More MapTool games! Collin is now only three sessions away from level 4. This experiment in leveling quickly has proven to be a success. Draden Tristen GMed; he did a great job of moving things along and running the combats well. My fellow players were Crow of Pyke, Logopolis, Neldar, Maelwys, and Dareus. Crow played his warlord again and I found it deeply satisfying to play a fighter with a warlord. We spent a good part of one fight keeping two monsters locked down as he granted me basic attacks. ...

More Arts? Don’t mind if I do… I played with Emperor799, Maelwys, Monouk, Matt, and Zeitgeist – yep, another MapTool game. Collin’s still working his way towards level 4. It looks like he might get there before our next MiniMoreCon, which would be keen. Dareus DMed. We boldly went for it on high despite a preponderance of level 1 or 2 characters. Since certain gnomes rolled dead last on initiative, and since our DM did not take advantage of certain knock prone powers, we managed to clear out of a certain doorway before certain bad things happened. ...

I decided to run this as a MapTool (original) game because it’s one of the 1-4s I’ve never run or played. It was in fact pretty fun, although I have some quibbles. My players were Matt, Ryven, Draden Tristen, Neldar, Crow of Pyke, and Xalcair. I really liked the group; this is one of the best MapTool LFR experiences I’ve had. We had zero technical issues. There was maybe a bit of conflict between roleplay oriented players and tactically oriented players but people gave each other space to do what they wanted, which was nice, and much appreciated by the DM. ...

Ah, Radiant Vessel, how like a pair of comfortable old shoes thou art. I have played this sucker… a few times. This time Matt was the DM; we played via MapTool. The players were me, Monouk, Goldfishmind, Pelyt, Lunarstar, and Darrell. I’m mostly using forum handles for names here, to maintain privacy and to keep my life simple. Matt’s an awesome online DM. He knows how to keep the pace moving. Despite a couple of new players, we cranked through the thing in 3.5 hours, which is nice given that we started at 9 PM. He also remembered Reed failing his Athletics roll miserably back when he and I played this together, so when we were hanging out with the orcs he described a halfling getting his ass handed to him while wrestling. I was most amused.

8 people DMed for me: Amanda, Dean, Jeff, John, Mark B, Mark D., Melody, and Peter. 26 people played with me: Amanda, Andy, Brad, Charles, Dallas (female), Dallas (male), Dan, Emily, Garry, Hudson, Jack, James, Jennifer, John, Mark B., Peter, Randy, Robert, Ryan, Susan, Terry, Theren, Tim from AmberMUSH, Tim from Pennsylvania, Tom, and evil Tony. Unsurprisingly, Susan played with me the most. I think Hudson’s number two. I DMed for 15 people: Emily, Frank, Hudson, Jeff, Jon, Kirby, Mark, Nina, Noah, Peter, Susan, evil Tony, good Tony, Trevor, and Zach. Two of those were first time D&D players. That’s pretty cool. ...

Blah, this is a hard one to write about. I hate saying a game sucked, but this one pretty much sucked. The players were very solid; I think this was maybe the most competent group I’d played with as a whole (me, Susan, Hudson, Tim from Gaspcon, Brad, and Theron). Edit: several months later, we had Theron as a DM at Gencon, and thus I have fixed my misspelling of his name. ...

We mustered up with me, Hudson, Tim (who runs Gamers Clubhouse (original) and Radio Free Hommlet), and Mark GMing. Other Tim (who we know from GaspCon) and John, who’d just run The Paladin’s Plague for me and Susan, showed up and were welcomed to the merry band. We then went out and stomped all over Impiltur killing and negotiating with goblins. This adventure is the best Impiltur adventure ever. It has the classic brutal combat they seem to all include, but it has way less of the guilt and a nifty twist at the end. Big thumbs up. Goblins rock. ...

About an hour into Gilding the Noble, I went “Hey, it’s a Waterdeep adventure! There’s gonna be an excellent skill challenge or two, a lot of roleplay, some nobles, some storyline, and a couple of fights that feel like they were dropped in because fights are required in LFR modules.” I was correct! Which is not to say the fights weren’t fun, since they were, and the adventure as a whole was excellent. Keep on doing what you’re doing, Waterdeep Triad. ...

Our DM: John. My fellow players: Charles, Dallas, Dan, and Susan. This is a different Dallas than the one we played Darkness Falls Over Moray with. We almost had that Dallas at our table as well, but he got poached to fill out another table. Alas. Battle interactives are cool. This one came off extremely well; nothing like 25 tables of LFR players cheering, debating, and more or less winning by the skin of our teeth. Reed got to do his thing in a big way in a few encounters – he’s still remarkably mobile and that’s still a completely awesome trait. Plus I scored three crits in one fight, one of which helped me kill a big tentacle all by my lonesome in one turn. (John: wait, you do another 2d6+16 damage?) ...

There are going to be some spoilers in this; be warned! Not a lot, but I’m going to spoil one of the fights. We happily got Amanda from the Games and Stuff crowd as our GM, which was pleasing. The players were me, Susan, Dallas, Randy, Garry, and Robert. Good balanced party: two strikers, two leaders, a defender, and a controller. Double bards is very amusing. I liked the adventure as a whole. The Moonshae Islands have a nice Celtic/Viking feel to them; they’re always very atmospheric and I really get the sense that it’s not just another mainland Faerun adventure. I should play more of them, or run more of them – this was Reed’s first time out there. So that was quite cool. ...