Campaign Log, Serpent's Skull

[Keldoclock]

I guess it's to be expected that they will be late, but still, precious weekly gaming time trickling away!

The plot isn't quite so linear- they previously missed several key clues aboard the Jenivere, which I told them about, namely a dead cook and first mate.

The adventure is the very open ended sort- they have a whole island to roam about and gather clues, and so far they haven't encountered any NPC camps or anything more than a single dimorphodon nest.

At the next session, they'll be able to possibly Diplomacy the NPCs up to Friendly, at which point they will discover a series of quests form each of them, giving them a bit of direction along the island. Some are guaranteed to interest the players, like Ishirou's treasure map, and all of them will end up giving the players(and other NPC's ) a permanent bonus about equivalent to a trait!

I can post a map of the island if you guys want, I just avoided doing so because one of the readers was playing this adventure.

[Keldoclock]

Today one of our players bailed the group (Maria said we were "too nerdy" ) and, seeing as 14 year olds have no sense of punctuality(Victoria decided to go shopping for baking stuff (lol women)], we started 2 hours late, and thus only did one thing.

The heroes managed to bribe Aerys Matavo (half elf fighter poet pirate lady) with the bottle of fine brandy from the Jenivere, which led to them discovering that she wanted to kick a drinking habit, and heard that there were rare berries on the island that could help. Sasha and Victoria, with the closest thing to a full, in character conversation we've had so far, talked about hair products(lol women), and found out that the somewhat crazy lady wants a poisonous dimorphodon as a pet! Gelik told a few terrible jokes(and made me unable to use anything other than an irish accent for any other NPC, curse you vocal cords!), and they set off further down the coast, where they discovered D3. The Golden Bow, an Ulfen longboat, where they fought Storhoi the Bold(draugr and clanmate of Vallader, who was exiled from his clan), and his 4 zombie crew! The fight took up the whole session, with some highlights being Storhoi critting every attack he made, Vallader mulching two zombies with a hammer+spiked shield assault, and everyone but Seltyeil going into negative HP at one point or another. The boat itself was tilted to starboard, giving the opportunity to push people off the boat and quote Star Wars (I HAVE THE HIGH GROUND ANAKIN!). A few potions, all the Cleric's channels and level 1 spells later, the heroes find themselves with an unconscious halfling, a suit of chainmail and greataxe for Vallader, a drinking horn, mwk. leatherworking tools(make hide shirts from Shiv Dragons!), and a most excellent 350 exp each.

Perhaps we shall be able to play again monday, if not, next week!(also the day of Comic-Con!)

[Keldoclock]

Another session occurred today, with only 3 people there

Things went very well, another two and a half days on the island passing, wherein poison nettle berries were gathered for Aerys, but not brought to them quite yet(they left all the NPCs at the camp ), read the Captain's log, ate everything in my fridge, found tracks from Captain Kovak and his lady, Ieana(who has plot ties with Vallader), and they followed the trail quite aways, being ambushed by cannibals(who they defeated, with a non-insignificant amount of trouble, involving Alice being carried off(Damn you 18 Charisma!), but managing a Shocking Grasp( ) and dealt 12 damage to her assailant, pretty much frying him. Then the deadly bells of "We have school tomorrow" struck, and we disbanded for the day.

The party have found a number of strange red pearl necklaces on the bodies, along with a golden longbow(from the Golden Bow of course!), a trail to follow, a pull back towards the NPCs, and all sorts of interesting plunder and intrigue.

We seem to have a decent grip on the game's mechanics by now, and the players are doing things like trying to Craft javelins and arrows and assorted leather goodies, which is great! Roleplay also has become more of a "thing", perhaps because of intelligent foes and high Diplomacy rolls.

All thats left is hope that, for once, everyone can make it to the next session!

[Keldoclock]

Alright, this is just silly. We had two out of five players show up today, one fucking around at comicon, one just didn't feel like going, one was at a party.


We just watched unforgotten realms, went to a diner and blew the donations on burgers and ice cream floats, and had a quick game of Brikwars.


Ultimatum. If the players don't show up less than ten minutes late next session, they're out of the group.

Fucking bullshit, one of them has only been present for half the sessions, and the others make a habit of being an hour late.


Was I right in doing this?

[stubby]

If your goal is to run this campaign, then yeah, axe them. These guys aren't campaign material.

If your goal is to have fun gaming with this particular group, then axe the campaign and switch to one-shots instead. Trying to force them into showing up and taking part in something that clearly isn't compelling or fun for them isn't going to go anywhere useful.

[enders_shadow]

plus you had ice cream, burgers, and a game of Brikwars. Seems like a successful day to me.

[Keldoclock]

Jeff absolutely loves the game, he has a massive backstory, made portrait sketches for everyone, etc.

Mike and Marc are in the same boat, although not quite as involved.

They've been there for almost every game (Mike was at comic con, but he gave warning a week in advance, so it was fine), they donate money, and they focus at the table, and are pissed when the others don't.

The others are Victoria and Maria, Victoria seems to have fun but doesn't really understand the game and skips out on a lot of sessions, and Maria is basically not there at all :/ .


Honestly I think the only reason I've kept em on board is because they're female.


Thank you all for your comments and concerns. Noob GM, really thriving on the feedback.

[knolli]

In a group of four to six people it's often difficult to get everyone together. We settled with the rule that we play even if one player is missing. But that only works fine when the player announce their absence before, like Mike did. If they spontaniously decide that other things are more important, like shopping, you may be better off without them. But don't be too harsh. Ask them whether they enjoy the gaming sessions and if they want to participate again. If RPG isn't their thing then don't force them to stay but let them go and try to find someone else to take their place. If they say yes, tell them to be punctual and set an ultimatum. If they don't show up next time, look for replacements.

That's the way I would do it.

[Keldoclock]

Well, I don't think I need to elaborate too much here.

[thade]

You people are officially the greatest.

[knolli]

Epic Fail! Did you role a natural 1 for Handling Matches? Of course paper doesn't burn if you put the fire ON TOP OF IT.

Nice speach nevertheless.

[Keldoclock]

I might roll natural ones, but I certainly don't role them.

[knolli]

Since when do we care about typos here?