[OOC] General Talk and Discussions

Feel free to introduce yourself in the forum here, or let us know if you are on vacation or anything like that.

Hi. Avraham here, or Avi for short. Been playing TTRPGs since the late 1980s—exclusively D&D or one of its myriad offshoots. Played BattleTech, but only in CRPG/MMO (anyone remember EA's short-lived Battletech 3025?). In real life I work in a statistics-based STEM feel, so I know my way around a spreadsheet or some basic programming. My PbP style tends to longer posts; I often try to write as if I'm narrating a book. If I ever get on your nerves, please reach out to me and let me know! I work from home so I am usually available, but I am offline from Friday evening to Saturday nights, and occasionally can be off for 48 hours at a time. I will post if I will have to miss a complete game.

Misc Rolls

I've posted some rules to guide player behavior on the board. Please take a look and see if I need to add anything.

Hi guys

I'm on my mobile, "watching" my kids train Jujitsu. Not the best format to work on my character, flipping back and forth from the PDF, so I thought to introduce myself.

I know I put some amount of autobiographical thoughts and influences into my writing, and I imagine there will be traces of something personal to each of you hidden amongst your posts. I am honored to share with you all through this game.

I have two kids, 12 and 8. While they train Jujitsu, soccer, and piano, I train my Dad jokes. By day I am a software engineer. By night... I am also a software engineer since I work too much.


I have been playing video and board games since I was a kid. My brother and I discovered an old Risk game buried in my grandma's closet one day when we were like 8. That thing must have been the first edition it was so old! That got us started, but I think I really got into gaming a couple years later when I discovered a game, Conquest of the Empire, at a thrift shop. My first real war game! Not long after that I discovered AD&D when I was in highschool. My friends and I then started playing that and all manner of old school RPGs (not old school at the time. Very new at the time actually!)


I think it has been a year or two since I last played on GP. I love it here. The asynchronous posting really lets me keep gaming while family and work eat up hours of my day. The best RPG campaign I have ever played was here on GP. I even made backup copies of my character and some of the best scenes in case GP goes down one day. I can't wait to make this campaign a fantastic memory as well!


I love gritty realism, dark themes, and unforgiving challenges. Iron Man mode baby. This is what I am here for!

Let's GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOooooooooooooooopoooooooopo! ::cough cough: (whew, I ran out of breath there.)

Brief Intro for me on gaming background:

I played D&D from the box sets, AD&D 1e and 2e as a youth. In SECRET back then. Definitely did not want the population to know about the nerdishness back in the day. The only diversion I had outside of D&D was a short but memorable run on Cyberpunk 2020. Pretty cool game, too.
Then was away from RPGaming for about 15 years. Returned later to learn 3.5 through Pathfinder, then 5e.
I picked up ACKS I think in 2022. I like the concept of OSR in general, and ACKS specifically I think is a great program. I do like the Auran setting as well.

Probably 99+% of my time gaming has been as DM. In truth it shakes out that I have very limited experience as a Player - have never been able to land in a game in which the DM doesn't fizzle out and the program folds up.

I've done mostly IRL games overall, but intermittently have done long stints here on GP, though under my separate DM alter avatar. I've really enjoyed some long-running games with great players. It has also been pretty funny on the OOC boards with friends. I think PBP is such an interesting newer branch of the old Tradition of gaming.

Last project here on GP was a limited time run on ACKS first level PCs last year. I thoroughly enjoyed it. A great line up of players. The system seemed to function well - streamlined, simple, nostalgic retro, generated some very fluid combat scenes - creepy and nerve-wracking - and allowed for good depth on RP without bogging down with excessive rabbit trail RNG rolls factoring in at every turn. Thumbs up to ACKS.

Overall, I prefer low-magic, gritty, sword and sorcery type games the best. The more Robert E. Howard style the better imo. That's why I was excited to see the recruitment post for this game. So, again - I want to give another round of applause to DM SHADOWKNIGHT!! Great start on this show already.
Plus this Players' Club looks very interesting and capable. A variety of good PC concepts and styles on the line-up. I bet there are some retro rad scenes coming up soon.

GM and fellow Players,

I am going to be on travel for the weekend and limited on comms beginning Saturday morning.

I should be able to get on the boards for at least short posting on Sunday night if needed, and stabilized again on Monday evening after work.

Have a good weekend.

@shadowknight I have completed my background story and character sheet. My starting income roll left him pretty poor!

I noticed that, as you are playing a noble class, I'll allow you to use a Fate point to reroll your starting income if you wish? Also, at first glance I did not see what talisman you had, so don't forget to add that.

Jomsviking, Rafn should have a base Reflex of +2 because he has access to some Thief abilities, I went ahead and modified your sheet to reflect this. It looks like you might need to finish equipping your character too. (Unless I'm missing something). Rafn's equipment seems to be a direct copy of Aengus'. We have some time if you're still editing it, just wanted to check in.

I've updated the coinage, I had made some terrible maths late at night. He's still poor by his standards, but I think it's a great RP point. Addressed and noted in my first RP post, so it's cannon now, can't change it!

Also updated character sheet to have corruption and stigma. In my background, I describe casting the black magic spell once, so I've given him 2 corruption to start.
Good catch! I've added it to his inventory and put a description for it under the proficiency.

Oh wow I completely forgot.

I guess I should introduce myself too.

I've been playing board games and rpgs since the mid 1990s at least. Possibly even the early 1990s. I think my first major experience was playing Heroquest with my father and brother. We got addicted to that game (or at least I did). When we moved to a different state, we lost most of the pieces to it. I did purchase another boxed set with my allowance money. And DragonStrike, and Key to the Kingdom, and anything else I could get a hold of that had a remotely fantasy flare. And of course I did play quite a few computer and console games. One of my favorites was a Sega Genesis game: Sorcerer's Kingdom. Blockbuster was a huge thing for my family and I when we were younger. There was a Blockbuster in a strip mall right next to a Little Caesar's, so we'd always spend our weekends by getting a few movies, maybe a game, something for the parents to watch, and then stop at Little Caesar's for their Crazy Eights deal: 2 Pizzas, 2 Toppings each, an order of crazy bread and a 2 liter for $8.88. That was back before our last move though. I remember spending allowance money to get the AD&D Second Edition rulebooks and monstrous manual. Sometime between 95 and 97.

Since then, I've enjoyed 3rd edition immensely, played Pathfinder quite a bit when we stopped playing 3rd edition. I did a play-by-post for a 4th edition adventure but never really cared for it that much, and enjoyed the renaissance of 5th edition. I also tried Warhammer Fantasy and other rpgs: Shadow of the Demon Lord is a pretty good one too. It can be quite thematic if you limit the options a little. But shortly after getting into 5th edition, I swiftly fell in love with third party rpgs. One of my favorites is "By This Axe I Hack", but "Black Sword Hack" is kind of cool also. I was on a mission to find a system that could capture the Sword & Sorcery feeling from my favorite films. And I unfortunately never really found one. The ones I like best are very close to capturing that feeling. I've tried every Conan RPG I could find. Modiphius didn't get it. At least I don't think it did based on the first book, and the 2d20 system is a bit confusing for me. (Even after watching several tutorial videos I think its an overly complicated mechanic). "Adventurer Conqueror King System" (ACKS) is possibly the closest published game for capturing Sword & Sorcery, but even the basic rules don't make magic feel rare or dangerous.

So I began working on a system of my own. Borrowing from some games that I enjoyed immensely, retheming, and playtesting over and over again. I am surprised by how much I am enjoying the new game (not published anywhere yet) I call "Savages and Sorcery". It definitely captures the Conan-esque feeling that I was searching for while also feeling like an alien world with dangers galore. And I could totally see something like this: taking place in it. I'm not entirely certain it can be played over a play-by-post, as it uses special dice for combat and channeling mana, but as a tabletop experience it is interesting and surprisingly fun and challenging.

That's about it for me. But if you know a game system that captures the feeling of that video, definitely let me know about it.

Interesting pathway through gaming. Thanks for sharing.

That video is a good one. I'm going to bookmark that and share with some of my IRL old-head gamer bros when I shift the team to a new ACKS campaign early next year.
I dig the sword and sorcery motif to the max. Despite that, I seem to keep getting pulled into High Fantasy / High Normalized Magic settings that the rest of the crowd seems to prefer. lol.
Example: I decided to revive a live game with a group of players, after around 7 years of dormancy. I gave 4 options of settings, 3 of which would be restarts of old campaign lines. They chose to revive an old Drow Elf campaign, set in Forgotten Realms and the ultra-mass-marketed Menzoberranzan. Non-humans everywhere. Everyday/everywhere no-cost magic. I decided to do it in 5e too, which I have wanted to get away from for a while. But I felt it was the easiest system for rusty gamers to return with, especially if we would possibly be limited on longevity of the campaign.
No doubt it has been fun, and I've been able to pull in another group of players who had also played that setting in the past. So, in the end I'm really happy with the good times revival and the reunion. But I laugh a bit because there I am managing another round of dark elf cheezers throwing Fireball and Mirror Image and rocking the Elfin Chain Shirt - BANG!! Haha.
I have to get over to DM ShadowKnight's Arena to watch some Sword and Sandals video and get a chance to guest-write some retro pulp entries.

Woah, what is this game? Looks rad, but I get nothing when googling.

I have always modded my games to be more gritty and low magic. ACKS fits that the closest of any system I have tried. Something about making the magic and other races rare in game just adds to the immersion for me.

I was big into hero quest for a while as a kid as well. Those minis still look amazing. I keep almost picking up a new boxed set to play with my kids, but just haven't made the jump. You may have inadvertently pushed me...

@Avraham

6'8" is giant. Big as Halfthor "The Mountain" Bjornsen

Technically 5'9" is giant being taller than 99% of all humans.

Yes, but UNTIL you called him a giant twice, in my mind, he was 5'8" 🤣🤣

That's a game I've been working on since the pandemic. Still in playtesting and there was a recent development where I'm rethinking the original dice designs to make it more thematic and changing the way the skills work. So.... still in development.

With a strength of 18 that would be one beastly man. Nearly as wide around as he is tall.