NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ovinomancer" data-source="post: 7974701" data-attributes="member: 16814">I did a very different thing from usual last night.  I run via roll20, and enjoy maps for D&D because my players enjoy the tactical minigame.  However, my game last night centered on a pit-fight championship bout, where pit-fighting is usually handled as a down-time activity (houseruled expansions to downtime), so I wasn't sure how to get the cinematic quality of the streamlined rules into the nitty-gritty of the combat engine.  Plus, the championship bout was also a draw to bring a wanted criminal the party had already failed to capture out to play, because the opponent in the bout was a compatriot of the criminal.  This meant a lot of skullduggery and openness to how the party located the criminal and attempted to apprehend him.  Further, being a criminal at a major city event, there wasn't a chance that a scheme wasn't afoot to complicate the entire situation.  So, what to do?  Well, I abandoned the idea of maps and adopted a much more freeform approach to everything.  The championship bout was handled like an expanded version of my downtime event, meaning mostly skill check options and cinematic stages, so no hp tracking, just points toward victory or defeat.  The PC only rolls here, but failure let me dictate the opponent's success.  As for everything else, I put up some images to form a rough 'idea' map of the area -- a tavern/bar attached to the arena, the stands, the offices, the 'locker room', box/VIP seating, and the Pit.  PCs moved between these areas as they acted.  Turns out I also needed an "outside the entrance" and "nearby alley" as the game went on, but these ended up as simple boxes with labels.  Play went smashingly.  The PC contestant spent time in the offices talking up the manager (unoriginally named Vince Wight), and in the locker room, vying for psych advantage with his opponent.  A poisoning plot was foiled when the opponent offered a drink, following the Man In Black formula of both drinks being poisoned.  The rest of the party noted the start of that plot -- the handoff of the antidote -- but didn't know enough to stop it.  Instead, the PC contestant, already a brash and foolhardy character, accidentally foiled the plot by refusing the toast (which cost him jeering by the other pit-fighters for being scared of a little drink -- he failed his attempt to turn the toast offer back on his opponent) and then stealing the drink with the antidote in a petty bit of revenge for being made to look bad for the toast.  Totally awesomesauce.The upstairs crew located and kept a watch on the criminal and his gang, who were acting oddly.  This was because they 1) weren't looking for a few bounty hunters that they beat up months ago and never thought of again, and 2) were actually there to rob the box office take during the championship bout!  The upstairs PCs managed to thwart a rushed attempt to procure more antidote after the first delivery failed, finally cluing into the plot with a timely read lips.  They then ended up splitting the party -- against an agreement not to as splitting the party cost them the first attempted capture -- with the wizard going down to the locker room invisibly (using excellent portent rolls to avoid being bumped into in crowed passaged), the cleric getting a private box to watch the criminal (who also had one), and the ranger going outside to watch for the returning minion bringing more antidote to mug him and relieve him of it.  All of this worked well, except the cleric lost track of the criminal when he slipped out to start the heist.  Confusion ensued until a bar fight was started by the ranger to get past the look-out thugs left to watch the entrances to the offices (where the heist was happening) and the main event got underway, but with a poisoned competitor making the fight much easier than otherwise (the pit-fighter PC still didn't know about the poison plot, so this was roleplayed very amusingly).  This ended with a confrontation in the locker room (which was the exit strategy for the theives) with a released hezrou to cause confusion, the fight still happening, and spells and whatnot flying in the confusion of pit-fighters and staff.  Truly fun.  And, at the end (which was fortitous), the pit fight ended right as the locker room fight did, and the now victorious pit champion burst into the locker room, saw his friends standing over the criminal with bags of coin spilled around and total confusion, and loudly said, "DID YOU SEE THAT FIGHT?!!!"  Of course, they had not.</blockquote>

Verification