Posts by MeridarchGekkota

  • [Roleplaying] Middle Earth Campaign - The Last Realm of Men

    Quote from Jovenile

    This sounds a lot of fun and thanks for the in depth explanation. I like the idea of magic being focussed on support and the world sounds great. What day are you thinking of running it? I'm only free for Sunday's unfortunately.

    I'm fine with either Friday or Sunday but it just depends on getting players. I can only really do one day a week without feeling like I've abandoned my missus with the baby.

    Quote from VALIS

    This does indeed sound ace. A lot of work has gone into this Rob!

    You cannot even fathom! I'm still keeping an eye out for players, by the way. :D

  • [Roleplaying] Middle Earth Campaign - The Last Realm of Men

    The Races & Classes

    These classes are WIP and will be updated as time goes on.

    Standard Classes

    These are the classes that have a standard allocation of requirements, so should be able to be hit by nearly any player with any stat rolls.


    Mannish Fighter

    Mannish Scholar

    Mannish Thief


    Hobbit Slayer

    Hobbit Bounder

    Hobbit Burglar

    Hobbit Torchbearer


    Dwarven Vaultguard

    Dwarven Wanderer


    Elven Warrior

    Elven Courtier

    Elven Loremaster

    Elite Classes

    These classes have more complicated stat requirements and some stat rolls might not be sufficient to hit them.

    Dunedain

    All Dunedain require a minimum of 9 in all stats. Aragorn and the other human nobility of Middle Earth were Dunedain.


    Dunedain Noble - The upper classes of the Dunedain world, these are the rulers of realms and of men. As quick with their wit as they are with their blades, they are true warrior nobility. Think of Prince Imrahil of Dol Amroth and you have an idea of a Dunedain noble. Strength and Charisma are their main stats.

    Dunedain Ranger - The guardians of the borders of the realms of Gondor and Arthedain both, the Dunedain rangers are stealthy and skilled with bow, Aragorn and Faramir are the inspirations for the Dunedain ranger. Strength and Dexterity are their main stats.

    Dunedain Sage - Learned custodians of the ancient lore of Numenor and the rituals of the Valar, Dunedain sages are commonly apprenticed to the five Great Wizards who walk amongst men. Denethor is the closest example in Lord of the Rings. Intelligence and Wisdom are their main stats.

    High Elves

    All high elves (aka the noldor) require a minimum of 11 in all stats. Examples of noldor in Lord of the Rings are Galadriel and Celebrimbor (aka the dude who actually made the rings of power).


    High Elven Highborn

    High Elven Spellsword

    High Elven Spellsinger

  • [Roleplaying] Middle Earth Campaign - The Last Realm of Men

    The Rules - Adventurer Conqueror King System & Heroic Fantasy Handbook

    Adventurer Conqueror King System (aka ACKS) is a tabletop roleplaying system based on BECMI (very old) Dungeons and Dragons. It's a d20 using class-based system with some of the best splatbooks ever made for any RPG ever. I'll be supplying digital copies of these books for anyone who needs them.


    There's a number of design choices in ACKS that make it difference to a lot of modern RPGs, especially 5e D&D:

    • Character Growth: Characters go from borderline vagabond to influential conqueror to ruling king, and this is fully supported by the ruleset. Personal character growth is a lot less exponential than more modern D&D systems so that a maximum level character can, theoretically, be killed by a sufficient number of 0th-level spearmen.
    • Race-Class Combinations: All classes have an associated race. This means that more interesting stuff can be built into the races and that there's no need to worry about race balance because some races require more experience to level up. For those of you who have played 3.5e, this is a much cleaner way of doing racial level adjustments.
    • Gold-to-XP: The amount of experience you get from killing monsters in ACKS is very low. You get XP from returning gold to civilisation at a 1-to-1 ratio. This means it's much more important to be smart and clever and loot a dungeon Conan-style than it is to chop down every goblin along the way.
    • Player Agency is Key: ACKS is about supporting a sandbox game. Players aren't run on a story, it's my job as a DM to instead build a world for players to explore and to react to players. The story is the emergent narrative of players wandering about in the game world.

    These choices support a certain style of gameplay that I think is more interesting than just running players through a storyline. It's about being an adventurer rather than a hero.

    Heroic Fantasy Handbook

    The Heroic Fantasy Handbook (HFH) is an ACKS supplement that supports gameplay in lower magic fantasy settings like Hyboria and Middle-Earth. It has a completely different set of magic rules that are design to emulate the Sorcerers of Conan and the Istari of Lord of the Rings. Magic users can't just blast their way through problems, they instead act as party buffers, healers and supporters with the occasional summoning of an eagle flock to carry a ringbearer to safety.


    In addition to this, the HFH offers a massive amount of other custom rules to support playing in these settings, including the addition of fate points and improvements to the thief-based classes.

  • [Roleplaying] Middle Earth Campaign - The Last Realm of Men

    Campaign Sprawl

    "Arvedui you shall call him, for he will be the last in Arthedain."

    - Malbeth the Seer upon the birth of Prince Arvedui, T.A. 1864


    It is year 1964 of the Third Age of Arda.


    Araphant, King of Arthedain, is dead. His son, Arvedui, has taken the throne despite prophecies predicting that he would be the the final king of this broken realm.


    And those prophecies seem more likely by the day. Angmar and the Witch-king's dominance grows while the power of the Free People diminishes. Rhudaur, to the east, is little more than a tributary of Angmar ruled by the Hill-man descendants of the Usurper Kings. Cardolan is long fallen to invasion and plague. The only realms of men outside of Arthedain are city-states who cowtow to Arthedain and Angmar in turn.


    You have been contacted by a courier from Fornost Erain, capital of Arthedain. The House of Isildur has a task for you and the fate of Arda may rely on your success.


    You have arrived and await upon the arrival of King Arvedui.

    Map of Eriador

    4spjgaT.png

  • Fri 27th Mutants and Death Ray Guns

    I think maybe a game flowchart would work best. I'll have a go at doing one in a bit if I can find the time.


    I think game start is pretty much:


    Game Start -> Determine Defender / Attacker via Roll Off (Higher Roll Decides) -> Defender sets up terrain -> Attacker decides which board edge he's starting on -> Defender deploys on opposite side -> Attacker deploys -> Roll off for first turn (highest roll goes first)


    And then after that:


    Select model -> Select number of dice to roll (1-3 dice) -> If 2 or more failures and no successes then play passes to opponent -> For every success, model gets an action -> For every failure, opponent gets a reaction roll -> Back to select model


    There's obviously other sub systems (melee and ranged combat) but these are the game set up and then action flow I think.

  • Interested in Getting Involved in an RPG? Post Your Interest Here.

    Quote from VALIS

    I’m more into the mechanics than the setting. Any GMs care to share what they like about the systems they run? And what sets them apart?

    Adventurer Conqueror King System: Allows the player growth from worthless pleb to conquering hero to ruling king in a really smooth manner. Also has a Player's Companion which offers full class creation rules and a Heroic Fantasy Handbook supplement which offers rules that support playing in settings like Hyboria and Middle-Earth. My usual choice for crunchy standard fantasy, campaigns usually play like the Black Company or Malazan rather than Forgotten Realms.


    RuneQuest - Adventures in Glorantha: Bronze age fantasy and a British classic. Inspired Morrowind's d100 skill-based system. Setting and rules are really tightly intertwined and it makes a cohesive experience. The worst thing about it is that the setting is 40k levels of complex and so it's nearly impossible to get into. Characters basically play as bronze age characters like Gilgamesh or Achilles with both combat and magical abilities.