Strange session

I'm not prone to comment much about our gaming sessions but last Sunday one was kinda strange. First, let me do some recap. I'll try not to spoil the module.

A couple of sessions ago the group found, under the Tower of Magic, what it could be a magical way into where the simulacrum of Iggwilv might be. After learning how it worked they left for the city and came back with the magical means to use it and get there, but in the last minute they decided, although knowing that time was a pressing matter, to try another route. And so, they went into the Tower of Zagig. I must admit that, with their decision, they caught me off-guard and I had to make it all on the fly. They explored the tower ruins, killed several undeads, found a secret staircase and took their way down. Of all the traps and constructs I put in their path, none of them prevented the group to reach the crypts . Then I begun throwing at them several mummies which they managed to turn or destroy in what they called "Mummy frenzy". With that, after two really enjoyable sessions we reached last one.

When they entered a maze of corridors and rooms, a ghost appeared, warned them not to continue further and left. They just ignored it and pressed on. After a little exploration, they reached a couple of unscratched magically warded double doors... guess what? They decided to go the other way! What they found were clues that they were in a place that has been already plundered. Visibly forced doors, those once trapped had the traps jammed or disabled, niches desecrated, sarcophagi pilfered, pit traps marked on the floor, crosses and arrows marked on the walls, tunnels made to bypass heavily warded doors, etc. They even found the corpses of an unfortunate group of adventurers. When they finally realized there was nothing to be found and decided to go back to the double doors, there was no more time to play.

After the session my wife told me that it has been a bit boring, with no combat and only some saves made. I just said that the players, with their decisions make the game funny or boring. There were plenty of hints of what was going on. They just chose to ignore them, kept going and backed away (for a second time in the last three sessions) from what would have looked important to any adventurer.

I don't like railroading, but I confess last session I was tempted to do it. They're all experienced players and that's why I found strange what happened.

New Campaign

As I said before, I was waiting for my group to complete the Expedition to the Ruins of Greyhawk module in order to begin a new campaign but, since we're not gaming as often as I'd like so finishing the module will take longer than I expected, I decided to start a new group for my Labyrinth Lord campaign.

I'm planning to also set it in the World of Greyhawk, more specifically in the legendary Archbarony of Blackmoor. It's a region in which, after all these years gaming in this world, I've never played nor DMed so it's a bit of a challenge. So far I've found a great article on the Oerth Journal #5 detailing the whole region and a low-level adventure on Dragon Magazine #115 called "Raiders of the Black Ice" (thanks to Bubbagump @ Canonfire!) which I'll have to convert from 3.5e to LL but that's no stress. I've also purchased from Faster Monkey Games a couple of adventures compatible with LL called "The Hidden Serpent" and "Wheel of Evil" (well done Bighara!) which I plan to adapt to the setting.

I know that Blackmoor has a strong component of sci-fi which I still haven't decided what to do with it, since the combination of medieval fantasy and sci-fi is not my cup of tea. Perhaps I'll check with my group to see if they like that or jump right into the water and see what happens. Of the people I've contacted so far only two have played both pen&paper and online RPGs before and only one in the World of Greyhawk. The rest are new to board RPGs but all play World of Warcraft online.

I plan it to be a sandbox game with the group starting in some whaling village on the wind-swept shores of the Icy Sea. Let's see what the future holds...

How I keep track of initiative

Reading one of the many RPG feeds I have in the Google Reader, I came into this article about how to keep track of the initiative rolls. It's a nice article worth reading, but it made me think "Hey, why don't I share the way we do that in our game?". I guess every DM has its own way and thinks it's the best one. So here it goes:

1. In your favorite word processor (I used Word) just make a 4-column table and as many rows as you like. One for each charecter and enough for monsters or NPCs.
   
2. Columns 1 and 4 are 1,5 cm. wide and columns 2 and 3 are 7 cm. wide. All rows are 1,5 cm in height. Make sure all cell borders are a least 3 pt. wide. All are suggested values.
   
3. Use you favorite font type to write the name of the character in columns 2 and 3. For the example I used this one.

By now it should look something like this:

Make sure to use a heavyweight paper when you print it. Then cover the printed sheet with transparent contact paper. That way it'll last longer and you can write the initiative in the little box with whiteboard markers. Then you cut them along the rows like this:

The idea is to hand them down to the players, they write their initiative and the DM hangs them (not the players, put that rope down), in order, over the DM screen (you do use a DM screen right?) and use a pointer to mark whose turn it is. If you're using 3.x, and someone declares a ready or delay action, you just take it out of the queue util they act.

This is how it looks from the player's side (sorry about the worn-out markers).

An this is from the DM¡s side.

Hope you like it and find it useful.

Oriental Adventures

Yesterday we gathered to continue our OA campaign. We are five guys, four are married and three got small children. We get together maybe 3 or 4 times in the year, if we're lucky. It's more like a social reunion in which we hang out, catch up and roll some dices. As we waited for everyone to come, one of the guys commented about playing with his 8 years old son, so I mentioned some blogs he could check out and read about other dads' experience.

Later while having some pizzas, one of the guys made us notice that we begun this campaign back in May of 1994! That's 16 years ago! Since all of our characters are level 6, our party must have the worst campaigning time-level achieved ratio ever. It's not that we care about it, but we laughed heartily at the thought and I took mental note to comment it here.

Don't let the trolls win

It's sad to see two very interesting RPG-related blogs to go down in a few days. I'm talking about Michael "Chgowiz" Shorten's "Old Guy RPG" blog and Christopher Brackett's "A Rust Monster Ate My Sword" blog. The former has been taken is off-line by its owner and the latter won't be seeing any update for the time being.

I specially didn't referred to those blogs as "OSR-related" because they covered many other, equally interesting, topics. I very much respect the reasons that each one had to made their decisions. Maybe I don't agree but I respect them and hope to see both online soon. And if not, others will come forward and pick their flags to carry on.