My Worst Game Experience

Looking back through this blog, somehow I don't seem to have ever told this story...

A number of years ago I had a bright idea for a Shadowrun mini-campaign - six sessions (!) to tell a specific story in the vein of "Neuromancer" or some of the other cyberpunk greats. I was actually really proud of it.

So we dug out the Shadowrun 4th Edition books and started creating characters. And went on creating characters. And on. And on. And on.

Eventually, after about five hours we were finally ready to play! Huzzah!

The game rolled on, and into the very first combat, an introduction to the system and the setting, and the inciting event for the story...

Half an hour later and it was time to end the session. And I absolutely refuse to touch Shadowrun ever again.

The fundamental problem we twofold. Firstly, the combat system dragged to the point of being unbearable. Secondly, one of the characters was built so that his optimum approach was to simply ignore the ongoing firefight, walk straight across the room where it was all going on, and just punch out the bad guys - his character was literally unable to be wounded by a gunshot.

I've had some experiences with some sucky game masters, and some experiences with sucky games. I've also made a number of mistakes when gaming, some of which are pretty terrible. But of all my experiences while gaming, this was the absolute nadir.

Six Sessions?

Apparently, the average D&D campaign lasts all of six sessions, which I must say I find absolutely astonishing - even those campaigns of mine that have fizzled have typically lasted a good bit longer than that.

This means a number of things: it easily explains the finding that almost nobody plays at high level (since there's just no time to get there), and it also means that those huge campaign-in-a-book adventures that WotC and Paizo produce are very much more for reading than playing (again, six sessions means that there is just no time).

I do find myself wondering what that would mean for my current group - does that mean we should be aiming for 24 or so sessions (that being the equivalent of 6 'normal' sessions), or should I maybe be pitching for 6 hours of play.

It's certainly an interesting finding.

Gaming in 2023

2023 has been a quiet year for gaming. It is the first year in more than three decades when I have bought no physical RPG product at all, it has seen me running what I expect to be my final ever campaign, and I'm reaching a point now where I suspect I'm more or less just done - looking forward I see the prospect of less gaming ahead rather than more. (Even in the quiet times in the past, there was always an expectation and a hope that they'd come to an end. This time, I'm not sure I have either.)

The "Isles of Dread" campaign continues to go well. I had expected it to come to an end this year, but for various reasons that hasn't happened. I expect it to conclude some time in the first half of 2024, but I guess we'll see.

I purchased a single physical RPG product - near the end of the year I saw "Phandelver and Beyond" at a 39% discount, which was enough to justify I buy. I haven't read it yet, so can't comment on the content.

Despite that, this year did see me reading a few things: "Tome of Beasts III" (PDF) and the matching "Lairs" book (I recommend the first; the second not so much), "Paranormal Power" (PDF), and the new D&D Starter Set (avoid - get the original if you can). I also read one of the versions of the d6 "Star Wars" game, which was interesting for a number of reasons.

I also purchased a number of classic D&D PDFs - a complete set of "Spelljammer", and the beginnings of a set of "Dark Sun". I had intended to read these, but just never found the time.

Looking forward, I don't foresee too many more purchases. I've more or less decided against the 2024 Core Rules Update unless something signficantly changes (or they publish in PDF). I do expect to receive the "Tales of the Valiant" PDFs at some point in the year, though in hindsight I probably shouldn't have backed that Kickstarter. And I expect to complete my set of "Dark Sun" PDFs at some time.

As I said, it has been a quiet year. I expect 2024 to be quieter still, but I guess we'll see. This won't be my final post on this blog, but it's possible it might be my final end-of-year roundup.

Two Rules (and a secret third rule)

I basically have two rules when it comes to deciding who gets to play at my table:

1. You have to want to be there. If you'd rather be away doing something else, please go and do that thing. If you're only here because your boyfriend/girlfriend/parent/other dragged you along, please be elsewhere (and for that other person: please go and work on your relationship elsewhere!). But in terms of race, sex, sexuality, religion, or any other category... I don't care.
2. By your actions, both in-character and out-of-character, you need to make the game more enjoyable for all present, not less so. It's fine for your character to be a jerk, as long as they're an entertaining jerk. And intra-party conflict is likewise fine, as long as it's all in good fun. But as soon as it stops being fun, I expect it to stop.

And the secret third rule:

If you're not going to make it, you must let people know. You don't need to say why, but you do need to say. Pretty much the only exception to this is if someone ended up in the hospital - otherwise, we live in a world of ubiquitous communications, so I expect you to use them.

Isles of Dread at Year's End 2023

I had expected "Isles of Dread" to run to completion this year, but for various reasons that has not happened. The party are now most of the way through Part Three (of four), and have reached 4th level (of an expected 5). I fully expect the campaign to come to an end reasonably early in 2024, assuming we resume at all, marking the end of the final campaign with this group.

In truth, it's probably just as well that the party haven't hit Part Four yet - actually writing that part of the adventure was one of the items on my to do list for my Christmas holiday last year... and my February holiday, Easter, Summer... And, of course, it remains on my to do list.

The campaign has been running smoothly. That's probably to be expected, as we're fairly expert in these things by now. The only thing particularly of note is that one of the characters took a Feat for the first time... but that has made very little real difference to things.

I have learned a number of things from this, one of which is that using random tables to fill in minor encounters is largely pointless at a home table - the procedural stuff is invisible to the players, and makes very little difference to the DM, so why bother. Random encounters are therefore best used in some sort of Tension Pool approach, where they serve to push the PCs to keep moving forward rather than just wasting time.

And that's basically all there is to say about that. It's fine, it's ongoing, and hopefully it will come to a successful end soon.

A Do-over for Dark Sun

Unless something very significant changes, WotC are never going to touch Dark Sun again. Indeed, until someone stepped in and ordered a change, the "Spelljammer" adventure was intended to drop the entire setting into a black hole, ending it definitively. On the one hand, I understand that position, as Dark Sun has some seriously problematic areas and I can see why WotC don't want to wade into that (especially after the controversies of the last couple of years). On the other hand, it's rather disappointing. Or maybe not, given what they did with Ravenloft and Spelljammer...

Anyway, this has given a certain license to the fans of the setting: if it's never going to be revisited, there's now a freedom to do what you want with it. And, indeed, the door is presumably open for someone to do a "Faded Star" setting (or whatever) being a near-clone of the setting. And, indeed, that's one of the things I've been gradually noodling over in the back of my mind.

If I were redoing Dark Sun, how would I start?

First up, I'd keep the basic premises: it's a post-apocalyptic setting, and the damage is unequivocably caused by the actions of man. The survivors are left ekeing out difficult lives, with the few remaining cities being ruled by vicious, magically-infused tyrants and their servants.

I would, however, get rid of outright slavery from the setting. There's no need for it - the tyrants can rule by fear, their servants can demand a monopoly on the use of force (and magic), and there can be all manner of secret police and other informants making it extremely difficult for the regular folk to revolt effectively.

I would include a Free City, but that's also in dire straits - the recent death of the tyrant has left them without a vast amount of their magical protection, the nearby cities are all determined to wipe them out to show an example, there's vast civil unrest... basically, it's free but might be better off if it were not.

I would probably remove psionics from the setting. It was a nice idea in 2nd Ed, but it's probably a complication the setting can do without.

I would also, without a doubt, remove all of the classic Tolkien-esque species from the setting. No "new takes" on elves, dwarves, and halflings. I would instead enhance the roles played by the more exotic species, the tieflings and dragonborn, and then include a number of species specific to the setting: some sort of insect-folk (thri-kreen and maybe scorpionfolk), lizardfolk, goliaths, and so on. It's a very different setting, so enforce a range of different options.

I think defiling and preserving is probably the most important aspect of the setting, but it wasn't terribly well handled in the 2nd Ed rules. Instead, defiling should be an option available to all casters at the time of casting that will make their spells more powerful, but which will taint the user and blight the world. And at least some magic items would make use of defiling magic, with the more powerful the item the more likely this is.

Of course, the survival aspect is extremely important to the setting. That's relatively easy to address with two house rules: firstly, no magic can create potable water or edible food; secondly, any extra-planar magical storage will destroy any potable water or edible food placed inside. (There are a few more details than this, but those are the most important fixes.)

And the final aspect that is extremely important is the absence of gods. That means no Clerics or Paladins or other users of divine magic. (Druids and Rangers are fine, as users of Primal magic, and the servants of the tyrants are now best modelled as Warlocks.) There may or may not (probably not) be other classes to fill in some of the resulting gaps.

And that, more or less, is it. There is then a lot of working out the details required, but that's a topic for other posts (or not).

Meddling and Capricious

Over the last few years I have been reading quite a lot of books about Greek myth - Stephen Fry's "Mythos", "Heroes", and "Troy" trilogy; Jennifer Saint's "Elektra" and now "Ariadne". One of the things that has become quite apparent in these, but for whatever reason hadn't quite made its mark on me previously, was that the Greek gods are not at all benign (which I knew) but are also very active in the world.

Much of the action in these various stories comes about because one or more of the gods have taken some action, propelling mortals in various ways. When thwarted or insulted the gods proceed to punish mortals in interesting and vicious ways.

But, also: very often, the gods have competing and mutually-exclusive rules, so the mortals in question are just stuck. (For example, in "Elektra" Cassandra finds herself in a position where she has sworn a vow of chastity to Apollo and then finds herself facing sexual advances from Apollo. Whatever she does, she's going to be punished - rebuf him and anger the god; don't and break her vow and anger the god.)

The Greek gods have appeared in D&D in many different iterations, and while D&D has now moved away from including real-world religions it still has a instead the Greek-adjacent mythology in "Mythic Odysseys of Theros". However, for whatever reason D&D has never really incorporated that meddling and capricious nature of the gods in the game. And that despite it being a prime source of adventure motivations. Which all seems like rather an oversight.

That said, maybe it's something they didn't want to incorporate because of fears of DMs using it as license to themselves be meddling and capricious. There's definitely a fine line there. But maybe it's worth looking at again.