A Tale Of... Session Report 2

The Berenn Ruins

Alexa Alinburg's player got a new job with a new timetable so unfortunately had to bow out. We were down to three for the time being:

Ceasar Giovana (lvl 1 monk)

A local mischia player (mischia being a highly bloody and highly popular contact sport).

Salazar Caltata (lvl 1 rogue)

The fourth son of a local nobleman. A scrawny creep with a knack for blending into a crowd.

Vero Anzano (ranger)

An old huntsman. Nobody really knows much about him apart from the game he brings back from the woods.

One week on, our heroes found themselves summoned to a private audience with Actaeon and Petronius, the slugfolk envoys, and the town governor. With the exception of Alexa, who had disappeared, they decided to answer the summons. After listening to the trio's report on the goings on the week before, the slugfolk mentioned the name of a wanted man: Zumar Argatzu. Salazar mentioned his awareness of the fugitive's existence, and our heroes were charged with locating and apprehending the individual.

Following a tip from Zoriane, the trio made their way towards the Berenn Ruins, a derelict watchtower a day's trek away. Vero knew of a tunnel leading to the base of the watchtower, through which our heroes journeyed as dusk fell. This brought them to a stairwell into the pitch black of the watchtower's underground quarters. Venturing forth, the came across a statue with an outstretched hand. After triggering a gout of fire from a vent in the wall by turning the hand the wrong way, the shaken but unhurt trio turned it the other way to reveal a passage in the wall next to them.

Creeping along a lit corridor, they darted towards a door off the side to avoid a group of hooded figures sat around a fire. In doing so they came across Zumar himself bent over a pile of paper and leather. As Ceasar sprang upon him, the wild-eyed Zumar muttered a word and the pile formed into the shape of a human warrior. As Ceasar and Vero battled the construct, Salazar forced a sleeping draught down Zumar's throat before joining in against the paper/leather creation. They brought it down though Vero was taken out in the process. They stabilised him and bound Zumar. As Ceasar pondered how to carry everyone and everything out, Salazar proceeded to collect all of Zumar's papers and two books from the shelves: 'The Grievances and Dramas of the Ruling Families of the Lands of Etalia' and 'Patrons and Complications'.

On the way out Ceasar, laden down under both bodies and the construct's blade, struggled on and cursed a bit too loudly, and one of the hooded figures came over to have a look. Salazar quickly impersonated a member of the group and distracted the investigator with a demand to be led to the nearest latrine while Ceasar moved the two inert forms. As soon as Salazar was able to rejoin him, Ceasar revived Vero and together our heroes fled back out along the tunnel with Zumar in tow and emerged into the cool night air.


Afterthoughts

Timing-wise I was quietly pleased how this session panned out pacing-wise - a bit of social roleplay, a trek and a dungeon, all fitting into a two and a half hour evening's play without feeling rushed. 

This was also my first attempt at a custom dungeon which was fun to come up with, and I liked the visual treat provided by the 2-Minute Maps tiles, but it was all rather labour intensive - I simply don't have the time to be investing so much into what is after all a very small dungeon. Instead I invested just as much time into redrawing a player's map of the Tomb of the Serpent Kings which, while significantly larger, did feel a little like reinventing the wheel. At least I got to use it the next session.

A Tale Of... Session Report 1

We're a few sessions into our new campaign - a 5e homebrew with the gritty variant rest rules and a combination of the Knave and Maze Rats magic systems - and I have been writing down rough summaries of each online meet up. I thought I'd start publishing them here for convenience and posterity.

My aim with this campaign, having run Lost Mine of Phandelver, is to experiment with 5e's capacity for a slightly more old school feel - emphasising player skill over just rolling a mechanical skill where possible.

The magic system is just because I like a bit more flexibility and shorter spell descriptions. A number of elements from Yoon-Suin have been admiringly borrowed.

This is a human-centric world with the slug folk at the top of the social hierarchy. They don't allow humans to wield magic because humans are idiots.

First off the cast, all inhabitants of the fishing town of Langarica:

Alexa Alinburg (rogue)

A member of the oldest profession who spends the working night at the Cathouse Tragedy establishment.

Ceasar Giovana (monk)

A local mischia player (mischia being a highly bloody and highly popular contact sport).

Salazar Caltata (rogue)

The fourth son of a local nobleman. A scrawny creep with a knack for blending into a crowd.

Vero Anzano (ranger)

An old huntsman. Nobody really knows much about him apart from the game he brings back from the woods.

Session Report, following a bit of character creation:

After a mischia match from which Langarica's team emerged in defeat, our heroes were all ambling about amongst the crowds leaving the playing field. All of a sudden, a young boy emerged from an alleyway pursued by a horrific beast, the like of which nobody had ever seen before. Its sharp claws and vicious teeth cut down a nearby woman from the visiting supporters of the Ziabalde team. Salazar galvanised the shocked townsfolk into swarming the beast which shrugged off their efforts with ease. It sent a brutish Ziabaldean mischia player, Giro Beanna, fleeing with his tail (and a damp patch) between his legs. Our heroes leapt upon the creature, hitting and slashing at it with fist and blade, and together they destroyed it, leaving them with only a fine maroon powder as evidence of its existence.

Salazar sent Zoriane, an informant from the local brothel, to see what had become of Giro before he and the others backtracked along the fleeing boy's trail into the alleyways, the monster having left nothing in the way of tracks. They came upon what looked like a powdery explosion with evidence of several different sets of footprints scurrying away from it. As Ceasar and Vero went to notify the governor of events, Salazar and Alexa remained behind to keep watch. They noticed one set of footprints which had dashed around a corner and then led into a solid brick wall. Closer inspection revealed only a faint set of letters which spelled out: YNN. Eventually the governor, Eukene Bagoeta, came and stationed guards. Alexa and Salazar revealed their findings to her and retired to join Ceasar and Vero in The Boil and Youth tavern for a well-earned drink.

A Distinct Lack of Class

I don't know why I find this aspect of mainstream RPGs particularly troublesome, but classes leave me cold. More so than most other quibbles I have with games. Perhaps it's the sheer pervasiveness - most elements of D&D are subverted in homebrew games on a regular basis, but the same class system pops up in so many of them. You want to be decent at hitting things? You should be a fighter. Ah, but you want to cast spells? Better be a wizard, then. Want to do both? Well, I guess we could allow multiclassing, or perhaps we can find a class with includes aspects of both. Oh, and we need someone to be a cleric 'cos we definitely someone whose class can do healing...

I don't like the way a class system encourages a compartmentalising of character playstyles. Players subconsciously (and often explicitly) assign themselves and each other roles, and try and stick to them through thick and thin. The Rogue always scouts ahead silently. The Barbarian always wades in to a fray. The Wizard always casts a fireball. That's not to disparage these ways of playing as foolish - they aren't, because these classes are good at doing these things.

But I don't like how other classes then close off those avenues because they don't feel they can 'compete'. The Barbarian won't conduct delicate negotiations because everyone knows that Barbarians don't do diplomacy. The Wizard knows they aren't going to do much damage with a sword, and because is a part of every RPG ever they know they need to hurl fire to be able to contribute in the Combat Mode that is Initiative. The Rogue gets frustrated because everything they're good at involves everyone else shutting up and being good for a couple of hours while they do their thing.

And if a player insists on joining in on all areas of play, then we'll all complain about Bards being a ridiculous concept.

The problem is that a character becomes primarily identified as their class* and what that class is best at doing. That has an advantage if you are looking to craft a balanced party ready to present whichever party member is quantifiably better at completing a particular task, but that can lead to hyper-extended character creation sessions as every player debates who should prep their character to do what. Then every level up, if the class provides options, leads to more discussion. Assuming every player already knows the system well enough to know what makes an effective character build, and not get overwhelmed by all the uninformed choices they have to make to have fun.

* and race, but that's another blog post.

And character creation gets boring after a short while. I have so little opportunity to game - I don't want to spend that valuable game time theorising about gaming.

So I want my homebrew system to have a nice quick character creation system, and to facilitate that I would look to Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay and Zweihander for inspiration: random backgrounds. You show up to the table not knowing whether in five minutes' time you are going to end up with a slave, a member of the nobility or a rat catcher. A newcomer to RPGs may not know much about the difference between a Wizard and a Sorceror, but most will understand the sort of things a blacksmith might be good at compared to a carpenter.

Fundamentally, though, I think it avoids characters being forever assigned a category. A class describes who the character has been, is and will be, whereas a background profession describes who a character was. It allows for an appropriate set of starting equipment, and an indication as to what sort of activities the character might be good at, but if there are no arbitrarily assigned skills then it's up to player imagination as to how those background talents might be put to use. The background essentially becomes a Skill itself.

The wonder that is the catalogue of OSR-orientated blogs provides many different background lists to steal from.

Other aspects of character creation will also be randomly generated. Each player will get a base stat block and then roll to see what gets boosted for their initial character. Anyone who feels particularly inclined towards magic, combat or skills can upgrade their magic die, armed damage die or luck die respectively. The same table can also be used for characters leveling up, or the GM might be kind and allow players to choose what aspects of the character improve over time.

I'd like to add in something else to distinguish characters a little bit more mechanically to encourage a bit more investment in character development over the course of a campaign, something like class-like abilities which anyone can earn. However, I want it to be more than simply being this PC getting Advantage in this situation and that PC getting a +1 to a stat in that situation, as well as avoiding combat-only maneuvres - I don't want characters thinking they can't do unusual things in combat just because they haven't got a specific ability. Each would also need to be worth a character's investment over a simple upgraded stamina die, but not such an obvious pick that every character ends up taking it. Limited use abilities are one option, perhaps have them be usable once-per-session to limit the complexity of book-keeping.

More thought needed here...