As a general rule, I don't really like conventions. I've only been to handful of these mass gatherings of humanity, and most of my experiences haven't been all that positive. For one example, I went to a Star Trek convention once and hated it. It cost $25 to get in the door--in 1991! And, once you were in, there was nothing to do except walk around, buy stuff, gawk at the weirdos, and marvel at Jonathan Frakes' aplomb when answering crazy questions from the audience. (Query: How does Geordie see through his visor? Frakes: Well, when LeVar doesn't have a closeup shot, he uses a see-through version that sort of fits over his face. But that won't work for closeups because his eyes would get into the shot... Query: No. I mean how does Geordie the character see through the visor. Frakes: Umm. Uh. I think it has something to do with light particles. It's just "tech" in the script....)
In other words, that convention sucked.
While unique in its awfulness, that long-ago Star Trek brouhaha was pretty much par-for-the-course as far as my experiences at conventions went. They just weren't all that fun. The fact that I've lived in Houston since 2002 and have never attended the Houston Livestock Show & Rodeo should tell you something about my general attitude toward conventions.
However, I don't feel the same way about gaming conventions. Maybe it's because games are a hobby of mine. Or maybe it's because, at a gaming convention, you're actually there to DO something besides buy a bunch of junk in the exhibition hall and watch celebrities make a quick buck. Or, maybe I've just had good experiences so far. In any case, I've always enjoyed the (admittedly) rather limited number of gaming conventions I've attended. Indeed, my experience at GenCon in 2011 was a catalyst for my renewed interest in role-playing games in general.
One convention where I always have a good time is right here in Houston: OwlCon. OwlCon is held every year in February at Rice University. I really like it. It's big enough to have many different gaming options, but small enough that the attendees don't get lost in the shuffle. I've been going since 2013. This year, I signed up to GM two role-playing sessions--one on Friday, February 6, and the other on Saturday, February 7. I ran an AD&D 1e/OSRIC mini-adventure for six characters of levels 5 through 7. I had an outstanding time. I won't go into too much detail here about the actual sessions because I intend to reuse some of the encounters in the OwlCon adventure later on in my own campaign. Recycling isn't just a good idea for empty milk cartons and newspapers, after all.
I will say this, though. I loved watching the two groups of players devise different strategies for the same set of problems while, at the same time, responding to the inevitable randomness generated by the dice. For instance, on Friday night, I had a full complement of six players. They were a fun-loving, fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants group that spent only a little time scouting out the situation before they barreled in. They managed to accomplish about two-thirds of the adventure's goals, but had a great time doing it. In one encounter, a vampire boss managed to charm one of the PCs after he missed his saving throw. That unfortunate result led to a hilarious situation in which the vampire ordered the charmed PC to give his neighbor a big, sloppy hug and otherwise get in his way during the ensuing battle. Everyone had a good laugh at that one.
By contrast, the Saturday night group was smaller--only four players--and far more methodical. They laid out a strategy ahead of time, executed it, and completed the entire adventure and all its goals by the end of the evening. They planned the work and worked the plan, as you might say. As a smaller group, they weren't as animated as the players on Friday, but they still seemed to enjoy themselves. I particularly liked the fact that one of the players on Saturday, though an experienced role-player, had never played 1st Edition before. I found it gratifying to introduce a game to someone who (I suspect) was probably born around the same time that 1st Edition AD&D reached the zenith of its popularity in the early 1980s.
In all, it was a great experience. I really enjoyed the OwlCon sessions. It was a real change of pace, and I think the experience--especially learning how to run a game for people other than my usual group--will make me a better GM.
I'd now like to know what everyone else thinks. Have you ever attended a gaming convention? How was the experience? What did you like? What did you not like? Would you ever go again? Leave a comment.
Monday, February 16, 2015
Monday, January 12, 2015
How Much Complexity?
Over the last two months or so, I've been reading the new rulebook for Icons: The Assembled Edition. When it comes to this game, a picture really is worth a thousand words:
I like Icons. I decided to pick it up because I wanted a role-playing game that I could play with my two children. I have an 11-year old girl and a 9-year old boy. They know I play Dungeons & Dragons with my buddies and have expressed an interest in it. However, I wasn't so sure that AD&D/OSRIC 1e, with its sword-play and (relatively) realistic violence, would be the best fit for them--especially for the girl. (She's sensitive.)
Instead, I decided that a light-hearted superhero game would be better. After looking around, I settled on Icons. After reading through it, it seems to be just what the doctor ordered. The rules are simple and straightforward. There are only a limited number of powers and options. The combat system is fast-moving and abstract. And the tone is light--more Teen Titans Go! than The Dark Knight. I'm cautiously optimistic that I can get a game going for my kids by summer. (Icons is available from Green Ronin here: Icons)
However, Icons is not a game for someone who desires "realism" in his or her role-playing experience. (Admittedly, realism is an elusive concept in a game genre in which people can fly around and shoot laser beams from their eyes.) Still, compared to, say, Green Ronin's DC Adventures (which I also have), Icons is bare-bones and requires the GM to make up a lot of stuff along the way. Great for some people, but not for everyone.
I mention Icons here because just last week I took a look at a game that would seem to be its polar opposite--at least in terms of game design. That game is Chivalry & Sorcery: The Rebirth (4th Edition).
Ordinarily, I would never have given this game a second thought. I only picked it up because it was free and I had received an e-mail from Drive Thru RPG telling me about it. I love free stuff. How could I turn it down? (If you want a copy, here's the link: Chivalry & Sorcery 4th Edition.) Apparently, C&S is an old game. The first edition was published in 1977 by Fantasy Games Unlimited. I never played C&S back in the day, or, frankly, even knew it existed. Based on what I've read about it since getting this new edition, though, C&S has apparently long occupied a particular niche in the RPG world. It was the fantasy game for the RPG enthusiast who thought AD&D wasn't realistic enough and craved, well, more. More rules. More realism. More character options. Just more....
This new version provides that in spades. Consisting of three volumes, it includes rules for damn-near everything. Character creation looks like it could take hours, and I can't imagine trying to conduct combat using its mechanics. C&S also has an entirely different and far more complicated magic system. It makes AD&D's Jack Vance-inspired spells look like childs' play.
C&S does have some interesting ideas. You can create just about any sort of medieval character you can imagine and can outfit him or her to the n-th degree of detail. It also looks like a GM could tailor his or her magic system to a low or high magic setting or to anything in between. And, C&S provides expansively detailed descriptions of the class and social structure of medieval Europe. Unlike AD&D with its never-was-worlds drawn from such scattered literary sources as J.R.R. Tolkein, Fritz Leiber, and Robert E. Howard, C&S assumes that the preferred campaign setting will closely resemble Western Europe in the High Middle Ages in most respects.
Nevertheless, despite these and some other interesting notions, I must say that I would never play this. C&S is just too much. I don't want my hobby to turn into one more chore. Life is too short.
In sum, Icons and C&S would seem to occupy two ends of the complexity spectrum in RPG design. One is straightforward and clear, but it might be too abstract and rules-lite for some people. The other is obsessively detailed, has rules covering everything, and promises a sort of hard-core "wargamer" experience for the guy who's played everything and wants a real challenge. I'd like to think that AD&D (especially OSRIC) falls somewhere between these two.
So, here's my question. How much complexity do you want in role-playing games? Is there ever too much? Ever too little? Is there a Goldilocks approach that's just right? Or, is complexity just one of many factors worth considering when you decide to play a particular game? Are there any RPGs that do a particularly good job balancing realism, complexity and playability? Let me know what you think.
I like Icons. I decided to pick it up because I wanted a role-playing game that I could play with my two children. I have an 11-year old girl and a 9-year old boy. They know I play Dungeons & Dragons with my buddies and have expressed an interest in it. However, I wasn't so sure that AD&D/OSRIC 1e, with its sword-play and (relatively) realistic violence, would be the best fit for them--especially for the girl. (She's sensitive.)
Instead, I decided that a light-hearted superhero game would be better. After looking around, I settled on Icons. After reading through it, it seems to be just what the doctor ordered. The rules are simple and straightforward. There are only a limited number of powers and options. The combat system is fast-moving and abstract. And the tone is light--more Teen Titans Go! than The Dark Knight. I'm cautiously optimistic that I can get a game going for my kids by summer. (Icons is available from Green Ronin here: Icons)
However, Icons is not a game for someone who desires "realism" in his or her role-playing experience. (Admittedly, realism is an elusive concept in a game genre in which people can fly around and shoot laser beams from their eyes.) Still, compared to, say, Green Ronin's DC Adventures (which I also have), Icons is bare-bones and requires the GM to make up a lot of stuff along the way. Great for some people, but not for everyone.
I mention Icons here because just last week I took a look at a game that would seem to be its polar opposite--at least in terms of game design. That game is Chivalry & Sorcery: The Rebirth (4th Edition).
This new version provides that in spades. Consisting of three volumes, it includes rules for damn-near everything. Character creation looks like it could take hours, and I can't imagine trying to conduct combat using its mechanics. C&S also has an entirely different and far more complicated magic system. It makes AD&D's Jack Vance-inspired spells look like childs' play.
C&S does have some interesting ideas. You can create just about any sort of medieval character you can imagine and can outfit him or her to the n-th degree of detail. It also looks like a GM could tailor his or her magic system to a low or high magic setting or to anything in between. And, C&S provides expansively detailed descriptions of the class and social structure of medieval Europe. Unlike AD&D with its never-was-worlds drawn from such scattered literary sources as J.R.R. Tolkein, Fritz Leiber, and Robert E. Howard, C&S assumes that the preferred campaign setting will closely resemble Western Europe in the High Middle Ages in most respects.
Nevertheless, despite these and some other interesting notions, I must say that I would never play this. C&S is just too much. I don't want my hobby to turn into one more chore. Life is too short.
In sum, Icons and C&S would seem to occupy two ends of the complexity spectrum in RPG design. One is straightforward and clear, but it might be too abstract and rules-lite for some people. The other is obsessively detailed, has rules covering everything, and promises a sort of hard-core "wargamer" experience for the guy who's played everything and wants a real challenge. I'd like to think that AD&D (especially OSRIC) falls somewhere between these two.
So, here's my question. How much complexity do you want in role-playing games? Is there ever too much? Ever too little? Is there a Goldilocks approach that's just right? Or, is complexity just one of many factors worth considering when you decide to play a particular game? Are there any RPGs that do a particularly good job balancing realism, complexity and playability? Let me know what you think.
Saturday, January 3, 2015
December 12, 2014 Session Report: That Was a Close One
Over the last two sessions, a gnawing anxiety has been growing in my gut. Am I making it too easy for my players? Is my campaign becoming a cakewalk with no real danger? The evidence is mounting. In our October outing, the PCs cut through 3 hill giants (8 HD monsters!) and 10 ogres like a hot knife through butter. Before that, they vanquished a githyanki anti-paladin and a Type II demon without a scratch. This worries me. Now, it's possible that my players are awesome strategists who work well together and know how to plan their battles. Knowing them as I do, this is a distinct possibility. They are outstanding players.
On the other hand, what if instead I'm turning into that most dreaded of DM archetypes: the munchkin master? Have I become that guy who runs the sort of "Monty-Haul" campaign that the Great Gygax warned us about in the original AD&D Dungeon Masters Guide--a game where "god-like characters boast and strut about" with magic items "adorning them as if they were Christmas trees decked out with tinsel and ornaments." I sincerely hope not.
Wanting to avoid this terrible fate, I redoubled my efforts to make life a little tougher on the players this time around. Although I didn't set out to kill everyone, I did want to shake things up a little.
The December 12, 2014 session opened with the players interrogating the patrol survivor from the last session. Theodric had cast Charm Person on this guy, and the PCs used that very powerful spell to very good effect. Named William, this gentleman explained that Jacob, a skilled fighter and member of Gawain's original party, had led a small army of humans, hobgoblins and other ruffians into the abandoned city of Neustria well over a year ago. Since then, these unsavory fellows had used teams of enslaved humans, elves and other demi-humans to conduct huge, Indiana Jones-style excavations all over the city. When asked what Jacob was looking for in the ruins, William pleaded ignorance. All he knew was that Jacob hadn't found it. William also gave the players the general layout of Neustria, described the defenses and patrol schedules, and generally provided the players with outstanding intelligence that they couldn't have found anywhere else.
All this information led to a lengthy discussion among the players about how to approach the city, how to get in, what to do when they got there, and so on. Eventually, the four players who were in attendance--we were missing a few regulars that night--decided to walk up to the front gate at around dusk and pretend to be the members of William's lost patrol. William had explained that he knew who the lieutenant on duty was likely to be and that he could probably stall this dude long enough for Theodric to cast Charm Person on him too. The party could then convince the lieutenant to let them into the city.
That's just what the players did. They approached the city from the south and arrived right at dusk. It was just as William had described it. The city had a huge 100' wall made of black granite that sported 150' towers along its length every 200 yards or so. The city looked out over a vast canyon to the north and the trackless desert to the south. And again, just as William had said, the lieutenant and his men were guarding the city gate. Theodric cast Charm Person while William talked to them. The lieutenant missed his saving throw and promptly led the PCs into the city, convinced that they were William's patrol.
Inside, the ancient, long-abandoned city was mostly in ruins. The only new structures were the many prison camps recently built by Jacob's men. These housed hundreds of slaves and guards each. Faced with searching an entire city, the PCs decided that the direct approach was the best--i.e., look for Jacob and then either kill him (along with his guards) or interrogate him and then kill him. Since William had said that Jacob's entourage visited the different encampments regularly, the PCs decided to start searching the various camps, using William as a guide. The first couple of encampments turned up nothing but hundreds of slaves and scores of ogre guards.
Things turned really interesting, however, when the PCs blundered into Ludtz, a 15' tall, Fomorian giant, and his buddy Fenris, a massive worg. The primary night guardsman for the city, Ludtz was not so easily gulled as the lieutenant. After a brief, failed attempt at guile, the PCs attacked him. Despite immediately rolling a natural 1 and dropping his flail, Ludtz fought hard. The PCs killed him after a few rounds, but not before he pounded Eirik a couple of times with his fists for 16 hp of damage each. Fenris also got in a few good licks. He grabbed the monk Zhuo Xuan in his jaws early on and didn't let go. Fenris used Zhuo as his personal chew-toy for a couple of rounds until the fighters finally killed the wily old worg. Although Zhuo never lost consciousness, he was reduced to just a couple of hit points. Interestingly, despite all the commotion, no one else in the city ever heard what was going on thanks to Peyton's quick thinking. He had cast Silence 15' Radius in the second round. This fight was easily the toughest the players had had in a couple of sessions. Maybe I wasn't such an easy DM after all!
Anyway, after the battle, the PCs decided to find a place to rest and recuperate for the night. Looking for Jacob's camp in the dark was a lost cause, and, with the party so beat up, they couldn't have fought Jacob and his guards even if they had managed to find him. After applying multiple healing spells and potions, the PCs went to sleep inside an abandoned building.
The next morning, the city was in an uproar. Ludtz's and Fenris's bodies had been found. The players used the general chaos to quickly search two other encampments in the city. They hit pay dirt with the second. They found a huge, 100'x100' tent in the center of it. William confirmed that this was Jacob's tent. The PCs approached the fighters standing guard outside it. They explained that they had important news for Jacob about potential intruders in the city. The guards ushered them inside.
As the PCs expected, Jacob was there. Reclining on a lavish throne, he was a huge man with black armor and a massive sword. At his immediate right stood a stern-looking fellow with a mace and three black-robed acolytes. This was Robert, a Chaotic Evil cleric and Jacob's spiritual adviser. Four slave girls--including one particularly beautiful blonde--sprawled on velvet cushions in front of the men. Ten other fighters stood guard around the tent's corners.
Jacob started interrogating the PCs the minute they walked in. He was even less impressed with their lies than Ludtz. Jacob quickly suspected that they were not telling him the truth--a suspicion confirmed when Theodric started casting a Fireball. Reacting immediately to this action, Jacob, an 11th level fighter, leaped off his throne and charged Eirik, striking him with his sword. The slave girls panicked--all except for the pretty blonde. She dashed off to the right side of the tent. Robert and his acolytes also moved away in that same general direction. The guards attacked, and a chaotic melee ensued.
The first round see-sawed back-and-forth. Theodric's Fireball never went off. He was struck before he could finish casting it, and the spell was spoiled. On the other hand, the druid, Endenown, cast Summon Insects on Jacob, immobilizing him. An enraged Eirik and Toran used this opportunity to cut Jacob to pieces: he lost nearly 2/3 of his hit points. At the same time, Zhao smartly pulled out his Dust of Disappearance, vanished, and made a beeline for the evil clerics. Peyton engaged a couple of the guards. Except for Theodric's spell, things still looked pretty good.
And then all hell broke loose. The PCs learned that the pretty blonde was not, in fact, a mere bed wench. On the contrary, she was Jacob's wife and closest adviser, a brilliant, 7th-level magic-user named Amelia. (She occasionally dressed as a slave girl both to please Jacob and to fool gullible visitors.) By the time the PCs had noticed that she was actually casting a spell from her current position, it was too late. She directed a 7d6 Fireball straight into the middle of the party. The result was spectacular. Despite making their saving throws, everyone except for Zhao was in the blast radius and sustained 18 hp of damage each. That was enough to put Theodric in negative-hp territory. He went down. Hard. The explosion also fried William, who was a mere 1st level fighter, and Jacob, who had already sustained serious injuries in his fight with Toran and Eirik. (Based on those injuries, Amelia had figured that Jacob was already dead.) The battle became even more interesting after she fired off another spell, a Web, in the next round and set it on fire. At this point, everyone except Zhao was seriously hurting. He continued to do the Lord's work by keeping Robert busy fighting an invisible foe. The fiery Web inflicted another 6 hp of damage on Theodric. He was now down to -7. Everyone else was still standing, but severely injured. They continued to fight the remaining guards.
Toran and Eirik soon broke through this scrum and engaged Amelia and Robert in hand-to-hand combat. Putting all thoughts of chivalry aside, Toran eventually ran her through, but not before she hit him in the face with several magic missiles. The rest of the party then took about four more rounds to finish off Robert, his acolytes and the remaining guards. Peyton, ever the good cleric, saved Theodric's life by casting Cure Light Wounds on him just before he nearly croaked. Unfortunately for poor Robert, he died without ever casting a single spell.
After the battle ended, the PCs searched the bodies. They found several magic items, but did not have time to inspect them. By then, it was late in the evening for me and the players. We called it a night.
I was satisfied with how this session ended. Though no one died, Theodric came close. Considering how tough their opponents were, the PCs might not have prevailed had they not used the expert teamwork I've come to expect. A few bad dice rolls, and everything could have ended in disaster. In any case, I doubt the players will underestimate their foes in the future the way they did Amelia this time around. They've learned that lesson. In all, I think this session struck the right balance between too easy and too tough.
I hope I can do it again next time.
On the other hand, what if instead I'm turning into that most dreaded of DM archetypes: the munchkin master? Have I become that guy who runs the sort of "Monty-Haul" campaign that the Great Gygax warned us about in the original AD&D Dungeon Masters Guide--a game where "god-like characters boast and strut about" with magic items "adorning them as if they were Christmas trees decked out with tinsel and ornaments." I sincerely hope not.
Wanting to avoid this terrible fate, I redoubled my efforts to make life a little tougher on the players this time around. Although I didn't set out to kill everyone, I did want to shake things up a little.
The December 12, 2014 session opened with the players interrogating the patrol survivor from the last session. Theodric had cast Charm Person on this guy, and the PCs used that very powerful spell to very good effect. Named William, this gentleman explained that Jacob, a skilled fighter and member of Gawain's original party, had led a small army of humans, hobgoblins and other ruffians into the abandoned city of Neustria well over a year ago. Since then, these unsavory fellows had used teams of enslaved humans, elves and other demi-humans to conduct huge, Indiana Jones-style excavations all over the city. When asked what Jacob was looking for in the ruins, William pleaded ignorance. All he knew was that Jacob hadn't found it. William also gave the players the general layout of Neustria, described the defenses and patrol schedules, and generally provided the players with outstanding intelligence that they couldn't have found anywhere else.
All this information led to a lengthy discussion among the players about how to approach the city, how to get in, what to do when they got there, and so on. Eventually, the four players who were in attendance--we were missing a few regulars that night--decided to walk up to the front gate at around dusk and pretend to be the members of William's lost patrol. William had explained that he knew who the lieutenant on duty was likely to be and that he could probably stall this dude long enough for Theodric to cast Charm Person on him too. The party could then convince the lieutenant to let them into the city.
That's just what the players did. They approached the city from the south and arrived right at dusk. It was just as William had described it. The city had a huge 100' wall made of black granite that sported 150' towers along its length every 200 yards or so. The city looked out over a vast canyon to the north and the trackless desert to the south. And again, just as William had said, the lieutenant and his men were guarding the city gate. Theodric cast Charm Person while William talked to them. The lieutenant missed his saving throw and promptly led the PCs into the city, convinced that they were William's patrol.
Inside, the ancient, long-abandoned city was mostly in ruins. The only new structures were the many prison camps recently built by Jacob's men. These housed hundreds of slaves and guards each. Faced with searching an entire city, the PCs decided that the direct approach was the best--i.e., look for Jacob and then either kill him (along with his guards) or interrogate him and then kill him. Since William had said that Jacob's entourage visited the different encampments regularly, the PCs decided to start searching the various camps, using William as a guide. The first couple of encampments turned up nothing but hundreds of slaves and scores of ogre guards.
Things turned really interesting, however, when the PCs blundered into Ludtz, a 15' tall, Fomorian giant, and his buddy Fenris, a massive worg. The primary night guardsman for the city, Ludtz was not so easily gulled as the lieutenant. After a brief, failed attempt at guile, the PCs attacked him. Despite immediately rolling a natural 1 and dropping his flail, Ludtz fought hard. The PCs killed him after a few rounds, but not before he pounded Eirik a couple of times with his fists for 16 hp of damage each. Fenris also got in a few good licks. He grabbed the monk Zhuo Xuan in his jaws early on and didn't let go. Fenris used Zhuo as his personal chew-toy for a couple of rounds until the fighters finally killed the wily old worg. Although Zhuo never lost consciousness, he was reduced to just a couple of hit points. Interestingly, despite all the commotion, no one else in the city ever heard what was going on thanks to Peyton's quick thinking. He had cast Silence 15' Radius in the second round. This fight was easily the toughest the players had had in a couple of sessions. Maybe I wasn't such an easy DM after all!
Anyway, after the battle, the PCs decided to find a place to rest and recuperate for the night. Looking for Jacob's camp in the dark was a lost cause, and, with the party so beat up, they couldn't have fought Jacob and his guards even if they had managed to find him. After applying multiple healing spells and potions, the PCs went to sleep inside an abandoned building.
The next morning, the city was in an uproar. Ludtz's and Fenris's bodies had been found. The players used the general chaos to quickly search two other encampments in the city. They hit pay dirt with the second. They found a huge, 100'x100' tent in the center of it. William confirmed that this was Jacob's tent. The PCs approached the fighters standing guard outside it. They explained that they had important news for Jacob about potential intruders in the city. The guards ushered them inside.
As the PCs expected, Jacob was there. Reclining on a lavish throne, he was a huge man with black armor and a massive sword. At his immediate right stood a stern-looking fellow with a mace and three black-robed acolytes. This was Robert, a Chaotic Evil cleric and Jacob's spiritual adviser. Four slave girls--including one particularly beautiful blonde--sprawled on velvet cushions in front of the men. Ten other fighters stood guard around the tent's corners.
Jacob started interrogating the PCs the minute they walked in. He was even less impressed with their lies than Ludtz. Jacob quickly suspected that they were not telling him the truth--a suspicion confirmed when Theodric started casting a Fireball. Reacting immediately to this action, Jacob, an 11th level fighter, leaped off his throne and charged Eirik, striking him with his sword. The slave girls panicked--all except for the pretty blonde. She dashed off to the right side of the tent. Robert and his acolytes also moved away in that same general direction. The guards attacked, and a chaotic melee ensued.
The first round see-sawed back-and-forth. Theodric's Fireball never went off. He was struck before he could finish casting it, and the spell was spoiled. On the other hand, the druid, Endenown, cast Summon Insects on Jacob, immobilizing him. An enraged Eirik and Toran used this opportunity to cut Jacob to pieces: he lost nearly 2/3 of his hit points. At the same time, Zhao smartly pulled out his Dust of Disappearance, vanished, and made a beeline for the evil clerics. Peyton engaged a couple of the guards. Except for Theodric's spell, things still looked pretty good.
And then all hell broke loose. The PCs learned that the pretty blonde was not, in fact, a mere bed wench. On the contrary, she was Jacob's wife and closest adviser, a brilliant, 7th-level magic-user named Amelia. (She occasionally dressed as a slave girl both to please Jacob and to fool gullible visitors.) By the time the PCs had noticed that she was actually casting a spell from her current position, it was too late. She directed a 7d6 Fireball straight into the middle of the party. The result was spectacular. Despite making their saving throws, everyone except for Zhao was in the blast radius and sustained 18 hp of damage each. That was enough to put Theodric in negative-hp territory. He went down. Hard. The explosion also fried William, who was a mere 1st level fighter, and Jacob, who had already sustained serious injuries in his fight with Toran and Eirik. (Based on those injuries, Amelia had figured that Jacob was already dead.) The battle became even more interesting after she fired off another spell, a Web, in the next round and set it on fire. At this point, everyone except Zhao was seriously hurting. He continued to do the Lord's work by keeping Robert busy fighting an invisible foe. The fiery Web inflicted another 6 hp of damage on Theodric. He was now down to -7. Everyone else was still standing, but severely injured. They continued to fight the remaining guards.
Toran and Eirik soon broke through this scrum and engaged Amelia and Robert in hand-to-hand combat. Putting all thoughts of chivalry aside, Toran eventually ran her through, but not before she hit him in the face with several magic missiles. The rest of the party then took about four more rounds to finish off Robert, his acolytes and the remaining guards. Peyton, ever the good cleric, saved Theodric's life by casting Cure Light Wounds on him just before he nearly croaked. Unfortunately for poor Robert, he died without ever casting a single spell.
After the battle ended, the PCs searched the bodies. They found several magic items, but did not have time to inspect them. By then, it was late in the evening for me and the players. We called it a night.
I was satisfied with how this session ended. Though no one died, Theodric came close. Considering how tough their opponents were, the PCs might not have prevailed had they not used the expert teamwork I've come to expect. A few bad dice rolls, and everything could have ended in disaster. In any case, I doubt the players will underestimate their foes in the future the way they did Amelia this time around. They've learned that lesson. In all, I think this session struck the right balance between too easy and too tough.
I hope I can do it again next time.
Tuesday, November 4, 2014
October 17, 2014 Session Report: Justice Is Served
As a general rule, I like to write up my after-action reports within a few days after a session ends. Everything is still fresh in my mind then, and the players are still interested in discussing what transpired. It's for a good reason that you've never heard the phrase "Wednesday-morning quarterback". No one wants to talk about a game they can hardly remember.
For a variety of reasons, however, I couldn't put this session report together until more than two weeks after the session ended. (It took place on October 17, 2014.) So, if this report seems fuzzy on the details or a little less vivid than usual, now you know why.
The session began with the party finally entering Anauroch, the Great Desert. Using the orb, they determined that Jacob, one of Gawain's former party members, had traveled deep into Anauroch's interior and had located an ancient city or fortress there. What Jacob and his band of raiders intended to do or find there was anyone's guess.
Well-stocked with water and provisions, the party journeyed for several days into the desert without incident. They had their first encounter about a week into their trek. One night during the second watch, a party of 3 hill giants and 10 ogres happened to stumble over the party's camp. These ruffians had 15 human slaves with them. The party members on watch heard the racket these guys were making when they were still almost 100 yards away. The watchmen demanded that the intruders identify themselves. In response, the hill giants called the party "slaves" and demanded their surrender. The repartee went downhill from there. After exchanging a few final insults, the hill giants and 8 ogres charged. The others stayed behind to guard the slaves.
Considering that hill giants have 8 hit dice and that ogres are no slouches either, the battle didn't last very long. Edenowen the Druid cast Entangle early on. That took 3 ogres out of the fight almost immediately. Eirik and Toran Malem, the big fighter and the ranger respectively, made quick work of the hill giants, with both men getting showered with hill giant guts at least once. As a ranger, Toran was especially in his element slaughtering these evil humanoids. Peyton the Cleric, Theodric the Magic-User, and Zhuo Xuan the Monk also more than held their own. It was all over in about 5 rounds.
The party then turned to the ogres guarding the slaves. They dispatched them with ease and released the prisoners. The next morning, after everyone had rested and eaten, the party members began to interview the former slaves. They all hailed from various small towns in the Dalelands. The ogres and hill giants had seized them in slaving raids on their villages a few weeks before. Their captors told the humans only that they were being taken to a camp deep within the desert to work as slaves. In addition to this intelligence, the party also recovered a crude map of Anauroch from the ogres. The map showed a huge canyon stretching east-to-west across the desert. In the middle of it was the slaver's destination--apparently a city. As luck would have it, this appeared to be more or less where the party was headed. Now they knew they were on the right track.
After the party members finished interviewing the slaves, everyone quickly realized that they faced a dilemma. The 3 ogres that Edenowen had entangled were still alive. Killing these captured prisoners in cold blood or leaving them tied up to die in the desert from exposure was out of the question for a party of Good and Neutral characters. Letting the ogres go was likewise unpalatable. They were real bastards after all, and they might warn the wrong people of the party's whereabouts if allowed to escape. What were our heroes to do?
Peyton came up with a brilliant answer. As a cleric of Tyr, the god of justice, Peyton suggested that the party put the 3 ogres on trial. The former slaves could testify about what they experienced under oath, and the ogres would have the right to hear them and face their accusers. Toran invoked the Rule so that the testifying slaves could not hear each others' testimony. The ogres may have even been offered the right to cross-examine the witnesses. (I can't recall.) It was all very well-done. Yet, despite the sterling due process and concern for the rights of the accused, the verdict was never in doubt. The ogres were as guilty as sin of, among other things, murder, kidnapping, assault, and at least a hundred other crimes. They were all convicted and a punishment of death was immediately imposed and meted out.
After thus serving the cause of justice, the party provided the former slaves with plenty of food, water, a map, and even some of the party members' own gold and then sped the humans on their way back home. (One of the humans was a woodsman who knew the way out of the desert.) I thought the whole incident was so well played that I gave every party member 2 hero points as a reward.
The party had two more encounters after the incident with the ogres and hill giants. The first occurred a few days later. The party happened upon a band of 12 Thri-Kreen--strange desert-dwelling creatures that are sometimes referred to as "mantis warriors". Neither the Thri-Kreen nor the party were surprised. They eyed each other warily, but neither side attacked. Eventually, the party managed to get away from the Thri-Kreen without incident.
Following another two weeks of hard riding, the party finally spotted the great east-west canyon on the slavers' map. According to the map, their destination appeared to be a city located along the canyon's southern rim. Since the city apparently faced south, the party decided to approach it from the west-northwest by following the canyon. After skirting the south rim for a couple of days, the party was spotted by a mounted patrol consisting of 6 humans and 5 dogs. Although 5 of the humans were 1st-level fighters and their leader was 3rd level, the party took these guys out with ease. Theodric then cast Charm Person on the lone survivor. He sang like a canary. He explained that the patrol had come from the city, which was right where the party thought it was. The city itself sported a large contingent of soldiers (i.e., 100+) just like him and even more slaves. The slaves were being used in massive excavation projects all over the city. He didn't know what they were looking for. And, finally, he revealed that Jacob was the commander of the whole expedition.
With that, the survivor's "interview" ended, and the group called it a night. The party resolved to enter the city in the next session and find out exactly what Jacob was doing there.
For a variety of reasons, however, I couldn't put this session report together until more than two weeks after the session ended. (It took place on October 17, 2014.) So, if this report seems fuzzy on the details or a little less vivid than usual, now you know why.
The session began with the party finally entering Anauroch, the Great Desert. Using the orb, they determined that Jacob, one of Gawain's former party members, had traveled deep into Anauroch's interior and had located an ancient city or fortress there. What Jacob and his band of raiders intended to do or find there was anyone's guess.
Well-stocked with water and provisions, the party journeyed for several days into the desert without incident. They had their first encounter about a week into their trek. One night during the second watch, a party of 3 hill giants and 10 ogres happened to stumble over the party's camp. These ruffians had 15 human slaves with them. The party members on watch heard the racket these guys were making when they were still almost 100 yards away. The watchmen demanded that the intruders identify themselves. In response, the hill giants called the party "slaves" and demanded their surrender. The repartee went downhill from there. After exchanging a few final insults, the hill giants and 8 ogres charged. The others stayed behind to guard the slaves.
Considering that hill giants have 8 hit dice and that ogres are no slouches either, the battle didn't last very long. Edenowen the Druid cast Entangle early on. That took 3 ogres out of the fight almost immediately. Eirik and Toran Malem, the big fighter and the ranger respectively, made quick work of the hill giants, with both men getting showered with hill giant guts at least once. As a ranger, Toran was especially in his element slaughtering these evil humanoids. Peyton the Cleric, Theodric the Magic-User, and Zhuo Xuan the Monk also more than held their own. It was all over in about 5 rounds.
The party then turned to the ogres guarding the slaves. They dispatched them with ease and released the prisoners. The next morning, after everyone had rested and eaten, the party members began to interview the former slaves. They all hailed from various small towns in the Dalelands. The ogres and hill giants had seized them in slaving raids on their villages a few weeks before. Their captors told the humans only that they were being taken to a camp deep within the desert to work as slaves. In addition to this intelligence, the party also recovered a crude map of Anauroch from the ogres. The map showed a huge canyon stretching east-to-west across the desert. In the middle of it was the slaver's destination--apparently a city. As luck would have it, this appeared to be more or less where the party was headed. Now they knew they were on the right track.
After the party members finished interviewing the slaves, everyone quickly realized that they faced a dilemma. The 3 ogres that Edenowen had entangled were still alive. Killing these captured prisoners in cold blood or leaving them tied up to die in the desert from exposure was out of the question for a party of Good and Neutral characters. Letting the ogres go was likewise unpalatable. They were real bastards after all, and they might warn the wrong people of the party's whereabouts if allowed to escape. What were our heroes to do?
Peyton came up with a brilliant answer. As a cleric of Tyr, the god of justice, Peyton suggested that the party put the 3 ogres on trial. The former slaves could testify about what they experienced under oath, and the ogres would have the right to hear them and face their accusers. Toran invoked the Rule so that the testifying slaves could not hear each others' testimony. The ogres may have even been offered the right to cross-examine the witnesses. (I can't recall.) It was all very well-done. Yet, despite the sterling due process and concern for the rights of the accused, the verdict was never in doubt. The ogres were as guilty as sin of, among other things, murder, kidnapping, assault, and at least a hundred other crimes. They were all convicted and a punishment of death was immediately imposed and meted out.
After thus serving the cause of justice, the party provided the former slaves with plenty of food, water, a map, and even some of the party members' own gold and then sped the humans on their way back home. (One of the humans was a woodsman who knew the way out of the desert.) I thought the whole incident was so well played that I gave every party member 2 hero points as a reward.
The party had two more encounters after the incident with the ogres and hill giants. The first occurred a few days later. The party happened upon a band of 12 Thri-Kreen--strange desert-dwelling creatures that are sometimes referred to as "mantis warriors". Neither the Thri-Kreen nor the party were surprised. They eyed each other warily, but neither side attacked. Eventually, the party managed to get away from the Thri-Kreen without incident.
Following another two weeks of hard riding, the party finally spotted the great east-west canyon on the slavers' map. According to the map, their destination appeared to be a city located along the canyon's southern rim. Since the city apparently faced south, the party decided to approach it from the west-northwest by following the canyon. After skirting the south rim for a couple of days, the party was spotted by a mounted patrol consisting of 6 humans and 5 dogs. Although 5 of the humans were 1st-level fighters and their leader was 3rd level, the party took these guys out with ease. Theodric then cast Charm Person on the lone survivor. He sang like a canary. He explained that the patrol had come from the city, which was right where the party thought it was. The city itself sported a large contingent of soldiers (i.e., 100+) just like him and even more slaves. The slaves were being used in massive excavation projects all over the city. He didn't know what they were looking for. And, finally, he revealed that Jacob was the commander of the whole expedition.
With that, the survivor's "interview" ended, and the group called it a night. The party resolved to enter the city in the next session and find out exactly what Jacob was doing there.
Monday, September 29, 2014
Music in Role-Playing Sessions
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.
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.
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.
Tuesday, August 26, 2014
Dwimmermount Lives!!
I know. I know. I said I was going to try to post at least once a week. What can I say? The last post on this blog was over a month ago. I have all kinds of great excuses. Want to hear a few? I've been preparing written materials for my AD&D 1e campaign. I've had work to do at my real job. My wife went on a trip for over a week, and I had to take care of the kids by myself. And so on and so forth. Oh well.
But I'm back now, and here's a new post for that handful of people who actually read this blog. (You know who you are!) As far as I'm concerned, posting something at all is what matters. It'll be a cold day in Hell before I let this blog turn into one of those "fossils" that just sort of sits there forever with its final, years-old post seemingly frozen in amber. I'll take this sucker down before I let that happen.
And that brings me to my point: Grognardia. I've explained before how Grognardia reawakened my interest in role-playing games. James Maliszewski's erudition and fascinating insights into RPGs made Grognardia a must-read for me for a couple of years. I loved it. Because of that, it's really painful to go to that site now and see the same blog post I've been looking at since December 11, 2012. After James stopped posting, I would check Grognardia about once a week to see if, by some miracle, something new had appeared there. Nothing ever did. I may check it now maybe once every other month, if that. I don't expect to see anything new--especially since James is now apparently posting over at the fantasy literature site: Black Gate.
Grognardia's tale is a sad one. From everything I've read, James put the kibosh on Grognardia after his father became seriously ill in late 2012. James was obviously having difficulty focusing on his site during this time. James' readers (myself included) certainly understood. A blog--about games no less--is small stuff compared to a grave illness in one's family. James had every right to shut it down.
What some people (myself again included) were somewhat less willing to understand was James' failure to fulfill his responsibilities in connection with the Kickstarter program he had initiated in 2011 to fund the publication of his legendary Dwimmermount megadungeon. James raised over $48,000 so that he could put Dwimmermount into a format that other people could use. I was a backer. Dwimmermount was, in fact, the first and only Kickstarter I've ever backed.
It didn't turn out well. After his father got sick, James more or less disappeared with the Kickstarter money for a while. He didn't even pay his freelance artists who had already contributed art to the project. Coming from a seemingly decent guy like James, that was disappointing to say the least. James did finally do the right thing, though. By mid-2013, he had turned the drafts, money, and his notes over to his partners at the OSR publisher, Autarch, LLC, to let them finish it. The whole project then limped along in fits and starts depending on who at Autarch was available to work on it. I personally never thought it would produce anything but hard feelings.
So, I have to say that I was pretty darn surprised when I received an e-mail a couple of weeks ago from Autarch's indefatigable Tavis Allison saying that the project was actually finished. Huh? Whut? Yes, it was true. Dwimmermount was complete and would be shipping to backers in a few weeks!! I couldn't believe it, but here was the proof: Dwimmermount Kickstarter. I'm only in for $10, which means (I think) that I'll only get a .pdf copy. But that's o.k. Tavis, Alex and the rest of the guys at Autarch actually made it happen. They deserve a few attaboys, that's for sure. Here's to them. All hail Autarch!! Way to go!!!!
Now I'm actually anticipating that .pdf again. I hope it's good.
Looking back on this whole incident, it hasn't soured me forever on Kickstarters, but it hasn't inspired a great deal of confidence either. Had it not been for Autarch, this whole thing would have surely imploded for good. I'm willing to concede that this experience may be unusual, though. I'd really like to know if it is. To try to answer that question, I'll now conduct an (admittedly very unscientific) poll. Has anyone out there ever funded a Kickstarter campaign--of any type--and did it actually produce what was promised? Inquiring minds want to know!!!! I look forward to reading your answers.
But I'm back now, and here's a new post for that handful of people who actually read this blog. (You know who you are!) As far as I'm concerned, posting something at all is what matters. It'll be a cold day in Hell before I let this blog turn into one of those "fossils" that just sort of sits there forever with its final, years-old post seemingly frozen in amber. I'll take this sucker down before I let that happen.
And that brings me to my point: Grognardia. I've explained before how Grognardia reawakened my interest in role-playing games. James Maliszewski's erudition and fascinating insights into RPGs made Grognardia a must-read for me for a couple of years. I loved it. Because of that, it's really painful to go to that site now and see the same blog post I've been looking at since December 11, 2012. After James stopped posting, I would check Grognardia about once a week to see if, by some miracle, something new had appeared there. Nothing ever did. I may check it now maybe once every other month, if that. I don't expect to see anything new--especially since James is now apparently posting over at the fantasy literature site: Black Gate.
Grognardia's tale is a sad one. From everything I've read, James put the kibosh on Grognardia after his father became seriously ill in late 2012. James was obviously having difficulty focusing on his site during this time. James' readers (myself included) certainly understood. A blog--about games no less--is small stuff compared to a grave illness in one's family. James had every right to shut it down.
What some people (myself again included) were somewhat less willing to understand was James' failure to fulfill his responsibilities in connection with the Kickstarter program he had initiated in 2011 to fund the publication of his legendary Dwimmermount megadungeon. James raised over $48,000 so that he could put Dwimmermount into a format that other people could use. I was a backer. Dwimmermount was, in fact, the first and only Kickstarter I've ever backed.
It didn't turn out well. After his father got sick, James more or less disappeared with the Kickstarter money for a while. He didn't even pay his freelance artists who had already contributed art to the project. Coming from a seemingly decent guy like James, that was disappointing to say the least. James did finally do the right thing, though. By mid-2013, he had turned the drafts, money, and his notes over to his partners at the OSR publisher, Autarch, LLC, to let them finish it. The whole project then limped along in fits and starts depending on who at Autarch was available to work on it. I personally never thought it would produce anything but hard feelings.
So, I have to say that I was pretty darn surprised when I received an e-mail a couple of weeks ago from Autarch's indefatigable Tavis Allison saying that the project was actually finished. Huh? Whut? Yes, it was true. Dwimmermount was complete and would be shipping to backers in a few weeks!! I couldn't believe it, but here was the proof: Dwimmermount Kickstarter. I'm only in for $10, which means (I think) that I'll only get a .pdf copy. But that's o.k. Tavis, Alex and the rest of the guys at Autarch actually made it happen. They deserve a few attaboys, that's for sure. Here's to them. All hail Autarch!! Way to go!!!!
Now I'm actually anticipating that .pdf again. I hope it's good.
Looking back on this whole incident, it hasn't soured me forever on Kickstarters, but it hasn't inspired a great deal of confidence either. Had it not been for Autarch, this whole thing would have surely imploded for good. I'm willing to concede that this experience may be unusual, though. I'd really like to know if it is. To try to answer that question, I'll now conduct an (admittedly very unscientific) poll. Has anyone out there ever funded a Kickstarter campaign--of any type--and did it actually produce what was promised? Inquiring minds want to know!!!! I look forward to reading your answers.
Monday, July 21, 2014
Theory Takes The Fun Out Of It
I just finished reading an article in today's Wall Street Journal that got me thinking about "theory" in role-playing games. (Bear with me here.) It's a review by Barton Swaim of a new book called Literary Criticism from Plato to Postmodernism by James Seaton. In the article (which is entitled "Toward a Theory of Lit-Crit"), Mr. Swaim examines Mr. Seaton's premise that most academic literary critics today don't really give a damn if a work of literature is any good from an intellectual or aesthetic perspective. Instead, they mostly care about how well it fits within the fashionable political and philosophical theories of the modern academy. Whether a book brings joy or pleasure to the reader is beside the point. The "meaning" of a work--if such a thing can be said even to exist--is irrelevant. The theory is the thing.
This is, of course, the dreary post-structuralist approach to literary criticism that has haunted humanities departments since at least the 1960s. The litany of (mostly French) names associated with this mode of reading literature is well-known: Foucault, Lyotard, Derrida, Baudrillard, etc. The list goes on and on. Having studied some of this stuff in graduate school, reading Swaim's article reminded me just how deadly dull and serious these guys are. They can drone on for a hundred pages about how words have no meaning, morality is a mere tool of the powerful, and so on, but I never got the sense that they really enjoyed what they were reading. By subordinating the poem or novel in question to some grand theory into which it must fit, these "theorists" were no longer able to appreciate or take pleasure in the work on its own terms.
This is where role-playing games come in. Over the last few years, some advocates of the old-school renaissance seem to have become enthralled with a "theory" or "theories" of what old-school role-playing ought to be. For example, a true old-school game must be a sandbox campaign in which there is no "story" as such. The players must have complete freedom to go where they will and do what they want with little or no GM "guidance". The goal should be to maximize the recovery of treasure. Dungeons should have lots of empty rooms. Megadungeons should be the default campaign style. I could go on here, but I won't. For some people, any campaign that doesn't have most (if not all) of these features isn't a true "old-school" campaign.
Now, I understand why the advocates of such "theories" about old-school campaigns became so vocal. They were reacting to the "story-path" adventures that had themselves become the default in works published by TSR, Wizards of the Coast, and other major publishers. Nobody (except for maybe the GM) likes an adventure railroad in which the players don't make any real choices because they aren't allowed to deviate from the adventure's plot. The Time of Troubles and the Spellplague series set in the Forgotten Realms or the Heroes of the Lance modules from the World of Krynn spring immediately to mind here. In such campaigns, the players become mere bit players in the GM's amateur novel.
Still, although I want to avoid railroading my players as much as the next guy, I worry that focusing primarily on whether a particular adventure or campaign comports with some a priori theory about what an old-school campaign should look like will, like some turgid essay by Jacques Derrida, drain all the fun out of the experience for everyone. So what if your campaign isn't "really" old-school because it's a quest with a defined beginning, middle, and end? What difference does it make if you don't keep track of experience points or treasure all that closely? Who cares if the PCs are heroes participating in world-shattering events rather than small-time adventurers just looking for the next score? If the game is interesting and stimulating, and everyone in your group has a good time, then isn't that what it's all about? I certainly think so. These are games after all. They're supposed to be fun.
So, here's my big thought (theory?!?!?): elevating abstract theory over all other considerations (such as whether the book or adventure is any good on its own terms) is the enemy of both intellectual pleasure and a plain, old good time--whether one does it to D&D or Tolstoy. Avoid it at all costs.
This is, of course, the dreary post-structuralist approach to literary criticism that has haunted humanities departments since at least the 1960s. The litany of (mostly French) names associated with this mode of reading literature is well-known: Foucault, Lyotard, Derrida, Baudrillard, etc. The list goes on and on. Having studied some of this stuff in graduate school, reading Swaim's article reminded me just how deadly dull and serious these guys are. They can drone on for a hundred pages about how words have no meaning, morality is a mere tool of the powerful, and so on, but I never got the sense that they really enjoyed what they were reading. By subordinating the poem or novel in question to some grand theory into which it must fit, these "theorists" were no longer able to appreciate or take pleasure in the work on its own terms.
This is where role-playing games come in. Over the last few years, some advocates of the old-school renaissance seem to have become enthralled with a "theory" or "theories" of what old-school role-playing ought to be. For example, a true old-school game must be a sandbox campaign in which there is no "story" as such. The players must have complete freedom to go where they will and do what they want with little or no GM "guidance". The goal should be to maximize the recovery of treasure. Dungeons should have lots of empty rooms. Megadungeons should be the default campaign style. I could go on here, but I won't. For some people, any campaign that doesn't have most (if not all) of these features isn't a true "old-school" campaign.
Now, I understand why the advocates of such "theories" about old-school campaigns became so vocal. They were reacting to the "story-path" adventures that had themselves become the default in works published by TSR, Wizards of the Coast, and other major publishers. Nobody (except for maybe the GM) likes an adventure railroad in which the players don't make any real choices because they aren't allowed to deviate from the adventure's plot. The Time of Troubles and the Spellplague series set in the Forgotten Realms or the Heroes of the Lance modules from the World of Krynn spring immediately to mind here. In such campaigns, the players become mere bit players in the GM's amateur novel.
Still, although I want to avoid railroading my players as much as the next guy, I worry that focusing primarily on whether a particular adventure or campaign comports with some a priori theory about what an old-school campaign should look like will, like some turgid essay by Jacques Derrida, drain all the fun out of the experience for everyone. So what if your campaign isn't "really" old-school because it's a quest with a defined beginning, middle, and end? What difference does it make if you don't keep track of experience points or treasure all that closely? Who cares if the PCs are heroes participating in world-shattering events rather than small-time adventurers just looking for the next score? If the game is interesting and stimulating, and everyone in your group has a good time, then isn't that what it's all about? I certainly think so. These are games after all. They're supposed to be fun.
So, here's my big thought (theory?!?!?): elevating abstract theory over all other considerations (such as whether the book or adventure is any good on its own terms) is the enemy of both intellectual pleasure and a plain, old good time--whether one does it to D&D or Tolstoy. Avoid it at all costs.
Monday, July 7, 2014
My RPG Story
Welcome Back!
In my previous post, I had promised to explain a little more about myself and the campaign I'm running. I had wanted to put that post up last week, but the Fourth of July holiday and a mini-vacation to Surfside, Texas intervened. I apologize for the delay. From now on, I'll try to post at least once a week. I know I probably won't keep up that pace, but it's still good to have goals--even unrealistic ones. Nothing concentrates the mind like an approaching (or, especially, a blown) deadline.
Anyway, as my Blogger profile states, I'm a 40-something guy who lives in Houston, Texas and likes role-playing games. I have a wonderful wife, two amazing children, and a job that sucks up my free time like Beelzebub's vacuum cleaner. As for the other details of my personal life, I'll skip those for now and get right to what this blog is all about: role-playing games and my interest in them.
As did many men my age, I first became aware of this odd hobby toward the tail-end of the RPG fad in the early 1980s. My first (relatively) clear memory of role-playing games involves trying to play D&D during lunch breaks in the sixth grade (circa 1982-1983). I don't think my friends and I really followed all the rules. (How could we?) However, we certainly liked the monsters and spells and weapons. And the fighting? That was just awesome. Nothing fires the imagination of a preteen boy like killing things and blowing stuff up. The vehicle for all this grand destruction was Tom Moldvay's "red box" D&D Basic Set. Remember this?
We played the Moldvay red box for a little while that year, but, boys being boys, we didn't want to limit ourselves to just levels 1-3. So I purchased David Cook's D&D Expert Set in order to expand my horizons and find more worlds to conquer. Oddly enough, I also bought Fiend Folio at around the same time, not realizing that it employed an entirely different set of rules. It actually took me at least a year (I think) before I realized that D&D and AD&D employed two different rule systems. I finally figured this out some time in seventh or eighth grade, leading me to promptly ditch D&D as a "kiddie" game in favor of the more "grown-up" AD&D. I soon bought the Players' Manual, the Dungeon Master's Guide, and all the rest. (With thirty years of hindsight, choosing one game system over another based solely on their intended audiences seems silly, but it certainly didn't look that way to me back then.)
We played the Moldvay red box for a little while that year, but, boys being boys, we didn't want to limit ourselves to just levels 1-3. So I purchased David Cook's D&D Expert Set in order to expand my horizons and find more worlds to conquer. Oddly enough, I also bought Fiend Folio at around the same time, not realizing that it employed an entirely different set of rules. It actually took me at least a year (I think) before I realized that D&D and AD&D employed two different rule systems. I finally figured this out some time in seventh or eighth grade, leading me to promptly ditch D&D as a "kiddie" game in favor of the more "grown-up" AD&D. I soon bought the Players' Manual, the Dungeon Master's Guide, and all the rest. (With thirty years of hindsight, choosing one game system over another based solely on their intended audiences seems silly, but it certainly didn't look that way to me back then.)
By high school, my friends and I--there was a core group of six of us--had discovered the cornucopia of other games out there besides D&D. We played Traveller, DC Heroes, Marvel Superheros, Boot Hill, Twilight 2000, 2300 AD, Gamma World, Paranoia, and even Toon. Of all these systems, Traveller and AD&D were our favorites. During this time, I rarely acted as GM. A close (and still very dear) friend of mine did that duty. He regularly ran outstanding Traveller adventures and authored a multi-year AD&D campaign that I still consider the gold-standard for RPG campaigns. I eventually took my turn at DC Heroes, Marvel Superheroes, AD&D and Traveller. I wasn't as good as he was at running adventures. But, I was learning, and no one cared all that much as long as we had a good time (which we did more often than not).
It all ended of course. We graduated from high school, left for college, and (mostly) went our separate ways. During college, we played a little in the summertime when we came back home. We even tried Torg one year. (I still love that game. So sue me.) But, it was never the same. The interest waned. College ended. We moved away. We got married. We had children. Adulthood arrived. By the mid-1990s, I couldn't find anyone in my city interested in playing and, frankly, I didn't care anymore. I hung it up as far as RPGs were concerned.
Then, in early 2010, John J. Miller, a political reporter for National Review and National Review Online, posted a column about D&D and a website called Grognardia. As a regular reader of National Review, I was intrigued. John J. Miller is a famous (in conservative circles) devotee of D&D. If he thought Grognardia was interesting, I had to see it for myself. I followed the link, and there it was: James Maliszewski's Grognardia. It was a revelation. James seemed to know everything about RPGs as well as fantasy, science fiction and pulp-adventure stories. His posts were literate, measured, and always interesting. I couldn't stop reading them. I soon picked up OSRIC, Labyrinth Lord, and Mutant Future. I also started e-mailing my old gang about my discoveries. (We had started up a regular e-mail correspondence several years before.) I read the new "clones" voraciously. I even went to GenCon in 2011 with two of my old buddies. It was great. And, when Grognardia petered out in December 2012, I took it as a personal loss. (I'll write a separate post about that fiasco later.)
Finally, in February 2013, I started my own OSRIC 1(e) campaign. I had read enough and wanted to get back into it for real. Luckily, I had made a few friends in Houston over the years who liked complicated board games and were receptive to the idea of playing in an old-school AD&D campaign. We all agreed to give it a try, and the rest was history. I continue to run this campaign today. It's set in the 1987 Grey Box Forgotten Realms. I follow a slightly modified OSRIC rules-set that employs some of my favorite additional rules from the original AD&D but still uses OSRIC's cleaner (and vastly improved) combat system. We have now played two seperate adventures over several sessions. Although we only meet (on average) about once a month, it's enough for us. We're all middle-aged professionals with demanding jobs and family responsibilities. The sessions are a great time for all of us and especially rewarding for me as the GM. I will post regular session reports here for anyone interested in them. (My old high-school friends read them avidly.) I hope any other readers out there will find them just as interesting. I don't foresee ending this campaign any time soon, and we are now even looking at playing other game systems. It's been, as a learned sage once said, a long and winding road.
Well, that's my RPG story. It's not a particularly original one, I suspect. But, it's my story nonetheless. I hope you enjoyed it.
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