Session 19
If you can believe it, a play report from WW. But you already knew that, you read that one first didn't you.
About a third of this session was either accounting or planning, by my count, as the party discussed very indepth two quite risky plans which came to fruition and provided much needed profit. It's fine, though hopefully next session will be less heavy on it.
As described in my most recent post, I haven't been feeling alright this past week or so for multiple reasons, some discussed, most not. Arden Vul, despite its strange fame as bigger than any person could fathom and nigh impossible to run, provides a helpful respite as I can focus on something else for a few hours. As I described before, there's little I enjoy more in these games than watching the players plan and pull it off, and that happened twice in this session.
There was also a mishap of mine in a past session but only realised in this one, possibly the first time that the long key actually bit me in any way. They met a ghost who gave them a quest, and as a result they did the quest and got fabulously wealthy. Except the ghost wasn't meant to be able to communicate with the party vocally, only point at clues around. Doesn't bother me though, I would have done my best to steer them exactly the same through mimicry instead.
Despite what I say sometimes about enjoying dungeons with context and being interested in the history and stuff, we haven't actually found much of it at all thus far. This session marks the 4th month of Arden Vul, and while I enjoy it a lot, the Weasels aren't exactly archaeologists. Nor do I see how they could have learned more about the Thothian past of the dungeon in these 125 rooms they've explored. Sure, this amounts to around 6% of the dungeon, but knowing what comes next, there isn't that much information there either. There are lots of clues instead for how to interact with the dungeon, and there are definitely faces and characters that are recurrent (such as Priscus Pulcher) and stories that are told in the background, some of which are even rather touching, yet this is a triumph of quantity over detail.
I'm not bemoaning it at all, honestly, but it does make me wonder abut all those strong statements I've made before, and while I do believe to some extent, it makes me wonder how much The Halls of Arden Vul is a good example of that, and how much the Weasels campaign holds up as an example of that sort of campaign.
It might honestly be that I just prefer more heroic parties who engage with the dungeon in a more straightforward, diplomatic way, letting themselves be enmeshed in the webs of relationships and such, rather than the SWAT-style "kick the door, kill everything that doesn't surrender, betray everything that does, and pile fat stacks". Or maybe the almighty context I talk so much about has more to do with character than universe, after all one of the parts of certain styles of dungeoneering I like the least is how what happens in the dungeon stays in the dungeon and the characters are prone to forgetting or not caring about what they've gone through except insofar as it provides them with tactical advantages. I enjoy seeing how Eofor strives towards becoming a paladin, Godiva seems to find a home as a sort of assassin, Authur appears to embrace her viking side, and Lykourga's literal and figurative growth into a whole new self. That is, seeing the players visibly care about their characters and ponder how they react and what their emotions are beyond "This is Farto Glock, his Thing is he farts by his dick" - which is sicknarsty, just not what I want out of a game which I'll dedicate dozens of hours of my life to.
Still, I do find the broader context important. As much as I find the terse keys of something like the Wilderlands of High Fantasy interesting, which I've been reading recently, there is just some form of interesting alchemy that comes from having a disgustingly long list of books one can find in the dungeon with asides about how the author kept making the books worse and buying all of the copies so they don't circulate anymore, or taking 3 paragraphs to describe an empty room because "If you did Y at room X then it'll be different here!" It doesn't give much on Arden Vul's actual history - not yet anyway, there's a lot more about it deeper in the dungeon - but it does paint the world with such strong and interesting character that I wouldn't trade it for something more modular yet less hyper-specific.
After four months, the only real bit of Arden Vul that makes me roll my eyes a little bit is the shape of the rooms. They're not aligned with anything and sometimes it gets tiresome to keep describing this stuff in the most arcane terms, even if I generally quite enjoy the mapping minigame. It's just normal enough not to get on my nerves too, but I'd prefer something straighter. And even then, there's a little masochistic joy, I think, in successfully mapping out a room with the nastiest angles known to man.
A part of me is saddened that I haven't really put that much effort into making a more coherent story. I've left the entire thing to the dice, the rival parties only show up when the dice say so, and certain elements (particularly involving the treasure of One-Eyed Larel, for ball-knowers) aren't as played up as I would theoretically want to. I don't beat myself up too much about it however, as I know I didn't do it in large part because I often come to the game tired or a bit unthinkingly and go with my gut a lot of the time, and therefore some of this stuff goes through the cracks.
Also, despite what I discussed with Mr. Mann before running AV, while there is some space in the dungeon for shenanigans in town, we already take too much time out of the actual exploration of the dungeon through accounting and planning, so while "Someone tried to steal your shit in Gosterwick! Time for a city adventure huh?" sounded ideal to me before the game, it does also make me keenly aware that it's time taken out from dungeoneering, which is really why we're here. Not because the loop itself is fun or because we're trying to win, but just because the dungeon is the space we decided to be the main surface of interaction for the characters, so to remove oneself from it feels like putting the characters on pause, and thus the whole world.
Thus I can't promise I'll be more thoughtful about this stuff; certainly not for next session, today the session ended at 6:30 PM, it is currently 9:10 PM and I'm still talking and thinking about it in one way or another (as I've said above though, this is because I'm in a foul mood and using this as a pleasant distraction). Maybe one day.
Happy 4 months and 125 rooms, Weasels. You can now save your progress.
