On whatever day the #RPGaDay list is made available, I take some time and build out the drafts for each daily post. Title, "RPGaDay" under labels, and any quick one sentence answers to the questions if they immediately come to mind. By the first of August, I like to have at least 15 days of posts ready, either completed or darn near close to finished. By Today (#14), I'm usually figuring out the five or six days at the end of the month.
As I write this, I'm in the middle of the previous weekend, I have seven posts left, but two of them are Days 14 & 15.
So for Day #14: "Describe a Failure that Became Amazing," I'll cover the TPK that wasn't.
2001: I had launched my latest fantasy campaign, The Journey of Mutumbo, in a kinder, gentler time.
Monday, September 10, 2001.
Needless to say, a lot changed in the real world as the campaign progressed, even the weeknight we played, but all of us learned to fall in love with Hackmaster, 4th Edition.
Months later, with the first plot line successfully completed, the party stumbled and bumbled their way across the Kingdom of Crosedes. About half the party from session one had been killed off... and a few of their successors as well..
Then some claim I made a mistake:
I ran the N2: The Forest Oracle
The Forest Oracle is widely regarded as one of the worst written D&D modules of all time. It's not a bad structure for an adventure, it's just that parts of it are written completely incoherently.
Nevertheless, it fit the geographic transition the party was traveling, so I persisted.
Right before I was to start this story arc, one of players hit me with a bit of bad news: School/Work (it is nearly 18 years ago) would interfere withe gaming for a bit and Cecelia Darkspruce, Half-Elf Warrior Priestess of Sif, needed to drop out for a number of weeks.
We couldn't agree on a proper transition that wouldn't involve travelling in the same direction of the other characters, so I ham-fisted a bad prophecy/calling involving Sif's Valkyries calling her to aid in the upcoming Ragnarok (*spoilers* It was a false alarm). With their best fighter and cleric gone, the group moved on.
Even in my early years of gaming, when I first purchased this module, I knew the rope bridge was a killer. To cross from the mountains into the elven wood, a three-rope bridge was needed to cross a small river full of whitewater rapids. Except there was one small problem: most of the characters already owned steeds.
It was decided that the Nubian warrior Mutumbo would lead the animals downriver to find a ford to cross. With a time-sensitive quest and their second best fighter now missing, the group crossed the bridge. Of course, a pack of wolves ambushed them, and even with pulled back tactics and perhaps a fudged die or two, heroes either fell of the bridge or fell into the river at zero hit points. Everyone in the fight was killed.
Everyone was quite bummed out, especially since Mutumbo noticed the bodies of his friend and allies floating in the river, but didn't even make an attempt to save them/retrieve the bodies. He simply worked his way downriver for two days until finding a fordable part to cross. It shouldn't come as a surprise, that I definitely hit Mutumbo with an alignment penalty/shift.
For my players, essentially a TPK was enough to ponder stop playing, but with Mutumbo's player leaving for a bit "to let cooler heads prevail," I started a campaign on the opposite side of the continent, and the Burning Trogs became legend.
To be honest the characters rolled up for the Trogs (and the addition of two players to offset our losses) made this party far more powerful than the first storyline. In fact, when Mutumbo and Cecelia Darkspruce eventually returned on separate occasions, both got their backsides handed to them by the Redrock cousins, Gnome Titans who were still significantly lower level than the older characters.
The Burning Trogs Rule! was the last great fantasy campaign I've run, and without that TPK, who knows where the old group would have stumbled towards. We had much better storylines, cooler magic items, and much better drama in the Kingdom of Marakeikos (yes you read that right).
As I write this, I'm in the middle of the previous weekend, I have seven posts left, but two of them are Days 14 & 15.
So for Day #14: "Describe a Failure that Became Amazing," I'll cover the TPK that wasn't.
2001: I had launched my latest fantasy campaign, The Journey of Mutumbo, in a kinder, gentler time.
Monday, September 10, 2001.
Needless to say, a lot changed in the real world as the campaign progressed, even the weeknight we played, but all of us learned to fall in love with Hackmaster, 4th Edition.
Months later, with the first plot line successfully completed, the party stumbled and bumbled their way across the Kingdom of Crosedes. About half the party from session one had been killed off... and a few of their successors as well..
Then some claim I made a mistake:
I ran the N2: The Forest Oracle
The Forest Oracle is widely regarded as one of the worst written D&D modules of all time. It's not a bad structure for an adventure, it's just that parts of it are written completely incoherently.
Nevertheless, it fit the geographic transition the party was traveling, so I persisted.
Right before I was to start this story arc, one of players hit me with a bit of bad news: School/Work (it is nearly 18 years ago) would interfere withe gaming for a bit and Cecelia Darkspruce, Half-Elf Warrior Priestess of Sif, needed to drop out for a number of weeks.
We couldn't agree on a proper transition that wouldn't involve travelling in the same direction of the other characters, so I ham-fisted a bad prophecy/calling involving Sif's Valkyries calling her to aid in the upcoming Ragnarok (*spoilers* It was a false alarm). With their best fighter and cleric gone, the group moved on.
Even in my early years of gaming, when I first purchased this module, I knew the rope bridge was a killer. To cross from the mountains into the elven wood, a three-rope bridge was needed to cross a small river full of whitewater rapids. Except there was one small problem: most of the characters already owned steeds.
It was decided that the Nubian warrior Mutumbo would lead the animals downriver to find a ford to cross. With a time-sensitive quest and their second best fighter now missing, the group crossed the bridge. Of course, a pack of wolves ambushed them, and even with pulled back tactics and perhaps a fudged die or two, heroes either fell of the bridge or fell into the river at zero hit points. Everyone in the fight was killed.
Everyone was quite bummed out, especially since Mutumbo noticed the bodies of his friend and allies floating in the river, but didn't even make an attempt to save them/retrieve the bodies. He simply worked his way downriver for two days until finding a fordable part to cross. It shouldn't come as a surprise, that I definitely hit Mutumbo with an alignment penalty/shift.
For my players, essentially a TPK was enough to ponder stop playing, but with Mutumbo's player leaving for a bit "to let cooler heads prevail," I started a campaign on the opposite side of the continent, and the Burning Trogs became legend.
To be honest the characters rolled up for the Trogs (and the addition of two players to offset our losses) made this party far more powerful than the first storyline. In fact, when Mutumbo and Cecelia Darkspruce eventually returned on separate occasions, both got their backsides handed to them by the Redrock cousins, Gnome Titans who were still significantly lower level than the older characters.
The Burning Trogs Rule! was the last great fantasy campaign I've run, and without that TPK, who knows where the old group would have stumbled towards. We had much better storylines, cooler magic items, and much better drama in the Kingdom of Marakeikos (yes you read that right).
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