Commentary thread for that “Describe your game in five words” thread.
- Thread starter darjr
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overgeeked
B/X Known World
"They bravely ran away, away..."
First time I've ever had a D&D group run from a fight. Telegraphed that there were two groups of enemies. The players knew how many in at least one group. Decided to charge the group. The enemies screamed and call for backup. The PCs tore through half the first batch before the second batch showed up. So the PCs ran. This is mostly because they went nova and blew all their spells taking down the first group. Then when the second showed up they bolted. There might be hope for these players yet.
First time I've ever had a D&D group run from a fight. Telegraphed that there were two groups of enemies. The players knew how many in at least one group. Decided to charge the group. The enemies screamed and call for backup. The PCs tore through half the first batch before the second batch showed up. So the PCs ran. This is mostly because they went nova and blew all their spells taking down the first group. Then when the second showed up they bolted. There might be hope for these players yet.
Yoh-01
Explorer
Swords of the Serpentine: Undead, ghosts, and a seagull.
Session 2 and conclusion of our Bookhounds of Eversink's first adventure. They get into that old noble's manor, who is sick too. Our priest/scholar/sorcerer sways the guard with his worship sphere.
They manage to find a secret passage to the labyrinthine vaults and to find their way thanks to Spirit sight, led by where the veil with the Underworld is thinner.
On their way, they meet a zombie (with a seagull in his belly), who gets to scare the hell out of the priest. However our sorceress uses her Necromancy sphere to control the creature and uses a corruption point to turn him into her lackey (and she fails and internalized corruption roll, resulting in serpent-slit eyes).
Finally, they get to that empty chamber (full of ghosts chanting actually), and they book they were looking for at the center.
An hollowed in the form of a gondolier for the undead. Our priest sways the ghosts around to bring them back to the cult of Denari (and turns half a dozen of them into his fan-ghosts), but is badly swayed in return by the Hollowed. So our duellist jumps into the action and maims the creature badly, sending it back to nothingness.
They get the book and give it back to the University library. They're paid and they request access to another heretical book, Demis Gallenus's An Anatomy of Gangrene, a book giving some theoretical insights on how to cure corruption. They also keep feeding the seagull and keep the zombie hidden somewhere.
To conclude, this adventure was meant to be a one-off, but we had so much fun that this group really wants to keep playing. That won't be before September though, time for my third group to start and my one-2-one adventure to resume.
Session 2 and conclusion of our Bookhounds of Eversink's first adventure. They get into that old noble's manor, who is sick too. Our priest/scholar/sorcerer sways the guard with his worship sphere.
They manage to find a secret passage to the labyrinthine vaults and to find their way thanks to Spirit sight, led by where the veil with the Underworld is thinner.
On their way, they meet a zombie (with a seagull in his belly), who gets to scare the hell out of the priest. However our sorceress uses her Necromancy sphere to control the creature and uses a corruption point to turn him into her lackey (and she fails and internalized corruption roll, resulting in serpent-slit eyes).
Finally, they get to that empty chamber (full of ghosts chanting actually), and they book they were looking for at the center.
An hollowed in the form of a gondolier for the undead. Our priest sways the ghosts around to bring them back to the cult of Denari (and turns half a dozen of them into his fan-ghosts), but is badly swayed in return by the Hollowed. So our duellist jumps into the action and maims the creature badly, sending it back to nothingness.
They get the book and give it back to the University library. They're paid and they request access to another heretical book, Demis Gallenus's An Anatomy of Gangrene, a book giving some theoretical insights on how to cure corruption. They also keep feeding the seagull and keep the zombie hidden somewhere.
To conclude, this adventure was meant to be a one-off, but we had so much fun that this group really wants to keep playing. That won't be before September though, time for my third group to start and my one-2-one adventure to resume.
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Mezuka
Hero
The Dune campaign was a success. Our goal to become a Major House in control of a planet was achieved last night. At first we thought we would be able to take control of the planet our minor house is located on. Long story short we ended up in control of a different planet after the last two sessions, of intrigue at the Emperor's court. We covered a lot of ground in just 8 sessions of play. Kudos to our GM. Well played.
overgeeked
B/X Known World
Any chance you can give some details about the game? I haven’t gotten to play this one yet but am very intrigued. All the subsystems seem a bit complex but the agent vs architect play sounds really interesting.
Mezuka
Hero
What I liked the most is that as a noble of the house you don't need to participate in all the action. Instead, you send people to do the work for you, they become your character for the duration of that mission.
glass
(he, him)
Continuing our CoC adventure, we traced the dodgy whiskey to an illegal distillery hidden in an old mine. Unfortunately, we got locked in and had to take a long route through the darkness to get out. We set upon by tentacle-faced gribblies which shut down our electric lights (although luckily one PC had a lighter). We managed to kill them, but at a non trivial cost in both sanity and health.
Our current regular GM is still away, so the two of us remaining in the Sunday group decided to have a one-shot solo game. For brevity, we decided to do a PFS scenario (we diced off for player and GM and I ended up the former), and picked Rivalry's End. It feature a notorious former member of the Pathfinder Society who shows up in quite a few scenarios; this turned out to be the adventure wherein he becomes "former", so his turning on us was not terribly surprising....
_
glass.
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aramis erak
Legend
The Quest.... The late princess Petunia asks them to put her coronet back upon her head... this entails travel to Sepulchre, defeating the guards, and then not stealing the crown once the trapped thieves are relieved of it.
As for the stupid? They tried to steal from the vampire necromancer on the way out of the crypt.... this resulted in their unscheduled termination.
Yep. A bit silly, too.
Sprites in the 1m range...
My current party:
- Stonecutter, Minotaur Prophet
- Krazimir, Vampire Necromancer
- Welic, Sprite Warrior with 2-hand specialty.
In Re Tales of the Dungeon: It would be nice if the new ancestries included the expanded CGen materials, either in or as a web enhancement (like was done with Core), and the new classes had starting equipment listed...
aramis erak
Legend
The subsystems are mostly just variations on the core extended task system. It's just variations on what counts as weapons, terrain, and proximity. Agent/Architect isn't called out in the rulebook, but is still very present.
The basics of 2d20 for Dune:
All tasks are rolled on 2 to 6 d20's...
2 are free; 3 more can be purchased with momentum or threat, and one by help.
You use a Drive and a skill summed to set the target number. If you have an applicable focus for the skill, your focus number is the same as the skill; if not, the focus number is 1.
Your helper's provided die uses THEIR drive and skill, not yours.
Each die is compared to the TN and the focus number. If roll <= FN, 2 successes on that die; if FN < Roll <= TN, one succeess. If roll = 20, complication. All bought dice checked.
Total successes reduced by difficulty; if still in the positive, success, and the result is also how much momentum is there.
Momentum has other uses, too, such as extra answers on info tasks, extra effect on extended tasks...
If you want to be eased into the mechanics, the adventure in Heirs to Dune is really quite good. It's really a mini-campaign...
overgeeked
B/X Known World
Thanks. I have read the book. I just haven't gotten to play it. I was hoping from some actual play insights.
aramis erak
Legend
Should have made that more clear.
I have to be careful, because a lot of my play of Dune has been under an NDA... and the tested materials are not yet out.
As a GM, remember that most things in game are just traits. Even your guards are just traits. Traits that you can use either as modifiers to a character's abilities, or be expanded into game stats.
Remember the 7 uses for traits (4 are explicit, two are buried in the equipment mechanics, and one is in the complication specific):
- D+1 per rank
- D-1 per rank
- Usually allowed task prohibited
- Usually prohibited task allowed
- +1 effect per rank
- -1 effect per rank
- Complication range expands by 1.
As with Fate or Cortex Plus/Prime, a good bit of system mastery is knowing when a character needs to make a trait (F= temporary aspect; CP = asset or complication). Remember that a temporary trait can be used in the same way as a Fate Compel - but without the payoff.
The other vital warning: make certain your players' drive statements are broad enough to be useful and narrow enough to limit them a bit. I've seen a lot of players shoot for too narrow; a few (mostly those prone to rules lawyering) go WAY too broad. This is really the key thematic enforcement element in the rules.
You can use players' drive statements for "defining what I want to see dramatically" if your players are good at putting that in, but you're better off asking explicitly..
Nearly every conflict can be reduced to a single roll if desired, or expanded to, at the least, a race to finish on extended tasks. It's a matter of taste and story state.
Be generous with regaining Determination. Generous, not pushover. Same for applicability of traits, especially scene and story specific traits.
Don't hoard your threat-pile. SOme players will feel like you went too easy on them if you end with a huge pile.
Don't feed the snowball - when you notice they're running on zero momentum carried, don't add to the complication range, and find excuses to not apply any increases of it you've used.
Keep complication traits short lived for the most part. If not short lived, fairly narrow. (Sucking Chest Wound is neither short lived nor narrow. But I did have a player suggest that as a triple during a defense roll botch...) If players suggest ones that fit, all the better - trim them back to suitable.
The book's lack of mention of architect mode will become a major issue in some later materials. Be aware of it, and remember that the warfare and espionage both work really well in architect mode.
(for others: In Architect mode, traits are used as pieces in a conflict; the rolls are made by the creating/owning/controlling character. In agent mode, you turn a trait into one or more minor NPCs, using their stats. Both are supported by the rules, but the semi-open playtest had a much clearer direct explication)
One thing that worked really well for me was apparently irrelevant to current conflict scene PC's being allowed to trait build by use of information and/or remote traits. The fremen handing a supply of bats to the warmaster, for example, in a straightup hunt for harkonnen saboteurs. The BG using the voice at start to create the trait "Focused on task" for the house troops for that mission.
The Doc having "previously" given the men exertion supplements so that they don't suffer electrolyte losses while on the search. Yes, flashbacks for generated traits... Or even for a unit of goons in mufti hidden at the starport.
Yoh-01
Explorer
Swords of the Serpentine: Prepping up a cookbook heist
Session 1 for our Bookhounds for Hire, from the same clan. Our heroes, a teenage sorceress, a young ex-mercenary-turned sentinel, a non-binary thief and a drug-addict sentinel own a herbalist's shop called The Spry Linden with a secret library inside.
It's Fall, with the festival of the Running Leaves about to start, with its many competitions and races, like the gondola race.
They receive the visit of a servant from the House Farina, an influent Mercanti family who rose to power by importing from the shores of the Serpentine dry food made from wheat with my funny forms (basically, pasta). They are given the mission to recover a cookbook: Aunt Farina's Tasty Pots which would contain a recipe that could secure the Farina's victory on the "Eel in the pot", a famous culinary contest for the best eel bisque with its rouille.
To cut a long story short, Donatella Farina, head of the family, suspects an old lover of hers, Romero Ferrati, an influent noble, to be in possession of this book that actually belongs to her family. Our heroes negotiate their fees, then go and see a contact at the Land Registry to get the Ferrati's manor's plans. They bribe the clerk with a painted winged seahorse miniature.
Finally, they discuss how to infiltrate the house during the week-long reception held at the old manor. The thief even spends a Scurrilous Luck point to find and steal some Architect Guild's clothes in at a laundry opposite the Land registry office.
And that's the end of the session.
In this group, there's a player who is brand new to tabletop RPGs, and she told us that the simplicity of the system and of the open-ended aspect of the setting was really helping her to get into the game and that she had a great time. The three others did as well by the way (and so did I, but that is quite obvious actually).
Next session in one week.
Session 1 for our Bookhounds for Hire, from the same clan. Our heroes, a teenage sorceress, a young ex-mercenary-turned sentinel, a non-binary thief and a drug-addict sentinel own a herbalist's shop called The Spry Linden with a secret library inside.
It's Fall, with the festival of the Running Leaves about to start, with its many competitions and races, like the gondola race.
They receive the visit of a servant from the House Farina, an influent Mercanti family who rose to power by importing from the shores of the Serpentine dry food made from wheat with my funny forms (basically, pasta). They are given the mission to recover a cookbook: Aunt Farina's Tasty Pots which would contain a recipe that could secure the Farina's victory on the "Eel in the pot", a famous culinary contest for the best eel bisque with its rouille.
To cut a long story short, Donatella Farina, head of the family, suspects an old lover of hers, Romero Ferrati, an influent noble, to be in possession of this book that actually belongs to her family. Our heroes negotiate their fees, then go and see a contact at the Land Registry to get the Ferrati's manor's plans. They bribe the clerk with a painted winged seahorse miniature.
Finally, they discuss how to infiltrate the house during the week-long reception held at the old manor. The thief even spends a Scurrilous Luck point to find and steal some Architect Guild's clothes in at a laundry opposite the Land registry office.
And that's the end of the session.
In this group, there's a player who is brand new to tabletop RPGs, and she told us that the simplicity of the system and of the open-ended aspect of the setting was really helping her to get into the game and that she had a great time. The three others did as well by the way (and so did I, but that is quite obvious actually).
Next session in one week.
glass
(he, him)
Quite simple this one. Our standard practice for our Thursday groups is to go ahead if one player is missing (with someone else controlling their character), but cancel for two. And we had two players on holiday (since we are all online these days anyway, one was going to join us but then his family organised a bit meal out for tonight).
_
glass.
Gradine
Final Form (she/they)
Specifically, the base of Rod of Seven Parts
John Dallman
Hero
It's taken a bit of work to set that up. Decades of real time ago, a bard character of mine staged opera productions, including creating a cycle of four operas based on the story of Beren and Lúthien, which is part of Tolkien's The Silmarillion. He founded a bardic university in the world of Aelos, and since then has mostly been in retirement.
Last year the Monday night party, exploring "The Caverns of Adamant" in the world of Avalon, met a most unusual harpy, Elise. She's highly intelligent, well-mannered and generally a rather nice person. She is regarded as a monster by most people she meets, so she's pretty shy. She enjoyed perching on the roofs of opera houses and listening to the music, but when the orbital strikes destroyed most of the cities of Avalon, she could not do that any more. She asked us if there were any opera houses in accessible other worlds. The character I'm playing in that campaign has no connection with the bardic university, but was willing to do some investigating. During 2022, the party have been up and down the road that passes closest to the Caverns at least five times, but have always been in too much of a hurry to take a day off to climb the hills to get there and tell Elise. Tonight we actually got to do that. She decided to go to the university, rather than either of the commercial opera houses, and I'm rather pleased this has happened by fair means.
overgeeked
B/X Known World
"No one's free from consequences."
This seems to be a reoccurring theme with my players. Somehow they think they can do whatever they want and that any kind of logical consequences are me being a jerk as the referee. No, sorry. If you get caught stealing in town, the guards will have a word with you. If you light a building on fire there is a good chance the fire spreads.
This seems to be a reoccurring theme with my players. Somehow they think they can do whatever they want and that any kind of logical consequences are me being a jerk as the referee. No, sorry. If you get caught stealing in town, the guards will have a word with you. If you light a building on fire there is a good chance the fire spreads.
thullgrim
Adventurer
My Friday game: New Game! New Setting! Excited.
So for my Friday game I’ll be running a savage pathfinder hack for Symbaroum. I’m super excited for the setting and I’m pretty happy with Savage Pathfinder so we gonna give that a shot. I committed to running the Copper Crown so basically three adventures. We’ll see how it goes.
So for my Friday game I’ll be running a savage pathfinder hack for Symbaroum. I’m super excited for the setting and I’m pretty happy with Savage Pathfinder so we gonna give that a shot. I committed to running the Copper Crown so basically three adventures. We’ll see how it goes.
glass
(he, him)
The end of the previous session (which was two weeks previously due to the GM going on holiday), we accidentally sounded the alarm in the dungeon/thieves' guild we were infiltrating - we tried to knock out some sleeping guards so they stayed asleep (well, my character was knocking them out - the other PC was stabbing them). Anyway, the stabbing failed, one of them woke up, and woke his remaining friends. A couple of them made a break for it while the remainder - we won that fight (for small values of "won") but the warning guys escaped an basically warned the whole base.
Fast forward to this week, and all the remaining bad guys were either attacking us or maneuvering off-screen. So the entire session was about 3 minutes of in-game time!
_
glass.
Yoh-01
Explorer
Swords of the Serpentine:
Session 2 for our Bookhounds for Hire, from the Réamon clan. They manage to infiltrate Romero Ferrati's mansion through the kitchen, observe and set their heist in motion. One of the sentinels, Néhanda, with a mercenary allegiance, manages two get two of her contacts to start a fight outside the manor to create a diversion. When the bookhounds get to the vault, they try to sway the guards but fail with tartlets, so they fight their way in, and when they open the door, they see somebody getting into a vent with the book they want, smiling and waving at the group. The other sentinel, Drinn, climbs to the roof and chases the thief while the others are actually looting the vault, stealing jewels and a little magic book. Drinn catches them and notices that they don't have the book anymore, and that he knows them, an old rival / ex-lover at times, from a rival clan. The sentinel learns that they're not alone, that other members of the Cassini clan are here, with the book, running away to the gondolas. After delivering the thief to the guards, the bookhounds gather in the gardens, ready to run after their rivals to get the cookbook, wondering if their client, Lady Farina, hasn't hired the Cassinis to double-cross the Réamons.
End of the adventure next week.
Session 2 for our Bookhounds for Hire, from the Réamon clan. They manage to infiltrate Romero Ferrati's mansion through the kitchen, observe and set their heist in motion. One of the sentinels, Néhanda, with a mercenary allegiance, manages two get two of her contacts to start a fight outside the manor to create a diversion. When the bookhounds get to the vault, they try to sway the guards but fail with tartlets, so they fight their way in, and when they open the door, they see somebody getting into a vent with the book they want, smiling and waving at the group. The other sentinel, Drinn, climbs to the roof and chases the thief while the others are actually looting the vault, stealing jewels and a little magic book. Drinn catches them and notices that they don't have the book anymore, and that he knows them, an old rival / ex-lover at times, from a rival clan. The sentinel learns that they're not alone, that other members of the Cassini clan are here, with the book, running away to the gondolas. After delivering the thief to the guards, the bookhounds gather in the gardens, ready to run after their rivals to get the cookbook, wondering if their client, Lady Farina, hasn't hired the Cassinis to double-cross the Réamons.
End of the adventure next week.
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