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[Tawmis]

Almost caught up - one more to go!
Here's Session 9 Notes for the "Ben Game"
- The party has moved on past Piercers and Quippers, and goes on to meet Specters, and Ogres - and some very troublesome gnolls! Also the party catches up to Avacyn's mother and father - but what happens next?
http://tawmis.com/kneurth/adventure-not ... scovery-09

[Rath Darkblade]

Ah, yes - OK. Because the Lawful Good Paladin ended up becoming "Lawful Stupid". For instance:

Rak'aar the Lawful Good (And Not-So-Brilliant) Paladin sees a room full of orcs! Hundreds and hundreds of orcs! And orcs are EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEeeeeeevvilll! So he bursts into the room and yells, "By the power of goodness, I shalt slay thee, O spawn of etc.!"

Cue a moment of disbelieving orcs, a moment of indescribable violence, and two minutes later, an orc mum is chewing down. "Yum, yum. Roast leg of incredibly stupid paladin. What was his problem?"

"Hrrk, dunno. Pass the mustard, please."

Or an LG paladin who challenges a Red Dragon to a one-on-one fight. Because Red Dragons are evil. I mean, they are, but ...

Having said that, isn't it possible to roleplay an LG Paladin with more intelligence and self-preservation than -- say -- a addicted smoker in a fireworks factory?

[Tawmis]

Ah, yes - OK. Because the Lawful Good Paladin ended up becoming "Lawful Stupid". For instance:
Rak'aar the Lawful Good (And Not-So-Brilliant) Paladin sees a room full of orcs! Hundreds and hundreds of orcs! And orcs are EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEeeeeeevvilll! So he bursts into the room and yells, "By the power of goodness, I shalt slay thee, O spawn of etc.!"
Cue a moment of disbelieving orcs, a moment of indescribable violence, and two minutes later, an orc mum is chewing down. "Yum, yum. Roast leg of incredibly stupid paladin. What was his problem?"
"Hrrk, dunno. Pass the mustard, please."
Or an LG paladin who challenges a Red Dragon to a one-on-one fight. Because Red Dragons are evil. I mean, they are, but ...
Having said that, isn't it possible to roleplay an LG Paladin with more intelligence and self-preservation than -- say -- a addicted smoker in a fireworks factory?

It is - but I think it's more down to the limited roleplaying.
LG would probably never make deals with anything of Evil alignment.
Say, the party rushes in and sees a Red Dragon, starts the fight - gets it down to half health - and the Red Dragon says, "Hold. I know you would strike me down for I am evil. But what if I told you that Beris, the Lich King to the north - has plans to raise a massive army of the undead. Spare me and I will tell you how to defeat him."

The Paladin would probably never agree to such terms - even though the rest of the party, might let the dragon live - because there's a bigger problem to the north - and learning the Lich King's weakness may be more beneficial than slaying the red dragon.

[Tawmis]

All caught up for the "Ben's Game" -

Session Notes 10 - After Avacyn's mother escaped, the party decides to explore the cavern more - encounter some orcs and gnolls and get bloodied for it - and Avacyn critical fails a Dexterity Check bumping into Shriekers - they make it to town, where Rettniss and the weapon vendor talk... and an elf at the inn has a mission...
http://tawmis.com/kneurth/adventure-not ... scovery-10

The party heads into the infected forest... for Session 11!
http://tawmis.com/kneurth/adventure-not ... scovery-11

[Rath Darkblade]

Hmm. Is there no opportunity, then, for LG to act sensibly - for instance, agree to the dragon's terms, learn what it has to teach, drink a healing potion, and then kill the dragon (because hey, it's eeevil)?

As for the sessions -- OK! I've read both and noticed a few things...

NOTES FOR SESSION 10.

Hartmut ... hits with his sword sword...

Typo, I'm unsure. Unless that's a new type of sword. (Sorry to be a smart-arse).

Directions to Doro's. "...Easy to find – go down the street right over there – pass two farms..."

Should this be "past two farms"?

Hmm. *thinks* The potions are 50 gold each? And Doro's giving them a discount? But when Arhian gets two, he puts down 100 gold? What kind of discount is that?

I thought Doro would try to pinch Hartmut's butt.

I like Rettniss. "We’re very important adventurers on a very important mission."

Sounds very important!

Twilight nudges Rettniss and clearly states, “We will be in town tonight at the tavern after we wash up, if you wanted to talk to her more.”

Sorry, I thought Keyleek was male? I'm confused.

Jorick thinks about it... “We don’t have much in the way of gold or any kind of … normal rewards.”

I wonder if anyone's going to pipe up with "Then we're not going!" Or something equally obviously evil.

Hmm -- Twinoak? Is this a reference to Treebeard?

Daggerpoint says the hags are ugly. Thanks, Captain Obvious.

But hang on. This sickness is affecting Fae very much, according to Jorick. Why is Halfpint (sorry, Daggerpoint!) going?

NOTES FOR SESSION 11.

'Scuse me while I run in fear!

Yes, that's not a beholder. Beholders have eyes on their stalks.

...and Avacyn is forced to do a Constitution Save – which she Critical Fails – but uses Inspiration to re-roll and meets the DC, passing it! (A good thing too!)

Why? What'd happen if she didn't?

...Sindri following up with another gold based spell – Ray of Frost...

Cold, not gold - unless Ray of Frost makes the dog glow yellow.

[Tawmis]

NOTES FOR SESSION 10.

Hartmut ... hits with his sword sword...

Typo, I'm unsure. Unless that's a new type of sword. (Sorry to be a smart-arse).

Short sword is what that should read.

Directions to Doro's. "...Easy to find – go down the street right over there – pass two farms..."

Should this be "past two farms"?

Quite correct!

Hmm. *thinks* The potions are 50 gold each? And Doro's giving them a discount? But when Arhian gets two, he puts down 100 gold? What kind of discount is that?

Well, Arhian didn't want to try and get the discount Harmut got (Arhian being female, may not be able to get one). So she paid the full 50x2=100 gold.

I like Rettniss. "We’re very important adventurers on a very important mission."

He (playing a she) is one of my favorite players. He rolled with the punches so well.

Twilight nudges Rettniss and clearly states, “We will be in town tonight at the tavern after we wash up, if you wanted to talk to her more.”

Sorry, I thought Keyleek was male? I'm confused.

She's (Twilight) is telling Keyleek that she (Rettniss) will be at the tavern after they wash up if he (Keyleek) wants to talk to her (Rettniss).

Jorick thinks about it... “We don’t have much in the way of gold or any kind of … normal rewards.”

I wonder if anyone's going to pipe up with "Then we're not going!" Or something equally obviously evil.

Well, the funny party is Rettniss (who plays a druid) asked what was in it for them lol

Hmm -- Twinoak? Is this a reference to Treebeard?

Twinoak is a Treant, just like Treebeard. But D&D has treants in the world, so not a direct reference.
Although I did take the slow talking, like Treebeard (but in my head) but actually spoke like the Sloth from Zootopia.

Daggerpoint says the hags are ugly. Thanks, Captain Obvious.

Well it was the set up to say the players are ugly to him.

But hang on. This sickness is affecting Fae very much, according to Jorick. Why is Halfpint (sorry, Daggerpoint!) going?

Because they can go in; but they will get sick from it (should they fail Constitution Saves). But Daggerpoint has a very "self important" image about himself. I try to give NPCs quirks to make them more than just cardboard NPCs ("Go fetch me XYZ!", "Our farm has been taken over - kill XYZ!", "My wife lost ABC, please fetch it from XYZ!")

...and Avacyn is forced to do a Constitution Save – which she Critical Fails – but uses Inspiration to re-roll and meets the DC, passing it! (A good thing too!)

Why? What'd happen if she didn't?

The Death Dog's bite is vicious if you fail the save - here ye go:

Bite. Melee Weapon Attack: +4 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 5 (1d6 + 2) piercing damage. If the target is a creature, it must succeed on a DC 12 Constitution saving throw against disease or become poisoned until the disease is cured. Every 24 hours that elapse, the creature must repeat the saving throw, reducing its hit point maximum by 5 (1d10) on a failure. This reduction lasts until the disease is cured. The creature dies if the disease reduces its hit point maximum to 0.

[Rath Darkblade]

Wow. Death dogs are obviously dangerous, especially if you have a low CON. But not many characters will have a low CON, 'cos that's obviously stupid. Right?

As for NPCs having quirks ... heh. This reminds me of one of my favourite NPCs, in the first full-length book I wrote. The party was clearing out a dungeon, and were hearing rumours of a dragon. They found it ... and it turned out to be an imp. An imp with low self-esteem, because everyone else in heck was picking on him. So he tried to make himself look more important ... and failed ... and started to cry ... so the party took pity on him and invited him to join them. The imp was very happy, and decided to take charge. Unfortunately, it also started to refer to itself in the first person. "I, Thrip the Daring, will lead you!" *THWOMP; he fails to notice a crack in the floor and falls on his face*

Eventually he turns out to be quite useful, even if he doesn't look like it. I wish I had a party to run this guy for.

[Tawmis]

Wow. Death dogs are obviously dangerous, especially if you have a low CON. But not many characters will have a low CON, 'cos that's obviously stupid. Right?

Depends on how people build their characters.
I used to be a big support of rolling dice for character stats.
However, in the Anita Game - it became painfully clear that some people can get some EXTREMELY lucky rolls.
Anita, who was playing a Ranger - rolled something like: 18, 18, 17, 16, 15, 15.
Which is insane stats.

What ended up happening was this gnome ranger, became as effective as the Dragonborn Barbarian.
So if the barbarian failed, the gnome would walk up, and try - and often succeed.
I could see how it was undermining the person playing the Dragonborn Barbarian.

I ended up making some house rules, in regards to ability checks, as a result.

Now, for all my games since then - I do the point buy system.

Point Buy Puts All your Stats at 8:
STR 8, CON 8, DEX 8, INT 8, WIS 8, CHR 8.

And you have 27 points to apply to those stats. But no stats can go higher than 15 (unless racial modifiers allow it; so for example if you up your DEX to 15, and you're an Elf that gets +2 to DEX, your DEX becomes 17).

As for NPCs having quirks ... heh. This reminds me of one of my favourite NPCs, in the first full-length book I wrote. The party was clearing out a dungeon, and were hearing rumours of a dragon. They found it ... and it turned out to be an imp. An imp with low self-esteem, because everyone else in heck was picking on him. So he tried to make himself look more important ... and failed ... and started to cry ... so the party took pity on him and invited him to join them. The imp was very happy, and decided to take charge. Unfortunately, it also started to refer to itself in the first person. "I, Thrip the Daring, will lead you!" *THWOMP; he fails to notice a crack in the floor and falls on his face*
Eventually he turns out to be quite useful, even if he doesn't look like it. I wish I had a party to run this guy for.

That's essentially Daggerpoint's personality - that he tries to make himself far bigger and more important than he really is!

Depending how things go; he may linger with the party for awhile.

I already have one very fun NPC - Twilight's parrot is a parrot that was on a pirate ship - so it knows how to launch "racial slurs" (calling gnolls, motherless, flea ridden, carrion eating, cowardly, half bred wild dogs - for example) during combat.

I even had it sing a song when the heroes got back to town -

"Gotta take down the troll nosed boss
So the watery druid threw her snake
Willing to take the loss
To let her weapon break!
Snake go boom
No more end of the world doom
All the heroes died
But I'm still alive, so no one cried!"

[Tawmis]

So, I DM for my work people every other Tuesday - but several of them wanted to make it weekly, but obviously not everyone can commit to that.
So I decided I'd DM a "Off Week" game where I don't plan anything really - to challenge myself - and wanted to do something different.
I wanted it to rely very heavy on roleplaying, and I wanted to do something I've always been weak at - a horror theme.
But since each one was (ORIGINALLY!) going to be one offs - I wanted to create an easy way why people can drop in and out of the game.
So I said - essentially - everyone is enslaved to an evil wizard named Mordak (Sound familiar? Intentionally so!)
And that each slave has a rune on their neck - he sends his slaves out to go do tasks, or even live out their lives - until he needs them - and then he summons them to his wizard tower.
The slaves, however, have learned to mimic the summoning spell - but it takes two of them - and takes an hour to cast.

The idea being, if someone was in the last session, and misses the next one - that means Mordak has pulled them back to the tower.
And as long as there's two players, we can game - and anyone who isn't there - can be summoned. I say the spell takes an hour to prevent breaking the game (like using it during combat, "Oh no! Bob is down! Hold my hand and summon him to me next round!")

For the first session - all I wrote down was "goblin, beach, manor" - I wanted to shipwreck them on an island, where the manor is haunted, and maybe fight some goblins. That was it.

It grew to be much more than that.

So here's the three sessions so far -

The party of three ends up stranded on a mysterious island...
http://tawmis.com/kneurth/adventure-not ... -wizard-01

The party meets the caretakers of the manor - they're far more than what they seem!
http://tawmis.com/kneurth/adventure-not ... -wizard-02

The party begins gathering clues about the curse in the manor...
http://tawmis.com/kneurth/adventure-not ... -wizard-03

We've done two more sessions, not gotten the notes transferred yet (and another session planned for today/tomorrow/Tuesday)

[Tawmis]

Session 4 notes for the Off Week Game - Servants of the Wizard.
The party gets drunk, fights some Sahuagin, make it to Felhorn, make some trades; and head to the White Fang Tavern where they learn more - then head to Razathorn's....
http://tawmis.com/kneurth/adventure-not ... -wizard-04

[Tawmis]

Off Week D&D Completed for Session 5!
Aros, Galiena and Baldur have reached Felhorn and begin speaking to the people of the town. A dress is purchased, then more clothes, and answers to some questions... and a quest!
http://tawmis.com/kneurth/adventure-not ... -wizard-05

[Tawmis]

Off Week Game -
Session Notes 6!
The party heads into the Swamp, Talks To Some Kobolds, and gathers a few components!
http://tawmis.com/kneurth/adventure-not ... -wizard-06

[Rath Darkblade]

A random D&D bit ...

An adventurer is walking along an ancient trail when suddenly -- bang! The trail is blocked by a sphinx!

“What do bees brush their hair with?” she asks.

Our adventurer is freaking out! No no no, he's gonna get eaten! Oh gods, oh gods, oh gods ... what was the riddle again? He knows this one, oh s**t!!! He knows this one -- what was it? What was the answer?

“Uh ... man?”

The sphinx narrows her eyes and bares her teeth a little.

Oh s**t, Oh s**t, Oh s**t!!! He's sweating buckets. I'm f***ing dead!

The sphinx grins like a doofus and struggles to hold back laughter. "Nope!" She says. "A honeycomb...!”

[Tawmis]

A random D&D bit ...
An adventurer is walking along an ancient trail when suddenly -- bang! The trail is blocked by a sphinx!
“What do bees brush their hair with?” she asks.
Our adventurer is freaking out! No no no, he's gonna get eaten! Oh gods, oh gods, oh gods ... what was the riddle again? He knows this one, oh s**t!!! He knows this one -- what was it? What was the answer?
“Uh ... man?”
The sphinx narrows her eyes and bares her teeth a little.
Oh s**t, Oh s**t, Oh s**t!!! He's sweating buckets. I'm f***ing dead!
The sphinx grins like a doofus and struggles to hold back laughter. "Nope!" She says. "A honeycomb...!”

It should be killed for the pun.

[Rath Darkblade]

Oh? Why can't a sphinx enjoy puns too?