I started my 13th Age campaign back in January, as a way to introduce the group to the game. Eight months later, I found myself surprised how long it actually lasted. I had intended to run a shorter campaign just to get people used to the system, but the ideas just kept flowing and it took on a life of its own. With everyone wanting to actually play Edge of the Empire, it seemed like a good time to draw 13th Age to a close, despite the fact that I still had plenty of material floating around in my head.
Finale Summary
We covered a lot of ground throughout this campaign, but the quick and dirty backstory is that there was a recently colonized island in the Midland Sea, where the PCs were residing at the start of the campaign, and about a week (game time) earlier a great red dragon named Axtalrath had taken up residence there. Somewhere in the middle of the campaign the wood elf Cleric had also freed an imprisoned Dracolich, meaning that there were TWO dragons loose now. After escaping the island via a portal at the end of a living dungeon, hanging around in Drakkenhall, and getting some magical aid from Arden, the Great Gold Wyrm's silver dragon counterpart (known as the Sea Dragon, she left the empire when the Midland Sea was tamed, and now guards the Sea Wall from the creatures of the Iron Sea), it was time to return to the island and put a stop to Axtalrath.
Now, Axtalrath was a Huge Red Dragon (the level 13 one from the core book), and the party had just hit level 5. The Dracolich was a Huge 8th level custom creation based on the dragons from the book. Clearly a face-to-face fight was out of the question. Fortunately, the magic that Arden gifted the PCs with would allow them to reverse the polarity of the island's sky-metal monolith (which has been drawing magical energy from the ley lines underneath), forcing it to siphon nearby elemental fire instead. If Axtalrath were nearby, it would destroy her.
With that plan in mind, the PCs began the session in an old cave system where the Dracolich's phylactery was hidden. The kobold guards were toast (all 30+ of them) after the last battle of the previous session, so after recovering the phylactery the party sought out the Dracolich and threatened to destroy it unless he challenged Axtalrath in single combat, drawing her to the monolith. After some negotiation which left the Cleric with cursed hands (think Dumbledore's) and cursed eyes (a self-inflicted complication from an Icon roll), the Dracolich grudgingly agreed.
Cue the big epic battle. The Monk's OUT was that he can climb impossible surfaces, so once Axtalrath was in sight he activated Arden's magic at the top of the monolith while the Fighter did the same at the base. It took a few rounds to charge up, during which the Dracolich occupied most of Axtalrath's attention, while Axtalrath sent some allies (courtesy of The Blue) after the PCs (a hill giant and several Hobgoblin warcasters). Just when things were looking dire for the Dracolich, the energy began arcing from the monolith to Axtalrath. It was then that she knew what was going on, so for 2 rounds before her death she focused her attention on the PCs. One breath weapon killed the Cleric outright in a single shot, and grievously wounded the others. The Fighter was unconscious, so I randomly rolled to see whether she would target her death throes on the Paladin or Monk. Paladin got the unlucky roll, and in a surprising bout of heroism the Monk intercepted, and I let him use Improbably Stunt to use a finishing move as part of the intercept. After 3 attacks from the dragon (2 of which hit; I think I fumbled the other one) the Monk was outright killed, too. Axtalrath swallowed him whole, and as the player noted that he'd had 2 vials of poison on his person, the dragon experienced some mild gastric distress before being immolated and siphoned into the monolith.
The Paladin used a magic axe with item-destroying powers to betray the Dracolich by destroying the phylactery anyways. This axe caused images from the destroyed item's past to be reflected in its blade, and destroying the phylactery therefore replaced the images from the last item the axe destroyed - images that would have implicated the Paladin's political rival and ended his exile, restoring his status in Dwarven society. A noble sacrifice, to be sure, but not so final as the one that the Cleric and Monk made. Of course, being inside of Axtalrath when she was consumed allowed the Monk's essence to be sucked into the island's ley lines through the monolith, so he IS the island now. And the Cleric got to meet the voice behind a mysterious amulet that talked to him - the voice of God. And the Fighter, well, he made the Great Gold Wyrm proud by defeated two rivals.
Icons
This session was interesting because I hadn't planned on having the PCs roll their Relationship Dice until the last minute. The final confrontation was pretty much set without much wiggle room if we were to finish in one session, and I'd had a 6 with the Emperor and a 5 and 6 with the Orc Lord banked from last session. But I figured I'd let them roll one last time, and got more results than usual. Three more 6's and three more 5's, to be precise. Even more surprising was that all of them got used except one of the 5's (for the Emperor).
So how'd I pull it off? Well, I decided to burn the Orc Lord relationship by making the Dracolich's phylactery a shrunken head - that happened to be an orc. No shame in having an Icon roll result in some interesting aesthetic detail. Were it not the last session, something like that could have taken on greater significance later. A 5 with The Three meant that a pair of kobold scouts happened to be discovering the massacre of their fellow guards just as the PCs exited the cave, and they were able to capture one of them and force him to take them to the Dracolich's camp. A 5 for the Priestess let the Cleric (by his suggestion) discover the ritual to destroy the phylactery by studying the various runes carved into the scarified face, but at the expense of getting cursed eyes (a negative background; too bad he didn't live long enough for it to come into play). The Fighter used a 6 with the Great Gold Wyrm (by his suggestion) to convince the Dracolich during negotiations that Arden had provided them with the means to destroy his phylactery (this was before the Cleric discovered its secrets), and the name-dropping also leant much weight to the plan to destroy Axtalrath. The Dracolich was, after all, very much outmatched in that fight. A 6 for the Emperor revealed that an old ally (Lord Taramos) was in residence at the Wizard tower beside the monolith, and being the most powerful wizard on the island he was able to aid them by animating the crystalline walls surrounding the compound during the fight. Rolls for the Dwarf King and Orc Lord determined the allies sent by The Blue through the portal (this is one that I'd actually planned on using BEFORE the session, even jotting down a list of possible allies associated with each Icon in the party).
And that about covered it. It turned out to be perhaps the most Icon-heavy session in the campaign, despite the fact that the plot was pretty much "set." I guess the moral of the story here is GMs shouldn't be afraid to stack the odds against the PCs, and let Icon rolls determine whatever little advantages they can eke out to level the playing field a little bit. It's usually pretty easy to come up with story-guidance results as a GM, but until that sub-plot resolves itself sometimes it's tough to interpret Icon rolls. But that's cool, because if you just increase the pressure on the PCs they might just come up with clever ways to leverage their connections with the Icons. In some ways I don't think that the player-input facet of the Icons hit its stride until later in the campaign, which makes me really excited for the next campaign now that the players know the ropes!
Showing posts with label Axtalrath. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Axtalrath. Show all posts
Saturday, August 24, 2013
Monday, August 19, 2013
13th Age Mechanics in Pathfinder
Well, I did something I never thought I would do again - I started playing in a Pathfinder game. Largely because one of the players from my 13th Age campaign is GMing it, and he's incorporating some 13th Age mechanics into the game, outlined below.
On a related note, this week I'm wrapping up my current 13th Age campaign. I've been driving the plot to its conclusion for the last few sessions more quickly than I'd initially intended, with a ton of cool ideas still floating around in my head. But I'm itching to try Edge of the Empire, and so is the rest of the group, and I'm also a bit burnt out on GMing (this Pathfinder campaign aside, I haven't played a PC for about a year and a half). It's been going 8 months strong, but I look forward to the next game when everyone has a better idea of what to expect from the character classes (for example, my Paladin player hates his class).
Expect me to focus a bit more on Star Wars and a bit less on 13th Age coming up soon, but I'm sure I'll get another 13th Age game up and running after 13 True Ways is released.
- Icons. The published list is used as a base, though several of them have been changed to some degree or another. Also, there's only 10 or 11 of them. Icon relationships in the party include the High Druid, the General (sort of a combination of the Emperor and the Crusader, but not evil), the Prince of Shadows, the Archmage, the Great Gold Wyrm, and The Holy Mother (a slightly modified Priestess).
- One Unique Thing. This is used as-is, though some of the players have elected to keep theirs a secret. My character's OUT is "stolen" from Angel (The Buffy spinoff), as he can read someone's destiny when they sing (like Lorne, though the character is human, and even though he's a Bard he doesn't sing himself). Interesting, one of the other players completely independently said that his character's OUT is that he knows that his fate is death, but doesn't yet know how he'll die.
- The Escalation Die is in, but the GM is capping it at 4 to keep the bonuses from getting out of hand (not sure how long fights will last; many of the PCs are more social/exploration oriented as opposed to strong combatants).
- Backgrounds, much to my dismay, are NOT in. Yep, still have to deal with that long, fiddly skill list (one of the things I like least about Pathfinder). Oh well, I'll live.
- The GM has let me swap out Bardic Performance (like I said, my Bard doesn't sing) for the Storyteller talent from 13th Age. It's already come into play beautifully. As we were searching through the house of a murder (and theft, but at that point does it really matter?) victim my Bard mentioned that the Rogue really looked like he knew his stuff when it comes to breaking and entering, and asked if he recognized any patterns or anything about the way the place was searched (only very specific things were stolen). The Rogue got to re-roll his story-guide relationship with the Prince of Shadows, and got a 6! So we got some info, confirming the killer as belonging to his old guild.
On a related note, this week I'm wrapping up my current 13th Age campaign. I've been driving the plot to its conclusion for the last few sessions more quickly than I'd initially intended, with a ton of cool ideas still floating around in my head. But I'm itching to try Edge of the Empire, and so is the rest of the group, and I'm also a bit burnt out on GMing (this Pathfinder campaign aside, I haven't played a PC for about a year and a half). It's been going 8 months strong, but I look forward to the next game when everyone has a better idea of what to expect from the character classes (for example, my Paladin player hates his class).
Expect me to focus a bit more on Star Wars and a bit less on 13th Age coming up soon, but I'm sure I'll get another 13th Age game up and running after 13 True Ways is released.
Sunday, April 21, 2013
Improvised Mass Combat in 13th Age
My 13th Age Campaign based on the Dungeon World Front "The Great Wyrm Axtalrath" has taken on a life of its own. Which is perhaps to be expected, given the GMing philosophies and story game slant of the two systems. A few sessions ago the PCs traveled back in time to the 8th Age, encountering a very different Crescent Isle (and a very different Midland Sea, pre Archmage enchantment; wild and untamed). Their experience in the 8th Age planted seeds for overcoming the problems they've been facing in the 13th Age, the importance of some of which haven't been revealed yet.
Given the differences between the two ages, there's a lot of unexplained history and perhaps some avenues of interest that would inevitably lead to dead ends if pursued. So how did I address this potential issue? The almighty flashback. This past session the players took control of new PCs from the 8th Age (80 years after when the main PCs time-traveled to), all part of a crew tasked by the then-Emperor to take control of Crescent Isle by force (the native sea and wood elves took issue with the Empire essentially using their island as a prison colony, so they began sinking Imperial ships). The big upside to this flashback was also that the players got to experiment with other classes.
Fast forward to the final encounter of the evening. The party, backed by a platoon of imperial soldiers and 3 ballistas, took on the wood elf capital, their victory explaining why there are no wood elves on the island in the 13th Age. Oddly enough, it wasn't until I was a round or two into this combat that I thought "shit, I didn't even THINK about how the system doesn't have any mass combat rules!" Here's what I came up with, a few rounds into the combat (before that I described everything narratively).
I kept track of different units or sections of the battlefield. The Ranger was fighting with the soldiers, but the Wizard and Rogue went off on their own to take out some Druids that were controlling magical blasting stones that were decimating the soldiers and damaging the ballistas. Archers on top of the city walls were raining death down from above, while Druids wild-shaped into bears and wolves were trying to kill all the soldiers in the vicinity of the ballistas to neutralize them. Soldiers were escorting companions carrying a battering ram, and later in the fight I had a second unit arrive with reinforcements.
Perhaps appropriately since the idea for the campaign came from Dungeon World, my dirt-simple, on-the-fly mass combat rules were also inspired by Dungeon World. The core mechanic in Dungeon World is roll 2D6+modifiers, with a 6 or less as a failure, 7-9 as success but..., and 10+ as full success. Ok, so technically you could argue that the core mechanic of Dungeon World is actually narrative description, but when the dice come out that's how they roll.
Using that as a base, I rolled a d6 for each unit and on a 1-2 bad things happened, on a 3-4 both sides had some success and it mostly evened out, and on a 5-6 good things happened. It worked well enough to give the impression that I wasn't just making up whatever I felt like, but it was still pretty simplistic and didn't account for relative unit strength. Clearly there's room for improvement.
Refining the Basic Concept
Still, I like the base of letting large-scale events hinge on the roll of a d6, with results being more than just binary success/failure (namely that those middle values are a partial success). The question, then, is how to assign value to units in the simplest way possible?
I'm thinking of using the strongest unit present at the outset as a baseline, and giving it a value of 10. All other units are assigned values as a percentage of the strongest (a unit half as strong would be given a value of 5). Unit strength is an abstraction, so a unit with fewer raw numbers but in a highly defensible position would be pretty strong. An eyeballed approximation of advantage. This is still meant to be quick and dirty, potentially even run on-the-fly.
A unit's value represents its "damage roll." A multiple of the unit's value (10?) would serve as its "HP." Rolling for just a single side (the player's side), a 1-2 would deal the enemy unit's damage to the player unit's HP and the player unit would deal half damage to the enemy, 3-4 both would deal their damage to each other, and 5-6 the player unit would deal damage to the enemy while the enemy only deals half damage. Just like a group of mooks, once a unit takes damage equal to the HP multiplier, its value is reduced by 1.
Once a unit's value is reduced to half of the opposing unit's strength, that unit would start making morale rolls. I'm thinking a d6 with 1-2 as a failure, with failure increasing by an additional 1 for each additional point below half. If PCs want to act as "commander" types they could make Cha checks (with any relevant leadership background) to provide a +1 bonus to morale checks. Or maybe even damage checks.
For the sake of simplicity, unit strength could be tracked using d10s. If you use a map, the d10 could even represent the center of the unit's position.
Anyways, this hasn't been playtested AT ALL, it's mostly just me throwing out an idea for simplifying mass combat as much as possible. It's also worth mentioning that the way I envision this, it probably isn't the main focus of the combat. The PCs are off fighting specific foes at critical locations using the normal combat rules, with the mass combat going on in the background. So anyways, give it a try, tweak it, and let me know how it goes.
Given the differences between the two ages, there's a lot of unexplained history and perhaps some avenues of interest that would inevitably lead to dead ends if pursued. So how did I address this potential issue? The almighty flashback. This past session the players took control of new PCs from the 8th Age (80 years after when the main PCs time-traveled to), all part of a crew tasked by the then-Emperor to take control of Crescent Isle by force (the native sea and wood elves took issue with the Empire essentially using their island as a prison colony, so they began sinking Imperial ships). The big upside to this flashback was also that the players got to experiment with other classes.
Fast forward to the final encounter of the evening. The party, backed by a platoon of imperial soldiers and 3 ballistas, took on the wood elf capital, their victory explaining why there are no wood elves on the island in the 13th Age. Oddly enough, it wasn't until I was a round or two into this combat that I thought "shit, I didn't even THINK about how the system doesn't have any mass combat rules!" Here's what I came up with, a few rounds into the combat (before that I described everything narratively).
I kept track of different units or sections of the battlefield. The Ranger was fighting with the soldiers, but the Wizard and Rogue went off on their own to take out some Druids that were controlling magical blasting stones that were decimating the soldiers and damaging the ballistas. Archers on top of the city walls were raining death down from above, while Druids wild-shaped into bears and wolves were trying to kill all the soldiers in the vicinity of the ballistas to neutralize them. Soldiers were escorting companions carrying a battering ram, and later in the fight I had a second unit arrive with reinforcements.
Perhaps appropriately since the idea for the campaign came from Dungeon World, my dirt-simple, on-the-fly mass combat rules were also inspired by Dungeon World. The core mechanic in Dungeon World is roll 2D6+modifiers, with a 6 or less as a failure, 7-9 as success but..., and 10+ as full success. Ok, so technically you could argue that the core mechanic of Dungeon World is actually narrative description, but when the dice come out that's how they roll.
Using that as a base, I rolled a d6 for each unit and on a 1-2 bad things happened, on a 3-4 both sides had some success and it mostly evened out, and on a 5-6 good things happened. It worked well enough to give the impression that I wasn't just making up whatever I felt like, but it was still pretty simplistic and didn't account for relative unit strength. Clearly there's room for improvement.
Refining the Basic Concept
Still, I like the base of letting large-scale events hinge on the roll of a d6, with results being more than just binary success/failure (namely that those middle values are a partial success). The question, then, is how to assign value to units in the simplest way possible?
I'm thinking of using the strongest unit present at the outset as a baseline, and giving it a value of 10. All other units are assigned values as a percentage of the strongest (a unit half as strong would be given a value of 5). Unit strength is an abstraction, so a unit with fewer raw numbers but in a highly defensible position would be pretty strong. An eyeballed approximation of advantage. This is still meant to be quick and dirty, potentially even run on-the-fly.
A unit's value represents its "damage roll." A multiple of the unit's value (10?) would serve as its "HP." Rolling for just a single side (the player's side), a 1-2 would deal the enemy unit's damage to the player unit's HP and the player unit would deal half damage to the enemy, 3-4 both would deal their damage to each other, and 5-6 the player unit would deal damage to the enemy while the enemy only deals half damage. Just like a group of mooks, once a unit takes damage equal to the HP multiplier, its value is reduced by 1.
Once a unit's value is reduced to half of the opposing unit's strength, that unit would start making morale rolls. I'm thinking a d6 with 1-2 as a failure, with failure increasing by an additional 1 for each additional point below half. If PCs want to act as "commander" types they could make Cha checks (with any relevant leadership background) to provide a +1 bonus to morale checks. Or maybe even damage checks.
For the sake of simplicity, unit strength could be tracked using d10s. If you use a map, the d10 could even represent the center of the unit's position.
Anyways, this hasn't been playtested AT ALL, it's mostly just me throwing out an idea for simplifying mass combat as much as possible. It's also worth mentioning that the way I envision this, it probably isn't the main focus of the combat. The PCs are off fighting specific foes at critical locations using the normal combat rules, with the mass combat going on in the background. So anyways, give it a try, tweak it, and let me know how it goes.
Tuesday, March 12, 2013
Icons in Action (2)
Overall tonight's session was pretty light on Icon usage. I guess that just happens sometimes; it was a short session, and somewhat combat-heavy. Each player rolled one 5 for Relationships at the start of the session, and there was an outstanding 5 and 6 from last session that hadn't been spent as well. Complications are awesome and make perfect sense in some situations, but in others I find I struggle to come up with a good disadvantage. Results of 5 can be, quite simply, more work to utilize in play (unless you're endowed with more improvisational creativity than I am).
Icon Rolls/OUTs
Argus, our party's Fighter, wanted to copy down some ancient writing from a tapestry onto paper for later research. The player simply asked if the standard adventurer's gear included paper. Thinking it unlikely for any but a studious Wizard type, a Bard who likes to compose on the road, or a PC of any class that has an established personality/backstory that would justify carrying paper, I said probably not. "But what happened to 'Always say Yes,'" you might ask? Well, I happened to be struggling with coming up with any applications for these relationship rolls (as were my players), so I offered the player the following bargain: if he spent a 5 for the Emperor that was still in play, he can be carrying around imperial stationary with an appropriate writing implement.
The beauty of this suggestion is that it's so minor at the present time that I didn't feel the need to tack on a complication. Easy on me, right? Results of 5 could involve a complication, OR they could simply provide a lesser benefit than a 6 would. But it's still open-ended. How did Argus come by this imperial stationary? His Relationship with the Emperor is conflicted, and his OUT is that he's the only person known to have insulted the Emperor to his face and lived to tell the tale. Is it left over from a former position that he once held in the imperial military? Or did he come by it later through illicit means? Will it be possible to forge an official document later on, now that it's established that he carries imperial stationary? Maybe a more significant benefit will come up later, and the possibility for future conflict is certainly there as well. Point being, just because you need to come up with something on the spot for a relationship roll doesn't mean you have to come up with EVERYTHING on the spot. And everyone knows sometimes minor details can end up having a big narrative impact later on.
Backgrounds
Turns out the best example of a surprising (and yet obvious, in hindsight) background application came from Argus as well. After repeatedly breaking down several doors with axes (because when will a party consisting of a Cleric, Paladin, and Fighter decide to pick a lock?) and subsequently alerting those in the room, Argus decided to finally try to pick the final door in their path. "Can I use Blacksmith?" he asked. Lightbulb moment. Hey, we have someone whose halfway decent at skulduggery! A blacksmith just might know enough about the internal workings of locks to be able to have an advantage while picking them. And an otherwise under-utilized background gets some screen time.
Icon Rolls/OUTs
Argus, our party's Fighter, wanted to copy down some ancient writing from a tapestry onto paper for later research. The player simply asked if the standard adventurer's gear included paper. Thinking it unlikely for any but a studious Wizard type, a Bard who likes to compose on the road, or a PC of any class that has an established personality/backstory that would justify carrying paper, I said probably not. "But what happened to 'Always say Yes,'" you might ask? Well, I happened to be struggling with coming up with any applications for these relationship rolls (as were my players), so I offered the player the following bargain: if he spent a 5 for the Emperor that was still in play, he can be carrying around imperial stationary with an appropriate writing implement.
The beauty of this suggestion is that it's so minor at the present time that I didn't feel the need to tack on a complication. Easy on me, right? Results of 5 could involve a complication, OR they could simply provide a lesser benefit than a 6 would. But it's still open-ended. How did Argus come by this imperial stationary? His Relationship with the Emperor is conflicted, and his OUT is that he's the only person known to have insulted the Emperor to his face and lived to tell the tale. Is it left over from a former position that he once held in the imperial military? Or did he come by it later through illicit means? Will it be possible to forge an official document later on, now that it's established that he carries imperial stationary? Maybe a more significant benefit will come up later, and the possibility for future conflict is certainly there as well. Point being, just because you need to come up with something on the spot for a relationship roll doesn't mean you have to come up with EVERYTHING on the spot. And everyone knows sometimes minor details can end up having a big narrative impact later on.
Backgrounds
Turns out the best example of a surprising (and yet obvious, in hindsight) background application came from Argus as well. After repeatedly breaking down several doors with axes (because when will a party consisting of a Cleric, Paladin, and Fighter decide to pick a lock?) and subsequently alerting those in the room, Argus decided to finally try to pick the final door in their path. "Can I use Blacksmith?" he asked. Lightbulb moment. Hey, we have someone whose halfway decent at skulduggery! A blacksmith just might know enough about the internal workings of locks to be able to have an advantage while picking them. And an otherwise under-utilized background gets some screen time.
Wednesday, March 6, 2013
Highlighting Monster Abilities
Last night in my 13th Age session I made extensive use of Spoiler type monsters for the first time. Specifically, an annoying flock of Harpies. When I first read the Harpy stat block I thought "oh cool, Fiendish Song has an escalating series of effects for higher attack rolls!" Then I realized that the chances of a single Harpy rolling a natural 16+ weren't necessarily very high if the thing only lasted 4 or 5 rounds. This comes from a habit in other systems of using "debuffer" or "controller" type monsters as a single creature allied with (usually) some frontliners or skirmisher types. But they usually got attacks that generated a given effect if they hit. These Harpies usually just deal piddly damage until they get lucky enough to start messing with you.
I almost immediately decided to throw 4 Harpies into the encounter. If Fiendish Song is getting rolled 4 times per round (often against multiple targets) then those extra effects for high rolls are bound to come up! Ultimately I like to showcase the abilities that make a given monster unique, and in this case it's the ever-increasing nastiness of the song. If those effects never go off it doesn't evoke the feeling of fighting Harpies nearly as strongly.
So use groups of monsters when they have difficult-to-trigger abilities. This doesn't only go for Spoilers or Casters either. The first time I used Lizardfolk (in my other group) I didn't use enough of them, and I rolled low. The party had no idea how nasty it could be when a Lizardfolk lands a good enough blow to open its opponent up for a Bite attack, nor the carnage that ensues the round after the thing is able to clamp its jaws down onto you. That's an important part of the Lizardfolk's fighting style in my mind, and evokes strong imagery. Yeah they use weapons (albeit primitive ones), but those weapons are mainly for punching through their opponent's guard and getting into extreme close range so that it can use its natural weapons; a nasty vice-grip bite and a barrage of scratches once the foe is held down by the bite.
Despite that being the Lizardfolk's schtick, I like that the combo is designed to come up infrequently in combat. This allows the effects to be stronger than they otherwise would be, and it generates more drama. Normally if the natural attack roll is high but not a crit it doesn't really matter; as long as you beat AC it's all the same. This way it doesn't become monotonous or annoying. On the contrary, it's memorable because it really challenges the PCs in an evocative way, and each subsequent die roll carries an added tension ("oh crap, I really hope he can't snap in close enough to bite me again!").
Grouping such enemies not only makes their abilities more likely to be triggered during a given fight, but it also creates more tactical opportunities. Because Harpy talons are nastier when the target is affected by the song there's a synergy that's created and the other Harpies have a legitimate reason to focus-fire. But that also creates an opportunity for the PCs because they need to swoop down to ground level to do so, making themselves vulnerable to melee attacks. The tactical landscape changes for both sides.
Even the Lizardfolk present similar effects. Focus-firing is always going to be a good idea if someone on your team has just landed a really big hit. The Lizardfolk can all start mobbing the guy that's just been severely injured. Because its random who becomes the target, players will also be less likely to feel "picked on." Creating an incentive for the NPCs to move also increases the likelihood of the PCs getting opportunities to intercept or to bring specific talents into the spotlight (the Barbarian's Slayer, the Fighter's Threatening, and Paladin's Challenge all spring to mind).
It can really be boiled down to the following: tough triggers allow for more powerful effects, increasing numbers boosts the likelihood of those effects being triggered, and powerful effects tend to have a big impact on the tactical landscape (making fights more exciting and dynamic). Fighting four Harpies and having players get Weakened a handful of times and Confused once during the battle is cooler than if the Harpies were able to just Hamper or Daze enemies more reliably (say, on a natural even hit).
I almost immediately decided to throw 4 Harpies into the encounter. If Fiendish Song is getting rolled 4 times per round (often against multiple targets) then those extra effects for high rolls are bound to come up! Ultimately I like to showcase the abilities that make a given monster unique, and in this case it's the ever-increasing nastiness of the song. If those effects never go off it doesn't evoke the feeling of fighting Harpies nearly as strongly.
So use groups of monsters when they have difficult-to-trigger abilities. This doesn't only go for Spoilers or Casters either. The first time I used Lizardfolk (in my other group) I didn't use enough of them, and I rolled low. The party had no idea how nasty it could be when a Lizardfolk lands a good enough blow to open its opponent up for a Bite attack, nor the carnage that ensues the round after the thing is able to clamp its jaws down onto you. That's an important part of the Lizardfolk's fighting style in my mind, and evokes strong imagery. Yeah they use weapons (albeit primitive ones), but those weapons are mainly for punching through their opponent's guard and getting into extreme close range so that it can use its natural weapons; a nasty vice-grip bite and a barrage of scratches once the foe is held down by the bite.
Despite that being the Lizardfolk's schtick, I like that the combo is designed to come up infrequently in combat. This allows the effects to be stronger than they otherwise would be, and it generates more drama. Normally if the natural attack roll is high but not a crit it doesn't really matter; as long as you beat AC it's all the same. This way it doesn't become monotonous or annoying. On the contrary, it's memorable because it really challenges the PCs in an evocative way, and each subsequent die roll carries an added tension ("oh crap, I really hope he can't snap in close enough to bite me again!").
Grouping such enemies not only makes their abilities more likely to be triggered during a given fight, but it also creates more tactical opportunities. Because Harpy talons are nastier when the target is affected by the song there's a synergy that's created and the other Harpies have a legitimate reason to focus-fire. But that also creates an opportunity for the PCs because they need to swoop down to ground level to do so, making themselves vulnerable to melee attacks. The tactical landscape changes for both sides.
Even the Lizardfolk present similar effects. Focus-firing is always going to be a good idea if someone on your team has just landed a really big hit. The Lizardfolk can all start mobbing the guy that's just been severely injured. Because its random who becomes the target, players will also be less likely to feel "picked on." Creating an incentive for the NPCs to move also increases the likelihood of the PCs getting opportunities to intercept or to bring specific talents into the spotlight (the Barbarian's Slayer, the Fighter's Threatening, and Paladin's Challenge all spring to mind).
It can really be boiled down to the following: tough triggers allow for more powerful effects, increasing numbers boosts the likelihood of those effects being triggered, and powerful effects tend to have a big impact on the tactical landscape (making fights more exciting and dynamic). Fighting four Harpies and having players get Weakened a handful of times and Confused once during the battle is cooler than if the Harpies were able to just Hamper or Daze enemies more reliably (say, on a natural even hit).
Tuesday, February 26, 2013
Icons in Action (1)
My 13th Age campaign based on the Dungeon World Front "The Great Wyrm Axtalrath" is still going strong. I believe we're something like 4 sessions in; I just haven't been in the mood to write session summaries. Instead of doing so, I think I'd rather use my own play experience to highlight the narrative mechanics of 13th Age. Hopefully this will be a regular series (hence the parenthetical "1" in the title) which explores not only how Icon rolls are being used in my games, but One Unique Things (OUTs), and potentially Backgrounds as well.
Icon Rolls
I've admittedly struggled the most with how to best implement Icon Rolls, to the point where for the first session I didn't use them much at all, and didn't even really think about them. They occasionally even stressed me out a little bit, but after last session they finally "clicked."
I won't go into every example I've had so far, but I will go over many to get started. First of all, until tonight I've exclusively been using the "roll all of your Relationships at the beginning of the session" method. A few weeks ago it occurred to me that while I was using the rolls as plot element generators, I wasn't being at all transparent with my players about what their rolls were doing. So I sent them a message via our campaign's group on Facebook explaining how I'd used each roll for that session.
Each player got a magic item, and each one was the result of an icon roll. None of these items were loot; they were gifted to the PCs by NPCs. The Paladin was gathering information on the Dragon Cultists in town, and instead of having him roll a "Streetwise" type skill check I simply spent a result of 5 that had been rolled for The Three. After publicly expressing interest in the Cult, I later had some undercover cultists pass him a coin later on the street. The complication was that the etchings on the coin needed to be interpreted, and a correct interpretation revealed the location and time of their next meeting. Well, the players didn't readily interpret it, but the Fighter took it to an acquaintance at the temple to see if the head priest had any insight. I spent a roll of 6 for the Priestess and had him guess the exact right answer they needed, explaining his thoughts on the different marks.
When I needed a random quest for the PCs to go on, I used a roll of 5 to have Derro show up in the mining town of Rockbreak (soon to be under siege by the fire-elemental-esque Magmin) hoping to find someone to retrieve a drill for them (which the Magmin could use to wreak havoc on the town). Cool, this drill ended up driving tonight's session and veering the campaign in a new direction.
The PCs ended up using the drill to get back to the surface of a sea-cave dungeon, unfortunately in an area where a small army of Magmin were camped out. The clearly-magical drill melted rock that it touched, but it still made a lot of noise when it surfaced. Fortunately, I had a result of 6 for the Emperor that I needed spent, so I had the Magmin be out on their pumice rafts to destroy an Imperial yacht that appeared offshore. Perfect time for a clean escape (I had vague plans for if the PCs decided to search for survivors, but they headed directly north with the drill instead).
At this point I should mention that after my initial Facebook message explaining my Icon Roll decisions to the group, I added that they too were encouraged to "spend" rolls to gain narrative advantages of their choosing. In tonight's session the Fighter lamented that he didn't have an active result for the Great Gold Wyrm to aid him in pursuing a problematic assassin who has been harassing the party, so I let him roll (unfortunately he rolled a 4, but I'm sure that just means the inevitable is delayed).
Finally, what I was most pleased with was that the party decided to cut through the Lizardfolk occupied swamps to shortcut their journey, and the Paladin (with the "Ambassador" background) asked how the game handled languages and what the Lizardfolk might speak. I told him "I'll tell you what, if you want to spend that result of 6 for The Three, I'll say that your character can speak the language of the Lizardfolk." He accepted, and I'm sure that little fact will have an impact for sessions to come.
I said earlier that Icon Rolls finally "clicked" for me recently. I think this was largely a combination of reminding my players that they could spend results, and me mentally comparing the mechanic to Destiny Points in Star Wars: Edge of the Empire. I had a player make an awesome use of a Destiny Point to introduce a narrative fact in our last session, and it hit me that Relationship Dice were 13 Age's version of that. I think that's the strength of pre-rolling each relationship at the beginning of the session, actually. It's great if the players know their narrative currency, and can simply say "this works" because of a prior roll. It's less awkward than rolling RD on the spot and possibly (most likely) not rolling a 5 or 6. I find the idea very empowering from both a player perspective as well as the GM's, and it's not often that a mechanic can pull that off.
OUTs
So far I've really only made use of this once, in tonight's session. The Cleric has a mish-mash suit of armor containing random metals because metal sometimes speaks to him (when that happens he usually incorporates it into his gear). I had the drill say to him "I have a mission, and it's not with the Derro." Cool stuff! The PCs have successfully completed their mission, and now they needed to decide whether to make good on their assignment or to comply with the drill's wishes. It's always fun when party members disagree with what the best course of action is, but then compromise.
Backgrounds
It's no secret that I LOVE the Background system. It's so intuitive that I don't anticipate there being much to say about it most of the time. I am finding the Cleric's "wanderer" Background a little awkward, though. It's so easy to justify most any skill check with "I've done/seen/learned about this on my travels" and I'm finding it tough to draw the line regarding what's acceptable or not. It's not that the player is arguing its applicability with me; most of this is on my part! I think in the future I might have players refine very generic backgrounds like that quite a bit more.
Bonus Section: Rituals!
Our group saw its first use of Ritual Magic today! In transporting the drill across the swamps the Cleric decided to enhance its wheels with the Shield of Faith spell. This was to effectively turn it into an "all terrain" drill to speed up travel, but when an unlucky D% roll determined the Cleric (who was pushing the drill) as the target of a kobold trap (two trees were blasted and felled his way), I got the idea that while the Cleric deftly dodged out of the way but the trees landed on the drill. It sank in the mud a bit, but was unharmed thanks to the protection of the Ritual (normally its wooden wheels would have shattered).
Icon Rolls
I've admittedly struggled the most with how to best implement Icon Rolls, to the point where for the first session I didn't use them much at all, and didn't even really think about them. They occasionally even stressed me out a little bit, but after last session they finally "clicked."
I won't go into every example I've had so far, but I will go over many to get started. First of all, until tonight I've exclusively been using the "roll all of your Relationships at the beginning of the session" method. A few weeks ago it occurred to me that while I was using the rolls as plot element generators, I wasn't being at all transparent with my players about what their rolls were doing. So I sent them a message via our campaign's group on Facebook explaining how I'd used each roll for that session.
Each player got a magic item, and each one was the result of an icon roll. None of these items were loot; they were gifted to the PCs by NPCs. The Paladin was gathering information on the Dragon Cultists in town, and instead of having him roll a "Streetwise" type skill check I simply spent a result of 5 that had been rolled for The Three. After publicly expressing interest in the Cult, I later had some undercover cultists pass him a coin later on the street. The complication was that the etchings on the coin needed to be interpreted, and a correct interpretation revealed the location and time of their next meeting. Well, the players didn't readily interpret it, but the Fighter took it to an acquaintance at the temple to see if the head priest had any insight. I spent a roll of 6 for the Priestess and had him guess the exact right answer they needed, explaining his thoughts on the different marks.
When I needed a random quest for the PCs to go on, I used a roll of 5 to have Derro show up in the mining town of Rockbreak (soon to be under siege by the fire-elemental-esque Magmin) hoping to find someone to retrieve a drill for them (which the Magmin could use to wreak havoc on the town). Cool, this drill ended up driving tonight's session and veering the campaign in a new direction.
The PCs ended up using the drill to get back to the surface of a sea-cave dungeon, unfortunately in an area where a small army of Magmin were camped out. The clearly-magical drill melted rock that it touched, but it still made a lot of noise when it surfaced. Fortunately, I had a result of 6 for the Emperor that I needed spent, so I had the Magmin be out on their pumice rafts to destroy an Imperial yacht that appeared offshore. Perfect time for a clean escape (I had vague plans for if the PCs decided to search for survivors, but they headed directly north with the drill instead).
At this point I should mention that after my initial Facebook message explaining my Icon Roll decisions to the group, I added that they too were encouraged to "spend" rolls to gain narrative advantages of their choosing. In tonight's session the Fighter lamented that he didn't have an active result for the Great Gold Wyrm to aid him in pursuing a problematic assassin who has been harassing the party, so I let him roll (unfortunately he rolled a 4, but I'm sure that just means the inevitable is delayed).
Finally, what I was most pleased with was that the party decided to cut through the Lizardfolk occupied swamps to shortcut their journey, and the Paladin (with the "Ambassador" background) asked how the game handled languages and what the Lizardfolk might speak. I told him "I'll tell you what, if you want to spend that result of 6 for The Three, I'll say that your character can speak the language of the Lizardfolk." He accepted, and I'm sure that little fact will have an impact for sessions to come.
I said earlier that Icon Rolls finally "clicked" for me recently. I think this was largely a combination of reminding my players that they could spend results, and me mentally comparing the mechanic to Destiny Points in Star Wars: Edge of the Empire. I had a player make an awesome use of a Destiny Point to introduce a narrative fact in our last session, and it hit me that Relationship Dice were 13 Age's version of that. I think that's the strength of pre-rolling each relationship at the beginning of the session, actually. It's great if the players know their narrative currency, and can simply say "this works" because of a prior roll. It's less awkward than rolling RD on the spot and possibly (most likely) not rolling a 5 or 6. I find the idea very empowering from both a player perspective as well as the GM's, and it's not often that a mechanic can pull that off.
OUTs
So far I've really only made use of this once, in tonight's session. The Cleric has a mish-mash suit of armor containing random metals because metal sometimes speaks to him (when that happens he usually incorporates it into his gear). I had the drill say to him "I have a mission, and it's not with the Derro." Cool stuff! The PCs have successfully completed their mission, and now they needed to decide whether to make good on their assignment or to comply with the drill's wishes. It's always fun when party members disagree with what the best course of action is, but then compromise.
Backgrounds
It's no secret that I LOVE the Background system. It's so intuitive that I don't anticipate there being much to say about it most of the time. I am finding the Cleric's "wanderer" Background a little awkward, though. It's so easy to justify most any skill check with "I've done/seen/learned about this on my travels" and I'm finding it tough to draw the line regarding what's acceptable or not. It's not that the player is arguing its applicability with me; most of this is on my part! I think in the future I might have players refine very generic backgrounds like that quite a bit more.
Bonus Section: Rituals!
Our group saw its first use of Ritual Magic today! In transporting the drill across the swamps the Cleric decided to enhance its wheels with the Shield of Faith spell. This was to effectively turn it into an "all terrain" drill to speed up travel, but when an unlucky D% roll determined the Cleric (who was pushing the drill) as the target of a kobold trap (two trees were blasted and felled his way), I got the idea that while the Cleric deftly dodged out of the way but the trees landed on the drill. It sank in the mud a bit, but was unharmed thanks to the protection of the Ritual (normally its wooden wheels would have shattered).
Wednesday, January 23, 2013
Group 2 Plays 13th Age
Last night I started my second 13th Age campaign, with a different group. Like my other group, I'm running through the Dungeon World front The Great Wyrm Axtalrath. I'm interested to find out how much the two campaigns diverge given the exact same open-ended, sandbox-y scenario. While I'll comment on mechanical bits in future posts, I probably won't delve too deep into the narrative with proper session summaries. Partially due to time constraints, partially because it could potentially get confusing, and partially because I'm likely to reuse stuff which would spoil things if my players from either group read them.
That said, so far the two groups are taking things in very different directions, which I'm happy to see.
I guess one of the first orders of business should be to introduce the new group:
Iltisine
Wood Elf Cleric
Icons: 1 (neg) The Three, 1 (conf) High Druid, 1 (pos) Priestess
Backgrounds: +4 Linguist, +4 Wanderer
OUT: Pieces of metal sometimes speak to him, and he either destroys them or incorporates them into his mish-mash equipment.
Lowthesis
Dwarf Paladin
Icons: 2 (conf) Dwarf King, 1 (neg) The Three
Backgrounds: +4 Bodyguard, +4 Diplomat
OUT: He's a noble in exile; he abandoned his clan because he couldn't stand the dirty politics.
Argus
Human Fighter
Icons: 2 (pos) Great Gold Wyrm, 1 (conf) Emperor
Backgrounds: +4 Soldier, +4 Blacksmith
OUT: He's the only person known to have insulted the Emperor and survive to tell the tale.
Interesting Observations:
Iltisine was built as a melee Str Cleric, but the player purposefully gave him an 8 Con. Yes, this is an experience D&D player who knew what he was getting into. He also intentionally passed over most healing resources, having only his class feature and its associated feat. Lowthesis grudgingly took Lay on Hands because of this. Truth be told, I was interested in seeing how such a party would fare, but after the first session the player has asked to re-spec his Cleric into more of a spellcaster, and with more of a healing focus. I'm allowing it, so I'll have to wait for another time to see a 13th Age party with no Cleric (or a non-healer Cleric) in action.
While we're on the subject of Iltisine, Elven Grace is an extremely powerful racial feature. In our first (short) fight he managed to get 1 extra standard action, and in the second he got 3, one on the d12. I know that it's balanced around the fact that poor rolls could mean you don't get any extra standard actions in some combats, but given that most of the fights that I've run have seen the Escalation Die reach 6, the odds favor getting extra actions. I might re-evaluate the power after we're a few sessions in, because as it stands it's hands-down the best race.
Both battles were against kobolds, and Evasive is a surprisingly nasty trait. Granted, this group is used to the d4 HD kobolds of 3.x/Pathfinder, but these battles still ran a bit tougher than I'd expected based on my experience with the system. But perhaps that also has something to do with the exploding clay pots that I gave them. Still, the Paladin wasn't too happy when his Smite Evil, which normally does half damage on a miss, was essentially wasted because the shifty little buggers just refused to get pinned down.
The highlight of the session (or lowlight, depending how you look at it) was a display of bad luck during the second battle that was worse than anything I'd seen in an RPG before. It ran 9 rounds (I believe), and both Lowthesis and Argus both hit exactly twice. It was pathetic, and made more pathetic by the lack of miss damage (kobolds). Argus was getting to-hit buffs from Iltisine, and essentially got a permanent +2 bonus thanks to Two Weapon Pressure (that's not a maneuver you want to trigger almost every turn, lol). His 2 hits both occurred in one round; he rolled a 19 which crit (thanks to Carve an Opening) and dropped his foe, and then he followed up with Cleave. His one shining moment that battle. At least Lowthesis was soaking up TONS of damage so his misses weren't quite as frustrating (Paladins being much more about tanking than dealing damage anyways).
Iltisine ended up killing all but two of the kobolds (re: 3 extra standards thanks to Elven Grace). He also demonstrated that even as a Standard Action, Hammer of the Gods isn't a bad spell (especially if you cast it when you have 2 standards that turn anyways!). Another high point in the battle was when he took out 3 mooks with one attack (I think it was a crit with that sweet, sweet d12). He was engaged with two of them, and I think it blew his mind when I moved the mini over to the third and said he took that one out as well. Being used to gridded Pathfinder combat he was a bit incredulous at first, but when I explained what happened cinematically (he ran past the first two, sliced them clean through while on-the-run, and then stabbed the third) I think it made more sense to him.
This is what I LOVE about the mook rules - it helps free you from the restrictions of the Move/Standard/Quick turn structure. Fourth Edition D&D had powers that allowed you to move and attack with one standard action, but the 13th Age rules go beyond even that. It's a rule that instead of limiting what you can do, gives you even more flexibility. The rule says "you kill an extra mook," and you do whatever you can with your character to make that mook die in a believable way, even if that means moving between two attacks.
That said, so far the two groups are taking things in very different directions, which I'm happy to see.
I guess one of the first orders of business should be to introduce the new group:
Iltisine
Wood Elf Cleric
Icons: 1 (neg) The Three, 1 (conf) High Druid, 1 (pos) Priestess
Backgrounds: +4 Linguist, +4 Wanderer
OUT: Pieces of metal sometimes speak to him, and he either destroys them or incorporates them into his mish-mash equipment.
Lowthesis
Dwarf Paladin
Icons: 2 (conf) Dwarf King, 1 (neg) The Three
Backgrounds: +4 Bodyguard, +4 Diplomat
OUT: He's a noble in exile; he abandoned his clan because he couldn't stand the dirty politics.
Argus
Human Fighter
Icons: 2 (pos) Great Gold Wyrm, 1 (conf) Emperor
Backgrounds: +4 Soldier, +4 Blacksmith
OUT: He's the only person known to have insulted the Emperor and survive to tell the tale.
Interesting Observations:
Iltisine was built as a melee Str Cleric, but the player purposefully gave him an 8 Con. Yes, this is an experience D&D player who knew what he was getting into. He also intentionally passed over most healing resources, having only his class feature and its associated feat. Lowthesis grudgingly took Lay on Hands because of this. Truth be told, I was interested in seeing how such a party would fare, but after the first session the player has asked to re-spec his Cleric into more of a spellcaster, and with more of a healing focus. I'm allowing it, so I'll have to wait for another time to see a 13th Age party with no Cleric (or a non-healer Cleric) in action.
While we're on the subject of Iltisine, Elven Grace is an extremely powerful racial feature. In our first (short) fight he managed to get 1 extra standard action, and in the second he got 3, one on the d12. I know that it's balanced around the fact that poor rolls could mean you don't get any extra standard actions in some combats, but given that most of the fights that I've run have seen the Escalation Die reach 6, the odds favor getting extra actions. I might re-evaluate the power after we're a few sessions in, because as it stands it's hands-down the best race.
Both battles were against kobolds, and Evasive is a surprisingly nasty trait. Granted, this group is used to the d4 HD kobolds of 3.x/Pathfinder, but these battles still ran a bit tougher than I'd expected based on my experience with the system. But perhaps that also has something to do with the exploding clay pots that I gave them. Still, the Paladin wasn't too happy when his Smite Evil, which normally does half damage on a miss, was essentially wasted because the shifty little buggers just refused to get pinned down.
The highlight of the session (or lowlight, depending how you look at it) was a display of bad luck during the second battle that was worse than anything I'd seen in an RPG before. It ran 9 rounds (I believe), and both Lowthesis and Argus both hit exactly twice. It was pathetic, and made more pathetic by the lack of miss damage (kobolds). Argus was getting to-hit buffs from Iltisine, and essentially got a permanent +2 bonus thanks to Two Weapon Pressure (that's not a maneuver you want to trigger almost every turn, lol). His 2 hits both occurred in one round; he rolled a 19 which crit (thanks to Carve an Opening) and dropped his foe, and then he followed up with Cleave. His one shining moment that battle. At least Lowthesis was soaking up TONS of damage so his misses weren't quite as frustrating (Paladins being much more about tanking than dealing damage anyways).
Iltisine ended up killing all but two of the kobolds (re: 3 extra standards thanks to Elven Grace). He also demonstrated that even as a Standard Action, Hammer of the Gods isn't a bad spell (especially if you cast it when you have 2 standards that turn anyways!). Another high point in the battle was when he took out 3 mooks with one attack (I think it was a crit with that sweet, sweet d12). He was engaged with two of them, and I think it blew his mind when I moved the mini over to the third and said he took that one out as well. Being used to gridded Pathfinder combat he was a bit incredulous at first, but when I explained what happened cinematically (he ran past the first two, sliced them clean through while on-the-run, and then stabbed the third) I think it made more sense to him.
This is what I LOVE about the mook rules - it helps free you from the restrictions of the Move/Standard/Quick turn structure. Fourth Edition D&D had powers that allowed you to move and attack with one standard action, but the 13th Age rules go beyond even that. It's a rule that instead of limiting what you can do, gives you even more flexibility. The rule says "you kill an extra mook," and you do whatever you can with your character to make that mook die in a believable way, even if that means moving between two attacks.
Friday, January 18, 2013
So 13th Age and Dungeon World walk into a bar...
Recap - Last Session
The last time I posted about my 13th Age campaign the party was still in the middle of a living dungeon. During our session after that they continued onward, at a somewhat slower pace than I'd anticipated. Two encounters away from a full heal up, the party was beat down pretty good. The Barbarian had only a single recovery left, and was right around Staggered. I let the player rebuild him because he was noticeably underpowered (lesson the first - don't use a shield as a Barbarian!), but it was impossible to tell how much that really helped given the disadvantage the character was already at.
Their next fight was really tough; a trap-filled room that could be somewhat circumvented by climbing up 20 foot tall mushrooms and jumping from one cap to the next in order to reach the door out. Unfortunately, an earth elemental fell from the roof onto one of the mushrooms, blocking their way forward. I used a slightly modified re-skinned ogre, which is a tougher opponent than I'd realized for a 1st level party of mostly weapon users (go figure). The environment was against them, multiple people were dropping every round, and the Cleric was funneling his own recoveries into the Barbarian thanks to the Healing Domain feat that he'd snagged for an incremental advance after the last session. Eventually I finally hinted that the players don't necessarily need to kill the elemental to progress, and that they should probably just go for the door. So they did, and survived - barely.
After traveling through some eery tunnels filled with purple tentacles they finally reached the "heart" of the dungeon, but not before their enemy had gotten there first! A dark cleric was "plugged into" the dungeon, connected to tentacles which allowed him to "drive" it. A mage guarded by two knights proclaimed that they were driving the dungeon straight to hell, and then ordered the attack. The Ranger managed to hit the mage with two ranged attacks early on, one of which was a crit, and also applied Cruel. In one round he nearly one-shotted him (but not before the mage got an Acid Arrow off), and the ongoing damage then finished him off two rounds later without anyone else having to attack him. This made the fight significantly easier, and the Barbarian very happy. After killing all of the enemies, the Barbarian stabbed the "heart" of the dungeon, killing it but sending it flying through the earth at breakneck speeds. It shot them out on top of a mountain (the psychic, rune-inscribed door appeared on a cliff on that mountain), along with the Derro that had lived there and the Gnome, Nilku.
Enter Dungeon World
Sort of. No, we didn't play it, but I decided I would test the Fronts mechanic from Dungeon World in my 13th Age game. I used the sample front in the infamous Dungeon World Guide, The Great Wyrm Axtalrath. For such a short write up (6 pages of fairly large print, with half of one page consisting of new races specifically for Dungeon World) there is a LOT of useable information packed in here! I'll probably use Fronts, or a modified version of them, as my GM organizational tool for pretty much every game I run now. Granted, a Front doesn't provide the same level of detail as a pre-made adventure; it doesn't have stat blocks, dungeon maps, etc. But I suck at running published adventures. They're usually a lot of reading relative to the amount of game time I'll get out of them. A Dungeon World Front is minimal reading (with text that's organized VERY well for reference), and you can get many sessions worth of game time out of them. Dozens, in this case, I think.
On overall background summary sets up the premise. A list of points of interest, accompanied by a map, provides enough inspiration for getting a picture of each place in your head, without overwhelming you with details. Fill them in as needed, and leave room for expansion (the Dungeon World mantra "play to find out what happens" fits very well with 13th Age's narrative, icon and background based design). The Dangers provide the main players that might oppose the party. Simple description, short motivation, and some "Grim Portents" which are events that will transpire without any PC intervention. They're basically well-organized plot points that give you some options for where to "go next" when your players are stuck or you've played out a different option. These, of course, can be altered or change depending on what the players do so the whole structure of the narrative is affected by PC actions. Which is how a roleplaying game SHOULD work. The Front is rounded out with some Stakes (miscellaneous questions and handy reminders; I like to think of these as things unrelated to the Dangers that could become major plot points) and a short cast of NPCs. I quite simply assigned each cast member an associated Icon, and then created more NPCs for Icons that didn't yet have any associated with them. I detailed those that PCs had a relationship with more heavily, but given random Icon influence it's helpful to have at least an idea for who might act on behalf of other Icons.
Ultimately, I think Fronts are going to help me improve my improvisational skills by providing just enough of a safety net. There's plenty of room to build upon each and every short description in the front, and there's always a few things going on "in the background" (or just "waiting" to be incorporated later) so that the narrative won't ever really grind to a standstill.
Session Summary
So how did all of this work out in play? Beware that there are SPOILERS for the Great Wyrm Axtalrath in this section, though because of the flexible, sandbox-y nature of the Fronts you can probably play through the whole thing and have an entirely different experience.
Well, the first major issue was the Derro. The PCs destroyed their home, and even though they convinced the Derro that this was better than plunging into hell, they still demanded reparations. The party led them down the mountain, left them under the canopy of the trees (since it was daylight, which they hate), and went into the town of Rockbreak. Being midday, most of the citizens were either working in the mine or logging, but the Cleric found the local temple and they had a nice chat with the priest there. He gave them all of the background info that they'd need to know (dragon destroyed all the roads, all the boats, but left the townspeople alive, Monolith glows every quarter moon, etc.), and seemed concerned about the prospect of a whole village of Derro refugees looking for a new place to settle.
In pure reckless fashion, the potionless PCs didn't bother to look for any shops or anything, but returned to the Derro, who demanded the PCs scout out some possible caves (they'd do the same after nightfall). Their first lead was a bust, but they noticed fires approaching from the coast. They investigated, and I invoked the Grim Portent "Magmin appear on the western coasts," thanks to a roll of 5 for the Diabolist last session. The party didn't attempt to ambush them and didn't make use of any good tactics whatsoever. My homebrew Magmin beat the snot out of them (to be fair, auto-damaging fire auras were more powerful than I'd anticipated). They only attacks that they landed were on minions (they destroyed 2 of 4), and the Cleric went down early removing the party's only source of healing. PCs were dropping and hoping for death saves to bring them back up. Nobody ever rallied, though the Barbarian used his Dwarf racial power. I advised them to use the Retreat rule several times but they didn't. Eventually after being VERY generous with the results of the Ranger's Terrain Stunt power I had the Magmin simply move on after everyone in the party was knocked out. The Fighter rolled high on his death save just before the Barbarian was about to fail his last one, and he was able to stabilize him. The party then fled toward Port Taramos, and I had no choice but to advance to the next Grim Portent under the Magmin danger (to be fair I would have given the PCs one last chance to beat back the Magmin, since they had a river to cross before reaching Rockbreak).
A botched direction-finding roll from the Ranger (a fumble) led the party right into the swamps. They were ambushed by Lizardmen, but got very lucky (in that I couldn't seem to roll higher than a 9, and Lizardmen get really nasty if you have a string of good rolls in a row). After 2 of the 5 were killed, one of them told his allies to stand down, and demanded to know why the party broke the truce (here the party learned about the truce, obviously). The Lizardman had his allies back away slowly, and eventually they swam off, and the leader asked the party to leave him gold and leave the swamp immediately. Otherwise, they wouldn't leave the swamp alive. The party cheaped out (left 1 gp each), which may come back to bite them in the ass later.
They arrived in Port Taramos, learned of the Dragon Cultists, and bought some potions. The Fighter (who had pocketed some gems back in the dungeon which melted - around all of his coins!) sought out an alchemist to help free his coins from the block of gem-glue (attempts to smash it earlier were met with the realization that the glue had seeped into the gold, making it impure and brittle). And with that, the session ended.
On Sandboxes
Most of my attempts at running more sandbox-style games with this group have failed in the past. The players just don't seem to want to take the initiative to go out and explore on their own; they simply wait for my next obvious hook. When they've taken turns at the GM seat, they've very much resisted any attempts by me (as a player) to "go off the rails." Well, this Front kind of forces them to do stuff, especially with the added pressure of the Derro refugees at the beginning. They all want to get off of the island, but they recognize that there's no way they're facing down that dragon. They're very interested in the Monolith, and they need some cash really badly, so there's two possible directions that they can take things next time. I'll also need to remember to throw some fights their way that they're likely to win, to boost morale a bit and give them a shot at some loot. I think they learned their lesson about dismissing basic tactics, so hopefully I see some smart playing in the future.
In other news, I'm starting up a game of 13th Age with my other gaming group as well. And I'm starting a game of Edge of the Empire with this current 13th Age group, starting with the Beginner Box. So stay tuned for developments on those fronts!
The last time I posted about my 13th Age campaign the party was still in the middle of a living dungeon. During our session after that they continued onward, at a somewhat slower pace than I'd anticipated. Two encounters away from a full heal up, the party was beat down pretty good. The Barbarian had only a single recovery left, and was right around Staggered. I let the player rebuild him because he was noticeably underpowered (lesson the first - don't use a shield as a Barbarian!), but it was impossible to tell how much that really helped given the disadvantage the character was already at.
Their next fight was really tough; a trap-filled room that could be somewhat circumvented by climbing up 20 foot tall mushrooms and jumping from one cap to the next in order to reach the door out. Unfortunately, an earth elemental fell from the roof onto one of the mushrooms, blocking their way forward. I used a slightly modified re-skinned ogre, which is a tougher opponent than I'd realized for a 1st level party of mostly weapon users (go figure). The environment was against them, multiple people were dropping every round, and the Cleric was funneling his own recoveries into the Barbarian thanks to the Healing Domain feat that he'd snagged for an incremental advance after the last session. Eventually I finally hinted that the players don't necessarily need to kill the elemental to progress, and that they should probably just go for the door. So they did, and survived - barely.
After traveling through some eery tunnels filled with purple tentacles they finally reached the "heart" of the dungeon, but not before their enemy had gotten there first! A dark cleric was "plugged into" the dungeon, connected to tentacles which allowed him to "drive" it. A mage guarded by two knights proclaimed that they were driving the dungeon straight to hell, and then ordered the attack. The Ranger managed to hit the mage with two ranged attacks early on, one of which was a crit, and also applied Cruel. In one round he nearly one-shotted him (but not before the mage got an Acid Arrow off), and the ongoing damage then finished him off two rounds later without anyone else having to attack him. This made the fight significantly easier, and the Barbarian very happy. After killing all of the enemies, the Barbarian stabbed the "heart" of the dungeon, killing it but sending it flying through the earth at breakneck speeds. It shot them out on top of a mountain (the psychic, rune-inscribed door appeared on a cliff on that mountain), along with the Derro that had lived there and the Gnome, Nilku.
Enter Dungeon World
Sort of. No, we didn't play it, but I decided I would test the Fronts mechanic from Dungeon World in my 13th Age game. I used the sample front in the infamous Dungeon World Guide, The Great Wyrm Axtalrath. For such a short write up (6 pages of fairly large print, with half of one page consisting of new races specifically for Dungeon World) there is a LOT of useable information packed in here! I'll probably use Fronts, or a modified version of them, as my GM organizational tool for pretty much every game I run now. Granted, a Front doesn't provide the same level of detail as a pre-made adventure; it doesn't have stat blocks, dungeon maps, etc. But I suck at running published adventures. They're usually a lot of reading relative to the amount of game time I'll get out of them. A Dungeon World Front is minimal reading (with text that's organized VERY well for reference), and you can get many sessions worth of game time out of them. Dozens, in this case, I think.
On overall background summary sets up the premise. A list of points of interest, accompanied by a map, provides enough inspiration for getting a picture of each place in your head, without overwhelming you with details. Fill them in as needed, and leave room for expansion (the Dungeon World mantra "play to find out what happens" fits very well with 13th Age's narrative, icon and background based design). The Dangers provide the main players that might oppose the party. Simple description, short motivation, and some "Grim Portents" which are events that will transpire without any PC intervention. They're basically well-organized plot points that give you some options for where to "go next" when your players are stuck or you've played out a different option. These, of course, can be altered or change depending on what the players do so the whole structure of the narrative is affected by PC actions. Which is how a roleplaying game SHOULD work. The Front is rounded out with some Stakes (miscellaneous questions and handy reminders; I like to think of these as things unrelated to the Dangers that could become major plot points) and a short cast of NPCs. I quite simply assigned each cast member an associated Icon, and then created more NPCs for Icons that didn't yet have any associated with them. I detailed those that PCs had a relationship with more heavily, but given random Icon influence it's helpful to have at least an idea for who might act on behalf of other Icons.
Ultimately, I think Fronts are going to help me improve my improvisational skills by providing just enough of a safety net. There's plenty of room to build upon each and every short description in the front, and there's always a few things going on "in the background" (or just "waiting" to be incorporated later) so that the narrative won't ever really grind to a standstill.
Session Summary
So how did all of this work out in play? Beware that there are SPOILERS for the Great Wyrm Axtalrath in this section, though because of the flexible, sandbox-y nature of the Fronts you can probably play through the whole thing and have an entirely different experience.
Well, the first major issue was the Derro. The PCs destroyed their home, and even though they convinced the Derro that this was better than plunging into hell, they still demanded reparations. The party led them down the mountain, left them under the canopy of the trees (since it was daylight, which they hate), and went into the town of Rockbreak. Being midday, most of the citizens were either working in the mine or logging, but the Cleric found the local temple and they had a nice chat with the priest there. He gave them all of the background info that they'd need to know (dragon destroyed all the roads, all the boats, but left the townspeople alive, Monolith glows every quarter moon, etc.), and seemed concerned about the prospect of a whole village of Derro refugees looking for a new place to settle.
In pure reckless fashion, the potionless PCs didn't bother to look for any shops or anything, but returned to the Derro, who demanded the PCs scout out some possible caves (they'd do the same after nightfall). Their first lead was a bust, but they noticed fires approaching from the coast. They investigated, and I invoked the Grim Portent "Magmin appear on the western coasts," thanks to a roll of 5 for the Diabolist last session. The party didn't attempt to ambush them and didn't make use of any good tactics whatsoever. My homebrew Magmin beat the snot out of them (to be fair, auto-damaging fire auras were more powerful than I'd anticipated). They only attacks that they landed were on minions (they destroyed 2 of 4), and the Cleric went down early removing the party's only source of healing. PCs were dropping and hoping for death saves to bring them back up. Nobody ever rallied, though the Barbarian used his Dwarf racial power. I advised them to use the Retreat rule several times but they didn't. Eventually after being VERY generous with the results of the Ranger's Terrain Stunt power I had the Magmin simply move on after everyone in the party was knocked out. The Fighter rolled high on his death save just before the Barbarian was about to fail his last one, and he was able to stabilize him. The party then fled toward Port Taramos, and I had no choice but to advance to the next Grim Portent under the Magmin danger (to be fair I would have given the PCs one last chance to beat back the Magmin, since they had a river to cross before reaching Rockbreak).
A botched direction-finding roll from the Ranger (a fumble) led the party right into the swamps. They were ambushed by Lizardmen, but got very lucky (in that I couldn't seem to roll higher than a 9, and Lizardmen get really nasty if you have a string of good rolls in a row). After 2 of the 5 were killed, one of them told his allies to stand down, and demanded to know why the party broke the truce (here the party learned about the truce, obviously). The Lizardman had his allies back away slowly, and eventually they swam off, and the leader asked the party to leave him gold and leave the swamp immediately. Otherwise, they wouldn't leave the swamp alive. The party cheaped out (left 1 gp each), which may come back to bite them in the ass later.
They arrived in Port Taramos, learned of the Dragon Cultists, and bought some potions. The Fighter (who had pocketed some gems back in the dungeon which melted - around all of his coins!) sought out an alchemist to help free his coins from the block of gem-glue (attempts to smash it earlier were met with the realization that the glue had seeped into the gold, making it impure and brittle). And with that, the session ended.
On Sandboxes
Most of my attempts at running more sandbox-style games with this group have failed in the past. The players just don't seem to want to take the initiative to go out and explore on their own; they simply wait for my next obvious hook. When they've taken turns at the GM seat, they've very much resisted any attempts by me (as a player) to "go off the rails." Well, this Front kind of forces them to do stuff, especially with the added pressure of the Derro refugees at the beginning. They all want to get off of the island, but they recognize that there's no way they're facing down that dragon. They're very interested in the Monolith, and they need some cash really badly, so there's two possible directions that they can take things next time. I'll also need to remember to throw some fights their way that they're likely to win, to boost morale a bit and give them a shot at some loot. I think they learned their lesson about dismissing basic tactics, so hopefully I see some smart playing in the future.
In other news, I'm starting up a game of 13th Age with my other gaming group as well. And I'm starting a game of Edge of the Empire with this current 13th Age group, starting with the Beginner Box. So stay tuned for developments on those fronts!
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