Wednesday, October 23, 2019

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

Wednesday, October 16, 2019

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.

Monday, October 14, 2019

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.

Saturday, October 12, 2019

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.