Player: But why can't I do that?
Me: *Whimpers* Because it makes my brain bleeeeeeeeeed!!
Oh yes, I started out as that sort of DM. I've only been playing D&D for a mighty three years, usually playing in my husband's campaigns and had next to no DMing experience before discovering the Age of Worms in an old Dungeon magazine bought entirely on a whim. Intrigued and up for a challenge soon I was scowering the local gaming shop and then ordering directly from Paizo the rest of the Dungeon magazines to make up my AoW campaign.
I'm now about halfway through running my campaign and thought it was time I share my insights from a newbie DM point of view. I'm going to start with a nice big babbly summary of running the campaign to date and then I'll be updating on a game by game basis, I hope this is helpful/amusing to someone!
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Firstly, setting conversion. Unless you're up for putting in a lot of time and research in, don't do this, just don't. Usually our gaming group sets it's campaigns in the Forgotten Realms and I thought I'd follow suit. Following Paizo's online conversion notes was wonderful at first but having players who know more about a setting than you do is a recipe for disaster:
Player: But it's not like that in the Realms
Me: *Flails!* It is in mine! Damnit!!
Not good. it fell down even further when it got to the Hall of Harsh Reflections. Really not knowing enough about Waterdeep and having eager players who want to play every week forced my hands in making the decision that we're no longer in the Realms. This included a wiggling of my fingers and an 'ooooh!' sound for effect, that and a promise that the clerics could keep their gods should they so wish. I now have a cleric of 'Pelthander' in the group (he likes to call upon the apparent mushed together Pelor and Lathander now, it apparently helps him roll well..)
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The party
Mara ~ Half aquatic elf Fighter (Tempest)
Rorrik ~ Dwarven Fighter/Cleric (Hammer of Moradin)
Evandur ~ Human Cleric of 'Pelthander'
'Weasel ~ Human Sorceress (Force Mage)
'Thog' ~ Half-Orc (later a full orc) Fighter/Scout {Deceased (twice) - during Hall of Harsh Reflections}
Gewar ~ Tiefling Ranger (Bloodhound) {Joined the party at the Champion's Games}
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The Whispering Cairn
Player of Rorrik: I'm going to clear out all of that rubble.
Me: Gah! No! Just no, you can't! *doesn't have the issue that says what's behind there yet & panics* It will take too long.
Player: But I'm a dwarf, and it's stoneworking and mining out rubble..
Me: *Big puppy eyes* please don't..
Oh yeah, what a lame start that was for me. Lesson learnt, if there are adventurers and rubble decide what is under/behind it - kill them with the harsh thats there if need be. It will show them that they're to follow the more obvious route and not play in the collapsed. Or, of course, what I should have done in hindsight - have the wolves from the den up ahead sniff them out and harry them furthur into the cairn to where the interesting stuff is.
Having a group that are far more experienced at playing D&D than I am at running (one member of our group has been a gamer longer than I have been alive) they happily trounced through a lot of the adventure. They were also greatly helped by their character choices, Rorrik our dwarf is a little fire obsessed and thus the acid beetle swarm was quite easily dealt with. And Mara, being a fighter & half-aquatic elf easily dealt with the submerged showers.
Still, there were quite a few challenges for the group but all in all being a newbie I was a little easy on them. The harshest I was was with the Wind Warriors. Boy those things are fun, even to someone as D&D clueless as me! The Sonic blast is a joy, I had one warrior focusing on funneling that along the bridge the PCs were approaching on while the other engaged the melee combatants, all in all the group found that encounter suprisingly harsh.
Filge's laboratory is also fun to run, while Filge and his creations fell a little too disappointingly fast in my campaign I loved the PCs exploration of observatory. I think the feasting hall especially creeped them out, suitably ooogied by the place had them all fired up for that last encounter and they threw everything at Filge without stopping to think!
One thing I was glad I did during this adventure and the next was spending the time and effort to make sure the party were emotionally invested in Daggerford (the place suggestedin the Realm's conversion) I printed off the giant postermap from 'The North' (downloaded from wizards) and marked on all of their homes, they all had friends and family with personalities and this greatly helps later parts in the campaign a lot more fun.
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The Three Faces of Evil
This adventure is amazing fun for driving your cleric(s) nuts! Yay cults! This is also the adventure where I started on my path to 'creative flanging', slowly I started to realise that as I have a party of 5 players rather than the traditional 4 sometimes threats that are threats because of numbers (mine guards/miners and especially the cult fanatics) may not be quite right. Following my husband's advice to creatively edit things as required I added a couple of extra waves of fanatics when the PCs were besting them too easily, this also provided a good distraction to bring Beast down upon them.
The labyrinth of Vecna was a bit of a challenge to a party without a rogue or an elf - not once did they consider secret doors. So as a big, 'smack em in the face so I don't go insane as they walk in circles' clue I had some Kenku open a secret door behind them, attack them and leave the door open. That way they eventually got through the labyrinth.
As I write this I am rereading my copy of the adventure and I have two things firmly underlined - The Ebon Aspect's damage reduction and it's spell resistance. Quite often i find myself forgetting things like this, the things that make a low level encounter like this really hard. I'd highly recomend the underlining (in bright colours where possible) of things like this in stat blocks if you're as much of a ditz as I am!
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Encounter at Blackwall keep
You have no idea how scary the encounter at Blackwall Keep is to someone as inexperienced at DMing as me! All day before this game I was so very scared the PCs would charge the battlefield and I'd end up with a big OTT battle on my hands! Then it slowly dawned on me, they could do what they wanted, if they decided to charge the field perhaps Allustan would grudgingly stay before running for reinforcements to give fire support, or if they waited until after he left then they stood a good chance of dying.
The hardest thing for me on the transition from mere player into almighty DM goddess was the idea of possibly killing the PCs. I like the characters, I love my friends and I used to worry about upsetting someone with a character death, we've never had a high mortality campaign before and the AoW is designed to be very challenging. It was this one encounter that start to put me into the mindset that I might kill someone's character and that's just the way the game works.
Thankfully the PCs handled it all sensibly. In fact they stormed the whole adventure. I wish I had more advice on this one but really it was a simple joy to run through, they rolled well and took the quickest route through the lizardfolk lair by sheer luck.
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The Hall of Harsh Reflections
I love this adventure, seriously it makes me smile beyond the telling. I would highly recommend conspiring with a player and giving them Ixiaxian's stat block when they're replaced. Conspiring in such a way (in my experience at least) makes one player feel really involved and reduces the whole party to suspision and paranoia when you get to the Hall of Deception.
Player of Weasel (currently rolling for Ixi): I shoot Thog with magic missiles - in the face!
Player of Thog: Huh? ..what? Why is Weasel attacking me?
Me: *Snickers*
These are priceless moments, really :D So worth it. The player of Weasel was also a fantastic support and played both Ixi and Weasel as the rest of the party interrigated them both to find the real Weasel, it's the sort of thing you need a good player for and if you don't trust someone to do all of this then I'd suggest following one of the other suggestions written into the adventure.
I also killed a character (twice!) in this adventure. It really made me feel like a real DM! Squee! Thog fell victim to Martal & Regim as they both critted him. He was reincarnated and came back as a Mountain Orc, only to be killed later by the advanced octopin.
The cells also bought another interesting challenge to me as a DM - Gattel Watam. He tried to kill himself, Thog even tried to help him, but he was stopped by the clerics. Evandur especially was fascinated by what had happened to him and they kept him alive and put him into the care of the church of Pelthander until they could work out how to cure him. Wow this was a tricky one to handle, the party threw a lot of magic at it and in the end I found myself wondering what I should do to stop them playing even more with the mind clone machine to try to fix him. In the end I added an extra mindclone to those in Telakin's Hall, a slightly fractured one containing some of Gattal's mind. With this, lots of dispel attempts and healing magics I allowed the clerics to heal some of Gattel's sanity, enough for him to be more functional as a reward for their interest in the poor NPC!
Xyrxog's first appearance is something that needs to be handled with great care, I almost had a party wipe as he turned up with his drow minions. That opening mind blast caught the entire party and they all failed. After some quick negotiating and discussing with the players I decided to let Mara, who failed the save by 2, to be free from the effects of the blast and she made quick work of the drow thralls (thankfully!)
The Advanced Octopin is so much awesome, I killed one PC and seriously injured another and this turned out to be one of the biggest threats in the whole adventure. Having two clerics and a mage the party is often buffed beyond the telling with spells if they're expecting a harsh combat so this critter with his tasty rends is a good chance to cause some damage before the end encounter.
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The Champion's Belt
The greatest challenge in this whole adventure was keeping the PCs distracted enough so they wouldn't just break into Raknian's home. That and keeping Mara from wanting to organise a fight with Okoral: "But he looks harsh and fights with shortswords too!"
Watching the PCs do everything in their power to lower their reputation to get good odds on themselves was amusing though and was a great way to stop them from attacking. The worst we got was Rorrik putting in an official complaint to Raknian that the dwarf trophy was silver "Not a dwarven metal! Elf maybe! But not dwarf!" etc
The first fight I decided to battlemap, using one map that had many many feet to a square to show rough team placement and then a second map with the standard scale for 'zooming in' on combats when groups got close. This wasn't really needed in the end though as the PCs agreed to be allied with both the Sapphire Squad and the Arcane Auriga (Mara befriended them) so everyone unleashed upon Badlands and then the PCs had to wait around as the other 2 teams fought as they didn't want to break their word to either group.
Madtooth the Hungry - I love this beasty! This critter almost killed Gewar and did substantial damage to the group, if you follow the encounter as written then this should be a tricky one for your party.
The Apostle of Kyuss' breath weapon is great, especially if your party, like mine, decide to stay at range so it can't reach them I'd definately suggest doing what I didn't manage to do in time, after firing the breath at them have the thing scuttle up to burst through the roof. My party killed it just before I managed to get it away.
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The Gathering of Winds
Remember that giant poster map I printed out for the first adventure? I got to dig it out again, but this time I covered it in black marks for all the places Ilthane had destroyed. Mara lost her adoptive family, Weasel used to live in Allustan's tower, Rorrik's shrine was destroyed and I took the spire off of the church of Pelthander. The players were so shaken by this the second Weasel heard where Allustan might be and that the dragon had flown off that way she jumped on Gewar's horse and the two charged off. Resulting in the pair almost getting killed by Ilthane (they were really very lucky.)
The Advanced Wind Warriors are a great roleplay point if you're running the whole campaign. My players worried so much at seeing them after that first harsh encounter in the Whispering Cairn, I had fun underlining the point there were 6 this time!
As you may have noticed, my entries per adventure are getting shorter - by this point I was feeling quite broken in as a DM and a lot less made me utterly freak out!
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The Spire of Long Shadows
I jumped all over the idea of just giving the players the DMG to pick things from as they happily handed over their fragment of the rod of law to the archmage, it saved on so many headaches for me!
The Chamber of Ascension ~ This was a tricky one, after a worm naga tried (and failed) to dispel their magical route down the hole the party fled to the top and started discussing ways of just firebombing the whole hole. Not wanting to be robbed of my fun I had to think on my feet and come up with new tactics.
First the nagas buffed themselves with defensive spells and then started to airwalk up. After this failed miserably a couple of times I spotted that lovely spell - invisibility. Nagas appearing from nowhere casting 'slay living' makes this encounter a new level of scary. Not managing to slay anyone on the first few attempts I tried an enervation quickly followed by a slay living that actually killed Weasel. So, it took me a while but I eventual made it a viable threat again for the group, I guess these things are sometimes trial and error. Weasel was quickly ressurected but I still killed her, mwahaha (see how quickly my attitude changed on character deaths!)
~I'm running the rest of this adventure tonight so more to come I guess :)
Hi Kayos,
Just wanted to thank you for documenting your DMing of Age of Worms. It was a refreshing and entertaining read, especially the way that your DMing progressed and changed (or 'mutated') ;p
Also quite a reassuring read, I think, for anyone that might be new to DMing, or considering giving it a try, especially for a large series of adventures such as this one. I hope that things continue to go well, and I look forward to reading your future DMing accounts.
Hey again Kayos!
I still remember back when I went through those same problems with DMing. Nothing makes you feel more helpless as a new DM than when someone deviates from the adventure you set up, How Dare They!?
You seem like you handled it really well. Being on an adventure path helped keep the adventure and you focused, which is good. My first experience of PD (Player Deviation) ended with them completely escaping my storyline and me TPKing the party a few weeks later. Talk about demoralizing, for me, not them. Our other DM killed way more characters.
Hopefully Kayos, you'll never have to go through one of those situations, since you've broken into Journeyman DMing by the sounds of it. Even if it does, don't get discouraged. You seem to be doing really well so far, you've already proven you can tell a story and keep us interested (like yout Dancer's Diary), and you've already begun showing signs of Character-Death related Bloodlust. These are all good things.
To quote Yasha:
Hey again Kayos!
... don't get discouraged. You seem to be doing really well so far, you've already proven you can tell a story and keep us interested (like your Dancer's Diary), and you've already begun showing signs of Character-Death related Bloodlust. These are all good things.
The highlighted part shall be most entertaining to see how it developes for you Kayos. Most entertaining indeed. KUTGW!
I'm starting to think I have a carnivorous hobbit following me around with a highlighter pen.
*Whirls*
WHERE?! LOL Turin!
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Your group is further along than ours, which is not fair because I reeeeally wanted to keep reading! XP Very entertaining in a "godthatstootrue" kinda way. My husband is the DM for our AoW game, and he's gotten more forceful and firm as we've gone along, which I know is hard for him because he's one of the nicest, most easygoing people. I think getting into the characters of Smenk, Filge, Okoral, that lizardfolk chieftain (was that one Kushak or Shukak? I can never remember. Who named these guys?) and some of the other awesome NPCs has been helpful to him. Filge has come off as hilariously sarcastic, Smenk is annoying, disgusting, and makes our skin crawl, and Okoral...is freaking HARD CORE. I think I'll try to find a group to run this path for after he's finished, because it seems like so much fun to run.
I totally understand the PC death issues...our group takes a lot of time developing the characters, their backstories, their relationships with other party members...just dropping a big rock on someone feels cheap (though also possibly cathartic, like if the player in question is obnoxiously minmaxed and being a total jerk-face...a-heh, no, not drawing on personal experience or anything...). Just the same, there are very good reasons most people don't become adventurers. Spike pit traps, for instance...
Thanks for sharing your experiences, and I hope to read more soon.
I'm starting to think I have a carnivorous hobbit following me around with a highlighter pen.
*Whirls*
WHERE?! LOL Turin!
Are you sure that is a highlighter pen Yasha ?
Kay and Courtney, please keep posting your wonderful journal entries - they are most interesting reads. :)
Are you sure that is a highlighter pen Yasha ?
Hmm...why am I bleeding!!? You stabbed me and are bold-facing things in my blood? You fiendish little imp! Damn, I was trying for insulting and ended up being complimentary. Oh well...
Ending the threadjack and our typical strangeness, yes, keep going with this stuff Kayos. If two such grognards as Turin and I are enjoying it (though we are very openminded and clever grognards), then it must be good.
Kayos? Listens to the echo. Kayos? ~thumps on the microphone~ Hey, is this thing still on? I've got my popcorn and beverages ready to go too ...
Argh! I wrote a huge post and then the boards ate it! 0.0 As that took an hour and I'm all in a minisulk now you shall have to wait until tomorrow now, I will rewrite it then!
\o/ Kayos! Yay!
Oh. I hate it when Gary gets hungry. I already learned that lesson when the same thing happened to me three times on one day.
Just highlight and then Right-click and Copy before you hit 'post'. Then if it eats the post, you can immediately repost it.
Thats the lesson I learned at least.
^_^y
Are you sure that is a highlighter pen Yasha ?
Hmm...why am I bleeding!!? You stabbed me and are bold-facing things in my blood? You fiendish little imp! Damn, I was trying for insulting and ended up being complimentary. Oh well...
Ending the threadjack and our typical strangeness, yes, keep going with this stuff Kayos. If two such grognards as Turin and I are enjoying it (though we are very openminded and clever grognards), then it must be good.
Actually, that was a butcher's pen Yasha...