Life has been a bit of a beast of late.
Ok so we go through a couple of games and I was not good at keeping up with my blog due to work and school and everything else that I have going on. But some of that is coming to an end here soon and hopefully I can devote more time to staying on track. So far we have had a rollercoaster ride of players and to be honest the events of the game have been exciting to me, but here goes.
The group did their first dungeon crawl and came to the end of which was a pool of water that is a portal. I had to be creative to get them to not go through the portal until they were higher level. Which one of my players has given me a bit of grief about ever since. Needless to say that this happens when you paint yourself into a corner we will discuss this later. Needless to say I had some players that had to drop the game at this point so we missed a session trying to decide what to do. But the next session we added some international players. Player intro in the middle of a long running game can be a bit difficult but I had these new players show up at a campsite that the older players just happen to wonder upon. We will get into transitions of players in another blog. But anyway I had the group wonder through the forest, I had a chart I made up to see what they would run into, and with their rolls they quickly got to a high rock hill in the forest, the top of the hill almost reached the top of the tall trees. There were 4 statues and they had to get them in the right positions through brute strength. Then the group went down into another dungeon. In this dungeon I created some magical refrigerators, hey I thought It was a cool idea. Anyway they went down into a built portion of the underground area that was kind of like an old underground base. In the middle of the base they tripped a trap that summoned a Contract Devil. Needless to say this creature was too much for my players luckily I put it in a room where the doors were “too small” for it to get out. Needless to say my players went around it to other rooms, and eventually down to the lower level of the area that was a cave in structure. They fought some creatures and eventually found the treasure. From there the group, in the next session, moved on to an artisans treehouse and his wife, and yes my players guessed it about half way through that I based them on Miracle Max and his wife from Princess Bride (great movie, Highly recommend). And their interactions with him. As with the total overarching story I had Flax the wizard talk to max and make a trade for some 5th level spells in reference to the finding of magic again. And that is all we have done since my last post.
We have had some players come and go in my campaign and that has put a dent in continuity, in part this is my fault due to training classes from work. And just being exhausted, in fact the overseas players I basically told them that hey this is not consistent enough for you all and it’s not fair to keep going this way. I have currently three players that understand that life is going to happen and takes precedence. These life situations may require us to not have game but once a month. They are pretty ok with that idea and are on board with it.
Introducing new players in the middle of a campaign.
This can be tough, especially if you’re in the middle of a dungeon crawl or something. Not everyone can play all day someday to complete a quest. Many players IMO have about a 3 to 4-hour time limit on how long they can play, and that is the total time at the location. Now, this is not to say there are not exceptions to the rule, and maybe you make a weekend out of playing at a new location. For instance, going to the beach for a week and taking a day to play. Or taking a holiday downtime to play a long one-shot. But for the most part, 3 to 4 hours is what a GM should plan for. Introducing characters into a game in the middle is tough, I mean it is not easier than getting the party together in the first place. One method I have used over the years is to ask what my players would be doing on a day in the life of their character. One young lady was just walking along in her beautiful garden the sun was shining, and the birds were chirping. I told her a portal opens up in front of her and a demon pops out and shoves her through the portal into the location I wanted her to be. Another idea was the stasis pod approach. That the group finds a pod that has the character inside of it. Or the prisoner idea where the group happens upon them in prison and they help the character out and the character then joins the party, or a person wondering in the area. There are tons of others, but I digress and should move on. Sometimes players just don’t work out, sometimes they are going to whine that your taking all the fun out of the game because in reality you will not allow them to be overpowered compared to the rest of the group. Sometimes you have to say no and accept the consequences of no. well until next time.