Weekend of Gaming

 On Saturday, Justin ran a one-shot session of Mythic Bastionland. Here's my character sheet. I played Bertilak the Tankard Knight. Despite my fairly poor stats, I played him as a boisterous Brian Blessed type. C.C. played Glowy the Glass Knight, and Scott played Fainlin the Willow Knight. Glowy was exuberant and outgoing, while Fainlin was timid but hopeful of achieving glory. 

First, we had a tourney with three NPC knights (listed on my sheet). Glowy and Fainlin both won in the first round, but Bertilak lost to Demelza. Then Glowy, by lot, battled Demelza and won. Then Fainlin and Glowy fought, and Fainlin came out the champion. 

But at the feast that night, a weird minstrel woman put a spell on the assemblage and announced us the prey of Lord Spinjack's Hunt. Also, the lord's daughter was put into a magical sleep. So we did what mythic knights are wont to do, and set out to find Spinjack. We did, or rather Spinjack found us. And after a very rough battle, we emerged victorious. 

 ____

I have to say, Mythic Bastionland is a more interesting NuSR type game than the various Black Hack spin-offs I've played. The combat system of using a die pool and placing successes to do damage or have special effects (gambits) is complex, but a nice challenging mini-game. 

Also, the opponents get to make their own rolls, rather than me as a player having to roll defense. I've come to really dislike that type of system. But that's a topic for another post. 

Mythic Bastionland does a good job of making the game feel like you're in a fairy tale or Medieval romance, where everyone is representing some sort of superlative archetype. A bit like The Princess Bride. Buttercup is the most beautiful. Humperdinck is the greatest hunter. Fezzik is the strongest. 

On the ride home, Justin explained how the game normally sets up a campaign with six "myths" to explore, but once these are completed the campaign is finished. So it's really not designed around one-shots, but the campaigns have a built in shelf life. I like it, but it's probably not something I'd run myself these days. I've moved on to preferring a little bit heavier game (but not too mechanically complex). 

_____

Yesterday (Sunday), I ran Missions & Mahyem, trying out my near-future Bughunts & Bedlam campaign module material some more. Last session, the players explored a mining facility on an exoplanet that had been overrun with Krytes (the titular Critters from those old 80s movies). Honestly, I thought with their strong bite damage and paralyzing poison darts that they would be a challenge. But they weren't. I should have at least doubled, if not tripled, their numbers. Also, I realized that the d20 Future stats for laser and plasma weapons, which I copied directly, may be too powerful for this game. Charles's PC, Magnum, bought a plasma rifle and was doing crazy amounts of damage. Sure,when a Predator is chasing you, I want that damage to be nasty. But in the hands of the PCs, it was too much. So I toned it down a bit. Charles took a bit of convincing but he went along with it, and he seemed satisfied by the reduced but still impressive damage of the plasma rifle. 

And on to this session. The PCs were back on the space station orbiting the exoplanet. They had some clues that survivors of the mine might have escaped to another mine, and what do you know, that mine was also now not communicating with the space station or the other mines now. So they went back down to investigate. 

This time, they found a pair of Alien Bounty Hunters that were looking for the Krytes and also some Coeurls (a.k.a. the inspiration for the displacer beast in D&D). They didn't trust the party, but the Heroes tried to ally with them. Well, when they suggested that the ABHs head in first with the Heroes right behind them, they assumed the Heroes wanted to backstab them (sorta, the players just wanted the ABHs to take the brunt of any attacks). So they opened fire. After a short gunfight, one ABH was badly wounded and so were one of the PCs (Flynn's new Hero, on his first mission!). The ABHs retreated, and the Heroes spot welded them into the mine's habitat area -- unknownst to them, where three of the Coeurls were napping. While Jada's Hero Sarah dished out some healing treatments, I quickly rolled a combat between the aliens and the Coeurls won, with one of the three cat-beasts dying. 

The party went another way to explore the mine more. They found some robots still mining ice, and then in the fusion generator room found three Coeurls napping in the nice warmth of the Fusion GirlTM reactor.  The Coeurls had surprise, and attacked. Flynn's Hero, Agent K, was almost dropped again, and Denis' Hero Lloyd was also beat up pretty badly. Magnum and Sarah covered their retreat, and then Lloyd laid down suppressing fire (FINALLY got to test out that mechanic!) and let Magnum and Sarah retreat. Agent K blew up an oxygen tank to do a bit of damage to the Coeurls, then the party retreated and also welded shut that door! 

They headed back up to the space station to report their sorta failure. And when they got there, they realized something is off. In the first mission, one technician was acting oddly. Now, several people, including the doctor and vice-administrator, were acting weird as well. But that's a mystery for next session! 

____

It's good to be testing out a lot of these mechanics. There weren't a lot of general proficiency checks in this game, other than for healing. But the combat rules got a good run through, and seem sound even with some more powerful weaponry available. Also, the Krytes were not much of a threat in the previous session, but the Alien Bounty Hunters and Coeurls were good matches to a party of four 5th level Heroes.