The Summer Slowdown

- Summer time... gaming and posting has seemed to slow down. Maybe things will pick up again as we get nearer to Gencon. Not that I am going but blog traffic seems to pick up and more things happen.

- I have an advanced case of gamer ADD. It only seems to go into remission when I play which has been rare the last while. I have spent far more time buying and reading stuff. The problem (besides the impact to my wallet) is that I come up with all sorts of campaign and one-shot ideas. It is difficult enough to schedule sessions for the Northern Marches and the Dark Sun / Castles & Crusades micro-campaign much less to add anything new.

- I was reading through the comments to James Maliszewski's recent post regarding Save or Die. James does a wonderful job of posting his thoughts and ideas in a well thought out and easily understood manner but I am always amazed how the comments to his posts can very quickly veer off into us versus them. I don't know if it is because his posting is so well thought out that his blog attracts such diverse readers. I do sometimes wish people would stay a bit more on subject though. I was going to make a comment there but I decided that it would not benefit anyone but myself so decided against it. I have no problem with others enjoying their games. Hell, I like all sorts of games myself. But don't talk down to me or others because of the style of games we like. Table top roleplaying is a wonderful hobby that has done a lot of good things for me and many, many others. How can any game where people get to sit down with friends and spend hours talking together be a bad thing no matter what style you prefer?

- I have been reading the Gazetteer for Paizo's Golarion setting and the regional source book for their Darkmoon Vale. I think that the Darkmoon Vale would be a great little sandbox. Of course I would have to convert it to something far more rules-lite than 3.5E like B/X or Castles & Crusades but that wouldn't tough.

- I am pretty much done writing the next session of the Dark Sun micro-campaign. The only things I have to do now are come up with some of the props and find a hole in everyone's schedules. I figure that the campaign will cover about 5 sessions. This micro campaign is nothing like my Northern Marches campaign. The Northern Marches is a exploration based sandbox while the Dark Sun game is a more story-focused game. I do not know the entire story but I do have a general sense of the direction of the game. I make up my notes for each session based on what has happened in previous sessions. It is interesting running two very different games.

- This week is Stampede in Calgary. This is the first time I have really missed working since I left my job in January. Downtown Calgary is a lot of fun this week.

Dark Sun / Castles & Crusades Part 2

The background for a second session of the now poorly named Dark Sun one shot:

With the Veiled Alliance still in hiding and part of Nicodemus' troops now under their orders, our unlikely heroes spent the last year wandering the desert, hunting and raiding villages like any other slave tribe. The tribe's scouts have brought word of an unlikely caravan traveling through the desert nearby - a supply caravan belonging to Sorcerer-King Kalak whose destination is unknown. The tribe has set up an ambush to take the caravan. Why is it out in the desert? What does it carry?

These are my goals/wish list for a second session of Castles & Crusades / Dark Sun:
1. Make use of the Slave army that now follows the party.
2. Have a mix of scene framing and dungeon exploration. But a bigger focus on dungeon exploration than in the last session.
3. More goofy minis!

C&C / Dark Sun One Shot Report

I ran the Dark Sun one shot last night. It was great fun! First some pictures and then a look at whether the game met my goals.

The opening scene was in the arena of course...













Later a fight in the desert...












The final battle...














My goals for this game were:
1. To use C&C to run a Dark Sun game that is not a 100% conversion of Dark Sun but instead a "thematic" conversion.

How did C&C do? Really well. I find C&C plays a lot like 2nd edition but faster and easier.

Some of the conversion mechanics included;
A. No psionics - this did not appear to be missed and it still felt like dark sun to everyone.
B. Using a variant of the Microlite20 magic system for wizards - this worked extremely well.
C. Custom Gladiator class based of C&C's Knight class worked well. The player really took to it during the arena combat. Also, the Fighter, Ranger and Gladiator all felt very different from each other.

The use of lots of props, art work and music really helped with the Dark Sun feel.

2. Run a high action, heroic game that still feels like Dark Sun

I am pretty lenient with the use of C&C's siege mechanic to do all sorts of crazy maneuvers and stunts so this lends itself to the characters feeling heroic. The grittiness of Dark Sun was communicated by stressing slavery, the tyrannical power of the sorcerer-kings and the harshness of the natural environment. Only one PC death as the wizard was blasted with a lightening bolt in the final encounter.

3. Develop a fast and furious non-railroaded one-shot

I had 5 encounters roughly sketched out. A lot of pre-planning went into making sure there would be at least one opportunity for each character to come to the forefront but, as they typically do, the players surprised me at every turn. The only encounter that went as I expected it to was the initial battle in the arena - tough for that one to get off the rails. From the second encounter on the players tried things that I did not expect.

What worked really well?
A. All the time and effort I put into making props, visuals and the soundtrack really enhanced the game.

B. The encounter design. Each of the 5 encounters was designed with a specific goal, a list of obstacles that needed to be overcome to reach the goal, and the "push" - the element that kept the players moving. Each of the 5 goals formed the backbone of the "story". However, the method to accomplish the goal was left entirely up the the players and there was enough wiggle room for how players accomplished prior goals to affect how later goals may be reached. The push for the overall story was a time limit on finding Mr. McGuffin. Each encounter also had a specific push. For example, an encounter in the desert was pushed by the need to find water.

What's next?
Maybe a Thundarr-type one shot using Mutant Future, one of the scenarios out of Barbarians of Lemuria, the Burning Wheel scenario "The Gift" using Risus, or maybe a sequel Dark Sun game.

EDIT:
What didn't work?
- Mainly that in a format such as a one-shot, I need to do a better job moving the action along and framing the next scene. In my Northern Marches game this isn't a requirement as it is an exploration based sandbox game. the methodical exploration of every hex, passageway, nook and cranny is part of that game but in a more "story"-based one-shot it is more important to cut to the next scene to keep the tension and action ramped up. There was a brief part in the middle of the game where I started so see things flag a bit and had to really make a conscious effort to bring the intensity back up.

Getting Ready

My Castles & Crusades / Dark Sun one shot is in a couple of days so I am going to spend some of my free time putting the finishing touches on my prep.

The encounters are pretty much sketched out - the players are agents for the Veiled Alliance and they have to find Mr. McGuffin. The opening scene is in the arena of course.

I am using pregen characters and they are pretty much done.

I am using a bunch of props and I am going to make this a minis-heavy (actually figure flats) game so I have built props for the arena and possible subsequent encounters but there are still a couple of things I have to finish.

The soundtrack is also ready - a heavy dose of Gladiator and 300.

I will post some comments here after it is done.

Dark Sun One-Shot is Proceeding

A handful of players I know have indicated that they want to participate in the Dark Sun one-shot I am working on. I ultimately decided to use Castles & Crusades as the rule system. I decided this for ease of conversion. I have told my players that I am not going for a 100% accurate mechanical conversion but instead a "thematic" conversion. It will follow a lot of the thoughts I have mentioned here - no psionics, no defiler/preserver classes, etc.

I am keeping a bunch of the races and classes that I would eliminate if it were a B/X game but, once again, not straight conversions.

A Day in the Life or When We Next See Our Heroes?

Over at Tankards & Broadswords the subject was raised of Episodic vs Campaign focused games. This came at a interesting time for me as I am finding myself increasingly focused on episodic style games. I know that this is a result to all of the heavy lifting I have done for my Northern Marches campaign and prior to that the work I did for my Castles & Crusades campaign.

I am enjoying the Northern Marches game immensely! It has been great to see so many things come together into a very enjoyable campaign and I am hoping it goes on for quite some time. But I have been discussing getting my old C&C group back together for some gaming and the thought of putting together another long-term campaign does not interest me. If they were interested in the Northern Marches game that would be great but they are not.

Ideally, I would like to run a series of short "arcs" each one taking approximately 6 sessions - micro-campaigns if you will. Each micro-campaign could be kicked off with a collaborative brainstorming session. What does everyone want from the game? What flavour? Epic or gritty? Sword & sorcery or high fantasy? Political or dungeon crawling?

This would also allow for players to say, "Hey, remember Oscar the fighter I played a couple of months ago? He was fun. I want to play him again and try to kill that rat bastard wizard that fireballed his horse...". Or they could say, "I have always wanted to try a political game set during a war. How about we roll up various advisors to the king and try to win a war?".

Favorites could be revisited or new things could be tried.

Now admittedly these small mini-campaigns would be slightly railroady but I don't have a huge problem with that as everyone would have agreed during the brainstorming session as to the goal of the game.

The ideal of having a finish line is attractive to me right now. The Northern Marches game scratches my ongoing campaign itch. To mix my metaphors, the horizon of the Northern Marches is vast and unexplored. I can't wait to see what is over the next hill. But for starting a new game, I want a light at the end of the tunnel.

What type of games do you prefer? what type do you usually play? Are there any pitfalls to watch out for in an episodic game?

You must be below this line to go on this ride

In the comments of my last post about a Holmes only campaign there were two things that really got me thinking - to absolutely no conclusion. Is there a significant portion of players that prefer a grittier, low level campaign versus the super-heroics of high level play? Is there a difference in DM preferences to player preferences - do more DMs prefer a low level campaign? I have no way of answering these questions but there are a few one-off, tangental observations.

As pointed out be Herb, towards the end of the official run for 3.5 there was the emergence of E6 where character advancement was effectively halted at 6th level. I know I have seen discussions about 4E Heroic-tier only campaigns. There is a sword & sorcery supplement for BFRPG that effectively halts advancement at 6th level. The discussions on DF about a Holmes only campaign went on for 10 pages and spawned a number of follow-up threads.

And finally, and the one that matters most to me, my C&C campaign has been going for ~6 months and we have met approximately 8 times. Characters have just made it to 2nd level but even with what some might call slow advancement my players seem to love their characters and appear to be really enjoying the game.

Badmike comments, "good luck finding a handful of players willing to game for 30 or so sessions to get their characters to 3rd level!"

I appreciate the fact that the faster advancement of 3.5 and 4E gives players new doodads for their characters every session or two. As we get older, have kids, jobs, and other responsibilities it gets tougher to get in a weekly game. If you can only get together once a month, it is kind of nice to have your character advance in level every couple of months.

I don't know if I can keep my C&C campaign going for 12 to 16 months so the characters can get up to 4th and 5th level. We'll see. However, given the enjoyment of the campaign and the levels that will be covered (low levels) I don't see many issues with running a low level only - ie a Holmes-only - for a long-ish term campaign.

Fallen Empire of Tyros - Actual Play

I am running a C&C campaign set in the World of Broadsword. It is a sandbox game and I have been using a bunch of published modules that I have been customizing to fill out the adventures. For that campaign I have set up a private blog to pass along various pieces of information, track XP, etc. The reason it is private is that I put some information about the campaign world on it and since it is not my IP I wanted to keep it just to my group.

I decided to repost a my play reports here though because I love reading about other peoples game sessions. As I have previously mentioned (and you have likely noticed), I am a terrible writer. These play reports are not a blow-by-blow story of what happened. Instead they are a very brief recap of what happened.

Here are the initial hooks I provided to see which direction the players wanted to go with:

- Portown is a small but bustling town with a harbor that sees manymerchant ships and more than a few pirates. For some reason Portown has also always attracted adventurers. A century ago, the sorcerer, Zenopus, built a tower on the low hills overlooking the town. It now lies in ruins and rumor has it it was built in close proximity to the foundations of an older, pre-human city.

- The village of Fairhill has been having trouble with goblins. Recently the goblins attacked the village and the new cathedral was sacked and the grave of the former priest was dug up and his bones taken.

- The small town of Wolverton has always been made up of tough, independent citizens that have always had to rely on themselves to solve the town's problems. Meanwhile, the uncaring lumber barons squeeze the common folk for every last copper, deaf to their pleas. Now the hacking coughs of the sick are heard throughout the town. A plague has come to Wolverton and the town's leaders can't be bothered to stop it.

- Skelg, a Norsca warrior now living in Emesa is suffering from a terrible freezing curse. Can you discover the cause of the curse and find a way to save the old barbarian?

- “I’ve word that the accursed Tyrosian pirate Darsielle Du Moire’s has anchored his much sought ship, the Hydra’s Fang, in the harbor. Everyone’s looking for that vermin. He carries with him some ancient tablets of extreme historical value. Unknown to most, Wittlestone, the small town Du Moire razed to the ground, was also home to Myraxus Threeshadows, a noted but aging sage and mystic. Among Myraxus’s possessions he kept ancient forgeries of several tablets used in ancient arcane rites. When Darsielle destroyed the village, he slew the wizard and took the tablets, hoping to pawn them to one of his
buyers here in Portown. The tablets are a priceless archeological treasure, one I greatly desire. In fact, just prior to Myraxus's
death, I placed several bids to purchase the tablets and so naturally I was one of the first to realize they’d gone missing. You must race to get Du Moire and recover the stolen tablets before his pursuers find him or he flees port."

- Khemir, a noble in the southern city of Padjistan is looking to hire someone to investigate the cause of the mysterious murders plaguing the town.

- The curator of the museum in Emesa is looking to hire a brave group of adventurers to find a elderly employee who has gone missing with a book that belongs to the library.

- Prospectors in the Highwall Mountains tell of a ruined monastery in the mountains that has been defiled and tainted by chaos.

- Merchants are always looking for sturdy and brave adventurers to guard the desert caravans.

- The Southern Sea is dangerous - pirates and enormous sea monsters prey on ships traveling on the sea. Honest merchants and not so honest privateers are always looking for brave men to man the ships.

- You overheard a young man telling of an abandoned silver mine northwest of the small town of Silverton that he believes is being used as a base by bandits who have been attacking the caravans traveling south.

I was very happy when they decided to investigate the tower of Zenopus.