The Heart of the Matter – Winds of Change Session 9

 Pathfinder, Role Playing Games  1 Response »
May 052011
 

Go here, get the audio. Seriously. You want to hear this one.

I said it in my last update on this campaign, but it bears repeating: this is the best gaming session that I have ever GMed. It is also quite possibly the best session that I have ever been involved in, period.

This session started with things falling apart for the group. They had just gotten back from killing the first two cultists of Haagenti and were discussing how to approach the next two when Hal, the thief who hides in the attic of their house, overheard them. When he got the names of the people the party had killed and the names of those they had yet to kill, he basically flipped out. Hal used to be a member of the Syndicate, the thieve’s guild run by a halfling named Finn. Two of the people on the death list were placed relatively high up in the Syndicate.

Long story short, Hal informs the group in no uncertain terms that the Syndicate would be investigating the house, as the group has made no efforts to disguise where they were staying. What followed was some of the best role-playing that I have ever seen. The party decided, all in character, to leave the house and burn it down to fake their own deaths. Additionally, they called Gorum over to help with disguises. his is where things went from really good to amazing.

Gorum and Gufasova have fallen in love and, with the party gearing up to leave town for the grippli caverns, Gorum had a choice to make. He’s a highly-respected tailor in town and it relatively wealthy. As the scene progressed, Gorum took some time away from the conversation to think things over. Some time later, as the party was packing up all of their goods, Gorum came to Gufasova and told Gufasova of his decision to leave everything he knew behind and go with the party.

You guys, my sister teared up during the conversation. She plays Gufasova and the emotions were real enough to affect her. Looking back on that moment, I can hardly believe it happened. It was nothing I strove for, to make a player be so affected by the decisions of a fictional NPC, but to see it happen was just amazing.

Now, if that had been the end of the session, it would have been a great session, still. However, it did not end there.

The party was determined to keep hunting the cultists and decided to go after the alchemist next. Combat scenarios take far too long to describe, so I’ll strongly suggest that you listen to it. It was the best combat I’ve ever run. I had a hideout planned out for the alchemist and it took all of the skills and abilities the party had at its disposal to defeat this entrenched alchemist. I buffed him to high hell, had him nearly wipe them with a toss of a full Necklace of Fireballs and still they persevered. They showed maturity as players and really used everything they had at their disposal. It was a very satisfying end to the session.

The most important thing that I can take away from this session is that if I want to come close to the experiences I had, I cannot, in any way, plan to do so. Setup for the combat aside, I planned little of the role playing that took place and I certainly could not have planned to have the emotions run as deeply as they did. That kind of reaction can only happen organically. If it were a movie, sure, you can script something like that. But in a role playing game, you’re dealing with the unplanned reactions of your players and their characters. Additionally, you can’t predict how your NPCs will react beyond a certain point. If you do try to plan out all of those interactions, the whole things just becomes forced.

I have no idea if I will ever have a session this good ever again. All I can do is plan stuff I think my players will enjoy and stuff that will advance the plot; beyond that, anything good that happens is a rare form of alchemy that takes the ingredients the players and GM provide and turns them into magic.

[tags]rpg, rpgs, role playing games, Pathfinder, Actual Play, Winds of Change[/tags]

Cultist Hunting – Winds of Change Session 8

 Pathfinder, Role Playing Games  1 Response »
May 032011
 

At the end of this hypertext link, you will find the audio to the session in question.

Every time I look back on one of these sessions, I feel like saying “and here’s where things really take off.” It’s a bit of an odd feeling considering that I really like the way the campaign is developing. I guess I’m so excited about each session and am excited to share them with you all. Every session has some really good stuff in it, so it all feels like a new beginning each time.

This session sees the party beginning the actual hunting of the cultists. However, it starts out with a really special interlude.

Ever since their relationship had its tentative start back in the 4th session, I’ve been looking forward to Gufasove and Gorum going to the Seal Lord’s Gala. It was supposed to have happened last session, but plans changed due to a real-world interruption. I wanted to make sure that we gave the Gala all the time it needed. Problem was, only one of the characters was actually going to be going to the Gala; the others invaded a Noble’s home during that time, so there’s no way they could be there. What to do?

I decided to ask my players to stretch a bit. The Gala was going to be filled with all kinds of people and I wanted to be able to give the impression of there being a lot of guests without having to role-play all of them. So I asked the players whose characters weren’t going to be at the gala to portray certain NPCs as they were introduced. I would describe how Gufasova and Gorum first saw the pertinent NPCs and then indicate which players should role-play those NPCs. As the conversations went on, I gave the players cues as to how the NPCs would act so they wouldn’t be left hanging with only a thumbnail sketch to go by.

It went really well. It helps that most of my players are active in community theater and have some experience with improvisation, but I think that with the right impetus, it could work for most any group. The best part was that Gufasova and Gorum ended up having a conversation with the nobles whose house was being broken into by the PCs run by the players who were portraying the noble Lord and Lady. There was a delicious irony to it all.

Following the party, there was also a good chance to develop Gufasova and Gorum’s relationship. They got jumped by thugs on their way home and Gufasova was able to defend his boyfriend’s life. They ended up spending the night together (which we hand-waved and glossed over). This emotional development proved to be really important in the next session (which I will be writing about later this week because it was just so damn good).

The next morning, the group set out to begin the actual hunting of the cultists of Haagenti that had cursed the Hall of the Gods. They knew names, thanks to the Noblewoman’s diary, and they were able to get some locations with some diligent snooping. Unfortunately, both of the first two cultists caught wind of their investigations and were able to get the drop on the party when it came to combat. Both fights went fairly well. I’m still learning how to effectively build and use a challenging NPC, and these combats were steps in the right direction.

Of note was that two PCs were nearly dropped in the combats (one in each combat) and the second fight took place in a relatively upscale area of the city and the Watch was alerted. The party managed to crawl down into the sewers and escape out to sea thanks to the timely use of some magic.

Overall, this was a good session and it left some great things to set up for the next one. And I’m going to tease the next session right now because it was, by far, the best session that I have ever had the pleasure to GM. I mean, it was awesome. I’ll get to that in a few days, rest assured.

[tags]rpg, rpgs, roleplaying games, Pathfinder, Actual Play, Winds of Change[/tags]

Feelin’ Froggy? Jump! – Winds of Change Session 6

 Pathfinder, Role Playing Games  No Responses »
Apr 062011
 

Right off the bat, here’s the link to the audio for this session.

The idea for this session spawned from a conversation I had on Twitter a few months ago. I wanted the party to fight some type of were-creature, but I wanted it to be something other than the standard fare. The result of my questioning led me to the following creature: The Werefrog Pirate.

My intention had been to have the party fight these beasties during session 4, but things don’t often go as planned. Stuff took too long, the Grippli Challenge rose up in my mind, begging to be played, and well, here we are.

This session has some good bits in it, but it also has a moment that I’m really not proud of. The party had three options in terms of their route to get to the Pirate Caves. The one they chose sent them through an old abandoned temple to Yig, the Snake God. I planned well for that choice in every aspect but one: the combat in the temple. I ended up putting them in a situation that was too tough and not enough fun.

Following that, one of the pitfalls of gaming with your family reared its ugly head. I don’t remember the specifics, but I ended up pausing the recording and getting irrationally upset at one of my sisters for something relatively innocuous. It’s one of those things that only seems to happen when you’re close the group you game with. There was an awkward silence following that moment, and then we moved on. It might not have been a big deal, but when I think back, I still feel bad about it.

Fortunately, the group seemed to have a really good time flushing out the Werefrog Pirates, even if it did leave one of he party members with their gender switched. I don’t want to give too many details away, so do yourself  favor and give the session a listen.

[tags]rpg, rpgs, role playing games, Pathfinder, Actual Play, Winds of Change[/tags]

Hoppiness and Unhoppiness – Winds of Change Session 5

 Pathfinder, Role Playing Games  No Responses »
Feb 242011
 

I had a blast with this session. Go ahead, give it a listen.

In this session, the group hightales it after Sister Regina and ends up meeting up with one of my favorite races: the grippli. I first encountered the grippli in Ross Peyton’s New World setting. I loved Ross’ voicing of the little frog guys in his Actual Play sessions and I decided to run a few sessions of an adapted New World game in D&D 3.5. When I saw that the grippli were included in the Bestiary 2, I felt compelled to include them in my Freeport game.

Now, this posed a problem for me. Most of my players enjoyed the grippli, most notably my youngest sister. One of my players, however, hated them. I needed to find a way to make the little hoppers palatable to him and I think I did a good job at it. The player is question is playing Anderbilt, the gnome that thinks he’s a god. I intend to have him become one, eventually, but there’s a long road to walk to get there. A good starting point would be a group of worshipers.

The grippli fit that bill perfectly. The group met the grippli and one of the grippli they met indicated that Anderbilt was The Chosen One and convinced the group to come with them to the grippli home. They arrived (after a series of potentially lethal swim checks) and were hailed as the saviors of the grippli. The grippli chief, Flotsam, didn’t take kindly to this and challenged the gnome to THE GRIPPLI CHALLENGE!

If you ever want to hear me run a game while I am an absolutely great time doing so, listen to this session.

I had not intended to have anything resembling THE GRIPPLI CHALLENGE! (yes, it’s that important) to happen during the session, but it was appropriate. I ended up winging the entire things, but it was a blast. I’ll summarize since it’s more fun to listen to: he beat the challenge and became the new King of the Grippli. During the following celebration, the group found that Sister Regina was among the grippli. They talked with her and ended up convincing her to come to back to Freeport with them and work with them to lift the curse, providing that they help her establish another temple to the god of valor.

Upon reaching that decision and talking about when to leave, they find out that the grippli have a problem that the group needs to take care of: the tribe of grippli is being harried by a group of werefrog pirates that have taken up residence in a nearby cave. That’s right: werefrog pirates. There are three possible ways they could attacked the problem and the group chose to go through an old temple ruin that would take them to a secret entrance to the pirate lair.

But that’s a tale for the next session.

[tags]rpg, rpgs, role playing games, Pathfinder, Freeport, Winds of Change[/tags]

Discoveries – Winds of Change Episode 4

 Pathfinder, Role Playing Games, Troll in the Corner  2 Responses »
Jan 272011
 

Link to the audio for the session.

I was really happy to start this session. The group had gotten a base of operations, and we finally, finally, had a chance to explore the personal plotlines of the characters. It felt like it had been a long time coming to get to this point. We’re only talking about the fourth session of the campaign, but we’ve had a number of multi-week breaks and I’ve been thinking about the game a lot, so, yeah, it has been a long time coming.

After the group set out for the Temple District to follow some leads, they had reality abruptly smack them in the face. They attempted to ask for directions to said district and were accosted by a guardsman. A wealthy-looking woman had pointed them out to the guard, saying that they obviously didn’t belong in the Merchant District. They group successfully convinced the guard that they did belong, including showing him the deed to their house. Then, they headed deeper into the Merchant District to buy some new clothes so this wouldn’t happen again. They had extra funds from character creation, so no problem.

This is where the vagaries of a given gaming session can bring some awesome developments. During the clothing fitting, the portly, homely clothier was spotted hitting on the Elven Monk. For reference, this is a male tailor and a male character, who incidentally is played by my sister. The conversation got roleplayed out (well enough to make a few of the other players uncomfortable) and a date was set. When I went into this session, I had no idea that any of this was going to happen. It was great. These improvisational moments are what make gaming sessions for me because they force both myself and my players to just react. It provides the game and the world with more verisimilitude. I love it.

Anyway, following that, they made it to the Temple District and went to the Hall of the Gods to discover some more about some of the visions that had been having. They arrived to find all of the occupants of the building outside, talking furiously. Apparently the Hall had been cursed by one Sister Regina, priestess of the God of Valor. You see, the Hall of the Gods had once been a temple to her god and she arrived in Freeport, bent on getting the temple rededicated. Unfortunately, none of her efforts had succeeded and, in a fit of pique, she called down her god’s wrath. The problem is that some nefarious force had twisted the curse even further, causing the curse to spread outward from the Hall. Eventually, it would likely take over the whole city unless something was done. And Sister Regina was the only one who could lift it.

The party then left the city, following her trail to the small village of Cabbage Crack. This is where the adventure slipped a little as I realized, in process, that there had been no combat. I unwisely chose some monsters that I had never used before and ended up with a rocky, drawn-out combat that was ultimately unsatisfying. Protip: If you’re going to use a new monster, read its stat block throughly and make sure that it won’t simply frustrate you and your players.

Once they made it to Cabbage Crack, they found out that their target had come and gone. Sister Regina had gone towards the dormant volcano, stating that she was going to hold a vigil to get guidance from her god.

Overall, bad combat aside, this was a really good session. My sister was embarrassed by her interactions with the clothier, but that’s a story for the next session… coming soon!

[tags]rpg, rpgs, role playing games, Pathfinder, Freeport, Winds of Change[/tags]

Freeport: Winds of Change – Session 2

 Pathfinder, Role Playing Games  1 Response »
Dec 142010
 

As promised, I’m writing again to give you guys an update on my ongoing Pathfinder Freeport game. The first session was a big departure from your usual Pathfinder game in that we didn’t really use Pathfinder at all. The second session proceeded in a much more normal fashion.

The second session picked up with the group just having docked in Freeport. I wanted to get them established in the city, so I had the mysterious force that led them through their visions in the first session plant one piece of a four-part map on each of them. As well, I wanted each of them to be able to begin to explore their own individual plotlines. This was the first session that we were using their real character stats as well, so I knew it might take a little bit to get them eased into things.

The group proceeded into the city and got directions to a place to stay for the night in the richest part of the city. They didn’t consider that they looked like near-drowned rats and that their passage was marked by more than a few eyes in the city. That’s going to make things interesting as the sessions go on.

That night, they each had to deal with visions of some kind. All of them were designed to give them some kind of indications as to what they should be doing in the city. This may seem heavy-handed but I’ll explain my motivations once I finish with this recap.

After they woke, they decided to compare notes and they managed to assemble the four-part map. The map led through the Merchant District (where they were staying for the night) to a rundown house on the edge of the Merchant District. On the gate to the house was a set of symbols that all seemed to align with the characters. They all touched the gate, it opened and the went to the house. I called the session as they opened the door.

All in all, it was a pretty good, if short session. I admit, I was a bit heavy-handed with some of the items during the session. My players don’t have the easiest time remembering what has gone on from one session to the next and if they seem to be floundering, I’ll slap down some railroad tracks and do my best to get them going. It’s especially bad when there has been a lot of time in between sessions. The good part is that once I get them on the right track, they usually take the plot and run with it; it just takes a bit to get started sometimes.

The only thing that I’m a little worried about is how I portrayed the Merchant District to the players. The Merchant District is described as being very posh and very well-protected. I gave them no indication that their dirty appearance might make them unwelcome, and I also (as you will see in the third session) basically gave them a house on the edge of the District. As we continue to play, I need to do a better job of distinguishing between the Districts and give them a feel for what the Merchant District is really like.

I should have my info about the third session up soon. In the meantime, have a listen to the audio of the second session.

[tags]rpg, rpgs, Freeport, Pathfinder, Winds of Change[/tags]

Freeport: Winds of Change – Session 1

 Pathfinder, Role Playing Games  1 Response »
Dec 132010
 

First things first, here’s a link to the audio.

As I mentioned in my Prelude post, that we had our first session of Winds of Change recently and I think it went pretty well. When I start a new campaign, I like to take things slowly. My group is made up of folks whose first priority in life is not gaming (shocking, I know) and I don’t expect them to want to jump directly into a new session or set of characters are easily as more gaming-centric folks.

And so it begins

We began with an overview of what we were looking for from the game and I asked them a series of questions to get a feel for the kind of game they were looking for. This is information that I pretty much know about them and their tastes but I wanted to make sure that I wasn’t going to miss anything. I used a questionnaire that I found online a couple of years ago and, for the life of me, I cannot remember where I found it. if any readers are interested in that questionnaire, just reply in a comment here and I’ll post it.

Following that, I gave them as quick of a rundown of the City of Adventure as I could manage. I wanted to give them a good idea of what their choices for characters might mean for the game. Freeport is home to a wide, wide variety of races, including goblins, hobgoblins, kobolds and orcs. The issue with these races is that they are, with a few exceptions, second- or even third-class citizens in the City. In fact, they got kicked out of the slums. The people living in the slums felt that the goblinoids were lower than them. That should give you some idea of the place the savage races hold in Freeport. if the players had chosen to play characters of those races, it would have been a very different kind of game.

A Dreadful time

After I set up the setting for them, I wanted to give them a chance to develop the person of their characters before they rolled even a single stat. As I said in my Prelude post, I want this game to be very character-driven, so establishing their characters are people, rather than a set of stats and abilities, was important to me.

I gave them two options. If the wanted their character to have been adventuring together at the start of this game, then we were going to use Spirit of the Century-style character generation. Much like you might find in any Fate-system game, they would create aspects and motivations during this process. The second option was to play Dread and use the questionnaire to give them an idea of who their characters were.

They chose the Dread option, I passed out the sheets and we began. Overall, the process was very successful, with one caveat. One of my players is very set on the idea of “owning” her character. She wants to build her character from the ground up, stats first. As she chooses feats, skills and spells, she gets a good idea of who her character is. Both of the character-creation processes that I offered are very collaborative and Dread especially sees the things that are defined about a character twisted to be used against that character. At the end of the process, she ended up with a character she liked, but she felt more than a little helpless at times as the process of playing Dread had me defining aspects of her character for her.

The word to the wise is this: if you have a player or players who like to have control over their characters, be very careful about how you approach their characters with your almighty GM Stick of Alteration. It’s something that I’m going to have to be very aware of as we proceed, because I really like to mess with the characters as the game proceeds. If I mess with hers too much, I run the risk of losing her as a player. I can hear people saying that she should suck it up and that I should grow a pair. To them I say: it’s my game. So there.

Going forward

I’ll let you listen to the session audio to hear what happened during the Dread session, but the long and sort of it is that the group ended up reaching Freeport. Each of them, as they exited the visions that made up the Dread game, found a letter on their person. They’ve not read the letters yet, but they will find that each of them is expected in town and further, I hope to establish a base of operations for them at the hands of a mysterious, unknown benefactor.

As far as the characters go, even though they did not know each other prior to boarding the boat they were on, they managed to make a group that will have a very interesting common thread: that of storms and wind. We have an Oracle with the Mystery of Wind, a Sorcerer with the Stormborn Bloodline, a Monk of the Four Winds, and an Alchemist. The Alchemist doesn’t fit into that theme, necessarily, but he is being played by someone who excels at working with the agendas of the group, so I’ll be able to work him in.

I’m excited about the next session which, as of the writing of this, takes place tomorrow. If you have specific questions about the session or the choices I made in running it, please feel free to leave a comment or hit me up on Twitter.

[tags]rpg, rpgs, Freeport, Pathfinder, campaigns, Winds of Change, role playing games, Actual Play[/tags]

Freeport: Winds of Change – Prelude

 Pathfinder, Role Playing Games  2 Responses »
Nov 042010
 

If you follow me on Twitter, then you’ve likely see my updates on the campaign that I started this past Friday. After reading Ben’s post on the Pathfinder Freeport Companion, I got really intrigued. I contacted some folks at Green Ronin and got hold of a copy of The Pirate’s Guide to Freeport, which I am using to run my game. I’ll be giving you all regular status updates about the game and posting session recaps, as well as game audio. I don’t have the audio uploaded to The Gamer’s Haven just yet so I’ll make sure to put up a post when I get that done.

A Fresh Wind

It has been a few months since I’ve run a game with my group. With all of the conventions that I went to this summer and life in general getting in the way, it’s no surprise that it has taken me a while to get something going. The Freeport setting was interesting to me from the jump. I had heard about it over the years but I was trapped in my OFFICIAL PRODUCTS ONLY RAWR! phase, so I never gave it any attention.

The Pirate’s Guide to Freeport has got to be one of the best supplements that I have ever come across when it comes to giving a GM what they need to run a game in the setting. The city is detailed with loving precision and there are more plot hooks than you can shake a stick at. No matter what kind of game you’re looking for, Freeport can probably  be the place in which it happens.

In terms of how I wanted to set this game up, my biggest focus was to make sure that the characters are the center of the proceedings, rather than my story. Before I started recording my sessions, I had run a set of really good sessions set in a 3rd Edition adaptation of Ross Peyton’s excellent New World setting. Much like Freeport, the New World setting is chock full of interesting NPCs and plot hooks. The players had an agenda that they were looking to execute and they got to interact with the world in ways that seemed real and satisfying. As well, I made sure that they didn’t feel like their actions were happening inside of a vacuum. I wanted them to know that their actions has consequences and that they should do the things they do because their characters wanted to advance their goals, not because the GM had set a plot hook down in front of them.

Turning Tides

We had our first session last week. it went really well and I’m looking forward to sharing all of the details with you, which I will do once I have the audio posted. In the meantime, for all of you GMs out there, keep in mind that the characters are the focus of your game. The best RPG experiences I have ever had have come when character plots are fully realized and the game is more than a vehicle for the GM to tell a specific story. Now all that remains to be seen is if I can live up to my own expectations.

Expect the audio to be posted soon, along with the details of the first session.

[tags]rpg, rpgs, Freeport, campaigns, Winds of Change, role playing games, Pathfinder[/tags]