Over the weekend, I started a 4E campaign for my son Nolan and his friends. The plan is to take them through the entire Keep on the Shadowfell module, and then probably into Thunderspire Labyrinth, with possible detours into various level-appropriate Delves, or something from Monte Cook's awesome new project, Dungeon-a-Day, if it makes sense to incorporate it into the campaign. This is continued from Part I.
If you've read the Delve I'm talking about, you can probably see the
first change I made: rather than make this a mine, I made it a tower,
primarily because I had dungeon tiles that supported that (as you can
see in the photo), but also because I wanted to challenge myself to
make small modifications right away – we're only going to have 3 PCs
for most of this, I think, and I'll be required to make a lot of
adjustments as the campaign unfolds.
The Delve I took them
through has three encounters that are supposed to get increasingly
difficult. The first one takes place on the surface, and the last two
are in different areas beneath the tower (or the mine, if you run it
verbatim from the book.) I scaled the difficulty back a little bit,
because it was just the three of them. I was genuinely worried that the
last encounter may kill them, but I was surprised when the second encounter nearly killed them all.
It's not a particularly difficult encounter. The PCs come down some stairs, where they find some rubble (difficult terrain) in a small chamber. Beyond the chamber, there's a hallway with a large statue in the middle of it. Tapestries line the wall, and a few Kobolds lurk in the darkness. In our session, one of the minions from the first encounter had fled down the stairs, so the bad guys knew the PCs were coming.
Nolan's friend who played the rogue wanted to sneak down to the bottom of the stairs and see if he could pick anything up about the room. I had him make stealth and perceptions checks while I rolled perception checks for the Kobolds. He rolled very well, and they did not, so I told him, "You creep down the stairs as silently as you can. When you get to the bottom, you see that there's some dried blood on the rubble. You also see a hallway, with a statue of a dwarf in it," I grabbed some dungeon tiles from behind my screen and set them out. I didn't have a statue tile, so I used a little Chessex dice box for it. "You can hear some creatures in the hallway. What was your perception roll, again?"
"28," he said.
"Wow, nice." I said. "You can see that the statue looks unstable, and it's been seriously defaced. There are two Kobolds lurking behind it."
"I'm going to sneak back up the stairs and tell them all this," he said.
"Okay, go ahead."
I was pleased that they were making an effort to be quiet. In the first encounter, they'd all sort of run around the ground outside the tower, making no effort to be stealthy at all, even after they'd spotted little Kobold clawprints in the muck around the place. This gave the Kobolds a surprise round as soon as one of the PCs moved into their line of sight, and that PC (the wizard) ended up immobilized for several rounds by a gluepot.
They decided that the wizard would attack the statue with a magic missile, because it does force damage.
I thought this was a very clever idea, but I was completely unprepared for it, and didn't even think to suggest he use Mage Hand instead until just now, as I was writing this post. (Looking at the pre-gen character he's using, though, I see that it doesn't list Mage Hand, even though it's in the PHB as a wizard class feature, which is kind of lame. I'll have to correct that before our next session.) Anyway, I knew that the statue would topple with a DC 10 strength check, but I didn't see anywhere in the rules that said magic missile actually pushed anything. I wanted to reward clever thinking, though, and I always want my players to feel like anything is possible, so I decided that any roll better than 10 would score a hit, and if he rolled a critical or max damage, it would topple the statue. Imperfect, but it was the best I could come up with in the 5 seconds I had to make the decision. (Looking through the DMG last night, I see that what I came up with on the fly is close to what I'd have found in the book: statues are hit on a 5 or better, and this one would have had 10HP, so … go me.)
The wizard hit, but only rolled 5 points of damage.
"Magical energy crackles out of your hands and streaks across the chamber, trailing little sparkles behind it."
They all looked at me.
"What?" I said, knowing exactly why.
"It hits the statue square in the beard, but only leaves a scorched mark."
"I don't like that this eladrin is damaging a stature of a dwarf," Nolan said.
"I'm just trying to crush the monsters," his friend said.
I noted this on the obligatory DM's scratch pad. "From inside the hallway, you hear grunting and snarling. Roll initiative," I said. Dice clattered across the table, and I arranged their character's initiative cards accordingly.
In the first
encounter, they didn't work together as a team, mostly because they were getting used to the idea of playing this game together. I tried to nudge them,
but I didn't want to interfere too much – hey, if they're going to get
themselves killed, they're going to get themselves killed – and it was
just the encounter itself being pretty easy that saved them from any
real threat of TPK. They didn't start working together as a team in this encounter, either. That,
combined with the monsters rolling well and the PCs rolling poorly,
nearly killed them. But when they started getting clobbered, I saw a shift in the party dynamic: Nolan, who has a great deal of RPG
(tabletop and computer) experience, started suggesting tactics for them
all, and that's the only reason they survived.
The statue ended up falling down when the Kobolds behind it pushed it over toward the rogue and the fighter, but it missed them. One of the creatures, though, a Kobold Wyrmpriest, really put the hurt on them. The rogue was eventually knocked unconscious, and though he made his death save on the next turn, I could tell that it shook them all up.
"That's good," I thought, "they need to feel like something real is at stake here, and they're not just going to respawn if they die."
When the encounter was over, I reminded them that they could climb back up the stairs if they wanted to, and take an extended rest in the camp, where they thought they'd be safe. Instead, they decided to rest for 6 hours in the dungeon. I thought that there was a chance they'd be interrupted by some kind of wandering monster (like a small level 1 encounter of Kobolds or something) so I made six rolls – one for each hour – but I guess the Kobolds were all out watching the Kobold World Series or something, because nobody showed up to harrass them.
"Okay, you're all rested up, and nobody harrassed you. What would you like to do?"
"I want to do something about the statue," Nolan said. "I don't like that it's just all crumbled down there like that."
"Sure," I said. "You spend some time gathering up the pieces as best as you can, and you say a prayer to Moradin. You feel a little better."
I didn't tell him, but I gave him 25XP for good roleplaying, and they all walked down the hallway to the closed doors that separated them from the final encounter.
The kids are playing
a Halfling Rogue, an Eladrin Wizard, and a Dwarf Fighter. The kid who
is playing the Rogue is really into being a thief, and from the moment
he sat down, he wanted to pick locks and detect traps. In the description of the area, the
doors that separate the second and third encounters aren't anything
special, but I wanted to give him something fun to
do, so when he asked me if he could check for traps, I let him. There
weren't any, but I decided to lock the doors so he could try to pick
them. He made a bunch of really good stealth, perception, and thievery
rolls all in succession, so I decided that everything went perfectly
for him. He wanted to peek through the door, so I let him do that, too.
All four Kobolds on the other side of the door rolled single-digit
perception checks, and he rolled over 20 on his stealth, so I decided
that meant they didn't see him peeking through a small crack between
the doors.
Nolan looked at the situation and said, "Okay, here's
what we do: I'm going to kick in this door. Koka [the halfling] is
going to charge into the room and sneak attack that guy there. Immeral [the wizard],
you hang back and cast magic missile on him."
I was so proud of
their teamwork and ingenuity, I decided that if the dwarf was able to
kick in the door (DC 15 – it's wooden and very old) they would get a
surprise round. Nolan rolled 19, and the final encounter began with a
bang.
They made quick work of some minions and bloodied one of
the two Kobold Slyblades (who I'd expected would be very serious
threats) in the first two rounds. That's when they saw the dragon.
Continued in Part 3…
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You couldn’t be any cooler if you tried.
You don’t so that’s even better.
Heh…cue ominous music…..
The first time my group entered a dungeon I hit play on my stereo remote I had hidden behind my screen. Music from the Diablo 2 soundtrack softly entered the room. Most everyone there had been rabid Diablo 2 fans and their eyes lit up in recognition.
I think it really helped them settle into a zone and really get back into the RPG mindset. I always like to have something ready on the playlist for big boss encounters like the dragons. Not so loud as to disrupt the gameplay, just enough to enhance the mood.
Wil said: “The rogue was eventually knocked unconscious, and though he made his death save on the next turn, I could tell that it shook them all up.”
Woah! You make this sound easy? My first player that went unconsious rolled a natural 20, which “healed” him and that was a HUGE moment of excitement.
However, you make it sound like he only had to roll one success to avoid death. Or were you simplifing for the sake of brevity?
The way I understand it, they get three attempts, and one successful save stops death and stabilizes the dying character. He was out for the rest of the encounter (only a couple more rounds, as it turned out) and I let them take the rest after that, so he could heal himself.
Experienced 4E DMs: Did I screw up?
When I read this post my eyes got bigger with every sentence and my smile just a bit wider with every paragraph. Amazing writing, amazing DMing and well, amazing dadding 😀 (I just made that term up :P).
Isn’t it that you have to make another save until someone heals you and if you roll a natural 20 you heal yourself or something like that? And you die if you fail 3 times all together while unconscious.
Err, nope, re-read it. (4E PHB pg 295)
Lower than 10: You slip one step closer to death. If you get this result three times before you take a rest, you die.
10–19: No change.
20 or higher: Spend a healing surge.
Reading this and listening to the D&D Podcasts has gotten me really pumped for my groups next campaign. Thanks! And I love how this new edition supports tactics and cooperative story-telling(combat).
Oh. Whoops.
TPK?
Hah, no worries. Be sure to let your players know. And you’ll find that these rules are a lot of fun. It really puts some pressure on the situation. A PC falls down and their allies are like, “He’s okay, he hasn’t failed a save yet!”
Two rounds later and two failed saves and suddenly getting to their ally to help/heal becomes the #1 priority even if the bad guy is breathing down their neck! Heh… good times.
Wow…I have been so into this not only because it reminds me of my old D&D days (not many people out here play anymore 🙁 ), but it is interesting to see the group join as one. I can’t wait for part 3. Really great job so far 😀
reading about Wil having so much fun playing D&D makes me wanna get my old group together again, and play with my own sons, it sounds like major fun. back to RavenLofT we go… 2nd Ed ALL THE WAY!!!
Very nice write-up Wil. In your story about the rogue, I am reminded of one of the adages of The Burning Wheel RPG system, which is “Say yes or roll the dice”. If the players want to do something the DM should either have an obstacle or just let them do it, the goal of the DM is not to frustrate but facilitate, this adage has helped me in my current 4E campaign and has helped the players get themselves into a lot of trouble!
Wow. This sounds like it was ALOT of fun. Kind of gets me in the mood to run some D&D. But having hung up the screen while I go back to school is murder on the GM Urges.
TPK = Total Party Kill… as in, the DM slaugthers each and every player.
Awww. This is reminding me of many hours of D&D fun I had as a teen.
Though I play in a few 4E campaigns (run by talented and imaginative DMs), I’d still give up my shiniest d20 for a chance play a session run by Wil.
I can’t wait to get to run through Keep on the Shadowfell next weekend; it’s being run as part of the game events at Ad Astra (a Toronto convention at which I have the honour of managing games events). I know I’m going to have a lot of fun, despite my dislike for 4E. It’s been really great listening to you on the D&D podcast, Wil, and these posts about the campaign you’re running for Nolan and his friends is helping defuse my hate for the 4E rule changes. After all, it’s all about the fun, not the ruleset!
BTW, wouldn’t mind if you came up here to Toronto one of these years for Ad Astra. I know I sound like a total fanboy when I say this, but I think it’d be really cool…
You too, eh? Did you play OD&D primarily, or AD&D?
“That’s when they saw the dragon.”
…and that’s when they had to put on their brown trousers…:-)
Damn, this is good stuff.
AD&D. And it was… um… 25 years ago? So mostly I don’t remember much of the play, just the stories that came out of it.
We had a wonderful DM, a woman my mom’s age with an acerbic sense of humor who got everyone sarcastically/affectionately calling my cleric character “Holiness.”
With the excellence of the D&D/Penny Arcade podcasts and these entries, this is the most D&D that I haven’t been playing in the last [many] years.
I checked out for the longest time, but the siren song of 4E has caught me. Now I have to find a group in my immediate vicinity (and hope my wife doesn’t find out).
Please, please, keep up the posts, and for everybody reading: get inspired and start blogging your own games. Enable my D&D voyeurism.
Wil, something that really helps get them involved (and will build up their on-the-fly creativity and help their roleplaying) is to allow them to describe what happens when they succeed. You carry out the descriptive role for failures, but let them describe how they succeed on tests, in combat, etc. This is a Burning Wheel thing but it really should apply to all RPGs. I think you’ll find they become a lot more proactive all ’round, which is a good thing.
You could’ve handled the magic missile on the statue in a different way (not that there’s anything wrong with the way you did it).
Page 42 of the DMG has a table with DCs and damage ranges for actions not covered by the rules.
I’ve found that having this table handy has helped a lot when I’m DMing and the PCs decide to do strange things like swing from the chandeliers or topple tables that the bad guys are standing on.
Just keep in mind that the actual numbers for the DCs on that table has an errata from the WotC site (at 1st level, it’s 5/10/15 for easy/moderate/hard).
“Lower than 10: You slip one step closer to death. If you get this result three times before you take a rest, you die.”
Another good thing to note is that even if a character is healed and rejoins the fight, if he or she has already failed two saving throws and then falls later in the fight, a third results in death.
On the rule of getting 20 or higher on a death save… Some of my best 4E moments have come out of that rule. Recently in Chris Perkins’s game, my invoker was dominated by a purple dragon, which commanded me to go running off a cliff edge, falling 100 feet (10d10). I was knocked within a few hit points of automatic death (negative bloodied value), and I was separated from the party so no one could heal me. Fortunately a natural 20 saved my butt.
Of course, the rule can work against you as well. Once I rolled a 20, rejoined the battle, only to be felled later and fail my one remaining death save 🙂 Sometimes it’s safer to just stay unconscious on the floor… (Bluff check to play dead, anyone?)
I’m curious about this:
“I want to do something about the statue,” Nolan said. “I don’t like that it’s just all crumbled down there like that.”
“Sure,” I said. “You spend some time gathering up the pieces as best as you can, and you say a prayer to Moradin. You feel a little better.”
Why did you tell him what he did? Was this just something that you wrote about that way, or did you actually DM-act for him? Please, this isn’t a criticism of your DM-fu, I’m just curious about that.
I’m curious because I think it would have been neat to ask Nolan what he would have wanted to do to make it better – possibly providing a “hook” possibility. If he’d made a big deal of praying to Moradin, maybe he gets a vision or something?
Sometimes players really give us things to work with – my wife is doing that all the time in our solo game.
I’m really glad you’re doing this with family. I’ve gotten my wife into an ongoing (4 months now) solo OD&D game, my step son and my daughter are also playing in the same campaign world, but different party (different feel but same world) and my step daughter jumps in on occasion. These are good times for us.
That’s one of my favorite tactic – “You just killed that creature, tell me how you did it?” I’ve discovered my wife likes killing rats and goblins in really gruesome ways. 🙂
Hah! Good point. Yeah, I really like the new death rules. It’s almost like a mini-personal skill challenge that takes place in the middle of the combat action! Another experience we had was our two defenders dropped and the two strikers and one controller were left to try to defeat the 2 remaining warriors.
The defenders were stuck bleeding out on the floor in the room down the hall as the warriors pressed the remaining PCs back. At first, this wasn’t bad, until the two dying PCs had failed twice each! Now, either could die at any second…
The end result was the warriors fell, and the PCs stayed in initiative order moving and rolling saves to see if they die before they could be healed.
Alas, that was the end of poor Salazar the bold human fighter. That is, until he came back to haunt the party as a zombie. *muahhahahahah*
He’s still figuring out what it means to roleplay, so I helped him along a little bit. I cleaned up the whole exchange for this post.
I’m going to spill an idea for a website/book/audiobook in hopes that someone with more time can execute on it. There HAS to be a market for D&D game session transcripts (published in a book of short stories or recorded like the PA-WotC sessions).
I can’t believe that I enjoy reading about how some people, who I’ve never met, are playing D&D. Not even simply enjoy, but I consider these appointment entries to read / listen to.
The keys are to provide both the real-life and the in-game depictions of what is occurring. I think the combination of the two make a compelling story together. I keep telling my friend who is in a regular game to record the sessions and post them in a blog or something and I promise people will listen. He’s just not as enterprising, I suppose.
Anyway, bottom line is I can’t get enough articles on people’s D&D games. Maybe it’s just a fad or because I don’t personally play anymore (time / distance from friends), but I think I’m on to something…keep these entries coming Wil!
Wil, regarding your earlier comment about the miniatures (I think it was during part 1). A few months ago, Wizards announced that they were doing away with the Collectible Miniature Game, which I was both happy and sad to see go. While I *like* being able to open random packs, and get random fun from it, I too would rather be able to get 3 Hobgoblin Archers, for example…
So, it was with glee that I learned they were going to make the Players Handbook Heroes line, which gives Martial, Arcane, Divine heroes, and whatnot.
Then I found out what they were going to do with the monsters. Not sure if you’ve heard, but in May, Dangerous Delves will release in a “semi-random” fashion. One visible monster, and 4 random monsters. For the same price as the current 8-count “boosters”
*sigh*
Nice on the fly ruling with the magic missle and the statue. I always love it when my group does some out of the box thinking and try and reward it even if the rules don’t quite work with it. A few years ago my group was going through the Banewarrans by Monte Cook (a very excellent 3rd edition mega module). They ended up doing so many crazy/creative things that I started composing fake “Dear Monte Cook” letters at the gaming table regarding their antics. To this day whenever the party does anything a little crazy, we all collectively say “Dear Monte Cook.”
How many hours did you play to get through this dungeon?
He’s still figuring out what it means to roleplay, so I helped him along a little bit. I cleaned up the whole exchange for this post.
Very cool! I do the same thing with my kids – helping them learn by asking questions, but not telling them what to do because they sometimes come up with the coolest things.
What will be neat is to see what Nolan’s character does with dwarf artifacts in the future. That kind of growth is why I keep going back behind the screen to DM.
Wil, you’re keeping me on the edge of my seat. This is really a fun write-up, and I am really looking forward to hearing the rest. On another note, the whole “healing surge” thing with 4E is one aspect that I disagree with. Its probably partly due to my not completely understanding it (feel free to explain it anyone), but on the surface it just grinds against my old school DnD nature.
I wonder if my players would be willing to stream a live game session. I’ll ask them and if so, I’d be willing to stream a game live. It might be interesting.
It was just under five hours, mostly because I had to keep looking things up while I learned how to ride the DM bike again.
The next time we play, though, I think I’ll be a lot closer to 1 hour per encounter.
You should really give the game a shot. I was unsure about it too, but in 4E, it lessens the need for a “cleric” to heal you. You can rally yourself and come back.
I think the problem that people have is that when you take damage you aren’t always having an arm severed. Sometimes you just take a nice knocking blow to the head… which could render you unconscious and lead to death. However, its much easier to explain how you could “catch a second wind” or be “inspired by the warlord” and recover from this sort of injury.
In the end, I think 4E is better because of surges as they allow the players to get beat around a little more. In 4E everything just hits more often and for more damage. Besides, you can have all the surges in the world, but you still need a way to access them (potions, powers, etc).
Also, your players will become more familiar with their characters. This speeds the combat up a lot. 1 hour per encounter is a pretty good expectation after everyone is comfortable.
wil, i love these transcripts and just as much love the feedback. the last time i played was with the red box set, and i never was very good at dm’ing. i want to get my son into this to help spark his imagination and reading the comments is really helping me figure out how to dm with him so the game stays interesting. while i ride with training wheels, we’re playing with hero clicks, which is yet another great idea from your posts – thanks 😀
Man, I miss playing D&D and this only makes it worse! Wish I could join the game…need some female blood in there to kick some, um, doors down.
Dear Mr. Wil,
Totally off topic, but regarding the “SyFy” bleaurgh, not only did Mr. Brooks insult all geeks everywhere, he insulted female geeks by failing to recognize we exist and spend money.
I found his webpage, and his email address (Google is your friend) and explained to him in erudite terms that he’s a jerkface.
I’m insulted by the sentiment, but I’m not entirely sure he if was saying “this is what I believe” or “this is what mass culture believes” so I’m giving Mr. Brooks the benefit of the doubt for the time being.
Either way, the suggestion that SciFi struggled not because of their programming, but because geeks are antisocial and girls are stupid, is not just profoundly insulting, it’s also fundamentally wrong.
I have been reading for years, but this has finally gotten me to log in and leave a comment. Reading your D&D shenanigans and your point of view as a DM puts a smile on my face. I second the suggestion from the other day that you should write a module!
Also, the rules quibbling in the comments made me wish I had popcorn.
I hope I haven’t sounded like I was “quibbling”. I had to teach a bunch of 3E veterans how to pay 4E. So I had to learn similar to Wil. Trial by fire. Our group kept a “Q&A” post that I would update after each session with questions about things we might have done wrong, etc. Then I’d head over to the WotC forums and get answers: http://tinyurl.com/dzoy2g (link to our Q&A thread)
The players really liked this and when we got together for the next session, everyone was on the same page again.
Sorry, I certainly didn’t mean ‘quibbling’ in an insulting or dismissive way. It was amusing, if anything. (Plus, your way of handling potential disputes sounds ideal.)
Wil,
If you haven’t used it already, you should login to the wizards site and try their encounter builder. It’s very nice for putting together encounters for odd (3) numbers of players. Gives you ability to tailor the encounters for their level and how much challenge. It’s stuff you could do by hand, but I found it gives me interesting new ideas as well.
Well the key to playing D&D is having fun. The time for discussing rules and such is before or after the game. During the game, our players understand that the DM will have to make judgement calls. Most of the time these are fair or benefit the player because we want the players to succeed.
However, after the game, the players and I have detailed discussions about what worked. And more importantly, what didn’t… then we try to improve on this.
This has been VERY successful for our group. We consider a game to be a success if we all had fun, and we didn’t have slow the game down to look up rules. (Looking up on other peoples turns is accepted and suggested.)
true story, newbie player:
Famous last words: aaawww but its such a cute baby drago…..
Something that was mentioned in a comment by a reader on one of his Penny Arcade D&D posts pointed me to an awesome website:
http://www.rpgmp3.com/
They haven’t got transcriptions there but they do have a regularly updated Podcast of games, including one of AEG’s World’s Largest Dungeon.
It’s reasonably funny and well worth a listen to.
They also cover other tabletop RPGs with their newest podcasts covering a game of Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay. The character creation podcast had me trying hard not to laugh out loud whilst waiting at a bus stop, especially with the incredulity that came with a halfling discovering he had super strength.
“Oh yes, super strength! I have the strength to lift up…” (DM interjects that super strength for him is comparable to an average human) “… a table. Or a chair.”