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.
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!
Well, it’s been almost 3 months since our last update and we’ve been pretty busy. In our D&D Forgotten Realms campaign Storm King’s Thunder, we have started to touch upon the edge of war with the Giants when we aren’t busy leaving destruction in the wake of every town we visit.
In our D20 Modern Running Alive game, the player survivors are starting to piece together the cause of the mysterious apocalypse as we fight for survival against zombies, genocidal hillbillies, nuclear radiation, cannibals, and the upcoming weather conditions of winter.
The TableTop Guild Christmas Party was a resounding success as everyone gathered to feast and celebrate the season at local pub Monk’s Cellar. After feeding ourselves and running up large bar tabs, the group moved on finish up the night with a session of our 5E game as we took on an evil green dragon in the ruins of an ancient elvish city.
Many of our group members have continued to hobby out or discover usable models for our games. Shout out to Brin in particular, as he has been a workhorse for the last few weeks, finding and painting dozens of models.
Our friends at Hobby Badger have moved into a new, larger location. For those interested in visiting, feel free to check out the Hobby Badger Facebook page.
Finally, In the coming days I will also be doing a much revamp of our Media page. More details can been seen below.
The Triboar Explorer Corp have continued their adventures, facing road bandits, sieges by Giants, bridge politics, detective work, and attempts to infiltrate flying citadels in a high stakes heist. For more details, make sure to take a look at the game notes.
The Triboar Explorer Corp come upon a group of distressed traders whose cart has broken down. It turns out the traders are actually thieves, and physical conflict erupts. We defeat them and move on to Olostin’s Hold. Olostin’s Hold is in trouble as a group of Hill Giants siege the city. The Giants throw rocks at the city walls. We man the city walls in its defense. Ballistae are brought in to take down the Giants, who don’t like that and advance towards the city walls. The guard tower is destroyed, creating a bridge into the city. The Giants advance. The Giants are finally defeated as the city defenders come together. After leaving Olostin’s Hold a better place, the Triboar Explorer Corp move on to the city of Everlund, where they are ambushed the moment they arrive in the city by cloaked figures in an alleyway. They shoot arrows at us from the roof as our adventurers fight back and call for help from the guards. After we establish ourselves in the city of Everlund, we are sent by our local Harper’s contact via teleport to the ancient elvish ruin of Myth Drannor to battle a domineering green dragon. After a fight for survival, we prevail and return victorious with a small dragon’s hoard. Everyone seemed to want to climb onto the dragon’s back during the fight. We had to do some detective work to discover the culprits behind a recent vault theft. During the course of the night in which we were playing, the power at Grant’s place went out due to heavy storms. It’s nice to play by candle-light once in a while. We return to Everlund to embroil ourselves in the local politics of bridge building and the taxation. Eventually we decide to build a bridge in the middle of the night and make it appear like divine intervention. Andy made a 3D model of our attempt at a bridge. The bridge certainly isn’t pretty. We enter the flying citadel of the Cloud Giants to take back the stolen items from the Harper’s vault. Sometimes staring at a map for too long is not a good thing. ?
Times have been tough for our group of apocalyptic survivors. Being chased from their home by a genocidal paramilitary group with a combat helicopter, everyone tries to find new roots in Rio Linda in a new compound next to Andy’s brother’s house. We have been able to survive as a group for 75 days, but not everyone in our group has made it. For more details of our adventures, make sure to take a look at our game notes.
Later, we raid AirGas to gain crucial chemical supplies to create explosives and propane to fuel our heavy machinery. We almost immediately find ourselves surrounded by zombies. We get swarmed and desperately defend ourselves against bites. We start a convoy to Beale Airforce Base in a retaliatory raid to save captured relatives and get revenge against the Beale Raiders. We breach the on-base commissary, where our family and friends are being held. We have our allies the McDougals right behind us. Firefights break out almost immediately as we fan out from room to room in cover, taking shots at the savage paramilitary group that has taken residence on Beale Air Force Base. We discover the hostages in this room, but there are enemy soldiers inside. They continue to fire, killing a few of the McDougal clan. We free the cage full of prisoners before making a getaway. We assault the Beale Raider base one final time before deciding to leave the area permanently. After settling down in Rio Linda at GoatHub, we discover an airplane repair professional named Miles holed up in a fortified pile of debris on the McClellan Air Force runway. We also discover a working Cessna airplane. GoatHub, our new base in Rio Linda. The Smokers, a local gang, arrive in a convey of trouble. We refuse to pay their “taxes”, and start lobbing tear gas and grenades at their vehicles. The Smokers’ vehicles break down as their gunners fan out, taking shots at GoatHub. Smokers start sneaking down our side street. Vehicles explode as the firefight intensifies. The tear gas grows to cover the whole Smoker convoy. Thankfully, most do not have gas masks. Patrick picks off one of the few remaining Smokers from the rooftop in a prone position.
Everyone got together to celebrate the season by having food, drinks, and gift exchanges at the Monk’s cellar. We then did what we do when we get together: play games!
We played the first half of the game in the bar. We eventually ended up finishing the game over at Andy’s house.
I’m going to be revamping our Media page in upcoming days since it’s in dire need of some changes. Some of these changes include:
Direct Links to Source Books I know that most of us have digital copies of many of the source books. I personally have a fairly large collection, and I know Brett has a large dropbox with resources for many of our play systems. Our server currently has 20GB of free of space that we are under utilizing and I figure we might as well host some of this ourselves. The current rulesets I plan to make available for download:
5E D&D
D20 Modern
Star Wars
If you want other systems available for public download, let me know in the Discord thread I plan to open in the coming days to gather opinions.
Personal Creations I’m going to include an area for personal creations, such as art, 3D modelling of characters or items that we interact with in-game, etc. We have a talented group of people and sometimes we post really awesome stuff in Discord or FaceBook that eventually just gets buried over time in other posts. I want to create an area where we can sort of consolidate these creative works for posterity.
As always, if you are interested in creating posts or content for the TableTopGuild.com website, feel free to contact me (Patrick) and I can hand out a login. Also, don’t forget to click ‘Going’ to the D&D Movie event coming up in a few weeks if you plan to go. It looks to be at least mediocre – we can only cross our fingers it’s better than the majority of gaming movies.
Just wanted to share a few of the photos from combat in our recent sessions, that all of us have contributed! I tried to cobble together a coherent sequence of pictures from the Discord channel.
Hank and company get ambushed as they leave the Temple of Doom.The rest of the group sees Hank and Company through the tunnels and rush to help him, leaving the canoes in the river in their haste. Our guide Qawasha takes on a group of goblins, solo. Well worth the 1gp a day we pay him!The rest of the group rushes through the temple entrance to engage the goblins. Eventually we prevail and move through the jungle in search of Golem. Later on, we ambush a goblin camp by sabotaging their mechanism that helps them fly through the sky. In retaliation, the Ant Corps attack our rear line as the dwarves hold the flank on the left (seen here). The Ant Corps charge our rear line. The messy front lines maintain…for now.Tavsirak volleys spells at the front lines from the safety of a local tree. Theodora charges the front lines after killing one of the Ant Corps and taking their ant steeds.Eventually we succeed in capturing their main base. Another great Terrain piece by Grant. Grant’s impressive terrain collection. We also have a new Gaming Dog to add into the mix. We’ll have to get him his own set of dice soon. On the way to the Oracle of Oralunga, we get ambushed at night by an undead Trex that vomits out other undead. The world’s mysteries never cease. Theodora uses Vorn as a springboard and hammers the Trex from its own back. With a large number of the undead run off by our Cleric and a severe beating taken on Vorn’s part, we manage to prevail. We arrive at Camp Vengence only to have it ambushed that night by Pterrofolk. Pictured here is Andy’s new Gaming Garage along with some of his newly created terrain. We get up close and personal with the Pterrofolk stupid enough to land. Hank shoots Pterrofolk from the sky. Eventually we defeat the Pterrofolk and follow the Oracle’s advise: seek the Arracocra, for they know the secret location of the Lost City of Omu.Along the way we encounter a Frost Giant and its two Frost wolves and they absolutely wreck us. We eventually get into formation, with Vorn almost being destroyed if not for Ulfgar’s ability to help defend him. Many people almost faced death that day. Cheers to Sam for making the new Vorn model, which looks awesome!Hank sets a fire on the ground with a spell to keep the wolves at bay with limited effect. The journey continues. With sleepless nights, our group is exhausted. One night, we get ambushed by a group of velociraptors. We get seriously fucked up. Too close for comfort! Hank tries to stab a dino with mixed results.
Near death, we eventually prevail (or the GM takes pity on us) and we drive the dinos off. We’ve finally reached the mythical homeland of the Birdfolk. Until next time!
This post has been a long time coming, as it has been a while since there has been an update and much has happened in the last two months! First, with regards to our D&D 5E game, our adventurers find themselves staring their journey in the darkness of the Jungles of Chult! We have also somehow (miraculously!) all survived a whole three levels in Meatgrinder Mode. Yay for us!
Just before leaving (possibly forever) into the dark arboreal canopies that cover the majority of the continent of Chult, we decided to spend one last day in the warm, comfortable embrace of Port Nyanzaru ?, the last bastion of civilization for the foreseeable future. We went shopping for canoes for the long river journey ahead and grabbed a armful of quests in the process.
Desperately in need of coin for our journey, we made a final stop to the the casinos and bet on the dinosaur races! Many of us even participated:
The setup for the dino races.The starting line. Everyone is tense as bets are made and riders mount their dinos. I lost all of my money to Hank’s riding skills. What kind of cowboy can’t ride a dinosaur?! I’m still bitter. The first race!The second race!
The following week, we took on a ghoul bounty from Fort Belluarian with the help of our new druid guide Qawasha and his little sidekick Weed.
After some searching, we find some ghouls hiding in the jungle and attack. Each head is worth 25 precious gold!The ghouls advance at a “28 Days Later” speed and surprise us with their alacrity. Some of the party is briefly knocked down in the fight, but thankfully nobody dies! Theo hunts down a ghoul in the tunnels. It was Sam’s birthday, so Mikaela made a dragon-themed cake. It didn’t just look awesome…it tasted great!The birthday girl enjoying her cake. Ash and Brett set up our awesome new gaming table with an embedded screen! So cool. I’ve wanted one of these for us to play on for ages. Thanks again for the holiday gift Sam and Anthony! You guys are the best!Just as we finally muster up and decide to embark on our jungle journey down the river, the city gates of Port Nyanzaru are attacked by an army of zombies! We help the city watch drive off the invaders then set off into the wilderness. Our first day into the jungle we run into a goblin scouting party. We exterminate it with prejudice. Tavsirak teleports onto the top of a tree at the first sign of danger. Sorcerers are delicate. Look at that gorgeous terrain. Well done Grant. The goblins get revenge later when they attack in the middle of the night, catching us off-guard while we sleep. The next day, Aubry (Mikaela) almost gets air-lifted away as food for hungry harpies after she eats a fruit that causes her to laugh so hard she debilitates herself as she is foraging for the groups’ food. We all look in horror as they carry off her paralyzed body.We all disembark off of the canoes in a hurry and are (barely) able to successfully rescue her before she is flown off to who-knows-where. Later that night we camp in some local ruins, hoping to finally get a good nights’ sleep, ending our session for the night.
This post ends up on a sad note, as our long-time friend and playing companion Mikaela is moving away from the area. We are sad at your leaving at the same time joyous at to your new-found opportunities. Regardless, you will be missed Mikaela, and I think I speak for everyone when I say we always will have room at our table for you.
The Strahd Campaign affected us all in different ways.
At the same time our good friend Matt has also moved before the start of the current campaign as well. While you might not have moved across the entire country, you are already missed during the games and a spot is ready for you at any time.
Answer the question above in the comments section below if you have an idea!
Well, its time to start a new Forgotten Realms campaign, and by group vote we have chosen to do the Tomb of Annihilation! Prepare your tears and pray to your gods, because hard core meat grinder mode is coming your way, and we are all probably going to die. Fun times!
We started Session 0 being sent by sea to Chult and being stopped by both pirates and a giant turtle dragon demanding taxes. Session 1 continues as we romp around Port Nyanzaru as we get our bearings in the last bastion of civilization before entering the savage jungles of Chult. Most of the session ended up with us searching for survival supplies and scrounging for information about the jungle before we are openly mugged in the streets of the town by thugs. For more details, feel free to read the Game Journal.
Amazing new jungle terrain! Damn good job, Grant!The Lions are ambushed by common street thugs. Which is about all we can handle at level 1. Our DM judges the battlefield like the Hand of God.
Hope everyone has a wonderful Thanksgiving. Don’t forget to mention what dinosaur you want below!
Yesterday we had the final session for our Curse of Strahd campaign! We all decided to dress up as our characters.
Even Vader got into the mix. He’s a good boy. Try to guess who is playing what character!Andy as Telchur the Ranger.Brett as Gary Gygax(?)…or Mordenkaiden…or something. Anyway, he had a beard and a sword. Mikaela as a vampire.Matt going all in as Archdruid Drip.Patrick as the halfling High Cleric Milo Blossombrace.
Grant as the wizard Alethra.
Anthony as Rook-113, the Warforged Fighter. Sam as the Warlock Faust. Andy compares himself to his character. Pretty damn close!Grant kept cracking me all night with his getup.
Finally we got to the game itself! We continued down the dark castle of the vampire lord Strahd, culminating in a huge battle against his vampire hordes!
Rook leads the charge as we are assault Strahd’s army of vampires. Room after room of undead awaited us. Milo’s Coatl and Deva watch from above as the skirmish continues.Eventually Strahd himself showed up (far left), taking to the skies and taunting us.
Eventually, due to a slight mishap in dimensional travel ,Alethra is forced to use her 9th level spell Wish mid-battle to get everyone back into the fight with Strahd:
The two Solars bearing down on Strahd were too much for him and he was forced to flee into his coffin, where we staked him in the heart!
A great game to end a great campaign! For more details on the actual storyline, feel free to head on over to the game notes. Also, thank you everyone for bringing the food! I would like to personally give a shout out to Mikaela and Matt in particular, the former for bringing just a ton of food and drinks and the latter for bringing the unique bear stew out of a bear he hunted himself.
We ate this bear.
With the end of this campaign we are also seeing some players leaving. Know that you will always have a spot on the D&D table at any time, and you will be dearly missed.
And one final shout out to Cartman, Andy’s dog that sadly passed away over the weekend. You’ll be missed, you little monster.
Goodnight, sweet prince.
I hope we see everybody who is coming next time for our new campaign: Session 0 of the Tomb of Annihilation! I know I’m excited. See everyone on November 12th!
If you have any images you want to share, feel free to do so in the comments section below!
It’s been a busy bunch of weeks in our various games on the weekends. For many of us, we are nearing (or have surpassed!) level 20 in our Forgotten Realms campaign. A few of us have been playing their characters for several years since level 1. That’s a pretty damn cool achievement! The last few sessions we have been wrapping up the final mysteries of of Barovia. We have been seeking the origins of the Old Vampire himself and destroying a coven of witches preying upon the poor citizens of Velaki. We even saved a basement of children in the process. In addition, we did a short sidequest to free 111-Rook’s brother, 13! For more details, don’t hesitate to head on over to the 5e game notes, written by our wonderful stenographer Sam. Later tonight, we finally step into the depths of Strahd’s castle itself. Personally, I am super excited. Adventure awaits!
Our cordial DM turtles up during combat.
In regards to our Star Wars: Smuggler’s Run, the space horror continues as our intrepid crew is forced into a bizzarre cube of living biomass the size of a planet floating in space. In a last ditch attempt to repair their ship enough to leave the horrific Otherspace in which they find themselves after a catastrophic hyper drive failure, they encounter the mysterious organisms that call themselves Karon. For more details, feel free to check out the star wars notes.
The Crew faces off against the mysterious Karon, which don’t seem to be affected much by blaster fire. Explosions and flamethrowers seem to be the only thing really effective against the weird aliens. Kill it with fire!The crew fights a room full of convicts and rebel soldiers driven insane by the environment inside the Giant Flesh Cube.
In the interim, a few of us also attended the local Rennaissance Faire. We had an archery competition in which I beat Grant, watched musketeers demonstrate their shooting skills, bought nicknacks, and of course…the food!
That’s a giant mug of mead to accompany that turkey leg.Entrance to the Renaissance Faire. I’ve never seen as many people get compliments on a shirt like I did that day with Grant. Everyone loves their pumpkin spice. That is a fuckton of fries for only $7. Gabriel certainly seems happy.
In our latest adventure, Milo and Rook bought an outlying homestead which has since been named “Holdfast Farm”.
“Holdfast Farm,” our temporary home while we stay in Saltmarsh
It is currently located in the Southern Outskirts of town, near a noisy wizard named Keledek the Unspoken.
The Town of Saltmarsh
Salthmarsh. We’re staying away from the center of town, because we do weird stuff.
Milo is planning to build a tiny temple to Cyrrollalee, the halfing deity of friendship, trust and hospitality in the open quart-yard near the main entrance.
