Saturday, 16 November 2019
Diversity Hires, part 2: The Inevitable Sewers
With the mutant problem dealt with, the team turned to more mercenary matters. Gildiril acquired a certain amount of clothing, narrowly avoiding a lice infestation in the process. Frida was excited to find a set of manacles.
They returned to town without significant incident, and headed for a pub where they hoped to follow up a lead. The person they were looking for wasn't there, owing to being a bit dead, but they did manage to track down the people responsible.
There was also a visit to a leather crafter, who thought he was about to be able to retire until the dwarves found out how much gloves actually cost and cancelled the order.
They needed to pay a visit to a bakery. Frida said you could always trust a halfling to find a bakery, and sure enough was able to lead them straight to it, despite it having been abandoned long ago.
Down a hole at the back of the bakery they found themselves in an underground tunnel system. Things encountered included a team of surprisingly friendly sewer mutants, an encounter which did not actually result in significant violence. They also ran into a deranged cultist in a cage, who they decided it was best to leave in the cave.
Finally they encountered a pool containing a hideous tentacled horse thingy, a sight so horrific that some of the team were completely unable to act in the face of it. Not that Frida being unable to throw pebbles vaguely near it was going to make much of a difference. A bit of help from the sewer mutants, on the other hand...
Back on the surface it was time for a shopping trip so everyone could change career, and more importantly, dress like people who hadn't just been down a sewer full of mutants and tentacles.
Friday, 15 November 2019
Ylva Talks to the Fairies, part 4: Homecoming
Yes, little ones, I've come home!
We're moving the tribe. It's not safe to stay any longer, not with the darkness in the forest. Vared is accompanying them for the first leg of the journey.
We have a name for the darkness now. Wendigo.
Shamen Aunold thought we should head closer to the heart of the forest, to see what we can learn and to deal with any hobgoblins we found. They were not always as they are. Once they made fetishes to ward off the evil, like the yetis do. Now they are a part of it.
We camped alongside a group of Ulthani for the first night. Yes, Mittens! The holes are important. Do you want to go accidentally treading in that? Yes, it is a good point, especially for someone who washes their feet with their tongue. The morning was strange. There was music as we awoke - or was that a dream? Really, Mittens? Then it can't have been a dream.
People acted strangely. The Ulthani made a horrible drink with hot water and bitter leaves. Aunold said very cryptic things to one of them. His familiar has a new hat. Yes, Mittens, I'll ask him to make you one too, but I thought you considered clothing to be demeaning? Well, if you say so.
We found the hobgoblin camp we were looking for. I summoned a grig to play some lovely music while Tonk played her drums. It was a lovely party. Yes, most of them died covered in ice. Tonk can do that too. Aunold talked to one of them afterwards, but I don't know what he said. I don't speak goblin.
While Aunold was doing his ritual I looked after Taint. He was quite badly hurt, but I found some good leaves to rub him with and he felt much better afterwards.
I was going to treat Turgut next, but then we were attacked by ettercaps. I know, I don't like them either. One webbed me and I couldn't run away when it hit me, but then I charmed it and it left me alone. It was terrible what they did to the others. I thought they were going to kill Turgut. But we made it somehow, and then the green lady found us.
Aunold thought she was my sister, but she says she isn't. I think she's my mother. Yes, of course I'll ask. The others were surprised my father didn't tell me anything, but they couldn't know that he never spoke.
I understand now, about the blood of the bear, and the blood of the forest. Our ancestors made mistakes when they tried to contain the wendigo's power, and created the ghouls. We have to do better. All these years people have asked who I am, when they should have asked why.
Yes, Mittens. Sleep now. You can keep me warm.
We're moving the tribe. It's not safe to stay any longer, not with the darkness in the forest. Vared is accompanying them for the first leg of the journey.
We have a name for the darkness now. Wendigo.
Shamen Aunold thought we should head closer to the heart of the forest, to see what we can learn and to deal with any hobgoblins we found. They were not always as they are. Once they made fetishes to ward off the evil, like the yetis do. Now they are a part of it.
We camped alongside a group of Ulthani for the first night. Yes, Mittens! The holes are important. Do you want to go accidentally treading in that? Yes, it is a good point, especially for someone who washes their feet with their tongue. The morning was strange. There was music as we awoke - or was that a dream? Really, Mittens? Then it can't have been a dream.
People acted strangely. The Ulthani made a horrible drink with hot water and bitter leaves. Aunold said very cryptic things to one of them. His familiar has a new hat. Yes, Mittens, I'll ask him to make you one too, but I thought you considered clothing to be demeaning? Well, if you say so.
We found the hobgoblin camp we were looking for. I summoned a grig to play some lovely music while Tonk played her drums. It was a lovely party. Yes, most of them died covered in ice. Tonk can do that too. Aunold talked to one of them afterwards, but I don't know what he said. I don't speak goblin.
While Aunold was doing his ritual I looked after Taint. He was quite badly hurt, but I found some good leaves to rub him with and he felt much better afterwards.
I was going to treat Turgut next, but then we were attacked by ettercaps. I know, I don't like them either. One webbed me and I couldn't run away when it hit me, but then I charmed it and it left me alone. It was terrible what they did to the others. I thought they were going to kill Turgut. But we made it somehow, and then the green lady found us.
Aunold thought she was my sister, but she says she isn't. I think she's my mother. Yes, of course I'll ask. The others were surprised my father didn't tell me anything, but they couldn't know that he never spoke.
I understand now, about the blood of the bear, and the blood of the forest. Our ancestors made mistakes when they tried to contain the wendigo's power, and created the ghouls. We have to do better. All these years people have asked who I am, when they should have asked why.
Yes, Mittens. Sleep now. You can keep me warm.
Thursday, 14 November 2019
Diversity Hires, part 1: Boat Trip
We played the Warhammer FRP adventure, The Thousand Thrones. Well, kind of.
The campaign makes certain assumptions about the party, not least of which is that there's at least one human player character. This was not the case. In fact, the reason I played a halfling is that I wasn't there for the first session and it became very rapidly apparent they needed someone in the party who had a personality and could do stuff like talking to people.
The GM gave us a lot more XP than the campaign says. This did not in any way result in our characters becoming overpowered. He also skipped some bits that he didn't think were interesting, plus there were times we made party decisions that the book had not accounted for.
And we only actually played as far as the end of chapter six, for, um, reasons.
Anyway, spoilers ahead for The Thousand Thrones.
The party:
Kazgar - a dwarven mercenary. Unusually slender for a dwarf, occasionally mistaken for a halfling. Has tattooed letters on his knuckles, but being illiterate, doesn't know what they say. Literate members of the party feel no need to enlighten him.
Burlok - a dwarven miner. One of the least tough dwarves ever born, despite being more conventionally built than Kazgar.
Mormacar - an elven mercenary. Gay and fabulous, absolutely lethal with a longbow.
Gildiril - an elven scribe. Gets very excited about books.
Frida - a halfling barber-surgeon. Roughly spherical. On a mission to remove everybody's eyebrows, while keeping their hair looking fly.
The team work for a witch hunter by the name of Roderick. Recently there has been a bit of a skill drain in the local area due to a lot of peasant types heading off on a crusade with a child who they seem to think is Sigmar reborn but who is quite clearly a manipulative demon in disguise. As such, a lot of basic jobs like policing are not getting done.
Enter the team.
So far the more martial team members have been on an investigation mission (which completely coincidentally led them through several pubs and an opium den) while the barber and the scribe, who both have the kind of personalities that allow them to interact successfully with other people and the ability to write down anything they hear have been off attending parties on the witch hunter's behalf.
However, the martial team needed to investigate a possible cult in an old fortress in the swamp, and having someone capable of having a conversation with them seemed like a good idea (not to mention the benefits of an extra longbow and the suspicion that Frida's talents might extend beyond conversation and hairdressing.)
Step 1 was to recruit a guide through the swamp, given that nobody had any idea how to survive outdoors. Jekel was friendly and incredibly cheerful, despite (or perhaps because of) having a large chunk of his brain missing. Gildiril purchased one of his pamphlets on the many wonderful and exciting things to be found in the swamp, and everyone went to buy rations. Gildiril bought a selection of alcohol for the journey. Frida brought her own personal barrel of beer on top of that.
They set out through the swamp in two boats. The two elves got in the front boat with Jekel, while the dwarves and halfling (or 'team normal height', as they styled themselves) brought up the rear. Jekel regaled them cheerfully with tales of the many horrifying monsters they could expect to be eaten by in the swamp. They stopped off briefly at some interesting flowers surrounded by bones. Frida was initially going to collect some of their nectar herself (she reckoned it would be useful for medicine) but realising that she was likely to succumb to their effects due to being a fragile halfling asked for someone else to do it. Burlok volunteered, and promptly fell asleep after collecting the nectar. He was dumped back into the boat and the journey continued.
Stopping off at a small island to spend the night, the party were lucky enough to get a good night's sleep thanks to Jekel remembering how to build a proper shelter out of boats and a tarp. Frida spent her watch attempting to shave Gildiril's eyebrows, but unfortunately woke him up and had to stop. She also spotted a large white worm curled up between Burlok and Kazgar for warmth, but having woken up Burlok to deal with it, didn't bother staying awake any longer.
In the morning, Gildiril went to investigate the rotting corpse at the other end of the island, and narrowly avoided being horribly diseased as he retrieved the corpse's equipment.
The second night passed less comfortably, as Jekel had forgotten how to build shelters. Fortunately there were no interruptions, and the next morning they continued to the fortress to investigate the cult.
Three normal looking people were walking past. Attempts to have a conversation with them were hampered when the elves decided to open said conversation with arrows, culminating in Mormacar shooting one man's arm right off. Attempts at interrogation went poorly. Whether they were actually involved in the cult could not be established. Frida patched up the two men who weren't dying from sudden loss of limbs.
They paid a brief visit to the men's fishing boat, which proved similarly unenlightening, then headed back to the fortress.
Inside the fortress they saw a man covered in hair with big crab claws for hands. Aha. Now they were on safer ground. These were definitely mutants and could therefore be killed.
Or at least, they could be killed if you were Mormacar, Gildiril or Kazgar. Frida completely failed to hit anything with her sling, and even Burlok was finding it remarkably difficult to hit anything. On the other hand, the mutants completely failed to damage Frida, while making a substantial hole in Gildiril. Frida patched him up, resisting the urge to remove his eyebrows in the process.
The campaign makes certain assumptions about the party, not least of which is that there's at least one human player character. This was not the case. In fact, the reason I played a halfling is that I wasn't there for the first session and it became very rapidly apparent they needed someone in the party who had a personality and could do stuff like talking to people.
The GM gave us a lot more XP than the campaign says. This did not in any way result in our characters becoming overpowered. He also skipped some bits that he didn't think were interesting, plus there were times we made party decisions that the book had not accounted for.
And we only actually played as far as the end of chapter six, for, um, reasons.
Anyway, spoilers ahead for The Thousand Thrones.
The party:
Kazgar - a dwarven mercenary. Unusually slender for a dwarf, occasionally mistaken for a halfling. Has tattooed letters on his knuckles, but being illiterate, doesn't know what they say. Literate members of the party feel no need to enlighten him.
Burlok - a dwarven miner. One of the least tough dwarves ever born, despite being more conventionally built than Kazgar.
Mormacar - an elven mercenary. Gay and fabulous, absolutely lethal with a longbow.
Gildiril - an elven scribe. Gets very excited about books.
Frida - a halfling barber-surgeon. Roughly spherical. On a mission to remove everybody's eyebrows, while keeping their hair looking fly.
The team work for a witch hunter by the name of Roderick. Recently there has been a bit of a skill drain in the local area due to a lot of peasant types heading off on a crusade with a child who they seem to think is Sigmar reborn but who is quite clearly a manipulative demon in disguise. As such, a lot of basic jobs like policing are not getting done.
Enter the team.
So far the more martial team members have been on an investigation mission (which completely coincidentally led them through several pubs and an opium den) while the barber and the scribe, who both have the kind of personalities that allow them to interact successfully with other people and the ability to write down anything they hear have been off attending parties on the witch hunter's behalf.
However, the martial team needed to investigate a possible cult in an old fortress in the swamp, and having someone capable of having a conversation with them seemed like a good idea (not to mention the benefits of an extra longbow and the suspicion that Frida's talents might extend beyond conversation and hairdressing.)
Step 1 was to recruit a guide through the swamp, given that nobody had any idea how to survive outdoors. Jekel was friendly and incredibly cheerful, despite (or perhaps because of) having a large chunk of his brain missing. Gildiril purchased one of his pamphlets on the many wonderful and exciting things to be found in the swamp, and everyone went to buy rations. Gildiril bought a selection of alcohol for the journey. Frida brought her own personal barrel of beer on top of that.
They set out through the swamp in two boats. The two elves got in the front boat with Jekel, while the dwarves and halfling (or 'team normal height', as they styled themselves) brought up the rear. Jekel regaled them cheerfully with tales of the many horrifying monsters they could expect to be eaten by in the swamp. They stopped off briefly at some interesting flowers surrounded by bones. Frida was initially going to collect some of their nectar herself (she reckoned it would be useful for medicine) but realising that she was likely to succumb to their effects due to being a fragile halfling asked for someone else to do it. Burlok volunteered, and promptly fell asleep after collecting the nectar. He was dumped back into the boat and the journey continued.
Stopping off at a small island to spend the night, the party were lucky enough to get a good night's sleep thanks to Jekel remembering how to build a proper shelter out of boats and a tarp. Frida spent her watch attempting to shave Gildiril's eyebrows, but unfortunately woke him up and had to stop. She also spotted a large white worm curled up between Burlok and Kazgar for warmth, but having woken up Burlok to deal with it, didn't bother staying awake any longer.
In the morning, Gildiril went to investigate the rotting corpse at the other end of the island, and narrowly avoided being horribly diseased as he retrieved the corpse's equipment.
The second night passed less comfortably, as Jekel had forgotten how to build shelters. Fortunately there were no interruptions, and the next morning they continued to the fortress to investigate the cult.
Three normal looking people were walking past. Attempts to have a conversation with them were hampered when the elves decided to open said conversation with arrows, culminating in Mormacar shooting one man's arm right off. Attempts at interrogation went poorly. Whether they were actually involved in the cult could not be established. Frida patched up the two men who weren't dying from sudden loss of limbs.
They paid a brief visit to the men's fishing boat, which proved similarly unenlightening, then headed back to the fortress.
Inside the fortress they saw a man covered in hair with big crab claws for hands. Aha. Now they were on safer ground. These were definitely mutants and could therefore be killed.
Or at least, they could be killed if you were Mormacar, Gildiril or Kazgar. Frida completely failed to hit anything with her sling, and even Burlok was finding it remarkably difficult to hit anything. On the other hand, the mutants completely failed to damage Frida, while making a substantial hole in Gildiril. Frida patched him up, resisting the urge to remove his eyebrows in the process.
Wednesday, 13 November 2019
Crew of the Aliya, part 7: The Plot Thickens
Hamsa carried Lila out of the caves and back to the ship, where Gurgeh got her into a stasis pod to keep her stable. Tahir checked his email, and found a general broadcast from a Professor Ilhana requesting aid as her party's supply drop hadn't arrived and they were short of food. Sayah vanished into her cabin to 'do unwise things'.
Tahir flew the Aliya across to Professor Ilhana's camp to drop off a couple of days' worth of food. He got the name of the person who should be delivering their supplies, who they'd lost contact with - Nivrod Motiwali. He then set a course back to Coriolis, where we could find both Motiwali and some high level medical treatment for Lila.
Once we'd docked at the station, Gurgeh managed to wake Lila up for long enough to get some emergency contact details from her. He contacted her family to arrange transfer to a suitable facility, and managed to convince the people who came to collect her that he needed to go with her.
Sayah emerged from a slightly smoky cabin, looking significantly less stressed, and plugged the camera drone they'd retrieved from the caves into Suleiman. With his help she was able to retrieve further video from it, from a few minutes before what they'd been able to watch already.
Not quite trusting her own perception in her altered mental state, Sayah called Tahir and Hamsa over to watch it with her. It showed the team getting the drone into position to fly around the frame, moving the large cylinder that we'd seen pictures of close to the frame, and plugging in the cube. There were a couple of notable points. First, Zhar mentioning not knowing how long the 'hot dust' they found would last. And second, something odd in his eye, like an inky black cloud passing across it.
Hamsa contacted Jinna and learned that Lavim had gone missing. Just walked away, right after dinner. Along with Sayah he went to visit her to see if they could look learn anything there. After a brief and unenlightening chat, Hamsa asked for the toilet, in the hope of being able to retrieve DNA samples while he was in there. Unfortunately, Jinna insisted on accompanying him to show him the way, but this did mean Sayah had the opportunity to collect some hair from the pillow. With Jinna's hair being green, it was easy to know which bed was hers, although there was no way to be certain whose hair we'd actually picked up.
Jinna mentioned one odd thing. Lavim had been demonstrating a new interest in the rimward reach. Magdan was found there, used for anti-gravity, along with some very old ships.
Tahir went to talk to the port officials to see if he could find out if Lavim had left the station. With some guidance from the Traveller he was able to learn that he'd left on a private ship - the Fatima's Bounty.
We met up again back at the ship, but when we arrived, adjudicators were waiting for us. They had questions about Merez. He was dead, and appeared to have grown some extra limbs. Tahir told them what little we knew, being sure to mention the Fatima's Bounty. We were given instructions not to leave the station for 48 hours.
Not long afterwards, Gurgeh got a message that Lila was on her way back. She now had a bio-sculpted arm, and instructions not to use it for the next six days.
We had some time to fill. Sayah did an image search for Islir's tattoo but couldn't find anything. Gurgeh had a look at the samples from the mutated body parts we'd found in the cave, and found that they still appeared to be human. He checked himself to make sure. Still definitely human.
For once, we were on Coriolis at the same time as our patron, Doctor Wana. She invited us to dinner, and we told her about Merez and the shadow monkey. That was when we found out that Merez didn't get our name from her - which made sense, given his syndicate connections. We also told her about the dig site and the frame. Lila explained her theory about it being portal builder stuff, and showed her the cylinder and the camera video. Doctor Wana agreed on seeing the glyphs.
We told her about how we believed there was a second dig site, based on Zhar Baghram's journal. We talked about the keybearers that it mentioned, and she told us about a strange sect with that name, and showed us a keybearer symbol that we recognised as Islir's tattoo. We also told her about Merez and his unfortunate demise. She wasn't entirely upset about that, and said he worked for our Nemesis, Lea.
Many questions still remained. What was the mystic plague we'd heard about? Where were all these extra limbs coming from? Who was the Z.K. who'd been emailing Islir, and was he also a keybearer? Why were there two Lavim Tamm's and what did the alive one want on the Fatima's Bounty? What was in Sabetha's crates of 'medical supplies'?
And how were we going to occupy ourselves for another day on Coriolis when most us were itching to get back to the dig site but weren't allowed to leave?
Tahir flew the Aliya across to Professor Ilhana's camp to drop off a couple of days' worth of food. He got the name of the person who should be delivering their supplies, who they'd lost contact with - Nivrod Motiwali. He then set a course back to Coriolis, where we could find both Motiwali and some high level medical treatment for Lila.
Once we'd docked at the station, Gurgeh managed to wake Lila up for long enough to get some emergency contact details from her. He contacted her family to arrange transfer to a suitable facility, and managed to convince the people who came to collect her that he needed to go with her.
Sayah emerged from a slightly smoky cabin, looking significantly less stressed, and plugged the camera drone they'd retrieved from the caves into Suleiman. With his help she was able to retrieve further video from it, from a few minutes before what they'd been able to watch already.
Not quite trusting her own perception in her altered mental state, Sayah called Tahir and Hamsa over to watch it with her. It showed the team getting the drone into position to fly around the frame, moving the large cylinder that we'd seen pictures of close to the frame, and plugging in the cube. There were a couple of notable points. First, Zhar mentioning not knowing how long the 'hot dust' they found would last. And second, something odd in his eye, like an inky black cloud passing across it.
Hamsa contacted Jinna and learned that Lavim had gone missing. Just walked away, right after dinner. Along with Sayah he went to visit her to see if they could look learn anything there. After a brief and unenlightening chat, Hamsa asked for the toilet, in the hope of being able to retrieve DNA samples while he was in there. Unfortunately, Jinna insisted on accompanying him to show him the way, but this did mean Sayah had the opportunity to collect some hair from the pillow. With Jinna's hair being green, it was easy to know which bed was hers, although there was no way to be certain whose hair we'd actually picked up.
Jinna mentioned one odd thing. Lavim had been demonstrating a new interest in the rimward reach. Magdan was found there, used for anti-gravity, along with some very old ships.
Tahir went to talk to the port officials to see if he could find out if Lavim had left the station. With some guidance from the Traveller he was able to learn that he'd left on a private ship - the Fatima's Bounty.
We met up again back at the ship, but when we arrived, adjudicators were waiting for us. They had questions about Merez. He was dead, and appeared to have grown some extra limbs. Tahir told them what little we knew, being sure to mention the Fatima's Bounty. We were given instructions not to leave the station for 48 hours.
Not long afterwards, Gurgeh got a message that Lila was on her way back. She now had a bio-sculpted arm, and instructions not to use it for the next six days.
We had some time to fill. Sayah did an image search for Islir's tattoo but couldn't find anything. Gurgeh had a look at the samples from the mutated body parts we'd found in the cave, and found that they still appeared to be human. He checked himself to make sure. Still definitely human.
For once, we were on Coriolis at the same time as our patron, Doctor Wana. She invited us to dinner, and we told her about Merez and the shadow monkey. That was when we found out that Merez didn't get our name from her - which made sense, given his syndicate connections. We also told her about the dig site and the frame. Lila explained her theory about it being portal builder stuff, and showed her the cylinder and the camera video. Doctor Wana agreed on seeing the glyphs.
We told her about how we believed there was a second dig site, based on Zhar Baghram's journal. We talked about the keybearers that it mentioned, and she told us about a strange sect with that name, and showed us a keybearer symbol that we recognised as Islir's tattoo. We also told her about Merez and his unfortunate demise. She wasn't entirely upset about that, and said he worked for our Nemesis, Lea.
Many questions still remained. What was the mystic plague we'd heard about? Where were all these extra limbs coming from? Who was the Z.K. who'd been emailing Islir, and was he also a keybearer? Why were there two Lavim Tamm's and what did the alive one want on the Fatima's Bounty? What was in Sabetha's crates of 'medical supplies'?
And how were we going to occupy ourselves for another day on Coriolis when most us were itching to get back to the dig site but weren't allowed to leave?
Tuesday, 12 November 2019
Convention planning
My convention calendar for the first half of next year is currently looking like this:
12th January: Role Play Games Day (Northampton)
8th February: Spaghetti ConJunction (Birmingham)
22nd-23rd February: Dudley Bug Ball (Dudley)
14th March: Concrete Cow (Milton Keynes)
9th-10th May: North Star (Sheffield)
30th-31st May: UKGE (Birmingham)
The 'do more conventions' plan is looking pretty good so far. I plan to offer a game at most of these, so I'd better have some ready.
Scum and Villainy
While I love my Firefly scenario, I've run it four times now, so really should write something new. (Although I'll keep it on hand for North Star where I'm likely to meet people I haven't played with before.) Fortunately the other half has given me an idea, so now I'm writing a scenario for a bounty hunter crew. It's technically a sequel to the first game, although it doesn't matter whether anyone has played the previous one or not. Should be fun.
Don't Rest Your Head
I'm writing a scenario using my own setting for this, The Witching Hour. This is a tough one, as the nature of the game means I actually need to make pre-gens, which I've never bothered with for S&V. Also it's going to be horror, not a genre I have a lot of experience in. But there's only one way to fix that.
Delta Green
The bundle I bought came with a bunch of adventures, and they've got good reviews. Since I'm pretty new to Delta Green, it seems like a good idea to run something tried and tested before attempting to write my own.
Coriolis
I love this game and its setting, and I think I could come up with something entertaining and unusual. I'm not sure what that's going to be yet though. Something to think about.
Cyber+Punk
I have the outline of a scenario set around Christmas/New Year for this. I need to get it written so I can try it out around Christmas this year and make sure the game actually works.
That should do for now.
12th January: Role Play Games Day (Northampton)
8th February: Spaghetti ConJunction (Birmingham)
22nd-23rd February: Dudley Bug Ball (Dudley)
14th March: Concrete Cow (Milton Keynes)
9th-10th May: North Star (Sheffield)
30th-31st May: UKGE (Birmingham)
The 'do more conventions' plan is looking pretty good so far. I plan to offer a game at most of these, so I'd better have some ready.
Scum and Villainy
While I love my Firefly scenario, I've run it four times now, so really should write something new. (Although I'll keep it on hand for North Star where I'm likely to meet people I haven't played with before.) Fortunately the other half has given me an idea, so now I'm writing a scenario for a bounty hunter crew. It's technically a sequel to the first game, although it doesn't matter whether anyone has played the previous one or not. Should be fun.
Don't Rest Your Head
I'm writing a scenario using my own setting for this, The Witching Hour. This is a tough one, as the nature of the game means I actually need to make pre-gens, which I've never bothered with for S&V. Also it's going to be horror, not a genre I have a lot of experience in. But there's only one way to fix that.
Delta Green
The bundle I bought came with a bunch of adventures, and they've got good reviews. Since I'm pretty new to Delta Green, it seems like a good idea to run something tried and tested before attempting to write my own.
Coriolis
I love this game and its setting, and I think I could come up with something entertaining and unusual. I'm not sure what that's going to be yet though. Something to think about.
Cyber+Punk
I have the outline of a scenario set around Christmas/New Year for this. I need to get it written so I can try it out around Christmas this year and make sure the game actually works.
That should do for now.
Monday, 11 November 2019
The Player Massacre of 2010
Looking back over my notes and journals, I think the official name of the campaign was 'the search for the eight-fold key', but it wasn't long before it got the name by which it's been known ever since: The Player Massacre of 2010.
There are some valuable lessons to be learned from this campaign, which I'll discuss at the bottom of the post, but first, here's how it all went down...
Month 1
We started out as a party of five:
Ari the halfling sorcerer
Volrek the human summoner
Anya the human oracle
Lyzara the elf witch
Zid the elf rogue
We should have realised how things were going to go when early on we encountered an entire village of werewolves. Session 3 is where we lost Zid the rogue, killed by a really medium werewolf.
Volrek got retired at this point (the player was bored of playing cheerleader to his eidolon), and we also gained an extra player.
Month 2
We now had a party of six:
Ari the halfling sorcerer
Anya the human oracle
Lyzara the elf witch
Zordlon the human wizard
Victor the TBD (I forget his class and race due to what happened to him later.)
Tanuruk the half-orc barbarian
Session 6 saw us encounter a giant exploding poison zombie snake, which is where we lost my character, Lyzara the witch, and by extension, all the plot the GM had been planning for her.
At this point we made a new rule for the GM, who we already knew was a little too fond of stacking templates after the fiendish albino vampire winged drow in the previous campaign. He was not allowed to use any monster with five or more words in its description.
Month 3
The current party:
Ari the halfling sorcerer
Anya the human oracle
Zordlon the human wizard
Victor the see below
Tanuruk the half-orc barbarian
Jekila the elf alchemist
In session 11, Victor ended up turning into an evil skeleton in order to save Tanuruk's life. Technically not quite dead, but not entirely alive either.
Lyzara's replacement, Jekila, lasted exactly as long as her predecessor. She was exploded by a rakshasa's fireball in session 12, along with Ari.
Month 4
A couple more replacements later we had:
Anya the human oracle
Zordlon the human wizard
Victor the evil skeleton
Tanuruk the half-orc barbarian
Ariadna the half-orc inquisitor
Ugruk the gnome rage prophet
Anya was acting as party brain, as the only person who actually remembered anything about what this quest was actually about.
Two sessions later, Victor died properly, after being chewed up by a giant flying worm with legs. I should have called the GM out on that one. That's five words.
Month 5
Only one change this time:
Anya the human oracle
Zordlon the human wizard
Tanuruk the half-orc barbarian
Ariadna the half-orc inquisitor
Ugruk the gnome rage prophet
Valreon the human summoner
Things went relatively well until I missed a session and came back to find Ugruk and Tanuruk had both died, Zordlon had been turned into a statue, and Valreon had been arrested for grave robbing.
Month 6
With Valreon's player having to quit the game the party now consisted of:
Anya the human oracle
Zordlon the human wizard (we managed to get a scroll to fix him)
Ariadna the half-orc inquisitor
Vizier Khan the human sorcerer
Utah the human monk
Right at the end of the final session, six months after we started this game, Anya was finally killed. Thankfully, by this point we were able to bring her back.
---
The over-arching storyline of this campaign was supposed to be collecting eight magical daggers. I have no idea why. Trying to maintain any kind of consistent story when the characters kept being replaced with new ones with no idea what was going on just didn't work. If you want to run a long-term plot that the PCs are advancing rather than just reacting to, they need to have some investment in it, and none of us did.
Character development was also minimal. I had plans for Lyzara, and so did the GM, but then she was gone, and all her story with her. I tried again with Jekila, and the same result. My goal with Ariadna was no longer to create an interesting character with plot hooks the GM could work with, but just to create a character who could actually survive the amount of damage being thrown her way. If you want to run plot that's personal to your PCs and allows them to develop, you need to let them live long enough for that to happen.
We did enjoy the game (we played it for six months, after all) but looking back I can't help but feel a little sad for all the stories that got suddenly cut off.
The chief lesson the GM learned from all this is that in a heroic type game like D&D or Pathfinder, not every encounter has to be challenging. It's fine for most encounters to finish with the players victorious and not all on the brink of death. Because unless you've actually signed up to play the Tomb of Horrors, D&D and Pathfinder aren't about the GM versus the players. They're about telling the stories of heroes.
There are some valuable lessons to be learned from this campaign, which I'll discuss at the bottom of the post, but first, here's how it all went down...
Month 1
We started out as a party of five:
Ari the halfling sorcerer
Volrek the human summoner
Anya the human oracle
Lyzara the elf witch
Zid the elf rogue
We should have realised how things were going to go when early on we encountered an entire village of werewolves. Session 3 is where we lost Zid the rogue, killed by a really medium werewolf.
Volrek got retired at this point (the player was bored of playing cheerleader to his eidolon), and we also gained an extra player.
Month 2
We now had a party of six:
Ari the halfling sorcerer
Anya the human oracle
Lyzara the elf witch
Zordlon the human wizard
Victor the TBD (I forget his class and race due to what happened to him later.)
Tanuruk the half-orc barbarian
Session 6 saw us encounter a giant exploding poison zombie snake, which is where we lost my character, Lyzara the witch, and by extension, all the plot the GM had been planning for her.
At this point we made a new rule for the GM, who we already knew was a little too fond of stacking templates after the fiendish albino vampire winged drow in the previous campaign. He was not allowed to use any monster with five or more words in its description.
Month 3
The current party:
Ari the halfling sorcerer
Anya the human oracle
Zordlon the human wizard
Victor the see below
Tanuruk the half-orc barbarian
Jekila the elf alchemist
In session 11, Victor ended up turning into an evil skeleton in order to save Tanuruk's life. Technically not quite dead, but not entirely alive either.
Lyzara's replacement, Jekila, lasted exactly as long as her predecessor. She was exploded by a rakshasa's fireball in session 12, along with Ari.
Month 4
A couple more replacements later we had:
Anya the human oracle
Zordlon the human wizard
Victor the evil skeleton
Tanuruk the half-orc barbarian
Ariadna the half-orc inquisitor
Ugruk the gnome rage prophet
Anya was acting as party brain, as the only person who actually remembered anything about what this quest was actually about.
Two sessions later, Victor died properly, after being chewed up by a giant flying worm with legs. I should have called the GM out on that one. That's five words.
Month 5
Only one change this time:
Anya the human oracle
Zordlon the human wizard
Tanuruk the half-orc barbarian
Ariadna the half-orc inquisitor
Ugruk the gnome rage prophet
Valreon the human summoner
Things went relatively well until I missed a session and came back to find Ugruk and Tanuruk had both died, Zordlon had been turned into a statue, and Valreon had been arrested for grave robbing.
Month 6
With Valreon's player having to quit the game the party now consisted of:
Anya the human oracle
Zordlon the human wizard (we managed to get a scroll to fix him)
Ariadna the half-orc inquisitor
Vizier Khan the human sorcerer
Utah the human monk
Right at the end of the final session, six months after we started this game, Anya was finally killed. Thankfully, by this point we were able to bring her back.
---
The over-arching storyline of this campaign was supposed to be collecting eight magical daggers. I have no idea why. Trying to maintain any kind of consistent story when the characters kept being replaced with new ones with no idea what was going on just didn't work. If you want to run a long-term plot that the PCs are advancing rather than just reacting to, they need to have some investment in it, and none of us did.
Character development was also minimal. I had plans for Lyzara, and so did the GM, but then she was gone, and all her story with her. I tried again with Jekila, and the same result. My goal with Ariadna was no longer to create an interesting character with plot hooks the GM could work with, but just to create a character who could actually survive the amount of damage being thrown her way. If you want to run plot that's personal to your PCs and allows them to develop, you need to let them live long enough for that to happen.
We did enjoy the game (we played it for six months, after all) but looking back I can't help but feel a little sad for all the stories that got suddenly cut off.
The chief lesson the GM learned from all this is that in a heroic type game like D&D or Pathfinder, not every encounter has to be challenging. It's fine for most encounters to finish with the players victorious and not all on the brink of death. Because unless you've actually signed up to play the Tomb of Horrors, D&D and Pathfinder aren't about the GM versus the players. They're about telling the stories of heroes.
Saturday, 9 November 2019
Crew of the Aliya: A friend in need.
Another between-games vignette. I write these to get a deeper insight into my character's motivations, whereas the main write-ups are more about the story, and reminding us all what happened at the previous session.
The Gambler holds out a hand, inviting you to roll the dice. To take a risk. To take a chance.
She'd taken a risk, going down that tunnel. She'd taken a Vulcan carbine too. But it had been going pretty well until they found the first corpse.
Was it the first dead body she'd seen? Right now she wasn't even sure. But it was definitely the first one she'd seen with a third arm, scaly and clawed, growing out of its chest. She'd hung back while the others investigated, and managed not to throw up, although if she hadn't been distracted by that damaged tabula, it might have been harder to avoid.
By the time they got to the third corpse it was almost a relief. Just a dead person, stabbed, with no abnormal appendages. And by now Lila had found something that interested her, and her infectious excitement was enough to keep Sayah going.
But then Tahir started acting strange. Cautious. And while Sayah hadn't noticed anything else untoward, Mr Reckless himself acting cautious meant something very bad was about to happen. She tried to stop Lila doing what she was doing and get her away from there. But what was the point of trying to get between Lila and portal builder technology?
And then the corpse started to move, and every instinct was screaming at her to get away, but it was already reaching out for Lila. And so she had embraced the Gambler. She took a risk. She took a shot.
Her hands were shaking. The gun felt heavy and unwieldy. She couldn't afford to miss now. At best, the thing would keep going, and at worst, she could hit Lila. She offered a desperate prayer to the Gambler, to let this risk pay off.
The shot landed. Not good enough. The thing was hurt, but still moving, and now it had Lila by the arm, teeth and claws rending through flesh and sinew.
Take a risk. She fired again, and this time there was no wavering. Her aim was true, and the thing collapsed back to the floor, even as Lila was going into shock as the blood poured from her ruined arm.
A voice, which turned out to be her own, screamed for Gurgeh. She didn't even care that there was another mobile corpse that the others were dealing with. It didn't take a medicurge to see that Lila was bleeding to death.
After a few of the longest seconds of Sayah's life, Gurgeh was at their side, staunching the flow of blood. She let out a breath she didn't even know she'd been holding. Lila was safe, for now, so long as they could get her back to the ship straight away.
Which was when the first corpse made another appearance.
Her first shot went wide. But by the second she'd found her eye again. The others had weakened it, and her shot found its mark. The corpse fell, lifeless once more.
She had embraced the Gambler, and the Gambler had blessed her. But Lila had not been so lucky. Sayah wasn't strong, but Lila was slight enough for two people to carry her between them without too much strain. Blood spattered and sick with both worry and nausea, Sayah was already thinking longingly of the Aliya. The medlab, and the washroom, and the chapel. And her stash.
She hadn't expected to need it. This should have been a nice quiet archaeology expedition. It had been a moment's whim, while out shopping for an oud, that had sent her in search of less wholesome pleasures than music. Now she was grateful for that whim. Relief awaited them on the Aliya, in the medlab for Lila, and for Sayah, in the sweet smoke of the opor pipe.
The Gambler holds out a hand, inviting you to roll the dice. To take a risk. To take a chance.
She'd taken a risk, going down that tunnel. She'd taken a Vulcan carbine too. But it had been going pretty well until they found the first corpse.
Was it the first dead body she'd seen? Right now she wasn't even sure. But it was definitely the first one she'd seen with a third arm, scaly and clawed, growing out of its chest. She'd hung back while the others investigated, and managed not to throw up, although if she hadn't been distracted by that damaged tabula, it might have been harder to avoid.
By the time they got to the third corpse it was almost a relief. Just a dead person, stabbed, with no abnormal appendages. And by now Lila had found something that interested her, and her infectious excitement was enough to keep Sayah going.
But then Tahir started acting strange. Cautious. And while Sayah hadn't noticed anything else untoward, Mr Reckless himself acting cautious meant something very bad was about to happen. She tried to stop Lila doing what she was doing and get her away from there. But what was the point of trying to get between Lila and portal builder technology?
And then the corpse started to move, and every instinct was screaming at her to get away, but it was already reaching out for Lila. And so she had embraced the Gambler. She took a risk. She took a shot.
Her hands were shaking. The gun felt heavy and unwieldy. She couldn't afford to miss now. At best, the thing would keep going, and at worst, she could hit Lila. She offered a desperate prayer to the Gambler, to let this risk pay off.
The shot landed. Not good enough. The thing was hurt, but still moving, and now it had Lila by the arm, teeth and claws rending through flesh and sinew.
Take a risk. She fired again, and this time there was no wavering. Her aim was true, and the thing collapsed back to the floor, even as Lila was going into shock as the blood poured from her ruined arm.
A voice, which turned out to be her own, screamed for Gurgeh. She didn't even care that there was another mobile corpse that the others were dealing with. It didn't take a medicurge to see that Lila was bleeding to death.
After a few of the longest seconds of Sayah's life, Gurgeh was at their side, staunching the flow of blood. She let out a breath she didn't even know she'd been holding. Lila was safe, for now, so long as they could get her back to the ship straight away.
Which was when the first corpse made another appearance.
Her first shot went wide. But by the second she'd found her eye again. The others had weakened it, and her shot found its mark. The corpse fell, lifeless once more.
She had embraced the Gambler, and the Gambler had blessed her. But Lila had not been so lucky. Sayah wasn't strong, but Lila was slight enough for two people to carry her between them without too much strain. Blood spattered and sick with both worry and nausea, Sayah was already thinking longingly of the Aliya. The medlab, and the washroom, and the chapel. And her stash.
She hadn't expected to need it. This should have been a nice quiet archaeology expedition. It had been a moment's whim, while out shopping for an oud, that had sent her in search of less wholesome pleasures than music. Now she was grateful for that whim. Relief awaited them on the Aliya, in the medlab for Lila, and for Sayah, in the sweet smoke of the opor pipe.
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