I'm sitting at home rather exhausted this Sunday evening, as I've just come off my regular weekend of gaming - a lot of board games, and a lot of role-playing. Shortly I'll get back to reading through the latest Urban Fantasy series I've bought for my Kindle, but I'm quite happy as I've managed to DM four different systems of D&D in the last few days.
In particular, D&D Next, D&D 4E, AD&D and Pathfinder.
D&D Next I got to run as part of the new series of D&D Encounters. This is one of the more challenging series of Encounters I've participated in, mainly due to the major investigation scenes that can be run in town. The drawback to running Encounters with D&D Next is that I really don't get to see much of the new system - particularly with this session, where roleplaying and the adventure's design triumphed over Next's mechanics. The combat we did have was fairly short, I ran without miniatures (like every other game this week), and was mainly distinguished by how little I and the players really know about the current iteration of Next.
There were a few oddities that occurred; in particular, were the DC 10 Wisdom and Intelligence checks actually allowing skills to apply (as they were Arcana or Sense Motive checks in the 4E version), and showed signs of the system still not being set in stone - and probably certainly not for adventure-writing. More interesting to me than the system was how the adventure was constructed, and it really required a lot of improvising from myself to give shape to the bare material and make an entertaining investigation. We actually could have gone for another two hours just investigating things in the village, but we were definitely in danger of overrunning the timeslot, so I had to bring things to a natural end.
4E saw the (different) group continuing my high level (20th) Greyhawk game; this particular campaign has now been running since 2008. We're ramping up to the finale of the Tomb of Horrors adventure, and I've got them investigating my hacked version of Mordenkainen's Fantastic Adventure - Eli Tomerast rethemed as a Vecna cultist looking for clues to the opening of Acererak's final portal, which the PCs also need to find. The group ran into both him and his apprentice this session.
I took inspiration from one of Mike Mearls' recent posts to take a different way of doing the exploration of Maure Castle. There's no doubt it's a very old-school design, but unfortunately WG5 has a lot of empty rooms; it's a really big map, but very few areas of interest. So many areas have no description for them at all. So, instead of requiring the players to map every square (which we'd tried last session and had led to frustration and boredom), instead I divided the map into quadrants - well, nine sections (nonrants?) - and asked them which one they wanted to investigate first, and then directed them to the interesting areas. It worked a lot better and kept the session moving.
I hadn't prepared stats for Tomerast, instead looking for a monster of about the right level in the Monster Builder, and then adapting. As the actual combat progressed, I took inspiration from his 1E spells for the effects of his attacks: I took the attack bonuses and damages from the monster's stats, but added special effects as seemed appropriate. It worked really well and gave a pretty memorable combat. If there's one thing I love about 4E, it's how it runs these end-boss combats. Mind you, Tomerast escaped before he was slain - he'll be back!
AD&D saw the group continue to investigate the Swords & Wizardry version of Rappan Athuk. I was running a group of eight PCs here (compared to three for 4E and five for Next - and four for Pathfinder). This wasn't one of the better sessions I'd run, which was partly due to the size of the party, but also to the material. Very little "level appropriate" encounters were in the section of the dungeon they were exploring. Either they were coming up against giant rats and goblins, or against giant demon dogs with ACs of -5 or better and 24 HD! I'm sure it was frustrating for the players, and though I did some tweaking, I didn't do enough.
The successes of this session came down to the role-playing. The group were attacked by wererats, which surrendered after they realised how powerful the group were (levels 4-8 in the main). They then introduced themselves as the "Pet Shop Rats", a reference understood by less than half the table (although it did amuse the older members of the group greatly). This segued into an encounter with a tribe of goblins, which summoned some rats - causing the group to be attacked from both sides. Eventually, they survived with the aid of the Pet Shop Rats, who drew off the surviving rats and allowed everyone to concentrate on the goblins.
The one big difference between running AD&D and the other systems came down to initiative: group vs individual. Speed-wise, combat in Next and AD&D were most comparable. The group initiative did mean I far more felt that it was a group effort, interestingly enough (although 4E has elements where one character's actions enables the next, and so on).
In contrast, the Pathfinder session had very little combat at all, thanks mainly to the session being about an evil party infiltrating a castle and assassinating most of the inhabitants. Yes, we're playing through The Way of the Wicked! After a first couple of sessions of fairly linear plot, we got to a section where the adventure suggested five ways that they could do it. All of this required some ingenuity from players and DM and - after a slow start - it all came together rather well. In many ways, it reminded me of the free-form play that the Encounters session had also encouraged. What combat there was generally was one surprise round (and perhaps one normal round) against guards... all the major NPCs were attacked whilst sleeping by the Ninja in the party - the silence spell was also liberally used.
Looking back at the four sessions, there was no time when I didn't think I was playing D&D, despite major differences between the actual systems being used. There were some key common elements (and the d20 attack die and the class system very strongly are at the heart of it). Running an adventure for one system in another might occasionally require more tinkering to fit the assumptions of the new system, but it's doable. In some cases - such as the battle against Tomerast - I think it actually improved the encounter!
All of which points to what I really needed to do as a DM in these four sessions: adapt. Change the material to fit the players, the system and the situation. Add things when needed, and subtract them likewise. The less successful parts of the adventures might work for other groups, but that they didn't work for these sessions has a lot to do with how we approached them. And by seeing how the different systems and adventures approached the task of providing an entertaining time for the participants continues to enrich my Dungeon Mastering skills.
Cheers!
In particular, D&D Next, D&D 4E, AD&D and Pathfinder.
D&D Next I got to run as part of the new series of D&D Encounters. This is one of the more challenging series of Encounters I've participated in, mainly due to the major investigation scenes that can be run in town. The drawback to running Encounters with D&D Next is that I really don't get to see much of the new system - particularly with this session, where roleplaying and the adventure's design triumphed over Next's mechanics. The combat we did have was fairly short, I ran without miniatures (like every other game this week), and was mainly distinguished by how little I and the players really know about the current iteration of Next.
There were a few oddities that occurred; in particular, were the DC 10 Wisdom and Intelligence checks actually allowing skills to apply (as they were Arcana or Sense Motive checks in the 4E version), and showed signs of the system still not being set in stone - and probably certainly not for adventure-writing. More interesting to me than the system was how the adventure was constructed, and it really required a lot of improvising from myself to give shape to the bare material and make an entertaining investigation. We actually could have gone for another two hours just investigating things in the village, but we were definitely in danger of overrunning the timeslot, so I had to bring things to a natural end.
4E saw the (different) group continuing my high level (20th) Greyhawk game; this particular campaign has now been running since 2008. We're ramping up to the finale of the Tomb of Horrors adventure, and I've got them investigating my hacked version of Mordenkainen's Fantastic Adventure - Eli Tomerast rethemed as a Vecna cultist looking for clues to the opening of Acererak's final portal, which the PCs also need to find. The group ran into both him and his apprentice this session.
I took inspiration from one of Mike Mearls' recent posts to take a different way of doing the exploration of Maure Castle. There's no doubt it's a very old-school design, but unfortunately WG5 has a lot of empty rooms; it's a really big map, but very few areas of interest. So many areas have no description for them at all. So, instead of requiring the players to map every square (which we'd tried last session and had led to frustration and boredom), instead I divided the map into quadrants - well, nine sections (nonrants?) - and asked them which one they wanted to investigate first, and then directed them to the interesting areas. It worked a lot better and kept the session moving.
I hadn't prepared stats for Tomerast, instead looking for a monster of about the right level in the Monster Builder, and then adapting. As the actual combat progressed, I took inspiration from his 1E spells for the effects of his attacks: I took the attack bonuses and damages from the monster's stats, but added special effects as seemed appropriate. It worked really well and gave a pretty memorable combat. If there's one thing I love about 4E, it's how it runs these end-boss combats. Mind you, Tomerast escaped before he was slain - he'll be back!
AD&D saw the group continue to investigate the Swords & Wizardry version of Rappan Athuk. I was running a group of eight PCs here (compared to three for 4E and five for Next - and four for Pathfinder). This wasn't one of the better sessions I'd run, which was partly due to the size of the party, but also to the material. Very little "level appropriate" encounters were in the section of the dungeon they were exploring. Either they were coming up against giant rats and goblins, or against giant demon dogs with ACs of -5 or better and 24 HD! I'm sure it was frustrating for the players, and though I did some tweaking, I didn't do enough.
The successes of this session came down to the role-playing. The group were attacked by wererats, which surrendered after they realised how powerful the group were (levels 4-8 in the main). They then introduced themselves as the "Pet Shop Rats", a reference understood by less than half the table (although it did amuse the older members of the group greatly). This segued into an encounter with a tribe of goblins, which summoned some rats - causing the group to be attacked from both sides. Eventually, they survived with the aid of the Pet Shop Rats, who drew off the surviving rats and allowed everyone to concentrate on the goblins.
The one big difference between running AD&D and the other systems came down to initiative: group vs individual. Speed-wise, combat in Next and AD&D were most comparable. The group initiative did mean I far more felt that it was a group effort, interestingly enough (although 4E has elements where one character's actions enables the next, and so on).
In contrast, the Pathfinder session had very little combat at all, thanks mainly to the session being about an evil party infiltrating a castle and assassinating most of the inhabitants. Yes, we're playing through The Way of the Wicked! After a first couple of sessions of fairly linear plot, we got to a section where the adventure suggested five ways that they could do it. All of this required some ingenuity from players and DM and - after a slow start - it all came together rather well. In many ways, it reminded me of the free-form play that the Encounters session had also encouraged. What combat there was generally was one surprise round (and perhaps one normal round) against guards... all the major NPCs were attacked whilst sleeping by the Ninja in the party - the silence spell was also liberally used.
Looking back at the four sessions, there was no time when I didn't think I was playing D&D, despite major differences between the actual systems being used. There were some key common elements (and the d20 attack die and the class system very strongly are at the heart of it). Running an adventure for one system in another might occasionally require more tinkering to fit the assumptions of the new system, but it's doable. In some cases - such as the battle against Tomerast - I think it actually improved the encounter!
All of which points to what I really needed to do as a DM in these four sessions: adapt. Change the material to fit the players, the system and the situation. Add things when needed, and subtract them likewise. The less successful parts of the adventures might work for other groups, but that they didn't work for these sessions has a lot to do with how we approached them. And by seeing how the different systems and adventures approached the task of providing an entertaining time for the participants continues to enrich my Dungeon Mastering skills.
Cheers!
