Thursday, September 8, 2016

Session Report [O3] Avoid the Smells

Running an online session nearly back-to-back with a live session in a persistent campaign environment is a bit weird.  One party seems to nearly always be stumbling across the remains of the other party, so I decided to keep things interesting to actually conjoin their timelines a bit - in other words some encounters I'm keeping even if they are fully played out because frankly, it is more fun that way.  Ahh fun. Also, I remembered to take notes this time.

The Party
  • Feener: wields the "sweet-ass silver serpent blade" and generally tries to keep it together
  • Gramps: really enjoys shooting things with his flintloque - a lot.  seriously he is power-crazy
  • Armon: cool and slightly aloof, he is doing his best to prove he isn't the Manchurian Candidate
  • Goblin: bald, wide-mouthed, and a bit stone-agey with a dash of mystical knowledge

Action Highlights
  • The party spent some time investigating the rotting corpse of the hulking brun - it is now covered in blue-green mushrooms.  Some holy water didn't do much to make it smell better.  What it did do, however, was convince the party to explore the hole in the ceiling on the side far away from the wretched lemony stink.  Armon put himself in harm's way to ensure that Feener could climb up, and fresh bonds were beginning to be formed.
  • The cavern they climbed into appeared to be hollowed out through natrual caustic action of some sort of huge worm.  This was based on both the smooth "cuts" into the stone, the acrid smell, and the mashed up guanno on the floor.  After some poking about Goblin found an old skeleton, but at the same time the Giant Mottled Cystworm returned!  Feener got kicked through the side passage and saved by Armon.
  • Goblin snuck back close the othe cystworm to claim a prize he had identified just as Gramps blew a hole in the side of the thing, guts and flesh chunks spilling everywhere.  The GMC took the damage and let loose with a high-pitched howl as it fled deeper into it's lair.  The party considered following, but the acrid smell made them decide to turn around.
  • Exploring one of the passages the party disocvers a series of cages filled with long dead oddities ... and get a feeling something is wrong.  With a sudden rash of minor thefts the party realizes that that aren't quite seeing something - Armon gets the first glance of a small lizard-like humanoid creature wearing a white cloak.  A sudden rash of violence and the crack of the flintloque later the party is feeling up an invidble creature.  Feener gets his hands on a black book of some sort that is clearly not "of the light".  He brushes away invetigation and tucks it in his pack ... everyone is wary.
  • After much role playing an uncomfortable conversation, the party frees a trio of humans that have been "fixed by the masters".  They have been here a long time, are very hungry, and miss their dead "tree friends".  The party gets into some clever action with physics and breaks them out.  Both of them.  I mean just the one.  Once free, he gets a bit ... intense.  They name him Vern.  He calls himself MetaVern.
  • Ignoring some stairs down, the party moves past a portcullis and beings to examine a strange construction of wood and bone, upon which fire sprites are dancing.  Vern gets into a conversation with someone behind a door.  "Sounds like a Fire Thief ... and a dead one at that.  I don't know much about ghosts."  MetaVern makes several uncalled for suggestions that the party ignores.
  • The party opens a metal door and catches the salty scent of low tide.  The only way they have to go is now either Down (and they want to go Up) or into one of the smells.  As time was running low, we decided to call it for the evening.
GM Notes
There was some fantastic role playing with this session.  Four players, even online, is much easier than seven face-to-face.  Nonetheless, in both session I can see a spot where I need to help out - Bonds.  The bonds system of Dungeon World is AWESOME, but having everyone create their own from scratch is a bit difficult.  I'll be making a "Bonds cheat sheet" to help folks out.

Wednesday, September 7, 2016

Session Report [T2] Chaos Ensues

I had 7 players at my table this Sunday and it was, in a word, chaotic.  Normally I run for a group of 4-5 at a time.  I've run 7 before, but not in a situation where some folks haven't been in ages, the game was on pause for a bit, and the weather was freaking awesome and we played after a mega-grilling sessions.  And oh so much delicious beer!  It was fun, but took a bit to get on track.

The Party
  • Van Damage: A halbard made of light and a pure Hollywood attitude
  • Duchess: a bloody noble with a bloody cudgel and a bloody righteous attitude
  • Offender 3 "Fen": inquisitive with religious overtones
  • Ian: brash and leader-like with half a dozen personalities to help him out
  • Proximo: a former gladiator with a nasty streak and dark intentions
  • Astor: jeans, t-shirt, manacles, and prayers to Mother Mary and Jesus
  • Feldmutze (aka Fishknuckle): dering do, a wide-brimmed rad hat, and a ruined machine gun

Adventure Highlights
  • The party awoke with the usual sore backs and numb limbs in the large grey chamber.  This time, however, VanDamage caught a glimpse os somrt large mechanical thing retracting into the ceiling mists as though they had just despoisted some of the party mermbers.  
  • The party interacted and argued with each other, Ian asjking why even the new party members (Astor in particular) didn't remember what happened last time.  After much foolishness and several stumbles, the party managed to make their way down into the field of statues (now nearly all destroyed except for a statue of Redhook, Blotch, Harmon, and an unknown figure giving everyone the finger).  Duchess fell a few times but used Fen to establish his domninance.
  • As the chracters made their way up the cliff, they encountered a huge bulbous placental dome over the summon circle that adorned the cetner of the room.  After a bit of debate, VanDamage's halbard split the thing in twait revealing the last of the patcwork thing attempting to bind the with sorcerer's statue head.  It was whispering to each of the characters in turn to bring him another party member.  No one fell for it.
  • Then Fen got a clever idea that he knew how to summon a planar servant.  His blood, plus the blood of Proximo, and some hard core incantations that he claimed to remember were going well, until they saw the bit of circle that VanDamage had pried out (it looked valuable).  Fan did manage to summon something ... inside of himself, which burst out and attacked Duchess wearing Duchess' mother's face.  Filthy patchowrk daemon killing ensued.
  • Zigfried: chef clothes, chef hat, an improvised halberd, and a strong desire to create a new master dish!
  • After much conversation and ignoring all warnings from Ian, folks went back into the lovely lady and tooth fountain and had a few drinks.  The end result was Duchess with a mouth full of too many teeth (gross!) and VanDamage a white goo puddle on the floor.
  • Braun: wielding a morning star made of starlight and a fine selection of cheeses, his hat is definitely cool or in other words fly.
  • The party explored the mostly explored Gathering Pool area and adjacent rooms.  There was much discussion of fiddling with buttons, but in the end everyone was distracted by the Green Devil Face and the strange dead red-skinned humanoid (with those obscene yellowish pouches on his cheeks). After some puttering, a way past the Green Devil Face was discovered, and the party ventured up some stairs.
  • They found a strange construct made of scraps of wood and bone with sprites of fire dancing around in a mildly hypnotic pattern.  After some exploration, they determined that someone was hiding behind one of the doors.  Astor was almost able to communicate with the creature. A good solid door bash later turned the situation into a debacle - a frightened red-skinned man, surprised by the sudden door bashing accidentally speared Duchess, who was gutted and dead.  Proximo charge din shouting about vengeance and killed the shocked creature in a single strike, but fell down bleeding from a gut wound from the barbed spear.
  • The Traveler: a silver spoon and ornate dagger are his tools.  A careless attitude and dislike of dirty dirty magic and writing is the feather in his cap.
  • Astor got two of the party members to hold down Proximo so he could use his scalpels to "fix him up".  In reality he jabbed and perforated internal organs and ended up killing Proximo. However, Proximo made a deal with Asmodeaus to come back.  The dark daemon granted him life at a cost, but the ability to devour flesh of humans to recoup that cost.  
  • Promixo came back and attacked Astor, things went poorly and he went down again, but somehow managed to survive!  Then there was much interrogation byt the rest of the party, a "sorting out" of the details of the situation, and in the end Proximo agreed to not kill anyone.
  • One of the doors led to a cavern with natural pillars of stone and broken wooden bridges.  Feldmuts caused a ruckus by turning a huge wheel and dumping a deluge of rats and then water into the cavern floor (some 30+ feet below hidden by mist).  The things splashing around down there stopped giggling and moving about for a bit,  In the end, the party decided this was too dangerous for the moment and backtracked.
  • After dealing with some portcullis and a strange hallway that looks to be celebratory or possibly like advertisements the party explored a menagerie where tings were dead ... other thana strange trio of brother that had been "modified by the Masters".  The party freed the slaves that seemed to have numerous lanaguges in their pocket and continued on.  NPCs they didn't kill?  WHAT?!
  • The game ended with the party exploring some sort of viewing gallery and discovering a book that appeared to be some cultural discussion of what the Brothers called "The Mokk" - apparently they are a bit rough and often act as slavers.  Also, the lever to dump fire into the chamber of ash was found.  
  • Full of burgers, beers, and role playing, we called it a night.

GM Notes
Seven players is too many when the party doesn't have a complete goal!  However it seemed to still be a good time for everyone.  I'm going to continue to keep neutral on this as long as everyone has fun.