K37 - Stress testing Thordar the fearless fencing dwarf.

The 31st session of Reclaiming Khazad-dum took a turn for the interesting when it became a single combat pitching one dwarf PC against temporarily PC'd orcs. Thordar has an interesting concept, embodied by his daredevil advantage and a selection of cinematic combat technique, machismo, reverse grip antics and overconfidence. Thordar shredded through two large panthers using single strikes to the vitals in the past, greatly simplifying an otherwise difficult encounter.  I wanted to stress test the PC while he ended up isolated and hurt. NPC orcs were given to other players to ensure that the brittle orcs got their very best shot in this fight. 

The background

Thordar was a bit too enthusiastic as a rear guard on the day that the dwarves collapsed the two approaches used by the orcs to assault Erebor's positions. Consequently, he got cut off from the main body, alone in the dark. His only known option was to follow a breakneck footpath on the wall of the unending well up to a small footbridge across. Scouts reported it, but never investigated the location. 

K36 - Cave-ins and squeezes

We are back to our main campaign after an eventful side quest where the Kraken died. The PCs are now free to move forward in any direction that they choose. This session was short as we played a metagame just before to set the stage. 

The initial situation ( a recap )

The viceroy's retinue returned from a venture in the 4th level with the Bride in tow. Deema, the bride, is prophetically bound to marry Durin's heir and produce the next and last incarnation of the mythical King. All dwarves seeing the bride are falling inexorably in love with the woman. The romantic tension is a bit much for everyone. She was farmed out of sight in the "Hatchet Dwelling", a small compound near the East Gate which was inhabited by farmers in the glory days of the old city. 

It was discovered during the delve that a great curse, probably the soul of the Balrog, had invested the bodies of the dwarven ancestors. The lot was now standing in the Hall of Trees, blocking the way forward along Durin's way with more than a thousand aggressive animated corpses. More worrisome is the fact that upon their second death, a shard of the curse is release and makes its way back to the bowels of Khazad-dum. 

Lastly, the curse is driving the dwarves mad. Their Will degrade over time until they turn into a rabble of incoherent, mad warriors that are virtually impossible to command. This is not helping that one orc nation called the "Hunters" is pushing them back from forward positions on the 2nd and 4th level. 

Getting caught on the wrong side of a cave-in (Bain, Thordar)

As first order of business, Bain sends scouts to identify the most effective chokepoint to block the hunters from attacking. They begin caving-in operations along the main road, the aqueduct underneath and a side passage from the Hatchet dwelling. The rear guard action is done by a small group of volunteers from the Silver-Attack. Thordar is also part of the rear guard as he can't pass on an occasion to be reckless. 

In the last moment before the final which is to seal the access to the hunters, Thordar gets carried aways on a pursuit and gets separated from the rear guard. By the time that he realizes that he is alone on the other side, he can hear the last warning of the imminent cave-in. Then comes a huge grinding noise and the underground road fills with dust. He is caught, alone, on the wrong side of the collapsed tunnel. Thordar quickly thinks and remembers a known footbridge discovered by scouts last week. That would be his only chance to escape before the hunters fill the base of Marzabul's stairs.  

Without looking back, Thordar slips west into the darkness in search of a way back to the East Gate. 

Bain had a great idea here and it worked quite well. To their knowledge, there are no alternate ways to reach their position from the stair from where the Hunters lauch raids. Thordar was involved in an abstracted MASS combat. He selected +2 for risks and lucked out. This is why he ended up separated from the main body and onto an adventure of his own.

Down they go: looking for a way to the underdeep (Khazek, Lathmelen)

Khazek was reunited with his rangers when they came back from across the Misty Mountains. The news from there were good and the danger of the watcher had not materialized. Khazek was looking for a way to get to the underdeep, get rid of the curse somehow and marry the bride. A logical first step was to descend through the known passage's to Halin's mine and try to break west from there. He considered taking a Lot (47 battle-guards, Axedwarves and crossbowmen), but decided to travel light with only his rockwalkers. 

The descent took about an hour until they got to a crossroad where all access had been caved-in by Halin some 15 years ago. The only way out was a gold mine to the south. The rangers started to look for alternatives. They found an aqueduct underneath the westward road that didn't get properly caved in. Or at least, Lathmelen's elf magic detected the weakness in the mess. They managed to get a squeeze opened that was large enough for broad-chested dwarves. They all crawled through and headed west. 

Just how big is Khazad-dum?

They spent about 6 hours traveling a well kept east-west road. They encountered multiple crossroads but kept on moving forward until they arrived to a major highway. There, they detected recent orc tracks, as well as cart tracks and fragment of the strangest of gold ore. Lathmelen positively identified it as gold ore, but there was something odd about the metal. She pocketed a few rocks and the ranger returned to the East gate to report on the finding. 

Upon their return, it was decided that a sizeable force would have to support the operation on the 4th deep. Elements of the Mithril and Bronze were ready to go while the Silver-Attack was paralyzed by an epidemic of dysentery. 

Meanwhile, in a folder full of parchemins nearby (Bain)

Bain decided to do a little HR work to place the best leader in the best positions. Particularly, in logistic posts where the long-term success of the venture resides.  While the rangers were deep underground and Thordar was lost and no one knew about it, Bain poured over rosters to identify candidates. Using his cunning, he met with sub-commanders to weed out the least competent and promote the best suited for a long underground offense in a terrifying environment (Leadership support check passed).  He identified the key roles, particularly in logistical positions, and matches the two lists (Admin check, supported by leadership).

As a consequence, a bunch of points will be awarded to decrease the dependence of sub-units to more convenient levels. 

K35 - A character sheet for a campaign

In this post, I present some ideas on sandboxing that I tried in my Reclaiming Khazad-dum campaign and report on how it went. 

The Gist

I made a character sheet for the campaign and I gave campaign points for the players to shape the campaign to their liking. 

The motivations

There are a few:

1. It feels like personal awards are not always appropriate as most PCs are well into the 300 points range, yet I want to give awards for good play.
2. I want the players to approach the Reclaiming part as a complex problem with lots of fire to put out, and complete freedom to decide how to go about it.
3. I enjoy having dice tell me which way things are going to go.

K34 - and thus died the Kraken

This session is the conclusion of a side adventure with alternate characters that pitched the Kraken against Gandalf, Quickbeam, Elphir, Beorn and Gwaihir the Eagle-Lord. 

The setup

Time 0 for session 3

It all resumed with the Eagle-Lord lying face up under a yard worth of water, grappled by the Kraken. The Kraken had been lured in really shallow water after the lake was partially drained and Gandalf lured it from the depth using a blue sphere of light. The blow from the diving Eagle was harsh, but the Kraken was still a serious threat.

Quickbeam was then carrying Elphir of Dol Amroth on his shoulder while Gandalf was slinging anemic fireballs to the beast. 

Felling the beast

If you laugh at the GM's artwork, you won't be invited anymore.

While Quickbeam and Elphir were wading to the Kraken, Gandalf propelled Beorn (in bear form) halfway to the beast.  Gandalf then offered a reprieve to the Eagle-Lord by casting a spell to push away water around both creatures' head. This beached the Kraken which was embroiled with the Eagle. By then, Beorn caused much damage with its claws and disabled a basal tentacle. Quickbeam put Elphir on the ground so the knight let out a power-blow that tore a large gash in the beast's side. Beyond the gash, a void full of stars was sucking in air. Elphir was struck by horror at this sight and failed to prevent tipping over into the emptiness. 

By his side, Quickbeam tore an even bigger hole in the Kraken's side while Beorn knocked one of the large eye off its socket. The beast had absorbed by then well over 100 HP of damage to its head and became unresponsive. 

Quickbeam used a tentacle as a rope to climb down into the oblivion while Beorn simply jumped straight in to follow the listless Elphir. When Gandalf arrived, all that he could see was Quickbeam hanging over a bottomless void. His intuition told him to Jump!, and so he did. Quickbeam let go and all fell into a maelstrom.

Social Academy: Reward structure for social-based GURPS campaigns

This post is part of a the GURPS Social Academy in support of my new campaigns The Empress of India and Tsukumogami.

The earlier posts are the following:

1. The Reaction Roll
2. The Unassisted Influence Check 
3. PCs as targets of Influence Checks
4. A non-fantasy model for religions
5. Mitigating the reaction Roll
6. Reward structure in social-oriented campaigns.

Preamble

On a small enough scale, advancement isn't the same as inflation

I think that we tend to think of character advancement as a fundamental component of a RPG. I'd like to suspend this assumption for a moment, and hopefully for a lot longer. One of the many gems that I found in FATE is the principle that characters change without necessarily becoming more super. A good player will foresee the trouble ahead and shift skills in the Pyramid, or add/remove stunts such that the character can face better the challenges ahead. A bad player will miss the boat and deal with the mismatch.

Of course, some campaigns need characters to inflate, and that's cool. I just can't imagine a context where Fast-Talk-22 is exciting.  Ok, everyone gets to put their pants down for a moment every time that the character snaps his/her fingers, which can be funny.

Evaluate(Opening) - Results from playtesting

This post is in part a repost of an earlier blog entry introducing the concept. I repost the key bits here for convenience, and add to this my observations after playtesting. 

You will find more on Evaluate on +Douglas Cole 's Melee Academy 301 - Evaluate.

The Serendipity Engine

Screen Shot of the alpha version on May 21st 2013

http://serendipity-engine.appspot.com

Objective

Simulate how combats are made of serendipitous opening that perceptive and skilled fighter take advantage of. One can fight according to a plan, or be nimble and go with the flow. This option provides the "flow". It is based on a web-based app, requiring nothing but a browser.

Principle

A skill contest between the Per-based melee combat skill of the attacker against the DX-based melee combat skill of the defender. In case of a success by the attacker, the attacker spot a combat opening with a benefit that is a function of the margin of success. If the margin is negative, but the Per-based skill check was successful, the bonus is applied to the next active defense.

To generate interesting openings, the random "table" is implemented as a web application. This has the potential to generate over a few hundreds different combinations of opening and conditions, and this number of permutations blows up into the thousands if we take into account the range of possible attack bonuses and defense penalties.

Procedure

The phasing player may call an Evaluate(combat opening) as a melee combat move. The skill contest is resolved by the app, determine the success and generate an opening. In case of failure, the phasing player my be compelled to take a Do nothing action. In other cases, the phasing player is free to take advantage of the opening by converting the evaluate into a new action and immediately resolving it to exploit the opening, or take instead a Do Nothing or All-out defense action. The gamble here is that if the opening isn't desirable, the turn will be spent looking  for an opening and deciding not to take it.

1. Declare an Evaluate (combat Opening)
2. Per-skill vs DX-skill (handled by app)
3. Pick Either of:
   1. Immediately convert to attack to exploit opening.
   2. Do Nothing

A critical fail on the Per-based skill check is narrated to the player like a critical success, but is converted instead into a bonus for the opponent as a bonus to any form of counter attacks.

Discussion

This is not a new idea, if you want a low-tech table instead, try Sean Punch's post of SJG's forum, or +Douglas Cole 's post on Gaming Ballistic. Here follows some questions that I was looking for in playtesting this combat option:

Are players using the the Evaluate (opening)?

In my Face-to-Face game, yes. At first for novelty but then again because I think that my players enjoyed the unpredictability that it brought. As a disclosure, I tend to limit combat to a few very important once which tend to revolve themselves fairly quickly: the first strike often sets the tone for the rest of the combat.

When presented with an opening, are the players deciding to exploit the opening?

Usually yes. If the random opening generator suggested something that didn't make sense, there is a button to generate another opening without re-rolling the skill contest. 

1. If not,
1. Sometime, ending in the kneeled position isn't outweigh by the bonus conferred by the opening (especially for contest won by a small margin). 
2. If so,
1. I think that my players like how it sends the combat into unforeseen directions. It comes down to a gamble: waste a turn looking or get something more substantial than a plain Evaluate. 

In summary, I like this option and we find it fun. Rolling against this option gives an edge for perceptive characters and bring laughters all around.  I can't recall a single instance of a player getting a smile out of using the base Evaluate maneuver (let alone the whole table). It works really only against an anthropomorphic foe.

K33 - An unlikely patch of green

This session is part of a mini-side adventure for the campaign "Reclaiming Khazad-dum". We transport ourselves in the 12th year of the fourth age, some 2-3 years before the start of the campaign itself. The PCs are here a collection of high-powered, A-list Tolkien characters. The outcome of this side quest will determine what Army Group West will run into. 

The Characters

Each players was given complete creative license and 500 cps to create high-profile characters from the Middle-Earth lore. +Paul Stefko decided to play Elphir of Dol Amroth, the heir of Dol Amroth and a damn great Numenorean knight. Paul has posted some design notes on his blog.  +Jason Woollard  create his version of Bregalad (Quickbeam) the hasty Ent. +Arne Jamtgaard traded Bain the Viceroy for Gandalf the White. He modeled Gandalf's magic using effect shaping syntactic magic using the verb and noun variant. Finally, +Alex J. has crafted Beorn. In the next session, +Alex Safatli will be joining the fray with Gwaihir, the Eagle-Lord.

That, friends and fellow gamers, is a 2500 cp worth of protagonists, soon to swell to 3000 cps.