S&W White Box: Session One, 3/8/10

Well, I found another group of players to try game with. This is a group of people scattered around the metro area, rather than a group of college/high school buddies from the same town. They are a little older and a little more engaged in real life, so this session was just 3 hours on a Monday evening, much better for my schedule than a weekly 8 hour death march every Sunday.

The game system is Swords & Wizardry: White Box, which is a retro-clone of the basic D&D rules from 1974. Essentially, it is one of the products that has come out since WOTC released the open gaming content with 3rd edition. There are a number of retro-clones designed as remakes of older systems, covering the different Basic editions like the 1981 rules, 1st edition advanced, and some mash-ups that mimic a blend of 1e and basic.

This means that you have 3 classes (Fighting-Man, Cleric, Magic-user) and 3 demi-human races that are classes in their own (Dwarf, Elf, Halfling). The DM was awesome enough to write up an after action report detailing the night's events. I will report it here with some of my comments to follow in the next post.

SESSION ONE (03.08.10)

Starday the 5^th of Readying, CY 576

[Oscar] Fen Sen the Seer (2^nd level Magic-User)

[Drew] Galathos the Warrior (2^nd level Fighting-Man)

[Donovan] Old Man Halgron the Adept of St. Cuthbert (2^nd level Cleric)

[Anthony] Gloin the dwarven Warrior (2^nd level Fighting-Man)

“Frahnk” the hired lantern-bearer

After hearing tales of renewed riches laying in the dungeons below the ruined Castle Greyhawk our stalwart adventurers met in the common room of the Green Dragon Inn in the Free City of Greyhawk. Regaled by the tales of treasure and adventure told by the old-timers our heroes decided to make the short jaunt of one league to the Castle in the morning. Luckily they were able to buy a copy of a map, by one cartographer named Henry Bodenstedt apparently of 330 Center Street, showing the ruined upper works of the Castle.

Shaking off the festivities of the night before, our heroes quickly stock up on supplies at the Outdoor Survival outfitters store and at Arneson’s Arms & Armor on the way out of town. Despite being slowed down by the waddling Gloin, they eventually arrive at the Old Castle Track leading to the upper works. Mounting a hill to the southwest of the Castle our heroes scan their surroundings. Dense copses of trees fills the land to the west of the Castle, a steep hill lies to the east of the Castle, and scattered trees occupy the area to the southeast of the Castle. Not seeing any movement in the lands around the Castle they continue to march up the Old Castle Track to the sunken moat surrounding the Castle.

Unfortunately, not seeing any easy method of crossing the moat, Fen Sen (being the lightest) volunteered to climb down into the moat and create a makeshift rope bridge. After ferrying their gear across piecemeal- Galathos, Old Man Halgron, and Gloin each crossed the moat and rejoined Fen Sen on the far side. Avoiding the front door of the Castle, they crept around to the disheveled western wall and entered the outer courtyard. After briefly inspecting a ruined tower they crossed the courtyard to what appeared to be a mostly intact tower in the northwestern corner to get a higher vantage point. Gloin and Halgron braved the creaking wooden stairs with their armored bulk and inspected the rest of the upper works while Fen Sen and Galathos stayed below keeping watch. The heroes next inspected the dilapidated building in the southeastern corner which turned out to be a decently-preserved stable. After finding an immense sealed door in the central tower they spied two sets of well-engineered collapsed segmented bridges. Galathos, Halgron, and Gloin lugged one set over to the moat to speed up a quick getaway if needed. They then turned to the final building in the courtyard- the black gneiss hall.

Finding dwarven runes welcoming them to the “Hall of the Dwarfish Lords”, Gloin called out a greeting and knocked on the door. Gandalff and his brothers Claag, Alviss, and Siggtrii of the Goldmountain clan ushered the heroes into their humble abode. The dwarves were kind enough to feed the heroes, vaguely explained their roles of protectors of the main staircase, and allowed the weary travelers to rest on their stone floor. The nearly penniless heroes donated what little coin they had left to Gandallathor, the Dwarfish Lord of Gold and Gems, and Old Man Halgron promised the dwarves some of his share of found treasure upon his return to the surface. Early the next morning Claag took the heroes to the central tower and unlocked the door allowing the heroes to descend into the dungeons of Castle Greyhawk. After descending for what seemed to be about thirty feet, the stairs came to a landing. Noting that the main staircase continued further, the heroes decided to step out onto the first landing marked with a sign declaring “the Storage Rooms.” After briefly inspecting the entrance room the heroes surveyed the four doors exiting the room and decided to take the western door out of the room.

With Gloin and Halgron leading the way the party quickly proceeded into a small room. After stopping to pick up some carpentry nails found in a box on a table they took a corridor leading north. Eschewing the continuing corridor leading east and then north, the heroes blundered into a large room surprising a group of scavenging humanoids. The adventurers recognized the scaly doglike wretches as chaotic kobolds. Combat ensued with Gloin, Halgron, and Galathos taking on the eight snarling kobolds; Fen Sen and the lantern-bearer hung back at the entrance of the room content to watch the melee. Six kobolds were dispatched by Galathos’ flamberge, Gloin’s battle-axe, and Old Man Halgron’s flail and cries of “Respect your elder!” The heroes backed the seventh into a corner and the eighth threw him self on the floor, lying whimpering in a spreading puddle. Noting that the kobold in the corner had not dropped his spear, Galathos buried his hand axe in the humanoid’s chest. After quickly bandaging the few injuries that were suffered, the party huddled up and decided to take the remaining kobold prisoner; they would truss the kobold up and would push him ahead of them down corridors and into rooms. Finding nothing but a few copper pieces and a half-eaten sausage in the dead kobold leader’s pouch they continued on.

After checking out the room through the southern door and finding nothing of value aside from various pieces of tarnished silverware the party continued on into the room through the northern door. There they found a large room with empty wall sconces beside each of the two doors out of the room and a large shield lying in the center of the floor. Playing it safe, they sent their pet kobold into the room to drag the shield back to them before proceeding into the room themselves. Galathos inspected both wall sconces and discovered that the sconce beside the northern door was loose. Yanking the sconce to the right broke it off and revealed a false section of the northern wall; the hidden room beyond contained a large wooden chest in the northeastern corner. After a great deal of pantomiming, the party sent their kobold to the chest armed with one of the nails. With some reassuring from the heroes the kobold did his best to pick the lock with the nail; after giving the kobold plenty of opportunity to set off any traps that the chest might have had they hauled the kobold back in. Gloin rewarded the creature with the half-eaten sausage and Fen Sen went to work opening the chest with a hammer and some pitons. Our stalwart adventurers happily found that they have been well rewarded for their efforts with their first taste of treasure. Alongside an ivory horn and a rusty dagger, they found just over a thousand coins; mostly copper and silver but with some gold as well.

The heroes huddled up again, arguing between returning to the surface with their loot and trying to push on farther.

Experience: 80 each (320 total)

Treasure: 169 gp, 242 sp, 791 cp; steel shield with red dragon crest, five-fingered left-handed leather glove, pair of bulky leather mittens, handful of carpentry nails, ivory horn, rusty dagger, kobold sausage

Encounters: killed 7 kobolds, took 1 kobold prisoner

Expended: 2 sections of rope, 4 pitons, ½ flask of lamp oil, kobold sausage

B2 Campaign Ideas: How The Caves React

The last game I DM'ed this past December used B2 The Keep On The Borderlands as the main setting. The common criticism of this module is the fact that all of these different humanoid tribes live in close proximity with each other with relatively little conflict or cooperation one way or the other. In my efforts to expand the module contents, I'm going to propose a reactionary system for the inhabitants of the Caves.

[Note: Not like I'm actively DMing at this point, but if the ideas start floating around in my head, I might as well put them down.]

In order to impose some kind of system for the humanoids to react to incursions by adventurers, I need to create a framework for an ad hoc organization of the tribes as a whole. Ostensibly, the evil cleric in the temple cave is a cleric of the Elder Elemental God, also providing a hook into the Temple of Elemental Evil as an expansion to the B2 campaign area. If the PCs discover the link, or bring back evidence to the Curate in the Keep, it will provide a hook for a trip to Hommlett.

Even though this Cleric would be chaotic in nature, he still exerts a degree of control due to his power and small legion of zombies and acolytes. If the PCs are on the verge of breaking the Caves and scattering the tribes within, the Cleric will lose his influence and be forced to hole up in his Temple or hatch some other evil plan. This will form a basis for loosely uniting the tribes in reaction to PC incursions. Overall, the individual reactions of the tribes will be on a local level, basically, an increased state of alertness and defensive postures within their caves. On the larger level, as the PCs begin to put a dent into the Caves, a more concerted effort will be put forth by the baddies to prepare for adventurers.

This provides a loose context for establishing a relathionship between tribes of humanoids that would otherwise be warring each other. Some of the Caves that house baddies like the Ogre and Minotaur still work. The Ogre can still be a "mercenary" of sorts to the Goblins; as long as the Ogre is doing more damage outside the Caves than inside, the cleric would not interfere. The Minotaur continues to subside on sacrifices and enjoys ruling his little maze-like domain. Both of these heavy hitters provide an opportunity for the Cleric to use them in interesting situations if need be, such as an expensive bodyguard or even a magically controlled pawn.

The system here will be a simple counter that accumulates every time the PCs raid the Caves with a weight based on the amount of damage they do. I'll put forth a working list of what actions will increment this Threat Level and what value will warrant a response and the form of that response.

[I started to specify actions with a particular point value, but scrapped that in favor of a qualitative system, leaving it more open to interpretation and improvisation rather than a rigid system.]

Nuisance increments to Threat Level:

* Spotting adventuring parties within the ravine or actually encountering the inhabitants of a cave.
* Raiding the Kobold cave, even if the entire tribe is shattered. These guys would be the lowest on the totem pole, only allowed to exist in the complex due to the fact that they are decent cannon fodder. Also allows the PCs to at least have access to some combat experience without having all the Caves on high alert.
* Killing a small number of humanoids, such as during a wilderness random encounter or a limited skirmish inside the caves.
* Killing a significant number of Goblins in Cave D, but not shattering the tribe.

Ultimately, these actions can be taken without any real organized reaction.

Minor Threats:

* A serious raid into the lower level caves (Goblins in D) that results in shattering the tribe, killing the chief, or otherwise putting the Goblins out of action. While still low on the totem pole, Goblins are at least enough of a challenge to alert the rest of the tribes that there is a competent force of adventurers lurking.
* Killing the Ogre (Cave E). The Ogre represents a significant foe and would rouse the other tribes.
* Similarly, the Owl Bear in Cave G.
* A raid into the middle level caves (the Orcs in B and C, Hobgoblins in H, Bugbears in F) that defeats a significant number of monsters, roughly a large encounter's worth, but otherwise leaves the tribe intact. These troops represent a significant force for Chaos, so casualties will be felt.

Major Threats:

* Killing the Minotaur in Cave I. Only seasoned adventurers and do-gooders would be capable of navigating the maze and slaying the Minotaur.
* Causing massive casualties to one of the middle level caves, including killing the chief or shattering the tribe. This would be a severe blow to Chaos' manpower.
* Raiding the Temple Cave K. Even a minor encounter and a few slain zombies would be taken personally by the Cleric.
* Any significant raid into the Temple cave would probably be the highest insult short of actually killing the Cleric himself.


Potential Reactions

A single minor threat would force a guard to be placed at the entrance to the ravine. This would be a large group of kobolds (if left alive) as a disposable warning force, or a group of goblins that would be capable of putting up a fight before falling back. Multiple minor threats would increase the guard's presence at the ravine mouth, up to a 24/7 watch and a few mobile groups of Orc, Hobgoblins, or Bugbears patrolling about a quarter mile around the Caves. This is probably the maximum amount of organization that could be enacted given the mash-up of species. Patrolling groups would fight any adventurers found; a severely outmatched patrol would either flee to reform later or possibly  fall back to combine with other patrols/guards. Patrols are also a great opportunity to ambush adventurers after they have finished a raid and are burdened with loot.

A single major threat by itself would prompt a full guard compliment at the ravine and around the caves. A major threat plus some lingering minor threats would provoke a counter-attack as detailed below. Multiple major threats or a raid into the Temple would provoke the harshest counter attacks from below, assuming the Caves still had significant manpower available.

Counterattack Encounters:

* The Cleric would lead a contingent of forces to attack the ramshackle town outside the Keep along the river. (I added this to expand the Keep setting; populated mainly by refugees from the Giant incursions happening in Geof). The primary goal of the raid would be a quick attack to gain prisoners and corpses to animate as zombies.The incursion would seek to avoid confrontation with the Keep's forces. The PCs could get involved with a running battle to attempt to save the would-be slaves or even a quick follow up rescue mission. Or just not care.

* If a particular band of adventurers has really caught the ire of the Cleric, such as raiding his Temple, the Cleric would arrange to have the PCs killed. This could lead to a number of different encounters. The brigands or wild men could be hired out to stalk and attack the PCs after they leave the Keep. The Hermit could be charmed into entering the Keep and attacking the PCs, kind of a medieval suicide attack. If the adventurers use the same path to access the Caves multiple times, the tracks could be found and a nice deadly trap laid. The acolytes of the Cleric could try to gain entry to the Keep, sign on with the PCs as henchmen/hirelings, and lead them to their doom in the Minotaur Cave or an ambush in the Temple. Any or all of these tactics could be used to fight back against a group that has the Caves on the ropes.

Overall, this puts a couple good ideas down in writing to further expand B2, help develop the low-level campaign setting, and help add some dimensions to the classic dungeon romp module. The end goal would be to add enough content to the area to have the PCs run up to at least 3rd level up to 5th level with enough planned content and opportunities for improvised situations without necessitating a railroad to completely clear the Caves. Getting a single group of adventurers to this level would really be a solid start to a lasting campaign.

Some other ideas floating around in my head including B1 in to the relative area. Possibly farther up in the mountains off to the NW of the mapped area. A few hooks could be sprinkled in to integrate the new adventure location. But that would be a separate post.

So I hope you enjoyed my entirely too long, rambling posts... At least they serve to get my thoughts down for the day I actually resume DMing...

Current State of Affairs

The upcoming blog of the September 6th session with me as DM was the final meeting of the first band of stalwart PCs. This session ended my involvement with this group out of Rock Hill until December 09. At this point, I was personally very frustrated. I had just finished the 3rd 3.5 game as a PC and was not really enjoying myself. Sure, it felt good to be gaming again, but the 6 hour sessions were seriously grating. The amount of enjoyment was more centered around "Yay, D&D again!" rather than the game at hand. With this in my heart, gaming was quickly becoming less and less attractive. I took a week off from playing, then ran this session with the PCs. By the end of it, I was pretty discouraged even with DMing, precipitating my departure for almost 4 months.

Of course, after the December session, I haven't played since either, so another 2 months went by. While I've been hankering to DM some more, the pull to game is being outweighed by the massive amount of work that has to be done between my jobs and the house especially with Kathy working by day and at Grad school by night. I had built my December session off of the B-series module material, allowing me to generate campaign settings very time efficiently. However, giving up those 6 hours every Sunday is like giving up $100 in work from my writing job, or house and yard work that needs to be done and only piles up, or spending quality time with my wife.

Yea, boo hoo to me, I'm just soooo busy. Either way, it's tough to fit gaming in. Oh, how the halcyon days of being a teenager with more free time than I knew what to do with have passed me by...

Maybe it will come full circle again some day.

3.5 Game, PC, Session 3, August 30th

Well, the 3rd and final installment in my 3.5e foray as a PC. Seeing as how I am going to try to recall this bugger from almost 6 months in the past, you will have to excuse my piss poor post.

Rejoining our heroes from last session, the Exposition-Matic Druid we rescued told us the entire low down on the Big Bad Evil Guy (BBEG) we would be facing down to put an end to this story thread. The guy is named Vandor and is a Blighter, one of the myriad of supplemental classes. They seem to be quasi-Druids who can cast a fireball centered on themselves (which does not hurt them) at will. I'm sure ( or at least hope ) that the power has restrictions, but I don't know since I don't own the sourcebook.

Vandor is currently being held prisoner in the town at the end of the river that were are traveling on. Only, the twist is that he escaped from prison, but is apparently still hiding out in town. We make our way to town, but large sections of the city are blocked off (I can't remember why for the life of me.) Some PCs go into a tavern and start trouble with an NPC, while Josh talks to a bum who knows all about underground sewer tunnels that can take us to where Vandor is hiding. Josh also talks/skill checks his way into a library of sorts to find an old layout of the city to guide our journey. This also leads to the RIVETING skill check when Josh asks if anyone else is in the library, prompting Justin to call for a Search check...

Armed with our knowledge we stroll towards the bad part of town ready to kick ass. Well, the party him-haws and it takes a while before everyone actually agrees to enter the building complex where the BBEG is hiding.

Throughout these last 3 adventures, the concept of wandering monsters, overland encounters, and any content besides the path from start to finish are all completely absent. Call it meta-gaming, but the end result is that I (we) have nothing to fear from non-scripted encounters. So it is all the same whether we charge through the wilderness or through the bad pat of town, it seems to be all the same in the end. That's typically why I am usually so insistent on moving forward with little regard to other lines of thought. Not much reason to try to deviate from a path when the DM only lays railroad tracks.

Regardless, we run headlong into some 3e-brand encounter planning, with a set of encounters designed with the DMG guidelines about summing up enough encounters with X challenge rating for a night's session. First encounter is a couple of adventurer types who are a room or two ahead of us. We pursue trying to talk to them, but eventually we run into a group of bugbears/gnolls/whatever, with some bodies on the ground. The demi-humans fight to the death (not sure if there was a reason or just the total absence of the concept of moral and self-preservation among intelligent humanoids), and in a twist, some of the bodies turn out to be dopplegangers that attack us after the fight. Now, it is an interesting turn of events to use these guys to lure us into an encounter, but why did they wait until we killed all of the bugbears to attack? Or, let us move on, weakened from the fight, and wait to attack us at our weakest moment?

Well, they go down and we get some plot exposition. It seems we weren't the first guys to try to tackle the BBEG and one of the survivors of a previous party shows up to give us the tactical low down on the rest of the night's hacking. We trudge onward with an NPC in tow and suddenly some monster/demon/devil/whatnot appears in front of us and DOINKs.

We head upstairs, closing in on the BBEG, or at least our allotment of rated encounters towards 100%. We come across a wall of iron blocking out way. Thankfully, a small pack of rust monsters eats its way through from the other side and battle is joined. It's rather hokey, that is iron wall was set up, but then rust monsters are around? And all staged just for us?

Through the former wall and we encounter the bodies of a previous party of adventurers. In true Final Fantasy fashion, we are able to loot the corpses dry, try on new arms and armor, and fully equip and prepare ourselves for the boss who waits patiently in the next room without disturbing us.

Now, this final fight was a pretty good challenge, I will have to admit. It was just the BBEG, but not a typical DOINK. This guy's ability to do an area of affect damage to anyone within melee range really put us off of our game. It was a constant struggle to try to do damage to him without getting caught in his super attack. There was a good twist that we all missed, he had one of his plague plants in the room, so if we went towards it, he wouldn't use his fire attack dealy for fear of destroying it.

We ended up taking him down without any permanent casualties, presumably ending the plague threat. Justin confirmed this by asking us if we wanted to play the same characters in the next campaign. This is totally alien to me, why build up a character and develop a persona to just ditch them after every episode?

Either way, we finished another railroad, but this one at least went through some pretty scenery, so the enjoyment factor was a notch higher than previous adventures. It was still a linear adventure with everything preplanned and no real room for creativity, negotiation, or clever plans. There was at least one challenging encounter and some room for smart thinking, even if we missed it.

Maybe Justin's DMing got better over the months between this session and now, but I never took the chance to find out. Trying to block off 6 or so hours every Sunday is entirely beyond me. Until last December, I had not been playing with them for over 3 months. Either way, he was describing one upcoming session where the PCs were going to trudge through a forest full of vampires to kill a master vampire to lift the curse on some Paladin NPC. Not really a good indication of a change in adventure styles.

Oh well. On to the next 1e session I DM'ed...

Post Mortem: 1e Game, Session 1, August 23rd

Well, let's take a closer look at the action without any narrative. Granted, my last write up was very straightforward, however, when I catch up in time with the actual game, and given I find some hidden free time I never knew existed, I might be able to start to write actual game narratives rather than recaps. Regardless, here's how I see the first session:

As I said before, the party composition was pretty damn good for a 4-man group, Fighter and Ranger up front, a multi-class Cleric/MU to provide the magical power, and a Thief to round out the group. Probably the most balanced selection you could ask for.

Unfortunately, the party did not equip themselves well. The Ranger did not buy a melee weapon and only purchased 12 arrows. No one bought rations either... I learned later that half the group is very new to table top gaming, having been brought in mainly from video games. I was under the impression that they had a little more experience under their belt, so I was not as careful to monitor the character creation process. Sadly, the two members with the most experience did not pitch in a lot of help either. That will be a reoccurring theme.

Due to some combination of rust on the DM's part and the PCs being unfamiliar with old school gaming styles, they had a tough time in the beginning trying to get going. Which of the two reasons was the biggest case remains to be seen. I gave everyone a starting rumor flat out, then laced more of them into NPC conversations. Nothing really struck a chord beyond gossiping, and when it seemed that the PCs had no idea what to do with themselves, I sprung the cliche plot hook on them to get them moving to the spider farm.

Chalk it up to inexperience or unfamiliar gaming style, but they were having a hell of a time trying to find adventure. Contrasting that with the regular DM, Justin, who uses a very straightforward plot that is always visible and mostly predetermined. On to the encounter.

The Spider Farm is set up as a test in basic skills, focusing on several key areas. First, the PCs know they are walking into a hostile environment; this will test their ability to assess a situation and come upon an encounter. Mainly, the important things here are the ability to remain undetected in the hopes of gaining surprise and avoiding ambushes, considering the option of reconnaissance, and tackling a situation from different angles.

The encounter is set at night against goblins with dark vision. Hence, approaching the farm with any significant light source will immediately bring upon an ambush and likely TPK. Here, the party did a good job with a little bit of luck thrown in. They are all demi-humans themselves, so there was no need for light sources. Second, with a Thief, Ranger, and half-elven character, 3/4s of the party could be sneaky and gain a better chance at surprise. They did separate their party according to sneak-ability and overall, made a good approach.

However, they did make some crucial missteps. First, they separated their sneaky people into 2 parties, effectively splitting their force into 3 parts, the Thief, the MU/Cleric and Ranger, and the Fighter. Second, they did not coordinate their actions or arrivals or contingencies between the 3 parts. The MU/C and Ranger arrived on scene first and gained surprise on a small group of Goblins.

Here is where things fell apart. Whether this was intentional or a lack of clear thinking, the group used the advantage to open an attack. While they could have gained some intell, sometimes choosing a bold attack with surprise can work. However, only 2 PCs were upon the goblins, with the rest of them 1-3 rounds away.

The opening rounds went rather well. There were 2 goblins in the open looting, with 3 in a nearby building. The Ranger and MU/C went to work with ranged weapons (bow and darts) while the Fighter lugged his ass into range for the next round and the Thief for 3 rounds later. Half of the goblins returned fire with short bows while the other half engaged in melee with the Fighter. All the while, no effort was made for a silent kill, so the alarm was rasied.

Each round 1-2 more goblins emerged from looting other buildings. Gobos with melee weapons hung back and formed up, while the ranged ones opened fire at will. As the first 3 rounds go by, the initial group of  baddies goes down between a hail of arrows, darts, and sword slashes. However, the party is coming under increasing missile fire from the growing number of goblins across the farm. The Thief arrives on round 3 in time to fell the last of the 5 gobos.

At this point, the PCs are gathered for the first time in the NE corner. They are hurting pretty bad, the MU/Cleric is out of darts, the Ranger is out of arrows, and the other two don't have ranged weapons. They face about a dozen goblins total, half and half between ranged and melee, all about a round away.

The raiding party's leaders emerge with a female captive, and all the melee monsters move to the middle of the farm where the spider's nest resides, and toss the hostage in. This is all moot, as the ranged fire, now at a climax in rounds 4-5, drops the MU/C and the Thief. The Ranger did manage to take cover and try to find arrows in the farm (?!?), but he couldn't return fire. The party breaks, dragging the downed PCs, and take another round of missile fire, putting everyone very low on HPs.

I gave the PCs a small break and ruled that the goblins would go back to looting. A lucky set of rolls for random encounters, and the PCs make it to the aforementioned farmhouse. There were a few surprises in that house, but none of them were found. It would have made an interesting encounter otherwise...

That covers the bulk of the action for the first session. Here's my (biased, as always) take:

The guys are very passive in their play. A lot of it has to do with their gaming style; they expect the DM to "lead" the action. Like Final Fantasy, there is a structure and formula that the players fit into, rather then the PCs making their own journey. Hence, they kind of moved forward tentatively, waiting to be ensnared in a plot. Had I not planned a guaranteed encounter the first night, they may have not done a whole lot at all. But once the escaped worker from the farm arrived in town, they jumped into action.

As far as the actual fight, the party lacked cohesion and imagination. It was just a straight up fight in a situation where they could have done more. Fighting all of the goblins at once is a recipe for disaster, even though they gained surprise.

I will touch more on this in a later post, but the modern/3.5/FF7 type of gaming is implicitly rigged. Encounters are scaled to the PCs power and deliberately planned and sequenced to be just the right challenge. Not so in this case. There are goblins and they are meant to be conquered. They will fight to the best of their ability and they are not scaled to any particular group. I am fully aware that the party would wipe if they made no attempt to conceal themselves and walked into an ambush. I am fully aware that a straight up fight is a losing proposition in many cases. But there are a lot of ways to approach the situation that all end up in victory.

In the end, the approach they took had the potential to work. Gaining surprise on a small number of goblins, taking a few out, and then disengaging has a high probability of success. Splitting the enemy's strength, engaging them piecemeal, and working attrition upon them are all great avenues. The PCs did none of that, instead just slogging into a battle toe to toe.

In 3e, the DMG basically suggests that all the encounters of a session should be weighted and summed to an arbitrary difficulty point that would bring the PCs to the brink of death. Meaning, each encounter is listed by % of party resources (HPs, spells, healing, etc) that it would take to win. Sum them to 100%, and that is your gaming session. Perhaps the PCs were operating under that assumption, the FF7 assumption, and didn't think they needed to be any more crafty then to let the DM only throw what they could handle at them.

This concept is the crux of my next blog post...

1e Game, DM, Session 1, August 23rd

This is the second half of the write up, continuing from the character generation thread. Of course, now it's been nearly 4 months since this session occurred, so bear with me.

We last left our group as they finished their characters. They have a pretty good set up for a 4 man party, 2 fighters types, a cleric/MU, and a thief. It would be a safe bet with a good front line of fighters with a decent amount of healing and magic support, plus the all around goodness of a thief. They even are all demi-humans, granting infravision and an effective stealthy strike force, matching this first adventure perfectly. However, this didn't work out as well as it could have...

As I mentioned before, I was planning on running Stuart Marshall's 4 adventures that are loosely linked together around the town of Melford. It offers a nice, contained setting, a good number of low level dungeons to explore, NPCs to interact with, plus plenty of room to expand the setting.

I'll stick to a game narrative for this post, then add a post mortem to take a look at the tactical details.

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I start the adventure with the standard party set-up: a bunch of young adventurers looking to start their journey to fame and fortune have all met and joined together to improve their chances. Yea, cliche, but it's a suitable start for the time being while we all work to establish a rhythm.

They approach the pastoral river town of Melford and I let them get the lay of the land, interact with NPCs, and offer everyone a chance to acclimate to myself as DM. Of course, I slip right back into my "apparently" habit, so I will have to break that fairly fast, they picked up on it in only one session...

It is tough going at first. I get the feeling that the PCs are not accustomed to being handed the reins to run the adventure, they seem to be waiting for me to start a story rolling or whatnot. Josh seems to be the de facto leader of the group, mostly based on the fact he's one of the few ones who is speaking up. Chris is the terminally shy one, Justin is RPing a "dumb" character, and Terry is very passive. He has the habit of narrating himself; instead of taking an action, he talks about why he might want to do the action. I'm not sure if it is some dramatic look-at-me-and-my-thoughts RP kind of thing, or a gentle acquiescence to the approval and will of the group...

Well, after dropping some rumors with adventure hooks for the immediate session and setting up future hooks, I get the ball rolling on a quickie setting based encounter to round out the 2nd half of the session. A farmer from the area runs into town, exhausted, and informs the town that the spider farm is under attack. He doesn't have much intel since he ran at the first sign of the attack, but this also suggests that the baddies don't know someone escaped.

The PCs graciously take the hook and set off to the spider farm immediately, even though it is night. They approach the spider farm by way of the road, taking no precautions for most of the trip. After repeatedly prompting them for more (You're a 1\4 mile away... nothing... 1000 feet away... nothing.... etc), they decide on their plan.

The Thief plans to skirt around the farm to the opposite side that backs up to a forest. The Ranger and MU/Cleric form an advance party that goes directly to the farm, utilizing their improved surprise chance for race/class. The Fighter follows behind with his clunky armor. It's a damn good start, only, they all march out at the same time to arrive at different times rather than coordinating an arrival... They don't change their plans even though I point this out.

They are able to win surprise and spy the farm from just outside. It's a roughly circular arrangement of buildings and houses centered around a gash in the ground that is the spider lair. A few goblins are seen looting in the NE corner, so the Ranger and MU/Cleric engage. The Fighter and Thief then start to hoof it to catch up, the Fighter 1 round behind and the Thief 3 rounds behind.

A few volleys of missile fire are exchanged then melee is joined. As the party descends on the smaller group of goblins, the alarm is raised and the rest of the invading goblin force assembles themselves in the SW corner of the farm. The first group of goblins is dispatched with only a little trouble, but at this point, the goblins from the SW have formed a small line of archers and is pelting the shit out of the PCs, while the melee Goblins form up for a fight.

The PCs fail to close to range and break under the missile fire. First the MU/Cleric drops, then the Thief. The Ranger runs out of arrows and the party flees, the surviving members dragging the unconscious ones. I play it easy on the PCs and declare that the goblins do not pursue them beyond arrow range since they were there to loot the farm.

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The party pushes on into the forest and rests for the remainder of the night; thankfully, nothing comes upon them in their weakened state. They strike out the next morning heading NE, away from the farm and the town. Thankfully, the two comatose party members are a halfling and a half-elf, so they are able to be dragged and carried to at least make a slow crawl along the way.

At this point, I'll diverge from strict narrative and mention that the PCs have no rations or portable food whatsoever, except for a bottle of brandy and a jar of honey.

The PCs limp along to an abandoned farmhouse with a black mark painted on the door. Desperate, they barge into the dilapidated, ruined home. The house is found to be empty and some furniture is salvaged to get bed rest for the downed adventurers. Realizing their plight and listening to hungry stomachs, the Half-Orc Fighter stays behind to guard the wounded while the Ranger goes to find some game to hunt (borrowing the Halfling's short sword... I would have chuckled if he went out in his current unarmed state).

The Ranger comes upon a pair of wild boars and throws caution to the wind, attacking with his short sword! The boars take particular exception to this attack and gore the piss out of the Ranger, sending him running. Now I know why hunters use bows or guns, rather than trying to bag game with their bare hands...

In the meantime, a rider comes up the road on horseback, and the Half-Orc waves to the figure. Pausing for a moment, the rider instead turns on his spurs and heads back down the road from where he came.

The Ranger returns from his hunter-gatherer trip, only bringing home what he could gather. It is enough to quiet their stomachs for now, and they set back out on the road. They travel farther north, away from Melford, fearing the goblins may still be lurking behind them. Coming to a fork in the road, the PCs choose a path that leads them to a small gathering of buildings and a set of standing stones. They've come across an Oracle.

The party barters their adventuring prowess for magical healing and a meal, bringing the party back from the brink along with another plot hook. There is a lair deeper in the woods that the Oracle has divined, but the previous scouting party has not returned. Since the Oracle fears that they are already dead, the PCs are charged with more of a recovery mission rather than a rescue mission.

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So concludes the first adventure. A post mortem with more detailed analysis and game mechanics discussion is to follow.

An update?!?

Well, I jumped back in and ran another adventure today. Let's see if I can actually keep up the game AND the posting. So I owe the two write-ups of the sessions earlier this fall and then the one tonight....