Gaming in Jul-Aug 2021

I'm sorry I haven't kept up-to-date with these reports (and even less so with the write-ups of actual sessions).  I can't help but think they are of minimal interest to those who weren't involved.  Partly, the reason for not keeping up was that in the Summer the games I was playing dropped off (as you'll see, I didn't manage a single session in August).  The easing of lockdown restrictions in the UK should have made gaming easier, but as Real Life intervened, it became as difficult to pin people down to a Discord game as it had previously been to get a face-to-face schedule together!

And I was at blame here as well.  A shift in job responsibilities meant that from the beginning of July I have been working on Sundays.  So not only did I have to drop out of the Wasters game we'd been playing (happily it continues), but when my old group reconvened in our FLGS for delves into the Barrowmaze, I had to miss that too.  What was most galling, was that they are on alternative Sundays, so in theory I could have made both!

I'm writing this at the end of October, and it seems that I've settled into a new schedule, so I'm going to try and catch-up here.

• 2 Jul  - The Evils of Illmire campaign (OSE) - on-line
• 9 Jul - Wasters (OSE) - on-line
• 16 Jul - Wasters (OSE) - on-line
• 23 Jul - Wasters - Elite (OSE) - on-line

Evils of Illmire

Our group has undertaken to clear a lake of Fishmen.  To do this, we're first making friends with the local Froglings (who will give us the materials necessary to breath underwater).  They want us to clean out a nest of Mantismen.  Last session we had reconnoitered the Mantis Mound (which proved to be a lot more substantial that we'd anticipated)

• 2 Jul

After a quick return to the village in order to regroup, we decided not to be subtle and to do what accounted to a full frontal assault on the mound.  Surprisingly, we were able to fight our way down to the lower chambers (we'd killed off half the warriors in our previous visit), where we confronted the Queen in her egg chamber and defeated her.

And here our Illmire campaign ground to a halt.  As of the end of Oct we haven't had another session.  In a way it's our fault - we'd gone more or less straight into the Big Problem and only had the side-campaigns left.  Nevertheless, I would recommend the Evils of Illmire campaign, and want to run it sometime (and get to see some of the bits I'd missed!).

Wasters

• 9 Jul

Our crew of Wasters (including a small pack of dogs we seem to have accrued) got the job of recovering surveillance cameras which had been placed in a trading post established by The Radient Family, a cult we'd had run-ins with before.  We had the usual tricky time traversing the Wastes to our target (with a hireling and a dog being killed before we got there).  Our Sentinel jacked into the net to gather info from the cameras and was about to disable them when the GM clarified that the job was to go in and physically remove evidence of the surveillance.  This was going to be trickier, as we'd counted at least 30 cultists...

• 16 Jul

Having gone into the shop and made a pig's ear of trying to knock the lights out and ransack the place, we ended up doing a night-time raid through the back.  This was tricky, but fortunately most of the cultists in the dormatory were low-level members and fled when the shooting started.  Nevertheless, one of our PCs, a hireling and a particularly characterful dog were killed in the firefight.

The late Phat Dog

This proved to be my last mission with the Old Crew for the time being, as that game returned to Sundays.

Wasters (Elite)

As long-term followers will know, the Wasters campaign is by way of a play-test of a hack of Old School Essentials, transfering it into a Cyberpunk/Post-Apocalytic world.  Although a few of our PCs had reached 5th Level, the author (our GM) wanted to try out the higher levels.  So the Friday night sessions of Wasters morphed into an Elite version and, equipped with 300,000 XP, a couple of us rolled up some 9th and 10th Level characters.

• 23 Jul

The Job was to position probes around a block to observe the haywire bots there.  

This block was further into the Wastes than we'd been in previous sessions, and getting there didn't prove easy.  Almost as soon as we started we had an encounter with a group of corrupt cops who tried to shake us down.  After some failed negotiation, we managed to defeat them, only for the gunfire to bring another patrol down on us!  We didn't ascertain whether these ones were corrupt or not as, given that we were standing over the smoking, irradiated bodies of their colleagues, they didn't stop to talk.   Cops are tough, but we found that at these new high levels, we could punch it out with them.

We then had no less than three encounters with gang members (albeit that one group were children) before getting to the target block.  We managed to deploy three of the four probes, tackling nano-sludge and a military-grade soldier bot along the way.

As we were setting up the third, an instruction boomed out "You are in a Restricted Area!  Leave Now!  You have 15 seconds to comply!  14...  13..."  Three enforcement bots were 90ft away.

And there things stood for over a month, as the next session (and my next RPG session) wasn't until 3 Sept.

Gaming in June 2021

A belated update on my June gaming (the section on face-to-face was written in mid-June, the rest towards the end of July).  In the end, the Barrowmaze group still hasn't met, however, Wasters now alternates between Sundays and Fridays, so I'm getting some games in.

Face-to-face gaming is coming back!  Well, it's been back for a while, but I managed to get back into my FLGS for the fist time since it opened in April.  It was good to see it busy, with several tables in play even on a Friday afternoon (it certainly seems that the arrangement with the resurant upstairs and getting an alcohol licence are helping!).  While I was browsing Keiran, the proprietor, came over and had a chat with me about how things were going, which was nice.

With the relaxing of COVID restrictions, our face-to-face group (The Tamson Relief Expedition) is going to be meeting again to continue our long-term Barrowmaze delve.  Sadly, at the beginning of this month I started working on Sundays so will miss both these games and many of the sessions of the on-line Wasters game I've been involved with in the last year.

Nevertheless, my visit to The Games Table has inspired me, and I'm hoping to get some boardgame action in (even if that means going on a Thursday night and playing with strangers) or looking for a weeknight RPG group.

So, what have I been playing?

• 9 Jun - Evils of Illmire campaign (OSE) - on-line
• 11 Jun - Wasters (Cyberpunk OSE) - on-line
• 18 Jun - Wasters (Cyberpunk OSE) - on-line
• 25 Jun - Wasters (Cyberpunk OSE) - on-line

Evils of Illmire

• 9 Jun

After a long break due to players' work commitments (we last played on 28 Apr) we resumed the second version (with new, Lv 1 characters) Illmire campaign.  Unfortunately, this was the only game we managed that month.

Our party have undertaken to clear a lake of Fishmen.  To help, we've done a deal with the local Froglings to get stuff that will enable us to breath underwater.  The Froglings want us to murder a nest of Mantismen (who have a tendency to hunt and eat them) and bring us the head of their queen.  This rather clumsy set-up is a rare off-tune note in Illmire.

So, accompanined by three young Froglings, we made our way to the Mantis-mound.  Things started well, with some decent scouting and ambushes of a hunting-party and some guards.  When we entered the mound, things got a little complcated...  It was bigger and more complex than we'd given allowance for - our plan of poring oil in the top and setting it all on fire was a little too basic.  We managed to clear some of the top levels, but it seemed likely that we'd merely concentrated the opposition into the lower levels.

Wasters

• 11 Jun

A new player joined us from this session, which was a pleasure.  We carried on with our task of pacifying a block to extend the Safe Zone and establish our own base.  

Only one building was left to be cleared.  This turned out to be full of Raiders (think Reivers from 'Firefly').  It was a bloodbath...  

All our retainers and all but one of our PCs were killed.  Our bots (including the invaluable brute, Klunk) were disabled and left behind.

• 18 Jun

Surprisingly, the survivor from our last session was able to persuade some of the rest of the Crew (it being OSE, we all always have two PCs rolled up) to go back to the block (and even recruit some new PCs).  The main reason was to get Klunk back - he was far too useful.

The late Klunk

This time were went in loaded for bear, and spent more time in careful scouting and prep.  Despite all this, we couldn't even manage to get into the building and ended up having a major firefight on the roof.  Again, we lost PCs and Retainers, but in the end got the upper hand.

Klunk wasn't salvagable, but Henry - our hover-bot - was.  We also managed to loot the Raiders stash of cybertech.  

The block finally salvaged we reaped a reward.  Frankly, after four or five bloody and costly sessions, I wonder whether it was worth it.  But that's the bleak, distopian Wasters way.

• 25 Jun 

The Crew was now free to take on new jobs, but we didn't like any of those on offer at Club Lavender this week, so we thought we'd go a-wanderin'.

Phat Dog

We found an interesting building, tried to recruit some urchins as Irregulars and ended up adopting a dog and a cargo drone.

Gaming in April 2021

• 4 Apr - Wasters (cyberpunk OSE) - on-line
• 11 Apr - Wasters 
• 14 Apr - Evils of Illmire (OSE) - on-line
• 18 Apr - Wasters
• 21 Apr - Evils of Illmire 
• 25 Apr - Wasters 
• 28 Apr - Evils of Illmire

Wasters

• 4 Apr.  Andreas' account here.

'Doctor' Klunk

Another deceptively simple mission which led to an epic session, stretching to five hours of play.  The job was recover a case containing precious metals, for which we would be rewarded with a datastick containing valuable information.

This was my first outing (I'd missed last week's session) with Klunk - our salvaged rescue-bot - which was something I'd been looking forward to.  A brute of a thing, he promised to be able to handle most situations that could be thrown at him.

The trip out to the target block proved pretty much uneventful.  Once we got there (a shop in an abandoned mall) we found a Wastes Hermit in residence.  We've decided that we were being too Murder Hobo-y of late, so made an effort to get on with him.  He proved a decent sort (happy to get some food packs), if a little paranoid about robots.

Exploration of the shop took quite a while and attracted the attention of several of the locals - some haywire Service Bots and a gang of muggers.  These we managed to see off without too much trouble.  The next encounters weren't so simple.  First we found that a homicidal nutter was living upstairs.  Then, as we sent Klunk around he managed to set off a couple of traps and walked in on a couple more Rescue Bots.  These were haywire and set out to 'rescue' us with extreme prejudice.  It was a close call, but we managed to deactivate them (beyond salvage, sadly), mainly by having Klunk destroy the stairs as just before they came down.  Klunk was disabled, but promised to be repairable if we could get him back to the Safe Zone.

Having found the stash, we now had an embarrassment of riches - far too much to carry.  We offered Dee (the hermit, who'd proved useful with a katana) what he wanted.  The kerfuffle also attracted the attention of a couple of Wastes Cops.  Those of our party with a price on their heads hid upstairs with the good loot, while my character tried to blag our way through, laying it on a bit thick.  Fortunately, these were the corrupt, murdering sort of cops but merely the ones who were ready to take whatever took their fancy.   

We made our own cache of loot, said goodbye to Dee and headed back on our slow return journey.  This was also fairly uneventful - a distant sighting of a survelance drone and a gang-member, and a few hours sheltering from toxic rain.

• 11 Apr - Andreas' account here

In this session we sold the datastick we'd been given as payment last week to one of the local gangs - the Street Cats - after a tense negotiation (in which we didn't get to speak), and then went to collect the rest of the loot from last week.  

Our new policy of not picking fights with everyone we meet again paid off, and despite meeting the gangsters, some annoyed cops, other Wasters and a very large haywire street cleaner we all got home again without being killed.

• 18 Apr - Andreas' account here

The Radiant Family

The job we took on this time was to go and disrupt a block that was occupied by haywire bots.  One of the problems was that this was a long way from base and it took us a long time to get there.   On the way we had a few encounters with wild animals and met a new faction (some very decent chaps who were arms dealers but had some rum views on the purity of the human race).  When we finally got to the target block we were almost immediately attacked by a Stealth Bot.  The session ended with the unfortunate prospect of a near-TPK.

• 25 Apr - Andreas' account here

Carrying on with our aim of distrupting the block, we determined to destroy a warehouse.  Not as easy as it sounded, given that it was occupied by bots, and as soon as we tackled them we encountered some nanosludge, which proved difficult to damage.  And to add to that, the noise attracted yet more bots...

Yet it wasn't without reward, there were a couple of terminals which gave our techs access to cyberspace, where they harvested what promises to be valuable data.

Evils of Illmire

• 14 Apr

The Fearmother

When we left off last time, we'd left our petrified colleague, made our way to the Cultists' lair and neutralised the guards and Hell Hounds at the entrance with a Sleep spell.  When we woke the guards, we used Charm Person on one and our Chaotic fighter used a kill-and-take-their-face magic item on the other - thereby getting a lot of intel on the Temple.

We eventually went in and had a hard fight to make headway.  After a while, we meet the Big Bads - the Fearmother and it's High Priestess.  We ended the session in a very sticky place: - one PC was tied up (because he'd gone a little mad); one was separated from the party and facing-off against half a dozen cultists; and my Cleric was bashed into pulp by the Fearmother.

His last words were to dedicate his death to Shroom (cleansing the valley of the cultists had become a Holy Quest) and a prayer for mercy on his petrified acolyte.

• 21 Apr

Myxomycetes has a new look...

We started this session in media res (a term that our former GM claimed was horribly ungramatical), with three PCs (one tied up) and five retainers.

Fortunately, two things happened immediately.  First, the tied-up thief freed himself and, secondly - and more miraculously - the soul of my petrified Cleric of Shroom was transmogrified into the body of a revived Mycelian (Myxomycetes was almost immediately dubbed "Mushroom Jesus").    The Grace of Shroom was further evident in the fact that he was able to use his pacifying spoors to good effect.  We were therefore able to scrape a victory.  However, one of the problems in killing a Fearmother is that they explode, causing damage to anyone within 15' - thus killing one of our two surviving PCs (as well as a retainer).

Mass suicide of the Cultists, interrogation of the Priestess and some serious looting followed.

We made our way back to the village.  Due to some very lucky dice-rolls and expediture of a lot of accrued wealth, we were able to attract some very senior clerics (most of Shroomfest wanted to meet the miraclous Myxomycetes) were were able to raise Sir Robert from the dead (just in time for his wedding to the barmaid).

From these two resurrections, you will reaslise that our GM Is A Lamb.

• 28 Apr

With our main characters variously grieving, becoming accustomned to a new fungal state, or on their hioneymoon, we rolled up some Lv 1 characters and went out on a new adventure.  But first, they decided to play about with the magical items that the main party had brought back from the Fearmother's lair: this left one fighter transformed (permanently we think) into a giant python.

We decided to take up a commission to clear a lake of Fishmen.  To do this, we had to first approach the local tribe of Froglings, who we were told could provide us with a means of breathing underwater.  We were also advised that before they would do this, they were likely to ask us for help in their long-running conflict with the Mantismen.  We thus wandered into the swamp, we ambushed a hunting party of Mantismen and took their heads as gifts for the Froglings.  This got us an audience with the tribe, but we were told that the price of their help would be the head of the Mantis Queen...

Gaming in Mar 2021

• 3 Mar - Evils of Illmire (OSE) - on-line 
• 10 Mar - Evils of Illmire (OSE) - on-line
• 14 Mar - Wasters (cyberpunk OSE) - on-line
• 17 Mar - Evils of Illmire (OSE) - on-line
• 24 Mar - Evils of Illmire

Evils of Illmire

• 3 Mar

This session was based in the village of Illmire itself.  We had been gradually learning that something was amiss - old illnesses, people going missing and the like.  During a session which I'd missed, members of the party had scouted out the Old Temple and come to the conclusion that the recently-arrived priest and his followers (who were 'renovating' the building) were up to no good.  We therefore decided to have a more thorough investigation.

Yet our snooping hadn't gone unoticed.  On the way to the temple we were tricked into the local tavern - The Waggoner's Rest.  There we found that the usual staff were missing and we were waylaid by half a dozen cultists (Oh yes!  The Temple has been taken over by an Evil Cult!).  A prolonged encounter took place, a major (and probably deciding) feature of which was the use of Holmund's trusty wand of fireballs.

Interrogation of the few surviving assailants confirmed our suspicions.  The cult were worshippers of a creature that fed on fear (a large one in the swamp and a smaller one in the temple cellar), the village well had been poisoned with fear potions and human sacrifices had been taking place.  Most worryingly, the next sacrifice was due to be the barmaid from the Waggoner's (to whom one of our party had formed An Attachment).

Armed with this knowledge, we advanced on the temple at the head of a mob of villagers and had a brief parley with Fr Rand, the Chief Priest.  Under cover of the mob's activities, we crept around the back and let ourselves into the crypt...

• 10 Mar

...where we found all sorts of incrimidating evidence and useful kit.  We avoided the Thing in the Cellar and moved up into the body of the Temple itself.

Where another long combat took place.  

Suffice it to say, after careful scouting and planning, the cultists were defeated, the barmaid rescued and there was tea and loot all round.  Huzzah!

• 17 Mar

First, a bit of RP shtick interacting with the NPCs and establishing that one of my clerics was going to remain as the village priest and take an oath to cleanse the place (getting the Temple's super-dooper magical weapon in the process).  We then went and sorted out the Thing in the Cellar (which apparently was a baby compared to the Thing in the Swamp).

• 24 Mar

Having dealt with the cultists and the Thing in the Temple, we now turned to the bigger picture.  We had already learned from some of our captives and incriminating documents that the cultists had a camp in the swamps, and that the Thing was just an infant of the object of their worship - the Fearmother.  We updated the village authorities on the cultists' activities and got their support for, and promise of a reward on, the destruction of the main camp.  My cleric renewed his vow.

We then headed out to the swamp, with one of our captives as guide.  We had a brief encounter with a Mantisman, which (surprisingly for us went off peacefully) before setting up camp.  Unfortunately, during the night, we encountered three Cockatrices.  A nasty combat followed.  The upshot was that my cleric was left petrified (literally 'left petrified' - we covered him up with some leaves and moved on).

The next day, we reached the Cultists' camp.  We had just taken out the guards and accompanying Hellhounds when we call the session to a halt.

Wasters

For various personal reasons, I hadn't taken part in our on-line Wasters campaign since 14 Jan (and in the meantime, the game had shifted from fortnightly to weekly).

• 14 Mar.  Read Andreas' account of the session here.

In this session we undertook what seemed to be a simple job - to follow the directions on a datastick (given to us as payment for a previous job) which promised to take us to a big stash.  This turned out to be an epic task (a 5-hour games session!) that resulted in death and mayhem.

Almost as soon as we reached the Wastes, we were waylaid by a couple of cops-on-the-take.  They gave our newly-bought handcart a good going over, but found nothing.  We tried to persuade them that we were low-level scavengers, looking for scrap metal.  So far, so good, but this was going to come back and bite us on the bum later.

A couple more small encounters occured before we reached our target - another waster and some rattlesnakes.  We even had the good fortune to find an old ruined bot that our Tech claimed was repairable (on to the handcart it went!).  We found our target house, but night was drawing on so we made camp in a nearby ruin where we could keep a watch out for any activity there.  A hireling fell asleep on watch, so we were all awoken by the sound of a group of scavenging birds attacking our gear.  One of my hirelings foolishly waded in to shoo them off, only for one of them to nip an artery, causing him to bleed-out on the spot.

The target building seemed uninhabited, so we moved in.  It proved to be quite trappy, to have some structural instabilities, and to be home to some feral dogs, but we eventually recovered the stash (both obvious and hidden).

With various bits of loot (cash, jewelry, advanced tech weapons and even fine dresses) and a damn big bot on the cart we were heavilly-laden.  We started our slow way back.  We soon encountered another group of Wasters and got involved in a nasty conflict with them.  Two were killed, but the survivors managed to hoist some loot off the handcart as they ran off.

And just as we reached the boundry of the safe zone...

...we encountered the donut-guzzling cops again.  Again they went through the cart.  We tried to fob them off with the dresses and some cash, but they made a move to frisk us.  As the really good valuables we hidden on my character's person, he wasn't having any of that.  I turns out that cops are tough!  Three of our crew were killed in the ensuing firefight.

Nevertheless, some of us got back.  It turned out that the bot we'd scavaged was repairable and, as an ex emergency services rescue-bot, very useful.  He was repaired, co-opted into our crew and christened Dr Klunk.

Gaming in Feb 2021

•  3 Feb - Illmire (OSE)
• 17 Feb - Illmire (OSE)

Evils of Illmire

• 3 Feb

This was the second session of the new campaign/arc for our Wednesday evening group, and the first that I'd been about to take part in properly.

In the last session, the guys had found what appeared to be a submerged (subsided) outpost in the midst of the swamps, and we went back to investigate.  We already knew that the place was infested with giant geckos, but we now found that there was a particularly enormous one to deal with.  We also discovered that the dungeon is particularly trappy and not at all 'balanced'.  The session concluded with us facing up to four carrion crawlers.

Having made the acquaintance of one of the local barmaids, we learnt some more of the strange going-on in Illmire itself.  The barmaid's father is a tanner, and we're doing a good business in gecko skins.

• 17 Feb

In this session, having employed a troupe of miners, we merely retraced our steps to excavate the carrion crawlers' nest in order to get to the treasure that our Dwarf's spider senses (and, frankly, our knowledge of the treasure tables) told us was there.  Despite all this Meta-ness, we had a good session, with some nice interaction with NPCs, and a (random?) encounter that may or may not had furthered a larger storyline.

Gaming in Jan 2021

• 3 Jan - Wasters (Post-Apocalyptic OSE) - On-line
• 6 Jan - OSE - On-line
• 13 Jan - OSE - On-line
• 17 Jan - Wasters - On-line
• 20 Jan - OSE - On-Line
• 27 Jan - Illmire (OSE) - On-Line

Wasters

• 3 Jan - Written up here

My first game of the year was our fortnightly forray into the Wastes - Seph's post-apocalyptic setting for OSE. 

In our last session we'd made a big score.  So big that we couldn't get it all back to the Safe Zone.  Our plan for the day, then was to go a retrieve what was left.  If the cache was no longer there, we had other targets we could move on to.  But we were fortunate: we found the loot and were able to retreive it after defeating a guard-dog and combat-drone.  We then managed to get it home after encounters with another group of Wasters and a crazy old hermit.  In truth, we were very fortunate: we were rolling extremely well.  In previous sessions we'd had a casualty rate of two or three PCs (and more retainers), but in this case we got through unscathed.  

• 17 Jan - Written up here

Due to drop-outs this turned out to be a one-on-one with me and the GM Seph.  I played three PCs (and a hireling), who took on what seemed a simple mission - to go to a designated area and stir up the hornet's nest.  It went quite well, save for an incident in which my Ronin was killed by a robo-Barista.

Heybrook - OSE

• 6 Jan

This was the last session in the story-arc I've been GM-ing since 2 Dec. 

Gwendolyn, safely home again

The party (only one from the orignal roster still standing) had loads of loot to get back to the village, but I diverted them by having the apothecary’s apprentice captured and held ransom for its return.  I was half-expecting them to leave her, but the prospect of upsetting 'Mother' was a bit too much even for them.

By my reckoning the little trip into the woods to help the apprentice forage for herbs cost the lives of five PCs and two retainers (plus another two retainers mia somewhere).

• 13 Jan

There was appetite for me to continue GM-ing, so we started another arc.

This time our party was hired by a father to find out what had happened to his son, who had run off to join a cult.  They had very nearly got to the Temple when they ran into a pack of Dire Wolves.  Carnage ensued: one PC and two retainers managed to break away during the fight and flee as the barbarian made a Last Stand.

• 20 Jan

The survivor of last week's massacre went back, recruited a new party (getting retainers is proving harder for some reason!) and decided to re-attempt the mission, partly in order to loot the bodies at the site of the wolf attack.

Retracing their steps proved simple enough, avoiding encounters less so.  Last week the party wisely steered clear of a Wicker Man, this time they decided to poke it: combat with Bramblings ensued.  In a great stroke of luck, the Magic User was able to use his Ring of Animal Control to involve a Giant Lizard in the fight.  Nevertheless, morale within the party was low and one retainer was caught trying to sneak off during the night.  He was stabbed and set floating down the river...

The Evils of Illmire (OSE)

• 27 Jan

As I was unable to GM for this Wednesday evening session, it seemed a good time to hand over the reigns to another player who had a campaign ready.

We stated that the party had to leave the Heybrook district rather sharpish given the suspiscious demise of several of their retainers...

And so Simon started his Illmire campaign.  This 'Mini-Mega Hexcrawl Adventure Zine' was the fruit of a Kickstarter run last year.

Sadly, I was having real problems with my computer which (combined with the fact that I hadn't slept the night before) meant that I had to drop-out while we were still exploring the village.  It was perhaps just as well, as they didn't finish until almost 2am!