Since I began playing D&D again last year, I've wondered how (or if) music could be used to set a particular scene, establish a mood, or achieve some other effect during a role-playing session. I haven't made up my mind yet. Two recent experiences with music in my campaign couldn't have been more different.
The first was entirely organic. It grew out of the events in the game, and I had nothing to do with it. Three sessions ago, the players executed a brilliant plan that involved attacking a heavily guarded and fortified house in the middle of an ancient city--Olynthus Kios for those of you who read my session report from last week. The city itself was engulfed in a three-way war, and the house was crawling with heavily armed lizard folk. The players had to figure out how to get into the house, which hid the secrets they were searching for. They took quite a while developing their plan and then executed it flawlessly. As events unfolded, their attack came to resemble a commando assault against an enemy headquarters. It probably wouldn't have played out all that differently had the PCs been Navy SEALs armed with assault rifles and rockets rather than quasi-medieval adventurers with swords and fireballs. During the middle of all this, one of the players pulled out his phone and started playing the theme from The A-Team. It was perfect! The plan had indeed come together, and nothing was more appropriate than playing that song at that moment. (Here's a reminder: The A-Team)
The second experience wasn't as great. It occurred at the end of the session where the players had finally learned about Amalric, my campaign's Big Bad Guy. I had decided ahead of time to play Johnny Cash's neo-classic, "The Man Comes Around". This song often appears in movies and TV shows with an apocalyptic theme. For example, it shows up in the last episode of the first season of Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles and in the remake of The Dawn of the Dead. I thought playing it would give the players a visceral sense of just how bad Amalric was and how terrible things were likely to get before it was all over. It didn't work. I played the song at the end of the session. By that time, it was about 2:00 a.m., everybody wanted to go home, and we had already started packing up. The song made no impression on me nor, I suspect, on the players.
With those two experiences under my belt, I remain unsure what role, if any, music will play in my campaign in the future. I'd like to hear from others on this topic. Under what circumstances, if any, can music be used to good effect in RPGs? Does it depend on the kind of music? On the kind of RPG? Are there any other factors that could make a difference? I'd love to hear what people think about this.
Monday, September 29, 2014
Sunday, September 21, 2014
September 19, 2014 Session Report--We Have A Long Way To Go
As I said in my immediately preceding post, the group got together this past Friday, September 19, 2014. We had a great session.
I have not previously described on this blog any of the gaming sessions nor explained my campaign's backstory. Without going into too much detail, I'll do so now.
The campaign is set in the Grey Box Forgotten Realms. For purposes of this campaign, I have ignored everything that came after 1987-e.g., Drizzt, the Spellplague, the Sundering, the whole nine yards. None of it ever happened. The campaign began last year with the PCs exploring my reworked version of the Caves of Chaos from that classic module, The Keep on the Borderlands. Castle Crag, just north of Arabel in the Kingdom of Cormyr, stood in for the eponymous Keep. I located the Caves of Chaos in the Gnoll Pass just to the north of Castle Crag.
At the end of that first adventure, the PCs learned that the Caves' evil high priest, a treacherous cur named Merek, was working for some puppet master named "Amalric". The priest's (incomplete) journal, an evil-looking orb, and Merek's other personal effects revealed that Merek had first encountered this Amalric somewhere deep within the Spiderhaunt Wood.
Naturally, the PCs followed this clue to the Spiderhaunt. Before leaving, they researched various legends and tales about the Wood in the usual way by conferring with sages, visiting taverns, etc. These sources revealed that the Spiderhaunt might hide terrible secrets better left alone. The doughty PCs ignored all this, of course, and set out.
(One brief word about the party. It consists of a fighter, a ranger, a magic-user, a monk, a cleric, and a druid. All the PCs are currently fifth level except for the druid, who is sixth. Although the group originally had a halfling, he was torn apart by zombies in the first adventure. The PCs are now all human.)
In the session before last, the PCs discovered that the Spiderhaunt Wood hid the ruins of a vast human civilization that fell over 10,000 years ago. This civilization's capital city, Olynthus Kios, stood on the shores of a great lake located deep within the Spiderhaunt. The city itself (which was surrounded by a strange shimmering sphere of force) was a battleground between various factions of gnolls, lizard men, and giant spiders. They all appeared to have been placed there to fight for some unknown purpose. Faced with this situation, the PCs concocted a masterful plan that enabled them to successfully assault the largest building in the city, which the lizard men were using as their base of operations. (It was this plan that led one of the players to play the theme from The A-Team that I mentioned in my last post.)
In the session before Friday's, the PCs discovered a dungeon beneath this main house. They explored the dungeon obviously and learned that it actually existed in some strange, shadowy demi-plane. They fought a variety of monsters and eventually discovered that it was being used as a prison for a paladin named Gawain.They released Gawain after defeating a demonic guardian. Gawain told them that his former party (which had included Merek) had inadvertently released this Amalric from the very prison in which Gawain was bound. Ten thousand years before, Amalric had led this ancient human civilization, known as the Olynthians, in a genocidal war against the elves and their allies. The Olynthians lost. The elves defeated the Olynthians, burned their cities, and imprisoned Amalric (who had given his soul to the god Apophis to become both the Realms' first vampire and a high priest and wizard of unimaginable power). After his release, Amalric corrupted Gawain's party (except for Gawain himself) and sent them out to foment who knows what kind of chaos--all in an effort to revenge himself upon the elves and raise the human race once again to its rightful place as first among all Faerun's intelligent species.
It was at this point that this past Friday's gaming session opened. With Gawain in tow, the party took a considerable amount of time just getting out of the dungeon. (The one player who usually draws the map hasn't been able to attend for some time. This meant that everyone else just sort of had to wing it.) In the process of finding their way out, the party defeated a githyanki anti-paladin and retraced their steps more than once. The magic-user also got doused by a jet of boiling acid when he decided to check out a blank wall that served as the apparent dead end of a long, meandering hall. Unfortunately, he missed his saving throw and took 14 hit points of damage--more than half his total. His robe was also ruined. Since he was now half-nude, the other players naturally poked fun at the magic-user--despite the fact that they had originally suggested that he check the wall for secret doors in the first place. Nothing like true friends to stick by you in a pinch.
Anyway, the party eventually found its way out of the dungeon. (Gawain did not go with them. Although he did not know it, he was actually dead. Amalric had killed him and turned him into a shade, unable to leave the dungeon. Gawain vanished in agony just as the other party members were climbing up into the light.)
The PCs exited the city without incident and set off out into the Spiderhaunt. Before he was destroyed, Gawain had showed them how to use the orb they had found in Merek's possession. It revealed the current locations of four of the members of Gawain's party. The PCs decided to follow a fighter who had set off for who knows what purpose deep into the heart of Anauroch, The Great Desert. Unlike their original, far more exciting trip through the Spiderhaunt, the PCs had only one random encounter with some skeletons along the way. After the critters they'd encountered in Olynthus Kios and its dungeon, these skeletons were no problem at all. The group emerged from the forest to rendezvous with a couple of men-at-arms whom their patron had originally hired to guard their horses. (These guys had refused to go into the Spiderhaunt for obvious reasons, but had nonetheless waited faithfully for their employers to return.)
The PCs then decided to head to Dagger Falls to re-equip themselves for their long journey into The Great Desert. Along the road, they encountered (again randomly) a huge merchant caravan of over 300 people on its way to Arabel in Cormyr. Virtually a traveling city in itself, the caravan had everything the PCs needed for their trip--barrels for water, provisions, equipment, and a new robe for the magic-user. After spending a couple of days with the caravan, the PCs set off in the direction that the orb suggested they go.
The session ended with another random encounter. The PCs took out a party of twelve hobgoblins in the narrow pass between the Desertmouth Mountains and the Border Forest. As with the skeletons, these hobgoblins were no match for the PCs, who eliminated the hobgoblins with relative ease. Of course, The Great Desert, with all its monsters and other terrors, awaits them and will certainly prove a far greater challenge.
Although the PCs did not defeat any boss monsters or acquire any shining treasure hoard this time around, everyone still had fun, and the two new players added an extra element of excitement and camaraderie.
All in all, it was a great time.
I have not previously described on this blog any of the gaming sessions nor explained my campaign's backstory. Without going into too much detail, I'll do so now.
The campaign is set in the Grey Box Forgotten Realms. For purposes of this campaign, I have ignored everything that came after 1987-e.g., Drizzt, the Spellplague, the Sundering, the whole nine yards. None of it ever happened. The campaign began last year with the PCs exploring my reworked version of the Caves of Chaos from that classic module, The Keep on the Borderlands. Castle Crag, just north of Arabel in the Kingdom of Cormyr, stood in for the eponymous Keep. I located the Caves of Chaos in the Gnoll Pass just to the north of Castle Crag.
At the end of that first adventure, the PCs learned that the Caves' evil high priest, a treacherous cur named Merek, was working for some puppet master named "Amalric". The priest's (incomplete) journal, an evil-looking orb, and Merek's other personal effects revealed that Merek had first encountered this Amalric somewhere deep within the Spiderhaunt Wood.
Naturally, the PCs followed this clue to the Spiderhaunt. Before leaving, they researched various legends and tales about the Wood in the usual way by conferring with sages, visiting taverns, etc. These sources revealed that the Spiderhaunt might hide terrible secrets better left alone. The doughty PCs ignored all this, of course, and set out.
(One brief word about the party. It consists of a fighter, a ranger, a magic-user, a monk, a cleric, and a druid. All the PCs are currently fifth level except for the druid, who is sixth. Although the group originally had a halfling, he was torn apart by zombies in the first adventure. The PCs are now all human.)
In the session before last, the PCs discovered that the Spiderhaunt Wood hid the ruins of a vast human civilization that fell over 10,000 years ago. This civilization's capital city, Olynthus Kios, stood on the shores of a great lake located deep within the Spiderhaunt. The city itself (which was surrounded by a strange shimmering sphere of force) was a battleground between various factions of gnolls, lizard men, and giant spiders. They all appeared to have been placed there to fight for some unknown purpose. Faced with this situation, the PCs concocted a masterful plan that enabled them to successfully assault the largest building in the city, which the lizard men were using as their base of operations. (It was this plan that led one of the players to play the theme from The A-Team that I mentioned in my last post.)
In the session before Friday's, the PCs discovered a dungeon beneath this main house. They explored the dungeon obviously and learned that it actually existed in some strange, shadowy demi-plane. They fought a variety of monsters and eventually discovered that it was being used as a prison for a paladin named Gawain.They released Gawain after defeating a demonic guardian. Gawain told them that his former party (which had included Merek) had inadvertently released this Amalric from the very prison in which Gawain was bound. Ten thousand years before, Amalric had led this ancient human civilization, known as the Olynthians, in a genocidal war against the elves and their allies. The Olynthians lost. The elves defeated the Olynthians, burned their cities, and imprisoned Amalric (who had given his soul to the god Apophis to become both the Realms' first vampire and a high priest and wizard of unimaginable power). After his release, Amalric corrupted Gawain's party (except for Gawain himself) and sent them out to foment who knows what kind of chaos--all in an effort to revenge himself upon the elves and raise the human race once again to its rightful place as first among all Faerun's intelligent species.
It was at this point that this past Friday's gaming session opened. With Gawain in tow, the party took a considerable amount of time just getting out of the dungeon. (The one player who usually draws the map hasn't been able to attend for some time. This meant that everyone else just sort of had to wing it.) In the process of finding their way out, the party defeated a githyanki anti-paladin and retraced their steps more than once. The magic-user also got doused by a jet of boiling acid when he decided to check out a blank wall that served as the apparent dead end of a long, meandering hall. Unfortunately, he missed his saving throw and took 14 hit points of damage--more than half his total. His robe was also ruined. Since he was now half-nude, the other players naturally poked fun at the magic-user--despite the fact that they had originally suggested that he check the wall for secret doors in the first place. Nothing like true friends to stick by you in a pinch.
Anyway, the party eventually found its way out of the dungeon. (Gawain did not go with them. Although he did not know it, he was actually dead. Amalric had killed him and turned him into a shade, unable to leave the dungeon. Gawain vanished in agony just as the other party members were climbing up into the light.)
The PCs exited the city without incident and set off out into the Spiderhaunt. Before he was destroyed, Gawain had showed them how to use the orb they had found in Merek's possession. It revealed the current locations of four of the members of Gawain's party. The PCs decided to follow a fighter who had set off for who knows what purpose deep into the heart of Anauroch, The Great Desert. Unlike their original, far more exciting trip through the Spiderhaunt, the PCs had only one random encounter with some skeletons along the way. After the critters they'd encountered in Olynthus Kios and its dungeon, these skeletons were no problem at all. The group emerged from the forest to rendezvous with a couple of men-at-arms whom their patron had originally hired to guard their horses. (These guys had refused to go into the Spiderhaunt for obvious reasons, but had nonetheless waited faithfully for their employers to return.)
The PCs then decided to head to Dagger Falls to re-equip themselves for their long journey into The Great Desert. Along the road, they encountered (again randomly) a huge merchant caravan of over 300 people on its way to Arabel in Cormyr. Virtually a traveling city in itself, the caravan had everything the PCs needed for their trip--barrels for water, provisions, equipment, and a new robe for the magic-user. After spending a couple of days with the caravan, the PCs set off in the direction that the orb suggested they go.
The session ended with another random encounter. The PCs took out a party of twelve hobgoblins in the narrow pass between the Desertmouth Mountains and the Border Forest. As with the skeletons, these hobgoblins were no match for the PCs, who eliminated the hobgoblins with relative ease. Of course, The Great Desert, with all its monsters and other terrors, awaits them and will certainly prove a far greater challenge.
Although the PCs did not defeat any boss monsters or acquire any shining treasure hoard this time around, everyone still had fun, and the two new players added an extra element of excitement and camaraderie.
All in all, it was a great time.
Is There an Optimal Number of Players?
The group got together this past Friday. We had a great session.
What I found especially rewarding was that we had six players! One old hand who hadn't been there for a while returned, and we had two new guys show up--including one who had never played D&D before. Everyone seemed to have a great time. Since the party in this campaign consists of six characters, each person played just one character and did not have to divide his attention among two or more.
This was a switch from our last two or three sessions. For some time now, we've only managed to get three players together. Now, we've had some awesome sessions with these three. (One such adventure ended with a player blasting the theme from The A-Team on his phone. At the time, nothing else captured the sheer brilliance with which the party had conceived and executed their plan of action.) Still, having six players added some real excitement and energy that I as the GM found especially invigorating.
This leads me to a question. What is the optimum number of players for a D&D campaign? Three? Five? Seven? Ten? I'd like to know what people think. I'm not sure myself. Now I know it's not one. Unlike some RPGs, D&D is not well-suited for play with just one player and one GM. And, although I've never had this problem myself, I could certainly see how too many players could get unwieldy. So what's the sweet spot, if there is one?
P.S. This question addresses how many players are optimal, not how many characters. That's a related question, but it's not precisely the same. I may solicit thoughts about that later.
What I found especially rewarding was that we had six players! One old hand who hadn't been there for a while returned, and we had two new guys show up--including one who had never played D&D before. Everyone seemed to have a great time. Since the party in this campaign consists of six characters, each person played just one character and did not have to divide his attention among two or more.
This was a switch from our last two or three sessions. For some time now, we've only managed to get three players together. Now, we've had some awesome sessions with these three. (One such adventure ended with a player blasting the theme from The A-Team on his phone. At the time, nothing else captured the sheer brilliance with which the party had conceived and executed their plan of action.) Still, having six players added some real excitement and energy that I as the GM found especially invigorating.
This leads me to a question. What is the optimum number of players for a D&D campaign? Three? Five? Seven? Ten? I'd like to know what people think. I'm not sure myself. Now I know it's not one. Unlike some RPGs, D&D is not well-suited for play with just one player and one GM. And, although I've never had this problem myself, I could certainly see how too many players could get unwieldy. So what's the sweet spot, if there is one?
P.S. This question addresses how many players are optimal, not how many characters. That's a related question, but it's not precisely the same. I may solicit thoughts about that later.
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