High level Campaign has two, maybe three sessions left. It makes me a bit sad to see it come to an end.
They just finished the first of three challenges to recover the weapon they'll need to fight the big baddie. A four session dungeon crawl that was fun and productive since they honestly earned another level advancement. The highlight was a fight with a spirit naga. They've been collecting monsters in a Mirror of soul stealing they figured out how to weaponize. But the fighter KO'd the thing before they could try to lure it into their trap. So the cleric decided to resurrect it on the spot. Only, the trap didn't work, and it used Dominate Person to take control of the Fighter. Nearly wiped half the party with a single CR8 monster. Good fun.
We're doing a back-to-back weekend with another session tomorrow, where they'll be faced with an ancient Lich who has been used in this world as a guardian for valuable things through history. After that, the last stage is "transactional". I told them that word and nothing more.
I haven't quite figured out what I mean yet, but I'm leaning towards making each player sacrifice something of great value. Artifact-level items, permanent HP loss, permanent spell slot loss, things like that. The fighter might be less reckless if his HP is halved. Wizard might have to think twice if he has fewer spells lots available. Rogue might be less deadly if he has to give up a Feat. Idk. Might be too harsh. Of course, I would accept the offer of the souls they've trapped in that mirror, but I'm certainly not going to suggest it to them.
As for the last session, I still have one more major thing to plan. The weapon they're currently after. I need to finalize the rules for it. It is a magical augmentation. It is going to be incredibly powerful. Multiplying the effects of a spell by an order of magnitude or more. Also incredibly dangerous. Needing a large wisdom save to survive using it seems appropriate. It's mostly there, I just need to finalize the details.
The scene will be essentially simple. They need to get to baddie to stop what he's doing. In the way are guardians I've designed to make that nearly impossible. Then, flanking the party is going to be the cult of baddie, set on either stopping the party or helping their leader finish his work. It should be about an hour of intense gameplay followed by whatever the ending becomes. If they succeed, they will be hero's, granted immeasurable status and given the opportunity to choose their fate. If they lose, the gods will thank them for their heroic efforts by taking them from this now-doomed world and allowing them to begin again in another. Separately.
I just hope I can do the narration justice. I want the players to feel like they've been important in the story. Either way, I'll be a bit sad to see the campaign end. It's the first one I've run that lasted until completion.
barefootcyborg5000 said:
I just hope I can do the narration justice. I want the players to feel like they've been important in the story. Either way, I'll be a bit sad to see the campaign end. It's the first one I've run that lasted until completion.
Don't feel sad about that! Closing out a campaign is hugely satisfying and surprisingly rare. Never feel bad about bringing something to a satisfying conclusion.
Great session yesterday. I think that this may be the best campaign I've run in terms of player emotional connection/impact.
They had a big fight with a squad of Nazi soldiers moving in to take over the theater. The party lost. The Nazi's now hold the theater for clearly nefarious and supernatural purposes. The players are very bothered by this and determined to retake the theater and drive them out.
Then a cool scene at a supernatural market and a run-in with their best frienemy.
I'm looking forward to next session.
In reply to Beer Baron 🍺 :
An engaging session is a good feeling.
Saturdays session was not as good as I had hoped. I think most of that is because I wasn't very prepared. Either way, I'm eager to see what the final session brings. Made my players bargain hard for the trinket they were after. I gave them a choice of semi-permanent handicaps going forward. 1/3 hp reduction, 4 base stat points, permanent loss of a spell slot 6th or higher.. or they were free to think of something similar and offer it. Nobody did.
I still need to finalize the stats on the trinket. And two of my players are moving and will be unavailable for several weeks while things settle.
In reply to barefootcyborg5000 :
Yeah. I think I've hit that point in the story arc where I've established the world and the PC's place in it. Given them things they care about... and now the bad guys can start attacking those things and really motivate the players.
One of them spent... a significant sum on a single-use magic item to break through the magic barriers in the theater.
(I use a system of "Items of Value" instead of tracking currency. An Item of Value is like... purchase a nice suit of armor, specialized tool set, tome of magic spells, major bribe, charter a ship. Player traded a silver pocket watch for a magic henna tattoo.)
In reply to Beer Baron 🍺 :
That system is intriguing. I may try to remove money from a campaign in the future. Should make for better RP and force players to be a little more involved in anything transactional. I think I like it.
The trinket my players got is meant as a single use item. They'll need it for the main objective, but I also want them afraid to use it. Essentially a spell focus requiring attunement, but dangerous to use. Like, using it to cast anything requires a DC, where <20 is death, <25 is a catastrophic backfire, and <30 is successful but permanently burns away the ability to perform magic.
Penultimate session tonight. It was mostly spent making sure everyone was leveled to 18, and had made all their preparations for the coming fight. Fighter stocked up on healing potions, cleric and wizard prepared a plan for magical attack, rogue did some shopping and geared up (including attuning the luck blade our wizard has been keeping) and monk did similar.
Of the ten immortals in this world, four have either lost or given up their gifts, which in basest terms are small trinkets, which can be attuned in stages when one proves worthy. One has been left in a place known to the party should they survive and decide they want to take up that mantle. One is in the hands of the enemy and the party has been tasked with recovering it if possible and returning it to a certain temple. One has been hidden and the players have been warned to not go after it, as it would be too greedy. The fourth is in the possession of big baddie, who has his own as well. Leaving 5 golden tickets in my world for future campaigns.
One of the immortals is going with the party into the fight, as is a small army of kobolds and a few giants and trolls they've managed to capture. She gave up her gift and is going to go out in a blaze of glory.
The plan is for May 4. That's when we can all be in the game in person. I feel like I've done this story justice and I've kept my players engaged. It's a good feeling. I hope they win the fight.
One of my players is moving out of state in May. So I need to condense my plans and make an end-run to tie up the main plot points in two or three more sessions. (One of which is today.)
I'm improving most of this, so I really don't know what is going to happen. I also really have no idea how the players are going to make the final push.
A group of Nazi SS who are part of a wider evil cabal have taken over the theater in the square where the PC's live. They're going to attempt to drive them out and retake the theater.
What I don't know, is what the nature is of the evil ritual the baddies are performing inside there. I don't know what they're really hoping to achieve, or what the ritual looks like.
Also they've run for help to a guy they *think* is Mafia, but who I want to have be part of the evil cabal, or perhaps pulling strings. If this campaign were to go on longer, he was going to become a major antagonist. Dunno what I'm going to have him do to potentially mess up the heroes plans. Or perhaps just insert himself into them...?
Wrapped up my 1930's Venice campaign yesterday.
In the climactic final battle, our heroes were assisted by a pack of crazed, revelrous, naked women (maenads) who literally tore a group of Nazi soldiers to pieces.
We finally finished our long campaign. I brought a friend in to help me run monsters, a very experienced player who wasn't afraid to actually kill characters off. He almost got two of them. Tension was high and the fight was tough. It was super fun.
In the end, the final piece of the puzzle was a sacrifice. I knew that would be the case, obviously, but didn't want to force a player to kill their character. Luckily, there was a high level NPC with skin in the game who was willing and able. The player was grateful he didn't have to do it.
I got a little emotional at two points. One was the sacrifice. That was a long term NPC, one the players all liked and her part in the story was pretty big. It was a spur of the moment decision for me and felt really organic. It was a fitting and epic end.
The other was when the players learned the reality of the BBEG. There were no surprise reveals or twists, but they finally understood the full tragedy of this character. There was no victory possible for him, even if the players would have failed.
I had prepared send-offs for each PC for good or bad endings. I left them with a choice I told them I didn't want an answer to. Either to continue in this world (though an indeterminate amount of time had passed) or to move on to another, with no memory or knowledge. Flavored for each player and really trying to do right by each of my players. We've had the same group for two years, and I know they had put a lot into their characters. I wanted to honor that and hope that's how it came off.
What an epic night. Emotional rollercoaster for me. Good luck sleeping. My brain is in overdrive with all the story and plot points we tied up.
Session 0 for the new campaign yesterday. Doing my thing of creating the campaign collaboratively. It always goes unexpected places.
I made one request: I wanted the campaign to be based on some sort of Ship or Vessel. This could be anything from a Starship Enterprise, to a Mad Max trucker convoy, to a giant insect that walked across sand dunes.
We ended up deciding on escapist space opera. Very much Guardians of the Galaxy inspired with elements of Pirates of the Caribbean and cyberpunk. The crew are a bunch of scoundrels who'd all been captured and locked on a ship until their captors mysteriously disappeared.
As part of character creation, I've asked for each PC's theme song that will play when they do something epically badass.
Zero session for a new campaign this Saturday. I have 3 committed and one maybe. Still 5e but going to have the players help determine the setting as well.
Also just found a fourth for my Thursday game that should be a welcome addition. That campaign is in a really good place. Level 5, they've established themselves financially, and uncovered a number of plots that are a good branching point to see where they want to take the story.
In reply to barefootcyborg5000 :
This video gave me inspiration. I decided to lean more heavily into things I was already thinking. Picked up the book referenced. I think this is going to make the game fun.
I also had fun coming up with the list of what will earn XP rewards. that list includes...
- Badass cooperative action sequence where the GM is compelled to play the group Theme Music
- Looting/stealing/hijacking/etc something valuable
- Sticking it to The Man
- Calmly walking away from explosions in slow motion
In reply to Beer Baron 🍺 :
Theme music is a great idea. I've done a few sessions where I played ambient stuff to great effect. One session in particular where the party got caught in a winter storm I opened the door and had a YouTube loop going with the sound of wind and really leaned into the weather and setting being something to contend with.
The theater of the mind is great, but sometimes it needs supplemented.
In reply to barefootcyborg5000 :
Yeah. I want to lean into the Guardians of the Galaxy-esque comic book cinematic style. Which means I want moments where characters are leaping through the air, everything goes slow motion, and theme music swells.
I'm also pleased that, one of the three Megacorps is all about high technology stuff - cybernetics and things. I've decided their CEO will be: Leon Skum
We're three sessions into a new campaign. A couple different players, same world, but a different time/setting. This is very much a "golden age" adventure. I intend for the stories to be more casual and fanciful.
In our zero session we decided they wanted to start with a jailbreak. We cooked up reasons for each to be locked up, and in session one we had fun. They inadvertently took a favor from a fey and now the party is cursed. More on that in a bit.
We got new neighbors. They expressed interest so we've brought them into the group. They are both new players. Tonight was their second session....
I killed one of the characters. I didn't intend to. I've never killed a character before. He started off doing so well and then a couple questionable moves and a lot of terrible dice left me with no choice. Taken as prisoner in a hostile war camp, refusing to take an oath and upsetting the baddie, followed by a quick escape... it was going so well. Then a failed stealth check, and he was spotted trying to climb the city wall, took an arrow and fell... I really hope I haven't scared off a new player.
Back to the fey curse. This particular npc is a Traveler. He appears to be a mumbling old man, speaking gibberish mixed with sylvan and easily mistaken for insane. Well, during the jailbreak the party chose not to join the other inmates who used force to bust out the front door, and instead were able to solve the clues that my insane guy was mumbling. This guy has the ability to use any door to go anywhere. Portals at will. Well, the party used his door without payment. Now any time they try to leave a place through a previously closed doorway, they will find themselves somewhere they do not expect. At least until they figure out what is going on and how to stop it. Whether it's paying the fey, finding another magic way to break the curse, or killing the guy... should be fun.
In reply to barefootcyborg5000 :
Finished session 2 on Sunday, and I'm excited for what's going to happen in this campaign.
Session 1 was straightforward. They woke up on a ship, had a desperate three-way fight with a horror monster (based loosely on a Slaad) and a space-biker gang who wanted their ship. PC's prevailed and flew off in a fancy new ship.
Session 2: They decided to recover one PC's organic body. He was experimented on by the megacorp UniTecX headed up by CEO Leon Skum (I had fun with that name). They stuck his consciousness in a cyborg body, but he wants to become human again.
Did a train heist. Typical RPG hijinks - gunfights, explosions, hallucinogenic smoke grenades, etc.
They recovered the body, but in the process the cryo-coffin that was keeping it alive and preserved was damaged when another player rolled a nat 1 on a major effect. So the body is fine, but the clock is ticking on how long it stays that way without cryogenic preservation.
Ball is entirely in their court for how they handle this.
Trying to decide: if the lab transplanted any organs from the organic body into the cyborg (brain?), or if the body is whole.
Had some Fun tonight on a "save the Princess" quest. Climb the mountain, fight the troll, pretty standard stuff for a level 2 party.
Well, they triggered the trapped bridge, and split the party last session. Leaving the two (A) players who managed to grab the bridge as it fell and climb to safety, separated from the two (B) who fell into the raging river far below.
(A) players managed to climb up where they were greeted by a fey they've encountered before. He offered to reunite them with they're lost friends if they could solve a riddle. Instead they threatened him and found themselves transported way up the mountain in the nest of a grumpy griffin who was flying home to warm its eggs. They made quick work of that encounter and grabbed an egg each to raise themselves a couple flying mounts, so that was fun. They then decided to make they're wager and solve the riddle which got Them back together with
(B) washed down the river a ways and found themselves in an ancient forest. They did well in finding a good spot to camp (avoiding travel by twilight, as they'd been warned by the same fey in the past) and a few random rolls saw a hippogriff walk into they're camp looking for food. Instead of a fight, they managed to feed the thing and decided to train it as a flying mount too..
They did a fair job of fighting the Ettin, and dragging home a very uncooperative and mouthy princess back down the mountain.
It was a very fun evening. And the next half dozen or so sessions are planned out pretty well which will put us right up to our move in date when games will be paused until we get settled.
Got a couple games running still.
Our 2/month game is progressing nicely. Level 6, and still having fun. That is on pause until the move is completed.
Our Saturday game is a lot of fun, but may have to change. Two of the part are our next door neighbors with small children. We play after bedtime, and they check the kids every 15 minutes or so, and sometimes just bring the 6month along. But with moving across town, that throws a wrench in our arrangement.
The game is fun. We're playing in the "golden age" of my world, and haven't really gotten into any of the deep lore or major actors yet. It's a pretty casual game with a couple new players. I've been tossing in random one-shot modules a bit too, which is a nice addition and keeps things varied and fresh. Level 3 currently.
Our Wednesday group is the most fun right now. We've been playing Shadowrun, or a modified version of it, but we're one game away from ending the campaign and we're going to start a new 5e game instead. Wednesdays are my current favorite, because not only am I a player, but our DM is a 1e veteran, and very good. I haven't decided on a character completely and won't until our zero session since I want to play party support as my first priority. But, if all the needs are met, I like the idea of a barbarian with a combination of surprising intelligence and also a common-language barrier. Will report in a few weeks.
Just ran a hilarious and super fun session. A fetch quest to free themselves from a type of curse they walked into on the first session. Basically, they used a magical doorway without paying the fey that created it. In effect, every once in a while when the party goes through a door, it doesn't lead where they expect. Instead, the fey throws them into some situation in some other location where they must perform some task in order to get back where they want to be.
This particular NPC is a character that one of my earlier parties was haunted by. Not literally haunted, but he made such an impression that for the next two years they were still scared of running into him again. When they met him, he was in the form of a clerk that had a click pen he used to take notes. They've referred to this character as "Clicky pen Guy" ever since.
Well, this party has two of the same players, but the setting is earlier than the last campaign. He doesn't have the pen yet. So I'm trying to figure out how he is supposed to get a ballpoint in a fantasy setting. Naturally, my mind goes to "ballpoint pens were invented by nasa" which leads us to tonight. They are sent through another magic door to fetch "a weapon mightier than any sword" from the R&D dept in a 1960s government building. They did really well, asked some very good questions, and played really well as a team. Inevitably, when they finally realized what the setting was, they asked about early space experiments involving animals and "we have to save the dogs!"
We had a lot of laughs. That was a fun evening.
Nice!
Things are getting suitably weird and wacky in the game I'm running. I am doing this campaign *very* improv and effectively no prep ahead of time. I have some factions with agendas and the PC's backstories and goals to drive things. If I need to give them a mission, I pull some random prompt cards and wing it.
They have one ticking clock with the cyborg's organic body that he wants to be put back into slowly going bad in refrigeration. I'm introducing more and more complications from backstories and opportunities to pursue the goals they created for their characters.
Hunting for a scientist who can do that, they met with an information broker at her club, Space Disco Excelsior, and asked her to put them in contact with a scientist who might be able to help. She gave them a mission to destroy an old biocorp lab before any of the research there could fall back into corporate hands. It has powered down and since been inhabited by a bunch of dog-sized talking spiders who are literally holding the place together with their webs.
I decided to make the spiders neutrally inclined and sentient escaped lab creations. So destroying the lab would mean killing them.
The players got through the airlock and immediately split the party into two groups. When we paused, one had done a terrible job getting the nuclear reactor online and it's growing dangerously overpressured. The other started talking with the spiders, flubbed a bunch of rolls, and now one PC got rendered unconscious and dragged away.
One player had me select the Focus for his character (sort of like a super hero power theme) in secret, and I finally revealed that. He basically takes images from dreams and creates illusions - so I popped that out with a gangster sitting around a table in the VIP section of a space disco, all of a sudden there's the illusion of his father with a knife in his back. He does a Macbeth style freakout, guns get drawn.
