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Old 10-19-2008, 09:48 PM   #1
BabbageCliologic
 
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Default GURPS Harkwood - how have you run it?

Howdy folks,

Just wondering how you have run GURPS Harkwood. I've run it once with the PCs actually working behind the scenes as a specialist "Mission Impossible" team for the betterment of Caithness.

One of the PCs was the (believed dead) younger brother of the old king. We'll call him Xavier for the time being. He learned as a young man from a wise seer that Caithness would face it's greatest challenge when his nephew gained the throne, so he faked his death "fighting a dragon" and went to Megalos to learn magic. He mastered magic and returned to Caithness, where he spread the legend of a great wizard who protected Caithness. Taking the identity of the "mouthpiece" of the great wizard, he gathered a diverse group of characters that included:

1. A Landed Knight of the Stone, who was an old friend of Xavier and the only one who knew the truth. Fiercely loyal to King Conal and an excellent fighter.

2. The Landed Knight's half-elvish brother, who was trained in Sahud by a Sorceress who now wanted him dead.

3. The heir of a noble house that "died" during the last Megalan Invasion in 1982. Xavier appeared on the battlefield and gave him a choice - die here and now, or live to serve Caithness. He chose life. He appeared as a sell-sword to everyone, aka a white (or blank) shield. His cousin, Brance, was the current heir to his house and during the game he defeated Brance in a joust while dressed all in white (white tabard, armor and stallion), after which, revealed his presence/lineage to the Baron of Harkwood and the Queen Mother, as well as the assembled nobles and freemen.

4. The bastard son of Deneral of Mershall (current leader of the rebelous lords against the King, allied with Lord Brance). Fiercely loyal to King Conal, he wanted to kill Deneral and take his barony in the name of the King.

5. The true heir to the Lording of Blythe. His mother was a simple peasant and loved the Lord of Blythe. He loved her back and she produced his son. The Lord of Blythe was ready to put aside his evil wife (who could not provide him with an heir) and formally recognize the PC as his child, but was foully murdered (poisoned) by the evil Lady Blythe. During the game, the PC managed to get many knights of Blythe to ally with him, as well as other knights, and (had the campaign continued) would have stormed the castle and deposed the evil usurper.

Has anyone else done stuff with GURPS Harkwood that would be interesting to add? I might resurrect this campaign with another group and just wonder what you think.

/BC
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Old 10-19-2008, 10:01 PM   #2
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Default Re: GURPS Harkwood - how have you run it?

I ran it as a pretty straight up adventuring party comes to town and gets mixed up in the power struggle game. Though I traded the elves in the woods for a necromancer and his pet raveners.

Heh, Harkwood was upto it's knees in zombies for weeks!
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Old 10-19-2008, 11:37 PM   #3
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Default Re: GURPS Harkwood - how have you run it?

Once. it was Colone Mustard with a lead pipe in the kitchen, as I recollect. No wait...

Actually it was the mad but murderous daughter of Harkwood's noble, who clearly wasn't guilty in the current time line, since she and her accomplice now husband rule the land. (Unless the 'official' resolution to the plot is "The PCs failed and she gets away with it!")
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Old 11-14-2017, 04:45 PM   #4
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Default Re: GURPS Harkwood - how have you run it?

What do game master's use for resources when running Harkwood? Specifically the adventure seems to require the GM to create a lot of hex maps that the supplement doesn't provide and requires counters or miniatures to represent knights and mounted characters. What do GMs use for mounted knights when running advanced combat in Harkwood? Does SJ games produce a set of cardboard heroes for Harkwood with three hex mounted knights and brigands?
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Old 11-14-2017, 04:50 PM   #5
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Default Re: GURPS Harkwood - how have you run it?

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Originally Posted by Teclis View Post
What do game master's use for resources when running Harkwood? Specifically the adventure seems to require the GM to create a lot of hex maps that the supplement doesn't provide and requires counters or miniatures to represent knights and mounted characters. What do GMs use for mounted knights when running advanced combat in Harkwood? Does SJ games produce a set of cardboard heroes for Harkwood with three hex mounted knights and brigands?
I haven't run Harkwood, but I can tell you that in general I mostly use a vinyl hex battlemat, wet erase markers, and a mix of miniatures, cardboard standees, and more generic tokens like squashed marbles and poker chips, sometimes even bottle caps and change.
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Old 11-14-2017, 08:06 PM   #6
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Default Re: GURPS Harkwood - how have you run it?

I used maps I made on the computer and printed out, and then taped together. We had "arts and crafts time" before each session, assembling maps :) The players enjoyed taking the pens out and marking the path they took. It looked like a football playbook by the time they finished a battle.

For miniatures, my partner played wargames before coming over to RPGs, so we're up to our necks in minis (including cavalry). If I didn't have enough of what I wanted, I used flavoured mini marshmallows, so I had different colours. And I ate them when the PCs killed them.
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Old 11-14-2017, 08:09 PM   #7
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Default Re: GURPS Harkwood - how have you run it?

By the way: sticking several marshmallows on a piece of spaghetti lets you fill up 3 hexes pretty nicely.
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Old 11-15-2017, 06:42 AM   #8
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Default Re: GURPS Harkwood - how have you run it?

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By the way: sticking several marshmallows on a piece of spaghetti lets you fill up 3 hexes pretty nicely.
Sounds like the road to a new exciting D&D monster XD
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Old 11-15-2017, 06:02 PM   #9
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Default Re: GURPS Harkwood - how have you run it?

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By the way: sticking several marshmallows on a piece of spaghetti lets you fill up 3 hexes pretty nicely.
Many years at a gaming convention we ran one of the Murphy's Rules, Games that Should Never be Played. Fungi From Candyland. Used a blown up Candyland board and made the monster miniatures from marshmallows, gumdrops, etc. Eat what you kill. A very simple scenario but people had fun.
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Old 11-16-2017, 06:45 PM   #10
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Default Re: GURPS Harkwood - how have you run it?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Bruno View Post
I used maps I made on the computer and printed out, and then taped together. We had "arts and crafts time" before each session, assembling maps :) The players enjoyed taking the pens out and marking the path they took. It looked like a football playbook by the time they finished a battle.

For miniatures, my partner played wargames before coming over to RPGs, so we're up to our necks in minis (including cavalry). If I didn't have enough of what I wanted, I used flavoured mini marshmallows, so I had different colours. And I ate them when the PCs killed them.
I didn't eat lunch, so looks like you're fighting hordes of ants.

I'm on a diet, so looks like you're fighting just one adamantium golem.
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