Writeups

Yep, again! I think that makes the third time I’ve run and/or played What Storms May Come. Both times playing have been because I had a character who wanted to complete the quest, and I ran it by request, so hey. This time was online, with Tsriel running. Matt, Jay Ibero, Dareus, Zalarian, Shamballa, and I played. We did something I really hadn’t expected: namely, took the baby into combat. Well. But given that we did a 1.5 round crush of the final encounter, I guess that was a reasonable choice. Also it means Collin has golden eyes, which fits nicely with the bear thing. ...

Jason kindly agreed to finish up the Raven’s Bluff slot 0 for us, so we played down at Games & Stuff back last Sunday. Busy weekend – we had guests in from out of town, and so on and so forth – but I figured hey, worth a bit of extra effort and all. Plus I got to pick up the awesome Rules Compendium. Plus Kevin seemed likely to hit level 3. ...

Part 2 in my Return to Raven’s Bluff run! My players were, once more, Susan, Colin, Hudson, Jason B., and Mark B. Ravens Under the Midday Sun is more of a dungeon crawl – well, it’s almost completely a dungeon crawl, with a bit of investigatory roleplay on the tail end. I rather enjoyed it, but I don’t have a ton to say about it. Hm. The skill challenge portion of the exploration could be better, I’ll say that. But I could have made it better myself if I’d done a bit of prep. The problem (for me) is that it’s all group checks, and all group checks are mandatory, which means it played out as narrative, “everyone roll X,” narrative, and so on. I could have handled it better by maybe giving everyone a round to make knowledge-ish checks, and then a round where everyone has to try and help in some way? Something like that. If I ever run it again, I’ll fiddle with it a bit.

The second module of the day was Twisted Roots Run Deep (original). Interesting times. Susan ran; you may not be surprised to learn that the players were me, Jimmy, Amanda, Hudson, Jason B., and Mark B. I like it when Susan runs urban modules, because she really brings the NPCs to life for me. There’s a moral question in the last fight, and I suspect the range of PC reactions may be a bit more varied than the author expected. I think, when all’s said and done, that it’s a touch darker than the general tone of the Forgotten Realms. Definitely a sharp lefthand turn from the What Storms May Come, which under certain circumstances has an orc carrying a baby into combat. So are kids safe in 4e fights? Um. ...

We played What Storms May Come as the first slot of MiniMoreCon V up at our place; I ran, and Susan, Husdon, Jimmy, Amanda, Mark B., and Jason B. played. I fiddled a bit with the first skill challenge and combat, just to keep things fresh for Jimmy. He’s run it about a million times before. The only real criticism I have of this mod is that the maps are too darned big. Seriously: the first two barely fit on a full Paizo battle mat. Other than that it’s fun, the fights are challenging, and so on. Hm, and it can run a bit long – three skill challenges and three fights, phew. But it’s a good finale to a good major quest. ...

Back in the GMing saddle! August saw 10 games; I GMed 4 of them, mostly online. All my face to face games included Susan, which is just how I like it and continues her tendency to be my most common play partner. I’m continuing to cruise towards the 100 game goal. Perhaps I will bake a cake.

Killing the Messenger is one of my favorite LFR modules; it’s flexible, full of options, and it’s a great part of the Elturgard plot line. I had a blast when I played it, and I had a blast running it, even if we maybe could have probably used a bit of practice in playing quickly online. Six hours is kind of a long run. My players were Jay Ibero, Matt J., Dareus, misterjester, swornsoldier, and Oskar 581. Jay got a lot of milage out of GM swaps with me in those last couple of weeks of August. This module completed my August LFR adventures, woo!

I wanted to pay back Jason B. for running the Return to Raven’s Bluff mini campaign as a slot 0, plus I wanted Susan to get a chance to play, so I’m running the series on alternate Sundays down at Games & Stuff. I ran the first one on 8/29. Jason B., Mark B., Hudson, Susan, and Colin played. It was nice to see Colin again – hadn’t played with all month thanks to him moving and schedule problems and so on. It’s also a solid adventure, as is not surprising: it’s from Keith and Claire Hoffman. There’s a big chunk of investigation in the middle which is quite satisfyingly freeform. If you hate skill challenges, you could do far worse than check out the investigatory skill challenges in this year’s LFR modules. ...

Nothing like a bit of East Rift dungeon crawling! And that’d be Unbidden (original). Jay Ibero ran for us on Saturday, 8/28; me, Dareus, Darklord, Elden, Bollivergray, and Trident played. This is the bit where I realized that hm, if we didn’t complete the whole module successfully in high, then Collin wouldn’t level. Added a bit of spice to the whole thing, but the module didn’t turn out to be too hard and we got through it without any trouble. ...

Part 2 of operation ParaCollin was Lost Souls (original), run by the always chipper Matt J. The other players were Eltherian, Kazordan, Eladar, Mike 38115, and gadunge. I’m a bit behind, but I played this on… Thursday, August 26th. This is definitely a tough module, made tougher because Matt’s a very good tactician. Also an excellent GM, and yeah, those two things are sometimes different. We had a striker-heavy group with only a hybrid leader, but given Collin’s self-healing and our general ability to crank out damage, it all went well. Despite Matt cheating horrendously in the middle fight (I kid because I love)! And now Collin has a little blue tear tattoo next to his eye, which doesn’t make him at all happy. Probably better get used to divine attention as he hits paragon.