Isolated Thoughts

Driven inside by the threat of illness and death around the globe, we have to deal with the isolation that brings. Ironically, most days of the year I am lamenting the lack of time to devote to my hobbies - gaming, writing, reading, etc. Now that I'm forced by a pandemic to remain inside I feel like I have less time available than ever.

Part of this stems from a shift in hours. Instead of working weekdays from 7-3, I'm working 3 or 4 10 hour days, from 8:30-6:30. On days I work I get home and sleep because I'm tired. On days I don't work, I try to sleep in and try to recuperate my energy. Needless to say, the overhanging threat of illness and uncertainty of a timeline for a return to normalcy causes so much stress that I barely sleep.

This is a difficult way to live. We've been lucky and able to go online with two of our D&D games, so that has kept us sane. I've been working to adapt to my new sleep schedule by taking time each day to open my computer and work on my D&D games. This is a new normal, and a work in progress, but it is necessary in order to make the most of the extra time at home.

Hopefully, a vaccine or cure or treatment for the COVID-19 pandemic will come sooner rather than later, and the world can return to a better routine. Until then, we are interested in making the most of the situation we are in. I am looking to remain productive and constructive. I realize I have a rare opportunity to think and work granted by the constraints on travel imposed on us as a population, and look to make the most of the opportunity.

For now, I've been able to do a lot more reading. That is a good start. We ported a two-year in-person FLGS game onto Roll20 and played within four days - with seven players and a first-time DM! We've been able to restart a stalled online game, and begun another this weekend. First steps appear small, but they can lead anywhere. Good luck to everyone in your own isolation.

February Blues

Is nothing ever easy? January has fled into the night, and here we are, with little to show for its time with us.

At least, some of the mania of the last month has calmed, and I'm looking forward to making more of an effort here this month. Unfortunately, intention isn't the same as action.

To be honest, I've been so preoccupied with getting the internet issues I've had worked out that I've gotten out of the right frame of mind. We run the danger in our Thursday game of "jumping the shark." With nearly two years in hand, we've lost the focus on the game. Instead of bearing down on the cultists we're chasing (Princes of the Apocalypse), we've stalled out in the Temple of the Crushing Wave. Sessions have deteriorated to cheap jokes and selfish one-upmanship. It is unfortunate, given that we finally have a full group of players that like each other and enjoy the game on the same level. But the game is suffering.

We've started another game at the game store, and have one session under the belt. It would be a great campaign with 5 or 6 people playing... we had nine. It feels like it will be fun, but with so many players, it is hard to get anything done. It will be fun to see how it develops. The interesting part was building characters in a session zero. It is an experience we have been longing to put into play, and it was fun to actually do.

I think it still fell short of the full effect that could come from true collaboration, but at least nine different people came up with nine different characters. It was still nine people working separately, which seems to undermine the point of the process. There should be a way to meld backstories and entwine them. I think with a smaller group, we could have gotten this done. Part of the drawback was one helpful player who sought to advise everyone else about what they should build for their character. At least the information was insightful, if a little over the top.

For now, it will be fun to play in two games. Now, I need to focus on getting my Roll20 game back up and running.

Adventure Thoughts

I've been working on an adventure and its been wandering from theme to theme as they are wont to do at times. Lately, I've been going back through it trying to bring these disparate pieces together. Some of it comes together easily, but I've reached the point where there are parts that feel out of place.

Basically, as I was building the adventure, I placed an encounter with bugbears that led to their cave. Then, I skipped on to another section and started working on it. Looking at the whole, it feels like the bugbears would offer more of an interface with the party, and I'm trying to think of how to expand that.

I have a madman that is operating in the wilderness, and it struck me that he could be serving as a makeshift shaman leader for the bugbears. He doesn't feel any real attachment to them, but finds them useful for gathering information and ingredients. In return, they set themselves up near his base as their headquarters.

The fun of this will be that they look to him for guidance and direction, and he gives off the cuff advice. As a result, they start behaving very oddly for bugbears, and having strange ideas and "missions" into the surrounding area.

Fighting Ennui

Every year brings retrospection at its translation from last to new. I internally declare my intentions to do "more," create "more" and so forth, but then fight the post-holiday letdown that invariably comes in January. This is only accentuated by working in retail, where the frenetic pace and hours of December turn to languid stagnation overnight with the passage of Christmas.
I have been working on a campaign arc for higher level characters, but while it occupies my thought daily, it doesn't always evolve at a uniform pace. Basically, I want to get on here every day and add something based on what I'm working on, but there isn't always anything to show. Often it is just thoughts ruminating in my brain.
One of those thoughts is about what to do daily with D&D that isn't strictly playing or building an adventure. I noticed an article on the official site today about DM's Guild and their Adept program. I don't know the full details of how it works, but it feels like their way of promoting popular or prolific contributors from the previous year by focusing on them. This makes it even more important in my mind to finally get past the barriers I've erected and produce sellable content. I'm not suggesting I should be made an Adept, but it is relevant that they didn't get there without producing. I want to produce, so the prospect of gaining some attention or recognition is certainly a fine carrot to dangle before me. If it motivates me to create and contribute.
Each year of reflection brings the understanding that work and life will always suppress the opportunity for me to play as often or in as many adventures as I would prefer. So, we create stories that never get told, and that is a shame. Someone surely can find the time to play even if we can't, and if we can give them ideas and moments to enrich their games, it can feel as rewarding as playing. In the end, the adventures I think up get played, even if by others. That is why I make them up.
I've never been big on resolutions, but there is definitely something to be said for having goals. I think my goal for 2020 is to create a complete adventure that I can post to DMs Guild for someone to download and play. It doesn't need to be more complicated than that. It's not about how much money it makes or how many downloads it gets. It is about building a series of encounters within a story, pushing it to completion, editing and polishing its most glaring blemishes, and passing it on for someone to actually play.
It won't be easy for me to do. Already, I'm struggling internally about whether to take something I already have and finish it up, or to start from scratch and build an adventure with the clear result in mind. At least, for now, I have time to think about it. As long as I remember to act before the time is all gone...

Looking Ahead at 2020

Finally a year made for D&D fans... 2020! 

It's a new year and time to reflect on the past and look to the future. Last year ended up mildly disappointing overall. We never got the Roll20 game going beyond about two sessions, though that is mostly on me for putting it off for ages. Nothing seemed to go our way when it came to playing regularly. We did get to play many games through the year, but couldn't get any real rhythm going.

As I look back at these blogs, I see the same thing... early promise of activity, then long gaps of nothing. It is frustrating. Still, I only say mildly disappointing, despite how grim a picture I've painted. In other ways, the year was great. We continued playing our Thursday game in Augusta, and have been able to find a real comfortable style of play that is fun week to week for all of us.

There have been loads of new minis released, and we have scooped them up wholesale. For the last month, I've gotten a renewed interest in an idea I started working on this time last year, and feel like it is finally taking form as an adventure. It hasn't been perfect, but we are in a good place, and 2020 promises to send more our way.

Best of all, the malaise I felt last year (partly from taking a new position at work with no training) is gone, and I have a better energy this year. This is a brief note for now. I hope to be here more frequently this year, and with more content to offer. 

Slipping Away

Ha, ha! The year has slipped away now, not just the year. We managed to play one session of  Tomb of Annnihilation on Roll20 this year. Perhaps we'll get one more in before the end of the year, but time is running short.
D&D has definitely slowed this year... Although the company released several products, only the first one The Ghosts of Saltmarsh really appealed to me. There are interesting elements to some of the others, but I'm not interested in exploring hell, playing games in Eberron or a cartoon reality, or dabbling in extra-planar nonsense. Of course, this almost certainly means another down year next year, too. That really depends on what they put out.
So, what do I expect? I expect a Dark Sun setting book, another updated release of an earlier edition product (Expedition to the Barrier Peaks??, along with a planar book), and a PHB 2 type of release like Xanathar's. This might not be too bad, all things considered. I think their planar book will focus on the Astral Plane and feature Githyanki, Githzerai, and Mind Flayers. That will be good, even in a ridiculous setting.
They've put out a lot of class enhancements featuring psychic powers that would work with either a Dark Sun setting, or with a Gith themed adventure on the Astral Plane. They've been working pysionics out for some time, and with the number of options they've brought out in the last two months, it seems likely they are nearly ready to actually release something featuring them.
We've had reasonably good luck playing, but haven't been able to find a consistent time to do so. Our weekly Thursday game is going great, but it too has seen interruptions. We have finally settled into a good playing group, and our style has really begun to mesh well with each other. This promises good things for the upcoming year.

Gentle Rumblings

The month is slipping away and the holidays fading into memory. With that the pressure is mounting to get back on track with playing.

That urge has got me looking at our online game. I needed to look into it and remind myself of where we were and what was going on. It's amazing to look back on something you haven't dealt with in two months and see how much you remember. It's also a little daunting when you realize you have no clue what the party can handle anymore, either.

It has been helpful to have a game that has continued through the season, and I think even now the process of restarting our online game is less stressful and daunting as a result. We still have to set a start date to begin playing again. I'd like to get a little more done before playing, just so I have a better feel for where to go with the game.

I've learned a couple of important points from running games online. First, over preparation can actually work against you. It can be easy sometimes to get caught up in creating scenarios, building all the variables, and so on, but often you'll get to use a third of it if you're lucky. A better way to prep seems to be to plot out two or three points, with a detail or two. Start things out, and let the course of the session, and in particular the players' actions, dictate how you develop things.

Secondly, while overdeveloping a session can be detrimental, it is essential to have some preparation done. Ironically, the better an online session works without a lot of encounter level prep, the worse the overall campaign seems to run on similar terms. It pays to be thinking two or three encounters out from where you are. I was watching a video recently discussing the difference between story and plot, and (presuming I remember the analysis correctly) that is the core of what I mean here.

Running online requires a good sense of plot. This is the goal, these are the bullet point locations of interest, whether for an encounter or some other kind of event. These need to be thought about and structured to some degree. They build a progression for the story to evolve through. The individual sessions become about the story being developed to fit the plot.

This may finally help me get a handle on the irritation that arises in me when people start talking about "railroading" and "sandboxing." I feel like there is value in plotting out an adventure path, knowing who the villains are, and where, knowing how they should be approached, and what order they should be dealt with. But there is equal value in letting the play of the game hold a stronger influence on the actual story that you are building.

The more memorable sessions we've had are ones where I said to myself "these are the pieces I want to use," and mostly reacted to the players' decisions within that arena. There are unique difficulties in playing online that make it difficult for too many things to happen or be said at one time. It is too difficult to hear and be heard unless everyone is willing to listen, and allowed equal opportunity to respond with their own thoughts. It is a good way to develop conversational skills like respect and attentiveness. The added benefit as a game master is to give you time to think on your feet and adapt the plot points of your adventure into the storyline developing as you play. It is a healthy trade-off.

Getting Started

It's been a slow start to the new year, mostly organizing and thinking. I bought a large toolbox, which works nicely as a case to carry miniatures. I've taken several of the smaller craft/tackle boxes I had and used them to separate and organize my minis. I've been able to fit all my minis (at least the small and medium sized ones) and dice inside the toolbox.

I took them all out and separated them first by monsters and characters. These I split up by race - elves, human, halflings, dwarves, etc. The monsters I separated by type along the same lines. Some of these were obvious, like lycanthropes and demons, but others are more general, like aberrations. Most of these are shapeless blobs that I've yet to use in combat ever, so they all feel like the same thing anyway. I did make an effort to keep all of the pieces I use regularly as PCs in the same box, so in a pinch I can just grab that one box and have what I need to play.

On the thinking side… it seems all of us have been considering the mystery angle with D&D. This is something I've been mulling over for years, and have tried to work out on several different occasions. I even tried making it the focus of a NaNoWriMo effort a few years ago, the idea of combining my love of D&D with mystery - Columbo or Sherlock Holmes in a fantasy setting. Oddly, it is a surprisingly difficult thing to manage.

"The jeweled necklace has been stolen, what do we do?" the victim asks. "Get a spell caster and cast locate object." Oh, ok… "Someone's killed Nigel! We need to find the killer." "I'll cast speak with dead and ask him."

Obviously, even in these examples, there are limitations on the spells and so on, but it does demonstrate how easily a lot of modern detecting can be negated with the use of spells. What we're working on now is a little different. With the focus on urban adventures surrounding the fall release of books set in Waterdeep, the interest has shifted to more of a heist adventure, something like Ocean's Eleven. It has the advantage of being a scenario that can work in D&D, and the disadvantage of being complicated enough to require some careful thought.

I think we have a consensus about wanting to play a higher level heist. My example is a formal reception/dinner party with a regional ambassador in town to display a treasured item or donate it to the town. There are invited guests, security, extra help, etc., as well as multiple interests looking to acquire the object. This offers multiple ways of infiltrating the setting, multiple allies and adversaries, but more than anything makes for a complicated environment to manage and resolve as DM.

We recognize the complications, and have turned to simpler versions in order to test some of the possibilities. Even these are proving to be complicated. I've been working on a bandit outpost with a rescue mission. I see three elements - observation, infiltration, and escape. The players need to study their adversary, get inside, and get away with the object of the rescue. What makes it difficult is that you find yourself playing all the roles, bouncing between them at every turn.

What are the players looking for? What can they learn? Now, you're plotting all the movements of the bandits. What are they aware of? What will they notice or ignore? Now you're back thinking about player movement. What if they fail, how will that change things? Back and forth, getting more involved and complicated as you go.

My son has been thinking about locked room scenarios. All the suspects in one place, how does the crime take place? What things can complicate the mystery? Silence, darkness, and other spells - how can they affect the story? Another problem here is motivation. Part of the reason these work well in fiction is that everyone has a secondary motive that they want to keep to themselves. That gives them a reason to lie. They suspect someone else and wish to protect them, they have a guilty secret they want to keep, they have an old grudge against someone and want to frame them, and so on.

This can be harder to get in game terms. I think it is part of the effort made in the 5th edition adventures to create factions and encourage players to align with them. It is related to backstory, but has a communal element that can be manipulated for reasons external to the individual. Still, these only work if the players buy into them and use them. Otherwise, the plot deflates and the adventure goes too flat to work.

To make the plot work, you need to plant ideas in the players' minds. That makes it feel like you're designing a new game more than a new adventure. It feels like it would be easier and work better as a one-off with pre-gen characters. That might not be a bad idea, and might be useful to refine the mechanics, but I think in the end it should be possible to create an adventure that could work without pre-gens.

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.

So close... so far away

I keep hitting moments where I feel ready to start running a game, then feel overwhelmed considering all the bits that still need to get addressed before starting. I look at the encounters and think, 20-30 minutes prep and I'm ready to go. Then I remember all the details about exhaustion, wilderness travel, etc. That is more than a half an hour...

There is a difference between game prep and session prep. That is the crux of the lesson I'm learning. Session prep is probably not an issue for me. It flows pretty naturally out of the many years we've spent playing across 5+ versions of the game. There are aspects that need addressing, particularly how far you expect to get in the session, and any linking narrative to make it work. It is also helpful to look over the encounters you have planned in order to refresh your sense of the layout and setup, and to consider the motivations of the combatants you have in mind, both your own, and those of the party.

As for the game prep, part of the difficulty stems from my attempt to use the published adventure lines - last year, Storm King's Thunder, and currently, The Tomb of Annihilation - rather than build my own. When I've built my own, I've been able to choose an idea, build a hook to draw the party into the adventure, then develop the overarching story as the whole develops. With the published adventures, its necessary to familiarize yourself with the story arc as it exists, then identify the hooks (or create them) that will draw the party in.

This adventure, in particular, seems to incorporate a lot of tricky elements as part of the story process - such as the death curse, the environmental issues (exhaustion), and the randomness of travel conditions (everything from guides to survival checks to avoid getting lost). These require even more prep beyond familiarity with the storyline.

Fortunately, I think these can be managed pretty well with a basic outline of what checks need to be made, how often, and in what order and to what effect. Once the game is in progress, much of it will slip to the background (appropriately) as a series of checks, almost like the ones that have become unwritten checklists over the years. Namely, what is your marching order? Are you setting a watch during the night? What is the guard rotation going to be? And other similar considerations. What is concerning with this path is that there are several new elements to include, and effects that arise from how those elements develop.

Most of my concerns are from nerves in the end. The anxiety of beginning a new campaign. The concern over managing several new elements. At other times, I might have forgone some of them and just used the encounters, but with this adventure, those elements have been woven centrally into the narrative, so that you need to include them for it to flow correctly. Knowing this just adds to the anxiety. My initial fear is that mastering them will require hours of game prep prior to beginning session prep, but I'm confident that is only a response to the fear. In practice, the time will be much more reasonable. The key is to find the most efficient way to get a handle on how to manage them in-game.

The Jungle Awaits

I noticed a thread on ENWorld talking about starting campaigns in The Tomb of Annihilation. I read through some of it, and found most of it dealt with questions about the weather, and its effect on travel, exhaustion levels, and the effect of wearing armor in a jungle climate.

I started wondering about Chult and the jungle, how to prepare for an adventure, and how best to juggle the non-combat effects of travel, exhaustion, and direction in the jungle. I've thought about building some charts and such to help tracke them all, or at least to remind myself of them as I play. I've also seen the DM screen for the adventure setting, and I think it might be a good investment for all of those reasons.

I need to pick up a copy before I get too far into this topic. That way, I can filter out what is there, and concentrate on what is missing to prepare. For now, there are other thoughts. Namely, how to build characters and parties. This looks like a setting that will reward some non-traditional character types. In particular, rangers, rogues, barbarians, druids, monks, and arcane spell casters that are more mobile and ranged, relying less on AC and melee defenses than range and movement. Also, with spell casters of any kind, there is a benefit to choosing non-combative spells, such as Purify Food and Water, and spells that boost saving throws and skill checks.

There have always been good reasons to use a lot of these options, but this adventure path seems to really reward characters that are mobile and versatile. Even the encounters in the setting rely on puzzles and riddles as much as traditional combat aspects, further enhancing the value of any characters that have strong skill check modifiers.

Thinking about Giant Fights

This is jumping over to our game set in the Storm King's Thunder. For our last session, we were defending Triboar from a return attack of Fire Giants, looking for a lost fragment. We reached a good stopping point mid-fight, and left the game until our next session, but elements of the whole fight have weighed on me.

On one level, it is everything I've hoped to find in D&D for years... a massive fight in a broad open space... but it drags. Part of the problem is that the encounter is too open. You can spread out enough to protect yourself from a concerted area effect, but at the same time you lose the ability to use any of your own. The same distances that protect you prevent you from effectively targeting your opponent. This leaves a long, dragged out fight as opponents dance around each other and try to nibble away at each other.

In person, these large fights seem to work out better. We've been on Roll20, and it seems difficult to manage some of these larger encounters through that medium. I'm not sure if its an inherent limitation of the technology, or if we're applying in-person logic to the online game, and haven't worked out how to run it more efficiently there. 

I feel like this is the case. Not that the medium is flawed, but that I haven't figured out how to make it work and keep the action vibrant. If we scaled the fight down to moments and drama, it would flow more easily, but I like to play it out fully. Why generate the numbers, stats and HP, unless you plan to use them. But that seems to be awkward online.

We still have half a fight to get through, and I need to find a way to make it flow more naturally. I'm not sure how. That is my task for thought - how to do it. I'll give it some thought...

Random Travel

I've been checking some of the wilderness travel details for Tomb of Annihilation. Basically, a party can move one hex (10 miles) per day in the jungle. The DM is expected to make three rolls on the random encounter chart for each hex traveled - for morning, midday, and night.

This feels borderline unplayable. I've always had trouble incorporating random monsters encounters into my games. I remember 1st edition, with its wandering monster checks. We used to roll those when we started... but that lasted a few months (maybe a few weeks). When you sit down to play, you want to play - not watch the DM roll for a random encounter, cross reference it for information, then improvise a scenario. It stops the action, when good table play seems to be best served by extending or expanding the action.

The solution to this is to make the rolls before play begins... but then, you don't have random encounters, you have structure and pre-determined encounters. In other words, you do a lot of work to prep and detail "random" encounters that you can intersperse with the action. This is counter to the point of a module or adventure book.

Add in the possibilities of getting lost, and your party is in for long sessions of random encounter checks. I guess the key is keeping it fast and loose. Roll the dice all at once, then spin something out by the seat of your pants, thinking ahead to any later encounters while playing out the first. I suppose that as long as the random encounters are given out as exposition and narrative, they can be quickly embedded.

I think it will be necessary to play a few days (in-game) in order to work out the kinks. It just feels like an awkward system at face value. 

Starting Woes

This is the bane of any writer - word one. I've been considering what kind of campaign I want to build, and am beginning to get a feel for what I'd like to start developing. Unfortunately, I'm still left with no beginning. Ideally, we can sit down over the next day or two and begin play on a new campaign. But for the moment, I've got nothing.

Thee are options. As I mentioned yesterday, there are a some options that work well as "asides" to the main quest, wanderings might be a better word. I could use one of those, and that would be fine. The concern is that we spend all our time wandering and none developing a unified central theme. Wanderings are fine, but they can't substitute for a plot. That was Storm King's Thunder.

I'm fresh off King Solomon's Mines, so the idea of a questing adventure to recover someone or something is at the forefront of my mind. It's been one of the options we've discussed all summer, the Dr. Livingston hook, as it were. After that, it devolved into numerous options of who to look for, the circumstances of their disappearance, the makeup of the searchers... That's part of the problem.

At least it's an option that can be used multiple times. It may be one that we use at the heart of multiple adventure paths, which is fine, although I think it will work better if there is some variation in the target of the search. Unless, all of the adventures are looked at as filaments of one larger skein! Maybe the whole point of our adventures should be locating Artus Cimber and the Ring of Winter. Different groups would have different reasons for and approaches to the search, not to mention vastly different possibilities about where to find them, what the danger is, or the importance. That might be a good unifying theme.

I'd rather define our own theme, but this might work in the meantime... Picking a theme might be easy enough, but giving it the proper meaning and relevance is tougher. This could work as a preparatory device. I suppose all of this is comical, when the pretense of the adventure is to discover the cause of the death curse and end it... but as a theme, it doesn't resonate with me as a hook that will mean anything to first level adventurers. We want to start from scratch.

So, we use Artus Cimber... it just opens more questions. Why do we all want to find him? Why do we care about the Ring of Winter?

Let's vary it... let's chase after an archaeologist. One group wants to find him and help explore the ruins he has discovered. Another group will want to find him and silence him, multiple groups more likely - some because of the item, some the location, some to protect their own interests. This will work. Let Artus Cimber wander through the story as scripted, we'll head out to find our own lost soul, or treasure of our own.

Further Thoughts...

I've been reading over the available guides, trying to get a feel for them, and what kind of game would fit with each. Now, I'm back to wondering what game I want to run... Such a cyclical argument!

Basically, we've built up three or four groups for potential use. Each brings its own sentimentality and style. We have a party of Tabaxi that will be a lot of fun to play, I think. They will thrive in a loose adventure, with lots of comic elements and dramatic opportunities. Unfortunately, I think more than one of us would like to run that adventure... and play it too! That doesn't sound like a combination that will work. Tricky...

There are two or three guides that seem concerned with the undead in the jungle. That would mesh nicely with a paladin/cleric heavy party. They could gather up their moral outrage, and rush in to take down evil. That will make a fun set of encounters, and has potential, but it feels like more of a theme-based campaign than the main event. It would be fun to run as one-offs, or mini adventures, building toward something larger.

It has always felt right to try two or three storylines, and allow them to intersect and reform as the adventure develops. That way we can experiment with several character options and party builds, and tweak it as the end game begins to develop.

We also have a nice troupe of bards making their rounds. They make a strong party, but I worry that they are vulnerable at times. The question becomes - what do we want to use as our main adventuring party, and what kind of quest do we want them undertaking?

There should be an element of grandeur, and purpose. But also adventure in a high sense, and plenty of derring-do. I think a good general direction is good. Some of the more targeted locations are nice, but don't spin off into bigger things as easily. Keeping the main theme more general - exploration and maybe recovery?? - will build a better main adventure thrust.