It’s been more than a year since I started a “real” campaign, the first such attempt at such since a short-lived attempt to run through Castle Ravenloft back in… 2009? 2010? Anyway, I’ve played plenty since then, and before as well, but mostly in the “Sliders” setup, and as often a player as DM. But now I’ve passed the one-year mark (sort of), so I thought I’d do a recap of where we’ve gotten so far.
- Sessions played: 22
- Hours per session: 4
- Estimated total play time: 88 hours
- Characters created: 6
- Characters/players lost: 2
- Characters killed: 0
- Distance traveled: 1,332 miles (approximately)
- Time elapsed (in game): 63 days
- Levels gained: 7
- Max character level: 3
- Monsters killed: 17
- Monsters fled from: 2
- Non-monster enemies killed/incapacitated: 11
We try to get together every other week, but as we are all working adults, sometimes that gets interrupted by work, kids, hospitalizations, what have you. So though we’ve been going for about a year and two months, we’ve not quite gotten to a year’s worth of sessions. Along with the having kids to deal with, our sessions usually net about 4 hours of actual play time. Between commutes, dinner, and the bedtime routine, anywhere from 1-2 hours are “wasted” on non-game stuff every night. And now that one of our company has moved out of state, there are technical connection issues to deal with as well. I was a bit surprised to count it all up and only get two “work weeks” of game time.
Also over the course of the year we’ve fluctuated in the number of players available. One of our number had to drop out due to work conflicts, another stopped playing because of poor communication of the game’s goals on my part. So far no one has died (though a few have come close, almost every fight it seems someone nearly dies), but I hope think that will change eventually. Gotta make these people feel it, you know?
The party started in Canterbury, Kent, England, but quickly moved to Dover, Calais, then Amsterdam after a storm hit the ship, Hamburg, then overland up through Denmark, across the water from Fredrikshavn to Gothenburg, up through Uddevalla, Fredrikstad, and finally Oslo. After about a week in Oslo they set off to Hogevarde Mountain, back to Oslo, and have now trekked up to a small settlement called Hovringen. It’s been quite a journey, and taken more than three months.
The level gain is rather slow, because these folks aren’t getting into fights four nights out of seven. There’s been conflict, sure, and plenty of fights, but my XP is assigned on combat damage dealt and received, and on loot gained from fighting. So far they haven’t made the effort to get up to their waists in blood. Also, two of the current characters are multiclassed, which means they need a lot more XP to gain a level than a single classed character.
It’s interesting, having played less than a year’s worth of sessions we have come so far and yet it seems like not terribly far after all. Looking at the time played, we might get just as much game time in by meeting for one Saturday a month, all day. Something I’ll bring up to the group next game.
The Greenbeard Codex 