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Showing posts from April, 2021

Session #18

Another very interesting session last night in the Waterdeep Campaign.  We started a little bit later than normal.  So as the session kicked off, there was only one player-- Æoth the paladin.  At the player's request, "Aoth" is now spelled Æoth because apparently this character is descended from Elon Musk. Anyways, with only one player to start, I asked him what he wanted to do, and what he was thinking the party would do this session (because I had no idea what the party was planning this evening).  I feel the inclusion of downtime, and real-time campaign tracking has given my players so much freedom that I usually am not able to predict what they will do in a given session.  It took Æoth a while to think about it also.  He ended up deciding to check in with his contacts for information about the Stone of Golor (a recurring plot-thread the players have been chasing down for several weeks now--after neglecting it for several months) to deal with other threats.  He specifi

How I run Downtime and the Calendar:

 What is downtime? Downtime is what happens between sessions of D&D.  For example, between two recent sessions, one of my players spent his downtime buying powdered diamonds, and building a collapsable scaffold so that he could cast multiple glyphs of warding (essentially D&D landmines that only are triggered by a particular creature or creature type) to set a massive explosive trap for an Aboleth in the sewers of Waterdeep.  Downtime gives the players freedom to pursue their own sidegoals, and flesh out their characters, without taking up time when everyone is sitting down to play the actual campaign. Downtime ALSO allows the WORLD to change, adapt, and react to the actions of the players.  So for example, early in the campaign, the players spent a few sessions delving into a crypt in the City of the Dead (a cross between Central Park and a cemetery--probably best avoided at night, you might run into the crazy bird lady from Home Alone 2).  This particular crypt is owned by a

Session #17

 We had a full party this past week.  Two rogues, a bard, a paladin & a druid. This session started off with the introduction of a new NPC--Padre Brendon--who asked the players for help with an outbreak of behemoths (dinosaurs) in the "Field Ward" of Waterdeep.  A T-Rex and flock of raptors are on the loose there, under the leadership of a mysterious "Dawn Age Pervert," who believes in the survival of the fittest, and the purification of Waterdeep through the destructive energy of the natural world.  The party told Padre they couldn't help out with his quest this week because they have too much else going on right now (it will be fun to see how long they leave a ward of the city to be ravaged by dinosaurs, lol).  But the Bard thoughtfully recruited the cleric to help the party in going after the "Necromancer," who they've been hunting down for a few weeks now. Once the session got underway, the party first returned to the necromancer's lair

Session #16

For the session tonight, the party consisted of Gwydion (5th level bard), Aoth (4th level paladin), and Dan'del'leon (1st level druid) (new player and pc). The party decided to track down a lead they haven't followed up on for more than a month.  The last time the party was working on this lead, they broke into a noble family's house and killed their extremely tanky guard captain.  In that session the party was hoping to find the "stone of golor" a magic item which is apparently the key to "Neverember's enigma" (a rumored stash of 500,000 GP hidden in a vault somewhere in Waterdeep).  The end result of their efforts in that session was that two of the main player characters were forced into hiding and actively wanted by the City Watch, and the remaining character was taken into custody on somewhat trumped up charges.  And the stone itself wasn't located.   It's been a month of in-game time since this all went down, so the trail of the sto