Tag: actual play

Barrowmaze Open Table Session 26

Summary

Quite a few new adventurers enter into the fray as the party returns to their initial entrance to the Barrowmaze. Therein they battle with stirges supping on a recently deceased adventurer. They discover a secret shrine to a demonic patron, and a magic-user pledges service to an unnamed entity asking to be led to the thief that took his scroll. In pursuit of this scoundrel, the group witnesses a massive Beastfolk, several times larger than they usually encounter as it immediately rushes them, trying to tear the adventurers limb from limb. After a bit of trying to sprint around it they group enters into combat, pinning the beast in a doorway and eventually dispatching it. Late into the night Sena uses her Ring of Invisibility to break into Krotho’s manor, leaving the head of the beastfolk in his chambers, torching his undergarments in the hall before sneaking out.

Cast

Player Characters

  • Barmox the Magic-User, played by Stripe
  • Glarg Grumblebeard, played by Trusty
  • Jollen the Druid, played by Xenken
  • Key the Thief, played by Robert
  • Rocco the Fighter, played by Daryl
  • Sena the Ranger, played by Malley
  • Slaine the Hermit, played by Dio

Hirelings

  • Manks the Cleric of Hathor

Rewards

  • 3 sapphires worth 600gp
  • A coin-purse of 50gp
  • A bag full of chipped jewels worth 200gp
  • A silver dagger designed for ritualistic sacrifice
  • 187.5 total party combat xp

Thoughts

It was a good game, a little hectic given that we had 5 new players. I need to remember to both instigate a Caller when we have lots of players, and to actively utilize them. Even when I have a caller I often forget and respond to absolutely everyone.

I also know due to the size of the game a few players had technical difficulties and unfortunately missed some of the material, which I feel bad about. I think this is unfortunately just chalked up to Discord, each person’s individual setup, and Roll20, but if anyone has recommendation I’d love to hear them.

There were a few questions of utilizing Floating Disc, a notoriously specific spell, in a very general fashion. While I love creativity, I do think the specifics of a spell is kind of a social contract. Some requested exampled were to use it as a wedge for a door, or as a bludgeoning device. Both are clever interpretations of the spell, but why I ruled against those is that it somewhat mitigates the usability things like Hold Portal or Magic Missile. That said, I’m always game for suggestions.

Overall I enjoyed it, but I do feel like I should move back to my policy of trying to keep at most 6 players. When playing online really my sweet spot is 3-5 players. I love being able to share this game with lots of people, but I also think that my strengths as a ref lay in kind of my free formy conversational manner, which can cause a lot of downtime when the table is packed.

Anyway, thank you for reading, and hopefully this shorter format will help me stay on pace with play reports.

Barrowmaze Open Table Catch-Up 15-25

The amount of session reports that I am “behind” on is almost a large than ones I have written – the last one was for October 11th. Since then there has been 16 Sundays (not including the most recent which I’ll write its own report for). Out of those 5 were missed sessions, most for holidays, my birthday, and just general end of the year stuff.

So that means I am missing reports for sessions 15-25. Of course there’s no way I’ll be able to summarize those, track down exactly everyone who played, etc. but I’ll try to very, very briefly outline what happened so I can pick up regular reporting again. I won’t be able to highlight everything but here’s some details:

  • The party stole a fantastic painting out of the noble’s tomb, and Sky the Druid used some mind-reading to deftly negotiate with H.H.R. Huffnpuff for a massive sum of wealth.
  • Removing the painting released a vault extending into some caves, releasing a hulking biped insectoid monster that they manage to dash away from.
  • Ambushed by a rival adventuring party, the group aggressively charges and slays two of their adversaries, scaring off the remaining three and claiming the fallen’s magic items for themselves.
  • While investigating a sole tomb, Ragnar the Half-Elf touched an ominous tome and was transported away to an alien realm to do battle with a small grey sorcerer atop a floating throne. Striking the magic-user twice, Ragnar was returned to the tomb with access to the tome.
  • The group discovered a demonic brazier that seems to extinguish flame.
  • Returning to the site of a previous massacre – the water logged tomb filled with a diorama of an elven warrior battling lizardmen, Sena the Ranger used her rope of climbing to remove the sword while the party ducked out of the tomb before the statue guardians attacked.
  • Sena continued her construction of a canal to the mounds, and as it neared completion some of her laborers came to her panicked that many decided to plunder a nearby religious site for a frog cult, after hearing the monks left for a pilgrimage, but were lost within.
  • The party traversed the magical threats in the tomb, with Martin the Cleric using wards to protect them from rampaging Frogoyles, finding the lost laborer who was infected with some sort of frog curse, the holy man exorcised it from the poor man’s body.
  • One of their hirelings was eaten whole by a mummified frogman, and the party fled sealing the dead within, burning religious iconography as they beat their retreat.
  • Barmox the Magic-User found some very enlightening weed and pipe in the shrine, and returned to share it with Huffnpuff, gaining magical insights as he took a deep hit.
  • Sky befriended a diseased alpha rat, and led it on many adventures before it was consumed by green slime.
  • They party found an ever-flowing cup, producing holy water, ale, or mead, or even sometimes potions. Two party members were slain by stone guardians in its retrieval.
  • The group stumbled upon corpses ambulated by a swarming mass of rotgrubs. After deadly combat Sky’s faithful mutt Foamy was found panting with the foul swarm digging into her skin. Sky immediately enacted dagger-surgery to get them out, narrowly saving his dog.
  • The group plundered an ancient library of an old pestilence cult, but not before battling with the entombed high priest who drained some of Lathan’s lifeforce. Their rewards were hundreds of pounds of books they were able to make a good exchange for, and a multitude of magical incenses, powders, and salves.
  • Sena’s canal ended, and Krothos the local lord immediately set to taxing it, giving the party 1 free pass on the canal as a reward. Sena punched his advisor, and Krothos let them off with a warning, heading off to drink and gamble.

Tons more occurred in addition to the above. As I go through my notes I’ll return here to add, but for now I think this is a decent summary. I apologize that I haven’t catalogued everyone who played in these games, and my apologies if I haven’t highlighted one of your favorite moments, but I definitely encourage you to comment if you played or remember any details and I’ll update this post.

Later this week I’ll write up the most recent session, and hopefully get caught up on my Open Table Valley of the Wind Game.

Thank you!

Session Reports

A big kick in the pants for updating this blog more frequently was the roll-over from a home campaign to my current Barrowmaze game. Initially I had a lot of fun writing the session reports, but as time went on I found that the way I was writing with how I remembered the sessions did not necessarily line up. I also kind of felt bad about the games that I did not do session reports for, primarily only writing for my two open table games.

That said, I look back over the gap of Barrowmaze and feel bad that I didn’t at least minimally note every session. Sure I have scribbles in my GM notebook, but I often forget to annotate the date, and honestly if I don’t consciously have to comb over these notes immediately after session they become near unusable down the line.

I think I want to start writing session reports, but with the idea that they may not be read at all, not even by me. But mostly as a means to mark a date and time, say who it was with, what we played, and maybe a few sentences about what I thought about that. This way I can be look back and be reminded of all the cool people I had the opportunity to game with, or make note of all the various games I am fortunate to play.

What I will change is not trying to write for other people. I also won’t feel bad if I don’t remember every awesome quip or jokes the players have. I love the creativity, but its too hard to catalogue in the moment. That said if you read this blog and are a player in my game and want to highlight moments, definitely comment and I will add them.

Barrowmaze Open Table Session 14

Summary

Finding their way into an old noble’s tomb, a wizard is possessed by the spirit of an ancient squire and joins forces with their liege wraith. The party’s courageous self-proclaimed knight is cursed with ghostly undeath by the lord’s blade, and the oddly-friendly skeleton swears fealty to him as he fades from the mortal realm. A thief is found wandering the tomb, having fallen into a portal trap elsewhere, and the party enters into combat with the approaching death cultists and their zombie horde.

details follow

Nausicaä FKR Setup & Session 1

Since FKR style play is getting more attention I thought it would be a good time to pitch an open table game using my Primeval 2D6 system over on one of the Discord servers devoted to the style.

I met up with other members and pitched a few games – running a West Marches style game, an investigative horror game, an Ars Magica-alike, as well as a game set in Hayao Miyazaki’s setting where the Nausicaä manga takes place.

Almost everyone immediately expressed interest in Nausicaä being their top pick, so we started discussing the game, potential places to play, character ideas, and we landed on playing somewhere out “off the map” so to speak in our own corner of the world, making it easier for players to drop in and out without knowing the plot, as well as letting us handwave a lot of details.

I should preface this and probably every session that I am notoriously anti-canon. I want to draw on the imagery, themes, and broad-level assumptions of any source I’m using – Nausicaä included. So if something contradicts established lore – that’s the canon of our game. This is by no means to disrespect the source material, the creators, or the fans, but rather to allow our table to celebrate the world in the way that’s the most fun for us.

chargen and session follows