Session Report: The Perilous Halls [O2]

The Party
Dirk Woodcock the magnificent warrior.
Dirk Pisspot a new smelly fellow with a dagger fetish.
The other Dirks were unavailable.

Dealing with Missing Players, New Players, and Continuity
New players joining mid-adventure is pretty easy (wave the GM wand and look - you found a companion through whatever plot device is most convenient).  When a player is unable to make a session, that complicates things because it makes things more difficult - do we not play, does some unlucky sucker have to run an unfamiliar character as an NPC, or what?  In some games, continuity is all important.  This, however, is NOT one of those games. 

When a new character joins the party they will automatically sense that the other player characters are probable allies or at least should be trusted enough to adventure with ... for now.  Things can develop as they do as the game progresses.  No bullshit 45 minutes of sniffing butts and introduction by way of role playing.  Let's get on with it!  The fun stuff happens in the game anyway.

When a player is not available, their character fades away into a slack-jawed grey transparent shade that floats around following the active player characters.  Everyone forgets about them almost instantly.  When the player returns to the game, poof - they are back in the action.  This is some heavy handed shit, but think about it - this is a game of dungeon crawling and weirdness and it fixes the annoying 30 minutes of explaining where the character has been and what they missed and so on. 


Adventure Highlights

• Woodcock pins his silver rose brooch to the bottom of his loin cloth for "more swagger"
• Promptly renames character Dirk Rosecock
• Hack through the red-ropes and follow the slime trail
• Found a dead slugthing and a strange groteqsue stone carved door
• The party moves into an area with thigh-deep mist
• There is some grunting - they avoid that
• The party fights some sort of terrible glob with many legs and arms and "flesh vents"
• There is some portcullis lifting
• The party discovers and investigatesa huge weird machine and a giant stone
• They decide it is a trap and/or trouble and move on
• There is some TERRIBLE rumbling and lots of noise - the Dirks declare that the Dungeon has Awoken
• the party frees a dwarf who was imprisoned, they don't speak dwarf
• the dwarf, wearing only chains wrapped around his arms and legs (dong swinging free) rids in Rosecock's backpack
• More exploration and two parts of the map connect.
• Some freak monster is laid to waste and Pisspot finds a weird book and some creeeepy tools
• More wandering and following the slime trail
• they find a door that appears to be plastered shut
• in an area that is seriously pitted out the party finds a chest filled with loot and another dead slug work thing with fleshy weapon pods
• they are attacked by a gigantic snail-thing that appears to have a half dozen flail heads and courses with blue energy
• the dwarf attack Pisspot because he did some wizard stuff earlier
• dwarf gets killed
• snail thing bludgeons Rosecock to death
• As his dying action he tosses the brooch to Pisspot and shouts "Never let the Legend of Rosecock fade!!!"  then he dies a lot
• Pisspot runs away and hides in the room the entire adventure started in last session.

Summary
That was hella fun.  Adam lost his pregen but declared it a "good death".  I may have to cancel next week because of work, but am going to try.  Also, the real life Hack is back on AND we've started playing Necromunda.  Game life is Gee Double Oh Good.