Roleplaying Comments
Last night, we played in our current ongoing offline RPG. The setting is a heavily-Celtic-inspired fantasy world made by the game's GM. Previous sessions have included dragons in disguise, lots of stumbling around in the dark, death by mushrooms, and many other things detailed at http://aeranos.blogspot.com/.
For the last long while, the PCs have been clawing their way from one situation to another just trying to survive. Most of the group wants to fulfill its original mission, but a decision to follow kidnapped townsfolk got them overcommitted and sent waaaaaay off course. In the previous session, we had an unusual situation where we took control. We came up with a plan - an offensive plan to expose a traitor and head off an ambush. Just being able to decide what we were doing and take the initiative for once felt remarkably good after being reactionary for so long. Of course, it didn't work out as well as hoped. The traitor was exposed, but his eeeevil contact summoned nasty shadow/frost undead on us that we weren't really prepared for.
Last night was mostly a battle with them. They proved to be a pretty even match, with some whittling down on both sides. Their immunity to normal weapons made them difficult to deal with and meant the NPCs around were basically useless. There was a great deal of relief when we downed the fourth. There was also some concern and hurried discussion about the fact that we had seen five summoned to begin with.
While others were sent to look for the missing traitor, my character declared he would remain with the crippled chieftain. The character started as a typical ranger type with a noble background, but has been morphing into a defensive warrior - he'll commonly take his sword and shield to run interference for casters and such rather than pulling his bow (getting in more than one shot before being in melee would be uncommon in our encoutners anyway). Naturally, the last shade-warrior showed up... and I was hit by a string of bad rolls. Still, fittingly enough, my character did put up a good fight until the shade leapt past him to wound the chief, who in turn managed to get in a killing blow with a dagger on loan from another PC. Since we've been supporting the chieftain whose wounds have been lessening his reputation, that worked out better than we could have planned. A heroic, but doomed, defense before the chieftain gets in the killing blow himself. Go team! ;)
During the course of the night, I felt a pang of... nostalgia? Regret? I sort of miss GMing fantasy myself. I miss being able to confront players with creatures that are a little bit off what they expect (like incorporeal undead that fight with material weapons of manifested ice - leading to the mid-combat advice to NPCs to "attack their weapons"). It's always simpler to pull stats from a book, but I miss having the "book" be my own imagination, with things the players haven't read.
For the last long while, the PCs have been clawing their way from one situation to another just trying to survive. Most of the group wants to fulfill its original mission, but a decision to follow kidnapped townsfolk got them overcommitted and sent waaaaaay off course. In the previous session, we had an unusual situation where we took control. We came up with a plan - an offensive plan to expose a traitor and head off an ambush. Just being able to decide what we were doing and take the initiative for once felt remarkably good after being reactionary for so long. Of course, it didn't work out as well as hoped. The traitor was exposed, but his eeeevil contact summoned nasty shadow/frost undead on us that we weren't really prepared for.
Last night was mostly a battle with them. They proved to be a pretty even match, with some whittling down on both sides. Their immunity to normal weapons made them difficult to deal with and meant the NPCs around were basically useless. There was a great deal of relief when we downed the fourth. There was also some concern and hurried discussion about the fact that we had seen five summoned to begin with.
While others were sent to look for the missing traitor, my character declared he would remain with the crippled chieftain. The character started as a typical ranger type with a noble background, but has been morphing into a defensive warrior - he'll commonly take his sword and shield to run interference for casters and such rather than pulling his bow (getting in more than one shot before being in melee would be uncommon in our encoutners anyway). Naturally, the last shade-warrior showed up... and I was hit by a string of bad rolls. Still, fittingly enough, my character did put up a good fight until the shade leapt past him to wound the chief, who in turn managed to get in a killing blow with a dagger on loan from another PC. Since we've been supporting the chieftain whose wounds have been lessening his reputation, that worked out better than we could have planned. A heroic, but doomed, defense before the chieftain gets in the killing blow himself. Go team! ;)
During the course of the night, I felt a pang of... nostalgia? Regret? I sort of miss GMing fantasy myself. I miss being able to confront players with creatures that are a little bit off what they expect (like incorporeal undead that fight with material weapons of manifested ice - leading to the mid-combat advice to NPCs to "attack their weapons"). It's always simpler to pull stats from a book, but I miss having the "book" be my own imagination, with things the players haven't read.
Comments
Post a Comment