Monday, February 27, 2012

Three Years of Madness and Mayhem

I almost missed it. Yesterday compiling all my old campaign notebooks I chanced on the notes from the first session of the Hill Cantons campaign. Turns out today is the three year anniversary for the campaign proper (it predates the blog).

Now, I'm not one for the self-congratulatory post about this or that silly blog achievement, but I am so proud of reaching that milestone that I believe—as we say here in Tejas--the sun came up this morning just to hear me crow.

Because, see, in the first page of that dog-eared spiral notebook is a list of goals and point one is: “Go for the long game. Keep focused, don't dump it at the first distraction and let it evolve from the bottom-up bit by bit.” Having successfully (if narrowly) avoided death by distraction—I did manage to run a host of other side campaigns from Tekumel to Hyboria to both phases of the Domain Game—I feel a certain amount of victory and vindication.

The campaign also managed to survive through a number of big real life changes and its own evolutionary jumps. It went from its first year in Austin as an unholy marriage between 15th-17th century Central Europe and a radical plotless West Marches-like experiment (running Castles and Crusades) in Austin to the stranger beast (running LL and a large heap of its own homebrewed variants) it is today. Currently the campaign balances inter-connectedly between a tight (if infrequently-meeting) San Antonio home group and a wild and wooly weekly Google-plus crew, the so-called Nefarious Nine.

Here's the snapshot “Harper's Index” of campaign factoids:
Number of sessions: 58
Number of adventure site maps designed: 141
Large-scale “dungeons” explored (6-8 levels): 2
Medium-scale “dungeons” explored (2-5 levels): 11
Mini-dungeons and lairs explored: 25
"Squares" in the pointcrawl map explored: 128
Furthest distance from the center of the map traveled: 62 miles
Number of other dimensions visited: 3
Total number of people who have played in the HC: 35
Countries of players (thanks G+): 5
Number of children that have played: 8
First-time players that have played: 9
Most players at a single session: 12
Number of PC deaths: 5
Times that PCs have rolled on the Death and Dismemberment table: 13
Hireling deaths: 27
Longest living NPC follower: Demetrios the Silent
Longest surviving PC: Mandamus
Most successful first-time player: Uma the Thief
Highest level achieved: 6th
Most potent enemy bested: Qvix, Demon of the Anti-Ziggurat
Biggest haul from a single session: gold bars worth 6,000 suns (gp)
Most potent magical item obtained: the Terminaxe (+3 vs. giant insects) and/or four pieces of the Rod of Seven Parts
Least exp per player awarded in a full session: 10
Least amount of swag per player lifted in a session: 1 sun
Most popular PC class: Thief
Least popular PC class: Paladin
Most popular HC-unique class: Mountebank
Least popular HC-unique class: Lankhmarian White Wizard
Worst-acting participant: me

I raise a glass of slivovice—it's five o'clock somewhere—to all the players. Without you it would all be a Billy Idol song.

15 comments:

  1. Congrats Chris! Quite a milestone.

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  2. Hey, hey, hey, here Cake. Some of us silly bloggers like to celebrate those tiny milestones. My next post is my 304th and that is big, for me.

    But harassing you aside, well done. Crow away.

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  3. From me too - three years is getting on for an eternity in this age of mobility and instability, and more so pre-G+. Those stats have a lot of colour too, for stats.

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  4. This comment has been removed by the author.

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    1. What happened to your comment, Uma? Accidentally deleted?

      At any rate, congrats yourself on being the second-longest surviving PC.

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    2. Yeah, that is what I get for reading blogs from work during lunch.

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  5. Nice stats. I really like that. Congrats!

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  6. My post got removed by Blogger. My entire blog, like I told you in email was GONE. Gone, gone, gone.

    Did not like that.

    But congrats to you and wow, you said almost 500 in the comment you just left me. That blows my mind. 500.

    Glad you're here posting. Here's to another 500.

    Yikes, 1,000, I can't even wrap my head around that one.

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    1. That kind of thing makes me little veins in my head pop. Yet another reason I should back up all these posts onto my hard drive.

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    2. Don't make fun of me but I cried a little when I thought it was gone. I called Tim and said in my cry voice, "My blog was removed. It's gone."

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  7. Cheers to the anniversary. I can't believe Uma has survived so long! Being a "first time player" I was not aware you kept such detailed records of the campaign

    As for Mandamus, he is lucky I keep our different "realities" separate because he would have come close to being killed in his sleep last night!

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    1. C'mon, you wouldn't kill me in my sleep--you'd make sure I was awake so I would see it coming.

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    2. Ohhh, so it's a gaming name. Wasn't sure.

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  8. And Chris, congrats on the milestone! We need to get together for another tabletop game sometime soon.

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