Second Attempt: Pathfinder

[Phoebe]

We made a second effort at Pathfinder / Sandpoint Goblins / Swallowtail Festival. The first time we tried it was a disaster. The other adult in the house was the problem. This time we had only the kids playing, so things were crazy but went much better in terms of actually doing the game. However, the events did not unfold as "planned":

Player A wanted, to make a long story short, to seize a bag of the butterflies to be released at the Swallowtail festival. She attempted to punch/grapple the innocent priest holding the bag, crit failed (first roll anyone actually did to DO something in this "campaign"), and ended up sprawled on the platform having knocked over the musician who was sitting on a stool behind her. Player B, the group's Dwarven Bard, jumped in to save the day by picking up the musician's instrument and singing a song, as if the whole thing had been a staged amusement. But Player C, the group's fighter, decided the townsfolk gathering around the fight were a threat, bopped one of them unconscious with the handle of her sword (crit success), and then seized Player A and beat a hasty retreat from the increasingly angry crowd of onlookers. The Bard managed to sneak off the back of the platform and run away.

All three of the escapees managed to run straight into the group of goblins who were sneaking up on the festival, luckily taking them by surprise in the process. One goblin was knocked unconscious, two were temporarily blinded by Player A the sorceror, one's arm was nearly cut off by the fighter, and then our party ran away successfully before the other goblins could make chase. At that point, the townspeople who were pursing our party members ran into the remaining goblins and all heck broke loose at once. No innocent Sandpoint lives were lost in the goblin attack, half the goblins got away, and two were seized and are now being held in the town jail.

Meanwhile, the party ran to the docks, where Player C / Fighter by chance had the backstory of having arrived in a small fishing boat to attend the festival. At first she couldn't find the boat again, and then she couldn't sail away once they were in it. Luckily, Sorceror A rolled a 20 to sail, so away they went. Long story short, they eventually fled all the way to Magnimar. So now Dwarf Bard B is wandering around looking for a restaurant or inn that might be willing to hire him as a musician, and these two rather hostile and volatile elf girls are following him around, though he doesn't really want the company, because they have nothing better to do yet. YET.

Now they're going to meet up with Player D in whatever restaurant or inn they happen to land in, and who knows, maybe somehow they will find their way back to Sandpoint. Or not. No idea at this point.

[Phoebe]

Player D was indeed met. This player is a Dex Fighter and will tell that to you once per sentence. Lord. How did some of you ever deal with this player in the past? This player (I almost said gave birth to, lollllll gave birth, oh hahaa ahhahaaa, Fathered, ahem, fathered) a child who is almost as unmanageable a player as he is, and this child is playing The Bard. Oh wow, I mean, it's really something. The other two, meanwhile, are OBSESSED as anyone can be with the whole thing. One of them has prepared a 4 page character sheet complete with lengthy typed descriptions and cut-and-pasted (physically) pictures of all kinds of things. She found a spell that summons a horse, but described it to me as being able to summon a horse made of light, which I later realized is a Light Mount, but it was too good so basically, she can summon a horse made of light. Actually it's a lion. I don't know, it's quite a game. They fled Sandpoint and never went back, so they're just wandering around Magnimar racking up random XP from encounters until I can figure out how to herd these cats into anything resembling the Runelords story again.

[Phoebe]

They encountered nefarious dealings at the Magnimar Sawmill. It was strongly hinted that running away was a good idea, being so utterly outmatched! They have one clever strategist, however, who managed to draw off most of the opponent in small units of one or two at a time, a sorceror who happened to blind two at crucial moments, and among the weak little party they rolled SIX critical hits in the main battle. It was not an educational experience because eventually they'll have to run away (?surely?) but won't think they need to due to this somewhat unwarranted display of dominance. It was helpful to see how they did it with one person who knows battle strategy, however, and they no longer doubt or question why they need a bard! Ch-ching the bonuses rack with that bard around!

[El Jefe]

Curious on the full PC compliment.

A. ? Sorcerer
B. Dwarf Bard
C. ? Fighter
D. ? Dex Fighter

My GM brain is always interested to figure out how to make a set of characters work, so just looking for more data to do the brain-crunching.

[Phoebe]

Exactly like that, with Human sorceror and Dex Fighter, and Half-elf Paladin. Some highly suspect but GM endorsed "enhancement" is going on, allowing the younger players to have enough powers to balance against the more experienced yet highly disruptive and unmanageable older players, so the L2 sorceror is more like an L3, and the Paladin is better at healing than usual and has a magic item she probably shouldn't (as well as a completely fantastical backstory that just... No, no... But ok.)

The newbies are suffering from some trial-and-error learning (no, you probably cannot effect a citizen's arrest of the mayor; yes, crowds will form and behave unpredictably when you suddenly pop out with unwarranted violence or scary spellcasting, etc). Luckily the oldest player knows how to approach a fight so that nobody gets flanked, everyone is well-buffed and surprising the enemy, the team has cover and an escape plan, and so on. Basic things I should be doing as a player but fail to, through dumbness.

[Phoebe]

During the pandemic we took this up again, and the intervening time and experience definitely helped the functionality of this whole campaign. We have often played a session without the most disruptive older child, and the other adult realized it would be more fun to actually teach the kids how to play an RPG that doesn't devolve into pointless interparty conflict. So!

The party arrived at Thistletop. Following the lead of the best DM ever, the DMDarcs, the current DM decided to make Gogmurt into a more highly redeemable character. This was useful pedagogically for a team that is supposed to be Good-aligned, when some dispute arose about whether to just execute him when he was at their mercy. And also useful because it's a small party, and though he mainly lurks in the background, he is willing to engage in self-defense or aid of his forest compatriots as opposed to the larger and more hostile goblins who have moved in and taken over the place (decided to tell a bigger narrative about this clash among the goblins...).

Anyway, our chaotic good sorcerer has turned out to be hilarious in the extreme: she basically runs around colorspraying and blinding people, who then become great sitting ducks for the others, while looking for fancy things to loot in the middle of battle. She was last to arrive at the encounter with Nualia - because of the bizarre order in which choices were made by the party, they have no idea whatsoever who she is or why she's here and why she has a claw hand! They have figured out she is a priestess of Lamashtu, but why? No clue.

So the sorcerer waltzes in, while the paladin is gamely trying to smite evil but rolling a long series of tragic single digit numbers, and the "dex fighter" (haha autocorrect made that sex fighter and I die of laughter) took four swings, exactly seven damage each time, and now both of these PCs are seriously hurting and near death due to being struck by Nualia. First thing the Sorceror does is use mage hand to attempt to unclasp N's sihedron necklace, not because she thinks this will be helpful, but because it's shiny and she wants to take it, lol! It turns out that was helpful because she rolled two natural twenties in a row. You can't make this stuff up. (Meanwhile the dwarf Bard is outside using his metal banjo as a weapon to fend off goblins, instead of healing anybody inside.)

Then the sorcerer leaves her dangerously-wounded friends to finish Nualia off, while she begins digging through her dresser looking for fancy clothes. Luckily the paladin manages to smite evil at this point, and Nualia is just about to disappear in a fog and flee when the fighter finally brings her down. She's dead and they have no clue what is going on in thistle top. Until next time...

[Phoebe]