Nothing seemed to end up going our way during our January 17 session. We started at about 5:30 p.m. and when the session came to a close at about 10:30 p.m., things had not gone according to the GM's plans, nor to the PC's plans. For once, the dice rolls weren't at fault. First of all, for our "discussion session," January 10, everyone was given 1 point in Carousing. That is reflected in the point totals below, which are as close as Chris and I can figure them. If you see a discrepancy, let Chris or I know and we'll get it sorted. Very unfortunately, Valter had an emergency and was unable to make it t the table. We thank him for letting us know and hope everything is going well. He and his character, Ulf, were sorely missed by all! A list of Gorefest Dungeon characters and respective players: Archie playing Enarit, a shadow elf Scout; 282 points. Chris playing Aldric, a human Knight; 279 points. Brandon playing Rothuk, a human Barbarian; 273 points. Valter, not present, and his character Ulf, a leprechaun Wizard: 266 points. Luke playing Kritty, a catfolk Swashbuckler; 266 points. Looking back at the session, the first half was a pretty good time, I think, but then things started going south, and they went south in a hurry. It's hard to have fun when nothing is going right. In the end, when all players were asked to rate how fun the session was, I didn't receive, nor did I deserve, a unanimous two thumbs up. That's the only real problem. The fact that things can go sour in-game has nothing to do with how fun a session can be. Sometimes, when things go wrong, it's fun; we can all sit around the table and laugh heartily at our misfortune. That was not the case here. As I warned during our Jan. 10 session, this wasn't going to be easy. I also warned that this was an experiment to see just how much role playing we wanted to do. We've done the pure dungeon crawl thing now for months straight; I wanted to test the waters, to see how well we would fare stepping out of that structure, however briefly. Furthermore, I warned that I was placing a lot of trust and faith in the players' ability to use prudence and reason rather than weapons and combat tactics to face issues. We needn't go into specifics or start pointing fingers about who did what wrong, and I spare myself as much blame as anyone there. Here is the introduction narrative: Introduction Narrative For Story Arc Starting 1-17-15 The group accepted a job by a sergeant Bullock. He wanted an outlaw bandit named Raven "brought to justice" by whatever means necessary—another way of saying "dead." The outlaw and his posse are about five days journey to the west. However, Bullock was very clear that he wanted the whole process done as discretely as possible with no one knowing about it but those in the room. He promised a large cash reward and also promised that the kingdom would be made aware of their service after the job was completed. Everyone agreed. That was all something of a pre-game warm-up. After that, we moved to the standard quest-finding rolls. Here are some of the rules from Dungeon Fantasy 2: Dungeons , p. 4: Rumors: The GM might allow each PC one Carousing roll (for tavern talk) and one Current Affairs roll (to know a rumor already) between adventures. The player decides whether to attempt either roll, but the GM rolls in secret. Success reveals the quest – or if the GM has several dungeons ready, each success reveals one at random, and the players can choose based on hearsay. Failure discovers nothing. Critical failure finds a quest with wrong rumors, like a cave full of vampires described as "the Faerie Caverns." So, a number of quests can be found, rules as written. I took a creative interpretation about what "finding a quest" meant—it doesn't have to mean, for example, "There is a kidnapped princess in a wizard's tower a week's journey to the north of Town." While there were results just like that, there were also more ambiguous results that did perhaps point to "quests," just not so clearly. Below is what the PC's learned—but keep in mind the players don't know if any critical successes or failures were made. In recent times, there have been two murders in Brecconary, not just one. Murders are very rare here—like, once in a lifetime tragedies. The first victim's name was Gwaelin. Her boyfriend, John Hunter, was hung for the crime. That happened about a year ago. The victim of the second murder that happened only recently was Samuel, the miller's son. His friend, Robert, was with him when the killer struck. Robert was injured and is recovering at the abbey. There is a wanted bandit, a member of the outlaws that the sergeant seeks, in a seedy, back-alley tavern in a run-down part of town. The Black Knight Dessloch and his two minions ride again. The Black Knight terrorized the region some seventy years ago. He demanded—and received—fealty from a number of local lords. Some say his only allegiance is to the devil. Others whisper he served a blasphemous priest of the most unholy evil—perhaps even some sort of undead horror. They say the Black Knight can't cross the river between Brecconary and the forest surrounding the crossroads graveyard. Father Geoffry Lewe, the local abbot, seeks someone to deliver a chest to the abbey west of town. The tiny abbey and the village of about two hundred surrounding it is a five-day walk from Brecconary, and times are very dangerous. He offers a holy blessing and the courier 80G ($2,000) to deliver the small iron chest, which is locked. About one week outside of town to the east, there is a stopped caravan. It was transporting a large sum of king's gold toward Brecconary. After some consideration, I also allowed that the member of Raven's gang mentioned in the rumors results was drinking in the Cracked Mug tavern. His name is Tavish, and he's a catfolk. He has a ratkin accomplice named Geraldine. It was later discovered by Aldric that both were somehow strangely considered to be Sergeant Bullock's men. But, how could that be? Kritty posited that they may be double agents . . . After no small amount of deliberation and planning, it was decided to ignore the caravan a week to the east in part because everything else was near the same location five days to the west. The PC's set out to find Tavish and Geraldine, then planned to go to father Lewe before setting out west toward the Raven's hideout. Suffice it to say, that is not what happened. Once we got to the cracked Mug, we got hung up on the plan, any of the plans. The ratkin ended up dead in an alley. The catfolk, who made his death roll, knocked out and tied up and of no good to anyone at that point. A guard was attacked and his life threatened at knifepoint. Bullock's name was dropped two or three times, including to that same guard. The ratkin's body was left covered up in a wheelbarrow right outside the inn where the PC's were staying. There were around one hundred witnesses that could place the PC's as last being seen with the catfolk and ratkin, including hauling the catfolk's unconscious body up the stairs to the room. Before the night was over, Aldric was down about $900. Unless one considers having the beat-up, drugged and hogtied catfolk (Bullock's man? Double agent?) held captive in the PC's room a success, no goals were met. At best, all we did was spin our wheels the entire session, and nothing really bad would come of it. At worst, the first quest may already be considered a failure (if Bullock is an enemy) and even the PC's status as not being hunted, wanted men in serious jeopardy, meaning Brecconary could no longer be entered or used as the game's hub—and that, in turn, meaning that all the other quests so far had to be written off as failures as well. Yikes. However, it's all getting retconned right back to the point where the PC's are sitting at the table in the home inn and tavern near dusk considering what to do. That's where we will begin our next session. Why? Certainly not because mistakes were made by both me and the players. No, in that case, we would just have to deal with the consequences of the night. For one thing, none of us are particularly portrayed our best light, and there's no way I would want that ever going up on the blog. For every person who would second guess the players's actions, there would be one who would armchair quarterback my game mastering. None of us need any of that. No, the reason we're taking all the rest of the session back is because it wasn't very fun. It was an experiment, and it would be a disservice to you, the players, for me to write it off as a failure after the very first try and go back to pure, "find a dudgeon, delve, repeat." We all deserve a second chance, at least. We all can do better. There were lessons learned by all, so in that respect, it wasn't a failure. I think going forward, we'll all do much better. I think we deserve a chance to see if role playing of this nature can be fun. The only issue I can foresee with the retcon is that Aldric, through some very persistent role playing during the session, learned that Tavish and Geraldine are connected to Bullock (if that's even true). We'll just handle it the best we can. That all said, there is a new meta-game rule. I hate to do this, but I just don't know one hundred percent for certain that we're all on the same page, and if not, then we're still in the same boat as we started. Player characters can no longer attack or threaten in any way members of nobility or law enforcement officials in Town or attack or threaten violence to anyone at all in Town. Threats can be either explicit or implied. "I'd hate for anything bad to happen to you during your walk home tonight," is a threat, for example. Don't make me give an even broader description of the rule. Follow it's spirit as well as its letter. Violence is intended for the dungeons. There is currently a single specific exception to this rule, which will be stated below. The consequences for failing to follow this rule may be severe. Anything at all I declare would be the consequence, happens, and it happens meta-game. If I say, "The guards take your character outside and rough him up. He loses 1d HP," that's what happens and nothing can be done about it. There's plenty of precedence for this in Dungeon Fantasy 2, p. 4. For example, if one fails a Sleight of Hand roll when cheating at gambling: "Any failure means the crook loses his bet and is beaten for 1d HP." Failing a Pickpocket roll has worse consequences: "Any failure means a beating (1d HP); critical failure indicates swift justice in the form of a broken hand (1d months to heal, barring magic)." The same is true for Counterfeiting: "Critical failure means the King’s men stick his hand in molten silver, giving him One Hand." Some of the issues we faced is that in Dungeon Fantasy, "Town" is an abstract concept. One does not "adventure" in town. There are some rolls, yes, but the game really takes place in the dungeon. Video games are often the same way, but not always. In Skyrim and Grand Theft Auto, you can slaughter indefinitely with little consequence. In many RPG's, though, once you enter town, all of a sudden, you can do little other than talk. The single exception to the rule currently on the table is Tavish and Geraldine—but there's a caveat! In Town, they can't be attacked or threatened in sight or within earshot of anyone else. That means, only the PC's, Tavish and Geraldine can see or hear violence or threats of it in Town. I really hate to impose this rule, but . . . It is what it is. We'll see how it goes. Last, I'm going to make a couple things more clear that weren't in the original introduction narrative. First, don't let anyone know that you're working for Bullock ; don't "drop" his name. When Kritty asked if a badge/license/get out of jail free card could be issued, he was very quick to deny the request and tell you all that you shouldn't be doing anything that made you run afoul of the law, anyway (*cough* ;-)). It wasn't stated, but he's not really "backing" you. He would rather no one even know about the whole thing, let alone know specifically that he is the one paying for the operation. Second, if you get Raven's head or whatever, he didn't make it clear what should be done. He just said something ambiguous like, "You'll be able to find me." After last night's session, I don't think it's out of the question for me to imagine the PC's carting a load of chopped-up corpses through the streets at noon and dropping it off at the doorway to the barracks and yelling, "Hey, Bullock! We got your guys!" I'm joking! I kid, I kid. ;-) But, let's say that he set a meeting time and place or whatever and told you all not to bring any evidence of your success or anything back to Brecconary. There's no need to set that detail right now. We'll talk about it next session. Hey, each and every session can't be more fun than the last! If that were the case, at some point, eventually, we'd all rather be playing Gorefest Dungeon than making love on the beach to super models! Nonetheless, I'll lay heavy wager that our next session will be a great one! :-) I look forward to our next game, Saturday, Jan. 24, at 5 p.m., CST. Hope to see all of you there!
