Over the past couple of months, I’ve been running a mostly-weekly Dungeons & Dragons Fourth Edition game over the internet using MapTool and TeamSpeak. Generally, these tools have served us well, with the biggest problem being the voice chat; it makes conversation flow very awkward, with some people stumbling over other people’s sentences due to lag, and other people often unintelligible due to mic issues. MapTool is a bit clumsy, but it gets the job done.

For a while, I’ve wanted to run a tabletop game where the play shifted between a dark, gritty, waking struggle for survival and a wondrous, fanciful dream world that the player characters entered when they slept. This is not that campaign, but it uses the “dream world” motif that I’ve incorporated into several of my games. Below the fold, I’ll give a summary of the first part of the campaign for those who are interested.

Before then, however, I should discuss my current feelings on D&D4e. First, the combat system is a lot of fun and very slick, but it requires a lot of effort and attention to keep it from becoming a tactical strategy game. In the game so far, players basically just say “I’m using Scorching Burst” or “I’ll do a Deft Strike.” I much prefer a game where players describe their actions with more flavor and color, and often do actions that aren’t straight from their power list. I’ll work to encourage this in the future.

Second, I still don’t have a handle on Skill Challenges. They make sense on paper: a way to structure non-combat encounters to have the same randomness, flow, and structure as combat encounters. However, in practice they feel very clunky. Twice I’ve had a single character take lead on a major NPC conversation, and instead of having them make repeated Diplomacy checks, I’ve just roleplayed it out. Maybe I need to make the Skill Challenge mechanics more explicit; maybe I need to abandon them altogether.

Finally, the XP system feels slow. Ten encounters between levels is a lot. I’ll be giving double experience in 4e in the future, just to restore a sense of progression to the game.

Now, for the story so far. This is the first half of level 1.

The party found themselves in a small town called Meersha. Etzlojek, the Kobold rogue, was an orphaned kobold adopted by the local innkeeper. Eva, the human (or is he?) wizard, was serving as a journeyman under the local ritual magician. Donaar, the dragonborn warlock, was resting in his flight from his zombie-overrun hometown. Orilo, the goliath shaman, was passing through. While attending the periodic market day, the group were attacked by acquisitive drakes that were providing a distraction for some scouting kobolds.

ENCOUNTER:
2 Spiretop Drakes
1 Kobold Slinger
1 Kobold Skirmisher

After dispatching this group, the party was conflicted; these kobolds were skulking around, but were they actually attacking? Etzlo pointed out that the party had fired the first attack, and that the other kobolds might have just been attending the market. Others were skeptical. Sully, the local tavern-owner, de facto mayor, and retired paladin, recruited the party to help out in case the kobolds were a vanguard for a raiding party. Before long, a report came of kobolds advancing on the fields east of town. The party, with Sully joining them, went to investigate and were met by a group in green vests. The leader, some sort of priest, announced the coming of the god Zekleinenezzar, a green dragon, who would kindly take control of the town and its trade routes in exchange for one sentient sacrifice a year. The party refused. One of the kobolds lit a field on fire as a demonstration. A fight ensued.

ENCOUNTER:
1 Kobold Wyrmpriest riding 1 Fastieth
1 Kobold Slinger riding 1 Fastieth
4 Kobold Minions

Sully, fearing the approach of the dragon, prepared the town to evacuate to a city in the north, called Decolay. It had been out of contact for decades, but surely they were still around… right? In the meantime, he provided the party with money and supplies in exchange for delaying the dragon long enough for the town to escape.

The next morning, the dragon approached town with a small army. The party faced them with sneaky preparations, including Etzlo unsuccessfully posing as a worshipper.

ENCOUNTER:
1 Young Green Dragon
2 Rage Drakes
2 Lizardfolk Greenscale Hunters
8 Kobold Minions

This encounter was designed to be definitively, and clearly, out of the party’s league. This was actually my first time running a “forced-defeat” combat in a tabletop game. I was careful to telegraph the nature of the encounter; Sully stressed that the goal was to delay, not defeat, and encouraged everyone to run rather than die. Still, it was rough; three characters were knocked unconscious, including the dragon KOing Sully in two blows. The party performed admirably, killing all of the minions and a few of the others. Etzlo even killed one of the drakes with a sneak attack on the roof of its mouth, while being carried between its teeth. In the end, the party fled south to throw the dragon off the trail, and eventually met up with the caravan of fleeing townspeople.

Shortly, the townsfolk were attacked by a search party from the dragon’s forces.

ENCOUNTER:
1 Lizardfolk Poisonscale Magus
1 Lizardfolk Poisonscale Slitherer
2 Needlefang Drake Swarms

This was an unexpectedly rough encounter, due mostly to the party being spread out and isolated at the beginning of it. Orilo, sadly, passed on, and several other party members got tore up pretty bad. The good guys prevailed, though, and on the way north Sully recruited a young dwarven fighter, Diesa, from the ranks of the townsfolk. Diesa got introduced just in time for the caravan to be ambushed in a narrow pass by some well-prepared kobolds.

ENCOUNTER:
1 Falling Rock Trap
2 Kobold Slinger
2 Kobold Skirmishers

This combat was easy. This is partly due to my improper use of the trap, which triggered before combat and had no chance of damaging the party. I should have replaced its place in the encounter with a monster. The party cleaned up, and acquired two long rope ladders from the Kobolds that proved useful during Level 2.

It began to rain heavily as the party led the caravan onward to Decolay. Soon, they crested a hill, and saw the city below them. In flames and ruin. Through the mid-day darkness of the torrential thunderstorm, they could see that the city was not the beacon of light and learning that it had been years ago. A more welcoming shelter was a mysterious fortress on a hill overlooking the city… but investigation revealed it to be empty, with magical lights and a strange, sealed tower at the center. Conflicted, the party struggled to weigh the risks: should they take the townspeople into a city suffering an unknown collapse, or a creepy abandoned fortress?

Next time, I’ll finish summarizing level 1, including creepy singing children and a trip through the dream of a long-dead eladrin noblewoman.