Into the Dredd - Session Report
Yesterday, I ran a quick game of Into the Dredd (with Electric Bastionland rules) with two players and about two hours of free time. I had not prepared anything, mostly because I wasn't sure about what game I was going to pick until the very last minute. Then I remembered this clip:
So I had players roll up characters using our new-old Google Sheets system and went on Abulafia to generate some police dispatches. That's the extent of my prep. What happened in these ~2 hours:
• As Judge Sorrow and Judge Hobb waited for their McDonald's to be delivered on the parking, a trash truck trashed through the drive and ran over their food (and the employee bringing it) - they immediately began chasing the perps.
• While Judge Sorrow wrestled with a drug-crazed cyborg that jumped on his Lawmaster Bike, Judge Hobb took care of the truck with repeated application of armor-piercing rounds.
• Central radio'd to let the Judges know that these were parts of the Halloween gang and apparently on a killing spree, aiming for a nearby orphanage. A road block would be waiting for them but quick action was needed. So the Judges blew up the truck, which was cut in half in the process, and some of it went into a Barber shop, too.
• The drugged-up survivor of the crash tried to run away on foot but was eventually cornered by the Judges, and had to be executed when he refused to comply and tried to take a taximan hostage. The taximan, who had helped the gangster up after accidentally running over him (he threw himself on the road, Judges, I couldn't see him in time!) was sentenced with six months in a cell for unlawful assistance to a criminal.
• Investigating the truck's deads revealed that one of the other gangsters had tried to crawl away, only to end up mummified on the pavement, with mysterious needle marks in his neck. The Judges didn't have much time to dwell on it when another police dispatch sent them to a hostage situation.
• A local stuffer-shack grocery store had been attacked and fortified by a bunch of junkies led by well-known gang fixer Jennell Perkins. No demands yet, but with at least three employees stuck in there with armed thugs made jumpy by withdrawal, the Judges decided to not waste any time: they had two SWAT officers breach in from both entrances to the store while they made a hole in the roof and jumped down in the middle of things.
• This went surprisingly well, with no hostage dead and even a survivor amongst the perps! The Judges managed to capture Jennell and decided to bring her with them to the Police Block for interrogation.
• It took some convincing (and the threat of spending the rest of her life in prison without arms or legs instead of regular life-sentence) but Jennell spilled the beans on what was happening recently with the Halloween gang, how there had been a change in management - a Dr. Lovecraft, who looked and talked like an actual scientist, had taken hold of the gang and was testing a new combat drug on the thugs, which explained the killing spree and the perps' unwillingness to go down after being shot in the head multiple times.
Then she revealed she had a built-in plasma charge implant in her throat and tried to kill the Judges by blowing herself up in the Police Block.
We stopped around there, and decided we might continue this another time, with more prep.
What this entirely improv-based session reminded me was:
You can't have full player agency if things are happening in a vaccuum. Even though I used random generation to figure things out on the spot, the fact that it was on the spot meant that player choice didn't matter as far as "where to go next". The moment-to-moment action still allowed for a lot of player decisions, but the whole thing felt much more linear than usual still.
I was happy to notice that while I am still able to go full improv, as I used to do in my first few years of gaming, more was gained than lost in embracing light prep over coming up with everything on the spot.
Into the Dredd gives a lot of firepower to the players, which really helped me set the high-octane, pink mohawk kind of move I was going for. It confirmed my suspicion that Into the Odd, as his older cousin OD&D, can do anything. Or at least, stuff that you wouldn't necessarily expect to fit the tone of the game.
Next, some thoughts about handling character sheets and "table information" in mostly online campaigns.
So I had players roll up characters using our new-old Google Sheets system and went on Abulafia to generate some police dispatches. That's the extent of my prep. What happened in these ~2 hours:
Judges Hobb & Sorrow
• As Judge Sorrow and Judge Hobb waited for their McDonald's to be delivered on the parking, a trash truck trashed through the drive and ran over their food (and the employee bringing it) - they immediately began chasing the perps.
• While Judge Sorrow wrestled with a drug-crazed cyborg that jumped on his Lawmaster Bike, Judge Hobb took care of the truck with repeated application of armor-piercing rounds.
• Central radio'd to let the Judges know that these were parts of the Halloween gang and apparently on a killing spree, aiming for a nearby orphanage. A road block would be waiting for them but quick action was needed. So the Judges blew up the truck, which was cut in half in the process, and some of it went into a Barber shop, too.
• The drugged-up survivor of the crash tried to run away on foot but was eventually cornered by the Judges, and had to be executed when he refused to comply and tried to take a taximan hostage. The taximan, who had helped the gangster up after accidentally running over him (he threw himself on the road, Judges, I couldn't see him in time!) was sentenced with six months in a cell for unlawful assistance to a criminal.
• Investigating the truck's deads revealed that one of the other gangsters had tried to crawl away, only to end up mummified on the pavement, with mysterious needle marks in his neck. The Judges didn't have much time to dwell on it when another police dispatch sent them to a hostage situation.
• A local stuffer-shack grocery store had been attacked and fortified by a bunch of junkies led by well-known gang fixer Jennell Perkins. No demands yet, but with at least three employees stuck in there with armed thugs made jumpy by withdrawal, the Judges decided to not waste any time: they had two SWAT officers breach in from both entrances to the store while they made a hole in the roof and jumped down in the middle of things.
• This went surprisingly well, with no hostage dead and even a survivor amongst the perps! The Judges managed to capture Jennell and decided to bring her with them to the Police Block for interrogation.
• It took some convincing (and the threat of spending the rest of her life in prison without arms or legs instead of regular life-sentence) but Jennell spilled the beans on what was happening recently with the Halloween gang, how there had been a change in management - a Dr. Lovecraft, who looked and talked like an actual scientist, had taken hold of the gang and was testing a new combat drug on the thugs, which explained the killing spree and the perps' unwillingness to go down after being shot in the head multiple times.
Then she revealed she had a built-in plasma charge implant in her throat and tried to kill the Judges by blowing herself up in the Police Block.
We stopped around there, and decided we might continue this another time, with more prep.
What this entirely improv-based session reminded me was:
You can't have full player agency if things are happening in a vaccuum. Even though I used random generation to figure things out on the spot, the fact that it was on the spot meant that player choice didn't matter as far as "where to go next". The moment-to-moment action still allowed for a lot of player decisions, but the whole thing felt much more linear than usual still.
I was happy to notice that while I am still able to go full improv, as I used to do in my first few years of gaming, more was gained than lost in embracing light prep over coming up with everything on the spot.
Into the Dredd gives a lot of firepower to the players, which really helped me set the high-octane, pink mohawk kind of move I was going for. It confirmed my suspicion that Into the Odd, as his older cousin OD&D, can do anything. Or at least, stuff that you wouldn't necessarily expect to fit the tone of the game.
Next, some thoughts about handling character sheets and "table information" in mostly online campaigns.
Yes! Very cool report, and it shares my experience: Into the Odd can handle anything you throw at it.
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