this is ja.lj

(I apologize, but this will make no sense to people who aren't huge dorks like me)

I am DMing Keep on the Shadowfell for our gang. D&D4E is a fun game in general, but Shadowfell is rather dry, with flat NPCs, a next-room-next-monster rhythm, and a general absence of wow.

Here's an example: (SPOILER WARNING) the module includes a spiffy poster-sized battlemap of a dragon tomb dig, complete with a skeletal dragon curled round some treasure. Very nice stuff. The associated encounter requires that the party prevent an Orcus cultist from ... retrieving a semi-magical hand mirror that was buried with the dragon?

Zzzzzz.

In my own private Shadowfell, the Big Bad Undead Daddy is digging that dragon skeleton out so he can frikken REASSEMBLE and ANIMATE it into a howling reptile death ghost. I decided to use this as my troubleshooting encounter, the one I would bust out if the party got into more trouble than it could handle.

Last night, they totally got owned by Irontooth. But instead of TPKing them, I drugged the four survivors up and sent them to join the involuntary labor force at the bone dig. Then I told them they had to individually choose between rolling on an escape skill challenge or a sabotage-the-ritual skill challenge. And they couldn't dither about it, because all the while, the dread cold-lightning radiance of the surrounding abyssal thickets would be leeching away their souls.

(Thanks to John Harper for his cool continuing-damage skill challenge rules)

I think the guys were a bit rattled by Irontooth, because only one of them was tempted to be a hero and try to screw up the ritual. The rest organized a fast escape into the wilderness. That night, while they huddled against the spring chill, they saw a blaze of light from the direction of the tomb and heard the unholy shriek of something ancient and terrible being reborn...

Damn, this is fun. I just hope that no one feels abused. The Irontooth encounter was rough, and the undead dragon might have looked like me doing a victory lap. So yeah, next session, puppies.

I'm doing a little bit of traditional GMing this Sunday and our game is blank slate at this point. ( I thought I'd share some of it in the hopes of generating some ideas. )

My usual comfort zone as a GM is the traditional strong-GM plotted mode. Honestly, I love that style of play. I love having players explore a setting that I've created and I love the challenge of molding a plot based on my players' preferences and their characters' interests, and then adapting it on the fly to whatever happens. It's a neat exercise, and when the players are having a good time I really get a charge out of it.

The trouble is that that level of story-responsibility is not sustainable for a full campaign. It's really exhausting to be be the one who's driving the entertainment for a full evening. This was really driven home to me when I burned out of my last regular strong-GM game -- within four sessions it felt more like a chore than a joy.

So I had a lot of incentive to change up my approach. Luckily, I'm blessed with a ready bunch of experimental subjects. Seattle Gamers Assemble has a Monday night event at a local gaming clubhouse where the focus is on indie, oldie, and oddball games.

I pitched my experimental game to SGA as a "Lazy Gamemaster" event, to make it clear that I didn't want primary story responsibility. I would come up with the setting / premise design method and choose the game system, and then afterwards I would be a bass player and audience. People were enthusiastic, the game was adopted and scheduled, and on we went.

( My big fat Actual Play report )