Of spiders and men

So finally, I'm going to continue with the Nerdensaga. I've been letting this slide, and material is rapidly accumulating on the other side of the tale. Mea culpa. Let us continue...

Finally(!) the party entered the hill. They quickly noticed some nice wind-chimes dangling from the ceiling. Nice, tacky, made of the bones of small animals, available at Crate & Barrel wind-chimes. This was my first clumsy attempt at a trap, preplanned, to test how cautious the group would be...and to offer some (minor) repercussions for not watching where they were about to step.

You see these chimes happened to be hung at roughly head level, so had they not decided to perception check they'd have bumped them and set off a dull clanking subtle alarm. Fortunately for the party they did notice, and managed to avoid the chimes. Unfortunately they didn't take the next logical step and decide to proceed cautiously (after all, if someone is listening for this none-too-subtle alarm system, someone is probably going to be listening for the sounds of a heavily armed party). If nothing else, Peredu's clanking and rattling tipped off everyone for three counties that they were heading down.

I filled the journey down into the hill with some filler text that at the time was totally random. I must stress that at this point the dungeon itself was pretty much lifted straight from the back of the dungeons masters guide. This is still just an hour into my first session/adventure ever...much less as a DM. I had only a rough understanding of the rules, much less how to create encounters that would challenge and entertain the party. The natural fissure they entered turned into a crudely widened path, then a well carved entry until finally after a hundred yards or so into the belly of the hill the sides showed signs of masonry. Blocks had been carved from the inner hill and placed to support and decorate the walls and ceilings of this clearly unnatural series of chambers. In an arbitrary decision I decided that these had been carved by the Dragonborn, and a couple of history checks later the party had come to that conclusion. I apologize to my party...yes, the plot you've become embroiled in began with these totally random decisions. I'm sorry...you see, I was scared! And I had to answer your questions with something besides "Uhm...I dunno...old?"

Anyhow, they entered the first chamber, a low square room, with a pillar supporting the vaulted ceiling. A series of tapestries lined the walls, and some torches guttered and flickered in the draft of air seeping in from the plains outside.

Avyx, perhaps overcome with the novelty of this situation, immediately began demanding the halfling warlock arcana check the room. Nothing. Then, arcana check the tapestry...and was getting ready to check each square and each wall tile. I had to pause for a moment and collect myself...how could I stop this? I finally responded with "is there something specifically you're looking for?" And told her that I wasn't going to run the game like Doom...I recall strafing down hallways repeatedly tapping the spacebar looking for those damn hidden doors.

Satisfied Avyx approached one of the rotten moldering tapestries and poked it with her sword.

This (of course) triggered the swarm of spiders that had been happily nesting within to attack whoever had been foolish enough to disturb their reverie. I was rewarded with squeals of terror and remarks that can be summed up as "ooh...icky" First combat had begun.

Norge, the only seasoned hand, turned to one of the two doors, knowing that something bad lay beyond one or both of the hallways. The others scattered, flinging their powers in every direction trying to smoosh the spiders (I'd just re-skinned the rat swarm creature...because god DAMN do I hate spiders. I think they're scarier. I know there's already a spider swarm, but concerned with proper levels of difficulty, etc. I kept it simple). Ember and Mairwen fled to the opposite side of the room and tried to pick individual spiders off with their crossbows.

Oh, you know those 3 peasants that had been tagging along, Tom, Dick, and Harry? One look at the fist sized spiders crawling over an enraged and terrified Tiefling warlord was enough for them, and they fled in the direction they came from. I made a pretense at rolling to see if they stayed, muttering something about "a roll for courage" luckily I rolled poorly, and they wet themselves and fled. Of course...even had I rolled well their courage would have failed. I'm not sure if this is the proper etiquette, but I felt that it gave my players the illusion of the events being random and open to their intervening actions, even though their flight was preplanned (I had plans for them). Peredu started to go after the peasants, his sense of honor damaged after all of the pep talks he had wasted on them...but Avyx got a little shrill with spiders all over her, and he swooped in to engage.

I have to admit, that even though I described the spiders as fist sized, the image I have in my mind for this scene is Peredu on his hands and knees smashing the spiders with the hilt of his sword, while Avyx keeps jumping up and down trying to shake them off.

Peredu, after smashing a couple of spiders suddenly felt a sharp pang in his arm, and then another. The spiders didn't take to kindly to being smushed, and had swarmed on him. Norge, having had enough of that turned to engage the spiders.

And then, exactly as predicted...a kobold came flying around the corner to sink a spear directly in the Dwarf's back. Yes, it was cliche, and hell, Norge knew it was coming. But hey, I have to uphold my end of the bargain, right? So Norge dealt with the kobold, while Avyx and Peredu kept smashing away at the spiders. Mairwen decided to start shooting crossbow bolts at the kobold while Ember ran into the corner, away from the spiders and alternating between (trying) to scorch them with her eldritch blasts and picking them off with her mini crossbow.

Through a quirk in her character creation it turns out our warlock was better equipped to hit things with her crossbow...and not so much with her spells. That would need fixing. The party was giving away massive damage in favor of her ability to hit the broad side of a barn.

Anyhow, each turn Avyx would step away from the spiders...and the spiders would follow. And each time they followed Avyx they drew closer to the now shrill halfling. "No, no no no! Don't bring them over here!"

Ah, these are the moments I live for.

Of course, it wasn't long before the party gooshed all my lovely spiders, and crushed the skull of the kobold skirmisher. The party had passed their first encounter, with flying colors. Peredu and Norge figured out pretty quickly how to hack and smash everything in sight. Avyx had a little trouble remembering which power did what, and really spent the whole encounter unfortunately missing her attacks. Ember, as mentioned above, failed any attempts to use magic, and resorted rather quickly to her crossbow...probably not the best use of a warlock. The rogue, Mairwen, caused some problems as we realized we didn't totally understand the combat advantage rules. I think we screwed them up...oh well. The concept was driven established: yeah you can pick them off with a crossbow, but "meh." The real role of the rogue is to get all backstabby. Or as she put it "all up in their grill." Only by "grill" she means their kidneys, and by "up in" she means "with my daggers". We'll see if these lessons stick.

The party immediately went on a looting spree, uncovering a hoard of rusted weaponry and a trivial amount of gold. I'm not going to count the loot every step of the way unless it's significant I think. Bolstered with confidence, and fearful of the other tapestries they continued down into the dungeon halls, to the next room that surely awaited them.

Up That Hill

It's kind of strange how things I intended to go quickly take a long time, and things I planned on being important end up being blazed right through. For example, I had expected "the party" to have a problem with me giving them 5 peasants to accompany them. At the very least they were going to cut into the profit margin...so I'd planned out a bit of interaction with the peasant bully boys and the party. But, they were cool with it.

So the party made their way across the plains. For flavor text (or was it?) a horseman appeared on a hilltop a couple miles away. The image I had in mind was of the American Plains along the Oregon trail, when suddenly a single Native American appears in the distance, watching the wagon train. Not moving to attack, but clearly not intimidated. Just...watching. It had the desired effect, forcing the party to halt and have a nice conversation about what to do. Even though "nothing happened" I think it was one of my more successful encounters for the group, and one of the earliest moments of them "getting into it." There was some genuine tension as they tried to figure out if this was a problem...but eventually decided there was nothing to be done and continued onwards. Yay!

I had 2 of the peasants run away the first chance they got...clearly their nerves weren't up to this. But I had came up with something more interesting for the remaining three (Tom, Dick, and Harry) so their nerves held. I pretended to roll dice (sorry Peredu, your awesome intimidate checks were window dressing) to mask this...but with 5 of them there's no way they were all going to pass a random selection by the dice. It's interesting how the dynamic of chance was already starting to interfere with my story...three botched rolls on my part (or three amazing ones on Peredu's) and the new plan I had in store for Tom, Dick, and Harry would have been out the window. But the odds prevailed and three peasants stayed (conveniently renamed Tom, Dick, and Harry...regardless of who rolled which). Again some interesting dynamics of the group started to emerge...Avyx was angry, demanding whose watch they'd slipped out on. Peredu was a little upset that after bonding with them (by yelling at them not to run) they'd betrayed him and ran off anyhow. Norge...well...Norge had decided they were useless anyhow, and good riddance to bad rubbish. Mairwen and Ember didn't say much in this exchange...I'm still trying to figure how to engage each person. What are they looking for? Is it their comfort level keeping them quiet? Do they feel this exchange isn't "tailored" for them? What are a warlock and rogue to say about peasants anyhow?

So remember when I said some things took way longer than expected? Well the party arrived at the hill where the bandits were said to be located. I described it, essentially, as a jumble of boulders inexplicably rising above the plain. Were I to enter science mode I'd probably say it was some sort of glacial kame, and that the plains likely were carved by some glaciation period in the past. I'd described it a little more like Iowa than Ohio...but I'm allowed to alter geomorphology...it's my world.

Anyhow, the hill. There's a copse of tree on the top, brush growing on the sides, and a small river a short ways away. I'd figured that there options were: wait for daylight (as I had them arrive at dusk), or go right up and planned accordingly. They managed somehow to both start and wait forever. They easily spotted the trail up the hill...but after falling into some brush and making a racket got spooked (oh those tricksy dice). And I could not convince them to go up the hill. Mairwen walked around the hill. Norge walked up to the base of the hill. They all walked around the hill. Peredu forced the peasants to walk up the back of the hill and back down. But dear lord were they reticent to go up the hill. Of course, had they simply gone up the trail they would have seen an entrance into the hill they'd missed before. But nothing is simple. (to the right: what a scary hill might look like)

Finally, peasants in front like a shield Peredu ventured up the hill. You know, I must disclose...I didn't get the feel that Peredu was doing the best roleplaying at this point (still our first night), but upon writing down the actions he was pretty active in everything. I've just got to get him more involved in some of the conversations. So finally...atop the hill. And into an abandoned necropolis. Shattered crypts and flecks of bone mark the location of an ancient burial ground...which was almost enough to send them right back down the hill. I'd had enough trouble getting them up the hill (note I didn't really want them on the hill...I wanted them halfway up the front...but they'd been avoiding that religiously since the first moment).

So they explored the hill. They poked the bones. The peasants threw small rocks down the hill. They stared back down the back of the hill. At this point I almost threw a *cough* look down the front *cough* but resisted. They perception checked, arcana checked, nature checked and religion checked all over the wazoo. I have to admit another failure...I wasn't quite as prepared as I should have been for some of their successes...but made enough up to sketch a bare bones reply (and pretend the difficulty was really high). In the future I'll 1) do more prep work (ugh, where will I find the time?) and 2) be more willing to make stuff up.

Finally they started to walk back down the hill...and someone looked down the front of the hill immediately seeing the entrance. At this point I broke "character" and expressed a little of the frustration I'd had "I just could not get you to walk up the front of that hill!" Subtext? "Get up that damn hill soldier!" There were some odd expressions, as the "duh...it was that simple" and "we didn't do that?" competed for space. On the one hand they learned something about what it's going to be like when they come across entirely unknown territory to the DM (and learn they're on the "wrong" track) and also how to make sure they've done everything they thought about doing. I, on the other hand, learned they're not going to do things the way I deem simple, and there is no "wrong" track, I just need to learn how to take that wrong track, and lay track desperately in front of the oncoming train...and hopefully smash my predicted path into the way.

The funny thing is, this was a very informative time...don't write stories so a bad roll will halt the party (a failed stealth check made them afraid of the hill), learn how to conceal directed story with the appearance of infinite choice, and the first inklings of roleplaying in my party. We'd probably spent an hour to this point and not had a single real encounter. The story so far?

Met. Got job to take out bandits. Walked to hill (saw scary horse guy, lost 2 peasants). Walked up hill. Saw cave. Decided to enter. Pretty basic stuff, yet somehow we'd spent over an hour getting there exploring nuances of the story and my mind (at this point...pretty empty and simple). Next entry...they'll enter the hill. And see what awaits them under the cemetery.

The Adventure Begins...

I've decided, the hell with it. I'm going to regale you with tales of the table top. It'll probably be a mixture of 3rd person narrative, and first person memory recall. I'll mix and match as appropriate. You'll just have to deal with it. As before, the names have been changed to protect the nerdy. I'll just call them by their character names. I tried to be brief...but the result was a "tl:dnr"* worthy post. Ugh, why am I in a field that encourages my tendency to go on and on and on...

We gathered in the house of one of our compatriots, and basically nervously made small talk...it was a heady experience. I was pretty nervous, once begun I can never take it back...I'll forever be marked as having played D&D. I'd spent a good amount of time whipping up a campaign, creating a small portion of a world for my players to inhabit, and was nervous about 1) my ability to entertain 2) remembering more than half the rules and 3) just being the focus of peoples attention...as much as I love telling a good story, when it's expected of me to do something, present/tell a story/whatever my nerves kick in and I freak the fuck out. I know, it's amazing that something could make me nervous about talking and telling a story...but it happens.

But eventually, we began. I explained the town they found themselves in. A little village...or town...it lies somewhere in between, resting in the crook of an oxbow river, called Portage. It rests at the edge of 'civilization' (as far as the inhabitants of this region are concerned) at the edge of a barren plain. It exists solely because of a low point in a river requiring merchant barges to unload and reload downstream of the rocks. The keep and walls are falling apart, remnants of a fortification predating the current occupation. The current residents are essentially squatters, most employed to haul goods, and a few work on the scattered farms on the same side of the river as the town.

I instructed my player that their reasons for being attracted to this town were their own (no one had given me their backstories...so I didn't know either actually) but they were probably disappointed...instead of a bustling, rough and tumble "frontier town" they find a slowly collapsing, boring, empty, filthy village. Think "Dayton, OH." (I was in a bad mood when I conceived the town, and took out my frustration on Dayton, every problem I have with it, every stereotype and shortcoming, I lumped into poor Portage. Why? Because fuck Dayton, that's why.)

They each found a notice calling for any adventurers passing through town nailed to a sign post at one of the two intersections in town, and they made their way to the inn, looking for a contract (and money). I described the inn, the innkeeper, and had them ushered into a meeting room filled with the respondents.

Background given I made a n00b mistake, I said "okay...go."

No one spoke. *crickets* Awkward. Familiar flushing on my neck. It's 5th grade all over again.

I can only assume that lack of familiarity with "how to play," nerves about being "that guy" (you know the one who affects a British accent of sorts, puts on pointy ears, and is just a little too into it), and not really knowing "what to do," all contributed. Anyhow, after enduring the silence, and having my own freakout, I tried to poke and prod responses with little in the way of a result. Avyx half-heartedly started to explain what she was up to, but nervously trailed away to nothingness.

"Enough!" I thought, "I'll cram more exposition down their throats!"

At this point, however, I was just as nervous. How can I weave an engrossing story (because just shoving them into dungeons isn't fun), without crossing the same line. So I kind of brought in the town mayor, gave them a contract, and shoved them out the door "in passing" as my narrative style. All third person, no direct dialogue "he tells you to go in this direction" "he says he doesn't know that" etc. etc. I snuck in a little flavor, but probably could have balanced it a bit better. Oh well, it's a learning experience for all. At this point it was a symbiotic relationship of suck...I sucked at telling the story, they weren't responding, further decreasing my ability to tell the story.

In short...attempts to expand their farmland across the river results in farmsteads being burned by bandits. Attempts to guard it prove ineffective as shortly after the guards return to town the bandits return and once more set the buildings to the torch. There are pirates plaguing the river south of Portage, and things are just terrible. Won't you please take care of it Mr. and Miss powerful action heroes? If we could just get one or two things to go our way this town will improve, pinky swear. They were granted a contract for 10 gold per bandit ear (the bandits conveniently wore distinctive earrings to mark their identity according to eyewitness reports). They were given the location of the hideout, and with that (and a few disparaging remarks) the mayor left.

The group got a little into it during the conversation, trying starting to feel out the ins and outs of what they should be doing. At one point Norge, our only experiened player, did decide to magnanimously buy ale for all, and the group indicated that general drinking related entertainment was occurring in game. Peredu, the zealous paladin, decided he was having none of that and took his character upstairs to sleep (yay! he roleplayed!)

I'd had it set up so that the room was filled with local flavor, peasants and dock workers who thought they were "up to snuff" with the intention of forcing my characters to try to drive them off (persuade them to go away, or whatever). Instead they passively accepted that they had a bunch of cannon fodder with them now (what BASTARDS! they're supposed to be anthropologists, all emotional, and caring about the plight of the poor and stuff! Not cold bloodedly decide that they can shove them in front of their trek to search for traps** with their feet like an African warlord.) I kept my cool, and didn't berate them too much...after all, it was no time to tell them they're losing the game already as well as being terrible anthropologists. So with no introductions to each other, familiarization with complimentary skills (or really knowledge of each others classes and abilities aside from moments of joint character creation) they set out...with 5 peasants in tow. Peter, Paul, Tom, Dick, and Harry I named them. In no way are they disposable characters, why would you suggest that after my amazing naming scheme was revealed?

I was worried about playing a character and DMing. How am I supposed to let John bon Jonne speak without giving away too much, avoid the temptation of forcing narrative and exposition through him, and keep another (more complicated) set of stats straight during combat? So I conveniently had him take a minor contract to explore in another direction, down the river, with a contingent of guardsmen, and removed him from the table.

So there you have it. A poorly acquainted group is setting off across the plains, there's a stone hill 2 days march to the northeast, filled with bandits, and they've got 5 hungry, scared, poorly trained and armed peasants around them. They can see nothing but undulating beige grassland in all directions. It's like Kansas...with swords instead of power rock...err, wheat.

Now that I've crammed exposition down your throats I can begin the telling of the tale, "untitled and the untitled untitled," pretty catchy, huh?


The Cast to date:
Avyx, tiefling (half-demon) warlord (f)
Ember, halfling warlock (f)
John bon Jonne, human, wizard (m) absent
Mairwen, half-elf rouge (f)
Norge, dwarf cleric (m)
Peredu, human paladin (m)

Supporting Cast:
Peter, Paul, Tom, Dick, Harry, human, dirty peasants
Belkin, dwarf, innkeep (m). Massively fat, runs his inn from a wheeling chair (not a wheelchair I might remind you). Warm, open, and nice...even by human standards (so borderline psychotic by Dwarf standards)
Hjeldin Barkavaad, human, reeve or mayor (m). Old, pouchy, incompetent. Running a fail-town not as a reward, but to keep him out of the way of the real bureaucracy.


____________________
*too long: did not read
**This actually was said!

Daring Deeds and Dashing D...heroes...

So, about a month ago some of my fellow anthro people (who shall remain nameless, to protect the innocent...or something) and I took our steps into a dark and treacherous place. You see, I'm a nerd. I'm not ashamed of that, and in fact I've grown to embrace it as time goes on. Let's face it...my entire scholastic/professional track is based on this nerd-ish tendency. I love Star Wars, have read LOTR multiple times, I play computer games, and can speak lolcat.

However, one thing I have never done is play Dungeons and Dragons. There's no particular reason for it, I wasn't really exposed to people who played it regularly, and those I did encounter were the "scary" D&Ders... I'm not one to profile people, so I'll just leave that there (and no, that's not me or any of my nameless companions to the left).

But I'm an adult now (hah), and my friends are all adults, and I can trust them to be responsible and mature (hah). Anyhow, I felt it was a safe environment, we'll leave it at that.

So I mentioned that it really was a sort of affront to my nerddom that I had never played D&D. I know most of the jokes, I understand the hilarity of casting magic missile at the darkness, and I know the difference between an epic fail and an epic flail. But, much to my shame, I've never rolled a D4 hoping against hope to drop an area attack and send kobolds and goblins fleeing my arcane powers.

Hi. My name is Marcus...and I...I'm a nerd poser.

Anyhow, at my admission, several others came clean, who despite their seemingly impressive nerd credentials were also unfamiliar with rolling polyhedrons. So, together, we decided to take the plunge.

Books were read, dice bought, and at least two pewter figurines were painted.

We've assembled quite the motley crew...our half-demon warlord Avyx, our half elf rogue (who does an incredible impression of a tree) Mairwen, the highly flammable halfling warlock Ember, Clanky and Cranky...our human paladin and dwarf cleric (Peredu and Norge), and the sometimes conscious wizard Jon bon Jonne. The role of DM (at least for the time being) has been filled by yours truly. Not because I'm any good at the game, or have any deep understanding of the mechanics...I don't. But because I volunteered, and figured it would be the best way to learn, since I'd have to. Yeah, that's right...I'm playing D&D trying to learn stuff. It's kind of weird.

Anyhow, faced with the concept of learning a new game, and how to run it what was I to do. I read what I could of the Players Handbook and the Dungeon Master book...but despite my experience learning things from books those weren't the most helpful. I've had to go a little further afield. I dredged deep into my nerd bones and found:

The folks at Penny-Arcade and PVP Dungeon Crawl podcast
and
Critical Hit podcast
(just go to itunes to subscribe to either of them, or muddle around on the internet to figure out how to do it that way...I'm not entirely sure)

So armed with listening in on how campaigns are run, a rough idea of how the rules worked, I cobbled together an adventure, with the story...well, not quite improvised as I went along, but definitely "in flux" as the weeks advanced. We just finished the first "adventure" (or whatever you want to call it) and despite some rough patches went pretty well I think. Took 3 nights to make it through, but I'd say...success? Maybe I'll issue a play-by-play...cuz again...I'm a nerd (and so are you).

Poe's Law

If you're not familiar with Poe's Law, it can be summed up as:

It is impossible to create of parody of Fundamentalism that someone won't mistake for the real thing, barring winking, laughing, etc. on the part of the parodist.

With that in mind read this:

DNA Sculpture is "Vile and Offensive"

Had I not tipped you to the parody angle, would you have been able to tell? It says wonders about the state of the discussion doesn't it (and not in a good way).

Science!

This made me laugh far harder than it should have:

Heisenberg is driving down the highway one day when he sees a cop pull up behind him, siren blaring and lights flashing. So Heisenberg pulls over and the cop walks up to his car and looks over the top of his shades at him, "Sir, do you have any idea how fast you were going?"

"No officer, but I do know precisely where I am."
~Joke courtesy of the internets.

What I learned in Houston

A personal entry today. You know, where I talk about feelings and stuff. Hah.

Anyhow, this last week I made quite the epic journey from Columbus, OH to Houston, TX, and then back again (in the course of 4 days...with loading and unloading an entire home along the way).

The driving was actually pretty easy, at one point I got a little groggy, but quickly snapped out of it and cruised the rest of the way.

I, now that I think of it, don't have too many amusing stories or anecdotes from the trip. Louisiana was surprisingly flat (I guess I just never thought about the topography required for a giant swamp), Mississippi was kind of iffy, and Houston was...well...a city.

Anyhow, it totally drained me, I was supposed to be all hardworking and stuff this week to finish out my summer...but that ain't happening. I just want to sleep.