I've gotten used, in my other tabletop lot, to seeing weekly session reports made available to kep players up-to-date, and while I appreciate they're not realy needed for us I figured they can be quite fun. So...

When last we were with our brave fellowship...


The first of the three towers stood in a clearing some 100ft across, and as is the way with adventurers and towers, our heroes sought many a way to bypass it's numerous deadly defenses and in so doing incurred the wrath of whatever intelligence was guiding them, triggering traps galore, earthquakes and golemic arms tasked with the destruction of our intrepid interlopers. To further acerbate the damage done to our heroes in these endeavors, the ever-inquisitive half-Grell Nevyn attempted to contact the tower itself, leading to the entire party deciding that enough was enough and it was time to rest before trying a concentrated assault on the morrow.

Having decided that they had had enough tomfoolery, the gallant chaps hit upon a plan, Goraxe's own in fact, to punt the foolhardy rogue into the top room by means of magic, and then to rely on his own enhanced wits and reflexes to get the skull that he knew to be in there and get out again. In this he was successful, and destroyed the tower in the meantime - an unforeseen side-effect of which was the unfortunate and untimely destruction of valorous Liamdark, who had lain in wait to provide Goraxe an avenue of escape. His demise proved thankfully short-lived due to the intervention of the wise Carla the Druid, and the group all agreed that he made a most fetching dwarf.

The glorious conglomerate wended their weary way back to their quaint and rustic inn to recover and relax, ready for the next challenge ahead of them. Sadly for one of our heroic champions, a previous foe decided that that night was as good a time for any to extract it's revenge, and the vile Vrock announced it's intentions by chewing upon poor, lonely Nevyn, waking some of the other members of the party. Stout Lightfoot investigated the disturbances coming from Nevyn's room, and upon discovering the source of the commotion immediately dove to the attack, soon followed by Renguard and Tilsburg, all three annoyed at having their beauty rest interrupted and their friend chomped. A concerted effort by those three, with timely intervention from the rest of the party, soon saw the Vrock defeated, his beak cracked and his ribcage (or whatever foul structure was present within it's abhorrent anatomy) smashed, the heroes relaxed - possibly a fraction too soon...

Hi guys,

Well this game has come to an epic end and leaves Goraxe with the issues of having to quest for several wishes in ordeer to return two of his lost companions to life and to hunt down and destroy to old enemies.

I also have to say a big thank you for Dave for running our first game. It was a real mixture of force, magic and wits as any good game should be and I think we have learned a great deal from the game we played.

I have been speaking to several of you and I would like to air my most likely cause of action for taking the campaign onwards.

Firstly there will be no level equalizing to be quite honest those who turned up each week and who contributed most to the game deserve to be higher level than those that did not.

Secondly, I am going to go over to the slow exp progression and I will convert all characters over to that new exp when I convert them over to the new final rules. This will mean all players loose some of their levels but it will mean we will be in a better position to get used to our new class powers, racial abilities and other changes from Beta Rules to the Final Product. All I will do is look at your current exp (In the case of those of us went up at the end of Daves we are currently just on the threshold to take us to our new level.

For example I will go down from 10th level to 8th, in most cases we will all loose two levels. I will not be compensating anyone for this lose so please do not ask. New characters joining us will start at Half the level of the Highest person in the group and Dave as he ran the adventure will be able to start at 8th level as a pay off for him missing out on the start.

This will allow us to take a small step back for when we next play.

Thirdly because of the nature of the game and because I want to run this campaign over several years not just several games I will be giving people exp individually. If you earn it you get it. If you sit there reading all night or gossiping about stuff OOC and then do little IC you will not progress as fast as those who get stuck in be it in combat, matters of the mind e.g. Good ideas and plans or wits, cunning and over comming villians by actions and words etc.

I need to speak to Dave and carey before I fianlise this but I think that they will both agree. Magic items and treasure will be retained.

Thanks for reading,

Gary

Regarding the change over to the slow exp progression sounds like a good idea to me. The medium route was good for the low levels, but did start to become a slight issue as things went on.

As for equalising levels I agree, those characters that actually took part in major events of the campaign should be rewarded for that. I understand that some people were unable to attend for legitimate reasons and on these occasions exp was taken into account. I understand that this means that some characters are weaker, but this is also the case for those players whose characters died at various points, which I think is fair.

I must say I enjoyed the rather lengthy campaign from a GMing point of view, but I am glad to take a break. I hope you all enjoyed the game, even if your characters did die at some points (I must be quite high on the character mortality rates – which is one of the original reasons I was called Evil Dave)!

I personally enjoyed the extra nuances you threw at nevyn along the way! Most interesting!

Thanks for a great game Dave, I just hope i can live up to (at least in part) being a decent GM!

Sam

Without derailing this thread too much, a couple of GMing pointers for you Sam:

Don’t expect your first attempt at GMing to go perfectly, both Gary and I have been GMing for over 20 years (Longer than some of the players have been alive in fact), the first time I GMed it was pretty terrible. Quite a few gamers I know have tried it once only to be put off, my advice if things don’t appear to be going well just relax and check with one of the more experienced GMs, things might not be as bad as you think.

Try and be as balanced as you can, remember it is not a situation of you against the players, don’t try and kill them off just because you can. That being said don’t be railroaded by the players, if you decide that the character cannot do something, then they cannot do it, it is your game world after all. Just make sure you have a reason why the character cannot do it, it makes seem less likely that you are being just arbitrary.

Know the rules as well as you can, but don’t get bogged down in them. Every GM forgets or gets a rule wrong from time to time, as long as it does not badly affect the game, then it does not matter. There is only one rule that you must always adhere to Rule 0; you are the GM and you can change or ignore any rule you think does not fit the game you are trying to run.

Allow the players to run at there own pace, within reason, there is nothing more frustrating for a GM than watching then a table full of players sitting around discussing last night’s TV rather than getting on with the adventure. Don’t be surprised when the players decide to do something apparently bizarre rather than what you think is the most obvious course of action. Players never seem to do the most logical or sensible thing (though the players will often believe that they are). Be prepared for you well planned adventure to have to be changed on the fly and you have to think on your feet, this is why I avoid published adventures as they often are more constricted. Within reason follow the players lead, as long as they remain within the general confines of the adventure that you planned.

Most importantly relax and have fun!

(02-09-2009 08:35 PM)Mhainite Wrote:  Secondly, I am going to go over to the slow exp progression and I will convert all characters over to that new exp when I convert them over to the new final rules.

Some races (more precisely, the Half Orc) have had their stat bonuses changed from beta to the finished product. Do you intend to "fix" character's stats to match, or are we keeping stats as is? Likewise the new favoured class system is much changed - all characters get to pick a favoured class at 1st level (half-elves get to pick 2) and get a free hit point OR skill point when they level in their favoured class. Do those of us who created an against-type character (possibly just me, again) get to update their favoured class and get the new bonuses?

Are you counting every character as having one less xp than is needed to level, as Dave originally said when he decided to award levels instead of points? *Edit - just caught that bit on your post, never mind*

I had my skill points completely wrong pretty much throughout that campaign... not by much, though.