Goodman Games

The Riven'd World Campaign

Featuring:

• Auric, a halfling, a sharp-minded cook at the Dented Coin.

• Roy, a dwarf, the pugilistic bartender/bouncer of the Dented Coin.

• Ragnuth, a human-appearing celestial orc, stable boy at the Coin and foster son of Malchor the town cleric.

• Thud, half-orc, a wanderer, seeking the fame needed to re-claim the title of chieftain that is rightfully his.


Part One: The Dragonfiend Pact

Session One • "All's Well That Starts Well"

The campaign begins in Elwyn (renamed from 'Welwyn'), a small village set amidst a vast mountainous wilderness. Auric the cook arrives early at the Coin to get the place going, only to find some sort of unknown creature, goblin or troll or whatever, chained up in his storeroom. It seems Roy found the thing snooping around the backdoor of the Coin the night before while he was closing up, knocked it out, and confined it in the storeroom. Roy takes the thing, which is protesting loudly about hunger, out to the stables to chain it up there. The stable boy seems to take kindly to it from the first, and begins striking up a friendship with the thing, that they now know is something called an orc named Thud.

A trade caravan comes to town that mid-day, and Lady Arabella clumsily attempts to persuade it's leader to investigate the thievery happening in town, unwittingly speaking loudly enough that Auric and Roy can easily overhear her side of the conversation. She is turned down by the caravan boss, and leaves dejected.

Lady Arabella aware of the captured 'beast', confides in Auric that perhaps this 'orc' has something to do with the spate of thefts that the town guard and she have been attempting to solve while keeping things quiet. They are fairly sure it is some outside force behind the thefts, and don't wish to panic the community. Winter has only just ended, supplies on many essentials are low and folk might feel more panicked by such things than would be conducive to solving the mystery. Auric negotiates a deal with her that he and a few men of his choosing can investigate the situation and possibly discover more than the town guard has so far... She agrees, and he sets to work

They decide that Thud the orc is probably safe to work with. It seems he didn't realize that taking food would be frowned upon, since in his tribe the strongest simply take what they want, as is their right.

[One of the early highlights of the evening was Auric's being able to soften folks up by knowing what baked goods they had a soft spot for... (If you're going to run this adventure for anyone, just remember that Lady Arabella really likes those blueberry scones.) Given the premise was that he's lived here his whole life, and that the player put plenty of ranks into cooking, it would have been a bad call to not let it work to some degree. It involved a great deal of humor, but it still felt fairly logical. And it was a lot of fun, even if he couldn't so talk the blacksmith into half-price armor for Thud.]

The team gathers up a few items, and begins a descent into the town well, where the guard has seen some furtive movement from time to time while investigating the thievery. Their assumption so far is that goblins are behind it, since goblins are known to be elusive, cling to shadows and are notoriously hard to catch sight of...*

With great care and skill, Roy finds a passage hidden in the lower reaches of the well. One by one they descend and enter this unknown system of tunnels under their fair town. Wandering about, Auric's eyes are drawn by something glimmering in the gloom and he is abruptly overtaken by a monstrously huge spider, several times his own mass, which does him no small harm. The fellows get the sharp end of its fangs a few times before severing a leg or two and sundering the wicked thing.

The group next finds a tunnel blocked by a portcullis. As the two strongest members, Thud and Ragnuth attempt to lift it, only to release eldritch forces that immobilize them completely. A spear thrusts seemingly through the solid rock of the wall next to them, piercing them each before Roy can manage to grab it and he and Auric help Thud and Ragnuth shake off the enchantment.

Finding a lever on the far side of the portcullis, Auric manages to flip it with the spear extended by his reaching his arm through the bars. The portcullis raises and the group looks for a hidden portal, having deduced the existence of a room alongside by virtue of the spear from the wall.

Entering the room, they are assaulted by the reek of the place, full of damp and rot. They see four motionless figures with their backs to them. Ragnuth approaches them, and the first two turn to reveal their palid and shriveled faces, water dripping from the ceiling clearly having puckered the skin of these men to the point of disfigurement. When one strikes him, he retaliates with his axe, only to have the very flesh of the head of his assailant slide off completely -- as it keeps stalking toward them! Now the foursome knows they are up against something wholly new and unseen before in their lives.

[This first full round of combat turned out to be the best I've had monsters perform for me for a long time. I'm semi-notorious for having monsters that blow their initiative rolls, fumble attacks or simply miss a lot, and then when they do hit, I wind up rolling low on damage. Not so in this fight; the creatures won the initiative, and each attack I could make in the round was a solid hit, doing nearly maximum damage. Were the players immediately worried? Yes. Did they have reason to be? Well, considering the rest to the rounds the things did about average what they should have done, yes -- they had reason to be worried.]

By the time the staggering dwarf-things were knocked apart, Ragnuth was only alive by virtue of his phenomenal ability to simply refuse to go down (Ragnuth doesn't know he's an orc with and ability that keeps him standing even if in negative hit points) and Thud was all but laid out. They felt it was important to return to the surface, but not before a quick search.

They found the torn, sodden remains of some kind of note, which they proceeded to piece together and discovered it was written in some form of code. They then set to deciphering it, using every bit of brain power the four of them had.

[This was another highlight of the evening. Everyone became engaged in deciphering the puzzle. Pretty early on they came up with one of the correct substitutions, counted it out wrong, and then dropped the idea that it was a simple shift through the alphabet throughout the code. They proceeded to decode it the 'long way' by doing things like looking for the most common letter and assume it was 'e', etc. Eventually, they had a few words figured out and started substituting more and more letters and being able to guess more and more words. As long as they were having fun with it, I just let them go, even though they were soon on the right track and I could have just said, 'hey, you got it -- here's the answer'.]

The group returned to the surface and gathered at Ragnuth's home, waiting for his father, Malchor, to return and hopefully, heal them up a bit. He did so, but also expressed great concern at what his adoptive son was getting himself into... Before Ragnuth and Malchor could finish their discussion to Malchor's satisfaction, the young men had dropped off to sleep.

Malchor plans to take up the issue again, first thing in the morning...






* Goblins in this home-brewed setting are not standard MM goblins. Nor are any monsters to speak of -- I'm aiming to at least tweak every major creature they encounter in some way, if not out-and-out make monsters unrecognizable. Fairly sure that my players are not going to read this, I'm using Dark Creepers as "goblins", should I need to put in an encounter with goblins.

If anybody has any advice on how Malchor should handle things, I'm open to it -- and would appreciate it.

So far, I'm just going back and forth between him letting them run amok (but setting them extra obstacles) and trying to stop them directly with a good excuse/story -- if only I had a really good excuse/story...

Part One: The Dragonfiend Pact

Session Two • "Back to the Fountain"

As the group awakens the next morning, Malchor takes his adoptive son, Ragnuth, aside and strongly urges him to set aside this dangerous task, reminding him that he has duties this day and should not shirk them. Ragnuth insists that he has a calling, and that exploring these previously unknown caverns and solving the secret behind the thievery is the first step on his life's path. Malchor agrees to give them a divine boon to help them along, but does not take their offer to accompany them in their delve.

Soon enough, they have borrowed a rope ladder to aid their descent into the town well. The ladder however is ten feet shorter than the depth needed to reach the hidden door into the caverns, and despite nearly loosing Ragnuth into the drink when lowering the ladder to make up the difference, everyone manages to slip into the opening in turn without trouble.

Retracing their steps, they return to the portcullis to find it down. Clearly, someone or something is active down here still. Failing to bend the bars or lift the gate, they rig a rope over the top cross bar and use it to raise the lever on the far side of the barrier. In the hall beyond they find three trip-wires without much trouble and successfully avoid setting off the poisoned arrow, the swinging axe, and successfully not-avoiding the pit trap, which claims Ragnuth and nearly claims Auric.

After being surprised by a dire badger and discovering a pouch of silver sling stones in the so-called 'glittering' cave, the group wends it's way further along the tunnels. Having made plenty of noise in these endeavors, their oppenent in the next room is ready for them to arrive...

Entering Tarn's lair, they are immediately on guard, seeing the fire pit, the large 'nesting' area, and catching a glimpse of the chest on the far side of the cavern. The two stealthier members of the party make their way to the right, while the two orcish members begin exploring to the left. With superior stealth and perception, Auric spies Tarn lurking with bow at the ready behind a far rock formation, seemingly keeping an eye on Thud, waiting for a opportune shot.

After Tarn turns back to peer around the other side of the formation he's using for cover, Roy creates a distraction by chucking a stone at the far wall, and runs up to that same formation, keeping to the opposite side from Tarn. Without knowing what is the source of the noise, Thud and Ragnuth move forward, ready to hack at what they might find. Auric nocks an arrow and braces himself for Tarn to spring out.

Tarn has heard Roy dashing up to close range, and whips around the pillar to pierce Roy with a point blank shot. Roy in turn tries to knock Tarn out, but fails. Thud and Ragnuth are close enough to charge into melee, and do so, spoiling Auric's chance at a clean shot.

Tarn morphs into his hybrid form and whistles an eerie tune. Suddenly dozens of rats swarm from out of several small tunnels in the walls and cluster around Tarn and his melee assailants. The skirmish continues, with Thud and Ragnuth focussed more on the rats at their feet and Roy focused on Tarn. Ragnuth douses the rats with oil and sets the writhing mass ablaze. Avoiding the fire, Tarn steps into range of Auric's missile, and Auric gets off a choice shot that knocks Tarn down, and he begins bleeding out... The lycanthrope ruefully bemoans his fate in choking gasps as he passes, and lying at Roy's feet as he is, Roy picks up that Tarn has been made promises that his curse would be lifted...

With Tarn dead and the rats routed, more investigation of this chamber begins.

Finding the map, they are much puzzled as to whether it depicts territory they have already covered, or shows locations elsewhere.

Finding the scroll case, there is worry that it is trapped and initially plan to leave opening it until again on the surface. A small rack with vials and wooden sides protecting those vials is taken as something to analyze above ground as well. [Why at this point no one wanted to at least remove one vial and have a look, I've no idea. There is also some general frustration that almost all of the treasure discovered is someone else's property. Many jokes get made along the course of the adventure about items not actually being recovered, or forgetting to be reported. However, I think by the end, the characters will honestly turn over what they have found, and the players will be happy with the outcome.]

Examining the rat harnesses is evidently the 'missing link' that begins the party's slotting together what they've discovered with how all these robberies must have occurred. They can see how Tarn, in badger/hybrid form, could've entered the town and robbed the homes, fastened the loot to the rats, and had the rats covey the loot into the cavern lair with being undetected for an extended time. And they know from Tarn's mutterings that he's being coerced into this criminal scheme by having a cure for his affliction dangled before him. But who is behind all of it?

Feeling a bit more urgency once they've put the pieces together, they decide to press on rather than return to the surface. Auric fiddles for several minutes with the complex latch of the scroll tube to get it open, finding only sheets of parchment with arcane writing that none of them can read. Meanwhile, Thud checks the vials again, to find them marked with the word 'REDUCE'. They now know how they can journey up the rat-sized tunnels to find what lays beyond...

Auric the halfling opts to not drink from a vial, but keeps one on his person should the need arise. The other three drink from one vial each and watch the room expand around them. The four pick a tunnel and start down it. As best they can, they track the foot prints of the rats in the dust, which leads them to the lair of another badger. For the diminished trio, the thing is the size of an elephant. They do their best to sneak past it as it slumbers, but it's keen senses are better than they, and it lunges out at Auric. The creature is dispatched without much trouble by the party.

Auric however has noticed a strangely-regular line of shadow as he maneuvered around the room, and investigates, finding a hidden cache of loot from the town above.

They continue following the rat tracks, and after a very long haul, find the underground river dividing a room in two. Ragnuth pulls off his armor, anticipating a swim, and finds it grows back to full size. Auric with the armor on his back, leaps over the river, trailing a rope. The three reduced fellows grab onto the rough surface of the (to them) massive rope and Auric begins to pull them across. As fast as he can pull the rope across the seven-foot span of water, the cave trout lurking therein is just a bit faster and chomps down on Ragnuth, pulling him from the rope and deeper into the water.

Ragnuth bashes at the trout as best he can, scoring a critical hit upon it's snout and getting it to let him go. Auric, not knowing Ragnuth's situation (drowning? bitten in half?) jumps into the water to find him, does find the diminished orc, both return to the surface.

Licking their wounds, the party now is certain of what is shown on the map they found in Tarn's lair, and feels confident that their mission is nearing an end...


[The module as written suggests Tarn flee when injured and thus lure the players into using the potions, shrinking, and getting into the tunnels to pursue him. I'd've had Tarn escape, but not until certain plot points were established, and doing that required his demise, as things turned out. As it was, I think the map was a big help in getting them interested in what was beyond, and given the four-to-one aspect of the fight (not counting the rat swarm), it was going to be difficult to get Tarn out of there without either some incredible luck on my part or bungling on the part of the players, or too much of a stretch of "you can do nothing that stops his escape"/DM-fiat. Fortunately, it all came together just fine.]

Not having written up a campaign in quite this way before, I have to ask to whomever may be reading... Is there enough detail? Is there too much? The wrong kind?

Any comments are appreciated...

Overall it seems like a decent write-up, although I confess that when they get too long I tend to glaze over and skim ahead. No easy solution to this, since games are always more fun to play than to read about.

My sister used to take game logs for us and they evolved somewhat over the years.
1. Her early game logs were lengthy with exact quotes. They were so intense that they actually began to disrupt the game, since she was begging us to pause in the action so that she could write things down.
2. Her later game logs were more like bullet points, with occasional quotes written down if they were particularly clever. The side-effect here was that some players began trying to ham it up jusost t to get a quote included.
3. Eventually she just got tired of writing down game logs. She got burned out and claimed that nobody really read them anyway. At that point, we went back to me jotting down a few key notes so that I could remember where we were in the adventure.

I find that game logs are most useful to me as a GM when there is a complex plotline (such as in Amber Diceless) and I need to keep track of details, but for most D&D-type modules there isn't a huge benefit for me. I don't need to recall key details of plot because there really aren't many in a "kill stuff and go to the next room" type game.

I'll try to focus on writing up more or less the highlights for the next session (next Friday). In part, I didn't want it to seem like there was 'filler' in the module, by writing something like "after a few minor incidents..." or anything like that. There are always encounters/rooms that seem plenty mysterious from the player side, that by the end of them, are not as consequential as others.

Also, it seems like the concept -- indeed, the name -- of 'storytime' would require a 'story' format. But I'll see if I can boil things down to the punchiest events in the next write up.

I'd say that if it's your write-up you do it the way you like. And don't worry about the "filler" thing, because most modules have a few key points and a lot of side-track places. I'd focus more on the key points unless there were any really spectacular other things that crept in somewhere not on the beaten path, but again it's your write-up.

Think about this: a friend misses a few weeks of his/your favorite show and asks "what happened?" You could give a detailed scene-by-scene analysis or a "need to know" bullet point of key things that moved the plot along. I'm more of a "bullet point" kind of guy, but that's just my own style.

Put down as many/few details as needed to remind you of the adventure.

Hey GnomeBoy,

I have gotten lots of kudos writing my gang's adventures in a sort of "your in the room with us" way over the years. Prior to myself doing it, I'd not seen this approach done before. Folks seem to like the feeling of watching us in lieu of any feeble attempt on my part to turn the gaming session into fiction.

In your write-ups, I've enjoyed reading the player's reactions and your thoughts more than the narrative.

(P.S. If you'll post on my write-ups, I'll post on yours! If you're like me, post after post by yourself makes one begin to feel like you're speaking to an empty room)

I've definitely read some of your reports, Jedi, but I'll confess it's been awhile. I'll make a note to re-acquaint myself with them, but today I'm off to a family wedding some miles away...

You said this much better than I did, but this is the key idea.

We can all track down the module if we want a map or room details, but the interpersonal reactions are really fun and are harder to duplicate.

Part One: The Dragonfiend Pact

Session Three • "The Shrine of Crypticus"


Getting past the giant ants, the group runs into trouble at the chasm. While two of the shrunken folk piggyback on Auric as he leaps across (after I mis-state the width of the thing) something grabs Ragnuth as he literally inches his way across the rope on his own, and yanks him back into a crevice in the side of the chasm.

Now, I've tried to re-scale everything as if the shrunken party members are still Medium sized, so the Halfling who didn't drink a potion is effectively Large, and all the creatures they are encountering are either Medium or Large. This didn't turn out to be the 'easy fix' I was looking for to handling all the stat changes from shrinking. Instead of 'rolling with it', a few players get fixated on various tricky corners of the effect, like if there's not a Str adjustment for those who are shrunk, there should be a Str adjustment for the halfliing who's not shrunk, since he is "Large". There are a few awkward moments, but we muddle through. I like 3e well enough, but I see any and all rules (in any RPG game) as something there to use *when you need them* and would otherwise just move the story along. Nothing would have been unfair about running things with the few tweaks I did; not everyone agrees 100% with the style.

Roy has Auric pitch him at the crevice, without hesitation or fear for his friend's aim. Apparently, it is true that fortune favors the foolish, since the die for the throw comes up a natural 20, which is always a winner in my book. The two miniature adventurers in the lair of the thing go toe-to-toe with it, Ragnuth rolling terribly nearly every time (and pretty much all night, for that matter). Auric waits for something to do, not being good at firing into combat, and Thud spends his time wondering how he can get over there to help, knowing that another 20 on the 'pitch me over there' roll is unlikely.

When the thing finally dies and everybody is on the further side of the chasm, Roy sneaks ahead. The group is really feeling that they're a bit too beaten up to continue. But they're also pretty sure they are near the crux of the whole mystery -- and going back the way they came would mean facing certain hazards over again...

Roy sneaks into the lair of Blackspine, and hears a booming voice questioning his presence. He successfully bluffs that he is a hireling of Tarn and that Tarn needs healing. Blackspine unseen claims to have no such thing for him, but that perhaps the cleric and his minions in the next room would have such. Reluctantly, Roy moves on into the next chamber, avoids the figures there -- including a strange figure in robes, and an orc -- in his diminutive state, and finds a stash with a couple of healing potions.

When the group, partially restored by the potions, face off against Blackspine, he manages to more-or-less take back the hit points they'd gained. But with Roy's recon, the group is determined to finish this thing. In the final battle, there is much ducking behind doors and altars and anything at all, to gain cover and hopefully avoid damage. As Thud reaches 1 hp and Ragnuth goes negative, they take down the orc, a member of Thud's own tribe (and the red-shafted-arrow shooter that killed the town's Lord), and they discover that Ragnuth's own step-father is the mastermind attacking the town, and it is Ragnuth who deals the traitor the killing blow. (Ragnuth has an ability that keeps him minimally active while in negative hp.)

Ragnuth's player takes alignment in D&D very seriously. If the person or critter is evil, it's evil, nothing more to be said, take them down. There was no moment of hesitation in that strike against his own step-father, just a matter-of-fact-ness. There wasn't even a moment of roleplaying doubt or hesitation, as would have been my own playing style, but I'm hoping to play up the memory of the man with the character (and his player) as things go along, and see what I can stir up...

With the source of the evil in town rooted out and taken down, I give the party a morale bonus of a return of half of however many hit points they are down. This was an idea I had a couple of weeks earlier, and it felt really right in practice and went down well with the guys. I'm going to make that a regular feature, and keep looking out for other ways of giving hit points back that are story-based. Much preferable to 'another' cache of healing potions, especially since there is no cleric in the group, and the paladin with his LA will always be behind the curve on keeping up with party healing. If hit points are just bloody wounds but are an abstract amalgam of various abilities and aptitudes, the things that restore them can be abstract, too.

We finish the night with the attack on the town itself by shadowy goblins. When Malchor discovered his step-son and cohorts were mucking about in his secret lair, he moved up his plans to stage another goblin raid on the town and take out the Lady Arabella, planning also to take out his step-son in the raid, if needed. Even though he and his top henchmen were killed in the cavern, the attack was still set to go off at dusk when the goblins would have best advantage.

I didn't get to highlight the powers these goblins had as much as I would have liked, since the hour was growing late, but there was a nice moment when Auric was on a thatched rooftop taking shots at goblins below, and a pair of goblin hands came up through the thatch and tried to throw him off the roof. He nimbly leapt aside and shot an arrow that pierced both hands, pinning the goblin in place hanging inside from the ceiling of the building. Another natural 20, after a night of too many missed shots by Auric.

This coming Friday is our next session, and I'm hoping to get them on the road to the big city (Punjar!) then...

Interlude: The Road to Punjar

Session Four • "Shadows Rising"


I wasn't sure the players we're going to be interested in moving on from Elwyn, and moving on in the campaign. In the aftermath of saving the town (twice over at once, so to speak), there was much talk of turning the cavern that housed the shrine of Crypticus into a base of operations, or a training center for their new, soon-to-be-incorporated 'guild', or making it a safe haven for the town against future attacks. Ragnuth wondered about becoming the town's new spiritual leader. Far from craving what the wider world could give them, everyone seemed ready to re-define their role in town and establish *more* roots. Not what I had expected, but it makes me wonder if an entire campaign set in a small town and it's environs is viable.

Three of them make a quick trip back to the cavern to see what they can salvage from it. When Ragnuth tries to chip the symbol of Crypticus off of the altar, the skeletons activate (an encounter they had bypassed before). I made the skeletons only attack the desecrator, unless someone actively blocks their way, so most of their attacks wound up directed at Ragnuth. The five skeletons chase him around the room while Auric and Roy try to destroy them. Ragnuth gets in a couple of really solid hits, turning the bones to dust where his axe sweeps sideways, the flat facing the skeletons.

After they return to town, and chew over the possibilities of staying further (I just let them go on about it, to get it out of their systems), the caravan leader, Kelvar, offers the orc, Thud, a place guarding his caravan. Thud extends the offer to his companions, and soon enough the boys are ready to head down the road -- after hammering out the financial details of the trip to their liking. Auric's player especially wants to strike a killer deal at every opportunity. We'll see how Punjar treats him when the time comes...

The gang decides to buy their own cart and mules to pull it, rather than ride atop the wagon the traders have. Days into the journey, after some heavy rainstorms and several business stops, the caravan gets tripped up at a section of washed out road. Now, the Road pre-dates mankind, and the thing was built to last. No one knows how old it is, but it's still travel-worthy. For me, behind the scenes, I'm putting in bits of 20th/21st Century stuff here-and-there sparingly in the campaign world, as if it's left over from some pre-time civilization. The Road is really the only concrete (excuse the pun) example of this so far. What was not-unlike a major freeway centuries and centuries ago, is now a wide cobble pathway, not quite taken over by weather and time yet. If you can picture the paths found in World of Warcraft, you're on the right track (a rare case where I'm somewhat familiar with a video game *and* inspired to incorporate anything from it into a RPG).

Turns out that lizardfolk are using the flooded span of road to set up an ambush for the approaching caravan and it works perfectly. Once the caravan has stopped, men get off to test the waters and see if it is safe to cross. Distracted by something huge seen through the trees, at that moment a number of the lizardmen quickly rise up from the murky water and attack. Additional 'folk attack with bows from a hillock just off the side of the Road. For the stats, I used half-illithid lizardfolk, just without the tentacles and brain-cravings (part of the usual "what you see is not what you get" plan for monsters). They still have their mental blasting abilities and use them with great effect against most of the caravan crew as well as Ragnuth and against Roy's new pet (he leveled in Druid).

Once they've cleared up the threat, they want to know what that shape is that was seen through the trees. Turns out a mudslide has exposed a large onion-dome shaped form, made from some kind of hard, translucent substance. A crack in the side allows access to the interior, which they soon find has a floor that won't hold their weight, and that there are several levels with similarly weak "flooring".

At the bottom they discover an older man who has broken both legs when falling through the floor. There is also a side passage from which flows a misty white vapor. In his delirium, the man Tethis mentions a missing companion. The boys decide to get this man back to the surface and return to see if they can find his friend...

Gnomeboy,

Are you going to "convert" this group and have them try out DCC-RPG?

I would have no problems doing so, for my own self. We're currently playing Pathfinder, which I find slightly troublesome since it has so many tiny differences from 3.5, and we're getting bogged down by them at times -- "Hey, that doesn't work that way (or does it?)!" -- We're using Pathfinder since two of the players were very keen to try it/play more of it. I can't possibly bone-up on the changes, since I learn a game by playing it (which means I'm essentially playing 3.5, including using 3.5 modules and 3.5 creatures). Pathfinder is 3.5 on steroids, and since I'm not a bigger, faster, stronger kind of guy, I'll be happy to switch back to straight 3.5 when the time comes. And if those who like Pathfinder want to run Pathfinder, I'll play.

But you weren't asking about Pathfinder, were you?

I haven't really made much of a pitch, to be honest. We're still early in this campaign, and had some scheduling issues, so shifting gears could be detrimental. While the style of DCC is very close to my own thematic sensibilities for fantasy RPGs, D&D 3.5 lets me narrate in keeping with my own tastes, but also easily accommodate the enjoyment of the higher powered play that some players have. My goal each session is that everyone has fun -- DCC would be a sea change for some and may be best approached as an 'alternative' game with one-offs, or shorter adventures (2-3 sessions) at first.

But I hope to get there...

I kinda dropped the ball here, through a combination of other things impinging on my time and a couple of sessions that were fun, but not especially noteworthy on any particular front.

In a nutshell, the group explored the mystery tower, but didn't explore it all, since they became too creeped-out by things they saw inside. Something about ice-shrouded corridors, weird white apes, humans mid-transformation-into-gods-know-what, and other strangeness proved too much. And that was only like two and half encounters in... They missed a big pay-off not going all the way to the end (which wasn't all that far off).

They continued on for several days, arriving in Punjar at dusk. While Auric went off to find lodgings (and his player bowed out of the session with a severe back ache), the others set out to explore the city a little. Hiring what they thought was a water taxi, lead to an attempted mugging. Thud and Ragnuth fought back lethally, and wound up getting taken in for murder.

This lead to a side adventure for Thud and Ragnuth (coinciding with a one-time appearance of an old gaming-buddy of four out of five of us in the group). A thief, angry with Mother Zeb'oltha (from the imminent Sellswords of Punjar), pays off the jailer to get two strong-armed prisoners to help him exact his revenge on Ma Zeb. They troop out into the swamp at night to attack her mansion, only to find it being watched for her by another witch. In the end, the whole place got burned down.

Meanwhile, Roy and Auric meet someone known as The Sisters...

But that tale's going to have to wait until another time; my family and I leave for some camping in the morning.

Enjoy the family time!

So, I hope I haven't ruined Punjar...

When I introduced The Sisters*, I expected her to be compelling. One of my players was (I think) suitably impressed and ready to buy into what she was telling him (or perhaps he was just willing to roll with where the adventure was taking him). Auric had been approached by The Sisters while on his own, and they wound up talking briefly in a hole-in-the-wall bar. In film noir detective-movie fashion, as they we're getting into the meat of her asking for help from Auric and his friends, they were attacked. The assailants were shadowy, she could apparently see them easily, Auric could only faintly see them, and it seemed like the crowd thought the two of them were fighting the air itself, not being able to see these assailants at all. I tried to make this a running battle, with The Sisters making a break for it, leading the baddies away from the close quarters of the bar, and the path of it all heading straight for Roy who was coming to find Auric. I've never had much luck getting running battles to work, though I do keep trying. Once Roy tripped one shadowman and severely wounded the other with an AoO, it was all over but the shouting.

The Sisters met up with the full group again later, so she could finish her story. Roy wanted more evidence of what she was telling them, more credentials, so to speak. This led me into some improvisation, and frankly, I don't think I was very convincing. I generally believe I do fine when my players zig instead of zag. But this challenging of her story caught me off guard and caused me to have to both invent and describe her backstory, which included things I'd personally rather leave as unknown and mysterious. I tried to reveal things more through inference than declaration, which may only have complicated the doubt. Some of my players want all the cards on the table, whereas I think the unknown makes room for good roleplaying (Is she telling the truth? How can we check out what she's telling us? etc.). My difficulty in inventing a backstory on the spot within seconds, seemed to arouse suspicions that she was hiding something (I even tried to suggest that it was knowing her secret that lead to her dual-situation -- which only fueled more wanting to know!). I think in part this was a classic case of paying too much attention to the man behind the curtain (my handiest GMing metaphor; someday I really will make a t-shirt with the Oz quote on it).

Despite the doubts (which I continue to hear about), they decide to take some action on her request. The fact that they can see a shadowy, dragon-ish thing apparently trapped mid-air above the crematorium chimney of the charnel house the Beggar-King uses as his base -- all as The Sisters described -- goes nowhere in making them feel like she was dealing straight with them.

Thud, disguised as a beggar, rattles the gate for entrance. So, where I had expected them to take a stealthy approach, I can already see this is going to be more of a 'guns blazing' sort of siege. And soon enough, once a thug or two is investigating, a full, frontal assault is underway.

Now the group acquitted themselves pretty well in this. But I also knew I dare not throw 100% of the ground floor/Level One opposition at them in a massive street fight. It was a very good battle, with it seeming to go against them about 5 or 6 rounds in, and they slowly turning the direction of the fight after that. But this fight left out the heaviest hitters of Level One, and I plotted their sneaking around for an ambush opportunity that never materialized. My players left two or three rooms at the back of the complex completely unexplored, and since the shape of most of the building is a U, the heavies were sneaking back and forth in the U, setting up strikes that never materialized.

The gang eventually stumbled into the trap that leads down into the subterranean Level Two. With Ragnuth in the trap itself, being hauled in by the Giant Ape, the others dealt with the slavers. This is where we left off.

I'm going to be re-designing the remainder of Level Two. I have a new player to write-in (the aforementioned "old player"/buddy from the side adventure discussed above). I also want the physical arrangement of the remainder to be different (for example, the well with the Shadowstuff Horror will be in a chamber now below the crematorium furnace, the better to fuel, as it were, the connection to the shadowrealm, my dear).

The next session will kick off with the remaining foes from Level One approaching the group with a deal, bargaining to get them away from the Beggar-King and his 'important work'. I don't think anyone knows the B-K is trapped by his own magiks...


I really hope the 'doubts' have faded. It really felt more like GM-doubt, than PC-doubt. I think it was uncalled for. But if it persists to this coming session, I've just got to ask the guy what the problem is, and hope we can talk it out to our mutual satisfaction. I'm quickly coming up on three years of GMing, with no one stepping up to even run a one night one-off. I can't say how much time any of the players spends working on their characters, but I put in 5-10 hours minimum before each session. I freely admit that, while I still enjoy the running, I am fatigued, and need a break. While I had planned to follow Sellswords with Thief Lord's Vault and Curse of the Emerald Cobra and then take a break, I may cut things short and let someone else take over for awhile...








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* The SIsters, if you are unfamiliar with her, is mentioned in the Getting the Players Involved section of Sellswords of Punjar. She's described as a single person with two aspects that switch, seemingly at random. Obviously someone with a unique past, there is no elaboration on how she came to be this way...

If you have someone in your group willing to let you have some time from behind the DM screens, count your blessings and let them at it!

Everyone in this group has GMed before. The 'upset' guy has been itching to get back to a cool campaign he started and had to drop abruptly about four years ago (newborns eat up a lot of time, don't they?) -- a number of things have recently dropped into place for him to do so. The guy that started playing with us this past Spring wants to run something for us. And the "old timer" who's moved back to the area, and is rejoining us starting this Friday, also runs excellent adventures and campaigns.

It's possible that I may not be able to get the reigns back for a long spell, once I give them up! I have about 20-something DCCs I'd still like to run (sometimes having been really stuck as to which one to run next, they all look so good). Then there's Castle Whiterock. Then I also like to write my own scratch adventures, too. Then there's Star Wars, Serenity, Call of Cthulhu, Shadowrun, Champions... Heck, I've even heard there's a new RPG coming out in November...

Most of the group has a thing for long campaigns. May tastes run more toward short campaigns and shorter adventures, while rotating GMs and systems and power-levels and styles and genres and all... There's an energy at the table when a campaign starts, that isn't there mid-way; why not tap into that energy as often as possible?