The Hauteville Campaign - Forgotten Realms

PillBox · Post by **PillBox** » Sun Dec 02, 2007 7:04 pm

I used to play AD&D 2nd edition back in 1990 - 1993, but left my country and never really got back into the game.

Last year September, I bought the 3.5 core books, and the forgotten realms setting, and wanted to get my girlfriend into the game. We spent loads of time during the character creation process, background details etc, but when it came to game time, it took a long time. None of us know the new rules, and this was a big problem. We stopped playing.

Just this week, I decided on a new approach to learning. Instead of getting into all the background details, and roleplaying elements, I decided that we were going to learn combat.

Maptools is great for this. I can create a quick dungeon (min. 30 minutes), and take it from there. We have already completed 2 sessions with fighters (No magic yet), and it is a lot more fun than our first approach. Even though the party got wiped out. Learning D&D this way also allows me to learn how the software works.

Maptools really helps out a lot, and we will be doing a lot more of this in the future, and once we are happy with the way combat works, we will move deeper into the game, and start a proper campaign. Once I am more confident, I may start a campaign over the net.

Hawke · Post by **Hawke** » Sun Dec 02, 2007 7:50 pm

Sweet! Glad you're getting the girl involved...

My favorite combat addition to the standard rules is facing. It gets a little rough on the tabletop but a lot easier with Map Tool. Not sure if you're interested in that, but if so Dracorat created some great facing templates that we used for the first several sessions while we got used to the rules.

Don't be hesitant to ask questions about Map Tool as you learn... there's a lot of stuff still in the works and in 1.3 a lot of new stuff that's undocumented.

PillBox · Post by **PillBox** » Sun Dec 02, 2007 8:17 pm

Not really used facings at all. Just real basic stuff at the moment.

I am thinking of making a quick 'hack 'n slash' adventure, and hopefully some experienced DM could join us (with some players) and teach me some tricks.

EDIT *********************

Just had a quick look at the site you posted concerning facing.

Did not realise this was not covered in the core books. Have not yet had time to check it out, but a quick glance has made me interested...

PillBox · Post by **PillBox** » Fri Dec 14, 2007 4:56 pm

Just completed another short sitting. Did not really have time to play much tonight, so we only played for around 2 hours.

Started a new game with new characters. Maptools really does make life a lot easier.

Latest Screenshot : (where adventure ended)

SirGunther · Post by **SirGunther** » Fri Dec 14, 2007 5:20 pm

Do the little i info circles pop up the text that is shown in the box labeled 'Information 6'? Because that is something I have never seen before, and would like to use, if it does.

PillBox · Post by **PillBox** » Fri Dec 14, 2007 5:25 pm

The information sign is an image I got off the internet. I used tokentools to make a token from the image. Finally I placed the token as a GM layer, and the text you see at the bottom is what is displayed when the players (or DM) click on it (It is taken from the notes properties for the token).

Post by **trevor** » Sun Dec 16, 2007 8:29 pm

creative use of token tool

looks like a fun map you had them jumping in

SirGunther · Post by **SirGunther** » Sun Dec 16, 2007 8:53 pm

Hm. I should give that a try, to help me remember stuff. I have some i tokens like that. I thought they came with the default stuff, but I must have picked them up somewhere else. One of the things I love about the forums are the cool ideas I can steal.

PillBox · Post by **PillBox** » Wed Dec 19, 2007 7:57 pm

Well, I have announced my intentions to DM over the net using Maptools, and so Far things are looking good. Four players have created their characters, and I am waiting on 2 others.

Looking forward to this, though we will probably only start in the New Year, once everyone settles back down into everyday life.

PillBox · Post by **PillBox** » Sun Dec 23, 2007 9:17 pm

Well, last night was my first attempt at DMing 3.5 rules, and also my first attempt at DMing over the internet.

It was pretty slow to start off with, and though it did not get much faster, we did learn a great deal together.

Hopefully our next session will be next weekend.

Looking forward to it.

Basically, what happend was this :

The party was called by a local inkeeper to investigate what was beyond a doorway that had never been known about down in the cellar. Strange noises had been keeping the Innkeeper awake, so she finally decided it needed looking into.

What the party found was a small clan of goblins that had moved into the forgotten basements of the inn. Unfortunately for them, the PCs cleaned most of them out ... until they found the source of the goblin infestation. They had tunneled their way into the inn, but the tunnel they originally used to gain access was also their escape route in the end. None of the party member could fit through the goblins tunnel.

Some screenshots of the map :

The Start :

The Monk finds a secret door :

The Goblins escaped through a small tunnel :

Post by **trevor** » Wed Dec 26, 2007 12:28 am

Heh, that Chuck Norris token is awesome !

mrobviousjosh · Post by **mrobviousjosh** » Wed Dec 26, 2007 4:16 am

trevor wrote:Heh, that Chuck Norris token is awesome !

No joke! And I thought my Batman tokens were cool. Man, I'll just have to make a Chuck Norris one now, lol.

PillBox · Post by **PillBox** » Mon Jan 07, 2008 3:35 pm

Had our third session on saturday night. It started off ok - leveled up the characters to level 2, then modified the tokens, but then my PC decided to reset itself, and it started acting weird after that. Spent 45 minutes trying to sort it out.

After that we had a few lag issues, but nothing serious. The session covered a lot of combat, though I feel the players at the back of the 'Marching Order' may be getting a little bored. The barbarian actually decided to move to the back after taking a big beating from a gnoll (it got a crit on him, and the healer managed to save him at the last second). Because of the confines of the dungeon, they usually end up sitting at the back with nothing to do. So, I guess the next adventure will involve some wilderness play. Just need to start making maps for that ...

I decided to create a website for the campaign to share with others, so if you are interested, visit www.pillboxgames.com/DND (If you are visiting this link just after I post this you will probably get a 'Internet Explorer cannot display the webpage' error as my webhost is currently working on the servers).

Currently the website holds information on :

Character Information
NPC information
Monsters Encountered
Party Stash (loot)
The Locations (Campaign is set in the Forgotten Realms)

There is more just does not come to mind. So far it has proven to be pretty useful for the players.

Tokentools is actually a valueable tool to use for the website, and has come in very handy.

Post by **trevor** » Mon Jan 07, 2008 3:46 pm

PillBox wrote:So, I guess the next adventure will involve some wilderness play.

You enter a 10' x 10' room. There is a treasure chest in the far corner, and a rabid looking gnoll with a spear standing next to it ... eyeing you very, very closely.

PillBox · Post by **PillBox** » Mon Jan 14, 2008 6:14 pm

Our Session on Saturday went pretty well. There was no lag on the servers, and it ran pretty smoothly.

The Paladin had to deal with his disease he had recieved from the Dire Rats, and later got knocked out by a grik.

Almost finished this adventure, then they will taste their first wilderness gaming.