The Arden Vul Weasels - Session 7
Once again, WW has our back, so let's get down to business.
The extreme luck of the Weasels reach a new point today: they avoided a potentially very serious and deadly encounter twice in a row, and then managed not to get cornered by a gelatinous cube and then successfully escape it while also loaded down by treasure.
Aside from that though, the more notable side of this session was how we rolled a bit more than usual, a few more judgement calls were made - particularly the escape at the end - and how often what appears very obvious when you have complete information looks very sensible from the player seat. The murals and frescoes giving tips for the dungeon in particular look very obvious when you read them, but when you convey them to the players who don't know what any of it means, they become a lot more ambiguous.
One of my favourite little moments was watching the players notice a connection between the floor they were and the floor above, and realise that yeah, the rooms ARE mapped relative to one another.
Regarding the rolling and the negotiation procedure, this session very much solidified my preference for loosey goosey negotiations rather than strictly defined rules. The biggest points of friction we have in this campaign all come from D&D, and if it were up to me I'd ditch them quickly. Unfortunately, the dungeon does assume an escalating level of punishment to be taken, and I do not feel like converting 1200 pages into anything.
However, it is very fun to just ask for an argument from the player as to why they can do the thing they're trying to do, and if they cannot provide a convincing enough one, asking for a roll. In fact, I'd go so far as to say I rolled a little too often this time around - one judgement call in particular involved Eofor, who has the trait "slow like an ox", having a roll with a -1 to close the door in time for some skeletal baboons not to cross it and attack him. That should not have been a roll, Eofor shouldn't have been able to attempt to be that fast, he's slow. And on the chase too, that should have penalised him, but I was thinking in D&D movement rates and it didn't occur to me. Still, I don't regret any of it, I think they were fine judgement calls.
I think that is the biggest difference in this session: how little it bothered me to stutter when giving instructions, mixing up the directions when describing a room, forgetting NPCs and rules, making calls I wouldn't normally, etc. I had my confidence renovated and all the little things that typically bother me when anxious just felt completely fine.
It is slightly starting to rankle me how much Arden Vul hides its treasures. I'm wondering how to point the players in its direction a little more. It makes me wonder how exactly did Richard Barton's group get to level up, because in 7 sessions the Weasels have extracted around 3k coins of wealth from the dungeon. They only managed to level up through a loan by Wicktrimmer and an arrangement for him as a patron. Even the treasure they've decided not to take with them, such as statues, are only worth 100 or so coins; the only truly big hoards are VERY hidden or EXTREMELY well-guarded, which makes it a very unfriendly dungeon for levels 1 and 2.
Then again, they haven't died, and only truly could not have avoided a TPK a few times (this session was one of them), which makes sense with Barton's introduction and the suggested played levels for each area.
Part of this is just time and group dynamics. We've been gaming for 2 months (way more for most of the group), I know how to read my players' faces, I don't think of edge cases that don't matter, and I know my players will just help out with rulings if I need to because we're all DMs too.
Part of this is also personal. I had long talks with someone dear to me and asked for reassurance, which really helped me bounce from my June Blues. The social event I was dreading a little - my cousin's wedding - finally passed which means the only thing I'm a little anxious about now is the upcoming move; which will be done by the time of the next game.
A thing I have noticed too is that I had originally intended for Arden Vul to be the lightning rod for any obsessive prep I might have, since there's so many connections and so much you can draw from - and I have done it to a degree, make no mistake - but I feel less and less the need to prep it like that, just because of how in the dark the players are so much of the time; but also because of how less anxious I feel in general too, both with Arden Vul and Hearts Aglow.
I don't really channel how my week has gone into my games, and particularly not into Arden Vul, but one thing that does end up affecting me more than I want to is lack of confidence. I think that applies to all DMs, so it's important to work on self-confidence to truly become a doughty ADVANCED D&Der, as Ernesto Geraldo Gygaxio (the author of AD&D) put it.
So yeah, hug your friends and players and tell them how glad you are to have them, it's good for the constitution and wholeness of the body and mind; bring your whole ass into the game and don't be afraid to just make things up - I don't say this to you, I say this to myself in the future. It's sessions like these that make me believe, even for a moment, that we can actually get to the bottom of the dungeon, and back out to a beautiful day outside. Fight on!
