Finally got round to playing session #2 of #AFistfullofDarkness. From our first session, the players (a Gamble, a Shot and a Totem) before we even set foot in a score, managed to murder a wealthy mine owner because they didn’t agree with him keeping slaves. They lured him out to Mourning Woods by seducing him with the Gamble, and then killed him.
They then proceeded with the score; saving the Miners trapped in the Mudwater Hellstone mine. Someone had struck a deal with a demon lord and started a ritual to release him from the netherrealm (or where ever it is that demons come from). We tested out the Dungeon generator rules, but after session 1 I all but abandoned it in favour of the more Blades-esc style score. Some things I liked about the dungeon generator was that it gave clear objectives, loot from dead enemies, and gave a score type that wasn’t against another person, but against whatever is in the “dungeon”. What I didn’t like was that each enemy (or group of enemies) was given a clock level difficulty to “overcome” it (with the difficulty of the clock remaining the same regardless of how you approached the situation; my players came upon a sleeping 12-clock shadow demon and spent a very large chunk of time sneaking past it by filling said clock and lost almost all their Grit in doing so). So after we closed for the session, I decided to abandon the enemy clocks and go for a more blades style enemy system for session 2.
Session 2 began with the players entering the ritual chamber, where a staff was sealed into a stone, had a pentagram of blood at its base, and was shooting a lazer into the air, generating a portal that a massive demon was coming through. After evading a large fire demon, and finding a large lorry with a drill on it’s front, the players managed to destroy the staff and seal the portal, as well as rescue the survivors in the cave. Removing the clocks for enemies made this a much smoother experience and was a lot less taxing on the player’s Grit pools.
Next session the players have to deal with the new “They find the body” clock, as I decided to roll Security clock in the payoff section of the score. That’s another thing I love, these values for law, chaos, wealth etc in a town are awesome plot hooks!
All in all we’ve been having a blast playing!