Monday, August 09, 2004

The Politics of Hell

Ever spend a weekend where no one really knows where you are between playing D&D, eating at taco bell, driving around the mall blasting speed metal, going to game stores, waiting for friends to get off their temp job at a warehouse and finally crashing at home to your parents crying that they called all the hospitals trying to find you? Those were the days! The point is to say I wasted most of my youth and didn't get much out of school. I didn’t get a 4.0, no AP classes, no extra curricular activities, no attendance records; well actually I did get one for least days attended and still graduating.

All I ended up with are some funny stories to write down and a serious gaming habit. Habit is right, I can't stop I've tried. I spend too much money on it and time that could go into something positive. I still haven't hung up that bird feeder I have been meaning to. But I'm thinking of campaign ideas even as I'm writing this. I go to conventions and hang out with weirdoes just to get my fix. I am running a game every other Thursday these days, not playing Fridays and Saturdays like I used to. And the people seem a bit saner, less chemically altered as well.

I started running them through the U series a couple of months ago. It's nice to see the modules of yester year and my group doesn’t know them so well. They started out exploring an abandoned house that was rumored to be haunted. After some furious exploration they found some smugglers were using it as a base of operations. An illusionist was using spells to enhance the stories of it being haunted, to scare off meddling kids. While in the module they were supposed to defeat these guys they made so much noise and constantly announced their presence that the smugglers go the jump on them. They hauled them off to a ship to be sold into slavery. The module normally has a big role-playing section about getting onto the ship but meh. They escaped to and took over the ship. Finally to get back to the smugglers hide out and give them what for.

The next module deals with a map found on the boat. The players basically discover that they have been trading with a colony of lizard folk. They were sent to investigate the intentions of this encampment which was deemed dangerously close to a human town. Upon investigation the Lizard folk where not outwardly aggressive, and just seemed to want to be left alone. Later it was discovered that the colony was driven out of their lands by an aggressor and were forming an alliance to fight the enemy. The party was asked to prove their desire to help by dealing with a problem. The problem was a giant croc that was killing lizard men. Yeah old school modules didn't make a ton of sense. It was always to get what you want you have to help someone with like five nested sub quests that were always someone wanting your help.

Well that’s sort of where it was left off. I only write cuz the people I run through this malarkey wanted an update.

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