Forgotten Realms Campaign - Traveling to the Tunnels

[GM commentary is in square brackets. Refer to the Forgotten Realms Page for more detailed information about the characters and setting.]

[A new player was going to join the game but couldn't make it due to illness. That's too bad because his character would have been darn useful this game but none of us wanted a stomach bug.]

The party finds a small settlement on the branch of the road going south. [I didn't give it a name and described it as sort of a 'truck stop' setting. They promptly named it "Truck Stop Town". Sigh. Players.] The Jolly Smuggler is the local inn and that's where they stay since they're not going to camp when there's a perfectly good inn here.

L'oric orders his usual - elven wine. This time he gets a glass of it and doesn't see the bottle. The wine is a dark enough purple to be almost black. It's both sweet and savory at the same time.  He asks for the bottle and is refused.

The menu is decent and the meal comes with a dish of chopped red, white, and black mushrooms in sweet vinegar. Nihilus figures out that the mushrooms aren't from the surface and they all start wondering if they're going to be poisoned. Looking around the inn they see a decent amount of people given that they're on a trail leading to the Trader's Road but no one seems to be having an issue with the wine or the mushrooms.

Nihilus was looking in the right direction to catch a glimpse of the elven wine bottle and sees that the writing on it looks elvish but more .. spiky. He directs the others to look but no one knows what to make of it. He also overhears someone saying they wish they had some sporebread but it doesn't mean anything to him.

After dinner L'oric and Izzy decide to go for a stroll around the area, to see what they can see. Around the back of the inn they find an empty, seemingly abandoned cart. They poke around it and L'oric sees holes that probably were meant for manacles and/or shackles and sees some dark stains as well. There's scratches where possibly crates were dragged too.

Finy has found a group of halflings and they play dice with him. After he wins most of their money (a total of 13 gold and 25 silver) they won't play with him any more.

Finy and Nihilus then decide to go check out the warehouse they saw when they entered the town. The double doors have four very large bolts (locked) and one large, solid latch with a dwarven lock that Finy knows is dwarven but has never seen one similar. When Finy starts to walk around the building he sees that the only windows so far are thin, long, iron faced and barred under the eaves. As he goes around the first corner there's a very loud barking/growling/howling from inside the building. They both decide now is a good time to go back to the inn.

As they walk away a light starts to shine from behind them and Finy loudly talks about orcs being around. He's being sneaky and trying to deflect the attention of whoever is behind them with the lantern. No one bothers them as they go back towards the inn.

Izzy and L'oric are still looking at the wagon. The ornamentation has that same spiky look to it and also spiders and webs. Thinking back to when she was in her Comparative Religion class Izzy realizes that those are symbols of Lloth and quite probably the wagon is of drow make. Nihilus and Finy show up and they get filled in on the wagon.

The 'D' word sets everyone off.

Nihilus, in his normal oh-so-not-diplomatic way, asks the innkeeper about drow and after a bit of misunderstanding and posturing finds out that the trading is done by grey dwarves. The innkeeper describes them as small, bald, and grey.

Continuing in his way Nihilus asks who owns the warehouse (Jonas) and demands to know where he lives. The innkeeper is not impressed and gets surly now. He said he'll let Jonas know that Nihilus wants to talk to him in the morning. The innkeeper is lying through his teeth.

After a brief debate they decide to stay at the inn. Nihilus crawls into the hayloft where a couple of other people are also staying, the rest have actual rooms.

The next day dawns. Finy is up first and pays for everyone's room and food. There's a charge for Nihilus staying in the hayloft so he's not nearly as sneaky as he likes to think. Finy gets a bit deflated when no one notices that he's paid. Breakfast is had by all.

Nihilus goes and waits by the warehouse so he can talk to Jonas. Jonas is a large human and pays no attention to the wood elf lurking in front as he opens up and starts to barter with the caravans lining up outside. During a break in the action Nihilus slips him a gold piece and asks him about the cart behind the inn. He calls it 'the dwarf cart' and describes the dwarves as short, surly, grey, bald, thin, they come up from the south, and they live underground. Hence the underground goods they trade.

Finy figured out that Jonas doesn't deal in small goods and decides to try to sell some of his 'acquired' goods at one of the two stores. Obviously this store has a varied clientele as there's a convenient step so short folk can get to the counter. The first thing he pulls out is the praying mantis in glass and the shopkeeper goes pale, refusing to buy it. The crowd at the counter pulls away a little.

Finy then pulls out the bracelet and tries to sell that. The shopkeeper looks it over and offers 300 gold for it. When Finy points out the hidden compartment the shopkeep missed the offer doubles to 600 gold if he'll leave the store. Finy leaves without selling anything, mulling it over. The crowd gives him space and is whispering as he goes.

They all meet up at the inn for lunch and to go over anything they've learned. Finy puts together the pieces - the note, the preying mantis, and the bracelet - to figure out that he's being associated with the Night Wing thief and assassin guild in Westgate. Of which he is most certainly not a member. And that by showing the shopkeep that the bracelet has a hidden compartment he kind of threatened to poison him. He's very shaken up by this and not at all in a hurry to go back to Westgate now.

From his conversation with Jonas Nihilus knows the carts arrive from the south (he got a bit of snark from Jonas about that one) and decides that there's got to be at least one tunnel in the Giant's Run Mountains. Which is where they were going anyway since he'd heard about tunnels there. And ruins.

Some conversation with the woman running the inn for the morning gets them more information. She's sorry that the dwarves haven't been around since it means they're not getting the trade goods anymore, but that it's not as bad as it could be because they just double the prices. They're all suspicious about the abandoned wagon even though there's two other empty wagons in the courtyard. Nihilus and Finy leave the inn to have a look at the warehouse, L'oric and Izzy stay behind to keep talking.

Before they split up Izzy, with reluctance, offers Finy use of the brooch she got when she left the temple. It has the ability to make a person more graceful for a short period of time [Brooch of Cat's Grace] and she thinks it will help Finy in his work. She makes SURE he'll give it back when he's done. She also tells him that the ability only lasts ten minutes.

They find out that it's not uncommon for traders to leave a wagon behind for a while when they don't have enough to fill it. She says the same things about the dwarves and also that they come from the south. So it's established in everyone's mind that the answer is SOUTH. They have decided they must know more about these dwarves.

One running theme is that none of them want to go into the Underdark. It's stated many times that you only go there if you want to die. Or unless you're trading but even then you're probably going to die. They have a justly healthy respect/fear of the Underdark. [I didn't correct them on any of this since stories of the Underdark would be known.]

Finy is going to have a look around that warehouse. As the trading slows down the four helpers turn into two helpers. Finy literally steps on the foot of one of them and that helper promptly turns and punches the one next to him for stepping on him. Finy gets in without a problem. He's in a forty by forty foot building that's full of shelving and stacks of goods. There's a small walled off office-type area to the right of the doors and whatever was making all the noises are now chained up in the back.

Given how long the spell lasts he can search two areas of the warehouse [two five foot squares]. He starts to climb the closest set of shelves, falls, then does some searching to find nothing much except two crates and a barrel with that same spiky writing. The other area he searches is the office and there he finds a lot of paperwork. The lock on the desk drawer doesn't even require his lockpicks and holds a moneybox that also doesn't require them. There's an assortment of types of coin and some trade bars. Some of the coins have that same darn spiky writing. He takes a few coins 'to show the others' and a trade bar.

Even though evening is getting close they decide to head south. No waiting, no spending another night at the inn. Of course not. Traveling in the dark is the BEST way to find side trails. The drow cart isn't built the same as the others - longer and narrower. The wheel tracks will be different but the ground is pretty hard packed and rutted.

They travel down the road until almost full dark, keeping to the road and going slowly. They're both looking for side trails and not wanting to have their horses break their legs. [I had to remind them that riding by the side of the road as it gets dark is an excellent way to have horses break legs. Not that I would ever do that sort of thing...]

This road doesn't have conveniently placed cutouts for overnight stays but they find a decent place. There's trees to either side of the road, they're east of the mountains, and there's a narrow, shallow stream to the west. It will do for the night so they set up camp.

During the last watch Izzy hears something at the stream. She goes to look and it's a goblin filling a bucket. She casts Detect Evil and of course it glows - it's a goblin. She speaks goblin so she starts talking to it, trying to keep it from running away. Because she's just that way. She's doing fine until she brings up drow then it screams and runs.

This wakes up everyone (Nihilus said he woke up when Izzy started speaking but didn't leave his tent) and they all go running after Izzy who's running after the goblin. She tries casting Command on it so it will stop but it shakes off her spell. That break made her realize that goblins travel in packs and their camp is unguarded.

Back they run to find six goblins ransacking their camp. L'oric casts Sleep and four of them fall to the ground, next to the packs where they had been taking the rations and waterskins. The other two run off. Finy catches one and the other slips out of Nihilus's grip down an animal burrow.

Nihilus is pacing off to the side, caught in a bit of a moral dilemma. Goblinkind are his favored enemies. Here's five of them, four of which are easy targets. But Izzy and the others are intent on talking to them! He's being threatening at the outskirt of camp.

Izzy talks to the one goblin who is awake. After giving it some rations (she has no idea how to tell gender on a goblin and no desire to learn how to tell gender on a goblin) she asks questions. The story she gets is that their clan has been taken by the dark ones and they escaped. They're still here so that they can rescue their clan. There was a tunnel collapse that let them get free so they think that the dark ones and their kin are still here. This goblin isn't stupid and gets her to promise by her deity that they would rescue the clan, let them go free, and not let Nihilus hurt any of them. In return the goblin will lead them to the cave.

Izzy immediately agrees to all this, telling the rest what she did afterward since she's the only one who speaks goblin. Nihilus is extremely upset at the plan she made and said she should discuss plans with them before agreeing to them. She's excellently sarcastic when she asks if she should do it like he does. He thinks that's fair.

They're all pretty happy with the deal. They get a guide to the tunnels they were looking for anyway and to the dwarves. So it all worked out. Of course they have to free a goblin clan but that's a little detail.

It's morning so they prepare breakfast in preparation for going into the mountains.

GM Notes

I did get pictures of the cards and no one minded handing them over for that. They understood what I was doing. The player writing the book asked for a copy of the inn menu since those add so much extra detail to the story and I have no problem sending him a copy of that.

I'll be updating the Page with more information about the characters as it develops. It helps to get a feel for them if you're reading the story. I can also document the main magic items they have that they aren't going to be selling in the next town. It adds to knowing the characters.

We will have a new player joining us. It won't be quite as easy as it would have been this session since they're further along a less traveled road but I'll make it happen. I had his travels documented to the town they spent the night in so I'll work it further. The group couldn't travel far in that amount of time anyway. They're experienced enough that they'll make it work to bring him in. But I'm not telling anything about him until he shows up.

I did a bit of retconning in this game. The bracelet was actually loot from the plants they fought but the player had the card and it made sense he could have gotten it from the beltpouch as well. Honestly the whole thing about him and the Westgate guild fell together. I didn't plan it but when I looked at the pieces it came together as what it did. I did have to be more explicit with the player in private so he got the same answer as I did and he loved it. Well. The player loved it. The character is NOT happy at all. He's a thief, not an assassin!

I purposely put the goblin encounter at a time when Izzy could direct it. She likes to try to talk things out and this worked well. It would have worked better if they could stop asking questions about drow but they got there in the end. It seems a bit convenient to get a goblin guide to where they wanted to go but there's a lot of tunnels in the mountains. Once they're in the region then there's more options for giant ruins and such.

I love how they're adamant about not going to the Underdark. I was worried that I would have to find ways to dissuade them. Nope. They're doing just fine on their own. Even if I put up big lighted arrows pointing to the Underdark they wouldn't go. And this pleases me because they would die if they went there. I couldn't do much about it. So they'll stay at the tunnel entrance (that has been collapsed as extra insurance) and explore there.

The Rocketbook is turning into something interesting. By uploading to Google Drive it does OCR for me and it doesn't do a bad job at all. I can see most of the issues are my handwriting. Go figure. I have my first batch of letters to adjust and we'll see how it goes for the next upload. I also have to space things out more. I tend to crowd my writing. But it is difficult to take good notes while also running the game so I'll do my best. My handwriting needed work anyway.

So for now I'm going with Rocketbook being a plus. I need to transcribe my first notes into a Google Doc since they were written the old fashioned way and I'm trying to keep things more organized. But that's for another day.

I need to make more inn and tavern menus. This is fine since I had plans for those anyway. The generator I'm using is good but not great. My friend Aba is working on his first sets of list and a menu generator (with my help) so that one might be more what I need. I'll still adjust it as I see fit. I like having actual food items since it makes things more immersive. Like the trinkets I hand out. As the praying mantis showed sometimes that can lead to interesting things!

Game Prep Stuff

As any GM knows there's a lot that goes into game prep. Running in a sandbox world means a LOT of prep since there's never any certainty the players are going to go with what you hope. Unless you make it REALLY COOL but that's another post.

I had less time than normal to prep this time around. Because of life we had to switch the weekend schedule. One player's custody weekend got swapped to the game weekend. I put it to the group (without him in the email chain) with the three options. The player knew all the options going forward.

1. Switch weekends
2. Keep the weekends, play while he has his four kids at home
3. Keep the weekends, player would leave the game.

I sent the email without stating a preference. I know I get one vote like everyone else but the GM's vote has the unfortunate tendency to carry more weight with some groups. I figured I would be a tie breaker if needed.

Unanimous vote to switch weekends. This was a pleasant thing to relay.

Next hurdle - more life. We couldn't play on Saturday but everyone could make Sunday. Ok. Fine. My weekend gets a bit screwed up but I can handle that.

I also met with a potential new player who was recommended by a current player. He seems to understand and accept the house rules and started coming up with a nice character.

And then to prepping. Lots of prepping. Things I would have had a week to do I had to complete in two days. Along with the extra burden of introducing a new PC to the game. No pressure, right?

I'm trying a Rocketbook after hearing good things about it from the Twitter GM community and it makes sense. You can click the link for more info but it's plastic pages you write on with special markers. When you're done you use the app to take pictures of the pages and they get uploaded to any one of half a dozen or so storage sites. The best thing is that several of them do OCR as you upload. That's what got me. The post office messed up my delivery so I had less time to play with it than I would have liked but so far it's been good. I took this game's notes in it so crossing my fingers I don't have to rewrite them all in my spiral bound notebook.

I made magic items for two of the original players based on their backstories. Turns out I did really well in picking the right one for them going forward. At least that's what they told me. I always offer to make or pick something else if it doesn't feel right and have yet to have someone take me up on it. I wonder if they really do like it or if they don't want to make me feel bad. GM insecurities.

Finally I needed to make taverns and inns. I have a wonderful deck of cards that has taverns with menus so I could use those. Except when the PCs are only going to be in the area for a day or three I don't want to 'use up' one of the good taverns. 

Enter Infinite Menus from Inkwell Ideas. I love their stuff. I have all the Infinite series products and adapt them as I see fit. In this case I decided on limiting the fare available in these taverns since they're all out in the wilds. Those taverns aren't going to have a selection of dishes. You eat what they serve. The instructions help you with determining random numbers of dishes and I did try that. Once. Now I'm doing one choice meals. I may get fancier later.

Add onto this reading material that I would probably/hopefully use in the game, making notes for what I need to ask each player, and all the other things that go into prepping for a game and it made for a long two days.

But I think it went well. I'll write up the game itself after I've had a chance to let my brain recover.

Note - DriveThruRPG links are affiliate links.

Forgotten Realms Campaign - The Group Forms

[GM commentary is in square brackets. Refer to the Forgotten Realms Page for more detailed information about the characters and setting.]

[At the beginning of the game I asked that the players please form themselves into a group, as they're all experienced role players and know how it should go. I did my part by getting them all in the same place at the same time with nothing to do.]

Nihilus and L'oric are staying at The Full Basket Inn. Well. L'oric is actually staying there and Nihilus doesn't really like the idea of "other people" so he's camping out in the inn's attic without bothering to tell the innkeeper.

Izzy and Finy are staying at The Smiling Pig. [I didn't have Finy's backstory but he's got a 10 strength so I gave him a lesser Backpack of Holding as his freebie. I offered the choice of taking that or having me make something from his backstory but he was more than pleased to take the backpack so he could carry a reasonable amount of stuff.]

[I used the 'high or low' method of determining who was staying at what inn. I asked the player to choose high or low, then rolled percentage. If they chose the matching dice roll, it was a Yes. If not it was a No. Luck had them evenly split.]

Finy is 'working' at The Full Basket Inn that evening, pickup up change left at the bar and snagging one belt pouch in the process. He gets a bit of coin, a praying mantis in a cube of black glass, and a bracelet (7 steel hearts connected on a platinum curb chain, with a tiny hidden closable cavity) (Appraisal check at 520gp].

Nihilus sees a full blooded elf in the tavern and decides to have a chat with him, even though wood elves and sun elves aren't best buds. He's on a quest to find his homeland so he's looking for information. L'oric is more than a bit of a dilettante (his own description) and has ordered elven wine like it was something special, forgetting that he's in a merchant city that sees pretty much everything pass through. So it isn't a big deal to anyone but him.

The two of them are talking when Izzy walks in and sees L'oric. She immediately yells out "Dad!" and rushes over over to hug him. Nihilus reacts as a paranoid wood elf would react and pulls out one of his pair of falchions. He goes for her throat. Izzy stops cold when she sees that L'oric is not actually her father and that she is about to die.

Finy sees the action and wanders over to watch from a nearby table. He also picks up L'oric's wine and starts drinking it. Shamelessly.

Nihilus realizes this wasn't an attack and sits back down. Izzy goes into a stammering explanation that has double entendre written all over, completely by accident. All three of the men misinterpret her and she has to talk very fast to make them understand that she wasn't propositioning them. A patron behind her didn't pick up on that and tries to pick her up. Literally. She pulls out her mace as a warning and that little confrontation is over.

After she removes her foot from her mouth she joins them and their conversation about what to do next. [I had given each of them cards with at least two bits of information from nearby areas. By sheer luck the setting I'd put Izzy in is the same one she chose. I did not know this prior to the game.] L'oric and Finy are having a disagreement over the filched wine and finally give it up. Finy keeps the wine.

As Finy is ostentatiously displaying the mug and explaining that it belongs to the inn, not the elf, he finds a note stuck to the bottom (Midnight. Doorway in Malak's alley. Bring Relen and Donog). He has no idea about any of this but keeps the note. [It's a throwaway bit of mystery on my part.]

L'oric does a little prestidigitation to make the wine less savory - more of a vinegar taste. To him it would be undrinkable, as an elf and a connoisseur of fine things. Finy doesn't notice. Izzy does notice L'oric doing something with his hands but keeps it to herself at the moment.

Izzy proposes they go to the Farsea Marshes in Cormyr and collect orc ears since there's a bounty on them. The group agrees that it would be an interesting way to get some money and possibly explore the ruins she said were nearby. Except that Nihilus had left without them noticing so they feel he's not going to accompany them.

Nihilus went out the window to the inn roof to the rafters [This sort of thing is going to grow old if he doesn't settle down but he's trying to establish his character so I'm letting it play out for now.] He decides to send them a note that he is going with them. His method of choice is to write it on a piece of paper, tie it to an arrow, and shoot it into the table. He misses terribly. The arrow goes out the window and hits someone passing by. He tries again and it just goes out the window. He gives up on that method of telling them and goes back to his attic. [Ranged weapons are not his forte.]

The group decides to leave since someone is shooting arrows over their heads. The rest of the crowd doesn't even seem to notice. Except for the person who got hit but they don't come in looking for who did it.

Izzy leaves to go back to her inn. Nihilius decides to follow her to make sure she's safe. She picks up on someone following her and decides to duck into an alley to lose whoever it is or at least draw them out. She instead walks directly into a bricked up entryway. Nihilius decides to hide behind a barrel while she sorts herself out and falls into it instead.

Finy had been following both of them and saw the whole thing. Izzy once again picked up on someone following her but didn't see anyone. Nihilus never even checked to see if he was followed. Finy now has some wonderful material to tease them both.

The next morning they start talking about how far it is to the marshes and it turns out it's at least 2 tendays each way. L'oric is far less enthusiastic. Most of them are NOT enthusiastic about having to make part of the trip by ship. Nihilus instead proposes going to the Giant's Run Mountains off the Trader's Road where he's heard about ruins and tunnels. That trip is less than a tenday each way and completely overland. He'd just traveled that road with the caravan too.

The group does mundane shopping to get supplies. Izzy repeats several times that she can create water. She's very proud of this. [I need to remind the players to take the purchase costs off their money if they haven't already.]

They buy horses. Finy is not happy with the concept of riding even a pony. Izzy buys a nice dapple grey, Nihilus asks for and gets a bay quarterhorse, L'oric doesn't seem to care. Finy asks if he can buy an eighth horse (playing off the quarterhorse and his own discomfort with horses) to which the seller replies he could at the butcher. Finy buys a small dark brown pony. Everyone except Nihilius gets full tack - he doesn't buy a saddle or saddlebags.

Their first day out L'oric remembers that they had hired on to caravans in the past to guard them and they agree that it would be a good way to pick up some coin while going to the mountains. His manner is off-putting enough that the caravan leader thinks he's a spy or going to rob them and passes that along to every caravan going in that direction. [Diplomacy doesn't seem to be their strong suit.]

Nihilus has skill in cooking along with a spice jar that makes any spice he wants. [That's the item I gave him based on his back story and the player loves that I picked that for him. It's the Spice Jar from the Magic of Faerun book and I reduced the attributes since it was a bit more major than I wanted to have in the game. The spice gives some extra hit points and resistance to disease and poison for a short time.]

That night they're attacked by thorn bushes. Moving thorn bushes that can shoot their thorns. The people who get hit by them feel itching but nothing else [That spice jar from dinner. I didn't have them roll Fortitude checks since I didn't want them to be even weaker than they are now.]. L'oric cast a Light spell into the middle of the area Nihilus pointed out while they were trying to figure out what the heck they were fighting. He also casts a Sleep spell to seemingly no effect. Izzy cast both Detect Evil and Protection from Chaos. Nihilus finally figured out that it was bushes and not animals or people. Eventually they pound and burn the bushes down to kindling with Nihilus taking the most damage. Izzy heals everyone who needs it. L'oric is very proud that his Sleep spell took down one of the bushes. They find 2 gold and 16 silver coins, a pair of brass octahedron earrings covered in infinity symbols, [and one other item that may have been the bracelet but I've moved that to the pouch Finy lifted since the player had the card anyway].

Nihilus picks up six thorns to use in his alchemy.

The next day they see that they weren't the only one attacked. There's wounded people in the caravans and some thorns stuck in the wagons.

Four days of traveling got them to the trail to the mountains. Nihilus does hunt a small deer so they have fresh meat for a couple of days and he's tanning the hide. [One encounter on the road was plenty imo.] We left it there since we had reached the end of the session.

GM Notes

I have a lot of trinket and jewelry cards pre-made. Typically I hand them out and unless it's got some kind of magic effect or I want to use it as a plot device I don't write them down. The players tend to sell them anyway. But since I'm going to try to write this up I'll need to be more attentive. They're nifty things.

There were several critical failures during the game. They're not noted in the story as written but they're kind of obvious. Finy stealing the belt pouch (critical fail on the mark). The arrow that hit a passerby. The attempt to move silently into an alley. The attempt to hide behind the barrel. The attempt to hire onto the caravan. I don't want to put mechanics into the story itself and those are the actual events that transpired in the game when they rolled critical fails. If you want it noted put in the comments so I can add something like [Critical fail] after the event.

I also asked the players to make backup characters and only one has completed theirs so far. I'm going to use those to make a nemesis party (I got that idea from one of the people I follow on Twitter) so there hasn't been mention of them yet. As I get those I'll update the page with the cast of characters and start working them into the story.

I'm meeting with another person this week who's friends with L'oric's player and wants to join the game. Five is the most I'll have at the table and I can have more interesting encounters with more players. It's a challenge to keep them all involved and make sure everyone gets a chance in the spotlight but I've done it before. It also makes for more complicated interactions within the party which is always good.

We meet again in two weeks, just before Christmas. It doesn't matter in game since I started us in late spring (the equivalent of May) so that I didn't have to add weather problems in while they're still very low level. I may make my grandmother's recipe for the real version of Chex Mix and bring it along as a treat. It's a very good treat. Any recipe that starts with "1 pound butter" is going to be good.

Forgotten Realms Campaign - The Calm Before the Storm

First things first. Player shuffle. Again.

We lost our sun elf wizard/fighter (ghosted us) and our human ranger (life got in the way).

By looking through Facebook groups the group gained a wild elf ranger. So we're down arcane magic (AGAIN) but there's still one open seat so I can be hopeful. I'll still be working on magic items to identify magic items, just in case.

We don't have our next scheduled game due to life and I've offered up my place for a painting session. I doubt anyone will take me up on it. But I made the offer.

The location thing isn't good. The craft brewery is too iffy because of the need to work around whatever paying events they have going on. Our secondary location at the local Hobbytown franchise is welcoming but also has events that can stop us from playing. On another note their gaming area is in the basement and the bathrooms are on the first floor. Not great for someone with arthritis.

I offered up my place for people who don't mind clutter and cats. Another player offered his place since he was turning his basement into a gaming area anyway. I'm going to lean towards that since it's a dedicated space. And if he can't play we wouldn't play anyway. Not that I don't want people here. It's just not an optimal space.

I already have the concept for how they all meet up. They're in a city that's NOT the Sword Coast and they've all be riding/guarding caravans that came into the city. Now they're at loose ends. They're all experienced gamers and will understand this is how they will form a group. Unless one of them decides to be "that player" and not go along with the rest. Hopefully the group will pull them into line so I don't have to do it.

I need to come up with plot hooks for what they can be doing as their first adventure together. I think I'll do a mix of urban and rural hooks to see what appeals. I also have to look up more on the area where I want them to be so I'm good with what I can get away with and keep to the setting.

The next/first game is early December. That's plenty of time for me to have my ducks in a row. I'm still not nearly 100% after the medical stuff, which is annoying. What isn't annoying is that I'm on short term disability which is giving me the time to fully heal. As I get better I can do more, but in increments. If I try to do too much I set myself back. My doctor seemed cool with giving me the time I need when last we met. I'm going to confirm that with the stack of paperwork his office needs to fill out.

If you have ideas for what their first adventures should be put them in the comments. I'm always interested in what other people have found to work. Or not.

Forgotten Realms Campaign - Up 2 Players to Full

Ding! Full table. That's a wonderful thing to say. And I'm very happy with both the players and the party composition. They chose these characters without asking that dreaded question - "What hole needs to be filled?" I dislike that. I much rather they play the characters they want than one they feel they have to play.

So we have:

Sun elf wizard/fighter
Human ranger
Shield(?) dwarf fighter
Strongheart halfling rogue
Half sun elf cleric

We did end up with the classic party composition and since there's five players we got a ranger, which is atypical but can be darn useful.

To my personal regret the cleric chose a LG deity. Some day I'd like to see them choose one that lets the player decide if they WANT to heal someone rather than feel that they're obligated to do so. To me that's a failure in how people have been pressured to play clerics. They're the first aid kit of the party. To have them decide not to heal would be a departure from the norm. But that's just me.

We were supposed to play the first game today. I had to cancel. The day after Session 0.a I went into the hospital unexpectedly and then have been dealing with that ever since. I'm not able to give them a good game, much less a good starting game. And then I found out one of the players couldn't make the next game either.

This time of year is difficult to get a group together. Holidays make scheduling complex. Some of us don't have many or any obligations. Others have obligations all over the place. I'll still try for the 'every two weeks' and see what happens. I was really hoping that since the second actual gaming session didn't happen the Saturday after Thanksgiving we'd get to play but alas, we don't. I offered up the dungeon crawl or board games if people do want to get together anyway. We'll see but I don't think they'll do it.

Another problem is location. The bar where we use the event room is dependent on them not having other events that day. Since those people pay for the time we lose out and that's fine. We have a secondary location which can also be unavailable because of events. So the location is always up in the air. I might have to suck it up, clean my place, and offer it. Space is a bit tight but I've done it before. And this way we have a regular location. It's about four miles from the original one which doesn't seem like a lot but I think one person mostly rides a bicycle. I'll ask. But first I'll clean.

I've been thinking about where and how to start the game. I think I'm going to have them start away from the ever popular Sword Coast since there's a lot of locations and it will be interesting to have them in ones that aren't so well known. My plan is to have them all be in the city because the caravans they were accompanying ended up there. That gives them a reason to be looking for work and a reason for the experience they have. They're only second level at this point.

I did take an idea from Twitter and asked them to make backup characters. I'm going to take those sheets and make their nemesis party. It's kind of mean but also I like having that happen. It will be interesting (to me) to see what they create and how I can use them to enrich the story. It's all well and good that they have their encounters. I wonder how long it will take for them to realize what I've done.

A bit of GM mechanics here. I needed to give them starting gold. I let them equip themselves (within reason) at no cost. To me they already bought all that stuff so there's no point in making them 'buy' it again. But the characters should have accumulated treasure appropriate to their level. The book says that should be about 2,000gp. I went low. I had a base of 1,000gp and rolled a d8 to see what their total treasure would be. That way it's not an 'across the board' amount. It's still plenty of money.

When someone started to complain I reminded them that the amount was more than most of the people they encounter in the game would ever have in their lives. That got them thinking and stopped complaining. Of course it's not a pile of gold pieces. I let them decide what format the amount would take. I'm not fussy about that one but it reminds me I need to give them access to a gem chart so they have an idea of what gems are common, what ones are rare, etc.

Forgotten Realms Campaign - Up a Player, Down 2 Players, Maybe Up a Player

So. I had someone contact me about joining the game. We met up. She seemed like she would fit in nicely and wanted to play. So she rolled herself up:

Half-elf Cleric

I did NOT try to push her into the cleric class. She was looking for something that had magic and also could fight. That's a cleric. She hasn't told me what deity she's a cleric of yet since we got into the basics of the character and she was going to finish it on her own. As she should.

That brought me to a full table! Yippee skippy! Five players which is enough to have them do interesting things.

But...

I had thought long and hard about the player that wanted to be a lesser aasimar. I looked over the stats many times and decided against allowing the race.

The sidebar only showed up in the FR Players Guide and didn't make it into the Campaign Setting. That told me someone had a change of heart between the two. If it's ever a choice between books I'll go with the newer, more complete one over what was put out earlier.

I sent him an email with my reasons and asked him to get in touch with me so we could discuss it. I didn't hear from him and my plan was to send out a reminder email this week.

Instead I get an email through Meetup that he set his RSVP to No. This also took out his friend since that guy was his guest and it seems like they're joined at the hip for gaming. That removed both of the druids from the game. I also lost someone who spent waaaaay too much time reading the books and knowing all the little ways to twist things to their advantage.

I have another person who joined the game through Meetup and we're supposed to (ha ha) meet up this week so he can start his character creation. I know it would be easier to have them do the basic stat roll methods but I want to talk to him and meet him before saying "Yes. Join this game!". And I want him to decide he wants to be in it as well.

So the problem is I'm currently at three players, only two confirmed. I don't know if that's enough to start a campaign. There's a nibble from someone in a Facebook group and I messaged him to see if he's really interested. He's never played 3.5 but it seems like the group is currently comprised of people unfamiliar with the version.

I sent out an email to the three people who are still interested to get their thoughts on where the game stands. I also asked them if they had any friends who might be interested in joining if they want to up the numbers.

So it's looking like my game is going down in flames. This bothers me because of all the whining about finding games and the scarcity of GMs but when I try to get a game going I end up with flakes.

Yes. I know this could be considered a reflection on my GM style but since they're all dropping out before the game even starts I'm putting it down to differences in what we want from the game. I'm very up front about what I do as a GM so there shouldn't be any surprises there.

I'm not happy with the guy who started organizing it dropping out because I wouldn't let him play some corner case race, all because he wanted the +2 to Wisdom. I consider it rude. I may have dodged another bullet or two by them leaving.

If you're keeping track this is how it's gone for the last two weeks:

4 players
3 players
4 players
5 players
3 players

Forgotten Realms Campaign - Up a Player

Win some, lose some. Or the other way around in this case. Whatever.

I joined a local Facebook group for gaming to try to find more players. And because the more groups I'm in the better chance I'll find games. I lucked out and found another player this way.

She's not replacing the player who left. She's taking his seat. There's a difference.

The party now includes a half-elf cleric.

I did NOT push her into playing a cleric. I didn't tell her the other characters until well after she'd made her decision. She wanted something that was simple but also had some magic. She's just getting into magic use in another game she's in so this is a good match for her.

She still needs to pick her deity, domains, region, etc. but she's got her stats and a feel for what has to be done next. I'll be sending her an email about that as well. It's a lot to remember.

I have one more person pending. She RSVP'd to the game on Meetup but hasn't answered my message to her opening the line of communication about the game. I'm giving her a few more days then I'll send a followup. Meetup messages can get a little odd. I don't want a new player showing up without a character for the first game. I really don't want a new player showing up and then finding out this isn't the game for them.

I'm excited because now I can work on a variety of magic items rather than ones with a healing focus. Everyone will get something at the first session and I like them to be useful. I get to play with my item generators this week!

Yes. That excites me. I love me some item generator charts.

Forgotten Realms Campaign - Down a Player

I'm not surprised by the email I got today from one of the players saying he wasn't going to join the group. He's the one I expected to drop out. I honestly think the group was too social for him. The consensus vote was for a mixture of combat and role playing. That means interacting.

He had an interesting but problematic character in his gnome rogue/swashbuckler. I think he made a mistake in choosing the entire thing but I was willing to make it work. Now I don't have to.

I'll announce it again on Meetup this week and I may have found someone through a local Facebook group anyway. But now we're down to three players and they may not want to have a game with that few.

Things always work out one way or another.

Forgotten Realms Campaign - Session Zero

We had our Session Zero today. I had one potential player drop out a week or so ago because he didn't like that he couldn't assign his character stats and didn't want to even try the method I prefer. Honestly I think we're better off without him if that's enough to make him quit a game. But I digress.

We had the last space filled yesterday. I also have someone interested when I posted it on the local Facebook group but she couldn't make today's session. I'm going to try to meet up with her before the first game. I can handle a table of five players but no more than that. I also have a feeling that one of the current players might not be that reliable. It's just a vibe I'm getting. I hope I'm wrong.

As always this session is a lot of discussion. I went over my House Rules with everyone and explained some of the ones that were vague. No one had questions or wanted changes but again, Session Zero.

I always need to get contact information - name, email, and phone. This time I added a couple of things because there's a lot going on with my Twitter GM groups about consent forms. No, it's not what you think. It's finding out if there's specific words and/or situations that people don't want in the game. For me it's less of a problem since I'm not the GM acting out my prurient fantasies with the players but I agree that it's showing respect for them. I didn't have time to print one up so I wrote out the sheets while I was waiting for people to show up.

Then we got to stats. My method is one I stole from a GM I had before and tweaked until I liked it. It's a stat block rather than a point buy or 'roll and assign' method. As always the players found that it gave them a lot more options. One was very frustrated because the numbers didn't give him the character he really wanted but he could make several other kinds. That's the way the stat block works. It builds a character, not just a bunch of numbers.

They were a bit confused when I had them roll up birthdays. We did the random age thing as well as the height and weight but I take it a step further and have them roll up their birthday on the FR calendar. It's why I have a 30 sided die in my box. FR months are all 30 days long, if that wasn't clear. Now everyone has an actual birthday and I feel that helps with immersion.

I was the only one with physical books and the limitations of using PDFs became very clear as people were squinting at screens. After a game or two we'll have everything we need either in the books or printed out. At least I will. I will encourage (or shall I say "encourage") them to use the books/printouts rather than their phones and tablets when looking up things. I try to keep the electronics away from the table. It's even in my house rules.

After puzzling over the stat blocks and consulting many books here's what the party looks like at this point. The next post will have the character names as well but for now I was happy with as far as we got. We're starting at Level 2 so they're not quite as squishy but still very fresh.

Lesser Aasimar Druid (Note 1)
Gnome Rogue/Swashbuckler
Human Ranger
Sun Elf Druid

This is an interesting mix. There's not a healer in the bunch. Nor is there a tank. I'll be reading over those character classes in the next week so I can start figuring out how best to craft encounters. I see more dungeon work and less city work here. I'm fine with that one. Then again druids in the city can be amusing.

The reason we ended up with this mix is because I tell my players to play the character they want, not the one they think needs to be included. Hence no one feeling obliged to be a cleric or a fighter. Playing a character you don't like lessens the fun all around.

Since they're second level they would have at least one tasty item from previous adventures. I told them to get their basic equipment (nothing masterwork or magic) at no cost. They'd have all that. Using the loot tables I gave them their starting money (in whatever form they want to convert it to) so they're not poor.

A funny thing. I gave them an appropriate amount of money. One of the players got a little snippy, saying it wasn't much. I replied that it was more money than most of the people they encounter would ever see in their lives. He didn't snip after that. Players forget that they're freaking RICH compared to most of the population at large.

I need to work up magic items for everyone. I'm going to be leaning heavily on the healing magic so that they can patch themselves up reasonably well. Everyone will have a different kind of item with different levels of usage. I think it's a way to get around the lack of healing spells in the group without making it too much. No one gets something that will always heal them all the way back. There will be limits.

I also stressed the backstory aspect. One page isn't much to ask and I bribe them with saying they'll get something extra based on that backstory. It gives me a chance to get them another feat, some skill points, an item, whatever. They have stuff from before they joined this party. I keep stressing the need to be more than just some numbers on a page. Even if that's what the base really is.

Forgotten Realms gives players even more freebies. Everyone gets a bonus feat based on what region they're from as well as some extra equipment. We got through that as well. Of course one of the players wanted a feat that wasn't on their list. It makes sense that he would want it and I told him to convince me that he should have it with his backstory. He's fine with that one and so am I.

We ended with people still needing to fill out their characters since there's a hella lot of numbers in 3.5 but we got the core of everything down. I repeated that they can contact me with any questions they have and I'll check in with them later this week to see how they're doing. I need to know what regions they all chose so I know where to plunk them all down to start the campaign. So far they're spread pretty much from one end of the continent to the other. I can work with that.

Here's what Session Zero tends to look like after things get rolling. A table full of books, dice, paper, pencils, and whatnot. The actual gaming table will be larger.

Session Zero is over for this group. I'm hoping that they reach out to me with questions and I certainly plan on reaching out to them. And I really, really need to find my notecard holder since I love me some notecards.

Note 1 - Aasimars are not a playable race in my games because they're LA1. I don't allow level adjusted races. But there's a Lesser template to take out the level adjustment. I think it's a little cheesy because the stat changes are both pluses and there's some abilities they keep from the original race. I gave a tentative agreement with my final one coming after I've read over the changes thoroughly and possibly underpowered it more. The player is fine with discussing it and seems pleased that I'm willing to consider it and see how it goes. I'm hoist by my own petard because this comes from the books and I opened up the races and classes to all published books.

3.5e Game Prep - Maybe

I've been asked to run a 3.5 game, which I am very happy to do. I like running games and 3.5 is my favorite edition of D&D. I put the event on Meetup and have four players signed up at this point. I'd like one more, just in case. But five is my limit because I feel it's difficult for everyone to be involved when there's too many of them at the table.

I was very clear in the posting - core races and classes only, no level adjusted characters, no splat books. That's how I like to run my games since it puts everyone on a level playing field. Another reason for that is it doesn't make the game difficult in terms of world interaction. A group of exotic races is very difficult to have show up in the rural villages without being burned alive. I'm good but I don't like having to make very large changes so they can simply play a game.

Every single one of them has asked for an exception. They want something from a splat book. They want a non-core race. They want this, they want that. I added the PHB 2 to the approved book list as a possible way to compromise but I'm beginning to wonder if that's going to work since half the classes are variations of ones from splat books.

There's someone I really wish I could talk to about this since he's got experience with, shall we say, diverse groups. But that's not possible. It leaves me on my own to figure this out.

What I want to do is put the line in the sand. Core classes, core races, no level adjusted characters, no splat books. If they don't want to follow those rules then they can find another GM. It could mean that there's no game because they want to play these variants and I can accept that. The game is no fun if everyone is not having fun. If they're not having fun because of the character limitations then why play? If I'm not having fun because of all the extra work I have to do to make the game run then why play?

I've been sick the last couple of days and haven't answered the latest round of questions. There's no rush since the game is still weeks away from Session Zero. I'd rather not answer when I'm not feeling well. That's a way to misstate things or make other mistakes in communication.

I would have considered running this past the GM in my 5e game but we don't meet again until the week before the 3.5 game and I'm not going make a special effort to contact him. I may not like his style but another experienced GM is another experienced GM.

There's far fewer GMs than there are players. Far, far fewer. You would think that these players would be happy to have someone willing to run a game and to accept that I have rules. The fact that they're not doing so makes me wonder if that's going to carry over into gaming.

As I said I'm not feeling well at the moment so I'm not making any decisions. I'm mulling them over and what the options are that might make everyone happy. I don't even know what kind of game they want to play. If they're going for the hack-and-slash then I could make it work since the role play aspect is far less important. If they do want the role play aspect and the odd characters then there's a problem, at least for me.

Players don't really know what goes into running a game. There's a lot of work on the GM side unless they're strictly running modules with no deviations. When I was running before I'd be thinking about the next game I would be running when I was driving home from the game that just finished. Literally there wasn't a day when I wasn't thinking about the games. I'd be making maps, working with plot hooks, reading back to find out what I could drop on them going forward, etc.

Players are characters in the story. The GM is the rest of the world. It does center around the PCs but there's a lot to center around them.

So back to my dilemma. I'm trying to wrap my head around the fact that they read the rules and are still asking for exceptions. That's kind of disrespectful in my opinion.

Give me some comments with yours, both as players and GMs. I'd like some outside viewpoints.

I Gamed! 5e Session 2

Ok. Second session. Introductions are done and it's time to start doing party things. At least that's the hope.

I'm still not fond of this guy's style of GMing. He draws way too much on popular culture references but part of that may be his attempts to keep his son involved. But that sends his son into quoting stuff that pertains to the reference and it goes from there.

Or he could just be that kind of GM.

All the adults agree that we don't like the limitations of 5e. But we're going to keep playing it. I think trying to get his son to play a more detailed system wouldn't be practical. So 5e it is.

To summarize where we are. I passed a conquered city on my trip south. Turns out they were in that city trying to defend it and ended up with a band of refugees about 1,000 strong. But of course none of the city leaders made it out so the party (as it was) was trying to organize them into some kind of action.

I showed up and we got drafted to be the delegates for them to try to get help from a pirate village. Yeah. I hear ya on that one. The negotiations were done without us present and the one guy from the town got some help in return for us doing something for the lead pirate. They never asked. We sailed off to another city and have a set time to steal some item from the Pirate King.

We got to the new city. We talked to his contact. He sent us to another contact. Now you're caught up.

The pair of half-orcs decided we looked more suited to finding work in this place rather than the shiny paladins. That didn't work out at all. We tried a different tactic to get information and - surprise, surprise - it meant being enforcers with the target being the other guy who just blew us off.

The GM admitted it was to move the story along. He's that honest, at least.

At this point there's a bit of discussion between the practical half-orcs and the idealistic paladins. We want to wash our hands of this whole situation and take one of the roads out of town. We're tired of being used as pawns and honestly we don't care if those refugees make it or not. They're capable of finding their own ways to survive. The paladins make some noise about oaths and protecting the innocent. End result is we keep going. Of course.

The others in the party captured the person and turned him over to the guy who sicced us on him. There was payment. Woo. The guy also had a magic compass that showed us exactly where we needed to go to find the lair. And it was almost exactly like the compass from the Pirates of the Caribbean movie. Yes. He's that lazy.

We get to the island. We find ruins. We find the passage behind the waterfall. We overhear some pirates talking about how the Pirate King has plenty of treasure, that they're tired of being almost killed, etc. So I suggest we use these mooks to get us to the treasure room and if they live we take them with us when we leave the island. Surprisingly they agree.

So we left it with us having to get past some kind of guardian for the treasure room and then the Pirate King who seems to live in the room like some kind of dragon. Which I kind of hope he's not given our character levels.

I'm kind of but not really enjoying the game. The people are nice. The kid is as bad as I was warned he would be. The GM isn't as good as others I've had. And it's 5e.

I told them at the beginning that I've been asked to GM a 3.5 game and if it works out I may not be able to be in this game due to scheduling conflicts. They were understanding and we're going to see how things shake out. I have some time before the first session of the new game so I'll still play in this one.

I'll talk about the 3.5 game in another post. So far it's still gathering up people and answering questions about possible character ideas. And hoping that the venue will let us use their event room for free since none of the game stores around here are really RPG friendly.

I Gamed! 5e Session 1

For the first time in almost two years I gamed last night. It was D&D 5e (meh) but it was gaming.

The group is a married couple (husband is GM), their teenage son, and their friend/neighbor. All the adults are in the same basic age range so that's helpful. I'll get to the son in a bit.

Disclaimer - I'm not fond of 5e. I'm very much a 3.5 person when it comes to D&D. I'm not saying it's better or worse than any other edition. It's the one I prefer. So no edition wars, please.

Their game is still early so we're all second level. That fit very well with the character I had already made and enjoyed in the previous 5e game I was in. She's a half-orc war cleric of Gruumsh. I stepped her alignment to the side so she's a chaotic neutral with a chaotic evil deity. The backstory I worked up has her free of the tropes that tend to go with half-orcs. I like her. The character was third level so I had to step her down one. No big deal.

As with most sessions when introducing a new player it was uneven. He had to get me set up to meet the group and continue with their story so it would all blend together. I expected it and waited politely when I wasn't involved. It happens. I was prepared. It let me read over the player's handbook to make sure I was clear on some of the rules.

Overall it was a decent game. The next one is coming up this weekend (two in a row then two weeks off while they play other games) and I'm hoping I don't get the call/text/email that they talked and decided I'm not going to fit into the group. I don't think it's going to happen but I can't help but worry.

On to my impressions of the game and how it's being run.

He showed me the charts he uses during combat for how damage is done, critical hits, critical fails, etc. I dislike those. I dislike those intently. I mentioned that I didn't but that I won't make a fuss if that's how the group plays. That caused the friend to say he didn't like the charts either. The son liked the charts (his vote really doesn't matter - more later). The wife waffled and eventually said she liked the flavor text but not the charts themselves. So the GM said he wouldn't use them. I felt awkward about making a change like that as a stranger but with a table vote it showed that no one else spoke up earlier.

He's using a couple of variants from the dungeon master's guide that are fine. They give the players a bit more flexibility and don't unbalance anything more than 5e already does. I still need to find out his change to initiative since he said he uses a d10 instead of a d20 but didn't say if we still add our initiative bonus. He said it makes things tighter. Um. Sure. I don't see what it matters if someone is 17 or 7 if the end result is the same but it's not worth bothering about.

The GM started out by telling me about a dream that I had and it was obviously a railroad into some kind of quest for a magic item for me. Nope. I'm going to avoid that as long as I can. I dislike being told what my character's goals are. I found out after the game that he's statted out legendary weapons to use in the game and I guess he wants us each to find one of them. Mine's some kind of spear. I don't use that kind of weapon, I've never wanted to use that kind of weapon, and I'm not interested in epic weapons.

During the game I found out how he runs. I haven't been on the player side of the screen much in the last decade so I made sure to go with his style and not mentally compare it to what I would do. It wasn't as difficult as I thought it would be. I don't know if he realizes how much railroading he actually does.

That dream thing I already mentioned. He said I could do with it what I would but it's obvious that he's going to push it later if I don't bring it up. There's a group of refugees from a conquered town that the other group was helping and he had it set up so they lost all their stuff except what they were carrying because of that. I found that problematic in that they have to rebuy everything they started with except their weapons.

We were 'chosen' to be the delegates to a pirate town as a way to get help for the refugees. Personally they had their own leaders, such as they were, and I would have left them to that. As second level we shouldn't have had to try to do anything to get them resettled and as adventurers with no ties to the town there's no reason to do it. But that was part of his story (or they decided that in the previous game) so we went. And of course the NPC from the refugees bargained that we would do a service for the head pirate in exchange for them helping.

Note that the negotiations were done without us so we were told about this after. We had the choice of taking on the task and the refugees getting help or not taking it and leaving them to their fates. Like that was a real choice. Personally I would have left them but that's me. So we take on the stupid quest.

The trail of breadcrumbs was more a series of loaves of bread at this point. We're getting passed from one NPC to another as we try to 'find information' we need to complete the quest. I found out in the middle he pulled this from a module so it makes more sense why it feels so flat. But I seem to be the only one with a problem so I'm not making waves. I'm playing it as my character would do, which isn't the dodge to do stupid things.

We left the game as we were going to talk to the next NPC who had information for us. It was a good stopping point.

Now on to the son. The son has socialization issues. They did tell me about this when we met to find out if we were going to be a match for gaming. Session Zero is important. They're getting him into gaming as a way to work on those issues and that's not a bad way to do it, in my opinion.

The kid has the attention span of a concussed squirrel. He's only concerned with the cool armor he wants for his character and the title that he wants, not with playing the character itself. We tried to keep him involved in the game but he wasn't responding half of the time and never initiated anything unless it was to show us a print of what he wanted his armor to be. For a while he was playing with a Transformer action figure rather than paying attention to the game. His dad let that go for a while then told him to stop. So they're aware of his limits and setting expectations.

I can handle the kid being in the game. He's not disruptive as much as not there. He's kind of an enhanced NPC from what I can see. We'll see what he does during combat rounds but for role playing he's not much. I was aware that role play was something lacking in the game and they were pleased that I enjoy the RP aspect as much as the combat parts of the game.

At this point my impression of the game is favorable. I'm not going to rank it because that's not relevant in this situation. If they don't kick me out I'll play and do my best to enjoy it. If nothing else I get to play a character I like. I'm also paying attention to his GM style and seeing if I do anything he's doing and I don't like as a player. If so then I can work on not doing that in the future.

It's tough joining a new group and it's even more so when the group is tight. They didn't make me feel like an outsider and they seemed to genuinely want me in the game. I'm working hard to adapt to what their table is like and not try to change too much to my own preferences. That table thing was the only one that stood out and the table vote makes me feel much less awkward about it. Did I mention I really dislike those kinds of tables?

ReaperCon 2019 Review

I already posted a summary update on Twitter but there's only so much you can do with a series of 140 character posts.

These are my own experiences and thoughts about the convention. I've been attending since the artist convention in 2005, missing only 2012 (I needed a break for reasons). So I remember the days when it was at the factory, missed the first move to a hotel, then have been there through the remaining venue changes.

I've also got the comparison between pre-Bones and post-Bones conventions. I'll be making reference to that in my review. There will be more on that following the review.

Day 0 - Wednesday

Travel wasn't so bad. It started out not so great when I got the text that my flight was going to be delayed for an hour, then another text that it wasn't delayed, and then an unannounced gate change. The gate change was a bit of a scare since I'm using the wheelchair service at the airports so they had to push me and another person to the new gate in a hurry. But we made it.

I did have to use two pieces of luggage for the trip down due to bulky/heavy things. I had expected to need the second bag so I had the soft duffel from my GenCon trip ready. The suitcase was three pounds overweight but a quick switch of one item to the other bag fixed that easily. My airline 'gives' you two checked bags without an additional fee, which was part of why I selected that one.

I was the wheels for four other people going to the convention with about an hour's spread between our flights. Eventually we all gathered up and went to the rental car area. I'm a rewards club member and get to skip the rental desk, choosing whatever car I want from the designated aisle. I was a bit concerned about fitting five gamers and our luggage into a sedan but funny enough the only vehicle in the area was a minivan so I got to take it with no upcharge. Fate was smiling on us.

The hotel was the same as last year, if slightly more 'into' the convention now that they had a feel for what we were. Custom room keys (probably paid for by the company), colored lighting, etc. We got our room block goodie bags and dropped our things. Then a quick Walmart run for supplies and we were all set.

The check-in line was long and moved slow, which is about normal. They were having printer problems for tickets, which is about normal. But I got my badge, my class tickets, and a BUNCH of swag bags since two people had me purchase additional ones for them. All that got dumped in the room.

There's a Meet and Greet pizza dinner included in the VIP badge. They didn't get better pizza this year. It's pretty bad pizza. I resort to eating the toppings and leaving the crust behind. It makes for an interesting plate when I'm done and the servers never know whether or not to take it.

After that there's no real scheduled events so everyone breaks off into groups. I hit my room to rest.

Day 1 - Thursday

Hotel stay includes breakfast and this place is nice for having real food on it. I won't repeat this for each day but breakfast consisted of lots of scrambled eggs, a nice amount of bacon, fruit, and milk. Carbs are cheap and easy to get, protein not so much.

I set aside the entire day for shopping. Here's where ReaperCon shines for me. They have an area where all the cast parts are kept before they're packaged. Given the name of the company the area is called The Boneyard. ReaperCon is the only time of the year you can trade in old metal and get new metal ounce-for-ounce. Which means you can get figures for far less, relatively speaking, than buying them retail.

I do a lot of shopping. And I was shopping for three other people so that's even more shopping.

This year I remembered to bring a lot of plastic baggies so I could keep large multipart models together (it's a right pain to sort all that out) as well as keep things organized as I went. It helps with shopping for other people as well.

It's in Texas and there's no air conditioning in that area. It's a concrete floors with shelves six feet high. The minis are kept in those heavy yellow plastic bins so it's a day of standing, bending, stretching, reaching, and generally more exertion than I do at once. This is why I set aside the full day.

Whatever they didn't have on hand they'll cast so once I put my passengers to work on shopping for other people while I finished mine (long list this year) we filled out the casting slips and left. I would have stayed longer but one person had a class that afternoon and I didn't know that when I agreed to be his ride.

I don't like time limits on my shopping.

That night was me being tired so it was a drink at the complementary cocktail hour then a break until cheap appetizers at the attached restaurant. I was also told to try the tomato soup because it came with deep fried cheese fritters. The soup was all right, the seared tuna was overpowered by the relish, the chicken and avocado egg rolls were the best of the bunch. I ate too much.

Day 2 - Friday

I had one class on Friday. I try to take three classes per year, just to keep learning. It gets difficult at times given that I've been taking classes for so long and there's a lot that doesn't interest me. It doesn't help that there are instructors on my 'do not take classes from this person' list either. But I can generally find some classes.

The class I chose wasn't very good for me. The instructor focused on two things that I pretty much already knew how to do and didn't show any different ways for me to try. That and they both depended on dry layers and that doesn't happen quickly in Texas. So instead of nice clean lines we ended up with smeared messes. Which the instructor then tried to give suggestions on how to improve. He stopped looking at mine when I said I could have done it if the paint had time to dry.

I'm not sure if that instructor went on The List or not. I'm leaning towards it.

The rest of the day was me going through the vendors. You get a punch card in your swag bag and if you get it punched by all the vendors you get a free mini. It's a nice way to get you to visit all the booths. I like to shop, chat, and then ask for the card to be punched. I'm in the minority. This was a shopping day anyway, not a buying day.

The selection of vendors is eclectic. One big problem is that the convention is held over a holiday weekend and some of the more desired vendors won't bother. Another big problem is that a huge convention is happening at the same time so if they have to choose one it won't be this one. The last big problem is that the convention isn't that big and it's manufacturer sponsored. Until last year they only had to deal with the last problem. The other two are making themselves known.

After wandering the vendors (missing two because they hadn't arrived yet) I spent time catching up with artists and other people I knew.

I took the factory tour because I like to take the tour. I like to see what's changed, have some pleasant memories of what it used to be like, hear the history, etc. I can't do the upstairs part because of the stairs but I had a bit of shopping to do so I peeled off the tour early and did that. It's allowed. I met up near the end and still got to enjoy the last of the tour itself.

A couple of people I know were arriving this evening so I kept an eye out for them. I had brought stuff for them and I rarely get to watch people open presents. I was able to meet up with one of them, the other hadn't arrived.

Solo cocktail hour but free drinks are free drinks.

I made the mistake of ordering a pizza for dinner. It was a mistake because the tiny fridge in the room would in no way hold pizza leftovers even if I had a way to wrap them up. I really didn't think that one out. So I was back to eating pizza toppings and ignoring the crusts.

Day 3 - Saturday

Two classes today, separated out. I spent my day hanging out, going to a class, hanging out, going to a class, hanging out, etc. It's odd to have that break between classes because I didn't want to start anything with the short time I had. So it was kind of a wandering time.

The first class of the day was great. It was a demo on airbrush usage and I've taken classes from that instructor before. It's been agreed that this one is an inconsistent teacher - on point for some classes, not so much on others. This time there was an assistant of sorts to keep them on track and it helped a lot. I'll bring up my airbrush at the end after the review.

The second class of the day was me giving the instructor another chance. They didn't do well, in my opinion, teaching a class the previous year. But I liked the topic of this one and they had already taught it at GenCon so I hoped it would be better. My hopes were in vain. This one was another wasted class. And this teacher is on the 'do not take their classes' list going forward.

Cocktail hour again. The hotel had some special con-themed drinks so that was fun. I had the Dragon Tears blue thing and it was tasty. Actually I had two of them this time. I only had one the night before.

I socialized a bit and then had dinner at the attached restaurant. I just realized I had a coupon for that place I could have used, maybe, but oh well. Dinner was all right and far more than I'm used to eating.

The painting contest awards are held on Saturday evening and there's nothing of interest for me there. Everyone I know puts entries in the contest so I'm on my own during that time. I hung out in my room and read.

Day 4 - Sunday

I leave early on Sunday now because I have no interest in the auction and that's the big event of the convention after the painting contest. It's kind of bigger because there's free stuff. It's free because you can only bid using convention money you get from participating in convention events. There's nothing I want or need so there's no reason for me to stay.

Once again an unannounced gate change at the airport but that was the only hiccup in my travel. My suitcase was lighter than when I brought it because I left a lot of things there and had all my shopping shipped home. It was worth the cost.

Home

It seems like my cat suffers from separation anxiety. She's been a perfectly trained cat until this weekend when she did unspeakable things to the pet bed and my bathroom floor. According to the person watching her that happened on Saturday some time. So it was after I was gone for a few days and she was left alone more than I would like. They could only visit once per day during the week and I think it was more of a 'food-water-litter box' situation than spending time with the cat.

I think she's better because I spent Sunday and Monday making sure she could find me and get attention any time she wanted. I did have to unpack the suitcase and I've made sure she has no ability to do unspeakable things to it. I hadn't planned on going into the office this week so she'll have me around more than just that time. That plan was made to give my knees some time to recover.

Summary

I didn't do any of the fun painting stuff I had planned and I'm not exactly sure why I didn't. I walked by the area any number of times. There were open spaces. But for whatever reason I didn't sit down to paint the free minis. I'm going to have to think about that one.

I'm never quite sure why I keep going to this convention. I don't socialize much and every year there's fewer and fewer people I know. I take a few classes. I don't enter the painting competition. I think it's the shopping that keeps me going and habit. If I didn't go to this one I wouldn't go to anything. It's a sobering thought.

Bones

What the heck are Bones you may be asking? Until several years ago everything Reaper put out was in metal. Then they used Kickstarter to start their plastic injection molded line. They call those Bones. That was a turning point for the company and their customer base.

The Kickstarter got a lot of attention and a lot of people who had never been a part of the hobby dove in. The site forum exploded with new people and everything was Bones, Bones, Bones. Then there was the second Kickstarter. And the third, And the fourth. The fifth is starting in a month. Plastic is the thing for the bulk of the attendees. I'm a metal snob so I don't bother with the plastic stuff at all.

The vast majority of the convention attendees have never painted metal minis. They're all about the plastics. I don't really blame them. The cost difference is significant and most of the new stuff is in plastic. It's the old timers who have more affection for metal. And the competition painters but resin is good enough for that as well. Metal is becoming sidelined.

Airbrush

I almost forgot I was going to put in something about my airbrush.

I have four Badger airbrushes. I really only need one but anyone who knows me knows I go big when I go into something. One thing I did during a sale was buy replacement triggers for them that are taller so there's less hand strain when using the airbrushes. That means taking them apart and replacing triggers.

It wasn't bad to do that. It's always good to know how to disassemble and reassemble your tools.

Except for one of them. That one didn't slide like it should, didn't move like it should, and there were air bubbles around the cap. Fine. I set it aside and didn't think much about it. Then the convention started getting closer and I had two chances at having professionals look at the thing to find out what I did wrong and learn how not to do that again.

The owner of the company was there. He looked at it briefly and told me to send it to the factor for service.

The instructor for the class looked at it and said "Sure. I can take care of that." and started it soaking in a cup of isopropyl alcohol. He also showed me why part of it was sticking ("Just ram it back and forth a few times until it moves smoothly. It gets junked up with whatever they put on it at the factory."). Once he cleaned it out it was working perfectly. Turns out I did reassemble it correctly or when they were mucking around with it the piece went back into place.

The final thing was the kicker. The bubbles that were coming out around the cap? "Those just happen. Ignore them."

So the only thing truly 'wrong' with it was needing to have the factory lube worked off the needle due to the very tight tolerances of that model. Which means nothing was wrong with it.

So You Want to Buy a 3D Printer? - Part 2

In our last adventure I was dealing with a clog, after having taken apart the print head to replace the fan and try to figure out why it wasn't printing as it should.

I left it with the clog and me looking at taking more advanced measures.

I did continue.

The first thing I did was take a piece of piano wire, heat it up, and jam it down the filament path to try to gather up any filament boogers. This is kind of like a cold pull except that it will gather up a different kind of debris. Larger pieces will stick to the wire and be pulled out since it's smaller than the diameter of the tube. I got out some gunk so that looked promising.

Another run of cleaning filament dashed those hopes.

I did a couple more passes of piano wire - cleaning filament before deciding there wasn't anything that was going to get pulled out.

It was back to cold pulls, hoping that the adventure with piano wire had at least moved around whatever was clogging the nozzle.

Two cold pulls later and it was still not working. I was on the verge of taking it apart so I could get to the nozzle more directly.

Now when I do a cold pull I like to make sure I know what's going on. Typically you heat it up to 265, run the filament (or push it down) until it comes out the nozzle, then cool to around 180-190 and pull it back out. I tend to set the temperature for the cool down rather than try to catch it at the right time. I set it to 190 and it works.

This wasn't working.

The next time I set it to 185 when I was going to pull it back out. And I found a chunk of something in the end of the cleaning filament. This is good. This is what you want. Cleaning filament is undyed nylon so it's kind of a translucent cream and you can tell if it gathers up anything in the process.

THIS time the cleaning filament ran nice and clean. It was the thick, smooth extrusion that I needed.

The moral of the story here? That sometimes you have to just keep at it and you'll get it working again. A clog can always be fixed, even if that fix is putting on a new nozzle. This time I could use the standard methods (with the extra kick of piano wire) to clean it out and continue.

Why piano wire? Because it's hardened wire and can stand up to heating and abuse. This stuff is really tough. You need special nippers because it will chip regular ones. It's serious stuff and very handy if you're going to be using it for various things. But if not then I recommend skipping it because while the wire isn't expensive at the hobby store the nippers are.

Let's go onto another thing that happens - twisted filament.

Almost all the time if your filament gets twisted it's user error. You can never let the end of the filament go unsecured. If you do there's every chance it's going to slip under a winding and then you get twisted filament. That will bind up at some point and do something as simple as break or as nasty as pull the filament roll around and screw up your alignment.

There are rare times when you get twists on the roll and they aren't user error. I've had it happen. I've seen the pictures of it from other brands. We honestly don't know how it happens at the factory since it should never be able to happen but it does.

Untwisting filament is kind of an exercise in patience. You can't just unroll it to the twist, untangle it, and roll it back up. That darn twist will keep sliding behind what you're unrolling. There's plenty of instructions on how to do it but I'll simplify here.

Keeping a grip on the end of the filament you back roll it to loosen up the windings. You keep doing that until you've got a nice amount of filament loose, hopefully with your tangle in there somewhere, then slide the whole mess over the side of the spool. It is a mess at this point. And I have yet to do it where there aren't windings on the spool that didn't get pulled off so I need to repeat a couple of times until it's just one piece being unwound. It's not pretty.

Then there's the fun of winding it back onto the spool. Filament is wound while it's still hot and it keeps the curve of the spool. And it's springy. So it's all over the place as you're trying to figure out how to get through the twists and hopefully deal with the tangle. I know most filament is cheap enough that I could cut off the part I've pulled off the spool and I have done that when it kinks or just gets too frustrating. But I like a challenge. Sometimes.

Ok. Clog is cleared! Filament twist gone! Ready to print, right?

Nope. The broken filament in the print head means it won't let me load new filament.

This one worked with the easy fix. Heat it up to cleaning temps, let the filament ooze out and soften, run some cleaning filament until the old stuff is gone. Then lower the temperature and load the new filament.

Except it didn't seem to want to load.

Being patient fixed that one. The load process built into the firmware has it doing a ram (fast load) for a bit then slower as it builds the pressure on the nozzle. The motor wasn't moving filament on the ram. But it was moving on the slower one. So I kept saying the filament wasn't loaded (it wasn't) so the process would continue to push out at the slow speed. Eventually the leftover cleaning filament came out (that could have been part of the issue) and the new filament was in this neat little spiral before extruding clean.

While the spiral looks cool it's not cool. It means there's .. a clog. This time just letting the filament run cleaned it up and I've got the printer going again.

So there's a whole bunch of little annoyances that happen with far more frequency than any of us like. There's far worse ones but clogged filament is pretty much an expected thing no matter how clean you try to keep your nozzle.

I'll detail the next problem when it happens. Because one will happen.

So You Want to Buy a 3D Printer?

Really? You think you're ready to jump into the wild and wonderful world of 3D printing?

This is where the GM asks "Are you sure?"

Because here's what I've been dealing with on one of my printers. They're the same brand, same version, same pretty much everything. I say 'pretty much' because there are some differences.

A little while ago I had one of the print head fans die on me. No big deal. I had a replacement on hand. Take the old one off, unwrap the cable harness, swap the cables, put the new fan on. It's not that difficult. However...

The fan model I got was the one recommended at the time. If you're interested it's a Noctua. And it even comes with a handy adapter pack! Of course none of the adapters fit my printer. No matter. I have a soldering iron. Clip, solder, heatshrink tube. I'm ready to go!

Fan goes on fine and tests fine.

Then I start getting clogging on various filaments at various times. The same filaments work fine on the other printer. I was annoyed and frustrated. There was a clog serious enough I had to take the print head apart and drill out some of the filament. More on that spool later.

I put it all back together and it's still being inconsistent. Which means I'm down a printer.

I wonder what the previous owner did to this and if the heat transfer isn't quite right. Clogging can be caused by that. So I take the hot end apart AGAIN and put fresh thermal paste on one piece, carefully putting it all back together.

Then it hits me. There had been posts about the Noctua fans but I couldn't remember them. A little searching in one of the Facebook groups and asking the guys in the moderator chat tells me that the Noctua fan doesn't push enough air, causing things like clogs. Sigh.

Luckily I had bought new fans for the pending upgrade, including one as a spare. This isn't quite as involved since it's a fan swap (again). Off with the Noctua, on with the Sunon. At least this one is a pretty black instead of the weird tan and flesh color of the other one.

Since I had the print head disassembled I have to calibrate it again. The full deal, not just the minor one. This includes setting the nozzle height from the base bed manually (you literally use a flashlight to see the space between the nozzle and the print bed) then adjusting the induction probe to a certain height. Only then can you run the software to calibrate. Three tries later (changing NOTHING, btw) I get it to pass calibration. But I'm not done yet..

It still needs to be fine tuned to the print bed. In our world that's called a Live Z since you can adjust the height of the first layer while it's printing. Live. On the Z axis. Pretty cool, right?

Ok. Fine. I have a little file to do this. I load up the printer and the new fan is spinning away. Yay. But the print is coming out in these little dots. Sigh. Nozzle clog. Unload the filament and get out the cleaning filament. That's just nylon, really, but it prints hotter so up the temperature and load the cleaning filament.

This is the point where it would hesitate then start extruding a nice thick line of cleaning filament. Nope. Not this time. There's more of a clog. So a cold pull it is. Set the temperature to where the filament will be solid then wait. Once it's cooled down pull the filament back out, hopefully capturing any stray bits that were hanging around.

Why didn't any of this show up when I had it in pieces? I didn't do a cold pull because I honestly didn't think I had a clog of this nature. They're not that common. The new fan doesn't do squat when there's a solid piece of something physically blocking the 0.40mm opening of the nozzle.

The first cold pull showed a chunk of the last filament I tried to print was hanging around in there. So back up goes the temperature and another cleaning filament load. Nope. Still clogged. Time for a second cold pull so down goes the temperature. The cleaning filament isn't showing anything obvious but it's also not the pretty point I want showing a clear nozzle.

Back up goes the temperature for another cold pull. This time I'll manually feed the cleaning filament until I can see it coming out the nozzle then drop the temperature to pull it back out. A lot of this time is spent waiting for the nozzle temperature to get to where I want it.

While I'm waiting I'll remind you of the temperatures. The printers are in metric so the temperatures are in Celsius. My normal printing temperature is 220C (428F). The cleaning filament works best at 265C (509F). The 'drop' is to 180C (365F). It's easy to forget just how hot these run until you do the math or do something stupid like grab plastic that came right out of the nozzle.

Third run with the cleaning filament. Back up goes the temperature. I'm going to let the print head feed it this time and see what happens. And it's still clogged. Back down goes the temperature. This one also shows as inconclusive. I'm not seeing anything in there but I'm also not seeing the right shape to the end of the filament.

I'm done for the night. I can only do so much before it gets too frustrating to continue. Other people may have more patience but after a long day at work and then putting the printer back together I can only do so much troubleshooting.

Tomorrow I'll work more on figuring out what's going on with the filament not feeding and make a new post about what's going on.

The other printer is chugging along nicely, printing Star Wars: Legion terrain for someone.

What does this have to do with a desire to buy a 3D printer? I'm detailing this to give you an idea of some of the things you WILL have to do at some point. These things are great, until you have to break out the tools to figure out what's not working right. If you're not a patient person and you don't like to tinker with things then you're not going to enjoy your printer.

Nothing Interesting, Sadly - But with Pictures!

On the 3D printing front I'm currently churning through prints for other people. It's nice to have things to do and I enjoy printing for them. But it takes the printers out of commission for my own stuff. Of course that's when I find things I really want to print for myself but forget again when the printers are open.

Life.

I just finished a bunch of Gaslands terrain for someone. And car parts. That's when I found out that Inland's 'consistent color' isn't really that great. The grey went from light grey to medium/dark. Luckily it didn't matter in the print I was doing but I'm going to have to take both filament cats to the store and find out what is the grey going forward. Or stock up on both colors. I'm not sure yet.

These are both just called 'Grey' on the label. I think they're different colors. And yes. That's a grey hair of mine on the darker one. It got stuck under the label I put on each cat. It has been removed from the cat with extreme prejudice. It was nicely appropriate to the topic so I'll give myself points for it.

Another thing I'm printing is a lot of Star Wars: Legions terrain. I got done with Tatoine and now I'm on to Imperial. I hope to get some pictures once he's painted them because they look better that way. But it's been some long prints and I'm just starting up the Imperial. Luckily I have a spool of grey from a company that's gone out of business so I can use it up on this stuff. I should use up most of the spool if not all of it. The dark grey above matches close enough that it shouldn't matter if I have to swap it in.

I lied. Here's some of the Tatoine stuff. The light brown seemed appropriate to the setting and I printed them in thicker layers so they'll have a nice texture when he paints them.

I have a lot of printing left to go for another friend who bought into a Printable Scenery Kickstarter for elven terrain with the intention of me printing them. Literally this has been hours of printing. Hundreds of hours and spools of filament. He doesn't care what color they are so I've been using up more of those discontinued colors and am quite happy about it.

I don't think I ever shared any of those prints so here's a couple of them. If I have shared them you get to see them again.

Just to give you an idea that large one (it's a library) took 156 hours to print the four pieces. And those minis are on one inch bases. So there's a lot of time invested in his printing and he keeps sending more files my way. I hope some day to be caught up so I can mail it off to him.

Other than those there's been a couple of small print jobs for friends and those are nice to have done. I've also printed up some Tardis boxes that I'll sell as dice containers (yes, I checked the license and I can sell them) which used up all but some of the discontinued WhoBlue color. I need the rest of it for a game organizer container. Whatever is left is going to be Tardis LED earrings. It was meant for Tardis stuff, might as well use it that way.

I think that covers the 3D printing.

I haven't made much (any) progress in clearing off my workspace. I know I need to do it and I keep meaning to do it. But life happens then suddenly it's close to when I need to start winding down to go to sleep which means no working on organizing. It's maddening and worse because I'm doing it to myself.

Add onto that going to two conventions in the next month and my time is limited. I'll go to one, have a couple of weeks, then go to the other. The second one has planned very poorly for scheduling their convention. They used to have it in May, then October. Both weren't bad. Then they switched to Labor Day weekend. Which is bad. The timing is actually bad because of the huge convention just a couple of weeks ahead of it, being the same weekend as a huge convention, and over a holiday weekend. But I don't work there so I just show up and do my thing.

Last thing! I have a hoard of GM accessories. A literal hoard. I love those things and I'm a sucker for them. The item generators folder on my hard drive is packed full of files and I have other things as well. Just recently I got some dice (yay dice!) for when you need to add some detail to rooms on the fly. Of course I like to add more detail so I got three of each set.

I need to find a better way to store them. The little boxes are great until you pick one up wrong and have dice all over the floor. I'll probably end up designing and printing something to hold them. Or just toss them all in a random dice bag. It's not like I don't have plenty of those sitting around.

Each color is a different theme. I'd have to look up what they are and I will be making a reference card for myself since I know there's no way I'm going to remember it. But aren't they fun??