the harpy cave and the "big boy" healing potion |
Behind the curtain
Marianne |
A blog about the Traveller Role Playing Game and the software I've written for it as well as my current game progress. Now with other game goodness!
the harpy cave and the "big boy" healing potion |
Marianne |
It was mostly single encounter that took a bit longer than expected. Still wish we could play this face to face - I'd buy a bucket of those cheap dinosaurs and probably use Lego minifigs :)
Before the break of dawn, leaving their dinos (and Smitty's mule) back at the campsite, they attempt to sneak up on the cabin in the dark. Only Lee, the martial artist, managed this, with two characters rolling 20s (which is a critical fail. I've been a little haphazard with rolls but will explain my logic at the end of the post). I indicated that this as far enough away from the cabin that they are being sneaky enough at this distance. I need to handle fail forward a bit better, but I punted.
The cabin has a light on, and the smell of bacon is wafting through the air. I let them roll again as now they are in sight of the small cabin and can see the outhouse behind it (which while I marked on the map, neglected to let anyone know what that box was). The roll was nearly identical, including Molly making a 2nd critical fail if I recall. She managed to walk through a spiderweb, and the spider was crawling across her face. Never a pleasant experience but worse when you can barely see the tree in front of you!
not exactly right but close enough! |
Alerted, Clem comes out of the cabin, an oil lantern in hand, looking out into the woods. Lee makes an immediate attack, and so our side gets initiative as the people in the cabin were surprised. Brandishing his staff he knocks poor Clem down, who immediately drops the oil lantern. Which breaks and a small fire gets started underfoot. Hambone is getting closer, and Molly, Archibald and Smitty hang back but are still moving forward. Next round, Clem does not land a punch on Lee, but a rifle has broken through the window right next to the fight. Hambone sidles around the side of the house, inadvertently next to the outhouse. But there is no marshal inside, nor does he blow it up with dynamite. Lee gets shot at 3 times, twice getting hit but only once actually hit has he made his saving roll. He has a martial arts talent that allows him to save against ranged attacks. A critical save (this time a 20...yes, it gets a bit confusing!) means he actually gets a free action to move and attack. But he took a shot to the shoulder giving several points of damage. He also kills Clem, having moved to his "iron fists" which do more damage than his staff. And the fire grows a bit.
The other window breaks out, and Archibald attempts to pull the rifle from Wanda (the 2nd rifle bearer). He missed his roll, so between the distance, the darkness, and seeing only part of Wanda and the rifle, he could not yank it from her arms. She fires blindly towards Hambone but misses all three times (she was rolling at a disadvantage between the dark and the ruckus in front). Somewhere along here Hambone yells at them to give it up quietly but they did not want to.
Lee, after killing Clem, leaps through the window and succeeds in knocking down Bart. Hambone is moving around to the back of the cabin as there are no windows on the side he is on. Molly starts moving up to calm the horses, Smitty moves to put out the fire, and Archibald gets a bit closer. Lee and Bart are tussling, and Wanda decides that shooting into a melee combat may not do well for Bart. Hambone breaks into the back window but finds that it is a bedroom, and no visibility to anyone in the cabin. Molly gets a bucket and water from the trough and aids Smitty in putting out the fire.
Eventually Lee gets Bart knocked out (he was using non-lethal force). Wanda is about to shoot when I think at this point Hambone got into the cabin and has his shotgun on her. The smell of burnt bacon fills the cabin.
They managed to get everyone all tied up, and Hambone is disgusted by the waste of bacon. They get back to their patient dinos and then back to Copper Peak. Along the way they pass a badly wounded triceratops. It was not tee same one as before. Deciding that it was too hurt for them to actually be able to heal it, and not wanting to use all his healing potions, they decide to let nature take its course. Then we remembered Lee was wounded, so rewound to get the first aid in. Archibald was willing to give a potion to heal him, but Lee can channel his chi once a day and do some healing. He was quite insistent on that. Dropping off the two living and one dead person, the collect a reward as they were all wanted. Most of them gave their money to Archibald to help him with his inventions, and they still had plenty from the last time they got bounties.
And that is where we left things.
Running two games, for me at least, presents some logistical issues. Fortunately, one game is every other week at the most, and as I am no longer running the weekly Fantasy Trip game for reasons, I just have the 2 games for the moment.
I have something mostly prepared for the next Cowboy game, at least an encounter. But I also recognize I need to expand it a bit, and get some details mixed in there. The diary, the MacGuffin piece, actually has more than just some salacious notes: she has notes on things that could bring down a number of people in Copper Peak. And am I worried about my players reading my game notes: not really as they only read the blogs when I post the game recaps and I point them to that. Could be wrong, and even if I am, they are also good RPG players and can separate what they know vs what their characters know. I also have to see about that week journey north-west to New Harmony: do we want to do a day at a time, run random encounters, or just "a week later you find yourselves at the outskirts of town". I have an entire book, Wondrous Expeditions: Forests (and wonder if they will ever do any more in that series) but as much as my group loves getting game books, they really don't seem to want to use any of the mechanics for things outside the core processes. I have a lot of books as I like books, but if I don't use them and barely read them, I have to wonder at myself a lot. Of course, I say this same thing every few posts as well! Anyways - figure that the cabin in the woods will take most of the next game night, so I need to plan a bit more beyond that. It is a Saturday, and they will investigate either late Saturday night or Sunday in daylight, and then whatever happens, back to Copper Peak probably Sunday. They are wanting to visit the land office to check on Hambone's land, so I need to have some potential dialog and ideas there.
And running a cowboy game is a bit hard for me - I am not personally a fan of westerns. They are okay, but just not something I have a lot of experience with. But one of the players loves the old west and rarely gets to play in those games, and I do like to make people happy.
And the image above brings to mind a discussion we've had playing. I have one player who prefers photos of real people for his characters and NPCs. I prefer art and not real people. Part of it is, I think, is that art allows for more imagination, similar to why I prefer the old-line drawings for RPGs. A real person, an actor or whatever, is a real person and I feel very uncomfortable using a real person in a game. Even if we are just using the image, it is a photo of a real human being and it just feels wrong for me to "use" someone, even if it is harmless and more a reference than the actual person. One of these days I may have to dig into why I don't like using real people as characters and NPCs. Could be some nascent social anxiety I fear I may have (what, a gamer with social issues, say it ain't so!)
Book 1 is reviewed here: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8, Part 9, Part 10
Of course, the big news is that Marc Miller sold the rights to Traveller to Mongoose Publishing. On the one hand, I am glad that there is a "succession" of sorts laid out so there won't be a lot of confusion when the inevitable happens. On the other hand, while I really like the 1st edition of Mongoose. I'm not really happy with where they are taking it for a few reasons. But in the end, it really does not make a lot of difference to me: I have most of the old stuff, and I am no longer the target audience of the new stuff. And while I do pick and choose some of the new stuff, my rare play is still mostly CT.
And while I am still doing an overview of the T5.10 books here, pretty sure they are a dead end for a number of reasons as well at this point (okay, pretty much since 5.10 came out). I still think there is a game in there somewhere, but the editing, organization and sheer volume make finding that game more complicated than it should be. But, as per my signature over on COTI, I will continue to pick and choose the rules I like. As pretty much all RPGs are homebrew in some sense as groups tend to gravitate to their own interpretation of things.
And moving on to my continued and somewhat opinionated review of T5.10.
The Building World’s base Tech Level constrains the capabilities of the shipyard constructing the ship. Unless otherwise specified, all mechanisms on the ship will be at the base tech level.Imported ComponentsSome components and mechanisms can be imported from neighboring shipyards with the appropriate tech level. Standard mechanisms at TL +1 are available and can be imported at their standard cost plus 10%. Early, Prototype, and Experimental mechanisms are available locally.In a mapped situation (where the local subsector or sector is mapped), player characters can import any higher tech level mechanisms they find in the course of play.Tech Level LimitsWithin the Imperium, the maximum shipyard Tech Level is 15. Within this ship design system, the maximum available Tech Level is 21.
the Valley Forge from Silent Running |