Carolina Death Crawl
So several hours before we had the best worst restaurant experience ever at a not-too-local Denny's last night, we tried out Carolina Death Crawl, a short form RPG by Jason Morningstar, the guy who wrote Fiasco, Durance, and the Shab al-Hiri Roach. As a change of pace from the typical RPG experience, it was a really short session, but it went pretty well. The game starts with everyone assigning names to the other people around them, and with each name comes a bit of character background. Then each player reads from some pre-prepared cards to set the scene - the game is about four Union soldiers who've been abandoned by their regiment behind enemy lines. They're hunted by Confederates and need to get back to their men soon or risk being shot as deserters. The gameplay is really simple - you set several scenes for yourself, and during each one you do something bad - Kill someone, Destroy something, or Disgrace yourself. Whenever you do that, you get a card that has a story element on it along with a point value. During any scene, you can introduce the story elements from your cards (or some that are on your character cards). Once everyone has introduced a scene, the person who's introduced the fewest points worth of cards dies (in the event of a tie, the highest ranked person dies).
We started off with some brief vignettes involving the characters: my character, Sgt. Lemuel Ross-Tucker, was ordered to pacify a town and was forced to hang a young man to make an example out of him, Jenni's character, Bugler Pembroke Maybank, robbed and blew up a train, and I forget the other two.
We began the game with the characters traveling by night, hoping to make it to their commanding officer's camp in New Bern, North Carolina. Greg's character, Private Robert Comfort, realized that the group was heading west, not east, which prompted Jenni to think that James' character, Lt. Charles Dunham, was intentionally leading us in the wrong direction...so she stabbed him under suspicion that he was a Confederate spy. Lt. Dunham started out by denying that we were moving in the wrong direction, ordering us to continue and demanding that we trust him, but eventually he revealed that we were close to a Confederate emplacement and we needed to go around it. The group agreed to follow him, hoping that their food stores would last.
The food stores didn't last, and the group was forced to approach a homestead to attempt to commandeer some food. Maybank and Ross-Tucker went to secure the barn, coming across a slave and her five children. Meanwhile, Comfort and Dunham entered the house to make sure that it was secure. The woman of the house was defiant, telling the soldiers that "you can rob me today, but you'll be dead tomorrow." Comfort steeled himself and shot her, though he didn't kill the children. Dunham slaughtered the pigs as Maybank and Ross-Tucker allowed the slave woman to run off.
The group came upon another band of Union soldiers heading back toward the main camp and settled down with them, relieved to be with a larger group. However, the the middle of the night, a much larger Confederate force attacked, driving through the Union band. Dunham led the rest of the group in a brave but futile counterattack, but the four of us were forced to retreat with one teenaged soldier. The kid confessed that he had accidentally led the Confederates to the Union camp while on a walk by starlight, at which point Ross-Tucker lost it and stabbed him to death. Maybank tried to stop him, and he beat Maybank's face into near unrecognizability.
As we came closer to New Bern, the Confederates hot on our trail, Dunham decided to lead the group of us to hide out in a school building. Comfort and Ross-Tucker went in first to make sure it was secure, but found a lone child hiding there. Sgt. Ross-Tucker tried to keep the child quiet, and was forced to suffocate him in order to keep him from giving our position away. The others entered the school, at which point Comfort saw a fiery vision above a nearby church and fled the school, screaming. This alerted the Confederates to our position and they attacked the school. Lt. Dunham told the rest of us to flee for our lives and went down fighting them off.
With the Lieutenant dead, Sgt. Ross-Tucker was in command of the group (only Maybank at that point). Ross-Tucker chose to lead him into a fetid swamp rather than stick to the more populous roads, and after an afternoon of marching, we came upon Comfort sitting by a campfire. Ross-Tucker wearily said that "at least if we're shot as deserters, one of us will deserve it." Maybank was angrier about Comfort's cowardice and told him so, and Comfort attacked Maybank and beat him mercilessly to push down his own feelings of guilt at running away.
We approached the river, and Maybank tried to wade across it, but became stuck in a peat bog and nearly drowned. The other two were able to rescue her, at which point Comfort suggested that we attempt to cross at a nearby bridge. We found the bridge guarded by Confederates that had also removed its planks, so we were forced to seek refuge with a Union sympathizer. Knowing that there were Confederate troops nearby, he refused to aid us in our hour of need. We moved further down the riverbank, coming upon a dwarf who owned a small ferry with a prostitute named Sally. We negotiated passage across the river, at which point Ross-Tucker burned the boat so that the Confederates would not have a way to follow us. The dwarf cursed us and ran to inform the Confederates of our position. As we retreated, a snake bit Maybank. Comfort sucked the poison from the wound, but accidentally swallowed it and died soon thereafter.
Maybank and Ross-Tucker pressed onward, not far from New Bern and our comrades. The snakebite festering, Maybank confessed that he was unable to walk further, so Ross-Tucker dragged her to a plantation house in search of some medicine or a cart to drag him to safety. Ross-Tucker knocked on the door to commandeer assistance, but it was answered by a group of Confederate soldiers. Ross-Tucker dropped Maybank to the ground, fell backward down the steps to the home, and fled across the field. Maybank shot one of the soldiers and bayoneted another. Ross-Tucker was shot in the leg trying to escape, but pulled himself onto a horse that had also taken a wound. Maybank shot at Ross-Tucker, killing his horse and causing it to crush the Sergeant's leg. Maybank dragged herself over to Ross-Tucker's position, and the two men both saw the last remaining horse at the same time. Ross-Tucker smashed his rifle butt into Maybank's face and pulled himself onto the final horse's back, trampling Maybank to death as he fled back to the Union army and safety.
We started off with some brief vignettes involving the characters: my character, Sgt. Lemuel Ross-Tucker, was ordered to pacify a town and was forced to hang a young man to make an example out of him, Jenni's character, Bugler Pembroke Maybank, robbed and blew up a train, and I forget the other two.
We began the game with the characters traveling by night, hoping to make it to their commanding officer's camp in New Bern, North Carolina. Greg's character, Private Robert Comfort, realized that the group was heading west, not east, which prompted Jenni to think that James' character, Lt. Charles Dunham, was intentionally leading us in the wrong direction...so she stabbed him under suspicion that he was a Confederate spy. Lt. Dunham started out by denying that we were moving in the wrong direction, ordering us to continue and demanding that we trust him, but eventually he revealed that we were close to a Confederate emplacement and we needed to go around it. The group agreed to follow him, hoping that their food stores would last.
The food stores didn't last, and the group was forced to approach a homestead to attempt to commandeer some food. Maybank and Ross-Tucker went to secure the barn, coming across a slave and her five children. Meanwhile, Comfort and Dunham entered the house to make sure that it was secure. The woman of the house was defiant, telling the soldiers that "you can rob me today, but you'll be dead tomorrow." Comfort steeled himself and shot her, though he didn't kill the children. Dunham slaughtered the pigs as Maybank and Ross-Tucker allowed the slave woman to run off.
The group came upon another band of Union soldiers heading back toward the main camp and settled down with them, relieved to be with a larger group. However, the the middle of the night, a much larger Confederate force attacked, driving through the Union band. Dunham led the rest of the group in a brave but futile counterattack, but the four of us were forced to retreat with one teenaged soldier. The kid confessed that he had accidentally led the Confederates to the Union camp while on a walk by starlight, at which point Ross-Tucker lost it and stabbed him to death. Maybank tried to stop him, and he beat Maybank's face into near unrecognizability.
As we came closer to New Bern, the Confederates hot on our trail, Dunham decided to lead the group of us to hide out in a school building. Comfort and Ross-Tucker went in first to make sure it was secure, but found a lone child hiding there. Sgt. Ross-Tucker tried to keep the child quiet, and was forced to suffocate him in order to keep him from giving our position away. The others entered the school, at which point Comfort saw a fiery vision above a nearby church and fled the school, screaming. This alerted the Confederates to our position and they attacked the school. Lt. Dunham told the rest of us to flee for our lives and went down fighting them off.
With the Lieutenant dead, Sgt. Ross-Tucker was in command of the group (only Maybank at that point). Ross-Tucker chose to lead him into a fetid swamp rather than stick to the more populous roads, and after an afternoon of marching, we came upon Comfort sitting by a campfire. Ross-Tucker wearily said that "at least if we're shot as deserters, one of us will deserve it." Maybank was angrier about Comfort's cowardice and told him so, and Comfort attacked Maybank and beat him mercilessly to push down his own feelings of guilt at running away.
We approached the river, and Maybank tried to wade across it, but became stuck in a peat bog and nearly drowned. The other two were able to rescue her, at which point Comfort suggested that we attempt to cross at a nearby bridge. We found the bridge guarded by Confederates that had also removed its planks, so we were forced to seek refuge with a Union sympathizer. Knowing that there were Confederate troops nearby, he refused to aid us in our hour of need. We moved further down the riverbank, coming upon a dwarf who owned a small ferry with a prostitute named Sally. We negotiated passage across the river, at which point Ross-Tucker burned the boat so that the Confederates would not have a way to follow us. The dwarf cursed us and ran to inform the Confederates of our position. As we retreated, a snake bit Maybank. Comfort sucked the poison from the wound, but accidentally swallowed it and died soon thereafter.
Maybank and Ross-Tucker pressed onward, not far from New Bern and our comrades. The snakebite festering, Maybank confessed that he was unable to walk further, so Ross-Tucker dragged her to a plantation house in search of some medicine or a cart to drag him to safety. Ross-Tucker knocked on the door to commandeer assistance, but it was answered by a group of Confederate soldiers. Ross-Tucker dropped Maybank to the ground, fell backward down the steps to the home, and fled across the field. Maybank shot one of the soldiers and bayoneted another. Ross-Tucker was shot in the leg trying to escape, but pulled himself onto a horse that had also taken a wound. Maybank shot at Ross-Tucker, killing his horse and causing it to crush the Sergeant's leg. Maybank dragged herself over to Ross-Tucker's position, and the two men both saw the last remaining horse at the same time. Ross-Tucker smashed his rifle butt into Maybank's face and pulled himself onto the final horse's back, trampling Maybank to death as he fled back to the Union army and safety.