#SepiaDieGMs

[sepiadice]

DiceJar Campaign 0.3: Holes, Doors, and Blood (2020/03/13)

Finally killed my first PC as a GM!

Yup… Wasn’t intentional but… well, dice made things interesting, so I have to work with it.

We also didn’t have our rogue, which is unfortunate as she’s an enjoyable member, and also there were a lot of traps and locks this time.

The content went through almost the remainder of what was prepared for the previous session. I’d like to get through the content a little faster so the group can move on to actual role-play opportunities, instead of dungeon crawling. It’s an unfortunate result of my experimental Game Mastering a Module, and I’ll likely try and stick to homebrew in the future.

Or, at least, look for modules with more emphasis on socializing.

I did a medium job preparing this session. I got complacent and let the session slip far to the back of my mind leading up. I found my sweet spot session 2, so I need to keep that standard.

Cast

Mogui (IndigoDie): Druid. Does what he’s told by his employer. Indigo has played this module before. Yot (LimeDie): Cleric. Looking to redeem himself for past failures. Lime will commit to bits. Bernard 'Bean' Dipp (NavyDie): Ranger. Trying his best despite being so young. Navy doodles when he’s bored. Delilah Dunford (VermilionDie): Rogue. Searching for an identity beyond her family. Vermilion could not make this session. Game Master (SepiaDie/me): The world (a dusty, dusty world). The walls probably have stories to tell. I’m desperately trying to keep ahead with drawing the map.

Session Three

We reopen in the loot room we ended in the last session. Navy is given his rewards and I expound on the uses of the various items they received.

Now given the opportunity to read his letter, Navy delays long enough to wonder if he’s chosen to make Bean illiterate, but eventually he takes to giving the description: his mother wrote it, opening with a joke, and giving random updates about life in town despite the letter needing to have been placed before the arrival of the party, but it’s an opportunity for the players to expound on their families, so maybe his mother is a little airheaded?

The letter canonizes a High School which has a football team and a glee club. Will anything come of it? Probably not. Did I say with a sigh ‘Guess that’s canon now…’? You bet I did! Always say yes! Improv!

The party headed back into the room with the pool, tested the other door to find it locked, and moved towards the wailing.

The chamber to the East of the entrance contained several walls crisscrossing. A door stood locked to the south. The puzzle of this room is walking around various hidden pit traps while finding three switches that must be held down at the same time to unlock the exit. I originally ruled the switches take a few minutes to reset so the party can run to get to the door, but then I remembered Delilah is technically still there, so I reverted it to operate as written.

Bean and Yot both took turns falling in holes as Mogui moved around cautiously and managed to jump clear of the one pit he did accidentally trigger.

The three maneuvered around the chamber until they found the necessary switches, activated them, and Delilah held open the door so they could get through.

Walking through the next hallway, they finally reached the door for the room from whence the wailing was emitting.

They all decide to ignore it.

Which means they’ve skipped some plot exposition. Oh well, keep rolling and adapt.

Instead, they go down a fork and into an empty room, which formerly held a giant beetle, but I cut that combat as being wholly unnecessary. Instead, our party continues through into the next chamber, which has a fight I did not cut, as I thought it would have narrative value.

A fire pit smolders in the center of the room, a charred corpse within. Upon the arrival of our party, a dark apparition arises and squares up to fight our heroes.

Bean had acquired an Oil of Magic Weapon, granting his bow Plus-One Status, and rendering it a magic attack, so he’s able to harm the shadow.

Yot, meanwhile, uses Holy Flame. Fun fact about our apparition: it was born because a pyrophobic man burned alive in a structure already pretty rife with necromantic energies. That terror and agony was all it took to create the shadow.

So the enemy is real mad at being set on fire, sending out psionic screams for flavor.

Mogui just watches the fight.

After a few rounds of Magic Bow and holy flames, the Shadow perishes. Victory music for everybody!

The party leaves the room, continues to ignore the terrified wails, and enters the last available door.

Within is a round, domed room, with a wooden pillar, standing on an outcrop over a pit at the center of the room, that fires blunted arrows. This is felt to be rather unpleasant, and the party discusses how to deal with it.

Eventually, they check out the door, and find a mechanism built into it.[1] The party attempts to break the mechanism.

Bean then enters, and is pelted by blunt arrows. He walks around and tries to open a southern exit, finding it to be locked, so Bean attempts to approach the trap. Unfortunately, he takes enough nonlethal damage to get knocked out. Whoops.

After waiting for the mechanical whirring to stop, the other two call after Bean, receiving no response. So they cautiously enter.

The trap is now docile. And the southern door is unlocked.

So, what happened here, by the text of the module, is that the trap keeps running for ten rounds, at which time it’ll be exhausted of arrows, and the south exit will automatically unlock. The hope was the party would take the tower shields from the wood golem of last session to block the arrows.

Because of how they broke the activating mechanism (as they snapped off the metal arm in the door hinge that turned the machine off and on), I decided that now once it turned on, it couldn’t turn off. So after Bean was knocked out, the trap kept running until it ran out of rounds.

Don’t ask how the trap’s supposed to keep pelting adventurers inside the chamber after the door closes. Magic I guess.

Stop asking how traps work.

Mogui investigated the south exit while Yot checked on Bean. The door was, of course, unlocked, to the annoyance of Navy, and Yot was taking his sweet time healing Bean, but soon the party was on their feet again and ready for whatever came next.

The final room of the floor widened as it went, the ceiling supported by four columns. Stairs to the south lead to the… basement? Second basement? The crypt’s already underground, so what terminology applies here, I’m not…

Also, there’s two statues in recesses of the south wall. The Module text doesn’t call any attention to them, but they’re probably Kassen.

Our heroes enter this room, get to approximately the middle of the room, and four skeletons, with talon-like clawed fingers and blood dripping from their bones, step out from behind the columns, and menace the heroes.

Combat begins.

As does a series of horrible rolls from both parties. Just a lot of do-nothing turns. Yot tries to bash the skeletons and misses, Bean fires arrows and the closest he got sent the arrow through the ribcage of one skeleton. The skeletons weren’t faring much better, three of them crit fumbling at some point, which I interpreted them as falling prone for a turn.

The rolls were so bad I gently reminded my party that I set up a dice-roll bot in the Discord channel, if they wanted to put Roll20’s die-roller into dice prison. They didn’t go for it.

Back and forth the combat went, the skeletons getting a couple lucky hits on Bean. Eventually, and tragically, those lucky hits added up and Bean hit zero. Navy started making Death Saves, a realm where the exhaustingly low rolls followed and brought him to his death.

NavyDie then spent the rest of the combat doodling an increasingly elaborate death scene, with grave stone, candles, what was either a pentagram or an alchemy circle,[2] and death himself. Whatever self-amusement was needed.

As a narrative-first GM, Player Characters dying in combat is not something I enjoy. I am now in an awkward position of needing to figure out how to proceed and keep Navy involved. If he still wishes to play, of course. A couple options immediately spring to mind: bringing in a new character will be narratively awkward at this point, as we need to justify why the ignorant town would send back up, or why a kid is running so late; there’s an available NPC I could give Navy, but he’d be an odd (but doable) add; or, and this is an idea I like most, I can bring Bean back for a price…[3]

But I need to talk it through with NavyDie first.

Back to those still alive.

Mogui maneuvers to keep a safe distance, eventually coaxing one of the four skeletons back to the previous room, running a circle and returning to the main combat room, closing the door behind him. I rolled a die to determine the nature of the skeletons, and concluded they’re running on animalistic instinct, and thus can’t operate a door.

Also, this cuts down on enemies to delay the fight and rewards IndigoDie for clever problem solving.

Yot, growing tired of not hitting with his Mace, starts using Holy Flame again, forcing the Skeletons to use the horrible dice rolls to avoid damage instead of Yot using the same rolls to cause damage. Progress starts to get made.

Mogui turns into a tiger and starts running about and attempting to hit the skeletons, but still no luck.

There’s also some talk about how the skeletons aren’t taking attacks of opportunity, which had a very elegant explanation: I totally forgot about that mechanic, and I also just plain hate attacks of opportunity. They feel cheap and punish players for not carefully considering every minutiae of their actions.[4]

Eventually, the skeletons are finally either redead, or trapped in another room.

With one dead, the remaining three party members stare towards the stairs to the next floor. As the only escape is to fight the skeleton in the previous room, they mostly consider what difficulty they’re prepared to face.

Of the three sessions played thus far, this one felt of middle quality. I forgot to read my opening crawl text, and I waited until the last minute to write notes for the remainder of the floor (after copying over the leftovers from session two). Neither the combat with the Shadow (where I forgot to implement the smoke in the eyes mechanic the module wanted me to) or the Bloody Skeletons (with horrible dice rolls)[5] felt particularly fun or worthwhile. I’ll probably look to cut more superfluous fights going forward.

I’m also looking forward to moving out of the dungeon. I am learning a lot, as was my goal with running this module, but I’m missing being able to Role-Play as GM.[6] I’m certainly learning to answer questions the text didn’t bother to address, and also how annoying module formatting can be with where it explains things.

When I find time, I should sit down and design a dungeon of my own. That would also be a good learning experience, and also let me feel more at ease with making world-based rulings on the fly and implement elements I like and minimize those I don’t.

There’s just so much combat and map-based traps written in this thing. Makes it too difficult to abstract out the traps and rely on theater of the mind.

Most important take away: Attacks of Opportunity are dumb, and I hereby houserule them away.

I’ve already set things in motion for fun plot developments after this session’s events and feedback received, and hopefully the next write-up will come in about two weeks.

Until next time, may your dice make things interesting.[8]

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[1] The party is really interested in the actual mechanics of these traps, which the module doesn’t explain, forcing their poor GM to try and reverse engineer it, and maybe I need to start shrugging and saying ‘I dunno, magic I guess.’ [2] Which is a good way to lose a sibling. [3] Just sent Navy a text asking if he’d like a level of Warlock. This could be fun. [4] Also, my experience with another player exploiting the mechanic to attempt to kill me. [5] Though based on his recap, IndigoDie enjoyed the combat for the bad rolls? Interesting guy. It felt like a bad joke that kept repeating to me, and I failed to improvise an Out for those involved. [6] Especially since Indigo sidestepped the opportunity I did have![7] [7] Whatever. Gives me time to give the man a less stupid name. [8] Despite working it into the opening, this sign off still doesn’t sit right. Feels too long… Magazines have little icons to mark the end. Maybe I should do the same?

[sepiadice]

DiceJar 0 END: what could have been...

Being completed ghosted for a scheduled session once again, I suppose I should finally face the facts and call the campaign. Which is, of course, very disappointing.

-

Let’s review the experiments I attempted in this campaign.

Experiment 1: Using a published module/adventure.[1]

I thought I might gain some valuable insight by analyzing a ‘professional’ product. By using an adventure I’d previously played myself, I’d hoped my experiences would smooth out my figuring out how to run it. Eventually, I learned the value of bullet pointed action plans, because the formatting of Crypt of the Everflame was not good for skimming, as vital information was hidden in the middle of information texts so I’d miss it during the game if I didn’t make sure to call, say, dice roll mechanics for going down a slippery hillside. It also meant I could look ahead and edit out rooms and mechanics that didn’t move the story of dungeon.

So, this experiment was technically a success, even if the lesson I took away was ‘modules don’t work well with my improv style, but provides inspiration sometimes.’ More on that later.

Experiment 2: Get a group to meet regularly.

So I’ve been wanting to do an actual play show since… well, before Critical Role and The Adventure Zone made it cool. For that, I need players willing to collaborate and also respect call time. As you can easily conclude from the time stamps, I couldn’t manage that, even when a freaking pandemic swept in and made being home for online sessions theoretically easier![2] Admittedly, my work schedule is not exactly ideal, as my Saturdays are permanently called for, and my Sundays are a wild ride of inconsistency, while my peers are moving to more conventional work life.

So, the experiment failed, and to a degree that I doubt a career or just schedule change would help. I did learn that a biweekly schedule works well for me, since I can spend the off week on planning, and still have time for my pre- and post-performance need to separate thoroughly and enter a neutral state.[3]

Experiment 3: Finish a dang narrative arc.

Ha ha. This also failed! Couldn’t get to the end of the dungeon. Welp.

Other lessons learned

I don’t online play well! Just get distracted by other internet tabs. It’s not as bad when I GM, since the stress of running the game keeps me more focused, but both the Curse of Strahd campaign I quietly quit[4] and IndigoDie’s Troika session[5] showed that I’m a garbage player online. Possibly an adoption of webcams and faces would assist, but I can’t ask for that.

People still hard! Still haven’t figured out how to get anyone invested. Can’t really be upset at the silent cancellations because I’m technically doing that with Curse of Strahd, and thus would be a hypocrite.

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What was planned!

It’s only fair I give some amount of closure.

Session three ended with Bean dying, and there wasn’t a narratively consistent way to introduce a new party member…

Well, I guess if NavyDie consented to playing a bandit, or rewriting the scared dungeon prepper the party skipped…

What I decided was thus:

Bean's eyes open. The sharp pain of the punctures and tears, and the slow ache of liquid passing through those openings are gone, as is much of the world's color. The torches and other sources of light shine blue.

His companions are gathered around him, their mouths moving as if speaking, but Bean hears nothing.

For some reason, Bean feels at peace with this. This is correct.

Footsteps echo from the stairs, growing louder. A figure emerges from the floor below. When it enters the light, at first it is blurry, like many images projected upon the same space. Within the time that Bean's now still heart would have beat, the many silhouettes fade, leaving one form: Bean's father, though not the frail man Bean saw before he left Kassen, nor how bean's father looked before he was ravaged by illness, but the impossibly tall, strong, noble figure that Bean remembers his father being.

Though this man's smile has none of the warmth, and his eyes glow with an eldritch light.

"Seems you've come to some misfortune, Bernard Dipp," says this Mr. Dipp-who-is-not-Bean's-father. "Would you like some help with that?"

This mysterious fiend would become Bean’s patron for a level of Warlock, and ride around his head for the foreseeable future, threatening death if Bean didn’t do as ordered. You know, an excuse for Bean to continue adventuring instead of taking over the family farm.

As for where this fiend came from… well, I easily adapted that into the dungeon’s lore.

Kassen, whose visage is all over the crypt, is not the only one entombed within. There are also those who perished alongside him during his final battle, as well as those who perished facing him in the final battle. This includes Asar, who once adventured with Kassen until the two became bitter enemies or whatever, ending when Asar lead the charge against Kassen.

Anyways, an amount of time ago, bandits stumbled upon Kassen’s Crypt and started looting, and disturbed the coffins, looting a pair of medallions.

Here’s my adjustment: the medallions are now artifacts sealing away a fiend, and reuniting them freed him, whose presence radiated enough necromantic energies and roused Asar, who was deeply offended to be interred in a shrine to his enemy. Stupid, egotistical Kassen. Let’s channel this necromantic magic laying away and get some skeletal minions and kill those who bother me.

Which wasn’t great for the bandits, then later the advance party from Kassen, sent to make the trial safe for the youths. Blood was spilled. It wasn’t great.

Then our heroes arrived, and (hypothetically) resolved matters. Kassen’s ghost would then appear, thank the party, probably convey embarrassment at how the place is decorated, and grant boons to the party[6] before sending them on their way with a lit lantern.

Back in town, a grand celebration would turn somber as word of what happened in the tomb occurred, by it would be mixed and a feast would still be held.

The module ends with someone inviting the party to join the Pathfinder Society, but I’d cut that.

As for the fiend? Well, he’s transferred his tether from the amulets to Bean, so now he can ride the boy to wherever.

Unfortunately, I didn’t have anything particularly exciting planned for the others, as Bean was the only one who I got the opportunity to saddle with a commitment.

IndigoDie quit anyways.

Delilah I could motivate with eagerness to be free of her parents.

Yot… is a mercenary, so maybe Delilah could’ve paid him.

I could’ve figured something out if the players insisted on continuing with their characters. That would’ve been a discussion for after the module was completed.[7]

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Moving forward!

So DiceJar waits evermore. I don’t want to admit that it’s an implausible goal, but I’m not in a great headspace about it. I still crave role-playing, but I think I’ll wait for someone to start their own campaign, or I guess see if I get a turn-over of my friend group.

NavyDie mentioned wanting to try a Powered by the Apocalypse system, and it’s only fair I actually try the mechanics before completely writing the rule set off.[8]

The next experiments I want to run when I return to behind the GM screen relates to system: Savage Worlds (once the most recent edition is back in print) as I search for a generic system that fits my needs, and Ryuutama, because Ryuutama just looks fun.

But… I don’t know what to do from here.

Until next time, may your dice (and whatever dice governs me) make things interesting.

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[1] The correct terminology isa matter of pointless debate. [2] Charisma and Constitution are obviously my dumb stats. [3] Not sure my meaning is conveyed correctly. I’ll probably nail it down in a future write-up. [4] The group was too large, and after IndigoDie quit there were insufficient participants I knew and was comfortable performing with. [5] Which didn’t get a write-up because I didn’t have anything of substance to say. [6] Which, in the original Pathfinder, was something the each player can evoke for a temporary stat bonus, but in 5e I was going to change to a free Inspiration recharge. [7] Though I would not send them to Last Wall. It would’ve been time for me to spin off to my own stuff, and Last Wall… is not something that needs to be repeated. [8] I’ve never heard an Actual Play where Powered by the Apocalypse wasn’t either a hindrance or irrelevant.

[sepiadice]

DiceJar Campaign 0.2: ‘It sticks its nonexistent tongue out at you.’ (2020/01/31)

Shorter session this week, and also down a NavyDie due to work and him being a boring adult.

The section of the module I had prepared has four combat encounters, only one I could reasonably cut. I was trying to think of some way to abstract one down, since even two combats is a stretch.

Fortunately, we only got through half of the material I planned, so the third can be saved next time, with only one other fight left on the current floor (and I might be able to cut that one).

I also felt a lot less stressed this time. Players taking an active interest in when the session was happening, actually getting a second session, and having notes prepared put me in a better mindset. So that's a good thing to know about myself!

Probably need to come up with a team name. Probably should ask the players to devise one.

Cast

Mogui (IndigoDie): Druid. Sponsored by Lord Grey to go on this rite of passage. Indigo is an old pal from High School. Yot (LimeDie): Cleric. Mercenary that finds himself in Kassen often. Lime is a newer pal from an Improv Club. Delilah Dunford (VermilionDie): Rogue. Daughter of nobles, volunteered for this mission by her butler. Vermilion is someone I knew during high school, but the age of our pal-ness is vaguely defined. Bernard 'Bean' Dipp (NavyDie): Ranger(?). Young man forced to grow up quickly in light of his father's affliction. Navy is an Improv pal, and was also absent this session. Game Master (SepiaDie/me): Environment (mostly skeletons). Dungeon is a crypt where something spooky might be happening. Sepia is me, and thus probably my greatest enemy.

Session Two

I opened with two quick prose bits that Lime described as ‘Loading Screen’ text. Which is accurate, I suppose. Both were from travel guides, one formal, the other what I intend to be my Hitchhiker’s guide. It’s a fun narrative device I picked up from Dice Friends[1]: in-setting exposition and world building.

The party starts where they left off: standing outside the crypt, looking at some dead horses.

Delilah investigates the saddlebags, identifying the maker mark of the town leather worker, Mr. Shepherd, a pleasant if quiet elf man.[2] The bags contain blunt arrows, travel rations, and two pillows. Curious.

The party enters the dungeon proper, and I have to actually use the Roll20 application for more than doodling[3] and tracking relative locations.

In the first room is two fresh corpses, two heavily broken skeletons, and six less-broken skeletons.

The fresh bodies are two friends of Kassen’s mayor. What a tragedy. Why are they here, though?

Six skeletons rise up to fight the interlopers. Combat begins!

I think the fight went well. Three players kept a fair clip as compared to, say, seven to eight. Six skeletons focused on just attacking whoever is closest or draws their aggression. The skeletons have low health, so they were dispatched quickly. As a GM, the fight didn't feel like it dragged.

Skeletons now rendered dead, again, our heroes are now able to take a breath and take in the scene. A mural of Kassen driving off a horde of enemies decorates the opposite wall,[4] a reasonable amount of dust coats the various surfaces, and a wailing echoes through the hallowed halls.

I failed to indicate the direction the wailing was coming from (the southeast exit), so the party elected to do the logical thing and go through the northwest door.

This room held a pool of water, fed by a fountain depicting a woman crying over a dying Kassen. Kassen’s head had worn off, however, a detail to concern the players with its possible meaning.

A voice Booms ‘Magic is the Key’.

At the bottom of the forty foot deep pool lays hundreds of keys. A tough, complicated puzzle to…

Yot cast light on a pebble, dove in, and cast Detect Magic.[5] One of the keys is radiating magic. The module didn’t say what type of magic it was, so I just shrugged at clarifying questions and admitted it didn’t really matter.[6]

The key unlocks one of the doors in the room, which leads to a hall flanked on either side by statues of Kassen holding swords. The utter dedication to this one guy is starting to get a little silly. Surely there were other members of his mercenary band that… might deserve…

Anyways, ignoring the fun change to the narrative I could make,[7] the party progresses and accidentally steps on a pressure plate, which drops the swords onto… mostly just Delilah, who was leading the way, the other two standing in the gaps between the statues.[8] Luckily, the trap has to be manually reset, so they can just use acrobatics checks to pass now that the swords are down.

Next room: multilevel chamber, with a giant statue standing before them, holding two shields, one reading ‘Home’ and the other ‘Family’.

And yes, the statue is of Kassen. So much Kassen decoration. So many tax dollars wasted on glorifying a founder in a location most people would never visit, with the Mayor being the only one confirmed to visit more than once in his life. They could’ve used the upkeep costs on fixing potholes, or making a park, or expanding Kassen.

The nice thing about being a Game Master is you can address such fridge logic.

Mogui descends the stairs to the lower level first, activating a wood golem! It steps off a pressure plate, which turns the stairs into a slope.

Initiative is rolled, and the wooden golem crits on Mogui, knocking him into death save territory. Whoops.

Yot follows him down, slipping on the slope and landing prone. Delilah prepares a rope down before shooting the enemy with her bow. Critical failure. She throws herself off balance and slides down to the lower level.[9]

Yot attempts to battle the wood golem, ignoring his companion rolling dice to not die right next to him. Meanwhile, Delilah climbs onto the wood golem in a sneak attack. While up there, she spots an odd keyhole on the back of its neck.

Luckily, she just happened to have a magic key. Which she uses to turn off the boss fight, causing it to move back to its podium and restore the stairs to a usable state.

Mogui is also healed to standing.

Were it not for the golem scoring two (2!) critical hits on my players, I’d say it was a pretty good fight design. The room had levels, lending interesting positioning options, the puzzle of the staircase-to-ramp mechanism, and despite the golem having high hit points for the player’s level, it also had a discoverable ‘off switch’ to give more of a puzzler solution. Fights are better when designed as puzzles instead of a series of dice rolls.

Puzzle design can be hard, though. However, combat might also be a case of a little work going a long way to just make the mechanical showcase more interesting.

This session held one straight fight, a puzzle, then a puzzle-fight. It felt like a good session composition, though it would have been nice to have some role-playing.

Oh wait. I’m in charge here.

The party takes a moment to take a breath. They decide they need a break. Their GM sits, knowing the door they’re standing right next to goes to the prize room. They just need to… go in…

Instead, the party backtracks to the fountain-and-keys room for a short rest.

Maybe I’m not as in charge here as I’d hoped.

As players start asking for an end of the session, I play the ‘We’re so close to a big moment’ card, and gently tell them to go through that door.

Now, the module as written has the party enter the room to find a masterwork weapon[10] or other item, and a potion for each party member, and a note saying how proud their families are. A gift from the community for their new adults. Nice, but lacks a certain punch.

So, I give them their potions and non-masterwork items. Because usable loot is good to have. But you know what’s rarely utilized? Trinkets! Things with no mechanical value at all!

So Mogui, whose player I workshopped with for this specific moment,[11] found a Family Tree prepared for him by his employer, Lord Grey. I also took the note of pride and turned it into a letter from Lord Grey. Then I made Indigo tell me what the letter says.[12] Mogui was sent to work for Lord Grey in exchange for his family receiving a noble title, and this family tree was the needed evidence for his family to claim their title. The letter essentially thanked him for his service and Lord Grey’s pride in having him.

Next was Yot. He didn’t have family in town, so how do I work him into this? Well, honorary adoption, of course. The widows and mothers of Kassen have knitted him winter clothes like a hat, socks, and gloves.[13] The starter I gave for his letter was small notes from the community thanking him for his help. When I turned Lime loose, he wanted to add indictments from loved ones he let die in the field. And, as important as it is for a GM not to invalidate player choices, it’s important for the GM and player to workshop. Because such things wouldn’t have reasonably gotten on that table, instead I suggested that they were forgivenesses for those deaths, which Yot nevertheless took hard.

The final present party member, Delilah, received two gold coins from her parents and a bag of her favorite sweets from her butler. I just dictated the parent’s letter as them just giving her her allowance, not fully understanding what their daughter volunteered for. Her butler’s letter, however, I let Vermilion handle. She turned it into an apology for fibbing about how involved her parents were in allowing her to join this rite of passage mission, but he is proud of her, and hopes she enjoys the candy.

For Bean, who was following behind but was likely too scared to be of any help this session,[15] there was a hand carved figurine of a dog, made by his father, as well as a letter from the same. I’ll have Navy get his fair moment to do his letter.[16]

Thus ends the session.

I felt more confident leading this session, and the actual contents felt meatier than just travelling to the crypt. I’ve started adding my own material, and no one’s told me they’re unsatisfied,[17] so let’s call it a successful session!

Actually combatting my nature and making a point-by-point break down on what happens in each room and how it works went a long way to keeping me confident and cool. I don’t need to impress anyone. And I put in good work.

I was especially proud of the trinkets. I feel like the players engaged with them, it provided a chance to trick the players into exposition, and it was a role-playing moment. Every session is better when you write open ended chances to role-play.

The actual walking through the dungeon and traps still needs work, though. Certain traps activate when a player steps on a certain space, and I’m still struggling with how to perform trapfinding checks without making everyone cautious. Making players check every space with a check would get tedious, doing a check behind my screen on behalf of a player feels blasphemous as players should roll their own dice, and just having them doing it once they enter the room just feels narratively disconnected. I’ll need to think on that hall with swords and statues.

Also figure out what happened to fountain Kassen’s head.

And on why there’s just… so much Kassen around the place.

Anyways, I had fun with it. The session got a puzzle and a half, a combat and a half, skill checks, and roleplaying! Getting better as a GM! I feel it!

Now to achieve a session good enough it fills my players to yearn to talk to me about it outside of the session! The after session decompression and discussion was always my favorite times during the high school games.

I have a patreon and ko-fi if you wish to support me. Financial support will set me on my path to an actual play show and making a living writing and creating.

Until next time, may your dice make things interesting.[19]

-

[1]Specifically Kathleen DeVere’s Bylaws and Order and Cameron Lauder’s After the Flood campaigns. I look forward to having a go-to newspaper to reference like Kathleen’s. [2] I don't recall if I ever gave Trix's father a first name, but this is he. Trix is in Kassen somewhere. [3] Advice: maintain a separate page to play around with. Wards away graffiti on the actual map, and gives you a landing page to transition into the game time mindspace. [4] Presumably in a similar manner to Martin the Warrior's tapestry. [5] Which he probably shouldn’t be able to do while holding his breath, but also making him get out, cast the spell, then dive back in is nitpicking. [6] Yot can worry about getting cancer from diving into a reactor cooler later. [7] Unless, in the incredibly likely event I just forget, I don’t implement this. [8] Should’ve alternated the placement of statues so every square has one. So everyone has an equal chance at pain. [9] Is it possible that the party is just so bad with declines that I can retroactively justify messing up on the hill during session one? Maybe. Maybe. [10] Non-existent in Fifth Edition. [11] I couldn’t come up with an obvious prize, so I just asked. Benefit of experience playing with the guy and trust that he won’t cheat. [12] I would’ve made Navy go first were he there, since Navy has both my trust and improv experience to set a good example. [13] Ms. Shepherd didn’t finish her scarf in time, since it took a bit to source the wool from her family’s flock.[14] [14] I really need to play Trix again… [15] Navy can get final say on justification. [16] The ideal sequence would’ve been experienced improv person who’s trinket I’m confident in, then the player who I had dictate his trinket, then the improv player with the shakier trinket, then the player who I’m new to playing with. Turns out that last one knocked it out of the park, which is affirming. [17] Outside one player’s continuing dislike of D&D. I’ll probably do GURPS for the next one. Unless I need to punish everyone. In which case, Maid RPG.[18] [18] Actually, on a serious note, if you can look past the… tone and anime-ness of everything else, Maid RPG has a mechanic that would be a great tool to understand the shut-downs of Autustic Students. If there was literally any way I could pitch that to my higher-ups at work. [19] Confession: still not completely sold on this sign-off, but Kataal kataal isn’t for this context.

[sepiadice]

DiceJar Campaign 0.1: A Slippery Slope (2020/01/03)

So I return to the mighty throne of the GM Screen! To pull the strings, interpret the weavings of fate, mold the world to my whims and desires!

However, I’m going from a module, namely Crypt of the Everflame, made famous by Trix’s adventures. So I’m treading old ground, though with fewer players, and only one returning from that adventure. The better part of a decade has passed since I played it, so plenty of details should’ve left the veterans.

The reason I’m playing out of the module is as a sort of learning experience: Viewing box text and published adventure design so that it may help develop my original adventures. As for why I chose this one: I really like the opening premise. New young adventures thrown together deliberately for their origin story. Often players get focused on making an exciting backstory that they forget to make what happens at the table be the most interesting part of their life. I think it’s charming.

It’s an element/theme I want to incorporate in future campaigns.

Anyways, how will the tomb dive go without Team Pesto?

Cast

Mogui (IndigoDie): A Hedge Mage for a Lord Grey. Essentially a living lawn ornament. He helps take care of the Lord’s menagerie. Sole repeat player of the Module.

Bernard ‘Bean’ Dipp (NavyDie): Still just a child, but his father is (supposedly) suffering polio, so young Bean needs to become the man of the house. GM of the campaign I just finished. Revenge time?

Yot (LimeDie): A traveling mercenary slash adventurer nevertheless being pulled into things because some players struggle with direction. Player is a vetran of an Improv club Navy and I were also members of.

Delilah Dunford (VermilionDie): The unruly daughter of the local snobby nobles. Roguish interests and talents. Player is also from my high school days, but not the High School game group.

Game Master (SepiaDie/Me): Everyone and thing else. Nervous wreck caught in his own head. Attended a High School once and participated in a college Improv Club.

Session One

I failed to change any proper nouns like I wanted, but I also avoided needing to say anyone’s names, so there’s still time.

There’s an immense backstory I summarized, because it was too long for me to read out and I can’t trust players to read.[1] Kassen is a town that evolved out of a hold built by a guy named Kassen, a soldier turned adventurer. One day, he went to fight an evil band of… bad people. Kassen succeeded, but succumbed to injuries taken. He was entombed in a crypt, where an eternal flame was lit. Every year, the mayor rides out to bring back a lantern lit by the flame to bless the town to survive the winter. Every couple of years, town youths are sent instead as a rite of passage.

This is one of the rite of passage years.

The mayor first meets with Mogui, a lonely mage working for one of the town’s two noble families. The mayor awkwardly stumbles through his invitation, which Mogui gladly accepts.

Next, the Mayor finds Bean waiting in the market square. The mayor, again, stumbles through his invitation, which Bean seems rather confused by the semantics of, needing to be specifically told not to just wait in the town center for two days but to come back on the actual day of departure.

Yot is found in a tavern, and attempts to talk a big game as the Mayor asks him to join the adventuring party. I still need to force a firmer connection between Yot and the town of Kassen, as my original plan of Yot belonging to what once was Kassen’s band of mercenaries was sunk before I could work it in.

Delilah pops up from behind the Mayor as he’s on his way to her family’s manor, and she eagerly joins the quest.[2]

Thus is our party arranged!

Two days later, at the predetermined time, they walk into the market square and I gently prompt them to give physical descriptions of their characters. Delilah is described as having slightly asymmetrical dark hair, while the rest focused more on height and relative ages.[4]

Mogui arrives with some sort of bipedal creature. Indigo didn’t actually know what he intended the creature to be, so I’m going to assume it’s a chocobo until gently corrected.[5] Everyone promptly forgot about it, even though it supposedly was following them.

The four mingle for a bit as I lost focus trying to recenter myself and review the next step. I tend to let my players just fill time until they get bored of their scene. I probably should work on keeping a good pace with the plot, but I also don’t want to step on their fun. It’s a difficult balance, especially if there’s no NPC handy to gently snark at them to move forward.

The bells of the Church of Polyhymnia[6] ring in the noontime.

The townspeople, dressed in blacks and other dark clothing, start to form a crowd around our adventurers. The mayor emerges with an old pony pulling a cart of supplies. He distributes backpacks to the adventurers, gives a prepared speech,[8] and sends our young heroes on their way.

Mixed into their supplies is a fourth of a map that, at an actual table, is supposed to be a real piece of paper torn and distributed to the players. Since we’re not in the same room and split between two states, I instead alluded to the paper in their bag for them to ask about, while also prepared to gently drop the detail if the players don’t engage. Pivot and roll!

Initially the torn map pieces are overlooked, and the party walks south, into the Fangwoods, following a trail that starts well-worn, but progressively fades.

A few hours into their hike, they come upon a fallen tree. Three orcs emerge from behind it, and initiative is rolled.

I overlooked a mechanic I was supposed to employ, a problem I had throughout the session. The module imbedded vital instructions mid-paragraph in the description, which means I overlooked having the players roll to disbelieve when they land hits or are hit. I did read the module in advance, though, but it’s easy to forget the details, especially details hidden away like that.

I’m a terrible note taker. In school, if I was taking notes, then I wasn’t paying attention to the lesson because I was focused on writing. This also made me a terrible stage manager. Half the reason behind these write-ups is to get the information down and in circulation in my memory because I’m not able to mid-session.

What I should be doing is reading (or writing) the module, and making a bullet point list of the bare mechanics. I sometimes do similar when trying to learn new systems.[9]

Delilah climbs into a tree to shoot arrows at one of the three Orcs, the other three taking the ground battle.

The orcs are quickly defeated, their corpses fading away. What a curious event that I’m sure has no explanation to be uncovered in the future. An utter curiosity.

At this point, the party finally pauses to ask if they know where they’re going.

Ah, time for pay off.

At this point, I describe how they’d been following a shrinking trail, but soon they won’t have it to rely on.

I’m asked to post the list of supplies to the text chat for them to pour over. A careful edit of the description of the map is needed, and I do so.

The party discusses the supplies shortly, and someone looks at their part of the map. I tell them it appears to be a fourth of a map.

NavyDie shrewdly asks if they’re all the same fourth of a map. He likely learned from the time I gave my players descriptions of dreams then later threw some wood blocks at them not to take paper for granted.[10]

I confirm that they each have a different fourth of the same map. So they jigsaw puzzle it, and Mending is cast. Now they have a single map, and a burned spell slot![12]

They follow their map for the remainder of the day. The sun began to set, and the party needed to make camp.

When the opportunity arises, players will want to roll dice, because rolling dice feels good,. So everyone rolled for the survival check meant for one.

Bean, our ranger, was the only one who failed. I punished him by having him punch a hole in his tent. Everyone goes to bed, though Yot elects to take watch for a few hours, with no intention of waking anyone to take a shift after him. He chose enough time, and made the proper check, to spot a wolf investigating the border of the campsite before slinking off.

Yot decides to increase the length of his watch a little longer. So he was still awake when the wolf returned with three friends.

New combat! Yot shouts to rouse his allies, succeeding in waking Bean and Mogui, who come out of their tents to assist. No one thinks to go wake up Delilah, so she gets to sit out of this combat.

A few rounds occur, with the lead wolf eventually knocking Yot down and mauling him a tad. Mogui uses magic to scare off the other two, but lead wolf stays intent on his objective:[13] food.

The wolf makes his way into the camp, takes a mouthful of food, and skedaddles. I declare the end of combat. Bean buries the remainder of the food,[14] and everyone goes back to sleep.

With the morning arrival, and the completion of a long rest, the journey to Kassen’s Crypt continues.

The map leads them to the shore of a large lake on a misty morning, the grey skies and fog obscuring the horizon. A bandit lays dead on the beach. Our protagonists investigate the body, and find signs of an attack by a massive serpent. The body also has a sword and a wallet of gold on him, but they are left as the body is entombed into a shallow, sandy grave.

Travel continues, and they crest a small hill overlooking a serpentine valley, within which rests Kassen’s Tomb.

This then proceeds into my second big mistake: I overlooked the acrobatics check hidden with the descriptions and had my players roll directly on the failure table. Again, the table carefully set apart drew my eye. I’m learning! Poorly!

Still, someone ran into three different trees on the way down, so at least it was amusing, if unnecessarily punishing. I’ll quietly retcon away any damage taken in apology at start of next session.

Down the overly slippery hill, a small stable’s worth of dead mounts await: two horses and three ponies, the horses long dead, the ponies a little more recent. None the same day our party arrived, however.

A description of a fancy rune in the doorway’s keystone is given, and the session ends, exploration of the dungeon saved for the next session a fortnight later.

As usual, the session was characterized with me being stressed over keeping it running and attempting to follow the script of the module. The few times I’ve managed successive sessions has hinted that I’m able to settle in as things go on and the players figure out the table dynamic. I’m mostly confident I’ll figure it out.

While I am learning the value of boxtexts,[15] modules still invoke a sense of containment on me. A fear that if I, as a GM, stray too far, I’ll accidentally break something. I don’t enjoy scripts, that’s why I did improv. Scripts means you can make mistakes that need course correction.

But I’m playing with friends, we’re learning to be a cohesive performance troupe, and hopefully this will turn into a podcast. For the future.

Until next time, may your dice make things interesting.

-

[1] I’ll grant them the benefit of the doubt that they’re literate. [2] I’m seeing a combined Trix and the Sorceress[3] from her party. I’m going to have fun with that. [3] Indigo says her name was Makenna. [4] Which will make the process of creating sprite pawns for them slightly more difficult. I’ll ask them on the discord for physical appearances when I’m done writing this. [5] Were it not bipedal, I might’ve steered him into making it into a riding jackalope. They’re… kinda my pet fantastic beast. Usually ridden by mail carriers. [6] Originally the Church of a Pathfinder Deity, but I’m transplanting the module into D&D Fifth Edition anyways, so might as well sneak the details of my setting[7] into the margins. Helps everyone’s already just human. [7] Is this canon with the abandoned Genesys campaign? You decide! [8] When I have something to read, the mayor loses the stammering and uncertainty he has when I’m doing it off the cuff. This is because I’m not awkwardly trying to do things off the cuff. [9] I should have a file that’s basically Maid RPG Lite floating around due this same habit. [10] The one time I planned for my players to ‘cheat’ and show each other the notes I gave them, and the clowns kept the notes to themselves. You literally cannot rely on anyone to do anything like they should.[11] [11] I’d say you can trust players to make things harder for themselves, but return to footnote 10. [12] When I played through this module, I arrived after the mayor distributed the backpacks, and the party already had investigated their maps. So I don’t know how this puzzle was solved then. I also don’t remember the Orc encounter. [13] Behind the screen fun: while I rolled three times fairly, I applied the single success to who I wanted. For narrative reasons. I often play favorites in this manner. [14] Sure. [15] Along with listening to Dice Friends streams/podcast.

[sepiadice]

Tales of Genius Ch. 3: Blossomforth Brides Pt. 1

(1/26/2019)

I’ve been wanting to get to this session for years. Literal years. Since the overly dramatic high school group, when I first introduced and used North Fort in a Pathfinder session, then reiterated on for years after, always dying to do this campaign.

What feels like a decade later,[1] we finally reach Blossomforth.

Shorter session this time. Limited player availability, late start, arguments over the difficulty dice in magic, my usual distraction making dinner.[2] The usual.

Hopefully I can coordinate sessions more often, since we actually stopped two-thirds of the way through my plans.

I’ll have to actually figure out what happens next. Dang.

CAST

Eli Roberts: (Played by Lyons) Child of Clio. Doctor, travelling to write a medical text akin to Gray’s Anatomy. He’s an Intellectual! Older gentleman, hits on women to fluster the GM.

Olivia Grayson: (Played by Maddie) Child of Thalia. Apprentice to Eli. Believes her Squirrel-raccoon companion is her boyfriend reincarnated. Murdered a dude, stole his clothes.

Fromthe: (Played by Jose) Child of Calliope. Military veteran and current mercenary. Also has some mercantile ambitions. Doing fine.

Jean De Ferrero: (Played by Anthony) Child of Terpsichore. Travelling con artist. Took aforementioned murder victim’s gun.

So we pick up where we left off last time: standing outside the Soldier’s Rest Mayor’s office, Eli with a letter. I had an idea for what they encounter if they backtracked to North Fort,[3] if they stay,[4] and of course if they actually move forward.

This is why it’s handy to be loose with session planning: gives you extra room to think up threads for other locations if the party goes rogue and wants to go back or over there. If you intend to mostly wing it, you can write out a couple sentence-long ‘this is a possibility’ suggestions, and be prepared to improv if you get called on it!

But the players tend to be good at minding my overly obvious plot threads. Maybe in an overly meta way. I have to learn subtlety.

Anyways, the party reviews the plot, and figures out how to advance. Namely, by going south to the nearest train station in Blossomforth.

They get a wagon ride and arrive about a half day later, in the evening.

Blossomforth is an agricultural town well regarded for its Strawberry Wine, which is exported even beyond the borders of Astree. Small town, traditional, and because I’d watched a Let’s Play of Night in the Woods, there’s a subtle undercurrent of the younger folks moving away and the older folks being afraid of the town fading away.

Eli happens to know someone in the town whose son he saved.[5] William lets Eli and pals stay at his home, noting his son moved to Taffyport and works at a factory.

Which is the first canon mention of Taffyport.

Unfortunately, due to winter, the trains aren’t running up to Blossomforth just yet. That’ll have to wait until after the Forest Bride Festival.

You see, every year, a little before spring, the town gathers to prepare for planting season and celebrate surviving winter. They open a barrel of Strawberry Wine prepared during the last Harvest Festival, dance, sing, play booth games, send a maiden into the woods for an ancient ritual, feast. That sort of stuff.

The party joke about human sacrifices. William gets uncomfortable. After some needling from Dr. Roberts, William comes clean:

The titular Forest Brides are supposed to come back. Historically, they do! Bring in a bottle of wine and food, supposedly talk to the local deity,[6] then come home.

The last two never came back. So the town’s divided. Be Tevye and continue tradition, or maybe stop losing girls to the woods... Forest? I’m not clear on that.

Anyways, Olivia hears forest and wants to go that way. We really need to examine why she’s learning medicine from Eli if she hates people so much.

The party manages to talk her into waiting for morning.

The next morning, she immediately heads towards the woods. The rest of the party follow. So I move a character from town to the woods so I can do the plot.

This is Ms. Marian Shepherd. In another, more elf-inhabited universe, the niece she shares a name with is often called Trix.[7]  Marian’s trying to get a pair of town guards to let her into the woods to investigate. Both Eli and Jean try to flirt, but Ms. Shepherd is more concerned about one of her pupils, Maryanne Diane, being this year’s Bride. Olivia hides amongst the trees.

Fromthe is businesslike, so she mostly deals with him.

She says they’d need to get permission from the town council, and agrees to take the party to them.

Olivia senses magic. There’s a lot of magic. Unfamiliar magic yet similar to what the party sensed in the mines they’d come from.

The party goes to where the festival preparations are happening and meet with the town council, who Eli decides he knows. I compromise, but mostly ignore the personalities he ascribes. We have Briggs, Sarah, and the third member who never got a name.[13] The party try to negotiate permission to investigate, mostly to Briggs.

Briggs is initially hesitant, but slowly comes around. The first Bride to go missing was his granddaughter, Ashley, but it’s not impossible she used the chance to run away and find a new life elsewhere. Fading town subplot, after all.

Councilwoman Sarah is opposed and doesn’t particularly like Eli, and tradition demands no trespass in the woods. Argue argue.

The third councilman, who most falsely assume is senile, speaks up and gives permission. As he’s the oldest person in a town that operates on a Town Elder system of governance, it’s the final word.

Briggs gives them a permission slip.

They invite Ms. Shepherd along, but she concedes she has nothing to offer, and was only trying to get into the woods so someone would be looking into things. Now someone is.

Into the woods.

The party follows the source of the odd magic, and eventually come upon a woman sitting on a boulder, eating a Corned Beef Sandwich with extra mayonnaise.[8] She introduces herself as Isabelle.

Oh, and Isabelle is wearing the same robes as the man Olivia murdered in the mine, and a rabbit skull mask. She also does not like seeing Olivia wearing the cloak and snake skull mask she looted, and demands to be allowed to burn it.

Olivia refuses, and after the party try to convince her to give the items up, Jean just grabs the mask, and eventually Olivia agrees to give up the cloak.

Turns out she’s here for the same reason as the party, more or less, and as they walk deeper into the forest, she provides some exposition.

She’s a Dark Shepherd, a secret society dedicated to maintaining cosmic balance and the traditions of Deep Magic, sometimes called dark magic or blood magic and the like. But it’s not really a morality thing, don’t worry.

The guy killed in the mines, however, belonged to a splinter group: the Feral Oaths. They think covering the land in iron and the growth of industry is bad and should be undone to return to the old ways.

She also says that, while deeply tragic, killing the giant snake in the mines may have been necessary, and doesn’t condemn the group. And while the loss of life is always sad, the man Olivia murdered[9] was a Feral Oath, so screw him.

They reach a clearing in the center of the forest. There’s a serene pond with a small island in the center with a tree on it. Isabelle takes a moment, concludes she doesn’t actually know if there’s a proper ceremony nor how to perform it, so she just sits.

A massive deer emerges.[10] The tree, as it turns out, is part of an antler. He’s really big.

He speaks. Probably in the mortals’ minds for the time being, but I didn’t specify that since I needed to get to a dramatic hanger.

So he’s been lonely. No one came last winter. Or the winter before that.

Which means the brides haven’t reached their destinations.

Huh.

Thus ends the session.

This is actually a little earlier than I planned, so I’ll have to figure out how to fill out the next session. I already have the general path Eli’s following, and I have schemes prepared for Fromthe and Olivia. I need to figure out something for Jean De Ferrero.[11] Probably should just talk to the player. Like a reasonable GM.

Lessons learned: nothing concrete comes to mind! I’m feeling more comfortable behind the screen, even though I still feel an amount of inadequacy. And I still need to confront my anxieties about my voice and speech impediment[12] before I can shift into a podcast project, but practice is always important. And hopefully a group that can lend gentle criticism and maybe argue about the magic rules less.

I think a good background thing is that it’s okay to have sidequests and plans that need to be triggered like a video game, and not to close options because the players didn’t jump on them. Narrative time is flexible, things can get moved, cooperate with players and grant them the chance to do what they feel is pressing and/or fun in the moment without sacrificing story or investment.

Until next time, may your dice make things interesting.

-

[1] Can’t be bothered to do the math. Write up should be on this blog.| [2] Everytime I tell myself ‘Next time, casserole’. Then I make something with curry. [3] Fun fact: in North Fort, I had a vague concept for what would happen if they decided to screw the catacombs/mine, and instead try going North to ask for help. Also an explanation the North Fort mayor would give for not trying this himself. [4] Both events could still trigger. Heh heh. [5] Lyons has picked up on my willingness to accept things that circumvent minor problems or non-issues. Would’ve let them grab an inn, but it doesn’t actually matter. He also names everyone because I’m garbage at names and haven’t enacted any solutions to said garbage. [6] Who isn’t a wolf that resides in wheat, and don’t you suggest I wear my inspiration blatantly on my sleeve! [7] Original, Pathfinder plan was this was a retired Trix, but things shifted, and Ms. Shepherd doesn’t have the right personality. [8] She needs the calories. [9] There were some lies about what happened, since he didn’t get a shot off, or really provide any characterization himself. [10] I decided to reference Princess Mononoke moments before I utilized it. So add it to the list of things I blatantly rip off. [11] Maybe he can found a confection company? [12] This has been occurring more often at work than the table, but still. [13] Lyons said third council-guy is name Lysander. I don’t recall this happening, so it’s a footnote of dubious canon now.

[sepiadice]

Tales of Genius Ch. 2: Follow the Light

(9/16/18)

And so, for possibly the first time ever, I got a session two in a campaign! New high score! Woo-hoo!

Also, got to redo an adventure I ran for the old High School crew. Updated it slightly, added a puzzle, changed the final encounter, added a pair of magic items.

Don’t think I have any sort of RPG Life updates. Working on various other projects off and on. Started watching a new Netflix original series that redoubles a plot point later in this campaign.

Added a fourth party member. Which I think I’m going to lock down on. The games I’ve been involved with always had a problem of having a large number of players, so I think I want to try for the classic four-person ensemble.

Hope they’re having fun. Doubt plagues me, but they’re not whining to me, so it’s probably fine? It’s still clear I need to continue practicing GMing, and I’ve noticed I’ve been stuttering and having difficulty pronouncing words. That will all need to be improved before we move on to the podcast phase.

Now, for the second part of Tales of Genius![1]

CAST

Eli Roberts: (Played by Lyons) Child of Clio. Doctor, travelling to write a medical text akin to Gray’s Anatomy. He’s an Intellect! Olivia Grayson: (Played by Maddie) Child of Thalia. Apprentice to Eli. Believes her Squirrel-raccoon companion is her boyfriend reincarnated. Fromthe: (Played by Jose) Child of Calliope. Military veteran and current mercenary. Also has some mercantile ambitions.

Jean De Ferrero: (Played by Anthony) Child of Terpsichore. Travelling con artist.

Quick exposition:

So, that whole “Child of…” thing is part of my world’s lore. About nineteen hundred years ago, nine sisters travelled the world and founded nine schools of philosophy and nine separate cultures that populate the world. The only solid marker for the tribes is eye color. White/Light grey for Clio. Yellow for Thalia. Orange for Calliope. Green for Terpsichore. Others for the other tribes as they’re introduced.

The sisters are named after the Greek Muses.

And, so, onto our tale.

DATE: Late Winter 1911

PLACE: THE TINES (Mountain border of Astree and Hervar)

We open back up on North Fort. Food supplies are running even lower, especially since a good chunk of it has been poisoned. The mayor has decided to send those clever adventurers to try and find an alternate path out of town,[2] plus this nice Jean fellow who speaks highly of his own conquests.[3]

After some brainstorming while I was busy making curry,[4] the mayor mentioned the town crypts, which are a small network of caves some distance from town. There’s an iron door there which no one has explored past, because there’s a bunch of warning symbols on it, so better just stick the dead in there until claimed. But, well, it’s something?

The party heads to the crypt, as I couldn’t be bothered to force any scene work in the town. Would’ve been nice to establish the mixed critters of the setting, but I’m bad at following even my own notes, and I didn’t really have any cause to delay them.

In the crypts, they discovered a small band of Saber-toothed foxes.

Olivia tried to befriend the foxes using the cheese from the rations North Fort gave her, but the foxes weren’t satisfied, and unhappy with the intrusion. So combat despite Olivia’s protests!

I still am far from getting a handle of combat narrative, but after a few rounds, they’ve killed two foxes and scared off three.[5]

Then Olivia used a magic spell to cave in the entrance. Which… I should probably take a moment to taunt the party over.

And now I have. What nerds.

The party moved towards the iron door. It’s magic proof,[6] locked, and barred. So the group needs to figure out how to get in.

Unbarring it was easy enough, but it’s still locked.

But, hey, the party has a new Scoundrel Character! Maybe he can pick the lock!

The dice say no. This is dire, as the back up plan I had is sitting in North Fort,[7] and that’s not an available path anymore.

Okay, okay. Let’s reason this out. Is the door there to keep people out, or something in? Both, but which is important?

Which is to say: this door opens out, so the door hinges are on our players’ side! Which the fair doctor thinks up, then teases the con artist for not coming up with.

Said scoundrel (Jean) uses skullduggery to get the pins out. (Because it’s heavy iron, hasn’t been moved in a while, and would require finesse. Probably some heat to remove frost). I then have them do another check to get the door open since the lock is still engaged and needs to be worked out of the wall. Which they do.

Momentary inside baseball thing that might ruin the magic: I didn’t have a firm solution. I just placed the door down and waited until I heard a solution I liked. I recommend fellow GMs do this, but also try and prepare an alternate solution if the party can’t get past it for some reason. (See footnote 7 for my release valve).

On to the next room! A massive cavern, with many tunnels shooting off, and crystalline protrusions here and there. Then there’s a wooden lean-to slash shack near the door.

In side is a desk with a chess game mid-progress, and notebook tracking the game next to it, a glass jar of mythril dust, and a mummified corpse sitting in a chair[8] holding a bullseye lantern.

Eli Roberts examines the board, makes a move, notates it in the notebook(!), pockets the mythril dust, then investigates the mummy.

(A spent story point later also says he took the notebook.)

Eli fails to find anything notable on the corpse, so he turns to figure out what path to take.

Olivia, who we are learning this session has no regard for her fellow humans, uses her magic to puppeteer the mummy.

This jostles a rolled up scrap of paper out of its beard.

Time for the puzzle! Also pop quiz for my world building lore, because screw you, at least learn the muses you picked for your character’s heritage![9]

I wrote a poem (not a great poem, because I lack rhythm) that referenced the Muses in a certain order.

Now, this puzzle needs workshopping, because once the party figured out to use the mummy’s lantern[10] to shoot a beam of light into a large crystal to refract it into colored beams, and that they needed to follow the beam that corresponded with each Muse’s assigned eye colors in the order listed on the poem, there wasn’t much else to do until the final twist.

I probably could’ve done something with the crystals. Finding them, getting them in position,[11] just some complexity for the successive rooms.

Needs workshopping. But we also had a time limit, so maybe simple wasn’t bad for this rendition.

Now, this refracted light thing was an expansion on a moment that wowed the last time I did my North Fort session, which I mimicked halfway down the mine: the first obvious crystal sent the light bouncing all over the chamber, hitting other crystals, and illuminating the entire chamber, revealing a mural![12]

The mural told the mine’s story: they were mining it normally, then thought ‘hey, let’s try magic!’. Magic resonated with the mythril they were mining, heating the cave and waking up a giant snake that started gobbling people up. They got some adventurers in to deal with the snake and stopped using magic.

What I wish I added was the snake’s giant skull in this room. Instead, I had it in another room, looming over the exit tunnels. Oops.[13]

So that’s neat.

The party continued the prescribed solution and moved on, seeing the ribs of the snake were repurposed into support beams.

Another element I failed to convey is that the mining shafts were actually expanded from the snake’s tunnels throughout the mountain.

Anyways, the final room was the cool twist. Because the final mentioned Muse is Urania. Who I assigned black/dark grey eyes.

Black light’s not a thing. What could be the…

They killed their light. Eventually, mythril dust started to glow, a thick vein going down the final correct tunnel. (The poem also mentioned Urania using the stars in her line. This fit with the mythril dust but also her role as the Muse of Astronomy.)[14]

And they exit into another large chamber like the one at the top. Including wood office shack and an iron door. Inside the shack is another mummy, chessboard, and a notebook with matching move notations to the one earlier.

Including the move Eli noted and wrote down.[15] Huh.

Eli’s player spent a Genesys Story Point to say he nabbed the first notebook earlier so he wouldn’t have to hike back up.[16]

For those curious, there’s another poem on this end for going the other way. The colors don’t even have to be the same since they’d be approaching the crystals from a different angle, so the first step doesn’t have to be Urania![17]

Anyways, the spent story point ruined how I’d hoped to bring in the boss fight, so instead a Masked Snake slithers in.

Smaller than the one slain long ago, but still pretty big. Also way too young to listen to reason.

Again, three party members work to kill it as Olivia uses nonlethal magic. The snake iced the floor, making footing difficult.

I allowed the fight to drag on a while because, despite putting in my session plans to come back to make stats and having more than a month to, I never did.

Really should sit down and just make a series of notecards for easy, normal, and hard enemies. Get too distracted with narrative.

Anyways, combat rages, half the party gets upset with Olivia’s efforts not to kill the snake, when a mysterious figure in fancy robes and snake skull mask arrives and pulls a gun.

Olivia promptly magically murders this man without a word. Then steals his mask. And returns to nonlethal spells against the snake.

After realizing the snake can’t fit through the door, Eli and Jean attempt to flee, but Olivia refuses to leave, instead standing on the human corpse she created to avoid the disadvantage of the ice floors.

Eli goes in and finishes off the snake.

Grumpy after the encounter, they exit the caves, which leads out to a point on the path below the avalanche. There’s a way to connect North Fort and Soldier’s Rest.

They go to Soldier’s Rest (named such because it’s where the military men went to rest when not on duty at the mountain fort). Turn in a letter of introduction to Soldier’s Rest’s mayor, and step outside.

Where they encounter a Jackalope. They’re giant creatures ridden by the mail carriers of His Majesty’s Courier service![19]  The courier has a letter for Eli Roberts: The Queen and Heir Apparent are ill with a mysterious disease, and Dr. Roberts comes highly recommended by his peers to help.

Whether this is because his peers genuinely believe he can do it, or because not healing the royal family could have dire consequences and they’d rather gamble Eli’s career over their own is a question I intend to play with.

End session two.

Admittedly, it was a railroading session that hinged on two combats that I didn’t prepare properly and a puzzle that need a few more facets, but I set some Campaign Plot up and actually got players to the table, so I say sufficient success! Always a learning experience! And Anthony seemed to prefer the system vastly over GURPS, so I think it’s good.

Just need to cement running combat and the Advantage and Disadvantage system. It’s a new thing that takes getting used to. Plus the question of what to do when you get a nothing roll.

Also need to get firmer control over what magic can and cannot do. And also that GM trumps rulebook everytime.

I have an outline for the next session. Just need to add some meat and work in elements the players enjoy. Maybe try and have it be less of an Eli Roberts focused story.[20]

Until next time, may the dice make things interesting!

[1] Pompous sounding name? Perhaps! But it’s a grab from the Tales JRPG series, and a TED Talk I saw once. [2] Had the party asked, the Mayor was avoiding asking South Fort for help because that crosses a border and could cause a lot of diplomatic tensions. The party didn’t ask, so I’m noting it here for my own gratification. [3] Because we needed to fit a new party member in some how. [4] Which I forgot to put potatoes and apples in. I’m disappointed in myself. [5] Unless it was the other way around. There was confusion! [6] Iron is magic proof in the setting! Because I’m taking inspiration from my vague knowledge of fair folk mythology. [7] Her name is Debra. I didn’t have the exact details (improv!), but if needed, she’d have the key for the door for… reasons? [8] I keep trying a Douglas Addams thing where I save the most glaringly obvious and distressing fact for last. It’s never worked because I keep getting interrupted or the players overlook I mentioned a monster. Might be a sign to stop, but why would I? [9] I casually left a prose-y cheat sheet on the table before we started. So it’s open notes. [10] Always provide the required tools if you can’t be sure the party has the needed supplies. [11] My much coveted block puzzle! I’ll figure it out someday! [12] In the pathfinder version, it instead revealed a sleeping dragon. I should’ve worked in a similar element on top of what I put in the chamber. [13] Maybe if I ask nicely, my players will pretend this is what I did. [14] Why do the muses include two with dominion over Astronomy and History? Who knows! They just do! [15] I was hoping someone would mess with one of the notebooks for this exact reveal. They played right into my hands. [16] I’ll leave it to the players to retcon why they stole the first notebook. [17] Maybe Urania should’ve been the mural room. You light the crystal for the story, then have to darken it to move on.[18] [18] Take three on this dungeon’s going to be epic! [19] A pay off when, long, long ago, when I was very young looking through a borrowed copy of GURPS 3rd Edition, I saw a picture of cowboys riding giant rabbits with saddlebags reading ‘Bunny Express’. Finally did it. [20] He took the reigns on the session one mystery, and the letter plot hook only works with him. I’ll try to do hooks working off the other three before returning to him, if at all.

[sepiadice]

SepiaDice GMs D&D5e (7/20/17): After School Excursion

After much time, I finally return to the GM’s seat, watching and plotting behind my screen!

So, after many months of scheduling conflicts, and playing other games, I got a small band from my Improv Group (mostly different from the cast of the last campaign) to subject themselves to me. Which is charitable on their part, especially since I’ve still haven’t really read the fifth edition rules…[1]

I went in with my favorite amount of preparation: an opening spiel, a vague idea of what I’d like to have happen, and a large swathe of empty, terrifying space to just let the players run rampant with.

I don’t plan sandboxes, just to be clear. Because that would imply I prepare NPCs and locations. I entered with five paragraphs of introduction and a puzzle.

Of course, my players are seasoned comedy improvisers, so I could’ve also come in with nothing, and they would’ve entertained themselves, even if most of them were new to Dungeons and Dragons.

I told them to make characters, stressing that they should have no backstory before we start. Not even a name or alignment. Because I had an opening twist.

The story began with a spooky dream. Disused lighthouse, shadowy figure, and glowing runes.

Then they had a school day. Because, as it turns out, they’re normal High School Juniors. I followed this reveal by letting them dictate what their school is like.

I admit, if my goal was a normal high school with maybe a couple anime-esques tropes, I shouldn’t have allowed greenhorn players with backgrounds in comedy dictate the terms. However, it does accomplish the more important task of getting the players to make the world their own.[2]

So what I got was a giant, wall-less warehouse named after the setting of High School musical.

Sure, at first I thought “I can interpret wall-less as just being a California High School”, but the players then insisted on specifying that, no, it’s literally a building with no classrooms, instead operating off a grid system.

Also, it’s super-cliquey, poorly funded, and originally a mansion that was part of the underground railroad and bootlegging, so there might be secret tunnels.

After establishing there’s been gossip of the shared dream going on in the (nonexistent) hallways, it’s now lunch, and they’re probably just vaguely themselves,[4] I just let my players go.

(Luckily, unlike me, my players have common names, so I’m going to go ahead and just use them.)

The party reveled momentarily at the chance to go back and do it right, before quickly conceding that, no, they’re totally nerds.

Chris, for whatever bloody reason, decided he wanted to be class president. And also a super Christian, but he’s playing a Paladin, so that’s just foreshadowing.[5]

The others then quickly established his crush on a girl named Tiffany, which they built upon for a bit. Then I brought Tiffany over, only to have three of them immediately give her grief and make her leave.

Which was a nice, subtle method of telling me they didn’t need too much NPC work from me. Again, I prepared very little, and they introduced Tiffany, so I’ve got nothing against that. Let the players define the terms of their entertainment, and fill in what needs be filled in while having fun yourself.

So, after I clarified what is known about the lighthouse (it’s always been there, but they’ve never seen it lit, and it’s on an island), they decide to skip class and go to the docks.

I had hoped to dedicate the opening portion of the game with them investigating and trying to figure out how to get to the lighthouse.

Jason,[6] wanting to be helpful, decided to get into an argument over the fact that I gave everyone a different rune in their dream, and used that as inspiration to go to the lighthouse to prove the rune he saw was the correct one. Also, there was optimism that they’d end up as Power Rangers. Which is… fine as a motivation…

It was as they searched for a ride that I realized an easy way to differentiate their high school forms from their future form: use the Adventurer stats, but with disadvantage on everything![7]

Brook wanted to try and skip the dock sequence by establishing her father has a boat. Not wanting them to brush over things too quickly, I subtly killed that and tried to get them to convince a fisherman to take them.

They started with Tim, who, as a compromise, had his shirt both tied off and also just off and draped over his shoulder. Brook tried to flirt with him to get a ride. I decided to play the ‘Ah, no, you’re fifteen, and I’m an adult angle.’

So Jason improvised inexplicable blackmail, because apparently when given enough agency, my friends default to Loony Toons. He also established that Tim’s a furry.

Jason failed the persuasion check, however, so Tim gets to be a proud furry. Little more discussion, and Tim offers to take them to the lighthouse if they could get some dirt on a rival.

Who I named Dave.

So they go to Dave, who casually admits to criminal activity, but also belief in a giant squid cryptid, which the party then spun to get a ride at midnight, forsaking Tim.

They then went to Tiffany’s party, which was made up to handwave time. I made it midnight in case they wanted to do a youth adventure, gearing up sequence, but instead they went to a house party.

Midnight comes, and Dave sails for the lighthouse, since the party told him light attracts the giant squid. The party then enters the lighthouse, where I finally sprung a puzzle on them!

I bought some wood blocks, drew runes on them, and they had to figure out the sequence to open a magic portal.

I colored the runes differently on each of their handouts, and I expected them to share the notes at some point. Once they identified the correct side, it was a simple matter of following the rainbow.

I apparently underestimated the paranoia the last campaign left with Jason, because no one looked at anyone else’s notes. They successfully communicated what the runes look like, but they never picked up on the different colors, even though that was a passing mention in the argument that got them there.

Basically, it was exactly the subtle time killer I hoped the puzzle would be. Even had pull out the ‘roll INT for hints’ trick once or twice.[8]

Like a good pun, a puzzle should be obvious afterwards, but engaging during the set up.

Anyways, go ahead and steal that one for your games, GMs!

Once they solved the puzzle, the portal opened. I described it and gave a little space to let them decide if they’re going in by their own power or if I need to Digimon them.

They walked in. Because who needs self preservation instincts?

Once in, they obviously turned into their Adventurer selves, waking up at the dead end of a dungeon.

‘Do we still have our own minds?’ “No, all this high schooler stuff was just a Shaggy Dog story.”

I had the players introduce what they looked like at this point. By pure coincidence, the one player who made a human went last, describing himself as just looking aged up.

The others were a dragonborn (the Furry Christian), a Tiefling (Jason played this up for the ‘which afterlife did we go to!?’ angle) and a half-elf dressed in leaves (Brook’s playing a druid.)

So, again, sit back and just let the players enjoy themselves. Then, when I got bored, have Kobolds show up and pick a fight.

I surprisingly wasn’t bored. Probably helped that it was an intentionally easy fight just to introduce the mechanics to the players, who mostly one shotted the Kobolds.

After killing six tiny lizard men, and with no clear way out, the players went deeper into the dungeon.

Jason fell into a trap, and they were ambushed by Gnolls, knocking them out.[9]

End of session.

So, lesson? Low expectations and little planning is a good method if you feel your players are fine building off themselves. I probably would never attempt this structure with less improvisational players, but I knew they could take it.

Still, I probably should’ve had a more clear plan for the dock sequence, and maybe a firmer hand on the school environment. However, I had fun, the players tell me they had fun, so it was a success. Hopefully I can manage to get them back for a session 2. Because I have intentions.

Until next time, may your dice make things interesting!

[1] However, I have years of experience in other systems, have played in a couple 5e games, and I principally learn by doing over reading. [2] Besides, if I actually wanted to anime it up, I already have a setting for that.[3] [3] Maybe I’ll let them play in it someday. Maybe. [4] I could’ve pushed them to establish High School Personas, but, again, Improv Club. Just let them do what they want and hope. [5] I can concede that it’s painfully obvious where my set-up was going, but it’s okay to telegraph things to players so they can subtly help the story. [6] Previous roles include Windy Jerk and… other people? [7] I love the Advantage/Disadvantage system. I’m going to houserule it into everything. [8] Well, I gave a freebie by clarifying all the runes are meant to be hexagons. [9] I love gnolls, which is why it’s surprising this is the first time I’ve ever used gnolls.

[sepiadice]

SepiaDice GMs: D&D 5e Starter Set (8/3/2015)

So, the actual session recap will most likely be pretty sort, for reasons, so there be a lot of self-reflection to make up for it.

It might end up sounding like I’m blaming my players. Just to be clear, all problems are either mine or no one’s fault. Probably. 

Still, I think this one was a flounder. Not sure if I’m leaving a good impression on my new players whenever I can drag them into actually playing a game with me…

So, anyways, let’s hit up a page break.

So, this time I managed to rope in EC (known for the Eladrin from that 4e game), JL (known for Windy Jerk!), and JW (formally J_____!), and my brother (he’s new to these tales[1]).

I’ve been hoping to play the 5e starter box for a while now, but scheduling has been rough, because, well… you see how far apart those 4e posts can be? Scheduling people is tough. 

However, we got a game up and running today! In that, there were only a couple hours between figuring out that all interested were available, and executing it!

Which I’ll say was a major problem with the session: I’ve had the Starter Set for probably over a month now, and I read the rulebook once weeks ago, and the first fourth of the adventure close to that time before setting them aside. So I had plenty time to forget critical information! Oh dear! 

Which is pretty bad, since the number one goal is get a proper feel and understanding of 5e. Exacerbating it is that we’re playing it online because JW is two states away from the rest of us, so I couldn’t exactly pass materials around to the others. Well, could’ve shared stuff with my brother, I guess…

Luckily, optimism of the past did lead to having all five pregenerated characters already transferred onto Roll20. 

So, that’s my issues before we began, so now I’ll regale you with the actual session!

The players did an amazing job of civilly choosing characters, despite my jokes of having to come up with a system.[2] 

Our Cast![3] EC adopted the Elven Wizard, who he name U Nnamed (Oo Nah-med, adapted from the placeholder ‘Unnamed’). JW adopted the Noble Fighter, renamed from Butts McGee[4] to Halfdane. My brother adopted the Folk Hero, a character he named Randford deHills. JL, graciously accepting his lot as the last to arrive, took the Halfling Rogue, who he named Milo.

So, I delivered the session start spiel: a dwarf named Gundren Rockseeker has hired the party to escort a caravan of mining supplies to a town called Phandalin, while the dwarf and a human named Sildar Hallwinter ride ahead. 

Had I actually been thinking, I would’ve actually role-played the hiring process with the party instead of dropping it as backstory. Yes, it would’ve been a ‘You all meet in a tavern’, but you know what? I’ve never actually played that opening, and I actually enjoy the novelty of the occasional cliché. It’s cool to be able to nod and check items off the list.

If I may criticize the Starter Set module,[5] the first approximate fourth is almost pure combat. Now, it gives a nice way to throw players into exploring and learning the mechanics, actually learn the meat and potatoes of the new Dungeons and Dragon’s edition. Unfortunately, it is very boring in action. 

So, the game proper opens with the party moving down a trail, where they stumble upon two dead horses! (gasp!) the horses have been slain by goblin arrows! (further gasp!) and, upon closer inspection, they belong to their dwarven employer and his escort! (slightly less sincere gasp!)

Milo does some perception checks, and spots four goblins hiding in the bushes right before they spring out to attack the party, initiating a surprise round on all except the halfling rogue. 

U Nnamed uses a sleep spell on two of the goblins, and the other two get dispatched relatively quickly. One of the sleeping goblins gets its throat slit, and the other is questioned.

The goblin reveals they attacked the party because they happened to come by, and that’s what goblins do. However, they were deliberately ordered to capture Gundren and Sildar, who they took back to their ‘eating cave’. 

The party finds a trail northwest, which they followed, deftly avoiding the two traps along the way!

They reach a cave, with a stream running out of it, where their pausing to talk and the taunting shouts of their goblin captive alert two goblin guard, who shoot them with arrows. 

U Nnamed then burns the goblins to death. Good job.

The party crosses the stream, began discussing entering the cave, and… that’s about where we stopped, because one player had to leave, and my brother’s internet began acting up, so I called the session. 

And… well, I don’t think anyone involved was completely satisfied. The module, as written, pretty much had little to no room for role-playing, which, for a role-playing focused gamer like me, isn’t much fun. Sure, there was supposed to be some character interaction at the end of the cave, but we didn’t get there, and that’s after many bouts of combat.

Some great advice I’ve heard[6] is to split a session into about three major portions: a roleplaying portion, a combat portion, and a puzzle portion. This first fourth of the module, however, pretty much just combat and mechanics. Again, good to educate players to a new system, but not a great way for entertainment. 

I think another hurdle is that we were playing online. In concept, good, and I’d never refuse to use Roll20 for a game, but it does make it a little more difficult to maintain your energy as you go along. When you fall silent in person, there’s still visual stimulates, and people tend to engage in banter and have fun despite the GM’s floundering.

I also may have failed to recruit someone prone to seizing the momentum, and going forward. I like to regulate who I GM for because, to frank, sometimes it’s nice to discreetly cut people you don’t gel with. 

So, from what little I’ve experienced of it, I think I like fifth edition. I might even happily label it my preferred edition of DnD, and I’d love to play it.

However, and this is a truth I’ve long been agonizing over, I’m not sure I’m equipped to GM it. Running adventures is difficult for me, since I feel compelled to be as accurate and true to the material as possible, so I end up dull and possibly unengaging. 

I’d happily and easily create my own material, where I don’t have to be worried about making mistakes and misportrayals and removing a module from my hands so I can relax and create. However, then I have to actually figure out how to handle Exp. Sure, thus far I’ve never played a game where the GM bothered to give Exp, but I really don’t want to be the sort of GM. I actually want to let my players advance.

So that leaves me back to the same whining as I always am: I need to get a GURPS campaign going. I know I can do GURPS easily. But I need the players and their trust, and I never feel like I leave my players happy, and I’m reluctant to ask for another chance at GMing. 

Oh well. Only the future will reveal how my hobby turns out.

Kataal Kataal. 

[1] As in, this is the first time he appears. He’s done a couple games. He also proofreads these posts for me. What a swell guy! [2] I’d always intended to just let the players work it out between themselves, since I do actually trust them. I’d have made something up if problems arose, but I have mature players. [3] I’m GMing, so insulting nicknames would be improper. [4] My go to placeholder/goofy name. Because I’m apparently 8. [5] Which, as a guy writing an essay, I hereby authorize myself to criticize. [6] From the Critical Success podcast.

[sepiadice]

Pathfinder 11/2/12: success through chaotic failure [REPOST]

I actually GM’d this one! It was an experience, trying to get the players to behave in any rational manner. However, I do like where it ended up going.

It was frustrating in the moment. Very, very frustrating as everyone refused to remotely behave. But, once the dust settled and the game ended, I recall the experience fondly.

So go on, read my attempts to run a session, and see how quickly refusal to take responsibility messes with the party!

Also, there’s apparently a report I outright skipped. Mustn’t’ve been an interesting session. Past me gives cliffnotes.

before i get to this week's report proper, my cliff notes of the previous week (as i was lazy and didn't write it): party comes to a burned down fort, moves to the next one, find that one's been taken by orcs, combat, roleplaying with last surviving orc, session ends.

so this week, due to a case of Game Master Fatigue, our loyal gm wanted to let someone else take over. that someone was me. i put some vague ideas past him, while keeping the overall session plot to myself, he made a cleric, and waited for game night.

now, i certainly had a plan. it would be a simple mission with a moral quandary at the end. it was suppose keep the players occupied for a week, allow a little development roleplaywise, but overall not cause major ripples for when our regularly scheduled gm takes back over. nice, simple, largely harmless.

unfortunately, i've forgotten law one of our game group (law as in newtonian law, or law of gravity, not like a speed limit): when i gm, everyone goes a little nuts, things fall apart, and i leave trying to figure when, exactly, i lost all control and just cowered for safety behind my gm screen, hoping that Lord of the Flies doesn't transpire at the table.

we begin at the gates of last wall, hometown of jack lightbringer and headquarters for his paladin order. they enter, report to customs, jack gives his word as a paladin that he travels with good people (this becomes important later), and then they enter to the market for traveling merchants. trix, at this time, goes to view the show of a world renowned stage magician, taking her out of play (as a gm, i refuse to have a personal character, even if it's just for a session).

due to either rationing or the natural economic state of the city, you need vouchers to get food, which jack "remembers" when he tries to buy two of the 'hottest buns' from a hot bun merchant. his quest for hot buns takes him to paladin headquarters, where he meets and talks with captain kathy kinnady (who is male), currently the dude left in charge of both the paladins and the city while the higher ups are away.

jack delivers the message from kassen to kinnady, who alludes that he, too, went through the crypt for the same reasons as our group. kinnady apologizes, but similar reports have come in throughout the realm, and the order is thinly spread dealing with it, and he currently can spare no one to help kassen. kinnady also talks about how a zombie was sighted less than a week ago, asks jack if he and his friends would grab the cleric at the church of saraenae, and take care of that. jack goes to get the cleric, and normal gm is now in play.

meanwhile, J_____'s elf mage (henceforth 'cal' as that is his name) purchases a room at an inn, dorn exploits the paladin barracks for sleep, and everyone else is wondering about being trouble. cal goes on a map hunt, causes me some confusion (as i'm not sure what map type things he's up to), and asks kinnady to see maps of the area, which kinnady refuses because the paladin maps are for paladins only (or something), and cal finally gets directed to a library. after more minor shuffling about, cal ends up waiting on the highest point of city, a clock tower. dorn wakes up, asks for some vouchers, goes and purchases some hot buns, and also goes up to the top of the clocktower to eat the hot buns. the cleric and paladin go to kinnady to get more information (as jack valiantly forgot to ask the minor questions of 'what do i need to do?' or ‘where was this zombie spotted again?') and it seems, maybe, just maybe, my planned plot would be underway.

then dorn jumps off the clocktower.

he just leaps off.

purely by his own, non-manipulated volition.

this is when things turn.

after making sure that this is what the player wants (i make it very explicit: if he fails his acrobatics check, he will die (inaccurate, as cal does possess feather fall, and would likely save him, but still) and i will let him die). i get a group conscientious on what time it is (2:10), dorn rolls acrobatics three times. the first time, he misses the top of the minute hand. the second time, i guess he misses the bottom of the minute hand, third time he catches the bottom of the clock. a crowd is growing. all the remaining party (minus trix), are in this crowd. i think 'hey, jack has the mission, we finally got the group in one place, if dorn doesn't die, we might be onto something'. then realize that this still needs consequences, which i'll get to later. still, that should be solvable, and we can get to that zombie.

dorn attempts to stab his sword into the clock face, but it doesn't work. half-orc makes it to the top of the tower, and throws him down a rope. dorn insists, instead of climbing up, he's going to swing about like a dope and use acrobatics instead. after a few checks, he returns to the top of the tower to cheers of the crowd. guards then arrest him for causing a major public disturbance. the guards ask cal and half-orc to come along to give statements for the trial tomorrow. the rest of the group follows, and we return to captain kinnady. i like kinnady. he's a dude left with too much responsibility, too much paperwork, and is a little stressed. and now a guy leaped off his clock tower. it's not a good day to be captain kinnady.

then he gets to see the whole party.

he attempts to take statements from cal and the half-orc, get a successful one from the half-orc, but i think cal was being cagey about giving a report. kinnady looks at dorn's entry visa. kinnady asks jack why dorn got into the city under his word. jack then claims no knowledge of dorn (who is in the cells), and when pressed about why, then, did he give his word as a paladin that dorn was a good guy, jack then stutters about, trying his best to shift guilt away from himself. then kinnady questions about the others jack gave his word for. due to the yelling and verbal chaos that ensues, i cannot feel i will accurate portray exactly how things collapse, but in short, bob starts calling the rest of her party crazy, the monk saddles up to kinnady and tries to earn his favor based solely on the fact he's a monk, the cleric is confused, jack cannot justify himself, the half-orc's player had left, and cal isn't being happy.

so, what kinnady is essentially hearing from these people is 'everyone's crazy but me, don't trust any of these guys, i'm the only sane one, but everyone else is unstable.' so kinnady comes to the only logical conclusion: jack's word as a paladin cannot be trusted, retroactively rendering their visas null. kinnady politely asks jack to escort his 'friends' out of the city. things aren't looking good for the paladin, but he agrees. cal, realizing this means his own visa is exempt, gets angry and demands to be reimbursed by kinnady. kinnady tells cal to take it up with the inn owner with whom he paid three nights in advance. cal gets more angry, and storms out. kinnady give jack until sundown to remove the party's presence, and rules that dorn is banned from the city. i had these things happen because they seemed like the natural progression of the scene.

cal goes to the magic show trix is at, the two chat. then cal goes to get revenge on the man he believes slighted him, and is followed by bob and jack. jack goes and yells at kinnady some more, kinnady holds his ground (the player later told me he thought kinnady would relent. i don't think the captain ever would. the man maybe be under a lot of pressure, but he's still been a paladin for years, has strong convictions, and will never give into fear), and tells cal that, since jack's word cannot be trust, he's sorry, but cal will have to leave. then cal attacks kinnady, pins him with his sword, flares his tattoos and demands: 'now, do i act for myself, or do i act for jack?'

i know what point he wanted to make: your ruling is stupid, your stupid, and i shouldn't be punished for the actions of others. i'm sure cal expected one of the two options as an answer (by the way, not feeling up to handling combat, the normal gm took over for this). the gm considers how to play this, when i give him kinnady's answer: 'now, you act for both.'

heh, third options. great responses, third options.

this doesn't satisfy cal, who grumbles more, lets bob do some freeze damage, then (after jack attempts to attack bob with his warhammer) flees.

jack, this whole time, has been essentially standing off to the side. he just watched his 'friends' assault and attempt to kill his boss, simultaneously ruining his word as a paladin, and his standing in the eyes of his superiors, and exiling him from his home. kinnady tells jack to get out of the city. and the session pretty much ends with gm talking the player out of having jack commit suicide (partially, grim as it is, it's a great roleplaying potentially. mostly because i once told the gm he was 'like jeff winger, without the speeches', and apparently our gm really wants to be jeff winger).

also, there's still zombies in last wall.

egads, did this blow up. and blew up bad, in the best possible way. we finally get to an objective point and, under my watch as gm, we end up banished, going through a major character event, got in some intense roleplaying, and putting a firm point in the overall story of our party. i was aiming to do a light, throw away session so our gm can rest and get psyched for future sessions. instead, i psych the gm up through allowing major pandemonium.

worst still, trix got left out of potential character growth.

i am both satisfied and traumatized. what a great session.

[sepiadice]

SepiaDie GMs: Everyone is John (2/21/15)

tired of all the ‘we should game!’ “yeah!” ‘but my schedule’s not good for it right now.’ that my attempts to find a group has become, i have decided to to take an active role in getting myself back to gaming! to that end, i have created a facebook group and drafted people who have expressed an interest, made passing references to role-playing, or are just plan cool dudes[1] into it, while i started a weekly game via Roll20, rotating systems until better plans can be made.

there is probably a lesson to be learned here. something about not waiting for things to come to you, but seeking it out actively, and making things so with your own hand.

or, given enough time, my desire for rpgs can trump my fear of reaching out to others.

anyways, this week, the inaugural week of [sepia dice] adventure club, i ran everyone is john for two people who showed up. which is progress.[2]

as it was my first time actually using roll20 to run/play a game, despite having an account since ’12, there was learning that needed to be done. luckily, everyone is john is not a game that requires much use of a playmat. or any use of a playmat. i also needed to learn the actual game rules…

there was a lot of vague learning and growing happening. it was an after school special the whole time!

i started john off on a train, because there was a offhanded mention of trains somewhere in our preparations, so i went with it. a tendency that became quickly apparent was the players bidding zero and letting the other player just take control, which is what happens when you have two players who are very civil.

i will have to fix that in future games. more players, gently nudged to compete against one another.

anyways, a side effect of this is how little I remembered the beats when control switched off, so the failures may get glossed over.

the first voice (henceforth voice 1) began by seeking out his low level compulsion, and began to collect jewelery. in this case, a sleeping passengers watch. he then deboarded the train and attempted to read a map to figure where he was. he failed at that.

the second voice (henceforth voice 2) took the more straight forward tactic of asking someone, while also attempting to make the same person uncomfortable, as was his compulsion number one. voice 2 learned they were in st. calvin (the name i pull out when i need an unspecific city), and he tried to perform a magic trick, and failed the roll.

voice 1 learned the location of the zoo, and proceeded there. however, john had no money,[3] so they had to sneak in. which voice 1 succeeded at doing, by finding a hole in the perimeter. as voice 1 began rambling on about this and that, i began to subtly indicate he was in a tiger pit.[4] he caught on, used a nearby raw steak to distract the tigers. voice 1 then mounted a tiger, used the stick to guide it, and managed to escape the enclosure, to the horror of the crowd. if i remember correctly, voice 1 finally lost control while demanding people to give him jewelry.

voice 2 then summoned the lions and used his ability over animals to herd people into a three story gift shop, up to the roof, and then he flung everyone off. because of a couple lucky rolls, he managed 9 counts of his level three compulsion in one go. because of course he did.[5] there was also a joke about the group including two ‘women and children’, which i pointedly used whenever possible.[6]

this is about the time security figured out john needed to be stopped.

voice 1 took over and tried to combat the guards, but failed when he attempted to kick open a display case of fancy ivory knives.

voice 2 used a smoke bomb to confuse security, and then quick changed into one of their uniforms, causing an actual security person to take the fall. which worked, until he attempted to give first aid to the people he threw off a building, while shirtless to make them uncomfortable. the crowd remembered the jerk who ordered the large cats to push them off a roof, and they raised a fuss.

security came back, as we started the last stand. there were a couple more attempts at the ivory knives, but in the end security managed to apprehend john, and the game came to an end, with voice 2’s victory.

fun was had by all, and hopefully, next time, i’ll have a more comepelling story to tell.

if things go really well, i’ll be able to start relaying campaign stories. it’d be nice to have one of those again.

insert sign off here.

[1] ugh, remind me never to use that phrase again. [2] in that 2>0. math! [3] i am considering add a step in voice generation where everyone can choose items for a shared inventory. [4] actually, i blatantly mentioned there being savage tigers once he was in, but i threw it at the end of a bored list of details I rattled off. [5] i'll do a better job of watching for wording of compulsions in the future. [6] “well, two of them are women.” ‘women and children.’

[sepiadice]

reading the rulebook for Paranoia XP in pdf form

it's a delight to read. very funny, just as the game itself. lots of great lines.

unfortunately, it's 250+ pages long, so i have to read every bit of it on a screen, or at least enough to know how to make it function.

guess i could skim it, find of learn the important bits, but then i miss all the fun. but i've never been one to read long blocks of text on a screen. much prefer to have it in physical form and read it splayed out on a couch or a comfy chair. the chair at my desk is very much not comfortable.

oh well, i'll figure something out. probably. or give up and do something else.