Hoard of the Dragon Queen: Prep Work

After a two year hiatus of not playing D&D, I'm super excited that this kind of fell in my lap!  A coworker mentioned she wanted to play D&D, then more people hitched onto that star, and it kind of snowballed into effect.  I've never run a home campaign (I've run stuff at conventions and gamedays for 3.5 and 4e) but since 5e is pretty free form and not as rules heavy as 4e, I volunteered to run it. However, I wasn't 100% up on the rules for 5e, so we agreed to play the published adventure Hoard of the Dragon Queen.

When you read HoTDQ, one thing becomes woefully apparent: This is not a plug and play game. You are going to have to do a lot of prep work.  The information is scattered around the book and it’s your job to make a story of it. Describing it to a friend, it’s more like doing an Ikea hack. Why buy a bedside table when you can make one out of a stool? (Of course, HoTDQ is more like buying a bedside table and then still having to butcher a stool to make it work.)

One thing I really did like was the bonds. Hoard of the Dragon Queen comes with a list of backgrounds to tie people to the adventure plot-lines. Some are good, some are decent, and some are pretty “meh”.  I cherry picked the best, combined and/or fleshed out some of the weaker ones, and created a few original ones to hand out to the players as well.   I've also gone out on a limb and attached a small power to the starting bond such as a bonus skill or a minor class feature.  This allows me to expand and provide future “boons” to the PC’s for completing goals related to their background and bond. A bit risky as it could overpower the PC's, but I feel that as long as the boons are used as an alternative to treasure, it likely will not overpower them and may foster better role play.

As a group, we decided to go with the Hero Points rule as well as the Plot Points rule.  I’m a fan of hero points as they allow someone to feel more badass at the times where it really counts. They *are* heroes after all!  I worry a bit about their game breaking potential, so we are only doing 5 points per level rather than 5 + level points.  Plot Points are something that I hope I can work with more.  I've been playing a lot of narrative games and while I like to think I can welcome a more “Fiasco” style to the game, we’ll see how it blends with D&D.

I wanted to dive right in to episode one at our first session, however, a brief perusal of blogs and forums really sheds light on the fact that HoTDQ is a lethal adventure.  My conundrum:  A lot of the players in the group were either brand new or coming back to the game after a hiatus. The possibility that they would not have the technical nous to easily navigate a first adventure with a high risk of total party kill was very real and besides, TPK’s are no way to introduce people to a game (I’m not one to fudge dice rolls either). My conclusion was that bringing them up to second level would greatly increase their survivability.  Dovetailing this is that HoTDQ kind of just drops a bunch of people in a caravan for “some reason” and then into a situation that expects everyone to rush towards overwhelming danger with no concern for cohesion. It's not something a character would naturally do and it requires the players to identify themselves as "heroes" and "a team" in a very meta-gamey sort of way.  I felt a better way to do it was to give them a more natural connection and have some minor success to build confidence.

Do they all talk at once? Take turns?
They look like they don't know either...

So I had to dust off some old books and creak into motion to create an intro adventure.  My goal was to create a situation that facilitated connection.  I decided that all of the characters had been with the caravan for less than a week, they were traveling for more specific reasons, and that the evening that we set the game in was the first time they actually sat down together to socialize.  They would start around a campfire and the first encounter would come to them.  While I did not find a module that fit what I wanted, I was influenced by “The Wizard’s Amulet” as I liked the feel of an ambush uniting a bunch of strangers into a team.  I made the caravan leader into an NPC who had a vested interest in the kidnappings that happened in a small town on the way to Greenest and threw in some foreshadowing of dragons and Tiamat as well.  I feel like it went over pretty well. I’ll put the session into it’s own "Episode 0" post.

Baby Circus

The kid likes to hang on stuff and swing. Bike staples, stair rails, pretty much any low hanging bar that she can get a grip on. As an Involved Parent™, the first thing I think of any time she does anything more than once is “How can I channel that!”

A rare moment.

So the obvious thing to do is to find a way to help nurture this, like using a trapeze. In my imagination, she would hang from the trapeze bars and swing to her heart’s content, smiling at me while I bathe in the radiant glow of being a Good Parent™!  So, we signed her up for Baby Circus a few months ago.

Let me tell you, she loves everything about it! She loves the songs they sing and games they play while exercising. She loves the stunts. She loves the little obstacle course they have. She loves the trampoline. She loves the teachers. She loves everything.

Everything, that is, except the trapeze.

About halfway into the class, they let the trapeze down. They are set up to be anywhere from 3-4 feet off of the heavily padded ground. All of the other kids and parents race off to grab one of them and start practicing. Cleo will sometimes very casually mosey over to one, grab it, hang from it for a second, and then, despite dad’s manic encouragement, she’ll  wander off. Sometimes she won’t even go for a trapeze bar and will somehow skip right to wandering off. At first the irony of the whole situation was amusing.

This dad!  This is the
thing I don't like!

Now, however, it’s become a chess match.

You see, I've learned that if I try to pressure the kid into trying out the trapeze, this is a guaranteed way to get her to have absolutely no interest, and picking her up and putting her on a trapeze results in a kicking and screaming, yelling “No!” kind of situation.  What I have noticed is that if I pretend I’m not interested, she sometimes, SOMETIMES  will go back to the trapeze independently.  This is, in my book, a Huge Win™.

She’s  a pretty perceptive kid so I can’t half ass this. I have to let go of my resentment and really sell my interest. Oh, what’s that?  The ladder that the janitor uses and accidentally left out? Oh sure! Nothing I’d like more than to pay $20 an hour to have you sit under a ladder like you could do at home rather than using the unique item that only this place has that, have I mentioned, allows them to charge us $20 an hour? Yup. Fuck those things. It’s ladder time!

Despite her disdain for the trapeze, she does love the damn class. It’s undeniable. Throughout the rest of the week I’ll hear her playing by herself in her room, happily singing the songs from it. Maybe she’ll grab that bar one day, maybe she won’t. As long as she smiles and sings, I suppose it’s worth it. Besides, what with Cirque du Soleil, who’s to say what’s a circus worthy prop anyway?

Changestorm

So for those of you who are not in the know, Gamestorm is a convention that happens in the Portland area every March that encompasses everything... gamer-ish. RPGs, boardgames, card games, story games, LARPs, console games, and experimental games.  I went to my first Gamestorm around the middle of my first stint of living in Portland.  At the time, I was enamored with Living Greyhawk and Gamestorm was one of the best ways to get games under your belt that may not otherwise be available for play. The first time I went, I pretty much lived in the RPGA room and was largely unaware of what the rest of Gamestorm was doing. This eventually evolved into playing other RPGs, exploring boardgames, discovering story games, and even doing some LARPs and experimental games.

Last year I didn't go because we had just had a baby. And this year...

Well, things are different.

I should mention at this point that Cleo is teething again. Four eyeteeth, three molars. The kiddo is super clingy and in tremendous pain. Strangely enough, she's also a lot more fun these days. She's my little buddy. We do yoga, dance around, or just lay on the floor making silly coyote noises to each other and giggling like mad. The prospect of going out and having fun WITHOUT her is becoming more and more foreign.

And yet, I had scheduled time off from her on Friday. Sure, I spend time away from her, but it's always for the sake of responsibilities or at most, a few hours. Here I was dropping my little girl off at her grandmother's place so I could just go play games for 10-12 hours! I wavered a bit while I was at H's mom's place to drop Cleo off about whether I should even go or not. She convinced me to go,  pointing out that I have to keep my self care practices sharp or else I was no good to anyone.

A great point but still, it felt... selfish.

The convention then became this interesting, existential experience. It was familiar, yet not. The giddy excitement I usually felt was replaced by distracted interest. Past me who was obsessed with games was at war with current me who doesn't have time in his life to be obsessed with games. Gamer geek vs the dad.

Strangely, one of the games I played was very helpful. It was called Before and After the Silence. Basically, six of us spent one and a half hours in a room, in silence. We had two things: 1) a card that explained our reference point for our situation (e.g. Prisoners, Shipwrecked, In the lobby of a clinic waiting for our STD diagnoses) that the other people don't know and 2) a card that lists an action you can do.

I got the situation card that I was a telepath. Everyone was an aspect of me and I was the thoughts of everyone in the room (goo goo ga joob!), and my goal was to create stillness. As someone struggling with points of reference within myself, this was awesome. Kind of a mirror to my internal struggle. Also my action was to once let out a "scream from the bottom of your soul". If you ever get the opportunity to let out a soul wrenching scream to break 45 minutes of silence, I highly recommend it, especially if you've had the kind of year I've had.

I can't say I've resolved this conflict, but I do feel like I reached peace with something on Saturday. You see, Saturday at a con is usually the day of the most activity (Friday is the buildup and Sunday has a "circus leaving town" feeling). And on Saturday morning, I went and played a five hour game (it was a sci-fi/wild west larp). I had a fantastic time. But then I left the con. Sure there was more to do and see (The Doubleclicks were playing at 8!), but it was early afternoon, the weather was too good, and I had a little girl to kick the soccer ball around with.

I guess sometimes, just sometimes, you can have it good as long as you're not determined to have it all.

Toddler Speak

Get back to work!

George RR Martin likes to take the winter off from writing to watch football, and I think I see his point. Yes, you are indoors and you would think something like that would be conducive to writing. The sad thing is, you just get sick of being indoors and find ways to distract yourself. Personally, I have been watching classic Doctor Who from episode 1. Yes, that's right. Starting with the black and white episodes and the First Doctor. I'm currently up to the Third Doctor and, finally, episodes with color! Much more productive than writing, right? Right?

Outside of that, the kid has been growing of course. She's mobile now, toddling along, over estimating herself, doing face-plants, and then crying. She has slowly been becoming more capable throughout the winter, and H and I have been on cruise control, picking her up when she cries, steering her from dangers, and sympathizing with her when she inevitably disregards the danger.

Reflect my indifference, punk.

So far, we've been able to handle any incidents with "toddlerese" from "The Happiest Toddler on the Block." I could go into the specifics such as reflect 30% -60% of the emotion, use small words and simple phrases, etc, but the easiest way to explain it is that you are The Hulk who just set up shop as a humanistic therapist for toddlers. My life now consists of such great phrases as:

"Cleo fall! Cleo angry she fall! Cleo angry!"

or after 15 minutes of pestering the cat:

"Cleo hurt! Bad cat scratch and Cleo fall! Cleo cry! Bad Emma!"

and also

"Cleo fall! Cleo scared she fall! Cleo scared and cry!" (notice a pattern?)

Such variety is the viscera of my daily routine. Lots of empathizing for accidents and distracting after. Considering that various Hulks represent different traits (Grey = Surly, Red = Rage, Bright Green = Simple Anger, Pale Green = Complex Anger), I wonder what color Toddler Empathy Hulk would be...

Do Hulk feel happy smiley face emoticon or winky emoticon?

How Baby Blogs Die

Wow. So I went on a bike ride one Tuesday instead of updating and here we are, 2 months later with no posts. I did notice a while back that various parenting blogs on the net usually do seem to die out around this point in the kid's life.

And now I think I'm starting to understand why.

Reason 1: Kid changes

Also, the kid and me were a bit
sick for a week or so...

Cleo has gotten a lot more mobile. She does her bear walk crawl everywhere, hoists herself up in to standing position, and has been experimenting with what she can do as a biped. It won't be long now until she's officially a toddler. Oddly, this is LESS exhausting than it was before. Her independence means she doesn't constantly have to be entertained and that she doesn't get frustrated when she gets into odd positions.

What it does requires, though, is more attention. Every few minutes a glance at the kiddo is required just to make sure she isn't trying to eat a paperclip that fell off the table or that she hasn't gotten hold of something easily destroyed. For example, the other day, she put the iMote for our Apple TV into a half full bottle of water. She was very proud of herself and VERY frustrated when dad didn't appreciate this and was rushing around trying to find rice and a ziplock bag in order to have half a hope of salvaging the device. (Note: The iMote did dry off and is working.)

This means less large blocks of time where I can sit down and focus and more small blocks of time. It's tough to adapt to. Add in:

Reason 2: Life Changes

The stable situation of me having every Tuesday off is in the past. For the last 2 months I have, more often than not, had to work Tuesday. Things like Cleo's upcoming birthday, Thanksgiving, X-Mas, etc, mean I have to ration out my leave time. That means less 3 day spans of time for dad and kiddo. Truthfully, Cleo is much lower maintenance now than she was 6 months ago and doesn't require constant parental attention. When left with her grandmother for less than 4 hours at a time, I doubt she even really realizes we've gone!

Still, this means, once again, less solid blocks of time for dad where I would normally have the time to leisurely access my muse. Leading to:

Reason 3: Dad has to Change!

A friend of mine with kids once told me that the moment you get things figured out, it all changes. Now I'm starting to understand HOW this happens. My life has changed from one of exhausting but dependable daily slogs to a fragmented existence. Learning how to write during these fragments is HARD!

For example, I recently learned that after our morning shower, I have about 20-30 minutes to write. She has been entertained in the morning, fed, changed, cleaned, and is now relaxed and able to relax and play by herself during this time. I have to pull up a zafu to a stepstool in her room and write right then! No checking e-mail or reddit, start right in! NOW! DO IT!

(Repeat for whatever other fragments of time I'm able to identify during the day.)

Anyhow, if I had to say why some of those blogs die off, it's probably this challenge to change your habits that causes things to stall. Doing this is wildly uncomfortable and takes practice, but, as I hope this blog post proves, I'm at least STARTING to get better at it.  I really want to keep this blog going, though, so I hopefully I keep adapting!

Delayed

Hiya all. I was going to work on my post today, but H got the afternoon off! We rode bikes with Cleo and went and saw a movie. I'll try to get the post up tomorrow!

Talkin Bout my Chariot

So a while back, H asked me about bike trailers. This is what I sent her:

So I did some research on bike trailers. The Burley trailers are considered fine for light use. Once Cleo is old enough to go in a trailer, though, I'm thinking the bike will be my primary mode of transport with her. So I'm not looking for a Sunday bike ride trailer, I'm looking for a car substitute.

Enter... The Chariot.

Has storage space in back. All weather. Shocks and a hammock style seat for child comfort. Converts quickly and easily to a stroller and back for outings and shopping. Should be able to haul her around for a few years in it until she's old enough for a tag-along. She and I will fear no rain in it. Expensive, but this will free us up from having to depend on the car!

I was expecting to get it for my birthday in the fall, but H was able to get it on sale recently to allow us to enjoy the summer!

Don't get me wrong, the Yepp is still preferred for sunny bike rides, but our Chariot isn't about that. It allows dad to capture a bit of his former life when I lived primarily by bike. There have been many times in the last 9 months where I have been immensely frustrated with having to pack up the kid into the car for minor trips out.

Non-approved baby positioning

Now, that's a thing of the past.

We tried it out a few times on fun rides and set things up so H's bike hitches up to it as well. For me, though, the real test came last week.

You see, Cleo sometimes enjoys hummus on pita in the mornings. One day a few weeks ago, I gave her some hummus for breakfast that I had bought at our local store. Then, as is our tradition, I took the slimy post-breakfast baby upstairs for a shower.

While getting cleaned up, though, her skin became super red on her face and chest, causing a dad freakout!

A superposition of two states

I called the advice nurse but, thankfully, the kid wasn't troubled and was mostly bewildered as to why her shower was cut short. The blotches were actually fading even as I waited. The nurse first reassured me it was not the dreaded allergic reaction. She told me that different types of hummus have different concentrations of lemon juice and other irritants in them and that, combined with hot water and soap, irritated Cleo's skin significantly.

Fast forward to last week. Cleo is out of hummus for tomorrow and I now only trust Trader Joe's Organinc Hummus. It's raining outside. I could pack her in the car... but all we really need is hummus. My eyes turn to the Chariot.

Let's do this!

Wave function collapsed...
And the kid is nice and dry

I'm leaning that the biggest downside of a baby trailer is the fact that you have no idea what's going on in there. On a sunny day you can leave it open enough to look back and see how the kid is doing. When you close the rain flap? Cleo suddenly turns into Schrodinger's cat. The only thing keeping me from hopping off of my bike at every intersection to check on her is Cleo's humming or occasional laugh.

Actually, one time I did hop off because I hadn't heard her make any noise for a time and it was raining a bit fierce. Cleo was happy as a clam and looked up at me with this casual "Oh, hi there!" expression on her face.

Anyhow, the trip went well, the baby stayed dry, and we got a few things more than hummus, all fitting in the Chariot easily. Successful trip? BIG YES!

In fact, the only real problem I have with the Chariot is that I get that Phineas and Ferb song stuck in my head every single time I load the thing up; often I end up singing it to Cleo. Enjoy.