The Arden Vul Weasels - Session 4
As always, WW has recapped the session and added a rant against Mipui, which is well deserved. We changed to it at the start of the session and then it almost immediately froze on me, and we had no issues with mapping on TLDraw after it.
I knew Mipui was janky because we had used it for Tomb of the Serpent Kings, but I didn't think it was "will suddenly freeze if you make a map bigger than 50 x 50" janky, and I am similarly unwilling to do a more complex VTT than that. Once more, the simple whiteboard triumphs.
As for the session, I have little to no further thoughts. Everything went perfectly smoothly, they got really lost, but as far as getting lost in Arden Vul goes, they're lucky. They got teleported up a level, rather than down. I was pretty hyped for it and the hype paid off, yay yippie!
One thing I will keep in mind though is to avoid ending sessions partway through conversations, even if they are really juicy cliffhangers, because it's easier to forget what was going on and have a dramatic shift in attitude. The thug that was extorting them last session, Theodoros, ended the conversation by hitting on Lykourga, which in hindsight is a bit too drastic a change in attitude, especially since he should have been scared. Whatever, perhaps he's not very bright.
The contrast between Arden Vul and Hearts Aglow is exactly why I wanted to run it, and I have been proven correct this time. Hearts Aglow is extremely person-oriented, I'm always thinking about what drama can be started, how can I test relationships, etc, while Arden Vul is very space oriented. Every encounter with a person is a stand-off and a challenge to be overcome, which is very fun in its own way.
I did name every single one of the over 20 bandits that make up the bandit faction, because I was making a little tracker of where they are and how many are there in case there was a fight, but that was, uh, not standard practice. I probably won't do it to the factions that have ~100 members.
I am a bit scared for them to get the Door Madness, as I call it, which is the horrible feeling I get inside dungeons when it just keeps going and we find no dead-ends. I don't think they will, however, because mapping it out has been going smooth, and Arden Vul is just connected enough that if you stop to think about the space, you start to get your bearings.
Next session they're almost certainly meeting the inhabitants though (currently they've only met a hermit, vermin, and rival adventurers / bandits), so we'll see how that goes as they're loaded with treasure.