Impus Major's Rise of the Runelords Campaign (Spoilers and Nonsense)


Campaign Journals


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So, given that this is a sort of "follow-up" to my magnum opus, you might expect pages and pages of character background, development, and pre-story. Nope. As those of you more familiar with my crash-and-burn campaign should know, things just don't go that way.

Tomble was confused. He couldn't find his rat. Why he had a rat in the first place, or why he was heading to the Swallowtail festival in Sandpoint he didn't know. But he did know that his rat was missing, and he had to find him.

Tomble: CN Male Human Bard of Ulfen descent, no deity, 18 years of age, played by Mr. Follow You Home.

Fortunately for Tomble, Eyos was on the same path for similar reasons.

Eyos: CG Male Tengu Cleric, worshipper of Desna, 17 years of age, played by Talky McTalktalk.

Since Eyos had nothing better to do, he asked Tomble what he was doing. Tomble replied that he was looking for his lost rat, and Eyos offered to help, as he was "very good" at finding things. His natural 1 proved the lie, so while he found a rat, he had no idea whether or not it was Tomble's rat. Tomble attempted a Knowledge: Nature check to identify his own rat, and he failed, so the two cheerfully concluded that the rat must be Tomble's, because after all, how many rats could there be in the woods surrounding a medium-sized city, anyway?

Skipping along happily together arm-in-arm (OK, I may be embellishing a teensy bit for flavor), the two entered Sandpoint. The first sight that greeted them was, mysteriously enough, a shooting range. A young human swashbuckler was practicing his craft, and appeared to be quite adept with his weapon. They asked him his name, and he replied that he was Delnen.

Delnen: CG Male Human Swashbuckler of Varisian descent, worshipper of Cayden Cailean, 18 years of age, played by Impus Minor.

Deciding that they should do something exciting together, the group headed for the newly-built church, because everyone knows that churches are the most exciting buildings in town. They arrived just in time to witness a play about the ascension of Desna to godhood, a truly fascinating play apparently completely unrelated to any tenets of Desna any of the wanderers knew. When the play moved on to Desna battling Rovagug and sealing him away in the core of Golarion, they were pretty sure the authors didn't know a heck of a lot about the gods. On the other hand, the play was quite entertaining, so they watched it in its entirety, which apparently lasted into the late evening. Tomble and Eyos decided to go to sleep right there in the church, while Delnen, an ardent follower of Cayden Cailean, decided to seek out a tavern.

He quickly located the Beaten Boar, a seedy dive on the edge of Sandpoint. There was a commotion inside, so he rushed in, only to find two men severely beating a third. No one else in the tavern was intervening, nor were there any town guards apparent. Delnen raced to the man's rescue, beating his attackers into submission. The poor man had been beaten within an inch of his life, so Delnen took him back to the church for healing. After such a harrowing event, he decided to join his newfound friends and sleep in the church.

And that was when Big God had a discussion with Little God about preparation...


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Speaking of preparation, while that session was all nonsense and silliness, the fourth player dropped out, there was a desperate search for a replacement, Talky and Impus Minor rolled up new characters, and for the good of all the previous post never occurred.

Except Impus Major insists it did. And he's the GM. So... whatever.


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First quote of the night: "I teach the homeless children the joys of underage drinking."


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Well. Well-well.

Dot-to-the-dot-dot-dotting.


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Dot indeed


Oh...oh my...


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dotting with a grin.


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It's like watching my kids. Dot.


Dot-dot-dot


This should prove... interesting. ^_^


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Sessions 1.5: Namé Unchained Played 12-Dec-2018

Scribe for the Session:
Remember when you were a teenager, and you played pick-up, stream of thought RPGs because they required no prep and improved with alcohol consumption?
"I look for a bar!"
"OK... you see one!"
"What's it called?"
"Er... The Busty Manatee."
"I go in and yell that I want to have a drinking contest with someone!"
"OK, this big, burly guy accepts your challenge..."
And the city and NPCs and general plotline are built in real-time as the GM reacts instinctively to the PCs' actions, and someone somehow remembers everything that happened and adds the building and the NPC to the "master map" of the city?

Well, that's what this session was like. Impus Major did not so much control the flow of the game as he did react to what the players wanted to do at the moment, and the result was surprisingly good. It had very, very little to do with Sandpoint as presented in the guide or the AP, but the players were all having fun running around "instant gratification" Sandpoint, and they probably could have finished off the entire session with just a, "Wow! Sandpoint is a really cool place to hang out!" session.
Unfortunately, Impus Major then tried to force the PCs into the AP proper, and the transition was jarring, bizarre, and took the players out of their "moment".

So this was a good learning session for Impus Major: He's good at rolling with what the PCs want, but he's terrible at introducing key NPCs, locations, and plot points that are needed to run a formal AP. And that's good, because it's something I can work with him on before next session.

Namé was looking for adventure.

Namé. M CN half-orc barbarian. Worshipper of Gorum. Played by Talky McTalktalk.

He had heard that Sandpoint was full of adventurers and dangerous missions and violence in the streets, and looked forward to testing his mettle in the dirty, violent streets of this low-down city. Storming past the sign at the entrance and paying it no heed, he ran up to the first person he saw and bellowed, "Where can I find adventure?"
"Excuse me?"
"I am here to test my strength! What perils do you have for me?"
"Excuse me?"
"I am here for adventure! I have heard that Sandpoint is looking for adventurers! Which way is the danger?"
"Er, there's no danger here. Just a festival. We don't have any 'adventures'. But we do have games!"
"Games? I have not heard of these things! What are they?"
And so the hapless citizen explained to Namé that the Swallowtail festival celebrated when Desna fell from the sky to Golarian's surface, where a butterfly protected her and saved her and that's why there were butterflies at the festival.

There was a remote possibility that the citizen may have been drinking a wee bit.

As if to reinforce this notion, the citizen in question looked Namé up and down and suggested that he might just enjoy going over to that unnamed stand over there to participate in a drinking contest. Namé, never one to refuse a chance to both get drunk and participate in a contest at the same time, headed straight over. Unclear on the rules, he decided that he needed a victim co-drinker. Scanning the fairgoers for a likely patsy, he spotted a pale and scrawny human moving among the stalls.

Londurr. M CG human gunslinger. Worshipper of Cayden Cailean. Played by Impus Minor.

Namé immediately challenged Londurr to a drinking contest. Saying a prayer to his god, Londurr accepted. In a beautiful display of “dice over logic”, Namé’s die went cold and he failed Fortitude save after Fortitude save, becoming more and more belligerent all the while, even going so far as to rage at the alcohol and attempt to crush the wooden mug (a failed STR check added insult to insult), and continuing to drink even when his Wisdom had dropped to 2. He fell unconscious under the table, and Londurr was the victor. He turned to the man at the stand. “What do I win?”
Confused, the man darted his eyes quickly about. Apparently he had not actually made up any rules for the contest, so he had collected no coin from the participants, provided them with copious quantities of alcohol, and now needed to give the victor a prize. Eventually, he spotted his lunch below the counter and presented it in all its glory to Londurr. “Here you go, my good man! You win a meat pie!”
“A meat pie?”
“Yes! A meat pie! A glorious, delicious, still-somewhat-warm meat pie!”

While Londurr wandered off, pie in hands, a pair of mysterious figures dragged Namé off the street and into a quiet corner to sleep off his drunk.
Londurr eventually got tired of carrying his meat pie (STR dumped) and had to sit down to rest. (There was also the matter of sitting off the alcohol, as he had lost a great deal of Wisdom as well.) He chose a pleasant bench in front of a humble-looking building, but was quickly accosted by a strangely-handsome man who cried out, “Are you homeless?”
Londurr didn’t even consider the question odd. “No,” he replied.
The man snapped back, “Then why are you sitting here?”
“Because it’s a public bench.”
“No! No, it isn’t! If you aren’t homeless, you can’t sit here!”

Utterly Deranged Homeless Man Arcadiusz. M CN human sorcerer, fey bloodline, no deity. Played by Mr. Stereotype in a surprise entrance.

Londurr, not particularly wanting to be badgered by a crazy homeless man, moved to a bench across the street. Unfortunately, all the noise and commotion was enough to wake up a severely hung over Namé, who spotted Londurr’s now room-temperature (city-street-temperature?) meat pie and had to have it. He accosted Londurr anew, demanding the meat pie because he had never seen one before and he wanted it. Arcadiusz yelled at them to quiet down and not cause any trouble in the streets. Londurr, fed up with everything, walked away again, meat pie in hand, followed by Namé, followed by Arcadiusz, who was consistently yelling at them to not disrupt the town, which didn’t help because Namé kept yelling, “Shut up, homeless man!” back at him, and Londurr kept asking, “Why are you following us, homeless man?”

To take his mind off the two troubles following him, Londurr decided to play a game. Through a spatial time warp, or because there was no map of the city up, he arrived immediately at the Goblin Squash Stables, where he decided to play a round of Goblin Toss. He did extremely well, getting two goblins into the medium-sized hole and a third goblin into the small hole. As a prize, he won a huge, ginormous, so-big-you-have-to-hold-it-in-both hands bag of beef jerky. All of 8 ounces! (Hey, I’m just writing it up. I’m not running it here…)
As he was gazing at his prize, Namé snatched it out of his hands and raised it over his head, well out of the much-shorter Londurr’s reach.
“Hey! Give me back my beef jerky!”
“No! You cheated to beat me at the drinking contest! This prize is rightfully mine! And I will prove it when we participate in a test of strength!”

Still heavily under the influence, Namé considered the matter settled and headed off to find a new game to play that somehow involved strength, in the process lowering his arms so that the precious, precious beef jerky was once again within reach. Londurr had no difficulty whatsoever pilfering the jerky back from Namé, and while Namé was still distracted he emptied the meat into his belt pouch and replaced it with an equal amount of gunpowder. (No, the GM did not ask whether he was really carrying around half a pound of gunpowder in a conveniently-accessible location).

It did not take long for them to find a catapult game, where you smashed the catapult with all your might to toss a tiny beanbag. Londurr did his best, but only managed to launch the bag a paltry 10 feet. Namé smashed the catapult, firing the bag a whopping 50 feet, and then grinned at Londurr and bit triumphantly into the gunpowder-filled bag.

Londurr was not dumb. Londurr ran away.

Unfortunately, Londurr was slow. Namé easily caught up with him and started beating him senseless. Arcadiusz intervened, suggesting that there was a really neat fish at a place called the Hagfish that they really had to see. Namé, happy to see a new fish, stopped beating Londurr. Londurr, happy to no longer be being beaten, followed Arcadiusz.

The group was suitably impressed by the horrific-looking fish swimming in the murky-slimy water. On seeing the fat purse of coin for the man that could stomach a full mug of Norah the hagfish’s slimy water, all three decided they had to try it. Namé, being seriously hung over, failed miserably. Londurr, disciple of Cayden Cailean, valiantly tried twice and failed. Londurr and Namé started chanting, “Homeless Guy!” to encourage their new “friend”, but his natural 1 resulted in all three of them having to mop the floor before they left.

It was getting dark, so Arcadiusz suggested that they dine at the Rusty Dragon because the salmon there was divine, and both Londurr and Namé asked him how he could afford to buy dinner at a restaurant if he was homeless. “I’m not homeless! I just work at the shelter!”
“Sure. Whatever you say, Homeless Guy!”

At this point I think they all noticed it was already 8:40 pm, and things sped up quickly.

They had an excellent dinner of salmon at the Rusty Dragon, Namé stating that he’d never had fish before, and then they all spent the night. Where, you ask? I’m fairly sure if you asked the 3 players and the GM you’d get 4 different stories, but it was “at the Rusty Dragon”, and beyond that they slept wherever they found space. Londurr spent some time crafting a few alchemical cartridges.

In the morning, Father Zantus lost all sense of time and started his sunset speech. Perhaps he had been drinking a bit too much the day before as well. Once he was done, he realized that he’d forgotten to let out the butterflies at noon so he did that as well. One butterfly landed on Namé, a sign of luck! A second alit on Arcadiusz. Since none seemed to be landing on him, Londurr grabbed one out of the air and mashed it onto his chest so that he’d have one too.

Perhaps as a sign that smashing butterflies wasn’t part of the festival, there was a scream from the crowd and a woman dropped, bloodied, to the ground. Behind her, grinning devilishly, was a goblin with a bloody knife. Arcadiusz ran forward and Color Sprayed the little beast, stunning it. Namé and Londurr moved forward to assist, just as two more goblins popped out. Arcadiusz Color Sprayed them as well, and Namé and Londurr had little trouble mopping up the helpless goblins.

However, before they could celebrate their victory, they heard more screams from the south. Racing that direction, they spotted more goblins. Londurr put a bullet through the head of the nearest one…
…and the session ended for the night.


Oh, this should be an interesting journal. Impus Minor insists he can remember all the sessions without having to take notes. Impus Major insists he did all the events in the correct order at the correct times. I'm afraid in this case I agree with Impus Major; I wasn't paying THAT much attention, but I do remember Father Zantus speaking twice.


Makes you (ok...me) wonder if he feels he can make it through all his classes without taking notes.


Okay. This is from my latest game, but I figure Impus Major might take note as it really helped my Skype game jump off the page (as it were).

My Skype group is starting a new Pathfinder 1st ed. campaign based on Hell's Rebels. This is the same group that I finished Rise of the Runelords with nearly a year ago and then ran through the playtest. And to be honest, things have been... not exactly exciting among them. Part of the problem is that everyone is remote and thus when it's not their turn, other folk will distract themselves.

Seeing 1st level characters are squishy and I'd already worked with them a while ago, I had started them off at 2nd level but at 0 XPs. Thus we have a Changeling Eldritch Scion Magus (themed as a magical girl), a Half-Orc Skald, a Fetchling Mysterious Avenger Swashbuckler, and an insane Halfling Rogue/Grey Paladin. It's an interesting and fun group, I must admit, and they had fun building up their basic characters (though sadly I didn't realize that the Swashbuckler was not interacting with the others, to the point that in-game, when the riot started she just tried to flee as she was afraid of her civilian identity getting into trouble. Alas...)

My flatmate of half a year was urging me with the tabletop group to encourage players to describe their actions in combat. Well, after the first couple of hours of roleplay with the pre-riot incidents going on, the group got their hands dirty with some Cheliax Loyalist Thugs going after the new group... and after the halfling was attacked, the Skald proceeded to assist him, leaving the Magus alone against two thugs. On the plus side, the lone thug got taken out quickly, so the Paladin decided to (while standing atop the fountain) assist the Magus and take out her foes. I decided to have him roll Acrobatics. He did so and seeing he attacked out of the blue, jumping through a fountain, I decided to make his foe flat-footed.

It was that point I listened to my flatmate and asked the Paladin/Rogue player to describe his actions. He did so, with grandiose flourish, and went on to talk about his character flying through the mist of water trailing blood from his first foe as he struck down his second foe. He did such a great job of describing this, I gave him an extra die of damage, and with the three dice of damage he took down one foe singlehanded.

The others perked up. They grew interested in the fight and they started describing what they were doing. They became invested in the fight and had a grand old time with what was going on... to the point that the Swashbuckler had a spot of fun as well by calling her assailant a rapist as she Withdrew from combat and then started to Stealth while surrounded by civilians (I allowed it as the thug lost line-of-sight of her), which once more drew our crazed Paladin to seek out added foes.

So. tl;dr - have your players describe their actions and their attacks. When they get truly descriptive in what they are doing, reward them for this. Give them a bonus to hit or an extra die of damage. Little things that just encourages the players to just be more over-the-top and become invested in the game.

After all, it's a game. It's meant to be fun. So have fun. :) And encourage your players to do just that.


Additional thought...

One of the things I do is use the online website Roll20 for my Skype group and my online player for the tabletop group. Well, Roll20 has a really nice addition called Dynamic Lighting (along with Fog of War). You can control what the players see, and it adds to the dynamism of the game.

The group was on another map and around the corner was a bunch of thugs beating up on some poor chap. They didn't see it but did hear the fight and when moving their icons were able to see this.

I decided to incorporate this into my Tabletop group. Up until now I've been printing out maps, limiting them to 8x10 inch battlefields. But with Roll20, you can have larger maps (though you want to have them be JPEGs so they can be uploaded more easily).

I'm going to take a spare 36 inch television I'd been using as a computer monitor, hook up a laptop to it, and use it to run Roll20 for one of the players' accounts. The group will see the map on the monitor and one will have a wireless mouse to be able to move their icons around for the tabletop group (while the online friend already had that ability).

Yes, it takes a little bit of pre-work to edit the maps online, upload icons for opponents, the players, and random stuff, and then to edit in the lines for the Dynamic Lighting... but that's stuff you do anyway as a GM (more often than not). At the very least the GM is sketching the battlefield on a battleboard during the game, and that takes up time.

The one thing I'd recommend against though is letting the players use their own laptops during the game as the temptation to play games like Candycrush or the like when it's not their turn is too great. (That's a problem with my Skype group.) One centralized laptop hooked up to a monitor and control given to the most responsible player would eliminate that problem.


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LOL. I have a projector attached to my ceiling and project the map onto the table for the players using... Roll20.

I tried working with dynamic lighting, but for a single projection it didn't work for me -- some PCs have normal vision, some have low-light vision, and some have darkvision, so trying to switch between the three was problematic enough, even without the fact that the PCs always separated, and I haven't found a way in Roll20 to say, "focus the current view and visibility on the currently-selected token".

So I just use Fog of War extensively, and the PCs don't see anything until they map it, and I keep all the bad guys on the GM layer until the PCs can see them, at which point I put them on the regular layer.

Anyway, hopefully the kids'll start playing again next week (break is finally over) and we'll get some updates here.


NobodysHome wrote:

LOL. I have a projector attached to my ceiling and project the map onto the table for the players using... Roll20.

I tried working with dynamic lighting, but for a single projection it didn't work for me -- some PCs have normal vision, some have low-light vision, and some have darkvision, so trying to switch between the three was problematic enough, even without the fact that the PCs always separated, and I haven't found a way in Roll20 to say, "focus the current view and visibility on the currently-selected token".

So I just use Fog of War extensively, and the PCs don't see anything until they map it, and I keep all the bad guys on the GM layer until the PCs can see them, at which point I put them on the regular layer.

Anyway, hopefully the kids'll start playing again next week (break is finally over) and we'll get some updates here.

With the Skype group it's easier in that the group each is on their own computer so telling it what each person can see works quite well.

The tabletop group is going to be a little different. I'm actually using three computers - the GMing laptop has my copy of Roll20 (which shows everything), and Hero Labs to keep track of monster stats. The tablet runs Discord so that our Florida-based player can see the group (sans me). And then one player has the laptop connected to the television that shows them their version of Roll20. When they click on each model, it shows the view through the eyes of that icon (or should, I'll be running tests tonight). I do know that I can do Control-L to get something similar within my copy of Roll20 but... I'm not entirely sure if there's overlap going on.

Didn't realize I could hide things on the GM layer though. Thanks for that tip! :)

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