canyonwalker | Entries tagged with d&d

Australia Travelog #7
Afoot in Sydney - Mon, 25 Dec 2023, 8:30am

Our morning sightseeing on Monday began with some of the things we wrapped up walking past Sunday afternoon. It was gloomy then and starting to rain, plus we were tired, so we'd lost patience for taking things in. Today, though, we're fresh, and the weather's better.

Sculpture in Sydney's Hyde Park with St. Mary's Cathedral in the background (Dec 2023)

Sculpture in Sydney's Hyde Park with St. Mary's Cathedral in the background (Dec 2023)

Two streets over from our hotel is Hyde Park, a fairly large urban park in Sydney. On the far side is St. Mary's Cathedral, as you can see in the photo above. St. Mary's is where there was "No room at the inn" yesterday. In the foreground in the photo is Hyde Park's Archibald Fountain.

Archibald Fountain is named for J.F. Archibald, a publishing magnate who donated the funds to have it built. Isn't that often how monuments are? "This is monument honors the wealthy person who spent the money to build this monument with their name on it." 🙄

Well, okay, Archibald didn't commission it just to honor himself, he commissioned it to honor the French for their association with Australia in World War I. He insisted the art be sculpted by a French artist, and the French artist they chose dug deeply into French history to depict... Greek myth. Yes, apparently the French consider that French history.

Sculpture in Sydney's Hyde Park depicts Theseus killing the Minotaur (Dec 2023)

Sculpture in Sydney's Hyde Park depicts Theseus killing the Minotaur (Dec 2023)

The fountain depicts the classic ~~Greek~~ French figures of Apollo, Diana, Pan, and Theseus. In the scene above Monsieur Theseus kills Le Minotaur. Allez les Bleus, Allez les Bleus!

From the park we walked north by northeast, angling toward a different part of the city than we visited yesterday. Soon we reached the Art Gallery of New South Wales. It wasn't a place we planned to visit. We're not big on art galleries. We're also not big on giant spiders.

Got arachnophobia? Bad time to visit NSW's art museum. (Dec 2023)

Got arachnophobia? Bad time to visit NSW's art museum. (Dec 2023)

Yes, there's really a 20' tall spider in front of the NSW Art Gallery. And yes, that thing under it is an egg sac. And yes, there are eggs in the egg sac. Actually they're rocks as best as I could tell from looking up from underneath. They're big rocks, 6-8 inches across. I guess that's the size of giant spider eggs.

So far this morning has felt like instead of a tour map I need a Dungeons & Dragons Monster Manual. Thus it's not surprising when we saw this bird all over the place in Sydney...

Is this is a stirge— a blood-sucking bird from D&D? (Dec 2023)

Is this is a stirge— a blood-sucking bird from D&D? (Dec 2023)

...Our first thought was, "Ha, ha, that looks like a stirge!"

Stirges in D&D are bird-like creatures that suck blood from living beings. They fly at victims, clamp on their shoulders with their big talons, and plunge their long beak into the neck to suck blood.

Watch on YouTube

It's not a stirge, of course. It's an ibis. Specifically, it's an Australian White Ibis. And it uses that long beak not to plunge into hapless low-level adventurers' necks and suck their blood but to root around in loose ground for bugs and grubs and stuff.

There's no D&D game tonight. We're on hiatus. It's disappointing because I've really enjoyed running my "City of the Dead" adventure over the past several months.

We agreed upfront to 5 sessions and we played 5 sessions. The group didn't move as quickly through the challenges as quickly as I hoped, partly because they created some additional challenges with... poor... decisions, so they haven't completed the mission yet. They need one more session to get to a reasonable conclusion... although even once they get there, the players may want a sequel to see what happens next.

What stops us from playing more? It's just scheduling. My plan of 5 sessions fit into the players' calendars to wrap up this year before holiday vacations. One of the players is actually setting off for a 3 month trip, so we're looking at resuming in late March, maybe more likely early April, if we wait for him. He's said he doesn't mind, though, if we wrap it up without him. So maybe we'll get back to playing in January.

Update: Maybe it's good I'm not GMing a game tonight as I've been slammed at work this whole week. I'm low on energy and I've had little time in which I could have prepared.

A few weeks ago I read a good blog in the roleplaying games blog Gnome Stew, entitled Entertainment is Key (Nov. 2023). It's about how roleplayers have different motivations to play and how a good game master (GM) strives to understand their goals to craft a playing experience that's entertaining for everyone. It got me thinking about the successes and failures of group entertainment in the games I've played and a few techniques that help tilt the game toward the former rather than the latter.

Roleplayers have different ideas of entertainment (image by Sean Budanio)

Roleplayers have different ideas of entertainment (image by Sean Budanio)

The first thing to recognize is that gamers do have different expectations of what to get out of the game. Some are looking for high fantasy storytelling, some are looking to crush every opponent, and some just want to play everything for laughs. I've seen games struggle and occasionally fail because the players want things that are too dissimilar.

The second thing to understand is that trying to stitch together a game around conflicting interests is not the way it has to be. You can elicit players’ ideas of enjoyment, align the game to them, and ensure they fit with each other. For me this is an indispensible part of Session Zero.

I’ve found many other GMs regard Session Zero merely as a chance to align on what game system we’ll play, what our character classes are, and check that we’ve constructed our characters per the rules. To me this is only part of Session Zero. The other critical part is aligning on how we have fun with the game and with each other.

One tip I have for fellow GMs is not to make “What’s your idea of fun?” an open ended question. That’s where you’ll get a lot of vague or confused answers. I recommend instead you start by outlining the broad strokes of how you’ve designed your game. Then invite the players to identify where, within that range, they find it most enjoyable to play.

For example, in the City of the Dead game I've been running recently I pointed out in our Session Zero that the game system I’d chosen is on the “crunchier” end of the spectrum (rules-heavy D&D) because working the rules and rolling dice to determine outcomes is fun for me— up to a certain point. Then I asked the players each to weigh in on how far they liked to take letting the mechanics determine the story vs. the story determine the story. We quickly reached a consensus on how we'd enjoy playing this game. Note, if I'd asked an open ended question I probably would have gotten 5 disparate answers, but by starting with an outline and asking the group to choose where the center is, we converged on a mutually satisfying answer much faster.

D&D players always SAY they want more politics and intrigue...

D&D players always SAY they want more politics and intrigue...

A second tip for fellow GMs is to believe what your players tell you but also not believe it. Watch how they act in the game to determine whether they’re really having fun! I’ve seen this repeatedly with respect to the question, “Do you like a combat heavy game vs. roleplaying heavy?”

Players so often tell me they want more roleplaying, more courtly intrigue, etc., versus hack-and-slash… yet repeatedly when I create role-playing heavy stories they lean away from engaging them, look bored, and grumble about how they’ve “done nothing” all session since there were no combats. So yes, definitely talk about what players want from the game up front, but keep an eye on where & how they're engaging as you go, too.

A problem that's existed in roleplaying games nearly as long as there have been roleplaying games is firewalling player knowledge from character knowledge. Part of the fun challenge in playing the characters is dealing with the unknown and the surprises it deals. But what if the players already know all the answers, either from having encountered them in previous games or simply by studying the various rulebooks?

Suppose the GM narrates this dangerous creature wading in to combat:

A 9 foot tall creature comes crashing through the forest. It walks erect but slightly hunched over, its gangling arms swinging low to the ground. Rubbery green skin covers its muscular body. It shows no fear or hesitation as it lopes straight up to you, letting out a hoarse roar showing a mouth full of sharp teeth and raising its oversized hands with fingers ending in sharp claws to attack.

This is a troll. But do the characters know it's a troll? (Assume the word "Troll" is not painted on the grass at its feet. 😂) Moreover, do the characters know that trolls quickly regenerate damage from ordinary weapons and spells, and are only truly vulnerable to fire and acid? High level character likely would but lower level characters would not.

Sadly a lot of the time in gaming an experienced player will shout out, "It's a troll! Remember it regenerates and we need to kill it with fire or acid!" because they're familiar with trolls— from somewhere else.

This is a firewall violation. The players took experience they have and imparted it on their characters who were supposed to earn it the hard way.

It's disappointing when this happens. One player's thoughtless or selfish act sucks all the drama out of the scenario. Suddenly the characters know exactly what to do to overcome a challenge. They go about it with robotic precision instead of having to figure it by trial and error and their own wits.

On the other hand, when players have to figure out stuff like this in character it's glorious cooperative storytelling.

Years ago I ran a game with a small group where all of the players either didn't know what trolls can do or did a great job pretending. Their characters hacked the troll to bits and left it for dead at the edge of their camp... only for it to rise, at full health, a minute later and attack them again! Then they killed it a second time, and it came back for a third attack! By then the characters saw enough clues provided— the troll had been hit by fire or acid a few times, and those wounds conspicuously weren't healting— that they figured it out. The game was so dramatic that way, without some know-it-all blurting out the surprising plot twist right at the start.

The group I've been playing my City of the Dead game with has been pretty good about firewalling. When they have out-of-character knowledge about a situation they either keep it to themselves— and try not to let in influence their actions— or they ask me. "Hey, what does my character know about this monster/spell/object/etc.?"

I'm glad they ask, because I've already planned to tell them! They're of a level (6th) where it's fair that they know some stuff about the mysteries of the world. Plus, when I created these pre-gen characters I made sure to give them all one or more Knowledge skills. This was intentional on my part so I could allow them the ability to piece together and predict, to a fun extent, what's happening in the game.

When they encountered a troll in Session 1, for example, I advised one of the players that his character knew exactly what it was. He had the right background to have learned about trolls from mentors and peers even if he hadn't seen one personally. I passed him a note explaining what his character would know. He got to share that knowledge in-character with the rest of the group, increasing their appreciation for him as a uniquely valuable member of the team.

BTW my note passing technique has had an unexpected benefit. Now instead of players competing to be seen as the smartest (i.e., most know-it-all) player at the table by blurting out un-firewalled knowledge, they count coup by who receives the most notes demonstrating that their character had important insights to share. 🤣

"Contact!" Terence yelled to his adventuring companions as he saw a shadowy figure, likely an undead creature, watching him from the shadows in an abandoned building. The fight was on.

Swarm of undead (modified web image)

The group held their positions as the ambush unfolded. The paladin leader had drilled it into them that the stronger fighters would stand front and rear, protecting the group's two spellcasters. They knew they were walking into an ambush. Discipline would be important.

Ghouls - a basic undead monster in D&D (image adapted from David Griffith)

Ghouls - a basic undead monster in D&D (image adapted from David Griffith)

At the charnel scene in the intersection ahead of them, all of the creatures rose from the street. Four human-like creatures, mottled skin stretched tight over their bones, mouths full of sharpened teeth, and eyes smoldering like embers in sunken eye sockets. They were ghouls. They ambled toward the group, clawed hands raised and jaws open in preparation for attack.

Then the corpses of the horses rose, too. Huge, bloody holes riddled their bodies, bones poking through in areas. Their matted fur hung in tatters, falling out in clumps in places. The horses moved slowly and jerkily compared to the ghouls. They were zombies. Horse-zombies.

Even the horses are undead!

Oh, but a few ghouls and zombies weren't the extent of the ambush. They were just one part of it.

Worgs in D&D are stronger, more intelligent, evil wolves (picture adapted)

Worgs in D&D are stronger, more intelligent, evil wolves (picture adapted)

Next on the scene, worgs (same as tried ambushing the group in camp at night) charged in from hiding places crouched in the narrow alleys between decrepit buildings. Six in total, the threatened the party's soft middle as well as its front and rear.

The ghouls finished closing. As they approached to within hand-to-hand (or hand-to-claw) fighting distance the group noticed they were different from ordinary ghouls— whatever ordinary is for creatures raised from the grave. They were wearing armor. Mail shirts. Who buys armor for undead?

The zombie-horses charged in. Moving in artless fashion they basically just head-butted whomever they could. And the ghouls had moved into a formation that allowed their charge. So these ghouls not only had armor but some amount of combat training, too....

And then it got worse. Two ghasts entered the fray.

Ghasts in D&D are like ghouls but stronger, more dangerous, and... stinky

Ghasts in D&D are like ghouls but stronger, more dangerous, and... stinky

Ghasts in D&D are similar to ghouls except stronger. And more dangerous. And... stinky. They emit a putrid odor that can nauseate their enemies, weakening them in combat. But stench is not their most fearsome weapon. Their touch carries disease, and their bite can paralyze. And like the ghouls, these ghasts were wearing armor. One of them even had a metal cuirass (breastplate).

Terence stepped forward to repel the undead with his holy power. Unfortunately for him, these undead were bolstered by the corrupt evil of the city. Whereas in the cemetery he had the power to reduce many of the undead to dust, here all he could do was drive off the weakest monsters, the four ghouls. The horse-zombies remained, as did the ghasts.

One of the ghasts stepped forward and bit Terence. Terence failed his saving throw and was paralyzed! The players looked on in horror as one of their most effective weapons against undead was just neutralized!

The group was shocked but not demoralized, though. They fought bravely. Astrin and Herran threw themselves into combat. Duncan slugged away at two worgs and the ghast who were encircling him at the back of the melee. Meraxes dodged to safe spots to cast spells such as her fearsome fireball, able to scorch several enemies at once in a globe of flame 40' across.

Then an unexpected thing happened. Paralyzed Terence turned undead again... while paralyzed. The GM reasoned that the rules for Turn Undead said only that the cleric must present their holy symbol strongly... which Terence was doing when he was paralyzed. The rules didn't say that channeling his deity's power required an audible prayer or anything. So... paralyzed turning! Boom. The zombie horses turned to flee.

The combat ground through another round of turns. Things continued to look grim for the PCs. They were making progress, but was it enough? Terence blasted the undead a third time. Nothing seemed to happen at first. Then the ghast that had Duncan on the ropes turned to flee. Duncan had already moved to foreclose easy retreat, though. That ghast didn't get even two steps before Duncan finished him off with an opportunistic blow.

Suddenly the combat map looked a lot more favorable. The ghouls had been driven off, the zombie-horses were galloping away, one ghast was crushed, and the worgs were looking for escape routes. (A morale check indicated they would flee to save themselves at that point.)

The remaining ghast was looked pretty ragged. He'd been burned by a fireball, stomped by a horse, and slashed with swords a few times. The one who came to this ambush decked out in plate armor, he was a tough undead cookie. But now he was surrounded. Astrin was on one side, Herran on the other, and Astrin's horse on the third. ...Yes, Astrin's horse fought, too. She's a celestial warhorse. She's definitely not going to take crap from undead. The three of them together took the ghast down.

And... that was it. The street quieted down. All the PCs could hear, other than their own heavy breathing, was the distant clip-clop of the horses still fleeing into the distance. Just 5 rounds had passed since the eerie silence had exploded in a cacophony of combat.

As I noted in my previous blog, Session 5 of my D&D game, The City of the Dead, was the climactic episode. Normally in a Shakespearean structured narrative Act 4 is the climax and Act 5 the moral. Yes, I think about classical narrative structure when writing roleplaying adventures! But the group was a little slower playing through some of the earlier challenges so they were only up to Act IV by Episode 5.

Title Card for my "City of the Dead" D&D Game (Oct 2023)

Title Card for my "City of the Dead" D&D Game (Oct 2023)

After warding off a nighttime ambush by worgs earlier in Session 5 the group was ready to take the fight to town. They reasoned (correctly) that the worgs were not just random wandering monsters but were connected to the main story. (Maybe they read my blog on making wandering monsters more meaningful. 😅) And they figured "connected to the main story" means connected to the main evil power. I.e., the worgs were servants of a much bigger evil power in the City of the Dead and thus had now reported back that the adventures were still nearby along with how many of them are in the group and what power level they seem to have.

Walking into an Ambush

None of this deterred the PCs from doing what they were going to do next. It just meant they knew they were walking into an ambush. So this time the entered the City of the Dead as a group, with a tight formation, on full alert (various PCs doing Spot checks and the paladin doing Detect Evil.)

Is this a trap? People who walk into traps frequently only seem to pause and ask this when it's NOT a trap. 😅

Is this a trap? People who walk into traps frequently only seem to pause and ask this when it's NOT a trap. 😅

The fun thing about walking into a well planned ambush is that knowing there's going to be an ambush doesn't make it less fun, it actually kind of makes it more fun!

The quintet marched toward the center of town. The two in the front, Astrin and Herran, spotted a charnel scene ahead at a crossroads. A wagon stood in the intersection surrounded by dead human-ish bodies and two slain horses. Astrin's Detect Evil pinged that there was, indeed, evil ahead. Meanwhile, Terence the cleric nailed a good Spot check and saw human-ish shapes moving in the deep shadows in an abandoned building.

"Contact!" Terence yelled. The fight was on.

To be continued....

Update: keep reading as the group gets in over its head. Will they survive?

Friday night we played session 5 of my D&D adventure, The City of the Dead. In this chapter the protagonists have gotten through phalanxes of undead creatures on the outskirts of the old, abandoned city and are ready to probe into the city's center. They're looking to find the body of cleric Terence's mentor— in session 4 they fought his angry, corrupted undead spirit wraith— and to try to recover some of the goods from a small merchant caravan that passed through here recently and was believed killed.

Title Card for my "City of the Dead" D&D Game (Oct 2023)

Before venturing back into the city, though, the group needed to rest up and heal its wounds. They'd expended a lot of their energy fighting in the cemetery back in Session 3— yes, that was part of the same, in-game day!— and chasing after a horse that ran off when spooked by flesh-eating zombie sheep. By the time they rescued the horse and fought a few undead stragglers on their way back to camp they were spent. That's where this Friday's session 5 picked up.

No Rest for the Wicked

In fantasy roleplaying games there's seldom such a thing as, "Okay, you rest up, recover all your hitpoints and spells, and nothing happens." Well, okay, there is... when the players go all the way back to a safe home base. When they camp out next to Evil, Inc.'s headquarters, something almost always happens. We GMs make sure of it.

This time around, "something" was a small pack of worgs.

Worgs in D&D are stronger, more intelligent, evil wolves (picture adapted)

Worgs are similar to wolves but they are stouter (about double the body mass), stronger, more intelligent, and also evil. A nighttime ambush by worgs could easily be chalked up to a random wandering monster encounter... but as I've written previously, I don't do random wandering monsters. These worgs are part of the evil ecosystem in the City of the Dead. They have a role in the main plot. They're not just a side story designed to slow the players down or deplete their resources. I mean, yeah, they literally are there to slow the group down and deplete their resources, but they're doing it in coordination with the more powerful evils in the city. They're also probing the PCs to report back to the Big Bads. (Report back? Did I mention that part of being more intelligent than wolves is that some worgs can actually speak!)

So the worgs followed the PCs' trail out of the city after dark. They followed them to their camp 2 miles away. Six of them circled the camp late at night and starting drawing their circle tighter, planning to charge in with an ambush from multiple sides if they were undetected.

Fortunately for the PCs, the PCs made good Listen checks. Paladin Astrin was on watch when worgs were setting up their ambush. She heard one creeping through the forest 50' away. She immediately used her Detect Evil ability— a solid choice as it right away revealed whatever was making noise was actually evil. That was enough cause for her to wake the rest of the party.

The worgs waited to see if the group would decide "Enh, false alarm," but everyone took Astrin's warning seriously. It's not like Detect Evil gets fooled by an ordinary racoon. Meraxes the mage tossed a light spell in the direction Astrin pointed. It illuminated the worg— which having been exposed in its hiding spot, ran away— but not before a few PCs saw it. The other worgs ran away, too.

The group continued on raised alert for the rest of the night. They doubled the watch and placed magic lights around their campsite so nothing could sneak up so easily. The worgs lurked outside of the range of the lights a few hours before giving up for the night.

The group decided to take a day in camp the next day. They were still kind of banged up and wanted to make sure nobody came down with Grave Rot. Nothing bothered them by daylight. The second night the worgs approached again, but the group had left its ring of lights set up. The worgs are evil and hungry and would enjoy eating the PCs for dinner, but as cunning creatures they're not going to attack well equipped and alert adventurers foil their element of surprise.

Recently I've been thinking about how I use Morale Checks in D&D— despite how they were actually dropped from the rules years ago. I started thinking about it when I read a Gnome Stew article that kind of dragged morale checks a few months ago. And of course the topic has gained recent relevance as I've been running a D&D adventure the past several weeks. That makes it a good time to write about it.

A morale check is basically an answer to the question, "Does this monster stay and fight or does it run away?"

"Does it really matter?" you might ask. Yes, it does! In my 4 recent game sessions I've had decide in several situations if/when/how creatures would rather flee than fight. It was a mule running away from killer undead sheep in Session 3 that set up basically the whole tragi-comedy of Session 4 with the mule falling in a pit, a PC chasing after that mule losing his horse in the same pit, then a herculean effort to rescue at least one of the animals while monsters attacked from above and below ground.

Okay, so how does/did one determine morale?

Like I said, it's not even a thing... well, not a rule... in D&D editions of the past 20-some years. But before that, back in the old days of D&D (1980s and 90s) morale was a numerical stat creatures had and there was a mechanic for it, a numerical system, to calculate what happens.

Back in AD&D, dating to 1983, the morale system was both hideously detailed and ridiculously generic. Yes, that seems self-contradictory, but AD&D was able to square that circle in numerous places. 😅 With morale it was more than a half page of tables and modifiers— half a page in very small print, I should note— that a GM had to add up for every monster in every situation, starting with a base chance 50% of running away for all monsters (that's the part that was ridiculously generic). In addition to being too onerous it was also way too tilted in favor of monsters running away after a round or two of combat. While it might be realistic that opponents flee combat half the time it's not heroic. And this is supposed to be heroic storytelling.

D&D Second Edition in the early 1990s cleaned up the complexity by reducing morale to a single stat and specifying it for each monster in the manual. In the creatures' stat block it was like, "Morale: Steady (11-12)". The rules were that after certain trigger conditions occurred, like the creature taking damage from an opponent or seeing a companion killed, the GM would roll a d20 to determine if the creatures run away. While this was simpler that the previous version (no reading a densely typeset page full of text and tables) and less generic, most GMs in my experience continued to ignore it. When they did decide monsters run away it was almost always in service to a plot railroad. Like, "I need you to chase this monster to the next planned scene," or, "I need this monster to steal an item from you and escape with it because I screwed up and let you have something too powerful." 🙄

So, is the solution to these problems to junk morale checks entirely? Enh, not really. I do like the aspect of verisimilitude that opponents are not constantly fearless, that they will run away to save themselves if they perceive the risk of staying as too grave. While there isn't a set of written rules to guide me in doing this I consider the following factors:

How bold is this monster, generally speaking? Trolls, for example, are really bold because they regenerate. On the other hand, sometimes the "monster" is a neutral-hungry creature that fights only when cornered. Elite soldiers will hold formation longer despite losses than raw recruits, who may break formation and run as soon as the first bad thing happens.

What's this monster's motivation? A neutral-hungry monster attacked by the party is more likely to run away than an evil monster that attacked the PCs. Though an evil monster may play the move of "Run away and live to fight another day." And even a creature that normally avoids conflict may fight ferociously if defending a lair with young.

How intelligent/clever is the monster? Smarter monsters will recognize sooner when a fight isn't going their way and will disengage to save themselves. Smarter monsters, or those that practice pack/group tactics, will also use moves like fighting retreats and regrouping, whereas less intelligent monsters may just turn and run.

All things considered, this would be a lot easier to figure out if there were a stat next to each monster, like in Second Edition. Such a rule doesn't have to be used slavishly— in fact it's best if it's not— but it'd be great as a guide. It'd be a help vs. having to make it all up on my own.

Something I forgot to mention at the end of my series of 3 blogs about session 4 of my D&D adventure, The City of the Dead, is that the players aren't out of harm's way yet. They're all inffected with Grave Rot.

Grave Rot is a disease I made up that's carried by bükken, the burrowing undead similar to ghouls I created for my game world. The group has had multiple combats with bükken and each person has been scratched multiple times. The disease allows a saving throw to avoid infection (a standard provision in D&D) but at this point everyone's been clawed and scratched so many times they've all failed at least once.

So, what happens next? This is where I used the technique of passing a clue-note to a player so they could explain it in character, as the group's knowledgeable person on the subject, to everyone else.

Grave Rot (Religion DC 19)
Attacks from bükken can infect victims with the disease Grave Rot. It causes Con damage. At this point likely everyone is infected. First symptoms only appear after 1-3 days. This ability damage is not permanent; it heals naturally at the rate of 1 point/day (double with complete rest). But those infected suffer more damage every day and will likely die unless the disease is removed.

I passed this note to the guy who plays Terence, a cleric of the goddess opposed to undead. He'd know the most about the disease because he knows the most (by far) about countering the creatures who spread it. Also, note I made it a DC 19 Knowledge (Religion) check. Terence has a +10 on that skill so it's within his wheelhouse.

"I'll check my Knowledge (Religion), too!" offered Hawk, who plays Astrin, the paladin. She rolled poorly and didn't make it. I suggested the in-game explanation for that could be, "Well, Astrin is actually immune to such diseases as an extraordinary ability of her Paladin class, so she skipped Religion class the day they taught that." 😂

Friday night's session of my D&D Adventure, The City of the Dead, sure was epic. My writing about it has stretched now to three journal entries. As with part 1 and part 2, the title of this session of the game could be Fool Around and Find Out.

Title Card for my "City of the Dead" D&D Game (Oct 2023)

Horse Rescue

I left off in my previous blog when the PCs had driven off a wraith and were trying to rescue a horse that had fallen into a collapsed tunnel. I gave them a victory on pulling the (unconscious) horse out of the pit. Well, I didn't just give it to them; I adjudicated the victory with a liberal interpretation of some of the rules because the players (a) really wanted badly to save the horse, so it was a matter of exercising my philosophy that past some the story must drive the mechanics rather than vice-versa; and (b) the players worked really hard to come up with a scheme that would be plausible. Another principle in good GMing is to reward the players when they're really creative and thoughtful in applying their abilities and resources to solve a challenge.

BTW, the reason the whole sub-plot with the horse in a collapsed tunnel was "Fool Around and Find Out" is that the PC whose horse fell into the cave-in could clearly see the gaping hole in the ground. Despite me having given a few warnings that the whole environment was getting increasingly dangerous (a reasonable player would have seriously considered turning around before entering the known-to-be-haunted-with-evil city), the player was insistent on trying to do something as fast as humanly possible, caution be damned! He declared he would ride his horse right up to the lip of the opening beneath the street, rather than, say, dismounting 10 feet back and carefully approaching it on foot.

BTW^2, when the collapse happened I didn't just say, "Okay, everyone falls in." I had planned the collapse as a hazard for this spot. Along with planning what signs of danger a reasonable person would see (obvious crumbling deep hole 10-15 feet across in a stone street) I planned a Reflex save to avoid falling in once the collapse started. The PC's horse failed its roll. I then allowed a Ride check for the PC to leap to safety. The PC nailed that roll (he has a good Ride skill) so at least he wasn't in the pit, too. If he had been, the story might have been a lot more grim!

(Finally) Knowing When to Say When

After rescuing the horse and driving off the wraith, the group finally knew that they'd been beat... for the day. With the extra gear from the dead pack mule redistributed onto the two surviving horses they headed back out of town as fast as they prudently could, aiming to make camp as far away as they could get while there was still daylight.

It was all a good "(Finally) Knowing When to Say When" plan, until....

Undead Return

Back in the big cemetery battle in session 3 the PCs faced a handful of wights, among other foes. Wights are feared by D&D characters and their players because they drain experience levels

Wights are feared by D&D characters and their players because they drain experience levels

Terence the cleric successfully used his holy power to destroy several lesser undead, reducing them to piles of ash, but could only drive off ("turn") the wights. The PCs did try to kill the wights as they fled. They got two but two got away.

And the two that got away came back.

The two that came back weren't damnfools about it, of course. They'd seen that this group of PCs had the power to whup them good in a fair fight. So instead of walking up to the group and challenging them to a fair fight they planned to spy on the group and ambush them while sleeping.

The only problem with the wights' plan? Two PCs spotted them while they were spying on the group from a concealed location. They were hiding behind stone columns on the fence around the cemetery. Yay, Spot check DC 24!

The group quickly decided that they had to pursue these monsters. They sensed (rightly) that if ingored or allowed to escape, the monsters would follow them and attack at the most advantageous time. So Terence slapped a Death Ward spell on the Astrin— protecting her from the wights' level-draining touch— and the group hustled off after them.

Astrin and Herran had horses (Herran's was the one rescued from a pit and healed up by Terence) so they were fastest in pursuit. The wights were already fleeing at that point. They started booking once it was obvious they had been spotted.

Is this a trap? People who walk into traps frequently only seem to pause and ask this when it's NOT a trap. 😅

The wights ducked around the back corner of the stone and wrought iron fenced cemetery on their second round of movement. Astrin and Herran continued pursuit. "We're probably headed into a trap right now," pretty much all the players at the table agreed.

The funny thing was, this wasn't a trap. Pretty much everything else they'd run headlong and heedless into this session was a trap, but this one wasn't. It was just two undead monsters running for their un-lives. 🤣

The monsters were overmatched. Astrin and Herran caught up to them and surrounded them, foreclosing easy escape. They killed one. Astrin's horse surprisingly landed the killing blow. Duncan, charging in on foot a round later, blitzed the second one. Meraxes and Terence rounded the corner in time to see the fight end.

Finally, finally, the group was done for the day. They left the cemetery, headed into the forest, and made camp for the night. ...Though what's to say they're done for the night? 😨

I ran session 4 of my D&D game, City of the Dead on Friday night. I already blogged about the first half of the game. Here's part 2.

I left off the previous blog with the group reunited after brief splitting 4-1. Needless to say the 1 PC who went on his own was in pretty rough shape, having narrowly escaped with his life. D&D players would do well to remember a rule I learned in the Boy Scouts years ago: "If one goes, two go." Nobody ventures off alone.

Title Card for my "City of the Dead" D&D Game (Oct 2023)

The group quickly decided that they needed to head into the City of the Dead even though the day was more than half over and they were getting low on resources. At that point 3 of their 4 pack animals were dead or incapacitated, and the animals that fell into the sinkhole beneath the streets of the city had much of the group's gear. If they didn't try to recover it they'd have no food or shelter for the night— and the next city (their home) was 2 solid days away.

Entering Graymount was eerie. The city shows signs of one-time opulence, with stone buildings shouldering in close to each other in a compact city center. Doors hang ajar and windows are busted out, signs of abandonment and decay for over 100 years. The main road is paved with huge stones, 20 feet long, now slightly tilted. Then there's the sinkhole in the middle of the road just inside the eastern edge of town. It looks like a cave in from something... really big... that dug a tunnel beneath the road. In fact, there is a tunnel visible from atop the sinkhole.

Birds Get Lit 🔥

The group knew about the swarm of crows. Indeed they saw the birds perched, waiting, on the edges of the roof. They— the PCs, that is— had a plan. When the birds swarmed, Meraxes the mage would ready a fireball spell, and the other PCs would clear out of her way. It took two rounds of maneuvering to set it up correctly, but once everyone was in place *FWOOSH* Meraxes lit the place up. The swarm failed its saving throw and took full damage. A kettle of hundreds of crows caught fire, briefly flapping around with wings aflame like dozens of little phoenixes before dropping, dead, to the ground.

The Darker in the Darkness

With the harrying crows out of the way the PCs set to rigging a rescue plan to pull at least Herran's horse out of the sinkhole. (The pack mule was expendable, they decided.) Scout Herran got busy rigging ropes while paladin Astrin stood guard and everyone else just stood around. Astrin detected that some evil creature was hiding in an abandoned building, just 15' from her, watching the party. Nobody seemed to care. Even Astrin was like, "Tell me if the evil thing moves." 😳

A wraith - "The Darker in the Darkness" (adapted image)

Finally I got somebody with a good enough Spot check to pay attention to what was going on. A shadowy figure was lurking inside the building. It was like an apparition of darker darkness in the deep shadows. It was clad in flowing robes that billowed in the non-existed breeze.

Cleric Terence stepped up to the door for a closer look, ready to Turn Undead. Inside he saw the ghostly figure dressed not just in a billowing cloak but, underneath that, armor emblazoned with the symbol of his faith— the goddess of death who opposes undead. Dual points of light smoldering like candles in its empty eye sockets focused on Terence as the creature's gaunt face contorted into a rictus snarl. "You!" the monster hissed. Terence was almost sure he recognized who this… was.

At some point it was Bainor, his senior cleric in the faith of Charonne. But now it was a mockery of that faith.

Terence thrust forward his staff with Charonne's holy symbol. "The power of the Lady of the Grave compels you," he intoned, "BEGONE!"

But his d20 roll for Turn Undead was weak, and the wraith of Bainor's corrupted spirit was strong. With a sinister laugh at Terence's attempt it reached out a bony hand that seemed to pass right through Terence's protective mail shirt, through his skin even, and chill him right to the bone. Terence felt health sap away. He had been Con drained.

The group tussled with the wraith for a bit before realizing they didn't quite have the strength to defeat it. They at least managed to drive it off, though Bainor suffered another draining touch in the process and was near death himself. One or two companions helped protect him afterward while the others worked on rescuing Herran's horse.

To be continued....

Update: they group's not out of danger yet. They've got one more fight before calling it a day.

My D&D game was on a hiatus for a few weeks due to travel around Thanksgiving week. We played again last night, Friday night. It was session 4 of my adventure, City of the Dead.

Friday's session reminded me of a funny but totally true observation about roleplaying games, about how the GM and the players influence the story:

”In a role-playing game the GM determines that the story is a caper, while the players determine whether the theme music is Mission Impossible, The Pink Panther, or Yakety Sax.“

In that vein call this week's session City of the Dead: Fool Around and Find Out Edition.

Title Card for my "City of the Dead" D&D Game (Oct 2023)

Picking up from the previous session, which the players wrapped up by killing a flock of evil, bloodthirsty zombie sheep, the group gave chase to its two mounts who'd panicked at the ravenous bleating and bolted. One PC's riding horse ironically bolted past her into the cemetery; a pack mule bolted down the old trade road... toward the haunted City of the Dead. 😱

The group split up. Because, why not? When D&D groups split up bad stuff only happens to them, like, 98% of the time. 😂

The group split 4-1. The fastest PC swung atop his horse and spurred it into a full gallop to chase the mule. He knew his mount could outrun it, even carrying him on its back. He'd trained the horse himself. The only questions were whether he'd catch the mule fast enough, before it could get into trouble, and whether it would run straight down the road or might veer off somewhere.

The Group in the Graveyard

Meanwhile the rest of the group formed up a squad and entered the cemetery. They found the runaway riding horse lying on the ground, dead, with a pair of bükken tearing off chunks of its flesh.

"B�kken", a burrowing undead monster I created (though the art is not mine)

"B�kken", a burrowing undead monster I created (though the art is not mine)

What are bükken? They're an undead monster I made up for my game world. They're similar to ghouls with adaptation for burrowing. They were once human but now have dried, gaunt flesh falling off exposed bones. They can burrow through dirt like fish can swim. And they're blind (no eyes) but have tremorsense that lets them determine with pinpoint accuracy anything nearby that's touching the ground and moving. Oh, and like ghouls they carry a supernatural disease that sickens victims of scratching claws. Those infected with Grave Rot waste away over a matter of days until they die... and become bükken, too!

For the posse of four PCs this encounter was no challenge. Pretty much any one of them could have destroyed these lower level monsters in their own idiom. The one fastest on the button was the cleric of the goddess of death. ...The goddess who opposes undead. He thrust forward his holy symbol and intoned. "The power of the Lady of the Grave compels you, BEGONE!" And *pffffft* the undead monsters disintegrated into dust.

Herran Gets In over his Head

Herran, the group's scout, who'd gone off on his own to chase the mule, got into deeper trouble on his own. He followed the mule's tracks to the haunted city of Graymount. The literal City of the Dead. The city that has been mysteriously cursed for over 100 years, where most who go there die and anyone and anything that remains is corrupted by evil. Yup, the scout went right into that city. 😳

Herran found the mule soon enough. There was a sinkhole in the main road through town, and the mule had fallen into it. The sinkhole was about 20' deep.

As Herran rode up to the sinkhole, the edge crumbled away beneath his horse. His horse fell into the pit, though he was able to leap to safety as the horse fell. Now there were two injured animals at the bottom of a 20' deep cavern under the road. 😰

If Herran had any sense he would have reasoned that The City of the Dead is way too dangerous to be in, alone— more powerful people have died here, alone, like literally the person they're searching for— and that there was nothing he could realistically do to get his horse out of a sinkhole by himself. But he decided to secure a rope to one of the abandoned buildings lining the road and climb down into the collapsed cave.

I created a swarm of crows in D&D (adapted image)

I created a swarm of crows in D&D (adapted image)

As Herran entered one of the builds to secure his rope to something, an unexpected monster swung into action. In D&D there's a creature type called a swarm. It's made up a large number of very small creatures but it acts as a single in combat— with some characteristics that make it very hard for low- and even mid-level characters to defeat. The rule books give examples like a swarm of bats. I made up stats for a swarm of crows.

The crows were all quietly perched on the roof edges of buildings lining both sides of the street, sitting there ominously all Alfred Hitchcock-like, until the scout entered a building. Then with an cacophony of squawking and flapping of wings they descended to harry Herran.

Herran didn't really have any attack move that could affect the swarm. That's part of the unique thing about how swarms work in D&D. Meanwhile, they could harm him. Yes, by pecking at him. And also making him nauseated. All he could really do was withdraw.

Herran backed off. The birds settled back onto their roof perches. He tried approaching the sinkhole again. This time the birds stayed perched.

As he approached the hole this second time he saw something new. Three bükken had emerged from the ground and were attacking the two animals!

“It's a Trap!” Admiral Ackbar in Return of the Jedi

“It's a Trap!” Admiral Ackbar in Return of the Jedi

Now, any normal person at this point would realize the situation in the sinkhole screams "TRAP!" But Herran was really attached to his horse. He swiftly lowered himself down the rope, Army Airborne style (climb is one of his skills), to fight for his prized steed.

Down in the hole, Herran quickly found himself in over his head... literally and figuratively. As the first three bükken killed horse and mule, a fourth emerged from the ground to attack Herran. Soon all four were attacking him. He was skilled in fighting undead (Ranger class ability Favored Enemy) but fighting 4 of them, solo, was a tall order. I was kind of nice to him and left it at 4 rather than having 2 more emerge from the ground. He barely managed to defeat the four.

I was nice to him again as he climbed out of the pit, finally having the sense to flee town and find his companions, by not having the swarm of crows attack. I'd decided anyway that the crows had particular rules for what would trigger a swarm attack, and neither emerging from a hole in the ground nor fleeing the area were not one of those things.

Herran made it back to the cemetery, grievously wounded, just as his companions exited from their adventure. It had been a bad day for horses as Meraxes's horse had died, too— also killed by bükken. It had taken the foursome split of the party just as long for their side trip as Herran's, even though they had traveled far less, as Meraxes, the nobly born mage (who attended an elite magic school in a foreign country), cried a lot over her dead horse.

To be continued....

Update: the group decides to head toward danger, entering the City of the Dead, this time together.

In my blog yesterday about Friday's session 3 of my City of the Dead D&D game I left off before the coda. Just as the group thought they were washing up from fights with undead and still trying to figure out how to permanently deprogram that reprogrammed golem, news of another danger arrived.

🎵 I Can Talk to My Horse, Of Course 🎵

The news came in the form of the paladin's empathic link with her warhorse. Yes, paladins can communicate with their horses telepathically. Well, not all paladins; one has to reach a certain level to summon a celestial creature. And the link is empathic, not fully telepathic. What's the difference? Well, aside from the fact you're communicating with a horse, albeit a smarter-than-average celestial horse, the link is limited to brief, surface level thoughts.

"🐴 I FACE DANGER," was the message.

The paladin first thought to answer, "Come to me," but then she remembered that an evil spell in part of the graveyard had previously barred her horse from entering.

"DEFEND," she responded. "I COME."

The paladin alerted her companions something was attacking their mounts— there were a total of 3 horses and a pack mule parked in the 5 minute loading zone outside the cemetery— and dashed out to help. ...But carefully, because she knew there were still undead underground in the cemetery who could burrow out from the ground swiftly and ambush travelers.

As the paladin and her compatriots arrived they found they were dealing with an unexpected enemy: sheep. But not just any sheep... evil, bloodthirsty sheep.

Oh, great, the SHEEP are evil!

These were zombie sheep! And they were trying to kill the horses!

I Can Has Spot Check?

FWIW the group had a chance to spot these sheep when they arrived. The sheep were some distance off in a scrub field on the opposite side of the road. "There's a small flock of sheep in the field," I would have told them in response to a successful minimum Spot check. "You see sheep feeding on the corpose of some animal, as normal sheep normally do," I would have told them on a strongly successful Spot check. 😅 Alas, the only character who was looking in that direction (everyone else was focused on the graveyard which, to be fair, was reasonable) boffed his Spot check.

Morale Check

As the players started arrived the mounts were fully surrounded. I decided it was time for morale checks. Back in the early days of D&D (first and second edition rules) creatures all had a number for morale in their stat blocks. The GM was supposed to make a morale check to see if they'd flee from combat at certain points.

These checks were largely scorned by GMs and players alike because, if followed to the rule, opponents would be running away much of the time. How much fun is that? The rules did away with morale scores and morale checks 20+ years ago.

Well, I did like the concept of morale checks. They just had to be... tweaked... like so many things in the early rule sets. Playing D&D with numerous house rules was the norm 20+ years ago! So anyway, I threw a d20 for each of the animals to gauge their reactions.

The paladin's mount, Kristyl— "That's Crystal with a K and a Y, but not where you think!"— was already fighting. She's an elite, with combat skill, and she knows reinforcements are coming. In her mind the options were a) stay and fight or b) make a strategic retreat. I rolled well for her. She was standing her ground and fighting back. 🤺

Next was the mage's riding horse. Quite the opposite of Crystal with a K and a Y, but not where you think! he had no training for combat and was pretty freaked that sheep were trying to eat him. I rolled poorly for him, I think a 3 on a d20. He bolted, and ran past the paladin... into the graveyard. 😨

The mule also had no combat training, and while mules can be kind of ornery, this one was outnumbered and surrounded. He rolled poorly on his d20 check, too, so he took off running... downhill on the road... toward Graymount. (Despite hearing numerous times it's The City of the Dead he didn't pay attention... because he's a mule. 😂)

The scout's warhorse also had a "meh" reaction roll. He had combat skill, though, so he was backing off slowly, trying to figure out which side of his fight-or-flight response was more prudent. Then the scout, who personally trained him, arrived. He made a Handle Animal check. He rolled well. "Where do you think you're going?" he scowled. "You're a warhorse. Get back there and fight!" "Oh, right, I'm a warhorse. Hurr!" 🤣

Beating the Sheep

The paladin first tried her Turn Undead ability on the sheep. It was a reasonable move as there almost a dozen sheep. She's not as strong with that move as the cleric, though, so all she managed to do was drive off about half the sheep.

The scout and the warrior joined the combat next. Zombie sheep are surprisingly hard to kill. I mean, they're still sheep so they're easy to hit; they just have way more HP than normal sheep. Not that that was a problem for the muscular warrior wielding his magical katana with a two-handed grip.

Then the cleric arrived and opened his can of Turn Undead whupass. His power in this area is way stronger than the paladin's. His power is stronger than other clerics', too. Fighting undead is his religious mission. He pulled out his holy symbol of Charonne, spoke the words to summon her power, and reduced all the sheep to ashes— including the ones that already started running away.

While the group was beating the sheep two of the mounts were still fleeing. The mule was charging down the old trade road. The group will have to try to catch him later.

The riding horse met an unfortunate fate in the graveyard. Her racing hoofbeats drew the attention of some of those burrowing undead ghoul-like creatures. They surfaced and grabbed at his legs. With a couple of claw attacks, combined with a bit of damage the sheep had done a few rounds earlier, he succumbed. The players know that this happened but the characters don't yet. It will be a macabre surprise when they go looking to retrieve the horse and find instead a bloody horse-corpse feeding a gaggle of ghouls.

That'll be the start of the session next time. And that'll be 3 weeks from now. Yes, after playing a remarkable 3 weeks in a row, we're taking the next two off because we'll be traveling for Thanksgiving. But then it's 2 more weeks of gaming in a row before people start to disappear for Christmas and New Year holidays.

Three weeks in a row of roleplaying games, woohoo! Friday night we held session 3 of my D&D mini-campaign, The City of the Dead.

Title Card for my

The curtain opened on the session with the group of 5 characters (4 PCs plus one NPC) in a graveyard outside of Graymount, the cursed city. In session 2 they had already reconnoitered part of the area, fight some low-power ghoulish creatures plus a 4-armed skeleton deftly wielding 4 swords. In this session they completed their sweep of the surrounding area and finally headed into the cemetery's inner sanctum, which they'd already found to be cursed with an unholy aura.

Fantasy drawing of a flesh golem

The group knew there was going to be trouble inside. Someone— or something— set up that unholy aura, presumably either to protect itself or protect its handiwork. In addition, as they moved carefully into the zone the group's paladin used her Detect Evil ability and determined that there were at least 4 evil auras lurking inside stone sepulchers. ...And they weren't faint auras, like she'd detected previously elsewhere. These were stronger.

The party's cleric had spotted a holy symbol of his faith on the corner of a mausoleum. He Consecrated the area but found his deity's symbol had been defaced. While attempting to repair it— BOOM! The double wooden doors of the mausoleum crashed open as a 9 foot tall horror of mismatched human body parts strode out. It was a flesh golem.

The cleric knew it was a flesh golem. It was part of his religion, a construct created by powerful priests of his faith to help protect the living from the undead. (I communicated this via secret-note clue passing.) He found quickly, though, that this particular golem had other designs! It started attacking him and his allies, smashing him with a powerful blow from a muscular arm as it let out a hoarse roar.

The commotion caused by the golem was the cue the undead hiding nearby were waiting for. A gang of 4 wights slid the lids off their stone coffins, climbed out, and entered melee, swatting and swiping at the characters with their bony claws.

Wights, for those who don't know, are energy drainers. They're feared by D&D players because they have the ability to suck levels from characters. I think all the experienced players knew this intrinsically, as they groaned when they recognized the monsters from how I described them.

This presents a common role-playing game problem called firewalling. Experienced players know a lot of monsters' special strengths or weaknesses. Often these are things that their characters would not know... but because the players know them, their characters act as if they know, too.

Wights are feared by D&D characters and their players because they drain experience levels

I anticipated there would be a firewalling problem with these wights so I made it moot. I created one of those pre-written "secret notes" of character knowledge and handed it to the cleric's player. He (the cleric) recognized them from his religious knowledge, so the player got to shout a warning, in character, to everyone else.

As the monsters emerged from hiding and I placed their pieces on the tactical mat spread across our gaming table, the players gulped. They knew they were in trouble with all these foes in combat with them at once. They were overpowered and in danger of being surrounded. But then an unexpected thing happened. The golem... deactivated. Just swiftly as it attacked seconds earlier, it halted. It dropped its arms to its sides and stood impassively.

The group rallied to fight the wights. The heavy fighter landed a massive blow with his dire flail, nearly killing one with a single blow, but then missed with his other attacks. The wight fought back with a savage claw attack and connected, saddling the fighter with a negative level (the immediate effect of energy drain).

Then the cleric got in on the action, held forward his holy symbol, and commanded the undead by the power of his patron deity to "Begoooone!" The wights weren't reduced to ashes like the lesser undead he'd used his supernatural power on earlier, but 3 of the 4 were forced to flee.

The scout moved around the edge of the melee to take a strong tactical position against the remaining wight. As he did so, though, the golem reactivated. No longer standing still with massive arms hanging limply at his sides, he let out a hoarse roar again and resumed pummeling the party's cleric.

"Wait, what?!?!" the players wondered.

"Maybe he just hates clerics," someone suggested. "Particularly those of the faith that creates golems."

"Nah, he's just chill because his lil' buddy, the scout, is here again," I joked.
"I think I know what's happening," remarked the scout's player. But thankfully he didn't elaborate— as that would be a firewall failure!

As the group finished off the combat, killing two wights while two got away and seeing the golem go back into "quiet" mode, they figured out the mystery. The cleric had cast a protection spell on the scout prior to combat. Specifically it was Magic Circle Against Evil. Among other things, it protects everyone in a 10' radius from mind-control effects by evil creatures. The golem had been... reprogrammed... to destroy living creatures instead of protect them.

How did they know its programming? With the help of Detect Magic and a good Spot check or two they found a magical piece of parchment in the golem's mouth. "KILL THE LIVING" it had written on it in magic runes (the cleric decoded it with Read Magic) along with a sigil of the god of undead.

Update: But wait, there's more! The group fights off zombie sheep!

Friday night was Session Two of my "City of the Dead" D&D game. Yes, we played two weeks in a row. In fact next Friday it will be three weeks in a row. We compared our calendars in advance (during Session Zero) to find 5 Friday nights that worked for everybody. It just so happened the first three were consecutive weeks.

Title Card for my "City of the Dead" D&D Game (Oct 2023)

After an overnight "random" monster encounter and tracking it to its lair in the morning consumed the entirety of the first session I was eager to get the party into the main plot line this week. As I've written before, there's an art to balancing "random" monster encounters so they enrich the story without subtracting from it.

Storytelling Improv— A Swing and a Miss

The group screwed around enough that they deserved two more incidental encounters. Rather than just say "Nothing happens!" to speed through it I decided to mix it up by engaging the group in an improv storytelling exercise. My aim was this would be (a) relatively fast and (b) fun. Alas it was neither as the players struggled to understand the simple instructions I offered for the storytelling improv. I cut the improv exercise short and then declared that the next encounter was rained out. Literally.

"It rains all night. You're cold and miserable. So is everyone and everything that would otherwise attack you, so nothing happens." 😅

This got the group on to the outskirts of Graymount, the titular City of the Dead.

Passing Notes FTW

One thing I hated back in the day was the GM and one or more of the players passing secret notes. I hated it as a GM because an incoming secret note generally meant one of the players wanted to do something hostile toward others in the group and expected to be allowed to waste their time at the table acting solo to do it. I hated it as a player because, well, the same reasons. That said, I do pass notes in this game— from GM to player, not vice-versa— and it's a good thing.

The purpose of the notes I send players now is to give them a tidbit of information their character knows that the rest of the group doesn't. Usually this is something connected to unique knowledge their character has, like "Trolls regenerate wounds except for acid and fire," and, "The lost cleric you're looking for almost certainly would have visited this cemetery first because it's in line with his faith to do so; you might find a clue to his whereabouts there."

I could just announce these bits of insight at the table when one player asks what his/her character knows about the topic. In the past that's what I've done because it's simplest. This game I've pre-written notes addressing questions the players are likely to ask (or should ask) and hand them over at the right time. This allows the players to share character knowledge in their own voices, which is really cool.

Clues Work, Clues Fail

The group found the cemetery outside of Graymount, the first stop on the main plot line. They immediately decided to try going somewhere else totally off script first. 🤣 With the help of one of those pre-written character knowledge notes they thought better of it. It was awesome that the note helped them make this decision organically.

In the cemetery the group fought through a small group of low-powered undead. They were heading to a walled garden in the middle, the place they figured would have whatever they were looking for. But when they encountered an evil spell protecting it they decided to go explore everything else first.

Silly me, I though that when the group signed up for a mission loosely described as, "Find the evil stuff, figure out what it is, and defeat it," they would interpret signs of evil as proof they're on the right path. Instead they took it as a "Wrong way" sign, turned back, and tried every other direction first. 🤣

More Improv— This Time it Works!

There was a section of the cemetery I forgot I detailed when I created a huge map I shared with the party. On the far side of the cemetery was a small monument on a stone platform. They decided they wanted to explore that.

As the players passed a statue on the platform they demanded to know what it was. Just "a statue" wasn't good enough. They bailed on all the evil stuff which was their mission but now they're sculpture critics. 🙄

I turned the question back to them. "You tell me." I paused as they looked confused. "Someone tell me what the statue is."

"It's a man who's a warrior, with a sword!" Hawk volunteered.

"That's awesome," I said with a smile. "That just changed the nature of the monster that's about to attack you. You're going to like this!" 🤣

A four-armed skeleton attacked the party— wielding 4 swords!

A four-armed skeleton attacked the party— wielding 4 swords!

With the sound of stone scraping against stone the lid slid off the sarcophagus beyond the statue. Out of the coffin climbed... a 4-armed skeleton! With a curved short sword in each of its bony hands!

Oh, the group had fun fighting that monster. A half dozen ghouls joined in from the sides to keep everyone busy. The cleric nuked the ghouls in a single shot (yay, Turn Undead!) to astonished faces around the table, then a cheer went up as the wizard finished off the mutant skeleton just before it finished off the party's scout.

I'm finally playing D&D again! Well, GMing D&D again. It's always easier to find a few people willing to play than one willing to GM. And as hard as that was when I was younger, it's only gotten more challenging with age as people have kids, demanding jobs, and busy social calendars. But hey, D&D!

After holding a much-delayed Session Zero two weeks ago we started my "City of the Dead" game for real this past Friday night.

Title Card for my "City of the Dead" D&D Game (Oct 2023)

There are four players in the game. I created a set of 5 pre-gen PCs with the appropriate mix of skills and motivations to make the game fun. I didn't require players to select a pre-gen.... I expected that at least two players would want to modify one of the pre-gens to tailor it to suit their preferences, or even build a character from scratch. Instead all four players took to my pre-gens quickly in the Session Zero. And everyone seemed to get their first choice. Woot!

Friday night's session had the party leaving the safe(ish) environs of the fading city of Durendal, heading out to the curse, haunted city of Graymount, "City of the Dead", a few days away. The players agreed that the main goal driving them was to investigate the disappearance of a cleric's superior and hopefully rescue him. Each of the PCs has a personal motive to want to venture there. I carefully crafted those to overlap yet simultaneously create just a bit of dramatic tension.

Things that go CRASH in the night

Friday's night session was taken up by a midnight raid on the party's camp while they were traveling. Two trolls and a young winter wolf lived in the area. Troll - image based on D&D stock art

One of the trolls and the wolf were out hunting. They spotted the party's camp and tried sneaking in. The sentry on watch heard their approach and woke everyone up. Having lost the element of surprise, the monsters backed off. Two hours later they tried again, also by then a bit wiser to the party's tactics. They gained the element of surprise and attacked. The PCs prevailed by fighting hard and making some wise choices. Everybody participated, everybody got to do something that only they can do.

In the morning after the nighttime raids the party decided to track where the monsters had come from. "We don't want a monster chasing after us," they reasoned. That was smart because there was another troll in the lair. Also, the treasure was in the lair. 😅

I was mindful as I wrote this nighttime raid into the story. This game is a short story: a single adventure I expect to span 5 sessions. Giving the entirety of session 1 over to a side plot requires... careful intentionality. When I wrote recently about "Making Wandering Monsters Meaningful" I was thinking about this adventure. My aims here were twofold.

For one, this sub-adventure helps flesh out the setting. This is a dangerous area, an area the vast expanse between cities in a fallen realm, where things routinely go bump in the night. Second, and really more important, is that I gave the party a shakedown encounter. It was an opportunity to figure out their characters' powers and how to work together before they get embroiled in the more intense encounters ahead in... The City of the Dead.

Now that I'm playing D&D again* I feel not-foolish about writing about D&D and similar role-playing games.

One of the blogs I follow is Gnome Stew. It's about roleplaying games, specifically with advice for game masters (GMs). I subscribe, and sometimes I even respond there.

A recent article by one of their veteran writers was about how old habits die hard. It was kind of a grab-bag of thoughts about how things that were common styles of play decades ago and frankly sucked have thankfully changed with the times. One topic the writer mentioned that jumped out at me was wandering monsters.

Wandering monsters are a trope from D&D type games in the 1980s. More than just a trope, they were literally diagrammed in tables in the rulebooks and written into the adventure in numerous prepackaged adventure modules.

What's wrong with wandering monsters? Well, there were just too random. I mean, you're crawling around a dungeon, looking for some kind of goal, and there's all these vagrants who are aimless until they see you and immediately want to kill you. Frankly they were always just there to keep the story moving and the players on their toes. Any lull in the action, anyone not paying attention at the gaming table, and WHAM! random monster walks around the corner and tries to kill you. A thing you might wonder in between such encounters, aside from whether this is a dystopian underground vision of San Francisco's Tenderloin neighborhood, is who painstaking builds all these dungeons and abandons them to be filled with vagrant monsters, anyway. 😂

The Gnome Stew article doesn't really present a solution to the problem of the wandering monster trope, other than author seemingly learning how to stop worrying and love the bomb. And that's why that part of the article resonated with me— because I have made wandering monsters actually relevant to my games.

The main thing I do is make wandering monsters not totally random. The monsters are part of the setting or the story. "Setting" monsters are those that come with the territory. You're on a road through a forest miles from a town? There could be a wild dire boar on the road staring you down, or a bear that raids your campsite for food late at night. I plan these encounters to help set the mood for the setting the players are adventuring in. It reminds them there are risks, and consequences of choices, even when they're between Point A and Point B in the story.

"Story" wandering monsters are not-quite-random monsters whose presence is part of the plot. You're hunting for the villain's hideout where a captive is held hostage? Well, the villain isn't just sitting there waiting for you to kick in the door. The villain has guards and scouts. The pair of gnolls and a hyena that try to ambush you on the road? When you gain the upper hand in the fight and they turn to run away, it's not because they're scared. They're in cahoots with the villain and they're running to let him/her/it know you're coming.

The reason I regard these types of encounters as "wandering" monsters is that they're not nailed down in place. I don't mark it on my map as "The bear raids the players' camp here" or "The gnolls' ambush is there." These encounters are wherever they need to be to keep the game engaging for everyone.

Woohoo, I'm playing D&D again! Last night we managed to kick off our short term game. It was the first time in, like, 8 weeks nobody was sick or stuck axle-deep in mud. And we mapped out five Fridays in the next two months we can play!

Last night was only a session zero so no dice rolling. We players got aligned on the story, the setting, a group of characters that will go through it, and how we look to have fun doing that together. With the group of players I chose for this game that wasn't too hard. We're all pragmatic players who like telling a story with a set of characters that basically work together instead of trying to break the game, steal from each other, or just being assholes (to other players) for fun.

One thing I liked, and which worked way better than I anticipated, was that the players quickly settled into the pre-generated characters I'd built. I was clear up front that picking a pregen wasn't required; I made them as examples and time-savers vs. creating characters from scratch for this mini-campaign. But I also designed them as good characters, with well thought out skills and interesting bits of backstory. The players not only all picked from my pre-gens but seemed satisfied that they'd gotten their top choice. I'm looking forward to Session One!

Seven weeks ago now I was excited to announce here that I'm starting a new D&D game. After not playing D&D in over two years I had finally decided, "Screw it, let's try to get a group together," and gotten a group together. I'd shied away from it for a long time because I thought that would be too difficult. It turned out to be... well, definitely not easy but less difficult than than I worried. Now, seven weeks later, how's it going? Ha, ha, it hasn't even started! A combination of factors have kept us delaying it a week or two at a time. 😰

First, there's work pressure. When I made the decision around the start of August to start lining up a quartet of players for my game, things had been pretty slack at work. Work was light for a few months through the summer. That left with me a surplus of energy and creative energy at the end of each day to think about, and write, gaming stuff. Alas by the time I'd gotten a quartet lined up in mid August work was starting to heat up. I went from working at 50% effort to working at 100%. The extra energy I had to work on gaming stuff for an hour or two each evening, and with which to plan a session the next Friday night, disappeared.

Second, there were travel disruptions. One of the players went to Burning Man which, if you've read any news about Burning Man this year.... well, let's just say it didn't go well. He was out for 3 weeks including the time it took to "dry out" (his words 😅) after returning. There were also two weeks that were out due to Hawk's and my travel.

Most recently we've lost two weeks to one of the players having Covid. He tested positive the morning of last week Friday's planned game, and even though he got treatment right away, he continued testing positive yesterday morning. We postponed the game another week.

On the positive side the most recent postponement was probably a blessing in disguise. I was tired last night after a long week of business travel. I felt sleepy after dinner and actually went to bed at 9pm. I then slept soundly through the night until 8am; an indication that I really needed that sleep. I hope it was just catching up on sleep debt, BTW, and not an early sign of me getting sick with something. I want to get this game started this coming Friday and not have to put it off another week!

I'm starting up a new D&D game. This one's not a long-term game like the last one I ran— the one I ran for more than 20 years. I'm structuring this one around a single adventure. It's an adaptation of an NPC-driven side quest I created in my LT game. As a standalone adventure I expect it will be 4-5 game sessions. And it will be in-person, around a table, just like god and Gary Gygax intended.

This adventure— working title, City of the Dead— is just one of several ideas I've had for games since my LT game fell apart two years ago due to age, changing priorities, and the social cues that are missing in remote play. I have so many ideas but also so many doubts about what's even worth it after the LT game fell apart. I figure a short, closed-end game will be good for getting back into GMing. And figuring out whom to include as players.

Speaking of players, it was hard to find four. Or maybe I just thought it was hard until I asked. Hawk was the #1. When we finally got around to asking 3 others, after months of hemming and hawing about it, all— to our pleasant surprise— said yes. Woot! But before we could schedule a Session 0 one dropped out upon reevaluating his time commitments. We spiraled for a few weeks after that. Then we thought to ask a mutual friend who likes boardgames but has never expressed an interest (that we've heard) in RPGs. He quickly said yes, so we're back to four players!

Now I just have to get the adventure ready. And that... is proving to be way more work than I expected. Probably I'm way overthinking it. But tonight I've spent a few hours getting some player-facing materials brushed up and pushed up into Google Drive where they'll be easy to share. I'll get the players looking at them to ask questions and offer feedback, and prioritize what to work on next based on that.

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canyonwalker

May 2025

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