Thursday 4 October 2012

Hex RPG coming together

As recently announced I have looking at writing and running a Hollow Earth Expedition role-playing game for The Delvers. We all seem to have lost heart in DandD 4e, especially as yet another edition is looming on the horizon. I'm still hoping we can complete our current campaign but in the meantime I thought I would give the Evil GM a breather and run something a little bit different. 

I'm rather enjoying getting back into story writing for an RPG game and my preparation is coming together quickly. There are several pre written starter adventures available online but I've never been one do things the easy way. I may well nick ideas from these scenarios but essentially I wanted our first adventure to be something original and potentially part of a much larger campaign arc. Obviously I can't discuss the details here (you never know, some of my friends might actually read my Blog!) but I want something that captures that cinematic and high adventure feel that you find in 'pulp' adventures like Dan Dare, Doc Savage, Flash Gordon and the like.

I have the framework for that first game laid out already, using the excellent (and Free!) flowchart program, Lucidchart. I am now working on some of the details but I'm deliberately trying to keep this part of the planning minimalist leaving descriptions and exposition brief. In short I'm putting faith in my improvisational skills...and its a scary but exhilarating prospect. I've bought some special dice for the game (yes I know I already have thousands of dice, but these are special) and I have even treated myself to the HEX GM's screen so I have all the essential rules to hand and won't need to rely on the rulebook too much during the game.

I'm not sure I can get everything finished in time for the DDD's next planned evening in a weeks time, but I'm confident I'll be ready to go before the following meeting. I'm rather looking forward to launching my players into an alternative 1936 where high adventure, secret cults and monsters abound and where magic and weird science merge in dramatic and unexpected ways.

5 comments:

  1. I like the sound of it so far. I might get back to roleplaying as I am meeting 2 of my old group Friday night. But time will tell if it's all talk and no action.

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  2. I want to keep the Delvers together even if we aren't playing D&D. Any other RPG would be good but I'd like to give this one a shot first. I bought HEX a couple of year ago when I met the Author, Jeff Combos, at Dragonmeet. I had lots of good intentions of running a game but it never happened. Now is my opportunity to make that impulse purchase repay the investment!

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  3. I bought the GM screen online yesterday and it arrived this afternoon at my office (I rarely get stuff sent to my house because Royal Mail tend to leave stuff on the doorstep to get nicked!). It's an excellent GM screen and much better quality than I was expecting. It is made from four 3mm thick, A4 sized, boards which fold out to form the screen (sort of like a boardgame).

    This should shield me very well from dice thrown in anger. I'm afraid I geeked out big-time in front of my colleges but they are getting used to it! LoL.

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  4. That sounds like a fun setting for an rpg!

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