A Minor, but nice, Innovation

One of the things that I've done a couple of times, but that I see Critical Role do rather more often, is that when a PC strikes a "killing blow" the DM invites the player to describe how it is done. That doesn't have any rules impact, but it's a nice way to involve the players just a little bit more in the narrative of the game.

My inclination is to mostly limit this to the final opponent in a combat and/or the special 'boss' monster(s) (which may or may not be the same thing), but it's still a nice idea.

Putting Meat on the Bones

For both "The Mists of Lamordia" and "Quest for Memory", I started the campaign with the good intention of writing up what I wanted to do in a master document. This was supposed to be structured in several parts, with the crucibles neatly described, and so on and so forth. In both cases, I managed a handful of pages and then ran out of time, and once the campaign was actually going I never really got back to it.

With "Isles of Dread", I have now written more than I did for those two campaigns combined. I have part one fully fleshed out, and am proceeding rapidly into part two. (That said, I do need an editing pass on both - but hopefully not until I have at least completed part two.) The key thing that is missing, which I will add when time permits, is a map of the islands. And then some smaller maps of the key adventuring locales - I count four needed for the first two parts.

Given that I intend to run the campaign starting in September, and given that I'm well aware that I won't have time to work on it much after I start, the required rate is already quite punishing. But I'm feeling more confident of this campaign than either of the previous two, so that's a really good sign.

Fighting the 15-minute Adventuring Day: How the Rules Can Help

There's a perennial problem with D&D (especially since 3e) that the game rules tacitly encourage a particular style of play - go into an encounter at full strength, unload all your most powerful spells and powers, have the Cleric heal everyone, and then rest to regain full strength. The short form of this is the "15-minute Adventuring Day" (hereafter 15mAD).

There are a few problems with this style, from the point of view of realism, of characters behaving as they 'should', and so on. But for me the big one is balance, on two fronts:

• Some characters have a small number of very powerful limited-use powers, while others have a lot of weaker on-demand powers. The 15mAD strongly favours the former, who get to use all their big guns, and then impose the rest on the others, while the latter get to play second-fiddle and then serve as glorified bodyguards while the spellcasters rest.
• The game is designed assuming that characters will face multiple encounters between rests. The 15mAD removes this, meaning that encounters need to be rebalanced in a way that the game doesn't really support... and leaves DMs trying to do this all on their own.

Now, to a large extent this is a cultural issue - if the group agrees not to use the 15mAD, the problem goes away. But the problem with that is that it is quite clearly an optimal way to play, and so the PCs are agreeing to hinder themselves if they do this. And, of course, any agreement is liable to go out the window the moment things get really tough.

But there are things that the game could do to help this. A few suggestions:

• The first option is to have the 'adventuring clock' have stronger effects than at present - each time the PCs take a long rest, the enemy get some of the treasure away so that it can't be recovered, and they draft in more reinforcements. So taking the rest isn't as optimal as at present.
• Another is to make sure all characters have a mix of powers of the various types. Unfortunately, this was tried in 4e and found to be wanting, but at least part of that was presentational.
• But the major thing would be to build in some rules whereby there is strong incentive to go on for "one more encounter". That might take the form of increasing XP awards for each encounter after the first, or perhaps the use of an "escalation die" so that PCs become ever-more awesome as they go on. Or, indeed, characters could have some powers and abilities that only unlock after a certain number of encounters.

The basic principle there is that characters should face a dilemma: they can stop for a rest and regain X, or they can carry on and instead gain Y. And as long as both X and Y are desirable, that creates an interesting decision to be made. Which is very much a good thing.

About Elven Kings

As I've mentioned before, all elven cultures in my campaign are matriarchal. Additionally, elves have three very strict ranks: Workers, Lords and Ladies, and Queens. Workers maintain and defend the hive, Lords and Ladies are those elves most commonly encountered by others, and Queens are responsible for birthing and protecting the next generation.

As I've also mentioned before, there exists a mechanism by which young Ladies may be given a draught of ambrosia to be 'promoted' to the position of Queen. Such Queens are seldom as wise or as powerful as those born to the role, but the potential remains.

But that raises an obvious question: what happens if an elven Lord consumes such a draught?

My initial answer to that was "nothing", but having spent some time going through the recorded history of Terafa (which was written prior to the "all elves are matriarchal" decision), a better answer suggests itself.

My new answer is that if an elven Lord takes a draught of ambrosia they are promoted to become an elven King - a being possessed of all of the wisdom and might of an elven Queen. However, just as Queens have a single-minded obsession with birthing and protecting the future of the hive, so too do elven Kings become creatures of obsession... with universally tragic results.

Thus, many of the worst episodes of elven history have resulted from the rise of an elven King. On being promoted to that station, the king will almost invariably seize control of the hive, and will proceed to expand their influence significantly. This gives rise to the elven wars of enslavement against human and dwarven lands, it gives rise to the Unhuman Wars (in the Spelljammer setting), and so forth. In short, it is a bad thing.

Needless to say, elven society has a very strict taboo against elven Lords being given ambrosia. However, as is so often the case, they find it hard to dwell on the atrocities that result, which means that the 'why' is frequently forgotten. And for that reason, every millennium or so a new elven King inevitably rises. And with the Death of Queens some three hundred years ago, the time is now ripe...

The Quest for Memory - wrap-up

The "family" game came to an end last night, with the conclusion of a fight against the giant Duchess Brimskarda and her minions. Having defeated the giant, the party were able to enforce a parley, and from there a truce. This wrapped up the campaign in a mostly satisfactory way.

Some thoughts:

• As with "The Mists of Lamordia", this campaign went on too long, and was a victim of hugely erratic scheduling. Twice it was within a week of being cancelled.
• That said, this campaign went rather better than "The Mists of Lamordia" in the first act, pretty much as a direct result of the lesson learnt in that campaign. The key is to keep those XP awards racking up at a good rate, especially with short sessions.
• It's fairly clear that the notion of Crucibles is a good one, but the practice here wasn't great. They need to be a short sharp shock to really have their effect.
• Beyond that, pretty much everything I said about "The Mists of Lamordia" applies here, too - the structure was fine, the side dish was ideal, but the Tension Pool doesn't really work with remote gaming. And the reroll was essentially useless - after the first couple of levels I don't think people used it.

And that's basically that. A satisfying campaign but not one of the Great Campaigns, that didn't quite make it to the double-digit level range. I'm now done with remote gaming for the foreseeable future, and indeed done with gaming as a whole until (maybe) September, when I may kick of "The Isles of Dread" as a new 'work' campaign.