Bloodstone Idol AP and Discussion (obviously spoilers)

  • 2 Replies
  • 2582 Views
Bloodstone Idol AP and Discussion (obviously spoilers)
« on: April 14, 2012, 01:16:23 AM »
Alright, just finished our first play of DW and much fun was had by all! Here's the quick and dirty on what happened in game. We were hitting the Bloodstone Idol and my buddy, first time GMing (actually I was reminded that its his second, ran Og a while back), did a pretty sweet job.

Rudigar the Fighter, Pox the Thief and Siggrun the (Evil) Cleric are hunkered down outside the main entrance, scoping the place out. Two goblin lookouts appear to be the only obstacle but a Discern Realities later shows that there's some oil in the road, a potential trap. Not wasting much time Pox attempts to slip up on the sentries but fails and gets spotted by another lookout above who calls the alarm. Pox fires an arrow and drops one goblin while Rudigar and Siggrun charge to the doors. We notice the other goblin become terrified as 5 lizardmen coming swarming around an outcrop towards us and we all pile through the front door and slam it shut behind us, but not before Pox drops another goblin with his bow.

We're greeted by an insanely loud image being "projected" maybe out of a mosaic on the floor, greeting us all by name and essentially notifying everyone of our presence. After hearing some battle from one of the corridors we choose the other but not before we realize that our weapons are growing warmer. In hopes that it has something to do with the magics in the room, we move quickly into the corridor which solves the problem. With Pox keeping an eye out for traps we proceed down the corridor until we get to a door. A quick listen and lock pick later, we're in a room full of shelves...and spirits. Well, two of them. They're mumbling some stuff about "sunlight" and "kill the goblins".

Rudigar offers up that we're already working on the goblins, which really catches one of the spirits interest and he approaches to essentially beseech us to continue to wipe out the goblins. We promise to do just that and Rudigar even escorts the other spirit to the front door (more loud greetings) and sets the spirit free. Siggrun, back in the room, also gets the name of the other spirit's wife and a request to visit her and let her know that her husband has moved on to a better place. Meanwhile, Pox has searched the room over and turned up a nifty magical rope that appears to do his bidding. He's quite pleased.

Heading down the corridor Pox finally flubs a trap roll and we all fall for the old stairs-into-slide trick and get dumped in the mud in a strange room full of glowing veins of some kind of ore and big damn fireflies. Siggrun and Rudiger are happy enough to ease out of the room, leaving well enough alone but some failed Defy Dangers had us in a heap again with fireflies swarming down at us. Pox used his new rope and a Discern Realities to escape back up the slide while Rudiger and Siggrun dashed out of the room and made in a stand in the more narrow corridor beyond. Only 4 fireflies followed and it was a tough battle with both taking some heavy damage but surviving, while Pox hung back and waited for things to settle down. Some cure lights wounds and a quick breather and we're all plowing ahead again.

Next room is a weird looking parade of mystical creatures, blocking us from getting to the far side but a Discern Realities tells us that only the Goblins are real and that the others are probably illusions. Pox takes out the Goblins with his bow and a bunch of light hit Defy Dangers has us simultaneously stranded in the midst of the parade as Pox activates two of the "illusions" against us. Rudiger manages to take them out but not before being mind clamped by some weird force that keeps telling him to attack his friends. As his friends attempt to lasso him out of the parade with the magic rope, he is triggered to attack them but makes a saving throw and snaps out of it. We eventually safely cross the room.

Next room appears to be a small arena of some sort with obsidian statues. A failed inspection of the room sets off more loud "magic mouths" greeting us and essentially mocking our attempts to determine their purpose. Pox detects no traps around the back side of the seating areas and we all quickly leave this room behind us.

We enter the next room, and find an illusion of a man sitting at a desk writing frantically in a book. Rudiger doesn't trust the room at all, too many books, and is just telling the others this as they hear footsteps approaching from the opposite passage. Siggrun and Rudiger take cover against the wall next to the corridor while Pox ducks behind the desk. To our surprise, a man that looks just like the illusion strolls in and introduces himself as Grunloch. He offers us a partnership and requests our assistance in harnessing the Bloodstone Idol. We're pondering this offer when he proceeds to tell us that the alternative is dying here before him. This made the decision easy for Rudiger who answer with a shield bash to Grunloch's face, "No deal."

The battle is quick and furious with Rudiger and Siggrun bashing the wizard pretty good but Pox was really the hero, launching poisoned arrows from behind the desk. Grunloch got off one spell, sending Siggrun scurrying to the corner in fear but it was short lasting as Grunloch became a pincushion and a chopping block. We ended here.
Chris McNeilly

Re: Bloodstone Idol AP and Discussion (obviously spoilers)
« Reply #1 on: April 14, 2012, 01:16:52 AM »
Okay, that was quick and without much color. Interject a ton of laughter and a bit of nerves here and there, a ton of dice rolling, and some roleplay and you have an idea of what the game was like.

The entire group LOVED the system and how it flowed, we immediately planned a tentative two week date for Session 2. We played for 4 hours tonight and that includes character generation.

The GM will likely chime here with his perspective and feedback as well but I'll just throw some stuff out there. First, the XPs. From just general talk around about the game I was sort of under the impression that Fighters leveled up disproportionately to other classes under the Basic rules. (We used straight Basic rules for this play). This was NOT the case for us. I think something like 60 rolls were made tonight (not including damage rolls) and far and away most of them were Defy Danger and Discern Reality. I played the Fighter and ended with 10 XPs. Pox ended up with 26 XPs and Siggrun ended with 11 XP. Maybe its just playstyle but the Thief was rolling left and right. As a group we always looked the situation over in each room, searched for traps, and whenever a fight was imminent we utilized ranged as much as possible before closing into melee. This style heavily supported the Thief's XP.

Defy Danger. Man this got rolled a lot. After talking with the GM (Ice Jester here) we both agreed that this may have been a result of not giving each one enough teeth. The firefly room and the illusion parade room felt like there were a ton of baby step soft moves (we had a shitload of 7-9 Defy Danger rolls) but since they were all partial successes they never led to any real consequences, but we still had to keep making the rolls. I'm pretty sure the Thief earned about 10 XP in that room alone. I think some of the "no teeth" issue will be cleaned up as we get more comfortable with the system though.

We also agreed that we tended to fall into old traditional gaming habits of sorts, just having the conversation without really making moves occasionally. I think there were a number of times that we were probably Discerning Realities but we weren't really triggering the move. Don't get me wrong, we Discerned Realities A LOT, but I still caught us having a casual conversation about "looking over here" for such and such without rolling any dice. I think this happened mostly when one person did a Discern Realities but then a little later in the room that person would be looking for something else after having used up their questions.

Hmmm...that's a long read for now. I'll wait for Ice Jester to chime in before saying much more. We had a blast though. Its our first time back to the table in probably 4 or 5 months so we were mostly just exploring and having old school fun without much character roleplaying or greater motivations. Which is fine, that stuff will come with more games. I love watching characters being discovered before your eyes in play, so that'll be cool. But I think it says a lot about a game that you can teach it to someone, create characters, and be in the thick of it from a cold start within an hour. And that was WITH my 3 year old bouncing around the living room!

More later... 
Chris McNeilly

Re: Bloodstone Idol AP and Discussion (obviously spoilers)
« Reply #2 on: April 14, 2012, 01:40:55 PM »
Sounds like Donbaloo covered pretty much everything. As he said, this was my 2nd GMing experience ever....the first might not even count considering the players were limited to a total of around 10 words, grunts, and hand motions (Og). But I really had a blast.

Considering that this was our first play, things were naturally a little rough. But I can certainly see how the mechanics and the back-and-forth lobbying of moves work really well.  I think the part I struggled with the most was my reaction to 7-9 rolls. Especially when they were consecutively rolled. I found it difficult to come up with ways give a little, but take a little. Donbaloo and I discussed this a bit and we came to the conclusion that we needed to push those situations a little harder...put the characters in more difficult situations that force them to make tougher decisions. My traditional RPG mentality struggled with this during play, and I really didn't know beforehand to prepare for those types of situations. I think, going forward, I'll have some preconceived ideas for various scenarios in the adventure.

I also found that I was overly cautious with the characters at first....unsure of what they could handle and what they couldn't. Without any battles under our belts, I really went soft on them in the Lightning Bug room. Specifically during their multiple 7-9 Defy Danger rolls. :-/ I just didn't want to see the guys bite the dust so early on. I'll know better for next time... :evil grin:

Donbaloo and I also discussed how we could all provide better detail regarding our actions and intents. We found that, the more detail we give, the better we can react with appropriate moves. Throughout the course of the game, we could actually see this improving as we played, which was pretty neat. Initially one of the players would call out a move he'd like to perform instead of telling us his actions and letting me attach a move to it. Again, this is likely our traditional background shining through...but I really felt we got into a better grove as the game progressed.

Overall, I had an absolute blast, and I think the players did as well. The Moves mechanics are so elegantly simple and they enable the story instead of getting in the way. After a few more games under our belts, I'm sure the mechanics will all but disappear and the stories will really shine. I look forward to that!

« Last Edit: April 14, 2012, 05:12:30 PM by The Ice Jester »