Game Day Report, Bleach Failday

So I got really ill right before Gameday, this meant the PDD20 game didn't happen, infact about the only gaming I got in was two rounds of chess. However, we had a larger turnout than last year, and everybody seemed to enjoy themselves. So while a down day for me and D20, overall a good day.

Last night was supposed to be the first major session of my BLEACH game. Yeah, mid game a combination of my DM overreaction and player stupidity cut the game short. One of my two player's is rolling up a new character. The good news is there's a lot of promise in Magus being a good option for a Kido-friendly Shinagami.

I was actually using a lot of the new Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Beginner's Box for the game. So I'll through a first impression here.

Paper pawns: These were actually really nice quality cardboard pawns with good art. I agree with some the fronts and backs should have been different, but not many people draw characters or monsters from the behind.

Flipmap: A nice dungeon one side "blank" otherside flipmat. Nothing fancy, but nice.

Module included: Straight to the dungeon crawl, which is actually kinda short, and ends with two rounds with a black dragon??? Look I know this is dungeons and dragons, but throwing a dragon in the first encounter set is still a bit nuts. There's almost enough pre-dragon combat to validate leveling your characters to level 2, and the loot built in is enough to sorta make the characters capable of surviving (and therefore, really really powerful game items that any player's new or old is gonna latch onto and throw later games power level off) but really. The module's also SHORT, really SHORT. I don't think even a totally inexperienced group would have trouble finishing this module in 2 hours tops. (Seriously, a under strength party (one experienced gm, one experienced player, one only second session player was over halfway through it in 20 minutes, then stupidity happened and we broke up).

Once that's done, the infant gm has to figure out what to do next? Sure if your party only has the one copy of the hero's handbook, and has to pass it around leveling up either their customs or the pregens, then I can see that being enough to end a evening, but it felt kinda lacking.

I'd suggested on paizo's site that this box have a lot of good "new to GMing" material, and while its there, it's all in the "read and study" section after the module.

Overall, it's a good addition to my stuff, and a good thing to hand to a group of newbies, but still isn't quite what I'd hoped for. They could have spread the action out a little, a few map pieces wouldn't have been a bad addition, and could have let them build two "locations" instead of just one that was so small. A reduced map pack (the flip mat is a game mastery flipmat) would have been a nice addition.

So, I'll be keeping mine, if I'm in a store and someone asks about rpgs, I'll be suggesting it, but maybe not the xmas gift i was hoping for for some of my friends.

Miniature Paintings By Benji

Here's some mini's my brother has painted for me.
A Woodelf Waywatcher from Warhammer fantasy:


Woodelf Lord


Reaper PFRPG Rogue (Customized)


Red Dragon