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.

Heroes of the 13th Age: Part 13: Darkness, despair and the light of heaven

On April 12, 2015, we picked up our game in the middle of a giant (pun intended) combat, continuing it from right where we left off last time.

The characters continued to be:

Cerise, the Spirit-Touched Cleric

Zip (as always, the name changes), the Half-Elf Rogue
Froodo, the Halfling Monk
Hey Watchit, the Half-Orc Fighter
Lief, the Human Bard
Delthen Eversoar, the Human Paladin, and

The following characters we present, but their players could not make it, so they played a different role in the session . . .

Indigo the Gnome Cleric
Rolen Stillwind, the Wood Elf Sorcerer

We picked up the game mid-combat, at the start of the fourth round.  Because Indigo and Rolen’s players could not make it, at the start of the round both of them collapsed, overcome by some demonic palsy that left them insensible.

Round 4 Escalation Die 4

The lately banished demonic spirit of Tamaich, the barbarian warlord, left his Vizier, a Despoiler Demon behind.  The Demon took it’s initiative to call upon more of Tamaich’s tomb guardians to join the fight.

Hey Watchit, the Half-Orc fighter launched another attack against the last of the wights, who had once been Tamaich’s wives.  He made a massive hit with his tree and crushed the last one.

Then it was the Giant Zombies’ turn to attack.  The first one went after the mysteriously unconscious form of Rolen the High Elf Sorcerer.  The  giant undead kicked him hard, sending him tumbling across the chamber.

The second Giant Zombie struck at Hey, hitting him for 22 points of damage, which he halved by using his Heavy Warrior skill.

Lief the Bard attacked, but missed.  However, he used a Battle Cry to allow Delthen to charge forward.

Delthen then attacked with his smite, and he issued his Paladin’s Challenge to the second Giant Zombie.

Froodo the Halfling Monk launched his opening attack, but missed.

Zip entered her Shadow Walk.

Cerise launched her Javelin of Faith, but missed.

The party now knew the downside of their last round’s tactic of holding initiative to overwhelm Tamaich, now they were all having to go last in the round, except for Hey.

 R5 E5

Four Earth Elementals from another part of the tomb, summoned by the Vizier, dropped from the ceiling and two moved to attack Cerise.  The elementals were not very successful in their attack and landed only one blow.

The Despoiler Demon Vizier then attacked Delthen, the Paladin Inquisitor of the Crusader, with his abyssal whispers, but failed in the attack.

Hey hit one of the Giant Zombies with his tree, then took a moment to quaff a healing potion [n.b. I think I ran potions incorrectly during the fight, and they got off using them as a quick action, when potion drinking usually takes a full action; well, at least I was consistent . . . ]

The first Giant Zombie rolled a miss on Delthen, but because of a special, it still did a large amount of “miss” damage to the Paladin, and an equal amount to itself as well.

The second Giant Zombie missed Hey.

Froodo, finally hitting his stride, attacked with his flow attack and damaged the first Giant Zombie.

Lief cast Bless on members of the party as a quick action, followed by singing a Soundburst, doing 34 points of damage to both of the Giant Zombies.  This also Dazed the Zombies until the end of his next turn.

Zip flowed out of the shadows to strike at the first Giant Zombie, but missed by 1, and did a small amount of miss damage.

Delthen struck again with his Smite attack, and then drank a healing potion.

Cerise drew her short sword and hit for minor damage on one of the Elementals.

R6 E6

All four attacks from the two Earth Elementals that could get to Cerise as she held the passage missed.

The Despoiler Demon rolled a 20 for his Whispers, doing 30 points of damage to Delthen.  This also caused the Paladin to be Confused.

Hey hit the first Giant Zombie again, and rolled a 1 for one of his damage dice.  He invoked his power to reroll 1s, and rolled another 1.  7 points total to the Zombie, which just seems to be built to absorb massive amounts of damage.

The first Giant Zombie then rolled a 20, critical hit on Delthen for 44 points of damage.  However, because of the synergy between Cerise’s Life Domain and Delthen’s Relentless Plate Armor, he was still up and fighting.

The second Giant Zombie then smashed Froodo, and the hit would have taken the Halfling Monk to -1 hit points.  However, the monster was still Dazed, and that made the hit a miss, and Froodo instead took no damage.  It had just been his life flashing before his eyes prematurely.

Delthen, because of his ability to make saves at the start of his turn, saved and was no longer Confused.  He then drank a healing potion [n.b. maybe the friendly unused Icon rolls were allowing the characters to turn drinking potions into quick actions, yeah, that’s the ticket . . .].  Then he attacked with his magic mace for a respectable 16 points of damage against the seemingly unstoppable Zombie.

Zip makes another attack, once again betrayed by her dice, but saved, because the Escalation die was at 6, and so she still hit.  A reasonable 10 point hit, that the Zombie took and kept on going.

Froodo then just managed to hit using his finishing attack in Mantis style, taking the first Giant Zombie down finally.

Lief began to sing his Song of Spilt Blood, and then wove in his Battle Chant attack, damaging the second Giant Zombie.

Cerise disengaged from the Elementals (one got an opportunity attack, but missed), and she cast her mighty Spirits of the Righteous attack, which sadly missed and did nothing to the second Giant Zombie.

R7 E6

The elementals surged forward into the gap left by Cerise’s retreat, and they struck at Lief.  He was hit twice, but also used his magic hood to cause two of the misses by the elementals to turn to fumbles.  The Elementals struck each other as much as him.  Another Elemental engaged Cerise, striking her.

The Despoiler Demon then exercised its will on Delthen, causing the Paladin to suddenly see Froodo as an enemy.  Froodo tried to avoid the attack and forced Delthen to reroll, but to no avail, and Froodo was hit.  The Despoiler then used its Whispers on Zip, but rolled a 1 and took 15 points of psychic feedback damage and itself became Confused.

Hey once again struck the second Giant Zombie, and the Giant Zombie returned the favor, for 22 points of damage.  Hey drank another healing potion.

Froodo took a moment to drink a healing potion.  He then launched two attacks, hitting with both.

Delthen hit the second Giant Zombie for 22 points.

Zip hit the Giant Zombie as well.

Lief concluded his Song of Spilt Blood and spent a recovery, and then he blasted an elemental with his Battle Chant.

Cerise, once again swinging her short sword, did minimal miss damage.

 

R8 E6

Lief was hit once by an Elemental, and three more attacks against him fumbled.  The Elementals were looking more like Rock’Em Sock’Em Robots.  An Elemental also hit Cerise.

The Confused Despoiler Demon then launched an attack on the last Giant Zombie, destroying it.  The Demon then snapped out of its confusion, but was unable to retreat.

Delthen then rolled a 20, and did 26 damage with his critical hit.

Froodo then jumped forward with a flying kick, and finished off the Demon.

Lief then destroyed one of the Elementals with his Battle Chant.  He also granted a temporary +2 to armor class for Cerise.

Cerise was left with miss damage again on her Elemental.

Zip launched her Flying Blade to hit for some damage.

R9 E6

Lief was hit once by an Earth Elemental, but induced another fumble.

The Earth Elemental attempting to smash Cerise missed due to her temporary higher armor class from Lief’s Battle Cry.  Another elemental managed to land a blow on Froodo.

Hey rolled 20 and critically hit one of the Elementals, destroying it.

Froodo also smashed an Elemental, destroying it.

Zip rolled a 20 for her Flying Blade attack, doing 32 points of damage to an Elemental, killing it.

Cerise stuck an elemental with her Javelin of Faith.

Delthen fired his crossbow, but missed.

R10 E6

One Elemental remained, mindlessly continuing its attack.  It landed two successful strikes on Lief.

Hey took a mighty swing with his tree, but he ended up just barely grazing the Earth Elemental.  It was, however, so damaged that the miss damage alone was enough to take it out.

 

End of Combat

Delthen made sure to take the skull of the Warlord, Tamaich, as a trophy.

They then carefully explored the tomb tunnels, looted and loaded up the treasure from the tomb, but then discovered two very bad things.

First, the way to climb out of this lowest level had been wrecked by the passage of the two Giant Zombies, so getting back up through the hole, high in the ceiling, was going to be difficult.  Of additional concern, looking up through the hole, there was an army of Zombies, all those cursed dead of the Lorai warriors who had been nailed to the ceiling of the upper tomb had been summoned to take vengeance on those who would try to escape the lower levels.

The solution, the group decided, was to empower a ritual to banish the undead.  The cast about for components.

Delthen offered up his trophy, Tamaich’s skull.

Zip found two purple gemstones that had appeared on her necklace (which is her One Unique Thing), and they placed these gems to help focus the ritual in the eye-sockets of the dead Warlord. 

Froodo used his philosophical understanding of Guardians through his practice of the Dutiful Guardian style to find parts of the three guardian Wights and their regalia to add to the ritual.

Lief sang a dirge of the dead, to help quiet the restless spirits.

Hey danced a mighty dance of transformation and freedom.

Cerise took all the elements and bound them together in her magic and the magic of Priestess, powering the spell with her Turn Undead Spell.

She rolled for the rituals success.

20!

BLAM!

A holy beam of light pierced the tomb, not only bathing all the tomb in purifying light, dismissing the spirits and cleansing all, but also a crystal staircase of light formed, allowing the party to ascend, not only out of the lowest level of the tomb, but to walk all the way up and out the top of the mound where the unholy place had been transformed to a place of the blessed.

Once in the open air, Rolen and Indigo revived, and each member of the group felt deeply and positively his and her connections to their Icons, felt restored in body and spirit and felt empowered to go forward to their destiny.

We concluded play to the receding sound of angelic voices pouring forth from the heavens.

Game Masters’ Roundtable of Doom #4 – To be or not to be . . . a Killer GM

Today I am venturing to The Game Masters' Roundtable of Doom.  This is my first foray (though the fourth offering of the Roundtable), so, we shall see how it all goes.  There may be some adjustments made to this post as I get a handle on getting things just right for the Roundtable.

The Game Masters’ Roundtable of Doom is a meeting of the minds of tabletop RPG bloggers and GMs. We endeavor to transcend a particular system or game and discuss topics that are relevant to GMs and players of all roleplaying games.

If you’d like to submit a topic for our future discussions, or if you’re a blogger who’d like to participate in the Game Master’s Roundtable of Doom, send an email to Lex Starwalker at gamemastersjourney@gmail.com.

This month's topic comes to us courtesy of Lex Starwalker.

There is a wide spectrum of lethality in RPGs, and there are GMs who fall on every possible point within it.  These range from GMs who run campaigns where PCs can never die to the other extreme –GMs who delight in killing PCs.  Where do you fall on this spectrum?  How lethal are your games and why?  How do you handle PC death if and when it happens?

This is a great question, and one that I think has an answer that is not just dependent on the Game Master, but also on the players and the game being played.  Know your audience and know your game.  If you run Call of Cthulhu, Dungeons & Dragons, and Star Wars, Edge of the Empire all exactly the “same,” I think you come out with some anomalies.  Of course, if that meets your players expectations, that might be fine.  There is never just one way to be a GM.  I do believe that the rule of fun should prevail.

Here is how I have done things in my present style of being a GM (because, as the poser of this month’s question, Lex Starwalker knows, being a Game Master is a journey of learning and change).  I think the most important thing is to know your players’ expectations (or if you don’t know them, you need to set them).  Fundamentally, I see role playing games as a way to have fun, and as the GM, you are in a leadership role to help create the fun.  If what you do violates the players’ expectations, or you go against the expectations that you set for the players, that conflict is going to reduce the fun. 

Some of the first GM advice I ever got, was from a few pages towards the back of the 1981 game, Stormbringer (from Chaosium).  In the “Hints for the Game Master” section in the first edition of Stormbringer, Ken St. Andre (with Steve Perrin) wrote a subsection entitled “The Deadly Game Master.”

The literary genre of swords & sorcery fiction is a particularly gory branch of heroic fantasy, and that is what this game simulates.  Inevitably, this means that some players are going to get into situations that they can’t get out of, and their characters will have to die.  It is important that they realize this before the game ever starts, and that they know that you bear them no personal animosity.  Then, when the character’s number comes up, kill him without regret.  As a GM it is poor form to become so fond of some character that you let him cheat death when his luck finally runs out.

Today, I agree, up to a point with Ken’s advice.  As you can see, the advice already assumes that you are in a particular genre of game.  It is not general advice for all RPGs, just ones in the “particularly gory branch of heroic fantasy.”  Also, it advises that you at least admonish the table and set expectations.  I think now, the Game Master and the players, at least in any long term game, need to agree on expectations.  Back in the day, I did kill a fair number of Stormbringer characters.  However, even with an agreeable audience and a lethal game, I do today tend to lean towards mercy at a cost, rather than outright kill a character, if that keeps the story and the fun going.

For the way I run things now, I have internalized the lessons of 13^th Age (by Pelgrane Press and Fire Opal Media) and Dungeon World (by Sage Kobold Productions).  In 13^th Age Rob Heinsoo and Jonathan Tweet suggest that player characters should not just die fighting some nameless monster, and instead offer their own (optional) Meaningful Death Rule.  I think I have generally internalized this approach for many games (with some exceptions, see below).  I think the advice in Dungeon World, that you as GM need to be “fan” of the characters is a complementary one this.  As a GM, on the one hand, you have to put up obstacles and provide threats to the safety and wellbeing of the PCs.  On the other hand, you don’t generally want death to be some random occurrence that does nothing to propel your story or motivate the other characters.  If you are a fan of the characters, such random and meaningless events are discouraging.  If a character that you like dies, you want it to be a great and glorious death, within the meaning of the game.

Fundamentally, though, my rule is know your audience, know your game (and be a fan of the characters).

So, if I am running Marvel Heroic Role Playing for a bunch of tweens, their expectation is that there is not going to be any player character death, AT ALL.  Sure, Spiderman or Black Widow might get knocked around, there certainly are going to be some narrow escapes and heroic rescues, but none of the player characters is going to get shot through the heart and die, game over.  This is reinforced not only by the audience, but of course by the game play.

On the other hand, if I am playing Call of Cthulhu with college friends, death and madness are expected.  The players know going in that a Call of Cthulhu investigator likely has a short shelf life, and those that manage not to die, slip increasingly into madness and disability.  Still, I have run some long Call of Cthulhu campaigns, and I have followed the advice from the early editions of the game.  If you have a choice of killing a PC or taking out an NPC to establish the danger and the threat, take the NPC every time.  It helps if you have established ties to the NPC and that the character is not just another faceless “redshirt.”  However, to get things started with something that causes likely instant death, you kill the guy next to the PCs, and not one of them.  Once the threat is established, you follow the play of the PCs.  Are they reckless and foolhardy, then they do deserve death “without regret” should it come to them.  On the other hand, if they play their characters and show smart play, as a fan, I am going to hold back on any instant death options, unless it really builds the story and is part of the fun of the game (because sometimes messy, or pathetic or horrific death is the fun of a horror game).  If danger is enough, then, we work with danger; maiming, near death, madness, that’s all on the table, but I don’t tend to allow random death that would inhibit the story.

So, what about something in the middle of the spectrum of Superheroes where no one ever dies (at least permanently) and horror, where everyone dies or goes crazy eventually?  This is where most adventure based RPGs reside: Dungeons & Dragons, RuneQuest, HeroQuest, 13^th Age, Numenera, Dungeon World, Dresden Files, The One Ring, and et al and etc.  I have to admit to mostly not killing characters.

Over time, I have certainly seen many player characters in these games die.  However, for the most part, I prefer to see the PCs flee, or get captured, or suffer some kind of loss other than death.  This is, I think, largely because I like to run campaigns.  Campaigns need continuity, and killing characters, and particularly the dreaded Total Party Kill, tends to disrupt what is happening with the story that I have been enjoying building with the players over time.  Where death does occur, the story of overcoming death becomes the next logical plot point (e.g. becoming indebted to the healing temple to return the dead companion to life, etc.).  So, usually, the holodeck safeties are, broadly speaking, on when you step into my campaign.  The optional Meaningful Death Rule is going to be in effect.  Characters face other losses, but death is reserved.  In part, that meets the expectations of my players.  They put time into crafting characters, their histories and motivations, and they grow them at the table.  If some wandering damage is likely to kill them, for little to no reason, that is neither fun nor motivating for the kind of gamer who usually sits at my table.

On the other hand, there is a completely separate and apart kind of play, and that is the one-shot.  This does not mean that I turn into the lethal “save or die” GM just because I am running a single evening game.  After all, it should be fun, and getting to play is what is fun.  If we have four hours of play set up and you die in the first ten minutes, how much fun was that?  If dying means no longer being involved, that rather cuts down on the fun.  You can set expectations that characters are disposable and can be replaced, much like clones in Paranoia, but then you are playing a genre of game that is not going to necessarily have wide appeal. 

You do, however, play a one shot to have a different experience and tell a different kind of story.  Lethality can be very much part of that story, and can really be part of the fun with the right group.  I do not, in general, go in for Deathtrap Dungeons.  I don’t think I run them particularly well, so why do something that does not serve the players?  Still, if you know you are going into a deathtrap, you know that death is part of the fun of the game.  It is exciting to escape the trap, but you know your number is likely to come up eventually, and spectacular death is one of the possible rewards of play.  I will give it to you without regret. 

I don’t mind playing a high character death game as a change of pace, but for me, RPG play and the stories it generates is really about having a significant chronical of events for the player characters.  That might, at times, be punctuated by a death, but that is going to be rare and meaningful.

Individuals and their Blogs Participating in this Discussion (to be updated as necessary; posts will be made for the Roundtable between April 5 and April 11)

+Marc Plourde at http://inspstrikes.blogspot.co.uk/

+James August Walls at http://ilive4crits.blogspot.com/

+Scott Robinson at http://strangeenc.blogspot.com/

+Lex Starwalker at http://www.starwalkerstudios.com/blog/2015/4/6/game-masters-roundtable-of-doom-4-how-lethal-are-your-campaigns

+John Marvin at http://dreadunicorngames.com/

+John Clayton at http://blog.filesandrecords.com/

+Peter Smits at http://planeataryexpress.blogspot.com/2015/04/pcs-and-killing-there-of.html

+Arnold K.

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!

Heroes of the 13th Age: Part 12: Fear in the Depths

On Sunday, March 1, we played the next installment of our game.  We continued the adventure of Liriandel, begun here.

 

The characters continued to be:

Cerise, the Spirit-Touched Cleric

Indigo the Gnome Cleric
Zyna (as always, the name changes), the Half-Elf Rogue
Froodo, the Halfling Monk
Hey Watchit, the Half-Orc Fighter
Lief, the Human Bard
Delthen Eversoar, the Human Paladin, and
Rolen Stillwind, the Wood Elf Sorcerer
 

Having battled animated swords which came from the next room, the party advanced carefully into the next large chamber.  Zyna took point, checking for traps and stepping carefully.  The room had once been the crude mead hall of the Sya-Negan (ancient barbarian demon worshippers), built during their campaign of conquest and extermination against the Lorai (the peaceful former inhabitants of what are now known as the Brown Grounds).

The wooden walled and roofed hall, was long ago reinforced with stone and repurposed as a central chamber for the burial mound.  Along with benches and tables, there was a great stone throne, once used by the Chieftain Tamaich.  Around the room were twelve terra cotta sentinels, each standing on a grave capstone, each without their swords (as those had already attacked and been defeated) and each, instead of a carved head, bearing a warrior’s skull on top of the statue.  Also, below the tables, rather huge capstones seemed to have been laid, and the party decided it best not to disturb those.  On the ceiling, was a ghastly sight.  More than a dozen of the Lorai warriors had been nailed, faces to the ceiling, and their bodies had become crudely mummified in their agonized poses along the ceiling.

 

The place ached of death and pain and evil. 

 

The party passed to the next room.  There they found a “trophy” chamber.  Decaying weapons and armor, once the panoply of the flower of the Lorai lay in heaps.  Also, collected together, were the twelve tattered blue banners of the Lorai, and nailed to each one was a severed, gauntleted hand (all that remained of the banner-men of the Lorai war bands). 

 

Led by a sense of dark destiny, Delthen the Inquisitor brushed aside some of the pile of armor, and found a fine suit of dark platemail, bound together in what seemed like barbed wire, with small curse charms twisted in.  He sense from his connection to the Crusader that this armor had belonged to someone the demon-worshippers feared deeply.  He excitedly began to free the armor.

 

That is when he was surprised by twelve creepy crawlies.  But what at first seemed like a dozen tarantulas, turned out to be the twelve severed and reanimated left hands (mooks) of the Lorai banner-men.  Each scratched and squeezed, and sought Delthen’s throat.  During the surprise round (a five is good for you and good for me), three of the twelve managed to connect, one critically, latching onto Delthen’s throat.  Another fumbled and fell to the floor twitching and trying to right itself.

 

Then everyone sprang into action.

 

Round 1 Escalation 0

 

Lief the Bard unleashed a Soundburst doing 30 damage and killing five of the zombie hands outright.  Delthen scrabbled to knock the hands off of him and crush them with his mace.  He invoked his smiting, but missed his role and did half damage, killing another.  Hey, the Half-Orc fighter, threw one of his rocks and finished off one that Delthen had grazed and outright killed another.  Zyna threw one of her throwing glaives, but it but grazed one of the hands for miss damage.  Indigo, mighty Gnome Cleric had trouble aiming his warhammer, but killed one with a graze of miss damage as well.  Rolen unleashed his sorcerous Scorching Ray with a critical hit, killing two more.  Cerise summoned the power of her faith to channel into a Javelin, but despite hitting, the damage did not finish off her targeted zombie hand.  However, the ongoing fire damage initiated by Rolen’s critical hit finished the last hand on its turn.

 

End of Combat

 

Undeterred by the nasty surprised in Delthen’s armor (which he immediately began to don after the combat), others searched through the items of the fallen Lorai for items which the Icons might deem helpful to them.  The Priestess led Froodo to a pair of Lucky Bracers.  The power of the High Druid directed Lief to a different kind of enchanted bracers, one that would allow him easy passage through woodland areas and aid in his climbing.  The Priestess similarly led Zyna to a pair of curiously preserved gloves which made her fingers sure and her grip strong. 

 

From the chamber of grim trophies (and, as it turned out “free goodies”), the party proceeded further down another passage, into a large room with a bulky terracotta statute.  The seven or eight foot tall statute portrayed a brutal warrior, possibly Tamaich himself.  Lief immediately decided to try out the power of his new Bracers of Brachiation to climb up the statute and stand on its shoulders (he did work in a circus once upon a time).  Worried some vile magic might harm Lief, Cerise cast Bless to help him.  In trying to shape the spell, she rolled a 1.

 

This caused the statute to immediately explode, and this time ten seemingly freshly risen ghouls (mooks) bubbled out from the body and from underneath the pedestal of the shattered statue. 

 

Round 1 Escalation 0

 

Lief found himself seemingly helpless on the ground.  Nonetheless, he rolled the highest initiative, and from his prone position, he unleashed Viscious Mockery, a spell he had chosen with an incremental advancement.  He blasted two out of existence.

 

Zyna took a moment to shadow walk.

 

Delthen once again summoned his power of smiting, and once again missed, but did significant miss damage, taking another one down.

 

Then the ghouls attacked, hitting Froodo once and Lief twice.

 

Froodo, the Halfling Monk, then launched into a whirlwind of action!  Unfortunately, his attack completely missed the intended target as he rolled a 1 [at this point I asked Froodo’s player how his attack could go wrong.  His brother, who plays Lief, said “don’t hit me!”  With barely a pause, Froodo player said “as I lunge past the ghoul, I hit Lief.”  I then said “roll.”)  Froodo the rolled a normal attack against Lief, scoring a 20 and doing 26 damage on a critical hit, flooring Lief.

 

Cerise cast Turn Undead, dazing the mooks.  She then stepped forward and cast heal on Lief.

 

Indigo, swinging his hammer, smashed through a ghoul, killing it, and then also cast heal on Lief.

 

Rolen shot forth his Scorching Ray but missed and did some minimal miss damage.

 

Hey then charged forward, swinging his tree and invoking Power Attack and killed four ghouls [n.b. I envisioned this, and described it as the point in a Nintendo Mario game where Mario gets the big mallet and the music starts to play as he flattens every opponent around him.  That was pretty much what Hey did].

 

R 2 E1

There was one ghoul left.

 

Lief stood up and cast Battle Chant, blasting the last ghoul and ending combat.
 
End of Combat

 

After a quick review of the room and the hole out of which many of the ghouls had climbed, the party advanced further into the burial mound and found a oval chamber of smooth stone, containing four crudely sculpted reliefs, painted in a fresco style.  Each of the reliefs depicted a four foot tall, vaguely humanoid shape.

 

Zyna scanned the room first, and she had the sense that there was a trap within.  The party moved on. 

 

They made their way back to the main passage, through the side passage they had before left unexplored (having come full circle).  They then reversed course, passed the trapped entrance, and proceeded up a ramp in the opposite direction from which they had first explored.

 

As the came deeper into the mound, Zyna had a strange feeling that something was going wrong, but she was too late to stop it.  Suddenly a huge boulder started to roll down the corridor, careening from side to side, so that even though it did not take up the whole corridor, it’s seemingly random movement made avoiding it seemingly impossible.

 

Hey attempted to dance around the rock, but fumbled and was smacked for a large hit of damage.

 

Delthen then decided to try to finish the trap and to employ his enormous (19) strength to stop the boulder.  He came close, and avoided damage to himself, but he ended up merely deflecting the menacing rock.

 

Lief, counter-intuitively charged at the boulder, and leaped over it, in a half circus, half parkour move.

 

Froodo planned to use his staff and his agility to also fly over the boulder, but instead fell right in its path.  Before it could roll over him, he fell into an immediate trance, which he somehow remember learning when he studied among the elves and became a follower of the Elf Queen.  He then found himself teleported, like a High Elf out of the boulder’s path.

 

Zyna who had been backing away, finally gaged the movement of the stone, and leaped over it with style.

 

Rolen seemed paralyzed and surprised and the boulder just smacked him aside.

 

Cerise too had her serene concentration as she summoned strength from the gods of light shattered as the boulder slammed into her, and then careened downward. 

 

Indigo, recalling his many hours studying and raising spiders, did “whatever a spider can” and went up over the oncoming rock, and landed safely on the other side.

 

The path of the boulder continued down the corridor, and the party discovered that it had smashed open the pit at the entrance, making crossing out of the mound a difficult proposition now.

 

Everyone decided to take a quick rest at this point.

After they had done some healing and gathered themselves, the party then marched resolutely back to the ladder down to the next level. 

 

In the chamber below the ladder, they found mist up to (most people’s) waists.  They waded forward through the mist to reach a circular chamber, in the middle of which was a carved pillar.

 

In this chamber on the pillar was another bas relief, again showing what appeared to be Tomaich, the barbarian warlord, nine feet tall.  A voice spoke in the language of the Abyss, uttering threats such as “Those who break the seal of this tomb I shall burn with my fire . . .”

 

They of course, broke the seal, and entered the next room.

 

That room was heaped with decayed burial goods, but here and there glinted shiny things, which hinted that a diligent search could lead to treasure.  However, the party was all business now, and decided they could come back after they finished business with whatever guardians remained and they obtained the Iriendel spear. 

 

In the next room, they found the crypt chamber of Tamaich himself.  On a stone bier lay the armored, blackened bones of the dead warlord.  At his feet was a sheathed, but decayed sword, and piercing him, was a spear.

 

The stone platform was sculpted with demonic symbols.  Behind it were four iron braziers.  Two stone pillars held up the twenty foot high stone ceiling. 

 

The party surged forward to grab the spear, with Hey and Zyna first.  As Zyna’s hand passed through the out of phase spear shaft, a demonic like wraith arose from the bier.  It was now transfixed with the spear, but the rage in its eyes and flashing claws looked ready to do harm.

 

Round 1 Escalation 0

 

The demonic creature surged away from them on its initiative, and it took two hits from opportunity attacks from Hey and Zyna.  Then I rolled its random demonic power, and got fear aura.  That snapped on, and it pervaded all of Tamaich’s tomb, causing every party member to act as if dazed (-4 to hit) and denying them the use of the escalation die. 

 

Tamaich in the next room awakened the undead barrow wights that were all that were left of his three wives.  They surged to attack.  He then moved on to the central chamber of the tomb, to awaken other creatures to slay those who would defile his resting place.

 

The party was left to fight the wights in the first instance.

 

Lief sang his Battle Chant to no effect.

Froodo charged forward to strike with his Greeting Fist, but missed.

 

Delthen smashed a vial of holy water from First Triumph over Tomaich’s bones, which had the effect of making them wet.  He then charged forward to smite, doing half damage with his miss.

 

Rolen summoned a Chaos Bolt, pulsing with thunder damage, but to little effect.

 

Hey attacked with his Power Attack, rolling a 20 and doing 44 points of damage to slay one of the wights.  Hey looked over at Froodo (Hey being played by Froodo’s player’s dad) and said “see, this is how you attack things.”

 

The two wights attacked, damaging Hey and Delthen.

 

Zyna walked into the shadows.

 

Indigo launched a Javelin of Faith, but missed.

 

Cerise invoked her Halo and then missed with her Javelin of Faith.  However, she also invoked her Leadership domain, and advanced the escalation die by one, with the hopes that they would eventually be able to benefit from it.

 

[as you can see, the fear aura causing -4 to hit was having a devastating effect on the ability of the players to hit, and it became even more aggravating as they saw the escalation die go up, and were not able to add it; it was terrific!  I now love fear aura!]

 

R2 E2 (because of the Cleric’s doing!)

Tamaich was off screen, pulling in allies to fight the characters.

 

Lief missed again with Battle Chant.

 

Rolen succeeded in his Elven Grace roll.  He empowered a spell with gathered energy, and promptly missed, though he benefited from some random energy.

 

Delthen invoked another smite, and missed for half damage on the wight in front of him.

 

Hey missed his next attack, but invoked Tough as Iron to rally and regain hit points.

 

The two wights again attacked, striking at Hey and Delthen.

 

Zyna appeared from the shadows, to attack for double damage and use surprise attack, and missed, doing minimal damage.

 

Indigo invoked his Trickery domain to generate a Trick die (a 13) and then launched a Javelin of Faith, which was a critical hit because of its holy damage (the wights being vulnerable to holy damage).  The critical hit destroyed the wight, leaving one left.

 

Cerise cast Bless on herself and then attacked and hit the last wight with her Javelin of Faith.

 

R3 E3

Tamaich, having set into motion his forces, could not resist the fight, and he phased his way through walls, like a wraith, to return to his burial chamber and attack Cerise.  He hit with his first attack doing 9 damage.  However, Indigo substituted his Trick die for Tamaich’s next roll, which was a 20 critical hit, and so he missed with his second attack.  His attack and damage increased due to that miss, but he would never get a chance to use that.

Delthen then stepped up and started to command others to organize their attacks and to concentrate on Tamaich, who was, after all, the source of the fear aura. [this provides a neat in game explanation for why Delthen  is going to multiclass into a Paladin/Commander when he levels up next; something already decided, but here was the moment when he earned this).

Everyone but Hey, who was engaged with the last wight, held their initiative until Cerise’ turn  (on initiative 5).     

Hey attacked the last wight, missing, but using carve an opening to expand his critical hit range.

The wight returned his attack, hitting him.

On initiative 5, Indigo used his invocation of Strength to make everyone’s melee attacks do triple, instead of double, damage on a critical hit.  He then cast Cure Wounds on Hey.  He then missed with his Javelin of Faith against Tamaich.

Cerise attacked and missed with her short sword, but using her Leadership she gave a +1 to everyone else to hit Tamaich. 

Delthen then stepped forward, girded in his Unyielding Plate Mail and wielding his Greater Mace of Striking and he smote Tamaich, hitting when it most counted, and doing 35 points of damage.  This took the demonic hit points below the fear threshold for everyone, thus giving those who followed the ability to use the escalation die, and relieving them of the -4 penalty.

Lief then cast his Viscious Mockery spell, causing 22 points of psychic damage to Tamaich, causing the ancient warlord to crumble and vaporize.  The spear fell to the floor. 

Froodo, attempting to help Hey, attacked with his Dutiful Guardian opening strike, doing 4 points of damage.

Rolen failed to invoked his Elven Grace, but he unleashed his Breath of the White on the wight and he did half damage with a miss.

 

 Zyna  stepped forward and secured the spear.

 

End of Session

 

So, now the “big bad” is dead, all that is left is his vengeance.  He summoned the creatures of his barrow, and besides the last wight, there are a couple of giant figures advancing on the heroes in the wive’s chamber.  In another part of the mound, another demonic figure has stepped into this plane, and other menaces may still be awakening, now not to defend Tamaich, but instead to wreak terrible vengeance.

 

Stay tuned for what happens next!

 Until then, game on!