My Perception vs. Player Perception

In our last session the party climbed into a hole in a cloud. At the bottom - deep inside the cloud - they found a small river leading to a dark lake, the extent of which they could not make out in the dim light. Gemma the dwarf and Dvin the gnome eased out to the end of a rickety boardwalk extending out over the water. Just below the surface of the water, at the edge of the light, bones were emerging from the water. They clicked and they clacked and the water bubbled, and the bones self-assembled into a bridge extending from the darkness towards the party. Fingerous phalanges eventually wiggled out of the water near the adventurers, as the terminus of the bridge pulled itself up onto the boardwalk. At the edge of the light, ghouls with scabbed, cracked faces shambled across the bridge towards the party, and animated skeletons emerged, self-assembling, from the body of the bridge itself. A tough fight! The party won! The adventurers then walked across the skeletal bridge to a small island, where they found a prize in the ghoul refuse: a small golden orb bearing microscopic engravings - a map of an unknown world.

...so the whole session was basically a single encounter. I thought it was a good, fun encounter and I had a blast as the DM. I felt a little disappointed afterwards, however, because there wasn't much in the way of exploration, narrative advancement, or NPC interaction in the game. I try to have every session present a good splash of each of these elements because it's the kind of stuff I like when I play. Also, there was a lot more chit-chat than usual that night (which is cool, the players are friends, some of whom I haven't seen in a while), music was playing the background, and there were plenty of miniatures and gratuitous Dwarven Forge settings - all in violation of immersion dogma! I had fun, but I wasn't sure how "well" I did as a DM...

Within the fews days after the session, however, three of the players separately mentioned to me how much they liked the session - especially the skeleton bridge. Ok, cool!

Dear Princess Celestia: Although this truth should always be self evident, it's important for me to always remember that sometimes it's okay to have a simple night of beer, metal, monster killing, and treasure fondling. As a Dungeon Master I shouldn't fret too much about packing every single session with mapping, dialogue, and weird characters. The simple, perennial pleasures of death dealing and leveling-up will never disappoint anyone who plays the game of Dungeons & Dragons.

Session 7 ghoul smashing music:

Brief Log of Catheign Sessions

Friday night was Session 7 of our Cloud Mines of Catheign OD&D game. Below is a brief log of sessions, localities, and loot for the campaign, primarily for the benefit of those involved in the game. Hopefully I'll get to post some better descriptions and illustrations related to the game, but unfortunately it's been hard for me to find much time for blogging these days...

Primary PCs:

Bas – human thief (played by Reese of Kingdom's in Trevail)

Dvinsfeldfar – gnome MU

Broom - human cleric (played by Nathan of Secrets of the Shadowend)

Gemma - fighting dwarf

Kale - fighting man

Occasional PCs (currently residing at Inn in Tilman’s Grove):

Skuldge - human MU (played by Greg of Gorgonmilk)

Rufus – Fighting ½ giant

PCs gone or dead:

Sillus – fighting lizard man of Peis

Nix – cleric, left Catheign

Flurd – MU, left Catheign

Hu – fighting man, RIP

Session 1

            Arrival at Tilman’s Grove, Catheign

            Triangulation of cloud mine, initial foray up to first level

            Janis and Filby hired to join party

            RIP Hu and Filby

            Items recovered:

                        Goggles of Seeing Through Dense Mist

                        Some minimal goblin coinage

Session 2

Meia and Janis join party

            Thorough exploration of first level of cloud mine

            Goblin fights

            Ghoul falls from sky onto roof of first level

            Items recovered:

                        6 gold ingots

                        Scroll: ESP

                        Mic. Jewelry worn my vain goblins

                        Silver dagger with ancient script

Session 3

            Discovery and initial exploration of High Star Garden

            Zymos moondial, Gadeaxe stardial, Orchid of the cloud fountain

            Confrontation with ghouls seeking Dvin’s snuffbox

            Borgus the goblin, and his basket of black mushrooms

            Items recovered:

                        4 gold bracelets

Session 4

            Initial exploration of Low Pyramid of High Star Garden

            Room of animated mosaics

            Gol stonecutter Frammus

            Battle with Mielle’s Guard

            Death of Meia

            Items recovered:

                        Unidentified fungus

                        2 ancient, inscribed short swords

                        gold bracelet

                        90 gp

                        ring of feather fall

                        MU scroll: magic missle, invisibility

                        Dagger (unremarkable)

                        Meia’s Gem

                       

Session 5

            Exploration of low pyramid

Note from Mielle and encounter with Mielle’s projection

            (stopped session in burnt library)

            Items recovered:

                        Small silver effigy of fine workmanship

                        124 platinum pieces

Session 6

            Continued exploration of low pyramid         

Chased Mielle to shanties as base of observatory tower

            Crash of wasp-covered wooden orb into the star garden

            Discovery of excavation at base of observatory tower and undercloud river

    

Session 7

            Spiked down excavation wall to undercloud river

            Encounter with self assembling skeletal bridge

Ghoul encounter

            Broom paralyzed by ghoul, almost drowns

            Small island with old statue

            Items recovered:

Finely engraved orb map of unknown planet

H. Bogniks and Girl Sips Black Blood

Catheign - Session 2

On their march back from the Cloud Mine of Catheign the party chatted with Meia, the Gol fighting woman rescued from the first level of the cloud mine. Some relevant notes emerged from the conversation…

On the dusk island of Gol Roc there once was a man called Henryk Bogniks. This man made his fortune offering healings and resurrections. He was not well loved though, as he left an artistic legacy on the bodies of his clients in the form of signature scars, minor disfigurements, and discolored and warted lesions. Bogniks was known as a decadent, a man who consorted with personalities not recognized by high merchants, scholars, or royalty. A decade past now, Bogniks took to making extended forays out of Gol from which he would return with curious and valuable items including flowers that could sing on command, pale gems that could pass through flesh as birds through clouds, and black pebbles that would weep in the sunlight. These, and mundane but rich goods – ingots, bejeweled baubles, and so forth. It was known to a few that Bogniks was making his journeys to Catheign.

700 days previous Bogniks left on one of his trips and did not return. Gie, Meia’s companion, learned from a dying slave precisely where Bogniks was traveling – the Cloud Mine of Catheign. Thus Meia, Gie, and two others had just sailed to Catheign under the presumption that Bogniks had met his demise and left some unexploited riches to be enjoyed. Their party found the mine and had traveled up and up. They had seen two platforms of the mine before they were hassled, and three of the party lost, to dusky monsters. The first station, now explored by the party, has three chains extending into the mist. One directly up, and two extending out and up at steep angles. Meia’s group had taken the chain up to a large floating circular enclosure filled with many rooms of alchemical glasswork, ghouls, and purple goblins. And, indeed, as hoped for, old treasures. No mark of Bogniks, also as hoped for. The challenges posed by the dusky residents of the Cloud Mine destroyed Meia’s companions, and Meia’s only hope was to barricade herself in a room in the lowest enclosure. This is how the party found her in the last session.

The day after returning from their first journey to the Cloud Mine of Catheign, the party rested and restocked a bit in the Feanean frontier town of Tillman’s Grove. Kale the Archer made acquaintance with Janis, a hobbit would-be adventuress. Janis agreed to join the party for half of Kale’s take. The next day the group decided to journey along the rocky coast to find Meia’s boat, which they did successfully and without encounter. They spent the night on the Gol seacraft, and the next morning took Bogniks’ old path up the southern escarpment of Catheign to the mine. On the way the group was beset by stirges and nearly lost their gnome, however they decided to press on. Ultimately the group fully explored the first, small level of the mine and located the three chains leading up to further areas of the mine. Wandering monster rolls were unkind, however - a ghoul a fell from the mist and landed on the top of the platform to accost the party, and the group ran into a good deal of trouble from goblins descending from higher levels. Janis the hobbit finished the last goblin of the session by running after it, leaping onto its back, and biting its jugular. Janis gets the MVP award for Session 2, for biting a goblin's neck and also for finding the most secrets.

The party has not yet journeyed up any of the chains.

See you at the table May 3. 

Catheign - Personalities and Locales From Session 1

Here's a brief review of some material from Catheign Session 1. This is primarily for my own benefit, and for the benefit of the players.

Important Names:

King Lally - The boy king, ruler of the island of Fean Roc. As is tradition of all Feanean kings, young Lally wears a long flowing moustache whose growth and character is nourished by polypore jellies unique to the royal diet.

Nemeah - A magician and scholar of Fean Roc. Advisor to Lally. Commissioned the young magician Sculdge to search for evidence of an ancient script on Catheign.

Bogniks - An apparent authority figure somewhere in the cloud mines. He appears to have some influence over the goblins. His name was mentioned by the goblin Edd, but otherwise nothing is known of him.

Key NPCs encountered:

Edd - A dark goblin who spoke Common, unlike the others. Carried away by...

Lord Bussy - A seven foot long wasp with a human head. Had an eloquent command of Common. Bussy was patrolling outside the cloud mine, and seemed to be greatly amused by the adventure party. The wasps of Catheign apparently dislike goblins.

Meia - A Gol fighting woman. The party rescued her from goblins infesting the first level of the cloud mine. She professed to be a treasure hunter whose party was waylaid two days prior.

The Gol, Meia.

Important Locales:

Myceaxe - Home planet. Has a day side and night side due to pole of rotation being only a few degrees off of the star (more later, hopefully). Myceaxe has a tidally locked moon, eyeglass inspection of which reveals possible signs of habitation.

The Myceaxe terminator - a transition from night to day, from chaos to law.

Gaedeaxe - The violet star.

Fean Roc - Forested home island of adventure party. The culture largely thrives on woodcraft, especially through trade and utilization of products crafted from iron woods imported from the southern island of Peis. Fean Roc lies slightly on the dusk side of the equator and is home to several races, including men and gnomes.

Gol Roc - An island fairly well into the dusk. The pale Gols tend to be isolationists. They are known for knowledge of magic, and fine crafting of metals and minerals.

Midday on Gol Roc.

Dorsiriog - The great equatorial island kingdom. Home to the large cities of this hemisphere.

Peis - A large southern landmass that extends from the morning into the day side. Tropical and desert regions. The origin of iron woods highly values by Feanen craftspeople.

Catheign - A wild northern island in the dusk, with unexplored regions extending into the night. Catheign is heavily forested by great cedars. 150 years ago the southern portion of Catheign had several Feanean settlements whose economies were based on harvesting cedar. These were overrun by goblins from the dusk, and largely abandoned until a few years ago when one of the settlements was reestablished after a hunting expeditions suggested there was no longer a threat of goblins in the area. The known southern shore of Catheign has two main regions - a low land of large cedars and a highland plateau of solid rock. The cloud mine visited by the party is tethered to the southwestern corner of the plateau, two days from the Feanean settlement. The plateau is shrouded in a dense fog that severely limits visibility.

New Campaign: Cloud Mine of Catheign

Last Friday hopefully saw the start of a new campaign.

Six players joined in, including Greg Gorgonmilk, which was a treat. Greg's a super cool, fun guy, and his MU Sculdge was a real take-control no-nonsense kind of fellow, which was good to have in a group that included some newbs. The players said they want to return for the next session, which is a good sign, especially since the game climaxed with a graphic fiery suicide/fatality and a near TPK. Everyone liked the venue: a room overlooking the old arts quad at Cornell. The room has big oak tables and a chalkboard. The chalkboard turned out to be very handy. So it worked out nicely, although it will be a pain to bring in much Dwarven Forge or Hirst Arts on a regular basis. We'll be aiming to play first and third Fridays.

We played the original edition of D&D, straight out of the white box. I passed around a sheet with a few minimal house rules. Mostly stuff to help make the first level bumpkins a little tougher, all in the spirit of Gygax's OD&D house rules. I'm working on a campaign-specific player's reference booklet. The writing is mostly done, now I just need to take the time to add some art and figure out how to format and print booklets.

For this session the party visited a cloud mine similar to the one the PCs explored in my old Penelion campaign. This is another mine, at a different location, with a different history, however. I like the idea of an inverse dungeon extending into the sky, with levels tethered to the ground by great chains. I like swaying, creaking, rusted iron, splintered wood, smell of rain, vertigo, roots dangling from clouds, flying contraptions. I like things flying in the mist, just out of view. I like the possibility of the party finding a gate to the cloudlands. I hope this campaign will let us explore these notions better. The sun Gaedeaxe is large and distant and of a slight violet hue. Imagine how its light reflects on the clouds of an unnaturally extended dusk, and how its radiation nourishes the rare floating orchids that lay roots in the mist itself.

This cloud mine is chained to a high rocky plateau on the southern coast of a heavily cedared island called Catheign. More later...

Oranj / Birthplace of the Ice Elementals

Northern Finland

I've been trying to squeeze in some D&D before the move north. I have three unreported sessions in our whitebox campaign I'm hoping to make write-ups of in the near future - primarily for the sake of the players.

Because of my upcoming move it's likely that last week's session will be the finale for this campaign. The party ultimately found an astrographer in a stalled underworld rent-ship who was able to draw a map to the Dendriton tube. They also found a flying box allowing them to traverse Wiggin's Rent without the costly aid of micro dragons.

I've been using a new character class - Syndaens - which are "modular" fungus / humanoid hybrids that I've been using as NPCs for quite some time. Players can absorb mycelial hyphae into their characters to gain new abilities, and possibly lose old ones. I was frankly inspired by the different regional humanoids in A Voyage to Arcturus which were able to modulate head growths on the protagonist as he traveled from land to land.

Thinking about new settings and scenarios... Inspired by the move to upstate NY I'd like to realize an adventure in the ice. Snow trolls, wayward ice elementals, unsetting suns, icebergs floating in the sea and in the sky, canopies of fleshy ice plants, underground moss gardens, ice breathing potions. What does it feel like for an ice elemental to melt? I heard that in one region near Smithon's Boundary free-living ice elementals have an irresistible desire to feed on warmth. They hunger to dissolve into steam, to transform into gas and to float on the wind.

Sneak Peek: Erol Otus' Island Town

This summer I played in an AD&D game run by Erol Otus at the North Texas RPG Con. Erol has always been one of my favorite fantasy illustrators and the Fantasy Arts Enterprises gaming supplements he published in 1979 (Necronomican, Booty and the Beasts) are some of my favorite gaming materials ever. Period.

Well it turns out the Erol is an exceptionally great DM. As great as you would hope if you're a fan of his art style. Playing with him is like walking into one of his weirdest and most whimsical paintings. For me the experience was like being in gaming heaven, really. Erol even has a homemade screen covered with his art (that's Tavis Allison peeking over Erol's arm, by the way):

The eight-hour session we played in was a test run of Erol's new module Island Town. All players are descendents of a shipwrecked crew of humans, dwarves, and halflings living on an isolated island. You can play any of these races, or you can play a hybrid called a "Moojongi" and choose which body parts you want ascribe to which pedigree! We all started at Level 0 and began the game by harvesting Hazu bulbs in the lower levels of the islands. You see, young residents of the island have to prove their worthiness to ascend to the breeding chambers in the upper island by spending several seasons making fermented Hazu cakes. This manifests as a series of competitive semi-strategic dice rolling games between teams of players. The whole process was so beautifully and poetically described by Erol in terms of the ancient traditions of blade wielding, injecting, and cake rolling - it's hard to describe the creative genius of the whole thing.

Erol explains some nitty gritty: "Here on Island Town a "0" level gets but 2D6 per stat.  You will add 1D6 per stat for each significant encounter/achievement/discovery becoming 1st level after each stat reaches 3D6.  Normally citizens achieve a 1D6 addition to a stat. after the yearly Hazu Harvest thus becoming 1st level 6 years into the 10 year stint of harvesting duties. "

This is a great mechanic. As a reward for achieving various tasks (harvesting, etc.) the 0 level characters get to roll an extra 1d6 for the stat of their choice. Once each stat gets up to 3d6 you become Level 1.

A lot happened in the session. After the Hazu harvest we opted to go fishing, at which time we encountered a Vacucmber right out of Booty and the Beasts! We also interacted with some of the elders of Island Town, had a mysterious nighttime encounter with a Rubber Face - one of the original island inhabitants, and went on a quest for sea shells in the worm infested caverns beneath the island. This was one of the most creative roleplaying sessions I've ever played in.

Erol, being the super cool guy he is, handed out drafts of the Island Town module to each of the players after the game. He is planning on making a formal release of the module at NTRPGN Con in 2012. Be sure to get a copy when it's released! Here are a few teaser snapshots of my playtest copy:

SoCal Minicon 4 - Photos and Recap

 DM Telecanter cackles as player misfortune manifests in a tower of Jenga blocks.

Ha ha! A great weekend! SoCal Minicon 4 was damn awesome. It was twice as big as last year and everyone I talked to said they had a blast and want to come back in 2012. We had a few people this year fly in from back east and the midwest, which amazes me.

The first game I played in, on Saturday morning, was Steve Perrin's SPQR game. SPQR = Steve Perrin's Quest Rules - it's essentially Steve's house version of Runequest. The table was full of great players. For the first ~45 minutes or so Steve explained the historical background of his imaginary continent with the aid of large and heart achingly lovely hand drawn maps. It was great. I love grand introductions to sessions when they're done right. The adventure was an overland journey to locate a wizard's tower and I played a naive, claustrophobic, agoraphobic farm lad on his first foray. I spent a few pleasing hours in the game, which included a battle against three manticores who were trying to eat the party's horses. Sadly I had to drop out of the game early and leave the minicon for the day because of a family matter. I hear the group made it to the tower before dinner time. Nice work!
 
On Sunday morning I played in Telecanter's fine fine Swords & Wizardry session. If you read his blog (and you should) you know he is prone to frequent strokes of creative genius. This tendency of his was well on display in the session. The set up was that the party members were all infected by The Red Plague while staying in an inn, and so were inclined to set off together to the Redoubt of the Red Wizards to find a cure. The Red Wizards were reputed to have created the plague perhaps ~100 years earlier, you see. A sticky bit was that the plague causes infected souls to become hypersensitive to stress and anxiety. So sensitive, in fact, that if a victim is pushed too much she will go berserk. The brilliant game mechanic for this fragile state of sanity was Jenga. Whenever violence or other major stress happened in the session a player would have to draw out a Jenga block. Clockwise around the table the draws went. Every melee round. Every curse uttered. Every gasp of frustration from a player. We all knew if the blocks fell the party would go insane and all would be lost. BRILLIANT FUN! We spent much of the session acting like a bunch of plague-ridden Marcel Marceaus in a freezing cold invisible dungeon being attacked by crawling bones, ticks, and hoodoo stranglers, so there was lots of Jenga action. Of course we got a firehose in the face of all kinds of other creative telecanterian strokes, some of which I recognized from his blog writing. Clerics drawing bones (dominoes) for prayers, apologizing assailants, weird homespun ensorcellments. Halfway through the game Mobad declared aloud that it was the weirdest dungeon he's ever played in. A beautiful game, great fun, a privilege to play. (We won, too!)

For the Sunday afternoon session I ran a game of Dungeons and Dragons. Because a couple of the players had previously played in my Orccon Asteroid Crypts of the Xylbocx Starcult game I decided to make this session a direct continuation of that adventure. I'm a bit conflicted about how much I want to talk about the content of the session. I might like to run it again for another group so I don't want to give too much away. The location the players explored was the CACODAEMON TRANSLUCENT PLANETOID. This thing is a great spherical cyst of a few miles in diameter bearing a giant luminescent cacodaemon embryo at its center, much like a small sun lighting a small hollow world. On the inside shell of the cyst were some localities settled by various interests for various reasons. The adventuring party eventually ended up spending much of the session exploring the Cacodaemon Cyst Yolk Mine where hobbit miners drain and condense embryonic blood of the cacaodaemon from the gelatinous white yolk. (The cacodaemon yolk forms a small mountain range on the inside shell of the cyst.) I was privileged to have a group a super fun players and I want to thank them all for playing in my game. I am flattered that Telecanter wrote up a short recap of the session HERE.

There were many other sessions besides the three I was involved in. Here are pictures to prove it! (Many of these pictures were taken by Chainsaw, as credited).

Chillaxin' between killing imaginary monsters and purloining imaginary gold pieces. (R-L): Shaman, Grodog, Anna. (Photo: Chainsaw)

T. Foster's game. (CW from L): jallison, Cimmerian, Wheggi, Bedivere, Anna, T. Foster, Shaman (standing), grodog. (Photo: Chainsaw)

Steve Perrin's game. (CW from bottom left): Deanna (blue shirt), Cyclopeatron, Steve, grodog, Marcus, Telecanter. (Photo: Chainsaw)

 Perrin's game: (L-R): grodog, Marcus, Telecanter, Cyclopeatron's nose. (Photo: Chainsaw)

Perrin's game.

Joseph Goodman running Dungeon Crawl Classics. (Photo: Chainsaw)

Grodog running Castle Greyhawk.

Telecanter's game: (CW from bottom left): socalcanuck, William, Telecanter, Marcus, St. Yossarian, Summerisle, Mobad (black hat).

NTRPG Con: Some Photos

What a great weekend. I have more to say than I have time to type right now. Let me kick off a series of posts with a few photos I took:

(CLICK PHOTOS TO ENLARGE)

Paul Jaquays - Runequest

Otus, Jaquays, Dee - Artist Panel

Dennis Sustare

Tavis Allison - Metamorphosis Alpha

Erol Otus

Matt Finch - Mythrus Tower

Arkhein and Son - Urutsk: World of Mystery

 Circus Maximus

Marshall Mahurin - Chainmail

Old School at the Olde Ship: Pictures and Recap

  Gamma World Late Shift
(Clockwise from left: Summerisle, St. Yossarian, Cylco, Harry)

On Sunday a gaggle of old school roleplayers took over a corner of the Olde Ship British Pub in Santa Ana, California. I counted a total of 16 attendees with gaming going on for 11 hours. Tables were filled with ales, meat pies, polyhedral dice, and character sheets. The hilarious British manager Jackie kept the provisions flowing while she was listening in and checking up on the progress of each game.

There were two concurrent afternoon sessions. There was a large D&D game of the Judge's Guild classic Tegel Manor (a prequel, actually) run by Brunomac of the Temple of Demogorgon blog (CLICK HERE to read Brunomac's report ). At the same time Trent Foster ran a D&D session of his massive homebrewed Castle Xanadu dungeon. In Trent's game I played a flying fairy named Sprincus and at one point we tangled with a gremlin witch doctor! Can't beat that, huh? It was super cool! CLICK HERE to read a thorough session recap Trent wrote up.

For the 6 players remaining after dinner I ran a session of the original Gamma World. I took the group through the Floating Castle of the Wasp Women - a scenario I ran at Gamex last year. The players started out trying to capture an anti-gravity-generating brain from a hive of giant wasp women, and found themselves in the middle of an insect revolution. I had fun and I hope they did too!

Everyone said they had a blast and want to do it again. The Olde Ship even offered to set up a private buffet for our group the next time we come. Maybe we can turn this into a semi-regular thing...?

Thanks to Saint Yossarian and The European for pictures!

 Brunomac's Tegel Manor D&D Game

(Clockwise from left: Juan, Monk, Robert, The European, Brunomac, Terry, ?, ?, ? )

Trent Foster's Castle Xanadu D&D Game
(Clockwise from left: St. Yossarian, Cylco, T. Foster, jallison, The Shaman) 

 

Alright, enough Speckled Hen already... 

(Clockwise from left: Cyclo, Harry, The European) 

Horror in the Cloud Mines: Sessions 15 & 16

So, for those of your who are newcomers to my blog, I’ve been running a Labyrinth Lord campaign that's slowed down significantly over the last 1-2 years when one of the couples playing in the game had a baby, then my wife (player) and I (DM) had a baby too. At this point, everyone in the campaign has a baby or toddler. Now that we are all getting our little kiddies on predictable sleep schedules we’re getting the campaign moving again!

If you want to read through the old session reports more thoroughly you can CLICK HERE. But, in a nut-shell, the party is now exploring an inverse aerial cloud mine “dungeon” composed of enclosed floating platforms attached to the ground far below by great chains. There’s a system of gondolas joining the swaying, creaking platforms together. It should also be mentioned that this cloud mine is located in a small valley completely engulfed in a pink mist writhing with wailing corpse ghosts that invoke great supernatural terror. Many of the platforms have large glass distilleries in them that seem to be extracting a gooey, red substance from the mist.

Current Mysteries:

Who is the child Cinnabar Witch depicted in shrines placed around the mine platforms?

Why are translucent ape-beasts roaming the mine?

Why are the mineworkers, small blue eyeless people, all dead?

What is the substance being distilled from the haunted vapor?

Session 15: Shortish session with a drop-in guest player. The group headed back into the cloud mines after, in the previous adventure, a cloud beast followed them back to Penelion, slaying a young girl. The party made it up to a third distillery level that had some sort of temple in it. On the floor was the body of a slain priest in red robes. The party was fell upon by temple-guardian wood golems, to which they responded cleverly with oil and fire. The group hastily retreated back to a gondola to let the golems burn. End of session. One party casualty: the only dwarf, who left behind his pet tunnel dog. Now we have a dog NPC in the group!

Session 16: My mother- and sister-in-law dropped in, taking over the roles of two staff-wielding monk priestesses of the Penelion Sisterhood. The party traveled back to clean up after the charred wood golems. They explored the temple, finding a silver mask effigy of the Cinnabar Witch encrusted with diamonds and bearing carnelian eyes. The mask appeared to be a device with which one could speak directly with the witch. The MU and thief both had short whispered conversations with the witch, learning that she was sending a group of reinforcements to assess the situation in the mine. The thief grabbed the mask, and the party headed back out of the mines, setting up camp just outside the valley in order to await the arrival of the witch’s people. Oh yeah, before their bedtime the party had to dispatch some giant wandering lizards that stumbled off Moldvay’s wandering monster table into their camp.

They were fun sessions, if on the shortish side (~2 hours). It was cool playing with my mother-in-law who’s in her 60s and didn’t even really know what D&D was. She always associated D&D with cults, satan-worship, drugs, and parent-killing. She might still might make this association, but at least she knows it can all be good fun - she got excited when she rolled a hot 20 and zonked out a cloud beast with her great staff!

Orccon 2011 Recap and Photos

This past weekend I attended Orccon, one of the big gaming cons in Southern California.

First of all, I want to thank everyone that played in my Gamma World and OD&D/Spelljammer games. There's nothing more satisfying for a DM than to see returning players and to hear cheers, laughs, and applause during and after a game. I was also flattered that my games were overbooked with alternates, although it was disappointing to have to turn people away from Gamma World.

So, yes... I attended the con on Saturday and spent about 15 hours gaming, with short breaks for pizza and beer.

For the morning session I played in a game of Mouse Guard. I like the comic and wanted to try the RPG out. I had fun, although we spent much of the session talking about rules as opposed to pretending we were mice. After playing for over 3 hours our team managed to (1) get a cart unstuck from the mud (I can't believe how many dice rolls this trivial task took, christ), (2) ask around town for a friend mouse (without finding him), and (3) have an argument with a group of NPC mice (again, at least an hour and 15-20 dice rolls to resolve this verbal confrontation with NPCs). The game mechanic was indeed clever in how it forced the players to produce a character-driven narrative. But at what cost? The slowness of the games was pretty frustrating, and I don't think it was all the GM's fault. Although I did have a good time, I think I'd have to be prodded a bit before trying out the Burning Wheel rule system again.

For the afternoon session I ran a game of first edition Gamma World. It was a follow up to my SoCal Minicon game from last summer, where the group played a troupe of mutated heavy metal musicians. In this session the group invaded a rusted out oil tanker that was swarming with mutated rat punk rockers. The players found the punk king, snorted his coke and smoked his weed, humiliated (and murdered) his band, turned the rat punks on to metal with the help of a muttonchopped rocker named Lemming, and defeated an evil psychic brain that had been lording over the rat punks. The game ended up being nasty, despicably violent, and riddled with drug abuse and poor life choices. The session had a happy ending, though, when the band's half-chimp triangle player awoke from a magic-induced coma to be reunited with his illegitimate robitussin-addicted son (I wanted to get in some edgy modern psycho-emotional roleplaying, you see). I'm always grateful to get a table full of awesome players like this. Super special thanks to player Troy Z. for presenting me with the original artwork he created depicting the climax of the previous session! Wow!

(Thanks to Louis Garcia for photos of the Gamma World session)

For the evening session I ran an OD&D / Spelljammer hybrid game with 3rd-5th level characters. You can CLICK HERE to read the basic scenario, so I won't repeat it in this post. For the first part of the session the players flew their rickety space tower around the outside of the asteroid, exploring possible entry points. They opted to enter through the nostril of a transplanted supergiant face on the dark side of the asteroid. They explored some of the interior of the asteroid and met one key personality who had been stuck on the rock for many years. Through a combination of luck and cleverness the players ended up doing fabulously, accomplishing their primary mission of uncovering some ancient starfaring navigation scrolls from the interior of the asteroid. There was a super cool close-call climax involving a furious vampire hobbit and dwarf tossing in space.

After the game the players seemed enthusiastic, which was gratifying. One guy who had never played OD&D before said he liked the creepy atmosphere and asked "what happens in the rest of the adventure". I didn't know what to say - the players saw less than 10% of the interior of this particular asteroid. There was no script or "adventure path" for this game - the story was made by the players and the dice. Great work, Team Xylbocx! Thanks again for the fun Saturday night!

Thoughts After Running Arneson's Blackmoor Dungeons

At the last St. Crispin's Irregulars' Monday Hobby Night (every week in Anaheim) I ran an OD&D pick-up game using Dave Arneson's Blackmoor Dungeons straight out of the old Judge's Guild First Fantasy Campaign book. For those of you who haven't seen FFC, it's a remarkable document describing Arneson's Blackmoor campaign from the early 1970s. One of the many highlights of FFC is a set of keyed maps for the first ten levels of Blackmoor Dungeons circa 1970-71. This scenario represents the first megdungeon, and, more importantly, the first homebrew campaign that spawned D&D itself.

Browsing the maps and keys of of Blackmoor Dungeons can be somewhat disorienting to modern gamers, and I've always wondered how in the world this dungeon could be much fun to play. First of all, the place is a gigantic, horribly complex maze full of dead ends, empty rooms, and angled passages. I'd always imagined that running a session in Blackmoor would be an exercise in mapping tedium. Second, the keys have virtually no information beyond what treasure and/or monsters might be in a given room. Third, almost all of the monster encounters on the first level are insanely difficult for a first-level party - assuming, that is, that the party simply chooses to stand-and-fight (which most modern players are inclined to do in my experience).

Sooo... I wanted to see what was really like to play Blackmoor. I was especially encouraged by Tavis Allison's positive play reports and suggestions. To get around the mapping problem I carefully drew out the dungeon on a dry-erase battlemat grid as the players progressed. Luckily, one of the players was keen to draw a map as the party progressed. This aspect of things seemed to go fine. In terms of the sparse room keys, beforehand I looked for patterns in how the various groups of monsters were placed relative to each other in order to think about what might be going in the dungeon. For example, in one small area of the dungeon there was a nest of giant spiders located extremely close to a high-density goblin dwelling, so I assumed a special relationship between the goblin clan and spiders. In this respect I found the sparse key to be extremely conducive to my extemporaneous DMing style and very easy and fun to work with.

The game moved quickly and was great fun. The turnstiles and elves with the holy water fire hoses guarding the entrance to the dungeon set the tone for the game - especially when the bored elf lord patrolling the door required all dungeon entrants to down a shot glasses of holy water to test for vampirism. The PCs and their hirelings (hired at the elf fair in the middle of the old Blackmoor Castle grounds) were doing quite well for most of the adventure - they methodically mapped the grand entrance hall in the darkness, explored some empty areas, found the Orcian Way (but decided not to take it), and firebombed a bunch of giant spiders into oblivion (thereby picking up a huge bag of gold from the corpse of an unlucky previous adventurer).

The group was deciding whether they should take the money and run (only 2 casualties at that point) or explore a bit more. As they went back to mapping the perimeter of the main hall on their way to the exit they ran into a group of wandering goblins and were slaughtered - partially due to some dramatically unlucky rolls and a fizzled sleep spell. They ALMOST made it! Yep, a TPK - but there were a lot of laughs, shouts, and groans and it was cool fun. Everyone wants to give it another try, so I guess that's a good sign!

Some interesting observations on 1st level play in Blackmoor:

1. Tension is the mode. As Tavis noted, the generally empty nature of the dungeon causes an interesting tension to build. Empty... Empty... Empty... Empty... Screaming, confusion, blood, fire.

2. None of the encounters are routine. It's either glory or death. Almost every encounter consists of extreme danger and/or extreme riches. There's little in between. 

3. Combat is almost never the best option. There's no way a party of 1st level characters is going to successfully fight through most of the keyed monster encounters, even with a big gaggle of hirelings. They have to think up a clever solution pretty much every time. Or run like hell.

4. Grinding for XP and gold is not an option. It's feast or famine. If you can use your wits and survive long enough you will eventually find a big stash of treasure, level up, and be able to get better hirelings. Grinding through easy little monsters and picking up little bits of treasure isn't an option in the Blackmoor Dungeons.

Blackmoor: We'll be back! I'll try to run the next session at a public venue (I'll post details for anyone who wants to join in). Thanks again to all the great players that showed up last Monday!

Whitebox Sunday - Meet the Syndaens of the Ceiling

Gaming has slowed for me since my first baby arrived this summer. The two D&D campaigns I’ve been running have pretty much been on hiatus. No longer!

 

On Sunday the L.A. whitebox gang reassembled to continue the scary adventure that’s been on pause for 6-7 months now. It was a nice warm, sunny December afternoon when we gathered in an old victorian near Koreatown, had some French pastries, mulled wine, smudged little brown books, lead minis, and the old mint green character sheets.

The party spent the session traversing a catwalk suspended over a large viscous, sparkling underground sea thousands of feet below. The ceiling of the cavern is covered in phosphorescent fungus. In the distance the ceramic city of Wiggin’s Drop hangs from the ceiling.

The party met their first Syndaens – the all-female caste of laborers who tend to the fungus fields on the ceiling of Wiggin’s Rent cavern. The party stumbled upon a mature 8’ tall Syndaen, Naias, and her two 4’ tall clones. The triad was fighting insectoid Harvester monsters on the ceiling. Syndaens wield boomerangs to protect themselves while working the fungus fields. The party decided to join the fight against the Harvesters, afterwards making friends with the Syndaen triad.

It turns out the Syndaen’s were on a quest to extract a mythical male of their race from an ancient and isolated ceiling shrine overtaken long by foul goblins. (I love goblins.) The party joined up to help the Syndaen’s on their quest, and the session ended as the group found a back entrance to the shrine where a wall had been damaged.

I resumed using a DM screen for this session, which is something I've been trying to get away from for a while. I’m still undecided about DM screens. I feel like they put up a psychological barrier between the DM and players, but on the other hand they’re really good for hiding maps and queued-up minis.

An awkward subject came up after the session. Several other folks have expressed interest in joining in this game, but we were all concerned it might be problematic for the group to get too big, both in terms of too many players slowing the game down, and also in terms of the increased difficulty of organizing lots of different people with challenging schedules. We were talking about capping the group at six players... It's sad to exclude fun and interesting people though... Need to think on this more...

Here’s what it looks like when someone casts a difficult spell:

Dungeon Crawl Classics RPG: Playtest and Chat with Joe Goodman

Remember the good old days, when adventures were underground, NPCs were there to be killed, and the finale of every dungeon was the dragon on the 20th level? Those days are back. Dungeon Crawl Classics don't waste your time with long-winded speeches, weird campaign settings, or NPCs who aren't meant to be killed. Each adventure is 100% good, solid dungeon crawl, with the monsters you know, the traps you fear, and the secret doors you know are there somewhere. - Goodman Games' Dungeon Crawl Classics Website

Me on the left and Joseph Goodman DMing. 

Photo by Phil McCrum.

Last Sunday I had the opportunity to sit in on a playtest of Goodman Game’s upcoming RPG Dungeon Crawl Classics. The game was run by Joseph Goodman himself, and was organized by the Dead Gamers’ Society meetup. Before and after the game I had a chance to chat with Joe about the game a little bit. Sooo… here I’ll try to lay out the scoop on DCC.

WHY PUBLISH ANOTHER D&D-LIKE FANTASY RPG?
I asked Joe point blank why he wanted to be the publisher of yet another D&D-ish FRPG, and how he thought it would fit into the current market which is already filled with a confusing plethora of retroclones, quasiclones, semiclones, etc. His idea is that DCC will be aimed at D&D 3e / d20 players who want a more simplified version of the out-of-print systems they enjoy. All of the feats, skills, etc. have been stripped out of DCC to provide a lean and easy FRPG. Joe said Goodman Games would probably not be specifically targeting the retrogamer crowd with DCC. I must say, though, the game felt and looked a lot like AD&D – Joe even said he is commissioning some of the classic TSR illustrators like Easley and Otus to do art for the game. He estimates the game will be formally released in about a year.


THE DEEPER MOTIVATION BEHIND DCC: APPENDIX N...?!?!
According to Joe, his personal motivation behind DCC is to offer an RPG that can, as closely as possible, emulate all of the books presented in the Appendix N of the original AD&D Dungeon Masters Guide. Joe said he is systematically reading every book in Appendix N in order to formulate the game mechanics for DCC. One specific example of this is turning. Joe replaced the traditional cleric’s turn undead ability with a more general turn unholy in order to more closely mirror turning as envisioned Poul Anderson and Lord Dunsany. Another example is the totally revamped magic system where the success and/or side-effects of spellcasting can be unpredictable:


SPELLCASTING MECHANICS
From my playtest experience, it seems like the biggest difference between DCC and other similar RPGs lies in the spellcasting mechanics. Vancian memorization has been done away with and spellcasters have access to any of the spells appropriate to their level. When casting, however, the player must roll a d20 to gauge how successful the spell is. For example, a cleric needs a minimum roll of eleven (including modifiers) for a spell to work at all. The higher the roll, the better the spell works – and, yes, in the rulebook each spell is presented as a page-long table of effects-by-die-roll. The clever mechanic here is that at the beginning of a session the spellcaster starts with a positive roll modifier (e.g. my cleric started with a +4). Each time a spell is cast the modifier is decreased by one, so spells become less and less likely to be effective as more spells are cast. This turned out to be a cool system that was really fun to play. In fact, I might try to steal part of this system for clerics in my own home game!

I didn’t play a wizard, so I’m not totally clear on the specific mechanics for the class, but each spell cast by a wizard has potentially nasty side-effects that must be assessed at each casting. At one point in our game, for instance, a wizard cast a spell, rolled on the side-effect chart, and discovered he had to cut off a pound of his own flesh to sacrifice to a demon. The player decided to carve off one of his buttocks for this purpose. This is weird and grisly stuff… Hardcore self-mutilation. I found it to be kind of shocking, actually. I did notice that the wizard players started getting a little exasperated as the game went on, but I thought it was cool.

VARIOUS MINOR RULES NITTY GRITTY
DCC has ascending armor class as in d20; Six abilities (3d6 down-the-line): Strength, Agility, Stamina, Personaility, Intelligence, and Luck. Luck points can be burned to influence die rolls, but may then result in other negative modifiers as the game progresses. I wasn't clear on how saving throws worked - I just rolled when Joe told me to. A natural 1 or 20 during combat results in a roll on either a fumble or crit table of dramatic effects. The game has the typical FRPG classes (warrior, thief, wizard, cleric), each with its own specialized character sheet.

My cleric character inherited from an earlier session. 

Note the spell tracking box in the lower right.

HOW WAS THE PLAYTEST?
Joe took us through a scenario called something along the lines of Castle of the Emerald Wizard. I think he was surprised how our group "won" the module in less than 2 hours. The adventure pretty much lived up to the DCC blurb at the top of the post. Based on the portion we mapped, it seemed to be a Type B Linear Dungeon, with a series of guardian monster battles leading to a climax at the end where you fight with the boss (The Emerald Wizard), rescue the prisoners, and march away with pockets full of gems. It was a little disappointing that there were no talking NPCs, no cool items or treasures (beyond gems), and no interesting mysteries. The only way the monsters interacted with the players was to fight-to-the-death. I was also surprised that Joe read room descriptions verbatim off of paper printouts - I've never seen an experienced DM do this before. All-in-all this adventure felt like a railroaded chain of combat encounters, which isn't really my preferred gaming style. We won the module fairly quickly by magically bypassing the main path to get to the end. [UPDATE: Red Joe's comments on this HERE]

The session was a lot of fun and I had a great time, but I think running sessions like this kind of undersells DCC. This is clearly a robust and exciting ruleset with its own unique flavor deriving from the interesting spellcasting mechanics. Given that Joe sees DCC as an Appendix N emulator, I don’t completely understand why he chose to run the type of adventure he did. When Joe was name dropping Poul Anderson and Lord Dunsany before the game I was getting pretty excited, but the experience he delivered was more like an 80s Nintendo game or AD&D as run by a 13 year old in 1983 (not that there's anything wrong with this, mind you). And I'm sure Joe would make no apology for this, based on the promotional blurb at the beginning of this post. I think, however, that this approach is what led one of the players to give a kind of back-handed compliment after the game "Well, I think this would be a great system for running quick one shots!" I actually felt DCC was much better than this. The novel magic system in DCC gave the game an unpredictable and sinister feeling that really was evocative of weird mid-century fantasy fiction. I suspect I'll pick up a copy of DCC when it's published, if only for the magic system, although I predict the whole game will be quite good - possibly outstanding.

Well, Joe knows the market much better than I do, so hopefully his strategy of marketing DCC to alienated d20 players as an engine for running combat-chain dungeon adventures works. There's a lot more to DCC than that, though, and it would be nice to see the game enjoyed by Appendix N fans who would appreciate it. No matter how good the game is, however, I predict it might be hard to get more literary-minded FRPG gamers to give the game a whirl with a name like Dungeon Crawl Classics.

First Generation Grognards

The main reason I went to SoCal Smackdown last weekend was to play in Brunomac's OD&D Dungeon Crawl on Saturday afternoon. This was a continuation of a game he started at the SoCal Mini-Con III, but that I wasn't able to participate in at the time. It sounded like too much fun, so I didn't want to miss out this time around.

Besides being a fun fast-moving low-level dungeon stomp, it was also kind of a remarkable game because most of the players at the table, 4 or 5 of them, were first-generation D&D players who started with the little brown books back in the 1970s. It struck me that I've never really been at the table with a whole group of grognard players like this before. Before we started the game, it was interesting hearing them chatting about the big Orange County D&D group that used to meet at Cal State Fullerton back in the late 70s. It also turns out that a couple of these guys started the first O.C. gaming convention back in the day (OrcCon - which was bought out by Strategicon and moved to L.A. - long story, yawn).

So I pulled out my little Collector's Edition whitebox thinking I was all cool and maybe could hang, and one of the guys jokingly says "I don't know what this whitebox stuff is all about, I always played this..." and he pulls out his original battered woodgrain OD&D set. He also had a clipboard with notes and tables he used at the original Dundracon 35 years ago. Awesome...

Anyway, it was a raucous and jolly game led by Brunomac, a hilarious loudmouthed DM. We were boozing it up while our characters were massacring kobolds, slipping in goblin poop, and hacking at gelatinous cubes. Beautiful afternoon!

Heavy Metalpocalypse in the Gamma World - Awesome Illustration and Session Recap

At the SoCal Mini-Con III I ran a session of first edition Gamma World. The game was set thousands of years in the future in a verdant and primeval post-apocalypse where few “humans” remain. For this session players were members of a mutant heavy metal band – traveling "Mohijrim" mystics moving from town to town, overseeing auspicious occasions such as births, weddings, funerals, harvests, etc. Metal Mohijrim seek to fulfill the sacraments of the Lords of Metal: intercourse, inebriation, and providing high quality musical performances to needy populations.

Player Troy Z. drew this highly accurate illustration of the climax of the game! Read recap below!

The PC's band Tipton Scrotus (note that Child-Eyes wants to call the band Van Tipton):

CLICK HERE TO SEE CHARACTER SHEETS.

Mamlish and Child-Eyes Tipton: Young heavy metal magic users. Their mother Minerva was the greatest guitar shred master of her generation. They learned the magical arts from their gentle wizard dad! They seek to avenge the murder of their parents and restore dignity to the Tipton clan! Drums and vocals, respectively.

Charva Chynex: New age bass-o-maniac. Can bend light and turn invisible!

Battus Scrotus: Joker ape-man with gigantic scrotum. When he squeezes his scrotum a paralyzing musk sprays forth form his urethra. Expert at electronic guitar.

Timetrius Finster: This mystery freakus can turn invisible! He bears the battery-powered mini-amp the whole band must share.

Doktor Vernix: Some say he’s crazy, some say he’s just a simple fool. Whatever they say, he’s one of the best keytar synth players in the Gamma World! He also has cryonic powers and telekinesis! And epilepsy!

Giggleface Gynander: S/he is a gay spirited drum player (Tipton Scrotus has two drummers like the Butthole Surfers did in their heyday) with the power of pyro!

The Set-Up:
The PCs are part of the once proud Tipton clan of metal masters. Their parents and mentors were slain, the ancient family instruments were stolen, and now the band seeks to recover the instruments, avenge the deaths of their elders, and return the Tipton dynasty to its rightful stature!

As the game opened the band was down to its last domar, and all they had were crap instruments – coffee can bass, broken acoustic guitar, barely functioning Casio keyboard. They were little more than a pathetic jug band of the apocalypse. While traveling in the northern city of Yeshmiri they found this note posted:

The guitar in the picture was the Gibson once owned by their metal master Mother Minerva. The band headed north to Dyson's Camp - a town of wolf people in a forest if gigantic redwood trees - to find Zygotus. The band arrived a day before the big Zygotus equinox concert was to occur. The PCs spent some time fucking around with the wolf guards, then headed to the inn to pick up wolf babes, play some jug band metal, and maybe score some coke. They ended up putting on a show, befriending some wolf lasses and earning some baksheesh and rounds of fortified pine ale. In one stage antic, rascally Battus Scrotus paralyzed Doktor Vernix on stage with urethra musk emanating from the hole of his broken Samick electroacoustic guitar. After the show Scrotus “rented out” the paralyzed Doktor to the highest bidder for a few minutes of physical pleasure (as the band often does to make ends meet, they said). The taker was huge, almost genetically pure wolf named Lee Loup. (The Rainbow/Dio song “Run with the Wolf” came up). Overall, the band endeared itself to a small portion of the town’s population and was able to get fed, sheltered, and somewhat wasted. The only one who got laid that night, however, was the paralyzed simpleton Doktor Vernix.

The next day the band left the limits of Dyson’s Camp to explore a potential Zygotus encampment. They indeed found evidence of Zygotus, including some guitar strings and Honda Goldwing tracks, but no evil heavy metal bastards. Instead of following the motorcycle tracks, however, the players went back to Dyson's Camp. They decided their strategy was going to be to confront Zygotus on stage at the big equinox festival of the wolves. This surprised me as the GM, because it seemed foolish and dangerous in the extreme. But it turned out to be purely awesome!

With the help of a groupie the band befriended in the inn the evening before, the band talked the stage manager into letting Tipton Scrotus play a few songs on stage before Zygotus’ arrival. Once on stage the band started into rock n’ roll action rounds, where each round is ~4min - the length of a typical rock ‘n roll song (eg. Metallica’s Orion would take 2 rounds). The band worked to entertain more and more of the crowd before Zygotus arrived – the goal being to turn at least 50% of the crowd into cheering fans before the enemy arrived. They were able to do this through their (admittedly lackluster) charisma, musical ability, and some gammatronic pyrokinetic hijinx. Toward the end of their set they broke into a two-round power ballad with vocalist Child-Eyes Tipton (played by blogger Brunomac, by the way) singing about evil that befell the Tipton clan, and how Zygotus possessed the Gibson relic that was rightfully theirs! Zygotus arrived backstage at this point and were furious! Child-Eyes flipped them a magically bioluminescent middle finger and a heavy metal battle royale ensued…

Metalpocalyptic Showdown! Tipton Scrotus vs. Zygotus!

This next scene – the climax of the game - was purely rad. It is one of those moments that makes GMing worth the pain and humiliation of explaining to your normal friends what your hobbies are.

When Zygotus arrived Doktor Vernix used his molecular understanding mutation to determine that the evil heavy metal band was actually a bunch of androids and their leader, Larbchuck, was a cyborg. At that point Zygotus took to the stage and most rudely started pushing Tipton Scrotus around in an attempt to halt their rock.  Of course, some serious violence commenced – but Tipton Scrotus NEVER STOPPED ROCKING. The whole battle took place while Tipton Scrtous were playing an epic prog-metal composition. All of the android bandmembers of Zygotus had laser cannons hidden under their scalps / wigs, and I assumed most of the PCs would be quickly incinerated at this point - ending the game tragically. But the Lords of Metal were truly with Tipton Scrotus for this battle, because I kept rolling crap, 3… 7… 5…, for the robot attacks.  Once I even rolled a 1 and the Zygotus bass player ended up shooting himself with his own damn laser beam. The android leather daddies were complete buffoons, apparently! Meanwhile Larbchuck, the screaming cyborg lead guitarist of Zygotus, was gearing up to shoot liquid-light radiation beams from his eyes. Charva Chynex (played by blogger Nick B.!) used his light manipulation powers to defuse the beam. Then Mamlish the Metal Wizard cast an ajna Radionic Fireball spell and melted the cyborg’s face off (see illustration) to reveal to the people of Dyson’s Camp that Zygotus were not authentic Mohijrim – they were computronic purveyors of False Metal.

During the battle Doktor Vernix tried for several rounds to telekinese the Gibson guitar from Larbchuck’s hand, and failed. Finally he rolled a white-hot 20 (as shown in the illustration) and was able to float the Gibson out of the hands of the cyborg into the hands of Battus Scrotus in the middle of Scrotus’ left-hand tapping guitar solo. With his right hand, Scrotus then grabbed his electric cricket bat, rolled a sweet sweet natural 20 and knocked Larbchuck’s head off, sending it flying over the audience.

Lots of other kooky stuff happened, but nobody reads long session reports so I won’t bother relating it all to you… Needless to say it was a super fun game for me to GM and the players said they liked it too. For me the first part of the game where the band was cavorting about with the locals was a tad slow for my taste, but some of the players said they really loved it.  “Town & Tavern” preludes simply appeal to some people and not to others – it’s been that way since 1974, I’m sure. I think for future con sessions, however, I might plan better to downplay Town & Tavern action so players can get to the exploration and violence more quickly. Damn, I had tons of other material - NPCs and localities - for this adventure the players never touched.

One stylistic element I experimented with for this game was giving a longer background color spiel than I usually do for one-shots. I spent 10-15 minutes describing the world, context, heavy metal traditions, etc. I personally like hearing GMs give colorful and creative intros, but I also know at a con game there can be a risk of turning off players with short attention spans. I think it turned out okay this time, but I never got direct feedback from the players about it.

Anyway, the game was cool. Maybe I’ll run a follow up at Orccon in February. I’m skipping out on Gateway this year because of the new baby.

PS: Click here to read Brunomac's recap of the session.