Infinite Ideas: Building the Infinity Tower

Session 7 was a blur! I had a super busy week between sessions 6 and 7 so I spent most of my time on real life things, not game prep. I was actually really glad things stayed so within expectations during this session. Almost all of my prep had taken place 2 weeks back and anything could have happened. This was a more fun, spontaneous session. It really had a 'Friday night' feeling. The players were relaxed, I tried some new sounds on the sound board, we generally just had fun playing the game. Even with that. there was tension. The players got some money and immediately lost it. The party tried to fight a money-eating monster but it kept running away. There's an unresolved riddle that keeps the players from progressing into the next stage of the adventure. I think all of those things come with the territory. 2 things stand out as DM problems: metagaming and riddles. Metagaming was an issue when the party faced an ochre jelly. We have 4 players, none of whom are new...

Session 6 taught me that my players do not like mind readers. Wow. It really taught me that. Also, I am really glad that I am embracing an idea I got from a friend on Twitter (@SILO_DnD): enjoying what players do with what I've prepared. They liked the first part, the town time. They didn't like interacting with the military and being expected to deliver truth under magical enforcement. Their previous session ended with a really weak dialog with the mid-level officer they debriefed with, but the higher-ups demanded to know what was going on. They had a really bad reaction to that. Jail time and further interaction just made them more upset. I think all of the players really stuck to their characters' core values and roles, which was great. I was prepared for this to happen and think it made a lot of sense plot-wise. As a person, I'm not thrilled with making the players upset, but I think that they were reacting to the story and staying in role more than personally off...

I'm really excited by where Infinity Tower is now. The players have really started to take hold of the game. They know what they want and they are determined to get it. The characters are a little less assertive, but not much. Everyone has motivations and direction that guides their gameplay decisions. What's coming next? That's the question that I'm really enjoying asking myself as I continue to prep for Session 6. We're getting to the point that it's difficult to determine the next step for the group because of their disparate goals, but I want the players to be able to exercise their ability to help me tell the story. Very exciting! Also, in case anyone ever reads this, I'm amassing a large amount of material on the subject of the regions of Tregeria and the general world that Alluria and Tregeria exist on. Should I make this into a formal setting? It's got most of what I would expect in one.

Session 4 was a little different. I knew going into it that I wanted to have the players reflect on their new class features, because at level 3 the monk, fighter and barbarian all gained their archetypes. We had a lot of fun with this concept. There's been an ongoing debate between myself as DM and Kelly, who plays the barbarian, about switching the barbarian archetypes for the Ranger Beast Conclave archetype to allow her to have a bear as an animal companion. I'm still not in favor of this because I think it will make Barbarian a terrible class. I am instead encouraging proper multiclassing into Ranger in the future, where the decision will be most effective. I'm also looking at the idea of creating some sort of Beastmaster / Feral Companion Prestige Class in the future. We did a dream sequence that probably doesn't make sense from the classic D&D book rules, but I wanted to give some contrast between the power of the Infinity Tower, which lets the players acc...