A Couple of Creatures

Monday’s session involved two particularly interesting creatures. One of them was the Colossus of Femur, which is mostly just a phase spider with some nifty tricks. The other is the spider-headed women inspired by China Meiville’s Perdido Street Station. The spider-women were quite a bit more terrifying and very, very gross.

 

Ketheret		Level 3 Elite Controller
Medium natural humanoid		XP 300
Initiative +2                          Senses Perception +0; low-light vision HP 88; Bloodied 44 AC 18; Fortitude 14; Reflex 14; Will 14 Saving Throws +2 Speed 6 Action Points 1
m Dagger (standard; at-will) • Weapon
+8 vs AC; 1d4 + 1 damage
r Magic Missile (standard; at-will) • Force, Implement
Ranged 20; +6 vs Reflex; 3d4 + 4 force damage
R Misdirected Mark (standard; encounter) • Implement
Ranged 10; +7 vs Reflex; 1d8 + 5 damage, and the target is marked by an ally of Ketheret’s choice within 5 squares of her until the end of her next turn
A Webspray (standard; encounter) • Illusion, Implement
Area burst 1 within 10; +6 vs Will; until the end of Ketheret’s next turn, the target is immobilized and takes a -4 to attack rolls
Expeditious Retreat (move; encounter)
Ketheret shifts twice her speed.
Alignment Unaligned		Languages Common, Deep Speech, Draconic
Skills Arcana +10, Bluff +6, History +10
Str 11 (+1)	Dex 13 (+2)		Wis 9 (+0)
Con 12 (+2)	Int 18 (+5)		Cha 16 (+4)
Equipment Dagger, Spellbook, Wand Implement

Ketheret was the Matriarch of the Neith (spider-woman) clan in the mountains that separate the Femoral Forest from the Basin Plains. We didn’t really get to learn much about her, as the heroes brutally killed her in the mating chamber of the nest. Which sort of makes sense, since the rest of the spiders were going to feed the heroes to Ketheret at first opportunity.

Neith sign language is going to be available as a language in my campaign from now on, and as this is not the last time we’ll be meeting up with them, we’ll be learning more about these enigmatic people as the game goes on.

Neith Protectorate		Level 3 Soldier
Medium natural humanoid		XP 150
Initiative +4                          Senses Perception +3 HP 44; Bloodied 22 AC 19; Fortitude 18; Reflex 15; Will 16 Speed 5
m Longsword (standard; at-will) • Weapon
+11 vs AC; 1d8 + 5 damage, and the target is marked until the end of the Protectorate's next turn
r Longbow (standard; at-will) • Weapon
Ranged 20/40; +4 vs AC; 1d10 + 1 damage
M Sure Strike (standard; at-will) • Weapon
+13 vs AC; 1d8 + 1 damage
M Tide of Iron (standard; at-will) • Weapon
Requires shield; +11 vs AC; 1d8 + 5 damage, and the target, if Large or smaller, is pushed 1 square. The target is marked until the end of the Protectorate's next turn. The Protectorate can shift into the space the pushed target vacated
M Dance of Steel (standard; encounter) • Weapon
+11 vs AC; 2d8 + 5 damage, and the target is marked and slowed until the end of the Protectorate's next turn
No Opening (immediate interrupt, when an enemy attacks and has combat advantage; encounter)
The Protectorate cancels the combat advantage she was about to grant.
Alignment Good		Languages Common, Goblin
Skills Intimidate +6
Str 18 (+5)	Dex 13 (+2)		Wis 14 (+3)
Con 12 (+2)	Int 11 (+1)		Cha 10 (+1)
Equipment Scale Armor, Light Shield, Longsword, Longbow, Arrow x20, Adventurer’s Kit

The basic footsoldiers of the Neith clans, the Protectorate is always female (males are too dumb and lack opposable thumbs), and always a deadly fighter. This wasn’t actually the character sheet for the Neith as they were played last time, but it is the template I will be using from now on. The previous build was more paladin-like, which was sweet, but this better fits the image I had of the Neith as I was planning the session.

The Neith are, as stated a few times, straight jacked from China Meiville. As such, they are sexually dimorphic, do not have vocal chords, have a diverse culture, and a strict religious lifestyle. Like the khepri from Perdido Street Station, the Neith are named after an Egyptian goddess. In this case, she’s the goddess of weaving.

There was a scene in the mating room. The males (who just look like spiders) were mating with the females (who look like women who have spiders for heads). The males mate with the backs of the females’ heads. It was pretty gross. 

Colossus of Femur		Level 8 Solo Skirmisher
Gargantuan elemental beast		XP 1,750
Initiative +11                        Senses Perception +7; tremorsense HP 348; Bloodied 174 AC 22; Fortitude 19; Reflex 21; Will 18 Saving Throws +5 Speed 6 , Climb 6 (spider climb), Teleport 6 Action Points 2
m Bite (standard; at-will) • Poison, Sleep
+13 vs AC; 1d8 + 5 damage, and the target is slowed (save ends). First Failed Saving Throw: The target is knocked unconscious instead of slowed (save ends)
M Ethereal Bite (standard; recharge 5 6) • Teleportation
The Colossus teleports 10 squares and makes a bite attack
M Ethereal Repulsion (immediate interrupt, when an enemy moves adjacent to the colossus; at-will) • Teleportation
Targets the triggering enemy; +11 vs Will; the Colossus teleports the target 4 squares. A successful Acrobatics, Arcana, Athletics, Dungeoneering, Nature or Thievery check deactivates this ability for two rounds.
Indomitable (standard; at-will)
The colossus ignores all damage. If an effect can end with a save, the colossus does not suffer from it. The colossus is immune to all forced movement. If it suffers from an effect that ends at the end of a creatures turn, the effect ends at the end of the colossus’s next turn. A successful Acrobatics, Arcana, Athletics, Dungeoneering, or Thievery check deactivates this ability for two rounds.
C Death From Above (standard; recharge 6)
The Colossus must be at least two squares above the ground to use this abilty. The Colossus teleports up to it's teleport speed and crashes down on its opponents.
Close burst 2; +13 vs AC; 3d10 + 5
Alignment Unaligned		Languages —
Skills Stealth +14
Str 17 (+7)	Dex 20 (+9)		Wis 17 (+7)
Con 15 (+6)	Int 5 (+1)		Cha 10 (+4)
© 2009 Wizards of the Coast LLC, a subsidiary of Hasbro, Inc. All rights reserved. All monster statistics blocks have been generated using the D&D Adventure Tools.

 

This Colossus was much more mobile, zipping around the map like it was nothing. There was a lot of charging going on. The poisonous bite was scary. The ethereal bite came out a few times (in a strange bit of DMing for me, I rolled on recharge for that one secretly). Despite being very fast, the original encounter with the neith was such that fighting the colossus just wasn’t very frightening.

In the next session, we’ll be fighting Babagya (and getting a look at her character sheet afterwards, which should be fun). The boss fight after that will hopefully fix the problems I’ve been having with boss fights so far. This one will be as mobile as the Colossus of Femur, as powerful as the Colossus of Tarsil and will have a few tricks up its sleeve that, hopefully, the party won’t see coming.

Also, JP should draw me some pictures of women with spiders for heads so I have something to illustrate this post with. ^_^

Pinning Down the Art Form

In response to my post about muggles, Erin brought up an interesting point:

I'm confused, I loathe improv theater, both as a spectator and a participant, but I love table top role playing. - Erin

Part of the problem with communicating what exactly a role-playing game is, is that role-playing games aren't really like anything else. They're an artistic goulash that borrows from a wide range of arts. When I'm talking to new or potential players, I usually fall back on high school drama class, and the improv theater games we played there; in a role-playing game, you make up your character, speak for him or her, act out his or her actions (either through description or through demonstration), and create something that is very much like an impromptu play. 

But role-playing games aren't actually improv theater. For one thing, theater assumes an outside audience, a group of people who are not active participants but who are instead passively entertained by the action on stage. Role-playing games don't typically have an audience that is separate from the people who are involved (there are exceptions of course; sometimes someone "Just wants to watch," and then the theater analogue gets it a little closer). Moreover, the director of an improv play has a much smaller role in the direction of the narrative than does your average Game Master (again, with the exceptions, though: GM-light games or games that don't have a GM at all, exist, and those games are definitely role-playing games. I suppose the closest a role-playing game could be to improv theater would be a game with an outside audience in which the GM plays an ancillary role). 

Role-playing games are often compared to traditional storytelling, as well. If you've never met a professional storyteller, you're missing out; they're intense, and it is my personal belief that they would make both the best and worst Game Masters on he planet. In the best tellings of a story, the storyteller is both a performer and an improv artist. The storyteller has a story more or less memorized, but will include the audience in coming up with the details as the story is told. This adds a personal element to the telling of the story, and makes each telling a unique and interesting experience. Depending on the story (and the teller) the same tale can be told in wildly different ways when the audience changes. But storytelling, too, is not role-playing. For one thing, the audience is invited to invent details, plot twists, small things that can effect the flow of the story, but they do not play the protagonists. The storyteller controls all of the characters when weaving his or her tale. There is no question of authorship in traditional storytelling; the storyteller has all the control, a perfect railroad to the end game.

In some ways, that may seem like very bad role-playing. In fact, sometimes it is. When GM fiat gets completely out of control, it stops being a role-playing game and starts being a storytelling session in which the players have little or no control over what their characters do or how their characters act. And that is an integral difference between traditional storytelling and role-playing games. In the former, the storyteller is the performer, and the audience is a (mostly) passive force in the story. In role-playing games, the entire group make up both performers and audience, and the story belongs to the party. 

Others have drawn similarities to the production of a television series, or a comic book, or a collaborative novel, or a shared world series of stories, or a million other things.

Not to mention the fact that many role-playing games include a tactical miniatures game. While the role-playing bits are all great and good, when the dice start flying, the art of the thing is replaced by a half hour of rolling dice, checking stats, doing some quick arithmetic, moving little toy soldiers around the table, and snacking on Cheetoes. This is a phenomenon you won't find in either improv theater or traditional storytelling; it has more in common with chess.

Not to mention the random element of dice.

Or the role of out-of-character table talk in fleshing out the narrative.

Or the novel-like quality of attempting to quantify reality within a system.

Or... Well, there are a lot of ways role-playing games differ from damned near everything else. 

So maybe that's what role-playing games are. They're improv theater about traditional storytelling in which the teller weaves an elaborate plot around the pieces of a randomized chess game, to an audience that participates in the creation of the story by providing the protagonists' personalities (and moving their corresponding piece about the table). Or, maybe they're something completely different. It's been over thirty years and no one has managed to really pin down what the hell it is we're doing when we sit around and toss dice. 

But I can't tell new or potential players that. It's too big, it's too much to try and understand. When I'm talking to a potential player about role-playing games, and they ask me what it's like, I always say "It's like improv theater, with rules and dice." Sometimes, the person that I'm talking to cringes when I say "improv theater." It's happened. I just have to trust myself as a salesman to pick up on that and find a way to explain that is both unintimidating and intriguing. I'll save "how to sell role-playing games" for a different blog post, though.

Hair Metal Elves and Giant Phase Spiders

So the party had been hired on to retrieve a mysterious book from a powerful witch-woman who was apparently using it to destroy the world. They arrived in time to discover her waking up the Colossus of Tarsil, kick the crap out of the huge rock-man. Babagya the witch woman, sadly, escaped. 

The trip back was uneventful, and they stopped in at town to gather some information and prepare for the next leg of the journey. Bruk bought an executioner's axe for 15 gold and a song (literally), and the group informed the Archbishop of Geth that they had not yet retrieved his book, but did have some pretty solid information on the person who had it. The Archbishop was not entirely impressed, and made it very clear that the book was incredibly important and that the Library would need it back as soon as humanly possible. Horses were made available, and a stable-girl named Emily to bring them back once the group passed into the Femoral Forest.

The forest itself is a sick, twisted thing. Black trunks grip the earth and greasy black leaves blow grotesquely in the wind. The floor of the forest is unsafe, the things that live in the underbrush terrifying and strange. This is a place where people go missing in an instant and insectoid monkeys would not be out of place. Memphis was born and raised here, and knows the safe paths, the ways to travel through the canopy high above, avoiding the worst of the dangers below. His people hunt boar here, following the herds and snatching them from above, living in hanging tents and tending their long, luscious hair. 

After hours of traveling through the branches of the trees, the party meets up with a member of Memphis' tribe, a cocky priss of an elf called Cecil. The two argue some, but agree that the group should meet with the Matriarch of the tribe, Cecil's mother, and Memphis' aunt. They travel to a healthier part of the forest, where elven magic keeps the trees healthy and whole, and try to learn the whereabouts of Babagya and her chicken-footed hut. The talks do not go well, with the party and the Matriarch at odds about nearly everything. Auntie suggests, forcefully, that they not be in her tents in the morning. One of the elven children whispers that she may know something about the woman they seek (but is sadly killed by Bruk's morning breath before she can say anything else).

They set off early, towards Babagya's last known location, the Spider Caves of Femur, near the border with the Basin Plains (pelvis, for the record, is the Latin word for "basin"). Here they are confronted by dark blue women who have spiders for heads and a small horde of spiders. These were stolen, part and parcel, from China Mieville's Perdido Street Station with the cosmetic change of spiders for scarabs. Scarabs are more alien, spiders are more metal. The spiders and their mates take the party to school, knocking every one of them out and dragging them back to their mountain lair to be fed to their breeders.

They awaken, fight off the guards sent to keep them, and rescue many other soon-to-be-meals. They manage to kill three of the spider-people breeders, fight off the eunuch guards, burn down the egg lair, kill many of the males, and discover that the Colossus of Femur is a huge, chrome phase spider. Now, they didn't do much of that, really. They fought the breeders, and saved the survivors, but the night was getting late, and we jumped straight into the boss battle. Babagya, in classic villain form, taunted the player characters some before fucking off to her chicken hut far below, and they were faced with a huge, scary, powerful, teleporting spider. It took for bloody ever (it's 2:50 in the morning as I write this), but they took the bastard down in good form. No one died. A few of them dropped unconscious, but got up the next round. It was good, but again a bit of a slog.

Some Notes:

One of the keys to being a good DM, in my opinion, is figuring out what you did right and what you did wrong. How things were good, and how they weren't means that next session you can do things better, make the game more fun for everyone. Below are my notes on where I think the session was solid and where it could have used some work.

• The colossi need work. They're okay, but they take too long to kill and they don't do enough damage that anyone is frightened of them. This one only did 1d8+5 damage per bite, with some status effects that ended on a save. Not good enough. The bosses need to be terrifying.
• We need to fight Babagya. Even if we don't win, we need to see the bitch in action and understand what we're up against. As she is, she's a sort of amorphous... thing. Also, I need to find a way to seperate her image from that of the flying Koopa Troopa that drops shells.
• Dealing with Memphis' family was a lot of fun. The first session lacked in the role-playing department. This one was better, but we could still use a bit more in each session. I've been too encounter-oriented so far.
• I need to plan stop-points, places where it would be a good place to stop for the night. I need to start planning for four to four-and-a-half hour sessions, even if we don't hit a boss.
• It's time to hit a city, I think. ^_^ 

Hoo Boy Does Microsoft Office Suck

I do want to entertain you, fine readers. I know that a huge block of text on the internet is about as much fun to read as stabbing your own eyes out with a salt-lick. And if I use Blogger's nifty little blog editing tool thing, I can make some pretty kick-ass entries into the blogging world. I can put in some pictures, I can make it real pretty. What I can't do in the blogger editor thing is quickly and easily make stat blocks. And let's face it, a good stat block with a kick-ass picture beside it looks a lot nicer than a good stat block.

So for stats, I've been using Microsoft Word, and it's suite of table-craft tools. I'm copying and pasting monsters that I've stolen or created using the D&D adventure tools from Wizards, and uploading them from there. But there have been a few issues with that approach so far, not the least of which is the fucked up formatting the change from Word to Blogger inflicts on the tables. There are extra spaces when the table is published. It doesn't look like that when I'm writing the post.

So I guess I'm looking for a new way to make blog posts. I want to be able to include pictures without figuring out Microsoft's arcane API uploading rules, I want to be able to copy-paste rich-text from the Adventure Tools in a way that doesn't suck, and I want to be able to write on something that isn't the Blogger editor. The fact that blogger forces all of my pictures to the top of the post drives me completely bonkers.

Ideas?

How to Deal with Muggles

I see this all the time. I work behind the counter at a store that sells role-playing games. The situation plays out like this.

A person who has not yet been indoctrinated into the realm of role-playing games (in the store, I call them "muggles") is standing somewhere near the Vampire: The Requiem shelf, and begins to look at the books. Usually, if someone has been standing there for a while, I'll ask them what I can grab for them (far better sales technique than "Is there anything I can help you find?" for the retail people out there). If they tell me they're browsing, I suggest that they should "Feel free to buy everything you browse past!" and leave them alone. If they ask me about the game, or role-playing games in general, I give them the briefest possible explanation I can.

Muggle: So, I've never really played one of these games before... What's it like?
Me: You ever take drama, or seen Whose Line is it Anyway?
Muggle: Sure.
Me: Cool. It's like improv theater with rules and dice.

For some people, this is enough. They get an idea of what it is the hobby is about, enough to make a choice on whether or not this is something they want to be a part of. It's an improvised storytelling medium that involves some rules, and a system for determining arbitrary outcomes in a fair way. Cool. Moving on.

Others begin to ask more questions, and that's when I'll start getting into a bit more detail. You have a "character" who you portray, describing his or her actions and speaking for them. There is a "director" who tells you the situations in which your character finds him- or herself, and who controls the supporting cast. The rules are there to give you an idea of the sorts of things your character is good at, and to handle any situations that might come up; for instance in a Vampire game, the rules tell you how sunlight will hurt your character, and how strong your character is.

For some people, this is enough. They get an idea of what the hobby is about, enough to make a choice on whether or not this is something they want to be a part of. Others will ask more questions, and I'll answer them, and the process continues until the person I'm talking to has enough information.

I know I've said enough when the person I'm talking to has stopped asking questions.

This is a technique that I've used to describe role-playing to an insane number of people. I've been playing these games for coming on twenty years, and I've played with hundreds of different people in that time. Most of the time, I didn't meet those players; I made new players. I told them what the hobby was, I answered their questions enough to give them an idea of whether or not it was something they'd like, and if it was, I'd run a session or fifty for them. This is part of what makes me a successful salesperson in the games industry (and it's why I've played D&D with as many women as men).

The only time I see problems with this approach is when there is another gamer standing around the same shelves. I'll ask the muggles what I can get for them, and they'll ask questions. I'll answer them briefly, and if they don't ask further questions, I'll leave them to their choice. Almost without fail, the gamer customer will feel the need to chime in, and it is almost always in a way that is unwelcome and intimidating.

Gamer: That game is awesome.
Muggle: Yeah?
Gamer: Yeah, man. You can be like, twelve different kinds of vampire, and they each get special powers. Like my guy has Protean, which means he can sleep in the earth without getting hit by the sun. And this one time, a bunch of werewolves were coming after him, so he had to sleep there for three days and he almost went into torpor.
Muggle: (putting down the book) Okay...

The problem here is oversharing. The reason the game is cool to you is not the reason that someone who has never played a role-playing game is going to want to try it. A person who is going to pick up a role-playing game for the first time is interested in only a few things: is it fun? is it easy enough for me to learn? will I get enough use out of it for the cost that I pay? and is it fun?

Fun is a different thing for different people. Some of us honestly don't like improv theater with rules and dice. Some of us don't want to hang out and make up stories about people who don't exist and tell them to eachother. And that's okay. But keeping it simple, and telling people only as much as they need to hear to make a choice, is the easiest way to get new people into the hobby. There is a lot of information out there, and much of it is intimidating and strange. Just because you and I know what Auspex does (or Sneak Attack, or Glitterboy armor, or a wireless netjack, or whatever), doesn't mean that a person who hasn't played wants to. Sharing your own experience with the game might help someone who is on the fence decide to get into the hobby, but unless you're invited to share, you could just as easily be turning someone off from something they would have really enjoyed had you remembered a few simple rules.

1. Basic is better: Give someone only the information they need to know first. Role-playing games are like improv theater with rules and dice. This is my standard, go-to line when telling muggles what the hobby's about.
2. If they're not asking questions, it's better to let them make the choice on their own: People who ask questions are interested. People who want more information will request it. If you're offering information that hasn't been asked for, you're probably sharing a bit too much.
3. Only answer the question they've asked: Examples are not needed. Specific rules from the books are not needed. Telling muggles the rules of the game is not telling them about role-playing games. Telling muggles about your character is not telling them about role-playing. Telling muggles which edition of Dungeons & Dragons you prefer, and why is not telling them about role-playing. If they ask "So, okay, you have a director and some characters, but how do you know what to say?" just answer the question.
4. If you think you can't handle that, let the person behind the counter deal with it: Get his or her attention if you need to. Getting people into this hobby is my job. I've been doing this for a long time, and I'm good at it. My bet is that the person standing behind the counter at your Friendly Local Game Store is probably pretty good at it, too.

On Skill Challenges that Suck

Sometimes, skill challenges suck. I'm not one of those people who thinks that they need to be stricken from the game forever, but I have certainly run skill challenges that were not at the top of their form. In fact, I ran one on Monday, and it was mostly terrible. The challenge was getting across the Tibean Wasteland. For the most part, the development of the challenge wasn't as important as the act itself, which should have been my first clue that the challenge wasn't even needed in this case, and I would have been better off making it a series of role-playing moments, a combat encounter, and some investigation. Honestly, I think an investigation skill challenge would have been more fun in its place, and now I'm a touch sad that I didn't run one. I'd offer to do one this coming Monday, but I have different plans for this upcoming session. Maybe when we reach the Spine of the World, or the city of Sternum...

I think that's probably the one thing that differentiates skill challenges that are awesome and skill challenges that suck: what they're for. I understand that some players hate them in general; the math is screwy, or they believe that the challenge would be better left to good role-playing. Personally, I disagree, but I'll admit that when a skill challenge isn't going to clearly effect things, it's pretty stupid to have a skill challenge at all. Whether they passed the skill challenge or not, my players would have crossed the Tibean Waste. Making it a skill challenge didn't add any tension or drama to the act, and if it had, I think I would have failed as a DM. That's not a thing that should invoke tension, it's a simple act and it should just get done. Travel, meet some people while you're travelling, fight some bitches what get up in your grill, then be done with it.

When you're crafting a skill challenge, it has to mean something. I think that's part of what made the Night at the Opera skill challenge such a success; the players knew that if they did not make their show a success, they would have to come up with a different (probably much more difficult) way to get into the Mayor's house and get the information they need to open the Dungeons & Dragons Inc. Lodge. That is a damned fine skill challenge. Development for that makes a big difference. If you succeed, you get to go to a fancy party, and when the guests are all unconscious or fucking, you can do what you need to do. If you fail, you have to bust in the door, deal with the guards, find a way to subdue the mayor and his guests, and get done what needs doing. The first way is much more fun, much less trouble, and is better for role-playing and story-telling purposes. The second way involves a lot of combat, a bunch of unwanted attention, some trouble-shooting and an uphill battle to get to your goals.

And I think that is what a skill challenge should really be about. When you're planning these things, keep your goal in mind. And your goal should be fun. What would be the fun way to get this goal accomplished? What would be the less-fun way to do the same thing? Now, make the fun thing the reward for accomplishing the skill challenge. Make the unfun thing the penalty for failure. Set this up from the beginning, let your players know what is at stake before they start trying to figure out how they're going to roll this, and make them think about the actions they'll be taking to use those skills effectively. That will add tension to the challenge, make it worth doing, and make the whole experience a lot more fun to play through.

How to Make it Metal

In our introductory session, we did some things that were pretty kick-ass. We took down a level-five Solo without losing anyone. We busted through level two, straight into level three. We killed a dude with a scalpel, and that's always a fun experience. And while some of that stuff seems pretty Metal (and the events themselves were very metal within the framework of the game), none of those things are, in and of themselves, indicative of the genre we're trying to invoke with the game. A lot of the Metal flavor came from the set dressing, the player's descriptions of characters and actions, and the role-playing that happened around the table.

It can be pretty tough to run a game within a particular sub-genre of fantasy with Dungeons and Dragons. Honestly, the game is rather poorly set up to do setting-specific things. It's in nearly every way an Epic Fantasy Game, and that comes with a certain amount of baggage that can be difficult to shake off when you're trying to do something a little more unique. Making a game that tries to emulate the stylings of the Heavy Metal music movement is a little more unique than that, and it requires a bit of help from the players to really make it happen.

The first major step in making a game that fits a genre is understanding what everyone wants to do with that genre. Role-playing games are a collaborative thing; they require input from all of the forces that are making the game what it is, so bringing the players into the brain-storming is never a bad idea. At the end of the first session (which was, to be honest, only half-good), I sat down with my players and asked them what they wanted to see from the game, what sorts of things they'd be interested in playing through. There were some suggestions batted around, such as increasing the importance of the music in the game, stealing fashions and styles from various metal movements when creating the cultures of the various races (the Femural Forest elves, for instance, have adopted Hair Metal as their aesthetic; it should probably be noted, they're still bad-asses).

But catering to the players' expectation isn't where it ends. You have to involve them in the creation of the genre story. I can establish the dramatic form, and the players will ham to that naturally, but if you want a game to be truly effective in establishing a genre tale, you need to get players pushing the envelope. I need my players to push themselves, to see just how fucking Metal they can be. And that means I need to reward them for playing in a way that advances the themes I want to advance.

I'm a lead-with-the-carrot kind of Game Master, regardless of the game I'm playing. As much as I may love to kill people on a weekly basis in D&D Encounters, I'm not really out to get my players when I'm playing a story-based game. I'll kill them if I have to, or if the dice are particularly mean, but I try to avoid it when I can. People work hard to create those characters, they invest a lot of emotion into making those people "live," and they've invested quite a bit into making the story those characters are playing in pretty fucking awesome. I would rather not punish my players for not playing to type; that isn't going to make it any fun for anyone. Instead, I want to give them something tangible for doing the things that make the game "better." In this case, "better" equals "Metal."

So I'm going to be adding something to my game that is going to reward my players for doing things that are specifically in-genre. Much like the Favors rewarded players for acting within the genre of a cop drama, I'm going to craft a system that allows players to get a kick-ass reward for doing something that is incredibly, amazingly, perfectly Metal. This isn't something I've used yet, but I'll be introducing it on Monday as a way players can get more from the game.

Brutality

Brutality is measure of your character's reputation as a complete and total fucking bad-ass. At the beginning of the campaign, there are a few major players who know that you're the person to call when shit gets serious, but you're not generally well-known. As you progress in Brutality, people will come to know that you mean business, that you are not to be fucked with, and that the shit that you do is some pretty important shit.

When you do something that is 100% pure Heavy Metal, the DM may reward you with a Brutality Point. Brutality Points can be allocated to one of two stats on your character sheet: Fame and Import.

Fame is how well known your character is. A person with a Fame of one or two may be recognized in their hometown or by people in his or her field of work. A person with a Fame of 15 is known the world over. A person with a Fame of 20 is known by the Gods themselves.

Import is a measure of how seriously people take your character. A person with an import of 1 or 2 is generally considered to have a pretty important job in the community, the equal of a sheriff or a low-ranking officer in the army. A person with an Import of 15 is generally considered to have responsibilities on par with those of kings. A person with an Import of 20 has a job as important as making sure gravity still works, something that shakes entire planes of existence.

These are, of course, rough guidelines. You can fill them in however you like. A person with a Fame of 5 but an Import of 8 works behind the scenes for the most part, but the people who know about her respect her as the equal of the mayor of a minor city-state. A warrior with a Fame of 10, with an Import of 6 is known throughout the countryside as a monster-killing machine, and the country-folk respect him for it. As you gain Fame and Import, you can discuss with your DM how those things manifest themselves. They may result in requisitions for powerful magic items, free room and board, all the whores a woman can feast herself on, or even the attention of a God...

Pictures of a Harrowing Battle

Looking at the first picture you can see the heroes preparing to face off against the Colossus of Tarsil. I didn't have any gargantuan miniatures at the store that I was willing to crack open for the project (just a few of the blue dragons from the 3.5 minis line), so I spent a while looking around for an appropriately sized action figure. My Little Cthulhu takes up about as many squares as a gargantuan dude, and so it became the Colossus and worked fairly well. Behind him, you can see Ninjathulu, who I was using to represent Babagya, the first recurring villain of the game.

The second is a picture of me, rocking my DM face. In front of the screen, holding down the edge of the mat, is a wizard my boss got for my center. I'm sure he's for sale. Behind me, you can see the old Tournament Center television (currently a piss-poor monitor over by my own work-station), and some of the anime center.

After a long and harrowing battle with the Colossus, the party was victorious. Though Babagya escaped to wreck havoc another day, the party managed to survive to come kick her ass in the next time she shows her nasty face. The third picture shows the Colossus defeated. The green dots show the borders of the creatures space-occupancy.

Next time, we're hoping to have either a sound recording or straight-up video.

The Most Metal Campaign of All Time

We ran through the first session of the Most Metal Campaign of All Time last night, and it went pretty okay. The start of the session was a little rough, which was entirely my own fault for not having a clearer idea of where the campaign started. I could well have started it a half hour later in the story, and everything would have been just fine. I'm running double experience on a four-person group, and we made it through four combat encounters and a skill challenge in the five hours we played. One of those encounters was a level five solo, so we managed to skip second level entirely. The solo encounter was mixed with a minor skill challenge (sort of), but it worked out. Next time, I think I'll handle the skills part of it a little differently.

We started out at the Library of Geth, a place built on the cliffs between Capp and the Fibular Wastelands. It is a fortress full of books, many of them very important or ridiculously powerful. The city-state of Sternum uses the Library as a repository for things like their census, tax records, and declarations of war. The drow from the Spine of the World use it to store their most important magical teachings. It has never, in its history, had a book stolen from it. Until yesterday.

The Library's guards are some of the best-trained soldiers in the world, but it is the opinion of the Archbishop that the retrieval of the book does not require soldiers; it requires bad-asses. The thief flew into the library, took the book, set some things on fire, killed a squad of guards with little difficulty and flew away. For this mission, the Archbishop requests audience with some of the biggest names in kicking ass. On any normal mission, one of these people would be enough. For this, they'll need to join forces, move past their differences, and learn to work together.

After beating some information out of the locals at a pub, they discover that the thief was apparently a woman in a cauldron, rowing her way through the air with a broom. She was heading south, across the Fibular Wasteland, which is where our heroes trek. Getting across the waste was a skill challenge in three parts. After the first few successes, the party met AkTakk, the leader of one of the many gnoll tribes in the area. After talking with the group (and a successful Diplomacy check, which was part of the Skill Challenge), AkTakk offered his aid to the group, sending the message along to other gnoll and kobold tribes in the area.

He informs them that he has seen the woman who flies in a cauldron before, and that she also owns a hut that walks on chicken legs, and that she has taken up residence in the southern Tarsil Mountains. This is the second time the group has heard about the chicken-hut, and it became something of a symbol for the session. ^_^ It should be noted that I basically stole Baba Yaga wholesale from Russian folklore. I think a witch who flies in a cauldron and eats babies is pretty fucking metal, so she's in.

It should be noted that I hate dragon-kobolds. In my game, they’re all dog-kobolds, and they are more closely related to gnolls than anything.

After a few failures, the group stumbled upon a group of undead gnolls and kobolds, and there was an altercation. It was a tough fight, as the kobold slingers had the high ground (they were situated on the tops of hoodoos; for those who did not grow up around Drumheller, a hoodoo is like a fucked-up backwards mountain; the big rocks are on the top, the little rocks are on the bottom. They make weird pillar things. They’re awesome. The ones in Drumheller are usually some ten feet tall). Our heroes handily won the fight, and were met by another tribe of gnolls who were coming to their aid; together, they made it to the base of the Tarsil Caves, a series of black volcanic caves that jut out from the southern edge of the waste.

The first cave shows signs of habitation, with bootprints and regularly walked paths. The heroes push further back into the caves, squeezing into a narrow choke-point and being met by a group of black-cloaked cultists armed to the teeth. I love humans as monsters, by the by. Their higher-than-average defences and their seeming habitual use of reach weapons can be devastating in a fight. This fight was particularly tough, of the four pre-boss fights; the choke point meant that only three of the characters were visible enough to hit, focusing enemy fire (I make a habit of spreading out my damage when I’m playing a story-based games. It makes the encounters tough, but not debilitating; I only go after a single character when they make me).

After dispatching the first of the Witch’s cultists, the party is confronted by the woman herself, and two of the undead gnolls she’s been keeping around. There’s a parley, from which the Witch leaves, mocking the party, to be replaced by her favourite surgeon, Scalpel. Scalpel got some basic healing powers, and kept buffing the undead up, which was fun to watch. I ran the buffs fast and loose, arbitrarily deciding that he would heal them to just above their bloodied point. The tactical decisions to be made (“Focus fire on the skeletons, or kill the healer? Oh god, they’re big and scary again...) were fun to watch from the position of an Evil God, and seeing them interact with Scalpel was a lot of fun. He was a bastard and I loved playing him.

The final encounter for the night was not, as suspected, against the Witch, but instead against the thing she has awakened with her new book. She taunts the party one more time before awakening the Colossus of Tarsil, a gargantuan creature of stone and flesh. The colossus was stolen part and parcel from Shadow of the Colossus, which is an amazing game for the PS2 should ever you get your hands on it. Basically, he’s immune to damage until you hit his weak spot. Each of the colossi in the game will have different weak spots, and each one will be activated by different skill checks. They managed to get this one turned off pretty quickly and start dishing out the damage, which didn’t take away from the fact that the fucker’s a level 5 solo and the group are all first level. The fight was tough, with burst effects that hit everyone on the map and 4d6 damage punches. I calmed down a little on the number of attacks, as they were down a player, and it was still a challenging fight, but I probably could have turned up the heat and it wouldn’t have gotten crazy. The next colossus will be harder. I hope to have at least two players drop into negatives from a boss fight.

There are some pictures of the boss-fight in action. JP will be e-mailing them to me soon. Also, I'll be talking a bit about some of the more interesting parts of the game a bit more in-depth later: the theme, the tone of the game in play, the skill challenge (and how I actually run them as opposed to how I write them), skill challenges in general, and why anyone would use a glow-in-the-dark My Little Cthulhu as a miniature.