#RPgaDAY2019 Day 7 – Familar

D&D, RPG

Today’s inspiring word for RPGaDA2019 is…

I thought I’d look briefly at how my players will experience the familiar in our campaign.

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 post and join me in a future one.

My players will be experiencing a bit of the familiar, even deja vu in our session 2 of the campaign when they exit the pirates lair that I created, and have fought their way through to come out in a tomb. A tomb with several sarcophagi in, and a passage leading south in the southern wall of the room.

Hopefully for one or two of the group this will seem oddly familar.

The party will have emerged into the secret burial chamber from the Matt Colville one shot he did that kicked off the whole being a DM series that he does. Three members of the party did that one shot as a taster session earlier in the year.

The only real threat to the party this time though is the skeletons still in the tomb, waiting for one of the party to get greedy and take the sword being held by an effigy of a long dead knight on one of the sarcophagi.

Otherwise as they work their way through the tomb they will come across the long decayed remains of the goblins and bugbear that they fought so valiantly in the one shot. It was their heroic efforts to save the child, and clearing the tomb that allowed the pirates to move in and use t as a secret entrance to their lair.

I hoping those players will like this little return to the one shot. Although it doesn’t link directly location wise. I’ve moved the tomb thousands of miles to a totally different location. I thought it would be a fun addition and end to their first dungeon in the campaign.

#RPGaDAY2019 Day 6 – Ancient

D&D, RPG

Ok I didn’t do this #RPGaDAY2019 yesterday whose prompt was Space. Playing MtG and not having anything really to contribute are my excuse for not posting anything. Although when I looked at the hash tag on twitter folks were interrupting it as the gaming space. Although that’s probably the angle I’d take as well. I thought I might have seen more talk about space themed RPG’s. When I didn’t see any, which doesn’t mean there wasn’t. Just that this old man didn’t see them.

Today’s prompt is …

Which is an interesting one. And I’m looking forward to seeing what people’s contributions to this one are.

Here is my contribution…

For me D&D and any fantasy based RPG is a mish mash of many influences. A few of them can be described as ancient.

Let’s start with the easiest and probably the most influential Tolkien. Who as we all know was a renowned scholar in old English. And throughout his work the influence of his subject specialism can be found. Tolkien even wrote an English translation of Beowulf. But as you read Tolkien’s work, there feels a depth and history within the pages. However although that’s the side I’ve discussed so far. Probably the biggest and easiest to identify influences are the races and classes, make up of a party (the fellowship of the ring) and the medieval feel.

The world that the likes of D&D and others are set in are often described as medieval European fantasy. And although it may not have the feudal society. I would argue (over a pint at the pub) that as a point of reference to describe the look, level of sophistication etc of the setting it’s a fair starting point. Especially to those that have not played the game before.

However the influences don’t stop there.

We only have to look at some of the monsters that adventurers can come across to see them. For instance Greek mythology with hydras, medusa, and minotaurs to name ones that spring to mind as I write this post.

D&D goes even further back than what would be considered ancient on the Monster front with dinosaurs. Yeah you can have a T-Rex stomping and running amok in your campaign.

Within my homebrew campaign set within the D&D realm of Faerûn it has been heavily influenced by the Ancient Greek stories of Pytheas and Jason and the Argonauts. Some of the islands my adventurers will come across will be inhabited by people that have a heavy Norse influence.

Definitely within my campaign the boats used to travel between islands and explore the seas are more Norse influenced with the use of long boats. Architecture (depending on the communities main influence) for the campaign on the islands will be either medieval European or Norse.

One thing I have found is that as a new DM, as I get further into the campaign and preparing the upcoming session the more I’m learning about these influences. Like Tolkien I want names whether they are of a person or place to feel authentic. Luckily Gygax wrote a book on names, and Xanathar’s Guide to Everything have lists of names that can be used based on ethnicity and race. A bit of google magic helps me find pages to make place names that sound Nordic. So I’m learning history whether real or mythic as I go along, whether it be Medieval English history and legends (which I will include the Norse stuff here) or it’s Greek mythology.

It’s the mix of these ancient influences that help make D&D and any fantasy setting a rich and rewarding world to explore. They definitely provide a gold mine of ideas for campaigns and adventures.

What influences have you noticed within D&D?

#RPGaDAY2019 Day 4 – Share

D&D, RPG

Somehow #RPGaDAY2019 appeared in my twitter timeline this morning. I was curious what this was, so I clicked the hashtag to find out.

In the responses was the image below.

The image seemed to explain it pretty succinctly.

It also seemed a pretty cool idea.

So I thought I’d jump in and write this post for day 4!

What? This post doesn’t count even though it’s technically sharing that this Twitter/internet created thing is a thing?

Ok I get it, you want more.

Well regular readers of this blog will know I’ve only just become a DM/GM. And have been suffering posts where I have been writing about my session prep. Which have been basically me brain dumping and waffling on about ideas and stuff for the home brew campaign that I am running.

So here I present my poor notes for my session 1 of the campaign.

In the wake of Pytheas Campaign session 1 Notes

You will need the map created by Matt Colville (for new readers when I talk D&D I usually try and work in mentioning Colville at some point) for his intro/taster adventure he created. You can pick that up here.

I’ve removed all the copyrighted stuff. Well 90% of it. Although there are some paragraphs that are taken from a D&D Beyond Encounter Of The Week that I altered for use in my campaign left in.

If you have any questions about the notes, leave a comment below I’ll gladly answer them.

So I hope you liked what I shared. I can’t guarantee I’ll do this every day. But I will do more for sure.

Conquering Galaxies

game night

The draw back of gaming at Spoons on a Friday evening is not only is it busy, but also noisy. However that is the situation Jonathan and I found ourselves in for a bit of light two player gaming.

Naturally the tables at Spoons are suitable for drinking, but not really for gaming. So our gaming options were limited. Which isn’t a problem we have plenty of two player games that don’t require lots of table space in our collections.

Our first game amongst the Friday evening drinking community was Tiny Epic Galaxies. Records show I hadn’t played the game for 2 years.

After refreshing our memories, play commenced. Earlier in the week Gamelyn Games announced there will be a week long Kickstarter soon for Ultra Tiny Epic Galaxies. The second Ultra Tiny game they will have produced.

Where as I could see Ultra Tiny Epic Kingdoms being suitable for the further miniaturisation. I’m not convinced that is the case for Galaxies. And my main reason for this is the dice. I just can’t imagine rolling little wooden cubes as dice being a pleasant experience. I tried rolling the cubes in the game and it was horrid.

I think Tiny Epic is the smallest this game can and should go. And it’s why I won’t be buying backing or later buying the Ultra Tiny version.

However I still really enjoy this game. It was nice getting it back to the table. Made even more sweet with getting the win.

Our next game of the evening was Hanamikoji. This really is such a nice game. It’s a favourite of both of us.

This game is so underrated. And is so simple and fast to play. We knocked out 3 games in a row. Which were 3 wins for me.

Jonathan and I had chatted, enjoyed some games. But after about an hour of gaming we called it a night. Jonathan hadn’t been feeling great for a large chunk of the day. So I was fortunate that he felt able to come along in the first place. The less than ideal environment didn’t help.

I’m definitely getting old, because some of the young ladies did not look old enough to be in an establishment that sold alcoholic beverages. But it’s so hard to tell the age of some-one these days.

But despite that realisation and feeling my age. I had a brief but great time with a great friend.

Games Played: Tiny Epic Galaxies, Hanamikoji

A pleasant Thursday afternoon gaming

Game day, magic, MtG

Yesterday afternoon was the complete opposite of Tuesday.

My FLGS for starters was much much busier. MtG and games were going on as the owner was rushed off his feet unpacking and checking a delivery. A lot of new Pokemon stuff had arrived, plus that massive Armada Super Star Destroyer model (see yesterday’s post for a photo of it).

I started off playing some 1v1 Commander. My opponent was testing their new deck which was doing some graveyard shenanigans. My mono red deck was still deciding to play hide and seek with it’s lands. Which proved problematic and gave two relatively easy and predictable wins for my opponent. For the third game I pulled out my tweaked Elf deck. That proved too powerful for my opponent, especially when his elves helped power up my deck.

Afterwards I taught Penny Lane to a friend. Who despite losing loved the game. So much so they want to buy the game when it comes out.

I then had a three player game of Penny Lane, with my friend (shows how much he liked it) and the store owners assistant. I’d not played Penny Lane with more than 2 players since getting it. Despite a slow start, I ended up triggering the end of the game. But my friend managed to grab the win. However the assistant loved the game also, and told the store owner that they will be ordering some copies for the store.

I did point out to them the difference between my copy and the one they would get on release. Which apart from a single Kickstarter exclusive building card, the foiled coins were just cosmetic.

But I was chuffed and taken aback by the reaction from both. I like the game. And wasn’t expecting the reaction I got.

As for my thoughts on playing with 3 players. It’s a slightly different experience than a 2 player game. Your tactics have to change, especially if you are third in the turn order. It means you are most likely not going to get one of the actions to get money. So you either take the first player token, or buy a building (assuming there is one you can afford) and try and get a money engine going with completed coin icons and hopefully the building bought. And it was the later approach I took. But either way you are more or less writing off that turn or turns until you get that engine going and become less reliant on the money action. It’s a different problem to solve. But still really enjoyable.

I had a fun afternoon. A nice combo of MtG and playing a game. No stress. No drama. Playing with great people. Some banter with the owner. Some gossip about the games industry. What else could you want?

Well after seeing the Asmodee UK price sheet for the FFG stuff announced Wednesday, a stiff drink.

Here is a taster. The Marvel Champions Core set is £60. The Marvel Miniatures game £90. The expansions for the miniatures game £35 iirc.

Yeah not cheap. I may rant about this in a future post. Depends how I feel and if I want to waste my breathe shouting about something that won’t change. All I and others that don’t like it can do is vote with our wallets.

Games Played: Penny Lane

Some Pre-GenCon News

news

Whilst officially GenCon starts later today in the US. However FFG traditionally do their In-Flight presentation on the eve of GenCon.

The In-Flight presentation is where FFG do all their announcements for GenCon. The equivalent in the video gaming world would be the presentations by Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo at E3.

Midnight in the UK was when the In-Flight presentation took place in the US last night. And for the first time it was live streamed on Twitch and YouTube. For the record I did not stay up to watch it. I watched the video 5 hours later after letting the attack chihuahuas out.

After the In-Flight presentation there was an unstreamed Q&A. Which for the love of me I can’t think of a reason they didn’t stream this also. Maybe next year. However they did stream after the Q&A some live plays/looks at some of the games announced.

So let’s look at the announcements. I’ll summarise them here with a brief reaction to each.

First up was a new game, Arkham Horror: Final Hour. FFG describe the game as a “fast-paced, fully cooperative Arkham Horror gaming experience that can be played in under 60 minutes.”

My reaction: yawn. Yet another Cthulhu/Arkham Horror game.

Genesys is getting a new rules supplement in the form of an expanded Players Guide. It will have 3 new genres (classic horror, post apocalypse and classic myth). additional rules for vehicle and adversary creation, and a step by step guide to world building. There will also be a GM screen (long over due). Plus a new settings book. Which will be for the Keyforge universe. Oh and from today on DriveThruRPG will be Genesys Foundry where players will be able to buy fan-created content.

My reaction: The expanded Players Guide and GM screen are probably the bits of most interest here for me.

Star Wars saw the miniature games (Legion, X-Wing and Armada) getting some love. Basically new ships and units. And the Super Star Destroyer for Armada is available from today (as it’s arrival at my FLGS – photo below, shows).

My reaction: Meh. Don’t play them. Although that Super Star Destroyer is massive. As is it’s price. Apparently the rules have changed to cater for it.

Keyforge had the next set announced, called Worlds Collide. Which will see two new houses introduced. These will replace two of the existing houses. Plus a range of Keyforge accessories such as deck boxes and sleeves.

My reaction: There is no meta for this at my FLGS. Sadly although it’s a nice game. Not really bothered.

A second new game was announced, Marvel Champions. Which is “a cooperative Living Card Game® of super heroics for one to four players!”

My reaction: Yet another LCG from FFG! The important part of the announcement from the web page announcement is “although previous Living Card Game Core Sets required multiple purchases to get a complete set of cards, Fantasy Flight Games is proud to announce that just one Marvel Champions: The Card Game Core Set will give you a complete set of cards, giving you everything you need to customize your heroes!” Which makes it a bit more attractive. But the characters in the core set of, “Iron Man, Captain Marvel, Spider-Man, Black Panther, or She-Hulk” seems to be more there for diversity than popular characters that fans want to play. She-Hulk over Hulk? Where is Scarlet Witch or Black Widow? More characters in packs etc as regular updates. First character pack being Captain America. Which is one I’d want to play. But it’s the same story for the villains also. And there will also be villain packs. It’s not very inspiring. At the moment I can’t see much reason to buy this over Marvel Legendary. And what is the status of that licence now? But Legendary I have so many hero combos, and villains to play with. Plus the mash ups I can do with other IP such as Buffy. At the FFG release schedule it could be years before I get to play with characters I like. The TL;DR interesting idea, but…

They finished off with a “one more thing” where they invited Atomic Mass Games on to stage to announce a third new game from FFG. That game being Marvel Crisis Protocol Miniatures Game.

My reaction: lost me with tough plastic and cutting stuff off sprues. Let alone gluing on top.

Over all reaction: meh. Very underwhelming. Bit of a let down really. They have better In-Flights.

CMoN snuck out a press release yesterday announcing Zombicide Second Edition.

Sadly I’m kinda excited about this. I’m going to have to break my self imposed ban on buying from CMoN. Which since The Others and the shitty treatment of non-US backers has been easy to keep thanks to them not producing anything I actually want.

CMoN are promising that “the classic rules have been refined, streamlining game play and getting into the thick of the action faster than ever before!”

Plus for those of us that have a lot of the first edition stuff “Veteran zombie hunters will still be able to use their current collections as updates will be available.” Fantastic news.

This will be hitting Kickstarter early next year. So my guess is September/October before it gets into people’s hands.

And remember folks, once CMoN have finished milking this, they can do second editions of those awful reskins (the Zombie Apocalypse is modern day not fantasy or space thank you very much).

Tuesday Commander – Ruined

Commander, Game day, magic, MtG


All I wanted was to play some Commander. Try out the changes I’d done to the mono red aggro deck. Which I really must give a cool deck name. Something like Etali Red Menace or Etali Ground Hog Day.

And that’s how my visit to my FLGS started yesterday. Myself, a friend, and some-one I know/played against had a 3 player game of Commander. My friend was using the Lord Windgrace Commander pre-con from last year. I was mana screwed, watching Windgrace get an abundance of mana. The other player was doing better on the mana front but not able to compete with Windgrace. Despite some pity, the inevitable was only being delayed. The Windgrace deck stomped all over us.

Things went tits up when a fourth player joined us. The omens were not good when they sat down and basically slagged off casual Commander! I paraphrase the words here but the basic gist was “people say that Commander is a casual game, but they are wrong it’s competitive. Everything can be competitive. Do I use my regular deck or my broken deck?” Fortunately they went with a “regular” deck.

And this new person just wouldn’t shut the feck up. Talk about verbal diarrhoea. I was taking a dislike to this person. But I thought I can be strong, it’s just for a game.

But things were only going from annoying to worse.

The only person this annoyance attacked during the game was me. I was being targeted, despite at that point the other two being the bigger threats. I’ve been on the receiving end of this sort of targeting before. It’s not fun.

This guy was ruining the game for me.

So I decided to scoop. I’d had enough. I also let them know what a dick they were.

They did try to apologise, unsure what they had done, and explain it as the way they act is part of their personality. I called them a twat at that point. Trying to use such a weak excuse to justify being a dick. Implying that it’s something they have no control over. Which from personal experience I know is bollocks.

So that was Tuesday afternoon spoiled, even ruined by a dick.

I was going to share the changes in this post. But that can wait for another day. One where I have played them some more.

Epic Ninja Skills

Commander, Deck tech, Game day, magic, MtG, MtG Deck Building

After taking Mum for her weekly Monday shopping trip to Morrison’s, I needed to play some MtG to unwind.

Luckily my FLGS as regular readers will know, runs a Commander Monday thing for those that find themselves at a lose end on a Monday afternoon.

When I got there all that was going on in store was a game of 40k. So while I was waiting for other Commander players to show up I made some changes to the ninja assassin deck.

Andy and Sam turned up with their Commander decks, and thus combat was started.

I was stuck on 3 mana for a few turns. It didn’t help that Sam countered or removed a couple of pieces that would have aided in me being able to play stuff. Whilst I was basically defenceless Sam then got a few cheap shots in with a 1/1 flyer. I was feeling a bit targeted by Sam.

For a ninja deck, my ninjas were staying rather well hidden. The only one I was able to ninjitsu out was my Commander!

Once my deck started delivering lands and cards so I could start stabilising and doing stuff, I was way behind on the mana front. Luckily Andy saw Sam as more of a threat than me, so he targeted Sam and not me. That really did give me the breathing space to get ready for the moment Sam was killed.

Fortunately for me, in a fitting moment of revenge it was me that delivered the killing blow to Sam.

The showdown between Andy and me was epic. He was casting cards from hand for free. Luckily Rhystic Study and God-Pharaoh’s Statue provided some cost to him. It also helped that he was top decking as well. Andy also had a massive life total. My only chance of victory was Commander damage.

But I was getting to a board state that if Andy didn’t do anything was going to give me the win. My Commander was buffed and unblockable by Andy. Archetype of Imagination really helped with that. Plus all my creatures were ninjas thanks to Conspiracy.

So I was swinging in for 4 Commander damage each turn. And that’s how I won. Sadly for Andy his Cyclonic Rift remained locked deep in his deck.

I like this deck a lot. It’s fun to play. At best I’d say that power wise it’s a 6.

On the way home I started thinking about updating the mono red aggro deck. I’ll play that next.

Ok you are probably at least curious about the changes I made to the deck. So for your entertainment and great comedic effect here is the section of the post that lists version 2 of the deck.

But before I go any further it’s probably best I give my boiler plate get out of jail disclaimer for my decks.

“I’m not claiming these are the best decks in the world, they certainly are not top competitive decks. They are hopefully fun, affordable (subjective I know) decks. I don’t try and keep to a target price point. I try and use as many cards in my collection as possible to keep my costs down. I’m certainly not a master deck builder claiming this deck will win tournaments, if it is fun to play and does it thing then I’ll be happy.“

16 new cards (bold italics below), which sees lands decrease to 34 from 37. The lands also see a rejig with the number of basic lands dropping also to make room for some more non-basic lands, including the new staple (for me anyway) Lotus Field.

I’ve added a bit more removal that allows me to handle Planeswalkers. But still nothing that allows me to get rid of enchantments specifically. I’m still relying on the rather blunt instrument of bouncing all permanents back to hand. Not ideal. But for now it’ll have to do.

Creatures:36

1 Changeling Outcast
1 Hired Poisoner
1 Mist-Cloaked Herald
1 Pilfering Imp
1 Siren Stormtamer
1 Cerulean Drake
1 Daring Saboteur
1 Duskmantle Operative
1 Metropolis Sprite
1 Skullsnatcher
1 Thrill-Kill Assassin
1 Warkite Marauder
1 Adaptive Automaton
1 Eyeblight Assassin
1 Mist-Syndicate Naga
1 Mistblade Shinobi
1 Slippery Scoundrel
1 Stronghold Assassin
1 Throatseeker
1 True-Name Nemesis
1 Walker of Secret Ways
1 Yuriko, the Tiger’s Shadow (Commander)
1 Azra Smokeshaper
1 Etrata, the Silencer
1 Ingenious Infiltrator
1 Moonblade Shinobi
1 Ninja of the Deep Hours
1 Storm Sculptor
1 Fallen Shinobi
1 Higure, the Still Wind
1 Ninja of the New Moon
1 Okiba-Gang Shinobi
1 Throat Slitter
1 Archetype of Imagination
1 Ink-Eyes, Servant of Oni
1 Silent-Blade Oni

Spells:30

1 Bag of Holding
1 Brainstorm
1 Grafdigger’s Cage
1 Price of Betrayal
1 Scheming Symmetry
1 Sensei’s Divining Top
1 Silent Gravestone
1 Sol Ring
1 Crook of Condemnation
1 Cyclonic Rift
1 Pillar of Origins
1 The Elderspell
1 As Foretold
1 Commander’s Sphere
1 Golden Demise
1 Icon of Ancestry
1 Rhystic Study
1 Urza’s Incubator
1 Cryptic Command
1 Damnation
1 Diabolic Tutor
1 Mass Manipulation
1 Mastermind’s Acquisition
1 Vraska’s Contempt
1 Conspiracy
1 Devastation Tide
1 Increasing Ambition
1 Vanquisher’s Banner
1 God-Pharaoh’s Statue
1 The Immortal Sun

Lands:34

1 Arcane Lighthouse
1 Barren Moor
1 Blasted Landscape
1 Command Tower
1 Cryptic Caves
1 Crystal Vein
1 Darksteel Citadel
1 Dimir Aqueduct
1 Dimir Guildgate (a)
1 Dismal Backwater
1 Dreadship Reef
1 Evolving Wilds
1 Field of Ruin
1 Gateway Plaza
1 Guildmages’ Forum
1 Halimar Depths
5 Island
1 Isolated Watchtower
1 Jwar Isle Refuge
1 Lonely Sandbar
1 Lotus Field
1 Morphic Pool
1 Mortuary Mire
4 Swamp
1 Terramorphic Expanse
1 Unknown Shores
1 Watery Grave

So now you know the cards in the deck, it’s time for those pointless graphs.

What do you think of the changes?

I’m thinking I might try and squeeze in the leylines. Not sure what they would replace.

When last we left our heroes… #1

D&D, post mortem, RPG

These posts are going to be my post-mortem of the session that was just held. They will look at how I felt things went, and recap what happened in the session story wise.

This first post will be slightly different. As we …

Meet the party

  • Jonathan is Valdor Shadowstorm, a Human Rogue.
  • Diego is Sinthoras, an Elf Druid
  • Nathanial is Bart an Elf Ranger
  • Chrissie is Trixie Furpurple a Forest Gnome Bard
  • Richard is Varis Galanodell a Half-Elf Warlock

Our Adventure Starts…

“The coastal town of Saltmarsh like other coastal towns on the Sword Coast is very busy this time of year. Anything that floats and is sea worthy is being hired to take travellers to the Festival of the Earthmother on the island of Alaron. People have come from far and distance lands to witness this legendary festival at least once in their life time.

Having secured what is most likely the last spaces anywhere, the adventurers are all waiting on a small wooden jetty ready to board the Dirty Oar. A keelboat owned and sailed by the ships Captain, Chan.”

After boarding the Dirty Oar, they set sail heading out into open waters and towards Alaron.

While at sea within sight of an island the Dirty Oar runs into a storm. Sadly the adventurers and crews efforts to prepare the ship were in vain. The storm battered the Dirty Oar, throwing it on to a reef. Smashing the boat to pieces.

The adventurers ended up unconscious on the beach of the island that had been spotted. When they came round they found the corpses of Captain Chan and Chewy next to them.

The adventurers were blocked from getting off the beach by an impregnable cliff wall that was unscalable. Luckily they discovered a cave that upon investigation had mysterious steps going up at the back of it.

At the top of the stairs was a corridor that had a portcullis at the end of it. About half way along was an alcove and opposite a door way. From nowhere an arrow narrowly missed Valdor, and a warning shouted to leave or die.

Ignoring this threat the adventurers ended up fighting a group of pirates in the corridor. After what seemed a drawn out fight, it was definitely close combat, and anything goes, the pirates were dispatched.

Bart found a lever in the alcove that opened the portcullis. The opened door way led into a large cavern full of crates and barrels. Obviously the spoils of numerous raids. In a far corner was another stairs leading once again up.

After grabbing some supplies the party headed up the stairs.

This came out onto a corridor that had a door at the end of it, another door half way down it. And at the far end also another corridor.

Valdor checked the door half way down. It was unlocked. He snuck into the room behind it. He had found a sleeping quarters, and there were two pirates fast asleep.

After Valdor tried killing one of the sleeping pirates in their sleep, a fight broke out. But the two pirates put up little fight before they were no more.

After a short rest in the sleeping quarters, the party decided to examine the door at the far end of the corridor. It was locked. After failed attempts to unlock it by Valdor. Bart tried kicking the door down to no avail. Trixie decided to break the lock totally with her knife. Fed up with these poor displays of skill,and wanting to see what was behind the door Sinthoras cast Thunderwave. Smashing open the door, and alerting anything living within 300ft of the groups presence.

Behind the destroyed door was the contents of an armoury scattered over the floor, and a couple of smashed vials.

Half way up the new corridor was another alcove and a portcullis opposite it, and on the same side as the portcullis a bit further down another door. The portcullis lead to another locked door. That Valdor managed to open. It lead into an office, that also had another door in it. Valdor searched the desk and it’s papers finding a scrap of paper with an interesting symbol on it. The symbol was a white four point star over an anvil. The other door lead to a private sleeping quarters. Where nothing of interest was found. Although back in the office another lever was found that opened the portcullis opposite the alcove.

Back in the corridor Valdor decided to check out the open doorway at the end of the corridor.

Waiting for the party in the hall were more pirates. An arrow just missed Valdor when he poked his head round the corner to see what was in the cave. Two berserkers rushed through the door attacking.

A bloody and dirty fight followed. Through out words of encouragement could be heard being shouted at the pirates. As the adventurers fought their way into the hall the leader of the pirates made a dash for some stairs in the opposite far corner. Despite their best efforts to stop him, the pirate escaped.

Varis managed to charm the sole remaining pirate, allowing the party to interrogate their prisoner. Which enabled them to find out about Angrath and what was waiting for them ahead up the stairs. After the questioning had finished Bart sent the prisoner to the after life.

Armed with the new intel, the group went back and broke into the treasury. Where they filled their pockets with gold, found some magic cloaks, a couple of glass vials and a magical helm. And some other trinkets. There was too much treasure to carry.

And that was where we left the group…

Post-mortem

So how did things go from a DM point of view?

The start was rather shaky. But I grew into things. For me it didn’t flow, or seem right. Especially the descriptions dealing with leaving port, being at sea and leading into the storm.

I’m not entirely sure that the skill challenges worked. I didn’t announce them as such, nor explain what one was. Maybe having one so early into our first session was a mistake.

With the group failing the skill challenge for the storm itself the boat was wrecked, and the group unconscious on the beach I decided for dramatic purposes to kill off the boats crew. I also had to decide on the fly with the players what equipment they were likely to have survived with. I allowed weapons, but stuff like food, camping equipment, etc was lost because it would naturally have been stowed away. This situation had gone through my mind before hand. I think I should have thought it through more, and made some notes.

Once in the pirates lair, the first level took a lot longer than expected. The guard post and room seemed to really slow the players down. It almost seemed too hard a problem to solve.

I think the tiles worked. Although I think it made me lazy with my descriptions, and I need to work on that.

The pirate tactics in combat used were believable I think. Having them preferring to die, rather than run away and face Angrath was the right way to play them. It gave the players extra info that although they had no idea who Angrath was, they knew he was some-one to fear. Also having described the clothes in his locker in his quarters as being too big for them, it conveyed to the players the person was large. So the players were getting an image of Angrath dropped as hints.

I was also very tight with what the dead pirates had on them, and in their quarters. Basically if searched all that was found was their weapons. I kinda felt guilty about that. But then again I eased that feeling knowing that there was a very well stocked treasure room for them to get into.

Berserkers had too high an hp? I think what helped was the 2 berserkers were blocking the door way and stopping the other pirates from attacking. It kept the party from being overwhelmed and out numbered in actions. But after the first berserker died, I dropped the seconds hp a little.

When the party tried breaking into the armoury Chrissie rolls a natural 20 trying to break the lock with her knife. I had her completely destroy the lock, so the door remained locked. A knife isn’t the best way to pick a lock. It felt right. But thinking about it now seemed a bit too mean.

I decided to have the lair commander run off. Which meant I fudged the rolls so that he would escape. I felt a bit guilty doing this. But it was a spur of the moment decision to have him make a run for it so that he could escape and tell Angrath. A witness that could identify them later on when they eventually bump into the minotaur pirate.

Early on a player asked me I think during our first skill challenge what the DC was. I didn’t give it. That allows metagaming, It’s info the characters wouldn’t know. Also from a DM running things point of view, it means I can’t adjust things on the fly based on how events are going. I don’t tell players if their stealth check has succeeded or not. I describe them being stealthy. They find out how successful that was as events evolve. There is a whole Matt Colville video on this.

I thought this session would be about 3 hours. It ended up being 4. Ok there was a little chat at the start, and about 15 mins clear up. But otherwise the rest was game time. And we still had level 3 and the tomb to navigate.

Overall I think the players enjoyed the experience. Which is the main thing.

Update on Campaign Planning #12: Lost Dwarves

D&D, RPG, session planning

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

“Rumor has it that a small number of Ironstar dwarves have a secret cave hold on Mintarn.”

That is the adventure hook I took from Mintarn Page on the Forgotten Realms Wiki.

The seed for it starts in the imminent (this Saturday) session 1 when possibly the adventurers discover a scrap of paper with a mysterious emblem on it (see below) on the desk of whoever is running the pirate group they have stumbled upon.

In session 2 once on Mintarn if they enquire about the emblem they will hear the rumour this post started with.

The adventurers will also need to learn about who the Ironstar Dwarves are, and given a reason why they would want to find this secret cave.

The Ironstar Dwarves were renowned for having mastered instilling magic in items. Their Darksteel maces were said to shatter armour in a single blow.

“Armour and weapons made form darksteel were resistant to acid and had the unique property of absorbing all magical and mundane electrical energy, including lightning, without transferring a charge to its bearer. In fact, the energy that effected weapons in this manner could be directed towards the target of the wielder.” (source Forgotten Realms Wiki)

So the prospect of magical equipment, or a way to make magical equipment is hopefully enough of an enticement to have the adventurers take the bait from this hook.

The plan is to use a D&D Beyond Encounter Of The Week as inspiration to cover the wilderness travel the party will have to undertake to find and reach the secret cave. Naturally the random encounter stuff triggered will use the tables I talked about in the previous post.

We then once at the secret cave enter a classic dungeon crawl. I haven’t decided if the secret cave will still have Ironstar dwarves living there, or we have a mines of Moria like scenario where the dwarves were all killed by orcs and goblins controlled by an unknown darkness. Or more in keeping with the campaign maybe Sahuagin instead.

That’s my thinking for that hook. It’s probably my most advanced at the moment. In my next planning post I’ll share my thoughts on the adventure hook that ties into a couple of the characters backgrounds.