My student game has now finished as the students are now away from the school and doing their final exams. They almost got through The Lost Mines of Phandelver and some of them are keen for me to run a game with them next year. The other in person game I am running has seen some changes too and we have had two people leave, one temporarily and one permanently. We needed a new playe and we got one that started last week.
I have spent a fair bit of my time last week building up this campaign. I enjoy the game but not the game system but that is OK. I started to look around at the bits and pieces that I had accumulated over the past couple of years and have built up a good start to the campaign. We have a Half-Orc Barbarian, a Halfling Rogue, a Human Sorcerer and a Human Cleric in the group and are waiting on a Dwarven Barbarian to rejoin us once he and his partner have gotten over the new baby sleeplessness. We had a pretty good first game with the new player last week and it looks like he will be a good fit for the group. he walked in said what do you all have and then went “Right, you need a cleric!” and rolled one up. A good team player is an awesome addition to the team.
I have been a little flat about this campaign because it is in D&D 5E which is really a system I do not have a lot of faith in and so inspiration for the campaign was low. In fact the world that I am building for it is more inspire by my readings of RuneQuest 6 than it is of the D&D books which left me a bit flat and flavorless for setting. I have built a nice round system non-specific setting now and I needed an adventure as the players are nearly through their first foray into the temple of Apollo that was over run by lizard folk. They have found a hidden section that appears to be a dungeon set for trials of new initiates of the Church of Apollo and are moving closer to the secret they are here to find.
But what was that secret? You see, back in the first game we played of this I started it like you would a Dungeon World campaign:
You find yourself moving though calf deep swampy mud as you close in on the abandoned Temple of Apollo. You have found out something about the Temple that has you seeking it out. What have you found out?
The players told me that there was something secret in the temple and they are there to uncover it. Now we have had a couple of games and the party are now pretty much level two but I had not given much thought as to what this secret was so I started looking through all the bits and bobs of books and modules that I have picked up over the past couple of years to see what the secret entails as I was, quite frankly, at a bit of a loss and the idea that I had come up with was a bit on the vanilla style for one of my games.
I found something too. A nice little nod I suppose to the old days of my gaming career I found something in a pile of stuff to read (be it physical or electronic) and it turned my boring old scepter of Apollo that they were going to find into something that transcends a normal style quest. In fact it will lead them further into mysteries of a bygone age, should that interest them, and build to a point where they take control of their destinies and begin to make my creations their own, helping breathe life into them.
So, I am now looking forward to the game tonight. I think we will have a good game, although my daughter will be unable to attend tonight so it will be just three players and I who will be finishing the Temple of Apollo and moving on into the next stage of their career. More soon on these developments – Keep Rolling!