I have been running a weekly campaign during this last four months. It had been intended for three friends and me, but it has gone out of hand and now I have an "open table" with 9 different players, with sessions oscilating between 3 and 7 persons every fucking wednesday evening, sometimes also sunday morning. At first I wanted to do two groups, but it proved to be very difficult to divide the people, so in the end I went with it... and was greatly surprised on how good the games are going with so many people. I am using the "Trow Fortress" ruleset that im currently copying in here, and I'm going to post some reflections in no particular order:
1. There was a dungeon in front of them right from the start: an abandoned castle's basement custodied by a Roc and a gang of halflings. Some of this halflings became PCs during the first sessions as people joined. After reaching dungeon level: 2 and getting an unexpected treasure in an empty room, they took all their money and went exploring the map, after losing their tank along the way to some ghouls.
2. They joined two random NPCs into a quest for a mythical city very, very far from their placement. I rolled with it. The two NPCs (Carls and Berg) died fighting with a gang of orcs at some forest.
3. The party heard rumours of orc raids on the north, with lords rewarding all brave warriors coming to defend their castles. The wizard wanted to search for that mythical city, the (new) tank wanted to fight the orcs. In the end, voting went to the quest for the city.
4. A wizard had also a cat as an item. I was trying to come up with some interesting rules for familiars, but I didn't had time for it: He went on a solo mission on his own will, wanted to get into an old man's house to loot it. I rolled on some random tables I made up in the spot. He waited until the housekeeper lady went home, and then he came through the window as a bird, and in the first room he found a big chest with a good chainmail: he didn't pick it. He went down the stairs and saw the owner sitting by the fire; put a dagger on his neck and asked the man to take him towards his most valuable treasure (literally). The man, with no sign of fear, said he would. Defiantly, he took the wizard towards a second chest, and opened it, taking his old sword. The man was actually an old soldier, who had been left at the city for being too old to fight against the orcs. He attacked the wizard, who was lucky to be left at 1 hp and having time to run away... but, the old man pursued him and the pursue rolls (yes, i have those) accompanied for one turn, so the wizard decided to transform into a bird, which caused the cat to "fall" from his inventory. The soldier kept the cat from now on, saying that "he would treat it better than that thief". This made the wizard vow to recover that cat, vow that he could not complete (see next point)
5. The wizard's BIRD spell is really useful both in map mode as in
adventure mode. It can surveil for enemy armies, reach blocked havens,
serves as a stealth mode, enables impossible escapes. Is WAY more useful
than a fireball or even invisibility, but still I didn't feel it broke
the game at any part. That wizard died, at the doors of the city he
wanted to reach. He was constantly bullied by the other players (in a
joke manner) to be a coward and always fleeing from combat (as a weak
magician should). He snapped and charged against a Black Widow; that was
his last action. Three PCs have died so far: wizard, wizard, fighting
man. No kobold deaths for now, which is strange as they are by far the
most common class. The other wizard was devoured by wargs during a
night crossing a
canyon. Right now, there are only two level 1 PCs, the rest oscillate
between level 2 and 4.
6. The search for the city was actually quite difficult and they ended up going against the orcs on a session in which the wizard player wasn't there to impede it. They spent three sessions in mass battles, one of them very poorly run by my part. They had to flee an open field battle, but achieved to repel the orcs during a siege. Azalea, the castle's queen, became a relevant NPC after that. Her husband had died in the first orc raids in another city who was set as a distraction, ignorant that his own castle was going to be attacked too. I think that all the players had the feeling that the Fighter and the Queen were going to have some story but in the end they just took a lot of money. In the last session, she has married by force to a new king, as a way to not to let her people to be defenseless after her whole army was wiped.
7. The abandoned city is actually sunken at a great river (think the nile) and they have found some towers that spring from it. There are a lot of nixies living on the sunken rooms; tried to enslave Otakemaru (the tank, which is the implied leader of the party) but the guy passed the save vs spells. They have sacked like 66% of the rooms, but the greatest treasure (wand of fireball, some rubies, a common shield engraved with fire motifs and a rusty chandelier) is in the sunken home of a nixie, who collects fire-related items. They still do not know this. They are now searching for a kobold outlaw who is accused of assasinating a prince, for a reward of 4000 silver coins. I am really enthralled on the fact that they engage with the map to the point of leaving dungeons half explored, im getting a lot of fun with it. As a zen moment, I like to paint the hexes that they have walked through in watercolors every week.
8. After reading this last week, I proposed to halve XP requirements from now on, but double GP costs for everything. They voted yes. Lets see how this works.
9. They stole a battle against two wooden golems at a tower by having all kobolds shoot arrows vs them. It seems terribly wrong that those guys have no immunity to arrows and cuts RAW. The whole thing seemed so unreal but I let them have it. Hahahah.
10. Three of the characters are alchemists. Their "extra" item has been always antidotes (for yellow mold or giant spiders). This has saved a lot of lives, but for now I keep every antidote being useful against one single type of venom.
11. I suck at creating interesting towns. They spent three in-game months in one for the sake of time passing, and I couldn't describe anything interesting going on in that time. There is nothing wrong with it and the game went on OK, but I think I've missed an opportunity. Two of the players (male fighter and female kobold) wanted to find GFs and i had them roll 2d6 to see how hot they were.
12. Having a lot of players is very fun if combined with a whassap group or something similar. I like how the ones that played that day tell the tales to the guys that could not come. They don't realize, but they help me in my task a lot by describing the world to the others through their eyes. They generate a visual picture, but also feedback and hype amongst the others. I think that I now get a hint of what the "west marches" play is, and is gorgeous.
13. There is a "great problem" in the fact that some players travel great lands, and the rest of the party wants to be there in the next session too. I've used ravens for communication (certain ravens are trained to send messages to certain cities, and they are an expensive but reliable system) and sometimes I've made the second set of player characters make their travel rolls hex by hex, checking for encounters and such. But sometimes I've just ruled they were there and go from it. I also find weird to run the sub-systems of upkeep costs or mantaining a campament if the players are not present in the session, so I just make them to be good when their players are not there. This is not realistic at all but is what Im doing right now until I make up something else.
14. I have little spells written but I'm very proud on how they are working so far. DISGUISE transformed the cat into a tiger, and a lizard into a dragon (which was the key to stop an orc siege), and DIVINATION has come into use into the most recent sessions and i think it works great in giving limited information about ANYTHING the players want to know. (Is X treasure here? Is Y character dead? How many orcs are coming?). I feel I could go on forever telling small snippets of the game, so if you like it, just say so in the comments and I will continue doing this kind of entries from time to time. Thanks a lot for your time, reader friend!
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