Ghosts of saltmarsh

Good Morning! 

I recently purchased Princes of the apocalypse because I thought at some point I'd like to run it.   I believe that module came out in like 2014 or 2015.  And I'd often thought if I buy one 5e module that would be the one.  I know silly right?  I read thru the first like 10 pages, and just realized it's totally not my thing.  It just seems like a bunch of dungeon crawls with a sorta story, and once you finish killing off one cult it's onto the next one.   I didn't find it that inspiring.  Obviously this was at the start of fifth edition, and the system has evolved a lot in the last few years.  I find it quite funny that I'm now purchasing modules for a system that is being re-written.  It's very typical me.  It's also very typical me to think about something for a very long time before purchasing it.  

The good news is, if I feel like running Elemental evil, I have the reprint of the original.  

Alright, so I go down to the local hobby shop (if you are in Winnipeg, MB you gotta check it out) https://gameknight.ca/

I switcheroo princes for Saltmarsh.  I was originally going to grab Queen of the dragon hoard, as it's a good tie in with Lost Mines.  Unfortunately they did not have a copy.  Which was a blessing in disguise. 

I grabbed Saltmarsh, not having read much up on it.  

Holy was I pleasantly surprised.  It's actually set I Greyhawk! Not retconned into the Forgotten Realms.  Nice.  

side note:  This makes me excited, the wizards have basically put out almost all the world's in brief in the adventures to date.  Leaving just a few left Dark Sun, Al-Quadim (which technically could be FR) and Mystara!  They did paint a brief picture of Mystars in the PHB or DMG, and this gives me some hope that it would happen.  If you want to run 5e mystara here is an unofficial guide https://www.rpgmp3.com/files/pdf/Mystara_Players_Guide_5e.pdf

As is typical I know have super gamer A.D.D. and want to run Saltmarsh.  I made the old man mistake of having a nap yesterday afternoon, which made me not sleep well.  In turn I was up half the night thinking about building a gazateer for the players.  Which is exactly what I'm going to do when I complete this blog post. 

I will in all likely hood complete the Starter set adventure with a few of the essential adventures thrown in for good measure, and then we will move on to Saltmarsh and a new campaign.   

One thing I noticed on the Keoland map was the Tower of Zenupus, and that reminded me of this conversion. https://www.dmsguild.com/product/301308/The-Ruined-Tower-of-Zenopus 

Once you exhaust the possibilities of the saltmarsh book you can always throw in some homemade dungeons, Tales from the yawning portal, even TOEE if you feel up to it. 

As far as the gazateer is concerned, I'm going to lay out basically everything that the players will need in one pdf.  Races & Classes allowed, actual modifications to the classes (only up to level 12) using copy and paste from https://www.5esrd.com/ and Gods etc.  And of course the backgrounds from Saltmarsh.

Super nifty! 

Right that was an obvious ramble.  

Saturday night nerding

Caution possible Tomb Of Annihilation spoilers. 

After a six month (or what seemed like it) hiatus I jumped back in with the 5e group.  They have been playing thru "Tomb Of Annihilation" and are now at level 9.  Rather than play my original character (who was only leveled up to 4th) I decided to just print off a pre gen.  From the original group of adventurers only one was left.  As we had one new player that evening, the DM took both of us aside to try and figure out how we would meet up with the group in the Forbidden City (it's ormu or whatever, but it's the forbidden city only titled).  I came up with the concept that we had left the port city around the same time and were slowly following the group of intrepid adventurers.  Hoping to meet up with them.  However there was a LOT of complications and we only finally caught up with them inside the city.  I stepped out of the bushes to say HI! and was blasted by the warlock with eldritch blast (I hate that damn spell).

We ended up doing a bit of exploring of a amphitheater, apparently looking for a place to take these weird square stones (honestly I don't know what is going on in the game, I've been following the play reports, but if your not there it really makes no sense). 

As is typical with fifth ed,  we got into a large fight (with some smaller dinosaurs).  During the combat (which basically lasted most of the session) we started hearing THUNKS coming from the jungle. 

CUE every Jurassic Park joke you can think of.

And on CUE after a few rounds of combat with the smaller dinosaurs, a very large hungry T-Rex came out of the bushes.  (Because challenge ratings).

My character (a rogue) decided to bum rush the T Rex, because after all I'm just AC and HP on a piece of paper. 

A few of the others stayed back, covering themselves with dung (this was happening when the first set of dinos showed up).  They did however finally get into the melee, but at that point we had almost decimated the t rex.  Seriously whilst I bitch up about eldritch blast, the sneak attack feature is friggin deadly.

Anyways, we killed the thing, did a bit more exploring, then found this weirdo tomb.  A bit of a puzzle.  Which none of us were awake enough to figure out.  Bunch of statues, apparently they looked like the stones we were carrying around (ancient evil gods).

I then did some investigating, found a secret door and a necklace, put it on.  Which then lead me to the correct place to put the stones.  (another entrance).  Which was a bit of hand waving by the DM but that's fine as we were all quite tired at this point.

As a personal note, I'm unsure as to whether the DM is getting bored with the campaign, or burned out.  It feels like he's trying to push it thru a bit.  I really hope that, that is not the case.  As well I hope that we aren't handwaved another level next time (for challenge levels), I like the idea of growing into a character and it's skills.  Whatever the case, it's gaming and it's fun. 

Part of the problem I feel is the following:
1.  This group owns/collects all of the WOTC sanctioned material.

2.  All of these adventures are made (for the most part) to be campaigns that take you from level 1 - 20

3.  Playing these campaigns on a weekly basis would get you thru them a lot quicker.  (we meet every three weeks).

4.  People have the new BRIGHT and shiny module and they get excited about playing that one, which makes people want to fast forward the current module.

All of this would be thrown out the window if I was running a game, as I'd want to do a sandbox, home brew thing.  That said I don't really want to DM 5e for awhile.  However after having picked up a copy of Greyhawk, and playing a game on the weekend I got a LOT of inspiration.  That's another post, I've got a lot of ideas rolling around my head.

Not worth the effort

I'm a bad player (I've said this before).  I mean I'm an alright player when playing the actual game, but I haven't been able to make it out to the 5e group since it got nice outside.  For the simple reason that well it's nice out and we only get warm weather for a few months.

Anyhow, I had this crazy idea this morning.  I have on my google drive my original rogue character from when we started (she's level one currently on the drive).  I was told to have my character at 9th level (because balance reasons I guess?).  I thought alright I'll spend some time leveling a 1st level character to 9th. 

I just gave up.

It's entirely fine to do leveling as you go, in actual fact it's extremely easy to do this.  Normally what happens is you only get one new thing per level.  However attempting to go from 1-9 is requiring far too much brain power this morning.

Thankfully I printed off a peon from the wotc site, which I'll use on Saturday.

Now the real question is, what kinda scotch do i buy?

That's about it for me today. 

Discussion about Ravenloft

On another group someone posed the question of wanting to play a "Undead Goliath in plate mail" or a Warforged.  Which brought up the issue that the DM didn't want to have an unofficial classes.  We're playing The Curse of Strahd if that helps, all he's said is "only races and classes from official D&D books" on the grounds he doesn't want to go through each thing to make sure it's not over powered...

My replies to the issue of not using unofficial classes are the following: 

Volo's is all optional. When I ran 2nd edition the only thing I allowed in the game was core classes from the phb. No splat books etc. A lot of the stuff from volos guide came from unearthed arcana, some of which was probably battle tested, some possibly not. The gist of my reply is "it honestly depends on what the dm wants to run". As well the DM should have a discussion with his players.  It's hard to keep up as a DM, and there sometimes is issues with the non official stuff. But really its about knowing exactly what the class is capable of.

as an example I really want to run some Al Qadim. I will probably rule the following: Traditional races only (Humans, Elves, Dwarves, Halfings). Core 4 classes. Plus optional flavour classes from the DMs guild. No warlocks, sorcerers etc. And no cantrips.

My suggestion to the guy was the following: 

Unlike traditional fantasy worlds (forgotten realms) Ravenloft is a creepy assed place. It's mysterious, and it's not normal (traditional fantasy). There is a very real possibilty of becoming the Undead, A Vampire or a werewolf. Starting off the game as already undead takes a bit of the creep factor away. Starting off as a able bodied fighter who isn't scared of a little orc blood on his sword, but is very scared of the undead is a bit more plausible. It's got a call of Cthulhu kind of vibe to it. Basically its friggin great.

Mystara as my campaign setting

I think from now on I'm just going to use Mystara as my campaign setting.  If the players do something it affects the world moving forward.  If I play an old school campaign or a fifth edition campaign, doesn't matter.  A few things have crossed my mind latetly:

Old School Campaign: 

After reading the back of The grand duchy of karameikos gazetteer, There's lots of little adventure ideas.  My first thought would be for the players to start in Luln, and investigate the old castle (which would be the sample dungeon from basic).  From there they can get hired by Gnomish caravan to bring goods to Specularum.  During the trip a major rain storm will hit, causing the caravan to get stuck in the mud, falling over, spilling out the contents of one of the wagons.  There the PCs will uncover the map & letter regarding Isle Of Dread.  Once in Specularum I think a perfect adventure would be "Veiled Society".  After that the PCs will hopefully have enough money to make the trip to the Isle of Dread.  (And be of decent level).  Since Specularum isn't that detailed in the gazeetteer, I think using specific bits & pieces of Blacksand should do the trick.  There's a lot of good information for sections of a city in the book.  Should be easy to use that.  At some point maybe "A nights dark terror" or "castle amber" might make an appearance. 

Fifth Edition Campaign: 

I've been reading a pile of Al-Qadim stuff latetly.  The land of fate is a really good book.  In Mystara I could pretty much set everything in the Emirate of Ylaruam, in the city of Tel Akbir.  I really dug "Golden Voyages" and a "Dozen and one adventures".  I think they would be relatively easy to convert to fifth edition.  At least bullet points, rather than the adventures (In the case of a dozen and one adventures).  There are a lot more combat opportunities in the 2nd edition adventures, and because combat in fifth takes for friggin ever I'd probably trim it down a bit. 

With Golden Voyages I think I would redraw the ocean map near the coast of Tel Akbir.  For the most part I think I'm going to sit down and do a bit of detailing for the city of Tel Akbir & Dozen and one adventures.  If I can get 2 or 3 adventures re-written & converted for Fifth that should give me enough ammo if I ever have to run a one shot campaign.  I guess I'll create a wiki for the players.

Oh and the gods are going to be the immortals. Until the players reach 20th level, then they can replace em.

That's enough rambling for me this morning, cheers!

The game is built from the top down to have big fights

Combat has always been a big part of D&D, going back to the beginning of the game.  In the fifth edition DMG it talks about how to tailor your game to your players, combat, puzzles, role playing etc.  The system is really setup to be about killing monsters.  Because you only get XP for that.  I mean you can get for other things, but it's not like older games where you can get XP for treasure as well. 

On the weekend I played TOA (fifth edition), during our four hour session we were in combat for 3.5 hours.  The same combat.  There was four of us in the party against a herd of lizard like men riding mounts (6 baddies in total).  The game went from DnD to basically a mini's game.  All of the players were using the flanking rules, the added advantage if one of the other players was within five feet of you, etc.  Now I've ran combat as a DM before, in fifth and in a LOT of old school games.  We all know that old school combat for the most part is quick and deadly.  As a DM I enjoy combat.  As a fifth edition player, I do not.  During this fight, it took so long for each turn to complete (did you know they did away with rounds?) that I went for a few smoke breaks in between my turn.  When the fight started I thought to myself "All right I'll go out for a smoke when this is done".  Forty five minutes later, I just got up after my turn and went outside. 

As far as the story goes, we didn't accomplish anything.  We walked away from some huts and a dead old lady that the party had killed.  Made our way west, ran into some monsters that we evaded and then ran into the lizardmen dudes. 

The rest of the players LOVED the combat.  Like love loved the combat.  They were so into it.  When the DM asked afterwards how he did, everyone praised the evening. 

When I got home, I was honestly a bit downhearted, and it's not fault of anyone.  The few things running thru my head were. 

a)  We were at fourth level and it took that long.  I can't imagine what it will be like at higher levels, with feats etc.  The "big bad" fight is going to take hours.  (because there's always a big bad in wotc modules).

b)  I decided that my thief is just not the kind of character I want to play if we are going to be having fights like this.  My back up character is basically meat with a greatsword.  I mean if this is the new paradigm, than I might as well be swinging a big sword that does 2d6+4 right?

c)  I don't know if I honestly want to DM a game for this group.  For a variety of reasons.  Mostly my style. 

Obviously the mini's were needed to make the combat run smooth.  I'm a big fan of theatre of the mind and tend to run most games like that.  However in circumstances like this, I would have probably pulled out minis as well, just for the ease of figuring out who hit what, and who is attacking who.

For the most part the whole situation comes down to DMing style, and how you run combat.  I dunno if I could have made it faster if I was running it.  I think it would have still dragged out a bit.  There's obviously ways to get things to move a bit quicker.  Group initiative for example.  But whatever.

Having had a brief discussion with a few friends on gee plus, we came to the conclusion that:

1.  The fight is really the centre piece of the game

2.  If you in the mood for a fight that's great, but sometimes it blows goats.

3.  The game is built from the top down to have big fights.

4.  There are far more complicated systems for war gaming than fifth edition, and if we are going to war game, well there's other options.  From what I gather games like 3e, pathfinder etc were all combat heavy and took for friggin ever.

5.  While there's a ton of information on the net to run 5e a bit more old school, it really depends on what your players want out of the game.

It honestly didn't feel like my D&D.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Spoilers if you are playing Tomb Of Annihilation: 
Yesterday was our fourth session.  I played in the first session and missed sessions 2, and 3.  Here's the catchup in case you are interested.

Session 2: 

The party made their way down the River Shoshenstar, along with their companions, Azaka, Xandala and Eshek.

Making their way along the river, they encounter a few people who look like lobsters, who tell them to leave their area, to which the party high tails it out of there, and some hungry schools of fish, of which they are able to catch a few to eat.

Continuing their way along the river, they come upon a deserted camp, with evidence of a major battle having taken place there, and a large statue with a crocodile on top of a man. The only living thing in sight is a large bird with a head that looks like a hatchet frantically running around a pen. Ren casts Speak with Animals on herself, and finds out that the bird got itself trapped in the pen. She also finds out that there are wood people around to the north. She opens the pen and lets the bird out, and it quickly takes off into the woods.

Continuing to explore the camp, Ren investigates the latrines. Inside one of the latrines, they find a corpse that has been dead a few days. Tankard and Ren lower Dain down into the latrine by the ankles, and he ties a rope around the corpse's neck. They manage to pull the corpse out without decapitating him, and find a warhammer, ruined scale male armour, and a pouch containing a handful of gemstones.

Tankard explores a burned down shrine, and finds a holy symbol in the shape of a Silver Gauntlet, which Ren identifies as being a symbol of Torm.

The rest of the camp seemed to contain nothing of interest, so the party decides to explore the statue, which has a large tunnel between the man's feet. The tunnel is laden wit traps, which seem to be magically disarmed when one member of the party rides the other member of the party's shoulders. Travelling along the tunnel, bypassing all the traps by riding on each other's shoulders, they come to a ledge, which they go over leading to a tiled grid, another ledge, and a door at the end of it - the door having a similar pattern to the tiled grid on the floor - with certain tiles being lit up on the door.

The party figures out that they need to step on the tile corresponding to the lit up tile on the door. Climbing up the second ledge, they quickly discover a glyph of warding on the door with a natural 20 on an investigation check. They figure out that how they need to press the button - riding on each other's shoulders, bottom person presses the first two buttons, top person presses the other two buttons.

The door swings inward to reveal a room filled with dinosaur bones, and a spiral staircase with a jug at the pinnacle of the staircase. Continuing the trend of riding piggyback, Ren and Keldren ascend the staircase to retreive the jug. Ren identifies it as being an Alchemy Jug.

Making their way out of the temple the same way they came in, the party finds themselves face to face with the wood people, a tribe of goblin like creatures wearing wooden masks.

After a quick battle, the party dispatches the goblins, but not before one blows his horn. The party reaches their boats in time to see zombies and skeletons crashing out of the bushes.

Making their way down the river again, the party sees a man on the riverbank - Artus Cimber, and Xandala's boat starts traveling towards him. The party shouts out to him, saying they've helped his daughter find him. Artus doesn't recognise Xandala. As she gets closer she starts casting a spell. His face kind of blanks over as her boat reaches him, she has a short conversation with him out of the party's earshot, he hands her something, and then she flys away.

Once she is gone, Artus comes to, and discovers that he gave her the Ring of Winter - which he reveals is what's kept him looking ageless. He says the ring is very powerful, but won't go into detail what other power the ring has. Artus' travelling companion - Dragonbait - crashes out of the bushes shortly after.

Artus and Dragonbait join the party, in the hopes of tracking Xandala down and regaining the ring.

As the party further travels down the river, they come to another encampment, which has piles of dead human bodies around it, and beasts which have had the skin flayed from them, which is where we left off.

Session 3: 

The party made their way to Camp Vengeance. After a short exchange with the gate guards, they go to meet Captain Breakbone in the command tent. After learning they have arrived by boat, he demands they take sick soldiers and messages back down the river to Port Nyanzaru.

The party refuses to comply, and Captain Breakbone tries to place the party under arrest. Dain takes offense to being arrested under false pretenses, and punches the captain in the nose.

The guards in the room surround the party, and quickly surround the party and get some quick blows in. Tankard succesfully talks everybody down, and tells the captain that while they can't make their way back up the river, they can certainly heal the sick and cure disease, and Ren can send animal messengers to Port Nyanzaru to get all the messages out.

It takes a few days to heal all of the sick people in camp - there are a lot of them - and while Tankard is healing them, he receives a mental message from Syndra Silvane, telling him that she's dying and reminds him that time is of the essence.

While the party is getting ready to leave, a couple of dinosaurs that look like allosaurs and some large birds with beaks that bear a striking resemblance to a battleaxe attack the camp. While Ren and Tankard decide to fight from the wall for a few rounds, Dain decides to tackle the problem head on, so he decides to jump from the top of the palisade on to the head of the large dinosaur. He manages to make the leap, and effortlessly sticks the landing.

Fighting from the ground and being the focus of all the dinosaurs rage, Dain goes down a couple of times, and is brought back up with healing spells from Ren and Tankard.

Ren decisdes to help Dainf rom the ground - in bear form - while Tankard *tries* to assist with his crossbow from the palisade, with all of his bolts firing straight and true directly into the ground.

As the birds join melee, the dinsours start picking them off as an easy meal, and the party manages to take down both dinsoaurs shortly after.

From the outpost, the party decides to continue to M'bala on foot, leaving the boats at Camp Vengeance.

After a few days march overland through the jungle, the party happens upon a large snail with a beautiful multicolored shell, up in the distance plodding along very slowly.

Ren decides to go investiage the snail. As she gets close, a blinding flash of light emits from its shell, and it beings to wallop Ren with what seem to be tentacles. As the party joins the fray, As the snail takes damage, its tentacles seem to fall off, shrivel up and die. After its last tentacle falls off, it retreats into its shell, and emits a horrible wailing noise. The party quickly finishes off the snail, and nature is sad with Ren.

The shell, while quite large and cumbersome - weighing about 250 pounds, appears to be of some value (about 2500 gp), so the party hauls it with them.

Our heroes finally make their way to M'bala, a large plateau on a desolate, rocky plain. There is a path that winds its way up the side of the plateau, but it seems to be abandoned, littered with rocks, and overgrown. The party decides to make their way up the path, clearing it along the way, hauling the shell the whole way hoping to unload it in the settlement.

At the top of the path, the gate is rusted to the point of obliteration, and there are piles of bleached human skulls are lying around. The party decides to hide the shell inside the gates. Once they make their way inside, they notice a small hut with a small figure plodding around. It notices them, and the figure turns out to be an ancient woman who appears to be blind. Ren cures her blindness out of a show of good faith.

The woman recalls that the villagers used to call her Nanny Pupu, and that there is a nest of flying lizard people that ate the rest of the villagers. She asks that the party go dispatch the rest of the lizard folk.

After exploring the plateau and finding nothing else of interest - the only real feature being a deep cistern filled with black scummy water - the party decides to tell the old woman they killed the lizard folk, without actually doing so.

A botched deception roll later, Nanny Pupu attacks the party, calling forth a flesh golem from the ground to assist her. A very difficult battle later, with Tankard and Dain going down a few times, and a retreat not seeming to be an option - Nanny Pupu wants the party dead - the party emerges victorious.

Our heroes will decide next session where they are going - are they going to continue west to Orolunga, or are they going to go in a different direction?

Session 4: 

After regrouping themselves after a pretty tough battle with Nanny Pupu, turning up a few gemstones and a spell scroll, our heroes decide to keep venturing West. First they meet a few muddy creatures that they don't understand. They keep walking, and the creatures don't seem to follow them.

As they continue through the barren, desolate wasteland of a landscape, they notice 6 amphibious looking red creatures riding some birdlike/lizardlike things charging them.

A very difficult battle ensues, with one of the newt-like humanoids chucking spells at them. Unfortunately, our heroes are overwhelmed by these creatures. Instead of killing them outright though, the heroes are knocked unconscious and taken prisoner.

As the come to, all tied together on the back on one of the birdlike lizards (or is it lizardlike birds?), Wren and Tankard overhear their captors talking about eating them. Wren quickly turns into a rat, and chews through everybody's bonds. Azalea tries to stealthily escape, but catches her cuff on the back of the creature they're being hauled on. Their captors take notice, and tie Azalea up again, and Wren chews through Azalea's bonds - again. Wren discovers that her alchemy jug is missing.

Wren casts Pass Without a Trace, and the party slips away into the night.

The party decides to follow their captors for a while until their captors set up camp, and fall asleep. Nobody stands watch, so the captors quickly kill all of their captors, as well as all of their mounts. Wren does try to have a conversation with one of the mounts but it doesn't seem to understand anything she tries to say, but the rest of the party slaughters it shortly thereafter

Wren recovers her alchemy jug, and the party manages to find a spell scroll, a potion, some nice armour, and a strange rod amongst the effects of their captors.

The rest of the journey westward through the jungle is mostly uneventful, and the party eventually finds themselves in front of a crumbling ziggurat.

So I was thinking about D&D and then ADHD kicked in.

Yesterday when I got up I started thinking about D&D (like every friggin day).  In between coffee and skyrim I started re-reading the 5e DMG.  At some point in time I may have to take a turn DMing 5e again.  I started looking thru some of the options in the back, just to see what I could do.  My guess is that it would be a one shot, however it's always good to have a backup "campaign" outline just in case.  Considering we have 4 DMs in the group, this may not be an issue for me.

Campaign Ideas: 

Wuxia style campaign with Aliens.  I was skimming the Oriental adventures book at the same time.

Western Marshes style campaign:  Read more info here.  Using Blackmarsh.

Jakandor: Would be super nifty, however since we are running around an island currently it might be a bit too similar.

If we have to stick with Faerun, running Al Quadim or the wuxia thing in whatever part of Faerun that works might be an idea.

Alternatively (and what I will probably do) is not do any actual world building other than a brief sketch.  Create a small hex map with 3 or 4 adventure locations, plant a town on the border and leave it at that.  I really don't want to do typical high fantasy bs though.  There is a bit in the DMG about campaign styles, and the last paragraph is sort of "the whole kitchen sink", that's the most appealing to me.  Samuari's, Aliens, Flying airships, barbarians.

As I've said before I wouldn't mind creating new character classes, and races and or sticking with the basic ones.  The only issue is the players.  And I know it's "My campaign" but its still gotta be fun.  If someone gets annoyed because they can't play their fav tiefling warlock/warrior hybrid, that's no fun.

Whatever the case, what I end up with is going to be deadly.  I'm throwing CR's out the window for the most part.  You goto the hext with the big ugly dragon.  Good luck.

In one of +Samwise Seven RPG videos he talks about throwing out Charisma as a stat and using the sanity rules.  This seems like a wonderful idea.  I"m in agreement with him that making deception checks are boring with a dice roll.  I'd rather RP it out.

Event Based Adventures:

This whole idea seems very railroadey and not very O5R.  I'm sure when I was younger I was writing event based adventures, and it does seem to be a good idea for Fifth edition.  I may take a crack at it for the sake of argument.

Alright so obviously this is a whole bunch of random ADHD this morning.

This week i get to play in a blueholme game with +God Emperor Leto II which is going to be FUN!

The return of the blue baron is coming along! Check it out here:

Happy Gaming!

tomb of annihilation - Session 1

Caution may include some spoilers.

Our new-ish group of 5e players got together yesterday to play TOA.  The group is comprised of 3 players from the previous 5e group and 3 new players.  Everyone has a lot of experience playing fifth edition, and have read the rules backwards and forwards.  I can't quite remember all of the classes and races we had but I"ll try my best.  It was the first session, I find it difficult to remember everyones names as well.  We have 2 dwarves, one of which is a monk, a dragonborn paladin (who is quite evil), a human druid and myself a human thief (who was previously a pirate).

I have to admit, I think I've found the class that I really like playing.  Just a basic straight up thief (rogue), I'm using the basic D&D rules, not the PHB options for the thief.  I did however use the pirate background, just cuz it worked for me. I normally like playing these type of characters in skyrim, so it seemed like a logical choice to do so playing tabletop.  I decided upon Chaotic Neutral, however I think that I'll have to switch to chaotic evil after this session! 

So as per usual we meet in a tavern.  There was some discussion prior to the start of the game, the DM (Adam) asks us where we met, no one really took the bait right away so I  said "we all met in a tavern ba da ching!".  Turns out we met in the ba da ching tavern in baldurs gate.

Alright, so we meet up with this mysterious corpse of a woman, who has apparently died and been resurrected, and is now dying again.  She "used to be an adventurer like us".  (cue a bunch of dumb jokes).  Anyways, her name is Cindra and she needs us to find this gem to help stop this curse/plague been killing people.  My rogue who doesn't quite care was all like "people die everyday", meanwhile the druid seems genuinely concerned for peoples lives. 

I had read that its best to say YES to things when playing D&D to keep the game moving, so that's my new plan, I'm going to be a YES Woman (my PC is a female).  So of course we said yes to the old hag, but not before I asked about gold!  Apparently we are going to get and I quote "rare or uncommon magic items".  Whatever its a quest!  Onward.

I suggested to the party that we get some trade goods before we leave, that way if the place we are going to needs some stuff, we could make a bit of extra coin.

That was disregarded and we were teleport-ed to Port Nanzaru in Chult the very next day.

We find ourselves in the City and start doing a bit of gearing up at the local marketplace.  We are supposed to meet up with the hag later, she is staying with one of the merchant princes (I'm going to call him Wakanda).  We all make it to the red bazaar (one of 3 marketplaces in the city). 

After a bit of buying things, we walk away with some good road items.  I attempted to steal some bug repellent, but the scheme went a bit off, and I dropped it.  The timing wasn't right, and the druid was not helpful hahaha.  One of the dwarves bought some dinosaur meat and decide to attempted to make jerky. 

There are 2 taverns to choose from, some of the players opted for the cheaper rooms, the rest of us spent the gold on a good evening.

The next day we get up to go and see Cindra (hag), as well we have plans to hire a guide.  On the way to Cindras we are met with a guy who needs a debt settled.  3 of us decide to go and figure this out.  The Dwarf and the Druid decide against helping us.

We wander over to a different marketplace to go and shake this guy down for some gold.  When we get there we spot him, but the guy that hired us mysteriously disappears!  We get into a fight, I sneak around trying to hit him with a few arrows.  After a bit of a melee, one of the players talks the guy down and we all go for a drink (it was a lucky deception roll).  The guy Tabin gets hammered at the Inn (day drunk), the dwarf puts him to bed, I sneak up and steal all his gems.  8 in total, I only tell the party about 7, and put one in my boot.

We never find the guy that hired us.  While this side trek is going on, the other 2 players basically lazed around the Inn getting massages, drinking margaritas, etc.

Its got fairly late in the day, so we decide to head off to the tavern across the street and interview some of the possible guides.  The dwarf monk (who might be a racist) wants to only hire a dwarf because beards.  Cue long bit about beards, and their manliness, etc.  Very silly.

Most of the guides have some random quest they need fulfilled, the rest are all really expensive and all seem to be in league with one of the merchant princes who run the city (Jabal).  Luckily we can afford any of them, because I stole a bunch of jewels.

After much debate, we decide we need to talk to Cindra and Wakanada before actually getting a guide. 

We get a bit more intel, decide to hire Azara (who needs a quest fulfilled).  As well we meet a bunch of random NPCs that need side quests fulfilled.  Including one girl whose dad went missing.  Apparently he was with a lizard dude.  The party has got a bit bigger now, we have the guide, the girl whose dad is missing, and I think some other person.  The guide tells us that if we had canoes we would make good time.  Off to the canoe store! Thankfully I have some gems.  We purchase two canoes, and are about to leave town, when two things happen.  One random NPC comes up and gives us another quest! and the big dude from the market shows up and he's pissed cuz we robbed him.  We fight him off and make a deal to pay him back double what was apparently stolen. 

As we are leaving town the dwarf monk is joking about the side quests, and if any other random citizens are going to  come out of the wood work.

And so ends the session.  I think we got a lot done for four hours or so.

Note:  This campaign definitely has waves of Isle of Dread, not an exact copy but there are some similaritys.

What am I working on?

Well what I'm currently trying to do is write one room a day for the adventure I started a few weeks ago.  So far I've not been doing too bad, and sticking with it! I've got two maps complete, one that is just penciled and one I need to draw.

We had a bit of re-jiggering with our fifth edition group, so it sounds like we won't be finishing "strahd" right away, but possibly moving on to Tomb of Annihilation.  (i'd really really like to finish an adventure!)

Count of the adventures not finished:
*starter set
*out of the abyss
*curse of strahd.

Anyways I've been working on character ideas.  I took a look at the wotc site, and some of the pregens I don't mind, but there is a bit of tweaking I'd like to do.  So alas I am starting from scratch.  At this point I don't have any inkling as to what the other players like to play (other than one guy who likes being an MU).  I intend to create 4 classic characters. The human fighter, the elf wizard, the halfling thief and the dwarven cleric. 

I have no idea what level we are starting at, and my knowledge of "chult" is limited to the forgotten realms wiki.  I'm partial to being the meat, swinging the biggest weapon i can find.  (my translucent d12 rolls high!).  I am considering buying some new dice for the campaign though.  Depending on if I get some time to hit the FLGS.

We are currently working on scheduling. 

The case for Fifth Edition Saving Throws in old school

I was thinking about saving throws this morning, as I've been slowly working on a house rules document.  I've always dug the original saving throws, and how they scale depending on your race or class.  When I first played Fifth edition, the first thing I thought was "where are the old saving throws?" (as in second edition or earlier).  They just didn't make sense to me at the time.  As well the 3rd (or 3.4? not sure) saving throws of Fortitude, Reflex and Willpower made some sense to me but not a lot.  As an example where do these modifiers come from? My guess is Fortitude is constitution, Reflex is dexterity and willpower is wisdom? Which make sense, as I can't think of a reason to have a charisma saving throws (or atleast I don't think it would come up very often to me).  While writing the document, I thought okay I'll just go ahead and use the 3 saving throws, the modifiers for this will come from the stats listed above.

However, that means there's no intelligence, charisma, or strength saving throws. That and having either a mod or just a static number doesn't appeal to me either.  As an example, a willpower saving throw would just be the wisdom stat or the wisdom modifier.

I also detest DCs.  Having done roll under ability checks, I prefer that idea.   The problem becomes when reading a OSR set of rules like Labyrinth Lord, or B/X the saves are roll over, and the ability checks are roll under.  It is sometimes hard for players to grasp that.  (atleast my players).

What I came up with, which I'm sure is not an new idea, is to throw out the original saving throws (vs spell, death, etc) and just use ability scores as checks.  The mechanic is the same, roll under.  Let's say a player is near falling off a cliff and trying to grab onto something, well you can call it whatever you want, an ability check or a saving throw, whatever the case roll under dex.

So rather than create 3 saves from 3e, or the originals, or just one saving throw (which I've been a fan of, but I like this idea better).  Just go with the 6 stats.  Need to make a death saving throw? Make that tied to Constitution.  Which makes some sense anyways. The guys that created DND were on the right track with the 6 ability scores.

Moving forward I think that's how I'm going to approach it.  For one thing, when you are using DCs its very easy to hand wave, unless a player rolls a 1, as they don't always know the DC number.  Whereas roll under, it's entirely up to them, and its rolled right on the table.  I think this gives a bit of player agency.

Blog title retraction and Rakastas!

Alright so I titled yesterday's post "Making Fifth Edition more crunchy".  It really should have been "Making Fifth Edition more smooth peanut butter".  But that makes even less sense!  In reality it was a quick way to make Fifth edition more deadly.  However that title has been used to death already in blog posts.  As stated, if you want to make fifth edition more like an old school game, you can follow what I posted in the previous blog.  OR you could just play an old school game.

Now I've been working up the idea of running Isle Of Dread, and stumbled upon the fact that the Rakasta are not in fifth edition, so this tonight I'm going to take the stats from "Rage of the rakasta" and use the quick conversion guide, and start prepping.

One thing I was thinking about the other night, was in the DMG they placed the Isle of dread in the plane of water for some reason.  I guess just changing the lore a little bit.  The idea rolling around my head was to finish the starter set, and then somehow whisk the players off to the Isle of dread, either by taking a ship out of neverwinter, or maybe waterdeep.  I had a few ideas about running the "mere of the deadmen" after the starter set, and I still might.

*Please note if your one of my fifth edition players, I won't be running the starter set, mere of the deadmen or Isle of dread.  I will be running something entirely different than stated, so don't read ahead.

As a side note, I've been a bit quiet on the blog.  I honestly blame summer.  It's nice outside, I'm spending time on the deck enjoying the weather.  I'm going to guess that the 3 Toadstools blogposts will ramp up when it gets colder out.

That's my 2cents for the day.

Session 10 - Curse Of Strahd - You sound like an 80 year old smoker with a neck hole

May contain plot spoilers. 

I honestly have no idea exactly where that reference comes from, but it was said during the session.  Sometime near the beginning and probably by our fighter who is comedic.  The facebook invite I received for this session was titled "for the love of god, why did I give you a walking house!".  And we made full use of that thing, we went from one end of Barovia to another.

At the end of last session we were at the Winery, so we decided to have a discussion with the Martikovs about what was up the order of the silver dragon (which we had previously heard about thru a rumour).  We got some vague information and were pointed in the direction of arganvasthold (or however you spell it).... barovians!

TO THE WALKING HOUSE!

And we are off.....

We get to arganmcdonalds and find a mansion that looks quite unused, with a untended front yard.  The gist of which is this place looks like no one has been here in a long time.  (cut the damn grass you bunch of lazy liches)

We wander thru the mansion, nothing, notta, nope.  Well other than spider webs.

We stumbled into this room, and find this old dead guy (which is what I'm calling him from now on).  He tells us this big spiel about Strahd, and the order of the silver dragoon, etc.  Old dead guy wants to help us take out strahd!  but he wants Strahd to suffer (and possibly not die).

My character keln (who i've grown to despise and he's basically an idiot with a holy mammoth turd)  asks old dead guy about strahds "love loves".  Keln is sure that there's a missing girl out there, that centuries ago was the soul of one of strahd's girlfriends. Keln has access to a VCR and has watched Bram Strokers Dracula few times, he's got this.

Anyways old dead guy wants us to lit a becon for him.  Problem is the only way to lit the becon is to get the skull of arkanvideoseller from the crypt in guess where?

if you guessed anything but Strahds crib, I'm shaking my head at you.

K so back to the walking house!

Keln has another brain wave (as his handler has had a few beers).  "we should go to the town that has those festivals, tell them we can create a NEW festival, the festival of the walking house!!!" And in the mean time see if we can scrounge up some red shirts for meat shields, as we are off to see strahd.

(we're off to see the wizard.....) #earworm

Editors note:  It is currently 2:23 am CST

We find the mayor at his place and he's all like "nope can't spare anyone".

CUE The Gnome

The CHARMED Mayor decides to give us a pile of magical loot! (1 point Gnome 0 points mayor).

After a brief drink at the tavern.  (those people are ecstatic that the winery is back in business)  we are once again off to see Mr. Strahd.

Editors note:  The Gnome somehow now has a bag of holding and a portable hole! He's going to cause shit. 

My character got this cool staff that will transport us to some other plane of existence for 240 days.  I'm mildly excited about this.

We also got a bunch of +3 this and +2 that kinda magic armour, scary poison dagger stuff.  Basically your general "kill strahd, don't die" kinda magic items.  WOO!

Alright, so we roll up on Strahd's crib, and Martikov "the raven" is there, and he's cheesed.  Cuz we were supposed to meet up with him like a week ago.  (it's  been a year of playing strahd fyi, poor bugger has been waiting awhile).

martikov tells us he scoped out the place, and he figured out where a few things are, including the skull we are after.  Which is a dragon skull!

thank Lolth that we got a big assed walking house right?

So the gnome flies up with brand new magic cape thingy, throws us a rope and we storm the castle!

Prior to getting up to the window, I gave dorian (the raven martikov) a piece of string, and he flew off happily to work on his nest I guess?

2:31

We wander around the castle.  At one point I got totally punked by Strahd.  I wandered into a hallway, and got a "blast this and that".  Turns out it was a wooden statue on a rope.

fuck you Strahd.

we somehow managed to find out that, we not only have to kill the physical being of strahd, but also his heart that is locked away somewhere (that figures doesn't it).

Honestly someone is going to die.  this isn't the end

And along comes basically Igor.  Who is expecting us.  (damn ravens)

he is going to get our rooms ready.

While he buggers off, we are all just hanging out in the mess hall, and we notice the big assed dragon skull.

So we get a bit "stealy" and try and get it down, with some terrible abillities checks.  Finally we get it in the portable hole.

then what do you know? That damned werewolf (that we didn't kill) shows up out of the blue.  So we beat him up.  He runs at my wifes character, (I'm down the line as far as init is concerned).  I cast hold person and our fighter boots him into the portable hole.

SUCCESS!

And then Igor shows up.

With Strahd....


Editors note:  Our DM is fucking awesome, his timing is amazing! 

I made some smoked jalapenos and sausages on the smoker, and my wife made some killer macaroni salad.  And we played D&D on the deck in the sunshine. 

The Horrifying International Table Top Day

This past Saturday was "International Table Top Day", which I'm not entirely sure if it entails D&D or not? Whatever the case we were invited out to play some 5e at a friends place.  This was our first time playing with them and their group.  The plan was to have people show up most of the day and whenever someone was tired or wanted to go home that person would either die, or trade their character, or just float away ahhaa.  From having a few conversations with the DM in the past, I knew that he had his own home brewed world that he had been running and playing in for years (dating back to 1e I believe, some iterations of 2, 3 and now 5, possibly pathfinder as well).  I had figured that we would probably not being playing in that game, and probably a module of some sort.  Just because the logistics of explaining to new players all about your world would have taken an extraordinary amount of time for a one off.  The other reason i figured it was a module, and a   particularly deadly module was the following post in the facebook group:

Please bring 2 or 3 - 10th level pre generated characters with you. 

And I guessed right! Enter TOMB OF HORRORS (for fifth edition from Tales From The Yawning Portal).

I used this generator: http://www.orcpub.com/
and created a sorceror (which I've never played before) and a typical cleric which I almost always play.  Note: don't use a generator for a class you've never played before.  It is much smarter to read the book and create it.

I created a meat shield elven fighter for my wife.

When we got there we were waiting for one more player to show up, and then create his character, so our start time got pushed an hour and a bit.  In that time I created a wizard, which I'm hoping to play that class again at some point as I enjoyed it.  This particular wizard was the first to bite the dust.  Falling 100 feet.  After the wizard kicked it I created a basic meatshield fighter as we already had a cleric in the group.  His name was "Peon".   He also almost died a few times, and had we not called the game when we did he surely would have met an epic ending. 

I've come to the conclusion that while all the character class options are nifty, and all the extra races are nifty, I really like the basic rules, the basic classes and the basic races.  As well how the basic rules do character creation.  While I get that some people like a pile of options during creation I'm not one of those people. 

It is interesting playing with different groups, everyone has their own style of gaming.  A bit of reflection both our regular groups we play in like to role play a lot, whereas this group likes combat which is cool.  Of course we didn't have a lot of opportunity to roleplay as we were basically in the dungeon the whole time.  It was quite a lot of fun, and I'm looking forward to playing with them again.  

Curse Of Strahd - Session 9 - BBQ Goat

We reconvened in Barovia yesterday.  It was a lot of fun.  I can`t quite believe we are on session 9 already.  I`m going to have to start working on some ideas for a campaign or a one shot very soon.  I`m guessing we will have Strahd wrapped up by summer.  Just a note we play once every 3 weeks or so.

When we left off we were in the basement of the winery, after having just finished murdering a large tree thing.  We found 3 holes the size of fists in the ground near the tree.  After a bit of checking around for gem stones that might fit into the holes, and just random searching we decided to up and leave the winery.

And Viola! guess who`s standing outside happy as you please.  God damn Von Richten.  I swear this guy is Gilderoy Lockhart, always taking the credit, but never there for the action.  This time around though he actually gave us the credit.  I was amazed.

We have a discussion with the martikovs who own the winery, and they need to get back the gems as they help with the wine process.  After a bit of haggling, apparently we will be paid in wine.  Woot.

By the sound of it Baba o``riley (lasaga, lasanga, whatever her damn name is) has the gems.  So we go off for a wander looking for the witch.

Come across a stream.  My cleric just jumps in and swims across.  The dwarf fighter tosses the gnome across the river.  And the thief swims along beside me.  We leave Gilderoy with the wagon filled with wine on the other side of the bank (after we beat up the witch we are going to go and drop off the booze in Valaki).

On the other side of the river we meet up with another martikov who is scared shitless.  We talk to her and she tells us all about the Baba`s camp, the protection, etc.  She knows way too much.... whatever.

So we find the camp of the Baba`O`Riley.  From the bushes we sort of scout the whole thing.  It`s decided that me and the dwarf are going to create a distraction.  The thief & the gnome will be invisible and will sneak into her house (which is apparently a monster) and try and knife her in the back.

And splitting the party.

The dwarf and I find this goat pen, its behind 7 foot tall fences.  There are skulls lining the top of the fence.  he gives me a boost, up and over I`m in the pen.  I throw a rope over and now we are both in the pen.  Looks like there are 9 rather normal looking goats in the pen.  The dwarf decides to lit them on fire!  So now there are 9 on FIRE! goats.  in a small pen.  Egad we are intelligent.

After some thought, I remember the dwarf has a decanter of endless water, so I suggest before we get burnt to a crisp, that we in fact douse the now BBQ`d goats.  At this point we decide to have a bit of a feast.

Cut to the gnome & the thief.  They sneak into the monster hut, notice some ravens outside in cages.  Once inside the thief does a sneak attack, rolls a crit and double damage.  The Baba will never make perogies again.  One hit is all it took to utterly destroy her.  Somewhat disappointing ending.  But team work was cool.  While the 2 of them are searching the lair, us 2 idiots (cleric & dwarf) finally set off the skull alarms.

BEEDO BEEDO BEEDO BEEDO!

And they sort of hear it from the hut.  The gnome finds a ring that controls the hut, releases the ravens who kill off any scarecrows in the vicinity.  We are finally let out of the pen, and hand out nicely bbq`d goat to everyone.

We all get in the monster hut thing and start making our way back to the winery.  During the night, the thief decides to steal the ring from the gnome.  Seriously those 2 are at each others throats the whole time.

Next morning the Gnome wakes up, notices the ring is gone.  I honestly thought he was going to fireball her.  He decides to cast an illusion on her that she has no hands.  She literally screams at the top of her lungs.  They jabber back and forth for awhile.

I get up to relieve myself, while doing so I come up with a plan.

Get back to the table, and they are still arguing.  I cast silence on both of them, and dispel magic on the thief so she has hands again.  The dwarf gives me a high five and we go off to the winery.

The thief (who doesn`t play the game that often) wasn`t sure how long silence would work, so she basically shut up for like a half hour.

We drop off the gems to the winery, they give the thief this nice bottle of 1000 year old wine.  She makes peace with the gnome and gives it to him.  He`s still peeved.  Afterwards we head off to Valak to deliver the wine.  I can`t wait to see what festival is happening this week.

Oh we met a old martikov who is going to help us, he buggered off to scout strahds castle.

that was fun.

I've been quiet lately.  My brain has been filled with guitars, and not D&D.  I managed to finally quit smoking, and I think its going to stick this time.  Every time I quit I start looking at guitars I can't afford because I smoke. So my brain has been filled with that instead of D&D, I'm guessing it'll start receding and going back to RPG things.  

Random conversation that lead to this blog post.

I was discussing with one of my friends about our "out of the abyss" campaign the other day.  Eventually we will be going back to it, probably after we finish up killing strahd.  He had mentioned that he feels he is going to need to do some subtle rail roading to get us back on track.  As well he plans to level us up, hand wave to eighth level.  I think we are currently at 5th or something.  The gist is "we have been adventuring on and off, and have since leveled up".

I have no idea if he is going to read this post, but I have a few thoughts on it, some of which are personal and some of which are more straight and to the point (common practices).  Obviously it's his game, and he can run it exactly the way he wants.

First off, I've done a bit of hand waving as far as levels are concerned, but honestly it takes away player agency, the reward of having survived and a job well done. In my next fifth edition campaign I won't be doing that at all.  (that goes for old school games as well).  The players will level as they collect enough experience, end of story.  I don't much care for CR levels, but I'll obviously not throw super scary monsters at them.  Of course the world is a big place and not all monsters are at your level.

This practice of the hand wave rubbed off on another player.  After having played a few sessions of "abyss" and got leveled up by a hand wave.  The player played in a old school session with me, and after 2 sessions he was looking for the hand wave from me.  Obviously different DM, different game entirely.  That said it should not be an expected thing. And honestly though what is the rush? It's D&D campaigns go on for years.

Now onto rail-roading.  As most of you know railroading isn't a practice that happens often in old school games, (mostly because the game is different).  We all know that despite how much you plan and prep, nine times out of ten the players will blow holes in that plan anyways.  Which is why attempting to run a module exactly as written probably rarely works.

For me if there are encounters that I would like to see happen to keep the game going, I will figure out a way to work them in.  Or if I had a cool dungeon I wrote up and the players don't take the bait, it's relatively easy to work it in.  Bearing in mind that the players don't have access to behind the screen, the world map were you carefully placed the dungeon miles away from the players current location.

I can say though, that I've honestly rail-roaded players before and probably will do it again.  The last time it happened I honestly couldn't think of any other way to get them into the dungeon, so I forced a weirdness on them.  The players were standing over a portal leading to a alternate dimensions.  They hadn't quite decided what they were going to do.  I didn't have a lot else prepped.  So the one hireling npc with them jumped into the portal!  Yup that's a lot of hand holding.  Looking back on it now, what could have worked was a demon coming thru the portal and grabbing someone, maybe they got pulled in, maybe not.  Maybe the demon pulled the npc in? Who knows, but that would have been better.

That being said it's pretty easy to just re-write bits and make it work, as long as your creativity is clicking that day.  As well I think that more you play, the more you DM, the better you get at it.  You get comfy and just figure it out.  I have personally been wanting to run a big open sandbox, while it can be a bit overwhelming if you do some reasonable prep it's not that bad.  As stated before I'd love to run black marsh, and there is no end to modules & adventures you can find out there to pop into a open sandbox world.