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

[Golden Bee]

I'm just drawn that way.

 

[Bagpuss]

"I elected to commit genocide."

Spoiler for a Star Trek Adventures scenario involving Neural Parasites

Spoiler: Why I killed them all.

So at the end of the adventure you come across the queen of the of a brood on neural parasites, who offers to take over the Romulan race and make a peace treaty with the Federation in return for sparing her. Everyone controlled by the parasites had generally shown no indication that anything of the hosts mind remains behind. So if I accepted the deal the Romulan race would be effectively wiped out.

I was 1st officer on the away team and the players were discussing, if we should kill the queen which would kill all her brood as they were all linked, because it would condemn this species to death. Or we should incarcerate her and look for a way to modify the race to become more like the trill (which they were already researching).

It seemed from my perspective, you either wipe out the Romulans, this parasite, or genetically modify them (effectively playing god with the species anyway). My character had the Hate's Romulans trait so was very tempted to agree (although some free Romulans had helped us earlier). Accepted all the evidence pointed to this species not being remotely trustworthy, even though they were "just looking for a new home" so there was no telling they would stop there. Also containing them would be very difficult, while the queen was still alive her brood could keep recruiting as there was no telling how many were already active in the Romulan Empire or the Federation.

So in the end I told the crew present that this decision rest on me as the commanding officer present and if anyone wants to make a complaint in their log to high command they should feel free. Set my phaser to deadly and shot her.

Setting of a chain reaction killing her brood and any people (mainly Romulans) infected by her brood of neural parasites.

 

[Celebrim]

Finished Adventure #9 in the "Tales of the Dogfish" campaign (finally) Thought I'd collect all the 5 word summaries of the sessions in one place.

Adventure #1: The Job
Session #1: Canyon chase of Kobok pirates.
Session #2: Lurrians welcome predators for study.
Session #3: He's outside. Must rent Ton-Tons.
Session #4: The Mighty Ono goes down.
Session #5: Lurrian gene master transforms acquisition.
Session #6: Pirate attack! Plans go awry!
Session #7: Zero-G maneuvers; Rescue hostages.
Session #8: Passenger plants bomb. Dead Jawa.
Session #9: Everything falling apart. Sell snubfighter.
Session #10: Meet with snivvian information broker.
Session #11: Drag races and blaster ambushes.
Session #12: Planning assault on slave compound.
Session #13: Plan implemented. They rescue Varlo.
Session #14: Everyone gets boarded some time.
Session #15: Illegal bank deposit. Guildmaster angry!
Adventure #2: The Runaway
Session #16: COMPNOR job on glare world.
Session #17: Human intel. Booze brand matters.
Session #18: Biker assassin in foil jungle.
Session #19: Swamp people are tough people.
Session #20: We have to rescue kid.
Session #21: Tie Fighters are our friends.
Adventure #3: Labor Relations
Session #21: Inquisitor would like a word.
Session #22: Contracted to reacquire stolen freighter.
Session #23: Baron is a terrible person.
Session #24: Disgruntled employees and shady contractors.
Session #25: Search sectors of dust cloud
Session #26: Big fight in asteroid field.
Session #27: Nope, no way. We're leaving.
Mini Adventure: The Decker Job
Session #28: Illegal slicer at spice rave.
Session #29: Our Hunters shoot up everything.
Mini Adventure: Domestic Dispute
Session #30: Sort of like the Amish
Session #31: But also kung fu masters
Adventure #4: Cold Hearted
Session #32: Droid firefight at plasticrete factory
Session #33: Droid firefight on subway car
Session #34: Suicide drones on a houseboat
Session #35: Looking around for Dr. Fist
Session #36: Rented van sacrificed for mission.
Session #37: Gun down villain on rooftop.
Adventure #5: Plague of Lies
Session #38: Bounty hunting is complicated profession.
Session #39: Pretend investigation hides real one.
Session #40: Dragons scarier than Tie Fighters
Session #41: Don't dance with an AT-ST
Session #42: Huff the Fish goes down.
Adventure #6: Slaves of the Sith Lord
Session #43: Took work as local marshals
Session #44: Investigation proceeds slowly - skunk fern
Session #45: Meticulous investigation bears some fruit.
Session #46: Found the old wraith city.
Session #47: Collected Bounty on AWOL Scouts.
Adventure #7: A Corrupted Flesh
Session #48: Hunting a politically connected cyberneticist
Session #49: Investigating crimes finds everyone crooked.
Session #50: Hunters struggle searching vast ecumenopolis
Session #51: We talk about fight club
Session #52: Turbo lift weights provide breakthrough
Session #53: Found the corrupt truck driver
Session #54: Warehouse fight with corrupt gendarmes.
Session #55: Hunters invaded the cyberneticist's hideout.
Session #56: Dropped Dr. Raptis into sludge.
Adventure #8: Planets of the Smugglers
Session #57: Chasing Pirates in Galactic Fringe
Session #58: Bar hopping across the galaxy
Session #59: Night of reoccurring NPCs.
Session #60: Disable and board pirate starship
Session #61: Killed Pirate; Talked to Separatist
Session #62: Hunters meet with Separatist Admiral
Adventure #9: Wings of Terror
Session #63: Terrorists attack Anti-Grav Night Club
Session #64: Planning to protect the Prefect
Session #65: Flubbed investigation; accidentally warned terrorist
Session #66: Rebuilding after burning their leads
Session #67: Ion torpedoed a fertilizer truck
Session #68: Hunters stop a bank heist
Session #69: Ministry for Redesign gets excuses
Session #70: Protect Moff from farm machinery
Session #71: Mouse droid bomb; children die
Session #72: Hunters watch televised pod races
Session #73: "He died in the war."
Session #74: Firefight during the fireworks display
Adventure #10: The Princess of the Vasts
Session #75: Interstellar Rescue Mission. Space Spiders.
Session #76: In space combat, suits leak.
Session #77: Clear the bridge with flamethrower.

 

[kenada]

Commentary for post #5093.

We only had about 45m or so for a prologue today. As I mentioned in post #52 of the “How do you like to start a campaign” thread, I rolled on the Seekers table and got:

Late at night in a warm tavern, you are all discussing your next move — but someone approaches you with reports of a terrible event!​

That’s not super exciting, but I can make it work. I read the entry then asked the first question: What were your plans?
They responded that they had come to Battenberg looking for Ancient ruins. Battenberg is a village just east of an outpost responsible for monitoring the border between the Amity Protectorate and the Neutral Territories. The land beyond the outpost is strange, looking like it’s dying. While the PCs were discussing their plans, a disheveled man burst into the tavern looking for help. He had been on a supply run to the outpost when it was attacked by monsters. There were many more oozes, cait siths, and dreadmoths than usual. They seemed to be coming from the direction of the outpost.

(What sudden obstacle bars your way? Monsters, clearly.)

The PCs responded to the man with a very important question: Do you know if there are any Ancient ruins nearby? The man was kind of baffled by the question. All he could say is that the people in the Outpost would know, and he could introduce the PCs if they helped him out. The party agreed and set out. Lorenzo pondered what he knew about cait siths and dreadmoths. The player rolled 【INS + INS】to make an open check. He did poorly for the cait siths but rolled well enough to know that dreadmoths are vulnerable to fire, which is great because he knew the Flare spell.

As the party set out, I cut away to a site with indicators of Ancient ruins. Water nearby rippled as a large, armored shark leapt out of it and started eating the monsters nearby as it flew around. (This was the first Villain introduced, since bosses should be Villains.) I showed the players its picture in the book, and they were like: holy crap!

(Did your enemies finally make a move? Maybe. We’ll have to see.)

I cut back to the players as they arrived at the remains of the supply run. There were bodies on the ground. The cait siths were playing with the head of one of the corpses. A dreadmoth was eating the food and then moved on to start eating the clothing supplies. The PCs were expecting more monsters (but I didn’t want to go too hard in their first because I’m still developing a feeling for how the system works in combat), so they were happy to attack. They won initiative and got to go first.

Knowing that the dreadmoth was vulnerable to fire, Lorenzo went first and blasted it with Flare. His damage before doubling was 31, which doubled to 62 fire damage due to its vulnerability. This was more than enough to kill it in one shot. One of the cait siths took notice. Its eyes started pulsing back and forth from red to blue as it tried to cast Heat Control on Lorenzo. Fortunately, it failed its magic check; but Bez was still able to learn the spell from it, which is how chimerists learn their magic. Curious, I asked him: Who taught you the art of Chimerism? He replied that it runs in the family, which has interesting implications for the royal family. Gan moved up to engage the cait sith that tried to cast a spell, smacking it good with his iron hammer. The round ended with the other cait sith trying to meow a blast of fire at Lorenzo, which Gan intercepted to Protect him; then Bez tried to Encourage Gan (which healed him and buffed his Might attribute).

The next round went by quickly. When we established goals at the start, I indicated that the dreadmoth was like to fight to the death, but the cait siths weren’t going to stay. The PCs just wanted to drive them off. The round started with Gan continuing to beat on the cait sith in front of him. When they got the chance, both of them took off. That ended the conflict with the PCs having gotten what they wanted. They spent a few moments burying the dead. I asked Gan: What do you think of religion? Are you part of a specific cult, church or institution? He replied that elves are usually naturalistic and animists, which is what he is too.

Our time was up, so we stopped there. Since the prologue is just part of an actual session, we’ll do XP and advancement at the end of the next one.

 

[Bagpuss]

Storybook character murders London's racists

I ran a Rivers of London scenario set during the post Brexit protests in 2016, I wrote which features a dead Nazi witch intentionally killed by wizard Nazi hunter, but the magic he unleashed goes on to murder more than the intended target and the Folly is called into to investigate.

 

[kenada]

Commentary for post #5263.

We started the second session with the PCs arriving at the outpost (a stone tower ~20m tall) with monsters besieging it. They saw several thornfish as well as some alraunes outside. The entrance was open, and it was hinted that there were more monsters inside. They could see people up top driving back thornfish that flew up too close. The PCs moved in to rescue the crew.

For our first session, I went easy on the PCs because I wasn’t quite sure of the combat system and because I was winging the encounter. This time I prepped a few things. I went with two thornfish (level 10) and two alraunes (level 5). This gave them a slight action economy advantage, which should make for a hard encounter, but the alrarunes were easy monsters, which I had hoped would balance things out. Inside the tower was another thornfish, a dreadmoth (level 5), and a couple of chaos shards (also level 5). These two encounters were meant to be separate.

Unlike the first time session, this fight went a lot longer. There was a lot of back and forth, and status effects were flying everywhere. Pretty much everyone had one or two. I did run the flying skill wrong. I should have had them stay out of melee range instead of putting them in melee range during their dive attack. I pointed this out after the fight, and I fixed it for next time. We also agreed to try the initiative-less rules, which seemed to go okay. They allowed the PCs to roll right into the fight instead of having to stop and make a fairly meaningless roll.

The second fight ended up harder than expected. While it was initially planned with only one thornfish, one of the fish from the first fight retreated inside. It was in Crisis (and thus couldn’t fly), but it was still able to do damage. One of the PCs got down to 1 HP (i.e., the best HP). Everyone was beat up pretty good. Since this tower was pretty tall, I indicated that you would need to take an encounter action to move up top, but anyone with ranged weapons could fire up (or down) without problem. Gan (the guardian/spiritist) did a lot of protecting in both fights.

Between the fights, the PCs spent some time healing up. IP were used on potions and elixirs. Gan also did some cleansing. After the fights, they decided they wanted to rest, but first they needed to talk to the people up top. Captain Flynn was grateful for their help. They were allowed to rest at the tower at no cost. When they talked to him about the ruins they were after, he asked if they were with the Royal Archaeologist. Cut to a Villain scene of bespectacled woman with brown hair and her crew trying to open warehouse doors in the Ancient Ruins.

Since Lorenzo (elementalist/loremaster) is an archaelogist, I asked him if he knew her. He did! She was came from a minor noble family and written an influential paper on using ancient relics as weapons. Huzzah! I was aiming for Lara Croft, and the player obliged me. (They were thinking Indiana Jones, but that was perfect.) Naturally, I couldn’t be too obvious, and her name is Celeste.

During the rest scene, the PCs talked to each other and established bonds. One of them had rolled a critical during one of the fights and spent the opportunity on a bond, but they all decided to create new bonds with each other. Gan talked about his duty towards Lorenzo, and Bez and Lorenzo talked about how they’d helped each other. After the rest, I did another GM scene to establish a clock for getting the warehouse door open. I wasn’t sure whether this should count as an extension of the previous scene or not, but I gave them the Fabula Point anyway.

The next day, they set out towards the ruins. I treated it as a Very High risk travel roll, but I didn’t get a discovery or danger. I rolled a 3 on a d20. Along the way, I asked Lorenzo if he’d been in any ancient ruins before. He said he had. The walls tend to be decorated with ancient script and glowing. They’re metallic. (The ancients were high tech. Yay!) I had prepped some details for the ruins, but I kept them light. Like there’s an elevator, but the mechanism is non-specific. Ropes? Technology? Well, I guess it’s technology.

For the ruins themselves, I ran them as dungeon scenes. It wasn’t really worth breaking it down into detailed exploration, and I didn’t really have the energy to build out a dungeon like that anyway. The first obstacle was dealing with the elevator. The ruins themselves were set up as a tall shaft with water at the bottom. There were three sub-levels with various rooms. Naturally, there were chests with treasure too. (This proved to be a problem when I realized I gave out cool items no one could use because no one in the party has classes that can use martial weapons. Whoops.)

Lorenzo went to work on the controls. They were deactivated. The party wanted to take the elevator down instead of using the stairs. This was going to chew up time, so I ticked the clock for the progress opening the door. While Lorenzo worked, Gan kept an eye out for the thornshark I showed in a GM scene in the prior session. This was a good idea because now it was time for an elevator fight.

As the party took the elevator down, the thornshark flew down and started attacking them on the elevator. I gave it a routine that it would disable the elevator and then try to ocean jet and thorn dive them. (In retrospect, I should have made the dive bite conditional on a successful ocean jet). Since the thornshark was flying, this was a problem because most of the party do not have ranged weapons. They can’t hit it! However, flying creatures have a weakeness. If they take damage of a type with a Vulnerable affinity, it grounds them until the end of the turn. Lorenzo used Scan and his loremaster abilities to figure out that the thornshark was vulnerable to bolt damage. No one has bolt, but that’s okay because you can spend 2 IP to produce an Elemental Shard that deals elemental damage. Bez used that knock the thornshark out of the air, and Gan wailed on it. Also, Lorenzo’s flare ignores Resistance, so he blew it up good.

After a few rounds, the thornshark was in Crisis. It spent its second Ultima Point (the first being on a reroll) to dive off the platform into the water to make an escape.

The party got off after that and started looking around. They saw Celeste’s crew getting a submersible ready, but they also saw a dangerous patrol on one of the lower levels. This was a pair of Magitech Troopers and an Iron Soldier (from the Bestiary Vol. I). Celeste must have snuck her crew past it because they were still patrolling. They found another treasure chest. The first had some IP in it. This one had IP and a Revolver Artisan’s Mallet. (They may be fighting constructs, so at least it may come in handy.)

The floor below them has a crane for moving cargo. They are tempted to use it, but they decide to sneak down the stairs and past the patrol instead of risking a fight. This is going to add another tick to the warehouse clock with the consequence on failure being a choice between staying to fight (burning another tick and filling the clock) or potentially pulling both into a really dangerous situation. Fortunately, they succeeded in a group check with Bez leading. They made their way down to the last sublevel by taking the stairs. The looted the last chest (some IP and zenit), and that’s where we stopped.

They’ve got a few ideas of what to do with Celeste and her crew. There are some assistances a several mercenaries guarding things and carrying a case out of the warehouse. They’ve contemplated just stealing the submersible as well as starting a big fight with everyone and the patrol as well. I think they’ve even pondered whether they can get the thornshark involved again.