Our Fun Game on Saturday

[Majestic]

Though I already do Adventure Summaries for my games, I thought I'd give a little more detail for our game two days ago.

My game couldn’t have gone much better on Saturday night. First off, we had a new player. One of the players brought his oldest son, an older teen with a bit of role-playing experience. They arrived early and he created a strong Barding treasure-hunter with a great bow.
***Warning: SPOILERS for “Tales from Wilderland” follow***

We played “Kinstrife and Dark Tidings”, which I must say is an excellently written adventure. Everything from ‘Tales’ has been really good, but this one was exceptionally so. At multiple points throughout the tale the PCs are provided the opportunity to go in different directions, or to make any of a number of choices. This really gives the story the opposite of a “railroad” adventure, where the players just follow along a prescribed plot and check the various boxes and meet the designed encounters or obstacles.

Near the end (after a long session, with lots of great roleplaying), it came down to a big battle. The PCs had defeated four outlaws they came across (as a Hazard) earlier, and also made quick work of Faron the Trapper (and nabbed Oderic). But this skirmish was much tougher. They were significantly outnumbered; against the six PCs were a dozen Outlaw Warriors and six Outlaw Archers.

The first few rounds went fine, and they dropped a number of the Warriors. The players were a bit frustrated that – due to the numbers of the enemy – they couldn’t put anybody into Rearward, and that became their goal (to get some of their own back to utilize their significant archery skills). They tag-teamed targets until one-by-one the enemy dropped, moving the numbers ever closer (to less than a two-to-one ratio). But as they did so, the enemy continually scored hits, driving their Endurance scores downward! They battled on, and more and more of their adversaries fell! But then one of them became Wounded, then another, and then a third! Numerous members of the party had barely any Endurance left, and some found themselves Weary as well. Their stalwart Hobbit (the smallest one amongst them) moved to Open and did ‘Rally Comrades’ successfully, giving a few points of Endurance back to everyone. He ended up doing it three times (over three rounds), and it meant the difference between life and death (well, consciousness, anyway) for a few of the heroes!

More than once there were grim words spoken at the table, as the players were convinced that the overwhelming numbers meant they had no chance! “It’s just a matter of numbers”, they would say, realizing that if even one of their own fell it meant that they would have to abandon hope of getting anyone into a Rearward stance. Then another Sauron icon was rolled for an opponent, and they were positive that the new Barding hero was done. “Just wait and see!” I told them (as the Loremaster), “you never know!” And sure enough, thanks to the Hobbit’s rallying cries, he had just enough Endurance to survive it! They had to get through another round of archers attacking, though, and one by one they dodged the incoming arrows successfully! The group made yet another series of attacks and dropped still more of the enemy. But they knew that at least half of their number were hanging by a thread, and any one of them would surely drop with a single hit! It was at this point, as the Outlaws were getting ready to counterattack, that they heard the sounds of the Beornings around them pounding the butts of their spears on the ground, chanting “Beorn! Beorn! Beorn!”. Instead of having the few opponents left attack them, I had them freeze in terror, a few dropping their weapons. The adventurers did the same (choosing ‘Intimidate Foe’) when it became their turn to act, joining the Beornings in frightening the outlaws. Then the massive bear form of Beorn himself showed up, tearing into the remaining enemy and swiftly routing them!

The players loved it! I asked the new player what he thought, as well as my own teenaged son (who occasionally joins us); both are far more experienced with the rush and thrill of modern video games. They used words like “intense” and said that it was awesome! They were convinced that they were going to die! The new player said that he really liked the system, and very much wants to join us again!

Even though we’d been playing pretty continuously for about seven hours (eight for the father and son that arrived early to make his new character), the players all stuck around to take a Fellowship phase, to get new gear and take Beorn as a Patron and work on their characters. Everyone is really enjoying the game, and it’s been a blast for all of us.

I just thought I’d share a bit of how fun our game was.

[bigsteveuk]

Sounds like a most excellent session, kudos to you and your LM skills.

[zedturtle]

Fantastic stuff!

[shipwreck]

Awesome! Thank you for sharing!

One thing I'm still a little uncomfortable with as LM is combat. I have (or I perceive that I have) a weird balance to maintain in my home game: two gamers who love to kill stuff, and two not-quite-gamers who would prefer not to die. I'm starting to think that making combat more dangerous is going to be the ticket. It will probably make it more exciting for everyone.

Without hijacking this thread, can you make some recommendations on running combat? Basically I have tokens and a battle board and I keep up with numbers on pad/paper. We use Syrinscape for ridiculous sound effects. Any tips on zazzing things up?

[Majestic]

Thank you all! And that's not hijacking the thread at all; I'm glad to help! In fact, I hope others feel free to chime in with their pointers and advice as well.

Shipwreck, it sounds like you're putting some effort into things and using additional tools (tokens, sound effects, etc.), which are all good aids. I'd been using glass beads (color coded to the various characters) on Voidstate's handy little battle mat. But this last time one of my players brought some miniatures and I think most really appreciated that little addition (I think I'm going to try to find some miniatures of the PCs myself).

I personally think music helps. I use Howard Shore's outstanding symphonic compositions for the films (both The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings), but even finding suitable, action movie theme-type music on Pandora will liven things up.

And keeping track (on separate paper) of the various NPCs (and which PC they're matched up with) can really help keep things moving along fairly quickly and help with the pacing. There's not much worse than having players falling asleep around the table as they wait an hour for their next turn to come around.

I've been encouraging my players to utilize the Tasks available to them in combat, too (Intimidate Foe, Rally Comrades, etc.), to add some variety. They're just now starting to explore those some more, and one thing I think that has helped is that I printed out a game aid (not sure who made it, but it's probably in the Resources thread; it's actually not 100% accurate but it gets the players thinking) that lists all four, and I leave it out for the players to take a look at during play.

Others, feel free to share your advice on what helps in your games!

[Fridokind Wargaug]

Sounds awesome. You got lucky with your group. When I played the adventure with Lady Irime (don't know the English name) and my group was fighting against this massive amount of orcs and two of them nearly died. Then the eagles came and saved them (similar to your situation I guess). Unfortunatelly, they hated it. They thought it was stupid to let them fight two hours without any hope of ever winning and then using dei-ex-machina to turn the tide. But I guess those are just the different likings of players.

[Falenthal]

they heard the sounds of the Beornings around them pounding the butts of their spears on the ground, chanting “Beorn! Beorn! Beorn!”. Instead of having the few opponents left attack them, I had them freeze in terror, a few dropping their weapons. The adventurers did the same (choosing ‘Intimidate Foe’) when it became their turn to act, joining the Beornings in frightening the outlaws. Then the massive bear form of Beorn himself showed up, tearing into the remaining enemy and swiftly routing them!

This moments are the reason why rpgs are such a great way of spending seven hours with a group of people.

Congratulations for how you handled the situation, and to your players for loving it.

[Majestic]

Thanks, Falanthal.

Fridokind, I totally get what you're saying, and that is a valid concern (one my players have had before, though not with this game). We'll see how it goes with the Eagles (which is coming up next).

At least for this one ("Kinstrife & Dark Tidings"), there was so much player choice earlier on, plus even how they fought had a significant enough effect on the adventure that it didn't feel too deus ex machina for my players.

[bigsteveuk]

You got lucky with your group. When I played the adventure with Lady Irime (don't know the English name) and my group was fighting against this massive amount of orcs and two of them nearly died. Then the eagles came and saved them (similar to your situation I guess). Unfortunatelly, they hated it. They thought it was stupid to let them fight two hours without any hope of ever winning and then using dei-ex-machina to turn the tide. But I guess those are just the different likings of players.

Tell them to read or watch LOTR covering the Battle of the Pelennor Fields, which is the perfect example of heroes needing reinforcements. Also I have beat out of my players the concept that they can win every fight and can win without help!!.