Unfortunately, Alec and the kids couldn't make it. A new player did join: Calvin. He chose pre-gen Goliath fighter that he named Maveith "Steadyhand" Elanithino.
Will retconned one of the last moments of the previous session: us finding Steadyhands at the waterfall and spring room, stopping for a drink. We had the usual meeting a new party member moment, and moved on.
Temerity also loaned me her rapier until Ghesh got a chance to replace my damaged sword. Remember, if I'm using it one-handed with the Strength stat, it's still basically a longsword, but doing piercing instead of slashing. Ah, how 5e made using your weapons easy.
So we backtracked to the ogre room, where they were still enjoying their mudhole, and took the next path to our right. It followed a stream further into the cave where we found a circular opening like an antlion nest or Sarlacc pit with tiers of ledges around the edge. Here, I noticed a noise like moving air in addition to the sound of dripping water. I also spotted a group of humans waving to us from an alcove off of one of the ledges. We climbed up, and found the people of Nightstone.
They quickly shushed us, explaining that if we made too much noise, it rouse the bats roosting in the cave. They confirmed the story we had already been told so far: that giants attacked Nightstone and they fled, only to be ambushed by goblins. Apparently the goblins would periodically take villagers and eat them.
We got the villagers down from the caves and led them past the ogres, who were still busy in their mud bath. On the journey back, we got to know some of the more interesting NPCs: the leader was a dwarf, Morak Ur'gray, the owner of the Nightstone in. Temerity got to talking to a tiefling woman and her son: the Agamor family who also happened to be the town's stablemasters. We also learned that Hiram Mystram, the local priest of Lathander, apparently behaved in a cowardly fashion during the attack. I chastised him thoroughly for failing in the service to his god and his community. We also met the Defrindels, owners and operators of the windmill. Morak reminded us that even though we had checked the "saving the people of Nightstone" box on our quest list, we still had to "chase away the goblins" before we could complete it.
Zulkan decided to negotiate with Morak before opening the gates and letting the people of Nightstone back in. While I'm hardly a goody-good crusader, I'm still getting the sense that this Zhentarim involvement can't be good. Still, everyone was let in, and I was able to get a new sword at the Lionshield Coster with a share of Ghesh's money. Then we took another long rest and returned to goblin caves.
This time we followed the goblin trail all the way to the top of the mountain, finding that it ended at a natural chimney. We tied a rope off on a tree and lowered it down. As the trust tank, I led the way, while, as a trusty frenemy, Temerity followed. When I reached the bottom, I found a goblin guard. I readied my weapon and proclaimed: "Your doom approaches, goblin!" And, like trusty frenemy for a sense of the dramatic, Temerity used thaumaturgy to conjure a bit of dramatic thunder.
The goblin, Snigblatt, however, wasn't having any of it. He told us that he needed some help. He wanted us help him kill the boss goblin: Hark. He even said that if we killed and Hark and found another safe location for the tribe, he would move them. He pointed out that they couldn't just go into the forest: it was filled with elves. There was a fissure at the back of their cave system, and he wanted us to explore past it to make sure it was safe.
First things first, we got our murder on and followed Snigblatt to Hark's lair. With us at his back, Snigblatt strode right into Hark's lair, challenging him. Then he hid while we did the hard work.
Hark kept a pack of giant rats and a pair of goblin body guards in his lair. Temerity took care of most of those rats and one of the body guards with thunderwave, proving that sometimes even bards aren't spoony. While I went in and put a hunter's mark on hark, Grim went in and criticalled a sneak attack roll on Hark, doing 20 points of damage. Steadyhand then moved in to try and put the finishing touch on the goblin boss, but the sneaky bastard had a reaction to switch places with his remaining bodyguard before the blow could land.
I thought it was going to be my time to shine! I used Vow of Enmity, a channel divinity Oath of Vengeance Paladin feature that grants you advantage on attack rolls against the target. I moved in and hit him...for the last point of damage needed to drop him.
At this point, Snigblatt showed up and bloodied up his knife to make it look like he had helped kill Hark before disappearing. While he was off, we mopped up the rest of the giant rats. Snigblatt was still out, so we found the villagers' equipment in a side cave and loaded that onto Steadyhands.
Then we explored beyond the chasm. We found that the tunnels were perfectly safe for the goblin tribe.
When we returned, we found Snigblatt and the remainder of the goblin tribe, noncombatants, standing around Hark's corpse. We spotted a boulder covering the door to another room. Temerity squeezed through and found herself in Hark's bedroom. There, she found some treasure, including a set of thieves' tools, which she decided to take. Snigblatt was a little disappointed that we found the treasure, but, seeing as how we brutally murdered his boss while he watched, he didn't fight us for it.
With the goblin tribe safely beyond the fissure, we explored the remainder of the caves and found the place where the goblin noncombatants lived, but nothing else of value. Avoiding the, now non-suggestioned, ogres, we climbed up through the chimney and returned to Nightstone to let them know we had taken care of the goblins and returned their stuff.
Later, Morak approached us about Darthag Ulgar, who lately ran the Lionshield Coster. Apparently, his ex-wife runs a trading post in the town of Triboar, and he wanted us to journey there and deliver the bad news. Since we didn't have anything else to do, and since it might convince her to come and help rebuild Nightstone with her own store, we agreed to help.
We set out the next day. Just as we were out of sight of the town, a tower floating on a cloud appeared in the sky. As it got closer, we realized it was topped by a conical wizard's hat. It approached and the clouds formed a set of stairs leading up, almost inviting us in...
And we reached a milestone and broke for the night. What's inside the tower? Looks like we'll find out next time!
The best part? Temerity got use her grappling hook!
Wednesday, December 7, 2016
Monday, November 21, 2016
Character Creation 102: Min/Maxing like a pro, part one!
There's a reason I recommend creating characters as a group: most game systems are designed to make sure a character can only be good at one or two things. The primary reason for this is the simple nature of Table-top role-playing is a group activity, and people in a group feel better about working together when everyone can contribute.
How a system does this will vary. Open point-buys like GURPS, The HERO system, or the One-Roll Engine may offer an illusion of being able to create a jack-of-all trades, but in practice it never works out. Savage Worlds, both versions of the World of Darkness, and FATE all restrict the way points can be spent to better encourage the "pick a specialty" mentality. And, of course, D&D and most d20-based games use class systems to encourage a specialty. Even the revolutionary Apocalypse World and it's hacks use "playbooks," really a variant of the class system.
Since this blog is about Encounters, we'll focus on 5e D&D. Despite it no longer being a "focus," the roles of 4e are still built into many classes. To review, they're defender, sometimes called "the tank," specializing in drawing attacks and withstanding them. The striker, sometimes called "DPS" (Damage Per Second, as in maximized for). The controller, specializing in AOE (area of effect) attacks and changing the shape of the battlefield. And the leader, sometimes "the healer" or "the buffer." What's good about these roles is that they help a party in tactical combat.
The fact that these roles aren't hard coded into classes in 5e is something of a blessing and a curse. The blessing is that advanced and creative players can build unusual characters with varying and wide-ranging capabilities. Even relatively new players can do it! Kyla's first ever D&D character, Vanora, used the Eldritch Knight build, and she made it pretty effective. The curse, of course, is trying to help newer players get their feet. Hillary has been needing a fair bit of help with her druid, since it could be built as a controlling caster, a healing and buffing caster, or a shape-shifting tank. Heck, in one battle she could potentially be all three! Kyla, who's more experienced and pretty sharp, has had to find a balance between the bard's buffing and healing and attack and de-buffing spell load-outs. Even me, with a paladin, having to walk the tank path, but having to keep my healing and DPS abilities up to speed, too.
Of course, those roles focus on combat. Other typical roles in parties are: the Face, who does all the wheeling and dealing for the team. The Info-dump, who just happens to know all the information the party needs. And the Scout, the one going forward to locate all the dangers before the party has to deal with them. Typically high Charisma characters fall into the first role. In our current party, that could be Ghesh (HA!), Temerity (so far so good, actually), or Artor (good cop AND bad cop). High Int or characters with longer skill lists fill the Info-dump role. Kyla built Temerity with this in mind: a reasonably high Int and her bonuses as a College of Lore bard should mean that she knows most of what we'll need to know. Of course, 5e's break down of skills and background features helps each character take their own turn at providing info-dumps. And Jethro and Grim are, typical of rangers and rogues, performing admirably as scouts.
Lastly, there are "roles" that tend to be adopted by players rather than characters: the Team Leader, the one making executive and/or tactical decisions. The Team Mom/Dad, keeping everyone on track and making sure everyone has a chance to shine. The Accountant, who keeps track of the finances. And the Mapper/Chronicler, keeping track of everything so the other players (and sometimes the DM) don't have to. These roles tend to evolve organically, and while an important part of the group dynamic, they're independant of any mechanics.
Creating a party as a group allows every person to negotiate the kind of character they'd like to play and then build it. They can then use each class's specialty paths to help shore up areas we're lacking in. Druid and bard not quite up to nuke-healing like a life domain cleric? A paladin can fill in some of the gaps. The person playing the fighter wants to use a non-tank build? Circle of the Moon druid, paladin, or certain builds of other classes can fill in a little of the gap. Plus, there's nothing that says you can't have two fighters! Especially since based on the fighting style and archetype choices you make influence how they'll play so much.
Next time we'll look a little bit more on maximizing for these specialties and a little nitty-gritty.
How a system does this will vary. Open point-buys like GURPS, The HERO system, or the One-Roll Engine may offer an illusion of being able to create a jack-of-all trades, but in practice it never works out. Savage Worlds, both versions of the World of Darkness, and FATE all restrict the way points can be spent to better encourage the "pick a specialty" mentality. And, of course, D&D and most d20-based games use class systems to encourage a specialty. Even the revolutionary Apocalypse World and it's hacks use "playbooks," really a variant of the class system.
Since this blog is about Encounters, we'll focus on 5e D&D. Despite it no longer being a "focus," the roles of 4e are still built into many classes. To review, they're defender, sometimes called "the tank," specializing in drawing attacks and withstanding them. The striker, sometimes called "DPS" (Damage Per Second, as in maximized for). The controller, specializing in AOE (area of effect) attacks and changing the shape of the battlefield. And the leader, sometimes "the healer" or "the buffer." What's good about these roles is that they help a party in tactical combat.
The fact that these roles aren't hard coded into classes in 5e is something of a blessing and a curse. The blessing is that advanced and creative players can build unusual characters with varying and wide-ranging capabilities. Even relatively new players can do it! Kyla's first ever D&D character, Vanora, used the Eldritch Knight build, and she made it pretty effective. The curse, of course, is trying to help newer players get their feet. Hillary has been needing a fair bit of help with her druid, since it could be built as a controlling caster, a healing and buffing caster, or a shape-shifting tank. Heck, in one battle she could potentially be all three! Kyla, who's more experienced and pretty sharp, has had to find a balance between the bard's buffing and healing and attack and de-buffing spell load-outs. Even me, with a paladin, having to walk the tank path, but having to keep my healing and DPS abilities up to speed, too.
Of course, those roles focus on combat. Other typical roles in parties are: the Face, who does all the wheeling and dealing for the team. The Info-dump, who just happens to know all the information the party needs. And the Scout, the one going forward to locate all the dangers before the party has to deal with them. Typically high Charisma characters fall into the first role. In our current party, that could be Ghesh (HA!), Temerity (so far so good, actually), or Artor (good cop AND bad cop). High Int or characters with longer skill lists fill the Info-dump role. Kyla built Temerity with this in mind: a reasonably high Int and her bonuses as a College of Lore bard should mean that she knows most of what we'll need to know. Of course, 5e's break down of skills and background features helps each character take their own turn at providing info-dumps. And Jethro and Grim are, typical of rangers and rogues, performing admirably as scouts.
Lastly, there are "roles" that tend to be adopted by players rather than characters: the Team Leader, the one making executive and/or tactical decisions. The Team Mom/Dad, keeping everyone on track and making sure everyone has a chance to shine. The Accountant, who keeps track of the finances. And the Mapper/Chronicler, keeping track of everything so the other players (and sometimes the DM) don't have to. These roles tend to evolve organically, and while an important part of the group dynamic, they're independant of any mechanics.
Creating a party as a group allows every person to negotiate the kind of character they'd like to play and then build it. They can then use each class's specialty paths to help shore up areas we're lacking in. Druid and bard not quite up to nuke-healing like a life domain cleric? A paladin can fill in some of the gaps. The person playing the fighter wants to use a non-tank build? Circle of the Moon druid, paladin, or certain builds of other classes can fill in a little of the gap. Plus, there's nothing that says you can't have two fighters! Especially since based on the fighting style and archetype choices you make influence how they'll play so much.
Next time we'll look a little bit more on maximizing for these specialties and a little nitty-gritty.
Wednesday, November 16, 2016
New Blog Announcement
So, I remember I said no politics and geeks mixing. Well, if Michael A. Stackpole had said that back in the 80s people might still think D&D is Satan Worship. Or more precisely, more people might think it.
But this blog is for Encounters, so I'm moving the politics to a new blog. It will probably still creep in from time to time.
No game this week. I will put up another post about good character building strategies. But not today.
But this blog is for Encounters, so I'm moving the politics to a new blog. It will probably still creep in from time to time.
No game this week. I will put up another post about good character building strategies. But not today.
Sunday, November 13, 2016
Someday Blake Will Get it All Right
I know I promised no more politics. But David Wong made a point, twice, similar to the one I made Wednesday. There's a lot more to it, too. Like the rampant, if sometimes subtle sexism that still pervades our country, and geek culture in particular. To all the women in my life, in particular the one's I game with: Kyla, Hillary, Sara, Jessica, and many others: I'm sorry. I really don't know how you must feel. I wish I could change things faster. But I strive to be part of that change. But I have hope.
Where is it? Pick up a copy of the 5e PHB and turn to page 29. Take a good long look. That's a woman in armor. Armor that still clearly shows she's a woman, but that can act as armor and not as fetish fuel. She's also not white. And last but not least, the symbol on that amulet is the holy symbol of Oghma, the Forgotten Realms god of knowledge and learning. A non-white woman is smart and looks like she could kick my ass. Call me whatever names you want, alt-right bastards, but I think that is the most awesome picture in the book!
Not a 5e fan and prefer Pathfinder? Check out Seoni on page 61. Same drill. She is awesome. And I know who I want to play her in a movie.
So here's one bit of change I'll strive to be: Ernest Cline wrote a book called Ready Player One. As many of you may also know, Steven Spielberg is making a film adaptation. There's a scene in the book that poignantly discusses this racism and sexism in a reveal that a character with a white male avatar in the virtual game world is, in fact, a black woman. And there's nothing Hollywood seems to love more than good old fashioned white washing. If they do, I plan on boycotting the film, and I suggest my fellow geeks join me.
So back to the game!
Unfortunately Alec had to work extra hours during the most recent session. But his awesome wife, Fiona, brought the kids. Shretz, who normally runs another table, was out. So adopted his orphaned player, Cat, who brought a halfling rogue named Azura.
Everyone had been leveled up to third. I took some time to help Hillary with her character. Joseph, being Joseph, ended up taking the Arcane Trickster archetype instead of Assassin. Although I had originally been planning on going two-handed, but I had opted for protection in light of the fact that no one took a tank build. But I stuck with my original Oath of Vengeance plan. This gives me bane and hunter's mark.
We took a moment to examine the orcs and discovered that one of the leaders had arrows in his back, but they were not goblinoid. Rather than look into that particular mystery, we got back to following the villagers' tracks. They led into the mountains and to a large cave mouth. A set of goblin footprints split off from the main group. Our stealthy members followed it a short distance, only to see it climbing further into the mountains. We decided to enter through the main cave entrance. Our team members with darkvision lead the way.
We saw an ogre lounging in a mud bath to our left, a whole bunch of stalagmites ahead, and a ledge to our right. Temerity used minor illusion to disguise herself as a stalagmite while the rest of us went back to warn the poor blind party members.
This turned out to be a bad idea. Goblins were waiting in ambush on the ledges, not just two our right but all around the room. Damn bastards managed to score a critical hit and bloody me. It also turned out there was a second ogre hidden in the stalagmites.
As I said, I was helping Hillary with Pusheen. She hasn't played spellcasters before, and druids can be tough. I had her heal me, then use Combat Wild Shape to turn into a dire wolf to start going around the room and killing some goblins.
Once again, Blake made me proud. Ghesh cast suggestion on the ogre in the mud bath, encouraging it to "keep your friend from attacking us." It turns out the ogres were a mated pair. Based on this video Will sent me with the subject Ogre Interaction, I can only assume the female ogre was named Meegan. Yeah. The ogre in the mud bath decided to try and seduce the female ogre in the stalagmites.
Cat was something of a boon. She was about Hillary's age, so the two got to chatting. I think it has been challenging for Hillary with the only other female at the table being Kyla, who is a good bit older than her. Cat also rolled two critical hits in as many attacks.
While the ogres kept each other distracted, the rest of us mopped up ledge-bound goblins. Grom relied on his crossbow while Pusheen just kind of stepped up a ledge, being a big old dire wolf and all. Grim made an impressive Strength (athletics) check and ran up a ledge to attack a goblin. Yes, Joseph did yell, "Parkour!" In the mean time everyone else relied on ranged spells.
For a brief period things looked bad when Meegan slapped the male ogre and turned her attention to us. I put a hunter's mark on her and prepared to fight. Then Ghesh cast suggestion on Meegan, encouraging her to go back to the male ogre. The two retired to the mud bath. At this point all the goblins were dead, and the ogres were no longer a threat. So we decided to let them be and move on. All in all, I was proud of Blake. He used a non-linear solution to shorten a combat encounter. Too bad he ended up disappointing me later.
The next cave we came to was dominated by a hollow stalagmite filled with holes. There were two heavily corroded goblin scimitars on the floor near the stalagmite. We avoided it, going through one of two other exits, finding a waterfall and a pool of water as well as a patch of mushrooms. Grom managed to determine that they were poisonous, so Temerity picked one. Now she just needs to figure out how to get something to eat it.
There was another exit out of the hole-y stalagmite room. It lead outside, further up the path leading up the mountain. We noted that the footprints avoided the cave. We opted to go back to exploring the cave on this level back from the main room.
As we were going back through the stalagmite with giant neon signs saying "Danger" pointing toward it, Blake disappointed me. Ghesh peeked into the stalagmite then shot a firebolt into it. Grom tried to stop him, and failed. Little bastard woke up a black pudding. Kyla lost it and scolded him about all the similar trouble he got the party into during Curse of Strahd. Will decided that even though Temerity could in no way have known any of that or even connected Ghesh to it in any way, that it was all in character.
This did lead to an interesting moment, however. Hillary bit the black pudding and even knocked it prone. It is a strange system, since blobs aren't immune to the "prone" condition. Probably better not to think about a blob is rendered prone: that way lies madness.
I'm especially pissed at the little schmuck. I swung at the black pudding, getting a face full of acid, splitting the messy pile into two smaller piles, and corroding my sword in the process. It now has a permanent -1 to damage.
Blake, I know you have fun instigating these little moments, but sometimes when the signs say "don't push the big red button," you DON"T PUSH THE BIG RED BUTTON!
Where is it? Pick up a copy of the 5e PHB and turn to page 29. Take a good long look. That's a woman in armor. Armor that still clearly shows she's a woman, but that can act as armor and not as fetish fuel. She's also not white. And last but not least, the symbol on that amulet is the holy symbol of Oghma, the Forgotten Realms god of knowledge and learning. A non-white woman is smart and looks like she could kick my ass. Call me whatever names you want, alt-right bastards, but I think that is the most awesome picture in the book!
Not a 5e fan and prefer Pathfinder? Check out Seoni on page 61. Same drill. She is awesome. And I know who I want to play her in a movie.
So here's one bit of change I'll strive to be: Ernest Cline wrote a book called Ready Player One. As many of you may also know, Steven Spielberg is making a film adaptation. There's a scene in the book that poignantly discusses this racism and sexism in a reveal that a character with a white male avatar in the virtual game world is, in fact, a black woman. And there's nothing Hollywood seems to love more than good old fashioned white washing. If they do, I plan on boycotting the film, and I suggest my fellow geeks join me.
So back to the game!
Unfortunately Alec had to work extra hours during the most recent session. But his awesome wife, Fiona, brought the kids. Shretz, who normally runs another table, was out. So adopted his orphaned player, Cat, who brought a halfling rogue named Azura.
Everyone had been leveled up to third. I took some time to help Hillary with her character. Joseph, being Joseph, ended up taking the Arcane Trickster archetype instead of Assassin. Although I had originally been planning on going two-handed, but I had opted for protection in light of the fact that no one took a tank build. But I stuck with my original Oath of Vengeance plan. This gives me bane and hunter's mark.
We took a moment to examine the orcs and discovered that one of the leaders had arrows in his back, but they were not goblinoid. Rather than look into that particular mystery, we got back to following the villagers' tracks. They led into the mountains and to a large cave mouth. A set of goblin footprints split off from the main group. Our stealthy members followed it a short distance, only to see it climbing further into the mountains. We decided to enter through the main cave entrance. Our team members with darkvision lead the way.
We saw an ogre lounging in a mud bath to our left, a whole bunch of stalagmites ahead, and a ledge to our right. Temerity used minor illusion to disguise herself as a stalagmite while the rest of us went back to warn the poor blind party members.
This turned out to be a bad idea. Goblins were waiting in ambush on the ledges, not just two our right but all around the room. Damn bastards managed to score a critical hit and bloody me. It also turned out there was a second ogre hidden in the stalagmites.
As I said, I was helping Hillary with Pusheen. She hasn't played spellcasters before, and druids can be tough. I had her heal me, then use Combat Wild Shape to turn into a dire wolf to start going around the room and killing some goblins.
Once again, Blake made me proud. Ghesh cast suggestion on the ogre in the mud bath, encouraging it to "keep your friend from attacking us." It turns out the ogres were a mated pair. Based on this video Will sent me with the subject Ogre Interaction, I can only assume the female ogre was named Meegan. Yeah. The ogre in the mud bath decided to try and seduce the female ogre in the stalagmites.
Cat was something of a boon. She was about Hillary's age, so the two got to chatting. I think it has been challenging for Hillary with the only other female at the table being Kyla, who is a good bit older than her. Cat also rolled two critical hits in as many attacks.
While the ogres kept each other distracted, the rest of us mopped up ledge-bound goblins. Grom relied on his crossbow while Pusheen just kind of stepped up a ledge, being a big old dire wolf and all. Grim made an impressive Strength (athletics) check and ran up a ledge to attack a goblin. Yes, Joseph did yell, "Parkour!" In the mean time everyone else relied on ranged spells.
For a brief period things looked bad when Meegan slapped the male ogre and turned her attention to us. I put a hunter's mark on her and prepared to fight. Then Ghesh cast suggestion on Meegan, encouraging her to go back to the male ogre. The two retired to the mud bath. At this point all the goblins were dead, and the ogres were no longer a threat. So we decided to let them be and move on. All in all, I was proud of Blake. He used a non-linear solution to shorten a combat encounter. Too bad he ended up disappointing me later.
The next cave we came to was dominated by a hollow stalagmite filled with holes. There were two heavily corroded goblin scimitars on the floor near the stalagmite. We avoided it, going through one of two other exits, finding a waterfall and a pool of water as well as a patch of mushrooms. Grom managed to determine that they were poisonous, so Temerity picked one. Now she just needs to figure out how to get something to eat it.
There was another exit out of the hole-y stalagmite room. It lead outside, further up the path leading up the mountain. We noted that the footprints avoided the cave. We opted to go back to exploring the cave on this level back from the main room.
As we were going back through the stalagmite with giant neon signs saying "Danger" pointing toward it, Blake disappointed me. Ghesh peeked into the stalagmite then shot a firebolt into it. Grom tried to stop him, and failed. Little bastard woke up a black pudding. Kyla lost it and scolded him about all the similar trouble he got the party into during Curse of Strahd. Will decided that even though Temerity could in no way have known any of that or even connected Ghesh to it in any way, that it was all in character.
This did lead to an interesting moment, however. Hillary bit the black pudding and even knocked it prone. It is a strange system, since blobs aren't immune to the "prone" condition. Probably better not to think about a blob is rendered prone: that way lies madness.
I'm especially pissed at the little schmuck. I swung at the black pudding, getting a face full of acid, splitting the messy pile into two smaller piles, and corroding my sword in the process. It now has a permanent -1 to damage.
Blake, I know you have fun instigating these little moments, but sometimes when the signs say "don't push the big red button," you DON"T PUSH THE BIG RED BUTTON!
Wednesday, November 9, 2016
My Geeky Soapbox
I don't think politics and geekdom mix.
But I feel inclined to comment on yesterday's election.
Warning to youngsters: this post contains naughty language. Check with your parents before reading. I trust you.
First, what the fuck, America?
For any international readers, yes, we did just elect a shaved orangutan in a business suit to our highest political office. Our stock markets are already crashing. But I want to put some context and perspective in.
Donald Trump running for the Republicans, the closest equivalent for the Democrats might be running someone like Jon Stewart, Bill Maher or even (gasp!) Michael Moore. Incidentally, the only one of those three I personally think would make a good president is Stewart. Maher has all of "the Donald's" Islamaphobic tendencies. And Moore is just as eager to give NAFTA and other similar trade agreements the finger. Moore would be acting out of a not unfounded but misguided nostalgia for the old Rust Belt. And Maher is just being an atheist.
Here's the sad part. The Democrats knew a media savvy political outside could win. Barack Obama did it! Hillary and the Democrats in general just kind of assumed that Trump was shooting himself in the foot and sat back.
But here's the worst part. In my home state of Arizona, there was a ballot referenda to raise the minimum wage. It passed by almost 60%. Trump didn't even get that many votes. What does that mean? A lot of people that voted for Trump also voted to raise the minimum wage. So poor people voted for him. And early analysis of the disaster he calls economic policy indicates those are the people standing to be hurt the most.
A much wiser man than me once said, "You can fool all of the people some of time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can never fool all of the people all of the time."
And let me tell you, poor rural white folks (if any of you happen to stumble upon and read this blog largely about a hobby you decried as devil worship 30 years ago), you have been fooled, big time! I could link to all the stories of horrible stuff Trump as said and done and a lot of you are writing off as him just being "off the cuff" and "unscripted" and other nonsense. But this is a personal opinion and creative non-fiction blog, not a journalistic one. I will tell you this much: he is cozying up with a man whose evil is so over-the-top and cliche that he can legally be declared an 80s cartoon villain.
So let me tell you the most important life lesson to get out of table-top role-playing: life is not a zero-sum scenario. This narrative you tell yourself and that Trump played on of how the inner city blacks and Hispanics are getting all the breaks and you're getting shafted is a fucking lie. It's always been a fucking lie. Warren Beatty made a movie in the 90s where he raps about how much of a lie it is. To paraphrase the pivotal scene: he says poor white people have more in common with poor black people than they do with rich white people. And it's the fucking truth.
I used to live not too far from Camden, NJ. Now I live on the outskirts of Benson, AZ. Both places have drug problems. Both places are economically recessed. The differences are in the number of people in these places and the color of their skin. They use the same (or mostly the same) food stamps, welfare, Medicaid, and social security. But people in places like Camden fail to vote blue because the candidate doesn't have the same skin color. And people in places like Benson vote red because the candidate claims to go to the same church they do. The result? Those food stamps, that welfare, that Medicaid, get's eroded. I know it's more complex than all of that, but the final point is: let's forget that church and sexuality thing, rural whites, and they aren't the same color as me thing, urban blacks. Because in a D&D game, that street-savvy Rogue and that wilderness-wise Ranger are more awesome together. Nothing is going to get better until we do things like enact laws to protect laborers and labor unions, provide socialized medicine for everyone in this country (fucking Cuba can do that!), and shift the tax burdens off of the lower and middle classes and a little more onto those oh-so-put-upon rich white people. Because when those things happen, both the Rogues and the Rangers level up faster and find more loot. So to be a little sappy and extend that metaphor: together you guys can fucking kill that rich white people dragon pissing on ALL our lawns. Right now those dragons are just going to keep telling you that lie that the Rogues and the Rangers are stealing your Xp and Loot.
Some idiots are already talking about moving to other countries. Even if I could, I'd rather stay and fight. I chose to have one of my major internal organs surgically removed. Before I did, despair ruled my every choice. It won't and can't anymore.
Plus I'm kinda stoked that that fucker Arpaio is finally out of office.
Next time I promise to get back to the geek and leave the politics behind.
But I feel inclined to comment on yesterday's election.
Warning to youngsters: this post contains naughty language. Check with your parents before reading. I trust you.
First, what the fuck, America?
For any international readers, yes, we did just elect a shaved orangutan in a business suit to our highest political office. Our stock markets are already crashing. But I want to put some context and perspective in.
Donald Trump running for the Republicans, the closest equivalent for the Democrats might be running someone like Jon Stewart, Bill Maher or even (gasp!) Michael Moore. Incidentally, the only one of those three I personally think would make a good president is Stewart. Maher has all of "the Donald's" Islamaphobic tendencies. And Moore is just as eager to give NAFTA and other similar trade agreements the finger. Moore would be acting out of a not unfounded but misguided nostalgia for the old Rust Belt. And Maher is just being an atheist.
Here's the sad part. The Democrats knew a media savvy political outside could win. Barack Obama did it! Hillary and the Democrats in general just kind of assumed that Trump was shooting himself in the foot and sat back.
But here's the worst part. In my home state of Arizona, there was a ballot referenda to raise the minimum wage. It passed by almost 60%. Trump didn't even get that many votes. What does that mean? A lot of people that voted for Trump also voted to raise the minimum wage. So poor people voted for him. And early analysis of the disaster he calls economic policy indicates those are the people standing to be hurt the most.
A much wiser man than me once said, "You can fool all of the people some of time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can never fool all of the people all of the time."
And let me tell you, poor rural white folks (if any of you happen to stumble upon and read this blog largely about a hobby you decried as devil worship 30 years ago), you have been fooled, big time! I could link to all the stories of horrible stuff Trump as said and done and a lot of you are writing off as him just being "off the cuff" and "unscripted" and other nonsense. But this is a personal opinion and creative non-fiction blog, not a journalistic one. I will tell you this much: he is cozying up with a man whose evil is so over-the-top and cliche that he can legally be declared an 80s cartoon villain.
So let me tell you the most important life lesson to get out of table-top role-playing: life is not a zero-sum scenario. This narrative you tell yourself and that Trump played on of how the inner city blacks and Hispanics are getting all the breaks and you're getting shafted is a fucking lie. It's always been a fucking lie. Warren Beatty made a movie in the 90s where he raps about how much of a lie it is. To paraphrase the pivotal scene: he says poor white people have more in common with poor black people than they do with rich white people. And it's the fucking truth.
I used to live not too far from Camden, NJ. Now I live on the outskirts of Benson, AZ. Both places have drug problems. Both places are economically recessed. The differences are in the number of people in these places and the color of their skin. They use the same (or mostly the same) food stamps, welfare, Medicaid, and social security. But people in places like Camden fail to vote blue because the candidate doesn't have the same skin color. And people in places like Benson vote red because the candidate claims to go to the same church they do. The result? Those food stamps, that welfare, that Medicaid, get's eroded. I know it's more complex than all of that, but the final point is: let's forget that church and sexuality thing, rural whites, and they aren't the same color as me thing, urban blacks. Because in a D&D game, that street-savvy Rogue and that wilderness-wise Ranger are more awesome together. Nothing is going to get better until we do things like enact laws to protect laborers and labor unions, provide socialized medicine for everyone in this country (fucking Cuba can do that!), and shift the tax burdens off of the lower and middle classes and a little more onto those oh-so-put-upon rich white people. Because when those things happen, both the Rogues and the Rangers level up faster and find more loot. So to be a little sappy and extend that metaphor: together you guys can fucking kill that rich white people dragon pissing on ALL our lawns. Right now those dragons are just going to keep telling you that lie that the Rogues and the Rangers are stealing your Xp and Loot.
Some idiots are already talking about moving to other countries. Even if I could, I'd rather stay and fight. I chose to have one of my major internal organs surgically removed. Before I did, despair ruled my every choice. It won't and can't anymore.
Plus I'm kinda stoked that that fucker Arpaio is finally out of office.
Next time I promise to get back to the geek and leave the politics behind.
Friday, November 4, 2016
So Many Orcs
We took our long rest at the inn. We are apparently are a paranoid bunch: Grim set a trip wire outside the door AND we set up watches. Fortunately, to night passed uneventfully.
The next morning a group of seven riders rode into town. Artor greeted them. They were led by a man named Xolkin Allasander. It turns out, he was the one Bella was waiting for. Her flying snake delivered him a written messenger before returning to her. He then sent his underlings to man the guard towers. Grim, suspecting this was Zhentarim business, told them to mind the 32nd rung on the southwest guard house ladder.
We left the town to follow the peoples' trail to the cave. The almost certainly Zhentarim closed the drawbridge behind us.
Jethro scouted ahead and spotted signs of goblins ambushing the townspeople. Then he heard the sound of snapping branches and war drums. He didn't return to warn the party until he got a closer look and spotted a sizeable party of orcs. Then he returned to us.
We debated our course of action for a bit. Then we found it was a raiding party of 22 orcs. We decided to run away. We ran to town to hole-up behind the walls. Fortunately, the Zhentarim were willing to let us back in.
Ten of the orcs split off from the main group and tried to swim across the moat and climb the walls. Fortunately, we all had ranged weapons to pick off the hapless attackers. Hillary used one of the best spells out of Elemental Evil: ice knife. I brought this one up during that season last year: but it has an initial attack roll for 1d10 piercing damage, and explodes, doing 2d6 damage, save for half, against the original target and every other creature within five feet. Hillary criticalled on her initial attack the first time she used that spell. Jethro also broke out the spells: using hail of thorns on the initial group. Paul enjoyed using that as Sandi. It turns a normal ranged attack into a burst of area damage as well.
We managed to thin down that initial assault before the other contingent of orcs moved on to the motte. We quickly followed them when that break away party retreated to rejoin the main group. It turns out there was a big hole in the wall there: the draw bridge. At this point we realized that two of the orcs were bigger and meaner: a warchief and an eye of Gruumsh.
Fortunately, the hole onto the drawbridge also provided us with a choke point. At this point Jethro also broke out another of Sandi's old favorites: hunter's mark. This one adds some damage and makes it easier to track the target. It can also be transferred to new targets as the old ones die.
I'm going to pause to look at the new ranger build Alec is using for Jethro. Rangers have only two favored enemies, and their first is chosen from a smaller list, but it includes types like fae, undead, and humanoids. By the way, if you take humanoids, it's ALL humanoids. With that feature and his spell, Alec was consistently getting damage totals similar to Joseph, playing the rogue.
At one point I tried to break out a new spell: thunderous smite. It does some extra thunder damage to the target and pushes them back. The idea at the time was to move enemies around to allow Temerity to advance to cast a spell. Of course, the damage killed it before it could be pushed. Temerity did try to use Tasha's hideous laughter on an orc climbing up the bridge: the Eye of Gruumsh, but it made it's save.
Artor ended up dropping from a pair of lucky orc strikes, and the only other party member with any healing, Pusheen, only had cure wounds and couldn't get to me to cast the spell. She did use her Combat Wild Shape feature to turn into a bear and do some extra damage. I confered with Kyla about her spell selection, and we agreed she probably should have taken healing word.
We also got some support from the Zhentarim towards the end of the battle.
We dropped both the Warchief and the Eye of Gruumsh, and the last three orcs retreated. I survived. We also reached another milestone after the battle.
Of course, it was a long battle, so it was time to call it. What happens next?
The next morning a group of seven riders rode into town. Artor greeted them. They were led by a man named Xolkin Allasander. It turns out, he was the one Bella was waiting for. Her flying snake delivered him a written messenger before returning to her. He then sent his underlings to man the guard towers. Grim, suspecting this was Zhentarim business, told them to mind the 32nd rung on the southwest guard house ladder.
We left the town to follow the peoples' trail to the cave. The almost certainly Zhentarim closed the drawbridge behind us.
Jethro scouted ahead and spotted signs of goblins ambushing the townspeople. Then he heard the sound of snapping branches and war drums. He didn't return to warn the party until he got a closer look and spotted a sizeable party of orcs. Then he returned to us.
We debated our course of action for a bit. Then we found it was a raiding party of 22 orcs. We decided to run away. We ran to town to hole-up behind the walls. Fortunately, the Zhentarim were willing to let us back in.
Ten of the orcs split off from the main group and tried to swim across the moat and climb the walls. Fortunately, we all had ranged weapons to pick off the hapless attackers. Hillary used one of the best spells out of Elemental Evil: ice knife. I brought this one up during that season last year: but it has an initial attack roll for 1d10 piercing damage, and explodes, doing 2d6 damage, save for half, against the original target and every other creature within five feet. Hillary criticalled on her initial attack the first time she used that spell. Jethro also broke out the spells: using hail of thorns on the initial group. Paul enjoyed using that as Sandi. It turns a normal ranged attack into a burst of area damage as well.
We managed to thin down that initial assault before the other contingent of orcs moved on to the motte. We quickly followed them when that break away party retreated to rejoin the main group. It turns out there was a big hole in the wall there: the draw bridge. At this point we realized that two of the orcs were bigger and meaner: a warchief and an eye of Gruumsh.
Fortunately, the hole onto the drawbridge also provided us with a choke point. At this point Jethro also broke out another of Sandi's old favorites: hunter's mark. This one adds some damage and makes it easier to track the target. It can also be transferred to new targets as the old ones die.
I'm going to pause to look at the new ranger build Alec is using for Jethro. Rangers have only two favored enemies, and their first is chosen from a smaller list, but it includes types like fae, undead, and humanoids. By the way, if you take humanoids, it's ALL humanoids. With that feature and his spell, Alec was consistently getting damage totals similar to Joseph, playing the rogue.
At one point I tried to break out a new spell: thunderous smite. It does some extra thunder damage to the target and pushes them back. The idea at the time was to move enemies around to allow Temerity to advance to cast a spell. Of course, the damage killed it before it could be pushed. Temerity did try to use Tasha's hideous laughter on an orc climbing up the bridge: the Eye of Gruumsh, but it made it's save.
Artor ended up dropping from a pair of lucky orc strikes, and the only other party member with any healing, Pusheen, only had cure wounds and couldn't get to me to cast the spell. She did use her Combat Wild Shape feature to turn into a bear and do some extra damage. I confered with Kyla about her spell selection, and we agreed she probably should have taken healing word.
We also got some support from the Zhentarim towards the end of the battle.
We dropped both the Warchief and the Eye of Gruumsh, and the last three orcs retreated. I survived. We also reached another milestone after the battle.
Of course, it was a long battle, so it was time to call it. What happens next?
Wednesday, November 2, 2016
Character Creation 101: Part One
Since I'm back in the player saddle, with one horse to steer instead of fifty, I've decided to do some gaming related advice posts for you, internet.
This one is for players and GMs, and has to do with character creation.
First off, character creation is the start of a game. Hopefully a long term one. Some wise points to follow are this:
Why? Because as a GM you don't want to go in expecting a game involving investigation and socializing only to find that the players wanted to play action-oriented, swashbuckling rogues and built them accordingly. Also, as a player, you don't really want to be the bruiser, side-lined because the rest of the team built social butterflies to navigate the courtly intrigue while you just wanted to smash some monsters.
When all else fails, remember most games have a default, "Vanilla Mode." For D&D, it's hobos going to archaeological sites, murdering the racial minorities squatting there, and taking whatever they find. Unfortunately, no matter how prettily they're written otherwise, most games default to a similar mode: beat up the monster(s) of the week in the set piece of the week and get the stuff that makes you more powerful. This isn't necessarily bad! Killing monsters and taking their stuff is fun. But if, as a GM, you are using the vanilla, tell the players.
Likewise players, if you're jonesing to get that murder hobo on, let the GM know, so they can have plenty of murder-hobo appropriate scenarios. But sometimes you'll want a nuanced game of conspiracy and horror, with lots of moral gray. Let the GM know. Other times you want a good old fashioned Space Opera in the vein of Firefly or Star Wars. And here's the thing, DMs and players: even if you're using D&D, you can fit the themes and ideas of Firefly into that with some setting and rules tweaks. There are approximately a billion and half websites out there with advice on how to do it, too! Don't worry, I'll add mine in, but some other time.
Also players, communicate what you want to the other PLAYERS, too. The best role-playing is cooperative storytelling, and it's easier to cooperate on storytelling when everyone has a rough idea of where they want that story to go. You want a redemptive arc for your criminal trying to go straight rogue? Maybe another player can help you out by playing a city watchmen, and then you can flavor your interactions around that arc. Obviously these things will flesh out in play, but don't be afraid to brainstorm with your fellow players at the start.
Lastly, when it comes time to make the crunchy bits, team built characters can min/max better, but that's a topic for another day.
So to summarize: think of a good game like a conversation. It will always go better if you establish clear and strong communication at the start.
This one is for players and GMs, and has to do with character creation.
First off, character creation is the start of a game. Hopefully a long term one. Some wise points to follow are this:
- Set aside a whole session just for the group of expected players to get together and make characters as a group. This isn't always possible, but whenever it is possible, do it!
- As a GM, communicate your expectations for the game to the players. Explicitly if necessary. Communication between a GM and players is important to a campaign. Get off to a good start.
- Did I mention communication is a two-way street? Players, communicate YOUR expectations and ideas for your character to the DM as well as to the other players.
Why? Because as a GM you don't want to go in expecting a game involving investigation and socializing only to find that the players wanted to play action-oriented, swashbuckling rogues and built them accordingly. Also, as a player, you don't really want to be the bruiser, side-lined because the rest of the team built social butterflies to navigate the courtly intrigue while you just wanted to smash some monsters.
When all else fails, remember most games have a default, "Vanilla Mode." For D&D, it's hobos going to archaeological sites, murdering the racial minorities squatting there, and taking whatever they find. Unfortunately, no matter how prettily they're written otherwise, most games default to a similar mode: beat up the monster(s) of the week in the set piece of the week and get the stuff that makes you more powerful. This isn't necessarily bad! Killing monsters and taking their stuff is fun. But if, as a GM, you are using the vanilla, tell the players.
Likewise players, if you're jonesing to get that murder hobo on, let the GM know, so they can have plenty of murder-hobo appropriate scenarios. But sometimes you'll want a nuanced game of conspiracy and horror, with lots of moral gray. Let the GM know. Other times you want a good old fashioned Space Opera in the vein of Firefly or Star Wars. And here's the thing, DMs and players: even if you're using D&D, you can fit the themes and ideas of Firefly into that with some setting and rules tweaks. There are approximately a billion and half websites out there with advice on how to do it, too! Don't worry, I'll add mine in, but some other time.
Also players, communicate what you want to the other PLAYERS, too. The best role-playing is cooperative storytelling, and it's easier to cooperate on storytelling when everyone has a rough idea of where they want that story to go. You want a redemptive arc for your criminal trying to go straight rogue? Maybe another player can help you out by playing a city watchmen, and then you can flavor your interactions around that arc. Obviously these things will flesh out in play, but don't be afraid to brainstorm with your fellow players at the start.
Lastly, when it comes time to make the crunchy bits, team built characters can min/max better, but that's a topic for another day.
So to summarize: think of a good game like a conversation. It will always go better if you establish clear and strong communication at the start.
Saturday, October 29, 2016
Starting Out
Ah, that new campaign smell!
This time, I'm on the other side of the screen. Now I'm not having to keep track of 50 things at once. So I can take better session notes and pay more attention to my fellow players. In this case it meant helping Hillary with spells. More on that later.
First, let's meet some new party members.
Ladies first:
Hillary actually decided to play a spellcaster this go around: a chaotic good wood elf druid she named Pusheen. I'm guessing she was planning on taking Circle of the Moon and turning into totes adorbs cats for killing. One of these days we'll see if we can get Hillary to play something other than a wood elf, though.
Kyla rolled up Temerity Corvidae, a chaotic neutral tiefling bard that grew up on the streets of Waterdeep. She stole (or is wanted for steeling) a valuable Lute and using the proceeds to buy her way into New Olamn, a bardic college in Waterdeep. This is the first time Kyla's playing an actually greedy character.
We have a new player: Lazaro, and he rolled up, a neutral good human fighter with the soldier background and who took two-weapon fighting for his initial attack style. He named his character Grom (he's already been warned no to give him the last name Hellscream).
Blake rolled up Ghesh, another chaotic neutral character. Ghesh is a dragonborn of black ancestry and a sorcerer with the (surprise!) draconic ancestry sorcerous origin.
Alec created Jethro Gobblenuts, a ghostwise halfling pet ranger using the new build wizards released. He apparently only has 15 teeth (all the left side), is missing a finger, and plays the banjo. And he contributed a wonderful gem of a quote: "Make the Chondalwood great again, we say!" Yeah...
Joseph actually decided NOT to play a caster. His character, Grim Buckman. He's a lawful evil human rogue with the urban bounty hunter background that's he's planning on advancing down the assassin archetype. He really liked to climb up things and survey.
Last but not least, I created Artor Garland, a lawful neutral half-elf paladin of Helm with the city watch background. I'm imagining him as a sort of cross between Nicholas Angel and Inspector Zenigata. He is, of course, obsessed with solving the crime Temerity is wanted for.
It started with the group departing Waterdeep for the town of Nightstone. As we approached, we heard the church bell ringing. And just ringing and not stopping.
Nightstone, it turns out, is built on a pair of islands in the middle of a river, one island occupied by a motte and bailey castle, the other occupied by the town itself. From the approach we saw that the bridge linking the town and the motte had been broken.
However, the bridge into the town itself was down and just fine. Temerity and Grim stealthily approached the guard towers and found them abandoned. Jehtro even used one of his features: Silent Speech, to communicate telepathically with our scouts. Grim climbed to the top of the tower and found the town, as far as he could see, deserted, and filled with boulders, apparently hurled by some kind of siege weapon.
We advaced further into the town and found a temple dedicated to Lathander and Mielikki. Hillary had a little squee moment when she found out that Mielikki's holy symbol is a unicorn. We found the source of the ringing bell: a pair of goblins apparently having the time of their lives swinging from the bell ropes. Grim and Temerity found them, and settled on a sometimes sound plan: lie to them. She tried to convince them that she was a threat and to hand over their treasure. For some reason Will decided that in his world, goblins have Jamaican accents.
This didn't work, unfortunately. The two goblins left the bell ropes and drew their scimitars to attack.
So, the opening encounters in Tyranny of Dragons involve six or more kobolds against a party of five to eight players. This opening encounter was two goblins against a party of seven. We won. And now I'm wondering if we're starting to see balance issues but in the opposite direction.
Granted, our rewards were a trickle of treasure and mundane items. At this point we became very aware of a pair of large, dog-like bests in the town square, apparently eating the remains of a cow. Ghesh used a minor illusion of a cow mooing to lure them away from their meal, allowing us to get a better look at them, and we discovered they were worgs, large wolf-like beasts often used as steeds by goblins. Temerity tried to lure them out of a square for an ambush, also with minor illusion of a cow, but that trick didn't work twice and only made the highly intelligence beasts suspicious, but they went back to eating.
However, it seems we had distracted them enough to earn a surprise round of ranged attacks. The opening volley, featuring everyone but poor Hillary, dropped the first worg. The second let out a warning howl and accused us murder before attacking. It did manage to summon three goblins, but it and those goblins didn't last long and did minimal damage to us.
We did examine one object of interest: a large, five-foot deep hole in the ground, where something had apparently been sitting.
We had a choice of places to visit next: the local branch of Lionshield Coster or the Nightstone Inn. Deciding we all needed a drink, we visited the inn. While Artor had a mug of ale and Temerity pinched a bottle of wine, Jethro snuck into the kitchen a killed a looting goblin. In this case, as Will described it, ten pounds of stuff in a five pound bag. We added more minor treasure to our pile, including some food. Because one of them was a block of cheese, Artor called dibs. Of course, Temerity wanted some for her pet mouse, Squeaks, so Artor graciously shared half the block.
At this point, cunning and sharp-witted investigator that I am, I suggested (both OOC and IC) that we maybe NOT kill the next goblin we came across and try to interrogate it.
Then Grim, Temerity, and Jethro climbed to the second floor, finding a hallway linking four rooms. Only two contained anything of interest, and both were hit by the boulder volley. Jethro found the first one, containing a human woman named Kella Darkhope pinned under some debris. After pulling her out and getting her to more secure footing, we asked her what she knew.
It turns out, not much. She was staying at the inn, waiting for a "business contact" (she was blushing when she mentioned this) to arrive. Apparently some giants swooped in on a big flying cloud and started pelting the down with boulders from above, stopping to rip, the "Nightstone" from its place in the village square. The goblins apparently arrived after the giants to loot the ruined, now abandoned town.
The other ruined room contained a chest in a now precarious corner of the room. Designers that write "X amount of weight triggers the floor to collapse" don't always account for halflings or gnomes. Jethro hopped on over to the chest, tied a rope around it, and Artor pulled it over to a safe spot (not sure if he kissed his biceps or not afterwards). Inside we found some armor sized for a dwarf and a bunch of gems. Ghesh called dibs on one worth 50gp as a focus for chromatic orb.
Next we visited the Lionshield Coster building. The door was open, and we heard some noise inside. It turned out to be (surprise!) another goblin busy looting. Temerity decided on a different tactic: she cast charm person. No word yet on whether this goblin, Jilk, will end up like Bupu, but fingers crossed. None-the-less, he told his new best friend a similar story: the giants attacked the town, flew away, and the goblins took the inhabitants to a nearby cave system. He even offered to show it to us, provided we help him move a table. The coster's inventory was otherwise mostly mundane items, up 10gp in value on Adventuring Gear table in the PHB.
We next decided to visit the motte. But as we started in on that, someone decided to look up the duration of charm person: concentration, up to an hour. So instead of missing the opportunity to have the goblin show us the caves, we had him draw a crude map and give us directions. He just wanted to make sure we brought that table.
I rolled my first natural 20 of the campaign trying to jump the gap between the village and the motte. I should have shouted "Parkour, bitch!" After that we set up a rope bridge to allow everyone to cross.The windows were barred, but the gates were open. Grim climbed the walls of the gatehouse, while Artor just kind of walked in. We found some guard barracks, and our first casualties from the giants' bombardment: the guards. As we explored the keep, we got the sense that it had been hit extra hard by giants.
When we went into the keep, we found four surviving guards standing over the body of Lady Belrosa Nandar, High Steward of Nightstone. She had been hit by a falling boulder. The guards confirmed what we already knew: the giants attacked by dropping rocks and then made off in the Nightstone. However, they contradicted Jilk. They said the towns' inhabitants had fled to the caves, and that the goblins followed. They did confirm, however, that the giants were in a flying castle rather than on a magic cloud. They also said they saw the castle heading east.
At this point, we decided to gear up and prepare to search for the caves and the townsfolk. We suggested the guards stay with Kella. During the conversation, we learned that the merchant caravan Kella was waiting on was not on the guards' agenda. She suggested that the merchant was on "unofficial" business. At this point, several of us noted that Kella had a winged snake for a pet or a familiar, a symbol of the Zhentarim. We hadn't really decided on factions yet, but Joseph had decided that Grim was a member of the Zhentarim. He talked to Kella in Thieves' Cant and confirmed that yes, their visit was related to the Zhentarim.
We glossed over the remainder of the supplies we found in the dark: 5 riding horses and 5 draft horses. We opted to hitch the draft horses to a cart we found just outside the town. Will also told us we would find a goblin sleeping in a hayloft, and encounter he didn't bother to roll. He also mentioned that in the graveyard of the temple, the Nandar family kept a crypt.
We found that only one cottage hadn't been ransacked. It was locked and happened to be covered in Infernal runes. Temerity was kind enough to translate: Anyone entering without the permission of the cottage's owner would be sent to Hell. Charming.
We settled in for a long rest, and Will awarded us our first milestone.
This time, I'm on the other side of the screen. Now I'm not having to keep track of 50 things at once. So I can take better session notes and pay more attention to my fellow players. In this case it meant helping Hillary with spells. More on that later.
First, let's meet some new party members.
Ladies first:
Hillary actually decided to play a spellcaster this go around: a chaotic good wood elf druid she named Pusheen. I'm guessing she was planning on taking Circle of the Moon and turning into totes adorbs cats for killing. One of these days we'll see if we can get Hillary to play something other than a wood elf, though.
Kyla rolled up Temerity Corvidae, a chaotic neutral tiefling bard that grew up on the streets of Waterdeep. She stole (or is wanted for steeling) a valuable Lute and using the proceeds to buy her way into New Olamn, a bardic college in Waterdeep. This is the first time Kyla's playing an actually greedy character.
We have a new player: Lazaro, and he rolled up, a neutral good human fighter with the soldier background and who took two-weapon fighting for his initial attack style. He named his character Grom (he's already been warned no to give him the last name Hellscream).
Blake rolled up Ghesh, another chaotic neutral character. Ghesh is a dragonborn of black ancestry and a sorcerer with the (surprise!) draconic ancestry sorcerous origin.
Alec created Jethro Gobblenuts, a ghostwise halfling pet ranger using the new build wizards released. He apparently only has 15 teeth (all the left side), is missing a finger, and plays the banjo. And he contributed a wonderful gem of a quote: "Make the Chondalwood great again, we say!" Yeah...
Joseph actually decided NOT to play a caster. His character, Grim Buckman. He's a lawful evil human rogue with the urban bounty hunter background that's he's planning on advancing down the assassin archetype. He really liked to climb up things and survey.
Last but not least, I created Artor Garland, a lawful neutral half-elf paladin of Helm with the city watch background. I'm imagining him as a sort of cross between Nicholas Angel and Inspector Zenigata. He is, of course, obsessed with solving the crime Temerity is wanted for.
It started with the group departing Waterdeep for the town of Nightstone. As we approached, we heard the church bell ringing. And just ringing and not stopping.
Nightstone, it turns out, is built on a pair of islands in the middle of a river, one island occupied by a motte and bailey castle, the other occupied by the town itself. From the approach we saw that the bridge linking the town and the motte had been broken.
However, the bridge into the town itself was down and just fine. Temerity and Grim stealthily approached the guard towers and found them abandoned. Jehtro even used one of his features: Silent Speech, to communicate telepathically with our scouts. Grim climbed to the top of the tower and found the town, as far as he could see, deserted, and filled with boulders, apparently hurled by some kind of siege weapon.
We advaced further into the town and found a temple dedicated to Lathander and Mielikki. Hillary had a little squee moment when she found out that Mielikki's holy symbol is a unicorn. We found the source of the ringing bell: a pair of goblins apparently having the time of their lives swinging from the bell ropes. Grim and Temerity found them, and settled on a sometimes sound plan: lie to them. She tried to convince them that she was a threat and to hand over their treasure. For some reason Will decided that in his world, goblins have Jamaican accents.
This didn't work, unfortunately. The two goblins left the bell ropes and drew their scimitars to attack.
So, the opening encounters in Tyranny of Dragons involve six or more kobolds against a party of five to eight players. This opening encounter was two goblins against a party of seven. We won. And now I'm wondering if we're starting to see balance issues but in the opposite direction.
Granted, our rewards were a trickle of treasure and mundane items. At this point we became very aware of a pair of large, dog-like bests in the town square, apparently eating the remains of a cow. Ghesh used a minor illusion of a cow mooing to lure them away from their meal, allowing us to get a better look at them, and we discovered they were worgs, large wolf-like beasts often used as steeds by goblins. Temerity tried to lure them out of a square for an ambush, also with minor illusion of a cow, but that trick didn't work twice and only made the highly intelligence beasts suspicious, but they went back to eating.
However, it seems we had distracted them enough to earn a surprise round of ranged attacks. The opening volley, featuring everyone but poor Hillary, dropped the first worg. The second let out a warning howl and accused us murder before attacking. It did manage to summon three goblins, but it and those goblins didn't last long and did minimal damage to us.
We did examine one object of interest: a large, five-foot deep hole in the ground, where something had apparently been sitting.
We had a choice of places to visit next: the local branch of Lionshield Coster or the Nightstone Inn. Deciding we all needed a drink, we visited the inn. While Artor had a mug of ale and Temerity pinched a bottle of wine, Jethro snuck into the kitchen a killed a looting goblin. In this case, as Will described it, ten pounds of stuff in a five pound bag. We added more minor treasure to our pile, including some food. Because one of them was a block of cheese, Artor called dibs. Of course, Temerity wanted some for her pet mouse, Squeaks, so Artor graciously shared half the block.
At this point, cunning and sharp-witted investigator that I am, I suggested (both OOC and IC) that we maybe NOT kill the next goblin we came across and try to interrogate it.
Then Grim, Temerity, and Jethro climbed to the second floor, finding a hallway linking four rooms. Only two contained anything of interest, and both were hit by the boulder volley. Jethro found the first one, containing a human woman named Kella Darkhope pinned under some debris. After pulling her out and getting her to more secure footing, we asked her what she knew.
It turns out, not much. She was staying at the inn, waiting for a "business contact" (she was blushing when she mentioned this) to arrive. Apparently some giants swooped in on a big flying cloud and started pelting the down with boulders from above, stopping to rip, the "Nightstone" from its place in the village square. The goblins apparently arrived after the giants to loot the ruined, now abandoned town.
The other ruined room contained a chest in a now precarious corner of the room. Designers that write "X amount of weight triggers the floor to collapse" don't always account for halflings or gnomes. Jethro hopped on over to the chest, tied a rope around it, and Artor pulled it over to a safe spot (not sure if he kissed his biceps or not afterwards). Inside we found some armor sized for a dwarf and a bunch of gems. Ghesh called dibs on one worth 50gp as a focus for chromatic orb.
Next we visited the Lionshield Coster building. The door was open, and we heard some noise inside. It turned out to be (surprise!) another goblin busy looting. Temerity decided on a different tactic: she cast charm person. No word yet on whether this goblin, Jilk, will end up like Bupu, but fingers crossed. None-the-less, he told his new best friend a similar story: the giants attacked the town, flew away, and the goblins took the inhabitants to a nearby cave system. He even offered to show it to us, provided we help him move a table. The coster's inventory was otherwise mostly mundane items, up 10gp in value on Adventuring Gear table in the PHB.
We next decided to visit the motte. But as we started in on that, someone decided to look up the duration of charm person: concentration, up to an hour. So instead of missing the opportunity to have the goblin show us the caves, we had him draw a crude map and give us directions. He just wanted to make sure we brought that table.
I rolled my first natural 20 of the campaign trying to jump the gap between the village and the motte. I should have shouted "Parkour, bitch!" After that we set up a rope bridge to allow everyone to cross.The windows were barred, but the gates were open. Grim climbed the walls of the gatehouse, while Artor just kind of walked in. We found some guard barracks, and our first casualties from the giants' bombardment: the guards. As we explored the keep, we got the sense that it had been hit extra hard by giants.
When we went into the keep, we found four surviving guards standing over the body of Lady Belrosa Nandar, High Steward of Nightstone. She had been hit by a falling boulder. The guards confirmed what we already knew: the giants attacked by dropping rocks and then made off in the Nightstone. However, they contradicted Jilk. They said the towns' inhabitants had fled to the caves, and that the goblins followed. They did confirm, however, that the giants were in a flying castle rather than on a magic cloud. They also said they saw the castle heading east.
At this point, we decided to gear up and prepare to search for the caves and the townsfolk. We suggested the guards stay with Kella. During the conversation, we learned that the merchant caravan Kella was waiting on was not on the guards' agenda. She suggested that the merchant was on "unofficial" business. At this point, several of us noted that Kella had a winged snake for a pet or a familiar, a symbol of the Zhentarim. We hadn't really decided on factions yet, but Joseph had decided that Grim was a member of the Zhentarim. He talked to Kella in Thieves' Cant and confirmed that yes, their visit was related to the Zhentarim.
We glossed over the remainder of the supplies we found in the dark: 5 riding horses and 5 draft horses. We opted to hitch the draft horses to a cart we found just outside the town. Will also told us we would find a goblin sleeping in a hayloft, and encounter he didn't bother to roll. He also mentioned that in the graveyard of the temple, the Nandar family kept a crypt.
We found that only one cottage hadn't been ransacked. It was locked and happened to be covered in Infernal runes. Temerity was kind enough to translate: Anyone entering without the permission of the cottage's owner would be sent to Hell. Charming.
We settled in for a long rest, and Will awarded us our first milestone.
Saturday, October 22, 2016
The Catacombs of Ravenloft, Highlights
Since bad puns on crypts and tombstones are a storied tradition, the designers of Ravenloft provided a few for the doors in the crypts of the castle.
The party bypassed them.
But here are a few of the highlights:
Artista DeSlop--Court Ceiling Painter
Lady Isolde Yunk (Isolde the Incredible): Purveyor of antiques and imports. *This one you might need to say out loud.*
Prince Ariel du Plumette (Ariel the Heavy). *The back story you learn in the encounter with his ghost is that he built a set of artificial wings. They didn't work.*
Artank Swilovich: Friend and member of the Barovian Wine Distiller's Guild
King Katsky (Katsky the Bright): Ruler, inventor, and self-proclaimed time traveler. *You find a powder horn, musket, musket balls, and an ornithopter-like glider inside his tomb.*
Stahbal Indi-Bhak: A truer friend no ruler ever had. Here lies his family in honor. *Again, you might need to say this one aloud.*
Elsa Fallona von Twitterberg (Beloved Actor): She had many followers. *Yes, they did indeed update the references, anyone who's played previous Ravenlofts!*
Sir Sedrick Spinwitovich (Admiral Spinwitovich): Confused though he was, he built the greatest naval force ever assembled in a landlocked country. *There's an actual boat inside his tomb.*
Sir Erik Vonderbucks *His corpse was dipped in molten gold.*
We knew him only by his wealth *This is a schmuck bait trap. The walls are painted to resemble gold coins and there is a pit trap in the floor.*
Sir Klutz Tripalotsky: He fell on his own sword.
Gralmore Nimblenobs--Wizard Ordinaire.
Hope you enjoy. When we return, we'll be starting Storm King's Thunder, and maybe some character backstories.
The party bypassed them.
But here are a few of the highlights:
Artista DeSlop--Court Ceiling Painter
Lady Isolde Yunk (Isolde the Incredible): Purveyor of antiques and imports. *This one you might need to say out loud.*
Prince Ariel du Plumette (Ariel the Heavy). *The back story you learn in the encounter with his ghost is that he built a set of artificial wings. They didn't work.*
Artank Swilovich: Friend and member of the Barovian Wine Distiller's Guild
King Katsky (Katsky the Bright): Ruler, inventor, and self-proclaimed time traveler. *You find a powder horn, musket, musket balls, and an ornithopter-like glider inside his tomb.*
Stahbal Indi-Bhak: A truer friend no ruler ever had. Here lies his family in honor. *Again, you might need to say this one aloud.*
Elsa Fallona von Twitterberg (Beloved Actor): She had many followers. *Yes, they did indeed update the references, anyone who's played previous Ravenlofts!*
Sir Sedrick Spinwitovich (Admiral Spinwitovich): Confused though he was, he built the greatest naval force ever assembled in a landlocked country. *There's an actual boat inside his tomb.*
Sir Erik Vonderbucks *His corpse was dipped in molten gold.*
We knew him only by his wealth *This is a schmuck bait trap. The walls are painted to resemble gold coins and there is a pit trap in the floor.*
Sir Klutz Tripalotsky: He fell on his own sword.
Gralmore Nimblenobs--Wizard Ordinaire.
Hope you enjoy. When we return, we'll be starting Storm King's Thunder, and maybe some character backstories.
Thursday, October 20, 2016
Final Showdown, Part 2
So remember how yesterday, I talked about the 8 different paths, one of which would sequence break the next part of the dungeon?
Yeah. They took that path.
Unfortunately Alec couldn't make it, so Cugel was out for the final battle. But his wife was awesome enough to bring Blake and Hillary and trusting enough that Kyla, Joseph, Will, and myself were responsible enough adults that we could watch them. Fortunately she fell for our ruse, so Sarra and Amrus got to contribute (in a huge way) to that final fight.
They climbed up out of the torture room onto an observation balcony (because what else are the kind and queen going to do for entertainment?), passed through a heavy curtain, and into the next room.
In the center of the room was a brazier with a white flame emitting no heat. Around the base were seven indentations containing seven gems of the prismatic colors. Over the brazier was a giant hourglass with a verse written on it in common. In two alcoves flanking this brazier were giant metal statues of knights on horses. Aside from the door they came in through, there were three other doors out on the opposite wall.
The verse on the hour glass read:
Cast a stone into the fire:
Violet leads to the mountain spire
Orange to the castle's peak
Red if lore is what you seek
Green to where the coffins hide
Indigo to the master's bride
Blue to ancient magic's womb
Yellow to the master's tomb
The party took a little bit longer pondering this than I originally expected. While right away the realized that the yellow stone ought to lead to Strahd's Tomb, but then started second guessing that maybe it was green. Since the session is over, I'll spill the beans: that green one would have taken them to the basement of the coffin maker's shop in Vallaki. I DID NOT want the party back-tracked that far.
I did what any good GM would do when you don't want to seem like you're railroading, but you still want to convey your desires to the players in a subtle way: I had them make "Idiot" checks. Or what WoD players might call a "Common Sense" check. I set it as a DC 15 Intelligence check, and Kyla made it (over Lop, which surprised me), so I told her outright: the yellow one will take you to Strahd's Tomb.
They through the stone into the fire, and over the course of 5 rounds (the timer on the hourglass), stepped through. Lop, who still had locate creature going, knew Strahd was in the coffin in the center of the room. They had Sarra approach first, hoping to have her impale the poor bastard with her sun sword.
Of course it wasn't that easy!
Strahd's bride's, Anastrasya Karelova, Ludmilla Vilisevic, and Volenta Popofsky, emerged from the earth in three alcoves on the south end of the chamber. I'm re-reading the encounter know and they should have come out of the east wall. Oh well. C'est La Vie. They rolled well on their initiatives. Strahd and most of the party, however, did not.
Still, Ap opened strongly: dropping a storm sphere to keep the ladies hemmed in and damage them. Kasimir, being controlled by Joseph, also used a cone of cold to get an early strong hit in. Ludmilla and Volenta put the bite on Amrus, while Anastrasya went for the already anemic-looking Tathora. She even rolled a critical! (I beginning to think Kyla is right: the dice ARE trying to kill her character.)
Of course the party had a good counter offensive: Lop used that staff of frost to create a wall of ice to pull the brides off their victims and isolate them. Then on her turn, Tathora turned on the sunlight feature of the holy symbol of Ravenkind. She also cast spiritual weapon because that spell really is awesome.
When Strahd emerged, he found old Damian Martikov in his face. But more importantly, Amrus and Sarra were there. Amrus managed to get a sneak attack in before retreating. Then Hillary used Action surge to hit four times with that sun sword. Strahd spent most of his time trying to put the bite on Sarra to recover from that. He rolled three 9s in a row. His attack modifier was +6, and Sarra's AC was 16.
Ap actually scored the killing blow: if reduced to zero hit points while in sunlight, Strahd dies. While Ludmilla and Volenta expired that same turn, Anastrasya got lucky with her saving throws and had enough hp to stand up to the sunlight for two more turns.
She wasn't going to break through the wall of ice that quickly, so I called it.
The book kind of calls for Rahadin, Strahd's major domo to put in an appearance at that point to avenge his master. I wanted the team to have a clean victory, so we cut to the ending montage:
Kasimir eventually did find his sister and resurrect her. But she seemed awful interested in the Amber Temple and the secrets he and the party found there...
Ezmerelda offered to lead the PCs back through the Mist to Faerun. She did as the first truly sunny day in centuries dawned on Barovia. However, she found that she was unable to get back...
What's next? Storm King's Thunder, of course! Will shall be running that, and I will get to play.
Since the party skipped the catacombs, they missed all the nifty puns. I'll put them in a future post. I'll also put up some information about the party we're creating for the next adventure. It looks like it's going to be fun!
Yeah. They took that path.
Unfortunately Alec couldn't make it, so Cugel was out for the final battle. But his wife was awesome enough to bring Blake and Hillary and trusting enough that Kyla, Joseph, Will, and myself were responsible enough adults that we could watch them. Fortunately she fell for our ruse, so Sarra and Amrus got to contribute (in a huge way) to that final fight.
They climbed up out of the torture room onto an observation balcony (because what else are the kind and queen going to do for entertainment?), passed through a heavy curtain, and into the next room.
In the center of the room was a brazier with a white flame emitting no heat. Around the base were seven indentations containing seven gems of the prismatic colors. Over the brazier was a giant hourglass with a verse written on it in common. In two alcoves flanking this brazier were giant metal statues of knights on horses. Aside from the door they came in through, there were three other doors out on the opposite wall.
The verse on the hour glass read:
Cast a stone into the fire:
Violet leads to the mountain spire
Orange to the castle's peak
Red if lore is what you seek
Green to where the coffins hide
Indigo to the master's bride
Blue to ancient magic's womb
Yellow to the master's tomb
The party took a little bit longer pondering this than I originally expected. While right away the realized that the yellow stone ought to lead to Strahd's Tomb, but then started second guessing that maybe it was green. Since the session is over, I'll spill the beans: that green one would have taken them to the basement of the coffin maker's shop in Vallaki. I DID NOT want the party back-tracked that far.
I did what any good GM would do when you don't want to seem like you're railroading, but you still want to convey your desires to the players in a subtle way: I had them make "Idiot" checks. Or what WoD players might call a "Common Sense" check. I set it as a DC 15 Intelligence check, and Kyla made it (over Lop, which surprised me), so I told her outright: the yellow one will take you to Strahd's Tomb.
They through the stone into the fire, and over the course of 5 rounds (the timer on the hourglass), stepped through. Lop, who still had locate creature going, knew Strahd was in the coffin in the center of the room. They had Sarra approach first, hoping to have her impale the poor bastard with her sun sword.
Of course it wasn't that easy!
Strahd's bride's, Anastrasya Karelova, Ludmilla Vilisevic, and Volenta Popofsky, emerged from the earth in three alcoves on the south end of the chamber. I'm re-reading the encounter know and they should have come out of the east wall. Oh well. C'est La Vie. They rolled well on their initiatives. Strahd and most of the party, however, did not.
Still, Ap opened strongly: dropping a storm sphere to keep the ladies hemmed in and damage them. Kasimir, being controlled by Joseph, also used a cone of cold to get an early strong hit in. Ludmilla and Volenta put the bite on Amrus, while Anastrasya went for the already anemic-looking Tathora. She even rolled a critical! (I beginning to think Kyla is right: the dice ARE trying to kill her character.)
Of course the party had a good counter offensive: Lop used that staff of frost to create a wall of ice to pull the brides off their victims and isolate them. Then on her turn, Tathora turned on the sunlight feature of the holy symbol of Ravenkind. She also cast spiritual weapon because that spell really is awesome.
When Strahd emerged, he found old Damian Martikov in his face. But more importantly, Amrus and Sarra were there. Amrus managed to get a sneak attack in before retreating. Then Hillary used Action surge to hit four times with that sun sword. Strahd spent most of his time trying to put the bite on Sarra to recover from that. He rolled three 9s in a row. His attack modifier was +6, and Sarra's AC was 16.
Ap actually scored the killing blow: if reduced to zero hit points while in sunlight, Strahd dies. While Ludmilla and Volenta expired that same turn, Anastrasya got lucky with her saving throws and had enough hp to stand up to the sunlight for two more turns.
She wasn't going to break through the wall of ice that quickly, so I called it.
The book kind of calls for Rahadin, Strahd's major domo to put in an appearance at that point to avenge his master. I wanted the team to have a clean victory, so we cut to the ending montage:
Kasimir eventually did find his sister and resurrect her. But she seemed awful interested in the Amber Temple and the secrets he and the party found there...
Ezmerelda offered to lead the PCs back through the Mist to Faerun. She did as the first truly sunny day in centuries dawned on Barovia. However, she found that she was unable to get back...
What's next? Storm King's Thunder, of course! Will shall be running that, and I will get to play.
Since the party skipped the catacombs, they missed all the nifty puns. I'll put them in a future post. I'll also put up some information about the party we're creating for the next adventure. It looks like it's going to be fun!
Tuesday, October 18, 2016
Preparation 101
I've decided to give some DM advice.
First, Kyla and I finally got play another session of Delta Green: Check it out.
Since some new DMs might have stumbled onto this blog looking for advice, here's a cool YouTube video I found that expertly summarizes advice for new DMs: Check it out.
Today I'm going to talk about prep. Or at least how I do prep.
The first step is don't over-prepare. PCs will zig when you expect them to zag. Dungeons are helpful for this because they are basically a physical in-game embodiment of a decision map. So when using a pre-generated dungeon or using one of your own, you'll want to focus on two things. First, what route(s) CAN the PCs take. Second, what route(s) are the they LIKELY to take.
That first part is easy if you're using a simple dungeon with mostly left, right, or forward type decision options. Castle Ravenloft is not a simple dungeon. From their current position, they can back track, move forward to a room with approximately 8 options for potentially moving forward or bogging down the session in a deadly, deadly combat. One of the options for moving forward is protected by a trap that, while not deadly, can significantly set back their progress.
Now the second part requires knowing your players. For the most part Will and Joseph and the most active players when it comes to decision-making. Kyla is catching up rapidly, but she still has a little distance to cover. Alec is a little more interested in role-playing his character than taking the lead. And Blake and Hillary, while definitely interested in driving the party's decisions more, tend to not get as much acknowledgement. Mostly because they're kids, which is unfortunate.
So what do I know about Joseph, Will, and Kyla as players? Most importantly, they're non-linear thinkers. When Lop and Ap were trapped in a cell, they decided to use the laws of thermodynamics to weaken the bars of their cell (casting ray of frost and firebolt on them in rapid succession). So they're going to look for an indirect approach to advancing. Kyla is a puzzle solver. She takes notes and can figure things out from handouts and pictures. This means that one of those 8 paths forward I was talking about is a very real possibility. Since it's going to sequence break everything, I can definitely put it on the list of likely outcomes.
Of course, I have to remember that Blake is what the 4e DMG called an Instigator. When he sees a big red button, he has to press it. Ravenloft being an old school adventure, this means that if he pushes the wrong big red button, it could lead to deadly, deadly combat.
Of course, they could always just follow a straight forward path. If so, I have to account for that trap. The real problem is that Amrus isn't very good with traps. Tathora is certainly amazing at spotting secret doors and traps, but Amrus is not good at disarming them. However, I'm also pretty confident that Lop, Ap, or Cugel might find a way to bypass the trap with a spell.
And of course, there's the catacombs: a huge sandboxy area of the Castle they are likely to reach. There's a lot to find and do, and some of it involves combat. One of them even involves one of the party's sidequests.
Once I have a rough idea of what encounters are likely to happen, I mark off the stat blocks in the Monster Manual or the adventure book. I use 3x5 cards and use them to keep track of monsters' hit points. DJ, the previous DM, actually used a spreadsheet for this. It was probably faster, but I'm fine with my method. Rob, who runs a Pathfinder game I play in, actually would mark damage dealt totals to NPCs and monsters directly on the map. Not a bad idea, but I prefer to save space on the map.
Next comes special rules I might need to review. Most of those are in the DMG, which I keep at the store. However, as a DM I arrive early, so I use some of that time to review rules. I also use it to chitchat with my fellow DMs, the employees at the store, and any other early arriving players.
For tomorrow, there are no rules I'm going to need to review. However, I have noted a situation which might split the party. Since the effects need to be somewhat secretive, I prepared a 3x5 card for a description for a disappearing character, while using another description for the rest of the party.
Finally, I have to take into account that sidequest. Having marked the stat block of combat likely to ensue, I have to also ponder what the reward should be. Since the adventure provides no real monetary award, and the story-based reward for it is moot at this point, I might have to settle for a milestone or some other non-concrete reward. One I certainly could provide is allowing the party to gain the benefits of a long rest. That would be a boon to them as they are likely to be low on resources and very close to the final showdown, but it wouldn't involve the updating a bookkeeping a milestone would.
A few other tips when prepping and running: game sessions are only so long, do decide ahead of time what you want to focus on. If you want combat, put a lot of energy into planning out that battlefield and determining the monsters' or NPCs' tactics. If you want exploration, focus on re-reading descriptions so you aren't always looking down at the book and reading verbatim (I'm guilty of this, I know!). Especially if you have a target in mind, do as much as you can to make it easier for the PCs to reach that target.
If I really wanted (and I kinda want to) just have the campaign end tomorrow, I'd remove all obstacles between the PCs and Strahd's Tomb and just do some glossy and creepy narration to get them there, ignoring traps and hostile creatures in favor of the story. But we still have one more session in October, so I'm not super desperate. Let's enjoy having the party wander around a spooky, vampire-haunted castle while the season is still right.
First, Kyla and I finally got play another session of Delta Green: Check it out.
Since some new DMs might have stumbled onto this blog looking for advice, here's a cool YouTube video I found that expertly summarizes advice for new DMs: Check it out.
Today I'm going to talk about prep. Or at least how I do prep.
The first step is don't over-prepare. PCs will zig when you expect them to zag. Dungeons are helpful for this because they are basically a physical in-game embodiment of a decision map. So when using a pre-generated dungeon or using one of your own, you'll want to focus on two things. First, what route(s) CAN the PCs take. Second, what route(s) are the they LIKELY to take.
That first part is easy if you're using a simple dungeon with mostly left, right, or forward type decision options. Castle Ravenloft is not a simple dungeon. From their current position, they can back track, move forward to a room with approximately 8 options for potentially moving forward or bogging down the session in a deadly, deadly combat. One of the options for moving forward is protected by a trap that, while not deadly, can significantly set back their progress.
Now the second part requires knowing your players. For the most part Will and Joseph and the most active players when it comes to decision-making. Kyla is catching up rapidly, but she still has a little distance to cover. Alec is a little more interested in role-playing his character than taking the lead. And Blake and Hillary, while definitely interested in driving the party's decisions more, tend to not get as much acknowledgement. Mostly because they're kids, which is unfortunate.
So what do I know about Joseph, Will, and Kyla as players? Most importantly, they're non-linear thinkers. When Lop and Ap were trapped in a cell, they decided to use the laws of thermodynamics to weaken the bars of their cell (casting ray of frost and firebolt on them in rapid succession). So they're going to look for an indirect approach to advancing. Kyla is a puzzle solver. She takes notes and can figure things out from handouts and pictures. This means that one of those 8 paths forward I was talking about is a very real possibility. Since it's going to sequence break everything, I can definitely put it on the list of likely outcomes.
Of course, I have to remember that Blake is what the 4e DMG called an Instigator. When he sees a big red button, he has to press it. Ravenloft being an old school adventure, this means that if he pushes the wrong big red button, it could lead to deadly, deadly combat.
Of course, they could always just follow a straight forward path. If so, I have to account for that trap. The real problem is that Amrus isn't very good with traps. Tathora is certainly amazing at spotting secret doors and traps, but Amrus is not good at disarming them. However, I'm also pretty confident that Lop, Ap, or Cugel might find a way to bypass the trap with a spell.
And of course, there's the catacombs: a huge sandboxy area of the Castle they are likely to reach. There's a lot to find and do, and some of it involves combat. One of them even involves one of the party's sidequests.
Once I have a rough idea of what encounters are likely to happen, I mark off the stat blocks in the Monster Manual or the adventure book. I use 3x5 cards and use them to keep track of monsters' hit points. DJ, the previous DM, actually used a spreadsheet for this. It was probably faster, but I'm fine with my method. Rob, who runs a Pathfinder game I play in, actually would mark damage dealt totals to NPCs and monsters directly on the map. Not a bad idea, but I prefer to save space on the map.
Next comes special rules I might need to review. Most of those are in the DMG, which I keep at the store. However, as a DM I arrive early, so I use some of that time to review rules. I also use it to chitchat with my fellow DMs, the employees at the store, and any other early arriving players.
For tomorrow, there are no rules I'm going to need to review. However, I have noted a situation which might split the party. Since the effects need to be somewhat secretive, I prepared a 3x5 card for a description for a disappearing character, while using another description for the rest of the party.
Finally, I have to take into account that sidequest. Having marked the stat block of combat likely to ensue, I have to also ponder what the reward should be. Since the adventure provides no real monetary award, and the story-based reward for it is moot at this point, I might have to settle for a milestone or some other non-concrete reward. One I certainly could provide is allowing the party to gain the benefits of a long rest. That would be a boon to them as they are likely to be low on resources and very close to the final showdown, but it wouldn't involve the updating a bookkeeping a milestone would.
A few other tips when prepping and running: game sessions are only so long, do decide ahead of time what you want to focus on. If you want combat, put a lot of energy into planning out that battlefield and determining the monsters' or NPCs' tactics. If you want exploration, focus on re-reading descriptions so you aren't always looking down at the book and reading verbatim (I'm guilty of this, I know!). Especially if you have a target in mind, do as much as you can to make it easier for the PCs to reach that target.
If I really wanted (and I kinda want to) just have the campaign end tomorrow, I'd remove all obstacles between the PCs and Strahd's Tomb and just do some glossy and creepy narration to get them there, ignoring traps and hostile creatures in favor of the story. But we still have one more session in October, so I'm not super desperate. Let's enjoy having the party wander around a spooky, vampire-haunted castle while the season is still right.
Thursday, October 13, 2016
This Castle is a Creature of Chaos
...It may take many incarnations.
I'm actually going to pause a moment, to talk about a technique I've been using to keep track of the group's movement through the castle.
Curse of Strahd comes with an beautiful full color poster map. On one side is Barovia. On the other is a map of Castle Ravenloft, still in full isometric glory. Now with full color. It seemed a waste to keep that map on my side of the screen, plus, I didn't want to constantly re-draw maps on board every few minutes as the party moved around. So I cut some pieces of construction paper, laid the whole map out of the table, and used the construction paper as a "fog of war," covering up areas of the castle they had yet to visit, and removing it as they visited new areas.
And they visited new areas.
Alec's friend Ron was able to return, and he once again played Simon. Since he's a character named Simon with a flail, fighting vampires, we decided that his weakness should be that he can't swim.
First they took a short rest inside a rope trick. It was good that they did, since some flying swords were called for on the random encounter table. Instead they entered the room, found no one there to attack, and left.
The characters followed the swords down main stairs leading down from the throne room to a landing decorated with a pair of suits of armor in alcoves. The party were wisely wary of the armor and avoided a minor trap attached to them, then went down the grand staircase leading down from the landing back to the great entry hall. There, they found that the gargoyles decorating the arches were more than just statues: the animated and attacked.
Since their thoughts were still on Strahd (whom Lop was tracking with locate creature), they avoided using spell slots. Gargoyles are resistant to non-magical damage and have plenty of hit points. They don't hit very hard, but when there are 8 of them, they can swarm and cause a problem. At one point Damien Martikov was on the front lines and drew several attacks. We all had a case of the "derp" and forgot that as a wereraven Damien is immune to non-magical damage from non-silver weapons, and gargoyles' attacks do no count as magic. We caught it quick enough, and the crusty old wereraven lived to fight another day. Here's the key to high level parties: even if their casters are conserving resources, fights merely last longer than they might otherwise. The only one who did use spell slots was Tathora and Van Richten, casting cure wounds on squishier team members that had taken too many hits.
Since Lop knew Strahd was below them and to the southeast, they took the spiral stairs across from the entry to the dining hall down. The stopped at one ten-foot wide, ten-foot tall corridor, but opted not to go down it, because Strahd was still below them.
They arrived in the dungeons, where they were more or less even with Strahd. Lop and Cugel were discussing a plan to get over Strahd's location and then use stone shape to open their own passage. I pointed out that there was 50 feet of stone, well beyond the spell's reach.
Ravenloft's dungeons are flooded with cold, dark water. Blake was scared of alligators. It turns out he should have been scared of something else.
A voice called out for help. Tathora, being lawful good, decided to call back. The speaker identified himself as Emil Toranescu, a citizen of Vallaki chased into the castle by a pack of dire wolves. Since Kyla bothered to take notes, she recognized this character as a quest goal. Specifically for Zuleika Toranescu, the werewolf they made a truce with. After revealing that Zuleika had sent them, Emil said he'd be grateful for the help. Tathora moved towards the sound of his voice, then disappeared in a fountain of rushing water in air. She had been teleported by a deviously hidden trap into a cell to the north.
The corridor is laced with these teleport traps. They teleport whoever steps onto it into one of the northern cells of the dungeon. There, the water is about five feet deep. Eventually Lop, riding on Ap's shoulders, and Sarra got teleported into cells. Lop and Ap tried using thermodynamics to weaken the bars of their cell, granting Simon advantage on a Strength check to pry them off. He still failed.
At this point Emil pointed out that his confidence in the party was somewhat lessened. Because spending an entire night rolling the same check over and over would have been boring, I rolled a d20 and had Amrus successfully pick all the locks in that many minutes. It was 16, so Lop had burned through about a half hour of his hour duration on locate creature.
In the process, Amrus found a glowing +1 shortsword that also happened to be sentient. It quickly attuned to any lawful good creature and provided added benefits to such a wielder. Unfortunately, the only lawful good party member was Tathora, who isn't proficient with shortswords. They ended up giving it to Amrus, who could still benefit from the +1 without attunement.
They freed Emil, who was mostly interested in leaving the castle and returning to his mate. Since the PCs didn't want to stop him, he left.
Next they found themselves in a torture chamber being overlooked by a balcony. They moved toward the balcony to climb up, when six Strahd Zombies emerged from the water and attacked.
Strahd zombies are bit different from garden variety zombies. First, they have one more hit die and commensurately more hit points. They also have a claw and bite attack and the multi-attack feature, as opposed to the basic zombie's slam.
Those of you who remember way back in the day to Elemental Evil, will recall that zombies have a feature called Undead Fortitude, making them remarkably hard to put down. Strahd zombies have a different feature: Loathsome Limbs, that causes a random limb to separate after the zombie is hit with a slashing or bludgeoning weapon. This changes the way the zombie can fight, sort of. Of course, all the limbs die as soon as the main torso dies. Simon managed to sever an arm, a leg, and head. Still, the zombies were an easy encounter, but it was time to call it a night.
Next time they'll be reaching the Crypts. That should be fun.
I'm actually going to pause a moment, to talk about a technique I've been using to keep track of the group's movement through the castle.
Curse of Strahd comes with an beautiful full color poster map. On one side is Barovia. On the other is a map of Castle Ravenloft, still in full isometric glory. Now with full color. It seemed a waste to keep that map on my side of the screen, plus, I didn't want to constantly re-draw maps on board every few minutes as the party moved around. So I cut some pieces of construction paper, laid the whole map out of the table, and used the construction paper as a "fog of war," covering up areas of the castle they had yet to visit, and removing it as they visited new areas.
And they visited new areas.
Alec's friend Ron was able to return, and he once again played Simon. Since he's a character named Simon with a flail, fighting vampires, we decided that his weakness should be that he can't swim.
First they took a short rest inside a rope trick. It was good that they did, since some flying swords were called for on the random encounter table. Instead they entered the room, found no one there to attack, and left.
The characters followed the swords down main stairs leading down from the throne room to a landing decorated with a pair of suits of armor in alcoves. The party were wisely wary of the armor and avoided a minor trap attached to them, then went down the grand staircase leading down from the landing back to the great entry hall. There, they found that the gargoyles decorating the arches were more than just statues: the animated and attacked.
Since their thoughts were still on Strahd (whom Lop was tracking with locate creature), they avoided using spell slots. Gargoyles are resistant to non-magical damage and have plenty of hit points. They don't hit very hard, but when there are 8 of them, they can swarm and cause a problem. At one point Damien Martikov was on the front lines and drew several attacks. We all had a case of the "derp" and forgot that as a wereraven Damien is immune to non-magical damage from non-silver weapons, and gargoyles' attacks do no count as magic. We caught it quick enough, and the crusty old wereraven lived to fight another day. Here's the key to high level parties: even if their casters are conserving resources, fights merely last longer than they might otherwise. The only one who did use spell slots was Tathora and Van Richten, casting cure wounds on squishier team members that had taken too many hits.
Since Lop knew Strahd was below them and to the southeast, they took the spiral stairs across from the entry to the dining hall down. The stopped at one ten-foot wide, ten-foot tall corridor, but opted not to go down it, because Strahd was still below them.
They arrived in the dungeons, where they were more or less even with Strahd. Lop and Cugel were discussing a plan to get over Strahd's location and then use stone shape to open their own passage. I pointed out that there was 50 feet of stone, well beyond the spell's reach.
Ravenloft's dungeons are flooded with cold, dark water. Blake was scared of alligators. It turns out he should have been scared of something else.
A voice called out for help. Tathora, being lawful good, decided to call back. The speaker identified himself as Emil Toranescu, a citizen of Vallaki chased into the castle by a pack of dire wolves. Since Kyla bothered to take notes, she recognized this character as a quest goal. Specifically for Zuleika Toranescu, the werewolf they made a truce with. After revealing that Zuleika had sent them, Emil said he'd be grateful for the help. Tathora moved towards the sound of his voice, then disappeared in a fountain of rushing water in air. She had been teleported by a deviously hidden trap into a cell to the north.
The corridor is laced with these teleport traps. They teleport whoever steps onto it into one of the northern cells of the dungeon. There, the water is about five feet deep. Eventually Lop, riding on Ap's shoulders, and Sarra got teleported into cells. Lop and Ap tried using thermodynamics to weaken the bars of their cell, granting Simon advantage on a Strength check to pry them off. He still failed.
At this point Emil pointed out that his confidence in the party was somewhat lessened. Because spending an entire night rolling the same check over and over would have been boring, I rolled a d20 and had Amrus successfully pick all the locks in that many minutes. It was 16, so Lop had burned through about a half hour of his hour duration on locate creature.
In the process, Amrus found a glowing +1 shortsword that also happened to be sentient. It quickly attuned to any lawful good creature and provided added benefits to such a wielder. Unfortunately, the only lawful good party member was Tathora, who isn't proficient with shortswords. They ended up giving it to Amrus, who could still benefit from the +1 without attunement.
They freed Emil, who was mostly interested in leaving the castle and returning to his mate. Since the PCs didn't want to stop him, he left.
Next they found themselves in a torture chamber being overlooked by a balcony. They moved toward the balcony to climb up, when six Strahd Zombies emerged from the water and attacked.
Strahd zombies are bit different from garden variety zombies. First, they have one more hit die and commensurately more hit points. They also have a claw and bite attack and the multi-attack feature, as opposed to the basic zombie's slam.
Those of you who remember way back in the day to Elemental Evil, will recall that zombies have a feature called Undead Fortitude, making them remarkably hard to put down. Strahd zombies have a different feature: Loathsome Limbs, that causes a random limb to separate after the zombie is hit with a slashing or bludgeoning weapon. This changes the way the zombie can fight, sort of. Of course, all the limbs die as soon as the main torso dies. Simon managed to sever an arm, a leg, and head. Still, the zombies were an easy encounter, but it was time to call it a night.
Next time they'll be reaching the Crypts. That should be fun.
Sunday, October 9, 2016
Update
A new Tale of Trismegistus just got posted.
Also, apparently today the mayor of Sierra Vista, AZ is declaring October Ostomy Awareness Month in that city, for everyone who read my post about that last week.
Also, apparently today the mayor of Sierra Vista, AZ is declaring October Ostomy Awareness Month in that city, for everyone who read my post about that last week.
Saturday, October 8, 2016
Final Confrontation, Part One
You know what having a secret finding machine in the party does? It enables sequence breaking. Okay, in this case, the sequence could have been broken without Tathora, but when I was preparing I realized that what could happen would happen.
Castle Ravenloft is filled with random encounters. While exploring the first floor guard corridor and turret, the party met one: a pair of wights. Wights are soul-devouring undead warriors. These particular wights were once the guards of Castle Ravenloft.
The fight was short. The party barely used many resources to take out the wights.
Then they chose to take the stairs at the end of the corridor up to the second floor, and met four more wights. Once again there was a short battle that ended with a minimal expenditure of resources. Both Cugel and Ap burned lightning bolts on this fight.
At this point, Tathora spotted a secret door leading into the Audience Chamber. In other words, the throne room. Right where the reading said Strahd would be. They found him on his throne, drinking a wine glass filled with blood (because some cliches become cliches because they're awesome). After some exchanging of insults, Strahd threw down the glass and said, "Enough talk! Have at you!"
Feel free to play this while reading the rest of the post. I couldn't play it for the group like I wanted. As much as I love the FLGS and the game space, it was just too loud.
I'm wondering about those dry runs I allowed the players. They opened with their big guns, because Boss Battle. Strahd, like most legendary creatures in 5e, has three stacks of "Legendary Resistance," a feature that allows him to just succeed on a saving throw even if he fails. They burned through all three of those in turn 1. Second, Lop saved his spells slots for counterspell, shutting down Strahd's opening fireball and later a hail Mary blight.
Most notably, they made use of Damian Martikov's feature as Strahd's enemy to ensure that Amrus always had inspiration. And since 5e rogues can sneak attack undead, he helped keep the damage pressure up.
Poor Tathora, though. She tried to use the Hold Undead power of the holy symbol of Ravenkind. Unfortunately Strahd made his save, and, recognizing the danger the item represented, he targeted her first. Using legendary actions, 5e powers some monsters and NPCs have to take actions outside of their turn, he grappled her and put the bite on. This had the combined effect of reducing Tathora's maximum hit points and healing Strahd.
After a few turns of this, it was an allied NPC to the rescue: Van Richten casting freedom of movement to get her out of the grapple when she had 10! hp left. She then dropped a 5th level cure wounds to get her back to her (now reduced) maximum.
After that, Strahd spared a vengeance attack on Van Richten, then tried to blight Sarra, who was also racking up the damage with her sunsword.
Finally, they "misted" Strahd, forcing him into mist form and retreating to his coffin.
Now they'll have to find that coffin and end it.
This being October, I'd say we picked the perfect time for the conclusion, Internet.
Castle Ravenloft is filled with random encounters. While exploring the first floor guard corridor and turret, the party met one: a pair of wights. Wights are soul-devouring undead warriors. These particular wights were once the guards of Castle Ravenloft.
The fight was short. The party barely used many resources to take out the wights.
Then they chose to take the stairs at the end of the corridor up to the second floor, and met four more wights. Once again there was a short battle that ended with a minimal expenditure of resources. Both Cugel and Ap burned lightning bolts on this fight.
At this point, Tathora spotted a secret door leading into the Audience Chamber. In other words, the throne room. Right where the reading said Strahd would be. They found him on his throne, drinking a wine glass filled with blood (because some cliches become cliches because they're awesome). After some exchanging of insults, Strahd threw down the glass and said, "Enough talk! Have at you!"
Feel free to play this while reading the rest of the post. I couldn't play it for the group like I wanted. As much as I love the FLGS and the game space, it was just too loud.
I'm wondering about those dry runs I allowed the players. They opened with their big guns, because Boss Battle. Strahd, like most legendary creatures in 5e, has three stacks of "Legendary Resistance," a feature that allows him to just succeed on a saving throw even if he fails. They burned through all three of those in turn 1. Second, Lop saved his spells slots for counterspell, shutting down Strahd's opening fireball and later a hail Mary blight.
Most notably, they made use of Damian Martikov's feature as Strahd's enemy to ensure that Amrus always had inspiration. And since 5e rogues can sneak attack undead, he helped keep the damage pressure up.
Poor Tathora, though. She tried to use the Hold Undead power of the holy symbol of Ravenkind. Unfortunately Strahd made his save, and, recognizing the danger the item represented, he targeted her first. Using legendary actions, 5e powers some monsters and NPCs have to take actions outside of their turn, he grappled her and put the bite on. This had the combined effect of reducing Tathora's maximum hit points and healing Strahd.
After a few turns of this, it was an allied NPC to the rescue: Van Richten casting freedom of movement to get her out of the grapple when she had 10! hp left. She then dropped a 5th level cure wounds to get her back to her (now reduced) maximum.
After that, Strahd spared a vengeance attack on Van Richten, then tried to blight Sarra, who was also racking up the damage with her sunsword.
Finally, they "misted" Strahd, forcing him into mist form and retreating to his coffin.
Now they'll have to find that coffin and end it.
This being October, I'd say we picked the perfect time for the conclusion, Internet.
Sunday, October 2, 2016
Finishing the Amber Temple & Starting Castle Ravenloft
Unforunately Will couldn't make it, so Lop faded into the background.
The team traveled north, finding a room brightly lit by torches and set with a sumptuous feast. Because players assume that everything will kill them, they tested the feast and found it to be an illusion. Since the testing was Ap using mage hand, the missed something on the table that would have made that room a lot more interesting. I rolled to randomly determine if Ap's flailing discovered it, but he did not.
Moving on, the party found a crumbling balcony over the main temple with a pair of double doors beyond. Assuming (correctly) it might collapse, Ap once again used mage hand to rig up a rope bridge crossing the balcony and minimizing the weight put on it. As I'm looking back on it, with all the elves (or half-elf in Tathora's case), and skinny wizards, they probably couldn't have put enough weight on balcony to make it crumble (250 lbs was the threshold) unless more than one of them tried to cross at once.
Amrus got to do the rogue thing and scout ahead. He came to a shrine dedicated to a faceless god. It also happened to be a trap. The statue of that faceless god radiated a sympathy effect from the antipathy/sympathy spell. Unfortunately, Amrus failed his saving throw and moved closer to the statue and stood there. That spell makes a doozy of trap: the target makes a new saving throw every 24 hours and only has a 1 minute grace period after succeeding on a save.
Fortunately for Amrus, unlike the two corpses next to the statue, he had friends nearby. Tathora crossed into the room next and made her save against the statue's effect. So it was up to her to break the effect on Amrus. She tried smacking him upside the head. Although it did maximum damage, it didn't break the effect. (Yes, I was recalling that scene from The Gamers at that moment.) Eventually she just put her bedroll over his head and dragged him into an empty adjoining room. He got to make more saves, and eventually succeeded.
Aside from a dispel magic or Mordenkainen's disjunction, there wasn't a way to stop the statue. But if the spell allowed a save if the target could no longer see the source, it seemed logical enough that rendering the source no longer visible ought to work. So that's what the group did. And since I prefer player plans that at least make sense within the game world's logic, I let it work.
While they were messing around, Tathora noticed a secret door. They opened it up a whole wave of skulls just fell onto them. And there were still some left over. The party cleared the skulls out of the room, They found an iron chest on the ceiling.
That damn chest pretty much became the focus of the evening. Cugel cast levitate on Amrus, who found the chest locked a possibly trapped. The chest was sealed with sovereign glue and arcane lock. Eventually, they managed to rig a rope up to allow the whole party to cooperate and pull the chest off the ceiling. Eventually, Tathora used dispel magic on the arcane lock, to Sarra was able to (finally!) pry open the chest with a crowbar.
Of course, the chest was empty and opening it caused the floor of the room it was in to disappear. This was a problem because, once again, while they were messing around with the chest Tathora spotted another secret door. Once again, mage hand and a make-shift rope bridge allowed the party to continue.
They found themselves in the lair of animated, desiccated corpse dressed in fine wizards robes: a lich. This lich had lost its memories and some of it's powers over the centuries, and was a little coocoo for Cocoa Puffs, but not actively malicious. Blake actually decided to role-play the encounter. It was probably also good that Will wasn't there, he probably would have asked the lich to play joust. It wanted to know if anyone in the party could restore its memories. Tathora didn't have greater restoration prepared, but the lich didn't mind them taking a long rest in its chamber so she could. With his memory restored, the lich, Exethanter, decided to grant the party a boon. He told them more about the purpose of the temple and how to use some of its features. At that point they let Kasimir Velikov request the secret of restoring his sister to life.
Exethanter led them through a hidden door, into a secret library filled with books containing Thing Man Was Not Meant to Know. He then led them down into a chamber containing three large amber sarcophagi. One held the secret to vampiricism, one held the secret of lichdom, and the third held the secret of restoring the ancient dead to life. Kasimir used the third one. After some debate, the party managed to dissuade Cugel and Amrus from using either of the others. Although, Cugel was tempted to try the third one after seeing what happened to Kasimir: he took on the appearance of a corpse.
They returned to Exethanter's chamber and the lich returned to his studies. They emerged from the temple and earned another milestone. Once everyone had leveled up, they took stock of their allies and headed to Castle Ravenloft.
Although I could have used the Black Carriage, a classic Ravenloft element, I opted to leave it out, considering something like 11 people were approaching the castle. However, the storm did pick up as they approached the castle, encouraging them to take shelter in the entry hall. There, they met Rahadin, a dusk elf that betrayed his kind and served Strahd. He lead them to the dining hall, where Strahd was playing a massive organ (let's face it, some horror cliches are just too cool). After exchanging some taunts, the illusion of Strahd disappeared, the wind howled through castle, and doors closed (but didn't lock) behind the PCs. Amrus actually tried some of the food and wine on the table. He found it tasty.
At this point, Tathora (because she is a secret finding machine!) noticed some scratches on the floor in front of the organ. Using mage hand, Ap found that pressing one of the pedals caused the organ to swing open, revealing a secret door into a room that used to be an archer post, but was now filled with mirrors. They grabbed a few small ones for the party to use, but it was time to break for the evening.
Next time, deeper into Castle Ravenloft. Feel free to cue up the Castlevania SOTN soundtrack for those.
The team traveled north, finding a room brightly lit by torches and set with a sumptuous feast. Because players assume that everything will kill them, they tested the feast and found it to be an illusion. Since the testing was Ap using mage hand, the missed something on the table that would have made that room a lot more interesting. I rolled to randomly determine if Ap's flailing discovered it, but he did not.
Moving on, the party found a crumbling balcony over the main temple with a pair of double doors beyond. Assuming (correctly) it might collapse, Ap once again used mage hand to rig up a rope bridge crossing the balcony and minimizing the weight put on it. As I'm looking back on it, with all the elves (or half-elf in Tathora's case), and skinny wizards, they probably couldn't have put enough weight on balcony to make it crumble (250 lbs was the threshold) unless more than one of them tried to cross at once.
Amrus got to do the rogue thing and scout ahead. He came to a shrine dedicated to a faceless god. It also happened to be a trap. The statue of that faceless god radiated a sympathy effect from the antipathy/sympathy spell. Unfortunately, Amrus failed his saving throw and moved closer to the statue and stood there. That spell makes a doozy of trap: the target makes a new saving throw every 24 hours and only has a 1 minute grace period after succeeding on a save.
Fortunately for Amrus, unlike the two corpses next to the statue, he had friends nearby. Tathora crossed into the room next and made her save against the statue's effect. So it was up to her to break the effect on Amrus. She tried smacking him upside the head. Although it did maximum damage, it didn't break the effect. (Yes, I was recalling that scene from The Gamers at that moment.) Eventually she just put her bedroll over his head and dragged him into an empty adjoining room. He got to make more saves, and eventually succeeded.
Aside from a dispel magic or Mordenkainen's disjunction, there wasn't a way to stop the statue. But if the spell allowed a save if the target could no longer see the source, it seemed logical enough that rendering the source no longer visible ought to work. So that's what the group did. And since I prefer player plans that at least make sense within the game world's logic, I let it work.
While they were messing around, Tathora noticed a secret door. They opened it up a whole wave of skulls just fell onto them. And there were still some left over. The party cleared the skulls out of the room, They found an iron chest on the ceiling.
That damn chest pretty much became the focus of the evening. Cugel cast levitate on Amrus, who found the chest locked a possibly trapped. The chest was sealed with sovereign glue and arcane lock. Eventually, they managed to rig a rope up to allow the whole party to cooperate and pull the chest off the ceiling. Eventually, Tathora used dispel magic on the arcane lock, to Sarra was able to (finally!) pry open the chest with a crowbar.
Of course, the chest was empty and opening it caused the floor of the room it was in to disappear. This was a problem because, once again, while they were messing around with the chest Tathora spotted another secret door. Once again, mage hand and a make-shift rope bridge allowed the party to continue.
They found themselves in the lair of animated, desiccated corpse dressed in fine wizards robes: a lich. This lich had lost its memories and some of it's powers over the centuries, and was a little coocoo for Cocoa Puffs, but not actively malicious. Blake actually decided to role-play the encounter. It was probably also good that Will wasn't there, he probably would have asked the lich to play joust. It wanted to know if anyone in the party could restore its memories. Tathora didn't have greater restoration prepared, but the lich didn't mind them taking a long rest in its chamber so she could. With his memory restored, the lich, Exethanter, decided to grant the party a boon. He told them more about the purpose of the temple and how to use some of its features. At that point they let Kasimir Velikov request the secret of restoring his sister to life.
Exethanter led them through a hidden door, into a secret library filled with books containing Thing Man Was Not Meant to Know. He then led them down into a chamber containing three large amber sarcophagi. One held the secret to vampiricism, one held the secret of lichdom, and the third held the secret of restoring the ancient dead to life. Kasimir used the third one. After some debate, the party managed to dissuade Cugel and Amrus from using either of the others. Although, Cugel was tempted to try the third one after seeing what happened to Kasimir: he took on the appearance of a corpse.
They returned to Exethanter's chamber and the lich returned to his studies. They emerged from the temple and earned another milestone. Once everyone had leveled up, they took stock of their allies and headed to Castle Ravenloft.
Although I could have used the Black Carriage, a classic Ravenloft element, I opted to leave it out, considering something like 11 people were approaching the castle. However, the storm did pick up as they approached the castle, encouraging them to take shelter in the entry hall. There, they met Rahadin, a dusk elf that betrayed his kind and served Strahd. He lead them to the dining hall, where Strahd was playing a massive organ (let's face it, some horror cliches are just too cool). After exchanging some taunts, the illusion of Strahd disappeared, the wind howled through castle, and doors closed (but didn't lock) behind the PCs. Amrus actually tried some of the food and wine on the table. He found it tasty.
At this point, Tathora (because she is a secret finding machine!) noticed some scratches on the floor in front of the organ. Using mage hand, Ap found that pressing one of the pedals caused the organ to swing open, revealing a secret door into a room that used to be an archer post, but was now filled with mirrors. They grabbed a few small ones for the party to use, but it was time to break for the evening.
Next time, deeper into Castle Ravenloft. Feel free to cue up the Castlevania SOTN soundtrack for those.
Saturday, October 1, 2016
Ostomy Awareness Day
Today's entry won't be about D&D. Instead, it'll be a little more personal and a little less nerdy.
Today, the first Saturday in October, is UOAA's Ostomy Awareness Day.
What is an Ostomy? Click Here.
My surgery last year was to remove my colon after I had suffered from ulcerative colitis for nearly 20 years. Unfortunately, due to genetic lottery, my small intestine was too short to have a j-pouch applied, so the surgery I had earlier this year was to make the ostomy permanent.
As I've shared before, the first surgery and it's recovery were rocky. But I do have to say, my life has turned a corner.
Before, I was living in near constant pain, though I had become so used to it I had ceased to notice it. I was also organizing my life around bathroom breaks. Those combined put me in a near constant state of depression. I wasn't willing to take risks in my personal or professional life.
My first serious, intimate, romantic relationship happened after the ostomy placement. That relationship has since ended, but I can say with confidence that the ostomy had nothing to do with it. I finally got the courage to quit the dead end job that was holding me back late this summer.
Is my life perfect now? No. But whose is? I dodged the cancer bullet, so that's worth something. And even the backward steps I've had to take: quitting that job, losing that relationship, have felt like challenges to overcome rather than reasons to just give up like they would have before. I'm closer with my friends. I'm more willing to just go out there and tell people, "Hey, I can write that for you!"
So today, remember that you may know someone with an ostomy. You've already read the blog of one!
Today, the first Saturday in October, is UOAA's Ostomy Awareness Day.
What is an Ostomy? Click Here.
My surgery last year was to remove my colon after I had suffered from ulcerative colitis for nearly 20 years. Unfortunately, due to genetic lottery, my small intestine was too short to have a j-pouch applied, so the surgery I had earlier this year was to make the ostomy permanent.
As I've shared before, the first surgery and it's recovery were rocky. But I do have to say, my life has turned a corner.
Before, I was living in near constant pain, though I had become so used to it I had ceased to notice it. I was also organizing my life around bathroom breaks. Those combined put me in a near constant state of depression. I wasn't willing to take risks in my personal or professional life.
My first serious, intimate, romantic relationship happened after the ostomy placement. That relationship has since ended, but I can say with confidence that the ostomy had nothing to do with it. I finally got the courage to quit the dead end job that was holding me back late this summer.
Is my life perfect now? No. But whose is? I dodged the cancer bullet, so that's worth something. And even the backward steps I've had to take: quitting that job, losing that relationship, have felt like challenges to overcome rather than reasons to just give up like they would have before. I'm closer with my friends. I'm more willing to just go out there and tell people, "Hey, I can write that for you!"
So today, remember that you may know someone with an ostomy. You've already read the blog of one!
Thursday, September 22, 2016
Meet Delta Green: Signals
Did I mention Kyla and I wanted to play Delta Green? I know we're still LFG, but maybe a blog will help get the word out.
Bear in mind, unlike this blog, there will be no meta-game commentary. In honor of the Lovecraft influence of that game, it's written as in-setting fiction recounting the events of the agent's missions. So look for the force to more resemble: "breathlessly unbelieving and horrified scholar" than "I love this! geek."
Bear in mind, unlike this blog, there will be no meta-game commentary. In honor of the Lovecraft influence of that game, it's written as in-setting fiction recounting the events of the agent's missions. So look for the force to more resemble: "breathlessly unbelieving and horrified scholar" than "I love this! geek."
Tuesday, September 20, 2016
Flaming Skulls of Fire!
For the younger set, due to language (because these monsters are just totally METAL!) this post is PG-13. Just check with your parent or guardian, first, please. I trust you.
Our party continued on after a short rest.
They discovered that a fissure in the rock wall of the room where they had fought the berserkers led outside, then checked the closed doors leading north. There they found a charred body and three skulls wreathed in green flame: flameskulls, because sometimes game designers just rip ideas off from the cover of metal albums. The skulls were watching through nearby arrow slits over-looking the main temple room, almost has if they were going to be sniping at a party of schmoes from there or something!
Blake, forgetting that I was proud of him in the last post, decided to have Amrus sneak past the skulls and explore the other doors leading off the corridor. Little bastard didn't roll anything less than a 20 on sneaking, and the darn skulls only have passive perceptions of 12.
I learned another reason why splitting the party is deadly: when the DM is forced to focus his attention on one player, the other players start to feel left out and restless. This makes people do Dumb Things. Or do what Joseph and Will did: pretend Lop and Ap were playing Cat's Cradle.
After several minutes of Amrus sneaking along and finding a room full of dried out potions an empty corridor, and model of a castle, Alec had Cugel cast invisibility and investigated. Seeing those totally bitchin' skulls and deciding they were dangerous, he positioned himself and hit them with a surprise lightning bolt. This would have been AWESOME. Except the skulls have a feature called magic resistance and are resistant to lightning damage.
Magic resistance is the bane of spellcasters. And this edition features the least awful version of it so far. In 2nd, there was a flat percent chance that the spell just wouldn't affect the target. Period. In 3rd, magic resistance was a DC the caster had to overcome with a caster level check, and there were feats available to increase that bonus. In 5th, the creature just has advantage on saving throws against spells. Meta-note: spells with to-hit rolls or that have no save (like magic missile) are unaffected. This is why it is the least awful version of that feature. So Cugel's lightning bolt did piddling damage, but Amrus finished off the one skull that failed its saving throw with a sneak attack.
However, Amrus saw a chest in that room with the model castle, so he hid from the fight to do some more looting. Again, Blake seems to have forgotten how proud of him I was after the last session.
Since the party is caster heavy: Lop, Cugel, Ap, and Tathora, the skulls proved resilient. In addition to resisting lightning and necrotic damage, they are immune to fire, cold, and poison damage. It's almost like they're snipers built to resist being sniped back. Still, when Sarra stepped in with her radiant melee damage, she managed to finish clearing them out.
The skulls go their licks in, though. One managed to herd Cugel with a flaming sphere. Another used a fireball once the party was suitably clumped in the hallway. They also rolled quite a bit of damage. My dice with the Mickey Head pips were smokin' with all the 6s rolled. However, at 9th level, even wizards can be tough enough to survive a strong hit. Tathora got everyone back up with her channel divinity and a mass healing word.
Once the smoke cleared, it was time for what Amrus wanted: loot. The chest contained a now empty scroll case, but Amrus looked further and found a false bottom concealing a tome of understanding, one of those handy-dandy stat bumping books. In this case, for Wisdom. The consensus was to give it to Tathora.
The party also found a staff of frost in the clutches of the corpse. This ended up in the hands of Lop.
Finally, they examined the model castle more closely. They realized it was a model of Castle Ravenloft itself, probably built by the architect. Lop was already planning to reduce/enlarge himself to see if he could check around inside. Probably hoping it might prove to be a full scale miniature with secret doors and everything.
Unfortunately, it was late enough that we had to break. I won't be running this week due to work scheduling, but this will be the last week where its the case, hopefully.
However, Kyla and I have started a Delta Green campaign. While currently LFG, we did a test run prelude for her character. Lovecraftian Horror and Government Conspiracies, it turns out, are fun! Look for more information and new blog about that.
Our party continued on after a short rest.
They discovered that a fissure in the rock wall of the room where they had fought the berserkers led outside, then checked the closed doors leading north. There they found a charred body and three skulls wreathed in green flame: flameskulls, because sometimes game designers just rip ideas off from the cover of metal albums. The skulls were watching through nearby arrow slits over-looking the main temple room, almost has if they were going to be sniping at a party of schmoes from there or something!
Blake, forgetting that I was proud of him in the last post, decided to have Amrus sneak past the skulls and explore the other doors leading off the corridor. Little bastard didn't roll anything less than a 20 on sneaking, and the darn skulls only have passive perceptions of 12.
I learned another reason why splitting the party is deadly: when the DM is forced to focus his attention on one player, the other players start to feel left out and restless. This makes people do Dumb Things. Or do what Joseph and Will did: pretend Lop and Ap were playing Cat's Cradle.
After several minutes of Amrus sneaking along and finding a room full of dried out potions an empty corridor, and model of a castle, Alec had Cugel cast invisibility and investigated. Seeing those totally bitchin' skulls and deciding they were dangerous, he positioned himself and hit them with a surprise lightning bolt. This would have been AWESOME. Except the skulls have a feature called magic resistance and are resistant to lightning damage.
Magic resistance is the bane of spellcasters. And this edition features the least awful version of it so far. In 2nd, there was a flat percent chance that the spell just wouldn't affect the target. Period. In 3rd, magic resistance was a DC the caster had to overcome with a caster level check, and there were feats available to increase that bonus. In 5th, the creature just has advantage on saving throws against spells. Meta-note: spells with to-hit rolls or that have no save (like magic missile) are unaffected. This is why it is the least awful version of that feature. So Cugel's lightning bolt did piddling damage, but Amrus finished off the one skull that failed its saving throw with a sneak attack.
However, Amrus saw a chest in that room with the model castle, so he hid from the fight to do some more looting. Again, Blake seems to have forgotten how proud of him I was after the last session.
Since the party is caster heavy: Lop, Cugel, Ap, and Tathora, the skulls proved resilient. In addition to resisting lightning and necrotic damage, they are immune to fire, cold, and poison damage. It's almost like they're snipers built to resist being sniped back. Still, when Sarra stepped in with her radiant melee damage, she managed to finish clearing them out.
The skulls go their licks in, though. One managed to herd Cugel with a flaming sphere. Another used a fireball once the party was suitably clumped in the hallway. They also rolled quite a bit of damage. My dice with the Mickey Head pips were smokin' with all the 6s rolled. However, at 9th level, even wizards can be tough enough to survive a strong hit. Tathora got everyone back up with her channel divinity and a mass healing word.
Once the smoke cleared, it was time for what Amrus wanted: loot. The chest contained a now empty scroll case, but Amrus looked further and found a false bottom concealing a tome of understanding, one of those handy-dandy stat bumping books. In this case, for Wisdom. The consensus was to give it to Tathora.
The party also found a staff of frost in the clutches of the corpse. This ended up in the hands of Lop.
Finally, they examined the model castle more closely. They realized it was a model of Castle Ravenloft itself, probably built by the architect. Lop was already planning to reduce/enlarge himself to see if he could check around inside. Probably hoping it might prove to be a full scale miniature with secret doors and everything.
Unfortunately, it was late enough that we had to break. I won't be running this week due to work scheduling, but this will be the last week where its the case, hopefully.
However, Kyla and I have started a Delta Green campaign. While currently LFG, we did a test run prelude for her character. Lovecraftian Horror and Government Conspiracies, it turns out, are fun! Look for more information and new blog about that.
Saturday, September 10, 2016
The Game Disintegration
Even though I couldn't run my regularly scheduled game yesterday, I did get to play Betrayal at House on the Hill. It is a fantastic board game. One of my favorites. I highly recommend it. I was going to talk more about that, but instead I bore witness to the disintegration of a table-top game over the past couple of days, and I decided to share my ponderings.
We were using Roll20, which has some great tools, but for some reason I was having connectivity issues with it. That isn't what caused the problem. Or maybe it contributed to it. We'll come back to that.
The GM was running a game based on Ghostbusters using the Savage Worlds game engine. The franchise is fun (yes, internet assholes out there, I did like the new movie), but that engine, as much as I like it, is problematic. We'll come back to that, too.
During our last session, our busters were investigating some rival ghost hunters who were clearly up to no good. However, we were having a hard time convincing the general public at large that was the case, but we had been mounting some evidence against them. But the last encounter of the session was what tore up the game.
We found these rival ghost chasers, the Ghost Dudes, consorting with a shadowy character in the parking lot of a church. My connectivity issues were heightening at this point, but as I understand it, the shadowy character was helping the Ghost Dudes conduct occult rituals to summon up ghosts for the ghost dudes to put down. When someone in the party moved to confront them, the GM called for initiative.
Needless to say, everything went ploon-shaped. Two of our team kidnapped that shadowy occult character in broad daylight, while I (supposedly playing the smart lawyer character; yes, sometimes I suck at role-playing) broadsided their van with a proton pack. We got in trouble with the law. Probably not as much as the EPA messed with them in the first film, but more than what happened after the very suspicious death of a character played by a high profile cameo in the new one.
The next day the GM sent an e-mail asking everyone what happened. He had been hoping we would approach the situation more realistically and not break a bunch of laws. He wanted us to focus on running our own business and using legal means to fight shady competitors. I actually, privately, e-mailed him some of my suspicions on what happened. He thanked me for my input, and waited to hear from everyone else. As I watched the other players, I had my suspicions confirmed.
From running and playing World of Darkness and running Deadlands, I've learned a simple truth when it comes to players and investigative games: when the investigation (i.e. the game's actual story) stalls, players become frustrated. And when players become frustrated they often revert to the old D&D standby: getting their murder hobo on! And when murder hobos run roughshod in a setting with a semblance of normal reality, like actual law enforcement and violence-fearing inhabitants, it can derail an adventure or a whole campaign. Sometimes this isn't bad! It might have been something the players wanted (or the best thing they never knew they needed). The GM did asks us if we wanted to start down the new direction: becoming fugitive Ghostbusters with stolen tech and no franchise backing. The group decided not to take that new direction. (As interesting as it could have been. Ghostbusters 2 was almost that story, and thinking about it now, if it had been the movie might have been much better. Maybe passingly mediocre instead of "God why!?" mediocre.)
But there is an important lesson here: in my last post about gaming with kids, I talked about the importance of gaming as a social teacher. A tabletop game is literally friends and family sitting around a table to have fun together. And for all that we're social animals, we seem to suck at one important facet of socialization: communication.
It's why I have no problem employing one of Gumshoe's core concepts: everything faces the player. I've learned from hard experience sometimes as a GM you just need to tell players, "You found everything there is to find here/learn everything you're going to learn. Next scene." Too bad as a player I have yet to learn to ask "What exactly is our goal here?" (If I had asked that in the GB game, my character would have acted a lot different.)
So, from all the advice in "how to role-play" and "how to GM" that's been written over the years (I've read a lot role-playing books, kiddies. I started when I was 10 and haven't stopped. Honestly, I think I might have a problem.) one thing that seems conspicuously absent is communication.
Now I'm going to go back to another thread I've talked about before: system matters. And part of why the system matters is because different systems communicate with the players differently. For example, Savage Worlds and d20 games use structured time (initiative and rounds) primarily during combat. So when initiative cards are dealt it's easy to assume hostile activity is taking place. (For this Ghostbusters example it didn't help that my audio kept cutting in and out, so I had no idea that our "opponents" weren't taking any hostile actions but were merely trying to run away. I didn't help by not asking for a recap of what I had missed, either.)
But also, where games sit on the Gamist/Narrativist/Simulationist continuum (really, I almost imagine it as a triangular graph), will depend on what the rules sets focus on. Savage Worlds has a lot of material written for it, but it is definitely very gamist with a more simulationist than narrativist bend. It focuses a lot on combat, and in particular mass combats. This focus is why it really wouldn't be my first pick for an investigation or horror focused game, even though it grew out of original Deadlands, which was very much a horror focused game. Gamist is fine in horror and investigation, but the bend needs to be more toward narrativist than simulationist.
So what would I have picked? Gumshoe or FATE probably. Hell, Kyla is interested in playing Delta Green, and I recently picked it up to. And they did some really nice hacks of the venerable BRP engine to make it more narrativist.
Plus, there's making sure as a GM you are up front with your players about what a campaign entails. After I had finished the starter box with my encounters group, I offered them some options: Go into one of the published campaign threads with their characters, and I told them about Elemental Evil and Rage of Demons and what each would entail, or create new characters for Ravenloft, a horror focused campaign. They opted for Ravenloft. It's why as a player, if I'm joining an established group I will often ask "what do they need?" before making a character.
Well, that's today's nerdy life observation. See you next week, when the party will have delved deeper into the Amber Temple.
We were using Roll20, which has some great tools, but for some reason I was having connectivity issues with it. That isn't what caused the problem. Or maybe it contributed to it. We'll come back to that.
The GM was running a game based on Ghostbusters using the Savage Worlds game engine. The franchise is fun (yes, internet assholes out there, I did like the new movie), but that engine, as much as I like it, is problematic. We'll come back to that, too.
During our last session, our busters were investigating some rival ghost hunters who were clearly up to no good. However, we were having a hard time convincing the general public at large that was the case, but we had been mounting some evidence against them. But the last encounter of the session was what tore up the game.
We found these rival ghost chasers, the Ghost Dudes, consorting with a shadowy character in the parking lot of a church. My connectivity issues were heightening at this point, but as I understand it, the shadowy character was helping the Ghost Dudes conduct occult rituals to summon up ghosts for the ghost dudes to put down. When someone in the party moved to confront them, the GM called for initiative.
Needless to say, everything went ploon-shaped. Two of our team kidnapped that shadowy occult character in broad daylight, while I (supposedly playing the smart lawyer character; yes, sometimes I suck at role-playing) broadsided their van with a proton pack. We got in trouble with the law. Probably not as much as the EPA messed with them in the first film, but more than what happened after the very suspicious death of a character played by a high profile cameo in the new one.
The next day the GM sent an e-mail asking everyone what happened. He had been hoping we would approach the situation more realistically and not break a bunch of laws. He wanted us to focus on running our own business and using legal means to fight shady competitors. I actually, privately, e-mailed him some of my suspicions on what happened. He thanked me for my input, and waited to hear from everyone else. As I watched the other players, I had my suspicions confirmed.
From running and playing World of Darkness and running Deadlands, I've learned a simple truth when it comes to players and investigative games: when the investigation (i.e. the game's actual story) stalls, players become frustrated. And when players become frustrated they often revert to the old D&D standby: getting their murder hobo on! And when murder hobos run roughshod in a setting with a semblance of normal reality, like actual law enforcement and violence-fearing inhabitants, it can derail an adventure or a whole campaign. Sometimes this isn't bad! It might have been something the players wanted (or the best thing they never knew they needed). The GM did asks us if we wanted to start down the new direction: becoming fugitive Ghostbusters with stolen tech and no franchise backing. The group decided not to take that new direction. (As interesting as it could have been. Ghostbusters 2 was almost that story, and thinking about it now, if it had been the movie might have been much better. Maybe passingly mediocre instead of "God why!?" mediocre.)
But there is an important lesson here: in my last post about gaming with kids, I talked about the importance of gaming as a social teacher. A tabletop game is literally friends and family sitting around a table to have fun together. And for all that we're social animals, we seem to suck at one important facet of socialization: communication.
It's why I have no problem employing one of Gumshoe's core concepts: everything faces the player. I've learned from hard experience sometimes as a GM you just need to tell players, "You found everything there is to find here/learn everything you're going to learn. Next scene." Too bad as a player I have yet to learn to ask "What exactly is our goal here?" (If I had asked that in the GB game, my character would have acted a lot different.)
So, from all the advice in "how to role-play" and "how to GM" that's been written over the years (I've read a lot role-playing books, kiddies. I started when I was 10 and haven't stopped. Honestly, I think I might have a problem.) one thing that seems conspicuously absent is communication.
Now I'm going to go back to another thread I've talked about before: system matters. And part of why the system matters is because different systems communicate with the players differently. For example, Savage Worlds and d20 games use structured time (initiative and rounds) primarily during combat. So when initiative cards are dealt it's easy to assume hostile activity is taking place. (For this Ghostbusters example it didn't help that my audio kept cutting in and out, so I had no idea that our "opponents" weren't taking any hostile actions but were merely trying to run away. I didn't help by not asking for a recap of what I had missed, either.)
But also, where games sit on the Gamist/Narrativist/Simulationist continuum (really, I almost imagine it as a triangular graph), will depend on what the rules sets focus on. Savage Worlds has a lot of material written for it, but it is definitely very gamist with a more simulationist than narrativist bend. It focuses a lot on combat, and in particular mass combats. This focus is why it really wouldn't be my first pick for an investigation or horror focused game, even though it grew out of original Deadlands, which was very much a horror focused game. Gamist is fine in horror and investigation, but the bend needs to be more toward narrativist than simulationist.
So what would I have picked? Gumshoe or FATE probably. Hell, Kyla is interested in playing Delta Green, and I recently picked it up to. And they did some really nice hacks of the venerable BRP engine to make it more narrativist.
Plus, there's making sure as a GM you are up front with your players about what a campaign entails. After I had finished the starter box with my encounters group, I offered them some options: Go into one of the published campaign threads with their characters, and I told them about Elemental Evil and Rage of Demons and what each would entail, or create new characters for Ravenloft, a horror focused campaign. They opted for Ravenloft. It's why as a player, if I'm joining an established group I will often ask "what do they need?" before making a character.
Well, that's today's nerdy life observation. See you next week, when the party will have delved deeper into the Amber Temple.
Tuesday, September 6, 2016
Kids and Gaming
I won't be able to run my game this week, so I figured I would fill the time with more geeky life observations.
I've had the joy of having kids at my encounters table. Beyond that, I also am participating in a D&D game primarily to teach my friend Sheldon's teenagers and their friends the game. I've also recently begun teaching my nieces D&D.
First and foremost, any adult geek with kids in their life not trying to pass on the geeky goodness is doing it wrong. We've come a long way. Michael Stackpole is allowed to write novels instead of essays about how gaming isn't Satanic and doesn't cause psychotic breaks from reality. A cast member of Firefly is a regular in Disney movies. Monte Cook even co-designed a game specifically for introducing pre-schoolers to role-playing.
But there's still a distance to cover. It doesn't help that online games are filled with racist and sexist commentary and that Gamergate was a thing. Companies that put out freemium video games designed to make money on microtransactions certainly can help turn parents and grandparents away from letting their kids game. Last but not least, it doesn't help that so many kids' "games" available in mainstream toy stores don't really have any game play. They just have the "players" generate a random result and move a token around a board with bright, pretty colors.
The best games, of course, teach. Here, I'm defining actual game play as a situation where the player is faced with a limited number of almost always sub-optimal decisions, and the choices have consequences for that player's outcome. This definition is vague enough that almost anything could be made into a game. Indeed, games have been made about almost every experience imaginable. But two real key components are the decisions and the outcomes.
Part of growing up is learning that you have to make choices, and sometimes you won't like everything on the list you have to chose from, but that making those choices will have an effect on your life. That's why a good game is life in a nutshell. And why a kids' game that involves rolling a die and drawing a card and then moving a pawn around a board according to that random result is terrible. My nieces figured out that Candyland and Chutes and Ladders were (language alert, youngsters) bullshit pretty quickly.
Aside from that important life lesson, what else do we want games to help us teach? Any game that offers a random outcome as part of the decision-making process can help teach math skills. More importantly, it can teach probability, a subject people are pretty stupid about if the money made by casinos and lotteries is any indication.
Any game that teaches verbal skills is important. And not just Scrabble, but one of the joys of a game like D&D is coming to a description including a teachable vocabulary word: crenelation, censer, or gazebo, and pausing to tell the kids what the word means.
Last, but not least, the best games are social. In our increasingly online social environments, it's important to expose kids to activities that require them to meet other people in person and interact with them. There's definitely a few parents out there going: "What about sports?" Not every kid likes sports. Not every kid is good at sports. And those kids deserve a chance for healthy human interaction, too.
But these are the great moments when playing an RPG with kids. I've seen it a few times, and the first is that look of glee when they realize that they can have their character literally do almost anything. Frequently they'll do something they know will be disruptive to the other players at that point. However, they soon discover the consequences: the other players won't want to play with them anymore, and this is a game that they need to play with other people. So they start amending their actions. Usually, they're still looking for ways to push in their own direction, but they begin to understand why compromise and working with a team is better.
If, as a DM, I can foster that sense of the importance of teamwork in at least one kid gaming at my table, I think I've done my job.
I've had the joy of having kids at my encounters table. Beyond that, I also am participating in a D&D game primarily to teach my friend Sheldon's teenagers and their friends the game. I've also recently begun teaching my nieces D&D.
First and foremost, any adult geek with kids in their life not trying to pass on the geeky goodness is doing it wrong. We've come a long way. Michael Stackpole is allowed to write novels instead of essays about how gaming isn't Satanic and doesn't cause psychotic breaks from reality. A cast member of Firefly is a regular in Disney movies. Monte Cook even co-designed a game specifically for introducing pre-schoolers to role-playing.
But there's still a distance to cover. It doesn't help that online games are filled with racist and sexist commentary and that Gamergate was a thing. Companies that put out freemium video games designed to make money on microtransactions certainly can help turn parents and grandparents away from letting their kids game. Last but not least, it doesn't help that so many kids' "games" available in mainstream toy stores don't really have any game play. They just have the "players" generate a random result and move a token around a board with bright, pretty colors.
The best games, of course, teach. Here, I'm defining actual game play as a situation where the player is faced with a limited number of almost always sub-optimal decisions, and the choices have consequences for that player's outcome. This definition is vague enough that almost anything could be made into a game. Indeed, games have been made about almost every experience imaginable. But two real key components are the decisions and the outcomes.
Part of growing up is learning that you have to make choices, and sometimes you won't like everything on the list you have to chose from, but that making those choices will have an effect on your life. That's why a good game is life in a nutshell. And why a kids' game that involves rolling a die and drawing a card and then moving a pawn around a board according to that random result is terrible. My nieces figured out that Candyland and Chutes and Ladders were (language alert, youngsters) bullshit pretty quickly.
Aside from that important life lesson, what else do we want games to help us teach? Any game that offers a random outcome as part of the decision-making process can help teach math skills. More importantly, it can teach probability, a subject people are pretty stupid about if the money made by casinos and lotteries is any indication.
Any game that teaches verbal skills is important. And not just Scrabble, but one of the joys of a game like D&D is coming to a description including a teachable vocabulary word: crenelation, censer, or gazebo, and pausing to tell the kids what the word means.
Last, but not least, the best games are social. In our increasingly online social environments, it's important to expose kids to activities that require them to meet other people in person and interact with them. There's definitely a few parents out there going: "What about sports?" Not every kid likes sports. Not every kid is good at sports. And those kids deserve a chance for healthy human interaction, too.
But these are the great moments when playing an RPG with kids. I've seen it a few times, and the first is that look of glee when they realize that they can have their character literally do almost anything. Frequently they'll do something they know will be disruptive to the other players at that point. However, they soon discover the consequences: the other players won't want to play with them anymore, and this is a game that they need to play with other people. So they start amending their actions. Usually, they're still looking for ways to push in their own direction, but they begin to understand why compromise and working with a team is better.
If, as a DM, I can foster that sense of the importance of teamwork in at least one kid gaming at my table, I think I've done my job.
Sunday, September 4, 2016
Another Battle With Strahd
We had a new player: Ron, a friend of Alec's, who took up Simon. I'm pretty sure a character passing from player to player like that isn't Adventurer's League legal, but there's other things at our table that aren't. Plus, a pre-made character like that is a time saver.
The group decided to check out the bridge before taking a rest in the crumbling watch tower near the vrock-guarded gates. They were in for a surprise.
There was a black-cloaked rider on a flame-wreathed black horse. This was supposed to be an illusion the way the adventure was written. But I felt it was time for another dry run at the final boss. The party needed a chance to use their newly acquired artifacts.
Although the Count was cloaked, the mists of Barovia and the storms in the Tsolenka Pass more than adequately sheltered him from the natural sunlight. He was mounted on Beucelphas, his mount, a fiendish horse-like creature called a nightmare. (Get it? Because a "mare" is a horse?)
Mounted combat in 5e is...interesting, but I think I understand it. The mount and rider are still separate creatures, but whether the mount is an independent creature or not determines the mounts initiative and action options. Since nightmares are intelligent, Beucelphas acted on its own initiative and used its full complement of actions. This became important later.
Dry runs of a boss like this have one important role: they get you an idea of how the party will fare against the real thing. Strahd might need some beefing up. Lop used counterspell to stop Strahd's opening fireball. Next Sara moved in with the Sun Sword and Tathora moved in to summon actual sunlight using the Holy Symbol of Ravenkind. The PCs also finally learned why Strahd's enemy is helpful: they can grant a PC Inspiration as an action as long as Strahd is in sight. This proved to be a boon, allowing Tathora to make a save against blight. It also helped that the dice were, for once, in Kyla's favor and rolled low to begin with. I'm not sure if this has been a case of dice hating Kyla, or just hating clerics in particular. My cleric seemed to have the worst luck, too.
Cugel also used magic weapon on Amrus's weapon. A quick review of the Rogue sneak attack feature also revealed how powerful rogues have become in this edition: their sneak attack actually works more like pack tactics. As long as the rogue has an ally within 5 feet of target to get the bonus damage. There is no range limit on this! And since rogues no longer have to sit in the corner and cry during some fights (like against undead, for example), he managed to contribute with a longbow.
Even with Legendary resilience, they managed to get Strahd down to bloodied. There's a reason the party is encouraged to get the vampire fighting relics: they allow them to kick ass for the Morninglord. Of course, no good villain starts a fight without a contingency. In this case, Beucelphas, who the party mostly ignored (they still managed him, anyway!), used an etherealness feature to flee. I had set three timers on the fight: Strahd being bloodied, Beucelphas being bloodied, or 5 rounds. They managed to clear the first two by the third round!
I had expected the Strahd fight to take most of the night, but they had time to reach the Amber Temple, where they gained a milestone, finish leveling up, and start exploring the Amber Temple.
Creepy abandoned temples are a staple of D&D. The Amber Temple is in this tradition. It's even carved from the stone of the cliff, just so it looks like that temple they used in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.
Rather than taking the shmuck bait and walking right into the open main room, they spotted the arrow slits along the walls and decided to explore the other areas first. They found a group of camping barbarians being "minded" by a dire wolf. I do mean minded: wolves and dire wolves in Barovia are servants of Strahd, and this one growled at the barbarians when they considered not fighting. However, the aggressive dire wolf got dropped on the first round, and Amrus actually managed to use his Persuasion skill! Blake offered them a chance to leave peacefully with some wine. Amrus was on the floor when he made the offer, but Cugel had just filled the room with a cloudkill spell. I was surprised loot and kill happy Blake had bothered to put his Rogue expertise feature (doubling his proficiency bonus) to his Persuasion skill, but he did! And he beat the DC I set for the roll: 20. I have to say I was proud of the boy. He's learning some real role-playing.
We actually ran a little late, so when the barbarians departed with their secretly poisoned wine, we broke for the evening. Next time we join our heroes, they'll be delving further into the Amber Temple.
The group decided to check out the bridge before taking a rest in the crumbling watch tower near the vrock-guarded gates. They were in for a surprise.
There was a black-cloaked rider on a flame-wreathed black horse. This was supposed to be an illusion the way the adventure was written. But I felt it was time for another dry run at the final boss. The party needed a chance to use their newly acquired artifacts.
Although the Count was cloaked, the mists of Barovia and the storms in the Tsolenka Pass more than adequately sheltered him from the natural sunlight. He was mounted on Beucelphas, his mount, a fiendish horse-like creature called a nightmare. (Get it? Because a "mare" is a horse?)
Mounted combat in 5e is...interesting, but I think I understand it. The mount and rider are still separate creatures, but whether the mount is an independent creature or not determines the mounts initiative and action options. Since nightmares are intelligent, Beucelphas acted on its own initiative and used its full complement of actions. This became important later.
Dry runs of a boss like this have one important role: they get you an idea of how the party will fare against the real thing. Strahd might need some beefing up. Lop used counterspell to stop Strahd's opening fireball. Next Sara moved in with the Sun Sword and Tathora moved in to summon actual sunlight using the Holy Symbol of Ravenkind. The PCs also finally learned why Strahd's enemy is helpful: they can grant a PC Inspiration as an action as long as Strahd is in sight. This proved to be a boon, allowing Tathora to make a save against blight. It also helped that the dice were, for once, in Kyla's favor and rolled low to begin with. I'm not sure if this has been a case of dice hating Kyla, or just hating clerics in particular. My cleric seemed to have the worst luck, too.
Cugel also used magic weapon on Amrus's weapon. A quick review of the Rogue sneak attack feature also revealed how powerful rogues have become in this edition: their sneak attack actually works more like pack tactics. As long as the rogue has an ally within 5 feet of target to get the bonus damage. There is no range limit on this! And since rogues no longer have to sit in the corner and cry during some fights (like against undead, for example), he managed to contribute with a longbow.
Even with Legendary resilience, they managed to get Strahd down to bloodied. There's a reason the party is encouraged to get the vampire fighting relics: they allow them to kick ass for the Morninglord. Of course, no good villain starts a fight without a contingency. In this case, Beucelphas, who the party mostly ignored (they still managed him, anyway!), used an etherealness feature to flee. I had set three timers on the fight: Strahd being bloodied, Beucelphas being bloodied, or 5 rounds. They managed to clear the first two by the third round!
I had expected the Strahd fight to take most of the night, but they had time to reach the Amber Temple, where they gained a milestone, finish leveling up, and start exploring the Amber Temple.
Creepy abandoned temples are a staple of D&D. The Amber Temple is in this tradition. It's even carved from the stone of the cliff, just so it looks like that temple they used in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.
Rather than taking the shmuck bait and walking right into the open main room, they spotted the arrow slits along the walls and decided to explore the other areas first. They found a group of camping barbarians being "minded" by a dire wolf. I do mean minded: wolves and dire wolves in Barovia are servants of Strahd, and this one growled at the barbarians when they considered not fighting. However, the aggressive dire wolf got dropped on the first round, and Amrus actually managed to use his Persuasion skill! Blake offered them a chance to leave peacefully with some wine. Amrus was on the floor when he made the offer, but Cugel had just filled the room with a cloudkill spell. I was surprised loot and kill happy Blake had bothered to put his Rogue expertise feature (doubling his proficiency bonus) to his Persuasion skill, but he did! And he beat the DC I set for the roll: 20. I have to say I was proud of the boy. He's learning some real role-playing.
We actually ran a little late, so when the barbarians departed with their secretly poisoned wine, we broke for the evening. Next time we join our heroes, they'll be delving further into the Amber Temple.
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