The campaign, as I intend Infinitas in general, was to be an exploratory one, starting out with a map with only one small revealed area, and had two parties explore the ‘world’ of a new island. The tone was heroic, and the players without exception rose to the occasion; though I know all of them are well capable of the underhanded and nefarious in other campaigns, there was none of it here. They defended the weak, buried the dead (when possible), and gave quarter when it was called for. I congratulate all my playtesters on a job well done.

The game ran much better in Roll20 than I feared. Since I do not have a programmed character sheet, it was all down to how each player made their character’s stats fit within the generic Roll20 sheet, but other than a few miss starts it went well. I think I will add an optional rule for rounding up rolled numbers to the nearest multiple of five, just to make it easier for those who will not be playing on Roll20 or similar to figure out their totals. It would be deadlier to play that way, but I don’t think that is a bad thing–character death builds character, after all!

Player interactions with the orc stand-ins were absolutely wonderful. “What do you mean they killed one of their own guys to summon a blood monster–you mean they don’t do it just to prisoners?” Having an orc shaman raise a just-slain orc as a zombie is my new favorite way to have players face orcs–not that I have ever had orcs in a game of mine before this one, but what else do you call self-mutilating, seven-foot, blood-summoning greenskins? (I just called them ‘raiders’, because as a rule I don’t give names to my creatures to players; I take the first one they use in-character and run with it.)

Despite my best efforts, I never did get the TPK I was seeking. I think it had more to do with gamemastering methodology than anything else, however, as at least once the parties attacking the player withdrew with their gains rather than pushing to wipe out the party–I thought that sounded more like the mindless animal thing to do, but I still wonder whether the dog-apes (cynocephaly) should have stayed longer…