Another Northern Marches Session

We have had a good run of gaming for the Northern Marches campaign the last few weeks. Last night we had another game with three players and myself.

The party was light on manpower but decided to return to the mines and fight goblins and bandits. Wandering monsters were their downfall. Only Konrad the Fighter made it out alive and he was grievously injured.

He went to the local temple to seek aid for himself. This gave me the opportunity to try out some more subsystems I have developed. A good reaction roll with the high priest, with some bonuses for helping the community with the bandits, resulted in the PCs hearing the tale (a Key Rumour) of a self-proclaimed Duke that has a stronghold to the west who is actually an evil undead that lives off the suffering and torment of the living. Also, in return for some healing, the high priest had Konrad the Fighter swear to investigate a recently discovered nearby tomb.

Investigating the tomb resulted in the PCs finding the first large treasure trove for the campaign. They have been unlucky in that regard to this point.

My goal in the development of the Northern Marches is to use a handful of simple subsystems based on existing mechanics in the B/X rules so that the campaign is nearly usable for solo play - something akin to an open ended version of Barbarian Prince. Then I, as the DM, can just sit back and enjoy meshing the results of these subsystems into a workable campaign for the players. I have mentioned in previous posts that the thing I enjoy the most about DMing is when I get to take a few randomly generated elements and use my imagination to mesh it together into something usable. Using the subsystems allows me to determine a larger history and story to the setting without a metaplot thus keeping the sandbox nature of the campaign. By parsing out random rumours and elements of the setting the players can ignore them if they wish but still get a sense of a larger world with a past and other forces present.

I have been enjoying not only the gaming sessions but also the construction process.