Sunday, July 21, 2013

First Run of Fighting Fantasy "The Well" with Spouse

There are spoilers in this session report for the adventure "The Well."  Please skip if you want it to remain a secret to discover for yourself.

I made some changes to rules governing the zombies, the spell book, and the Spider's web trap, noted by asterisks.

After recently acquiring Fighting Fantasy and the Sorcery Spell Book through separate second hand distributors, I was eager to run “The Well” with my wife for two reasons.  The first reason was to practice GMing role playing games.  The second reason was to allow my wife a chance to play an rpg before our big Dungeon World game a month from now.

So entering The Well on this quest was my wife's character Tana with her pet monkey.  Also accompanying them was an NPC best friend named Troy.  Tana rolled decent stats of  9 Skill, 11 Luck, and 19 Stamina.  Troy was a power-hitter with 12 Skill, 10 Luck, but only 16 Stamina.   The monkey could follow simple commands and would answer yes or no questions.

Tana put her monkey in the bucket with the lantern and lowered it down, down, down some 30-40 feet to the bottom of the well.  Seeing all was safe, Tana and Troy descended down the rope.

Traveling north, they came to the first door.  Tana hesitated upon finding it locked, and tried to dig under the door.  Scraping away with their swords, they only moved a bit of dirt and mud, and the monkey could only just get his hands under.  On the other side they heard the chittering of some animal.

Troy suggest bashing the door down.  Tana wanted to hack or pry with the swords.  Not wanting them to break or dull their swords so early in the game, I spoke for Troy: “Let's give it a good shoulder butt and see if it opens.”  So Troy tries once, and gets the creepy mysterious warning.  Then on the second attempt he stumbles into the next room, does a somersault, and whacks his noggin.

In the next room they found a dwarf with a huge beard full of nesting birds.  My wife loved my play acting of Thrushbeard and his birds.  Their interaction was peaceful and fortunately no nuts were spoiled.  I acted out the monkey eating nuts as well.  Taking leave of their new friend, the party tried the east door, ended up in warrior's trophy room.  Seeing the eyes moving in the painting on the wall, Tana was very cautious, saying “lets not touch anything!”  But wanting to get the missus used to trouble, I had Troy go up and handle the painting, trying to look beneath it for the spy holes that he suspected were in the walls.  The alarm sounded.  In a panic, Tana led the team northward.

Upon encountering the mummy, Tana tried to greet it.  It groaned and went to punch her.  She dodged, and they quickly inflicted several wounds on the mummy.  Troy covered Tana while she looted his sarcophagus.  Tana being disinclined to fight, they tried to evade the mummy, heading to a dead end. Then they went around the mummy and ended up running into Nandras's library. Just as they greeted him, they could hear the mummy pounding on the door in the hallway.  Nandras was quick to ask them to deal with that annoying mummy.

Our heroes returned to the trophy room to confront the mummy, and quickly dispatched him.  Tana suggested decapitating the mummy to make sure it died, so they did, and brought the head to Nandras.  They burned it in his fireplace, but Nandras demanded the whole body.  So they dragged the mummy's body in  and burned that too, winning the crystal key as a reward.

Stopping by Thrushbeard for some more nuts, they proceeded on their adventure finding the room of skeletons and chests.  They were all locked but one, which contained some coins and a mouse.  Troy put the mouse in his breast pocket.  They kicked open another chest and a ghost came out.  I play acted the angry spirit, growling and shouting threats.

So they fled the room, only to wake a two-headed lizard from it's slumber.  It threatened, it growled and reached under the bed for a sword. The heroes they quickly fled north to a cave with many holes.  They avoided messing with a spider web, and found a door leading to blackness, save for a pair of glowing eyes that growled.  They shut the door, and instead opened the door to the Spider King.

After a short chit-chat with the king, they grew afraid and attempted to leave.  A golden sticky web fell on them.*  Troy burned it with his lantern, and they fled before the spider could attack, slamming the door behind them.

Returning to the bedroom of the lizard, who was very angry at having been woken a second time, they began to fight.  They traded blows with the lizard, and then Tana offered it the emerald they took from the Mummy, and it  accepted the bribe.  So they left through another door.  Troy was angry that Tana gave away some of their loot.  If they're not here to get rich, then why bother being here?   After finding a pit with retracting bridges, they returned again to the lizard's bedroom, finding it examining the emerald at it's desk.  The monkey grabbed the mouse from Troy's pocket and dived under the bed while the two humans fought the lizard.  After a quick fight, it died.  Getting into the spirit of the game, Tana searched the room, finding the lizard's loot and a throwing dagger behind a painting.

Troy said if they're going to get rich, they probably have to kill the spider.  After all, kings have money.  So they returned.  Giving the dagger to the monkey, the two humans fought with the spider king.  They managed to avoid most of it's strikes and fortunately were not poisoned.  Much spider goo began to run from its wounds.  As the spider tired, Tana ordered the monkey to throw the dagger, going right into the spider's face.   In anger the spider went to bite the monkey, but it managed to avoid the spider and run through it's legs.  As it did so, the heroes plunged their swords into the spider's hide (both passing a luck checks), and causing massive wounds, and the beast expired.

They took it's treasure and a note describing where to find a magic spell to open the treasure room, and returned to the cave.  Before tackling the hell hound, Tana wanted to search all round the cave for anything useful, perhaps to eat, as she was out of provisions.  They found the Nandi-bear hiding in the dark corner, and it chased them back to the Spider's lair.  They evaded the bear, slamming the door behind them.  Being distracted by the massive spider lunch, it ceased to pursue them.

The two heroes quickly made short work of the hell hound from the black room.  Claiming the magic sword and the gold from the body it guarded.

Finally they found the spell book.  A zombie appeared as Tana took the book, and Troy stepped in to deal with it.  They retreated to the cave, where Troy held off a slow parade zombies hell bent on eating Tana, while Tana searched the book for the spell.  After some time, she found an index page*, and turned promptly to the proper spell.  Reciting it perfectly, she opened the door to the treasure room.  Another zombie appeared, and Troy fought them while Tana filled her pockets with the loot from the treasure room.  They fled as best they could back toward the entrance, slamming every door behind them.  Pursing zombies were slowed by the doors, but new zombies materialized wherever Tana went.

Upon returning to Thrushbread's room, he was shocked to find a zombie materializing in his home.  “Did you take that accursed book?!”* said Thrushbeard as drew a small ax and approached the zombie.  “Get rid of it!  Get rid of it!”  Thrushbeard and Troy fought the zombie, with birds diving down to peck at it as well.  Tana tossed the book down a hallway, shutting the door afterward.  The zombie in the room was destroyed, disappearing into a puff of ethereal smoke. Tana could hear shuffling about in the hallway where the book was thrown, but it did not come into Thrushbeard's room.  Perhaps the zombies found the spell book and were taking it back where it belonged.

The heroes thanked Thrushbeard for his help and climbed out of the well, returning home with their newfound wealth.

The haul for this adventure:

80 gold pieces, 1 emerald, 4 rubies, magic sword +1, lucky charm +1

Sunday, July 7, 2013

Planning to Hack Fighting Fantasy

The one trait, "Skill" is nearly all-encompassing for almost any activity in the game.  Feats of Strength, Agility, Intelligence, etc all covered by one stat.  Swinging a sword in battle is obviously an exercise in Strength and Agility (and often intelligence).  Picking a lock can require dexterity and intelligence. In my experience, lock picking requires luck.

For adventurers, this isn't entirely inappropriate.  If you're a skilled adventurer, you're bringing everything you got, your strength, your agility, your wisdom, your intelligence, your life experience, etc to bear.  The balance of all of that is your Skill.

How does one, then, create character classes for this game?

My first thought is to let a Thief burn luck (ala Dungeon Crawl Classics) without rolling to do any kind of thiefly activity.  Likewise a warrior can burn it to do damage or to hit in battle.  Luck testing could remain for involuntary tests like natural hazards, surprise attacks, etc.  

Or perhaps a better approach is to take the USR approach, disregard classes and have the player pick a few skills for his character, and give a bonus to the Skill stat for those activities.  I understand that Advanced Fighting Fantasy takes this approach.  The only drawback to that would be pushing a skill over 12.  How does one test that?  If you roll 12 on two dice, then roll one more die.  If the total is < or = to the skill, you succeed.  For example, you have total skill of 14 in picking locks.  You roll double 6's on the test, so you roll d6 <=2 to succeed. 

Perhaps you can cap Skill at 10, and allow bonuses to bring it to 12, and then require Roll Under (not equal to) to succeed.  

I've yet to receive the "Sorcery! Spell Book".  I don't know how to work magic into the game.  I considered creating a "Magic" stat and just roll 6+d6 for magic skill.  The other option is to create a points based system and let the player build the character.  

Here I am, a self described minimalist, considering all kinds of options.

Updated post.  If I convert skill checks into 2d6+skill vs a target number, then skills could exceed 12 without any problem.  In doing so, Fighting Fantasy becomes "Tunnels and Trolls" with fewer stats and less dice.  Throw in a little Old School Hack, and make the target number 2d6 + Difficulty. Say the standard difficulty being 7.  So 2d6 + skill > 2d6 + Difficulty = Success.


Saturday, July 6, 2013

Returning to RPGs after 16 years

I haven't played any tabletop RPGs since high school.  The very last game I played was D&D 2nd edition at my childhood residence. My friend was DM, four or five players, and a dice rolling program I whipped up in QBASIC on an old 386 machine.

Time passed.  I had a career.  My hair fell out.  I got married.  

I began delving into the world of RPGs about two months ago, and have read the rules to at least a dozen gaming systems.  In my childhood, I played with many game systems, including D&D, MERP. LOTR Adventure Game, Rolemaster.  The only ones I ever got to play with others were D&D and MERP (one time).

Thinking back to my childhood, I wanted to get into a simple RPG that was relatively accessible to new players.   It also had to be affordable.  Preferably free.   My goal was to learn a game system and invite my small group of friends over to play.  Maybe it would evolve into a new tradition, coming over every month or two to play. 

I read the rules to many free RPGs such as USR2d6Drawbridge, Zombie D6-Lite, just to name a few.  Most of them quite lovely.   This fellow has written an exciting blog on his use of USR.

I investigated many games in the OSR school of gaming: Labyrinth Lord, Swords & Wizardry, Dungeon Crawl Classics, Microlite20, just to name a few.  Each of those lovely, just a little too complicated for me and for my group.  I also spent a week of my free time  researching Tunnels and Trolls.  Lastly, I explored newer games with modern mechanics but an old school feel such as Old School Hack and Dungeon World.

The unified task resolution system of Dungeon World, as well as the emphasis on story over mechanics, appealed to me enough to buy a pdf.  I read it.  I read the players guide.  I studied the character sheets.  I read session reports and play-by-forum posts.

Turning to my friends, I invited them all for a game of Dungeon World.  I have presently 8 people coming, and now I am afraid.

Let me back up a bit.  I'll explain my fear.  Three points relate to this:

1) The title of this blog is Minimalist Role Playing Gamer.  I tend toward minimalism in gaming.  That includes board games, video games, and rpgs.  I tend to prefer simple mechanics with any complexity emerging from those mechanics.  My reasons being a) it's easier to get my non-gamer friends to play and b) my wife is more likely to play and c) I tend to minimalism in many things.   RPGGeek has a geeklist of minimalist RPGs.  That's just a few of them.  

2) I try to be nice to people and be accommodating.  Unfortunately that often leads to a person wanting a foot after you've given him an inch.  Big mistake.  On the other hand, Dungeon World encourages the GM to "say yes."  I hoped that if I let the players customize their characters a bit, then they'd be more inclined to play.  I opened up a can of worms with that one.  I will have to practice my "no's".

3) While under the influence of some kind of tropical, fruity rum beverage, I spoke enthusiastically at a wedding reception to folks about the game.  So now I have a large group coming.
In attempting #2, I neglected #1.  To accommodate the desires of the players to play certain kinds of characters, I downloaded some unofficial variant classes for the game and offered one from the list to my friend.  Well the others got to look at the list and asked to play some other characters.  Before I knew it, my simple selection of characters became quite a hodge-podge and I became overwhelmed.  I'm going to have to memorize more characters than I planned, and try to find a way to let each of them shine at least once during the adventure.   

Lesson learned:  Say "no, pick from what's available."  I also learned that there are simpler game systems than Dungeon World, and should have picked something simpler.

As for #3, with eight players, I don't know how I'm going to making this adventure any fun at all.  Have you ever had an 9 way conversation about anything of depth?   I don't think it can happen.   I have no doubt that someone, or a few someones, will play a minor role, or no role at all in the game.  The Dungeon World system allows me to change the camera spotlight to ask specific players "while that's going on, what do you do?"  

Lesson learned: don't make invitations when you're buzzed on rum swizzles.  And without apology, limit the number of players.

I'm going to follow through on this game.  I don't know if I'm going to play it again in the future with a large number of people.

In the meantime, I've ordered copies of Fighting Fantasy and Sorcery!.  When it comes to rules, as far as I can tell, it doesn't get much simpler than Fighting Fantasy.  3 stats, GM improvisation, simple combat.  This is a game that looks easy to get into and to play on-the-fly if looking for something to do. Plus the sample adventures are cute.