Total Disaster
Dec. 27th, 2003 05:50 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
terryclothLast night I tried to run a Shadake game, starting a new scifi campaign, but it went badly at every turn.
The first snag was when Shadarack missed his ferry. I was warned about this a little ahead of time, so since the ferries run every hour or so, after checking to see if he was actually home on time somehow (they hadn't given an ETA, so I didn't know when he was supposed to be in or how late he'd be if at all) I went to get some food that could be quickly heated, then came back and gave him an hour.
He didn't show up.
So we had to play without him, and Murdock, being a contrary bastard, decided that since he hadn't been consulted ahead of time about what food we were getting, he was going to go do his own thing, leaving me with lots of leftovers that I'll have to eat. Literally.
Normally, we do consult people about what they want to eat, all of us except for Murdock, who never bothers, he just brings over what he wants us to eat and says 'DEAL!'
So that was dinner... the microwaving did go pretty quickly, but we all had to wait while Murdock got back and baked his pizza and ate it, but that was okay, because Snowwy and Lazar decided they weren't *really* done with their characters after all, and were going to shuffle around the stats and disadvantages and enemies and reputations and other things that I'd need to know ahead of time to, you know, plan a game.
But that was okay, because without Shadarack, who had the TREASURE MAP and the SHIP, we couldn't run what I'd prepared anyway.
And of course, Murdock's character wasn't ready either, and had all sorts of questionable advantages and disadvantages that (unlike the others) he hadn't pestered me with during the week. I pointed out some consequences of settings things at certain values ("if it's +5 as a *secret*, that means you'll be public enemy #1 if it actually comes out") and made him take off one 2-point disad, which of course he reacted to by completely reshuffling his character, which took about an hour.
During this time Shadarack contacted Lazar on Taps. He'd actually gotten home at 8:30. Which meant he wouldn't have been on time to be picked up even if he'd made his ferry, by more than an hour. That's cutting it a little close.
So, eventually, we start out. The original intention was to start out having been hired on to Shadarack's ship as his crew to go gallivanting off in search of adventure, but Shadarack wasn't there, so I figured we could do a prelude. Lazar's character was a mage who had a lot of wild magic to test, Snowwy had a *duty* to catch as many unusual spells as he could, and Murdock made the sort of character that I kind of hate GMing -- a mechanic. With skill in... being a mechanic. And flying a fighter. Leaving him with nothing to do unless I base the game around him, at least in part.
So, after they were obviously flailing and had nothing interesting to do with each other (kind of to be expected, since they hadn't interacted in character much), and got the idea that since they'd all taken 'initial health decreased' as a disadvantage, they should all go to the hospital and get healed first thing (even though I told them during character creation specifically that if they were going to do that they couldn't take it as a disad), I had them go join a magic tournament that was happening that day instead -- the only rule was that you weren't supposed to use anything you hadn't built yourself. I figured Adam (Snowwy's char) could catch a few spells, Jackie (Lazar's) could test some stuff, and Ozer (Murdock's) could come in with his fighter, which he'd quote: 'built himself', and win the tournament and a little cash.
But Ozer refused to join, since of COURSE he couldn't use his fighter -- he hadn't built the whole thing himself, he'd just salvaged it and altered it. FINE. DO NOTHING. SEE IF I CARE. Also, he hadn't designed his fighter.
I put Jackie up against a mage from D+D, because I didn't have any actual stats for enemies, and D+D magic is so far divorced from Shadake that throwing random spells with no rhyme or reason is about what D+D magic *should* look like to someone trained in the normal styles. It went back and forth a couple times, and Jackie's 'wild alchemy' was even more tedious than I'd suspected it would be to use. Eventually Jackie wrapped the enemy up in a web and he conceded.
Not having anyone else immediately in mind as an opponent, I decided that the next challenger would be Adam. He could catch some of Jackie's spells, maybe. Jackie decided to charge forwards and whap him upside the head with his backpack, instead, which got him disqualified (he'd been allowed to take it in because it wasn't a weapon, but they were not amused when they examined it more closely and saw it enchanted to do extra damage) and hurt Adam badly enough for him to drop out.
Then Jackie set off more wild alchemy, partially paralyzing the whole crowd by mistake, and bottled himself and told Adam to go hide him. I threw Adam's enemies after him in a chase, but not having actual stats for the enemies they couldn't actually *catch* him, so he ran and hid and that was the end. Pfeh.
Now I have to decide whether to try to roleplay them getting hired by Shadarack, or just start next time where we were going to start this time.
last session, different game next week
The first snag was when Shadarack missed his ferry. I was warned about this a little ahead of time, so since the ferries run every hour or so, after checking to see if he was actually home on time somehow (they hadn't given an ETA, so I didn't know when he was supposed to be in or how late he'd be if at all) I went to get some food that could be quickly heated, then came back and gave him an hour.
He didn't show up.
So we had to play without him, and Murdock, being a contrary bastard, decided that since he hadn't been consulted ahead of time about what food we were getting, he was going to go do his own thing, leaving me with lots of leftovers that I'll have to eat. Literally.
Normally, we do consult people about what they want to eat, all of us except for Murdock, who never bothers, he just brings over what he wants us to eat and says 'DEAL!'
So that was dinner... the microwaving did go pretty quickly, but we all had to wait while Murdock got back and baked his pizza and ate it, but that was okay, because Snowwy and Lazar decided they weren't *really* done with their characters after all, and were going to shuffle around the stats and disadvantages and enemies and reputations and other things that I'd need to know ahead of time to, you know, plan a game.
But that was okay, because without Shadarack, who had the TREASURE MAP and the SHIP, we couldn't run what I'd prepared anyway.
And of course, Murdock's character wasn't ready either, and had all sorts of questionable advantages and disadvantages that (unlike the others) he hadn't pestered me with during the week. I pointed out some consequences of settings things at certain values ("if it's +5 as a *secret*, that means you'll be public enemy #1 if it actually comes out") and made him take off one 2-point disad, which of course he reacted to by completely reshuffling his character, which took about an hour.
During this time Shadarack contacted Lazar on Taps. He'd actually gotten home at 8:30. Which meant he wouldn't have been on time to be picked up even if he'd made his ferry, by more than an hour. That's cutting it a little close.
So, eventually, we start out. The original intention was to start out having been hired on to Shadarack's ship as his crew to go gallivanting off in search of adventure, but Shadarack wasn't there, so I figured we could do a prelude. Lazar's character was a mage who had a lot of wild magic to test, Snowwy had a *duty* to catch as many unusual spells as he could, and Murdock made the sort of character that I kind of hate GMing -- a mechanic. With skill in... being a mechanic. And flying a fighter. Leaving him with nothing to do unless I base the game around him, at least in part.
So, after they were obviously flailing and had nothing interesting to do with each other (kind of to be expected, since they hadn't interacted in character much), and got the idea that since they'd all taken 'initial health decreased' as a disadvantage, they should all go to the hospital and get healed first thing (even though I told them during character creation specifically that if they were going to do that they couldn't take it as a disad), I had them go join a magic tournament that was happening that day instead -- the only rule was that you weren't supposed to use anything you hadn't built yourself. I figured Adam (Snowwy's char) could catch a few spells, Jackie (Lazar's) could test some stuff, and Ozer (Murdock's) could come in with his fighter, which he'd quote: 'built himself', and win the tournament and a little cash.
But Ozer refused to join, since of COURSE he couldn't use his fighter -- he hadn't built the whole thing himself, he'd just salvaged it and altered it. FINE. DO NOTHING. SEE IF I CARE. Also, he hadn't designed his fighter.
I put Jackie up against a mage from D+D, because I didn't have any actual stats for enemies, and D+D magic is so far divorced from Shadake that throwing random spells with no rhyme or reason is about what D+D magic *should* look like to someone trained in the normal styles. It went back and forth a couple times, and Jackie's 'wild alchemy' was even more tedious than I'd suspected it would be to use. Eventually Jackie wrapped the enemy up in a web and he conceded.
Not having anyone else immediately in mind as an opponent, I decided that the next challenger would be Adam. He could catch some of Jackie's spells, maybe. Jackie decided to charge forwards and whap him upside the head with his backpack, instead, which got him disqualified (he'd been allowed to take it in because it wasn't a weapon, but they were not amused when they examined it more closely and saw it enchanted to do extra damage) and hurt Adam badly enough for him to drop out.
Then Jackie set off more wild alchemy, partially paralyzing the whole crowd by mistake, and bottled himself and told Adam to go hide him. I threw Adam's enemies after him in a chase, but not having actual stats for the enemies they couldn't actually *catch* him, so he ran and hid and that was the end. Pfeh.
Now I have to decide whether to try to roleplay them getting hired by Shadarack, or just start next time where we were going to start this time.
last session, different game next week
