One-Night D&D-The Haunted Castle (and the lessons therefrom)

Hello internet, my irregular publishing of entries marches on . . . irregularly.

On Saturday, I ran a short scenario of my own devising for a "pick up" game of Fifth Edition Dungeons & Dragons.

The game worked out well enough that I likely may run this scenario for other groups as an intro.  I and the group had fun, and I definitely learned some lessons that I could apply to (hopefully) make it run to be even more fun and exciting.

If you don't want spoilers, you should stop reading.

For anyone else, here is an overview of how things went.

The adventure is not in a determined setting.  The main adventure location was inspired by a real world castle, Caerlaverock in Scotland.

The players, who were a group I was able to get together with a few days notice, picked pre-generated characters from a set I had put together.  The characters were all third level, to allow for everyone to have some significantly cool things to do, and to avoid having to write a scenario about giant rats and other lower level threats, when I wanted to put a bit more risk and reward into the scenario.

We ended up with a pretty well balanced party, including two Wood Elves, a Cleric of Light and a Druid (Circle of the Moon) (Val & Telar, played by Tom and Robert), a Rock Gnome Eldritch Knight (Teflanto, played by Dan), a Forest Gnome Arcane Trickster ("Nick" played by Jamie), and a human Berserker (Arek, played by Darrell).  We did a short little Q&A between me and the players to determine how they knew one another, and then we got them on the rails to the adventure.

They received a summons from a Herald of the Duke to come and meet with an official of the Duchy for an opportunity.  Like any group, the characters were suspicious, wondering if this was legit, or a trap of some kind.  The eventually went to the meeting, and the Duke himself met with them, and charged them with a mission.

Role playing the discussion was pretty fun, and people made some social skill rolls, and it all went well enough.

This was the deal.  They needed to go to a remote castle, Kerag Ynys, near the northern border of the Duchy, where a castle had become haunted and disused.  The Duke had not been much concerned with the castle in recent years because the border had been closed, and the function of the castle (as a customs station for trade and garrison for protecting the trade route) had been superfluous.  Further, hostilities on other borders of the Duchy had kept the Duke from sending units to determine what had happened to the Baron of this castle.  However, in the last six months, peace and general amity had been negotiated, and the trade route was opening back up.  Now the Duke needs the castle.

Choosing a Baron is down on his long list of things to do, but in the meantime, he had decided that he can put the player characters to good use, get them out of his back yard, and test their mettle  to see if they are worth further recruitment and investment as agents.  He offers them positions as temporary Wardens of the castle if they will retake it from whatever monsters inhabit it, and if they will agree to help secure the Barony and assist a ducal steward to run the castle and return the village to habitation.

The characters reluctantly agree, especially after he explains that the typical adventuring group in his duchy, once they have achieved the kind of fame and notoriety that they have, either end up as his "friends" and in his service, or end up with their heads on spikes on his gate.

Further, the Duke had a story for them, accompanied by two clues.  His patrols had recently captured a bandit who had first hand knowledge of the castle in question.  He and companions had observed the castle and saw that its drawbridge came down each night, only to be closed up during the day.  They decided to try to take the castle as their base of operation and entered.  After beginning their search of the castle and finding some trinkets and remains from the former inhabitants they were attacked by "dead men."  Only the one bandit escaped with his life, and part of his reason.  He also had on him a fragment of a letter from the former steward of the castle to the last Baron (Marketh) of Kerag Ynys.  The steward urged his lord to return a "mask" to a place called Tor Mortas, warning it would bring great evil.  An annotation on the letter seemed to be from Baron Marketh, recording that he would never give up this treasure from Tor Mortas.

The Duke gave them the letter fragment, and also provided them with the possible location of a mechanism to open a postern gate and a passage across the moat of Kerag Ynys, so they would not have to enter across the drawbridge at night.

The adventurers journeyed to the north for days, until they reached the outskirts of the area containing the keep.  Since they knew that something was definitely active at night in the keep, they decided to time their arrival to the morning to give them all day to work on entering and dealing with whatever might be in the keep.

After thoroughly scouting the area, they were able to locate the mechanism to trip the Dwarven made device that raised stepping stones across the back of the moat to the postern door.  They made their way into the keep by this hidden path.

Once inside, they began to investigate.  They found the keep largely in tact, though seemingly deserted.  However, in the barn area, they found a pile of dead bodies, in various degrees of decay, and some seemed to have been "gnawed."  They we close to several ladders which could lead them to upper level on the wall, and particularly to the hoardings atop the walls.

Hoardings

Model of curtain wall with hoardings

They also inspected the ground level room formed by the base of one of the castle towers, in which they found a small armory, and a trap door that led to something below.

However, before they could explore more, they began to take arrow fire from the top of the gatehouse.  A quartet of skeletons had detected them and had gone to the attack.  The characters scattered.  Most headed up ladders almost immediately, seeking to get cover, higher ground, and eventually reach the skeletons via the hoardings.

The Cleric, Barbarian and Arcane Trickster all headed up.  They were soon surpassed by the Druid, who turned into a panther and made short work of climbing, even having to use a ladder.  This left the Eldritch Knight still in the line of fire, and he caught an arrow, but was able to look for cover.  However, then a swarm of zombies shambled out of a nearby cellar.  Discretion being the better part of valor, the Eldritch Knight retreated up a ladder, and was assisted by the Arcane Trickster in jamming the trap door first on the ladder he came up, and then on another at a ladder around the corner.

Meanwhile, the Cleric, Barbarian and Druid all made it up to the level of the skeletons and charged in.  Once in range, the Cleric raised her holy symbol and invoked the powers of light, forcing one skeleton to cease his attack and flee to the far side of the gatehouse roof.  The other three, however, continued to draw arrow, until brought to close combat by the Barbarian who went into a rage, whereupon they drew their blades.  After trading indeterminate blows, the Druid shaped back into his human form and cast Moonbeam.  He was disappointed that the skeletons largely made their saving throws, but on the subsequent round, they all failed, and he melted them all like candle wax.

The Barbarian then charged back to get into some kind of view of the zombies, and with a furious throw, actually hit a zombie over sixty feet and two stories away with a thrown hand axe, neatly ending it.  The Cleric followed cautiously behind, looking for some way to attack from above.  The zombies were stymied by the ladders and blocked trap doors from making any attacks on the party.  Then the Druid turned his moonbeam upon them, and within two rounds, all but three were puddles on the ground.  The last three, barely holding together, retreated into the cellar.

The party, triumphant in this first battle then carefully searched the keep.  They found the trap door in the small tower armory merely led to a prisoner hole.  However, searcher the living quarters, they found the day books and ledgers of the Baron, and found his notes on how he journeyed to a place called Tor Mortas and retrieved a gold mask, with which he became obsessed.  On the trip there and back, two men at arms died, his personal priest went mad and fled, and he apparently murdered his body servant as too clever.  After he brought the mask to the keep, the town began to be beset by "things" who took the villagers.  Eventually, the remaining peasants fled the town, and the keep became threatened.  The Baron's wife urged him to return the mask, and then she had an "accident."  The information in these entries pointed to the mask being in the family crypt, built, like all the foundations of Kerag Ynys, by a allied clan of Dwarves centuries ago.

The characters found the way down by taking one of the main spiral staircases that served the keep.

They went far down underground, and then came out in a crypt.  It was evident that there was some "thing" in the crypt, but it, and its cohorts (more undead) did not immediately move to attack.  The characters identified the creature that seemed to be in control as a "barrow wight."  They attempted to treat with it, explaining that they sought the mask to return it to its place of origin, Tor Mortas.

They had a hard time of it, but made several speeches, gave oaths, and called it to recognize their honor.  Finally, the wight stepped aside from the door where it stood and told the party to work their "arts" on the door.  If they took the mask with the intent to return it to Tor Mortas, the wight, and its slaves, a ghoul and a specter, could be free.

The Wight

Up stepped the Arcane Trickster.  He handily unlocked the door, but then thought to look for traps.  The door, like all the entrances to the tombs in the crypt, was trapped with a mechanism which would allow the moat to rapidly pour into the crypt, likely crushing and drowning those who would defile the dead's rest.  He then tried to assess how likely it would be to set off the trap by disarming it.  He determined it would be unlikely.  However, that unlikely event occurred [his player having rolled a 1].

Two things happened at once.  The door opened, revealing the entombed bodies of the Baron and Baroness, the golden mask perched atop the sepulcher, and water began to pour in all around the crypt.

The Arcane Trickster, using his Mage Hand, seized the mask, and then cast expeditious retreat and fled the crypt.  The other party members tried to contribute to each other's survival [defined as a skill challenge].  Things did not go well.

The Barbarian sought to block some of the water coming in from the Baron's burial chamber, but instead ripped the door from its hinges [another roll of 1].  Others had some success in helping one another towards the exit stairs, but just as many tripped each other up or impeded one another.  Finally, the Arcane Trickster, as the chamber filled with water, shot an arrow tied to a rope towards his companions, hoping to pull them to safety, but as they grasped the rope, it pulled them down under and each seemingly lost their last breath.

For a moment, Nick, the trickster, thought about just leaving.

However, he managed to get the rope free, and found that, like a reflex, some of his friends had, in losing consciousness, held onto or been entangled in the rope.  He pulled first the Cleric, Val from the water and got a healing potion into her.  Next, they pulled out Teflanto, the Eldritch Knight, and while one revived him, the other pulled out Telar, the Druid.  Finally [after succeeding three death saves in a row], the Barbarian Arek simply refused to die and dragged himself up out of the now receding waters onto the stairs.

After some rest and healing, the party camped within the keep that evening and managed to prepare themselves for the trip to Tor Mortas.  There they found the ancient and primitive mausoleum from which the Baron had taken the mask.

They returned the mask, and it was sucked back down into the earth, presumably back to its owner.

This did not give the adventurers a good feeling, but they did feel lighter as they exited and then set off to claim their reward as the new wardens of Kerag Ynys.

The Standing Stones of Tor Mortas

Now for a bit of self reflection and criticism [and thanks to Matt Colville (Reddit here and YouTube channel here) for modeling this kind of process for me; definitely check out his stuff]:

In retrospect, I think what I did at the start of the adventure was a mistake, and I would do it differently the next time I run this.  What I realized after running the long introduction that included getting the mission from the Duke was that it had not been that important.  The players have to agree to go to the castle or their is no adventure.  As a "one shot" I should have started them just already on their way.  That way, all the time spent with the Herald and the Duke could instead be spent with some role playing between the characters and then giving more time to explore the castle and fight monsters.

Live and learn.

Having eaten up a lot of action time with not very consequential timing, I forced the players to have to resolve the adventure with talking, since we had about 40 minutes to finish up once they got into the crypt, and a combat would take an hour or two.  I did not want to quite railroad so much at the end, but it was a one night one shot, so it had to do two things.  It had to end with some satisfaction, and it had to be fun as a whole.  This also played into how I resolved the long series of bad rolls that could have resulted in all but one of the characters dying.  However, I thought it was more interesting to play through a series of death defying challenges.  The skill challenge ended poorly and the trap took all but one character down.  However, with one surviving character, it allowed for a heroic rescue and a salvaging of the mission.  That just seemed like more fun for my audience.  So, that's what I did.

When I run this again, I think we will start just a short way from the Keep, with the back story already assuming they are on the mission.  That is the scenario after all.  If I were to use this for an ongoing game, that would be different.  I would let the players move at their own pace and decide to take the mission or not.  There would be other things to do if they turned down Kerag Ynys.  But, for one night D&D, the agreement is generally, the DM has a particular thing to do in mind, and the players agree to give it a try.

On the whole, I had a lot of fun.  I was surprised by some of the things the players did (as always) and I was pleased that I was able to share an evening doing one of my favorite things for a goup of folks who (mostly) had not played for many years.

With luck, we will do it again, perhaps more than once.

Overview and Memories of a 1980s Advanced Dungeon and Dragons Campaign

(Author's note: this is a post based on a combination of recollection and discovery of some scattered notes; I may modify it or correct and enlarge it depending on what else comes to me.  Also, this is probably interesting to no more than seven people on the planet, maybe fewer)

A long time ago, back in the 1980’s, I ran Advanced Dungeons & Dragons for my High School friends.  There was a shifting group of us, but as it finally fell out, after some comings and goings and character changes, there was a group of seven of us.  Six player characters and me, the DM.

I started people out with the basic dungeon crawl.  I quite unoriginally started with B-1, In Search of the Unknown, as the first level of my dungeon.  Other levels, carefully hand drawn, with room contents filled out in a key in a spiral notebook followed.  There was not a lot of logic to it all, but that was early AD&D.  The rooms usually seemed to be set pieces, often unconnected from one another, waiting for the entry of the player characters to trigger them.

They also had some adventures in town, some trouble with the thieves’ guild (the Monkey Guild as I recall), faced an initial incursion of mysterious humanoid feline invaders (Larry Niven’s Kzinti from Dragon 50) and some dealings with a powerful mage named Xanthius.

I was using my own “world” sort of.  I was both too cheap to purchase The World of Greyhawk materials and too proud to think that I needed them, but I was using Greyhawk Deities and was heavily influenced by Gary Gygax’s published campaign.  I never had much coherent world building, and we might as well have been in Greyhawk.

The main party consisted of:

Two High Elven Cavaliers (Antani and Lars) (each started after the write up in of the Cavalier Class in Dragon 72, and then formalized by Unearthed Arcana).

Two Half-Elven Ranger/Clerics (Daniel van Rigir and Cheltenham).

One Half-Elven Fighter/Cleric (Degius Le Gudrius).

And one Human Paladin (Caladin, yes, Caladin the Paladin).

One note on the Paladin.  Caladin came into the game because of a rules quirk.  His player had originally been playing Farl the Barbarian (who always wanted to go East).  We developed Farl after the Barbarian class was published in Dragon 63.  It was a class that got tried out a lot after its initial publication.

However, as written, the original barbarian character and the revised final version published in Unearthed Arcana, was a hater of magic.  As you will see below, that became a problem, and rather than house rule away that issue (especially since it had been a role playing point), we had the player swap Farl for Caladin.  Farl went East.

Eventually, we came to the point of needing more of a focus for the game, and thus was born my quest.  The Nine Vessels of Magic were the focus of the quest (thus the need to jettison Farl the Barbarian given the way the class was written then).  The quest was straight forward and unoriginal.  Long ago, a great Elven Wizard had forged the Nine Vessels of Magic, each one embodying one of the archetypical forms of magic, in order to help protect the Elven Realms.  Also long ago, the Vessels had been lost.

Now, a dreadful Lich, Kantorek, had discovered the lore of the Vessels and was seeking for them.  He was already massing forces for a great war of conquest against the realms of the living.  With the Vessels, he would be (wait for it) INVINCIBLE!

The Elven Emperor, impressed by the deeds of the two Elvish Cavaliers and their companions, charged the group with the retrieval of the Nine and frustration of Kantorek’s plans, if not his outright defeat.  I decided, as I was railroading them into this, that they might also need some magical support, so I contrived to place an NPC with them, creating the youthful daughter of the Emperor as a talented magic user and having her become infatuated with one of the party members, Degius.  The princess’ name was Krystella.

I already admitted this was not the world’s most original story.

It was, however, fun.

Along the way, there were a few guest stars.  A Druid who came in and out of the story as my cousin visited, and a thief (another lack in the party), played by a friend of one of the players, but who eventually decided not to come back (or we decided not to invite him back, that is hazy).

As they sought the Vessels, they battled pirates, they fought armies of goblinoids, they played through my modified version of The Hidden Shrine of Tamoachan, and they ended up in a quasi-Spelljammer before there was a Spelljammer setting, as they fought Mutant Orcs on a spaceship (also heavily influenced by Gamma World).  After that ship crashed, they ended up in a quasi-Egyptian setting and gained the help of Isis (I was going through several chapters in Deities & Demigods).

As we wound down the campaign they went through modified versions of the G-Series (Steading of the Hill Giant Chief, Glacial Rift of the Frost Giant Jarl, Hall of the Fire Giant King).

I ended up throwing one character, Antani (one of the High Elven Cavaliers) ahead, into my twisted version of the Arthurian stories.  The character ended up married to my version of Mordred.  As it turned out, there was Mordred and a “Dark Mordred” (ala Dark Phoenix as far as inspiration).

The rest of the party arrived afterward, and, of course the version of the Holy Grail in this reality was one of the Vessels.  There was a Cathedral to the Grail, guarded day and night by Sir Galahad.  However, he then was murdered, shortly after the formal announcement of the marriage of Antani and Mordred.  Mordred and Antani were arrested in their quarters, a bloody dagger in Antani’s hand.  

The party participated in the trial before the King, and at that event, Mordred, seeming extremely evil, revealed the affair between Lancelot and Guinevere, and then as Lancelot sought to flee with the Queen, Mordred used magic to cause Lancelot to kill Sir Gaheris and Sir Gareth.  The extreme chaos essentially cleared the room, the player characters seemingly forgotten. 

Then, in an even bigger reveal, Mordred split, with his evil-self free and the man the player character loved still in chains.  He swore to destroy Camelot and Arthur and laughed at the thought that his good twin was to die for his crimes.  He then disappeared.

The characters managed to talk their way out of Camelot, take the Grail, take the “good” Mordred.  With the help of the spirit of Merlin, they boarded a mystical ship and set sail towards their final confrontation with Kantorek.  

In that crossing, both Krystella and Mordred were lost and taken prisoner by Kantorek when the ship foundered.  The characters each received a boon on the Isle of White Magic from an Angel of Light.  Somewhere along the way too, Antani found that she was in the early stages of pregnancy.  Then they went into the final confrontation with Kantorek.

There were some individual tests, then a big combat.  In the end, Degius was dead, and Antani ended up cleaving Kantorek in twain.  Unfortunately, he was also able to break his Staff of Power which killed Caladin and caused Antani to be cast into the multiverse, lost and sundered from her friends and her true love.  

Caladin was later entombed (prophesized to return some day), Mordred and Lars set off to find Antani, Daniel and Cheltenham got Degius raised from the dead, and Degius and Krystella finally married in our quick end game discussion.  That final game was in 1987. 

In about 1988, I wrote a long epilog, from the perspective of the long lived Krystella, which narrated the end of most of the company.  That is the official and unchanged end to the campaign which became known as the Nine Vessels of Magic.  There was triumph and sadness and some things that just did not get resolved.

I have had regrets about that campaign.  It was basically the thing I had to do to get a lot of mistakes out of my system, be a bad DM to try to learn to be a good DM, and a way to experience and understand a lot of lessons that others had tried to teach me, but you don’t get until you have tried and experimented with stuff.

I also remember it with extreme fondness, for all its flaws, especially for the time I got to spend with my friends.  It inspired character art and a lot of other creativity in my friends, which was both gratifying and a lot of fun.  

After that campaign ended, we all headed out our different ways, and frictions and fractures that had perhaps always been there surfaced more.  We never got back all together to game again.  That stage of our lives was over.

And if that was all, it would still be enough.  But I am thinking of writing another chapter or two. 

And with the wisdom of hindsight, I should think a have a twist here or there to add.

I'll have more to write soon.

A couple more things . . . to listen to.

Hi all.

So, a couple more things that I have encountered that are great fun.

First, following a link posted by @13thAge, I was led to The Adventure Zone, and actual play podcast for D&D 5e with a twist.  The GM and players are all family, three brothers and their dad.  All are broadcast and comedic veterans, and they all plainly get along and really enjoy each other's company.  The D&D world is at its gonzo finest, and any trope or trapping is likely to show up, as long as it is fun, and if it gets a laugh so much the better.  I binge listened to everything that is out so far, and it is terrific.  For those with sensitive ears, the banter gets reasonably profane, but never mean spirited.

Not only is this a fun listen, but there have been a dozen laugh out loud moments, and at least one, in a recent episode, where I laughed so hard it was difficult to breath.

No THAT'S entertainment!

Also, I have mentioned Brave New Dungeon before.  However, Big Al has embarked on a new project which is worth highlighting:Storytime.

Big Al is experimenting with his post production work, adding sound effects, background noise, music, all to make a rich listening experience.  He runs a one shot with a randomly generated dungeon crawl from Donjon and a meetup of new and old acquaintances of his online.  The players are really going for it as far as creating memorable and wacky characters for this one shot, and Big Al's post production work really adds to the enjoyment of the listening.

I have already mentioned how much I admire Al in his ability to sit down with a mixed online "table" of strangers and friends and give them all a great game.  Now he is stretching his creative skills even farther to create an immersive experience for his listeners which really impresses.

So far their are two episodes of Storytime out.  They are really worth a listen!

Game on!

Ideas worth stealing

If you don't know it already, I am a big admirer of Rob Donoghue, a game designer, game master, and person of extraordinaty quality.

He has a blog over at The Walking Mind.  He recently started to write about his new D&D 5e campaign, The Thaw.  If you want to observe a process of capaign creation and blending that with character creation to make some very rich storytelling material, reading Rob's write ups so far are really worth a read.

There has never been a game that Rob would not tinker with, just like every great game master, so he offers some especially interesting twists on D&D 5e character creation which could be easily ported to other games like 13th Age.  He also creates some terrific visual and tactile artifacts for his game to help himself and his players as the story developes.

It is much better to go see for yourself.

I also wanted to shout out to Lex Starwalker, of Starwalker Studios.  I have recently started to listen to his Game Master's Journey podcast, and I find it to be very interesting a thought provoking.

In an ideal world, Lex and Rob should get together and have a conversation, like on a podcast (right?).

In any case, both these gentlemen have lots of information, ideas and advice worth taking or appropriating or stealing for your games.

Check them out!

Better actual play blogs than mine and other inspiration

I labor away here, and I put up records of the 13th Age games we have been playing.  If people enjoy them, that's great, but really they become my notes and records for my campaign.  They are in no way polished.

If I had more time (and perhaps more talent), I would do something sophisticated, because I admire the heck out of people who elevate write-ups through multiple character perspectives, add illustrations, and generally do way better than me.

A couple that I have really enjoyed include:

Brooklyn Encounters: Murder in Baldur's Gate
This blog captures the 13 sessions it took to play through this adventure.  It is beautiful to look at and a pleasure to read.

Eberron: The Winter Coalition
This is the chronicle of an epic ongoing campaign.  I think it has been going about three years.  The write-ups are sometimes from a third person narrator (presumably the Dungeon Master), but most entries are character entries, narrating what happened from a particular character's perspective.  I love reading the write-ups.  I never knew much about Eberron (it came into being during a long interregnum when I was not playing or paying much attention to D&D), but man, I would love to play in Eberron in this campaign.  There are hundreds of ideas to steal from the write-ups, and it is inspiring from a player/character develpment point of view, as well as from a Dungeon Master/campaign creation point of view.  There is quite a back catalogue of entries, but it is well worth reading!



Other Stuff

So, I think I have sung the praises of Hunter Black before as a source of inspiration.  I continue to be a big fan.  If you are not reading this web comic, why not!?  The team that writes, draws and letters the comic is outstanding, and the writer draws from his long experience with Dungeons & Dragons to inform his Fantasy Noir setting and characters (in the best way). 

This too has an extensive back catalogue of panels to read, but every one is worth it.

Finally, yesterday I somehow managed to stumble onto Skullkickers.  I may be the last guy to know about this low fantasy web comic, but it is gorgeous, action packed and funny.  So far (because, again, huge back catalogue) two no-name, amoral mercenaries, a big human with knives and six shooters, and a stocky red-bearded dward with twin hand-axes generally kick butt, take names, and win and lose fortunes as monster killers.  Their (mis)adventures have been very entertaining.  Apparently, later in the series there is a bit more gender balance in the storylines, but I can't eveluate that yet.

What I can say is that Skullkickers is very entertaining, and again full of interesting ideas to plunder.  If I am not the last person to hear of this comic, go and do yourself a favor and take a look!

That's all for now.  Go play games and have fun!

13th Age & D&D: Brilliant Podcasts and YouTube Actual Plays

Heyo everyone, just a short post while I am putting together the actual play report from my last 13th Age game.

I don't get to play as much as I would like.  Scheduling as an adult parent of two teenagers when the other players in your game are also adult parents or the actual teenagers, is rough.

So, in the meantime, I like to see what other people and doing and thinking about relavent to 13th Age and other classic tabletop RPGs.

So, first, I want to highlight Whit Mattson of A Game of Whit's.  He has a bunch of videos of his new adventure/sandbox for 13th Age with his play group.  The sandbox is Balan's Gorge.  Just watch the first episode, and if you don't think that the setup for his mining boomtown with a twist is brilliant, there is no talking to you.  See it here.  I love the idea of mixing the classic dungeon crawl environment with the boomtown atmospher of Deadwood.  Just check out the setup Whit does.  I think it is brilliant.

Second, I have to give a big shoutout to J-M, Mark and Nick of the ICONIC Podcast.  Their latest episode is on DRAGONS and it is epic.  Also, they come up with a campaign idea (and offer it to all of us for free) that makes an amazing framework for a challenging 13th Age campaign involving dragons and the struggle between two of the Icons (specifically the Great Gold Wrym and the Diabolist).  As an exercise for your imagination, as well as for some very informative discussion, I highly recommend this episode and everything else they put out.  You may recall from this post I also was fortunate to be picked by those kind gentlmen as the winner of their contest about giving a backstory to the White Dragon for 13th Age.  As a bonus, I recently participated in recording another episode with them.  Hopefully I helped add to the already considerable information and entertainment that they deliver.  In any case, Episode 16 on dragons is really worth your time and an introduction to the very best that ICONIC turns out!

Finally, last year another  tabletop RPG had a bit of a release, my old love Dungeons & Dragons.  I have to say, I am falling in love all over again.  I still will be running 13th Age, but I am really happy to see 5th Edition D&D do so well and be such a great game.

To keep me in touch with that reality, I have started to listen to bigAl (@bravenewdungeon) with his actual play podcasts and D&D talks here.  Listening to Al manage his actual plays really gives me great respect for all those Dungeon Masters willing not only to virtually DM through the internet, but also to go out and just open a game to a bunch of people (or even just some people) he has never met before, and make it all work.

Brave New Dungeon has been a lot of fun to listen to, and there is a huge back catalogue of Big Al's main campaing, The Pearl, which I have yet to tackle.

In any case, he definitely deserves a wide audience, so check it out!

Until later, keep playing games and having fun!