Saturday, June 13, 2015

B-Team Far Away Land, Session 1

Last night was our first B-Team game in a while. We had to cancel the last one because of a lot of business for a lot of people. Last night, we played, but put aside our Swords & Wizardry guys for a while. But we added gaming with Far Away Land to our B-Team adventuring. I'm not sure if we've just switched to Far Away Land, or we're going to alternate in some fashion.

Characters:
Hargrim the Archer (Tim Shorts) (Tim's Summary)
Odarim the Human (me)
Tanky the Tank (JoeD)
Thizard (Douglas Cole) (Doug's Summary)


We started in a colorful village called Yor, where us three newcomers met an adventurer ranting about some treasure he'd missed out on because his previous group had been unable to reach it. Being total fools, the rest of us signed up right away.

We headed out of the village along the river, and met an old crone Grizella ("I dated a girl named Grizella!" said Odarim. "Or maybe her name was Angela.") The witch invited us in to a hot meal, saying it was the last we'd get for a while . . . maybe ever. She was wrong but we didn't know it yet. There was a quiz, too. Answered we her riddles three, and a potion of something helpful granted were we. Or, Tanky got it. Hargrim got a magical arrow, which he could re-use until it broke.

We continued on until we reach a cyclopean mountain at nightfall, called Mount Solis ("Soulless or Solace?" Odarim asked.) It was getting dark, but adventuring is the time for boldness. We went in. Inside were some Gobbos, or Goabs (I was never quite sure) led by a young giant that the witch had warned us about. Naturally, we attacked.

Tanky drank the potion and muscled up like The Crusher, and got +2 BRT for the fight (giving him 6d to roll.)

Tanky slashed up the giant after one of the archers put out his eye. Odarim slashed a Goab but barely hurt it. We ended up in a melee where Tanky and the others killed the giant, Odarim whiffed a couple times, and then the Gobbos backed off in good order. We pressed them and took down a couple more, and they broke and ran.

We looted them, and found a roasting sheep (which we ate while it was hot - nice accurate divination there, Grizella), a silvered shortsword (turned out to be +1 damage, and Odarim took it). We rested for the night and moved on. Tanky explained there was some sort of minotaur cyclops giant thing here last time, and they'd slain it.

We moved on toward a dark temple, possibly full of loot. We reached a rickety bridge over a gorge. There was a (formerly elven) pirate ship below, manned by Goabs or Gobbos. They demanded a toll, we told them we'd mess them up, and Thizard backed this up with a magical bolt of energy to the face of one. Tanky said we could all do that at will, and started making wizardly gestures. In the end they left and we crossed the bridge in peace.

On the far side we reached a dank swamp. Lucky for us, we had a rowboat seized from near the pirate ship. We rowed out to the island temple in the middle.

Ghosts swarmed the boat. Our ever reliable guide, Tanky, yelled a warning - some variation on "oh (deleted), we have to do something, or not do something, I can't remember." Just like an NPC guide, the kind that can get you to danger but doesn't rightly recollect how that danger worked. See, not just a GM ploy. As the ghosts swarmed us, we put weapons away and avoided eye contact, just as the patron saint of adventures, Saint Indiana, told us to do.

It worked. We reached a three-tierd ziggurat in the middle. It was dark, so Odarim lit a torch and we moved inside. Four demons waited for us around a strange pool. We attacked. We made fairly short work of the demons - mostly thanks to arrows, the magic arrow (which didn't break), and Tanky's demon-slaying sword he'd recovered last time he tried this delve. Once they were down, we headed up the stairs.

There we found five demons in a corpse-strewn area. Again, we fought, and again, we won, although with some damage. Hargrim was seriously hurt. We found a chest marked "open in case of emergency" and it had 6 green potions inside. Hargrim drank one and then another, healing up almost all the way.

One more floor - we climbed it, and found a demon seated on a throne, wielding a spear. We attacked, and landed a pile of heavy blows on him, including a bolt of demon-searing lightning from Thizard. He fought back but it didn't matter - we piled on him heavy and hard, and although Odarim merely dinged him with his silver shortsword Tanky landed two heavy blows and Hargrim's arrow pierced him (and didn't break). The demon was destroyed.

We took his magic spear (a Spear of Rot - 1d, +1d3 rotting) and gave it to Thizard. We may have found other loot but it was late and I lost track.

The demon purged, we got enough XP to level up (10), and called it a night.

Notes:

The dice mechanic of FAL is that each point gives you a 1d6 roll. You keep the highest, and any sixes after the first are a +1. Roll 5d and get 1,1,1,5,6? You rolled a 6. Roll 2d and get 6,6? You rolled a 7. It's actually really quick and easy. Take the highest or count your sixes.

Odarim is BRT 2, DEX 2, WIT 2, Melee 2, Athletics 1, Sneak 1, Flaw: Ranged 1 (counts as three), Flaw: Poor Choices of Words 1. He's now Level 2 with 13 HP, 3 Luck, and I'm trying to decide where to apply my 10 XP for improvments (add a Boon? Raise Sneak and Athletics? Raise Melee? Save it for upping DEX later?)

Oh, and AC 3. And armor is DR. This is normal and natural to GURPS players.

And yes, since FAL seems so Adventure Time inspired, I had to add "the Human" to my guy.

I mock Tim Shorts, in good fun, for all of his 1s. And pretty much I rolled the most ones, mostly on damage, the whole session. I'm not sure there was a single foe that got more than slightly dinged by Odarim.

Speaking of which, damage gets a margin of success bonus in FAL, if it lands. Or so we here. Erik rolled a lot of 5s and 6s on defensive rolls, so usually we rolled base damage. This was fine, though, and it made the margin of success feel more like a bonus than a reliable form of damage.

Overall FAL played fast and easy, and we had a lot of fun. I'd happily play again.

No comments:

Post a Comment

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...