More notes from Session 147

More notes from last session:

Moonsword?

Last time someone, I don't remember who, refered to the green meteoric sword found by a gate as a "moon sword" or "moon gate sword." They'd found the sword next to a gate they referred to as a "moon gate." Are they right? Maybe. Anyway, I put them down in my notes as "moonsword."

Hail Our Metal Masters!

Aldwyn revealed that the king of Cornwood, King Titanius Anglesmith, is in fact a construct of some kind. "You have to be a construct to be King of Cornwood." Good to know! That's the first Constructocracy I'd heard of. I had just added his picture to the Gazeteer earlier the same day. That prompted this whole discussion.

Wizard Court?

We had a post-game discussion about magic rules and ways to change them. During it, Wyatt's player suggested that in Barcidia some wizards get forced to specialize in ways that make military sense for the city . . . just told outright to do thus-and-so. I said that wasn't likely, as we've seen that most wizards and every Barca is a self-centered self-important individualist. He claimed that would really change Wizard Court. I cut off the discussion, though - the way our game works, what's defined is usually true. Since the Barcas and Barcidia are largely defined by the highly amusing comments of the player who plays all of them (Hannibal, Hasdrubel, Ahenobarbus, maybe others I'm forgetting), we don't want to wall off his explanation. I'm sure he has a great explanation for the seeming contradictions inherent in Wizard Court.

Fight Faster!

We had a fight last session between a half-dozen Demons from Between the Stars and the party. Unlike the yeth fights - which took almost an entire session twice - or the Lord of Spite fight (two complete sessions), this one took maybe 20 minutes, tops.

I think there were several reasons for this:

- I didn't use a map. Every single time I use a map, the fight slows down. It always slows down fights. It can make it easier on the GM and the players, but once someone has tactical decisions to make and hex facing to worry about, they make those decisions and worry about those facings. That takes time. Even a fast player is slower when you multiply the amount of decisions to make.

- Lack of combatants. This is the big one. When only 2-3 players, and eventually only 5 players, had any input, the fight went more quickly.

- Lack of complicated foes. The DFBTS are pretty straightforward if they're stuck in a place with no darkness or shadow. The room was ideal for them against a small group or solitary explorers with limited light, but not versus the current PCs (who also man-for-man are superior to DFBTS). So it was a straight-up fight versus humanoid-shaped foes without special invulnerabities.

Science?

Bruce tried punching a DFBTS to see if he'd be hurt by doing so. Technically, the writeup doesn't say so, but the description is quite clear - they're surrounded by (or made up of) a life-draining energy. So naturally I applied that. He claimed punching one was "science" - he was testing a theory.

Varmus tested it with Iron Arm. That didn't go well either.

Galen tested the theory they'd been teleported to the moon by jumping to see if gravity was the same. It was. Wyatt's player pointed out this was real-world thinking based on real-world understanding of the moon. He's right, too. If they reach the moon, will it have lower gravity? Will Galen Longtread fight like John Carter on Mars? We'll find out if they figure out how to get to the moon.

Money Matters.

Wyatt was killed. He had $15,000 to get Resurrection. So this tells me my plan of making consumables available but permanent magic items mostly unavailable has been a good move. People have in fact saved cash, bought better mundane gear, and don't have to go broke en masse and sell gear to bring back the slain. Thats good because when they did, even a single loss was seen as a major plan-wrecking event that must be avoided. It's hard to delve deep and take risks in a game like Felltower if you are trying to avoid any chance of people getting killed.

Amusingly Ulf gave some money toward Wyatt's revival. So did Crogar. His share of the loot was 220. He spent 150 on upkeep and was too lazy to mark that down and then add 220 on top of it . . . so he tossed in 70 to Wyatt's revival just to avoid having to note anything on his record sheet.