Month: December 2017

My First Game Part 2

As this was effectively a one-off, we rattled through Downtime super-quick and skipped entanglements. Mostly, they used their vices to manage stress – though the Hound over-indulged and wound up bragging for extra Heat (which was entertaining but unlikely to pay off).

Things escalated for Job 2. The group realised they had smuggled an awful spectre into the city – and one with a burning desire to kill Lord Strangford. They realised it was a conspiracy Bowmore, Clelland and Rowan to arrange the ‘perfect assassin’ and get Strangford off the Council – but no one would believe them.

The Spider gleaned that the likeliest opportunity was at an open meeting of the Council to discuss banning Iruvian art as being more likely to be ‘cursed’. The Spider had an art dealer friend (smuggling contact) and managed to infiltrate the crew. The Hound and Lurk dressed as priests but failed their Consort, so they resorted to bribing the guards with Coin and knowing that they were regarded as suspicious.

The Spider concealed their gear in a fake statue, so their weapons etc were to hand – but not on them. Unfortunately, this was also the conspirators plan as one Iruvian statue with four swords (basically Kali-esque) turned out to be a well-made Hull that the spectre was going to use to kill Strangford.

When the statue animated, the Hound shot it with electroplasmic rounds – but couldn’t pierce the armour. The Lurk tried to get in the way with swords but found his hands full of the conspirator’s henchman (the passenger from the smuggling job).

The Whisper Compelled the Spirit out of the Hull just enough for the Spider to use the Hound’s spare pistol (also with electroplasmic rounds) to shoot the spectre.

Unfortunately, violence in the Council chamber attracted the guards – at which point, the Spider used our first proper flashback to reveal that she had doped their drinks in the guard room earlier. The Lurk looked like a master swordsman as he fended off a bunch of doped guardsman to allow the group to escape.

There was no Coin for this – but it was a one-off and the PCs felt like heroes for stopping the conspiracy (which they had unwittingly aided). The end.

—-

The second score went a bit better than the first one as the group started to get more into the swing of the game’s style, hence the first flashback – and the teamwork move between Spider and Whisper. Always good to end on a high point, with people keen to play again.

Although I will probably reboot because I don’t want to think about the kind of Heat that comes from kicking off a fight in a Council chamber (against 50% of the Council’s plans) and doping the guards.

My First Game.

I’m summarising what happened for my own reflection and learning – plus any general advice on stuff I got wrong (and stuff I got right).

Crew: 4 Smugglers – a Hound (Deathland Scavenger), a Spider (Gondolier information broker), Whisper (an expelled Dimmer Sister) and a Lurk (Errol Flynn Dashing Rogue)

The ‘score’ was moving three passengers and a relic from the Deathlands into the city; from Barrowcleft to Six Towers.

Engagement: The Hound met with the passengers as they came through the barrier and led to the rendevouz with the crew’s barge. The roll was a 4, so they were off to a risky start.

Almost immediately after boarding, the crew noticed two small boats coming up on them. The Hound took a shot at some cargo netting dropping obstacles into the path of one boat snarling it up (but with a ‘5’ the gunshot was heard).

The Lurk grabbed the underside of a bridge and then dropped into the second boat (but with a 4, lost footing and landed on his ass – worse position). Scrambling to his feet and drawing his sword, he tried to deal with the three ‘pirates’. With a Desperate roll (aided by Daredevil), he managed to knock the three into the river but at a cost of Level 3 harm (reduced to 2 by armour and then Level 1 by resistance roll).

The Lurk jumped to shore and ran to the next bridge to get back onto the barge – but his ‘rival’ (a hostile bluecoat) was patrolling the bridge. With a Prowl (6), he managed to sneak past the bluecoat and drop onto the barge again.

Meanwhile, one of the passengers (an ally of the Hound) told him that the expedition beyond the barrier had a sinister bent, including a ritual being performed on one of the other passengers that saw them possessed.

The Hound clued in the Whisper and they agreed to separate the other two passengers. The expedition’s ‘leader’ came above decks and the crew attempted to keep them there with Consort. They failed – but resisted him realising they were stalling him.

This meant that the Whisper had only limited time to examine the catatonic passenger and discover there was something awful inside him. The ‘leader’ returned below decks, but the Whisper used Tinker to adjust the stove to issue smoke to drive him back above deck again.

They managed to reach Six Towers without further incident but the crew said they would see to the wellbeing of the catatonic passenger and had to Sway the ‘leader’ into just taking the relics to the Centuralia Club.

The score ended with the save delivery of goods and passenger, but the crew inheriting a heavily possessed young man. The Whisper would, in downtime, take the young man to the Dimmer Sisters for examination – little realising that the Sisters had sold the ritual to the expedition that allowed a particularly unpleasant spirit from beyond the barriers to be placed in a host and brought into the city.

PART 2 may follow

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The players mostly had fun. The Spider felt a little hard done by that they only really had one Consort – and it failed. I didn’t really get to use clocks much.

I found that a number of my GM habits were against the game’s spirit. For example, I am a big user of ‘perception checks’ and ‘sense motive’ but in a reactive sense – where I sense this game encourages me to just hand over information and see what active rolls the PCs want to make (i.e. Sway to get more info from a person).

I’m a little hazy on when people would make an Insight themed resistance check.

It felt like there were a ton of mechanics we didn’t really use.