(This is the first post I write on my new mini-laptop that you all payed for by visiting this site, I thank you all!)
Earlier this fall I attended a local gaming con called Draconis where I demoed a D&D adventure written by my friend Johenius. At the con, I met Erik, the owner of the Midnight Lair’s forum and we played a wicked cool game of Swords & Wizardry. He was supposed to play in my 4e game but didn’t make it on time.
We vaguely talked about playing a 4e game some day so he and some of the forum members could try it. You know the kind of “we should really do something at an unspecified time” kind of thing.
Then, a few weeks ago, I “moderated” a very cool 4e Q&A thread where I ended up inviting people to give the game a try because the selling points of 4e are not in the books but at the table.
Four people signed up, all 4e newbies, all genuinely interested (with some reservations of course).
I initially planned to run the Kobold Hall adventure (from the “Dungeon Master Guide”) for this one shot but several issues crept up.
- The adventure is made up of 5 combat adventures with no story to speak off
- Based on forum chatter, the players seem more motivated by storytelling and immersive settings than combat
- I didn’t want to just showcase 4e’s combat system, I wanted more.
So I stopped a few minutes and asked myself a few questions.
- What kind of game did I want to run?
- A simple 1st level game with a rich history and setting
- How much time am I willing to invest in its prep?
- Very little, my schedule is crazy full right now
- What aspects of 4e do I want to showcase?
- The strength of the simple skill system, Combat, interactive elements, and what you can do when stretching the rules
So with that I started planning the game and started playing my ‘what if’ game…
What if I set the adventure in Monte Cook’s Ptolus? (I have a huge poster map of the City on my gaming room wall)
(Ptolus was an all-in-one city that had all the elements of a lvl 1-20 D&D 3.5 campaign in one place)
What if the adventurers were new members of the Delvers guild, having paid membership with their last adventure?
What if the kobolds, rather unheard of in Ptolus, were in fact ratmen, a staple race of the city?
What if the clichéd ‘hunt for rats’ mission was subverted into something more meaningful to the players?
What if I hacked the parts of Kobold Hall I liked into a Ptolus “Kill the Tomb Raiders” adventure?
What if I added some Chaositech to the mix? (Like Steampunk, only Chaos powered)
I had my adventure:
Elevator Pitch: A group of young adventurers are hired by an old Delvers Guild Librarian to clear out his ancestral Crypt taken over by a sinister cult of Ratmen. However getting there might be problematic since the librarian’s mind isin’t what it used to be.
The adventure party will consist of:
- Dwarven Fighter
- Dwarven Warlord
- Eladrin Wizard
- Elven Avenger
I created 3 plot hooks/quest specific to these characters.
I then created an adventure-length Skill Challenge stolen, once again from Mouseguard (I may always DM like that from now on). Instead of having a map to follow and exploring a dungeon, the adventure is designed as a linear ‘narrative” (It’s a demo game, no time to go true sandbox here).
To move forward in the story (ex: find the entrance to the Dungeon, avoid getting lost in the rats tunnels) I’ll have a PC explain to me how they are going to achieve that and what skill/ability/power would be best suited to achieve it. The skill roll will be played. Success will mean that the story moves forward, failure will lead to a consequence, unexpected branch or success with a price. I may even use this rule to simulate a random encounter (i.e. use skill checks to kill a meaningless monster without breaking out the battlemap)
There will not be a ‘3 strikes you’re out’ mechanic in the adventure… the goal is to have about 50% failure to spicify the adventure… that’s why I’ll be using the non-errata DCs for the skill challenge (but without the +5 DC for skill checks).
Finally, I needed some Ratmen for the adventure. Reading the stats in Ptolus (damn monster stats were long in 3e, I admire Monte for having crammed so many in that 700 page book).
I asked my Twitter brain trust what abilities non-lycantrophe ratmen with guns would have. I got a ton of response and I kept the following:
- Would use weapons made out of junk. Would deal more damage but would break easily
- Would fight more savagely when cornered
- Would use Rat Dung in weaponry
I would also base them on Kobold stats instead of building them whole cloth. So I fired up Wizards of the Coast’s Monster Maker (a D&D Insider downloadable DM tool) and I went to work.
Here’s the result:
There you have it… I’m pretty sure it will be a great game. I’m even building in a cliffhanger. I don’t think we can complete the adventure in one session and I wanna see if I can hook for non-4e players in wanting to come back and complete the adventure.
What about you? If you were to Demo 4e, what aspects would you focus on? What is, in your opinion, critical for a successful session?
Thanks for reading, I’ll keep you posted!
P.S.: I promised Wizards of the Coast that I would write a follow up article about the Open Letter I wrote 2 years ago. In it I called them on producing Crappy software and not delivering on their promise for 4e. Well suffice it to say that I’m blown away by the Character Builder, Monster Maker and D&D Compendium. So worth the subscription fees! So I officially attest that they have won my loyalty back. Yes Gametable is not ready… but I don’t actually need it for now. Great work Don, Didier, Chris, Bart and the rest of the team! Continue with your ‘let’s do it right’ philosophy!
Ptolus is Copyright © 2009 Monte J. Cook. All rights reserved.U
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I’ll focus on storytelling. Once at a demo game event, I saw a male player “lecture” a *female* player on the mechanics of movement and opportunity attacks. That just sucks… Just let her go there and do something awesome already.
.-= Vincent´s last blog ..A character death and a limerick =-.
Lecturing is an absolute no-no in teaching a new RPG. I’m a big fan of teaching as we go and answering questions to assuage player curiosity or anxiety.
I also hate when DMs put in house rules that add nothing to the game experience… like adding fumbles that break weapons in 4e. Of course I’ll be putting in my own house rules tonight but having read part of the DMG 2, I think that Mouseguarding is totally within the spirit of the game, 😉
I just LOVE double standards. You can’t do it, but I can because I’m hard headed and awesome 🙂
I didn’t fail to notice a few typos and ommissions on the stat blocks. I made them fast and dirty for tonight’s game and I posted them on the blog as an after thought.
Here’s 2 glaring ones: The Ratling Skirmisher’s Bite should deal poison damage. (Other ratlings don’t have the attack because their weapons won’t likely all break in a fight)
The Ratling Young’s Shifty power should say ‘ratling’ not kobold. Poor confused ratling.
Yay for netbook love!
Great ideas you’ve got there. I ran my first “selling 4e to my players” sessions in Ptolus, centred on the Arena. This gave us chance to really put the combat engine through it’s paces while at the same time being open to tonnes of ready-made politicking plothooks.
Good call on reskinning kobolds at Ratmen. Oddly enough this brings ’em closer to the original D&D rendition of kobolds as small dog-like creatures with not a lizard-like trait in their body.
Looking forward to how this turns out!
.-= greywulf´s last blog ..Endday Prelude: Plotting and expectations =-.
I think sometimes, people forget that D&D is a fantasy game. One is supposed to suspend belief. There is a point where simulating too much of our “reality” into the game spoils the fun.
.-= Vincent´s last blog ..A character death and a limerick =-.
If I had to demo 4th edition, I would use plenty of the optional “win” objectives in DMG2. I would showcase how cinematic the game can turn since I constantly hear that 4th edition is now a board game with an RP element tacked on.
But to make sure the session was a total success, I would have the players succeed at an actually heroic task, all while making them *earn* their success. That way, players feel like they can do great things, but not had them handed to them. A sense of accomplishment is key to me.
.-= doomdreamer´s last blog ..Quick Note Conundrum =-.
@greywulf: Ptolus has this ‘thereness’ that makes immersion easier and faster. The book as so many hooks, factions, locales, agendas that I usually waste 30 minutes whenever I open the book and start ‘surfing the links”
It’s actually a Paper Wiki with Monte keeping the password 🙂
The setting also survives the transition to 4e quite well. I especially like the concept that high level adventurers now hold positions of power in the city.
The only thing you lose is the ability to play out of the book as a sandbox (not the book’s main role anway), Monster Stats and 3.5 Mechanics (okay, that’s like 30% of the book)… but making your own on the fly as the campaign progresses is easy.
@Doomdreamer: I agree 100% about the heroic task. One of the things I like about 4e is the feeling of competence players have from 1st level onwards. Yes they still miss their target 50% of the time, but in terms of skills, the success rate feels a lot higher.
Good call.
I’m a storyteller DM at heart, so I applaud your efforts to ensure an entertaining story as part of a demo for new players. With 4E the combat system is a very central part of the rules but to interest new players the battles should be quick and exiting with a focus on the “flourishes”.
For my very first DM session in 4E I began the game with the PCs in the middle of a bar fight. All of the weapons were improvised, from mugs of ale, to barstools and tables, to bowls full of scalding hot stew used as projectiles. What I liked about this as an intro scenario was that it allowed everyone to explore and use the combat system while keeping it lighthearted and fun – no one had to worry that if they made a newbie mistake someone would lose a character or they would fail to resuce the princess.
I love the rat men you’ve come up with and I think they would be great for introducing new players to the system. The randomly breaking weapons and dung guns would keep people smiling rather than worrying too much about whether they are using the most efficient at-will power. It makes me laugh when I think of PCs being scared that the rat man gunner might roll a critical failure!
@Erik: That’s what I was going for when I designed them. I broke the ‘don’t break equipment because it complicates your monster’ rule but I feel it will totally work.
As for the Dung gun, I can’t wait to describe its effect ‘You are covered with something brown and very smell… oh Sh…!”
And I hope I get to pull the explosive gun trick… I might cheat 🙂
Complete side track:
How did you get the monster stat blocks from the Monster Builder to your webpage? MB outputs as print/html/rtf. I haven’t been able to figure out how to convert it into a picture. I was printing them out and then scanning them, but my scanner is not working right now, and the quality was lacking anyway.
And yes, the MB is phenominal.
.-= callin´s last blog ..Birthright Encounters Four =-.
Personally I use the print screen feature of windows followed by a paste in paint.net(Open source freeware) and some light editing to crop and save the stat block.
It’s dead easy.
Get your monster in the list on the left side of the screen.
Right click it. The menu offers lots of options. Choose ‘Copy as Image”
Open MS Paint.
Paste the Image there.
Crop all the White and save as a Jpg.
Voilà!
I do have to say the more I read about your love for 4e the more I do want to play it.
Your adventure sounds pretty fun, I just need to schedule some time with a DM that knows how to run 4e and give it ago.
Let us know how the adventure goes. 🙂
.-= Tyson J. Hayes´s last blog ..We Need You, We Want You, We Got to Have… Your Opinion =-.
Three things:
1) Personally, for demo games, I like to stick as close to RAW as possible. But this isn’t a Game Day event or anything, and you know your audience somewhat, so it should be good.
2) Does anyone else find it ironic that Ptolus is being used to help convince people to try 4e, when Monte is anti-4e himself?
3) One note for the Junk Gun: Technically, when it explodes, it won’t hit the Ratling, as a Close Burst doesn’t include the origin square. I would actually keep the text as is, and add “The Ratling Gunner takes this damage as well, with no attack roll.” since he’s holding the thing. Or change the beginning to just read “The Ratling Gunner and every creature in a Close Burst 1”. Not a big deal for a demo game, just a tip for when you do start publishing. 🙂
Anti-4e may be a strong term. I think Monte stands by the system he designed and prefers to play the (heavily) modified version of it than 4e.
But yeah, it makes me smile to use Monte’s setting with the newest edition of the game. I’m not clamoring for a 4e conversion like many have done… as I don’t believe it’s necessary. 🙂
As for the Close burst 1 thing, yeah, I agree. But this was late night designing for the game table 🙂 Thanks for pointers though… they were noted.
Well, he’s not “anti-4e” in that he doesn’t believe the game should exist. Heck, he predicted its release year. But he has said pretty clearly that he doesn’t like the changes they made/doesn’t care for the game.
Which is fine, though I do hope it’s not out of some misguided pride. An “I designed this, so it’s best” sort of view. I don’t think it is, though I haven’t paid enough attention to his discussions on edition to know.
I’m trying to design a 4E demo right now to try and hook a group of my friends into becoming my new gaming group. Here’s the basic overview of the adventure:
* The students of a recently deceased witch tried to call up her spirit to learn the secret magics that she never taught them. It turns out that she had planned for this to happen so that it would kick-start a chain of events leading to her resurrection.
* I’m working to include terrain powers and features into the adventure, such as a boiling cauldron that combatants can push each other into.
* I’m also working to make each major enemy unique. For example, a modified skin kite (from Open Grave) uses the arcane tattoos on its flesh to cast spells.
* I’ve also been influenced by all the weird dungeon features I’ve read about in reviews of older adventure modules and am working to create locations that are suitably weird. For example, one room is cloaked with an illusion to appear as a forest. The PCs must learn a secret word to dismiss the illusion and find the door to the next area. However, getting rid of the illusory trees angers the insane, decrepit treant that the witch imprisoned here for her amusement. “Who stole the trees?!” it wails in madness before attacking.
* The final encounter is determined by the results of a skill challenge to disable the witch’s “resurrection device”. Failure means that the witch is reborn in her younger form. Success means that the witch’s soul possesses her sarcophagus and animates, forcing the PCs to battle the Witch’s Walking Sarcophagus.
Probably the biggest thing I’d keep in mind is to tie your mechanics to the story. Neat mechanics are fun now and then in their own right of course. But I think I played through the demo in the DMG you’re talking about. I recall a very obnoxious ball on a chain that kept making me do absolutely nothing for round after round. I had fun with the game overall but I’d have felt better about getting put in the time-out corner if there were a bit more story involved about why.
Ultimately using unusual rolls for things is a very old idea. Set your goals higher, you’re creative and you can reach them. 🙂 Otherwise for just plain unusual rolls you might as well be running White Plume Mountain instead and having people roll to see if they fall off the disks and die or not.
@Hexmage: While I like your adventure proposition, I must say that my DM mind screams “This is a DEMO game?” I would suggest to keep things simple and straight forward. Keep the story for sure, but make sure you don,t overload players with options.
KISS is you friend here.
@Lanir: We had the game last nigth and it was an Absolute blast! The story and the mechanics were all tied together and that Ball/Chain thing played out so cool when a player readied an action to grab it when it passed and used it as a swinging vine to climb on the opposing platform.
You do touch a very important point about setting players in a corner and I was careful about that. In the same room, a dwarf tried jump-climbing a 10′ ledge and missed. However, I allowed another PC to climb for free by using the dwarf as a ‘step’. On the next round, I let the dwarf climb without a roll by having the PC on the ledge give him a hand.
So I didn’t penalize the failure by asking for another dice roll… which is what I feel your message is under the tongue-in-cheek Snarkiness. 🙂
For a demo/intro game, I plan to simplify the character stats to allow fast creation of characters and try to get them engaged in a storyline.
For an intro game, I’d cut out a lot of stats and have powers as a reward for completing a quest.
For a demo, I’d try to give a bit of role playing, a bit of exploration, a bit of combat and a bit of treasure…. making sure not to end the session with the treasure. Did that once. Pretty anti-climactic. Especially when the players didn’t realize that the characters grow in power through game sessions.
.-= Eric Maziade´s last blog ..PC Origins Scenario =-.