Post by Valandil on Sept 25, 2010 22:09:29 GMT -6
Well, last weekend I finally got a group together and played S&W. In the past I've only played MERP and 3.5, so some things were kind of difficult to understand or manage (movement rates, for example). Fortunately, I've done a lot of reading on old school gaming in the last year and a half (Grognardia being the first blog I stumbled upon, it could be said that I "dared" to try this kind of gaming thanks to James writings), and was eager to stop trying to fit OS philosophies to 3.5.
We played on Saturday night AND on Monday afternoon, last week. It was me and three players, all of them coming from 3.5. I had prepared a small dungeon, thirty rooms give or take, six of them natural caves (one of them with a subterranean river/pond), a magical fountain (with random effects!), two or three traps, and around six or seven secret doors. I randomly stocked the dungeon (using the first table on this post), which left a lot of rooms "empty" (something that myself, DM'ing 3.5, would never have done). I placed two stairs going deeper into the earth, kinda far away from each other, to make the dungeon as less "railroad-y" as possible. Below this stairs there is another level, with forty rooms, some traps, a talking skeleton, statues etc.
The PC's started in a town called Vasta, and were approached by a guy that looked like a ranger (actually an ordinary fighting-man with green clothes and a longbow, I gave him a Strider kind of personality, one of my players, an avid LoTR reader liked the detail very much) that told them about some goblins raiding merchant caravans near the village. He also said that a caravan was arriving in a few days, and that it was likely that the goblins were going to attack, so they arranged to ambush the creatures before they could ambush the caravan.
They ambushed two groups of four goblins. The first four died quickly, mostly by the arrows of the PC's and the ranger (at this moment, I didn't know if the PC's got to fire one or two arrows in the "surprise round", for the moment I sticked with two). The second group proved to be tougher. The dwarf died there, and the elf received not one, but two arrows shot by an ally, a goblin finished the job. The player was not pissed off with me, but with the guy that had the bow. They rolled a couple of chars right away.
The only survivor returned to Vasta with the ranger, were they recruited a wizard and a halfling. The ranger told them about an underground complex, two days away, that was probably being used by the goblins as a base. The ranger promised to pay a few gold coins for each couple of goblin ears that they could bring back. At this moment, without plans or anything, I introduced an NPC that offered himself to join the party (not as a hireling), so that they had some more muscle (funny thing, when I decided that I would do this, I started rolling the stats, like if he was an NPC in my other 3.5 games, but then I remembered that line from the S&W manual, "just assign the right number of hit dice and abilities [if any] and keep moving along with the fantasy." I had to make an effort to do it just like that, but I did, and the rulebook didn't blow up in my face or anything, which was a nice surprise, and a relief.)
Instead of rolling 3d6, I had the players roll 1d8+1 x 10 for the gold pieces at first, to make them feel that they had to adventure right away. As a result, none of them could afford hirelings, something that I didn't noticed when house-ruling starting gold. They traveled to the dungeon, explored a couple of rooms, and fought six goblins. The NPC almost died, but the combat was funny.
They returned to Vasta with a few coins, bought some rations, recovered they hit points, hired a torch-bearer (I advised them to do it) and returned to the dunjon! That time they stayed inside for a while longer, so I had the chance to try a wandering monster roll, which resulted in a giant rat! (the biggest in the manual). The halfling and the NPC died fighting it, the magic-user threw a sleep spell on the rat and killed it. At that point, they decided to return to the village again. An elf and a cleric (the new player) joined them there. They returned to the dungeon, where they found four skeletons: the cleric lost initiative and died right there, before being able to do anything. The rest of the party ran away (this would never have happened in 3.5, I liked it).
This was tough for the player, as this was his first S&W session (the other three saw four PC's deaths, so they were kinda getting used to it); while he was busy getting killed by the living dead, his girlfriend saw that we were having a good time, so she asked if she could play. I explained a few things to her, and she rolled a fighting-woman (?), while his bf. rolled an elf.
Back to the game, while the party planned how to assault the skeleton filled tomb, they heard movement, and saw a fighting-woman and an elf sneaking around. They joined the party and destroyed the skeletons. Later, as they were inspecting a door, a goblin come out of nowhere, stumbled upon the party, and ran away. The PC's readied their bows and waited, until the goblin reappeared and shot an arrow at the same time that one of the warriors. They both rolled a 20, so they killed each other! Two more goblins charged towards the remaining adventurers (the others were hiding around the corner): the magic-user and the elf. One of them got an arrow in the neck, the other got a lucky roll and speared (is that a word?) the M-U, killing him. The elf killed the goblin with his short sword one round later.
Once again, they returned to Vasta, where they recruited the new PC's. This time, I told them to roll 3d6 x10 for the starting gold, so they could get some hirelings. The characters were a dwarf, with two dwarven hirelings (he decided not to pay them as hirelings, but to give one third of his share of the treasure to each of them, so that they would stay loyal to him in harder times. I liked that, they´re starting to play with a different mindset, like if they were there.), and a human cleric, with one hireling. The elf hired one too. They returned to the dungeon. There, they tried to open a reinforced wooden door, and the noise attracted something from a nearby room. When they heard the footsteps, they returned to the magic-fountain room, wich was big enough for them to fight confortably (a defensive retreat! Again, in 3.5 they would have recklessly charged whatever was aproaching them). They killed the creatures: three orcs and two goblins. Indeed, melee was fast and furious, for the combat ended a couple of rounds after it began.
All of this happened throughout three sessions. To summarize, I had a great time, I had the chance to "wing it" many times, I could see how the decisions of the players and the randomness of the die drove the game, and, with some effort (hey, I "killed" like six or seven characters in three sessions! That's more than all the ones that died while playing in my 3e campaigns!), I let the "dice fall where they may", even when I wanted to "save" the PC's from getting horribly (or stupidly) killed. The players are having a good time too, and they're learning to play in a different way, which is cool. That empty rooms thing proved to be great! it adds a lot of mistery and builds tension among the players, with three sessions on my back I already started tweaking the game with a house-rule here and there. I can now officially say that my days of reading old school D&D stuff with envy are finished! And that my days of playing by the Old Ways have begun!
(Sorry for the grammar mistakes, not an native english speaker here!)
We played on Saturday night AND on Monday afternoon, last week. It was me and three players, all of them coming from 3.5. I had prepared a small dungeon, thirty rooms give or take, six of them natural caves (one of them with a subterranean river/pond), a magical fountain (with random effects!), two or three traps, and around six or seven secret doors. I randomly stocked the dungeon (using the first table on this post), which left a lot of rooms "empty" (something that myself, DM'ing 3.5, would never have done). I placed two stairs going deeper into the earth, kinda far away from each other, to make the dungeon as less "railroad-y" as possible. Below this stairs there is another level, with forty rooms, some traps, a talking skeleton, statues etc.
The PC's started in a town called Vasta, and were approached by a guy that looked like a ranger (actually an ordinary fighting-man with green clothes and a longbow, I gave him a Strider kind of personality, one of my players, an avid LoTR reader liked the detail very much) that told them about some goblins raiding merchant caravans near the village. He also said that a caravan was arriving in a few days, and that it was likely that the goblins were going to attack, so they arranged to ambush the creatures before they could ambush the caravan.
They ambushed two groups of four goblins. The first four died quickly, mostly by the arrows of the PC's and the ranger (at this moment, I didn't know if the PC's got to fire one or two arrows in the "surprise round", for the moment I sticked with two). The second group proved to be tougher. The dwarf died there, and the elf received not one, but two arrows shot by an ally, a goblin finished the job. The player was not pissed off with me, but with the guy that had the bow. They rolled a couple of chars right away.
The only survivor returned to Vasta with the ranger, were they recruited a wizard and a halfling. The ranger told them about an underground complex, two days away, that was probably being used by the goblins as a base. The ranger promised to pay a few gold coins for each couple of goblin ears that they could bring back. At this moment, without plans or anything, I introduced an NPC that offered himself to join the party (not as a hireling), so that they had some more muscle (funny thing, when I decided that I would do this, I started rolling the stats, like if he was an NPC in my other 3.5 games, but then I remembered that line from the S&W manual, "just assign the right number of hit dice and abilities [if any] and keep moving along with the fantasy." I had to make an effort to do it just like that, but I did, and the rulebook didn't blow up in my face or anything, which was a nice surprise, and a relief.)
Instead of rolling 3d6, I had the players roll 1d8+1 x 10 for the gold pieces at first, to make them feel that they had to adventure right away. As a result, none of them could afford hirelings, something that I didn't noticed when house-ruling starting gold. They traveled to the dungeon, explored a couple of rooms, and fought six goblins. The NPC almost died, but the combat was funny.
They returned to Vasta with a few coins, bought some rations, recovered they hit points, hired a torch-bearer (I advised them to do it) and returned to the dunjon! That time they stayed inside for a while longer, so I had the chance to try a wandering monster roll, which resulted in a giant rat! (the biggest in the manual). The halfling and the NPC died fighting it, the magic-user threw a sleep spell on the rat and killed it. At that point, they decided to return to the village again. An elf and a cleric (the new player) joined them there. They returned to the dungeon, where they found four skeletons: the cleric lost initiative and died right there, before being able to do anything. The rest of the party ran away (this would never have happened in 3.5, I liked it).
This was tough for the player, as this was his first S&W session (the other three saw four PC's deaths, so they were kinda getting used to it); while he was busy getting killed by the living dead, his girlfriend saw that we were having a good time, so she asked if she could play. I explained a few things to her, and she rolled a fighting-woman (?), while his bf. rolled an elf.
Back to the game, while the party planned how to assault the skeleton filled tomb, they heard movement, and saw a fighting-woman and an elf sneaking around. They joined the party and destroyed the skeletons. Later, as they were inspecting a door, a goblin come out of nowhere, stumbled upon the party, and ran away. The PC's readied their bows and waited, until the goblin reappeared and shot an arrow at the same time that one of the warriors. They both rolled a 20, so they killed each other! Two more goblins charged towards the remaining adventurers (the others were hiding around the corner): the magic-user and the elf. One of them got an arrow in the neck, the other got a lucky roll and speared (is that a word?) the M-U, killing him. The elf killed the goblin with his short sword one round later.
Once again, they returned to Vasta, where they recruited the new PC's. This time, I told them to roll 3d6 x10 for the starting gold, so they could get some hirelings. The characters were a dwarf, with two dwarven hirelings (he decided not to pay them as hirelings, but to give one third of his share of the treasure to each of them, so that they would stay loyal to him in harder times. I liked that, they´re starting to play with a different mindset, like if they were there.), and a human cleric, with one hireling. The elf hired one too. They returned to the dungeon. There, they tried to open a reinforced wooden door, and the noise attracted something from a nearby room. When they heard the footsteps, they returned to the magic-fountain room, wich was big enough for them to fight confortably (a defensive retreat! Again, in 3.5 they would have recklessly charged whatever was aproaching them). They killed the creatures: three orcs and two goblins. Indeed, melee was fast and furious, for the combat ended a couple of rounds after it began.
All of this happened throughout three sessions. To summarize, I had a great time, I had the chance to "wing it" many times, I could see how the decisions of the players and the randomness of the die drove the game, and, with some effort (hey, I "killed" like six or seven characters in three sessions! That's more than all the ones that died while playing in my 3e campaigns!), I let the "dice fall where they may", even when I wanted to "save" the PC's from getting horribly (or stupidly) killed. The players are having a good time too, and they're learning to play in a different way, which is cool. That empty rooms thing proved to be great! it adds a lot of mistery and builds tension among the players, with three sessions on my back I already started tweaking the game with a house-rule here and there. I can now officially say that my days of reading old school D&D stuff with envy are finished! And that my days of playing by the Old Ways have begun!
(Sorry for the grammar mistakes, not an native english speaker here!)
