D&D Jul-23-2003
Jul. 24th, 2003 02:04 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ralphmeltonIntellectually, I think I did a pretty good job with Tuesdays' D&D session--Monica certainly said so, and so has Lori, and I trust their judgment on such things more than my own. But my perfectionism is getting in the way of my appreciating the good that I've done.
This was to be the climactic episode of the second phase of my trilogy-structured campaign. My major goals for the session were these:
- To have the PCs finally encounter the Great Dragon of the Land, in a dramatic way. For two years now, there's been a strong dragon theme going on, but the PCs have never met a dragon. For this session, I bought a Norbert action figure of a dragon (from Harry Potter) with a 20" wingspan, so it would really tower over the 25" cardboard heroes we use for the party.
- I wanted to give Larissa her level of paladin with a big surprise.
- I wanted to have an overwhelming battle in which the PCs ended up fearing for their lives, because I've often been a big softy. (This would also let me see how much the PCs could really handle.)
- I wanted to make that a dream sequence, because, well, I still am a big softy.
So I planned a dream sequence with the PCs entering a cavern and seeing the dragon, and encountering a slowly-accumulating horde of individually low-powered monsters, so that the PCs would be slowly overwhelmed. Larissa would get a magic sword in the dream, which would transfer out of the dream.
I decided to just say that I was starting in media res, instead of trying to be oblique. I think this was the right decision; my players did play along cooperatively without being obstreperous about wanting to know why.
I had put down a 2-inch dragon Cardboard Hero ahead of time to make the players a bit nervous, and to increase the surprise of the big dragon.
When I brought out the dragon model, Kevin said, "Cool!" Which was definitely gratifying, but I had wanted the players to say "Oh, no!" See the curse of my perfectionism?
In general, several things happened to make the whole effect of the session less powerful than I had hoped:
- The players figured out pretty quickly that it was a dream sequence. In retrospect, that was pretty inevitable--I didn't manage to be very subtle with it, and my players have all read the same source material that I have. Perhaps I could have been more subtle about things.
- The PCs didn't have enough monsters to fight early on. Because I started slow, there was a turn early on where there were no immediate threats. Throughout the combat, they were not taking damage as quickly as I had hoped. At 11:00, I felt so tired that I ended the fight without actually getting the emotional drama of "killing" any of the PCs. I could have used higher-level monsters without losing the effect I wanted.
- Most importantly, most of the PCs didn't really have any clear goal in the fight. There was no reason for them to not run away--once they figured out that it was a dream sequence, there wasn't even any reason for them to try to stay alive. If I were to do that again, I should have some reason to try to stay alive as long as possible. Some possibilities:
- The educational: the PCs get significant information about the dragon and the world for every round that they survive. (Or perhaps some people fight in order to enable others to study)
- The mystical: for every monster they put down (or every round they survive, or something) the world gets a moment (a day or a week or so) of peace. The problem there would be communicating that to the players...
Kevin did a fabulous job of creating something for himself to do, by trying to bring the sword to the dragon's mouth, to satisfy the 'Gorge of Fire' prophecy. I hadn't been expecting that at all, but I definitely will reward him for that. (I give myself some credit for recognizing the coolness and rolling with it. I've gotten much better at that than I used to be.) On the other hand, since I don't want to give him a full-powered artifact quite yet, I will probably weasel and say that doing it in the dreamspace is not as potent as doing it in the real world (but not as risky, either).
- I didn't feel totally happy about the way I handled Larissa getting the sword. I had been trying to think of a way to ensure that she would get it instead of one of the other party members, so I used Hrolf's flight. I had been thinking to have Hrolf bring the sword out from some dark crevice and drop it into her hands--but she was flying close to Hrolf, so that didn't work so well. Oh well--it still worked out okay. And then once she found it, she didn't have a chance to discover its anti-undead power in play, because I cut short the combat as mentioned before.
So. I'm so glad that Monica and Lori have been so effusive in their praise (especially Monica). Tuesday night and Wednesday morning, I felt really drained and dissatisfied with the session; by now, I'm warming to things a bit. Even now, I still suspect that the game session really was better than I feel about it. This is kind of a curse--I wish I felt all the quality that I suspect is there.
This was to be the climactic episode of the second phase of my trilogy-structured campaign. My major goals for the session were these:
- To have the PCs finally encounter the Great Dragon of the Land, in a dramatic way. For two years now, there's been a strong dragon theme going on, but the PCs have never met a dragon. For this session, I bought a Norbert action figure of a dragon (from Harry Potter) with a 20" wingspan, so it would really tower over the 25" cardboard heroes we use for the party.
- I wanted to give Larissa her level of paladin with a big surprise.
- I wanted to have an overwhelming battle in which the PCs ended up fearing for their lives, because I've often been a big softy. (This would also let me see how much the PCs could really handle.)
- I wanted to make that a dream sequence, because, well, I still am a big softy.
So I planned a dream sequence with the PCs entering a cavern and seeing the dragon, and encountering a slowly-accumulating horde of individually low-powered monsters, so that the PCs would be slowly overwhelmed. Larissa would get a magic sword in the dream, which would transfer out of the dream.
I decided to just say that I was starting in media res, instead of trying to be oblique. I think this was the right decision; my players did play along cooperatively without being obstreperous about wanting to know why.
I had put down a 2-inch dragon Cardboard Hero ahead of time to make the players a bit nervous, and to increase the surprise of the big dragon.
When I brought out the dragon model, Kevin said, "Cool!" Which was definitely gratifying, but I had wanted the players to say "Oh, no!" See the curse of my perfectionism?
In general, several things happened to make the whole effect of the session less powerful than I had hoped:
- The players figured out pretty quickly that it was a dream sequence. In retrospect, that was pretty inevitable--I didn't manage to be very subtle with it, and my players have all read the same source material that I have. Perhaps I could have been more subtle about things.
- The PCs didn't have enough monsters to fight early on. Because I started slow, there was a turn early on where there were no immediate threats. Throughout the combat, they were not taking damage as quickly as I had hoped. At 11:00, I felt so tired that I ended the fight without actually getting the emotional drama of "killing" any of the PCs. I could have used higher-level monsters without losing the effect I wanted.
- Most importantly, most of the PCs didn't really have any clear goal in the fight. There was no reason for them to not run away--once they figured out that it was a dream sequence, there wasn't even any reason for them to try to stay alive. If I were to do that again, I should have some reason to try to stay alive as long as possible. Some possibilities:
- The educational: the PCs get significant information about the dragon and the world for every round that they survive. (Or perhaps some people fight in order to enable others to study)
- The mystical: for every monster they put down (or every round they survive, or something) the world gets a moment (a day or a week or so) of peace. The problem there would be communicating that to the players...
Kevin did a fabulous job of creating something for himself to do, by trying to bring the sword to the dragon's mouth, to satisfy the 'Gorge of Fire' prophecy. I hadn't been expecting that at all, but I definitely will reward him for that. (I give myself some credit for recognizing the coolness and rolling with it. I've gotten much better at that than I used to be.) On the other hand, since I don't want to give him a full-powered artifact quite yet, I will probably weasel and say that doing it in the dreamspace is not as potent as doing it in the real world (but not as risky, either).
- I didn't feel totally happy about the way I handled Larissa getting the sword. I had been trying to think of a way to ensure that she would get it instead of one of the other party members, so I used Hrolf's flight. I had been thinking to have Hrolf bring the sword out from some dark crevice and drop it into her hands--but she was flying close to Hrolf, so that didn't work so well. Oh well--it still worked out okay. And then once she found it, she didn't have a chance to discover its anti-undead power in play, because I cut short the combat as mentioned before.
So. I'm so glad that Monica and Lori have been so effusive in their praise (especially Monica). Tuesday night and Wednesday morning, I felt really drained and dissatisfied with the session; by now, I'm warming to things a bit. Even now, I still suspect that the game session really was better than I feel about it. This is kind of a curse--I wish I felt all the quality that I suspect is there.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2003-07-24 02:38 pm (UTC)You can't sweat things like players figuring out the dream sequence (yeah, I know that's harder said than done). Multiple intelligent players can outsmart and intelligent DM. The best you can do is try to achieve the message you want and hope they appreciate the effort even if they see through it. The *characters* probably don't.
In the end it was interesting even if I suspected that was what it was. Starting in the middle was definitely the way to go. Sometimes little tricks need to be played to help the players keep in character. This one did make it more interesting because we still couldn't be sure what was going on. It was almost like a lucid dreaming effect.
I think that basic survival instinct was a sufficient goal for Kyle to keep fighting. Even though that didn't seem to be the way out, it made sense for someone to try to keep the monsters back while others tried to find a way to trigger the exit.
no subject
Date: 2003-07-24 02:46 pm (UTC)excessive analysis follows :-)
Date: 2003-07-24 06:43 pm (UTC)(And sometimes we look back at things and see a zillion ways we could have done things better, like I did when analyzing what Larissa did with the sword. So I'm disappointed in that because I didn't play well, but the other players probably didn't notice the lack because they weren't thinking about it.)
With the dream sequence, I think your choices were to do what you did, with us concluding fairly early that it's probably a dream, or fabricating something ("you feel a wave of [something] pass over you, and then you wake up here"), which has the potential to distract from the real goal. (I don't know about the others, but Larissa would sure be spending some time asking hard questions involving Spellcraft at that point. :-) ) Being chased by something else could work, but what could be more scary than that dragon?
Throughout the combat, they were not taking damage as quickly as I had hoped. At 11:00, I felt so tired that I ended the fight without actually getting the emotional drama of "killing" any of the PCs.
Two data points, in case you care: (1) Larissa was down 33 hit points from breath weapons alone, and (2) I was quite surprised by the time when you ended things (I thought it was much earlier).
Also, one lucky saving throw stood between this situation and a pile of goo where Kyle used to be.
Most importantly, most of the PCs didn't really have any clear goal in the fight.
This is true. It broke down fairly naturally into most people trying to stem the tide while some did the following (not necessarily concurrently): study the dragon; look for an exit; try to get the dragon to breathe on Turok's sword; try to heal the dragon in various ways (both conventional and with fire). We weren't being explicit about this, though; each character was pretty much doing what he wanted. Which is probably realistic for that kind of scenario, but isn't as rewarding.
As for reasons to try to stay alive, I was very aware of death even though I was pretty sure it was a dream. It was for meta-game reasons, I'll admit: getting killed then would mean not only bye-bye paladin level for a long time, but also bye-bye polymorph. Getting killed very near the next level just stinks that way. :-)
I had been trying to think of a way to ensure that she would get it instead of one of the other party members,
I thought you were just arranging for no one else to notice it, particularly Prolix when he was flying around up there. Alternatively, you could have had the sword object in some way to anyone else grabbing it -- a zap or a telepathic "not for you!" or whatever, depending on what powers you want this sword to have. Remember, it's a dream: the powers don't all have to map to the real world. :-)
Having Hrolf find it and bring it to Larissa would have been very cool. And it would have worked if Hrolf hadn't gotten confused by the gibbering whatsit and spent a couple rounds flying in circles or into walls, giving Larissa time to find him. (This may be an example of a time when you want to take over a player's die rolls. A bad Spot roll for Larissa could have kept her from finding him. It's ok for the GM to arrange such a roll for the sake of the story, IMO.)
And then once she found it, she didn't have a chance to discover its anti-undead power in play, because I cut short the combat as mentioned before.
Tell me if the character should know about that and, if so, I'll write it into her diary. I'd kind of like to give her a charge at something in that chronicle, perhaps after someone falls and she realizes she should be doing that.
Even now, I still suspect that the game session really was better than I feel about it.
I believe you are correct. :-)
Those are big heroes...
Date: 2003-08-26 09:34 pm (UTC)Ralph said:
>---
I bought a Norbert action figure of a dragon (from Harry Potter) with a 20" wingspan, so it would really tower over the 25" cardboard heroes we use for the party.
>---
I guess that's a typo and you mean 25mm, 'cos otherwise the
heroes are towering over the dragon.
Hi Ralph - it's been a while.
Glen
Those are big heroes...
Date: 2003-08-26 09:35 pm (UTC)>---
I bought a Norbert action figure of a dragon (from Harry Potter) with a 20" wingspan, so it would really tower over the 25" cardboard heroes we use for the party.
>---
I guess that's a typo and you mean 25mm, 'cos otherwise the
heroes are towering over the dragon.
Hi Ralph - it's been a while.
Glen
Re: Those are big heroes...
Date: 2003-08-26 09:37 pm (UTC)Damn! The script told me it hadn't posted the first time, but there it is.
Oh well, I'm in echo mode I guess.
... by the way, in September (4-10) I'll be in Chicago.
Alex is planning to come and see me. :)
Glen