Barbigazl: Part One Notes

DM’s Notes [by Peter A. Picture is of Alrick!]

One of the big things I wanted to do with this module was see how a party of PCs would react to being in essence the ‘retainers’ (as in NPCs) of a non-player group. I didn’t want it to be immediately obvious, and I don’t think I’d have got away with it with a less experienced group. I think I sort of got away with it here, but the degree of difference experienced by the players was, I’d say, subtle at best. They weren’t making major decisions, but they were making some (they had to, or the adventure would have been even more of a railroad than it was already). Hurin was a pain in the arse – but to an extent he was supposed to be. He is a Dwarf and a supposed noble, so a degree of arrogance was ensured; and yet the party had to toe the line for two reasons. Firstly, they were outnumbered. This was the plan all along. I knew it would make some things tricky (and it did), but it was to give me at the time a better option than having them equaled or bettered by the NPCs – that’s a good way to ‘give’ your players cannon-fodder with tank armour. So numbers it had to be, and when Paul’s brother Wayne decided he wanted to play three characters, those numbers increased even more to balance them out. Combat took forever (looking back I’d have had Hurin relegate one section of his group to combat and had the others sit it out. It might have irritated the players more, but saved everyone time). To save myself some dice rolling time I ‘gave’ two NPC Dwarves to each player (although some invested more time in them than others) strictly for combat purposes and little other reason. It sort of worked, but they remained ciphers. I’m still trying to think of
their names.

The second means of keeping the PCs in line was the oath. Perhaps it was forgotten in time, but it got a reaction at the time, and most of the players were Lawful enough to stick to it – to a point (and we’ll come to that later). Blood oaths are tricky things and can have consequences, but it seemed as though the guys were either comfortable with it or knew that there were opportunities for an ‘out’ at some stage.

I’m not much of a believer in wandering monsters, preferring to set up encounters that can be used or not as games develop. The Hill Giants were such a deliberate encounter, giving the PCs something a little tougher to flex their muscles with, something challenging that might expend a few spells along the way but early in the piece, and something that might offer the Dwarves in the group a natural advantage with their natural defensive bonuses against giant-sized creatures. Hill Giants are the weakest of the race, but they still gave the party troubles, and I was a little worried to find that my two characters were the most vulnerable – the combat-magic Elf being a near fatality.

The first encounter was also supposed to be an alarm for the wary – the second Gnome encounter to feature a highly inquisitive local asking questions of such a conspicuously large party of Dwarves with, oddly, some various humans and an Elf among them. Once again, the players didn’t blink, and it was up to the NPCs once more to lead the conversation away. Not that it mattered, as Yellowjacket (the name could have been a giveaway, but perhaps I was too clever for my own good) had tamed bees, and a Gnome’s rapport with nature. Did the players put two and two together? Did they bollocks.

Once out of the woods more character moments appeared. I really dug the fact that the PCs checked the bridge for signs of Dwarven influence. I hadn’t put anything in the module to say so, so said no, which was a shame in a way, but didn’t telegraph the location of the lost mines either. The camp at the bottom of the waterfall was notable for two things – Argon’s Pony of Invulnerability which had no name but just wouldn’t die. It carried just about everything you’d want as well – a big tent, provisions for upwards of thirteen people (allegedly). I’d thought scaling a sheer ice waterfall would be a task too far, but no. At some stage I thought this beast of incredible usefulness would have to disappear and planned in the back of my mind a scenario of hungry goblins and a multitude of arrows. What actually happened is that I just forgot it. And so did the players. The final battle of this session with Wargs (Dire Wolves for stats) and Werewolves was notable for two things. First was Oban’s ‘accidental’ flaming of Balinor. I read it at the time as an actual accident that, between two brother players, built into something else. Not sure in retrospect. It would be academic by the end of the next session anyway. The second notable thing was a throwaway comment I made about any demi-humans who caught lycanthropy effectively being served a death sentence. It stopped play and opened up the guide books as everyone checked to see if that was true. It’s true in the early 80s version of the game at least, and it wouldn’t be the first time that me having old rules muddled things when the players were using the later set. As it happened the fight was long and drawn out with no casualties worth noting of the lycanthropy kind. For the first magic-weapons-only encounter, the PCs were ludicrously provided for and made short work of their combatants. But for the tension surrounding Oban’s fireball I actually needn’t have run that event, and it added nothing more to the game save for the reminder that the party was too powerful for that level of encounter. Fortunately I had another encounter lined up that wouldn’t give them the same advantage.

[END]