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Post by GRWelsh on Sept 16, 2013 9:04:30 GMT -5
Scott, I just wanted to let you know Brian is going to be starting up an AD&D game, in case you wanted to join. This is a campaign he worked on and started over 15 years ago, but for some reason we quit after one game or so. I've been trying to encourage him to run a game since he still had all of those notes and hand drawn maps. Plus, he has over twenty Dwarven Forge sets. Those MUST be used for a D&D campaign! It is a fantasy campaign set in the world of Blackrock which is an original world Brian made up. It is a continent that looks sort of like Australia, with the city of Blackrock on the southestern coast.
He is going to use 2nd edition AD&D rules, but with some house rules as added because the PC's are supposed to be heroic. Every character gets one 19 to put in any ability score. The others are rolled 4d6, drop lowest die, arrange as desired. No dropping points to raise points elsewhere. Ability scores being used are: STR, INT, WIS, DEX, CON, CHR, COM, PER (for Perception), SPD (for Speed, how fast you can run or move), and INIT (for initiative). Starting level is one, but starting hit points is maximum, and then double that.
I think the plan is we will have the first game at my house on the next gaming Friday (not this Friday, but next). Then, we will alternate games: CALL OF CTHULHU on one game night, BLACKROCK on the next, continuing to alternate back and forth.
So far, what we've rolled up: Kate is a cleric, Cindy is a druid, Eric is a ranger, Ray is a fighter and I'm a magic-user. Mark couldn't make the last game because he was sick, so I don't know what he will be.
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Post by Scott on Sept 17, 2013 9:22:34 GMT -5
Sounds cool. How is Brian as a DM? Does he neuter spall casters? I think I’d go with magic-user too.
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Post by GRWelsh on Sept 18, 2013 12:41:57 GMT -5
Brian is a DM who likes powerful characters that he can throw big challenges at.
In a game about fifteen years ago when Brian was a "guest DM" in Eric's campaign, my magic-user Talabester gained a very powerful "cube of frost"-like artifact. It turned me blue and gave me a lot of powers, and didn't have much of a downside, as I remember it. Brian wasn't stingy giving out magic or treasure.
Even further back, he DMed a campaign for Ray and Eric. They had 18th level characters -- arbitrarily jacked up to that level -- so they were really powerful. But Brian had them fighting demons and even "The Devil" -- who shrugged off Eric's turning attempts and said, "you must be joking". Eric always thought this must have been "The Devil" from that old Dragon article. But Brian recently said he used modified stats for someone out of the Monster Manual, like Demogorgon or Asmodeus. Anyway, the point is, Brian likes like things big and epic. He'll let you be powerful, but you'll still run into things bigger and more powerful than you.
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Post by grodog on Sept 23, 2013 22:31:05 GMT -5
Sounds like a DM after my own heart
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Post by GRWelsh on Sept 24, 2013 8:12:49 GMT -5
Yeah, Allan, I'm looking forward to it. I'm fine with various styles of play, but I haven't played in a 'power' campaign for a long time and it will be a nice change. Since power is always relative, the only thing a 'power' campaign really means to me is more options, which is always a good thing.
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Post by GRWelsh on Oct 27, 2013 13:43:17 GMT -5
So now we've played two sessions in the BLACKROCK dungeon. Although 2nd edition rules, it is a very old style of play. Dungeon crawl, trapped chests, wandering monsters, rooms with traps and illusions, lots of treasure and magic items to be found.
Something I like about Brian's DMing is that he is not afraid to do his own thing. An example is we fought a monster that Brian described as a gargoyle. The entire party assumed it could not be hit by magic weapons, so for several rounds only Eric and I attacked. Eric had a magic axe, and I had a few magic missile spells. But finally someone hit it with a normal weapon, and damaged it. It may have been only half damage. But the point was we can't assume everything Brian describes is verbatim out of the MM. It was more like a lesser stone guardian of Brian's own invention. This is really how the game should be played. The player characters shouldn't be walking around with infallible Monster Manual knowledge memorized over the course of 35 years of gaming. When they do, the DM should tweak things a bit.
Something else that is notable: for years, Brian, Eric and I have been collecting Dwarven Forge sets. Brian by far has the most with over 20 sets, all bought 5+ years ago. One of the reasons I've been hounding him to run a D&D game is that I think it is a crime to own all of those sets and not use them in a D&D game! So, we broke out numerous sets and Brian set up his dungeon on two 10' long tables in my Dining Room, and played the game with miniatures, including the stock of monsters from the plastic D&D Minis line.
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Post by Scott on Oct 28, 2013 10:03:09 GMT -5
Sounds like a good time, my kind of game. I wish Friday nights worked for me. How about a quick session summary?
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Post by GRWelsh on Oct 28, 2013 10:18:08 GMT -5
BLACKROCK Session One: Brian gave us some background on his world which is an original creation. He had some hand-drawn maps as hand outs. One showed the globe, with various continents on it. We are located on an equatorial continent roughly looking like Australia, and we are on the southeast edge of it, at the fantastically huge and ancient port city of BLACKROCK. The city has immense iron and steel walls, and is at the edge of a volcanic mountain ridge -- of black rock -- and that is where the name comes from. In the first game, people are fleeing the city. The people of the city, and in particular a certain cult known as the Doomsayers, think the "End is Nigh." The calendar these people use is counting down, and we are in Year One! At a huge round pit inside the city, Doomsayers chant. And what comes out of the pit but an immense silvery-black dragon of legend! Gaf Mordrin! The dragon assumed an angelic form and spoke to us. We found out this elder dragon had been imprisoned down there, and wasn't the great evil everyone thought it was. The dragon had been imprisoned down there by the use of eight magical artifacts -- but now they had been stolen. This is what allowed him to awaken. As Gaf Mordrin was telling us all of this, a man flew down towards us holding a sword, and attacked Gaf Mordrin, who immediately turned back into his dragon form to defend himself. The stranger with the sword said, "Remember this?!?" and struck at the dragon, wounding its paw. The dragon roared in rage, and breathed green-blue fire that was something like napalm. It seemed to be deflected from the sword wielded by the strange attacker. In the collateral damage, many of the nearby Doomsayers went up in flames -- it really was the end for them, Brian gleefully described. This battle was way out of our league, obviously, but my magic-user cast a magic missile at the stranger, which momentarily distracted him enough for the dragon to hit him hard enough to knock him flying away, hundreds of yards. The dragon flew after him. Eventually, the dragon flew back to where we were, and explained that the magic artifacts used to imprison him must not fall into the hands of the wicked, or it could really be the end of the world. The stranger who had attacked was wielding one of these artifacts, known as the Sheathed Sword.
This was all basically the "opening cinematic" to set the background and set the stage for what we needed to do. So, we had our quest -- to recover the eight magical artifacts, and bring them back here, to Gaf Mordin's pit -- to destroy them.
The first one we were going to look for was the Frost of Death, which was supposedly in the dungeon of a mage's guild in Blackrock. The dungeon went below the mage guildhouse, and right into the black rock of the mountain behind the city. We convinced the magic mouth door guard to let us in -- only because it was partial to the female members of the party. We gained entry into the house which was now abandoned, as these mages had already fled the city as so many others had. From there, we descended into the dungeon and began exploring it.
As we moved through the dungeon, Brian made use of the Dwarven Forge sets I had, and we used the miniatures. We listened at doors, sometimes had to force doors open, and fought things like orcs, kobolds and a minotaur which had a magic axe. We also had to fight some things of Brian's creation, like swamp bladelings (giant beetles or lizards with spines? Not sure what they were). There were a lot of trapped chests, which did more damage to us than anything else. We also found quite a bit of treasure, including potions and magical clothing -- boots, robes and even magic underwear. It was a mage guild's dungeon, after all. Also I got a Rope of Tricks, which is a version of Rope of Climbing, but cannot be used to attack. However, it can go stiff, make shapes, lasso things, retract/coil up quickly, and learn these 'tricks' on command -- very useful item! We all went up a level, by the end of this session.
The players:
Kate: Isabella, human cleric Cindy: Lumen, human druid Eric: Anvil Heartseeker, human fighter (myrmidon kit) Ray: Gorwald, human fighter (cavalier kit) Me: Spariger, human magic-user
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Post by GRWelsh on Oct 28, 2013 11:36:53 GMT -5
BLACKROCK Session Two: Mark joined the game and rolled up an elven thief. His background was that he was half-Drow (half surface elf, half dark elf). But to us ignorant humans, he just looked like a gray-skinned elf. He had some suitably long fru-fru elf name, but we just called him Sil. We accepted him into the party -- after all, you can always trust another player character! -- and proceeded with exploring the dungeon.
This time, Brian brought over several of his own Dwarven Forge sets and using mine as well he set up his dungeon in advance. We fought some land eels, and a stone guardian/gargoyle sort of thing, and also found a room with whirlpool and water elemental kept in there with something like a wall of force or protection from evil in the door way(wizard's laundromat?). We also found a room with illusionary water concealing a deep pit, and another chest. Mark actually called it -- he guessed it was an illusion. We got some pretty good loot out of this chest as well. Everyone leveled up again.
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Post by GRWelsh on Oct 28, 2013 13:10:22 GMT -5
Every time I see the name of Eric's character -- Anvil Heartseeker -- I get the image of the lead singer of an 80's hair metal band.
That deserves an illustration.
"I'm a... Heart Seeker! Seeking a heart in the night! I'm just a... Heart seeker! Fighting to do what is right! Yeah-ah-ah!"
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Post by GRWelsh on Oct 28, 2013 14:22:59 GMT -5
Heh, speaking of Eric's character's name, the original concept was going to be a bounty hunter, and the original name idea was ANVIL MANSEEKER.
That name idea didn't last long...
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Post by Scott on Oct 28, 2013 14:27:35 GMT -5
Ray likes his knights, Cindy her druids, and Kate her clerics.
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Post by Scott on Oct 28, 2013 14:28:47 GMT -5
How is Brian with henchman, followers, etc?
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Post by GRWelsh on Oct 28, 2013 14:48:52 GMT -5
It's too early to tell because the subject of henchmen hasn't come up yet. I have a feeling that henchmen might be superfluous in this campaign due to how powerful we're shaping up to be. Two sessions, and up a level in each. We're already loaded down with magic items. Brian let me memorize five first level spells per day at first level. I have a feeling by the time we complete this quest of the eight artifacts, we're all going to be high level super-characters. At that point, who knows -- if Brian wants to continue it, I don't think he'd be opposed to us building strongholds, getting henchmen and hirelings, being rulers of our own little realms and that sort of thing.
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Post by Scott on Oct 28, 2013 15:11:11 GMT -5
I don't know about the 5 spells a day, but I've been considering speeding up the progress through the first few levels, at least through 1st and 2nd level.
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Post by GRWelsh on Oct 28, 2013 15:41:56 GMT -5
The five spells a day worked out good. It let me do a bit more than the usual single-shot derringer. It let me cast a variety of spells, like read magic, detect magic, sleep, and magic missile, as I didn't just memorize all attack spells. And they all came in useful.
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Post by Scott on Oct 29, 2013 15:03:54 GMT -5
Is the party working for/reporting to anybody?
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Post by GRWelsh on Oct 29, 2013 15:14:03 GMT -5
That was a bit ambiguous. It seems we are working in league with this elder dragon, Gaf Mordrin, whom we met in the first session. We're taking action in our own best interests to prevent the artifacts from falling into evil hands, after the dragon told us about the current situation. So that doesn't feel like "working for him." On the other hand, I'm sure he'll be a recurring NPC and we'll be returning to him in the future, perhaps to find out information on where the other artifacts are.
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Post by grodog on Nov 11, 2013 2:21:36 GMT -5
Sounds like a good time, Gary. Keep us posted as you continue to play!
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Post by GRWelsh on Nov 11, 2013 9:53:15 GMT -5
I will Allan. It's been a good time so far. Oh I forgot to mention something:
In the last game, we had the Dwarven Forge set up, and a real live spider started crawling across the table and the dungeon terrain. We were hoping that it would crawl on one of the miniatures because it would have been about the proper scale for a "large spider" from the Monster Manual. That would have made a great photo! But, it didn't crawl onto a miniature. It kept crawling and moved out of the dungeon and then promptly got squashed on the table by Brian's wife, Kate, who hates spiders.
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