So, with such a name as Fine Strands of Death, you would think that this encounter would really push the envelope on the survivability of the party. Not so. In fact, not only was this the easiest encounter in the season, it may have been one of the easiest encounters I have ever run. Of the ten creatures in it, nine were minions. Huh?

Despite that, I still had fun with it, and I think it is a good idea to put something like this out there, since the party is special, and needs to occasionally just wipe the floor with the baddies. The baddies, in this case, were three decrepit skeletons, six crawling gauntlets, and a crystal spider. Also, the spider had a crystalline web (trap), which lends itself to the name, as it is made of fine strands of glass. In fact, it was the most dangerous thing about this session.

The party quickly dispatched the minions, before the spider even got to attack. However, they all felt something was weird about the hole that the web covered, so they weren’t too surprised when the spider gathered together its radiant energy and blinded Barcan. Okay, Barcan was surprised.

I think that had I planned it a little better, I could have used the crystal spider to drop down on the other side of the party and use its Radiant Agony attack to push them into the web. But I followed the tactics, and this spider wasn’t particularly smart (its been a long time since anything living came here [wait, do they even have a reason to attack living creatures {what does it eat, anyways?}?]!).

The three skeletons reminded me of three other skeletons, and no one at the table had heard of them, so I give you The Skeletons in Link’s Closet:

Chapter 2, just from running one session, seems like a much tighter set of encounters. It is underground, much more dungeon-y, and apparently filled with necrotic energy. So, underground undead purging. I can handle this.

The first encounter was pretty straight forward, and while there weren’t many enemies, they had an assortment of abilities that made the battle challenging. There were two corruption corpses, a grey ooze, and a griefmote (which I think Kk’tkk [Benny] will agree, lives up to its name). Besides them, there was the challenge of getting across the rickety bridge spanning the chasm (only 15 feet deep), which the party smartly deduced would only support one person weight at a time.

Kk’tkk, Shikirr’s cousin from a different clutch, went a head, and disturbed the undead folks, who were obviously just chilling out, minding their own business. Phye went to assist him, though was unable to make it fully across the bridge before they were attacked by an ooze on one said and a cold wispy creature on the other.

Castri, played by our newest person (both to the group and D&D 4e), made good time running across the bridge, and got into position to assist Kk’tkk take down a corruption corpse. Unfortunately, neither of them counted on the lack of hygiene the undead fellow was experiencing, which was then shared with the party in the form a stench that game them a -5 penalty to attack rolls. That would be hilarious when Kk’tkk went to attack the invisible griefmote, coming in at a whopping -10 penalty (which didn’t help when he rolled a four).

Meanwhile, Barcan and Jarvix were hanging back. Way back. Fortunately, I chose a power, Sorcerous Sirocco, rather level Barcan the way Wizards wanted. It may have been breaking with the theme, but it came in handy as Barcan and Jarvix flew across the chasm, landing adjacent to the skirmish, ready to unload their arcane/psionic might.

Combat was pretty straightforward, with neither side really being able to get the upper hand. The stench and their regen kept the undead fairly active combatants (including my two critical clams against Kk’tkk!). Speaking of which, the Thri-kreen finally had enough, and sent out this psychic burst of energy that was resisted by everyone, except the ooze, which he proceeded to push into the chasm. It feel in, incidentally, the silt pool trap, as well, totally 25 feet. As a testament to the ooze’s mobility, as well to how awkward movement in D&D is, it was able to climb back up, right back to where it was before, for its turn. Huh?

Eventually the party took down the undead, leaving behind a very damaged ooze and an outnumbered griefmote. Both retreated, leaving the party slightly battered, but now fully aware of what they may have gotten themselves into.

Overall, I think it went well, and it was more fun for me than the past encounters, no doubt because I am more comfortable with this kind of environment. I think every encounter one player gets singled out for a beating, and it seemed like Benny this session. On the other hand, Jarvix (Kyle) was rocking the party, no doubt having gotten over his fruit lethargy. ^_^

I felt kinda odd about changing so much, but I am going to take any misgivings I have about killing the party and turn it around into an opportunity to break the format and play D&D the way I want to. It is a pattern with me, I find something I just can’t wrap my head around with this game, it bums me out, I recoil at said state of being, and decide to follow my way of the ninja.

Anyhow, the game details…

Group one came in strong and easily dispatched the smaller guys, and put the hurt on the cursespewers. They were even able to take out both the archers, not an insubstantial feat, considering they were difficult to pin down. Slowly everyone began to succumb to the drawn out battle, eventually leaving just a cursespewer and Jarvix, standing five feet apart mind-thrusting and confounding cursing each other. I rolled a bit better, and he finally fell. Note that had it not been for the overwhelming advantage of position the goblinoids had, the party would have likely rocked their world. The issue of climbing up a large rock covered in barbed weeds really took the wind out of their sails. Desert sails, which incidentally need a lot of wind.

Also, they got further in negotiating, with Judy’s Barcan realizing that his diplomacy probably works better on nobles back home than on desperate nomads. Regardless, everyone came together and canceled out the surprise round the enemy had on them.

Group two was less successful in their negotiations, merely setting people up as targets for the first wave of curses and nomadic rage. Of note was Gautham’s Phye opening round, where she ran to a portion of the battleground that I hadn’t anticipated. I love that. The drake hadn’t presented itself yet, so the lasso it had around its neck provided a convenient way for Phye to scale the cliff to quickly engage the enemy.

One change I made was the location of the brambleweed. I really should have modified it for the first group, but I made sure not to make it too easy for this group either. Rather, I just cleared a couple of spaces to climb up, then they were on their own (and taking 5 damage at the beginning of their turn). Of all the people to take out, it was Phye, the healer that fell to the lacerations, causing the party to spend one of their invaluable healing fruits to resuscitate her.

The combat was brutal, as that group’s Yuka is fond of grabbing people and throwing them off cliffs. There was a lot of back and forth in how the battle was apparently going, and Phye was forced to spend all of her healing abilities.

My favorite part of the combat was the exploding minion. Being overwhelmed, a cursespewer decided to activate the doom ability on a minion while within range of the ability. As it left Yuka, Phye and Cursespewer A to hacking and coughing (and taking damage), and despite the fact that I said it activated from the cursespewer screaming a curse, the players became convinced that the minions exploded on death. The best part was when everyone passed up on attacking the last minion because he was too close to risk an explosion! They let it run all the way to the edge of battle before Cristina’s Barcan popped it from afar. A great moment in threat analysis. ^_^

Besides that, the groups did some similar things. They were both surprisingly close to each other’s starting positions. Barcan and Jarvix were both adept at remaining mostly uninjured until later in the battle. Both groups attempted to negotiate with the nomads, and both groups discussed how great it was going to be to have a drake in the party. ^_^

Major differences, besides the TPK, is that group one almost killed all the enemies, while group two killed both the cursespewers and a minion first, causing the others to retreat (I don’t think they killed any archers). Also, the drake was rather passive in the first game, where in the second one it was included in the explosion, so made a flyby attack against a cursespewer before leaving.

Now we are trudging into the fourth encounter, and the two groups are going to be experiencing very different stories. One of the other DMs, Andy, changed the characters’ stories around a bit, from what I gather, and I was feeling awfully lazy. However, I just get frustrated at how incomplete the module is, and I am not DMing a public game so that people can come around and be bored because they are overwhelmed and out of healing surges. I am here to take names and describe action scenes, and then double-check the list of names to make sure I got everyone. Boosh!

Note: I only mentioned the players’ names who have been to this site and commented. I won’t talk about someone’s activities here unless they out themselves first. ^_^

I am running two sessions, and it is amazing how much they diverge from each other, with the players developing very different strategies in dealing with the encounters. I didn’t write up session one, but it was the same, and I feel like I learning a lot about tactics in general, since I get to see the alternate reality characters play out.

Encounter 1-2, Banishing the Hive, starts out with a flame spirit beckoning the party forward. This was interesting for me, because in group one I told them to place their characters in the starting area, whereas group two had the choice to approach the spirit. Group two ended up surrounding the spirit to read what it was saying (it burns the letters into the sand, which then blew away in the wind [very cool]). The two groups asked entirely different questions, with one of them asking all the script points about the spirit, and the other asking mostly about their own situation. Impromptu speaking is something I enjoy greatly, so that worked out, but it was a surprise none the less. I have no idea what I would have asked it.

After a bit of conversation, the spirit disappears and these large beetle type creatures called kanks attack. This played out very differently between the groups, but I suspect this has to do with the fact that group one had three players playing two characters each. They got their hides handed to them multiple times, and I felt like they barely kept it together. Group two, on the other hand, immediately delegated tanks, and while there were some close calls, generally held their own. In fact, I awarded moments of greatness to three players, they were doing truly epic plays.

On thinking about this, I would guess the difference in play comes down to experience. While group one has some people with RP experience outside of D&D, everyone started playing in D&D Encounters season one. Group two contains at least two DMs, and a couple of others that are in regular D&D 4th addition games. Fortunately, I think both groups are having a lot of fun. There is a decent amount of laughter and wit going around the table in both games, and I feel it is a great experience for me to get to know such a diverse and interesting group of people. ^_^

I have pointed it out to our game’s wizard, since it is the first time they have played D&D, and wizards are not the easiest to start the game with. However, it is really helpful to me, since it reminds me that just because I get off on knowing as many rules as possible, not everyone is in the game for that.

The author, Shelly Mazzanoble (isn’t that a drow house?), relates this excellent bit of wisdom, given to her by her mother:

“Besides, aren’t you the one who is always mouthing off about how D&D is cooperative and you like it so much because you don’t compete with each other?”

“I guess so.”

“So instead of hyperventilating in a dressing room, ask questions. If they’re really your friends, they’ll help you.”

I think The Player’s Strategy Guide offers some good advice, but maybe my mom could add a tip or two: Ask for help when needed. Give help when asked. Don’t judge.

I am going to go into our game with that in mind. Despite my goal being to utterly destroy the party (not really, but it is nice to daydream about), my priority is always to have a fun time with real friends. ^_^

However, I could use some other things! Like envelopes!

The funny thing is, I am not going to use these to send messages, but rather as game aids in my D&D game. I like players having to relate information in character that they’ve learned from skill checks or tactics (i.e. sneaking around). I also like the idea of dropping envelopes on the table with magic item cards in them, for treasure finds. Suddenly, a treasure parcel is an actual parcel!

They are the perfect size, and the package came with 10 of them, more than I will need, I think. It was around $8, so it was a great deal for me, they feel like they will last.

One other thing that I thought was really cool, how Maido collects addresses for their e-mail list.

It is cute, but the important thing is that it uses the same amount of paper, but allows for a modicum of privacy. I hardly ever want more e-mail, especially from stores, but when I am genuinely interested, I am normally put off by the half-dozen or so name and address pairs already on the list. I don’t want anyone having that information. I see this as a smart and efficient way to handle that.

And one more thing, the Maido in the Westfield Mall is supposedly the cool one, as opposed to the store in Japan Town. That is what we heard from the store employee as the noticed that almost all of my stamps were from the other store.

But the store in Japan Town is where the kawaii lives!

The evening involved Settlers of Catan, hard cider and pizza. Unfortunately, our game got started at about 9:20PM, and it involved both Cities and Knights and Seafarers. People poured out just after midnight, and I am afraid that nearly everyone had to walk home.

Suckers.

At any rate, because I keep everyone up late on a school night, I will refrain from posting the less than flattering pictures I took of everyone. Instead, beginning, ending, and players:

Based on the feedback I’ve gotten, fun was had by all. Thursday is normally our D&D night, but one of our adventurers is finishing up finals, so we took this as an opportunity to party without them (=P). It is a bummer, because I like playing D&D every week, but board game nights are fun, too. I just don’t think everyone else has the stamina for both in a given week.

Nothing small doses of NoDoz can’t fix!

A new person joined (Nathan), and rocked Kalla, the Monk. The first time I have seen one played, but I imagined it would play that way. Their techniques are pretty cool, I like the move and the standard combos. Very Kwai Chang Caine.

I was going to play a Wizard, but at the last moment decided to rock a Psion instead. The new controller class, I thought they might be similar to play. Turns outs Psions are Jedi. At least my build was. My at-wills are Force Punch and Kinetic Trawl, basically Force Push and Pull. I am not complaining, it was pretty cool. I just wish I had done more in the game. My moment came with I use Far Reach to administer a health potion to the fallen Paladin. That was dope.

The other thing of note is that I have 30 renown points. That makes it so I qualify for a Renown Card at the end of the season. Because there may not be enough. Coming from the company that prints Magic: The Gathering. Wizards, I will trade you 4,000 cards for one card. Won’t even break the bank.

Seriously, they should have an MTG recycling program. On second thought, I suppose that would wreck havoc with their rarity system.

And now, some pictures!

Anyhow, I have been having a blast with my half-elf ardent, Byron Aweheart. With a 20 Charisma and 8 Intelligence, he is the Ken of the party, more concerned about how he looks swinging his greatsword around than, well, whatever it was he came down here to do (I know, but he may not). I feel playing a character who is so over the top has helped me adjust to playing with strangers. Being a leader both in role and in character, being able to shrug off the important clues out of disinterest, and then focusing on interacting with the other characters has been a boon in just being able to talk to other people. Sometimes D&D 4th feels too much like a strategy game, and not enough like a social game, so this character helped get around that.

However, despite really being into this character, I am going to switch it up for next game. At the beginning of our game last night I noticed that we had three leaders, one defender and one striker, and mentioned that we could use a controller. Wouldn’t you know it, we fought swarms of rats in the next encounter. Additionally, only one character is trained in arcana, and they tend to pop up in the middle of combat, after we have stumbled around some magical contraption to no avail.

With those considerations, I am planning on playing a human wizard. Scorching burst and a whole lot of arcana (and other skills) will go a long way in this format, and will make our party rounded out. I have a character already rolled up, partially based on fanart I got from Fanime years ago. I have to admit, I love playing wizards. I normally know a substantial amount of the rules, so it is easy to be the geeky guy, almost meta-gaming my way through monsters and whatever the DM throws at us. I look forward to seeing what kind of information I can get from monster knowledge skill checks, and passing it along my party.

Also, thanks to Absalom, Ariella, Christina, Gautham, Jeremy, Jon, Judy, and Tim! We have a lot of people in this game, and everyone is a lot of fun to play with. I feel Tim and I lucked out, since the other Encounters game that is running there seems less fun when we see them. D&D, not a serious game. ^_^

D&D 4th Edition is very modular. This makes it idea to create a website that puts together various components to output the character sheet data. In fact, that is exactly what the Character Builder does, in XML even! It is too easy to create a Drupal (with Feeds) site to slurp up character sheets and output it in an easy to read format that can then be adjusted for whatever device.

So, there is the theory, and really, this is what I do with RSS and Atom all the time, so I have the practice as well. The issue is the legality of creating databases of modular game mechanic components. Is it okay? Could I get sued?

The U.S. Copyright Office has something to say about it (http://www.copyright.gov/fls/fl108.html):

Copyright does not protect the idea for a game, its name or title, or the method or methods for playing it. Nor does copyright protect any idea, system, method, device, or trademark material involved in developing, merchandising, or playing a game. Once a game has been made public, nothing in the copyright law prevents others from developing another game based on similar principles. Copyright protects only the particular manner of an author’s expression in literary, artistic, or musical form.

Material prepared in connection with a game may be subject to copyright if it contains a sufficient amount of literary or pictorial expression. For example, the text matter describing the rules of the game or the pictorial matter appearing on the gameboard or container may be registrable.

I kinda get it, and of course I am going to be looking into this more. I don’t want to just do D&D though. How about Tri-Stat, Fudge or Ricochet? Those are all systems that I enjoy, and all I see is a content type waiting to be “featured” and ready for deployment for a gaming group’s website.

What I feel like I need to do is create a gaming system that I really like, and release the whole damn thing under a CC license. I would even go further and make it BY-SA, just to make sure it could grow in the domain where it belongs, the player base. I believe that it could be just as commercially viable as any system out there, but with the additional piece of mind that the rules, and the form of expression in which I choose to share them, are being set out there specifically to be used by others.

Recently I have been thinking a lot about Ricochet in particular, and tonight I did some research (really, just searches on Wise Turtle’s forums) concerning the licensing for that system. There are some fast and loose guidelines on their site, but the creator, Clay Gardner, claims he just put them up to have something. I suppose they are reasonable; I don’t know much about small press or royalties. What I do know is that Ricochet has a fast and straightforward dice rolling mechanic, and that I wish there was some sort of system document I could refer to when creating a custom campaign setting.

If Ricochet had such a document, or if OVA was stripped of its flavor and just included the rules, then we could work with that. I will have to get in touch with Clay to see if something along those lines is of interest, but I don’t know if he is in a position to make a decision divorced from the commercial choices he is making for OVA (he has kept a really interesting development blog for the OVA Revised Edition, check it out).

So, now this is out of my head. My ultimate goal, of course, is to release Nexia as a campaign setting with a default system and conversion rules for other systems. I would love to go through the process of creating a book, but if it were a wiki, character database and a bunch of apps, I would be just as happy.

Actually, I would be happier. ^_^