I mean, there I was, lamenting the fact that I’m no good at outdoor adventures or “journey design” or whatever you want to call it. Then I sat down and started iterating on existing ideas, and I have enough material for a couple of sessions. I’m excited again, blog!

The only thing I have to be careful about— and this is something conscious, that I want to do myself— is keeping a thread that ties it all together. It’s easy to have these points of interest be unconnected, but that’s not what I want.

Maybe it’s more accurate to say that I’m challenging myself. Here’s what I’m going for:

• Provide choices along this journey.
• Tie many of these points of interest to a common theme.
• Reveal more about the history of the area through these apparently unconnected places.

It’s fair to say that I might fail, and I’ll be OK with that; I just have to remind myself that I’ve never actually run this style of play before, so I’m flying blind. I’m relying on my instincts of what I think is cool as a player.

We’ll see how I do! Regardless, I think we’ll have fun, provided I don’t make the encounters too hard.

Let me take a moment to explain my roleplaying background, to give you some context.

I played D&D in high school, starting with AD&D 2nd Edition. I missed 3rd Edition to some extent because I was buried in the revised editions of Vampire: the Masquerade and Mage: the Awakening. When I did learn the system, it was through playing Neverwinter Nights and a couple of one-shots. When 3.5 came out, I was excited, and bought it. I ran a few sessions of that. After that, D&D fell by the wayside for me.

I liked some of what 3rd Edition did for D&D, in terms of making fighters more interesting and nixing a bunch of confusing and unnecessarily complicated mechanics. For sure, I wouldn’t go back to 2nd Edition. I had plenty of fun with the video games and the various one-shots. (You can see where this is going, maybe)

Maybe this makes me not a True Fan of D&D. I thought 3rd Edition was fun, but the sort of rules complexity that 4th Edition got rid of is exactly what kept me from running more than a couple of one-shots.

You too, gnomes. Yeah, I’m talking to you.

It wasn’t that I didn’t like D&D. On a fundamental level, I like trolls, beholders, goblins, and gelatinous cubes; I like Fireball, Web, and Lightning Bolt; I like dungeons, adventures in the wilderness, fightin’ lotsa guys, and gettin magic items. I like rogues and fighters and clerics and paladins and wizards! (But not bards. Yeah, that’s right, bards: you can eat shit.)

The hitch came down to the moment-to-moment experience of preparing and play. Designing encounters wasn’t fun or interesting. Rules discussions would slow the game to a crawl even with a bunch of reasonably intelligent people. Evan needed to whip up a spreadsheet to handle the constant modifications occurred as a result of modifications to Beth’s barbarian’s ability scores. Spellcasters were by far the most effective classes by any reasonable, long-term estimate.

The list goes on, but if you’re at all familiar with this debate, you’ve heard it before. If 3e is what turns your crank, then we’ll just have to agree to like different shit. I am OK with this. Along those lines, I’m also really not looking for an argument!

Whoa, I could actually play this game.

When I say I was surprised about his reaction to their pitch, I’m being sincere. I thought their pitch was dead on! Everything that they were bashing really did bother me, and I was gratified to hear that they were taking concrete steps to address mechanics that forced me to add the that “I like D&D theory but not in practice” qualifier. Their design philosophy was much more in line with a game I could enjoy, and I awaited it eagerly for many months.

I wasn’t hardcore about the game or anything, but I don’t have any particular emotional investment in the system as a result of putting so much time and, well, the price of the core 3.5e books, Iron Heroes, and Arcana Unearthed|Evolved. (In other words, not much compared to how much I invested in the old World of Darkness versus the new World of Darkness.) (Shit, if I were a smart person, I’d write up a post drawing some parallels between 3e & 4e vs. oWoD & nWoD. Except I’m already procrastinating enough.)

Like I said, I don’t want to get too much into the merits of either game. I just wanted to throw my perspective out there, as an exile before and now a convert.

Let me take a moment to explain my roleplaying background, to give you some context.

I played D&D in high school, starting with AD&D 2nd Edition. I missed 3rd Edition to some extent because I was buried in the revised editions of Vampire: the Masquerade and Mage: the Awakening. When I did learn the system, it was through playing Neverwinter Nights and a couple of one-shots. When 3.5 came out, I was excited, and bought it. I ran a few sessions of that. After that, D&D fell by the wayside for me.

I liked some of what 3rd Edition did for D&D, in terms of making fighters more interesting and nixing a bunch of confusing and unnecessarily complicated mechanics. For sure, I wouldn’t go back to 2nd Edition. I had plenty of fun with the video games and the various one-shots. (You can see where this is going, maybe)

Maybe this makes me not a True Fan of D&D. I thought 3rd Edition was fun, but the sort of rules complexity that 4th Edition got rid of is exactly what kept me from running more than a couple of one-shots.

You too, gnomes. Yeah, I’m talking to you.

It wasn’t that I didn’t like D&D. On a fundamental level, I like trolls, beholders, goblins, and gelatinous cubes; I like Fireball, Web, and Lightning Bolt; I like dungeons, adventures in the wilderness, fightin’ lotsa guys, and gettin magic items. I like rogues and fighters and clerics and paladins and wizards! (But not bards. Yeah, that’s right, bards: you can eat shit.)

The hitch came down to the moment-to-moment experience of preparing and play. Designing encounters wasn’t fun or interesting. Rules discussions would slow the game to a crawl even with a bunch of reasonably intelligent people. Evan needed to whip up a spreadsheet to handle the constant modifications occurred as a result of modifications to Beth’s barbarian’s ability scores. Spellcasters were by far the most effective classes by any reasonable, long-term estimate.

The list goes on, but if you’re at all familiar with this debate, you’ve heard it before. If 3e is what turns your crank, then we’ll just have to agree to like different shit. I am OK with this. Along those lines, I’m also really not looking for an argument!

Whoa, I could actually play this game.

When I say I was surprised about his reaction to their pitch, I’m being sincere. I thought their pitch was dead on! Everything that they were bashing really did bother me, and I was gratified to hear that they were taking concrete steps to address mechanics that forced me to add the that “I like D&D theory but not in practice” qualifier. Their design philosophy was much more in line with a game I could enjoy, and I awaited it eagerly for many months.

I wasn’t hardcore about the game or anything, but I don’t have any particular emotional investment in the system as a result of putting so much time and, well, the price of the core 3.5e books, Iron Heroes, and Arcana Unearthed|Evolved. (In other words, not much compared to how much I invested in the old World of Darkness versus the new World of Darkness.) (Shit, if I were a smart person, I’d write up a post drawing some parallels between 3e & 4e vs. oWoD & nWoD. Except I’m already procrastinating enough.)

Like I said, I don’t want to get too much into the merits of either game. I just wanted to throw my perspective out there, as an exile before and now a convert.

“I always lie!”

One danger you can run into with lies is too many. Use lying as a form of characterization instead of a way to trick the players. People lie about things that are meaningful to them, either because they want something or because it embarasses them. What people are willing to lie about says something about them.

Am I lying now? How about now?

The article says this implicitly, but I’d like to make this explicit: give the PCs a chance to detect an NPC’s lies. Most of the time.

This may mean rolling your favorite system’s equivalent of Insight behind the screen so that PCs can’t see it. It may also mean that you do this whenever they’re talking to a named NPC of any importance; even though you’re ignoring the rolls, you don’t want the players to notice that the only time you’re rolling dice behind the screen is when they talk to the magistrate.

Sometimes you need an NPC’s lie to stand up, though; otherwise the plot is much more interesting. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with simply fudging it or declaring that what the NPC says is convincing.

Use those sparingly, though. Not everyone that lies is good at it, after all! And it sets you up for a scene where the PCs manage to catch the guy in a lie, which makes the PCs look cool.

Finally, don’t forget that that lie detection doesn’t have to be binary, either. Maybe you do actually roll the PCs’ Subterfuge/Empathy/Insight skill against the dissembler who kicks off the campaign, but instead of giving it all away if the PCs succeed, instead give them a clue or a chance to notice that not quite everything is on the up-and-up.

Some possibilities include:

• giving the PCs something to file away for later (“He twitches a bit when he speaks of his brother”);
• something that will make sense in retrospect (“He told that lie because he already knew the army had lost”); or
• give a crucial clue for the PCs blowing the whole thing open (“What do you mean the Duchess of Almarade has been dead for ten years?!”).

THE END

And now I should get back to working on either another blog post or Er-Eret. :P

Cool

Plans. I am pleased to say that my plans worked out. This is kind of a meta-point, really; I didn’t have any major fuck-ups as I did last time.

Speaking of plans, I’m overflowing with ideas about the next few sessions. This is actually where I really want to be: an exotic location that is as much as a blank slate as I’d like it to be.

I finally have a goddamn freaking party now. I was worried about this, and it turned out to be the single most satisfying result of this session: everyone is together in a way that I don’t feel is ham-fisted or railroading. Seriously. One of my players even commented that it didn’t even feel like I was trying to get them all together the whole time. I hope I can maintain that level of subtlety!

The North Wall. I prepared a “city streets” map and it worked really well. People were maneuvering and using cover. I got to use a pseudo-customized monster that was mostly described differently. I didn’t feel like I was in danger of killing anybody. In fact, I’d say that the fight was a little bit on the easy side, mainly because I reduced monster damage dice and they happened not to hit as often as I expected.

Also, Sighni and Lexa both terrify me. Sighni basically took out two major combatants. Lexa and Alac worked together to reduce my 68 hit point golem to fodder for Rubican’s Burning Hands. And Ratha used a couple of daily or encounter abilities to waste a couple of guys, too.

This party may be down a defender, but they are serious business, and I really enjoy watching them work.

A balanced NPC. The NPC with whom the PCs interacted most in this session was Ansa, the priestess of Moradin, and what amounted to the voice of Er-Eret, even though her leadership role is supposedly informal. Part of it is that she’s the only one willing to put the effort into bringing Alac around to her way of thinking, and part of it is that she’s exceedingly diplomatic and level-headed.

Consequently, I was worried she would come of either as a GMPC, the Plot Bat, Railroading, or any number of other negative associations. If it’s a binary choice, I would rather put a PC in a prominent or experimental role than an NPC.

An informal poll of my players told me that she worked. Excellent! I’ll take that.

Improv. Despite my plans, there were some bits I had to improv. For example, I was concerned about the tavern scene, as I was rather quickly running out of reasons for violence not to erupt. I really, really didn’t think Alac would go quite so far, but it worked out OK, I think.

Level 3. That’s right: they’re level 3 now! I was sorely tempted to begin with, and Bryan brought up the winning point: higher level PCs correlates more interesting encounters as it opens up a range of monsters I can throw at the PCs. I love this, and I’m excited when people level up. I love looking at people’s characters and seeing what they picked.

I don’t think the leveling pace will remain this fast, though. Probably it will slow to once every other session unless something major happens, such as in this session.

Not Cool

Concerns about acrimony. All right, this isn’t quite “Not Cool” in the way you might think. It’s a concern.

Alac and Sighni really, really don’t get along. The shouting match that happened this session was par for the course, and while I am not sure if they would come to blows, I think Sighni really needs an ally here.

Lexa and Alac really don’t get along, either. As before, I’m slightly worried that murder might ensue. It’s possible that there’s some room here for an alliance between Sighni and Lexa, or at least a modicum of friendship. I haven’t figured out how, just yet.

Motivation. Lexa worries me. I am concerned I might not have enough things for her that play specifically to her character. This will take some thought and possibly some work, but I think this new environment offers me some opportunities.

Treasure. I’ve got a small, treasure-related dilemma here, which might be worthy of a separate post at some point. In short, I’m not sure how this party is going to handle splitting treasure. Up until now, there wasn’t much, but Lexa— who searched the corpses that Ratha and Rubican did not— got most of it, having looted the bodies. I’ll have to think about this a bit.

This is not to say that it was flawless. I’m afraid a lot of people were bored while I was doing stuff with a few different PCs, for example. The conflict between Alac and Sighni is still a bit too acrimonious. But for the most part, I was happy with it.

I’d also like to say that a lot happened. I can’t remember all of it and I might’ve messed up the order of some scenes. Also, as always, some things happened outside the common view, so I’ve left that out, too.

Ready? (Oh, man, this shit is long.)

Go!

Previously in Er-Eret…

I picked up where we left off last time. Ratha, Lexa, and Sighni were in the inn that most people frequent. (There’s another inn, but it’s primarily for dwarves, who in this case don’t take kindly to strangers.)

Unfortunately, I’m drawing a blank on some of what happened before, well, you’ll see. I believe that, by this point, it was mid- to late-afternoon. Alac spent some time looking over financial documents that had been left in the manor. Rubican studied. Sighni, Lexa, and Ratha were socializing in the inn.

Nobody had much to do, so time passed and everyone eventually went to bed. At some point during the day it rained heavily and tapered off to a drizzle.

The North Wall

Alac was woken by the sound of someone walking around in the manor. It turned out to be Rubican, who was pacing; he had a “bad dream.”

Then they heard a loud crash, coming from the north end of town.

All of the PCs, one way or another, went to the north. Ratha heard from a guard that there was some kind of attack underway, though they had no idea what, and that nothing like this had happened before.

When the PCs arrived on the scene, they saw a large breach in the north wall. This was presumably caused by the large, bloated golem that, upon further examination, was a pastiche of body parts. Where there might’ve been stitches, there were glowing orange runes of binding, undeath, and animation. This zombie-golem thing was accompanied by a couple of goblin skirmishers, a goblin sharpshooter, and a goblin with a wand dressed in some strange, tattered regalia, who I call a necromancer.

The PCs also noticed rather quickly that there were a half-dozen or so corpses of guards in the area, which were crushed, javelin’d, or crossbow’d to death.

Combat! Honestly, the monsters barely laid a finger on the PCs, although Rubican and Ratha did take a serious hit or two. More on this in my postmortem. Sighni the ranger made short work of the necromancer and sharpshooter, while Lexa the rogue and Alac the warlord nailed the zombie-golem and did some damage to a skirmisher or two. Rubican torched a bunch of guys, and Ratha opportunistically attacked and killed a few.

Almost immediately after fighting ceased, Sighni took off for the south, saying she’d heard that there might still be an attack in progress to the south. Alac remounted his horse and headed south also.

Ratha, meanwhile, declared that these monsters might still be dangerous, and rolled a goddamn 20. More on this in the post-mortem, too. Ratha didn’t find much before he called Rubican over to help examine the corpse, though he took the goblin necromancer’s regalia with him.

Ratha carved up some of the skin with the runes on it, which were no longer glowing once the creature had been defeated. He and Rubican conferred a bit on what it might be.

Alac arrived south to find Ansa talking to what appeared to be a high-ranking guard. She had seen battle, as evidenced by the blood on her armor. It turned out that the goblins had also attacked from the south, although the guards and Ansa had only barely managed to repel it. They also lost a great deal of guards.

She was concerned when she heard about the undead golem, and voiced concerns about how organized the goblins were. Alac told her that there would be a town meeting and that he had a plan. He also spoke a bit to the guard, who, when asked if he was the captain, said “I am now.” Taking into account the guards that didn’t return from the north as well as the losses at the south, the guards numbered perhaps a dozen altogether.

Lexa, Rubican, and Ratha gathered at the tavern, where people who had been awoken by the commotion were discussing what happened. Ratha and Rubican related the story of what happened at the north wall, playing up both Alac and Sighni’s role in the fighting. Lexa prowled the edge of the crowd, planting doubt in the minds of the cynics and skeptics.

Ultimately, people went back home, as did the PCs. Fast-forward to the meeting in the morning.

Problems & Solutions

It was chilly and drizzling. Rather than having the meeting outside, in the town square, Alac arranged it to be in the tavern. Townspeople had to cluster around the building, and were none too pleased about having to stand in the rain.

Alac began to give a speech about shared sacrifice, about rebuilding the town. Essentially this turned into a shouting match between Sighni, the increasingly irate mob outside, and Alac. The town council members who were present were mostly aghast. Sighni began to speak, but Alac shouted her down, and moved towards her as if to silence her. Before the situation got out of hand, Ansa spoke.

This was the first merchant caravan in a year, she said. Where did he expect to get this tax money? The town has no money. Did he think that the people enjoyed wearing rags? And what time did the town have to train an army? The goblins would surely not let up their near-weekly raids.

At one point, Rubican stepped forward and offered at least one solution to Er-Eret’s problems. He could create a makeshift barrier in place of the gap now in the wall.

Alac countered by asking what her plan was. What choice do they have? Would she send farmers to fight the goblins? No, she said. She would send Alac, and she would send Sighni. Alac relented, and the meeting soon broke up, as the people went about their business.

Rubican and Ratha approached Ansa with a sample of the runes. Ansa looked at them, and based on having discussed this with Sighni earlier, declared them to be old magic, magic not seen since the empire of Bael Turath. She escorted Rubican and Ratha to the temple library and left them in the hands of Edward, a farm boy with some small potential now turned librarian.

There was some question as to whether the goblins were capable of this. The consensus was that this was an unusual level of sophistication, and that they either had help, in the form of someone organizing them, or access to some resource they didn’t have before.

Speaking Plainly, Then

Ansa and Sighni then met with Alac. There was a lot of plain speaking here. Previously, Ansa neglected to dress him down publicly, as she believed to some extent that Alac could greatly aid the town. In turn, Alac said that he understood why the previous people had abandoned this town, that the town leadership had failed the town through incompetence or neglect, and that the only reason people were angry was because people would always be angry when a new lord arrives. Ansa countered by explaining that he knew nothing of the town and if she didn’t think he had potential, she’d be working against him.

After some of this back and forth, they decided to set aside their disagreements, as they both agreed on one main point: nothing good could happen for the town while the goblins attacked. Alac asked who else they could send beyond Sighni and Alac.

Ansa pointed out that some had already proved themselves, based on what she heard about the battle at the north wall. Further, she’d heard of another extraordinary fighter, Lexa, who demonstrated herself to be quite capable in yesterday’s attack on the caravan. It took some prompting, but ultimately he did remember her. When Alac asked send Sighni to go get Lexa, Ansa suggested that perhaps he go in person.

The Proposal

Alac talked to Rubican and Ratha about his plan to track and destroy the goblins. The two tieflings readily accepted, being very interested in the origin of these runes as well as the history of Bael Turath.

While Alac spoke with Rubican and Ansa about acquiring materials to repair the wall, Ratha went to the tavern to speak with Lexa. Ratha solicted her help in the form of protection as well as another pair of eyes to watch the other members of the group. He also told her that Alac was coming to her with a business proposal.

Not long thereafter, Alac arrived, and although he did not remember her terribly well (which of course was a great source of irritation to the tiefling), he offered her a share in Er-Eret’s future prosperity, and in the short term, a share of the inevitable spoils that would come from the goblins.

Magic Show

Once Rubican acquired the materials he needed to repair the wall, he made a great display of it. Glowing runes trailed off of his clothes as he walked to the north wall, and a crowd accumulated over time. Alac took care to be seen directing the repairs, and Rubican did his best to make the ritual flashy and impressive. No one noticed that he kept some of the materials to himself.

Same Time Next Week

I’ll most likely be playing again this week, as Evan’s fairly busy with Real Life stuff, meaning he more than likely won’t be able to prepare a session for his own game. This is just as well because I prepared a bunch more material than I actually used in this session.

Acquisitions

I picked up the Daeva Clanbook. It basically follows the standard set by the Ventrue book, which is to say that it’s glossy, full-colored, and attractive.

I’ve read through the first fifty or so pages of Silver Ladder and it’s great. I want to run Mage again, except I have to take care of D&D first.

Prep

In terms of D&D, I’ve been iterating on how the next session will shape up. I have no shortage of ideas for some things, which is actually a great spot to be in. I love it! The challenge is picking the good ideas, working on ‘em, and then working on those areas that aren’t so easy.

I think I did myself a real favor by running as many one-shots as I did over the last few months. I’m much more comfortable with the process of laying this stuff out in a practical way. Previously, I would sort of dabble in ideas that wouldn’t actually come up in the first few sessions. This is useful to me in the sense that I have a grip on the world, but it doesn’t bring me any closer to being able to run the game.

Now I feel much more comfortable with this process. I have a much better idea of what sorts of things I need to know, though of course I can’t cover everything. Modulo that last bit, it’s actually a lot like giving a presentation. I think I just had to go through it a bunch of times before I realized that on an intuitive level.

Looking ahead

The main challenge I’m facing now is party coherence. There are a lot of agendas.

Now, I can easily finish one arc with this, because there are a variety of ways to motivate people who are mostly unconnected, in the short term. You can attack them all at once. You can trap them someplace. You can create one solution to each of their problems. (If you think about it, a lot of these are the same.) There are plenty of other ways, I’m sure.

In the medium-term, they’re all in a confined space, the town of Er-Eret. The caravan has to go back home at some point, but PCs uninterested in staying in Er-Eret are stuck until that happens.

This is good in the sense that the PCs can’t just run off in five different directions. This isn’t the same as having something to do, and whatever that “something to do” is depends greatly on the ending. And to be honest I don’t have a definitive ending planned out.

Oh crap. Sorry, Evan! Spoiler! I don’t have an ending!

Endings

I have some events that will happen to people. I have plot arcs for nearly every PC. And I have something I’m pushing for, event-wise, that will basically be the logical conclusion of a bunch of stuff. That’s honestly good enough for me.

My Mage game is an interesting contrast. Although it withered before I could finish it, I still have the inclination to somehow finish it, so I will keep details vague. In fact, I just got an idea of how I could finish it. Ooh, that’s interesting.

Anyway, for Lover’s Leap, I did have an ending in mind, and it was fairly vivid, though admittedly it took a lot of iterating in order to arrive at the final version in my head. Aside from that, it was fairly similar in structure as it related to the PCs relationship to the world: events moved independent of the PCs, though they were of course involved in them. I also had plot arcs for everyone. Yay!

TTFN

I should probably indulge in some of that prep I was talking about above, even if it’s just to write down the thoughts I’ve come up with. Hopefully this is enough content to make up for having neglected to post this weekend.

The only thing I can really offer in my defense is that it was my birthday, which I’ll admit isn’t the worst excuse anyone has ever used.

Catch you on the flip side, blog!

Acquisitions

I picked up the Daeva Clanbook. It basically follows the standard set by the Ventrue book, which is to say that it’s glossy, full-colored, and attractive.

I’ve read through the first fifty or so pages of Silver Ladder and it’s great. I want to run Mage again, except I have to take care of D&D first.

Prep

In terms of D&D, I’ve been iterating on how the next session will shape up. I have no shortage of ideas for some things, which is actually a great spot to be in. I love it! The challenge is picking the good ideas, working on ‘em, and then working on those areas that aren’t so easy.

I think I did myself a real favor by running as many one-shots as I did over the last few months. I’m much more comfortable with the process of laying this stuff out in a practical way. Previously, I would sort of dabble in ideas that wouldn’t actually come up in the first few sessions. This is useful to me in the sense that I have a grip on the world, but it doesn’t bring me any closer to being able to run the game.

Now I feel much more comfortable with this process. I have a much better idea of what sorts of things I need to know, though of course I can’t cover everything. Modulo that last bit, it’s actually a lot like giving a presentation. I think I just had to go through it a bunch of times before I realized that on an intuitive level.

Looking ahead

The main challenge I’m facing now is party coherence. There are a lot of agendas.

Now, I can easily finish one arc with this, because there are a variety of ways to motivate people who are mostly unconnected, in the short term. You can attack them all at once. You can trap them someplace. You can create one solution to each of their problems. (If you think about it, a lot of these are the same.) There are plenty of other ways, I’m sure.

In the medium-term, they’re all in a confined space, the town of Er-Eret. The caravan has to go back home at some point, but PCs uninterested in staying in Er-Eret are stuck until that happens.

This is good in the sense that the PCs can’t just run off in five different directions. This isn’t the same as having something to do, and whatever that “something to do” is depends greatly on the ending. And to be honest I don’t have a definitive ending planned out.

Oh crap. Sorry, Evan! Spoiler! I don’t have an ending!

Endings

I have some events that will happen to people. I have plot arcs for nearly every PC. And I have something I’m pushing for, event-wise, that will basically be the logical conclusion of a bunch of stuff. That’s honestly good enough for me.

My Mage game is an interesting contrast. Although it withered before I could finish it, I still have the inclination to somehow finish it, so I will keep details vague. In fact, I just got an idea of how I could finish it. Ooh, that’s interesting.

Anyway, for Lover’s Leap, I did have an ending in mind, and it was fairly vivid, though admittedly it took a lot of iterating in order to arrive at the final version in my head. Aside from that, it was fairly similar in structure as it related to the PCs relationship to the world: events moved independent of the PCs, though they were of course involved in them. I also had plot arcs for everyone. Yay!

TTFN

I should probably indulge in some of that prep I was talking about above, even if it’s just to write down the thoughts I’ve come up with. Hopefully this is enough content to make up for having neglected to post this weekend.

The only thing I can really offer in my defense is that it was my birthday, which I’ll admit isn’t the worst excuse anyone has ever used.

Catch you on the flip side, blog!

In this case, “Cool” covers things I thought worked, were unexpectedly good, or what have you. “Not Cool” is something I didn’t think worked for whatever reason.

On with it!

Cool

Wizards and minions. I think wizards are, in large part, built for fights with minions. They are most effective when there are lots of monsters. I have more thoughts about minions that’ll be enough for another post, but let’s say that for the time being, minions are great when you have PCs that can damage multiple guys. It really fills out the fight.

Roleplaying. With the exception of Evan, I’ve been playing with this group off and on for years, and I wasn’t disappointed. It’s good to see everyone get into it, even though I was dumbfounded at times, having failed to take into account a number of factors.

Natural 20. I was going to put this under Not Cool originally, but it really is cool. For the opening fight, I had planned for a token number of guards to join the fight, and for them to die fairly quickly. Then, Alac (Bryan) the Warlord decided to roll a check to convince the guards to participate. He rolled a natural 20.

What can you do at that point? I submit that, sometimes, you just have to take your lumps and add eight more minions to the fight. And that’s just what I did.

Not cool

I made a lot of mistakes.

Deviation from the plan. A real mistake, and maybe the biggest one of all is that this fight was originally meant to have two fronts. The goblins were supposed to split up and come from two directions. However, I erred in my description of the goblins’ movements when I described them to Kay and Sighni’s players, so they all came from one direction.

This is something I need to get over, blog: correcting myself rather than let it sit. It’s a roleplaying game, not some inalterable text. If we’re all going to gather around the table for four hours at a time, I shouldn’t let a small mistake get in the way of that. This, in fact, is a strength of the medium.

Ultimately, due to the positioning, an enemy that was supposed to last for a little while ended up dying fairly quickly, thanks to the tender ministrations of the ranger, fighter, and the wizard.

I also did not intend for the PCs to be inside any of the wagons, and it ended up that three of them were, meaning that the only PC vulnerable to attack in the first round was Lexa. Not good! Not good. The wagons were supposed to be loaded down with supplies, and I could’ve spared a moment to describe this before everyone put themselves in place.

Forgetting monster abilities. Another mistake is that I didn’t use the goblins’ shifty power. This would’ve come up a lot, as multiple people missed, and this would’ve made the fight much more dynamic.

I also created some creatures whose abilities weren’t used. For example, I created some goblin wolf riders. They are for the most part like regular goblins, except they had a power the PCs never saw (because I forgot to use it) and a speed of 8. My little goblin spellcaster guy didn’t get to do much, either, except slow Kay for a little while.

Splitting the party. I did not literally split the party. Rather, since Kay’s player is leaving, only one of the PCs is from Er-Eret. The rest of the party is made up of outsiders, and I’m concerned that this will create more friction in the party than I intended.

I have so many plans.

Which brings me to my last point: one thing I’ve realized is that the DM has an obscene amount of license. If I don’t want something to happen, there are any number of extremely plausible ways for me to nudge things in another direction.

I’m not talking about railroading here. I’m not talking about the blacksmith turning into a dragon and eating you. I’m talking about the DM’s duty to let reality intrude. Players want to be entertained. They want to be challenged. They want to have to make choices.

In other words, it’s the DM’s job to manipulate everyone to put them in situations you want. Subtlety helps, but remember rule 0: it has to be entertaining. I don’t like aggressively fucking people over. I don’t like it when the DM hits people with the plot bat.

But I do like it when players make plans, and reality blithely ignores them. It’s reality’s job to continue on its merry way. And the way is going to be ever so merry, though perhaps the characters (not the players, mind) would disagree.

Actually, before we get into it, I have a real problem writing about games I’ve run. In the past, for such as my Mage: the Awakening game (“Lover’s Leap,” it was called), I wrote up synopses partially for my own benefit, and partially for others’. I liked having a record of what happened so that I could go back and refresh my memory, even after the game died the slowly, a Death of Neglect and Conflicting Schedules.

For this game, there’s a bit more to it. There’s a learning process going on for me, as I play a game with a lot more crunch than I’m used to and a premise that tends towards a different style I’m used to. So there are two levels going on here, and that’s roughly what I’ll try to write about.

This particular post is a wild stab at trying to explain what happened in the game, at least from some kind of story perspective. I’m not happy with it. Writing about actual play is very difficult, and this particular summary doesn’t capture what each player did. It’s a narration of events that makes it seem so passive, when that’s just not the case for a roleplaying game to be even remotely good.

I’m also not that great at writing; writing requires practice, and I don’t practice much.

With those caveats (face it, self: it’s not going to get any better), here’s a plot summary of the first session.

The PCs

Ratha is a tiefling warlock. No one’s really sure what exactly he wants, though by all appearances he is genial and polite. Lexa is a tiefling rogue. She does ‘work’ for a mid-level crime lord, and she enjoys it. Alac von Aronnet is a young half-elf attending a military academy who recently inherited a somewhat remote tract of land, upon which the town of Er-Eret is located. Rubican is a tiefling wizard from a noble family. He has an affinity for fire. Sighni is a dwarven ranger, and she is part of the town guard for Er-Eret. Kay is a halfling fighter who also happens to be on the town guard, and she and Sighni are good friends.

Now, in my games, I usually have a lot of side plots that nobody else necessarily knows about. This post won’t include those; what’s here should be common knowledge among the players. I mention this partially because if it seems like I’m neglecting someone, or that someone has been left out, that is not necessarily the case.

The Plot

Alac started with trying to find his way from Ursica, the town in which the military academy is located. The trouble with getting to Er-Eret is that it’s distant, so caravans don’t go there very often. In order to get to Er-Eret, Alac had to go to Torkahn to charter a caravan.

He found a fellow named Gimmel who was crazy enough to risk the trip, who in turn found a couple of other merchants. One of them was Hallen, an eladrin missing many teeth, who had a nasty blacksage addiction. (Blacksage is a lot like tobacco, only your teeth fall out sooner and it often gives you a nasty cough.)

It turned out that there were a number of interested parties. A few individuals, Ratha, Lexa, and Rubican were all interested in signing on. Alec greeted Ratha and Rubican, fellows of apparent social stature, personally to welcome them aboard. Lexa was hired by Gimmel after displaying her combat ability (and nearly putting Gimmel’s remaining eye out).

It took about a week of travel time to get to Er-Eret. The trip itself was mostly uneventful.

Now, Er-Eret used to be a thriving town, but as the Nerath empire diminished, so did the amount of trade between Torkahn and Er-Eret. It was cheaper to get wood and iron elsewhere than it was to send caravans for it.

The Calamar family, the nobles in charge of Er-Eret, effectively abandoned it. The town self-governs now, with a town council. Laszlo was the former majordomo and is now effectively the Speaker for the town. Ansa, Sighni’s mother, is on the town council as well, and the local priestess of Moradin. She acts a moderating voice.

Lately, goblin raids have become more persistent. The town guard is holding its own, but there aren’t many of them, and the goblins are getting braver about raiding in greater numbers, and even during the day. Sighni and Kay have had their hands full patrolling the outlying lands for incursions.

On this day, they were tracking a goblin raiding party through the nearby Blackwood, the source of the fine wood that once made Er-Eret famous. Eventually the raiding party approached a caravan, and attacked.

Through the cooperation of the Er-Eret contingent as well as those in the caravan, the goblin ambush was defeated. Rubican inspected one of the goblins who wielded a rod and wore a glittering red gem. The gem itself turned out to be made of glass, and shattered. The rod, however, turned out to be a Rod of Dark Reward, and Rubican gladly handed it over.

Alac wanted to detain the two women from Er-Eret, who refused despite Alac’s assertion that this was his authortiy. After some shouting, Sighni and Kay went back to Er-Eret using paths well known to them, and advised the council to close the gates.

Once Alac and the others arrived, he bargained with the council to parlay. Laszlo met Alac with a great deal of hostility which was tempered only by Ansa’s soothing words. They agreed that Alac could enter the town after explaining the troubles they’d been having with the goblins.

From here, the “party” split up for the most part.

Alac made for the manor, which had been well used in the absence of a noble. The locals turned it into a town hall of sorts, keeping it in working order but without the flourishes typical of a noble’s manor. Rubican requested a guest room for study, which Alac granted.

Lexa spent some time in the tavern. As a result of her socializing with the guards and the fact that she took three javelins without going down, sparing many of the men from death, Gimmel and the men decided to repay her with a Duelist’s Dagger.

Later, Ansa visited Alac’s new manor, carrying a bundle. She explained that what she carried belonged to the previous noble, and that if Alac was going to take the lead in combating the goblins, she would probably need this. When she handed him the Barkskin Armor, Alac told her that it would not be forgotten. “Don’t make me regret this,” she said.

Not long thereafter, Gimmel pounded on Alac’s manor door, asking for Rubican. Once the wizard answered the door, he nearly dragged Rubican to the tavern, and exhorted him to perform a number of fire tricks. Rubican grudgingly obliged, and the assorted patrons cheered as he lit up drinks, set a hat on fire and wore it, and maybe some other tricks I’m forgetting, too.

Once the display was over, Gimmel shouted to Hallen that he’d best pay up, because he’d lost the bet. Hallen was none too happy, but gave Rubican the resort of the wager: a fine robe of Darkleaf Armor.