A hat trick? Is that right?

This post is more than a month overdue at this point, but I'm a-tryin' to catch up. I may well forget some details, but, you know, nothing important. I hope.

Above is a map of GRISTLEHELM so far. Actually, I'm cheating a bit because I forgot to take a picture for this particular session. So, this map is actually from Session 9, which we played just this last Sunday. Confused yet? Ah, just look at the map---it's a thing of beauty. T.J. even colored in the spaces...

This was a crazy session from the get-go: my brother and sister-in-law were going to be in town for a concert on Sunday (the day we played), which I knew, but they decided to come the night before (they live in Omaha) and surprise me by showing up to play! Which I was! Too cool.

So we ended up with a huge party: nine players---the largest since our very first session. Will played the ever-present Melvin; my son Max made a new goblin character named Spike-of-the-Death, who fought with two daggers; my sister-in-law played a hobbit Thief named Catgut Dogskin; my brother reprised his role as Loric the elf, acting as a Fighting Man; Larry played Nimfitz the elf, acting as a Magic User; Carl played Mondlach the Magic User; T.J. started out playing Punka (are you guessing where my title comes from yet?) the Fighting Man; Steve played Mardias the Fighting Man; and Jesse (aka giantbat, our newest player!) played Saas the Cleric. Whew. I played the DM.

Some Highlights

• In one of the first rooms entered, both Punka and Saas were killed in a savage melee with hobgoblins (what is it with hobgoblins?!) I'm pretty sure Jesse in second place for quickness of new character death (right behind my friend Bill, who's character died in the first moments of the first room entered in our very first session...) This was sad, but Jesse...simply flipped to the next page of his notebook. He had come prepared with three characters! Pure old school, ladies and gentlemen. His next character was another Cleric named Marjoram, and T.J. rolled up a thief which, when he carried over his experience from Punka, turned out to be 3rd level (Punka had been 2nd level.) Death sometimes has its benefits...
• In another previously explored room, an old wine cellar, some of them thought a bit of a drink might be good. Marjoram, devotee of some jolly Finnish deity, broke off a bottleneck, took a swig (DM rolls a d6), failed a save vs. poison, swelled up, choked, and died. "She's dead?", someone asked. "Yup." Other characters quietly put the bottles back or stuck them in backpacks to use on gullible monsters...
• Jesse's third (and final) character, Pelf the Thief (you know, T.J.'s new Thief, Guppy, caught up with the party at some point, too, I just don't remember when...) found the rest of the party just after they had opened a tightly stuck door. Once dislodged, it expelled strange fumes; most of them failed a save vs. poison, which allowed me to roll many more d6s: Mardias and Melvin both suddenly not only believed that they were the last Lord Gristlehelm, but found they had perfect knowledge of the entire dungeon. Both immediately took off for parts unknown. Catgut and Nimfitz's hireling Veri both believed they were dead, and so collapsed to the floor. Nimfitz believed that he was a boa constrictor, and so began trying to constrict the "dead" Veri. Spike-of-the-Death believed he was a tree frog, and began making hopping leaps at the wall, trying to stick to it. Alan, Melvin's hireling, believed he was a gorilla, and so thumped his chest and tried to groom Catgut. Loric, Mondlach, Guppy and, soon, Pelf, looked on bemusedly. I'm pretty sure they stopped Nimfitz when he tried to swallow Veri... The room itself was bubbled, burned, charred, and empty.
• Melvin and Mardias came back to their senses in complete darkness. Luckily, Melvin's magic sword glows, and so they saw they were standing in what looked like a corridor with two dead-ends. Melvin concentrated on Alan, I believe, and proved without a doubt, as the sword pulled him forward, that part of its magic was locating objects... they did eventually find the secret door and the rest of the party.
• In a niche in an otherwise unassuming corridor, they found a gigantic golden head, a bust of the evilly leering last Lord Gristlehelm. About six feet high and four feet in diameter, T.J. calculated via iphone that it probably weighed in the neighborhood of 45 tons. Catgut climbed up on top of it, but couldn't find anything useful. Much discussion ensued about what the hell to DO with the thing. Finally, Melvin decided to chop off the nose with his magic sword. This worked, but his failed save vs. spells resulted in his face drawing up into a mirror-image of Gristlehelm's awful leer. Net result? His already low charisma was halved (down to three, I believe...) At some point here they were attacked by an ogre and a wolf, but took them down, with a sleep spell and some arrows. Man, adventurers are savage...
• They discovered what must have been a wizard's workroom, which ended up having a strangely thin wall on one side. Pelf broke through into a corridor where the mournful ghosts of dwarves stopped their work and pointed to a finely made dwarven hand axe, embedded in the wall. Pelf picked it up, and the ghosts faded away...
• Two doors in the room had complicated glyphs carved on them. Both were locked. When Guppy tried to pick one, it blasted flames at him, which he mostly avoided...

At this point, with our Real World time running out, they decided to leave and return to die another day...

A coffin, some orcs, and thee...

Session 2 of the Otherness campaign happened on Sunday and, I must say, it went swimmingly. We had only  three players to start with this time: Coffee and T.J. from last time, and my friend Larry, with whom I haven't gamed in far too long. In the last hour we were joined by another friend of mine, R.M. (no, I'm not trying to protect anyone's identities...), who brought along his 9 or 10 year-old son, Max. The players headed down Under Xylarthen's Tower (by the indefatigable Jeff Reints) and made a good run of it: everyone got out alive! 

Interesting Stuff

• Coffee and T.J. both attempted to retrieve their characters from the last Session by rolling on The Table of Despair, as found in Fight On! #3, since it seemed unlikely that that particular group would be reforming anytime soon. T.J.'s character Arp the Dwarf received a result of "You emerge unscathed!" and promptly became known as Arp the Lucky. Bahb the Draftee, however, was not so lucky; he was "Lost to time and space," with all that implies. Coffee shrugged it off, however, probably because he was eager to spring his new Balrog character race on me. :) 

• Indeed, his well-thought-out race (which can be found written up here) was, unbeknownst to him, exactly the Hargrave route down which I'd been hoping to eventually head. The Spirit of ODD moved in the room and lo, Sneerglaw was born! A man-sized balrog complete with whip, sword and the ability to act as a walking torch headed down into the depths with a dwarf, an elf and four hirelings. 

• This was actually the first time I've used hirelings, maybe ever. Arp hired two Fighting Men and Larry's elven character hired two elves functioning for this adventure as Fighting Men, though they were actually women. I had them roll a d6 to see what type of armor their respective flunkies had, and I rolled HP and Loyalty (pg. 13 of Men & Magic), modified by Charisma in Arp's case. We decided on weapons, including a bow for one of the elves, and we were ready to go. 

• We also had the first actual play-test of The Devil's in the Details articles I wrote as a column for the first three issues of Fight On!. These tables help players flesh out the three core demi-human races, and T.J. rolled on them for Arp, while Larry used them for his elf, Nimfitz Niraxis. They seemed to work pretty well. Each ended up with some details that piqued their interest, which is just what I was hoping for. The one that got the most running commentary was Nimitz’s “Breeds new animals in pursuit of a singular vision.” Much possibility for future character activities… 

Some Highlights:

• One of Arp’s hirelings, Dolph, managed to kill the giant snake in the first room (which then put smack-down on Sneerglaw in its death throes…) He immediately began referring to his spear as “Serpent  Slayer”. 

• Sneerglaw freaked out an enormous pack of giant rats by snaring one of their number with his whip and then toasting it as he immolated himself. He later got to cook a couple of giant centipedes as well. I think he also ate some orc thigh... Damn balrogs are almost as useful as a gelatinous cube...
  

• When joined by two new adventurers, Ballantine the Fighting Man and Redbeard the Dwarf (both detailed a couple of posts ago), played by R.M. and Max, respecitively, Redbeard almost immediately found a secret door. It consisted of nothing more than a shaft with a rope ladder descending into darkness, and they decided to leave it for later, but Max was quite pleased with himself. Almost as proud as in the next room when he quite probably saved Nifmitz from being a snack for a giant weasel by promptly chopping the beast in half. Guess we gotta let the new generation play a bit more often!

• Early on, the party discovered an oversized coffin, secured with chains and a padlock. After some deliberation, they decided to leave it alone. Later, as they walked towards the dungeon entrance, an exploratory band of eight orcs came trooping down the stairs right for them. Some words were exchanged, and as the leader of the orcs raised his weapon to charge, Nimfitz successfully charmed him. The rest of the orcs were understandably confused at their leader’s change of heart, but became more interested when Nimfitz mentioned huge box full of treasure that was chained shut in a nearby room. He admitted that he and his fellow elves and humans were “too weak to break it open”, but surmised that it’d be a snap for a few strapping orcs. The orcs agreed and, as they began working on the chains, the party surreptitiously blocked the door shut with a couple of spikes.

• The orcs did indeed break the chains, and something came out of the coffin. There was a terrible moaning, then much orc-screaming and pounding on shut doors. Then, suddenly, everything was silent. They listened at the door until they heard the coffin room’s far door creak open, pulled the spikes, dodged inside and checked out the coffin. Indeed, there was a decent treasure, including a very valuable golden necklace. They scooped it up in time to hear another door swinging open in the tense silence. Redbeard splashed out an oil flask on the floor of the previous room and tossed a torch on it. The burst of flame showed them an awful sight: An ogre who’d been turned into a wight, naked and bone-pale like some kind of gigantic nosferatu, staring at them over the flames. They did what any good first level adventurers would do: They ran like hell right out of the dungeon. And Larry got Nimfitz a 400 XP bonus (half of what eight orcs were worth) with the blessings of his fellow players.
  

Under Xylarthen’s Tower is a great adventure, full of oldskoolisms, and they’ve only just scratched the surface. I’m really beginning to see how even a single mega-dungeon could become the focal point of a whole campaign. 

Again: Too. Much. Fun.

 

Oh yeah... experience points.

I'm blushing as I write this: I almost forgot to hand out experience points for our last adventure. Now, maybe it's because I'm the DM, so I don't get XP, but more likely it's because it's been a long time since I played a game where killing things and taking their stuff was, well, the point. The thing your character (and thus the player) gets rewarded for.


Reward cycles are critical to rpg design; if they're done well, they make it perfectly clear what characters should be doing. The reward is really the secret engine that drives the game, and you know what? Gygax and Arneson nailed it. How much more clear could they be? And that was one of the problems as time went on: Someone(s) decided that characters should be rewarded for role playing instead of rolling to play, which the game's fundamental structure refutes. I mean, sure, you can change it, houserule it, whatever. But you should at least realize what you're doing. Understanding this earlier would have saved me YEARS of frustration. :0


Back to XP. I'm following the "100xp/hd" rule, evenly divided out amongst all surviving characters, with a small bit of adjustment for Bill's second character of the afternoon, who joined the party after their epic battle with the giant rats.

Here's the breakdown:

1. Giant Rats: 7 x 50 = 350
2. Goblins: 7 x 50 = 350
3. Tunnel Wolves: 2 x 200 = 400
4. Skeletons: 4 x 50 = 200
5. Evil Cleric: 1 x 300 = 300

Total: 1600

Divided: 1600 - 350 = 1250 / 8 = 156.25 each. I'll be nice and round it up to 157.

Also: 350 / 7 = an additional 50 each for all characters except Mob.

Plus: Any characters that have high enough Prime Requisites should add the appropriate percentage.

And don't forget: The small bits of treasure picked up here and there. I didn't keep track of that, but they all split it up immediately, so it's already on the character sheets.

Hm. Not much. The first thing that occurred to me was that it's actually a tactical decision to not take a huge party into the dungeon. Had only five characters gone down, assuming they all survived, their XP would've been effectively doubled.