Running Stonehell at GenCon

I have continued to run Stonehell since my last post here and have continued to use Castles and Crusades to run it. While the group has not met regularly we still have managed to get several good sessions in, and have even added a player. I am happy with this, as I now live more than an hour from the rest of the group.

Last weekend I ran two sessions of Stonehell at GenCon. I took a different approach than I have in the past when I run Stonehell at a convention or other "one shot" situation. In the past, I have had a prepared adventure that is set in Stonehell. My thought process was that players at a convention would not be interested in undirected exploration. It turns out I was wrong.

In both sessions I offered the players a choice, they could either start at the top of the steps and begin exploring, or I could use a prepared adventure set in the dungeon. Both time the players made the unanimous choice to just start exploring. There wasn't even any real discussion about it. I was very happy with the results in play and will be taking this approach at conventions from now on.

I was also happy at how different the two sessions were. The first group, which contained no Stonehell veterans, followed what I have learned is a fairly conventional approach for a first-time Stonehell run. They explored the area immediately around the staircase and then headed off towards the quiet halls.

The second group, including one of my regular players, started off much the same, but then switched to a more directed approach. My regular player clued them in to the stone head on the first floor that answers questions. Like most groups that encounter the head, they asked it where the nearest large treasure is. They also asked it about finding a spell book. As it turns out, the nearest, large treasure was in a sub-level of my own design. They spent a long time looking for it, and came very close, but were unable to find it. Their quest for the spell book took them down to the asylum, an areas that none of my groups have explored extensively.

The stone head is a dungeon masters best friend for starting groups. It is a great way to reveal a little bit about what might lie in any given direction, or give the players a short-term goal that they choose for themselves.

I continue to be happy with Stonehell as a setting for adventures, both ongoing campaigns and one shots.

Comments

Traveller: Session 33

This session was run on June 15, 2023. 130-2108 They confronted Reverend Kavanaugh about the wrench and the explosive bolts and he changed his story again. He now claimed that, even in his revised story, he had still tried to protect Dieter and his memory. Dieter had not just surrendered to fate and drawn straws after his failed attempt to poison Kavanaugh at breakfast. As soon as it was clear that the paralytic was not working, he attempted to choke Kavanaugh. As the two wrestled, Kavanaugh grabbed a wrench from the toolbox, left in the common room during their repair efforts, and bashed Dieter over the head. He had then flushed Dieter’s body, along with the wrench, out of the airlock. He claimed not to have known about the explosive bolts and said that, because there were only two of them aboard, there were sixteen hours each day where only one of them was awake. Unable to determine if this latest story was true, they informed...

Wilderlands: Session 32

This session was run on February 13, 2023. Determined to find Uggmar, the party, now accompanied by Rasaz, headed back into the dungeon beneath the barrow mounds using the northeast entrance. They decided that they were unlikely to find him on the first level and, rather than risk getting swarmed by skeletons again,they headed directly down the stairs they found on their last expedition. After a hundred foot descent, they found themselves in a large cavern that contained what appeared to be an underground city. The architecture of the buildings they could see seemed to be from an earlier era, perhaps before man learned to work iron. As they began searching the streets, they noticed a woman standing very still in a doorway. They approched her to find that she seemed to be frozen in time, surrounded by a strange red glow. Nothing they did seemed to affect her. She could not be moved, nor could her clothes or body be disturbed. As they were examining the woman, Strange...

Traveller: Campaign Overview

This Traveller campaign is intended to be kind of a history of the Traveller universe (or at least my version of it). The framing device for the campaign is the start of The Rebellion in 1116 with the assassination of Emperor Strephon. The players took the roles of imperial archdukes that were present at the assassination and through them help define the fate of the Third Imperium. The archdukes will be the constant backbone of the campaign, providing context for everything else. We will return to them between arcs spent with other characters in which we explore different parts, and different eras, of the universe. I hope to visit many different times throughout the history of the Traveller universe and to tie events in those times to the fate of the empire in the future. This page will be useful for figuring out which arcs were covered in which sessions. I hope this will make it easier to keep all of the different characters straight and to re...

Circle of Dar Janix

Search This Blog