Last night’s game of Rise of the Runelords run by +Cam Mcloughlin had me perfectly in my element. We headed to Foxglove Manor and found ourselves in the middle of a haunted house spectacular and it produced some great roleplaying all round.
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| Tools of the trade 🙂 |
The second module of this adventure path (AP) just seems to suit me down to the ground. I have always been a little unnerved by the assumption that the players have a heroic bent and the first module of this AP worked off this assumption. This module though allows for some rich exploration into a morally grey environment. It allows for questionable player decisions to be made and for you to really explore how your character runs.
I am not sure if it is because of the shift to a more investigative style of play as we try to work out who (or what) is murdering all of the people in and around town that gives us a little freedom to show off our characters personalities a little more. Last night Cam also introduced Hero Points to the game tied to aspects like I am using in the Skull and Shackles AP. This also might have gotten our juices going on who our characters might really be.
Cam allowed us to choose our core and trouble aspect and he gave us a third aspect of how he sees our character. So Coltyn now has three aspects and they are;
Core: Always hidden but never alone
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| Recording Coltyn’s story in style |
I chose this from a background perspective. I thought about how Coltyn may have come to Grellyk and have decided that he was an only child that was badly neglected. He was hidden away from the world and the only companions he had were his imaginary friends. From those imaginary friends it turned out in later life that one was not exactly imaginary and with the correct training Coltyn was soon able to draw forth his one real companion in Grell.
Trouble: What they don’t know won’t hurt them
Coltyn is quite devious and secretive. He seeks power by keeping secrets and dividing the party with his secrets. This will cause him grief and so I have included it as his trouble aspect. Wherever he comes across a situation where he can gain an upper hand by concealing the truth he will take it.
GM Provided: Two faces of the one coin
This aspect is attached to Coltyn’s world view. He is true neutral and a true believer in a balance of actions provides harmony in his world. This can be used wherever I can help or hinder a friend or foe and allows quite a broad range to invoke or compel it. I gave Cam a lot of stick over this last night but it is a great aspect for Coltyn
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| A good history and decisive aspects has unlocked the mystery that is Coltyn to me |
As I sat down to write this post I realised that I am actually going to have to go through the same process for Grell as he has his own little pool of hero points. I think I will take a while to consider them though as we have a week of gaming and Grell is quite a bit different to Coltyn so there needs to be some in depth consideration to them. Of course I will have to get Cam to come up with one for him as well so when I have those in the bag I will let you know what we made of him.
These aspects, and the ones around the table, have really brought to life the characters for me. I think it has given the other players a little bit of direction too. I know that with them in place (and my own mental reasoning of Coltyn’s background) has made my character come more to life for me. Last night saw some great roleplaying in response to some exceptional situations so I am looking forward to more as we continue in this AP after a week off.
Hope your games are all as exciting as this one. Keep rolling!