Goodman Games

Allright, 4 sessions in, and the game is going *really* well. Lots of fun, very easy prep, and--now that I have affixed tabs to the appropriate pages--runs quickly

The "Character Funnel" is a pretty neat concept, and I think it was worth it as far as getting the player random, yet decent, character...but I think it is hard verisimilitude-wise to set up the "30 completely unqualified losers decide to leave their lives as assorted Barristers, Tax Collectors, Guild Beggars etc. to go on an extremely lethal adventure"...and honestly, the 0-level adventure in the Core Book (which I used) doesn't give much more than that.

So I went with a press gang scenario. There is a rumour of an extra-dimensional gate opening decades ago and showing treasures for the taking, and the old man telling you this story on his deathbed wishes he had gone blah blah blah...

Then the Duke's men show up and round up most able-bodied men in the shithole town the PC's are from and send them into the gate...while they wait outside with a wagon for the loot.

It wasn't perfect, but it got the game going. I'm not certain how I would do the Character Funnel next time. 0-Level adventures are pretty hard to write without wiping out the entire 30 person party. There is a 0-level adventure for sale called "Sailors on a Starless Sea" or something, and I will likely pick that up for next time I play.

I've been trying to really curb my tendency to worldbuild, and follow Goodman's suggested "keep it small" mantra. The implied setting is Dark Ages medieval, meaning that the PC's don't--and shouldn't--have world-spanning knowledge. Magic users in this game are not, as a rule, scholars; but rather Warlocks cutting deals with extra-planar entities for magical power (which I much prefer)

So what the PC's know is...

• Their little town, Fogwater, is on the edge of a marsh called Whitefen (because of the prevalent white marsh gas). It is a community servicing a small copper mine. They are very, very much in the ass-end of nowhere.
  
  
• Their Local Lord (Baron Galen) has his seat of power "somewhere to the north" (actually untrue, but that is the direction his men arrive from as they are usually coming from Cliffwater) and a couple of times a year his men come by to collect taxes and take the copper ore for refining.
  
  
• There is a town across the Marsh called Cliffwater, about three people in town have ever been to Cliffwater, and they are considered quite brave and worldly, because...
  
  
• "The Old Man of the Marsh" is a local boogeyman; stealing children, ruining crops and murdering people in their sleep. He is variously described as a Wizard, a Draug, a Troll King, and any variety of other things. He is, in fact an Elder Ghoul (from the monster section) with a small retinue of "Swamplings" (not sure what I will re-skin into this as yet).
  
  
• They've heard of a fabled City "Zarpa", on the shores of a sea of blood, peopled by demons who will give you whatever you want for a price. They are actually talking about the City of Zarfadn, which is a few hundred miles away on the shores of an inland sea...while the city is fairly decadent, it is a human city run by a merchant's guild.
  
  
• Dwarves come from the other side of the Firetooth mountains (which can be seen from the top of the hill the mine is cut into). There is a dwarf in town who has confirmed this, so this accepted as a truism.
  
  
• Elves come from magical forests far away. No one in town has ever seen an elf.

So far, the PC's have come out of the first adventure and found that...while about 20 minutes passed for them in the extra-planar crypt, a year has passed on the outside...so Baron Galen's men are gone.

They go to check on their friends/families. First stop was at Greentower, the lair of the Apprentice Wizard's Master. tower is smashed to gravel, and his master's long-decayed remains are found outside the ruins. The discover a small hidden compartment amongst the ruins with an Apprentice Selection of Spells, a Ceremonial Dagger and a Wizard-y looking cloak (apparently hidden away by his master for his graduation).

Next they decide to head into town, and come across the Shrine where the more devout of the locals would come to pray to the gods. Here the Minstrel that made it out feels the call to worship Gorhan, the Helmed Vengeance and is miraculously led to the tools of his faith...Holy Symbol, Warhammer, Horned Helmet and Tabard. the shrine is largely abandoned and filled with Bat Swarms.

They continue into town, coming across several smashed farmhouses and barns, finally coming upon one still inhabited by a family they know.

The Farmer explains that the whole area has been strangely and randomly attacked by Grey Cloaked men who can summon immense tentacles from the ground, and seem able to direct their efforts. So far they have used them largely for wanton destruction...over the course of the last year the population of Fogwater and it's surrounding territory has plummeted from the tentacle attack deaths, and people fleeing that threat.

In the ensuing power vacuum, the Bandit Leader Iron Jon had swept into Fogwater and taken over, holding the women and children of the village hostage against the continued labour of the men in the copper mine.

The predations of The Old Man in the Marsh increased in the same period, and the Bandit leader cut a deal giving up one of the children per week in exchange for his operation being left alone.

So far, the PC's have witnessed a tentacle (about 5 stories high) attack, have attacked an beaten 1/3 of the bandit horde who were left to guard the town/prisoners during the day while the men and 2/3rds of the group were off at the mine, and then went to the mine after letting some of the bandits escape to "run get help"...they took a little known hunting trail (one of the PC's original occupation was Hunter) up to the mine and found that exactly wht they had hoped would happen had in fact happened. The main body of the Bandit Group had headed back to town to deal with them, leaving a skeleton crew guarding the miners.

So they attacked and...got pulverized. Only their secondary plan of sending the thief in with a bag of truncheons and scimitars to free the miners saved them from a TPK. 4 PCs down out of 5. After making some "revoer the Body" luck rolls, only Tith--the aforementioned Town Dwarf--was actually dead.

So this is where they are now...

The Bandits with their Captain and Lieutenant are now back at the village having recaptured the prisoners (who flat-out reused to flee from fear of the tentacles)

I've got the lair of the Old Man in the Marsh ready to go as a straight up dungeon crawl.

Cliffwater is going to be the town outside of the Adventure in the published module The People of the Pit, which ias you know is all about the Gigantic tentacles and their origin.

So far things are going pretty great.

Welcome aboard! Sounds like you've gotten right into the swing of things!

Sailors on the Starless Sea is an excellent adventure. I haven't seen anything from Harley Stroh that hasn't rocked.

Actually, I have yet to see a DCC adventure that hasn't been worth what I paid for it, 3pp or otherwise. Quality control, IMHO, is very high in terms of adventures with this system!

Hi Billy.

That's cool. Welcome to the forums.

Your description makes me want to play and save that town. Great!

Sounds great!

I really like the setting and they way your world sort of fades into rumors, so to speak, as you get to the edges of people's knowledge. Also like how you've discarded the things you don't like replacing them with better storylines and made it all your own.

Nicely done!

Thanks, any progress on that Patrons thing you were writing, or has that been back-burnered?

Still working on getting the book out on time.

excellent I had no idea there was even a projected release date

[quote=Me}So this is where they are now...

The Bandits with their Captain and Lieutenant are now back at the village having recaptured the prisoners (who flat-out reused to flee from fear of the tentacles)

I've got the lair of the Old Man in the Marsh ready to go as a straight up dungeon crawl.[/quote]

Ok, a couple of more session have gone by, and things are still whipping along pretty well.

After the characters dragged themselves back into consciousness after having the few remaining bandits killed/run off by the rescued miners (who took more casualties themselves leaving the head-count for grown (non PC) men in the village of Fogwater at 3) the newly called Cleric of Gorhan (Norovis) healed them up some before a series of bad rolls put him in such dire straits with his God that it was decided that more healing was just not going to happen for fear of divine retribution. The Cleric figured that his god was displeased at his lack of valor, and decided he would endeavor to be at the vanguard of any future battle (Because, you know, that worked perfectly last time).

One of the enslaved miners--Zabounian--decided that he was going to help fight the Bandits with his new heroes, the PCs (this was Tith the Dwarf's player's new character)

It was decided that they would cut cross-country back to the Bat-Haunted Shrine of Gorhan as it was the most defensible structure they had access to, and they all needed rest...particularly the Wizard, who had only a version of Read Magic--that makes surrounding people fear and hate him--at his disposal.

They spent awhile building a fire and smoking out the bat swarms (counting on the darkness to conceal the smoke plume), then bedded down for the night. They posted a guard rotation but the night passed without incident.

Next morning, they headed back to the Clifton farm, and asked if there had been any tentacles around, or if any of Iron Jon's men had been by...the answer to both was no. The conclusion they drew was that with his Gang's strength down to 1/3rd of it's normal, Iron Jon was holed up behind the palisade in the village. There was some speculation that he was possibly arranging to trade more of the children with The Old Man in exchange for some of his Toad Man troops (reskinned Goblins with a swimming speed), but I actually have no clue where they got this notion.

So the plan was to try and have Vanator their old soldier and newly-minted thief try and get over the wall and open the gate. As they approached, they saw that Iron John had posted two guards outside of the flimsy gate and the plan changed to Vanator (who is a chaotic following the path of the assassin) to sneak up on the guards, and wait for a volley of arrows to kill one of them, an then slit the throat of the other (hoping for a certain critical hit )

...which actually, thanks to a very, very unexpected run of good rolling luck went off as planned!

Vanator found that the guards each had a whistle around his neck and assumed (rightly) that this was a signalling device, but assumed (wrongly) that blowing it would make the bandits open the gate. He blew it, and the Bandits were alerted to their presence (Blowing it in three short bursts was "open the gate")...he could hear the men inside running about, screaming orders and generally prepping for battle. So...the plan changed again.

If you can call it a plan. Balthazar (the Wizard) cast Enlarge on both Theegis the Murderer (a Locksmith with a bad rep turned Warrior) and the aforementioned Zabounian and rolled very well (making Theegis a little over 12 feet tall) and ordered the two of them to charge that gate and get it open before the bandit crossbowmen got up to the catwalk. The Enlarge spell description spells out some combat bonuses (+4 to hit and damage I think with the roll the player had) and I ruled that that could apply to Strength checks. So the 2 enlarged PC's smashed the gate open with a couple of good rolls...

And promptly ran into a hail of (6) bandit crossbow bolts, which ate up the bonus HP from the Enlarge spell in pretty short order

But the gate was open and everyone ran in to engage the remaining Bandits with the exception of Balthazar, who circled around outside the palisade while casting Spider climb in an attempt to get into an archery position behind the enemy. Iron Jon and his Lieutenant Morda joined the vanguard of their force, in an attempt to keep their crossbowmen unharrassed...but they could not contend with Theegis and Zabounian's titanic size, and 2 critical hits.

After those two went down, the rest was pretty much a "mopping up" action.

They questioned a couple of bandit prisoners, got no useful information about the deal their Leader had had with The Old Man in the Marsh, and put them to the sword in front of the villagers.

It was determined that Fogwater as a viable village was done with it's compliment of adult males cut by 90%, and that the PC's would attempt to escort the remaining townsfolk to the neighbouring town of Cliffwater on the other side of the Whitefen...

...pretty much straight across the acknowledged domain of The Old Man.

Ok, a couple of more session have gone by, and things are still whipping along pretty well.

After the characters dragged themselves back into consciousness after having the few remaining bandits killed/run off by the rescued miners (who took more casualties themselves leaving the head-count for grown (non PC) men in the village of Fogwater at 3) the newly called Cleric of Gorhan (Norovis) healed them up some before a series of bad rolls put him in such dire straits with his God that it was decided that more healing was just not going to happen for fear of divine retribution. The Cleric figured that his god was displeased at his lack of valor, and decided he would endeavor to be at the vanguard of any future battle (Because, you know, that worked perfectly last time).

One of the enslaved miners--Zabounian--decided that he was going to help fight the Bandits with his new heroes, the PCs (this was Tith the Dwarf's player's new character)

It was decided that they would cut cross-country back to the Bat-Haunted Shrine of Gorhan as it was the most defensible structure they had access to, and they all needed rest...particularly the Wizard, who had only a version of Read Magic--that makes surrounding people fear and hate him--at his disposal.

They spent awhile building a fire and smoking out the bat swarms (counting on the darkness to conceal the smoke plume), then bedded down for the night. They posted a guard rotation but the night passed without incident.

Next morning, they headed back to the Clifton farm, and asked if there had been any tentacles around, or if any of Iron Jon's men had been by...the answer to both was no. The conclusion they drew was that with his Gang's strength down to 1/3rd of it's normal, Iron Jon was holed up behind the palisade in the village. There was some speculation that he was possibly arranging to trade more of the children with The Old Man in exchange for some of his Toad Man troops (reskinned Goblins with a swimming speed), but I actually have no clue where they got this notion.

So the plan was to try and have Vanator their old soldier and newly-minted thief try and get over the wall and open the gate. As they approached, they saw that Iron John had posted two guards outside of the flimsy gate and the plan changed to Vanator (who is a chaotic following the path of the assassin) to sneak up on the guards, and wait for a volley of arrows to kill one of them, an then slit the throat of the other (hoping for a certain critical hit )

...which actually, thanks to a very, very unexpected run of good rolling luck went off as planned!

Vanator found that the guards each had a whistle around his neck and assumed (rightly) that this was a signalling device, but assumed (wrongly) that blowing it would make the bandits open the gate. He blew it, and the Bandits were alerted to their presence (Blowing it in three short bursts was "open the gate")...he could hear the men inside running about, screaming orders and generally prepping for battle. So...the plan changed again.

If you can call it a plan. Balthazar (the Wizard) cast Enlarge on both Theegis the Murderer (a Locksmith with a bad rep turned Warrior) and the aforementioned Zabounian and rolled very well (making Theegis a little over 12 feet tall) and ordered the two of them to charge that gate and get it open before the bandit crossbowmen got up to the catwalk. The Enlarge spell description spells out some combat bonuses (+4 to hit and damage I think with the roll the player had) and I ruled that that could apply to Strength checks. So the 2 enlarged PC's smashed the gate open with a couple of good rolls...

And promptly ran into a hail of (6) bandit crossbow bolts, which ate up the bonus HP from the Enlarge spell in pretty short order

But the gate was open and everyone ran in to engage the remaining Bandits with the exception of Balthazar, who circled around outside the palisade while casting Spider climb in an attempt to get into an archery position behind the enemy. Iron Jon and his Lieutenant Morda joined the vanguard of their force, in an attempt to keep their crossbowmen unharrassed...but they could not contend with Theegis and Zabounian's titanic size, and 2 critical hits.

After those two went down, the rest was pretty much a "mopping up" action.

They questioned a couple of bandit prisoners, got no useful information about the deal their Leader had had with The Old Man in the Marsh, and put them to the sword in front of the villagers.

It was determined that Fogwater as a viable village was done with it's compliment of adult males cut by 90%, and that the PC's would attempt to escort the remaining townsfolk to the neighbouring town of Cliffwater on the other side of the Whitefen...

...pretty much straight across the acknowledged domain of The Old Man.

A fun write-up. Sounds like a campaign that really rocks!

Allright, we spent a fair amount of time getting food ordered and just generally assholing around this week so we got started late and didn't get a lot of gaming done, what we did get done however was pretty great.

The PC's got the women, children and handful of men together and--with the help of Relg the Hunter (an NPC hunter who had helped them out earlier and the now-defunct Village of Fogwater's main source of fresh meat)--set out in an attempt to lead the remaining populace to the town of Cliffwater, on the other side of Whitefen Swamp.

The party almost immediately realized that they had literally no clue how to actually get to Cliffwater, the few flat bottomed swamp rafts avaialable were not going to be able to hold everyone (not even close) and none of the PC's or remaining villagers were boatsmen in any event. So it was decided to skirt the edge of the Swamp following what passes for a "road" (less marshy than average ground) and hope that the swamp was basically circular and that they would eventually find Cliffwater (which they do actually know to be on "the edge of Whitefen Swamp") Relg claimed to know the route, but--as was clear to both Norovis the Gorhanite Priest and Balthazar the Wizard (who both made great rolls to sense bullshit)--he was clearly just saying this to calm the villagers.

So they set out, planning to make about 20 miles/day...not really reckoning that using women and children to pull a 4 wheeled wagon of ore across marshy land might slow them. the first day out, they made 3 miles.

And the first night out, they were attacked by sort of "Toad Featured, leather-skinned men" (Re-skinned Goblins from the Monsters section) whom they drove off, with little in the way of casualties. The children were in a turmoil though, as were about half o the village womenfolk, who wanted to turn back. Only a decently rousing speech by the High PER Gorhanite priest got everyone back onside. The warriors Theegis and Zabounian privately put forward a "f*ck this sh*t" proposal to the rest of the group, suggesting that the villagers were more trouble than they were worth, and a quick debate about the fact that these were people they had known their entire lives got party members grudgingly back on the same page.

Next morning, a new plan was formulated around the idea that since the "Swamplings" as they were named by the group, seemed disorganized and not exactly formidable, the group had likely not been an attack force, but rather scouts. This led to the speculation that --as many of them had gotten away--they would likely be back in force sooner than later.

The plan was for Relg and Balthazar (who has the "lucky roll" thing that gives and extra 5' of movement) to take off ahead to Cliffwater, buy a couple of mules, or oxen or whatever draft animal they could actually afford with their so far meagre treasure, and come back and get the wagon of ore moving. Relg claimed that it was probably 4 days there, and another 4 back. So the group decided to move off the road and into the Slate Wastes, the extremely shitty badlands that stretch away from Whitefen. It was determined that on 1/2 rations, and coupled with Norovis' ability to cast "Food of the Gods" or whatever that spell is called, the main body of the group would be able to last until Relg and Balthazar returned.

So the group set up in a group of semi-defensible standing stones a mile or so inland, and Theegis, Vanator and Zabounian worked out a schedule for standing watch that took into account surliness, being drunk and a general distaste for the idea of waiting around like sheep at a slaughterhouse. The grousing was killing morale, until Norovis, quite literally, made food rain down from the sky for the kids.

Relg and Balthazar got about a half-day's journey until they came across what looked like a massive termite mound about 100 yards out onto the swamp. They saw several of the Swamplings scuttling around on the outside of it, several trending a fire on top of it, clearly manufacturing a pile of fire-hardened spears. Relg mentioned that this is always where he though the Old Man's lair was, but he had never seen any life or movement on it previously. Given that the Swamplings (and Possibly the Old Man) were girding to attack, the pair decided to turn back and alert the rest of the party.

When they arrived, and delivered the news (and after revisiting the "f*ck this sh*t" plan a second time) it was decided that they should try a frontal assault on the Swamplings at what quickly became known as "The hive". Everyone was little unclear and a lot apprehensive about covering the 100 yards of marsh between the hive and shoreline, but lacking any other viable plan, they set off...leaving the adult villagers armed with a collection of the Bandit's Machetes, Truncheons and Light Crossbows and some really basic instruction on their use.

They arrived at about twilight, assuming that since the last attack came at night, they could expect some of the Swamplings to be out. Vanator the assassin scouted ahead and discovered that there was a path of reasonably dry boulders (clearly deliberately placed) forming a path from shoreline to The Hive.

So with the worry of swimming through leech and possibly Swampling infested marshland out of the way, the party flew into action...going with their usual "Balthazar casts Enlarge on the fighters" opener, and planning their headlong charge.

Until Balthazar rolled a natural 1...and the spell misfire roll resulted in them all being shrunk down to about 6" in height for the next day or so He managed to not roll Corruption at least.

So the new plan was "RUN FOR IT", but it was really unclear how they were going to get off the first boulder and back to the shoreline given their new size...

...until Theegis the Murderer suggested that they should be trying to go to the hive, seeing as how they were pretty much invisible at this size. There was still no real way to cover the intervening 100 yards using the now "mountains-separated-by swampland" size boulders as stepping stones, until Balthazar used his Animal Summoning spell and some bat fur from the swarm at the Gorhanite Shrine to summon a bunch of flying steeds for them...

As the game ended they were flying across the swamp to The Hive, with about an hour left in the spell mishap, hope to scout and infiltrate before they reverted to normal size.

This has pretty much become our group's new "Lemons to Lemonade" example

So the group, astride their flying mini-steeds, buzzed across the swamp toward The Hive and set down near a small (what they assumed to be a) ventilation hole about 10" in diameter. Light Source was almost immediately a problem as Parson Norovis lit his now Matchstick-sized torch and led the way into the tiny tunnel. When they reached it's end, it seemed to open into an unimaginably huge cavern, whose far walls were not visible by the light of the torch (it was actually a standard 10 ft hallway) Ferried to the floor by Balthazar's bat minions, the group shortly found themselves in the very center of an intersection of 2 hallways. A few moments later, they had returned to their full size.

They heard a commotion up one of the hallways and immediately went up and into the room at the end to see what was going on, apparently forgetting their "Infiltration and Recon" plan as they walked into a surprise round hail of fire-hardened Javelins from the clutch of ToadMen (reskinned Subhumans with a swimming speed). The javelins hit with minimal effect and initiative was rolled.

Zabounian went first and charged the lead ToadMan felling him with a single blow from the masterwork blade he had taken from the corpse of the bandit chief Iron Jon, only to be swarmed by the Toadmen when their round came next, being knocked down to -1hp by two significant hits by the ToadMen's clubs.

Theegis The Murderer next waded into battle, placing himself in harm's way in an effort to both clear a bit of space for the Parson to slip in and Lay Hands on his downed fellow warrior, swung--fumbled--and immediately tossed his sword several yards away...

The herd of ToadMen thinned quite a bit when Balthazar directed the Bat Swarm (still at his beck and call since it's summoning for transport) to attack...his roll on the "What Disease are the Bats Carrying" table came up with the "Fort Save or Die Immediately" one...and of the 4 ToadMen bitten for negligible damage, 3 bit the dust right there.

Vanator the Assassin, unable to make it into the room and attack in one round, decided to move back into the darkness of the hallway and try to Hide in Shadows in case the noise of the fight brought any reinforcements from that direction.

The Laying on of Hands, successfully get's Zabounian out of his coma, but his round is missed; Theegis--missing his sword--decides to draw his dagger and attack. Natural 20, followed by the "+1d8 damage Stab to the brain" result. The Toadman with mercifully never suffer from the -1d4 to INt and PER as Theegis rolls maximum possible damage and kills him outright, claiming in a completely transparent lie that he threw his sword away deliberately as "it seemed more like "War" than "Murder"

Relg the Hunter, finishes off the last ToadMan, and the suspected reinforcement arrive from down the hall...but when Vanator melts out of the shadows and kills the lead Toad (rolling a natural 20, easily overcoming the -8 for bad light and getting backstab crit to boot), the other's Morale creaks and they run off down another hallway. Vanator cannot pursue and must wait for the rest of the party to catch up with a light source.

They spend the next bit of the adventure avoiding more groups of spear-throwing (it is assumed) Toadmen, whom they can't approach or attack as they remain more than 30 feet away and out of the range of the torchlight. So the Party retreats to the room where they originally killed the clutch of ToadMen and find a pit behind a doorway filled with the bones of the children that the bandits had traded to the Old Man in the Marsh.

More searching (and a few rounds of Healing) uncovers a secret passage...which the group enters...