Beware the man in red...

...He will bring death and destruction too all he is with. The players in my group have heard this or another form of the prophesy of the man in red who will appear at some point and bring doom with him. I have really only mentioned it in a few spots but they were telling spots.

The "High Septarch of Fallcrest" spoke of the man in red after he interrogated a captured kobold the party had captured. Some of the party talked to a Bronze Dragon while in the town of Gorbizabad while searching for the Slaying Stone hidden there. He also said to the departing group that they would encounter the Man in Red.

Seeing as how some of those party members are now dead and none of the current members know of the three's encounter with the Dragon they really do not know. Spoiler: One of them is still alive, is it the monk or the cleric? Spoilers!

That brings us to yesterdays game, and well to be honest the end of two sessions ago and the last weeks free RPG Day run. The party is in Harkenwold fighting the Iron Circle and they defeated a Dark Adept, Geoffrey the Porter and now fellow adventurer (he was a hireling who has shed his wages for a share in the groups fun) asked for a red surcoat from the adept. After some words with the group he gets the item and puts it on and makes the comment, "Red is the new style, It's cool"

To be totally honest I was struggling with, and still am, who this man is red is. I do not care if my party reads this and they totally think I am being deceptive that is fine. I like a little paranoia at the table from time to time. Thorm's player is totally suspicious and it is a hoot! (10 year old paranoia is funny) No I am not evil.

When they group was asking about the loot off the bodies and I saw Red Surcoat I was like "Geoffrey wants one" I wanted to have a little fun. He had been pulled and coxed into the battle by the Druid Thorm and it made him feel excited. So he all but begged for that outfit. I am now making comments as him about red is cool and giggling about it, my players dislike when I giggle it means I am up to no good.

Well they fought a Skeletal Mage in an old Eladrin sanctuary and found the body of one of their comrades who disappeared fighting Orcs. Geoffrey took a lightning bolt to the chest and they all thought "oh no the minion is dead" only to find out he was playing dead and he got up and helped them fight the mage and his skeleton troops only to take a sword from the "pointy" end and apparently take no damage. When he was offered healing he said "no thanks a good nights rest does the body good"

They seal themselves into the mages lair and rest, Upon waking in the morning they find that some bones of a dragon laying on a table were now animated but Thorm has a waking Dream and the Raven Queen tells him that he owes her for his life and that they must spare the Dracolich because it has work to do. He also notices that the same divine glow surrounding her is surrounding Geoffrey!

Now this is great, Thorm is a 10 year old player and he has been playing D&D for a half a year or so during encounters and he asked to play in my campaign. I agreed, he is also the same player who was killed via player actions after he ran off from the group a few months back. I have been trying to add in more roleplaying that combat to spice things up and to get him out of the one encounter after another mode. When I took him away from the table to talk to him as the Raven Queen about all of this it was special for him. He was also chomping at the bit too tell the rest of the party.

I was having fun because he was exploring his boundary's as a roleplayer with what he could and could not do, he wanted to make insight and perception checks to look at him. I told him he did not need to he just needed to tell me what he was looking for. It did take a few min for us to talk with him about all the little bits of information once he decided to talk to the other members of the party about Geoffrey and his suspicions about him being the man in red.

Right now things are fine, Geoffrey appears to be immortal as Thorm has dubbed it (love it) and they have gone off to war with him. Thorm keeps boosting the ego of Geoffrey so is that a good thing or a bad thing, hey also, I never did say he was a Human Man in Red now did I?

Like I said paranoia is cool

Two for one Day: Table Mechanics - Initiative Order

Table Mechanics:

I have done a lot with tracking things on paper, the chessex battlemat and even a white board and a flip chart. The initiative tacker pictured here came from the Fortune Cards: Shadow Over Nentir Vale from Wizards of the Coast.

I just lay them out (in the order of initiative) with the player/character name and the initiative order and  other defense notes on it. Then as we go along during the turn I move the card in and out of its place to note where we are at in the order.

It seems so simple but I tell you that since I started to use this method I have not really had to tell people to pay attention to the order and they are ready with their turn right away. I have the card in sleeves so I can use a wet erase marker on them. I found any color other than black works well.

I will also be handing this over one of the players to keep track of now that we have it established as a table mechanic.

Another change to happen is the institution of the party leader role. Not just the character type but I have placed a player in this role to keep the party in order and so that the group actually has someone to say yea or nay on things. Prior to this we had issues with the Druid running off and getting beat down by Goblins and killed by the party's wizard or bickering about the direction to head in. Not a new mechanic but something needed to be done, frankly we do not even do that in my normal group I play in. It is mob rule at that table with taking the path the the most to argue for it. Some times the simplest things work

Table Mechanics: Will be a feature I do detailing things I use at the game table.

Previously.

So a lot has happened since the last post. I removed a party member from the game. D&D Encounters is going well and I am hooked on HBO's Game of Thrones.

So the rescue mission happened, the adventure was called: The Musician, the Gardener and the Bear and some of the players who were in attendance had new characters. I introduced the Porter Geoffrey who worked for the ranger to carry her arrows.

The adventure I ran was one I had done before and it was not a difficult one to run, it was the broken tower from Dungeon Delves. It seemed like the easiest and quickest way to take a break from the Slaying Stone and insert it into the game as a quick way to get the players on a rescue mission. After some difficulties trying to get the group together they were off.

The difficulties did not end there though, have you ever had the moment were you are trying to get people ready for the encounter and people are talking over each other on what they want to do? So in Encounter 2 of the Broken tower is the floor that collapses, the ranger wants to run across it and moves midway and I back the player up. Here is where the confusion begins, he gets upset I did this and thinks I am setting him up. I had him step out on the first square and nothing happens and then onto the 2nd square and then it hits. Did I play it wrong? Here is the snippet from the adventure.

Unstable Floor: The 20-by-20-foot center of the room sags dangerously. The entire section collapses

under 20 pounds or more, dropping to area 1 below. Those on the unstable area when it collapses are attacked (+5 vs. Reflex); on a hit they fall 20 feet to the lower area (2d10 damage). On a miss, the character manages to move back to the safe square he or she entered from. Any character who is not  adjacent to a safe square when the floor collapses is automatically hit.
If the floor does collapse, mark the hole by placing two black 2×4 tiles in the center of the room.

After it is all said and done, it might have been played wrong. being on the second square means you are not on a square adjacent to a safe one so you are automatically hit. That is how I ruled it. What I did end up doing was collapsing the whole floor section only because I wanted it out of the way since I knew none of the other players would fall for it. The only real problem was that it involved the player for the Ranger.

Rather than make for the stairs he wanted to be different and try to climb the wall back up. I was flipping through the rule book as the athletics check was done, failed by more than 5? yep so turn ends and next in the initiative order. Well we were not done, he wanted to use his standard action to move up the stairs. So I quoted the rule, got an eye roll and a that is stupid comment (memory is faulty with the stupid comment) and he got up from the table when we moved to the next in order.

Several other events happened, a goblin was knocked down the hole by the bard and landed next to the ranger, since he did not have a melee weapon and did not want to provoke an OA (Opportunity Action) he moved away then was upset that the prone target now had cover for being prone. So he moved up the stairs and then he wanted to shoot at a prone target from up high thinking he would get an advantage. It did not work that way, but I was also trying to look up range penalties for being 20ft high and 20 feet away totally confusing 20ft for 20 squares.

The player then mutters I seem to always seem to be looking up rules for his character and I loose it in my head. Seriously? Now he has stated he was joking with those side comments, joking or not, I did not take it like that. Those comments were exactly what caused the Near TPK the week prior when he "joked" Frank is a killer DM. Only this time I did not lash out and become the killer DM though I might have felt better had I done so. I explained my confusion and even that was not good enough judging by the email I got later.

I still ruled for cover, at level two for a ranger a -2 is hardly a concern. I bring these up because out of all the people at the table I think this player did not understand that a Dungeon Master is the last word on a rule and in the end if it is a wrong call we fix it later. He has said he was afraid of telling me a rule was wrong and that I might take it the wrong way.

Here is what I take the wrong way, when you push back when I am sure the rule is right. When I quote it out of the book it is not me trying to do you wrong. It is not my fault as a dungeon master when you feel like you are not accomplishing anything. I want you to have fun I really do but not everyone is going to shine every week. If he is reading this take that too heart.

After that night I felt kind of bad he said that comment, and maybe I was picking on him. I felt I might have to many problems with his push backs as a player to effectively be a DM for him. I sent him a message that I wanted to talk with him about it. He sent me an email with a round by round account of that above summary of some of the problems. I wanted to talk to him face to face, not in an email, not on the phone. In person to make it personal not via text or even voice on the phone.

So I took that open letter and went for it. Explained everything and made the mistake of thinking he would get it even if I told him I had other players who had done similar things or expressed the same issues like feeling frustrated that they were not accomplishing anything. I received a news flash, he was a unique individual. It was disrespectful of me too compare him to other people. Consider this blog post tame to the one you could have gotten.

Here is my final email to him.

I am going to just say I am not going to be able to be your DM anymore. We can go around and around with this email and honestly I do not think I should say anymore.

I have only ever kicked one person out of my game, to this day I feel bad about it and I talked to my friend Kevin I would like to join us who would bring a great roleplaying element to the table and I bring this up because of him asking me if the one person I ever kicked from my game showed up in the store asking to play would I let him? I said yes.

This player was the second. Do I miss him at the table? I think so, yes I do. Honestly if I could look past his comments at the table he would be welcomed back but I think the result is better. We are making progress in the game sessions. If he came to me in person not via a message and asked to talk I would give him the time of day to explain things even better than just words can do. If he asked to play again, we would have to see how the conversation went that lead to that.

From Behind the Screen:

So I did not know where to go with this post. I was going to dig into the players, my running of the game and some more issues with the game as whole. I then took a day and a half to decide that I was not going to write that.


Oh there will be some player digs in there, I just have to, I would not be the DM I am without it. First I take the blame for the NTPK (Near Total Party Kill) this past Saturday over at Fair Game, the store my game is run at.

I had warned the group it would be tough, probably not well enough it would soon seem. They were slaughtered and I again let the dice fall where they may. I heard a comment of me being a killer DM, funny comment or not, I took it as the not funny comment. See no one was dead yet, there was still healing available. From this point on in the second encounter of the day I chose to do what I do not do. I killed an unconscious player even after I gave them a hint to use the slaying stone. The choice of targets doomed them.

Am I sorry for how I reacted? Should a DM feel sorry for his actions in the game? Was the player I killed a legal target? Yes, the player was a legal target. Should I play it safe and avoid all unconscious PC's to be fair? No, which I guess that means there will not be an apology. When I took down the monk then the mage and left the cleric standing with an orc charging him and ending it because the store needed the table for the MtG Pre-Release that night I ended it with things up in the air. I was mad at that point, my plans were ruined.

So after venting to my friends, venting to myself, and then seeing Thor that night and stewing about it during the movie I came home 5 hours later and wrote on the store forums. I had some very tough constructive criticism on how they played that day and put down the choices they made. See as the DM it is pretty easy to think they made stupid decisions and play the Saturday Night Dungeon Master when you review those memories of the days game in your head.

I am not trying to start another fire here, it has taken me like three days just to make this post. I have decided on a rescue mission to save the lives of a few of them, this is not some DM Fiat that I am using to make up for what happened. Some of the players will be using new characters and probably will become quite attached to their new characters by the time we see them rescued if at all. Who knows, maybe this is a plot of the man in red.

This would be right up his alley, oh and I guess the Raven Queen got at least one soul.

Truth be Told

Most of my friends know I have dealt with depression almost everyday of my adult life.

For a long time I let it get the best of me, now most days I it does not even cross my mind, it is there though, that random thought of wondering am I OK? I have had all the emotional symptoms, all the signs like sleeping a lot or things I used to like I no longer can stand. Yes I even thought about the topic that puts you into the hospital. Quite honestly, I am sure more people than you think have actually thought about it as well and sadly even more have done the unthinkable and committed suicide.

I always made sure that I added in my thoughts that it was stupid of me to think of it. I knew I would hurt more people than myself.  You know the "Stop feeling sorry for yourself kind of talk," Sometimes though, you just get tired.

It has been about eight years or so since my doctor put me into the hospital over concerns with what I might do. I just felt tired, he had me on this diet and I was totally confused by it. Sodium restriction (which if you try and eliminate it ends you up in a whole heap of trouble) and so I was eating less and less and drinking lots of water and before you know it the dreaded, Electrolyte Imbalance, and you start thinking crazy. I just told him I was tired, I said "I don't know what to do", I was restless, I could not sleep had not slept well for over a year. I was so tired, I was snippy and was hardly talking to anyone but my friends Neal and Dennis.

I was tired, did I mention that? The signs were all there and I was ignoring them. I had been hooked on the game Darkage of Camelot, an MMO. I had pretty much stopped playing it. I spent my days now unemployed and walking the mall everyday. When I was laid off, I got a lot of money, I had unemployment extensions because of the 9/11 extension program because my industry was hit by the aftermath (travel industry) and I was not hurting for money. Yet I was just not seeing that I was depressed, watching TV all day I could tell the time by the shows on tv, it was background noise.

My sister says she noticed it, my friends noticed it but they could not put their fingers on it. I was coming undone and while I unraveled no one could keep me together. Simple things would set me off, it was always while I was alone. Even when I lost 90 pounds in a matter of weeks no one said anything, I just stayed away from people, I cut myself off from the world. I still played my online games, I just had a falling out with my friend Rich over a dumb thing that I said. I felt like he was trying to rip me off or something like that. I do not remember. I was loosing my tabletop gaming friends down in Peotone. I was not seeing my close friends and I was emotionally wasting away.

The funny thing about those electrolyte imbalances and the crazy things you will do, at the hospital I started getting decent meals in me. I went from a wreck into a ball of energy who paced the hallways of the ward I was in, even when everyone was sleeping I was up walking. If I kept walking I would be ok, if I slept I dreamed, and I was seriously thinking my dreams were not dreams. But as I ate better I balanced out, oh the sleeping problems continued but I was not thinking my dreams were real.

Where am I going with this? Well I just needed to get it out there, I keep some things bottled up and this is one of them. There is a stigma that people with depression are scary or that we are contagious or do not mention it because we might fall apart.

I kept it close to my belt when at work, sometimes and yes sometimes talking about it gets me emotional. I grew up not wanting to cry, it was not manly. Oh when I become a drama queen I am in the midst of depression, ask my sister, better yet don't she might have stories to tell.

So what about gaming? Yeah I have stepped back from it in the past, I do not see it as a cause I see it as a release. When I wrote about Jovian Chronicles a few days ago, that was during a point in my life after my mom died that I had some of my most creative periods in my life. Am I creatively burned out now? No I do not need to be depressed to be a brilliant or deep thinker. It just did not hinder me like that. Some of my best roleplaying happened in that period as well, but so did a lot of tension with my group. I dug deep for inspiration.

There are days when I think things suck, work sucks, I am living a horrible life right now and things won't get any better. Then I think about others who are worse off than me, who are really sick or out of a job and I suck it up and give it the stiff upper lip and all that bullshit. It does not take away the hurt and I cry or scream and possibly sing a few songs in the car until I go horse and the laugh about it.

I think the best thing for me right now is that I found a game store I can run D&D twice a week. I am really grateful for that chance. My gaming group has all but dried up and we rarely do anything anymore. I see that I am making people happy, helping people from their everyday woes and putting smiles on their faces at the end of the day. When I got told the other day how much I am helping the youngest kid at my table it made me happy. Really happy... no not happy, proud, happy is the mask I put on everyday. Proud is a difficult thing for me to comprehend. I am my own worse critic, I might feel I am doing the worst job ever only to be told that it is one of the best things I have ever done.

So running D&D on Saturdays has helped me even more, it gets me out of the house and I am getting to flex my creative muscles again. This weekend I was thanked by everyone for running my game, it made me feel awkward to be sure, no offense intended, I should be thanking them for playing in my game. Even with my reputation of being a killer DM. All kidding aside it is an honor for me to run my game, it is nothing special, really it is not. As long my players are happy I am happy, and that is not my mask I am putting on. You want to see the real me? When I am at that table that is me.

Got a question? Do not be afraid to ask.

The monday design

So I have been thinking about "fun" games and I thought I would add this little treat for people in my games. One of the fun D&D adventures I had the chance to play in as a kid was Expedition to the Barrier Peaks. It had futuristic weapons and enemies and it was all around fun.

When Gamma World came out last year I instantly wondered how a 4e treatment of it would be. So I made a simple minion just to test it. Very simple and to the point.

My thoughts for the sergeant would be that he has an encounter power that he can have a minion ally take a free ranged attack against his marked target.

Edit: And I went and did it. I thought about the marking and chose not to do it. The vs. Reflex might get changes. I used Gamma World as an inspiration for the laser attacks, which I might reconsider at some point.

There are some minor edits I need to make but this is the final versions that I might use at some point in a game if I were to run a return to Barrier Peaks

May First: Justice Day

It has almost been 10 years. May 1st 2011 marks Justice Day