Nice day for a drive!

 

 

Hope everyone is having a great weekend!!

5E Campaign Session 1-2

 We resumed our 5E game last night.  Lots of fun.  

  "The Humble Travelers"    back row from L to R  Orreg "Bearkiller" Thuliaga - Goliath Fighter, Adria- Aasimar Druid,  Sallouisa "Sally"- Human Cleric of the Raven Queen, and on front row, the mysterious Aldebaran- a half-elf Sorcerer.

    The party took a side trek. Prior to leaving town, an elderly lady asked Adria the Druid to check on a small farm and blacksmith out on the edge of civilization, the lady was worried that her daughter, son-in-law (a black smith) and 7 year old granddaughter hadn't check in in weeks. The party found the farm initially deserted, but soon stirred up a bunch of nasty giant flies. They were soon overrun by an assortment of giant nasty flies! With no sign of the family that lived there.  

Bigger flies swarmed out of the barn! The party engaged in pitched battle, and things looked grim but through teamwork and luck managed to kill off the flies. 

A large hole was found in the back of the barn going down into the ground! They thought they heard a little girl down in the hole...crying!! Aldebaran advised they leave! But the others especially the cleric would have none of that!

Session 2 

Exploring the tunnels.. trying to find the little girl led to the Orreg getting overwhelmed by Giant Maggots, while the cleric was engulfed by a swarm of Giant Maggot Grubs!!  

      Orreg the Goliath and Sallouisa the Cleric of the Raven Queen go down, monsters munch, leading to failed Death Saves... things look grim!!!   (At this point I thought I was going to see two character deaths!)...

Fortunately Adria had finagled a healing potion from an apothecary while in town and used it just in time to revive Sallouisa, who then healed Orreg just in time to save him from death! Aldebaran and Adria joined the battle and the vile creatures were destroyed, but the cleric and sorcerer were diseased, Orreg and Sallouisa were badly injured...then a small girl with a dead lamb draped over her soldiers approached them from the dark tunnel...she clutched a doll... Aldebaran realized it wasn't a doll but something far more sinister!!!

5E Campaign Session One

 Hello everyone,

 Last night we played our first session of our new 5E Campaign.  

     Everyone agreed that having had a Session Zero really helped them get into the scope and intent of the Campaign, as well as, have solid character concepts and builds prior to last night.  Part of our Session Zero involved me asking the players their preferences in game play. I realized while I like a lot of combat in my games, my players were more of a mixture of role play, puzzles, exploration and some combat. In my preparations for Session One, I factored all of these into the session and I think it worked out well.  

     I let the player's know that this was not an adventure path type of campaign, instead their characters would be driving the story, in a sandbox type of setting.  In our Session Zero the players had helped develop the starting region, the small Kingdom of Valorn, in the small human (mostly) town of Bastion right on the edge of the kingdom near the dangerous Borderlands.  I provided several different potential adventure leads to the characters prior to them leaving town, and they got a lot more accomplished in the 4.5 hours of play than I expected. Fortunately I had done a good bit of prep and was prepared. 

I present our party "The Humble Travelers"    back row from L to R  Orreg "Bearkiller" Thuliaga - Goliath Fighter, Adria- Aasimar Druid,  Sallouisa "Sally"- Human Cleric of the Raven Queen, and on front row, the mysterious Aldebaran- a half-elf..that claims to be a simple woodsman, but has shown some spell casting abilities...

     We play again in two weeks and everyone seems to be excited!   It felt fantastic to be doing in person gaming again!

Good Gaming - B.B.

5E Session Zero!

                 Yeah, my DM Dice box has gotten out of hand....

 
 This last Saturday was interesting on the gaming front for several reasons.  First and foremost a return to face to face gaming after a long hiatus. Second, I was asked to run a 5E game for a group of good friends.  I'm an OSR guy, but after discussion and thought I agreed to run 5E.  For me the most important thing is the people at the table, and this was a chance to run for a great group of folks.  The last, but not least item of interest was we met but did not actually play per se. Instead I had an official Session Zero. I've never actually organized or done a true Session Zero before.  I've done group campaign building, and variations of that, but we followed a pre-worked agenda/outline I worked up, asking players key questions about their gaming styles, preferences, likes and dislikes.  Even learned some new things about people I've known for years.  Then we worked in broad strokes on the starting campaign area, then we did character creation. Gaming schedules were hashed out, house rules, what to do in event of character death or player absence. Etc...

Bit of organized character creation

My Dice of Death & Dismemberment arrived that day, so we had a serious chat about using them or not...we worked out a compromise.

     By the end of the evening, everyone was excited about their characters and the campaign. Since Saturday,  I've received multiple messages from the players saying how much they enjoyed having a Session Zero and how it helped them better formulate their character and how to come together as a group.  Looking forward to this campaign!

- Good Gaming! B.B.