First, forgive me for my poor english :)
Second, i'm trying to contact administrators since last week... it looks like the don't read the email, is there another way to contact them? I wanted to show them a new format (i think is the right word) of the rules and sheets i made on my own AND ask them to swap the email I use to download the manuals i bought, cause i made a mistake and used an old one wich I prefere not to use.
...
INTRODUCTION
I live in Arezzo, a small town in Tuscany, a place full of woods, old castles and medieval festivals. Unluckily there are not so many roleplayers :(
First of all I'd like to introduce you the gamers and their characters.
Player: Fabio
Background: The oldest player, both in age and experience. He has almost twice my years and played rolegames for twenty years. One of the eldest in my town.
Player: Gioia
Background: She learned roleplaying in a local World of Warcraft shard, now is GM inside that game and he also started play pen and paper.
Player: Stefano
Background: He plays with me in a ten-years-long Forgotten Realms campaign, wich included a lot of different groups in time.
Player: Giovanni
Background: He is the MASTER of that ten-years-long campaign, wich i joyned almost four years ago. He trained us to a very logical, well prepared and well interpreted way of playing.
Master: Gianmario (me)
Background: After a couple of years of gaming by forum, i found my first table group. However, when i went to the university in Florence (i study phisics) and my old group started to play outside Arezzo, i joined my old drum player’s group, starting playing also with Giovanni and Stefano. Actually i’m playing with them seldom, so i also made a new group in Florence. I’m also doing the GM in a little group of guys from my local church.
CHARACTER CREATION
Some of my players had time to read the rules, some not. So I explained it very fast.
They became entusiastic with the smartness of the rules and the very easy way to play: they truly enjoyed the Bond part, as they almost fill all the bonds they were able to.
I added the Starting Bundle directly inside the sheets, so make character was even faster. After half an hour of explanation and work, we made the following characters:
Fabio - Farley, the stuttering* thief
He is a Good Human, an expert in Lockpicking.
He is a little fat and coward, but it was very fun to play.
Refine got he’s back when things go wrong: that also reflected Refine oath to protect him.
For pity :D
Ulrika knows incriminating details about him (who doesn’t? :P).
He have a con running with Vitus, wich showed during the game to understand the power of Invisibility spell...
*I found both Stutter and Stammer but i don't know the difference, sorry :(
Gioia - Ulrika, the Bringer of Order
She is a Good Dwarf Cleric, with a great beard (beard!) and two long plaits.
She is the follower of Zorica (we just took the name from the manual), a god of Civilization wich encourages trial by combat, but whose cult is somehow closed.
Refine “insulted her deity” when, by interposing herself during an hard combat, saved Ulrika’s life against her honor.
She somehow trust Farley, even if she knows something incriminating about him.
FInally she has a very strong bond with Vitus: being him really reluctant to society, she is worried about his ability to survive and she’s working to convert him to her faith
Stefano - Refine, the blade master
She is a Neutral Elf Fighter wich uses a very elegant fighting style.
She had an aristocratic education and she consider herself superior to everyone else.
Her weapon is a huge ornate sword, wich is very effective in piercing enemies armors.
Despite the weight, she wields it with an impressive dexterity.
Ulrika is offended from Refine’s saves, but she definitely owns her life to the elf wich is also very worried about the dwarf ability to survive the dungeons.
She sworn to protect the young Farley, maybe for he looks so defensless with his stammering.
Vitus is too much a mind for her, and she decided to try to turn him into a hardened man.
Giovanni - Vitus, the introverse Wizard
He is a Neutral Human wich hates the overcrowded places and likes only childern, wich he amuses with his little magical tricks. He goes to adventure to escape the cities he dislikes so much, even if he likes order, and to discover the magical secrets of the land.
He foresaw that Farley will play an important role in the future of the world.
He is very bonded to Ulrika, for He thinks her to be strongly disinform on the world. He also believe she is keeping something important for him as a secret.
THE GAME
The heroes explored their last ruin some time ago, but it was almost empty, so they are really out of money. Luckes comes up when Lady Mason calls them to her little castle in the countryside with two other nobleman of the town. They ask the carachters to reach an old subterrain temple in the hills near the city to stop a Wizard called Grundloch from awakening an old, magical power he wants to use to overwhelm the city.
Because this can cause panic between the population they decided to ask a group of adventurers, wich can make it unseen.
The heroes accept the challenge and reaches a high hill from where they can see a great door in the side of another hill, with some humanoids holding barricades in front of them, and a strange circle of stones not so far.
Vitus casts Invisibility on Farley and the thief goes exploring the neighborhoods.
He first “Defy Danger” (with a +1 for his invisibility :D) reaching the doors: he can easily see goblins and lizardmen behind the barricades, preparing to fight but waiting for the other to make the first move.
He then tries to reach the circle of stones, but dices are against him.
I proposes him: you crumble on some old rusty weapons and you are wounded, or you save yourself but you scream for the second.
He decides the second one.
The goblins are attracted from the scream: he tries to go away very fast.
Dices are unlucky again, he goes a little away from the rusty weapons, but the Goblin shaman casts “Hold” and, without knowing it, he traps the thief. Farley rolls a “Saving throw”, he rach to escape but he loses his Adventurer Gear.
Meanwhile, on the top of the hill, Vitus looks better for the situation.
“Look Ulrika. There is full of uncivilized beings...”
“How about going there and “Civilize” them?” replies Ulrika, with her hammer in the hands.
In the end, they decide it’s not a good idea and waits for the thief to return.
Even by stummering, the thief explains what he saw. Everyone spouts lore about goblins and lizardmen and the dward remembers the last one are great worshippers of chaos, so it could be a good idea to ally with the goblins.
In the meantime, the earth trembles (as the Halls acts...): While the mage tries watch a battle between the two monster sides, the cleric tries to take more information and she talks to a stone, wich tells her that the earthquake fault was of tens tings “soft as you” wich were acting somewhere under them.
Vitus: “I got some important informations to give you”
Ulrika: “Really? I had a chat with the stone, you?
The party decides to try to negotiate with the goblins, wich only respects strenght. A sneaking approach will be considered “weak” so the wizard decides to wait an hour to rest and change the invisibilty spell with the Magic Missile. To put them in a hurry, the earth tremble again.
The party approach the circle of stone with the intention of parley or, as the thief said:
“With ss-ome dipl... dipl... dipl... negotiation!”
The goblins, after the half-succes of Farley’s scouting, are now allerted: when they see the party they drag theyre weapon and demand to know what the heroes wants.
The fighter demands a speach with the chief, wich shows himself.
Both sides doesn’t like Grundloch, so they make a deal: the chief will duel with one of the group. If he wins, they will solve the Stones secret. If he loses, they will had goblin’s aid against Grundloch.
Is the first, real fight of the session: Refine will be the heroes champion.
Vitus tries to show her more powerfull with a cantrip, but he fails and the stones turns the spell on the chief, showing him bigger.
The fight starts: after a succesfull blow, the elfs finds herself in danger.
By some lucky star, at one HP from defeating, he make a very good throw: she rips away the goblin’s shield and disarms him, winning the fight.
While she recovers her strenght Vitus make a very high roll Discerning realities, discovering the nature of the strange dust around the circle: by speaking with the goblin shaman he finds out how the circle work at some nights.
The heroes together decide to come back later to take some dust, and Ulrika tries to talk with the stones. I freely intepretate his succes by making her fall asleep, as she have some dreams with clues about the ancient war and the Vault, when it still was a sacrifical chamber.
The goblin chief invites the heroes to follow him to his camp and shows them the secret entrance: they reach the camp and they ask for some bags (they want to use them for the magical residue).
The chief them asks them to follow him and shows them the Idol chamber from the rope bridge: the heroes can so discover the idol, the pit on it’s foot and the fight in the bottom of the hall.
In that moment, everyone hear screaming from the other part of the bridge: some goblins are running fast , followed by the lizardmen. Vitus casts a Magic missile to stop them, but he drags unwanted attentions: the hall itself pulses with energy as the missile becames a huge beams that destroys the Lizardman.
This gives the goblin time to save themselves, but the recoil knocks down the heroes so that they have no time to act before other lizardmen cut off the rope bridge, forcing the heroes to take another way down...
[TO BE CONTINUED]
TECHNICAL ISSUES
-The XP system: we tend to forget the highlighted stats. In particular, we didn’t understand if a 7-9 roll in an highlited stat gives you XP.
-We didn’t understood if the 7-9 “ugly choices” occur even if you roll 6 or less.
-There is some unbalance between races and allignements: some of them are to powerfull/easy to fulfill or weak/difficult to, some are not interesting (like Good Wizards).