Sunless Citadel: Session One

The session went about how I expected it to.

The monk was a no-show. I was thankful for that, because she's never played before and I think she would be easily distracted and disinterested.

Additionally, I have never tried to wrangle more than three other players at once, and I was faced with six, four of them new.

I didn't miss her. Nothing personal, monk.

We started off with the four pre-established and united PCs making their dawn patrol around the village in search of evil-doers or evidence of evil-doertry in the wake of recent attacks.

While inspecting a suspicious clue, a fifth PC arrived, having last night been attacked by the local nastiness. She got right into it, despite this being her first RPG outing, and her druidy insights helped them put some clues together.

Next, I introduced the last remaining PC, who I was concerned about.

My concern proved valid.

He (not his PC dwarf barbarian, though technically it was sleeping one off when they found him) was thoroughly intoxicated by the time we got to him, and he continued to get increasingly so for the next hour or two. He was loud, distracting, obnoxious, and unfocused in the room, and just shy of belligerent in the game.

It quickly became un-fun for me to DM, because I was baby-sitting. If my attention wasn't on him or something he was saying or doing, he'd start distracting one of the other players. I'd have to interrupt him and try to bring him back into the game, and of course he'd have missed the present context, so we'd have to get him back up to speed, at which point he'd be a somewhat useless pain in the ass, etc.

You get the idea.

I was frustrated and angry. So was the halfling paladin, the other veteran player. The druid was already worn out from a long work week, and she pretty much retreated into passivity. One of the other guys, also tired from work, let the barbarian player get him drinking, and though he didn't get as drunk, he started nodding off regularly. The last guy tried to stay positive and involved, but was constantly distracted.

Unfortunately, I let my hopes for getting everyone together and making it work get in the way of being a good DM.

This guy was making it impossible for anyone but himself to role-play, because everyone else would have just left him behind or killed him or reported him to the authorities. Instead, we all tried to include him and get him to come along, which was totally unrealistic and disintegrated the already feeble immersion I was able to maintain in the tempest of his nonsense.

So we soldiered on. I fast-forwarded a few bits in town to get us on the road to the Citadel. Sadly, the more opportunity to simply role-play (which normally I would encourage ad infinitum) would only prove counter-productive for us at this point.

The first few encounters at the Citadel were sloppy and confusing. The barbarian was steamrolling along in front, didn't know where to find anything on his character sheet (whether he didn't know or was just too drunk to find) and couldn't wrap his gauzy mind around the mechanics.

The druid threw in the towel and went to sleep in another room.

The ranger passed out once and for all.

The barbarian's inebriation seemed to abate a bit. The halfling took the lead, and things started working.

In no time, we were all having fun. Everyone was focused, everyone was role-playing. They discussed choices, made some strange decisions and a few mistakes (if anything can actually be considered a mistake) and had a great time doing it all.

They got themselves into a big unexpected battle with the odds largely against them, but a natural 20 right when the tide was about to turn gave them an edge and they won out. The best part was that they didn't win by brute force, they won by luck and creative strategy, which is what I like to see.

Most everyone needed to lick their wounds after that, so we decided to break there on a high note. The last hour or two of play was a memorable blast that everyone was reliving and recounting gleefully the next morning.

Next time, I won't make the mistake of trying to steer the players into insincere role-playing for the sake of keeping everyone involved.

If the barbarian wanted to play, it should have been on him. Instead, I put it on myself and my players, and the game suffered for it.

The druid may be permanently out of the game after this sour first experience, and that's a real shame.

As DM, that's my fault.

Discrepancies?

In my short time observing the OSR D&D blogosphere, I've noticed something that struck me as odd.

Regularly, OSR blogs link to or discuss new ideas and material for their OSR games, which is fantastic. The oddness comes in the form of the new ideas and material sometimes being ideas and advances that are already part of 2E and 3E D&D.

One guy made a lengthy discussion of a new OSR way to approach ability checks and reasonably assumed class skills that was little more than the 3E skill system. Someone even noted such in the comments, yet neither the blogger nor any of the other commenters acknowledged it. Today someone linked an OSR spellcaster supplement that sounds like it contains several ideas that I've scanned over in 3E materials.

Obviously, for the OSR to not remain completely inert, it needs new ideas and lively discussion, but for all of the grandstanding and naysaying I see, there's certainly some hypocrisy there.

That said, I've no doubt there is plenty of room for new school ideas to be adapted into an OSR way of doing things. I suppose as long as this material doesn't detract from the imaginative possibilities of the DM or the player, it's OSR friendly.

Once more unto the breach...

I haven't had time to do any sort of personal world-building or campaign design, so for starters we're going to be playing the 3.0 module The Sunless Citadel.

I wasn't blown away by it, but it has a few elements that will appeal fairly well to my group, and it's a dungeon crawl that offers a little bit of everything to a group of new gamers without being too confusing or challenging.

I think it'll suit us just fine. I'd prefer to have some bigger picture elements intertwined with this adventure, so perhaps I'll come up with a few this week before our game on the 1st.

The players are as follows:

• Hans (unemployed ex-background casting director and adventurer, not kidding) - Bartholomew Stubblefield; quixotic halfling Paladin raised by humans and slightly in denial of his true heritage. He rides his trusty St. Bernard, Chauncey into battle. Hans is the only one other than myself with any substantial RPG experience.

• Rachael (Lawyer and Hans' wife) - Aviv; wood-elven Druid and her companion wolf, Ajax.

• Rob (composer) - Korilian Red; snooty half-elven Bard who strums a mean hurdy-gurdy.

• Doug (audio tech/engineer) - Dezba Dar; painted elf Ranger from the desert wastes and deadeye marksman.

• Brock (abider) - ?; axe-swinging dwarven Barbarian.

• Jeanne (waitress/karate instructor) - ?; ass-kicking half-elven Monk.

• Jefferson (writer/humble narrator) - Curghan-An-Geloth Rem; human Necromancer of murky heritage with a penchant for the sciences of life, death and what lies beyond them both.

In most of my RPGing in the past, since there was often a fair amount of DM-swapping going on, our DMs had players that they would simply run as an NPC when they were wearing the big hat. Even thought I'm probably going to be the sole DM of this campaign, I'm making a character anyway. Sue me.

We've no dedicated healer, but Aviv has the potential to fill that role and in a few levels Bartholomew will be able to back her up.

We've no rogueish lock-picker/device-disabler or stealther, which will probably prove frustrating when not every door can be laboriously smashed to flinders. I foresee Curghan writing a lot of Knock scrolls. Dezba is decent at hiding and moving silent, so he may end up fulfilling that role whether he had envisioned doing so or not.

None of our melee players are heavily armed/armored, so that's a little odd as well. Bartholomew wears studded leather and wields a rapier. The nameless dwarf uses a one-handed axe.

Hans and I have done a few short sessions to oil the gears, and lately Rob and Doug joined us for a brief evening's play, so now our four characters are together and on the path to adventure. I think the two of them as well as Rachael will quite enjoy themselves and be as enthusiastic as Hans and I before long.

Brock and Jeanne are unknown quantities. I have a feeling they may be persistently distracted and confused and I fear Brock especially may be inclined to wander and act recklessly. Not that there isn't room for that in any good game session, but I wouldn't be surprised if his character just went off on his own and disappeared before anyone had any reason to try and stop him.

We shall see.

My past in gaming, the TLDR version...

If you read this blog, you can skip the previous three long-winded "Fond Memories of..." entries unless you really want to indulge my blather. The important points are enclosed herein.

The Follies of Youth

I recall little actual play from this time beyond flashes of characters and regular ogling of the artwork in any and all of the D&D material available to me. I drew a lot of monsters. I loved monsters. Monsters and bad guys. I really liked Vampires.

The Palladium Sessions

We were always more improvisational with our play, and didn't rely on much beyond the core info. Some of our adventures got so intense and personal that we'd get quite emotional. It was intoxicating and addicting. I experienced my first death of a beloved character. It was heartbreaking, but it was so well built up and handled by my friend who was DMing that it only made the whole experience richer and more gratifying.

Ravenloft's Creeping Doom

I relished the rollercoaster of dread and fear that I was able to create. It was a whole new way to enjoy the game. The power and wealth and renown we had built up was largely useless and irrelevant. We weren't there to conquer, we were there to survive. It challenged us at every turn and we had a fucking blast. There were a lot of close calls, some tough choices, and some steep prices to pay.

Dark Sun's Bright Glare

We were taking part in something bigger than ourselves. Bigger than a dungeon crawl, or a quest for a reward, or a flight for survival; the face of the world was changing in a big way, and we were there, we helped make it happen.

The Twilight of TSR

The problem was that with every new product TSR put out, for every interesting new story hook or idea they proffered, the grand scope and mystery of the setting diminished and lost its luster.

I didn't want to find out from them how uninteresting or perfectly boring some of the mighty Sorcerer-Kings of Athas were, and I especially didn't want to have the Dragon of Tyr end up so blasé. "His name is Borys? Gee-willickers!" My visions of the enigmatic Nibenay and the fiery Hamanu were vastly more intriguing.

In Ravenloft, the culmination of Hyskosa's Hexad was so disjointed and underwhelming that I don't even remember what it was. My cadre of colorfully spooky NPCs and their schemes resonated much more powerfully, but when I had entwined them in all of this material, my excitement as a DM unraveled with it.

The games became little more than fodder for artwork.

Epilogue/Prologue

Perhaps therein lies my gradual disenfranchisement with Dungeons & Dragons and why the OSR seems so thrilling.

Fond memories of glory and wanton slaughter: Part Three - The Last Crusade

College.

Off I go to art school in LA (okay, Valencia) while everyone else stays up in Oregon.

I don't think the Geeks up there continued with D&D. I'm still friends with them, but we're not too close, and after one of them flipped his lid during a game of Monopoly (long story), I've kept him at arm's length.

The Freaks, hell, they didn't even continue with school, much less any RPGs. They all dropped out and had lots of problems for lots of years. I'm still vaguely in touch with them (who isn't vaguely in touch with everyone from their past these days?), but we don't really talk or reminisce or connect.

Some of my college buddies had grown up with D&D, but none of us had played in a while.

Planescape came out.

I was intrigued. I absolutely loved the artwork. I bought most of the books. I made a few characters, I started to plot a campaign of such grand scope that it would ultimately alter the nature of the Blood War and the Lower Planes. I made some of my best character designs to go along with it. Some of my new college friends made characters. I made a Tiefling (of course) Necromancer (of course) Dustman (of course) named Hierlev.

We might have had one brief play session, maaaaybe two. School and drugs and girls and Los Angeles were intervening.

I got a computer. I played Warcraft. Diablo. Starcraft. The Playstation came out. The Xbox came out. The Playstation 2 came out. The Xbox 360 came out (I haven't really dabbled in the PS3). World of Warcraft came out (nor did I dabble in Everquest)...

Ten years after pen & paper games have dropped off my radar, I realize that there is not only a 3rd Edition of D&D out, but it's been out for several years and there's a new 3.5 Edition. I buy the core books out of curiosity and hastily try to learn how it works by making a character.

I am horribly confused.

The class changes look neat, the skill changes look neat, the prestige classes look neat, but I can't quickly put it all together, and the artwork isn't very interesting, so I put it on the shelf next to my antediluvian Ravenloft and Planescape schwag.

Five years later, I hear there's a 4th Edition. I get the itch. I do some research online.

Whoa. What the fuck does OSR mean and why is everyone going off about it?

Oh.

Neat!

I actually take the time to read through my 3.5 books. They make sense.

The online community and volume of resources is incredible.

I call up my friends and ask if they want to play.

I start a blog.

Fond memories of glory and wanton slaughter: Part Two - The Geeks

The Geeks and I played D&D.

2nd Edition erupted onto the scene during this period. We gobbled it up. We each made one character and started a campaign where all of us took turns DMing. We started in an amorphous realm of our own cobbling, but soon we settled into the Forgotten Realms. We toyed with Battle System a couple times, but straight RPG was more to our liking. My Necromancer (pattern emerging...), Jack of Shadows (still one of my favorite books) grew to be quite powerful, as did the other members of our group.

A couple years into the campaign, one of the player's character died. I think it might have been in Undermountain.

Jack of Shadows was the one that killed him.

I turned him to stone when he stole something important from the rest of us. We demanded he be cooperative and he ran. I blasted him in the back.

He had it coming.

We had put up with a lot of his self-serving, half-drow, ranger-thief character's nonsense for a long time (he was, of course, a bit of a dick in real life). It made for a pretty incredible gaming session, and it was the beginning of the end of all of our friendship with the guy.

The campaign continued into high school.

I picked up Ravenloft on an affectionate lark of all things vampiric and spooky. I was immediately hooked.

Off we went into the Mists.

I relished the rollercoaster of dread and fear that I was able to create. It was a whole new way to enjoy the game. The other guys loved it too. The power and wealth and renown we had built up was largely useless and irrelevant. We weren't there to conquer, we were there to survive. We had our wits and each other against ever-mounting odds. It challenged us at every turn and we had a fucking blast. Feast of Goblyns and both Ravenloft modules proved excellent playgrounds of doom. There were a lot of close calls, some tough choices, and some steep prices to pay.

I haven't retread those paths in many years, but the more I think about playing again, the more the Mists tug at my quivering ganglia.

Dark Sun arose.

Psionics, oppression, and a harsh, raw world terribly out of balance? So rough you start at 3rd level and and can have stats up to 20? Okay!!!

Dark Sun was strange because we read the novels, or at least the first novel, before we started playing there. It set the pace, which was fine, but the story was closely intertwined with the first official adventure module; Freedom.

We gave it a shot.

One of my all-time favorite adventures as a player. We were taking part in something bigger than ourselves. Bigger than a dungeon crawl, or a quest for a reward, or a flight for survival; the face of the world was changing in a big way, and we were there, we helped make it happen. We went from rag-tag downtrodden slaves to tyrant-toppling freedom fighters in one adventure.

It may have been a railroad, but it didn't feel like it, and we sure didn't mind either way.

We reveled in it, we struggled to make it happen.

One of the guys did the majority of the Dark Sun DMing. Our realms play was one thing, but it was more fun as a player in the newer campaign settings to be in the dark about most everything. One DM for Dark Sun. One DM for Ravenloft. One DM for Undermountain/Underdark Realms play. If someone had a particular adventure idea they wanted to run in one of the other settings, it wasn't hard to keep it self-contained.

The Dark Sun campaign ran for a year or two. My psionicist Maralor ended up being a Senator through some curveballs the DM didn't plan for, but handled excellently. We all had a blast on Athas.

In the midst of all that, we started a new Ravenloft campaign with new characters. We tried making an all-caster group, and had a lot of fun with it, but it didn't last long.

The problem was that with every new product TSR put out, for every interesting new story hook or idea they proffered, the grand scope and mystery of the setting diminished and lost its luster.

I didn't want to find out from them how uninteresting or perfectly boring some of the mighty Sorcerer-Kings of Athas were, and I especially didn't want to have the Dragon of Tyr end up so blasé. "His name is Borys? Gee-willickers!" My visions of the enigmatic Nibenay and the fiery Hamanu were vastly more intriguing.

In Ravenloft, the culmination of Hyskosa's Hexad was so disjointed and underwhelming that I don't even remember what it was. My cadre of colorfully spooky NPCs and their schemes resonated much more powerfully, but when I had entwined them in all of this material, my excitement as a DM unraveled with it.

Perhaps therein lies my gradual disenfranchisement with Dungeons & Dragons and why the OSR seems so thrilling.

It didn't help that school and girls and visions of college and adulthood were intervening.

Fond memories of glory and wanton slaughter: Part One - The Freaks

I've been trying to recall some of my favorite RPG experiences over the years. For my own sake (what other sake is there at the moment for this blog?) I'll try to catalogue my variegated forays.

As noted previously, it all started with Dungeons & Dragons. Which version exactly, I'm not sure. I know The Keep on the Borderlands was involved fairly early on, and we used tall, skinny, orange pre-printed character sheets. I recall little actual play from this time beyond flashes of characters and regular ogling of the artwork in any and all of the D&D material available to me. I drew a lot of monsters. I loved monsters. Monsters and bad guys. I really liked Vampires.

Once my sister was out of grade school, I doubt we ever did much neighbourhood D&D again. Deities & Demigods sure was neat though. I already loved mythology, but that book opened my eyes to cultures and powers I had never heard of. The mysteries of the world and the breadth of my imagination grew.

In junior high, two overlapping, but distinct groups of gaming friends developed for me; the intellectual Geeks, and the rough-and-tumble harmless Freaks.

The Freaks and I played Palladium games.

Our love of comic books led organically into the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles RPG.

There was a lot of material coming out for TMNT and the rapidly-growing stable of Palladium games, but the Freaks were always more improvisational with our play, and didn't rely on much beyond the core info. Myself and one of the other guys were the only DMs (and prolific illustrators), but each player had an ensemble of characters in the same world together.

Some of our adventures got so intense and personal that we'd get quite emotional. It was intoxicating and addicting.

I experienced my first death of a beloved character. It was heartbreaking, but it was so well built up and handled by my friend who was DMing that it only made the whole experience richer and more gratifying. One of our sessions involved a Ouija board which took things to a whole new level.

My favorite character was a mutant Gila Monster named Garrison. The one who died was a mutant Alligator named Lockjaw. There were many others though, like I said.

Next, we delved into the Palladium Fantasy roleplaying game.

There is where I first came across the Lovecraftian notion of the Old Ones. They struck a powerful chord in my unconscious that resonates to this day.

We had many rich, imaginative, intense, fantastic adventures in this world, again with many characters apiece. My primaries here were a small cyclopean thief named Maximilian, a Necromancer named Shader and an Ogre named Diablo who was afflicted by the Old Ones and became half-demon. We consorted with the Gods and overthrew kingdoms, seduced barmaids and snuck down alleyways, high and low.

In high school, we tried a few other Palladium titles; Heroes Unlimited (we had a pretty lengthy and involved Heroes campaign), Ninjas and Superspies, Rifts, Robotech, Recon, Beyond The Supernatural. Rifts was a lot of fun to read about, but never much fun to play for some reason.

We gave White Wolf's Vampire: The Masquerade a few chances, but it didn't suit us. We even partook of a Vampire LARP which was totally lame because I didn't even end up getting to play a Vampire.

Shadowrun was attempted. GURPS Car Wars was given a shot. Warhammer had a chance.

Our sessions waned. The games became little more than fodder for artwork. Drugs and girls and visions of more girls and drugs were intervening.

Next: The Geeks