In the wake of the Elf's death, the Dwarf and Specialist tended to the Crusader's wounds. He would make it, if they could get him back to Aldentown. The Dwarf explored the cavern where they had first encountered the goblins. He examined the mining automaton, and noted the extensive damage its right arm had received. Leery of reactivating it, he continued his searches until he discovered a bit of stonework that didn't look quite right.
The stonework turned out to be a facade, and behind that facade was a small workshop meant for repairing the mining automatons. Most of the tools and spare parts were gone, but there was a spare right arm. The Dwarf and Specialist set to work repairing the machine. After accomplishing their goal and reactivating the machine, the Dwarf set to work on an unpleasant task.
He searched through the rubble and bodies caused by the Elf's explosive end, looking for their letter of authority and the sword that the Crusader had hidden it in. With some very messy effort, he found it. Unfortunately, it was now mangled, and the force of the explosion had cracked the hilt where the papers were stored. Blood had soaked them into illegibility.
While he toiled, a goblin woman came forward bearing a ring, speaking in broken dwarven. She made placative gestures and and said the dwarf word for "surrender". The Dwarf's angry shouts and hostile body language sent her fleeing, but not before she dropped the ring*. Troubled by the heroic death of the Elf, the Dwarf used the rest of the gunpowder the party had to make demolition points in the unexplored tunnel. When he was done, the explosions collapsed the tunnels, possibly forever.
And with that, the Specialist and Dwarf, carrying the Crusader in a makeshift travois and the automaton stomping behind, made their way back toward Aldentown, and were joined by Ebrulf.
When they arrived, the townsfolk were saddened to hear of the death of the Elf, and they were very concerned for the Crusader. The Dwarf and Specialist let the villagers take the Crusader away to the Moosefoot so that he could be tended by whatever alchemists, witches, or healers existed in the place. As for the automaton, the Dwarf chose to hide it in an abandoned barn. He made the risky choice to deactivate the great old machine, not knowing for sure if it would ever roar to life again.
It was many days before the Crusader was well, but he was also wounded in spirit. He had lost his holy symbol along with his sword, and felt keenly bereft. The healer who had tended his wounds relayed his hurt to the village's goldsmith, and they fashioned him a new one, though the church fathers would likely have despised it for its pagan imagery. The Crusader though was gladdened however, and felt the kindness and generosity of the villagers of Aldentown was a worthy reason to keep it.
And this is unfortunately, the last part of the tale, because Carlos has yet to make a replacement for his Elf. But that's okay. Because we've also played a few other games, notably, one involving ray guns and aliens.
*The ring was a ring of protection +1.
Showing posts with label Story Time. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Story Time. Show all posts
Wednesday, August 23, 2017
Tuesday, February 28, 2017
A World of Darkness and its Dirty Secrets
Be warned, this is probably going to be a long, introspective post and may not be to everyone's tastes.
My group of late has been very interested in the Classic World of Darkness, and specifically in Vampire. As a result, I've been reading through my old chronicle notes, and the various Vampire supplements I own in an attempt to wring something of quality from the whole mess.
And it is a mess. Both my notes and cWoD. For the part of my notes, you have to go back to the beginning. Back to the first time I stumbled into the position of Storyteller, having no more knowledge of the World of Darkness than what I could glean from borrowed core books and the Werewolf the Apocalypse (Revised) book I'd gotten as a 15th birthday present.
Despite not favoring the thrust of Werewolf's politics, I still adore it. There's something about the fury, the savagery, the doomed nobility, and the tragic struggles of the ill-made heroes that speaks to me, beyond the eco-terrorist, gynocentric, civilization bashing stupidity of it all. But I'm not here to talk about that, and it's going to get me off track if I let it.
My first true attempt to run my own campaign or chronicle was after our original Storyteller joined the Army, as I've mentioned before. The first time I'd run a game was for Vampire, but I hadn't done a very good job, didn't really understand what it was I needed to do, and ultimately the original ST stepped in and basically took the reigns from me in a manner that was very uncool of him in retrospect.
Speaking of retrospects, my first chronicle wasn't very good either. It was a train wreck of inexperience, spinelessness, and poor writing. Inexperience is to be expected. The poor writing was the teething period of a creative mind without much practice and a lot of investing too much of himself into the narrative and characters. A sin I no longer indulge as often nor quite so deeply.
The spinelessness was the largest problem, however. I was fifteen. Caught in the tumultuous shoals of hormonal biological change and the fumbling in the dark that is finding an identity and peers among the chaotic press that was the larger pool of young people experiencing some of the same things I was. I'm not proud of who I was then. The things you say and do when you have neither the clarity of adulthood (and its attendant evening of the hormonal and emotional keels), nor the wisdom of bitter experience...
Regardless, this isn't to wallow in self-pity or to flagellate myself for an audience. Even at my best, I'm not very good at socializing. Breaking the ice is hideously difficult for me, and small talk falls from my lips with all the elegance of a flatulent and inebriated Deacon during the Sunday sermon. Now imagine me as a gangling teenager unhappy with his home life and a tendency to fly off the handle at the slightest provocation.
Like all teenagers, I wanted to fit in somewhere, but it was not my lot. I wasn't handsome. I wasn't athletic. I wasn't academically gifted. I wasn't wealthy. I had (and still have) crooked teeth. I needed glasses and didn't know it. So, when I found roleplaying games and people to play it with, naturally, I was relieved. I had found a circle of people like me, weirdos, outcasts, socially inept people I could bond with. And I clung to that. Probably with more passion than I should have. Because people change.
So, you can imagine that I really, really, wanted to impress my newfound friends and I didn't want them to be angry with me or ostracize me. So, when it came time to take up the reigns of Vampire, I fucked up. Badly. I let them walk all over me, without realizing it. And one of the primary culprits was my oldest friend.
When our old ST left, he gave his campaign notes to one of our players, likely expecting that they either wouldn't be read, or that this person would be a good steward and take up the reigns of the chronicle where it had been left off. As it turned out, those notes proved extremely troublesome. Troublesome because they revealed the background and true scope of power that one of the characters in the chronicle, played by my oldest friend, was supposed to have. He'd taken the Amnesia flaw, likely to min-max and get as many points as possible without having to think about who his character was, and so our ST had filled in the blanks.
What came of this was munchkinry of the third degree. As I learned later from the ST in question, he'd done a lot of research at the library and had made the player's Ravnos vampire a Russian prince from around the time of the Mongol invasion. I don't now recall all the details, but this character had been a vampire of quite low generation and had a number of powers he didn't realize that he had. Worse, at some point during the chronicle, the player in question had had the opportunity to diablerize a powerful, slumbering ancient Cainite.
Instead of keeping the notes secret, the person they were entrusted to let my oldest friend read them. And thus Spade, the Monster was born. I have a feeling that my friend's obsession with the name Spade comes from the rather stringent character limits for names in the original Final Fantasy games, combined with a general interest with card games, the X-Man Gambit, and just being a dash uncreative. Many, many roleplaying characters have been named Spade, but this particular Spade was a 3rd generation vampire of the Ravnos clan.
That's right. That's not a mistake. He was 3rd generation. Somehow. The Assamites have a ritual that allows them to lower their generation by one once they've accumulated enough lower generation vitae. Diablerie also lowers generation by one (though there's a variant rule that is less stringent where you come out somewhere between your original generation and your victim's - and then there's all the evidence in canon that you instead shift to the generation of the vampire you diablerized...).
I'm not 100% certain how the hell any of this occurred, since I wasn't a regular at the time it happened, but I do remember a session where my Ventrue was strapped to one of our old ST's GMPC Mage's front and carried to the top of a skyscraper via jetpack, where they anchored down and two (three?) characters with magically enhanced sniper rifles shot an old and powerful Methuselah vampire from the top of another building.
My Ventrue was just along for the ride. You could say that about the Gangrel I'd made before that too.
So, Spade the Unconquerable came to my humble Dark Age city in Germany, and proceeded to be the most powerful being who could cure Final Death, lay waste to armies, and go toe to toe with Set himself. All of it merely an inconvenience, a slight bump on the road.
That was not the only time he got a free pass to be a completely boring badass whom nothing could challenge, but it was the most egregious.
And the worst part of it is, is that it could have been solved with a single word.
No.
But, when you're a teenager who desperately doesn't want to upset the apple cart of friendship, no doesn't come easily. When you're older, wiser, you know you can say no. Have an obligation to say no, in many cases. Saying no is sometimes the most important thing you'll ever do. Because yes can lead to misery and damnation as equally as it can to bliss and joy.
So ultimately, it's my own fault that my oldest friend ran rampant through my campaigns and chronicles with extremely powerful characters who had no business being there in the first place. And let that be a lesson to anyone all too willing to say yes. It's a fine sentiment to want to allow everyone to have a good time, and let them play whatever they want, because it's just a game, right? Except, that when someone does what my oldest friend did, they're taking advantage of you. And they know it. This isn't simply a "my Storyteller is permissive, so I'll pick something rare and different so I can be a special snowflake" it's a "my Storyteller is a fucking idiot, and I'm taking him for all he's worth" situation.
And it's on you if you allow it to happen.
As a result, my notes are a mishmash from a decade of crossovers with super powered monstrosities. Our games were very much just anti-heroes with superpowers, and well... It's not really what I want out of all this. If my current group is serious about playing the Classic World of Darkness, there's a few things we need to agree on, and they're mostly theme and tone, since on the mechanical side of the house, I'm going to be strict with the rules, and probably strict with my rulings too.
The theme really should be something along the lines of either The Slow Descent or The Long War (maybe a mix of both). The Slow Descent should be about action and consequence, and what makes one human, and the struggle to retain that humanity in the face of perverse and alien need. The Long War is something I've always wanted to deal with. At its core, it's the Jyhad. The struggle of the various factions against each other, but specifically the Elders vs. their childer, and perhaps the Antediluvians against all.
But, roleplaying games are unique in that they're a shared experience, and if my current group wants to play anti-heroes with superpowers, then I'll go along with it. Our previous conversations lead me to believe they're serious about exploring Vampire the Masquerade as it was intended though. I happen to agree with Carlos when he says that he dislikes that Flaws grant character building points, but it's the nature of the ill-conceived beast, since VtM is the granddaddy of anti-D&D games (by which I mean, explicitly designed to not be like D&D).
However, an extra seven points will make little difference in the long haul. It's enough to get one extra level of a discipline. At most, that's a single discipline with up to four points in it. Which is a bad investment, since you are required to find a teacher for new disciplines.
As I mentioned, my notes are a mess. They're a mess because of all the stuff I've mentioned, and also due to the insane dilution that crossovers cause. As a result I'm inclined to rewrite 90% of them. Which means that VtM isn't going to happen soon. But, this is also a good thing because it allows everyone to make a character they want to play, and figure out who this person was before they were born to darkness.
There's a sourcebook that gets a lot of hate (metric tons of it): Dirty Secrets of the Black Hand. I'd say most of it is deserved. It's got some real stinkers in it. Between the terrible Old Clan Tzimisce, and the Souleaters/Vicissitude thing, one might be inclined to throw the whole thing out. But, there's a little text box that explains that the book exists mostly to flesh out possibilities. The World of Darkness is not a concrete thing. None of the books is canon, aside from maybe the information thinly sketched out in the core books. And even that is suspect, since vampires are deceitful by nature. That same text box encourages the Storyteller to make up their own Truth, and that's something I've kept in mind ever since I got the book.
What is the Truth? I'm not telling. It's for my players to discover. But like the X-files was wont to say "Trust no one."
But also, "The Truth is out there."
My group of late has been very interested in the Classic World of Darkness, and specifically in Vampire. As a result, I've been reading through my old chronicle notes, and the various Vampire supplements I own in an attempt to wring something of quality from the whole mess.
And it is a mess. Both my notes and cWoD. For the part of my notes, you have to go back to the beginning. Back to the first time I stumbled into the position of Storyteller, having no more knowledge of the World of Darkness than what I could glean from borrowed core books and the Werewolf the Apocalypse (Revised) book I'd gotten as a 15th birthday present.
Despite not favoring the thrust of Werewolf's politics, I still adore it. There's something about the fury, the savagery, the doomed nobility, and the tragic struggles of the ill-made heroes that speaks to me, beyond the eco-terrorist, gynocentric, civilization bashing stupidity of it all. But I'm not here to talk about that, and it's going to get me off track if I let it.
My first true attempt to run my own campaign or chronicle was after our original Storyteller joined the Army, as I've mentioned before. The first time I'd run a game was for Vampire, but I hadn't done a very good job, didn't really understand what it was I needed to do, and ultimately the original ST stepped in and basically took the reigns from me in a manner that was very uncool of him in retrospect.
Speaking of retrospects, my first chronicle wasn't very good either. It was a train wreck of inexperience, spinelessness, and poor writing. Inexperience is to be expected. The poor writing was the teething period of a creative mind without much practice and a lot of investing too much of himself into the narrative and characters. A sin I no longer indulge as often nor quite so deeply.
The spinelessness was the largest problem, however. I was fifteen. Caught in the tumultuous shoals of hormonal biological change and the fumbling in the dark that is finding an identity and peers among the chaotic press that was the larger pool of young people experiencing some of the same things I was. I'm not proud of who I was then. The things you say and do when you have neither the clarity of adulthood (and its attendant evening of the hormonal and emotional keels), nor the wisdom of bitter experience...
Regardless, this isn't to wallow in self-pity or to flagellate myself for an audience. Even at my best, I'm not very good at socializing. Breaking the ice is hideously difficult for me, and small talk falls from my lips with all the elegance of a flatulent and inebriated Deacon during the Sunday sermon. Now imagine me as a gangling teenager unhappy with his home life and a tendency to fly off the handle at the slightest provocation.
Like all teenagers, I wanted to fit in somewhere, but it was not my lot. I wasn't handsome. I wasn't athletic. I wasn't academically gifted. I wasn't wealthy. I had (and still have) crooked teeth. I needed glasses and didn't know it. So, when I found roleplaying games and people to play it with, naturally, I was relieved. I had found a circle of people like me, weirdos, outcasts, socially inept people I could bond with. And I clung to that. Probably with more passion than I should have. Because people change.
So, you can imagine that I really, really, wanted to impress my newfound friends and I didn't want them to be angry with me or ostracize me. So, when it came time to take up the reigns of Vampire, I fucked up. Badly. I let them walk all over me, without realizing it. And one of the primary culprits was my oldest friend.
When our old ST left, he gave his campaign notes to one of our players, likely expecting that they either wouldn't be read, or that this person would be a good steward and take up the reigns of the chronicle where it had been left off. As it turned out, those notes proved extremely troublesome. Troublesome because they revealed the background and true scope of power that one of the characters in the chronicle, played by my oldest friend, was supposed to have. He'd taken the Amnesia flaw, likely to min-max and get as many points as possible without having to think about who his character was, and so our ST had filled in the blanks.
What came of this was munchkinry of the third degree. As I learned later from the ST in question, he'd done a lot of research at the library and had made the player's Ravnos vampire a Russian prince from around the time of the Mongol invasion. I don't now recall all the details, but this character had been a vampire of quite low generation and had a number of powers he didn't realize that he had. Worse, at some point during the chronicle, the player in question had had the opportunity to diablerize a powerful, slumbering ancient Cainite.
Instead of keeping the notes secret, the person they were entrusted to let my oldest friend read them. And thus Spade, the Monster was born. I have a feeling that my friend's obsession with the name Spade comes from the rather stringent character limits for names in the original Final Fantasy games, combined with a general interest with card games, the X-Man Gambit, and just being a dash uncreative. Many, many roleplaying characters have been named Spade, but this particular Spade was a 3rd generation vampire of the Ravnos clan.
That's right. That's not a mistake. He was 3rd generation. Somehow. The Assamites have a ritual that allows them to lower their generation by one once they've accumulated enough lower generation vitae. Diablerie also lowers generation by one (though there's a variant rule that is less stringent where you come out somewhere between your original generation and your victim's - and then there's all the evidence in canon that you instead shift to the generation of the vampire you diablerized...).
I'm not 100% certain how the hell any of this occurred, since I wasn't a regular at the time it happened, but I do remember a session where my Ventrue was strapped to one of our old ST's GMPC Mage's front and carried to the top of a skyscraper via jetpack, where they anchored down and two (three?) characters with magically enhanced sniper rifles shot an old and powerful Methuselah vampire from the top of another building.
My Ventrue was just along for the ride. You could say that about the Gangrel I'd made before that too.
So, Spade the Unconquerable came to my humble Dark Age city in Germany, and proceeded to be the most powerful being who could cure Final Death, lay waste to armies, and go toe to toe with Set himself. All of it merely an inconvenience, a slight bump on the road.
That was not the only time he got a free pass to be a completely boring badass whom nothing could challenge, but it was the most egregious.
And the worst part of it is, is that it could have been solved with a single word.
No.
But, when you're a teenager who desperately doesn't want to upset the apple cart of friendship, no doesn't come easily. When you're older, wiser, you know you can say no. Have an obligation to say no, in many cases. Saying no is sometimes the most important thing you'll ever do. Because yes can lead to misery and damnation as equally as it can to bliss and joy.
So ultimately, it's my own fault that my oldest friend ran rampant through my campaigns and chronicles with extremely powerful characters who had no business being there in the first place. And let that be a lesson to anyone all too willing to say yes. It's a fine sentiment to want to allow everyone to have a good time, and let them play whatever they want, because it's just a game, right? Except, that when someone does what my oldest friend did, they're taking advantage of you. And they know it. This isn't simply a "my Storyteller is permissive, so I'll pick something rare and different so I can be a special snowflake" it's a "my Storyteller is a fucking idiot, and I'm taking him for all he's worth" situation.
And it's on you if you allow it to happen.
As a result, my notes are a mishmash from a decade of crossovers with super powered monstrosities. Our games were very much just anti-heroes with superpowers, and well... It's not really what I want out of all this. If my current group is serious about playing the Classic World of Darkness, there's a few things we need to agree on, and they're mostly theme and tone, since on the mechanical side of the house, I'm going to be strict with the rules, and probably strict with my rulings too.
The theme really should be something along the lines of either The Slow Descent or The Long War (maybe a mix of both). The Slow Descent should be about action and consequence, and what makes one human, and the struggle to retain that humanity in the face of perverse and alien need. The Long War is something I've always wanted to deal with. At its core, it's the Jyhad. The struggle of the various factions against each other, but specifically the Elders vs. their childer, and perhaps the Antediluvians against all.
But, roleplaying games are unique in that they're a shared experience, and if my current group wants to play anti-heroes with superpowers, then I'll go along with it. Our previous conversations lead me to believe they're serious about exploring Vampire the Masquerade as it was intended though. I happen to agree with Carlos when he says that he dislikes that Flaws grant character building points, but it's the nature of the ill-conceived beast, since VtM is the granddaddy of anti-D&D games (by which I mean, explicitly designed to not be like D&D).
However, an extra seven points will make little difference in the long haul. It's enough to get one extra level of a discipline. At most, that's a single discipline with up to four points in it. Which is a bad investment, since you are required to find a teacher for new disciplines.
As I mentioned, my notes are a mess. They're a mess because of all the stuff I've mentioned, and also due to the insane dilution that crossovers cause. As a result I'm inclined to rewrite 90% of them. Which means that VtM isn't going to happen soon. But, this is also a good thing because it allows everyone to make a character they want to play, and figure out who this person was before they were born to darkness.
There's a sourcebook that gets a lot of hate (metric tons of it): Dirty Secrets of the Black Hand. I'd say most of it is deserved. It's got some real stinkers in it. Between the terrible Old Clan Tzimisce, and the Souleaters/Vicissitude thing, one might be inclined to throw the whole thing out. But, there's a little text box that explains that the book exists mostly to flesh out possibilities. The World of Darkness is not a concrete thing. None of the books is canon, aside from maybe the information thinly sketched out in the core books. And even that is suspect, since vampires are deceitful by nature. That same text box encourages the Storyteller to make up their own Truth, and that's something I've kept in mind ever since I got the book.
What is the Truth? I'm not telling. It's for my players to discover. But like the X-files was wont to say "Trust no one."
But also, "The Truth is out there."
Thursday, December 15, 2016
Take a Dive (or Why Adhering to the Rules is Bad, and Arbitration is Superior)
This is supposed to be a blog about OSR, and occasionally it even resembles one. But, here we are, talking about 3rd edition again.
I'll start off by pointing out that I'm using this story to contrast and outline why a particular and integral part of OSR is both necessary and good.
To set the scene, the seven of us were downstairs, in my then-girlfriend Rachel's house (well, this was highschool, so it was her parent's house). We were playing either the second or third session of the Wheel of Time RPG game I had begun running on Tuesday afternoons. The crew was:
Nigel's character had been in Amadicia to start with, and it had turned out that he had the ability to channel (I was setting him up to either be the Dragon Reborn, or a False Dragon - a Christ/antichrist type figure in the lore). Now, he had to flee, and his fellow Children of Light now hated him. Had I the chance to do this over again, I'd have sprung this on Nigel much, much later, after giving him a chance to rise in the ranks of the Children, and to make connections with his fellow warriors. Then, it would be a test of their loyalty to his character or to their codes when this event happened.
So, his character was on the run for his life toward Andor...
And in Andor, Harriet was dealing with the fact that Andor was being invaded by evil creatures from a plane of mirrors (I was mixing D&D and the Wheel of Time like some kind of insane alchemist) in league with the Dark One, or perhaps even extensions of him, or remnants of the Age of Legends. I'm not 100% sure what it was I was doing with this. Either way, they were replacing important people in Andor with their kind, and when they chose to replace the Princess, Harriet had to find a way out of Andor, fast.
Assuming I remember this correctly (bear with me, this was thirteen years ago), Harriet was able to order some of her guards to get her out of the palace, and they successfully reached the carriage and then made their way out of the city. However, several days later on the road, they were attacked by some of the Mirrorspawn, and it just so happened that an exhausted and saddlesore Child of Light was coming down the road from the opposite direction.
Doing battle, both Nigel and Harriet gave a good accounting of themselves, and either slew or drove off the Mirrorspawn, and the two of them continued to travel together. This time picking a road that led neither to Amadicia or Andor. I'm fairly certain my grasp of WoT's geography was rather poor at the time, but if I were running it now, they've have been headed to either Lugard or Murandy. I have no idea where I sent them.
Anyway, in the session in question, they'd been traveling together for some time, and they had chosen to stop at an inn and spend the night in what they hoped was safety. During the fight with the Mirrorspawn, Nigel and Harriet had taken some of their swords (incredibly sharp things polished to a mirror shine) presumably to sell, but perhaps to use.
That night, a Myrddraal (a deadly, eyeless man thing that can only die by severing its head from its neck, and carries a sword with an infectious evil that can kill with a scratch) shadow walked into the inn searching for Nigel. Its mission was to kill Harriet's character, and leave Nigel's Child of Light cut off and alone, the better to twist him to the Dark One's purpose. It was frustrated in its mission because Nigel happened to walk out of his room at the very moment it was trying to open Harriet's door.
Caught in a lit hallway with no shadows large enough to flee, the Myrddraal did the only thing it could think of, which was to draw its sword and try to intimidate Nigel into making an alliance with it. He, being a Child of the Light, and opposed to Shadowspawn in all their forms, had none of it and charged. His intention was to slam into it, and carry it out of the window at the end of the hall.
Which would be fine if 3rd edition had proper rules for this (or so I thought, at the time). But it really doesn't, since Bull Rush attacks can only push an opponent back 5 feet, and it doesn't have any real rules for things like the likelihood of falling out of windows, or crashing through them, or any sort of sensible procedures for how characters, momentum, and fragile materials interact.
So, I made a judgement call, the primary job of GMs everywhere.
I chose to ignore the rules as written, and decided that since Nigel's character was strong enough, he could carry the Myrddraal down the remaining length of the hall and through the window if he succeeded on his Bull Rush attempt. And to succeed, the Myrddraal had to fail in its attack of opportunity against him, which it wasn't likely to do. However, it rolled low, and I judged that Nigel's rush had taken it by surprise. In the crash through the window, however, I called on both of them to make Dexterity checks to keep hold of their weapons. Nigel and the Myrddraal managed to fail this check, and so they tumbled from a second story window, and landed at the top of a steep hill leading down to a stream.
And then, in their attempts to hit one another, they managed to roll right down the hill, hitting rocks, trees, and all manner of things on their way to the bottom, where they came to a stop in the cold water of the stream, each with a sackful of subdual damage (enough to knock them unconscious). I made a roll, and decided whether that were face up or face down. The Myrddraal was face up. Nigel's character was face down. He was going to drown unless someone helped him.
Cue Harriet, who, upon hearing the crash of the window outside, went to investigate. There at the end of the hall was the shattered window and two swords. One old, battered, but functional and sharp, and another that looked like it had been forged from shadows in the pits of Hell. Not wanting to touch the black one (smart on her part) Harriet used a blanket to wrap both swords, and then she went outside. She began searching in the dark with her lantern in one hand, and the swords in the other. However, the clock was ticking for Nigel.
I probably shouldn't have, but I allowed him to make the Constitution checks to hold his breath (technically, he shouldn't be able to do that because his character was unconscious, and already had more subdual damage than his current HP). Harriet searched the hillside as quickly as she could, and the entire table collectively held their breath as Nigel kept barely managing to make his Constitution checks. But then, he failed one. And now only had two rounds left, or he would drown and die.
Everyone was on pins and needles while this whole situation hung by a thread.
Harriet came to his rescue, making a really damn good roll on her Search check, and she found both of them in the stream. She set the lantern down and turned Nigel over, and then slapped him awake (again, I had to make a call - Nigel shouldn't have been able to wake up for at least a couple of hours, but I felt it was dramatically appropriate, and really, hang the goddamn rules when they interfere with stuff like this). So, battered, half-drowned, Nigel staggered to his feet, and Harriet pushed the swords in his face.
He drew one at random, and with two strokes (coup de grace attacks) chopped through the Myrddraal's neck, and then collapsed on the bank of the stream, exhausted and unconscious once again.
Unfortunately for Nigel, the sword he'd used to hack the Myrddraal's head off was the Myrddraal's own sword, and just touching the things can infect you with their evil. So, he was unconscious, and had a death grip on a killer sword. His recovery wouldn't be easy.
But that's a tale for another time.
However, I know I didn't make a mistake when I made those judgement calls, because Bull Rush, a special attack in 3rd edition and the WoTRPG is far less effective than simply attacking the opponent. To make it worthwhile to do, and to encourage the sort of imaginative roleplaying I wanted from my players, I had to ignore the rules. If all Nigel had been able to do was push the Myrddraal five feet, it would have likely been forced to kill him in the following round. Myrddraal are far too powerful for a beginning character, but they're also one of the Dark One's most ubiquitous and intelligent servants (in many ways, D&D is not the system for settings like this).
I'll start off by pointing out that I'm using this story to contrast and outline why a particular and integral part of OSR is both necessary and good.
To set the scene, the seven of us were downstairs, in my then-girlfriend Rachel's house (well, this was highschool, so it was her parent's house). We were playing either the second or third session of the Wheel of Time RPG game I had begun running on Tuesday afternoons. The crew was:
- Nigel, my younger brother. His character was a Whitecloak (sort of a templar type character from a nation called Amadicia. Their proper name is the Children of the Light, and they take a very liberal view of their authority and jurisdiction to punish evil-doers). His character was an Armsman, the WoTRPG equivalent of the Fighter.
- Harriet was playing a Noble, and she was in this alternate reality, the heir apparent to the Kingdom of Andor, and a titled Princess. Roughly similar to the Aristocrat, but stronger.
- Ana, who had only come to the States the previous year from New Zealand. She's a better friend than I deserve. Ana was playing a Wanderer, and in her backstory, her character was created by the Forsaken, a sort of human looking Shadowspawn (monsters created by evil wizards essentially). Pretty much the Rogue class, but not as strong.
- Dermot was playing an Aiel (red haired crazy people from a desert - yes, I realize "red hair" and "crazy people" is redundant). He was an Algai'd'siswai, an unarmored spear fighter basically. Roughly analogous to the Monk.
- Daniel was playing a male Channeler, which is basically a Wizard that will eventually go crazy. He'd made a deal with the Dark One to avoid the Taint on the male source of power called Saidin.
- And fnally Rachel was playing a female Channeler, specifically part of the only "official" order of wizards remaining in the world, and descended from the pre-apocalyptic order, called Aes Sedai.
Nigel's character had been in Amadicia to start with, and it had turned out that he had the ability to channel (I was setting him up to either be the Dragon Reborn, or a False Dragon - a Christ/antichrist type figure in the lore). Now, he had to flee, and his fellow Children of Light now hated him. Had I the chance to do this over again, I'd have sprung this on Nigel much, much later, after giving him a chance to rise in the ranks of the Children, and to make connections with his fellow warriors. Then, it would be a test of their loyalty to his character or to their codes when this event happened.
So, his character was on the run for his life toward Andor...
And in Andor, Harriet was dealing with the fact that Andor was being invaded by evil creatures from a plane of mirrors (I was mixing D&D and the Wheel of Time like some kind of insane alchemist) in league with the Dark One, or perhaps even extensions of him, or remnants of the Age of Legends. I'm not 100% sure what it was I was doing with this. Either way, they were replacing important people in Andor with their kind, and when they chose to replace the Princess, Harriet had to find a way out of Andor, fast.
Assuming I remember this correctly (bear with me, this was thirteen years ago), Harriet was able to order some of her guards to get her out of the palace, and they successfully reached the carriage and then made their way out of the city. However, several days later on the road, they were attacked by some of the Mirrorspawn, and it just so happened that an exhausted and saddlesore Child of Light was coming down the road from the opposite direction.
Doing battle, both Nigel and Harriet gave a good accounting of themselves, and either slew or drove off the Mirrorspawn, and the two of them continued to travel together. This time picking a road that led neither to Amadicia or Andor. I'm fairly certain my grasp of WoT's geography was rather poor at the time, but if I were running it now, they've have been headed to either Lugard or Murandy. I have no idea where I sent them.
Anyway, in the session in question, they'd been traveling together for some time, and they had chosen to stop at an inn and spend the night in what they hoped was safety. During the fight with the Mirrorspawn, Nigel and Harriet had taken some of their swords (incredibly sharp things polished to a mirror shine) presumably to sell, but perhaps to use.
That night, a Myrddraal (a deadly, eyeless man thing that can only die by severing its head from its neck, and carries a sword with an infectious evil that can kill with a scratch) shadow walked into the inn searching for Nigel. Its mission was to kill Harriet's character, and leave Nigel's Child of Light cut off and alone, the better to twist him to the Dark One's purpose. It was frustrated in its mission because Nigel happened to walk out of his room at the very moment it was trying to open Harriet's door.
Caught in a lit hallway with no shadows large enough to flee, the Myrddraal did the only thing it could think of, which was to draw its sword and try to intimidate Nigel into making an alliance with it. He, being a Child of the Light, and opposed to Shadowspawn in all their forms, had none of it and charged. His intention was to slam into it, and carry it out of the window at the end of the hall.
Which would be fine if 3rd edition had proper rules for this (or so I thought, at the time). But it really doesn't, since Bull Rush attacks can only push an opponent back 5 feet, and it doesn't have any real rules for things like the likelihood of falling out of windows, or crashing through them, or any sort of sensible procedures for how characters, momentum, and fragile materials interact.
So, I made a judgement call, the primary job of GMs everywhere.
I chose to ignore the rules as written, and decided that since Nigel's character was strong enough, he could carry the Myrddraal down the remaining length of the hall and through the window if he succeeded on his Bull Rush attempt. And to succeed, the Myrddraal had to fail in its attack of opportunity against him, which it wasn't likely to do. However, it rolled low, and I judged that Nigel's rush had taken it by surprise. In the crash through the window, however, I called on both of them to make Dexterity checks to keep hold of their weapons. Nigel and the Myrddraal managed to fail this check, and so they tumbled from a second story window, and landed at the top of a steep hill leading down to a stream.
And then, in their attempts to hit one another, they managed to roll right down the hill, hitting rocks, trees, and all manner of things on their way to the bottom, where they came to a stop in the cold water of the stream, each with a sackful of subdual damage (enough to knock them unconscious). I made a roll, and decided whether that were face up or face down. The Myrddraal was face up. Nigel's character was face down. He was going to drown unless someone helped him.
Cue Harriet, who, upon hearing the crash of the window outside, went to investigate. There at the end of the hall was the shattered window and two swords. One old, battered, but functional and sharp, and another that looked like it had been forged from shadows in the pits of Hell. Not wanting to touch the black one (smart on her part) Harriet used a blanket to wrap both swords, and then she went outside. She began searching in the dark with her lantern in one hand, and the swords in the other. However, the clock was ticking for Nigel.
I probably shouldn't have, but I allowed him to make the Constitution checks to hold his breath (technically, he shouldn't be able to do that because his character was unconscious, and already had more subdual damage than his current HP). Harriet searched the hillside as quickly as she could, and the entire table collectively held their breath as Nigel kept barely managing to make his Constitution checks. But then, he failed one. And now only had two rounds left, or he would drown and die.
Everyone was on pins and needles while this whole situation hung by a thread.
Harriet came to his rescue, making a really damn good roll on her Search check, and she found both of them in the stream. She set the lantern down and turned Nigel over, and then slapped him awake (again, I had to make a call - Nigel shouldn't have been able to wake up for at least a couple of hours, but I felt it was dramatically appropriate, and really, hang the goddamn rules when they interfere with stuff like this). So, battered, half-drowned, Nigel staggered to his feet, and Harriet pushed the swords in his face.
He drew one at random, and with two strokes (coup de grace attacks) chopped through the Myrddraal's neck, and then collapsed on the bank of the stream, exhausted and unconscious once again.
Unfortunately for Nigel, the sword he'd used to hack the Myrddraal's head off was the Myrddraal's own sword, and just touching the things can infect you with their evil. So, he was unconscious, and had a death grip on a killer sword. His recovery wouldn't be easy.
But that's a tale for another time.
How OSR Relates
It is situations like this, where the rules come into conflict with the player's imaginative solutions, where the game world is defined for the worse by the rules, that GMs are necessary. Personally, I think I was too lenient in this circumstance, but back then I was under the impression that dying wasn't any fun, and that I shouldn't kill characters off for making mistakes. Nigel's Child of the Light probably should have drowned in that stream.
However, I know I didn't make a mistake when I made those judgement calls, because Bull Rush, a special attack in 3rd edition and the WoTRPG is far less effective than simply attacking the opponent. To make it worthwhile to do, and to encourage the sort of imaginative roleplaying I wanted from my players, I had to ignore the rules. If all Nigel had been able to do was push the Myrddraal five feet, it would have likely been forced to kill him in the following round. Myrddraal are far too powerful for a beginning character, but they're also one of the Dark One's most ubiquitous and intelligent servants (in many ways, D&D is not the system for settings like this).
Additionally, there were no real rules for having subdual damage be done for striking objects while under the effects of momentum. By RAW, they should have taken the damage for falling ten feet, and then come to an immediate stop no matter the angle of the slope or the fact that they were still moving, grappling, and certainly not on their feet. Proponents of RAW may be completely fine with the nonsensical reality created by the rules when interpreted this way, but I am not. And they can scream DM fiat all they want, because it's necessary for RPGs to function, because no rule set can account for every situation or corner case that may come up.
Frankly, I don't even think there should be a Bull Rush attack. A player should simply be able to declare they're going to try to do a particular action, and then leave it to DM arbitration. Some OSR games have Feat or Maneuver dice for such situations, something I'm somewhat in favor of. But having a feat like Improved Bull Rush, whose sole benefit is that Bull Rush no longer provokes an attack of opportunity (and requires Power Attack to boot!) is the sort of nasty little sectioning off of the rules with dubious benefits that drove me away from 3rd edition and into the waiting arms of the OSR.
I know in my bones that cleaving to the rules and letting things be resolved RAW in that situation would have made that particular session inferior in quality. It would have been less fun, and it would have been a boring by-the-numbers death of two PCs for no real reason. Had it been an OSR game, things would have been different. Nigel probably would have died (from drowning, likely), but he wouldn't have been hampered by the overly restrictive Bull Rush rules that I had elected to ignore.
Ultimately, 3rd edition (and games like it) are at odds with the DM, creating concrete abilities that can be number crunched and either discarded for being inferior (no one uses Bull Rush in most 3rd edition games once they realize how inferior it is to simply attacking) or it gets optimized so that it is as close to an "I win" button as melee can possibly get in such games. Frankly, I'd much rather play something that requires less prep, and something where I can reward my players for being clever, rather than just good at looking up builds online.
Plus, arbitration allows us all to be surprised by what happens. Very few games have any kind of concrete rules for what a kick does. But kicking someone off of a high ledge is an extremely satisfying way to win an encounter - just play Dark Messiah of Might & Magic if you don't believe me. By RAW in most games, kicking someone would do unarmed damage, and no more. With arbitration, it can now do whatever common sense says it should, and can be moderated by the circumstances.
Or, we can heal by drowning.
Thursday, October 20, 2016
Spies and Pirates, Part IV
Our four weary spies tramped into the common room of the Moosefoot Inn, and took a table by the fire. The proprietor and his wife provided a meal in return for coin - coin which they knew was strange and different from the coins that the village was used to seeing, and were of a kind with the coins spent by the pirates of Port Varos. The Elf paid for the best bottles of wine that they had, which turned out to be a drinkable vintage, and after, lodging was secured.
Being that they were strangers, it was unsurprising that they drew as much interest as they did. In the morning, Aldentown's mayor put on his finery, and tramped down from his townhouse to the Moosefoot to see what all the hubbub was about.
Aldentown knew of the dwarves of Zagrammhar's Hold, but they hadn't seen them in generations. So, the party's Dwarf was something exotic, but known. The Elf on the other hand? Aldentown hadn't seen in elf in hundreds of years. If any still lived on the island, they avoided men, and kept their settlements secret. Even then, the party's accents and words were strange to the ears, cut off as they had been from the mainland for several generations. Of note too was the Crusader, clearly both a pious man and a soldier - a warrior from a cult which had been unable to convert the island's people to the worship of their fiery, industrious god, and away from the strange and pagan rites which they continued to practice.
So, Walaric waited at the bar so he could speak with these newcomers and sound them out. When they emerged, he introduced himself, asked them to take lunch with him at his townhouse. The party accepted, and they went.
Their talk was friendly, Walaric answering their questions about the town, the island, and even the pirates. They answered his questions about why they had come, specifically, their desire to meet with Balthazar, the wizard responsible for the island's perpetual storm. Walaric revealed that he was the great grandson of Balthazar, and that most people in Aldentown were related to the sorcerer in one way or another. It seemed that once every decade or so, for many, many generations into the past, Balthazar would come down from his tower above Lake Belro and would court, seduce, or kidnap a local woman who took his fancy. Sometimes they returned more or less unharmed. Others returned pregnant. A few never returned at all. Most could only vaguely recall what had happened to them.
Most folk in Aldentown tried to ignore how closely they might be related due to the wizard's meddling. Far too uncomfortable. However, they did use their kinship with the wizard to keep the pirates mostly honest. It was better than the alternative.
Walaric was proud that he had inherited some minor sorcerous power, and demonstrated by turning a tea cup into a mouse. It lived for only a few minutes, before once again becoming a tea cup.
It was not long after that they were interrupted by the town's miller, Remi. Remi explained that goblins had gotten into the mill once again, and had taken several bags of flour. Walaric promised to put out patrols and keep some young men on watch. It was at this point that our spies offered to deal with the goblins permanently.
Obviously, Walaric was happy for the offer. The party decided to focus on planning their expedition, and asked if there was a local hunter or guide who could help them find the goblins. Walaric recommended Ebrulf, a man who had hunted the area since childhood.
The party retired to the Moosefoot Inn to plan, and to wait for Ebrulf to arrive. Sometime around evening, the old hunter drifted into town and was sent down to the Moosefoot.
All was quickly arranged, the party agreed to meet Ebrulf at first light on the edge of town and then travel into the wooded foothills to the mine where the goblins were laired. They followed the greying man up into the hills and forests, until at late afternoon, they topped a ridge that overlooked the mine itself. They set up camp, and kept a watch on the entrance below. Around dusk, a goblin left the safety of the mine, with a bucket in hand. A small stream flowed below the entrance, and it was to the banks of this waterway that the goblin went.
Before the goblin traveled all the way however, they stopped to speak with another goblin guarding the entrance that the party had not seen until that point. Our specialist knocked an arrow, and waited for the goblin to get partway down the remains of a gravel road before he loosed. It struck, killing them instantly, the bucket clattering to the ground and rolling a few feet away.
The sentry came out from cover, calling something in their savage tongue, and the party swarmed down the ridge toward the entrance. Ebrulf stayed behind, and covered them with his hunting bow. The party managed to kill the sentry before he could retreat or take cover behind a toppled mine cart. On further examination, the initial goblin they had slain was a female.
When no further activity came from the mine entrance, Ebrulf joined the party. They began to hash out a plan among themselves, but unknown to them, a second sentry had been watching from inside, and when his fellow had died at their hands, he had raced down the tunnel to warn his chieftain of the invaders. Their plan was to smoke the goblins out, so they tipped a mine cart back upright and onto the sturdy, dwarven forged rails, and began filling it with as much dry wood as they could find, some oil from the lanterns, the goblin's bucket, the sentry's spear, and both bodies.
Once the conflagration had gotten going, they piled leaves on it for smoke, and pushed it as hard as they could down the rails. By virtue of their dwarf-made nature, the cart was carried down the rails quite far - far enough to trigger another dwarf-made feature: a pit trap. The mine cart clanged and clattered into a long pit, dug 10' deep, the floor swinging down. It wasn't the most successful plan, but all in all, it was a clever one, had the mine's interior not been designed the way it was.*
Their plan thwarted, the party ventured into the darkness of the mine with lanterns lit and weapons a ready. Past the long pit trap was the mechanism that would reset it, or make it active. They left it alone, and soon found themselves in a T passage, and chose to explore to their right, leaving the left unexplored. At the end of the right passage were two big iron bound doors, closed. Listening at the doors, they could hear the muffled orders of goblins, but as no one could understand the language, it was unknown what those mad barkings were about.
A quick reconnoiter of the left passage revealed an elevator, but it didn't look sturdy, so they decided not to risk it. Returning to the double doors, they readied their muskets and pistols, and barged in. With great thunders of smoke and fire, the combined firepower of the power killed and wounded several goblins, and the rest broke and ran, retreating deeper into the mine. Quickly looking over the room they found themselves in, the party discovered that the goblins were continuing to work the abandoned mine, using cast off implements that were likely so bad that the dwarves who had abandoned the place had left them without a second thought.
In one corner was a damaged dwarven automaton, a bipedal mining device with drills on its arms in place of hands. However, there wasn't a lot of time to take stock or do much of anything, so the party began reloading their weapons, and the Crusader advanced to the beginning of the passage that the goblins had retreated down. Our Dwarf took up position on the other side, and the Specialist went to the same side as the Crusader. Our Elf was busying himself with reloading his pistols from a safe distance away.
The goblins returned, along with the chieftain and shaman, both hobgoblins. They'd managed to draw some more of the goblins into formation, so now they numbered twenty or so, plus three hobgoblins (another hobgoblin had been slain in the initial engagement). Using shortbows from their back ranks, the goblins waited for their foes to reveal themselves. The Dwarf and the Specialist revealed themselves, the dwarf blasting them with a mighty cough of his blunderbuss, the Specialist with his pistol. Both of them were wounded by the arrows, and the Specialist was downed. Only by the efforts of the Dwarf and Crusader was he pulled to safety.
Knowing that the tide had turned grim, the Crusader rushed the goblins, hoping to break their formation and slay their shaman or chieftain, and throw them into chaos. Unfortunately, this brave act didn't have the effect he desired, and although he savagely wounded the shaman, he was brought down by the many spears of the goblins who had encircled him. The Elf, who had since reloaded and moved up, saw the Crusader collapse among the green skinned foes, made a fateful decision. The Dwarf, for his part, knowing that things were all but lost, waded in while the goblin formation was disrupted, and extracted the Crusader.
It was this moment that the Elf had waited for. He charged. And as he ran into the teeth of the goblin spears, he lit fuses, fired hisapostles powder horns (measured containers of gunpowder), and dived straight into the middle of them. The explosion shook the small passage, and the shrapnel killed anyone not slain by the blast itself. When the smoke had cleared, the Specialist and the Dwarf were witness to the utter destruction of the foe. But the Crusader was unconscious, possibly dying, and the Elf... The Elf was as surely dead as the goblins he had courageously slain.
And so ends Part IV. Continued in Part V.
*The module I used for the mine was Gold in the Hills, which can be found on the Basic Fantasy RPG website. It's free! Check it out.
Being that they were strangers, it was unsurprising that they drew as much interest as they did. In the morning, Aldentown's mayor put on his finery, and tramped down from his townhouse to the Moosefoot to see what all the hubbub was about.
Aldentown knew of the dwarves of Zagrammhar's Hold, but they hadn't seen them in generations. So, the party's Dwarf was something exotic, but known. The Elf on the other hand? Aldentown hadn't seen in elf in hundreds of years. If any still lived on the island, they avoided men, and kept their settlements secret. Even then, the party's accents and words were strange to the ears, cut off as they had been from the mainland for several generations. Of note too was the Crusader, clearly both a pious man and a soldier - a warrior from a cult which had been unable to convert the island's people to the worship of their fiery, industrious god, and away from the strange and pagan rites which they continued to practice.
So, Walaric waited at the bar so he could speak with these newcomers and sound them out. When they emerged, he introduced himself, asked them to take lunch with him at his townhouse. The party accepted, and they went.
Their talk was friendly, Walaric answering their questions about the town, the island, and even the pirates. They answered his questions about why they had come, specifically, their desire to meet with Balthazar, the wizard responsible for the island's perpetual storm. Walaric revealed that he was the great grandson of Balthazar, and that most people in Aldentown were related to the sorcerer in one way or another. It seemed that once every decade or so, for many, many generations into the past, Balthazar would come down from his tower above Lake Belro and would court, seduce, or kidnap a local woman who took his fancy. Sometimes they returned more or less unharmed. Others returned pregnant. A few never returned at all. Most could only vaguely recall what had happened to them.
Most folk in Aldentown tried to ignore how closely they might be related due to the wizard's meddling. Far too uncomfortable. However, they did use their kinship with the wizard to keep the pirates mostly honest. It was better than the alternative.
Walaric was proud that he had inherited some minor sorcerous power, and demonstrated by turning a tea cup into a mouse. It lived for only a few minutes, before once again becoming a tea cup.
It was not long after that they were interrupted by the town's miller, Remi. Remi explained that goblins had gotten into the mill once again, and had taken several bags of flour. Walaric promised to put out patrols and keep some young men on watch. It was at this point that our spies offered to deal with the goblins permanently.
Obviously, Walaric was happy for the offer. The party decided to focus on planning their expedition, and asked if there was a local hunter or guide who could help them find the goblins. Walaric recommended Ebrulf, a man who had hunted the area since childhood.
The party retired to the Moosefoot Inn to plan, and to wait for Ebrulf to arrive. Sometime around evening, the old hunter drifted into town and was sent down to the Moosefoot.
All was quickly arranged, the party agreed to meet Ebrulf at first light on the edge of town and then travel into the wooded foothills to the mine where the goblins were laired. They followed the greying man up into the hills and forests, until at late afternoon, they topped a ridge that overlooked the mine itself. They set up camp, and kept a watch on the entrance below. Around dusk, a goblin left the safety of the mine, with a bucket in hand. A small stream flowed below the entrance, and it was to the banks of this waterway that the goblin went.
Before the goblin traveled all the way however, they stopped to speak with another goblin guarding the entrance that the party had not seen until that point. Our specialist knocked an arrow, and waited for the goblin to get partway down the remains of a gravel road before he loosed. It struck, killing them instantly, the bucket clattering to the ground and rolling a few feet away.
The sentry came out from cover, calling something in their savage tongue, and the party swarmed down the ridge toward the entrance. Ebrulf stayed behind, and covered them with his hunting bow. The party managed to kill the sentry before he could retreat or take cover behind a toppled mine cart. On further examination, the initial goblin they had slain was a female.
When no further activity came from the mine entrance, Ebrulf joined the party. They began to hash out a plan among themselves, but unknown to them, a second sentry had been watching from inside, and when his fellow had died at their hands, he had raced down the tunnel to warn his chieftain of the invaders. Their plan was to smoke the goblins out, so they tipped a mine cart back upright and onto the sturdy, dwarven forged rails, and began filling it with as much dry wood as they could find, some oil from the lanterns, the goblin's bucket, the sentry's spear, and both bodies.
Once the conflagration had gotten going, they piled leaves on it for smoke, and pushed it as hard as they could down the rails. By virtue of their dwarf-made nature, the cart was carried down the rails quite far - far enough to trigger another dwarf-made feature: a pit trap. The mine cart clanged and clattered into a long pit, dug 10' deep, the floor swinging down. It wasn't the most successful plan, but all in all, it was a clever one, had the mine's interior not been designed the way it was.*
Their plan thwarted, the party ventured into the darkness of the mine with lanterns lit and weapons a ready. Past the long pit trap was the mechanism that would reset it, or make it active. They left it alone, and soon found themselves in a T passage, and chose to explore to their right, leaving the left unexplored. At the end of the right passage were two big iron bound doors, closed. Listening at the doors, they could hear the muffled orders of goblins, but as no one could understand the language, it was unknown what those mad barkings were about.
A quick reconnoiter of the left passage revealed an elevator, but it didn't look sturdy, so they decided not to risk it. Returning to the double doors, they readied their muskets and pistols, and barged in. With great thunders of smoke and fire, the combined firepower of the power killed and wounded several goblins, and the rest broke and ran, retreating deeper into the mine. Quickly looking over the room they found themselves in, the party discovered that the goblins were continuing to work the abandoned mine, using cast off implements that were likely so bad that the dwarves who had abandoned the place had left them without a second thought.
In one corner was a damaged dwarven automaton, a bipedal mining device with drills on its arms in place of hands. However, there wasn't a lot of time to take stock or do much of anything, so the party began reloading their weapons, and the Crusader advanced to the beginning of the passage that the goblins had retreated down. Our Dwarf took up position on the other side, and the Specialist went to the same side as the Crusader. Our Elf was busying himself with reloading his pistols from a safe distance away.
The goblins returned, along with the chieftain and shaman, both hobgoblins. They'd managed to draw some more of the goblins into formation, so now they numbered twenty or so, plus three hobgoblins (another hobgoblin had been slain in the initial engagement). Using shortbows from their back ranks, the goblins waited for their foes to reveal themselves. The Dwarf and the Specialist revealed themselves, the dwarf blasting them with a mighty cough of his blunderbuss, the Specialist with his pistol. Both of them were wounded by the arrows, and the Specialist was downed. Only by the efforts of the Dwarf and Crusader was he pulled to safety.
Knowing that the tide had turned grim, the Crusader rushed the goblins, hoping to break their formation and slay their shaman or chieftain, and throw them into chaos. Unfortunately, this brave act didn't have the effect he desired, and although he savagely wounded the shaman, he was brought down by the many spears of the goblins who had encircled him. The Elf, who had since reloaded and moved up, saw the Crusader collapse among the green skinned foes, made a fateful decision. The Dwarf, for his part, knowing that things were all but lost, waded in while the goblin formation was disrupted, and extracted the Crusader.
It was this moment that the Elf had waited for. He charged. And as he ran into the teeth of the goblin spears, he lit fuses, fired his
And so ends Part IV. Continued in Part V.
*The module I used for the mine was Gold in the Hills, which can be found on the Basic Fantasy RPG website. It's free! Check it out.
Tuesday, October 18, 2016
A Knight and His Lady
Last Friday's game was interesting. Our Crusader's player from the Spies and Pirates game had decided he wanted to test my thoughts on canon, and he's wanted to run the A Song of Ice and Fire RPG for a while. Knowing that I've read all the novels (and now in preparation for the game, A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms as well), and am a fan of the written universe, if not quite so taken with the TV show, our Crusader has chosen a landscape I know well.
My character was one Ser Eldon Coldrock, known as the "Ironfoe" for his hatred of the raiders from the Iron Islands. He was twelve when Balon Greyjoy attempted his rebellion, Ironmen came to Cold Rocks, Eldon's hometown, and a place his family had lived for thousands of years, at least since the days of the First Men. The sea raiders burned the place to ground, killing Eldon's great uncle, his uncle, his older sisters, and his older brother. Only he and his aunt escaped out of their whole family (Eldon's parents are dead or missing, and he has barely any memories of them).
At the age of fourteen he was squired to a hedge knight named Ser Ardol, and three years later, remnants of Balon's broken forces stole the young heir of the House of Greenstem, a banner house to the wealthy House Dross. When Ardol was wounded severely enough that he could not carry on, Eldon went on alone. Through feats of daring, he rescued Clement Greenstem, and they in turn rescued Ser Ardol and brought him back to the Greenstem family hall. It was there, once Ser Ardol was well, that Eldon was knighted, and undertook his vigil before the eyes of gods and men.
Three years were spent traveling Westeros, and when he returned to the House of Greenstem he was a tall, powerful man, if plain of face, and humble in origin. His hatred of the Ironmen has never abated, however, and he took for his arms a squid laid low with a sword through its body, and three drops of blood falling from its ghastly wound. Another year passes, and the game began - Ser Eldon is in service to House Greenstem, and the young Lord Clement is fond of his hedge knight friend (though this may not last).
House Greenstem and House Dross are invited to the birthday of a nearby lordling house, the Mousers. The eldest son has attained his majority, and Lady Nora of House Dross brought him a Sand Steed, the spirited and fleet horses of Dorne. Lord Clement brought him a good castle forged sword, and Ser Eldon brought nothing but a willingness to win at the games in the lordling's honor.
There would be a tourney and a melee that day, but first there was a great deal of mingling. The Mouser's daughter, whose hand in marriage was the potential reward for winning the joust, had taken a shine to young Lord Clement, and the two of them went to the manor's garden for a chance to speak in private, a potentially scandalous act. Who better to protect them than Ser Eldon, Lord Clement's childhood rescuer?
Well, Ser Eldon is nothing if not completely inept at stealth, so it was pretty obvious he was following them. At a discreet and polite distance. Unfortunately, a young lady is not something one lets go missing (particularly when the "Lusty Lord" of House Dross is out and about), and her meddler of a brother came calling. He interrogated Ser Eldon, but Eldon isn't exactly the maester of witticisms and simply covered for Lord Clement. However, the lordling soon discovered the truth, and let his tongue wag a bit too far, threatening Ser Eldon and Lord Clement.
There was some funny bit about about having his father throw us out (in particular yours truly as Ser Eldon), but Ser Eldon was having none of it, and told the boy he'd like to see his father try to throw him and his horse out of the tourney. Not to mention the insult to House Greenstem.
Meanwhile, back at the party, Lady Nora, the "Lusty Lord's" twin sister was being none too subtly threatened by Tywin Lannister's favorite sister, who laid out our Banner Lord's concerns over the bandits who had infested our lands (and the lands of our banner house, House Greenstem), and the rather blunt threat of murder and rape if we didn't get things in order. Essentially an ultimatum was on hand: Clean up the bandits, or Tywin will send the Mountain that Rides to do it for you.
Our Lord of House Dross was in the meanwhile, trying to get into an old maid of a widow lady's skirts, but she turned out to be a little more adroit than he had anticipated, and he'd pretty much managed to get himself informally engaged by the end of his "seduction attempt". On the other hand, things were working out for Lady Nora, because the widow her brother had his eyes on, was not only head of a banner house to the Mousers, but also in possession of a larger army than either House Dross or House Greenstem. Moreover, the Mouser's daughter and Lord Clements clear attraction hadn't escaped her shrewd (if drunk) notice.
When it came time for the melee, Ser Eldon was pitted against Lord Dross, who trounced him rather handily. Certainly he wasn't as easily outwitted in the field as he was in the manor house. Thankfully, no real injury was done, though Ser Eldon was out of the running for the prize purse in the melee.
However, it was Lord Clement who ultimately won the melee, and they moved on to the joust.
The joust was chancy. Very chancy. I'm completely surprised I made it as far as I did (bless that bonus die in Ride). At the end of it, it was just me and Lord Clement. Our first pass, as I recollect, was a tie. Our second pass was not. He didn't make his test to stay in the saddle, and I chose to be a gigantic dick and burn a Destiny point so that I'd automatically make the test. Now, I didn't do it because I wanted to have my hedge knight marry the Lord Mouser's daughter. No. I did it because it's a much better story if Lord Clement has to stew a bit, and Lady Nora gets to scheme getting Clement and Odette married, while placating the good Ser Eldon with something more to his liking. Plus, it puts pressure on Odette's family to relinquish their banner house to House Dross.
I may not be as clever as our good Lady Nora (played by the Spies and Pirates elf), but I have my moments.
My character was one Ser Eldon Coldrock, known as the "Ironfoe" for his hatred of the raiders from the Iron Islands. He was twelve when Balon Greyjoy attempted his rebellion, Ironmen came to Cold Rocks, Eldon's hometown, and a place his family had lived for thousands of years, at least since the days of the First Men. The sea raiders burned the place to ground, killing Eldon's great uncle, his uncle, his older sisters, and his older brother. Only he and his aunt escaped out of their whole family (Eldon's parents are dead or missing, and he has barely any memories of them).
At the age of fourteen he was squired to a hedge knight named Ser Ardol, and three years later, remnants of Balon's broken forces stole the young heir of the House of Greenstem, a banner house to the wealthy House Dross. When Ardol was wounded severely enough that he could not carry on, Eldon went on alone. Through feats of daring, he rescued Clement Greenstem, and they in turn rescued Ser Ardol and brought him back to the Greenstem family hall. It was there, once Ser Ardol was well, that Eldon was knighted, and undertook his vigil before the eyes of gods and men.
Three years were spent traveling Westeros, and when he returned to the House of Greenstem he was a tall, powerful man, if plain of face, and humble in origin. His hatred of the Ironmen has never abated, however, and he took for his arms a squid laid low with a sword through its body, and three drops of blood falling from its ghastly wound. Another year passes, and the game began - Ser Eldon is in service to House Greenstem, and the young Lord Clement is fond of his hedge knight friend (though this may not last).
House Greenstem and House Dross are invited to the birthday of a nearby lordling house, the Mousers. The eldest son has attained his majority, and Lady Nora of House Dross brought him a Sand Steed, the spirited and fleet horses of Dorne. Lord Clement brought him a good castle forged sword, and Ser Eldon brought nothing but a willingness to win at the games in the lordling's honor.
There would be a tourney and a melee that day, but first there was a great deal of mingling. The Mouser's daughter, whose hand in marriage was the potential reward for winning the joust, had taken a shine to young Lord Clement, and the two of them went to the manor's garden for a chance to speak in private, a potentially scandalous act. Who better to protect them than Ser Eldon, Lord Clement's childhood rescuer?
Well, Ser Eldon is nothing if not completely inept at stealth, so it was pretty obvious he was following them. At a discreet and polite distance. Unfortunately, a young lady is not something one lets go missing (particularly when the "Lusty Lord" of House Dross is out and about), and her meddler of a brother came calling. He interrogated Ser Eldon, but Eldon isn't exactly the maester of witticisms and simply covered for Lord Clement. However, the lordling soon discovered the truth, and let his tongue wag a bit too far, threatening Ser Eldon and Lord Clement.
There was some funny bit about about having his father throw us out (in particular yours truly as Ser Eldon), but Ser Eldon was having none of it, and told the boy he'd like to see his father try to throw him and his horse out of the tourney. Not to mention the insult to House Greenstem.
Meanwhile, back at the party, Lady Nora, the "Lusty Lord's" twin sister was being none too subtly threatened by Tywin Lannister's favorite sister, who laid out our Banner Lord's concerns over the bandits who had infested our lands (and the lands of our banner house, House Greenstem), and the rather blunt threat of murder and rape if we didn't get things in order. Essentially an ultimatum was on hand: Clean up the bandits, or Tywin will send the Mountain that Rides to do it for you.
Our Lord of House Dross was in the meanwhile, trying to get into an old maid of a widow lady's skirts, but she turned out to be a little more adroit than he had anticipated, and he'd pretty much managed to get himself informally engaged by the end of his "seduction attempt". On the other hand, things were working out for Lady Nora, because the widow her brother had his eyes on, was not only head of a banner house to the Mousers, but also in possession of a larger army than either House Dross or House Greenstem. Moreover, the Mouser's daughter and Lord Clements clear attraction hadn't escaped her shrewd (if drunk) notice.
When it came time for the melee, Ser Eldon was pitted against Lord Dross, who trounced him rather handily. Certainly he wasn't as easily outwitted in the field as he was in the manor house. Thankfully, no real injury was done, though Ser Eldon was out of the running for the prize purse in the melee.
However, it was Lord Clement who ultimately won the melee, and they moved on to the joust.
The joust was chancy. Very chancy. I'm completely surprised I made it as far as I did (bless that bonus die in Ride). At the end of it, it was just me and Lord Clement. Our first pass, as I recollect, was a tie. Our second pass was not. He didn't make his test to stay in the saddle, and I chose to be a gigantic dick and burn a Destiny point so that I'd automatically make the test. Now, I didn't do it because I wanted to have my hedge knight marry the Lord Mouser's daughter. No. I did it because it's a much better story if Lord Clement has to stew a bit, and Lady Nora gets to scheme getting Clement and Odette married, while placating the good Ser Eldon with something more to his liking. Plus, it puts pressure on Odette's family to relinquish their banner house to House Dross.
I may not be as clever as our good Lady Nora (played by the Spies and Pirates elf), but I have my moments.
Saturday, October 15, 2016
Spies and Pirates, Part III
Where we last left off, our titular spies were stranded in a temperate forest, on an island in the the eye of a storm, crawling with pirates, unseen dangers, and an insane immortal sorcerer.
They took their leave of the camp, after burying the talisman that had allowed them to traverse the storm, overturning the dinghy, and covering the whole thing with the dinghy's canvass (and a liberal layer of branches). Their first foray into the forest led them northerly, and after a long damp trek, they set up camp once again.
However, their barrel of salt pork managed to attract one of the handful of bears that hadn't yet gone into hibernation. Looming out of the darkness and grunting and growling to himself, the bear advanced on the camp where the party slept - all save for dwarf, on watch with a brace of pistols. Considering our dwarf's player has had some unfortunate run-ins with bears in games of the past, and lets be fair, a hungry bear is not the most fun thing to encounter in the dark.
Potentially afflicted with flashbacks to a certain 5e game where his poor monk was slain by a starving, emaciated bear, our dwarf's player informs us he's taking aim at the dark shape and firing.
There's a curious (and enjoyable) little bit of rules in LotFP where firearms cause a morale check. It was this, more than any damage that was caused that deterred the bear, and aside from the thunder of flintlocks, the rest of the night was less exciting.
In the morning they set out between some hills, skirting both the mountains to the West and the coast on the East. As afternoon crept upon them, they began to find fields being worked by the smallfolk of Aldentown. By evening, they'd reached the town proper, and had entered Aldentown's single establishment, the Moosefoot Inn.
Continued in Part IV.
They took their leave of the camp, after burying the talisman that had allowed them to traverse the storm, overturning the dinghy, and covering the whole thing with the dinghy's canvass (and a liberal layer of branches). Their first foray into the forest led them northerly, and after a long damp trek, they set up camp once again.
However, their barrel of salt pork managed to attract one of the handful of bears that hadn't yet gone into hibernation. Looming out of the darkness and grunting and growling to himself, the bear advanced on the camp where the party slept - all save for dwarf, on watch with a brace of pistols. Considering our dwarf's player has had some unfortunate run-ins with bears in games of the past, and lets be fair, a hungry bear is not the most fun thing to encounter in the dark.
Potentially afflicted with flashbacks to a certain 5e game where his poor monk was slain by a starving, emaciated bear, our dwarf's player informs us he's taking aim at the dark shape and firing.
There's a curious (and enjoyable) little bit of rules in LotFP where firearms cause a morale check. It was this, more than any damage that was caused that deterred the bear, and aside from the thunder of flintlocks, the rest of the night was less exciting.
In the morning they set out between some hills, skirting both the mountains to the West and the coast on the East. As afternoon crept upon them, they began to find fields being worked by the smallfolk of Aldentown. By evening, they'd reached the town proper, and had entered Aldentown's single establishment, the Moosefoot Inn.
Continued in Part IV.
Thursday, October 6, 2016
Spies and Pirates, Part II
When we got together the next week available week, we decided to continue the story of the Clovinian spies.
A piece of news from the first mate while he was sharing a smoke with the party dwarf was that the flashes of lightning against the grey storm front were birds being struck out of the sky. I'm fairly certain that bit of information was chilling, or at the very least, sobering. It certainly hastened the party's plans.
Our elf is something of a mastermind of mayhem. He decided, almost unilaterally, that what they needed to do was steal whatever talisman allowed the pirates to enter the storm unharmed, sabotage the armory, steal a dinghy, and row to the island while the sabotage set off the powder and turned the ship into so much driftwood.
The rest of the party was definitely okay with this plan, judging by their enthusiasm. Our dwarf continued to get cozy with the first mate, smoking in front of the hatches that led to the passenger and officer's cabins in the aft of the ship. Partially as a distraction, partially as a lookout. The crusader went to the galley in order to question the cook about provisions, and discovered where the barrels of salt pork were kept. Meanwhile, the specialist invaded the captain's cabin in search of the talisman.
It wasn't difficult to enter, and the search was only mildly time consuming. At the bottom of the captain's sea chest was a cannon ball with a deeply incised circle of symbols etched into it. Knowing he could be discovered at any minute, the specialist retreated and tried to re-lock the door from the outside (just to be clear, it's not the sort of modern door locks we're used to. Without the key, it can't easily be locked from the outside). However, he had run out of time as the first mate came down from the poop deck to get some charts. Thankfully, the dwarf kicked the door with his heel to let the specialist know someone was coming, and he beat a quick retreat to the passenger cabins.
Thankfully, the first mate was a busy man, and while he did notice the door to the captain's cabin was unlocked, he reasoned that he himself had been careless and left it unlocked, rather than suspecting that someone had malicious intent. It's possible I was being too easy on the group, but I figured even pirates would be unlikely to be suspicious of paying passengers, and wouldn't be terribly likely to start keelhauling everyone because a door that was supposed to be locked wasn't.
I did however, make a mental note that any other such activities would alert the pirates to foul play.
The specialist, the elf, the dwarf, and the crusader updated each other on what they'd discovered, and they decided they needed to figure out some way to set the armory ablaze, steal some supplies, steal the cannon ball, and then steal a dinghy.
Some ideas were bandied about, such as using oil to light the passenger cabin ablaze (it shared a wall with the magazine), but ultimately, they decided they needed to steal an auger from the ship's carpentry shop. So, the dwarf went looking for the shop while the crusader acquired their provisions. The elf and specialist took another crack at the captain's cabin.
The specialist got in, while the elf stood lookout at the hatch leading into the passageway that led to the cabins. Unfortunately for them, the pirate captain had come down to get some shut eye before entering the storm. Thinking quickly, the elf ran him through and manhandled the captain's dying form into his own cabin, and then he and the specialist retrieved the cannon ball (after a judicious use of read magic to ensure that the markings weren't just gibberish to confound the foolish). The elf made sure to lock the captain's cabin with the man's own key. The specialist looted the place of coin, but also snagged some letters of credit, and the deed to the Listing Lady.
When the crusader and the dwarf returned, they set about boring a hole in the passenger cabin's wall, and managed to be lucky enough to be right next to a barrel of gunpowder. With a length of fuse and some fire, the plan went into high gear. What they did next was cause a distraction by setting fire to the captain's cabin. They then piled out of the aft section of the ship, and told the pirates on deck there was a fire!
This cleared the poop out pretty fast, and the only one left up there was the rather unlucky pilot. The party used their pistols to intimidate him, and set about dropping a dinghy from the rear of the ship. Bound, gagged, and unconscious, the pilot was incapable of warning his comrades. They got about a few hundred feet from the Listing Lady before she was smashed to tinder by the armory going up. With that grisly work done, they rowed to the island during the night, hoping the cannon ball was indeed their savior.
It turned out their gamble had paid off, but during the night and early morning, flashes of lightning behind them were a grim reminder that anyone who had survived the ship's sinking had been consigned to an unpleasant death. On landfall, they set about making camp and interrogating their prisoner for everything he knew about the island. Then the crusader hanged him for his crime of piracy.
And so ends Part II. Continued in Part III.
A piece of news from the first mate while he was sharing a smoke with the party dwarf was that the flashes of lightning against the grey storm front were birds being struck out of the sky. I'm fairly certain that bit of information was chilling, or at the very least, sobering. It certainly hastened the party's plans.
Our elf is something of a mastermind of mayhem. He decided, almost unilaterally, that what they needed to do was steal whatever talisman allowed the pirates to enter the storm unharmed, sabotage the armory, steal a dinghy, and row to the island while the sabotage set off the powder and turned the ship into so much driftwood.
The rest of the party was definitely okay with this plan, judging by their enthusiasm. Our dwarf continued to get cozy with the first mate, smoking in front of the hatches that led to the passenger and officer's cabins in the aft of the ship. Partially as a distraction, partially as a lookout. The crusader went to the galley in order to question the cook about provisions, and discovered where the barrels of salt pork were kept. Meanwhile, the specialist invaded the captain's cabin in search of the talisman.
It wasn't difficult to enter, and the search was only mildly time consuming. At the bottom of the captain's sea chest was a cannon ball with a deeply incised circle of symbols etched into it. Knowing he could be discovered at any minute, the specialist retreated and tried to re-lock the door from the outside (just to be clear, it's not the sort of modern door locks we're used to. Without the key, it can't easily be locked from the outside). However, he had run out of time as the first mate came down from the poop deck to get some charts. Thankfully, the dwarf kicked the door with his heel to let the specialist know someone was coming, and he beat a quick retreat to the passenger cabins.
Thankfully, the first mate was a busy man, and while he did notice the door to the captain's cabin was unlocked, he reasoned that he himself had been careless and left it unlocked, rather than suspecting that someone had malicious intent. It's possible I was being too easy on the group, but I figured even pirates would be unlikely to be suspicious of paying passengers, and wouldn't be terribly likely to start keelhauling everyone because a door that was supposed to be locked wasn't.
I did however, make a mental note that any other such activities would alert the pirates to foul play.
The specialist, the elf, the dwarf, and the crusader updated each other on what they'd discovered, and they decided they needed to figure out some way to set the armory ablaze, steal some supplies, steal the cannon ball, and then steal a dinghy.
Some ideas were bandied about, such as using oil to light the passenger cabin ablaze (it shared a wall with the magazine), but ultimately, they decided they needed to steal an auger from the ship's carpentry shop. So, the dwarf went looking for the shop while the crusader acquired their provisions. The elf and specialist took another crack at the captain's cabin.
The specialist got in, while the elf stood lookout at the hatch leading into the passageway that led to the cabins. Unfortunately for them, the pirate captain had come down to get some shut eye before entering the storm. Thinking quickly, the elf ran him through and manhandled the captain's dying form into his own cabin, and then he and the specialist retrieved the cannon ball (after a judicious use of read magic to ensure that the markings weren't just gibberish to confound the foolish). The elf made sure to lock the captain's cabin with the man's own key. The specialist looted the place of coin, but also snagged some letters of credit, and the deed to the Listing Lady.
When the crusader and the dwarf returned, they set about boring a hole in the passenger cabin's wall, and managed to be lucky enough to be right next to a barrel of gunpowder. With a length of fuse and some fire, the plan went into high gear. What they did next was cause a distraction by setting fire to the captain's cabin. They then piled out of the aft section of the ship, and told the pirates on deck there was a fire!
This cleared the poop out pretty fast, and the only one left up there was the rather unlucky pilot. The party used their pistols to intimidate him, and set about dropping a dinghy from the rear of the ship. Bound, gagged, and unconscious, the pilot was incapable of warning his comrades. They got about a few hundred feet from the Listing Lady before she was smashed to tinder by the armory going up. With that grisly work done, they rowed to the island during the night, hoping the cannon ball was indeed their savior.
It turned out their gamble had paid off, but during the night and early morning, flashes of lightning behind them were a grim reminder that anyone who had survived the ship's sinking had been consigned to an unpleasant death. On landfall, they set about making camp and interrogating their prisoner for everything he knew about the island. Then the crusader hanged him for his crime of piracy.
And so ends Part II. Continued in Part III.
Wednesday, October 5, 2016
Spies and Pirates, Part I
This post is essentially just story time. If you're not really into hearing about how a fistful of grown men played pretend for a couple of evenings, you might want to skip this one; but that begs the question, aside from satisfying your own curiosity, why are you here? This is a blog about roleplaying games, which is almost always about adults playing pretend.
Anyway, some weeks ago we had just gotten back together after one of our regular players had gotten married and gone on their honeymoon (congrats J & C). I was somewhat frazzled because of home life, and we've been trying to make time to play Lamentations of the Flame Princess a little more regularly. Now, I'm sure some of you know the reputation, but I'm not running it "as intended". I like that it's a streamlined version of B/X D&D, and that's how I've been running it, with a little help from the AD&D 1e DMG, plus some Basic Fantasy RPG monsters.
In previous sessions, I'd set the game in a country called Clovina, loosely inspired by France before the revolution. For this game, everyone made new characters, and they decided to be quite a diverse cast of characters:
Yes. That's right. Offered. I don't like strong-arming my players into doing anything they don't want to do. I offered them the hook, and let them take it if they wanted. My players are great, they played along. The idea of being spies for an early modern government proved to be a neat enough idea. Either that or they were just being nice.
Having taken their leaders up on the mission, they reported to a tavern not only to meet one another for the first time, but to receive their orders and their appropriate documents for the times ahead. Introductions were fun as everyone was stepping into their character's shoes and working out their personalities.
The mission was straightforward: From a port on a nearby island, pirates had been raiding the Clovinian coast for decades. The current king wished them disposed of, but the navy was unable to strike at the buccaneers due to the presence of a supernatural storm which destroyed any ships approaching the island. By means unknown, the pirates were able to pass through. The group's mission would be to infiltrate the island, discover the means by which the pirates were able to traverse the storm, and (if possible) kill the wizard who was known to have created the storm in the first place.
Over the course of some questions about the documents, their knowledge of history, and some bits of pieces of information their leaders had said, I think that everyone had a clear view of the island and both its history and current status:
In our first session, they left the capital and went to one of the big sea ports. There, they scoped out the docks and the ships. Some pointed questions yielded up the answer they needed. The Listing Lady was in port, and was by reputation, one of the ships they needed. The elf sounded out the crew and captain, while the specialist decided to investigate the warehouse the pirates were loading their cargo into. Most of what he discovered was mundane things, like crates of firs. But, in one box he discovered a small chest (about the size of a cashbox) with a number of purple vials, unlabeled.
Believe me, he was itching to try them out, but was afraid of the consequences. Taking his prize, he returned to the party. The next morning, they boarded the Listing Lady and set sail. Most of the trip was them scouting out the ship as best they could, and sounding out the crew for just what fabulous magic could allow them to sail through the coming storm.
The first session ended around this point. Continued in Part II.
Anyway, some weeks ago we had just gotten back together after one of our regular players had gotten married and gone on their honeymoon (congrats J & C). I was somewhat frazzled because of home life, and we've been trying to make time to play Lamentations of the Flame Princess a little more regularly. Now, I'm sure some of you know the reputation, but I'm not running it "as intended". I like that it's a streamlined version of B/X D&D, and that's how I've been running it, with a little help from the AD&D 1e DMG, plus some Basic Fantasy RPG monsters.
In previous sessions, I'd set the game in a country called Clovina, loosely inspired by France before the revolution. For this game, everyone made new characters, and they decided to be quite a diverse cast of characters:
- A holy man turned crusader, wielding fire and steel for his fiery god of industry. Mechanically a Cleric.
- A dwarf from an allied hold in the northern part of Clovina among the only real mountains in the country. In service to the dwarven embassy in the capital.
- A man who has served as part of the Foreign Office run by the king of Clovina's younger brother. Essentially a combination diplomat and spy. Mechanically a Specialist.
- An elf nobleman whose age and love of drink had given him something of an unhurried outlook on life.
Yes. That's right. Offered. I don't like strong-arming my players into doing anything they don't want to do. I offered them the hook, and let them take it if they wanted. My players are great, they played along. The idea of being spies for an early modern government proved to be a neat enough idea. Either that or they were just being nice.
Having taken their leaders up on the mission, they reported to a tavern not only to meet one another for the first time, but to receive their orders and their appropriate documents for the times ahead. Introductions were fun as everyone was stepping into their character's shoes and working out their personalities.
The mission was straightforward: From a port on a nearby island, pirates had been raiding the Clovinian coast for decades. The current king wished them disposed of, but the navy was unable to strike at the buccaneers due to the presence of a supernatural storm which destroyed any ships approaching the island. By means unknown, the pirates were able to pass through. The group's mission would be to infiltrate the island, discover the means by which the pirates were able to traverse the storm, and (if possible) kill the wizard who was known to have created the storm in the first place.
Over the course of some questions about the documents, their knowledge of history, and some bits of pieces of information their leaders had said, I think that everyone had a clear view of the island and both its history and current status:
- The island had never been part of Clovina, and the natives had resisted vigorously against them, to the point that their Queen had invaded the mainland many hundreds of years before.
- A wizard (of indeterminate age) had settled there later looking for the legendary Queen's tomb, which was rumored to contain fabulous riches, and more importantly, lost and terrible magic.
- Raiders had come to use one of the island's sheltered bays as a port, or they had sprung up from the existing unconquered population. Which was unclear. What was clear however, was that the raiders had struck some sort of deal with the wizard. In return for unknown pledges, promises, or goods, the wizard had conjured a powerful storm and granted the captains of the raider ships magic of some sort that allowed them to bypass the storm.
In our first session, they left the capital and went to one of the big sea ports. There, they scoped out the docks and the ships. Some pointed questions yielded up the answer they needed. The Listing Lady was in port, and was by reputation, one of the ships they needed. The elf sounded out the crew and captain, while the specialist decided to investigate the warehouse the pirates were loading their cargo into. Most of what he discovered was mundane things, like crates of firs. But, in one box he discovered a small chest (about the size of a cashbox) with a number of purple vials, unlabeled.
Believe me, he was itching to try them out, but was afraid of the consequences. Taking his prize, he returned to the party. The next morning, they boarded the Listing Lady and set sail. Most of the trip was them scouting out the ship as best they could, and sounding out the crew for just what fabulous magic could allow them to sail through the coming storm.
The first session ended around this point. Continued in Part II.
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