Post Apocalyptic DCC Kick Off Session Report

My long time gaming group has in recent years stagnated into EuroGame regularity, a mocking caricature of the cartoon in the D&D book of adventurers playing Papers & Paychecks. Keraptis and +2 Spevs are now efficiency experts in German Factories and optimizers of power grids. We now manage the medieval monasteries that as Evil Gnomes we once pillaged. Panfilio the Wild Mage is replaced with a red cube that allows me to build buildings.

This is not to say that I do not like these games, they are great and I sometimes wonder how to resolve shit in D&D beyond a Roll and Move without complicating things to a painful crawl. We don’t even get the press your luck of a Yahtzee. Iis a worker placement RPG possible, let alone desirable? Enough of these thoughts...

Like a long suffering couple looking for their lost spark we headed to a cabin in the woods of Southern Ohio. Instead of Dr Ruth, couple’s erotica and a bag of silicone dongs, I had a backpack of DCC. Friday was Russian Railroads, Blue Moon City, a failed attempt at the Werewolf Card Game, and finally an aborted Dead of Winter. I don’t dig a lot of the RPG-lite board games, and my Can’t-Hang-itis really flared up when my two characters were both killed in the first round on one roll each. People complain Tomb of Horrors sucks, but at least I’d have been able to say “I climb into the devil’s mouth.” I got a new card and was told that it really is fun, but I soon apologized for sucking and crashed out.

Originally I thought my friend Marty was going to run a Narcosa trip on Friday, but that didn’t happen. We couldn’t squeeze it in on Saturday because the game I ran went way long. For this Marty, I am sorry. Word on the street is he is pissed.

But the game I ran while long, was good, and here I will recount what transpired.

My original plan was to run a DCC-ified Savage Worlds, like the Outer Space Mining Disaster I did at BASHCon, but in a post-apocalyptic setting. When I started to pull my strands together for this Magical Weekend Game That Better Be Special, it occurred to me that I have had the most fun playing DCC, so why would I only import aspects of that to another game, rather than adjusting DCC to my needs? Because ‘you are lazy’ I replied to myself. A ha! But in a funnel, a zero level is a zero level, there is no need to make classes before this session, so I was convinced. The intent is that this will be a kick off to an ongoing campaign, so I decided to run with what I am currently most stoked over. I’ll figure out the rest when I need to.

So what about the game? I’ve read a little bit about people collaboratively creating their adventuring world using Microscope, saw at RPG Tips some sort of put your best ideas on a notecard, read about Beyond the Wall, then heard the Drink Spin Run play through, and those things got me thinking. I also played through half a season of The Quiet Year, and the map making town building gave me a couple other ideas.

A month or so ago I had asked everyone what sort of game they’d be into playing in and the consensus was post-apocalyptic. I was imagining something closer to Mad Max than Gamma World, but fuck it, I’d open it up for whatever. In preparation I created a series of questions to guide where we’d be going, stuff like “Why has this village been safe so far?” and about the specific residents of the town. I’ll do a full post with the process and question for those who may be interested.

We ended up with a tropical coastal settlement of about 400 people that grew and roasted Foffee, a coffee like thing, and also had good old boys distilling whiskey and rye, some of whom found out that this’ll be the day that I die. The town was powered by a small hydroelectric station on a river, and was also a sea port. This sea port was now not functioning because there was a blockade in effect conducted by Others on a cruise ship. These Others looked sorta like large nosed greys. The town was no utopia, a strict hierarchy was enforced. This was tolerated and even celebrated because it kept everyone safe and mostly drunk. There was an underground honey badger cult that forswore booze, and did not like the way the town was governed.

The political entity in charge was a council made up of representatives from the Foffee family, the Whiskey family, and a seemingly meritocratic scientific community.

We took a little more than an hour sketching all of this out, and also named some residents of the town. The resident created by the question “Who is the most irritating member of the village?” was named Beckett.

While everyone rolled up their slate’s ability scores I quickly put together a 1d60 table of occupations pulled from what the group came up with and also placed the named characters on the list. The named characters conferred an additional bonus based on the qualifier that was attached to them, for example, Hercules, the strongest guy in the village got a +2 to Strength. Beckett got a -2 to Personality.

After character creation we had probably been going for two and a half hours. A simple introductory encounter probably would have rounded out the session. Instead we barrelled onward.

In the town there was a dangerous bridge near the powerstation that spanned the river. People liked to get drunk on the bridge, and people would then fall off the bridge. This was one of the quirks of the town. The proper adventure began with all 24 characters hanging out at the bridge. Soon they heard an explosion. They quickly came to realize that the barracks and armory was on fire. Immediately there were grumblings that this must be the work of the Others on the cruise ship.

The villagers made their way to the armory, one brave soul even venturing in. After a few failed luck checks, this was the first to fall. Others came with bucket in hand but came to realize it would do little good in extinguishing this inferno. A few others pressed their luck, and spent it too, and managed to make it in and out of the armory with machine guns. (I sorta used the Crawl gun rules in Crawling Under a Broken Moon, and I sorta winged it.)

Some sharp eyed fellow noticed a sketchy character sneaking away into the night. He shortly thereafter met his end, much to the consternation of those that thought information might have been garnered had the miscreant been captured and questioned rather than slain, but hotter heads ruled the day.

The crew went down to the shore line to find three more suspicious figures attempting to shove off in an inflatable raft. The first flying side kick missed, but someone else figured shooting the raft would stop the escape. Once trapped, the saboteurs pulled out some wicked shock sticks, electrified maces designed for killing and frying not prodding or subduing. A few of the allies fell, but those that remained killed two and captured the last.

“Why did you blow up our armory” a member of the band asked.

“So you don’t have weapons when we come to kill you and take your stuff.”

“How many of you are on the boat?”

“A hundred thousand, so it's not even worth trying to stand against us.”

After a couple more questions and answers of which the veracity was doubtful the captive received a crossbow bolt through the back of his neck.

This brutality brought a couple of grumbles, but on the whole it seemed the band were happy fascists in a happy fascist town. The bind of the fasci might have been overlooked, because the group decided to run away from town.

To Be continued....

BASHCon 2016 Wrap Up

BASHCon was a lot of fun, though the RPG component was pretty sparse. I think the only RPG event that wasn't Pathfinder or Peryton Affiliate game was a Marvel Supers game. I saw a pick up Paranoia in progress, but didn't get to play it. When I walked up to it I was like "Wow dude awesome, Paranoia. It's like one of my favorite, one of the best..." And the guy I said it to was like "Yeah, whatever, we're on break, beat it. You're annoying." So I slunked off.

I only played in one game, Robin's Crystal Rifts of Tartarus. This was a cool trip out to Pluto to fuck up a renegade faction of a MegaCorp's science outpost that was working with extra dimensional beings and Pluto's anti-living natives. She ran it using the Cypher system which I thought was pretty solid. Somewhere I had read that it was no great shakes, and sorta expected a D20 with extra stuff, but instead I found a neat little package. The spending ability scores at varying costs turned out to work fairly well. I think when I had read about the levels of difficulty shifting based on paying points that are also your hit-points my mind started to glaze over and I might've made a jerk off motion at the computer. I was wrong about that, it was easy and neat. Also liked the rolling dodges instead of the GM rolling hits. I'm not sure I'd ever run it, or even buy the book, but I'd definitely play it again. Still haven't decided on the "Blankety Blank who Blanks" character descriptor aspect. I was a "curious explorer who moves  like a cat." I can't figure out if it's cutesy and dumb, or just as good as any other way of giving a class combo. The adventure itself was a  nice combination of fighting and discovery with weird aliens.

I ran three games: Gimme Shelter using Tom's Crawlspace rules, Scream Bloody Gore with DCC, and Jupiter Mining Corp Disaster on Ganymede using a bastard Savage Worlds. Gimme Shelter went well, and I still haven't gotten sick of running it. Tom's UFOlogist ran behind a bus and turned invisible, stole squad car keys and an unmarked car, hit and ran some alien henchmen and staged a getaway in the most heroic action of the night. Jerry's Case Worker crawled to the bottom of the bottle but came out long enough to pick up all the other characters since he at least had a car. I don't know if Liam got that his character wasn't actually the mayor in a political sense, but Mayor of Edgewater Beach was just an honorific. But the character was supposed to be deeply delusional, so I guess this is what people mean when they talk about immersion. I didn't find out until days later that the alien ship summoned at the Rock Hall was a Boston Space Guitar, but, Randy, I'm glad it was.

Scream Bloody Gore I've written about here before. This game was made up entirely of Perytonians (Gimme Shelter on the other hand had one stranger) and was a blast. I had some second level pregens, the party ended up being a cleric, Dunston, Huggin the warrior, Decklin the Slick thief and Wizard Myria. Under cover of darkness the band arrived at a village plagued by maggot zombies. Their introduction to the situation was given by a priest tending to the funeral pyres of afflicted villagers, some who still were not dead at the time of their death. They stopped Priest Luckey from burning a baby, and demanded to know who was in charge. Dunston and Luckey shared the same god, Monolopopia, but Dunston was not familiar with this particular practice. The thief stayed with the baby while Jerry ran out for a minute and the rest of the party was taken to see Haskins, the head priest of the town. En route they were attacked by zombies and Liam got some maggots in his arm. Randy's quick witted cleric reacted with swiftness and amputated the infected limb. Liam's limbless warrior was maybe not as grateful as he could have been for the quick save, but the band played on. Around this time Jerry came back and we caught up with the thief and baby. The thief noticed maggots crawling under the skin of the swaddled lad, so he decided to leave it on the ground and make haste back to the group. This was good because you should never shake a baby. All in together, the band confronted Haskins in his shrine. Had they taken a more circuitous route, Haskins would have been like this guy:

And had killed himself to wield awesome power in undeath. But they caught him while we has making last minute preparations desecrations at the shrine to Monolopopia. The band thought Haskins was behind the maggot zombies though he was not. Still he was uncooperative because he was planning on committing ritual suicide to become an undead menace and gain unimaginable power. Soon a fight broke out and the band took charge. Once Haskins figured he was done for, he began chanting hoping Death by Cop counted as much as Hanging Oneself from a Tree in the many thousand eyes of the dark mad gods. Robin's Myria blasted him with a color spray and stopped the winging it ritual in its tracks. Soon villagers started creeping around, and perhaps somewhat surprisingly if you believe social behavior is rational, did not take well to being told their spiritual leader did not have their best interests at heart. At this point just more than an altar boy Luckey got killed, and the burning of the shrine really pissed off the town, and the villagers attacked. They then were slaughtered. At this point Haskins came to and continued his chant. Myria Charmed Haskins and a villager, and defused the situation. Here began an investigation into what was causing the zombie infestation. A few dead villagers and a not grateful enough populace later the band decided to just get the hell out of Dodge. As they left the village they came to a burning field filled with demons, and that's where we ended.

Sunday wrapped up with Jupiter Mining Company Disaster (on Ganymede). I ran this using the goofy Saveage Worlds Funnel random character generation I tlaked about here. They attribute rolling was unwieldy, unituitive and stupid. Afterwards Robin came up with what I think is a much better solution:

For each ability score roll a d4, d6, d8, d10 and d12. Record which die has the lowest result.

That should work much better and I plan on trying that out soon.
Once we got rolling the adventure went alright, but I sorta fucked up the pacing. I think for the most part people liked the tone, that of Paranoia/Red Dwarf/Black Mirror being about how work sucks. Unfortunately I didn't kill off enough people quick enough, and had two maybe villains which is too much for an under four hour con game.

I'm going to be coming back to Scream Bloody Gore and Ganymede. I think Scream Bloody Gore could work nicely as a funnel. Will report back when I have more.

Here's a photo Tom took of the Crawlspace game. I'm the tubby guy in the white shirt.

DCC: A Red & Pleasant Funnel Part 2: Leave the Wood Arrive in Voivodja

Second post continuing the adventure from the first part through the Goblin Wood.

Dunstan the nameless goblin finally did convince the villagers to extinguish their torches to avoid attracting the notice of Baba Naga, a fearsome snake witch. They did think it was better to continue their pursuit of the runaways in complete darkness because there were a handful of halflings in the party and could squint out a way forward in the dark. That plan ended when Stokely Buckwalter, the rutabega farmer nearly tripped and broke his neck, but burned off some luck to save his skin. They camped in darkness.

The next morning they got a bright and early start and continued onward until they came to a moat or canal. Rodolfo the Astrologer consulted his charts and spyglass and determined the moat to be safe and began to wade his way across. His calculations were somewhat flawed and did not consider the three Little Crocodiles that lay waiting in the moat. He was quickly devoured.

This loss of a companion did not sit well with the rest of the group. "Nameless goblin," they clamored. "Why did you not tell us about the alligators?"

"Little crocodiles, I did not know they were there," Dunstan told them.

"Well haven't you been this way before?" the mob demanded.

Dunstan hesitated before he replied that he had not. Upon hearing this, Buford Gordo, the halfling Chicken Butcher, He Who Stinks of Gizzards, put his short sword through the goblin.

With the matter settled, the ten remaining Centervillains looked at the land before them.

Area map, courtesy of Jill.

First they went up to the crumbling tower. Inside they found the remnants of a camp fire and realized this was likely where the runaway children had slept. The party was heartened. Sweetfell Tannhauser, the elven Artisan climbed the tower to get a view of their surroundings. There was no sign of children, but there was a weird looking tree. 

Quickly the band headed for the tree. The tree had strange stairs that not only went up, but also in, some sort of strange M.C Escher / D.J. Dali spatial distortion. As each villager ascended the stairs, they appeared to shrink in size, but not in the manner in which some would inside the wood.

The interior of the tree was quite unusual. Instead of of a squirrel's house or a hickory hideout, it was a fancy hall, with lacquered wood panels bearing ornate, though tasteful carvings. Hanging on the wall were three sets of tapestries, each bearing the mirror image of the one across the hall. The first set showed a crowned man and woman, each wearing red, strolling merrily through a garden. The second showed the same couple, merrily drinking and spilling a deep red wine out of bejeweled golden  goblets. The last set of tapestries shewed the merry couple feasting upon babes.

At the end of the hall was a mirror, and before the mirror stood a table. Upon the table was a book titled Read Me, a vial labeled Drink Me, a vial labeled ИOƧIOꟼ, and a spread of food with a place card reading Eat Me. There were currants, a quince, a plum, a bowl of curds and a bowl of porridge. 

Dennell the Halfling Dyer downed the Read Me vial and became a quarterling. The villagers then figured out who among them knew how to read and delved into the book. The book offered the exact steps to finding the children! "Climb through the looking glass, drink each of the vials, run through the tiny door into the wondrous garden." Being a surprisingly academic and trusting lot, they decided to follow the books instructions. They all climbed through the mirror.

The silence that greeted them on the Quiet Side of the mirror was unnerving, but they had instructions to follow. Mirra, the Halfling Fortune Teller drank the vial which had writing that looked to be gibberish, 'ɘM ʞniɿᗡ'. Se then shrunk to four inches tall. Danny the Cooper, who was illiterate, drank the vial clearly labeled 'POISON' and dropped dead. Besto the Soldier ate a quince and had his Strength and Intelligence switched, becoming much smarter, but quite a bit weaker.

The silence was becoming quite maddening, so Mirra and Dennell knew it was time to act. They ran through a little door into a wondrous garden. Feeling on the brink of madness, they both willed themselves to sleep. The rest of the band went back through the looking glass and pulled themselves together. Besto is not one to leave compatriots behind so he went back through the mirror on a rescue mission.

Though Mirra and Dennell were both on the other side of the small hatch way, a hatchway much too small for Besto to fit through, they were within arm's reach. This bit of good fortune was countered by Besto's decision to wake the pair up. Mirra began screaming, as did Dennell. Besto through the tiny Mirra through the looking glass, but Dennell did not make it through. She ran off through the garden gate, screaming and cackling with utter insanity.

After eating the rest of the food, and having ability scores all switched around, the group hurriedly left this mad tree. While travelling toward the another crumbling tower that they could make out in the distance, the band discussed which of their organs was most tasty. Trene the Cutpurse had an ever so tasty spleen, while Mirra was graced with a scrumptious gall bladder. Just then, two wicked Toves, determined to let no creature that would enjoy such tasty organs ever have the chance to eat them, sprung forth from the ground and attacked the pair. Nearly immediately, the pair found themselves murdered.

This sadness was mediated by there being valuable jewels in the crumbling tower! 

They then crossed paths with the Great Grub while crossing the mushroom path. He found the Centervillains to be mostly disagreeable, but did tell them the runaways had been taken in by the Heart Queen. Finally they came to an Orb Loc, a small human village. The Village is small, the humans are regular. They were told the best way to get the kids back from the Red Queen was to give her something she wanted more than the children. Then they all went to sleep. 

DCC: A Red & Pleasant Funnel through the Terrible Goblin Wood

Session Report:
Sunday kicked off A Red & Pleasant Land using DCC RPG. Four zero level characters per player were generated by the book, and we got rolling.

A pair of children became sick of farm life and decided to run away from their boring village, Centerville. To the village's chagrin, they went toward the Terrible Goblin Wood, and even worse, toward Voivodja, Land of Unreason, Fallen Palace of the Dream Mad King. The communitarian impulse runs strong in Centerville, so its citizens (mostly halfling and human with a dwarf and elf for good measure) headed out on a find and return mission.

The journey was uneventful until the villagers stumbled into a goblin ambush. Bromstahd, the dwarven apothecarist, took a goblin spear to the throat and became the first of the fallen. The rest of the village rallied around the death of their friend and quickly killed four goblins, causing the remainder to flee. Dennell, the halfling dyer covered the dwarven die-er with some cloth with the intention of returning later to give Bromstahd a proper burial. The group then continued on its way.

Dennell led the party onward. Soon, after rolling a one on an orienteering check, the party saw a blue lump ahead on the path. They approached cautiously to find cloth soaked with blood, containing the remains of Bromstahd, who had been partially devoured by animals. Now unnerved and saddened, the brave villagers continued on, this time paying closer attention to their path.

With their new found diligence and determination, the group readily detected another goblin ambush on the path ahead. After carefully sneaking to just before the goblin trap, the turnip farmer Blort bravely charged past the goblin band to draw them out for his compatriots. All but one goblin were slain in short order, most spectacularly with a rock hurled by a sling that entered a goblin eye, and messily exited the back of the goblin's skull. Mirra: halfling, gypsy, gore-inator.

The final goblin was subdued and captured, threatened and interrogated. He claimed to know where the children from the village had wandered, and told the village their likely reason for running away, "You are all a bunch of assholes."

Darkness soon fell and Dunstan the goblin (they never did catch his name, because villagers cum adventurers are assholes) plead with them to make camp for the night. He knew that any misfortune that fell upon the group would be returned upon his head. The group was determined to find their youngsters and insisted on pushing onward.

"But please, no torches!" the nameless goblin cried. "You will attract Baba Naga!"
"Who is Baba Naga?" they all wondered.
"You know Baba Yaga?" asked the goblin.
Mirra the gypsy halfling did.
"Well Baba Yaga is made up, Baba Naga is worse!"

(To be continued...)