Category Archives: post mortem

Grp2: When last we left our heroes… #7

D&D, D&D Grp2, post mortem, RPG

After the epic battle with the minotaur skeleton and zombies the party decided they needed a rest to recover.

So after setting up watch and closing the rooms door the adventurers settled down for a rest.

However a couple of hours in Vas heard a shuffling sound coming from the hallway.

With the aid of Draynol (?), Vas investigated the noise.

Much to their horror they saw a mummy shuffling down the hallway.

Returning to the room and shutting the door, they alerted the others and quickly prepared to fight the mummy now bumping against the closed door.

A fight followed with the mummy trapped in the doorway and on fire.

After defeating the mummy (now a pile of ashes) the party settled down again to recuperate.

Fully rested the adventurers made their way to the attic. But not before Vas demonstrated his ability to throw a grappling hook was equal to his searching skills. Very poor.

As soon as the party entered the attic they were attacked by a small nest of stirge. Which were quickly dealt with.

Further in the attic they came across a rift/portal and a watch. As Babs was examining the watch a red slaad emerged out of the rift.

During the subsequent fight Draynol (?) got injured by the slaad. There was a gash on his arm.

Our heroes managed to close the rift by breaking the watch up into five pieces.

It was time to head back to their lodgings to rest, and make plans on what to do next.

We leave the adventurers at their lodgings.

Post mortem

Before I pontificate my thoughts on the session I need to do that legal bit first.

SPOILER ALERT TO MY ADVENTURERS! The following part of the post contains spoilers for the up and coming campaign. You may want to avoid this part of the post and join me in a future one.

Much of the session was made up, sorry decided, as I was setting up!

It was in my index card holder that I had the pathfinder watch card, that struck me as I saw it and read the brief description on the back would make a great artefact to be the reason the rift was open. And by breaking it up into its five pieces a great way to deactivate the rift.

My original plan was to have shadows in the attic. But as I was getting the minis out that I needed for the session I saw my red slaad and thought I’m going to have the slaad come out of the rift.

The slaad worked well, plus it did land a claw on Draynol(?) which means he has been infected. A future plot point to explore. Definitely a ticking time bomb.

The stirge were part of the original Saltmarsh adventure. I hadn’t planned on using them. But on the spur of the moment I thought why not, especially as their hp were so low.

I threw the mummy at the party as a surprise and to show the players that taking a rest is not a safe thing to do. It was a spur of the moment thing decision. But it worked out well.

This session was nearly a full head count. Anthony couldn’t make it. So this initial encounter with the mummy was a good way for Luke, Mark, and Lizzy to get used to working together.

There was an unexpected plot twist that Shane came up with that I will probably run with. Shane playing Babs (as well as his own character Jeb) had the crystal orb that they found cause Babs to act strangely. Its effect broken when she lost possession of the orb. A nice twist I thought.

I thought considering the fact the party had taken on mummies, slaad, etc. that they had earned leaving up to level three.

Now to somehow plan for the next session.

Grp2: When last we left our heroes… #6

D&D Grp2, post mortem, RPG

Our paid employees of Adele continued their exploration of the first floor of the haunted house. Where they came across the bound and gagged Drenol. Babs thought it was her lucky day.

Jeb was a bit suspicious of Drenol, and remained so after Vas freed Drenol.

In the next room the party searched Vas found Drenol’s missing gear. Despite Jeb’s gut feeling of Drenol, and growing jealousy he was getting from Babs.

In the final room to be searched Drenol took the lead in an attempt to earn the trust of the party. It was here that he disturbed a minotaur skeleton and three zombies hiding behind a four poster bed.

After the “minor” skirmish of which the party somehow escaped with minor wounds, we left the party deciding what to do next.

Post Mortem

It’s been a while since I’ve had to copy and paste the following into a post.

SPOILER ALERT TO MY ADVENTURERS! The following part of the post contains spoilers for the up and coming campaign. You may want to avoid this part of the post and join me in a future one.

Obviously with this post mortem only appearing now it’s right and proper to surmise that session six didn’t happen in July.

Life once more got in the way and only two players could once more make it. So that first attempt in July got turned into a Star Wars Outer Rim session.

Then the next scheduled weekend for it had to be cancelled due to work. I had a shift that day.

It was nearly the case again this time. I still have a shift today. However I was able to suggest we move the session to last night instead.

Naturally life decided a couple of players couldn’t make it. Plus we were getting a new member to the group.

Which meant I had to somehow find a reason for a new adventurer to suddenly appear and join the party. Along with the two existing players once again playing two characters.

I was going to have them come in through the front door for some reason. However the Ghosts of Saltmarsh haunted house map had a better solution for me.

In one of the unexplored rooms on the first floor bound and gagged in just their under garments is the owner of the haunted house. This got changed to our new player.

As I was prepping for the session before the others turned up I informed the new player how they’d be appearing in the house, and sadly they would have none of their starting gear.

The starting gear I would be placing in one of the other empty unexplored rooms on the first floor.

I also wanted a combat this session to kind of bond the new member with the rest of the group.

So in the remaining unexplored room I decided there would be some zombies hiding behind a four poster bed.

At the last moment I added in a minotaur skeleton. Just to make it “challenging”. This felt more like a mini boss and minions battle now.

I need to run zombies correctly. When they hit that zero hp I didn’t do the Undead Fortitude. They just died.

I thought this introduction of a new player to the group went rather well. It felt a natural part of the exploration of the haunted house.

I’m still concerned about these seemingly op Tasha abilities. I want there to be peril, challenge to encounters. Otherwise what is the point of doing them, or playing? Do I ban them? I want them to have them. But how do I handle them?

I really like the new spiral bound edition of the Lazy DM Workbook. Having that and the Companion at the table as part of my toolbox during the game is nice.

We didn’t finish the haunted house, the players still potentially have the attic to explore. Which means this will have taken three sessions to complete. Longer than I thought it would. I then need to decide if the players level up. It depends on how the next session goes.

Hopefully life and work allow the next session to go ahead as planned with a full house of players.

Paranoia One Shot Post Mortem

Paranoia, post mortem, RPG

It actually happened. It actually bloody happened.

After a couple of delays I finally got Paranoia to the table.

Since I started DMing (which isn’t long) this is the first none D&D rpg I’ve run.

So how did it go?

Firstly the players had fun. Which is the important bit.

I used the introductory adventure [YOUR SECURITY CLEARANCE IS NOT HIGH ENOUGH FOR THE TITLE OF THIS ADVENTURE] from the Mission Book that came with the Paranoia Ultraviolet edition.

Earlier in the day I went to the library and printed out the pregen characters, and the adventure itself (despite having it in the book).

I have been singing the praise of this adventure because it really does hold your hand through running your first Paranoia game. This adventure is probably my second published adventure that I’ve run. And for me it was quite fun.

It was quite refreshing to have so much less behind the screen. Compare what I have in the photo above to the ones I share from my D&D sessions.

At the start of the adventure you are told to do the following, “Pass them the Players Handbook open to page 14 and tell them not to read it.” Not once did the players touch it! That really did surprise me.

Combat was interesting. Very different to others. It’s real time for starters! Players have five seconds to select an action card. Fail to do so and you get no turn that round. It’s also very much simpler than other systems. I kinda liked it.

I don’t do voices. So there was no computer voice. Plus I don’t feel I hammed it up enough as the computer or even Roz. So my roleplay needs improving.

We did complete the adventure in a single session which I wasn’t sure we would do. So that made it a great one shot on that front.

The overall opinion was fun was had, and keen to play again.

Grp2: When last we left our heroes… #5

D&D Grp2, post mortem, RPG

Our intrepid adventures continued to explore the ground floor of the house. Only to discover an alternative route down to the basement to a wine cellar.

It was in the wine cellar they found an armour clad corpse. Which Dotty searched and was attacked by a swarm of rot grubs. Luckily some quick thinking by Babs and her burning hands saw off the nasty litter critters.

With Dotty all clad in her newly acquired battered plate armour the party returned to the ground floor to explore the rest of the house.

Which saw them disturb a couple of swarms of spiders in one of the rooms before heading upstairs.

Upstairs they found some dirty laundry in the first couple of rooms they searched.

And it is here that we leave our party on the first floor looting what they can.

Post Mortem

Look I know this next bit is repetitive and boring as I included it in these posts. But I have to say it. It’s not here for the majority of those that read my ramblings and incoherent thoughts. It’s for that handful of people that are crazy enough to play D&D with me as their DM.

SPOILER ALERT TO MY ADVENTURERS! The following part of the post contains spoilers for the up and coming campaign. You may want to avoid this part of the post and join me in a future one.

I’d found out the night before our planned session about a football tournament taking place at the sports and community centre whilst we were going to play D&D.

So I warned the players that parking might be an issue. Plans were put in place to cater for this.

On the day despite the warning we didn’t have any problems parking close to the community centre.

However we did have two adventurers that couldn’t make the session in the end. Leaving us we two actual people there to play D&D.

With some last minute heroic actions Shane had got copies of the missing players character sheets. Which meant Shane and Anthony could play two characters. Well control the other one.

This seemed to work ok.

I did reduce the inspiration tokens to just two though.

The unexpected benefit of the football tournament was that there were burger and ice cream stands there catering to the crowd of supporters/parents and players. Which meant when we took a mid session break we could and did grab a burger.

In this session the players did encounter the swarm of rot grubs. This did have the potential to be a deadly encounter. If memory doesn’t fail me in the Ghosts of Saltmarsh there is no forewarning of what they are. Which for an adventure aiming at low level adventurers seems harsh. I had the party find maggot like corpses in the kitchen, some of which were burnt. Plus the party could see a mixture dead and burnt ones around and coming out of the corpse. Which might seem heavy handed, even clumsy sign posting. But it worked the players picked up on the clues how to kill them.

My prep for the session was very minimal. I didn’t get round to producing the list of items that could be found. I’ve found that the temporary change to my work shift has left me feeling a bit more knackered than expected. Luckily I could reuse my previous session notes. They were still very valid.

I am liking the Ghosts of Saltmarsh haunted house map. I have used a mixture of the included monster encounters (rot grubs, spiders) and ones I’ve added to it (shadows, mummy). I think it’s working well.

Our next session isn’t going to be for 4 weeks. Work has me doing nights for a couple of weeks. Which starts the Saturday of our next scheduled session. There are changes afoot at work that mean making enough money each month to pay bills isn’t a given. As you can imagine it’s a worrying time not just for me but a lot of people at work. So I have to take what hours I can get to make sure I can earn enough to keep a roof over my head.

On that cheery note I’ll see you in the next post

UPDATE 17/6/22: Since writing this post mortem one or two things have been mulling around in my head. The first is that once the party hits level 3 the rogue of the group might want to take the Soulknife feature in particularly the Psychic blades from Tasha’s. Will this be over powering, or become too over powering? Do I allow it?

The second thought I’ve been mulling is a character now with the plate armour having an AC of 20. Granted their AC was already 18. How does this change the balance of encounters now?

I obviously still have some more mulling on these two things to do before our next session.

Grp2: When last we left our heroes… #4

D&D, D&D Grp2, post mortem, RPG

The adventures woke up to find a note left for them by Adel, asking them to investigate strange goings on at a villa in the Second Rise district.

So led by Vas they made their way to the exclusive part of the City of Arches. The party stopped and asked a member of the Silver Talons (a private mercenary security force employed by the residents of the Second Rise) for directions.

Once at the villa the party made their way in, discovering foot prints in the hallway. Following the foot prints led them to a trap door.

Upon descending into the cellar the party is attacked by a mummy. After an epic battle they needed a rest to recover.

After an uneventful rest the party discovered they had been in a room next to some skeletons. Which they soon dispatched. During the brief combat a secret room was revealed.

Inside the secret room these dark figures attacked the group. Only to be repelled by Jeb, forcing the group to grab and thing not nailed down and run.

Back on the ground floor the group started exploring the rest of the house.

And that is where we left the party.

Post Mortem

And here is the necessary bit to tell my players to basically stop, and go do something less boring. Otherwise their future fun might be ruined.

SPOILER ALERT TO MY ADVENTURERS! The following part of the post contains spoilers for the up and coming campaign. You may want to avoid this part of the post and join me in a future one.

It was requested that we use two of the bigger tables for our D&D session. Which I’m glad we did. It gave me and the players more space to spread out.

Before the session started I made some quick last minute notes based on the Lazy DM Workbook (page 7, Quick Encounter Building) about how many of each creature I could use in an encounter. I’m glad I did this. Otherwise I might have thrown all 4 mummy minis at the party!

I again started the session with inspiration being given to the players. I think it worked reasonably well again.

My session 4 notes

Wow the mummy nearly took out the party by itself. Although to be fair I was willing on the party to defeat it. I did have to bite my tongue during the combat. They had identified how to do lots of damage to the mummy using a torch they had dropped into the cellar. But no-one picked it up and used it. Lizzy even suggested it a couple of times during the combat. I just wanted to say “just listen to Lizzy”.

The encounter with two shadows was over very quickly with the cleric successfully using turn undead on them. But this will not be the last time they will encounter shadows. And there will be no turn undead to get them out of the tight spot!

I’m glad I printed out the maps from Ghosts of Saltmarsh and it’s version of the The Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh adventure. It made keeping the room descriptions and map together a lot easier for referencing during the session.

One thing I need to look up is how to handle information about a creature like if a player asks “is it undead?” I provided the information this session but should I be?

I do need to go through the adventure and make a note of everything found and likely to be found by the party.

Ok that’s it for this post mortem.

Grp2: When last we left our heroes… #3

D&D, D&D Grp2, post mortem, RPG

Tantalos finally noticed Babs looked a bit worse for wear after the recent run ins with the inhabitants of the sewer aided in healing her a little. After reminding the party how to find their way out back to the Lower Reaches, they parted way with each other.

On their way back through the sewers towards the Lower Reaches Babs discovered a hidden tunnel, that upon following lead them into a kobold ambush.

After hacking away a few of the attacking kobolds the party decided to double back on themselves back to the sewers.

There they set off a shrieker whose spine tingling, ear hurting shriek attracted a smaller band of kobolds. Which attacked as soon as they saw the party.

The skirmish ended with the untimely death of the kobolds. After which the party made their way out of the sewers into the lower reaches.

Vaz then guided them to Adel’s Emporium of Magical Relics.

We left the party resting in the accommodation that Adel had arranged for them (at a cost).

Post Mortem

Before we start the post mortem of the session I do need to do that little bit of house keeping to warn any of my players.

SPOILER ALERT TO MY ADVENTURERS! The following part of the post contains spoilers for the up and coming campaign. You may want to avoid this part of the post and join me in a future one.

It was another fun session. I am enjoying being a DM with this group. Friendships are starting to happen.

I started the session trying a suggestion from Quick Tricks For Lazy DMs page of The Lazy DM Companion of giving each player inspiration. It’s something I want to use more. I hadn’t used it at all with the other group. Which makes last sessions use the first time I’d used it in anger. I think it worked well. All of the players used it.

My Way of the Lazy DM Session Notes

Player: “I rolled a 19.”

Me: “What are you rolling for?”

Player: “I’m going to steal the healing potion from…”

With the agreement of the player it was going to affect I had them both roll to see if the theft was successful. Luckily for the enthusiastic player the other one rolled low.

But I wasn’t very chuffed with the initial player rolling and assuming the high roll allowed them to do what they wanted to do. Especially when it broke the line in the sand I discussed with them in the session zero. I appreciate the enthusiasm of the player. But they need to remember the DM tells them if a roll is needed or not.

I do need to keep better tracking of the items given out to players. I’d forgotten I’d already given out the fey amulet in the previous session. Which Liz pointed out when I gave a second to Babs! Oops.

A6 sized gridded index cards were used for drawing out the map of the sewers as the players navigated their way out. This worked better I thought than the small white boards I used in the previous session.

I used a combat map (from the big book of Battle Maps) with a very rough sketch of the current location for when we were in combat. Which happened twice in this session. I like the simplicity of this. Which can be enhanced with scatter terrain (if appropriate). I think it went well and for the time being will be my preferred way to run combat.

Now to start planning the next session.

Grp2: When last we left our heroes… #2

D&D, D&D Grp2, post mortem, RPG

After tying up the two Children of Ibraxus cult members that they had captured to the alter in the crypt entryway. Our party of adventurers headed off to find a safer place to have a short rest.

The party decided to rest by the arch in the Sunset Grove.

At the end of the break Quintus Harrowtoes disappeared through a door in the base of the arch.

The party followed after him, descending into the sewers below the City of Arches.

Quintus was moving too fast for them. All they heard as he disappeared was “this way”.

Jeb shouted very loudly to try and get Quintus to come back to them. But it was to no avail. Although it did seem to alert the inhabitants of the sewer to their presence down there.

Whilst looking for Quintus the party came across a web column dotted with cocoons in the middle of the central chamber that lead down to the lower level.

As the party descended down the spiral stairs Babs was attacked by a Giant Spider. Battle ensued, and the eventual defeat of the Giant Spider.

On the lower level the party ignored the fleeing swarm of rats to stumble upon the liar of a Giant Crocodile.

It was here they discovered the torso of Quintus amongst the remains of other prey moments before being attacked by said Giant Crocodile.

Things weren’t looking good for the party. They were most certainly looking at a very brief future. That is until the timely appearance of the wizard Tantalos Whitetail. Who sent the Giant Crocodile back to slumber in the depths of its lair.

After introductions and a brief admonishment about waking up the Giant Crocodile, Tantalos gave the party directions on how to find their way out of the sewers into the Lower Reaches.

And that’s where we left our party.

Post Mortem

SPOILER ALERT TO MY ADVENTURERS! The following part of the post contains spoilers for the up and coming campaign. You may want to avoid this part of the post and join me in a future one.

I’d like to say I was writing my session notes this morning whilst drinking my usual hot mug of caffeinated liquid. But I wasn’t. I was writing my session notes whilst my coffee sat next to me forgotten. It was so cold by the time I’d remembered.

My DM Notes

Once again my morning before the session sees me at the library printing stuff out. This time it was the following:

  • Sewer Lair map from Lazy DM Workbook A3 x 2
  • Location descriptions for Sewer Lair map from Lazy DM Workbook A4 2 pages
  • Secrets and Clues page from Lazy DM Companion A4
  • Points Crawl page from Lazy DM Companion A4
  • Annotated map of City of Arches A4

I’d printed a copy of the city map for Mark. His character grew up in the City of Arches. So they should know their way around. I also said Mark’s character should also know one area of the city really well. Mark was told not to share this map with the others.

I did two copies of the Sewer Lair because I wanted to annotate one with the notes for the session, and have the other to use whenever.

Being early to the session gave me time to finish off my notes for the session whilst sitting outside in the sunny but cool breeze weather. Which was basically coming up with the secrets and clues. Then when our venue was open I was able to get our play area set up.

My DM Prep

As you can see above the warning cards giving valuable advice to the players are back. They should be there every session. However that can only happen if you remember to take the index card box with them in to the session.

Today there was no nice A3 printed map for the players. No 3D terrain or battle map. Instead I was drawing sections of the map on small dry erase boards (see photo below). This seems to have worked ok.

Map drawn on dry erase boards

I could have killed the party today, it was very close. The Giant Crocodile was way too over powered for the party. Made more deadly I think because they were not recovered from the run in with the Giant Spider. Maybe I should have used a regular crocodile or two instead.

As you may have guessed from the rather dull dramatic retelling of the sessions story. I did indeed intervene to save the party by having an NPC turn up and rescue them.

I did try and warn the party that there was something dangerous ahead with the fleeing swarm of rats. But as you gathered that subtle warning was ignored.

Although the Giant Crocodile made story sense. At CR5 it was way way over powered for these none rested or healed level 2 characters.

The Party of Adventurers

I did hand out an inspiration token today. But not really as a reward for good roleplay etc. More to help counter none optimal decisions.

The Creature and NPC, and Monster cards really do work well for me. Having just what I need for the session plus some “favourites” that are campaign related to call upon does cut down on what I have to carry with me to a session. I’d love something like these for the Tomb of Beasts 2.

Right now to start working out how to get the party out of the sewer alive!

Grp2: When last we left our heroes… #1

D&D, D&D Grp2, post mortem, RPG

Our intrepid adventurers found them self at a doorway to one of the many crypts lining the Cliffs of the Dead above the City of Arches.

They had been hired by their patron, Adel Rosethorn, to enter the crypts, find her lost adventurer Quintus Harrowtoes, and locate a lost artefact the obsidian skull.

The adventurers freed Quintus from two members of the Children of Ibraxus cult in the Crypts entryway. Who had been aggressively asking him questions. After administering some first aid to Quintus, he guided the party deeper into the crypt looking for the obsidian skull.

After avoiding a booby trap in the Collapsing Catacombs they came across more members of the Children of Ibraxus cult. Who were led by Irvana Blackstar who is performing a ritual with the obsidian skull to open a portal to the abyssal plane of the Choul in the chamber’s gilded arch.

More violence ensued. Two badly injured cult members survived. Although during the enthusiastic questioning of the party they wouldn’t reveal details of their cult, they did try and barter for freedom with information about a recently discovered tomb that possibly contained a magical sword.

The party were left outside the crypts ready to return to the shop of relics, and Adel Rosethorn.

Post Mortem

You know I have to say this, just in case.

SPOILER ALERT TO MY ADVENTURERS! The following part of the post contains spoilers for the up and coming campaign. You may want to avoid this part of the post and join me in a future one.

“If they are having fun, then you are doing it right.”

I can’t remember who said the above quote, most likely Mike Shae aka Sly Flourish or Jim Murphy. But it does seem to sum up this first session with the new group.

The session lasted between an hour and a half and two hours. I thought it might have lasted a little longer. Because of that I was very tempted to throw a surprise encounter at them on the way out. But I couldn’t justify story wise having a skeleton, stirge or shrieker attacking them. It just didn’t make sense of them suddenly appearing.

In the session zero I had said I would not roll for initiative but use cards instead. Guess who forgot to take the cards with him? So we had to roll for initiative. I did speed it up by pre-rolling some d20s and recording their values to use during the session for the monsters initiative.

I thought the meeples, A3 map, and the use of index cards to hide bits of the map, worked well. Especially because it was a small map that came out at a usable size at A3.

The aid spell helped avoid a tpk during the climatic fight with the cultists doing the ritual. So that was a good call. The party have levelled up at the end of this short adventure. So no more Mr Nice Guy. Although they do have three healing potions that they found. That was a deliberate decision I made. One less than the number in the party. It forces them to make decisions of who gets them when they are needed.

As for running a published adventure. This short two pager was a pleasant experience. I did like the way Mike Shae wrote it. I only needed to dig the stats out for the cultist fanatic and cultists. Although stats for the npc Quintus Harrowtoes would have been nice.

Next session is in 2 weeks. I’m looking forward to it.

D&D Grp 2 Session Zero

D&D, D&D Grp2, post mortem, RPG

Saturday started off with a visit to the library to print off some stuff needed for the later session zero.

I printed off the two pages from the Lazy DM Companion to do with safety tools, and running a session zero. But that wasn’t the only material by Sly Flourish I printed out. I also printed out the one page player guide he wrote for the City of Arches. Plus some spare D&D character sheets.

Nearly forgot I made a copy of the first 7 pages of chapter 4 Horror Adventures from Van Richten’s Guide to Ravenloft. These cover running a horror adventure, but more importantly a session zero. There is some great advice here. I think it goes well with the Sly Flourish stuff.

Then after paying the small kings ransom (although still cheaper than printer ink) to get my printing done I made off in my bat mobile to our new hosts.

Naturally I arrived early so that I was there to welcome the new members of the new group. Oh and make some last minute notes.

After the initial introductions we started off discussing whether they wanted a published adventure or were happy with home-brew stuff. No preference was expressed, so I decided home-brew.

Setting, genre, theme. They were easy. Had no preference.

So I handed them the City of Arches Player’s Guide and asked if that interested them. It did. So even with player character options opening up to include any official D&D book, the group stuck to Players Guide and Xanathar’s.

As the group created their characters we discussed what subjects any of them wanted to avoid. Especially if we had a session or two that were horror themed. The list of sensitive topics from the Lazy DM’s Companion is a great starting point to hand round.

The group said they were pretty relaxed, chilled with all the stuff with the exception of self mutilation. That’s good to know. Not sure I’d do anything that involves that anyway.

I also spoke about requiring a players consent for any adverse actions. I’ve been on the receiving end of the “steal another character’s stuff” and it wasn’t fun. I’ve also watched a planned “attack on another character” by another player, sanctioned by the DM, it wasn’t big or clever.

Overall player experience of D&D with the new group is little to some experience. Which is cool. It’s not as if I’m overly experienced as a DM or player.

The outcome of our session zero is that we will be starting off the home-brew campaign in the City of Arches. Which will be located somewhere in the Sword Mountains (not decided exactly where, but probably between Phandalin and Triboar). So we are definitely on the Sword Coast of the Forgotten Realms.

The party is made up of two gnomes, an elf, and a half elf. Three are able to use magic. But I’ll flesh out more details once I get a copy of the character sheets.

The group did chose a patron:

“Adel Rosethorn – Lower Reach Adventurer Adel, a smiling halfling, runs a shop of relics and curios in the city’s Lower Reaches. She hires adventurers to hunt down mysterious artifacts of previous ages buried in the city’s vast and hidden chambers. Whispered rumors say Adel has a loose connection to the Black Hand.” Patrons of the City of Arches from the City of Arches Player’s Guide, Mike Shea

When I read which one they chose I was instantly reminded of Deborah Ann Woll and the Relics & Rarities adventures she ran. But now on reflection I’m also thinking Warehouse 13, The Librarians.

We will be swapping back and forward between genres through out the campaign. But the overall theme I need to come up with. And that might see me borrowing one from one of the series I just mentioned.

Although the campaign will be reacting a lot to what the players do. It will also make use of the characters back stories. I see story arcs lasting two or three sessions. I like the flexibility this gives us. And the choices made have started sparking the imagination.

Overall I think the session went well. Three of the group already knew each other. But I think it seems like a relaxed, friendly group. I just hope they have fun and I don’t disappoint.

Now that video by Sly Flourish I shared on here last week is even more important. Must rewatch it.

Next task print out the City of Arches pdf, and an A3 map of the city.

When last we left our heroes… #7

D&D, post mortem, RPG

Having successfully delivered the tribute to the Red Rage and a lengthy discussion about what to do next.

The party settled on hunting down a mysterious dwarven mine on the north side of the Mintarn island. Leaving Valdor heading towards the Whale Bone Islands as captive to some red robed wizards.

An unfruitful search of the northern Mintarn coastline meant the party were no closer to finding the mysterious dwarven mine.

They sailed back to Mintarn looking for information about the mysterious symbol that was on a scrap of paper that Kaibon (a dwarf wizard) had in his possession and clues to the mines location.

This excursion to Mintarn had an extra threat due to Angrath having been seen in the city.

Managing to avoid detection by Angrath or any of his agents the party managed to resupply and dig for information. Sadly the later did not prove fruitful.

Full stocked the party sailed off towards the northern side of the island once more.

We left the party of the west coast of Mintarn, making camp on a beach feasting on and preserving a giant swordfish that Khemed had caught.

Post Mortem

SPOILER ALERT TO MY ADVENTURERS! The following part of the post contains spoilers for the up and coming campaign. You may want to avoid this part of the post and join me in a future one.

If the last session was all combat this one was the complete opposite. There was no combat encounter at all this session.

It was also a session where I had to make it up as events unfolded.

But first here are my hand written prep notes.

Where I had planned for the party to take one of the hooks presented to them during the first encounter of the session. They surprised me in deciding to do something I hadn’t expected!

I had discounted the Lost Ironstar Mine hook. Nothing had happened with it in the early sessions. Then Jonas hadn’t done anything with it when he and Jeff had joined the group.

During the groups discussion on what they would do having delivered the tribute I had expected them to pick one of the hooks seeded to them. It was completely unexpected when Jonas bought up the Lost Ironstar Mine.

Naturally it’s safe to assume from the above I had nothing planned for this. It would mean a lot of making it up as I went along, going with the flow. But I was confident that I could handle the session and whatever cropped up.

I think that’s the strength of the Lazy DM advice, and having a DM folder that not only has session and campaign notes in. But also (on the advice of Jim Murphy) dungeon maps used and unused that I’ve collected along the way. Plus with the Lazy DM Workbook also kept with my DM folder I had ten locations that could be used at a drop of the hat if needed. One of those locations was a dwarven mine.

Having that sort of stuff to hand did give me that feeling that if they located the mine and went in I had something I could use.

I felt that the players may have felt I was stonewalling them from finding the lost mine. There was no trace of it from the sea, no coastal paths, landing areas linked to it. When the party went to Mintarn they were unable to get any information about the mine from the local dwarf community. Why did the dwarves not know anything about it? I had the dwarfs on Mintarn as blacksmiths, they weren’t miners. They got the raw materials they needed from trading. It’s a port after all. The money for them was in making weapons for the mercenaries that the city was known for providing.

Besides the Ironstar Dwarves were not native to Mintarn but from the mainland. Plus it was a secret. So I felt that the Ironstar dwarves when on Mintarn would have hidden their identity, even from other clans when they came in contact with them.

Having no combat in the session was an odd feeling.

I was very hands off in this session when it came to the big discussion on what to do, and other group discussions. It didn’t mean I wasn’t listening, making mental notes, taking a pulse of what the group was thinking and had remembered. It was a useful thing to do.

Not happy with my role playing. It’s still pretty weak. The opening encounter particularly was poor.

I tried something new with this sessions start. We didn’t pick up immediately where we left off. But jumped forward a few hours to the delivery of the tribute. I think this worked well. I didn’t see a need for having to go through the whole travel bit.

Before we started the session I asked the players about how they felt about going to Avernus at some point during the campaign. It was a bit of a red herring. I wanted to gauged whether players would be happy with the subject matter, and all that would entail. If you remember I plan to use the diabolical contracts with one of the players. And I needed to know before progressing that twist if that was acceptable to all the players.

At the end of the session we discussed the duration of a session. Was everyone happy to keep it to two hours or would they like longer? The outcome of this brief discussion was we would move to a three hour session.

It thought both of the above was important to discuss with the group. I knew that certain subjects were off the table when Jonathan was playing. But now he had left I needed to know how the group felt about stuff I wanted to introduce.

Overall the session ended up being a social encounter focussed session and resupplying. Not entirely happy for it from my side of things. But hopefully the players enjoyed the change of pace.