Missteps into Negative Space

Please note me and M's despair and anguish.

So our past session was a bad session. While people still had a good time in each other's company, the actual tabletop role-playing didn't go well. There were some stellar moments, but in general it was worse than last session. There are two components which probably lead to us being worse off and I hope anyone reading this can learn from these mistakes. Below will be a summary of the session, issues with the players getting into the proper mental state, and my flaws in communication and poor usage of negative space.

Summary

After spending another night in Ozborn, Alexander Exquilin recieved two packages. The first is a letter from Wulgang requesting his assistance, the second was the bloody skin of his old donkey Stupes. Carved in Stupes's flesh was a letter from another assassin from the House of Gossamer and Glass. It identified the writer as the Pangolin and informed Alexander Exquilin that she was going to kill him.

Meanwhile Ramona Watts, searched Ozborn for a blacksmith who would repair her urumi sword. After meeting with several, who were unable to repair her blade, she finally found one who could. While inside she met a woman named Jasmine who wore a cloak made entirely of iron spikes. She spoke with Ramona about her urumi, mentioning that her friend wielded one and that she hadn't seen her in three months. Ramona understood that she had killed her friend and stole her sword. Ramona surmised that that Jasmine works for the House of Gossamer and Glass. Ramona spoke with her longer and learned that she was in Ozborn looking for Alexander Exquilin, Ramona then lied to Jasmine about Alexander's whereabouts and the party met up.

The party spoke and decided why to visit Wulgang and see what he wants. The 6 party members traveled to Fort Woe and spoke to Wulfgang. Wulfgang and Aquarias Kari informed them that Erasmus, the famed mage of Ozborn who has written a dozen grimoires, descended into the depths of the the Goblin Keeps and hasn't been seen in seven months. He often had descended into his tower for months at a time, but he would normally after a period of 3 months with another grimoire written. In his absence, many pretenders and posers have come forth and in his absence fight for the title of the  A E S C E T I C. They practice sorcery openly in the streets, spilling blood freely. Wulfgang offers the party Erasmus's weight in silver for either his return of proof of his death. The party seeing a chance of wealth, have the discussion illustrated below, choosing to descend down to look for Erasmus.

Leaving their War-Cart and hirelings outside of the entrance and  they go forth into the Goblin Keep. Inside, they stumble around in the dark and harass the Ax-Gang. They waste a great deal of time wandering the lengthy corridors and locked doors of the first level of the dungeon and finally discover how go deeper. During this time the party encountered a Grue. I feel that the Grue encounter and it's subsequent following of the party was the best encounter I think I've ever ran. One of the goals of this dungeon was to teach my players the last few important aspects of dungeon crawling. The Grue, with it's mocking of the party; constant following ever so slightly out of their peripheral vision; and 5HD and 3 attacks which only occur when the party has no light source and and get a -4 to their Attack and Defense scores, was an excellent teaching tool. The party began tracking their own light sources, terrified of having a lone member of entering a dark room, and conscious that of all of the resource management integral in going into a murder-hole.

The party then kept going deeper and deeper into the Goblin Keep. They again encountered the shadows of goblin's past but by using their light could keep them at bay. On the third level of the dungeon, they began encountering pretenders of the A S C E T I C and their lackeys. Alexander Exquilin all the while had been using the power granted to him by his Giant's Belt to rip doors off of the walls and was getting frustrated with few answers. He had began throttling the overly verbose pretenders for information. Unfortunately for Alexander Exquilin, they did not take this to well and began fighting back. Most of the party was able to overwhelm them, but when the pretenders began using their magical abilities some of the party became injured. Alexander Exquilin now has a gaping hole in his stomach and his entire left shoulder and arm are stained with a transcendental blue. Alexander Exquilin, bloody and dying on the floor of the dungeon due to the eldritch might of the pretenders, finally asked of Queen Mab, for her assistance. She agreed that for a 50% penalty to all further XP, she would cast him and his members away from this place and heal his wounds.

Player mentality of play

Our groups scheduled time of play is 6 pm every Sunday. Due to a family obligations, we met for the session at 7:15 pm. People came in excited to play and as we prepared to play people were noticeably more rowdy, partially it was the lateness of this session. In retrospect, I usually make an announcement to the group for everyone to get into the Tabletop RPG mentality, but this time we didn't take a pause and simply jumped in with no gap between socializing and playing Goblin-Hack. I think the lack of a "okay guys, stop goofing off let's play" discouraged proper play. In my ideal campaign/my ideal DMing style is one where people are focused on the game, seek to roleplay their characters, characters making jokes instead of the players, and act with sincerity. While two of these happened there was a great deal of issues in my opinion of players being unable to focus on the game and players making the majority of the jokes. I need to figure out how to include a rule/enforce a manner as to how to avoid people shouting over each other/people having side conversations. For the dungeoneering portion of the dungeon itself, I elected a caller; but in retrospect, I realize I didn't properly explain what that meant. One of my pet peeves is players making jokes rather than the characters. M is most often guilty of this most vile sin and what struck me most is that last session he didn't do it at all instead making his character make all of the jokes. The entire time the group was making these jokes and talking over each other. I feel that this greatly contributed to the "we're here to hang out not to play Goblin-Hack". I would suggest to other Referees that they make sure their players settle themselves first for beginning play. Further I would suggest (I am going to do this myself next session) that they pause for 5 minutes for every 55 minutes of play. This would result in a structured release of tension and allow for player's attention span not to decline and get to bored. Further people wouldn't leave the table to get drinks/food/go to the bathroom during play.

Communication and Negative Space Use

So the first major reason for the session being a bad one was poor communication from me (as the referee) to the players. The party gathered no intelligence on the Goblin Keeps or Erasmus before going into the Goblin Keeps. I made sure to ask if they wanted to purchase supplies before entering the dungeon, but looking back I should have asked if they wanted to gather intelligence. Before the party went to the Masked Giants complex, I had their employer pay for them to go to the Library in November and each had a chance to gain information about the dungeon they were going to go into. Looking back not prompting the party with their ability to gain information was a mistake. The party claimed that there were no signs within the Goblin Keep on where Erasmus was and felt lost wandering around a bunch of corridors. They claimed that even the Scooby Doo Gang got clues, and it was poor form of me as a Referee to not give them clues. In my eyes, this is a false understanding of how dungeons work and poor communication on my part.

The following are all assumptions that I thought the players had. I'll make sure to emphasize these to the party next session. The adventuring party is a group of people who enter murderholes (dangerous locations which go into the earth) in order to plunder them for riches. Murderholes are dangerous places and one has to take proper precautions to return alive with riches. These precautions are not purely the accumulation of physical resources of torches, rations, ropes, thieves tools, ect. The accumulation of information about the murderhole you are going into is vital as well. Murderholes are filled with murderous beings of ill intent which have ears, if you are loud inside, they might hear you. Murderholes are proportionately filled with danger the deeper they go. Treasure and danger are also propotional so a floor 5 levels deep will have much more dangerous things guarding greater treasure waiting that for you than a floor 1 level deep.

After the session ended, a few of the Goblin-Hack group went out to get some drinks and I took about an hour to be sad and gloomy and think much to seriously about what I did wrong and how to not have another bad session ever again. With I and G's help I went through all of the aspects of my refereeing/dungeon mastering skills and learned that my usage of evocative descriptions were one of the reasons the corridors were so mind numbing. To quote G: "You have some encounters and moments where we get a whole lot of really good description and generally have an 'oh shit, this is awesome moment' because you usually save those descriptions for something so important. This means that things which lack these descriptions aren't as engaging to us because we don't care about them as much."

Negative Space

After some clarification it led me thinking into the usage of negative space within tabletop RPGs. First I want to make a dichotomy of negative and positive space first. In visual art, positive space art refers to the object or scene depicted. Negative space refers to the the space around and between the subject  of an image. In Tabletop RPG terms positive space would refer to any moment where things are changing or there is an chance of failure, while negative space would refer to moments where things are not changing and there is no chance of failure. A more specific example may be found when looking at the 1e Dungeons and Dragons Dungeon Master's Guide gives a percentage of which rooms of a dungeon are what based on a 1d20 distribution. As 1-12 refer to empty rooms, these would negative space, while 13-20 would be positive space. Interestingly this corresponds with the room being filled.

When I prepare for the session the majority of my time is spent on positive space. I prepare descriptions of monsters, NPC's, vistas, and areas encountered so that when the party encounters one instead of saying "you find a troll" I can say "In the dull light of your torch, you see a hulking figure emerge from the tunnel. His flesh green as grass at the dawn of spring and covered in warts. A nose the size of a cucumber juts from his face and two yellow eyes squint at you. Fetid breath and the scent of rotting flesh spill from his open mouth, filled with ragged teeth. He roars a challenge to you drawing his arms back, and sinking forward as if to charge." In my opinion, there is a fundamental difference in immersion and visualization/engagement between those two encounters. The second one being straight up superior.

However, by not focusing on the negative spaces I unintentionally created a vacuum where those segments wouldn't be as good. In the session which we played, the majority of the time spent in those negative spaces reduced the enjoyment for everyone. Going forward either the number of negative spaces have to be reduced, or their quality has to be increased. I know in the Masked Giants Complex, I made sure to give vivid descriptions of the negative spaces. Perhaps if I continue to do the same, the next dungeon will be more enjoyable. Further negative space in art is a consequence of scale, which would be a good way for a referee to view it.

BUT WE STILL HAD FUN! NO REGRETS, NOT NOW NOT EVER!

Sons of Nalil: POWERFUL

Those who travel through the lands of Dix find themselves sullied and stained red. From the crimson skies above, to the rust covering stone and steel, to the blood seeped in the earth. A red tint develops in the eyes of those who stay too long and the red haze of rage slowly envelops their sight.

Deep in the valleys of Dix, amidst the ruined edifices of red brick, live the Sons of Nalil. The totems each tribe has erected rusted monoliths to victory in war. There are no women among the Nalil, only men. None are born in these lands, instead youths at the end of their frailty spill forth from the fog and are embraced by the Nalil. There is no youth, no old age either. The oldest of the Nalil having lived 20 years after being found from the fog. Nude and nameless, each is fully formed with capacity for speech and song in their shared tongue and knowing only one fact as truth, that he is a Son of Nalil. They stumble through the valleys until they find a tribe and taught their future fate. To sing songs of glory as they race till to death.

Most are fair-skinned with brown hair, but their coloration varies from pitch black, to a coward's yellow, to the amber hues of dusk. Their build varies from that of obese giants to gaunt dwarfs. In memory to their past victories, many etch their skin with the rusted iron which spills from the earth. Their flags are colored gray and red. They skulk around in boots of black leather and girded loins of white cloth. They show their teeth to all, each one etched with threats, symbols, and names with golden ink.

They are to men as locusts are to ants. Unorganized, swarming, with a thirst for consumption that leaves land barren. Many form bands of mercenaries that travel to foreign lands to spill their own blood upon foreign soils. Returning with coffers filled not with silver, but instead with hedonistic means. Few settle down becoming merchants selling packaged mirth to dispel sobriety for the victory feasts of those who wage war in the valleys of Dix still.

They probably look like this, note the posse's faces behind him 
(Couldn't find the artist)

Ask any Nalil what is best in life and he will easily tell you the celebration of victory. It is not enough to kill a man, one must sing songs of glory at his death. Wars waged among the Nalil echo and reverberate through the valleys. The screams of death are deafened by the bellows of victory and tribes learn of outcomes of battles by the echoing war songs of their neighbors.

Though Dix falls underneath the rule of the Empire of the Alabaster Crown, the Nalil are free from their rule. They have no throne to plunder and do not spill forth from their valleys often. Tax collectors are scarce to enter the valleys and often simply seek that most powerful tribe to extort the others for them.

Noteworthy tribes:

Hyo-Gje-Gan (The Sacred Brotherhood):

In ages past the leader of the Hyo-Gje-Gan was the king of the Nalil. The tribe claimed that it knew Nalil himself and could converse with the still living ogres residing in those lands. The ogres won them wars waged against the other tribes and as such their victory was seen as favor by Nalil. Time passed and the Hyo-Gje-Gan grew old, their numbers shrank and their ogres, once their allies faded into extinction. Their symbol is a series of triangles.

A Nalil returning home. Art by Simon Bisley

It-Ji-Ma (The Doom of Boots):

The current ruling tribe of the Nalil resides in the deepest valley. From their black cauldrons they pour libations of mirth and restoration. Once subservient to the Hyo-Gje-Gan they rebelled after being forced to leave behind corpses of their tribe. The Hyo-Gje-Gan fell in one night their numbers being reduced to less than a dozen even before the attack. All were spared and instead their totems were crushed underneath the boots of the It-Ji-Ma. The It-Ji-Ma drink from their boots and are notorious within the Nalil for consuming enough hedonistic means to kill a man. It is said that many in their tribe have never seen battle sober. Their symbol is a black boot.

Heu-Gin (The Black): 

Considered savages even among the Nalil, The Heu-Gin live for war. Their victoroes are recounted from the trophies they take of the dead. Thought to be poor allies by other tribes, they often are absent from conflict and instead simply choose to aid one tribe over another. The Nalil who have left for lands outside of Dix, have almost all been of the Heu-Gin. Once a Commander of the Empire of the Alabaster Crown invaded the valleys of Dix in order to subordinate the Nalil. While the rest of Nalil deliberated in a great conclave, the Heu-Gin slaughtered the invading forces save for one man. The lone survivor was sent back with neither hands nor teeth. They do not grant mercy to those they face. The other tribes seem them cursed, and offer them more pity than hatred. Their symbol is the a splash of white.

Joh-Deh-Han (The Sweating Bear): 

Though the ogres are now extinct, their legacy lives on in the girth of the Joh-Deh-Han. Towering over other Nalil and weighing as much as four, they lead lethargic lives until finally roused to action. It is said they have the strength of 4 men and have been known to rip trees from the ground. Their symbol is a pair of concentric circles and many act as mediators to other tribes in times of conflict.

A Son of Nalil serving as a mercenary far from home. Art: Frank Frazzeta

Pal-Gan-Sae (The Red Bird): 

A tribe which has since left the valleys of Dix for permanent employment as a mercenary company elsewhere, the Pal-Gan-Sae were once a great ally to the Hyo-Gje-Gan. Their departure marked the beginning of the erosion of the Hyo-Gje-Gan's rule. They have now taken to the customs of their employer in dress and decorum, but still sing their songs in battle. Upon their banner now flies a red griffon and their number slowly dwindle with each campaign.

There are numerous other tribes, each with their own customs and lore. The Nalil meet in great number once every few years to elect a true king, who then rules over the valley as a whole. Each tribe solves their own conflict, but for great tragedies the king is sought out. Explorers into the valleys of Dix and even the Nalil themselves know not who or what Nalil is. Some view it as the valley itself which spawns the Nalil from the fog. Others instead hold Nalil to be the redness so pervasive through out the valley, for why else do the Nalil bleed red?

Nalil War Party

Bunch of these.

HD 1d4 +5
Def:2
Dam: grappling/brawling with swords 1d8+2 or 1d8+2 bows
Move: 10 + 1d4
Save: 6 +1 per Nalil singing
Morale:8 +1 per Nalil singing
# encountered: 1d6+2

Song of Glory: Every time the PC's fail to hit, take damage, or the Nalil makes a save (or really anytime where it is evident that the Nalil is better than a PC) he begins singing a song of glory. Nalil warsongs terrify many, any time a Nalil begins singing or joins into song any followers or hirelings are to make a morale save or flee. Nalil will not chase fleeing enemies.

Mercy: If the Nalil are asked for mercy they will spare the life of anyone asking, mercy can be asked on behalf of party members that gain fatal wounds. If the Nalil are attacked first, there is only a 1 +1 per Nalil singing in 6 of mercy, with a penalty of 2 for any Nalil killed in combat. (the Heu-Gin don't do this)

Carousing among the Nalil:

 Male or male appearing characters get a -2 to their charisma check to carouse with an additional -1 for each point of strength above 14. 

Nalil war party returning victorious. Art: Clemente Allesandro

Nalil Victory Feasts 

Often when the Nalil wage war among themselves only few die. Death is rare and is often an outcome of circumstance rather than intent. To a Nalil if you slay your foe, there is one less person who must accept your glory and worth. Because of this many wage war unarmed, like great apes culling another tribe. To outsiders their wars may first seem like a series of wild duels, each tribesman finding his opposite and confronting them by themselves. When their foe falls unconscious, they turn to assist their brothers and sing their song of victory.

Their war songs and victory songs are one and the same. Nalil sing of past victories as they charge another. As victories mount, their song lengthens turning into an oral history. Songs are simple and often bear a repeated refrain which identify the singer's tribe. The repeated refrain of the It-Ji-Ma is below.

It-Ji-Ma!

Arrows shall fly

This our homicide

Mothers will cry

This our lullaby

It's about us

Not about I

It's about trust 

Not about lies

Returning from war, the Nalil return to their halls bruised and singing. They gather means to dispel sobriety and feast till unconsciousness. During festivals, which each tribe has per season, they invite allies and friends. Not of the tribe itself, but of it's members and festivals are often mistaken for wars for this very reason.  Shared songs of the Nalil are sung, each glorifying the exploits of their exploits outside the valley of Dix. The cauldrons are sloshed fulled of the accumulated alcohol beverage and secret herbs grown deep in the valleys are added. A frothing mix of pink and black liquid bubbles and is ladled out for consumption in drinking horns.

Accurate Depiction of Nalil Drink. Art: Eric Deschamps

Maidens of Dix often steal away from their homes and run into these valleys on nights of such festivals. Their parents and the nobles of Dix are rather opposed to this. On nights of Nalil festivals knights patrol around the valleys searching for maidens wishing to sneak in. Recently, some of the more prominent families have been funding mercenaries to go into the valleys to penetrate the festivals of the Nalil and to return any maidens found. The Nalil rarely see conflict with such parties and often usher the girls out, the Heu-Gin are noteworthy in that they refused to honor such mercenaries and slaughtered the first such party. The maidens seeing such bloodshed then ran off, much to the Heu-Gin's dismay.

Nalil Carousing Mishap Table 1d8

1: In your drunken state you punched a hole in a wall. The Nalil take retribution, save or take 1d6 damage (if carousing with the Heu-Gin Save vs Death).
2: The Nalil thought that your drunken state was a wonder to see. They kept plying you with drink tll you passed out. -1 to all rolls for 1 day (if carousing with the It-Ji-Ma -2 to all rolls for 1d4+1 days).
3: You somehow prevented one of the Nalil from getting laid. Roll charisma, if successful all of the other tribesmen think this was hilarious and think you a friend of the tribe.
4: The last potion/medicene/ect you imbibed had an adverse effect on the drink of the Nalil, you passed out after your first drink and get no XP.
5: You got into a fist fight with the drunkest member of the tribe and won. He now plots revenge, not your demise, just mass embarrassment.
6: You awaken with a new tattoo and a new friend. A Nalil who bears a matching tattoo.
7: You confess your love to one of the maidens of Dix who stole away from her parents to mingle with the Nalil. She confesses her love to you in turn and one of the Nalil declares you wed as a joke, hastily penning a letter to this girls parents. In the morning you awaken and realize that you hate her.
8: You were convinced by the tribe to follow them into battle in their next war. The next war is in 1d6+1 days. If you don't follow them into battle the tribe will think you a coward, if you do then have the character fight with a Warband of the Nalil alongside 1d4+1 Nalil Members of the tribe they were carousing with. If victorious, your character will be made an honorary member of the tribe.

Closing notes

The main source of inspiration for the Sons of Nalil were my experiences playing rugby during college. Referees can make their own tribes by drawing from their own experiences playing team sports in high school or college. Three major cultural aspects to emphasize for the Nalil outside of what's listed above would be the following. First, constant comradery even in insulting each other. Second, their lack of an identity and even concept of a life outside of wars, celebration, and songs of victory. Lastly, an emphasis on lack of structure and general tumultuous, ideally a party encountering the Nalil would be overwhelmed by a whirlwind of events happening.

GIT GUD

I feel my players are competent in combat and are grasping the more advanced concepts of dungeon delving they are mainly doing so without an understanding of how their class is a way to interact with the world. Each class has mechanisms on how to go about problem solving encounters. I feel that H, K, and W have a good grasp on the mechanics they uniquely have to interact with the world. Ramona makes short work of any wall, gap, situation which needs wind. Margaret has begun tracking everything she comes across on the off chance it's corpse may be useful to the party. Reklaw understands that staying alive is very important and even though he is only level 3, he worries deeply over everyone's combat capabilities. For my remaining 3 players, hopefully this will help you realize just how much you can do.

*Also FOR THE LOVE OF CHRIST READ THE RULES AND BE INFORMED!

DIANA

Please use a class ability, just one

The Acrobat class grants you a plus 4 to your Movement, Initiative, and Stealth scores and a plus 6 to your Defense score.  I forget what your dexterity score so we just won't include it in the following calculations. Using Goblin-Hack an average unarmored character's Movement, Initiative, Stealth, and Defense are 12, 10, 5, and 10. The system is largely based on a roll under system which means that an average character would have a 60% chance of successfully climbing/jumping/swimming/sprinting to their objective. Your Movement score is 16 which means you have a 80% chance of successfully climbing/jumping/ swimming/sprinting to your objective. Goblin-Hack doesn't really have metagaming, your character knows his capabilities and understands the prowess of his abilities. The average character with his initiative of 10 means every time initiative is rolled there is 50% chance of him acting before his enemies do. If I remember you have a decent wisdom which means your base is already higher I'll just use 12. Your Initiative is 16 upping your chance of going first in combat to 80%. The average character has a Stealth of 5 which gives him a 25% chance of success on sneaking past others. You have a Stealth score of 9 which means you have a 45% chance of sneaking past others. You have an obnoxious plus 6 to your Defense score. While defense scores get penalties from monster HD, making the actual Defense score much lower for any character you only arrive at a 50% chance of getting hit by an enemy when they have 6HD, and at that point they usually also deal damage in the 3d6 range and have mystical abilities. But even then your Movement of 16 means you are that much more likely to get away.

Now let's go through your class features outside of score increases, I'll go through the ones which don't occur only once per a character's life.

Tricky - You get a bonus to any combat shenanigans you want to inflict on an enemy. This can range from anything to grappling, to throwing sand in their eyes, to disarming them, to tripping them.

Cat Feet - You treat falls as 20' shorter, essentially ignoring 2d6 of damage from falling. Further you gain plus 4 to your defense when you are trying to move past/away from an enemy. Assuming you are surrounded by lets say 10 1HD bandits, your Defense score against running away from them is 19 which means you have a 95% chance of simply ignoring their bumbling attempts to hit you.

Great Escape - Once per day you can escape form a constraint, not only physical but social ones.

Lucky - Once per day you can reroll one roll of a d20.

Redirect - Every time an enemy misses you, which is 75% for a 1HD creature, you may force them to make an attack against another target if they are close enough. This only works if you are fighting them, so you couldn't make a that mob of 10 bandits skewer themselves as you run away.

After writing this I have a few concerns that I won't be able to ever challenge your character in a meaningful way. I know you've seen Ty Lee fight in Avatar, mechanically you can do same level of acrobatics/dodging/making enemies hit each other.

Alexandre

Hopefully this is your face when you realize you have powerful magic

So mechanically you cast spells by rolling 2d6 and then consulting this chart over to the right. Mechanically this means you have a 16.67% chance of having your request to Mab go off. Another 16.67% chance that Mab is upset and punishes you. Lastly you have a 66.66% chance that nothing happens. You can give yourself a plus 1 to your roll of 2d6 by offering a sacrifice or ritual or a plus 2 to your roll of 2d6 by offering a service. These raise your chance of success to 27.78% and 41.67% chance of success respectively.

Sacrifices don't take any more time simply they have to have as many HD as the prerequisite level of the curse you wish to inflict divided by two. So for the curse of chains you would need a sacrifice of 3HD. Rituals simply takes 1 turn to conduct and require d10 * prerequisite level of curse you wish to inflict in reagents. Services are when Mab will ask you to do something for her. These are often session long missions, as each request you've asked of Mab so far: don't let a party member die have nothing to do with curses she demanded a service in exchange. 

Now let's talk about what curses you can inflict and remember you can commune with Mab as many times as you want. The curses you can inflict are listed below:

The Curse of Many Lances

Prerequisite: 1st level 

Mab inflicts a curse of the elf’s design that pertains to lances, bleeding, wounds, or impalement.

The Curse of Stitched Eye

Prerequisite: 3rd level   

Mab inflicts a curse of the elf’s design that pertains to dreams, insomnia, sleep, or sleep walking.

The Curse of Eternal Darkness 

Prerequisite: 5th level 

Mab inflicts a curse of the elf’s design that pertains to darkness, night, occlusion, or the color black.

The Curse of Chains

Prerequisite: 7th level  

Mab inflicts a curse of the elf’s design that pertains to bondage, chains, imprisonment, limitation, or servitude.

The Curse of Changed Flesh

Prerequisite: 9th level  

Mab inflicts a curse of the elf’s design that pertains to metamorphosis or any other sort of bodily transformation. 

Now what these curses exactly do are up to your imagination. Be imaginative, the more creative you are the better. I'd urge you to read or watch JoJo's Bizzare Adventure or any other media where the conflict resolution is always based on lateral thinking and creativity rather than brute force winning. 

JACK FENTON

Stop giving this face to every ghost you come across

The original name of your class is Dungeon Hacker and was based on the idea of taking a cyberpunk archetype and porting it over to a dungeon crawling archetype. The blog post is here.

I also want to remind you that you can use your speak with the dead class ability to speak with your ghosts and see if they know things you don't. Last session I just gave you a gimme, with Eugene knowing the language of the Ytori, because I think this was the first time you used speak with the dead. You have ghosts of knights, gypsies, ruin explorers. Think of them as analogous to using wikipedia to look something up in the modern era. Also I think you have like 8+ ghosts now,  so now only can you make light, posses enemy undead, and open doors; you can set 3 of them in multiple settings to get the benefits of the triplicate ghosts like darkvision.

Also you keep forgetting your class ability of Hack and Slash which should have you dealing a far greater amount of damage.

Drunkness is a Magical State. Session 1

Wow, I need to put something above that couch

The recording of the session is here! The camera only lasted halfway through though.

Plot Summary of the Session: The party awakened in the cavern in which the golden ship is found. They attempt to figure out a way to get the ship out of the cavern. Reklaw (W's character) find the party with the assistance of In'exist. He informs theem that they have been missing for 2 months and the complex that they went into collapsed and he thought they died in a cave in. He says he will meet them in Ozborn 3 days away. The party explores the cave some mroe and finds that it is filled with noxious/explosives fumes. Jack Fenton (G's character) speaks with the dead and uses one of his captured ghosts to translate the language of the Ytori. He learns that the ship was to sail on the wind redwards and into the setting sun. Reklaw begged the party to leave. Ramona (K's character) attempted to channel magic into the cave opening in order to get the ship out of the cave. He caused a rockslide and the party then marked where this was. Alexandre (M's character) used his elfish magic to note the exact location of this cave opening by the constellation alignment. The party then set sail for Ozborn and became friends with Reklaw.

The party found themselves in the Knife and Bone Bar where Jack Fenton and Ramona flipped out over an animated table in the corner. Ramona made friends with this table and a bald man approached the party. He told them that almost everyone wears masks in Ozborn as monsters still walk these streets and a few even steal faces. He distributed 6 plain masks to the party and begged them not to bear arms and cause violence. The party then promptly began decorating their own masks until In'exist showed himself.

Diana's is covered in glitter. 

They exchanged pleasantries and then were paid. In'exist advised them to spend a few nights recuperating in Ozborn. He then used a magic key to open a door out of the thin air and left. The party then each went their separate ways.

Reklaw generally stayed out of trouble and bought a shield to better defend himself, and also bought a potion of Speak with Metal.

Ramona sold a golden idol from the Ytori complex. Then he sold the hand he cut off of Isabella Nightingale to a strange man in a leather gimp mask who wanted it for his master. He spoke with the strange man who later introduced himself as Duboshit and his master as Ramirez the last goblin of Ozborn, Ramona then bought two bottled Imps, one black and one green.

Alexandre engaged in an arm-wrestling contest that Wulfgang, one of the rulers of Ozborn, attended. When about to lose his belt of giant's strength activated enlarging Alexandre to the size of a giant and destroying not only the table where they were wrestling but his opponent's shoulder joint as well. He was then invited to Fort Woe in the heart of Ozborn. Alexandre then promptly took the belt off, bought a cart with a donkey and 6 hirelings and hid the belt there for safe keeping.

Margaret when out carousing and met a woman Malina Chorna a member of the Bridgeburner clan of the Gyre Islands. The two promptly fell in love and have become the resident couple.

Jack Fenton met Aquarias Kari, a member of the BLACK KULT, who serves as one of Wulfgang's hollows. He informed Jack Fenton that there are in fact no ghosts of goblin's around.

Diana made safe choices and simply hung around the party with a great deal of positive energy.

As Alexandre, Ramona, and Reklaw leave the marketplace they see a man missing his torso confront a merchant and demand his back back! They learn that this man was sold a goblin fruit and after he ate it, his torso departed him. The trio are even more intrigued when they learn that goblin fruits can be sold for 1000 silver

The party then each purchased an outrageous outfit so that they could best fit in at Fort Woe, Not Reklaw he was too somber. The party then traveled to Fort Woe and on their way were accosted on the way by the Ax Gang twice. This was just the Ax Gang from Kung Fu Hustle. Despite Ramona hitting a few of the members of the party with her urumi, the party handily dispatched the Ax Gang. Arriving at Fort Woe they find two familiar faces. They see Kledon the Hawk and Aquarias Kari. They also meet Opalensce a wizard with large breasts and a mask made up of diamonds. As Wulfgang offers the smoke brought from the Lazareth many forget who others are and simply ask questions to each other about life.

After finding themselves back in their inn the party decides to visit Ramirez the last goblin of Ozborn. They ask him a few questions and were told that he can open gates to any realm from Ozborn and that he buys goblin fruits from those who venture into the sewers in order to bring back his brethren back to this realm. The party took this to mean to invade this realm and ran off but not before Alexandre mouthed off and was hit with a chandelier of knives falling from the ceiling.

Knowing how much wealth lies in these fruits they ventured deep into the sewer system to get to the ruins of the goblin keep beneath Ozborn. The party travels deep and enountered a massive blind man with two jugs. He threw one at the party and an ooze emerged. The party then decided that the best way to deal with the him was by shooting their illegal crossbows bolts out of their illegal crossbows at him. Travleing further they cam across a church hidden in the depths of the sewers. Each member wore a mask of wood and each had a small mouse on their left shoulder. Passing further into the depths they were accosted by a many shadows of the goblins past. One of them, a tall one, diminished their sole torch and chaos ensued. Malina breathed a gout of flame and slayed 10 shadows their burning bodies illuminating the party. In all the commotion Ramona accidentally threw a hatchet at Diana and hit her in the head.

They finally found 2 goblin fruits at the bottom of the keep and decided the best course of action was to eat them. Ramona gained the ability to cast Knock 1/day (I'm slightly terrified of K having the ability to open any lock) and the ability to hasten the apocalypse by 1 day sooner. Margaret's left hand turned into a two dimensional black fractal antler. Margaret flipped out and  now wears a glove on her left hand. Malina told her not to worry and that she still loves her.

TL:DR Pubcrawl Gone Wrong Gone Magical

Jubilations of the Icosahedron ProcessI: Players, Characters, and Background.

I have been fortunate in convincing 6 other people to spend their Sunday nights rolling dice and playing pretend with me. This post is an introduction to the 6 of them and who they are currently playing. For those wishing to watch/listen to our sessions hopefully this may give some background Information on who is playing and what the background is.


1. K - My Best Friend

I met K through a guy who I used to DM for. *Correction, we once got into a boxing match at a school fair and I knocked his glasses off. One day we started hanging out and haven't stopped since. He's always down for anything and would probably be down to run off to join the circus with me just because. His strengths as a player lie in his lateral thinking and love of convoluted schemes rather than violence.

His current character is Ramona Watts, a Witch.

2. M - My Foil

M lived in the same dorm that I did and we became friends over the game Mount and Blade Warband. We later were roommates. At one point K and I convinced M to run a campaign and i think we scarred him deep inside. He was trying to run a historical campaign centered around the Ancient Yucatan but we ran it into the ground. Granted he never requested we stop inserting unnecessary anime concepts into what should have been a serious game. M's strength as a player lies in his ability to critique. He doesn't allow our friendship to get in the way and will give honest analysis.

His current character is Alexandre, an Elf.

3. H - My Cousin

No image could be more accurate

So H and I are related. I asked her to join in a game one day and she has been having a great time ever since. I don't know anyone else so excited to be playing a tabletop RPG game. She has incredibly visceral reactions to what happens in the campaign. Her strength as a player is her preparedness and tendency for paranoia.

Her current character is Margaret, a Ranger.

4. G - K's Back-Up Friend

I know G mainly from her being friends with K. For the longest time I wasn't the biggest fan of her as the friend group she mainly hung out with was outwardly socially awkward but ever since I have come to know her I have regret that choice. She's cool as shit. Her strength as a player is her quality of person. She comes on time, she says if she will be late, she tries to help out other players at the table learn the rules. She is the platonic guest at your session.

Her current character is Jack Fenton, a Necroscope.

5. I - My Rugby Party Pal

I would always run into I at the parties my rugby team would throw. Lo and behold she turned out be a massive nerd and she joined my table. She's only played a few sessions so far but so far has provided a very upbeat atmosphere which is a pleasant difference from many players playing wonderfully sullen and angry characters/ acting sullen as people.

Her current character is Dianna, an Acrobat.

6. W - My Traveling Companion

W is the newest member of the group. I met him when I did my study abroad in the Yucatan. He only knew me as a jackass who drinks excessively and chases girls in a foreign country so we really didn't talk that much about nerdy hobbies. One day we hung out after we had returned to the states and realized that both of us are really into tabletop rpgs. We share many similar theories on rpgs and I am very excited to have him at my table.

I don't know who he will play.

Background
---

The party are in the northern most reach of the Empire of the Alabaster Crown. Their source of operations is the city November which they reached because of the many proximal sites ripe for graverobbing/looting. They met each other working for a noble who wished to tax again his missing gypsies.

North of November are the Ruins of the Ytori, North-East are the Barrow Hills full of many riches, and past them Ozborn, the city built on an ancient Goblin Keep. East is the Labyrinth of the Iron Kings. To the South-East are the starving lands and the ruined city of Lymos. South is the rest of the Empire of the Alabaster Crown. Southwest is the Crawling Forest. East are the Soaked Lands, and many sunken ruins. North-East are the tribes of the Hval-Hode and their drowned god.

The party was financed by a wizard In' exist to go into a large complex of the Ytori and return to him the many golden friezes on the walls inside. The party ransacked this complex over the course of three visits fighting Insect Spirits, Mudmen, Assassins, and the ghost of the old Yroti King.

The system we've been using is Goblinpunch's GLOG with 4 extra classes from Gloomtrain hacked ontu the system.

The opening theme/trailer of "chapter 1" of the story can be found here.

Favorite Artists/Album/Songs I Heard in 2016

ARTISTS: I like everything they make no question

#1 xxxtentacion

I hope that like Varg Vikernes, X will release ambient albums post prison

Forndom

Lil Bo WEEP

草東沒有派對 (No Party For Cao Dong)

Visual Artists:

David Alfaro Siqueiros

Sergius Hruby

Stepan Alekseev

Heinrich Lossow

Maximilian Pirner

Katsuya Terada

Denis Forkas

Otto Dix

ALBUMS: I knew the Artist before and they put out new work/Don't like all of their music

#1 Bones - Useless

I think I've listened to this album at least 300 times

Bones - GoodForNothing

Bones - PaidProgramming2

surrenderdorothy - weneveraskedforthis

ἡσυχασμός - θάνατος τῷ κόσμῷ

Syringe - Anti-World

Bayonet - Self Titled

LiL PEEP - Crybaby

I Am A Lake Of Burning Orchids - Self Titled

Forest - To the Fiercest Frost

Tommy Cash - Euroz Dollarz Yeniz

Zoe Keating - Into the Trees

Downfall of Nur - Umbras de Barbagia

Yung Lean - Warlord

Gopnik Mcblyat - Cheeki Breeki Revolt

Windhand - Soma

Morrow  - Covenant Of Teeth

Tsunami Bomb - The Ultimate Escape

Totalt Jävla Mörker - Self titled

Nechochwen - Heart Of Akamon

Forteresse - Thèmes pour la rébellion

Denzel Curry - Imperial

$Uicide Boy$ - Eternal Grey

Nahvalr - Swallower of bile

Nahvalr - Self Titled

Yung Xela - Sacrifice To Satan

Little Big - Funeral Rave

Depressive Silence - Demo 1996

Secret Stairways - Turningpoint

BEDEIAH - Blood Metal

Anicon - Exegeses

Citizen - Everyone is going to Heaven

Milk Teeth - Vile Child

Nail Biter - Looming

Endless Heights - Teach You How To Leave

Junius - Days of the Fallen Sun

Beartooth - Sick

SONGS: People release singles/Sometimes there's only 1 good song on the album

#1 Lil Peep - Come Around

This song samples Giles Corey to devastating effect

Trophy Eyes - Tired Hearts

Nokturnal Mortum - Lira

Сидоджи Дубоshit и Грязный Рамирес - Jean Grey

Rob$tone - Chill Bill ft. J. Davis & Spooks

Антоха МС - Время Ток

batta - 「chase」

Хаски - Пуля-дура

KIZARU - NIKTO NE NUZHEN

FACE - Гоша Рубчинский

Death Grips - Bubbles Buried In This Jungle (Cismu Remix)

LiL YACHTY x RiFF RAFF - NeoN DeReK JeTeR

The Movielife - Jamestown

Brooke Candy - Alcohol

I Don't Want To Know Why The Caged Bird Sings - eighteen

Port Noir - Exile

Better Off - Meth Head

Nothing - July the 4th

Angel Du$t - Toxic Boombox

Khemiis - Ash, Cinder, Smoke

Grorr - The worker (you know you're trapped)

Viva Belgrado - De Carne y Flor

Rant 1 and Pyramid of Futility II

Story-time: I got the Dungeon's and Dragons Monster Manual 3.5 edition when I was around 12? I just really liked all the different monsters illustrated and couldn't figure out why the book was around 40$. Some time later I acquired Monster Manual 2 and 3, and at some point after that I realized that these were supplements for a game. I was a freshman in highschool when I tried to DM my first game. I remember having the great idea to set a gothic/oppressive tone after reading Heroes of Horror (a supplement of 3.5 time which tried to explain how to have a horror/darker campaign). I thought it was really awesome that you could rise above rolling dice and playing pretend and elevate it to proper storytelling which could illicit a proper guttural reaction just like music could. Needless to say it went about as awful as I imagine most people's first time playing a tabletop rpg goes. I played with two friends and I remember that I had one of them save against a door and I think they got through a single room before we gave up. I remember that I played most of a death-core album as background music. ¹

2009 was a hard time for me, but pictured are handouts and music for a dnd session

It's been a while since then and I know that I have better skills as a DM/Referee/Storyteller. I wouldn't go as far as to call myself a good storyteller. In my opinion I am better than a lot of the people I have encountered as a player, but I think that's a unrealistic perspective. I know that there is a great difference between an educated group and a non-educated group. As of 2009, 16% of the USA belongs to a gym (IHRSA). Now lets assume that about half of those people actually go to the gym and about half of those people lift weights. That means about 1 in 25 people has familiarity/education in lifting. That 1 in 25 will have radically different views on strength and lifting compared to the other 24. Further within the 4% of people who are lifting, Only a percentage of them is doing so correctly/ enjoys success in it. Their mental schema of benching 225 would be very different from a person's who is not familiar/educated in lifting. I know that the ability to compare oneself to the elites in strength sports, especially with social media, skews one's perception of self. The same way that every model being skinny and tall or every male in porn seemingly having a 10+ inch penis constructs a skewed assessment of what a "normal person" looks like, exposure to the elites skews one's understanding of what a baseline is.

I know among the people I train with whatever your current PR is, its not enough. Everyone has this sense of unworthiness which disallows them to stagnate. I think that all greatness is derived from this same source, but exposure to the elites/ those better than you serves to impart a need to be better yourself. The phrases "Iron sharpens Iron" and "if you're ever the smartest person in the room, you're in the wrong room" come to mind.

Maybe I'm a great DM, but it benefits me much more If i believe that I'm garbage and need to improve in all regards. Not only me, but it benefits my players, and I think it betters the tabletop rpg experience. I know the single most beneficial change I have ever done is to have a "Roses and Thorns" session after each play session. I stole this from my boy-scout troop, where the scoutmasters used as a way to receive feedback from us scouts. The only other time i have seen player-DM conversations about how the DM runs the game is when the player brings it up to express his dissatisfaction. I think by getting feedback after every session I don't let the situation get that far. More importantly, it has let me learn a great deal about the effectiveness of my DMing techniques. I think lifting is a unique hobby because results are so incredibly evident. You lift a weight many times and then you get stronger. Further the effectiveness of what you do is so visible with how much weight you can lift, in contrast to cooking where you may not be able to gage how effective a new method is. We have yet to quantify taste profiles.

This brings me to another pyramid of futility, this one for DMing/running a game.

Figure 1.

______
Worldbuilding
__________
Uniqueness
_____________
Worrying about player agency/railroading, Game "Balance" innate to the system
___________________
Reinforcing the mood via Lighting/Music/Handouts
______________________
Adjectives
_________________________
Quality NPCs/Dungeons
____________________________
Meaningful adventures
_______________________________
Consistent Rules/Theme, Informed Players
__________________________________
Consistent playtime, System-Tone alignment
_____________________________________
Players and DM agreeing to tone/theme/mood, Efficient usage of game time
________________________________________
Players playing with consistency, being able to effectively communicate with the players, the goal of having a pleasurable experience as a group
___________________________________________

I will not try to explain what I mean by each level of the pyramid

the goal of having a pleasurable experience as a group: People shouldn't do things if they are unpleasant, this is the core philosophy of why you guys are at a table

being able to effectively communicate with the players: If your players cannot understand what you are saying y'all wont be on the same page and this conflicts will emerge

Players playing with consistency: If people don't show up they 1. make problems with keeping their character in the narrative, and 2. miss stuff, which harms their enjoyment of the game

Efficient usage of game time: If you spend 3 hours of your 4 hour session dealing with a single player who wants to harass the wait staff and everyone else wants to go in a dungeon, there will be issues

Players and DM agreeing to tone/theme/mood: Its a collaborative game. The DM is essentially the conductor of an orchestra. Agreeing on what music you play beforehand not only puts everyone on the same page, it also allows players to prepare how to roleplay. Don't be the guy playing free-form jazz while everyone else struggles through the Scythian Suite.

System-Tone alignment: The tone of the game needs to be congruent with the narrative. Using pathfinder for a horror campaign is likely to cause issues simply because how pathfinder's mechanics don't reflect high lethality and rewards those who play the character building minigame. (Sidenote,- IMO Pathfinder is only good for a superhero campaign)

Consistent playtime: If you only meet for one session it better be a fantastic session.

Informed Players: If your players don't know what their character's can do then there will be an inconsistency in the challenges you can put in front of them and the challenges they can solve. If you know that your players can fly and they don't then it generally won't end well if you drop them off a cliff.

Consistent Rules/Theme: If one session is grim horror, the next is three stooges slapstick, and the third is guns blazing akimbo your players will probably not know what to expect and will likely end up confused/ their suspension of disbelief will end.

Meaningful adventures: I think a really important concept is that the world reacts to the players, otherwise why give the players the ability to take an action. So they can just waste time?

Quality NPCs/Dungeons: These two components are how you directly interact with the players. The better these are the more fulfilling it will be for players to interact with them.

Adjectives: The more you describe things, the more accurately you put into the player's mind what is in yours. If anything this is just a very specific case of effective communication.

Reinforcing the mood via Lighting/Music/Handouts: This is fairly self explanatory, thought I think you can screw this up more ways than correctly do it.

Game "Balance" innate to the system: Okay lets be real, like .1% of people actually play by the rules as written, and that's not getting into rules as intended. Sincerely almost all of "game balance" issues are not actually playing the game as it was supposed to be run. Even then, if the game systen supports the theme, then you shouldn't be having that many issues.

Worrying about player agency/railroading: Its a game of pretend with your friends as evaluated by dice. I think worrying about illusionism and false choices in a game beyond not real is tantamount of trying to police how people play pretend.

Source: Flintstones Comic

Uniqueness: Whether or not your elves are unique is not going to make or break whether someone has fun at your table. After I ran a super generic plot, my skills as a DM greatly improved, it allowed em to focus on other things below which I believe made it much tighter. 

Worldbuilding: Don't do this. There is literally no purpose. Especially don't write long back stories for your entire setting. All you do is delay actually working on things which make your DMing better. Now, this doesn't mean don't have names for anything, but if the players don't interact with it, its of no use.

In summary, DMing is an art. Fundamentally one makes "good" art by demonstrating their mastery over the medium. Once they achieve this mastery it allows them to express themselves effectively. No artist got good at evoking sadness by practicing evoking sadness, they got good at evoking sadness by getting good at making their art. Its the same for you, you get good at creating an atmosphere of dread and fear in your tabletop RPG game by getting god at running tabletop RPG games. 

1. The album in question was Carnal Reprecussions by Salt the Wound. I still think it's a really good album. (their label Rotten Records has purged Youtube many times so the link was the only one I could find online)