That certain type of player...

I don't have a name for them. they're usually a type of power gamer and on the surface they may appear as such. They are usually mechanically interested in the system and focused on combat effectiveness. One of my friends is my prototype for this player type.

In D&D they usually build fighters of some kind. Toughness is important. In post-Arcana 1st edition they built barbarians. Or half-ogres if that was allowed. Half-Ogre barbarians were probably their favorite. Swinging a two-hander in one hand with an 18/00 STR while having 20+ hp at first level was just the top of the world to them.

In Rifts they usually built Full Conversion Borgs and typically travelled with spare suits of Borg heavy combat armor- again, toughness is important. Railguns were awesome and their ideal character was the Red Borg in that one painting. The Germany Sourcebook was their favorite in those early days because it was full of awesome Borgs and some cool power armor.

In Champions they built bricks - Armor, Forcefield, Power Defense, Knockback Resistance, usually coupled with some kind of HTH Killing attack, often with armor piercing, typically in the form of claws or a sword. It's important to be tough and to look badass. Wolverine was probably their favorite character in Marvel, but Wolverine in Colossus' body was what they wanted to play.Haymakers and move through's were their main combat maneuver. No codes against killing here, friend.

In Gamma World they went for a mutant with Force Field, some kind of ranged attack, and enhanced PS or CN. If they didn't get something like that they dumped it and played a PSH, begging for Power Armor of any flavor, a vibroblade, and a nuclear weapon - hey they wouldn't stat them if they didn't want someone to use them.

In Twilight 2000 they took Recon 80 as a starting character. Always. They were also always Green Berets, Rangers, SEALs, Force Recon, SAS, or Spetanaz. They usually carried C4 in addition to at least 3 guns and an AT weapon of some kind - and they still moved like ninjas.

In Warhammer 40,000 he likes Terminator Marines, preferably Chaos Terminator Marines because they are more badass and all spiky and stuff. Lightning Claws rocked in Rogue Trader.

In Marvel Super Heroes they were Wolverine. Or Colossus. Or Thor. Or Thing if none of those were available and maybe Wonder Man if Thing was taken. At least he had shades.

I don't know what they play in DC Heroes - we never stuck with it long enough to find out. I suspect it would be Superman. Or, more likely, Darkseid.

In Traveller their goal is to talk the DM into staring with Battle Dress and a FGMP-15, but they will negotiate down to a PGMP-13 if that's the best they can get. "But the merchant can start with a _ship_" is a common refrain here. Failing that it becomes their #1 goal to get those things as soon as possible.

In Star Fleet Battles he likes the Klingon C8 Dreadnought because Klingons are badass and the C8 is an awesome ship and one of the toughest DN's in the game.

In Shadowrun they play the character with the .01 starting essence and were very excited when the cyberzombie rules came out in 3rd edition so they could finally break through the zero essence barrier. Humanity is irrelevant -being immune to Panther Cannon fire is awesome and having a reaction time so fast you can act before you even think of it is a great power.

So the defining thing here is to be tough, be able to kill things in cool ways, and to look awesome doing it. Now Paladins can do some of that but Paladins aren't cool to these guys - too many restrictions on behavior. Assassins though...

Anyway these are the surface characteristics of this player type. The real defining trait though

is best illustrated by an example from play:

Years ago I ran a Rifts campaign that lasted 15 months (no really I did). My prototypical friend was one of about 8 characters in the party on their long journey from Texas to the ruins of Detroit and back - this was my second campaign to feature PC nuclear weapon use). He was of course a full conversion Borg, straight out of the Germany Sourcebook, a Gold Borg I believe. They were finally at the outskirts of Detroit and had to pass through a graveyard to avoid being spotted by some bad guys. They encounter a normal looking human in the graveyard and ask him for directions - the guy blows them off. The Borg pops his fist-spikes, gets right up in his face, and threatens him. Said human picks up the Borg and throws him way over there wherupon the Borg, realizing he faces a vampire, hits Turbo Mode and runs right on back to camp at 100MPH. This is despite being maybe the least vulnerable character in the party to a vampire as he's mostly metal. Didn't matter- that thing might have hurt him, so he ran away.

This encounter was when it crystallized for me - the same thing had happened in several games before - he builds the toughest badass he can within the system mechanics of whatever game we're playing then proceeds to sit at the back of the party most of the time. When combat breaks out he jumps in until he takes damage of any kind and then he runs away, possibly yelling for a cleric. I've seen it in D&D, Shadowrun (think that was vampires too, and he was a cybered-out Elf), Traveller (don't want to scratch the battle dress - I think we teased him about it being more of a battle-skirt given his attitude) Gamma World, Twilight, etc. Pretty much any game we played in the 80's and 90's this player had the same character. He did play a necromancer once in 2nd edition and that partially solved the problem - he had minions he could send in to fight and some kind of teleport thing to get him out of danger if his robe got dirty in some way.

Anyway I might call this the "Power Coward" if I was pressed for a name. He's a lot like a Power Gamer but he's not interested in testing it out - he already know his creation is the baddest and he doesn't want you to scratch it or get it dirty.

Gaming FIction Review - Swordmage

This time I'm reviewing one of the newer D&D books - Swordmage, by Richard Baker. It's labelled "Blades of the Moonsea Book 1" but it is a standalone story and I have not read the rest of the series. It came out in 2008 and is apparently up to a trilogy as of right now.

Headline: This is actually a good story and a good D&D book.

I have not read any other novels by Richard Baker but I will look for more. I found the writing to be a little more adult than in the older D&D novels I have read, which is a good thing. It's set in Hulberg, a small city on the Moonsea. I have a soft spot for the Moonsea going back to Pool of Radiance and that's one of the things that drew my attention to this book. It's also the first novel set in the current 4th edition version of the Forgotten Realms after the spellplague and all the other changes including an 80-year timeline jump. So the setting appeals to me in several ways.

The main character is Geran Hulmaster, the titular swordmage, and we meet him in an interesting prologue in Myth Drannor. Circumstances ensue, and the story begins with him returning to Hulberg after a long absence after hearing of the death of a friend. It turns out the Hulmasters are the ruling family of this small barony and he is a lesser son of this small noble family. As you might guess some things have happened during his absence and he gets involved, albeit somewhat reluctantly. The opposition is intelligent and a nice mix of supernatural and simple conventional self-interest and greed and there are multiple opposing forces, not one over-arching super-baddie.

What's refreshing is what it's not: It's also not a Zhent plot, not a Bane plot, not some weird new supervillain-esque shape-changing creature from another plane, it's not Cyric attempting to subvert the goddess of magic or Nethereese or Red Wizards or Drow or any of the other overused meta-plot bad guys from the swirling vortex of bad Forgotten Realms novels. There are no harpers. Elves have only a minimal influence on the story - primarily the training of the title character as Swordmages are an Elven thing. No Elminster. No Dracoliches. No Seven Sisters. No personal appearances by gods of any kind.

So if you would like to read a decent story about a normal D&D character type hero handling local problems in an interesting corner of the Realms threatened by local bad guys, then you will find this to be a good read.

Main Characters: Very nicely done. The motivations make sense and are not divinely inspired, the result of a curse, or imposed by an outside party. He's made a bad decision or two in the past and thinks about them at times but isn't tortured unreasonably by them. He's good at what he does but not unbeatable and not invulnerable.

Supporting Characters: Interesting and capable on their own, from the traveling companion to Geran's extended family they do have some distinct personalities. Sarth is not especially well defined but he is probably the smallest supporting role so I'm not terribly upset about it.

Plot: Impressive. Certain things I expected but I was regularly surprised by the timing of events and by some things that didn't happen that seemed to be inevitable. After reading many many fantsay novels, many of them terrible, I am rarely surprised by plot elements but I really like the way this one worked out and I was impressed by the way it all wrapped up. Not every plot hook was wrapped up by the end - there is clearly room for a sequel or two - but it came to a satisfying conclusion.

Action Scenes: Well done. The fights seem like they could happen in a game of D&D (important when writing a story based on a game) and the descriptions of the sword magic is well done - it could be useful to a player playing one in a campaign. There are some big battles in the book as well and they are well done too. I felt there was a Lord of the Rings movie influence at work but that is not a bad thing in my mind.

Resolution: Excellent. Many plots are resolved, some conflicts are settled, enough to feel like a complete story is in this book but with plenty of them left for further sequels. Nothing ridiculous happens to provide a convenient out for any major character, no deus ex machina or uncalled for deific intervention in other ways either.

Overall: Impressive. I'll be looking for the sequels now.

When Players Just Don't Get It - The Sequel

So...for the first time in 30 years of gaming I have a new player who has actively avoided joining the rest of the group not once but TWICE!

(If you haven't read my earlier posts around this topic they are here, here, and here. This will make more sense if you have read them.)

I don't mind taking an hour or two to work a new player into the game in an interesting way and making it memorable. In a Supers game especially, a new hero should enter dramatically. That didn't happen this time. Instead we wasted an hour plus on a new character NOT entering the game. This time it wasn't just me that was annoyed - the other players were actively annoyed and made it clear this was not a good idea. Several problems were evident:

1) The new player made a superhero. The game is called Necessary Evil because it's about Supervillains trying to throw off an alien invasion after the heroes are killed. The four current players all got this and made villains. Strike 1.

2) His character is basically built around money as a superpower. he's not an inventor, he doesn't have any special powers - he used his powers to beef up his stats and take 2 points of HTH attack (Martial Arts training). He bought a bunch of armor and guns and wants to be the billionaire playboy. Now I don't mind some of that and if he wants to spend two edges on it I'm perfectly willing to allow the trappings of that social level like a private jet, a nice car, a penthouse condo and a near-infinite wardrobe. However, it is not infinitely powerful. He wanted to have minions at his disposal, didn't want to have to pay for ammo for his Plasma Rifle, and most importantly didn't want to have to make skill rolls to make things happen. When I told him he couldn't just make a photographer appear at the restaurant with a phone call, he needed to make a persuasion check (or intimidate or some kind of knowledge roll - I'm pretty flexible on these things) he actually got annoyed that he was having to roll. He assumed that if he threw a bunch of money at the guy he would just automatically show up. I pointed out that he had already spent his starting funds on his guns and armor. He responded that he was Filthy Rich! I responded that yes he was and there was a number attached to that and he had already spent it! So he couldn't offer the guy some undefined amount of money and make him magically appear - he needed to make a roll and that would determine how things went. A lot of the game and my descriptions are driven off of these rolls - success = he shows up later; Raise = he happens to be in the neighborhood; 20+ = he's already right outside, what a stroke of luck! Roll a 1 (on both the skill die and the wild die) and guess what? He shows up because he happens to hate you and wants to do a smear job on you! things like that. So anyway, he wants to use Super Money as a diceless auto-succeed power in many situations and wants to argue when informed that isn't going to happen - Strike 2

3) Avoiding the player party in-game, attacking them, and then running away. These are all bad things and he did them twice. In the first session I dropped him in at the same location, let him know an overview of the situation (he had talked to the players between sessions too) and before he was ever attacked he started shooting at another PC. now comics and supers games have a long history of two good guys meeting for the first time, duking it out, then teaming up to fight a bad guy. I would have been fine with that. In this case he sees two one supervillain going after another supervillain, neither of which he has a personal connection to (according to his background - neither is mentioned) and he decides to shoot one of them. Then when that villain gets back up and comes after him he runs away. It's not heroic, it's not driven by background considerations, there's no personal grudge between these characters...nothing. No reason for this at all.

Despite this I gave him a second chance in the next session by reminding the party of the business card and they took it from there. The phone conversations and the restaurant meeting were all player-generated and I thought it was moving in a good direction. First warning sign - he leaves his armor and guns at home. So he's not going to fight well if discovered. OK, maybe he's going to be the peacemaker. Second warning sign - he stands up the bloodthirsty vampire girl. Not good. Then we moved into a series of dueling player skills to see who could get pictures and make a detective work roll to try and identify the other party first to get the drop on them. Unfortunately neither party really has the skills for this so lots of default rolls were being attempted and not much progress was made. Then sensing that he really had no idea what to do if he did ID them, he left right before being caught in the staged robbery. So once again, we have the new player avoiding a direct meeting with the party. This is not automatically bad - I'm fine with being mysterious, but he set up the meeting then avoided it! Then trying to one-up them with the spy games or hiding - and not just one, say "rival", member but the whole party. All this does is annoy or anger the other players - it doesn't bring out any background story or advance any plot, it just wastes time and worsens attitudes. Strike 3

4) The bonus round - After doing all this over 2 sessions, he realizes that he has walked out of the adventure for the rest of the night and starts making suggestions on how I can work him in!

"Hey maybe I'm a secret service agent protecting the family" things like that. Now he's full of ideas on how he might fit in to the upcoming mission. Only problem is there are no secret service with the family - they're all dead. This is specifically mentioned in the adventure and it's why the PC's need to go rescue the family in the first place., so I'm not inclined to change it, especially at this point in the evening.

"Well maybe I'm working for the government and I've been watching them so I contacted Dr. D to let him know-" No. Just no. Dr. Destruction doesn't need your help on this.

"Maybe Dr. D sent me in as reinforcements to the team" - no, because in your background you are a super hero, and he's not going to suddenly decide to add junior hero man to a team that's working well together and accomplishing missions already.

So yeah he got to watch the other players bust in, kick ass, rescue the first family, and get away. I didn't feel bad about it as he had at least two chances to join in and he didn't, so presumably he wanted to watch instead of play. Wish granted. Strike 4.

The bad thing here is that I actually like having one player who is a little out of sync with the rest of the team. It mixes things up and it's probably more true to the comics tradition than a fully-cohesive team would be anyway. But you have to be on the team to play that part and he just won't get there. Plus now the other players are irritated with the new player too and it's degrading the amount of fun we're having in the game. . He's not a first-time roleplayer - he's talked about 1st edition and 2nd edition D&D characters and other games so he should be able to make this work. It was worth a try but it's just not working out and I don't trust myself now not to take it personally if he avoided the party again. There's even an optional subplot in NE that I considered using him for but I just don't want to put the energy into it after the last 2 sessions.

So I'm going to un-invite him. I haven't had to do that in 15 years but after writing all this out I am not willing to waste part of another session trying to accommodate one player at the expense of 4 others and myself. I welcome any thoughts or comments any readers might have so feel free to sound off in the comments or in an email.

Necessary Evil - Session 7 - Other Peoples' Hostages

We open in Star City. The villains have returned home after a successful extraction of The Monolith from a monastery in Japan. The team decides to follow up on their strange encounter with "The Gray One" by calling the number on the business card he threw at them as he retreated. Nissa calls it and attempts to talk her way past the secretary who answers, but ends up frustrated that her mind control powers don't work over the phone. Eventually though, a meeting is set at The Olive Branch (a high-end Italian restaurant) for 8pm.

There is much maneuvering as 8:00 approaches as Nightblade and Night Terror stake out the establishment - they plan to make an example of this guy for taking a shot at Night Blade. MegaStrike waits nearby as backup for Nissa who will be heading inside to meet their quarry. Neither of them originally wanted to off Gray, but Nissa's frustration over the phone games played earlier has turned into a killing rage and she plans to make a meal of him at the very least.

The Gray One suspects an ambush so he hires an escort and goes in his secret identity of Gary Noe. He looks like just another customer to the casual observer (and he effectively is since all of his powers come from gear which he has decided to leave home for tonight). He has left a message for Nissa at the desk noting that he can't make it but that he has paid for her meal. Then he sits down to observe the crowd.

The message does not help Nissa's attitude and she suspects something is going on. She orders the others to stage a robbery so she can examine everyone more closely, glamouring them if necessary. This is about the same time Gray decides to leave and he manages to slip out with his rent-a-date before MegaStrike can smash in the front door. He does call the police on his way to his car though. The team goes ahead and robs the place anyway, netting about $5,000.

Frustrated over not finding The Gray One the group is somewhat relieved when Dr. Destruction calls them and asks them to rescue some hostages - namely the first family of the United States. They have been in hiding since the invasion but the V'Sori have finally caught them and are holding them in an old state police barracks near Boston. He wants them recovered alive and brought to the warehouse. There are only 3 members left - the president's wife, daughter, and granddaughter and he is leaving extraction and transportation up to the team.

The group rents a van (Nissa glamours the attendant) and heads for Boston. They find the building where the hostages and observe it quietly for an hour. There is a single transport parked outside, one alien "Manta" fighter craft, and half a dozen drones standing guard on the roof and near the vehicles. The only entrance appears to be the front door.

Being a "Plan A" kind of team Night Terror phases out and drifts into the Manta fighter and starts it up. As the guards look up, he begins firing at them with the ship's guns. This is the signal for MegaStrike and he smashes a new door through the back wall of the building which Night Blade and Nissavin use to enter the place. The drones outside the building are quickly dispatched by fighter pilot Night Terror while the fin troopers inside the place are just as quickly dispatched by fang, katana, and radioactive punch. Nissa charms a guard and has him lead the team to the first family, who are in the center of the building.

In the main detention area a battle royale takes place as the V'Sori Warlord who captured the family and his elite fin guards fight to the death to protect their career-making prizes. the mental blasting and stunning powers of the warlord are a new threat for the team and they spend much of the fight being stunned or trying to shake it off. Night Blade blows open the front of the building in an effort to help, stopping some reinforcements, but then decides that's too dangerous to his allies and stays on cover duty outside. The fins are handled one by one until only the warlord is left and he finally falls to a savage thrust from Night Blade.

The cell is broken open and the first family, though a little shaken by what's happened and what's still happening goes along with them. Night Terror lands the fighter and sets the engines on overload, joining the team inside as they race through the building and out the back, jumping into the van and heading home as the building is engulfed in a huge explosion.

It's another job well-done for the Plan A Team.

DM notes:

• The whole episode with the Gray One was my second attempt to get the new player to join the team. as you might have guessed from the description, he didn't. Again. more on this tomorrow.
• The main focus of the evening was supposed to be rescuing the first family and that's where we spent the majority of the time. The game ran somewhat later than usual because of the restaurant business but everyone did well and as far as I can tell had a good time with that part. They came up with a decent plan, made it work, and achieved their goal with no casualties on their side.
• I say everyone but I mean my 4 original players. The new guy didn't have much to do because he walked his character right out of the team in the first part of the evening. Sorry, I can only spend so much game time catering to one player. When you actively avoid joining the rest of the party, and go so far as to jack with them, practically taunting them, before running off, I don't think you have a right to complain when you don't have anything to do the rest of the session.
• Overall I feel good about the system and the campaign. It plays fast and loose and I am enjoying the DMing part of this quite a bit. I have decided to make a cheat sheet for Savage Worlds to make sure my players have options in front of them as I think they could do more with grappling, tricks, and wild attacks than they have. Plus it's easier to keep track of modifiers when they are on one sheet in front of you rather than scattered throughout the book.
• Next up will probably be some underwater adventuring... Atlantis Awaits!

When Players Just Don't Get It

I've had a pretty steady group over the last 10 years, really almost 20 for most of us but let's call it 10. I have had new players join and old players leave but getting them integrated into the current campaign hasn't really been a problem. Then recently in the Necessary Evil game I had a player actively avoid joining the party even though he knew that was one of the goals of the session. This has caused me to think about this a little more and I thought I would share.

It's a tradition at this point in my D&D games that if you join in the middle of an adventure then I will integrate you into the next session regardless of all other considerations. Most of the time this means the character is found chained to a wall upside down and naked or in a cage or in a sack but I can be flexible sometimes. My wife happened to join the last D&D campaign while they were in Freeport between dungeons so I had the temple they were working for assign her to the party as reinforcements - simple. Another player died during that campaign during a sea voyage and he was found at the next stop as the petrified victim of a basilisk who was then restored to fleshood. So I try not to stay in a rut, but with D&D I typically force them in somehow during the next session. It's really not that difficult and my players are aware of how it works and warn their friends up front that it may not be a graceful entrance. It's worked for a long time now and everyone ususally remembers how their add-in character made their entrance.

Now with Savage Worlds and with Rifts/Super Powered level games in general I do not have this rule. These types of campaigns tend to be less dungeony and so require less forced insertion. The characters also tend to have different motivations and different methods of travel that are more flexible than low-level D&D. If I know that a new character is coming in I can plant rumors of a shadowy figure seen at a crime scene the PC's are investigating and lead up to the introduction. If I don't they can be appear in the middle of a fight with a flash of light and be hit by a stray energy blast and join in. They might have had a vision of the party that compelled them to seek the characters out - it's possible to work in some plot reasons that might not show up in D&D. So I tend to leave it mostly up to the player as to why they are there - I will tell them when they appear and what the general situation will be, but it's up to them to come up with why.

So in this last session of NE, I had a new player joining in and he sent me his backstory in advance and right away there were problems. The whole premise of the game is that you are super villains who are forced to do some allegedly good acts to throw off an alien invasion because all of the heroes are dead. Well, he made a super hero.

I decided to let it go but then during the session he couldn't really come up with a good reason to be where the party was (despite my dropping him in to the same location - I just left the reason up to him) and he ends up shooting at the PC's - who have not attacked him or even noticed him really at this point - and this changes the tenor of the scenario. Now he's a hostile and my villains have a lot of "vengeful" and "bloodthirsty" hindrances and they reacted appropriately by going after him, so he ran away.

Now this didn't wreck the adventure as the players still accomplished their mission but it did leave the players and me feeling like it was less than totally successful. It actually made me feel like the player in question was actively avoiding joining the team or that he was trying to show off how bad-ass his character was (he wasn't). The party was in Japan to recruit or capture a retired supervillain. It's not tough to come up with a reason for another villain to be there and to help join in - maybe he's an old rival, maybe he hurt a family member and you've spent years tracking him down. Maybe you want a sample of his DNA to try and replicate his powers. Maybe you've been hired to kill him by some shadowy organization he used to work for. Maybe he's a relative and you want to get back at him for abandoning you - those are all examples I gave in a 5-minute brainstorming session and none of them were acceptable although nothing else was used in their place. Maybe it has nothing to do with the villain - maybe the monks at the monastery have something you want. When a fight breaks out there's the perfect time to get your target and then join in the fight to cover your tracks. In the end no real reason was stated and it probably would have been better if he hadn't made an appearance at all - everyone else would have been happier with the evening.

So I spent a lot of time thinking about this and decided maybe I screwed it up somehow by putting it in Japan etc. and that I would give him another chance next session when the team was back in their home city. The other players were a little miffed at him too but were willing to give it another go too. More on that next time.

Necessary Evil - Session 6 - Curse of the Monolith!

In our prologue, the team uses their skills and powers to steal various aircraft and fly across the U.S., then the Pacific Ocean, finally landing on a street in Japan. It was a very impressive performance for some very skill-limited characters although Night Terror (phasing) and Nissavin (Mind Control) stood out for their particular contributions. When you can move through any wall or control minds so that you don't have to, it makes theft and trespassing quite a bit easier. This part was actually handled at the tail end of the last session since we had time left, but the real action was saved for this session.

We begin in Kobe, Japan after the team has successfully landed their stolen airplane and fled the scene. They know their target is the Gray Lotus Monastery, a retreat for meditation and contemplation, and that their target is a former super villain named The Monolith. He was defeated by Champion years ago and agreed to go into seclusion and retirement if Champion took up the environmental causes he favored. he has been at the Gray Lotus ever since.

The team wandered around the city a bit, then decided to steal a minivan and head for their target. During the trip there was much discussion of how to get in to the place and extract their target, and a rough plan was formed.

Arriving at the monastery the team attempted to talk their way in but were stonewalled by the monks who were very protective of their most unusual resident. The master of the temple spoke to them at the gate, then sought out The Monolith, but returned saying that he did not recognize their names and did not h to be disturbed. While Nissavin was trying to talk her way in, Night Terror phased out and went wandering around the monastery looking for the big villain. He located the correct building by watching the monks' movements and returned to the team as negotiations were breaking down. MegaStrike smashed down the gate while Night Blade charged in, intending to force the master to comply with their wishes. Instead a dozen monks appeared from the shadows and bushes nearby and a general brawl opened up.

As the fight started, a huge stony figure appeared at the top of a small hill inside the gate. The ground began to tremble and two mighty stone arms flexed and a voice called out "You have disturbed the tranquility of this place and my meditations and NOW YOU WILL PAY!

MegaStrike went straight for The Monolith while 'Terror, 'Blade, and Nissa took care of the monks, including the master. This took some time, during which a new player entered the scene. A man in western dress appeared near one of the buildings, pulled out a rifle, and began shooting at the team, nailing NightBlade with a crack shot. When 'Blade recovered, the enmity was on and he went after this new target, who fled, tossing out a business card and yelling "Call me sometime".

In the meantime, the two titans were still slugging it out when the last of the monks dropped to the ground. Night Blade gave up his pursuit and landed a critical strike on The Monolith and allowed MegaStrike to deliver the final blow. The huge fighter toppled over at last and the earthquakes gradually faded out.

The group made a call to Dr. Destruction who agreed to take care of the pickup. The team waited until a flying vehicle appeared and then fled the scene as another cell loaded up the unconscious villain.

Speeding back to Kobe, the team met a private charter (courtesy of the Doctor) and flew home in comfort.

DM Notes: This was a good session in most ways - the players succeeded despite several setbacks, they were creative with their approaches (even though they ended up going with Plan A in the end - sometimes the old ways are best) and they had a good time.

I had fun as well as I got to play a supervillain who didn't succumb to mind control and I got to use a lot of bennies, keeping him in the fight longer. The monks were really a warm-up act - the real fight was big guy vs. the party and it lasted almost 10 rounds total.

There was really only one thing that didn't go well but it was a big one: Dave the Swordmage from the D&D4 game wanted to join the NE game as well. Now the timing wasn't great as the team was headed for Japan at the end of the last session so I was going to have to work him in there somehow. I told him that he was at this monastery when the team attacked. I asked him to come up with a reason he was there and I would be fine with almost any reason. He struggled with this for the entire session. Once the fighting broke out he decided to get into costume (he's a wealthy millionaire batman-ish type who uses money as his super power and bought a lot of guns and gadgets) and take a shot with his big gun at Night Blade! I asked him if he was sure and he was. This annoyed Night Blade's player quite a bit, especially when it was a hit and a raise and caused a wound! The Gray One was pretty cocky at that point but then Night Blade burned a Bennie, got up and went after him - so he ran away!

This pretty much wrecked the "let's get him integrated into the team" subplot for the evening and I'll write more about that tomorrow. For now though it was a problem.

Return to the Ruins of Adventure - Session 4: Innfighting

(Ah, the end of May means the end of school for the most part around here and with 4 kids in 3 different schools (4 different schools next year) our routine goes straight to heck as field days and art shows and award ceremonies suck up 3- 5 days and nights a week. We're now in the first week of summer and trying to establish the summer routine and getting the blog rolling again is one of my goals.)

Anyway, we last left our heroes outside the lair of the once-feared Whiteye the goblin chieftain. Their prisoner/guide had been dumped into the pit that he failed to warn them about, and they had identified several magic items - all in all, a good day. Now they decided to head out to the Bell tavern and shake down Nat Wyler for his guild dues.

Making their way through the Slums of Phlan, they eventually come to the inn they seek. The Bell is a homey-looking structure, obviously repaired sometime in the recent past but solid-looking nonetheless. Smoke is rising from the chimney, but there are no horses outside. Looks perfect for a bit of strong-arming, so they enter.

Inside the place is nice enough - wood floors, wooden tables and chairs and some booths. It looks as though they were looted from ten different establishments that they called home before this place but none of them are broken. There is a long wooden bar that is polished in some places, scratched in others, has a few head-shaped dents in it, and in at least one spot appears to have burned. There is no visible barkeep or waiter, but three orcs are drinking loudly at one table.

Kordan calls out for a barkeep and pounds on the bar but no one answers. Steering clear of the orcs, Javanni and the fighter move down the bar and spy pout the rest of the main room, seeing no other patrons. Kordan eventually goes behind the bar and liberates some drinks for the others. While he's there the biggest orc yells for him to send some his way and the fighter yells back to get his own. The orc shrugs and cuffs one of his drinking buddies, who goes behind the bar and gets a few more bottles too.

Still curious, some of our heroes go to the kitchen where they find a single human barkeep/cook (he's multiclassed!) huddled in a corner. He says that he hates the orcs and they've been there for hours and are mean to him. He's hoping that they will go away soon but right now he's very afraid. Not terrible concerned with his morale problems, Kordan and Javanni ask about Nat Wyler and the barkeep confirms that Nat owns the place but he's rarely around now and that he himself pretty much runs the Bell day-to-day. he doesn't know where Nat lives but he knows he has business in the ruins and that takes up most of his time. The party leaves the cook and retires to the common room to discuss options.

Back in the taproom they ask the big orc if he knows Nat Wyler, but he does not. he assumes some human owns the place as they are likely the only ones who could pull this off, but he doesn't really pay attention to that kind of thing. He's busy training and drillng over at the big temple across the river. He and the boys break away every once in a while for some drinking and this is a place they like.

Returning to their original mission, the party realized they aren't likely to run into Nat at the inn and their orders were to teach him a lesson, so they decide to burn down the bar. They hustle the terrified innkeeper out along with some of his belongings and the strongbox from the bar. Then they warn the orcs of what they are about to do, preparing for violence. The orcs load up on more bottles and kegs and head on out the door, except for the leader. He stays inside and watches as the party starts to set the fire.

"No no no" he says - "This is how you burn a place down" and proceeds to tear up padded seats and pile the stuffing in a corner, douses some of the place with alcohol and generally demonstrates his considerable knowledge in how to set something on fire. Then they all leave the inn together.

Standing outside watching the fires take hold, the orcs and our heroes part ways as almost friends. The leader gives his name as Thrugg Bullneck, and he wasn't upset about being rousted out of the bar as he figures it's some human dispute and well, maybe humans aren't that different from orcs after all if they're willing to set each others places on fire. Agreeing to spread the word on who and why the Bell was set ablaze and with much fist-bumping, the orcs head off towards the river.

The party makes sure the inn is burning well before they decide to head back into civilized Phlan as it is near sundown when the gates close for the night. As they turn to go they see a party of 4 human adventurers standing in the street gazing open-mouthed at the burning Bell. Then their gazes focus on the people walking away from the blaze. Weapons are drawn and incantations begin as 2 fighters, a rogue, and a wizard take exception to the group's activity.

This was one of the toughest fights the party had faced., with opponents as capable as they were and well-acquainted with working together. Opponents were marked on both sides, magic missiles and thunderbursts were unleashed, and much shifting and sliding was done each round. Mikal the Warlock was down and dying at one point, and all of the party was bloodied during the fight, but a well-timed critical strike took down one of the opposing fighters and after that the 5 to 3 numbers advantage for our heroes was telling. Battered and bloodied, in the end they stood victorious over their attackers.

Returning to Phlan they just made it in before the gates were closed for the night. Making the rounds the next day the council awarded them with the promised Sun Blade and a 100gp reward for the head of Whiteye. The Guild awarded them a favorable rating for future business and more gold. Having gained a ton of valuable experience, some magic weapons, and a decent amount of gold, the party contemplates their next challenge in the Ruins of Adventure.

DM Notes:

• I had planned the orcs in the inn as a combat encounter but the party didn't attack them or insult them and I had ruled they were more interested in drinking than in starting a fight but would respond if their god, their tribe, or their leader were insulted or if they were directly threatened. The party did none of these things and actually managed to have them help burn down the bar! I awarded full XP for this one and I imagine Thrugg will have to make a return appearance somewhere down the road.
• The human adventuring party was also planned as a combat encounter and was a little less dependent on PC attitudes. I had a skill challenge back-up plan if they claimed that the orcs had set the fires but as it turned out I didn't need as my players were only too happy to draw steel on these guys.
• This was the toughest fight of the campaign so far because human NPC's can DO SOMETHING INTERESTING! The mage had mult-target attack spells and a dazing attack, the fighters had reach weapons and could mark, and the rogue could sneak attack and daze his targets, all of which paid off immensely in actually making the party feel like they were threatened. After so many goblins fights that were not all that lively for the DM this was a serious breath of fresh air. It lasted 7 rounds, everyone was bloodied at some point, and 2 characters dropped below 0 HP's -the warlock and the wizard - because the fighter and the swordmage had defenders of their own to deal with, enabling the rogue to strike as he pleased and the wizard to target the backfield instead of the front line. If I had added a 5th member to the opposing party it could have gone very badly, so the DM learned some things here too.
• Some rules questions did come up here and I didn't want to spend a great deal of time looking them up during the fight - do marks and curses remain when their creator drops unconscious? The warlock had multiple curses out, dropped below zero for a round, then was pulled back up a round later - are his curses still out there? I have to dig through a few things and find this as it can make a difference in how the fight goes. Magical zones and things could have the same thing happen.
• The party is a little light in magic at this point but has more gold than the guidelines for 4th suggest, so I'm calling it even. Level 1 skews a little weird anyway because there are no items at a lower level than the party, the weakest you can do is same-level. Actually monsters work the same way, so Level 1 is a strange spot to be anyway.
• All in all it was a good session with some funny RP with the orcs, a good fight, and my in-the-past-usually-good-aligned-and-including-a-paladin-party not being so strongly good this time hanging out with orcs and burning down a bar - it's like a Shadowrun campaign! Anyway the party is 2nd level now and the next expedition will probably be into Kuto's Well.

4th edition Sidetrack - Warlords

I've been reading through the Martial Power books and while Fighters and Rangers and Rogues are all fun the thing that has stood out to me the most is the class that is new for D&D 4, the Warlord. Now he can cause about as much damage as a fighter with many of his attacks though he's a little less durable but his "thing" is that a lot of his abilities boost other party members in some way. He can heal, he can give bonuses to attacks and to damage, he can help people move faster than normal, and he can even let people act when it's not their turn. It's a fascinating class to me and it's a little like the Paladin used to play in our groups in 1st and 2nd edition - up front hitting stuff but also able to heal and do some minor magic and turn undead. A warlord has powers like "Rub Some Dirt On it" which lets him heal a small amount as a minor action with a touch. A lot of his attack powers are something like "Seize the Opening - do double damage with your melee weapon and a nearby ally can make a free attack with their weapon" or "Rallying Strike - Do normal damage with a melee weapon and everyone within 25' can heal 5 points + your Cha modifier." I am convinced that this is an awesome thing to have in a D&D game and I am betting it would have been cool back in the old days too.

I am a little disappointed no one took one in my current campaign but the leader type class that was taken is a Bard, and I have been very impressed. His powers just reinforce the idea that hit points are about a lot more than physical damage capacity. That has always been the case, but 4th takes the idea and runs off with it like no other edition has. "Vicious Mockery" is a ranged, damage-casing attack for a bard and it is hilarious to see it in action with a good group. More about bards in another post.

The other leader types in the game are Clerics and Shamans and they do their thing just fine, but "Leader" has mostly been translated as "Healer" and with the Warlord (and the Bard too to a degree) this is just not the case. It's more like "Catalyst" as they make the whole party better, period, and are not just reactive defensive save-types like Clerics often have been - healing, curing, dispelling, etc.

Anyway, if you don't play 4th but have a chance to look at a 4th ed PHB take a look at the Warlord and see if there aren't some ideas there worth adapting to your game. Maybe it's a variant of Paladin - instead of bonuses to saves for himself maybe he grants a bonus to hit for allies within 10'. Maybe his holy avenger grants a healing aura instead of a dispel magic aura. I've had a few thoughts in this direction myself but I have yet to do anything concrete with it. We'll see what happens when my basic game gets rolling again next month.

More to come

It's been pretty busy here lately with kids and end of school activities but we have managed another session of both Necessary Evil and D&D 4 - I will post those up tomorrow, plus some thoughts on another new game somewhat tied to an old game.

NE Character Close-up: Night Terror

All we know about Night Terror is that he was a wealthy, successful assassin for-hire before the V'Sori came and that though he is still wealthy, he developed a problem - he got bored. Blessed with powers of darkness and with the ability to phase in and out of reality, he began infiltrating the alien facilities just to amuse himself. Eventually even he was caught and he went along with it just to amuse his jaded tastes. When Dr. Destruction rescued him it gave him a new challenge and a goal worthy of his considerable talents.