DiceJar Campaign 0.3: Holes, Doors, and Blood (2020/03/13)
Finally killed my first PC as a GM!
Yup… Wasn’t intentional but… well, dice made things interesting, so I have to work with it.
We also didn’t have our rogue, which is unfortunate as she’s an enjoyable member, and also there were a lot of traps and locks this time.
The content went through almost the remainder of what was prepared for the previous session. I’d like to get through the content a little faster so the group can move on to actual role-play opportunities, instead of dungeon crawling. It’s an unfortunate result of my experimental Game Mastering a Module, and I’ll likely try and stick to homebrew in the future.
Or, at least, look for modules with more emphasis on socializing.
I did a medium job preparing this session. I got complacent and let the session slip far to the back of my mind leading up. I found my sweet spot session 2, so I need to keep that standard.
Cast
Mogui (IndigoDie): Druid. Does what he’s told by his employer. Indigo has played this module before.
Yot (LimeDie): Cleric. Looking to redeem himself for past failures. Lime will commit to bits.
Bernard 'Bean' Dipp (NavyDie): Ranger. Trying his best despite being so young. Navy doodles when he’s bored.
Delilah Dunford (VermilionDie): Rogue. Searching for an identity beyond her family. Vermilion could not make this session.
Game Master (SepiaDie/me): The world (a dusty, dusty world). The walls probably have stories to tell. I’m desperately trying to keep ahead with drawing the map.
Session Three
We reopen in the loot room we ended in the last session. Navy is given his rewards and I expound on the uses of the various items they received.
Now given the opportunity to read his letter, Navy delays long enough to wonder if he’s chosen to make Bean illiterate, but eventually he takes to giving the description: his mother wrote it, opening with a joke, and giving random updates about life in town despite the letter needing to have been placed before the arrival of the party, but it’s an opportunity for the players to expound on their families, so maybe his mother is a little airheaded?
The letter canonizes a High School which has a football team and a glee club. Will anything come of it? Probably not. Did I say with a sigh ‘Guess that’s canon now…’? You bet I did! Always say yes! Improv!
The party headed back into the room with the pool, tested the other door to find it locked, and moved towards the wailing.
The chamber to the East of the entrance contained several walls crisscrossing. A door stood locked to the south. The puzzle of this room is walking around various hidden pit traps while finding three switches that must be held down at the same time to unlock the exit. I originally ruled the switches take a few minutes to reset so the party can run to get to the door, but then I remembered Delilah is technically still there, so I reverted it to operate as written.
Bean and Yot both took turns falling in holes as Mogui moved around cautiously and managed to jump clear of the one pit he did accidentally trigger.
The three maneuvered around the chamber until they found the necessary switches, activated them, and Delilah held open the door so they could get through.
Walking through the next hallway, they finally reached the door for the room from whence the wailing was emitting.
They all decide to ignore it.
Which means they’ve skipped some plot exposition. Oh well, keep rolling and adapt.
Instead, they go down a fork and into an empty room, which formerly held a giant beetle, but I cut that combat as being wholly unnecessary. Instead, our party continues through into the next chamber, which has a fight I did not cut, as I thought it would have narrative value.
A fire pit smolders in the center of the room, a charred corpse within. Upon the arrival of our party, a dark apparition arises and squares up to fight our heroes.
Bean had acquired an Oil of Magic Weapon, granting his bow Plus-One Status, and rendering it a magic attack, so he’s able to harm the shadow.
Yot, meanwhile, uses Holy Flame. Fun fact about our apparition: it was born because a pyrophobic man burned alive in a structure already pretty rife with necromantic energies. That terror and agony was all it took to create the shadow.
So the enemy is real mad at being set on fire, sending out psionic screams for flavor.
Mogui just watches the fight.
After a few rounds of Magic Bow and holy flames, the Shadow perishes. Victory music for everybody!
The party leaves the room, continues to ignore the terrified wails, and enters the last available door.
Within is a round, domed room, with a wooden pillar, standing on an outcrop over a pit at the center of the room, that fires blunted arrows. This is felt to be rather unpleasant, and the party discusses how to deal with it.
Eventually, they check out the door, and find a mechanism built into it.[1] The party attempts to break the mechanism.
Bean then enters, and is pelted by blunt arrows. He walks around and tries to open a southern exit, finding it to be locked, so Bean attempts to approach the trap. Unfortunately, he takes enough nonlethal damage to get knocked out. Whoops.
After waiting for the mechanical whirring to stop, the other two call after Bean, receiving no response. So they cautiously enter.
The trap is now docile. And the southern door is unlocked.
So, what happened here, by the text of the module, is that the trap keeps running for ten rounds, at which time it’ll be exhausted of arrows, and the south exit will automatically unlock. The hope was the party would take the tower shields from the wood golem of last session to block the arrows.
Because of how they broke the activating mechanism (as they snapped off the metal arm in the door hinge that turned the machine off and on), I decided that now once it turned on, it couldn’t turn off. So after Bean was knocked out, the trap kept running until it ran out of rounds.
Don’t ask how the trap’s supposed to keep pelting adventurers inside the chamber after the door closes. Magic I guess.
Stop asking how traps work.
Mogui investigated the south exit while Yot checked on Bean. The door was, of course, unlocked, to the annoyance of Navy, and Yot was taking his sweet time healing Bean, but soon the party was on their feet again and ready for whatever came next.
The final room of the floor widened as it went, the ceiling supported by four columns. Stairs to the south lead to the… basement? Second basement? The crypt’s already underground, so what terminology applies here, I’m not…
Also, there’s two statues in recesses of the south wall. The Module text doesn’t call any attention to them, but they’re probably Kassen.
Our heroes enter this room, get to approximately the middle of the room, and four skeletons, with talon-like clawed fingers and blood dripping from their bones, step out from behind the columns, and menace the heroes.
Combat begins.
As does a series of horrible rolls from both parties. Just a lot of do-nothing turns. Yot tries to bash the skeletons and misses, Bean fires arrows and the closest he got sent the arrow through the ribcage of one skeleton. The skeletons weren’t faring much better, three of them crit fumbling at some point, which I interpreted them as falling prone for a turn.
The rolls were so bad I gently reminded my party that I set up a dice-roll bot in the Discord channel, if they wanted to put Roll20’s die-roller into dice prison. They didn’t go for it.
Back and forth the combat went, the skeletons getting a couple lucky hits on Bean. Eventually, and tragically, those lucky hits added up and Bean hit zero. Navy started making Death Saves, a realm where the exhaustingly low rolls followed and brought him to his death.
NavyDie then spent the rest of the combat doodling an increasingly elaborate death scene, with grave stone, candles, what was either a pentagram or an alchemy circle,[2] and death himself. Whatever self-amusement was needed.
As a narrative-first GM, Player Characters dying in combat is not something I enjoy. I am now in an awkward position of needing to figure out how to proceed and keep Navy involved. If he still wishes to play, of course. A couple options immediately spring to mind: bringing in a new character will be narratively awkward at this point, as we need to justify why the ignorant town would send back up, or why a kid is running so late; there’s an available NPC I could give Navy, but he’d be an odd (but doable) add; or, and this is an idea I like most, I can bring Bean back for a price…[3]
But I need to talk it through with NavyDie first.
Back to those still alive.
Mogui maneuvers to keep a safe distance, eventually coaxing one of the four skeletons back to the previous room, running a circle and returning to the main combat room, closing the door behind him. I rolled a die to determine the nature of the skeletons, and concluded they’re running on animalistic instinct, and thus can’t operate a door.
Also, this cuts down on enemies to delay the fight and rewards IndigoDie for clever problem solving.
Yot, growing tired of not hitting with his Mace, starts using Holy Flame again, forcing the Skeletons to use the horrible dice rolls to avoid damage instead of Yot using the same rolls to cause damage. Progress starts to get made.
Mogui turns into a tiger and starts running about and attempting to hit the skeletons, but still no luck.
There’s also some talk about how the skeletons aren’t taking attacks of opportunity, which had a very elegant explanation: I totally forgot about that mechanic, and I also just plain hate attacks of opportunity. They feel cheap and punish players for not carefully considering every minutiae of their actions.[4]
Eventually, the skeletons are finally either redead, or trapped in another room.
With one dead, the remaining three party members stare towards the stairs to the next floor. As the only escape is to fight the skeleton in the previous room, they mostly consider what difficulty they’re prepared to face.
Of the three sessions played thus far, this one felt of middle quality. I forgot to read my opening crawl text, and I waited until the last minute to write notes for the remainder of the floor (after copying over the leftovers from session two). Neither the combat with the Shadow (where I forgot to implement the smoke in the eyes mechanic the module wanted me to) or the Bloody Skeletons (with horrible dice rolls)[5] felt particularly fun or worthwhile. I’ll probably look to cut more superfluous fights going forward.
I’m also looking forward to moving out of the dungeon. I am learning a lot, as was my goal with running this module, but I’m missing being able to Role-Play as GM.[6] I’m certainly learning to answer questions the text didn’t bother to address, and also how annoying module formatting can be with where it explains things.
When I find time, I should sit down and design a dungeon of my own. That would also be a good learning experience, and also let me feel more at ease with making world-based rulings on the fly and implement elements I like and minimize those I don’t.
There’s just so much combat and map-based traps written in this thing. Makes it too difficult to abstract out the traps and rely on theater of the mind.
Most important take away: Attacks of Opportunity are dumb, and I hereby houserule them away.
I’ve already set things in motion for fun plot developments after this session’s events and feedback received, and hopefully the next write-up will come in about two weeks.
Until next time, may your dice make things interesting.[8]
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[1] The party is really interested in the actual mechanics of these traps, which the module doesn’t explain, forcing their poor GM to try and reverse engineer it, and maybe I need to start shrugging and saying ‘I dunno, magic I guess.’
[2] Which is a good way to lose a sibling.
[3] Just sent Navy a text asking if he’d like a level of Warlock. This could be fun.
[4] Also, my experience with another player exploiting the mechanic to attempt to kill me.
[5] Though based on his recap, IndigoDie enjoyed the combat for the bad rolls? Interesting guy. It felt like a bad joke that kept repeating to me, and I failed to improvise an Out for those involved.
[6] Especially since Indigo sidestepped the opportunity I did have![7]
[7] Whatever. Gives me time to give the man a less stupid name.
[8] Despite working it into the opening, this sign off still doesn’t sit right. Feels too long… Magazines have little icons to mark the end. Maybe I should do the same?
DiceJar Campaign 0.2: ‘It sticks its nonexistent tongue out at you.’ (2020/01/31)
Shorter session this week, and also down a NavyDie due to work and him being a boring adult.
The section of the module I had prepared has four combat encounters, only one I could reasonably cut. I was trying to think of some way to abstract one down, since even two combats is a stretch.
Fortunately, we only got through half of the material I planned, so the third can be saved next time, with only one other fight left on the current floor (and I might be able to cut that one).
I also felt a lot less stressed this time. Players taking an active interest in when the session was happening, actually getting a second session, and having notes prepared put me in a better mindset. So that's a good thing to know about myself!
Probably need to come up with a team name. Probably should ask the players to devise one.
Cast
Mogui (IndigoDie): Druid. Sponsored by Lord Grey to go on this rite of passage. Indigo is an old pal from High School.
Yot (LimeDie): Cleric. Mercenary that finds himself in Kassen often. Lime is a newer pal from an Improv Club.
Delilah Dunford (VermilionDie): Rogue. Daughter of nobles, volunteered for this mission by her butler. Vermilion is someone I knew during high school, but the age of our pal-ness is vaguely defined.
Bernard 'Bean' Dipp (NavyDie): Ranger(?). Young man forced to grow up quickly in light of his father's affliction. Navy is an Improv pal, and was also absent this session.
Game Master (SepiaDie/me): Environment (mostly skeletons). Dungeon is a crypt where something spooky might be happening. Sepia is me, and thus probably my greatest enemy.
Session Two
I opened with two quick prose bits that Lime described as ‘Loading Screen’ text. Which is accurate, I suppose. Both were from travel guides, one formal, the other what I intend to be my Hitchhiker’s guide. It’s a fun narrative device I picked up from Dice Friends[1]: in-setting exposition and world building.
The party starts where they left off: standing outside the crypt, looking at some dead horses.
Delilah investigates the saddlebags, identifying the maker mark of the town leather worker, Mr. Shepherd, a pleasant if quiet elf man.[2] The bags contain blunt arrows, travel rations, and two pillows. Curious.
The party enters the dungeon proper, and I have to actually use the Roll20 application for more than doodling[3] and tracking relative locations.
In the first room is two fresh corpses, two heavily broken skeletons, and six less-broken skeletons.
The fresh bodies are two friends of Kassen’s mayor. What a tragedy. Why are they here, though?
Six skeletons rise up to fight the interlopers. Combat begins!
I think the fight went well. Three players kept a fair clip as compared to, say, seven to eight. Six skeletons focused on just attacking whoever is closest or draws their aggression. The skeletons have low health, so they were dispatched quickly. As a GM, the fight didn't feel like it dragged.
Skeletons now rendered dead, again, our heroes are now able to take a breath and take in the scene. A mural of Kassen driving off a horde of enemies decorates the opposite wall,[4] a reasonable amount of dust coats the various surfaces, and a wailing echoes through the hallowed halls.
I failed to indicate the direction the wailing was coming from (the southeast exit), so the party elected to do the logical thing and go through the northwest door.
This room held a pool of water, fed by a fountain depicting a woman crying over a dying Kassen. Kassen’s head had worn off, however, a detail to concern the players with its possible meaning.
A voice Booms ‘Magic is the Key’.
At the bottom of the forty foot deep pool lays hundreds of keys. A tough, complicated puzzle to…
Yot cast light on a pebble, dove in, and cast Detect Magic.[5] One of the keys is radiating magic. The module didn’t say what type of magic it was, so I just shrugged at clarifying questions and admitted it didn’t really matter.[6]
The key unlocks one of the doors in the room, which leads to a hall flanked on either side by statues of Kassen holding swords. The utter dedication to this one guy is starting to get a little silly. Surely there were other members of his mercenary band that… might deserve…
Anyways, ignoring the fun change to the narrative I could make,[7] the party progresses and accidentally steps on a pressure plate, which drops the swords onto… mostly just Delilah, who was leading the way, the other two standing in the gaps between the statues.[8] Luckily, the trap has to be manually reset, so they can just use acrobatics checks to pass now that the swords are down.
Next room: multilevel chamber, with a giant statue standing before them, holding two shields, one reading ‘Home’ and the other ‘Family’.
And yes, the statue is of Kassen. So much Kassen decoration. So many tax dollars wasted on glorifying a founder in a location most people would never visit, with the Mayor being the only one confirmed to visit more than once in his life. They could’ve used the upkeep costs on fixing potholes, or making a park, or expanding Kassen.
The nice thing about being a Game Master is you can address such fridge logic.
Mogui descends the stairs to the lower level first, activating a wood golem! It steps off a pressure plate, which turns the stairs into a slope.
Initiative is rolled, and the wooden golem crits on Mogui, knocking him into death save territory. Whoops.
Yot follows him down, slipping on the slope and landing prone. Delilah prepares a rope down before shooting the enemy with her bow. Critical failure. She throws herself off balance and slides down to the lower level.[9]
Yot attempts to battle the wood golem, ignoring his companion rolling dice to not die right next to him. Meanwhile, Delilah climbs onto the wood golem in a sneak attack. While up there, she spots an odd keyhole on the back of its neck.
Luckily, she just happened to have a magic key. Which she uses to turn off the boss fight, causing it to move back to its podium and restore the stairs to a usable state.
Mogui is also healed to standing.
Were it not for the golem scoring two (2!) critical hits on my players, I’d say it was a pretty good fight design. The room had levels, lending interesting positioning options, the puzzle of the staircase-to-ramp mechanism, and despite the golem having high hit points for the player’s level, it also had a discoverable ‘off switch’ to give more of a puzzler solution. Fights are better when designed as puzzles instead of a series of dice rolls.
Puzzle design can be hard, though. However, combat might also be a case of a little work going a long way to just make the mechanical showcase more interesting.
This session held one straight fight, a puzzle, then a puzzle-fight. It felt like a good session composition, though it would have been nice to have some role-playing.
Oh wait. I’m in charge here.
The party takes a moment to take a breath. They decide they need a break. Their GM sits, knowing the door they’re standing right next to goes to the prize room. They just need to… go in…
Instead, the party backtracks to the fountain-and-keys room for a short rest.
Maybe I’m not as in charge here as I’d hoped.
As players start asking for an end of the session, I play the ‘We’re so close to a big moment’ card, and gently tell them to go through that door.
Now, the module as written has the party enter the room to find a masterwork weapon[10] or other item, and a potion for each party member, and a note saying how proud their families are. A gift from the community for their new adults. Nice, but lacks a certain punch.
So, I give them their potions and non-masterwork items. Because usable loot is good to have. But you know what’s rarely utilized? Trinkets! Things with no mechanical value at all!
So Mogui, whose player I workshopped with for this specific moment,[11] found a Family Tree prepared for him by his employer, Lord Grey. I also took the note of pride and turned it into a letter from Lord Grey. Then I made Indigo tell me what the letter says.[12] Mogui was sent to work for Lord Grey in exchange for his family receiving a noble title, and this family tree was the needed evidence for his family to claim their title. The letter essentially thanked him for his service and Lord Grey’s pride in having him.
Next was Yot. He didn’t have family in town, so how do I work him into this? Well, honorary adoption, of course. The widows and mothers of Kassen have knitted him winter clothes like a hat, socks, and gloves.[13] The starter I gave for his letter was small notes from the community thanking him for his help. When I turned Lime loose, he wanted to add indictments from loved ones he let die in the field. And, as important as it is for a GM not to invalidate player choices, it’s important for the GM and player to workshop. Because such things wouldn’t have reasonably gotten on that table, instead I suggested that they were forgivenesses for those deaths, which Yot nevertheless took hard.
The final present party member, Delilah, received two gold coins from her parents and a bag of her favorite sweets from her butler. I just dictated the parent’s letter as them just giving her her allowance, not fully understanding what their daughter volunteered for. Her butler’s letter, however, I let Vermilion handle. She turned it into an apology for fibbing about how involved her parents were in allowing her to join this rite of passage mission, but he is proud of her, and hopes she enjoys the candy.
For Bean, who was following behind but was likely too scared to be of any help this session,[15] there was a hand carved figurine of a dog, made by his father, as well as a letter from the same. I’ll have Navy get his fair moment to do his letter.[16]
Thus ends the session.
I felt more confident leading this session, and the actual contents felt meatier than just travelling to the crypt. I’ve started adding my own material, and no one’s told me they’re unsatisfied,[17] so let’s call it a successful session!
Actually combatting my nature and making a point-by-point break down on what happens in each room and how it works went a long way to keeping me confident and cool. I don’t need to impress anyone. And I put in good work.
I was especially proud of the trinkets. I feel like the players engaged with them, it provided a chance to trick the players into exposition, and it was a role-playing moment. Every session is better when you write open ended chances to role-play.
The actual walking through the dungeon and traps still needs work, though. Certain traps activate when a player steps on a certain space, and I’m still struggling with how to perform trapfinding checks without making everyone cautious. Making players check every space with a check would get tedious, doing a check behind my screen on behalf of a player feels blasphemous as players should roll their own dice, and just having them doing it once they enter the room just feels narratively disconnected. I’ll need to think on that hall with swords and statues.
Also figure out what happened to fountain Kassen’s head.
And on why there’s just… so much Kassen around the place.
Anyways, I had fun with it. The session got a puzzle and a half, a combat and a half, skill checks, and roleplaying! Getting better as a GM! I feel it!
Now to achieve a session good enough it fills my players to yearn to talk to me about it outside of the session! The after session decompression and discussion was always my favorite times during the high school games.
I have a patreon and ko-fi if you wish to support me. Financial support will set me on my path to an actual play show and making a living writing and creating.
Until next time, may your dice make things interesting.[19]
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[1]Specifically Kathleen DeVere’s Bylaws and Order and Cameron Lauder’s After the Flood campaigns. I look forward to having a go-to newspaper to reference like Kathleen’s.
[2] I don't recall if I ever gave Trix's father a first name, but this is he. Trix is in Kassen somewhere.
[3] Advice: maintain a separate page to play around with. Wards away graffiti on the actual map, and gives you a landing page to transition into the game time mindspace.
[4] Presumably in a similar manner to Martin the Warrior's tapestry.
[5] Which he probably shouldn’t be able to do while holding his breath, but also making him get out, cast the spell, then dive back in is nitpicking.
[6] Yot can worry about getting cancer from diving into a reactor cooler later.
[7] Unless, in the incredibly likely event I just forget, I don’t implement this.
[8] Should’ve alternated the placement of statues so every square has one. So everyone has an equal chance at pain.
[9] Is it possible that the party is just so bad with declines that I can retroactively justify messing up on the hill during session one? Maybe. Maybe.
[10] Non-existent in Fifth Edition.
[11] I couldn’t come up with an obvious prize, so I just asked. Benefit of experience playing with the guy and trust that he won’t cheat.
[12] I would’ve made Navy go first were he there, since Navy has both my trust and improv experience to set a good example.
[13] Ms. Shepherd didn’t finish her scarf in time, since it took a bit to source the wool from her family’s flock.[14]
[14] I really need to play Trix again…
[15] Navy can get final say on justification.
[16] The ideal sequence would’ve been experienced improv person who’s trinket I’m confident in, then the player who I had dictate his trinket, then the improv player with the shakier trinket, then the player who I’m new to playing with. Turns out that last one knocked it out of the park, which is affirming.
[17] Outside one player’s continuing dislike of D&D. I’ll probably do GURPS for the next one. Unless I need to punish everyone. In which case, Maid RPG.[18]
[18] Actually, on a serious note, if you can look past the… tone and anime-ness of everything else, Maid RPG has a mechanic that would be a great tool to understand the shut-downs of Autustic Students. If there was literally any way I could pitch that to my higher-ups at work.
[19] Confession: still not completely sold on this sign-off, but Kataal kataal isn’t for this context.
And so, for possibly the first time ever, I got a session two in a campaign! New high score! Woo-hoo!
Also, got to redo an adventure I ran for the old High School crew. Updated it slightly, added a puzzle, changed the final encounter, added a pair of magic items.
Don’t think I have any sort of RPG Life updates. Working on various other projects off and on. Started watching a new Netflix original series that redoubles a plot point later in this campaign.
Added a fourth party member. Which I think I’m going to lock down on. The games I’ve been involved with always had a problem of having a large number of players, so I think I want to try for the classic four-person ensemble.
Hope they’re having fun. Doubt plagues me, but they’re not whining to me, so it’s probably fine? It’s still clear I need to continue practicing GMing, and I’ve noticed I’ve been stuttering and having difficulty pronouncing words. That will all need to be improved before we move on to the podcast phase.
Now, for the second part of Tales of Genius![1]
CAST
Eli Roberts: (Played by Lyons) Child of Clio. Doctor, travelling to write a medical text akin to Gray’s Anatomy. He’s an Intellect!
Olivia Grayson: (Played by Maddie) Child of Thalia. Apprentice to Eli. Believes her Squirrel-raccoon companion is her boyfriend reincarnated.
Fromthe: (Played by Jose) Child of Calliope. Military veteran and current mercenary. Also has some mercantile ambitions.
Jean De Ferrero: (Played by Anthony) Child of Terpsichore. Travelling con artist.
Quick exposition:
So, that whole “Child of…” thing is part of my world’s lore. About nineteen hundred years ago, nine sisters travelled the world and founded nine schools of philosophy and nine separate cultures that populate the world. The only solid marker for the tribes is eye color. White/Light grey for Clio. Yellow for Thalia. Orange for Calliope. Green for Terpsichore. Others for the other tribes as they’re introduced.
The sisters are named after the Greek Muses.
And, so, onto our tale.
DATE: Late Winter 1911
PLACE: THE TINES (Mountain border of Astree and Hervar)
We open back up on North Fort. Food supplies are running even lower, especially since a good chunk of it has been poisoned. The mayor has decided to send those clever adventurers to try and find an alternate path out of town,[2] plus this nice Jean fellow who speaks highly of his own conquests.[3]
After some brainstorming while I was busy making curry,[4] the mayor mentioned the town crypts, which are a small network of caves some distance from town. There’s an iron door there which no one has explored past, because there’s a bunch of warning symbols on it, so better just stick the dead in there until claimed. But, well, it’s something?
The party heads to the crypt, as I couldn’t be bothered to force any scene work in the town. Would’ve been nice to establish the mixed critters of the setting, but I’m bad at following even my own notes, and I didn’t really have any cause to delay them.
In the crypts, they discovered a small band of Saber-toothed foxes.
Olivia tried to befriend the foxes using the cheese from the rations North Fort gave her, but the foxes weren’t satisfied, and unhappy with the intrusion. So combat despite Olivia’s protests!
I still am far from getting a handle of combat narrative, but after a few rounds, they’ve killed two foxes and scared off three.[5]
Then Olivia used a magic spell to cave in the entrance. Which… I should probably take a moment to taunt the party over.
And now I have. What nerds.
The party moved towards the iron door. It’s magic proof,[6] locked, and barred. So the group needs to figure out how to get in.
Unbarring it was easy enough, but it’s still locked.
But, hey, the party has a new Scoundrel Character! Maybe he can pick the lock!
The dice say no. This is dire, as the back up plan I had is sitting in North Fort,[7] and that’s not an available path anymore.
Okay, okay. Let’s reason this out. Is the door there to keep people out, or something in? Both, but which is important?
Which is to say: this door opens out, so the door hinges are on our players’ side! Which the fair doctor thinks up, then teases the con artist for not coming up with.
Said scoundrel (Jean) uses skullduggery to get the pins out. (Because it’s heavy iron, hasn’t been moved in a while, and would require finesse. Probably some heat to remove frost). I then have them do another check to get the door open since the lock is still engaged and needs to be worked out of the wall. Which they do.
Momentary inside baseball thing that might ruin the magic: I didn’t have a firm solution. I just placed the door down and waited until I heard a solution I liked. I recommend fellow GMs do this, but also try and prepare an alternate solution if the party can’t get past it for some reason. (See footnote 7 for my release valve).
On to the next room! A massive cavern, with many tunnels shooting off, and crystalline protrusions here and there. Then there’s a wooden lean-to slash shack near the door.
In side is a desk with a chess game mid-progress, and notebook tracking the game next to it, a glass jar of mythril dust, and a mummified corpse sitting in a chair[8] holding a bullseye lantern.
Eli Roberts examines the board, makes a move, notates it in the notebook(!), pockets the mythril dust, then investigates the mummy.
(A spent story point later also says he took the notebook.)
Eli fails to find anything notable on the corpse, so he turns to figure out what path to take.
Olivia, who we are learning this session has no regard for her fellow humans, uses her magic to puppeteer the mummy.
This jostles a rolled up scrap of paper out of its beard.
Time for the puzzle! Also pop quiz for my world building lore, because screw you, at least learn the muses you picked for your character’s heritage![9]
I wrote a poem (not a great poem, because I lack rhythm) that referenced the Muses in a certain order.
Now, this puzzle needs workshopping, because once the party figured out to use the mummy’s lantern[10] to shoot a beam of light into a large crystal to refract it into colored beams, and that they needed to follow the beam that corresponded with each Muse’s assigned eye colors in the order listed on the poem, there wasn’t much else to do until the final twist.
I probably could’ve done something with the crystals. Finding them, getting them in position,[11] just some complexity for the successive rooms.
Needs workshopping. But we also had a time limit, so maybe simple wasn’t bad for this rendition.
Now, this refracted light thing was an expansion on a moment that wowed the last time I did my North Fort session, which I mimicked halfway down the mine: the first obvious crystal sent the light bouncing all over the chamber, hitting other crystals, and illuminating the entire chamber, revealing a mural![12]
The mural told the mine’s story: they were mining it normally, then thought ‘hey, let’s try magic!’. Magic resonated with the mythril they were mining, heating the cave and waking up a giant snake that started gobbling people up. They got some adventurers in to deal with the snake and stopped using magic.
What I wish I added was the snake’s giant skull in this room. Instead, I had it in another room, looming over the exit tunnels. Oops.[13]
So that’s neat.
The party continued the prescribed solution and moved on, seeing the ribs of the snake were repurposed into support beams.
Another element I failed to convey is that the mining shafts were actually expanded from the snake’s tunnels throughout the mountain.
Anyways, the final room was the cool twist. Because the final mentioned Muse is Urania. Who I assigned black/dark grey eyes.
Black light’s not a thing. What could be the…
They killed their light. Eventually, mythril dust started to glow, a thick vein going down the final correct tunnel. (The poem also mentioned Urania using the stars in her line. This fit with the mythril dust but also her role as the Muse of Astronomy.)[14]
And they exit into another large chamber like the one at the top. Including wood office shack and an iron door. Inside the shack is another mummy, chessboard, and a notebook with matching move notations to the one earlier.
Including the move Eli noted and wrote down.[15] Huh.
Eli’s player spent a Genesys Story Point to say he nabbed the first notebook earlier so he wouldn’t have to hike back up.[16]
For those curious, there’s another poem on this end for going the other way. The colors don’t even have to be the same since they’d be approaching the crystals from a different angle, so the first step doesn’t have to be Urania![17]
Anyways, the spent story point ruined how I’d hoped to bring in the boss fight, so instead a Masked Snake slithers in.
Smaller than the one slain long ago, but still pretty big. Also way too young to listen to reason.
Again, three party members work to kill it as Olivia uses nonlethal magic. The snake iced the floor, making footing difficult.
I allowed the fight to drag on a while because, despite putting in my session plans to come back to make stats and having more than a month to, I never did.
Really should sit down and just make a series of notecards for easy, normal, and hard enemies. Get too distracted with narrative.
Anyways, combat rages, half the party gets upset with Olivia’s efforts not to kill the snake, when a mysterious figure in fancy robes and snake skull mask arrives and pulls a gun.
Olivia promptly magically murders this man without a word. Then steals his mask. And returns to nonlethal spells against the snake.
After realizing the snake can’t fit through the door, Eli and Jean attempt to flee, but Olivia refuses to leave, instead standing on the human corpse she created to avoid the disadvantage of the ice floors.
Eli goes in and finishes off the snake.
Grumpy after the encounter, they exit the caves, which leads out to a point on the path below the avalanche. There’s a way to connect North Fort and Soldier’s Rest.
They go to Soldier’s Rest (named such because it’s where the military men went to rest when not on duty at the mountain fort). Turn in a letter of introduction to Soldier’s Rest’s mayor, and step outside.
Where they encounter a Jackalope. They’re giant creatures ridden by the mail carriers of His Majesty’s Courier service![19] The courier has a letter for Eli Roberts: The Queen and Heir Apparent are ill with a mysterious disease, and Dr. Roberts comes highly recommended by his peers to help.
Whether this is because his peers genuinely believe he can do it, or because not healing the royal family could have dire consequences and they’d rather gamble Eli’s career over their own is a question I intend to play with.
End session two.
Admittedly, it was a railroading session that hinged on two combats that I didn’t prepare properly and a puzzle that need a few more facets, but I set some Campaign Plot up and actually got players to the table, so I say sufficient success! Always a learning experience! And Anthony seemed to prefer the system vastly over GURPS, so I think it’s good.
Just need to cement running combat and the Advantage and Disadvantage system. It’s a new thing that takes getting used to. Plus the question of what to do when you get a nothing roll.
Also need to get firmer control over what magic can and cannot do. And also that GM trumps rulebook everytime.
I have an outline for the next session. Just need to add some meat and work in elements the players enjoy. Maybe try and have it be less of an Eli Roberts focused story.[20]
Until next time, may the dice make things interesting!
[1] Pompous sounding name? Perhaps! But it’s a grab from the Tales JRPG series, and a TED Talk I saw once.
[2] Had the party asked, the Mayor was avoiding asking South Fort for help because that crosses a border and could cause a lot of diplomatic tensions. The party didn’t ask, so I’m noting it here for my own gratification.
[3] Because we needed to fit a new party member in some how.
[4] Which I forgot to put potatoes and apples in. I’m disappointed in myself.
[5] Unless it was the other way around. There was confusion!
[6] Iron is magic proof in the setting! Because I’m taking inspiration from my vague knowledge of fair folk mythology.
[7] Her name is Debra. I didn’t have the exact details (improv!), but if needed, she’d have the key for the door for… reasons?
[8] I keep trying a Douglas Addams thing where I save the most glaringly obvious and distressing fact for last. It’s never worked because I keep getting interrupted or the players overlook I mentioned a monster. Might be a sign to stop, but why would I?
[9] I casually left a prose-y cheat sheet on the table before we started. So it’s open notes.
[10] Always provide the required tools if you can’t be sure the party has the needed supplies.
[11] My much coveted block puzzle! I’ll figure it out someday!
[12] In the pathfinder version, it instead revealed a sleeping dragon. I should’ve worked in a similar element on top of what I put in the chamber.
[13] Maybe if I ask nicely, my players will pretend this is what I did.
[14] Why do the muses include two with dominion over Astronomy and History? Who knows! They just do!
[15] I was hoping someone would mess with one of the notebooks for this exact reveal. They played right into my hands.
[16] I’ll leave it to the players to retcon why they stole the first notebook.
[17] Maybe Urania should’ve been the mural room. You light the crystal for the story, then have to darken it to move on.[18]
[18] Take three on this dungeon’s going to be epic!
[19] A pay off when, long, long ago, when I was very young looking through a borrowed copy of GURPS 3rd Edition, I saw a picture of cowboys riding giant rabbits with saddlebags reading ‘Bunny Express’. Finally did it.
[20] He took the reigns on the session one mystery, and the letter plot hook only works with him. I’ll try to do hooks working off the other three before returning to him, if at all.
trying to get a savage worlds campaign started. set in a small, tight knit community ala rune factory. my intent is to have plenty of consistent npc work that, ideally, the players are slotted into as equals. to this end, i've also asked them to invent an npc they'd be interested in interacting with.
i do have a two or three session plot planned, but it's a mystery so i can't share plot details, just try and enforce setting and tone.
also, no one else plays rune factory, so there's been some struggle to communicate what tone that implies.
good news: i got two players to make time for character creation. (i'm trying to get at least one more player, but that's been tough going)
however: one player has decided on a precocious 12-year-old (which i can work with, but changes the tone), and the other wanted to both match that age while also holding a significant social and quasi-political position (i managed to talk him up to 14-years old, but he was clearly unhappy about it).
which, can we agree, fundamentally affects how the townspeople will treat the proposed party? they are going to need to struggle to be taken seriously.
(okay, so obviously i can just treat them as full members of the community, but that feels like it just ignores the choice)
now the 12-year old is an aspiring private investigator sort, which positions him to actively involve himself in whatever happens out of curiosity. pretty sure the player is thinking riz from dimension 20, and i have cecil from rune factory 5 to add variety. player made one bold choice, but we've done improv together and he's good at cooperating[1]. the npc he provided is a good-humored town guard the child likes to bother with questions.
meanwhile, the other player has given me a laundry list of plot hooks and nothing about his character's personality and motivations. he wants to be in charge of 'fire based rituals', his family are subtly wealthy land owners, and his npc is a habitual horse thief child he thought up when he was going to play an adult. plus, he wants to do something with an undead hand that seeks out treasure, which i know he's very excited about, but i literally don't have a place to implement it, nor do i know what media this 'hand of glory' is from.
the actual player character doesn't have a name[2], and i'm not sure he filled out a character sheet. which is pretty consistent for the player. he's always been more invested in vague concepts than his characters, but it makes it hard to plan.
anyways, needed to vent somewhere. now i need to put in the actual work.
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[1] specifically, he's internalized my hatred/struggle with complicated fantasy names and uses normal names in my games.
[2] we got a placeholder when the player became annoyed i was using his name to take notes.
