Technically, Halls has a few more posts to run, but for all mechanical purposes, we are done there.
It's time for The Lost City crew to move up to the starting gate.
Deep in the Ishmai desert, a call has gone out from the remote city-state of Ekabba. Visions of walking giants and random attacks from other settlements have informed the Emir that something is not right. Holding his own city is going to be all he can accomplish without help - and what better help can he call upon than a group of random adventurers?
His call has indeed been answered. Eight brave souls have offered to help identify and dispose of his problems, and an interesting bunch they are too.
Cronin - a massive goliath cleric who believes that the way to salvation is often preceded by a firm thump on the head.
Greeg - his even more massive goliath warden friend, who isn't overly concerned about salvation, but is a curious soul with a love of knitwear.
Dram Rao - a wandering human druid, whose constant companion is large brown bear called Dirt.
Don Zaloog - a highly opportunistic human rogue, convinced he can do anything.
Nayce - a half-elf assassin. This introspective chap is a survivor of Halls and may well be tagging along with...
Guldarin - a dwarf invoker and fellow survivor. In my head (if not in theirs), they both decided to head south for a little warmth. Guldarin is notoriously chatty. No combat passes without some lengthy anecdote about his accident strewn past. In addition, Guldarin is mildy addicted to summoning angels.
Zeric - a mysterious gnome psion. Equipped with strange mental powers, he will be able to hide behind either of the goliaths with some ease.
Kevaras Zanorin - a drow paladin of the Raven Queen rounds off the party. Growing bored with life as the abbot at Our Lady of Lentharna monastery, he's taken to the road again, possibly spurred on by rumours of the exciting life lead by Nayce. Some of Nayce's more dubious powers were learned from the drow.
Eight is a big party and will require some re-arrangement of combats. Partly because for practical purposes, they are a party of nine (have to include the bear) and that makes fitting all of them on a single map quite challenging, especially if one has to fit the monsters in as well.
They're heading into the desert any second now. I have no idea how they'll fare, but I'm looking forward to finding out.
Showing posts with label Halls. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Halls. Show all posts
Monday, 10 October 2011
Wednesday, 5 October 2011
Dynamic battles
I love it when a battle comes to life. I wish it always happened, but more often than not a battle becomes a slog fest of dice rolls with little character. For me as a player or a GM that isn't fun. I'm a drama professional (for want of a better description) and I think a battle should be as much of an opportunity to develop character and story as the downtimes.
This is far from a new or original thought. There is a ream of good advice on how to help this happen, so I am really treading old ground here. Still, a few thoughts:-
Villains - the party are fighting somebody or something. Try and make those someone or somethings compelling. My NPCs are notoriously mouthy. They insult the party, pick holes in their technique, philosophise and try and get under their skin. I try to make them deliberately provocative for two reasons:
Situations - this covers a multitude of sins, although I'm thinking here of the "where" and "why" of the battle. The honest answer is, of course, you're playing an RPG and heroic last stands, distracting ambushes and cunning assaults are all part of the territory. I don't doubt that there are GMs out there capable of making a trip to Tescos into a rivetting adventure, but let's just assume that most of us are going with the standard fantasy trophes and have certain expectations. Those expectations should include:
Open Design's Courts of the Shadow Fey offered some fantastic examples of this. Here, the players could only interact with certain NPCs after they had earned enough status to do so. Their ability to interact with the world of the Shadow Court directly impacted on whether they could finish the adventure at all. Earning status could be accomplished in several ways - diplomatically, by undertaking quests, by dueling other courtiers, seducing courtesans and so on. The status system was organic and elegant and I'm planning to use a similar mechanic in The Lost City.
However - all of this takes work. It also requires that the players and GM all buy into the world and care about it enough to want to win through. I think in some ways, this kind of immersion is easier in a PbP. Because of the lag between posts, players have time to respond in character. This is great, because it lets me take cues from them, feed them back and enlarge the process as we go along.
To return (finally) to the issue of dynamic battles. I have two combats running at the moment that feel particularly vibrant and interesting to me for different reasons.
Halls is coming to the final rounds now. The characters are really fighting for their lives. They're down a lot of surges and healing is shortly going to be useless unless they have powers that bestow temporary hp. The enemies are fewer, but can't be reasoned with and are also aware that if they go down, so does their Archdevil master. A corrupted mountain spirit is bashing holes in the floor and making the terrain horrible as lava pours up from below. The PCs are depending heavily on each other and as they've been together a long time, are making a good job of it.
Tombs I have been using their current watery battle to explore some interesting group dynamics. Their optimistically lecherous wizard has been making eyes at both the tiefling warlord and the newly arrived paladin beauty. He's desperate to impress one or preferably both of them without letting on that he already has a succubus girlfriend. It's noticeable that he hasn't summoned her recently. The remainder of the party are rolling their eyes at this silly triangle and trying to get everyone to concentrate on the job in hand.
It's nice when it works like that.
This is far from a new or original thought. There is a ream of good advice on how to help this happen, so I am really treading old ground here. Still, a few thoughts:-
Villains - the party are fighting somebody or something. Try and make those someone or somethings compelling. My NPCs are notoriously mouthy. They insult the party, pick holes in their technique, philosophise and try and get under their skin. I try to make them deliberately provocative for two reasons:
- It is much more satisfying to bring an end to a tormented soul longing for true release or a gloating badass than a bunch of numbers.
- It is always possible the characters will be provoked and take actions they wouldn't have thought of taking without that stimulus.
Situations - this covers a multitude of sins, although I'm thinking here of the "where" and "why" of the battle. The honest answer is, of course, you're playing an RPG and heroic last stands, distracting ambushes and cunning assaults are all part of the territory. I don't doubt that there are GMs out there capable of making a trip to Tescos into a rivetting adventure, but let's just assume that most of us are going with the standard fantasy trophes and have certain expectations. Those expectations should include:
- Terrain - an open room may be what the players think they want, but it should not be what they get. In an ideal world, a simple room should ring huge alarm bells. Terrain can offer cover, unusual battle tactics, traps for the unwary, places to hide for a moment, stuff to use. If it's outdoors, there can be insects, mud, venomous bushes, irritating flocks of birds, pollen that makes you sneeze, elemental pools of fire inexplicably appearing, flowers that eat your soul and the strong possibility of attracting other things to the scene. Indoors offer most of the same options, but with a different skin on them. A room full of parrots who all shout for help, a kitchen has herbs, spices and knives the party can improvise with, a beautifully adorned sitting room is packed with breakable treasure and so on.
- Reason - what is the purpose of this particular battle? Mechanically it is because you want your players to earn XP and advance. Creatively, it needs to be part of the story and preferably related to something the characters have said or done. PCs need to feel as if their actions change the world around them. There should, therefore, be consequences to the ways in which they behave.
Open Design's Courts of the Shadow Fey offered some fantastic examples of this. Here, the players could only interact with certain NPCs after they had earned enough status to do so. Their ability to interact with the world of the Shadow Court directly impacted on whether they could finish the adventure at all. Earning status could be accomplished in several ways - diplomatically, by undertaking quests, by dueling other courtiers, seducing courtesans and so on. The status system was organic and elegant and I'm planning to use a similar mechanic in The Lost City.
However - all of this takes work. It also requires that the players and GM all buy into the world and care about it enough to want to win through. I think in some ways, this kind of immersion is easier in a PbP. Because of the lag between posts, players have time to respond in character. This is great, because it lets me take cues from them, feed them back and enlarge the process as we go along.
To return (finally) to the issue of dynamic battles. I have two combats running at the moment that feel particularly vibrant and interesting to me for different reasons.
Halls is coming to the final rounds now. The characters are really fighting for their lives. They're down a lot of surges and healing is shortly going to be useless unless they have powers that bestow temporary hp. The enemies are fewer, but can't be reasoned with and are also aware that if they go down, so does their Archdevil master. A corrupted mountain spirit is bashing holes in the floor and making the terrain horrible as lava pours up from below. The PCs are depending heavily on each other and as they've been together a long time, are making a good job of it.
Tombs I have been using their current watery battle to explore some interesting group dynamics. Their optimistically lecherous wizard has been making eyes at both the tiefling warlord and the newly arrived paladin beauty. He's desperate to impress one or preferably both of them without letting on that he already has a succubus girlfriend. It's noticeable that he hasn't summoned her recently. The remainder of the party are rolling their eyes at this silly triangle and trying to get everyone to concentrate on the job in hand.
It's nice when it works like that.
Saturday, 1 October 2011
Gamery updates
Coming to the end of another week and I realised I haven't done an update on the games I'm running for a while. Our home game is canceled this week, so I'll just have to indulge myself online while Itigiak and his spirit weasel wait in gaming limbo to track down the missing portal.
Online, however, things are ongoing. My gadget-Queen rogue, Angalia, is sobbing over the body of her fallen friend and hoping someone knows more about healing than her and can save his life. She is the only character I'm playing under any non-4e system at the moment - and I hasten to point out there is no prejudice. I've had Savage Worlds, Swords and Wizardry, Arcana Unearthed, 3.5 and Pathfinder characters at various times, but the games have all died. I swear it isn't my fault.
However it comes about, Angalia is the sole representative of anything non-4e at the moment and she is not a very awesome example. In combat with a deformed and extremely evil Surgeon, she rolled almost nothing above a 6. Even with combat advantage and sneak attack, that's not going to do very much. On the plus side, she rolls extremely high when looking for ingredients. It may not be enough to keep her alive.
My other online PCs are mostly on hiatus or in slow games and I don't need to worry about them at the moment. The games I'm running are also in a mixed state.
Halls of the Mountain King is just about at the turning point of their climactic battle. I suspect the party are about to turn things around for themselves in a major way now they've eradicated some of the irritating artillery. They are keeping a decent set of effects on the Big Bad (now Big Bads as he split into two different entities when bloodied) and trying to finish off the taunting devils who keep making them drop their weapons (a sweet power, thank you Open Design). I have a few tricks left up my sleeve and am hopeful I may manage to drop one of them at least.
Once they're done there, we'll move on to The Lost City which I've been pruning judiciously. Mostly this pruning will apply to maps and generally empty areas. I'm also trying to get ahead of myself by sorting out some treasure parcels in advance. This is good DMG advice and I never do it. I forget and then realise my parties are grossly under-equipped. At this point treasure arrives in a mysterious glittering heap for some vaguely concocted reason. My aim this time is to make the process smoother and more organic for myself and the players. We are using the inherent bonus system, which means I can plunder the more amusing magic items with impunity as they will never be catastrophically out of whack with the encounters. I know all too well how easy it is to get bogged down with upgrading mainstay kit, but personally I love the crazy knick-knacks more. Enterprising players get some unexpected uses out of them as well.
Tombs I are about to enter the old Tomb of Horrors site in Skull City - recent victim of a cataclysm, but still containing some dangers. Tombs II are investigating one of said dangers and have spent a lot of time this week splashing across a shallow pool. In both situations the parties know something terrible will happen to them, but they don't know what it is or when it will strike. In game terms, this tends to slow things down as they take all the precautions they can reasonably think of. My job, really, is to hit the starter button and throw something at them before they get too bored.
Rune Stones are mid-battle with a batch of Cylopes. They've turned out to be a lot of fun as I suddenly realised they were slightly Jeevsian in outlook. Accustomed to tending the whims of fruitloop fomorians, they treat the PCs like philosophical nannies while attempting to mallet them to death.
Online, however, things are ongoing. My gadget-Queen rogue, Angalia, is sobbing over the body of her fallen friend and hoping someone knows more about healing than her and can save his life. She is the only character I'm playing under any non-4e system at the moment - and I hasten to point out there is no prejudice. I've had Savage Worlds, Swords and Wizardry, Arcana Unearthed, 3.5 and Pathfinder characters at various times, but the games have all died. I swear it isn't my fault.
However it comes about, Angalia is the sole representative of anything non-4e at the moment and she is not a very awesome example. In combat with a deformed and extremely evil Surgeon, she rolled almost nothing above a 6. Even with combat advantage and sneak attack, that's not going to do very much. On the plus side, she rolls extremely high when looking for ingredients. It may not be enough to keep her alive.
My other online PCs are mostly on hiatus or in slow games and I don't need to worry about them at the moment. The games I'm running are also in a mixed state.
Halls of the Mountain King is just about at the turning point of their climactic battle. I suspect the party are about to turn things around for themselves in a major way now they've eradicated some of the irritating artillery. They are keeping a decent set of effects on the Big Bad (now Big Bads as he split into two different entities when bloodied) and trying to finish off the taunting devils who keep making them drop their weapons (a sweet power, thank you Open Design). I have a few tricks left up my sleeve and am hopeful I may manage to drop one of them at least.
Once they're done there, we'll move on to The Lost City which I've been pruning judiciously. Mostly this pruning will apply to maps and generally empty areas. I'm also trying to get ahead of myself by sorting out some treasure parcels in advance. This is good DMG advice and I never do it. I forget and then realise my parties are grossly under-equipped. At this point treasure arrives in a mysterious glittering heap for some vaguely concocted reason. My aim this time is to make the process smoother and more organic for myself and the players. We are using the inherent bonus system, which means I can plunder the more amusing magic items with impunity as they will never be catastrophically out of whack with the encounters. I know all too well how easy it is to get bogged down with upgrading mainstay kit, but personally I love the crazy knick-knacks more. Enterprising players get some unexpected uses out of them as well.
Tombs I are about to enter the old Tomb of Horrors site in Skull City - recent victim of a cataclysm, but still containing some dangers. Tombs II are investigating one of said dangers and have spent a lot of time this week splashing across a shallow pool. In both situations the parties know something terrible will happen to them, but they don't know what it is or when it will strike. In game terms, this tends to slow things down as they take all the precautions they can reasonably think of. My job, really, is to hit the starter button and throw something at them before they get too bored.
Rune Stones are mid-battle with a batch of Cylopes. They've turned out to be a lot of fun as I suddenly realised they were slightly Jeevsian in outlook. Accustomed to tending the whims of fruitloop fomorians, they treat the PCs like philosophical nannies while attempting to mallet them to death.
Friday, 9 September 2011
Gaming update - possible spoilers for players - be warned.
I mentioned I have four campaigns running. That's a little misleading, as one of them is the same campaign with two different groups, but that's still a lot of updating and dice rolling. Anyway, this is what is happening to them all right now. Note that PbP time is not time as we know it. Halls has been running for nearly two years, Tombs I and II just over a year and Rune Stones for three and a half years. In game time, mere weeks have passed, if that. Oh, except for Rune Stones where a trip to the Feywild took twelve years.
Halls of the Mountain King - the party have just started their climactic final battle with Mammon and his forces. They have been exploring a mountain full of cursed gold and done rather well so far. They've even managed not to get cursed themselves, despite being in the presence of more gold than any of them have ever seen. To put this in perspective, adventurers everywhere ALWAYS need gold. They need it to to buy cool stuff, which is a way of keeping score - since in RPGs you don't really win, you just don't die. For this group to pass up the chance of acquiring enough gold to buy pretty much any magic thingbob they could ever want is nothing short of amazing.
That said, the battle is not going that well for them and they may yet die horribly, if heroically. I'm hoping my team (the monsters) continue to roll well and make them suffer for their victory. Or preferably wipe them out and leave Mammon grinning as he starts to take over the known world from his new base in Mount Rygar.
Tomb of Horrors (I and II)
Group I have been behind Group 2 for a while but both are now in Skull City. Group I came under serious fire and came as close as they've ever been to a TPK (Total party kill). They're recovering and hunting for a safe place to rest for a while. Such will be difficult to find, given that they're in the middle of a city full of fractious undead factions. Group II are finding out about the undead up close and personal elsewhere. One of them has contracted a nasty disease in the process.
Rune Stones
This has been evolving for a long time and the plot is multi-layered. Due to player loss, the group are meeting their new front line fighter and making plans to invade a mine infested with crazed giants.
All in a days work for RPGs. The only place on earth you'll hear someone say something like "Akahale searches the squalid bedding for bones" and it will make sense rather than assuming a psychiatrist is needed immediately.
Halls of the Mountain King - the party have just started their climactic final battle with Mammon and his forces. They have been exploring a mountain full of cursed gold and done rather well so far. They've even managed not to get cursed themselves, despite being in the presence of more gold than any of them have ever seen. To put this in perspective, adventurers everywhere ALWAYS need gold. They need it to to buy cool stuff, which is a way of keeping score - since in RPGs you don't really win, you just don't die. For this group to pass up the chance of acquiring enough gold to buy pretty much any magic thingbob they could ever want is nothing short of amazing.
That said, the battle is not going that well for them and they may yet die horribly, if heroically. I'm hoping my team (the monsters) continue to roll well and make them suffer for their victory. Or preferably wipe them out and leave Mammon grinning as he starts to take over the known world from his new base in Mount Rygar.
Tomb of Horrors (I and II)
Group I have been behind Group 2 for a while but both are now in Skull City. Group I came under serious fire and came as close as they've ever been to a TPK (Total party kill). They're recovering and hunting for a safe place to rest for a while. Such will be difficult to find, given that they're in the middle of a city full of fractious undead factions. Group II are finding out about the undead up close and personal elsewhere. One of them has contracted a nasty disease in the process.
Rune Stones
This has been evolving for a long time and the plot is multi-layered. Due to player loss, the group are meeting their new front line fighter and making plans to invade a mine infested with crazed giants.
All in a days work for RPGs. The only place on earth you'll hear someone say something like "Akahale searches the squalid bedding for bones" and it will make sense rather than assuming a psychiatrist is needed immediately.
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