Quote from: Sacrificial Lamb;328939Agreed. I really don't wanna describe last night's session.....because honestly, why lengthen the agony? But you know what? Just for the sake of clarity, I'll explain the basics. Last night, it took us over an hour to get started. Mutt was yapping about his girlfriend, but it didn't bug me, because I was tweaking the spell list for my character, and nobody else seemed to mind.....at first. Then the food delivery guy came, just as we were starting, so that slowed things down.

After this, MeatLips described what happened, but the way the scenario was set up, half the party couldn't contribute at all, and even those that could contribute, could only do so in a very limited capacity. Allow me to explain...:pundit:

My character, Hrothgar hears marching, so I send his Raven familiar, Banjo, to fly up and investigate. He can vaguely see a couple dragons and a mass of soldiers approaching, so we alert Jaarmath and the city guardsmen. Okay....then what? The armies of the Red Hand have begun to lay siege to the city of Brindol. We're defending it, right?

We go up onto the city walls. It's a waiting game right now, since we're not in charge of the city's defense. We built a moat and magically grew some foliage around the city to keep out the enemy, but it seems all we can do is wait. We're not in charge of the soldiers, or the siege artillery (if there is any), or any of that. So what can we do?

We hear "thuds" on the side of the western wall. Boulders are being thrown by giants. How do we know? Well, the DM told us, but he also said it was so dark that we couldn't see them. In fact, he said it was now pitch black, so we couldn't see anything. We couldn't hear anything either, apparently...

So how do we know giants that we cannot see are throwing boulders? Honestly, I have no fucking clue. So anyway, the gates are being relentlessly hammered. It's then, that one of the dragons swoops down and starts breathing fire on the city. Of course, it's happening so far away that we're unable to do anything about it. This bullshit went on for a while, with us getting increasingly frustrated, and if it seems I'm being unfair, think about this...

(A.) We can't stop the walls from being hammered. We're told that giants are doing it, but no NPC told us this. We just "know" it.

(B.) It's pitch black both inside the walls and out, and we can't see or hear shit. The only time this changes is when a boulder is almost in our faces, or when the impact of a stone is clanging against the walls. Oh, and we can also see fire illuminating a section of the other side of the city. Of course, the dragon flies off before we can do anything about it. :rolleyes:

(C.) Mutt starts snoring. He fell asleep while this went on, but honestly.....I just can't blame him. I was mildly frustrated, but mostly bored. imurrx was pissed when Mutt started snoring, but nothing was fucking happening. This session was going terribly.

(D.) Even when I used tactics, they seemed mostly ineffectual. Since we couldn't see or hear dick, I decided to cast Light on one of Horatio's crossbow bolts, and had him fire it at what we assumed was the source of the boulders. Guess what the lighted arrow revealed? Nothing. Oh, wait...it might have partially revealed one giant, but I don't really remember. Anyway, I had Hrothgar cast Fireball, but he inflicted piddling damage on a few giants, so it was basically a waste.

(E.) The other characters had nothing to do. Seriously. What can we have Kratos or Reven do? The only two characters with ranged attacks are Horatio and Hrothgar, and we have limited resources. The attack barely started, and yet Hrothgar already used up a shitload of magic.

So I finally got frustrated, and said...

"Let's just run out and attack."

Yes, it's tactically and almost suicidally stupid, but I was getting fed up. We all were. Honestly, for the first time, Mike's plaintive wail:

"I can't do anything!" :idunno:

...actually made sense.

This adventure module is a bad fit for us, and last night's session blew goats. It just wasn't working. Honestly, we should be focusing more on dungeon environments, because they'll be less of a pain-in-the-ass for Kramer-san to DM.

Oh, and Kramer (MeatLips)....if you decide to continue with this, then I hope you took our conversation with you on the drive home to heart. Now I will tell you guys what our precious DM should do.

(1.) Make an exciting event happen right away in our vicinity, at the beginning of the gaming session, and provide us with an immediate chance to respond to it. What do I mean? Here are examples...

(1a.) A meteorite streaks out of the sky, and falls in our general vicinity. It potentially has religious significance to both sides in the conflict, and is enough to temporarily frighten the dragons. Something strange is inside of it...
(1b.) A small band of Hobgoblins discovers a secret route into the city, and attacks our characters out of fear that our characters have seen them. Maybe someone we know let them in....
(1c.) A small band of assassins hired by the woman we were tracking attempts to kill us. They might be disguised as midwives or as guardsmen or as anyone else.
(1d.) Some courtesans are looking for a little action before the city burns down, and make a pass at a couple of the characters.
(1e.) A small Pseudodragon hides in the bushes, following us around, possibly looking for help. It's carrying an artifact of some sort that it wishes to hide from the Red Hand, and considers only our group to be strong enough and trustworthy enough to hold it. Maybe it stole something from the Lich, and knows about our encounter with it...
(1f.) A few secret Red Hand loyalists attempt to incite a riot within the city walls. People are injured, and property is damaged. If something isn't done about it, it could hinder defense of the city.
(1g.) A group of bards start playing music in the middle of the city. Nero played a fiddle while Rome burned; why can't they?

There's more that could be done, but these are just examples. Feel free, Captain DM, to come up with your own ideas...

(2.) Describe everything. What's the style of architecture for the buildings? Are there people in the streets? How are they dressed? How do they react to us and to each other?  Every city has a feel. We should be hearing the "clang-on-clang" of metal as people begin forging weapons. We should smell the cooking fires, hear the buzz of insects, and people laughing and screaming. What about children? Where are they? Or animals? Draft horses, cats, barking dogs, pigeons, rats, you name it.

(3.) Make us care. Yes, the city is under siege, but we're not emotionally invested in it. None of the NPCs matter. They're mostly forgettable. Some NPCs should be goofy, some hostile, and some helpful. Give them simple names and memorable personality quirks. And anyway, what's so special about this city that we should bother to defend it? I'll be damned if I know, as our DM hasn't really described it.

(4.) Give us an enemy to hate. Yeah, that's right. We need a douchebag with a name. Give him flunkies. He should have plans that oppose our own. And remember, not every enemy has to be an uber-powerful wizard or like fucking "Doctor Evil" from the Austin Powers movies. Maybe we'll just be harassed by the local sleazeball tax collector and his Half-Ogre sidekick for "failure to pay a transportation tax" or a "weapons tax" or a "livestock tax" or other such bullshit. There are always options.

Right now, there's a limit to what can be done, because we're in the middle of a pitched battle, in which we impotently cannot do anything. So, MeatLips, my boy....you're gonna have to be more creative if you wanna turn this lemon into lemonade....:cool:

Is that all you have to say

Quote from: imurrx;329351Is that all you have to say

I was gonna just say "epic fail", but you beat me to it, so I thought that I'd elaborate.

i got a couple of ideas... call me

Quote(A.) We can't stop the walls from being hammered. We're told that giants are doing it, but no NPC told us this. We just "know" it.

You guys fucking kill me. While I agree that there were a lot of fails going on here, I will repeat once again how the fuck you found out about the giants. Fucking Jarmath told you using the FUCKING telepathic link with Horatio. He said 'We've got two groups of giants hammering the walls with boulders at two different locations. I'm sending my men to handle one group, can you guys handle this other group?'

Also, it is indeed dark. Complicated by the FUCKING forest you grew around the city. I'll admit that saying the city was dark was probably a mistake on my part as well, but since no regular human can see in the dark, people are carrying torches.

SacLamb, while I bow to your extended wisdom with your lengthy experience as a DM, I am trying to bend this module to work with the types of characters you guys are playing. But it does get difficult when I make something happen and I get an ASSLOAD of "That can't happen!" bullshit.

So you want this to be better? Fine. We'll retconn the entire fucking thing from before the attack. You want sympathetic characters? Fine. You want a reason to fight? To hate the Red Hand? I'll make it so that you want to kill those fuckers so bad, you can fucking taste it.

I get the criticism and everything, but for fuck's sake, there has NEVER been any fucking situation where you douche-bags just KNOW what the hell is happening. You just conveniently forget how you found out. Out of all the points you made in your editorial, that's the only one that annoyed me the most.

Oh and Mutt falling asleep has more to do with his tendency to not sleep regular hours. Being up all hours either working, drinking, fucking his gf, and then getting up at 5am will do that to you.

Be ready next monday and plan to have the fires of hell rained down upon you.

I love you too, sunshine.

Quote from: meatlips;329584you guys fucking kill me. While i agree that there were a lot of fails going on here, i will repeat once again how the fuck you found out about the giants. Fucking jarmath told you using the fucking telepathic link with horatio. He said 'we've got two groups of giants hammering the walls with boulders at two different locations. I'm sending my men to handle one group, can you guys handle this other group?'

also, it is indeed dark. Complicated by the fucking forest you grew around the city. I'll admit that saying the city was dark was probably a mistake on my part as well, but since no regular human can see in the dark, people are carrying torches.

Saclamb, while i bow to your extended wisdom with your lengthy experience as a dm, i am trying to bend this module to work with the types of characters you guys are playing. But it does get difficult when i make something happen and i get an assload of "that can't happen!" bullshit.

So you want this to be better? Fine. We'll retconn the entire fucking thing from before the attack. You want sympathetic characters? Fine. You want a reason to fight? To hate the red hand? I'll make it so that you want to kill those fuckers so bad, you can fucking taste it.

I get the criticism and everything, but for fuck's sake, there has never been any fucking situation where you douche-bags just know what the hell is happening. You just conveniently forget how you found out. Out of all the points you made in your editorial, that's the only one that annoyed me the most.

Oh and mutt falling asleep has more to do with his tendency to not sleep regular hours. Being up all hours either working, drinking, fucking his gf, and then getting up at 5am will do that to you.

Be ready next monday and plan to have the fires of hell rained down upon you.

thats what i am talking about..... Passion!

Now that was a better sessions. Even Blumpy got more action than a 40 year old virgin at a Britney Spears concert.

Now Here are my positives.

• Dm took control early
• Started at an earlier time
• Had some fluff action to get our focus
• DM made the session more ideot proof (IE throwing a bone here and then)
• Finally some action
• Better build up and story line (threw a few character hooks to get us going)

Now, here are the negatives

• Mutt was taking pictures with the rubber penis he gave to Meatlips for his birthday. Too much dicking around.
• Blumpy needed to be handled of a missunderstanding of the rules.
• Sac Lamb wanted to take on an army in broad daylight. Remember the last time that happened? Mut lost his dragonel and it could have been a TPK.
• PC need a better job of taking initiative and having the DM less throwing bones
• Too much side distraction as time went on and loosing focus.
• Mutt falling asleeep.

So better improvement. If Mr DM kept the reigns longer at the end, it would have been faster. We probably waisted about 90 minutes out of the 4 hours of us being there. That was better than the previous session of 2½hours  out of 3 of being buttass gaming.

Now, I am game for Thursday. Who's in???

QuoteMutt was taking pictures with the rubber penis he gave to Meatlips for his birthday. Too much dicking around.

The scary thing is, I don't know what he did with that thing. I didn't see it anywhere after you guys left...

Oh, and I got that bottle you were kind enough to deposit on my balcony, douche-face. I'll be returning it to you soon enough.

I'm not going to be able to do Thursday. I need to finish getting ready for my fun-filled trip down to Jersey Friday morning.

if you only knew....

Quote from: MeatLips;331639The scary thing is, I don't know what he did with that thing. I didn't see it anywhere after you guys left...

Oh, and I got that bottle you were kind enough to deposit on my balcony, douche-face. I'll be returning it to you soon enough.

I'm not going to be able to do Thursday. I need to finish getting ready for my fun-filled trip down to Jersey Friday morning.

Well for canceling on us tomorrow, expect a larger deposit.

I guess we're on next week then. No problem. I'll write the journal tonight though.

So when your coming back Meatlips? Lets game for the next day and them monday. Want to wrap this battle up. I got this itch, and it can't be scratched.

Quote from: imurrx;332163So when your coming back Meatlips? Lets game for the next day and them monday. Want to wrap this battle up. I got this itch, and it can't be scratched.

They have a cream for that.

I have been examining the the xp system and the level independent version, we are getting jipped with the unearth arcana version. The only bonus is the xp for low level  slautter mobs of goblins and orcs. bummer

That's a shame. Maybe if we chop down a couple more trees, we'll get more xp...?