Session 2: No, that's okay, just go talk to five different people at the same time. It's cool.

deep exhale

That was a lot.

The Plot

The party went down the stairs into the front room of the tavern tits out (no, for real) and discovered that they were not wanted for murder or owing money (Norbith's biggest concern) and in fact they had had a wild time the night before including various wagers and Hori's axes getting stuck in the ceiling. They then immediately went to five different corners of the room to have four conversations in three languages.

Help me.

Luckily because we were using slack for languages other than common I could (moderately) keep two text convos going and still try to talk to people in Common. But none of the conversations were any good. I barely got in any rumors or exposition that I needed to. After a while of this we managed to get everyone at one table with just the innkeeper - who told them some of what happened the night before and dropped a rumor about a quest up north.

An elf in the corner dropped hints about something happening to the south.

A dwarf told them about his missing sister last seen in the north but likely heading south.

They found out from a couple of halflings that Chantrix had shown up the day before with another Halfling man that has since disappeared.

I did not manage to drop any rumors really about the east or west.

The group did manage to all find their mounts which included this fun convo:

Gigi: "I slip through the slats of the fence and approach the friendliest looking horse."
Me: "So you're going into that stable yard - with three horses at least two of which do not know you - yes?"
Gigi: ......
Me: "Why don't you go ahead and roll a d20 for me."
Gigi: "You know what, I'm just going to walk up to the fence and see what happens."

I've had this beautiful horse photo for years.
I have no idea of its provenance.

Gigi and Voola also had a request to go check in on someone's brother out at a ranch. In the course of that, Gigi was slapped in the face by a young woman she was apparently supposed to run away with the night before but never showed up. Back at the inn, Norbith got innkeeper gossip about a spider problem in Windford.

This session was mostly finishing gathering people's things, getting their mounts, and getting some rumors and ideas of where they might want to go. They've decided to stay the night again in town and maybe they'll wander by the shop. I hope they do because a LOT of their weapons have been sold by townspeople to the shop-owner.

DM Notes

I got very worried about this session. Because everyone split up there was a lot of "Okay Norbith, you're doing this. Blah blah blah" while everyone else was kind of just sitting. It felt weird to me because I felt like they were being left out which is kind of the opposite of what D&D should be.

It was even worse with the convos in side languages. Sometimes there was just silence while I gathered my thoughts about what was going on and tried to respond to one person with more than one or two words. I'm going to need to either find a balance there or maybe not do this the way we have planned.

I know - I'm learning. I'm trying to be very kind to myself. Regardless of how I feel, my group seems to be having a very good time. I did manage to drop a couple more hints about who is responsible for getting all their memories wiped. So far one or more party members knows:

• Gigi was the only person whose stuff was ransacked overnight
• Norbith got a warning that dwarves have been going missing in these lands for the last year or two
• Chantrix found out that she had shown up with a friend who has disappeared without a trace

When Hori gets her horse back she'll find out her possible involvement (a wanted poster for her in her saddlebags). Voola, the orc, is my only current question mark. I'm trying to play this region as a place that's not particularly orc averse. Mostly because they hardly see them.

I did get a second monitor which made all the difference in the world to my ability to DM so huge thanks to Stephen for that.

No session next week so I'll try to find something else to blog about.

Slack

When I had this idea to run a game and knew that we were going to be doing it all online I knew I needed something where we could share thoughts, photos, and side chats. Ideally this would have been in the same program as we were running our video but it didn't have to be.

Off the bat, Ben recommended me Roll20.com which is built for exactly this. I spent a couple of days faffing about with it and came to two conclusions:

1) It is an incredible tool for running online RPGs
2) The learning curve for the use of its features is so high for brand new players that I didn't want to use it until we were all more comfortable with the game as a whole.

So I've pocket roll20 although I'm slowly pulling into it some maps and homebrew applications for when we do, likely, switch to it.

I thought about a FB group, but FB knows too much about me already and while it would allow for some of the functionality of sharing photos and things, it wasn't an easy thing to setup in the way I wanted and I could see it getting unwieldy very quickly.

I already use slack for both work and school - I wondered if it could be used for this as well?

Dames and Dragons was born.

At first, we had only two channels other than 'General' and 'Random' which were 'gamemechanics' and 'datetimediscussion'. The first was where I asked for input on the type of game. If anyone had strong opinions on the setting or what system we used. In the second we hashed out availability and if we'd meet every week, every other, and at what times. It was there that we decided to meet "early" because we had east and west coast people.

I knew when the game started I would add a 'game' thread which is somewhere I could drop photos, sketched, maps, notes, etc for the players to see during the actual game. There's something to be said for "You roll over and see a dog." versus "You roll over and see this:"

 

Which would you prefer? Obviously the above.

Another thing I did was think about language a lot. There is, as is common and for ease, a common tongue that basically everyone speaks. But all the races (including humans) generally have their own language as well.

What if.... every language but common has its own slack channel? And they are private so the only people in the channel are the people who speak that language. That way, I can speak whatever gibberish I want* and write translations in slack for the people who can speak it. Then they can decide, in character, how much they want to pass on to the rest of the group.

For a group with more experience I might not have even thought of it - because keeping in character and out of character information separate is a skill that comes with time. But for this very new group of players I thought it would add some fun. So we have channels for all of the languages they speak. Some have only one person in the channel (and me) others three or four.

* I went onto google translate and looked up languages that sounded like what I thought that race might sound like. Then I translated the Gettysburg address into the language and have it on hand. No one is going to keep enough track of things to actually care that we're saying the same things, and the address is long enough to provide me with a good chunk of dialogue at a moment's notice.

When we start a game, my players have google hangouts (we're looking at others but this worked for now) and slack open. Some have their character sheet online while others printed.

I have both of those plus my big binder of common things and Scrivener and a folder of things I may need to drop in slack. Hence, the second monitor I picked up last night and will try out as soon as my adapter arrives.

And that's where we are logistics wise. I'm open to questions and comments here and you can also find me on twitter @nerdheroine

The PCs

The entire party aligns good, with a variety of lawful, neutral, and chaotic characters. I asked them all to find something online that looked like how they imagined their character. I've provided the pictures below as well as links to the original artists.

Please note that this post will be updated with information as things change.

Hori: 

Half-Elf, Half-Human Barbarian. Does not know her elf father. Used to own a tea-shop that was destroyed by arson. Turned to the life of a barbarian bounty hunter who specializes in arson cases. Still looking for the person who destroyed the shop.

The player for Hori spends her time providing exposition to people and has a habit of introducing herself as "Hi, I'm Hori. I'm a half-elf barbarian. I'm lawful good."

2/25/2020: Hori is basically lawful good in name only. She is the first to try to intimidate people into doing things and never uses honey when a stick is RIGHT THERE.

The Bandit Scout by Jedi-Art-Trick

Gigi McMolehill:

Half-Elf, Half-Dwarf trust-fund bard. Has no worries or cares in the world and travels a lot following bands. Her parents were in love and spent her time growing up splitting custody between the dwarves of Doridal and the elves of Gionevris.

Gigi's player is brash and bright and lovely and is very much playing a version of herself.

2/25/2020 My favorite Gigi contribution to the game is that the player will find music to add to the session that matches what is going on. For example, while fighting the tree in session 4 she dropped I Want to Break Free by Queen into our chat which cracked me the fuck up. Gigi has an easier time in town where there's people to charm and less fun right now on the road. I'm hoping that she'll find a niche for herself.

Fire Rose by cheypeta

Voola:

A half-human, half-orc. Voola doesn't know her orc parent and was mostly raised in the halfling Parish. She is the youngest member of the group and only just set out to make her way in the world as a cleric.

Voola's player is a friend of mine and the odd one out in the group in terms of both being the only man, and the only person who doesn't know the other players. He's the hardest person I've had a time with in understanding is character - probably because I don't know him as well as I know everyone. That should work itself out.

2/25/2020 I created a lot of plot based on having an orc character and Voola is probably the most magic attuned person in the group. She is also the shyest and quietest and has the most trouble with fitting in in general. i'm hoping she finds her place - I do think she has one here if we can get her into it.

I think from a print Pathfinder book.
If you know the artist please let me know so I can credit.

Norbith:

Full dwarf, from the Forlonde kingdom which is the more remote of the dwarven kingdoms. Norbith is a rogue with a strong streak of thievery and rascalness. Very much a 'fist first and ask questions later" dwarf.

Norbith's player is a one of the smartest and nicest people I know who has some of the best "I'm single and men are awful" dating stories you'll ever hear. She is playing the only male character.

2/25/2020 Norbith is the cautious Cassandra of the group always yelling "Why are you doing that obviously bad idea" and "What if we owe that person money?" She's finding a balance between her surly self and being amenable to the group. Her player is super interested in finding a good niche for this grumpy dwarf.

Daximus Shadowborne by noiporx

Chantrix:

A halfling barbarian who likes to wander. She's spent in time in the human kingdoms as a general lady about the nobility. She's generally gregarious, of good humor, and ready to throw fists at even the slightest provocation.

Her player has the most experience of any of mine and is the first to say "Should I roll for that?" She's also very easy-going and letting the experience ride as it needs to. She's been very helpful to me in keeping the game going well.

2/25/2020 Chantrix is the person you could put in an empty room and come back 15 minutes later and the wall is on fire and she's caught in 15 feet of rope. She is utter chaos. I can always rely on Chantrix to open the box, ignore the warnings, and poke the thing that shouldn't be poked. And since she's a barbarian she can so far survive the outcomes. We'll see if that holds up ;)

No photo yet for Chantrix.

Session 1: Waking Up

Wow.

Our first session is done. And it was... something.

It took us about 45 minutes to get everyone on and some technical difficulties worked out (which was to be expected the first time) and we were once person short until the last half hour or so because of the day switch.

The Plot

I had warned everyone not to get too much of a recent backstory because we'd be starting with amnesia for everyone. So I had everyone roll pre-game to see how screwed they were, then we started the session with an initiative roll to see what order the woke up in. They woke each other up in turn except for the Orc who slept through all the initial nonsense and woke up when her player arrived.

And when I say "woke each other up" I mean "made a noise" because absolutely everyone was too cautious to wake anyone up on purpose. Which was hilarious.

My Note Categories for Session 1

So you know how they say your players will always surprise you and don't get too set on anything and so on? I had believed this but still thought I was ready for at least the first hour or two.

And then these fuckers immediately picked a fight. Like - woke up, failed at thievery, and got into a brawl on the floor until interrupted by a nude barbarian. The barbarian rolled a 1 on her wakeup role. These things happen.

Once awake, they proceeded to ransack the room looking for their stuff and in some cases clothes. There was also a dog in the room who was IN LOVE with the halfling. She was the halfling's mount which quickly became apparent. But dog.... well let's just say that dog was last in her class at riding dog school. When everyone decided to sneak out the back the dog immediately ran off chasing a squirrel and the halfling required the help of the other barbarian to get her back.

They then proceeded into "exposition introductions" which were FANTASTIC. "Hi, I'm Hori. I'm a half-elf barbarian." It was great and I loved it.

While they were discussing what to do outside the Orc woke up, ransacked what was left of the room, and opened the window and called down to the group.  We ended with everyone back at the room and I think next session they're going to try going down the main stairs.

DM Notes

Wowza, that was a lot. I was laughing so hard for so long I got a headache. Really, I just gave them like three pieces of info and they proceeded to entertain me like trained monkey for two hours.

Highly recommend.

I was very worried about my DM skills considering I have never done it and haven't even played in nearly a decade. But I'm very much a "sure, you try that" person and rolled with what was happening.

I do need to get better about not putting my own impressions on the characters. For example I made the comment that two characters were brawling and one said "I'm not brawling" and the other said "We're about to." I had jumped the gun rather than letting them get to it. I also mischaracterized some talks and conversations based on what I wanted rather than what was happening. I'm aware of it and it's something I'm going to try to work on. I'm used to paraphrasing and taking out all emotion entirely, but in building the world I want to give those emotions to make everything feel more real.

We had a couple of rolls to take care of which is what I've been most worried about - but they were pretty basic non-combat with a good mix of successes and failures. Hell, someone rolled a natural 20 on waking up!

Right now, in my plan for next week, I'm seeing how to get the party into easy reach of their mounts and weapons. Some are easy to get back, some less so. I don't expect they will necessarily find everything but I want to at least give them hints on everything even if they don't pursue it.

I'm also trying to plant the seeds that every character could be responsible for their amnesia. I've already got three of five planned - one actually already seen "on-screen" - working on the others.

I did realize, very very fast, that in doing everything online I need a second monitor. I need to have the group up somewhere separate from my working screen. I had four windows open and usually in and out of at least one more. That's too many. Hopefully tonight I'm picking one up from a friend.

One thing I'm going to do this weekend is make something for the site that describes all the players. I can see now I need that.

My next post will be about how we're using slack. As you saw from my last post, I ran into a wee bit of trouble there. If you have any ideas of how to make these posts more visually appealing please let me know.

I am a moron...

For proof, please see the slack message I had to send to the C.O.O. of my day job.

Postponement

So, not a great start.

We had to postpone session 1. We had lost one person to Disneyland (shakes fist) and then I got a message someone had a work event running long and might have to duck in and out. And then another person had travel run long...

At that point we only had two definites. So we postponed. But only a week. Our schedule is supposed to be every other so we pushed one week and are going to pick up our every other as per usual the week after.

So no updates because we're waiting on that.

Backstory

So I think I mentioned this before but I am starting my characters with a one-year amnesia plot. This gives me an opportunity to create some interesting things with giving them an off the bat reason for being together.

I've spent the last week and a bit talking to every player individually about who their character is. As they talk through who they are, I've been making suggestions based on the world itself. For example, one of my dwarves is a very sparkly personality and a bard. I suggested to her that she be from a certain band of dwarves that are known for their mining and gemwork.

Also, I got to hear a player refer to themselves as a "trust-fund bard" who follows other bands like a groupie. That's fun.

I've also had everyone roll a d6 in this conversation that let's me know the state they've woken up in and what gear they have.

For example, one character has nothing, no gear no anything. She wakes up naked. No gear in the room. The stablemaster has her horse but he's inclined to lie to them about it, or overcharge for the stabling fees. And that's only if they even think to talk to him.

Another character has a riding dog that is in bed with her. But he is... let's just say he was last in class of riding dog school. He's fun but goofy as fuuuuuu..... But she doesn't know that!

So there's a whole "adventure" to be had just in town as they try to track down their things and/or buy them back from people they may or may not have sold them to.

On a world-building sidenote:

In the process of talking to my halfling and half-orc character I realized a couple of things. One is that only the Orc is playing a magic- wielding character. Yes, you can make a case for the bard but we don't have a warlock, or sorcerer, or wizard. Just a cleric.

So why not make that intentional. Only orcs can use magic.

But why?

Well, this led to some world-building I'm pretty proud of regarding the gods of this world that I'm not going to go into on the just in case my players find this blog. But I am SO EXCITED about it.

Questions 1: Combat

Remember how I said that the manual was confusing if you didn't already know what you were doing?

Well, last night I got myself confused about how combat works.

Take this Dread Wraith:

Against this character I made on Dnd Beyond (Where we will be making all of our characters because they DO THE MATH FOR YOU.)




So, from what I understand from the manual, if the creature wants to attack this Ranger it will roll a d20. Let's say that's a 12.

Now what? Does the Ranger roll to block? Is my creature roll supposed to be higher than that one? I think I need to subtract 2 from my wraith's roll because of the strength modifier but what does the 6 do that's not in parentheses?

I AM SO CONFUSED.

So I messaged Ben.

Thank god for Ben.

He patiently explained that I'm only rolling against the AC either direction. So whoever is attacking is attacking against that armor. I can decide, based on the roll, what the hit looks like but the hit or miss is decided entirely by meeting or exceeding that number or not.

Okay, cool...






OOOOOHHHHH. Nothing I found online explained that in that simple of terms. It just, doesn't mention the number. Which made me thinking I must be missing something.

Thank you Ben, next question...





Cause that makes sense right? Your armor protects you from attack, and you strength protects you as a wrestler, or whatever.




I stand by this. THERE'S A NUMBER RIGHT THERE DOING NOTHING. Why aren't we using it?

I still don't know what a Hit Dice is. The manuals use the phrase but don't actually explain it. But that's a question for another day.

Scrivener

I originally had these grand idea of printing out items and making sending stones and books and OMG this would be a perfect marriage of writing and crafting. And then if someone got an item I could just hand it to them and we could see they had it and not forget.

And then we decided to do it online. And suddenly anything like that needed to be digital.

Fine, I can work with that. All of the pictures were going to be from online anyway because I have less than zero drawing skills.

I began to gather pictures of rings, swords, potions, and people to add to my already far, far too large collection of maps. 

And now I had an organization problem.

I use Scrivener as my primary word processor and am a huge fan of it's system for note-taking. You can drop in photos, PDFs, and do all kinds of things that a standard word processor won't. I can have my reference material split screened with what I'm writing, or if I write something I like I can put it in its own document and drag it into any other part of the manuscript with ease.

It is not intended for D&D.

BUT IT IS PERFECT FOR IT.

From left to right I have:

All of my files and folders relating to this game.

A map of the dwarven lands.

The stats for a Black Bear

A picture of a black bear

Using screenshots and data from online (mostly Fantasy World Generator, that site is a godsend), I can pull them into Scrivener and have them available when I want them. If I make a dungeon I can copy the creature stats into that dungeon so they're convenient.

I also even went overboard and changed all of the icon to emoji that resemble what the thing is. So visually it's easy to find what I need rather than a column of folder icons. I can also assign specific NPCs to things by dropping their character sheet into that thing - or keep a reserve ready for when I need one.

Like this dwarf armorer:

Where does he work out of? I don't know! But he's ready for when I need to throw an armory into a city somewhere.

It also means I can put items with a character when they find it - and keep notes on the side about interactions. Did they insult Arnog? Did they give away the ring? 

If the person doesn't need a full character sheet I can just add a photo under synopsis of the Inn, store, or city itself as reference. I'm very visual so this helps when describing the person to player.

Here, I used Fantasy World Generator to  create an Inn and a Menu and threw it into a basic inn template. I'll go back and edit the patrons to give rumors about nearby quests. This inn exists nowhere so I haven't touched it past the generator. Other inns have been subnested within their city.

I'm trying not to show anything here that gives away anything in the game - so these are all characters and maps that are unfinished.

I may be going overboard here but it's so nice to have this all organized and since I'm not making any determination of where the game will go I need to have a lot of things stored and ready. I don't think I could run a game like that without this kind of database. And it's just the things I want for my campaign. Rather than a website of EVERYTHING. Or multiple websites.

Scrivener. Not just for law school.

Note: Dwarf armorer picture from http://dndspeak.com/2018/02/100-dwarven-clan-names/ .  Dwarf server from https://i.pinimg.com/originals/88/6b/b4/886bb4a25d4fabb5c628413628e83bb1.png 

Unfortunately neither credit the artist. 

I don't remember where the bear came from, since this is all personal use I wasn't being careful about noting sources for the art. I'm going to make a note to do better at that in the future. If that's your art let me know.

We've gained a boy

Well, we are no longer an all female group. We have one man.

I'm somewhat disappointed because I thought an all-girl group would be great. But I'm also excited because he's an awesome guy and I already got a message from his husband saying "PLEASE LET HIM DO THIS HE NEEDS A HOBBY" (I may be paraphrasing.)

And so the party grows to 5.