The tale of how an "evil" magician and a "good" party almost drove the "democratic" master to the edge. But the game was still a success, against all odds.
At the beginning of this story, there was no unicorn, and it was not even particularly foreseen. And there was an invitation to participate in one of the next role-playing games, where our master wanted to test a new system for himself (called True20). It was 2014 then, and by that time our party had accumulated several years of experience playing D&D (mostly 3.5) and other systems (for example, the episodic World of Darkness).
So, based on the realities of the proposed setting, I came up with a rat-man hero for myself, so as not to be a simple boring human. His name was Fry Skaven and according to the results of the game, his fate, of course, turned out to be rather difficult. According to the background I suggested, he was a man living in a mining village, where the locals mined some kind of luminous stones. It soon became clear that these stones cause mutations, so the local inhabitants became rat-people. Actually, the name of the hero is a kind of reference to the fantasy Warhammer (well, you understand).
Chapter first. Fireflies for carla
At the beginning of the game, the rat-man, along with the rest of the participants (who were just people), entered the "Heart of the World" magic guild. Here it should be noted quite an interesting master world, with memorable inhabitants, but the annoying D&D-like True20 system chosen as the basis.
Why do I dislike true20 so much? Yes, a lot. In short, these are extra rolls. It has always been too much for me in D&D, and here it’s also to throw at fatigue. When taking damage, you need to roll for stamina. Useless crits, a sea of stunlocks, perverted “pyramids” instead of hits (I never liked that), and so on.
The concept of fatigue is especially pressing on the psyche. Or rather, its implementation. That you are the first level, that the 20th, the chance to get tired after the cast is about the same. If you accumulate 4 points of fatigue - you are actually a corpse. Plus, each fatigue gives minuses to dexterity, read minuses to hit by castes. Plus, if the casts follow each other, then a penalty to the chance not to get tired accumulates. Plus, the enemy mage can suddenly “tire” you ahead of schedule. Needless to say that the spell drain vitality this is an absolute must-have for a mage. It sucks the weariness out of the other. True touch. With a roll to hit and a roll to measure will. Which turns a fight with a magician into a transfusion from empty to empty, and a fight with some warrior into catching a camp, followed by a hoof kick.
Not everything is terrible, of course. No, Lord, what am I writing - there is sheer horror! There are convictions, for spending which you can leave the camp and do other amenities. But in fact, they do not change anything in the picture of the world. Tough enemies also have them. There is a good way to deal with anyone (almost) - sucking out fatigue with the support of the team (although in my case, when the rest of the team are NOT mages - this is not so easy). But, honestly, if our master hadn't changed some rules and provided us with some cheat overpowers, then this game simply would not exist.
Then we, as new members of the guild, had to pass a certain test. Our curator, such a vile dwarf, sent a pariah to catch a whole bunch of fireflies in a local forest. A wagon of firefly cans came with the quest. Along the way, a lizard smoking a certain hookah joined us, like a master character. Our bard leaned in to try this hookah and earned a powerful curse, which we then tortured ourselves to remove from him (and so it seems that we didn’t remove it to the end).
At first, everything went badly with fireflies, especially in that clearing some scary mushrooms were found: the fireflies were numb or completely dead from spores. Fortunately for us, these disputes seemed to be harmless to the heroes themselves, so using them we were still able to collect the required number of fireflies. However, on the way back we were attacked by robbers. And they began to beat us quite hard. My rat-man already realized then that from his elemental strike enemies are neither cold nor hot, so he diligently sucked out fatigue. In our group, we called the application of this truly nasty spell "a session of black magic." I won’t say that I somehow helped a lot in the battle, but I made some contribution.
Surprisingly, we still fought back. Oh, you should have seen our bard torturing a surviving captive. He has this, in principle, a special feature: such a “neutral” always runs like a “neutral”, but at such moments it magically becomes “pure evil”. He tortured the captive to death... and, what is especially terrible, not with songs at all.
I don’t remember exactly how it all ended with the robbers, it seems like everyone was buried in the end. But I remember that our group was going to take the formed bodies to the city, even though I said that this is a really BAD idea.
Chapter two. Elven Apples of Discord
How long, how short, we brought the fireflies and learned from the dumbfounded Karla that, in fact, this is the usual mocking test for beginners, which all normal neophytes fail. Poor fellow, if he knew what we did to the bandits...
Then the head of the guild took care of us, talking about some cool and wonderful elven apples that he desperately needs. We had nowhere to go and we went to the elves. And somewhere in the disputed lands where the elves do not let anyone in. Having reached the border human village and crossed the river, we ended up in forbidden elven places.
There was some ancient abandoned forest. My Fry had learned the spell by then sense minds, which allows you to feel sentient beings. With his help, the rat-man searched the forest, catching just one alien mind somewhere ahead.
Having wandered a little, we found a tree with magical fruits, plucked them, but activated a force field and some kind of security monster. It was possible to deal with the monster, but not with the field. A little later, an elf appeared (it seems that it was his mind that Fry felt earlier) and offered to let us out in exchange for apples. Naturally, the team did not want to give up the prey, so at first the elf was sent in a certain direction. However, later he reappeared and we decided to breed him: to catch him when he passes through the field. And so it happened, the elf poured some kind of vial on himself and the power barrier became permeable for him, going inside he fell for our trick and ... another torture performed by the bard.
It turned out that the elf was deceiving us and there would not be enough funds to pass the barrier for everyone. He did, however, have some strange potions in a box. There was nothing special to do, the elf refused to talk about what these potions do. My rat-man wanted to test one of them on an elf, bluff and see how it reacted. But he ran into a wall of misunderstanding in the performance of the main party warrior.
This, of course, is some kind of very special role-play, inaccessible to my understanding. You say that your character wants to do something and suddenly a party member rushes at your hero, grabs and stuns. What? Rat-phobia or something, did evil magicians enchant in childhood? Unclear.
At the same time, he did not have any ulterior motives, only one clearly unsubstantiated “I don’t want you to do this” of another player. So, what is next? Say thank you for not finishing? And most importantly, how should my hero now react to a party member in the later game? And he must respond. Must! At least - put a pig.
Chapter three, in which the rat fights the plot rails
Further, the jar of black potion broke and the dark substance was absorbed into the rat-man. When Fry woke up, an elven army just appeared from the forest. After the antics of an ally, Fry did not want to have anything to do with this man, so the rat-man pretended that he was also a victim here and was trying to escape from the warrior. Well, basically it was.
But the elves, led by the arrogant queen, are apparently all telepaths and psychics, because after hitting everyone with sleepy arrows, they threw Fry and the warrior into the same cell. And there weren’t even any questions about this, we were summoned for interrogation with one hundred percent certainty that we were one gang. Fry's attempts to present himself as a victim were ignored. As a result, we were obliged to fight in the tournament with the elves.
OK. Let's turn on more role-playing, in a role-playing game we are or where. Fry began to quite consistently put pressure on the fact that he would not fight, and did not want to (with such and such allies). And in general, he is a deeply unhappy creature with the difficult life of a mutant, and such high and noble elves (as they presented themselves in their speeches) should not stoop to bullying such helpless creatures (and I did not spread that the hero is a magician) . The reaction of the master - ignore. You will fight, period.
Why it is not necessary to do this, I caught more on my experience of craftsmanship. Two or three years earlier in my game, I intended to send the characters into the arena in the story, where they had to fight each other using special pets. I thought they would like it, since quite such pleasant, competitive competitions were planned. However, the players did not want to go there very much when they learned about the prospect of getting into the battle arena from the creature guarding their cell. Well, then I went to meet them, allowing them to escape from the cell before this time. And it was not some kind of divine intervention, just watching what the heroes are trying to do and they managed to free themselves.
Here we were dragged by the scruff of the neck to the only true next scene. Such a freedom of choice. I even understand why this is dictated - the master wanted us to elegantly paint his plot blanks, but in such a situation it does not work like that.
Fine. Fry promised the elf queen in conversation that she would regret it. The elves just pissed him off. Then we were again thrown into the cell for a short while. Which is naturally all so anti-magic and in every other sense "bulletproof". Fry did not take revenge on his ally warrior, since now there are somewhat different problems, and so far there is nothing special to do this with.
They took us to the arena. Here, in the arena (I wonder why?) You can cast, the master told me. The rat-man resisted to the last: he did not take a weapon and refused to do anything at all, they say, if you want to slaughter the defenseless, please. Then a couple of elves were released on me and the warrior.
But. Fry didn't want to fight at all. Even now, when we were left with one single option. It must be said here that my rat-man wielded the magic of illusion. And I decided that it was time to use them (you could just throw an ice arrow at the main elf, but it was basically clear that she would obviously have some kind of protective barrier around the throne, given all sorts of anti-magic chambers and bouts of clairvoyance).
So, Fry decided that he had nothing to lose and had to go for broke. He snapped at the elf queen (they asked for it) and declared to the whole arena that now all the elves will see who really rules them. An illusion appeared on the stage of a completely naked head elf with ulcers in her intimate places. Master hung for a minute!
Later, at another game session (and we played this game in a total of two or three sessions), the master dug into the rules well and said that I couldn’t do that - they say the local illusion works only for one. But it was too late to drink Borjomi, as they played that situation, they played it that way.
Chapter Four In Which The Rails Strike Back
After the “reboot”, the master gave out that the elf (suddenly) has a ring with which she aims to dispel magic. Actually, right there, waving her hand, the main elf destroyed the illusion. And obviously so pissed off. Fry tried to make a power barrier to isolate himself from the attackers, but he seemed to be dispelled as well. Enemies ran up and began to kill him.
Well, I can understand many points, but such an answer ... IMHO, this is a serious masterful fail. All the more unexpected from a person who plays quite interestingly, whom everyone praises for beautiful descriptions, who has an insane number of games played behind him.
I don’t know, it was necessary to act somehow more subtly, and not completely crush your creative initiative with such a clumsy piano from the bushes. But what to do, what way out I found - I found this.
Further, the situation was resolved mainly by the master himself: the mentor of our guild came, with whom one of our party members contacted (he himself was not captured). The rat was close to death, but the black rubbish that he spilled on himself strengthened him. It was some kind of mega-curse. Feeling the strength, Fry began to fight off the attackers, but he was still somehow twisted and thrown into a dungeon.
The guild mentor somehow persuaded the elf to let everyone go except the rat-man. And later, while talking with the party, he proposed the following scheme - one of ours sneaks into Fry's cell and pricks him with a special needle that sucks out the soul. After that, my hero dies after some time, and the soul enclosed in the needle is reincarnated into a new creature. So they did.
Chapter five. Knight's move
I was offered to be reborn in the form of a person or according to a random plate. I chose the second one because I initially didn't want to play it as a human. It fell out to be a horse (in the year of the horse, no wonder!). True, I slightly tuned the appearance and got a black unicorn with yellow eyes (the same eye color was in the rat-man). The ability to communicate with his voice was gone, and besides, the rat darkvision was gone. But he got the possibility of telepathic communication and some goodies from his black blood (which has not gone away), like increased stamina.
Rebirth gave me an excuse to elegantly reset my character's motivation, forgetting the differences between the former rat and the warrior.
Next, we defended the border village from the punitive attack of the elves. Then I remember the picture of how Fry grabs our bard, throwing it on his back and rushes to the allies who have joined the battle. When we ran up, the bard began to strengthen the team, and my horse reared up, casting an ice arrow.
The village was set on fire and we had to retreat. Some especially dangerous elves-berserkers followed. We coped with them and again it is time for our bard's non-core hobby. Torture and kill.
However, the master remembered this technique of ours and decided to play differently. The prisoner felt no pain! And he was not afraid of death, he did not care. Some kind of complete suicide bomber with no meaning to life. You can't even imagine how the party decided this issue. They put this elf on drugs!
That was an epic moment. How ironic - to return the meaning of life to an elf by involving him in drug addiction. Our herbalist concocted some kind of potent remedy and it was given to the prisoner until he began to break down. So he became more accommodating, told what he knew and, most importantly, remained alive (which is rare for those who met our bard).
In a word, neither the imperfections of the system, nor the fails of the participants are able to prevent the players from getting the same pleasure from the game and cool plot scenes.
Chapter six. Holidays in the snowy south
Having dealt with this, we arrived back at the guild and took part in some kind of guild competition. It was necessary to accompany a wagon with a rare collection of clothes. There were several such carts (I think, three) and we had to not only get to the destination, but also intercept all the competitors in order to bring the entire collection of the local couturier safe and sound. Wait, but what a safety if we have to fight for it! That is, there is a high chance of damaging something in the process. In the end, we dealt with this by giving the competing guilds a bit of a kick.
Meanwhile, our bard was getting worse and worse. But it was not necessary to smoke all sorts of unfamiliar hookahs. The fact is that he attracted some kind of evil spirit to himself, which pursued him at night and sometimes bit him (so much so that in reality traces remained). Under the influence of all this devilry, the bard gradually lost his human appearance - the hair grew, the tail, and so on. Even the head of the guild did not understand how to resolve the situation, but still managed to arrange a collective session of traveling into the unconscious for us: the whole group was transferred to the dream of the bard and we helped him deal with the spirit. True, partially. But he felt a little better.
Then a new problem appeared - the daughter of the head of the guild was kidnapped. Also, a healthy black sphere appeared in the city. We were sent through a teleport somewhere far to the south (so far that it is no longer south at all - in winter) so that we can find an ancient dragon ritual that allows you to drive out darkness. By that time, Fry had learned to fly, and thanks to this, we avoided some dangers, since my hero carried the rest.
We met with aggressive giants, from which we eventually ran away and ran into a wolf pack, which was controlled by one special magical wolf (or it was a snow leopard, I don’t remember exactly). The flock surrounded us during the stop. Fry telepathically agreed with the leader of the pack that "we will give you food, but you do not touch us."
So we got to the orc settlement and entered into negotiations with them. We were not particularly welcomed, but the leader decided to meet us halfway and make a deal: we bring him a dragon artifact, and he shows us the place we need. But we ourselves needed this artifact, so they promised to promise, but they were not particularly going to give it away. The leader of the orcs drew an aggressively disposed towards us brother, who at first snorted, and then suddenly he secretly offered us to give the artifact to him. What he expected is not clear. At first, you clearly make it clear that you hate us, and then you climb with some kind of proposals?
As a result, we were taken to the right place: some caves, where we dealt with the security golem and were able to climb into the secret room where there was everything that we needed on the assignment. There was also a secret exit. That is, we have all the cards in our hands: if you want, fly away right away, if you want, return and give the artifact to one of the brothers. We wanted to spread everyone to the maximum, because Fry knew how to make an illusion. But now I don't remember exactly how it happened. It seems that plans are plans, but in the end they spit on it and just flew away from there, so as not to bother and continue the main storyline.
Chapter Seven In Which Everyone Comes To The Black Realm
When we returned, we teleported a little to the wrong place: we got to a meeting with the already familiar vile dwarf, our “as it were still” curator. He suggested that we give the scroll with the dragon ritual to him, and he gave us a lot of money. In response, we asked about what the head of the guild would say to this, besides, where did Carla suddenly come from these “a lot of a lot of money” of his. Karla assured that everything would be settled with the head of the guild, and the rest, they say, was not a problem. Our bard was indignant at all this indistinctness and asked Carla in detail: what, how and why. Karla was confused in his testimony, muddied the waters, and in general he was not nice to us throughout the game (well, he really was vile, the master did a good job with playing this type). We decided that all right, let's come later to the black sphere, and we'll give it back there. And bring money.
Needless to say, no one was going to give him anything. However, Carla said that we do not know everything about the head of the guild. If he makes a ritual on himself, then this entails big problems. After conferring, we came to the decision to come to the guild master and pawn the carla with offal. No sooner said than done. They decided to keep the scroll, they say we will conduct the ritual ourselves, since there is no one to trust. They told the Guildmaster that it was no longer possible to perform the ritual on anyone else but us and demanded that he bring the necessary ingredients for this. He was not particularly pleased and seemed to be going to convince us. But the bard insisted that they come to the black sphere. Later. We'll give you a carla there. And bring the ingredients.
Then we tried to read the scroll. Rather, Fry tried, after all, the only full-fledged magician in the team. The scroll was opened. Then the horse suddenly became ill - knowledge poured into his head, his body froze for a few moments, and the dark curse acting on the hero almost stopped (after all, the scroll expels darkness). The master offered to decide whether Fry accepts the exorcism of darkness or opposes it. I decided that even with darkness, otherwise I would get a completely unplayable character, and I got used to it. As a result, the inner darkness intensified, the unicorn became infernal: leathery wings appeared (plus the built-in ability to fly, not through a spell), a dark flame instead of a mane, an onyx horn, eyes lit up red.
Our bard meanwhile agreed with two more important members of the guild according to the standard scheme: "come to the black sphere." One succumbed, the other did not.
And here is the X-hour, we are at the sphere. And I already understand that Fry can go through this darkness without any rituals, because he himself has this thing inside. When the hero comes closer to the sphere, vibrations appear on it. Yes, he needs to go there. But while I'm leaving, I'm waiting for the right moment. First, the head of the guild appears and says that not all the ingredients were found. The bard asks him to hide for now. The guildmaster goes invisible. Then another member of the guild came and also hid. Then Karla appears and brings a large gem.
The funny thing is that this jewel was needed for the ritual. Karla did not know this, so he stole it from the head of the guild.
The bard gives Karla the scroll and we have a few moments while he is numb from the information pouring into him from the scroll. He catches disintegration (it seems, from the appeared guildmaster) and we say goodbye to our vile and stupid "as if still" curator. There are many events happening at once: the second member of the guild appears, from somewhere on the side, people of the Carla shoot at us. Using this, Fry is washed away towards the black sphere and goes inside.
Meanwhile, the head of the guild receives an arrow, and the assistant tries to save him. But it's too late, the head of the guild was also not very nice to our bard, and under the guise of helping, he pushes the arrow deeper. Here is such an insidious bard we have. Amen.
Fry was in a black sphere. Here he learned that in the center are tied girls (including the daughter of the guild master). One of which should give birth to a dark messiah. My hero was asked to control this process and become the right hand of this creature, which will lead the dark hordes. The infernal unicorn decided to think for a while.
There weren't many options here. Playing against the party will not work - these are secret applications and they will immediately figure me out. Yes, and there are no special motives - well, they offered to join. Few people offer it. I saw no particular reason to necessarily join the dark messiah. If the rest of the group also wants, then we will think. Or if Fry is forced to take this step by taking up arms against the unicorn: they say, why are you, sir, not dressed for the weather, all in dark, but in dark?
Chapter eight. Hello, you have an incoming dark message
The Sogildiytsy asked the group not to leave the city until all the circumstances of the incident were clarified. They wasted no time in carrying out the ritual, and one of our heroes got the opportunity to exorcise the darkness.
Then the party members suddenly received a "dark sms". It was my Fry who finally emerged from the dark sphere and telepathically contacted the party members, and then he himself flew to the meeting.
Then we came to the sphere and were able to make a passage inside. Fry, of course, did not go into it, but into the dark wall of the sphere. And then you never know, the passage is made by the magic of light.
Inside, the picture has not changed much. In addition to the girls, there were still some special buildings with people frozen inside. To get closer to the center of the sphere, it was necessary to free these buildings from dark forces.
First we went to some kind of tent that looked like a circus. It was not possible to go inside through the back door. After the magic knowledge test, the master reported that this place was some kind of portal to somewhere else.
Here everything obeyed some of its own special rules, having bought tickets from the cashier at the entrance, we were able to go inside ... and ended up in a cage with tigers. A demonic-looking tamer walked behind this cage, casting all sorts of bad things. While our fighters dealt with the tigers, I dispelled the tamer's bad spells a couple of times, then it turned out that he could be shot through the cage. Toward the end of the battle, Fry threw a disintegration on the wall of the cage and our warrior jumped out and drained the tamer. The unfinished tigers dispersed immediately and we returned. Thus, we freed one building.
Next was a building with a large mirror blocking the entrance. It was also impossible to enter there, and if you stand and look inside, then eyes begin to appear in the mirror. Thank God we were smart enough to move away and approach the mirror in turn. It made our twins!
It was also quite an interesting memorable moment. The master redrawn our hero sheets for himself in order to use our own abilities and parameters.
At least our clones can be pulled the strings as they like, and they will not be criticized for it. Comfortable.
The warriors were dealt with relatively simply, especially since we then began to take off all sorts of reinforcing clothes in advance. Bringing down Fry's twin proved to be more difficult. I decided to play it safe a little and create a force barrier around in advance so that the twin would not fly away anywhere. But my hero lost almost all spell fatigue. In general, the battle turned out something like this - the unicorns tried with varying success to drink fatigue from each other, and the warriors, meanwhile, were slowly beating one of them. Until they got it. So we vacated the second building.
Chapter nine. Eat more of these mirror labyrinths, but drink dark blood
After the destruction of the mirror, the second building was not liberated, as I thought, the passage to the tent was simply opened. Where did our group go? Inside was a mirror maze. After wandering around for a bit, we went out into a round hall, along the perimeter of which there were mirrors. From one came a black lion with eyes shining with purple light, its body as if covered with a small layer of a mirror shell. The fight has begun.
It turned out that he blocks or reflects direct attacks and magic, but you can attack his own reflections in mirrors, which is what we tried to do (for some reason it was impossible to break mirrors and frames). Fry tried to pump out fatigue from the lion through reflection, because the disintegration shot was reflected from the mirror, and the damage from it was ridiculous. The lion, meanwhile, hovered in place and became invulnerable, summoning various dead people to the battlefield that came out of the mirrors. Our fighter killed them, after which the lion was released. Then the bard got tired of this protracted slaughter and he cast a spell of temporal stasis from the scroll on the lion. And the lion froze, already, as it were, forever.
It turned out that we could not get back. There was nothing to remove the spell either. They tried to cut through the ceiling of the hall, darkness swirled there. Trying to stick his hand in there, the bard got burned. It looked like only Fry could get in there painlessly. My character got out into this darkness and flew up until he felt an obstacle. The thrown disintegration made a hole and my hero flew out of the tent.
By that time, another of the players who plays as a warrior approached. This warrior showed up outside the tent and we kind of exchanged a couple of phrases. After that, the thought occurred to me that the rest could be pulled out by spilling the black blood of my unicorn on them.
The master called me to another room to tell me that the darkness inside the unicorn was delighted with such a thought and that the others should be forced to agree to it. Fry went inside through the normal entrance and leaned against the glass, behind which the rest of the group could be seen. It was impossible to break this glass, so the infernal unicorn had to go out and return through a hole in the tent. There, he proposed the option with black blood, but the party members refused, looking for other options. In the end, I suggested running to the city for a scroll of dispelling magic, and we settled on this option. Fry again flew through the hole in the tent, looked at the warrior beating his thumbs and flew to the border of the black sphere. It turned out that now the sphere does not let the unicorn back.
The master again called me back and said that the darkness tells the unicorn how to remove the stasis spell: you need to infect at least two more with darkness, then all together they can dispel this magic. I said it was already proposed, but the others clearly refused, so why try to quarrel the party? It has long been obvious to everyone that Fry is a dark horse. And all these private conversations of ours only turn the party more and more against the hero.
In general, we returned and the master decided again to resolve everything himself. Blackness slipped from Fry, leaked into the mirrors and appeared in the form of an infernal unicorn, and began to persistently persuade the others to accept it. My hero at this time fell into a slight faint, taking the form of an ordinary horse with a horn.
The party refused the offer. Just then a warrior came up from outside, leaning against the glass. Darkness turned to him and he decided to accept it, after which he persuaded another member of the party to take this step (rather persuaded). Both received some initial dark buffs, and then the darkness returned to Fry's body. Further, the spell was removed, and the black lion was killed.
Chapter ten. Ah, you spider ... daughter
After we went to the third structure, it seems that it was just some kind of arch or portal. After going inside, the party found itself in a city square filled with people. They greeted us like winners. Moving on, we found our guildmaster (alive) and his daughter. It became clear that everything around is a fiction (which we basically already guessed, it’s happening under the black dome) and our fighter tried to kill the guild master. In response, his daughter turned into a giant spider, and the crowd attacked us.
The battle began, while the party members were killing the crowd, the spider climbed up along a barely visible web, thus leaving the radius of melee attacks. On some allies, the bard threw an increase, but the spider still ended up in the zone of inaccessibility. This monster had two attacks per turn and it began to throw webs at us.
It's worth noting that the web caused a nightmare on a failed Charisma roll. After waking up, the hero lost as much as 2 fatigue! But what is self-employment? No one forbids home steering, but you shouldn’t hack the system so abruptly. There are no powers in True20 that remove 2 fatigues at once. Sleep in True20 is tied to a Will save. Here I will add that thanks to our bard, we were all under the effect of immunity to fear, but the master dismissed this moment too - they say the nightmares in your dream still scare you.
As I understand it, the master gave us something from what was previously invented for D&D, but he converted it all quickly, breaking the game mechanics for himself. So some kind of off-system imba fell on our heads, which is not very realistic to overcome with systemic means. The master, of course, in general is still for us, but you must admit that it is much more interesting to solve problems on our own than to live thanks to exclusively masterful interventions.
Needless to say, Fry's offensive spells were as useless as ever (well, you get the idea, non-Munchkins in this game don't even risk going out for bread) and I thought about other options. It seemed to me that it would be good to blow the spider down with gusts of wind and applied wind shaping. A stream of wind appeared, but the spider clung to its web, swinging to the sides.
Having plunged into the web once, Fry earned 2 fatigue and a total of 3 has already accumulated. After that, the hero trudged off to look for unfinished people in order to drink fatigue from someone. I found only one (although there were crowds, and the party killed far from all of them. master, what the hell?) and drank fatigue from it for two moves.
The battle, meanwhile, did not advance at all, and the spider crawled out of the wind. And she threw the web again. Fry was fed up with it. He surrounded himself with protective mana wall (such a barrier) so as not to fly away from the wind. After that, the wind increased to the maximum and a tornado began, sending the spider on a fun flight with beating against the walls. The rest of the party members were greatly enlarged and the effect didn't seem to lift them into the air. Then my horseman failed his saving throw to sleep and the tornado ended. The spider fell down, where it was finally taken apart. At the end of the battle, each member of the group had 3 fatigue.
Chapter final. When leaving, turn off the light, all white
We went back and saw that now you can go to the girls who were going to give birth to the dark messiah. Immediately behind them, a black portal appeared, from which chains flew out. They grabbed the women in labor and dragged them inside. Our fighter burst forward, ripping open the stomachs of these girls (uh, and this is the most "light" member of the party, the only one who sent darkness to hell). A few were dragged inside and we followed through the portal.
To the question of the motives of the characters, acting out, roleplay, etc. To be honest, I don’t understand at all why it was necessary to go further to the main boss, if the whole party has already become dark. What for? This dark messiah interfered with them in such situations. Wanted to save the girl? Something is not noticeable.
By the way, in that game of ours there were some players who do not like to discuss the game after it is over, but want only one thing - content. Anything, as long as it's new. In the same D&D, this was ensured by the study of new books and endless effective build building. Sometimes it took us a separate game session to create characters, and it was more interesting than the further adventures themselves.
But it would not hurt to discuss the game and take it more seriously, because the lack of reflection will result in jumping through systems, followed by disappointment in each of them. Since "the reason is definitely not in us."
Inside was a huge black crystal, which pulled in the remaining women in labor and transformed into something like a golem. Here, everyone who was infected with darkness began to make saving throws every turn on whether they fight on the side of the golem or not. Naturally, I wanted to make neutral claims when Fry was captured by darkness for a turn: for example, to protect the golem by surrounding it with a mana wall. True, the master insisted on aggressive applications specifically against the party members, so it was not possible to cheat. Well, all right, especially since mana wall could be completely tired. The only acceptable option was fatigue drain (single or mass). On his turn, Fry flew closer to the others, but wasn't close enough yet.
Then our bard put a dance effect on me and the warrior, we had to lean back from him every turn. The golem, meanwhile, was slowly dismantled. After leaning back from both effects, Fry decided to fly away from the others as long as he could, so that he would not have to throw fatigue on his allies. Flying away, he again became an ally for the golem, but then the rest of the party finally coped with the enemy.
And so it all ended. Our party ended up in the middle of a huge round pit - the place where the black sphere used to be. We were greeted by people and other creatures looking out from above. Next came the upload about how we were met and awarded. The end.
At this point, the master collected our character sheets and suddenly announced that we are no longer playing True20. Never. And defiantly tore them apart. What a twist. Well, no one in general was against it, although the sheets themselves could be left.
And you, black-maned, I will ask you to stay
Well, I decided that such a character should not disappear and converted Fry (no longer Skaven, but just Fry) to my system Twisted Terra. In order not to overcomplicate the background of the hero, I slightly modified it:
“Fry was once a snow-white wild creature. Days and nights he wandered carefree in the silence of the Golden Forest, until one day the peace of the sacred thicket was disturbed.
They were two - the hunter and his victim. A frisky elven archer and rats fleeing from her.
When the elven arrow rushed towards the fugitive, it crashed against the wall of darkness, not finding its target. The rat made a gesture and the tree trunks cut black furrows, rushing towards the archer, but she jumped aside at lightning speed.
Fry watched in horror from behind the golden foliage. The combatants turned everything around, until finally the wounded elf finished off the rat with an enchanted dagger. The archer took the stolen miraculous apple from the dead. As she left, she read the ancient scroll as instructed by the elven lord. No one must discover the body soaked in the cursed black blood. The earth trembled as it began to move.
When the elf retired and the ground stopped shaking, Fry looked out from behind the trees again. Curiosity led him to the body of a defeated rat. The black blood of the rat soaked into the unicorn, awakening the dormant possibilities of his mind and endowing him with magical properties.
Realizing what was happening, Fry, who turned black, discovered that a section of his beloved forest had been lifted into the air by an elven spell. Looks like it's time to leave familiar places"
Actually, in my system, a written backstory is optional - fundamental biography features character. For Fry, I included the following set of traits in the biography: “black unicorn”, “eyes shine with orange light”, “psychic”, “cursed black blood”, “dislikes elves and rats”.
These are all some kind of “seeds” that can give “shoots” during the game, developing into special rules. For example, I fleshed out the "cursed black blood" trait into two starting special rules - "black blood magic" and "infernal hurricane". It is likely that the properties of black blood hide some other possibilities that will open up to the hero later, during his adventures.
When redesigning the hero, I wanted to roughly preserve the style of play that he had in the True20 system. Thus the global mechanics fatique and spell drain vitality in my system turned into a personal mechanic of "black blood magic" - Fry can drink some of the life force from different creatures, hanging on them accumulating weakening shadow scars, and he receives shadow charges, which can be spent on all sorts of useful tricks with dark blood. Later, based on it, I made a mechanic for a vampire character, because the principle just fits very well with the concept of vampirism.
A couple more special rules reveal the "psychic" trait. These are “telepathy” (Fry can telepathically communicate with any sentient beings he sees) and “deception of the senses” (2 times a day, Fry can create any illusion for a time equal to 5 minutes). But this is not the only use of the trait. A "psychic" might, for example, let Fry try to erase someone's memory, feel the aura of a place, look for a lost item, and so on. Looking at how the game develops and what situations arise.
Later I adapted the unicorn for my tactical game . There, the pre-installed heroes are designed as postcards folded in half with game parameters. So in the end it was all not misadventures, but plus one character in the piggy bank and such a dramatic and instructive story.
That's all, inventiveness to you in your games and mutual understanding, then you will not be afraid of any systems.
Source: habr.com