First Playtest of “A Fistful of Darkness” weird west hack

First Playtest of “A Fistful of Darkness” weird west hack

First Playtest of “A Fistful of Darkness” weird west hack

Short summary of the first two session of the very first game of “A Fistful of Darkness”. A big THANK YOU to the playtesters Stephan Kannengiesser Jens Römer and Peter Schmitz.

Session one saw the creation of the posse (= Bounty Hunters), PCs (= The Fist, The Thunderheart, The Scout) and world building (creating Mudwater and surroundings). We learned that we have a lot of swamp in the area, the Ghost Cliff as home of the Black Rider and lots of other interesting places (see map). We found out that Mudwater currently don’t have a graveyard because someone found Hellstone there and the dead had to make room for the mines. Missing, too, is a butcher because the last one went Hellstone scavenging and now the Thorton Ranch is providing the food for the city. An arrangement not everybody is happy with not only because of the inferior quality of the food delivered.

On the good side Mudwater has a Train station because one of the railroads reached the city already and as an additional facility we have Master Lees Chinese Laundry with Master Lee happening to be the mentor of the Fist PC.

The posse’s Hideout is a classic cave-hidden-behind-waterfall, provided by the Thunder Raven Tribe (+1 Status) overtaken from the Black Rider who is not only a mysterios guy but is obvious mundane enough to need a hideout (minus 1 Status). The Thunderhearts tribe and their rivals brought two new tribes to the game and we learned that their’s a “good” way to mine for or use Hellstone (without heavy impact and pollution of nature) and a “bad” industrial way which most of the white folks are using. The spirits of nature are not amused about that, as well as some of the tribes.

After first choosing the Hellstone Scavengers playbook for the posse, the players switched to Bounty Hunters because after some discussion they decided to be demon hunters. As demons seem to come with too much civilization and the “bad” way of mining, it was clear that someone has to do something about it and hunt them down. Originally the Bounty Hunters playbook was not meant for this approach but worked nevertheless quiet fine. They took the occultist as main contact and established that he’s the one paying good money for demons. I’m curious to find out if the occultist has a specific application for all those demons or what will happen with them in the future.

From a GM point of view a lot of material to work with, so the purpose of the world building phase was fulfilled: A living piece of the world the PCs are committed to and lots of story hooks to get the story going. Nice 🙂

Second session started with the Starting Situation from the “book” and saw the hunt of the Demon Hunters for Stan McCarthy which is not only a bad man (illegal Hellstone mining, robbery, murder, etc.) but seems to be possessed by a demon, too. They heard about an incident in a nearby Hellstone mine in which the hunted took shelter. The owner of the mine, the Ironware & Metal Goods, did not have the resources to investigate right now, so this looked like a good opportunity to go and catch that guy. Arriving there without additional incidents (rolling a 6 for the Travel Engagement) they found that no living soul was in sight, the equipment was mainly destroyed and the were remains of a recent battle. Two dead miners next to the shaft going vertical into the mine and the cage dangling some 20 meters below. The Thunderheart consulted the nature spirits to gather information: they were not happy and warned him about impending doom with vision of some spider being and ice cold air. Then the Fist jumped/climbed into the shaft and the action started.

Maybe I don’t have describe every detail here, so just the results: They had some run-ins with monsters (undead miners, spirits flies, Spider Spirit/Demon/God/Thing) and managed to catch McCarthy and bring him back to Mudwater. Two of the three PCs got their first trauma during the main battle which is ok from my point of view because it brings new stories and XP triggers.

What I have to look into are:

– Double Engagement (Travel Plan + “Main” Plan) may not be needed. Here we had only one Engagement that went so well that it does not seem appropiate to repeat it with the second plan. Maybe I just merge the travelling part into the main plan and that’s ok.

– Loot Table: Was ok, but did not brought any surprises and may be too much coin for the group on top of the regular pay out.

– specific rules for Dungeon Crawling: Was ok but not a blast. Maybe not needed at all?

Trying to write not too much, this is what I want to share. #aFistfulOfDarkness

20 thoughts on “First Playtest of “A Fistful of Darkness” weird west hack”

  4. Ok, now i read it and sounds like a great session. (Cool thing the Demon Huntet Crew) I want to play this with a character with a Tarantino touch, haha.

    Between Django and The Eightfull Eight you have some many goods base character ideas.. I will follow all your posts. Auf wiedersehen!

  5. Ben Liepis Current status is that Alpha 1 version is out. I uploaded it here some time ago (check #aFistfulOfDarkness tag, please). Right now, I’m trying to find playtesters and have the handicap that I’m in Germany (few conventions) and dont have time for additional online groups. So if you want to play the hack give the download a try and please let me know if it worked for you. I’m happy with any input and you would bring a BIIIG smile to my face 🙂

    About Wuxia: Not as a main focus. “The Fist” playbook has abiltities like “Everybody’s Fung Fu Fighting”, so you can play into this direction. That’s what the player did in this first test. Magic etc. is open/generic just as in Blades, so that may be working, too. BUT: I don’t think it’s enough for a full group of people. It’s more the exotic touch and not the main focus for a full posse of people.

  6. I will grab this ASAP, thanks! As far as wuxia goes, I guess “wuxia-ish/wuxia-lite” would be a better description, so it being exotic is great. And as you said, since there’s magic, I don’t see why it wouldn’t be possible, especially with things like The Devil’s Footsteps existing in the system.

  9. Franco bianchini Ben Liepis Adam Minnie Eric Brunsell Thanks, guys for the kind words of encouragement. Right now I’m having a dip of motivation after a third party’s feedback and this means a lot for me to stay on track.

    I’m planning to work on additional “deluxe” character sheets and maybe another picture this weekend + roll20 clocks, so stay tuned for more updates.

    Thanks again. You made my day. 🙂

  10. Stefan Struck, your stuff rocks! Keep it up and don’t get down. And please allow me to add to the cries of, “You’re work is gorgeous!”. I love the poker chips and bullets and all the other flourishes. Very, very clever.

  13. Just read through your alpha document, you got some good ideas in there. I really like the dungeon charts and the world building built in, I have been toying with similar ideas myself but seeing yours was awesome.

  14. Eric Brunsell Thanks! Looking back I saw that all great games I started to play for a very long time started with a bunch of cool pictures sucking me into those worlds (D&D, Shadowrun, Call of Cthulhu, Blades). That and I just love to do graphic stuff 🙂

    Drop Dice Yes, the world building is great and fun. The Dungeon charts still have to prove themselves. We’ll see about that.

  19. Rich Glover Thanks! You’re more than welcome to give it a try at your table. Check out the other posts tagged #aFistfulOfDarkness. You’ll find the Alpha download of the current rule set. Stay tuned for some additional playbooks coming soon.

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