Image Source: Wizards of the Coast.
Previously in Chatty DM’s game:
The Characters were investigating the source of a new drug called ‘Green Welcome’ that appeared in the Warrens of Ptolus. This drug has a tendency to transforms its users in horrible Plant-like creatures. Following a tip by a shady dealer, our heroes have started exploring a sewer complex. Some resistance was met and conquered.
I made it to Stef’s in one piece. Not wishing to play dice with Fate, Franky actually escorted me most of the way. Thanks pal!
This week’s game was a success. Once again it wasn’t a top 5 thing and I’ll touch on this later, but it sure was a great session for at least 3 players: Yan, Franky and myself.
We settled in, we ordered food and, of course, my order was missing…. (at least it beats a Car Crash or a Tree-on-my-house). Thankfully, Eric shared his plate with me and I never even touched my order when it finally arrived, thanks, you really are a swell guy underneath that Crusty, Damned-to-Hell exterior!
As mentioned in the Adventure Prep post, I wanted to steer the game away from a straight Kill and loot scenario to a more story-based adventure. So shortly after we started again, I had one of the bad guys lieutenants show up with a white flag and attempt parley. When Yan perked up and prepared to make his move to initiate discussions, Eric said the first Out-of-Character quote of the evening: ‘Not another one of those!’
I’ll leave the details to Lillie’s journal, but what followed was what I feel one of my best Role Playing performances in a long time. One of my follow-up challenges to playing Evil characters was to try playing a non-humanoid NPC in such a way that the players knew they were not dealing with a Rubber Suit Human. This is harder to pull off for a gamer like me (i.e Crunch over Fluff).
It worked, perfectly. As you may recall, the bad guys were evil faeries called Spriggans. I don’t have a lot of experience with Faeries but I guess forging through Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norel last year paid off. I played them as egocentric, silver tongued jerks with no need for things like truth and , you know, getting anywhere with a conversation. (Ask Cixi what she thinks of the eight levels of the Heart…) Thank you Mrs. Clarke and thank to you O Muse I call Beer.
Aside: Stealing quirks and mannerisms from fiction characters is a great way to help uncomfortable role players like myself. It sure worked like a charm. Yan told me he could actually see the book’s bad guy while I was deep character.
Aside on the aside: In fact, Yan really nailed our shared style when he said ‘We’re bad role players but great Story tellers’
Yan had a ball interacting with the 2 fairie bosses and expanding his character’s backstory a bit. So did Franky who played Cixi flawlessly, charmed by the Spriggans’ strings of flatteries directed at her, but trying, unsuccessfully, to catch them in their lies.
At some point, while we three were lost in our little improv play, Math and Eric started showing signs of tiring of this charade and pointing out that this discussion could go nowhere other than ‘You stop this drug thing or you die’. At that point, all non RP-ing characters were poised for a fight, covering all of the room’s exits. (I had previously described lights and beast-like noises coming from another passage into the room).
So that was my cue to launch the ‘distraction’ so the Spriggans could reposition themselves in the dungeon (and possibly leave the place): 3 Mike-Mearls-approved Rust Monsters! They arrived right beside the Full-Plate clad Dragon Shaman!!!
They did their job, which was scaring the Shammy and damaging his armour slightly, (I love the new Rustie!) before getting destroyed swiftly. So swiftly in fact that the characters were able to chase the 2 Spriggan bosses into a large Cave featuring a Hemp rope bridge over a huge chasm.
A climactic fight ensued, with a burning bridge collapsing, brilliant use of lights, a bad guy moving at the very edge of the Chasm to painfully backstab the Shammy (he’s quite the tank) and the Crusader plummeting down only to be stuck between the narrowing walls of the ravine 80′ below.
That’s where I made my ‘bad call’ of the night that ended up damping some of Eric’s fun. He wanted his character, Cruguer, to run across the bridge before it collapsed. I couldn’t find the entry on the bridges’s balance check to cross so I initially okayed the move without any rolls. A few initiative ticks later, I found the reference and had Eric retroactively roll, factoring in the very hefty penalty caused by his armour. Even with the use of an action point he failed and fell.
I never really gave Eric a chance to re-evaluate his tactical choice once I told him the difficulty of the task. He had a potion of fly in his inventory and he might have wanted to quaff it instead of crossing the bridge. He spent most of the rest of the fight trying to get out of his predicament. I made a note to make up for it at the next session.
The fight ended with the Big Bad, a soul-eating druid, knocked out and in custody and the backstabbing lieutenant crushed at the bottom of the ravine. The players were battered and a lot lower on their resources.
They turned back into the cave complex to find the actual drug lab… only to be shanghaied by the 9 remaining Spriggans…
To be continued tomorrow!
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