Cambridge University R|e-Playing Society Newsletter the Fourth 1994/95 ============================= A Party To Murder: 221b Baker Street ------------------------------------ London, late at night. The mists curled around two figures, one curved and wide of girth, the other gaunt. The latter lit his famous pipe, cleared his throat and spoke: "S< Watson, we ask ourselves, who killed Fatfoot the hobbit? We can rule out Friar Toby, the Cleric; the hobbit's throat wascut from behind and no Cleric can use edged weapons, McKnoll the Dwarven Fighter, too; an ancient affinity exists between the dwarves and the furry-footed halflings, and in any case McKnoll, being a dwarf, always uses his two-headed axe. Grimrune the Magic-User: at first sight a plausible suspect, for he hated Fatfoot intensely, but there were no signs of a 'magic-missile' spell on the corpse, and with only a 1d2 pocket knife in close combat he could have never killed the hobbit with a single cut, for Fatfoot had at least 12 hit points. Perhaps Goodenough, the human.... No, his own testimony rules him out." "But Holmes, Goodenough has said nothing all night!" interjected Watson in surprise. "Precisely. His player is not here for this session. Besides, he is a lawful good Paladin. That only leaves Slink, and he hated Fatfoot for upstaging him at every opportunity. Slink had a speciality skill in knives and a backstab skill of 71%." "And Slink was a known criminal with the lowest social background possible, the scum of the earth!" "Not only that, he was a Thief, and therefore, unlike the rest of the party, not of lawful alignment. Yes, Watson. I can only deduce that Slink the Thyef killed Fatfoot the hobbit." Holmes paused, contemplating something... "It is indeed sad Watson, but I can also only conclude that this murder was the product of the Class system. Come! The game is afoot..." And so the Great Detective solved yet another crime. Weekly Meetings -/------------- The weekly gaming meetings in Clare Buttery are still happening, every Tuesday at 7.30pm They tend to be very good fun! The weekly pub meetings are still happening this term< but for now scheduled for Wednesdays at the usual place, Catz Bar at7.30pm. Attendances have been dropping lately, so please try turning up! If there are problems with the time or venue, let us know and we could move it. The committee would like to hear from YOU! Christmas Party --------------- The Christmas party at the end of last term went very well, apart from somebody getting over-zealous with a water pistol during a game of Paranoia. Despite the apparent indoor rain, several games went on and some life-long friendships were made... Okay, so I'm exaggerating slightly, but I for one enjoyed it, even if I was dosed up on pain-killers and so couldn't try any of the mulled wine provided (snyff!) Rob Wi|cox et al. conspired to design a completely new system which depended on the characters not knowing their own stats. It was funny to see ogres and giants attempting to cast healing spells but actually doing more damage than they cured. The afore-mentioned Paranoia game actually lasted for a couple of hours before the GM decided to wantonly kill off all the characters. Having watched the game for a while, I was quite impressed by his self-restraint. The other games run that evening all appeared to be enjoyed greatly by the players, so we did well. Live Role-Playing ----------------- If anybody is interested in an LRP game based on White Wolf's Vampire system, please contact James Halstead at Downing. He says "it's being run by a group in Bradford.... I've been in touch with them and got all the info on it together... The LRP is taking place on a national scale and run 100% of night time hours". This really should have gone to Darkrych, but the message came to me. Let him know if you'd like to join in a Cambridge group he wants to run> Campaigns Directory ------------------- The usual update on the state of the campaigns directory. There are 6 known campaigns still with places (if thys has changed, please let us know) GM Title System When? E-mail Contact address Simon AD&D Mon, sfs1000@cam 46 Lensfield Rd Staines (Ravenloft)7.30pm S Ball Dragonlore Tues, smjb100@hermes Emmanuel College M Anderson 7.30pm 94msa@eng Jesus College Richard Jaiman-Land R|emaster/Thur rdh1000@phx Emmanuel Cllege Harris of Twilight GURPS Andrew D&D Sat, acm1001@phx Room 3, Martin 25 Grange Road M Bucci Star Wars TBA OSC94MBB@va.anglia.ac.uk Anglia A Beckett 33 Rock Road Bryan Vampire TBA bdt1000@hermes 2 Pembroke Street Tookey The last two are being run by GMs who are not yet society members, but have promised to join if we can find them some players, so please help them and us. Contact the GMs directly if you are interested. If you want to run a campaign yourself, please let the Vice-President know so we can keep the campaigns directory up to date. Can the GMs also let us know of any changes to their campaign details as well, please? It does help us greatly. Update on Steve McIntyre's AD&D campaign: ---------------------------------------- Well, how was I to know that the barbarian would suddenly get better at fighting after the evil mage cast the "charm person" spell on him? He had so far managed to be knocked out in virtually every combat and had even managed to make a critical fumble and cut off his horse's head (while he was still riding it!). I mean, at the entrance to the cave system he managed to gouge dirty holes in the walls while he was fighting the one remaining bandit. When the party caught up and his new-found "friend" told him to kill the intruders, he suddenly became the best first-level fighter in history. It just shouldn't happen. He proceeded to wipe out with one sword stroke the NPC ranger I had just managed to introduce into the party and then continued on through the rest of the party. The paladin went down so fast it looked as though he'd just been sat on by a dragon or something (more about that later), and the only person who actually managed to do anything worth speaking of was the wimpy mage who was standing at the cave entrance watching over the two kids that the party were supposed to be escorting. He used his one spell for the day and was then duly battered. The only thyng that saved the party was the fact that the nine-year-old boy just "happened" to have a knife on him (that he used when the barbarian wasn't looking) and his ten-year-old sister was a proficient healer.... Annual Dinner ------------- We are trying to organise this for the end of term. It didn't happen last year due to general apathy and too high a price. So this time we want suggestions and requests from you lot, the paying public. Please, if anybody knows of a suitable venue with a private room available for a fancy-dress dinner at the end of next term, without being too expensive (about 15 max per head), let us know. Varsity Match ------------- This will be held at the end of term in Oxford. Last year they (narrowly) retained the title in a free-form game set in Ankh-Morpork, although one of our team appare~tly won the "Best Player" award. If you are interested in upholding the honour of CURS this time, please tell a committee member. The system is supposed to be the same this time, so any Terry Pratchett fans should enjoy it. This week's committee is: -/---------------------- President Mark Mackey (The Drunk One) Trinity Hall mdm1004@cus.cam.ac.uk V-President Jon Rabone (The Gremlin) Churchill 93jkr@eng.cam.ac.uk Secretary Steve McIntyre (Degree? I'm here for net access) Churchill sam1007@hermes.cam.ac.uk Asst Sec Ian Lewis (The Legs) Emmanuel no e-mail Jnr Treas Paul Killworth (The Fun~y One) Trinity no e-mail Ext Officer Rob Wilcox (The Tall One) Clare rjw1005@hermes.cam.ac.uk ======================================================================== Steve McIntyre 24/01/94. Thanks to Paul for the "Murder"