The Story Marches On

After party fell inside the frozen fortress of Grimskalle I presented my players with a couple of options. We could call this campaign a wrap and start something entirely new after I wrote and presented a suitable epilogue for what would have happened to Icewind Dale in light of the party’s fall. Or, we could roll up entirely new characters who would head to the glacier and explore the caves beneath looking for the Lost City for entirely new reasons, just so we could see out the last couple chapters of the module.

The possibility of exploring a formerly flying city run by a world spanning magocratic evil empire buried beneath hundreds of feet of ice won out and a new party was born.

After fighting their way across the frigid expanse of the Rheged tribespeople and down into the horrifying haunted caverns beneath the glacier, eventually the group arrived in the lost city where they’ve spent the last several sessions exploring, getting into and out of some sticky situations and just generally working out how they were going to access the central spire to deal with the resident lich and loot some dope treasure. That is until Auril the Frostmaiden showed up and told them to leave the city at once.

That’s pretty much where we’ve left off until we pick up next week.

I really have to hand it to the writers of this book. The exploration of the city is a wonderful bit of adventuring and has largely made me forget that it actually has so little to do with the overarching plot of Auril and her minions and is so loosely linked to what’s going on in Icewind Dale that it really should have been part of a separate module. It’s just that fun.

Now that things have come to a head, I fully expect things to wrap up in the next couple of sessions, for better or for worse. Then it’s on to what comes next.

I’m planning to try a bunch of different systems over the summer and early fall, run some small adventures and one-shots. I want to fish around for some mechanics I can toss into the blender with the rest of what I’ve done to 5e. Also just provide some reviews for some systems that don’t get as much attention and probably deserve it.

A campaign choice document is also in the works. I’m going to present my group with a few cool ideas for campaigns I’ve had and let them vote for which they’d like to participate it. Then it’s just spending the summer trying to flesh out the necessary areas of my world and working with the players to develop the characters they’d like to play.

All that alongside continuing development of some custom classes and subclasses that I plan to publish in the not too distant future (I actually started contacting artists for my Sanguinor class’ PDF document as I think the text will be done by mid summer) and getting some new terrain and minis done up because I’d like to run an in person game sometime soon and my time through until fall is looking pretty packed.

It feels good to be back in the swing of things.

It's Been A While

 I fully intended to post more than once a quarter here, but through a heaping dose of slacking off coupled with a move and some other things, that appears to be where I've ended up.

Oh well. Back to it.

A campaign recap is actually a pretty good way to give some examples of a couple points I wanted to make.

After the group counted their losses to the Chardalyn Dragon they did the only thing they really could do for the people of the Ten Towns at that point. Avenge them.

Filled with righteous fury the party made their way back up the mountain passes to Sunblight Fortress and stormed the place.

An exploding chest Slaad, a well timed betrayal from within the Duergar and some Mushroom men rebelling later and the fortress had fallen, as had its leader Xardorok Sunblight.

With one major villain dealt with, the party decided it was time to see if there was something to be done about Auril and the never ending winter she'd cast over the Dale. Luckily an ally of theirs had a lead.

After making friends and adding a Druid to their group to replace the loss of their Haematurgist to the aforementioned exploding chest situation, the party called upon a sentient talking whale to serve as a submarine and carry them to a foreboding island said to be Auril's abode.

One judicious use of Under the Sea later and the party had arrived on the spine chilling (both figuratively and literally) island known as Solstice upon which sits Grimskalle.  Formerly home to a tribe of frost giants, now to the Lady of Winter.

Several acts of good judgment, heroism and just a couple brutal murders later and the group managed to succeed in the Trials necessary to access the treasure vault beneath the keep where their ally said they could find things of use in dealing with the frosty goddess.

Beyond the treasure vault the party discovered an interesting place of power that seemed to be calling out to them.

First the party's Sorcerer stepped up and was offered a piece of the Frostmaiden's power if he could but survive the process. He did not and found himself joining the collection of ice statues littering the room.

The revelation that failure meant certain death caused most of the rest of the party to decide to cut their losses and leave, one however had been waiting for this exact moment.

Stomping forth into the frigid chamber, the group's Dark Knight smashed the statue of his once ally and called out to receive Auril's blessing, having heard her alluring words for months at this point.

Flooded with a newly found abundance of power and rising as the Frost Queen's Champion, the Dark Knight strode forth to deal with the gnats infesting his Lady's abode.

It's at this point the survivors of the group attempted to subdue their once friend and eventually flee when things turned very bad. Unfortunately none escaped Grimskalle alive.

If you're still with me, allow me to get to the points I was going to try to make. The first of which is colluding with a single party member.

When we first started this campaign, I had players roll for their Secrets the way the module suggests. With one player as an exception. He and I had decided what secret he would have instead of it being randomly determined. He wanted to play as a character loyal to Auril.

How he wanted that to play out was entirely up to him. He'd be free to act amongst the party however he chose and would have to deal with any consequences of his actions. Fortunately most of what the group had dealt with up to this point had been the machinations of the Duergar, the halting of which pleased Auril greatly meaning that this hidden agent did not have to be very subversive.

There were however enough moments throughout where this player got to feel that sense of being a double agent where his cover was almost blown, or he had some information that the party didn't question because he'd earned their trust that the concept didn't feel like something that was brushed under the rug.

Eventually when this place of power was approached it was time for him to make a decision. Would his character fully submit and become an overt servant, blowing his cover because a solid attempt to stop the heroes here was in his patron's best interest, or would he continue maintaining his cover for the time being? He chose the former. At this point this character became an NPC and I took control of his actions as combat broke out, for a very good reason.

The way the situation had played out thus far it was my assumption the group would be able to handle the sudden betrayal and at the very least escape. This being the case, I did not want the player who had controlled this Dark Knight to be the one trying to kill the party. Ideally he'd be making a new character to join the group so he continue on in the campaign. If you want the players' potential negative reaction leveled at anyone, you want it to be the DM. Thus why I took control.

A lot of people would call something like that pretty crazy but it actually worked out great. People were very upset at the character who'd betrayed them, but not the player which was the trickiest part of it all.

The fact that the group panicked and flubbed their escape wasn't expected, but if there ever was a time for death inducing chaos to break out, that was it. Ultimately this resulted in a TPK which leads me to my next point.

The end isn't necessarily the end.

A lot of groups would call a TPK in a place like that a good reason to end a campaign, but I would disagree. So too would my players as I gave them the option. They seemed super interested in making a new group of heroes to delve down into the Reghed Glacier (having gotten the knowledge how to from elsewhere in the set up for this new party) and onto the lost Netherese city beneath.

Given the option of ending things and starting fresh with something else, or trying to accomplish their original goal under different circumstances while dealing with the fallout of the choices of the recently deceased party they chose the latter. The knowledge (even if it's meta knowledge) of what came before lends weight to what comes next.

Long story short, try crazy things like letting a PC betray the party and maybe kill them all, and don't be afraid to make up ridiculous circumstances to continue the overarching narrative of a campaign with fresh characters. It's not like the problems went away on their own. The worst thing that can happen is it doesn't work and you'll do better next time.

P.S.: Posts should be coming a little more frequently now that I'm back into the swing of things.

Consequences For (In)Actions

The wind howls as snow whips about the narrow mountain path leading up to Sunblight Fortress. So far the party has approached completely undetected. These surface dwelling Duergar can’t even imagine people crazy enough to assault their seat of power.

Suddenly the sounds in the air change. The wail of the wind begins to be drowned out by the loud cracking of ice, and the slow grinding of metal on metal.

A light appears dozens of feet above at the pinnacle of the fortress. The soft yellow glow of lanterns and torches spills out into the dark night sky as large metal shutters are pulled apart opening a portion of the fortress’ peak to the air.

The sounds of scraping metal and ice plummeting down the side of the mountain fade away allowing the group to hear a new bizarre tone. A thrumming that increases in volume over the course of a few moments before exploding into the boom of an otherworldly horn.

Rising out of the gap atop the fortress is a dark shape with beating wings. Shimmering slightly, reflecting the torchlight below this dragon made of what appears to be a dark stone lifts itself into the air. Hovering some distance above the apex of the fortress it begins to emit light of its own. A deep, powerful orange spills out between the pieces of what the group has identified as chardalyn.

As soon as the light has reached the tip of each of its appendages the beast immediately points its head in the direction of the Ten Towns and begins its descent into Icewind Dale.

The group has a decision to make. Do they continue their assault on Sunblight Fortress, or rush to the aid of the Ten Towns and hope they can defend some of it from the destruction this creature is sure to rain down?

The group I’m running for decided to chase after the dragon to defend the Ten Towns, forgoing any possible information or potential counter-measures that may be contained in the fortress where the construct was made in the interest of having as much time to defend the people of Icewind Dale as possible. At least that’s what I assumed they’d do.

Instead what happened was a short jaunt back to Bryn Shander and a whole lot of standing around waiting for the dragon to show up. Eventually survivors from the earliest attacked towns began showing up with horror stories of what the chardalyn dragon had done to their homes and loved ones. In the interest of conserving their strength the party continued to stay holed up behind Bryn Shander’s walls.

As more and more refugees began pouring in, one player did decide to sprint off into the night to warn a couple of towns of the incoming danger and bring them back to Bryn Shander as a rallying point.

Eventually the dragon showed up and burnt large portions of Bryn Shander to a crisp, blowing holes in the walls to allow Duergar ground troops that had approached under the effects of their invisibility to storm into the town and engage its defenders.

The party held back the Duergar as best they could at the flash points they showed up at until the dragon decided to engage them itself. After an unlikely ally reappeared to aid them, the group eventually destroyed the dragon and pushed the Duergar back.

As they licked their wounds and made preparations over the next couple days to return to assault Sunblight Fortress I described in depressing tones how few survivors continued to show up where Bryn Shander’s gates used to stand as well as the loss of life to the Duergar ground forces and hidden assassins in the town itself. All in all Nine out of the Ten Towns were razed to the ground and somewhere around 75-80% of the population of the now One Town of Icewind Dale died in the attacks.

The group survived which considering their less than heroic dispositions is all they really intended to do from the outset, but some of them were wracked by guilt pains over the loss of so much life due to their inaction while the dragon ravaged the outlying towns.

Remember that the player characters are people in a (to them at least) real world. They often are involved in high stakes situations and if they mishandle things then reality has to play out and they and the other people in the world must suffer the consequences.

While the somewhat ambivalent players may not care about the statistics of the loss of life, their characters will feel the effects of it. Most of the leadership structure that existed is gone, a large number of tradespeople and what standing army there was have been wiped out.

Getting armour and weapons repaired, finding appropriate amounts of travelling supplies and equipment, mustering allies to aid in dealing with the Frostmaiden and who knows what other problems in the Dale are all going to prove almost impossible now that the local populace has been decimated.

To paraphrase a favourite game of mine “The thread of prophecy has been severed and you must now exist in the doomed world you have created.”

Who knows though, maybe it’ll all be okay in the end.

Place No Limitations

I love being a DM for a lot of reasons, but this week I’m being reminded of one of them a couple of different ways and it sort of highlights a mind set I think every person who runs the game should try to have even if it seems scary a lot of the time, especially for newer players.

What I’m talking about is not letting yourself be tied down to what’s written in this or that book for a rule, or what the predefined content of the game is. Let me give an example that came up in my Rime of the Frost Maiden game this past week that I think illustrates what I mean. Spoiler warning for Rime of the Frost Maiden I guess.

One of my Players generated the Slaad Tadpole secret during character creation. What are these secrets? Rime of the Frost Maiden has a bunch of secret backstory stuff PCs can start play with. Some rather mundane, some pretty out there. My group ended up rolling some rather cool ones including this player having been implanted with a Slaad tadpole prior to the start of the adventure.

The player in question has been adventuring as a custom class I’ve made called a Sanguinor, a class based around using hit points and hit dice as resources, mostly involving blood magic and the manipulation of vital energies. This leads to a lot of strange body horror type situations that his adventuring companions have been numbed to over time though their horror is occasionally refreshed.

Okay, background information out of the way on on to the point. This week that character died screaming in horrible agony.

After weeks of escalating chest pains with no solutions sought, the tadpole burst forth from the character’s chest cavity in a spray of screams and gore, ending his life as it begins its own. The party didn’t really understand what was happening. Was this intentional on his part? Did one of his spells backfire horribly? Travelling with a blood mage is strange so they often don’t know what to expect or how to react to the things he does.

With no Revivify prepared or the materials at hand, there was little the group could do for their now fallen comrade as the creature slipped away to finish its maturation process elsewhere in the fortress they had invaded.

While the party finishes clearing out this fortress and perhaps comes up with some scheme to resurrect their fallen ally, the Sanguinor player needs a new character to play in the interim. Introducing a new character in the middle of a dungeon can often be ham fisted and forced but I always try my best to make it interesting.

When the player asked what they should make as a character to continue this leg of the adventure I noticed they didn’t seemed super enthused about playing a bog standard PC that the party meets randomly in the fortress for “reasons”. So I suggested they play one of the Duergar warriors that have allied themselves with the party to overthrow their insane overlord. That or they could play the Slaad that just killed them.

“Both of those sound cool, but how would it work? Neither of them are playable classes.” Notes my observant player.

This is where understanding that the game is what happens at the table, not what’s written in the books that can make all the difference in someone’s enjoyment of D&D.

“You just tell me you want to do it and I’ll worry about the how later.” Is all I said in response.

“Okay, I’ll be a Slaad!” They reply back with some enthusiasm.

Now I’m going to have to figure out how to make a playable character class out of a monster stat block and will probably lose sleep thinking about it the next week or two. But seeing the player enthusiastic about being something completely unique makes it worth it, and the pain of losing the character they’ve spent the last few months with is already fading.

As long as it isn’t going to ruin someone else’s fun, or completely disintegrate the verisimilitude or an important idiosyncrasy of the world you’re presenting, just figure out a way for awesome and strange stuff to happen. Other kinds of fun have all sort of limits imposed upon them, the greatest part of tabletop is that you’re only limited by what you can think of.

POST SCRIPT THOUGHTS:

I haven’t actually had the player decide what variety of Slaad their tadpole will grow into. But my initial thoughts are if they decide red, I’ll just smash together the existing Red Slaad monster block with some stuff from a Barbarian. If they say green it’ll probably that smashed together with some extra wizard stuff. Slaad in their monster stat blocks clearly lean towards certain classes but with their own twist based on their innate species abilities. Shouldn’t be too difficult but knowing which colour will at least let me get started.

Damn You MCDM Productions!

I'm a huge fan of MCDM Productions . Matt Colville and later on the rest of his team have done some pretty incredible work the last few years with Strongholds & Followers and now Kingdoms & Warfare. A lot of which I've incorporated into my game and continue to do so.

What I wanted to talk about real quick today though is their latest release, their test run at a monthly magazine which they've called Arcadia. Beautiful artwork, eye catching layouts and content that's actionable in your game of 5th edition D&D or as some inspiration to convert to whatever you play, this first pass at it is a pretty stellar success as far as I'm concerned.

With that in mind, I'm rather upset with the magazine. I'm currently running a group through Rime of the Frost Maiden and through a series of choices and no small amount of luck the players ended up recovering a Shield Guardian that they now control and it has already proven to be a very powerful weapon against the Duergar of Icewind Dale. How they went about it was pretty cool and everyone had a good time.

The timing of Arcadia's release a week after that happened has upset me because one of the Adventures in the magazine is a far cooler way for a group to earn themselves a Shield Guardian than what I managed to scrape together out of what was in WOTC's module. It could have been very relevant and actionable content for my game but now it's too late and I've burned the "earn a Shield Guardian" card for this group meaning I won't get to use it any time soon.

Damn you MCDM for your great but ill timed content release!

Inspiration For Advancement

At the end of my last post I mentioned either touching on some things that have inspired me lately, or going over some of those new racial abilities I’d worked out. I figured why not kill two birds with one stone (vultures or something, not awesome snowboarding crows or anything like that) and talk about the Bloodline mechanics I’ve been developing for Humans in my setting.

The Highlander meets Naruto meets the Birthright campaign setting. That’s about as succinct an explanation as I could possibly give and it may sound strange but after I elaborate it will all make sense.

Let’s go through this one reference at a time and for the sake of clarity it’ll be in the reverse order that I mentioned.

The Birthright campaign setting came out in the 90s so it was the first setting I became familiar with that wasn’t just generic Fantasyland. The bloodlines inherited from Gods, small and large kingdoms fighting over territory and resources to expand and empower their Domains and make use of their Regency, and leading armies into battle in mass combat has always held a special place in my heart. This is where the idea started as another major component to my new campaign setting is setting up threads and having mechanics in place to support Domain level play should the players choose to engage in it.

The Bloodlines in Birthright are for any of the playable races, but I’ve decided to use them for just Humans in my setting which is the first major change. The ideas behind generating your starting Bloodline score, increasing/decreasing it and the advancement rate are largely the same in concept, if not in exact math.

The next major change comes in the abilities themselves. In the Birthright setting, the Bloodline abilities were essentially the birth of what are now Feats. Some of them very minor things like Alert, some a little crazier like Regeneration. Each of these was tied to a number of heritages so not every ability was available to every hereditary line and they were fairly randomly distributed. I decided to have each Ability have a minor, major and great form as a self contained thematic set that grows in power over time.

As an example if your Bloodline has the Inner Storm ability, in its Minor form you can cast Thunderwave 3 times per short rest. If/when it improves to Major you gain the ability to cast Lightning Bolt 3 times per long rest and if Inner Storm reaches Great, 2 casts of Chain Lightning per long rest are added. These spells would have no material components, cost no spell slots and use standard save DC calculation using your chosen class’ prime stat.

Each family line can have up to 3 of these Abilities laying dormant or activated depending on their Bloodline Ability score. The noble family (or Ninja Clan) Kastrus for example may have Inner Storm, Regeneration and Unbreakable Will. All Blooded Scions of this family line would have these 3 Abilities to potentially be unlocked. A Player Character would likely just roll for which Abilities they have as they progress in power, unless their character's background has them being from a documented family line.

A character's Bloodline Ability score is determined at creation and with some insane luck can actually start at a reasonable level, though it's far more likely you'll have a low score or none at all. That's where Highlander comes in. Blooded Scions who defeat one another in combat can steal a portion of the loser's power, even more if they are killed, and even more if in a specific way known to few. Rumors float through dark places that those without a Bloodline at all can claim the power of one for their own, though the method is all but unknown.

The benefits of Regency, a mystic connection with territory you control increase as your Bloodline score does. Couple that with having to defeat Blooded Scions who are probably landed nobles to increase your sphere of influence thus increasing your Bloodline score, much of human progression is driven by the desire to conquer.

The hope is that the mechanical benefits provided by chasing after increases to your Bloodline score will fuel narrative play as players will find themselves embroiled in the political landscape of the campaign world as they take and hold territory, defeat and absorb the power of their rivals all while still dealing with life as an adventurer.

Hopefully this information mostly made sense. Eventually the document I've got all this information stored in will get cleaned up and I'll be putting out a Player's Guide to my setting with all of the crunch to go with the fluffy explanations.

Ambition and Reward

The third point in my list of thoughts on what makes for great moments while playing an RPG has to do with ambition and reward. Any sentient being that straps on a battle axe or opens a spell book to go off on adventures probably has a good reason for doing so, or else they'd just stay on the farm.

When I mention ambition, I don't necessarily mean a very specific defined goal, although that can be wonderful on occasion. What I mean is characters have to want to do things. To actively seek out adventure and its rewards in order to fulfill some inner need to advance in power and wealth.

At first they may just be chasing power and wealth for its own sake, but hopefully something in your world will draw a character in and they will want to put their riches, magic items and alliances they've formed to the test to achieve something of note. Originally the Fighter was just a man trying to earn a living, but now he's found allies, companions and possibly even love in this region he's fought his way across. Now threatened by outside invaders, he gathers the allies he's made, straps on his +5 Greatsword of Rending and rides out to make these invaders regret ever reading his home's name on a map.

Players may write short or long term goals into their backstory. This can be great or awful. A dramatic short term goal like "my younger sister was captured by an evil cult" could be a great motivator for a young warrior to leave their home and take up arms. Something to consider however is that a roleplaying game isn't a 90 minute action flick or a novel starring this character. 

A character that's going to be a part of an ongoing campaign and not their own solo comic book or novella run needs to be able to operate with others and understand that not every "chapter" is going to be about their specific goal. But if a character can understand that progress of any kind, be that the accumulation of gold or experience or magic items ultimately only helps further their own purposes in the end then you've got a winner on your hands.

The main point here though is that no matter what a character may be trying to ultimately achieve, they need to be rewarded properly for taking steps towards it.

This brings me around to something I feel is missing from D&D 5e which is multiple paths of progression.

Most of the power a character has in 5e comes purely from decisions that a player makes when their character is first created, the subclass they pick, and if they choose to take feats instead of ability score increases. You'll notice none of these things really have much to do with what a character actually goes through on their adventures, or experiences in the game world.

This becomes even more apparent if your players are even slightly into the concept of min/maxing where certain feat choices at specific levels are the blindingly obvious optimal path for character power. A Paladin who takes the Oath of the Ancients and plays through Rime of the Frost Maiden comes out the other end essentially the same as a Paladin with the same Oath who played through Descent into Avernus.

To that end I've begun working on several new progression systems for my game, as well as alterations of existing ones to allow characters to have their power be tied more to things they've earned through gameplay rather than boxes they've ticked on a sheet.

Powerful racial abilities that progress through gameplay, far more flexible and impactful magic items, and character feats and build customization earned through adventuring will all hopefully allow for far more unique characters, draw my players into being invested into the characters they make as part of my world, and ultimately eliminate any player ever again saying "why would my character go on this adventure?"

Next time I'll either dive into some specific examples of these new racial abilities, or I may do a roundup/review of some materials that have inspired me lately.