Family Game: Session Recap--New Year's Edition

So, time to dust off the keyboard and get back to posting. I'm hoping to build up some momentum so that I can get somewhat regular again. "Blogging fiber" shall we say?

[Aside: Speaking of fiber, has anyone else seen the new television commercial featuring the animated graphic of the purple poo slipping its way through the intestinal tract? ~shudder~ WAAAAY worse than the "blue liquid poured out onto the 'pad' from the glass representation of the female reproductive system" commercials. I'm not even sure what the commercial was advertising. The phrase 'slippy-slidey purple poo' was much used over the holidays in my house, though. End aside.]

So, for New Year's Eve, the kids all clamored to play a little D&D. Several years ago we started a campaign using the WOTC 3.5 Beginner's Box. At the time, it was a convenient way to present the game to them. For those who may have never seen it, it comes with individual Players' Handbooks for each of the four pre-generated characters, explaining basic abilities, stats, equipment, etc. It also comes with some nice map tiles, a set of polyhedral dice, and some basic minis. The basic adventures included are geared to get the characters to 2nd-level and include an encounter with a young blue dragon. (You can read a bit more about the Basic Set at my previous post HERE.)

Unfortunately, we don't get to play as often as I would like (or as often as the kids would like) but we've had some great sessions over the past few years...the most memorable were sitting in our trailer, late at night, in a hidden meadow in the mountains of Idaho. There were some other relatives there in other camps, and all I could think of was how cozy and familial it was to sit there and play, surrounded by my children. That and what shock and horror my conservative relations would feel if they peered in at the windows, blazing with light.

Anyway, I digress. Two year's ago on New Year's we had started playing through Dyson’s Delve. (Again, reference HERE for details of that game.) In the intervening time, the home-made battle mats/maps had been destroyed and lost, I was tired and didn't feel well, so I wasn't up to picking up where I left off. So--and I ask you all to forgive me for this--I used a trite-and-foolish trope: the "wake up in an inn and realize everything that you remember from the last session was a dream." I honestly felt a little dirty about it. But it gave me a chance to use a new map I got just after Christmas (more on that later), an old map from Dragon Magazine of the "Sleeping Dragon Inn." (I got it for half off during the Great Golem Sale in November (again, more on this later).)

Wow. Digressions are afoot this morning.

Cast of Characters
Lanin: elf wizard (17-year-old daughter)
Carn: human rogue (15-year-old daughter)
Regdar: human fighter (13-year-old son)
Dothal: dwarven cleric (9-year-old son)

Plus, my 6-year-old daughter wanted to play, so I quickly statted up a halfling "bard-type" character. She wanted to play a "Hobbit" and to use magic. I asked her if she wanted to be able to "sing her magic" and she got really excited. Then as I was looking for a good mini for her, I came across a halfling outrider mini: a halfling riding a mastiff and carrying a spear. Bingo. Threw her a little bone by giving her a +1 frost burst spear and had everything ready to go: Zarra the Halfling Bard and her trusty mount "Ted" were born. Yeah, it gave her a little bit more "oomph" than her siblings, but I wanted her to be able to do something "fun" that would grab her attention and hang on to her.

The characters all awoke in the inn and wandered downstairs, where they were met by the inn's owner, Bob. I had wanted to use as my basis for the encounters the Pathfinder module: Hollow's Last Hope, mostly because I had run it before and knew it reasonably well-enough that it would balance out my poor health. The basis of the adventure is a quest to find ingredients to cure a plague infesting the town. Well, Bob and the adventurers were apparently the only ones in the inn that were NOT infected. Bob showed them into a private dining room where they were served breakfast; the kids ran into Bob as they explored the inn. Well, they found him slaughtering the pig in the kitchen, actually. My poor kids weren't quite sure what to do. My oldest boy went and talked to some of the sick townsfolk in the common room while my younger boy proposed to go up and look through some of the other rooms. I had to gently ask him what HE would do if some stranger opened up his bedroom door and started rummaging around. He thought for a moment and then said, "Oh. Right. Umm. Never mind. I'll go talk to Bob too."

WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD!! (And to my Players: this means STAY OUT.)

Once the kids got their bearings, and got some information about the two healers in the town, they set about on their search. They told me their plan, and I warned them about splitting the party. To no avail: half of them went to the herbalist's shop while the others went to visit the local cleric at the temple. The cleric was ineffectual at healing the plague, so my son's questioning offended the cleric. When they met back up at the herbalist's place, my oldest daughter assumed he had screwed up and went to the temple herself; her meddling made the cleric even MORE upset. Meanwhile, the herbalist told them there were three ingredients she needed--strange ones--and that they could help her by finding them. One was to be found near the oldest tree in the forest, one at an old dwarven monastery to the north, and one at a witch's home deep in the forest. My oldest daughter immediately wanted to split the party and send one group to the old tree and the other to the monastery (which is intended to be the climax of the adventure). I asked her if she was sure, and she replied that it was the most efficient use of time. I decided not to pull my punches; I'd already warned them.

The group heading to the monastery ("Group A") traveled deep into the forest before they had a random encounter: a kobold zombie. My littlest one had the highest initiative roll and immediately charged the kobold. She hit first, then the dog savaged the kobold a bit. Then the other two kids in Group A missed their attack rolls and Zarra attacked with her spear again. Well, I'm a bit proud of myself; the image just came to me. This is what I described to them:


Just imagine a cloud of ice crystals coming up from that turkey, and you'll have it exactly: a partially-frozen, completely rotten kobold zombie being burst open. You cannot imagine the gleeful horror expressed! Oohs, aahs, and "Oh, gross"-es. My littlest one started cackling. I felt like a successful dad at that moment. (They had just seen it before Christmas...I knew the scene had made an impression on them and was still fresh in their minds, so I ran with it.)

Group A made it to the monastery grounds just at twilight where they were attacked by two wolves. They dispatched the wolves fairly quickly, again with the help of the halfling and her doggie. She was definitely the star of the night.

Group B, meanwhile, traveled to a logging camp and endured some verbal abuse from the loggers and the foreman before speaking to a woodsman who knew the locations of the tree they were seeking as well as the witch's home. He drew them a map and promised whatever other help he could give; his nephew is suffering from the plague and he was anxious to help the adventurers find a cure. Shortly thereafter, Group B was ambushed by a bugbear. Our rogue got hurt and broke her bowstring (with a natural 1, of course) while the fighter soon dispatched the bugbear with ease.

And that's where we had to leave it, as it was close to midnight. When we pick back up, Group B is in for a nasty, nasty shock when they run in to one of my new favorite critters. Group A will also have a bad surprise when they meet the current residents of the monastery. In both cases, I think they'll learn the wisdom of keeping the party together. I'm just worried that I'll be looking at a TPK.

I'll give you some updates when we manage to play again. Hopefully by this weekend.

[game report] New Year's TPK (almost)

So the dust of the new year has started to settle, and the post-holiday chaos at the firm has also started to die down (somewhat). I can finally dip my pen and pick up the blog again. I hope that you all had an enjoyable holiday season and have had a good start to 2012.

Heading into New Year’s Eve, my wife and I had planned a quiet night at home with the kids, with copious amounts of reasonably healthy snacks and loads of board games. When she approached the kids with this idea, the unanimous response that morning was that they wanted to play Dungeons & Dragons with Dad.

We’ve played occasionally over the past couple years; I started the four of them off with the 3.5 Basic Game, the 2006 edition of the set. It’s not a bad iteration of the rules...a very simplified version of 3.5 with each pre-gen character (there are four) having an entire booklet for their character. Granted, the way the rules are presented led my children to say things such as, “I want to move my speed, then move my speed again.” It also reveals the nerfed version of some of the 3.5 monsters: just three encounters after reaching second level the PCs are led to face (and expected to defeat) a young blue dragon.

No joke. Allow me to repeat myself here: THE iconic creature of D&D is expected to be defeated by a party of four second-level characters.

Sigh.

At any rate, after running through the encounters contained in the Basic Game in September, I had several different ideas about where to take the characters next. The appeal to play on New Year’s Eve made the decision critical, so I turned to something that I knew would allow for some range of open decisions on my kids’ part and something that would allow for some exposition on detail, backstory, and whatnot. I was also concerned that it pose a serious enough challenge to them that it subdues their memories of killing a dragon so easily. What I decided upon was this: Dyson’s Delve.

I had a “battle map”: I’d wanted to run my adult players through this little gem in the next few months and so I’d already taken some time to prepare some blown-up versions of the first three levels. They weren’t perfect and they weren’t hi-res, but they worked with the kids’ miniatures at 10' per square. And they gave the kids something to look at. And I know, all my OSR friends and readers are apoplectic right now. I know that I didn’t have the maps and miniatures back in the day and I did just fine with my imagination. My kids range from sixteen to eight and have varying degrees of concentration so I’ve found the miniatures and maps are necessary for now.

I also have to admit that I turned to what most consider to be an overused trope: the tavern meeting. Not having a lot of time to plan any kind of set up, I jumped to Digital Orc’s Inn Table. The percentile dice came out and rolled twice giving me The Putrid Wand, a less-than-reputable inn on the edge of the Thieves’ Quarter in Burlingbrook, the town at the base of Mt. Chal (my homebrew location for the dungeon in our Basic Game).

WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD!! (And to my Players: this means STAY OUT.)

[From the Mailbag] MINIS!

I received a small pile of miniatures in the mail today. This was after I stopped at the store and picked up a box of Pathfinder minis. So, I'm feeling the plastic love today.

Alright, that didn't sound exactly as I'd intended it to sound.

Anyway, I thought I'd share some general pics--they turned out kinda poorly, given my office photographic equipment--and some thoughts about the Pathfinder minis specifically. (This is my advance apology for the quality of the photos.) I'll deal with my mailbag first, then look at the Pathfinder minis in another post.

The "old" Wizards minis are getting harder and harder to find, at least at reasonable values. In this economy, it's difficult to justify to the wife spending $15.00 (or more) on a small piece of plastic, especially when that piece of plastic is smaller than a stick of gum...and your kids haven't eaten dinner yet. Fortunately, there are still some rare finds out there and I lucked into one of those finds to get me some random minis to fill some holes in my collection.

First, the Aspect of Bahamut. I think I've said before that the group has ventured into a dragon-heavy pseudo-Epic 3.X campaign. (I say "pseudo-Epic" because we've collectively agreed that the Epic Level Handbook was one of the most broken pieces of publishing trash to come out of the 3.X-Wizards era. We're all simply 26th level.) The DM allowed my Cleric to develop a "Summon Aspect of Bahamut" prayer to combat the dragons we'd be facing; once that was done, it was obvious that I needed a suitable miniature for the table. (The DM for this particular group is a stickler: if you want to summon a creature, you better have the miniature...although he kinda let up on that a little once he demanded a player produce a dolphin and a squid miniature the character wanted to summon and the player plopped one of each--in appropriate scale--down on the table in front of him.) I've seen/heard a lot of complaints about the paint job/scheme on this miniature so I was a little hesitant to order it. I must say, though, that the pictures don't do it justice. There is a lot more subtlety to the colors than you would expect. I would have liked to see a little more range with the colors, but all in all I'm quite pleased.

The kicker was hearing my older children say, "Oh no, Dad! Is that for our game?!? Auuugh!!!! My (fill-in-the-blank-player-class) is going to die!"

Heh.

Next out of the box were the rats. Rats are somewhat difficult to find, for some reason. Maybe it's because all DMs use rats as typical low-level sword fodder. I know that's what I'm using these for; the first few levels of Dyson's Delve are filled with giant rats and that's what the family's going to spend Christmas Vacation doing. At any rate, here come the rats; I have to make do with what I can get, and what I got was:

1. Dire Rats (4)
2. Diseased Dire Rat (1)
and
3. Ravenous Dire Rat (1)

I already have six of the "Rat Swarm" counters that I can employ, so I should have my rat-needs covered.

(Again, that phrase sounded better in my head.)

Those needs should be especially well-covered, considering that the next thing out of the box were a blister pack of Reaper's plastic offerings: three giant rats from their Legendary Encounters pre-painted plastics line. Also included was one of the Reaper plastic ghosts. Because, hey, who doesn't need undead...especially with the Pathfinder Carrion Crown adventure path on my shelf? I'm slowly compiling a list of minis for use with that particular set of adventures; it's simultaneously easier and more difficult, seeing the wide range of minis needed, contrasted with the range of Horrorclix models that there are, contrasted yet again with the limited availability of said Horroclix models. [Sigh] (Which reminds me: I need to go searching for Horrorclix (or other) models that will suit a flesh golem and some werewolves. Werewolf minis are scarce and expensive. (Stupid question of the day: Do you think people like werewolves or something?) In fact I need two flesh golems, a pile of werewolves, and some items most likely found in a C'thulhu range. Ugh.)

Speaking of Dyson's Delve, another critter that I need for that dungeon-crawl was solved in today's package, at least partly. Dyson's first level also include several giant ferrets; this is something I didn't have in my collection, mostly because I'd never seen the use for them. Well, to be honest, I'd never actually SEEN a giant ferret miniature; but hey--then I got thinking, once I saw the need for the critter: "Hey, weasel? Ferret? What's the difference?" (Please, don't take that as an invitation for all you weasel- and ferret afficianados out there to point out the distinct differences between the two.) At any rate, I now had a need, I ordered them, and should have sufficient to torture my kids allow my kids to chase around the caverns.

Rumbling around the bottom of the box was a mini that I forgot I'd ordered: a Dragonborn Paladin Death Knight. I hadn't gone in search of one of these when it was originally released, specifically because it was evidence of one of the things I find wrong with Wizards of the Coast and their miniatures philosophy: namely, "let's make a figure that is a combination of classes and races so obscure and arcane that no one will ever want one, because this is of course what every miniature-hunter is looking for!" AND I KNOW YOU KNOW EXACTLY WHAT I MEAN.... When I was looking for bargains, however, I saw this one for under $1 and I thought, well, I need a deathknight, I can use this as a stand-in and just ignore the dragon-skull on his shoulders. So I ordered one. And here he is.

It wasn't until I was cataloging all of these miniatures that I realized that I had apparently "pulled" one of these deathknights previously from a booster purchaed at the FLGS. So I already had one. Now I have two. If that isn't strong enough evidence about how insignificant this class/race combination creature IS, I don't know what would suffice. Yep. I now have two of something of which I never really even wanted ONE.

Well...that's the extent of my mailbag today. The shipping box is now empty, the minis are all catalogued and sorted into their different storage boxes. Coming up soon: my review of the Pathfinder Beginner Box Heroes miniatures.