Expect the unexpected

Second session of my improvised D&D campaign went rather well.  As I stated previously, I had written an entire encounter last week, based on a simple premise and some vague ideas.  It came together nicely.

The party started out on the road after outwitting a magic (cursed?) item, and avoiding having to wade through a hundred skeletons last session.  It was later in the day, so they found a good camp spot and set their watch.  I decided that this was too easy, so I had a crafty ogre invade their camp.  They fought it off and killed it, but not without taking some lumps and shitting their pants.  An added benefit was that afterwards they were REALLY looking forward to reaching the town of Slovane several miles up the road.

They entered the town on horseback, and it was very stereotypical.  As they rode in, they got suspicious and fearful looks, and almost no conversation from the locals.  Pretty soon they were immersed in a mystery involving disappearing persons, a shadowy figure only briefly glimpsed by one of them, and a midnight sneak-thief who circumvented all of their paranoia-inspired preparations.

Interestingly, I hadn’t counted on the preparations, so I had to come up with something on the fly in order to do what I wanted to do.  And this actually turned out to be a really cool bit of world-building as I improvised the NPC reactions.  In the end, I managed to get the party to WANT to follow my railroad, which is really the goal of every DM.  I mean, let’s face it, every adventure is a “railroad” to a certain extent.  Otherwise, why would we write anything past the initial setup?

Anyways, they went to my abandoned temple and did all of the things I was hoping they would do.  And even though I had written a few elements in that I completely forgot about at the table, it all worked out well.  The next session will start with the battered party ambushing a wagon that travels a long tunnel to get to the cave complex.  Not sure how I’m going to work with what they plan to do after that, but I’m sure I will come up with something.  I already have a couple of ideas.

As a funny side-note, my 7-year old son exhibited the sense of humor that he has inherited from both his mom and me.  The party had just killed a carrion crawler, with only two of the party falling victim to the paralyzing poison.  After it was dead, I described that the mound of rotting carcasses and trash was actually its nest, and in it were several eggs.

Without missing a beat, my son’s barbarian licks his lips dramatically and says “Mmmm…scrambled eggs…”

I about fell out of my chair.

Anyways, I think I have some surprises for the party in store.  I know what they are expecting, so this should be fun!

Well, that was easy

Thanks to a SNAFU with a co-worker who isn't very reliable, I ended up doing backup for phones again yesterday (I was primary on Monday, and backup for two days in a row). Meaning that, when the primary is on break for any reason, I'm sitting there, waiting for the phone to ring. Well, it was a slow day, so the net result was that I had some time on my hands.

During those periods, and while on my own breaks, I managed to get some game prep done. Because, as it turns out, we will be playing my D&D game again this Saturday. I wasn't expecting this to happen, as it was meant to just be a placeholder for when the other couple couldn't show. Turns out, they have plans all weekend, so here we are.

My original intent was to run them through an old AD&D module that I have. But, I didn't really feel like reading through it. So, I took the basic premise, and modified it to fit my slowly developing world.

I wrote out some notes about what happens at the beginning, and the details of the location. Then I downloaded a map (which turned out to be one from Dyson's Dodecahedron ...love his stuff!), printed it out, made a map key on it, and then proceeded to detail all of the areas. It's relatively small, so I was able to detail the whole thing in a very short time.

And just like that, I am ready to go. I need to fill in a couple of details about the enemies they will (most likely) face, but other than that, it's all done.

I have to say, I may not be as bad at this DM thing as I thought I was.

Drow Flying Ships

So, I recently ran a session of 5E, and had a great time. I’m using the “campaign” as a testing ground for some ideas that have been percolating for various periods of time in my overstuffed brain. Among these are a couple of new races (one of which actually got used), flying ships, and an alternate way of viewing Drow culture. These last two elements are tied together, and provided some really cool elements in my session.

One of my players was curious as to how the ships achieved flight (these are standard water ships that levitate, and are propelled by wind currents). I gave him a vague answer along the lines of “I don’t have the details worked out, but it has something to do with a Drow’s innate ability to levitate.” Well, I finally sat down and wrote my thoughts out. I present them below for your praise, criticism, or indifference.

The Drow and their Flying Ships

When the Drow lived almost exclusively in the underdark, they mined a metal known as adamantite. This metal was as strong as forged steel, but half the weight. It also had the peculiar property of being highly susceptible to magic, and adamantite items could retain minor magical properties without the lengthy and expensive process of enchantment. The downside was that adamantite breaks down rather quickly under direct sunlight. Even moonlight has a deteriorating effect on the metal. As such, items often disintegrated after a few weeks of exposure to the sun. This was not normally a problem for the Drow, many of whom would live for centuries without ever seeing the surface. However, that all changed when the Elemental War destroyed much of their home realm.

The Drow of today are splintered into three factions. The Skybourne are those who have embraced the destruction of their dark homelands as a sign of change, and have moved into the light of the surface, and are attempting to integrate themselves with the races there. They are most known for their flying ships, which is an extension of their desire to embrace the long-forgotten sun in all ways. However, in order to achieve this they are, ironically, dependent to an extent on the second faction of Drow, the Deep Elves.

Although they no longer bare surface-dwellers the pure black hatred fomented by Lloth for generations (though they are slow to trust surface elves in many cases), these Drow refuse to adapt to the sun, and have instead moved deeper into the underdark, away from the regions of elemental destruction. There they live much as they had in centuries past, though struggling to find purpose in the absence of their deceased matron deity. However, they have begun openly trading with small sectors of the surface world, and many have found a lucrative income in supplying the Skybourne with shipments of adamantite to fuel their flying ships.

The third faction is much more elusive, and really only exists in second-hand accounts and rumors. Deemed the “Lost Elves,” these Drow have retreated even further into the underdark, and the speculation among the Deep Elves is that they have fallen into barbarism after the collapse of their societies with the passing of Lloth. Some among the Skybourne worry that the Lost will one day rise up and bring war to the underdark in an attempt to reassert their dominance. The Deep Elves are vigilant against this, but their numbers are relatively few.

The Adamantite Engine
Skybourne ships are propelled by mechanisms infused with magic, and keyed to the Drow’s innate levitation ability. Essentially, the Engine becomes an extension of the Drow pilot’s levitate ability, allowing him or her to control the vertical axis of the ship through a combination of willpower and a steering mechanism. To protect it from deterioration, the Engine is housed in an air-tight casing that is filled with a gaseous mist, also mined from the underdark. In this manner, an Adamantite Engine can last for decades without the need for replacement. The magical properties do cause some deterioration on the metal, but only at a minute fraction of the rate to which they would be subject under the sun.

The biggest danger to an Adamantite Engine is if the casing is damaged. Release of the surrounding gases can cause the magic to go awry, and if the control of the ship’s levitation is not closely monitored, the ship can either rise at a rapid rate, or plummet towards the ground. Should the casing become damaged enough that the engine is exposed to sunlight, the engine will begin to deteriorate rapidly. If the casing can be repaired in time, the damage can be minimized, only shaving a few years off of the life of the mechanisms.

A Question of Frontiers

My brain suddenly had this weird idea, but it requires a bit of forethought. Mainly in answering a single question: How tied to their published settings are the old TSR (and others from the same era) games?

Mainly, for now, I am wondering if it would be acceptable to play Star Frontiers using a completely new setting, with all-new races, governmental entities, etc.? Or is the game so tied with the UFP setting (even just in the minds of players), that it would just feel “wrong” to change things up?

I mean, I’m pretty sure it would be easy enough to do from a technical standpoint. But, would players buy a game “Inspired by TSR’s classic game Science Fiction Adventure” even though it had no Yzirians, Dralasites, or Vrusk, and your big bad enemies were something other than the Sathar.

Of course, that also begs the question of whether such an effort would be worth it due to the system itself. I, personally, love the system (a nice, succinct percentage-based one), but I have heard mumblings and rumblings about how “limited” or “rudimentary” it is.

I dunno, with the old OGL (which allowed me to make Mutants & Marvels), I might just put something together and see what happens. I’ve been looking for a new RPG project to sink my teeth into, and this may be a fun diversion.

Then again, I'd be willing to bet someone is already doing it...

And I ran…

…a D&D game! And it was a success. That’s a nice relief for me, as it has literally been years since I ran anything, and I get self-conscious about whether I can do it anymore.

Last week I tried to introduce my son to D&D through the Moldvay Basic rules. I had planned to run him through The Keep on the Borderlands. Well, he made it through character creation no problem. But about two minutes into describing the setup, he got bored. “Too much talking” he said. I was a bit disappointed, but I suppose I should have foreseen that.

Anyways, our regular gaming group is down a couple of people. One of the couples is on vacation in Greece (so envious!). Unfortunately, they are the ones who bring their son, who my son plays with. So, when I got the remaining people to agree to a short-term game, I invited both my kids to join.

My 13-year old daughter is an old hand at 5E by this point. In fact, out of everyone in the game yesterday, she has the most experience with the system. And I figured my son might be a little more into it if there were other players. So, we sat down and everyone made characters, while I helped my son make his. He ended up wanting to be a human barbarian with a greataxe, my daughter is a tiefling ranger, my wife is a human paladin, one guy is a dwarfling warlock, and the other is an elven rogue. Not a bad party.

Over the course of the afternoon they helped the drow crew of the flying ship they were on fend off a hobgoblin sky-pirate attack, makes some deals at the trading outpost, narrowly avoid two allosauruses in the forest, and run a gauntlet of skeletons in order to take hold of the necklace that was controlling them, thus freeing the tortured soul of the crucified mage from his magical prison.

All-in-all, everyone had a good time. My son kept up through the pirates, but his attention wandered, and soon he was just sitting there watching YouTube on his iPod, while I NPC’d his character for him. Which was fine because there wasn't much combat at that point (though he did save his sister's life with a well-timed Dex roll as she was almost knocked off of her horse in front of him).

Not sure if/when we will get to play this again, but it was nice to be in charge, and to cooperatively create the story with my players. Lots of little details came out of the play itself, and my vague world got that much more focused. And that’s how I like things.

Hey, kid…wanna score some XP?

So, my 7-year old son has become obsessed with my 1990 copy of the Milton Bradley release of Hero Quest. I started him off a while back on it (at his request) by taking him through the main quest book, with the intention of going through all of that, then digging out the two expansions that were released before the game went out of print. Well, things have changed. And actually, for the better.

You see, my wife and I have a gaming group of other parents who have all been gaming together for several years now. We went through a 6-year campaign using 3.5, which ended last summer. We have since moved into Dragon Age, being run by my wife. All that time my son, and usually my stepdaughter when she was not with her dad that weekend, would be hanging out in basically a gamer environment.

He would normally play video games with the other kids, and sometimes they would even play with Nerf guns and other toys. But recently, he had me get out HQ for him, and he has been trying to play it with the other boy who is almost as consistently there as he is. The problem is, the other kid, just like my step-daughter is now 13. And the age gap sometimes causes problems. In a nutshell, I’m the only one who will consistently play HQ with him now.

However, I recently discovered that, during those few times he managed to get the other boy to play, my son would “DM” the game. And not only that, but he would do it without a script. He just placed doors, objects, and monsters where he liked as the heroes would venture through, and eventually, he would just put a “big bad” in a final room, and that would be it. I was kind of amazed.

As imaginative as I was at his age, I’m not sure I would have been that proactive. Of course, at his age (in 1977), I lived in Germany, and had no friends, let alone anyone who would be willing to expose me to anything resembling D&D, which was still pretty much in its infancy anyways. So the idea of making up adventures and rolling dice was as foreign to me as the internet was at the time.

Anyways, this has me thinking. One of the bloggers I follow (Timothy Brannon of The Other Side blog) often mentions introducing his son to D&D at 7 years old. I’m thinking maybe it’s time. I have all of the basic and Expert rulebooks, and several old modules. I’d probably go with the B/X rules, just for my own nostalgia (and because my Expert Rulebook is autographed by Dave Cook himself). Heck, I might even throw in some of my own Basic Arcana rules.

If it works out, I’ll be sure to write about it here.

Taking Stock: What does it all mean?

So, I’ve taken a look at all of my stuff, and I have come to the conclusion that I may be focusing too much on creating game content, and not focusing enough on gaming content. What I mean is that I am writing rules for play, without writing any actual play time material. In short, I think maybe I should try my hand at writing adventures.

And not only adventures for my own games, but for other games out there. Right now I am in love with 5E. And with the DM’s Guild rules, I could write some of those adventures I have run in the past, and ones I have imagined running, and have a built-in audience who might actually enjoy them.

I think my hesitance to write adventures stems from my long-standing tradition of making my own stuff up. As a GM I have almost always run games based on my own idea. I think I may have only run about two published modules in my life.

I own plenty of published adventures, for lots of game systems and genres. And I have been a player in many game based on such modules. But I’ve never really tried my hand at actually just writing a module. So, I’ll probably start there.

The other thing I might try to do is to stop trying to “re-invent the wheel.” I mean, take Mutants & Marvels. Other than the initial wonky idea of updating the old MSH game, there was no reason for me to do it. There are dozens of supers games out there, allowing for every taste and sensibility in gaming styles. To be honest, the gaming world didn’t (and probably doesn’t) need another one.

I might also try collaborating with others occasionally. So far all of my stuff has been on my own, with input from a few friends. Doing something truly collaborative might be fun. It would certainly relieve some of the pressure of being a one-man-show.

I’d also love to be able to write for an established company. So, if any of those are listening, consider my self-published library a CV of sorts.

So, anyone got any thoughts, opinions, or ideas?