School RPG Club

[Erinyes]

After an almost complete failure our past year, with geek drama and poor planning galore, I'm surprised we were allowed to even continue this club.

But that doesn't really matter.

I am taking over as President of our school RPG Club, aptly named the "RPG Club", as President. I've created a facebook page (just a few minutes ago) for our club, and along with finding/commissioning* a decent picture (if only temporarily before I get a group pic) , I was wondering if anybody had any advice on our game selection, advice I should hand out to newbs, and advice for some new DMs I will be having this year.

I believe we currently have around 70$ in our account, and we may be getting donatioins from a few of our club members**.

List of definite games:
D&D 3.5
D&D miniatures
Pirates TCG
WARHAMMER(!!!!) 40k miniatures

Supplies We already have



D&D 3.5 Books
Players Handbook
Dungeon Masters Guide
Dungeon Masters Guide 2
Monster Manual
Monster Manual 3
Tome of Magic
Tome and Blood
Races of the Dragon
Draconomicon
Spell Compendium
Epic Level Handbook
Complete Arcane
Arms and Equipment Guide
Book of Exalted Deeds
Complete Adventurer
Complete Divine
Complete Psionics
Complete Scoundrel
Complete Warrior
Defenders of the Faith
Dragon Magic
Dungeonscape
Forgotten Realms - Underdark
Heroes of Battle
Heroes of Horror

Worlds Largest Dungeon


AD&D books

Diablo 2 (Yes, Diablo D&D)


Pirates TCG
A lot of ships

W40k miniatures

Space marines:

10 Bolters
2 Missile Launchers
1 Flamer
1 Close Combat (Chainsword + Pistol)


Chaos Space Marines (More impressive, trust me)

14 Bolters
7 Close-Combat (Chainsword + Pistol)
1 Heavy Bolter
1 Plasma Gun
1 Las-Cannon
1 Auto-Cannon
1 Some kind of close combat mutation (f-ed up arm spike + pistol)
1 Dual Bolt Pistols
1 Terminator w/Assault Cannon


Lego Space Marines:

9 Bolters
2 Close Combat (Sword/Lightsaber + Pistol)
4 Missile Launcher
3 Scouts w/ Sniper rifles
1 Techmarine w/ Full servo-harness (made it myself, love it)
1 Captain
1 Terminator w/ Chainfist and ...some gun


Tyranids:

10 Gaunts w/ fleshborers
8 Genestealers





List of possible games: (if we can aquire sourcebooks and materials)
D&D 4.0 (I don't like it, but some members do)
AD&D
Call of Cthulhu
Cthulhutech
Warhammer miniatures
Warhammer RPG
Warhammer 40k RPG
Star Wars RPG
Seven Seas RPG (have DM guide, but no player's handbook)
Diplomacy (the board game, sounds interesting, tactical)
????

Linkage[Once I publish page]


*commissioning: actually a pretty long word.....suprised me
** "club members" = working club members

[Mando Knight]

I believe we currently have around 70$ in our account, and we may be getting donatioins from a few of our club members**.

WARHAMMER(!!!!) 40k miniatures


Warhammer and a $70 budget are mutually exclusive.

[Erinyes]

It would be a 300$ budget, but most got stolen by someone, I belive it was the previous club VP, but, thats just some more of the geek drama.

I already own a small army handful of squads of 40k miniatures (why they're in the list) about 50+ space marines and chaos space marines combines, and 20 Tyranids....

Along with about 30 lego clone troopers I added bases to and came up with a system to use.

I wrote a full list somwhere, need to find it, used it to add up points of my army.


Space marines:

10 Bolters
2 Missile Launchers
1 Flamer
1 Close Combat (Chainsword + Pistol)


Chaos Space Marines (More impressive, trust me)

14 Bolters
7 Close-Combat (Chainsword + Pistol)
1 Heavy Bolter
1 Plasma Gun
1 Las-Cannon
1 Auto-Cannon
1 Some kind of close combat mutation (f-ed up arm spike + pistol)
1 Dual Bolt Pistols
1 Terminator w/Assault Cannon


Lego Space Marines:

9 Bolters
2 Close Combat (Sword/Lightsaber + Pistol)
4 Missile Launcher
3 Scouts w/ Sniper rifles
1 Techmarine w/ Full servo-harness (made it myself, love it)
1 Captain
1 Terminator w/ Chainfist and ...some gun


Tyranids:

10 Gaunts w/ fleshborers
8 Genestealers




It's not bad, the chaos/spac marines/legos make a 1,500+ point army.

[orchitect]

If you can find it on Ebay, Vor the Maelstrom is a great skirmish game with rules for making an army out of any miniatures, including custom made ones. They also have the super cool Growlers!

Goodluck!

[RTGoodman]

Avalon Hill (a division of WotC) just re-released Diplomacy in a fancy new, slightly cheaper edition. You can find it online or in most gaming stores, probably. It's certainly easier to find that the old versions, which are near impossible.


You might want to consider running some non-RPG, non-miniatures games. Most D&D players that I know have played Magic: The Gathering a bit and have at least a few cards, and M:tG can provide a nice quick, easy game to play before meetings or while waiting on late players.

Also, there are a handful of fantasy games that are EXCELLENT for RPG groups to play when they don't actually want to start a campaign. Munchkin is excellent for this, and has enough different kinds of expansion (Cthulhu, Sci-Fi, Western, Asian, etc.) to keep everyone happy. There's also the excellent Red Dragon Inn card game, which I had tons of fun playing at the GitP Meet-Up over the summer, and WotC has a game called Inn Fighting that mimics a bar brawl.

[Erloas]

Considering the price of 40k and how the game in general is done, I don't think that is a very good choice for a club collecting game. It would be a fine option to play for people that brought their own armies, but to buy with club funds doesn't make sense to me.
If you spent all the club's money on just 40k you might be able to get 2 barily playable armies with very little options.


If you want a tabletop wargame you might look into picking up Battletech. You can get everything you need to play for quite a few people with the started box for $25-40 (depending if you can buy stuff online or what). If you want to expand from the intro box models aren't exactly cheap (about $7-15 each) but you don't need very many of them to play. It is also a game that works well with more then 2 players, something that can't be said for Warhammer fantasy or 40k, both break down quickly with more then 2 players. Beyond the starter box all you really need to buy is Total Warfare and you have all of the rules to play standard games. Most of the other books are fluff and scenarios or advanced (and clearly optional, they even recommend not using most of the advanced rules together because it slows things down a lot). Building your own 'Mechs and getting all of the record sheets can be done easy enough from some free programs on the net too.

They also have a fairly well planned out campaign system to tie games together (and make it more RPG like), though I'm not sure if the main sourcebook is out for that yet (I know they have some intro rules online). They are also working on a full RPG system that is supposed to meld almost seemlessly with the existing table top game to have both aspects work together (but can easily be keep seperate).



If you are looking for some fun quick to get into games Settlers of Catan always has a lot of people suggesting it. I also really liked Carsaconne.

[Erinyes]

Vor the maelstrom looks really interesting, and I actually found a nice pack of the book set, unfortunately, looking for a starter set.

The new Diplomacy, I think I've seen it in a store somewhere recently, looks really interesting.

I know one member that already has Magic cards, and I used to, but never learned to play, I actually was considering the issue of adding card games to the club.

Battletech minis look cool, and it looks like its still in production.

I really like all of these suggestions.

And while and army in 40k is expensive, our whole club will most likely not all be playing the same game at the same time, different groups depending on what the person wants to do, for the beginning of the year it will probably be D&D, Pirates, and 40k. Players could also control a small squad, or, like tyranids often do, the tyranid side could have a continual stream of gaunts and 'stealers coming after the other side. Possibly using other objects to represent a greater number of them (18 ain't much of a horde, even if it continues popping back up.)

[Mr. Mud]

I highly recommend the new Star Wars d20... It was sort of the brainchild for 4E, though, so you may not like it. Oh, and all you need is one source book! :smalltongue:

[Dracomorph]

I would advise you to get some adventures or modules for the RPGs you already have, and maybe the Faerun/Eberron campaign setting books.

Not every year will have a great DM, and having premade adventures takes some of the guesswork out of things, while taking the pressure off of good DMs, which makes committing to and scheduling ongoing RPGs a little easier.

[Dallas-Dakota]

Print this out and give it to new DM's. Or hang it up on the wall or something. Extremely usefull for (new) DM's. (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=76474)

[Shikton]

I second Munchkin. It's just tons upon tons of pure fun. Gets even better with expansions, so go for it. =)

[Erinyes]

Print this out and give it to new DM's. Or hang it up on the wall or something. Extremely usefull for (new) DM's. (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=76474)

I had completely forgotten about that, I am probably going to do just that.

Munchkin, thats the one with the enormous dice right? It looks fun, but may only go with one or two of the expansions.

[orchitect]

I second Munchkin. It's just tons upon tons of pure fun. Gets even better with expansions, so go for it. =)

Its one of the best ways to spend an evening. The sci-fi expansion is particularly hilarious.

I'd also recommend Infernal Contraption from Privateer Press. Its different, but its fun and the artwork it totally awesome; it has great colours.

I got my Vor starter set off of Ebay. Just keep an eye out and you might be able to grab it for around 20 or 30 dollars. Its worth it though if you want the Growlers. Otherwise I'd just buy the books and use whatever minis you have and the Vor custom army rules to make your own armies.