onwards and upwards

So last night went off well. My only regret being the lack luster ending given I was sure the Lagos was in fact involved in the beginning and I'm holding to that canon. That being said, the airship is on its way home now.

Although I imply the wealth and influence that the families have amidst and without one another, I don't really have a record of it, and I worry about jumping the shark as far as how powerful or capable the families are.

Regardles, last night was a nice smooth adventure involving the members as they traversed between the mountain ranges saving a small city of under gnomes (svirfneblin) resident within the range.

I am not a smart man.

So Brandan meant this guy:

The gnome caretaker of the pair of statues from Neverending Story.

I would have played this reference more directly but I had forgotten completely about this guy.

Didn't have a clue at all. I figured something easily enough in the aftermath of the fight, but if I'd remembered the reference, I could have done a bit more with it. Could have put shades on him.

Robust

I'm going to try and figure a better method for plot point management here in the next while.

Eventually I'll have enough time I can focus on properly fixing some of her bits.

In the meantime, some stuff works, some stuff is broken.

Time

I seem to be getting better at managing my time, of late I've stuck to my workouts, done my preplanning, stuck to my side work and that's on top of the 40 hour work week.

The trick is getting up early.

Onward and Upward

There are only two posts that share that tag at the time of this writing. The first one is me talking about the CloudSpire Chronicles before I'd decided what it was to be called.

During the course of the campaign, I have had my challenge, but I've managed to overcome them.

Looking at where the game has reached thus far, I've stayed the course I sought.

The second post observing the tag talks about this. This may end up being the blog post that shares the tag as the treatise upon the momentous revelation.

But seriously.

The fact is the game has evolved and we now have a campaign world with some roots and canon, some real depth. It's nice.

Intro

This is some frustrating business. When your group is in flux, you don't know who to put in the intro.

I've already put Paul in, and I'm wrestling with putting Mitch in. I have no idea what he'll play. The intro is very character heavy this time around, which is just a major mistake on my part. I've put Fletcher in as well and in short, I will have every player in eventually. Part of me says to button up and release the intro then add people as they join in.

Part of me says to hold off..

/me shrugs

Citing 10pm as his maximum time limit, Mike has left the party.

And Fletcher joins. And maybe Karl and Tom.

Pauls last session is this Friday as he takes off to get married!

And then there's no Paul until the end of September. Then Mitch and Paul come back?

Hmm..

Potential roster: Mitch, Paul, Joe, Fletcher, Tom, Curtis, Karl

Seven. If Celeste plays, eight? I've done eight before and I've seen good and bad chemistry and that's what it comes down to: Chemistry.

Seven is my typical maximum, however, female rule trumps seating rule. There is always room for girls.

Anyhow, game tomorrow should be good; I've got a lot of bits planned.

I've been working on the new intro, and now that I have an idea of who will be there, the question becomes what will they play. The trouble with developing a robust world with numerous characters and interwoven stories, you have to give a shit about how you're putting your players into the world.

Wiring up player desires to stuff that exists, or creating and developing new and existing ideas into broader and deeper facets of the ever tessellating jewel that is the Cloud Spires.

Good times.

So last Friday had a whopping two people appear due to a range of reasons. Mitch was moving, Curtis was snowed in, Celeste's reliance on my mom to watch the kids fell through, and Alex simply didn't show up, and didn't text, call or even send a raven.

I wanted to end the campaign for the sake of the new players I'm bringing aboard. Newbies that they are to the 5th edition system, I feel it's a wise move; also, the players were clearly losing interest in the characters they'd played for the last eight months(ish).

The end of "season 1" meant the players ran off after Myrkhul at the behest of the gods. With some new armour.

So what's next? What do I do now that I've had 20th level characters chasing gods in their magically empowered airships?

Back to basics!

I've spent all weekend writing this Friday's game and I feel confident that the session will renew and remind the players of what it is that drives the love of the game. I intend to keep hands on throughout the progression as well, as opposed to providing the players with too much choice as is often my curse as a DM.

Viewer Interaction

I'm still playing with this idea and how best to maintain a viewer interaction at low level. I'm thinking of implementing a simple multiplier to control the balance of XP use without having to change pricing.

For example, there are 20 levels, and I could operate on a percentile with 20 being 100%

So level * 5% * xp spent? And turning off direct gifts until they reach level 10.

While I appreciate that viewer interaction is a big part of the gameplay, and I am a proponent of it, it's my fiduciary duty to provide a fun game to the players and that starts with a balanced experience between them and the viewers.

XP Fairy improvements

I haven't had a moment to put into the fairy, but sufficed to say, it's on my docket.

The first thing I'll be doing is adding a feature to the award comand that allows users to provide each other with XP.

The other thing I should do is wire an automatic hosting reward.

Big shout out to Johnny_Speed for all the new love he's bringing the channel. As I heard another streamer say of him, "Everywhere I go on Twitch, there's Johnny." You're awesome, thank you for all the suggestions.

To all my regulars who have become my regulars, thank you for your viewership; I do this for the love of the game, but knowing folks enjoy watching and listening makes it that much better. As always, if you have questions, comments, criticism or suggestions don't hesitate to email or post to the site :)