“raiders no longer a threat”
We tried a revision to the skill mechanics this session. There were a few major changes:
Anyway, now on to the session. Last time, we ended with the PCs having killed bandits who were trying to set up the checkpoint. They collected the energy rifles (and battery packs) and buried the bodies to avoid any kind of unwanted problems later (like undead). They then headed to Finland (the main garrison town) to rest and recover before heading north to see the raiders.
The PCs spent 2500 S each on accommodations and each performed several, weekly downtime activities. Dingo (the thief) was beat up and worn out, so all he did was recover MP and rest to recover HP and stress. Tama (the cleric) also recovered MP and spent the rest of her time on training (spending EXP on several skills). Deirdre (the barbarian) also trained, but she and Ilsa decided to canvas the town for more information on the bandits.
Like before, Deirdre decided to look for other adventurers who might know something about the bandits. This was a group skill check with Ilsa (Deirdre’s bard retainer) and Deirdre in the lead. Since they were looking for adventurers, Deirdre’s warrior Wisdom applied. That gave her +0d6 to the margin with a difficulty of 8 due to scale (= 6 + 2 for settlement). The result of her Rapport + Intellect check plus her Wisdom on the margin was very good (well beyond what it takes to resolve a level 1 conflict), so Deirdre found herself once again at the Smelly Elf.
This time, she met an adventurer (Mike) who knew the party that had disappeared. Deirdre was concerned about where they were getting supplies and where they were from. According to Mike, his friend had found a job running supplies for them. The supplies were coming from Dyrstelice, the nation to the south. He thought the bandits were also from there. Apparently after running the supplies, the bandits had “paid” the adventurers by forcing them into the tramway where they were killed by the killbots. Mike isn’t really sure of their intent other than that they’re up to something with the tramway and foreign.
This information disturbed the party when Deirdre relayed it to them because it meant the bandits could be reinforced and that potentially another foreign power could be getting involved in the area. That seems to have moved the bandits up on the party’s list of priorities, but they had to take care of the raider situation first.
At the end of their downtime in Finland, the party and Sona (the raider who is traveling with them) headed north to the bandit camp. Since they didn’t have a map detailing safe passage to the camp, they had to navigate to find it. Fortunately, Sona was able to take the lead north because her raiders Wisdom applied to finding the camp. Deirdre and Dingo participated in a group Survival check to safely navigate there. The primary consequence being that they could travel too closely to the bandits and draw unwanted attention from the bandits. While the party probably would have been fine killing more bandits, it would have distracted them from their goal of meeting with the raiders.
The check was a success, and Sona was able to guide them north into the swamp and to the camp. The raiders have claimed the ruins of Bluozhus as their camp. The area flooded when the calamity happened centuries ago, so the raiders have built their camp on top of the ruins on walkways and scaffolding. To get to the camp, you have to take a skiff to one of the platforms adjacent to it. These are guarded and provide a convenient choke point. The waters are too deep to wade, and there are monsters, so just trying to swim over would be very dangerous.
Sona guided the skiff over the to the camp where they were greeted by Donny (a vuple guarding this particular platform). The party informed him they were there to see Maria. He had an idea of who they were because it was known they were being recruited into the raiders. Unfortunately, Maria was occupied at the moment. He could take them to see her anyway, but it might negatively affect subsequent interactions with her. The alternative was being put in the lockup for the night. The party didn’t like either option, but they felt they could negotiate some concessions on the lockup.
The following conversation was a level 3 conflict. Tama proposed that instead of locking them up, since the party were going to be discussing joining the raiders, they shouldn’t be locked up. Just allowed to stay there for the night. Donny countered that he couldn’t do that for free, and the guards might also want something (this was the first consequence). The ask was 2000 S, which the party accepted. As he took them over to the lock up, Deirdre tried to use their reputation to persuade Donny that should be enough (allowing her to apply her self-promotion Wisdom to the margin).
Deirdre went on about all the great things the party the party had done (meaning she, or that she claimed for herself, because that’s her nature). Donny stopped and (this was the consequence) suggested he’d take them right away to see Maria since they’re so important/famous because that would be an okay interruption. The party wasn’t thrilled with this idea, so they pushed him just to take them to the lock up and not lock the door. (In retrospect, Deirdre should have had to resist the result instead of just presenting it as a choice.)
That night, Deirdre decided to flag down one of the guards so she could boast some more and find out more about the raiders’ camp. Sometime in the early morning, she managed to get the attention of a laap woman who seemed interested enough in learning about their exploits. While she was close enough and listening, Dingo snuck over and grabbed the woman’s keyring. His concern was that they might end up locked her later, so having the keys would make it easy to get out. Of course, there would be logistical problems since the lockdown is isolated from the rest of the camp and only accessible by a walkway that can be retracted (not a drawbridge but just some boards that can be pulled up).
In the morning, Eric the Dangerous and his goons came to “escort” the party to see Maria. He’d heard that Sona was back and wanted to separate her from the party (not for any reasons that would be good for her). He tried to play nice with the PCs, but Deirdre was having none of it. She made a rude comment to him, and (using Manipulation, which she finally had taken) provoked him into coming over to her. Eric grabbed Deirdre through the bars and tried to slam her into them as an act of intimidation, but Deirdre headbutted him back. Eric is a chump, so he wasn’t willing to fight, and Deirdre had established him as the aggressor in case trouble happened later.
After that little tiff, the party followed Eric and his group out to see Maria. Sona decided to move against Eric when they were walking passed. She uses a glaive, so she tipped Eric over the side and into the water below. I thought the PCs might intervene, but they were like: I hated that guy.
While there was a big commotion as everyone freaked out while the drowned coffer corpses pulled Eric under, the PCs ducked into Maria’s office to meet with her. Inside was Maria and her “bodyguard” (Lady Emma). The conversation started about the commotion and Sona’s involvement. The party explained to Maria that Sona and they had helped root out a traitor to the bandits. With some persuasion, the party managed to downplay and avoid trouble from Sona’s willing involvement up until she changed sides after her failed attempt to convince the PCs to side with Eric. If the PCs hadn’t succeeded, then Sona would have been executed for her involvement (because the raiders don’t mess around when it comes to discipline).
The only ask Maria had of Sona at this point would be to go out and diffuse the situation with Eric’s men. She’d also be (more or less) banished from the raider camp (though this was determined later) where she’d be expected to work at the PCs’ settlement instead.
After Sona left, the party started making their case for not joining the raiders. This was a level 5 conflict. Their initial play was to mention the bandit situation and offer one of the energy rifles they had recovered as a gift. The raiders weren’t particularly worried about the bandits, but they’d been avoiding the bandits for now. The gift effectively functioned as the “weapon” on the skill check. I previously had a mechanic for gaining bonus dice if you sacrificed something, and it fit in really nicely here. The gift (1d6) was large (+1d6) and HQ (+1d6), so that gave the PCs 3d6+margin on their result. Lady Emma took an interest in the rifle and wanted to join the conversation (the consequence), but the PCs were not having that.
The PCs had learned about Lady Emma from Firlax (the fire dragon). They knew she was tough (a 15th level knight), which would add an additional +2 differential to all difficulties if she’s leading the conversation. Also, they’re kind of scared of her because she’s a bad ass. Lady Emma stands over 2m tall and is muscular but not bulky. She wears magi-plate armor, which is an ancient plate armor powered by MP. Just her presence was intimidating. Deirdre resisted the consequence of her involvement by just continuing to talk over Lady Emma like she wasn’t there. Her defense check completely mitigated the stress (0d6+2) she would have taken, so they were able to continue the conversation with just Maria without being too much worse off.
The PCs did not want to join the raiders, but the raiders’ position is that was a non-option. The PCs wouldn’t normally be allowed to leave. If you arrive in the camp, you leave as a raider or as a corpse. The PCs pivoted to suggesting that instead of joining, they should establish a special relationship with the raiders. Their settlement, Cal Maestros, had previously been used as a place for discrete meetings and keeping secrets. They could offer this to the raiders in exchange for establishing a special relationship where they weren’t subject to the raiders’ control. As a sign of their trust in Maria (and Lady Emma), the party told them about their own secrets, but they didn’t tell the party about Natalia (their vampire ally).
The check to Persuade advanced the conflict some, but Maria picked up on a few things the PCs said. First, the party talked about their secrets (as in both sides), suggesting they knew something about the raiders but weren’t revealing it. Maria also knew there had been sightings of a vampire in Finland because Natalia hasn’t exactly been discrete about it. If the PCs had met the Blood King and encountered vampires, what was their involvement? The PCs admitted they knew Natalia and she was residing with them. Fortunately, that was good enough to close out the conflict. Maria (and Lady Emma) felt confident that they could work with the PCs.
They didn’t go into the details of their operation, which the PCs had disclaimed interest in wanting to know, but when Lady Emma (finally) joined the conversation, she did make an off-hand comment at Firlax, suggesting she had an intuition the PCs probably still knew more but weren’t revealing it. However, they were at a point where they could establish Cal Meastros as a place for covert meetings. It’s likely the raiders will have asks of the PCs in the future, and I can see their using Sona as a spy. We’ll have to play more to find that stuff out.
After the meeting, since it was still early in the day, the party headed back to Finland while giving the bandits a wide birth (thanks to another successful Survival check). They arrived at Finland late in the day, and that’s where we stopped.
(Interestingly, they didn’t exactly do what Firlax had asked, which I’m sure that will be a problem later.)
Overall, I think the new skill check mechanics work well. There’s still some stuff I need to figure out on how best to foreground and handle consequences during a conflict. In actual conflicts, you’re going to be dealing with consequences much more, but the conflicts will go quickly if you’re playing them right. So far, this seems okay, but I think it’ll take some more experience with the system. I also think the group check rules may need some further tweaking because it seems like failures are too unlikely to pose enough risk while doing them. (I should also make sure consequences affect everyone, but I don’t know if that’s enough of a risk on its own.)
We tried a revision to the skill mechanics this session. There were a few major changes:
- Wisdom is no longer an attribute. Replacing it is Wits, which is your mental agility/quickness. That means stats break down into Physical / Mental groups with rough equivalents between both sets (Physical: Strength, Dexterity, Endurance; Mental: Intellect, Wits, Willpower).
- Wisdom is now what I’m calling was was variously known as “knowledge subjects” and “experiences”. These are things your character has done that are important experiences. Previously, they allowed Wisdom to be used as an attribute if you could say how they related.
- Now when you make a check, if you can say how your Wisdom applies, you can add the corresponding Wisdom’s dice to the margin of your result. It makes experience sort of like a weapon for non-combat skill checks. (There will be examples in the recap.)
- Wisdom advances based on usage. If you succeed at a check, you make a check next to Wisdom. At intervals of 50 EXP, in the order of your choice, roll the check Wisdom’s die or dice. If the result is 1, the Wisdom advances (from 1 to 0d6 to 1d6 and so on). You may also choose to take a new Wisdom. This process happens immediately at the end of the session. After you have gained or advanced a Wisdom, erase all checks.
- Skill checks no longer generate degrees of success. All checks are made as part of conflicts. A “simple” skill check is a level 1 conflict. When you make a check in a conflict, the GM foregrounds consequences as normal. Checks generate margin towards resolving the conflict. If the conflict is not resolved, consequences happen. A level 1 conflict ends after one roll, but other ones may take as many rolls as required.
- This change allows for bigger margins (from stats but also Wisdom and other sources of dice). It also allows for mitigation to apply to non-combat checks, bringing combat and non-combat resolution closer together in terms of mechanics.
- Target difficulties have been recalibrated to start at 6 instead of 8 because I got rid of defining mixed success as below the target number. Doing mental subtraction is annoying. Now it (and mental division) is gone.
- Group skill checks have been revised as well. The lead now applies any Wisdom. Failures (including the lead’s) add mitigation to the result. The leader can buy off failures by taking stress at 1:1 per mitigation.
⁂
Anyway, now on to the session. Last time, we ended with the PCs having killed bandits who were trying to set up the checkpoint. They collected the energy rifles (and battery packs) and buried the bodies to avoid any kind of unwanted problems later (like undead). They then headed to Finland (the main garrison town) to rest and recover before heading north to see the raiders.
The PCs spent 2500 S each on accommodations and each performed several, weekly downtime activities. Dingo (the thief) was beat up and worn out, so all he did was recover MP and rest to recover HP and stress. Tama (the cleric) also recovered MP and spent the rest of her time on training (spending EXP on several skills). Deirdre (the barbarian) also trained, but she and Ilsa decided to canvas the town for more information on the bandits.
Like before, Deirdre decided to look for other adventurers who might know something about the bandits. This was a group skill check with Ilsa (Deirdre’s bard retainer) and Deirdre in the lead. Since they were looking for adventurers, Deirdre’s warrior Wisdom applied. That gave her +0d6 to the margin with a difficulty of 8 due to scale (= 6 + 2 for settlement). The result of her Rapport + Intellect check plus her Wisdom on the margin was very good (well beyond what it takes to resolve a level 1 conflict), so Deirdre found herself once again at the Smelly Elf.
This time, she met an adventurer (Mike) who knew the party that had disappeared. Deirdre was concerned about where they were getting supplies and where they were from. According to Mike, his friend had found a job running supplies for them. The supplies were coming from Dyrstelice, the nation to the south. He thought the bandits were also from there. Apparently after running the supplies, the bandits had “paid” the adventurers by forcing them into the tramway where they were killed by the killbots. Mike isn’t really sure of their intent other than that they’re up to something with the tramway and foreign.
This information disturbed the party when Deirdre relayed it to them because it meant the bandits could be reinforced and that potentially another foreign power could be getting involved in the area. That seems to have moved the bandits up on the party’s list of priorities, but they had to take care of the raider situation first.
At the end of their downtime in Finland, the party and Sona (the raider who is traveling with them) headed north to the bandit camp. Since they didn’t have a map detailing safe passage to the camp, they had to navigate to find it. Fortunately, Sona was able to take the lead north because her raiders Wisdom applied to finding the camp. Deirdre and Dingo participated in a group Survival check to safely navigate there. The primary consequence being that they could travel too closely to the bandits and draw unwanted attention from the bandits. While the party probably would have been fine killing more bandits, it would have distracted them from their goal of meeting with the raiders.
The check was a success, and Sona was able to guide them north into the swamp and to the camp. The raiders have claimed the ruins of Bluozhus as their camp. The area flooded when the calamity happened centuries ago, so the raiders have built their camp on top of the ruins on walkways and scaffolding. To get to the camp, you have to take a skiff to one of the platforms adjacent to it. These are guarded and provide a convenient choke point. The waters are too deep to wade, and there are monsters, so just trying to swim over would be very dangerous.
Sona guided the skiff over the to the camp where they were greeted by Donny (a vuple guarding this particular platform). The party informed him they were there to see Maria. He had an idea of who they were because it was known they were being recruited into the raiders. Unfortunately, Maria was occupied at the moment. He could take them to see her anyway, but it might negatively affect subsequent interactions with her. The alternative was being put in the lockup for the night. The party didn’t like either option, but they felt they could negotiate some concessions on the lockup.
The following conversation was a level 3 conflict. Tama proposed that instead of locking them up, since the party were going to be discussing joining the raiders, they shouldn’t be locked up. Just allowed to stay there for the night. Donny countered that he couldn’t do that for free, and the guards might also want something (this was the first consequence). The ask was 2000 S, which the party accepted. As he took them over to the lock up, Deirdre tried to use their reputation to persuade Donny that should be enough (allowing her to apply her self-promotion Wisdom to the margin).
Deirdre went on about all the great things the party the party had done (meaning she, or that she claimed for herself, because that’s her nature). Donny stopped and (this was the consequence) suggested he’d take them right away to see Maria since they’re so important/famous because that would be an okay interruption. The party wasn’t thrilled with this idea, so they pushed him just to take them to the lock up and not lock the door. (In retrospect, Deirdre should have had to resist the result instead of just presenting it as a choice.)
That night, Deirdre decided to flag down one of the guards so she could boast some more and find out more about the raiders’ camp. Sometime in the early morning, she managed to get the attention of a laap woman who seemed interested enough in learning about their exploits. While she was close enough and listening, Dingo snuck over and grabbed the woman’s keyring. His concern was that they might end up locked her later, so having the keys would make it easy to get out. Of course, there would be logistical problems since the lockdown is isolated from the rest of the camp and only accessible by a walkway that can be retracted (not a drawbridge but just some boards that can be pulled up).
In the morning, Eric the Dangerous and his goons came to “escort” the party to see Maria. He’d heard that Sona was back and wanted to separate her from the party (not for any reasons that would be good for her). He tried to play nice with the PCs, but Deirdre was having none of it. She made a rude comment to him, and (using Manipulation, which she finally had taken) provoked him into coming over to her. Eric grabbed Deirdre through the bars and tried to slam her into them as an act of intimidation, but Deirdre headbutted him back. Eric is a chump, so he wasn’t willing to fight, and Deirdre had established him as the aggressor in case trouble happened later.
After that little tiff, the party followed Eric and his group out to see Maria. Sona decided to move against Eric when they were walking passed. She uses a glaive, so she tipped Eric over the side and into the water below. I thought the PCs might intervene, but they were like: I hated that guy.
While there was a big commotion as everyone freaked out while the drowned coffer corpses pulled Eric under, the PCs ducked into Maria’s office to meet with her. Inside was Maria and her “bodyguard” (Lady Emma). The conversation started about the commotion and Sona’s involvement. The party explained to Maria that Sona and they had helped root out a traitor to the bandits. With some persuasion, the party managed to downplay and avoid trouble from Sona’s willing involvement up until she changed sides after her failed attempt to convince the PCs to side with Eric. If the PCs hadn’t succeeded, then Sona would have been executed for her involvement (because the raiders don’t mess around when it comes to discipline).
The only ask Maria had of Sona at this point would be to go out and diffuse the situation with Eric’s men. She’d also be (more or less) banished from the raider camp (though this was determined later) where she’d be expected to work at the PCs’ settlement instead.
After Sona left, the party started making their case for not joining the raiders. This was a level 5 conflict. Their initial play was to mention the bandit situation and offer one of the energy rifles they had recovered as a gift. The raiders weren’t particularly worried about the bandits, but they’d been avoiding the bandits for now. The gift effectively functioned as the “weapon” on the skill check. I previously had a mechanic for gaining bonus dice if you sacrificed something, and it fit in really nicely here. The gift (1d6) was large (+1d6) and HQ (+1d6), so that gave the PCs 3d6+margin on their result. Lady Emma took an interest in the rifle and wanted to join the conversation (the consequence), but the PCs were not having that.
The PCs had learned about Lady Emma from Firlax (the fire dragon). They knew she was tough (a 15th level knight), which would add an additional +2 differential to all difficulties if she’s leading the conversation. Also, they’re kind of scared of her because she’s a bad ass. Lady Emma stands over 2m tall and is muscular but not bulky. She wears magi-plate armor, which is an ancient plate armor powered by MP. Just her presence was intimidating. Deirdre resisted the consequence of her involvement by just continuing to talk over Lady Emma like she wasn’t there. Her defense check completely mitigated the stress (0d6+2) she would have taken, so they were able to continue the conversation with just Maria without being too much worse off.
The PCs did not want to join the raiders, but the raiders’ position is that was a non-option. The PCs wouldn’t normally be allowed to leave. If you arrive in the camp, you leave as a raider or as a corpse. The PCs pivoted to suggesting that instead of joining, they should establish a special relationship with the raiders. Their settlement, Cal Maestros, had previously been used as a place for discrete meetings and keeping secrets. They could offer this to the raiders in exchange for establishing a special relationship where they weren’t subject to the raiders’ control. As a sign of their trust in Maria (and Lady Emma), the party told them about their own secrets, but they didn’t tell the party about Natalia (their vampire ally).
The check to Persuade advanced the conflict some, but Maria picked up on a few things the PCs said. First, the party talked about their secrets (as in both sides), suggesting they knew something about the raiders but weren’t revealing it. Maria also knew there had been sightings of a vampire in Finland because Natalia hasn’t exactly been discrete about it. If the PCs had met the Blood King and encountered vampires, what was their involvement? The PCs admitted they knew Natalia and she was residing with them. Fortunately, that was good enough to close out the conflict. Maria (and Lady Emma) felt confident that they could work with the PCs.
They didn’t go into the details of their operation, which the PCs had disclaimed interest in wanting to know, but when Lady Emma (finally) joined the conversation, she did make an off-hand comment at Firlax, suggesting she had an intuition the PCs probably still knew more but weren’t revealing it. However, they were at a point where they could establish Cal Meastros as a place for covert meetings. It’s likely the raiders will have asks of the PCs in the future, and I can see their using Sona as a spy. We’ll have to play more to find that stuff out.
After the meeting, since it was still early in the day, the party headed back to Finland while giving the bandits a wide birth (thanks to another successful Survival check). They arrived at Finland late in the day, and that’s where we stopped.
(Interestingly, they didn’t exactly do what Firlax had asked, which I’m sure that will be a problem later.)
⁂
Overall, I think the new skill check mechanics work well. There’s still some stuff I need to figure out on how best to foreground and handle consequences during a conflict. In actual conflicts, you’re going to be dealing with consequences much more, but the conflicts will go quickly if you’re playing them right. So far, this seems okay, but I think it’ll take some more experience with the system. I also think the group check rules may need some further tweaking because it seems like failures are too unlikely to pose enough risk while doing them. (I should also make sure consequences affect everyone, but I don’t know if that’s enough of a risk on its own.)
