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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(contact)" data-source="post: 539763" data-attributes="member: 41">I am amazed that the whole campaign consists of only two people! How does this work logistically? Does the person who's DMing always control all the PCs except the one being controlled by the other player?First of all, I know this guy better than anyone else living and breathing on planet earth-- we grew up together from infancy, and are brothers in all but blood.  So we understand what it takes to work with each other in a creative way-- we game together, and we have a business together, etc.  We've done the 'trade off DMing chores' deal for the 16 years we've been gaming, so the kinks are worked out at this point.  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />Generally, the person DMing runs 1 or 2 PCs as NPCs, and the player runs the other 2 or 3.  Recently, we've cut the party down to 3 players to ease some of this burden as the characters become high level (and highly complex).  We've played these PCs long enough that there's no real strong sense of individual PC ownership in terms of role-playing.  Indy is my character, but my DM knows what Indy would do in any situation, and has free rein to run him as he sees fit.  I create and level Indy and Taran, but they are not always my "voice", if that makes sense.In recent episodes, I have had to play Kyreel and Thel more often than usual because they would just "get" more of the intrigue.  If I (as a player) figure out that villain A is setting us up to kill villain B to advance Evil Plot X, then in-game that's Thelbar doing the talking.  But if I figure out an amusing and cocky way to say, "I'm going to kill you next, punk" that's Taran talking.Of course, the D&D "solve the game" type of strategies are left to the person playing. anything from FR, Greyhawk, and random D&D adventures . . . but at the same time, the story is kept cohesive because it focuses on the PCs.And it helps when the larger plotline actually spans the game-world.  This story could have been run *anywhere*, as is, which means we get to run it anywhere we decide.  In this case, we chose FR and Greyhawk.  No doubt the home-brew campaign world of Isk (Ishlok's original home before she came out of her deific closet) will get explored before this is all over as well.You also seem to have a real flair for exciting combats. To what do you attribute that? Hm.  I don't know if they'd seem as exciting if you were at the table with us, but we do try to really challenge each other with unusual set-ups and monster tactics.    Having 2 people instead of 5-6 helps things move quickly from start to finish.  Also, having Taran in your group keeps the fights from dragging out too long.  He's a broccoli chopper for sure.I also just cut the boring fights from the logs altogether.  When you see a sentance like, "The party encounters several trolls and a particularly foul imp along the way, and butchers the creatures before reaching the throne room" you know that those fights were boring.You'll notice that most of the fights in modules get this treatment.  I don't know if I'm just missing the point or what, but what is the deal with the 10-12 dull ass encounters in every WotC module?  Usually, my DMs sense of versimilitude won't let him have monsters next door to one another not help each other out, so we wind up fighting the lot of the baddies in one go anyway.when you write in the story something like "Taran stabs his sword deep into the bugbear's neck" - is that what Taran's player actually said?Yes.   I'm much more explicit with my gore and combat details than my co-player, but over the years I've gotten him used to my cinematic embellishments, and he's taught me not to break the crunchy rules while I do it. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />  I do try to keep the gore to a "PG-13" boundary in the logs.Ditto for the sex scenes-- we gloss over the happenings and use euphamisms wherever possible.  KnowwhatImean?</blockquote>

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