StreamOfTheSky

Recently started a new campaign, and the more I think about all the differences from what I'm used to, the more I feel like documenting it. For one thing, this will be the first full campaign I've ever been DM for. But there are many other factors at play.

-The game is gestalt, something I've never done before. It will be a struggle to figure out appropriate challenges, though I did limit it to a single class each side and only one prestige class total.

-The party is all evil, with an ultimate goal to destroy existence. Hopefully their shared religion will keep them together.

-Rotating DM. I'm in charge, but all the players will take turns at the helm, and each respective DM runs his character even while controlling the action.

-The game is being played online in a chat room. I've done this before, but it's always a struggle to handle tactical positioning.

-Despite gestalt, we have no true arcanist (just a bard who's switching to Warchanter ASAP) and no dedicated tank. What we do have is two divine casters, two super stealthy characters, and every single person with ToB maneuvers and a recovery mechanic for them. We basically have no super-powered cannons, but between healing and maneuvers can literally fight all day. The first session saw 5 combats (total of 25 enemies), and the party still had barely cut into its daily reserves.

The party of "heroes," listed below. Started at level 3.


The funniest moment of the first session:


Tomorrow Dolorito's player will be running the dungeon, we'll see how that goes. It'll be fun for me to go all out with my character this time, no need to worry about "the DMPC overshadowing the others."

*Sigh* Ever since some very bad experiences with some very bad people, gaming with a group I loathed just for the sake of having a game only to ultimately leave in anger and frustration anyway, I've subscribed to a strict policy of "not doing that again." And since then, I've had to go without any D&D at all for fairly long stretches, and avoid otherwise awesome games because of one or two human scumbags that I know would ruin the experience.



So, anyway. One of my characters in that community was part of a villain party, and a character I genuinely loved to play. He was a bodyguard, very serious, and had a great motif going with his dual heavy shields, and sorcerer casting for stuff like wings of cover and benign transposition to protect the party and control the front line. The party he was in kind of collapsed after I left, partly because he was a more important component of the group than I thought, and partly because jackoff B had a character in the group and started showing up infrequently, as my friend told me. My friend told me this, because he wanted me back to play my character, and he really wanted to focus on the party's plotline finally. I had to say no, much as I wanted to play Saval once again. I just know being in the same party with that other guy will make me miserable, and partly it's the principle of the matter. I'm not so desperate for a good game that I'm going to go "crawling back," so to speak. The jerk was still trashing me two months after I had fully left the group (I occasionally check their boards,and at that particular moment had been considering giving reasons for my various characters' sudden disappearances, to give some kind of "closure"), so clearly nothing has changed.

In the end, I'm proud of myself for not engaging in what I can only consider mental masochism, but at the same time...my moral high ground sure has a bitter taste in the air.