Key Our Cars

I wanted to make a comparison about MMOG’s and Pen and Paper gaming and the conclusions that I draw from that.

Back in the day, I played Ultima Online.  If you’re not familiar with it, it was one of the first MMOG’s in the U.S. and is still around today.  UO was very much a sandbox, there were no classes, no levels, no game directed direction to your play.  And in the first year or two of the game there wasn’t a whole lot of content.  Back then content was pretty easy to categorize.  It was random spawn that you go and kill.  No quests, no story lines, no ‘phat lewt’.   But back then programmers and servers alike weren’t all that good and the amount of spawn that was available was way under what was needed to keep players entertained because the apps and hardware couldn’t support it.   We even coined a phrase “Connecticut Online” because the countryside was completely empty of things that might prove dangerous to you.

The combats were pretty simple too, you either hit something with a hard object, shot something with a ranged weapon or hit them with the same spell over and over again *Corp por corp por corp por*.

As a result of being a combat light game, light in that there weren’t a lot of options to choose from and pretty static and infrequent things to use those few options on, players become role players.  Sitting around taverns and talking, hanging out in their crafting shops selling things to their customers, and having pretend wars with groups of ‘orcs’ or ‘elves’ and generally playing a persona rather than playing the game.

Then came EQ which had levels and lots of things to kill.  And introduced to the masses the concepts of tanking, crowd control, healing, buffers and debuffers, getting behind someone for the back stab.  Combat went from going into combat mode and trying to stay next to your target so you could ‘swing’ the sword when your timer ran out in UO to having a toolbar filled with icons of various things you could do and combinations and interactions with other players in EQ.

And roleplaying disappeared completely.  Combat was interesting and going after that next carrot on the treadmill became the most important thing.   Killing 10 of this for a NPC who had one line when you clicked it “Bring me 10 of this” was the extent of game play.  And it was good, or at least enough for 99% of the gamers.

Which brings me to an observation and the basis for this post.  Many people decry 4th Edition as the death of roleplaying because the books don’t have any rules for it, that the books are all about combat.  And in that I think they’re right but for the wrong reasons that they claim and not that it kills roleplaying but that it impacts it.  In an aside, “Seriously people?  You need rules to roleplay?”

I believe a direct correlation can be made, at least by me, as to why this might indeed be the case taking the MMOG’s impact on gaming and applying it to our tables.

It’s because combat in 4th Edition or Hero Systems or Mutants & Masterminds  is interesting, much like combat in EQ was.  It’s entertaining and really isn’t that why we’re playing these games?  To be entertained?

In these types of systems players have a huge ‘toolbar’ filled with various things they can try during combat, powers that let them buff and de-buff, crowd control, heal and hurt, single target and masses of targets.    The sheer number of cool things that a character can do is enough to make one giddy.  The GM has way cool monsters and bad guys to run and pit against the players.   Very little is cookie cutter which his bad guys, he has access to sugar cookies, oreos, gingersnaps, all kinds of tasty variety for the players to consume and enjoy.

Then there are systems like Savage Worlds or Fudge or Spirit of the Century or to kick it old school Advanced Dungeons and Dragons.  These are combat mechanic light much like UO was.  Your toolbar of tricks is very limited, you either turn on auto combat and try and stay near your target so you can ‘swing’ your sword at them when the timer (your turn) goes off or you shoot them with your ranged weapon or you cast the same basic spell over and over again to kill the target.   The GM has the same issue, all his bad guys do tend to be cookie cutter with minor mechanical differences, all sugar cookies but some with white sprinkles instead of blue ones instead of powdered sugar.

As a result the amount of roleplay in my experience both online in a MMOG or offline at the table with your friends can be affected in direct inverse ratio to how interesting and involved the combat system is with the added bonus/penalty of how many new toys (carrots) you gain along the way.   Players act differently when there is a new toy to pick up, a new power to be gained, all just dangling out of their reach waiting for the next block of experience than there is when the prize is simply the doing.   Some game systems promote the journey’s end, while others promote the journey itself.

And I’m not saying you can’t roleplay with any system or that you can’t have fun and entertaining combats in any system.  Obviously you can.  We’ve had periods where roleplaying that lasted for a couple of hours straight without any combat in 4th Edition and had vastly entertaining fights in Savage Worlds.

What I am trying to say is that the system you choose to play can have a direct impact on the results at your table and these impacts can be obvious and sometimes subtle.

So what’s the end game of all this?  Not much to be honest other than perhaps if you want a game that’s heavier in roleplay then perhaps choosing a lighter system might promote that while a group that might be more interested in combat might choose a heavier system.

In running Savage Worlds which is a very stats light game in comparison to GMing 4th Edition Dungeons or Dragons (or worse 3rd Edition DnD or Hero System/Champions) it’s become interesting to see the differences as they play out.

Savage Worlds lets you as the GM come up with on the fly encounters that are as interesting as any pre-planned encounter simply because it is so stats light.   This isn’t necessarily a rousing endorsement as the variety of attacks, barring magic, psi or super powered settings is pretty limited.  With the ability to shoot, hit or throw something at someone it’s not hard to make a creature on the fly.   This is definitely a pro and a con both.  It’s a pro because it makes it extremely easy for a DM to sandbox a session and to accommodate the players when they bypass his carefully crafted plotlines.   It’s a con in that the bad guys can tend to blur together mechanically.  This puts more creative pressure on the GM to make the bad guys distinct based on something other than their game mechanics.  Which is a pro and con both depending on your players needs and your own creative abilities.

With systems like 4th Edition Dungeons and Dragons or Hero Systems, on the fly encounters requires more pre-prepping, you have to have already created some generic stand-ins to haul out when the players go off the track as in both cases making reasonable balanced creatures on the fly is a hit or miss procedure and requires a fairly deep familiarity with the systems.

In Savage Worlds even after only a couple of sessions it’s pretty easy to just go with ad hoc encounters.

Another thing I’m finding is that much like the original Dungeons and Dragons maps aren’t necessary for a lot of encounters and when they are, they’re much alike, simple line drawings on an erasable map that take seconds to knock out.  4th Edition battles, because of the strength of impact of movement powers/effects and the like really need ‘good’ maps to take full advantage of the system.   Places of difficult terrain, obstacles, pits, shadows, braziers full of flaming oil, patches of ice etc. that the players and NPC’s can use to make use of their abilities.   I have a huge roll of maps that I pre-drew out every Saturday morning for the upcoming battles during my 4th Edition campaign.   Which typically meant the players would encounter those battles and led to a more focused non-sandbox campaign.

Encounters being necessary to play out is another factor.  With 4th Edition the system by RAW requires a lot of battles that are really pretty pointless because they’re designed as resource drains.  To burn off the player’s daily allotment of resources.  It’s a practical guarantee that the players are going to win and the chances of someone dying in the first few battles is pretty nil given a typical setup.   I deviated from this with mine in that I just didn’t have the pointless battles, each battle was typically rated as Hard and required the players to burn a lot of resources to win it.   And then there would typically be enough downtime to recover.  Occasionally I would have the chained battle sequence where the intent was to wear them down but for the most part it was boss battles.

With Savage Worlds when you though add in the wild card factor of any attack by any creature has the chance to kill any other creature with one attack it means that every creature is a force that can’t be ignored and even what would be a pointless battle in 4th Edition becomes something that could have major impact.

As an example in our last Zombie Run session, three of the party escorted a engineer into a nuclear reactor so he could fix a problem.  They ran in to four undead.  In 4th Edition this would be a hand wave at best, there’s just no way 4 minions could possibly cause a problem for even a single dnd character assuming the minions were of appropriate level.   To make the disparity worse in this instance in the first round three of the undead were killed leaving a single undead for the three of them to fight.   And yet this single undead almost killed one of the players and perhaps has due to possible infection.

In our last session which lasted our typical 5 hours roughly, the group had an encounter with Zombear (boss battle), a band of raiders (boss plus horde), an ambush by snipers, another band of raiders (horde) and a group of undead that were played out tactically.  That’s 5 tactical encounters in 5 hours something we never managed with 4th edition and the actual tactical dice rolling portions of the session took perhaps 2 hours of the session total.

In many systems like 4th Edition or Champions or whatever, such encounters would have been unnecessary to tactically play out simply because they wouldn’t, couldn’t  have any impact barring astronomically screwed die rolling.  The player characters would simply have been in no danger from any of it and personally I’d of hand waved it with dialogue, “About 10 minutes outside the base you take fire from ambush positions on the road and…” made up something about what might have happened.  Rather than playing it out as we did.

There’s also a subtle issue with 4th Edition in that since the participants in combat are so diverse that combat becomes a joy in and of itself and with the players and GM’s knowing or unknown influence the combat can overshadow the story simply because there are so many cool things everyone can do in combat.

With Champions, like many of universal systems (GURPs, Mutants and Masterminds) the games can end up where building unique and cool characters and then having them fight other unique and cool characters can end up being the primary source of entertainment simply because it is fun and entertaining to take a pile of build points and see what you can come up, taking a character concept, “I ran over Death in my truck and now I have to take his place.” and then building powers around that.  In our heyday we played a lot of champions and a lot of it was character building and set piece fighting with just enough storyline to let us make more cool characters to use.   This isn’t a bad thing, just another area where the game mechanics influence the game play in a significant fashion.

Anyway as I continue to bounce between the game systems it’s interesting to see the effects the mechanics has on the game play.   If you could somehow manage it, it would be extremely intriguing to me to see how the same group would play through the same storyline but with different systems. But that would require me to break out my time machine and after the last time I’m not doing that again barring dire emergency.

As I listen to more and more podcasts I find myself taking mental notes of things that slow down a game in terms of dealing with mechanics.

And as you may know in my old age I’ve become a bit aggressive toward speeding mechanics up where possible as slow mechanics just aren’t fun to me.

One of the most common and most easily fixed issues that’s not really applicable to the game mechanics is that  I hear from practically everyone I listen to podcast-wise, regardless of the game system is the GM/DM going “Does that hit you?”, followed by a pause as the player checks their data and then responds “Yay or nay” as appropriate.  With perhaps a 1 in 4 chance of a clever quip or false answer followed by a correction.   Going back decades (literally), I’ve always had a piece of paper with the player’s AC’s or PD/ED or [fill in the protection of the system here] in front of me.   This seems like such a an obvious thing that perhaps it’s easily overlooked.  GM’s deal with monster data and PC’s deal with PC data mind set perhaps?

4th Edition DnD adds a very obvious slowness hook to any game session in that rather than the old school, “I roll a d20 to see if I hit.  I hit?  Okay I roll this d8 and add +X to see if I do damage.” way of combat, a player even at first level has typically 5 or more powers and on top of that various other things that they have to choose from each round and each power has different damage output, different bonuses to hit, different side effects and for any given situation there may be 2 or more powers that are very applicable and a couple of others that are applicable making a decision a time intensive affair. “Do we need to slow this guy down?  Should I unleash my Daily power to try and take it out?  Is someone else having a hard time hitting and I should use this one that grants Combat Advantage or grants that guy a bonus?”

If you follow the site, you’ll know I’m currently trying Savage Worlds.  It’s catchphrase is Fast Furious Fun.  The Fast portion of that really stood out and made it worthy of notice.   It’s an odd little system, unique as far as I know in its use of dice and its dice mechanics.   But I’m finding those mechanics to be very slow to put into practice all things relative. The dice mechanic defies their Fast Furious Fun slogan.  So much so that I expanded my die rolling application for a friend with vision trouble to handle the Savage World mechanics to speed things up by rolling and figuring out the base roll + the wild die + exploding dice with one press of a key.

As a for instance in Savage Worlds, say a PC want’s to Shoot someone.  He rolls two dice, a d6 and a dx where X is his Shooting skill die.  Now if one of those dice roll a max value (i.e. a 6 on a d6 or a 4 on a d4) then you roll it again and add the next roll to the first.  Now we’re up to 3 individual dice to see if we hit.  And if two of those dice roll max we’re up to 4 dice, each separate rolls.  So let’s say we did manage to shoot our target, now we roll more dice, typically 2dx.  And yes if one of those dice roll max value we pick it up and roll it again and add the new roll to the old one.    With 2d6, one in three rolls is going to require us to pick up one of those dice and roll it again.

As you might imagine this is a slower mechanic than some, perhaps most.  Sure something like Exalted where you roll a double handful of dice is going to be slower.  Heck super heroic level in Heroes is slow simply because of the sheer number of dice you have to roll every attack and then count up both the body and the stun values.  Slow kills game play IMO.

Now overall, combat in Savage Worlds is fast but a lot of that is really due to the fact that on both sides, any character has a chance to kill any other character with a single die roll.  Granted it might require two series of really good rolls (to hit and to damage) but the chance is there.   Add in the fact that roughly 90% of the NPC’s can take one hit and down they go.  And the fact that 99% of the creatures, PC/NPC can only take 4 hits and down they go and you have a fairly short life span for any given creature.  Unlike say 4th Edition where a low level solo might have 200 hit points and take roughly 20 hits to go down.

But the actual combat speed is slow and all this boils down to is in virtually every system  for combat a character rolls two sets of dice, one set to see if they hit and then another set to see how much damage they produce.   This has been the basis of combat systems in most RPG’s since we’ve had RPG’s really. And each roll typically has math involved.   “I rolled this, I add this, I have this temporary bonus or minus.  I hit or miss.  Now I roll this, I add this and I have this temporary bonus or minus.”

It seems to me that a unified dice roll should be possible to come up with where the degree of success of your roll to hit determines damage, rather than the vast majority of the binary systems.  Well I guess some where there is a critical hit mechanic could be trinary.  By binary/trinary I mean you either missed, you hit, or you hit as well as you could.  Damage is a completely separate roll and you might do a lot of damage or a tiny bit of damage (or no damage in many systems) and has little to no bearing on how ‘well’ you hit the target with the exception of those systems with a critical hit mechanic which is usually a pretty low percentage chance.

In an aside, there’s ORE or One Role Engine of course  but that system has so many issues with it in terms of math in terms of degrees of viable usable difficulty settings that it’s hopeless, again my opinion, yours can differ.  But I ran a lot of ‘Monte Carlo’ simulations of percentages with this system and the problems surfaced pretty quickly.

I’ll be honest and say my issue with combat slowness has really peaked with Savage Worlds with its exploding dice system piled on top of the creatures having defenses against both getting hit (Parry/Fixed 4) and taking Damage (Toughness value).   To put it in other systems terms everyone has damage resistance, or a minimum value that any damage roll has to equal to have any chance of hurting the target.  Just so you don’t think I’m singling out Savage Worlds, Hero System has the same system with it’s ED/PD (and Resistant ED/PD) but at least in Hero System die rolls don’t ‘explode’ which adds to the time it takes to roll dice.

But is it really possible to have a unified system?  Sure, you can do like we did with 4th Edition and just apply average damage on a regular hit and max damage on a critical hit.  In the long run the values work out exactly the same (within very minor deviations due to rounding issues).   But systems with damage thresholds like Savage Worlds, Hero Systems, Gurps(?) this doesn’t work as well or at all.  And toss in the exploding dice mechanic and it really breaks.  ANd of course this is still a binary system.  Either you hit or you missed there’s no variation where a really good to hit roll hits harder.

To explain the issue in more detail (goodness I’m getting long winded tonight) with these types of systems, in Savage Worlds it’s completely possible that a character could roll some extremely high number, something along the lines of 1% chance of ever rolling something that high and then completely fail to do any damage to it’s target because they rolled low on damage and didn’t break the damage threshold i.e. Toughness value of the target. FWIW this  really steals the thunder of rolling so well on the to-hit, to for instance roll three 6′s in a roll and end up with a 22 to hit and then roll a damage total of 6 against a creature with a Toughness of 7 and I’m tryng to come up with something to make the ‘game feel’ of this system feel better to me.  Right now I’m leaning toward any critical hit (both sides BTW, NPC and PC alike) will always result in a Shaken status regardless of damage.  It might make it a little gritty though and more deadly definitely.

This brings up another issue.  Randomness favors the NPC’s in any System.  The more random the results the more the PC’s get screwed by things.  Why?  Because the NPC’s typically are only subject to a very few rolls.  They just don’t live long enough to be affected by random chance.  PC’s on the other hand live a very long time, barring killer GM’s, and are as a result subjected to LOTS of random rolls.

Okay I’m diverging all over the board now so I guess I should wrap this up.  The sole point for you take away from this I suppose is Speed Kills.  Or rather the lack of Speed in a mechanic.  It kills player attention spans, game flow, energy and overall entertainment.  So anything you can do to get rid of the slowness helps.  And given the most used mechanic of ANY RPG is combat rolls, speeding those up is going to have the greatest effect of anything you can do.

Or such is my thought.  Your thoughts will probably vary greatly.

Episode 17, part 3 of the Key Our Cars group’s 4th Edition Dungeons and Dragons podcast gameplay session.

Subscribe to the feed – http://www.keyourcars.com/feed/podcast/

Also available through iTunes.

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Episode 17, part 2 of the Key Our Cars group’s 4th Edition Dungeons and Dragons podcast gameplay session.

Subscribe to the feed – http://www.keyourcars.com/feed/podcast/

Also available through iTunes.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Episode 17, part 1 of the Key Our Cars group’s 4th Edition Dungeons and Dragons podcast gameplay session.

Subscribe to the feed – http://www.keyourcars.com/feed/podcast/

Also available through iTunes.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

This is our Finale session for the summer, during the hiatus we’ll be delving into the Savage Worlds system.

Everyone is present and accounted for in this session, Biminey, Stak, T’Balktu, Torel, Visra.  Our heroes have reached level 10 in the quest to end the dangers to their little corner of the world.

We join them in Aricee’s lair where the dragon, shifted into human female form, instructs them in their tasks, how they must defeat the Guardian of the Lance of Unmaking, recover the Lance and then go to Darkmith to destroy the Chaosborn.

T’Balktu and Aricee spend a few hours alone while the rest work on their gear and Biminey crafts magical items.  Aricee gifts T’Balktu for his performance with a matching set of axes, the greataxe known as Ghost Slayer and the throwing axe known as Splintertree.  He is pleased as was she.  And it’s not everyone who gets to lay with a dragon.  Which I’m sure will have no dire consequences…

They proceed toward the Guardian’s lair after Aricee assures them that she will help them return after they find out it’s a chute down into a room.  Biminey uses his Ladder ritual to make it easy to descend into the depths.

There they find a floorless room with flipping platforms on gears and pistons to stand on.  As the fourth one comes down the platform flips and almost tosses Biminey [I think] into the bottomless darkness but a quick grab by one of the other’s saves him from certain death. [Yes this was a return to the Save or Die of the old days but it is the season finale and the dangers are ramped up accordingly.]

They spread out and defeat the constructs that are attacking them for serious damage, inadvertently spreading out and reducing the risk of any particular platform flipping over. [A platform flipped on a roll of 15 or high, +2 for each person on the platform over 1.  By splitting up they made it a lot less likely that a platform would flip.  Purely unintentional on their part.]

They moved around the room, jumping from platform to platform with Biminey working his way closer to the central brain to shut it down but the amount of damage the party can pump out swiftly overwhelmed the mobile portions of the construct.  There was another bit of a hair raiser as T’Balktu jumped on the platform that Biminey was on and caused it to flip over sending T’Balktu plunging to his death only to be snagged at the last second by Bimney’s Acrobatics roll (which he has no skill in) saving T’Balktu’s player from having two deaths in the campaign.

Under the platforms they uncovered the Lance and retrieved with T’Balktu nimbly climbing the pistols and gears to get to it.  There was no sign of Aricee so they left the room of the guardian by T’Balktu using the lance to open a passage through the shielding magic.

Aricee was waiting at the top and she had a bit of an interlude with T’Balktu in a frozen moment of time where she gave him her True Name so he could destroy the crystal binding her to her service as the tunnel’s guardian.   When he destroyed the crystal embedded into her chest a two headed dragon shadow was cast from the explosion of light.  T’Balktu kept this bit of information to himself.

They talked with Aricee about what they were supposed to do, “Kill the chaosborn” and she was going to get them to their destination and bring their airship to them and support them in their battle.

[In an aside, with herself free from her captivity she didn't give a rat's ass about the chaosborn, a minor annoyance only to her and simply wanted the party out of her hair figuratively speaking.  When she didn't show up to help, when they had to walk back because there was no airship, and later on as Biminey figures out the whole 'explode the airship' was bullshit the light began to dawn on the group.  "Never trust a dragon." isn't a phrase that came about by whim and whimsy.]

The group found themselves in Darkmith where a war was going on.  They spotted the central power area and headed that way, failing their attempts to sneak through town and were surrounded by undead, summoned by Phy’el Fleshwalker for the battle.  They defeated a huge swarm of undead only to seem hundreds more running after them.  When the undead all stopped and Phy’el himself appeared.  “If you win, remember I did you no harm when I could have.” he says and all the undead drop motionless to the ground as the cut the strings binding them to him.  Phy’el has long held a grudge against Liloth and her King and like all good evil people is more than happy to screw them over for slights they have done him.  And he’s also hedging his bets, he senses the magic artifact the group possesses, trying to curry a little future favor perhaps.

They push on and reach the ziggurat of power where the Chaosborn is being reborn.  Liloth his lover is climbing the tower toward him.

T’Balktu kicks on his Ghost Slayer ability and charges the Creature, slaying it, at least it’s human form, releasing the chaosbeast within.  He continues to use the Lance of Unmaking against the creature, finally destroying it and the group turns its attention to Liloth who’s a little upset at the events.  But the group has grown too strong for this little regional hazard and mops up the floor with Liloth and the pet shadows.

They recover a Shadowblade, a dreadful greatsword from the shadowfey that was the Chaosborn’s weapon and very gingerly maneuver it into a bag of holding without touching it.

They help mop up the city, joining in with the hobgoblin tribes battling the minor darkness’s still released in the city alongside the strange eyeless, mouthless priests of the white king.

Leaving the city, on foot, they trudge through the swamps surrounding the city and stop off to spend a couple of days with the Soul Eaters in their home range, the tattoo’s on their arms are extended by the tattoo artists of the tribe, depicting their battles against the darkness in stylized abstracts.

They continue back to Larkson where they find Teagon working a power play to take over the city and remove the Council.  He’s hired more mercenaries from Anvil and after all the fighting his forces outnumber the Watch.    With the group informing him that the deed is done and the city is safe he bargains with them to join in.

The group does and become partners with Teagon.  They arrange for Garon and the just appointed Merchant faction Councilor Neev to be moved out of power gently as possible.  They work a deal to keep the Watch alive and in their control and direct all martial activities in the city, although everyone understands that with Teagon holding the purse strings that feeds the mercenairies that that control could be tenuous.  But Teagon is smart and wise and understands the power that the group presents so the deal is made and at this time both sides appear to be genuinely interested in keeping it.  The group will receive a 1000 golds a month each for their portion of the bargain, a fortune really for this town although Biminey is going to donate his income to the Watch to help train, equip and restore them.  The Watch lost most of their men, dead or injured beyond fighting ability, and what’s left are the lucky, green and inept without only a small cadre of veterans.

They bring the airship into town and then fly out to the slaver stronghold searching for the two ships full of the town’s women and children, finding only a work crew lead by a slaver working on rebuilding the islands buildings.  They capture them all, interrogate them and then destroy the newly constructed works and building materials and fly back to their city.

Sushanna tells Biminey that one of the until now dead lights on the ship’s consoles lit green for a few hours one day while they were gone (during their walk back to Larkson).

When they get back to the city, there is talk of a flying creature spotted in the skies out to sea, seen more by it’s blocking out the stars than any direct visual.  It was assumed to be the group’s airship but when word got around that it wasn’t then other people stepped forth saying it was a vast flying creature, a dragon certainly.

What it was, what the green light means, where the slavers took the slaves, where did Phy’el wander off to, where the slavers main bases are and what they’re doing, the rebuilding of the city of Larkson and the outcome of the battle of Darkmith, these questions and more will have to wait till we pick up this campaign and enter the Tier of the Paragon’s…

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Episode 16, part 3 of the Key Our Cars group’s 4th Edition Dungeons and Dragons podcast gameplay session.

Subscribe to the feed – http://www.keyourcars.com/feed/podcast/

Also available through iTunes.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Episode 16, part 2 of the Key Our Cars group’s 4th Edition Dungeons and Dragons podcast gameplay session.

Subscribe to the feed – http://www.keyourcars.com/feed/podcast/

Also available through iTunes.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Episode 16, part 1 of the Key Our Cars group’s 4th Edition Dungeons and Dragons podcast gameplay session.

Subscribe to the feed – http://www.keyourcars.com/feed/podcast/

Also available through iTunes.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

We start our little soiree with everyone present, Biminey, Stak, T’balktu and Visra.  The group meets with the Council and founds out all the bad news, the town was attacked shortly after the group left by portals pouring through undead inside as funnel clouds descended and ripped up the protective stonework even as an army of undead swarmed over the outside walls.

The priests of the temple of Eris were able to eventually sever the controlling strings of the undead and they all dropped to the ground motionless and the citizen rose up in arms to destroy those wandering the city streets.

As the group arrived back they found Captain Werrick missing one of his legs from the knee down and discovered that he led a force against three figures that seemed to be commanding the forces as well as breaching the walls, a female in white, a mostly nude man who’s flesh morphed and wavered and a dark shadow figure.

They also learned that ‘merchant ships from the south’ had arrived and were taking on women and children to sail them to safety.  Two of the three ships had already left filled to the brim with children and women and the third was still loading.

The group jumped to the conclusion that the ships were slavers picking up an easy profit and headed to the harbor.

They ran into a group of sailors and approached them.  A noble looking individual confirmed that what the group suspected and delivered an ultimatum, the group delivers the airship to the island and they give the women and children back.  If they don’t deliver the airship then they’re going to infect all the captives with the parasites and give them back.

The discussion rapidly went downhill.  The noble turned out to be a fake, while the real noble, a fire mage of some power was dressed as a sailor.  The sailors were quickly put down leaving the fire mage and the slaver lashmaster.  As things took a turn for the worse for the slavers the firemage made his escape using a contingency teleport ring to teleport back to the ship leaving the lashmaster who surrendered to the group.  As he made his getaway he told the group that they’d just doomed one ship full of children and if they wanted the others returned then bring the airship to him.

The gruop took a few minutes to recover, loot and discuss the thing and smoke started rising from the harbor.  They rushed to the harbor and found several of the small fishing ships on fire as well as the docks and warehouse. People  rushed in to quench the flames.  Once it was clear the flames were under control  the group got out their longboat and sailed out to the airship and set off after the fleeing slaver ship.

after an attempt to set the ship’s sails on fire failed, the firemage simply doused the flames, Stak shot a note down to the ship demanding the slavers debark in the ships boats and leave the captives onboard.   The slavers failed to listen so the group started riddleing it with ballista bolts.  The slavers quickly retaliated by lashing their captives to the sides of the ship.  This failed to deter the group and they continued to try and sink the ship.  And yes their ballista bolts hit more than one captive.

On board the ship the firemage weighed his options and found them wanting and performed a ritual that exploded the entire ship, killing everyone on board rather than see group rescue a single one.

The group turned the air ship around and headed back to its usual place with a rather somber atmosphere.   They re-entered the city.  Torel’s new found ability to see the lines of power protecting the city while holding the battle standard lead them to an old reading room now in use by the high priest as a bedroom as he didn’t feel comfortable taking the last high priest’s bedroom.

They found a mosaic in the floor and using the key they’ve been carrying for so long they triggered a lift, the entire floor of the room that dropped them down deep into the earth into a chamber.

There they were accosted by constructs demanding a pass phrase, when it wasn’t forthcoming they fought the constructs.  Torel in his infinite avenger wisdom opened a door and added in another set of constructs.   But with clever use of the Deamon Heart amulet and a failed reaction roll the new buzz saw construct fought with one of the other’s and the two ended up dealing something like 150+ points of damage to each other which was probably one of the few things that could have saved the group.   In total the encounter ended up a level 15 against a level 9 party which would typically result in someone or all someone’s dying.  But by setting two of them on each other they removed roughly 300 damage the group would have had to absorb and added 300 damage to the group’s output.   Call it luck if you will but it saved them.

Inside the second chamber they found the Book of All Things and Biminey was able to recover an ass load of residium from the cylidners powering the protections on the room as well as enough parts to make a new construct, a mobile buzzsaw that he can deploy in combat.

As they left the temple they were met by Aricee, a strange being in the form of a plain looking woman but with the eyes of a dragon.  She opened a portal leading them into her lair where they waded through piles of gold and jewels to a side chamber where they were fed a great meal.

Aricee told them that their best chance in the upcoming battle was to recover the Lance of Unmaking which is located deep in her lair guarded by a creature.  She tells them she guards the lair, the guardian guards the lance and she has a device embedded in her chest that protects the lance from her.

The group is located in an instant between the past and future and will have several days grace before the time in the world ticks over and the chaosborn is freed.   This gives them time to prepare, recover the lance and save the world.

She also tells them that the lance and the banner may not be enough and that it is possible to destroy the airship in a single cataclysmic event that will unmake everything in the blast radius.

We leave our group there as they prepare to descend into the tunnels after the Lance of Unmaking for their final climatic battle against the chaosborn and go down in a ball of flame or emerge victorious.

Image Credits

Episode 15, part 3 of the Key Our Cars group’s 4th Edition Dungeons and Dragons podcast gameplay session.

Subscribe to the feed – http://www.keyourcars.com/feed/podcast/

Also available through iTunes.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Episode 15, part 2 of the Key Our Cars group’s 4th Edition Dungeons and Dragons podcast gameplay session.

Subscribe to the feed – http://www.keyourcars.com/feed/podcast/

Also available through iTunes.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Episode 15, part 1 of the Key Our Cars group’s 4th Edition Dungeons and Dragons podcast gameplay session.

Subscribe to the feed – http://www.keyourcars.com/feed/podcast/

Also available through iTunes.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Even the burning rains couldn’t conceal the odor of death as Stak moved up the last rise before reaching the cleared ground around the city.  If anything the rains added another layer of stench, one of sulfur and brimstone.  As he crested the hillock the scene he pulled up, momentarily shocked at the grisly scene stretching out before him.

Bodies, hundreds of them, most long dead it looked like from their appearance lay scattered, ripped and torn on grounds around the city walls. The walls of the city beyond were breached in several places but the holes were filled and blocked with everything handy from what he could see.  Wagons, push carts, crates, timbers and the rubble of the walls themselves were piled high in the breaches.   The main gates lay twisted and shattered but what looked like ship timbers filled the opening.  There was a sudden pop of light and sigils flared along the walls, twisting red arcane symbols floating above the walls that reminded him of the barrier wardings that Utha had cast in her lair.

The others joined him atop the hill each pausing to stare at the battlefield in silence for several moments.  The bodies lay sprawled, filled with arrows, blasted and burnt by fire or other forces.  They covered a wide spectrum, what were obviously farmers and peasants mixed with hobgoblins and goblins and even larger creatures as here and there a hill giant formed a large mound of dead flesh. 

Most appeared to have been dead for days even weeks, at odds with the time of length the group had been out of the city, obviously foul magics were at work here and the undead army they’d feared for such a long time had materialized, only in their absence.

“What do you make of those?” Torel asked Biminey as the strange symbols flickered into visibility atop the walls of the city. 

The artificer narrowed his senses, reaching out toward the city with that inner force that gave his creations life. His voice was uncertain when he finally spoke, “They’re wardings and artificer origin but they’re… odd.  I get a sense of great age about them but they’re weak, weakening even, running down.”

Stak spoke up, “Those figures on the walls, they’re townies.  I can see the Watch and the Anvil mercs up there along with normal folk.  They’re armed but just barely, a lot of fishing spears and table legs by the look of it.”

Everyone glanced at Stak and then at the minuscule forms, little more than dots in the distance. Visra said, a little incredulously, “You can tell that?”

In answer Stak held up his left hand, the stylized eagle beak running up his forearm from the swirled red patterns across his hand.

T’Balktu grunted, “So we won.”

The avenger shrugged, “Looks like.  Let’s get down there and find out what’s going on.”

The group picked their way through the corpses, the stench even worse close up and it was obvious that all the combatants had already been dead by the time they dropped on this battlefield at least.  The wounds were mostly dry or oozed a black ichor rather than the vats of blood that should have been covering the ground.

A crowd gathered on the walls as they approached and Torel made sure the city standard was unfurled and visible.  A small cheer went up from inside as they made their way closer.

The Captain, his left arm held in a sling next to his body along with Sargent Driskul met them atop the barricade filling the gap where the main gates had been. 

Stak nodded at the upraised eyebrow of the grizzled warrior, holding up his left hand, displaying the red tattoo of the Soul Eaters.  The Sergeant blinked then slowly nodded back.

“Hope we get a better reception than these got, Captain.” Biminey joked as they stopped at the base of the rubble.

“Depends on what news you have to give me.  Come on, Council wants you.  Sergent!”

Driskul glanced behind, “Pyotr and Jenna, get that ladder up here and over the side.  The rest of you lot, get back to your gods damned posts.  Move it or you’ll be defending this wall from outside!”

A long wood ladder came clattering down and quickly the group went up it and over the barricade.  The scene inside was grim, the citizens mixing with Watch and Anvil mercenaries alike atop the wall.   The large courtyard inside, that typically held all manner of carts and vendors was torn up, the cobblestones ripped and torn in a huge circle that encompassed easily a 30 yards across.  Biminey and Visra both flinched at the magic residue lingering over the circle, magic twisted and broken in feeling.

“What happened?” Visra asked holding out a hand, feeling the energies that lay in fragments over the courtyard.

The Captain shot her a look, “Funnel cloud sprung up, ripped up the cobblestones in that circle.  Priests say that let them use it as a summoning circle and creatures poured into the city.  We beat’em but it cost us.  It costs us a lot.  Bodies are piling up in a couple of warehouses on the docks waiting burial.  Same thing happened in four different spots around the city at roughly the same time, same day you left.  That night, an army of undead showed up.  We almost went under but then those showed up” he said jerking a thumb at the flickering wardings, “and the bodies all dropped like someone had cut their strings.”

“Where’d the wardings come from?” Biminey asked.

Captain shrugged, “Not sure on that one, Eris folk weren’t too clear, all I got out of it was they disrupt whatever powers the enemy is using to power the undead.  Surprised you made it through, every time I sent a squad out to try to destroy the bodies they roused long enough to drag them down or force them to retreat.”

Torel glanced up at the standard he held in his left hand and pursed his lips in contemplation.

“We’ll go over everything at the Temple, the Eris priests say we shouldn’t talk in the open, the rain can act as an extension of the enemy they say.  Temple’s supposed to be shielded from it.”

Image Credits

Due to scheduling difficulties and my desire to do what we can to make sure that everyone is available for the next two sessions the CATS campaign will pick up again on May 15th and 22nd.  These next two will be the last two of this season and will end I hope on an appropriate high note (assuming they survive) as well as a bit of a cliff hanger.

The campaign is/was designed to end at level 10 as our doughty heroes enter the Paragon tier of play after having faced the regional Big Bad.  I have some thoughts on season two that should be entertaining for the players and take the play in a new direction.

In the interim I’m going to be taking a look at Savage Worlds with a, as usual, home brew setting.  It’ll be a horror campaign with crazed asylum escapees, dark deeds and strange symbols inscribed on the victims although with the usual goat skin leggings crew making an appearance.

Savage Worlds is a ‘light’ game system with a decided different take on things.  The fans (dare I say fanbois?) are pretty rabid about the system but then so are [insert game system here] fans typically.  Myself I like to think I look at the good points of a system and modify the points I don’t like to something I do.  Rarely do I just hate on a system, if you’re having fun with it, then it’s a good system, it just might not be good for me.  Also rarely do I take any game system as written as a System From On High and the rules are sacrosanct and never to be trifled with.  Any reasonably complex system can always (with)stand change.

Anyway, one thing I’m not thrilled with in Savage Worlds is the mandatory need for multiple dice.  With a blind player, dice can be an issue.  Right now since we only use a d20 I wrote a audible dice roller for the player such that he just presses a button and rolls a dice and the results are spoken out loud.  But with Savage Worlds, we’re looking at sequences like “Okay to shoot him, roll a d8 and a d6.  Okay the d8 got an 8 so roll it again.  Okay you ended up with 13 total.  That’s a hit plus a raise so your pistol is going to do 2d6-1 damage and an extra 1d6 for the raise.  One of the dice got a 6, roll it again and add the total.”

That kind of sequence is far from unusual with this system.  It’s only when you can’t see the dice that it becomes a significant issue. Not a game breaker but significant.

Another thing with Savage worlds is it falls back to the “My turn?  I hit him with my bat / shoot him with my pistol.” as the basic go-to option for combat.  Not good or bad in and of itself but it will be interesting in seeing how things go after having a laundry list of things you can do combat with 4th Edition.  Yes I know there are “Trick Maneuvers” you can do in Savage Worlds but those really only add one option, “Opposed check to get a +2 to hit” basically.

On the plus side you have a natural combat speed up since the possible options are a…bit… less to choose from mechanically.

One thing that sticks out to me at first glance as I go over character creation  about Savage Worlds RAW is that Agility is King with a huge effing  K.   Agility influences the most skills, determines your skill at hitting with every possible attack as well as determines how hard you are to hit.  Strength’s only function is to add damage to melee hits and let you carry more.  There’s but a single skill associated with it, Agility has something like 10 skills and Smarts 9′ish.* (see below)  which makes the ‘dex monkey’ or ‘wizard’ cock of the walk in combat by far.

Vigor, the semi equivalent of constitution has no skills.  With this system the strong hero pretty much sucks as a character concept.  He either has to spend double the points to keep his Agility high compared to the Agile or Smart character or he has a huge skill cost penalty, has trouble hitting things and is easily hit.  Strength doesn’t even let him absorb damage better, that’s the demesne of Vigor.  So a melee fighter has to raise three skills, Agility, Vigor, and Strength, where as a ranged fighter only needs Agility and Vigor and a caster typically only Smarts and Vigor or Spirit and Vigor.  All three of them can be equally tough but to be equally effective the melee fighter has to spend 33% more resources than the others.

The biggest source of the problem is that perhaps too much is tied in with Agility.   It heavily influences a characters ability to hit with Melee, Ranged and Thrown weapons by making those with low agility have to spend more points in those skills (double the cost) as well as making them take more damage.

In 4th Edition they avoid the problem by strictly tying Strength to Melee and Agility(Dexterity) to Ranged attacks.  Perhaps it might sense to try it here as well by simply moving Fighting over under Strength?   But then we screw with the swashbuckler character concept.  4th Edition avoids that issue by simply using Str or Dex as attack modifiers by class power, only the basic attacks are strictly Str and Dex based per Melee and Ranged.   A rogue could be using Dex to stab you with a knife.

Ahh tis a conundrum.

* – House Rule Changes (so far) –

• Combined Swimming, Climbing into Athletics under Strength
• Combined Survival and Tracking into Nature
• Changed Notice to Perception
• Changed Persuasion to Diplomacy
• Changed Lockpicking into Thievery and move Pickpockets from Stealth into it.
• Added Insight Skill

With everyone present and accounted for we zoom into the world finding Biminey, Stak, T’Balktu, Torel and Visra sitting around the fires of He Who Walks The Night.  They talk of the foes they face and one of the shaman on watch in the world of spirits is possessed by the Strongest Foe.  He mocks the group and then notices Biminey.  Nightwalker lops off the head of the shaman before the Strongest Foe can determine more of the oddities about the artificer.

With the blood of one of his shaman’s staining his rugs, Nightwalker bids the group good night and they sleep in one of the hobgoblin tents.  Rousing in the morning they set off on a hunting / bait trip taking a small hunting party of hobgoblins with them.

A herd of Dark Horns or One Horns attacks them, 5 of the beasts sweeping over a rise and charging into the middle of them.  The creatures focus on the hobgoblins during the initial wave but swiftly engage the players as it’s painfully obvious that they, the dark horns, are suddenly vulnerable to the blade and edge of their foes unlike the past.

The hobgoblins are killed but the party emerges victorious.  With incredible skills at combat they manage to prevent not one but two of the dark horns from fleeing the combat at the last possible second with an amazing throw of a tanglefoot bag by T’Balktu and a foot race performed by Visra and Biminey after the last one.  [Actions points for the win here, without them at least one if not both of the one horns would have escaped and then been in the battle with the Hunter]

The group cuts the three foot dark horns from the creature’s and stows them away as proof of the encounter and collects the personal effects of the hobgoblins that fell in battle and then burn the corpses.

Stak goes ahead to determine the tracks and see where they lead.  He overhears two voices, hard to pinpoint speaking the toungue of the dragons.  The voices refer to each other as sister and from the snippet of conversation Stak comes away with the thought that they do not like the Spirithunter, referring to him as a trespasser on their domain.  They also reference the group, “they bear that which can give us the true death sister.” before he catches a glimpse of a shrouded shape, seen more by displaced air than sight.  A dragon like shape although with two heads.

They do not travel far before they find themselves in a clearing, dimly lit, dimmer than the day’s light would make it seem.

[Although no one remarked on the coincidence of without searching they ran into the Hunter, it was because he was twisting reality to bring the two of them together.]

Diplomatic talks fail rather quickly and the battle is joined.  The hunter unleashes his deadly bow shots on the party, never missing while his flayed bulls and a single dark horn engage them in melee.  The bulls although formidable proved to be a mere roadblock in the group’s path as they engage the hunter.

The hunter, although he could have fled the battle, elected to stay.  His chaotic nature or a lust for vengeance against the group that has killed his ‘children’ or a sense of invincibility may have driven him to his death.  Or perhaps something else entirely.

The group recovers the Hunter’s bow, Fatebringer.  A gleaming black greatbow with strange properties.  As well as the hunter’s cloak which blends one in with the surroundings as well as for a momentary time can render one invisible completely.

[This encounter could have actually ended without a fight if the party had taken the right tack with the hunter and they could have steered to other pastures.  But "Enough talk!" and the fight was on.]

They head back with their trophies to the Soul Eater tribe and there was much rejoicing, well as much as a on the brink of starving group can rejoice.  NIghtwalker brings them into his sacred tent and totems are set up around the edges.  He tells the group that for their deeds they are being made honorary members of the tribe and can elect to take a totem creature.   Each member does and as they touch one of the totems the red dye on the wood smoothly curls up and out over their left hands and halfway up their forearm, then recedes leaving behind a abstract tattoo that twines about their skin.    The tattoos lend a minor touch of the creatures power to the members of the group.  T’balktu gains the strength of the ox which lets him ignore the hindering weight of his armour, Stak gains the vision of the eagle allowing him to see that which might be missed, Visra gains the silent stealth of the hunting owl that glides on soundless wings before grabbnig its prey, Torel gains the wolves ability to recover from damage that would kill most creatures and Biminey gains the slyness of the fox that lets it slip through a pack of dogs without getting bitten.

[The players did not know the effects of the tattoo's before making their choices.  Mechanically they gained the following - T'balktu isn't subject to armour penalties to skill checks or movement, Stak makes two perception rolls and keeps the highest any time he needs to make one, Visra can make two stealth checks and keep the highest, Torel recovers +2 hit points when he spends a surge and Biminey can dodge one opportunity attack that he might incur during his movement.   These were intended as cool features for the players as well as make them stand out a little more.]

After the ceremony they talk with Nightwalker about their next steps and the Soul Eaters are going to send out messengers to cease hostilities against the town and outlying settlements while the group seeks the missing knowledge that holds the ka or soul of the Strongest Foe.  Biminey translates that as a Book that holds Hash’Kar’s true name.  He mistakenly assumes it’s the amulet he’s been holding onto these long months and hauls it out of its warded and protecting spot in his heavy flail.  Nightwalker looks puzzled, “Why would you give me this?” and then all the shamans keeping watch in the spiritworld start having siezers, muttering or crying out that “He’s coming!”

Three of the spiritwatchers manage to rally but one of them is possessed and Nightwalker is forced to kill him before the Strongest Foe can take over and manifest. But not before the Strongest Foe, King Hash’Kar, chaosborn again, knows what it is that Biminey was hiding, knows that the group has the key that could unlock his doom.

[It was missed during this session by everyone but the Hobgoblins kind of ate the group's horses after they left on the hunting trip.  I completely forgot to mention it an no one else made any note of the fact that they were missing.]

They pack up and rapid travel back to the city of Larkson.  Nightwalker doesn’t seem to happy with them, he’s lost two of his shaman brothers because of the party although he does realize that he’d of likely lost them all if the party hadn’t of shown up and killed the hunter. [Or did they?] After two days travel they run into Liloth in her travel form who unleashes a prince of the abyss on them, a minor one admittedly but still.  The beast almost destroys T’Balktu several times but the persevering healing of Biminey keeps the goliath alive and they destroy the deamon prince’s corporeal form sending its essence back to the abyss there to spend 66 years pulling its tattered form back together.

[This was a triggered encounter that's been pending for a long time awaiting the bad guys finding out the group has the amulet.  mechanically it's leveled up with the party as it waits its turn in the limelight]

The group arrives back at Larkson to find it has been under attack, the walls have been breached in several places as well as the main gates.  Bodies of animated corpses litter the grounds in front of the walls but the city still holds.   The gaps have been blocked with makeshift barricades and strange wardings flicker along the walls.

The group makes it way down through the grisly battlefield, the stench of long dead flesh strong and harsh, something finally able to overthrow the smell of fish that lay about the town.

As they clamber over the rubble and littler that block the main gate we leave our heroes to find out exactly what happened in future sessions.

[Overall this was a little collapses as I want to get to the season ender in the next two sessions as Torel is going to be unavailable for awhile after that so I'm going to compress my kind of planned out 3 or 4 sessions worth of gaming into the next two but I think it'll still be coherent and logical progression.

For the curious Fatebringer has the following stats:  Greatbow - Properties: On critical hit the target is restrained.  Critical damage: 3d8.  On a miss the wielder gains +1 to hit to a maximum of +4.  The bonus goes away once the wielder hits the target or switches to a new target.

Hunter's Cloak - Property: +3 to Stealth skill.  Power - Daily - Minor action: Gain invisibility until the end of your next turn.  The invisibility is lost if you attack or are hit by an attack. ]

Episode 14, part 3 of the Key Our Cars group’s 4th Edition Dungeons and Dragons podcast gameplay session.

Subscribe to the feed – http://www.keyourcars.com/feed/podcast/

Also available through iTunes.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Episode 14, part 2 of the Key Our Cars group’s 4th Edition Dungeons and Dragons podcast gameplay session.

Subscribe to the feed – http://www.keyourcars.com/feed/podcast/

Also available through iTunes.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Episode 14, part 1 of the Key Our Cars group’s 4th Edition Dungeons and Dragons podcast gameplay session.

Subscribe to the feed – http://www.keyourcars.com/feed/podcast/

Also available through iTunes.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download