Session One Post Mortem

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seppukuzushi
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Session One Post Mortem

Post by seppukuzushi »

Firstly, a belated happy thanksgiving to everyone in the states and participating locales abroad; I hope for each of you that the holiday season has been so far to your liking.

A couple of days ago some friends -- a married couple -- and I were basking in the lazy aftermath of good beer, baked ham, and sundry, customary holiday fare when one suggested a tabletop session. My first instinct and subsequent course of action was to call the bluff immediately, and I instructed them to fetch dice and paper. They've inherited a few of my rule books which have since been upgraded, and I gleefully recollected that the core rules were among them. So, without a shred of preparation, I preemptively assumed the referee's chair (both have experience conducting campaigns), handed them the soft cover tome with the picture of a raging red dragon, and began to hastily sketch out an adventure on the back of an index card.

Ability scores were rolled and saves, bonuses, spells, and gear were recorded; per the dice, he played a human magic-user, and she played a halfling thief. 5000 XP put the magic-user at level 3, and the thief at level 4. In the mean time, I had managed to cobble together something serviceable. There was a town with a mine which had a dandy, aristocratic mayor and his dim lackey, and there was coin to be had if they could rid the mines of the child-snatching goblin menace.

Two goblins near the inside entrance were quickly dispatched after being cleverly lured out by the distressed cries of the halfing, who perfectly played the part of a lost child. Inside, they encountered a sabotaged rope bridge, and had to navigate across a trench which was filled with stinking muck and rotten offal. In the fun, I entirely neglected to present the simple puzzle I had composed and the pair rolled right in to the goblin queen's cavern.

By the time the fight had concluded, the magic-user was clinging to life with 1 HP remaining. I was thrilled when the goblin queen failed her save to resist a light spell, and the moment after she was struck blind, she was struck dead; her flailing claws found no purchase on the halfling thief who rolled maximum damage after a 20 to hit. I couldn't have engineered a better conclusion.

They discovered the treasure hoard, and the lucky halfling resisted the poisoned needle trap I had left as a secret sting in the tail of the short adventure. The magic-user levitated the chest and they secreted it out of town until the morning, when they collected their just compensation and promptly disappeared into the dawning sunrise.

On the whole, we all had a grand time, and they were open to another session at a later date. I think they found rolling a d6 for initiative more odd than anything else; I decided I rather like the way it makes turns feel more... cozy? More like everything is happening at once, I think.

Unsurprisingly, after real experience at the table with Basic Fantasy, it feels very familiar. There was a tangible difference in the number of things I had to mentally juggle compared to other systems I have run, which was relieving.

I suspect the next time we play will be with new characters, and if luck permits, with a larger group. I'm far more experienced with crafting my own plots and settings, but with the irregularity of play over the past year, I've turned my efforts toward running shorter, independent play sessions, and I'd like to try my hand at some of the more digestible items from the adventure anthologies. When I manage it, I'd be happy to share those experiences as well, should anyone care to hear the account.

The upshot is that, at this early stage, Basic Fantasy is proving to be the quick-to-play, functional, just-right system it presents as. And it makes a ridiculously affordable holiday gift for your nerd friends.

tl;dr: Played BF. It was a riot. I'm sold.
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Solomoriah
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Re: Session One Post Mortem

Post by Solomoriah »

Hey, fantastic! Congratulations on starting a campaign on the spur of the moment! Also, welcome!
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Ant McEwan
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Re: Session One Post Mortem

Post by Ant McEwan »

Sounds great! I love the d6 initiative system, though I'm still undecided about rolling fresh every round or maintaining original roll through the whole combat....
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seppukuzushi
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Re: Session One Post Mortem

Post by seppukuzushi »

I did take note of the difference, now that you mention it. With the d20 system derivatives I've played, the rules as written are such that initiative is rolled at the beginning of combat; I have experimented with rerolling at the beginning of each round, but I find the granularity of a d20 die and the broad range of modifiers makes rerolling rather slow and cumbersome as you have to wait on players to roll and calculate and then tabulate the results. I've found that I do prefer the unpredictability of rolling initiative at the top of every round. The nice thing about rolling on a d6 is that the small bonuses to DEX are more consistently an advantage because of the small range of possible results, and that you can just plop your initiative die down next to your miniatures, which precludes having to record the initiative order. I picked that up from Solo's video demonstrating combat procedures, and it does seem to save time and effort to do it that way.
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