SangoProduction
2016-09-05, 09:56 PM
I don't like to DM because I suck at improv. But I really wanted to play this system, and since no one else will DM I have to. But! I am so proud that I was able to make up stuff so fluidly last session (so, yes, this is a bit of public bragging). It also really helped that my players were cooperative and did a lot of work on their end as well. Everyone came out from the session, really enjoying it.
[Apparently I decided to spell out the entire session, rather than purely the stuff I improvised (though most of it was improv on the whole) ....and went on and did this...I just got caught up remembering it, I guess. lol.]
[To set up the whole situation: The pre-existing party is: the Leader and the Psychic. The new member is the Channeler, with a pet Amaura. Now that that's out of the way...]
First off, we got a new party member because someone just went dark on us...completely forgot to prepare a intro segment to get her in to the party. 'Well, it is getting rather dark by the time you guys start to gather and head out. It's probably a good idea to go to one of the inns,' I tell the main party. They get their segment, and go to bed. Then the new member ended up in the same inn, getting her segment. Morning comes and they get a table together (they were all, already established, "esteemed guests", so the table was set aside for all of them), and they just joined together. No fuss at all.
That's so rare to see. Normally a rogue would go wandering off instead of joining the party. Like, COME ON! YOU JOINED THE GAME to be part of a group. Don't bring a character that doesn't want to group! Glad that didn't happen.
So they finally head off to find the blacksmith's boy.
However, this did mess with my session's time schedule. Instead of finding the farmhouse at night, they arrived in the middle of the day (the distance from the town was already established to be just 10 miles north). It wouldn't make sense that they'd stay the night. ("Oh no! What do I do?") "Do you have any leads for where we can find the Blacksmith's boy?" The Leader asks the farmgirl. ("AH! Leads! They'll be two other farmers, and they can choose one.")
They hear howling mostly from the East (before they arrived at the house), though it bounces around, and also seems to be coming from all directions. One of the farmers, Aiwin, is towards the East. The party Psychic says they should go that way. Reasonable enough. But I needed time to prepare! Oh! I remember! I had a random encounter that was basically a sand-blast trap set on the road. I'd use it here! Everyone is caught unaware, and take 1 point of damage. 'It seemed really...ineffective.' I said. (Oh NOES! Why is there a trap on the road! And a road to a farmer's house no less? Oh gods!)
Thankfully, they were thinking (and discussing) the same thing...with less panic, admittedly. Which gave me time! (Ah, the traps aren't meant to harm, just to scare. Aiwin is a loner of a farmer! That'll work.) 'You guys start to hear distant, almost angry yelling.' They turn to face the quickly approaching elvish farmer - one so ancient, it made the millennia old alchemist look new-born.
The party asks about the traps. "Dem dere traps keeps those 'Pokemans' off my lands." Doubt spread between party members. The traps didn't seem too effective, when they encountered it. "Well, ye don't see no Pokemans here, does ya?" Well, that's true, so they just accept it.
They ask about the boy and the howling. He wasn't much help in that department (aside from finding out that the boy went missing around the same time that the howling started), but offered to take them through his lands to look for this howling that they were so concerned about. Now I'm out of plans. I don't want them to attack yet. ("Ah! I got it! The traps were keeping Pokemon out. That is a potential side plot to explore.")
(All of this section was completely adlibbed)
'You hear another explosion, like that of the sand-trap that hit you. Then, with speed that even surpasses yours, Aiwin takes off in that direction, hoe in hand.' They follow, to find a group of 4 Bellsprout and 5 Oddish being bashed savagely over the heads by an elf with a hoe. "You get the distinct feeling that there is one less of this group than they started with." I tell the party Channeler (Pokemon-whisperer).
"No! Stop!" The group yells and grabs at Aiwin, then asks for an explanation. "I can't be havin no Pokemans on my lands. You saw what they do's to the other farms!" Aiwin exclaims. The pokemon are panicked but not attacking at this time. "Well, have you tried, like, talking to them?" The Channeler asks. The answer was obvious.
The channeler turns the Pokemons'(?) attitude to "helpful", and after a series of emotion-communications, they find out (somewhat obviously) that these plant-pokemon want to set root in Aiwin's lands. The entire party tried to convince Aiwin to let them stay in a plot of land. They made several good arguments, and just impressed Aiwin by talking to the Pokemon...but he definitely didn't want them on his lands. 'Roll Charm' (diplomacy). They do so, getting middling results, but passed. 'He's not happy, but huffs and says "Fine. I'll build a fence around them. Just tell them not to move from where they sit."'
The group of Bellsprouts and Oddish lead to the plot that they want to set root in. They had to reassure Aiwin that it was worth him digging up his Elf Root (healing ingredients), and let the Pokemon stay, before he heads off to get fencing materials and tools.
"Hey, can you ask these Pokemon if they know about the howling?" The Leader asks the Channeler. Everyone gets wide-eyed, and suddenly laughs, almost simultaneously saying "I completely forgot about that." Auspiciously, they here another session of howling start again.
"Do you know where the howling is coming from?" The Channeler asks. 'You get the images of a blur.' "It appears they don't know where it's coming from either." She (the Channeler) tells everyone else. "Well, what about what's actually causing the howling?" The Leader instructs. 'You get images that seem to suggest something along the lines of "Wolf + Human" '
"Hah! It's werewolves! I called it!" The Leader exclaims. "Hey, we don't know that for sure, yet," The Psychic retorts. "Either way, we should keep going East. That's where the howling's strongest." Leader says. And with pretty much no complaints, they get going.
'As you guys go passed Aiwin's lands, the howling definitely seems to be encircling you. You have isolated yourselves.' I tell them. "Is there a tree nearby?" Leader asks me. (He seems to have a thing for shocking trees, so we just groan. That seemed random.) He sighs. "No, I mean, if we are about to be attacked, you two should be up in a tree to get a vantage point, while Amaura and I protect from down here. I don't think werewolves would have ranged attacks."
'Oh, sure. Give me a moment,' as I frantically search the interwebs for a "D&D farm map". 'Wow, this is completely terrible quality, but here. This is what the area is like. There's one tree in a 5-ft pit, and 2 very, very nasty streams, in an otherwise open grassland.'
They set up and...nothing happens. In fact, the howling stopped. A knowledge check later, 'You know that howling is a means of communication. They wouldn't continue to howl if they didn't need to communicate. It's possible they are closing in more silently.'
"Well, while we're sitting here, I'm going to make a Survival check to see if there's any food in this tree." Psychic says. 'You find leaves.' After a laugh, Leader (who was on the ground) decided that was a good idea, and that he'd cook up something he can find. 'Without going too far, you can find mushrooms - though this time, you're *certain* these are edible.' (They had an encounter with Teemo last session.)
Leader starts cooking a stew...and...nothing's going on. (I already decided that these enemies would be somewhat intelligent, and 2 people just climbed a tree and readied for ranged combat. The werewolves aren't going to attack until they have an advantage.)
"What's going on?" They murmured between themselves. "You think they are going to attack at night?" 'Make a knowledge check.' I reply.
'You know that wolves, and werewolves for that matter, have good night sight. You guys actually hear that the howling has actually gone further away. It now seems to be coming from the west.'
The realization dawned on the Leader. "Guys, this howling was going on before we were even here. We aren't the targets!" Psychic then follows up with, "What's towards the west?" "Aiwin..." The rest of the group realized. "We're heading back."
(Not exactly what I had planned, but I was definitely going to along with this.)
'You guys make it back to Aiwin's place just before it gets too dark.' ("Well, this is a good way to use that house-encounter with the werewolves that I messed up.") 'You see Aiwin, nearly done building the fence around the Oddish and Bullsprout, who've all, already, burrowed in to the ground.' "Ah, welcome back. I wanted to thank you for helping me. I've got spare rooms in the house if you need to spend the night."
"Yeah, that's good and well. We'll do that. Just go inside! We'll come in later." Leader almost commands. A successful command check actually has Aiwin obey without knowing entirely what's going on, but feeling the importance of the command. ("Darn it! They aren't going to sleep here. Well, considering what they assume, it is stupid to sleep for the night...hmm, I don't have a map for right out front.") 'We'll use this background image you guys were looking at, for the map. Everyone, initiatives and perception checks.'
Long story short: Crit! Freeze! Paralyze! Crit!...while the werewolves literally only got 2 attacks in (both from stealth). The first one being the bite from the alpha, which the psychic teleported the Channeler away from, and intercepted with his staff, and the second being a minion werewolf, which used Sand Attack on said Psychic, before being turned in to a popsicle. The others couldn't even do anything.
'Oh Wait! The Alpha broke free of the paralyze, and-'... "No, reroll that." The Psychic says, activating his Probability Control power.
I didn't do anything too fancy, as we were already running up to 3.5 hours in, and I didn't want it to be more than a 4 hour session. They were targeting the ones that were ranged...they just never got the chance because CRIT! lol.
(To the channeler) 'As you shoot your arrow through the frozen Werewolf 1 [yes, creative name, I know], you see spirit essence that you associate with Pokemon, dissipate, as a human child falls to the ground in a frozen heap.'
"These are just children." She says, slightly distressed. And then we go over the death rules. "Yeah, it's really freaking hard to actually kill someone in this game." Psychic says. "Well...OK, Amaura. Use Powder Snow on the last two, just be gentle." She, amazingly manages to not crit, and knocks them out, along with the spirits. [Although crit successes never mean you do something badly. It's a SUCCESS for peat's sake! But that's another tangent for another time.]
An elf child, and another human. The only one left was the alpha, with glowing red-orange, puss-filled scars...who was paralyzed, and unable to run, panicking all it may be. They put the panicked beast out of it's misery, and it follows suit as the rest did, turning in to a dwarf child, though it looks noticeably more...corpse-like. 'Yes, the dwarf has a pulse.' I say as Leader asks.
The Channeler (trained in Medicine) goes over and treats Werewolf 1 first, and successfully stops any bleeding. 'You notice the child has ritualistic scars. In fact, it seems very familiar, like the ones the Alpha has.' She treats the rest and then looks at the Alpha. 'On closer inspection, it would seem as though these scars can't have been made by the Alpha. Someone else had to have inflicted them upon him. There were several places were a dwarf, simply could not reach on himself that had scars.'
After some talk as to the logistics of carrying the 4 of them back to Aiwin's place...well, they just carried them to Aiwin's house, wherein Aiwin was very shocked to see his great grandson scarred up and unconscious on the backs of these recently met people. With a bit of a conversation, it was decided that the party will sleep upstairs, and they'd set the children down on the couches. Aiwin would watch over them for the night.
[And we end at 3 hours 57 minutes! Boo Yeah! I was tired then. I am tired now. Off to bed! Hope you enjoyed.]
[Apparently I decided to spell out the entire session, rather than purely the stuff I improvised (though most of it was improv on the whole) ....and went on and did this...I just got caught up remembering it, I guess. lol.]
[To set up the whole situation: The pre-existing party is: the Leader and the Psychic. The new member is the Channeler, with a pet Amaura. Now that that's out of the way...]
First off, we got a new party member because someone just went dark on us...completely forgot to prepare a intro segment to get her in to the party. 'Well, it is getting rather dark by the time you guys start to gather and head out. It's probably a good idea to go to one of the inns,' I tell the main party. They get their segment, and go to bed. Then the new member ended up in the same inn, getting her segment. Morning comes and they get a table together (they were all, already established, "esteemed guests", so the table was set aside for all of them), and they just joined together. No fuss at all.
That's so rare to see. Normally a rogue would go wandering off instead of joining the party. Like, COME ON! YOU JOINED THE GAME to be part of a group. Don't bring a character that doesn't want to group! Glad that didn't happen.
So they finally head off to find the blacksmith's boy.
However, this did mess with my session's time schedule. Instead of finding the farmhouse at night, they arrived in the middle of the day (the distance from the town was already established to be just 10 miles north). It wouldn't make sense that they'd stay the night. ("Oh no! What do I do?") "Do you have any leads for where we can find the Blacksmith's boy?" The Leader asks the farmgirl. ("AH! Leads! They'll be two other farmers, and they can choose one.")
They hear howling mostly from the East (before they arrived at the house), though it bounces around, and also seems to be coming from all directions. One of the farmers, Aiwin, is towards the East. The party Psychic says they should go that way. Reasonable enough. But I needed time to prepare! Oh! I remember! I had a random encounter that was basically a sand-blast trap set on the road. I'd use it here! Everyone is caught unaware, and take 1 point of damage. 'It seemed really...ineffective.' I said. (Oh NOES! Why is there a trap on the road! And a road to a farmer's house no less? Oh gods!)
Thankfully, they were thinking (and discussing) the same thing...with less panic, admittedly. Which gave me time! (Ah, the traps aren't meant to harm, just to scare. Aiwin is a loner of a farmer! That'll work.) 'You guys start to hear distant, almost angry yelling.' They turn to face the quickly approaching elvish farmer - one so ancient, it made the millennia old alchemist look new-born.
The party asks about the traps. "Dem dere traps keeps those 'Pokemans' off my lands." Doubt spread between party members. The traps didn't seem too effective, when they encountered it. "Well, ye don't see no Pokemans here, does ya?" Well, that's true, so they just accept it.
They ask about the boy and the howling. He wasn't much help in that department (aside from finding out that the boy went missing around the same time that the howling started), but offered to take them through his lands to look for this howling that they were so concerned about. Now I'm out of plans. I don't want them to attack yet. ("Ah! I got it! The traps were keeping Pokemon out. That is a potential side plot to explore.")
(All of this section was completely adlibbed)
'You hear another explosion, like that of the sand-trap that hit you. Then, with speed that even surpasses yours, Aiwin takes off in that direction, hoe in hand.' They follow, to find a group of 4 Bellsprout and 5 Oddish being bashed savagely over the heads by an elf with a hoe. "You get the distinct feeling that there is one less of this group than they started with." I tell the party Channeler (Pokemon-whisperer).
"No! Stop!" The group yells and grabs at Aiwin, then asks for an explanation. "I can't be havin no Pokemans on my lands. You saw what they do's to the other farms!" Aiwin exclaims. The pokemon are panicked but not attacking at this time. "Well, have you tried, like, talking to them?" The Channeler asks. The answer was obvious.
The channeler turns the Pokemons'(?) attitude to "helpful", and after a series of emotion-communications, they find out (somewhat obviously) that these plant-pokemon want to set root in Aiwin's lands. The entire party tried to convince Aiwin to let them stay in a plot of land. They made several good arguments, and just impressed Aiwin by talking to the Pokemon...but he definitely didn't want them on his lands. 'Roll Charm' (diplomacy). They do so, getting middling results, but passed. 'He's not happy, but huffs and says "Fine. I'll build a fence around them. Just tell them not to move from where they sit."'
The group of Bellsprouts and Oddish lead to the plot that they want to set root in. They had to reassure Aiwin that it was worth him digging up his Elf Root (healing ingredients), and let the Pokemon stay, before he heads off to get fencing materials and tools.
"Hey, can you ask these Pokemon if they know about the howling?" The Leader asks the Channeler. Everyone gets wide-eyed, and suddenly laughs, almost simultaneously saying "I completely forgot about that." Auspiciously, they here another session of howling start again.
"Do you know where the howling is coming from?" The Channeler asks. 'You get the images of a blur.' "It appears they don't know where it's coming from either." She (the Channeler) tells everyone else. "Well, what about what's actually causing the howling?" The Leader instructs. 'You get images that seem to suggest something along the lines of "Wolf + Human" '
"Hah! It's werewolves! I called it!" The Leader exclaims. "Hey, we don't know that for sure, yet," The Psychic retorts. "Either way, we should keep going East. That's where the howling's strongest." Leader says. And with pretty much no complaints, they get going.
'As you guys go passed Aiwin's lands, the howling definitely seems to be encircling you. You have isolated yourselves.' I tell them. "Is there a tree nearby?" Leader asks me. (He seems to have a thing for shocking trees, so we just groan. That seemed random.) He sighs. "No, I mean, if we are about to be attacked, you two should be up in a tree to get a vantage point, while Amaura and I protect from down here. I don't think werewolves would have ranged attacks."
'Oh, sure. Give me a moment,' as I frantically search the interwebs for a "D&D farm map". 'Wow, this is completely terrible quality, but here. This is what the area is like. There's one tree in a 5-ft pit, and 2 very, very nasty streams, in an otherwise open grassland.'
They set up and...nothing happens. In fact, the howling stopped. A knowledge check later, 'You know that howling is a means of communication. They wouldn't continue to howl if they didn't need to communicate. It's possible they are closing in more silently.'
"Well, while we're sitting here, I'm going to make a Survival check to see if there's any food in this tree." Psychic says. 'You find leaves.' After a laugh, Leader (who was on the ground) decided that was a good idea, and that he'd cook up something he can find. 'Without going too far, you can find mushrooms - though this time, you're *certain* these are edible.' (They had an encounter with Teemo last session.)
Leader starts cooking a stew...and...nothing's going on. (I already decided that these enemies would be somewhat intelligent, and 2 people just climbed a tree and readied for ranged combat. The werewolves aren't going to attack until they have an advantage.)
"What's going on?" They murmured between themselves. "You think they are going to attack at night?" 'Make a knowledge check.' I reply.
'You know that wolves, and werewolves for that matter, have good night sight. You guys actually hear that the howling has actually gone further away. It now seems to be coming from the west.'
The realization dawned on the Leader. "Guys, this howling was going on before we were even here. We aren't the targets!" Psychic then follows up with, "What's towards the west?" "Aiwin..." The rest of the group realized. "We're heading back."
(Not exactly what I had planned, but I was definitely going to along with this.)
'You guys make it back to Aiwin's place just before it gets too dark.' ("Well, this is a good way to use that house-encounter with the werewolves that I messed up.") 'You see Aiwin, nearly done building the fence around the Oddish and Bullsprout, who've all, already, burrowed in to the ground.' "Ah, welcome back. I wanted to thank you for helping me. I've got spare rooms in the house if you need to spend the night."
"Yeah, that's good and well. We'll do that. Just go inside! We'll come in later." Leader almost commands. A successful command check actually has Aiwin obey without knowing entirely what's going on, but feeling the importance of the command. ("Darn it! They aren't going to sleep here. Well, considering what they assume, it is stupid to sleep for the night...hmm, I don't have a map for right out front.") 'We'll use this background image you guys were looking at, for the map. Everyone, initiatives and perception checks.'
Long story short: Crit! Freeze! Paralyze! Crit!...while the werewolves literally only got 2 attacks in (both from stealth). The first one being the bite from the alpha, which the psychic teleported the Channeler away from, and intercepted with his staff, and the second being a minion werewolf, which used Sand Attack on said Psychic, before being turned in to a popsicle. The others couldn't even do anything.
'Oh Wait! The Alpha broke free of the paralyze, and-'... "No, reroll that." The Psychic says, activating his Probability Control power.
I didn't do anything too fancy, as we were already running up to 3.5 hours in, and I didn't want it to be more than a 4 hour session. They were targeting the ones that were ranged...they just never got the chance because CRIT! lol.
(To the channeler) 'As you shoot your arrow through the frozen Werewolf 1 [yes, creative name, I know], you see spirit essence that you associate with Pokemon, dissipate, as a human child falls to the ground in a frozen heap.'
"These are just children." She says, slightly distressed. And then we go over the death rules. "Yeah, it's really freaking hard to actually kill someone in this game." Psychic says. "Well...OK, Amaura. Use Powder Snow on the last two, just be gentle." She, amazingly manages to not crit, and knocks them out, along with the spirits. [Although crit successes never mean you do something badly. It's a SUCCESS for peat's sake! But that's another tangent for another time.]
An elf child, and another human. The only one left was the alpha, with glowing red-orange, puss-filled scars...who was paralyzed, and unable to run, panicking all it may be. They put the panicked beast out of it's misery, and it follows suit as the rest did, turning in to a dwarf child, though it looks noticeably more...corpse-like. 'Yes, the dwarf has a pulse.' I say as Leader asks.
The Channeler (trained in Medicine) goes over and treats Werewolf 1 first, and successfully stops any bleeding. 'You notice the child has ritualistic scars. In fact, it seems very familiar, like the ones the Alpha has.' She treats the rest and then looks at the Alpha. 'On closer inspection, it would seem as though these scars can't have been made by the Alpha. Someone else had to have inflicted them upon him. There were several places were a dwarf, simply could not reach on himself that had scars.'
After some talk as to the logistics of carrying the 4 of them back to Aiwin's place...well, they just carried them to Aiwin's house, wherein Aiwin was very shocked to see his great grandson scarred up and unconscious on the backs of these recently met people. With a bit of a conversation, it was decided that the party will sleep upstairs, and they'd set the children down on the couches. Aiwin would watch over them for the night.
[And we end at 3 hours 57 minutes! Boo Yeah! I was tired then. I am tired now. Off to bed! Hope you enjoyed.]