OOC Chat II

[Jenara]

Thuskar would be ok here too.

Jerrard wants to spend time with Ulster anyway.

[Breila]

I whish we had decided to fight the dragon and perished heroically... I don't see how this game can go on with just Horizon and me as players. There are already a lot of NPCs.

[HorizonsDream]

That is a good question to bring up. With Jerrard and Jenera gone now, it is just the two of us. Do we continue with now that there are a lot of NPCs, or do we stop?

[JadedDM]

Hmm, yes. It's 'Dragonlance Chronicles' all over again, isn't it?

Well, there are a few options to go with here.

First, we can just end the game now. This is the one that involves the least amount of work for me. It's not very satisfying, but it does free me up to start working on a new game in its place.

Second, we can push on as if nothing has changed. The game was scheduled to end later this year anyway. After the current adventure, my plan was for the party to head to Palanthas. There, they'd have another adventure, this one centered on Locky and Jerrard. When that was over, we would then return to Khur for the finale--the rescue of Imani's son.

Of course, with Jenara gone, the Palanthas adventure would be removed or replaced with something else.

The problem with this option, is that we have two players carrying the whole game. I'm stuck with Locky, Jerrard, Fikod, Ulster, Thuskar and Malika (and was planning to introduce a new henchman in this adventure, hence why I left two NPCs behind). Granted, I was going to have Fikod written out of the story soon anyway, but that's still quite a few NPCs to juggle at once.

We can't really bring in any new players, because the game was going to end soon anyway and introducing new characters will just further complicate the plot.

A third option would be to scrap whatever plans I had and try and come up with something else entirely--a new plot that would better accommodate only two PCs. I could write Locky and Jerrard out of the game, like Fikod, and then I'm only juggling Ulster, Thuskar and Malika.

I suppose ultimately what we do would depend highly on how you two feel, and whether you want to push on or not.

[Breila]

Do you think you can manage just the retrieval of the flywheel with Jerrard and Locky as NPCs? It feels better to have a task done. Right now, I feel "frozen in action".

I find it hard to believe that Jenara has left for good. But perhaps Babushka and Imani will have to make the journey to Khur alone.

[HorizonsDream]

I don't mind finishing up this quest, but it might be a good idea to stop afterwards.

[JadedDM]

I find it hard to believe that Jenara has left for good.

It sounded pretty final, but even if she does return, it's entirely possible the game will have ended before then.

But in any case, we'll go ahead and continue this quest then. Once it's over, we can decide what to do next from there.

[JadedDM]

(OOC: Are all our animals and our belongings back at the gnome camp? What did we think about transporting the flywheel once we discovered it? With Jenara and Jerrads leaving, I was kind of numb with shock, not able to think straight.)

Yeah, that was really glossed over. Locky seemed certain they could carry it with ease, despite its weight. This is all the more ironic as the party left behind their physically strongest member--Thuskar. (Although even he isn't strong enough to carry a 220 lb object by himself.)

The party will need to rig up something to help them carry it. Another possibility is to use magic. Maybe have Jerrard cast Reduce on it or something like that.

[Breila]

gosh, no... are we really once again stumbling into an adventure unprepared?

[JadedDM]

Okay, that pretty much ends the chapter then. I'll spend today and tomorrow calculating XP and working on the penultimate chapter, which will take place in Palanthas.

[JadedDM]

It took longer than I anticipated to get everything set up. But it's done; XP is up. Ulster leveled, but that was it. Here are my notes on that chapter.

The idea for this quest went through several possible iterations. I originally came up with it way back when the party was still in Khur. You might remember the party had two choices, to travel by sea or by mountains. They chose by sea. Had they chosen the mountains, I was going to use this quest then. Although originally, it wasn't a fortress but a network of caves and the ogres were led by a red dragon instead of an aurak.

Also originally, there was going to be a gnomish henchman, probably one with the tinkerer kit. I decided to remove him in lieu of Lucas, though, as I felt the party needed another healer more. This is why I asked the party leave a henchman behind, to make room in the party for Lucas. It probably would have been better to take Thuskar instead of Malika, as the latter has yet to prove to be any use in a fight yet. But I suspect Jerrard's decision came more from his pants, instead of his brain.

Of course, then Jenara left and I got stuck juggling too many NPCs anyway. Ah, well.

The fortress itself came from an actual Dragonlance module called The Gate to Neraka. I replaced the original ogre chieftain with an aurak, as that was the only type of draconian I haven't used in any of my Dragonlance games so far. Plus, I wanted to add to the challenge, as ogres weren't very tough for a party of your level any more.

When the party split up, with Babushka going in alone and Imani remaining with the NPCs, I admit I was disappointed that Imani didn't try talking to anyone, like say, Ulster. That would have been a prime opportunity to roleplay. Well, at least she got around to talking to him after the adventure.

When Babushka was exploring the dungeon of the keep, I made sure to mention the large sewer covers. The sewer led outside of the keep and so was the perfect way to enter and exit. Conceivably the party could have sneaked in through the sewer, fought the guards, picked the lock and retrieved the wheel. However, Babushka never paid any attention to the covers or even mentioned them to the rest of the party, so it never came up.

Aside from the flywheel itself, there was quite a bit of treasure in the locked room. In fact, it all totaled up to 19,000 steel pieces. Sadly, retrieving it became rather impossible once the fortress was destroyed. I imagine the ogres that survived will spend the next few weeks trying to dig it all out.

Lucas was originally meant as a henchman for Locky. He would focus more on healing, allowing her the chance to be more versatile with her spells. However, after Jenara left, I rose his level and decided he'd make a suitable replacement instead. I don't enjoy roleplaying Locky at all, so this proved to be a great idea.

One of the numerous abilities auraks possess is the ability to use mind control once a day. This is what happened with Locky. Eridan approached their room that night, used mind control to make her gather her gear and meet step outside. He then escorted her down to a cell and locked her up, making up the whole story about her trying to break into his room. This was all done with the purpose of giving him further leverage against the party. There were clues that the story wasn't true. First, how could Locky have sneaked past the two guards at their door? Even the stealthiest person couldn't pull that off. But ignoring that, she also took her armor with her, and her stealth skills are awful in that armor.

The main reason I had Locky be taken was incentive. My fear was that the party would fumble in their efforts to get the wheel, flounder about, and then give up--a pattern that I have noticed in this group lately. I felt that if Locky's life was on the line, the party would have no choice but to confront the problem. There was no way they could justify in-character just leaving and giving up now.

However, this nearly blew up in my face, when Imani immediately capitulated to Eridan's demands. Unsure if she really understood the consequences of this, I even went further, having Eridan outright tell her he was going to experiment on her, possibly even impregnate her with some kind of draconian/human hybrid. And she still accepted!

At first, I thought maybe this was some kind of clever trick or feint. But when I questioned Horizon on what her plan was, it was clear it wasn't. Horizon assumed that Imani would be given free reign to roam the fortress without supervision. Her plan was to explore the keep, find the sewer entrance, then lead the slaves out and back to the airship. Failing that, she would kill Eridan in his sleep.

I immediately saw that these plans were doomed to fail. First, killing Eridan in his sleep would only kill Imani, too, as their death throes are so dangerous. An excerpt from the MM:

"When an Aurak reaches 0 hit points, it does not die, but instead surrounds itself with green flames and enters a fighting frenzy (+2 bonus to attack and damage rolls). Anyone coming within three feet of the flames suffers 1d6 points of damage, unless a saving throw vs. petrification is successful. Six rounds later, or when the Aurak reaches -20 hit points, it transforms into a spinning ball of lightning, striking once per round as a 13-HD monster to cause 2d6 points of damage. Three rounds later, it explodes, stunning all within ten feet for 1d4 rounds (2d4 rounds if underwater), Those within ten feet also suffer 3d6 points of damage (no saving throw). Items within the range of the explosion must roll successful saving throws vs. crushing blow or be destroyed."

Second, Imani would not be given free reign. Eridan would lock her up in her room, without any of her weapons or gear, of course. She would be guarded heavily by his ogres at all times. Sure, she might earn the freedom to carry out that plan--in a few years. But by then, the airship would be long gone.

I saw that allowing this plan to go forward would end the game. There was no other way around that. And for a significant period of time, I seriously considered letting it. Just letting the game end on such a bleak note. It would certainly save me the time and effort of trying to bring the game to its natural conclusion.

But it seems that is how most of my games have ended. Not with a great victory, but a hollow whimper. So many of my games just fall apart or are rushed to the ending because I sense things are falling apart. Players start dropping out like flies, and it often feels like I'm holding a bowl of water with holes in it, and am rushing to get the bowl to the sink before the last of the water drains out. This is why I set an ending date for Unlikely Heroes; I could feel it falling apart even before NoTrammeling and Jenara ran off.

I don't know why all of my games end like this. Is it something I'm doing, or just bad luck? Every time a game falls apart, I learn something new from it. But I just can't seem to stop it from happening each time. In any case, ending the game on such a sour note didn't sit well with me. So I did something that goes against my very philosophy as a DM--I railroaded.

I had Ulster intervene and start a fight. Naturally, the rest of the party jumped in. I was impressed by how well things went at first. It goes to show how effective a party can be when the party works together instead of each just doing their own separate thing. (Also, buff spells help a lot.)

However, things started to fall apart again toward the end. Horizon forgot about Eridan's death throe (even though he outright told her about it during the fight). Imani was blinded by his breath weapon and then Babushka fell and I was forced to intervene again by having Lucas come up with the plan to drop the dying Eridan into the pit before he exploded.

Would it have been better if I had just let Imani surrender and live out the rest of her life in servitude to another tyrant? Would it have been better if I had just let Eridan explode, killing Imani and ending the game like that? Certainly my interventions made for a more satisfying story, but does my superseding the will of the players and the consequences of their actions make for a more satisfying game? After all, if I just wanted to tell a good story, I'd be better off just writing one myself. And if the only way I can make a game's story good is by denying player agency, it raises the question as to whether the game is worth playing at all.

So that's where we are now. We've finished the chapter, but not the game. The question is, do we continue and push for the end? Or just let it die here and be done with it all?

[Breila]

The first question I want to kind of answer is why the games fizzle away. I remember that back in the '80s, a campaign I was in ran for three years straight, and when our DM returned from a convention, he told us that everyone was awes that it had kept out for so long. And that was back in the 80s when there were far less disctractions, and people in general were more loyal to a task they had begun. This campaign has run for three and a half years. Perhaps most people's attention span just isn't that long.

As for Babushka not reacting to the sewers, it may have been one of the instances of the players not toticing what the DM throws in their faces (I know that phenomenon from the other side, too). After she was captured, everything else faded into the background. Also, I was suprised that the others all decided to answer the aurak's summons, otherwise, I might have re-read the pages, trying to come up with another plan, which might have let me get the clues I had missed at first.

The toughest question is what to do now? We're just two players left, and in character, there is not much incentive for Imani and Babushka to stick together. Are the two of us plus Ulster and maybe Lucas a suitable group to go on?

[JadedDM]

The first question I want to kind of answer is why the games fizzle away.

It seems to be a common occurrence. About 90% of the games I've joined as a player fizzle out in their first week. Sometimes I don't even get the chance to turn in my character sheet before the DM vanishes without a trace. I've been told in the past that one of the reasons my games are popular is they are consistent. Even people who don't like my DMing style would join my games, because at least they knew it was one game where the DM wouldn't disappear without a word.

Players dropping out is pretty common thing. Most of the time, it's not a big deal. It's when they start dropping out faster than they can be replaced that it starts to hurt a game. Just in Unlikely Heroes alone, we've had 7 total dropouts. Dragonlance Chronicles had 7, as well. Even Lost Souls and War of the Lance have both had 4-5 dropouts so far, and they're both fairly new (Lost Souls is 2 years old, War of the Lance is almost 1 year old).

Most of those dropouts happened without a word, so whether they quit because they didn't like the game or got bored or just had real life consume them is left a mystery. So there's really nothing that can be done to stop it, sadly. Maybe I'm just doing something wrong, but I have no idea what that might be, for the most part.

I think a large part of it is the internet. Was this campaign you spoke of online or face-to-face? I think the anonymity of the internet makes it easier to just disappear.

The toughest question is what to do now? We're just two players left, and in character, there is not much incentive for Imani and Babushka to stick together. Are the two of us plus Ulster and maybe Lucas a suitable group to go on?

That is the question, yeah. We've got Imani and Babushka for PCs, and for NPCs we've got Lucas, Ulster and Thuskar...and possibly I could bring in a replacement for Jerrard, too, another mage. Although introducing a new character this late in the game seems kind of pointless. The next chapter was supposed to be about the party enjoying Palanthas, but as Babushka hates big cities and Imani has no connection to it, I'm not sure how enjoyable it will be.

[JadedDM]

Alright, I suppose Horizon's deafening silence on this issue is probably meant to be her answer on whether we should keep the game going or not.

So, yeah, I'm just going to go ahead and declare this game officially dead. If you have any last words to say, I'll leave the game up until the weekend before moving it to the Inactive section.

[Breila]

I have very much enjoyed playing Babushka.