Wednesday, November 22, 2006

Second Session

The characters move to counter the golem threat: they're collecting adamantium weapons. The PCs met some more quality NPCs in the form of a healer and a fighter. They also struck a deal with a powerful collector of items, and have agreed to be his agents. Most of the session was set in the Valley of the Dead Gods: it's a carnival run by Gnolls with Italian Mafiosi names. I like a bit of humor in the adventures I run. Now, the characters are on a quest to Adamantium Island, an island run by giants who forge adamantium mined from the island in the island's volcano. I've got a little surprise for them; we'll see how they react.

Saturday, November 11, 2006

First Session

We've got a gnomish bard and a half-orc barbarian. I've introduced the main adversary, and introduced the conditions of the conflict: massive inflation caused by devaluing the gold standard present in so many fantasy games. Twenty golems and thousands of peasants threaten the PCs and their social classes. It should be fun to see how they work through it.

Thursday, November 09, 2006

Dungeons and Dragons

This is the rebirth of Jacob's Brother. I'm starting a D&D game with some friends; it should be cool. I ran the same introductory module a long time ago for a different set of friends; I liked it so much that I decided I'd do it again.

The setting is a world of my own design that doesn't follow the usual power to responsibility scale of most D&D worlds. In most D&D worlds, ninth level characters are disproportionately powerful to their stations in life, particularly spell casters. Ninth level characters should make most people quake in their boots, and hold all kinds of power. To accomplish this redistribution of power, I made the environment very small: there aren't a lot of people around. I also put an absolute cap on challenge ratings for any figure with interests on the world, including deities. There's nothing above CR 24 in my world. If you're ninth level, you usually have a settlement or two under your domain; thirteenth level characters usually become important vassals to kings or part of a ruling oligarchy. I also slowed down character level progression. I'm going to reduce xp by half. My adventures tend to be combat-oriented, so that means level advancements about every other sessions.

The plot will be cool. If the game goes through, I'll post an update after every session. For readers of Struggles with Words, this blog will be a welcome departure from my real life. I love distractions.