#Disabled wizard for my next dnd campaign

[simian-sam]

[ravel-puzzlewell]

Rant! Rant! Rant! :D But also TNO/Grace fic ideas would add 10 years to my life.

ok, I think I’ll write up TNO\Grace and other prompts in next couple of days and now I’ll rant

I don’t know what is it, but all “essays” on video games are absolute bullshit. I usually put them on background while I play or do smth boring, and now only do it for games I haven’t played, bc otherwise it’s insufferable 

So I click on that neverwinter nights video, because I don’t care if he drags nwn1. He starts with stating that the main defining trait for nwn1 was it’s toolset for players to create their own modules, and like sure, not mind-blowing analyses, but can’t argue with obvious. And then he extrapolates that nwn1 main campaign was very basic on purpose, to teach everyone how constructing dnd campaigns works, and like... sure it was basic, but if we frame it like this then bioware are still out there sacrificing the complexity of their stories to teach ppl storytelling. Because yeah, neverwinter nights 1 story was pretty basic, but it’s not like all of the other bioware’s games are some mind-blowing avantgarde storytelling. In fact, the plotline of just neverwinter nights 1 encompasses the ENTIRETY of mass effect trilogy. check it out:

PC only starts their career as adventurer\spectre and needs to prove themselves, when the sudden focused attack on an isolated base happens from an enemy they don’t know. PC spends next potion (entire ME1\Act 1 of nwn1) going thru isolated regions, solving their internal problems to uncover the leads. In the end, the harsh strike on the center of homebase (citadel\neverwinter) comes from the traitor (saren\i dont remember that cleric’s name) and PC has to stop them. After successfully doing so, the immediate danger to homebase recedes, but the danger is still here. PC spends next portion of story (ME2\Act 2) out of homebase, in the wild, going through isolated regions, solving their internal problems to uncover the leads and gather allies. They uncover the enemy base and go on a suicide mission to storm it (collector base\luskan tower). The curator\provider for their mission (TIM\Aribeth) fall from grace and join the enemy (actually works much better for Aribeth, bc she did not start as a terrorist piece of shit and so has actual grace to fall from) In the enemy base PC learns details much bigger threat that is coming to completely wipe out the civilization, it’s ancient and it was there long ago and now it’s fucking back! Again, PC spends some time going thru isolated regions, solving their problems and getting allies. The homebase is attacked (again, nwn1 is actually stronger here, bc the homebase is same - neverwinter, which we explored thoroughly during the first Act and have personal connection with, while in ME we’ve never been on Earth and attack on it only makes us feel things bc players care about real life Earth, so it’s cheating.) We deal with the traitor (we deal with TIM, right? I dont really remember. Anyway, Aribeth is better) and then the end mission attempts to be weird and out there to shift the paradigm (it’s ok in nwn1, which uses parallel dimensions and shit, and in ME3... well, you know how it fucking goes...) So yeah, if you gonna be like “nwn1 story was basic on purpose”, you gotta go “90% of bioware stories are basic on purpose????” like no bro. it’s just how they do plots.

But okay, it’s maybe a matter of perspective, so I listen more

and then he says that nwn1 had useless items bc they were randomly generated?? I mean what? I played nwn like 10 years ago, but I distinctly remember that all items had matching descriptions and I think were just standard dnd shit. I had a moment of just stunted stupor bc like “do I remember it SO wrong??”

and THEN he goes on for quite some time to rant that that nwn forces you to either play rogue or bring rogue with you, bc otherwise you can’t open locks or disable traps. And again, I was like 15 which I played it and I didn’t even play DnD at the time, but even I figured out what “Knock” and “Find Traps” spells are for! They fucking give you “Find Traps” wand at the beginning of Act 1, because items are NOT randomly generated in this game. I played first as wizard and next as druid and I’ve never got a rogue in my party and it was FINE

and THEN I see that it’s a retrospective and he’s gonna talk about motb at the end and I noped out of that tab with a speed of lightning, bc I do not have nerves for that one

[krixwell-liveblogs]

Oh hey what's going on in that dnd session of yours?

Well, a couple days ago, we finished the first arc of the campaign. Here’s a recap of what’s happened so far:

Our characters got hired (except for Icarus, who was there against his will because he got caught in a scam) by the Outermoor Abbey to travel to the nearby village of Starkmoor to gather intel on a supposed demon cult in the village. On the way there, we got attacked by bandits, one of whom told us afterwards that the bandits were afraid to go into Starkmoor because of the cult.

As we arrived in Starkmoor, we were welcomed by the cult leader, Farrengold, who allowed us to stay for the night provided we left in the morning. So naturally we went sneaking around town at night to find some proof of demonic cult activity to bring back to the abbey. Three of us, including Icarus, went to a small mine next to an isolated, dilapidated house, and the remaining two went into the larger mine that used to be the town’s source of income.

Keegan (half-elf ranger) and Nikolai (human bard), in the larger mine, found some crystals imbued with divination magic, and runes that didn’t make much sense when read.

Meanwhile, Icarus (my tiefling warlock), Venus (elf wizard) and Allura (dwarf barbarian) ended up finding Farrengold’s personal chamber down in the small mine, but got caught by Farrengold. After a short match of showing off magic powers (turned out Farrengold was a wizard), Icarus charmed him.

Thanks to the charm, Farrengold was willing to tell Icarus the truth about Starkmoor: The demon cult was all a ruse to keep the bandits out. (Icarus, being a charlatan himself, loved this, and became a lot more invested in the town than before.) After the charm wore off, Icarus told Farrengold the truth: That the party had been sent to Starkmoor to find out whether their unspecified employer should attack it, and it was in the town’s interests to let us go back and tell the truth.

Problem was, when we did, the bandits happened to be within earshot. Whoops.

So the party went on a lengthy chase after the bandits, fighting them on the way and disabling the carriage they’d stolen from us at the abbey, but Tremor Sun, the bandit leader, made it to Starkmoor (though with us right behind him). He grabbed Farrengold and brought him into the larger mine.

Icarus came into Starkmoor in the back, and as the rest of the party pursued Tremor down the mine, Icarus saw something in the town’s bonfire that told him there was an actual demon.

Icarus turned and rode backwards as fast as he could. He really didn’t want to deal with another actual demon.

Meanwhile, in the mine, the rest of the party learned that a) the crystals were keeping a demon shrine in check, b) Tremor Sun had once lived in Starkmoor, until the influence of demons on his skin (in the form of burning rashes) had caused Farrengold to make him leave. Now, after learning that the demon cult was fake, he believed the town was safe for him all along and Farrengold had tricked him. He also wanted to take the crystals, which of course was bad news.

Icarus was met along the way by the abbot, a group of paladins, the remaining bandits, and the “riders of the falling star”, a group the arrival of whom we had heard of in intro and outro segments that our characters didn’t know about. This group, with the help of a mental nudge from Icarus’ patron, successfully convinced Icarus to join them in defending Starkmoor from the demon he told them about.

When Icarus returned to Starkmoor and the rest of the party came out of the mines, the bonfire had been replaced by the burning Demon Lord Halsuupreon.

We were tasked with distracting the demon while the abbot, paladins and riders of the falling star set to work on banishing Halsuupreon back to where he belongs. We also had to deal with getting the crystals Tremor had stolen back where they needed to be.

During this boss enconter, Icarus decided to turn Halsuupreon’s flames blue, Venus got in the line “Hey! Tall, dark and ashy!” and Nikolai did some cool knife-juggling, among other things that happened. :P

Afterwards, we learned that the riders of the falling star were agents for a sort of organization similar to Interpol, tasked with protecting the world of the Firmament, and the Falling Star was the name of their spaceship. As these things go, we got hired by them, and we were on our way to their mountain base in the Feywild at the end of the last session. :)