Tales from the Borderlands – Episode 6 – Tales from the Outer Rim

               As mentioned last episode our group was taking a slight detour from the Caves of Chaos to go to a galaxy far, far away. I have been running D&D for almost two years straight on a weekly basis, and for the past few months I have been running a 5e game as well. I was D&D’d out and I needed a change of pace. I decided to bust out the West End Games Star Wars D6 system for some cinematic goodness. Why WEG Star Wars? Two main reasons, it is what I know (though the last time I played it was the 90s) and it is the best Star Wars RPG. I also wanted to do something that did not resemble a dungeon crawl at all. I printed out a bunch of templates for characters and had the group pick what they wanted. We ended up with a Wookie Warrior, Brash Pilot, Outlaw, Mercenary, and a Technician. You might be asking, “What no Smuggler or Jedi, those are so classic?” I had two additional players, but they both had to leave unexpectedly due to an emergency, and they chose those templates. They left so early as to really not affect the game at all. I went ahead and ran an Instant Adventure, so it might seem familiar. 

REUP Edition

                The conceit of the game was that they were all young people looking to join the Rebellion after the success at the Battle of Yavin. They were to all make their way to a smaller core planet, to start the perilous journey to the Outer Rim to a Rebel training facility. They had never met each other before, and were now being introduced to how the Rebellion does things. As they enter the space port they are told that they will be packed into shipping containers, and smuggled into the Mid-Rim. From there, they would meet with the local Rebellion cell and they would arrange for the rest of their journey. Already the PCs are a little nervous about this plan because it seems risky. Of course it is risky, you are in an act sedition organization live a little. They all get into the different containers, but the group had not planned for a Wookie, and he was forced to crawl into an industrial cylinder and have the ends welded shut and some air holes poked in it. He instantly became a dog in a carrier, and the jokes ran rampant across the table. Also, no one in the group spoke Wookie, so there was communication issues. The transport lifted off and they heard the pilot, Garrack, tell them it would just be a few hours now.

                Smash cut to the next scene as the transport touches down and is immediately greeted by Imperial inspectors. They are requesting the cargo manifests, crew manifests, and want an inspection. Garrack attempts to comply with their demands, but is hesitant when they ask to see what is in the crates. He keeps telling them it is foodstuffs and if he breaks the seal on the containers, it could damage the cargo. The Imperials are not buying it, so Garrack knocks a warning on the side of the Brash Pilot’s container, opens the lid, and hits the Stormtrooper with the lid. I was excited, finally some action, so cinematic combat that is not in my dungeon crawls. I can hear the John Williams score kicking in, and it is about to get awesome. What does the Brash Pilot do? I hesitate to call him Brash at this moment. He stands up and puts his hands in the air to surrender. WWWHHHAAATTTTTTTT!!!!!!!!!! My jaw literally hit the floor. A scratch sound across the record and the William’s score ends. I legitimately did not know what to do. The Stormtroopers turn on Garrack and start to kick the shit out of him, and still the BRASH Pilot does nothing.

This was suppose to be an intro fight.

Finally the Outlaw decides to bang on his crate to see if he can get the attention of the Troopers, and he does as a few peel off to inspect it. As they open the crate, he shoots one in the face. This triggers the Wookie to bust out of his container like the Kool Aid Man, Oh Yeah. Each of the PCs now started popping out of the crates to blaze away at the Imperials. The Technician got stuck in his crate, and tried to burn his way out with a plasma torch, but that lasted longer than the combat. The Wookie was a beast and kept walking towards enemy fire absorbing the shots until he picked up a trooper and threw them into the others. The battle ended and Garrack chided the BRASH Pilot for being a bit cowardly, and told them they had to find “The Maze”. He warned them that more Imperials would be on their way and he had to take off.

Not knowing what “The Maze” is, the Technician used his computer to slice into the local network and figured out that it was a bar on the other end of town. While he was in there he decided to poke around and found the plans to the patrol schedule of the local Imperial outpost. They made a few Streetwise rolls to avoid any danger, and made it to The Maze. It was a dark bar with an actual maze-like structure. As they made their way through, they had several encounters. One was a small alien that the Pilot knocked over his drink. They could not understand it, but it was drawing all the wrong kind of attention. The Wookie ended up picking it up, getting kicked, HARD and the little guy scampered off. Next the Mercenary was recognized by a strange mantis-like alien as having worked a job together in the past. The Alien’s human name was Pop, and was trying to seduce the Mercenary. Pop was a little offended when his friends drew him away, and might return at a later date. At this point people are watching them and people in the corners are talking into communicators while looking at them. The Technician in a hurry runs smack dab into a female in Mandalorian Body Armor. She doesn’t say a word, but follows the entire group as they walk by. The Wookie tries to intimidate her, with no success, he also did not notice the Wookie scalps hanging off her belt.

The Maze

They make it to the back of the bar and there is a huge, green alien that is almost the size of the Wookie with a partner who looks almost feline. They pick a fight with the group and for a few round they brawl it out in the bar. Finally guns start to get leveled, and the feline drops a smoke grenade on the ground and it turns out these guys are the Rebellion contacts. They head through a secret compartment into the headquarters for the local Rebellion cell. They meet the Rebel commander, and she explains that they need the group to fly a transport and X-Wing past the Imperial blockade and get supplies to a nearby system. The transport is nearly full, and they need to go to a local port and pick up the last of the delivery, and take it to the ship and get out of here. The transport and the X-Wing are hidden out in the woods, and she give them the coordinates to find them. All their hopes lay on this group and them completing this task. This was as far as we got, we still have a bit to go and I think I want to get through all of this before I return to D&D.

I had a great time playing this side excursion and my advice to any Game Master is to take a break and do something else every now and again. Players if the GM asks to do something like this, go along with them, odds are they need a break in order to recharge their batteries. You do not want to play with a GM that is burnt out, it is not a good experience. I also found out that I really missed this game and cannot believe it has been so long since I played it. I got the REUP edition, which is out on the net, and it takes 2nd edition Revised, and updates it as far as format and adds in materials from popular supplements. It is 500+ pages long, and it is wonderful. I went ahead and had a POD copy made because I like it that much.

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Tales from the Borderlands – Episode 5 – The Bitter Taste of Defeat

This week in the Old School Essentials campaign..... 

               If everything went well for the characters in episode 4, everything went wrong in episode 5. This whole time we have been playing the rolls for random encounters have gone favorably for the players, but not this game. They were relentlessly pounded by the random encounter die, and got little in return for it. We kept a large portion of the party from the previous weeks. We still have the Dwarf, the Cleric, and the Magic-User, but to that we added another Dwarf and another Cleric. To distinguish the Clerics I will refer to the older Cleric as Cleric-tough, and the newer as Cleric-weak. The reason is the newer Cleric-weak, rolled pretty bad and only had 2 HP and couldn’t afford platemail. Everyone at the table kept telling him to buy a grave early in the game, because it is coming. The new Dwarf was a beast and had great stats including a 1 AC and 10 HP, people at the table all pointed and said, “New Tank!”

                The characters headed off to the Caves of Chaos without a guide and without any henchmen. I keep trying to drill into their heads the importance of these things, but they want more money. Apparently the 30 silver a day for torchbearers is too heavy a cost for these adventurers. They do make it to the caves without incident, and immediately head into cave D where they met goblins before. They decide to go towards room 17 where they had the first ever encounter of the campaign and continue on. They discover a set of stairs, and quickly get scared and decide to go back. This whole time I am rolling random encounters. Backtracking and heading into room 19 they start to hear unusual noises. They hear goblins yelling, and general chaos. The Dwarf decides to “sneak” into the room, I advised that the stealth skills of a Dwarf in platemail might not be the best, but he goes ahead anyways. He sees a group of goblins, attacking the air, and shadows flicking around the room. I rolled a random encounter at the same time they were entering the room to I combined the encounters. Everyone in the room saw the Dwarf with his friends close behind and all the PCs heard was, “New friends!” and the beating of wings. They got flashes of images of small humanoids with insect wings moving towards them. I rolled randomly to see how many of the Pixies would stay and which would go to the PCs, all seven of them went to the PCs.  

Truly a worthy foe!

                The PCs almost break ranks immediately, they try yelling to the goblins that they will help with the Pixies. The reaction roll was crap, and the goblins begin to hurl javelins into the party at the same time as the Pixies are stabbing them. The new “tank” Dwarf laughs at the goblins and then gets hit for 6 points of damage and stops laughing. The pixies continue to try and stab the party, almost gutting the Magic-User. The Pixies keep yelling about how much “shiny-ies” the party has and trying to take their gold purses. Eventually they begin to fall back, but the Pixies give chase and are much faster than the party. The Magic-User gets the good idea to throw lots of money on the ground, and after 50 GPs of loss, they manage to stagger away. So much for that endeavor.

                They decide to brave the stairs and begin to backtrack yet again. When they get back to room 17 they run into one of the greatest threats to PCs in the Monsters Manual. It is a random encounter that I always fear to get or to give to PCs, Giant Bees. The 5e players have no idea why my players from previous games are so upset, they do not know about the poison mechanic. The Magic-User decides that now is the time, and casts Sleep. He managed to drop all 9 of the bees and the party walks away unharmed, but it could have been much worse. They then proceed to go up the flights of stairs and find themselves at a hallway with a locked door.

DEADLY!

                The plan started out well, they knocked on the door and pretended to be goblins. The new “tank” Dwarf and Cleric-tough up by the door, the rest of the party hiding down the stairs. The Dwarf knew goblin and was confusing enough to get the Hobgoblins on the other side curious, until he blew it. They told him they were going to open the door and to step back, he then in COMMON told his party to get ready. Hearing this, the hobgoblins knew something was amiss. I described how it took a few seconds then the door came quickly open. One hobgoblin was opening the door and hiding behind it, the others had crossbows ready and fired. Once the shots went through the hobgoblin shut the door and locked it. The bolts went out, and the “tank” Dwarf was struck again he was down to 1 HP. The Cleric-tough stood by the door, as the “Tank” Dwarf crawled away. Sure enough, the door flung open and three more shots came out, this time the “tank” Dwarf dropped. He made his death savings throw, but was out. The Cleric-tough stuck his foot in the door, and ran in as the rest of the party followed.

One of my favorite monsters.

                The Magic-User gave the ‘tank” Dwarf a potion, and he got back 1 hp, but was up. There was a good pitched battle in the room, but the part managed to take out all of the Hobgoblins gaining a whopping 16 GP in the process. They looked down the next corridor and saw only a cavernous, long hallway and decided to head back to the keep, actually poorer then when they started. As they went home I had them roll to see if they got lost, and they did, because guides are there for a reason. This spawned an encounter with Fire Beetles that was not that spectacular due to Sleep. The Magic-User has rolled a minimum of 8 HD of monsters each time he casts it. Someday his luck will run out, but it was not that day.

An old friend with a new face.

               This is where we ended and we are actually taking a 1 week break from the game. I have been running D&D for nearly 2 years straight on a weekly basis. I wanted a “palate cleansing” and decided to run a one shot of WEG Star Wars. I love that game, and have not played it since it was in print. It was one of the defining games of my childhood along with D&D and Robotech. I wanted to do something more cinematic and much less dungeon grind. I will most likely be doing a write-up of Tales from the Outer Rim next week, and then back into the Caves of Chaos from there.

P.S. I almost forgot about this. I told my players that they could set up a will with the bank, and if they brought in new characters, they could have them be a relative. This was a fun little thing, that isn’t too realistic. One of my clever players knows how powerful Sleep is, and is working on copying his spellbook over so that he can will it to his next character. I know B/X does not technically allow this, but I like Magic-Users learning from found materials. They are learning certain lessons, and this is a creative use of the rules.

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Tales from the Borderlands – Episode 4 – The Sweet Taste of Victory

               Last week’s adventure was a massive success for the players. I believe that the two PCs that died last week, came back and made characters that fit the party’s needs better. We lost a Fighter and an Elf last week, they remade characters and have a Cleric and a Magic-User. The Cleric could have made a really good Fighter, but the player wanted to be a Cleric. He has an 18 STR, 13 CON, and 13 DEX, while his WIS is 11. Even so, they have a good tank in the Cleric who will eventually get some spells. The Magic-User rolled pretty average across the board, and that is not bad for a MU. The thing he did roll was the magic number 11 on a d12 for his random spell. Any player of Old SchoolEssentials or BX should know the mythic number 11, because it is Sleep. That spell is just so darn good at low levels and can turn the tide for a party that is in danger. We also had a new player, who was a solid 5e player, but wanted to try older D&D. He really enjoyed the change of pace and commented on how fun it was because your characters are so fragile. He said you have to make good decisions, and bad decisions make the game so tense. He rolled up a good Fighter and was pleased with his results. The only returning character we had this week was the Dwarf, the two thieves could not make it. So 1 Dwarf, 1 Fighter, 1 Cleric, and 1 Magic-User are heading to the Caves of Chaos, with a single torch bearer Alania in tow.

                The group immediately heads back to the Owlbear caves and wants to search its lair for any possible treasure. As they enter, I make sure to mention there is a whole wing of the cave system here that they have not explored. They head into the debris strewn lair of the Owlbear and search and find grasp in the hand of one of the victims of an attack, a scroll case. The new fighter of the group discovers this singularly, and decides to not share it, or make anyone aware of its presence. In fact, he does not even open the scroll case to see what is inside. Generally in a game of this nature, that is not a good idea, but each to their own. Seeing that there is nothing else, they decided to enter the other side of this particular cave system.

                I was really worried about this section because the chance of PC death is quite high, and unless the party takes extreme caution it can go downhill fast. I describe how the cave’s debris starts to lessen and the cave starts to become damper and damper. They enter a cavern that is dominated by a small lake and they begin to circle the outside of it. One of the PCs notices a shiny object in the pool and points it out to the other characters. They decide to remove everyone from the cave except the dwarf, and have him take a look at it with his Infravision. As the party members leave the dwarf’s vision starts to adjust and he notices that the thing in the water is not alive, or at least does not radiate heat. That is when the gray oozes lash out with their surprise actions. Normally gray ooze is a nasty combatant that can strip away armor, surprise opponents, and melt their flesh. These guys felt more like the smiling slimes from Dragon Warrior on NES. The party beat them down and the oozes could not hit for love or money. They then retrieved the golden chalice from the water, and left the cave feeling pretty good about themselves.

I wanted them to be more dangerous then this.

                I rolled a random encounter for them and decided to bring back their old friend the Ogre. He was waiting there with a herd of six goblins wanting some money and payback. He saw them laughing and literally drinking from the golden chalice and wanted that in exchange for their lives. I had a dramatic speech ready to give about how he was going to crush their bones, and then destroy the Keep, but before I can get to that the Magic-User interrupts and says, “I cast Sleep, screw that guy.” He rolled really good and all seven of the combatants fall asleep. They then begin to slaughter all of them, roll up into his cave, take back the money he stole from them with a hefty bonus of gold he extorted from the goblins in the past few weeks. With those successes under their belt, and light left in the day they decided to head back to the keep to safely store their gains. Did I forget to mention they decided not to hire the Woodsman this trip as a guide? Because they did not. I had not been making them possibly get lost, and lowered the random encounter rate due to him, but they thought they knew better.

                On the way back, they were camped on the 2nd night and the Cleric was on watch. The Cleric did not hear the sounds of the approaching doom until it was almost too late. The party was attacked by 10 skeletons, and the real issue was that the skeletons were on them almost before they could stand. They decided they did not want to abandon their gains, and wanted to fight the overwhelming odds. They battled and fell back more than once, the Cleric failed their Turn Undead check, and the Dwarf was taken below zero for the 2nd time, but survived. The funniest part to me is that the Fighter hiding the scroll was actually hiding a Scroll of Protection from Undead. I find his greed being their near downfall utterly hilarious. Scrambling to leave, they realize that the Dwarf was the only member of the party that even remotely knew the route to and from the cave, as this was everyone else’s first time. Then proceed to get lost for 2 more days before finding the Keep, avoiding random encounters along the way.

                We called it a little early because we had enough time for some book keeping, but not another trip into the caves. I think I am going to have the noble of the Keep take notice of them now, because they are actually doing some good. I was thinking about offering some alternative adventures like seeking the hermit, finding the bandits, or even traveling to Orlane to deal with the local issue of strange happenings. We will see what they want to do and how it will all unravel. I hope everyone is still enjoying the series and I hope that you follow the blog.

Soon I hope...

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Tales from the Borderlands – Episode 3 – Triumph & Tragedy

               This week’s adventure was full of ups and downs with the characters being overly happy with themselves, and also getting a bit overconfident as well. They had some great rewards, and some low points as well. To keep everyone up to speed I have an open table game that I run at my school for my students, each week the party’s members can fluctuate and this does cause a bit of hand waving on my part mostly at the end of the session stating, “and you get back to the keep safely” so that each week they can start at the keep. This week there was no new players, only people playing for at least their second go around. I had a dwarf, elf, fighter, and two thieves. Still no dedicated magic user or cleric, but they seem to know that and do not care.

                I am trying to get the party use to the idea of hirelings, without outright coming out and saying, “You guys NEED to hire some help.” Whenever they are in town, I mention that they can do the following things, 1) buy equipment 2) gather information 3) visit the church 4) talk with the local authorities 5) possibly hire someone. They seem good with 1 and 2, and even tried 3 this week, but I had to ram number 5 down their throats to at least hope they would get the idea. I had them meet Kip. Kip was a local street urchin that heard the group came back with lots of money, and no deaths. Kip wanted to go on the adventure. Kip asked to be their porter and torch bearer, for 30 silver a day and no share of the loot. What better deal can I throw at them? They legit hemmed and hawed over it, because “We can carry our own gear and torches?” I explained encumbrance, and not being able to use one arm with a torch, still they were unsure. Kip laid a sob story on them about trying to feed his family, and the thieves of the party took pity, and hired him. Off they went to the caves.

                Again they rolled no random encounters on the way there, and arrived promptly on the morning of the second day. They wasted no time and headed straight for cave G, and I was horribly nervous. As veterans of B2 know, cave G can easily turn into a TPK. They enter the cave system and instantly start heading down into the darkness. I continue to roll listen checks for the various beasts in this cave system, but they continue to luck out. They make it to outside the opening of a wider opening and they stop to listen for noises. One of the thieves hears the sound of cracking bones coming from down the tunnel. They decide to send the dwarf and the elf, due to their infrafvision, into the entrance to see what is happening. Again I roll a listen check for the creature with bonuses because of their armor, nothing. They end up seeing a massive creature eating the carcass of a humanoid. I play infravision exactly like “Predator” vision from the movie. They see heat, but making out details is not possible. The dwarf decides he wants to get a better look, and goes back to the party retrieves a bow, rags, and oil. He goes back into the cave lights the arrow and fires it over the creatures head. Needless to say the Owlbear was surprised, and screams and begins to charge. Upon hearing the scream the rest of the party runs, the dwarf is running too. The party with their head start clears the cave, but the Owlbear catches up to the dwarf at the cave entrance, stabbing him with his beak and bringing him to 1 hit point.

They loved this picture when I showed it to them.

                I inform them that the Owlbear is faster than most of the party, and they can run, but odds are it will chase down one of them. They decide to fight it in the open, and used decent tactics. They spread out initially and the Owlbear charged the Elf who was guarding Kip, the rest began using ranged combat to try and bring it down. The fighter took a round to get into flanking position, and they had a decent system going. The thieves with their bows were on fire, hitting about 80% of the time, and getting at least one critical. (Note: I read somewhere that Gary did not like critical hits and the double damage, he claims it throws the math off of the monsters a bit. I can see that especially with creatures having much lower HP. So instead of double damage, I went with a Gary suggestion and just max the damage on a 20. Keeps the rolls within the bounds of possibility.) Besides the thieves, everyone was down to 1 or 2 hit points by the end. Except poor Kip. Kip bravely stood his ground with the elf in the initial charge of the Owlbear, and took a natural 20 to the face. This made the thieves state, “We are not running from this fight, this thing MUST die,” and it did. They ended up taking the Owlbear’s claws, head, and getting several Owlbear steaks. As they continued messing with the body, I kept asking one at a time randomly to roll a d6. They’d ask, “What for?” I would reply, “Nothing, it’s fine.” Eventually they were like, “Is this for the Ogre trying to hear us?” I just sat back and smiled, they then packed their belongings and left. They never did go back and search its lair, maybe they will in the future.

                They returned to town, conquering heroes with their Owlbear head. It was taken and put up on the ramparts to signify civilization’s triumph over chaos. They brought Kip’s body back and took it to the chapel, they also asked the Priest to make them a Healing Potion, which he started upon. They searched out for Kip’s sister, Alania, only to discover they were twins and she wanted to get revenge. She was going to go with the party on their next trip and raise hell at the caves. The elf decided to go full Legend of Zelda and buy flute. He asked, “Do I know how to play it?” I responded, “Yes, you’re an elf. I am sure you spent 1 full year of your life devoted to music theory.” The fighter then asked, “Can I play it?” I looked coldly, “No, you are not a beautiful creature, like the elves.” They rested, made merry, and decided to head back to the caves.

You beautiful elven bastard.

                They finally got not one, but two random encounters. I was excited, I wanted them to have to deal with something that was completely not on their terms. Then I rolled the random generation, day 1 herd animals (deer), day 2 Halflings. Neither was a threat, they did get to talk with a “rival” adventuring group as the Halflings were headed to the caves too. They believe they had just gotten eight new NPCs to boss around, but since they didn’t try and negotiate with the Halflings they ventured into the goblin caves. The party decided to go into the caves they had not tried yet, cave A. I rolled and the usual surprise at the entrance of cave A was not there, and they entered in full formation.

                They wanted several yards into the cave and sprung the pit trap almost immediately, the elf managed to fall in and was reduced to 2 hit points, and more importantly they had to get him out. They were in no rush, and the guards from section 2 come pouring into the section and begin stabbing into the pit at the elf. They respond by firing some arrows back and the elf makes it back to the surface. I was hoping they would try and negotiate, because the Dwarf knows Kobold, and has a decent CHA. He tells them, “Get your gold and bring it to us, then leave the cave with your lives,” and proceeds to flub the CHA roll too. This just angers them, and they send a runner off into the deeper part of the caves, and continue to verbally spar with the party, with the occasional “F--- You Smoothskins”. With one round of completely good aim, the party kills all the Kobold with missile fire. They traverse the pit, and begin to raid the bodies. All the while I am telling them about the time passing. They find a lever on the other side of the pit to reset the trap, and head into room 2. Room 2 without guards is just generally empty, but the ransack it. When they come back to the T-section they notice 3 Kobold commanders,1 Kobold “King”, and 3 more Kobolds across from them, and 8 Kobolds blocking the way out of the cave.

Silly little monster, but they can be deadly.

                One of the brand new player of a thief immediately states, “Pull the lever, it will block the group of 8 from getting to us.” This decision most likely saved the party from a TPK. This battle went on for some time but here are the highlights. The king was slain by the dwarf hitting him with an oil flask and he burned to death over two rounds. The 8 Kobolds decided to enter the pit and try and climb up each other to scale the walls. The fighter decided to throw some of his Owlbear steaks into the pit to see what happened. I try to give everything a chance, so I decided to give the Kobolds a save versus magic with a +5 bonus to not care about the meat. They rolled a 1. Their make-shift ladders collapsed and they began fighting among themselves over who got the meat. The thief then pulled the lever again, sealing the squabbling runts to kill each other. The kobold commander were not slouches though, and managed to kill two party members, the Elf and the Fighter. This brings the death count to 4 this campaign, 2 elves, and 1 fighter, and 1 NPC. I now keep a dead pile on the whiteboard at school of the character sheets of the deceased, see the picture below.

The gone, but not forgotten. Students added the writing for flair.

                The 3 remaining party members looted the Kolbolds and found the King’s golden necklace worth 1,200 GP. You would have thought they won the Mega Millions Jackpot. They were dancing around the table, handing out high fives, and general cavorting. Now I need to consider the fate of the dead in the party. The first elf that died, never came back so I did not have to deal with it. These players do want to continue. I don’t want people to completely fall behind. I think my policy will be you can keep half of the XP of a previous character. Thus, there is a penalty for dying, but it is not a complete loss. I think this is reasonable, but tell me what you think in the comments. Do you have a better strategy for dealing with stuff like this?

                That was all for this week, the player continue to surprise me in multiple ways. They are absolutely brilliant in some situations, and completely clueless in others. Seems like just another day playing D&D.

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Tales from the Borderlands – Episode 2 – Ogre Aggressive

               I apologize for the delay on this series, but the hurricane cause school to cancel last week and the group was unable to get together. We had a session on Tuesday and it was quite special. I am running an open table so players are going to fly in and out of the sessions. I had three characters return from the previous adventure, the Dwarf, the Elf, and the Fighter that was knock out at the end of last session. Joining this merry band was four new players. Two of the new players have played before, and two were completely new to D&D. The party added another Fighter, another Elf, and two Thieves (both of them completely new players). The party still had no Magic Users or Clerics, but such is life.

                When we last left off, the group had slayed a small contingent of goblins, and earned a hearty 60 silver pieces, and one of their front line fighters was down. Since over 50% of the game was new, I decided to hand wave that the party retreated and was attempting to get back to town with their guide, Mac the Woodsman. Luckily I rolled no random encounters and they arrived back at The Keep. I told them how the Keep’s population was snickering under their breath because they came back tail between their legs and with nothing to show for it. Mac was disappointed that he basically did not get paid for four days of work and the group was close to out of money at this point. I ruled that they rested for a week in order to let the fighter get back health, and the new players arrived in the meantime.

                The new players came to the keep and as they entered noticed the guards exchanging some coin and overheard, “I bet this lot comes back with nothing too, most likely one will die too. I’ll give you 5 to 1 odds.” This was a tad disconcerting to them and they headed straight for the tavern to get the local rumors. I did not consult the rumor table, because the scuttlebutt about the cave was nothing but about how the last group failed miserably. Mac introduced himself, and offered his services to the new group. I also had Mac suggest that the newbies might want to combine forces with the group that went in last time. The more manpower, the more likely they can survive. The groups decided to combine and were going to set off the next morning.

                The notion of supplies came up as almost no one had money, or rations. The two new players, both thieves, decided to live up to their reputations. They wanted to go and steal rations for the group. No one seemed to have a problem with this, and they both set out to see what they could obtain. I asked them their plan and explained that there was a “provisioner” and described a simple general store. At first, since they were new, they said “We steal from him.” I asked, “How are you going about this?” I gave them a few examples of how they could possibly go about this, then they understood and came up with a good plan. One of the thieves had a 16 CHA and they were going to distract the merchant, and the other was going to rob from him. I decided to mess with them ever so slightly because they kept saying this is like Skyrim. I wanted to do something that Skyrim does not do. I made the merchant exceptionally nice, and wholesome. He was talking with the character saying how tough times were since the trade routes are threatened by monsters from the caves. How he can barely afford to feed his poor wife, who is ill. How the character reminded him of his nephew, who is a good boy, honest as the day is long. The player actually doing the theft was like, “I can’t do this. He is so nice.” To which the other player said, “We’re in this too far don’t back down now.” So they stole from him, to rub it in slightly I had him give the player a free ration because he knew, “Times were tough.” Both of the players felt a little bad and agreed to give the man money if they get any from the Caves.

Poor Old Merchant

                The group set off with no trouble getting into the Caves, with no random encounters (they’ve been lucky on this both games). After the last time I expected a bit more teamwork, so they immediately split up! Half the party decided to go towards G cave and the other half towards E cave. The group that went towards G decided to attempt to “smoke out” whatever is inside it and build a fire at the entrance. While the group that went towards heard distinct snoring coming from the cave. With the fire lit, I described how only part of the smoke was going in the cave, and part was going out do to being right on the entrance and that the caves must be pretty big, because the smoke isn’t pooling up all that quickly. The other group continues fret about the snoring, but they are hoping it is the Ogre. Last session they heard a rumor in town that the Ogre “sometimes helps the cave dwellers” somehow they took this as the Ogre was friendly, and might help them. I guess they watch too much Shrek growing up.

                The group at G enters the cave and finds the trash pile and two players begin to rummage, finding a gold they rummage more. I rolled noise checks for three rounds of searching for two different players, and nothing. I really wanted to have the Owlbear and Ogre show up at the same time. The group at E decides to enter the cave to see what is snoring, and see the large fur mound, slowly rising and falling. I also made hear noise checks for the Ogre to wake up with bonuses because they were not being that quite, NOTHING. This Ogre was in deep REM cycles. At this point, one of the people at cave E runs to G and says they found something and the whole group enters E and stares at the mound of fur. The newest Fighter gets brave and goes right next to the mound and realizes it is an Ogre with a blanket. They decide to try and make friends. At this point, one of the new players of a thief had to depart, so I ruled that she went out of the cave and hid.

                Half the party stands back, and half the party is right next to the Ogre. The remaining thief successfully hides, and one of the elves shakes the Ogre awake….like you do. It is at this point that someone chimes in, “Does anyone speak Ogre? What do Ogres speak?” I answered with, “I don’t know, what do Ogres speak?” Everything started to spiral very quickly at this point, as the Ogre wakes up with everyone trying different languages out. The dwarf speaks goblin, and the Ogre works for goblins, so I ruled that it was reasonable he knew that language. I had the dwarf roll a reaction check and he scored quite well, but before negotiations could begin, one of the new players, the new elf, says “I throw my weapon at the Ogre.” He rolled a 1.

Not Shrek

                The new Fighter in the party turns on the elf and stabs him as the Ogre tries to grab him. Due to Elven grace he manages to slip out of the cave and runs away. Now the Ogre, pissed off, looks to the Dwarf and asks them why they are in his home. They mention they want to hire him to help with the Caves. He asks how much? They then realize they have almost no money to bribe him, they pool their money and have 25 GP. The Ogre says he’ll help them and hand over the money. Once the Ogre has the money, he chucks it into a pile of stuff, and tells them “Now F--- Off.” They are shocked, but we paid you. He told them that was an a-hole tax and he is letting them live ‘this time” for entering his cave because of the money. The party blusters with bravado, but the Ogre takes a swing and they all go running out. Everyone except the thief who had remained hidden the entire time. The only issue is that they are now in a cave alone with an Ogre, in pitch black. Remember this is the players first time ever playing D&D. They decide to go for glory, wait until they hear snoring again, and sneak over to the pile of Ogre goods. They feel their way around by using the edges of the cave, and sweep their hand in front of them slowly making sure they don’t hit anything.

                The thief makes it to the pile, and I ruled for fun’s sake that the goblins had already paid the Ogre, so there was a fat sack of coins. The thief picks it up and starts to make their way out of the cave. It is at this point, after several before, that the thief blows the Move Silent roll. I decided that a few coins spill out and one rolled over and hit the Ogre. It roars awake, and the Thief says the run as fast as they can, but hold onto the money. The rest of the party seeing the thief running, hearing the Ogre roaring, decide to run too. In a last ditch effort to hurt the party, the Ogre tosses his club at them and barely misses. The party makes off with the Ogre loot. They were ecstatic, they felt they had a real victory. It was a good feeling as a DM. That is where we left it, tune in next week to see what happens.

Missed the other Episodes? Look here to catch up.

I went ahead and created a Facebook group for the blog, if you are interested the link is here.

Tales from the Borderlands – Episode 1 - The Search for the Caves

With the school year back up and running I am beginning a new campaign using Old School Essentials. I am going with a Westmarches style of game also known as open table because of the size club that I generally end up with. Currently we are in a rebuilding year as far as the club is concerned due to a huge drop off due to graduation. I had five players, two of which had never played an RPG, two more that were 5e players, and one that I brought into the old school world last year. Needless to say they were lacking a lot of experience as far as for old school experience. I also decided to start with the classic B2 Keep on the Borderlands, with plans to expand it if the players end up getting some gumption to go other places. The two that had never played before did know the RPG lingo and parlance, I assume from watching YouTube videos, which did help to speed some factors of play up.

It is a pretty sight

I made them roll up some fresh 1^st level characters and kept with the house rules that I presented previously on the blog. We ended up with characters with extremely good stats, I suspect it is the luck of the new player shining through on them. The party consisted of an Elf, Fighter, Halfling, Thief, and a Dwarf. Not the most well rounded group, especially lacking to two primary caster classes, but this was their decision and at least they would be well armored. They bought equipment and weapons, and I strongly suggested that the inclusion of polearms and missile weapons would be vital in the early stages, but the 5e mentality of going into hand-to-hand combat weighed out, at least I warned them.

Go to sytem of choice now

I started them by saying they were all adventurers seeking their fortunes because farming sucks and being rich is awesome. That was about the end of the premise, I am hoping the lure of adventure and gold will be enough to propel the plot along in the beginning. They immediately went to the inn and started to ask about the caves that was good. They then proceeded to goof off a bit, and I felt they did not know how to proceed with the adventure, in comes striding my Strider facsimile.

I had a woodsman approach and mention that he had been to the caves as a guide, and wanted to see if his services were required. He offered them a fair deal in that he wanted 1 share of what was brought out of the cave, though he would have settled for much less. They agreed to his terms, but were under the opinion that they would screw the guy over in the end. They had several plans, have them lead them to the Caves then come immediately back, now they knew the route. Also, lie about what they bring out of the Caves and give him a pittance. Lastly, have the guy lead them there, then kill him and take his stuff. Sounds like a typical new adventuring group.

I use this gag way too often.

They travel to the Caves and then proceed to head into the goblin cave immediately. They did not attempt to scout or listen, and ran into room 17’s guards. They decided to engage with 4 PCs, because the Elf had to leave early. They heard earlier that “Bree-Yark” was the goblin word for surrender, and began yelling it loudly. The goblins slightly confused decided to toss some ineffectual spears. The thief went sneaking around, and decided to hide because they didn’t want to get hurt, this left a 3 on 6 scenario. By the end, the Fighter was down, but not dead. The dwarf was down to 1 HP, and their reward was 60 copper pieces and 6 silver.

We had to end at this point, but we will see what happens in the future!

Missed the other Episodes? Look here to catch up.

I went ahead and created a Facebook group for the blog, if you are interested the link is here.