Wyld Times with Zinnia Ballana

[Daos]

I have been running pbp games for about 10 years now.  And while it does have it advantages, there are a lot of things I miss about running games in real time.  The main reason I made the switch was that the difficulty of finding a date and time for everyone to meet up with was further compounded by the fact that 2E was becoming increasingly unpopular, and it was becoming more and more difficult to even find people willing to play it.

But a lot has changed in 10 years.  Fifth Edition is out and has made D&D more popular than ever.  It is no longer a niche 'nerd' game, but rather it's considered 'cool' now.  And after spending a year in lockdown, and now fully vaccinated, I'm ready to start interacting with people again, face-to-face.  So I decided that I want to run a real, face-to-face D&D game.  However, there are a few problems.

First, while I am fully vaccinated, that doesn't mean the pandemic is over.  It's still not completely safe to just invite a bunch of people over.  Second, I've sort of lost contact with just about everyone I know over the last year.  So I don't really have many people to invite (and I'd rather not do a PUG).  Third, as I mentioned, I haven't run a real time game in ten years.  I'm pretty rusty.  I don't remember things like, how much prep do I need to do before the next session?  Plus, my anxiety has increased quite a bit over the past year, so I need some practice in actually talking to people again.  And finally, since I want to run a 5E game, there's the fact that I haven't had much experience with it yet (and none in real time).

So what I decided is to do a sort of practice game, a dry run to get back into the swing of things.  I decided to convert one of the old solo adventures from 2E.  If you aren't familiar with them, the old HHQ series were a series of modules designed for a single player.  They were Fighter's Challenge, Thief's Challenge, Cleric's Challenge, Wizard's Challenge, Fighter's Challenge II, Thief's Challenge II, Cleric's Challenge II and Wizard's Challenge II.  Despite the names, the 'II' games are not sequels to the others; Fighter's Challenge and Fighter's Challenge II, for instance, are completely different games in different areas with different stories.  Anyway, I've run a couple of these and played in a couple of others.  They're fairly simple, low combat one-shots.

For my player, I decided to invite HorizonsDream.  She's close enough in proximity and we've even met before, so that makes it easier.  We had our session 0 about a week ago, and she rolled up a half-elf sorcerer again.  But to help differentiate her from Eliana in Tyranny of Dragons, she decided to make this one a wild mage instead of a draconic one.  Her name is Zinnia Ballana.  She's NG with the Folk Hero background, and her ability scores are STR 11, DEX 14, CON 16, INT 14, WIS 14 and CHA 16.  She's has a pretty blasty build.  And we're starting her at level 1.  The module actually suggests levels 2-5, but that was because a level 1 2E mage would have 4 (or less) HP and one spell a day.  A 5E sorcerer is a little bit hardier and versatile.

Zinnia's backstory is that she was raised by her elven mother, but never knew her human father.  All her mother would tell her is that he was a powerful mage.  Zinnia herself had no interest in magic, and even kind of resented it a bit, so she grew up and joined the local army to become a great soldier instead.  But one day during a battle, she suddenly and inexplicably manifested magical powers that she could not control.  She is now on a mission to track down her father, in hopes of getting answers.  She's tracked him to a small village called Northbank.  I decided to set the game in my homebrew setting of Lost Souls, since Horizon is already familiar with it and the storyline for this game doesn't really fit in Dragonlance and she isn't all that familiar with Forgotten Realms or Greyhawk (or any other setting).

So I'm currently at work trying to convert Wizard's Challenge into 5E.  It's a murder mystery game, with a higher emphasis on roleplaying and puzzle solving than fighting.  That makes things a little easier.  However, some of the combat encounters are with creatures that exist in 2E but were never updated to 5E.  Plus, my work hours have been nuts lately, so my progress has been pretty slow.  But I have an entire week I scheduled off coming up soon, so hopefully I can make real progress then.

Anyway, I thought I might document our sessions here, for anyone who might be interested.  My plan is to run this adventure, and during that time, hopefully make plans to invite more people to a larger game, until I have a full, regular group one day.

[GravityEmblem]

Haha, my character in my current IRL game (I finished the Aftermath of Ozymandias one I was DMing) is also named Zinnia--except she's a Drow Cleric, instead of a Sorcerer. Our other characters include a mute Dragonborn named Bromier, a Changeling Bard named Kloe, an Elf Rogue named Vall, a psychotic Shifter Sorcerer named Furbert Hoover, and a Half-Elf Ranger with an incredible chin, who claims to be the best bounty hunter in the world, despite being terrified of beetles. Our sessions get a bit silly.

[Daos]

Zinnia is a southwestern flower, right?  I'm guessing you both named your character after it.

[Daos]

I'm already running into difficulty in converting this module.  The first two combat encounters are creatures that apparently don't exist in 5E; they were never converted over.  I found some homebrew rules for one of them, at least.  The other one, though...guess I'll have to try and improvise.

[HorizonsDream]

Actually, I just looked up the name in a baby name finder. I didn't even look up the meaning of the name. I just liked the sound of it, so I picked it.

[Daos]

Ha, that should be canonical.  Zinnia's mother named her that because she heard it once and thought it sounded pretty, but has no idea what it means.

[HorizonsDream]

I'm fairly sure that is how most people name their children, but yeah I'm cool with that being a thing with my character.

[Daos]

So after nearly two months of delays, largely because of work, we finally--FINALLY--had our first session tonight.

I was extremely nervous getting started, to the point of considering putting it off yet another week.  But I resisted the temptation, and once I started to get into the flow of things, it went a lot smoother than I anticipated.  I had a lot of hiccups--mostly having to stop to look something up.  In hindsight, I should have fleshed out some details on the NPCs a bit more, because most of them were sorely lacking (some didn't even include a description).  I had prepared the first two days entirely, and part of the third, but it turns out that was enough.  We only made it through Day One.  Then again, it was a fairly short session (about 2 1/2 hours).  It was rather low stakes.  No combat at all, just roleplay.  In fact, only two dice were rolled--both by HorizonsDream , and both were persuasion checks.

When we started, I immediately became aware of a few logistical issues that will eventually become a problem once I start inviting more people over.  For one, my apartment is fairly small.  I set up an old card table for us to sit at, and it took up most of the living room.  I'm not sure how having a full party would even work without serious rearrangement of furniture.  I also realized I never made a copy of Zinnia's character sheet, so I had to keep borrowing Horizon's whenever I needed to check her stats and inventory.

It's late now, and I should get to bed soon (work in the morning), but I'll try and write up a summary of events for those who are curious.

Day One:  Arrival
Zinnia arrived in Northbank from the west, on a caravan that gave her a ride.  It was a spring morning with clear, crisp weather.  Zinnia went straight to the inn, where she met the innkeeper, Powell Carter (no description at all was given for him, so I said he was in his mid-thirties with brown hair and eyes).  She immediately spilled the beans to him about why she was there--to find her father, who was a mage.  Unfortunately, Powell wasn't much help.  It turns out there are quite a few mages in town, despite the population only being around 500.  It turns out there was a magic guild here a few decades ago, and while it has long since fallen apart (Powell speculated it was from politics; 'get enough people who can bend reality to their wills in the same room, and you're bound to run into some ego problems'), a number of mages stayed in town and are still here to this day.  In fact, unlike most small villages, this one was pretty accustomed to mages and magic, and the locals didn't really bat an eye at either.  He directed her to try speaking to the local components shopkeep, as he knew just about everyone in town.  While she waited for her food, she eavesdropped on the locals for rumors and gossip.  She heard the following rumors:

1.)  Strange lights were seen at the 'haunted house' again.
2.)  A band of thieves has moved into Old Northbank (the slums, basically, to the north of town), and the area is dangerous at night.
3.)  There's a new exhibit at the zoo, something really strange.
4.)  Joran saw some orc tracks in the hills.

After a modest breakfast (the module specifies that the innkeep charges double the normal PHB prices, but not why; Zinnia made a persuasion check and convinced him to knock the price down a bit, as she only had 10 gold on her), Zinnia then went to the herb and component shop.  Despite being a small village, because of its past, it had a book shop, an herb/component shop, and several other businesses that catered specifically to mages.  The place was run by a minor mage named Vel Marka, a pudgy, balding middle-aged man.  He was offering a number of deals, including a big jar of dragon blood, but Zinnia was only interested in information.  Vel was a bit thrown off by Zinnia's story, but suggested she check with the three 'master' mages in town.  If one of them wasn't her father, then at least they might know who was.  He gave her directions to their houses.

The first place she visited was a messy, ramshackle house.  After knocking, the only answer was a loud cat.  The door eventually opened, and a black cat stepped out, paused to look at her, then ran off into the yard.  At the door was a handsome man in his thirties in loose, light blue robes, with rumpled clothes and messy hair.  He was Han Malson, and he seemed a bit...off.  Groggy, almost unfocused.  At first, Zinnia thought he had just woke up, but later came to believe he was just high.  Zinnia just sort of dumped everything on him--that she was looking for her father, that Han might be him, and she suddenly developed inexplicable magical powers.  Han was thrown off by all of this, and had trouble following.  He offered to do some research, but Zinnia decided this guy wasn't all there and quickly bailed, moving on to the next house.

In contrast, the second house was quite different.  Nice, well-maintained with a beautiful garden of flowers in bloom, and stones with runes on them surrounding the place.  Knocking on the door, Zinnia met Kitta Doroff, a pretty woman in her mid-twenties with brown hair and eyes.  Kitta was remarkably friendly, treating Zinnia like an old friend and inviting her in for tea.  Zinnia asked for water instead, and when Kitta went into the kitchen, she heard running water--not from a pump, but more like from a faucet--suggesting she had some kind of magical indoor plumbing set up.  Zinnia again gave the full infodump to Kitta, who was intrigued and even asked Zinnia to demonstrate her power--which she did, with a couple of prestidigitation cantrips.  Kitta admitted she had never heard of someone spontaneously developing magical powers, and certainly not without the use of spellbooks and material components.  The closest thing she could think of were dragons and similar creatures that could cast spells without studying them first.  Kitta fancied herself a specialist in the school of Enchantment and Charm, and offered to research her books to see if she could find anything more.  Thanking her, Zinnia told her she'd be at the inn if she found anything, then moved on.

The third home was a large, windowless tower that seemed to hum with magic.  After knocking, the man who answered was a distinguished gentleman in his mid-forties, with black hair with grey on his temples, and blue eyes.  He wasn't dressed like a wizard--no robes or anything.  Rather, he looked more like a noble, and had a sort of Dr. Strange thing going, including a big, fancy cloak.  He was Dar Malson, older brother of Han.  Zinnia stumbled on her words, and he mistook her for an apprentice and told her he wasn't looking for any students right now.  She managed to spit it out, and told him everything, that he might be her father and that she had developed magical powers without study, even going so far as to demonstrate with another prestidigitation.  He asked her a few probing questions, a bit intrigued, but claimed to have never met her mother before.  Zinnia practically pleaded with him to take her as an apprentice, to teach her how to use her powers properly.  This led to the second Persuasion check, which was 14; not great, but not bad.  So he told her he would sleep on it, while he did some research tonight.

Zinnia returned to the inn, and just in time for lunch.  She encountered several new people there.  There was Darrin, a human in his mid twenties and an axe for hire who was looking for work while regaling locals with his tales of adventure.  There was Aldar Storm, a swashbuckler that same age as Zinnia (19) who kept flirting with her.  There was Varni, a young red haired woman a little younger than Zinnia; she was an orphan who hoped to find a mage to teach her magic, but seemed far too timid to approach any of the masters in town.  She also met Nine-Finger John, a local fisherman who claims he lost a finger to a catfish.  (Zinnia was skeptical of this, but he assured her it was a common mishap in his occupation.)

Nine-Finger John, as it turns out, did know her mother.  In the Biblical sense, if you catch my drift.  He claimed that she worked at the local brothel up in Old Northbank, and was quite popular with...pretty much everyone in town.  In fact, the whole place dried up and shut down shortly after she left.  Zinnia was stunned by this revelation, although it was not entirely clear if John was remembering her mother or some other elven woman.  It had been 20 years ago, after all.

Zinnia decided she needed to go to Old Northbank, find that abandoned brothel and search it for any clues (and maybe track down some of the former employees there, as well).  Varni suggested she speak to the local priest, since he spends a lot of time in Old Northbank, feeding the hungry and proselytizing to them.  Zinnia buys lunch for herself and Varni (who admitted she had not eaten that day); Zinnia got a sort of salad while Varni ordered a strange combo of fried fish and milk.

Zinnia headed for the church and met a cleric and a paladin, both followers of the local faith, which is sort of a mish-mash of both Gonto and Octhanus.  For those of you not familiar with my world, Gonto is the goddess of law, order, fate, and knowledge; Octhanus is the goddess of healing, love, peace and protection.  I described this faith as one focused on doing good works and helping those in need, but being super judgemental about it.

The cleric, Normand, was in his early 30s while the paladin was a young woman in her early 20s named Lura Gren.  Both human.  (You may have noticed, but for whatever reason, less than half of the NPCs in this module have last names, and the rest do not.  It seems completely random.  Unless Normand is his last name, in which case, he has no first name.  That's not clear.)  Anyway, Normand asks for a donation right off the bat, and Zinnia offers 2 silver.  She asked that Normand accompany her to Old Northbank to find the old brothel and the women who worked there, and why.  Normand tried to talk her out of it, claiming the area was dangerous.  Lura point-blank asked if Zinnia is a mage, and then added, "because frankly, you stink of magic."  Thrown off by the woman's bluntness, Zinnia admitted that she 'sort of' was.  Normand apologized for the paladin, explaining that because people in town put their faith in the arcane, the church tended to get ignored.  He had been petitioning the mayor to help clean up Old Northbank, but with little success.

After a bit more discussion, Normand agreed to let Zinnia tag along on his next mission into Old Northbank the following morning.  If she were to assist him in feeding the poor and preaching the good word, he would show her where the brothel used to be, and introduce her to some of the sinners who used to work there.  Zinnia agreed, but before she ran out, he then asked her whether she was a believer of the gods, and Zinnia more or less answered, "Sure, why not?"

Returning to the inn again, Zinnia agreed to hire Darrin and Aldar as bodyguards at the rate of 2 GP a week each.  Aldar offered to lower the price if she joined him that night in his private room, but she turned him down and decided to sleep in the in the common area for only 2 CP, instead of renting a room herself.

[Daos]

Ha, I just realized just now--days later--that I never gave any XP for the session.

And then I realized I wasn't sure how.  There was no combat at all.  Does anyone know how 5E handles non-combat XP?

For instance, in the 2E DMG, it has the following list:

Player has a clever idea  50-100
Player has an idea that saves the party  100-500
Player role-plays his character well*  100-200
Player encourages others to participate  100-200
Defeating a creature in a single combat  XP value/creature

*This award can be greater if the player character sacrifices some game advantage to role-play his character. A noble fighter who refuses a substantial reward because it would not be in character qualifies.

Something like that, but skewed to better fit the advancement rate of 5E?

[GravityEmblem]

Pretty much. After 2E, Wizards of the Coast stopped caring about non-combat EXP (-_-), so we have to make our own systems. I had a little system for my Ozymandias game, sort of reverse-engineered from your games, that you may have noticed.

Mar 6, 2021 9:23:54 GMT -8 GravityEmblem said:

CHAPTER END!

Daos:

Apprehending Sunny Jim and Sunny John +50xp
Finding Sunny John a job as Warden +25xp
Delivering the message to the Duchess +75xp
Discussing Foccu Politics with Amelia +50xp
Getting a job with the merchant caravan +75xp
Reading about Foccu history +25xp
Fighting off Hell’s Ewes +325/5=65xp
Discussing Deppsburg with Kurmok +25xp
Discussing war with the Newsman +25xp
Delivering the message to the King +100xp
Interrogating the Assassin +50xp
Accepting Miss Serpentine’s job offer +50xp
Meeting the other adventurers +25xp

TOTAL: +640=940 XP total. LEVEL UP to Level 3

Qurrak:

Apprehending Sunny Jim and Sunny John +50xp
Finding Sunny John a job as Warden +25xp
Delivering the message to the Duchess +75xp
Discussing his tribe with Merlina +25xp
Getting a job with the merchant caravan +75xp
Fighting off Hell’s Ewes +325/5=65xp
Discussing war with the newsman +25xp
Discussing honor and glory +50xp
Delivering the message to the King +100xp
Accepting Miss Serpentine’s job offer +50xp
Meeting the other adventurers +25xp

TOTAL: +565=865 XP total.

Atrel, Aaron, and Merry:

Accepting Miss Serpentine’s job offer +50xp
Meeting the other adventurers +25xp

TOTAL: +75=375 XP total.

So, 25 for little roleplaying and tiny quests, 50 for bigger roleplaying that develops characters, 75 for bigger quests that move things along, etc.

[Matt4]

This seems cool! I'm curious on what will happen next so I'm looking forward to read about Zinnia's adventures (and I empathize with her quest, since it's similar to Chantilly's... Damned deadbeats fathers!).

If you're planning on running some of the others as PbP adventures I call dibs on the Cleric's oneshots.


As for awarding exp, you can use some sort of milestones system for where the character is supposed to level up. Like: "Successfully investigated the brothel: the character will level up to lvl 2", or something? 

[GravityEmblem]

Eh, either one. In my mind, EXP is for when you want to encourage participation, and milestone is when it's important that the party are all at the same level. But with only one player, neither of those are issues.

[HorizonsDream]

In this case, I wouldn't say that Zinnia's father is a deadbeat. It is more than likely that he just didn't know about her since I have it written down that her mother moved out of the town before she even realized she was pregnant. Though, it is possible he would have been a deadbeat father.

The last time that I tried an actual table top game, I found it extremely awkward. This time around though, it was pretty easy. I still haven't figured out if I'm going to do things in third person or first person. I jumped between the two in this session.

[Daos]

Jul 18, 2021 13:53:03 GMT -8 GravityEmblem said:

So, 25 for little roleplaying and tiny quests, 50 for bigger roleplaying that develops characters, 75 for bigger quests that move things along, etc.

That could work.  My 2E system is 25 XP for a meaningful interaction with an NPC and 50 XP for another PC at level 1-3, then double those numbers for levels 4-6 (so 50/100), and double them again for levels 7-8 (so 100/200) and so on.  So a player can rack up quite a bit of XP just from roleplaying scenes, but only if they are meaningful (which I define as fleshing out or building relations between the two characters; so asking the innkeeper if there are any rooms available wouldn't count, but asking the innkeeper about their spouse and kids might).

(Of course, as this is a solo adventure, differentiating between PC and NPC interactions is a moot point.)

Then completing sidequests or main quests usually has me total up all of the potential combat XP from that quest again, then modifying it depending on how successful the party was in completing it, usually either halving or doubling it.  For instance, the party is hired by some villagers to put a stop on the raids the nearby orcs are carrying out on them.  There are about 50 orcs (each worth 15 XP, so defeating them all would be worth 750 XP).  So if the party succeeds but does so poorly--like they drive them off, but make them angry in the process and they swear revenge and will return someday with greater numbers, then I'll halve that and say the quest is worth 375 XP.  If they just go in and slaughter all of the orcs, then I'll say 750 XP.  And if they manage to negotiate a truce with the orcs, and even convince them to open trade relations with the villagers, I'll double it to 1,500.  Second Edition also has individual XP rewards, where doing things specific to your class earn you extra, like a thief gets XP for picking locks or stealth, clerics get XP for using granted powers or spells relating to their deity's ethos, etc.

However, the numbers and leveling scale are quite different in 2E than 5E.  In 5E, you need 300 XP to reach level 2.  In 2E, you need somewhere between 1,250-2,500 depending on your class.  So in my 2E games, I tend to be quite generous with XP because it takes so much to level up.  I'm not sure how much to cut back on that to avoid over-leveling a 5E character.

Jul 18, 2021 15:20:20 GMT -8 Matt4 said:

If you're planning on running some of the others as PbP adventures I call dibs on the Cleric's oneshots.

Sure, if you want.  I played through Cleric's Challenge I once, and it was pretty fun.  Are you talking about playing it in the original 2E or updating it to 5E?

Jul 18, 2021 15:20:20 GMT -8 Matt4 said:

As for awarding exp, you can use some sort of milestones system for where the character is supposed to level up. Like: "Successfully investigated the brothel: the character will level up to lvl 2", or something? 

I had considered it, but as this module was written for 2E (where milestone leveling did not exist yet), it doesn't offer any guidance the way Tyranny of Dragons does, so I'm really not sure when is appropriate to level up.  A 5E character is already stronger than a 2E one, and if I over-level them, they'll be able to breeze through the remaining adventure pretty easily.

[Matt4]

Hmm some time ago I came across this link, which describe a system pretty similar to the one suggested by GravityEmblem. Maybe it could be useful to you.

SPOILER: Click to show

{Link}https://dmdavid.com/tag/using-experience-points-to-make-your-dd-game-more-compelling/