Commentary thread for that “Describe your game in five words” thread.

[aramis erak]

To explain why I dropped sunday TOR for Tunnels and Trolls... TOR 2E broke the balance. When low-experience parties can curbstomp a full on Barrow Wight...

Tunnels and Trolls I can run with trivial levels of prep. Especially given the internet and the number of available free dungeon maps.

 

[woefulhc]

What game? What adventure? Sometimes I’m in the mood for super detailed room crawling.

Clearly I've been off the site for a while. I was running I Smell A Rat for the DFRPG game I have in a FLGS. It was initially intended as a one shot demo back in mid May. I had enough people ask if I was running the next week that agreed to do so. This Monday will be the second week we don't play since then. (I've got a job interview that starts after I would normally leave to get set up.)

 

[Tun Kai Poh]

Wed T2K: Misused Artillery. Random Encounter rearming.

Friday: Game cancelled; host's puppy arrived.

I want to know about this one!

 

[aramis erak]

(Wed T2K) Doc loses arm. Trouble found!

T's character, Bernard LaRousse, MD, got jumped by locals... he just barely got critted... and joked, "it's be ironic if I lost the arm. Mind if I roll?"
"Sure," says I.
He rolls the d10 for the crit... 10... location arm, since he'd parried (but not enough)... and a 10 shows up. Which is, in fact, "Arm Severed."
He then runs for the others, while trying to stabilize himself.... and he botched the medical, but was close enough to get tot he team, who stabilized him, and then the intel Capitane Pascal (AdT) manages to clean and close the remaining arm, under his direction. (THe muggers motivation was violence, not his stuff, but they took his stuff for S&Gs anyway...

 

[aramis erak]

(T&T)
Met a god; got hired.

The Gods in T&T are all simply high level wizards and/or rogues. This was a sphinx of MR250 and Wizard level 20...
When asked "what kind of worshipers do you want?" his response was "Gullible."

 

[TaranTheWanderer]

Five words is a bit too restricted and condensed, really.

I think it'd be better as a haiku.

I agree...everything I've wanted to write on that thread turned out to be 6 words...so I wrote nothing...

PS, I love the idea behind this thread!

 

[aramis erak]

Wed T2K: Misused Artillery. Random Encounter rearming.

Friday: Game cancelled; host's puppy arrived.

I want to know about this one!

Presuming the artillery...
I let them have a 155 after taking it away from those who used it against them. And 2 laser guided munitions.
They applied those to a local jail which has been taken over by the KGB for use as a POW camp. Since the Arty hit but the laser guidance went awry (double 1's), it scattered.... they tried again, dropped one gun tower.

Their next action was to aim for an ammo dump affiliated with the mobile arty from last week's (in character) Operation Reset.
En route, they had a random encounter with a roadside shop. Random roll came up positive for 155mm ammo.... which they traded some AK74 and ammo for. Plus 17 rations worth of veggies.

As for the puppy? Friday dune on hold until hosting player can work out situation with roommate.

 

[Tun Kai Poh]

(Cthulhu Deep Green one-shot)
Investigator-on-Investigator cannibalism attempt.

WOW! that needs more details in the other thread!

I was running FOOD OF THE GODS by Justin Ford, the introductory scenario included in CTHULHU DEEP GREEN, a terrific investigative conspiracy horror ttrpg based on Cthulhu Dark. It's kind of a "Delta Green with the serial numbers filed off."

Spoiler: Food of the Gods

The investigators were trying to track down a missing member of their conspiracy who had vanished after looking into a local chef and her unusual recipes. After an encounter with the monstrous chef, our agents failed to apprehend the suspect but recovered a small food tin with the label AMBROSIA: CARCOSA CANNING 1924.

In true player character fashion, Tahani Rho, the auditor, had to taste it.

As per safety protocols, they rented a ghost kitchen and locked all the exits. Eleanor Harper the army medic was on overwatch duty, while Kim Ross the baker with ghost experience was guarding the door.

Tahani turned on the cameraphone, henceforth referred to as "the mukbang camera," and began the recording with narration as she opened the tin. It reeked of honey and fish and just thinking of eating it was mouth-watering.

Ambrosia, you see, is a golden caviar-like substance harvested from Lake Hali, beside distant Carcosa, home of the King in Yellow, and whoever consumes it will find the order of nature overturned. Predator becomes prey. Everything, down to the smallest creatures, will instinctively want to eat the imbiber of the ambrosia.

Tahani lifted a spoon with a single pearl and tasted it. It was overpowering and heavenly. And suddenly everyone in the room had to resist the urge to devour her. For Kim, Tahani was fragrant bread.

Eleanor watched as Kim jumped Tahani and started biting her arm with great gusto. Eleanor applied a police baton to crowbar the two apart and tried to knock Kim back. While she was doing that, half a dozen cockroaches flew onto Tahani and tried to eat her. Her gut twisted. The gut fauna rose up in rebellion against the order of nature and began eating her intestinal lining. Tahani, thinking fast, grabbed an insect spray and blasted her own body to repel the roaches. The moment she was free of them, she threw the ambrosia into the freezer.

Then she gave the roaches one more drenching with the bug spray. Seeing Kim down and Eleanor still in control of her higher faculties, Tahani ran to the emergency shower to drown herself in water and soap, ridding herself of the smell and ending the war in her gut.

Only then, miserable as a soaked cat, her clothes and hijab absolutely ruined, did she stalk over to turn off the cameraphone.

Worst mukbang video ever.

Cthulhu Deep Green can be found here: CTHULHU DEEP GREEN by Dissonance

 

[John Dallman]

Stole and burned cardboard crown.

This is an Unknown Armies campaign, where we're night-shift supermarket workers in a store beset by increasing weirdness, The leader of the night shift in Grocery has suddenly become an important person, for no detectable reason: the owners of the store chain are wanting to be photographed with him, policemen come and ask his advice about cases ... it's quite weird. After a bit of divination magic, we learned a ritual that would find us the "Crown of the King" which proved to be quite literal: a carboard crown in his locker in the staff break-room. We learned the combination by simply carefully watching him dial it in, and removed the crown when nobody was around.

He came after us, with henchmen. Nobody had any obvious weapons, so when they caught up to me, I was able to face him down, simply because he was most unwilling for his henchbeings to know why they were regarding him as their leader. It's embarrassing, and would probably break his hold over them. After he stormed off, we bought a disposable barbecue, and once the night shift was over, used it to incinerate his crown. We don't know if this has done anything much to him yet.

 

[John Dallman]

Kobalds kill scamming shaman themselves.

It's a Pathfinder scenario, being run under GURPS Dungeon Fantasy. A small tribe of kobalds had a shaman, who had them worshipping a an ivory idol "of a demon," or so he claimed - it seemed rather unconvincing. It had been stolen by a tribe of mites, and the kobalds half-believed that they were all going to die because of that. The PCs recovered the idol (the mites and their various giant vermin were casualties in that process) and took it back to the kobalds, intending to remonstrate with them about demon-worship. We were surprised when the kobald leader smashed the idol and then led his warriors in killing the shaman, but it did mean we didn't wipe them out.