[Well - good intentions or not, I have fallen behind - but not fatally! Let's get back at it, shall we?]
Bayport: let's pickup more or less where we left last time. This time, a quick (I hope) tour of Bayport's neighborhoods.
Imagine ourselves coming in from the west, into harbor. What do you see? in the distance,north and south, you see hills, but between, you see mostly flatland, with the city itself in the middle. The city as such is bounded on the north and south by canals and fortresses, but these run through fairly low land - maybe artificial hills for the forts. On the north side, however, there is a hill rising fairly sharply a couple hundred yards from the northern canal and a few hundred yards inland. The hill is fairly high in itself, but stands out prominently in the surrounding flat. It runs a good mile or so north-south - about half the total width of the city. The rest of the city is mostly built on lowlands, a lot of it reclaimed from the sea. (And surrounded by dikes and canals, to protect it from the sea and rivers.) All of it - the hill and lowlands - is covered with houses,most fairly old, ut a lot of newer, usually shabbier houses, especially in the south. Right now, let's take a quick tour of the major areas of the town.
1. The Old Waterfront:
The area by the sea, in the north, is the old Waterfront This is the first area to be reclaimed from the sea, a couple hundred years ago. It's bordered by the Magnus Canal in the north and east (where it breaks the waterfront from the higher ground beyond) and the Grand Canal in the south. This is the old port, and still a thriving seaport. The edge of the land is what you would expect - docks, warehouses, boathouses, workshops. Around it are the places catering to the sea trade - more warehouses and workshops and storage, plus inns and taverns and bars and restaurants, some shabby, but some quite posh - and much more besides. It is a mixed bag: large guild houses, ship owners’ houses, trade houses, commodity exchanges, banks, expensive hotels; innumerable dives, bars and flophouses, houses of ill repute, gambling joints, packed tenements. Ship owners mix with laborers and beggars, thieves and merchants. It has always been like this - in these boom times, it is three times as full. The neighborhood is built around one or two broad streets, designed for transportation - Water Street especially, running north-south, and Main and Pine streets, running east-west. These are wide enough for wagons and traffic - they are connected by a warren of alleys and side streets. The large houses are usually on the large streets - the back streets and alleys are slums indeed. Most of the buildings are a mix of stone, brick, mud bases and timber tops - all materials are easily obtained in this area. Buildings are crammed in tights, tops over-leaning the streets, and in recent years many new structures have been erected on top of the old, a kind of vertical shanty town. It is, of course, a fire trap, but there is a lot of water close at hand - and windmills and other pumping devices scattered around that can save the city from the worst dangers of fire. (And of flood, which is equally terrifying here.) This land is all reclaimed, some of it landfill - it is shielded from the sea by dikes, which are very effective - but nothing is perfect. Heavy seas can top the dikes and put it all under water. There are underground structures here - tunnels, cellars - usually framed and bricked in, lined with stone - but all susceptible to flooding. There are many dangers here. That obviously includes the people - there is a lot of money in the waterfront district but it is cheek by jowl next to the thieves and beggars and clip joints, and the old, big money is sometimes as dishonest and ruthless as any pickpocket. This is the most dangerous part of town, the closest thing it has to a traditional thieves quarter - even if a lot of the thieves are in the employ of "honest" trading firms.
2. The Old Downtown:
This is is on the east side of Magnus Canal, along the base of the hill. This the oldest part of town, where the early villages were built (they were waterfront before the canals were built and land drained), and where the first pieces of a town were built. This is a typical medieval town - narrow streets, houses built close to one another, stone and brick below, wood tops, jettied floors and so on. This is all above sea level, and is quite stable, physically. It is dominated by three main north-west streets: Canal street runs at the edge of the canal, a wide street, built for traffic, with room for wagons, and lined with warehouses and shops, more like the waterfront than the rest of the downtown area. East of this, the hill rises steeply, 20-30 feet, some of it quite sheer (though there are houses clinging to the edge). Broad street runs along the top of this ledge - this is the business center fo the hwole town, lined with shops and good hotels and banks and large trading houses and so on. The hill continues beyond Broad street, through an area that holds many of the towns large institutions - cathedrals, the university, and so on. Center street, near the top of the hill, is the demarcation for the downtown - it is more residential than the places lower down, but still features many inns and taverns, shops and stores and so on. This neighborhood generally is more prosperous and respectable than the waterfront, but it is, still a commercial district, and Bayport is a seaport - and a boom town - so it shares much of the atmosphere of the waterfront, albeit more respectably,and with better guards. It is easy for almost anyone to move through this part of town - thieves, adventurers and the like - there is ample employment for such characters here, there are many sketchy forces in the area - the thieves' guild is active, and as everywhere, the line between honest and dishonest commerce is blurry and often ignored. Still: this is the center of the city, the respectable center of the city. It is well protected by the town guards, at least well patrolled. There is a lot of pressure to expand the new population into this area - indeed, many of the old houses near the canal (row houses, town houses and the like) have been turned into tenements - but there is also resistance. Above Broad street there are places that have been opened to the newcomers - but also places where the old families have refused - and fight back against anyone who tries to turn an old house into a tenement. This creates a lot of tension. This creates a fair amount of violence at times.
Physically, this district is built on the side of the hill, steep in some places, less so in others. It is,though, an area dominated by large a number of large buildings - guild houses, churches, large private residences, the university, and so on. The regular buildings are also probably larger than in the waterfront - though the same style: stone/brick for a floor, then (usually) wooden upper floors, often jettied over the street. This part of town also features fairly significant few underground structures - a well made sewer and drainage system; tunnels, pipes, cellars and so on, not all of them well documented. There are large crypts under the city; during some of the past wars, refuges were dug under the city, some secretly, some less so - some have been sealed up; some are still connected to th sewers or the known underground. It is complicated.
3. The Old Hills:
This is the area at the top of the ridge, east of Center street. High Street and Ridge street are the main streets up here - High running more or less on the crest, and Ridge running on the edge of the steep drop to the east. This is a very old part of town, the first expansion of the ancient village, originally a place for small farms and estates. It shows its past - larger houses, many of them all stone, separate, sometimes even walled in, with small yards and fields and orchards. These old houses aren't entirely free of the doubling population of the city - many of them have been subdivided into tenements and rooming houses and hotels and taverns - but not as many as below Center street. There are also a number of old estates that are owned by rich merchants or companies, who have turned their outbuildings into factories or shops, or barracks for their workers and soldiers - this cause s a fair amount of distress among the old timers. Still - this is fairly safe, maintains as much of the illusion of the old ways as they can, the idea of a genteel neighborhood outside a bustling port city. But this is maintained at great cost, and not very well - and often by having private mercenaries patrolling the place, harassing anyone who doesn’t seem to belong. There is also the simple fact that even the rich people living on this hill owe their wealth to the trade of the city - they are part of the less reputable places, like it or not. Given that the richest people in town these days are not always the most ethical - there can be plenty of excitement up here.
5. The New waterfront:
Now we move south again, south of the Grand Canal, and split in half by the Harbor Canal. The canals and extensive dikes in this area were completed in the early 1500s, and the land south of the canal basically constructed fro scratch. This area is laid out on clean grids and dominated by row houses, some of the stone/wood construction used in the older parts of town, but others made all of wood. Once this was respectable and quiet - but it has filled up since the boom started, and is now a fairly rough part of town. The area is dominated by the port on the west, and by the Marina, in the middle, opening off the north side of the Harbor canal - a large anchorage, generally used for smaller craft, but itself a very busy waterfront. South of the Harbor canal is another large area, a shipyard, where most of the city's ship building occurs. The shipyard, in particular, gives the area around it a more stable, working class atmosphere - it is less transient than the old waterfront, or the new waterfront by the sea. The area between the canals, then, tends to be more dangerous, with plenty of vice to go around.
6. The Outer lowlands:
This refers to the areas south of the Grand Canal, and inland from the Marina, as well as everything inside the Fort Canals that ring the city. This area is very mixed - much of it was just drained marshland before the boom, though these areas have been developed since - though usually small,flimsy wooden structures, built as fast as possible. Indeed, much of this area could be called a slum - at least a shantytown. There are, however, other kinds of structures in this area - before the boom, there were farms and factories out here - obnoxious ones like tanneries and breweries, as well as mills of various sorts. There are large groups of windmills out here - used to pump out the drained land, used to power mills and so on. As people moved into the area,it created tension, competition for the land - a number of windmills have been taken over by people looking for housing, sometimes legally, sometimes squatters. This creates tension - and the city itself is nervous about who is here, as the canals and dikes and windmills are essential tot he survival of the city itself. (Especially these low lying areas.)
There are similar areas north of the hill - though these tend to be built on land that was in fact land before the drainage process started. This is an even more important area for wind mills - many of which line the northwestern highland, where they get the full benefit of the sea breezes. In this part of town, the mills are often connected to the underground - sewers and drainage tunnels - and can be the entry point for dangerous creatures coming into the city. This kind of intrusion is a source of great anxiety, and creates plenty of employment for adventurers willing to track down monsters in the sewers.
We can end there. Coming up - Demographics! some important locations and landmarks! and hopefully, a map!
Monday, February 12, 2018
Sunday, January 28, 2018
Bayport Geography
The city of Bayport is a seaport, located between the mouths of two rivers, the Willow and the Barnet. The Willow flows down from hills in the north, the Barnet from the south - the area between the hills is a large low floodplain. The Willow river drops abruptly from the hills, which are higher and harder in the north. The break with the plains is sharp, marked by cliffs and waterfalls, and the highlands are rough and wild, heavily wooded and dangerous. The southern side of the plain rises more gradually to the hills, which are marked by a line of chalk downs. These too rise steeply, especially where they abut the ocean - straight cliffs rise from much of the southern coast. Inland, they are less dramatic, with the alluvial plains rising to meet the higher land.
The flood plain is just that - low and wet, fertile and green, criss-crossed by many small rivers. This is particularly marked to the south, where the web of waterways converge near the Barnet river. The plains stretch for many miles east of the city (and the bay that gives it its name), slowly rising to the east, though largely a mix of ridges (sometimes rocky), and lowlands,some quite marshy, for a long distance inland. It is good land, though, a mixture of forest and farmland, interspersed with lakes and rivers and streams. 30-40 miles inland, the plains merge into the range of hills north and east of the bay, forming a saddle between higher ground north and south.
People have lived here since time immemorial. There was a ridge near the mouth of the Barnet river, and that is where people settled, on this higher ground, above the river mouth, tide flats,and small anchorages. A handful of other small settlements appeared in the area, mostly further inland where there was some dry ground, but none of them grew beyond small farming hamlets for a very long time. But people did move into this area - migrants from further east, occasional adventurers, looking for land to claim for their own. Slowly the farming villages grew, and as they did, they interacted with one another, and goods began moving up and down the rivers,and that is what made Bayport important. Local trade developed; then trade with towns and settlements on the Bay and Sea - Bayport was at the mouth of the rivers,and Bayport was the best harbor on the open water. Time passed; outside influences formed the area - southern invasions, Viking raids, orc raids from the hills, the development of countries, like Lenay; Bayport became a significant town and seaport.
It led to major changes in the land. The land near Bayport was mostly wetland - but as the town grew, farmers began to drain the wetlands, building dikes and canals, and reclaiming the land for farming. In time, this reached the town, as well. By the end of the 1300s, there were significant drainage systems in the hinterlands; the town began working on similar same projects. They built dikes around the tidal flats and along the edge of the Barnet river, they dredged the anchorages, they started filling in the old flats, to create stable land for building. They built a series of canals to drain and protect the dry land. They dug underground tunnels and canals to drain the higher ground, preventing erosion, and moving both fresh and dirty water in and out of the city. They built windmills to operate pumps to move water in and out of the town. By the time they were done, they had turned the last couple miles of the Barnet river into completely man-made canals, they had created large areas of landfill, mostly in the south, where the town could expand, they built large ports, they built a massive shipyard, and they surrounded the city with canals in the place of walls, for defense. Much of this as built to support the first major international sea-going boom in the late 15th century; it laid the ground work for the explosion of traffic in the early 17th.
By the mid 1500s, the city had taken on its current (1610s) form. To the west is Horseshoe bay - chalk cliffs to the south, granite hills to the north, and beach, marsh and farmland - and the city - between. The city is bounded north and south by large canals and fortresses. Between, the western edge is almost all port - docks and slips for ships on the water; a strong dike protecting the city (which is very low on the waterfront), with warehouses and all the usual waterfront buildings on land. The old part of town rises on a hill, half a mile or so inland, separated from the waterfront district by the Magnus Canal. The ridge rises quickly, a steep bluff a few yards inland from the canal, the hill rising less abruptly beyond that. A series of streets run lengthwise (north/south) on this hill, and others go up the hill east/west - most of these start at the top of the bluff, though; on;y a couple come down to the canal. North of the ridge,the land drops gradually to the northern canals - a lot of this land is open, used for pastures, with lines of windmills built in exposed areas. South of the hill, there is another large canal, the Grand Canal. South of the Grand Canal, almost all the town is built on landfill, with many canals interspersed throughout the city. Finally,south of the city, beyond the southern canal, the land starts to rise - to farmland southeast of the town, and to steep chalk cliffs southwest, along the shore.
The flood plain is just that - low and wet, fertile and green, criss-crossed by many small rivers. This is particularly marked to the south, where the web of waterways converge near the Barnet river. The plains stretch for many miles east of the city (and the bay that gives it its name), slowly rising to the east, though largely a mix of ridges (sometimes rocky), and lowlands,some quite marshy, for a long distance inland. It is good land, though, a mixture of forest and farmland, interspersed with lakes and rivers and streams. 30-40 miles inland, the plains merge into the range of hills north and east of the bay, forming a saddle between higher ground north and south.
People have lived here since time immemorial. There was a ridge near the mouth of the Barnet river, and that is where people settled, on this higher ground, above the river mouth, tide flats,and small anchorages. A handful of other small settlements appeared in the area, mostly further inland where there was some dry ground, but none of them grew beyond small farming hamlets for a very long time. But people did move into this area - migrants from further east, occasional adventurers, looking for land to claim for their own. Slowly the farming villages grew, and as they did, they interacted with one another, and goods began moving up and down the rivers,and that is what made Bayport important. Local trade developed; then trade with towns and settlements on the Bay and Sea - Bayport was at the mouth of the rivers,and Bayport was the best harbor on the open water. Time passed; outside influences formed the area - southern invasions, Viking raids, orc raids from the hills, the development of countries, like Lenay; Bayport became a significant town and seaport.
It led to major changes in the land. The land near Bayport was mostly wetland - but as the town grew, farmers began to drain the wetlands, building dikes and canals, and reclaiming the land for farming. In time, this reached the town, as well. By the end of the 1300s, there were significant drainage systems in the hinterlands; the town began working on similar same projects. They built dikes around the tidal flats and along the edge of the Barnet river, they dredged the anchorages, they started filling in the old flats, to create stable land for building. They built a series of canals to drain and protect the dry land. They dug underground tunnels and canals to drain the higher ground, preventing erosion, and moving both fresh and dirty water in and out of the city. They built windmills to operate pumps to move water in and out of the town. By the time they were done, they had turned the last couple miles of the Barnet river into completely man-made canals, they had created large areas of landfill, mostly in the south, where the town could expand, they built large ports, they built a massive shipyard, and they surrounded the city with canals in the place of walls, for defense. Much of this as built to support the first major international sea-going boom in the late 15th century; it laid the ground work for the explosion of traffic in the early 17th.
By the mid 1500s, the city had taken on its current (1610s) form. To the west is Horseshoe bay - chalk cliffs to the south, granite hills to the north, and beach, marsh and farmland - and the city - between. The city is bounded north and south by large canals and fortresses. Between, the western edge is almost all port - docks and slips for ships on the water; a strong dike protecting the city (which is very low on the waterfront), with warehouses and all the usual waterfront buildings on land. The old part of town rises on a hill, half a mile or so inland, separated from the waterfront district by the Magnus Canal. The ridge rises quickly, a steep bluff a few yards inland from the canal, the hill rising less abruptly beyond that. A series of streets run lengthwise (north/south) on this hill, and others go up the hill east/west - most of these start at the top of the bluff, though; on;y a couple come down to the canal. North of the ridge,the land drops gradually to the northern canals - a lot of this land is open, used for pastures, with lines of windmills built in exposed areas. South of the hill, there is another large canal, the Grand Canal. South of the Grand Canal, almost all the town is built on landfill, with many canals interspersed throughout the city. Finally,south of the city, beyond the southern canal, the land starts to rise - to farmland southeast of the town, and to steep chalk cliffs southwest, along the shore.
Monday, January 15, 2018
Bayport Intro
During the "present" of the campaign (roughly 1610-20, "Common Time" - CT, dated from the creation of the kingdom of Norland - another post is surely called for explaining the kingdom of Norland,and why they got to establish what was common time...), Bayport might be the most important city in the north. This was not always the case - until the 1590s, Bayport was a modest, if prosperous, seaport on Horseshoe Bay at the eastern edge of the Viking Sea. But then, in 1593, George Blighton had Duke Frederick IV of Regelsburg murdered, and claimed the Duchy for himself. This touched off war - war that lasted almost a decade, pitting Regelsburg against everyone - free cities to the north; Kingdom to the south. Regelsburg, however, neatly straddled the Great River, and during the war was able to stop trade fro north to south dead. The cities of the north (Waynesburg and Hillsburg, Dassal, Farmington) scrambled to find new trade routes - and one of these was overland to Bayport (200 odd miles west of Waynesburg), and thence by sea to the wide world. It was a difficult route - overland, and over hills (no rivers connected the areas), through land barely tamed - but the distances proved to be manageable enough to allow the trade to go through. And the rewards for getting goods to Bayport were immense - it connected the north to the rest of the world again.
That made Bayport exceedingly rich. Bayport had been a seaport for as long as ships were sailing the ocean (about 200 years), so they were ready to carry this new trade, and quickly established their dominance. Lenay also benefitted - they were a shipping power as well, and had a navy on hand to protect their ships - but even they had to move goods through Bayport to get to them Waynesburg. For a decade, the river was closed to significant trade - by 1605, it was open again, but by then, the overland routes were very well established, and Bayport was able to hold on to much of the trade it had taken. It's ships sailed everywhere - to the Kingdom, of course, to Vinar, but also past Vinar to the Southern Ocean, where they could trade directly for the tropical goods so much in demand: sugar, coffee, spices, tobacco. And they did not limit themselves to carrying goods back north - Bayport merchants established bases in the southern ocean, where they were able to trade extensively through the region, far to the east, to the great desert cities, all through the south, the Jungle Continent and so on. They traded in commodities not allowed in the north - slaves; drugs. All of this made the trading companies immensely wealthy and very powerful. Some of them, as strong as entire countries by themselves.
All this brought gold pouring into Bayport,and with it, people, to sail and build the ships, and to provide everything the sailors needed, the merchants wanted - there was money and work for everyone, at a time when many other cities were falling apart - and so Bayport grew at a tremendous pace. They crammed into its waterfront districts; some built around the edges of the city; the ones who had the means, moved into the old town, filling all of it up. They came from everywhere - so Bayport became a cosmopolitan city, full of every ethnicity, and every intelligent race that could get along at all. They also brought all the problems that boom towns have: crime, strife - all those people brought their grudges and rivalries and wars with them, lawlessness, license - whole chunks of the city became red light districts, thieves quarters, overnight. It never seemed to blow up - probably because the sea was always there as an outlet: tensions got to high, you committed a crime that made you a target, you could find a berth on a ship bound for Norwich or Vinar or San Marcos or Chult and your troubles were over. The sea drew off political ambitions as well - why make trouble in Bayport when you could steal an island or half a continent somewhere in the south? More than one Bayporter found themselves a count or duke or grand Vizier off in the far corners of the world.
But it created a city that bubbled with opportunities. It started to draw adventurers the way Waynesburg always had - men and women who knew they could find work with their swords and spellbooks in the city - and who knew there were riches to be found in the city itself. Like Waynesburg, it was an exciting, lucrative place in itself, and the portal to even greater adventures. Just as adventurers in Waynesburg could always head into the hills to take out an orc or goblin lair, so could you here - the hills and forests were only 5-10 miles away, almost wilderness. The sea was a frontier, and the road to a frontier - to the untamed parts of Lenay, Wingmar - as well as the whole wide world. Bayport, by the 1610s, had the reputation Waynesburg had had for ages - if you were a young, ambitious fellow, good with a sword or your wits, with no obvious place for your skills at home, go to Bayport, and it would all be up to you.
That made Bayport exceedingly rich. Bayport had been a seaport for as long as ships were sailing the ocean (about 200 years), so they were ready to carry this new trade, and quickly established their dominance. Lenay also benefitted - they were a shipping power as well, and had a navy on hand to protect their ships - but even they had to move goods through Bayport to get to them Waynesburg. For a decade, the river was closed to significant trade - by 1605, it was open again, but by then, the overland routes were very well established, and Bayport was able to hold on to much of the trade it had taken. It's ships sailed everywhere - to the Kingdom, of course, to Vinar, but also past Vinar to the Southern Ocean, where they could trade directly for the tropical goods so much in demand: sugar, coffee, spices, tobacco. And they did not limit themselves to carrying goods back north - Bayport merchants established bases in the southern ocean, where they were able to trade extensively through the region, far to the east, to the great desert cities, all through the south, the Jungle Continent and so on. They traded in commodities not allowed in the north - slaves; drugs. All of this made the trading companies immensely wealthy and very powerful. Some of them, as strong as entire countries by themselves.
All this brought gold pouring into Bayport,and with it, people, to sail and build the ships, and to provide everything the sailors needed, the merchants wanted - there was money and work for everyone, at a time when many other cities were falling apart - and so Bayport grew at a tremendous pace. They crammed into its waterfront districts; some built around the edges of the city; the ones who had the means, moved into the old town, filling all of it up. They came from everywhere - so Bayport became a cosmopolitan city, full of every ethnicity, and every intelligent race that could get along at all. They also brought all the problems that boom towns have: crime, strife - all those people brought their grudges and rivalries and wars with them, lawlessness, license - whole chunks of the city became red light districts, thieves quarters, overnight. It never seemed to blow up - probably because the sea was always there as an outlet: tensions got to high, you committed a crime that made you a target, you could find a berth on a ship bound for Norwich or Vinar or San Marcos or Chult and your troubles were over. The sea drew off political ambitions as well - why make trouble in Bayport when you could steal an island or half a continent somewhere in the south? More than one Bayporter found themselves a count or duke or grand Vizier off in the far corners of the world.
But it created a city that bubbled with opportunities. It started to draw adventurers the way Waynesburg always had - men and women who knew they could find work with their swords and spellbooks in the city - and who knew there were riches to be found in the city itself. Like Waynesburg, it was an exciting, lucrative place in itself, and the portal to even greater adventures. Just as adventurers in Waynesburg could always head into the hills to take out an orc or goblin lair, so could you here - the hills and forests were only 5-10 miles away, almost wilderness. The sea was a frontier, and the road to a frontier - to the untamed parts of Lenay, Wingmar - as well as the whole wide world. Bayport, by the 1610s, had the reputation Waynesburg had had for ages - if you were a young, ambitious fellow, good with a sword or your wits, with no obvious place for your skills at home, go to Bayport, and it would all be up to you.
Monday, January 8, 2018
Waynesburg - Intro and Map
Waynesburg is an adventurer’s paradise. It is the largest city of the north, the center of the northern culture, the great magnet of the region, for everyone. Waynesburg is located where the Great River flows out of Lake Byron - it is a perfect site for a trading town, and has always been settled. There are stories of a major settlement there as far back as the great legendary war between the elves an the drow. (Though if that is true, those wars leveled it completely.) There have been villages and towns there as far back as anyone can know, as far back as the early days of the kingdoms in the south. No one can say how many times it was destroyed and rebuilt in the dark ages, but it was always rebuilt, and finally blossomed into a major, and permanent, town in the days of the wars of Unification in the south.
In those days, streams of refugees from the wars sought refuge in the north, and many of them settled in and around the junction of the Great River, the Northflood, and the lake. By the end of the wars, the village had become a significant town, with a name and the beginning of fortifications. Wayne himself - one of the heroes of the wars, a member of the exiled royal family who eventually returned and unified the Kingdom - built fortifications, built a road around the rapids on the Great River, and gave the place its name. Within a generation, his fortifications had grown into a strong set of walls - from then on the city only grew. The northern lands were settled and civilized, with Waynesburg as their core. As minerals and other resources were discovered in the even wilder country north of the city, it grew even more powerful as an economic center. It became the anchor anchor for the political north against the occasional adventures of the south - when kings and dukes grew violent and ambitious, this is where their enemies fled; when orcs and barbarians threatened, this is where people gathered to defend themselves. It was a violent time - but the town grew nd prospered in spite of all.
In time, it out grew it's place as a frontier town, though it never shed its reputation. Parts of the city were, mostly, pacified, but much of it remained as lawless as ever. A reputation as a frontier can be a self-fulfilling prophecy. A reputation for danger draws men who wish to fight again (or with) that danger - so it remains dangerous. These days, you might say that Waynesburg is a kind of artificial frontier - certain parts of the city remain mostly unpoliced, as if to keep a supply of mercenaries close for the inevitable feuds that arise, and for the periodic troubles on the real frontier. But that won’t get in our way: that is what makes it paradise for those seeking adventure.
In those days, streams of refugees from the wars sought refuge in the north, and many of them settled in and around the junction of the Great River, the Northflood, and the lake. By the end of the wars, the village had become a significant town, with a name and the beginning of fortifications. Wayne himself - one of the heroes of the wars, a member of the exiled royal family who eventually returned and unified the Kingdom - built fortifications, built a road around the rapids on the Great River, and gave the place its name. Within a generation, his fortifications had grown into a strong set of walls - from then on the city only grew. The northern lands were settled and civilized, with Waynesburg as their core. As minerals and other resources were discovered in the even wilder country north of the city, it grew even more powerful as an economic center. It became the anchor anchor for the political north against the occasional adventures of the south - when kings and dukes grew violent and ambitious, this is where their enemies fled; when orcs and barbarians threatened, this is where people gathered to defend themselves. It was a violent time - but the town grew nd prospered in spite of all.
In time, it out grew it's place as a frontier town, though it never shed its reputation. Parts of the city were, mostly, pacified, but much of it remained as lawless as ever. A reputation as a frontier can be a self-fulfilling prophecy. A reputation for danger draws men who wish to fight again (or with) that danger - so it remains dangerous. These days, you might say that Waynesburg is a kind of artificial frontier - certain parts of the city remain mostly unpoliced, as if to keep a supply of mercenaries close for the inevitable feuds that arise, and for the periodic troubles on the real frontier. But that won’t get in our way: that is what makes it paradise for those seeking adventure.
Friday, January 5, 2018
Setting Sail
On a recent journey, several adventurers went ashore to feel the sand under their feet and solid ground. Camped at the base of a small cliff they heard sounds coming from a nearby sea cave that seemed to still have a source of water flowing out of it, even with the outgoing tide. Intrigued by the curious mixture of splashing and dripping within, they decided to investigate. Mostly, they were natural sea cave sounds, but amid them were what sounded almost like fish flopping on the rocks.
Exploring within, they encountered six sahuagin and narrowly escaped with their health intact. They also discovered signs of a greater complex further inside the cave, but escaped to get help before exploring it. On reaching Port Nyanzaru, they reported what they had found, and a party was gathered to return and explore the site, dealing with any hostile sahuagin as necessary to secure the safety of the island as a waystation on the way to Chult.
Monday, January 1, 2018
2018 Gaming Resolutions
Welcome to 2018, New Year's Day. As good a time as any to try to renew my attention to this blog - yep. I did this last year laying out goals - the goals I had for this blog got nowhere, but the rest?
Playing more? I moved, and yes indeed, I play a lot more. We have had some trouble getting a campaign established, but we have managed to play regularly - D&D and other games alike - so I have to take that as a win.
As for D&D - I did manage to run through the fire giant lair I referred to; I have worked up chunks of the jungle/south seas adventure, and played some of it,though it has been a bit hit or miss. That is all. I have not been able to turn any of this into anything tangible- but I created enough material around them, it is not off the table.
As for the background stuff - developing the world: I have continued working on that, as I have for decades. Some of this is quite tangible - lots of maps and such - some of it less so. But all of it is there. The problem with this is that it is all in my head, on my computer, or arranged in piles around the houses - I need to do something else with it. we'll be back tot his point...
As for blogging - no, fraid not. As for audio-visual - no, again. As for writing? yes - I have done a lot of that this year, though somehow managed not to finish a thing.
This is where I hope to change, and this is the whole of this year's resolutions. The general stuff - continues, take most of that stuff as ongoing... Keep playing. I have one campaign in decent shape; I hope to find one or two more that I can run - and hope I can get someone else to run, so I can play too (D&D specifically). Keep writing and all the rest. But specifically:
This year I am going to try to use this blog to start putting the background work - world building, especially, but dungeon building and the rest - into a tangible form. Published here, basically. I will set myself this modest goal: to post one piece every week related to the world building. Maybe sometimes something about other things - D&D theory or reports or observations or whatever - but something. And specifically, at least one post a week about the D&D world. Something - a post about a location; a piece of history; something about monsters or races or classes in this world; maybe something about its culture. One a week - I should be able to do it: I have a ton of material to use.
It's a modest goal, but it's a goal, and if I do it, it would generate 2/3 as many posts as we have managed in 7 years on this blog... It's not been that I don't do the writing - it's that I haven't published it (even in this kind of forum.) Time to start changing that.
Playing more? I moved, and yes indeed, I play a lot more. We have had some trouble getting a campaign established, but we have managed to play regularly - D&D and other games alike - so I have to take that as a win.
As for D&D - I did manage to run through the fire giant lair I referred to; I have worked up chunks of the jungle/south seas adventure, and played some of it,though it has been a bit hit or miss. That is all. I have not been able to turn any of this into anything tangible- but I created enough material around them, it is not off the table.
As for the background stuff - developing the world: I have continued working on that, as I have for decades. Some of this is quite tangible - lots of maps and such - some of it less so. But all of it is there. The problem with this is that it is all in my head, on my computer, or arranged in piles around the houses - I need to do something else with it. we'll be back tot his point...
As for blogging - no, fraid not. As for audio-visual - no, again. As for writing? yes - I have done a lot of that this year, though somehow managed not to finish a thing.
This is where I hope to change, and this is the whole of this year's resolutions. The general stuff - continues, take most of that stuff as ongoing... Keep playing. I have one campaign in decent shape; I hope to find one or two more that I can run - and hope I can get someone else to run, so I can play too (D&D specifically). Keep writing and all the rest. But specifically:
This year I am going to try to use this blog to start putting the background work - world building, especially, but dungeon building and the rest - into a tangible form. Published here, basically. I will set myself this modest goal: to post one piece every week related to the world building. Maybe sometimes something about other things - D&D theory or reports or observations or whatever - but something. And specifically, at least one post a week about the D&D world. Something - a post about a location; a piece of history; something about monsters or races or classes in this world; maybe something about its culture. One a week - I should be able to do it: I have a ton of material to use.
It's a modest goal, but it's a goal, and if I do it, it would generate 2/3 as many posts as we have managed in 7 years on this blog... It's not been that I don't do the writing - it's that I haven't published it (even in this kind of forum.) Time to start changing that.
Tuesday, September 26, 2017
Storm King's Sandbox
What DM David said about Storm King's Thunder:
Here, the sandbox portion of Storm King’s Thunder fell flat. Once the adventure showed the menace of the giants, it left characters with no clear way to meet the threat. Instead, the characters could only run errands until they reached the adventure’s true start. The errands suffered from such weak hooks that DMs either needed to completely rework them or to face players dutifully following a course because the adventure expected it.Sadly, true.
Wednesday, September 13, 2017
Campaign Building
Interesting article on Creating a Player-based Tomb of Annihilation campaign. I thought it was particularly interesting in light of the work we've been doing this summer to accomplish the same end.
They take a more structured approach, but it feels like they had the same idea. It was also interesting (even if it doesn't surprise me totally) that their characters preferred pirates and tomb raiding, or a pulp-driven plot line.
It did raise a few thoughts. With all the work we've done, there is something to say for codifying it into a more useable form. Take the random thoughts and ideas and structure them into something that will have substance in game form.
I feel like we've done a lot of the work they talk about doing, but it is still somewhat shifting and formless. It feels like we would benefit from a similar approach. The advantage we have is that we've been asking the questions and discussing them. We've done the groundwork, but not resolved the details.
Perhaps we should try do that... but what questions would we ask? and what consensus would we find?
They take a more structured approach, but it feels like they had the same idea. It was also interesting (even if it doesn't surprise me totally) that their characters preferred pirates and tomb raiding, or a pulp-driven plot line.
It did raise a few thoughts. With all the work we've done, there is something to say for codifying it into a more useable form. Take the random thoughts and ideas and structure them into something that will have substance in game form.
I feel like we've done a lot of the work they talk about doing, but it is still somewhat shifting and formless. It feels like we would benefit from a similar approach. The advantage we have is that we've been asking the questions and discussing them. We've done the groundwork, but not resolved the details.
Perhaps we should try do that... but what questions would we ask? and what consensus would we find?
Thursday, August 3, 2017
Locations and Overview
The setting for this adventure is the Southern Ocean, specifically the western reaches of this ocean. The Western Ocean [for lack of a better name - hey: it's an accurate description at least!] lies west of the main continent. The mainland ends about 30 North, and directly south of the land (which extends, then, a couple thousand miles to the east) is this Southern Ocean.
The country dividing these two oceans is Vinar. Vinar is a peninsular, south of the inland sea where The Kingdom is (United Kingdom of Norfolk, Wessex and Suffolk, to the lawyers; The Kingdom to everyone else). The Kingdom is north and west of this inland sea - Vinar is to the south. Vinar itself is a mountainous land, with a range of very active volcanos down the far west coast, and a somewhat older range in the east. Between these ranges (that both run roughly north/south) is a high, dry plateau, mostly grasslands, famous for its cattle and horses. North and south of the highlands are fertile seacoasts, lands of hills and vines and olives and so on. Vinar as a whole is a united country in name, with a king - though in practice it is dominated by its great lords, with regional power bases. Culturally [since I am unimaginative and lazy and when in doubt, steal what I can from reality or elsewhere], Vinar is Iberian - mostly Spanish, probably some Portuguese in the south. So names in this area, and in the southern islands, tend to be Spanish in form.
Vinar, I say, is a peninsular, extending into the Western ocean, with the inland sea to the north [another thing I've never come up with a name for], and the Southern Ocean to the south. East of Vinar are a number of other countries, principalities, Duchies, the odd Kingdom - they have names like Ottovilla, Pallas, Olivo, etc. Directly south of the mainland, in this eastern direction, are a group of islands generally called the Shackled Islands - these are various sizes, some quite large, with varying degrees of civilization and political independence. They might be quite interesting, but that is not where this story is laid. South from these islands is the open ocean, for the most part. And east, rather east, is a long desert coast, that itself is interesting, but not part of this story.
Due south of Vinar, and to its west, are the islands we care about. Go far enough south south west, and you hit another continent, known, at least to clueless northerners, as the Jungle Continent. It is vast, mostly unexplored, and the northern parts, lying close to the equator, are very mountainous, volcanic and covered in jungle. It is indirectly relevant to our story, but we can leave it for now. Between this continent and Vinar lie a large number of islands. One is very large - 7-800 miles north to south, a few hundred miles wide, also volcanic and jungle covered - the equivalent, really of Chult in the Forgotten Realms. [Id say this is a strange coincidence that I invented this place and Ed Greenwood invented Chult, but since it is basically the Yucatan with the connections to the rest of north and south America submerged, coincidence might not be the word.] We will get there - though since someone else is doing the work of filling in Chult, I am quite happy to use what's in the book for this game.
The other islands are somewhat more important, at least in terms of defining what this part of the world works like. This entire area - from the Jungle Continent north to Vinar - is right on the edge of a couple plates: it is a ring of fire indeed. The continent, "Chult" and Vinar are all volcanically active - so are many of the islands between. And no surprise, then, that this whole spread of islands are called the Fire Islands. Within the Fire Islands, there are more divisions - people usually refer to four chains making up the Fire Islands:
The Barrier islands are the farthest west and north - they are smaller, scattered, forming a small crescent almost due west of Vinar. They are populated, but not heavily - many islands are either unpopulated, or left entirely to the natives, who have been living there for centuries, or millenia; areas that have been encroached by northerners or easterners are still small settlements, modest plantations, forts towns. Though like almost all of the Fire Islands, they are infested with pirates.
The Pirate Islands are located east of the Barriers and "Chult", directly south of the western part of Vinar. They have earned their name. Someday I will attempt a history of these places - the gist of it is that for the last century or two, these southern islands have been doing booming business in spices, coffee, tea, sugar, tobacco; there are also large gold, silver, diamond mines on "Chult" and the Jungle Continent. All these goods, so valued in the north (and the east, where several large cities and kingdoms thrive as well) need to be transported, and the ships transporting them make fine targets. Pirates have thrived in these islands, and have given them their name. The actual vehemence of the pirate enterprises may wax and wane, along with their level of political organization - but they are a constant presence. They are not the only presence - countries, like Vinar and Pallas and the Kingdom make claims on some of these islands, maintain fleets of official vessels and try to uphold the law - but none of these forces can eradicate the pirates, and most of them have long since stopped trying, completely. Pirates work with "legal" forces in various ways, making deals, striking alliances - it is all gray.
There are three or four islands here that are worth mentioning. First - San Marcos - this is located directly east of "Chult", and it is the closest thing to a complete pirate haven. The city of San Marcos is virtually run by pirates, a pirate council, which maintains peace on this island, and deals, almost like a government, with the outside world. Second, Isadore - this island is directly east of San Marcos, and is the closest thing to a stable law abiding place. It is owned by Vinar, specifically, the Count of Isadore, who in fact appoints a governor to run the place. The current count is named Govina, and stays int he Vinari capital enjoying his wine; the governor is named Falconi, and is a fairly competent and respected man. His power is concentrated in the northwestern part of the island, around the city of Porto Ringo; the larger city of Isadore, in the south east, is mostly run by a council of lords, appointed by the governor, or local merchants, or guilds, or the church. This island is fairly stable, but all this country is wild, and there are plenty of places along its coast for pirates to hide in. Third, is Barracuda Island, south of Isadore - it was once like San Marcos, a pirate city, though for a while it fell under the power of one pirate Madame LeTour - she provoked a war among the pirates and was chased off, leaving the island under the uneasy influence of Isadore and barely hidden pirate captains.
Finally, far south, directly east of the Jungle Continent, are the Forbidden Islands - so called because they have probably the most active volcanos of this very volcanic region. They lie near the equator, are covered in jungle, and have an evil reputation as the center of much of the slave trade, which unfortunately flourishes throughout the Southern Ocean.
And that is that. Here is a map, or the sketch of a map. The colors represent at least rough outlines of terrain and some of the civilization: brown and orange represent mountains and hills. Blues are usually rivers. Pink is for political boundaries. Yellow are trade routes, by land or sea. Red dots are cities and towns (though they are rather imperfectly marked.) All of this is bounded in the south by the equator, more or less; I think the northern edge of the map is around 35 degrees north.
The country dividing these two oceans is Vinar. Vinar is a peninsular, south of the inland sea where The Kingdom is (United Kingdom of Norfolk, Wessex and Suffolk, to the lawyers; The Kingdom to everyone else). The Kingdom is north and west of this inland sea - Vinar is to the south. Vinar itself is a mountainous land, with a range of very active volcanos down the far west coast, and a somewhat older range in the east. Between these ranges (that both run roughly north/south) is a high, dry plateau, mostly grasslands, famous for its cattle and horses. North and south of the highlands are fertile seacoasts, lands of hills and vines and olives and so on. Vinar as a whole is a united country in name, with a king - though in practice it is dominated by its great lords, with regional power bases. Culturally [since I am unimaginative and lazy and when in doubt, steal what I can from reality or elsewhere], Vinar is Iberian - mostly Spanish, probably some Portuguese in the south. So names in this area, and in the southern islands, tend to be Spanish in form.
Vinar, I say, is a peninsular, extending into the Western ocean, with the inland sea to the north [another thing I've never come up with a name for], and the Southern Ocean to the south. East of Vinar are a number of other countries, principalities, Duchies, the odd Kingdom - they have names like Ottovilla, Pallas, Olivo, etc. Directly south of the mainland, in this eastern direction, are a group of islands generally called the Shackled Islands - these are various sizes, some quite large, with varying degrees of civilization and political independence. They might be quite interesting, but that is not where this story is laid. South from these islands is the open ocean, for the most part. And east, rather east, is a long desert coast, that itself is interesting, but not part of this story.
Due south of Vinar, and to its west, are the islands we care about. Go far enough south south west, and you hit another continent, known, at least to clueless northerners, as the Jungle Continent. It is vast, mostly unexplored, and the northern parts, lying close to the equator, are very mountainous, volcanic and covered in jungle. It is indirectly relevant to our story, but we can leave it for now. Between this continent and Vinar lie a large number of islands. One is very large - 7-800 miles north to south, a few hundred miles wide, also volcanic and jungle covered - the equivalent, really of Chult in the Forgotten Realms. [Id say this is a strange coincidence that I invented this place and Ed Greenwood invented Chult, but since it is basically the Yucatan with the connections to the rest of north and south America submerged, coincidence might not be the word.] We will get there - though since someone else is doing the work of filling in Chult, I am quite happy to use what's in the book for this game.
The other islands are somewhat more important, at least in terms of defining what this part of the world works like. This entire area - from the Jungle Continent north to Vinar - is right on the edge of a couple plates: it is a ring of fire indeed. The continent, "Chult" and Vinar are all volcanically active - so are many of the islands between. And no surprise, then, that this whole spread of islands are called the Fire Islands. Within the Fire Islands, there are more divisions - people usually refer to four chains making up the Fire Islands:
The Barrier islands are the farthest west and north - they are smaller, scattered, forming a small crescent almost due west of Vinar. They are populated, but not heavily - many islands are either unpopulated, or left entirely to the natives, who have been living there for centuries, or millenia; areas that have been encroached by northerners or easterners are still small settlements, modest plantations, forts towns. Though like almost all of the Fire Islands, they are infested with pirates.
The Pirate Islands are located east of the Barriers and "Chult", directly south of the western part of Vinar. They have earned their name. Someday I will attempt a history of these places - the gist of it is that for the last century or two, these southern islands have been doing booming business in spices, coffee, tea, sugar, tobacco; there are also large gold, silver, diamond mines on "Chult" and the Jungle Continent. All these goods, so valued in the north (and the east, where several large cities and kingdoms thrive as well) need to be transported, and the ships transporting them make fine targets. Pirates have thrived in these islands, and have given them their name. The actual vehemence of the pirate enterprises may wax and wane, along with their level of political organization - but they are a constant presence. They are not the only presence - countries, like Vinar and Pallas and the Kingdom make claims on some of these islands, maintain fleets of official vessels and try to uphold the law - but none of these forces can eradicate the pirates, and most of them have long since stopped trying, completely. Pirates work with "legal" forces in various ways, making deals, striking alliances - it is all gray.
There are three or four islands here that are worth mentioning. First - San Marcos - this is located directly east of "Chult", and it is the closest thing to a complete pirate haven. The city of San Marcos is virtually run by pirates, a pirate council, which maintains peace on this island, and deals, almost like a government, with the outside world. Second, Isadore - this island is directly east of San Marcos, and is the closest thing to a stable law abiding place. It is owned by Vinar, specifically, the Count of Isadore, who in fact appoints a governor to run the place. The current count is named Govina, and stays int he Vinari capital enjoying his wine; the governor is named Falconi, and is a fairly competent and respected man. His power is concentrated in the northwestern part of the island, around the city of Porto Ringo; the larger city of Isadore, in the south east, is mostly run by a council of lords, appointed by the governor, or local merchants, or guilds, or the church. This island is fairly stable, but all this country is wild, and there are plenty of places along its coast for pirates to hide in. Third, is Barracuda Island, south of Isadore - it was once like San Marcos, a pirate city, though for a while it fell under the power of one pirate Madame LeTour - she provoked a war among the pirates and was chased off, leaving the island under the uneasy influence of Isadore and barely hidden pirate captains.
Finally, far south, directly east of the Jungle Continent, are the Forbidden Islands - so called because they have probably the most active volcanos of this very volcanic region. They lie near the equator, are covered in jungle, and have an evil reputation as the center of much of the slave trade, which unfortunately flourishes throughout the Southern Ocean.
And that is that. Here is a map, or the sketch of a map. The colors represent at least rough outlines of terrain and some of the civilization: brown and orange represent mountains and hills. Blues are usually rivers. Pink is for political boundaries. Yellow are trade routes, by land or sea. Red dots are cities and towns (though they are rather imperfectly marked.) All of this is bounded in the south by the equator, more or less; I think the northern edge of the map is around 35 degrees north.
Tuesday, August 1, 2017
Early Thoughts on New Campaign
I have to start with an apology. I started out the year full of ambition - full of gaming plans, ideas, hopes - both for playing and for writing. Instead? well - tell the truth, I haven't been all that far off in the real world. We have managed to play - not as steadily as we'd like, but close to what we managed at the end of last year. I've run - the fire giant lair, anyway. Ive been plugging away at developing other campaigns, and developing the world. A lot of that can end up in stories, instead of games - but that's fine. So the beginning of the list has gone all right. But the bottom - blogging? audio-visual? no nothing like that; the opposite of it. And that tends to undermine some of the things I have done - it is fine to work on building adventures and writing stories, but if I never get them even finished enough to put on blog, where does that leave me?
So - sorry about all that. And now, let's start trying to fix it. Let's start by thinking about a new campaign.
With Tomb of Annihilation coming in the fall, with its lost world setting - it is tempting to start setting up a new campaign, that can get us there. The book/adventure path is set in Chult, the jungle island south of the Forgotten Realms usual settings - which for once is almost perfectly congruent with our home brewed world. And perfectly congruent with the ideas I have had for adventures. I have been jonesing for pirates for a while - in the past, I tended to set those stories in the north, up with Lenay and Bayport and such. Thats good, but you want buried treasure and shipwrecks and pirate towns and maroons, and that stuff tends to work better when people don't freeze to death after 15 minutes in the water. So tropics, you know. I'd never worked much on the southern parts of my world in the past - the last couple years, I have. Last fall I used the south seas as setting for another stab at Nanowrimo - hitting my marks even! (though not coming close to the end of a story). It's been in my mind for a while, and an official adventurer path is perfect.
So what now? We've started the process, putting together ideas for what to play, for characters - I have been working over the setting, filling it in, trying to make the whole Southern Ocean feel real. So what I am going to try to do here, now, is start putting these things up, where we can use them as resources.
(Though doing so points out the fact that I have never actually put together any kind of document on the rest of the world, that any other person could use. I've been building this world for 35 years - I should share some of it.)
Anyway. Start here - the general idea of the campaign is this: Characters go south, into the islands south of the mainland, west of the southern ocean. These islands are tropical - running roughly 30˚N to 10˚N (there is a vast continent, full of jungles and mountains south of the islands) - most volcanic, some of them still active. In the middle of this - extending north from the southern continent - is a big island that is almost identical to Chult - jungles, volcanos, lost and mysterious interior, etc. The idea is, the Characters come into this area, for whatever their reasons. Whatever their purposes, they are somehow washed up in an archipelago west of this Chult-like island. Maybe they are shipwrecked - maybe they have been shanghaied, who knows - they have to work their way across these islands, then over to "Chult" in time to start the official adventure path.
I'll come back to this. Thoughts on who the characters are, details about the setting, and so on. But I want to get it started and I want to start writing about it as we go.
So - sorry about all that. And now, let's start trying to fix it. Let's start by thinking about a new campaign.
With Tomb of Annihilation coming in the fall, with its lost world setting - it is tempting to start setting up a new campaign, that can get us there. The book/adventure path is set in Chult, the jungle island south of the Forgotten Realms usual settings - which for once is almost perfectly congruent with our home brewed world. And perfectly congruent with the ideas I have had for adventures. I have been jonesing for pirates for a while - in the past, I tended to set those stories in the north, up with Lenay and Bayport and such. Thats good, but you want buried treasure and shipwrecks and pirate towns and maroons, and that stuff tends to work better when people don't freeze to death after 15 minutes in the water. So tropics, you know. I'd never worked much on the southern parts of my world in the past - the last couple years, I have. Last fall I used the south seas as setting for another stab at Nanowrimo - hitting my marks even! (though not coming close to the end of a story). It's been in my mind for a while, and an official adventurer path is perfect.
So what now? We've started the process, putting together ideas for what to play, for characters - I have been working over the setting, filling it in, trying to make the whole Southern Ocean feel real. So what I am going to try to do here, now, is start putting these things up, where we can use them as resources.
(Though doing so points out the fact that I have never actually put together any kind of document on the rest of the world, that any other person could use. I've been building this world for 35 years - I should share some of it.)
Anyway. Start here - the general idea of the campaign is this: Characters go south, into the islands south of the mainland, west of the southern ocean. These islands are tropical - running roughly 30˚N to 10˚N (there is a vast continent, full of jungles and mountains south of the islands) - most volcanic, some of them still active. In the middle of this - extending north from the southern continent - is a big island that is almost identical to Chult - jungles, volcanos, lost and mysterious interior, etc. The idea is, the Characters come into this area, for whatever their reasons. Whatever their purposes, they are somehow washed up in an archipelago west of this Chult-like island. Maybe they are shipwrecked - maybe they have been shanghaied, who knows - they have to work their way across these islands, then over to "Chult" in time to start the official adventure path.
I'll come back to this. Thoughts on who the characters are, details about the setting, and so on. But I want to get it started and I want to start writing about it as we go.
Sunday, February 5, 2017
Classes We Have Used
Came across an interesting thread on EN World: Classes nobody wants to play.
The thread doesn't reveal a lot in general, except that different groups have different preferences and habits - though it's shocking to see multiple people claiming no one wants to play a wizard (or bard or druid.) But it got me thinking. We've had time to play a bunch of characters - 2 groups to 5th level, a couple others to 4th (or 3rd anyway) - even some one off groups to 2nd or 3rd - so we've got a decent sample size. And while we have our own idiosyncrasies in what we play, we've tried a pretty wide variety in 5E - so I thought I might see what I can learn from it.
(There is also this: we did this in ADD - made up tons of characters, played a fair number of them up; 3E we made up plenty of characters but didn't really play them. 4E - we might have made characters, but we ended up playing the same handful all the way through - none of us played more than 3 or 4 characters to any level (except David and Thomas, at the beginning.) Something about 5E - and those earlier editions - seems to make you want to make up characters, and play them...)
Anyway: a very unscientific survey of classes and what we've played.
• Barbarians
Inky
Magyar (goliath I played once...)
(Were there others? Was BPC a Barbarian?)
- I am actually rather surprised how few we've played. Though Inky tends to make a big impression, so it feels like we've done more. They feel very strong, at least at low levels - able to soak up damage like nobody's business. But for some reason, we haven't made a lot of them up. We never did, really - but given how tough they are at low levels, it's a bit surprising.
• Bards
Nancy
Chet
Dallas
Buster
- We have run out some of these. I have, and David. I like bards: I'll come back to them when I talk about other classes, I think - but they are extraordinarily versatile. They can mix it up (Nancy was the brawler in the sneak-into-the-village thing we played); they can cast, and cast either offensively or support; they heal - they boost the party. We haven't always gotten to play the full personality possibilities of them, but there is that as well. They are very good, and I think they make other classes seem redundant.
• Clerics:
Claire
(Misty)
Luth
Opus
Geldon
- This is interesting. we started out with clerics, the way we always do - but lately, we've kind of stopped using them. You have to have someone back there to heal - but having discovered the joys of druids and bards, we've tended to drop clerics for them. Claire and Luth are almost characters we’re stuck with - if I hadn’t been playing and running, I would have made Claire into Nancy, I think - and I noticed the last time David needed a healer he made a bard (Buster). Bards and druids are more fun. On the other hand, there is Geldon - who is a real, memorable character - almost unheard of with clerics. Oliver did it by virtue of always being there - and Eugene did some of it by being evil - and Geldon manages it, entirely by the way Ryan plays him. At this point, I would imagine unless someone had a strong character concept for a cleric, we would almost always go with bards or druids, or even a paladin or ranger, over a cleric...
• Druids:
Boedicca
Dzurkha (played with Wendell and Holmes)
- Playing 2 druids past 3rd level is 2 more druids than we have played, period, in 35 years. Once you saw Boedicca in action, why would you want to play a cleric again? I admit, I don't know how this is likely to work out once they start shape-shifting and all that - because I don't know how that works, yet. But odds are, it just makes them that much more interesting.
• Fighter:
Bono
Angus
Queequeg
Wendell & Holmes (All right - Carvallon and Arness, however they are spelled)
Tuffy
Ildebrun
- We have certainly taken to our fighters. We've played a mob of them. They are the staple, of course - but they are worth it in this version. And though a couple other fighter types have made an impression (Inky and Violet), we haven't done a lot of that - we've defaulted to fighter and not regretted it. Here's the real thing: for one of the default classes - all those fighters we have are as well distinguished from each other as any kind of class has been. Bono is a two handed tactician; Angus is a brute; Quequeg is an eldritch knight; Tuffy's a straightforward two handed champion - almost a 4E dual wielding ranger build; Ildebrun is a straightforward enough brawler, but with interesting racial abilities; and David's eladrin are a two weapon fighter and a two handed fighter. They are all distinct, in their personalities, as far as we've played them - but tactically, as well - which is what fighters do. It's the class that, so far, has produced the widest range of styles and flavors - that's a fascinating development in itself. We didn't do that with fighters in the past - we've always favored rangers and paladins, and let fighters be simple sword and board men - they got something right here.
• Monk:
Ichi
(Someone else might have made one up, though I don’t remember.)
- Another class we never played much in the past. Some experimenting in 5E, not much more. We haven't done much here - might depend a bit on how things start developing, or if someone else tries one too. Ichi is promising (especially when I start getting his kensei powers) - we'll see.
• Paladins:
Atilla (in two versions)
Edge (briefly)
- Another one we haven't done a lot with, though they are fine as a class. Attila got a lot more interesting when I remade him into a goliath - Edge didn't really get time to develop. They are all right, though they don't really feel like paladins until second level.
• Thieves:
Bill
- This is the strangest thing. I might be forgetting someone, but I think Bill is the only thief we have played so far. We leaned on thieves heavily in 4E - Perry was one of the major characters there (the definitive 4, really: Oliver, Hank and Perry, and Theresa - Vjarne, Fighting Eagle, etc., came and went too much to be definitive like that). We loaded up on thieves, especially hybrid thieves - Nancy, Dermind, one or two of Jim’s hybrids, all had some thief in them. But in 5E, we have not used them at all - other than Bill, who is definitely second fiddle to Inky. I don’t know if this is the kind of dungeon we’ve played - as accident of wanting to try out other classes - or something else. But it is notable.
• Rangers:
Violet
(and BPC maybe?)
- Violet is a fine character - 5E version of Theresa, basically, with most of the same virtues. But she's the only one we've played (I think) - odd. We loved rangers in 1E (Geronimo being, you know, The Man, after all) - I loved them in 4E, to distraction. So why aren't we playing them now? I can see some reasons: the big one is that the reason for playing a ranger has been usurped a bit by both fighters and bards. Bards get the finesse fighting and spell casting and do it better than rangers; fighters let you specialize in archery or two handed fighting, and you get all those neat options fighters give you. There’s not a lot of evidence that a ranger would be better than either of those. It's hard to give up the spells of a bard or the options of a fighter to play a ranger.
• Sorcerers:
- I don’t think we have played a single sorcerer yet - not for more than a one off here or there. They may come eventually - they are like they have always been - they should be all right. But so far - again, they are hard to justify against a bard. They get more offense in their spells - but bards cast the same way,they can heal, and they are much better fighters - why not play a bard? Bards have replaced a lot of classes.
• Warlocks:
- Another one we haven't used, or have used very sparingly. (I vaguely remember trying one - maybe...) They seem like a lot of work, and it's hard to justify picking them over the other spell caster options.
• Wizards
Milo
Alexis
Spencer
Fred
- Wizards are very solid in this version. You get all the spells (though you have to make choices - but you can change your choices). They can blast, buff, control - they are good at it. I'm not sure they are all that exciting - at low levels, as usual, they are kind of afterthoughts - but once you get second level spells - and especially third - they start to be indispensable. Less personality maybe than they could have - but they are just way more useful. For what they do, they are still better at it than Bards (which I would not say for any other spell casters except druids.)
So there it is: what we play and what we don't play. We play lots of fighters, in a lot of different styles - we use wizards like we always have - we have used bards regularly - we had clerics, but have shifted toward druids and bards lately - and we've had a handful of memorable rangers, barbarians and so on, but not a lot of those characters. We have avoided sorcerers and warlocks completely - and have almost shockingly not run thieves.
The thread doesn't reveal a lot in general, except that different groups have different preferences and habits - though it's shocking to see multiple people claiming no one wants to play a wizard (or bard or druid.) But it got me thinking. We've had time to play a bunch of characters - 2 groups to 5th level, a couple others to 4th (or 3rd anyway) - even some one off groups to 2nd or 3rd - so we've got a decent sample size. And while we have our own idiosyncrasies in what we play, we've tried a pretty wide variety in 5E - so I thought I might see what I can learn from it.
(There is also this: we did this in ADD - made up tons of characters, played a fair number of them up; 3E we made up plenty of characters but didn't really play them. 4E - we might have made characters, but we ended up playing the same handful all the way through - none of us played more than 3 or 4 characters to any level (except David and Thomas, at the beginning.) Something about 5E - and those earlier editions - seems to make you want to make up characters, and play them...)
Anyway: a very unscientific survey of classes and what we've played.
• Barbarians
Inky
Magyar (goliath I played once...)
(Were there others? Was BPC a Barbarian?)
- I am actually rather surprised how few we've played. Though Inky tends to make a big impression, so it feels like we've done more. They feel very strong, at least at low levels - able to soak up damage like nobody's business. But for some reason, we haven't made a lot of them up. We never did, really - but given how tough they are at low levels, it's a bit surprising.
• Bards
Nancy
Chet
Dallas
Buster
- We have run out some of these. I have, and David. I like bards: I'll come back to them when I talk about other classes, I think - but they are extraordinarily versatile. They can mix it up (Nancy was the brawler in the sneak-into-the-village thing we played); they can cast, and cast either offensively or support; they heal - they boost the party. We haven't always gotten to play the full personality possibilities of them, but there is that as well. They are very good, and I think they make other classes seem redundant.
• Clerics:
Claire
(Misty)
Luth
Opus
Geldon
- This is interesting. we started out with clerics, the way we always do - but lately, we've kind of stopped using them. You have to have someone back there to heal - but having discovered the joys of druids and bards, we've tended to drop clerics for them. Claire and Luth are almost characters we’re stuck with - if I hadn’t been playing and running, I would have made Claire into Nancy, I think - and I noticed the last time David needed a healer he made a bard (Buster). Bards and druids are more fun. On the other hand, there is Geldon - who is a real, memorable character - almost unheard of with clerics. Oliver did it by virtue of always being there - and Eugene did some of it by being evil - and Geldon manages it, entirely by the way Ryan plays him. At this point, I would imagine unless someone had a strong character concept for a cleric, we would almost always go with bards or druids, or even a paladin or ranger, over a cleric...
• Druids:
Boedicca
Dzurkha (played with Wendell and Holmes)
- Playing 2 druids past 3rd level is 2 more druids than we have played, period, in 35 years. Once you saw Boedicca in action, why would you want to play a cleric again? I admit, I don't know how this is likely to work out once they start shape-shifting and all that - because I don't know how that works, yet. But odds are, it just makes them that much more interesting.
• Fighter:
Bono
Angus
Queequeg
Wendell & Holmes (All right - Carvallon and Arness, however they are spelled)
Tuffy
Ildebrun
- We have certainly taken to our fighters. We've played a mob of them. They are the staple, of course - but they are worth it in this version. And though a couple other fighter types have made an impression (Inky and Violet), we haven't done a lot of that - we've defaulted to fighter and not regretted it. Here's the real thing: for one of the default classes - all those fighters we have are as well distinguished from each other as any kind of class has been. Bono is a two handed tactician; Angus is a brute; Quequeg is an eldritch knight; Tuffy's a straightforward two handed champion - almost a 4E dual wielding ranger build; Ildebrun is a straightforward enough brawler, but with interesting racial abilities; and David's eladrin are a two weapon fighter and a two handed fighter. They are all distinct, in their personalities, as far as we've played them - but tactically, as well - which is what fighters do. It's the class that, so far, has produced the widest range of styles and flavors - that's a fascinating development in itself. We didn't do that with fighters in the past - we've always favored rangers and paladins, and let fighters be simple sword and board men - they got something right here.
• Monk:
Ichi
(Someone else might have made one up, though I don’t remember.)
- Another class we never played much in the past. Some experimenting in 5E, not much more. We haven't done much here - might depend a bit on how things start developing, or if someone else tries one too. Ichi is promising (especially when I start getting his kensei powers) - we'll see.
• Paladins:
Atilla (in two versions)
Edge (briefly)
- Another one we haven't done a lot with, though they are fine as a class. Attila got a lot more interesting when I remade him into a goliath - Edge didn't really get time to develop. They are all right, though they don't really feel like paladins until second level.
• Thieves:
Bill
- This is the strangest thing. I might be forgetting someone, but I think Bill is the only thief we have played so far. We leaned on thieves heavily in 4E - Perry was one of the major characters there (the definitive 4, really: Oliver, Hank and Perry, and Theresa - Vjarne, Fighting Eagle, etc., came and went too much to be definitive like that). We loaded up on thieves, especially hybrid thieves - Nancy, Dermind, one or two of Jim’s hybrids, all had some thief in them. But in 5E, we have not used them at all - other than Bill, who is definitely second fiddle to Inky. I don’t know if this is the kind of dungeon we’ve played - as accident of wanting to try out other classes - or something else. But it is notable.
• Rangers:
Violet
(and BPC maybe?)
- Violet is a fine character - 5E version of Theresa, basically, with most of the same virtues. But she's the only one we've played (I think) - odd. We loved rangers in 1E (Geronimo being, you know, The Man, after all) - I loved them in 4E, to distraction. So why aren't we playing them now? I can see some reasons: the big one is that the reason for playing a ranger has been usurped a bit by both fighters and bards. Bards get the finesse fighting and spell casting and do it better than rangers; fighters let you specialize in archery or two handed fighting, and you get all those neat options fighters give you. There’s not a lot of evidence that a ranger would be better than either of those. It's hard to give up the spells of a bard or the options of a fighter to play a ranger.
• Sorcerers:
- I don’t think we have played a single sorcerer yet - not for more than a one off here or there. They may come eventually - they are like they have always been - they should be all right. But so far - again, they are hard to justify against a bard. They get more offense in their spells - but bards cast the same way,they can heal, and they are much better fighters - why not play a bard? Bards have replaced a lot of classes.
• Warlocks:
- Another one we haven't used, or have used very sparingly. (I vaguely remember trying one - maybe...) They seem like a lot of work, and it's hard to justify picking them over the other spell caster options.
• Wizards
Milo
Alexis
Spencer
Fred
- Wizards are very solid in this version. You get all the spells (though you have to make choices - but you can change your choices). They can blast, buff, control - they are good at it. I'm not sure they are all that exciting - at low levels, as usual, they are kind of afterthoughts - but once you get second level spells - and especially third - they start to be indispensable. Less personality maybe than they could have - but they are just way more useful. For what they do, they are still better at it than Bards (which I would not say for any other spell casters except druids.)
So there it is: what we play and what we don't play. We play lots of fighters, in a lot of different styles - we use wizards like we always have - we have used bards regularly - we had clerics, but have shifted toward druids and bards lately - and we've had a handful of memorable rangers, barbarians and so on, but not a lot of those characters. We have avoided sorcerers and warlocks completely - and have almost shockingly not run thieves.
Sunday, January 22, 2017
Gaming Ambitions for 2017
Welcome, 2017. I want to write a bit about things I want to do this year, related to gaming. Always optimistic, but I think circumstances may make more of this possible this year: it is something to aspire to at any rate.
1. The obvious thing is the play. Online, in person, the usual suspects, and if possible, getting involved in other games - anything. This as player, DM, both, either - just being involved in games, more often - as close tsoweekly as possible - is going to make my life a good deal happier.
2. I specifically want to run. I have three adventures pretty well worked out in my head - I have to get them on paper (or the computer) and run them. I've talked about these enough: there's the Fire Giant thing we've been poking at the last couple months, with the Bono/Inky/Milo party... There's a pirate/jungle adventure I have been working on, and have a good deal of material for... and I want to redo the House on the Cliff adventure for 5th edition. Some in person, some online - work out which is convenient, and get on with it.
3. Related to that - I want to develop these adventures, and try to turn them into something concrete. Into artifacts (as they like to say) - to write them up and put them in a tangible form, that can be shared. I would like to get into the habit of doing this - not just with my ideas, but other people's. Work on publishing (however modest an audience we might have for these materials.) The act of creating them is the goal - anything more is gravy.
4. I also want to develop the world of our games. I have been playing for 35 years and almost from the beginning, I started making up a world to ply in. I have a ton of material - maps and stories and history and social and cultural essays and information - that I have never quite managed to get from my head (and my computer and piles of paper) to somewhere other people can use them. (Other than a few posts here.) I want to do this partly just to get it into tangible form, to have done something - but also to make it possible to develop it, as a group. For all the info I have, the world is bigger than my ideas of what is in it - it would work better if we could all work on it together. Whether adding areas to the core - developing areas I have done nothing more than drawn and named - or filling in what's there - the more the merrier, I think.
(I was thinking about this playing Storm King's Thunder: I don't care much about the Forgotten Realms - I mentally translate all those published worlds to my own, fit the towns onto my maps, or - sometimes - just tack their maps onto my maps.) Doing that could help us get this game going - but only if you can build up some kind of world of your own that you have some investment in. I need to get this thing into a form that can, in fact, be worked with...)
5. I definitely need to blog more. I have to get a post in here every month at least - every week if I could... at some point, it might be worth changing this to something more public, too - linking out and interacting with other blogs. Maybe not this one, since this tends to be rather insular, a conversation about how to play, specific to what we are playing - but something like it. But to do that, I think I need to have the material, and keep producing material... We'll see. But I still need to write here more.
6. I would like to try to get some kind of audio-visual thing going. A podcast, a video blog, something - whether conversations about the game, or gamecasts, or something else. This is another thing I don't quite think I'm ready to unleash on the wide world, but I want to start doing something like this. Figure out the logistics, the technology, figure out what you have to do to make these things good - and practice them.
(This is one of the areas where work is not helping: because things like that do come up there - but the material is so mind-numbingly awful, and the kind of hypercriticism that has become the norm is so maddening, doing some kind of presentation at work ends up not teaching you to speak in public, but making the thought of speaking in public horrifying. Every time I do something like that, I think about what I want to be talking about, and it drives me nuts. So I have to find a way to start doing those things on a topic that interests me. Like - D&D!)
7. Finally, I need to write. Obviously, some of this is included in the comments above - I need to write up adventures, write up the world (in a shareable form), write for the blog - but I also have to write fiction. I always have, of course - but I have to do two things I have not done: 1) I have to actually finish something - this would be a miracle... 2) I have to do it more openly. NaNoWriMo did this - talking about my project and others was very satisfying - and very helpful in keeping the story moving forward. I didn't finish it, no surprises there, but I passed 50,000 without rewriting it four times - that's a step in the right direction all my itself. So - in short: I want to work on stories - and talk about them, both the writing process and the actual stories. (This, I should say, also relates the world building, since I am mainly talking about fiction set in this D&D world.)
And that is it - for now anyway. I could be really ambitious, start talking about all the things I want to do: Build Models! Publish! watch more video stuff! get involved in other people's games! - but that might be a bit much. If I can do the 7 things above - not well, or bringing anything to a conclusion, just doing them - that will be an excellent start, something to build on...
1. The obvious thing is the play. Online, in person, the usual suspects, and if possible, getting involved in other games - anything. This as player, DM, both, either - just being involved in games, more often - as close tsoweekly as possible - is going to make my life a good deal happier.
2. I specifically want to run. I have three adventures pretty well worked out in my head - I have to get them on paper (or the computer) and run them. I've talked about these enough: there's the Fire Giant thing we've been poking at the last couple months, with the Bono/Inky/Milo party... There's a pirate/jungle adventure I have been working on, and have a good deal of material for... and I want to redo the House on the Cliff adventure for 5th edition. Some in person, some online - work out which is convenient, and get on with it.
3. Related to that - I want to develop these adventures, and try to turn them into something concrete. Into artifacts (as they like to say) - to write them up and put them in a tangible form, that can be shared. I would like to get into the habit of doing this - not just with my ideas, but other people's. Work on publishing (however modest an audience we might have for these materials.) The act of creating them is the goal - anything more is gravy.
4. I also want to develop the world of our games. I have been playing for 35 years and almost from the beginning, I started making up a world to ply in. I have a ton of material - maps and stories and history and social and cultural essays and information - that I have never quite managed to get from my head (and my computer and piles of paper) to somewhere other people can use them. (Other than a few posts here.) I want to do this partly just to get it into tangible form, to have done something - but also to make it possible to develop it, as a group. For all the info I have, the world is bigger than my ideas of what is in it - it would work better if we could all work on it together. Whether adding areas to the core - developing areas I have done nothing more than drawn and named - or filling in what's there - the more the merrier, I think.
(I was thinking about this playing Storm King's Thunder: I don't care much about the Forgotten Realms - I mentally translate all those published worlds to my own, fit the towns onto my maps, or - sometimes - just tack their maps onto my maps.) Doing that could help us get this game going - but only if you can build up some kind of world of your own that you have some investment in. I need to get this thing into a form that can, in fact, be worked with...)
5. I definitely need to blog more. I have to get a post in here every month at least - every week if I could... at some point, it might be worth changing this to something more public, too - linking out and interacting with other blogs. Maybe not this one, since this tends to be rather insular, a conversation about how to play, specific to what we are playing - but something like it. But to do that, I think I need to have the material, and keep producing material... We'll see. But I still need to write here more.
6. I would like to try to get some kind of audio-visual thing going. A podcast, a video blog, something - whether conversations about the game, or gamecasts, or something else. This is another thing I don't quite think I'm ready to unleash on the wide world, but I want to start doing something like this. Figure out the logistics, the technology, figure out what you have to do to make these things good - and practice them.
(This is one of the areas where work is not helping: because things like that do come up there - but the material is so mind-numbingly awful, and the kind of hypercriticism that has become the norm is so maddening, doing some kind of presentation at work ends up not teaching you to speak in public, but making the thought of speaking in public horrifying. Every time I do something like that, I think about what I want to be talking about, and it drives me nuts. So I have to find a way to start doing those things on a topic that interests me. Like - D&D!)
7. Finally, I need to write. Obviously, some of this is included in the comments above - I need to write up adventures, write up the world (in a shareable form), write for the blog - but I also have to write fiction. I always have, of course - but I have to do two things I have not done: 1) I have to actually finish something - this would be a miracle... 2) I have to do it more openly. NaNoWriMo did this - talking about my project and others was very satisfying - and very helpful in keeping the story moving forward. I didn't finish it, no surprises there, but I passed 50,000 without rewriting it four times - that's a step in the right direction all my itself. So - in short: I want to work on stories - and talk about them, both the writing process and the actual stories. (This, I should say, also relates the world building, since I am mainly talking about fiction set in this D&D world.)
And that is it - for now anyway. I could be really ambitious, start talking about all the things I want to do: Build Models! Publish! watch more video stuff! get involved in other people's games! - but that might be a bit much. If I can do the 7 things above - not well, or bringing anything to a conclusion, just doing them - that will be an excellent start, something to build on...
Tuesday, December 13, 2016
The Unexpected
Running a game is hard. What I'm finding from trying Storm King's Thunder is a new lesson in difficulty!
I love the book. I think it has wonderful options, I'm a sucker for giants, and the scale is as large as the adversaries. Unfortunately, the scale is enormous, and it has a multitude of options... and it leaves the DM and players to choose them. I knew there were three possible giant attacks on towns to choose from for the second chapter, and expected each to explain the lay of the land, then say "this is what happens when the giants attack." I'm finding there's a big difference between "the giants attack" and "this is how to run the encounter when the giants attack." I was expecting the latter, and the gave me the former.
Just to make things more exciting, I thought we'd have a setup encounter or two this week, then face the town attack at the next session... with time to prepare. Our party bypassed the setup encounters with little incident or fanfare, and there we were in town, being awakened by a screaming drunk who'd seen looters.
I thought, "this was always a possibility, I'll just look over the instructions for running the encounter, and figure out a way to make it work as we go." That's when I noticed the instructions were essentially "the giants attack." Now, there was more to it. The giants attack in three locations, treated as separate encounters, and once two of them are thwarted, the third runs. And so on. But let's get real. This battle is set inside a walled settlement with an 8-10 mile radius from the town to the walls. How do you treat for scale? How do you account for town guards and militia? Do the five character have to defeat all 6 giants, 8 bugbears and 60 goblins, or will the guards help somehow?
I pulled it out, and it seemed to go well, but it felt like it could have been more, but I just don't know how. I tried to prepare encounters for the session, and they were avoided. I expected to have directions on running the printed encounter, and there were none.
That's the essence of running a game, though. Anticipating two or three possibilities and preparing for them in as much detail as you can, so all you need to do at the table is make it happen. Then, when everything goes sideways, scramble to pull something together from thin air and expectations.
This adventure is much more open in concept than I thought it would be, so I need to better prepare beforehand in order to be ready to improvise when called on to do so. That is fine, it's just important to know it needs to happen. I wasn't ready for that this week, but next week I will be. It is a fun setting, with tons of options, and it will be fun exploring them, bearing in mind that prepping will be needed.
I love the book. I think it has wonderful options, I'm a sucker for giants, and the scale is as large as the adversaries. Unfortunately, the scale is enormous, and it has a multitude of options... and it leaves the DM and players to choose them. I knew there were three possible giant attacks on towns to choose from for the second chapter, and expected each to explain the lay of the land, then say "this is what happens when the giants attack." I'm finding there's a big difference between "the giants attack" and "this is how to run the encounter when the giants attack." I was expecting the latter, and the gave me the former.
Just to make things more exciting, I thought we'd have a setup encounter or two this week, then face the town attack at the next session... with time to prepare. Our party bypassed the setup encounters with little incident or fanfare, and there we were in town, being awakened by a screaming drunk who'd seen looters.
I thought, "this was always a possibility, I'll just look over the instructions for running the encounter, and figure out a way to make it work as we go." That's when I noticed the instructions were essentially "the giants attack." Now, there was more to it. The giants attack in three locations, treated as separate encounters, and once two of them are thwarted, the third runs. And so on. But let's get real. This battle is set inside a walled settlement with an 8-10 mile radius from the town to the walls. How do you treat for scale? How do you account for town guards and militia? Do the five character have to defeat all 6 giants, 8 bugbears and 60 goblins, or will the guards help somehow?
I pulled it out, and it seemed to go well, but it felt like it could have been more, but I just don't know how. I tried to prepare encounters for the session, and they were avoided. I expected to have directions on running the printed encounter, and there were none.
That's the essence of running a game, though. Anticipating two or three possibilities and preparing for them in as much detail as you can, so all you need to do at the table is make it happen. Then, when everything goes sideways, scramble to pull something together from thin air and expectations.
This adventure is much more open in concept than I thought it would be, so I need to better prepare beforehand in order to be ready to improvise when called on to do so. That is fine, it's just important to know it needs to happen. I wasn't ready for that this week, but next week I will be. It is a fun setting, with tons of options, and it will be fun exploring them, bearing in mind that prepping will be needed.
Sunday, August 21, 2016
Playing Comments
Getting going on Roll 20 is a good idea - this is a chance to start playing regularly. Still seems to take longer than it should - I think a lot of that is just getting used to everything involved. we take a while to get started when we play in person; we're figuring out the logistics of the online site; figuring out the technology, and so on. It should smooth out and speed up with time.
Though even so: it didn't feel as long as it was yesterday. Once we got started, it rolled along pretty nicely. At least, I completely lost track of the time. I was actually surprised when Ryan said we'd been playing for 4 and and half hours - I had to look around, and notice it was getting dark... So we must be doing something right.
I think a big part of it was that main encounter. Probably the reason it took as long as it did, and why I didn't notice the time at all. It did take a long time to play, but for good reasons. We made plans - it didn't seem unusual at the time, but looking back on it, I can't help wonder how long it's been since we made plans before we charged into a fight? I don't know if we ever had the habit, but we've lost it lately. This time, though, we did. Not just plans, but plans aimed at avoiding the usual hack and slash stuff: create a distraction - grab a prisoner... All of which went off, more or less to plan. Not only that, but we used a much deeper pool of abilities than usual - the familiar - the grappling - the distracting spell (instead of the usual attack spells.) Attempts at stealth; critical failures. All very satisfying, especially now that we're done and I can think about it.
Finally - I'm very pleased with my character. I wanted to bring him in here because I want to play a bard, and this party seemed to need one, someone who can cast a little, fight a little, back the others up a little. And I wanted to play Chet Morton, bug gommy farm boy with a sharp tongue and a fondness for pranks.... I took tavern brawler for a feat because I thought it might be funny: Chet tackling people on the battlefield, that kind of thing. But having it, suggested the idea of grabbing an orc - and when we played it: damn - that's a cool ability. Collaring someone and dragging him off across the field? That feat lets you hit (with an improvised weapon or unarmed), then grapple as a bonus. There's no cost to hanging on to someone - so once you have them, you can pummel them, try to push them prone, attack someone else, grapple someone else, cast a spell - it has many applications. It's not a great way to do damage, I suppose - so it might not be so useful for a straight fighter, especially when you are fighting enemies who mean business - but it it a fine way to control the battle field. And the rules are, in fact, pretty straightforward. 5E has been bragging about making those rules usable - they did. And this one - unlike knocking someone prone or disarming them - brings immediate and obvious benefits to you and problems to them. I'm glad I stumbled onto that Tavern Brawler feat...
Though even so: it didn't feel as long as it was yesterday. Once we got started, it rolled along pretty nicely. At least, I completely lost track of the time. I was actually surprised when Ryan said we'd been playing for 4 and and half hours - I had to look around, and notice it was getting dark... So we must be doing something right.
I think a big part of it was that main encounter. Probably the reason it took as long as it did, and why I didn't notice the time at all. It did take a long time to play, but for good reasons. We made plans - it didn't seem unusual at the time, but looking back on it, I can't help wonder how long it's been since we made plans before we charged into a fight? I don't know if we ever had the habit, but we've lost it lately. This time, though, we did. Not just plans, but plans aimed at avoiding the usual hack and slash stuff: create a distraction - grab a prisoner... All of which went off, more or less to plan. Not only that, but we used a much deeper pool of abilities than usual - the familiar - the grappling - the distracting spell (instead of the usual attack spells.) Attempts at stealth; critical failures. All very satisfying, especially now that we're done and I can think about it.
Finally - I'm very pleased with my character. I wanted to bring him in here because I want to play a bard, and this party seemed to need one, someone who can cast a little, fight a little, back the others up a little. And I wanted to play Chet Morton, bug gommy farm boy with a sharp tongue and a fondness for pranks.... I took tavern brawler for a feat because I thought it might be funny: Chet tackling people on the battlefield, that kind of thing. But having it, suggested the idea of grabbing an orc - and when we played it: damn - that's a cool ability. Collaring someone and dragging him off across the field? That feat lets you hit (with an improvised weapon or unarmed), then grapple as a bonus. There's no cost to hanging on to someone - so once you have them, you can pummel them, try to push them prone, attack someone else, grapple someone else, cast a spell - it has many applications. It's not a great way to do damage, I suppose - so it might not be so useful for a straight fighter, especially when you are fighting enemies who mean business - but it it a fine way to control the battle field. And the rules are, in fact, pretty straightforward. 5E has been bragging about making those rules usable - they did. And this one - unlike knocking someone prone or disarming them - brings immediate and obvious benefits to you and problems to them. I'm glad I stumbled onto that Tavern Brawler feat...
Sunday, August 7, 2016
Mike Mearls on the Rules
I will put this up here: link from the Sage Advice tumbler (collecting D&D rules tweets) summarizing something Mearls' talked about at GenCon. Gist of it: that streaming and such have shifted the emphasis on game design from rules, and what people talk about in online discussion boards, to how games are played at a table.
It's intriguing, partly because of how it marks the changes in game design, but also in how it notes the changes in the internet's culture. Bulletin board-like things favor talking about the rules - how to build characters, how to exploit the rules - I can see that, skim through ENWorld - or back on the WOC forums, a place like Stack Exchange, and so on. People there talk about how to build better characters - not how to make a session flow, how to play an encounter and so on. But watching people play teaches you to play a different way (Mearls says) - true enough.
I am not all in on the new ways: I vastly prefer reading to watching, at least as far as people sitting around a table playing D&D goes - and I like the detailing you had back in 3E, to invent and work out characters. Though as Mearls mentions - that was ideal for inventing and detailing characters when you weren't playing. Playing - most of that stuff fades. If you get to playing right, you can do the things you had a skill check for in 3 without a huge amount of difficulty - you have the flexibility.
Anyway - a very nice summary of what they are thinking about with 5e, and the effects of changes in the internet, and the way people share their games online.
It's intriguing, partly because of how it marks the changes in game design, but also in how it notes the changes in the internet's culture. Bulletin board-like things favor talking about the rules - how to build characters, how to exploit the rules - I can see that, skim through ENWorld - or back on the WOC forums, a place like Stack Exchange, and so on. People there talk about how to build better characters - not how to make a session flow, how to play an encounter and so on. But watching people play teaches you to play a different way (Mearls says) - true enough.
I am not all in on the new ways: I vastly prefer reading to watching, at least as far as people sitting around a table playing D&D goes - and I like the detailing you had back in 3E, to invent and work out characters. Though as Mearls mentions - that was ideal for inventing and detailing characters when you weren't playing. Playing - most of that stuff fades. If you get to playing right, you can do the things you had a skill check for in 3 without a huge amount of difficulty - you have the flexibility.
Anyway - a very nice summary of what they are thinking about with 5e, and the effects of changes in the internet, and the way people share their games online.
Friday, July 8, 2016
Adventure Ideas
I have a couple, though they need some work. I have ideas for a dungeon crawl involving giants - well suited for the Bono/Milo/Inky crew, a bunch of bruisers as they are... I have some ideas about setting it up that I have to work on as well. I was thinking you could do a lot of background stuff by making up Information Cards - 3x5 cards with a fact or event or rumor or whatever written on them. You collect a bunch of them, then pass them out, when characters do something - when time passes, or they roll a check, or they look for something or ask a question. I think adventures turn into campaigns, and build character personality and so on by building the world around the adventure - building that stuff out is a way to do it. Though in the end - it's all to get that bunch to go fight giants and monsters and whatnot...
Another idea, that might work nicely on Roll20, would be a maritime adventure where everyone starts with Nothing. Basically the idea is - the PCs are all locked in the hold of a ship. They could get there different ways - maybe they are prisoners; maybe they are stowaways. They could be prisoners of pirates, they could be pirates themselves, they could be passengers on a ship, etc. The idea though would be that the ship they are on is taken by pirates - then caught in a storm, and abandoned by the crew, leaving the PCs trapped in the hold/brig etc. With no gear, no tools of their own, etc. They would have to get out of the hold, deal with whatever is left on the ship, maybe get to shore before it sinks, etc., while collecting the equipment they would need to operate.
That would be the starting point: once underway, it could stretch out into a full maritime themed adventure. Fighting pirates and sea creatures, searching for the people who locked them up maybe, getting involved in whatever intrigues they find. I think it has potential...
Another idea, that might work nicely on Roll20, would be a maritime adventure where everyone starts with Nothing. Basically the idea is - the PCs are all locked in the hold of a ship. They could get there different ways - maybe they are prisoners; maybe they are stowaways. They could be prisoners of pirates, they could be pirates themselves, they could be passengers on a ship, etc. The idea though would be that the ship they are on is taken by pirates - then caught in a storm, and abandoned by the crew, leaving the PCs trapped in the hold/brig etc. With no gear, no tools of their own, etc. They would have to get out of the hold, deal with whatever is left on the ship, maybe get to shore before it sinks, etc., while collecting the equipment they would need to operate.
That would be the starting point: once underway, it could stretch out into a full maritime themed adventure. Fighting pirates and sea creatures, searching for the people who locked them up maybe, getting involved in whatever intrigues they find. I think it has potential...
Sunday, June 26, 2016
New Dropbox files
I finally had a good breakthrough with my Character records for Filemaker, so I uploaded the files to Dropbox.
I figured out how to filter spells by class and level.
I figured out how to filter spells by class and level.
Sunday, June 12, 2016
Upcoming Giant Path
The Rod of Seven Parts. Is this something from the new book, or just something from Acquisitions, Inc.? It sounds like something that would fit with the story as previewed, and certainly would fit with an element I've been working on, so maybe we could use it. It would give us an element to design around in anticipation of the book. It would also give us an item to work into (as separate pieces) each of our adventures. And, a reason to bring the separate groups together down the road.
Saturday, April 9, 2016
Dropbox folder with useful files
I've finished combining spell card decks into one big file. I've put it on Dropbox with other files I've set up: a form-fillable PDF character sheet; the master spellbook; and individual class spell deck files. Anyway, the link is below if anyone is interested. I use documents to go to put the pdfs on my phone. The spellbook file works great there (its better in Adobe Reader, but you can open it in Reader once it is on the phone). I've got bookmarks in it for level and individual spell (alphabetically).
Dropbox folder link
Dropbox folder link
Sunday, March 13, 2016
Map Inventory 2
Not a bad idea: so here goes.
Paizo Flip Maps:
Bigger Tavern (Just broke down and bought this - very neat)
Ancient Dungeon
Thornkeep Set (2 maps: Enigma Vaults/Dark Menagerie & Forgotten Laboratory/Sanctum of a Lost Age)
Bandit Stronghold
Pathfinder Lodge
Town Square
Slum Quarter
Village Square
Red Light District
Seedy Tavern
Warehouse
Watch Station
Thieve's Guild
Monastery
Deep Forest
Pirate Island
Pirate Ship
Mountain Pass
Swamp
D&D Maps:
Shattered Keep set (3 flip maps)
Haunted Temples (3 maps)
Market Square/Griffen's Roost Inn
(Plus a couple of the real old ones, though I don't know where I put them.)
Map Packs - I have a lot of these, but they are all mixed up - not easy to inventory them. I know I have these:
Sea Caves
River System
Lost Island
Ambush Sites
Shops
Boats and Ships
Wizards Tower
Waterfront
(And a couple more I think...)
Other Sets:
Legend of Drizzt tiles
4 of the D&D Dungeon Command board game sets - Sting of Lolth, Heart of Comyr, Blood of Gruumsh & Tyranny of Golbins
2-3 of the tile sets: The city one for sure; probably Shadowghast manor; everything else is too jumbled to know what's there...
Paizo Flip Maps:
Bigger Tavern (Just broke down and bought this - very neat)
Ancient Dungeon
Thornkeep Set (2 maps: Enigma Vaults/Dark Menagerie & Forgotten Laboratory/Sanctum of a Lost Age)
Bandit Stronghold
Pathfinder Lodge
Town Square
Slum Quarter
Village Square
Red Light District
Seedy Tavern
Warehouse
Watch Station
Thieve's Guild
Monastery
Deep Forest
Pirate Island
Pirate Ship
Mountain Pass
Swamp
D&D Maps:
Shattered Keep set (3 flip maps)
Haunted Temples (3 maps)
Market Square/Griffen's Roost Inn
(Plus a couple of the real old ones, though I don't know where I put them.)
Map Packs - I have a lot of these, but they are all mixed up - not easy to inventory them. I know I have these:
Sea Caves
River System
Lost Island
Ambush Sites
Shops
Boats and Ships
Wizards Tower
Waterfront
(And a couple more I think...)
Other Sets:
Legend of Drizzt tiles
4 of the D&D Dungeon Command board game sets - Sting of Lolth, Heart of Comyr, Blood of Gruumsh & Tyranny of Golbins
2-3 of the tile sets: The city one for sure; probably Shadowghast manor; everything else is too jumbled to know what's there...
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