Hey, fellow click-clackers. I am going to give you some DM notes about this weeks (6/11) session!
Let's start off with the big bang so you guys know where I am coming from. River/Me didn't believe Xander was gone even when it seemed that he was DEAD in front of her. There was something just off with the situation. Him teaming up with Peter from Evolution who was known for illusions and making people seem dead (ex: Data). It was the perfect way to showcase that Peter just wanted our minds weak enough to put all the team into the Dreamscape easier than it would have been without weakening us mentally. Let's be real, no one in the party is particularly sound mentally and we touch on mental illness a lot in the campaign. So having Xander come back really wasn't THAT much of a stretch.
Now I did touch on in the recording
"I will tell you guys why he (Xander) was with Astoria after we finish this"
and I did after we stopped recording and I'm going to talk about it here. Xander was with Astoria as a double agent. Sense Data was taken from Peter from under his nose and Astoria got to him while the team was in the Dreamscape, Astoria discovered that Data's DNA was only good for weakening the powers of the mutants rather than curing it which is why she at least made weapons out of him. But in that, she realized River would be her best option. Xander was there to basically retrieve River and take her back to Peter under Astoria's nose and this is where Xander was SUPPOSE TO ACTUALLY DIE. But my boys really wanted him dead so Zeke was the one that ended up with her.
I did cut this out of the episode of Elena disassociated when I was explaining what happened with River because she was not in the moment at all and she was like
"Cut this out so I don't sound stupid"
but she doesn't read these so I am here telling you about it.
NOW LET'S TALK ABOUT FOR MY FIRST FIGHT THAT MY FIRST IDEA GREAT IDEA AS A DM FOR THE FIRST TIME WAS TO HAVE 6 NPC'S AND 3 PLAYER CHARACTERS ROLL INITIATIVE AND WHY THAT WAS A BAD PLAN.
It really wasn't that bad I am just being dramatic and I have always been a GO BIG or GO HOME type of person. But here was the initiative order so you can see how bad the player characters rolled...
Zack - 20
Riv - 19
Xander - 19
Shade - 18
Warren - 18
Rodney. - 17
Zeke - 16
Oswald - 12
Remi - 7
This is why I ended up making the decision to roll for the others all at once rather than rolling and going through everything one-by-one..
Other than that... That is all I have for you. If you have any questions you can always DM us on @dice_drop on Twitter and we will try to get back to you ASAP. The next episode along with a Time Warp will be out June 25. See you there!