Zargon Goes Online

[Teldurn]

Several weeks ago, I had uploaded many of the HeroScribe assets to Roll20 so I could run the game through Google+ Hangouts running the Roll20 app. I also made jpgs of the card backs and fronts and constructed the decks to use as well. All in all, it was a decent bit of front-end work to get the infrastructure up. But once it was done, it was totally worth it!

This was the first Google+ post I had made about the game (I have deleted the sections that mentions player names, to protect the innocent ). It appears I had forgotten to write a post-mortem for our first official session, but here is the write up from the second game (October 29). It should be noted that we are playing with a bunch of houserules, including an expanded armory, alchemy and magic shop, rules for breaking weapons, and picking up weapons from monsters to use or resell:


Last night was take two of our brave Heroes' attempt at the first quest in our HeroQuest campaign, called The Trial.

Last week, our Wizard was absent and it resulted in a TPK, much to Zargon's (my) delight.

Then yesterday at the last minute, our Barbarian had something come up and had to drop out. While on the surface this may seem like bad news (and it is), for me as the evil sorcerer Zargon this is nothing but good news. You see, unlike a GM of other tabletop games, it is not my job to facilitate or to be an arbiter of fairness. I am outright competing against the Heroes and doing my darnedest to kill them all. So if a player is missing, I have an easier time of it. Anyhow, back to topic.

That left our Wizard, Elf, and Dwarf to try making their way into Fellmarg's tomb and slay Verag, a foul gargoyle.

Believing they knew the layout of the dungeon from their last attempt from last week, the remaining Heroes ventured straight toward Verag's chamber—only to find that the map had changed! Thus, they were forced to begin searching anew.

The dice definitely did not seem to be in the Heroes' favor. Two pairs of skeletons in two separate encounters were whittling down the Heroes' Body Points slowly while avoiding being hit themselves for way longer than I would have believed. Zargon will honor the achievement of those skeletons and reward them by reanimating them.

Meanwhile, my minions managed to knock the Dwarf unconscious three times! He got back on his feet the first two of those times thanks to some lucky treasure card pulls with potions of healing and timely heal spells from the Elf and Wizard. But after the third down, they ran completely dry on healing. Whee!

If this game had XP, I would have awarded the Dwarf extra experience for roleplaying the stout, bearded bastard well. Standing firm and not fleeing in the face of death.

With the Dwarf dead, the Elf and Wizard decided to make a tactical retreat back to the stairs and out of the dungeon, but not before grabbing the Dwarf's dropped items and gold.

Pictured below: The current layout of the dungeon as seen by the remaining living heroes. (I've reset the four of them to the stairs at the start for next week.) You can see how many doors they skipped by because they believed the boss was in the center room like last time. Muahaha!
Added note: Below my avatar is the row of macro buttons to make it easier to roll the dice instead of typing out "/r 3t[dice]" each time or something.

Side note: G+ changed the layout of Hangouts, but aside from people's camera feeds being smaller (and thus not fitting Lower Third properly), we didn't really see much other negative effects. It still worked out nicely for us.

Looking very forward to continuing this game. It's balls-tons of fun.

Later edit: I had switched my view to log in as a player because I wanted to know how the tabletop looked from the other side of the screen.

[Teldurn]

The next post for the following game, on November 5.


HeroQuest postmortem
Week 4, Quest 1: The Trial (take 3!)

Continuing from the almost debacle of last week when the surviving Heroes fled from my Zargon's evil forces, they returned last night, fresh-faced and ready to try again.

This time, Elf was absent, which meant that Wizard, Barbarian, and Dwarf had to brave the depths of the remainder of this dungeon to root out and destroy the gargoyle named Verag. Even though the dice seemed to be rolling better for the Heroes than last week, the Dwarf unfortunately fell yet again (Dwarves don't seem to last very long it seems). This led to yet another tactical retreat to the stairs to start over.

With a new batch of fresh Heroes, and after an encounter with a Fimir that was downed in one hit without even activating, they seemed to have trouble with wandering monster cards. A couple of those orcs happened to be diehards and did not want to die. (GO orcs!) Wizard was having his own difficulties because though he hardly ever got into melee range with anything, his treasure searches kept coming up with hazards. So he was hurting by the end as well.

At last, they came upon a room with a stone gargoyle standing in a stone-lined shallow pool. Figuring it to be Verag, the began assaulting it with blade and spell, all of which was ineffective. Could it be that it was a simple, harmless stone statue, or could it be that the group simply didn't do the thing that would have triggered its awakening? We'll never know!

At this point, they ran out of rooms to go through, which is when they decided to start looking for secret doors. They found one in the very same chamber as the statue. This led them to the object of their quest, Verag's chambers! Unfortunately (for me), they were able to defeat the mighty gargoyle before it had a chance to even act on its turn!

With Verag dead, they made their way back to the stairs and out of this dungeon. but don't think they had an easy time of it, oh no! Between the three of them, they had 5 Body Points. If they searched for treasure one more time and got another Wandering Monster, I'm certain there would have been another death. Too bad, maybe next time.

Pictured below: My view of the board after the dungeon had been completely opened up and cleared.

[Teldurn]

November 19th's write-up.

HeroQuest postmortem
Week 5, Quest 2: The Rescue of Sir Ragnar

Getting back into the swing of things after taking a week off from the game, we were looking at a full roster of players for this week. Then, at the last minute, <Elf's player> remembered his wife's birthday was the same day! Smartly, he withdrew for the evening and avoided the Wrath of Khan Wife.

This time, the Heroes were to rescue brave Sir Ragnar, who was being held captive by the Orc Warlord Ulag.

As incredibly unlikely as it was, out of all the many different directions available to take, the group just happened to take exactly the single shortest route to get to Ragnar's chamber, including finding and going through the secret door required to gain entrance.

Of course, opening his cell door set off the alarm which opened the doors (and revealed the map) for the entire dungeon level! There was a veritable army of goblins and orcs all making their way toward the Heroes to try to take back their captive.

At that point, the incredible odds were upwards of 4-to-1 against the Heroes, but they utilized strategic positioning and overwhelming attacks (The Dwarf and Barbarian both had bloody Battle Axes!) and held their position well, despite being lured out of their turtling hole by the last remaining smarter-than-the-average-goblin Orcs..

In spite of the fact that the Wizard was foolish brave enough to step in front of the wall of carnage his two companions were providing, a couple bad rolls from a couple Orcs meant that the Wizard got to live through the adventure to fight another day.

Zargon is displeased and his remaining minions will be punished so they learn never to let a hero live when they have the chance to destroy them!

Pictured: Sir Ragnar is parked one square away from the exit stairs so the boys could go lootin' and plunderin' after they chewed through the army. I wish I had taken the screenshot a couple minutes earlier to show the Goblin/Orc army. Alas.
I realize my mistake now, in hindsight. I should have forced the hero to roll 1d6 for movement and to move Sir Ragnar with his move, essentially putting his arm around the guy's shoulder and helping him through, without leaving his side.

[Teldurn]

Post of December 3. I finally started taking more screenshots during play.


HeroQuest post mortem
Week 6? I think? I've lost track.
Quest 3: Lair of the Orc Warlord

It seems to be something every week. We were planned for a full roster yet again. But after a few minutes of waiting for our wizard to pop in (he's usually really good about showing up promptly), I decided to shoot him a quick message. Turns out he forgot it was Tuesday! And was already committed to a dungeon raid in Final Fantasy XIFGJVLCBBQ. Cool, another week with three Heroes. No big.

Last week, the heroes rescued Sir Ragnar from the Orc Warlord Ulag's clutches, but did not see the Orc anywhere. They came back this week to finish up the task (and grab some loot in the process).

This dungeon turned out to be much more of a thorn in the Heroes' side than they were anticipating. After two or three one-shot-kills on Fimirs (which should have given them a hard time, but didn't), they kept stumbling into traps left and right, it seemed. That one pit trap in front of the door was particularly good at making them fall in. If that weren't enough, Wandering Monster cards were coming up more frequently, which does nothing but help my Zargon's cause.

Some of the orcs and goblins were focusing their attacks and almost all of them were hitting consistently. Toward the end, the Elf did not manage to survive the onslaught, and the Barbarian and Dwarf were on their last legs as well.... Until suddenly, with 1 Body Point left, the Dwarf finds a desperately-needed Potion of Healing in the cupboard along with some gold!

After defeating the Orc Warlord, the Barbarian and Dwarf were contemplating opening up that last remaining door or just limping out of the dungeon after picking through the Elf's possessions. They opted to open the door and see what would happen, figuring what's the worst to happen? We'll just leave if we're under attack. Solid adventurer logic, if you ask me. XD

But the Dwarf was heedless in haste to get to the treasure chest in the last room and once again fell into a pit trap!

Pictured: Various states of play through the evening. The group passed up a secret room, and who's to say what would have happened with that gargoyle there! Would it have attacked? Would it be a statue? Would be a trap? No one will ever know!

The Dwarf fighting from inside a pit!


I call this the Battle Waltz Formation.


The Dwarf in another pit, and one dead Elf.

[Teldurn]

Post from December 10, and this brings us current. Next game is Tuesday, December 17.

HeroQuest post mortem
Quest 4: Prince Magnus' Gold

Once more we are thwarted from having a complete 4-man group. No matter. Onward!

Prince Magnus has charged four three Heroes to find and return his three stolen chests of gold! As the session starts, things were looking grim for Zargon's forces. First of all, the Elf cast a spell that made all secret doors and traps visible (Light of the Moon spell from the Night deck, by Craig Ellsworth). Well played, but that sucks for me. Secondly, for the most part, even when new enemies were encountered, they were being wiped out before I even got a turn. Treasure searching in the rooms were also coming up with gold and gem cards back to back. They were pretty much steamrolling through the beginning rooms - they even joked that if they kept up at that pace, they'd finish quickly enough to get another level played!

But pretty soon, the group got a wandering monster - Fimir! This is about the time the tide of battle started turning in Zargon's favor. Their powerful attacks were good enough to slowly whittle the heroes down.

But not long after that, a hazard and a couple more wandering monsters were able to get the Heroes' body points low enough that they started to get worried. Even, dare I say, desperate?

And then! Then, the Barbarian opens the door to the center room, where they find the Chaos Warrior who led this band of thieves, and there's the stolen treasure chests!

He rushes into the room to try and take them all on at once, where is promptly surrounded and reduced to a limp body on the ground. Meanwhile, Dwarf was trying to reach his buddy to lend a hand, but the goblins were playing interference and prevented Dwarf from moving. A couple rounds later, down goes the stout Dwarf.

Two Heroes down, and a foppish Elf remained standing...who immediately high-tailed it out of there, flailing his arms wildly, trying not to die while being chased by a couple Orcs, a Fimir, and the Chaos Warrior.

The Orcs were the quickest of the bunch and were able to catch up to land a couple blows, but not enough to finish him off, however. A lucky blow on his pursuer and the orcs went down, too. This left only the Fimir and the Chaos Warrior to give chase. And chase they did! They were hoping for a couple low movement rolls.

The Chaos Warrior was able to get within 1 square during the chase, but the Elf sped past him before being able to catch up. The Fimir, unfortunately, was lumbering too slowly behind to ever make up the lost ground.

It came down to the wire at the end, when the Elf just barely made it back to the stairs by the skin of his teeth. Unfortunately for him, he was not able to pick up the equipment and gold his comrades left behind - too bad, too, because it was a somewhere in the range of 800 G.

Pictured: Various stages through the dungeon, and the eventual routing of the Elf being chased by Zargon's forces.

Beginning the game with 3 Heroes.


Making pretty good progress, but not doing so hot in health.


Dwarf and Barbarian are dead. The Elf runs away!


The chase is on! The Fimir is lagging behind but the Chaos Warrior is in hot pursuit! A couple good movement rolls put the Elf way ahead and he manages to escape. This time!

[chaoticprime]

All of this is totally frëakin' radical.

[TMU]

And this is google+? I didn't know someone knows how to use it Looks good though.

[Goblin-King]

This looks incredible!

Is it just an online board? I mean, does this thing have rules? Are the players actually prevented from cheating or do you need a gentlemen agreement?
Is the gameplay chat-based or function based?

As in if a player wants to open a chest, does he say/write "I open the chest" and then you tell him what he gets.
Or does he press the button for open chest and automatically recieve his loot/trap?

[chaoticprime]

I know lots of people that use things like this to play online.

[Sjeng]

Love the webcam images xD
Nice to see some faces.