playtest session 43 -- scenario M5m1 eats brains & delivers dungeonry
12/1/10 -- me GMing for John, Dan and Merlin at John's place
I am proud of myself. I actually kept notes on the magical metaphysics introduced this session! I used to just assume I'd remember until the write-up, but that's not foolproof, and I'm not always thorough in these write-ups. Plus, this session's muckings included 4 different liquids to produce similar but distinct effects. Oh, and my lack of documentation came back to cause some confusion. So, plenty of incentives to begin jotting.
Game Supplements
When we met up at John's apartment, we had a chat about D&D character building. I was lamenting about how there's no possible Delve equivalent of D&D3's books and books of customizing options. Merlin said, "Sure there is. Different backgrounds and sets of skills, from different places in the world." It's true. There are a lot of different color options. The effectiveness options would be pretty low-consequence -- we don't roll skill checks all that often -- but that wound up being true in D&D3 too. How often did that really cool feat combo ever actually come up? Merlin said that the feat combos weren't just about being the best, they were also about the flavor. So, different-flavored versions of "I'm good at Switching into a fight, Pressing in, and Wrestling an opponent" might still grab players.
Wrestling
Speaking of Wrestling, I mentioned some fears about fairness. If it's a rare, cheap skill, it's easy to outclass someone in it. So, just as Merlin's character can dominate some opponents that way, some opponents would logically be able to dominate John and Dan's guys. Dan said he was cool with that, as long as the end result was just a hold. Thus, they'd need to be out-wrestled AND out-numbered to be victims of uncontested throat-slitting. And they really haven't been out numbered in any fights thus far. Dan also mentioned that being out-wrestled is far from automatic, as you get a strength check every round to escape. This made me wonder: is that true? True until you get pinned? I really need to finalize the wrestling rules.
Advancement: First Aid & Herbalism
Before jumping back into play, Merlin noted that it'd been a long time since we'd done advancement. We tried to remember the last time; we agreed on Hesengard. I counted up the sessions since. Eight. So, 24 more points each. Dan and Merlin had saved their previous 25, so they now had enough to buy Mastery in their weapons.
John had saved fewer points, and could only afford Mastery in a cheaper skill: Herbalism or First Aid. I didn't want him to pay for no reward, so we talked about what new cool stuff he might do as a Master medic or herbalist. I also didn't want something declared out of the blue without corresponding training or practice.
For First Aid, we agreed that he'd need some cadavers to cut up, to learn more about anatomy, the better to treat severe lacerations. We discussed how only Minecoil goop had saved them from some crippled (5-pt wound) limbs in the past, and they were running out of goop. So John's surgery skills would allow him to treat these injuries. I mentioned how the results might still be unsatisfactory without magical assistance, so we decided that part of First Aid Mastery meant knowing how to use his magical tools etc. to help surgery. Which, now that I think about it, probably means speeding recovery time. I'll have to think more about what resources he has that could achieve that.
For Herbalism, most of the new effects John wanted were just stronger versions of the stuff he could already do -- numb pain, boost energy, induce drowsiness, poison. We decided that it'd be cool to invent a distillation process to create potent elixirs. He also was excited about making herb-combo potions (multi-purpose? or sum greater than parts?), and isolating properties of multi-faceted herbs. We started pondering where he might get pipes for distilling, but then he decided to hold off on taking the skill.
Fun tarot spread
What with the players going after non-supernatural problems of late, we hadn't done one of these in a while. Dan seemed eager to get to some action, but John and Merlin both came up with some really cool ideas while studying it. They were completely off base, but still, fun.
Leaving the spread out on the table was key. As the adventure unfolded, Merlin connected his interpretation of a figure in the spread (Elericus) with the current tentacled brain-sucking action, with brilliant results! He thought up the idea of feeding Elericus to the Grell to get the memories he stole from Rodokandris, then feeding the memories to Rodokandris -- or one of the PCs! I kinda hope they try this.
The big tarot breakthrough, though, was when John saw that washing Grell goo off Einarr with holy water produced an alcohol-scented yellow liquid. He instantly looked at the cards, saw the nourishing river card crossing the yellow drunkard card, and realized that they had to drink this stuff.
Demon powers used on lackeys
Nasty demon + magically protected PCs + defenseless NPCs (who the PCs like) = win/win. Grotesque color, pride in goodies, anger at evil, desire to protect useful assets (lackeys) and guilt over their loss. Not even necessary to threaten the PCs with injury!
Plus they had an ingenious solution for sucking the demon out of the Brotherhood guy it possessed -- stab it with alodite! I couldn't allow a mere stab to accomplish a proper binding of the type that usually needs rituals and starlight, but it worked* for just long enough until their next cool idea. Throw the alodite into the safe from whence the demon had come!
*Hey, it's a demon looking for physical bodies! Nothing says the next demon should be likewise affected.
Dungeons
As a GM, I'm not a big fan. Tracking all the physical spacing hurts my head. Thorough mapping of everything takes time. Limited mapping of what the characters know is awkward. Gehn. All that said, when fast-forwarding is an option, and getting lost isn't, it's easier to focus on the fun parts. I'm not sure why "this is in your way; to proceed, you must deal with it" is so alluring even when there's no obvious reason to get to the other side. But it seems to get everyone stoked.
The exploration yielded a slowly unfolding reveal of the fact that the building is an Orc ziggurat, where human sacrifice rituals were once performed. I paced this largely with menial labor, where the most revealing rooms had to be excavated. I also threw in a few "don't go here!" signs, and obliged with fights when they did. We ended the session with them trying to carve runes into a wardrobe which is actually a monster that eats people who enter it. I've got a whole week now to figure out what the fuck that'll do...
Some metaphysics
It takes two alodite daggers to fully suck a bodiless possessor demon out of its host. These will leak almost instantly, but contain the demon for at least a few seconds thereafter. Part of my concept is that the demon is disoriented by being split into bits. Perhaps two weaker demons will emerge...
Alodite fragments inserted into a physical monster will temporarily sap small amounts of that monster's power. Not sure if I like this. Will have to revisit what happened when the guys stuck arrowheads into the wardrobe.
Touching charged alodite to a rune-spell can activate the spell, depending. Depending on what? "Automatic" seemed wrong, so I tried to remember what else might have been required during the long-ago experiment with the Firewalkers. Dust? That seemed logical, so we went with that. But now I think that perhaps the issue is "charged". If you actually have a serious demon stuck in your alodite, and it was dangerous and difficult to put it there, then sure, you can do a spell with that, no other resources required. I'll just have to clarify the difference between truly charged alodite and alodite that a demon may be just sorta partially passing through. (Hopefully I can find a way to clarify it after they stab one demon with another, rather than before...)
White goo - contains memories of Grell and most recent victim, but will cause madness if ingested.
Clear slime - sufficient amount reflects last memory eaten.
White goo + clear slime = display memories (slime acts as lens into goo).
Baby's breath + water = holy water.
Holy water + slime = no effect.
Holy water + goo = Grell wine.
Grell wine - shows last memory on surface. When drunk, gives visions of Grell memories. When completely drunk, shows how to put Grell to sleep: feed it someone as that person dies. If drinking from goo of own stolen memories, these memories are restored (though not experienced during drinking -- Grell memories experienced?).
I am proud of myself. I actually kept notes on the magical metaphysics introduced this session! I used to just assume I'd remember until the write-up, but that's not foolproof, and I'm not always thorough in these write-ups. Plus, this session's muckings included 4 different liquids to produce similar but distinct effects. Oh, and my lack of documentation came back to cause some confusion. So, plenty of incentives to begin jotting.
Game Supplements
When we met up at John's apartment, we had a chat about D&D character building. I was lamenting about how there's no possible Delve equivalent of D&D3's books and books of customizing options. Merlin said, "Sure there is. Different backgrounds and sets of skills, from different places in the world." It's true. There are a lot of different color options. The effectiveness options would be pretty low-consequence -- we don't roll skill checks all that often -- but that wound up being true in D&D3 too. How often did that really cool feat combo ever actually come up? Merlin said that the feat combos weren't just about being the best, they were also about the flavor. So, different-flavored versions of "I'm good at Switching into a fight, Pressing in, and Wrestling an opponent" might still grab players.
Wrestling
Speaking of Wrestling, I mentioned some fears about fairness. If it's a rare, cheap skill, it's easy to outclass someone in it. So, just as Merlin's character can dominate some opponents that way, some opponents would logically be able to dominate John and Dan's guys. Dan said he was cool with that, as long as the end result was just a hold. Thus, they'd need to be out-wrestled AND out-numbered to be victims of uncontested throat-slitting. And they really haven't been out numbered in any fights thus far. Dan also mentioned that being out-wrestled is far from automatic, as you get a strength check every round to escape. This made me wonder: is that true? True until you get pinned? I really need to finalize the wrestling rules.
Advancement: First Aid & Herbalism
Before jumping back into play, Merlin noted that it'd been a long time since we'd done advancement. We tried to remember the last time; we agreed on Hesengard. I counted up the sessions since. Eight. So, 24 more points each. Dan and Merlin had saved their previous 25, so they now had enough to buy Mastery in their weapons.
John had saved fewer points, and could only afford Mastery in a cheaper skill: Herbalism or First Aid. I didn't want him to pay for no reward, so we talked about what new cool stuff he might do as a Master medic or herbalist. I also didn't want something declared out of the blue without corresponding training or practice.
For First Aid, we agreed that he'd need some cadavers to cut up, to learn more about anatomy, the better to treat severe lacerations. We discussed how only Minecoil goop had saved them from some crippled (5-pt wound) limbs in the past, and they were running out of goop. So John's surgery skills would allow him to treat these injuries. I mentioned how the results might still be unsatisfactory without magical assistance, so we decided that part of First Aid Mastery meant knowing how to use his magical tools etc. to help surgery. Which, now that I think about it, probably means speeding recovery time. I'll have to think more about what resources he has that could achieve that.
For Herbalism, most of the new effects John wanted were just stronger versions of the stuff he could already do -- numb pain, boost energy, induce drowsiness, poison. We decided that it'd be cool to invent a distillation process to create potent elixirs. He also was excited about making herb-combo potions (multi-purpose? or sum greater than parts?), and isolating properties of multi-faceted herbs. We started pondering where he might get pipes for distilling, but then he decided to hold off on taking the skill.
Fun tarot spread
What with the players going after non-supernatural problems of late, we hadn't done one of these in a while. Dan seemed eager to get to some action, but John and Merlin both came up with some really cool ideas while studying it. They were completely off base, but still, fun.
Leaving the spread out on the table was key. As the adventure unfolded, Merlin connected his interpretation of a figure in the spread (Elericus) with the current tentacled brain-sucking action, with brilliant results! He thought up the idea of feeding Elericus to the Grell to get the memories he stole from Rodokandris, then feeding the memories to Rodokandris -- or one of the PCs! I kinda hope they try this.
The big tarot breakthrough, though, was when John saw that washing Grell goo off Einarr with holy water produced an alcohol-scented yellow liquid. He instantly looked at the cards, saw the nourishing river card crossing the yellow drunkard card, and realized that they had to drink this stuff.
Demon powers used on lackeys
Nasty demon + magically protected PCs + defenseless NPCs (who the PCs like) = win/win. Grotesque color, pride in goodies, anger at evil, desire to protect useful assets (lackeys) and guilt over their loss. Not even necessary to threaten the PCs with injury!
Plus they had an ingenious solution for sucking the demon out of the Brotherhood guy it possessed -- stab it with alodite! I couldn't allow a mere stab to accomplish a proper binding of the type that usually needs rituals and starlight, but it worked* for just long enough until their next cool idea. Throw the alodite into the safe from whence the demon had come!
*Hey, it's a demon looking for physical bodies! Nothing says the next demon should be likewise affected.
Dungeons
As a GM, I'm not a big fan. Tracking all the physical spacing hurts my head. Thorough mapping of everything takes time. Limited mapping of what the characters know is awkward. Gehn. All that said, when fast-forwarding is an option, and getting lost isn't, it's easier to focus on the fun parts. I'm not sure why "this is in your way; to proceed, you must deal with it" is so alluring even when there's no obvious reason to get to the other side. But it seems to get everyone stoked.
The exploration yielded a slowly unfolding reveal of the fact that the building is an Orc ziggurat, where human sacrifice rituals were once performed. I paced this largely with menial labor, where the most revealing rooms had to be excavated. I also threw in a few "don't go here!" signs, and obliged with fights when they did. We ended the session with them trying to carve runes into a wardrobe which is actually a monster that eats people who enter it. I've got a whole week now to figure out what the fuck that'll do...
Some metaphysics
It takes two alodite daggers to fully suck a bodiless possessor demon out of its host. These will leak almost instantly, but contain the demon for at least a few seconds thereafter. Part of my concept is that the demon is disoriented by being split into bits. Perhaps two weaker demons will emerge...
Alodite fragments inserted into a physical monster will temporarily sap small amounts of that monster's power. Not sure if I like this. Will have to revisit what happened when the guys stuck arrowheads into the wardrobe.
Touching charged alodite to a rune-spell can activate the spell, depending. Depending on what? "Automatic" seemed wrong, so I tried to remember what else might have been required during the long-ago experiment with the Firewalkers. Dust? That seemed logical, so we went with that. But now I think that perhaps the issue is "charged". If you actually have a serious demon stuck in your alodite, and it was dangerous and difficult to put it there, then sure, you can do a spell with that, no other resources required. I'll just have to clarify the difference between truly charged alodite and alodite that a demon may be just sorta partially passing through. (Hopefully I can find a way to clarify it after they stab one demon with another, rather than before...)
White goo - contains memories of Grell and most recent victim, but will cause madness if ingested.
Clear slime - sufficient amount reflects last memory eaten.
White goo + clear slime = display memories (slime acts as lens into goo).
Baby's breath + water = holy water.
Holy water + slime = no effect.
Holy water + goo = Grell wine.
Grell wine - shows last memory on surface. When drunk, gives visions of Grell memories. When completely drunk, shows how to put Grell to sleep: feed it someone as that person dies. If drinking from goo of own stolen memories, these memories are restored (though not experienced during drinking -- Grell memories experienced?).