Don't get me wrong: the book itself contains plenty of useful info and wonderful tables and tools to wing a great setting (and the player feedback section is great).
I would just like to hear some feedback, suggestions or tips from anyone here who's actually used Vornheim.
Or, if you haven't, any tips or suggestions on running a Lankhmar-inspired setting? I've heard that there's a book out there (Lankhmar City of Adventure): is it any good? Other than reading Lieber's stories themselves, are there any other useful sources of inspiration out there?
Thanks folks and good gaming,
Lankhmar, City of Adventure is the old TSR series of modules covering Fafrhd and the Grey Mouser. The geomorphs were useful for doing city adventures and it was a nice two sided map.
Mongoose did a Lankhmar book for both MGP RQ1 and II that you could find with a load of background material that was taken from the books.
The best thing is to raid your local library for the original stories to get the exact flavour of the books.
The game's just started, but I'm using Vornheim in my game here (http://www.unseenservant.us/forum/viewtopic.php?f=195&t=3837). Since the Vornheim book's very specific to the city, I used the Tales of the Grotesque and Dungeonesque series of books to fill in some gaps of world lore. I've gotten some positive response to the merger, and think they work very well together.
One of the first things I did was randomly roll up some Nobles as quest-givers, thinking what kind of quests they would give. Then the real fun part is plugging them into that NPC relationship table.
So for example I rolled up a lazy fortune-teller, and I figure she'll have adventure hooks related to her prophecies, and she'll lean on the PCs to solve her problems because she can't be bothered to deal with them herself. And then I rolled up a decadent nobleman who seeks the utter destruction of the city as his driving goal in life. When I plugged them into the Quick Relationships chart, it seems they have some romantic history, so that's definitely going to color some personal interactions.
I love using those charts to set the city's backdrop, so the PCs are walking into an already complicated situation to which they don't necessarily have a clear side to choose.
I pretty well only use Vornheim for the random tables at the back. Though I did play the adventure with the magical zoo once.
I've used Vornheim quite a bit during play. I use the Search the Body table all the time. So much so that I had to expand and modify it so it wouldn't become monotonous.
I've used the City Crawl rules three times in game. Drawing a city map with colored pencils was fun, and the ridiculously simple mechanic for doing it works pretty well.
NPC names and motivations a lot, contents of books a lot, and I've used the rules for Trials once. That was pretty fun for everyone.
I've run the Medusa and Zoo adventures. The players pretty much hacked and slashed through the entire zoo in a fearful and berserk manner after one of them was mesmerized by a peacock and pecked a couple of times. They did pull a shitload of tiles off the walls though. It was also the first time that I, personally, used minis and a battlemat when running an adventure. I know, right?
I've used the die-drop tables on the covers, but didn't much care for it. I thought it was an incredibly novel idea at first, and still do. Maybe if the book/cover was physically larger? The dice kept falling off the edge. If nothing else, it's inspiration to make my own out of a large, flipped over box top.
don't. rather, don't use it as written. instead, use it as a template for your own city. re-write the table results and other weirdness to be applicable to your own city. will this take work? yes. is the payoff worth it? absolutely.
Quote from: Hermes Serpent;813865Lankhmar, City of Adventure is the old TSR series of modules covering Fafrhd and the Grey Mouser. The geomorphs were useful for doing city adventures and it was a nice two sided map.
Mongoose did a Lankhmar book for both MGP RQ1 and II that you could find with a load of background material that was taken from the books.
The best thing is to raid your local library for the original stories to get the exact flavour of the books.
The mongoose lankhmar book is outstanding. Vornheim is good as well. Use both.
The "search the body" table is probably the one I've used the most.
Quote from: RPGPundit;815518The "search the body" table is probably the one I've used the most.
Yeah I'm really liking that one. Also the Carousing table pretty much rocks.
I started using Vornheim in my last session and so far it's been great. Very easy to use. With just a few minor fluff tweaks (eg: names) it's working well in my slightly supernatural Babylonian city in the desert.
I've used the divination table a few times, for cases where you had mostly ineffectual fortune-tellers.
I've been reading the comic version of Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser (the Mike Mignola one) and these characters are working for these strange, hooded sorcerors. Anyway, they each have little tasks for them, like bring me " a dozen white cats" or "the dung of three long dead kings". Has anyone encountered a random table to create those sorts of things? If you were to google that, what would you look for? "strange and specific spell requirements"?
I think that I might make one. Some formula like "number + adjective + noun" with lists of weird stuff. Might be useful for this kind of campaign...
Quote from: Necrozius;815863I've been reading the comic version of Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser (the Mike Mignola one) and these characters are working for these strange, hooded sorcerors. Anyway, they each have little tasks for them, like bring me " a dozen white cats" or "the dung of three long dead kings". Has anyone encountered a random table to create those sorts of things? If you were to google that, what would you look for? "strange and specific spell requirements"?
I think that I might make one. Some formula like "number + adjective + noun" with lists of weird stuff. Might be useful for this kind of campaign...
I've seen stuff like that for DCC. I can't remember where, but it was like a "spell research" table or a "spell location" table (i.e. where you can find the magic you want to learn).