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

[aramis erak]

Finally got Blade Runner to table.
Using the beginner box. Need to be careful only to give the clues they know.

I love that they made certain Coco's painted image on the handouts looks very much like David Dastmalchian, who played him in BR 2047.

It's been interesting to see Dastmalchian portray so damned many villains, that his appearance in 2047 was itself a subversion of viewer expectations, and the looks of recognition from my players showed it working just as well in the painting.

 

[John Dallman]

The discovery that the zombie wizard we've killed came from the village whose inhabitants all vanished, and whom we're looking for, told us that we aren't barking up the wrong tree. The players could tell that from the presence of scenario, but it makes the characters happier.

 

[Andvari]

Pathfinder 2nd edition
A hag tricked the party into raiding a lizardfolk temple by convincing the party the lizardfolk were quite evil. The party returned home to report their success at the temple, only to later be ambushed by the hag and her two fellow hags. They used wall of thorns to separate the group, but eventually the original hag was low on health. She turned invisible and hid in the corner. In response, the party ordered the NPC fighter to block the doorway out of the house, which he did.

I told the party they could hear the sound of her feet running across the floor and out the door past the NPC. Players objected to how she could just run past the guy purposefully standing in the doorway to block it, but I assured them this is what they heard. They reasoned the spell she cast made her small enough to get by or gave her some slippery property. The NPC moved out of the way to engage with the remaining hags, who, as they got injured, eventually turned invisible and managed to flee.

The original hag is still in the house, invisible for about 10 minutes. The spell she cast was ghost sound, used to fake the sound of her footsteps going outside.

 

[thullgrim]

Wednesday GURPS Nights Black Agents:

They made it to Tiraspol.

 

[The Shadow]

"Dun dun DUNNN!!! Big reveal!"

Or, to be more descriptive:

"I guess I'm... somebody else?"

Okay. It was a short session, but a bunch of stuff went down.

First, you gotta know that the Face power comes with one little hitch: The only face and form you can't ever take on is your real one.

Ludovico was made a Face as a little boy. He has no memory of what he actually looks like, and has become obsessed with finding out. (In Fate terms, this is his Trouble.)

So, we have found out that Ludovico's master has been taken across the sea to the nation of Stygia - basically legendary Egypt. And we know there's been a couple Stygians, brothers, who've been doing some quiet snooping in Fortia.

We know that Chloe was looking for one of them recently, but we don't know why. She did tip us off to the location where the ritual to drain Ludovico's master's power will occur, though, and we've been able to work out the date - several months in the future.

So, before walking into that mess in a foreign land, we decided to talk to Hakar of Atmose, one of the Stygian brothers. We managed to track him down, but he spooked and got away. We did get his journal, though - he's been looking for his older brother Moshiyah, and also trying to develop a complicated ritual that seems to be for draining a sorcerer's power... Or one of his powers? What?! You can't be two kinds of sorcerer at once, one bloodline will always be dominant.

Hot on Hakar's trail, he escaped us once again, but he left us a message saying he'd be seeing us soon in Stygia... And he used a Stygian word for "brother".

Horrible suspicions began to stir in us. We consulted with a contact of ours, an expert on ancient Stygia (he's also kinda-sorta a centuries-old semi-vampire, but no judgy) on what kind of sorcerous bloodlines Stygia has.

He's like, "Why do you want to know?!" Apparently Stygian sorcery is Not Very Nice for the most part. "They were obsessed with the boundary between life and death, what do you expect?"

He knows of four bloodlines:

Hardcore necromancers.

Immortals who get less human each time they die and eventually turn into raging monsters.

Astral travelers who tend to go mad.

Oh, and the royal family of God-Kings. Who can command obedience from those of Stygian blood, among other things.

So. We gotta know where we stand. The only one of us who could possibly be Hakar's brother is Ludovico, despite his protests that he's Fortian to the bone. His master and adoptive dad wouldn't have lied to him!! (Marco: "He's a spy, isn't he?" "Well... yeah.")

We adapt the power-stealing ritual to (temporarily) transfer Ludovico's Face power to a willing street urchin. (Our contact the semi-vampire insists on being present, and says he'll shoot me in the leg if I turn out to be a necromancer.) And a young Stygian prince stands before them, with eyes of solid, glowing green.

I can instantly sense that our contact is half-Stygian, and sweetly ask him to hand me the gun. His hand shakes as he struggles to resist the command, despite his centuries of life and experience. He settles for setting it down instead.

So. Ludovico - Moshiyah - is not only Stygian. He's the closest thing left to the country's freaking God-King!

(In game terms, he's only half-blooded. If he were full-blooded, he'd basically be Pharaoh for the asking, but there hasn't been one of those for a long time. The GM said that if one half-blood could drain another, though, they could effectively become full-blooded, which is probably what Hakar is planning to do to Ludovico. The catch is, Hakar has the blood but can't get full use out of it since Moshiyah is the eldest!)

I've known since the first arc finished that Ludovico was actually a Stygian sorcerer that many factions wanted to control. He was turned into a Face to suppress his power and hide him away. I've been plotting with the GM toward this for some time, and it's really satisfying to see it come out.

But the GM kept one twist to himself. I was NOT expecting the God-King business, which... Yeah. Makes everything more complicated!

Meanwhile, poor Ludovico is going through a major existential crisis right when he needs to be at his best! Yep, this is gonna be fun!

 

[The Shadow]

Meanwhile Marco our scholar is all afire to create an item that would let me switch bloodlines with a relatively simple ritual - which would cement his reputation as a magical crafter forever.

Oh, and remember what bloodline Marco has? Yeah. Envy. Ludovico gaining this power boost may be a problem.

 

[overgeeked]

1. Savage Pathfinder playtest under way.

I thought I would dig it, but it’s just kinda meh.

2. DCC funnel about to start.

Another batch of new and newish players about to start playing DCC with a funnel. Looking forward so the belly laughs from the random character deaths and the realization of how drastically different leveled-play works compared to the funnel.

3. And new Road Crew swag.

The 2023 Goodman Games Road Crew landing page has arrived. Looking forward to getting that sweet, sweet free swag.

 

[The Shadow]

"I've got a son now?!"

So, remember that street urchin who received Ludovico's/Moshiyah's Face power?

We've been intending to set up an orphanage to start training kids as spies to work for us for a while now. The plans aren't quite ready yet, but I figure I may as well try recruiting.

The kid's 8 or so, name of Giovanni. I mention the whole orphanage thing and he's really suspicious. I decide to try out one of my new Pharaoh powers and offer to 'adopt' him as an honorary Stygian, phrasing it as "one of my people". (It has to be done on a willing subject.) His ears prick up at the word "adopt" and he asks if this would be "forever", clearly hoping that it would be. I assure him it will be, and he agrees.

I cast the spell... And roll absurdly well.

The GM rules that Giovanni's features visibly change to be more Stygian, and indeed his features now resemble my own! Metaphysically speaking, he's now my firstborn son!

Well. That was unexpected? I dump my last couple Fate points into making him a full-blown character with a +3 pyramid, and also incorporate him into one of my aspects.

This should be interesting...

 

[The Shadow]

I had fun writing Giovanni's aspects. His trouble is: "You Can Take the Urchin out of the Street..."

Also, this was hilarious:

I changed one my aspects to "My Friends and Giovanni are All I Have Left", explaining "I can't trust my master any more, and I certainly can't trust my Stygian family!"

GM, sweetly, "But you can certainly trust your cousin!" (Meaning Chloe.)

Jerk.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Arabian Nights Chiaroscuro Fantasy Intrigue.

Edit: It would seem I may have posted in the wrong thread. Oops!