Tuesday, August 28, 2018

Running for different sized groups


Recently I have been running sessions for multiple groups of players ranging in size from intimate, one player and one dungeon master, to small group, three to six players and one dungeon master, to a large group of fourteen players to one dungeon master. Each different group has different needs and play styles and some dungeon masters are better with certain kinds of groups.

For the one on one we are playing a prewritten adventure with the player having four characters she is controlling. Each character is someone the player has played before either in longer games with other players or campaigns that never went anywhere and wanted to run them through this adventure. Roleplaying within the party is lighter because she would spend a lot of time talking to herself as opposed to other players. In another instance I played as four characters in a campaign my roommate ran in school. It was great, my characters were able to learn more about the world and the way it worked, interact with nobles, anger dark powers, and help the dungeon master come up with obstacles to overcome. With this approach time can be spent on plot lines directly involving the backgrounds of the characters, it is easier to see direct ramifications of the party’s actions, and adventures more catered to the players wishes.  One main advantage for playing a one on one game is you only need two people to play, sometimes scheduling larger groups can be a nightmare.

With a small group of three to six players each player gets more time to shine with their characters and we can mix out adventure styles. For groups this size the dungeon master can integrate more personalized backgrounds for the players. recently we had a few sessions with three players and one dungeon master, less had to be planned on my part as the dungeon master because the adventures were more focused directly on the actions of the players. One session took place in a bar where the party was relaxing after a few stressful missions and meeting other heroes in town. They delved into their individual backstories in correlation to how much their character had drank and were able to forge stronger bonds between the members of the group. The second session they played as a three person group they went on an actual mission leading them past a keep on a cliff and an auction and backstory came into play to knock them off the rails. We are able to do longer roleplaying sessions focusing on much larger topics with the smaller sized group and get away from the big combats. I end up preparing less for these small sessions, knowing the players will converse and carry their interactions further than a few statistics on a page will. Other groups will vary depending on if they want more roleplaying or more combat based adventures.

For groups in the four to six range I try to find a balance between the social and combat interactions as well as involving backgrounds. There are times even with six players that people get lost in the fray, the more aggressive players taking the spotlight. Noise can also become an issue, if people are having side conversations it can become hard to hear what is going on. Four to six has become the standard for many of the game designers when coming out with adventures and modules. This size also allows for a prepared party to cover many of the bases in the adventuring party, the standard mage, thief, warrior, priest mold that has been a classic for role playing games for generations.

For the larger groups with seven to ten players it is harder to keep things in order. It is harder to keep everyone in the picture and involved when everyone wants and deserves to talk with the same bartender or dragon and people are having side conversations in character that might need to be heard by the dungeon master for later conflicts. With the larger groups I end up running more combat encounters or puzzle encounters to keep them moving and within a numbered order to make sure everyone get their chance to do something every session. There is nothing worse then a player feeling like they are not included because they are shy or everyone else has a more forceful personality. In most cases with the larger group it is harder for everyone to hear each other at the table, it tends to get noisy with eleven people in close proximity. There have also been moments where one round of combat took forty-five minutes. The next rounds went much quicker. Lower level adventures also work better for larger groups, once characters have more attacks and larger spells game play can slow down in almost any version of the game. Again, most pre-published adventures are structured for parties of four to six players so drastic adjustments need to be taken to ensure the party does not wipe the floor with the monsters every encounter or become under powered to monsters meant for tougher opponents.

10+ PLAYERS!! Recently I have been running many with as many as fourteen players. With ten it is important to keep the party on task, with fourteen, buckle up. There tends to be much more debating on what should be done, be it going left or right down a hallway, should we open this door, or should we trust the NPC we just met. I have found a few things helpful, maximum hit points on monsters, non-combat allies for keeping things on track, task-based missions, and skill challenges. Monsters with maximum hit points helps make sure each monster is around as long as possible. This sadly makes spells like color spray or sleep less likely to work in 5e. Throwing higher level monsters only works within the mid-tier of the game, low levels are more likely to lead to character death and player unhappiness. Adding more low-level monsters has led to success as well, many easier to kill monsters will delay the party from getting to the bigger monsters by a few rounds. The most helpful thing I have started doing is keeping the party in initiative by seat, that way they always know who will act before and after them in combat. When I had the fourteen players show up at the game store we gave the new players premade characters and walked them through the basics. Everyone was at a festival for the recent victory over a big foe when monsters attacked. The party, around the table took turns attacking my monsters, which in the case of the hydra, did not last long against fourteen attacks in a row, even with maximum hit points. If I wanted it to be a bigger challenge I should have doubled the monsters per encounter, I will try that next time. The other crazy part of large groups are the overlaps, there can be numerous rangers or druids in a party, or three rogues, or multiple wizards or my favorite, the four bards. The game can take drastic turns when each player has magic, or abilities to detect certain kinds of enemies with class skills, negating surprise for encounters. We had an instance where multiple uses of divination magic were used by multiple characters to divine what was on the other side of a door. Silly things can happen with this many players as well.

Your experiences might differ at the table, if any of this is helpful at all enjoy. If you have any questions or need advice my email is bookgnomeblog@gmail.com

Wednesday, August 22, 2018

Untamed Wilds Session 9


The party was sent off to investigate one of the goliath keeps on the border separating the giant lands from the rest of the island. The group consisted of the crow ranger, centaur barbarian, lizard swashbuckler, human wizard, satyr bard, minotaur bard, goliath wizard, satyr barbarian, dragon born fighter, and cat folk blood hunter. Upon arrival they found the keep silent, the door barred from the outsider, and blood on the northern wall. the walls were twenty-foot-tall stone, the front doors stone and metal. The lizard, cat, and crow got on top of the wall and noticed a stone inner building with a dirt courtyard with five dead goliaths, four from crushing wounds and another seeming from blood loss on the north wall, his leg was missing. They also noticed the inside face of the stone entrance was covered in bloody hand prints and the door to the small structure within the keep was broken. The lizard threw a stone onto one of the bodies on the dirt and watched as pincers bit and started pulling the body under the dirt. The party launched bolts, arrows, and spells into the area, as the rest of the group had climbed up the lizard’s rope to investigate with them. Out of the dirt burrowed three more of the creatures, Ankheg, and another came up behind the party, that was nicknamed the squamous ankheg, a horrible mutation with spider legs, scorpion stingers, a back full of spines, and nightmare fuel physique. The party took some damage, a few became grappled by the beasts and the scary one sprayed acid on the party. The swashbuckler shot the crow by accident, and the goliath wizard was able to nuke the bugs with a fireball, ignoring his allies with his knowledge of the spell. The minotaur got to gore a few of the monsters as well. shit got real for the party when the scary squamous ankheg sprouted wings and flew down to bother the barbarian, which fell victim to the scorpion tails taking minimal damage but becoming poisoned. She later saved against the poison and destroyed the eggs attempting to take root within. The party was able to destroy these foul monstrosities before taking too much damage. They investigated the smaller structure within finding more broken bodies and the lizard and crow tried to sneak past them. The Satyr barbarian loudly broke down the door, ruining the parties attempt at stealth. From behind the bodies a small voice was heard and they found a pixie in a lantern, which half the party wanted to eat. The pixie got away and told them they would need to report what had happened to their boss, the fort would need new guardians and a strange satyr person showed up and these monsters came with him. The satyr bard matched the description of the satyr with the monster making satyr they met in the first session and the plot thickened. At this moment they heard from the sky a horrible screech and saw a stitched together wyvern gliding down at the keep. They leap to battle and ran out of the keep to face it on the ground after the satyr bard cast hideous laughter on it. They had bunched up and made ready to charge when a second screech made them aware of a second creature, another small frost dragon with blackened and bruised scales. The dragon blasted the party with a cone of dark ice, hitting all that were bunched at the front gate. The wyvern also hit the barbarian with a wicked tail stinger but the poison did not kick in. The party wailed on both of them, quickly destroying both. At this point they heard stirring within the smaller building and noticed the bodies of the goliaths shuddering, as if they were full of hatched bug monsters, so the centaur ran in and stomped the bodies and bugs into paste. The party took this chance to rest and, in the morning, headed back to town, finding a reward of one hundred and fifty gold waiting for them.

Friday, August 10, 2018

Untamed Wilds Session 8!


August 8th 2018 beat the all-time number of players record I had run for before. Our session started with three brand new faces, two kids and a parent playing for the first time. We had many of our usual crowd as well as a few returning faces we had not seen for a bit bringing our party to fourteen players. the party had returned from their oceanic journey about a week before hand and were in full gear festival mode celebrating their victory over Jazina and her gnoll minions. Our group consisted of the new harpy warlock, minotaur bard, satyr barbarian, and the returning catfolk, the warlock, drunken master monk, ranger hunter, blood hunter, human wizard, satyr bard and paladin, lizard folk swashbuckler and druid, centaur barbarian, and crow ranger. Their party was ruined when screams and smoke filled the area and a hydra burst forth to fight the group. Many of the party had attacks that did fire damage naturally so it never had a chance to regenerate, the centaur was able to take many of the heads as the blood hunter’s burning arrows sealed the wounds. As the crow fired arrows straight into its heart the ground shook and the crowds parted to reveal two gorgon metallic bulls. The group had some difficulty getting through their armor but the satyr barbarian was able to lasso one of them and hold it still to grant his allies advantage on their attacks. One was able to use its blast of petrifying gas against a small wedge of characters but they were too hardy to fall prey to its miasma. The druid was able to smack one of the gorgons, granting the neck to the barbarian centaur allowing her to cleave the head right off. Once the gorgons were vanquished four cyclops pulled off their one-use invisibility cloaks and laid into the less armored members of the party. The wizard was offended such base creatures dare attack him and magic flowed freely. Two of the cyclops were charmed by the bard’s hypnotic pattern, one of the others was charmed by the paladin’s fey step which was then ruined when the swashbuckler shot it in the face. The druid knocked the largest over with a tidal wave and the cat folk warlock started him on fire with a flaming sphere. The paladin had asked the cyclops when it was under the charm effect to toss him at the other cyclops but since the charm broke he just fast ball threw him at the druid, getting knocked prone. The monk killed the paladin tosser cyclops and jumped from his paralyzed head to another about thirty feet away using both cat folk grace and monk shenanigans. On his next turn he continued to bash the head in on the cyclops. The harpy warlock used his eldritch blast a few times and decided to go into melee with one of the cyclops after using true strike on himself and also beating up on the same cyclops. the cat folk ranger made great strides in damage with her hunter ability to do additional damage to wounded foes the entire fight. The wizard did cause a bird to get sick in the distance after missing with his ray of sickness and used his rays of frost to deal out more consistent hits, relying on magic missile when the need was dire. ­The swashbuckler was eventually able to hit and it was critically damaging for his foes, the cat folk warlock was able to slowly pepper away at the foes, driving them away from her with each hit. The blood hunters fire arrows helped whittle away at the monsters hit points the entire combat, the satyr bard got to move everyone around the battle field with his inspirations and the minotaur bard got to use his charge attack to drastically wound one of the cyclops. Our rangers, mages, and blood hunter were able to dominate the long-distance game even with a smaller map than the giant pirate ship we had used last time. Our druid was able to use some great poison sprays and close-range spells while the wizard and warlocks definitely wore down the monsters with their arcane arsenal. The centaur barbarian used her great sword to amazing effect, most of the monsters failed to resist her additional lightning damage while the satyr barbarian was able to use one of his additional equipment to change up the battle dynamics. The bards did as bards do and supported everyone the best they could. Healing was hard to come by but luckily the satyr bard was able to give people temporary hit points around the battlefield. Dissonant whispers helped the party as well, with monsters fleeing from them they were granted free attacks each time. The monsters died and eventually the jovial atmosphere returned. Now the question is why did the monsters attack, and possibly who sent them?

Friday, August 3, 2018

Untamed Wilds session 7


Within sight of the Drake’s Fortune the party decided it was time to plan. The crow ranger used the spyglass and could see four different Jazinas walking around the ship, ogres with small ballista walking the triple decks of the ship, a blue ogre talking to the Jazina at the helm, odd Nothic eye beasts patrolling parts of the decks, gnolls manning small row boats filling the water, and a dark shape looming under the massive ship. They chose to toss in the titan hydra scale and then address their troops, the fifty minotaur and the two ogres they had on board with them as well as the quickling and the human cleric Kiel. As the captain, the satyr paladin, was summing up the plan with as much forethought as “get em” they heard sizzling from the water, the waves shifted, and the titan hydra grabbed the kraken from under the water and body-slammed it on the fleet of row boats that were surrounding the Drake’s Fortune. The quickling was sent aboard the Drake’s Fortune to cause havoc but no sign of him was seen since he ran across the water, stabbing gnoll as he passed. The party drew their ship in close to the Drake’s Fortune and sent ballista bolts with ropes attached to them to latch onto the ship. The ship had come in close enough that the barbarian centaur just jumped the twenty-foot distance, the paladin close on her hooves. They quickly encountered and distracted the three ogres with the oversized crossbows while other foes made to slow the party down. The lizard swashbuckler used one of the ballista and shot an ogre on the lower deck, which the ogre tried to return by shooting it back with his oversized crossbow but just became tangled in the rope having not pulled it from his body the proper way. Both the crow ranger and the catfolk blood hunter launched long range arrows at the crew and captain of the ship, drawing her attention. She used her wand of fireball to return the favor, hitting most of the party and burning their sails. After that the ranged fighters chose to spread out and get to the other ship by piggybacking with the minotaur over the open water. The minotaur started pulling the ships closer together via their ropes, keeping the ships from drifting too far apart and a boarding crew took the chance to climb aboard and go looking for their captured kin. The other group of party members went into the lower decks to battle against unseen foes. The paladin rode on the barbarian’s back helping her bash ogres and Nothic eye beast monsters in the thick of things. Our swashbuckler made his way over on one of the ropes and closed in on the rope confused ogre, which had fled into one of the doorways inside the ship. The swashbuckler turned the corner and ran the ogre through and noticed Jazina further in the ship. She cast a spell at him which caused his balance to be wrecked, making both walking and shooting his bow somewhat difficult, and she ran back into the ship, locking the door. While off kilter the swashbuckler was able to pull off a trick shot bounced off of Kiel’s helm and into an ogre. At this point the blood hunter made his way over and helped the swashbuckler right himself. The minotaur with the crow on its back had breached one of the doors and found the oar room with most of the minotaur chained to oars being whipped by a sickly gnoll and at his feet was the quickling laying in a pool of its own blood. The minotaur siege team took quick care of the gnoll and made to unlock their allies. Off at the back end of the room Jazina could be seen leveling a long tube with a wooden grip at the crow, a loud bang filled the air along with smoke and an inch sphere of metal lodged into him. The tube had blown up a bit and the Jazina dove behind minotaur for cover. The crow waited till she popped back up, being rewarded with her rising up with a wand leveled at him. He put two arrows into her face and as she fell back the wand discharged creating a globe of fire hitting a large portion of the minotaur. The crow spent the rest of the battle helping heal the wounded and saving the worse off ones from death, even the quickling, he also helped unbind the minotaur to help the others. The more abled bodied made their way deeper into the ship, taking out unseen threats. After the last ogre on deck perished from terrible blows from arrows, war hammers, and electric great sword strikes, the forgotten blue ogre caught the paladin, barbarian, and cleric Kiel in a cone of cold and ice, bringing them close to death. Two Jazinas made their way to the party, one creating fear in the minds of the cleric and the barbarian causing them to flee, and the other trying and failing to dominate the paladin. The blood hunter was attempting to scout other areas of the ship and ran face first into another eye beast, which he slammed the door on and attempted to brace it and flee, the creature did get off one of its eye effects, causing the blood hunter’s skin to rot. The blood hunter ran all the way back to the other ship, leaving the swashbuckler to deal with this dire foe. After a few attempts the swashbuckler was able to rend the foe and start sending arrows at the ogre as well. Kiel tried to keep up with the healing but there were so many injuries to work on that he was spread thin. Seeing the tables turning the paladin used his dance charm to catch Jazinas but failing to catch the ogre. The barbarian fled and after a few moments to calm herself charged on a lower deck and brought pain to the lesser of the two dancing Jazina, which also took an arrow to the skull from the blood hunter a few ships away, ending her threat. The ogre, seeing things were looking dire, if not just odd, charmed the paladin to stop dancing and Jazina cast her teleportation spell taking the ogre along with her. The party took stock of their situation as a few odd booms shook the ship and noted that not only did two of them get away, but another Jazina did not join the fight, the ship was starting to tip just slightly. The two sailors on the group realized the ship was slowly sinking from the way it was pitching and started looting the ship for supplies and munitions. Once they secured their gear and survivors the titan hydra thanked them for the chance of battle and offered to help speed their travel home with their liberated friends. Each player gets to choose either a plus one weapon or armor now as a reward for completing this story arc.

We did a podcast


Four years ago, my friends and I recorded a podcast. They have their own website dedicated to comics, video games and movies and wanted to try out Dungeons and Dragons, or in this case I ran an adventure in Pathfinder for them. Their Podcast is https://thenerdgasmpod.com and the link to the adventure is here https://thenerdgasmpod.com/2014/07/23/ep-41-dungeons-dragons/ Enjoy!