Two in One

Dungeons and Dragons went as well as could be expected. I thought there would be less capering and more gaming with the group that I have brought together, I know that everyone wants to have fun but too many jokes eventually detract from the game itself.

The members of the party seem relatively suspicious of one another. Actually they seem suspicious of everyone from the bailiff and the barman to the priestess and the druid. This is fine with me, I want to see who they eventually end up trusting the most... or at least being suspicious of the least. Bob's character, Elysia, keeps getting headaches when she is around certain NPCs; Nick's character, Sten, doesn't trust the other two PCs because they were so willing to use terminal force on the bandits they were sent to deal with; Sam's character, Samulus, doesn't trust Sten because he was so unwilling to use terminal force on the bandits. I want to pick up the pace for the next adventure which will be Adventure 3: The Curse of the Vargouille.

Which may hint at the speed at which the game was played yesterday. There was a lot of discussion and deliberation during the early stages of the game, there were perfectly normal accidents and mistakes (Samulus fell off a wall when trying to infiltrate the ruined tower the bandits were holed up in, meanwhile Sten was almost crippled by a goblin ambush on the way back to the village) which make for good role playing and character development. In the end, the players blazed through Adventure 1: The Watchtower with able speed and when I asked if they wanted to start Adventure 2: The Elixir they immediate said yes. I skipped through one part of the second adventure (originally the PCs were supposed to help the druid Ollen find his staff) because I felt like the players had done enough "fetch my boots" missions for one day. They also arrived at Ollen's location very quickly. I'm glad they visited the parts of the village that they did, they could have seen more but what they did see was important enough.

The NPCs they have interacted with so far have stirred questions in the minds of the players. They definitely don't trust Gendrax; they were first questioning about Kofrax but now seem to think of him as their personal piggy-bank; although their characters don't know about Elysia's problems with some NPCs they have encountered, the players are all discussing the strange headaches she has been getting; they think the local bailiff is obsessed with his work and a little too high-strung; and they think that the local courier is more than she seems too. They haven't asked many questions about the herb that Ollen, the druid, gave them; but Sam seems to think it has something to do with Elysia's headaches.

I can't wait for their discoveries of the secrets within Windy Cross and their reactions to each and every revelation. I hope they are enjoying it as much as they say they are. I think everyone would like to see more dice/heads rolling but at the moment the party is quite fragile. We'll have to see how they toughen up.

Sam also said he wants to see the bandit leader, Russ Needlebridge, again after he sent him running for the hills. I may do a full write-up of the gaming session and post it on my website later.

Also, now I'm back to work, it feels like the Christmas fortnight off was longer than the summer holidays break. Go figure.