Dinos and Cowboys - Prep for session 2, and some OSE character generation

 From the number of hits for my last post, Cowboys & Dinosaurs are not people's jams. However, as I've only so much time (retirement may change that, may not) my blog posts tend to reflect my current gaming, especially when I am running the game. However, there will be a bonus paragraph or two on OSE as the Fantasy Group dad came over to hang out & wanted to generate an OSE character.

First, though, game prep for session 2. As we left our characters, they were heading back to Aurora. They had a name, Jack Slade, Molly's ex-husband, a no-good varmint of a man. They will hit town about an hour or so before sunset (and no idea how Molly & Volgol will get there - if they fly together, they will get there hours earlier. So, we'll just see how that works out) There are several places to visit as evening comes long:

1. Sheriff Shelton's office as they need to make a statement and check on things
2. Doc Calloway's to check on Spotted Horse
3. Find dinner
4. Find where to sleep at night (and while I worked up prices for people, entirely forgot about dino stables. I need to get that figured out before Monday's game. Herbivores will just eat a giant hay bale, but carnivorous dino, if it ate a 2-year-old steer (so a large one) would be in the $20 range per night as that is what a 2-year-old steer cost back then (so yay, my price lookups are actually useful). Meaning dinosaurs are expensive and complicated to own in town.
5. see what else is going on

Obviously, we need some high point of action for the session (though not all sessions always have that, I try to get something exciting and fun in). I actually have (so far) 12 points of things that may or may not happen for various things. I actually pulled a few from my initial weekly timeline (which itself was just a spaghetti on the wall of ideas to see what may stick) so if it gets slow, I can throw more stuff in there. 

There are of course several theories on how to run sessions and campaigns (just got the XDM Second Edition book and have read through that). I generally fall in the traditional 3 act: intro, confrontation, and resolution. Though for a campaign I like to leave things on a cliff-hanger, so there is usually a 4th act or reveal during the resolution to carry forward into the next session (after all, I do want them to want to come back!)

I have several smaller plot points but nothing big. And I do like to have at least 1 battle per session if possible, but I don't want it forced. I may add some additional encounters on the road back to Aurora: perhaps there are a couple extra henchmen still out there, and they saw the sheriff with the wagon & their fellow gang member. Perhaps start with a bang, so to speak.

One of the inspirations for this game is this guy here: Art Station link for Shaun Keenan. This could be Aurora's main street:

It was those images that started this whole shebang! Hopefully I can convey the light-hearted feels that the imagery gives me, though we do have gun fights and so far the death toll is 2 bad guys.

Anyway, back to the meta-plot. They do know these guys are hired by or work for Jack Slade. The over-arching plot should take at least 3-4 weeks as he won't even show up until the end of tomorrow's session most likely (and yes, I can do minor spoilers here as my group rarely reads the blog unless I email them the link. At least as far as I know)

There are about half a dozen or more plots that I'll spring on them, though I do want to keep track of the main thread even though there will be a lot of detours to where this may end. And actually - not even sure where this will end. I have a few ideas of course, but I am going to let each session help guide where things are going.

My final thoughts on this are that I sorely lack the ability to play NPCs very well. Sally and the sheriff I think have been pretty flat and 2 dimensional. I need to bring out actual personality to them. Sally should be easy: I am basing her off of Ellie May from the Beverly Hillbillies. She loves animals and I just need to see if I can get a bit of that accent in.

Makes you wonder how much the actress liked handling all the animals.

The sheriff I don't have anything specific in mind, so I need to figure something out.

I miss my Sunday Fantasy Trip games - those were face to face. Of course, Covid stopped those for 2 years but then we started back up again. But that faltered as the boys were not as interested as they had been before. I got Old School Essentials, thinking that game may appeal more them: old school, yes, but actual classes, levels and abilities tied to those classes, races and levels. More like the video games that are based off of RPGs. I even printed out the free basic rules for them and sent everyone dice sets as of course we need the polyhedral dice for this game! So far no takers.

However, the dad showed up at my house this morning versus our normal Sunda workout at his backyard gym (I met him at the gym if you may recall). We talked for a bit, and we really had the option of playing Death Test or the just came in yesterday To Death Do Us Part solo TFT game. Which I really got for me so I can play the Fantasy Trip. Assuming I get time! Or roll up a character for OSE. We chose OSE and he wanted to generate a Drow assassin. The dice and books came out, I went over some of the general differences of OSE vs TFT, and we started in.

His rolls actually worked out very well: the assassin's primary stat is dexterity, and he actually rolled a 17 for that stat! The rest of his rolls were pretty good as well: a 9 intelligence was his lowest score. Then taking into account the Drow, he lost a point but gained a dexterity point for 18. This gives him the 10% bonus on XP as well as a +3 for his AC and +3 for missile attacks. His constitution also gives him a +1 on hit points, so that is a good thing as an assassin uses a d4 for hit dice. I allow for re-rolling 1 and 2 for that, and after rolling a 2 about 7 times in a row, just gave him the 3, then the +1 for the constitution bonus. Guess we could have just done 3/4 and an even/odd roll, but I like rolling all the dice.

Dynin had 110 gold which he spent entirely on his equipment and armor. He will be desperate for a job! I have a few "official" character sheets for OSE and for some reason he picked the (to me) drab one, though it is straightforward and a form-fillable PDF, so that really helps. Then I made him his cheat sheet for the assassin, copying in the level and save charts, and the abilities a Drow has as well as the assassin skills. We're hoping that if the boys see that level of detail they may want to play again. Of course, the game has to be fun for them to play as well, but I think the mechanics of the various characters may help them enjoy it more.

The dad really liked the randomness of a lot of the character generation: TFT is entirely player defined, OSE has a lot more randomness to it. Why I'd roll the stats then pick a class or race that best uses those. If his kids come back, I may let them roll a 2nd set of stats then pick and choose if they have a specific character type in mind.

Yes, I could do the "heroic" roll-up: 4d6 and pick the top 3. And I may do that but honestly, I am not really a fan of that. I want to play a character that may have flaws and can't just win all the time. No fun there, but then again, I am also no longer a teenager. Though even then, because of Traveller and its random generation, I was used to playing characters that could get knocked out in a single punch. You avoided getting into fights in that case! And OSE is even more deadly than TFT: armor just makes you less likely to get hit - it is not a damage reducer. Level 1 characters are not likely to survive a hard fight with anything bigger than your average rat.

Dynin's character sheet. Think I'll do up the fun looking ones to see how that looks.

Anyway - longer block of text than normal as I had two things this evening. I suppose I could have made 2 posts. My next post will probably be mid-week with a session 2 recap. I may try & get a Traveller post of some sort in there as well. If nothing else, an opinionated puff piece.