Al-Qasab: The Great Heron

Well, we had my first run of 4th edition D&D. Combat was really scary, because I was just on the verge of killing several of my players for a long time. More than once I dropped one of players down to 1 or 2 hp. I realized later that I had put them up against an EL 3 encounter, and this was before they had any magic items or anything. Oh well. I learned a lot from this encounter. For one thing, I learned that difficult terrain is something you really want to watch out for, because you cannot shift into it.

The game went pretty well overall, I think. The players went down the main course I had plotted out for them, although I had several alternatives worked out (just not completely written up). Matthew started several fights, which were fun. I think I have a pretty good idea about the defenses and attack values of a given level should be, and I just threw together in my head some NPC’s. I actually ended up doing quite a bit of ad-libbing. It’s been a long time, and I was definitely rusty, but overall I think I pulled it through pretty well. At least, my players seemed to be having a good time for most of it. As per usual, Beth seemed to be bored through parts of it. I tried to bring everybody into it, but Beth had her character do things I wasn’t sure how to deal with exactly (out of my area of expertise). Which isn’t to say that I don’t enjoy the challenge, I just had a bunch of people telling me what they were doing, and I wasn’t sure how to deal with her, so I did Matthew first, and by that point the situation had changed. I shall try to create a better environment for her next time.

I am thinking I may actually have people roll non-combat initiative, so that everybody can have their turn to do what they want to do. For example, if Matthew had rolled highest, I would have had maybe have of his conversation go by, and then I would have checked with everybody else to see what they were doing. I worry that this would create more disconnect, but at the same time, I can see it being sort of a set-up shot in a movie; we see people talking to each other, and a few more scenes go by, then we see those same people again, further along in their conversation. Idunno, maybe I’ll try it.

So anyway, I things are progressing slower than I thought, I may have to find a way to stick Morgan in sooner than I had planned. I forgot how hard it is to plan for games when the players go off on their own thing.

Anyway, sorry I was gone for so long, blog. I will try to update you more regularly once again.

~ by episoen on June 21, 2008.