of the crew. While doing so, we find an Imperial presence on the planet and engage in combat.
Andy looking very smug as we attack the Imperials. His character, Cal, recently got Force Powers.
We infiltrate a discovered Imperial base. Most of us played NPC characters at this point. Drake somehow lost all feeling in his legs in a freak fall, ruining his Rebel Alliance career (but not his rap career). Our PCs pile into a hallway near the main reactor.
A firefight ensues.
Later, in the detention cells, we fight a large mech.
…along with a squadron of troopers.
Brett having fun with the new technology.
We take sniper fire as soon as we arrive at Cloud City from a mind-controlled(?) droid.
Grant with his dog that requires constant human companionship or it will die.
In the Taldot sector, we checked in on a Rebel base that had gone silent. We discovered an infestation of Charon from Otherspace. Hyper-intelligent spiders the size of a bus and resistant to energy weapons. Not fun.
We ended up delving deep underground, beneath the Rebel base. We tried to do a planetary bombardment, but were too damaged. The Charon eventually left on a spaceship, hopefully to trouble the Empire instead of the fragile Rebel Alliance.
We run into a Dianoga while assisting Spilf the Squibb in an attempt to steal technology to upgrade their tractor beam systems.
It looks amazingly gross.
We fight pirates on the scattered remains of the first Death Star in an artificially created asteroid belt.
Vek snipes a guy after using his zero-g skills to scale his blind spot.
Gran unloads at a gun emplacement.
The pirates’ (“Blue Sun Group”) ship swoops in to save its crew.
Damian looks pensive as we set up the battle board for space combat.
TIE Fighters are unleashed by the Imperials.
We assault an Imperial frigate that has stolen crucial Rebel information by yanking it out of hyperspace with technology given by our new friends, the Squibb.
Captain Vek decides to ram the Imperial vessel, a gamble that proves effective as we retrieve the stolen intelligence.
Arvor duels Big Jack, a pirate captain that has hijacked the calamari luxury cruiser the Tsrari Princess.
Granlon fight some Dark Troopers with the help of a little orphan girl they picked up along the way.
Arvor intimidating two Stormtroopers as we try an attempt at piracy on an Imperial fuel transporter.

Photos from HackMaster: Dragon Heist

We get attacked by a lion in the middle of the city of Waterdeep. Apparently, the circus is in town. One of several animal attacks we suffered due to lax animal control laws.
We fight the undead and traps in the Blue Alley Dungeon.
Bar fight at our tavern, the Lucky Ladder. Grant’s character Gerum was going around one-shotting everything with his glaive.
A failed pickpocket by Arnold gets us into trouble with the local gangs, as they want their stolen diamond back. After the tussle, Arnold convinces the Watch that they were just stopping the bandits from raping Grant’s character. Germund was not amused when he heard about it later.
The gang (far-right) fights a troll let loose in town (middle-top).
We get in a tousle with the Xanathars, a local gang, while investigating the gang war between The Lady of Plagues and the Rat King.
The necromancer demands Basil’s hair and seed.
Waterdeep.
We watch over Lorrain’s house with the protection of the Zhentarum to protect us from an attack from…the Zhentarum. Had a few wires crossed in that decision.

We spend 20 minutes arguing in-character about what we want to do. Brett does everything he can to keep us arguing, stirring the pot.

We almost run by the guards in Gralend Manor, but the dwarf was too slow and we end up having to off a few. We also discovered that the dwarf is a monster tank, as he took all the guys on at once for a few rounds.
We get ambushed by Zentarum while on the trail of the necromancer that stole the Stone of Dalore.
Local Gang rushes to their death.
Posted on

Successful Server Transfer

Well guys, it’s finally over. We have our website hosted on a new server. I want to give a particular shout out to Ash, Grant, and Andy for contributing to the server costs as seen below:

I’m glad to announce that I’ve been able to reduce our server costs from ~$13/month to less than $2.40/month. And we are paid off for the next three years. 🎉

I’m changing the look of the new website a bit, as we have had the old look for several years now. Time for a change. I’ll likely be fine-tuning the website appearance in the coming weeks as inspiration hits me, but if you guys have any ideas, feel free to let me know. In particular, I’ve been thinking that we could use a rework of our TableTopGuild.com main logo, if anyone is feeling particularly artistic.

Posted on

New Tools for HackMaster

We have some nifty new things made today by some of our members.

Andy has made an Honor & BP Tracker that keeps track of the aforementioned stats as your character levels up in HackMaster. Only those with TableTop Guild accounts can access it over on our Downloads page.

Patrick (me) has also made a Wound Calculator for HackMaster. It will help see how long it will take for those wounds to heal. For example, if you plug in 17 wound damage, you will find that it will take a whopping 153 days to naturally heal up from what might have been an accidental Glaive wound. Feel free to beta test it, as it might have some kinks in it.

Posted on

A Tale of Two Campaigns

Overview

At the same time that we have recently ended two campaigns, we are starting two new campaigns in the new few weeks. Read more below for more info.

Ending Campaigns

Just recently, we ended two long ongoing campaigns: Grant’s Storm King’s Thunder (D&D 5E) campaign, and Brett’s Running Alive (Everyday Heroes) zombie campaign. Both were amazing and you can see some of the highlights below. The Storm King’s Thunder epilogue has been added to the notes earlier tonight. The Running Alive epilogue has been available for a while on our Game Notes page.

New Campaigns

We have two new campaigns starting in the next two weeks. This Saturday, Brett is starting his HackMaster Dragon Heist game. Next weekend, he will be running the long-running saga of our Star Wars: Smuggler’s Run.

Hackmaster: Dragon Heist

This will be a fusion of the HackMaster system mechanics with the Dragon Heist D&D module. It will be interesting, for sure. HackMaster is a whole new system for all of us, and can be daunting. Make sure to head over to our downloads page to take a look at the guides. Some of them are super handy.

Since it sounds like the entire campaign is taking place in Waterdeep, you might want to check out this awesome, interactive Waterdeep Map connected to the D&D Wiki:

In addition, we will be needing to use counters to keep track of what we are doing second by second in combat. I recommend those with Android phones go check out this Counter App to help in this endeavor.

Star Wars: Smuggler’s Run, Part 3

Our longest running campaign returns for its third season. For those who haven’t played in a while, feel free to check out what happened last time in the Star Wars: Smuggler’s Run, Part 2 Epilogue. Our band of troubled Rebels have just survived Hoth and have to navigate the dangerous universe they now find themselves in. At least they aren’t in another dimension anymore!

Highlights from the Campaigns

Below are some of highlights from our games.

Posted on

Website Updates

Spent some time yesterday and today working on the website a bit. Have a few updates for you all.

New Downloads Page

We have a brand new Downloads page full of resources for our games. This includes character sheets, source books, links to Wiki pages and more! Make sure to register a username if you haven’t already to gain access, as only members can view the files. If you are already registered, login to have full access.

User Registration

I have moved away from password-protecting pages/game notes and towards being logged in to gain access to the aforementioned things. If you are already have a login, you are already set. If you don’t, get to it! I am now manually verifying users and will grant you access to everything on the website as soon as I notice the new registration.

We had almost 1000 bots signed up for the website before I knew it, so I had to add a CAPTCHA to a few places. Crazy.

Expanded User Capabilities

Everyone who signs up now will also have the ability to create posts and articles on the website after being verified. Feel free to check out my guide to posting if you are interested. Go at it!

Game Notes

All game notes are still viewable, but only registered & verified users can now edit them.

 

I know, CAPTCHAs are super annoying…