Kickstarter projects I’ve backed: Number 1 through 10 (chronologically)

The first time I ever backed a Kickstarter project was nearly two and a half years ago as of this writing – early in 2011. Today, I thought I’d take a look back at the first 10 projects I backed and note what made me want to back it, what level I backed at, and how it turned out. (Part 2 of this series is at this link.)

1. ZEITGEIST Adventure Path from EN World – April 2011

This was the first Kickstarter campaign I ever backed. EN World, where I was an active forum member at the time, was getting ready to publish their ZEITGEIST campaign. I was running their War of the Burning Sky campaign at the time for my online game, and I loved it. Furthermore, I had participated in a loose play-by-forum playtest of the first ZEITGEIST adventure run by its designer, Ryan Nock.

Why I backed it: I loved that play-by-forum taste of the campaign and I wanted to support it.

My pledge: All right, this is a little insane, and I’ve never done anything like this since. I actually ponied up a $500 pledge to participate in a game Ryan would be running at Gen Con 2011.

How it turned out: The campaign didn’t hit its funding goal. That’s probably a good thing for me, since I’ve run a grand total of one adventure in this campaign. I would have felt pretty dumb being out $500 on this in the end.

Interesting side note: EN World came back much later to run a Kickstarter for this adventure path, and I decided not to back it because I thought it was too expensive. Times change!

2. Dungeonmorph Dice – May 2011

Why I backed it: I thought the dice looked really cool, and there was an outside chance I might use them to put together a dungeon map on the fly someday.

My pledge: $20, for a set of five dice.

How it turned out: I eventually received my dice. They look cool. I don’t believe I’ve ever rolled them. Still, I feel fine about the experience.

3. Compact Heroes – June 2011

Why I backed it: I liked the concept of the game (an RPG based on a deck of cards – frankly, a little bit like the Pathfinder Adventure Card Game).

My pledge: $50 for two starter decks.

How it turned out: I received my decks, more or less on time as I recall. I’ll admit that I’ve never played the game. Sigh. On a brighter note, the designer, Rod Waibel, was really helpful when I was trying to figure out how best to print Chaos & Alchemy cards a year later.

4. Mutant Meeples – December 2011

Why I backed it: The game looked like a lot of fun – a cool twist on Ricochet Robots (which I had played years before but did not own). I’ll admit that the video was pretty slick, too.

My pledge: $60 for the game and its expansion

How it turned out: I believe that this holds the record for the longest delay between when the game was supposed to be delivered (February 2012) and when it was actually delivered (December 2012, if I remember right) so far. It’s a pretty cool game, but I’ve only played it once or twice.

Side note: I have no idea why I didn’t back anything between June and December of 2011.

5. Gaming Dice in Chocolate and Sugar – December 2011

Why I backed it: Come on, these are cool! D&D dice that you can eat; awesome. Also, the creator was a fellow Coloradan.

My pledge: $25 for a chocolate set and a sugar set of dice.

How it turned out: Delicious! There were some production delays, but I was very happy with the final product.

6. The Order of the Stick Reprint Drive – February 2012

Why I pledged: I love Order of the Stick, and I hadn’t been able to find a copy of War and XPs anywhere.

My pledge: $45 for a copy of War and XPs (I wanted to pledge $60 for a signed copy, but those went too fast)

How it turned out: Awesome! The book is great.

7. Monster Stock Art and Minis – March 2012

Why I pledged: At the time, I had recently put out my free D&D 4th Edition adventure trilogy The Staff of Suha, and I thought that I might want to have some monster art to use in case I published future adventures like that one. Also, the monster art could be useful for the online games I was running in MapTool.

My pledge: $140 for a license to use all of the art that came out of the project commercially.

How it turned out: Until I started putting this blog post together, there was no way I could have remembered that I spent $140 on this art. I’ve barely used any of it in my MapTool games (which I stopped running in mid-2012 when I moved on to board game design), and I haven’t published any new adventures. Quality art, but a waste of money on my end.

8. Admiral ‘o the High Seas – Naval Adventures from EN World

Why I pledged: Largely to support the ZEITGEIST campaign (see item 1 on this list). I didn’t care much about the naval combat rules themselves.

My pledge: $45 for a PDF of the new supplement and the right to name a character or location in an upcoming ZEITGEIST adventure.

How it turned out: I turned the abbreviation for Online Dungeon Master, ODM, into a word – Odiem – that EN World used as the name of a spooky island location in a ZEITGEIST adventure. Cool. I’m happy with the investment.

9. DoubleFine Adventure

Why I pledged: I’ll admit it; I jumped on the bandwagon. I mean sure, I enjoy this type of game, but I’m really not a big video gamer these days and I wouldn’t have signed on if it weren’t for the “Kickstarter phenomenon” part of this campaign.

My pledge: $15 for a copy of the game.

How it turned out: Well, the game isn’t done yet. I guess this is really the most-delayed project I’ve backed (Mutant Meeples, you’re off the hook). They’ve apparently been putting out videos about the process, but I haven’t bothered to look at any of them (I just don’t care). A waste of money for the most part, but only a $15 waste.

10. Prismatic Art Collection – May 2012

Why I pledged: Mainly because I wanted to support a project that Tracy Hurley and Daniel Solis care about (two people I respect greatly). Also because the art might be useful for any adventures I might release on my site (same rationale as for the Monster Stock Art project).

My pledge: $25 for a thank-you on their web site.

How it turned out: Some art has been released. I haven’t used any of it. But I helped Tracy and Daniel reach their goal, so I’m fine with that.

Scorecard for my first 10 projects:

  • Number that were actually funded: 9/10
  • Number that were eventually delivered: 8/9 (and I think that DoubleFine will eventually come through, too, making this 9/9)
  • Number that I feel were ultimately worth it in retrospect: 6/9 (the three exceptions being Compact Heroes, Monster Stock Art and DoubleFine Adventure)
  • Total money spent: $425
  • Money spent on not-worth-it projects: $205 (sigh)

What’s next?

As of this writing, I’ve backed 49 total projects. I like the idea of going through them 10 at a time, so I’ll probably do 11-20 in the near future. (Edit: Here they are!)

What about you – how many Kickstarter projects have you backed, and how many have been worth it in retrospect?

Michael the OnlineDM

@ClayCrucible on Twitter

The Staff of Suha Cycle – three free D&D adventures

I was excited earlier this week when a friend of mine in New York said that he was planning on running his party through the adventure trilogy that I had written for D&D 4th Edition in the past couple of years. This made me realize, though, that I had never put all of the adventures in a single document.

Well, now I’ve fixed that. The three adventures, The Stolen Staff, Tallinn’s Tower and Descent Into Darkness, are now all in a single document, called the Staff of Suha Cycle.

Download the trilogy here. (17.5 MB)

Staff of Suha Cover Page

For those who don’t know, this is a series of adventures that I wrote for Dungeons and Dragons 4th Edition, mainly for me to run at local conventions. I’ve run all of the adventures a bunch of times and made lots of revisions along the way, so they’re pretty polished now. Each one is designed to be run in a single session of about four hours.

For more on the first two adventures (including MapTool files), read this post.

For more on the final adventure (including MapTool files), read this post.

If you want all of the maps from these adventures, plus other maps I’ve created, you can find those on the Map Library page.

In summary, the Stolen Staff is a pretty straightforward dungeon delve. Tallinn’s Tower is an adventure through a tricky tower maintained by a powerful illusionist (and it includes poetry!). Descent Into Darkness is exactly what it says on the tin, and it features my favorite puzzle that I’ve designed so far (the room of runes) and a really cool final encounter area.

Final encounter area for Descent Into Darkness

Final encounter map for Descent Into Darkness

If you do try out any of these adventures with your own group, I would love to hear about your experience!

Michael the OnlineDM

ClayCrucible on Twitter

Online DM’s Kid-Friendly RPG

For Christmas 2010, my wife’s brother and his family stayed with us for a couple of weeks. We introduced my brother in law and his wife to Dungeons & Dragons, and they became big fans, continuing our game online via MapTool over the next couple of years.

My brother in law’s family also includes two kids, a girl who is currently 8 years old and a boy who is now 5. They’ve been really interested in D&D, so when the family came back to visit for Christmas 2012, I knew it was time to introduce them to role playing games.

Now, I love playing D&D 4th Edition, but I knew that there was no way my 8 year old niece and 5 year old nephew would be able to handle the game yet. I went searching for a version of D&D that could work for the children, and I took a great deal of inspiration from Newbie DM’s RPG Kids. Ultimately, though, I ended up going with something of my own creation, which I’m uncreatively calling my Kid-Friendly RPG (KFRPG if you need an acronym).

The rules

Each player has a half-page character sheet (see below). When you’re not in combat, the Kid-Friendly RPG works just like any other role-playing game – you tell the game master what you want to do, and the GM tells you what happens.

Character sheets

Feel free to use these character sheets yourself (note that there are two characters per page). I’ll note here that I do not own the character illustrations; if you own these illustrations and want me to take them down, just let me know. If you’re creating your own character sheets, I highly recommend having a big picture of the character on it for the kids.

Character sheets for half-elf ranger and human druid

Character sheets for halfling thief and dwarf paladin

Character sheets for human barbarian and wolfman warrior

Character sheets for zombie wizard and elf cleric

Skills

If a character tries something that might not work, the GM will ask for a d20 roll. In most cases, a 10 or better will succeed, but the GM is free to set the target higher or lower for harder or easier tasks.

If the character is trying to do something that’s connected to one of the three skills on their character sheet, they can roll the d20 twice and take the best result.

Combat

When combat breaks out, the party chooses a player to roll a d20 and the GM rolls a d20. If the party’s representative wins, their team will go first. If the GM wins, the bad guys will go first. Ties go to the party (ties always go to the players rather than the GM).

Rather than tracking initiative, each member of the party takes a turn, starting with the player to the GM’s left and proceeding clockwise around the table. The GM has the monsters take their turns in whatever order the GM wishes.

On a character’s turn, the character can move up to its speed (measured in squares on the board) and take an action. Most of the time, the action will be an attack, but other options include administering a healing potion to themselves or a friend, using a special power or trying something creative.

Attacking and Defending

Each character has an Attack die and a Defense die, ranging from d4 to d12. When you make an attack, roll your Attack die. Your target will roll its Defense die. If a player character’s Attack roll matches or beats the enemy’s Defense roll, the enemy takes 1 damage. Most enemies only have 1 hit point, so this is usually enough to take the enemy out.

When an enemy attacks a player character, the enemy rolls its Attack die and the player rolls the character’s Defense die. If the Defense roll is at least as high as the Attack roll, then the attack misses. If the Attack roll from the enemy is higher, then the player character takes 1 damage.

Note that in both cases, Attacking and Defending, ties go to the player character. So, if the player is attacking and rolls a 3 and the defender rolls a 3, it’s a hit on the enemy. But if an enemy is attacking a player character and they both roll a 3, it’s a miss on the player character.

Hit points

Each player character starts with 3 hit points, which are tracked with some kind of physical object (I use red poker chips). When the character takes damage, the player gives one of these chips to the GM. If the player has no more hit point chips, then the character is knocked out (not dead, just not able to act).

Healing

Each character starts with 1 healing potion, tracked with a green poker chip. One of the actions available in combat is to drink the healing potion or administer it to a friend. If a character drinks their own healing potion, they regain 1 hit point (the GM gives back a red chip). If a character administers it to a friend, the friend regains 1 hit point. However, if a character has the Heal skill and administers the potion to a friend, the friend regains 2 hit points. Note that a character with the Heal skill who drinks his or her own potion still just gets the 1 hit point (your Heal skill only helps friends).

If a character is knocked out, a character with the Heal skill can use an action in battle to try to heal the knocked out character, even without a healing potion. The healer can roll the d20 twice, and if they get a 15 or better, the knocked out character regains 1 hit point. A character without the Heal skill can try this, too, but they only get one roll and still need a 15 or better.

If a battle ends with one or more player characters knocked out, those characters regain 1 hit point after laying there for a few minutes.

Special Powers

Each character has a special power, which starts charged up. This is represented by a blue poker chip. If the player wants to use his or her character’s special power, they give the blue chip to the GM and then carry out the instructions.

Range of attack

Most attacks are melee attacks, which means that the character needs to be next to the target. If a Range is specified, the character can be that many squares away from the target and can still attack.

Advantage

If two player characters are both adjacent to an enemy, they have the advantage on that enemy (they do not need to be in flanking positions, just both adjacent). A player character with the advantage gets a one-size bigger die for attacks (if the attack die is a d12, just add 1 to the result of the roll). Having advantage doesn’t help on defense.

Enemies can benefit from advantage at the GM’s discretion (a good rule of thumb is that you need 3 or 4 adjacent enemies to get advantage for them).

Movement

Each character has a Speed number, which is the number of squares they can move on a turn in addition to taking an action. The default is 5, with fast characters having 6 and slow characters having 4.

If a character doesn’t take another action, they can move their speed twice on a turn.

Enemies

Most enemies have 1 hit point and a d6 for both attacking and defending, and they only attack in melee. They do not have special powers or healing potions.

A tougher or easier enemy might have bigger or smaller dice for attacks or defense. They might have a ranged attack (generally with a range no more than 5 squares). They might have a slight twist to their attack, such as an attack that grabs a character and doesn’t let it get away until the enemy is destroyed.

A boss enemy might have 3 hit points and a special power, just like a character (though no healing potions).

Optional rule: Charging

If a character wants to charge a far-off enemy, the character can move its speed and then move its speed again with an attack at the end of the second move. This attack uses a die that’s one size smaller than the character’s usual attack die (since it’s hard to attack while running).

Optional rule: Opportunity attacks

If you want to teach your players about tactical movement, you can rule that moving past an enemy without fighting it will let the enemy take a free attack at the character (which can work both ways for player characters and enemies).

Tah-dah!

So, that’s the game. I ran this with two kids and three adults (which later ballooned to five adults as more people joined in). We played a short adventure that involved three fights and a trap (note: the kids just didn’t get the trap at all), plus a bunch of role playing at the tavern at the beginning. The game lasted somewhere between an hour and a half and two hours. The kids had a blast, as did I. The rules are simple and they encourage lots of improvisation all around.

If you end up trying this out with your own group of kids, please let me know how it goes!

-Michael the OnlineDM

OnlineDM1 on Twitter

A little “meh” on D&D for the moment

I haven’t been blogging much recently, which is in part because I’ve been spending a lot of my time on Chaos & Alchemy (currently working on setting up a Kickstarter to run in the next month or so). My audience here on Online Dungeon Master is interested in D&D, not necessarily my new game company, so I try not to inundate you all with content about the game. However, I will note that I’ve opened a call for artists to do color illustrations for the cards – let me know if you’re interested!

Another reason that I haven’t been blogging much is that I’m not as passionate about D&D right now. Again, that’s in part because my gaming passion is elsewhere, and for a while I thought that was all there was to it.

Drow again?

As I reflect more, though, I realize that there are two other things that are keeping my D&D passion in check. The first is that I’m really not digging D&D Encounters this season. I’m still running the game every week, but it’s not grabbing me. I’m kind of sick of the drow, frankly, and knowing that there’s still MORE drow to come in the next season has me feeling a little depressed. Drow are evil and all, I get it. Can we move on now?

I’ve still been creating maps of the encounters, so I’ve included the Week 5 and Week 7 maps below (I was out of town for week 4 and 6, and week 6 didn’t use a map anyway). Enjoy!

Drow Library Map – Gridded

Drow Library Map – No grid

Underdark Antechamber Map – Gridded

Underdark Antechamber Map – No Grid

The impact of D&D Next

The other thing that has me feeling down is D&D Next. It’s not that I don’t like the system – I’m sure it’s going to end up being really cool. But I currently play 4e, and with all of the community’s attention being on Next, I find it hard to get psyched up about 4e.

The obvious solution to this problem is “Play D&D Next!” And I will, eventually. But I ran the first open playtest, and I think that might have been a mistake for me. I appreciated the quickness of combat, but I was really bored with the Caves of Chaos. Also, the limited pre-generated characters didn’t seem exciting.

Now, had I waited for the second batch of stuff that came out just before GenCon before jumping into the playtest, I think I would have been much happier. The new fighter looks like a lot more fun, and having character creation rules is a very big deal. But by the time that packet came out, I was already getting to the point of ignoring D&D Next. I read the second packet, but I didn’t feel inspired to play it. Again, that’s partly because my time was on Chaos & Alchemy, but it’s also partly because my groups didn’t have that much fun with the first playtest packet, and I didn’t feel passionate about getting them to try the second.

What’s next?

So where do I go from here? Well, for the immediate future I’m going to be busy with Chaos & Alchemy. But I’d like to get back to running a regular D&D game. My online family campaign for Madness at Gardmore Abbey has been on hold for many months, but I’ve got it all prepped and ready to go in MapTool; that’s the most likely place to resume. I’d also like to get back to trying D&D Next; I haven’t even looked at the latest playtest packet yet, and that’s a shame.

But I’m not in any hurry to do that stuff. I have other hobbies occupying my free time right now, and I’m okay with that. D&D will wax in my interest again, but it’s in a waning phase right now. And that’s okay.

-Michael the OnlineDM

OnlineDM1 on Twitter

Drow on drow violence: D&D Encounters Council of Spiders week 3

Isn’t it sad when the party members turn on one another? Not when they’re a bunch of backstabbing drow!

You may remember last week, when some svirfneblin basically wiped out the party (two of them escaped with their lives, barely). Well, this week, through the magic of “That’s the way the plot works,” the party was able to move past the chamber where the svirfneblin had been and advanced to a new place, where a drow priestess and her hobgoblin associates were trying to figure out the secrets of a mysterious obsidian wall.

My party of five drow (worst teen drama ever) was not interested in talking to this mysterious priestess… roll initiative!

Drow Outpost Map – Gridded

Drow Outpost Map – No grid

The battle itself was pretty easy for the party (especially compared to last week’s slaughter). The monsters weren’t rolling especially well, and none of their powers were all that scary. The PCs also felt free to drop daily powers and action points like there was no tomorrow (which, in-game, there basically wasn’t).

The highlight of the night came when the drow mage, who had been created to replace the dead drow hexblade, walked up toward the bad guys and cast Sleep on all of them… but intentionally including three PCs that he completely could have left out of the Sleep spell area without missing any bad guys. It was a total backstabbing drow move, and it was awesome. Only one of the PCs ended up actually falling asleep, but boy, was it in-character!

As the tide of battle turned firmly in the party’s favor, they started fighting over who would get to loot the enemy priestess’s body. There was still one hobgoblin fighting, but three of the PCs ignored him to spend their turns searching the dead priestess. The poor hobgoblin felt so disrespected in these short remaining moments of life.

Once the battle was over, the priestess in the party listened at the obsidian wall and heard two voices, one of which was repeating a well-known prayer to Lolth. The other voice was made out by the paladin to be nonsense syllables often used by drow wizards. They called the mage over to the wall, but he didn’t want to come.

So, the priestess attacked the mage without warning, then used her action point and followed up with a big daily power. This left the mage unconscious, and none of the rest of the party wanted to do anything about it, so the priestess followed up with a coup de grace.

Bam. Dead mage.

They looted the mage’s corpse and eventually worked their way through the obsidian wall, where they found an altar with a magic spear. They decided to use the mage’s body as a blood sacrifice and performed a ritual to claim the chamber’s power for Lolth.

Of course, after this session they all get an extended rest, so the dead mage can come back with no penalty (I awarded him full XP, since he died after the fight was over). My players have really embraced the evil, backstabbing ways of the drow, and they seem to be having fun with it, so good for them!

-Michael the OnlineDM

OnlineDM1 on Twitter

P.S. If you like these maps, I have a whole bunch more available to download for free in my Map Library.

My first (near) TPK – D&D Encounters Council of Spiders Week 2

I’m not normally a killer DM, nor do I pull a lot of punches on my players. But in this week’s session of D&D Encounters: Council of Spiders, I essentially wiped out my party. The reason: The dice wanted them dead.

This week’s session was pretty straightforward. The party (all drow, and pretty much evil across the board) found themselves stuck in an ambush by svirfneblin defending their caves. A rockslide behind them made retreat tricky.

Svirfneblin Ambush Map – Gridded

Svirfneblin Ambush Map – No grid

There were two armored svirfneblin who were marking PCs, five minions with picks, one sneaky one with a garrote, and then two with slings. Oh, those slings.

The sneaky garrote-wielder had the potential to make life miserable for a PC, and she did get her wire around the neck of the hexblade in the party, but the hexblade promptly turned and critically hit her. She didn’t last long after that.

The defender svirfneblins (svirfnebli?) did a good job of marking PCs, but weren’t too scary. The minions weren’t much of a threat, either, having a hard time getting combat advantage to deal extra damage.

But those slingers… sheesh. The rest of the dark gnomes kept the party off the slingers, and those slingers just couldn’t miss. They each had a recharge power that basically let them make two sling attacks if the first one hit (bouncing the rock off the head of the first target and onto the second).

  • Round one: Both slingers hit with both of their ricochet shots, dealing an average of 11 damage per attack for a total of 44 damage.
  • Round two: Same as round one. The ricochet shots recharged for both slingers (ouch), and two PCs dropped. I believe the second shot for one slinger missed, but we’re still talking about something like 33 damage dealt by these two.
  • Round three: One ricochet shot recharged and hit once; the other didn’t, but the regular sling shot still hit.
  • Beyond that: I stopped checking for recharge rolls and just had the slingers make single attacks.

Our slayer was the first to die, falling unconscious in round two and then failing three death saves. The one warpriestess in the party did what she could to bring people back, spending most rounds doing nothing but heal checks and Healing Word (which she reflavored to Word of Ichor since she’s an evil drow), but it wasn’t enough. The ranged thief in the party was dishing out tons of damage, killing one of the svirfneblin defenders in the third round, at which point the other defender decided to risk the opportunity attacks to come after the thief in the back of the group and the slingers started targeting him as well. With the damage machine out of action, the party had little hope.

The PCs kept missing with their attacks while the dark gnomes kept hitting. Once our slayer was dead, I let his player roll the attacks for the svirfneblin, but his dice suddenly turned hot and the gnomes KEPT HITTING!

Eventually, the warpriestess used her Speak with Stone power, which I ruled let her find a small gap in the rock slide that could be wriggled through. Two of the drow made it through that hole before dying, but it was too late for the other four.

Four PCs died. Two escaped. The svirfneblin slingers took zero damage the entire fight. Wow.

So, let this be a lesson to you: Don’t mess with dark gnomes wielding rocks!

Hey, at least the good guys won.

-Michael the OnlineDM

TactiCon 2012 Recap: Fiasco, Ashes of Athas, Chaos & Alchemy and impromptu D&D

Labor Day weekend has been a lot of fun for me the past three years, as I’ve been attending TactiCon. This is the smaller of the two conventions put on by the Denver Gamers Association each year (the bigger one is Genghis Con over Presidents’ Day weekend in February), but the 2010 edition was the first gaming convention I ever attended, so it always has a place in my heart.

I’ve done the “Marathon GM” thing in the past, where I run a D&D game in all nine of the convention’s four-hour slots over the weekend, but I was taking it a little easier this time – only being signed up for seven. Yes, I’m still nuts.

Thursday

Thursday night, I had signed up to run a session of Fiasco. I had only played once before, but I think it’s a cool system and one that I want to get more comfortable with. I’ve been playing around with creating a playset of my own, but since it wasn’t ready in time I just brought the four sets from the base Fiasco book, plus the D&D-themed set, the rock band set and the set played on Tabletop a couple of months ago. My players, two of whom had never played before, opted for the Antarctica set. Since there were four other players plus myself, I decided not to participate as a player, instead just helping them along. I think Fiasco plays best with four.

The players had a good time, setting up a web of relationships and secrets. Things were going swimmingly until the radioactive penguins started growing tentacles at the end of Act One. Amazingly, the players all rolled pretty well by Fiasco standards at the end of the game, so none of them ended up dead and one ended up coming out smelling like roses. We finished in under two hours, too, which was great – I still had a little prep for the rest of the weekend’s games to finish.

Friday

Friday was Ashes of Athas Day One. I was running the three adventures from Chapter Three of the Dark Sun-set organized play campaign. I was delighted to discover that three of the guys whom I’d run Ashes of Athas for back at Genghis Con had returned, and they were stoked to play at my table again! They really made it fun for me last time.

This time was no different. With my projector setup running (and attracting lots of admiration from passers-by, as usual), we kept the fun flowing all day long. I felt bad for my core three players when they were bumped to another DM’s table for the middle session, but the reason was that we had a group of new-to-D&D players and the organizer knows that I love running games for new players (and that they tend to keep coming back after they’ve been at my table). I did love the new folks, too. Something about new players just gets my energy up.

My core three players were back at my table for the final adventure of the day, and it was mostly a big, two-part combat encounter. The second part had a very interesting environmental effect: Any PC starting or ending a turn in a zone of evil ashes had to make a death saving throw. This was in the Athasian plane of death, so it made sense. The cool thing about this was that it made it possible for a PC to die while still at full hit points, but not randomly out of nowhere as in a pure “save or die” effect. It really affected player tactics once they found out about it, and made things tense when they otherwise might not have been.

Saturday

Saturday was going to be an interesting one. I was signed up to run Ashes of Athas from 9:00 to 1:00, from 2:00 to 6:00 and from 7:00 to 11:00. However, I was also signed up to run demos of Chaos & Alchemy in the board and card game room from noon to 3:00. I had asked the D&D organizer ahead of time if maybe I could bow out of some of my Ashes of Athas games, but he told me that he was really short on DMs.

Fortunately for me, he was wrong. Saturday morning, we had three DMs and three players. Easy solution: I would bow out, one of the DMs would play and the other DM would run a table of four! This let me get some much-needed coffee, check out the vendor hall, and then start showing people how to play Chaos & Alchemy.

Chaos & Alchemy cover art by Chris Rallis – Logo by Bree Heiss

My lovely wife came to join me in the demos at noon, and she was very eye-catching (like I said, she’s lovely). We had two tables of demos running non-stop, with lots of folks deciding to buy a copy of the game. One guy started telling all of his friends that they needed to come try this game, and I believe four of them bought copies. One of THOSE people also sent another buyer my way! Players are teaching one another to play the game.

A guy who owns a very new game retail store bought a copy and asked about carrying Chaos & Alchemy in his store. Two guys turned out to be involved with the organization of Denver Comic Con and wanted to talk to me about having a table at next year’s convention, with a “local game designer” angle on it. There was a lot of enthusiasm, and I ended the weekend with just 25 copies from my original 125 copy print run on hand. It’s off to a really good start!

As you might guess from all of that, I was able to spend most of the afternoon running Chaos & Alchemy, in part because there were only two tables worth of players for Ashes of Athas and the other two DMs ran the games. However, when the evening time slot came around, we had two tables of players but one of the other DMs was nowhere to be found, so I set up the projector and ran the adventure.

The players for Saturday night were the same six I’d had for Friday night. The adventure was the conclusion of Ashes of Athas Chapter Four, and it was my least favorite of the Ashes of Athas adventures I’ve run so far. It was really long, with too many skill challenges and combats for a standard convention time slot, and one of the combats ended up wiping out the other table of players (my table had a very hard time with it). We still had fun at the table, though. The party didn’t mind when I switched to some brief narration rather than actually running through some skill challenges, and they rolled with the bizarre “desert peyote trip” ending of the adventure.

This adventure also gave me my favorite gaming moment of the convention, when a new player who was running a spear-toting Ardent was trying desperately to figure out what she could to to help her allies while she was standing on a bridge and the gargoyle menacing them was 20 feet below her. Answer: Jump off the bridge, spear pointing down, and hope for the best. I gave her a +1 bonus for charging (sort of) and a +2 bonus for combat advantage (the gargoyle did NOT see this one coming!), and ruled that if she hit with the attack, it would count as an automatic critical hit.

Boom – gargoyle pieces everywhere! What a great ride.

Sunday

I had nothing scheduled on Sunday, which was a first for me. I decided to sleep in, have an early lunch and get to the convention around 11:15. I got in on a game of Smash Up, which I knew had been a big deal at GenCon. I love the theme of the game – you play with a 40-card deck that’s made up of two 20-card decks smashed together to give you something like Alien Dinosaurs, Ninja Tricksters, Zombie Pirates or Robot Wizards. The mechanics of piling up minions and playing actions to take down some shared bases, with points awarded based on who contributed the most to breaking the base, were pretty good. The balance seemed fine, too, with the final score being 15-11-11-8 (I was one of the 11s).

However, I just didn’t have that much fun during the actual gameplay. The Robot Wizards, for instance, had really long, involved turns. The Ninja Tricksters got to do interesting things at unexpected times. The Zombie Pirates both had things popping out of the discard pile. The Dinosaur Aliens… were big. And they could return things to players’ hands. My turns were short and a little boring. It’s a game with lots of potential, but it didn’t quite do it for me.

I ran a couple more demos of Chaos & Alchemy, then headed over to the D&D area to see if maybe I could play in a game in the last time slot at 2:00. The organizer asked if I could run something instead. I didn’t have my laptop with me, even though the projector and rig were in the car, but since I’d never tried running module cold, I agreed to go for it.

I was loaned a wet-erase mat and marker and was seated at a table that was mostly empty, since the players (mostly kids who were friends and family of one another, with one adult) were apparently in their rooms leveling up their characters. Once I realized that they didn’t care what module they played, I decided I’d run one that I wrote – The Stolen Staff. I downloaded it from my blog to my iPad. I used the backs of business cards for initiative trackers. I wrote down monster hit points on a sheet of paper. I borrowed some minis from one of the players to represent the monsters.

And we had a rollicking good time! I soon realized that these kids really just wanted to fight stuff, so I gave them plenty of interesting things to kill. We had gotten off to a really late start, but we still fit in three fights and some role-playing, finishing on time. I did have a weird moment afterward when one of the kids asked me, “So who did the best?” I didn’t understand the question, so he clarified, “Who did the most damage and killed the most monsters? Who was the best?” I told him that my favorite moment was when one of his friends had his character jump off a tower to land on a minion (I guess I have a thing for PCs throwing themselves off of stuff). Maybe he’ll get the message that D&D is about creativity, not just numbers. Here’s hoping. It was a very min-maxed party, so I’m guessing I won’t change any opinions, but so it goes.

Afterward

Once all was said and done, I still wasn’t quite finished. A couple came up to me as I was packing up from my last game and asked if I was Michael (I am) and if I could teach them about Fiasco. Apparently they had bought the game and weren’t confident in jumping in, and they had seen my name in the program as someone who had run Fiasco. So, after the GM appreciate ceremony, I met up with the two of them and taught them about Fiasco before heading home.

Yay for more new gamers!

-Michael the OnlineDM

OnlineDM1 on Twitter

Between GenCon and TactiCon 2012

Just a quick update since I haven’t written in a while.

GenCon was an awesome experience. The highlight was getting to meet so many of my friends from the online D&D world, mainly from Twitter (d20Monkey, Jennisodes, LawOfTheGeek, deadorcs, FELTit, GeekyLyndsay, d20Blonde, Squach, TheIdDM, SlyFlourish… the list goes on and on). A lot of these were at the Thursday evening GenCon Social, with more coming at the Saturday evening recording of the Tome Show and dinner afterward.

I sat in on several seminars during the convention, with the highlights being a Kickstarter panel, the Law of the Geek panel and a panel on board game design.

I was on an episode of This Just In From GenCon as a sponsor.

I did some informal demos of Chaos & Alchemy in the general gaming areas with some good success. I was only able to do about 30 or so demos over the course of the weekend (not having a booth makes it hard to do that sort of thing), but 10 people did end up buying the game after playing it – a pretty good conversion rate! It was enough to make me want to keep going with this thing, and I’m currently talking to some small publishers and also doing the research about maybe running a Kickstarter for a big print run.

I’ve learned that my Wednesday bowling league that usually keeps me from running D&D Encounters in the fall and spring is going to be on Tuesday instead this year, which means that I’m DMing Encounters again. Yay! No write-up for this week, except to say that my table full of evil drow did a good job of role-playing. They’re scheming and backstabbing and having a lovely time.

Now I’m on the eve of TactiCon, one of the two local conventions each year. I’m running Fiasco tonight, followed by two days of Ashes of Athas (the D&D 4e organized play set in Dark Sun). I’m going to try to find time on Saturday between Dark Sun games to demo some Chaos & Alchemy as well.

So, I’m still out there, still gaming, just very busy!

-Michael the OnlineDM

OnlineDM1 on Twitter

D&D Encounters Web of the Spider Queen – Week 12

Previous session: Week 11

This would be my last week running D&D Encounters this summer, since I’ll be at GenCon next week during the grand finale. I went out in style, though, with EIGHT players at my table (I had six, and then two showed up during the first round of combat).

Tonight’s session was pretty straightforward. The party had defeated the drow torturers last week and was now moving toward the slave pens. They found them easily enough and saw Khara Sulwood kicking a spider, trying to protect some svirfneblin slaves. Blocking the way into the room was a big creature made entirely of webs.

We rolled initiative and the fight was on.

Slave Pits map – Gridded

Slave Pits map – No Grid

Our dwarf fighter walked on up to the web golem, not caring too much about the slowing aura (which I just treated as difficult terrain for the sake of simplicity), and started to beat on the thing. The rest of the party hung back with ranged attacks while Khara and the svirfneblin slaves were left to their own devices.

I didn’t want the ranged characters to get too comfortable back there, so I sent the deathjump spiders into their midst with Death from Above! That kept that wing of the party occupied while our fighter kept the big web golem busy.

The golem succeeded in grabbing the fighter repeatedly, but the fighter kept escaping his grasp. Our goblin hunter also dazed the monster a few times, making it hard for it to drag the fighter away until round 4.

A fourth deathjump spider joined the fray in round 3 (I scaled things up slightly with the eight-PC group), and the party found itself with an unconscious fighter and hunter pretty soon. Khara stabilized the fighter, and the hunter hit the ground during the last round of combat. The poor web golem died without once being able to use one PC as a weapon with which to hit another; such a shame.

Once the golem and spiders were destroyed, Khara was thrilled to see the PCs again, especially after they told her that Tharinel had escaped alive (or at least he was alive the last time they saw him). She was also excited to reclaim her gear from the remains of the golem, plus the other half of the Pendant of Ashaba.

The next step of the mission was clear: Get back to Shadowdale and the Tower of Ashaba to restore the pendant and the protective wards on the town. One of the PCs was diplomatic enough to convince the surviving svirfneblin to lead them through some secret tunnels out of the drow territory, and the party made it back into the Tower…

Only to be confronted by Valan Jaelre and two massive driders. And that’s where they’ll pick things up next week for the grand finale!

This was a fun season of Encounters, largely thanks to the group of players I had at my table. It was really cool to have the same folks come back almost every week; they really got to know one another’s characters well, as did I. I wish them luck in the big final battle!

-Michael the OnlineDM

OnlineDM1 on Twitter

 

D&D Encounters Web of the Spider Queen – Week 11

Previous sessionWeek 10 / Next session: Week 12

As is usual these days, I had seven PCs at my table for D&D Encounters. The party was moving through the drow city of Zadziferryn in search of their friend Khara Sulwood and the broken Pendant of Ashaba. They found themselves in the drow torture theater, where two torturers with scourges were beating and killing prisoners while being cheered on by drow in the stands. Combat began pretty much right away.

Torture theater map – gridded

Torture theater map – no grid

Most of the party hung back in the first round, which let one of the clerics cast a spell to increase everyone’s defenses by 2 points; this would be extremely useful later.

The drow torturers each used a pit of blood to summon a demon made up of a gigantic toothed maw and little else. Meanwhile, the drow in the stands grabbed weapons and rushed into the arena to fight the intruders. The spectators turned out to be minions, and our spellcaster finally achieved the toasting of three minions on a single attack.

The demons were easy to hit, but they had a lot of hit points. They also had a nasty habit of chasing after bloodied PCs and trying to eat them.

The real threat, though, was the pair of drow torturers. These creatures used spiked scourges to attack PCs from two squares away, dealing a bunch of damage on a hit plus a grab that dealt ongoing 10 damage (only ending when the PC escapes the grab). The torturers couldn’t make other attacks while grabbing a PC, but that’s okay – they were nasty enough. They also had the highest AC the party has faced so far in the adventure.

Once the minions were wiped out, the party started focusing on the demons. They killed both demons in the same round, whereupon the torturers used minor actions to summon new demons! Ouch.

By this point, the torturers had already killed our drow ranger Drizzt (no relation), using the ongoing damage from the scourge to rip off of the ranger’s head and cast it into one of the fonts of blood (hey, if a PC is dead-dead, let’s at least make it entertaining). Our spellcaster was busily failing death saves, and our goblin scout was barely staying above zero hit points. Finally, at long last, the party managed to finish off one of the torturers, which caused both it and the demon it had summoned to be dragged into the Abyss in a cloud of black smoke. With only one torturer left to deal with, the party was able to gang up and finish it off.

This encounter is written for a group of five PCs. We had seven at our table, and I didn’t scale it upward at all. The party had also done well on last week’s skill challenge, which meant that no minion reinforcements joined the battle. And with all of those advantages, it was still a hard, hard fight, and the players did well to escape with just the one dead adventurer.

I realized belatedly that I forgot to tell my party that they found half of the pendant of Ashaba on the belt of one of the torturers; I’ll say that it dropped to the ground when the drow was dragged into the Abyss.

-Michael the OnlineDM

OnlineDM1 on Twitter