See part 1 here.
These last 2 sessions were marked with strong, not so positive emotions on my part. At the end of session one, I couldn’t believe that we played so little (we started at 7h00-7h30 and ended at around 9h45). At the end of session two, I was downright angry (and vocally so) that we spent 4 hours doing only half of the fight that I had originally planned.
Today’s post will describe the GMing highlights of session one.
The Vault of the Drow
When the PCs entered the Drow castle (actually an ancient cathedral dedicated to an albino form of Lolth), I wanted to convey, to the more Story-oriented players, a sense of what happened when their PCs from our last D&D 3.5 campaign kicked Lolth out of this world 1000 years ago.
Homebrewed setting aside: Recent readers should know that we’re playing in the same game world since I created it when I was 13 for AD&D 1e and that we covered about 1100 years in 26 years of gaming, including a 1000 year jump last year when I nuked the world to make way to 4e’s new assumptions.
I also wanted to give the PCs the equivalent of an extended rest without borking the momentum of the story. So when the PCs examined the vault, I had Usul (Mike’s Invoker) tap into a large store of divine energy that apparently wasn’t tied to any divinity (it was cut off from Lolth). I explained that he could do wondrous things with the energy for the rest of the adventure (he had a stock of ‘energy points’), including granting everyone an extended rest, provided he rolled a successful religion check.
Of course, he missed that roll… but failure wasn’t an option (a very important question all DMs should ask themselves whenever they ask for a die roll) so I played my next card and Mouseguarded it…
Chatty: You succeed in channeling the energy but you open up a conduit to another plane.
Usul: Uh Oh…
Chatty: In your mind’s eye you see a scantily clad female elf sprawled on a spider-shaped throne. She looks up at you, saying ‘Now… What have we here?” You feel her will trying to grab onto you. You succeed in your task but you’ve opened up the world to the attention of Lolth once again.
Usul: Ah Great!
Terminology Aside: What did I mean by ‘Mouseguarded it”? In Luke Crane’s Mouseguard (based on the Burning Wheel game), a failed skill check doesn’t lead to a dead end but instead adds a complication or a condition to the PC attempting it. My friend Dave and I have started calling doing that in D&D “Mouseguarding”. I really need to write a post on that.
Head troubles and the Council of 3
I then asked where the players wanted to go in the Castle (I had a few “improvised” encounters planned) and they chose to go to the throne room. My game plan for this scene was to achieve 2 objectives:
- Have the PCs realize that the Mind Flayer was more of a victim of the Dungeon/Castle than a tyrant.
- Meet the Master and negotiate a 3 part Cease Fire/Alliance to destroy the dungeon
At the last minute I had an inspiration and, since this adventure was supposed to be improvisation friendly, I went with it.
I decided that the Mind Flayer’s head would be plugged into a Huge ‘Girl Genius‘ machine that would give the Overmind full control of the Flayer’s psychic abilities, turning the combination into some kind of Solo monster. Then as the PCs moved in the room and engaged in some Belligerent Pre-Martial Foreplay ™ I described how a portal opened letting a Shifter Lich in the throne room.
This was one of the campaign’s big reveals, way back when, my friend Eric made a Shifter Warden without ever creating a backstory, saying he was found in the Dungeon, stricken with amnesia. Since Eric has a strong psychodramatist streak, I created this mysterious link to a chessmaster villain called ‘The Master” who had developed ways to teleport at will within the dungeon. Combined with several weird deaths, the mystery of Fangs origin was an entertaining story.
The reveal was that Fangs was a clone (albeit a very powerful one) of the Master himself.
I ret-conned the Master’s arrival in my last post by saying that the portal originated within Fangs, killing him on the spot. This was because Eric, Fangs’ player, missed the last game, and the running joke is that his PC always dies when he’s not there.
Anyway, the party engaged the wired flayer while the Master went to fight the ‘add-ons’. The PCs alternatively attacked the body or the machinery. I decided to give the machinery the stats for a lvl 12 Solo monster, but I balked at the 750 hp the thing was supposed to have, fearing that it would make the fight way too long. As an attack, I had the thing blast all PCs on the map, every turn, with the flayer’s Mind Blast.
This rapidly drained the party HPs and forced them to become creative fast… except there wasn’t much to be creative about. This is often a problem with improvised games, the number of interactive elements in a combat are limited. As I sensed frustration/fear rising, I searched for a way out.
I started describing how the machine had all kinds of tubes and wires sticking out of it. When players started calling shots to the tubes and hit, I told them that some sections of the map could no longer be hit by the blast, giving wounded PCs a place to retreat to.
Then my buddy Math solved my ‘too many HP problem’ by using a Sorcerer power on the Flayer that teleported it away from the Throne… I ruled that this unplugged it from the machine, thus ending the fight.
A short roleplaying session followed where the players, acting as representatives of the City Within, brokered a peace agreement and even a military alliance to take out the Dungeon at it’s core as described in the last report.
The Players were then ready to walk to the Dungeon focus deep in the Castle/temple and face the Dungeon’s avatar awaiting them. Problem is, it was an epic fight… and it was 9h45. We had to stop because the fight would have lasted at least 2 hours (it actually lasted 4).
We had started really late (like 7h30 after eating dinner) so I was a bit miffed, but that’s how the dice roll when we’re adult gamers.
Up next: The 4 hour epic finale…
I also get miffed when we start late. However, I then remember this is a social encounter and the game is the excuse to meet up. I’ve spent nights wherein we spend the first 45 minutes to an hour doing nothing but chatting (and this with a schedule of only 3 hours, every two weeks).
Last night we also had to end early because the players had reached the start of a huge fight and one of the players was not there, so we decided to wait another two weeks before running the climatic fight. With the fights in 4E lasting so long we often end early rather than start a fight we know will last hours.
One thing I do is make sure I am set up to start. I have the battle map set up with the next room and the miniatures and character sheets out for the players to take, before the players show up. This way, its not my fault if we start late (other than my participation in the off-topic conversations).
Also, if we are not in the middle of a fight, I will start with the players that are already there and the rest can catch up when they show up.
But, in the end, its all about hanging out with your friends.
.-= callin´s last blog ..Birthright Encounters One =-.
I agree with you about the importance of hanging with friends and I was more surprised than annoyed that the evening was already over.
However, there is the fact that the GM often spent one to several hours prepping for this game arrives at the table with expectations of seeing the upfront work be used in this session. Having those expectations squandered several sessions in a row can lead to GM burnout. I mean, if we are really short on time maybe board games are a better use of that time.
I agree with you that it can be frustrating Chatty, but personally I will put up with the frustration to keep role-playing because, like you, I only get to role-play once every two weeks.
I’m a pretty creative guy and my mind is usually bursting with ideas that I have to sit and wait on FOREVER because we hardly get to play… *sob*. So yeah.. I’ll put up with the frustration that sometimes arises from being a GM to get some of the ideas I have in my brain out on the table.
.-= wrathofzombie´s last blog ..Clockworks Playtest- Chargen! Part Two =-.
I seem to have very similar problems with improv combat, i find it hard to come up with interesting in-depth environmental encounters on the spot. It is one of those things that i’m really working on to improve though.
Mind you combat in general is a sore point for me. I enjoy it, i just find the Maths and number crunching has started to really take away from the excitement of the combat instead of enhancing it and this leaves a 2-4 hour whole in my campaign where everyone sits around waiting for thier turn and then when it is thier turn the do some Maths and move on.
Building my next campaign at the moment and working on a more free flowing and narration/skill heavy battle system where Mastered Feats are rare and everything else is available thorugh a new 6-tiered skill system (by the sound of Mouseguarding, could be similar to mouseguards).
It is either going to work gloriously or fail miserably, lol.
Apart from that for a 2 hour-ish game you managed to pack alot of Epic atmosphere into it as well as bring Lolth back into the picture. Which is a very nice thread for an entire campaign. The Fangs/Master reveal was very cool and i’ve been dying to find out what was the deal there for awhile now.
Looking forward to seeing your notes on the Final Battle, speaking of which did i mention i don’t like Combat at the moment! 🙂
Scott
I completely understand your frustrations at having to cut a session short because of the length of time it takes to fight a battle. More than once I’ve ended my game half an hour or 45 minutes early because I knew that I had time to start a battle but not the time to see it through to completion (and playing beyond my set end-time on a game day leads only to ongoing damage from the spouse’s death-stare, no save!)
As a grown-up with a job and a family it is definitely a let down to have to just give up some of that precious, precious gaming time!
Don’t get me wrong. I’m actually a big 4E fan. But upon reflection I realise that one problem with the new system is that it is very hard to pause a battle mid-way through and then resume it again 3 weeks later. Not only would making a record of the positions of every player and monster on the board be a hassle, but add to that all the condition modifiers, which daily or encounter powers the players and the monsters have used etc and you would have to keep a lengthy ledger just to be able to rebuild the board!
Gah my comments reply habits are getting out of whack. Sorry!
@Wrath:One of my players shared an incredibly good insight about managing that DM frustration and I’ll go into it in the next part.
@Scott: I don’t think it’s conceivable to do it all. You either improv scenes and combat and you put few interactive elements or you plan some terrain and trap elements in advance and drop them when appropriate (but that’s not so improv anymore).
However, in such cases, Rule 42 is your friend! You can create any terrain effect with the DC and Damage ratings of page 42 of the DMG. As for attack bonuses, use the same as your monsters in the encounter. No one will ever notice.
@Erik:A way to cut short a battle is to impose an effect on all figures on the map to go back to setting up (earthquake maybe)…. Or the floor collapses onto a lower dungeon level and you drop all minis from 1′ over the battle map and set them up where they fall.
Lastly you can use a digital camera to capture the board. I should do that…
As far as prep work being wasted, sometimes I look at it as a boon. It means I have to do less prep work for the next play session. Right now my players are stuck in a published module (WotC made some really long dungeons early on in 4E), but I’ve been prepared the last couple of weeks without really having to do much work. A sort of mini-DM-vacation.
.-= callin´s last blog ..Birthright Encounters Three =-.