This session happened Wednesday, August 11, 2010.
Adventuring Group:
Artemis (half-elf rogue)
Arthus (half-elf paladin)
Book (elf rogue)
Gilgamesh (uffnik artificer)
Gilgamesh and Arthus heard from Samuel that there has been goblin activity to the northwest. Richard opined that Samuel has “goblin on the brain” and that there might not actually be any goblins. We decided to go investigate anyways as it gave us an area to explore, even if no goblins were actually around.
We followed the trail from Vestige north, turning off the trail near where it peters out and entered the debris field. This took most of the day, so we made camp and set up our standard watches. During my watch, I heard the distinct sound of coins jingling in a money pouch. The sound seemed to be approaching. Thinking I had discovered a chance to enrich myself, but not wanting to get in over my head without back-up, I awoke Artemis and quickly explained the situation to her.
With her keeping an eye on camp, I slid out into the debris field to find out who was bringing us some coin. I didn’t get very far before discovering the sound came from two skeletons that were slowly approaching our camp. I called back to Artemis to wake up Arthus (paladins have to be good for something, right?) and took up an ambush position. When the first skeleton got within range I attacked.
Now saying “I attacked” normally implies that the target of the attack gets injured. This did not happen. In fact, I very quickly disarmed myself during the fight and did not damage the skeleton I was fighting until near the end of the fight. By then, Arthus and Artemis had easily taken down the other skeleton and Artemis came over to “help” me with the first skeleton. By “help” I mean do most of the damage with me getting in a feeble hit with a broken club I picked up after cleverly throwing my perfectly good one away. I really hate skeletons.
After taking out the skeletons, Artemis and I checked them for loot. Both had a coin pouch. Mine had 12 gold coins in it, the other was empty but felt like it had something in it. No matter how hard the others tried, they could not pull out whatever was inside. Oddly, it was this "empty" coin purse that jingled. We gave it to Arthus to hold onto and neither Artemis nor I wanted a noisy coin purse on our person.
In the morning we decided to head due west, as that would put us in the area northwest of Vestige, where Samuel had suggested goblin activity was happening. Early in our march, Artemis noticed a complete chest in a pile of debris. We pulled it out and she and I disabled a trap and unlocked the chest. Inside were 4 gems and a small pile of gold. Loot! This expedition was already a good one. After emptying the chest, I noticed the inside was not as deep as it should be and pried up a false bottom. Hidden away was a bag of holding, which I claimed. I transferred most of my gear to the bag which maintained a constant weight of 15 lbs. This helped me greatly – I’m not a big burly guy like Arthus and my gear was weighting me down. We tied the chest to Gilgamesh’s pony to act as bandit bait. The rest of the day was uneventful and we found little worth noting. That night it rained, so other than replenishing our water supply and finding the chest, we spent a day and night to little effect.
Being due northwest of Vestige now, where goblin activity was supposedly happening, we started a sweep pattern back towards Vestige, looking for goblin activity. Instead of goblins, Gilgamesh noticed a leopard stalking us. The fight took some time as the damned thing would not sit still and let us hit it. We did eventually kill it, but only after Arthus had been savaged by it. We bound his wounds and used what little healing magic we had left for the day, but he was still not at full health. We then camped to let Arthus rest and heal some. During the evening, Artemis found a locked coffer while on watch, but set it aside for the morning so she and I could examine it in good lighting. Good eyes on that woman – two treasures in two days. Must be from her elven half.
[The party achieved second level at this point.] After breakfast, Artemis and I examined the coffer and easily disabled an arc trap protecting it. The lock was another matter entirely. It took Artemis, Gil, and I over an hour and a half to work out the inner workings of the lock and defeat them. Inside we found two rings. Gil was able to identify them both as rings of sustenance. After some discussion, the rings went to Gil and Artemis and my ownership of the bag of holding was formalized. During this time, Arthus was able to finish healing himself, but we were left with minimal healing for the rest of the day.
We continued our sweep, looking for goblins and instead finding a cemetery. Now it could be argued that everything for miles was one big cemetery, but within the picket fence of this small area, the ground was still hallowed. There were a half dozen graves along the edges of the cemetery and one mausoleum in the center. Above the door to the mausoleum were words in a script we could not read. Not wanting to explore the mausoleum with almost no healing available, we decide to camp early. In the cemetery. Which seemed to be the safest place we had found so far.
During her watch, Artemis was fiddling with the noisy coin pouch we had given to Arthus and was able to fish out a short golden rod with writing on it. The coin pouch still jingled, but seemed to be empty now. Definitely a cursed item.
By dawn, Gilgamesh had finished cobbling together a new magical gizmo. This one creates water while granting the holder the ability to comprehend languages. Why he chose to combine those two effects I’ll never know. The writing on the golden rod is now readable and says “Creation’s Key”. The writing over the mausoleum door turned out to be a warning to not disturb anything inside. Seemed kind of ominous, so we decided to continue our sweep of the area and come back later.
We spent most of the day getting rained on. The one mobile thing we spotted the entire day was a fire elemental, which seemed to be angry about getting rained upon. We decided to avoid it entirely. Something odd happened while we were camped for the night, but I’m not certain what – I woke up several feet from where I went to sleep. Very strange.
Having been out for four days and finding no goblins nor signs of goblins, we decided to start making our way directly back to Vestige. Well, mostly directly back – we checked out a stretch we haven’t been in before on the way back and found a hut book-ended between two immense hills of war debris. There was a low fence across the front, 60 feet from the hut. At the gate was a sign in multiple languages warning “those who can read” to stay away or be “doomed”. On a dual gibbet next to the hut were hung two adventurers, still in their gear. Naturally, we took this as a challenge. Or a trap. Probably both. After discussing it a bit, we decide to not do anything yet and ask Samuel and Richard about the hut. No sense in angering someone we should be friends with.
As we press east, back towards the trail to Vestige, it starts raining. And by raining I mean someone opened the sky and let an ocean start draining. It rained hard all night and all through the next day. What should have been two hours travel at best took us all day due to the torrential rain. By the time we got back to Vestige and could take advantage of getting out of the rain, the rain stopped. Sigh.
We talked to Samuel and Richard about the hut and they knew nothing about it. That gives us two locales to go back to. I favor the mausoleum – who ever hangs adventurers by his front door is likely more dangerous than we can handle right now. Surely the others will agree.
*End of Session*
Wednesday, September 1, 2010
Monday, August 30, 2010
Metal Home Improvements
This session happened Friday, August 27, 2010, and was the only session I ran this past weekend. I left my notes in the car, so I’m typing this from memory – expect updates to the entry tomorrow, once I’ve consulted my notes.
Adventuring Group:
Mog the Doomed (half-orc barbarian)
Tycho von Helmont (elf alchemist)
Agnes Sunbeard (dwarf rogue)
Thorngrim (half-orc sorceror)
Rhapsody (half-elf rogue)
Note: the list of player characters is in player sitting order, from my left and then clockwise around the table.
The group of adventurers were indecisive as to which locale to explore. Short a wizard (Sal was not available) and even shorter on funds (after raising Mog a week ago [in game – out of game it has been two weeks], the one thing they can agree upon is a need to drop of the arcanely carved iron chairs they acquired at Drop-off Tower before anyone else sees them.
While following Gravemarker Road (which needed maintenance, maintenance that had to all come from Thorngrim), the group was attacked by leopards. While dangerous, the group found them much easier going than dire lions and killed them relatively quickly. Sadly, Thorngrim’s last dog was killed in the fight, leaving him feeling slightly more vulnerable.
When the group arrived at Drop-off Tower, they found the doors still shut, but something large and able to fly had taken up residence on the third floor of the tower. The group quietly unlocked the front doors as Tycho planned on throwing a bomb or two up into a window on the third floor and they wanted shelter in case he missed. Mog immediately charged up the stairs, intent upon doing battle with whatever was up there before it could fly out of his reach, but was stymied by the locked door on the second floor that sealed off the stairs to the third floor. He was contemplating just chopping down the door with his axe, but Agnes arrived and told him in no uncertain terms that if he did so, she’d chop HIM down. This actually gave Mog pause for thought, memories of death still too fresh in his mind. Agnes went back downstairs to await the results of Tycho’s bombs (expecting to need to close the doors rapidly and lock them).
Once the group was ready, Tycho lobbed a bomb up through a third floor window and waited to see what came out. First was what sounded like a lion’s roar, which gave the adventurers pause: they had been taunting Mog with thoughts of flying dire lions and now seemed to actually be facing one. Eek! The creature erupted out of one of the windows, staying aloft on a pair of wings. It looked very much like a dire lion with wings, but it also had a spiked tail and a man-like face: a manticore! Tycho quickly ducked back into the tower.
The manticore descended, charging Agnes in the doors, wounding her greatly but not fatally. The fight was tough, but the manticore could not get a coordinated set of attacks off. By the time it was thinking about fleeing, it was too late. Tycho and Thorngrim harvested several interesting parts of the manticore and manticore steaks were cooked for dinner.
That night, a shambling mound approached the tower, apparently drawn by the scent of dead meat. While Tycho decided on who to awaken (it was his watch), the shambling mound started slamming into the doors of the tower. Everyone sleeping was awoken by the sound of the wooden doors slowly splintering. By the time the adventurers were ready to face the creature, it successfully smashed in one of the doors. (Agnes was quite angered by this – those doors were expensive and difficult to transport.) The shambling mound went down quickly under the adventurer’s heavy assault, its fire resistance only helping slightly. After the fight, Agnes and Mog hammered up the old interior doors to seal the front entryway for the rest of the night.
In the morning, they group agreed that they needed to replace the front doors. [Also, Rhapsody leveled up to third level.] Luckily, the very complex lock had not been damaged and so could be reused. Before leaving the tower, the two iron chairs were unloaded from the bag of holding and placed on the second floor, Agnes removed the front lock from the remains of the doors, and the old interior doors were hammered into place to keep things out of the tower while they were away. Tycho also took measurements of the windows on the third floor with an eye to get shutters made to seal those as well.
The trip back was uneventful and the adventurers spent two days in Iron Keep, waiting for the lock to be mounted on a pair of iron doors. Thorngrim also bought two replacement dogs for his protection. Tycho then got their mule and cart from the stables at Spider’s Bar and the group travelled back to Drop-off Tower. The night was only slightly disturbed by some giant ants wandering by, but no combat happened.
The next morning the iron doors were mounted in place and it became possible to secure the tower once again. By this time the adventurers felt they had been out here long enough and returned back to Iron Keep, hoping to find either Sal or Su Bel available to adventure before going out again.
Adventuring Group:
Mog the Doomed (half-orc barbarian)
Tycho von Helmont (elf alchemist)
Agnes Sunbeard (dwarf rogue)
Thorngrim (half-orc sorceror)
Rhapsody (half-elf rogue)
Note: the list of player characters is in player sitting order, from my left and then clockwise around the table.
The group of adventurers were indecisive as to which locale to explore. Short a wizard (Sal was not available) and even shorter on funds (after raising Mog a week ago [in game – out of game it has been two weeks], the one thing they can agree upon is a need to drop of the arcanely carved iron chairs they acquired at Drop-off Tower before anyone else sees them.
While following Gravemarker Road (which needed maintenance, maintenance that had to all come from Thorngrim), the group was attacked by leopards. While dangerous, the group found them much easier going than dire lions and killed them relatively quickly. Sadly, Thorngrim’s last dog was killed in the fight, leaving him feeling slightly more vulnerable.
When the group arrived at Drop-off Tower, they found the doors still shut, but something large and able to fly had taken up residence on the third floor of the tower. The group quietly unlocked the front doors as Tycho planned on throwing a bomb or two up into a window on the third floor and they wanted shelter in case he missed. Mog immediately charged up the stairs, intent upon doing battle with whatever was up there before it could fly out of his reach, but was stymied by the locked door on the second floor that sealed off the stairs to the third floor. He was contemplating just chopping down the door with his axe, but Agnes arrived and told him in no uncertain terms that if he did so, she’d chop HIM down. This actually gave Mog pause for thought, memories of death still too fresh in his mind. Agnes went back downstairs to await the results of Tycho’s bombs (expecting to need to close the doors rapidly and lock them).
Once the group was ready, Tycho lobbed a bomb up through a third floor window and waited to see what came out. First was what sounded like a lion’s roar, which gave the adventurers pause: they had been taunting Mog with thoughts of flying dire lions and now seemed to actually be facing one. Eek! The creature erupted out of one of the windows, staying aloft on a pair of wings. It looked very much like a dire lion with wings, but it also had a spiked tail and a man-like face: a manticore! Tycho quickly ducked back into the tower.
The manticore descended, charging Agnes in the doors, wounding her greatly but not fatally. The fight was tough, but the manticore could not get a coordinated set of attacks off. By the time it was thinking about fleeing, it was too late. Tycho and Thorngrim harvested several interesting parts of the manticore and manticore steaks were cooked for dinner.
That night, a shambling mound approached the tower, apparently drawn by the scent of dead meat. While Tycho decided on who to awaken (it was his watch), the shambling mound started slamming into the doors of the tower. Everyone sleeping was awoken by the sound of the wooden doors slowly splintering. By the time the adventurers were ready to face the creature, it successfully smashed in one of the doors. (Agnes was quite angered by this – those doors were expensive and difficult to transport.) The shambling mound went down quickly under the adventurer’s heavy assault, its fire resistance only helping slightly. After the fight, Agnes and Mog hammered up the old interior doors to seal the front entryway for the rest of the night.
In the morning, they group agreed that they needed to replace the front doors. [Also, Rhapsody leveled up to third level.] Luckily, the very complex lock had not been damaged and so could be reused. Before leaving the tower, the two iron chairs were unloaded from the bag of holding and placed on the second floor, Agnes removed the front lock from the remains of the doors, and the old interior doors were hammered into place to keep things out of the tower while they were away. Tycho also took measurements of the windows on the third floor with an eye to get shutters made to seal those as well.
The trip back was uneventful and the adventurers spent two days in Iron Keep, waiting for the lock to be mounted on a pair of iron doors. Thorngrim also bought two replacement dogs for his protection. Tycho then got their mule and cart from the stables at Spider’s Bar and the group travelled back to Drop-off Tower. The night was only slightly disturbed by some giant ants wandering by, but no combat happened.
The next morning the iron doors were mounted in place and it became possible to secure the tower once again. By this time the adventurers felt they had been out here long enough and returned back to Iron Keep, hoping to find either Sal or Su Bel available to adventure before going out again.
Friday, August 27, 2010
Players for a West Marches Game
One of the hallmarks of a West Marches campaign is a large pool of players, more than can fit at a table at one time. In an optimal world, the players get together as groups and schedule the games and ask the DM to be there. This works great in high school or college (particularly college), but after that it gets a bit more dicey.
What I am finding is that the game day is set based upon when the DM can be available and then players who can show up to play. A certain number of players can usually make every game with an equal number being more sporadic. The sporadic players will stick with the game until their character start falling behind in experience and then they drop out entirely.
This seems to lead towards a more standard gaming group, but I think it has greater flexibility in the way of bringing in new players. There is motivation to keep making games to avoid falling behind and with a more gygaxian naturalism, there is always the chance that high level PCs may die and restart, keeping overall levels relatively close (in theory anyways).
[Note: by "gygaxian naturalism" I mean the world is a somewhat naturalistic environment and what "should" be there actually is, regardless of level-appropriateness. So if your 5th level party wanders into a pride of dire lions, they better get out of there quick before they become kitty kibble. The opposite of this is a series of level appropriate encounters that gradually rise in difficulty to match the PCs increasing capabilities, as you see advocated in 3.x and 4E D&D.]
Now, one of the downsides to this is that sometimes you don't have a lot of players if real life conspires that way. In my Southern Reaches game, I have 10 players in my pool of players, but only regularly see six of them at the moment. In the Verden game, we started with six players and last session only had three. The question becomes, "Do I need to recruit more players or let it ride as-is?" The answer seems to be, "It depends."
For the Southern Reaches game, I don't think I need to recruit more players, partly because I still have six, but also because the reasons keeping the other players away are temporary and will be ending in the next month or so. For the Verden game, the DM is asking us if we know more players and I think he is right to do so. Three is a difficult number of characters to adventure with, especially if we do not have access to hirelings to supplement our numbers. The missing three players will likely be back, but it is much easier to run with a few more players and would improve our confidence that the game will regularly make (especially as I tend to be unavoidably late).
What I am finding is that the game day is set based upon when the DM can be available and then players who can show up to play. A certain number of players can usually make every game with an equal number being more sporadic. The sporadic players will stick with the game until their character start falling behind in experience and then they drop out entirely.
This seems to lead towards a more standard gaming group, but I think it has greater flexibility in the way of bringing in new players. There is motivation to keep making games to avoid falling behind and with a more gygaxian naturalism, there is always the chance that high level PCs may die and restart, keeping overall levels relatively close (in theory anyways).
[Note: by "gygaxian naturalism" I mean the world is a somewhat naturalistic environment and what "should" be there actually is, regardless of level-appropriateness. So if your 5th level party wanders into a pride of dire lions, they better get out of there quick before they become kitty kibble. The opposite of this is a series of level appropriate encounters that gradually rise in difficulty to match the PCs increasing capabilities, as you see advocated in 3.x and 4E D&D.]
Now, one of the downsides to this is that sometimes you don't have a lot of players if real life conspires that way. In my Southern Reaches game, I have 10 players in my pool of players, but only regularly see six of them at the moment. In the Verden game, we started with six players and last session only had three. The question becomes, "Do I need to recruit more players or let it ride as-is?" The answer seems to be, "It depends."
For the Southern Reaches game, I don't think I need to recruit more players, partly because I still have six, but also because the reasons keeping the other players away are temporary and will be ending in the next month or so. For the Verden game, the DM is asking us if we know more players and I think he is right to do so. Three is a difficult number of characters to adventure with, especially if we do not have access to hirelings to supplement our numbers. The missing three players will likely be back, but it is much easier to run with a few more players and would improve our confidence that the game will regularly make (especially as I tend to be unavoidably late).
Thursday, August 26, 2010
Verden: …and Back Again.
This session happened Wednesday, August 4, 2010. Two players were unable to make, so we just had their characters fade into the background. After this initial expedition, we will always end back in town so it this won't be an issue.
Adventuring Group:
Artemis (half-elf rogue)
Arthus (half-elf paladin)
Book (elf rogue)
Gilgamesh (uffnik artificer)
We started the day spending two hours working out where were actually were. Turns out we had circled back a bit. This was the first time it hit us how difficult navigating our way around out here was going to be. This is worse than going to a part of Verden you’ve never been to. Here there is no one to ask for directions and no signs to follow. We are going to have to take extra time to avoid getting lost beyond all hope of return.
After some discussion, we decided to continue exploring north, taking extra time to avoid getting lost. At one point, Artemis spotted a sword marking a grave. Arthus pulled the sword out of the ground and the blade disappeared. He was holding the grip, but there was no blade now. The blade slowly reappeared. Very weird, but he decided to keep it. Paladins…
Further on that day we discovered a pit trap a goblin had set to catch game. We know it was a goblin that had done it because we caught sight of him too. The goblin bolted, but I ran him down and tackled him. After some discussion with the goblin (with Artemis acting as translator), he agreed that we are "not food" and we let him go. Dangling him over his own pit trap (with spikes no less) seemed to convince him of our sincerity. After the goblin ran off, Artemis spotted something sparkly in the pit and we lowered her in to investigate. She found 9 gold marks, some gems, and boots of stealth (we think). I put the boots on and Artemis decided to hold onto the gold until “later”.
That night it rained during my watch. As my waterskin was getting empty and we had not seen any other source of water, I improvised a funnel and refilled everyone’s waterskins with rain water. This is something else we had not anticipated. It is surprising what I took for granted back in Verden and expected to be available out here.
With a renewed water supply, we continued north, looking for an end to the war-debris. Around mid-day we heard the sound of combat and investigated. We discovered human being attacked by two giant oozes. We moved to assist the human, because…well, the other things were giant oozes. The Hunter (what he goes by – he never told us his name) had vials of the stuff that he threw into the oozes and it caused them to roil and then melt once we got two of the vials in each ooze. The Hunter then scooped up melted ooze into the vials, which we thought was weird. Turns out the best way to fight giant oozes is with the remains of giant oozes – that’s what was in them originally.
During the fight, Arthus was engulfed by one of the oozes. Gilgamesh used his "shank of healing" to heal up Arthus afterwards. (Yes, he stabs us with his healing device.) We talked some more with The Hunter about the area and he gave us some advice. He’s been out here a couple years, so we took him serious. I found a ring (which turned out to be non-magical) in the goo, so it was not a total loss.
Parting ways with The Hunter, we continued north a ways and found some fire beetles. We killed most of them, but Gil captured some and put them in improvised cages. They make OK light sources. We also searched the pile of debris the beetles were in and found a set of magical bracers. Gil put them on, hoping they would help him not get hit.
When we finally camped, we discovered that most of Arthus's stuff was slowly destroyed by contact with the ooze acid. We realized we now only had food for four days left - just enough to make it back to The Wall. Hopefully. During the night we got attacked by 3 ghouls (which eat the fire beetles first). We defeated them, but Artemis contracted ghoul fever. One of the ghouls had picked up a feather token somewhere. Not knowing what it does, we packed it away for later examination.
In the morning we started heading back. It took us all four days of our remaining food to get back to Vestige. We sold what loot we found to Samuel at the Gnome Hill Inn (but not magical stuff). Divided four way, each share came to 192 gold marks, 2 silver squares, and 5 copper pennies. I spent part of my share buying 10 days of rations to resupply and a night at the inn. It was good to sleep in a real bed with some surety that monsters would not wake you up by attacking.
*End Session*
Adventuring Group:
Artemis (half-elf rogue)
Arthus (half-elf paladin)
Book (elf rogue)
Gilgamesh (uffnik artificer)
We started the day spending two hours working out where were actually were. Turns out we had circled back a bit. This was the first time it hit us how difficult navigating our way around out here was going to be. This is worse than going to a part of Verden you’ve never been to. Here there is no one to ask for directions and no signs to follow. We are going to have to take extra time to avoid getting lost beyond all hope of return.
After some discussion, we decided to continue exploring north, taking extra time to avoid getting lost. At one point, Artemis spotted a sword marking a grave. Arthus pulled the sword out of the ground and the blade disappeared. He was holding the grip, but there was no blade now. The blade slowly reappeared. Very weird, but he decided to keep it. Paladins…
Further on that day we discovered a pit trap a goblin had set to catch game. We know it was a goblin that had done it because we caught sight of him too. The goblin bolted, but I ran him down and tackled him. After some discussion with the goblin (with Artemis acting as translator), he agreed that we are "not food" and we let him go. Dangling him over his own pit trap (with spikes no less) seemed to convince him of our sincerity. After the goblin ran off, Artemis spotted something sparkly in the pit and we lowered her in to investigate. She found 9 gold marks, some gems, and boots of stealth (we think). I put the boots on and Artemis decided to hold onto the gold until “later”.
That night it rained during my watch. As my waterskin was getting empty and we had not seen any other source of water, I improvised a funnel and refilled everyone’s waterskins with rain water. This is something else we had not anticipated. It is surprising what I took for granted back in Verden and expected to be available out here.
With a renewed water supply, we continued north, looking for an end to the war-debris. Around mid-day we heard the sound of combat and investigated. We discovered human being attacked by two giant oozes. We moved to assist the human, because…well, the other things were giant oozes. The Hunter (what he goes by – he never told us his name) had vials of the stuff that he threw into the oozes and it caused them to roil and then melt once we got two of the vials in each ooze. The Hunter then scooped up melted ooze into the vials, which we thought was weird. Turns out the best way to fight giant oozes is with the remains of giant oozes – that’s what was in them originally.
During the fight, Arthus was engulfed by one of the oozes. Gilgamesh used his "shank of healing" to heal up Arthus afterwards. (Yes, he stabs us with his healing device.) We talked some more with The Hunter about the area and he gave us some advice. He’s been out here a couple years, so we took him serious. I found a ring (which turned out to be non-magical) in the goo, so it was not a total loss.
Parting ways with The Hunter, we continued north a ways and found some fire beetles. We killed most of them, but Gil captured some and put them in improvised cages. They make OK light sources. We also searched the pile of debris the beetles were in and found a set of magical bracers. Gil put them on, hoping they would help him not get hit.
When we finally camped, we discovered that most of Arthus's stuff was slowly destroyed by contact with the ooze acid. We realized we now only had food for four days left - just enough to make it back to The Wall. Hopefully. During the night we got attacked by 3 ghouls (which eat the fire beetles first). We defeated them, but Artemis contracted ghoul fever. One of the ghouls had picked up a feather token somewhere. Not knowing what it does, we packed it away for later examination.
In the morning we started heading back. It took us all four days of our remaining food to get back to Vestige. We sold what loot we found to Samuel at the Gnome Hill Inn (but not magical stuff). Divided four way, each share came to 192 gold marks, 2 silver squares, and 5 copper pennies. I spent part of my share buying 10 days of rations to resupply and a night at the inn. It was good to sleep in a real bed with some surety that monsters would not wake you up by attacking.
*End Session*
Tuesday, August 24, 2010
Long Story Short: No-Hurricane Job
I'm behind due to the chaos my life has been over the last week (and to some extent still is). Rather than clutter up this blog with details, just go here to read about it. It will take me a bit to catch up for writing time lost, but I will.
Thank you for your time and patience.
Patrick
Thank you for your time and patience.
Patrick
Wednesday, August 18, 2010
Wednesday Blog Delayed
Our A/C went out Monday night and the repair guy can't get to the house until Thursday, so I've been distracted by survival in Houston during the hotest part of the summer (translated: I got busy and forgot to write the thing). Tonight is the next session for Verden (at someone else's house, thank goodness), so no writing tonight. I'll work on a post at lunch tomorrow, so there should be a real post Thursday evening at the latest.
This is where having a buffer of written material would be brilliant. Sigh...
This is where having a buffer of written material would be brilliant. Sigh...
Monday, August 16, 2010
Sandbox Permutations
Due to trip preparation, there was no Southern Reaches game last Friday (August 13), so I don't have an adventure log today. What I do have is some thoughts on different ways West Marches-style games can vary.
First example* is the Southern Reaches campaign, where I am the DM. In this campaign, the PCs are the only adventurers operating out of a small barony on the edge of a remote continent. There are no humanoids in the immediate vicinity (at least none interacting with people on the surface). The immediate area is naturalistic and the climate mostly benign. Initial opponents are animals, nature, and the undead. The PCs were provided a map with some adventure locales on it.
* I only know the West Marches from some basic reading, so I don't feel comfortable second-guessing how the campaign actually worked.
Second example is Verden, where I am a player. While we start out right next to civilization (and lots of it), it is on the other side of an immense wall and we can only go back and forth every three months. The immediate adventure area is tens of miles of ruins and smashed siege equipment and good water is hard to find. Again, initial opponents are animals, nature, and the undead. The players have a blank piece of paper for a map and not even rumors of adventure locales.
Third example is a sci-fi game that I'm talking about with one of my friends. Players will slowly explore an expanse of space, with star systems and planets comprising the primary adventure locales. Civilization might or might not be present on an individual world, but it's not too far away (as long as the spaceship works). Opponents can be nature, hostile alien life, hostile aliens, and possibly hostile non-aliens in the form of raiders. For ease of reference, I'm going to call this one Stellar Reaches (a working title I just came up with). It is likely there will be a star map and maybe system information for some locales, but probably not.
As a result of the starting environment, Verden is more survival oriented than Southern Reaches. Rather than draw every stream and spring on the map in Southern Reaches, I assume that the players find enough water that it is not an issue. In Verden, water that reaches the soil becomes tainted, so we have to capture rain whenever we can and we are seriously thinking of doubling our number of waterskins soonest. For a Stellar Reaches game, survival includes fuel for the ship and air to breathe as well as food and water. However, as that should be available at whatever starport the players base out of (or anyplace civilization exists) and does not have to be physically carried by the characters, this is a matter of logistics, not necessarily critical need (although fuel for the ship should be a regular purchase and will become a modulator of player wealth).
One of the issues I'm seeing in both Southern Reaches and Verden is a lack of NPCs for the players to interact with (Southern Reaches more than Verden as it turns out, but I haven't put up that adventure log yet). This is both a blessing and a curse. With no NPCs to get plot hooks from, the players must be proactive about doing things. On the downside, the range of encounters is more limited and interaction skills do not get much attention. Roleplaying is mostly between player characters which is more a matter of the players discussing strategy and where they want to explore. For my next campaign (once I've decided to conclude Southern Reaches), one of the things I'll change is how isolated the adventure area is. Bandits and intelligent humanoids should probably be more frequent in a sandbox game, if nothing else to shake things up occasionally.
For Stellar Reaches, NPC interaction should be a great deal more common. In a purely exploration game, it is likely the PCs will have a patron supporting them or need to sell data to keep everything running. In a more commerce-oriented game, the PCs will need to find cargo to ship or speculate in as they go system to system, using this as their income source and means for keeping the ship running. To do any of this will require interaction with a number of NPCs, getting interaction skills some limelight.
That's really all I have to say at the moment on that. I may have more on Wednesday.
First example* is the Southern Reaches campaign, where I am the DM. In this campaign, the PCs are the only adventurers operating out of a small barony on the edge of a remote continent. There are no humanoids in the immediate vicinity (at least none interacting with people on the surface). The immediate area is naturalistic and the climate mostly benign. Initial opponents are animals, nature, and the undead. The PCs were provided a map with some adventure locales on it.
* I only know the West Marches from some basic reading, so I don't feel comfortable second-guessing how the campaign actually worked.
Second example is Verden, where I am a player. While we start out right next to civilization (and lots of it), it is on the other side of an immense wall and we can only go back and forth every three months. The immediate adventure area is tens of miles of ruins and smashed siege equipment and good water is hard to find. Again, initial opponents are animals, nature, and the undead. The players have a blank piece of paper for a map and not even rumors of adventure locales.
Third example is a sci-fi game that I'm talking about with one of my friends. Players will slowly explore an expanse of space, with star systems and planets comprising the primary adventure locales. Civilization might or might not be present on an individual world, but it's not too far away (as long as the spaceship works). Opponents can be nature, hostile alien life, hostile aliens, and possibly hostile non-aliens in the form of raiders. For ease of reference, I'm going to call this one Stellar Reaches (a working title I just came up with). It is likely there will be a star map and maybe system information for some locales, but probably not.
As a result of the starting environment, Verden is more survival oriented than Southern Reaches. Rather than draw every stream and spring on the map in Southern Reaches, I assume that the players find enough water that it is not an issue. In Verden, water that reaches the soil becomes tainted, so we have to capture rain whenever we can and we are seriously thinking of doubling our number of waterskins soonest. For a Stellar Reaches game, survival includes fuel for the ship and air to breathe as well as food and water. However, as that should be available at whatever starport the players base out of (or anyplace civilization exists) and does not have to be physically carried by the characters, this is a matter of logistics, not necessarily critical need (although fuel for the ship should be a regular purchase and will become a modulator of player wealth).
One of the issues I'm seeing in both Southern Reaches and Verden is a lack of NPCs for the players to interact with (Southern Reaches more than Verden as it turns out, but I haven't put up that adventure log yet). This is both a blessing and a curse. With no NPCs to get plot hooks from, the players must be proactive about doing things. On the downside, the range of encounters is more limited and interaction skills do not get much attention. Roleplaying is mostly between player characters which is more a matter of the players discussing strategy and where they want to explore. For my next campaign (once I've decided to conclude Southern Reaches), one of the things I'll change is how isolated the adventure area is. Bandits and intelligent humanoids should probably be more frequent in a sandbox game, if nothing else to shake things up occasionally.
For Stellar Reaches, NPC interaction should be a great deal more common. In a purely exploration game, it is likely the PCs will have a patron supporting them or need to sell data to keep everything running. In a more commerce-oriented game, the PCs will need to find cargo to ship or speculate in as they go system to system, using this as their income source and means for keeping the ship running. To do any of this will require interaction with a number of NPCs, getting interaction skills some limelight.
That's really all I have to say at the moment on that. I may have more on Wednesday.
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