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.
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.
Tomorrow (Saturday, well today when this gets posted) is session 1 of the group 2 campaign.
I was going to use the Core Adventure Generator from The Lazy DM’S Companion. However as I was looking through the City of Arches pdf there was a two page adventure at the end called The Obsidian Skull.
It is described as “…a two-hour adventure for two to five 1st level characters set in the City of Arches. The characters reach 2nd level when completing this adventure.” City of Arches pdf
This sounded perfect. I haven’t run a “published” adventure before. The nearest I’ve come is the Delian Tomb adventure by Matt Colville for first time DM’s. But that was very bare bones, basically an annotated map!
I need to change a couple of things to suit our campaign, such as the patron and the reason the adventurers are there. But they are minor changes to make.
Today involved visiting the library to print some bits off ready for tomorrow.
Ok the first two aren’t actually needed. Well might be. I might not advance the party to level 2 at the end of this first adventure. I’ll make that decision at the end of the session.
The two A3 maps are player handouts for the session. Although the city map will be used for multiple sessions.
Oh before I forget here is how the party are made up.
The Group 2 Characters
I still have some Secrets and Clues to do. But these I’ll do tomorrow morning. I like one or two prompts from the Lazy DM Companion Creating Secrets and Clues page. Such as “What family history might be revealed?”, “What dungeon entrance just became revealed?” or “What monsters recently appeared in the realm?”
I get the feeling that the party may not be leaving the catacombs of the Cliffs of the Dead anytime soon.
Right see you next time with the post mortem of the session.
I enjoy driving over to Jeff’s fortress of solitude (yes it does seem that remote where he lives.) Especially when I go the back roads.
It’s like a trip down memory lane.
As a kid my grandad (Dads side of the family) was the landlord of the Wheatsheaf Pub in a small fenland village called Walpole Marsh. The pub was a true old school spit and sawdust type of place. I remember the large walk in pantry it had. But more importantly if you had to do a number two that involved using what was basically a plank with a hole in it over who knows what! The mens urinal was outside with no roof.
The village is unrecognisable these days to my time there in the seventies. The pub is no longer a pub but a house. As is the chapel that was next to it.
My godparents home across the road from the pub, which was a bungalow with a barn next to it, has no trace of either.
The village hall gone and replaced with a home. The nursery that Nan sometimes worked at, homes.
Somehow I think the sense of the village being a community with the heart being pub has long gone for Walpole Marsh.
Today my back road route took me through the Walpoles and towards Walpole Marsh via Marsh Road.
As a kid we used to love going down Marsh Road. There is a slight slope/embankment it goes up. Dad used to go faster over that, and as you went over the top there was that rollercoaster moment of the tingly stomach. Pure joy for a young kid! Funny I loved that and have such find memories of it. But I can’t stand rollercoasters!
Once I was at Jeff’s it was down to business.
Jeff made the coffee, while I set up Libertalia.
Our first voyage was disastrous for me. At the end of it I’d only 7 doubloons to store in my treasure chest. Jeff had clocked up twenty odd. It was going to require some amazing turns and a lot of luck to overturn this deficit.
Voyage two was better for me. Jeff still scored more. The gap was only two or three doubloons. The third and final voyage I did much better and edged it over Jeff. But sadly not enough to overcome that first voyage.
As you can see from the final score I never really recovered from that disastrous first voyage.
Our Libertalia Scores
Our next game Port Royal followed a similar start to Libertalia with Jeff making the coffee, whilst I setup aka shuffled the cards.
This was a learning game. I.e. reading the rules as we went.
For this game we were playing the base game, plus the cards from the expansion Just One More Contract. We did not use the contracts from the expansion.
I did enjoy the push your luck element of the game. Which is handy as it’s a major part of the game!
“You’ve got to know when to hold ’em Know when to fold ’em Know when to walk away And know when to run” The Gambler
Apparently the above advice isn’t something Jeff knows! The number of times he just pushed his luck too far. Me a couple of times I stopped after my first card. Hey a ship giving me three coins is worth it. Plus it screws over the other player as they don’t get anything! However the game rewards pushing your luck, as the more ships of different colours you have out the more cards you get to choose (up to a maximum of three).
I still need to play this game with more players. But as a two player game I enjoyed it. Definitely need to work out how this fits in the gaming case, or what goes to make way for it. However that’s a decision for another day.
Our Port Royal Scores
Playing Port Royal with Jeff meant that I made progress with three of my gaming challenges.
The Challenges Port Royal helped towards
A great afternoon gaming with Jeff. I hope there is an opportunity to repeat it in the near future.
Last night saw the return of my favourite boardgame of all time to the table.
As usual the bgstat app reminded me when I had last played Scythe. Which was just over two years ago, in December 2019. Obviously not much gaming took place in that intervening time.
But damn it was a bloody good idea of Diego’s to play Scythe over Tapestry (although I do love playing it).
To maximise play time I arrived early (which is an achievement in itself these days with the bridge works at Sutton Bridge) and set up everything before hand. The only thing I did as soon as some-one turned up was the shuffling of cards etc. Just so it was above board, and accusations of rigging decks etc could not be made.
This game of Scythe was basically all in on the expansion front (excluding Rise of Fenris). We did not use the Resolution tile module in this game. I thought that would be a step too far for our new players.
The two airship tiles for the game were:
Airship tiles for our game
Our structure bonus tile for the game was 3 – Number of encounters adjacent to your structures. Only count each encounter once. These count whether or not the encounter tokens are still there. Rivers do not break adjacency.
Using the selection method described in the modular board rules, I dealt out player mats randomly to each of us. The highest numbered player mat (me it turned out) then got to choose a faction. Obviously avoiding the “banned” board combos.
This is how the faction choices ended up.
Crimean Khanate/Engineering – Colin
Nordic Kingdoms/Industrial – Marcin
Clan Albion/Militant – Diego
Rusviet Union/Patriotic – Me
Given a choice I was only ever going to choose Rusviet Union (despite what is going on in the real world at the moment, is that wrong of me?). I really love this faction ability. In fact who wouldn’t love being able to repeat the same action again?
I stumbled upon this bit of analysis from 2017 of the synergy between player mats and faction boards. Obviously this doesn’t take into account anything in the Rise of Fenris expansion.
It turns out my board combo was pretty neutral, as was Diego’s combo. However there was a really poor synergy for Colin. Which I now feel bad about. After all this was a first game for him. It was also a first game for Marcin I believe, but he had a very good synergy between player mat and faction mat.
Diego didn’t like his starting map position much. He was the only one without easy access to a tunnel. Which didn’t work well with the mech river walk ability. Before play started we did offer him the chance to switch factions. But it was declined.
After a brief explanation of play to Colin, Marcin had watched the Watched It Played video before hand, and leaving combat out until later, play began.
Mind you considering the amount of time that had passed since our last game, Diego and myself were a little rusty on the rules also. So some rules clarifications were made through out the game.
My first turns I dashed to the nearest encounter tile to make use of the negotiate ability. I’m glad I did because I got to use another players faction ability for the rest of the game, all for the princely sum of $5. After some pondering I chose the Crimean COERCION: Once per turn, you may spend 1 combat card as if it were any 1 resource token. That would become a crucial piece to enabling me to trigger the end of the game and winning later on.
On my way to the Factory I grabbed a second encounter. It gave me a nice boost. But the factory card I grabbed allowed me to spend two different resources to get either a mech or building. I was soon building mechs and buildings. Although I only built two buildings to capitalise on the bonus tile.
Marcin was the first to complete an objective and thus was the first to put a star out on the objective track. Not many turns later joined by Diego.
I didn’t initiate my first two combats, that was Colin and Diego being aggressive towards me. I could have won them. But I deliberately lost them to burn up their combat cards and bolster points. Which meant when I hit back I could do so using the minimum of cards and bolster points, as I certainly didn’t have enough of either to win two combats otherwise. It wasn’t until the later stages of the game that Marcin decided to be aggressive.
One thing I didn’t expect to get away with near the end was planting a mech with three farmers on the Factory to take control of it. Naturally the farmers were there to act as a deterrent to being attacked, because any victor would get hit heavily on their popularity. But unchallenged I was.
Mid game I did get an encounter card that allowed me to use another players faction ability for a turn. I already had Colin’s for the game. But I did use Marcin’s faction SWIM:Your workers may move across rivers, to move a couple of workers into Colin’s quarter of the board. It was a territory grab basically.
A late surge of complete objectives by Marcin meant it would be close for who triggered the end of the game. However Colin’s faction ability meant I only needed one trade action to allow me get both my final two enlist recruits out. Plus a second trade action to give me the resources to get my final mech out using my factory card. Which triggered the end of the game.
Now I knew that triggering the end of the game did not mean I had won. However we were all in the same zone on the popularity track, so no points advantage there for anyone. It would all be down to who had the most of each scoring item. With no resources left I knew I’d have zero points on that one. But all six stars out, control of the factory (worth three tiles), plus the structures bonus. I might have edged a victory.
Once the dust settled, and coins counted. I had indeed won. My third victory in thirteen plays!
Final Scores
A big thank you to Diego for suggesting getting this back to the table. Plus to Colin and Marcin. I had a blast playing this with you all.
I have to say I love the Scythe Complete Rulebook. So glad I finally got the ring bound version.
Scythe the Complete Rulebook
It just makes life at the table so much easier not having to search through several rulebooks to find that one rule. I also appreciate through out the spoiler warnings for the Rise of Fenris expansion. I haven’t played it yet (my copy is still in shrink!). I want my experience of the campaign to be as fresh, exciting, surprising, and amazed as it is for whoever else is playing it with me.
Oh the post title? A line from The Times They Are A-Changin’ by Bob Dylan. I thought considering one of the first things on the normal board you are trying to do is get across that river penning you in, it seemed appropriate.
Last week Free League announced a partnership with Titan Books (an off shoot of Forbidden Planet if memory serves me correctly).
In the official announcement this partnership has been described as “a collaboration to publish a unified storyline set within the ALIEN Universe. For 2022 and into 2023, the editorial and writing teams will share assets and coordinate plotlines to form a cohesive narrative across three original novels and the multiple award-winning ALIEN RPG.”
In the next year Titan Books will be publishing three new Alien novels.
Alien: Colony War by David Barnett (April 2022)
Alien: Inferno’s Fall by Phillipa Ballantine and Clara Carija (July 2022)
Alien: Enemy of My Enemy by Mary SanGiovanni (February 2023)
The first two can be pre-ordered on Amazon already. Which funnily enough but hardly a surprise I have pre-ordered.
If unsure which version of the books to pre-order, as there are three versions, audible, kindle and good old physical?
You first need to be aware of the following snippet of information about these novels. “ALIEN RPG lead setting writer Andrew E.C. Gaska will develop three unique RPG scenarios which will appear as bonus features in the books, one per novel.”
I seriously doubt these scenarios will be in the audible version (which I did spend a credit on to pre-order). But I’m not sure that the kindle version will have them either. The only edition I would bet money on that definitely will have them is the physical (hence why I pre-ordered it).
However Titan Books aren’t the first to do this sort of thing.
Back in 2017/8 FFG did something similar when they released four novellas set in the Android universe that had in the physical versions exclusive content for the Genesys RPG Shadow of the Beanstalk source book. Such as “a 16-page color insert detailing the treacherous Los Scorpiones gang …”
That exclusive bit was annoying as it was very challenging to get the actual physical edition, especially here in the UK. I did manage to get them all. But I don’t think the print run was very big.
This shouldn’t be an issue with the much more popular Alien franchise.
In other Free League Alien RPG news (yes they have been very busy it seems) a new cinematic adventure called Heart of Darkness has just gone on pre-order.
Heart of Darkness is “written by sci-fi novelist Andrew E.C. Gaska. It is a stand-alone adventure, but also serves as a conclusion to the Draconis Strain Saga begun in the cinematic scenario Chariot of the Gods and continued in Destroyer of Worlds. The scenario is designed for 3–5 players plus the Game Mother, and is a spiraling descent into soul-crushing madness.”
What does your money get you?
Basically the following:
The main Heart of Darkness scenario book.
A huge double-sided map (format 864x558mm) of the Erebos plasma trawling space station.
Seven pre-generated characters to choose from.
Custom cards for secret messages and personal agendas.
Player maps and handouts.
Plus when you pre-order you get early access to the PDF’s. The actual physical version will not be out until sometime in the Summer I believe.
There is a VTT bundle for this as well.
I do like that buying from Free League also gets you the PDF version. Other publishers do this as well, such as EN Publishing. It’s a nice incentive to buy direct from them. But I am a bit conflicted on this. Pre-ordering and early access I’m happy with. But for those that can wait, and want to support and buy from their FLGS, surely Free League and other publishers can come up with a way for those to get the PDF as well as part of their purchase.
Anyway I’m an impatient so and so, so come payday Heart of Darkness will be added to a virtual shopping cart.
I’ve used the following with the other session planning posts. So it shouldn’t be a surprise that I’m using it here as well.
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.
Next Saturday is the first session of actual play for the new group.
So far I have only had one character sheet sent to me. I was going to summarise the party here. But at mo until I get the others I see little point in doing so.
However with the campaign being set in and around the City of Arches. The arches/portals do allow for a variety of adventure opportunities whether visitors to the city from other realms, or with a key the chance to visit other realms.
Earlier in the week Seth Skorkowsky posted a review of the classic D&D adventure Isle of Dread.
Which reminded me I had the Goodman Original Adventures Reincarnated #2: The Isle of Dread version of the original. Which reprints in a single hefty volume the 1e edition of the adventure, a 5e conversion and an expansion. I think there might be more than one version of the 1e edition included.
It also got me thinking I could run this with both D&D groups.
In the video review Seth recommends running The Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh adventure first, as that gives the party the chance to get a boat at the end of it. This adventure was updated by WotC in The Ghosts of Saltmarsh adventure book.
However that isn’t an issue for this new campaign as I can have the party getting to the island via an arch. Plus the other group have a boat already.
I did order The Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh from DriveThruRPG as it is a much cheaper than eBay way to get a physical copy of the original 1e version of the adventure. Sadly that isn’t an option for The Isle of Dread (it’s digital only for some reason). So I had to pay the eBay rate for a copy.
But running this with the new group is a few sessions off in the future.
I know in a recent YouTube video Mike Shea said he had been working on a version of the core adventure generator from the Lazy DM Companion for the City of Arches. But I don’t think that will be ready for me by Wednesday when I start prepping for Saturday. So it looks like I’ll be using the core adventure generator to inspire ideas for our first session.
One of the characters only has 3 hit points! Life is going to be very hard for that character or very short! So I need to probably use the advice from Mike Shea in this post Building First Level Encounters and cast aid on the party. I like the idea of giving them a single use relic that their patron could give them as part of doing some task for them.
Right I’m off to re-read the guide to the City of Arches.
Last night was one of the “every other Friday” nights for Fenland Gamers.
It was looking to be a very well attended evening. If the advanced maths were correct it was looking like twelve would be attending.
However reality, life and whatever else you can think of reduced that number down to six.
Although as the evening got underway we were not to know that. We thought it would be down to eight.
With Gavin drooling over the resin bloodbowl figures Colin had printed for him. Diego, Chris, Nino and myself started playing Libertalia.
For this game we used the stormy side of the game board.
I’d like to say I did a good job of explaining the rules but at best it was adequate. And that would be very generous describing it as so.
During the first voyage there were too many misplays that were my fault. An example of a major one being triggering the anchor abilities at the end of each day instead of at the end of the voyage. I don’t know why that was in my head that they did trigger them. But it was for whatever reason.
I won because of the tie break condition. But in reality it was a tainted win. The victory really should have been Diego’s by a country mile. He has the moral victory!
Libertalia Scores
The next game we played was a six player game of Survive Escape from Atlantis.
Which meant reading very quickly the expansion rules.
I did a really shit job explaining the basic rules. No other way to describe it.
We forgot to put the squid out when a whale was added to the board. Not a big misplay. Just meant we never used the squid mini expansion.
I did get frustrated with a couple of the others during the game who insisted on reading what the red bordered tile did that they had just drawn, instead of rolling the dive dice and finishing their turn. And then reading the tile description. I didn’t hide that very well at all.
Despite the above everyone seemed to enjoy playing it.
Survive Escape from Atlantis Scores
I have to say I didn’t get much enjoyment out of last nights gaming session. Afterwards I felt down about it. Even this morning as I type this post I don’t feel any more positive about it.
It’s a combination of things about the evening I think.
The misplays during Libertalia upset me a little thinking about them.
Moving the wrong coloured counters, not seeing a word when reading card text. It’s easy to dismiss them at the time as mistakes. Let alone the anchor error.
I’m pretty sure others think I’m trying to pull a fast one during the game. But I’m not they are genuine errors made by whatever brain fart causes them to happen.
I’d like to say it’s just old age. But I’ve been doing that sort of thing all my life.
Last night there were too many happening early on in the game.
The poor attendance also got to me. Particularly the two that just didn’t say anything. Although one apparently did post rather late it turns out that they’d not be attending. That message wasn’t picked up until I got home.
It meant Gavin and Colin were kinda left out when we could have included them in the game of Libertalia, split into two groups, or played a different six player game.
Then there was the guilt trip I felt after Diego pointed out in a conversation with Gavin that we didn’t play any of the games he, Gavin and Colin had bought along. We just played my two games.
I know if everyone had turned up we would have had multiple games going on and they would have got games to the table.
But still there is no excuse for me “forcing” my games on them. I need to change and be more thoughtful of others and not so selfish.
I wasn’t on my A game last night. And it was bloody obvious to all and sundry.
At the moment I might step back from the fortnightly gaming, and have a little break from it. I’ll still organise adhoc sessions to play some of my bigger games. That’s if I can find others prepared to game with me.
As I said not feeling very positive about last night. That all might change between now and the next one.
But still all I can say about last night is the title of this blog post.
I suppose I better start the post off with wishing everyone a very geeky Happy Mario Day.
Happy Mario Day
In other news Libertalia Winds of Galecrest arrived yesterday. But more about that a bit further down in this post.
First we need to talk about the other game I played with Diego this morning.
Diego and I started our morning of gaming off with a two player game of Vampire the Masquerade Rivals.
It was Tremere vs Gangrel.
I think Diego and myself are starting to focus on the clans we want to start building around. I definitely am.
Our leaders for this match up
Diego might be right that in a two player game Tremere might be a tad on the op side.
Being able to stay in your haven, play rituals, and slowly drain your opponents blood is pretty powerful. Unless an event drags your leader or coterie into the streets that is when you become pretty exposed.
I think I’m starting to get an idea where I want to go with the deck.
Playing Vampire the Masquerade Rivals
Although there is the ritual Blood Makes Noise, that gets some extra prestige. I’d like a way to get more. During this game I was down to a single prestige. All Diego had to do was deliver that killing blow to get the win. Plus I had a 4 bp vampire in hand I wanted to play but just couldn’t.
I like the Seek Knowledge ritual. Anything that aids getting to cards you need quicker to good by me. Add in Defense of the Sacred Haven to increase the secrecy of vampires in your haven certainly makes it harder for your opponents to attack. Plus stops single S.A.D. attacks from the street.
I’m starting to lean towards having more reaction cards in the deck, and a lot less attack cards. Possibly a 70:30 split in favour of the reaction cards.
The final scores of our game, with me getting an agenda point victory.
Final scores for Vampire the Masquerade Rivals
Onto our second game of the morning.
Did anyone think I wouldn’t take Libertalia with me to Diego’s?
Before leaving I had decided to sleeve two of the six decks because that’s all I thought I had sleeves for. But as luck would have it I had more than I thought. Enough to do all six decks, but not the Automa deck. Which wasn’t a problem it’s not as if I’d be using those cards anytime soon.
My initial impressions of playing Libertalia for a first time ever, and as a two player game, is I love it.
Naturally I’m going to talk a bit more about the game after I’ve played it with more players. There is a lot to say about the bits I like.
But with the Midshipman tile acting like a “third” player in a two player game. It works so well, it has no overhead, and so simple, it’s genius.
Libertalia Wings of Galecrest
There is some great decision making to make during the game. The reputation system to resolve tiebreakers another simple, genius idea.
I think with the Calm side of the board for a first play the level of player interaction and “meanness” is just right. It’s not overly nasty. Although I think if a new player is going to play who is not a gamer they might need a little heads up that they could end up not getting any loot on a turn.
The final scores confirming Diego’s revenge for losing our Rivals game.
Libertalia final scores
A great mornings gaming with one of my favourite people to game with. Days off don’t get much better than this.
Just over a month ago on a Facebook group I belong to (can’t remember which one or find the post) some-one posted asking for game recommendations to take on a trip/holiday with them that would play large groups. They were deboxing the games and putting them in a card quiver like box.
It got me thinking about doing something similar but to take with me to game nights or when I visit Nathan.
I already had a quiver that I store my Vampire the Masquerade Rivals cards in. So would need a new one for this project. I went with a square-ish one this time.
Inside my game case
So what games are in side the case?
D-Day Dice Pocket
Coup with the Reformation expansion
Cribbage board + deck of playing cards
Hive
Citadels
No Thanks
Red 7
Yahtzee
Don’t Mess With Cthuhlu Deluxe
Heckmeck plus expansions
Tussie Mussie
For Sale
Love Letter 2nd Edition
Batman Love Letter
Star Wars Jabba’s Palace
Startups
The Cousin’s War 1st Edition
Plus some poker dice.
As you can see the rules, game board, score pads etc fit inside the lid of the case. Not shown is a card listing the games and their player counts.
I’ve not played Port Royal yet but that is a likely candidate for trying to fit into this game case. But that might mean something has to go to make space for it.
But at the moment I think there is a nice mix of games for various player counts. None of the games are “heavy” games, but easily fall into the filler category.
It’s dead handy to just grab this on the way out. So glad I did this.
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.
