Roll20 Voice & Raised on Radio

Okay, okay, stay with me for a minute. It'll make sense. I hope. 

I had an epiphany about my Roll20 DMing lately, and one of the problems I seemed to have conquered. That is, the adapting to voice only after decades of having a table full of folk looking at me. 

I decided to skip using camera for the most part because I might find it distracting. In a different way than actually be in front of people physically. I just knew from various Zoom meetings for work or whatnot that seeing each other was not necessary.  

Adapting to having a narrative happen with just my voice had some challenges. For one it turns out I like to gesticulate and make hand gestures and such when I am describing things in a game. So I have a hard time of breaking that habit when nobody can see me. And I've had to change a lot of my process to adapt myself to being descriptive without using my body at all. Sometimes in the last couple of campaigns on Roll20 I would think "why would anybody do it this way?" 

But I somewhat recently realized I loved doing it in this format so much so that I pretty much consider myself retired from face-to-face DnD. For a lot of reasons, but in large part I think because I remembered the power of radio DJs. And how memorable the ones I grew up with in Southern California are still for me to this day. And why. 

The first DJ I can remember from when I was a little kid was LA staple The Real Don Steele. 93 KHJ was the most listened to station, and though nobody knew what he looked like, for locals, he was a bigger celebrity than anybody in the movies. That's the power of local radio. You feel like you know them. 

One of my favorite Tarantino films is Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, and one of the reasons I love it is the soundtrack is a tribute to Don Steele in a way his location work was a tribute the LA I inhabited as a child. He's practically a side character, as Brad Pitt drives down Burbank Blvd with Don Steele introducing songs and commercials. It sort of blew my mind. At one point a commercial for a shampoo or something called "Heaven Sent" plays on the radio, and I flashed back to infancy. I immediately remembered the commercial with the catchy tune. I got chills hearing it. As a kid when the TV wasn't on, the radio was on, and I must have heard the commercial a hundred times before I could tie my shoes. It was a powerful nostalgia feeling. I had to be only like 5 or 6 at the oldest when that commercial was a thing. 

And that is the power of the voice of radio. What is another power? Well, you get such an image of your mind of your favorite DJ, you get blown out of the water when you see they look nothing like you imagined.

I swear to God I always though
Don Steele was a black guy. 

It seems that every 10 years or so you get new DJ's. In the 80's we loved World Famous KROQ, and we always imagined the radio station being like a circus or something, where Devo or Elvis Costello might just be hanging out in the hallway. Richard Blade, Poor Man, Swedish Eagle, Rodney Bingenheimer, and others just seemed be magic. 

Mark and Brian were huge in LA in the late 80's and into the 90's. I'm kind of ashamed of being such a fan. They were such dorks. I remember me and a buddy going before work to some stunt at the Culver City station they were doing live. Getting lifted by a crane and dipped in fudge, and we all got M&Ms to throw at them. It was like a wild rock scene. All these hot young secretaries and retail clerks where there too, screaming like Springsteen had showed up. These guys were huge but looking back I don't think they were that funny. By the late 90's I was like "boooring..and they are just ripping off Stern." But man, the magic of radio. Of just hearing the voices. And they talked about things I Loved that they grew up on. Batman, Gilligan's Island, The Munster's.

The fucking mullets were not
all that magical. 

OK, the point is as soon as I started thinking about the power in a radio voice, the mystery of it, I saw the advantage of it in a D&D campaign using just voice. You start getting comfortable with it and do things with it. To be more articulate and descriptive. No flailing hands needed. Though, uh, I still gesticulate. No need to eliminate it really, as long as your voice is conveying what is needed. 

The mystery of radio is the mystery of a faceless voice. And I feel I am starting to harness that mystery. The DM is an omnipotent presence. Eliminate the body and I feel you can tap into that in a way you cannot when the group can see you sucking down the beers while wearing a Rick and Morty T shirt. 

As an aside, another great thing for me is the mute button. I have a tendency to interject a lot when players are talking among each other in character. So that button is a great way to censor myself. 

Hey kids! More Game Sex!

 

Not that I am in a salacious state of mind or anything, but after posting about male players and their D&D their character sex lives, I was thinking of some other situations in games related to females and their female characters in my games. I mean, their characters are fully capable of seeking romance, and sometimes they do. 

IMO though, there is a big difference between male and female players, and that may reflect real life to some degree.   For the guys make believe relationships aren't goal number one. It about their whatever getting their "jimmy" "copped." For female players I found that since my earliest days, it's about relationships and often marriage. 

It was usually around 95% of the time with NPC's. Sure, the were very often sort of stand out, heroic NPC's that they met, or were around for whatever reason. But I remember in a campaign around 10 years ago one of my players characters, a female fighter who grew up with lots of brothers in a military family, had met a somewhat non-descript soldier NPC in the course of the campaign and dated him briefly before heading in the Underdark for The Night Below. During the course of that, the characters found a deck of many things. A couple of them got wishes, including this female character. What happened next was baffling, humorous, and controversial among the other players (who did not learn about it till way later); she used her wish to have the NPC she fancied propose marriage when she saw him again. Awesome. Some might call this daft; some might call it great role-playing. I'm the DM so I can have no opinion. I do not judge.

It can come from some unexpected places. A few short years ago when I first moved into town I met "B and L," who wanted to do some D&D and were looking for a DM and group to get together. B had some 1st edition experience from the military, and L had zero DnD experience. Well, within a year or two they had become my besties. This younger couple pretty much adopted me. In large part because I was in a new town where I didn't know anybody, it was a godsend. 

That Xmas Day they invited me over 
for booze, food and boardgames. I otherwise 
would have been home alone on the XBOX,
or in a casino. BTW after spending a holiday
alone on video games or in a casino I like to 
have a good cry. Kind of a tradition. 

But anyway, we got this little face to face group going. "L" ran a half orc fighter, Emen. 

One of very few female half orc images
that don't just look like a full orc.

L had no RPG experience, was not a heavy role-player as far as her character, but one thing stood out fairly quick about her. She fancied an NPC and went after her.

OK, here it gets complicated. So I was using The Lichway. It was an eventual destination. But in this go around I had Dark Odo and her gang, a staple of the module, and had them in the city where they met the other characters at a party held by the PC party's rich patron. Just to relieve the fact that all these unconnected groups "just were" in The Lichway, I thought I would expand upon them. Give more gravitas and make it have some sense. So Most of the inhabitants listed in Lichway were at this party. Odo's gang, the four thieves encountered there, etc. They would all hear about Lichway, and most would go there prior to the party doing it. So there was some method to the madness therein. Just a new approach to the dungeon denizens.

One of Odo's gang in the material was Runis. A female chaotic evil fighter. I changed her up a bit. I toned down the alignment to neutral. I had her obsessed with using a variety of weapons (I think because in the Lichway she had a bunch of weapons). And I also had her be a Sandlander from the module, one of this race that once ruled the area but now exist in small villages in smaller numbers. Runis was convinced by Dark Odo that as one of the last pure blood Sandlanders she could help her become a ruler in the area. 

Anway, as she was a beach-grown person, I gave her light colored hair and a build like a pro volleyball player. The material also described Sandlanders as "Dour," so I included that in the image search. Here is what I found:

"Dour?" Check. 

Emen moved in on her, and the dice responded favorably. I found this fascinating. Not only was L not a deep role-player by any means, but I saw no indication that L herself liked the ladies in any fashion. Though it's true, I've only known her like three years now. But this, to me, was a stand out moment of role-play. That she cared enough for her character to get into a relationship with another shows that she at least cared about the "story." Anway, when the campaign ended Runis and Emen (after some tension in the Lichaway as they were in opposing groups) were living together in the big city. 

I really don't know how much of this happens in other groups. I have mostly run for private groups and don't interact with the outside gaming world much. But in the 90's when I was almost exclusively running for groups made up of people I already knew well, the potential for sex among the characters was probably easier to digest. 

Though through Roll20 I am coming across more people, strangers, than ever before, and as described in my last post things got a little hot and sexy with a male character and a female NPC. And all my players, male and female, got a kick out of some of the humor that came from that. A situation I can't wait to see more of in coming days. Most of the other characters either distrust or outright hate this NPC. Will he succumb to player-on-player meta-peer pressure? The Discord is chock full of derision for him getting with her. 

But outside of all that, and to put a cap on this, I will say that the most important thing to me is that I run an adult game for adults. I want there to be adult trappings along with all the high fantasy. So, when these adult things happen in my games, I'm always glad and consider it a good sign.

Not counting that bard player mentioned last post
who made me feel like a pimp for PC's.

YMMV.

Cheers.

When a Player Character (and sometimes the player) gets Laid

 

In my experience over the decades, all the way back to my teens, one thing seems a constant. Most male players running a male character (or even a female character run by a male in some cases) find it important for their character to get sex. Sure, they can be a Conan type and just throw some coins and gems at a strumpet and go to town. But it seems like kind of a big deal. Sometimes as important to the player as them getting laid personally. I don't know if it has anything to do with lots of D&D dudes traditionally being "incel," though a decent number of D&D wonks of my generation have had marriages and children and all that (personally I'm a long-avowed hedonist; I have two older brothers who had kids and that didn't always look like fun to me). 

An example here, one I experienced for almost 10 years. The host of my last group in my hometown up to around 4 years ago, ran a bard in a long campaign of mine where I used the great Night Below module, and beyond. These characters were played long enough to hit higher level, which is rare for me. So here is this bard character, with a name that should be emblazoned in my mind but I just cannot remember (my brain is pretty good at healing from trauma. Or maybe its just early onset dementia) the name. Anyway "horny bard" was constantly on the make. The player put a lot of his focus on the character getting nookie. And what can you do? If a character is flashy and has a good charisma, you have to let the chances be there. Well, I guess you don't. But I run a game that I like to consider heavy on the emergent (love that word), and where possibilities are open. So I let the dice with modifiers be my guide. 

But whatever it is, I didn't always like it. I had to be "OK, look dude, we don't need to go into more than the basic description of what is happening. I'm not the actual NPC girl, you dig?" It was all in good fun, with a nice dash of "whatevs," but honestly as time wore on in this campaign, I felt like a pimp for this player character. 

But that really isn't often the case. Besides the aforementioned Conan style whoring, if you run a game where you allow role-play to pan out a bit, relationships happen. Maybe between a PC and an NPC, and maybe a bit more rarely (in my game anyway) a couple of characters hook up. It can go to extremes. Such as any girlfriend I have playing in my games from my late teens to my early 20's. If one of my NPC's hooked up with one of a GF's characters, well, that is a bit more in the way of intimate possibilities. I mean, a bit of role-play happening at night when the game is over and everybody is gone is something I experienced a bit of, and I'm sure I'm not alone there. And when I was around 20 something there was about as an extreme example as you are going to get. 

I had two gaming friends who had started college at UCLA. So we had a game at their large dorm apartment. Them, me, and another friend of mine. And my GF at the time I think. We all knew each other from the year or so before at Santa Monica College and all of us had played together many times. All except this other girl present I didn't know. She was a super cutey, and she wanted to play. A couple hours into the game, it was clear she was flirting hard with my non-UCLA buddy "K," and he was responding to it. This girl was staying with the two UCLA guys. She was a student there, but something happened where she got tossed out of her place, and they were letting her stay a few days. They made it clear why they were doing that to me a day or two later when I asked about their behavior. They wanted a shot at her. Keep in mind these were some pretty nerdly dudes. Like Revenge of the Nerds level, more or less. But even at that age I found it kind of shitty that they were letting a gal stay there in hopes of hitting it. It was a different time.

Honestly, they didn't look much different than this. 

Anway, the flirting was going on in character, and it evolved into the real deal. K and the hottie adjourned upstairs to the spare room before the game was even over. I was loving it, but my other pals weren't feeling it. Though I was over the moon. Me and my pal K had a song from the great film Twins we sang to the other when we were making time with a gal:

Jealousy is a powerful emotion. An old man on a barstool (where I got all my best young advice) once told me "Jealousy is like being seasick. You think you are dying and everybody else is laughing."

One of the guys went upstairs and weirdly put a lit candle in front of the door. Maybe a Catholic curse? But it soon escalated to the door getting kicked in and the loving was broken up. It was for sure a ridiculous situation, but I guess it shows an extreme case of what I am talking about. It coming into real life. But boy oh boy, how often has something like this happened. For me, at the time, I was all like "I must be the greatest DM of all time." But of course, if that was true, I'd have been the one upstairs bringing sexy back. 

FYI I was only friends with the UCLA nerds another year or so, while King K is a bestie to this very day. 

But OK, why am I posting about this? Well, in this last Wed night session, some sexy got brought back. Uh, in game, not in real life. Now that I have retired from face to face to do Roll20, the odds of hookups are a bit light.

The fight with goblins was over from the previous game, and all that was left was to pick up the pieces and head back to town. The player of the Shadow Elf ranger was hit with Covid, so he was out. As I think I mentioned in a previous post, he was kind of a murderous mind about killing Relanis and Demul, a couple of ladies who had more or less "Stanned" (stalked) the party since game one. Though all the characters were suspicious (Especially Callie, the cookie making village girl, who seemed to be in large part the focus of the "Odd Couple's" attentions). But even though they had recruited the characters to explore some nearby caves with them, Mr. Shadow Elf ranger seemed to be close to drawing his blade to slay them, especially the albino dwarf Demul, who had the ability to raise dead with a flute and seemed obsessed with doing it whenever possible (Shadow Elf has a hatred for undead, and thus a hatred for her). 

You would think this was right 
up a Shadow Elf's alley.

But he had to miss the game, so the Odd Couple were not in much danger really. But when returning to town I had Relanis be afraid that Shadow Elf was lurking around waiting to kill them. So she used her most powerful weapon to gain a guard for the night. She asked Zip the young fighter (who grew up with Callie in a small village) to walk her to her room. How could he resist? And how could he resist her slow seduction in the boarding house room when she had him take off his shirt so she could use a washcloth to get some goblin blood and mud off him? Though disfigured and partially crippled from a childhood fire and wearing a mask, she was quite lovely and rocked a 17 charisma (and a bard who cast inspiration on him in the caves). In a previous game she had bought him dinner, and they got to know each other. He was the only character who didn't distrust her. Blind, stinking, simple, ding dong, doo dah naivety. And she was a several years older, university educated woman from the big city. 

Having half your face burned
off makes you no less sexy.

Here's M, the Callie players, recap of this last session:

"The group finally leaves the goblin caves, Ton’Rial parts ways and the rest go back to town without him. Halfway back Relanis begs Zip to walk her home, just him… The three others watch as Zip walks with her back to the place they’re staying, goes upstairs and they watch as the lights come on and go out and still no Zip… They go back to camp leaving Zip to spend the night. Callie mentions she’ll be back in the morning unless Zip comes back to camp. The group (minus Zip) goes back to the caravan and has a long rest. Welcome to lvl 3 The next day is a holiday. The Great Autumn Hunt, Callie doesn’t care, she gets up and marches into town to fetch Zip. She has a conversation with Demul briefly before being let into the building. Callie retrieves Zip and goes back to the Caravan. Once we are back, we begin to work, once work is done, we are offered an opportunity to help Howard the Wine Merchant. (Probably not his real name, but has forgotten it.) He wants us to go on an escort mission. We will go with him to a deserted town to pick up some wine he wants. "

Anyway, it was hilarious. Zip was upstairs losing his virginity, while all the others hid in hedges across the street wondering if he was being murdered or something. It was like something from a Porky's movie. 

Callie stews. Her best friend is with what could be a horrible foe of theirs, but she is powerless about what her bestie was up there doing. The next morning, she threw her chainmail shirt over her bodice and marched to the boarding house and fetches her grinning and dehydrated childhood friend away from the witchy woman. 

This was amazingly the first session I've run in many years where there was no combat. Sure, we played about a half hour less than usual, but shit. It just flew by for me. This is as good as role-play gets without becoming community theater. Poor "T," her older, no nonsense female dwarf fighter has no skin in the doings of these young fools but had to crouch in the bushes with the others while Zip was getting his groove on. 

As his virginity was taken, I gave Zip a nice bardic inspiration to use within 48 hours, while he walked around with a goofy smile and his legs shaking. With the Tonrial Shadow Elf probably back next game, odds are Relanis will be looking for another night safe in the arms of the strong and handsome Zip. Or maybe the halfling druid Tealeaf?

Mmm...naw.

This strange and character development heavy game was really great IMO. And I loved doing my part in making a good and decent PC happy. And I didn't even have to feel like a pimp doing it. YMMV.

Cheers

Campaign Gaming and "Plot B"

 "Plot B" is a concept in media, but mostly pops up in Sitcoms. Like almost every sitcom episode ever made since the 50's.

Usually in the case of sitcoms, it's a means to fill things out if the main storyline won't fill up the slot. Most if not all episodes of Seinfeld leaned heavily into it. Some even have C plots. Like the "Festivus" episode that had a side story with Kramer protesting his old bagel shop, and also one with Elaine trying to get a free sub sandwich. And for god's sake, there was D plot - Jerry's "two face" girlfriend. Whew, that's a lot of subplots. 

The Simpsons pointed this trope our back in the day, where Lisa is given a long vision of her family years into the future. When she asks the shaman "why did my vision include a plot where Homer was looking for buried treasure?", the magic man replies "I guess the spirits thought the main plot was a little light."

So anyway, I try to get these little subplots going in a campaign. Always have, though in the past I didn't have to think about it so much. I ran a lot of city campaigns back in the day and was winging it like crazy like you often have to do in a city setting. PC's often going off to do their own thing, and maybe 10-15 minutes having do be devoted to their activities. But at least these days I have a phrase for it. We do live in a time when we have to label everything, right? 

So your main "plot" might be the characters going to Keep on The Borderlands. It could be a full railroad "go to the keep, get rooms at the inn, hear some rumors, go to the Caves of Chaos, fight some shit. Take the treasure. How many experience points do we get. 

Fuck no. That shit needs padded out. When I ran this module last, I set up the Castellan of the keep (and named him and everybody because they didn't bother to come up with names in the original material), his seconds, the NPC's running the inn, and some interesting NPC's to fill out the market area. Enough personalities with some color to help them stand out so they can get interacted with. A prostitute, a pick pocket urchin, a handsome ranger of whatever sex. Anything to fill the dead air. If I recall in the material the only major NPC within the keep is the evil cleric who wants to be besties. That just ain't enough. Now, not all your NPC's will get interacted with. But the point is to have a wealth of them and see what might stick. 

In my last couple of posts I talked about a couple of potential antagonist NPC's who ended up piquing the interest of members of the party. But initially I packed this campaign with interesting NPC's. Most of them being part of the high-end merchant caravan the PC's would be a part of. 

There was Marge, the boisterous seasoned caravan master and boss of the outfit. 

The merchants themselves were all from the big city of Tanmoor and selling all high end, expensive wares. 

Like Lacy the clothes seller. Or Bradly the Bookseller. Or Waldorf the Wine Seller. Several NPC's whom the characters can assist along the way and get to know if they so choose. Callie, the lovely paladin and secret Aasimar, was roped into a fashion show by Lacy for a local Counts daughter to see:

Callie, the glue that holds the party together. 

Lacy kept slapping big city outfits, makeup, and wigs on Callie and rushing her out to be ogled. And it was a hoot. One of my players who had singing experience started singing "Girls just Wanna have Fun" as I revealed each image:

It was just one of the many side bits that came out of having a variety of NPC's around. Like in that particular session, this little fashion show was Plot B. And all the characters participated in a way, that is, they got to see a party member, a shy seeming, cookie baking village girl, in a different light. It was a little thing that IMO had a bit of an impact. 

Injecting things that can promote "Plot B" type things is very effective if you have players who are into role playing at all. And I'm not talking community theater here. But many players enjoy a world where lots of things can happen outside of the railroady main quest. Especially with the advent of video game RPG's, such as Skyrim where you seem to do endless side quests. 

But just making side plots possible is part and parcel of emergent gameplay. YMMV.

Man, I can't get enough of that word. "Emergent." Just rolls off the tongue. 

Cheers. 

NPC's because Reasons

 Including NPC's in campaigns has always kind of been my jam. Because one of my main joys I get out of running games is watching PC's interact with my setting, NPC's need to be a part of that backdrop. 

They are usually created and injected into the games with particular purpose. And I'm not talking about generic shopkeeps and villagers. Its NPC's that stand out in one way or another. In many games over the decades I would have an NPC be part of the party. Either out of necessity (no cleric, not enough fighter types, etc) to fill a niche, or because I thought they might lend themselves to emergent game play. In the case of the party member, they were there to pad things out. But in other cases it was usually just a nice sprinkling of personalities that would be around for PC's to interact with as they wish. Sometimes they are briefly delt with and fall to the wayside as characters move on. But there are times that the NPC might get swept up into the ongoing doings of the characters. That's where things get all emergent. There have been times when an NPC I thought would just be minor gets involved one way or another with a PC, and in many cases have had major effect on the emerging story that is the campaign and stuck around forever. In a couple of cases relationships were born and marriages eventually happened. 

In the early days of the OSR I remember visiting one daft neckbeard forum or another where I would see arguements, people actually getting heated, over whether DM's should have NPC's around other than as cardboard backdrops. "DM NPC" was a dirty phrase. How dare the DM inject some precious NPC into the doings of the characters, taking away their god given time in the spotlight. Yeesh. I certainly never saw it that way. No matter how cool an NPC seems, they are ultimately there in service to the PC's tale. Patrons, royalty, mentors, apprentices. They can play an important part in the emergent play. 

OK, so in my current main campaign on Roll20, I introduced a couple of NPC's in the first session. They actually did not interact much with the party, other than a smiling glance across a tavern room. The party did not know it yet, but they had a keen interest in at least a couple of the characters, and would follow them, mostly at a distance, over the course of several sessions. Stalkers really. 

Relanis

Demul. 

I did not exactly come up with these two, the "odd couple" as the party calls them. Their inclusion is sort of an inside joke with myself. I have done these little inside jokes most of my DMing life. Here is how this one started.

After a successful 12 or so session initial campaign on Roll20, I wanted more. And I strived to find that perfect little group to run for. At the same time, thanks to adopting 5th edition, I had a couple of face to face groups over the last couple years or so. But another satisfying campaign on Roll20 was elusive. I had a couple of session zeros. 

For one I was in contact with this artist, a transgender woman, who had a couple of guys she knew from other games, and along with my long-time player "T" we tried a session out. I kind of knew it was going to be trouble from the get go. This lady, "J," was into playing characters that ran around barefoot with their breasts out. And I mean, ALL her characters were like this. So she wanted settings where that was normal. Well, my setting was not that. But I kind of hand-waved it. One of her guys, a Texan, had a normal name, but insisted on being referrred to IRL as "Morpheus." I found that kind of ackward. Nicknames are great, most of my friends call me "Mac," but Morpheus? I found it kind of lame. 

Then we get into the session and things move along for a bit. Then some combat with an Ankheg goes down. The non-Morpheus guy, who supposedly had some experience, suddenly was clueless. Like "move up to 5 squares and attack if you like" was over his head. No amount of coaching could get him to act. For 20 minutes I was like "just move up to it and roll a die." It was ridiculous. Then I skipped him and it was Morpheus turn. He had a bard character and gave a 5-minute dialogue at the start of the game about his background. Well, it was his turn and he declared "I don't have a character sheet done up." Um, what? You had this elaborate story. You have D&D experience. How could you not have a 1st level character prepared? I didn't even say that out loud; as usual in a difficult moment in a game I try to push past it and wing it as best as I can. "T" would later tell me that she turned off her mike for a few minutes because she was cussing out loud in frustration at these idiots. Meanwhile "J" was still worried about having her tits visible. 

We got through the session, but that was enough for me. "Morpheus" actually had the nerve to lecture me in an email about proper running of a game (me with over 40 years of successful campaign experience and waiting lists for my games based on local word of mouth alone). Yes, the guy who didn't even show up with a character prepared lectured me. Disappointing. I apologized to "T" and told her I would vet a little better next time. 

And I did. A couple of months later I heard from a couple of "gals" through the Roll20 forums. Both had some gender pronouns I would have to be aware of; them/they or her/har or whatever the fuck. I didn't care. I'll run for anybody, though the Roll20 forums seemed to be suddenly awash in "game must be LGTB- ABC" or whatever friendly. Fine. My best friend when I moved from LA was my transgender neighbor, and she was the first person to call and see how I was doing when I got into my new town. I'm hip. Let's just have a game, and I apologize in advance if I use the wrong pronoun/verb/person place or thing verbiage. They had very little experience with D&D and wanted to learn. Great, I love noobs. 

We had two sessions and I thought they went great. They seemed real into it. They had two characters, bards. Here are the images they provided:

 

Look familiar? Yes, these or the NPC's 
involved in the current campaign.

 

I did not invite T to the first or even second session. Before I took up her time I wanted to be sure this might last. So I ran two sort of learning games for the ladies. It went well. So for the third session T entered the game, and the set up was there for them to join the merchant caravan that would be the first half of the campaign. 

I sent a message right after the game saying it was fun and they did great. The reply a couple minutes later was "it was fun, you run a good game. But we need to admit we just wanted a couple of games to learn how to do it so we could run for each other. Thanks. "

Fuck. OK, they were fun little sessions, but it was a lot of work to hand hold noobs during them. I wanted a campaign. Disappointing, and I felt I wasted T's time with these two attempts at getting something going. 

I said "screw Roll20" and ended up running for a second face to face group in town. It went well for several sessions, but then the hosts having a family illness nixed that. And I was sort of getting fed up with going to a house and running in person. After a bit, I decided to try Roll20 again. Long story short, I met this great gal "M" in the forum who is very skilled with 5th ed and Roll20 and has been a bit of a mentor for me. Found a few more players, and the campaign is now going into session 7. It's the best group I have had since the 90's. Great role players with interesting characters. 

And here's where Relanis and Demul come in. 

As I said before, I love to do inside jokes with myself in games. Spoofing myself, my settings, and various pop culture things. Fitting in The Godfather references ("take the crossbow, leave the mince pie") or modern music nods. 

So the inside joke here was I would not let the last attempt at campaign be a total waste. I would use elements from it. Relanis and Demul had a game with T's dwarf and said they would work the caravan. So in large part for T's dwarf's sake, I would not retcon that last session. It happened for T's dwarf, and Relanis and Demul would now become NPC's for me to use. As they almost joined the caravan, they would be lurking around watching the other characters who did take the job. And with some changes I could make them possible antagonists of some kind or another. I mean, they were sort of offbeat characters. I would make them offbeat NPC's. 

Changes were in order. Both characters were good aligned bards before. First thing was I would change them to neutrality on the darker side. Relanis was a Scourge Aasimar bard. I would keep her a bard, but make her a "Broken Aasimar" (see my last post for more details). Demul would be changed to a rogue (though still a musician), with the ability to create undead with a flute. And based on her image provided she would make a perfect "Voor" dwarf (also see last post). They would follow the party throughout the campaign, Relanis having an interest in Callie the (unknown to the party and Callie herself) Protector Aasimar based on a hunch, and Demul causing problems here and there with her addiction to creating undead. 

I had another inside joke throughback to the original games with the LGTB girls. The Inn map I used had a stuffed bear in a corner of it. In the game last year the Demul player talked to the bartender and insisted on hearing an interesting story about why the bear is there. "Uh, its a stuffed bear. Somebody killed a bear and stuffed it. It came with the place." She was insistent. Give me a damn story about the bear. I did not have one to give, and we wasted like 5 minutes on this. 

So for the first session in an inn with these new characters, I used the same inn and same map. The one with the stuffed bear.  I was obsessed with incorporating that bear in this first session. You want a fucking story about the bear? I'll create a great story around it. This is when during pre-campaign prep I decided to give one of the girls the ability to bring a corpse to live. Even if it was just fur and wood framing. I would use that fucking bear. And I did. It came to life and was the first combat of the campaign. That's often how concepts to include in a campaign come to me. "Wouldn't it be cool if..."  Now that ability to create skeletons or whatever became a major part of the campaign and part of what the characters are dealing with. 

You can read my last post for more details and how I have used Relanis and Demul, but the point here is I wanted to get some use out of a previous failed attempt at a campaign, and I did. I found it satisfying. 

I suppose a case could be made that I should not use their ideas. But screw 'em. They will never know. I don't get the impression this was their original artwork. And it's not like I'm making money on any of this. But using those concepts for my own sinister purposes is not just satisfying in a closure sort of way, but what the heck. It's my world and I can use anything that came before. And it certainly is not the first time I tapped into characters of previous players who I'll likely never run for again. 

And I doubt it will be the last. YMMV, as the grogs like to say. 

Cheers. 

Two New subclasses - The Voor dwarf, and The Broken Aasimar

 

In my latest campaign (run weekly on Roll20), I introduced two NPC's. One is an albino dwarf long known in my game world as a "Voor," and the other a 5th edition specific race known as Aasimar. In this case, a sub-class I created of Fallen type I'm calling a "Broken Aasimar."

OK, first the Voor. Its less complex than the other and is actually a dwarf race that I came up with for my setting around 30 years ago or so. 

I honestly don't remember the specifics of introducing them into my world. I just remember a party from the city visiting a lone mountain sitting 3 or so days north. Once a small kingdom of friendly dwarves, some time centuries past a strange gas was released by mining there that engulfed the dwarves of Voor mountain and mutated them. They were bleached albino, and their bodies became a bit more emaciated in contrast to the usual stout dwarvish form. They lost passion for most things that bring joy to dwarves, and in fact lost a sense of emotion. Not becoming truly evil, just kind of sociopathic. 

I don't really recall why I didn't use Duegar or any number of fallen dwarvish races that came along with the Fiend Folio and Monster Manual 2. For whatever reason I did not delve into these alternate dwarf races until decades later. 

The Voor NPC in my current campaign, part of a duo the characters have come to call "The Odd Couple," is a young girl named "Demul." 

Demul and her friend Relanis are travelling musicians. But in Demul's case not a bard, but in actuality a Rogue. So far I have enjoyed her being underestimated. Quiet and always following Relanis lead, Demul discovered she had a strange power prior to the campaign while practicing playing a flute. When she plays a sinister tune on it (I've been humming the old Dark Shadows theme when she does it), a certain amount of undead come to unlife and begin attacking whatever living things are nearby. So far she has no control over them. Indeed, she seems to have a certain lack of control about using her power in general. She is obsessed with this ability, and dead things in general. And because, for certain reasons, the "Odd Couple" is following the party at a safe distance, Demul has brought dead things to life that the party has had to deal with. In the first session at an inn in town there was a stuffed bear in the bar. From a dark corner Demul player her tune, and the stuffed bear was the first fight of the campaign for the group. 

In the second game the party fought a troll on the road, eventually burning him up in fire. From the treeline, Demul played her tune and hey presto, the party were fighting a zombie troll. 

Her travelling partner, and mentor, is the 26 year old bard Relanis. Dressed very straight laced, and wearing half a face mask and walking with a cane due to childhood injuries, Relanis is secretly a "Broken Aasimar." One that became "fallen" due to her transformation happening during severe childhood injury.

Strait-laced townie Relanis

Hair down, out in the field 
travelling Relanis

A traditional Fallen Aasimar is an Aasimar that experienced some kind of emotional trauma that caused their Aasimar form to take on a more demonic appearance. Especially so in the case of a Broken Aasimar. Perhaps a bit cruelly, the Aasimar form of a Broken has no such injuries or disfigurement. 

Relanis' Broken Aasimar form

So Relanis and Demul follow the party around, slowly gaining suspicion. It actually took the party awhile to realize that they were responsible for the dead coming back to life after they killed it. And also that Relanis has an obsession with the Paladin (also secretly a Protector Aasimar) Callie, a lovely unassuming, cookie baking village girl who doesn't even seem like a paladin (she often uses a rolling pin in battle).

I think all the male characters are
around because of Callie.

One of the traits of my Broken Aasimar class is that they are in large part driven by nightmares as well as dreams, and also have a minor sense that somebody might be an Aasimar of some kind themselves.  Though in Relanis' case the nightmares tend to be about her childhood injuries, caused by her house burning down with her in it. But as soon as she saw Callie in the first game, she sensed something, that she may be Aasimar as well. Hence, she and Demul follow the party, usually at a distance, because Relanis wants to be around when Callie makes "The Change." 

This caused all sorts of suspicion, right up to this last session where Relanis asked the party to come along on a short adventure nearby ("we are musicians, not fighters"). In the goblin caves things started coming to a head. While Callie is a bit freaked out by "the Odd Couple's" attentions, its the parties grimdark Shadow Elf that treats them like crap, and since he hates undead, he has come close to drawing down on them when he learned Demul is responsible for all the foes coming back after a fight. There was a lot of tension in this session, especially after Relanis and Demul (hanging in the back) were ambushed by goblins and Relanis made the change to her Aasimar form. Relanis broke into sobs after changing back (the Aasimar form is not disabled and has no face burns, and Relanis wishes she could stay in that form), and instead of sympathy, the Shadow Elf still wanted to kill them. But the fighter Zip, who grew up in a small village with Callie, has a certain fondness for Relanis after she bought him a tavern dinner in a previous session. 

The inclusion of these two unique NPC's in the campaign has paid off as a nice side-interest thing, and I so look forward to where it is going. The party just turned 3rd level, so Callie should make and Aasimar transformation before too long. It will be Suprise for her seeing as the player has her clueless about that celestial blood, and maybe at that point she will understand why Relanis has such interest in her.  The party is none the wiser about her secret race. And my misdirection of having Relanis show a morbid interest in the Shadow Elf ranger has helped them remain clueless. I was a bit worried originally that I might blow it for Mary, the Callie player, by drawing all that attention then her stalker turning out to be an Aasimar. But it remains secret. 

I think I will make a quick post on the origins of "The Odd Couple" in this campaign. I actually have specific reason for why I included them. But for now, it's just fun to get some experience with Aasimir in my games, and to finally after all these years get to touch upon the Voor dwarf race with the inclusion of Demul.