I will Living Greyhawk no more!

**Spoilers from "A Current Affair" may be contained below. May contain nuts, or traces of nuts**


















Okay, I think this module has just killed me off Living Greyhawk. My first module, the precursor to this one called "Theft of a flower" revolves around getting a kidnapped princess back from a rival house. Okay, sorta simple level 1 adventure.

Then, I play the next one in the series. First, some background on my character. He is T'Shar Jirel, a cleric of the Ruby Goddess, Wee Jas. He was given up to the church when he was born albino and the family in his noble house would not accept "freaks". He worked his way up helping the morticians prepare bodies, and has become quite adept at that skill himself. As well, he was taught the ways of magic, and has become a full cleric. He is travelling around the Duchy of Urnst, looking for new magical knowledge, materials as well as trying to help lost souls find their final resting place, which may include sanctifying the dens of undead and battling the evil clerics and mages that twist peoples souls to create these vile abominations. Pretty cool, huh?

So then why is this same character working late into the day, drenched to the bone, on some flat bottomed keel-ship, "poling" (digging a pole into the mud, then walking from the front to the back of the ship, thus moving it, pulling the pole out, walking to the front, repeat) it up the river at 1 mph, all the while having some dirty cargo captain yelling in my face at how uncoordinated I am?

The best I can figure is that the module is assinine and the LG team in my area really do have low standards on module quality. I mean, the module involves helping some guy win a keelboat race against 2 other competitors. The race is over 3 days, and if you don't make it to the next chekcpoint by nights end, you are disqualified. And guess what, at the 2nd checkpoint, before the last part of the race, only our boat made it. We win by default. Who designed this?

Then, to add to it, the captain wants to take a "dangerous shortcut" through a swamp, but at this time of year it's flooded and passable. Why? To cut off time. Yup, we're gonna win no matter what, but we go through the monster infested swamp to cut an hour off this guys time. Low and behold, I end up healing our dwarf, back from the brink of death, after several choking vines try and take us out.

Then, at the end, their the oh so winderful "vote for the best players" contest, where I lose out because, after everyone else votes for the shortcut, my cleric throws down his pole and says he won't help them in such madness. Yup, I got dinged for roleplaying. The whole night, everyone was trying their best to beat the module, while I futily tried to engaged anyone in any real roleplaying.

So that's it. No more Living Greyhawk for me. I'm tired of Xp being tied to monsters killed. I'm tired of getting voted as a bad player because I didn't twink my death cleric and do all I could to beat the game within it's rules. I'm tired of everyone treating my like a "Cure Light Wounds" dispensor. I'm tired of every lowly kobold and dirty barge captain beating the DC:13 on my spells.

Anyone have any thoughts, advice please?

I stopped playing LG after the whole year 2 thing with every character owning multiple cure light wound wands. I havn't even seen what the new rules are now. Pobably even more paperwork.

Plus I never won tables either, gets fustrating when the person who has the best toys always win. And I played a cleric as well so I know how you fell about the Cure Light Wounds Dispensor.


As for this module. Did it have good XP if you finished the race first or was it all based on combat? Also what was the rational of taking the shortcut if you already won, was there a bigger prize if you finished at a faster time?

Modules in LG are quite variable. If you only played two modules, you haven't even scratched the surface. I'd ask around for recommendations and only play modules that have a good reputation. Every region has some stinkers (some more than others ), and it sounds like you found one on the 2nd module you played.

You should also pay attention to the module blurb. If it says that you're helping someone win a race, then don't expect a dungeon crawl. Most blurbs are fairly accurate (in a very general sense), and if you ask around other players will eagerly tell you (1) if a module is good, and (2) if a blurb is mis-leading. These two pieces of information can even be spoiler-free--just be sure to tell people you ask that you don't want any spoilers.

Dagger75 said:

I stopped playing LG after the whole year 2 thing with every character owning multiple cure light wound wands. I havn't even seen what the new rules are now. Pobably even more paperwork.

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Well, they did close down the "Magic Mart" so you can't just go around buying wands any more. I don't think the new paperwork is more or less than before--it's just re-arranged somewhat. Still annoying, though. I like Living Death, where 90% of the paperwork is just on the honor system, and only very important or hard to come by items require paperwork.

Dagger75 said:

Plus I never won tables either, gets fustrating when the person who has the best toys always win. And I played a cleric as well so I know how you fell about the Cure Light Wounds Dispensor.

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And they're getting rid of voting for "best" player at tables. Since they're getting rid of the die bump certs for "winning" a table, it's not really a big deal. Everyone will get rewards from HQ based simply on what they play. (Now, what the rewards are is an entirely different rant. - for playing a lot of LG, you now get "campaign cards" for a different campaign--lol!)

Dagger75 said:

As for this module. Did it have good XP if you finished the race first or was it all based on combat? Also what was the rational of taking the shortcut if you already won, was there a bigger prize if you finished at a faster time?

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Good questions.


The upshot is, that LG (and any living campaign run by the RPGA) is a crap-shoot. It's a crap-shoot module wise (both within and across different regions) and it's a crap-shoot player wise if you are playing with strangers at a con and it's a crap-shoot DM-wise (ask P-Kitty about his first experience as an RPGA judge ).

I have had some fantastic role-playing experiences at RPGA events. And some horrible ones, too. But overall, after 40+ modules and about a half-dozen "interactcives" of LG in less than two years, it's been a lot of fun. After a while, I started to play with friends (some met through LG) a lot, so at least part of the table is people I already know.

I think half the problem is that the group I was with seemed more interested in "beating the module" and getting the most Xp. Yeah, we ended up getting more Xp because we took the shortcut. That's the problem I have with LG though. Most of the experience is based off of "beating" things.

If you're in the forest and you see a venomous snake, do you run up and go all "crocodile hunter" with it? Poke it with a stick and pick it up? No way!
But the Xp system as it is assumes that you should get rewarded for playing with the snake, because you learned something; while the person that avoids the whole encounter learns nothing.

But the modules tend to keep you fairly poor, and fairly lacking in Xp, so when we do play the module every 2 months or so, everyone's looking at it like, "What do we do to milk this thing for Xp and treasure?!" While my attempts at actual roleplaying (like my cleric of wee jas not accepting the stinky barge captain yelling in his face because he doesn't "pole a ship well") are looked upon as stupid actons.

Sorry about your experience. I've never done any RPGA stuff, so I can't commiserate.

I did want to say, though, that I love the character background. I'd kill if my players put that much thought into their characters.

It's probably because I DM so much, I'm used to writing long histories and motivations for guilds, monarchy and other groups that whipping together a 2 page biography for a character doesn't seem that much, but thanks!

Dwarf,

I had the exact same type of experience with LG's Birthday Bash and LC's Glory of the Game. They were abysmally written, and only meant to either lead the characters around by the nose (BBash) or not anticipate the characters losing the game(Glory). I swore off RPGA for almost a year.

Now, I'm getting into some of the "other worlds", such as Living Kalamar, Dragonstar, and Spycraft. I'm reactivating myself at Origins this year to give it another go. Maybe you could try some of the other settings. Hope something works out for you.

Carp

Edit: Fixed an apostrophe.

DWARF said:

He is T'Shar Jirel, a cleric of the Ruby Goddess, Wee Jas. He was given up to the church when he was born albino and the family in his noble house would not accept "freaks".

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First, Wee Jas is a Suel Goddess and if your noble house is Suel, the suel ideal of beauty practically IS albino

So then why is this same character working late into the day, drenched to the bone, on some flat bottomed keel-ship, "poling" (digging a pole into the mud, then walking from the front to the back of the ship, thus moving it, pulling the pole out, walking to the front, repeat) it up the river at 1 mph, all the while having some dirty cargo captain yelling in my face at how uncoordinated I am?

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Because you read the Module blurb "River pirates threaten the Great Lukala River Race! In order to defeat them, the party must join in the race and learn how to pole a keelboat up the river, and they'd better learn fast! Competition is almost as fierce as the pirates themselves" and decided to ignore the fact that your charcater would never want to do such a thing?

The best I can figure is that the module is assinine and the LG team in my area really do have low standards on module quality. I mean, the module involves helping some guy win a keelboat race against 2 other competitors. The race is over 3 days, and if you don't make it to the next chekcpoint by nights end, you are disqualified. And guess what, at the 2nd checkpoint, before the last part of the race, only our boat made it. We win by default. Who designed this?

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Mike Haakstad and Michael Dezotell. Take it up with them if you don't like it. Or maybe you could read the module and see if there was something going on behind the scenes that you missed or leads to a different conclusion.

Then, to add to it, the captain wants to take a "dangerous shortcut" through a swamp, but at this time of year it's flooded and passable. Why? To cut off time. Yup, we're gonna win no matter what, but we go through the monster infested swamp to cut an hour off this guys time.

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Ok, your saying that the shortcut happens after you've already mad eit to the qulifying checkpoint. Ok: there is a logic problem there. But you got to fight some monsters, right?

Then, at the end, their the oh so winderful "vote for the best players" contest, where I lose out because, after everyone else votes for the shortcut, my cleric throws down his pole and says he won't help them in such madness.

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It's vote for the best PLAYER, taking into account how much he added to making the module enjoyable. Many folks (even voters) are under the misperception that the voting is for "mere roleplaying", but that's not what the vote form says.

And there hasn't been voting in RPGA games for the last 2 months or so, so I'm not sure why your group bothered.

Here's the actual blurb for Current Affair:

URD2-06 A Current Affair
River pirates threaten the Great Lukala River Race! In order to defeat them, the party must join in the race and learn how to pole a keelboat up the river, and they'd better learn fast! Competition is almost as fierce as the pirates themselves! Part Two of the Feud Series. An adventure for characters level 1-8.

Gah. Sounds awful. But I'm sure some people really enjoy a fast-paced keelboat race.

I don't have much LG experience either, but I've found the module quality can vary greatly, as well as the rewards available. It helps if you play with a good group of folks at home games before branching out to the con games.

I don't know much about the adventure quality in the Duchy of Urnst (http://www.duchyurnst.com/adventures/adventure_main.shtml , but I do know that most of the Core adventures are pretty good. you may want to try a few of those.

In general it seems to me as if the RPGA takes itself waay too seriously. It is a game folks not a tax audit. I have less paperwork to do to register for classes then I do for LG. Also the people in this organization seem to take it very seriously. I have seen heated arguments (not role-playing) about if a DM was correct. It is a game and if people don't treat it as such well there is such a thing as taking the game too seriously.