OD&D Solo game w/wife - 4th level

My @thePrincessWife reached an achievement in OD&D/Swords & Wizardry; she attained 4th level. On the eve of her birthday no less! In OD&D, she would now be a "Hero" which was significant in Chainmail - she would be considered a special type of character and now able to confront the truly fantastic of creatures. I mentioned to her that word of her accomplishments and travels are starting to become noteworthy not only in the immediate area, but regionally.

We played a bit last night - much of it was concerning "paperwork" in reviewing things like how Hit Dice worked, her various skills and abilities and her henchmen.

We also had some fun watching the dice give @thePrincessWife fits! She has concluded that there must be a back entrance to the Tomb of Alaxus, given that these ratlings seem to be living there and probably did not come through the front door. She is not a ranger or skilled woodsmen, so I gave her character, Aeli, a base chance of each hour finding something, if something was there. The more she searched, the more I raised the likelihood of finding something, or positively concluding that nothing was to be found. The only downfall was wandering monster checks.

[Spongebob Announcer Voice] Five hours later... [/Voice]

So the dice were not kind and five hours passed in-game while the group trekked around this hill looking for something - anything! It wasn't until the wandering ratlings cued Aeli to the location of the secret entrance that she found it. We all had a good laugh on that and had to regretfully stop playing for the night as we just ran out of time. Either tonight or tomorrow, she'll enter this narrow hole in the ground and see where it leads to.

I'm really looking forward to getting her new "true" 25mm miniature all painted up and ready to go - as I am looking forward to completing Tironell's miniature (the NPC mage that accompanies Aeli.) Although I have no problem killing him if needs be, I have come to enjoy the banter between her character and Tironell. Unsurprisingly, it mirrors some of the same banter she and I have. Go figure!

OD&D Solo game w/wife - Small steps

Previously, about two months ago, my wife braved the depths of chambers beneath the Tower of Alaxus to find clues to her ancient mage ancestor, Kellus Therran. She had defeated the Smoke Dragon guardian, but had fallen afoul of a nasty gelatinous cube, losing her "magical" sword in the process. She was subsequently robbed at the hands of a large band of goblins and slunk back into Valetown, broke and depressed.

The Patriarch of Valetown agreed to trade some of the valuable old books from the Tower in exchange for coins and a refit. Tironell, Aeli's erstwhile mage companion, agreed reluctantly. Subsequently refitted and rearmed, the group of Aeli and Tironell, along with her loyal henchmen Turchao and Rather and three hirelings - Fan, Jan and Chin, made their way back to the tower. (Hey... I wasn't feeling all that original and hirelings need easy names to remember... at least with the turnover that Aeli's group experiences...)

They planned on using oil to flame the cube to death, but that involved luring the cube into an ambush. Aeli volunteered to be the bait, so she crept down the corridor to the room that the cube was in. Her sword was no longer stuck in the wall, no doubt now in the belly of the beast. She peered into the room, and got the cube's attention to follow her. That's when disaster almost struck!

Aeli wasn't quite quick enough to dash away before the cube had a chance to lash out at her and paralyze her - beginning the process of enveloping her! [See DM Note #1 below] Her companions, hearing her cry, rushed down the hall and were able to kill the cube before it killed her - a short while later, she recovered. There was a great deal of happiness at the recovery of her sword, along with what appeared to be a potion of healing and some coins and a bejeweled dagger.

The cube had been sitting in front of a crack in the wall, a winding passageway that was barely wide enough for a human to squeeze through. Since the main passage forward was blocked by a cave-in, and apparently some creature(s) on the other side, Aeli chose this route. After awhile of squeezing through this passage, she found herself in another room similar to the one the cube had been in... except this one was populated by rat-like humanoids roughly 4 feet tall.

Aeli, not being much of the diplomat, asked if she could pass through. The ratlings were not impressed by her speech given that it was her vs. 10 of the creatures. She pushed forward to allow others to get out of the crack, but the fight went poorly for the party. It wasn't until Tironell cast sleep that the party was able to overcome the ratlings. Unfortunately, they had little in the way of treasure, a single ancient coin and a dead spider charm.

Aeli made her way out of another exit in the chamber and boldly walked down the corridor and opened the door to peek inside. [DM note #2] Something was peeking at her.. more ratlings! There was another group of 10, but this time, 5 of them were across the room with bows. Recognizing that this was A Bad Situation, Aeli backed up down the hall and managed to close and spike the door before the creatures were able to yank it open. The party decided to cut their losses and head back to town to regroup and restock - as well as persuade the mage to memorize TWO sleep spells (which I've not decided if I'll allow in this campaign.. I kinda like the thought of only one of a spell able to live in your head. Tironell might make a scroll though... )

@theprincesswife had a tough night with the dice not favoring her. She did get her sword back and she's now somewhat annoyed at these rat creatures for blocking her progress. Funny how princess fighters get annoyed at the world... LOL! ;)

Zack over at RPG Blog 2 is running a Friday article about our Significant Others supporting our gaming. I'm a very lucky guy that @theprincesswife enjoys playing our game and is very supportive of my gaming. She puts up with the games out of the house, with me obsessing over miniatures, she does enjoy playing in my game and hearing about my AD&D campaign (although she freely admits she would have a hard time playing with others... )

I'm a very grateful and lucky guy to have a wonderful woman like this.

She is, however, still insistent that someday there will be a Carebare-LittlePoniesw/Lasers-Tinkerbell-CutePuppies D&D game. I may not survive that one.

---

DM Note #1 - The cube is slower than Aeli, but she was trying to lure it away. In my head, movement is not simultaneous, giving the winner of initiative some advantage. So it caught up to her and next round, when she tried to run away, it won initiative again, so was able to get a free attack on her in her running away.

Now that's an interesting point and one that could go either way. In a way, that's why I like Philotomy's more complex rules that break down movement to "half" steps - it breaks up the movement to give running away a bit of a chance. Since she was probably moving slower to lure the thing, it was easier to rule that it caught up - had she been running full tilt in retreat, it wouldn't have had a chance. Still, this was made even more sticky when she was knocked out! At that point, @theprincesswife was pretty sure she was dead. Fortunately, it takes a few minutes to actually kill someone in a cube, so the hirelings quick blades were timely.

DM Note #2 - This is one of those times where I have to balance the NPCs going "What, are you nuts!?! Don't just yank open doors!" and allowing @theprincesswife to learn (relearn) some of the cautious lessons. It had been a couple of months and she's still new... so I ruled that although there was no surprise, the ratlings weren't in a killing position yet as she had basically marched straight down the corridor and opened the door. No time for anyone to prepare. If they had been prepared, there would have been a hail of arrows shooting at the players. Yea. 20 arrow shots in a round? People would have died.

Miniature-less abstract combat in AD&D/OD&D

Sometimes I come up with weird ideas. Sometimes those ideas happen when I'm on the second throne, sometimes they happen when I'm reading totally non-related things.

r_b_bergstrom of the blog Transitive Property of Gaming wrote about WFRP 3e today and I was wandering through that post, having made a side trip to Delta's blog to print out the Target 20 system because I love it and must have it and have been using it already in my head...

... so r_b writes: "So I was pleasantly surprised that the game uses very abstract positioning rules, with the assumption that a melee is "like a rugby scrum" with everyone in constant movement. If you're part of the melee, you're engaged with everyone. If you _need_ to get somewhere, you just do, but it costs you a few fatigue points. This is a completely different paradigm, and it feels fresh and innovative."

Now a few months back, I played 3:16, a player narrative type of game that had 3 rangers. Close, Near and Far. It was easy to tell who the D&D'ers were because they wanted to operate on the range based on a number that gives a discrete amount. Once they/we wrapped our heads around what the various ranges really meant in terms of narration vs. actual mechanics, things worked better.

One of the games I'm running is an online Wave game in my Dark Ages world. In that setting, ranges can get fiddly as we're not dealing with minis or such. It occurs to me that the abstract 3:16 type of range could be laid on top of simple combat systems, such as OD&D/AD&D.

If you're at Close range, you're in melee. Mechanics such as flanking, back-stabs, rear attacks, 2nd row spears don't matter in terms of range, but in terms of spending time/abilities to do so[1]. Close could be 10' or a circle of 30' or whatever - it's more about going face to face with your enemy.

If you're at Near or Far, you're limited to missile fire. Near weapons are hurled or smaller missile weapons. If you're at Far, you're doing missile fire with Far weapons (long bows, firearms, crossbows) or adding +2 to Near range missile weapons.

If you're Out of Combat, you've fled the combat zone, whatever that is.

This doesn't take out determining who attacks who, and you can still deal with spell-casters being in melee.

[1] To flank or rear-attack, you would indicate an opponent (or just say you wish to try to do so on someone - if the DM rules that there's the possibility, say in a rough terrain area or the number of participants would mean a type of scrum, then I'd allow it, if it was a narrow dungeon corridor or very military based opponents with lines and shield walls, I'd disallow it - I would rule it would take a round to set up the flank/rear attack, next round's attack gets the bonus. Same with monsters. Back attacks require the thief to hide in shadows or move silently, whichever the DM ruled appropriate... then the next round, they get the back-attack.

I don't really use inches, grids or the like in my combats, and indicating abstract ranges can remove the argument of who is in the range of something exploding - if you're at Close and a spell is flung into the melee, say a Fireball, everyone at Close gets nailed. DMs can still rule on effects (I'll aim the sleep spell so that it affects the monsters only - DM makes a gut check if that sounds plausible... if the players have been describing a general scrum... PCs might be zzz'ing.)

I wonder if I'll lose my OSR card for this. It's an interesting thought exercise, nonetheless.

DM Failure (long, freakin' long post)

I've been writing and rewriting this post for about two weeks now, and I'm hoping that I can still say what I'm thinking and it doesn't come out as tripe and trash.

Anyway... back on the 16th, my players encountered quite a bit of difficulty in their game. First, one of my players decided to try to confront the troll mage that has caused the party a few problems in the past. This was a complete surprise as this player's character had become one of those PCs that you "count on" to help grease the game to be good. You know what I mean... there are just some PCs that really keep things moving. Well, this PC was one of them and he waved a bag of candy in front of the Troll Mage. Well, one charm person spell later and the PC was now a slave to the troll. The rest of the party did a "Oh crap, sucks to be you... let's move on..." -- so now the player took over a hireling for the evening.

They hit a Wizard's Tower that appears to have quite a few wards & guards in it, from webbed staircases to gusts of wind, to random confusion to doors that have to be nearly battered down. After figuring out a way to struggle past these wards, they encountered a room where a Magic Mouth boomed "Be sure to read the words in the correct order!" After dealing with a Damned, the party found a mirror that may have entrapped the wizard (according to a sarcastic imp perched outside on the balcony) and a door with writing in common on it. A player read the inscription and the Explosive Runes blew. Scratch one player, another player's spellbook and some clothing.

Faces grew grim around the table, but the party pressed on. They found a ladder that seemed to have strange properties and the thief made it to the bottom, only to find a very strange dungeon underneath. Facing the timelimit of our session, the players were forced to retreat back to town, along the way encountering a mounted guard of orcs that they hid from.

After the game, I thought everyone was OK with what had happened, despite it being a rough game, but the private and public emails that I got over the next few days proved otherwise. One player who I thought I was more "in tune" with, meaning that I thought he grokked my game pretty well hit me with some good criticism, but it hit me in a sore spot. Another player (not the mage) groused at how I had not tracked the individual flamelets to ascertain the precise location of where the mage's spell book should have been so it would not be burned. The player who had the charmed PC was OK with what happened, but he was eager to know where things were going. The player of the mage who lost the book was "WTH do I do now?" and I received some other criticisms from other corners.

I snapped. One player kept emailing about the upcoming game on Sunday. My head was not in the right place and I decided that I needed a bit of time to process everything. I wrote on the group's email list that the Sunday game was cancelled. This same player immediately wrote back "OK, so let's start putting together the roster and schedule for the next Tuesday game." At that, I snapped even further and sent a terse "All future games are canceled."

Yea, snap big time. I spent a good chunk of the day in a "fuck 'em all" mood. I felt like nobody trusted me as a DM, everyone wanted a smooth flowing game, but heaven forbid that I actually destroy something, because now it was "game over" and yadda yadda... I was righteously pissed, hurt, and just down in the dumps. I was probably about >< this close to taking down the wiki, the blog, the whole nine yards.

(I should also mention all the pressure and financial stress and worry over my wife's illness and other life stuff... but although it contributed to my state of mind, it's not germane to this...)

But I didn't. My DM mentor told me to "take a chill week" and I wrote a terse email to that effect, apologizing for my snap but letting them know that I needed some time to think.

Think I did. What exactly was my problem? I was hurt... hurt that after a year of playing together, after a tough game my players would think I would permanently fuck someone over with a no-win scenario. I was mad, mad at my players for wanting to not have any risk. I was also down on myself, I apparently had made the Worst Campaign Ever that everyone *should* hate.

But after a few days of thinking, and painting minis, and just backing off, I rethought everything and came to some equilibrium. The majority of complaints were probably the initial "Oh shit" reactions. It was a tough game. There was no payoff because the players had either missed a HUGE hint and they hadn't gotten far enough. Death is never fun, but it is a reality in my campaign and one that I've grown somewhat impassive about. Not a dick, but more of "man, that sucks... but it happens..."

I'm still struggling with one of my players. Nice person, but I think a little much, even for me, but I'm trying to struggle as to "why" I'm having struggles with this person. The player is obviously excited and enjoying my game, but I think I got used to the types of players that I already have, so this new player is a bit different. I'll adjust but it still is something that I chew on.

Last week, I wrote a pretty big missive to my players, each one, a personal note. I then wrote an email to the group and reopened the doors. Some things I heard loud and clear from the feedback, some things I tossed back to players and gave them advice on how to work in my world. I may lose players and I accept that. A game has to work and mesh for everyone and even after awhile, you may discover that things are not going to work out like you hoped.

Some things that are on me to help with:
1. Make some defined missions available. Not everyone wants to go out and explore and just figure out the world on their own. The thing about my sandbox is that while I made this wide open dynamic world that keeps moving on, the players don't feel connected. So I will give them direct opportunities to get connected.
2. Provide opportunities for smaller missions. I had an adventure earlier that was a quickie. It was the knife adventure, where the players cleared the place out, but the payoff at the end was borked by an out of game disagreement. Some players liked that, so I'll make them available.
3. Keep tweaking the rewards. The nature of West Marches means you either lock onto a mission and keep hitting it, or you spread yourself out. The majority of play has been spread out, a little here, a little there. I've got big payoffs, but they do require some getting to. So, I need to make that a little more spread out - smaller, more frequent rewards. OK, I get that. That makes sense for the type of game I'm running.

Things that I laid back on the players:
1. Yea, you're right, don't assume. You were just in a wizard's tower, where everything was decaying. Except this one room with completely bare tables. Nobody looked on the tabletops. A thief said "I'm looking under the table." I asked specifically how they were doing that. They didn't touch the top, so the illusion didn't break and the many magical workshop items weren't revealed. Now they're gone - since I had to explain how things can work in my game, they're not there anymore.. but yes, I don't assume what a player does, especially when it pertains to something that can be chance, or can reward careful, thoughtful behavior.

2. Trust me. If I burn up your spellbook, I'm not going to rape you by making you be a forever mage with only one spell left (Joel Rosenberg already explored that in his Guardians of the Flame series. Exec summary? It fucking sucks.) But... you're in a WIZARD'S TOWER! Spellbooks are probably going to be there. Don't tell me I'm being a dick DM.

3. If you want a fast flowing game, I'm going to abstract some things. Rather than.roll.every.goddamn.item.saving.throw, I simply said, let's roll for most vulnerable things - paper, clothes, glass. That doesn't mean your backpack, having not had a saving throw, is somehow invulnerable. It means I don't want to freakin' deal with it and I'm trying to give you the effect of having read an exploding rune and make it important to avoid traps. I tried to make the puzzle as flowing as possible, but there was some rolling for it. That's an aspect of my game that may be there... you can use brute force (rolls) or you can somehow figure it out.

4. The game is up to you. Yes, the world moves on, and yes, you'll see it happen, but if you want to get involved in the Goblyn/Ko-bald war, you have to go out there and get involved. If you want to clear out a dungeon, you have to stick to it and schedule games and make it to games so that you can get it done. Going two sessions at the monastery, then changing your mind and heading to the mines, then changing your mind and heading to the abandoned inn... that's going to result in visiting a lot of places, but it's also going to mean you're facing a lot of 1HD monsters and low treasure. BUT, if that's what you want to do, I won't force you down railroads. It's your game. Do what you want to do... but understand that you are getting the game you ask for.

So we'll see how things go forward. I'm willing to keep trying and tweak my approach, but up to a certain point.

So did I fail? Probably more in my snap than anything else. Everything else is more of a tweak or just a good honest discussion.

One final thing.. I've had some people indicate they want a party leader. I was at first against it, but now I'm going to leave it up to the players. If you want a party leader, designate one. If not, that's fine too.

I think what may happen is that some people decide they are going to take charge of the roster, of the games and start laying out their own agendas. I think it's time, after a year.