Campaign Journal – the Second Session

The long awaited session two summary.

If you’ve listened to the “Story So Far” at the Adventures of the Ottawa Warband, you don’t really need to read this.

So, our heroes had set off after Sven, in the hopes of reaching Balagard first.

Historical note: I made Balagard an island in the south-west of Finland. There is mention of Balagard in some of the legends, and it was mentioned in A Brief History Of the Vikings: The Last Pagans or the First Modern Europeans? by Jonathan Clements, but I couldn’t find any real information on it. A link to Louhi, the Finn death goddess, was also mentioned in Clements, but in relation to another location. I just put the two together, picked an island by zooming in on an archipelago in Google Maps, and BOOM, that’s Balagard.

So, the group arrives only to find that they have beaten Sven to Balagard, but two of his ships are already at the island. Landing, the group finds Harald the Black, Thorgil’s brother-in-law. Luckily, Harald knows Toste, the NPC captain of the group’s ship, and so is willing to accept the group and introduce them to Helga,  his wife and Thorgil’s sister. The group has to announce Thorgil’s death, but it turns out Helga had a prophetic dream, and no one is much surprised. Further, Harald and Helga’s son, also a Harald, turns out to be Thorgil’s son, fostered to his sister for undisclosed reasons.

The group and Harald the Black begin to make plans to attack Sven’s men and remove them before Sven arrives. In the midst of this discussion, Harald the Black’s daughter Visna takes interest in Nemit, who has not joined in the conversation as he doesn’t speak Norse. Visna speaks to Nemit in his own language, and reveals she has been gifted with all languages by the witch Ullin.

No one in Balagard believes in the witch, but after Visna’s display, the group decide it might be wise to find her and consult her. Young Harald joins them. The group encounters two “trolls,” Dis and Pater (who refer to themselves as Didius and Pertinia). These guardians are easily mollified by Visna’s cookies. The witch reveals herself and tells the group that they are threatened by “the Visitor.” The group learns that Young Harald will find aid in Aldeigjuborg, on the route to Miklagard. The encounter ends suddenly when the witch announces that the Visitor has arrived.

The group returns to find Toste’s ship burning. One of their members, Blatik, has died in the fire. Sven Helmcarver’s ship has arrived. Sven’s men are busy fighting the fire and rescuing those whom they can. Faced with Young Harald, whom Sven guesses is Thorgil’s son, Sven denies murdering Thorgil. He tells a story of a disagreement over an unpaid debt that ended in drawn swords. Sven says that while he had wounded Thorgil, he hadn’t killed him. Holm’s Truth-Reading reveals this to be true, leading to no end of confusion.

Using Object Reading with the remains of Toste’s ship, Nemit sees a dark-haired, thin-featured man with a long moustache set it alight without waking anyone. The man turns and recognizes Nemit, speaking to him. This throws Nemit out of the vision.

The group agree to accept Young Harald as their captain and join with Sven Helmcarver to travel to Aldeigjuborg in an attempt to uncover more information about the Bulgar Gold.

And that’s where we left it at the end of the second session.

Campaign Journal: Viking True20 Actual Play

If you’ve been reading my campaign journal, you know a little something about the Viking campaign I’m running for my RPG group in Ottawa. I decided I wanted to do an actual play, and the first steps have been completed. The first episode, a “story so far” episode, is now available.

You can find information at the new blog dedicated to the Adventures of the Ottawa Warband. I apologize for the name. Not as cool as Accidental Survivors. We were on the spot with this one. The blog is at herlid.blogspot.com, herlid being Old Norse for warband, and warband being a group of vikings joined together under a leader or captain.

I will continue the campaign journal here, as well as cross-posting everything over to the blog. The actual play podcast will only be available at the blog. If you are interested, you can subscribe to the feed to get the podcasts as they come out.

Campaign Journal: Conclusions from Session One

The first session didn’t totally sell me on True20. I realized this was partly my problem. I was still stuck in a d20 mindset. I missed the Minons rule, which would have made the combat with Hygelac’s warband fit to my preconception. Also, while the iconic weapon concept I mentioned in my last post dealt with the combat competency gap, this could also have been dealt with–mostly–with the rules as written.

Here’s the thing: I started the characters at 3rd level to give them some experience. I chose 3rd level based on my d20 experience–the character is more capable, but is not yet nigh-invulnerable due to high hit points. Without hit points, I could have started the characters at 10th level.

Because the Toughness save doesn’t have level dependent bonuses, a 10th level character is as vulnerable as a 3rd level character, unless the 10th level character has burned feats on increasing his Toughness. I should have started the characters at 6th or even 8th level. That would have made them as competent as I had hoped, but would not make them tanks–the outcome of starting at such as level in d20.

A couple of problems remained, based on the conflict of my conception and the True20 rules.

Players would still choose weapons based on the mechanical benefits, or if they chose based on style, would face mechanical penalties. Giving iconic weapons a +4 damage allowed players to choose style over mechanics without penalty.

While a wounded character did have a penalty to most actions, it was not progressive. It was only applied once, no matter how many times the character was wounded. I changed that to a – 1 penalty per wound. It creates the kind of deteriorating condition for which I usually look.

Having addressed those problems with house rules, True20 is now chugging along very well. Truth be told, though, I have never met a system I haven’t house-ruled, so only applying two house-rules (so far) is impressive in itself.

One thing I couldn’t figure out and I need to research is the use of ranged weapons in melee. I know how d20 deals with it, but I couldn’t find anything in True20. Given that I totally missed the Minions rules, this may simply be my oversight. I’ll check back in later if I learn something more. As it was, the ranged weapon in question was an iconic weapon, so no worry.

Campaign Journal – the First Session

The Campaign Journal has kind of stagnated, hasn’t it? Let’s get this puppy back on the rails.

So, the first session.

I had forced the players to provide character concepts without the mechanics. This was kind of a history meets character niche posting. This was what we used to build the characters in True20.  It worked surprisingly well–at least for me. The biggest problem during character creation was that I only had one book and there were five players. I really liked building from concept to mechanics, and the structure of True20 allowed for a pretty open process. With only three classes and builds based on feats and powers, the class decision was pretty much made for us.

I also devised some character backgrounds and updated others to match the historical setting. That was fun.

My only issue with True20 was how it approached multi-classing. Maybe it’s the d20 Modern guy in me, but I like multi-classing as a means to create unique characters and complete character concepts. The only real penalty in True20 to multi-classing was to saving throws. While the impact is minimal, especially at higher levels, as I was hoping to create real heroes, I waived that penalty, and allowed character to multi-class freely–however, the character only had one core ability, based on the character’s first class.

The character creation actually took a bit of time because we only had one document. One of the players already had True20, but we were using the revised version, which had a few minor changes. Another player had the quick-play rules, which are apparently significantly different. Given that, the Revised True20 book was in great demand.

The characters were:
Holm: an older Viking who lost a hand to access the Odinpower, much as Odin lost his eye
Audun: an Orkneyman who is part Celt and has access to that culture’s magic through his mother’s blood
Blatik: a Frank who was fated to kill a god or forever suffer servitude
Theodore: a Byzantine scholar, out to learn about the world
Nemit: a Magyar wanderer

Finally, characters all ready, we embarked on the adventure. The players had been asked to provide a reason why their characters would gather at Ravenwood, a small hold on the shores of the Baltic, near modern Rostock. The hall at Ravenwood is the fastness of Hygelac, who calls himself the Goth (purposefully anachronistic, and referring to the Germanic tribe rather than the modern emo-culture).

At the hall, a seeress, called the Angel of Death in the village, indicates that the group have a shared destiny, and marks each of them with a rune, granting each access to a “mythic power.” Most of the group picked their power from a list, though some accepted random assignments. We had two characters who already had limited access to magical powers.

As he had dreamed of Holm coming and taking his sword, Hygelac precipitated a battle, which drew in all the PCs due to their shared destiny.

And this is where I fell down as a GM. I’m familiar with the d20 system, but not totally with the True20 system. Toughness saves were new to me. Further, I hadn’t noted the Minions rules. Minions would have worked perfectly for what I had envisioned, but instead, the group struggled through a very difficult battle.

This led me to do two things. First, I reread the rules, and noted the Minions rules. Second, because I wanted every character to be somewhat useful in combat, I created “iconic weapons,” a weapon type that is tied to a character.

Each character would chose a specific type of weapon (longsword, scimitar, longbow, whatever) and when using that type of weapon would gain three benefits. 1) A +4 bonus that could be applied to attack or defence, based on the player’s decision at the outset of combat. 2) A +4 damage rating. 3) Can be used in ranged or melee without penalty.

The reason for 1) was to allow the character to excel beyond their mechanics in combat. Even a character built to be a scholar would have a fair chance in combat. Those who are built for combat are truly frightening.

The reason for 2) was that I wanted characters to choose weapons based on concept and style rather than mechanics. If you want to play a dagger-man, you can, and it can be as effective as a sword! True20’s more abstract combat system makes this workable even with two-weapon fighting, as it only adds a +2 to the damage.

The reason for 3) was simply based on the cinematic and action-adventure bent of the campaign. In many books and movies, characters are using bows like clubs and throwing swords as a last resort. This allowed for that level of cinematic action.

And all of the bonuses for the iconic weapon were based on a concept of cinematic action rather than realistic. The more abstract combat system of True20 helped this along tremendously. I also made a ruling that there was no need to track ammunition. I adapted the Savage Worlds system for Allies which gives a variety of categories to track ammunition usage rather than tracking each and every arrow. This means that we can go with the fiction of a 6 second combat round that includes multiple attacks or attempts, all defined by a single roll. I’ve discussed my thoughts on that elsewhere.

Defeating Hygelac and his warband, the spirit of the Angel of Death reveals the existence of the Bulgar Gold and divulges that Thorgil of Visiby in Gotland knows its secret. Off the PCs go to Visiby, only to learn that Thorgil was just murdered. At first, the PCs are suspects, but they are able to gain the trust of one of Thorgil’s friends, and through him, Thorgil’s wife.  Thorgil’s wife could not help them with information on the Bulgar Gold, but directed them to Thorgil’s sister in Balagard.

Through his mythic power of Object Reading, Nemit saw a vision of a red-haired man in a red cloak murder Thorgil with his own sword during a friendly conversation. The murderer was identified as Sven Helmcarver, a sea-king (leader of a large warband and fleet, but without any land) of some renown. Sven and his ship, the Wolf’s Breath, had set sail the morning before the group arrived–the morning after Thorgil’s death.

The group set off after Sven, believing he too sought Thorgil’s sister in Balagard.

All in all, I thought it went pretty well. I was wrong, though, as we lost one player. The player who ran Blatik did not feel the game was suitable for an inexperienced player. I asked, through email, for more information on what the problem might be. I wrote that if the player enjoyed the campaign, then we could fix whatever deficiencies he may have encountered. I never heard back, so I figure he either didn’t enjoy the company or the campaign.

Down to four players, which, for me, is the sweet spot. I would have liked to have heard more from Blatik’s player, and since a lot of the plot was altered to suit his character’s background, I was sorry to lose his character. In the end, though, the players that remained expressed enthusiasm for the campaign.

Campaign Journal: The Meet

Before I went forward with the game, before I put more work than a basic outline and intro scenario, I wanted to meet the crew I had assembled. There was one reason and one reason only: I didn’t want to game with someone with whom I wouldn’t be willing to sit down at a coffee shop and chat. Call it elitist, but I don’t want a walking embodiment of all the negative gamer stereotypes in my game.

There was some discussion of possible meeting places. I found further proof, if I needed any, that some groups–especially at their inception, require someone to make the decisions. There were suggestions, but no real votes or support for any of these suggestions. As such, I chose a coffee shop that worked for me and set a time that worked for me.

One player dropped out day of–but it was work related. I can dig that. It doesn’t happen a lot to me these days, but I’ve been in that position. So, a meeting with four out of five players. I had had six, but the one player that I actually knew and a schedule conflict, so he’s out until possibly next year. We shall see.

Of the four in attendance, one had played before with the missing member. That was a bonus. The experience level was incredibly varied, from a few games to a decade plus. That’s cool. I actually dig that. That kind of disparity in experience can be brutal when delivering training or teaching, but in a game I think it adds some spice, different perspectives and hopefully different styles.

We did a meet and greet, and just talked gaming for awhile. Then I got down to business. There were a few things I wanted to do.

I wanted to give everyone a good sense of the game I wanted to run. In this case, it was set in 988 AD Scandinavia but in a world not necessarily our own. This is a place of myth and legend, where magic and monsters may exist. Also, the players were going to have control of the game in that it would be a pure sandbox. I would drop hooks and quests for them, but they could ignore those with impunity. Finally, the characters were going to be the heroes. No 10th level  bartenders. No 10th level city guards. They were going to start at 3rd level and that meant they were already exceptional.

I wanted to discuss house rules. I had a list of changes I wanted to make to the True20 rules. We discussed my reasoning. Some of the rules were adopted, some were shot down, and some were parked for later consideration.

Finally, I wanted to hear their character concepts and discuss them if possible. Only two people had concepts, and only one of them fleshed out to any degree. We did have a discussion on my philosophy toward building characters, that is begin with a concept, flesh out the concept, and we’ll build the mechanical part later.

In the end, I believe the meeting was successful. I believe I transmitted both my enthusiasm for the game and the concept for the campaign. The proof of this, though, will come when we next meet for a character building session and first few games.

Campaign Journal: The Research

In the previous post, I described how I got the group together. But once that group is together, then what?

I gave lots of options as to what we could play. I was going away to Korea for a month, so I wanted to have an idea of what we would be playing before I left. Not only did I leave the system choice open (though I stated I hoped to play True20), I gave campaign ideas from high fantasy to dystopian SF, from Greek hoplites to space marines. The sheer number of options may have stifled some people–sometimes too much choice is a bad thing. A couple of people piped in mentioning sword & sorcery and Vikings.

So I suggested an S&S Vikings game, and no one disagreed, so that was to be our campaign.

The options I provided were all ones I had considered or on which I had done some preparation, so none of the choices would have been odious to me. Being a new group, none of whom knew each other, I think there may have been some hesitancy regarding choosing the kind of game. What I didn’t want to do was dictate a type of game and then lose players.  Perhaps I gave too many choices or perhaps the players just wanted to play something–anything. Whatever the case, before I left I had my campaign genre.

I had plenty of time to prepare while in Korea. We were visiting family rather than doing the tourist thing, and I had time during my daughter’s nap, when no one else was around, to read, speculate and make notes. I had a notebook specifically for the campaign with me. I also brought three books to use for reference and inspiration.

The point of having a notebook–to me–isn’t to take long notes or develop anything, it’s there to catch all your thoughts. I just scratched down anything I read that sparked my interest or gave me insight. There was no rhyme nor reason.

Now the notebook I had was divided into 4 sections. This is useful because now I use the first section to scribble anything that pops into my head. The second section is where I develop ideas. The third section is for developing NPCs. I don’t know what the fourth section will be for, though I’m sure I’ll find a use.

I would suggest at the research stage, you only worry about getting ideas, gathering background knowledge, and sketching out general concepts. If a particular scene comes fully formed into your head, absolutely write down something more substantial, but don’t worry about form. Get the idea down in a way that you can return to it and develop it.

As for the books, I took three because that’s what I had room for. I was travelling. If you are at home, you have access to many, many more. Since my return, I have fleshed out my knowledge with some other references I’ll refer to below.

A Brief History Of the Vikings: The Last Pagans or the First Modern Europeans? by Jonathan Clements was my main Viking reference. This gave me what I needed for the historical background of the Vikings and their culture. It is a very high level, global consideration of the Vikings and their history, focused clearly on the Viking Age, from around the 8th to the 11th century. It also gave a nice background on the Viking religion and superstitions.

I used the Last Apocalypse by James Reston as a general guide for the era leading up to the first millennium. I had read the book before, and I remembered enjoying it. The discussion of issues surrounding Scandinavia made much more sense after learning about the Vikings and their history.

I read the Long Ships (original title in Swedish was Röde Orm, or Red Orm, a reference to the main character) by Frans Gunnar Bengtsson for inspiration. I had developed a concept from reading Clement’s history, but the Long Ships gave me another, more practical and grounded quest–the search for the Bulgar Gold. Also, it gave me some concept of the actual environs of the eastern trade route with Constantinople, at least up to the cataracts.

All of these references gave me tidbits that I added to my background information notes, as well as plot ideas and character concepts. Further, they all provided names. This is something that I prize like gold. I like to have a list of names for men and women so that NPCs can all be named.

On my return, I was able to borrow a copy of Vikings, a recorded lecture series by Kenneth W. Harl.

This series of recordings was much more in depth than the Brief History, but it also ate up almost all my podcast listening time. To be honest, it was worth it. Dr. Harl is a good speaker, at least on CD, and I actually listened to the lectures in order once, then I listened again to the ones I thought of particular value. As a podcast listener in the first place, listening to a series of lectures wasn’t something out of the ordinary. For others, it might not go as well. Also, as I was usually on the bus or walking while I was listening, I couldn’t take notes as ideas hit me, so it was not ideal for me.

And I, of course, consulted Wikipedia often, especially to verify my notes from Dr. Harl’s Vikings once I returned the CDs. But Wikipedia was also useful to read about things like the Volsung Saga or Hrolfr Kraki, to get a kind of cultural grounding.

The 13th Warrior was also a huge influence on the game I had conceived and therefore a type of research. I loved the scene bringing the group together, which is why I poached it. I loved the fatalistic philosophy of the Vikings in that movie–no man escapes his destiny, you die when it’s your time no matter what, so why try to hide from death? I loved the specific roles for the characters. This was all a large reason for my choosing to pursue a Viking game.

With a solid idea of the background and historical context, a good grasp of the game I wanted to play, I began to compile my notes and actually got down to writing the introductory scene. I had already adopted the scene in which the 13 warriors are chosen in the movie the 13th Warrior as the method I would use to glue the group together. Their destinies would be tied, and to break faith would mean they would all die within the year. That gives a narrative impetus for the group to remain together, even if in the game there is character conflict.

But I didn’t go too far. Not until the first meeting.

But that’s another story.

Starting the Campaign Journal About Starting the Campaign

So, I finally got a group together to game in Ottawa. It took some time and no small amount of effort, and I won’t claim complete success until we’re in the campaign swing, but I am optimistic.

Given that I am finally going to be able to start a new campaign, I thought it would be a good idea to document the process, both as a way of sharing with others but also a way to reflect on what I have done and consider how I have gone about it.

First off, how did I gather a group. As with my other two times in Canada without an RPG group, I went to the internet. My first efforts bore no real fruit. I believe now that was because I was too specific. As you can see from my invite, I already had specific games and campaigns mentioned. When I went about the second time, I was completely open, and that is what got me recruits.

The second time, I also targeted three venues. First was Kijiji, which is an internet messageboard for buying, selling, and connecting that my buddy Colin (he of the GenCon Survivors) mentioned. Second was a Yahoo group for D&D in Ottawa.

But the one that worked best was Meetup. Now, I wasn’t about to shell out the money to start a club, because I don’t need that, but I do know through anecdotal evidence that this can work. Instead, I did a search for groups like Dungeons & Dragons, d20 or just RPGs. I joined the waiting list, then when I was ready to start the group, I went to the profiles of other recent joins looking to find games and emailed them from their profiles. This is where I got the majority of my responses.

So far, I have gathered six potential players with two more possibles.

Given my experience, if you want to either get into a game or start one, it is best to begin by being open to any option. If you can find a list of individuals in your area interested in gaming, such as that provided by Meetup, targeted emails are very effective.

Next, I’ll write about what thoughts and references have shaped my concept for the upcoming campaign and what my next steps will be.