Some Thoughts on the First Trelleborg Session of 2015

As mentioned previously, I recently ran the first session of 2015 of my ongoing social game campaign, The Trelleborg Campaign. I posted a brief recap of the session over on the campaign blog today.

It was enjoyable, but there are, as always, areas of improvement.

Primarily, i think i could have done  a better job of making the fight seem more epic and the evil more malevolent.

During the game, I did for a second, start to regret the use of the d30 rule a bit when one player used it to deal a massive pile of damage to the salamander. On the one hand, that is the point - a moment of tremendous luck/grace of the gods. At the same time, it's one of many times when the d30 has taken the sting out of an otherwise challenging encounter and I think it actually lessens the threat of danger the players feel.

It was the 2nd time we've played at one of the players' houses, and it seems so far that, compared with the games played at the FLGS, socializing takes a greater priority. I don't dislike it - i rather like getting to know the people in the group outside of what character they play in the game and what their play style is - but at the same time, I am there primarily to play (and have spent hours prepping to do so) and would rather minimize socializing during the game, and do it before and after, and during intermissions. 

Not sure how, or if, I will address this, as two data points is hardly enough to base action on. Ideally, I would create a similar situation as described in How to Run, where players have ample time to unwind and hang out before the game begins.  

Alas, we don't have that flexibility at the moment.

As for next session, i took a quick poll about what they planned next, and the consensus seems to be that they will go and attempt to finish off the white apes (and pick up Snow Ball along the way) who are a thorn in the side of the Nezumi (rat people) on level 3 west. That part of the complex is already mapped and pretty much ready to go, so i will focus on improving my descriptions of atmosphere and tone before then.

Trelleborg's Dungeon:1st Game of the New Year Tonight

Now that the holidays have passed and my players are (mostly) available again, we've scheduled the first session of the year for tonight. I will continue running b/x - despite my liking some of what I saw in the 5e starter set, I have no reason to change systems.

The campaign began as an open table and ran that way until September or October. It took one session with a random player who, perhaps unintentionally, nearly sabotaged the party's plans to form an alliance with the rat people of the third level, to turn it into a closed group by December. The group is solidly 5 players, plus invited guests. Currently the party with hirelings and charmed creatures is some 8 or 10 strong, depending on whether you count the charmed white ape, waiting for the party to return, and the tanner who acts as the party's fence and handles sign ups for the adventurers guild they are forming. 

The campaign has had its ups and downs in terms of my feelings about the sessions. Much of it, I think has been that I have been on my heels often trying to keep up with their plans and machinations - but as I am finally getting ahead of the party again on that front (in terms of the dungeon at least), I'm hopeful that i'll be able to find a grove that works for me. On the plus side, I am happy with how much freedom the players have, and that they take advantage of it- in addition to the adventurers guild, they now have some merchants working with them, and they have sent forth for engineers to submit their bids to rehab the tower above the dungeon, with an eye towards making it their home base. Even tonight they will probably spend their time trying to stop some cultists from opening up a portal to the Abyss and bringing forth Abaddon's diabolical army, rather than exploring further into the dungeon. 

The cultists, and their raiding bandits, were to be a minor encounter to alert the party to the presence of an entire section of the dungeon that they were unaware of. However, the first few times, they showed no interest and that was that but of course, the raids continued, prisoners continued to be taken. A chance wandering encounter roll brought the cultists to the fore again, and this time, with evidence of prisoners recently captured and brought below, they did a little investigating and became incensed by what they found (some of my more gory/twisted descriptions, more at home in a Lamentations of the Flame Princess game).

The party has their work cut out for them: it wouldn't be so bad if the high priest of the cult hadn't turned into a salamander (in b/x a fire elemental lizard thing) that retained his previous form's powers, although he's gone a bit mad as a result of the transformation. 

When we left off in December, the party was in a bit of a panic about how to deal with this unexpected threat. I'll give them some time tonight to make sure they dot their i's and cross their t's to their satisfaction. I don't know how they will try to defeat the cult, but I am sure it's some way I haven't thought of, and I look forward to seeing what they come up with.

To Screen or Not to Screen?

One of the things that drew me to punk rock was the idea that the stage isn’t a sanctified space for the performers to deliver their message from behind an imaginary barrier, and upon which the audience could only gaze in adoration. Rather, the stage is just another spot in the room, and there is no barrier, real or otherwise, band and audience blend together until it becomes impossible to determine who or what the performance is and who the audience is. (As a side note, it doesn’t usually work that way. People are conditioned to the audience-performer divide and often play their conditioned roles.)

Abandoning the DM/GM screen is a bit like that - perhaps without the pretension that I packed into that last paragraph - and tears down a wall.

I’m currently reading Alexis Smolensk’s How to Run and he notes that he does not use a DM screen. His reasons for dropping the screen seem to align with my own when it comes to rolling dice in the open so, I thought I would give it a try sometime.

As fortune would have it, last week the FLGS was quite crowded with Warhammer40K players (a new thing at the store and what looks to be a another big draw for them, although not as big as Magic:The Gathering) and rather than the usual two tables, we were consigned to a single small table - which was fine as we had about half of our usual number. Even with just four of us, the table was pretty crowded with character sheets, dice, the abstract combat sheet and miniatures, not to mention my map book, dungeon key, etc.

It seemed like a suitable opportunity to try and run screenless, if only to save some table space.

Despite the authority I am assumed to have as the “DM”, the fact is that I am playing the game, too. My role is different than the roles of other players who are responsible for one or two characters (I let player’s run their hirelings and charmed opponents, unless I think the NPC would refuse or resist the action the player is having them take), but I am still playing the game. Although it's subtle, without the screen, I think there was a definite mental shift on my part, if no on the part the other players.

Was I worried that the others would see my maps? A little, but not because I thought they would cheat (I’m not really sure how you can cheat at playing an RPG).

Rather, when I am running a PC, for me, much of the fun is the discovery of the place; with the map in view (not in the middle of the table mind you), that might be jeopardized. More importantly, to me as a DM, now that I’m trying to give them successes when they roll as such, it makes it harder to modify the map when they find a secret door I didn't know was there.

But that raises the question, what am I afraid of if they see me add it to the map? That I will undermine my role as DM because I am supposed to be all knowing about the game world? (I don’t think that’s written anywhere) That they will know I improvise and that parts of the game are “made up” randomly determined? I don’t worry about this when there is dialog or reactions in combat or when I roll to see how an NPC reacts to a character with a particularly low charisma score, why then in this situation does it matter? Is the map sacrosanct? Is there a rule or unwritten social contract that says Thou Shalt Not Modify the Map in Play! (i don’t mean Quantum Ogring something. For that I think there is indeed a social contract that thou shalt not undermine agency even if you think the other players will never know).

Some people will point out that the screen is helpful not for hiding anything but because it has frequently used information for the DM. I would agree, except, I play war games and typically, war game rules do that on Quick Reference Sheets that are simply held in hand. Why is a screen, usually in a static location on the table, more helpful than sheets you can hold in hand and reference while moving about? (Ever since I played in a DCC game in DragonCon 2013 with one of the most animated GMs I have ever witnessed, I have, for the most part, given up sitting when running a social game.)

In my experience it’s not better, and it might actually be worse.

When I’m standing, reading items at the bottom of a screen is difficult to say the least. The same info held in hand is easily read. That said, I’ve started putting much of the relevant info for creatures, traps, etc. into my key, and memorized most everything else (b/x lends itself to this). Players are responsible for knowing their Saving Throw numbers, To Hit numbers, etc.

I’m running the next session of the Trelleborg dungeon on Friday night and expect to have more players in attendance. I will try it without the screen again and see how it goes.

Adventure Maximus! : Reviewed and a Basic Idea for Solo Play

Adventure Maximus! got its first outing last week (it's part of my 10 games, 10x challenge). If you're not familiar with the game, it's a card based RPG, designed for kids. I backed the Kickstarter awhile back and only recently gave the rules the once over before deciding to bring it with me on vacation.

The whole thing comes in a nice approximately digest-sized box with character sheets, rulebook, Adventure Sheet, cards (lots of cards), 5 blank dice and the stickers to apply to them (rather than using pips, there are three symbols per die: 1 sword, 2 swords and what looks kind of like the "at" symbol).

Character creation is fairly simple: players draw 3 race cards (which detail any special abilities the PC has) and choose 1, then draw three class cards (additional special abilities, armor and weapons) and choose 1. Based on the class card, the player may draw one or more Equipment and Action cards, and, if applicable, Spell cards.

Adventures are Madlib generated (and can cross into the utterly nonsensical as a result - basically, it provides about as much motivation as required for the average dungeon crawl) and individual encounters feature a map card, an equipment card (the treasure) and a creature card. Three encounters make up the adventure, so the third creature is a boss creature encounter. The boss has its own equipment, spells and actions, just like the PCs, which makes them very dangerous.

This mirrors a typical video game pattern and, given the target audience, makes a lot of sense.

From a tabletop perspective though, it is, without a doubt, a complete railroad, no matter how much you improvise - if the players must go to a particular location, and must encounter a particular thing, it's a railroad. I think, for a kids' game, as a way to introduce role-playing, this probably isn't horrible as it makes life easy for the Maximus Master, who might also have no experience with gaming. 

I found thinking of the defined quests as markers to be hit, alleviated some of my aversion to the rails. Also, there is no reason that the Maximus Master can't insert additional locations/encounters along the way and in fact, the rulebook encourages this. Nor are there any scripted resolutions, so player's have at least limited agency.

Ariale, for example, made it past a giant bug simply by avoiding it. She didn't get the loot, but it was a trade off. When she encountered a were-weasel, rather than fight, she parleyed, gave him the wish from her genie lamp which cured him of his lycanthropy and got the treasure that way (plus a bonus XP). She recovered the object of her quest from the big boss in a similar creative fashion, without actually defeating the boss, which left the boss as a potential recurring enemy going forward (if we play again - it doesn't lend itself to chat gaming).

Each PC gets Action Points based on their race card that regenerate per combat round, and can presumably be spent out of combat as well, without restriction. The average for PCs seems to be 3 points. Special abilities, Action Cards, Equipment Cards and Spell Cards all require action points to use. Again, each round of combat, the PC earns their Action Points back, but they may not exceed the maximum allowable for their race.

All dice rolls count successes: a sword = 1 success, two swords = two successes and the "at" symbol thing means 2 successes + roll that die again and add those successes (so, an exploding dice mechanic I guess?). The 5 dice provided, in my limited experience, are more than enough to cover most situations.

Experience Points are given after each encounter, rather than at the end of the adventure. Everyone gets 1 for participating (kind of like those "participant" awards they give to kids just for being on a team) and the Maximus Master can pass out up to 1 additional point per player for roleplaying, creative ideas, etc. Spending the points improve the character in various ways, depending on how many you spend. 

I like this mechanism, as it encourages the player to weigh the risk/reward of saving their points for a bigger upgrade.

I also gave the game a try solo, which I am pretty sure the designers never intended. In fact, given that at least one card bases its duration on the amount of time the player air guitars, I'd have to say it didn't cross their minds.

However, this is why I went in on the Kickstarter: I love cards generally, and the art on these in particular, and I figured I could use the card draws to create scenes and then use various solo techniques to play them out.  Never the less, for the 10 game challenge, I decided that I would try to stick as close to the way the game is meant to be played (that is, rather than re-purposing the decks into my own game).

The big difference was that, while I had to reveal the Map, Equipment and Boss Creature card to generate the adventure,  I only revealed the Map and Creature cards for the first encounter and nothing of the 2nd, until necessary. This way, I could preserve the sense of discovery that I would have in a social game. I used Mythic to run the encounter - it's like second nature anymore to use it, and would allow me to get on with the gaming.

The setup worked well (I'll post a write up of the session as a follow up to this)- my Minotaur Officer clomped around in his full plate to good effect and despite the rails (which I couldn't entirely see thanks to the delayed card draws), with Mythic, it went typically off course each encounter - although i gave up on the third encounter because I ran out of time thanks to some issues with the combat system during the second encounter.

Similar to T&T combats without spite damage, I ended up in a combat that seemed to be interminable - neither side able to rack up damage in any meaningful way due to high armor on both sides. Only by running away from the combat and ducking into a tavern(an act that took 3 tries before I could escape the gargoyles thanks to Mythic and poor die rolls) was I able to end the encounter in an "in game" way. 

Obviously, if I was adjudicating this combat in a social game, the gargoyles would have given up when they realized they couldn't do any damage, but maybe to return later with more of their kind. Solo, it seemed a cheat just to rule that without dice to back it up.

Both sessions were enjoyable, although I think I stumbled with the rules more than I would normally find acceptable. i found more than one card that did not seem to fit the system as described in the rule book, but that's probably just a "me thing" and will be corrected with further experience with the game.

Skalafell : Danger at the Evil Wizard's Tower (part 1)

This took place two sessions ago,  played prior to DragonCon. I think we played for maybe an hour - hence the brevity.

Per her orders from her new teacher, the Evil Wizard Inhabiting Sister Rebecca's body, Fjörgyn made preparations for her expedition to clear out any possible inhabitants from his long abandoned tower.

After a short journey into the woods, she spied the tower in a clearing, its door open a bit, a shiny brackish splatter around head height. Fjörgyn just shrugged it off as probably just blood: "Whatevs." (that's a paraphrase but it shows far she's come since wanting to run away at the first sign of danger back in March!)

She carefully peered in using her infravision before igniting a torch and heading inside. The main room was largely empty but for two stairwells and something giving off some heat in a terrarium above the fireplace. She opted for the steps up, which led to a sitting room of sorts, with two doors.

Trying one of them, she was electrocuted, mildly and so decided instead to kick open the other door.

There, on a bed, in perfect stillness, undisturbed by her dramatic entrance, was a man, above whom floated a green swirling mist. Wasting no time, Fjörgyn pulled a stake from her bag and plunged in into the Sleeper's chest. 

Green Mist by DarkGX

The mist swirled and bloomed into a spectral visage of the Sleeper's face twisted into silent angry howl before rushing into the nostrils of the body, which then sat bolt upright, in no particularly good mood.

The stake had missed the mark and a fight ensued with the man who eventually loosed 3 unerring bolts of magic light at our poor hero, who fled the tower somewhat worse for wear.

DragonCon 2014 in Review: Day 2

Saturday 1 PM - 5:45 PM
On Saturday morning, my son didn't want me to leave and so I was a bit late getting out of the house. I didn't make it down into the city until after 1 PM, which meant I missed a chance to play a game at 1 pm. I figured I'd swing by the vendor hall but the parade is Saturday and the sidewalks were packed. Getting into America's Mart (the vendor hall) involved a line and it was far too hot and humid for that.

Instead, I circled by a round about way to the Hilton and took up a place in the lounge, drawing the logo for the zine that I had hoped to have done for the con (spoiler alert: didn't make it). It's called Save vs. Paper Cuts and is a return to the aesthetics i prefer. Fear not, it doesn't replace 6 Iron Spikes & a Small Hammer, it's in addition.

I checked out some of the gaming going on in the basement - wow, was it packed. My plans for a pop-up zine library there went out the window: no open tables. 

People played everything from My Little Pony to Malifaux. I stopped to watch the demo of  Bravo Company (WWII RAFM Charlie Company) featuring some US troops landing on a Japanese held island but it seemed a bit chaotic with multiple people teaching the rules. The Hive and the Flame had a game going, and I think they were open to anyone joining anytime, but I went back to the lounge and setup myself for zines and sent out a tweet and such.

I refused to go back outside into the heat and humidity but eventually got tired of just sitting around, so I went to a panel on advanced audio techniques for podcasting that was held in the Hilton. It was pretty interesting - plus, it was nice to see that the audio knowledge I accumulated in college and 20+ years of playing in bands still has relevance, despite technological changes. 

Saturday - 6 PM - 9:45 PM
This was my first slot for running The Dungeon of Akban using S&W: Whitebox. I had a full group of six players, including one who immediately noted that the game was "broken" upon seeing the character sheets and hearing my explanation of the game. Inherently, I find such comments annoying when a person hasn't actually played the game.

I tried not to let it throw me, because I had two totally new players at the table and I wanted them to enjoy the experience.

Unfortunately, I had one member of the group who made that a struggle (different person). First, he was shopping for gear after I gave him the pre-gen. But, and this I found odd, he had no rulebook or price list to go from!

He was also overly cautious for a convention one-shot. I think we spent the majority of the first hour of the game in the first room at the bottom of the steps. 

When he interrupted my description of the result of another PC's attempt to test the giant bowl of fire for heat (since the flames weren't giving off any), to tell us how a blacksmith actually tests a surface to see if it's hot, I caught more than a few eye-rolls around the table (in fact, three of them decided secretly, that they would try to friend the villain, the White Witch, and then turn and kill that player's character). 

Thereafter, I did my best to curtail his activities unless they contributed towards moving the game forward. i had 5 other people to entertain and I couldn't let one person derail that.

A high point, I think, from the perspective of showing new players the game, was the capture, of some goblins for interrogation - They could ask questions and grill the goblins, and I was able to seed them the info about the big bad in the game, as well as some details about what to expect. As this took place in town, the entire party also equipped themselves to the gills with the gold they had already found.

In the end, I think it was a success, and even the naysayer at the start seemed to enjoy himself, although the game still wasn't for him (and that, you see, is perfectly reasonable to me. He tried it, had some fun, but not enough to make him give up Pathfinder). My two newbs enjoyed themselves as well, so plenty of points there from my perspective. I was pretty happy with how things had gone, with my improvisation and handling issues that weren't in the game itself.

After some pictures with one of the new players and talking Pathfinder with a couple of the others, I bowed out. I jumped on the train around 10:30 and headed home, but not after hearing some awful karaoke in the Hilton's lounge area.

DragonCon 2014 in Review: Day 1 and Thoughts on Dungeon World

Friday - 8:30 AM

I hopped the train downtown, strolled around a bit in the cool morning air and headed to the Hilton around 8:30 to pick up my tickets for the games I signed up for. Made my way up to the room where non-campaign rpg players and GMs muster. Ran into some friends from the Atlanta Gamer's Guild (including two players in my Trelleborg campaign). Got a pin to indicate I'm a judge.

Friday - 9 AM - 12:30 PM 

I ran the Purple Worm Graveyard from Planet Thirteen using b/x. 

This is the same module I ran back in December last year for the Atlanta Gamer's Guild, so I had a good idea of what to expect. Still, I re-did the map to make sure they'd  have to go through at least five rooms/encounters prior to the Big Bad, but they could go do so by multiple paths. I think my new map is probably more useful for convention games, where people are paying for an experience to fill at least 2-3 hours. Oddly, like the first time i ran this, the party encountered the maggot nagas first - whom they mowed down and just like the first party, they spent time planning, so some fungus covered zombies arrived thanks to a wandering monster roll.

Six players had signed up originally, but at the start of the game I only had 3, which I was fine with me, and all three were gamers from way back, although none were currently playing much if at all.  Mid-way through the session I picked up a fourth, to the party's benefit, as they just about had a TPK after encountering a wandering ghoul.

Of the two paths, unbeknownst to them they chose the one with lot's of combat - quite more than i expected when the wandering monster rolls were factored in. One character acquired the worm madness, and another was devoured whole by a giant purple worm, and they may or may not have burned down an entire kingdom.  Lot's of laughs and a good solid start for my 1st time running  a con game. 

I wasn't 100% happy (i never am when it comes to my GMing) but I felt pretty confident I had given them their money's worth and that no one regretted spending $3.

Friday - 1 PM - 4:30 PM

Every description I have read of Dungeon World has piqued my curiosity. I had tried to play it last year in a Games on Demand slot, but was outvoted and played Fate: Accelerated (which was quite fun). This time I signed up for a DW slot. I've read the GM bits online in the SRD, but I've never read all of the rules.

I loved the way character generation is guided by the playbook and yet helps create unique characters thanks to the choices a player makes, and especially due to the relationships they assign to the other characters. The relationships have narrative value, but also interact with the mechanics in places.

You only need 2d6 for the most part, although occasionally one of the funky dice makes an appearance - maybe i play wargames too much, but lately I've really grown to appreciate the d6. 

There's a high level of shared world creation which I enjoyed. I also liked that the players did all the die rolling, and the way the varying degrees of success (which reminded me of Fate: Accelerated) impacted the developing narrative. It took me a bit to grasp that there's no turn sequence or combat round, but that was only mildly confusing. 

I played a Dwarf Cleric, named Bjorn, who was pretty hapless, but undeterred, and spent most of the game trying to protect the bard (who I was also trying to convert to my god). Combat is not the central focus of the game, and so it was fast and suitably abstract to give my old school mind comfort. In combat or not, I rolled terribly most of the time to my own, and everyone else's, amusement, scoring 6 or less quite often (which is failure), and snake eyes came up more than once.  

Failure is interesting in DW  and rarely devastating. While some DMs undoubtedly try to make failure interesting, I've seen far too many just say "you don't make it" or some variation of that. 

More than once, I've heard DW described as old school D&D without the bits many people find annoying (encumbrance, worrying about torches and such), and I would at least agree the feeling of the game is similar. 

At the same time, the "if the player says it, it happens" and the shared world creation that occurs in play as a result of the player saying something is not typical of any iteration of D&D to my knowledge, although individual DMs (myself included) may try to implement such things. As such, I think it's a great game for DMs to participate in as players, as we typically can't help but want to do some world building, and for players who want to take part in that kind of creative expression, without committing to running a game. Then again, it's also super low prep - or potentially is - as long as you're comfortable with improvising, so maybe it would encourage more players to run games.

Who isn't this game for? Well, as I experienced it, it's a giant improvised sandbox: reactive players might have a more difficult time getting into the game and passive players most definitely will, as will DMs who insist on planning everything. DMs who want absolute control over the world and its history and the way magic functions,etc. should probably stay away.

Me? I enjoyed the hell out of this game and can't wait to play it again.

Friday 4:30  PM - 5:00 PM 
I went straight to the Chessex stand in the vendor hall and bought some dice and then hit Titan Games and Comics for a copy of Dungeon World, before heading home for the day.

Wargaming with a Soon to be 3 Year Old

On Friday afternoon, in order to entice my son (he turns 3 this week) to leave the park without fuss, I offered to set up "my game" - which he had been asking me to do for a few days.

The table itself is still laid out for Grant's Holding Action (1). For figures, we used some inexpensive 40mm-ish knights and men-at-arms:

A small force from Army Black (my son) was defending the village (not pictured) from an advancing horde of Army Silver (basically zombies that would advance towards the village).

You will forgive the anachronistic use of the 1/32 convertible, but my son was insistent that the knights of Army Black had to get to work. When I asked him how, he ran off and brought back this car. 

It's hard to argue with that kind of conviction.

Dice were rolled - more for the fun of rolling dice than for any impact on the game itself. It was a bit of a Wells-ian affair, throwing the red ball (a clown nose, in fact) in lieu of firing a toy cannon.  

It made the perfect cannon shot; the proof can be seen in the decimated silver army.

Skalafell : The Sorcerer's Apprentice

When we last left our "hero", Fjörgyn had followed the map, given to her by the evil wizard possessing Sister Rebecca, to a secret cave where she retrieved his spell book, a leather bound tome, firmly sealed by a clasp (thankfully, since she knocked it off the pedestal and it could have become quite damaged). After escaping the skeleton guardians and making her way across a deep chasm, and finally slaying one goblin and charming several others, she exited the cave complex, spell book in hand

She returned to the village to find a line of villagers outside the shrine of the Forgetful Bear. As she approached to try and hear what, if anything, the people were talking about, she was recognized by someone in the line. Someone in line called out "Ghoulslayer!" and the rest of the crowd broke into applause.

[Here, I will use a direct transcript of what transpired, since I think it reveals one of the difficulties of chat-based gaming: a pause to type can be interpreted as a full stop, allowing interjection.]

Ariale: I ask "what is going on here?"

Me:  A heavily built man with narrow features and a flaming red beard informs you that their grand-father, a man of some years, has passed and they have come to see the good sister about arranging the funeral rites.

Another, a solid woman with golden braids and a barrel chest, tells you that she's here for a blessing for her family's sheep flock.

Ariale: I inform them that I heard sister Rebecca had an emergency of her own and will be away for some time. 

Me: A willowy man, with a hook nose, and wearing farmer attire stands at the closed door to the shrine, his hat in his hand, turns to you and says "Odd. because she's in with my cousin right now"

Ariale:  "Oh, good to hear! I'm glad that all is back to normal!" [this is a pretty good save on her part]

Me:  "Normal?" asks someone in the line

Ariale: How long may I ask has your cousin been in there?
( I ignore that person )

Me:  "Not long. He went in after Orlygrson's wife came out." 

[I opted not to follow up with the questioning since it was clear to me that had I indicated that Sister Rebecca was seeing her flock, then Fjörgyn wouldn't have made that statement. And, if we had been face to face, i would have stopped her interjection before I finished the description of what was going on with the line ]

As Fjörgyn went to take her place in line, the door opened,  and a villager came out, behind him, Fjörgyn could see Sister Rebecca beckoning her to come in. Sister Rebecca addressed the petitioners, "I'm sorry all, I must speak with ghoulslayer for a moment." 

She paused, then added "Important church business."

Inside, the cleric's demeanor and face transformed from the one Fjörgyn recognized as Sister Rebecca to the one she recognize as the wizard. 

"UGH. these people are driving me mad! Did you get the book?"

"I sure did. Not without some trouble of course, " said Fjörgyn.

"Excellent...oh yes, the security system. I had forgotten about that. It's been...a very long time. May i have my book please?"

Fjörgyn handed over the spell book.

"Excellent," said the evil wizard as he caressed the aged tome.

Having completed her mission, when the wizard suggested yet another to prove her merit for the spot as his apprentice, she reminded him that the deal was that getting the spell book was supposed to guarantee her position. [i.e. I forgot and she reminded me, in character]

Thus corrected, the evil wizard ordered her to go to the site of his long abandoned tower to see what of it remains and to clear out any who may have taken up residence during his extended absence. Without solitude, he informed her, he could not study his magic, nor silence the constant yammering of Sister Rebecca, who still occupied some part of the otherwise possessed body.

Since the last errand was somewhat dangerous, F. inquired after the possibility of some kind protective magic, but,  until he could study his spell book in peace, he could provide no such thing. He did note that she could loot the shrine as she saw fit.

Which she did.

Taking leave of the Forgetful Bear and noting the sun was drooping in the sky, Fjörgyn set out to sell some of her acquired loot from previous outings. 

After successfully unloading some items at the general store, she went to Zelligant's shop to sell him the remainder of some black fabric she had found. Business was obviously booming and he offered her top dollar for the yard and a half.

When she returned to her room for the evening, she found a folded piece of parchment had been slipped under the door:

"You have been invited to attend a late night gathering of like minded patrons of Dark and Ancient Forces in the clearing by the old shrine in three nights. Please tell no one of this invite. We will know if you do and we cannot have that."

[this is where we ended the session.]

Skalafell : Into the Evil Wizard's Safe

This session of Fjörgyn's adventure was held outdoors at Griffis Sculpture Park in Western New York. It was also the first time I have ever played D&D outdoors.

photo by Ariale M.

Fjörgyn followed the map Sister Rebecca / Evil Wizard gave her to the mouth of a cave in the hills south and west of Skalafell.  The tunnel within forked, and she chose to pursue the one to the north.

[I gave her some info to help her decision making, but I'll be damned if i can remember what it was.]

As she approached a cavern, her torched flickered [which ultimately was a terrible clue that something was amiss]. Remembering her infravision, she opted to extinguish the torch and peer into the cavern in hopes of not drawing attention to herself. 

Before her stood a large cold glob in the center of the room. Lighting her torch she saw a grotesque tentacled monstrosity of a statue. Expecting the worst, she tried to sneak past, but it was not to be - the living crystal statue animated and smashed at her with its massive tentacles.

Fjörgyn blocked and parried blow after blow before finally shattering the statue into hundreds of shards (some of which were stashed in her pack for later use). She had taken some damage, but not much [we're using Solo Heroes, so damage at most is 2 points per hit, and quite often just 1 pt]. 

She decided to return to the other fork and explore that direction, but found her path mysteriously blocked by a wall. A search for secret doors revealed nothing, despite her elven prowess in such matters, so onward she went.

After trying to climb her way around the walls of a room and falling onto a great glowing sigil painted on its floor (which cost her a point of INT), she made her way into a chamber wherein a large leather bound book, sealed with a clasp,  rested on a small plain stone dais. 

Taking no chances with her safety, but risking the book, she knocked it from its resting place. As the book skidded into the rough ground, this transgression triggered the rapid appearance of 3 skeleton warriors bent on making her life pretty miserable in a battle that did not go her way (she came close enough to death that Ariale was getting worried).

Finally, in an act of desperation, bloodied and bruised, Fjörgyn grabbed the spellbook and, like a young Walter Payton, blasted through their line and out the door into the hall opposite the way she came in. Fortune was on  Fjörgyn's side and the skeletons did not pursue - although fortune has a sick sense of humor and put her at the precipice of a great chasm some 20' wide. 

Despair may have settled in for a moment before the light bulb went off and Fjörgyn noticed hand holds and a small ledge allowing her to cross the chasm ever so carefully. 

Ahead, she heard the distinct sound of loud voices and with torch extinguished she spied several humanoid shapes sitting about another cavern. 

With surprise on her side, she prepared her Charm Person spell. It was not until she uttered the necessary phrases that the goblins became aware of her presence and by then it was too late - all but one of them failed their save. The sole exception charged into melee (Fjörgyn won the initiative) but was cut down quickly and easily. As for the others, they could not understand why their brutish companion would attack their dear friend, the elf.

So happy were they to see their long lost bestie, they readily gave up information about the tunnel system. Realizing her health had been seriously compromised by the statue and the skeletons, Fjörgyn asked for directions to the entrance. As it turned out, the goblins had their own secret way in and out of the cave and happily showed Fjörgyn the way to the surface. 

Sadly, obligations to their Boss prevented them from going with her back to town to continue their joyous gathering.

Skalafell : The Devil Never Had an Easier Time

[We had a short gaming session the other day, mostly to resolve the cliffhanger]

Fjörgyn heard the clomping feet enter the hut and stayed out of sight a bit as the visitors trashed the outer room. Having had enough, she went to the doorway, sword drawn. A brief confrontation with the three men, dark robes over armor, their faces beat up and bruised, found her informing them that she had disposed of the old man herself. 

[Initial reaction was mixed, but the subsequent check to that bit of news came up 11 - in b/x that's pretty damn friendly!]

Impressed, they asked Fjörgyn about the girl and she happily informed them that she had no idea where or who the girl was but that she had chased her into the hut. The three men quickly found her and Fjörgyn was happy to let them leave with the girl, although not before arranging with the men for one of them to assist her in preparing the old man's body to be dragged back to town inconspicuously.

As with all small talk, conversation turned to his cult, and she made inquires as to membership.

That's right, Fjörgyn wanted in. 

He informed her that a representative would seek her out at the Queen's Cauldron and then the cultists and Fjörgyn parted ways.

The old man's body in tow, Fjörgyn sloughed back to Skalafell to the fully defiled shrine. There a dark cloud hung in an otherwise clear sky, the cries and moans within had silenced, but a torrent of blood poured down the steps into the ground in a seemingly infinite wave. 

Obviously, the thing to do would be to throw the corpse into the bloodfall. 

A wave of crimson rose up and engulfed the offering, dissolving it into its current.

A moment later, a twisted figure, once Sister Rebecca, but now scuttling along with a strange gait appeared in the doorway, its face no longer the plain cleric, but more man-like, pointed and, well, evil. The face, Fjörgyn recognized, was similar to that of the ghoul she had killed.

"You! You did this!" 

Despite Sister Rebecca's face appearing briefly screaming for help, the visage returned to the grotesque caricature and one rather odd exchange later, Fjörgyn had arranged with the evil wizard now posessing Sister Rebecca, to retrieve his spell books, in exchange for his tutelage. 

He gave her a map, and she set out to prepare for her journey.

[Ariale claims she's not sure she's doing this role-playing thing right. Please. ]

Trelleborg: Session 6 : The DM Side of the Screen

Last Wednesday, I ran the 6th delve into the dungeon beneath Trelleborg. I hadn't really expected more than a couple of players for a mid-week game, but found myself with six of them at my table - four returning and two new.

Because it was a weeknight game, I decided that I would basically hand-wave the trip to the trap door in the tower, with some bits here and there for atmosphere. That came back to bite me in the butt.

It seems I forgot the rule that says anything the DM says, no matter how trivial it might seem to them, will be seized upon by at least one player, thereby turning an insignificant description into the main focus.

The atmosphere I added was that it felt like someone had been there (the ruined tower). It seemed innocuous to me, but of course, I have nothing to lose either way.

The players, on the other hand, felt something terrible might be up.

Rather than going into the tower, they decided they needed to go and check out the camp site from Session 5. After that turned up no merchants (although it did turn up some unusual finds- like large damp spot caused by a large amount of blood, a trail with wagon wheel ruts (which they didn't follow) - it was clear to them that an ambush had been laid inside the tower (despite no evidence for that). Even when they found footprints going in, they found some coming out, so an ambush wasn't a forgone conclusion. Yet, when they saw the trap door down was wide open, that was it - one player suggested they sweep the entire 1st level. 

Ordinarily, I'd be happy to let them do this - it's a good approach for a dungeon crawl, but we had limited time and i had two new people who wanted to roll some dice and kill something. Never mind that the first level is entirely clear of monsters and only a wandering monster roll would have any chance of bringing anything. 

Fortunately, during my session prep i made notes that the doors of the rooms in the hall approaching the stairs down had been burned down. Since doors in the opposite direction weren't, and once they were satisfied the black metal goblins hadn't come up the elevator (the trap the party's thieves had set was still there), they put their tank back in the closet and proceeded down to the 2nd level.

Still, it wasn't until they started debating a course of action in a crypt that a wandering monster roll brought them into contact with some ghouls and the new people started to maybe get a sense of investment in the game. Especially when a TPK was nearly the result (a handful of the party were paralyzed). 

I think this was my biggest failure this session - assuming I could get them into the action without any delay with just a little hand waving and descriptive atmosphere. As a result, I'm sure at least one of the two new people was bored for a good bit. I'm not sure how to resolve this - I want them to understand that the 1st level may at some point repopulate, but it hasn't yet and at the same time, I like the caution they're showing - death has been established as a real possibility, and most of the world has been shown to be evil. They care about their characters surviving (or at least seem to) and they pretty much trust no one they encounter beyond the town.

On the up side, once again, I was happy with how I had included clues to the presence and/or effect of traps - the players were quite creative in defeating them, and i think that was some of the most fun this session from my point of view. Most of them could have resulted in a number of fatalities, and they lost no one (to traps) because they made good use of the clues and the environment to defeat the traps.

The treasure haul was nice (they defeated a mummy who had a nice haul, but here was treasure in some of the burial spaces too), and everyone went up a level at the end, which brings up my second issue: The treasure, which was so scarce in sessions 1 and 2, is starting to feel Monty Haul-ish to me. 

I need to go back and make sure I did my calculations correctly - I am using random generation from the Basic book, but I give 1 XP per silver, so I divide the gold by 10 to get the same XP but 1/10 the gold. Except I think I left the silver as rolled, when it too should be divided by 10 to get the correct XP amount.

I'm running another session in mid-July and one at the beginning of August. Plenty of time to study up on more GM techniques and try to improve things.

Things Get Stabby in Skalafell

[This is a summation of 2 sessions - the first was quite brief

After thinking it over, it seemed to me that it would be easier for Ariale, and I imagine many people new to RPGs generally, to play a single character, in this case, Fjörgyn. Charlie Bucky was present as a side-kick, necessary from a survival point of view, but not from a learning of the game viewpoint. 

Enter Black Streams : Solo Heroes. I really like this product, which sits atop any b/x-type game, and hope to put it to use in a solitaire game someday, but in the meantime, it will make it far more likely that Fjörgyn can survive just fine on her own, with a few henchman hired here and there.

The 1st of the two sessions began with a discussion about how to play RPGs, sandboxes, player driven adventure, etc. I think it will be obvious in a minute.]

Fjörgyn and her party made their way out of the dungeon and back to down, after their harrowing encounter with some fire beetles that left the party pretty beat up (see last write-up). They could hear horrible wailing and moans coming from the desecrated shrine of the Forgetful Bear, but there were other things to do.

After resting over night, Charlie Bucky parted company for Hedeby and a life in the big city. 

Although  Badir and Zelligant didn't notice it, there was a gleam in Fjörgyn's eyes when she dismissed them for the day. 

Zelligant went to spend the day plying his trade (he's a tailor remember). Badir headed to the tavern - really, where else do masked wanderers spend their days?

With the henchmen departed, Fjörgyn set off to pay old man Alfarinson another visit. Along the way, her eyes darted about looking for a gift for the voodoo-witch doctor-hermit-type, and found an antler to gift to him.

The old man was working near the side of his hut, drying a deer skin over a fire. Fjörgyn approached and after a brief exchange, accused him of being one of the cultists and. basically, the embodiment of evil. He told her to leave, but she refused. With elven reflexes, she snatched the antler out Alfarinson's hands and stabbed him.

Unfortunately, the furs and leather he wore absorbed much of the blow and she only managed a minor wound. Instead of dying, he was enraged. He reached down and grabbed a flaming log, and it was on!

To her surprise, no doubt, the old man put up a tough fight - and it didn't help matters that part way through the battle, a divine light shone around him, which clearly rejuvenated him. Just as Fjörgyn finally managed to cut the old man down, she heard a shrill scream behind her and turned to catch a glimpse of a little girl running back towards the front of house.

A moment later, the door slammed shut.

Around back of the hut, she found a dirty, thick glass window, and could only make out a door opposite on an interior wall. After covering the body with the deer skin, she first thought about trying to seal the girl inside, but, given that the door opened into the hut, that would prove difficult. As thunder and then rain moved in, she kicked the door down.

Finding nothing, she made her way to the door opposite, and knocking it open, found herself in a small bedroom - the same room she had spied from outside. After lighting the lantern near the bed, she rifled through the suspicious lump of skins and furs, but found no one. 

Her search was interrupted by the sounds of heavy clomping on the front porch, followed by a man's voice calling out "We know you're here Old Man!"

Reflecting on the 5th Session of Trelleborg

As you may or may not have seen, on Friday, I ran the 5th delve into the dungeon beneath Trelleborg. I was "sold out" until a day or two before, and then had someone drop. I lost another about an hour before game time, but picked up someone else, so I had 6 by the time we sat down to play.

I have mixed feelings about the session - although with a few days perspective, i think, overall, it was OK. 

One of the techniques I read about recently, and I'll be damned if I can remember where, suggested setting up a scene exactly as it always is, and then add a "but..." to it. I think it was on GnomeStew. Anyway, it seemed right to me that there would be a group camped not far from the dungeon - and the smoke from their fires would be big news in town(the ruins can be seen from the village, since the ruins are atop a big ol' butte.) I mean, who in their right mind camps near ruins over a well known dungeon? 

The players weren't terribly concerned (they tend to roll over anything in their way), but they did want to investigate.

Now, I try not to expect anything - I don't do "my precious story/npc/trap/etc." I try not to guess more than at a surface level what my players will do(for one I don't know WHICH players i'll have by start time). But, I guess I was hoping the players would take some decisive action - either ignore them or engage them with some purpose.

Except, they didn't really coordinate any kind of plan that I could tell, so I have no idea WHAT that was. One character tried to call the campers out, and of course they refused, and instead told him to come to them because they had booze.  That lead another to go right into their camp, and a few crept around to watch from the woods.

Admittedly, I failed here - I could have had the group attack the players, or accidentally reveal something they didn't intend, or had the spying show something (which I realized on the drive home. Not a terribly helpful time to think of it!). But I didn't want it to default to combat, so I let the dice decide and the reaction check came up overwhelmingly friendly! I suppose that probably undermined whatever the party was planning. 

When the campers reacted positively to the lone PC entering their camp, he asked for ale, and what flashed through my head was the chapter by Robin D. Laws in Unframed: The Art of Improvisation for Game Masters, about petitioners and granters, and why social interactions sometimes fall flat: no one knows what they want. I knew we were going down the slope of a "Why have this encounter?" Encounter.  So, I tried to throw in a suspicious action on the campers part, which was met with more watching and waiting for the campers to do something.

To use another term I have learned from that book, there was a lot of blocking going on.

Blocking isn't necessarily a bad thing, nor is it always intentional - in fact, i think in this case it was all inadvertent.

When they said they were spying, I told them what they saw, but nothing I described called for any kind of action. Having blocked their proposal of "I'm spying" with "You see some pretty mundane stuff", they probably saw no reason to offer anything else. When I finally did describe something that was suspicious (my offer), they decided to wait to see what would happen (a block) rather than take action and try to stop it.

Eventually, the whole encounter fizzled to an end, despite introducing a mysterious bad-ass of a figure. Fortunately, the dungeon itself went many times better.

Next time, if they tell me they are spying, and the campers are harmless, the answer isn't "you see this, that and the other, but nothing unusual" but , "You see this that and the other. Clearly they are of no threat to you and are not worth further involvement". They might decide I'm lying, but that's on them. 

If it IS something they should be concerned about, then the answer shouldn't be  "you see this, that and the other but nothing unusual" and then reveal something only later, during further interaction, but rather, "you see this, that and the other, and holy crap! there's crazy ass Satanic symbols all over their cart which is covered in fresh blood!"

I want them to have agency and to play in the sandbox, so, in order to encourage players to drive, I need to do a better job of making enticing offers when their goals in a situation are unclear even to them, in order to give them something to riff off of that will let them move things along in whichever way they would like to go (not that they will get the results they want, but that they are steering this crazy train).

Afterwards, I talked with the new player - he had never played b/x before and he loved it. He even loved the interaction with the campers.  And it didn't even bother him that his dwarf died in the last room of the night. That definitely helped change my opinion of the session, from a definite negative to a positive, if only because someone else has been exposed to the joys of old school.

Excuse me, I GURPS-ed.

The other day I was invited by one of the players in my Trelleborg campaign  to join a 1x a month campaign he is starting. The system: GURPS 3rd ed.

Friday night, we met for the character generation session.

I once tried to create a GURPS character using the quickstart rules, but I didn't get very far. This time, with someone with the core book and compendiums for the advantages / disadvantages, I was able to create a complete character.

It's really weird to use points to build a character when you're used to rolling some d6 and constructing the character as you go. Still, it isn't difficult - and, I suppose I could have built a character to meet a concept, instead, I looked for disadvantages that seemed like fun and let my concept develop as I "shopped."

When all is said and done, I like the concept I have - a surgeon, trained by the army, who suffers from solipsism and extreme motion sickness, and who performs illegal back alley sterilizations for women who don't want to be breeders for the state.

The game is set in what is now the near future, although when the setting was created it was a bit further off. One of my co-conspirators is a chemist (the character that is) and I'm not sure what the other player is going to bring to the table, since they weren't there. In any case, we're not in pseudo-Medieval Europe anymore, Toto.

We also did a sample combat just to see how it works. Conceptually, I think I get it - at least at a high-level. Actually playing it though, never mind memorizing it, is going to take some effort.

My goal, besides getting to play in a game that sounds enjoyable, is to learn GURPS well enough that I can make use of the WWII sourcebooks I have and either run some very detailed small scale skirmishes with miniatures, or perhaps run a small straight up GURPS WWII role-playing campaign.

Things Go Awry in the Dungeon Near Skalafell

The other night, we played the next installment of Fjörgyn and friends in the dungeon near Skalafell. Here is the tale of that session.

***

After resting for a bit, the party re-lit their torches, and Fjörgyn chose to lead them back up the steps into the store room to root about the items there: seems she had gotten the idea the chests might have coin or other treasure. With Charlie Bucky and Badir watching the exits, Fjörgyn and her faithful side-kick, Zelligant fussed about with the chests.

Out in the darkness of the hallway to the north, Badir caught sight of glowing orbs moving towards them and coming in fast. 

The chests abandoned, Charlie Bucky and Fjörgyn rushed to the door to see four giant fire beetles closing in on them.

Fjörgyn unleashed an arrow but it did little good and soon the battle was joined.

The gods (the dice gods, that is) were kind to Zelligant and Badir, but both Fjörgyn and Charlie Bucky took significant damage before the surviving beetles were driven off.

Licking their wounds, literally perhaps in Charlie Bucky's case, they returned to the potential treasures. Their luck went from bad to worse.

Unable to open a locked box, Fjörgyn had Badir use his club to smash it.

Although successful, he triggered the sleep gas trap inside, which quickly filled the room with its haze. With some relief, here, finally, was a moment of luck for the party: only Badir slumped to the ground unconscious. 

Fjörgyn decided to let him sleep while they scooped out the silver and gold inside the box.