Hey Old One: After Action Report?

I'd love to see some a quick rundown of your Grim Tales game, though particularly focused on rules interaction (not just a Story Hour approach).

If you (and your players) have time to post, I'd love to hear all about it!

(I know we got a bit of after-action from your spellcaster, but I want more...)


Wulf

Yo!

Wulf,

I have asked my players to swing by here and give any impressions they have from their (limited) experience with the rule set...I will follow up with my experience in scenario design, PC design, NPC design and game play.

~ Old One

Great, looking forward to it!

Here's my feedback, FWIW. Keep in mind that this was a single-shot scenario designed to be played in 6 hours instead of a regular campaign, and that the characters were pre-defined.

Character
With the exception of spellcasting, most of my character's feats/talents were of the passive variety, so I can't offer much there. Backgrounds, allegiances, and reputation didn't come into play. Brother Temerius was a Smart1/Dedicated 6.

Combat

Some nice stuff. Although I'm partial to a WP/VP type system, standard hitpoints in conjunction with MDT seemed to work very well. It came into play several times during a fight with a ogre type critter, including one failure when the someone forgot that reach+AOO=bad things.

We were using the 'Fewer Dead Heroes' option that converted some lethal damage to non-lethal, and I liked this quite a lot. Being an old SPI DragonQuest fan, I've always liked the 'Armor as DR' concept. The faster healing of subdual damage keeps PCs from being beat down for days at a time in low-healing campaigns. The defensive class bonus is also nice, as it let me feel a little more comfortable wading into combat despite wearing light armor and having a 10 Dex.

Action Points

The DM started us out with 8 APs, and we used them. A lot. More than I would like to see in a regular session, as a matter of fact. The fact that the laws of probability were seriously warped that day and we kept rolling '1's, earning additional APs, just made their use more frequent. I'd prefer to see them be a 'once a session' thing for each player, rather than the once a round event they were in our session. Their frequent use was a side-effect of this being a one-shot deal, so no one felt the need to save them for a rainy day, so things might be different in a real campaign. It's something I'd have to keep a tight rein on as a DM, though. Mechanically, they seem sound, although I would probably eliminate their use for the more mundane uses (ie confirming crits) and hand out fewer in exchange.

Horror Check

This only came up once, and I was sorely disappointed not to get to experience the 'Fight or Flight' variant, which I think is one of the coolest things in GT. All but one person made their save, but I'm not sure how much of that was almost unheard-of good rolling on our part.

Spellcasting

Another one of my favorite parts, and something I could probably discuss ad nauseum. My comments in the other thread were regarding its use in a high-magic setting, where I think it wouldn't work very well. In this game, however, it was about perfect. Because we were allowed to heal between 'chapters', the long-term damage from spell burn wasn't debilitating, and that would be a real concern in a normal game. Abandoning the 'fire and forget' spell system in favor of something that lets you cast the same spell repeatedly (assuming you can pay the costs) fits well with a low-magic campaign. Since the DM picked my spells in advance, they felt much more like a class feature than spells.

I do think the casting check results in too many failures given the penalties of spell burn, and the cost in terms of talents. I missed probably half the time. and had to use action points more frequently than I would have liked just to get off a minor spell. A fighter might miss half the time at low levels, but at least he doesn't hurt himself trying.

Given that a low-level character will fail even trivial spells half the time, and take spell burn that will weaken him for days (using standard healing rules), I think it a tad harsh.

The spellcasting rules were the neatest thing in GT, I thought, and I think they got short shrift in the number of pages in the book. Mechanically, it leaves a lot for a DM new to Grim Tales to balance to fit his campaign. The chapter begs for more 'skull variants', and perhaps even 3 'rules groups' with pre-defined variations for successively more powerful magic levels.

I really enjoyed the game, and look forward to playing more GT influenced games in the future. I bought GT when it came out because I liked what I'd read of a lot of the mechanics, and I was glad to see them work so well. (If you'd like more detail on anything, I'd be happy to oblige.)

BTW, what's up with 'Slavelords of Cydonia'?

This is a great thread. I would love to hear more about GT in play because I'm working on a campaign right now myself. I'm definitely going to stay tuned to this thread.

BTW, what's up with 'Slavelords of Cydonia'?

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Good question. Any chance of running some demos like you mentioned?

[snip]

Lots of good comments there, thanks. I welcome any other comments you may have-- you won't bore me!

As for Slavelords, cross your fingers and it may go to print this weekend.


Wulf

I never realized Grim Tales looked so good. I'm going to have to pick it up when I have the cash for it!

Fenris said:

I like the Variant FDH as well but had a few questions. You have to keep track of two sets hitpoints basically right (lethal and non-lethal)? How managable was that in game? I see the variant helping keep some armor on even though the defense bonuses are higher to convert some damage. Once unconcious, does non-lethal damage roll over into lethal?

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It was a trivial matter to keep track of both. The only real issue was remembering to be a little more cautious when the non-lethal total got close to your current HP's. Nothing about the system would be a problem at all after using it for a couple sessions.

Fenris said:

Ditto. So, when is Grim Magic:A Grim Tales Magic Supplement coming out? But I have already begged Wulf for skulls for this and he has graciously capitulated

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That is something I could really sink my teeth into. The spell system is so elegant, it just begs for more attention.

I'm going to use Rodrigo's template here as it's well put together and should make comparing this all easier. That's the hope at any rate.

Character
I was playing Artorius, a Strong 1/Charismatic 5/Fast 1, character. I like this system better than standard d20 because it is more flexibility. That said, I prefer even more flexibility, such as that found in classless systems. This is a preference and not really a criticism as such. I like talents. I wish Artorius could have been a somewhat more accomplished fighter (beyond my abysmal rolling, I mean! ). The charisma feats (frightful presence) were cool as well as the talents coordinate and inspire. Very cool option, that.

Combat

I liked the combat system, including Fewer Dead Heroes. I'm usually not a huge fan of the defensive bonus thing, but I think it's necessary in a low magic game for survivability reasons. It certainly made our characters more survivable, along with FDH, which I also like.

Action Points

I'm going to disagree with RB and say that I loved the way action points worked. In my current D&D game we've been using a version that isn't quite as flexible. I guess it reminded me of the various pools from my favorite system (Shadowrun) and I enjoyed having that sort of ability to influence what happened...except when I was rolling 1 after 1 after 1.

Horror Check

Oops! See below.

Spellcasting

Can't talk too much about this, as I was not a spellcaster, but I generally agree with RB on the flexibility issue. I think spellburn is a little harsher than I would prefer it, but were I to run GT, I'd probably house rule it a bit.

To conclude, I really enjoyed this encounter with Grim Tales. While some of it is certainly attributable to the pleasure of the company, I do think it showed me how good D&D fantasy can be, something I have often found myself questioning over the last six months or so.

I had intended to cease my purchases of d20 material in favor of other games, but I believe the next time I have cash to burn, I will seriously consider purchasing Grim Tales.

Anyway, hope some of that makes sense and is useful. I'm certainly willing to entertain further, more specific questions. I've had a long day, so I may have not been as eloquent as I might have liked.