Showing posts with label Dwimmermount. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Dwimmermount. Show all posts

August 29, 2016

New roleplayers in Dwimmermount #5

Yesterday, two of our players couldn't make it so we said their characters were staying in town while the rest explored Dwimmermount again. They were 2 clerics, a fighter, a retainer, 2 animal trainers, some ponies, some hunting and tracking dogs, some birds, and some war dogs too. They quickly found some stairs leading down to the 2nd level of Dwimmermount and encountered some hobgoblins after fighting their way past the guards.

 The hobgoblins looked at the size of this party and quickly left, leaving behind their bag of loot in order to discourage the party from hunting them down. This worked and there were some interesting moral quandaries as the party discussed if the they should hunt down the hobgoblins before the hobgoblins came back in bigger numbers. They really missed the other two players as their characters are more gung-ho about taking out any obstacles to their dreams of power and riches. Anyway, they decided to let the hobgoblins be and so some more exploring.

 They were prepared for most anything so took out some Shadows, some wood golems, and some hell hounds with only some minor wounds. Then they encountered the zombies. They took out the first batch fine but then they found the Zombie Lord and a war dog died and a character took permanent damage as he fell. He now has a messed up knee and can only carry half the weight he normally could. After grabbing the treasure, they decided to head back to town before anything else bad happened and miraculously avoided almost all random encounters.

The one random encounter they did have was a rival adventuring party, which was Typhon's Fist, the party they stole the map from at the beginning of this campaign. The thief was not with the party today so Typhon's Fist did not recognize them but I've leveled up the characters of Typhon's Fist and they will be yet another thing to deal with in Dwimmermount.

August 01, 2016

New roleplayers in Dwimmermount #4

I can't believe it was 2 and a half months since we played last! Well, we finally got together again and resumed from where we left off last time. They took out some more gnolls and then met the gnoll king and his pet giant black widow spider. They were a bit freaked out but took them both out without anyone dying. We then decided we were done with the caves and they would go back to the city to spend their loot. On the way, however, I found out I'm a softy GM. I rolled for wilderness encounters and got a unicorn. The character who get her legs rendered useless last time crawled toward the unicorn and asked if it could heal her. So I had the unicorn take her to a church in the city and the priest healed her legs. The others caught up with her and then started spending.

It's funny what they want to buy. One character has bought 6 war dogs. Another got a baby dragon. I'll find out what their final choices are when we get to play again later this month.

May 16, 2016

New roleplayers in Dwimmermount #3

I screwed up this session. Let me explain. So the group had just got back from the city where they had sold their loot and bought cool stuff. They headed back into Dwimmermount armed with the knowledge that there was a treasure vault guarded by a powerful undead and they were carrying lots of holy water and had an even picked up an additional cleric (to replace the fighter that died last session). They head over to where the deceased dwarf said the vault was located (after narrowly avoiding a poison gas trap). They picked the lock, brandished their holy symbols, got their holy waters ready, and opened the door. Then a quite a few lucky rolls happened and the undead was vanquished without ever getting to attack. Some kobolds came to investigate but they quickly retreated as the lucky rolls continued and most of their party became deceased the first round. The heroes grabbed their loot (heavily loaded) and made their way out of Dwimmermount and headed back to town. And here's where I screwed up.

Among the loot was a treasure map that was said to be worth a certain amount of gp. Since I'm giving XP for the worth of all loot taken to a safe place, I gave them the XP for all of that treasure map's gp instead of realizing that was the value of the treasure that the map pointed to and waiting to give them the XP until after they got the treasure. This brought most of them to level 4. Also, they were under the impression they would get even more XP after they got the treasure from this map so they went after it. After an encounter in the forest with some brigands they dealt with by using a sleep spell, they made their way to the Chaotic Caves (modeled after B2). Since the average level was 4, they easily dealt with the goblins and kobolds.

They then took on the gnolls and this where their luck ran out. The gnolls snuck around and attacked from behind and the magic-user was taken down to -2 hp. I had decided previously to use the mortal wounds rules from ACKS so we rolled and found she needs 2 weeks bedrest and is lame in both legs. It was getting late and everyone was tired so we called it a night. The player wasn't sure if she wanted to continue playing that character or go with her backup character. I also let everyone know afterwards that I screwed up so we'll see how it all works out.

April 25, 2016

New roleplayers in Dwimmermount #2

Last week, we stopped and everyone was still in Dwimmermount. They hadn't got in any real combat yet. That all changed this week.

They found some orcs interrogating a dwarf. They were a little fearful at first but ended up taking out the orcs and rescuing the dwarf (after accidentally hitting him with a thrown hammer that missed an orc). The dwarf shared his map with them in exchange for joining the group with an equal part of any treasure found and told how he and his companions had found a treasure room guarded by a power undead that had killed two of his friends. That got their attention!

They decided to work their way back to the entrance but doing some more exploring along the way. Then they ran into another group of orcs arguing about how to divide up a sack of loot. Emboldened by their previous melee with the orcs and the prospect of taking that treasure for themselves, the party charged in. One of the fighters (Blossom: played by my daughter) got hit bad and had only 1 HP remaining. Then that fighter was hit by a stray arrow, killing her. The dwarf they had just rescued also died, killed by the orcs. (The party cheered at that - now they wouldn't have to share treasure with him!) They luckily dispatched the rest of the orcs and grabbed the treasure.

Deciding not to press their luck anymore, they made their way back to the entrance and went to the big city to spend their loot. Along the way, they buried Blossom the Brave. I had recently gotten Aurora's Whole Realms Catalog so they looked through that and the book and another pricelist I had found at Wizardawn. We don't play again until May 14th so while they have most everything picked out already, some things may still change or get added to the shopping list.

I decided to make the travel to the city and back and uneventful (unless they wanted to encounter something) and same with the city itself (they'd only encounter something there if they wanted to). That may change later as the exploits into Dwimmermount become well-known (as then bandits would start patrolling the trade routes and others would be interested in well-dressed adventurers).

Does anyone have a big comprehensive list of things to spend money on (with prices)?

April 18, 2016

New roleplayers in Dwimmermount

I started a new campaign this weekend with my wife ( who has roleplayed a few times but never OSR), my daughter (who I have been playing an OSR game one on one with for the past few months), and three friends of ours who have not played a tabletop RPG before. I decided to use Basic Fantasy (with some optional rules thrown in) and Dwimmermount.

I started them out at a tavern where they tried to get information from a party that had just come from Dwimmermount. The thief also successfully pick pocketed the party's map case and then, with another successful pick pocket roll, replaced it with one of theirs. The map only had a couple of rooms on it as I said this party had only explored a few rooms, encountered resistance and then fled. But the next morning, they hiked to Dwimmermount and then proceeded to not explore those couple of rooms. Instead, they found a lot of empty rooms, ghosts who ignored them, and the face that they're trying to question. They did find some centipedes but closed the door quickly. Also, they ran into a group of kobolds on patrol which they fled from. Finally, as the night grew late (real time), they ran into a group of orcs which took them prisoner without a fight until a crab spider dropped on an orc and in the chaos, the party escaped. They ran through a secret passage the elf had spotted on the way and found a bit of treasure. Next time, we'll pick up from there.

Everyone pretty much knew what to do from videogame experience although I tried to emphasize the differences: orcs could be negotiated with, monsters did not just sit and wait for adventurers before doing things, etc. I also had them make backup characters in order to show them that death may come quickly but they could get back into the action with their backup. We all had a great time and are looking forward to the next time when we find out if our brave adventurers will get out of Dwimmermount alive!