Bill Zebub
“It’s probably Matt Mercer’s fault.”
I ran a short session of FTD for two 7th graders. They are homeschoolers (family friends) to whom I teach coding and math. They have asked me several times to teach them D&D, and we finally got around to it. I chose FTD both because I've been wanting to try it, and because it seemed like we could accomplish more in our 90 minutes. With D&D I would have provided pre-gens, but character creation is such a core part of the RPG experience, IMO.
Rolling 3d6 in order (S,D,Cn,I,W,Ch) one of them rolled above average stats, with a single 7, and went with Zealot. The other one rolled...I swear...17, 6, 4, 18, and then two other average scores I don't remember. In FDT you are allowed one swap, so he swapped Int with Con and built a big, dumb, clumsy brute of a Warrior.
I explained how normally they would explore a village, talk to NPCs, hear rumors, and start out on an adventure, but in the interest of time I summarized them and put them at the entrance of a barrow with a recently-collapsed barrow. I described how rubble from the collapsed door slap had fallen onto the steps leading down into darkness. (This was meant purely as an evocative details, but became unexpectedly significant.)
They used the Zealot's "illuminate" spell for light. It's basically D&D light, but with concentration. FTD concentration is more fragile than D&D concentration: "Taking damage, making checks, or other distracting tasks break concentration."
In the first chamber there were skeletons splayed on the floor, and even having never played any RPG they were suspicious of this. We talked through how concentration works and what would happen in a fight, so they lit a torch and the Warrior carried his pole axe in one hand and torch in the other, reasoning he could drop it on the floor and use both hands on his axe if necessary.
And, no surprise, it was necessary. Knowing that FTD is more deadly than D&D, but not being familiar with the particulars, I had 3 skeletons come to life. It was over in just two rounds, with the Warrior at 6/10 health and the Zealot at 5/6. (It wasn't clear to me if monsters are supposed to add their ability modifiers to damage, so I went with straight 1d8.)
The Zealot used his healing spell on the warrior. One thing I think I like, but want to see how it plays out, is that you have to make an ability check to cast a spell. As long as you succeed you can keep casting all day long, but if you fail you suffer some mishap and you can't cast spells of that level again until you rest. Anyway, he succeeded and topped off the Warrior, but opted not to risk it again for his single HP.
The next hallway had another skeleton, this one with an iron spike/bolt/arrow thing through the side of its skull. They totally did NOT get that telegraph, but assumed it was another skeleton that would come to life. They threw a skull from the last fight at this skeleton, so I had the skull bounce and hit a pressure plate that fired a bolt. At that point they understood and started trying to figure out how to get down the hall.
What happened next was why I love RPGs. They thought of a really great solution I hadn't considered: they went back to the entrance and retrieved the largest pieces of the broken door and basically built stepping stones the length of the hallway. Awesome!
In our final minutes, they entered the "final" chamber:
Overall FTD was very easy to set up and start running with total beginners. One aspect to the rules we glossed over was Supplies. I get how it works, having dealt with many systems, but it's kind of abstract and confused them when I described it. Since it was a short one-shot I didn't worry about. But I do want to use it because I like how it incorporates "load out" without turning it into a detailed clerical exercise.
I think we'll probably continue this one-shot at some point. I'll come post again when we do.
Rolling 3d6 in order (S,D,Cn,I,W,Ch) one of them rolled above average stats, with a single 7, and went with Zealot. The other one rolled...I swear...17, 6, 4, 18, and then two other average scores I don't remember. In FDT you are allowed one swap, so he swapped Int with Con and built a big, dumb, clumsy brute of a Warrior.
I explained how normally they would explore a village, talk to NPCs, hear rumors, and start out on an adventure, but in the interest of time I summarized them and put them at the entrance of a barrow with a recently-collapsed barrow. I described how rubble from the collapsed door slap had fallen onto the steps leading down into darkness. (This was meant purely as an evocative details, but became unexpectedly significant.)
They used the Zealot's "illuminate" spell for light. It's basically D&D light, but with concentration. FTD concentration is more fragile than D&D concentration: "Taking damage, making checks, or other distracting tasks break concentration."
In the first chamber there were skeletons splayed on the floor, and even having never played any RPG they were suspicious of this. We talked through how concentration works and what would happen in a fight, so they lit a torch and the Warrior carried his pole axe in one hand and torch in the other, reasoning he could drop it on the floor and use both hands on his axe if necessary.
And, no surprise, it was necessary. Knowing that FTD is more deadly than D&D, but not being familiar with the particulars, I had 3 skeletons come to life. It was over in just two rounds, with the Warrior at 6/10 health and the Zealot at 5/6. (It wasn't clear to me if monsters are supposed to add their ability modifiers to damage, so I went with straight 1d8.)
The Zealot used his healing spell on the warrior. One thing I think I like, but want to see how it plays out, is that you have to make an ability check to cast a spell. As long as you succeed you can keep casting all day long, but if you fail you suffer some mishap and you can't cast spells of that level again until you rest. Anyway, he succeeded and topped off the Warrior, but opted not to risk it again for his single HP.
The next hallway had another skeleton, this one with an iron spike/bolt/arrow thing through the side of its skull. They totally did NOT get that telegraph, but assumed it was another skeleton that would come to life. They threw a skull from the last fight at this skeleton, so I had the skull bounce and hit a pressure plate that fired a bolt. At that point they understood and started trying to figure out how to get down the hall.
What happened next was why I love RPGs. They thought of a really great solution I hadn't considered: they went back to the entrance and retrieved the largest pieces of the broken door and basically built stepping stones the length of the hallway. Awesome!
In our final minutes, they entered the "final" chamber:
- The warrior smashed all the urns around the room, mostly finding dust, ancient grains, residue from long vanished liquids, and the like, but one urn had coins.
- They discovered an area of the wall that looked weak, as if there might be something beyond.
- The obligatory sarcophagus in the middle of the room: we ended with them grabbing the sword (of course) and the thing waking up (of course). It's so fun to introduce new players to the game so you can use all the tired tropes.
Overall FTD was very easy to set up and start running with total beginners. One aspect to the rules we glossed over was Supplies. I get how it works, having dealt with many systems, but it's kind of abstract and confused them when I described it. Since it was a short one-shot I didn't worry about. But I do want to use it because I like how it incorporates "load out" without turning it into a detailed clerical exercise.
I think we'll probably continue this one-shot at some point. I'll come post again when we do.
