shilsen
Adventurer
Sounds like it, in more ways than one. Thanks for the specific examples.
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D&D 4E Running player commentary on PCat's 4E Campaign - Heroic tier (finished)
- Thread starter Sagiro
- Start date
I'd just like to thank Sagiro and Piratecat for this thread. It has been great source of information and experience in running 4th edition. I'd especially like to thank Piratecat for his skill challenge sequence which I blatantly stole and changed to my needs.
It went off pretty much as Piratecat described. It came down to the last role, with downed PCs and 8 tentacles ready to attack. It really was exciting, and my players really seemed to enjoy it. I was really surprised how well it went even after reading this thread.
I changed the encounter in a way where they fought a solo before having to race back to the portal ahead of the essence instead of over-tuning a cup. My players didn't take a short rest after the encounter, as I described it in such a way that they felt they had to run immediately, which added to the encounter as a whole.
I can't pinpoint exactly why this worked so well. I'd like to be able to recreate this sort of encounter at a later date. Though the trick I think is not to overuse them, and presenting the choices in a new manner.
This was a good encounter I think, because it gave options for any kind of character to do something. Also, the way the two skill challenges were set up seemed to work well, as there was actual incentive in not dawdling, as PCs were getting knocked down if you took too long. My players really weren't expecting the encounters to come at such a fast pacing.
Really, my players were on the edge of their seats watching die rolls in the sealing of the portal section of the skill challenge. There was a collective sigh of relief when they finally succeeded. Even cheers and high fives.
Thanks again Piratecat for the great ideas.
Daag
It went off pretty much as Piratecat described. It came down to the last role, with downed PCs and 8 tentacles ready to attack. It really was exciting, and my players really seemed to enjoy it. I was really surprised how well it went even after reading this thread.
I changed the encounter in a way where they fought a solo before having to race back to the portal ahead of the essence instead of over-tuning a cup. My players didn't take a short rest after the encounter, as I described it in such a way that they felt they had to run immediately, which added to the encounter as a whole.
I can't pinpoint exactly why this worked so well. I'd like to be able to recreate this sort of encounter at a later date. Though the trick I think is not to overuse them, and presenting the choices in a new manner.
This was a good encounter I think, because it gave options for any kind of character to do something. Also, the way the two skill challenges were set up seemed to work well, as there was actual incentive in not dawdling, as PCs were getting knocked down if you took too long. My players really weren't expecting the encounters to come at such a fast pacing.
Really, my players were on the edge of their seats watching die rolls in the sealing of the portal section of the skill challenge. There was a collective sigh of relief when they finally succeeded. Even cheers and high fives.
Thanks again Piratecat for the great ideas.
Daag
Piratecat
Sesquipedalian
You're welcome, and I'm thrilled it helps.
We played tonight, adding a new player (Kodiak here on ENW, who played Mara in my old campaign) into the game as a wilden shaman named Bramble. We get a leader! I've asked Sagiro and Kodiak to talk a little bit about what it was like to enter an existing game with a brand new character. Learning what we did right, and what I could have done better, might help other people.
Tonight's game was about story payoffs and interesting information. Most of the game was roleplaying: the group met Cobalt's mom (who was being used as a practical joke from the NPC halfling Grey Guard member Runcible Parsons), got interrogated by an inquisitor (from Hestos, the God of Death and Justice) who seemed to know a little too much about Elijah Caldwell, met three new Grey Guard members (including Bramble, a sullen human fisherman and a traitorous goliath), and spoke to an elderly elven librarian who translated their acquired map for them. I'll note that the first two of these are related to background hooks in character backstories. There was also a third hook used, but no one caught it at the time so I won't repeat it here.
A big chunk of tonight's in-game history involved Floodford's "guardian angel," apparently a deva who hasn't been seen in a hundred years but whose defaced armor was found in the hut of the swamp witch. The group is seeking out his now-underwater crypt, using the ritual lower water from Arcane Power to access the area. It worked beautifully; they would have been able to lower the water 40' if needed! My original plan had been to automatically have a combat encounter when the group entered the mausoleum. Instead I decided to tie it into a tricky skill challenge that would lead to combat if it was failed. I'm glad I decided that; combat is fun, but allowing clever and capable PCs avoid combat by making good decisions can be even more fun.
Which brings up something interesting about traps I heard in an old WotC podcast about dungeons. Mearls (or someone - Chris Perkins, maybe?) stated that unseen booby traps aren't great because as soon as you use one the heroes stop at every single other door to check for traps. It slows the pacing to a crawl. Better to use obvious traps that then need to be outwitted or disarmed. I agree with this theory and tested it, making the difficult necromantic trap on the door be really obvious. The fun came in watching the heroes figure out how to circumvent it. I purposefully made the skill challenge a tough one (complexity 2, 6 DC 21 successes/3 failures, DC 15 assist other) because (a) the person who left the trap was formidable, and (b) a failure would also be fun for me - combat! Sagiro can tell you how he thought it went. I highly recommend the recent WotC podcast about skill challenges as well; I learned a lot from it.
You know how I build my plots as narrow - wide - narrow? In other words, I start off focused and then give the PCs more choices for adventures; I toss out a zillion plot hooks and let them choose the ones to follow. We're now entering the "wide" area. The group has three or four different ways to follow plot: enough for me to prep (especially if I expect which one they'll select), and enough where they have some say in their destiny. The world has changed due to their actions in the recent lizardman war, and it'll be fun to see that play out.
We played tonight, adding a new player (Kodiak here on ENW, who played Mara in my old campaign) into the game as a wilden shaman named Bramble. We get a leader! I've asked Sagiro and Kodiak to talk a little bit about what it was like to enter an existing game with a brand new character. Learning what we did right, and what I could have done better, might help other people.
Tonight's game was about story payoffs and interesting information. Most of the game was roleplaying: the group met Cobalt's mom (who was being used as a practical joke from the NPC halfling Grey Guard member Runcible Parsons), got interrogated by an inquisitor (from Hestos, the God of Death and Justice) who seemed to know a little too much about Elijah Caldwell, met three new Grey Guard members (including Bramble, a sullen human fisherman and a traitorous goliath), and spoke to an elderly elven librarian who translated their acquired map for them. I'll note that the first two of these are related to background hooks in character backstories. There was also a third hook used, but no one caught it at the time so I won't repeat it here.
A big chunk of tonight's in-game history involved Floodford's "guardian angel," apparently a deva who hasn't been seen in a hundred years but whose defaced armor was found in the hut of the swamp witch. The group is seeking out his now-underwater crypt, using the ritual lower water from Arcane Power to access the area. It worked beautifully; they would have been able to lower the water 40' if needed! My original plan had been to automatically have a combat encounter when the group entered the mausoleum. Instead I decided to tie it into a tricky skill challenge that would lead to combat if it was failed. I'm glad I decided that; combat is fun, but allowing clever and capable PCs avoid combat by making good decisions can be even more fun.
Which brings up something interesting about traps I heard in an old WotC podcast about dungeons. Mearls (or someone - Chris Perkins, maybe?) stated that unseen booby traps aren't great because as soon as you use one the heroes stop at every single other door to check for traps. It slows the pacing to a crawl. Better to use obvious traps that then need to be outwitted or disarmed. I agree with this theory and tested it, making the difficult necromantic trap on the door be really obvious. The fun came in watching the heroes figure out how to circumvent it. I purposefully made the skill challenge a tough one (complexity 2, 6 DC 21 successes/3 failures, DC 15 assist other) because (a) the person who left the trap was formidable, and (b) a failure would also be fun for me - combat! Sagiro can tell you how he thought it went. I highly recommend the recent WotC podcast about skill challenges as well; I learned a lot from it.
You know how I build my plots as narrow - wide - narrow? In other words, I start off focused and then give the PCs more choices for adventures; I toss out a zillion plot hooks and let them choose the ones to follow. We're now entering the "wide" area. The group has three or four different ways to follow plot: enough for me to prep (especially if I expect which one they'll select), and enough where they have some say in their destiny. The world has changed due to their actions in the recent lizardman war, and it'll be fun to see that play out.
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Piratecat asked me to comment on my experience starting as a new player in an established campaign. I don't have a sense for how it must be for other people, but in my case it was absolutely wonderful! I've missed playing with these guys ever since the Defenders campaign ended, and getting updates on the goings-on in the new campaign from my husband Sagiro (who plays Cobalt now, and played Velendo previously) made me miss it all the more. So as soon as my babysittering in-laws arrived for the summer, I jumped at the chance to join Piratecat's new game. [I should mention that Piratecat has been extremely accomodating and supportive as I tried to navigate the whole gaming-with-two-kids thing.]
For me, showing up at his game with my new character was kind of a homecoming. All of the other players in his campaign are very generous role-players, making it easy for me to settle in. The group was at a point where they were just deciding what to begin next, so I didn't need a whole lot of context. We didn't have any combat the first game, which was probably just as well since I'm a little intimidated by my stack of 15 power cards (I don't have much 4th Ed experience). Yet I still managed to feel cool and useful right away, as I got to cast a "lower water" ritual to good effect (Piratecat tipped me that that would be a useful one to know), and to wow everybody with my 30+ perception checks (lucky rolls, people assisting me, a +13 perception, as well as my shaman "speak with spirits" power). After playing Mara for so long (and Kibi in Sagiro's campaign), I desperately wanted to play someone with a high spot check! Piratecat always does a great job adding vivid details, like the swamp spirit I got to interact with during the casting of the ritual, upping the coolness factor even more.
The only thing that was an issue for me coming into an established campaign was striking the right balance between playing a character I really wanted to play and playing a character who rounds out the party. Piratecat's campaign didn't have a healer and didn't have a leader, and already had two rogues (high DEX was the other thing I was longing for after so many years as Mara, and I had initially wanted to play a swashbuckling halfling rogue). Everyone made it clear that whatever I decided to play would be fine, and we'd make the group work regardless, but it's more fun for me as a player when I feel like my character brings something unique to the party. (I struggled with this a while as one of three mages in Sagiro's game, and addressed it there with a custom Earth-mage prestige class and focusing less on "boom" and more on walls etc). That said, I wasn't keen to play a devout cleric, having just played a Paladin for so long.
The Shaman sounded interesting, but I had a hard time envisioning a human shaman character I liked. I thought a halfling would be more fun - I really like the halfling boat people concept in Piratecat's new campaign, and a halfling shaman just seemed lighter and merrier - but they were exactly the wrong thing stat-wise. I didn't want to play a dwarf (I'm already one in Sagiro's campaign) or an elf. Then Piratecat came across the "Wilden" race, and that immediately appealed to me (though it seems odd that their stats are perfect for a protector shaman but their "nature's aspect" ability is largely useless for shamans). I didn't particuarly care for the name or the concept art, but liked the fact that they didn't really think of themselves as individuals, and had this strong connection to each other, to their trees, and to Feywild as a whole. It seemed well-suited to a shaman.
This may sound odd, but I saw the Dalai Lama speak at Foxborough Stadium a few weeks ago. Obviously, he is a very very important religious and cultural figure, and has many profound things to say, but the thing that struck me most about him was his demeanor. He was completely disarming, this warm-hearted, giggling man sitting cross-legged in an armchair with his monk's robes, Patriot's cap and parasol, telling stories. Of course a D&D character cannot emulate the Dalai Lama, but this is the kind of bearing I want for my character - someone who is impish, merry, and wise - and I think a Wilden shaman is well suited to that.
And so Bramble was born.
For me, showing up at his game with my new character was kind of a homecoming. All of the other players in his campaign are very generous role-players, making it easy for me to settle in. The group was at a point where they were just deciding what to begin next, so I didn't need a whole lot of context. We didn't have any combat the first game, which was probably just as well since I'm a little intimidated by my stack of 15 power cards (I don't have much 4th Ed experience). Yet I still managed to feel cool and useful right away, as I got to cast a "lower water" ritual to good effect (Piratecat tipped me that that would be a useful one to know), and to wow everybody with my 30+ perception checks (lucky rolls, people assisting me, a +13 perception, as well as my shaman "speak with spirits" power). After playing Mara for so long (and Kibi in Sagiro's campaign), I desperately wanted to play someone with a high spot check! Piratecat always does a great job adding vivid details, like the swamp spirit I got to interact with during the casting of the ritual, upping the coolness factor even more.
The only thing that was an issue for me coming into an established campaign was striking the right balance between playing a character I really wanted to play and playing a character who rounds out the party. Piratecat's campaign didn't have a healer and didn't have a leader, and already had two rogues (high DEX was the other thing I was longing for after so many years as Mara, and I had initially wanted to play a swashbuckling halfling rogue). Everyone made it clear that whatever I decided to play would be fine, and we'd make the group work regardless, but it's more fun for me as a player when I feel like my character brings something unique to the party. (I struggled with this a while as one of three mages in Sagiro's game, and addressed it there with a custom Earth-mage prestige class and focusing less on "boom" and more on walls etc). That said, I wasn't keen to play a devout cleric, having just played a Paladin for so long.
The Shaman sounded interesting, but I had a hard time envisioning a human shaman character I liked. I thought a halfling would be more fun - I really like the halfling boat people concept in Piratecat's new campaign, and a halfling shaman just seemed lighter and merrier - but they were exactly the wrong thing stat-wise. I didn't want to play a dwarf (I'm already one in Sagiro's campaign) or an elf. Then Piratecat came across the "Wilden" race, and that immediately appealed to me (though it seems odd that their stats are perfect for a protector shaman but their "nature's aspect" ability is largely useless for shamans). I didn't particuarly care for the name or the concept art, but liked the fact that they didn't really think of themselves as individuals, and had this strong connection to each other, to their trees, and to Feywild as a whole. It seemed well-suited to a shaman.
This may sound odd, but I saw the Dalai Lama speak at Foxborough Stadium a few weeks ago. Obviously, he is a very very important religious and cultural figure, and has many profound things to say, but the thing that struck me most about him was his demeanor. He was completely disarming, this warm-hearted, giggling man sitting cross-legged in an armchair with his monk's robes, Patriot's cap and parasol, telling stories. Of course a D&D character cannot emulate the Dalai Lama, but this is the kind of bearing I want for my character - someone who is impish, merry, and wise - and I think a Wilden shaman is well suited to that.
And so Bramble was born.
Mistwell
Crusty Old Meatwad
You should start a thread, and paste all you have collected into it! That would be a big help for a lot of folks I suspect!
I just read through this monster 27 page thread, and now I am sad to come to the end. Man, you guys take so long between posts. I also envy you, Piratecat, for both having such a long lasting campaign (I've only been involved in 2 games that lasted over a year, most of the others much much shorter than that) and for having such a good group. 
I've made numerous notes for my own next game, mainly fluff notes (I saw lots of little things I really liked). But I definitely will use the mini-game skill challenge, when it's appropriate.
Another thing this thread did for me was really make me feel happy about 4e. My gaming group just dumped 4e/me as a DM for Pathfinder, and I've felt rather alone in my like of 4e even here on EnWorld. The enthusiasm for the system in this thread and Rel's has made me feel a lot better. It's made me seriously ache to run my next campaign, but that's beside the point. Thanks, PCat!
I've made numerous notes for my own next game, mainly fluff notes (I saw lots of little things I really liked). But I definitely will use the mini-game skill challenge, when it's appropriate.
Another thing this thread did for me was really make me feel happy about 4e. My gaming group just dumped 4e/me as a DM for Pathfinder, and I've felt rather alone in my like of 4e even here on EnWorld. The enthusiasm for the system in this thread and Rel's has made me feel a lot better. It's made me seriously ache to run my next campaign, but that's beside the point. Thanks, PCat!
Barastrondo
First Post
Another thing this thread did for me was really make me feel happy about 4e. My gaming group just dumped 4e/me as a DM for Pathfinder, and I've felt rather alone in my like of 4e even here on EnWorld. The enthusiasm for the system in this thread and Rel's has made me feel a lot better. It's made me seriously ache to run my next campaign, but that's beside the point. Thanks, PCat!
That's unfortunate. (I mean, not the enthusiasm in this thread, but the personal gaming situation.) Best of luck there — hopefully it'll still be a good Pathfinder game, yes?
Last night my brother ran 4e for my wife, a friend and I for the first time (the first time for us, not his first time with the system). It was a bonanza of inflicted conditions and forced movement, and minions that refused to die because we couldn't roll to hit with our area attacks for anything. And at the end of it all, my wife said "You know, I have never been in a bad 4e game." Your enthusiasm for the system is shared!
She likes this thread a lot, too. As do I (evidently). I'm fascinated by all the ways in which 4e can be customized to taste, from reskinning races to designing interesting skill challenges, and man, Piratecat has got a brain for that kind of adaptation-in-play that is fascinating to watch (as well as great players who make interesting contributions). Many thanks to Sagiro for starting this thing; the player perspective followed by DM's commentary track is something inordinately useful and entertaining to read.
Trevalon Moonleirion
Explorer
A hearty thanks to everyone involved in this thread, whether in this incredible game or just contributing their thoughts and experiences of similar 4e situations. I've spent free minutes or hours reading this thread for the past four or five days and have come away dying to try out some of the things I've pulled away. Hopefully I can apply some lessons to a 4e game I'm running at the next Chicago gameday.
Speaking of which, Piratecat, you should stop by for another one sometime soon!
Speaking of which, Piratecat, you should stop by for another one sometime soon!
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