DM Rotation & King Minos' Labyrinth

Our gaming group did not gather last week due to several reasons that kept us from our weekly R&R session. All but one (Marc is out for awhile as his boys are playing sports this winter - we patiently await his return) of us returned last night though for the first rotation to our 2nd DM to run his session. Tom who was playing Mr. Magic took the reins as our next DM and he didn't like a few of our originally created or proposed rules so made a few changes.

1. Action or Hero Points were going to be drastically reduced because he feels it over powers the player characters. We would all start with 3 but have only those to use for his entire adventure which could be from 2 to 4 sessions.
2. Healing per day was changed from BtB (By The Book) to be 1 full HD per day. So my barbarian would heal 12 hit points per day.
3. Encumberence wasn't new but we finally finished hashing it out which I believe was built off of the Lamentations of the Flame Princess. This uses slots which break down to approximately 5 normal size items per tier of point. There were modifiers that included type of armor worn, over-sized objects carried and whether you had a STR and/or CON prime attribute. These were all added up to find out how your base movement is ultimately affected.
4. There was also a magical item awarded to the party from our first adventure with John that Tom felt was too high of level and removed it. In John's defense he simply rolled on the loot table and that was what was given. Tom had him roll again at the beginning of the night and we ended up with a Girdle of Strength (21 STR) which my barbarian ended up with. No complaints with me on that one!

The story at the beginning of the night started with the party's boat being pushed off course and destroyed on a reef. They waved down a passing fishing vessel who offered to give em a ride. The party of course rewarded the crew with payment but didn't know what happened to Mr. Magic (Tom's character) or Bradford (Marc's character). They only hope their fellow adventurers are alive and found passage to safety.

The party arrived on an island and as the ship pulled in to port they found out that it was controlled by sea elves and that lesser races were confined to the slums of the of dock area. This suited Volrath (Chad) just fine as the city in general made him uncomfortable but the slums were a little more tolerable for him. The party spent several days selling and purchasing equipment and almost everyone upgraded their equipment or filling out things that may have been missing from the last adventure.

During the days spent mingling in the slums the party heard about a Labyrinth of death that King Minos of the Sea Elves uses to entertain his masses and dispose of trouble makers (aka adventurers). They met an old man who claimed to know a way out of this Labyrinth and paid him well for the information. It turns out there is an alter on the other side of the island where crushed bloodstones can be used to enchant silver rings which will allow an adventurer or party to be teleported out of the Labyrinth. The party purchased several bloodstones and silver rings, purchased another ship, hired another crew and set off to the other side of the island. As they approached the area where the old man described that he and his old sea elf friend had discovered the alter, the crew said they didn't feel safe going any closer to the cliff face. Half way up there was what appeared to be a castle carved out of the rock itself.

The party discussed possible solutions and decided with Volrath's new found super human strength he would drink a flying potion and carry the rest of the party up the cliff face with him. As they approached the castle they spotted dozens of orcs scattered across the perimeter in defensive positions. Of course the orcs spotted the flying adventurers as well. The party decided to float on down and try to hug the cliff face more so they weren't flying right at the orcs in bow shot range. As the party got close to the cliff though they noticed a small cave near the base and unfortunately were not quick enough in making out the siren before she began to sing. The entire party but Grimm were charmed and set down at the cave entrance. Grimm (Mike) knew immediately the danger of this creature and took to the offensive. However the siren demanded the rest of us protect her from his advance. Lews (Matt) grappled him and began dragging him toward the water. Due to the aspect connection between Volrath, Lews and Grimm his mind was torn and attempted to break Lews hold on Grimm so that no harm would come of him. Unfortunately, he failed miserably and this wouldn't be the only time in this encounter.

After some time Grimm finally broke the grip of several mer-folk and entered the cave in search of the now invisible siren. The creature threw some kind of lightening bolt spear that hit everyone and snapped them out of the charm spell. The halfling druid illusionist (John's character which I have forgotten his name) was felled. Fortunately this left the siren visible and the party pounced on her. After she shape shifted once the rogue Lackland (Richard) downed her. The party found the remains of what they assumed was the old man's sea elf friend who had fallen victim to the siren's powers and a few bits of treasure.

Our adventurers again downed another flying potion and made their way up the cliff face again. This time they kept out of view from the orcs on watch and find an entrance just above the guarded areas and entered to find a spiraling staircase heading down. At the base they found a rather large orc sitting in a throne and decided to regroup and attack. As they entered the room they found the orc leader was actually accompanied by a score of orc archers. Lews, Volrath and Grimm charged the archers and tore through the first 18 or more as blood and orc parts went flying. Lackland snuck around to attack the leader from the flank and luckily the boss fell as another score of orcs approached his blind side. The remaining orcs surrendered and were released as the party found the altar they were seeking and prepared their now enchanted silver rings.

The night ended with the party making its way back to the slums and volunteering to enter the Labyrinth. A spectacle was made as the adventurers were lowered into the labyrinth from within a coliseum type structure...

Ancient Island Saved (5 DM Campaign)

Volrath Kromlaw painted and upon his winter themed base.

 Unfortunately, I didn't get a post out summarizing last weeks session which was our first to kick off the 5 DM campaign so I will start there. After our custom character and background generation process we found ourselves heading to an island from ancient history. We were immediately approached by the village elder who informed us that he was to perform an ancient ritual that keeps the lands here safe and fertile. However the scrolls with the ritual script were missing as well as his son. The village had sent search parties up a large hill on the island and nobody has returned. He of course asked our adventuring party for help and we accepted. There was a brief mention of seeing a dragon or something similar terrorizing the village a couple of nights before. But the elder wasn't sure what it was exactly because he was cowering in fear when it was present.

Our party set up the hill consisting of a Fighter (Lews - played by Matt), a magic-user (Mr. Magic played by Tom), a thief (Lakeland - played by Richard), a ranger (Grimm - played by Mike), a cleric (Bradford - played by Marc), and a barbarian (Volrath - played by me). The first thing we notice is that this hill is rather large and there are old ruins and debris scattered everywhere creating walking paths between 10 foot high piles of the previously mentioned. The first encounter were several (I think around 10 or so) wild boars which my barbarian took a pounding from but everyone survived. Mr. Magic asked to borrow 10 feet of rope from Volrath (who it appears was the only one that brought rope and torches) and cast rope trick giving us a safe place to heal and memorize spells again.

The second encounter was with some strange living tree on top of one of the piles of ruins and rubble. It had roots coming out of the sides though that kept ensnaring and attacking us as we got close. Again the group prevailed though.

The third encounter was the first one to really scare me. We came upon a nest of 8 Harpies. Mr. Magic's web spell worked wonders and we ultimately vanquished this foe as well.

The final encounter of our first session pitted our adventurers against 8 gargoyles. The first round showed the gargoyles tearing most of us to shreds so Mr. Magic quickly cast his rope trick and we scampered up the rope and hid there for awhile and discussed our retreat. We utilized the invisibility spell and some clever tricks to distract the gargoyles giving us a chance to retreat to town to lick our wounds and discuss how to get past this encounter.

Volrath's Shield

Last night we continued our efforts up the hill but without our most valuable cleric. We knew from the beginning we were going to have to use our heads to survive this one. Our first task was to devise a plan on how to deal with the deadly gargoyles. We talked about using nets and maybe a boat to barricade ourselves into a choke point area in an attempt to deal with a minimum number of opponents at once. We decided to use the handy web spell again and it worked well. We took some bumps and bruises but we managed to dispatch our foes and moved further up the hill.

The next obstacle were a couple of thugs and a half dozen or so of zombies. Our scouts made quick work of the two thugs and the group finished off the zombies fairly quickly. Not far from this location we ran into more zombies, thugs, skeletons and some kind of grey robed mystic. The group confronted the undead and thugs while Volrath circled around and noticed the mystic in the back. Once he got an opportunity he charged and eventually subdued his opponent. Things got really weird during this fight as a thug surrended and Lews attempted to accept his surrender and move him toward the back of the fray where Volrath, Mr. Magic and the captured mystic were. During this time our thief became confused and kept firing arrows past Lews trying to kill the surrendering thug. When things were all said and done we got what information and loot from the mystic and Lakeland befriended the thug we came to find out was named Bob. He even offered him a percentage of loot as he agreed to travel along with us.

Nightfall was upon us and we knew we only had a day left to complete our mission so we decided to just move on. It turned out we were not far from the top of the hill finally. Grimm scouted ahead with his darkvision and found a large pit that looked like an old temple had caved into the hill. At the bottom of the pit there was a young blue dragon. The party other than Bob who was terrified made a plan to sneak in and see what they could investigate using invisibility. After we regrouped and made our way back to the pit which was approximately three hours later the dragon was no where in sight. Half of the party made its way down into the pit and found the scrolls scattered around the floor. Some of the party succumbed to their greed and started looking for dragon loot and the dragon returned before we could make our escape. A deadly battle ensued which seen both the wizard and the ranger fall. Blood was everywhere when the old battle brothers Lews and Volrath felled the beast on two final swings of their weapons. The scrolls and loot were gathered up and the party returned to the village to report to the elder what had transpired. That concluded our first adventure. We actually played quite a bit later than we usually do simply because we suspected we were close and things were going well and fun was being had.

Volrath's Wolfskin Cloak

John was the first of the five to DM this adventure. John, Tom and I are all out next week so Mike is planning on running a one shot horror game he found recently for the remainder of the group if they get together. We will spend the next week or two figuring out if John will run another shorter adventure or if one of the other four of us will pick up the torch. We had originally envisioned each DM would get to run 3 to 4 sessions before switching and John only got to put in 2 for this one as we learned what was and wasn't working for the system we put together.

The Beginnings of Volrath Kronlaw

Our new 5 DM campaign finally kicked off this past Wednesday night. We began the session figuring out brief backgrounds and using those to determine what our Aspects were going to be. The Aspects would in turn give us points of how our player characters were connected and give us points to earn addition hero points to use throughout the campaign. The characters player began the aspect backgrounds and then the sheets were passed around twice to different players to add how they were connected to that character. Below are the three stories that helped shape my barbarian characters background.

My Bit:
Volrath Kronlaw was the youngest of 4 sons to the Lord of Kronheim. His family has lead and protected his tribe for generations until recently. There has been an ever growing force on the island of Sigkara and many bad things have been happening. What once was a simple yet wild land, has been increasingly rampant with war. Volrath was tasked to train the defenders on the eastern range in preparation of war from invading armies located in the south. These armies were men but none like he had ever seen before. They were scrawny looking but they were tricky and wielded powerful dark mystic powers. His people have since called them the Warped Mystics. The message was received to begin the march southwest where his and his father's forces would meet to repel the Warped Mystics. Unfortunately, when he arrived the only thing he found was a single robe wearing mystic and miles of ice in all directions. They mystic began to chant something. There was a blinding light and a deafening roar of thunder. Then everything went black...

Matt's Addition:
Lews Therin met Volrath years past, and was linked somehow by fate. When Kronheim's army vanished Lews had to lend his support. But he must first meet Ilyena at the palace... (This is how Lews the fighter, Matt's character are connected)

Mike's Addition:
When Volrath arrived in Sosaria, he found the "civilized" kingdom difficult to understand. One of the first people he befriended was a feral woodsman with a hideous face and teaming with hordes of lice. They fought the Ugluk tribe of ogres together. (This is how Mike's character Grimm was connected to mine)

I do not have my character sheet in front of me but here are the aspects that I remember adding to it: Big & Strong, Enemies: Warped Mystics and Ugluk Ogres, Champion of Kronheim, fascinated by weaponry, good judge of other defenders and champions, weakness for brewery. These will give any of the DM's some good aspects to twist into their stories and adventures.

The first image at the top of this post is the miniatures that I still need to paint up but hope to work on it if not finish it this weekend. I will finish the post with the make of Sigkara which is Volrath's homeland.

5 GM Rotating Campaign Update and more.

Well it appears that we are still moving forward with our grand idea of starting a new campaign using 5 separate DM/GM/CK (Game Runner). We have had two sessions simply trying to hash out the details with a third to follow tonight. We should end up with a summary of what we want to do as well as possible briefly play test a thing or two. The question was posed today via email if anyone had a list of what we had decided on. It turns out we only had some notes from our initial discussion session but forgot to get anything from the last one.

Luckily Mike had some notes and Tom and John recall some of the things we successfully hashed out. There are a ton of emails that could be rifled through looking for answers if it comes down to that. The discussions for this campaign have definitely been the most email activity our yahoo group has seen since I joined. There have been a couple of times several of us have felt simply overwhelmed and decided to hold off topics until face to face discussions.

The only things that I know for sure that has been decided are we are:

Core System - Castles & Crusades
Campaign Geography - Multiple islands controlled by each DM with a central common island for HQ
PC Starting Experience - 6006 which is 3rd level for most if not all classes.
C&C Primes - ALL races get 3 prime attributes of +5 and +1 to non prime. Humans get +6 for the 3 primes.
Demi-Humans are allowed
No planar travel
Demons & Devils are considered "Monsters" so they may appear in the campaign.
No physical manifestations of Gods
Death & Dismemberment table created and agreed upon

There are still a lot of things up in the air but should fall into place tonight hopefully. Some things we are still tweaking or working out details of are:

Age for weapons and armor - this is either going to be medieval or roman
Campaign settings of each island
Gold & Encumbrance - Working out tweaks to use Lamentation of the Flame Princess chart
Religion yet to be decided
Aspects or Allegiances used in place of alignments for hooks and to encourage stories and RP.
Hero Points system which will be connected to the above mentioned Aspects.
Initiative

As you can easily see there is a lot to take care of still but once decided on and typed up I think we will end up with a great campaign that we will all enjoy. Either that will happen or we will all end up hating it due to everyone making compromises along the way!

I also wanted to point out two other things.


1.  Mike is running a really fun contest over at his blog Swords & Dorkery using TSR CCG packs to design an adventure. Go check it out here:  http://mikemonaco.wordpress.com/2011/10/03/iron-chef-adventure-challenge-add-collector-cards/

2. As if I have free time on my hands I have created another blog which will showcase my new Malifaux gaming addiction. I was going to post them here but I wanted to keep my d20 and skirmisher gaming systems separate. If you are interested in those types of game though, please check out my new blog Table Top Breach here: http://tabletopbreach.blogspot.com/

5 DM's, 7 Players... LOTS of ideas!

Let me first explain that we have a total of 7 players going into our new campaign. Of those 7 players 5 of us are going to rotate being DM. This will hopefully ease the burnout effect of constantly DM'ing. It should also create new environments as you transition from one DM's game to the next.

Six of the seven players met on our usual gaming night last night to start hashing out ideas and issues. The only player not able to make it was on a cruise but our planning will continue through next week so he should have time to put his input in yet as well.

The first thing we did was decide on which gaming system we wanted to start with and build from there. Some of those mentioned were AD&D 2e, AD&D 3e, AD&D 3.5, 6E and Castles & Crusades. There was also the possibility of creating a complete mix and match of various system features we liked. We ultimately decided on using Castles & Crusades as our base system.

From there we began listing topics we wanted to address and figure out how our campaign would handle them. These ranged from religion, magic, survivability, treasure, money sinks and action points. There were many more but you should be able to get the general idea of our process from that. We quickly discovered our views and opinions varied on almost every subject. However, it was a great brainstorming session with much accomplished in the hours spent together.

At this moment we have decided that each DM will have a large island mass to build their world on. This is approximately the size of England. We wanted there to be enough space to have different areas but not so large that it would take you months to travel from point to point. There will more than likely be a sixth landmass that will be the common area or base of operations for the adventurers.

The next thing we decided were some ways to increase the survivability of our heroes. This was a hot topic in our emails last week. Our group of gamers range from thinking death should always be present around every corner to the thought our characters should not be average folk but heroes just starting out. We came up with the solution of getting max hit points each time you level rather than rolling the hit dice to see what you end up with that level. We also decided that raise dead would be available but not everywhere in the world. By having the max hit points we are assuming the heroes will be wise enough and durable enough to retreat from battle if necessary and in a timely manner. Lastly, Mike is working on a couple of options for a death and dismemberment table for what happens at zero hit points or below.

We decided religion would exist but I think we are leaning more toward many gods rather than an all encompassing church throughout the world. This may yet change. We also figured we will more than likely do away with the traditional alignments and do an allegiance or aspect system which John is working on some options to present to the group. We definitely want there to be repercussions for doing evil acts but we want there to be more option to role play among the party without straight up arguments and someone needing to have their character removed from the party.

We discussed several possible ways to increase the enjoyment of magic user players as well. If I recall correctly we decided to give magic users the ability to scribe scrolls right from the start. I don't remember what the cost per scroll will be but this will also help us add a money sink aspect to our campaign as well. The choice was made to have all characters begin with approximately 6000 experience making any character rolled up be level 3. This will hopefully get rid of some of the previously mentioned non-heroic characters as well as increase the enjoyment and usefulness of magic users and other classes that start out slow.

This brings us to the subject of experience. We wanted to actually slow the experience gain process so that when your turn came around to DM it wasn't 5 or 6 levels later. What we came up with was a simple solution. Each DM will get 3 to 4 sessions to run an adventure. By the end of that adventure all characters in the party would get the average level of the party X 1000 experience. We originally discussed using the fighter's experience as the base but I simply stated average level of the party in case we happen to not have a fighter. So an example would be a 3rd level Fighter in group would give everyone in the party 3,000 experience points. The first couple of levels may go fairly quickly but by around level 5 or 6 the speed at which characters level up with slow down considerably.

Tom is always a fanatic about weapons and armor so he is working up some options for that. We also want magical items available in the world but not over populated. This was more of an agreement rather than any set method of measurement.

In addition to the allegiance and aspect system that John is working on, he is also coming up with a couple of possible action, hero, awesome points possibilities. This stems from our awesome Old School Hack session a couple of weeks ago. It would need to be tweaked to be used in a traditional d20 system like we are running but I think we can come up with something.

As far as the setting of the campaign goes, we decided on a lower magical fantasy setting without gunpowder and laser beams. There will also be no physical manifestations of gods. However, we decided to leave demons and devils in the world but they are not considered monsters rather than gods.

All in all we accomplished a lot last night even if we didn't work on much of the world building itself. Mike found a game of sorts to use to build a world but I don't know if we are going to use that method or just draw up our own islands. I have found a few island maps to use as guidance if we end up designing them on our own but if not, I am definitely up for giving the world building game a shot too!