Session 7: Ogre Island
this one was a bit rougher than usual, and pretty much entirely because of me - and i don't say that from a self-martyrising place but rather to try and understand how to fix it
so the first issue was that i was very scattered, i kept blanking on very basic stuff (forgot the word for 'prepared' at one point), but with this i think there's no going around it. i just forget words often, even when speaking slowly and taking my time, and that doubles when speaking in english; usually it wouldn't be a problem, but it was the first issue
second was that i took too long before the session to decide on what the session was going to be. only in the previous friday to the game did i settle on what the game was ACTUALLY going to be about, therefore i didn't have as much time to think about the finer details. i need time to let things congeal in my head so that i have more to draw from, and i didn't give it to myself this time
third is that i just am not very good at adjudicating injury checks. this is an issue of getting used to, unfortunately not much i can do about it, but i never like feeling like i'm being mean to the players by attacking them
so for next time I already have most of it prepared, which should alleviate some of it. also we had too much chitchat at the start, in large part because i was yapping, so next week i need to show up and focus
as to what actually happened
we did some downtime that skipped over the late winter and stuff happened over it, though not much
they were informed by don antamonte, their guide, that they had to go erranting as knights this spring. they decided to wait a bit so that fiorello could get his friend a chocolate and a couplet in answer for valentine's day
they leave by train, meet the countess of trusca, find out the count has died and that there's Weird Shit going on with her, but they don't question it very much and examine her petition; some people in Baia Fortuna Island were displaced by an ogre and his loyal ogre goons. the countess thinks this is an issue that a couple 15 year olds with tanks can solve
they prepare and discuss what to do for a long time, perhaps a bit too long, i probably should have intervened, but i liked where they were going with it
they meet some of the ogre goons having lunch, hail them and try to play them against one another, but they're too stupid to even attempt to outwit or deceive the players - they end up just being very honest and direct, and the players weren't expecting that
A big fuck up of mine came when I didn't bring up to the players that the mobile armours don't spawn around you, you just summon it but you still have to get inside - at least a 5 minutes process - which threw a wrench in their plans
they went to war against the ogres, Alessa shot one in the head and was grabbed by the other, Fiorello dashed to stab at it but the ogre clubbed him using Alessa and then dropped her because Cora flipped the soup cauldron he was eating and burned his feet. angry at her, he tried punching her but she clambered on top of a food wagon, Fiorello shot at him but missed (terrible aim) and the ogre nastily punched the food wagon so hard that wood shrapnel flew at his own eye and at Cora. Fiorello finished him off
this is another thing that was perhaps a bad call, the exploding food wagon. i think it would probably have been a better call to ignore the system when it said that both got an injury check, which would have prolonged the fight but not have gotten Cora injured
who knows! next week they'll try and kill the big ogre, Galvino
goodbye