Tuesday 22 May 2012

More home game

Recuperating from the cold-type thing I brought on myself.  Sleep and fluid are working their wonders.  Slowly, but steadily.

Baldwin having a contempletative moment
A bit of an update then, on the home game.  At present, we only have the one running.  It's a small party and we've just hit level 4.  This means we're starting to hit the gaming sweet spot - i.e. a lot of the stuff we do works and we can do major kicking if we have to.  That gives us a bit of extra confidence (or foolhardiness) going into situations and as a result we're more relaxed about trying out new things. 

Roger the Feegle, our Pixie skald.  Normally resident on Baldwin's horns for day to day travel.
I've got a vested interest in this campaign (apart from playing in it) because it is the sole creation of my son.  He does not have a particularly high opinion of Wizards of the Coast's adventure output, so he's built his own homebrew, complete with an entire bestiary.  This is fairly normal.

Where it gets interesting is his encounter design.  He tends to use his encounters a pieces of drama.  There is no such thing as an encounter existing in isolation.  Each is a mini-story.  A bit like a well-structured stage fight, we're learning more about our opponents and our own characters every time we run into people.  Encounter, in this context, does not necessarily mean a fight.  Our last session saw no combat at all.

All this makes the campaign feel very organic.  As a fellow GM I know what he's up to and admire it.  As a player I sit back and enjoy, knowing that whatever Baldwin comes up with will feed into the whole story.  Very satisfying.  What we do has consequences.  Unpredictable ones.

The cthonic water sample we decided to bring with us to examine at a later date might have been a mistake, mind you.  Asking about it has already got us turned out of a shop and brought worried looks from the local high priest.  Now we have to find some way to get rid of the stuff.   That and it seems to be alive and trying to escape.

The boy done good.

7 comments:

  1. 4th Edition? Cool, that sounds really fun. Encounters acually advancing the plot with solid fun RPing, woohoo.

    Regarding the water, quickest way to get rid of it...take a drink ;)

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    1. Hmm. Not sure I'm ready to loose Baldwin to a piece of really outright stupidity yet.

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  2. I love hearing stories about next generation GMs and it sounds like your son is a natural. Thanks for putting the first smile of the day on my face Amanda. Hope you're fully recovered soon.

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    1. Thank you and he is. He's a better GM than player and it is a very entertaining campaign.

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  3. "[H]e's built his own homebrew, complete with an entire bestiary."

    You've raised that boy right, Amanda.

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  4. Glad to see you're feeling better!

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