Joe Cummings

May 15, 2019May 15, 2019

Session 3 Dungeons and Dragons Adventure Pt 2

In every Dungeons and Dragons Adventure, there should always be a villain and if there’s a villain, there are henchmen. Meet “Ogre”. A Blackskull thug of great strength and brutality.

The Dungeons and Dragons Adventure was about to come to a head.

Even having seen how well the boys, (Leroy-the-Ranger, Sherlock-the-Wizard, Brad-the-Rogue, and Honor-the-Paladin) had defeated the Blackskulls in the forest or cleared the ancient, dwarven dungeon below his home, Devon the halfling feared they would not be able to defeat the men inside his home. Even with surprise and magic.

All it would take is for one of the evil doers to be alerted to their presence and Devon’s family would die. All it would take was one mistake and the party would be overwhelmed and killed.

Undaunted, Honor eased the trap door into Devon’s home. There was no one in the storage room, though the Blackskulls had drunk all the wine stored there and smashed the bottles. Carefully moving the glass out of the way, the boys entered the room one by one, the smell of stale wine and hops from the barrels of ale heavy in the air. In the distance, they heard singing, and detected the smell of cooking meat.

Quietly, they crept into the next room, a food storage room. Horrifically, the Blackskulls had killed Devon’s dogs, skinned them and strung them up for meat.

Devon’s fear from his family turned to anger. “I’ll kill every one of those bastards,” he vowed, red blotches appearing on his face.

Easing the door to the kitchen open, they saw the singing Blackskull stirring a pot of stew, unaware that the boys had come in through the trapdoor.

They closed the door and came up with a plan. Using Sherlock’-the-Wisard’s illusions, they would distract the Blackskull cook while the sharpshooting Leroy and the deadly archer, Brad, shot him dead.

But like all plans in all dungeons and dragons adventures, it fell apart the moment the door opened.

Sherlock cast his spell, but Leroy-the-Ranger’s shot went wild. As did Brad-the-Rogue’s. Even with the element of surprise. Even with taking a moment to aim properly. They both missed.

The Blackskull cook turned.

Everything depended now on how quickly the boys could reach the Blackskull cook because if he shouted out a warning, everything would go ‘pear-shaped,’ as my dad used to say.

As fast as he could, Honor-the-Paladin thundered towards the Blackskull cook, while Leroy notched another arrow, Brad ran to stab him and Sherlock cast another spell.

Before the cook could say a word, could even really open his mouth, the boys zerged him and he fell down about as dead as anyone could be dead, stabbed, frozen from a spell, and full of arrows.

It was an impressive takedown that any SWAT guy would have been proud of.

Then they planned an ambush for the others, using an illusionary voice to lure the other guards into the kitchen, shouting, ‘food’s ready!’

It almost worked.

In fact, it would have worked, but as Derrek Quickblade came into the room, two boys hidden under the table, two more hidden in the storage room, he didn’t fall for the illusionary cook by the pot and noticed the blood on the floor.

He drew his sword. He turned to the huge man behind him

“You know why Scar put me in charge, Ogre?”

“You’re a smart one, you is, Derrek. As smart as one of those book readers.”

“Right. We’ve got visitors.”

And, like that, it was on.

The two Blackskulls raced into the room, Ogre raising his huge axe, ready to cleave one of the boys in two, Derrek whirling his blades around like a guy who was seriously comfortable with sharp objects.

Brad, the nearest, dove out from under the table and threw chairs at the giant of a man, Ogre, running as fast as he could away from that axe. Leroy, shifting under the table, aimed and fired at Derrek’s legs, but missed. Honor, seeing his friends in trouble, roared into the room, his sword drawn, his shield at the ready. Behind him, Sherlock began to weave a spell.

Ogre split the table in two as he missed Brad, and Derrek spun away from Leroy to battle Honor. Like two legendary warriors, the two began to fight, Derrek faster than any warrior Honor had ever faced.

Faster. And more deadly.

Within moments, Derrek’s sword danced past Honor’s shield and drove deeply into the Dragonborn paladin, nearly killing him. Staggering back, gritting his sharp dragonteeth, Honor struck back, but Derrek moved with blinding speed, dodging Honor’s blade.

The two battled with brutal intensity, Derrek more skilled, but Honor brave and unyielding.

As the two fought, the last Blackskull ran into the room, but LeRoy spun and put a crossbow bolt in his leg. Brad lept out from under the table, tripped the Blackskull and drove his daggers into the man’s back.

While Honor continued his epic battle against Derrick, the other three heroes focused on the massive man called Ogre who seemed to take every cut from a dagger, every wound from an arrow as if he felt no pain.

Finally, Sherlock was able to get behind him and unleashed a firebolt that caught the man’s fur armor on fire. But even burning, screaming, he fought on like something out of a story told to frighten children,

But in the end, the fire consumed him and he fell to the floor.

With that, the others raced to help Honor, who could barely stand, fighting against Derrick with fury. However, so fast was the fight, the two warriors spinning, dodging, blocking, attacking, that LeRoy couldn’t get a clean crossbow shot and Sherlock’s magic failed to find the mark.

Honor took another terrible blow, Derrek’s sword slicing deep into his side, but he had watched how Derrek moved, learned the man’s martial dance and took the wound, deliberately, so he could get his own opening.

With all his strength, he slashed as Derrek’s leg. A deep, crippling strike.

Derrek staggered. Surprise twisted his face. One hand, instinctively, went to his leg.

And that was when Brad struck, coming in low. One dagger took Derrek in the thigh while the other drove deep into Derrick’s stomach.

Derrek fell to the ground, dying. Pain contorted his face. His hands held onto his stomach.

He looked at Honor and before he died, he said, “You think you have won? Death will not stop us.”Death… is… not… the end.”

The boys had won!

They had beaten the Blackskull thugs and saved the hobbits! They had completed the first chapter in what I had hoped would be an amazing dungeons and dragons adventure.

How little did they know what Derrick said would come back to haunt them?

May 14, 2019May 14, 2019

3rd Dungeons and Dragons Session pt 1

Dungeons and dragons adventures should always be epic, gandalf, balrog — Climaxes have to be epic! In dungeons and dragons adventures, this means more than just giant rats

This session would define the game for a long while.

In video game terms, it was the boss fight. In movie terms, the climax. In Dungeons and Dragons adventures, it’s a moment where failure could mean death.

Led by their halfling guide, Devon, the boys (Leroy-the-Ranger, Sherlock-the-Wizard, Brad-the-Rogue, and Honor-the-Paladin) had entered a secret entrance into Devon’s home. They hoped to save the halfling’s family from villainous villains (called the Blackskulls) who had threatened to murder Devon’s family if Devon didn’t do what they wanted.

Unlike that last adventure, this one started off well enough. With candy under my complete and utter control, I was able to get the boys focused fast.

They made a plan- clear the dungeon, sneak into the hobbit’s home, rescue the innocent. You know, hero stuff.

Unlike the last session, the boys moved quickly, coming under attack by a purple mushroom that killed Sherlock’s familiar, a cat. Luckily, though, the cat had unlimited lives since it was the ultimate Scholander’s cat, (existing only when called), so no one felt bad for the loss, (though Sherlock did wonder, “does it feel?”)

Using ranged weapons, they shot the unmoving fungus in one of the mushroom-growing rooms so it couldn’t damage them. It was over quickly and they raced further through the underground rooms, only to be surprised by a big ass spider that managed to entrap the powerful Honor-the-Paladin in a sticky web.

With their main fighter trapped in a web, the rogue, Brad, found (much to his horror,) that he was face-to-face with the spider, Brad wearing only light armor and fighting with daggers.

Shaking with fear, he stabbed at spider’s eyes, hoping to blind it and flee. Despite his fear, he wounded the spider badly, making it scream a terrible spider scream, and as it tried to flee away, wounded, blind in one of its many eyes, Leroy-the-Ranger shot it dead with one well-placed crossbow bolt.

They found nothing in the spider’s web, though, except the desiccated bodies of more than a few giant rats. Sherlock-the-Wizard, (knowing alchemy) harvested the spider’s web and its poison glands for future use.

Dwarven runes needing an answer to a riddle to open are fun in dungeons and dragons — A good staple of any dungeon in Dungeons and Dragons adventures is a dwarven riddle door

Then they were confronted by a thick, metal door with Dwarven runes carved onto it.

Translating the runes, they realized it was a riddle, because, you know, dwarves love locking doors with riddles. It’s their thing. That and drinking.

Their guide, Devon thought he knew the answer, but guessed wrong and took a massive jolt of electricity. The boys, however, were smarter.

They read the riddle.

Power enough to smash ships and crush roofs. Yet it still must fear the sun. What is it?

After a few guesses, and using Honor’s resistance to electricity, they solved the riddle and opened the door.

Answer: “ice”

Even their incorrect guesses were good or at least funny: A vampire. Water. Leroy’s pee.

The room beyond the riddle door held a good selection of alchemic supplies, including a book that could teach Sherlock-the-Wizard how to make a potion of climbing and an antidote to some poisons. Sherlock gleefully collected everything and would have read the book had they not been pressed for time –

Who knew how much longer it would be until the evil Blackskulls realized that Devon had betrayed them and murdered his family?

However, the boys were blocked by another riddle door. Who works when he plays and plays when he works?

Without hesitation, they answered ‘a musician’.

And the door opened.

They raced through the room beyond the riddle door, past looted supplies that Devon recognized as belonging to someone in the town, and past the crispy body of a human who had clearly failed to answer the riddle correctly.

They reached the staircase leading up, a rickety thing that Devon had built himself and seemed oddly proud of.

Honor-the-Paladin took the lead, slinging his shield onto his back, and unsheathing his sword. Although the least stealthy of the companions, they feared that if someone was up there, waiting, ready to ambush them, better to have a huge, dragonborn paladin enter the room first.

From Devon, they knew there’d be at least 4 blackskulls inside. Two of them were greatly feared in the village, one a giant of a man called ‘Ogre’ and the leader, a cruel man named Derrick Quickblade.

Honor reached the top of the stairs and reached for the trap door as the rest of the party shifted on the creaking staircase behind him, ready for battle.

Honor eased the trap door open.

The dungeons and dragons adventure will be continued!!!

May 14, 2019May 14, 2019

2nd D&D Session

D&D halfling NPC — **Devon, their halfling guide.Why would anyone want to kill this cute little guy?**

Phandalin Adventure

Day 2

Once, again, I couldn’t wait to start my D&D adventure with the boys. I’d done my prep, printed out my handout, (even a very cool ‘weathered’ map), and bought enough munchies to feed an army of starving goblins.

But therein lay my first mistake, and it may very well be why this session didn’t go as well as I’d planned.

To recap, they had been told by their hobbit guide, Devon, that bad guys held his family hostage. Now that he told the group about last session’s ambush, he begged the group to help.

But as I set up the music and sorted my paperwork, the boys voiced thoughts of killing their guide, Devon, the one person they were supposed to help!!!

Why? I have no idea, it seemed to come out of the blue, but then I had to start the session out by telling them what they couldn’t do. Or at least trying to dissuade them for doing something evil.

Then they tore into the candy like rabid dogs. Before their characters even reached the hobbit’s home, they’d began to vibrate in their seats. Then they bopped up and down in their chairs. Then, I had to take a break so they could literally run around.

It looked like getting them to focus on the game would become, well, a bit of a challenge.

Their mission though was simple enough. Rescue the hobbit’s family by sneaking in via a secret entrance. But, they were told, the evil guys were expecting a rescue and would be watching the doors and windows, ready to kill the hobbit’s family.

Their hobbit guide, Devon, led them to the secret entrance beneath his home, (an old, underground dwarven forge, long abandoned), that the hobbit used to grow mushrooms – Lots of tasty mushrooms fertilized by the finest poo in the county.

Only one problem – The boys didn’t want to do go through the secret passage.

Full of sugar rage, they wanted to charge in and attack the evil, nasty bad guys. No matter who dies!

My hobbit was horrified. His family would die.

However… The boys didn’t care. Like Vikings, they wanted to fight.

NOW!

Battle, battle, battle, battlebattlebattle, BATTLE!

But I, (playing the hobbit), managed to convince them to try to sneak up on the evil, nasty bad guys, and that’s where I made my second mistake.

Running a game like this means you give the players as much leeway as possible to do whatever they want, and I’d railroaded them into going one route.

Had they gone their route, it’s not likely the little hobbits would have lived, and that’s a consequence that maybe they needed to have.

But forcing them to do something makes it harder for them to be invested in the game. However, NOT forcing them would lead to the death of little kids, and in story-telling, that’s a HUGE no-no.

I was in a pickle. Or ,rather, I’d pickled myself.

Not super interested in their choice, it took an hour for the boys to focus on killing 5 giant rats.

An.

Hour.

With their usual outstanding grasp of tactics, they defeated the rats quite quickly once the fight happened, but it soooooo wasn’t exciting for them. I could see that.

As soon as they won, though, they were hit by a sugar crash and acted like slow-motion turtles eating a leaf.

The session ended without a sense of major accomplishment.

That’s never good.

Would they run home and tell their parents, mom and dad, guess what, we killed rats, OMG it was amazeballs, rats, mom, rats. How cool is that?

No. Not cool at all.

Dammit, I’d goofed.

After I dropped them all off back home, I vowed to do better. However, being nearly impossible to predict what would actually happen in any given adventure, all I knew was that I needed to do 3 things better.

I needed to control the sugar intake a LOT more than I did.
I needed to find stuff they would care about, something magical and fun. Not fighting rats.
I needed to create those epic moments they will talk about for weeks. Or at least hours.

Next week would be critical. I had to be a better DM.

November 22, 2015

The Best Day Part III

So, for a moment, imagine if the Hobbits had said, yah, you know what, no, that whole dropping the ring in the fiery pit of Mt Doom, yah, we’re not going to do that. Or what if Kyle Reese had said, damn, yo, look at that terminator thing, I’m outta here? Or what if Batman had looked at Bane and said, you’re right, Mr. Bane, Gotham kinda sucks, it’s all yours?

That was what was threatening my D&D adventure. I had one hero who didn’t want to be a hero. At least, not a traditional D&D hero.

But I had to drive on. I mean, did Sam give up when Frodo went all limp biscuit? Did Harry Potter wilt when he was told he had to die? Did Will Ferrell wander off to make snowmen after being told to leave the Elf community?

No!

So I would find a way to make this adventure work.

I picked up after the non-bar fight, where the ogre had given all his cash to avoid violence. Luckily, such things still impress people so he was hired to look into a missing caravan. Joined by his brother, the most blood-thirsty warrior ever born, and my friend who played a veteran soldier, they began their search where the caravan had been headed.

Being all rangerie like Aragorn or the Last of the Mohicans guy, The Youngest’s character tracked the tracks, and they found the caravan without too much trouble. Oddly enough, there were no bodies, though. Not a one. Lots of blood, sure. Some goods stolen. A few goblin arrows sticking into dead oxen, but so much was off about this scene.

Where had the bodies gone? Why would the Goblins leave their arrows behind? Why would they not steal everything in sight, even eating the oxen? Hey, goblins are all about the bling-bling, and the hack and slash, and BBQ afterwards.

So what was really going on?

As The Oldest – playing the Ogre – looked around for clues and The Youngest began to dismantle all of my carefully built trees, the goblin trail was discovered. Following it and knowing the forest as they do, they were able to sneak up on some of the goblins who, like all good goblins, were waiting in ambush for them.

Ah ha! Another classic battle in the making. Good guys sneak up on the green goobers and slaughter them.

But, this is not the Ogre way. No.

He did something – again – I’d never seen in D&D.

He tried to scare them off by running at them. Like a big-ass bowling ball, he roared into them, flailing his arms, shouting Ogrish nonsense and knocking them all over.

While stunned and not a little surprised, the Youngest rained arrows at the Goblins, and my friend took out her trusty sword and slashed and hewed about her like any good fantasy hero.

The Goblins, caught off guard, didn’t really know what to do, so they shot a few arrows at the Ogre and tried to reform in some sort of battle order. As they mustered around their leader, the Ogre, not content to merely roar and run around, climbed a tree that bent with his weight and fell on them.

Call it Ogre-slamming. I think the Rock tried something like this once.

Anyway, there was like this big mushroom cloud of dirt and clover and leaves as 500lbs of Ogre hit the ground, squishing Goblins underneath him.

The Youngest, with epic shots (for those who’ve actually played, he rolled three back-to-back 20s) mowed down the few Goblins who staggered away from the Ogre-slamming, while my friend finished off whose who who tried to flee.

They’d won. But at a cost.

The Ogre, desperate not to kill anyone, ended up with an arrow in his chest. As he lay on the ground dying, his hands dug into the earth and he watched the trees sway above him, shedding leaves like tears.

None of the other characters had the power to save him.

He was simply too badly injured.

The Ogre would need a miracle.

Yet, miracles do happen in D&D.

All the time.

But that’s where the adventure ended.

At least for now.

See, now here’s the thing. Here’s why I refound my love for D&D…

I’ve never seen a character use himself as a bowling ball. I’ve never seen someone roll 3 critical hits in a row, even my old D&D friend who had a knack for lucky rolls. I’ve never seen an Ogre try to turn himself into a club and smack a group of Goblins unconscious. Nor, I think, have the Goblins.

It’s why D&D really can be such a fun game.

You never know what would happen.

And would I really let a character die for being heroic?

Stay tuned for the next adventure. Sometime in December.

November 21, 2015

The Best Day Part II

I thought I was prepared for everything, but I had forgotten how D&D can twist your expectations. For better. Or worse.

So here’s how it started. All three players, the Oldest, the Youngest and my friend, were fighters. Rough tough soldiers. Killers. Warriors.

Now the coolest thing about an RPG (a roleplaying game), is that you can create a character that’s basically one form of you, or someone you may have read about or watched on TV. Or a combination of the two. You can be a Gimli-like dwarf with a bit of nerdy Sheldon, for example.

“Bazinga! Certainty of death, small chance of success- what are we waiting for?”

Or, with the new D&D rules, they assign a few traits to help you create an amazing character.

Here’s what the boys got. The Youngest, who has already made his Christmas list, and it is 2 pages long – got a character who despises money. Material things mean nothing to him. Nothing. He was all about the fame.

Ha. About as opposite to the Youngest as it could possibly be.

The Oldest got a character who loves the forest. LOVES it. Would never harm it. Ever.

Now him being an ogre and all, that was kinda cool. Ogres are known for eating children and bashing knights on the head with big clubs. But not this one. This one loved nature. A big, huge ogre with massive muscles who literally loves to smell the roses. Lie in a bed of clover. Look at the color of leaves in the forest.

OMG, this was going to be good.

So I built the first adventure around those things. The Youngest wanted only glory so I geared up great glory for him if he succeeded. For the oldest, a threat to nature. To the things he loved the most.

It all began, as most adventures in D&D begin. In an inn. There, thought I, they would be confronted by smelly bullies who hated the big ogre. The big ogre would likely pound them into snot, especially if his brother – the fighter who would see great glory in coming to the aid of the outnumbered ogre – helped him out.

Then, based on their manly heroics and impressive tossing of bad guys around, they would be asked to help find a lost caravan. In the forest.

Simple, right?

Sort of like every Steven Seagal movie only with less, you know, Steven Seagal in it.

But when I began the encounter, the ogre did something completely unexpected.

I, as the *cough* dungeon master began: “Alright, Ogre, as soon as you enter, three men stand up from their tables. One of them, a burly man with stained leather armor and a red nose from too much drinking, marches up to you.”

(On the tiles I’d set up, I place an Ogre figure by the door and six bad-ass-looking guys near tables. I placed figures of The Youngest and my friend at another table).

Me: “The ruffian looks up at you and says, “Your kind ain’t allowed in here,” He reaches for the rusty dagger at his side. He’s so close to you, you can smell how much he stinks. Like our dog after she’s rolled around in dead fish. Behind him, you see his two companions stand up as well and try their best to look menacing.

“Either you go quietly,” the thug in front of you says, “or we’re going to carve you up real bad like.”

(Now, traditionally, and indeed in most bar fights, this is where the other side postures up and soon all hell breaks loose… but not this time.)

Ogre: “I don’t see the need to fight.”

Me (and the bad guys): “What?”

Ogre: “What if I just paid you to walk away.”

Me and the bad guys: “What?”

“I’ve got 100 gold. Why don’t I give it to you and you can feed your families or go buy pokemon cards or something.”

Me and the bad guys: “What?”

“100 gold is a lot of money.”

(Now, this is where a video game would force the issue. It has no ability to improvise. To adapt. To overcome. A machine is not a marine. – Or a dungeon master, which is pretty much the same thing.

But I can adapt.

And I did.

Me: “The thugs seem confused. The guy in front of you takes a step back. He rubs his jaw, thinking, but he likes the idea of free money, so, yeah, he can’t pass that up. They take your money, laughing, and leave.”

The Oldest beams. He’s beaten the encounter. Not by violence. But by using his head and a bit of cash. Kind of like what I used to do in junior high where I traded my lunch for someone not punching me in the face.

But it reset the whole game. Like a QB who runs more than he throws, like a politician who actually does what they say they’ll do, like a movie that’s not filled with product placements.

I would have to readjust EVERYTHING and quickly. I had a warrior who hated to kill. An amazingly cool trait, but not something I expected.

I mean, what do you do in a game where the whole point is largely to slaughter the bad guys?

Improvise. Adapt. Overcome.