PeteNutButter
2017-11-16, 03:09 PM
At session 0 of the first arc of the campaign the PCs all decided to play younger tweeny characters, saying it'll be like Goonies! A few that weren’t into that played teenagers, and for the most part they all pulled it off. The cleric—who didn’t even want to be the cleric, but got guilted into it—hated the idea and ended up bailing on the game for the rest of the arc. The DM used that opportunity to make rescuing the cleric the main part of that arc.
With that complete and the cleric player talked into rejoining the game, the campaign continues with about a year of downtime for the characters. It’s clear from the start that the cleric doesn’t want to RP a tweeny kid and he way overplays the whining thing to spite the rest of the group. The group also picked up a new player to join their group.
Mike the Paladin. Mike doesn’t show a lot of his abilities, but a paladin would never lie about being a paladin, so we let it slide. He does however do a good job of being the party leader/face as necessary. The player playing Mike’s character is a regular player who will make almost every session. It was his idea originally to all play younger characters.
Dustin the Bard. Dustin makes a good bard, probably going down the lore path as he definitely hits the books whenever he needs to learn something new.
He does a fair amount of comedic relief, we’ve come to expect from bards, as well as showing off some solid confidence reflecting his high charisma.
Lucas the Ranger. Lucas is the group's ranger, and frequently acts as the groups scout. He also is one of the few players who is regularly armed, usually with his slingshot.
Will the cleric. Will the cleric is a bit annoying and whiny and always in need of rescuing, making a very poor support character. Since the player still hates his character he is asking the DM if he can shift his alignment and multiclass into warlock. The DM can work that in.
Eleven the "Mage." Eleven is called a mage but she is clearly something much more. The real class is some home brew D&D wiki power level cheesey class that apparently can do whatever it wants but gets a nose bleed every time. The player was the only female in the original group at the table and the DM is bending over backwards to accommodate her, to the point of making her character way overpowered.
Max the “Zoomer.” Since eleven’s player had fun she brought a friend for the second arc. Her friend wants to play some more home brew cheese she calls the “zoomer.” The DM continues his pattern of overaccomidating the female players, and let’s her play the zoomer. Not even she knows what the class actually does.
Jon the Rogue. Jon is Will’s older brother and inherents some of the useless whining that must run in the family. He did a fair bit of creeping in the first arc using his stealth skill. He will do more of the same. He had been enjoying a little love triangle with Nancy and Steve.
Steve the Fighter. Steve does a good job of being lawful jerk and really walked the line well in the first arc. I’m a fan and respect that he is the only character that is really willing to stand in melee in the whole gaggle of a party. He sports an improvised mace as his weapon of choice.
Jim the Fighter. Jim Hopper--his last name coming from his sheet when the DM noticed his athletics proficiency--is the Captain of the city watch with the Soldier background (which never comes up). He is clearly much higher level and seems to have a good bit of plot armor. His character is pivotal at various points in the story.
Nancy the plot device. Nancy is one of the few likeable NPCs that the players encounter, probably because the DM isn’t really running her character, and instead asking his sister what her character would do between sessions. She is a bit of an inquisitive Rogue, that is also proficient in some ranged weapons. She does a good job of driving the PCs Jon and Steve forward.
Bob the Brain. Another likeable NPC. A friendly expert that exists just to motivate the PCs to revenge in the event of his inevitable noble death.
Billy the comically villainous PC relation. A overly villainous sibling to Max. He is a jerk, abusive and racist to boot. Max wrote him into her backstory, and the DM didn't really bother fleshing him out.
The first two sessions are a bit slow. The PCs spend time getting used to the environment, and a prolonged introduction to Max the "Zoomer." Rather than meta game and just let Max into the party the other characters give her a long prolonged probationary period. Eleven’s player couldn’t make it so she is held captive by the NPC, Jim. Will the cleric begins his transformation into a GOO warlock with a strange connection to someone unknown extra-planar creature.
Things start to get interesting, when the DM offers the bard a new sort of cute, sort of gross potential animal companion, which Dustin jumps on, happy to finally have a pet, but not thinking it'll be a combat pet or anything, just a vanity pet. But, by the third session the pet--now named d'Artagnan, or Dart for short--the new pet is growing rapidly, giving Dustin hope at a real significant pet. He is heavily researching his pet. The party wants to kill it, but Dustin secretly keeps his new pet a after having to make another handle animal check.
The friendly NPC, Bob, gives Will the advice to stand his ground against the great old one. This completely backfires, which is kind of a jerk move on the DM's part, because you expect advice from good NPCs to not be counterproductive, but it all works out because Will can now fully be possessed and start his Great Old One warlock journey. The player has big plans to get back at the party for making him play a tweeny cleric.
Eleven escapes captivity, without so much as even having to make a skill check, and wanders around with her awful charisma score doing weird things. When she sees her favorite paladin having a talk with the new PC, Max the Zoomer, she totally uses her abilities to attack the Zoomer out of jealousy. PVP is not cool, but naturally the DM does nothing to intervene or discourage her as I'm pretty sure he has a crush on the player playing Eleven.
The slightly older PCs are off doing a side quest to flex their chaotic alignments and get back at the ruling authorities for trying to cover up all the bad things that have been going on--which honestly seems pretty practical. It wouldn't do to have people panicking.
By the fourth session, the plot of the arc finally starts to manifest, with Will playing the line between helping the party and hurting them, he draws out a map which they need the help of NPC Bob to interpret. It's clearly the map of the BBEG's dungeon/body.
Eleven still not wanting to participate with the rest of the group, goes off on some side quest to discover her mother, while the rest of the PCs get bored and look at their phones. It does nothing to advance the story.
Max is still not included into the group's secrets, so she gets a pissed and threatens to quit playing at the end of the session. So by the 5th session Lucas lets her in on everything. Max either does a good job RPing not believing it (despite playing this whole time), or she is just getting back at the ranger by trolling him.
In the worst bit of DMing yet, Dustin gets betrayed by his quickly growing animal companion, when he finds it making a buffet out of his cat. It's a PC nightmare, having to fight your own animal companion, and really a jerk DM move to trick the player into thinking he was going to get a cool pet, and then making it turn on him.
So Dustin has to fight it. He does a good job baiting into a dungeon, but then fails his stealth check while luring it. He ends up landing a solid hit on Dart while it's surprised, sending it flying into the underground dungeon. Naturally, he feels bad about it. The other players are all jealous, as they haven't seen even seen a one round combat encounter yet in 5 sessions.
Everyone but Steve is still level 1.
Dustin tries to notify the rest of the party at this point, but can't find them, so enlists the help of the first one he finds, Steve the fighter. Steve was off hopelessly trying to woo Nancy back, when Dustin grabs him up and tells him about Dart. Steve is hesitant to believe Dustin, but ultimately knows its his party role as fighter to fight so grabs his steed and trusty mace to take them both back to the dungeon where Dustin had locked up Dart.
Meanwhile the NPC Jim gets captured in the BBEG Dungeon/Body which seems like a cool opportunity for the PCs to finally do something, but ultimately Bob and Will's mom do the rescuing. Mike complains a bit out of character, but the DM reminds him that he was the one that wanted to play tweeny characters, so he shuts up. NPCs start torching the dungeon, but Will gets an idea and starts to act like its hurting him to make them stop. The DM loves it and rolls with it, giving Will inspiration, as it stops the NPCs from torching the area.
It's in the 6th session that we finally start to see a little party combat. Steve and Dustin meet up with Max and Lucas and set out to bait and kill/trap the creature they have taken to be a growing Demigorgon. (To note, the party clearly failed all knowledge checks on this monster, as I'm not sure how they could mistake a creature that is likely a re-skinned barghest or hellhound as a two-monkey-headed demon prince in the making.)
The four characters spend the better part of the session planning and setting up very sweet trap which involves raw meat as bait and some fire traps. They secure themselves in a barricaded old carriage and wait. By nightfall the DM inserts some fog in, which is suspiciously the first time we ever see fog, so we know the fight is about to go down. The PCs make their perceptino checks so they can hear the creature out there, but it isn't taking the bait. In full hero fashion, Steve the Fighter gets out there to be the bait. Dustin who must be trained in perception, sees its actually a trap in reverse and tries to warn Steve that he is heavily outnumbered.
A small chaotic fight breaks out where they struggle to fight off the creatures. In a classic DM jerk move the monsters all seem to be immune to nonmagical weapons. No one has any magical weapons. Naturally the party all feels helpless, and some are on the brink of rage quitting the campaign altogether. Then in some Deus Ex DMina the monsters all flee. Steve makes an insight check, and realizes the monsters got called away.
To where? Well, back with Mike, Will and the NPCs, Will sets up a trap to straight up murder a bunch of LG/LN soldiers trying to fight what they are calling the "shadow monster." Will had fully made the transition from LN whinebot to NE murdergod and it's better for everyone involved... Except for those soldiers he up and murdered. He continues to communicate telepathically with his patron.
Session 7 is the worst one yet. Eleven is a spotlight hog the whole time, going on more pointless side quests instead of helping the party. This is especially annoying as after the last session it's clear she is the only PC capable of even damaging the enemies.
Session 8 picks back up the action, with the "demidogs" fighting their way into the town stronghold. In classic DM cheese they are somehow able to just mash their heads through the wall of force that should keep them back. Mike's player complains again out of character, "What are their skulls made of adamantine with disintegrate tipped noses!" The DM brushes him off, not having a good answer as he didn't bother coming up with a more clever/creepy way for the monsters to get in other than brute force.
What follows are some solid chase/escape encounters. It's entertaining now that everyone has accepted the cheesiness of needing magic weapons that the DM never gave out. Bob predictably dies to save everyone else. I mean, you don't put an NPC that likable into the game, unless you plan to kill him off to motivate the players to revenge. The party finally regroups.
The rendezvous back at Will's house. NPC Jim signals for help, which of course won't come. The party tries to use Will to spy back on the shadow monster. Will likes the idea and plays along a little. They try and conceal their location, but since they are at his ****ing house--did everyone fail their wisdom check?--, a familiar noise lets him know where he is at and in moments the shadow monster's army is descending upon them.
Eleven shows up to save the day, which is bad enough, but the DM makes a big deal out of it giving it all this long winded "cool" description. The DM seriously has a crush on her player. The other players roll their eyes, all of them annoyed.
The 9th and final session is a pretty good climatic ending. From their counter-spying in the previous session, they figure out they need to close the gate. So they split the party again.
Jon goes off with his family and Nancy to try and exorcise Will, using warmth. The DM at this point had to hand it to the party through Will's mom, as he was rightfully shocked none of them bothered to figure out the obvious method of exorcism which Will had straight up told them like 5 sessions ago.
Jim and Eleven go to end the campaign by closing the extra-planar gate, because there is literally nothing her busted ass character can't do. Again, the DM is kind of surprised he had to spell out to the party to close the extra-planar gate.
The others stay behind, but bored by that get an idea to go help by distracting the shadow monster. Steve, being a properly min-maxed fighter dumped int, but has enough wisdom to know that's a bad idea. Bill the comically villainous PC relation, shows up to finally effect the story by challenging Steve to a duel. Steve, remembering his role as a fighter is to fight, won't back down, and promptly gets thrashed. Max uses some nearby leftover sleep/paralysis poison they had used on Will earlier to knock out Billy, and then threatens to destroy his genitalia with Steve's mace. Apparently the genitalia threat gave her advantage on her intimidate check, as it is successful.
With Steve out of the way, the party mounts up in Billy's carriage and zooms away. Max takes the reigns and finally gives her character class, "the zoomer," a reason for its name as they race to the dungeon/BBEG body. Once inside they start to torch the place, in a pointless attempt to lure away the monsters from Jim and El. It's pointless because Eleven has to date, never had even a challenging encounter, so we have no reason to suspect that she'll have any trouble facing this army. We recall she thought murdered a dozen or more armed soldiers at the end of the previous campaign arc.
At any rate, it sort of works and the lure a bunch of monsters away for a few seconds. Dustin gets one last redeeming chance to make an animal handling check on a face off with his old pet Dart. It doesn't make up for it eating his cat.
Meanwhile El and Jim are at the extra-planar gate. Jim is using his ranged weapons to pointless stagger the foes, and then Eleven just makes arcana check or expends a spell slot or something. The DM makes it sound dramatic, but there doesn't seem to be any kind of development or personal sacrifice involved. She just closes it like a kitchen cabinet. She does bleed out of both nostrils though, so maybe that's a problem like with her nasal breathing later in life.
Everyone lives happily ever after--or more likely gets another year of downtime before they start the next campaign arc.
I enjoyed the show. It's interesting how what makes a good story, and what makes a good D&D game are often not fully aligned. I for one, would hate to be any of the other characters in a game that flowed like that, with one player being the only one that could do anything.
With that complete and the cleric player talked into rejoining the game, the campaign continues with about a year of downtime for the characters. It’s clear from the start that the cleric doesn’t want to RP a tweeny kid and he way overplays the whining thing to spite the rest of the group. The group also picked up a new player to join their group.
Mike the Paladin. Mike doesn’t show a lot of his abilities, but a paladin would never lie about being a paladin, so we let it slide. He does however do a good job of being the party leader/face as necessary. The player playing Mike’s character is a regular player who will make almost every session. It was his idea originally to all play younger characters.
Dustin the Bard. Dustin makes a good bard, probably going down the lore path as he definitely hits the books whenever he needs to learn something new.
He does a fair amount of comedic relief, we’ve come to expect from bards, as well as showing off some solid confidence reflecting his high charisma.
Lucas the Ranger. Lucas is the group's ranger, and frequently acts as the groups scout. He also is one of the few players who is regularly armed, usually with his slingshot.
Will the cleric. Will the cleric is a bit annoying and whiny and always in need of rescuing, making a very poor support character. Since the player still hates his character he is asking the DM if he can shift his alignment and multiclass into warlock. The DM can work that in.
Eleven the "Mage." Eleven is called a mage but she is clearly something much more. The real class is some home brew D&D wiki power level cheesey class that apparently can do whatever it wants but gets a nose bleed every time. The player was the only female in the original group at the table and the DM is bending over backwards to accommodate her, to the point of making her character way overpowered.
Max the “Zoomer.” Since eleven’s player had fun she brought a friend for the second arc. Her friend wants to play some more home brew cheese she calls the “zoomer.” The DM continues his pattern of overaccomidating the female players, and let’s her play the zoomer. Not even she knows what the class actually does.
Jon the Rogue. Jon is Will’s older brother and inherents some of the useless whining that must run in the family. He did a fair bit of creeping in the first arc using his stealth skill. He will do more of the same. He had been enjoying a little love triangle with Nancy and Steve.
Steve the Fighter. Steve does a good job of being lawful jerk and really walked the line well in the first arc. I’m a fan and respect that he is the only character that is really willing to stand in melee in the whole gaggle of a party. He sports an improvised mace as his weapon of choice.
Jim the Fighter. Jim Hopper--his last name coming from his sheet when the DM noticed his athletics proficiency--is the Captain of the city watch with the Soldier background (which never comes up). He is clearly much higher level and seems to have a good bit of plot armor. His character is pivotal at various points in the story.
Nancy the plot device. Nancy is one of the few likeable NPCs that the players encounter, probably because the DM isn’t really running her character, and instead asking his sister what her character would do between sessions. She is a bit of an inquisitive Rogue, that is also proficient in some ranged weapons. She does a good job of driving the PCs Jon and Steve forward.
Bob the Brain. Another likeable NPC. A friendly expert that exists just to motivate the PCs to revenge in the event of his inevitable noble death.
Billy the comically villainous PC relation. A overly villainous sibling to Max. He is a jerk, abusive and racist to boot. Max wrote him into her backstory, and the DM didn't really bother fleshing him out.
The first two sessions are a bit slow. The PCs spend time getting used to the environment, and a prolonged introduction to Max the "Zoomer." Rather than meta game and just let Max into the party the other characters give her a long prolonged probationary period. Eleven’s player couldn’t make it so she is held captive by the NPC, Jim. Will the cleric begins his transformation into a GOO warlock with a strange connection to someone unknown extra-planar creature.
Things start to get interesting, when the DM offers the bard a new sort of cute, sort of gross potential animal companion, which Dustin jumps on, happy to finally have a pet, but not thinking it'll be a combat pet or anything, just a vanity pet. But, by the third session the pet--now named d'Artagnan, or Dart for short--the new pet is growing rapidly, giving Dustin hope at a real significant pet. He is heavily researching his pet. The party wants to kill it, but Dustin secretly keeps his new pet a after having to make another handle animal check.
The friendly NPC, Bob, gives Will the advice to stand his ground against the great old one. This completely backfires, which is kind of a jerk move on the DM's part, because you expect advice from good NPCs to not be counterproductive, but it all works out because Will can now fully be possessed and start his Great Old One warlock journey. The player has big plans to get back at the party for making him play a tweeny cleric.
Eleven escapes captivity, without so much as even having to make a skill check, and wanders around with her awful charisma score doing weird things. When she sees her favorite paladin having a talk with the new PC, Max the Zoomer, she totally uses her abilities to attack the Zoomer out of jealousy. PVP is not cool, but naturally the DM does nothing to intervene or discourage her as I'm pretty sure he has a crush on the player playing Eleven.
The slightly older PCs are off doing a side quest to flex their chaotic alignments and get back at the ruling authorities for trying to cover up all the bad things that have been going on--which honestly seems pretty practical. It wouldn't do to have people panicking.
By the fourth session, the plot of the arc finally starts to manifest, with Will playing the line between helping the party and hurting them, he draws out a map which they need the help of NPC Bob to interpret. It's clearly the map of the BBEG's dungeon/body.
Eleven still not wanting to participate with the rest of the group, goes off on some side quest to discover her mother, while the rest of the PCs get bored and look at their phones. It does nothing to advance the story.
Max is still not included into the group's secrets, so she gets a pissed and threatens to quit playing at the end of the session. So by the 5th session Lucas lets her in on everything. Max either does a good job RPing not believing it (despite playing this whole time), or she is just getting back at the ranger by trolling him.
In the worst bit of DMing yet, Dustin gets betrayed by his quickly growing animal companion, when he finds it making a buffet out of his cat. It's a PC nightmare, having to fight your own animal companion, and really a jerk DM move to trick the player into thinking he was going to get a cool pet, and then making it turn on him.
So Dustin has to fight it. He does a good job baiting into a dungeon, but then fails his stealth check while luring it. He ends up landing a solid hit on Dart while it's surprised, sending it flying into the underground dungeon. Naturally, he feels bad about it. The other players are all jealous, as they haven't seen even seen a one round combat encounter yet in 5 sessions.
Everyone but Steve is still level 1.
Dustin tries to notify the rest of the party at this point, but can't find them, so enlists the help of the first one he finds, Steve the fighter. Steve was off hopelessly trying to woo Nancy back, when Dustin grabs him up and tells him about Dart. Steve is hesitant to believe Dustin, but ultimately knows its his party role as fighter to fight so grabs his steed and trusty mace to take them both back to the dungeon where Dustin had locked up Dart.
Meanwhile the NPC Jim gets captured in the BBEG Dungeon/Body which seems like a cool opportunity for the PCs to finally do something, but ultimately Bob and Will's mom do the rescuing. Mike complains a bit out of character, but the DM reminds him that he was the one that wanted to play tweeny characters, so he shuts up. NPCs start torching the dungeon, but Will gets an idea and starts to act like its hurting him to make them stop. The DM loves it and rolls with it, giving Will inspiration, as it stops the NPCs from torching the area.
It's in the 6th session that we finally start to see a little party combat. Steve and Dustin meet up with Max and Lucas and set out to bait and kill/trap the creature they have taken to be a growing Demigorgon. (To note, the party clearly failed all knowledge checks on this monster, as I'm not sure how they could mistake a creature that is likely a re-skinned barghest or hellhound as a two-monkey-headed demon prince in the making.)
The four characters spend the better part of the session planning and setting up very sweet trap which involves raw meat as bait and some fire traps. They secure themselves in a barricaded old carriage and wait. By nightfall the DM inserts some fog in, which is suspiciously the first time we ever see fog, so we know the fight is about to go down. The PCs make their perceptino checks so they can hear the creature out there, but it isn't taking the bait. In full hero fashion, Steve the Fighter gets out there to be the bait. Dustin who must be trained in perception, sees its actually a trap in reverse and tries to warn Steve that he is heavily outnumbered.
A small chaotic fight breaks out where they struggle to fight off the creatures. In a classic DM jerk move the monsters all seem to be immune to nonmagical weapons. No one has any magical weapons. Naturally the party all feels helpless, and some are on the brink of rage quitting the campaign altogether. Then in some Deus Ex DMina the monsters all flee. Steve makes an insight check, and realizes the monsters got called away.
To where? Well, back with Mike, Will and the NPCs, Will sets up a trap to straight up murder a bunch of LG/LN soldiers trying to fight what they are calling the "shadow monster." Will had fully made the transition from LN whinebot to NE murdergod and it's better for everyone involved... Except for those soldiers he up and murdered. He continues to communicate telepathically with his patron.
Session 7 is the worst one yet. Eleven is a spotlight hog the whole time, going on more pointless side quests instead of helping the party. This is especially annoying as after the last session it's clear she is the only PC capable of even damaging the enemies.
Session 8 picks back up the action, with the "demidogs" fighting their way into the town stronghold. In classic DM cheese they are somehow able to just mash their heads through the wall of force that should keep them back. Mike's player complains again out of character, "What are their skulls made of adamantine with disintegrate tipped noses!" The DM brushes him off, not having a good answer as he didn't bother coming up with a more clever/creepy way for the monsters to get in other than brute force.
What follows are some solid chase/escape encounters. It's entertaining now that everyone has accepted the cheesiness of needing magic weapons that the DM never gave out. Bob predictably dies to save everyone else. I mean, you don't put an NPC that likable into the game, unless you plan to kill him off to motivate the players to revenge. The party finally regroups.
The rendezvous back at Will's house. NPC Jim signals for help, which of course won't come. The party tries to use Will to spy back on the shadow monster. Will likes the idea and plays along a little. They try and conceal their location, but since they are at his ****ing house--did everyone fail their wisdom check?--, a familiar noise lets him know where he is at and in moments the shadow monster's army is descending upon them.
Eleven shows up to save the day, which is bad enough, but the DM makes a big deal out of it giving it all this long winded "cool" description. The DM seriously has a crush on her player. The other players roll their eyes, all of them annoyed.
The 9th and final session is a pretty good climatic ending. From their counter-spying in the previous session, they figure out they need to close the gate. So they split the party again.
Jon goes off with his family and Nancy to try and exorcise Will, using warmth. The DM at this point had to hand it to the party through Will's mom, as he was rightfully shocked none of them bothered to figure out the obvious method of exorcism which Will had straight up told them like 5 sessions ago.
Jim and Eleven go to end the campaign by closing the extra-planar gate, because there is literally nothing her busted ass character can't do. Again, the DM is kind of surprised he had to spell out to the party to close the extra-planar gate.
The others stay behind, but bored by that get an idea to go help by distracting the shadow monster. Steve, being a properly min-maxed fighter dumped int, but has enough wisdom to know that's a bad idea. Bill the comically villainous PC relation, shows up to finally effect the story by challenging Steve to a duel. Steve, remembering his role as a fighter is to fight, won't back down, and promptly gets thrashed. Max uses some nearby leftover sleep/paralysis poison they had used on Will earlier to knock out Billy, and then threatens to destroy his genitalia with Steve's mace. Apparently the genitalia threat gave her advantage on her intimidate check, as it is successful.
With Steve out of the way, the party mounts up in Billy's carriage and zooms away. Max takes the reigns and finally gives her character class, "the zoomer," a reason for its name as they race to the dungeon/BBEG body. Once inside they start to torch the place, in a pointless attempt to lure away the monsters from Jim and El. It's pointless because Eleven has to date, never had even a challenging encounter, so we have no reason to suspect that she'll have any trouble facing this army. We recall she thought murdered a dozen or more armed soldiers at the end of the previous campaign arc.
At any rate, it sort of works and the lure a bunch of monsters away for a few seconds. Dustin gets one last redeeming chance to make an animal handling check on a face off with his old pet Dart. It doesn't make up for it eating his cat.
Meanwhile El and Jim are at the extra-planar gate. Jim is using his ranged weapons to pointless stagger the foes, and then Eleven just makes arcana check or expends a spell slot or something. The DM makes it sound dramatic, but there doesn't seem to be any kind of development or personal sacrifice involved. She just closes it like a kitchen cabinet. She does bleed out of both nostrils though, so maybe that's a problem like with her nasal breathing later in life.
Everyone lives happily ever after--or more likely gets another year of downtime before they start the next campaign arc.
I enjoyed the show. It's interesting how what makes a good story, and what makes a good D&D game are often not fully aligned. I for one, would hate to be any of the other characters in a game that flowed like that, with one player being the only one that could do anything.