Oops

I've just fallen afoul of my big weakness when running 5e - I have a nasty tendency to misjudge the difficulty of encounters. Fortunately, this time the opposition were intent on capturing the PCs rather than killing them, so it hasn't completely derailed the campaign, but it's still not an ideal outcome.

Of course, the way that this always seems to fall out is that the encounter is pitched to be "about right", and then the PCs contrive some way to go in at less than full effectiveness, and then proceed to botch a few key rolls, and then the dominoes topple.

But on the other hand... yeah, it was just that bit too tough for them to deal with.

No matter. As noted, this hasn't derailed the campaign, though it will take it in a somewhat different direction. The next session is likely to be taken up with fixing the mess and getting back on track, and then things will proceed normally. So it's not too bad.

It is, however, something I definitely need to work on.

Some Thoughts on Remote Gaming

We've now had a few sessions of the campaign run remotely. It has actually worked quite well. A few thoughts...

1. We're not using any sort of a virtual tabletop. This means that we're not exposed to any of the things that they can do for you... but it also means we're not tempted to be dazzled by the technology either. My feeling is that for a 'real' campaign run online, I would probably want to at least look into some of those options.
   
2. Because we don't have shared online dice rollers (because of the absence of a VTT), it's important that I'm able to trust my players. But these days my policy is that I won't game with people I don't trust, so that's probably a non-issue.
   
3. The big difficulty comes when multiple people talk at once. Conversely, there's a risk that the conversation be dominated by one or two big personalities. (In a physical game, I would try to deliberately engage anyone who looked left out. Virtually, that works much less well.) So it's important to be extra-mindful of such things.
   
4. The meeting invitation allows for various things to be attached. This has been generally useful, and made up for some of the lack from not having a VTT.

Other than that, though, it has pretty much just felt like a game, just being run remotely. I'm rather surprised how little difference that it seems to have made. Which, under the circumstances, is very nice.

That said, my feeling is that once this is all over and done with, we'll revert back to face-to-face gaming, and I don't envisage doing lots of additional online gaming as a consequence of this. But this all does raise at least one interesting possibility that might be worth looking in to...

Star Trek: Picard

I rather enjoyed "Picard", though it was rather variable in pacing and quality (and I felt the finale was a bit of a let down - probably caused by them unexpectedly getting a second season). However, more than anything I felt that "Picard" was a massive gift to gamers running campaigns in the "Star Trek" universe. There are several reasons for this:

• Previously, "Star Trek" has been all about large ships with crews numbering in the hundreds. This is fine, but the approach in "Picard" with a much smaller crew (and, crucially, a ship that requires only a very small crew) is much more fitting for RPG model of a small party.
  
• "Picard" also showed us a much more fractured universe than the typical "Star Trek" utopia. To an extent I find that a little unfortunate, as I think there is a place for that sort of ultra-optimistic science fiction. (And I don't agree that it is somehow 'dated'. Grimdark is not the same as mature.) However, it does benefit gaming, where there is suddenly a lot of scope for assembling a rag-tag band of misfits from around the quadrant and sticking their noses into all sorts of dark corners.
  
• The end of the monolithic Romulan Empire and the decline of the Federation (coupled with, one presumes, a somewhat resurgent Klingon Empire, whatever threats are lurking in the Gamma Quadrant now that the Dominion have been neutralised, and the lingering threat of the Borg remnant) makes for some very interesting places to go and things to do.
  
• Perhaps more than anything, "Picard" showed us a seedy underbelly of the galaxy, what with those Fenris Rangers flying around, all manner of criminal enterprises and bounty hunters wandering around, and so forth. Again, that's all good stuff from an RPG point of view.
  
• Of course, if the PCs aren't part of the Federation (or aren't officially part of the Federation), that means they aren't bound by the Prime Directive, and Federation ethics more generally. That gives scope for a lot more roguish behaviour than is perhaps obvious in the regular campaign model.
  
• Simply by presenting the galaxy at the end of the 24th century, that being right at the end of the timeline as fleshed out by ST:TNG, DS9, Voyager, and the movies, they've provided a very clean starting point for gaming - you're not about to but into existing lore, and you've got a reasonably detailed setting to work with. (Previously the end point was Voyager, which was set largely in the Delta Quadrant and so well out of the way; and Nemesis, which was not hugely detailed.)

For what it's worth, if I were to run a "Star Trek" campaign just now, my inclination is still to go for that "Enterprise-B" campaign I've discussed before. I'm a sucker for the classics. But I do think that "Picard" has done GMs eyeing up Trek for RPG use a world of good.

The Value of a Good Foil

After many years of putting it off, I've been reading through the Sharpe novels by Bernard Cornwell. One of the things I've found very interesting is a comment in his foreword to "Sharpe's Eagle" (the first novel written): "One of the first things I learned was that Sharpe's enemies, by and large, had to be British. I had thought, before I began writing, that the French would provide him with enemies enough, but the circumstances of war meant that Sharpe spent much more time with the British than with the enemy French, and if he was to be unendingly challenged, irritated, obstructed and angered them the provocations had to come from people with whom he was constantly associated."

The application of this to RPGs is obvious, I think: although the PCs will spend a significant amount of their time doing battle with all sorts of monsters, and although they will end up pitting themselves against some terrible BBEG in their campaign efforts, the truth is that most such monsters appear for all of five rounds of combat and then they're gone. And the scope for recurring villains is surprisingly low in RPGs - it's surprisingly uncommon to meet the same opponent for a second time not to mention a third or more.

All of which means that the "villain you love to hate" is actually unlikely to be a monster or the BBEG in the campaign.

But if he is instead a foil - someone on the PCs' own side with whom they cross paths many times but, for whatever reason, cannot simply kill and have done with it? That's someone they can really learn to hate. And when they finally get their hard-earned victory over this opponent, that will be one to savour.

Prepping a Campaign: The Quest for Memory

One of the things I want to try to do during lockdown is put together at least the beginnings of another campaign. Depending on how long this lasts, there may be an inkling of running a second weekly session in some format, in which case it is good to be prepared.

Of the three campaign outlines I discussed a few months ago, the one that I have chosen is "The Quest for Memory", mostly because it is the most 'classic' of the three - it features lots of dungeon crawling, lots of quests, fighting monsters and searching for treasure, and all that good stuff.

Due to the limitations of the likely format, my feeling is that this campaign is best presented with several pregenerated characters. Specifically, I am looking at eight such characters - two in each of the four 'roles' (those still exist, although they're much looser in 5e than 4e), numbering one elf, one dwarf, and one halfling amongst their number (the rest being human). My intention, I think, is to create those characters first, and then flesh out the rest of the campaign.

Well, mostly. I also intend the campaign to centre around one big dungeon with two unopenable doors. Thus is will run from 1st to 9th level (approx), with the structure being that levels 1-2 will introduce the PCs to this dungeon, then levels 3-5 will feature several quests, this will open the first door and give a crucible at levels 5-6. Levels 6-8 will then feature more, wider-ranging, quests, before opening the second door and bringing us to the second crucible at levels 8-9. That then sets up the climax of the campaign, targeted for 9th level.

The side dish for the campaign is the search for treasure - in addition to gaining XP for completing encounters and quests, the PCs will gain a minor award for locating any of the unattended treasures found throughout the campaign area. The intention here is that PCs should be encouraged to explore the area, rather than just focusing on their current quest with laser-like precision.

At least, that's the plan. How well it will work... that's another question.