Any feedback of the event is welcome here:
- How well the event went over in your store
- problems you had ordering/sanctioning/running
- what should change for future game days
- what should stay the same for future game days
- or even how well your Dire Bear splattered someone.
It doesn't have to follow this format. [/EDIT]As always - if you have any SPECIFIC feedback you feel WotC really needs to hear, feel free to file a report with Customer Service (http://www.wizards.com/customerservice). I'll be including a link to this thread in my monthly report to Chris, however - so it posts here should be seen by "the man" himself.
Now I have to start again... 
Thank you to WotC for the extra kits. We used two of the three kits, and the third was to be used for the third table at the store, but that kit got used to support more tables at the game store across the street (also running the WWGD).
We had less show up due to the death of the father of one of our players. Our RPGA Club president's father passed away this past week, and the funeral was on Saturday. I would have attended the funeral, but I was the coordinator of the WWGD, and had 3 tables to DM. Thankfully, my friend understood the conflicting schedule...
Here are the things I'm used to reporting via fax after the WWGD:
Female attendance = 8%
Age Breakdown of Players:
10-19 = 0
20-29 = 7 (29%)
30-39 = 6 (25%)
40-49 = 11 (46%)
50+ = 0
Attendees that were new to the store: 9
Attendees new to RPGA: 7 (thank you for the DCI cards)
Memorable qoute from the WWGD: "Of course a single digit rolled on the d20 doesn't hit... This is Paragon level, man!"
Of the three tables I ran, the mill blew up twice. In the morning event, the mill blew up in the first round (OUCH!) Player feedback on this encounter was that the dragonborn's breath weapon should have been fire based.
Those are some twisted players... :D As written, that module can not be played in 2-3 hours. I took the liberty of scaling down a few things to get the players through all encounters. The story was great, and the players loved it.
At two of the tables, I was able to get an Ursine Crush. And wouldn't you know it, each time was the PC that could teleport away. So much for the continued auto damage on a grabbed character... :P
I collected the names, RPGA#s, and email addys of all players, and will email everyone with the details of the 23 May WWGD. I believe some of the new players will join our LFR community, and I'll add them to our email coordination of local events each month.
All in all, another great game day - though it was overshadowed by personal hardship.
-Timmy!
Colorado Springs
RPGA Club: Steele Justice
Please provide any feedback you have on the WorldWide Game Day event for the PHB2 (March 21st 2009) here.
Any feedback of the event is welcome here:
- How well the event went over in your store
- problems you had ordering/sanctioning/running
- what should change for future game days
- what should stay the same for future game days
- or even how well your Dire Bear splattered someone.
As always - if you have any SPECIFIC feedback you feel WotC really needs to hear, feel free to file a report with Customer Service (http://www.wizards.com/customerservice). I'll be including a link to this thread in my monthly report to Chris, however - so it posts here should be seen by "the man" himself.
- How well the event went over in your store
We had 15 Players and 3 GM's. This is by far the best turn out for a WWD&DGD we have had in our area. - problems you had ordering/sanctioning/running
We had no problems sanctioning or running the event - what should change for future game days
Everything worked well so cant say I have any suggestions to change anything. It had a good turnout for us and the store sold all but 1 of their books. And all of the ones purchased were playing at our tables.
I would like to amend this. I would like to see the adventures printed in the same way that our LFR modules are written. It confused one of our new GM's with the layout of this module compared to the LFR layout. - or even how well your Dire Bear splattered someone
Not sure how the Dire Bear worked at the other tables. But at my table I could not hit with the 2nd attack EVER! Of course this carried over to my Tempest fighter in the LFR game we played after. Grumble
#2 bit of feedback, also unanimous (even among people new to the RPGA, although not new to 4E): the characters were kind of wussy, and filled with errors.
#3 bit of feedback, not unanimous but widely held: the adventure itself was pretty good. Everyone had a good time.
- How well the event went over in your store
- problems you had ordering/sanctioning/running
- what should change for future game days
- what should stay the same for future game days
- or even how well your Dire Bear splattered someone.
- How well the event went over in your store
We filled 2 full tables out of the three kits. The other GM and I used parts of the third kit as a prize pack and divided up the rest.
Potentially, as a cost cutting measure in the future, kits could be ordered on a one for one basis, based upon how many tables are expected. While we have a good regular crowd at the store I run at, we'll never have more than 2 tables. - problems you had ordering/sanctioning/running
None here. The only issue was FedEx being a bit slow on delivery. - what should change for future game days
The adventure ran a LOT longer than advertised. Mostly due to the sheer number of enemy HP. I recommend that future Game Day Adventure authors more liberally use minions.
Also, why in the name of the Raven Queen was the pre-gens not made with standard array? Paragon level characters with PENALTIES in some attributes? What?
And in connection with the above notes on kit ordering, I think there being some method of pre-registration to at least estimate the number of kits/DMs that will be needed is a good idea. - what should stay the same for future game days
I think the current format is pretty good actually. An adventure that can be run out of box is good for these promotional days. - or even how well your Dire Bear splattered someone.
I didn't get a kill with him, mainly cause they scattered and kept 'mark trading' on the poor guy... the other DM got a KO however (the character lived to second encounter however).
Hope that information is helpful.
K Taylor
RPGA Herald DM - 6109852785
How well the event went over in your store
Minor nitpick: I am not running at a store. I run for our university's game club, who happened to have scheduled a local convention on the same day. I intend to continue doing Game Day events there, and I may be able to get a weekly session going beginning after exams.
The convention brought in a number of spectators, but as most of them were involved in events already, only one table was run. For our first event, I'm pleased with the results.
problems you had ordering/sanctioning/running
Ordering and sanctioning were fine as soon as the location was entered into the database. The comments made about the length of the adventure applied here, but in our case, it was compounded by trying to explain the system to the two players with no experience in 4th Edition. I might be able to finish this adventure within the time limit double dummy (a bridge term referring to looking at the situation with perfect knowledge of everything, even the hidden parts), but players being introduced to the system or the character classes (as in this particular adventure) aren't going to maximize their tactics.
what should change for future game days
- Please invest in printing the character sheets in color. The green "At-will" and red "encounter" headings look alike when printed in grayscale. It's a lot easier to explain to players "your green powers can be used every round, your red powers can be used once per 'fight' and your black powers can be used once during the adventure."
- I would like to see them also printed single-sided. The reason is that the powers lists can then be spread out on the table. I can then bring poker chips or beads for players to mark their powers when used, and it has everything visible for the players to see.
- One of my players asked for the breakdown of where the hit and damage values are coming from on the attack. I would have done it myself, but they are based on a book that wasn't released yet.
- A tactics sheet for the players would be helpful ("Consider using your Combat Sprint to get into the action quickly" for example.)
- Anything to bring the adventure to a halt more quickly would work. Because of the convention schedule I had to skip the mill encounter.
- Nothing indicated where the players should start. I figured out the mill and the final encounter, but the town square encounter has two possibilities. I picked the "southeast" corner, but the "northeast" corner would have worked as well. I chose the one I did because of the bench and the barrel; which worked out well, although the puddles never came into play as a result. (The quickling bounded up to the warforged, who then tried poking the quickling, then the bear sealed everyone into the area.)
what should stay the same for future game days
Self-contained adventures are great. As I only ran one session, I was able to give the other two away as convention prizes. The map posters are a great idea too.
or even how well your Dire Bear splattered someone.
I had an interesting dire bear situation. Squeaks has been going toe-to-toe with this thing, getting frustrated that he isn't bringing the bear down (but not quite frustrated enough to rage, go figure). Meanwhile, the bear has been rolling single digits and the players are looking at it as a simple meat shield. Finally, the "claw, claw, grab, spend an action point, crush!" goes off and it was fun to see the player yelp, "Mommy!" It stopped there as he was able to escape the grab the next round.
Any feedback of the event is welcome here:
I'm adding a few things here:
As a first-time organizer of RPGA events, there was no indication of what to do with the "gold" and "xp" lines of the reporting screen. I am pretty sure I did it right, but noting up front that those needed to be tracked is a good thing. (As this is self-contained, the only thing I was worried about was where the potion went.)
My players had an interesting run of using powers that describe long-term conditions, only to have the damage from the attack drop the monster.
And finally, what was Squeaks doing with a Paladin utility power?
Dominick Riesland, DCI 5735
Herald GM and Magic Judge
[email]rabbitball@gmail.com[/email]
We had 3 full tables of 5 players, and everyone had a good time.
As has been noted here, and elsewhere: there were a fair number of errors and omissions in the character sheets. I'd strongly suggest using the DDI Character Generator program for these in the future.
Using 11th-level characters, particularly when most, if not all, of the powers are *brand new*, leads to a steep learning curve just to get familiar with the characters, particularly for new players. At our venue, we had 2 tables of experienced players, and 1 table of mostly newer players, and that table (which was mine) did struggle quite a bit with just how much there was to learn all at once. I'd suggest sticking with mid-Heroic tier characters in the future, especially when the particular Game Day is showing off new character options.
The adventure wasn't bad (though it's really just combat-combat-combat), but it honestly was too long. The three DMs at our venue, who had played it as a Slot Zero a few weeks ago, all agreed to cut down the HP totals of the monsters in the first two fights, just so that we could get done in a timely fashion. Even so, we had one table take 3 1/2 hours, and the other two take over 4. I'd strongly suggest not making these so lengthy...two good combats and a skill challenge or role-playing opportunity, taking no more than 3 hours, is plenty, especially for an event where you're hoping to attract new players.
I ran this event in a 4-hour span (well closer to 3 hours cuz we got late setting up) with 2 tables with six players each. I DM'ed one table and one of my friends DM'ed the other one. This was held in a reserved room at SUNY Oswego and was advertised for students and the general public, although my advertising was a little short because of unrelated problems. Since i had 6 players on each table I also made a pregen of my own, as circumstances didn't allow for me to separate into 3 tables.
Most of the players were experienced 4th ed players, however I had 2 players at my table who were relatively new to 4th ed (but had some 3.5 experience). My breakdown was everybody (minus myself) were 18-25 college students and there was one female gamer at each table (my gf at my table and a friend's gf with him at the other table). Everybody had heard about this from my campus advertising as opposed to my off-campus advertising.
Both tables ran through the first encounter, although it took a good 1 1/2 hr to get to it and I houserule'd it a bit to get through it faster once we got through a number of rounds. The higher HP values made it a bit of a pain since my players weren't doing more then 10-20 damage per and they weren't focusing on one target. In the last hour, both tables did quick skill changes for encounters 2 and 3 and skipped the encounter 2 combat since were very pressed for time but were able to get through the last encounter.
My players' feedback was that the pregen sheets were a bit confusing compared to standard character sheets, they really need to follow the same format from now on if that can be arranged as since character builder is out now I shouldn't be deal for inhouse pregens to be made and shipped. I did issue sheet corrections per suggestions from Slot Zero postings which helped some. The most popular character were the Drow Avenger (both tables really really liked it, and considered it the best class in PHB2) and Tiefling Invoker (had to have a roll-off for that too), the Paladin was the least popular mostly because it wasn't a new class. Players enjoyed being able to take home their minis, they didn't care for their character sheets though, but I think the consensus was the minis felt like WOTC intentionally picked the lowest quality minis they could but everybody acknowledged beggers can't be choosers when it comes to freebies.
In terms of the module, it made it much easier to run it given it already came with minis and maps already setup (I'd love to see more of these frequently, if possible) and getting some freebies made people more willing to overlook the flaws. Most players were more used to rp-driven stories so they were taken a bit back by the focus on combat but the combats were considered pretty fun and interesting with nice selection of monsters (the Dire Bear got nicknamed at both tables, my table invented the "Dire Bear dance" which a player was required to "Do The Bear!" when they crit'ed on it). There was enough of a story to give it a purpose and seemed better designed then most of the dungeon delves. I had a player or two who would liked if it was setting-specific to Eberron, FR, whatever to give it a better place in terms of theme (any chance there will be an Eberron Game Day when it comes out?).
All in all everybody had a good time even though who were initially hestiant on trying out a "stock adventure from the Microsoft of tabletop gaming" (the person's words, not mine) but thought a lot better of it after the game and a number of people took increased interest in purchasing the PHB2 afterwards. Unforunately I haven't picked my copy up yet so I didn't have it available at the game but those players who got to preview it think its alot better then my initial concerns of wasting their money on having to purchase additional core books each year.
I hope to run the Monster Manual 2 Game Day however given its date it will be in a completely different venue (a store this time instead of a university).
1. Reporting requirements need to be made clear as far in advance as possible.
2. I don't know what the plan is with the move to the new minis, but PC minis for the players are a very big deal in all our area venues.
3. A little more for the players would be nice, the old PC kits with a box, mini, die, cs, & pencil went over well, but just the mini, cs, and one D&D Rewards card each (for example) would help bring more of them in and make them feel special plus would help to promote RPGA events and, by virtue of the new con packs, cons as well so that they have places to use those cards and to get more. An exclusive card would REALLY bring players and DMs in.
4. The encounters seemed very HP-heavy on the monster side, especially given that most player were playing with mechanics they had little or no experience with. The 2-3 hour running time is a bit of a joke.
5. We pulled in two and a half tables of players that drove over 60 miles to play with us as none of the game stores in their area could be bothered to run D&D on a day when they usually run collectible games -- which bring in far more profit. I would suggest that if WotC intends to limit the World Wide Gamedays to a single, specific day, they look into providing more incentive to stores so that they feel it's worth setting tables aside all day.
Overall, we had 3 tables throughout the day, a huge increase over last summer's single table, which was due to that Gameday having to be run on a specific day, the SAME weekend as Magic regionals. Most of our players enjoy multiple Hasbro properties and so were pulled out of the store to the other side of the state, resulting in a very boring day.
I do appreciate the Gamedays though, and I'm looking forward to MM2!
Total of 4 sessions 2 DM's running at once. Full attendance. Store owner stated with walkins and people hovering that walked in, we could have probably ran another 2 tables. Big complaints from all the sessions about the first encounter and the time of adventure. I loved telling the players and the store owner "O btw, I know the fliers said it would take 2-3 hours, but they really meant 4-6 hours."
problems you had ordering/sanctioning/running
Ordering and Sanctioning wasn't a problem. Getting information about the event prior to receiving the items in the mail was horrible. Store owner was upset with the number of player miniatures provided. Running the event within the time constrains was impossible.
what should change for future game days
More information on the event, before we run it. Shorter adventure. Lower lvl characters. Less female characters to play. More minis to give to players. Fliers and character sheets with correct information.
what should stay the same for future game days
The DM rewards were nice. The minis, map, and format of the adventure was good for the DM's.
how well your Dire Bear splattered someone
4 sessions. 1 Bear connected through once. It was a cool narrative, but by the time it happened, most the players were already sick of looking at the bear mini and the rest of everything else in that encounter.
I have a whole long list of questions that I STILL have about the game day and the aftermath of it all. I also have a lot of complaints I would like to put in one place as well. I don't think that stuff is supposed to go in this thread though.
The feedback was very good as far as players went. We ran 7 tables worth that I know of, I don't think any ran any later. I attribute their enjoyment to our running a slot zero and modifying the module a bit to make it more workable.
problems you had ordering/sanctioning/running
Please let us have more player minis. We typically run two games per DM and this time we could not give away minis to the players.
Also, can we not have level 11 characters? What is wrong with level 3 or 5? I had players new to 4E who had a very rough time. Thankfully there were enough experts in 4E to lend a hand, but we could not complete the adventure in 4 hours with the steep learning curve, even some of us old 4E hats had trouble with the pregens and running them.
The maps were terrible. Some of the "tiles" weren't even lined up right and it was confusing in the second encounter where entrances were located or that the fountain was a millstone.
what should change for future game days
See above. Make sure the pregens are accurate. Use the CB to release the pregen characters so we will know they are right and that the character sheets are in the style many are used to.
Someone should playtest these adventures too. The trap in the end was a TPK generator without modification.
what should stay the same for future game days
Store support. I worked hard to pull off the gameday for the store, and I don't even work there! But please, continue to support the FLGS in these sorts of gamedays as much as you can. I think the store sold 20 PHB2s that day, not too bad). More gameday kits would have enabled us to run more tables but I understand the need to limit it.
or even how well your Dire Bear splattered someone
I came close to ursine squeezing one character... but not quite enough.
So lower level characters and the module printed like the LFR modules and I am good to go.
I took the opportunity to also offer Return to the Moathouse, a lvl5 adventure, for anyone looking for Heroic Tier gameplay.
The monthly delves could be a better place for paragon or epic, that gives you four encounters per month, that would be a better place to run those sorts of things, particularly now that we have the Delve book out and can run things out of that game.
I say this because I have at least five people from the PHB2 event who asked if I could run a low level adventure on Delve night so they could get a better grasp of the mechanics of 4E.
edit: PS, sorry for derailing the topic here a bit.
There are those of us who want to play all of 4e at each tier, not just the tactical bits. ;)
http://www.livingdice.com/1545/dungeons-and-dragons-worldwide-game-day-2009-report/
Thanks for the opportunity to provide feedback. I have blogged about my experience if interested:
http://www.livingdice.com/1545/dungeons-and-dragons-worldwide-game-day-2009-report/
I'll skim it as time allows.
I've been pulling quotes here and there for my monthly report (in case Chris doesn't/can't read the thread himself) so I'll see if there's anything quoteable in there.
I think that with many non-Living RPGA adventure at levels higher than 5, that is, one where you aren't using a character you've been building up to the current level and therefore played with extensively, runs the risk of players not being clear on what archetype the pregen designer was going for, and therefore not understanding how to play that character to it's strenghts. That results in the player (new or not) not using some or most of the PC's abilities and powers at all or as effectively as possible, resulting in almost every pregen party being weaker in practice than they would seem on paper.
This of course results in the Encounter level not actually being balanced to the party's effective level, which then results in deaths or really long encounters, or lots of DME to run things along. And when DMEing HP on the fly, that can screw with a lot of the "when bloodied" mechanics which are showing up more and more in the PC's arsenal. Even worse are those RPGA modules with higher-than normal encounter level for the party requested which would result in
I am aware that there are those that only want to play adventures that are real slog fests and/or that really want to put new game mechanics to the test by seeing what it takes to kill an Avenger, etc.
I would suggest a happy median: that as many as possible or all non-LFR RPGA modules also get the hi/low treatment which, at a single level, would amount to easy mode/hard mode. Let the party and GM decide together on how tough they want the tactical encounters to be depending on skill level, familiarity with PCs, and time available to play.
I don't know how big a deal adding that would be, but two of us at my store alone had to cut an encounter each from Weeping Briar to finish within time and I also DME'd some hits in to move things along.
Please look into this Chris & team, it would be fantastically helpful.
Some specific comments: I agree with the prevailing surprise / disappointment about the inclusion of a paladin. I understand the desire to preview new material from Divine Power, but it didn't come across that way. There aren't too many people out there who have the PHB paladin powers memorized to the point where they'll even notice a difference. Every time the paladin was played in our games, it was because the players realized they needed a defender, not because anyone really wanted to play one. (By contrast, I had at least one player specifically request to play each of the other four characters.)
I know this has been brought up, but it bears repeating - the character sheets were woefully inaccurate and filled with mistakes. I went into it figuring to just leave everything as is - that is until the paladin ran out of surges halfway through because he'd been shorted by three. In addition, there were multiple DC 35 skill checks to be made within this adventure. A level 11 character with skill training and a 20 in the relevant stat would need to roll a natural 20 to hit that check. I thought that the skill DC updates were put in place in order to eliminate exactly this sort of need for min-maxing skill checks.
As to the character sheets themselves - print them in color. We've all been trained on the colors of powers by now, anyone who's read the core books knows what green, red, black, and yellow mean pretty much by reflex. Gray, gray, black, and gray? Not so much. I actually wound up reprinting all the sheets to minimize confusion. And please, do them in the character builder. The powers weren't so bad, but nobody can find anything on those topsheets. (Untrained skill checks are especially annoying.)
There's no way that adventure gets completed in 2-3 hours. We wound up completely skipping the final encounter at both tables in the first slot (thus finishing in roughly 3.5 hours). Both tables for the second slot managed to get all the way through it, but the shorter of the two tables took slightly less than five hours to do it.
I'd also like to see some way to scale the kits. A GM running one or two tables shouldn't have the same kit as a GM running six or eight tables. Fortunately I have some experienced and understanding players who volunteered to give up their minis so that I could have enough to run the second slot. Forcing people to give up their minis and walk away practically empty-handed from this == Bad Thing (tm).
I don't want to seem overly negative here - as I said, overall it was a positive experience for all involved. There were lots of happy reactions to the new characters, and the "oh, %$*@" moments when the runespiral demons accidentally blew up the mill were priceless. (Happened at least twice.) There's a lot going right with these events (or we wouldn't keep running them) but I think that with a little bit of work they can be amazing.
I took highlighters to the ones for my table. So I didnt see a problem with it. And the mistakes on the characters didnt really matter to us. Its a one shot adventure and you dont carry your characters forward in anything. So people are just playing for fun and to get a peek at the new classes.
Please mention the monsters in the encounter lists, running that mod cold tends to make the fully written out skill challenge happen before the first fight as nothing in Encounter 1 says, hey there are monsters to fight too guys so you know. It'd be nice if the text at least mentioned it somewhere, or like actually put the full encounters in order. If your going to summarize, then summarize, don't put 3 summaries and then 1 actual encounter all together and the put the other encounters after that!
The party never made it to the third encounter, it was pretty much a TPK in the mill when it exploded.
So I've got questions.
Why was there a dragonborn paladin? This was even advertised as PHB2 game day, so why a paladin? Why not one of the new PHB2 defenders? Why a teifling? Why a drow? Why a warforged? Why a dragonborn? You guys put out one new PHB2 race, not even a new one, and then two PHB1 races, two Monster Manual races and then you give the warforge feats that aren't described unless you have the dragon magazine on hand that they were written in?
That's seriously messed up guys. The game ran way over and the only person having any fun was the DM at the table and you certainly didn't sell any books at that shop.
I don't mind that the characters weren't printed in color, if people can't be bothered to take the time to read some text that isn't your fault, but it seemed like there were errors all over the place, one even stapled wrong. My suggestion for the next D&D game day is to skip it all together, don't bother with it and focus on other things.
Error pregens coming from WotC is getting old though, there were LOTS of errors across several events last summer.
And editor or just someone other than the pregen creator should definitely give pregens a twice-over before release. Or say, could WotC please put the PCs through the same dev and editing process as the adventure they are meant to be used with?
As to printing the sheets in color. Everyone should have had access to the downloaded files well prior to the game day. Those were in color and you were more than welcome to print them yourselves I am sure.
I did. I don't think I should have to. For WotC, this is as much a marketing tool as anything else. Spitting out b/w character sheets isn't really putting the best image forward IMO.
And the mistakes on the characters didnt really matter to us.
That was my attitude going into it as well, until one character very nearly died because of a typo. At that point my players' fun is on the line, and I'm going to take issue with it. (Yes, we fixed it, DME and all that, but it shouldn't need to happen.)
The exploding mill and the mill stone were fantastic. Great show pieces. We did manage to blow up the mill and one of the PC's got caught in the mill stone. After the players saw the mill stone in action they really exploited it.
The maps were a bit confusing. I kind of lean toward using tiles to dress up a battle matt or a poster map not for the map itself. For a bit I actually thought about using the 'City of Peril' poster maps.
I exploited a lot of great advice posted on threads here.
We used errata posted around here and modified the pregens.
The character sheets were a bit confusing to the players, even the experienced one. I, personally, like them, but it threw off some folks.
I don't think that paragon tier is a good fit for game days where you are effectively marketing the system. There are a lot of rules to grasp at this tier, and the additional hit points make the battles into a major grind. So in the future I'd suggest sticking to heroic tier for this type of an event, save paragon and epic tiers for the D&D Championship and the like where you have a largely experienced group of people.
I like having the minis provided for the encounters. And the maps are ok, but the tiles the images were taken from made some of the areas seem somewhat odd. The character sheet format needs to be switched to a more normal format, so those people who have played before can find what they are looking for. Also, include some text describing what each feat does, whether from the PH or the nifty new book no-one owns yet. I'll mention that the myriad of errors on the PCs were disappointing.
I enjoyed myself, but I feel this experience could be significantly improved if WotC made sure that the adventure is designed for new, walk-in players and experienced players curious about the new material. It occurs to me that the adventure might have been more interesting if it had been designed to highlight only a few PH2 concepts, like have all Primal PCs instead of lacking focus as it did. That could have heightened the play experience for all involved.
We ran two tables, one after the other. I played the first table, and ran the second.
On the first table, the bear managed to get its special off once, on the Barbarian. Before the bear could go again, it was force-moved, and the Barbarian went after a different target.
Again, at the first table, the Barbarian blew his climb roll for the mill, so we had to go in against prepared opponents, and wound up using the millstone like crazy on the opponents. Forced moves were beneficial, there. Eventually, one of the Netherflames crit-missed, and the mill went up. No one took enough damage to kill them, though, so the fight continued as everyone ran out of the mill.
We ran out of time, so never got to the last encounter at this table.
On the second table, the bear was lucky to hit once per attack set, and eventually used its action point to do another set of claw attacks. A mix of low rolls, being marked by the Paladin, and the Bard's mocking at-will power left the bear with severe to hit penalties.
Both tables were properly irritated by Quickling Jack, though, and allowed him to cause their concentration to waver.
Both tables had no problem with the skill challenge. A bit lame, really.
At the secon table, the party made the climb to the balcony easily, and used ropes to pull the whole party up. While it reduced the chance of explosion, since a lot of the combat was outside the mill, the mill still managed to blow up when the paladin came inside and based one of the Netherflames, and it crit-missed on the reaction power. That actually took out an NPC. Most of the rest of the encounter took place on the black part of the map, outside.
And, due to time constraints, the final encounter was never run.
Some thoughts:
Better PC builds, not just bug-free builds. The gnome's stat build was strange, to say the least. And include the important errata, like the save ends for the Jagged weapon's crit effect. Having, in the download version, a CB file for each PC would have been nice, but that assumes that the CB has the information needed to build the characters in the current version...
Paragon includes too many things to have to look up. "Okay, you critted, now what happens with your Barbarian?" Especially with the most-used powers on the back of the same sheet as the Paragon bonuses...
Quickling Jack seems to be broken. Move 12, and a standard actioon power that lets him move another 12? Euw. The map wasn't big enough to properly use him, if he isn't broken.
The monster to hits, overall, were too low for the tier. Lots of misses, especially by the dire bear.
As mentioned, the skill challenge is more lame than not, what with the low DCs, especially compared to the Religion check to determine that Jack's tattoo is a symbol of Tharizdun... And other Perception DCs designed to make the party auto-miss them or be so low that anyone with a 10 wisdom would see them at first level. DC 10 for seeing the balcony door?
Having the minis was nice, but the quality could have been better on them, and it would have been nice to have something to represent some of the movable terrain, like the cart in Encounter 1.
The majority of players enjoyed the event, though none unconditionally. Most of the issues raised are echoes of the same points mentioned by others.
At this point in the game, people are used to seeing the real character sheets, and the preview-style sheets make it frustrating to spot errors or explain how given mechanics function to new players. "Just trust us" would be great if there were no mistakes made, but sadly there were. Fortunately it appears that the MM2 game day adventure will use the Builder sheets, so this feedback comes rather needlessly.
The choice of races for the characters was questioned as well. For an event meant to showcase PHB2, more than one of the PCs should have been drawn from it. Especially noteworthy was the Warforged Barbarian, who had errors we couldn't correct without having the magazine on-hand. Furthermore, that particular character was using an un-errata'd weapon from AV. It kind of behooves the designers to ensure that they use the correct version of the rules they're applying. Most players I spoke to expressed some disappointment at the lack of representation for the new races, and further disappointment at the dragonborn paladin.
(My own guess to the reasoning behind those choices was to ensure that the PCs would be able to match closely to the available minis; which is understandable but unfortunate. Looking at the pregens for MM2-day also demonstrates a somewhat disappointing focus on PHB1 classes, and I already wonder if it might be better to suggest to those who plan to attend to simply bring their own character if possible, and use the pregens only in the event of new players or walk-ins)
While the exploding mill encounter was interesting and exciting, many of my players and I found it somewhat remarkable that the effect was one that ended up such that only the enemies could take advantage of it. Having a bit of extra damage that potentially benefits both sides is nice, having it flat out up the damage output only of the enemies is rather cruel given the circumstances, and raises the effective level of the encounter. While our store didn't have any mill explosions, a friend of mine who ran in another town told me he'd had the mill explode during the first round of combat, before all the PCs had even had a chance to act.
The first encounter would probably have gone more smoothly with less of an excess of high-hitpoint enemies. It turned into a slog once everyone had expended all their encounter powers and there were still enemies unbloodied at at least one table, and because it was the first time in paragon for many players, there was some resistance to using a daily in the first encounter.
The skill challenge featured such low DCs, and the encounters were seemingly running long enough, that most of our tables simply bypassed the rolling and simply roleplayed Solphi coming out of hiding after the PCs beat the monsters and asking her rescuers for help. The DC to disable the trap tiles in the final encounter was so high that only one of the characters even had a chance of accomplishing it, and that on a natural 20. Given that the DC to jump over the tiles was a mere 11 if they had a running start, most of our GMs simply allowed the PCs to bypass the squares once they were aware of them.
The format of the adventure itself was confusing to some of our GMs. Most of us had previously dealt with (and been frustrated by) the separation of roleplaying and combat encounters into two parts, especially given the rather short page count. One GM, new to running 4e, complained to me explicitly about the layout confusing him even further. Given that there are a mere three encounters and one skill challenge, one would think that it would make more sense to adopt an LFR-style setup where the details of the combat encounter are not separated from the rest--it does not flow naturally and it's a counterintuitive format.
No indication was given that the event would need reporting. Fortunately both myself and the store owner are meticulous in our record keeping and made sure to take down numbers for those who had them and enroll those who didn't. Still, better to ensure that the organizers are aware that it will need to be reported.
The minis went over well. Last year's WWGD included a d20 for the players and a set of 7 dice for the GMs, and as we had some players arrive diceless that would have been nice this time--but that's really asking for icing on the cake.
All in all, despite numerous small criticisms, there was nothing majorly wrong. Most importantly the event was fun for the majority of the participants, as far as I saw, and went significantly more smoothly than Weekend in the Realms did. I'm looking forward to the MM2 and DMG2 game days now.
The minis went over well. Last year's WWGD included a d20 for the players and a set of 7 dice for the GMs, and as we had some players arrive diceless that would have been nice this time--but that's really asking for icing on the cake.
The store owner appreciated our directing the potential players to his selection of dice. Scratch his back, he lets us run more of these events.
I GMed it in São Paulo, Brazil. We had 75-90 people in this location (Devir, local retailer) playing from 11 am to 18 pm. It was very fun!
We already reported to WotC, but all Brazilian kits got stuck in Customs. We played with printed maps and character sheets and personal miniatures.
I have my players' e-mails, but we don't have hope to receive the kits without paying a lot of taxes.
Different characters. No more paladins, or Dragonborn. Perhaps one Human!!!
The 11st Level was a bit challenging for new players.
The spirit, the idea. It's very fun to unite players from everywhere to enjoy a great afternoon.
I was able to roll two 20s in a roll twice with the Bear. The Barbarian felt death coming!!!
Here's the report from one of my DMs. The proofreading errors are his. I suspect some comments are mentioned above, but I didn't have time to read the whole thread.
"March 21st was my first time running 4th edition Dungeons and Dragons, but I had played it several times before and have GM'd 3.5 for over a year. I have also played many other role playing systems for over eight years. What I found in the "Night at Weeping Brier" adventure was a very well designed "map pack" as one of my players called it. When I asked what that meant, he said it was a set of maps where you killed everything on the map and that was it. I think that sums up my experience with the adventure pretty well.
Pros:
The adventure was simple and easy to run for a GM.
There was only one "got-ya" monster, the steelmaw thing in encounter 3. My players didn't even to near enough to it to actually have it be a factor in the combat.
The terrain was interesting and varied.
Each PC had something to contribute to the skill challenge. They all liked that.
When I read them the part about the drowned cat, they all loved it. They really got into the adventure, swearing that the kitty would be avenged. This was a brilliant piece of storytelling as it convinced all the PCs that they did not need to talk to any of the enemies, or try to interrogate them, they must kill them all for they drowned a kitty cat.
Cons:
The entrances to a map should be clearly marked for the GM. I spent five minutes trying to figure out where the ground level door to the Mill was.
Include a "Status effects" sheet for GMs to put on the table to speed play. The longest slow down was looking up "immobilized", "restrained", "stunned", "dazed" etc.
I interpreted this adventure as to take place within one "long rest" period, but it would be nice to have that written (something like, the evil cultists will release thurizdun in 6 hours, don't let your PCs sleep)
Each character was poorly developed. With only a quote to base the whole personality around, my players were left stumbling for direction. Next time a paragraph about how the party met, and each of their personalities would be excellent.
Fighting agents of Thurizdun in an exploding grain mill has been done (Return to Temple of Elemental Evil), I suggest a water mill, with giant pumping tanks constantly filling up and letting out, or something different.
The DC for the skill challenge was too low, at 16, they could hardly fail it. I suggest a DC of 20 or so to make it more challenging.
The final boss (the mezzodemon) did 1d8+7 damage with his trident, which was shockingly low. I realized half way through the encounter that he was actually better off bull-rushing people on to trapped floor spaces. This is how he attacked PCs, He'd bull-rush people who were after him in initiative, so they would take 3d10+6 (and stunned) from entering the square, then 3d10+6 for starting their turn there, which was much more effective than any other attacks he had. This made the +3 life drinking trident irrelevant. Also Neither the Mezzodemon or the Bearded Devil had a ranged attack, so the tactic of having them hang back was not very good advice. I suggest changing the tactics of that encounter to be "bull-rush, a great deal"
Runespiral Demon Netherflames need a name change.
The Characters:
The Avenger was the best character of all of them. He didn't do as much damage as some of the others, but it was consistent with his mark of enmity and the special abilities tacked on to his attacks were all useful. He had powers that let him attack and shift, attack and teleport an enemy and then move next to them, gain phasing, or just shift a great deal. With an AC of 29, the Avenger was really the best character of the group.
The Barbarian had very situational powers, and damage. Some turns he would put out over 50 damage by comboing several powers and a cleave attack. Most of the time he seemed to be doing about 10-20 damage a swing though. Really the biggest problem with the barbarian was a lack of interesting and diverse powers. It seemed like the Rage attack was so good, that once the player raged, he just kept using the rage attack, which led him to feel like he was simply spamming the same powers. Maybe more powers for the barbarian that are less situational, and more general. Also, knocking people prone was less than awesome, because usually the PCs could flank for combat advantage, and by knocking the enemy prone, they gave him a +2 against ranged attackers. Combat sprint was useful, but not nearly enough.
The Invoker seemed fine, no real problems there.
The Paladin had many "same-y" powers, IE. they were all variants of hit things, sometimes healing, sometimes applying a penalty to hit. The player got bored of the character, because he had no tactical diversity.
The Bard was the weakest of all the characters. Being able to turn invisible was not as useful as imagined, because all of his powers were songs, so broke stealth. The bard as a leader, seemed too disorganized in it's focus, sometimes forcing rerolls, sometimes sliding enemies, and sometimes healing. Really the Bard only had 2 healing spells, which was a huge problem. The player later remarked to me that either a cleric or a warlord would have done a much better job, either by being a better healer, or by giving useful tangible bonuses to players. The bard class needs a definite rework, because it was unfun and inefficient."
The Bard was the weakest of all the characters. Being able to turn invisible was not as useful as imagined, because all of his powers were songs, so broke stealth. The bard as a leader, seemed too disorganized in it's focus, sometimes forcing rerolls, sometimes sliding enemies, and sometimes healing. Really the Bard only had 2 healing spells, which was a huge problem. The player later remarked to me that either a cleric or a warlord would have done a much better job, either by being a better healer, or by giving useful tangible bonuses to players. The bard class needs a definite rework, because it was unfun and inefficient."
Interesting perspective. I played the bard in our slot-zero of this module, and loved her. No, she's not quite the healer that a cleric would be, but she does a pretty darn good job of it (healing surge +2d6+10 ain't shabby!). Between playing her and then DMing a table of this, I never noticed an issue where the party was really hurting for healing (and, the bard does even better at healing during / after short rests).
No, she didn't have a lot of buffs, but she had a lot of great ways to really hamper the opponent, which is what she's built to do. (She's a "cunning" bard; if you read PHB2, the other build, the "valor" bard, may be more of what you're looking for in a leader.)
Three tables participated, each of which took much longer than expected. My table was only able to complete the first two encounters: I then narrated how the third encounter would have gone to bring a sense of closure to the session before the players had to go.
problems you had ordering/sanctioning/running
The character sheets were riddled with errors. My table had two kids (11 and sixteen), neither of whom had played much 4th edition. The other players weren't very savvy about the new edition either. Because of that, fights took FOREVER to resolve. A sheet of suggested tactics would have helped.
Whoever thought it was a good idea to separate combat encounters from the rest of the encounters ought to be shot. I hate flipping back and forth through the adventure to find the next encounter.
what should change for future game days
Lower level characters would make better sense for an introductory session.
Also, the maps looked as if they were hastily thrown together: Previous adventures looked far more polished and planned out.
how well your Dire Bear splattered someone
No particularly gruesome bear hugs occurred at my table, but amusing chaos occurred when one of the PC's attempted to scramble "aboard" the bear, followed by the quickling ("Get off my bear!").
Please provide any feedback you have on the WorldWide Game Day event for the PHB2 (March 21st 2009) here.
Any feedback of the event is welcome here:[EDIT] The above are suggestions - feel free to give feedback about anything you see fit.
- How well the event went over in your store
- problems you had ordering/sanctioning/running
- what should change for future game days
- what should stay the same for future game days
- or even how well your Dire Bear splattered someone.
As always - if you have any SPECIFIC feedback you feel WotC really needs to hear, feel free to file a report with Customer Service (http://www.wizards.com/customerservice). I'll be including a link to this thread in my monthly report to Chris, however - so it posts here should be seen by "the man" himself.
[*]How well the event went over in your store
Not, store but local university
Had 4 new players 6 returning players, was a little bit high level for an intro game.
[*]problems you had ordering/sanctioning/running
They used my home address for location being held. Ended up having some interesting phone conversations.
[*]what should change for future game days
Dice sets for new players would be nice, we had to loan sets out for people to play.
[*]what should stay the same for future game days
I liked giving away the miniatures to the players.
I wound up correcting the character sheets by hand with pen, crossing out the mistakes.
Even though I shaved some hitpoints off, the combats were really long: after over 5 hours, we'd just finished Encounter 3, and the second table had given up at Encounter 2.
The first combat lasted 12 rounds, and Jack was definitely the most valuable monster. Ilivarra oathed one of the Troglodytes early, everyone else focused on Bun Bun the Dire Bear, and Jack dashed out from hiding, let Ilivarra have it a couple times, and dashed back into hiding every round, which annoyed the players no end. They managed to tag Jack only twice, not even bloodying him, and Jack fled when Bun Bun was finally brought down. It was a good idea to have the rain cancel the Troglodyte Stench or else the combat would have lasted even longer.
The character sheets were terribly awkward, and the players only made effective use of a small subset of their powers, mostly at-wills, but learned to make good use of that subset fairly quickly. They hardly took advantage of their triggered abilities at all, and that mostly because I pointed out a few things.
It was definitely a mistake to make the characters paragon with over a dozen powers each. If I were trying to showcase new character classes with a demonstration adventure playable to completion in under 4 hours, I would definitely limit it to mid-heroic, maybe 4-6th level. At 4th level, the characters would have 2 at-wills, 3 encounters (including racial), 1 daily, and 1 utility, quite manageable, easy to learn and play, and all fit on a single doublesided character sheet.
But at paragon, the characters have almost their maximum alotment of possible powers, and the choice of so many triggered abilities clearly indicates to me that the decision was very poorly thought out with almost no guidance either by management or basic design principles. Even worse, the characters were not just sub-par, making several bad choices for powers, but the character sheets themselves were riddled with errors. Mid-heroic characters would have been easier to build properly, and easier to produce without errors, given the extremely low priority assigned to editing for this adventure. Two big thumbs down and a rasberry to Gregory Marks, his editor and probably non-existant playtesters on this.
As predicted, the skill challenge proved to be a breeze for the characters, and my choice of having Jack compete with them really added to the tension. The group chased down Sophi almost immediately, and starting calming her down with food and warm dry clothing. Illivara and Markaria, seeing how their presence upset Sophi, spent their skill checks "guarding," essentially on the look out for Jack, which I adjudicated as applying a penalty for Jack's checks to find Sophi. The players had only 1 failure, and were able to take a short rest before the Mill, while Jack rolled a natural 20 on the fourth turn of the challenge, finding and warning his friends. Thus, some of them were hidden, and no one was surprised.
The combat in the Mill was also very lengthy. My option of suppressing the explosive grain dust within two squares of the entrance was an excellent choice, as otherwise the encounter would have been a fiasco. Almost all the netherflames were in that immediate area, and the mill did not explode. Squeaks took the direct approach, climbing the Mill to take on the netherflames mano-y-demon-o. The group was very unhappy to find Jack alive and well and up to his usual tricks, darting in and out of combat, but this time Ilivarra took the battle to Jack and brought him down in a few rounds. Squeaks demonstrated the "billiard ball of doom," dashing from one fallen netherflame, charging and killing a trogolodyte, and then dashing off to almost kill the minotaur, all in a single round. But the fight took too long, and we called it quits. I will resume the adventure at the last encounter on April 11th, and we'll see how it goes.
I made the adventure work (although I spent over 16 hours editing and revising the adventure and character sheets), but besides a very nice selection of miniatures, the adventure, as presented, was a sloppy piece of work:
1) The choice of paragon tier was a bad one for a public game day, making the adventure overlong, requiring experienced players and DM, and not gaining any benefit for that choice.
2) The characters were badly done, both in the choice of powers (for example, defensive bard song which slows the encounter, rather than offensive bard song, which would have sped up the encounters), the complexity of the powers chosen (lots of triggered abilities, over two dozen total), and riddled with numerous errors (hitpoints, missing abilities, miscalculated damage, and so on). Only one PHB2 race was used, Gnome.
3) The adventure was incoherent and self-contradictory:
A. Negotiations betweens factions that could not communicate with each other, or even within each faction.
B. The mystery of the missing townsfolk was insoluable as presented: only a dozen prisoners while a thousand were missing, only ten demons to gather a thousand townsfolk, carried out by demons incapable of self discipline or planning, no visible signs of struggle or resistance, and no refugees beyond a single girl.
C. The explosive mill in the center of town, contradicting all reason, first, because no one would want such a mill for an immediate neighbor, let alone at the center of town; second, because being at the center of the town, it would be near the town square and be discovered during the skill challenge prior to catching Sophi; third, explosive grain dust during a downpour with high humidity defies suspension of disbelief and tells the players that they should not attempt to reason rationally about the world, and lastly, because if not suppressed, the explosion would destroy the mill in about 10 rounds or less, and no accounting for continuing the encounter afterwards was made, even though the explosion was nigh certain.
D. At the end of the adventure, rescuing only a dozen prisoners when at least a thousand townsfolk are missing, and even those dozen are supposedly "cowed" by battle armors nowhere present in the encounter.
There was no credit given for editting, and that is because any editor must have given at most a cursory glance at the material. The bar for success on this adventure was set extremely low: to vaguely link four poorly thought out encounters.
I do not know who this Gregory Marks fellow is, but I can say with certainty that not only will I never buy anything with his name on the credits, I will advise the numerous store owners and game buyers I know against purchasing more than a minimal number of copies of any such product, and warn the distributors I know against investing much in such inventory.
What I learned from running the adventure is that I am less interesting in playing paragon tier than before, and that my initial impression, that D&D is best at the heroic tier, was reinforced.
If all that is expected from these event adventures is to string together some hastily assembled combats, then it was a failure even so.
Smeelbo
Interesting perspective. I played the bard in our slot-zero of this module, and loved her. No, she's not quite the healer that a cleric would be, but she does a pretty darn good job of it (healing surge +2d6+10 ain't shabby!). Between playing her and then DMing a table of this, I never noticed an issue where the party was really hurting for healing (and, the bard does even better at healing during / after short rests).
No, she didn't have a lot of buffs, but she had a lot of great ways to really hamper the opponent, which is what she's built to do. (She's a "cunning" bard; if you read PHB2, the other build, the "valor" bard, may be more of what you're looking for in a leader.)
I wrote a long reply to this, but I felt like it was too mean and that it might be interpreted as a personal attack. I just want to say that my intent was not to attack, but to mock Roswyn for being a terrible leader.
Here is one of my favorite sections though (about her Summer Rhymer power)
Song of the Queen’s Protection =
This power deserves acclaim
For it is buff well worth the name
But it is sad
And the Bard was had
That 1/3 of fights are in the rain.
If you are interested in the longer post, I'll post it, but I don't want to offend anyone.
I wrote a long reply to this, but I felt like it was too mean and that it might be interpreted as a personal attack. I just want to say that my intent was not to attack, but to mock Roswyn for being a terrible leader.
No worries...the bard is *not* a leader in the same way that a cleric is, true, but I still think that it's a very interesting and useful class. I've seen several bards played in LFR, as well, and I can tell you that, at every table I've played at with a bard, the other players definitely appreciated the bard's contributions, and I know quite a few players (myself included) who are looking forward to playing bards.
But, if what the bard brings to the table isn't what you're looking for or expecting, I can certainly see your point.
In the case of this adventure, I know that WotC was trying to showcase classes and races from PHB2 (though, why they chose to include a dragonborn paladin is beyond me).
And of course, everyone has their roles they like and dislike. If you're worried about your players getting stuck with a roles they don't like, make some additional pregens on the character builder andbring them along. Just try not to explain to the table the importance of at least one each of defender, leader, and striker or DME the heck out of the tactical encounters and let them play however they like.
The player who played it really likes the leader role, and loves warlords and clerics, but hated the bard cause it had exactly 2 heals at 11th level, and had many stupid choices.
Some examples are:
+3 Stealth cloak, while not being trained in stealth
1 multiclass feat for Wizard and Warlock, instead of Cleric and Skill Focus: Stealth
+2 Shortbow of not having a point (since the Ranged At Wills are better)
It lacks the high defenses of the textbook definition of a leader role.
Plus the fact of the mater is that her two at will powers are a ranged 1d6+# that gives you -2 to attack, and a ranged 1d8+# that gives you -2 to attack unless you attack a specific target. That's really really similar.
+3 Stealth cloak, while not being trained in stealth
Skill Training hardly matters for Roswyn, since she is +3 at all untrained skills.
But in general, the choices made for the pregenerated characters were very poor.
Smeelbo
But in general, the choices made for the pregenerated characters were very poor.
Smeelbo
So true. That's really one of the least appealing parts of the WW D&D day, is that my players realized that WotC doesn't even know how to use their own material, (or don't respect it was one theory).
the main reason i decided to post on this was due to the recent PHB2 gamesday game at my table.
One of the players wanted to stealth into town to investigate why the town was deserted but the gm pushed us into the first combat by not letting the player stealth. Another situation was when it came to the skill challenge, the gm just said you can use these skills in the skill challenge, roll to see if you succeed, he never asked the players to describe what they were doing actually in the skill challenge. It was very gamist. my pc tried to use ghost sound before entering the mill to lure the monsters out but the gm said the monsters were not tricked and when i tried to set fire to the mill on noticing the flammable dust, the gm disallowed it. He only later set fire to the mill himself when he rolled a 1 on his fire attack. He also neglected to describe the grinding mill stone else we would have bullrush the brutes/soldiers into it. I didnt want to offend the gm so i kept my opinions regarding how the game was run to myself. The game could have been gmed better.
not sure if this is a right place to post my feelings on the module as i played instead of Gmed.
Feedback of players is just as important as feedback from organizers/GMs.
the main reason i decided to post on this was due to the recent PHB2 gamesday game at my table.
One of the players wanted to stealth into town to investigate why the town was deserted but the gm pushed us into the first combat by not letting the player stealth. Another situation was when it came to the skill challenge, the gm just said you can use these skills in the skill challenge, roll to see if you succeed, he never asked the players to describe what they were doing actually in the skill challenge. It was very gamist. my pc tried to use ghost sound before entering the mill to lure the monsters out but the gm said the monsters were not tricked and when i tried to set fire to the mill on noticing the flammable dust, the gm disallowed it. He only later set fire to the mill himself when he rolled a 1 on his fire attack. He also neglected to describe the grinding mill stone else we would have bullrush the brutes/soldiers into it. I didnt want to offend the gm so i kept my opinions regarding how the game was run to myself. The game could have been gmed better.
Unfortunately it sounds like the bulk of your problems stem from simply having a bad GM. For that to be remedied you'd have to talk to the organizer for where you played - let them know your thoughts on the issue(s).
Thanks for letting us know your feedback here all the same!
I think the real problem is that this adventure expected you to know how to play 4e, something that isn't always the case and definately wasn't with the group I played with.
Perhaps in the future they could make some quick notes on how the game plays. Those nifty folders helped alot, but I think more could be done with them. Even some extra description on the character sheets explaining how each class works would help greatly. And of course starting at lvl 1 or mid-heroic would help.
Do you feel that adding a sheet with a breakdown would be more or less productive than the GM at the table(s) explaining how to play?
At my FLGS we (the GMs) took the time to give a breakdown of the game to anyone who qualified themselves as a new player.
Well, that's the thing. Our DM didn't know 4e. He used to DM 3.5.
Do you feel that adding a sheet with a breakdown would be more or less productive than the GM at the table(s) explaining how to play?
Obviously, I feel it would be more productive. At least a cut-down version of the Taking Your Turn section in the PHB (pgs. 268-269) and a quick explanation on how Action Points work. It could be written on nothing more than printer paper.
Fortunatelly I discovered that one of my players haven't played 4th Ed before the combat (he didn't tell me).
At my FLGS we (the GMs) took the time to give a breakdown of the game to anyone who qualified themselves as a new player.
Do you feel that adding a sheet with a breakdown would be more or less productive than the GM at the table(s) explaining how to play?
I'm not sure what you mean by "breakdown".
More.
I'm not sure what you mean by "breakdown".
More.
A breakdown of play/combat/tactics.
I suppose the main reason I ask is because I fear that giving new players MORE to read might only server to add to the confusion - as opposed to having a GM direct nudge them.
Of course, if the GM isn't knowledgeable that's another issue entirely.
One of the skills a GM needs in sort of experience is the ability to determine what amount of information a player really wants. A brand new player might only want to tell you what they want to do, and have you tell them what to roll, and that's fine.
More experienced players will want something like a tactics sheet for their character, because while they know how to play their own characters, they don't intrinsically know how to play someone else's.
Another benifit is it allows players to deconstruct the ideas behind a character. I liked the tactics section of the encounters because it gave me an idea of how WotC thought the monsters would fight. It was pretty bad for the final encounter, as I mentioned above with the tactic of "Bull Rush Spam" being noticeably better, but it's useful.
Also, even if a GM doesn't give it to a new player, they can still make useful suggestions to a player who is having trouble with their character. More information is never bad, especially when trying to promote a book.
For this game day I signed up as a player with one of my friends who had never played in the RPGA.
Here is my experience and feedback as someone who has not seen the adventure so I don't know what we missed.
The location:
I live in Vail, CO and I know all of the people who game in our small valley. For my friend and I to play we had to drive to Denver to find a game. (I used the event sanctioning search functions for contact info.)
Once there it was a brand new game store that looks like they have only been in business for a few months. We met the owners and they asked us what we thought of their store which led me to that conclusion. The store itself did sell a full selection of D&D books and dice and was very clean and well lit.
The group did not have the start up kit. No mini's, no real maps, nothing. Everything they had was just printed out. I am guessing this is because they did not sign up early enough for player kits. The store did grab one of their miniature posters and using a circle punch, punched out pictures of minis that approximated the monsters and players. It was nice of them to do that.
The "owner" that stuck around for the event was the son of the owner. It was his friend that ran the event. My friend and I had contacted him beforehand and made arrangements to join them. The two other players he was hoping to have arrive could not make it.
To still allow us to run the game the owner and a female co-worker joined us. The owner and the co-worker were Magic players and had never played D&D before. The DM (owner's friend) who was running the event confessed this was the 4th time ever he had DM'ed. (So it was my friend age 40, me age 33, the owner around 25, his female co-worker around 30, and the DM also roughly age 25.)
My friend and I have been playing 3.5 together for the last four years every Wednesday and have been regularly playing 4th Edition for the last 4 months. I had already received my PH2 from Amazon previous to the event (living in Vail you buy everything over the Internet) and had swung by the forums to see what type of characters we could expect to see when we arrived. So we were experienced players and ready to play.
I had printed off the DM and Player's character guide from this thread.
http://forums.gleemax.com/showthread.php?t=1159795
My first suggestion, have those. I handed out copies of this to the other players around the table. I pointed out their triggers and situational abilities. I taught them what action points are and when to use them.
In the end my friend and I taught both players how to play and really led the DM around when it came to rules interpretation. I would tell him, "here is what I am doing, what the DC should be for it, and here is my result." The DM seemed very thankful that my friend and I were there to help make the game go smoothly.
How the game went:
We ended up starting at 6 PM as we were hoping one of the other players would show up. The first hour of the game was just my friend and I each taking one of the other players and teaching them how to play D&D. I thankfully had printed off a D&D crib sheet that really helped get a new player up to speed. (I had the sheets because even after four months of playing 4th Edition I find it a valuable reference sheet.)
Kiznet's Combat Reference Sheet. (Wizard's you need to give some money to this guy and make this sheet official. It is awesome.)
http://www.scribd.com/doc/7483608/DD-4th-Edition-Kiznets-Combat-Reference-Sheet
We finally got underway. From reading the tip sheet above I knew that it involved a town of missing people and a small girl will be trying to hide from us. Inside the town will be a mill that all the demons will be hiding out in. Beyond that skimming (because I wanted it to be a surprise to me) I didn't really know what to expect.
I played the Bard because I wanted the healer to be played by an experienced gamer and my friend played the Avenger because it sounded like fun after listening to Wil Wheaton play on the D&D podcasts. The two new players picked out the paladin and invoker.
The avenger and my bard rolled sneak rolls to move into the abandoned town and saw the quickling and bear moving around first. We motioned the other two players up and the paladin shouted out for them to stand and fight us. So much for surprise.
The first part of the battle started off shaky as I had to teach the new players how to use their powers and that they should lead with encounter powers unless the at-will is just much more appropriate.
It made everyone around the table crack up (because I DM I tend to act a bit while playing.) as I would play into the flavor text of my bard. I kept breaking out new insults to attract bad guy attention and deal my psychic damage.
SUGGESTION: Promote the flavor text. Print out a one page "new player's guide" to each character and put in some suggestions telling the player's to add to the way their flavor text works.
I also made sure to say what I was doing to gain effect even if it was just reading off the flavor text. The new players were amazed my eyes started flashing colors as I mesmerized the enemies around us. They were all, "you can do that?"
The one hang up was I had trouble getting to them attack just one target and they tended to spread the damage around. That also led to hang up two. The quickling ran off with the Avenger's Oath of Enmity on him when the DM had him retreat at low hit points. That left the Avenger without his greatest ability as he could not change the Oath nor no longer defeat the creature it was on.
Finally we were left with just that bear. The bear did succeed in a grab on the paladin but my gnome was able to successfully slide him one square and the Avenger used his draw strike to slide the paladin once more out of the reach of the bear before he could get off the painful hug of death.
As said before, that bear had way to many HP and our party did not have squeaks to help us with damage.
Thankfully our DM bypassed the skill challenge and after we came up with a valid plan and some decent rolls we were able to talk to her. (The paladin chased Sophie with diplomacy checks and my bard used stealth to get ahead of her and come out of the shadows sing my diplomacy check.)
The DM gave us the back story of her releasing demons, demons capturing town, they are to be slaughtered, she has a hiding spot, we can find them at the mill, they are looking for the little girl.
The bard and avenger than snuck up to the mill and heard the minotaur, two troglodytes, and the two demons talking about going into town to find the girl.
We quickly got back to the party and I came up with the following plan. My bard used ghostsound to mimic the little girl's crying and then used it to mimic our party's clanking armor down a different street. This broke the party of a minotaur and his two troglodytes off from the two demons. We led the minotaur and troglodytes to a house we had boarded up and we were all inside ready to ambush them.
This earned us a surprise round. (Also at this time it is now 10 PM and my friend and I said we had to end after this and the girl playing with us also had to leave to go meet her husband and kids.)
So we all pulled out the dailies. The poor minotaur didn't even get to act. We dropped 1/2 his HP in the surprise round and the other half when we acted before his initiative.
As we moved to the troglodytes the DM had the demons come back on round three. The avenger took one of the demons out side with a teleport and the party just worked their way through the remainder of them using lockdown abilities and dailies.
This ended our gaming night with just those two combats and that took us four hours.
Every really enjoyed the game. My friend and I left and said to each other, well I think there are two new D&D player's in the world now.
I am happy to say I just downloaded the ZIP for MM2 Gameday for a session I will be advertising for and holding up in Vail, CO. I am also extremely happy to see the new players are 5th level (easier to introduce to new players) and printed on the new Character Builder sheets (and with power cards that I am happy to cut out for my players).
You have fixed some of my largest complaints about the PH2 Gameday right there.
I will have my regular circle of seven players and have a couple of new potentials. I am hoping to get two full tables for MM2 Gameday. I will also second the suggestion that you do player kits on a one-for-one basis. I would say I only need three. At most I will have two tables and the third will be nice "just in case" I get more replies to my advertising for the event than I expect. But kit 4 and 5 will be over kill in my neck of the woods. I will most likely just give those out as a prize to a voted best player reward or perhaps just divide it between the DMs.
What I suggest and would like to see is two adventures for a Player's Handbook 3 Gameday. (Or a class supplement if you ever do one.) One adventure is 5th level for all the new player's out there and another that would be in the 11-15 range for those experienced players who really want to flex the muscles on the new classes.
DMs involved: 5 + 1 overseeing (me)
Players involved: 50
Problems you had ordering/sanctioning/running
Ordering/Sanctioning: No issues, except that one of the DMs forgot to order and missed the deadline, much to my displeasure
Running: Encounter 1 took too long. The rain and the trogos provided significant amount of penalty to the PCs, the floor caused quite a bit of Acro-issues, and some of the PCs are just too difficult to hit (read: Pally and Avenger).
Encounter 2's DC is too low, that it's highly likely for PCs to fail. Unless this is a way for trying to make sure that the PCs know what happened?
Encounter 3 is kind of weird, that Infernal Armor be paired with Demons, which can't benefit from Transferance.
Encounter 4 is okay. I recommend the tactic of restraining a PC who stepped onto a trap tile.
What should change for future game days
I hope d20s can be provided for players that participate, besides miniatures. Quite a portion of the players who atteneded are new and do not have dice sets.
Also, me and my fellow DMs found quite a new errors in the Character Sheets. Such as the leaving out of Warforge Resolve and the inclusion of Cleansing Spirit for the Barbarian, the modifier for Majestic Word is wrong, etc etc. I hope such things can be checked through in the future, or at least an errata be included.
That said, a level 11 adventure is too high of a level for newcomers, since the number of class features and powers will be too overwhelming for them. Having to learn the combat system while juggling with the options that their characters have is very confusing. I recommend future adventures to be lowered, for the sake of newcomers.
What should stay the same for future game days
The Delve Night kits that came along with the GD kit is a pleasant surprise. Don't mind receiving such bonuses in the future as well.
Or even how well your Dire Bear splattered someone
The Dire Bear's attack is too low to compared to Pally's or Avenger's AC. A total of 3 hits are required, furthermore, in order to grab. Having a set of -5 merciful dice doesn't help as well.
I suggest writing down the tactics/suggestions/guide and distributing it.
This is exactly what I did. I wrote up and gave each player a sheet with one or two paragraphs describing each character and how they worked together. I also used the sheet to establish some group "history" and cohesion. For example, I attributed the failed attempt at dragon hunting to Roswyn, AKA "Miss Information," and also established that Roswyn had been promising a nice town to get out of the rain for hours when they finally arrived at Weeping Briar. By establishing some relationships between the characters, it made it much easier for the players to think of themselves as a group.
Print out a one page "new player's guide" to each character and put in some suggestions telling the player's to add to the way their flavor text works...
I had printed off the DM and Player's character guide from this thread.
I am glad you found this useful. I will be posting something similar for the MM2 Adventure. Although I have only given it a cursory examination so far, it does seem much more professionally done than the PHB2 adventure.
Because the characters were so complex, I also had posted a DM Guide to the characters, primarily listing their triggered abilities. In practice, the players did not take advantage of those abilities unless I prompted them. Since the MM2 adventure is mid-heroic, I expect far fewer problems with the character play.
I am looking forward to running the MM2 adventure, and will post my suggestions in a thread in "What's A DM to Do," as I did with PHB2 adventure.
I expect to be a lot less frustrated.
Smeelbo
And we sold 6 of the 15 copies of the PHB2 the store had that same day.
Really the biggest issue I and the store had was that it's D&D Game DAY instead of Weekend. Saturday is when they hold their Yugi-Oh tournaments, which take up the entire store. We had to wait an additional 20 mins after our stated start time, so the tables could open up. If we could have done Sunday, it would have helped the store out.
The second biggest issue was this was my first time coordinating, and since it's not RPGA, I didn't think to take everyone's RPGA number. So I dropped emails to everyone that gave one, trying to get them to reply. I'm guessing that's why the Delve material was included, but it wasn't clear.
Also a little bit of fluff would have been helpful. One player loves playing Clerics in 3.5, so I recommended he play the bard. I described the invoker as bringing down the "wrath of god but more like a wizard" so he wanted to play that instead and ended up not happy with his character. He was a bit of a hater, so it was a tough sell to begin with.
But the guy that did play the bard wasn't normally a bard type, but seemed to have a lot of fun with it.
Also this kind of cribsheet http://www.enworld.org/forum/4e-fan-creations-house-rules/228749-d-d-4th-edition-combat-crib-sheet.html
would be helpful if personalized to the characters a bit, especially since 11th level for me running and the players that played before there was a steep learning curve, especially with almost half never playing 4e before.
And PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE next time print the sheets in color or at least the power cards.
I actually made up a 6th PC just in case we had too many players. And purposely used the character builder, which the players thought looked great.
Would've been awesome to hand everyone a character sheet made with the software with cards printed on card stock and cut out, like I do with my own characters.
Overall, it was a mega success for a store that couldn't sustain a Living Greyhawk table before. Everyone had fun, Store said they'd love to do more games (but not on Saturdays) so we'll be doing LFR games there starting in May.
The bear could not hit with both claws, and there was never an explosion in the mill. Made me sad, but I did almost take 2 players down in the last combat with the traps.
I have talked to Guarulho's custom office, where kits are being held, and to a person who worked on custom office for 10 years.
What happened is: the way the kits were sent, they had to be held by brazilian law and mormative insctruction "SRF nº 155, de 22 de dezembro de 1999".
Kits were send for every single person. Kits were considered "no commerce value" and they need a simplified importation declaration (something like that in english) that is made by filling an online form named Siscomex where the people who receive the kit shoud do it.
Wotc, THERE IS NO BRAZILIAN TAX OVER IT.
The "tax" people is talking about it's the price to pay somebody to fill the declaration and go to Guarulho's custom office to get it done. That's very expensive.
The woman whom I talked to said that if we had paid for it there would be a tax paper sent to our homes by brazilian's Receita Federal, we'd paid and Fedex could move on and deliver it to us.
The guy who worked on brazilian office for 10 years was very clear: to work fast under brazilian law Wotc should have sent to some central place on Brazil who would fill a single declaration and it's done.
While I know that you Wotc guys doesn't know portuguese the legislation is up here: http://www.receita.fazenda.gov.br/legislacao/ins/ant2001/1999/in15599.htm
""Art. 4º Serão utilizados os modelos de formulários Declaração Simplificada de Importação – DSI, Folha Suplementar e Demonstrativo de Cálculo dos Tributos constantes, respectivamente, dos Anexos II a IV a esta Instrução Normativa, instruída com os documentos próprios para cada caso, quando se tratar do despacho aduaneiro de:
I - amostras sem valor comercial;
II - livros, documentos, folhetos, periódicos, catálogos, manuais e publicações semelhantes, inclusive gravados em meio magnético, importados sem cobertura cambial e sem finalidade comercial, desde que não estejam sujeitos ao pagamento de impostos;
III - outros bens importados por pessoa física sem cobertura cambial e sem finalidade comercial, de valor não superior a US$ 500.00 (quinhentos dólares dos Estados Unidos da América) ou o equivalente em outra moeda, quando não estiverem sujeitos ao pagamentos de impostos"
Whatever else people are saying about taxes is just not true.
Of course you are right that having one central organiser would make sense, and that is what WotC has done in the UK: the company which distributes D&D products in the UK took on the responsibility of organising the game days over here. Perhaps those of you in Brazil could contact the equivalent Brazilian company and ask them to contact WotC via their normal channels to discuss the best way to distribute the kits.
If it's up to individual stores to contact WotC and order the kits, I don't see what else WotC can do, except put an address label on the kit and send it to the store - if that causes import problems, those are things the store needs to sort out.
I hope you get something worked out for the next game day, though!