If you read the session report I posted last night, you can see why a lot of James Raggi's modules will never, ever work quite as he intended when I run them - there's no way to build mood with guys who view every NPC as a pawn in a quest to acquire XP. Yes, I could change the way I run the game to penalize that sort of behavior, but that's not what I want to do, and my players wouldn't stick around if I did. This is pretty much how we play and how we like it, not a request for suggestions.
So back on point - something like Death Love Doom would fall apart completely, and even the Monolith with its murderous host of brain invaders would just be an opportunity to wreak havoc. Poor Zeke never stood a chance. He didn't even get off his one-liner, because he was gagged and I foolishly didn't anticipate his murder at the time he was tied up.
The players have really been all about doing random wilderness adventures lately, which means there's no pressure on me to actually work on the dungeon levels. You can blame them if you're wondering why ASE4-5 isn't out. I'm too lazy to do anything without a deadline.
Anyhow, if you're wondering about the hiatus, I spent a whole lot of time working on designing guitar amps and watching Breaking Bad start-to-finish instead of playing D&D.
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Good review.
ReplyDeleteWatching Breaking Bad and designing guitar amps are pretty good ways to spend your time, I'd say.
I need to watch Breaking Bad, myself. I'll get around to it.
ReplyDeleteDo you have a tentative timeline for ASE4-5?
I should also get back to practicing gee-tar. Of course, that means digging an amp out of the basement, because that's where they've all ended up. Or I could just fiddle around on this half-size (two-thirds? three-quarters? I dunno, whatever, it's bigger than a uke and has six strings) acoustic here.
Poor Zeke. He's just misunderstood.
ReplyDeleteHow did the rest of the adventure go?
Breaking Bad's showrunning is one of the best inspirations for a GM, I think. I can only wish I gave my players as many "That makes sense, but I didn't expect that" developments.
ReplyDeleteI can't watch Breaking Bad - the Walter's family life stuff is just too ouch.
ReplyDeleteOne of the things I like about DFD is that it actively subverts most dungeon bastard/murder hobo standards. If a party goes in doing the d&d standards they will have a bad time. If the party thinks 'We're in an evil cult necropolis' they'll do okay.
DFD is the only raggi module I really want to run one day (maybe the stargazer as well), so I'm looking forward to how this will turn out.
ReplyDeleteWith a bit of luck, the DFD aftermath will chase the murder hobos back to the safety of the dungeon and its new deadlines for 4-5.
I was disappointed in Dead Love Doom. It felt like it was trying too hard to be shocking, and I didn't see the flexibility and potential DFD has.
Doom is coming for them. I wish I could be there to see the look on their faces.
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