The Arden Vul Weasels - Session 1
Weird Writer has written a proper recap so I'll leave that to her. My scattered and initial thoughts are these:
Boy this thing is dense! It's obviously a bonus for me, but someone intending to running it fast and loose would likely have trouble. Sometimes the room key starts by telling you what the room once was, but once you actually read the whole thing it's an empty, regular room.
I speak very slowly when running, and It actually felt way nicer to do that in a dungeon game than in something like And in the Darkness, Hearts Aglow, where it feels there that the individual specific words aren't as important as the mood and tone, whereas in Arden Vul it feels the inverse of that, each word does carry a lot of weight because of the informational warfare nature of it.
Taking it slow is turbo fun. With something this dense it actually feels nice to just go room by room, sit with it, breathe in the dust of the ages. But interestingly, half the session was outside the dungeon, which made the entire thing feel that much larger. There is pomp and circumstance to "getting in the backdoor of the dungeon", to me it felt a bit like they were entering somewhere they shouldn't (which is sensible in a place as deadly as this!).
Rolled only once, as a Perfected style 2d6 roll-off between me and WW as I decided there was a risk of the giant centipedes swarming on the corner to notice her peeking inside where they were. This is typical for me, but it assuages the fears I had regarding systems. Almost changed to Clash of Steel but Mann talked me out of it.
Oh how I love interested players. Nothing can compare, truly. Whenever one of my players like Spuk asked a question of "what would I know about this?" my neurons flashed.
I have my players tracking the turns and rolling the encounter die, I just tell them "This floor it's 1 check every 3 turns, please track" and call out whenever a turn goes by. They have divided roles with one taking notes and turn-tracking, one mapping (I'm doing it so that I don't call out specific dimensions until they spend a turn surveying the room), and one kinda calling; the other two chime in to ask questions as they're both magic people, but the caller, being a burly fighter, can focus more on taking charge.
So yeah, my final word on this first session is that, while The Halls of Arden Vul aren't for the inexperienced, they deliver on the promise of a dungeon that is bursting with setting and context. I was a bit worried after reading down to level 3 but now that I can properly imagine the game, I can see how much it does. When you're DMing, it all looks very simple (it's obvious that Symbol A connects to Panel B seen 4 rooms to the west), but when you're in there and making other choices, a simple mosaic of Thoth receiving worship feels weighty. Great stuff! Looking forward to the next one.