Keep it together, man!

So in my attempt at running better games, I've been fighting the elements and losing.

Not the Primordials.
The sleet, snow, ice and scheduling woes that come with adult life and gaming.
My group has not gamed since before Christmas.
Christmas. Of 2010.

I was the first to bail out on our game coming into the New Year. Work has picked up significantly for me, and usually alot more toward the end of the week. Seems by Wednesday's I'm looking at half-a-dozen projects that are due now!

So I canceled the first one and rescheduled. But Winter has put us on hold. Seems North Texas isn't prepared for snow and icey conditions. It's always "Look it's a snow flake! Shut down the city! It's the end! Woe! Woe!"

But last week it was a interesting sight. 13 inches of snow at my house and it didn't just melt the next day with the normal 80 degree weather in Texas. Oh no. It stayed and stayed. And stayed.

And it seems we're in this position again this week. Albeit, a much smaller amount of snow, but lots of ice and problems with scheduling for everyone.

My solution may be just working to keep the excitement of the game alive. I plan to do this with Obsidian Portal.


I've looked Obsidian Portal as a resource for a while but haven't been motivated to use it.
I have a group that only uses the resources I provide at the table some of the time. I was concerned that if I created/setup our game there that it wouldn't be used.
So I stopped myself before I even used it.

Now after not playing for almost 2 months, I want something to reinvigorate our game and I think I'll check this out and maybe even pick up a subscription.

The site allows me to create a wiki of the campaign, store maps, handouts, npc's, pc's and a ton of more stuff.

I see the npc aspect a strong plus, as well as the possibility to store info about the game there. I've got notes and pdf's on my computer and laptop, but I need to put them somewhere where I can access them and my players can too without having either machine available.

I'm starting today, and will update you tomorrow(if not sooner) how well it goes over.

Keep your fingers crossed.

Gaming with new players, in this case, my kids.

So I've started a bi-weekly 4e DnD game with my son (13) and my daughter (17).

They've been wanting to play for awhile, but their school schedules and my own work schedule has been conflict.
We started a couple of weeks ago, and I had invited a couple of my regular players to join. While teaching new players isn't all the hard, they can stay in their "shell" not knowing what is ok and what isn't. That's where an experienced player can help.
My friend Craig was the only one who could make it and I'm glad he did.

We had a blast.

I created characters for them based off of what they wanted to play. The reasoning was that while creating a character is not too terribly hard to do, they could play these characters and decide whether or not they truly enjoyed playing.
And you know what, they did. It was all they talked about the next week.
My daughter played a human fighter, Gwen and my son played a Dragonborn Warlord, Ximnar.
They both had moments where they felt in the spotlight and that is what it should be like.
We played Into the Shadowhaunt. It was, from what I am told, the module used at the first 4e DnDXP day.

I modified it to the core setting of the Nentir Vale, and off we went.
Couple of highlights: Ximnar used his breathweapon on the hobgoblins hiding behind the oil-filled coffins and blooding him. He also intimidated the necromancer Helvec off of his 10-foot high dais where he was casting an evil ritual.

Gwen cleaved an animated statue in-two, destroying it and prior to that she had been atop the dais fighting the necromancer. But when the animated statue arrived, she took a running leap off the dais to attack it.

Pretty sweet.

The paradigm of defender and leader worked great for this first adventure.
The second adventure... not so much. I ran them through the first adventure in the Dungeon Delve book, Coppernight Hold.

Alot of it had to do with my son not wanting or not understanding how to use his powers for most of the game. He stuck with basic attacks instead of using his powers to take on threats and positioning or amplifying Gwen. It was frustrating for me to watch. I continued to ask are you going to use a power, "no, just attack." I don't know how much of it was he was afraid to take the risk of his character, he's a Bravura Warlord. Which means he leads from the fight or in the middle of the fight, and often places himself in harms way to gain the advantage for his team.
So for two encounters he got the snot beat out of him and his sister because he didn't use his powers.

But in the final encounter when they faced a room full of kobolds and white dragon wyrmling.
At first it look bad for them. His breath weapon failed to kill most of the minions, and they initial attack of the minions had left both of them almost bloodied.
And the dragon hadn't even moved up to attack.
But it started working out as they took care of the minions, and faced the dragon.
By now both were bloodied, Gwen had been twice!
The dragon had hardly been hit. Then out of the blow, Gwen crits it almost blooding the beast.
It attacks and almost puts Ximnar out.

On the next turn, Gwen hurts it more beyond bloodied. It had about 38hp left at this point.
And finally. Finally, Ximnar started using his powers. He used his daily, an action point and an encounter power(don't remember off the top of my head),, and the encounter power set it up for its ultimate demise. The power was worded so that he granted the dragon combat advantage against him, but if the dragon attacked him both he and any ally that was adjacent to the target(dragon) could get a free opportunity attack. And that was all she wrote.
The dragon went last in the round lunging at Ximnar with a defiant snarl, only to hammered down by attack from Gwen and Ximnar in retaliation.

Very cool.

So all this week it has been, "I can't believe we killed a dragon. Are all dragons that easy, Dad?"
"Nope I replied. They are all dangerous."
"Good." he says with a smile. "I can't wait to fight another one."

They've been trying to recruit a few of my daughters High School friends, with not much luck. One made the remark, "I watch a game before, it seemed boring."
The keyword I told him was watch. Had you played you would have a much different experience.
Anywho... rambling now.
So this is a win-win for me.
One, I get to play the hobby I love with my kids.
Two, they love it.
Three, this version of DnD allows me to do something I hadn't in the past. Be spontaneous with encounters and be able to play the next time they hit me up with, "Dad can we play tonight?" Which usually meant, right now. With just about any other game we've tried, I've had to plan and research. But with this, I can just pick it up and go.
I look forward to the near future where I can add a couple of other games to that list of pick up games.

BASH, Mouse Guard, Savage Worlds and anything with FATE; I'm look at those to teach my kids over the summer so we can start having more fun.