Naked Orc Wrestling

Last club meet I casually enquired about GM Bill's 13th Age game. When engrossed in planning and running ones own session its easy to forget that other things are going on. Whilst we were all catching up over a pint before the games I gainfully asked after the other players as to what had been transpiring and found to my delight that a fight had made its encounter with their party. Even more amusingly it transpired that some orcs had taken the opportune moment to attack the party whilst they were having a bath. Genius. Orcs are not stupid creatures for the most part but often aggressive and spontaneous, but it borders on genius to ambush  a group of people while they are wearing thongs and olive oil.

 

Now from a mechanics point of view this opens up a whole new avenue of combat possibilities. I can imagine the issues now... How much damage does a soap on a rope do - hits like a morning star but leaves you refreshed and lightly scented ? How fast can I move in flip flops ? What AC is a towel ? How many attacks a round does a loofer have ? On it goes.

 

I must admit I wish I had been there - there's probably an expansion module just for kitchen and bathroom scenarios. So it would seem that the 13th Age game is well on its way and I do hope they don't slip up any further.

 

 

On the MERP side I can report that the Animist narrowly escaped summoning a Penguin as a familiar to do some scouting for him. They have also realised that an ancient and mysterious book they have seems to be raising undead nearby - as the party are based in Minas Tirith and operating from Osgiliath it is also just occurring to them that both cities have several old, large cemeteries. I sense a country trip coming on.

Flying theives

Its not the fist time I have had a mage go rogue in a game. Its often the case, particularly at mid levels that you pick up enough spells of diversity to accomplish a range of tasks and when given a small goal to accomplish a wizard can quickly piece a plan together that he feels can be executed without aid - power can be dizzying. In the last MERP for example the mage decided to do some scouting inside a formerly abandoned building on behalf of the party and even though Nick is relatively new to roleplaying, he quickly pieced together a solo plan - fly over to the roof, open a skylight, cast a landing spell to jump down safely onto the first floor, and throw up an earth wall to obstruct the corridor so his back was covered and  finally shrink himself to keep out of sight. 

This reminds me of those fiendish garden puzzles constructed for squirrels by people who couldn't get on a proper Phd to see exactly how clever nuts are. Or likewise give a crow or magpie a twig and see if they cant work out how to pick a lock, assemble a small shed or indeed set a trap for the aforementioned squirrel. Either way fortune favoured the special forces magic user and despite the fact the first floor nearly broke under the weight of a ton of earth, the day was won. What exactly they have won remains to be seen however but it can go to show what is possible when the dice roll on the upside and a plan comes together.

 

There are costs and dangers however - magic users in MERP have a fixed number of power points to spend each day and whilst one can use them to get mops and buckets dancing to tidy the tower, it can be the case that there aren't enough left when the Balrog pops in for tea. Needless to say that mages are also glass cannons and behind enemy lines, glass remains just as fragile as anywhere else.

So I have got the measure of the party now both in axes and staffs but as they are doing the equivalent of bargain hunting in Mordor, interest in their activities may well be in the rise.

It also appears the at 14th Age is on the cards as GM Bill reopens his world of bronze age myths during the Great Fall... I played in this one last time and its a shame I am running as its great fun.

Never Trust an Old GM

So I have been away for a week an my own adventure that netted absolutely no gold or  experience points. I shall pause only to point out that I walked passed  a Warhammer shop in Helsinki. Specifically I didn't go in to see if it was actually war hammers they were selling as it was closed; the owner was absent presumably because his son had been captured by internet trolls.

 

So piecing the week's email evidence together it would seem that GM Bill has been having some fun with our 13th Age Party and life insurance may have to be cashed in. Quote:

"Life can be hard sometimes.
You're a big fierce Ankheg, you fear nothing.  You're enjoying a relaxing day, lurking in your burrow, when a whole row of meals arrive.  Juicy soft little creatures, no exoskeletons, you can just bite straight into them and eat to your heart's content.

That's how it was supposed to work.

But then somehow they turn out to have sharp bits, and weird explosions of fire and stuff, and before you know it you're losing legs left, right and centre and really not feeling king of the hill any more.

And then, to add insult to injury, the adventurers you barely scratched get themselves utterly mauled by a mere ochre jelly.

Bill"
 

Given the options between fighting a rather ugly, giant insectoid or a yellow jelly, I can see how guards may have been let down here. I would suppose jelly is something you have to reward yourself with after a particularly trying day or something to indulge in at Christmas.

 

Just remember folks, wobbly, delicious deserts are no trifling matter and can have you for Christmas too !

 

 

Leader of the Pack

 

So what do you do with a pack of hungry kobolds ? This isn't a joke about light bulbs as far as I can tell but our boulder trap from last week has now resolved itself into kobold trap. To be fair we did see it coming, kobols are pack animals and aggressive and dextrous in force, their bravery being cumulative. This does however give them both the advantage of rally as well as the disadvantage of over dependence on following a particular individual or pack leader. We did sadly split up and tackled the kobold hoard from several sides which was a bad mistake really in retrospect as we should have gone for the command and control straight away and cut the head off the beast before it got out of control. As usual having sauntered along taking most of our encounters in our stride we are now starting to have our first near death experiences and we are turning to our small stock of magic coffee beans and whilst I find a mocha particularly invigorating in the morning its effects are somewhat underwhelming in survival situations.

 

So hopefully we have managed to converge on their captain in a not too late fashion and the next few dice rolls will be critical, or so I would hope.

 

It is far from clear though if there are any other strategies we could have adopted for pack warfare. Anything that would sow a seed of confusion from fire, smoke or noise I would imagine would have a more exaggerated effect as the individual would suddenly be aware of their own safety rather than simply following the mob. Initially we tried reasoning with them which was interesting as I am not sure if pressing the intellect of a kobold would ultimately confuse it or encourage it to quickly revert to stabbing things...perhaps a riddle or we were thinking of using shields with sort of Christmas cracker puzzles on them.

 

It has got me thinking as to the demarcation between a pack and a swarm and weather there is a significant difference in how both manifestations are approached. I think in a swarm as such there is in fact no pack leader, at lest not on the field. Or is a swarm just a very large pack? A distributed consciousness would indeed make for a formidable enemy and it may just be a a war of attrition to beat it down but then again without a leadership of some sort does a swarm exhibit any desires or intentions above simply instinct ? Either way a feeding instinct or global ambition, a swarm is at the very least going to sting a bit but resistance is not necessarily futile...