Session 2

I ran session 2 of my modified "Curse of the Brine Witch" which could be attached to my greater Cult of Undeath campaign. We'll see. It's a 5e game, and I've only been semi-serious about it, because it's meant to be a short-term mini-campaign while waiting for this group to get back in the swing of things. HOWEVER, as I've said before, there's substantial risk (to the group) that their old DM who was running a big 1-20 level campaign based on the Mad Mage campaign from WotC, and they're about halfway through, that it doesn't really come together. The DM just moved out of state and two time zones further west, and while everyone is talking a good talk about continuing the campaign online, I think realistically, it's always dubious exactly how well that scenario will work out. So, I'm thinking that I'll finish this first chapter, and then we'll see what's going on. If the answer is "still nothing" I can let the characters level up to level 2 and do the next chapter. Although if we do that, I'm going to have to insist on some backstory or something from these characters. They were really just meant to be short term scabs, so to speak, but there's a possibility of them pulling away into being more. 

I also was reminded of one of my weaknesses as a GM; I tend to focus on what's coming next, and rush through what I'm doing a bit. Now, this isn't necessary too bad of a weakness, and I think many GMs would benefit from keeping things moving. But I did notice that I felt rushed in retrospect, had relatively little NPC interaction, and spent more time on just making sure that they found clues, that they had combats, and that they moved on to what was next. I was especially doing badly at NPC dialogue and having interesting interactions. Which probably isn't really my strongest suit to begin with, but when I get too rushed, it gets even worse. 

To be fair to me, I was exhausted. I was stressed. I hadn't had time to prepare as much as I'd have liked. I'm rusty. I can do it better. But I didn't. I need to pay attention and be a little more on my A-game here.

So anyway, yeah; got some clues. The PCs did my whole asylum thing, where they fought cultists, hyenas, and pirates. That was the big "set piece" of the night. 

There's obviously at least one more session, but possibly two before I finish this chapter 1. Honestly, I'd like to slow down and make sure that it is two sessions. If I slow down enough, it might even be three. But we'll see. Like I said, if I'm going to propose that we continue playing this, even as a "side piece" campaign, I need to make sure that I'm a little more on the ball and giving them a better experience. Right now I'm giving them a good enough experience, but I even I can feel the rushed, haphazard nature of how it's going. 

So, it's good to pay attention to how things are going and make some good faith efforts to improve them.

Actually, they were at the asylum in the early afternoon, too. I like this more traditional spooky image, though.