See part 1 here.
The word of the Spirit
After the Ritual was completed and the elemental monsters were vanquished, Dworkin announced that he was now the spokesperson of the Kodiak spirit. Franky and I had worked out the relationship between his character and the potential spirit beforehand so he explained that from now on, the City would have to mind the will of the spirits as communicated by the shamans.
This made Franky’s PC get a reason to stay in the City and feel part of it, making the whole adventure a great success already.
I know what he’s talking about, but do you?
The next scene was where Radik Whiteblade, the Preserver’s candidate, had to address the voters to convince them to vote for him. He once again asked the PCs to perform a ritual that made the energies of the Nexus and the Nature spirits visible to all. Now all voters were going to be treated with an audio-visual show!
However, as I set the scene up, I made it clear to the PC that Radik, while an enthusiastic Preserver, was NOT a good public speaker. It’s funny, but without knowing it, this scene was made for one player and that was Math.
Since both Math and myself have academic backgrounds, I had made Radik to be like one of those University teachers that are absolutely great in a lab but suck in front of a classroom. I heard Math groan when I explained how Radik was getting ready to launch into a 3 hour long lecture on energy flows.
So as soon as I shared this vibe, the PCs went all “Oh my god he’s going to put them all to sleep, we gotta do something”
So Math’s PC, Corwin the Halfling Sorcerer, walked up to the lectern, shooed Radik away and took his place.
Corwin: “So what my esteemed colleague is trying to say is that we’ve interweaved the energy flows to create some additive synergies that result in transcendent levels of protections against the Dungeon’s nega-flux conduits!” (Math rolls a 30 something on his bluff check)
Dworkin (whispering loudly): “Corwin! What the hell are your talking about?”
Corwin (whispering back with a smile): “I haven’t got the faintest idea!”
The crowd ate it up. This was one of the many high point of the evening. Mike had his head in his hands, sighing loudly at all the bullshit that we were spewing while the others were laughing it up. While I had initially planned to make the scene into another skill challenge, Math’s initiative and the back and forth created between the overconfident Corwin and his anxious teammates was worth delivering the whole scene into his hands.
After Dworkin in the last scene, Corwin got his own crowning moment of awesome!
The scene closed with a rousing standing ovation, 80% of the vote intentions and a very pissed off Jevica.
A Descent in Hell!
After that, the game kinda took a gentle dive. At this point, the PCs were mostly out of Dailies and Action Points. Healing Surges were kinda low; so low that Jaiel wasn’t at full HPs anymore, something unheard of in our games so far.
I had one last encounter planned and it was way too hard for the 4 PCs and their tired players to deal with. We managed to salvage the scene, but it put a little damper on the whole thing.
Here’s how it went.
In the last scene, Jevica had setup a sumptuous dinner with delicacies from all over the Underdark and Surface world. She was showcasing the implied opulence that free trade could bring. The whole area was arranged as an open market where voters could freely walk from stall to stall to sample exotic foods and fine spirits.
When Jaiel walked up to Jevica to discuss the outcome of the upcoming vote, I told Yan that Jaielhad to stay beside Jevica and that she wasn’t interested in talking (Strike one! I was getting tired and I didn’t know where I could send the adventure other than follow my pre-established script).
When Corwin noticed that Jaiel was standing rod-straight beside Jevica as she was getting ready to address the crowd, he walked up to both to try to shake Jaiel out of her fugue-like state. That’s when Jevica told Corwin: “Go play in the crowd little man” and I rolled against Corwin’s Will defense, dominated him for a few seconds and sent him running back into the crowd (much to Math’s displeasure, Strike two!).
That’s when I decided to spring the encounter. Two pain devils, two Spined devils and a Cambion Hellsword, all wearing the tri-whip sign of Dungeon denizens charged into the voters, slaying them by the dozen.
With the whole battlemap made of difficult terrain because of the panicking voters, with all candidates open for attacks and the PCs with very few resources, the evening’s last fight started on a downer note.
Yan “Difficult terrain, 5 devils and the candidates just standing there? We can kiss our bonus goodbye”
Franky” Jevica is allied with the Dungeon? The Bitch!”
Yet, the players hung on and managed to avoid the death of any candidates, see them to safety and were getting ready to run away. It’s a tribute to my player’s good faith that they never faltered and tried their best to face the obviously superior forces of the devils. Yet it was getting late and I wanted to conclude the fight without resorting to too obvious a Deus EX Machina (it wasn’t an issue at this point that one was needed, I just was hoping to find a subtle one).
During the fight, Jaiel mentioned that it made no sense for devils, followers of the God Asmodeus, to be allied with the dungeon. That gave me an idea. As the PCs were all retreating to leave the map and the devils behind (all candidates having been teleported away by the emergency evacuation team setting up off map) Usul stepped forward and used his ‘Invoke Obedience’ power on some of the two remaining Devils.
I had my Deus Ex!
Chatty: “As you invoke Kord’s word, you find that the power of the City and the Covenant that all Gods forged when the Prison was created multiplies your voice. As you demand obedience, your voice takes on the vibration of Asmodeus’ and you see his wayward servants quake in fear and dissolve into pools of goo”
I made a small mistake here in that I asked Mike to make an intimidate check along his Invoke obedience. I never should have done that as I was ready to play the effect regardless of the results. Right on cue, Mike played a 1. So when I decided to describe like I did in the previous paragraphs, it felt like a cop out to Mike.
Next time I’ll keep that under wraps and play it as I chose to without asking for spurious dice rolls.
After the fight, all candidates but Jevica were accounted for.
Jaiel: “She was a Godsdamn Succubus! She charmed me to stay put!”
Ha! I got a player to have his PC kiss a succubus! Score!
According to the City’s press, the body of the real Jevica was found, bound and gagged, abandoned in an apartment building in the Builder’s Terrace burg.
The PCs aren’t buying it, alleging that the Sarn-Mors family is trying to spin doctor a scandal. But that’s a story for another time.
The election was postponed a few days to allow voters to recuperate from shock. Radik Whiteblade was elected in a landslide and the PCs were given their bonuses.
PCs level up to 9th.
Lessons Learned
- Nothing beats a homebrewed adventure when it takes player motivation in account.
- Combat embedded skill challenges ROCK and the design space is still wide open for more types.
- When players are simply brilliant in a scene, throw the dice out the window and let them play it out!
- When PCs can’t take an extended rest, make sure that the 3rd fight is not over their level!
What’s next?
With this two-session adventure I met my objective to create NPCs that brought the city alive! We came out of the 5 last sessions with enough leads and characters to fuel future adventures.
I discussed it with Yan and I’ll likely make the next adventure into something less cerebral and more classic. probably another expedition in the Dungeon. Since my discussion with Yan I already have a few ideas and a working title:
A Master’s Wrath!
Can’t wait to play again!
I must admit that when you force me to silence, as I was about to try to talk our way out of the last encounter, it did frustrate me a bit.
Oh well, cannot win them all, especially when tired.
I did re-use part of my speech to try to convince the devil to leave afterward.
I know you were frustrated, but you hit a ‘nothing’s prepared and I don’t know how to improv this’ wall.
I’m glad that you could recycle your ideas later in the game and I was happy to see your reaction when the Cambion dropped that +3 vicious Greatsword.
🙂
Sounds like a great session. I love the bluff; “nega-flux conduits” sounds a lot like Marty is about to skateboard by while Doc yells “Great Scott”.
Also, good on you for tossing out the dice the next time. We have always done so, especially with motivational speeches (bluffs/intimidates/lies/etc.). I find that if a player has a great story, the dice should never bother them. Even though it might be realistic for a player with little charisma to botch the greatest speech, these are the kind of moments that PC’s shine. Some players shine even more when delivering such moments than when they hack the head of Flubbywubby the Evil Nemesis; but that’s a player type discussion 😉
Anyways, great story, these certainly fascinate me more than a lot of other chronicled campaigns out there!
@Flying Dutchman: Yeah, that little monologue was built as we bounced stupid mana-babble from one player to the next.
I must say that I’m highly satisfied with the last 5 sessions as we’ve finally gotten in the groove of building a story. While we have our crunchtastic moments, we also have good roleplaying now.
Yan has been telling me for some time that making my own adventure beats using published ones hands down. It’s now obvious to me now.
Thanks for reading.
That last fight was really hard on moral. It had several things leading to it.
-The candidate where spread out in a difficult to move environment that most of the devil could ignore since they where flying.
-Most of us had few healing surge left (1 or 2) none in my case, with me being one third short of being at full HP.
-We had no daily left and only Math had action surges left (which he horde and never use :p ).
It took all I had not to give in to desperation, while desperately trying to find a non-combat way of ending this fight.
Still an overall satisfying game and the candy at the end helped to heal any frustration I had. 😉
edit: Post at the same time. Concerning “writing your adventures beats using module” Yep It does and by a landslide.
I must admit that I am jealous… Too bad you don’t live in the New Jersey area, cause I would love to sit in on a game. Your games seem really intelligent and well thought out, and your players, like Yan, seem to be able to think well on their feet, and in many games I’ve played in, that can sometimes be a rare thing.
The main prop I’ll give to you Chatty, is you admit when you have done something wrong, or perhaps didn’t exectue something as well as you had planned or hoped.. Keep that up because that is a trait that many DMs severely lack!
@Mike: Thanks for the good word. As for a sit in you’d have to at least understand French as our game are conducted in French with a sprinkle English here and there. 😉
@Yan:Glad to see that the Phat Loot made your evening. Now I dread when you’ll start rolling 20s.
@Mike: Sorry man, I live way up north where it snows 10 months a year and cheese is called fromage 🙂 But thanks for the kudos. My players berate me that I’m often too hard on myself, but I write these reports mainly because it forces me to re-think about the game and pinpoint the things I could do better.
It’s been helping me a lot!