Holiday Gaming Report

[ArawnNox]

Okay, it's taken me a bit to get my thoughts together. Let me say, that getting things together wasn't as easy as I would have liked, as players had, y'know, life crap to deal with during game time and all. Let me put it like this: On the first day we were going to play, one player was reminded and was nearly 100 miles away at the time. Another ran out of gas 300 yards from where we were meeting and had to be retreived. By the time all this was done, the stranded player went home and another had to go to work.

The second night we met later than planned, and I got "Darkest Hour" off the ground.

SPOILER WARNING

Dramatis Personae -
Sean: Unborn Gladiator Lancer, "Strut Complex" (name selected by randomly picking words in a car repair manual)
Devin: Charismatic Human Sage, "Carl Caledries"
AJ: Dwarf Miner Soldier, "Akaris"
Martin: Agile Human Soldier, "Dag Bluefield" (First name was originally "Danger" but a few annoyed glares fixed that)
Andy: Rootwalker Tribesman Scout, "Rotor Arms" (Name selected the same way as Sean's)

So, as things begin, I start the players off by letting them get some introductory RP out of the way. When the topic of dinner at the Tipsey Wyvern came up, the player's had this to say about the Rootwalker's diet: "If it doesn't talk back, it's fair game." As the wounded Hertiger rides into the inn, the Dwarf and Rootwalker are the first to investigate, followed by the humans.
The fog and raveners roll in as Rotor Arms heads to help close the gate. Strut Complex heads to the stable to get his iron horse and Dag stands by Carl, who stops to help Hertiger. Dag takes Carl's bow and fires through the closing gate... and instead hits Rotor Arms. Whoops.
Rotor Arms waits at the base of the gate, for the Raveners to climb over, while Dag readies another shot, and Strut readies a charge. Carl continues to try to stableize Hertiger, using Action Die to succeed at the checks.
As the Raveners come over the wall, Rotor Arms attacks them, as well as Dag's arrow shots taking down another. Strut charges and doesn't get anywhere. He comes around and leaps from his horse, landing hard on the ground. The concentrated efforts of the rootwalker and unborn quickly take out the remaining Raveners.

The players ask a few questions of the Inn staff and, based on Hertiger's plea before losing consciousness, they head for Andra and the church. Upon arrival, Strut Complex forgoes all sense of decorum or stealth, and smacks the church's door with his warhammer. When they figure out that there are people inside, the party is let in, however, no one is happy to see them. Carl manages to talk down a very angry Bastian and learn what they can about the attack and the other party of adventurers. They manage to learn about the tunnels under the village, but they don't dig any deeper than that, heading into the village proper.

They find the mayor's house and Barald's Journal. They get a better idea of what's going on and decide to head for the graveyard... but not before getting ambushed by Wiltweevil. The rootwalker rings Strut's bell (hitting him with a crit), but the unborn returns the favor, critting with a blow from his warhammer and stunning him for 2 rounds. In that time, the party gangs up on him and make short work of him. Turned the whole encounter into a triviality.

Moving on to the main event, the party sets upon a pack of raveners outside the tomb. Thanks to Rotor Arms' ambush, they made very short work of the pack. By the time the last ravener fell, the Grave Wurm burst out from the ground. After a short round of combat, Master appeared in all his over-the-top hammy glory. My acting caused some good laughter at the table, which was then transferred to the in-character reaction. This didn't sit too well with the fallen paladin and combat recommenced. Strut Complex went after Master, swatting him with his warhammer. Then Master make a use of his frenzy ability and one-shot the unborn.
Then the players gave up.

I've been gaming with this group for 15 years and I've never seen that. It left a bad taste in my mouth. The players LOVED the system. They thought it was amazingly well constructed. They were initially overwhelmed by the abilities they had, but once they saw it all in action, they loved it.

So, at their request, I came up with another game, set in Sunchaser, that we ran the next night... which I'll post about next.

[ArawnNox]

So, the next game was something I threw together. I set it in Sunchaser (and the player characters were mostly designed around the setting anyway).

In the eastern section of the Anmai region, where the land curves up into the mountains the boarder the Thousand River Valley and Avva's Anvil, is a slowly growing community of loggers called "Evergreen" for the abundance of evergreen trees in the region.
The party, Carl, Dag, Akaris and a new member; Ssergeth Wind-Dragon (a saurian Martial Artist with Draconic Heritage, played by Doug) find their way to this hamlet of 100 or so people, mostly workers and their families. They go to the small tavern that's been built and sample the local brew, a bitter drink made from moss. The dwarf is the only one enjoying his drinks.
Before too long, Tom Tigereye, the local sheriff, steps in to the tavern and approaches the group of obvious Sunchasers and fills them in on a situation: Two of the workers have gone missing. He points them in the direction of Einar, his dwarven deputy, and Swift Liam, the chief hunter. Tom leaves things at that and heads out to his office.
The players check with Liam first, finding out that something large was moving through the woods near the work site, but he couldn't find much else. Talking to Einar didn't help much. They learned a bit about the workers who went missing and about the search effort to find them. They return to Liam, who leads them out to the work site.
They hunt around and Carl uncovers a large, humanoid footprint. When trying to figure it out, Dag comments, "It's large, and it's not a tree." The players warn the foreman and the sheriff of their suspicions that an Ogre has come into the area. As they set out into the woods, following the trail, the party comes across an abandoned camp site, with a covered firepit.
As they inspect the camp, a hunting horn sounds and the players are rushed by a pack of wolves, all wearing collars.

Ssergeth moves forward to engage the wolves, attacking with his katana, while the rest of the party groups up to fight them. Dag takes his stance with his claymore and keeps most of the wolves at bay, while Ssergeth kills one, but is harried by a couple. The wolves start dropping and Dag errors with his claymore, the weapon slipping from his hands and nearly impaling Carl, who he was flanking a wolf with.
As the battle rages, an oger, weilding a greatclub charges into the fight, going after the isolated saurian. With one swipe of his club, Ssergeth is knocked down. Akaris throws his axe into the ogre. Carl, who's been plagued by poor rolls, fires two arrows at the ogre, the second shot striking the beast between the eyes.

The ogre threat dealt with, the players return to Evergreen to take part in a funeral and a celebration.

I had originally planned for it to be an Ogre hunting party and after dealing with the hound-master, to have to fight the ogres in a long game of cat-and-mouse, but it was getting late and I decided to cut it off there. The rest of the holiday gaming consisted of short sessions of Scion and GURPS, but you probably don't want to hear about that.

So, all in all, Crafty has some new fans, as Martin plans on picking up the Fantasy Craft book.

[Crafty_Pat]

Dramatis Personae -
Sean: Unborn Gladiator Lancer, "Strut Complex" (name selected by randomly picking words in a car repair manual)
Devin: Charismatic Human Sage, "Carl Caledries"
AJ: Dwarf Miner Soldier, "Akaris"
Martin: Agile Human Soldier, "Dag Bluefield" (First name was originally "Danger" but a few annoyed glares fixed that)
Andy: Rootwalker Tribesman Scout, "Rotor Arms" (Name selected the same way as Sean's)

You have characters named Strut Complex and Rotor Arms and "Danger" prompted glares?

Thanks for the recap!

[ArawnNox]

Dramatis Personae -
Sean: Unborn Gladiator Lancer, "Strut Complex" (name selected by randomly picking words in a car repair manual)
Devin: Charismatic Human Sage, "Carl Caledries"
AJ: Dwarf Miner Soldier, "Akaris"
Martin: Agile Human Soldier, "Dag Bluefield" (First name was originally "Danger" but a few annoyed glares fixed that)
Andy: Rootwalker Tribesman Scout, "Rotor Arms" (Name selected the same way as Sean's)

You have characters named Strut Complex and Rotor Arms and "Danger" prompted glares?

Thanks for the recap!

It was mostly from Devin, since his last name was made up, but the first name didn't fit. *shrug* didn't make much difference to me.

[Typhon]

Yikes, rough first try lol. At least you didn't give up.
No idea why they gave up on the last encounter on Dark? Does sound a little odd.
and lol Pat. Thought you'd be used to people's oddball reactions to things by now. 

[ArawnNox]

Yikes, rough first try lol. At least you didn't give up.
No idea why they gave up on the last encounter on Dark? Does sound a little odd.
and lol Pat. Thought you'd be used to people's oddball reactions to things by now. 

They did some quick number crunching because of Master's frenzy ability (which he could use two more times, yet) and decided that, with that and being scattered from the Grave Wurm's arrival, they were pretty much boned.

[Crafty_Pat]

Yikes, rough first try lol. At least you didn't give up.
No idea why they gave up on the last encounter on Dark? Does sound a little odd.
and lol Pat. Thought you'd be used to people's oddball reactions to things by now. 

They did some quick number crunching because of Master's frenzy ability (which he could use two more times, yet) and decided that, with that and being scattered from the Grave Wurm's arrival, they were pretty much boned.

No offense to anyone who played - I'm sure they have their own definitions of fun, and they're entitled to them - but I find this a disturbing failure in the heroism department. Again, just me. To each his (or her) own.

[ArawnNox]

Yikes, rough first try lol. At least you didn't give up.
No idea why they gave up on the last encounter on Dark? Does sound a little odd.
and lol Pat. Thought you'd be used to people's oddball reactions to things by now. 

They did some quick number crunching because of Master's frenzy ability (which he could use two more times, yet) and decided that, with that and being scattered from the Grave Wurm's arrival, they were pretty much boned.

No offense to anyone who played - I'm sure they have their own definitions of fun, and they're entitled to them - but I find this a disturbing failure in the heroism department. Again, just me. To each his (or her) own.

They, theoretically, could have won, but the odds were not in their favor and there wouldn't have been many of them left after. It surprised me too, but really, seeing a party member get one-shotted was probably the demoralizing factor.

[Crafty_Pat]

They, theoretically, could have won, but the odds were not in their favor and there wouldn't have been many of them left after. It surprised me too, but really, seeing a party member get one-shotted was probably the demoralizing factor.

Out of somewhat morbid curiosity, was it a true one-shot (instant death with no chance of return) or just a matter of the character not having any chance to get back into the fight?

[ArawnNox]

They, theoretically, could have won, but the odds were not in their favor and there wouldn't have been many of them left after. It surprised me too, but really, seeing a party member get one-shotted was probably the demoralizing factor.

Out of somewhat morbid curiosity, was it a true one-shot (instant death with no chance of return) or just a matter of the character not having any chance to get back into the fight?

Master used his Frenzy ability and unloaded on the PC who was within reach. He got smacked with enough damage to put him near or beyond -25.

Probably a bad call on my part as a GM to hit the PC that many times, but I wasn't expecting the rest of them to pack it in.
The follow-up game went much better.

[Crafty_Pat]

Ah, I see. Yeah, there's an art to GMing, and often it takes running any game a couple times - or having a really firm instinct for probability - to keep things moving in a positive direction.

I'm really glad to see your group taking it in relative stride - I've had something like this go down at my table (with me on both sides of the screen), and it's sometimes tough to overcome. Kudos!