Into the Barrowmaze - Session 6 - Messing with Bandits

Today we were joined by an old friend! The party consisted of:

The Nocturnal Weasels
• Elina (L.) and her bodyguard, Gunthark
• Guiseppe (J.) and Guillerma
• Barnave (A.) and Merle

What Happened?
 After enrolling Barnave and Merle into their company, the party spied on the Bastards of Bogtown and learned of some dungeon in the northern forest, and something about Renata and her bandits.
Renata has a bounty on her head of about ten thousand crowns, so the party figured it'd be a good idea to go and defeat her army of bandits this afternoon.

• After an altercation with the Bastards, Guiseppe used some junk one of the murderhobos left behind to give his dog a scent to track. Clever use of a regular dog - we completely forgot it was supposed to be a "mutt with a telepathic link" during this game, too. But the pet was still very useful.

• Following the group's trail from afar, the Weasels discovered an old fortification that led to a canyon riddled with caves, surrounded by rocky mountain. They covered themselves in dirt and bypassed the fort through the steep mountainside, noticing hidden guards en passant and expertly avoiding them.

It turned out that the "bandits" all bear the same red hawk crest and behave exactly like professional soldiers. Curious.

• They checked a few caves and used a bear attack on the patrolling soldiers in the canyon's ruins to advance, and managed to keep hidden for a long while until they eventually stumbled upon a cave full of wolves and their cubs, and that's where they got discovered after fighting the wolves and setting the cave on fire.

Also they set a wolf on fire and it fell down the cliffside into the camp, which isn't exactly discreet.

• Quite a long firefight followed, first with the soldiers in the camp, then with more soldiers coming from a plateau atop the canyon's side - Merle was grieviously injured, a hostage was taken and the party parleyed with Oswald, one of Renata's lieutenants. Lots of harsh words were exchanged, the bear from earlier came back and the Weasels used the distraction to run away with their wounded.

That was about two hours in, so we took a short break.

Oswald, the Bandit Lieutenant

After a night of rest back in Helix, the party figured they'd set up an ambush near the fort and interrogate whoever they'd capture for more info about the bandits. Instead, they surprised the Bastards again and saw them trapped in the fort as they tried to cross: another lieutenant was on the other side, talking about how he lost some good men yesterday on account of some of the Bastards who had apparently gone rogue. I forgot to mention earlier, but when pressed for answers by Oswald about why they had been there, shooting at people and setting wolves on fire, Barnave told the bandits that they were a part of the Bastards' gang, and didn't have the time to "explain" further when the bear attacked.

And so the party witnessed the Bastards getting quite uncomfortable as that other lieutenant explained how he'd need to get his hands on the Weasels soon or else before letting them go.

That looked like a perfect opportunity for the players to try out their ambush idea, and they quickly went back to set up traps for the Bastards. It worked pretty well, and a lot of people were incapacitated or killed, with no losses on the players' side until the elf (the bastards had an elf) took one of the PC hostage and threatened to slit his throat if they didn't let her go.

Elina decided to shoot her instead, and failed a DEX save to secure initiative, which meant poor Guiseppe died on the spot, becoming the first PC casualty of the campaign since switching to Into the Odd.

Then Barnave fell on the elf and broke her back, leaving her unable to stand or walk.

After the fight, without skipping a beat, the remaining PCs looted their friends and foes alike, and interrogated the survivors, learning of the deceased Bastard's secret stash, and confirming that Renata's men are indeed more than a hundred strong and real soldiers, not just common criminals with guns and swords.

Good Stuff

• No dungeoneering meant an even quicker pace than usual.

• All opponents were humans and acted like it, lots of injuries but not a lot of actual murder - NPCs and PCs alike ran away and parleyed when it made sense to do so. Also I got to do a voice or two.

• Lots of interactions with named NPCs means the world is coming alive. So far the townsfolk were only a background to the moor-as-adventure. For me, that kind of organic world-building is much more enjoyable than preparing everything in advance, as that allows for everyone including myself to be surprised and "discover" things about the setting.

Needs Improvement

• No dungeoneering means it's way less acceptable to just stop the action to read a description or find a picture. I'd been relying on the naturally slow rythm of the dungeoneering conversation, and it showed a few times here. It's important to maintain pacing in these cases when using pre-written content, moreso than being accurate about something the players know nothing about.

• Something in the combat rules made some players feel like the opposition might have been a bit weak, which I'm not sure where it comes from exactly. Also there were a few times where the EB multiple attacks on a single target rule felt a bit awkward to me, but I don't think the players noticed or were bothered.

Other Thoughts

I need to re-think about OD&D, within the frame of what it can learn from Into the Odd/Electric Bastionland.