We have different game styles, mine is an answer to his own and his own is his own. He likes story driven advancement, meaning you get to advance your character when he thinks that you need a new level, not when you earned it. Like when at third level we defeated a troll, five goblins, 50 orcs, and five über Orcs, we were still at third level. Verses, two sessions and two level gains, but really, the first session they fought 20 goblins and two hobgoblins, defeated a trap and solved a mystery, and the next session they fought some bugbears and 20 goblins and defeated a Minotaur, so I figure they earned the level rises each time. My friend thought we were advancing too quickly, that I was advancing them because he is dying. It was true, I intend to make this a quick campaign, I want to compress a lot into one summer for the kids and their dad before he dies, and I know what kids think is fun. But I want the father, my friend to have fun too. He texted me this morning saying that his son was talking about the adventure the next day, because he had so much fun.
The first session was just me and him; he wanted to make sure that the kid's characters fit with them, how he thought they would like. Which is good. His son was a ranger, which meant risk adverse but strong fighting ability good for him. His race was a home brew Elf Character, a yellow elf, changed to Amber Elf for him. Tall and thin, blond hair with bronzed skin, a grown up version of him. Special abilities speed and armour class so he was more durable and faster than everyone else. And he got a free useful pet dire wolf, which is a break from the racial benefit, because dire wolves are not herd animals.
His daughter was going to be a rogue, eventually a swashbuckler. Her race was a home brew as well, urban Halfling, gets a free unique feat called Scrounger which allows her to have 50% chance to have a useful item in her pocket at any time and advantage on slight of hand checks, bonus skill of slight of hand at double proficiency, and lastly a free cantrip Vicious Mockery; I essentially recreated the Kender from Dragonlance.
My friend wanted to game too, so we gamed, but the adventure that I had planned was not going to take more than two hours to play, and the kids were not going to be joining us so I had to stretch out the plan and add to it. But that was fine, because as I said, he likes to roleplay, so we did his intermediary adventures, moving from his home to his finding his group and starting the adventure. That was a lot of time, but it allowed me to introduce some specific world plot points to him that he was unaware of, like the deity structure, the world structure, and a few other things like slavery in the world— which is one of those things that most campaign worlds gloss over if they even mention it. I also got to introduce the machinations of the Olgiarchs of the town they were in, how some guilds were on ascendance and others in decline and that new powerful guilds were trying to keep power and e older smaller guilds were trying to tear them apart and split them into smaller guilds to change the power balance. Political stuff that if the game went off as it was supposed to would appeal to Natural20's husband, I hoped. The goal was to provide depth to e world and thus realism that is important to adults. Kids want monsters and fights, kids are easy. I got to introduce the idea of accurate astrology, which my friend hates. He hates the idea that someone can predict his actions and that he is fated to do something.
That's the thing; it is fantasy. The fantastic gets to be real. You are the hero is the first fantastic thing in a fantasy. RPGs also have gods with proof, they grant spells therefore they are real. There is proof that there are gods see what I can do becuase of gods. Astrology is fake, but in fantasy it can be real and demonstrable; if I have an accurate horoscope of someone, I can tell what you will have for breakfast next week, but the key is accurate. I said to him a Diviner Mage can tell what is behind a door because he casts a spell that taps into the perfect horoscope for that room beyond the door so he knows what is there. But you could commission an astrologer to do the same, and if they are good, you will know what is behind that door when you get there too. So the oligarchs had a mission they needed accomplished and they were waiting for the right people to be found to accomplish the task, ones that are fated to succeed, as so many have failed. The mission is to infiltrate a ruined city, abandoned five centuries ago and to find the treasure of the king who made the city great, his mythic treasure maps, which were thought to have been lost these thousand years…
That was the mission and there was lots of roleplaying to get there. The trip took a week to get to the site, nine days, and there they met a man who told them of a place not far from the city that would serve as a good place to make camp, a good clean spring and safety from the weather. They asked him to guide them there and to take their cart and horses back to his dwelling with him. He agreed and they set out the next day. The place was all that he claimed it was, but cramped. They set watch and prepared to set out the next day. In the night, e elf discovered a patrol of goblins near the camp and he alerted th rest. They tracked the goblins down and attacked them in their hole. Unfortunately, there were traps and the entire abandoned temple went into lockdown and all the doorways were blocked off and the characters were trapped with the goblins. The five in the room they were in were quickly killed, but the doors were locked down. They cleaned off the offal plastered to the walls because they saw a mosaic and words. The walls were cleaned and a door unlocked, they went into that room and killed the five goblins in there then they cleaned the mosaics in there and uncovered more words. That unlocked the third room and they entered that room to encounter the goblin's leaders, two hobgoblins and two goblins with an altar and a statue. They killed the enemies but the one full player went down and required the NPC cleric to revive him. Once the room was defeated the PCs figured out the phrase to say before the altar and that unlocked the secret door! The words said were also the words to join the knighthood of the Order of Awsland. The Paladin joined the order by saying the words and he received the benefits of the Order. The ability to fight magic vulnerable creatures and influence over the people descended from Awsland. They also found a completely secure campsite with a secret entrance and a secret exit, complete with clean water and bed chambers. Oh and a level gain, 1200xp/4
Oh and a blessing by the Hidden Goddess for uncovering the secrets of the Order of Awsland, lost for 500 years. The paladin selected a spell of a higher level than he could cast once. What? He said. I explained the blessing system and I got a, "that is so cool!" out of him. And then followed by a "Why have I never thought of that?". And "I should have thought of that". Then I explained the mechanics and asked for refinement advice, explaining that e greater gods were morality concept based, the god of law, the god of Chaos, the god of Good, the god of evil and so on. Only the greater gods and they had secret quests and secret blessings that give out rewards based on the challenge. Another cool.
The second session, they set forth the next day headed toward the city. They kids played this time without their father, because he needed to go out for a bit. They were very silly but we got though a combat with some Kobolds and when their father returned they quieted down, but he was on edge. That was the way we progressed. I spread out a large map of the city they could see and explained what they saw. Everything was flat except the red lines which marked the roads and the walls and important buildings— they were all ruined and fallen over and covered with grass and dirt so were just hills. So the red marks were mounds disguising the ruins. The green was stands of trees, mostly cottonwood trees because this was a desolate prairie location, but with the occasional tree too. The blue was water lakes and rivers. The black was the outlines of standing buildings.
They passed by the large green area that was confined to straight edges and corners and found there to be skeletons mowing the grass and tending the trees and the monuments. They left it and went deeper into the ruins. At the first lake they encountered foot prints in the mud and the ranger started picking out all the different monsters that visited this patch of ground, kobolds, goblins, hobgoblins, bugbears and dragon kin. At this point they decided that the Oligarchs had sent them on a suicide mission. They continued and discovered the central plateau with the palace. They were cautious and looked at the first building and saw writing on the building with clay. The Ranger looked at the words and he determined that he could read them. They were Draconic and stated that Goblins live here. They quickly discussed options and determined they should at least look to see how many goblins were in here, if they were even in there. They sent two stealthy people to look around the building and report back. The ranger snuck through the tall grass and reported back that there was a goblin on guard at an entrance. The Halfling came back to say there was a Kobold talking to twelve goblins and one bugbear. The idea that there mig be an alliance between the two groups inspired them enough to attack and discover as much as they could. The ranger and the rogue headed out to ambush the sentry. The ranger missed, but the rogue killed the sentry. The party snuck up to the entryway in the building to spy upon the group talking. They decided that a fight might be a good thing to do.
They surprised the goblins and won imitative too. They decided to position the cleric so he could spray the goblins with his powerful spell, Burning Hands. The plan was a good one, but the goblins failed to cooperate and the players left a large opening in the killing zone, which they boiled through and turned the tables on them. The players were almost all flanked at one point in the battle and they all took a critical hit from the goblins, but the paladin killed the bugbear with a powerful hit when he channelled his spell into a divine strike and burned the bugbear dead. The goblins who saw this ran away, to get reinforcements. But at still left another six goblins. There was a total of eighteen goblins, one Kobold, and a bugbear in the battle, the Kobold fled and the fleeing goblins brought two more bugbears and however many hobgoblins they had with them. The remaining six were slowly killed over three more rounds and the party decided to retreat. Twelve dead goblins plus six fleeing 18x50xp bugbear 200, that is 1100 xp, plus they were out numbered big time and that means that they would get triple xp, but I decided against that, there was the four kobolds, dead earlier and the one that fled, 125xp and the guard 50, for 1225 exp. They decided that that was enough for that day and ran away, um retreated. When they retreated they saw that they were being followed from the air and the elf shot it down with an arrow, another 50xp. It was a winged Kobold. They decided that their earlier assessment was true, a suicide mission. But they rested the night and another day and headed into the city from a different route. Their first stop was to the goblin lair which they found deserted, odd. They then headed on to the Palace. There they found words in Draconic with emphasis and urgency, stating grave danger and to turn back immediately, which they did not, because they had to see for themselves. They were cautious and say a silhouette in the entrance, a Kobold. The Kobold was holding a bow and was drawing it back and was stuck their. Closer they noticed that it was turned to stone! And there was half a dozen other stone kobolds right there as well. They decided not to go in there.
They went to another building and found more warning signs, but less dire. They also found the entrances walled up with loose stone. The characters pulled down the wall and went in anyways. They found a set of stairs going down and then another and they found themselves in a sewer system which was strangely in very good condition, no roots and clean. Not too clean and not polished clean. There was water flowing in the bottom of the tunnel and the whole thing was six feet in diameter. They went exploring with little rhyme or reason. They were looking for the reason why the Kobolds had closed off the ruin. They did discover the reason why the sewers were so clean. There were skeletons cleaning the sewer for the last five hundred or more years. Wanting a bit of action the characters fought the cleaning crew for some excitement. They defeated them easily. Bunt the noise of the encounter drew attention to themselves. They heard a Mighty roar echo down the sewer. They knew, just knew this was going to be bad, so they turned and ran noting that they had failed to mark the path as they came in. To bad they had not brought chalk! Chalk, oh I have chalk, the halfling said rooting around in her pocket and bringing it forth, too late. They guess at which way they had come, wishing for mud that could have left tracks to tell them which way to go. A snort and a roar followed them catching up to them. They turned to fight as a Minotaur with a gleaming Great Axe came charging toward them. The great beast was encumbered by the ceiling, only six feet tall it did not easily hold his nine foot frame so he attacked at disadvantage and only hit once, nearly killing the paladin. The paladin used his spells for smites that brought him low, the Minotaur fought recklessly and they were able to defeat it: 700xp. I awarded them experience for discovering elements of the story and for not fighting the medusa, yes the medusa that would have wiped the party out. And gave them another level.
Next time they will take another way into the city and perhaps pass by the strangely completely intact building…
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