Hi folks,
Last Monday our 5th Hangout session of Dungeon Crawl Classics RPG took place. Because of Real Life©, I’m more than ever running against the clock, without time for games or this blog, so running a 1-hour online game session was a blast for me (I probably gained back +3d6 Sanity).
I’m trying to run DCCRPG with a very loose and
– I hope – Old School approach. The second goal is easily achievable by the
rules of game alone. They’re so few (and funny) that rarely intrude in the
game, making most players really pay attention to the adventure. My loose
approach to this campaign is basically that we play if we get 3 players, it
doesn’t matter which ones. Couldn’t come this week? If you show up for the next
game you play, no fuss. Want to try only one session? Easy, here are 4 0-level
players, enjoy! [Evil laugh heard in the
background]
I have 4 players so far – with 2 others thinking
about joining. We already got a game session with 22 characters “on screen”
(between PCs and hirelings). The dynamics of running more than 1 PC are amazingly
fun and I’m considering using in other games (and systems).
My players are still exploring the Chaos ruins
from the Sailors on the Starless Sea. After a first attempt to breach
the fallen fortress,
they retreated to their home base to recover (a.k.a. Level Up). They managed to
save a few prisoners, two of which became new fanatical followers (a pair of
crazy ladies called Helga and Brigitte, already converted to the teachings of
Azi Dahaka, Our Serpent Lord).
I wanted for the dungeon (and the game in
general) to feel alive and dynamic, so I plotted what would happen during the
one week and a half that the party was away from the ruins. They managed to
slew quite a few beastmen, including the minotaur champion. Because of that, the
Master of the Citadel was aware of them, so I decided on two plans for the bad
guys: first, they raided another village to get more beastman stock; second,
the Master executed a eldritch ritual to summon a “Seed of the Great Old Ones”
and threw it against the party. What was this seed? A Cthulhoid aberration that
was awaken from the Depths and started to dig after the party. In other words,
I used the short set piece Tales of the Scarecrow, from the
awesome Lamentations of the Flame Princess.
While traveling to the Chaos ruins the party
found a mysterious farm, where the Seed awaited for them. After a harrowing
encounter, and few deaths, the players managed to escape, taking with them two
dangerous magic items (The Sword Which Is Uncertain and the creepy grimoire Malleus Deus) and a lone
survivor (and unknown to the players, also a recently transformed ghoul-like
creature). The group eventually learned about the survivor’s weird behavior and
left him on the road (with, of course, will ensure lots of encounters in the
future, as our ghoul NPC will hunt the party to get his magic sword back).
Arriving at the Chaos citadel during the sunset,
the party found a new beastmen mob leaving the place to raid the region.
Evading the creatures they were attacked by the ruins’ new guardian – a
harpy-like monster. They put it down with lots of quarrels, but not before the
hag cleaved open the party’s dwarf head. [And I wrote this entire blog entry
just because of what happened next…]
Righter after combat, the party’s zealot
(Chaotic cleric) of Azi Dahaka told me that he would try to raise the dwarf
from the dead using a Divine Aid check. I warned him about the dangers, but he
rolled anyway. The player rolled a 12 and burned all his Luck to get a 17. Then
the party’s halfling burned a ton of Luck raising the check to amazing 25!
DCCRPG treats coming back from the dead as
something unique – usually the plot of an entire adventure. What should I do?
The idea was crazy and opened a dangerous precedent, but it was also something thrilling
and fun. Besides, the players really put their resources on it. So I decided to
do a raise dead they would love but eventually regret. After a gruesome ritual
(the zealot PC described how he used harpy blood to channel the Powers of Chaos
etc., it was awesome!), a pallid and corpse-like dwarf stood up, with a horrid
scar across his jaw (the harpy took it out when she killed him). I aged the
zealot prematurely (taking a few points of Strength and Stamina) and also drained
a few points from the dwarf (which resulted in a funny situation… he now has
Intelligence 3 and is role-played, basically, like Solomon Grundy).
Finally – and without the party knowing it – I linked the life force of the
zealot to the poor dwarf, just to let things more evil amusing.
Of course, in addition to all that, now our
lord Azi Dahaka demands a special quest from his ambitious zealot… maybe face
the dreaded People of the Pit?
P.S.: A side commentary… the zealot PC now has
an accumulated disapproval range of 11 on his divine powers and the party is
still at the dungeon’s door. Checking the Divine Disapproval Table I was
expecting apocalyptical consequences if such player attempted any spellcasting
(after all he can roll 11d4 of divine wrath). I was disappointed with the
results. Most are just ‘meh’ and won’t trouble the player at all I guess. So
I’m thinking to creatre a personalized Disapproval Table for my Azi Dahaka
cleric (or just to create a few 20+ effects). If I can accomplish this I’ll
post the table here.
