Key things we had happen this session.
The group got some much needed time to talk things out about why they are here and why they are fighting for the Rebellion. Morn revealed himself as Luke Skywalker (although a rather more brutal one), Assamber as a man with way too soft a heart for our Conanesque world and Artemis as a man only interested in revenge against the man who raped his mother. The fact that Artemis sold out Kyia, Morns love/lust/owner pushed things into stark relief, player on player action ahoy!.
We also got to see a lot more of Azhanti this session who took off to his home to talk to his mentor. This nicely revealed his dreams of a jack booted Dragonborn empire ruling over fractious and divided humans too busy fighting each other to stop them. Also, if his god is alive he fully intends to kill him to take his power!
For the meeting with the Rebellion I originally planned this as a skill challenge with the group trying to sway the different elements of the rebel leadership into the direction they wanted them to go. I abandoned this fairly early on when it was obvious people were generally leaning in the same direction. This was my fault, I should have put the leaders more strongly in opposition to each other which would have helped push things.
Decisions having been made the meeting broke up and we got our major fight of the evening. The daughter of the rebel leader was revealed as a fake and the group decided to take her down. Unfortunately she was controlling her "father" so they had both of them and the household guard to deal with.
At the start of this fight I activated the death flag. As a group we generally only do death by agreement between GM and player. When we began this campaign I raised the issue of non consensual death and the possibility of flagging certain fights as "death on." I did this here which, with hindsight, was a bad idea. The battle simply wasn't important enough to engage it and it had certain unintended consequences.
Things were tough. The daughter could fly and had access to a number of powerful magical effects, including Flaming Sphere, Blur, Wall of Fire and Mesmeric Hold (thats level 1, 9, 10 and 13 Wizard dailys). Mesmeric Hold had a recharge although it never came up. I gave her Flaming Sphere at will so she could make multiple attacks (necessary as an elite). Unfortunately she only got one out during the fight but it was very effective. One thing I did learn is that Wall of Fire is brutal especially when the two level 6 elites both have immobilising effects.
Azhanti went down as did Morn. Morn got pulled out of the fire before dying but Azhanti didnt. As they piled on the damage things looked bleak for my little succubus. She was down to a dozen or so HP and Artmis pulled out crit number 3 on her, 40+ damage in one hit. This left me with a difficult choice I knew it was possible that Azhanti would die on the next round but Nabonidus also had an ability to take a hit for an adjacent ally. I could "forget" about his ability and let Artemis have his dramatic moment or ramp up the tension even more and stress the brutal nature of the setting.
I chose option 2.
Nabonidus takes the hit, the succubus flees escaping into the night and Azhanti dies. Feeling a little guilty I give him the second chance. He is dying in a City which houses the spirit of his God in the nearby Plaza. His presence has stirred that spirit to wakefullness. I ask him if he has the will to live. If he does he gets a second chance but his God lays a geas on him (this is the God he wants to kill and replace!).
After the session one of the players notices I got Wall of Fire wrong. It doesnt do its damage when it first appears, only when you start your turn or move into it. Azhanti would still have gone down but wouldn't have died. I give the player the choice, he gets a dramatic edit and he was just badly burned rather than dying or we stick with what we have. I wonder which one he will take.
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6 comments:
I'm not sure how much agreement I'll get on this, as sometimes I wonder if I'm seeing things others aren't (and as such am half deluded). Also note it's more an observation and a preference thing than a game destroying criticism.
I still believe with each session we are heading more and more towards a gamistompetition approach to the combats. Now, before anyone piles in and goes 'doh', I know this is the intention behind the system. At the same time, I always thought our plan was to spin the system towards it's more story game ends. I realise it's never going to be SotC or Buffy or whatever in this regard (action scenes) but I thought the focus was going to be on the cool and the heroic, and action movie visuals (within reason).
I find it interesting (again rather than a rage against the injustice thing) that we seem to drift further away from that each session. As an example, this session we even had a brief interplay over whether we could lay a wall of fire diagonally! We actually are moving to the group self-moderating what is fair within the gamist competition environment. We even start to get frustrated with a player not using his powers the most efficiently despite that being a dramatic, story choice! I now, I found myself doing it last night!
It's a small thing, but I find the little cool things not happening a bit frustrating - people not being locked in ice, things not melting so people fall into the water, people having a chance, when on the edge, to fall into the water to put out flames. Strangely, this isn't a competitive advantage thing for me, it's just it's that sort of cool little visual things that'd happen if it was a TV show or a movie, so it's sad when it doesn't.
The reason I mention this is the death flag can change things significantly.
The raising of the 'death flag' can only increase this tendency. As you say, in retrospect, the fight probably wasn't that important: death flag on the Artemis and Mourn confrontation with Drakar, yes, but probably not this.
I realise it could only be me who puts so much weight on these little 'lost opportunities' for great visuals.
Perhaps, perhaps.
But, if you want these cool visuals then you need to push for them. Not everyone has the same idea of whats cool.
I dont bite and the viking hat is really a hologram.
OK, thinking on the examples you give.
Falling off the ledge. Nabonidus is a high dex rogue type character trained in acrobatics and athletics. he is effectively a melee version of you. I dont think I would have called for a check for you so I decided not to give one for him. Also, I didnt want to turn it into Benny Hill.
The ice freezing with hindsight I should perhaps have added a slow, immobilise would be a bit strong especially in light of his role which was to shield his daughter.
On Matts refusal to aoe the guards I see that as much as an in character issue as anything else although perhaps people could avoid the kibitzing about other peoples tactical choices.
I think it could well provoke another of those interesting character discussions on the long lonely trip through the desert.
Well, I'm not sure going back and forwards on examples will result in anything useful. You just face a dilemma of putting examples or not :)
I will say I never suggested Nabonidus should have fallen into the water just because he was on a wall though.
Fair enough. I am not looking for an argument I just wanted to set out my thinking on the examples you point to.
I think both sides have a point here. As with many things, we remember those that aren't allowed but we forgot those that are - so I am sure that our acts of plunging into the flames and saving our dying comrades is a little hand-wavy when it comes to the rules. Similarly, the reason Nabonidus was in the water at all, to be frozen, was because I had stunted destroying part of the wall with my hammer - a totally different daily power altogether if it moved him back a square.
I think the weight of the tactical aspect of combat is so high that we will risk assess every stunt to see what the implications of us failing are, and generally take the least dangerous route.
In my view, stunts take two forms. The first are those that are just cool shit that has no mechanical effect on the game. The second are those that are cool shit but do have a mechanical effect on the game.
Looking at Morn, he is a walking example of the former. He wears 'plate armour but in the desert style' - ie. give me that AC bonus but don't fuck with my character image! In the same vein, he carries a Bastard Hammer - a weapon that (RAW) doesn't exist! However, its cool, so it does.
I think with the second, we need to be confident that the consequences of a stunt failing - we're not at skill levels yet where we can guarantee success or anything near that - are not heinous that it unbalances the benefit of taking the roll. In general, the simplest way is usually the safest!
Neil
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