Gaming Ritual: Weekly Group Email

I took over the DM reigns of my 4e group on only a couple of days notice a while back.  I grabbed an old campaign world that I had made in high school off the shelf, jotted down some ideas and hit the ground running.  One thing about this campaign that I have really enjoyed are the weekly emails that a player in the group sends out, briefly hitting some of the highlights of last session and setting the date for next week.  I am going to share these emails in a couple of posts, on the off chance they are amusing to someone else besides me.  This first batch gets us from the beginning of the campaign to partway through "The Hidden Shrine of Tamoachan", a 2e adventure that I ran backwards from end to beginning as an old fashioned, trap-filled dungeon crawl.


On Thu, Feb 11, 2010 at 8:58 PM, Carl Nash wrote:

"Ok, I am definitely going to DM tomorrow and I have a plan

The players will start the session by getting off the boat in the "new world", a newly discovered land mass across the ocean from the established D&D default setting.

A small town (New Hope) carved out of the jungle on the shores of a large bay and a mining operation on a mountain up the river are the only specks of civilization.

Expect the unexpected.  Lost Valleys with all kinds of messed up stuff that Time Forgot.  Dinosaurs.  Witch Doctors and Jungle Creepy Crawlies.  You know, your garden variety Trip to the Amazon on Acid...

This could be a one shot or an ongoing thing that we can come back to whenever Shashi can't run the existing campaign.

See you tomorrow night!

DM Carl"

The following are the weekly emails that one of the players in the campaign (who also has been good enough to post on this blog from the perspective of his character in the campaign, a female albino minotaur) sends out.


Monday, February 15


"Heya hey!

Well it's that time again...I'm sending out the weekly e-mail to see how this weekend is for everyone and what day is best for roleplay this week, if any. I feel we can't deprive our "workers" of our presence for too long, lest they revolt. Besides, our bugbear cleric may get antsy and I'm not going anywhere near that. Anyways, what day is good for everyone? I'm up for even doing Sundays if people decide that those are better days. So far I have better luck with this character, I only almost lost my face, but I still have both legs! (so far). Let's see what Hammer can drudge up off the bottom of random river water, other than giant crocodiles. I could really go for some peanut butter to compliment that honey.

Get back to me when you can, I generally try and have a set day by Thur at the latest, preferably Wed.

-Mike P. "

Monday, February 22, 2010

"Heya,

The title explains it all. Just sending out the feelers to see who is up for making it to roleplay this weekend. Let me know what days you are all available so we can get a solid day set in stone. I am really enjoying the debate over the native religions and different groups/forces at war. Let's hope next time we don't wind up fighting an "acidic tar" four-armed hillbilly. Congratulations to those who reached level two! (Now you can protect the rest of us from the alligators). Let's all follow in those foot steps and see what the path reveals.

Kickin' ass, by getting my ass kicked,
-Mike P."





Monday, March 1, 2010


"Heya all!

And so our adventure continues, blazing a trail through the vast amazon, spelunking dark caverns full of altars to dark gods, and voodoo heads that turned Vomar (aka Jamey) into their bitch! All in all an exciting session and I'm much enthused to jump into the mine looking for four-armed white apes! The last one wasn't enough to dash my spirits (although it did a good job of dashing our intestines across the landscape) lol. So I say, stock up on lanterns, hard hats, and mutton. It's time to go exploring! Last one to the mine cart is a rotten egg! Besides, how bad can a hideous, giant, salivating, black as the abyss, human-handed, and spiny spider be?

Famous last words by:
Mike P.

P.S Which days are good for all of you?"




Monday, March 15, 2010 


"Heya,
 
Well it's about that time again to check and see what all our demon slaying, town saving peeps are up to. What day is good (if any) for all of you this week? Let's see if we can't get some shrunken head lovin' to get rid of this STD. I knew we shouldn't have tag-teamed that mummy Vomar! At least it's down and out (for now) and all we have to worry about is what lies ahead and the giant human-handed spider behind! So let's all meet up and roll our save vs death check!
 
-Mike P.
 
P.S - Shashi might be once again joining us. I hear tales of a bullywug(sp) assassin, at least. "






Tuesday, March 23, 2010


"Heya all!

Well I think Friday was set out as the best time for people to show up to this next D&D session, but I wanted to get this e-mail out there in case anyone had any objections to that day. Please let me know if you do! Also, I hope you are recieving this Carl as I updated your e-mail on the list...I guess you really can't tell me if you aren't. At any rate, last week was awesome! We spent so much time trying to figure out that crazy room of elements, only to stumble into ANOTHER crazy room with gelatinous cube mirrors. Also, our clerics seem to be the most daring and "courageous" (see also: Foolhardy) people in the party. One of them dives down to take on a spider with baby heads and razor sharp arms...the other runs off down a secret passage and gets engulfed by a gelatinous cube! Sheesh, I think our barbarian was hardly able to keep up! As for everything else though, I guess it pays off to be a master of interpretive dance and huge diplomacy! I'd like to welcome our newest pet to the party: Giblets the Gibbering Mouther. Thanks to our half-elf cleric who apparently has a lot of experience fitting in and rolled an amazing 30 on his d30 roll. Apparently he does have everything under control when he says so and walks into a room of death. Hope to see you all this weekend!
-Mike P."