Murdersoup: Tales of High Adventure - One-Shot

Today I ran Tales of High Adventure, the 2nd Murdersoup mini-game I wrote, for three french friends of mine. It was a very fun session of about about three hours, mostly setting things up for later as we took our time and focused on social interactions and description. I decided to use dice again, and to call on them as an oracle somewhat regularly. It was satisfying. There was no combat, so I don't know yet how that will feel during violence sequences. Also I have no numpad on my new laptop, which makes it hard to use the little dot thingies. I'm open to suggestions.

Characters

- Chadwick Dunlow, the Swashbuckler (magnetic, seeks glory, tracker, has magic teeth)

- Ogden Nash, the Summoner (quick, seeks adventure for its own sake, contortionnist, has hag head)

- Rothary, the Gnome (clever, seeks vengeance, priest of Jah, has a lumberjack's cutting power)

What Happened

- After days of wilderness, the party reached the end of the woods, somewhere in the Kingdom of Crozaine (think fantasy france in a warhammer-inspired setting, closer to the Empire than Bretonnia tho).

- They smelled, then heard, then saw a small troop of (a dozen) beastmen, and ran away. Using gnomish tricks and adventuring stealth, they eventually got rid of their pursuers and reach the walled town of Perdition (Keep on the Borderlands, which one of the players recognized from another adventure).

- Chadwick used his noble status to get past the guards, and at the Golden Duck inn, it came in handy again as they basically negotiated to not have to pay anything in exchange for entertaining the patrons in the evening with a bunch of cool performance, music and stuff. They also got somewhat well-known from that, being boisterous and charismatic about being adventurers. The company's name is "The Amazings". 

- They met a minstrel called Blackmaine, as well as the Baron Bertram Barrow and his right-hand man, Captain Griffin. Both the minstrel and baron hinted at a job offer. Later that night, the party offered to help Blackmaine: he'd gift them a map to Hishep-Ratep's tomb which is said to hide his legendary lifestone, a massive diamond. In exchange, the man who revealed himself to be a veteran adventurer named Ellis required of them to seek the Baron's wife Cléopha and give a memento to her that he kept for decades as he planned to marry her in their youth, but lacked the fortune he deemed necessary to make her happy. They reluctantly accepted to help, and went to sleep (the gnome also went around picking some pockets). 

- We had a short break there, with the players getting some price lists and buying gear autonomously while I went to get some food and drinks, two hours in.

- Picking back where we left off, the party went to talk to Captain Griffin, who, without the Baron around, revealed himself to be a gruff, loyal warrior, dismissive of adventurers, calling them cowards and parasites, but also a father-figure to his men, wishing to protect them as well as the people of the Keep, and fiercely loyal to the Baron. He told the party some basic stuff about beastmen.

- At the Keep, dinner with the Baron went well. He hired the party to go cleanse the Caves of Chaos of the newfound beastmen, which he believes to be scouts from the northern army that King Randall is campaigning against. After hearing a tall tale by Sir Chadwick, the Baron agreed to offer hospitality and let the party rest at the keep. The summoner then snuck out to the library to summon one his bound-spirits, Alexander the Wise. He also got some info out of Peter, the Baron's adviser and occultist, who was glad to see some actual magic being practiced in exchange for some info about the Baron's wife.

- Alexander the Wise knew the party was going to Hishep-Ratep's tomb soon, and asked that in six days and six nights, they would have to deliver to him the brains and viscera of the six prophets buried with the Prince Hishep-Ratep, for their decaying minds surely hold interesting knowledge. In exchange, he answered three questions: the beastmen's weakness is music which drives them away, or mad with bloodthirst if backed into a corner; the baron's wife spends her nights in the gardens; and the Caves of Chaos house an ancient temple to the Elder Gods which is still "blessed" with their influence, and that's what attracts monsters to that place, and explains why the beastmen decided to settle there.

- Next the party met again to go to the gardens and meet Cléopha. She is a sickly pale, boney and tall lady with dark braided hair and unnatural beauty. So much so that Ogden immediately fell in love, and worse, him and Rothary had to physically restrain Chadwick for a moment as he completely lost his sense and tried to embrace her. When Ellis's name was mentioned, she agreed not to call the guards immediately to have their heads cut off, and curiously grabbed the memento...before throwing it in the fountain with a puzzled look. Ogden then offered help regarding her condition, suggesting it may be a curse. She insisted she needed no help, taking for an instant a predatory and beastial aspect under the moonlight. They politely bowed out and made themselves scarce. We stopped there.

Referee Notes

- Rolling dice is fun. Now that's a controversial statement if there's ever been one, am I right? I've been enjoying diceless FKR a lot lately, though there is something fascinating about letting the dice decide what happens next. I didn't use a system per say, only discussed openly the possible outcomes of certain actions and gave target numbers to the players, telegraphing the risk every time. As usual, high trust meant this went on with very little need to justify my rulings. The pacing did not suffer either, though the dicing feels like a "pause" moment where everyone focuses on the present situation. In its own way, it also makes the world come alive as an unfair and uncaring universe.

- No combat, so I'm not sure how that aspect will fare. Theoritically, I'm trying to harken back to hit rolls and damage. There was one very early one but it was just one attack throw and damage and then running off. It worked well though. I didn't use initiative, just went with whatever made sense next, which I'm hoping to keep. I could get rid of HP and damage entirely while keeping dicing, but I like the slight gamism of HP and damage. And with the oracular way I'm using the 2d6 rolls, it'd be weird to skip to-hit, so I'm going with that for now.

- Lots of NPCs interactions, the players said they enjoyed it, which is great. Not much to say about that bit, it's just cool as dungeoncrawls tend to not have as much talking in character.