Our third or forth session since rebooting after losing the first gang to wanted level 4.

Our third or forth session since rebooting after losing the first gang to wanted level 4. This is with the newest version of the rules (4a?)

A few characters have carried over (1? 2?) — but the new gang is mostly new charcters, with some interest in recovering one of the characters from the earlier gang from prison. This new gang has focused on maintaining a good relationship with the authorities (positive relations with both the Investigators and Bluecoats) in the effort to avoid going the way of the Little Sisters.

The gang decided to remove a secret device planted on a Leviathan Hunter ship for research purposes. To do so, they had to sneak passed Seaside Docker Sentries (they are at war with them and rolled a 5 on the engagement role — it made sense anyway, given the location). A devil’s bargain resulted an a second group also targeting the same ship for unknown reasons.

Once passed the Docker sentries in the district and the Hunter marines on the gangplank, the players ran into the second team running a job aboard the ship — Red Sashes. The Red Sashes seemed to be part of an operation to steal the ship and planning to remove the same device the PCs were targeting. The Red Sashes tried to talk, but the PCs shocked and gassed them into unconsciousness. They did hear a warning that the device would destroy the ship somehow if not removed.

The ship cast off. One player character rushed for the device, the other for the engine room to disable the ship to prevent the device from detonating (countdown clock running). One player flashbacked to making a deal with a Naiad (from a prior job and with whom he had developed a permanent psychological link as a devil’s bargain) to aid them in pushing the ship off course and back towards Duskwall. It bought them more time. 

One stubborn engineer refused to go the way of his companion in the engine room, tying up one of the PCs for a long while. The other PC tried to draw on the mental link with the Naiad to help locate the device on the ship. A serious complication led to the Naiad temporarily possessing him. That player tried to negotiate with the Naiad, but another serious complication led to the Naiad attempting to absorb his identity in a permanent possession. The PC was at 3 trauma and nearly full on the stress track and clearly was feeling anxious about how to fish his character out of the situation intact.

Meanwhile, the PC in the engine room finally took out the final engineer, but the bastard collapsed on him in his death throes in alchemist fire, also burning the hell out of the PC. He tossed a gunk-up temporary gear stopper in the engine to buy some time and electrocuted himself trying to rewire it. We ended in the middle of the challenge as we ran out of time. 

After this second session with the latest iteration of the rules, I for one am very much enjoying the grittier feel from limiting the bonus dice pool and emphasizing tier/quality, scope, and potency a bit more on the challenges. I’m not sure the players share this enthusiasm. I also offered to start rotating GMing — I’d like to try it out.

Overall, I like everything in the newest rule set. There are some details that remain fuzzy, but I think we are working them out in play. Happy with the direction we are sailing.