Originally, I began writing these as a normal session log like we used to. After it taking me a couple of hours to do one for the first two session and realizing that I had at least thirty more sessions to go, I knew a change in approach was needed. So these recaps are going to cover the highlights and critical elements, often in bullet form, so I can get through (at least most) of this prior to our next session. That said, the six PCs arrived in pairs, with the members of each pair having traveled together and knowing each other fairly well. The pairs are (in order that they arrived as best as I recall): Fiona & Woody, Gandave & Sulrinn, and Aran & Nalniss.
Continue reading →Nentir Vale Campaign
My last post, back in January, was about our 2020 gaming and I mentioned that our current D&D campaign (5th Edition) was set in a reimaging of the Nentir Vale setting from 4th Edition. This campaign has continued on through 2021 (to date) and has continued online via Foundry VTT (hosted by The Forge) due to the ongoing pandemic. Things had been going great and then I had to go and have a health emergency (not Covid related) and we couldn’t play for at least six weeks. When I was in a position where we could start playing again, not everyone else was available. I was unwilling to start the campaign up without all of the current players. So, instead, we did some side stuff, with the available players but now, we’re getting ready to pick up the main campaign again. Since it has been so long and the players haven’t been doing session recaps, I figured that I should put together a recap of the campaign to date to help myself (as well as the players) remember what has come before. Since I’d be writing it all up anyways, I might as well post it too.
Rachel’s session notes have been invaluable in putting all of this together.
Before we get started with the recap, I suppose I should introduce the characters.
Continue reading →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.
Continue reading →Stonehell Environs
Because our main campaign is based on Waterdeep: Dragon Heist, I went ahead and put our Stonehell in the Forgotten Realms simply for the advantage of some familiarity for the players (mainly for the religious pantheon). I’ve placed it in a box valley in the Nether Mountains and re-written the background a bit. Stonehell was a prison created by a wizard of ancient Netheril. A curtain wall blocks the valley’s mouth and an ancient Netherese magical dome of force covers the top of the valley, extending down into the curtain wall. A tunnel through the wall provides the only known access to the valley.
The small town of Hawk’s Nest has grown from a watchtower to a small town up against the outside of the curtain wall. Services for adventurers, or Hellions as the locals call them, is the primary economy of the town. Because the game is focused on adventuring in Stonehell, we’re largely hand-waving the interactions in town. There is an inn, the Stonehell Inn, for the characters to rest and recover (at the cost of 1gp per day). Sidekicks can also be hired at the inn. There is a shop and “bank” where recovered treasures can be sold and wealth stored. All prices are fair…no haggling allowed. That’s the extent of the town so far. A tunnel pierces the curtain wall and gives access to the valley beyond. Hawk’s Nest charges a toll of 1gp for each Hellion entering and an additional toll of 1gp for each Hellion leaving. Hawk’s Nest also has a Department of Tourism and Treasure that produces a brochure for wannabe adventurers, but I’ll save that for another post.
I’m not using the curtain wall or the valley as written. Instead, the wall is–as far as anyone knows–solid with the exception of the aforementioned tunnel. The valley beyond is a desolate wasteland. The magic dome covering the valley leaves it in perpetual shadow. A constant, thick mist obscures vision even more, visibility is only about fifteen to twenty feet, and sounds are muffled. The ground is covered in a layer of ashy pale grey dust, about six inches deep. No fauna of flora exists. It is an eerie and apparently lifeless place.
However, it is not empty. Barrow mounds dot the valley and various caves and worked complexes pierce the valley’s walls. Some of these, so far, have been persistent from foray to foray. Others have not, with new mounds appearing in new locations or where a different mound was found previously. These barrow mounds are largely from Greg Gillespie’s megadungeon, Barrowmaze. I originally adopted this approach to the valley to mix it up some (we’ve played a few sessions of Stonehell before). It has, however, taken on a bit of a life of its own and now has something of a background story and logic in my head.
To date, there have been eleven separate forays beyond the curtain wall. Only two of these have actually been into Stonehell proper. The others have all explored various locations and barrows in the valley. Eight different PCs have been involved in these forays and half of those did not survive the excursion. Another eight sidekicks have perished in the explorations as well. It has been a little deadly.
While the dungeon of Stonehell follows the standard trope of the deeper you go, the higher level you need to be, the Valley does not (Up a Level, Down a Level). One of the “tombs” in the valley wall, for example, is blocked by a set of large iron doors. A sigil is prominent upon the doors. One group of PCs (sadly no longer with us) identified the sigil as that of an infamous vampire warlord. If true, even a party with a good bit of “experience” under their belt would likely not survive that encounter. The current PCs have talked about going in but do not. Something about it looking a bit scary, dangerous, and well beyond their capabilities…nothing at all about knowing it belongs to a vampire warlord. 😀
This is somewhat analogous to how wilderness encounters in older editions would often include creatures that would be quite difficult for a party in a straight up fight (or any fight). It would often be in the players’ best interest to avoid such encounters outright. When that shadow of a flying dragon passed across a low level party, it was typically wise to head for cover. The Valley is similar. The encounters are not necessarily “Level Appropriate” for the player characters. (One might even say that they are nearly random, if were one so inclined and could be guaranteed that his players would never read this.) It is incumbent upon them to decide if they should risk the encounter or not. It would likely be even better if they can recover whatever treasure might lie in a barrow and avoid the inhabitant(s) as much as possible. All of those PCs deaths I mentioned up above…they’ve been in the Valley and not the dungeon.
That’s enough for this post. A bit more on the Hawk’s Nest Department of Tourism and Treasure and the adventuring “Rules of Stonehell” in the next post.
Stonehell Interlude/Side Campaign
Due to one of our players having a bit of an accident that left her wheelchair bound for a few months and my place not being very handicap accessible, we’ve put our Waterdeep campaign on hold. Also, with it being the holiday season, players would be missing various sessions for various reasons. So, in its place, we’ve been playing Michael Curtis’ excellent Stonehell mega-dungeon (with, of course, some modifications and a bit of tongue in cheek). We are not, however, using Labyrinth Lord (for which it was published) or any other OSR systems or pre-d20 D&D editions. We’re still playing 5e. I’ve encouraged everyone to play characters “against type” from what they usually play and to use this as an opportunity to explore the rules of 5e and take risks a bit more.
Speaking of rules, we are using some house rules specifically for this little side campaign and that’s what this post will focus on.
No experience points are gained for defeating monsters or going on adventures nor are we using milestone xp. Instead, characters need to train to go up a level. The cost of training is a number of gold pieces equal to the XP that would normally be required to level up (e.g., it costs 300gp in training costs to reach 2nd level). Oh, we’re handwaving any training time. This is my “gold as XP” approach and, I hope, it also encourages the players to approach their adventures less from a kill things and take their stuff slog and more of a be creative and intelligent in looting the dungeon.
It also puts the players in the interesting (they might say agonizing) position of having to choose what to do with the treasure that they recover. Do they save and “bank” it towards the cost of training a level? Or do they use it to get better gear (e.g., better armor for a higher AC) to improve their chances of surviving a foray into Stonehell? Do they sell that magic item for a nice, tidy sum or do they keep it to use? Since resource management isn’t really that big of thing in 5e, but is for “old school” games, this introduces an element of that sort of tension.
As a general rule, long rests cannot be taken while in the dungeon. Do they risk pressing on after they’ve depeleted their spell slots, hit dice, and the like? Or do they return to the safety of the nearby town, Hawk’s Nest, to recover and recoup at the risk of the dungeon “restocking” as well? Given how some of the sessions have gone so far, this has added a different kind of tension to the game than our normal campaign. One that, dare I say it, lends a hint of an old school feel to it.
Oh, if the party does get “stuck” or “lost” in the dungeon and can’t find their way out, I do take pity on them. The organization, Hawk’s Nest Hellion Extrication, Liberation, and Perquisition Services (Hawk’s Nest H.E.L.P.S.), can come to the rescue and recover the survivors for a small fee of 100gp per PC per level. This gives the players the pleasure of yet another significant and potentially costly or deadly (if they press on) choice to make. (P.S., Adventures in Stonehell are called Hellions in Hawk’s Nest.)
Lastly, we are using Sidekicks from the recent 5e Essentials Kit. A sidekick can be hired for an equal share of the treasure recovered in the foray that they accompany the party. For some reason, the first two sidekicks hired were both named Bob (which became a theme). Originally, I had let everyone know that if they mistreated their sidekicks, word would get back and other sidekicks would demand a larger share of the treasure to travel with such dangerous adventurers. That, I soon realized given the number of sidekicks biting the dust, would require that I’d have to start tracking it so I came up with something else.
By decree of the World-Expansive Brotherhood-Extraordinaire of Buddies, Oppos, Bulwarks, and Sidekicks (aka WeBeBOBS), in the event of the untimely demise of a sidekick or in the event that they do not otherwise return from the expedition into Stonehell for any other reason, WeBeBOBS shall receive the share in lieu of the member receiving it. This seemed like an easier way (at least for me) to handle it. Oh, and yes, all the sidekicks are now named Bob…the guild of sidekicks is WeBeBOBs after all.
I found a random personality trait table of one word adjectives for NPCs (you can find it here). Each Bob gets one random adjective and I ham it up to the amusement, chagrin, and groans of the players. The sidekicks are known by these traits (e.g., Macho Bob, Self-Serving Bob, etc.). Outside of the hamming it up, the players largely control their sidekicks (with the sidekick going on their initiative turn to keep things simple). There is no guarantee that a prior Bob will be available when the PCs want to hire a new one. Originally, I was going to say one Bob per player. After our last session with four Bobs to be hammed up (Impudent Bob, Odious Bob, Smart Bob, and Weepy Bob), I might just reconsider that. 😉
That’s enough for now. I’ll post more about the different changes to Stonehell, the town of Hawk’s Nest, and my use of OneNote and D&D Beyond for running this game in some (near?) future posts.
Ratlings in Waterdeep and Swansong Post
Our Waterdeep campaign (based on Waterdeep: Dragon Heist) has been going along well and we are about a dozen sessions or so into it. I think everyone is enjoying it. There are, however, a couple of things different about this campaign than with our prior campaigns which will also help explain why I tossed Swansong Post on the end of that title up there.
We are using an alternate experience system where a character gets one XP for each session in which that character participated and need to accumulate a certain amount to go up a level. We are also leveling pretty slowly for the first few levels for a couple of different reasons. It gives everyone a chance to learn more about WHO their characters are as, well, actual people before they have to worry more about WHAT their character is in terms of more complicated mechanics and abilities.
It also gives us an opportunity to do a lot more exploration of Waterdeep than in the published module without worrying about having to ramp up the “challenge rating” of things. So, for example, it takes 4xp (i.e., four sessions attended) to reach 2nd level and 10xp or ten sessions attended to reach 3rd level. It’ll take 18xp to reach 4th level. This is about twice what was required in our prior 5e campaign (which pretty much matched the speed of leveling using the core 5e rules). Once we get in the 5th-6th level range, I’ll likely increase the pace of leveling a bit.
If a player is missing, their character is also missing (and so no XP for that session). We come up with some reason that they had to go off and do something else and then some reason for how they come back in a following session. Given that the sessions have all taken place in the city, it has been relatively easy to do this so far. Combined with our XP system this means that characters are already at different levels due to players having to miss sessions. Some characters are at 3rd level now while others are still at 2nd. One claim I’ve read about 5e is that minor differences in level (at least in the same tier of play) are not quite as problematic from a game mechanic perspective than in some other recent editions of D&D. If the player characters start to vary significantly in level and it creates problems from a mechanics perspective, I suppose I’ll have to figure something out.
Another big difference with this campaign (and the reason for the swansong title) is that I have not asked the players to take turns at writing session recaps. Surprisingly, there has been no hue and cry, uproar, ruckus, or any ado whatsoever by the players over this. I was sure that I’d have a mob on my hands angrily insisting, nay demanding, that I force them to write recaps. Somehow I was quite mistaken on this. Regardless, it means that I will not be posting session summaries here. It was time-consuming enough for me to do it each week with something already written to work with (some requiring significantly more editing to make it comprehensible than others…you know who you are). I’m sure it would be even more time-consuming to do it from scratch (even with the aid of Rachel’s usually quite thorough notes). It would also miss the main point of my having required the player’s doing it previously: giving a player’s perspective on the session…with, of course, my comments added in…rather than just my perspective.
So it is likely that I will post very little here for the foreseeable future…outside of player wanted posts IF we ever need to add some new players to replace departing ones. Until I post again, enjoy!
Ratlings in Waterdeep Intro
Long time, no post. The Clerics Three campaign has died the death of a thousand missing players (slight…or not so slight…exaggeration). We had too many missing players for too many sessions and the campaign lost momentum. I find it difficult to keep a campaign going when we start missing too many sessions. For the last couple of months, we’ve been playing a series of short adventures of various levels, giving the players and myself a chance to play at some higher levels than we have with 5e. We began our new 5e campaign this past weekend.
Waterdeep is the setting for the campaign, and yes, we are using Waterdeep: Dragon Heist. It will, of course, be modified and supplemented with various stuff. We have a pretty full table for the next few weeks and here are the characters (in alphabetical order):
- Barrak Brand: A protector aasimar cleric (life domain) played by RJ
- Bryndissa Crannog: A hill dwarf fighter played by Muse.
- Laajn Soulforge: A mountain dwarf paladin played by Jason (who, sadly, will be moving out of town in a few weeks).
- Liliana Silverheart: A half-elf rogue played by Jen.
- Merrik Terrastorm: A rock gnome wizard played by Dayton (a new addition to the group).
- Olanys: A half-elf druid played by Bridgett.
- Samuelyn Starstream: A half-elf monk played by Rachel.
My intent (even after Dragon Heist) is for the campaign to be largely an urban campaign combined, possibly, with some dungeon delving (maybe inspired by a dungeon of a certain insane wizard)…something similar in tone to our previous Ptolus campaign. In fact, I was thinking of running Ptolus again, but I decided that there is just too much easy to use material for Waterdeep and 5e right now. Spoiler Alert: One of the things that really appealed to me about using Dragon Heist as a framework is that the PCs come to own a building/business and become part of the community. I seem to gravitate to campaigns with the PCs having that community tie. Yes, I already shared that this would be one premise of this campaign so it isn’t really a spoiler for my players. 😉
I also have mentioned to the players (but not necessarily officially) that they can have a “stable” of characters and swap them in and out as needed. I may also kind of “drag” out some of the earlier levels (maybe 3-6 or so). We’ll see how things go.
Session write-up forthcoming in the next few days.
The Clerics Three – Session 14 (5e)
In our last session, our heroes defended Rooksten from an attack by a warband of orcs. Orcs looking for Chuck! Casualties among the good guys were low–two of Rooksten’s guards. The bad guys were decimated with only the shaman/priest, a four-armed orc, escaping by fleeing. After resting and recovering overnight, the Clerics Three split up. Most headed off in search of the missing villagers while Alaric and Chuck remained in Rooksten to protect Bale and his wagon which, of course, is what the group had been hired to do. Cora led the others, following the tracks, and came to the edge of the Oldscrag Forest where a waterfall tumbled over a rocky shelf. A cave was behind this waterfall and Cora started to peek in. That is where we pick up after the break.
Jason was missing and so Muse played Chuck while Todd played Cora in Bridgett’s absence. This write-up is from RJ and my GM comments are in [brackets and italics] as usual. Bridgett was not able to join us so Rachel played Cora. There are potential spoilers for “Storm King’s Thunder” from Wizards of the Coast but it has been significantly modified for our use.
The Clerics Three – Session 13 (5e)
When we last looked in on the Clerics Three, they had arrived in the village of Rooksten, a village that had been attacked. The heroes had largely finished clearing the village of goblins and finding a handful of surviving guards. A half-dozen riders approached with speed, Kemma’s fellow pilgrims. After nightfall, orcs had spread about outside Rooksten’s palisade. Their leader demanded that Chuck be turned over. If so, the others would be allowed to go free. Chuck, of course, responded with sass and battle was imminent. That is where we pick up after the break.
There are potential spoilers for “Storm King’s Thunder” from Wizards of the Coast but it has been significantly modified for our use. This write-up is from Muse and my GM comments are in [brackets and italics] as usual. Bridgett was not able to join us so Rachel played Cora.
The Clerics Three – Session 12 (5e)
At the end of our last session, the Clerics Three had, in their role as caravan guards, come across the village of Rooksten and it was not in good shape. The village had been attacked and our heroes began to explore the seemingly abandoned village and kept encountering goblins. The group started exploring building by building, dealing with any goblins discovered and looking for survivors. So far, they had only found the bodies of deceased villagers. After the break, we pick up with their continued explorations of Rooksten.
There are potential spoilers for “Storm King’s Thunder” from Wizards of the Coast but it has been significantly modified for our use. This write-up is from Todd and my GM comments are in [brackets and italics] as usual. Muse was missing and Bridgett wasn’t able to join us; RJ played Otilia and Rachel played Cora.