The Arden Vul Weasels - Session 3
Once more, Weird Writer has our back with a recap and thoughts which I absolutely agree with. I miss tracking torches not at all with our current arrangement (where players have all magical lights which they got someone to cast a weaker version of Continual Light on).
Two things changed this session: one is that we finally had our first fight against a pair of skeletal baboons. My previous instincts about how the individual Hits might end up not mattering much in practice was found to be correct, I failed to consider that I don't actually need to track Hits to know that a full grown man beating a baboon's skeleton against the wall with a shield WILL kill the baboon, or at least incapacitate it. So that's down the drain.
The other thing is that we went specific with mapping, calling out specific dimensions and such, and as predicted, it went perfectly fine. Perhaps even better than not giving the specifics, as the players were all very involved in trying to get everything right. I think the loose mapping can be fun and perfectly usable, but it's just very fun to watch the "little ants" (as I called them in the session) slowly building up a room to the specifications given.
I will try to convince them to switch to mipui.net instead, which I used previously in my PW game with DGB and found very easy and simple, perhaps not as versatile as tldraw as it isn't quite a whiteboard, but very specifically made for mapping.
For the future, I intend on turning the Fighter "killing instinct" from this:
A fighter has a chance in 10 equal to his level to notice how powerful another fighting man or monster is through his honed self-preservation skills. If the enemy fighter is within a level, he will feel impelled to fight and test his mettle. If the enemy fighter is 2 levels stronger or more, he will feel the danger radiating, the strength of which might go from just a goosebump or the hairs at the back of his neck standing up, all the way up to seeing a vision of his own death in a flash. If the enemy is 2 levels weaker or worse, the fighting man’s instincts will tell him they are nothing to be worried about. Thus, godlike fighting men are tremendously apt at gauging the power of others.
Into a Resistance Table like RuneQuest has, so that a level 1 Fighting Man has a 50% chance of accurately gauging that another level 1 Fighting Man is his match. I intend to do this to weigh things a bit on the side of the players; it is far more fun, in my experience, when the players know the relative power of the enemy, rather than "ah you can't quite tell if the knight is strong or not, oh well!" (and more like Naruto too)
Anyway, this session was a blast, even if all they did was walk around and measure rooms. It's just exactly what I was expecting of the game, very heartening. This past week I've been in a very downcast mood but I feel back on my feet already. Nothing like a weekend of hearty games with skilled friends as a pick-me-up.
Also listened to Geese's 3D Country album and "GENERATION ROULETTE I'M SPINNING YOU ROUND AGAIN TONIGHT!" plays constantly in the back of my mind. Had interesting conversations, talked to friends and was reminded I'm actually not the most irritating person in the world and can actually make interesting things every so often, made a Princess class after becoming inspired over that, read Lost Girls by Alan Moore and sobbed for a full minute after finishing it, watched In My Skin, etc.
I don't know if good art and good play have healing properties, but they sure do to me. Now more than ever I look so ever forward to my future games, I almost feel like it's even possible to finish the dungeon.
We won't, obviously, but reality has no business getting in the way of hope.