2018 in Review

So, for the Daily Dungeoneer, I see there are five posts, with a long break between the end of February and the end of December. Now that makes for a long day...

For this post I reread the entries from the year, and was mildly shocked. This year has been extremely busy since the end of February, even though many of the sentiments I expressed at the beginning of January echo the way I feel now.

Basically, at this time a year ago, our Storm King's Thunder campaign had stalled since the beginning of December, and we had nothing on the table for regular gaming. We decided to stop where we were and begin a new game on Roll20 with Tomb of Annihilation. As of the last post, we still hadn't even begun that adventure!

As of the end of this year, we have advanced that game to 5th level, and are on the verge of moving into the meat of the adventure to explore the temples and attempt to destroy the Soulmonger. It's true that we haven't played since the beginning of November, but we've recognized that the busy retail holiday season has interrupted our schedule and have not tried to fret over it.

We have a home game going that is set in the desert and has reached 4th level. We have two Waterdeep games started that are right around 3rd level. We have another mid-level game going in Chult, with 2 or 3 others begun that we still hope to continue at some point. 

Most importantly, we've joined a group at a gaming store, and since June have been running through Princes of the Apocalypse. Initially meant to be an adventurer's league game, it has become a regular gaming group. With eight players, it is a huge party and has been challenged because of the size to keep focused, but it seems to be finding a true rhythm of late, and probably is still AL legal. That is good.

The last two months have slowed as the holidays approached, and everyone's time has been stolen by other interests. Unlike previous years, I've accepted that this is only a natural lull in an annual cycle rather than a waning interest in gaming as a whole. At this point, there seems to be a last opportunity to reflect on all of this and more before devoting attention to getting all these games and more back up to speed.

It's been helpful to have the regularity of the game at the game store (basically every two weeks) to keep gaming fresh in mind, and maintain an ongoing sense of continuity. There have been lulls, as in any other year, but within a week or two, there has been a game somewhere - game store, online, at home - to allay wild-running fears, and allow us to get to the next game session without outright panic.

It's been a more wonderful year than I could have imagined, and we are in a great place to make 2019 even more amazing. I hope you all find the same possibility going forward.

Starting Anew

We've reached a stopping point in our current campaign, and are setting it aside to start a new adventure! The allure of Chult has gotten in our blood, and we're finally acting on it.

For a different experience, we decided to run a "session zero" to build and introduce characters. In the past, we've all made characters on our own and brought them to the game. At most, we've talked beforehand to say "I'm playing a wizard... you should play a rogue... is anyone playing a cleric?" That has worked well for any of the games we've run before, and isn't necessarily a broken system, but one of the parts of fifth edition that we all were struck with immediately when it came out was the background feature of character creation.

Choosing the different traits, ideals, bonds, and flaws was enormous fun, and showed so many promising avenues of play to develop in our campaigns... but that never seemed to pan out. Occasionally someone remembers some element ("wait, I'm a former member of the city watch"), or dismisses their silence at the table as roleplaying ("my character is antisocial"). This falls short of the envisioned potential. We thought it might help to develop those elements together, so that we could share that excitement with the entire party, and to allow better cross-development among the characters, and within the adventure.

In order to speed up the number generation, we opted to use arrays to fill in our character stats. That way they would all be roughly equivalent in ability, easy to adapt quickly at the table to fit the desired class or party need, and far less time consuming to do as a group. We know from experience that in the time one person might take to roll up a character, another person might roll up 5. And, for it to work well to have four people making up characters simultaneously, the process needed to be streamlined. The hope was also that by taking the ability scores out of the process as much as possible, we could put more effort into developing the other aspects of the character, from skills and equipment to backgrounds and motivations. Ideally creating more fully formed and well-rounded characters.

To compensate for the homogeneity of the ability scores, we opted to use a variant character creation to start with feats. That would allow some individualization and give more interesting play options from first level. Treating the feat selection in the same way it is at fourth level, players have the option of taking a feat, or adding two points to their ability scores. That smoothed a feather or two balking at not being able to roll 4d6 to fill out their scores (and re-roll ones... and probably twos... and, oh, hell, just starting them all at 15... or something similar).

I'm sure we'll still end up with an anti-social outlander just coming out of their cave to join a party in this exotic, jungle city, but that's ok, we'll all know why they're grunting instead of contributing once gaming gets underway...

The Long Beginning

It has been too long since we last played. There have been skirmishes over the last couple of months, but nothing close to a game, let alone a campaign.

Now, the anxiety is creeping in on all of us. We want to play! We need to play! When are we going to play? Who's going to run... what characters are we going to use... are we continuing where we left off, or starting something new...

And sitting down to answer those questions, my mind goes blank. We spent all last summer thinking of new angles, new characters, only to sit here today with no idea how to begin? It doesn't seem right.

The trouble seems to be that we want everything at once. The further removed we get from regular play, the more we panic that it will never return. The response is to expect everything in one go. D&D doesn't work that way. Even at the best of times, there is often a slow build. It takes time to make characters, there are narrative conventions that need to be met before you reach the darkened cave, or roll your first initiative.

It is always difficult to begin, to get underway. But once that initial step is taken, it can be just as easy to play as it had been to avoid playing. Once one person starts running a game, others get inspired as their anxiety fades, and it becomes easier to get a second game underway, sometimes a third.

Running a game on Roll20 is daunting at times. It poses a unique challenge due to the technical elements, that sometimes overwhelm the general gaming aspects. For me, I feel like pre-game preparation is more critical. I need to know what we will encounter, estimate how far we will get in the session, then ready any pieces that are likely to be needed in connection with that.

Once in game, a major part of game play is maintaining a balance of play to keep the story moving. It is important not to become to weighed down by any one aspect - combat, conversation, exposition. Too much of one thing will bring the entire flow of the game to a halt. This is challenging, and very draining mentally.

At the end of these sessions, I have a splitting headache, and don't want to look at my computer for hours. Adding in the headaches that seem to come with online play - audio/video problems, freezing screens, images that don't load, increasing lag time - only increase the drain and exhaustion. I've learned that much of the difficulty comes from using a decade old laptop to host the game with a WebRTC client that bloats upload needs to accommodate multiple users.

Thinking about getting back into that is daunting, and requires tremendous willpower to fully embrace, but the game is worth the investment. The Roll20 system works so well for setting up and preparing a game, let alone running it, that I want to go back. But the headaches will come, and they need to be prepared for as well.

I'm trying to assess where we are in the campaign we're playing. I want to go back into it with a clearer idea of what we're trying to do, where we are trying to go, and what we hope to get out of the experience. I think it can be adapted and adjusted to keep it going, but not without some attention and proper preparation. Still, at some point soon, the best option is just going to be signing on and starting. That should break the jam of inertia and get us back to playing the game. And that is the critical point - games are meant to be played!

Terrain

Terrain can be an interesting factor in encounters, particularly any combat encounters. Unfortunately, finding an effective way to incorporate it can present difficulty. I think it's important to note that seeing how terrain can affect events is usually easy... the difficulty lies in finding a way to use it effectively.

5th edition is good about keeping combat fairly simple and straightforward. This is rewarding, keeping game play moving most of the time. The way it does this is with advantage and disadvantage, giving you an extra roll on the d20, taking the better or worse result. It is a beautifully simple solution to so many factors that arise. When I first saw it in the playtest rules, I was skeptical. I mocked it and didn't really understand it. But once we began playing in earnest, you quickly learn to appreciate the simple elegance it offers.

So what's the catch? The catch is that everything affecting an action is given equal weight, and since the effect doesn't stack, you end up with three options - extra positive, no effect, extra negative. There's no benefit to combining positive effects, or negative. When you start factoring in other elements, like terrain, you want to start giving varying benefits. But that creates a more complex system, and soon your encounter is bogged down in third edition minutia.

There's the dilemma in a nutshell. How to use terrain factors without over-complicating the game? I'm still working on that one.

Combat and Movement

My first thought was to talk about combat. I feel like so many of our games devolve into two sides lining up toe to toe, trading dice rolls until one is defeated. I don't think this has always been true of our game play, or I never would have engaged so fully with it. Face it, that kind of play is dull.

I first started noticing this in fourth edition, which relied heavily on powers for movement and positioning during combat. It was a curious effect. For one encounter, everything flowed and moved well, giving an exciting encounter. But the next battle would stall. Sometimes it was because of the powers - Hank was waiting for two opponents so he could cleave, or something similar. The structure of the game dictated the action. I have to believe its part of the reason why they developed fifth edition, to put control of action back into the players' hands. 

But that also requires them to act. A holdover from 3.5 was a fear of provoking opportunity attacks. In that system, they could be used multiple times from many triggers. With the new edition, there is a limit to how many actions one individual can take in combat, but we still have a fear of triggering opportunity attacks. Some of that came from playing first level characters with their fragile health with the mindset of previous edition. We got skittish and defensive.

All of these factors have made us flat-footed in combat. So my question is how can I, as GM, better set up the encounter in order to encourage a more fluid exchange?

I think a quick fix is to create space within the encounter so players have to move in order to engage. The best way to do this is to create an encounter that features multi-dimensional opponents. The average party has a fighter to engage in melee, a hybrid fighter that can shift easily between melee and ranged (rangers, thieves, etc.), and a spell caster of some sort that will need to keep its distance and avoid melee. A good monster encounter will have a similar construction, that is, a mix of fighting styles.

Sometimes, a quick encounter might consist of one type of creature. This is where the terrain and encounter space can be adjusted to fill the gaps. I've run encounters with spell casters and archers that positioned themselves on catwalks or balconies. In this case, the physical space can be used to maintain the distance these opponents need to be effective.

More recently, I've run a sea cave adventure with slippery rocks and unsure footing that turned a 10' x 20' tunnel into a space that was effectively double that in size. A simple trick that expanded the battlefield. For another encounter, I had a drow warrior levitate in order to direct the battle below, and fire at anyone uncontested. when I ran it, I botched it somehow, but there was a germ of an idea there. I'm working on a revised use of it that I hope to put in action soon.

I'm interested in finding a way to use terrain more effectively, but that's a thought for another day.

New Year, New Ideas!

As happens at this time of year, thoughts turn toward considering the year gone by and anticipating the new year and how to get the best out of it.

A year ago, I decided to build a campaign up from scratch, one day at a time. I feel like I was able to do that successfully. Yet, looking back, I haven't added anything since late October... So, naturally, I'm looking at the calendar and thinking about doing it again!

The problem is that our gaming has stalled, and we're struggling to get it back in gear. If I can't put together an encounter or two for a game a week, how can I build a campaign online? More importantly, why should I? D&D is a game meant to be played. If I'm going to put the effort in to creating content, it would be better spent on something that will get played.

The obvious solution is to build the content online and play it weekly. That could work, but I also feel like I explored that route last year. It's a new year, I should try a new idea. But what would that be...

To be honest, I'm not sure. I think it's better to keep topics varied, and allow them to develop or fade as their momentum takes them. I just have no place to begin.

I think I want to take a look at combat encounters, how to structure them to keep them interesting and fresh. My tendency is to build encounters that slot into the same routine, with rounds of dice rolls and slogging action. My intent is to break out of this pattern, and to explore ways of doing so. That will be where I start.

Again, all I have now is an idea. But that's what this process is about... coming up with new ideas and exploring them.