Ravenloft #8
Often when I’m doing something that doesn’t require much concentration (mowing the lawn, driving to work, and so on) I think about gaming campaigns in some form or another.
Recently I’ve been thinking about my most recent campaign and the things that went right and the things that went wrong.
Among things that went right – character histories meshing together were good, players enjoyed their PC’s for the most part, open ended planning on my part that allowed the group many options of where to take the campaign without derailing me (much), challenging combats that forced thinking and action.
And then there are the things that went wrong (which are the things I dwell upon) – formulaic planning, time-consuming preparation, little role-playing beyond the story at hand, and worst of all – higher level combats that took way too much time.
That last one drove me crazy at times. I did what I could to speed things up, but when there are seven people at the table it can be pretty easy for things to break down and slow down the flow of the game.
I could give several examples but I’d rather focus on what I could fix than rehashing.
I tried so hard to improve the speed of the game, but simply enough it was allowing a huge number of options that hurt the speed the most. This became more and more apparent at higher levels. And a high level game is what wanted!
Higher levels mean more choices. More choices mean more math. More math means more time drain. Then you throw in more options from all of the different books I allowed and you drag the game down even more. And you can’t forget the fact that six players wanting to do their own thing isn’t exactly a catalyst for speed.
Then you add the DM’s frustration with the whole thing not going “perfect”.
Enter the news of my impending twins and a solution presents itself; time for a DM break.
My game had plenty of ups and fun, but all-in-all my overarching plan of running the game to level 30 just was not going to happen without dragging the game out for 3 or more years.
So after a lot of thought, I don’t think that my campaign will return. It will be remembered for a few more months before it fades from memory.
Oh I’ll be running a game again; I can assure you of that. But I won’t be so foolish as to think I can do everything under the sun.
I’ll be returning to my DM “comfort zone” for any future campaigns I run.
Recently I’ve broken down and started reading my copy of Rappan Athuk Reloaded and it has triggered my first edition nostalgia. And if you think Ravenloft has a high potential for TPK then you would be in for a nasty shock with this module. While it’s certainly no Tomb of Horrors, it is still among the deadliest dungeons I’ve seen.
But I’m not quite ready to run yet. I enjoy playing D&D too.
Plus Brian and Justin have expressed interest in running campaigns of their own.
Brian has run a campaign before, but it only lasted for about 3 or 4 weeks before he realized how much work it took to prep for a game. But since summer is coming and he’s a public school teacher, he’ll have plenty of time to read and run a module for the next three months.
Justin I’m not so sure about. He’s never run a campaign until a few weeks ago with his friends from work. There are some other issues I’m concerned with (like him disappearing off the face of the planet for several weeks at a time) and then there’s the fact us long-experienced players just might eat him alive as a DM.
You can’t say you’ve never done it.
But anyway…
Our heads were back into the game this time around.
Last session we had started an overnight prayer-vigil at the Swamp Fane when we stopped so Dale could prep up for the occasion.
When I say “prep up”, I mean that Dale wanted to make some changes to Strahd’s spell choices and so he could bring in some backup.
So we started off with a combat at the Swamp Fane at 10pm while Deimos and Mina were in their fourth hour of praying.
The fog popped in and we tried to scatter but he started off with a Cloudkill spell right on top of the fane. Deimos and Mina had to cease their vigil and move out of the effect or face 1d4 Con damage every round plus face the other attacks that Strahd and his minions would deliver.
Strahd did all of this while flying just above the swampy water, forcing the warriors of the group to come to him. And as those warriors approached him, he summoned in four vampire spawn helpers (2 of them classed) to further complicate things and to take our attentions from him.
During all of this time, Strahd still kept blasting at the clerics (especially Mina) with his assortment of nuke spells.
When finally we had dispatched his vampire spawns, we headed out to him. But he chose to fly a little higher out of our reach. We even had Tenbeers tying a rope to his grappling hook to try and pull Strahd down, but that failed.
End result – Strahd succeeded in his mission of ruining the prayer vigil. When he ran out of spells, he disappeared. We had nothing to show for it either as the spawns disappeared when they were dropped. Sure we had dealt over 60 damage to Strahd, but nothing ever came of that.
We were not at all pleased with ourselves there. Our fighters could do nothing to get to Strahd as no one could fly. Sure we could easily beat Strahd’s chumps, but that doesn’t exactly make us feel better.
What we needed was a plan, and a good one.
I wasn’t in on this plan nor do I know who made it because I was in the kitchen making my twin-pregnant wife some Spaghettios. But the plan was good.
We returned to town to rest up for a couple of days as we didn’t want Strahd to learn of the cave we’ve used before (more days of us resting there means a bigger chance of him finding us).
After we had fully rested Mina cast Lesser Planar Ally and summoned an earth elemental. We had to give it quite a bit of money and tell it that it would get powerful from what we asked it to do.
Earth elementals have the ability called Earth Glide, which pretty much means that it can “swim” through natural rock.
We intended to take this elemental to the Swamp Fane, have him go directly beneath the fane and begin praying to his own god.
If it worked, then the elemental would get some power and Strahd would lose some.
If not, then we’re out of ideas and head to the castle for a good old fashioned Total Party Kill.
We returned to the Swamp Fane.
Mina’s earthen buddy went underground and began praying around 6pm (like last time).
The area began responding positively.
At 10pm Strahd showed up and began blasting the clerics again, this time with near abandon.
But this time things were a little bit worse. Strahd was totally invisible and flying over 10’ above the water.
Within just a few rounds nearly everyone ran off the battlefield.
All save for Deimos and Gortag.
Brian had failed some crucial saves versus Strahd’s spell blasts and Deimos died as a result.
Gortag on the other hand dove into the stagnant swamp water and pulled out his masterwork longspear. When it was his turn he jumped up and jabbed at the air where he thought Strahd was and then he would return to just barely having his head out of water (enough to breathe).
(I kind of picture him as a swamp frog; eyes and nose barely sticking out of the water, green skin, and a mean strike – just not with a tongue.)
Strahd had used most of his offensive spells taking care of the clerics (he was aiming for Mina, but he’ll take Deimos as a consolation prize I guess), and I don’t think he thought highly of getting into melee with a relatively fresh barbarian who had Protection from Evil cast on him.
So Strahd left just a few minutes after he showed. But since he was invisible the entire time, Gortag wasn’t sure if he left or not. So Gortag stayed in the swamp for several hours.
When he was sure that Strahd was gone, he did the “survivalist” thing. He found treasure…on Deimos’s body.
With his big, fat, water-wrinkled, half-orc hands he took Deimos’s money, Cloak of Charisma +2, his Amulet of Health +2, and all of the potions. He left the rest for the party to worry about.
When the party returned and the sun came up, we heard a loud anguished yell coming from Castle Ravenloft.
Shortly afterwards the earth elemental rose from the ground and reported to Mina of its success (it looked a little buff too). A quick Detect Evil spell showed that the Swamp Fane was no longer tainted by evil.
One fane down, two to go.
And that is where we stopped.
Next session Brian will be bringing in a third Necrophontes brother, a paladin.
Recently I’ve been thinking about my most recent campaign and the things that went right and the things that went wrong.
Among things that went right – character histories meshing together were good, players enjoyed their PC’s for the most part, open ended planning on my part that allowed the group many options of where to take the campaign without derailing me (much), challenging combats that forced thinking and action.
And then there are the things that went wrong (which are the things I dwell upon) – formulaic planning, time-consuming preparation, little role-playing beyond the story at hand, and worst of all – higher level combats that took way too much time.
That last one drove me crazy at times. I did what I could to speed things up, but when there are seven people at the table it can be pretty easy for things to break down and slow down the flow of the game.
I could give several examples but I’d rather focus on what I could fix than rehashing.
I tried so hard to improve the speed of the game, but simply enough it was allowing a huge number of options that hurt the speed the most. This became more and more apparent at higher levels. And a high level game is what wanted!
Higher levels mean more choices. More choices mean more math. More math means more time drain. Then you throw in more options from all of the different books I allowed and you drag the game down even more. And you can’t forget the fact that six players wanting to do their own thing isn’t exactly a catalyst for speed.
Then you add the DM’s frustration with the whole thing not going “perfect”.
Enter the news of my impending twins and a solution presents itself; time for a DM break.
My game had plenty of ups and fun, but all-in-all my overarching plan of running the game to level 30 just was not going to happen without dragging the game out for 3 or more years.
So after a lot of thought, I don’t think that my campaign will return. It will be remembered for a few more months before it fades from memory.
Oh I’ll be running a game again; I can assure you of that. But I won’t be so foolish as to think I can do everything under the sun.
I’ll be returning to my DM “comfort zone” for any future campaigns I run.
Recently I’ve broken down and started reading my copy of Rappan Athuk Reloaded and it has triggered my first edition nostalgia. And if you think Ravenloft has a high potential for TPK then you would be in for a nasty shock with this module. While it’s certainly no Tomb of Horrors, it is still among the deadliest dungeons I’ve seen.
But I’m not quite ready to run yet. I enjoy playing D&D too.
Plus Brian and Justin have expressed interest in running campaigns of their own.
Brian has run a campaign before, but it only lasted for about 3 or 4 weeks before he realized how much work it took to prep for a game. But since summer is coming and he’s a public school teacher, he’ll have plenty of time to read and run a module for the next three months.
Justin I’m not so sure about. He’s never run a campaign until a few weeks ago with his friends from work. There are some other issues I’m concerned with (like him disappearing off the face of the planet for several weeks at a time) and then there’s the fact us long-experienced players just might eat him alive as a DM.
You can’t say you’ve never done it.
But anyway…
Our heads were back into the game this time around.
Last session we had started an overnight prayer-vigil at the Swamp Fane when we stopped so Dale could prep up for the occasion.
When I say “prep up”, I mean that Dale wanted to make some changes to Strahd’s spell choices and so he could bring in some backup.
So we started off with a combat at the Swamp Fane at 10pm while Deimos and Mina were in their fourth hour of praying.
The fog popped in and we tried to scatter but he started off with a Cloudkill spell right on top of the fane. Deimos and Mina had to cease their vigil and move out of the effect or face 1d4 Con damage every round plus face the other attacks that Strahd and his minions would deliver.
Strahd did all of this while flying just above the swampy water, forcing the warriors of the group to come to him. And as those warriors approached him, he summoned in four vampire spawn helpers (2 of them classed) to further complicate things and to take our attentions from him.
During all of this time, Strahd still kept blasting at the clerics (especially Mina) with his assortment of nuke spells.
When finally we had dispatched his vampire spawns, we headed out to him. But he chose to fly a little higher out of our reach. We even had Tenbeers tying a rope to his grappling hook to try and pull Strahd down, but that failed.
End result – Strahd succeeded in his mission of ruining the prayer vigil. When he ran out of spells, he disappeared. We had nothing to show for it either as the spawns disappeared when they were dropped. Sure we had dealt over 60 damage to Strahd, but nothing ever came of that.
We were not at all pleased with ourselves there. Our fighters could do nothing to get to Strahd as no one could fly. Sure we could easily beat Strahd’s chumps, but that doesn’t exactly make us feel better.
What we needed was a plan, and a good one.
I wasn’t in on this plan nor do I know who made it because I was in the kitchen making my twin-pregnant wife some Spaghettios. But the plan was good.
We returned to town to rest up for a couple of days as we didn’t want Strahd to learn of the cave we’ve used before (more days of us resting there means a bigger chance of him finding us).
After we had fully rested Mina cast Lesser Planar Ally and summoned an earth elemental. We had to give it quite a bit of money and tell it that it would get powerful from what we asked it to do.
Earth elementals have the ability called Earth Glide, which pretty much means that it can “swim” through natural rock.
We intended to take this elemental to the Swamp Fane, have him go directly beneath the fane and begin praying to his own god.
If it worked, then the elemental would get some power and Strahd would lose some.
If not, then we’re out of ideas and head to the castle for a good old fashioned Total Party Kill.
We returned to the Swamp Fane.
Mina’s earthen buddy went underground and began praying around 6pm (like last time).
The area began responding positively.
At 10pm Strahd showed up and began blasting the clerics again, this time with near abandon.
But this time things were a little bit worse. Strahd was totally invisible and flying over 10’ above the water.
Within just a few rounds nearly everyone ran off the battlefield.
All save for Deimos and Gortag.
Brian had failed some crucial saves versus Strahd’s spell blasts and Deimos died as a result.
Gortag on the other hand dove into the stagnant swamp water and pulled out his masterwork longspear. When it was his turn he jumped up and jabbed at the air where he thought Strahd was and then he would return to just barely having his head out of water (enough to breathe).
(I kind of picture him as a swamp frog; eyes and nose barely sticking out of the water, green skin, and a mean strike – just not with a tongue.)
Strahd had used most of his offensive spells taking care of the clerics (he was aiming for Mina, but he’ll take Deimos as a consolation prize I guess), and I don’t think he thought highly of getting into melee with a relatively fresh barbarian who had Protection from Evil cast on him.
So Strahd left just a few minutes after he showed. But since he was invisible the entire time, Gortag wasn’t sure if he left or not. So Gortag stayed in the swamp for several hours.
When he was sure that Strahd was gone, he did the “survivalist” thing. He found treasure…on Deimos’s body.
With his big, fat, water-wrinkled, half-orc hands he took Deimos’s money, Cloak of Charisma +2, his Amulet of Health +2, and all of the potions. He left the rest for the party to worry about.
When the party returned and the sun came up, we heard a loud anguished yell coming from Castle Ravenloft.
Shortly afterwards the earth elemental rose from the ground and reported to Mina of its success (it looked a little buff too). A quick Detect Evil spell showed that the Swamp Fane was no longer tainted by evil.
One fane down, two to go.
And that is where we stopped.
Next session Brian will be bringing in a third Necrophontes brother, a paladin.
posted by BlueBlackRed at 5:45 PM
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