Two games in one weekend

I ran two games this weekend, so I was a little frazzled at the end.  The first game was the another installment of the Six Bean Dip Freaks.  The freaks are starting to come together as a group but they have started to do a lot of Metagaming too.  They were provided with an inaccurate map which included a direct way to the second level, and they chose to ignore it, because it included a large open room and a mud puddle in the middle.  They reasoned that it there was going to be a place with a large monster, it would be there.  One character walked into one mud puddle and was attacked by Green Slime, so they avoided all the other mud on that level.  Ha ha ha.  When they ran into the pool of water they turned back from that too, but admittedly, the gnome was way too short and wearing armour.  The dwarf was also worried that it would be too deep too.  

They circled around and discovered that there was a pool of water in the way.  They threw some mud to see if anything reacted to the mud.  Two waves occurred and two tongues lashed out and grabbed the gnome's magic shield.  Then they were forced to attack the frogs, because the gnome wanted his magic shield back.  The bard used an area effect spell to kill both frogs and they were able to get the shield back.  At the same time they discovered that there was a false wall on the one side of the pool with three chests.  One filled with copper, which they ignored and the other two had silver and electrum and one had minor gemstones.  Basically they left the treasure there for later recovery.  They then left the area heading towards an area that was already described by the inaccurate map.  They discovered a blank wall where the map said there was a door.  So they cursed the map maker and when off to explore another area of the dungeon.  

The series of brief combats resulted, they listened at the doors, heard nothing, then checked to see if they were locked, then they bashed the door down, which was funny, because it was the smallest party member that did the door bashing.  The door popped open after one hit when the gnome broke the bar.  And they rushed in discovering two people lounging in chairs drinking wine.  On escaped and the other lost his head, which is a standard reaction to most people encountering the Six Freaky Bean Dip group.  They chased the fleeing person around the corner while they other ruined the chair with his blood.  They put the last person to sleep and then fought the last foe who was in his room.  Against a third level party, this collection of people had no hope, especially when they had a well thought out plan of attack.  They captured the sleeping assassin, and interrogated him, finding just another charmed fool.

They walked up to the blank wall and searched it.  They found a secret door, which meant that the rogue that created the map, had not lied to them, he just did not realize that the door was secret.  The secret door led to the underground lake and a boat.  The boat seated the characters and they skulled across the narrow neck of the lake avoiding the crocodiles that were interested in eating them.  Which just goes to show how cruel these characters are, they did not want to feed those poor starving reptiles.  They loked down the corridor and found a cross road two of the directions appeared to contain mud and that was reason enough to go in the other direction and follow the map.  The map was not perfect and this resulted in more complaints about the map maker.  Next time I think I will get them to make the map.  

They fought two sets of troglodytes and collected their ears.  Then they went down the stairs.  I think they did quite well at encountering almost 80% of e creatures on the first level.  I think they avoided two monsters.  But they bypassed some magic items.  It was kind of funny, they spent some detail looking at the quality of a found weapon and none looking at a weapon that w being used.  I hope that they do not rush down the map and just leap to the last encounter.  If they do, they will very likely miss the prisoners and the main treasure and a few other things.  On the other hand they will be a lot weaker too 

The second game was an experiment.  I wanted to have a novel character creation system that created a character than e player chose and that had better than average stats.  One of the standard methods was to take the scores of 15, 14, 13, 12, 10 and 8 and distribute them to the 6 stats, Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Intelligence, Wisdom and Charisma.  So I told them to place their scores as 12, 12, 12, 12, 10, and 8 and then to apply racial bonuses and that was it.  They had their background too.  Then I told the players that they were traveling and were attacked and knocked unconscious and when they recovered, they were in the other older inn in town.  The Jolly Red Wyrm, an inn that was a thousand years old and was more museum than accommodation place; it had a bar and places to stay, but the rooms were small and the windows even smaller.  The free spaces on the wall were covered with weapons and armour and equipment from hundreds of adventurers over the years.  A major difference was that the inn had a curator whose job it was to clean and maintain the equipment, as well as keep a record of who donated the equipment.

One player selected some heavy Platemail, a Greatsword, a crossbow, a buckler shield, a slotted helmet with no decoration and a tabard.  This selection game the player's character great strength some constitution, dexterity and charisma.  That build lended well to a fighter.  One player's character grabbed some light armour, a scimitar and short sword with a small bow, a shield, a helmet with some frilly pom-poms, and a belt of pouches.  This gave her character a large boost to her dexterity, charisma, constitution, and wisdom.  Although very eclectic, the high dexterity lended well to a rogue class, al though she was not enthused about that, I pointed out that she could be a good rogue and I did not mention that there was a lot of options availible at level three.  The last player selected heavy robes, a long sword and a dagger and a short bow, a spell book, a helmet with a holy symbol and a belt of pouches.  This selection was spread out adding to Intelligence, charisma, dexterity, wisdom, constitution and strength.  This player selected a wizard.  None of the ability scores was especially low, nothing very high, intelligence was high though at 16.

The curator told the characters that it  started with a down on his luck soldier paid his bill at the inn by giving them his sword and how later he claimed that his luck changed after that day and he won his fortune and later his fame.  He later returned to the inn and donated the rest of his old equipment.  The curator then shows off the equipment of King Awsland the First.  The kingdom lasted many years and you can find the ruins of his palace overlooking the Great River.  Many years passed and many would be adventurers came by and donated their first weapons and tool of their trade in hopes of acquiring some of that 'Luck', but it was not until the Orc Hoarde some five hundred years ago passed through the area leaving a vast swath of wreckage, including Awsland's city, but on coming to the inn, the Orc Warlord Grumak'rak stopped the hoarde here, so he could place his Shield, and great Warclub in the Inn's care did it become clear exactly how far the inn's fame had travelled.  

Among the various contributors were: Grumak'rak shield and Warclub, Awsland's Dagger, dragon Helm, Greatsword, and Platemail.  Belesandra's wooden shield, scimitars, and woodland lore, Celaphan the Barbarian's equipment, Archon the Sorcerer, Meph the wizard, Stuj the warlord, Relic the Great, who burgled the best and was never caught, revealed after his death to be the King of Gladen, High priestess of Yesdreia, Gank, true sword of Brandia and Manuth the Diviner.

The characters went looking for things they could use to protect the town.  They discovered 60 planks, a barrel of nails, a barrel of pitch, a tun of lamp oil, and some clay jars.  They used many of the carts outside of the inn as well as timbers from burned out houses to limit the movements of the attackers, they pounded nails into the boards and laid them on the ground.  They built fires in the fields to let them see further from the inn and they blocked off the bridge.  The only thing they did not think of doing was to build a trap with the oil and the pitch.  I ruled that e bridge was very old and well made of stone and would take longer to destroy than merely lighting it on fire.  They set up the on the inn roof and in the inns paddock to fight the foe, which turned out to be about fifty kobolds and their leader a Dragonborn warrior.

The kobolds came in two waves and in two directions.  They tried to cross the river bridge but it was blocked off and this delayed the second group from attacking.  The first group was injured by the nail boards but piled into the paddock.  They split into two groups and attacked around the barn.  The one group swarmed the fighter and the other swarmed the Gnome.  Both groups were peppered with arrows from the roof and spells.  The fight was briefly interrupted by five winged Kobolds that landed on the roof and attacked the defenders there.  This caused the civilians to run and force the Wood elf to fight them five on one.  The kobolds at the bridge broke through the barricade, making it to the inn just as the first wave was finished off.

The characters had to drink four of their six healing potions as they fought off the Kobolds.  The kobolds fought with advantage as long as there was another Kobold close by.  They swarmed over the fences and they attacked the characters.  The fighter swung his Great sword and killed two kobolds with every swing, the Gnome attacked with scimitar and dagger and killed one or two kobolds with every attack.  When the dust cleared, all e remaining Kobolds were fleeing and then ten more attacked with a Dragonborn leader.  The fighter called out the leader and challenged him to a duel.  They charged forward and clashed, but the enemy did not go down in the attack, even though it was severely injured.  The Dragonborn looked like it was going to bathe the Fighter in fire and cook the fighter in his Platemail, but the wizard just fired a potent Fire bolt at him and finished it off.  

The characters were obligated to give back their borrowed armour, but the stat raises were left in place.  It was an interesting way to make characters.  I might try it again.  The method left the characters with 6 more points higher than the other method that they suggest.  Which would mean that characters would start out with higher stats than they could roll too.  I will make the three characters that missed the session to do the same to get their stats.  Maybe my friend will do it and try for a paladin.  

The truth is I am worried for him, he was e reason why I was running this game and he missed because his Chemotherapy was so bad.  But maybe that is good news.  We can hope.  This was the guy that introduced me to better roleplaying and it was they guy that gave me confidence to run games.  I ran Temple of Elemental Evil for him years ago and many hundreds of hours of Exalted.