Anyways, lately I have been working and tending to the spawnlings, all the while putting the polish to a novel and making sure I get some EDH in to make sure I have something to write about for the articles. Off Color Cast is back for its third-ish season-ish, and that's pretty much where most of my ideas that would have gone onto these pages usually goes. Need to save that shit! Like seriously, get some tongs and a mason jar... ... ...
The one major thing I have been wasting my time with lately has been running a Dungeons and Dragons 3.5 campaign, set in my own world that I came up with for my novels.
I intended to modify the actual rules to fit some of the different mechanics I envisioned, but I figured it would be a bad idea to add more arbitrary rules to a set of extremely fucking complicated ass rules. Seriously, the DnD folder on my computer rivals my porn folder (not really, but none of you would ever know, if I didn't just say that now. Can't seem to find the delete key on this tiny ass keyboard.)
The world my campaign is set in is a world I created that reflected my training in History/Anthropolgy, and my love of fantasy settings. Basically, the world is a simulacrum of our world circa 1914, (when the story is set,) and instead of industry/chemistry, magic is the driving force behind achievement and technology. Most of the nationalities and ethnicities in our world have a fantasy race to represent them, like Elves are Jews, (it REALLY makes sense if you think about it,) or Gnomes are the Swiss, (okay I know that one is a cheap shot, just wait til you see what the French are... just one guess, and I bet you'll figure it out.) Even if this does seem offensive or racist at times, the message is the complete opposite, in that no matter what freakish appearance these things have, they all share the same world, and have pretty much the same experience. Fucking warms my cockles. Oh yeah, keeping warming 'em.
Game-mechanics wise, the setting has an odd mix of magic levels - there are a lot of low-level magic items, like, A LOT, but higher than that are exceedingly rare. This is reflected by the refinement of technique and process, as well as a magic ore called Magicite (FF6 FTW!) that is kind of like Oil in that it is a natural resource capable of great power. I had the characters start at level four, because at level four most classes are able to actually contribute to the game, and make for more entertaining challenges. I really dislike starting at level 1 in DnD, you have to have an ideal party to survive any meaningful encounter.
In this article, I am going to go over the play group a bit so we all know what we are dealing with here. First off is me I guess: I played ADnD and 3.0 DnD back in the day, and my style of play is really loose, with a heavy focus on story, and a lighter approach to combat and challenge. I'll pretty much let my players do what they want, and I am often asking, "what do you guys want to do?" I am pretty bad with rules, as anyone who has ever met me or listened to OCC would know, and as a result, I tend to break them, and/or forget them completely. Apparently I am very bad with spoiling things, as my current party oft-criticizes me for, but I always feel like I give away little bits that someone who was thinking all day about something would figure out. The upside to non-concern with some of the rules is that I focus more on the story, and I am experienced as shaping the story on the fly, with next to nothing prepared sometimes. For this campaign, I spend more time on the quests, but I still leave a lot of things up to my capricious whim.
Next up would have to be the host, my brother Brennan. Brennan ran the last campaign we played, which was fun, and we started at really high-levels, (12 to 18 by last battle,) picking up with characters related to characters from the last campaign. The game was really fun because we were all evil characters, save the True Neutral Void Mage with an attitude problem. Because we were all evil, most moral quandaries, like freeing a huge dragon, or handing a powerful artifact over to an evil warlord, were never an issue, and we were self-serving through and through. It was probably very tough to predict what a bunch of brand-new level 12 characters could handle or not, but he kept the challenge at a nice curve, especially with the hordes of demons that we only avoided because my character always scouted ahead.
My one complaint would be that there was this epic story that Brennan had planned, but instead of taking part in epic wars, or taking part in the struggle between gods, we mostly went on fetch quests, and a lot of time I had trouble remembering the motivation; luckily greed is pretty easy as a fall back motive. It reminded me of the later seasons of Heroes, where *SPOILER ALERT! FUCK YOU!* Hiro, Peter, and Sylar all lose their powers, and instead of the jawdropping X-Men fights they showed in Season 1, they just derp around like a bunch of assholes.
My character in that game was an assassin (by way of Rogue/Swashbuckler/Beguiler) named Kyle 'Black Dog' Murphy, and he was a huge min-max. Rogue classes are my specialty, as I usually gravitate towards a 'jack off all trades' philosophy (that doesn't look right..) I was dealing ridiculous amounts of damage to everything but Elementals, (yes, I was sneak attack undead for full damage, care of the Ghost Strike enhancement,) and I had a the best AC in the party when I have improved expertise active. In the end, I had way more overlapping abilities and class levels than were necessary, but if the plot had involved more interaction and subterfuge, I would have been set. I mention Black Dog at all because I am sure he will be showing up in my campaign.
Anyways, that was Brennan's campaign, and in my campaign Bren plays a Nycter Druid/Cleric named Radar. Nycter is a race of ugly-ass bat people who are pretty much what you would expect a bat-man to be; you can check them out in the Monstrous Manual III, I believe. I gave him a Dire Bat, not really knowing how 'special' a Dire Bat really was, but it is kind of cool to have a bat the size of a horse flying around... right? Hey, where'd the dog go... and the baby? BRB LOL
Radar's schtick is he summons natures ally, which is kind of like summoning monsters for hippies, but I have learned the hard way to regard a summoner with caution, because summoned creatures are basically another body. If you ever wonder why I put many small monsters in my encounters, it's to match with the summoned bull-shit. A dedicated conjurer can just wreck most well laid out plans, especially in encounters with a single monster who has to decide which threat to attack.
Next up is Norman, the player who ran the campaign before Brennan, that led up to his campaign. Norman knows the rules better than most of us, and he is definitely the most knowledgeable about magic spells, which is cool, because it is my weakest point. Norm plays another druid by the name of Mr. Otserif, which is some sort of reference to the superhero Firestorm, I guess. Otserif is the opposite of Radar, in that he is more of the wild-form druid who turns into animals and fucks shit up. He doesn't have a pet, the last one having been taken down by skeletons. I have a feeling this character is going to be ridiculous as high levels.
From there, in no particular order, we have my brother Kelsey first, playing his Kitsune Ninja Hiro. The Kitsune is the Japanese word for fox I believe, and represent a fox-man-type creature in the Japanese folk lore. In my campaign world, the Kitsune are the Japanese people, and I basically just gave Hiro the same stats as an Elf. Hiro is pretty weak physically, and really doesn't pull his weight in battle yet. It is not really even Kelsey's fault - the Ninja class is pretty fucking weak. I think he should have gone with Rogue and just flavor it Oriental style, but whatever. None of the other characters have much in the way of skills, so Hiro's power level will definitely grow as he levels.
My cousin Ed plays the Half-Orc Barbarian Ivan Siv, and for those who don't now, Barbarians are just on the cusp of complete brokenness in 3.5; also, Orcs are Russians in my setting, (hence the name Ivan.) Ivan, like most of Ed's characters, are sociopathic psychos who are the first to suggest killing any NPC they encounter. There are so many modifiers whenever he attacks that it is easily three times more damage than anything else is pumping out, but I've learned to take advantage of his low AC and Will save.
Finally, we come the youngest of our players, my cousin Tim, which is also Norm's brother. He plays a Sorcerer / Fighter / Dragon Disciple named Slippy. He is of the Gexican race, which is basically a Mexican Gecko-Man kind of like the Geico mascot, but it is completely cosmetic as his stats are all based on being a human. Of all the players in this campaign, Tim and Slip are the easiest to deal with, and he has always been willing to follow story clues, even if the rest of the party is too cool for school, (oh fucK I CANT BeLieVE I tyPeD thOsE WORDS!)
We will get to know the characters more as the campaign unfolds, so join us next week for Session 1: The Sewer Saga.
