My Musing for May with D&D

Finally in possession of my copy of Ghosts of Saltmarsh.

From drought to well watered!  My role-playing adventures continue to grow, and while my adventures as a player has drawn to a close; those as a game master have taken off.

I have for a while now had a core group of players who started Dungeons and Dragons 5 Edition.  At one point I decided to put out feelers for more players.  This was to add at least one possibly two new players to the group.  What I received was sufficient enthusiasm to start a second group and fill my core group to a safe level of participation - I’m currently seeing that at five people.  I may even have in time enough people to start a third group, but let’s see how things progress.  Burning myself out has been something I’ve been prone to do due to zealousness, and I’d rather keep a happy group of a few than a horde of unhappies.

I finally settled on the World of Greyhawk as the campaign world, though I am really torn with the Forgotten Realms setting.  The latter more so in that I have a fair amount of that campaign material from 3.5e, whereas Greyhawk I lost in floods or I rather generously gave away to a friend years ago thinking that I’d never return to role-playing.  Sadly when I asked that individual if there was a chance they would like to return the material, they said no. Was worth a try and in truth when you give something away you have to live with the consequences of that decision – even if later you deeply regret it.  Such is life.

From Greyhawk I then settled on the latest fairing in the form of Ghosts of Saltmarsh.  Why this you may ask?  The new group of adventurers I signed on were starting at 1st level, and while I was searching through my past adventures and pondering what I was going to do I spied – U1: The Sinister Secrets of Saltmarsh.  This coincided with the imminent release of Ghosts of Saltmarsh from Wizards of the Coasts.  There was a town of Saltmarsh in the Dungeon Master’s Guide II (for 3.5e June 2005) which I was initially prepping for and was taking quite a liking to.  Now after reading Ghosts of Saltmarsh I’m feeling rather disappointed, however I have come to realise that there is a difference in the population scale of the 5,000 for the new setting and 3850 for the old.  I am feeling that I shall be transferring a number of the establishments I liked from the old into the new, they certainly had flair.

So back to having two groups in Saltmarsh!  One group is now at 5th level, the other just starting and at 1st.  My dilemma! I love to blog!  What happens within the groups now will be interesting as I will see them as being in the town of Saltmarsh at the same time.  Will they bump into each other?  If they adventure into an area that the others have not, if I blog about it and the other group read it, do they then gain an advantage of what they can expect to encounter? Do I have a headache?

My solution!  I have scaled up the encounters for the adventures for my 5th level group to challenge them.  After all the 1st level adventure presented in the original U1:The Sinister Secrets of Saltmarsh would hardly present a challenge to the veterans. Once both groups have solved or been presented with the adventure(s) I will then write up the blog, or I hope I will.  Will it be entertaining, who knows – I hope it will be.

Till next time.

The Honourable John