D&D

[ralphmelton]

Last night's D&D session was, well, adequate.

The PCs went on cleanup through the sewers. In previous sessions, they had gone on a straight line towards rescuing the girl. Which was smart and contributed strongly towards their success and continued survival.

But it did mean that on this trip, they were overpowered for the challenges they faced. But that was actually kind of fun; it provided an opportunity for the players to try out some incautious tactics and go wild. This was particularly true when they went into a room full of dire rats, knowing that it was the last encounter that they were going to face. So they got to go wild with new spells and almost silly combinations like the gnome kicking the dire rats.

One down side of this adventure: the treasure level was vaguely sensible, which is a lot less loot than D&D expects for characters of their level. I tried to up the loot on the fly by making one dagger into a magic weapon--but this turned out to be a lot more valuable than I had intended. (Instead of being just a special effect, the "returning" nature of the dagger added an extra 6,000gp to the value.) I'm not going to redact that, though--I'll just try to find ways to spread other magical coolness around to everyone.

We got a lot of laughter out of Dalia's infatuation with Kyle, and the fact that she decided they were going to get married without consulting him. I liked that.

We also got lots of laughter out of the trip to the next tavern. I haven't been describing the boring tavern visits, and there have been three tavern-related incidents, so there's now a running joke of every tavern adding excitement to the party's life. Unfortunately, I didn't have full detail made up on a boring tavern, but oh well.

And it ended up not being completely boring after all--they got a message saying that their help was needed back in Shepford. (Though this wasn't particularly related to the tavern, really.)

I worry that I muffed the timing on this--maybe it would have been better if I'd written a response from Brion before producing that telegraphic emergency note.

What I had planned for that scene was for Colm to be superficially crusty about the detour from his planned path, but secretly wanting to be convinced that the group should go do the Right Thing. But the players seemed like they were seriously considering not going to Shepford, so I underplayed Colm there.

Dani seemed to be really treating that decision at a metagame level, saying things like "I bet if we go straight, we'll run into whatever monster we would have met in Shepford anyway." I found this extremely galling, and I'm still pondering what to do about it.

Comments

[ralphmelton.livejournal.com]

There was also some griping about D&D warts. In particular, the economics of what you can get in a town are wildly broken.

D&D's "economics": for a single item (like a potion of healing), there's a GP limit for a town. If the value of the potion is under the GP limit, it's available, otherwise it is not. For multiple items (like 'how many potions of healing can we get?'), the value limit is one tenth the population times one half the GP limit.

This means that for any item you can buy in a town, there's at least one of those items for every 20 people.

[mrpeck.livejournal.com]

I'm sure that you noticed that I was mentally checking out towards the end of that conversation. Thank you for postponing further discussion.

what he said

[cellio]

I was spacing during that too. Thanks for forcing us to move on, Ralph!

[cellio]

I had fun. Yeah, the mop-up got kind of silly (though I was expecting to run into one more big nasty thing down there, somehow), but it was a good break, I think. The business with Dalia was hilarious.

The message from Brion added a lot to my enjoyment of the game -- it reinforced the notion that there is Something going on here and life is not just a sequence of random encounters. I didn't expect so much resistance to the idea of going back, etiher, and at one point I was on the verge of saying "well, *I'm* going", but I didn't want to stick you with the possibility of a split party. (Liandra would have come with me, and that *might* have been sufficient to get Turok and Kyle, and then Prolix and Colm would have had to either come along or be out in the world alone. But they could have gone either way on that, I thought.)

I found the meta-game stuff a bit annoying too -- or rather, I found its intrusion into what was supposed to be character play annoying. It's fine to have those kinds of conversations in a different context, but that wasn't the place for it IMO.

[indigodove.livejournal.com]

Yeah, it's harder for me to stay "in-character" when folks slip out...

[mrpeck.livejournal.com]

I wasn't sure that people were serious about us not going to Shepford. Kyle doesn't really care too much about heading one way verses heading the other. At least it sounds like something interesting is happening in Shepford and he knows that Shepford is important to Larissa. He also has some mild pull in that direction since people actually asked him to go. In any case, you'll notice that Kyle was only witnessing the discussion and not participating in it.

[cellio]

In any case, you'll notice that Kyle was only witnessing the discussion and not participating in it.

I did notice that, and Larissa appreciates it. She even feels a little guilty now for teasing Kyle about Dalia earlier that night. She's not likely to admit that she's the one who put that flower there, but she'll be more sensitive to him in the future.

To me it looked like Prolix was strongly opposed, Turok was mildly opposed, Colm was grumpy, Kyle was silent, and Liandra and Larissa were in favor.

[mrpeck.livejournal.com]

Before she feels too guilty, Larissa should remember that Kyle knows that Shepford is important to her because he read about it in her diary.

[cellio]

Oh, he's still doing that, is he? I was wondering how long it would take for the upcoming booby trap to get set off. :-)

parse error

[cellio]

Oops, you said "read", not "reads".

Re: parse error

[mrpeck.livejournal.com]

Yeah, but reads would probably be accurate since he's still likely to take a peek if he gets a chance.

[cellio]

And it ended up not being completely boring after all--they got a message saying that their help was needed back in Shepford. (Though this wasn't particularly related to the tavern, really.)

I like to think that Larissa's taking the initiative to contact Brion from the previous town had something to do with that message getting to us more quickly than it would have otherwise. (Based on the previous letter, he probably would have sent the message to Covanion.) So while it wasn't related to the tavern, it was related to the story.

I worry that I muffed the timing on this--maybe it would have been better if I'd written a response from Brion before producing that telegraphic emergency note.

I didn't give you much time. :-) Anyway, we said during the game that Brion did send a reply and that you'd produce it later, so I'm fine with specifying that and filling it in later.

Besides, I think it was good drama to end the session on that note, rather than starting the next session with it.

[indigodove.livejournal.com]

Liandra loves Kyle like a brother. So she feels no remorse for teasing him about Dalia...though she will if he quits bitching about the tea ;-)

[mrpeck.livejournal.com]

Not likely!

[cellio]

Larissa says that you two still don't understand the proper role of flavoring agents. A little ginger would do wonders.