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Commentary thread for that “Describe your game in five words” thread.
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<blockquote data-quote="kenada" data-source="post: 9084104" data-attributes="member: 70468"><p>“<a href="https://www.enworld.org/threads/describe-your-last-rpg-session-in-5-words.679952/post-9084103" target="_blank">finally found the stirge nest</a>”</p><p></p><p>It’s been a while since the previous session. Real life (and Origins) came up, and our schedules didn’t align very well. I took the opportunity to make a few changes to the system, but the only significant one was to Expertise, which now costs MP and provides an extra die to your roll. I didn’t like how this one thing used a different resource loop than everything else.</p><p></p><p>At the start of the session, I introduced a couple of obvious clocks as consequences. Natalia is at risk of picking up on the fact that the PCs ganked one of her vampires (4 out of 8 ticks). If that clock goes off, Natalia connects the dots. If the PCs pull it back to zero, she’s going to forget about it (more or less). This clock only ticks as a potential consequence when it makes sense. The raiders are also going to go after the PCs using other means (6-tick). When this clock goes off, they’ll disappear some of the PCs’ people. I also added a clock for the return of a red dragon they saw land in the ruins they are now developing. It was using them, so it’s going to show back up when the clock goes off (4-tick). These clocks may tick as consequences but will be checked every week during the weekly event check.</p><p></p><p>The rest of the session picked up from <a href="https://www.enworld.org/threads/commentary-thread-for-that-“describe-your-game-in-five-words”-thread.682741/post-9037989" target="_blank">last time</a>. The PCs continued heading west along the route they’d established before back to their settlement. This was mostly uneventful. They did hunting and tried to avoid using some of the craptop of provisions they brought along. They bought sixty rations for three people. Why even bother? Ah well, it’s their time and opportunities they’re spending. Once they got to their settlement, they met up with the leader of their guard to talk about the current situation. They got some information about the other threat in the area they need to handle, which is a “warp beast” in OSE or “displacer beast” in D&D. I’m thinking of restating it up as a proper couerl though —including having psychic powers. Surprisingly, that wasn’t the first time psionics came up during the session. Deirdre spent some time socializing with the guards (it was one of her goals to make a good impression on them). The rest took care of their business.</p><p></p><p>The next day the party finally decided to go do something about the stirge nest, which has been a group goal for a while. Except they only know it’s north of their settlement. Their settlement is in a 10km hex, which is ~65km² area to search. North is kind of a bit broad, so they discussed among themselves some tactics they could use to narrow down the area to search. The stirges feed do on animals, so they went looking for animals the stirges had feed upon. Naturally, the rolled a failure on their Skill Check to look for the animals. The consequence was going to be a combined one (instead of two separate ones). They found the animals … being eaten by a bulette. Deirdre resisted this to only <em>about to be eaten</em>. Her approach for her Defense Check here was to use her Wisdom to use a mating call to distract it. It’s worth noting that Dingo tried to contribute, making this a group check. He rolled a 4. He then used Expertise and rolled a 2, giving him a total of six. It was not a good showing for the thief. <img class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" alt="😂" title="Face with tears of joy :joy:" src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f602.png" data-shortname=":joy:" /></p><p></p><p>A bulette is a 9th level monster. I actually had to get out my monster benchmark spreadsheet because the one I was using from OSE is ridiculous. 4d12 on a bite and 3d6 twice is absurd. I reworked it down to 2d12 and 1d8 respectively, which results in a TTL of less than two rounds for a 9th level benchmark character. The party is 5th level though, so it’s really freaking dangerous. They immediately realized the bad idea they were stepping into, so Deirdre made another call to see if she could completely lure it away. The main consequence on the table is it would be coming for them if her call was not successful. Fortunately, it was, but it was a mixed success. She lured it away, but it was going to come back in a few turns when it found out there wasn’t any action to be had. That still gave Dingo enough time to cut open the carcasses and examine them. His investigation Skill Check was a complete success, so they found flora they knew would be in the area of the swamp near the nest. This is something static and easy to notice, so that gave them something easy to find (and two ticks on the 4-tick clock to find the nest).</p><p></p><p>Since every attempt to look around the area costs a hex of movement, you only get four per day, and the party wanted to find the nest in the morning (when it had been established via research that the stirges would be sluggish); they headed back to their settlement to regroup. During the night, I rolled quite well on the event check. The bulette followed them back and was interested in their settlement again. Finally, the PCs were going to fight this thing. Except it was really scary. Seleana, the captain of their guard, is a capable marksman. She helped no questions asked. Natalia though required some convincing. Her ask was a coffin for Josette. When Dingo got a mixed success on his negotiation Skill Check, she also added that she wanted space in the crypt that was discovered a while back. The party agreed, and they’ll have to add her stuff to the construction backlog (or perhaps try to craft one themselves). It’s actually funny how Deidre hates Natalia and wants to kill her, but also how she can’t and they keep helping Natalia out.</p><p></p><p>To try to get an advantage, the party used one of their extra horses as bait. Since a horse is obviously large, that’s +2 degrees of success on the seduction Skill Check to entice the bulette into going after the horse and give them surprise. None of them actually have any ranks in seduction, so they needed the extra degrees. If they hadn’t sacrificed the horse, its loss was going to be a possible consequence, but they opted for the sacrifice. While it nommed the horse, the party lept into action along with Natalia and Seleana. The PCs rolled like naughty word for initiative, but Natalia and Seleana both rolled well. Natalia opened up with <em>mind spike</em>, which drew an immediate WTF from the PCs. Yeah, their vampire ally is a psychic vampire. She’d been a researcher at Mars University prior to her abduction and siring as a vampire by the Blood King. I really need to work out more about how the psionic classes work because I was just winging it off an old stat block. Seleana shot the bulette with her rifled musket. On its turn (which it still gets since surprise only means you lose your equip phase that round), the bulette made its morale check. It figured the PCs were more food that conveniently walked over to be eaten. The PCs were mostly hilarious in that Tama (the cleric) and Dingo (the thief) out-damaged Deirdre. Dingo actually got a natural crit (double-0s on 2d10).</p><p></p><p>The next round, pretty much everyone rolled like crap again, though Natalia rolled well enough to switch to psi-claws and slash up the bulette some. I’m leaning towards making her a telepath, but since I’m just winging it off the old stat block, I figured I could at least continue to drive home the point about psychic vampire. (She’d also set up a telepathic link with Dingo, though it didn’t really seem necessary in the end.) The bulette critted Deirdre for 24 damage (out of 39 HP). Finally! The PCs were definitely nervous about the current situation. The bulette was pretty hurt at this point, and Dingo finished it off. Poor Deirdre had her kill stolen by the thief. Again, I’m pretty sure. They can harvest the plates from the bulette for shields. If they roll well, they’ll get HQ materials. We need to follow up on that next session though.</p><p></p><p>In the morning, the PCs went looking for the flora that would indicate they were in the right area. They only got a mixed success on that survival Skill Check, so I ticked the dragon’s clock. There was a shadow in the sky —a dragon-shaped shadow. Now it’s gone from being player knowledge to being PC knowledge. With a bit more searching, they finally found the nest and completed the clock. And then they went home. Back at their settlement, Dingo worked on a map to document where the nest was. Having a map means they’ll be able to return to the location without having to make any checks in the future (just spending the movement to get there).</p><p></p><p>After that, it was right about stopping time, so we engaged the end of session procedure. Dingo somehow managed to accomplish none of his goals this session. He still got a couple of EXP from helping others accomplish theirs though. Deirdre and Tama each accomplished one. Most of them had goals for killing stirges, which they didn’t get a chance to do this session. It might have happened if they had pushed instead of retreating, but they decided to return back to their settlement, so they can attack the nest at the right time. When they do, there will be two clocks. There will be one clock that will fill up as consequences and attempts. If it goes off, the stirges will scatter. They’ll be temporarily gone from the hex as a threat, but they’ll return in the future. The other clock is a per-attempt clock. If it fills, the stirges will all be roused and will swarm the PCs. That won’t be a good time for them probably.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="kenada, post: 9084104, member: 70468"] “[URL='https://www.enworld.org/threads/describe-your-last-rpg-session-in-5-words.679952/post-9084103']finally found the stirge nest[/URL]” It’s been a while since the previous session. Real life (and Origins) came up, and our schedules didn’t align very well. I took the opportunity to make a few changes to the system, but the only significant one was to Expertise, which now costs MP and provides an extra die to your roll. I didn’t like how this one thing used a different resource loop than everything else. At the start of the session, I introduced a couple of obvious clocks as consequences. Natalia is at risk of picking up on the fact that the PCs ganked one of her vampires (4 out of 8 ticks). If that clock goes off, Natalia connects the dots. If the PCs pull it back to zero, she’s going to forget about it (more or less). This clock only ticks as a potential consequence when it makes sense. The raiders are also going to go after the PCs using other means (6-tick). When this clock goes off, they’ll disappear some of the PCs’ people. I also added a clock for the return of a red dragon they saw land in the ruins they are now developing. It was using them, so it’s going to show back up when the clock goes off (4-tick). These clocks may tick as consequences but will be checked every week during the weekly event check. The rest of the session picked up from [URL='https://www.enworld.org/threads/commentary-thread-for-that-“describe-your-game-in-five-words”-thread.682741/post-9037989']last time[/URL]. The PCs continued heading west along the route they’d established before back to their settlement. This was mostly uneventful. They did hunting and tried to avoid using some of the craptop of provisions they brought along. They bought sixty rations for three people. Why even bother? Ah well, it’s their time and opportunities they’re spending. Once they got to their settlement, they met up with the leader of their guard to talk about the current situation. They got some information about the other threat in the area they need to handle, which is a “warp beast” in OSE or “displacer beast” in D&D. I’m thinking of restating it up as a proper couerl though —including having psychic powers. Surprisingly, that wasn’t the first time psionics came up during the session. Deirdre spent some time socializing with the guards (it was one of her goals to make a good impression on them). The rest took care of their business. The next day the party finally decided to go do something about the stirge nest, which has been a group goal for a while. Except they only know it’s north of their settlement. Their settlement is in a 10km hex, which is ~65km² area to search. North is kind of a bit broad, so they discussed among themselves some tactics they could use to narrow down the area to search. The stirges feed do on animals, so they went looking for animals the stirges had feed upon. Naturally, the rolled a failure on their Skill Check to look for the animals. The consequence was going to be a combined one (instead of two separate ones). They found the animals … being eaten by a bulette. Deirdre resisted this to only [I]about to be eaten[/I]. Her approach for her Defense Check here was to use her Wisdom to use a mating call to distract it. It’s worth noting that Dingo tried to contribute, making this a group check. He rolled a 4. He then used Expertise and rolled a 2, giving him a total of six. It was not a good showing for the thief. 😂 A bulette is a 9th level monster. I actually had to get out my monster benchmark spreadsheet because the one I was using from OSE is ridiculous. 4d12 on a bite and 3d6 twice is absurd. I reworked it down to 2d12 and 1d8 respectively, which results in a TTL of less than two rounds for a 9th level benchmark character. The party is 5th level though, so it’s really freaking dangerous. They immediately realized the bad idea they were stepping into, so Deirdre made another call to see if she could completely lure it away. The main consequence on the table is it would be coming for them if her call was not successful. Fortunately, it was, but it was a mixed success. She lured it away, but it was going to come back in a few turns when it found out there wasn’t any action to be had. That still gave Dingo enough time to cut open the carcasses and examine them. His investigation Skill Check was a complete success, so they found flora they knew would be in the area of the swamp near the nest. This is something static and easy to notice, so that gave them something easy to find (and two ticks on the 4-tick clock to find the nest). Since every attempt to look around the area costs a hex of movement, you only get four per day, and the party wanted to find the nest in the morning (when it had been established via research that the stirges would be sluggish); they headed back to their settlement to regroup. During the night, I rolled quite well on the event check. The bulette followed them back and was interested in their settlement again. Finally, the PCs were going to fight this thing. Except it was really scary. Seleana, the captain of their guard, is a capable marksman. She helped no questions asked. Natalia though required some convincing. Her ask was a coffin for Josette. When Dingo got a mixed success on his negotiation Skill Check, she also added that she wanted space in the crypt that was discovered a while back. The party agreed, and they’ll have to add her stuff to the construction backlog (or perhaps try to craft one themselves). It’s actually funny how Deidre hates Natalia and wants to kill her, but also how she can’t and they keep helping Natalia out. To try to get an advantage, the party used one of their extra horses as bait. Since a horse is obviously large, that’s +2 degrees of success on the seduction Skill Check to entice the bulette into going after the horse and give them surprise. None of them actually have any ranks in seduction, so they needed the extra degrees. If they hadn’t sacrificed the horse, its loss was going to be a possible consequence, but they opted for the sacrifice. While it nommed the horse, the party lept into action along with Natalia and Seleana. The PCs rolled like naughty word for initiative, but Natalia and Seleana both rolled well. Natalia opened up with [I]mind spike[/I], which drew an immediate WTF from the PCs. Yeah, their vampire ally is a psychic vampire. She’d been a researcher at Mars University prior to her abduction and siring as a vampire by the Blood King. I really need to work out more about how the psionic classes work because I was just winging it off an old stat block. Seleana shot the bulette with her rifled musket. On its turn (which it still gets since surprise only means you lose your equip phase that round), the bulette made its morale check. It figured the PCs were more food that conveniently walked over to be eaten. The PCs were mostly hilarious in that Tama (the cleric) and Dingo (the thief) out-damaged Deirdre. Dingo actually got a natural crit (double-0s on 2d10). The next round, pretty much everyone rolled like crap again, though Natalia rolled well enough to switch to psi-claws and slash up the bulette some. I’m leaning towards making her a telepath, but since I’m just winging it off the old stat block, I figured I could at least continue to drive home the point about psychic vampire. (She’d also set up a telepathic link with Dingo, though it didn’t really seem necessary in the end.) The bulette critted Deirdre for 24 damage (out of 39 HP). Finally! The PCs were definitely nervous about the current situation. The bulette was pretty hurt at this point, and Dingo finished it off. Poor Deirdre had her kill stolen by the thief. Again, I’m pretty sure. They can harvest the plates from the bulette for shields. If they roll well, they’ll get HQ materials. We need to follow up on that next session though. In the morning, the PCs went looking for the flora that would indicate they were in the right area. They only got a mixed success on that survival Skill Check, so I ticked the dragon’s clock. There was a shadow in the sky —a dragon-shaped shadow. Now it’s gone from being player knowledge to being PC knowledge. With a bit more searching, they finally found the nest and completed the clock. And then they went home. Back at their settlement, Dingo worked on a map to document where the nest was. Having a map means they’ll be able to return to the location without having to make any checks in the future (just spending the movement to get there). After that, it was right about stopping time, so we engaged the end of session procedure. Dingo somehow managed to accomplish none of his goals this session. He still got a couple of EXP from helping others accomplish theirs though. Deirdre and Tama each accomplished one. Most of them had goals for killing stirges, which they didn’t get a chance to do this session. It might have happened if they had pushed instead of retreating, but they decided to return back to their settlement, so they can attack the nest at the right time. When they do, there will be two clocks. There will be one clock that will fill up as consequences and attempts. If it goes off, the stirges will scatter. They’ll be temporarily gone from the hex as a threat, but they’ll return in the future. The other clock is a per-attempt clock. If it fills, the stirges will all be roused and will swarm the PCs. That won’t be a good time for them probably. [/QUOTE]
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