Previously on Phil’s game…
As I write this, it’s been almost a week since last Friday’s game and details are murkier so I might forget a few things. Memo to self: Write a draft of the post in the 24 hours following a game and edit after Yan hands in his journal entry.
Since last game was a RPfest for Yan and Franky, my goals of the night were:
- Give the spotlight to Eric: Let Cruguer meet and join one of Ptolus Evil-fighting militant orders.
- Give the spotlight to Math: Let Aravar meet with his contact in the slightly xenophhobic Elven para-military organization.
- Give the Spotlight to Stef: Have Nogard morph from Dragon Shaman to Half-Dragon Half-Orc Barbarian.
- Play an alien evil
- Have some good fights to please the butt kickers.
- Kick the tires on Yan’s and Stef’s new characters.
When we got settled in, I reviewed with the group the concept of keys as sources of Role Playing XPs and outlined that they were in charge of invoking the keys to get the XPs (I don’t want to keep track of keys myself). I ended up nudging them here and there but I think the concept is sinking in…. although they’re still hesitant to invoke them… I think we’re seeing a reaction similar to what PM feels about Role-playing…. It’s harder than it seems.
Since we’re better story-tellers than actual roleplayers I decided to allow players to invoke their keys whenever they develop their characters off screen between games, through e-mail or by dropping ‘in-character’ comments on the blog, or in our Google Group.
So, as mentioned by Lillee, we started the game with Cruguer offering his services to the Keepers of the Veil. Eric really likes the concept of an organization who’s job is to contain the undead of the Necropolis. At that point of the story, the Keeper’s leadership are going bonkers because they are realizing that they bit more than they could chew.
The act of clamping down all entrances to the Necropolis, dealing with the increasing political pressures of resolving the plant-like humanoid issue and the heavy casualties fighting these creatures is taking it’s toll. But I’m playing the leaders as being too proud to to ask stronger organization for help.
So Cruguer’s offer was, shall we say, well timed. Many promises were made (commander status, a place to stay at the keep, etc) if Cruguer and his pals managed to help clear the situation.
At the same time, Aravar wanted to meet with his contacts to share his findings about the Pactlords of the Quann, yet another enemy of the elves to watch for. I wasn’t paying full attention, but Math and Yan had a little in-character RPing where Aravar ended up ‘borrowing’ a Spriggan finger. Math has developed quite an intriguing persona for his elf: an impatient, impulsive and very angry elf. It’s quite refreshing… although a bit disturbing.
I don’t quite remember the details but at one point I played the militant contact as trying to dump some responsibility of his on Aravar who promptly went hyper hostile and said “F#&k you!” The player’s reaction was so strong and fast that I, as a DM, was taken aback a bit. I just hope that Math was just really ‘in-character’ and not mixing out-of game issues into his character. He later joked that Aravar takes meditation classes between adventures…. good idea!
As we were playing this, I was getting ready to move onto the next morning, when I was gently but firmly reminded that I had a Dragon Shaman to make into a Half-Dragon. So I had Stef, who was exposed to Sehan, that green transformative drug, play into a dream sequence. He was climbing a tall mountain and found a Cave with all kinds of Good Dragons playing court to a regal-looking multi-hued Dragon. The conversation was then straight out of a Bad Star-Trek TNG script where the ‘dragon king’ was trying to communicate mind-shattering concepts to a puny 4 dimensional being.
I played the alien card a bit too hard (and too Sci-fi) and the other players started making ‘Q’ jokes. But that’s okay, I won’t win an Oscar at every game. Bottom line, Stef refused to obtain ‘Uuuuuultimate multi-universe Power’ by surrendering something as trivial as his individuality. He settled for a ‘gift’ by Sehan to showcase it’s true power: a complete re-write of Nogard’s mind, body and soul. Sehan had a parting shot, saying that once such power is tasted, Nogard would be back for more…
We then ‘morphed’ (Ha ha) from dream to morning where Stef, strong of his new character, literally changed his personality and kicked-in Crueger’s door (He a STR score of 28, and yes Ve4, I see the irony) to wake him up. Cruguer played it real cool when he saw that 6’7” 400 lbs monstrosity dropped his door… It was real funny to have Stef play it like nothing really had happened (Oh this? Ahhh it’s nothing really). It’s Ptolus, things like that happen every 5 minutes right?
I completely broke the whole table up when I played the Innkeeper angrily climbing the stairs, shouting about the broken door. When Nogard leaned out the door to check what all the noise was about, I described the Innkeeper stopping dead in it’s tracks, freezing in abject fear and I slowly poured beer out of my can into an empty can, making an unmistakable noise…
When everyone recovered, we were ready to move on to more crunchy adventures…
See you tomorrow for the conclusion.
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