Describe your last RPG session in more than 5 words.
- Thread starter jdrakeh
- Start date
MarkB
Legend
"Recurring" villain dies first round.
In Rime of the Frostmaiden there's a section where a gnoll vampire is supposed to be the recurring villain, hunting the 8th-9th level party then fading away in mist form the moment he takes significant damage, only to return later and trouble them again.
But the first time I ran the campaign he was barely an irritant, and this time was no different. He rolled low-ish initiative, three party members beat him, and with high damage output he was taken down before he even got to act. The scenario doesn't give him a coffin to return to, but even if he had one, he was pinned in a moonbeam and wouldn't have been able to take mist form.
In Rime of the Frostmaiden there's a section where a gnoll vampire is supposed to be the recurring villain, hunting the 8th-9th level party then fading away in mist form the moment he takes significant damage, only to return later and trouble them again.
But the first time I ran the campaign he was barely an irritant, and this time was no different. He rolled low-ish initiative, three party members beat him, and with high damage output he was taken down before he even got to act. The scenario doesn't give him a coffin to return to, but even if he had one, he was pinned in a moonbeam and wouldn't have been able to take mist form.
We played our second full session of Fallout2d20 last night. I am running the intro scenario Once Upon a Time in the Commonwealth, but am forced to modify it more than a little. it is both too linear and quite a slog. For example, in the section where the PCs make their way to Diamond City, instead of forcing them to go through a gauntlet of 3 unavoidable encounters, I set it up so they could choose which one to tackle. There is a lot I like about the system, but the adventure is not very good.
Last night I got behind the (digital) 5E screen for the first time in a while (I have been running PF2ER and Fallout2d20). This is our "local" game (which we still play online for some reason) with rotating GMs. It started off as a Rappan Athuk dungeon crawl but has evolved over time.
The PCs are 8th level and I am running a Githyanki adventure. One PC is a githyanki wizard, the scion of a noble house who abdicated and moved to the Prime in order to study magic. Well, mom has waited long enough for the black sheep to return and has run out of patience. She send a whole squadron of soldiers, including 3 dragons, to retrieve the PC. The knight in charge of making first contact wanted to "get the measure" of the PCs so attacked with his dragon as the PCs made their way home. Of course the dragon pulled its punches and did not breathe. In the end, the knight stopped the attack, explained the situation and accompanied the PCs back to their fortress (an abandoned castle they had liberated from goblins relatively early in the campaign, mainly as a gold sink). There the rest of the githyanki were waiting.
We ended the session with the githyanki opening a portal into the Astral Sea where an astral galleon awaited them. Next time they will travel toward home, deal with some illithid marauders and begin to understand why the PC's mother picked now. Hint: there is a succession crisis.
The PCs are 8th level and I am running a Githyanki adventure. One PC is a githyanki wizard, the scion of a noble house who abdicated and moved to the Prime in order to study magic. Well, mom has waited long enough for the black sheep to return and has run out of patience. She send a whole squadron of soldiers, including 3 dragons, to retrieve the PC. The knight in charge of making first contact wanted to "get the measure" of the PCs so attacked with his dragon as the PCs made their way home. Of course the dragon pulled its punches and did not breathe. In the end, the knight stopped the attack, explained the situation and accompanied the PCs back to their fortress (an abandoned castle they had liberated from goblins relatively early in the campaign, mainly as a gold sink). There the rest of the githyanki were waiting.
We ended the session with the githyanki opening a portal into the Astral Sea where an astral galleon awaited them. Next time they will travel toward home, deal with some illithid marauders and begin to understand why the PC's mother picked now. Hint: there is a succession crisis.
The party has entered the Astral plane with the githyanki who came to bring one PC home. The main githyanki fleet was under attack by demons, so the knight dropped the PCs off on a small astral runner that was outside the fighting. Just then the illithid arcanist that had been tracking them attacked! The mindflayer had with it 3 intellect devourers and was riding an enthralled copper dragon.
It was a fun little fight that lasted an hour or so (running on FG). I cut the session short after because I didn't really have a solid handle on what happens next.
It was seeing the players weigh the choice to try and free the dragon since there was no guarantee it wasn't still going to attack them. It did because 1 PC chose preemptive violence, but another PC was able to calm it down after the fight was over.
It was a fun little fight that lasted an hour or so (running on FG). I cut the session short after because I didn't really have a solid handle on what happens next.
It was seeing the players weigh the choice to try and free the dragon since there was no guarantee it wasn't still going to attack them. It did because 1 PC chose preemptive violence, but another PC was able to calm it down after the fight was over.
Meech17
WotC President Runner-Up.
Running the party through the Sunless Citadel, in our first session we made it to the point where the party has a parlay with the Kobold Queen. They immediately loved Meepo, which I expected. Every game play report I've read, or the tons of stories I've read all include Meepo and how iconic he is. His name is even listed in common Kobold names in Volo's Guide.
After they encountered the dried up fountain that spits out a dragon breath potion, they all realized they couldn't read it. They asked Meepo if he could. So I said Meepo squats down and stares long and hard at the Draconic letters, slowly moving his lips, as if trying to sound out the word. He then stands back up and replies. "Meepo uhhhhh... Meepo can't read." One of my players replied "Oh my god.. I love Meepo so much... It's a shame he's probably going to die in here."
Sounds about right.
John Dallman
Hero
This is complicated, even by Avalon standards.
46 years ago, game time, in Avalon's year 1998, the person who embodied Evil at the time was killed. The person† who did that had been sent to steal something from her, but went beyond his instructions. Among other problems*, this unbalanced the psychology of everyone in world. People were much nicer to each other, but they didn’t want to do anything which they thought might result in harm to others. This caused a huge drop in productivity and activity, which was threatening to collapse most of the world's societies.
That problem was solved, to excess, by some Lunar** priests in the city of Petersport, who were attempting to summon the Crimson Bat** to frighten some people who were causing them trouble. That was dumb, and didn't work. They got something that was huge and glowing red, but it wasn't a bat. It sucked all the life force out of the inhabitants of the city, turning them into undead, and then travelled around, wreaking lesser havoc on the material plane, the elemental planes, and the lower planes. Demons were coming to the material plane to escape it. After a while, things calmed down.
Over time, it was realised that the thing was a Berserker***, but attempts to do anything about it got nowhere. Some very strong wards were erected on the nexus point in the city through which it had entered the world. Two years ago, game time, those mysteriously failed†† and the Berserker re-appeared above Petersport and left the world through the same nexus point.
That's all background. A few years after the Berserker arrived, a new religion started. This is unique in the history of Avalon: there are a great many religions, but they all seem to have existed forever. It worshipped "The Knowing God", which acted as an information interchange: the worshippers could communicate with the deity via some crystals. They had no clerics at first, only monks in abbeys. Yes, lots of people were suspicious that this was a fake religion who purpose was to tell the Berserker about the world it was in. It was never possible to substantiate that idea, and the people who followed it were always Good and inoffensive. The First Abbott who had founded the religion died, and the large crystal he had shattered. The information connection to the deity was lost. After a while, the religion began to develop clerics and paladins, although none of them are high enough level to do Commune yet.
After the Berserker departed, a different large crystal appeared in Petersport. It proved to contain the life force that had been drained from the city's inhabitants, which has allowed them to be returned to life from being undead. The Church of the Knowing God was very interested in this crystal, hoping that it would let them reconnect to their deity. Naturally, quite a few people were very sceptical of that idea, but the objections have gradually been overcome, and in last night's session, the ceremony was done and worked. The information connection to the god works again!
At the moment the ceremony was completed, a large metal creature appeared through the nexus point. It was too large for the building around the nexus, which collapsed. The creature didn't do anything, and seems to be dead. Since advanced technology does not work in Avalon, except in a couple of specific places, the current hypothesis is that it's a machine which is not working.
* Lots of other problems.
** Gloranthan mythology, from RuneQuest.
*** From Fred Saberhagen's SF novels.
† A PC - try to look surprised?
†† A different PC did that.
John Dallman
Hero
We took the robot apart using a Wand of Force, X-Ray vision, and persistence. We found what seemed to be the brain, which was all ceramic and destroyed that thoroughly.
The next morning, what appeared to be a small spaceship appeared through the nexus point. Its power is out, because advanced technology doesn't work here, but there were six humans inside who belonged to the "Terran Guard." They had spotted the robot disappearing from a space battle and had come looking for it. We ended the session there, to give us time to plan our explanations to them.
Yes, this is gonzo postmodern AD&D. It still happens.
Golden Bee
Explorer
Amish Boy finds Robot Hand.
(Many more than 5 words.)
Death in the Living Room!
When the lights go out… The pistols pop up.
Long-term characters tend to change, and Fate is a great system for it.
JP Diamond, undead detective, had the aspect “Gangly”, but it never really came up. (There are few situations where being thinner and awkward can really help you!)
The player changed it to "I work best alone", and it’s already paid dividends.
That was the case with our latest adventure: JP wanted one on one time with his hirer, but lost a battle of wills to faithful farmhand Elliot McCaffrey. It became a group discussion.
Dr. Hemet Hazoul got a rewrite too. His trouble, "world’s greatest ego", was OK, but he’s much easier to understand as a "tomb looting scumbag". He also picked up an "eye for the ladies", which immediately became a problem when he interrupted a fancy mansion party to dance with someone’s fiancé. He was duly punched in the face, but before matters could escalate, Captain Semya Ivanova danced with the angry groom-to-be. It was a Russian ploy to rile up the romantically dense JP. It worked; the southern charmer was jealous.
The party ended in the murder of its host. The captain took the most likely suspect into the kitchen, where she started cutting up raw beef… chop, chop, bleed bleed, CHOP. She started describing the old Soviet penal system… and the suspect fainted, dropping a still warm pistol.
The murder tied into an anti-Russian spy network. The group tracked down the apartment, found an organizer…and they won’t talk to JP. The captain began her own interrogation with a warning.
The agent didn’t know enough for the Captain’s liking… So Semya flipped her into an asset. "The USSR appreciates your capitulation."
We had some time, so I ran:
Thrilling Tales: the Steel Legion by Walt Ciechanowski
“Hurry up Winston… I don’t like fighting anything three times my size.”
Autumn in Pennsylvania. The group, Professor Winston Callahan, JP, and reporter Trudy Truman, are on their way to the Bethlehem scientific exhibition.
A cloud passes over the sun. Everyone feels a little queasy… And falls asleep instantly.
When they wake up, there’s a gaping hole in the roof of their compartment. The train blows past the station at Allentown. Trudy springs to the back of the train, wakes up the conductor, and pulls the emergency break.
A cursory investigation reveals that Yancey's research was stolen from the luggage compartment. Winston and JP are puzzled: someone had been kidnapped, and it wasn’t Trudy!
(Being a self-assured foreign reporter, she also ignores the police’s attempt at a gag order. Between her, Callahan, and PI Diamond, there was tremendous disrespect to the local inspector… which led to them getting pulled over three separate times before they could reach the fair.)
The indignities continued: a half block of fair space is dedicated to Callahan’s rival, Professor Lockvogel! The academics launch accusations at each other (“You slept with one of your students/“You started a fire to get out of Dean’s lunch!”), while Lockvogel’s gorgeous daughter Ginny flirts with JP. (Were ladies always doing this? Did he not notice?) Trudy’s contacts clue her into a suspicious addition to the fair, Dr. Elsie Sieger. Trudy is about to interview the rogue element when a cloud floats over the sun…
This time, JP summons his iron will and stays awake! What he sees, he can barely believe. Everyone is falling asleep… and the power’s going out across the entire city!
He slings Devika over his shoulder, and rushes to wake up his companions. The next part is even more outrageous… 20 foot-tall iron robots! One of them grabs the still-awake Lockvogel, who urges his daughter to run… the robot is headed straight for Callahan! Trudy grabs a nearby reel of wire, trying to defend her companion… And gets kidnapped instead! The robots leap off into the sky. Sirens and confusion.
The group and Ginny flee the city, borrowing a horse and buggy from a kindly Amish boy. At the Lockvogel house, they learn the story between him and the robot’s maker, Dr. Krieger.
They ransack the professor’s notes. He’s left a letter to Ginni:
JP, Devi and Winston rush to the basement, and find the headsets, when they hear giant clomping footsteps outside...
***
Trudy awakens in a barn. But instead of animals, it’s filled with mad scientists! Sister Helene the electrical genius nun, Yancey, Lockvogel, Zasimo Wilcox (Querida’s seldom seen brother), as well as one other journalist… Beatrice Piper, who Trudy had last "encountered" in a hotel room in Chile. "Trude the Prude" explains that that was a one-time thing.
When you’re imprisoned, soft skills make the difference. Trudy convinces the group to stop their enforced robot repair, and get her a device that would let her sneak away! The egg heads are eager to help.
***
Meanwhile, in the Lockvogel basement, Winston hears a small group of commandos. They are trying to get into the bulkhead, so he sabotages the stairs. JP attacks the confused group with a metal pipe, trapping the troopers between the floor and the wall. "Do hand over your weapons, won’t you?"
***
Trudy sneaks off into the privy, using a welding torch to free herself and break through the wall… out into the farmland beyond. Is this secret base in Amish Country?
***
At the house, Ginni screams: a robot’s trampling the living room! Winston starts working on a signal interrupter… And while Diamond is planning his next move, the robot snatches him through the ceiling! Devika tries to pull him down… he loses his shoe but he is still pulled up. In the living room, Josiah P uses the debris to slow down the robot, grabbing a metal pole from what used to be a lamp. He lodges it into a gap...and frees himself. But the robot tries again. The Steel Legionaire is about to squeeze JP’s throat closed when the signal stops! Callahan was sweating onto his equipment.
***
Trudy fled the farm, unfortunately unfortunately attracting the attention of the guard dogs…She makes it to a nearby river with only a slash on her leg. She signals a horse and buggy for help and reunites with the group. She bandages her leg and calls in favors, including her friends in the National Guard. They have -a- tank… but the players have the Spectre, Winston’s plane. They guess correctly that Krieger will try and flee when an armored unit shows up… but they didn’t expect his plane to have a rear-mounted machine gun turret!
No one on the Spectre is particularly good at shooting, so they need another plan. JP cobbles together the parachutes into a mass, and tells Callahan to pull up right in front of the other plane. The undead flatfoot opens the back bay, air rushing all around… And hurls the chutes into the Krieger’s propeller! His plane is sent into a death spiral, with his daughter Elsie escaping. And presumably swearing revenge.
Our closing scene is a few days later, a young boy is working the plow when he finds a kettle sized robot hand. "Pa, look at this!"
(Many more than 5 words.)
Death in the Living Room!
When the lights go out… The pistols pop up.
Long-term characters tend to change, and Fate is a great system for it.
JP Diamond, undead detective, had the aspect “Gangly”, but it never really came up. (There are few situations where being thinner and awkward can really help you!)
The player changed it to "I work best alone", and it’s already paid dividends.
That was the case with our latest adventure: JP wanted one on one time with his hirer, but lost a battle of wills to faithful farmhand Elliot McCaffrey. It became a group discussion.
Dr. Hemet Hazoul got a rewrite too. His trouble, "world’s greatest ego", was OK, but he’s much easier to understand as a "tomb looting scumbag". He also picked up an "eye for the ladies", which immediately became a problem when he interrupted a fancy mansion party to dance with someone’s fiancé. He was duly punched in the face, but before matters could escalate, Captain Semya Ivanova danced with the angry groom-to-be. It was a Russian ploy to rile up the romantically dense JP. It worked; the southern charmer was jealous.
The party ended in the murder of its host. The captain took the most likely suspect into the kitchen, where she started cutting up raw beef… chop, chop, bleed bleed, CHOP. She started describing the old Soviet penal system… and the suspect fainted, dropping a still warm pistol.
The murder tied into an anti-Russian spy network. The group tracked down the apartment, found an organizer…and they won’t talk to JP. The captain began her own interrogation with a warning.
quote:
The agent didn’t know enough for the Captain’s liking… So Semya flipped her into an asset. "The USSR appreciates your capitulation."
We had some time, so I ran:
Thrilling Tales: the Steel Legion by Walt Ciechanowski
“Hurry up Winston… I don’t like fighting anything three times my size.”
Autumn in Pennsylvania. The group, Professor Winston Callahan, JP, and reporter Trudy Truman, are on their way to the Bethlehem scientific exhibition.
quote:
A cloud passes over the sun. Everyone feels a little queasy… And falls asleep instantly.
When they wake up, there’s a gaping hole in the roof of their compartment. The train blows past the station at Allentown. Trudy springs to the back of the train, wakes up the conductor, and pulls the emergency break.
A cursory investigation reveals that Yancey's research was stolen from the luggage compartment. Winston and JP are puzzled: someone had been kidnapped, and it wasn’t Trudy!
(Being a self-assured foreign reporter, she also ignores the police’s attempt at a gag order. Between her, Callahan, and PI Diamond, there was tremendous disrespect to the local inspector… which led to them getting pulled over three separate times before they could reach the fair.)
The indignities continued: a half block of fair space is dedicated to Callahan’s rival, Professor Lockvogel! The academics launch accusations at each other (“You slept with one of your students/“You started a fire to get out of Dean’s lunch!”), while Lockvogel’s gorgeous daughter Ginny flirts with JP. (Were ladies always doing this? Did he not notice?) Trudy’s contacts clue her into a suspicious addition to the fair, Dr. Elsie Sieger. Trudy is about to interview the rogue element when a cloud floats over the sun…
This time, JP summons his iron will and stays awake! What he sees, he can barely believe. Everyone is falling asleep… and the power’s going out across the entire city!
He slings Devika over his shoulder, and rushes to wake up his companions. The next part is even more outrageous… 20 foot-tall iron robots! One of them grabs the still-awake Lockvogel, who urges his daughter to run… the robot is headed straight for Callahan! Trudy grabs a nearby reel of wire, trying to defend her companion… And gets kidnapped instead! The robots leap off into the sky. Sirens and confusion.
The group and Ginny flee the city, borrowing a horse and buggy from a kindly Amish boy. At the Lockvogel house, they learn the story between him and the robot’s maker, Dr. Krieger.
quote:
They ransack the professor’s notes. He’s left a letter to Ginni:
quote:
JP, Devi and Winston rush to the basement, and find the headsets, when they hear giant clomping footsteps outside...
***
Trudy awakens in a barn. But instead of animals, it’s filled with mad scientists! Sister Helene the electrical genius nun, Yancey, Lockvogel, Zasimo Wilcox (Querida’s seldom seen brother), as well as one other journalist… Beatrice Piper, who Trudy had last "encountered" in a hotel room in Chile. "Trude the Prude" explains that that was a one-time thing.
When you’re imprisoned, soft skills make the difference. Trudy convinces the group to stop their enforced robot repair, and get her a device that would let her sneak away! The egg heads are eager to help.
***
Meanwhile, in the Lockvogel basement, Winston hears a small group of commandos. They are trying to get into the bulkhead, so he sabotages the stairs. JP attacks the confused group with a metal pipe, trapping the troopers between the floor and the wall. "Do hand over your weapons, won’t you?"
***
Trudy sneaks off into the privy, using a welding torch to free herself and break through the wall… out into the farmland beyond. Is this secret base in Amish Country?
***
At the house, Ginni screams: a robot’s trampling the living room! Winston starts working on a signal interrupter… And while Diamond is planning his next move, the robot snatches him through the ceiling! Devika tries to pull him down… he loses his shoe but he is still pulled up. In the living room, Josiah P uses the debris to slow down the robot, grabbing a metal pole from what used to be a lamp. He lodges it into a gap...and frees himself. But the robot tries again. The Steel Legionaire is about to squeeze JP’s throat closed when the signal stops! Callahan was sweating onto his equipment.
***
Trudy fled the farm, unfortunately unfortunately attracting the attention of the guard dogs…She makes it to a nearby river with only a slash on her leg. She signals a horse and buggy for help and reunites with the group. She bandages her leg and calls in favors, including her friends in the National Guard. They have -a- tank… but the players have the Spectre, Winston’s plane. They guess correctly that Krieger will try and flee when an armored unit shows up… but they didn’t expect his plane to have a rear-mounted machine gun turret!
No one on the Spectre is particularly good at shooting, so they need another plan. JP cobbles together the parachutes into a mass, and tells Callahan to pull up right in front of the other plane. The undead flatfoot opens the back bay, air rushing all around… And hurls the chutes into the Krieger’s propeller! His plane is sent into a death spiral, with his daughter Elsie escaping. And presumably swearing revenge.
Our closing scene is a few days later, a young boy is working the plow when he finds a kettle sized robot hand. "Pa, look at this!"
John Dallman
Hero
The occult WWII campaign has two strands at present. I run the China-Burma-India theatre, and Zyg runs the neutral countries. The characters in the latter work for MI6, under cover as a BOAC civilian flying boat crew. They were sent to Lisbon to convey the Duke of Kent back to the UK. He's been in neutral Portugal visiting a trade fair. That was all going fine until 05:00 local time on Monday 1st July when we heard several multi-engine aircraft approaching the Lisbon seaplane base. As dawn started, we could see they had four engines and wondered if they might be Luftwaffe Fw 200 Kondors but they were RAF Sunderland flying boats, who landed but stayed out in the channel.
The Air Attaché from the embassy arrived with a signal for us saying that the Sunderlands were to take the Duke of Kent, and we were to remain in Lisbon to take alternative passengers. We started speculating about the Duke of Windsor at that point, but it wasn't confirmed for a few hours, when the attaché told us he had set off from Madrid towards Lisbon, but nobody knew just where he was. Magical detection revealed he wasn't in Portugal; detection across national borders is at serious penalties, so we needed to be in Spain to check there. We flew towards Gibraltar, had "engine trouble" and alighted in Spanish territorial waters for engine repairs and detection. That revealed the Duke & Duchess at a hotel along a reasonable route from Madrid to Lisbon. We flew back, talked to the Embassy, and four of the six PCs set off by car for the border, with the embassy's economic adviser, who appears to be running things. One of the PCs is a racing driver, so we made good time, although it was hard on the passengers; the roads in 1940 Portugal are not superb.
In the next session, we will have to sneak across the border, magically locate the Duke, and track him, or possibly rescue him.
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