Goodman Games

Greets all!

So earlier this week we got together at our new local gamestore (FCB Comics and games) And started a DCC playtest game/mini campaign. The group initially comprises of myself the store boss, my roomate and a workmate of mine that has never played aby P'n'P RPG before he joined the Demo Game Joseph Goodman ran for us just after free RPG day.

I've long been accused of being quite wordy in my posts so I am breaking this up into installments hope its a decent read for you all.

Adventure one "The Other side of the Coin" Introduction

So initially there was myself and three others with the promise of more folks to join and or be irregular attenders. But this looks to be the core group. The adventure I have initally set to run is set in a Dessert with the players (of whatever background or race) having been stuck in this Oasis small town for some weeks due to unseasonally early Dessert storms cutting off the caravan rout to and fro to wherever they were going. This allowed a semi rational excuse in my mind for ANY race/class/proffesion being there for the players to roll from.

I explained that those that chose not to be a local were getting pretty much stir crazy to get away from this little township at least for a while. The locals on the other hand having been exposed to such a cosmopolitan influx of folks had now become stirred with the idea of what might lie beyond the dunes and wadi's that they knew...

So with that rough motivation in place I began my tale as four strangers managed to brave the periodic dust storms and make it into town. A pair of humans a horribly disfigured Elven sorceress and a phelgmatic Halfling driving their provisions cart.

After making some inquiries the group that would be the PC's got talking to one of the human warriors about how it was they had made the dangerous crossing to the VIllage Oasis od Seven palms. This fellow explained that they were seeking a rare plant that could.. well that was private business. But if the players knew of any brave souls that wished to make some much needed silver then perhaps these four could use them.

The players in due time were hired on as camp followers/Gaurds and animal handlers for this mini expedition supposedly to find this desert plant for the Elven Sorceress's research.

They were told that the foursome planned to go only about a day or day and halfs travel away from the saftey of the fortified Oasis town to some rocky hills that matched the habitat the Adventurers were seeking. Oh did I say the NPC's were adventurers? Oh yes I did, that was my base idea that the mixed party of PC's (mostly L0 but including 2 newly minted 1st levels that had survived the playtest game that Joseph ran for us) Were being signed up to mind the horses while the high levels went and had there adventure!

Well how many adventures have you been in or run where the NPC's get used as Valets while the PC's go Dungeon bashing!? Either way I figured turn about was fair play...

So after being issued with a complimentary bit of dessert gear and a few small weapons as part payment for their services, the Mini expedition set off. To allow for new players to join us later and to prevent the PC's from being saddled with ALL the menial duties inherent in such a trip I declared an "undefined" amount of NPC' extras were also with the caravan as well as the 7 PC's. I figured this would allow for replacements to be written into the game easily if a player got unlucky with thier 0 Levels etc...

Adventure one "The Other side of the Coin" part One

On the first day of the trek nothing much happened just a weary trudge through the dusty dessert. But towards the end of it the most observant PC did spot a few canine shapes in the distance apparently shadowing them. Their "Patrons" had explained that they would be paid a bonus if they kept off dessert vermin like Jackals and Scorpions etc. on a Per kill basis. So accurately guessing what might happen next they set a guard around their camp as night drew on.

The planned encounter occurred (random dice throw) almost right away after they had settled for the night. A Pack of Jackal like dogs stealthily infiltrated the camp and tried to scare one of the animals (which incidentally included the pony one of the PC's had started with) into breaking away into the night where presumably the pack would take it down and eat it later.

Both the PC guards failed utterly on their perception abilities to see the silent shapes of the little dog approach. And in a suprising bit of thoughtlessness neither of them had positioned themselves atop the 10' high rock they had used as partial shelter against the intermittent dessert wind either.

As a result the three "Alpha" dogs dropped off the rock in the midst of the party while the bulk of the 1 & 2 hp pack raised a ruckus at its edge. The fastest reacting PC managed a near miss (it was his neg. Str adjuster that caused the blow to fail) at the biggest of the Alpha Jackals but that didn't prevent them from panicking one of the Caravan's mules into dragging its tether and foolishly bolting off to where the main pack awaited.

Another PC who had the background of Animal trainer made a heroic grab for the trailing halter rope. He got it and though had NO chance of hauling the panicked animal back by main strength he did make a very hard check on his Per to calm it down a bit so it at least didn't go out of the camp firelight and into certain doggy death...

By now the whole camp was in an uproar. I ruled that the "Patrons" were just as flat footed as everyone else on round 1 as the guards had botched the job so well. But all the PC's were up awake and if not alert ready to do battle.... except one. One of the 2 elven Artisans instead of going for her weapon picked up her sketch pad and bizarrely declared they were making a sketch of the fight? Still not quite sure why they did that but hell it was funny at the time.

The combat didn't last too long as the Jackals had no intention on a full on assault against so many. The Alpha dog that had been engaged fought a duel with one then two PC's Killing one of them before it died itself.

The animal handler holding onto the mule managed to do so for the whole of the combat preventing their employers from going banana's at such a failure of duty.

But it was (almost predictably) the Partes 1st level Wizard that routed the pack. He summoned a series of Attack dogs of his own and set them to go hunt down the Jackals. Towards the end he got creative and Added a 2 HD dessert Eagle to the mix to swoop down on those running away.

Overall a satisfactory defense of the Camp by the would be guards. The sketch artist had to flutter her eyelids at the Patrons to avoid a dressing down but as her best sta. is a 16 Pre that wasn't a challenge it seems. One L0 Party member died, regrettably the only one that made a concrete contribution to the melee attacks on the pack (not counting the Wizards summoned hounds here of course)

Yummy! Was there caramel or chocolate? Whipped cream?

The way I learned to remember the difference between "dessert" and "desert" is the number of Ses. Two Ses = two helpings of dessert, yum! One S = one helping of desert, which is the only helping you'll ever want because dry, dusty deserts suck.

(well of course never trust a spell checker to know what desert your in! Good job I knew at least otherwise it might have been a blamange storm that got them next!)

Adventure one "The Other side of the Coin" Part Two

So the next game day our slightly diminished band of.. of.. nearly hero's set off again for the rocks. According to the Patrons the trip should have only taken at most a half days trek. That of course would have been far too easy!

An hour or so into the journey a fierce dust storm whipped up around them. The Wizard who had elected to be a Local born character recognized the signs and managed to save himself from any harm easily enough the others were not quite as lucky. A few unpleasant hours later the slightly sand blasted caravan dug itself out of a few new made heaps of reddish dust and took stock of their new situation.

On the negative side, one of the pack mules had stumbled and shed some of the water ration they had stowed on it. But was otherwise unhurt. One PC had taken a random hit too from flying debris but other than the water they were in good shape.

Of course a debate ensued as to weather the wise choice was to go on or return for more supplies. While the Patrons and one or two PC's argued that the rest of the party looked around and I couldn't resist using an ancient plot device.

Perhaps a quarter mile away from where they were recovering the spire of an old Minaret had been laid bare by the Dust/Sand storm. Immediately our Elven Artificer began to... sketch it (!?) And a secondary debate began weather to take the obvious plot hook or stay with the Patrons. In the end the group stayed where they were but using the Elf's sketch and the Wizards local knowledge they made careful notes where to find the thing again if they wanted to on the return trip.

This was a bit disappointing to me I admit I had carefully plotted out both an advantage AND a disadvantage for a quick side trip to this submerged ruin but so it goes. All the players were having fun and the games pace was good.

Finally the slightly bedraggled group made it to the rough area that the parties Patrons said they wanted to get to. A preliminary look about the large collections of stacked rocks that formed the ridge found a small pool of water for them to replenish their diminished supplies. The seep water wasn't enough to keep them going indefinitely but it should have been enough for them to extend their trip back to the planned five day sojourn. Provided they kept the waters to themselves so the Patrons demanded the party Guard that as well as the caravans main camp a short ways away.


That's where we had to leave off play that evening. All in all they game had gone on about 4 hours. All the players were well satisfied with there progress as was I. Only one had died en rout to the supposed site of the "Adventure" and even then their combat death had been memorable.

I handed out a few XP directly none of the 0 levels got enough to level on the spot mind you and a few bonus silver were paid out (mostly to the Mage) for Kills of desert vermin by the Parties Patron higher level NPC's. This coming Monday we are expecting as I said a new player and we shall see if that session goes as well as the first.

The system was smooth easy to understand use. Good RP replaced many a skill check that I would have felt obliged to ask for in 3rd/4th ed D&D and the real proof of any RPG session is that I have been bugged by two of the three players all week asking questions and remarking that it seems a long time since we played and when are we doing it again...

As soon as we have a few more 1st levelers I am going to insist that we have at least ONE PC of each of the four main classes in play as often as possible so we can get a handle on how each plays.

But for now two thumbs way up for DCC in general from us here in Alpharetta

At least you didn't take it like I was trying to be an a-hole. (An English nerd, sure! But an a-hole? No.)

As an English nerd myself my dear fellow I couldn't take offense!

Just got back from session two. As soon as I stop laughing I'll post the short form

oh, was wondering if you ever plan on making your mini-campaign open? i get to atlanta every coupla months.

Sure I'll take a "walk in" player its all good fun after all! We meet 6:30 Monday Nights at

FCB Comics and Games
9850 Nesbit Ferry Rd
Alpharetta, GA 30043

(There thats there blatant Plug on a respected forum!)

If your gonna be in town PM me here and I'll fit you in

Currently too tired and slightly drunk to do a write up of last nights session sorry folks... Mebbie Thursday for that

:: high fives you ::

Adventure one "The Other side of the Coin" Session two Part one

We resumed play with the PC's setting up a kinda stretched guard position with one at one end of the camp Another perched upon the rock above the small spring and a third doing a patrol between the two points. Fairly sensible play so far.

This time one of the guards (One run by our new player) managed a really good bit of RP coupled with a decent dice roll and spotted the incoming trouble for this night quite a long way off.

A hurried defense was organized with other PC's being roused from their beds etc. The only hold out was the Wizard who saved the day last time they were attacked. (He said he didn't wanna be roused until it was sure it was an actual threat.. Out of character his player (nobley) explained he didn't wanna hog the limelight.. I wonder however..?) This led to an interesting bit of RP. By now all the players were getting just a wee bit paranoid about being killed off easily. Most had developed a good bit of affection for their Lowbies and as a result played this encounter way too cautiously.

Some Kind of large insect was approaching the watering hole but rather than shoot arrows or chuck stones at it as they approached most of the players were content to wait and see what it was exactly before doing anything! As a result the small group of Centipede like creatures got at least partially under cover before the rocks and spears started flying effectively wasting the extra round of suprise the Warriors great perception had granted them. Still one of the lowly centipedes was felled by a cast rock by our fighter with the obscene amounts of strength before the group had to give up its high ground and root them out and away from the pool of precious water.

As by now they could all see there was but five remaining centipede two of the party dropped down to engage them. The 1st level Warrior and a doughty 0 Blacksmith. Our resident animal handler set his Guard dog on the critters as well while the others held back with bows spears and the occasional rock to hand just in case.

Interestingly these centipede like critters seemed not to notice the players dropping to the ground near them and instead started drinking up the precious water at a hideously swift rate! One round later two of them had been smashed by the party but the other three carried on depleting the parties water supply.

On the next round the centipedes finally turned on the small group of players attacking them. The warrior was bitten and immediately failed a save Vs the creatures venom. Still feeling weakened and light headed he fought on dispatching another of them. Still this reversal panicked one of the watching players into trying a risky shot with his short bow, which hit and slightly wounded one of the remaining critters but that was the only useful thing to happen to the party that round. On the following round the bowman managed to put his arrow in the back of the poor old L0 blacksmith killing him and a hurled stone from another hanger back struck the hunting dog scaring it off into the desert injured.

Despite all this our now Lone warrior triumphed slaying the remaining bugs before swooning as he again failed a Fort save Vs the venom in his system. But with the fight over the NPC cleric was summoned and after an application of lay on hands the warrior recovered somewhat though for now his strength is well below his usual peak.


Lessons learned for DCC? This is no game to be cautious in. Despite the low survivability of your characters the old adage "He who hesitates is lost" seemed to sum up this fight for me. The party had two rounds of suprise and near suprise to at least hurl rocks at the incoming beasts, which admittedly sucky dice throws might have wasted for them but then again better a chance at a sucky dice than not rolling it at all! And it was salutary to have the reminder of "No firing into a melee unless your really ARE Legolas as well. Lets hope they learn that one too...

More to come once I have done some real work today

Adventure one "The Other side of the Coin" session Two Part Two

A new day dawned under the grey skies of Korrenor and another PC was laid to rest in a shallow grave...

After this regrettable occurrence (with the elven archer looking very sheepish the whole time) The Parties patrons divided their helpers up into teams of two and set them off to search the hillside for this rare herb that they said they were seeking.

Several hours passed with the various PC's searching in different ways. The elves promptly got out there note pads and made an elaborate grid of the hills features and searched methodically zone by zone.

By contrast Virgil the warrior and Tevlar the wizard, bounced from thicket to thicket looking under the overhanging vegetation in each for their quarry.

Others made a slow circuit of the hill going steadily upwards while Gregor "The Beast master" Wizard (he who's prime attack spell was Animal summoning see last session) Decided to go strait to the top and look down...

Well each of these several ideas had something to recommend them, and some folks discovered some strange looking quince like fruits growing on one stunted bush, Others saw some great clawed tracks... while the Wizard found a small cave near the top of the hill, and promptly went in...

Alone...

Well that suprised me I admit but fortunately he was being played intelligently as he was evilly. He stopped and exited shortly after. I suspect finding the claw marks the size of carving knives on the rock face of the interior at one point may have tipped him off that all was not well here. But maybe it was just wizardry wisdom.... Interestingly he kept his discovery all to himself for the next couple of hours of the day.

After some five or six hours the group reassembled and compared notes at base camp. Nobody had found the rare herb but the lost Attack dog of the parties animal herder had been found alive if not well (it was still down a few hp from the night before)

One other group had also stumbled across the cave and also crept in as far as the rock pool and the giant scratching post of stone scarred with many claw marks of impressive size. To my suprise the most but not all of the group then decided to go back en mass and explore the small cave despite there only being less than two hours of daylight remaining. Still they had found it and were determined to explore despite the fact of oncoming night and their contracted obligations to guard the camp, so I did not dissuade them.

This time one of our brave explorers actually tasted the water from the small seepage pool two of them had found earlier. It was good and fresh but rather minerally tasting, what they didn't find out was it had a particular effect that may not become apparent till much later...

Summoning up their courage they pressed on past the Scratching post (Pocketing some nice shiny crystals that they had espied in the process) and came to a four way intersection. They opted to explore what seemed to be the largest passage to their left.

This opened out into a fairly large area nearly 60' at its longest point. Some effort had obviously been made to smooth the rough stone floor and at the edge of their lantern light they saw a rough hewn altar and several shiny objects hanging on the walls behind it.

Further investigation showed these to be seven plates of silvery metal covered in a layer of fine dust bolted to the walls of the cave. The two elven artisans immediately began to examine these in details taking careful sketches of the faint lines seen beneath the dust coating.

Upon the Altar were two objects an ancient Gong hanging by perished strips of rawhide which lay partially on top of a magnificent cloth of gold Robe! Well a nice looking robe is a MUST HAVE to any self respecting mage I understand and Gregor the Beast master grabbed the gong and snatched the robe out from under it ASAP.

He was just going through its pockets when the gong's leather straps broke and the thing crashed to the stone floor with a dull metallic booming noise....

Hastily he stuffed the interesting vial of liquid he found in one pocket into the breast of his own desert robe and then he cast about with the rest of the party for whatever Might have noticed the noise...

Shambling into the cave came a skeletal figure wrapped in rags (Bandages maybe? None of them caught on to that). The "Skeleton" had no Jaw but pointed ominously at the nearest of the group in an imperious manner.

Well to his credit the warrior never hesitated and leapt up to smash at the undead figure. Using his spear as a mere club he delivered 5 hp of damage right away despite still being down on Str points from the previous nights poisoning.

Weirdly the figure though badly smashed up neither fell down or retaliated. Instead it made a kind of a "shoo" motion with what remained of its arms. The reason soon became apparent why.

A round or so behind he skeletal apparition came a large lizard of major proportions! Easily four feet high at the shoulder by double that in length the thing lumbered forward to glare at the intruders in its lair. The torch light glinted off nine inch razor sharp three clawed talons on each foot...

Immediately the parties two wizards began casting. A Wild Boar made an appearance and promptly charged the Lizard while a cloud of caustic vapor materialized about its forequarters. A small amount of this poison mist scalded poor old Virgil the warrior as well but he had a few hp left to burn so he was OK for now.

As the Boar crashed into the things side two interesting facts registered on the player group. Firstly the skeleton had made a weak clawing motion at the Lizard not Vigil who had attacked it but a moment before and.. The boar had smashed its tusks into a middle set of Legs on the flank of the creature.

Yes it was spot the experienced role player time as when the fact that the "Lizard" had six legs was announce you could see all of the veterans screw up their faces and try NOT to meta game while the complete novice in the group was wondering what was going on?

The One player who had NOT taken his PC's into this mini cave complex was convulsed with laughter as the party tried to think of a reasonable way to fight Past the Basilisk in their midst! In all honesty I was intrigued to see how plausible they made there reasoning as well...

Next round Virgil took a swing at the thing the dispersing mist from the choking cloud giving him a second chance against its gaze attack. Gregor tried for a few more summoned Animals but this time he blew his roll and found himself denuded of his fave attack spell with but one pawn in play as a result of it (the Boar) Tevlar managed a lesser version of choking cloud again which was enough to give Virgil the chance to fight his way past the thing as it finished off the remains of the Skeletal guardian with a mighty bite as its secondary attack.

With one party member now behind it the elves finally left off there sketches and prepared to follow the rest as they made a break for the exit. Gregor had the boar charge at it once more as he dived past with Tevlar only a short way behind him. Another round of combat saw the Boar turned into a granite paperweight but the party had just about managed to sprint past the thing while the dumb but very angry boar had occupied its attention.

The problem was now that the entrance portion to this mini cave was only about 4 feet high. no problem for the Basilisk but very inhibiting for the characters to exit at any speed. Gregor came up with a costly and desperate plan to buy the part the time they needed to get past the narrow point.

With great sacrifice he hammered the edges of this magnificent and very very expensive robe into cracks in the wall across the passage at one of its narrow point. He then argued that this was now a doorway or if you like a "portal" Well I knew where he was going as I saw what his spells were but hey they were desperate and the Role Play was good so I allowed the idea.

As the last player ran past his cloth door he spell burn cast Hold Portal on it. Also using a drop of luck to boost the result into "Portal disappears for duration". But the best bit was that as he cast the spell his Mercurial side effect manifested and he burst out in eerie flames scorching everything in a radius about him. This included not just the Basilisk but the luckless Virgil robbing him of nearly his last hit point...

So as the robe was ignited by the mage fire I had the basilisk's gaze turn it to stone justifying the "Portal vanishes" result and the bedraggled and now luck shy party fled down the hillside to alert the camp before Gregor's spell wore away.

Frankly once the held fast for several hours effect finishes the remains of the robe will be quickly shredded by a highly annoyed Basilisk that in all likelihood will track the smell of scorched Adventurer all the way back to the camp they are sworn to defend.

But that will be next Mondays task I suspect!


Lessons observed this adventure? Well for heavens sake what do you THINK a gong is gonna do if you disturb it! But apart from that curious lapse where I admit I was channeling more Indiana Jones than Appendix N they behaved well.

At long last the daft elf that sketches everything has actually done something useful as the lines on the plaques tell an interesting story that will aid them later. The new guy played well with is warrior being the soul of valor despite him seemingly forgetting the d3 he had for MDoA. The Spell and Luck burning were done frugally but effectively and the all powerful Wizard of many animals of last time was forced to get extremely creative to stay alive. The fact he actually destroyed (or has he?) the most valuable thing they have yet found in his attempt to save them certainly impressed me. I wonder when he'll recall he has the vial of.. whatever still in his own pocket?

The Parties thief would have been a really good choice for a scout in the cave but as Bob was still nursing the death by friendly fire of his Blacksmith I think we can understand why he chose to avoid going into the unknown cave just before dusk. One death a session was prolly all he fancied!

All in all a good days play all round once more.

you and your dungeon crawlers weave such a great tale!

Why thank you SK!

Actually I don't do the actual play justice, but heck, there is only so much time I can devote to doing a write up of this stuff after all

I am a semi pro writer by trade but in RPG's I just cruise it and the stuff I do for dungeons is pretty rough compared to my "proper" stories. But that's the great thing about DCC in general it encourages the feed back Role playing you used to get when there wasn't "A rule for everything" as D&D and its scions devolved into IMOHO

Adventure one "The Other side of the Coin" session Three

So our group of lucky (and scorched) adventurers made it back to camp with the news that they had managed to stirred up a large fierce Basilisk. Well interestingly the party's patrons greeted this news with far less horror and irritation than one might have expected. In fact had the players been listening really hard they might have noticed that this was treated with some pleasure by the NPC Patrons.

Regardless of hidden motives a lively discussion ensued on how to defend the camp from this beastie before the hard cast Hold spell released it to shred the flimsy barrier and come out hunting for them.

We had been joined by two additional players this night as well swelling the ranks of the party with some fresh faces. One of them suggested that the best way to ambush it was to throw a net or something over it as it left its lair. That sage fellow and his three confederates was duly volunteered by the Patrons do drop a spare tent over the things head to blind it while the melee warriors in the party then bashed away from all sides. The plan had some merit and the Patrons all agreed to come up and help dispatch this dreadful beast with the proviso that they got to harvest any magical trophies from the beast specifically its eyes.

So with their counter ambush set the group began to the long wait into the cold desert night for the beast to appear.

Eventually one of the new player characters (a 0 level Halfling) got a bit board and decided to slip into the cave lair supposedly to see if he could get behind the Basilisk when it came out. But we could all see it was an attempt at an end run to get at the treasure as well... Still it was nice to see someone realize that an 0 Level adventurer is somewhat expendable and you may as well go for broke with them sometimes!

As pure luck would have it when the Warding spell finally failed and the creature could tear through the remaining barrier, it missed the small Halfling concealed in a side tunnel and headed out towards the open where the group awaited it. The Halfling merrily skipped on in and began to pries off one of the electrum plates off the walls for himself! Only problem was with that was his 8 STR and the fact they were set on the wall higher up than he was tall so he had to wrench ineffectively at it with his spear for quite some time...

Meanwhile the ambush plan had gone surpassingly well. As the creature came out it suffered a volley of missile fire including a crit hit from one of our previously unlucky with a bow elves. The Spare tent had been dropped roughly about its head (due to a decent 18 on the part of one of the new characters and average rolls at least from his fellows) SO I ruled it couldn't gaze on this round at least.

On the next round the nearest melee fighter Virgil the warrior also critted it with a spear blow to its back, a well cast Magic missile from the NPC mage added to its woes and our old friend Gregor the beast master again attempted to repeat his trick of casting Ward Portal on the clasps of the entangling tent. Now I wasn't really buying that but I let him roll just for the special effects it might bring! In the end it was a moot point. The Parties single 1st level thief slipped out of the shadows at the last moment burning luck as she came and successfully back stabbed the thing to death with her dagger!

So all in all it was a very anti climatic battle for me, though I suspect the party had their hearts in their mouth the whole time as it took hit after (low damage) hit from their weapons.

About half the party stayed outside to butcher it for any magical components they could harvest from its corpse before the Desert sun rendered them unusable. This task was made harder by the fact I had ruled Gregor's Ward Spell had bonded the tent about the things head so getting to the valuable eyes was now a major pain in the ass....

The rest of the group dived back inside to gather the valuable electrum wall plaques they had seen before. Causing the unlucky Halfling to abandon his attempt to filch them first. In the end he almost fell into a sink hole that was serving as the Basilisk's Privy so his attempt to cheat the rest of the party came to nothing in the end.

The rest of the complex was explored and we had the only damage the entire night to a party member occur when they kicked a loose stone on the Altar that revealed a metal spike trap and a hidden pouch of coinage. Up another side passage they found the burial niche that held the Skeletal Guardian of the place, from which the recovered a tattered book that Astrid the Rogue burned a couple of points of luck to read. But more on that next time perhaps. They also found a petrified human at the back of one dead end passage as well. Pity they didn't search him more thoroughly as.. Ah well can't say that here as one of them might be reading!

So that's where the session ended. The Basilisk had been slain by teamwork and a large dose of luck. The two 0 Level elves had leveled just from accumulated XP, and now they will start play with another (and perhaps) last chance to search for the mysterious blue veined desert plant once more...

Or will they?


Lessons learned.
Well the party's well thought out and executed ambush went like a dream. Proving that low level's played cunningly can defeat much more powerful foes. The new guys seemed to me to be trying really hard to meta game and grab goodies that they had neither earned or role-played there way into obtaining. It was good for them that the luck of the dice was so Karma-full otherwise I could feel my GM's vengeful instinct taking hold and... well lets just not go there huh?

After seeing how the PC wizards were making their limited spell repotoir work for them it occurred to me that perhaps that in addition to the Mercurial magic roll a players spells should by default get customized to them based on how they use them early on. I think that's gonna be more my house rule than a request for an official rule mind you. But it sure fits the Genre and feel of the game. Our friend Gregor I suspect is going to be allowed a bit of a break making "Portals" out of scraps of cloth for that spell at a cost that it is Less effective on conventional doors. to reflect how he has tried to use it. I'll have to think on that.

Adventure one "The Other side of the Coin" session Four

With the Basilisk slain the party was clear to search unhampered by its threat for the "Blue Herb" their patrons had come out to get for one more day before they needed to return to civilization.

Strangely the "Patrons" were less than enthused about this, but the party assumed that was due to the fact they had spent all night butchering a large magical animal... Still they were happy to let the group go look. One of them actually found something that matched the description of the plant by the end of the day and so everyone was happy and the group set off back to the oasis...

At this point the party persuaded the Patrons to set up camp near to the half buried tower that they had by passed (to my slight suprise and disappointment) on the outbound trip. After much humming and hawing they managed to scale the 14 foot distance from the top of the dune to the one apparent window on the minaret.

Not too long after the first got through one player recalled he had taken there first level of Thief last time and could have scaled it without any difficulty at all! LOL Seems that the 0 Level mind set takes a while to throw off!

Once in side they explored the upper room which was largely empty save for a single desiccated skeleton lying in the corner. This was treated as if it was a Litch for several minutes until they finally prodded it to discover it was just a skeleton...

A half hidden set of stairs was found in one corner leading down into the tower and its surrounding hill of dust. Predictably the Halfling decided to head on down solo and discovered a large Sidewinder that had set up its lair in the half buried room below. Naturelly it killed him at last...

Up stepped the parties cautious mage and hurled a dagger at the slithering horror coming up the stairwell towards them. Proving he was capable of getting good dice rolls Master Trevlar crited it and killed the 3 hp beast in one throw before anyone could react...

The lower room was mostly buried as the dwarf found out rather comically, but Gregor the Mage had a solution and stared to summon Badgers and the like to help excavate it. A couple of hour later they had half cleared the room and discovered a few items of genuine interest in the debris including a quiver of what turned out to be 8 magical arrows. Though it too many many days of game time until somebody managed to successfully cast a detect magic to finally find that out...

With the Hobbit laid to rest in the tower that was his end the group camped for an uneventful night then onward for the last stage of their opening quest.

As I had been allowing folks to accumulate XP as they went along a couple of them had made it to Level 1 by now. We had started with four survivors from the Session Joseph had run for us here in Atlanta but now the 0 levels that had started this session were beginning to level up. So the following day two more had made the grade which was just as well as the Adventure had one last twist to throw at them.

The next day they were half way to the Oasis village when the ground opened up beneath one of the Patrons horses and both man and rider fell into a well concealed and prepared pit. Incredibly one PC ran forward to see what had happened and fell right in alongside his boss...

What had happened was related to their very first encounter where the group had been attacked by a suspiciously organized Jackal pack. I had determined that all the local Jackals were under the control of a JAcklewere and now that he had had reports of a new "caravan" making its way across what it considered to be its territory it had organized a nice raid on them.

A huge swirling fight ensued with the Jackals attacking from all sides while the humanoid Jacklewere peppered the parties spell casters with poisoned arrows. Characters died but the party was victorious after slaying many Jackals and discovering that they (thought) they had no magic weapons to hurt the Jacklewere with. Pity they hadn't gotten to the arrows earlier..


Much reduced the party staggered back to the Oasis of nine Palms laden with loot (well they felt pretty laden anyhow) and sporting new scars.

Final thoughts
All in all the group is stoked and ready to try out their new skills and abilities now that everyone has gained at least one character of first level. The adventure had a very original feel to it not because it was so well written (it wasn't trust me! it got dashed off in an afternoon) but because the LACK of hard and fast rules for every thing forced us all to think things out and Role Play better than many of us had attempted to for years.

So I have chapter two ready for them but I doubt I'll have the time to do a full write up for it here each week, but I hope this has been of interest to some.

A big thumbs up for DCC from all us here in Atlanta

Interlude. XP & Waffles

Well this report is "late" but time hasn't allowed me to do a blow by blow recounting of the adventures but here at least is the short form:

After the Parties journey into the Arid lands they came away with a fair haul of treasure (for their level) plus a number of electum plates ripped from the waslls of what turned out to be an ancient Hermets retreat.

Not unexpectedly they copied the designes on them (Elven Artisans x2 helped a LOT in that regard!) Then flogged them off for the cash value, despite my telling them that a single crossroads town wouldn't give them full value for the items.. Oh well!

They to a man asked for some "down time" while they levelled up in some cases and in others cast long spells (Find Familiar/Patron Bond etc) My next section to the game wasn't time constrasined so I told them they could have an out of game flow Month top do whatever they wanted.

This helped ME a lot as well as it turned out. I have a longstanding house rule in all my games that use and XP mechanic that nobody gets XP for merely FInding treasure. But you can have some XP for SPENDING its value in GP in class appropriate ways in party down time.

One of the most amusing things is that the parties animal summoning wizard was an ex farmer and HE decided to cast find familur.. Well as he had managed to kjeep his Hen alive all through his 0 level and foirst 1st level adventure I just had to... Please allow me to introduce you to Dynah the Mockatrice!

The Find familar spell transformed this ordinary barnyard Hen into a 1HD critter that has a dagger like peck and lays one Magic egg per day.. SO far he has collected three of them their powers are hardly earth shattering but add (ahem!) flavor to the game... SHe can now speak also and has the equivalent of a 6 INT score for comprehention of things independantly. Gregor the Beast Mage was quite pleased with her in the end.

The rest of the party were busily spending there filthy Lucre in revelry and training (IE gathering the XP value of what they spent upto about 100 per day in this setting) One of the things I always liked about Appendix N was that its heros were usually broke: Granting xp for cash spent seemed the best way to achieve it in my book

Towards the end of this pause in the narrative trhey were introduced to a fith NPC one who was in fact the purpose that their erswhile patrons hired them to go into the desert in the first place.

It transpired that the four NPC's that hired them were the servants/retainers of a more powerful wizard of at least 6th level (gasp!) WHo had unfortunatly been turned to stone in a magical experiment. The Party quickly realised that they had been used as Basilisk Bait to find the creature whoes fermented eyeball provided the last ingrediant to de petrify this great (but unlucky) Mage...

Naturelly some were upset at this But the nice Mr Wizard promises to make it all better for them by offering them a quest and suitable reparations to help them recover their pride and any funds they might need to further thier career

But more of that in the next installment..

Nicely done! If that was "shooting-from-the-hip" story telling, then I'm really looking forward to whatever you can post in future.

Thumbs up from the audience!