2020

Well, it has been almost a whole year since I last posted something. There are numerous reasons for that: 2020 and Covid, of course, impacted our gaming; I had stopped asking the players to do write-ups each week; our regular campaign in 2019 had gone on hiatus due to a debilitating injury to one of our players; and, of course, my natural inclination towards laziness. 😉

I guess I feel obligated to get in at least one post a year so here’s an update on our gaming.

As I mentioned, our Waterdeep campaign went on hiatus when one of our players had a fall that broke both of her feet. This kept her out of face-to-face gaming for a bit. Everyone was cool with the idea of doing some side gaming in the interim. So we began playing some Stonehell (sort of) as some of my last posts touched on. Then we stopped gaming face-to-face due to Covid in, I believe, March.

Like many, we switched to online gaming. It has been a big switch for me. While playing face-to-face, I find it pretty easy to improvise and “build” the campaign as we go based on what the players do. I can just draw a map on the fly, grab whatever stats I need, and go from there. I’ve found that to not be the case with “distant” gaming, especially while using a VTT.

So we got going with Roll20 and Zoom, I purchased some existing modules, and away we went. This replaced our normal Saturday night game. After a few sessions, this transitioned into Tomb of Annihilation. The players had a role in releasing the “death curse” through their previous adventures, were then recruited by the Harpers to help investigate, and ended up “working” for a lich who wanted their aid in ending the death curse…it was impacting her music business (EMI or Everlasting Music Industry) quite negatively.

So it was off to Chult. The trip there had some interesting encounters, including a rival “record” label from Thay, ended up being nearly the sole survivors on the ship, and finally made it to Port Nyanzaru. Here they became embroiled in various plots of different factions in the city. Various adventures were mixed in that are not part of Tomb of Annihilation to build up things.

At some point along the way, I volunteered and/or was convinced to start running a Friday night game as well. This was to give some other friends an opportunity to play. We played a little Tiny d6 at first, switched from Roll20 to the Foundry VTT (highly recommended), tried a little Dungeon World, and settled on 5e again. This campaign was an alternate version of our old Company H campaign that itself was initially based on the village of Hommlet (renamed Hilltop back then and Hamlet for this campaign). Each of the old PCs was re-imagined for 5e and for a fresh campaign. Players who played back then, got the new version of their old character. New players got versions of PCs for players not playing now.

The Saturday game, the Bane of Eternity campaign, got a little too convoluted with subtle politics and alliances, and perhaps a little too much gray for a group more comfortable with more black and white decisions. So we retired the Bane of Eternity campaign. We started a new campaign based on another re-imagining. This time it was of the Nentir Vale setting, published back in 4e. We didn’t play 4e for very long, but I definitely found the Nentir Vale to be a great mini-setting.

Additionally, one of the long-time players, RJ, has taken on running a campaign on Friday nights and so I actually get to play. I’m a halfling who was polymorphed into the big hulking human by an evil wizard (or at least that is what he believes). Merric is a Path of the Zealot barbarian who defends the little folk from evil and oppression…actually he does it for non-little folk as well. He has a steadfast companion by the name of Chop who is a long-haired miniature pig, a common pet amongst the Hilltopple clan of halflings…the other players regularly mistake Chop for a guinea pig. The resemblance is remarkable and Chop is the brains of the duo and to some extent the entire group of PCs. He is certainly the cutest member of our party. Merric is also an accomplished cook and man of the people. Other players have compared him to Minsc (of Minsc and Boo/Baldur’s Gate fame) as well as the Tick. The comparisons are more than fair.

(Merric is a variant human. He has the Magic Initiate (Wizard) feat with Find Familiar as the selected 1st level spell. Chop is the familiar with RJ allowing me to have him be a guinea…er…long haired miniature pig. He also has Prestidigitation which is a little technique that his mother taught him for making tasty meals. I’m sure this is not the “optimal” build for a barbarian, but it has been fun.)

Oh, we also have continued our Tuesday night East Texas University campaign (Savage Worlds), solely via Zoom with no VTT. The characters are nearing the end of their sophomore year. Nearly every Savage Tale has continued to spin off into significantly more than what is published. Since this is all pretty much “theater of the mind,” I’ve been able to continue improvising on the fly much more easily than I have with any of our D&D VTT campaigns.

There’s the annual update. We’ve been gaming remotely, more or less, three times of a week during the pandemic with some variety in which players are playing in which campaign. Gaming remotely has also provided the opportunity an old and new player to join us who are not local (one elsewhere in Florida and one from California) which has been one good thing to come out of an overall terrible year.