This is normally Justisaur's thread, but since he hasn't bothered to
ask in almost a half-a-year (really slackin' on the job there!) I
guess I'll start it up again. Just don't expect this to be my usual
thing; I already got a similar gig that keeps me busy enough in
another newsgroup ;-)

So, just a chance to talk about our various D&D-related activities:
any sessions we played, books we bought, people we've met, adventures
we've written, miniatures we've painted, whatever.

Me, I managed a few of session in the last six months with my two
groups. Unfortunately, as already lamented in a different thread,
these may be the last such sessions in a good while due to the recent
viral unpleasantness going about. On the other hand, maybe the break
will give me time to plan out a few adventures ahead. As you'll learn,
I may need that extra time...


-----
Group #1 continues to roam the wilderness of the Northland. After a
grueling dungeon quest last time, they mostly stayed above ground and
hobnobbed with the locals. The land they are in is sort of an "Atlantis-back-up-from-the-sea", a long-lost empire magically renewed
in an earlier campaign. Said empire had long been talked about in
hushed tones (and mentioned frequently in passing over the two decades
we've been playing together), but the reality of the place is
(purposely) not living up to the legend. Rather than being people of
great nobility, the inhabitants are, well... people, with all their
foibles and vices.

We broke in a new PC - a piratey corsair, rather incongruously located
as the party is far inland - and the group generally mucked about and
got in trouble with the locals, as adventurers are wont to do. From a
gaming perspective, its easy to say that nothing of real import was accomplished - no dungeons raided, no evil villains slain, no major
artifacts recovered - but it helped set up things for the next
adventure. Assuming we ever get another adventure <grumble rumble
virus mumble>. Regardless, we all had fun.


-----
Group #2's adventure was more portentous. This campaign has also been
going on for a few years (the key to long running adventures? Don't
meet so often ;-) and it ended in a way I did not expect. Essentially,
the campaign was set in and around an occupied city, a little bit
based on Beruit (and a lot based on Sanctuary of the old Thieves World anthologies, if anyone remembers those). It was a place of many
different factions, and while none of the groups were outright evil,
still, some of the factions were worse than the others.

In this case, the main factions were the Duke, the General, the
CrimeLord and the Vizier. The Duke was the leader of the occupying
forces: foreigners in a strange land, holding land that didn't belong
to them but largely noble in nature even if they were there mostly for
their own gain. The General was the leader of the Duke's mercenary
army; disdainful of non-soldiers, often cruel, but still not without a
sense of honor, he had a hidden purpose beyond supporting his
paymaster. The Crime-lord was, well, a crime-lord; largely unconcerned
with politics, still in some ways she was the voice of the
undertrodden and poor. The Vizier was descendant of those who had once
ruled the city; rich, sleazy and ingratiating, his goal was to return
the city to control of the local nobility (with him at the head, of
course). Part of the campaign was to make it so the PCs could ally
with any of the four factions since all of them had their good and bad
sides, but honestly, the vizier was the "evil" choice. Narcistic, short-tempered, and selfish, he had little respect for non-nobility
and foreigners, and the PCs were both. So I had little expectation
that they'd ever side with them.

The previous adventures had slowly but surely been leading up to a
final confrontation; one that inevitably the PCs would play a role in.
The party had, over time, amassed enough allies that they were a
faction unto themselves (albeit a small one) and the weight of their
alliance would tilt the balance in favor of one side or the other.
They'd long since burnt their bridges with the Crime-lord, and
relations between them and the General were rocky at best, so
ultimately it was a battle between the Duke and the Vizier. But nobody
could /possibly/ choose the slimy, racist, populist vizier (I
thought), so I didn't really put much planning into what would happen
if he won.

You can guess what happened, right? /OF COURSE/ the players chose the
vizier. I had enough of the adventure planned that I could account for
their decision; the end result was the other factions were either
driven out (Duke, General) or forced underground (Crimelord), but I
never really planned for what would happen AFTER the vizier won (there
were numerous post-campaign adventure hooks for the other factions,
just not for the vizier winning). So I'm really not sure where to take
the campaign after this. I may just stop it here and we'll resume
(assuming we ever get to play again!) a few years later, in some other
part of the world, with new characters. The old characters will still
be around and we may bump into them but (as returning PCs or as NPCs)
but for the most part it may be time to clean the slate. I find that a
useful tactic when I've written myself into a corner.

Players. Go figure. After all these years, I still can't decide if the
game is better with or without 'em ;-)

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On Sunday, March 22, 2020 at 4:14:30 PM UTC-7, Spalls Hurgenson wrote:

This is normally Justisaur's thread, but since he hasn't bothered to
ask in almost a half-a-year (really slackin' on the job there!) I
guess I'll start it up again. Just don't expect this to be my usual
thing; I already got a similar gig that keeps me busy enough in
another newsgroup ;-)

So, just a chance to talk about our various D&D-related activities:
any sessions we played, books we bought, people we've met, adventures
we've written, miniatures we've painted, whatever.

Me, I managed a few of session in the last six months with my two
groups. Unfortunately, as already lamented in a different thread,
these may be the last such sessions in a good while due to the recent
viral unpleasantness going about. On the other hand, maybe the break
will give me time to plan out a few adventures ahead. As you'll learn,
I may need that extra time...

I haven't been doing an awful lot, Just PBP on rpol.net. Apperantly not much has happened in the game I'm in since that last update 6 months ago. We fought some wererats - fortunately our dwarf fighter had a magic weapon and managed to fight them off.
And we just went to a faire where the same dwarf did a discus contest and got in 3rd place. My Druid is still 3rd level.

I started a mashup of B/X and GW (LL+ASE+MF) on rpol.net as well, I started them with 6k xp so they'd have ~3 levels.

They blew a bunch of money in a casino to start off with and had to come up with a plan to get out of it, fortunately the scientist was able to repair their barely working player piano in exchange for the remainder of their bill they couldn't pay.

They got through the first combat barely, which I tossed the 5 of them up against 13 goblins in their travel. It was looking like it was going be a bit rough, but the goblins fortunately failed a morale check when half of them were dead. I didn't play
them very well, I probably could've TPK'd the party if I'd had them fight smarter, but goblins aren't very smart anyway. They don't have any casters in the party, so that takes away a bit of their ability to deal with large mobs - a sleep spell would've
taken out a few to begin with at least. One of them had a wand of wonder which gave them time though as they rolled 'darkness' which temporarily took out 5 of the goblins. I figured goblins were worse off in magical darkness because they normally can
see even in the dark so don't ever experience actual loss of sight so it took a couple rounds for them to stumble out of it.

No clerics or anyone who can heal either (the scientist can repair robots, but no robots in the party.

I had the kids start making up characters in Holmes basic, but didn't finish. The son wanted to reroll his 1 hp and I let him, and I steered them toward the characters their rolls were better for, a cleric for my son who wanted to play an M-U, and an M-
U for my daughter who wanted to play a halfling. I'm regretting both decisions and have a mental block on wanting to go further or tossing them and starting over.

- Justisaur

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On Mon, 23 Mar 2020 16:45:40 -0700 (PDT), Justisaur
<justisaur@gmail.com> wrote:

On Sunday, March 22, 2020 at 4:14:30 PM UTC-7, Spalls Hurgenson wrote:

This is normally Justisaur's thread, but since he hasn't bothered to
ask in almost a half-a-year (really slackin' on the job there!) I
guess I'll start it up again. Just don't expect this to be my usual
thing; I already got a similar gig that keeps me busy enough in
another newsgroup ;-)

So, just a chance to talk about our various D&D-related activities:
any sessions we played, books we bought, people we've met, adventures
we've written, miniatures we've painted, whatever.

Me, I managed a few of session in the last six months with my two
groups. Unfortunately, as already lamented in a different thread,
these may be the last such sessions in a good while due to the recent
viral unpleasantness going about. On the other hand, maybe the break
will give me time to plan out a few adventures ahead. As you'll learn,
I may need that extra time...

I haven't been doing an awful lot, Just PBP on rpol.net. Apperantly not
much has happened in the game I'm in since that last update 6 months
ago. We fought some wererats - fortunately our dwarf fighter had a
magic weapon and managed to fight them off. And we just went to a
faire where the same dwarf did a discus contest and got in 3rd place. My Druid is still 3rd level.

I have Epic Table, but my players don't have time... even with us in
self isolation.

Oh, I added the carriage returns to your post.

--
Jim

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On Monday, March 23, 2020 at 10:14:30 AM UTC+11, Spalls Hurgenson wrote:

This is normally Justisaur's thread, but since he hasn't bothered to
ask in almost a half-a-year (really slackin' on the job there!) I
guess I'll start it up again. Just don't expect this to be my usual
thing; I already got a similar gig that keeps me busy enough in
another newsgroup ;-)

So, just a chance to talk about our various D&D-related activities:
any sessions we played, books we bought, people we've met, adventures
we've written, miniatures we've painted, whatever.

My twice yearly reunion with the Uni crowd happened 3 weeks back.
We finished off book 2 of Way Of The Wicked where we successfully defeated the forces of goodness and returned the demon lord of disease to the world.

and I discovered that despite all my planning for my Dark Tapestry Oracle to get up into people's faces and smack them (commonly while polymorphed into a dinosaur) I'm instead spending most of my time, buffing people, removing debuffs and trying to heal
the !#$@#$! superstitious barbarian...

We also played a bit of Rotted Capes where my ex-assassin with phasing powers and his group stopped a person driven mad by zombie controlling technology and destroyed a super-zombie but that's not particularly D&D related

You can guess what happened, right? /OF COURSE/ the players chose the
vizier. I had enough of the adventure planned that I could account for
their decision; the end result was the other factions were either
driven out (Duke, General) or forced underground (Crimelord), but I
never really planned for what would happen AFTER the vizier won (there
were numerous post-campaign adventure hooks for the other factions,
just not for the vizier winning). So I'm really not sure where to take
the campaign after this. I may just stop it here and we'll resume
(assuming we ever get to play again!) a few years later, in some other
part of the world, with new characters. The old characters will still
be around and we may bump into them but (as returning PCs or as NPCs)
but for the most part it may be time to clean the slate. I find that a
useful tactic when I've written myself into a corner.

Players. Go figure. After all these years, I still can't decide if the
game is better with or without 'em ;-)

Yeah, players are weird.
I ran a Mutants and Masterminds game over Discord today (I imagine it'd be easier if I didn't have major hearing loss) and when they tracked a member of the gang they were looking for they bought drugs off him and 2 characters sampled the drugs

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On Wed, 25 Mar 2020 05:13:07 -0700 (PDT), hamish.laws@gmail.com wrote:

On Monday, March 23, 2020 at 10:14:30 AM UTC+11, Spalls Hurgenson wrote:

This is normally Justisaur's thread, but since he hasn't bothered to
ask in almost a half-a-year (really slackin' on the job there!) I
guess I'll start it up again. Just don't expect this to be my usual
thing; I already got a similar gig that keeps me busy enough in
another newsgroup ;-)

You can guess what happened, right? /OF COURSE/ the players chose the
vizier. I had enough of the adventure planned that I could account for
their decision; the end result was the other factions were either
driven out (Duke, General) or forced underground (Crimelord), but I
never really planned for what would happen AFTER the vizier won (there
were numerous post-campaign adventure hooks for the other factions,
just not for the vizier winning). So I'm really not sure where to take
the campaign after this. I may just stop it here and we'll resume
(assuming we ever get to play again!) a few years later, in some other
part of the world, with new characters. The old characters will still
be around and we may bump into them but (as returning PCs or as NPCs)
but for the most part it may be time to clean the slate. I find that a
useful tactic when I've written myself into a corner.

Players. Go figure. After all these years, I still can't decide if the
game is better with or without 'em ;-)

Yeah, players are weird.

I ran a Mutants and Masterminds game over Discord today (I
imagine it'd be easier if I didn't have major hearing loss) and when
they tracked a member of the gang they were looking for they bought
drugs off him and 2 characters sampled the drugs

Personally, I love it when the players derail the plot (well, so long
as its narratively constructive). Their chosing an option I didn't
consider is one of the things that makes the game so endlessly
fascinating. It is co-operative storytelling at its best!

But as a DM, it is also very frustrating as you watch your hours of
preparation get flushed down the tubes and suddenly have to wing it. I
take pride in my games and presentation, and when forced to generate
new encounters and situations on the fly - well, I know they aren't of
quite the same quality as my prepared adventures and the frustatration
I feel is as much from my disappointing my players with such shoddy
narrative as it is from all the extra work it means for me.

It's why I tend to overwrite all my adventures; I do my best to plan
for as many alternatives as I can think of. Even when the players
inevitably find some unexpected alternative, all myextra effort
usually allows me to build up a new narrative around their choice.
Such was the case in their last adventure; I had a path ready for if
they chose to side with the Vizier, and the adventure came to a
successful conclusion. The problem is that - since I hadn't expected
anyone to really chose that sleazeball - I hadn't followed those ideas
forward enough that I could reliably continue that campaign, at least
not in anyway I'd find narratively satisifying and fun.

So basically all I am asking is that, if players do intend to derail
my campaign, they really should give me advance warning first! ;-)

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

spallshurgenson@gmail.com wrote:

This is normally Justisaur's thread, but since he hasn't bothered to
ask in almost a half-a-year (really slackin' on the job there!) I
guess I'll start it up again. Just don't expect this to be my usual
thing; I already got a similar gig that keeps me busy enough in
another newsgroup ;-)

So, just a chance to talk about our various D&D-related activities:
any sessions we played, books we bought, people we've met, adventures
we've written, miniatures we've painted, whatever.

We had our monthly game as scheduled until they closed the venue until
the Wuhan Flu pandemic arrived. We did a Christmas-themed one-shot in
December and fought slaydeer and evil elves armed with sharp candy
canes and wrapping paper of entangling, all lead by a demon-possessed
Santa Claus at the north pole. The next month, we had a campaign
cross-over in which a powerful LE worshipper of Asmodious with a Deck
of Many Things set up camp nearby in order to collect resources for
his war against the demon-fey invading his world. No one drew anything
very interesting, except for a Void, Donjun, and Balance card. Our
obnoxious dwarf bard drew the last two. I was willing to cut our
losses, but the group decided to rescue Havok, so the next month, we
made a one-way trip to some sort of nullspace that changes whenever you
take a Long Rest. We found his soul and were going to find his his body
but they issued the quarentine order and we haven't played since
February.

I may have mentioned my Monday game, but it broke up around Decemeber,
mostly because the others weren't productive and we had gotten
girlfriends or married or moved out of town. I think I may have
mentioned how we stopped Caydon from becoming a gawd?

In our weekly game at Burrito Boarders, the newbie DM finished HOARD OF
TIAMAT, one of the worst-written adventures I've played and we started RESURRECTION OF TIAMAT, the final part of the campaign. We lost some
players, but they were being disruptive to the game, so we're actually
being productive now. After they closed restaurants due to the Wuhan
Flu, we switched to playing online with Roll20 and using Discord for
the audio portion. I am not sure why we did that, but I think we
couldn't make the Roll20 audio work or we were already using Discord
for the campaign between sessions.

--
Every American should want President Trump and his administration to
handle the coronavirus epidemic effectively and successfully. Those who
seem eager to see the president fail and to call every administration
misstep a fiasco risk letting their partisanship blind them to the
demands not only of civic responsibility but of basic decency.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On Saturday, April 11, 2020 at 7:37:21 AM UTC+10, Ubiquitous wrote:

Every American should want President Trump and his administration to
handle the coronavirus epidemic effectively and successfully.

Everybody would have liked to have seen that.
It hasn't happened

Those who
seem eager to see the president fail and to call every administration
misstep a fiasco risk letting their partisanship blind them to the
demands not only of civic responsibility but of basic decency.

You classifying
- ignoring the pandemic response plan
- cutting the program for emergency production of medical protective gear
- doing nothing to build up levels of medical protective gear for the pandemic etc
missteps?

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On Saturday, April 11, 2020 at 1:38:07 PM UTC+10, hamis...@gmail.com wrote:

On Saturday, April 11, 2020 at 7:37:21 AM UTC+10, Ubiquitous wrote:

Every American should want President Trump and his administration to
handle the coronavirus epidemic effectively and successfully.

Everybody would have liked to have seen that.
It hasn't happened

Those who
seem eager to see the president fail and to call every administration misstep a fiasco risk letting their partisanship blind them to the
demands not only of civic responsibility but of basic decency.

You classifying
- ignoring the pandemic response plan
- cutting the program for emergency production of medical protective gear
- doing nothing to build up levels of medical protective gear for the pandemic
etc
missteps?

or today's efforts when he was rambling about the virus being too smart for antibiotics which used to fix everything...

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On Fri, 10 Apr 2020 20:38:06 -0700 (PDT), hamish.laws@gmail.com wrote:

On Saturday, April 11, 2020 at 7:37:21 AM UTC+10, Ubiquitous wrote:

Every American should want President Trump and his administration to
handle the coronavirus epidemic effectively and successfully.

Everybody would have liked to have seen that.
It hasn't happened

Those who
seem eager to see the president fail and to call every administration
misstep a fiasco risk letting their partisanship blind them to the
demands not only of civic responsibility but of basic decency.

You classifying
- ignoring the pandemic response plan
- cutting the program for emergency production of medical protective gear
- doing nothing to build up levels of medical protective gear for the pandemic >etc
missteps?

Indeed, he refuses to accept he is a bumbling fool. He knew in
December, and did nothing.

--
Jim

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

hamish.laws@gmail.com wrote:

On Saturday, April 11, 2020 at 7:37:21 AM UTC+10, Ubiquitous wrote:

We had our monthly game as scheduled until they closed the venue until
the Wuhan Flu pandemic arrived. We did a Christmas-themed one-shot in >>December and fought slaydeer and evil elves armed with sharp candy
canes and wrapping paper of entangling, all lead by a demon-possessed
Santa Claus at the north pole. The next month, we had a campaign
cross-over in which a powerful LE worshipper of Asmodious with a Deck
of Many Things set up camp nearby in order to collect resources for
his war against the demon-fey invading his world. No one drew anything
very interesting, except for a Void, Donjun, and Balance card. Our >>obnoxious dwarf bard drew the last two. I was willing to cut our
losses, but the group decided to rescue Havok, so the next month, we
made a one-way trip to some sort of nullspace that changes whenever you >>take a Long Rest. We found his soul and were going to find his his body
but they issued the quarentine order and we haven't played since
February.

I may have mentioned my Monday game, but it broke up around Decemeber, >>mostly because the others weren't productive and we had gotten
girlfriends or married or moved out of town. I think I may have
mentioned how we stopped Caydon from becoming a gawd?

In our weekly game at Burrito Boarders, the newbie DM finished HOARD OF >>TIAMAT, one of the worst-written adventures I've played and we started >>RESURRECTION OF TIAMAT, the final part of the campaign. We lost some >>players, but they were being disruptive to the game, so we're actually >>being productive now. After they closed restaurants due to the Wuhan
Flu, we switched to playing online with Roll20 and using Discord for
the audio portion. I am not sure why we did that, but I think we
couldn't make the Roll20 audio work or we were already using Discord
for the campaign between sessions.

--
Every American should want President Trump and his administration to
handle the coronavirus epidemic effectively and successfully.

Everybody would have liked to have seen that.
It hasn't happened

Wrong. Trump's been handling this since January, while the Dems were working
on that bogus and Unconstitutional impeachment. I'm not saying he's been perfect, but at least be intellectually honest about it and give him credit
for what he's done in a situation that we've never experienced before now.

--
Every American should want President Trump and his administration to handle
the coronavirus epidemic effectively and successfully. Those who seem eager
to see the president fail and to call every administration misstep a fiasco risk letting their partisanship blind them to the demands not only of civic responsibility but of basic decency.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

spallshurgenson@gmail.com wrote:

We broke in a new PC - a piratey corsair, rather incongruously located
as the party is far inland - and the group generally mucked about and
got in trouble with the locals, as adventurers are wont to do. From a
gaming perspective, its easy to say that nothing of real import was >accomplished - no dungeons raided, no evil villains slain, no major
artifacts recovered - but it helped set up things for the next
adventure. Assuming we ever get another adventure <grumble rumble
virus mumble>. Regardless, we all had fun.

That sounds like my Monday night game that either fell off the rails or ran
out of steam. The problem was that we never finished an adventure, if we
ever started it, forcing our DM to improvise or prepare another adventure
from the area of the Pathfinder world we had wandered off to. Did I mention
we prevented Cayden from ascending as a gawd (with the side effect of
erasing the existance of beer), causing Asmodious to become dominant?

--
Every American should want President Trump and his administration to handle
the coronavirus epidemic effectively and successfully. Those who seem eager
to see the president fail and to call every administration misstep a fiasco risk letting their partisanship blind them to the demands not only of civic responsibility but of basic decency.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On Sat, 11 Apr 2020 13:08:27 -0500, Ubiquitous <weberm@polaris.net>
wrote:

hamish.laws@gmail.com wrote:

On Saturday, April 11, 2020 at 7:37:21 AM UTC+10, Ubiquitous wrote:

We had our monthly game as scheduled until they closed the venue until >>>the Wuhan Flu pandemic arrived. We did a Christmas-themed one-shot in >>>December and fought slaydeer and evil elves armed with sharp candy
canes and wrapping paper of entangling, all lead by a demon-possessed >>>Santa Claus at the north pole. The next month, we had a campaign >>>cross-over in which a powerful LE worshipper of Asmodious with a Deck
of Many Things set up camp nearby in order to collect resources for
his war against the demon-fey invading his world. No one drew anything >>>very interesting, except for a Void, Donjun, and Balance card. Our >>>obnoxious dwarf bard drew the last two. I was willing to cut our
losses, but the group decided to rescue Havok, so the next month, we
made a one-way trip to some sort of nullspace that changes whenever you >>>take a Long Rest. We found his soul and were going to find his his body >>>but they issued the quarentine order and we haven't played since >>>February.

I may have mentioned my Monday game, but it broke up around Decemeber, >>>mostly because the others weren't productive and we had gotten >>>girlfriends or married or moved out of town. I think I may have
mentioned how we stopped Caydon from becoming a gawd?

In our weekly game at Burrito Boarders, the newbie DM finished HOARD OF >>>TIAMAT, one of the worst-written adventures I've played and we started >>>RESURRECTION OF TIAMAT, the final part of the campaign. We lost some >>>players, but they were being disruptive to the game, so we're actually >>>being productive now. After they closed restaurants due to the Wuhan
Flu, we switched to playing online with Roll20 and using Discord for
the audio portion. I am not sure why we did that, but I think we
couldn't make the Roll20 audio work or we were already using Discord
for the campaign between sessions.

--
Every American should want President Trump and his administration to >>>handle the coronavirus epidemic effectively and successfully.

Everybody would have liked to have seen that.
It hasn't happened

Wrong. Trump's been handling this since January, while the Dems were working >on that bogus and Unconstitutional impeachment. I'm not saying he's been >perfect, but at least be intellectually honest about it and give him credit >for what he's done in a situation that we've never experienced before now.

You drank the kool aid. Sad. He cannot form sentences.

[plonk]

--
Jim

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)