Unexpected developments in player psychology
Posted: Wed Jun 15, 2011 7:32 am
Not sure how widely applicable this will be, but I had an interesting experience last night. I was getting set to play with two players, my wife and a friend of mine. Both of them have finished the funnel through solo play. The friend hit level one via the "one adventure" rule, while my wife earned the xp.
As I've mentioned elsewhere, my wife played level 0 very cautiously and her funnel consisted of four sorties to Stonehell. Her party consisted of eight people, and all of her sorties just explored the gatehouse on the surface. On her first sortie she lost one character to giant centipedes and two to goblins (who actually surrendered soon after when they lost half of their numbers). She returned to town with a little bit of treasure, and rolled up three more zeroes. The second sortie went much better, and she only lost one member. After returning from the second trip her original party was a little over halfway to level one. She left the party at seven. On the third trip I rolled a random encounter, which turned out to be a lone ogre fairly distant from them. They split up, with the two halves of the party going on opposite sides of the road and taking cover in the trees. They managed to take down the ogre (who happened to have relatively low hit points) before he closed to melee range, using a couple of bows they had scavenged from goblins and a couple of slings they had purchased. After that, they decided to try to track down the ogre's cave. They didn't have a forester or anything, so I just did a Luck roll, and they hit it. I assigned a probability to see if there were any other ogres in the cave, and it turned up clear. I used LL's treasure system for ogres, which gives a treasure type + 1000gp. The % rolls didn't favor them on the treasure, so they just go the 1000gp, but that was more than enough to take all seven to level 1. She leveled them all and we stopped play there.
The friend did his funnel and a little bit of level one in the Palace of the Silver Princess, and had an extremely high mortality rate, even once he hit level one. I think he got two characters through the funnel, and only kept one. He didn't manage to find almost any treasure, and the only way he was able to have money for more hirelings was to hawk their gear once he returned to the city. His character is a Cultist bound to Azi Dahaka and his surviving hireling is a chaotic ex-noble with his tongue cut out (thanks to the Meatshields generator and some creative interpretation on the player's part), so they don't have any moral issues with that. Their base of operations is Vornheim, a huge city, so word hasn't gotten around not to sign up with these guys yet. Probably the coolest thing that happened with him was that he had a good invoke patron roll that we said sent an animate whirlwind to hang around a bit (it would have been a devil toad for Bobugbobilz). When they opened the door on a room full of kobolds he sent in the whirlwind and cast hold portal. There was no escape. He's also bound his henchman (now a level one thief) to Azi Dahaka.
So that's the solo prelude. The unexpected developments last night were that a)they both had a really hard time thinking about adventuring together, because they already had a strong party identity all to themselves and b)my wife is very attached to all seven characters, my friend is extremely attached to both his character and his hireling and wants to bond more followers. The friend definitely sympathized with my wife's attachment and said he would feel the same way if he got that many through. I got her to just play two characters, and they hired a few hirelings, but she definitely wanted to reserve the right to pull out the other guys on future sorties.
So I guess the interesting thing to me was how the funnel has created stronger attachments to level one characters than I have maybe ever seen before. Also, they are very interested in a mixed career of sometimes adventuring on their own with hirelings and sometimes doing the standard party thing. I attribute that to playing multiple characters in the funnel. They don't really want to fully go back to single character play, although they would do so if there were enough players in a given session.
At first I dragged my feet, with the 1e DMG warnings about multiple characters echoing in my head, but it seemed somehow to fit. Anyway, that's my report.
As I've mentioned elsewhere, my wife played level 0 very cautiously and her funnel consisted of four sorties to Stonehell. Her party consisted of eight people, and all of her sorties just explored the gatehouse on the surface. On her first sortie she lost one character to giant centipedes and two to goblins (who actually surrendered soon after when they lost half of their numbers). She returned to town with a little bit of treasure, and rolled up three more zeroes. The second sortie went much better, and she only lost one member. After returning from the second trip her original party was a little over halfway to level one. She left the party at seven. On the third trip I rolled a random encounter, which turned out to be a lone ogre fairly distant from them. They split up, with the two halves of the party going on opposite sides of the road and taking cover in the trees. They managed to take down the ogre (who happened to have relatively low hit points) before he closed to melee range, using a couple of bows they had scavenged from goblins and a couple of slings they had purchased. After that, they decided to try to track down the ogre's cave. They didn't have a forester or anything, so I just did a Luck roll, and they hit it. I assigned a probability to see if there were any other ogres in the cave, and it turned up clear. I used LL's treasure system for ogres, which gives a treasure type + 1000gp. The % rolls didn't favor them on the treasure, so they just go the 1000gp, but that was more than enough to take all seven to level 1. She leveled them all and we stopped play there.
The friend did his funnel and a little bit of level one in the Palace of the Silver Princess, and had an extremely high mortality rate, even once he hit level one. I think he got two characters through the funnel, and only kept one. He didn't manage to find almost any treasure, and the only way he was able to have money for more hirelings was to hawk their gear once he returned to the city. His character is a Cultist bound to Azi Dahaka and his surviving hireling is a chaotic ex-noble with his tongue cut out (thanks to the Meatshields generator and some creative interpretation on the player's part), so they don't have any moral issues with that. Their base of operations is Vornheim, a huge city, so word hasn't gotten around not to sign up with these guys yet. Probably the coolest thing that happened with him was that he had a good invoke patron roll that we said sent an animate whirlwind to hang around a bit (it would have been a devil toad for Bobugbobilz). When they opened the door on a room full of kobolds he sent in the whirlwind and cast hold portal. There was no escape. He's also bound his henchman (now a level one thief) to Azi Dahaka.
So that's the solo prelude. The unexpected developments last night were that a)they both had a really hard time thinking about adventuring together, because they already had a strong party identity all to themselves and b)my wife is very attached to all seven characters, my friend is extremely attached to both his character and his hireling and wants to bond more followers. The friend definitely sympathized with my wife's attachment and said he would feel the same way if he got that many through. I got her to just play two characters, and they hired a few hirelings, but she definitely wanted to reserve the right to pull out the other guys on future sorties.
So I guess the interesting thing to me was how the funnel has created stronger attachments to level one characters than I have maybe ever seen before. Also, they are very interested in a mixed career of sometimes adventuring on their own with hirelings and sometimes doing the standard party thing. I attribute that to playing multiple characters in the funnel. They don't really want to fully go back to single character play, although they would do so if there were enough players in a given session.
At first I dragged my feet, with the 1e DMG warnings about multiple characters echoing in my head, but it seemed somehow to fit. Anyway, that's my report.