SitN Session #2: Barrow of the Ogre-King Continued

Warning: Spoilers below for the adventure, Barrow of the Ogre-King, in the Forgotten Realms Campaign Guide.

Picking up right where we left off, our intrepid party of adventurers had just stumbled upon some shambling creatures. Yuri, who had scouted ahread, quickly retreated to the backline and combat began. As the PCs engaged the dwarven zombies shambling forward, a couple of goblins emerged from a nearby door and joined in the fight. Partially surrounded and with some PCs getting flanked, the party faced a difficult combat but that was soon to change.

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SitN Session #1: Loudwater

Bear with me…the first session was a few weeks ago so I’m reconstructing this from my always suspect memory. These session notes are mainly intended to highlight the major events/actions and not a blow-by-blow account of everything that happened.

Warning: Spoilers below for the adventure, Barrow of the Ogre-King, in the Forgotten Realms Campaign Guide.

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Shifting Gears

I’m shifting gears and dropping the Pathfinder campaign. It was pretty apparent that the direction I wanted to take the game was not going to work for my group. So, instead, I’ll be running something of a “beer-and-pretzels” Forgotten Realms game centered around the Scepter of Spellgard module from WotC. Pretty much standard 4e rules (maybe a house rule or two).

Next up…Pathfinder (sort of)

The group is about to wrap up Keep on the Shadowfell. As numerous folks around the web have commented, it is, of course, rather heavy on the combat side of things (though not really that much more than a lot of published adventures). From a mechanics perspective, even though we’ve (or at least I’ve) had at least one or two “oops” moments each session, it has given us some good experience. I think (hope) it has also given me a better feel for how to use 4e for a more story-oriented game.Continue reading →

The A Posteriori Gestalt of 4e

Philosophers beware…I’m butchering your concepts mentioned in the title.

I’ve decided, after a few more sessions of 4e, that the game emphasizes an a posteriori gestalt while 3.5 emphasized the a priori part. So what the hell does that mean? In 3.5, everyone pretty much knew ahead of time what it meant each time some action occurred in the game. Continue reading →

FRG Goes 4e

This week marks my trial run with 4e. Starting Friday, I’ll be running the Keep on the Shadowfell preview adventure from Wizards of the Coast. I don’t look to this adventure to be the be-all and end-all of the 4e trial or to be as story-oriented as I prefer. I do hope, however, that it gives me (and my players) a good enough feel for the rules system to see if we can use the new rules for a good, story-oriented game. Continue reading →