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.