So, as I mentioned in one of my previous blog posts I’m currently attempting to run some online D&D sessions with some people. So far, I’m running two groups, and I’ve GMed (Game Mastered) one session with each of them.

I thought I would write a bit about the differences and similarities between the two groups, and how the adventure went along. Each one varied a surprising amount.

So, a bit of background. The adventure starts off as so. One of the players (in both cases, a fighter) have been caught doing something illegal (which isn’t specified) by the Senate Guard. The Senate of the country the players currently adventure in are pretty corrupt, and the average person knows this, though almost none care to admit it. Anyhow, a rich politician, a representative of this Senate, hires some mercenaries (the other players) to go on a “mission” with this one player who’s been caught. This politician is portrayed as a snobby, slightly corrupt, fat guy who’s far more rich than he should be. I don’t think I got this accross as much with the second group (from this point on referred to as Group B). So, this politician has given the caught player a choice – live in jail for the rest of his/her years, or go and exterminate a group of violent protesters, with the help of the other (hired) players.

Group A started off by paying high respect to this politician, as they really didn’t want to offend him. The tough fighter who was caught restrained himself from doing anything rash, and let the snobby guy explain what he wanted. The other group did things a bit differently. The caught player acted out, yelling a few times, calling the politician scum. I was a little surprised and didn’t have time to make a good reaction for the politician. Realistically, he should have been angered, but instead he became flustered. Whatever, that’s how it rolls sometimes (not actually rolling of dice, just, how the events transpired).

The players are told that they are to go to a place in the city where these rogues (the protesting group) are supposed to make an attack. They have a number of hours to travel to this spot. Group A decided to go to a bar and get some food, and then head on their way to the attack location, where they waited out for the rogues (protesting group) to attack a caravan carrying a friend of the politician.
Group B decided to go get some more equipment. They went into a small, rundown store, where they bought some arrows, and stole a sword from the shopkeeper, the fighter acting quite aggressive to the shopkeeper, while one player stole, and the other player apologized. At this point, it was obvious the group didn’t cooperate quite as much – which is fine, it made the game a bit more interesting!
Anyways, after they travel to the spot, they basically waited in an empty building for the caravan to come and the rogues to attack. Earlier on, the rich, fat, snobby, politician told them not to interfere with the events that would happen below. Only to watch and wait for the rogues to disperse, at which point they were to follow.
The rogues eventually did attack, the guards guarding the caravan were knocked aside (stunned/startled) and the politician was killed. Both groups did not interfere, even when they saw the politician was about to die. This was actually what I hopped for, as if they DID attack, the adventure could be ruined if they whipped out the rogues then and there (well, not ruined, but quite a quick ending).
So, the rogues kill the guy, and then run off down an alleyway. Group A decides to follow immediately, dashing around the corner without being too careful. Group B waits a while, while their party regroups (they had all split up to watch the fight from a different angle), and then went around into the alleyway.
The alleyway was a dead end, with two doors on either side going into peoples homes. One side, contained a faimily eating supper, the other side, a dark building with no one within. Group A searched both buildings, before finding a trap door in the dark one. Group B, using one of the players tracking skills, went directly into the dark room, and found the trap door.

At this point, Group A and B immediately lunged down the tunnel (well, it was a ladder going down). They didn’t check for traps, and both times the first two players heading down were hit by arrows that shot out of the wall. Group A, having a rogue in the group, then found a way to disarm the trap, and continue down. Group B, however, did not have a rogue, so they continued down, hoping the trap would only happen once.

At this point, both groups entered into a sewer like area, which is where we had to stop for the night. This all took about 3 hours of playing for both groups (Group B was slightly faster).

GMing-wise, I definitely explained and gave more details as to how the game transpired, explaining failures in a more detailed ways, and successes in a more exciting way with Group A. Group B I found it a bit harder to explain – I’m not really sure why though.

So, some final notes:

Group A definitely seemed to work as a party better – they cooperated more effectively. However, they didn’t seem to know quite as well what to do next. I mean, they found what they should do, but it took them a bit longer than Group B.
Group B was a bit faster paced, and bit more evil (stealing from the shop keeper, acting out to the politician). They didn’t interact with each other as well, however they ended up in almost exactly the same situation as Group A, so both “methods” seemed to work.

Anyways, When I next play with both groups, I’ll keep you updated and explain what happened.

*Note to players in the groups. If you’re reading this, I mean no harm. I’m explaining this for the enjoyment ant interests of others, and I think that you yourselves may find it interesting to see what the other group did differently (you should be able to tell what group you were in if you read this entire post).

** Also, to the people interested in playing D&D in winnipeg (like face to face) I’m going to talk to a few people who might be interested in the near future (they’re away on vacation atm, so I still need to ask them about it).

Cheers,
Noel.

As you may or may not know, besides making games and websites, I’m really into pen and paper roleplaying games (such as the Dungeons and Dragons, GURPSs, etc). Recently, I’ve created a website so that a few friends and I can play some D&D over the internet, as most of the friends I know who are interested live in different parts of the country (and some in the states). The actual tabletop playing of D&D I was doing a month or so ago has stopped for the summer. I’m currently DMing two different groups, and kind of experimenting with the whole “playing a social game that’s supposed to be played face to face on a table with lots of paper over the internet”. It took me a few weeks to get an engine that I thought was suitable up, but I did and have started playing, and thus far, it’s working out wonderfully well.

If you’re interested in experimenting with the engine yourself, you can check it out here.

Anyhow, that’s not where I’m actually going with this blog post. That’s the introduction.

The last few days I’ve been reading a blog called Ars Ludi, which, as the subtitle says, is all about the art of the game, roleplaying game theory. It has some really good articles about playing role playing games in general, and it’s been a really useful resource for my own games. One of the really interesting things on the blog is an experiment that the writer had done a few years ago, which he called the West Marches.  West Marches is a very interesting take on role playing games which I had never thought about, though I think it would be a very good experience to try sometime.

In case you are unfamiliar with most role playing games, here’s how they basically work: There are several players, who go on an adventure that a Game Master (GM) (or in the case of Dungeons and Dragons, a Dungeon Master (DM)) controls. The GM creates a world, and then creates adventures that the players partake in. The GM controls all of the environments in the world (creatures, people, etc), while the players play through it. Each roleplaying game has it’s own particular set of rules on how to interact with the world, but generally the characters can do whatever they want, within reason. Read up more on them here, they’re super interesting.

Anyhow, what West Marches does, is instead of having a GM that creates adventures for the players to take part in (ex. An evil Wizard has taken over the town, and is raining terror over the country, or there is said to be a secret lair of treasure in a forgotten castle, now crumbling away, said to be full of ghosts), the players choose what they want to do. Basically, you have a city, and all around the city (or in this case, all to the West of the city) is wilderness. The players themselves decide what they want to go and explore next, what treasure to hunt down, what they want to do. The GM basically acts as a person who controls everything around the world, and explains what happens. They’re totally neutral, instead of writing up stories and dungeons that the players take part in (and then acting as the game master).

In the West Marches that Ben ran (the author of Ars Ludi) he actually had about 16 players, but he didn’t play with them all at once. Instead, they had a big e-mail list, and players would basically say “Hey, on Tuesday, who wants to go and explore [area] with me?” and then they’d get together with the GM and explore that area.

This way, you have a number of parties out exploring at the same time, which are switched up now and then as players ask “Hey, who’s interesting playing Thurs. and searching this particular area?”. Over time, the parties explore more and more of the world, and create a map and info on each area of the wilderness that they share with the other players.

This is a really interesting way to play roleplaying games that I haven’t really thought about. I really want to try this in real life sometime now (I guess I need to search around in Winnipeg for players that are as interested in this as I am).

Anyways, if you’re interested, you can read waaaay more about West Marches here. Really cool stuff.