Touch ALL the Things

Had another session of 5e D&D with Mesk, this time playing with hks. I think this was hks' introduction to Mesk's Starsworn campaign in general, and like me, he hasn't really done too much of this before in the past. Both of us were a little unprepared for the session as we were a little busy during the week. I personally ended up putting all my character details together at the last second, but my liberal arts degree in BS came in handy as I pulled actions and dialogue out of my ass.

This session went way better for me in terms of engaging with the story and the events and taking more of a leading role in terms of exploration and interaction. One of my theories was just it was easier to work with a smaller group of people (i.e. what I'm more used to playing with just Shauna and Nick) and I didn't feel like I was interrupting other people's stories/dialogue. Another idea was that I was just more comfortable in general because I know Mesk and hks and have played other games with them in the past, vs the other group who are all essentially strangers to me. This doesn't mean that I wouldn't play with the other group in the future (cause that was fun too). I just don't know them as well.

Anyway, the campaign took longer than expected because hks and I pretty much went everywhere and touched all the things. We also did it in an order that didn't railroad the plot as much as Mesk anticipated. I became the official door opener somehow and kept exploring and investigating EVERYTHING. Poor Mesk had to make up some things as he went because of it.

I actually got to test out the combat which was fun as well. It's a lot more simplified from 4e D&D in that the abilities and skills are much more limited. In 4e you get a wide array of powers and feats to mix and match for combat. My other D&D campaigns have been mostly focused on the combat vs the storytelling, which is fair considering one group really loves fighting and loot, and the other group was brand new to D&D and hadn't had as much of the experience with the roleplaying aspect. That said, both groups had enough of it to balance. There is definitely more roleplaying in Mesk's campaigns vs combat, which I think is fine when you have that level of content to go through and flesh out. If we spent hours on combat, these sessions would never end (or would need to be paced much differently). An example would be a major fight Nick set up for Shauna and I which took about 4 hours to complete, and included ballistae, giant crocodile god monsters, a group of NPCS (who all uh...died heh) and about 3 or 4 types of lizardmen. In game time was likely about 10-15minutes. Nick gives out a crap ton of experience for these though, which gets us levelling up faster. We're between levels 10 and 12 in the three campaigns we cycle through.

(Nothing was as great as the time we recruited a bunch of giant purple vagina rocks to fight a succubus on a mountain and stop it from opening some sort of portal. We got the dude down to like 5hp left and he tried to escape by shape-shifting into a bat. One of the rocks got an attack of opportunity as he left and it miraculously hit, essentially back-handing the bat and killing the succubus. Nick placed a tiny little blood smear on the rock for our amusement. What made it even better was Nick tried to make him act all cool and dramatic and he got killed for his efforts.)

Mesk's other action that made it take a lot longer was that he made the session a kind of mystery and I'm kind of a sucker for mysteries and problem solving. I play too much Fire Emblem too, so I like the high-level planning and strategy, while trying to think of creative ways to accomplish goals or fights. This is part appealing to my interests and part experience as Nick often rewards us for thinking out situations or battles creatively.

So we opened all the doors, investigated all the things, and touched EVERYTHING. Then I misunderstood some of the backstory and confused both of them by constantly trying to blow up the station when I thought it was compromised. Oops. I'll just write it off as a quirk of the character I was playing.

Anyway, I tried a little harder at the roleplay aspect this time and Mesk seems to think it went well, so hopefully that's a good sign for future sessions. I unfortunately had to quiet down at the end of the session because my voice was starting to go again and it was like...4am when we finished, so the video again will be of varying quality. If Mesk wants me to revoice some things later, I'm totally fine with that.

Again, if I get permission, I will share links to the videos on the blog when they are complete.