You’re Not Paranoid if Everyone Really Is Out to Get You

WARNING: If you’re attending Gary Con V and intend to sign up for one of my Paranoia games, STOP. READING. NOW.

Seriously, this session basically served as a playtest for the adventure I’ll be running at Gary Con V. You’ll see it in the event catalog as DGS Presents: Paranoia – Clones in SPAAAAACE! (I may have the number of As and !s wrong).

Also, if you’re are not security clearance Blue or higher, reading the previous two paragraphs, except the words “Warning”, “Stop”, “Reading,” and “Now” constitutes treason. Please report to the nearest suicide booth for summary execution.

As with many missions, this one started with an alert coming to the Troubleshooters as they went about their pointless lives. They were summoned to Mission Briefing Room 45C1ENCE. Immediately. Naturally, being loyal citizens of The Computer, the complied. Our Troubleshooters for this misadventure were Wand-R-BRA, Schwartz-R-NLD, and Docked-R-HOO. True, it was a lighter team than normal, but The Computer was confident they would be able to succeed. The Troubleshooters were surprised to find the mission briefing was being conducted by The Computer itself:

Welcome, Troubleshooters! You have been selected to volunteer [VOLUNTEERING IS MANDATORY] to establish the First Alpha Complex Lunar Annex. This exciting mission will secure your place as Heroes of Alpha Complex [use of titles not authorized]. Please report to R&D for training and mission details. Alpha Complex Scienticians will provide you with your equipment and your Mandatory Bonus Duty Assignments. Have a pleasant day!

No one died during the mission briefing, so they proceeded to R&D. The lead scientician introduced them to the most valuable piece of equipment, the heavily-modified Flybot H4L-9000. (I described it as a VW-microbus welded to a quad-arrangement of semi-truck cargo carriers). They were given experimental equipment (testing new equipment is fun and not at all dangerous, probably): Communist Detection Spray, a Clone-Portable Quantum Tunneling Device Prototype, aka Portal Gun, a Cone Pistol (one-handed cone rifle), and a Chrono Gun. In addition, the R&D Scientician informed them the cargo carriers contained everything they needed to establish a base colony on the surface of the moon, as well as additional weapons, should they encounter any natives or Commie Mutant Traitors.

Since I waited a week again, I’ve forgotten several details, so I’ll sum up: They were barely out of Earth’s atmosphere when someone was accused of treason and an explosive weapon was fire, blowing out the windows of the flybot. Naturally, at least one clone was blown out into space. The other two died shortly afterwards of asphyxiation, since a voice-operated interface cannot be operated without air to transmit the command of “re-pressurize” once the window shutters closed. Additional clones in the cargo area were activated and several more died in the week that followed as they flew to the moon. Once they landed, the Big Green Button that activated the colony was pressed and it inflated quite well. The troubleshooters even found some spacesuits to protect them from the hard vacuum of the lunar surface. They discovered another colony on the moon, however, one flying the Hammer & Sickle of the Commie flag! Preparations were made to wipe out the rival colony when Schwartz-R-NLD-2 had the brilliant idea of shooting a relatively flat surface of the moon with the Portal Gun, then shooting the top of the Commie Dome, suffocating all within (if I am not mistaken, that player had not played Portal 2). Poor Docked-R-HOO was on clone 5 by then. But they were victorious…and stuck on the moon. Perhaps next year, we will revisit the Troubleshooters at the First Alpha Complex Lunar Annex.

Ah, good old Paranoia. Always good for a few laughs when D&D just ain’t cuttin’ it or too many people fail to show up for the game. I prefer the 2nd edition of the game to any versions that came before or after. It’s a very simple d20-below-target-number resolution system and that’s just about it. That’s all it needs. Paranoia isn’t about DPS builds or skill monkeys: it’s about surviving in a world where EVERYONE is out to get you, including the GM. If the GM plays his/her cards right, he/she doesn’t even need to do anything. Just put the players in absurd situations & dangerous environments and let them kill each other with impunity. It’s quite simple, really. In all, 3 players, 6 deaths. That’s a 200% mortality rate! Actually, that’s pretty low by Paranoia standards. I’m confident when I run it at Gary Con V with a full table of 6 players, I’ll boost that number up to 350% – 400%.

Now, on to my 2013 plans. I intend to wrap up my D&D 4E Eberron game within the next 4-6 sessions (give or take, depending on how long it takes the PCs to get through the challenges before them…e.g. depending on how much gaming we actually do as opposed to sitting around the table BSing). 4E as a system never really floated my boat, and my latest attempt to run with it just isn’t doing it for me. In retrospect, I could’ve just gone with the Pathfinder Basic Set for my new player (my wife) and I think things would have progressed just as well as far as her learning the system goes. Game prep has not been terribly enjoyable, even with the tools WotC provides on their website and the type of fantasy 4E encourages just isn’t my cup of tea. That’s not a judgement on the quality of D&D 4E, it’s just a statement of preference. Also, there was a time when I greatly enjoyed game prep and could spend hours and hours perfecting encounters and writing detailed environments and that time has not returned to my life. I was single then with no other activities requesting portions of my time.

After the 4E campaign is wrapped up, I plan to  start a Pathfinder Adventure Path campaign, using the Skull & Shackles Adventure Path. I summed up this game to my players in two words: Goblin. Pirates. It was met with some enthusiasm by those who attended the Paranoia game. Those who did not are either hearing about this for the first time by reading this blog post or will hear about it at the next game, this coming Friday. I have not decided if I’m going to jump right into Pathfinder or spend a few sessions with another game as a palate cleanser, as it were. A few one-offs along with a group character generation session might do us good.

Group character generation is interesting. I know there are a lot of players who don’t like this as it involves a lot of sitting around not playing, but I think it’s very valuable. Even with e-mail, I’ve seen groups composed of Fytor the Fighter, Fietor the Fighter, Figh’tor the Fighter, and Roger the Shrubber, despite the players supposedly conferring with one another over e-mail about how to create a balanced group (the group balance thing is one reason I’m starting to like rules-light non-D&D games more than D&D). I’ve also been trying to encourage my players to think of the relationships between their characters. How does Character A know Character B? How do Characters C & D know A & B? It helps prevent groups composed of Lone Wolf Anti-Social Loners from having to adventure together when there is no logical reason for them to even have a beer together. It prevents situations like goodly knights finding themselves in the same group as a decidedly neutral worshipper of the god of murder/assassins.

The above is parody and not meant to be a transcript from an actual play session. It’s just the type of thing that I’ve heard of happening when characters are created in a vacuum and the players still want to play together despite their characters not really having any reason to hang out together, but they do so anyway because it’s people playing a game. I believe the term is “verisimilitude.” Of course, if all the PC Pirates are going to be Pathfinder Goblins, that’s a whole different brand of anarchy and mayhem. Golarian will never be the same.

On The Rails – Eberron Game Session 4

After a brief foray to Gamma Terra, we return to Eberron for the continuation of our regularly scheduled D&D game.

When last we left our intrepid…heroes…they were on their way to Sharn, having cured a town of a magical plague despite their best efforts at leaving the townsfolk to their uncertain fates. Master Yorel greeted them with sacks of gold after receiving the Coat of Eyes and bade his  Acquisition Experts to standby for another assignment. A few days later, he presented them with round-trip Lighting Rail passes to Starilaskur. Their new mission was to transport a strongbox from Sharn to a colleague of his at The Broken Forge, Clockwork. In addition to the money he gave them upon bringing him the coat of eyes, he gave them each an additional 250 GP for expenses and sent them on their way.

The first leg of the trip, from Sharn to Wroat, passed uneventfully. What apparently transpired in some of the cabins is best left for certain texts of a more…blue…nature. They stretched their legs at Wroat, and were surprised that no one accosted them or tried to rob them or tried to hire them and boarded the train again. The next day, while on the long leg of the trip between Wroat and Starilaskur, the…debaucheries…were interrupted by armed men demanding money from the passengers. Our intrepid heroes would have none of it and slaughtered them in hallway of their coach. The screams of the passengers in the other cars caught their interest, but they decided to climb to the top of their coach to survey situation. Mounted Gnolls ran alongside the train and more bandits, humans and gnolls advanced upon them. As they fought back the ones on top of the Lightning Rail, the conveyance came to a halt. Once the gnolls on top of the train were dealt with and the mounted ones fled, our heroes questioned the Lighting Rail driver about why they stopped. Someone had stolen enough of the conductor stones guiding the Lighting Rail, that the coaches could not continue without derailing.

Track led away from the route, tracks which suggested someone stole the conductor stones deliberately to halt the Lightning Rail. Our heroes followed the trail into the hills, making sure their strongbox was secure and well-guarded…

It seems like nothing happened, but 4E combat takes a lot of time. Plus, we did slip into a lot of tangents. They were entertaining, but tangents, nonetheless. Plus, a few players don’t have DDI accounts, so some of the characters had to be updated prior to the game on my PC and that caused us to get a late start. It’s the biggest downside I’m seeing to this 4E game. I don’t feel right asking everyone to have a DDI subscription, so I may start asking people to e-mail what changes they want made to their characters so I can go ahead and make them and print them before the game starts. Ultimately, I’m finding the reliance on the electronic tools for tracking characters to be more of a hindrance than a boon, though I do like the DM’s tools (particularly the Encounter Builder, even if it isn’t as up-to-date as I’d like).

I’m also starting to get a feel about what will motivate my group, in game, and I’m having to adjust my playstyle accordingly. My attempt at the last session to allow them a chance to play the role of the hero went over like a lead balloon (they wanted to leave the town to its fate and were very reluctant to determine the cause of the plague). Clearly, I should have made more clear my ideas that they would be playing the Heroes in this game. Ah well. These things happen and I’ll just adjust my expectations; it’s no biggie.

Also, I have observed that I feel very RUSTY when running adventures of my own design. When I brought this group together, it was after, essentially, a three year hiatus from GMing. Sure, I ran a few games at conventions in the interim, but those were one shots and mostly Paranoia (which is MUCH easier to run/play than D&D). When I started again, I was running pre-made adventures. Clearly, my skills have atrophied a bit as I am not really comfortable writing my own adventures for D&D anymore. I don’t have a problem with other systems, like Star Wars (d6), or Paranoia, so I wonder if I’m just not feeling the DM vibe anymore. Or maybe, I’m just out of practice. Maybe since D&D 4E isn’t my favorite variation of the game, I’m not as into it as I could be. It could be several things or something I haven’t thought of yet. One thing I may try is to adapt a pre-written adventure to fit into this Eberron campaign and see how that feels. Maybe I’m just feeling the crunch of working, trying to spend time with my family, trying to write books to publishing, AND write stuff to GM. Nevertheless, I’m committed to trying to provide an entertaining game for my friends, so I shall soldier on.

A Detour to Gamma Terra

Since Black Friday (the day after Thanksgiving, aka Nov. 23) was a day I knew not everyone would be available for gaming, I planned a different game than our regularly scheduled D&D game. I decided it would be a good chance to try Gamma World. A few folks on Twitter suggested that I set the game in a mall and somehow work in references to Black Friday, so I did. And since I’m hopelessly behind in updating this post, the actual game write-up will be brief…also, some names may have changed since I can’t remember exactly what Gamma Speak I used now…except The Walma. It’s always THE WALMA.

In the world of Gamma Terra, Black Free Day is the day after the Feast of Hallothankwanzamassukah. It is thought to be an orgiastic celebration of looting and consumerism at a mystical place known as The Walma. After finding out the PCs were not hungover or dead from the previous evening’s celebrations, the village elder sent them in search of The Walma.

After a rambling, Simpsons-homage-filled set of directions*, the chosen villagers headed out of the relative safety of ‘Tain Squa and into the wilderness. The directions were surprisingly accurate and they made exceptionally good use of the environment to defeat some mutated horrors which sought to eat them. A battle was raging at The Walma when they arrived between various groups of scavengers including Porkers, Badders, and mutants. They decided not to risk a frontal engagement and circled around looking for other entrances**.

They found a group of dabbers (they’re mutated bipedal raccoons) trying to break into a large overhead door marked UT  ERVI. One extremely intimidating encounter later, the PCs were trying to break into a large overhead door marked UT ERVI while the dabbers were running for the hills. They broke into The Walma, found a few wheeled carts and proceeded to loot the store out from under the battle raging outside…except for the guys in the canned good aisle who were determined to make the PCs pay in BLOOD for their bounty.

While it was a fairly close fight with some friendly fire injuries and a lot of collateral damage, the PCs won the day and returned victorious to ‘Tain Squa with their Hallothankwanzamassukah bounty.

Everyone seemed to have a really good time with this game. A few players commented that the preferred the simplified system of Gamma World to D&D 4E (Savage Worlds…here we come!). I really liked the wacky amalgamation of the real world and the fantastic, especially since I could throw in post-apoc tropes as well as cram in Borderlands-like weapons (which will see more play in future games) and it all fits because: GAMMA WORLD. The combat encounters weren’t as good as I wanted because I was counting on two hours of prep time that I didn’t get when a guest player showed up two hours early.

And, I got to use the toy cars I bought for my ill-fated Gen Con Atomic Highway/Fallout game, so that’s a plus. I think Gamma World will be my go-to Alt game while we’re playing D&D 4E. Once the Eberron game wraps-up, I may switch to Pathfinder, though, ’cause I really want to run some adventure paths and my Rise of the Runelords Deluxe Collector’s Edition is here (it was my reward to myself for working through my vacation this summer…and getting a bonus for doing so). On the other hand, as a GM, I like rules-light systems more and more these days and Pathfinder is anything but rules-light. I can do rules-heavy as a player, but as a GM, game-prep for rules-heavy systems is more like work than enjoyment, and I get PAID for work. I hope prep for an adventure path won’t be so bad since I won’t have to write up every encounter and plot point myself.

I think I actually enjoy running this genre (or at least a more modern genre) of game to Fantasy. With fantasy, I’m worried about anachronisms when I have to ad lib, and that really makes me have to think too hard when things go off the rails. In a more futuristic or modern setting, I can just go off on a Simpsons/Futurama-inspired ramble and it fits. The comic tangent in the directions just wouldn’t fit in the with the tone I like in my fantasy, but works with Gamma World. Maybe I need to stick with pre-written adventures for Fantasy and when I need to stretch my creative legs play games more modern/sci-fi in tone.

* “Follow Dry Gulch until you find that big, rotten tree. Hopefully, it hasn’t fallen down yet. Turn left and you should see a big elevated road. You know that road use to take you south to the river. Of course, walking, that would take you days. You’d just followed that elevated road all the way until you got to the big river, cross it, then you could keep going south until you practically hit the ocean. Why, I bet that was at least a week away. Maybe more, hell, I don’t know, I never went there. I went down three days, though. It gets hilly and I heard the hills used to be covered in trees what wouldn’t eat you. We’d tie an onion to our belts, ‘cause that was the style of the time, plus, it kept the trees from eating you, at least, my old man always said it would. Of course, he thought you could stick fat people with a pin and they’d pop like a balloon…”

** The area they traveled was based on the area in which we live. So, to prevent meta-gamey cheese, I totally burned Gander Mountain to the ground***. They already had enough guns anyway.

*** For those of you from the U.S. Government who are spying on my blog, I’m talking about a tabletop GAME. I did NOT engage in any domestic terrorism. I have better things to do with my life. I suggest you do the same and go out and catch real criminals and stop spying on the people who pay your salary. Yes, I’m talking about you, George. YOU. The one in Fairfax.  Also, you have a spot on your tie. Sometimes, the dry cleaner can get those out, but usually you have to buy a new tie. Take some pride in your appearance, dude.

I’m a Slacker — Eberron Game Sessions 2 & 3

I freely admit I dropped the ball posting about Session 2 of the D&D 4E Eberron game. So, I am going to combine it with Session 3′s post. The good news is there was a session 3! The bad news is that November and December are the busiest parts of my year because my main client at my day job is a farm equipment & agricultural distributor, so they used the winter to get their spring publications ready and my job is to do that. Of course, that’s neither here nor there and it may not affect my posting at all. But it could. As bad news goes, that’s not so bad. Particularly since my bad news could be far worse. I live about 2.5 miles away from what is known on Twitter as the #IndyBoom.

TL;DR summary: a couple of houses on Indianapolis’s southside exploded on Saturday (Nov. 10th) and rendered 25+ houses around the epicenter uninhabitable. We felt the shockwave from the explosion. Also, the next day (Nov. 11) was the fourth anniversary of the death of my first wife. But, that’s not news, it’s history.

On with the show!

SESSION 2
When we last left our heroes, they were preparing to descend into Khyber to following the trail of clues left by the cultists who’d been terrorizing Blackroot. During their preparations, two people from the village caught up with them in the caves, a tiefling wizard named Seraphina and a half-elf sorcerer named Mercutio. They asked to be allowed to accompany the group into the depths. Since Wizar the Wizarian and The Hand of Wisdom seemed to have disappeared altogether, the group readily agreed. Fortunately, the pack in which Wizar was keeping the weird tentacle things they pried off the dead cultists was left behind.

Descending into Khyber, the first cavern they discovered contained four dolgrims along with a strange pool of a viscous purple liquid. They defeated the horrid-looking fused goblin things and upon discovered the restorative power of the purple liquid, dumped some of their water for the liquid. They proceeded into the depths and discovered another cavern with a large area of impenetrable darkness. When they approached, the darkness lashed out at them*. Beyond the cavern containing the Living Darkness, they were forced to cross a cavern floor consisting of hundreds of chomping mouths, though they were small enough to cause no damage; they just looked creepy. Finally (after the DM skipped a few encounters due to time constraints), they encountered a purpose-built room containing many large crystal shells inside which they could see various villagers including Doria Veledaar. A machine of some sort appeared to be draining and devouring the soul energy from the prisoners within the crystal shells.

Putting their heads together, the PCs deduced a variety of ways to break open the shells and defeat the machine to free the villagers. They recovered the Coat of Eyes and the grateful villagers gave them a pair of magical boots; heirlooms of one of the families who were not lucky enough to survive the cultists. Mercutio and Seraphina elected to remain with the group and they all resumed their trek toward Sharn to return the Coat of Eyes to Master Yorel.

SESSION 3
On the way back to Sharn, the group passed through the village of Cedar Ridge. Everyone they encountered there seemed to be ill. The villagers were coughing and many were disfigured by lumps and growths under their skin. Seraphina wanted to leave immediately and leave them to their fate, while others were slightly more interested in finding out what the cause was. They stopped at the inn and questioned the barkeep, the bard and a warforged there. The warforged, Wycliffe, indicated other travelers had come and gone with no ill effects, but Seraphina was adamant that they leave. The barkeep indicated that most of the villagers, including the mayor had barricaded themselves in their homes and the town’s protector, a warforged named Bulwark had not been seen in a couple of weeks, about the time the afflictions began. When two villagers and the village healer brought in a screaming man, Seraphina left the tavern. The screaming man transformed before their eyes into a hulking brute who proceeded to beat the hell out of anyone near him, knocking Vistra across the room. They were eventually able to defeat the hulk-out villager and decided to confront the mayor.

The mayor’s house was locked up, as the barkeep indicated. They broke into the house and proceeded to browbeat and intimidate the mayor into doing something. The man was just as misshapen and ill as the rest of the village, barely able to walk. He screamed back at them, angry, frustrated, and frightened of this group of adventurers who broke into his home and demanded that he leave his home and lead by example. Eventually, they gave up on threatening the mayor and decided to check out the ruined castle where the barkeep said Bulwark made his home, at least, until they stopped hearing from the warforged.

Flickering lights appeared in one room of the abandon castle from the vantage point of the road leading up to it. In the dining room, the PCs found a large warforged lying on the ground near the table. An overturned jug on the table oozed a purple liquid (unrelated to the purple liquid they’d found last session…I guess I just like purple) and near the warforged’s head was a shadow that was NOT being cast by anything in the room. After a brief investigation, they discovered something that should not be: the warforged was passed out. They were able to converse with the shadow and it indicated that it had challenged the warforged to a drinking contest. When they investigated the upturned jug, the shadow demanded they hand it over. It wouldn’t say why, but just repeated its demand for the jug. Combat ensued and the shadow proved to be a superior opponent**. They fled with the jug, hoping to lure the shadow away and after some more beatings, the heroes decided to give the shadow what it wanted and handed over the jug. It headed for the river. They then returned to the castle and attempted to wake the warforged. Once awakened, the warforged (who turned out to be a Warforged Juggernaut Wizard) pursued the shadow and delivered an epic beatdown the DM was too tired to describe in all its epicness.

For their help, Bulwark gave the PCs a chest it found in the castle when he moved in. Bulwark said he would take care of the villagers and was confident he could reverse their affliction. They proceeded onward towards Sharn.

Now, it might be stating the obvious, but combat in D&D 4E is really dynamic compared to Basic D&D. There’s a lot for players to do. That also means, if they’re unfamiliar with the system, it really slows things down. I could have several combat encounters in a Basic D&D game, but with 4E, I have to limit it to 1-2 combat encounters, otherwise, the game goes too long, or we don’t really get anyway. The last combat with the Dream Shadow started about an hour before the scheduled end of the game, but of course, it was far from over when midnight rolled around. I have a whole list of ways to speed combat in 4E, but they mostly apply when the PCs are fighting more than 1 creature. I really should print out that list and keep it handy. We wouldn’t have finished the adventure if I hadn’t skipped encounters with mutated animals (and I was really looking forward to the mutated pigs). Still, it seems like every one is enjoying the game more than they enjoyed Basic D&D. I still put Pathfinder & AD&D 2nd edition higher on my “preferred systems” list, though. My problem with D&D 4E is that my players say they’re using Swift Striking Power of Awesomeness, but I don’t know what kind of action that’s actually doing. When someone says “I swing my sword at him.” or “I whack him with my axe!”, I know what kind of action they’re describing. A lot of the power names in 4E might be evocative, but they don’t evoke what I need as a GM to describe how the monster reacts. I probably need to ask them to be a little more descriptive for me, so when they say “I’m using MegaAwesome Power of Being Powerful.” they should also say exactly what that means their character is doing.

It was a difficult session for me (I refrained from outright calling the PCs “murder-hobos” in paragraph 2 of the Session 3 notes), exacerbated by the fact that my DM shelf on my Geek Chic table broke off while I was jotting down a note. I’ll have to call them about that.

*And for the first time in my 30+ years of playing D&D, someone could attack the darkness and I didn’t have to smack them for being an idiot.
**In retrospect, I should have telegraphed the shadow’s weakness to the liquid by explicitly stating that it was avoiding touching any of the spilled liquid, but by this point I was already frustrated and a little angry that my table broke. Throwing the liquid on the shadow would’ve defeated it, but since they didn’t know that, they tried to beat it in combat, for which the creature was FAR overpowered for their level. I only pulled one punch during the combat though, so I’m at least pleased there wasn’t a TPK since the shadow’s opening salvo took EVERYONE in the area of effect to bloodied.

The Gear Shift – Eberron Game Sesssion 1

I started a new campaign last Friday at our regularly scheduled session. Tired of being frustrated by attendance, I decided that the Basic D&D Doctor StrangeRoll game would occur only when all non-redundant PC could be present. The rest of the time, we would play D&D 4E in Eberron. My newest player (my wife) was also getting frustrated at the no-shows (partly because we host and partly because with attendance low enough to not continue the game, it’s hard to play the game to learn it). I’m not certain players always appreciate (or are aware) of the amount of work that goes into both hosting a game and running a game and when people don’t show up without telling you until the last minute, it’s frustrating.

Now, D&D 4E is not my favorite system, but after a week or so of conducting informal research on the Internet, I determined that it was one of the more well-regarded systems for teaching a new player Dungeons & Dragons as well as offering sufficient character customization for veteran players to feel like they really had options. Basically, it’s a version that’s both newbie- and veteran-friendly. As an added plus, it’s very easy to prep for. Since I have a novel I’m trying to get published before Christmas, I didn’t need a time sink. I had the players create 2nd-level PCs, because I was going to used a canned adventure for an intro, and it recommended 2nd level PCs.

With all that out of the way, let’s get acquainted with the characters:

Theirastra is a female eladrin shaman. Trapped on Eberron with the rest of the eladrin after the Day of Mourning, she fights for the preservation of the natural world with her panther spirit companion. Zarna is a female drow hexblade. She returned to Khorvaire from Xen’Drik with a researcher from Morgrave University. Vistra Kodiak is a male dwarf warden. Wizar the Wizarion is a male fire genesai wizard/barbarian hybrid*. The Hand of Wisdom is a warforged cleric.

The PCs are working for a researcher from Morgrave University, Master Yorel d’Tharashk. He pays them to travel the breadth of Khorvaire finding relics, rare treasures, and antiquities for him. He’s particularly interested in dragon shards and relics from Xen’Drik, but cannot currently afford to sponsor an expedition there.

Through his sources, Master Yorel located a relic known as the Coat of Eyes and believed a House Tharashk inquisitive in the village of Blackroot knows the location. So, he sent his Finders to the Shadow Marches to meet with Doria Veledaar and bring the coat back to him. When they arrived in Blackroot, they were greeted with a very cold reception by the village reeve. The orcs of the Shadow Marches do not like outsiders, but they were able to persuade the reeve to at least direct them to Doria Veledaar. They were informed that she recently left Blackroot, but they were welcome to poke around her now-vacant house.

Immediately they saw now all was as it seemed, as there was evidence of a struggle in Doria’s home. They found a broken obsidian dagger, a trail of blood, and some sort of amulet made from a mummified eye. They also noticed that the Veledaar house was not the only vacant home in the village. As they looked around these other houses, an old orc approached them with a cryptic message, “It’s the Harvest. Sowing the new crop. This night, with three moons in the sky and darkness below. If you know what’s good for you, you’ll be out of here before it comes for you, too.” When they tried to question him further, he acted as if he had never spoken to them and had no idea what they were talking about. Theirastra could also sense an aura of magic around the village.

They followed the trail of blood and the confluences of the magical aura to a cave. Two orcs guarded the entrance and didn’t buy the group’s story that they were sightseeing. They readied their axes. As the battle was joined, two men joined in the fray from the cave. After the party defeated them, they discovered the men to be cultists carrying mummified symbols similar to the amulet they found in the Veledaar house. One of the orcs had a strange, worm-like thing in his mouth which continued to writhe and pulse even after his death. Wizar placed it in his pouch. They pressed on, deeper in the cave. The passageway in which they traveled was filled with glowing text crawling on the walls. It seemed alive, and creepy. They were able to translate it as a list of names, but did not see any they recognized. They could hear chanting from deeper within the cavern.

The passageway led to another room which contained an alcove and a pattern of symbols on the floor. The pattern slithered and shifted like a nest of vipers, and they heard strange whispers in the back of their minds. The chanting from ahead was louder, as well. Avoid the symbols, they looked into the alcove and saw three defaced shrines. They decided to follow the chanting and left the shrines and symbols behind, undisturbed. The chanting led them to a large chamber filled with men and orcs, all kneeling prayer around a figure with sunken eyesockets filled with cilia and tentacles coming off its shoulders (naturally, I got rid of my dolgaunt miniatures a few weeks ago and had to use a mind flayer instead). In the back of the cavern was a large eye embedded in the wall. Eyes were embedded in the exposed flesh of the worshipping cultists.

Neither side wasted time joining the battle.

The large eye shot out some sort of ray, dazing a few of the heroes, but in the end, our adventurers were victorious. When the great eye was destroyed, a crack opened in the ground near one of the cavern walls. The crack opened a tunnel leading deeper underground. They also found another weird tentacle thing around the arm of one of the cultists, which Wizar again pocketed. They prepared to proceed down the hole….**

And with that, the session ended. 4E combat was just as slow as I remember, and though I tried to let people know that they were next after another party member’s turn, some of them still didn’t decide what they were doing until it was actually their turn (and with all the powers 4E PCs have to choose from, that can drag things out). I have researched some ways to speed up combat under 4E, and I am going to slowly work some of these things into the game (they shouldn’t actually affect the players at all, except give them the same reward for less work during combat…I can’t imagine anyone would have a problem with that).

As you might have noticed, based on the characters, it looked like a full party. That’s because one of the people I didn’t think was going to come found out at the last minute that he could come and asked if he could bring a friend (who previous gamed with us during the first Doctor Who game), so I actually had a full table.

* I expressed some reservations about the combination. The player offered after the session to replace Wizar with a pixie vampire/paladin. Now, normally I lock stuff like this out of my campaigns because, well…I just don’t like these kind of options. But, I threw this together at the last minute and didn’t have time to come up with a player handout that outlined what kind of races/classes I would allow in my campaign. So, I have decided to treat this PC like the Great Gazoo. The player is often (about 40%-60%) out of town on business, so his characters come and go. I have decided they exist in a different continuum, so when he’s here, his characters pop in, cause mischief (or help out, whatever the case may be) and when he’s absent, they vanish.

** “Why are you always preparing? Just GO!” — Dark Helmet, Spaceballs

Switching Gears

As usual, real life is interfering with our game and causing attendance woes. This is causing problems because it’s difficult to explore cursed ruins when half – three-quarters of your adventuring party suddenly disappear. While I’m OK with a little discontinuity, some things are difficult to handwave.

Now, the original plan was to just play an alternate game when we couldn’t play D&D. This isn’t working out so well because bouncing back and forth between system is causing rules confusion and making it difficult for my wife to actually learn D&D. So, I’ve adjusted my plan.
Each DoctorStrange Roll session will now play D&D. If the core group is all who show up (I’ve identified who is most reliable with their attendance) we will play a new campaign (which is, as yet, unnamed) I’m working on just for them. It’s a D&D 4E Eberron campaign. If the table is full (which rarely happens due to these aforementioned attendance issues) and/or we have all party members with non-redundant classes, we will continue the Official DoctorStrange Roll game. If current trends continue, this means we’ll be playing D&D 4E 2 out of every 3 sessions.

While it is not my favorite iteration of the D&D ruleset, D&D 4E is VERY easy for me to prep and run and based on a rather informal internet survey I conducted there is a general feeling that it is one of the easier versions of D&D for a new player to learn.

So, shortly, a new tab will be appearing at the top of the site linking to my D&D 4E Eberron game. Game session updates will still appear in the blog feed, but campaign background information will be on that page.

Doctor Who – Adventures in Time and Space

A few weeks ago, when attendance was not up to par for neither the Doctor StrangeRoll D&D game nor our Star Wars game, we played a session of Doctor Who: Adventures in Time and Space. This time, I was a player, not the GM, so it was a good break for me. The game took place in the modern Who era. I didn’t catch if we were on Doctor 10 or 11, but since The Doctor was Sir Not Appearing In This Game, it didn’t matter. We rolled up characters before starting play (it only took 20-30 minutes or so for the entire group).

My character was Dr. Cornelius Constance, a scientician from 19th century Kansas who became a time traveler after a run-in with a 51st century Time Agent. He was quite a bit like Doc Brown from Back to the Future. Some how, he became a companion to Jenny, The Doctor’s Daughter (my wife’s character). We were joined by Delyn Godslayer and Mark or Sandra. Mark or Sandra had a bit of a split personality thing going on. Jenny possessed a time ship, which was our mode of transportation. Dr. Cornelius would have loved to have acquired a TARDIS, but no such luck. He did have a sonic screwdriver, though, as well as a squareness gun.

While tooling around helping people, we came across an old space station, one which had not been heard from for 50 years (I don’t remember if we were on a mission to find it or if we stumbled across it. The former, I think.). The power seemed to still be on, though there were no automated docking systems. We docked anyway and Dr. Cornelius exited the ship (wearing a space suit, mind you) and helped with the manual docking procedures. Because Dr. Cornelius is awesome, he also started an automated refueling cycle once the ship was docked.

The rest of the crew disembarked from Jenny’s time ship and we began to explore the space station. There was evidence of fighting and we kept getting conflicting readings on the number and location of life forms within the station. When we finally reached the central computer room, we came face-to-face with a Dalek. Delyn leapt upon in, intending to do hand-to-hand combat with it (he’s a little insane in Dr. Cornelius’s opinion). Fortunately, it was mere the shell of a long-dead Dalek. We then noticed a charred corpse on the ground behind the Dalek as well as the live wire that apparently caused both of their demise.

Dr. Cornelius looked around for the controls to the computer and immediately pressed the first button he found, because pressing buttong MAKES THINGS HAPPEN. What happened was that he got a shock from pushing the button. Now we knew what that button did. Science! Learning!

We continued exploring the station, still receiving intermittent signs of life. Our group of intrepid explorers found the station’s medical lab where we discovered that many of the station’s inhabitants had a type of transponder implanted into their heads. Naturally, Delyn decided that having one implanted into his head was the way to go. Mark/Sandra assisted with the operation. While there were side-effects, the operation was deemed a success and Delyn could now do more useful things like open the stations doors without Dr. Cornelius jimmying the mechanism with a sonic screwdriver.

Sadly, the notes get a little sparse from this point on, so the remaining summary is very brief compared to how the game went and I slacked off enough writing this update that I’ve forgotten a lot of the details.

We discovered that the station had only one actual survivor and shortly after finding him, the Daleks returned. Fortunately, we also found the armory and everyone armed themselves with laser rifles (except Dr. Cornelius). While most everyone fended off the Daleks, Dr. Cornelius went to the station’s power core to do something (I’m sure someone will speak up in the comments to clarify) important for our escape and we did manage to convince the not-quite-sane sole survivor that coming with us was the best option for his continued survival and we would definitely NOT give him over to the Daleks.

The game was fun. The system was easy to pick up and learn and was very fast-paced. I’d almost say it’s a rules-light system, which I’ve mentioned several times is very appealing to me. The Whoniverse is diverse enough that if you think of the bigger picture a bit, you can easily find ways of playing in that universe without involving the Doctor at all, as this game session showed.

Eigth Session Report – Pharaoh

We returned to the Desert of Desolation and I3: Pharaoh to find our intrepid band of heroes continuing to explore the temple outside the Tomb of Amun-Re. As they stood staring at the exit that led directly to the tomb, they noticed Kilos Battlebrand and Finias Jinx had gone missing. They decided the two most likely wandered off and resumed exploring the temple. (Their players were absent.) After exploring some cubicles that appeared to be sleeping quarters for the dervish with whom they’d already dealt, our heroes came across another priest in the throes of worship. He was prepared for the noisy, “infidel defilers” and cursed Nallon before falling to their blades. Fortunately, Bunny was prepared for such an eventuality and was able to remove the curse before it actually caused harm.

They looted the priest’s body and continued their explorations, finishing back where they started. Once they were sure no secret door was left undiscovered, they moved outside and walked the steps up the pyramid to the Tomb of Amun-Re. Two more dervishes were standing guard at the tomb’s entrance and demanded to know why the PCs were there. They did not accept the excuse that they were just sight-seeing and attacked. Our heroes made short work of the dervishes and stepped into the tomb. Inside, they found a series of secret doors hidden behind statues of Amun-Re that lead to rooms with more secret doors and so forth until they found what appeared to be the actual crypt itself. The sarcophagus they found within was already opened and the lid broken. They found writing on the wall, which, when translated, read:

Here lies the true tomb of Amun-Re
Know that ye have arrived too late
to plunder my ransom for Heaven’s Gate

After a small amount of wailing and gnashing of teeth, they realized that since the tomb had to be despoiled in order to break Amun-Re’s curse and the land was still under the curse, this was obviously not the correct tomb. They explored a bit more, finding two rooms which were essentially great shafts leading to some sort of underground water source. They wisely decided not to descend into the shafts and continued exploring, heading into two small corridors near the entrance they initially dismissed because of their small size (the corridors were barely wide enough for them to explore single-file). After the first corridor turned out to be a dead end, Bunny threw caution to the wind, threw her arms up and ran screaming towards the other side. To her surprise, the room was filled with dervishes, praying before a very tall statue of Amun-Re holding a large, lit brazier. Naturally, they heard her coming and all turned to stare at her when she arrived.

Since no one appeared aggressive, a conversation began and the PCs learned that the dervishes were waiting for their leader to return. He followed instructions in a book to this room and had not been heard from since. Wikki investigated the statue holding the burning brazier and found the fire gave off no smoke and emitted no heat. On a hunch, he walked into the flames. They flared up and he was gone. This had the effect of spooking the dervishes and they backed away. Bunny followed, screaming in agony as she disappeared, causing the dervishes to flee. Annastasia and Nallon followed Bunny and Wikki into the fire.*

*I might be misremembering the order, but you get the point.

Once everyone walked into the fire, part of my brain said “Cackle evilly and tell them they’re all DEAD.” I purposely did not reveal what happened after the first PC walked into the fire, so I could’ve gotten away with it, too, if it weren’t for my meddling conscience! Plus, it would’ve been a serious Dick-DM move to do that just because Gen Con made me want to run about a dozen non-D&D games (as it always does). At some point, I should finish up the Star Wars game so I can switch to something else for our off-night RPG.

We discussed and formalized the plan to NOT repeat adventures with each edition. Instead, if I started a series (such as this one, or the Saltmarsh series), I would run the next adventure in the series once we switched editions. U1: The Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh was aborted due to the PCs burning down the adventure locale, taking all the clues to lead them to the second part of that adventure with it, so I will repeat that one for AD&D, but other wise, I4: Oasis of the White Palm won’t get play time until we reach AD&D and U2: The Danger at Dunwater won’t be played until we hit Pathfinder. This will help minimize metagaming since some players will remember what they’re supposed to do (particularly in situations like we found in this session where the correct solution was to walk into the flames). It will also help stave off boredom.

The next DoctorStrangeroll game will take place on Friday, September 14th. I will likely continue I3: Pharaoh. As I indicated in an earlier post, the game closest to Halloween (Oct. 26 most likely) will be Call of Cthulhu. There will be much insanity.

Musings of High-Level Options

I’ve been thinking a lot about what adventure to run as the “High Level” adventure for the campaign. High level, as a tier, has fluctuated from edition to edition. In Basic D&D, characters could go as high as level 36 (and beyond if you take Immortals into account). AD&D had no theoretical upper limit, but game play didn’t seem to change much once you go into the teens. 3.X/Pathfinder, of course, got into high level play in the mid-teens and Epic level play was always spotty (and not officially supported in Pathfinder). 4E separates things out explicitly, making the divisions between low (Heroic), mid (Paragon), and high (Epic) obvious.

Couple that with my new approach which has me running only certain parts of a series per edition (i.e. U1: Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh started for Basic Low Level and got switched to X1: Isle of Dread due to PC derailment, U1 will be repeated for AD&D low level, U2 will come in Pathfinder low level, and U3 for 4E low level; I3: Pharaoh is Basic D&D mid-level, I4 AD&D mid-level, and so forth).

Of course, there will be some repetition since most series are 3 adventures and I have 4 editions to run (so far), or I might throw a 4th or 5th adventure into the mix.

High level is the real problem. There just aren’t that many adventures that I own for high-level play. Most cap out right at the low teens. The C & M series adventure written for basic D&D for characters in their 20s and 30s are reasonably inexpensive, but there isn’t really a series, per se. Plus, the domain-running/building aspects of high-level Basic D&D play are something I don’t think a majority of my players would enjoy (based on the amount of bitching I heard regarding the wilderness exploration portion of X1, i.e. the parts where they weren’t killing things and taking their stuff or even interacting with NPCs).a

The only way I could run the same adventure 4 times with little-to-no repetition would be to run S1: The Tomb of Horrors as the high-level adventure. In Basic D&D and AD&D, they would probably die very quickly. I could run it until there is a TPK, then make the switch to a new edition. By the time Pathfinder rolls around, most of the insta-kill traps aren’t insta-kill anymore due to the way the system works, but they still might die somewhere before the end. If they, at any point, solve the puzzles and make it to the end, I would have to run a different high-level adventure. Perhaps Q1: Queen of the Demonweb Pits?

Gen Con 2012

Another Gen Con is behind us. Conventions like Gen Con are a paradox: when you’re working the convention, 5 days (4 days of convention + set up) is too long, but at the same time, it’s too short to do everything you want to do and see everyone you want to see. Since I have duties as Submissions Coordinator of the ENnie Awards, I have too little time to game at Gen Con. I played exactly three games while I was there (four if you count a demo): Pathfinder, Bulldogs!, and Project Ninja Panda Taco.

Pathfinder: I ran a Ptolus/Pathfinder game for some friends Wednesday evening. The PCs were reformed monsters from the Brotherhood of Redemption. There was a budding romance between the minotaur gunslinger/rogue and the troll fighter; my wife was a good sport to go along with the silly banter. It was interesting that they chose to bypass the Bluesteel door by chopping THROUGH the adjacent wall with an adamantine greatsword.

Bulldogs! Sci-Fi That Kicks-Ass: My wife and my first FATE game. I already loved what I read about the game and really enjoyed the system. My wife thought it was awesome and wants to play FATE (particularly Bulldogs!) again. Yeah, I’m down with that.

Project Ninja Panda Taco: You may remember this from the Kickstarter. We played with the creator of the game, Jennifer Steen (of Jennisodes). It’s sort of a hybrid improv/RPG. It was a lot of fun; another game my wife judges as “Awesome.” Actually, I think she may have said “Totally Awesome.” My Mastermind, Otto von Schnitzelpusskrankengescheitmeir was horribly ineffective and by the end of the game, he completed 0 projects. His minion, Larry the Loitering Lisper, however advanced to Mastermind status by the end of the game. I look forward to playing it more when I get my copy from the Kickstarter.

I also demoed a game of Edition Wars with the good folks from Gamer Nation Studios. It’s a card game that reminds me a bit of the good parts of Chez Geek, but with simpler mechanics. It was a lot of fun. I bought a copy at the con, but now I wish I’d supported their Kickstarter when I had the chance.

I bought way too much stuff. The games I’m most excited to play are Deadlands: Reloaded and Call of Cthulhu (I’m a late bloomer). I also picked up the Beta of Star Wars: Edge of the Empire, the new Star Wars RPG by Fantasy Flight Games. Despite my misgivings about the custom dice, (at least the Beta has stickers you can apply to create the dice yourself) I’m finding myself liking what I’m reading about the mechanics. I hate required fiddly bits and custom dice in RPGs, probably because I have SO many dice already, not being able to use them for a game is a barrier to entry for me. Of course, there is a conversion chart for regular polyhedrals, but that’s a pain in the butt.

The production values are really good. I was thrilled to see actual ARTWORK in this book, rather than having it crammed full of movie stills. It’s already my favorite visual presentation of a Star Wars RPG since WEGs 2nd edition (not the Expanded & Revised; I think they overdid the “Look! We can print in color now!”). For some reason, having original art in a Star Wars RPG book inspires me more than movie stills. Probably because it gets me thinking about how I can use the world instead of how it was presented to me (there’s a lesson there for people making licensed games).

The class & talent tree system reminds me a bit of The Old Republic MMO, but only so far as they have classes & talent trees. They’re not really implemented the same way. It uses a dice pool mechanic. I have no idea how it compares to WFRP, but I’ve heard it similar. It actually looks pretty easy once you get used to the symbols on the dice (and a small cheat sheet will help with that).

Edge of the Empire offers a smattering of species: bothan, droid, gand, human, rodian, trandoshan, twi’lek, and wookiee. I would have preferred mon calamari to gand, though, but it’s still a nice mix. I guess I’ll have to run a few sessions of it and see how things work.

The ENnie Awards ceremony went very well. The venue was the Grand Hall at Union Station and featured cathedral ceilings and stained glass. As Monte Cook said, we “leveled up” (the first ENnie Awards ceremony was held in an internet chatroom). You can see the complete list of winners here. Carlos, the official ENnie Awards photographer put pictures of the ceremony up on his Flikr account.

I’m still working on the Doctor Who post. I thought I would finish it up after I set up the booth Wednesday night or before I got started on Thursday. We all see how that worked out. The next Doctor StrangeRoll game will take place on Friday, August 31st, wherein the PCs will begin exploring the tomb of Pharaoh Amun-Re.