GACKS AAR: Session 3

GACKS AAR: Session 3

Between session 2 and session 3, I recruited eight players to control the various factions in the game. I wrote up some order resolution and rumor-posting rules, such as GOSS and SEEN, and while diving headfirst into running this sort of game without proper preparation felt daunting, I think I'll be able to handle this. Let's see what happened in the world both faction- and PC-wise. I will avoid giving out any information that isn't public.

A merchant company arrives to Or-Tabram, where it begins its operation (and gets taxed by the dwarves).

A fortress of fainil (drow-tanar'ri hybrids) in the northern parts of the lake becomes active, with fainil flying out somewhere, and their slaves marching outside. There are rumors of them subjugating a troll tribe.

The dwarven messenger that was sent eastward to request reinforcements apparently was intercepted by the goblins. He managed to escape the camp and return to Or-Tabram, even if beaten. There are also rumors of a dwarven diplomat arriving to the fainil fortress to forge an alliance with them against the barbarians.

The dwarves are digging a moat and building fortifications, and the goblins also are fortifying their camp both on the surface and underground. They also contacted a group of scrags in order to ask them to collude with a tribe of sahuagins to attack the barbarians.

The dwarven loggers also encounter forest gnomes spying on them. The gnomes retreat into the woods and hide.

Aside from that, there's a lot [HIDDEN INFORMATION] going on.

The session players, after the previous TPK, rolled up new characters, but this time for the human barbarian faction.

    Raigot Stormrunner - a hunter capable of using a bow and throwing bolas. A rather competent character, and I like the bolas.

    Felix Windshaper - a rather bizarre character who is half-healer, half-fighter. Dual-wields an axe and a mace, and has a bunch of medical skills on low levels.

    Hallinnon Shinestar - a fanatical warrior with a heavy poleaxe with a spearhead attached to it. Wears a lot of armor.

    Guts - a berserker (by the same player whose berserker died previously) with a SM+1 greatsword. Usually, I'd throw an anime character charsheet back to the player to redo, but this time I decided to let the player have his fun. He really wanted to try out wielding a huge sword (whose ST requirement he doesn't meet even with the Huge Weapons perk), and he is aware that berserkers don't live long in GURPS.

    Axit the All-Embracing - a dragon shaman with some survivalist skills and lightning spells... but no Innate Attack skill to use them properly. Has a long staff to use in melee.

The barbarian faction player was concerned about the possibility of goblin outpost or other forward bases, so he gave the PCs a quest to scout out the area. Three out of five players notified the rest of us in advance that they are going to be an hour or so late. However, the two remaining ones (and one of the belated ones, who gave control of his character to another player while he was absent) decided to go bear hunting. This is quite serendipituous, as I've been writing up bear statblocks for GURPS Monstrous Compendium a day prior to the session. Several hours of roaming and Tracking rolls let the hunting party find a mated pair of bears, but they deemed them too dangerous. Then they found another mated pair. Third time's the charm - they found a lone bear and snuck up on it.

A bolas was thrown but proved to be ineffective against such a massive beast. While the bear was mentally stunned from surprise, Hallinnon steped forth with his long polearm and performed a Telegraphic Attack stab. Of course, he rolled an 18 and dropped his weapon. I swear, every session feels like your typical LE NATTY 20 story. Guts swings his massive sword and hits the bear for 12 injury. The bear overruns both Guts and Hallinnon, bites into Guts and mauls him. He goes berserk and bites the bear. While the bear was busy worrying Guts, Hallinnon took out his knife and stabbed the bear in the neck a few times. Eventually the bear passes out, Guts snaps out of his berserk state, but is reeling from his wounds.

GURPS LTC3 rules were used for butchering. Butchering the bear took 9 hours. Of course, they couldn't possibly haul everything back to their Market Class VI """town""", so they took the pelt, skull, and some meat to sell. That was ~$3,500, which was enough to buy a healing potion, a mule, a cart, and pay for building a house (LTC3 construction rules; took merely a single day to build). Only after that, they went on the chieftain quest to look for goblin outposts.

Of course, they found none (there are none), but they did encounter a goblin patrol near a road where the dwarven messenger was caught. The patrol consisted of 2 warriors (round maces, light small shields, leather armor), 2 archers, and 2 bashers (light segmented plate armor, heavy small shields, morningstars). The fight started at a distance of 26 yards (which serendipitiously coincided with the largest dimension of our battle mat). I decided to use side initive to hasten things, and I think that was the right call.

You'd think that should be an easy fight for a band of five barbarian adventurers, and that it should end after the first morale check, right? Not at all. One of the bashers got knocked down and basically incapacitated by an accurate bolas throw, but the other goblin basher flanked not one but two PCs and used Telegraphic Attack to smack them in their skulls from behind. Helmets saved them from death, but 12 injury to the head and the ensuing HT-10 knockdown roll was enough to put them out of the fight. The dragon shaman spent a lot of time aiming his chain lightning, and then his spell fizzled due to a bad Will-3 roll after a dodge. He took out his staff, but rolled a critical miss, and the staff flew 6 yards away. Then he got beated into unconsciousness by a single goblin warrior with a club. The berserker killed two goblins, but failed to go berserk and failed to stay conscious after taking ~3 points of injury from a goblin basher (the berserker came into this fight at 1 HP). Eventually, Hallinnon halted this goblin basher's rampage, and the remaining two goblin archers who were not rolling anything under 15 during this fight, fled (and will report all this information to the goblin faction player).

After patching up, the party went back to town, encountering a group of 8 skulks at night. The reaction roll was surprisingly good despite the Intolerance penalty of the skulks, and so they merely chased the barbarians away instead of murdering them in their sleep. The PCs got home, turned in the quest, collected some herb materials for healing potions (they'll be brewing for 6 days), and rested.

Next week, four of the players are going to make new PCs, because these are way too injured to be able to adventure properly. But at least they are alive!