Hydra Playtest Session Two, Playing: Vincent and Jordan. George sent apologies. DM-ing Steve. 18th March 2010. Characters: Antiva of Kutan, Iswan ‘The Bastard’, Burli of Lankhmar (MDMC) – a host of minor NPC’s including – Riffkin the Trollkin (Apprentice Armourer), Fillestro (The defacto boss of the Cracked Head Tavern), Tom Pettyfingers (Urchin of Burli, Currently Employed in the Cracked Head). A strange Bear-Humanoid/Were-bear creature in the Warehouse of Pilsbury. Some random unnamed violent drunken louts.
Some DM preamble.
We were a little short of playtesters this session because George unfortunately couldn’t make it. In other news a new playtester may be coming online later but we will have to see how that pans out. (Ooo tantalise, tantalise). We had about an hour and three quarters of play-testing (which is not very long as a role-playing session goes) and I wanted to trial out the combat so I generated a few random scuffles. Everyone in the group is still alive and Jordan can officially take the ‘champion of jammy dice rolls’ and as DM I can take the ‘made the worst rolls’ bucket on the head prize. Grrr.
Good news is that both players reported enjoying the session – both characters remain alive in spite of themselves – and both players seem keen to make the play-test continue. Looking forward to having our thief back with us in the next session :). As usual given that the write-ups are written from a DM perspective I’ll just stick in the normal disclaimer that therefore this account is compressed, distorted and not necessarily a best record of the events. However, it’ll have to do. So given that we had no thief I temporarily wrote the character out of the session, as we have not set up a set of ‘standing instructions’ or player preferences for dealing with their characters when the player is unable to make it. We shall have to remedy this when everybody is about – in the meantime eyes down, look in.
What happened next?
Glendawynn sallied off the very same evening after the meeting with Pilsbury to find her guild contact Moolsh, who knows the district that Pilsbury has most of his property in leaving the others to their own devices. They toy with the bad idea that they should make their way out to the scenes of the crimes that very same evening but eventually decide against this. They decide to get rooms sorted for themselves at the Head – except for Antiva who is determined to walk home in the dark. Chatting merrily to each other they head off to find Fillestro downstairs to get that sorted – and a drink.
Before that happens however – they walk – still chatting loudly away out of the meeting room upstairs right into the middle of a bloody fight in the corridor. Burli is barged as he is first out of the door by a man running and he bounces off a wall wrestling style narrowly dodging a sword in the guts in the process. A man’s head gets in the way of a crossbow bolt at point blank range. This isn’t at all pretty and leads to his instant grisly demise. The three drunken brawlers are now but two in the blink of an eye.
Calmly Antiva steps next into the fray as the Bastard readies his weapons. The mystic monk wizard block/strikes hard using his Far Eastern ‘Gentlefist’ style and paralyses the arm of the crossbow wielding murderer with a phoenix-fist strike. It is perfectly executed much to his satisfaction and he allows himself a smile behind his mask. The crossbow wielding drunkard’s eyes widen in terror as he realises his arm is frozen in place and his mind works overtime to avoid panic in the face of this audacious, calmly executed attack.
So naturally the cross-bow wielding stranger gathers his wits, turns and legs it at full tilt down the corridor narrowly avoiding by sheer dint of luck and reflexes having his feet swept away from under him him by the mystic-monk. The Bastard strides between Burli and his assailant swinging his favourite bastard sword knife combo casually as if he is on the playing square of the swordsman’s guild. Burli sinks back as the renowned swordsplayer parries a clumsy drunken blow that would have eviscerated a lesser man even before it is a serious threat. In all of this it is quite clear that the bloody brawl is alcohol fuelled. These guys can fight but they are sodden with drink.
Behind him, Antiva hears some strange words of invocation from the bulky Burli indicating some kind of spellcasting is apparently going on as the wrestler focuses through his warhammer.
Burli the Wrestler keeps his skin intact and helps out Iswann and Antiva.
The Bastard feels a strange force flowing through him and his assailant suddenley stands dumb-struck before him – baffled, confused, seemingly even more paralytic then before if that we possible.
Antiva swiftyl realises he has the advantage over the confused drunkard swordsman. This man has nearly skewered Burli, and only Iswann’s practised skill with his parrying dagger prevented him from being slashed from groin to chin. He delicately palm-strikes the drink-soaked fool in the knock-out nerve-cluster with, again exquisite timing and the man slumps devastated and immediately unconscious to the floor like a sack of spuds. He was barely capable of registering that there was an attack coming let alone avoid it.
“We’d better tell Fillestro there’s a bloody mess up here to deal with” says Burli matter-of-factly whilst trying to avoid the spewing blood from the fresh corpse of the stranger near his feet. “Drinks are on you Iswann I reckon”, he announces. They all troop downstairs and get a well deserved drink. Even Antiva – although only water in his case – in a glass would you believe!
Fillestro sends Tom Pettyfingers off to ‘deal with’ the situation upstairs and throws Iswann a searching look. The ‘Bastard’ appears oblivious to the barkeep owner’s penetrating gaze. They have a few drinks and Antiva makes his way safely and as it turns out unscathed home. The next day they gather in the tavern. Antiva is there first by about a mile and bides his time by playing Tarot in the public bar whilst he waits for the ‘Bastard’ to wake up. A looming shadow reveals itself to be the trollkin apprentice armourer Riffkin. The tang of his natural scent nearly causes those nearby not of a troll persuasion to faint. Someone opens one of the Head’s windows quickly. Antiva settles himself behind his mask and continues to deal his cards. Riffkin demands to have his cards read and settles down onto a reinforced barrel -seat that Fillestro has set aside especially for the trollkin who occasionally frequent the Head.
Riffkin is dead impressed with how the wise Far Easterner is able to divine who stole his ‘dinking’ hammer, and how many fingers (two) there are behind his back. Others in the crowd are less impressed by the subtlety of the Bastard’s signalling. Iswann had come downstairs to see the 7-8ft odd trollkin squatting in front of Antiva with a huge crowd of locals watching the reading with interest. Realising that it may prove hard for Antiva to correctly determine the number of fingers (two) behind Riffkin’s back he makes his way as casually as possible behind him and signals the Easterner as casually as possible. The trollkin fails to notice, and there is a mixture of awe, laughter and derision from those gathered about. Riffkin however is overcome with the talents of the mystic and enthusiastically gifts him with a curious, smelly, yellow stone of somekind. He then chats for a little bit with Iswan and whistles with concern when he finds out what it is they are planning on doing. “You must be suicidal or something, but if you are still alive tomorrow and need help – I may be free. See you at the wrestling later I hope – I have a ton of cash on Burli”, says the Trollkin as he departs.
Burli pitches up a bit later – he’s been looking for Amberrh and is concerned because he can’t find her. This usually means he has to check the gaols. He is chewing over this idea whilst the others are growing increasingly bored with waiting for Glendawynn’s return. When she doesn’t they all give up and decide to head west to where one of Pilsbury’s burned out warehouses is located. They talk nicely to the guard who is impressed enough with their appearence, stature and apparent links to Pilsbury to ignore their crossing the militia investigation line once they chuck him a smerduk. They venture onto the remains of the warehouse site and make their way down a singed staircase to somekind of dusty smelly cellar. They are just adjusting to the low light levels in the narrow corridor and Antiva is smelling something is not right about the place. He strides around a corridor corner as the others are on the stairs and looking more cautiously down another route.
Antiva has not much time to react to the sight of a weird half-human/half-bear creature gnawing on a human femur squatting around the corner. Even then it is about 10 foot tall and becomes a towering bulk of brown fur, claws and um, swords?!
The bear-creature goes for its weapons at its, umm, waist but the quick fingered mystic-wizard grabs the swords from their resting places before it can do so. He throws them down behind him and Iswann and Burli suddenly realise there is a fight afoot. The monk lays in with firm gut punches and is dismayed to find it is like punching rock. He is giving it his best killer blows but is finding not much appears to be happening. The were-bear creature lashes out with claws and the monk-wizard counter-strikes again straight to the gut as the claws rip through and ruin his bezainted helm. His head is safe but his helmet is thoroughly trashed in the process. Cutting a dash the Bastard runs around the corner to attack the were-bear from behind. Burli hefts his hammer and looks desperately for one of his spell runes…
And this is where we had to leave it as time ticked away. Combat was nice and swift, easy to administrate when I had all the info to hand. Getting people to just describe actions rather than focus on skills and mechanics is getting easier and more natural – this is the aim of the Hydra system – the skills and mechanics just underpin the action, rather than being the focus of the action. They describe to a certain extent what you can do as a character, but the main focus should be on just describing character actions – then we’ll be able to plug in the relevant skill to describe the character competence at the described action. That’s how it ought to work anyhow!
Fusion RPG Concepts 