Here are some pictures from Sunday's session.
Tuesday, September 13, 2016
Monday, September 12, 2016
DF Game Session 79, Felltower 52
Date: September 11th, 2016
Weather: Clear, breezy.
Characters
Dryst, halfling wizard (417 points)
Gerald Tarrant, human wizard (287 points)
5 skeletons (~25 points)
Hasdrubul Stormcaller, human wizard (292 points)
Hjalmarr Holgerson, human knight (283 points)
Brother Ike, human initiate (145 points)
Mo (his momma call him Kle), human barbarian (291 points)
Kian, human pirate (~65 points)
Quenton Gale, human druid (279 points)
Red Raggi, human berserker (?? points, NPC)
We started in town, as usual. Surprisingly, someone made the appearance roll for Raggi, and he was in town and looking to fill out "Raggi's Roughnecks" for a delve. The group gathered rumors, replenished supplies, got magical repairs and healing, and otherwise got ready for the next delve.
They headed off, out of the North Gate, over the Stone Bridge across the Silver River, and so on, and eventually came to the castle.
The negotiations with the orcs were formulaic - wait out the initial arrows intended to kill them, talk, pay 500 sp up front and 500 sp more once inside the gates, ask after Glarg's wife and sons, asked if anything had eaten orcs lately (no, they seemed to have dealt with that last time), and headed down into the dungeon. "These guys are loaded!" said Hjalmarr, which probably isn't far from true.
The PCs had a main goal and a backup goal* when they headed out. The main goal? These stairs:
They weren't really sure anymore if they'd gone down those stairs or not. They knew they weren't sure, and figured it was worth checking.
They headed in that direction. They got lost briefly trying to follow their own maps, got regaled by stories from Raggi ("We killed a bunch of gnolls in this room. Good times.") and eventually found the stairs to the next level. They had to force the locked door on the ogre's room, and headed down the stairs.
They confidently moved ahead, and I had to backtrack the group when they said, "Down the stairs to the door on the right, we open the door . . . " and say, "As Brother Ike steps on the bottom step, it cracks . . ." They walked right into a trap. The bottom step had a new, thin, hollow layer of stone put on it. It cracked open and released a gas. It was poisonous, but no one succumbed, and Purify Air cleared out the gas. It left a thin film, though - Gale identified it as a fungal extract that, if powdered (like it was), was a powerful attractant for stirges. They cleaned it off with Air Jet and a timely critical success (a 4.)
They moved on, and to the room with an arrow carved in the floor. They backtracked to the secret door it pointed at, but - despite See Secrets and Keen Vision - they couldn't figure out how to open it. No one could remember how to do it. So they moved on.
As they moved ahead, some stirges - first six, then maybe a dozen or so, attacked. In a brief and bloody fight, the PCs chopped, slashed, and electrocuted all of them - but in the meantime Mo and Raggi got stirge'd and nearly lost eyes to them, but good Crippling Injury rolls and timely healing dealt with that.
The PCs worked their way to the chamber with the crystal in the ceiling. As their lead servant moved in, it snapped a thin wire tripwire and was sprayed with Alchemist's Fire. It died. Dryst used Extinguish Fire and they moved in, watching their back and front. Nothing, though - only a one-shot siphon that had been filled with the flammable mix.
Mo smashed what was left of the crystal in the ceiling and took a hunk of it as loot and/or throwing weapon. They eventually made their way to a chamber where there were once flame lords, but now was a bunch of mold. As in, hundreds of square feet of brown, crunchy, rough, rock-lichen-sharp mold. Gale identified it as sickness-causing.
They decided burning it - even with Purify Air to keep the smoke off of them - was too dangerous. So they sent a magical servant ahead with a Create Object "snow shovel" to clear it. Dryst had rolled a critical creating a servant, so he got a Brute servant. They sent that one ahead with the shovel.
It last a minute or two of attempted scraping before it wilted until the sickness of the mold-spores.
In the end they decided to just levitate past it. They did, each taking a HT-4 roll from the aerial spores instead of a series of them from stirring them up further. A good number of PCs got mold-sick, and all except Gerry had their clothes coated and food spoiled. Gerry avoided this with Ethereal Body and having his skeletons carry his stuff in a Create Object wrap.
They found a room - marked "snake room" on their map - and moved in. There were two giant glow beetles in the room. Mo smashed one and Dryst fried the other with Lightning. Hjalmarr bravely waited outside, having beetle-related anxiety. Gale harvested one's glow glands, and they rested after their energy expenditure.
They moved into the room with the stairs, ignoring the rotatable statue, and down the stairs after tossing glow glands ahead to test the way. No traps - although they muttered a lot about needing to find "the gnome" and deal with him.
At the bottom of the stairs was a long room, 30' wide and maybe three times that long, with an exit out the opposite side and four archways spaced evenly on either side. They found found many broken urns and scattered bones from skeletons, niches with clearly searched bones (shoved to one side to make it clear which had been dealt with), and broken stone that was what was left of golems. Also, each of the side passages ended with big purple six-fingered hand symbols. They didn't find any loot, and had discussions about whether they'd been there before. Dryst announced they'd never seen purple six-fingered hands before, and everyone else was either a new delver or Raggi, who doesn't care or remember or care to remember things.
The far end of the corridor held a passage lined few yards with bas relief faces, much like the black energy-shooting ones they'd seen before. A servant was sent down to scout. It found only two double doors - big grey metal ones painted with a white axe-and-sword over tower motif. Nothing blasted it, despite evidence the faces did just that in the past - scorches and burn marks between them. The servant couldn't open the the doors.
Hjalmarr went down, after getting Resist Fire, Resist Acid, and Resist Lightning on him. He wondered aloud why he wasn't so shielded all the time, but Dryst ignored that.
Nothing blasted him, and he couldn't budge the doors. More of the bruiser types, plus Dryst, came up to the doors. It took three tries, but Mo and Raggi eventually forced the big valves open.
Inside was a 13 yard circumference room, with a semi-circular dais with a sarcophagus on it, two flail-holding obviously-golem warrior statues on pedastals, and lots of evil-looking decorations on the walls and sarcophagus.
As the group debated how to move in, what to do, etc. the sarcophagus opened. A mummy sat up in it, saw them, and stood up. The two golems animated and stepped forward. (Another "things happen while you debate what to do" moment.)
The PCs cautiously moved in. Raggi charged. Mo lamented, "Raggi shows me how it's done." Raggi doesn't have a self-preservation instinct. The folks in the back - Ike, Gale, Gerry, and the skeletons - ran forward to catch up.
In short, a big fight broke out. The PCs ran in to follow Raggi. He ran right up, got his leg crippled by a golem, and went right down** at the feet of a golem. The PCs ran up. Meanwhile the mummy didn't do much - except to concentrate and starting casting spells on itself and its golems. These would later be revealed to be Shield and Resist Fire - and after the PCs revealed their main missile spell - Resist Lightning.
As the PCs pressed in, two toxic skulls - thinking flaming skulls, except toxic - appeared and joined the fray.
I won't summarize the whole fight, which took hours. The short version was:
- the PCs charged the golems. They turned out to be magically Shielded Elite Juggernaut stone golems layered with bronze plates armed with flails. They fought well but gave ground to use their 2-hex reach to advantage.
- the PCs rolled a lot of critical failures. Dropped weapons and falling down was typical - and only Signature Gear kept Hjalmarr's axe from breaking.
- the PCs concentrated heavily on the golems and skulls and not the mummy.
- Hasdrubel managed to take out their own healer.
The PCs basically whittled down the golems first, but it was costly and ugly. Unable to easily flank them, they were forced to Great Haste most of the fighters and all of the wizards. The flying toxic skulls were an issue, and after Raggi went down - followed by Mo, also with a leg cripple - an attempt to fry one of them by Hasdrubel also fried Brother Ike. He rolled a 17 on his stunning roll and ended up twitching the rest of the fight. A few massive Stone Missile and Skull Missile spells helped weaken the golems, and eventually they went down, but not before Mo and Raggi fought from their backs or crawled for most of the fight. Hjalmarr managed to slash the mummy's leg badly and that trigged it using Iron Arm to deal with his attacks. Raggi even grappled one for around 30 or so CP over multiple turns and dragged one to the floor, in the midst of a Fog spell put up by Gale. Eventually Hjalmarr got knocked out, then woken back up magicaly, and stood back into the fray.
The mummy tried to engage Dryst when he closed but failed - and Kian charged him. He grabbed her around the neck and crushed her larynx, and tossed her skull-first into his sacrophagus's side and left her for dead, mortally wounded. Gale tried to snag the mummy's amulet, successfully guessing it was the key to his supernatural toughness. He barely missed (by 1) and was taken out by the toxic skulls.
Dyrst moved around throwing Air Vision on allies and explosive spells to catch toxic skulls in the area effect; Hasdrubel was much less discerning and managed a lot of friendly fire damage but also finished a golem and badly damaged one of the toxic skulls.
In the end, the mummy ran out of the Fog Gale created to shield his grab at the amulet, Hasdrubel tried and failed to burn it with Alchemist's Fire (sorry, Resist Fire is a natural for a mummy spellcaster), and it just hung out in the flames and made them come to it. Mo tried to slam it (nope, much stronger than him), Gerry used Hidden Lore to determined Gale was right, and they eventually cut off its talisman. Hjalmmar beat it to death in short order after that. They used Extinguish Fire to suppress the flames and recovery their gear and goods.
(I know my players are disappointed at this rough summary - lots of heroics happened. But this fight was hours in real world time, maybe 30+ seconds in game time, and it would take that to re-write it here, even if I remembered it turn by turn.)
Once the mummy was down, took only a few more seconds to deal with the toxic skulls.
They looted the place, taking the mummy's mace (ornate, and magical until it broke on a critical failure, then repaired back to mundane value by Dryst), a candelabra with black candles, six gold passage coins, six chunks of opal, six potions (which seemed to be Great Healing but were actually poison), a charged skull scroll, an unholy symbol, a chalice, and some other goods.
They also found (and I forgot to mention until after game, see below) a six-fingered hand print on the wall, cultist-themed carvings on the sarcophagus, and two skull-less skeletons of northerners smashed up and tossed behind the left door. No exists proved extant, and they had to remove themselves to the bones-ash-and-golem-bits strewn room to rest and heal as this was a No Sanctity zone. Kian, horridly manged by the mummy, died, and they took her back to the surface. Two skeletons were annihilated, and so was the hunchback zombie Gerry had been keeping around since the Lost City.
They passed the mold the same way (suffering more ill effects) and gave the orcs the candelabra and some opal chunks. The orcs asked fore the mace instead, which was a solid gain for the PCs. They went with it, and went home.
Back in town, Kian was laid to rest with Final Rest.
* The missile complex at Laputa. I mean, something else - I'm not sure what they settled on.
** One of Raggi's two typical moves - charge and kill, charge and be killed.
Notes:
We ended late, so I forgot to mention the hand on the wall and the skeletons behind the (left) door). It didn't matter for the session, but I will allow any ret-con actions that fit the moment before we start play next time. It was late - more than two hours past my maximum end time, thanks to "Monday" getting turned into "Tuesday plus Monday" on my schedule. Even so, one player had to leave earlier than the end of the session.
The players couldn't recall if they'd ever been to this area before. I know the answer, but I'll let them figure it out. They're certain they've never encountered purple six-fingered hand symbols, though.
I thought it was an interesting choice - ignore the spellcaster boss and work on his heavily buffed golem guards first. It worked, but it wasn't cheap. Or quick. They expended a serious amount of resources to win this fight. It wasn't intended as a lesson, but I expect the players will understand how I feel when they take guys with defenses in the high teens and put Shield +5 on them and then Retreat for a +1 to +3.
The mold inflicted stat and defense penalties - and these often proved the difference between success and failure.
XP was 4 each - everyone hit their loot threshold (4 xp), they only explored a single new area (0 xp), and they did not have a clean run since an NPC died (0 xp). The "clean run bonus" effectively is required unless you get a lot of loot and also do significant exploration. That was the tradeoff in the XP system we agreed upon. Some of the players will argue that any new areas should be worth +1, but then I end up having to reveal if they've found a new area (sometimes, they aren't sure) and encourage "find a new room, stop exploring" in order to get 6 xp (loot, exploration, clean run). I prefer to keep it more nebulous.
I'm not a huge fan of "I roll Skill X, what do I know?" I let it fly this time, but I vastly prefer using it for answering questions. The "What do I know?" question puts me on the spot - what do I reveal, what values the roll and the skill level properly, what is too much, what isn't enough? The "Do I know if they are X?" is easier - it's yes or no, and a skill roll success tells me to answer. It's a quandary.
My players tried some totally useless tactics - Mage Sight to see through the fog, Dispel Magic to kill toxic skulls, and a few others - which leads me to think they don't always pay attention to the text of spell descriptions. Oh well.
MVP was Gale, because he correctly determined the mummy's weakness.
Fun game, although it took longer than I though it would.
(Pictures are up: Sunday's Game in Pictures)
Weather: Clear, breezy.
Characters
Dryst, halfling wizard (417 points)
Gerald Tarrant, human wizard (287 points)
5 skeletons (~25 points)
Hasdrubul Stormcaller, human wizard (292 points)
Hjalmarr Holgerson, human knight (283 points)
Brother Ike, human initiate (145 points)
Mo (his momma call him Kle), human barbarian (291 points)
Kian, human pirate (~65 points)
Quenton Gale, human druid (279 points)
Red Raggi, human berserker (?? points, NPC)
We started in town, as usual. Surprisingly, someone made the appearance roll for Raggi, and he was in town and looking to fill out "Raggi's Roughnecks" for a delve. The group gathered rumors, replenished supplies, got magical repairs and healing, and otherwise got ready for the next delve.
They headed off, out of the North Gate, over the Stone Bridge across the Silver River, and so on, and eventually came to the castle.
The negotiations with the orcs were formulaic - wait out the initial arrows intended to kill them, talk, pay 500 sp up front and 500 sp more once inside the gates, ask after Glarg's wife and sons, asked if anything had eaten orcs lately (no, they seemed to have dealt with that last time), and headed down into the dungeon. "These guys are loaded!" said Hjalmarr, which probably isn't far from true.
The PCs had a main goal and a backup goal* when they headed out. The main goal? These stairs:
They weren't really sure anymore if they'd gone down those stairs or not. They knew they weren't sure, and figured it was worth checking.
They headed in that direction. They got lost briefly trying to follow their own maps, got regaled by stories from Raggi ("We killed a bunch of gnolls in this room. Good times.") and eventually found the stairs to the next level. They had to force the locked door on the ogre's room, and headed down the stairs.
They confidently moved ahead, and I had to backtrack the group when they said, "Down the stairs to the door on the right, we open the door . . . " and say, "As Brother Ike steps on the bottom step, it cracks . . ." They walked right into a trap. The bottom step had a new, thin, hollow layer of stone put on it. It cracked open and released a gas. It was poisonous, but no one succumbed, and Purify Air cleared out the gas. It left a thin film, though - Gale identified it as a fungal extract that, if powdered (like it was), was a powerful attractant for stirges. They cleaned it off with Air Jet and a timely critical success (a 4.)
They moved on, and to the room with an arrow carved in the floor. They backtracked to the secret door it pointed at, but - despite See Secrets and Keen Vision - they couldn't figure out how to open it. No one could remember how to do it. So they moved on.
As they moved ahead, some stirges - first six, then maybe a dozen or so, attacked. In a brief and bloody fight, the PCs chopped, slashed, and electrocuted all of them - but in the meantime Mo and Raggi got stirge'd and nearly lost eyes to them, but good Crippling Injury rolls and timely healing dealt with that.
The PCs worked their way to the chamber with the crystal in the ceiling. As their lead servant moved in, it snapped a thin wire tripwire and was sprayed with Alchemist's Fire. It died. Dryst used Extinguish Fire and they moved in, watching their back and front. Nothing, though - only a one-shot siphon that had been filled with the flammable mix.
Mo smashed what was left of the crystal in the ceiling and took a hunk of it as loot and/or throwing weapon. They eventually made their way to a chamber where there were once flame lords, but now was a bunch of mold. As in, hundreds of square feet of brown, crunchy, rough, rock-lichen-sharp mold. Gale identified it as sickness-causing.
They decided burning it - even with Purify Air to keep the smoke off of them - was too dangerous. So they sent a magical servant ahead with a Create Object "snow shovel" to clear it. Dryst had rolled a critical creating a servant, so he got a Brute servant. They sent that one ahead with the shovel.
It last a minute or two of attempted scraping before it wilted until the sickness of the mold-spores.
In the end they decided to just levitate past it. They did, each taking a HT-4 roll from the aerial spores instead of a series of them from stirring them up further. A good number of PCs got mold-sick, and all except Gerry had their clothes coated and food spoiled. Gerry avoided this with Ethereal Body and having his skeletons carry his stuff in a Create Object wrap.
They found a room - marked "snake room" on their map - and moved in. There were two giant glow beetles in the room. Mo smashed one and Dryst fried the other with Lightning. Hjalmarr bravely waited outside, having beetle-related anxiety. Gale harvested one's glow glands, and they rested after their energy expenditure.
They moved into the room with the stairs, ignoring the rotatable statue, and down the stairs after tossing glow glands ahead to test the way. No traps - although they muttered a lot about needing to find "the gnome" and deal with him.
At the bottom of the stairs was a long room, 30' wide and maybe three times that long, with an exit out the opposite side and four archways spaced evenly on either side. They found found many broken urns and scattered bones from skeletons, niches with clearly searched bones (shoved to one side to make it clear which had been dealt with), and broken stone that was what was left of golems. Also, each of the side passages ended with big purple six-fingered hand symbols. They didn't find any loot, and had discussions about whether they'd been there before. Dryst announced they'd never seen purple six-fingered hands before, and everyone else was either a new delver or Raggi, who doesn't care or remember or care to remember things.
The far end of the corridor held a passage lined few yards with bas relief faces, much like the black energy-shooting ones they'd seen before. A servant was sent down to scout. It found only two double doors - big grey metal ones painted with a white axe-and-sword over tower motif. Nothing blasted it, despite evidence the faces did just that in the past - scorches and burn marks between them. The servant couldn't open the the doors.
Hjalmarr went down, after getting Resist Fire, Resist Acid, and Resist Lightning on him. He wondered aloud why he wasn't so shielded all the time, but Dryst ignored that.
Nothing blasted him, and he couldn't budge the doors. More of the bruiser types, plus Dryst, came up to the doors. It took three tries, but Mo and Raggi eventually forced the big valves open.
Inside was a 13 yard circumference room, with a semi-circular dais with a sarcophagus on it, two flail-holding obviously-golem warrior statues on pedastals, and lots of evil-looking decorations on the walls and sarcophagus.
As the group debated how to move in, what to do, etc. the sarcophagus opened. A mummy sat up in it, saw them, and stood up. The two golems animated and stepped forward. (Another "things happen while you debate what to do" moment.)
The PCs cautiously moved in. Raggi charged. Mo lamented, "Raggi shows me how it's done." Raggi doesn't have a self-preservation instinct. The folks in the back - Ike, Gale, Gerry, and the skeletons - ran forward to catch up.
In short, a big fight broke out. The PCs ran in to follow Raggi. He ran right up, got his leg crippled by a golem, and went right down** at the feet of a golem. The PCs ran up. Meanwhile the mummy didn't do much - except to concentrate and starting casting spells on itself and its golems. These would later be revealed to be Shield and Resist Fire - and after the PCs revealed their main missile spell - Resist Lightning.
As the PCs pressed in, two toxic skulls - thinking flaming skulls, except toxic - appeared and joined the fray.
I won't summarize the whole fight, which took hours. The short version was:
- the PCs charged the golems. They turned out to be magically Shielded Elite Juggernaut stone golems layered with bronze plates armed with flails. They fought well but gave ground to use their 2-hex reach to advantage.
- the PCs rolled a lot of critical failures. Dropped weapons and falling down was typical - and only Signature Gear kept Hjalmarr's axe from breaking.
- the PCs concentrated heavily on the golems and skulls and not the mummy.
- Hasdrubel managed to take out their own healer.
The PCs basically whittled down the golems first, but it was costly and ugly. Unable to easily flank them, they were forced to Great Haste most of the fighters and all of the wizards. The flying toxic skulls were an issue, and after Raggi went down - followed by Mo, also with a leg cripple - an attempt to fry one of them by Hasdrubel also fried Brother Ike. He rolled a 17 on his stunning roll and ended up twitching the rest of the fight. A few massive Stone Missile and Skull Missile spells helped weaken the golems, and eventually they went down, but not before Mo and Raggi fought from their backs or crawled for most of the fight. Hjalmarr managed to slash the mummy's leg badly and that trigged it using Iron Arm to deal with his attacks. Raggi even grappled one for around 30 or so CP over multiple turns and dragged one to the floor, in the midst of a Fog spell put up by Gale. Eventually Hjalmarr got knocked out, then woken back up magicaly, and stood back into the fray.
The mummy tried to engage Dryst when he closed but failed - and Kian charged him. He grabbed her around the neck and crushed her larynx, and tossed her skull-first into his sacrophagus's side and left her for dead, mortally wounded. Gale tried to snag the mummy's amulet, successfully guessing it was the key to his supernatural toughness. He barely missed (by 1) and was taken out by the toxic skulls.
Dyrst moved around throwing Air Vision on allies and explosive spells to catch toxic skulls in the area effect; Hasdrubel was much less discerning and managed a lot of friendly fire damage but also finished a golem and badly damaged one of the toxic skulls.
In the end, the mummy ran out of the Fog Gale created to shield his grab at the amulet, Hasdrubel tried and failed to burn it with Alchemist's Fire (sorry, Resist Fire is a natural for a mummy spellcaster), and it just hung out in the flames and made them come to it. Mo tried to slam it (nope, much stronger than him), Gerry used Hidden Lore to determined Gale was right, and they eventually cut off its talisman. Hjalmmar beat it to death in short order after that. They used Extinguish Fire to suppress the flames and recovery their gear and goods.
(I know my players are disappointed at this rough summary - lots of heroics happened. But this fight was hours in real world time, maybe 30+ seconds in game time, and it would take that to re-write it here, even if I remembered it turn by turn.)
Once the mummy was down, took only a few more seconds to deal with the toxic skulls.
They looted the place, taking the mummy's mace (ornate, and magical until it broke on a critical failure, then repaired back to mundane value by Dryst), a candelabra with black candles, six gold passage coins, six chunks of opal, six potions (which seemed to be Great Healing but were actually poison), a charged skull scroll, an unholy symbol, a chalice, and some other goods.
They also found (and I forgot to mention until after game, see below) a six-fingered hand print on the wall, cultist-themed carvings on the sarcophagus, and two skull-less skeletons of northerners smashed up and tossed behind the left door. No exists proved extant, and they had to remove themselves to the bones-ash-and-golem-bits strewn room to rest and heal as this was a No Sanctity zone. Kian, horridly manged by the mummy, died, and they took her back to the surface. Two skeletons were annihilated, and so was the hunchback zombie Gerry had been keeping around since the Lost City.
They passed the mold the same way (suffering more ill effects) and gave the orcs the candelabra and some opal chunks. The orcs asked fore the mace instead, which was a solid gain for the PCs. They went with it, and went home.
Back in town, Kian was laid to rest with Final Rest.
* The missile complex at Laputa. I mean, something else - I'm not sure what they settled on.
** One of Raggi's two typical moves - charge and kill, charge and be killed.
Notes:
We ended late, so I forgot to mention the hand on the wall and the skeletons behind the (left) door). It didn't matter for the session, but I will allow any ret-con actions that fit the moment before we start play next time. It was late - more than two hours past my maximum end time, thanks to "Monday" getting turned into "Tuesday plus Monday" on my schedule. Even so, one player had to leave earlier than the end of the session.
The players couldn't recall if they'd ever been to this area before. I know the answer, but I'll let them figure it out. They're certain they've never encountered purple six-fingered hand symbols, though.
I thought it was an interesting choice - ignore the spellcaster boss and work on his heavily buffed golem guards first. It worked, but it wasn't cheap. Or quick. They expended a serious amount of resources to win this fight. It wasn't intended as a lesson, but I expect the players will understand how I feel when they take guys with defenses in the high teens and put Shield +5 on them and then Retreat for a +1 to +3.
The mold inflicted stat and defense penalties - and these often proved the difference between success and failure.
XP was 4 each - everyone hit their loot threshold (4 xp), they only explored a single new area (0 xp), and they did not have a clean run since an NPC died (0 xp). The "clean run bonus" effectively is required unless you get a lot of loot and also do significant exploration. That was the tradeoff in the XP system we agreed upon. Some of the players will argue that any new areas should be worth +1, but then I end up having to reveal if they've found a new area (sometimes, they aren't sure) and encourage "find a new room, stop exploring" in order to get 6 xp (loot, exploration, clean run). I prefer to keep it more nebulous.
I'm not a huge fan of "I roll Skill X, what do I know?" I let it fly this time, but I vastly prefer using it for answering questions. The "What do I know?" question puts me on the spot - what do I reveal, what values the roll and the skill level properly, what is too much, what isn't enough? The "Do I know if they are X?" is easier - it's yes or no, and a skill roll success tells me to answer. It's a quandary.
My players tried some totally useless tactics - Mage Sight to see through the fog, Dispel Magic to kill toxic skulls, and a few others - which leads me to think they don't always pay attention to the text of spell descriptions. Oh well.
MVP was Gale, because he correctly determined the mummy's weakness.
Fun game, although it took longer than I though it would.
(Pictures are up: Sunday's Game in Pictures)
Sunday, September 11, 2016
DF Session pre-summary
We played DF again today. No time for a summary, but we had:
- stirge attacks
- mold, mold, mold
- a big brawl with a mummy, two golems, and two toxic skulls
- a delver death
- and some serious loot.
More tomorrow . . .
- stirge attacks
- mold, mold, mold
- a big brawl with a mummy, two golems, and two toxic skulls
- a delver death
- and some serious loot.
More tomorrow . . .
Saturday, September 10, 2016
Black Tree Design sale
I forgot to post about this earlier, but luckily, the sale was extended until tomorrow. Black Tree Design has 50% of most infantry, 30% off most cavalry, 30% off Doctor Who, and more:
"Weekly Sale
END OF SUMMER SALE
SALE EXTENDED 2 MORE DAYS
END OF SUMMER SALE - EXTENDED
We've added 2 more days to our best sale ever so no one misses out. It will definitely be ending midnight Sunday 11th September so come on over!
We're finishing off our Summer Sales with a blast. It's our last huge sale of the year so it's a monster. Historical and Fantasy Infantry packs are 50% Off. Cavalry, Chariots, Vehicles, Artillery, Battlefield equipment and Giant Monsters are 30% Off.
Our Doctor Who packs are 30% Off for a short time only. Remember guys and gals these packs haven't been in production for decades so they're a finite resource. If the sale on these goes nuts we're going to have to cut it short. And don't order tons of the more obscure figures or we'll have to void the order. Give everyone the chance to own a Voord Warrior or an Algenon Finch."
I think I'm good for now on minis, but if you aren't, they have nice Romans, Vikings, fantasy monsters, ancients, etc.
"Weekly Sale
END OF SUMMER SALE
SALE EXTENDED 2 MORE DAYS
END OF SUMMER SALE - EXTENDED
We've added 2 more days to our best sale ever so no one misses out. It will definitely be ending midnight Sunday 11th September so come on over!
We're finishing off our Summer Sales with a blast. It's our last huge sale of the year so it's a monster. Historical and Fantasy Infantry packs are 50% Off. Cavalry, Chariots, Vehicles, Artillery, Battlefield equipment and Giant Monsters are 30% Off.
Our Doctor Who packs are 30% Off for a short time only. Remember guys and gals these packs haven't been in production for decades so they're a finite resource. If the sale on these goes nuts we're going to have to cut it short. And don't order tons of the more obscure figures or we'll have to void the order. Give everyone the chance to own a Voord Warrior or an Algenon Finch."
I think I'm good for now on minis, but if you aren't, they have nice Romans, Vikings, fantasy monsters, ancients, etc.
DF Felltower - How I Get Player Engagement
So over on Christopher Rice's blog, Travis Ellis wrote a guest post about Dungeon Fantasy. We had a nice little exchange in the comments, and I wrote something I wanted to preserve here, too.
How do I get player engagement? How do I get people puzzling over how to apply their skills and abilities, balance short term needs versus long term growth, and otherwise do something other than just - as Travis puts it:
"simply kick down the door, kill what’s inside, and the only question is if the loot it had was worth the effort, because the path to glory and riches is just a few bloody combats away."
Here is how I do it. Warning: link-fest.
I put forth Problems not solutions.
I hand out actionable rumors.
And I play in a limited sandbox, which forces you to consider both short-term and long-term.
That is pretty much it - a limited sandbox, with repeated delves to the same areas, actionable rumors, and problems the PCs need to solve that don't come with pre-decided solutions. Those things drive the players to, as [Travis] said, "puzzle out how they should apply their talents and skills, fretting over how best to set short-term goals in favor of the long-term progression."
There isn't an external social engagement structure of significance to the game. There aren't political-social ramifications to actions.* But merely going door to door looking for treasure . . . no, coming back to the same dungeon after all causes all sorts of behavior to emerge. Most of that is in the form of player-driven effort and decisions, and player-centered decisions and tradeoffs. Gangsters and politics and dungeons and orcs, it's really the same, if you put the sandbox in front of them and let real quandaries emerge from their actions.
* Although there are economic ones.
How do I get player engagement? How do I get people puzzling over how to apply their skills and abilities, balance short term needs versus long term growth, and otherwise do something other than just - as Travis puts it:
"simply kick down the door, kill what’s inside, and the only question is if the loot it had was worth the effort, because the path to glory and riches is just a few bloody combats away."
Here is how I do it. Warning: link-fest.
I put forth Problems not solutions.
I hand out actionable rumors.
And I play in a limited sandbox, which forces you to consider both short-term and long-term.
That is pretty much it - a limited sandbox, with repeated delves to the same areas, actionable rumors, and problems the PCs need to solve that don't come with pre-decided solutions. Those things drive the players to, as [Travis] said, "puzzle out how they should apply their talents and skills, fretting over how best to set short-term goals in favor of the long-term progression."
There isn't an external social engagement structure of significance to the game. There aren't political-social ramifications to actions.* But merely going door to door looking for treasure . . . no, coming back to the same dungeon after all causes all sorts of behavior to emerge. Most of that is in the form of player-driven effort and decisions, and player-centered decisions and tradeoffs. Gangsters and politics and dungeons and orcs, it's really the same, if you put the sandbox in front of them and let real quandaries emerge from their actions.
* Although there are economic ones.
Friday, September 9, 2016
New Release: Dungeon Fantasy 19
Yesterday, Dungeon Fantasy 19 came out:
It's the first GURPS book written by Antoni Ten Monros and Christopher Rice. Naturally, that means it has cool powers and an alternate magic system.
I just got mine last night and I'm starting to read through it. I'll post more about it when I've finished. And no, Greg, I'm not planning on adding it to the game so you can make a new PC based on it.
But you can read more about it now, on Christopher's blog:
DF 19 Designer's Notes
It's the first GURPS book written by Antoni Ten Monros and Christopher Rice. Naturally, that means it has cool powers and an alternate magic system.
I just got mine last night and I'm starting to read through it. I'll post more about it when I've finished. And no, Greg, I'm not planning on adding it to the game so you can make a new PC based on it.
But you can read more about it now, on Christopher's blog:
DF 19 Designer's Notes
Thursday, September 8, 2016
Dungeon Fantasy: Steal Which Bits? - Part II
Here is Part II of my posts about Stealable Bits from Dungeon Fantasy.
Here is Part I
Power-Ups
Another usable, stealable bit from DF are the Power-Ups. I mean this in three ways - wholesale, the execution, and the concept.
Wholesale means, just take them and use them. They're good pre-packaged power increases, and often flavor changes, that you can just take and use. They're hack-and-slash oriented, but expanded levels of Higher Purpose or Magical Stability or the Flagellant's Blessing or a Zombie Arm might really fit into certain games. Read them through, pick the ones that fit your game, and just use them outright.
Excecution is where Power-Ups make life easier. Instead of Techniques like Dual-Weapon Attack, you just buy Two-Weapon Fighting and you're done. You want an additional option of All-Out Attack to slice apart multiple foes - get Cleaving Strike instead. You are seeking ways to make backstabs more effective, you go and get Backstabbing. It's an on-off approach where you aren't slowly increasing from Skill-4 to Skill-3 and so on, you go from Skill-4 to Skill-0 and you're done. For new players and GMs juggling a lot of PCs all at once alike, this is much easier than the slow investment approach. You just sudden get the ability, and deal with it in chunks instead of knowing who has what particular gradation.
Concept means, the entire idea of buying powers later. Most games I've run, and games I've played in, severely restricted purchases of advantages after play began. You might pick up Combat Reflexes or raise DX but couldn't add Eidetic Memory or levels of Magery if you wanted to. The idea that you can pick anything from a pool and add it on - but that the pool you choose from doesn't fully overlap with all other pools - even in play, even after chargen, is powerful. It frees up a lot of players from the angst and melodrama (and point-shifting optimization) of trying to get just a few more points. Or building a nearly unplayable mess of a character who has all of the "can't get later" bits but none of the stuff that would logically come with it. The Magery 3 guy with 5 spells or the Weapon Master with the minim points in a weapon the GM will allow, or the vastly talented Outdoorsman who has maybe 2-3 of the skills and expects to learn them in play. Opening up a larger pool of advantages to purchase later, as a concept, makes for more flexible character generation and development.
Warning: The assumption of DF is hack-and-slash dungeon delving. Perks like Butchery (from Denizens: Barbarians) or power-ups like Mana Bolt (DF11) make assumptions about the game and the world. Butchery assumes you'll need to take foes to -10xHP, say, but there is a real cost to doing so. Mana Bolt assumes you want pew-pew wizards firing "magic missile" shots with no cost. They bring their own flavor and world changes to the table.
Supplements useful here: DF1, DF11, Pyramid 3/61 Way of the Warrior, Denizens: Barbarians.
Magic Items
This one is pretty simple. If you want magic items for your games, especially if they tend towards heroic gaming archetypes, just steal the ones from DF. There are a lot of them, and they are good.
Supplements useful here: DF6, DFT2
Here is Part I
Power-Ups
Another usable, stealable bit from DF are the Power-Ups. I mean this in three ways - wholesale, the execution, and the concept.
Wholesale means, just take them and use them. They're good pre-packaged power increases, and often flavor changes, that you can just take and use. They're hack-and-slash oriented, but expanded levels of Higher Purpose or Magical Stability or the Flagellant's Blessing or a Zombie Arm might really fit into certain games. Read them through, pick the ones that fit your game, and just use them outright.
Excecution is where Power-Ups make life easier. Instead of Techniques like Dual-Weapon Attack, you just buy Two-Weapon Fighting and you're done. You want an additional option of All-Out Attack to slice apart multiple foes - get Cleaving Strike instead. You are seeking ways to make backstabs more effective, you go and get Backstabbing. It's an on-off approach where you aren't slowly increasing from Skill-4 to Skill-3 and so on, you go from Skill-4 to Skill-0 and you're done. For new players and GMs juggling a lot of PCs all at once alike, this is much easier than the slow investment approach. You just sudden get the ability, and deal with it in chunks instead of knowing who has what particular gradation.
Concept means, the entire idea of buying powers later. Most games I've run, and games I've played in, severely restricted purchases of advantages after play began. You might pick up Combat Reflexes or raise DX but couldn't add Eidetic Memory or levels of Magery if you wanted to. The idea that you can pick anything from a pool and add it on - but that the pool you choose from doesn't fully overlap with all other pools - even in play, even after chargen, is powerful. It frees up a lot of players from the angst and melodrama (and point-shifting optimization) of trying to get just a few more points. Or building a nearly unplayable mess of a character who has all of the "can't get later" bits but none of the stuff that would logically come with it. The Magery 3 guy with 5 spells or the Weapon Master with the minim points in a weapon the GM will allow, or the vastly talented Outdoorsman who has maybe 2-3 of the skills and expects to learn them in play. Opening up a larger pool of advantages to purchase later, as a concept, makes for more flexible character generation and development.
Warning: The assumption of DF is hack-and-slash dungeon delving. Perks like Butchery (from Denizens: Barbarians) or power-ups like Mana Bolt (DF11) make assumptions about the game and the world. Butchery assumes you'll need to take foes to -10xHP, say, but there is a real cost to doing so. Mana Bolt assumes you want pew-pew wizards firing "magic missile" shots with no cost. They bring their own flavor and world changes to the table.
Supplements useful here: DF1, DF11, Pyramid 3/61 Way of the Warrior, Denizens: Barbarians.
Magic Items
This one is pretty simple. If you want magic items for your games, especially if they tend towards heroic gaming archetypes, just steal the ones from DF. There are a lot of them, and they are good.
Supplements useful here: DF6, DFT2
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