Ralls
First Post
Hey enworld. I've just started DMing my first campaign, going off the D&D 3.5 manuals. The first session went better than I expected, so I figure I'll share the fun, as well as take some pointers from more experienced GMs if they have anything to say.
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The setting (I read this off to my players before starting):
The old kingdom has lost its magic. The dragons and mythical creatures that once inhabited that land have slowly disappeared. The old kingdom had been explored. Every nook and cranny. Decades past, lore was forgotten or disregarded. Magic, once powerful and dazzling, was dismissed, regarded as widely as cheap parlor tricks. With these disappearances came the discovery of a new continent, promptly called the new kingdom. Reports of strange happenings returned, and the only non-port outpost there, Trevon, struggles to survive. Now, any adventurer worth his weight in gold sets forth into this unexplored frontier. Some for the thrill, some for profit, and some to test their own newfound abilities.
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The PC's consist of a half-orc barbarian, Grazskull. A young, half-elf sorcerer, Yaear. And a somewhat princess-bride themed human ranger called Deangelo Lovetinsky. (You killed my father; prepare to die.) It took some pushing to get my players to name their characters somewhat seriously, as this is the first game for two out of three players.
All PC's started at lvl 1
Also, in order to encourage involvement, I mashed a stunt system from Exalted I've had some experience with. If the players describe what they're doing, they get a +1 on the d20 roll. If they describe what they are doing and use the environment in the description as well they get a +2. If they wow me and the other players, they get +3, and some experience points.
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On with the story:
The adventurers arrive in the New Kingdom and quickly sign-on to escort a caravan. The trip is uneventful until the front carts find themselves stuck in deep pools of mud. The caravan leader tasks them to scout eastward, towards a large rock formation that may provide shelter and a place to camp for the entire caravan for the night. I must confess, I was trying to go back and forth from typed-out descriptions to ad-libbing. I quickly found out that ad-libbing the descriptions as the players prompted for it was the way to go. it was much more streamlined and efficient, as It ended up with less babbling on my part. Despite my flaws, the game quickly picked up. After a few not-necessary jump checks, the party ascended a rocky slope into a shallow cave that smelled of wet moss and sandstone. Grazskull gave Yaear a shove (really an attempted all-out throw, because my players can be tarts at times) before the three started searching the cave.
Lovetinsky noticed a loose boulder in the wall. Yaear found signs of a past battle, sword marks on the wall, and the occasional scorch mark. Grazskull botched, and was content with examining his own, untied shoelaces. Out of curiosity they decide to dislodge the boulder. They quickly enlisted Grazskull's help, and help they received. The bolder was quickly smacked loose by a warhammer and then kicked away from the entryway. A dark six-foot wide tunnel was revealed. Yaear passed a listen check, and heard a disturbed low growl from down the passageway. He quickly let Lovetinsky and Grazskull know. Not completely sure what was down there, Grazskull hurled a couple of palm-sized rocks down the tunnel. With the potential threat of danger, the players seemed more interested, and I had started to get into a comfort zone with my narraration. The growls increased, but nothing but darkness could be seen. Yaear cast light and revealed what was down the tunnel:
A snarling dire badger, angry at the invasion of its territory.
Time wasn't wasted. Grazskull started charging down the tunnel to meet the badger head-on. I was pleased at this in-character, if a little stupid, move.
The badger charged as well, and Yaear fired off a couple of magic missiles while lovetinsky readied his heavy crossbow.
the next few lines went like this:
"I shoot it with my crossbow."
"Roll accuracy."
"Seven."
"Grazskull, roll a reflex save."
The fight was interesting, and the PC playing Yaear, came up with the idea to use his dancing lights to try to blind the badger. I allowed it, since it showed involvement in the scenario. The fight was memorable. Grazskull scored a critical with his mace to the back of the badgers head that cut its hp in half. Lovetinsky botched with his heavy crossbow, injuring his fingers as well as sending a bolt into Grazskull's calf. Yaear provided magic missile support. The badger put up a good fight, bringing Grazskull down to 1hp before a bolt that had caught in his eye exploded into a million bits of shrapenel due to Yaear's magic missile.Grazskull skinned the badger. Lovetinsky patched Grazskull up a bit before moving on deeper down the tunnel.
The adventurers discovered an empty badger den, with, oddly enough, a wooden chest. After throwing a few rocks at it to make sure it wasn't trapped (it wasn't) they opened it to find a well-scripted note, reading:
“ Treasure’s gone. We were happy to liberate it from the clutches of the crimson guard and those slops in Trevon. Anyway, we don’t like an unfair trade, so we left lured this badger in here. It’s a pretty fair trade, don’t you think? A living creature in exchange for petty metal.
Signed,
The Jade Runners"
After an OC joke regarding something about the Japanese, or Chinese, (good natured, of course), the adventures emerged from the badger den to come face to face to a well-built man with hazel eyes and brown hair wielding a long-spear, followed by a gaggle of men also armored in chainmail. He introduced himself as Piros Saxon, captain of the Trevon guard. Saxon asked what their business was. Yaear tried to bluff, saying that they were actually part of the guard and he'd just put them duty here. The bluff failed and the PCs were arrested, thanks to a natural 20 Saxon Rolled in an opposed strength check against Grazskull to keep him from escaping. (I did a bit of railroading after that, and I feel a little ashamed).
Anyway, the guard meets up with the convoy the three PC's where originally guarding, and The convoy leader arranges the freedom of his men. Then angrily repremands Grazskull, Yaear, and Lovetinsky, letting them know he cut their pay for their antics. Yaear hands Grazskull his mace as a gesture of frendship. A few days later, goblins ambush the convoy, but thankfully to Yaear's keen eye, he gives warning to the other guards just before the goblins attack. Lovetinsky quickly jumps into the fray with his trident, impaling a goblin spot-on. The goblins strike and miss. Yaear throws a few magic missiles, and Grazskull, at the front of a wagon, didn't notice the fight until later, and chucks a heavy mace at one of the goblins before jumping off the wagon and body-slamming a goblin.
With one goblin left, Lovetinsky stabs down with his trident, into his own foot, bringing him down to 1 hp. Thankfully, his armor protects him from the last goblin's additional attacks and Grazskull finishes off the job. Then, the adventurers notice the guards behind them are being overrun by goblins. Grazskull rushes to help, and Yaear concerns himself with finding the mace-his mace- Grazskull threw into the brush. Lovetinsky limps back into cart he was originally guarding. The NPC guards take out one of four goblins before Grazskull arrives. Grazskull makes quick work of two of them, using the goblin corpses as flails. Yaear, finally having found his mace, rushes into the fray, only to miss and get knocked out by a sure strike from a goblin.
The adventures eventually win, and the caravan leader decides to give these three particularly valiant, if delinquent mercenaries full pay.
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Summary:
In the first session, all three characters go knocked down to 1hp, and one fell unconscious.
I didn't mean for it to be this hard, but by no means am I trying to punish my players. I thought the end result turned out well, did you?
-------------------------------------------------------------------
The setting (I read this off to my players before starting):
The old kingdom has lost its magic. The dragons and mythical creatures that once inhabited that land have slowly disappeared. The old kingdom had been explored. Every nook and cranny. Decades past, lore was forgotten or disregarded. Magic, once powerful and dazzling, was dismissed, regarded as widely as cheap parlor tricks. With these disappearances came the discovery of a new continent, promptly called the new kingdom. Reports of strange happenings returned, and the only non-port outpost there, Trevon, struggles to survive. Now, any adventurer worth his weight in gold sets forth into this unexplored frontier. Some for the thrill, some for profit, and some to test their own newfound abilities.
-----------------------------------------
The PC's consist of a half-orc barbarian, Grazskull. A young, half-elf sorcerer, Yaear. And a somewhat princess-bride themed human ranger called Deangelo Lovetinsky. (You killed my father; prepare to die.) It took some pushing to get my players to name their characters somewhat seriously, as this is the first game for two out of three players.
All PC's started at lvl 1
Also, in order to encourage involvement, I mashed a stunt system from Exalted I've had some experience with. If the players describe what they're doing, they get a +1 on the d20 roll. If they describe what they are doing and use the environment in the description as well they get a +2. If they wow me and the other players, they get +3, and some experience points.
---------------------------------------------------------------
On with the story:
The adventurers arrive in the New Kingdom and quickly sign-on to escort a caravan. The trip is uneventful until the front carts find themselves stuck in deep pools of mud. The caravan leader tasks them to scout eastward, towards a large rock formation that may provide shelter and a place to camp for the entire caravan for the night. I must confess, I was trying to go back and forth from typed-out descriptions to ad-libbing. I quickly found out that ad-libbing the descriptions as the players prompted for it was the way to go. it was much more streamlined and efficient, as It ended up with less babbling on my part. Despite my flaws, the game quickly picked up. After a few not-necessary jump checks, the party ascended a rocky slope into a shallow cave that smelled of wet moss and sandstone. Grazskull gave Yaear a shove (really an attempted all-out throw, because my players can be tarts at times) before the three started searching the cave.
Lovetinsky noticed a loose boulder in the wall. Yaear found signs of a past battle, sword marks on the wall, and the occasional scorch mark. Grazskull botched, and was content with examining his own, untied shoelaces. Out of curiosity they decide to dislodge the boulder. They quickly enlisted Grazskull's help, and help they received. The bolder was quickly smacked loose by a warhammer and then kicked away from the entryway. A dark six-foot wide tunnel was revealed. Yaear passed a listen check, and heard a disturbed low growl from down the passageway. He quickly let Lovetinsky and Grazskull know. Not completely sure what was down there, Grazskull hurled a couple of palm-sized rocks down the tunnel. With the potential threat of danger, the players seemed more interested, and I had started to get into a comfort zone with my narraration. The growls increased, but nothing but darkness could be seen. Yaear cast light and revealed what was down the tunnel:
A snarling dire badger, angry at the invasion of its territory.
Time wasn't wasted. Grazskull started charging down the tunnel to meet the badger head-on. I was pleased at this in-character, if a little stupid, move.
The badger charged as well, and Yaear fired off a couple of magic missiles while lovetinsky readied his heavy crossbow.
the next few lines went like this:
"I shoot it with my crossbow."
"Roll accuracy."
"Seven."
"Grazskull, roll a reflex save."
The fight was interesting, and the PC playing Yaear, came up with the idea to use his dancing lights to try to blind the badger. I allowed it, since it showed involvement in the scenario. The fight was memorable. Grazskull scored a critical with his mace to the back of the badgers head that cut its hp in half. Lovetinsky botched with his heavy crossbow, injuring his fingers as well as sending a bolt into Grazskull's calf. Yaear provided magic missile support. The badger put up a good fight, bringing Grazskull down to 1hp before a bolt that had caught in his eye exploded into a million bits of shrapenel due to Yaear's magic missile.Grazskull skinned the badger. Lovetinsky patched Grazskull up a bit before moving on deeper down the tunnel.
The adventurers discovered an empty badger den, with, oddly enough, a wooden chest. After throwing a few rocks at it to make sure it wasn't trapped (it wasn't) they opened it to find a well-scripted note, reading:
“ Treasure’s gone. We were happy to liberate it from the clutches of the crimson guard and those slops in Trevon. Anyway, we don’t like an unfair trade, so we left lured this badger in here. It’s a pretty fair trade, don’t you think? A living creature in exchange for petty metal.
Signed,
The Jade Runners"
After an OC joke regarding something about the Japanese, or Chinese, (good natured, of course), the adventures emerged from the badger den to come face to face to a well-built man with hazel eyes and brown hair wielding a long-spear, followed by a gaggle of men also armored in chainmail. He introduced himself as Piros Saxon, captain of the Trevon guard. Saxon asked what their business was. Yaear tried to bluff, saying that they were actually part of the guard and he'd just put them duty here. The bluff failed and the PCs were arrested, thanks to a natural 20 Saxon Rolled in an opposed strength check against Grazskull to keep him from escaping. (I did a bit of railroading after that, and I feel a little ashamed).
Anyway, the guard meets up with the convoy the three PC's where originally guarding, and The convoy leader arranges the freedom of his men. Then angrily repremands Grazskull, Yaear, and Lovetinsky, letting them know he cut their pay for their antics. Yaear hands Grazskull his mace as a gesture of frendship. A few days later, goblins ambush the convoy, but thankfully to Yaear's keen eye, he gives warning to the other guards just before the goblins attack. Lovetinsky quickly jumps into the fray with his trident, impaling a goblin spot-on. The goblins strike and miss. Yaear throws a few magic missiles, and Grazskull, at the front of a wagon, didn't notice the fight until later, and chucks a heavy mace at one of the goblins before jumping off the wagon and body-slamming a goblin.
With one goblin left, Lovetinsky stabs down with his trident, into his own foot, bringing him down to 1 hp. Thankfully, his armor protects him from the last goblin's additional attacks and Grazskull finishes off the job. Then, the adventurers notice the guards behind them are being overrun by goblins. Grazskull rushes to help, and Yaear concerns himself with finding the mace-his mace- Grazskull threw into the brush. Lovetinsky limps back into cart he was originally guarding. The NPC guards take out one of four goblins before Grazskull arrives. Grazskull makes quick work of two of them, using the goblin corpses as flails. Yaear, finally having found his mace, rushes into the fray, only to miss and get knocked out by a sure strike from a goblin.
The adventures eventually win, and the caravan leader decides to give these three particularly valiant, if delinquent mercenaries full pay.
-------------------------------------------------------------
Summary:
In the first session, all three characters go knocked down to 1hp, and one fell unconscious.
I didn't mean for it to be this hard, but by no means am I trying to punish my players. I thought the end result turned out well, did you?
