Actual Date: 12/8/2024
Game Date: 12/12/2024
Weather: Cold, clear, dry.
Characters
Chop, human cleric (301 points)
Brother Quinn, human initiate (125 points)
Hannari Ironhand, dwarf martial artist (316 points)
Amlaric, human squire (125 points)
Thor Halfskepna, human knight (306 points)
Leon the Eye, human archer (125 points)
Aaron, Brandon, Cedric, Dortmund, Ernie, Ferd, Grunlark, and Hansel, human guards (62 points)
Bullworth and Oxford, human laborers (62 points)
Honest Charles LeGrand, human squire (125 points)
Vladimir Luchnick, dwarf martial artist (298 points)
The PCs hired up a bunch of able-bodied men, purchased sacks and backpacks and rations, and headed off to the Brotherhood Complex. They reached it in due course, and headed in.
Long story short, they tried to head "left" towards "the gnolls." Naturally this entailed going straight and right, and going right back to where they fought the guards last time. There, thanks to confused guidance by Vlad, they headed to the "barracks," only to find a hallway to a storeroom. As they took a look at it, their mass of guards yelled, "We're under attack!" as shouts of "Get them!" and "Attack!" rang out.
The PCs turned to find their rear guards fighting a mass of robed, club-and-shield bearing cultists.
In a short, sharp fight, one of the guards was knocked out (and two had their cheap swords break) and most were wounded . . . and all 12 of the cultist guards were down - dead, crippled, or just out. Hannari and Thor took out a couple, Vlad a bunch more, and their guards and Honest Charles a few as well. Chop used Command to keep the enemy off balance until they were all downed.
The PCs left their NPCs to loot the guards and searched the rooms they came from. They wanted prisoners to question, but didn't bother to bind up with wounded . . . and left them in the care of NPCs that include one with Bloodlust (6) . . .
The PCs found some coinage, a box of spices, and a food and drink. They dumped out the food, spilled a barrel of vinegared water on the mess, and dunked three corpses in the water, wine, and vinegared water. Once everything was ruined, they headed around the complex.
They found a dead end (checked with See Secrets), and a few more doors that all led back to the room with the black hand on the floor. From there, they checked a few more corridors, and found a door. Thor forced it open . . . and suffered a massive wave of cold that chilled him to the bone. In front of him was a sizeable room full of brown mold. They fled as the mold expanded, accidentally running into a dead end and then back out. Only Thor was harmed, and they backed off.
Needing a short break, they retreated to the entrance to fully regroup. We ended there.
Notes:
- the whole fight was under 9 full seconds. Fights in GURPS are ridiculously fast. For a small, cloe melee, it makes sense, but in actual play, 1 second turns means a guy search a room takes 3 seconds to turn, run down a hallway to a fight, find foes, and kill about one per second for 5 seconds. It took longer to write this sentence than for 30 combatants to fight until 12 of them were down or dead. It just feels too short. Part of me sympathizes with people who just say turns are 3-5 seconds but don't allow any additional actions. The whole brawl taking 30-60 seconds would feel brief but not crack versisimilitude like this does. The whole fight took about, oh, 3 hours to play out. Long for a mook fight, but with 30 combatants, it was slow to resolve. That makes it feel doubly weird when it turns out to be only a few seconds long.
- MVP was Chop, who used Command very effectively to break up the cultist's attempts to keep fighting.
- the whole "stop and regroup" thing is a way to allow us to let the PCs continue their delve - they spent a lot on NPCs - like $4000 - and want their money's worth, but also to allow our missing players to join next time. Since it wasn't in a fight or even in a crisis situation, it seemed reasonable to allow them to regroup for 15-20 minutes, heal and recover fatigue, and then head further into the complex.
Fun and productive session, even if it looks short on the summary.
I'm really enjoying your updates & notes, but I'm really curious about how you manage to keep track of so many combatants in GURPS? I've found it difficult enough using more rules-light systems. Does it just come down to GM experience, are there any tips you can share?
ReplyDeleteThe VTT we use helps, but also hinders a bit.
DeleteHow it helps:
- every individual combatant is individually tracked, with clickable rolls to attack, defend, and inflict damage.
- individual hit points and status is tracked.
- it can append names to otherwise identical mooks.
How it hinders:
- it's very hard to tell one combatant from another even with name labels unless they individual tokens.
- it can be very clunky to find the right icon in a tight fight and identify who is who.
- the appended names are adjective descriptors, and I've found that "Angry Guard" and "Sleepy Guard" and "Ugly Guard" or whatever causes a lot of table slowdown as people struggle to avoid interrupting game to comment.
- adding and removing status effects is slow and clunk.
On a tabletop, honestly, I'm faster - I use different counters with numbers or names, and a paper notepad to track HP and status effects. I just need a lot more counters or minis. But it's a little tougher to play face to face these days. I think FtF that fight would have been 2/3 to 1/2 as long, if not shorter. It's easy enough to keep all the numbers other than HP in my head, and those easy enough on paper, after all these years with the same game system.
Thanks for reading and asking the question.
Yeah, I think there's a function to automatically assign a number to each token, have to remember where it is/what module enables it. That would probably be preferable.
DeleteWould that be FoundryVTT? That's the only one that I've heard that have support for GURPS
DeleteYep, Foundry VTT. The GURPS Game Aid module is pretty great.
Delete