My Turn Behind the Screen, Part IV

It has been awhile since I have updated my current run as DM. I guess that it has been going so well that I haven’t felt the need to regale you all with tales of it. We left our players in the first of 4 crystal towers, fighting both the undead and living enemies.

The players learned quickly about dealing with the mindless undead. They swiftly set up gauntlets for the skeletons and zombies so that they could destroy them with limited risk. The party suffered their worst injuries so far in a battle with three shadows. Soon after that an encounter with a wraith left the party seriously imperiled. I am starting to think that stat damage is a deal breaker at low levels. The party was having some trouble and no way of recovering the strength damage.

The party did subdue an orc in their battles. He confirmed their suspicions about there being multiple groups battling for control of the towers. The orc was helpful until the party started arguing and discussing how they would kill him. In a last courageous effort the orc yelled his defiance and attacked only to die under the repeated blows of our heroes. Once the orc died and the stairway issue was resolved (There was some confusion on my part as I read a stairway incorrectly and thought they party had reached the top level. That was swiftly remedied), the party moved to the next level. To their surprise they ran into a grizzly bear and his Thorn master. A battle ensued and even with prep time the thorn had a disappointing run, firing sleep arrows past the bear and into the party. Sadly, the heroes hit by the thorn’s arrows were immune to sleep. The bear was defeated and after some rule checks and die rolls, for battling while standing on top of the bear, the thorn was also defeated.

By examinaing the corpses they discovered that the thorn was twisted by evil magic as was the grizzly bear. Inside the room the party found a half finished wood font, fey runes inscribed on the rim, a saucer like bowl of dark wood leaned against it. The party used their knowledge of the arcane (and everything else they could roll for) to attempt to determine the nature of the liquid in the font. As close as their studies could bring them was that a positive energy and possible healing powers infused the water. The chosen guinea pig (elf fighter) used the bowl and drank a dose of the water, lo and behold damage was healed and the earlier stat damage was repaired. Even with that timely blessing there seemed to be more to that mystical water then has been discovered. The party dosed themselves and packed the remaining liquid into bottles with the arcanist (read Warmage) remembering to refill the font before they left the thorns chambers.

The party had a little difficulty with a party of well disciplined and highly trained orcs in their next encounter. The rear members of the orc band threw javelins over the head of the front line attackers with the Orc Sergeant bellowed and bolstered their moral. The running battle took two rooms and drew reinforcements from a third area. The battle was done and the party looked around and realized the first tower was cleared with only a prisoner left to interrogate. The orc prisoner, scared to the point of pissing himself, answered any question placed to him. The party was able to put more names to their foes and the elves finally recognized the name of the their undead enemy. Childhood stories flashed through their memories and visions of an evil elven spellcaster, that killed his own noble family with his heinous experiments haunted their thoughts.

After coup de' grace-ing the orc, the party was left looking at a bridge that the living creatures were defending; they found themselves deeply in need of a rest before moving forward. During the last combat the Elf fighter noticed a hidden door and the party went to explore. Looking into this room, it was stocked with rations and water, apparently the towers original occupants had found a way to store food for long periods of time without spoiling. The party searched the room and hiding their tracks behind them they moved into the large storage room. The door secured the party took to eating, recovering and preparing for the battles ahead.

As they rested dreams of a three eyed, three armed, three handed, three fingered creature disturbed the party’s cleric/healer. The visions of the three cold eyes over a gaping maw was enough for him to inform the rest of the party of the possible threat. The party did not know if this was a warning from the cleric’s god or a spell cast by their enemies to confound them and make them fearful. Secure in their courage and faith they moved forward crossing the bridge to the new tower the visions of evil beings lingered in the back of their minds.

Guerrilla RPG: Take the Game from the Players

You wake up, the smell of smoke and burnt flesh almost chokes you. Your head is pounding, you force your eyes open and try to sit up. You raise your hand to your face and notice it is covered with blood. You try to stand and notice the bodies littering the ground around you. You cough, your lungs are burning. You crawl to a nearby puddle. As you cup your hand and reach towards the dirty water, you notice your reflection. It is a face you have never seen before. Who are you? You try to remember your name but cannot. You look around at the devastation that surrounds you. With abject terror you hear a voice saying “Who am I?” You look around startled at the strange croaking voice, and then you realize, it was yours.

Guerrilla RPG: I have used that previous description in a couple guerilla role playing games. I have premade character sheets for the players with only the briefest of information. I keep in my possession a full character sheet with character history. The player’s job now is to find out who she is, what has happened, and my personal favorite who she was. The best part is this style works with any RPG and any setting.

This game style is rather GM intensive and you would have to gather some rather open role-players. I have found that this style can offer a role-playing intensive game with a lot of superb PC interaction, moral quandaries, and if the character’s history is sufficiently horrible possibly some psychological damage.

The Man Who Made Me Rethink the Survival Skill

I happened to be watching the Discovery Channel when my new favorite show came on. “Man vs. Wild” with Bear Grylls. Just a little bit about Bear Gyrlls, according to his website, which you can find at http://beargrylls.com/, “After breaking his back in three places in a parachuting accident, he fought his way to recovery, and two years later entered the Guinness Book of Records as the youngest Briton to climb Mount Everest aged only 23.” He was also a member of the British SAS (Special Air Service) and that gives him some mad street cred’.

Now on with the show! The premise of “Man vs. Wild” is that Bear Grylls drops (literally jumps off moving aircraft into water, or parachutes) into treacherous locations around the world and shows us normal folk how to survive in the wild. Ultimately he achieves his goal and is “rescued” or he escapes to a more hospitable location but not before some interesting displays of his superior survival skills.

Watching Bear as he bit the head off a snake or dug for insect larva in a rotting tree made me re-think the Survival skill in RPGs expressly Dungeons and Dragons. The survival skill says that a Survival check at DC 10 (DC= difficulty check) will allow you to hunt/forage while moving at half your normal movement rate and you can provide food and water for one other person for every two points over ten (the DC) on a successful roll.

Now having seen Bear in action made me wonder about how to add a little spice to the survival skill. Do the players find a water source in the desert or do they have to drink their own urine? (Yes folks, Bear did this) Or, what kind of food are they surviving on. Are they eating grubs and beetles or can they catch an animal and what kind of animal is it? What about gear? Are they adequately supplied with blankets and bedrolls, tents and tinder?

My mouth is watering at the thought of all the fun to be had. GAME ON!

Below is a video of Mr. Grylls in action. Enjoy:)

My Turn Behind the Screen

By some trick of fate I have never DM'd 3.5e. I soon will have my chance. I have decide to run a campaign on every other Sunday for my current D&D group where I am just a player. So here is the guidelines I sent out to my potential players:

Well met and Welcome,

For those of you who plan to join my 3.5 game here are some guidelines for creating your characters.

Ability Scores: Roll 4d6, drop the lowest, place where ever you wish. Please note that no score over 18 will be allowed so watch your racial adjustments.

Races: All base races from the PHB (Player’s Handbook) are allowed.

Classes: All base classes from the PHB and the PHB II (Player’s Handbook II) will be allowed.

Level: All Characters will be Level 3. (i.e. Fighter 3, Rogue/Wizard 1/2)

To avoid problems I expect there to be at least one character from the four basic archetypes: Fighter, Wizard, Rogue and Cleric.

Alignment: No EVIL Characters!

Money: You begin with the basic starting amount for a 3rd level character. Please equip your characters appropriately with all necessary adventuring items, weapons and armor (For the Fighter types, the highest armor you can own at third level is Half-plate.)

Spell books and Components: Arcane casters please contact me and we will discuss spell books, components and your known spells.

Please email me your top 3 picks for Character Class and I will try to accommodate everyone.

I will expect back stories for each character and everyone start thinking about a name for your party.

If you know someone from our regular gaming group did not receive this email please forward it to them.

Our first game will be this coming Sunday, September 21, 2008 at 5:00pm

GAME ON!