Necessary Evil - Session 3 - Playing Through

The team climbs from the wreckage of the alien shuttle as the drones and K'Tharians close in around them. The alien robot gleams under the lights as the V'Sori scientist realizes he may need to take drastic action.

The alien scientist pulls out some kind of rod and begins doing things on his computer. Concerned, Nissa closes in to try and beguile him. Seeing that she's not close enough, Night Terror shoots him and he staggers, but doesn't drop. In the meantime, MegaStrike and Nightblade, freed of their bad luck, are rapidly thinning the alien minions.

The scientist really puts up a struggle, staying on his feet even when Night Terror shoots him a second time and resisting Nissa's mind control as well. Annoyed, she ends up grabbing the activation rod from his hand to prevent him from touching the giant robot with it, as the team assumes that's how it's turned on. In the end, the battered, frustrated scientist succumbs to a punch from MegaStrike and crumples to the ground.

The sound of alarms is heard in the distance...

Using the anti-grav clamp that the V'Sori were using, the villains move the robot to a small flatbed truck and cover it with tarp (vehicle theft not being something they are concerned with). They contact Dr. Destruction and arrange to meet him at the warehouse.

After some negotiations between MegaStrike and the Doctor, they drive the truck onto a waiting shuttle and depart the scene.

Nissa keeps the alien rod, though she doesn't mention it to anyone else. She's just kind of that way.

The adventure ends with the team back at the penthouse having drinks and relaxing after striking a blow at the aliens and avoiding major injury among themselves. All in all, a solid day's work.

GM Notes:

- This one was fairly short as we were all tired at the end of the week and spent a lot of time discussing all kinds of other things. Movies, schedules, and a potential 4th edition D&D game.

- The players did really well with getting the bot out of there. It was very professional, no panic, no paralyzing indecision.

- I was glad to get it wrapped up and give out their first XP's. I wasn't sure this was a great choice for their first run but it worked out well and everyone had a chance to shine.

- The relationship with Dr. Destruction is already interesting and I am sure it will develop in even more unexpected ways.

Schedule Pains

Well scheduling has been tough for a while and has interfered with all of our games.

February has a birthday, Valentine's Day, and an anniversary

March has a birthday, spring break, and another birthday

April had Easter so far.

So it's been a hectic last few months of weekends. Hopefully things will settle down now and we can get on more of a roll.

I did manage to work in the wrap up to the last mission in Necessary Evil - I will post that later.

4th Edition Campaign Idea #3 -Return to Phlan

This is a somewhat smaller scale campaign idea than the other two, and really only applies to Heroic levels. At this point I almost see that as a benefit and this is probably the one most likely to get played in the next few months.

I LOVED Pool of Radiance when it came out in 1989. I spent a huge amount of time playing it on my Commodore 64 as did my friends. It centered around a ruined city in the Forgotten Realms that was being slowly reclaimed by the inhabitants. Players made up a party and worked through the different sections of the city clearing out the monsters which were all conveniently level appropriate with the weaker ones nearer to the civillized section and the stronger ones deeper in the ruins. There were also side trips outside the city to a huge graveyard, a lizardman lair, and a mad wizard's pyramid. The computer game was awesome for the time and it came with a great little background book that really captured the favor of the area. TSR also published a 1st ed module version of this campaign titled Ruins of Adventure. It should have been the Realms version of Keep on the Borderlands but it failed badly and has largely been forgotten. Except by me.

So to start a new campaign of D&D I like to have a safe base area, some dungeons close at hand, some options for local countryside wandering, and some political or religious things going on to give the more roleplay oriented types something to do between dungeon crawls. This adventure fits that perfectly. Plus many of the adventures in the ruins involve more than just a frontal assault - many are centered around sneaking into something or talking your way past guards and many areas have some kind of guardians that can be reasoned with so there is more here than just carnage. There is plenty of violence though, and every kind of monster from kobolds to hill giants and dragons, lots of the D&D staples. Re reading the module made me realize it has a lot of good ideas just some poor presentation and limited monster stats - perfect for a conversion to another edition.,particularly this edition if its proponents are to be believed.

Classes: Anything goes. I'll pick up the Realms guides for 4th and however they've worked them into the Realms works for me.

Races: Same thing here - there's a book that explains all this so no extra effort for me.

The Gods - again, there's a whole book for this so that's what I will use.

Environment - it's a single large ruined city on the coast of the Moonsea and some of the surrounding features. Perfect - I don't have to build or convert a continent, just a one-page map.

Adventures - This is a fixed mission in some ways - reclaim the city! - but it's not a railroad, it's more of a sandbox. There's a big map and the players can approach it however they want. If your 2nd level band wanders into the hill giant lair then a lot of bad stuff is going to happen. Add in some factional differences on the town council and everyone should be able to find some interesting things to do.

Phlan and the Moonsea was the first area of the Reams I was exposed to and I really liked it. I have run almost no D&D in the Realms, spending most of my time there as a player as my friend ran the Realms like I run Greyhawk. But things change, so maybe it's time I tried it.

Note on the 100 year jump: I know the 4th edition realms is set 100 years after the old realms stuff but I don't think it matters. Phlan was ruined once and now it's ruined again sometime during that 100 year gap. My players didn't play through this module then (other than the computer game) so they have no investment in the original situation. Heck, maybe Tyranthraxus survived last time and has returned to finish what he started 100 years ago - either way it doesn't matter and doesn't cause any continuity problems with my game.

Expanding and improving this adventure should occupy my campaign through the Heroic levels and set them up as well known heroes around the Moonsea and major players in Phlan itself. At that point we could decide to continue, switch to something else, or start a new 4th edition game using the lessons learned here to improve the next one, maybe one of my other campaign ideas. Whichever way I think this is the best for a DM & players new to 4th edition and it's probably the way I will go.

4th Edition Campaign Idea #2 - The Classical Campaign

My 2nd idea carries over from something I did for an Arcana Evolved campaign I ran a few years ago (side note - I love Arcana Evolved - it's one of the best things to come out of the OGL). I decided not to use the default campaign world for that game and campaign, instead transporting it to a Mediterranean Ancient Greece campaign. I loved it, as did half of my players, while the other half hated it, so it died after about 4 sessions. But I think it could work with 4th edition.

So the first thing to change would be the gods - dumping the stock D&D gods and replacing them with the classic Greek deities.

Equipment could be handled differently with the whole bronze/iron thing but I don't think that will really be necessary as bronze could be treated as normal equipment while iron could be superior or masterwork equipment. Plus I don't want to have to worry about fiddly things like breaking on a 1 and such.

Races - well Fantasy Greece still needs to be mostly human. Elves & Eladrin can live in the woods, gnomes in the hills, dwarves in the mountains, halflings in some valleys. Half-Orcs could be from anywhere (I can see an Orcish empire in the area of Turkey or thereabouts). Dragonborn might be from an island nation out in the Atlantic (Atlantis was run by lizards!). Goliaths and Shifters and Devas could also be from just about anywhere. Minotaurs would be from Crete of course.

Classes - anything goes here, I see no need to rule out anything. The psionic power source might be limited to Egyptian characters, I think that would be interesting to have it foreign and exotic to the mainland campaign area. Primal powers would be limited to non-urban characters but that's not a huge obstacle as pastoral Greece has a lot going on. Thracians might be a good source for this too as I see them coming across as barbarians in a lot of ways.

Environment - The main campaign area would be a fantasy version of Greece with several city states separated by dangerous wilderness and the ruthless competition between them. Gods favor different cities over others, various monsters ravage the countryside, and armies occasionally march forth to enforce one cities will over another. I see this as a post-golden age Greece where legendary kingdoms and heroes have all fallen leading to a new dark age, which fits well with 4th editions points of light setting.

Adventures - These could cover some basic routine dungeoneering to begin with then spread out across the Mediterranean. Northern Eurpoe would be the home of Drow and Giants, Africa could have dinosaurs, and gates to other planes could be found in out of the way places. The Norse gods could come into play at some point, and so could the Egyptian pantheon although I might make them a little different.

This would be a flavored, not totally by the book campaign but it would definitely take a different tone than regular D&D, at least that's how I would plan on running it. Lots of little differences than a standard medieval game.

4th Edition Campaign Idea #1 - Ancient Greyhawk

I bought the Greyhawk folio in 1981 because I thought the poster maps were cool. Plus it was the official D&D world and I wanted to get in on that. I loved the country descriptions and coats of arms and thought it was a really good product. The later boxed sets were cool too, but they were a lot more and bigger and may have crossed a line somewhere into too much. For me the folio was perfect and all of my 1st and 2nd edition games (and much of 3rd ed as well) were set in Greyhawk.

On to 4th edition: So the new races and the multitude of classes has no sensible way of being shoved into CY500's Greyhawk. There's just no way - we don't need any planetary collisions here. Greyhawk is versatile - heck I ran Fantasy Hero in Greyhawk for a while, and GURPS too. But 4th makes a lot of changes to what is "standard" and they don't mesh well with what was standard for 1st edition - and I want to play a standard, wide-open 4th edition game.

I thought about a timeline jump forward but that still leaves one asking where did these dragonborn things come from? Where did the gods go? Where are my elemental planes? So I went a different direction - literally. I decided to jump a few thousand years backwards.

Now if we go back about 2000 years we can use the Greyhawk maps and some of the "touchstones" - characters and names without having to retcon in a bunch of weirdness with races and gods. These are the early days of Greyhawk, the Time of Legends - Bahamut is a major god and the planes are different and tieflings and dragonborn are everywhere, but it won't always be this way. My idea is that this is the age where many of Oerth's lesser deities and Demigods ascend to power (since that's one of the Epic destinies in 4th). Some of the gods that exist in 4th will be destroyed, some will be changed in the intervening millennia. If some of my players end up as demigods, I will use that when my apprentices get into 1st edition AD&D and start exploring Greyhawk.

Bahamut will sacrifice much of his power to bring order to the universe - separating the elemental planes, and creating the ethereal plane as a barrier around the prime, and summoning the Deva race into the Astral plane to be his servants. Dragonborn will ascend to the planes to serve Bahamut and those that do not will hide in far places or die out. This gives the lawful good divine types a chance to be part of a Divine Plan - their god has goals and is carrying them out. This will make for a nice contrast with most campaigns where the evil gods are the schemers and the good ones have to react.

The Raven Queen may evolve into Wee Jas or she may get sacrificed and become the Negative Elemental Plane while another god may become the source for the Positive plane, or maybe they are already there but hidden.

I may retcon Goliaths as "Half Ogres" - it fits GH better but I haven't read the race entry in the PHB2 yet.

Eladrin will eventually lose some of their powers and become simple elves, but in the time of 4th ed they are still at full strength.

Tieflings will eventually be thinned without the concentration of an empire and will disappear as a separate racial type.

The rest of the races already have homes in GH so need no adjustment or long term consideration. Dwarves will lose their connection to most Arcane magics. Magic itself will become weaker and more difficult to access, meaning it takes a magic-user to tap into what were once rituals anyone could perform.

The idea is to use whatever published adventures are out and I like, with the freedom to place them anywhere in the world. The world should have some familiarity but it is not the "old" Greyhawk. It should accommodate all the 4th edition crazyness and give us some "legends" to incorporate into later versions of GH. I gave some thought to doing my own world but this is pretty much a blank slate on an existing map - and even that I change up. Maybe the Isles of Woe are yet to be sunk? Maybe some of those artifacts in the back of the old DMG are new or in the process of being made?

A note on Vecna: Yeah, he's a god in 4th ed but he's just a legendary figure in 1st ed and trying to become a god in 2nd ed. How to make that work? Well, just because he's a god now doesn't mean he can't fall - this is another plotline to follow with a campaign. The ups and downs of various gods and their followers should be a lot of fun at Epic levels of play.

So in the end, this is my choice for a wide-open campaign for 4th edition. It would be a fair amount of work, but there's not a lot of stuff to rally change from the basic 4th ed game.

4th Edition and Me

I played a lot of AD&D during the 80's, probably more than any other game. So when they announced they were making a 2nd edition about 1988, it was a HUGE deal. However, we had not really seen the edition changes with RPG's at that time that we have now, so the idea of a new edition was still kind of a new thing - they're going to make the game better, right? Plus there was some discussion in Dragon magazine and eventually a full insert that described what the new edition was going to do and it looked really good. There were no internet message boards - just friends, the people you met in stores, local game groups, and BBS's. Everyone I knew was pretty excited about it - we liked non-weapon proficiencies, we liked "spheres" for clerics, we liked the initiative changes - it was all good! Well, we did lose half-orcs and assassins but in my experience at the time most of the people who played assassins were jerks anyway and tended to assassinate party members just as often as they did monsters. Anyway, the game came out in 1989, it was huge, and everyone I knew switched over right away and we didn't touch 1st edition ever again.

I played a lot of AD&D 2nd edition in the 90's, probably more than any other game. So when they announced that they were making a 3rd edition about 1999 it was a big deal. We had seen multiple games go through multiple editions by now (Shadowrun, I'm looking at you - 1st ed 1989, 2nd ed 1992, 3rd ed 1998) and had to repurchase books and emotions were a little less positive. Plus they ran a year-long preview series in Dragon and a lot of the changes I saw looked suspicious and pretty radical. I was skeptical right up until the books came out then once I read the "whole" instead of selected parts, I fell in love with it instantly - the unified mechanic was huge and the single experience chart was a massive change for the better, freeing up multiclassing in amazing ways. level limits were gone, finally! And monsters finally had full stats, which eliminated a ton of problems. It was awesome and I totally dropped my misgivings and started up a new campaign within a month. We never played 2nd edition again once we had 3rd.

I played a lot of 3rd ed D&D in the 2000's, probably more than any other game. The 3.5 revision in 2003 was way too early in my opinion and my group largely ignored it as no one wanted to buy the books all over again. So elements of 3.5 gradually filtered into my existing campaign until we started my last 3rd edition campaign in 2008. that one I declared to be officially 3.5 and picked up the last few class books I didn't already have. The games were close enough that at the lower levels (where we spent most of our time) the differences didn't matter a great deal.

Then rumors of a 4th edition started seriously flowing about 2007. WOTC denied them flat-out in January of 2008 so i felt pretty comfortable that we weren't going to be seeing a new edition for another year or two - I assumed they would announce it at GenCon a year in advance like they did the last time. So when they did announce about February or March that it was coming in June of 2008 I was shocked - no dragon previews, no big online previews even. They did put out some books that you could buy (!) that were previews but considering I had not had to pay anything extra for the previous ones there was no way in hell they were getting my money for those. But I did get a good deal on a preorder through the local store so I did it. After all, I had liked each previous revision so why not? Plus, as the bits and pieces leaked out I really liked what I saw - a lot of things were very much like what I had houseruled during my 3rd ed camapigns: skill consolidation, more HP's, simplified languages, stc. Then I picked up Star Wars Saga Edition, described by some as a test bed for 4th edition, and it was awesome - it was everything I would have changed plus a little more and it worked and I was very excited for 4th edition - it was going to be great!

Then 4th ed was released, I picked up my books, started reading the PHB and felt awful - this was not anything I recognized, with the changes going far beyond anything that was in Saga. Radically different, it didn't look or read or feel like D&D anymore. At the time I did not play and had not played any MMORPG's but even I recognized the elements taken from them and didn't like most of them. In short, I thought that I was going to get D&D Saga Edition and I didn't and I hated it.

So we continued with our 3.5 campaign and the 4th ed books gathered dust for the next year and a half or so.

The 3.5 campaign ended and I thought about introducing my "apprentices" to D&D as they were now 13 & 10. I decided I should give 4th edition another chance and start them off with "their" version of the game, the "modern" one, letting them skip all the legacy material in my head from the past 4 versions that I had played. So I started reading the books and I actually got through all 3 of them this time and there was actually some good stuff in there. I can see a lot of what the designers were trying to do and a lot of it actually makes sense and could be a lot of fun. I tried running the boys through the adventure in the back of the DMG and it took FOREVER. Plus, they pretty much focused on their powers to the exclusion of all else - I didn't like that so I dropped it and started them off using Moldvay Red book basic. We've been playing for a couple of months now and it's going very well - see my session reports in my other posts for details, but I like the way they are approaching things. I am running that and Savage Worlds Neccessary Evil and I am quite happy.

But I still can't help but think there's some value in 4th edition. I have these nifty books, and I like parts of the system, and I hate not "keeping up" with what is going on with D&D. So at some point in the near future I am going to try and run a campaign of this thing, with friends, to try and get a handle on it. I have several campaign ideas I want to try, I will post those later.

Editions and Gameworlds

I was thinking about how some of the published campaign settings fit with different editions of the game:

Basic/Expert/Etc D&D: There is the Known World but to me Karameikos is the main part of that worth trying out. The GAZ1 supplement is pretty good if you really want to go with the Grand Duchy as a home nation, but the rest of the world never did a ton for me. I saw it as an example more than a real world. If I wasn't doing a homebrew for my new Basic campaign I would go with my 1st edition choice which is...

1st Ed AD&D: Greyhawk, hands down. None of the others match up so well with it IMO. The history, the locations, the names - there's no need to retcon anything to fit in strange new races or classes. You don't need to adapt anything.

2nd ed AD&D: Forgotten Realms - this is what I played in for most of 2nd edition and a lot of the specialized kits and specialty priests really end up fitting the Realms well.

3rd ed D&D: Scarred Lands (from Sword & Sorcery) I would guess that Eberron is a good fit here too, but I've never played it, run it, or read the books, so I'm leaving it out. I have run a nearly 2 year Scarred Lands campaign though, and it feels nicely different, but still D&D. Intersting monsters can be taken from the Creature Catalogs, much flavor can be found in the region books like Mithril or the Blood Sea, and the Player's Guides have a ton of interesting background and prestige classes. It's clearly built for 3rd edition rules and it shows in every aspect of the material.

4th ed D&D: Not sure - I haven't looked at a lot of the campaign material that's out there and my plan is to use a prehistoric version of Greyhawk when I do run it (as in "before history" not "lots of dinosaurs running around"). I know they mixed up the realms material quite a bit, and they haven't published anything on Greyhawk yet, and no "new" world has come out either. It may be Eberron by default here, being the newest of the campaign worlds.

Plans for the Campaign

The plan for now is this:

1) Finish the starter dungeon - this will take awhile longer if I use "In Search of the Forgotten City" (which is available on Dragonsfoot) which is en expansion to this same dungeon.

2) Head for the Haunted Keep and the expansion which is also available on Dragonsfoot.

3) Head to the Keep on the Borderlands - I mean it's required - this is a training game and it's the ultimate starter module!

They can do the Keep and the Haunted Keep in order really. I envision the Haunted Keep and the town of threshold as a side trip on the road to the Keep right now. After running around in these basic modules I think they will be up around 3rd-5th level and ready for the OTHER classic from this time:

4) Set sail for the Isle of Dread!

After this we will see which characters are still alive and what the party wants to do - maybe Xanathon or the Desert nomads series, maybe the insanity of Castle Amber, maybe some Judges Guild stuff.

I will add in some small homebrew adventures and maybe some JG material at the earlier levels as needed, and we may end up with 2 different parties running around for a while, but as long as they are enjoying it I will keep doing it.

Planar Cosmologies

One of the differences between Basic D&D and AD&D (and later versions) is that other planes are a minimal part of Basic-Expert D&D. I only see a few spells and a few monsters that refer to the existence of other planes. Since this is an introductory campaign and is set on a future version of our Earth I am going to eliminate other planes entirely - they can learn about those when we try out 1st ed AD&D.

Spell-wise these are the wrinkles I see:

Dimension Door & Teleport - these use hyperspace as it would be used by starships in the long-ago golden age. So, fine we have one sort-of other dimension used for travel purposes - you still can't go there.

Commune & Contact Higher Plane - these are pretty simple. Commune lets a cleric talk to a higher power, all of which live on this plane. Contact Higher Plane refers to consulting with another being so it should work the same way - call it Contact Higher Being and don't worry about what plane they are on.

Summon Elemental - In this world, elementals live in their element, not off on some other plane full of it. So M-U's summon them from the nearest concentration of earth or fire or air or whatever.

Invisible Stalker - these are specifically mentioned as coming from another plane but they are invisible and do not appear to have any society or culture or equipment of their own. So instead, even if it is believed that they come from another plane, I'm going with a different theory. In this game Stalkers are a localized coalescence of nanites bound together and given a purpose by a magic-user casting this spell. they have no individual personality and when the spell ends they disperse into the air as if they never existed. That makes this spell fairly important as it means that sometime somewhere at least one magic-user figured out how to access and control the nanite cloud in at least one specific way. Alas, the knowledge must have died with him...

If we go to companion level games (and we may) we start bumping into the whole "Immortal" thing that was part of the teal and black sets with spells like Gate and some of the monsters that show up there. I will deal with those when they come up but I will keep the "no other planes" rule in force. Maybe gate opens up a gate to a distant continent, maybe it's a remnant of a communications protocol and opens up to an orbital facility or the moon where all kinds of weird things could live! The more oddball monsters from the various planes could be from the "Plains of Nightmare" rather than the "Plane of Nightmare" and be tied to an actual physical location.

Raise Dead spells and Reincarnation spells are comparatively easy - there is nothing that fantasy nanites cannot do, including respark a dead body.

Dragonsport - Population and Deities

Since it's the center of the campaign right now I thought I would share some details about the city:

-Population about 10,000, 70% of which is human, 10% dwarven, 15% halfling, 3% Elves, and 2% everything else. Halflings are prevalent in some sections of town and consider this "home". Dwarves have a few areas they call their own but are mostly mixed in with the others and the majority are traders or adventurers from the Kingdom of the Iron Crown located in the mountains to the north - very few consider this city "home". The Elves are similarly merchants and travellers from the Greenwood to the east rather than natives of the city, even if they happen to be staying for 10 years or more. The city is fairly cosmopolitan being a center of trade so it is possible to run across a lizardman or a party of sea elves in the streets, especially near the docks.

- Slavery is illegal within the duke's lands, as is slave-trading but there are nearby realms where this is not the case

- The city watch runs about 500 men, divided into five 100-man companies. Standard gear is leather, shortsword, and a spear. On the walls the watch carries crossbows. The duke's personal guard is about 100 men strong, clad in chain & shield with a sword, a dagger, and a crossbow. Note: 500 men is not nearly enough to strongly defend the walls of the city. It is assumed that in the event of a serious threat to the city and a potential siege situation that levies would be raised and that 2000-3000 more bodies could be pressed into service. The city has never been besieged or attacked by a large force so much of this is theory and old plans gathering dust.

Religion - There are two major deities with temples in the city plus the healers of the White Hand

One major deity is Zygag the Lawgiver: Revered as the power that laid down the basic tenets of civilization, codes of behavior, currency, and organization. A Lawful power, he is depicted as a robed and bearded male human of middle age. It is said that he walked the world for a century teaching the ways of order before ascending to godhood in the ruined citadel that once dominated the area and later became the lair of the great red dragon that gave the city its name. His priests wear grey robes and sport facial hair. Often called upon to settle disputes, they carry a staff of office marking them as priests of the lawgiver. In battle, they defend civilization in shining silver armor and wield mace and shield. Their main concern is the orderly functioning of society and respect for laws, though they do consider the expansion of society to be a secondary concern and will adventure to do just that.

The other major deity in town is Nerasoon the Builder, a lawful power also depicted as a middle aged human, clad in black robes. He is said to have been affiliated with The Lawgiver in the early days though they have separate areas of interest. Nerasoon is responsible for teaching man how to build and create everything from buildings to wagons to all manner of crafted goods. He is revered by builders and crafters throughout the city. Priests of Nerasoon are consulted on all major engineering projects within the duke's realm and have a special interest in the city walls and fortifications. His symbol is a black castle (usually depicted as a silhouette). When called upon to defend the city, clerics of The Builder will don heavy black armor and wield warhammers, throwing spells as necessary.

The Order of the White hand maintains 4 outposts in the city - one by the docks and one near each of the north, east, and south gates. They provide their normal services at each of these outposts, have regular contact with each other and often work together to solve larger problems. No one outpost is consider to be superior to the others.

Other religions exist in the city, and many forbidden cults have gathered in dark places beneath the city in years past, but these are the only open, major institutions in the city.