Tabletop Fun

[Jay 2K Winger]

Mysteries of Albia--

This week's case had us tackling a Jack the Ripoff case, an adaptation of an adventure module about a serial killer called Red Jack, stalking the streets and alleys of the Kappelweiss borough of Victorium. This region happens to be where Charlie Tango, my character, grew up. So there were a few NPCs who recognized him as "Charlie Tango, the war hero." Which just embarrassed him, since he doesn't think of himself as one.

But as we're leaving a pub where we got some info from one of Charlie's old friends, a local bully called Macheath mockingly called out to him. Charlie kind of blew him off, in a very Seinfeld/Newman kind of way, until Macheath snidely said, "You know we used to call him Charlie T-- T for 'Trollop's Son!'" And here's the thing... yes, Charlie's mum earned some extra coin "by arrangement" and he accepts that, but you still don't talk about his mum like that.

So Charlie draws his gun and points it in his face, but Macheath wouldn't stop running his mouth. So our Rogue kicks him in the nuts to kick off initiative. Then Druid wildshapes into a bear, attacks Macheath, and then Charlie shoots him in the knee. Then we hung him by the arms from a street lamp with a sign reading, "I Talk Shit About Other People's Mothers Because I Don't Have One." And Charlie warned him, "If you shoot your mouth off again, I'll shoot it off your face."

I kind of knew that a bunch of Charlie's past would come up soon, since the DM had asked for any details about some of the NPCs recently, but hadn't been expecting it all to play out in one go.

[Jay 2K Winger]

D&D Adventurers League--

Last month, Minmaxer ran an adventure for D&D AL that was an homage to the Carmen Sandiego games. (Actual, 3rd-party publisher adventure!) The party is tasked with tracking a master thief called Camille Santiago, and there are many punny names throughout the adventure (as there were for Sandiego's crew in the old games) before we capture her. Two weeks later, Minmaxer ran "Part 2," a follow-up adventure where Camille Santiago escapes from prison and the party has to go catch her again.

This week, Minmaxer began a longer campaign, just as DM Spencer did last summer with the Spelljammer campaign Light of Xaryxis. We began Descent into Avernus with effectively two shorter adventures, back to back. Getting a lot of our Level 1 characters up to Level 3 by the end of the night. But during the second half of our run, the party needs to get some information from a notorious thief in Baldur's Gate, a thief who already has at least two aliases by the time the party met her, and described names as being like hats, and preferring to have a lot of them.

We end up having to defend this thief against a crew of thugs that turned up, angry cuz their boss had been bested in dice games by the thief. The thief joins in the fight, lands a blow on the thug captain, and Minmaxer describes her as flourishing a bit and reaching up to tip her hat to him, but remembering she isn't wearing a hat. I quipped about, "I'm having flashbacks to Camille Santiago." I said it out of character, but Minmaxer looked at me and says, in character as the thief, "Camille Santiago... that's a good name, I'm gonna use that."

I stopped, looked at him and said, "Wait... is she a half-elf?" He confirmed it, then pointed to the mini he was using for the thief. It was the same mini as the one he'd specifically 3D printed and painted for Camille. I hadn't thought too much of it, since he frequently will use other minis as placeholders. When I started laughing, he beckoned me to peek behind his DM screen and pointed to his notes for the thief. There it was-- "Turina/Camille" -- the thief's current alias and her future alias. I'm laughing my ass off as Minmaxer says, "This is part of the origin story. I was gonna reveal that at the end of the adventure, but you saw through it."

Even when Minmaxer is doing an "official" adventure, he'll find ways to make it more unique and special for his recurring players.

[Nunavut Pants]

Tonight was the first time I've been back with a boardgame group I've been part of for a long time!

Part of us played "Progress: Evolution of Technology". It seems like a good game for people who really like the "tech tree" part of a lot of civ-building video games. It was fun, but dragged in between turns because your ability to plan is somewhat limited because of how your options can change due to the other players' turns. Plus there can be a lot of mentally setting up chains of events, much of which as I said can't be done ahead of time, so... Still, it's not bad! It did take a while, though in part that was due to three of the four of us never having played before. I was quite surprised to come in second to the one experienced player!

Several people left, so we did a few rounds of "Just One", a guess-the-word game. One person picks a card with a word on it, and then leaves the room (or just closes their eyes). The others write down one word as a clue, then when all have done so they compare words. Any duplicates are erased, then the unique ones are what the guesser has to guess from. So you have to try to give good clues, but not ones that everyone else will give... It's pretty fun, and one we've played before. The rounds go quickly, too. We missed three and got fifteen right, so not too bad!

[Jay 2K Winger]

Mysteries of Albia--

Our Fighter, Beckett, continues to amass a Reputation. First, his player and the DM collaborated and made a mock-up of the Times of Victorium front page, covering our last case, and Beckett getting interviewed by the paper, and giving typical Beckett straightforward, almost humorless, answers.

Then, Beckett didn't speak for the entire first third of our session, until we were questioning a victim in a thievery investigation, who had been neglecting to give us certain details. Druid's 30 Insight check saw through the lie, but a 9 Persuasion check failed to get her to be honest. Whereupon Beckett rolled a dirty 20 Investigation check, stood up from the wall where he'd been leaning, and, arms folded, loomed over the woman with all of his 6'4", built-like-a-pro-wrestler, imposing frame, and just went, "Ma'am." And she spilled the deets.

Later on, Charlie & Vash spoke with a retired, one-armed dwarf warrior who ran a training yard, one of the other thief victims. Fairly straightforward, before Vash got frisky and challenged the dwarf's top student-- his daughter-- to a spar. Which she, Vash, narrowly won. The dwarf was impressed she'd fought fair, and made a comment about how "Honor in combat is of utmost importance." To which Charlie, a former soldier and war veteran, just went, "...Right, sure, of course." (Charlie is a firmly practical person when it comes to a fight.)

We basically did a speed-run of the rest of the case. Once Druid had a trail on the stolen goods, he wildshaped into a moorbounder and went racing off after the thief. We found where the books were, as well as the thief's murdered accomplice, and Druid-moorbounder got the scent and raced off again. We (the rest of us) didn't have a chance to investigate any links or connections as we had to race after him. To the point where when we caught up to the thief and the black wyrmling that he served, the wyrmling said, "No doubt you want more details on the links in this plot!" To which we, OOC and IC, just went, "No, we're just here to catch him." And then the wyrmling got two-shotted (Vash with her psychic blades, and Druid-bounder with a Nat-20 pounce attack), the thief surrendered, and we got some vague information about a dragon cult.

Oh, and Beckett's Reputation-- we fought a couple of carrion crawlers-- biiiig creepy-crawlies-- and he killed one of them, once again with his off-hand attack. We've started joking that Beckett is basically our Monster Hunter now.

[Jay 2K Winger]

Mysteries of Albia--

The conclusion of our second case came up finally, as we got to watch Bob do some great RP as he interrogated one of the suspects, as he apparently had done actual interviews like this during his time in the military. Then we mounted up to go take down the gang that was involved in the murder (one of their members had been the one getting interrogated).

The fight in the warehouse saw our polearm-master Fighter put in the work locking down a lot of the gangers, and Druid wildshaped into a giant toad, captured one primary target and delivered him to the cops, then eat a couple of the lesser gangers. The gang released an angry bristled moorbounder-- basically a large tusked, panther-like creature-- but when it went after Fighter, he caught him with his off-hand attack (basically hitting it with the butt end of his halberd) and used one of his techniques to "trip attack" it, knocking it prone.

I started laughing, "You basically pulled a Mongo from Blazing Saddles on it!"

[Jay 2K Winger]

It was Free RPG Day this weekend, so of course I swung by the local game store where I play Adventurers' League on Thursdays. This also marked the one year anniversary of my discovering this store, since it was Free RPG Day last year that prompted me to go there.

I ended up with a huge amount of free swag, as our store apparently got like four stores' worth of free stuff. The things which are on offer are booklets and magazines with the basics on how to play some simple RPG games, or adventures for established game systems (like 5e, nWoD, etc), to cards with stats for monsters, pins, and even some dice.

They were hosting some learn-to-play events in 5e, Pathfinder, and a couple of other game systems. They also had hourly raffles as well as a grand prize raffle. To enter the grand prize, you got one ticket for every $25 you spent in-store. (And they had discounts on things for the day, too.) So I bought a core book for Starfinder (just cuz) and got two entries. The hourlies you got entered into by simply showing up, but they'd give you tickets for the hourlies for playing in some of the events, or for rolling nat 1's during play.

I joined a learn-to-play for Kobold Press's upcoming 5e knockoff, Tales of the Valiant. Pre-generated characters, and the DM supplied some free sets of dice to use (handy since I'd left mine at home). One of the other players got a nat-1 early on, but then later I got a nat-1 while doing a skill check. The store clerk came around to give me the raffle ticket, but she'd barely gotten back behind the counter (making her rounds around the store) when it was my turn again and I had another skill check. Guess what? Another nat-1!

At this point, one of the other players-- who'd brought her own dice-- offered to swap d20's with me. I accepted, and immediately did better with my next roll. But on hers? Another nat-1!

The clerk and even some of the other players in-store couldn't believe it-- four nat-1's at our table-- and were even more flabbergasted to find that three of them had been rolled with the same d20.

I left after a few hours, never having won anything from the hourly raffles, but I got a call from the store later. I'd come in 3rd place with the grand prize raffle and won a $25 gift card.

All told, it was a fun day!

[Jay 2K Winger]

Mysteries of Albia--

No actual combat this week, all RP as we're investigating a new case. (Our first fully homebrewed adventure, not adapted from a module.) Investigating crime scenes, interviewing witnesses and suspects, researching archives and whatnot.

It's now been fully established that Vash prefers travelling via rooftop. Either by freerunning along them, or by riding on the roofs of vehicles. After we finished at the crime scene, Vash stayed behind while the rest of the Eagle Scouts were driven to the hospital to get the autopsy results, just to ask a few more questions of the primary witness. Then she went to the rooftops and caught up to us. Where we promptly egged Eric on: "Jump from the roof onto the car. Do it. Do it do it do it." Because that's now the running gag after Vash's infamous fall out of the tree. (She did jump down, and succeeded this time.)

We also established that chocolate milk was Vash's favorite drink (drank at least three glasses over the course of the session), leading to comments about how she's somehow going to get drunk on milk. Until I joked, "Nah, drinking all that milk for strong bones, so she'll be fine the next time she falls off the roof onto her face." Prompting a laughing "F**k you!" from Eric.

[Jay 2K Winger]

Mysteries of Albia--

So we get into the mine we were sent to investigate, with Druid sending his birds-- his owl familiar (Hoot) and a summoned beast eagle (Eagly)-- to scout ahead. Their ability to see in the darkness of the mine, plus their remarkable utility in combat -- these birds collectively got FIVE Nat-20's during combat this week -- led to me suggesting we dub our new team the Eagle Scouts until we come up with something better. This has already been accepted by the table.

In other amusing news, Eric's new Soulknife Rogue is named Vash, because he decided some aspects of her character were very like that of Vash from the anime Trigun. Accordingly, Vash's raven animal companion is called Stampede. This week, it was sort of revealed that Vash has something of a split personality, a somewhat psychotic kill-happy alter that manifested when she used her psy blades for the first time. Vash later had a pseudo-dream sequence where she met this alter, where I initially dubbed her "Smiley," but given she was holding the psy-blades in her hands, Eric spontaneously decided that calling the alter "Knives" was more thematically appropriate.

[Jay 2K Winger]

So my Strahd group finally got together for the start of our new campaign, Mysteries of Albia. (Minus one player, who is shifting to part-time with this campaign.)

There were some definite changes in character for everyone. Jesse, who played the bardiest Ranger in Strahd, was playing a stoic Fighter, a warrior of the church. Bob, who played our cagey Sorlock in Strahd, is playing the talkative Druid, a proud adherent of "the old ways." Eric, who played the Sorceress, is playing a Soulknife Rogue who is keeping her psychic abilities a secret. And I, who played a gruff but affable enough Paladin, am now playing a slightly more taciturn Gunslinger with some mild PTSD.

Our characters are all probationary members to a detective agency, meeting up at the HQ, but our Druid is down in the bar in the basement, despite it being about nine in the morning. He just greets us all cheerfully and poured everyone a shot. And Bob actually did pour us all shots of whiskey from a flash he had with him. (A 12-year Irish whiskey of some kind.)

Our first case was mostly to investigate a 70-year-old cold case, a mining disaster in a northern town, with a side order of mysterious disappearances, and a side quest from one of the survivors, who just wants us to leave some flowers at his wife's grave, and to retrieve a token of his that he'd left in an old tree in the center of town. While the rest of us went to the cemetery to find the grave, Rogue stayed in the center of town, finding the necklace we'd been asked to find, and then climbed up the tree and started eyeballing the roof of the mayor's house nearby. When the player said he wanted to have Rogue parkour over to the roof, he was told to make the requisite skill check, which they whiffed on.

I started laughing and said, "You ever see those cat videos where it tries to make a jump, and just goes like one foot and drops?" And Eric agreed that was exactly what it was like.

My rolls-- which can be pretty bad sometimes-- were good to great this week, up until we got into combat. Despite rolling first in Initiative, by the time Charlie, my Gunslinger, made it to the room where things were kicking off, he'd used his action to dash. So I prepared to bonus-action and use a spell he has called Finger Guns, which basically lets me literally shoot a magic attack from my finger-- but then I actually properly read the spell, and realized that the bonus-action just activates the spell, which still requires an action to fire it. Ugh. So I just held my position in the corner, while everyone else piled in and started killing the solitary enemy in the room. Then when my turn came up again, I made my attack roll-- and got a natural 1.

Which was egregious especially because I'd roleplayed Charlie maintaining and cleaning his gun during the train ride up to town. I played it off as a misfire with one of the bullets.

[Jay 2K Winger]

Minmaxer was DM'ing a Tier 2 (Level 5-10) adventure this week, and I took the opportunity to try out a build for a character that might be my backup for the Mysteries of Albia campaign if my gunslinger doesn't work out or if he dies. I admit to taking the idea for the build from D&D Shorts on YouTube.

An elf (custom lineage) Bladesinger (Artificer 1/Wizard 4) with the Mobile and Tough feats. Artificer means I can use medium armor without the usual penalties to Wizard. So I can wear scale mail, which with my high Dex score, gives me a base AC of 16. Start a Bladesong, and that adds my Dex to my AC again, so now it's 19. And in a pinch, I can cast Shield and bump that AC to 24.

I have a base movement of 40, bumped to 50 with the Bladesong. I get in close to an enemy and cast one of two cantrips before attacking-- Booming Blade if they're alone, and Green Flame Blade if they're grouped close together. Booming Blade does work, since I can get in and attack and get that extra damage in, then back away like ten feet. Mobile feat means they don't get opportunity attacks, so they have to move to get close enough to attack me, but Booming Blade means they get damaged again if they try to move.

It strikes the right balance of spellcaster dabbling I want to do, with the familiarity of martial class that I prefer.

[Ghel]

Thanks! I appreciate that info.

[Jay 2K Winger]

I believe the module was called "The Peculiar Case of the Selptan Felines"

[dalesys]

It was a FurSchlinger adventure!

[Ghel]

Omigawd, I need to remember this. LOL. I want to get back into D&D and eventually run a campaign. I'd love to do something like this. Basically, anything with cats is right up my street.

[Jay 2K Winger]

D&D Adventurers League--

So Minmaxer from our Spelljammer campaign is now putting in work as DM for the store's weekly D&D AL roster, and he's good at it. I took part in his first DM'd game for our AL nights last week, which went well and was fun.

But then this week as I sat down at the table, he asked me which of my characters I was bringing to the game. My usual go-to is Seb, my level 4 half-orc barbarian, but lately I've been trying out a tiefling cleric called Lucent, and debated bringing him out, but I ended up going with Seb. Minmaxer told me, "I'm happy, cuz I may have planned on you bringing him this week."

After the initial combat encounter, we end up arriving at this small town where... that's a lot of cats. And all the people seem to have one. Seems a little strange.

Then the DM looked at us all, counted off numbers for each of us for a d10, rolled, and pointed at me. "Excellent." And then described this ginger Maine Coon cat sort of wandering up and looking at Seb, who-- like a good dumb barbarian-- extended a knuckle for the cat to headbutt. Then the DM said, "Make a Charisma saving throw." Which, naturally, was my dump stat. When I failed the save, he sifted through some printouts, folded one and handed it to me. "Don't show this to anyone, yet."

I backed up from the table, read the printout, and started cackling. Basically the cats in the village had formed a hive mind and were bonding with their chosen people, which mostly just gave the benefit of the mind blank spell (which protects against charm effects and psychic damage), but also let the cats auto-succeed on the suggestion spell against their bonded person. The DM had given Seb the feline equivalent of a fightin' cat, named Cupcake.

I happily played along, with Seb very quickly adapting to having this big-ass ginger cat making biscuits on his armor pauldron and otherwise lazing about on his shoulders, going all 'oo's-a-good-Cupcaaaake, etc. Even went, "This is Cupcake, and I've only known her for a few hours, but if anything happened to her, I'd kill everyone in the room, and then myself." The DM immediately turned to the rest of the party and says, "This is not normal." As in, the party knew that Seb's newfound attachment to the cat was not normal.

Eventually, everyone at the table ended up bonded to a cat, even if they passed the charisma save, because the DM thought it was funnier that way.