Tag - ChattyDM

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Sunday, May 24 2009

Dungeon Reality Show

By Eric Maziade on Sunday, May 24 2009, 12:36 - Dungeons and Dragons

The Setup

Our heroes, escorting the caravan towards the Oracle of Spellgard meet up with Wallice Wighthawk, an old acquaintance. At the same time, they all are whisked away to the "Reality Show Realm" where they are forced to entertain a large audience.

For this session, I asked my good friend Phil ( the ChattyDM ) to don the mantle of DM while I tried out the new bard class.

We agreed upon running his version of Blood Bowl a.k.a. the "Dungeon Reality Show". I gave him carte blanche with my scenario - mess it up if you like. I'd pick up from there on my next session.

For those unfamiliar with the scenario - the players are whisked away to an enormous stadium where they must entertain the crowd as the "half-time show" of a weird ball game. The ball players - a team of zombies versus a team of skeletons - are not even aware that they are in break and are still playing.

Only prep ChattyDM asked of me was to prepare "sponsored" weapons for the event. Once the players were in the realm, they were given a sponsored weapon - at any time during the match they could look at the "camera" and plug away the weapon to get a free action point.

The setup was chaotic - and the real-life setup was too. The game was set up for my birthday (never too old to geek out with buddies), during day time. This meant that the children (a 2 year old, a 1 year old and a 6 month old) were about with the chaos they entail. We were ready for it - my group is a group that never has any trouble when comes the time to goof off :P

True to form, Phil doesn't loose too much time in setting up the scenario and coaxing the players to follow a plot line - in a short exposé, we learn (and agree) that at one point in our lives, we unwittingly signed a contract forcing us to serve as entertainers in another realm.

Lets Play Ball

We all were introduced to the contract through Wallice (my PC) and now our number was up and we had to serve. We were automatically whisked away from the caravan and smack into the middle of the court yard where teams of undead where mindlessly fighting for a kruthik youngling serving as a ball.

I'm a pretty analytical person and the last time Chatty was DM for us, I got stuck in "analytical mode" - not allowing myself to be immersed in the game, but more examining the workings of Chatty's craft.

Sadly, "meta gaming" mode really impedes my ability to role play and be creative the way I like to be as a player.

Nevertheless, I had a few cool tricks up my sleeve with the bard (great new class, by the way!) and I couldn't wait to try them out.

Turns out the dice were against me this day. I've been taught that a DM's dice don't roll well for a PC.

It all started with initiative - we rolled it and were made to run for the center of the stage where we had to do some "crowd pleasing" actions. Think of it as a free-form "skill challenge". Nobody had a clue what to do, really...

I fumbled the initiative.

Looks like the bard won't get to the stage first :)

Rolen, the ranger, is always that fastest on his feet and went first, running through the field, dodging the undead and getting on the center stage. Wanting to show off his bowmanship, he looked at the sky.

What do you want to see there?, asked Chatty.

Pretty awesome question, if you ask me. I've rambled about "sharing narrative control" in previous posts, unknowingly thinking more about "sharing story control". This is a prime example of a way to do this.

Rolen was looking for something cool to shoot at - he didn't know precisely what. The DM gave him a bunch of fiery lanterns way up high to shoot. Good enough for Rolen.

Kudos to Chatty's imagination (and Rolen's good aim, of course) - the arrows hit the lantern and it exploded, splashing fiery liquid all over a few spectators who caught on fire.

The crowd went wild for this.

The rest of the group went in - Arkanys and Dali wowing the crowd with teleportation, Marisol breathing fire... I don't remember exactly what Iris did, but I think Benerra took out a blimp with a single dagger.

Wallice eventually got to the stage, feeling his music would have a hard time to complete with the others' magics and physical prowess - it would have been a better opening act.

Still, he did hold a sponsored signing blade and thought out a nifty way of bringing it in.

So Wallice ran towards the center of the stage, dragging his blade on the stone to get it vibrating (think of a tuning fork) once on the stage, he stopped over some glowing glyphs and raised his magic sword. ( By the power of Grayskull! )

The glyph went aglow and basked the bard in glowing purple lights while he started playing "air signing sword", adding some signing of his own. Felt like a pretty cool intro to me. I don't remember what skills we chose to represent this - I remember I had a pretty cool bonus to add to my die roll from the bard's stats alone!

I fumbled.

Making this the first "loss" for the skill challenge.

A Bard's Curse

Second round starts and the players do some more mayhem as the undead felt our presence and started climbing on the stage. Good opportunity to use the bard's power to buff the other players in a show-offy way!

Of course, the round passed by and there were basically no more undead left within reach to warrant the use of the bard's powers. This is where I managed to let go of my "meta mode" and tried channeling "the bard".

The show must go on - the bard let loose the sponsored blade and sang a song narrating the exploits of my fellow adventurers. (Which I actually sang). The effort gave me a nifty extra bonus (+4) from the DM. So I rolled.

And fumbled.

Marking this the second "loss".

Role playing the wounded artist (easy task), the bard started blaming the crowd, the stage... and eventually cursed at the sponsored equipment.

This is where time stopped and the show's producers argued with Wallice. Looks like they don't like their sponsored products to be treated this way. Wallice had them check the "batteries" on the sword. Something must be wrong!

I got a free reroll out of that hilarious segment (kudos to Chatty's imagination, again!)

And fumbled.

An Instigator's Guide to Mayhem

The bard was trying to make an impression on the crowd (I switched for Rock to Country - maybe the genre is failing?), when Arkanys, after having been warned that harming the ball would bring out the Zomboni... slew the ball.

Everything went silent in the stadium. The scene vanished (causing the people still on the stage to fall down!).

The Zomboni appeared and started gunning for us.

The monstrous beast can roll over players, chew them to bits and spit them out - not a pleasant way to spend an evening.

It managed to hurt most of us and threatened to roll over three paralyzed PCs - probably killing them right there.

Marisol managed to call upon her holy powers to strike the beast from a distance, causing it to slow down. This seemed to be just enough of a delay for the paralyzed to shake it off and counter attack.

It was a close call, but the Zomboni got defeated and the crowd cheered on.

At the end, we were offered our sponsored weapons as gifts as well as a contract to remain as paid entertainers.

A few players jumped at the opportunity to roll new PCs (it had been in the air) and the rest were sent back to the caravan.

Conclusion

I loved seeing Phil handle my players.

I love how he coached and supported the ones less familiar with their characters, how he allowed everyone's creativity to affect the story - even the instigator among us.

While its a hard task with our group, I really like how he tried to handle the dead air and stimulate the players towards action - proposing to delay action instead of waiting for imagination to strike.

All in all a pretty entertaining and insightful session. And a pretty cool geek-man birthday party.

Thank bunches Phil!

5 comments

Saturday, May 2 2009

4th edition magic thown weapons

By Eric Maziade on Saturday, May 2 2009, 00:47 - Dungeons and Dragons

Hi reader(s)! I finally had a few minutes away from work and taking care of my babies to try and write something interesting in here.

Here's something from the PHB 4th edition I actually don't like:

Thrown Weapons: Any magic light thrown or heavy thrown weapon, from the lowly +1 shuriken to a +6 perfect hunter's spear, automatically returns to its wielder's hand after a ranged attack wit h the weapon is resolved.

Catching a returning thrown weapon is a free action; if you do not wish (or are unable) to catch the weapon, it falls at your feet, in your space.

Game mechanics reasons

Chatting on the subject with Phil, the ChattyDM he proposed a valid argument to support the rule:

Thrown weapons are effectively more expensive than others

The ranger with his magic bow only has to purchase (or acquire) a bow. Then, it shoot regular arrows - which are turned magical by the bow itself.

A row has to purchase 6 daggers each one at the same price as the single bow. Then, after six shots, its over.

So, basically, the rogue pays more and has less - which feels rather unbalanced.

Having the magical daggers return automatically fixes that.

Why I still don't like it

With this rule, 'return magically' is no longer special - every magical weapon has it!

To me, this removes a lot of flavor. Here's an example: one of the magical objects I introduced in my campaign is a magical phantom dagger that is summoned by a ring.

The wielder wears a ring and looks unarmed. If he wishes it, a dagger materializes in his hands. He can throw the weapon - it will disappear when he wills it or when he wills a new dagger in his hands.

To me, this is a pretty valuable artifact - especially cool for an assassin.

But under 4th ed rule, its much, much less special as even the lowly +1 shuriken does nearly as much.

Another reason: counting ammunition actually provides a sense of drama.

Throwing your last dagger is stressful - every dagger counts; especially the last one. That whole stress is gone in 4th ed because as soon as players find their first ever magical weapon, ammunition is no longer an issue.

And the rule doesn't restore balance with the bow - the bow can still run out of munition.

The solution

At first, I though: perhaps there should be a delay before returning the dagger. Or perhaps, when a dagger hits, it can't come back automatically since its (possibly) firmly stuck in a body.

But Phil, again, in his infinite wisdom (he'd probably say "finite wisdom", which would prove my point), came up with the perfect solution:

Since the bow imbues the projectile with magic, why don't we do the same with the daggers: have a belt, which can hold up to 6 daggers be magical.

The magical belt would turn any dagger that has stayed long enough in into a magical.dagger for a limited time.

The rogue can then throw and loose his daggers with no worry; as long as he has the belt he won't be loosing his valuable daggers.

Conclusion

I applaud Phil's idea and reject that all daggers automatically return - some can, of course, but not all of them.

I shall discuss this with my group and see if we can make this official :)

Edit: It has been unofficially decided that we will not "nerf" the daggers and leave them as in the current rules. I still love the magical belt, though.

3 comments

Friday, April 17 2009

Looking for lost hubby...

By Eric Maziade on Friday, April 17 2009, 23:05 - Dungeons and Dragons

The Oracle of Delphi

The Setup

Here's what I was planning on running on our last game:

While escorting the caravan, our heroes met with Lady Adelinde, a widowed noblewoman in search of valiant heroes to help her find the body of her deceased husband.

Lady Adelinde's husband has been missing and she has spent most of her fortune trying to find his whereabouts. In despair, she sought the famed Oracle of Spellgard to answer her questions.

The Oracle informed her of her husband's demise and gave clues on where to find his body.

Misplaced
It all amounts to words
Trolls and swords and trees abound
An oak he found and holes in ground

My players nearly didn't take to the plot line - the leading personality of the group doesn't really care much about being noble or heroic and the plight of the noblewoman was not appealing to him.

Her husband's dead. Suits him. Move on.

I cast "Dungeon Master's Puppy Eyes" and got some mercy from my players, who decided to investigate.

Troll

Engage, Number One!

This is our second time playing Friday night and I already detected non-too-subtle signs of week-end weariness in my players.

I originally planned on having them try to understand the Oracle's words... but I let Lady Adelinde tell them of her progress in understanding the riddle.

Her husband died in the forest of TrollBark. His journal must have fallen in there where oaks are found.

Our resident ranger, aware of this forest, new that it was infested with Trolls - creatures that our players would not want to meet, for they spelled sure doom! He was also aware that there is only a small patch of oaks (what do I know about oaks?) in that forest - in a place that no longer sustains troll population.

My players are level 1 and meeting a party of trolls would most likely spell doom.

However, I wanted to danger to be there... so I played this as a loose, informal, "skill challenge".

The ranger was to guide them through the forest, everyone watching for any signs of troll.

This is the first time I made a cooperative check... and it was rather interesting. It didn't have enough role play elements into it to my tastes - in retrospect, I should have had the players describe what they were doing to help the ranger.

Nevertheless, they navigated through the forest, crossing signs of nearby trolls, but no trolls to speak of.

The arrived at the patch of oaks and rapidly noticed a book near one of the trees.

Arkanys-The-Bold ran to the journal and the ground opened under his feet. The ground opened onto tunnels, seemingly dug by giant insects. He instantly teleported to safety (Shadow Jaunt Encounter Power) back with the party.

They rapidly decided to throw a rope down and explore the tunnels... where they met what was meant to be the first encounter of the night.

Kruthik Adult

The Fight

Now, before I move on - let me remind you that these guys kicked my balls in the last two sessions by doing five fights in a row - the last one being one that I felt should have been difficult even fully rested.

So I threw at them a basic level 4 encounter, straight from the PHB:

  • 2 Corruption Corpse (level 4 artillery)
  • 4 Kruthik Adults (level 4 Brute)

When I last met with ChattyDM, he told me that the Kobold scenario I had been running had rather easy fights... And boy, was the money right under him!

I didn't have time to prepare properly and wasn't too familiar with the monsters. Setting up the fight and playing through the first round, I realized that they players actually stood little chance of survival.

The Kruthik adults have a recharging ranged attack called "Toxic Spikes", which allows it to make two attacks which causes ongoing 5 poison damage and slows the target.

The zombies have an at-will ranged attack that targets reflex and causes the target to be weakened.

After the first round, everyone was either slowed and poisoned or weakened. Fleeing from a collapsed tunnel didn't feel like a viable option.

I didn't want to cheat... but I surely don't want to over challenge the players without at least giving them a flee scenario. And I didn't want to pull my punches as I perhaps did in previous fights.

I considered lowering the HP on the critters, but decided against it. Their poisoning and weakening attacks were causing more trouble than I had planned for and they were to be the target of my adjustment.

I removed the recharge option from the toxic spikes. Instead, they would recharge when the Kruthik got bloodied.

I also change the zombie's "weakened" effect to give it a 50% chances of failing on hit.

It still was a rather hard and perilous fight!

Iris, the cleric (aka Healing Serge) had his work cut out for him! And the paladin had a lot of Kruthiks to tank.

All powers, prayers and tactics were used and it wasn't going well - nothing seemed to put down these monsters!

Some of my players must have caught my distress - a few of them told me: "Hey, don't worry - if my PC dies, it dies. I can make another one in a few minutes with the character generator..."

This somehow allowed me to relax and let the combat play out.

I don't remember the details, as it was two weeks ago, but in the end, even though Arkanys nearly died, the players prevailed.

The fight took the better part of three hours to run.

There were a few glitches during the play session... most of them, I believe, due to the players (and the DM!) being tired.

I have still to learn to grab the attention of the players and direct the action a bit more so there is less waste of time, but all in all, I think most of the players had a good time.

I am, however, wondering if the Friday night game idea will work with this group. Its only been two games on a Friday night - too small a sample to judge... but we might have to revert to less frequent games that run on the weekends instead.

We'll see.

Images:

2 comments

Sunday, January 18 2009

Prequelling Scepter Tower of Spellgard, part 2

By Eric Maziade on Sunday, January 18 2009, 14:10 - Dungeons and Dragons

Talking with some buddies - and realizing that I'm starting to stress myself out with that stuff for no good reasons - I've come to the conclusion that I need to start a bit simpler.

I like ideas, concepts and game design and I must absolutely be careful not to drown the game in them. And since I have never DMed for my group before - and haven't DMed for adults in a while - I need to take things a bit slower.

I've decided to revamp the scenario I ran my group of kids through on their first game - which, itself, is a revamping of the scenario found at the end of the DMG.

I've made my players aware that I want to help them come up with compelling reasons to go see an Oracle - which would be one of the big rewards of the next adventure.

I told them I would ask them what they would ask the Oracle once they reach level 2 - by which point, we'll probably be going for the Scepter Tower of Spellgard.

In the spirit of trying to prevent railroading, I have to say that maybe we'll go for the Oracle and maybe we won't. I might change the reward at the end of the tower... I might even remove the Oracle entirely. Anything can happen, really.

For now, I'll start with this simple scenario, which I will spice up and tailor for my group. Sharing narrative control will happen in this scenario in the form of not-so-subtly probing for PC's motivations. These motivations will shape how I'll tweak the tower later on (provided I don't get the boot and revert to player before then :P).

I've taken a hint from one of the previously mentioned buddies, ChattyDM, and decided to relax, remind myself its a frienldy game between friends.

To which I add: I'll try to choke the game by forcefully cramming in concepts (such as sharing narrative control ...)

In the vein of one of the things what makes ChattyDM's game super cool, I'll also try to find interactive and non-combat elements to add to the scenario.

If I come up with anything worthwhile, I'll share it here :)

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Monday, December 15 2008

Chatty Shows Us Some [Kobold] Love (Scene 1)

By Eric Maziade on Monday, December 15 2008, 01:27 - Dungeons and Dragons

I had the pleasure of having my friend ChattyDM come over to my house and DM the first scene of Kobold Love for my regular group of players.

We had a few unfortunate last-minute absentees from our group - notedly, our regular DM couldn't be there.

Since we were short two players, we opted for two of our players to handle two characters each, making sure that all role were covered and that Chatty didn't have to mess with his scenario to bring it down to four players.

I'll start by saying that we had *lots* of fun. I expected that Phil would fit in perfectly with our goofy gang and I was pleased to be right!

We played the first scene and it was pretty good! It didn't run without a few hitches - more on that later - but it really was a refreshing episode.

The scene was basically a short introduction to the kobold races, a short roleplay session with the kobold oracle and a huge (short) fight.

Chatty was pretty good in setting up the mood - only a few minutes had passed and we were all in some sort of cavernous auditorium that somewhat felt like a Klingon courtroom. Various aggressive creatures came on and challenged us.

I had the pleasure of finally witnessing a skill challenge - which was seamlessly integrated to the scenario. Well... near seamlessly... It would have been seamless, had I not blurted out: "Oh, so that's how you do skill challenges!".

The situation soon came out of control and battle ensued.

The combat lasted roughly two hours and was a rather exciting series of event punctuated with interactions from the crowd, kobold dropping traps and enormous monsters trapped in frozen doughnut dough (yes - we're that silly...).

All in all, as previously said, lots of fun.

The fight went on for longer than anticipated, mostly for two reasons:

  1. We really like to goof off
  2. We had trouble getting used to the characters

Our group has played 4th edition for two sessions and we played only two sessions so far. So, while we're used with the fluff and roles of most classes (nearly 10 years of 3rd edition experience), we weren't used to the powers and tactics of the characters we had.

Not only that, but our characters were of 5th level - so we had even more options and equipment to get a grip on.

Doubly so for Martin and I - the two players who decided they were comfortable enough to handle it. To be fair, Martin handled it much better than I did - I kept fumbling with power cards, having a hard time deciding what to do (not to mention roleplay :P)

Nevertheless, we plowed through and manage to show the denizens of the dungeon we call home that were were mighty champions, worthy of the prophecy.

Most notable aspects:

  • The skill challenge(s). At any time, the players could play the crowd for some pleasing bonuses. This talks to the role players who might enjoy tactical combat a bit less. It really contributed a lot to the atmosphere.
  • The kobold traps. Huge fun. Especially since Chatty made us describe what the traps actually were. I was a bit out of creative juice by the time I used the power and Chatty had to help me out... but how else could we end up with a trap made of Grandma Kobold Doughnut Recipe Mix? Or catapults throwing bags full of small explosives?

In retrospect, handling multiple characters was too much of a chore... at least for me - Martin seemed to handle it rather well. It really was a hurdle for my role-playing.

Chatty made me realize that, as players, we weren't much descriptive with our attacks anymore. We really got more into the tactical part of it - I move this and that square, I use this or that power, I rolled that number...

When he figured we were a bit overwhelmed by the unfamiliar characters, he also helped us out by suggesting a few tactics and moves.

All in all, I think that I'm still stuck in "meta game" mode where I think more in terms of powers and squares: My fighter (I can't remember the borborygmus that served as its name) was standing atop a giant mushroom and moved one square towards its enemy to use Reaping Strike on it. Phil hinted: "you could just jump down from the mushroom and stab the creature with your spear..." Oh yeah! That sounds much cooler that "moving one square, using two movement points because its difficult terrain".

All in all, I had a lot of fun - and I probably could've played for a few more hours :)

I guess it would've paid if I had prepared a bit more with the characters.

Probably like when playing music: its only when you've practiced your song often enough to play them by heart that you can truly start working on performing.

Hopefully, we didn't frighten Phil too much with our crude humor and we'll be having him guest DMing for us again :P

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