Pathfinder to Cypher System... I got this!

Let me start by saying that I'm a person who likes to mix and match different settings with systems. There are people out there that like to do the same thing I'm sure... and if they don't, they should. What better mix than a setting that you like with a system that you love. There's no better combination!

Talking about that, yesterday I ran the second session of the Rise of the Runelords Pathfinder Adventure Paths. The catch is that I used the Cypher System Rulebook for the system, but left the setting intact. A better outcome I couldn't have foreseen! Take note that we used the Roll20 Virtual Tabletop tool for the rolls and Google Hangouts for voice. We only played for a little over 2 hours, but we still had an amazing time! This followed up to a great first session two weeks ago, in which the first hour was spent trying to exorcise those darn technical difficulties demons.

First let me start with giving the lay of the land, including the players. We started the first chapter: 'Burnt Offerings', which is based in a small town called Sandpoint (situated on the Lost Coast of Golarion). As for PCs we had:

Arthur Silverkin, an Empathic Orator who Channels Divine Blessings

Devlin, a Brash Ranger who Carries a Quiver

Sandra "Shanks" Riptide, a Tough Pirate who Fights Dirty

Radaya Silvyre, an Impulsive Sorceress who Rides the Lightning

The PCs were in town for the famous Yellowtail (butterfly species) Festival that is celebrated every year at the beginning of Autumn. As soon as the festivities seem to dwindle down for the day the town was attacked by goblins, causing panic and mayhem all over the town. The first two sessions were spent running around the town helping people and killing the main groups of goblins. The PCs managed to drive off the goblins, which resulted in the PCs receiving cheers and applause the following day.

Enemy conversion to Cypher System  was real easy, and it allowed to me adjust things on the fly, to help the game move along more fluidly. The only situation I noticed on both sessions was the placement of the PCs. It seems that I might not have explained good enough their location in terms of the bad guys (we're using the theater of the mind, i.e. no grids) because they kept asking where they were too much for my liking. Again, it could've been my fault entirely and I'll try to rectify it if it was; but, other than that, they were really good sessions and fun all the same.

The way the players acted let me do GM Intrusions more than once, which made the game more exciting and it gave a change of pace. This brings me to one point that I liked about the sessions: the players roleplayed really well how their characters acted. I let them do both the successes and their failures (with the exception of GM Intrusions of course) and it worked out great! (One player even introduced a Kill-cam with an arrow twice) In terms of damage, the one set by the Cypher System worked without a hitch and it saved us some time as well as number crunching as well.

To conclude this short-n-sweet post, I guess it can be said that the conversion worked quite nicely. There wasn't much conversion really, at least not yet. We'll see as we keep playing future sessions and advance in the adventure. Next time I'll give an actual play report of what went down during that week's session so that people can read what the players came up with in the roleplay.

Till next time and thanks for reading!

Ghost

Destruction and Explosion is their middle name!

A couple of days ago, I ran my second session of Worlds in Peril, a superhero PBtA system hack created by Kyle Simmons. I'm going to recount what happened in the first and second sessions. As always I'll try to keep it as short as possible. However, before I retell the accounts of massive mayhem that the PCs caused, I need to let you know that this was played using Roll20, an awesome tool for online tabletop gaming. Due to situations that were out of my hands the two sessions had to be run with two different groups of Superheroes.

Let's start with the first day. Picture this: a telekinetic/telepathic high school girl, a trained ninja assassin (covered in a cybernetic suit) and bus driver with time-slowing powers. An unlikely team answered the call, albeit by chance, of a bank robbery in Lantol City. They converged on the scene, although each one in their unique way (the ninja ran up the wall of the building, the girl levitated towards the rooftop, and the bus driver walked through the broken windows of the bank).

The bank was overrun by mercenaries carrying military grade weaponry, and who also employed military tactics. The bus driver, Stone, was overrun by the mercenaries, but then was saved by the ninja, named Ronin, who rushed inside the bank, without any regards for his own safety, and took care of most of the bad guys. At this point, the telekinetic girl, named Mentalista, came upon the scene to protect the hostages inside the bank (creating force fields around them, but not all). After all was said and done (after a few bad rolls), the heroes saved the bank, and at the same time completely destroyed it in the process.

(Somewhat of an example)

The second session took place a couple of weeks later after the bank robbery. This other group was composed of the same bus driver, Stone, a morphing girl, Annie Morph, who works at a coffee shop, and the old Greek God Dionysus, who came back from the dead. They were all witnesses to an explosion that destroyed two floors of a skyscraper in their vicinity. This prompted them to rush in to help people escape from the falling debris. It was here that Dionysus saved a woman, in such a heroic way, that he threw her out of the way, she flew and hit a car so hard she fell unconscious. In doing so, he took the debris head on and it broke one of his arms in two places. 

Following this, the heroes noticed the bad guys escaping the building with the use of a zip line which led them to the building in front. All three gave chase and followed them all the way to the roof, but when they get there, the bad guys had escaped on helicopters. Annie Morph threw a cinder block to hit, or at least slow down the helicopter, to keep them from escaping. It worked, she destroyed the tail end of it, which the made the helicopter crash onto another building and explode into a fireball, and then fell to the ground. Once it hit the ground, it made nearby cars creating small explosions that caused mass panic among the citizens.

(Again, somewhat of an example)

Now, while all this happened they fought a survivor from the helicopter (their first Heavy Hitter), who gave them a little bit of a beating, but they managed to survive. He escaped, but the question is: did they hurt him enough to become a threat? Or, did he let them live? Those are the questions that they are asking themselves while they recover their wounds and wait until the next situation creeps up on them. 

Zombies on Steroids!

This week I decided to run a horror/zombie oneshot. It was the first time I played, or even ran, a game of that genre. According to the players, it was very well run they had fun. But I think we should start from the beginning. Let me clarify first that I did not use my own setting nor my own system. The setting that I used was from a game created by +Oliver Shead and his +Immersion Studios called Infected!. This setting has his own game engine called Immersion RPG, but I decided against using it for the simple reason that I'm not comfortable enough to run it yet. This is does not mean I won't use it in the future, not by a long shot.

The system I decided to use was one called Zombieworld, a PBtA (Powered By the Apocalypse) hack, that is tailored towards zombie games. This system was created by AJ Ferguson and it seemed to run really well with the setting I picked. Of course, it was only a oneshot, but it didn't keep us from having fun nor creating suspense (perhaps a little bit of fear) into the players.

Now, I'm going to write a summary of the session and hope it does both the game and setting justice, as I used the short adventure at the end to play it. When I read this setting I fell totally in love with it and as soon as I finished I thought only one thing: Zombies on Steroids!

Summary of play:

We had four PC: The M.D., The Lawwoman, The Suit, The Hunter (all Zombieworld playbooks). I decided that for this oneshot they were together, heading towards a big settlement in a ruined Los Angeles called Baker's Town. The PCs got together because they had heard that there was a possible cure to the disease there, or at least food and a warm bed.

Before they could arrive to Baker's Town, they had to pass through a small settlement called Applesby (a high school turned refuge). On their way to Applesby the PCs encountered some people in need of help (they were being a attacked by a bad human faction called the Red Hand) and after a few minutes of battle they managed to rescue the NPCs. These NPCs took them to Applesby, where they rested, but not for very long.

The Red Hand turned up at Applesby and after firing a warning shot, they demanded that the PCs were given to them. Much discussion happened afterwards and the residents decided to give them up, but thankfully one of the NPCs that the PCs saved helped them escape through an underground sewer system under the school.

While in this underground sewer system, they only had a compass and one flashlight to navigate their way out. A couple of hours heading north (rough directions given to them by the NPC) they started to hear footsteps approaching. As they headed deeper into the system the footsteps got quicker and quicker, and not before long the PCs started to run. They came out of the sewer into an abandoned subway tunnel, which led to a subway station. The PCs got onto the platform, but not before looking at the other end of the subway tunnel. The PCs noticed that there was an Infected looking man wearing a broken up suit and tie, (which they found out later it's called the 'Alpha' Infected, leader of a pack of Infected). He grinned at them before receding back into the darkness.

A couple of seconds later, the footsteps got louder and actually made the ground shake, at which point the PCs darted into a run to get out of the subway station. When they got to the stairs they looked back at a mass of 10+ Infected called 'Runners' (exactly what the name implies) and a couple of 'Shamblers' (which exploded when the Runners pushed them out of the way).

They started to climb up the stairs, but heard a cry for help coming from a nearby restroom inside the subway station. The PCs divided into two groups, one headed for the exit and the other went to answer the cry for help. The group reached that answered the cry for help (sounded like a little girl crying for her mom) inside the restroom was taken by surprise by another Infected called 'Mimic' (name says it all), but managed to get out unharmed (though freaked out a little bit).

The other team had reached the top of the stairs but found that there was a gate, which they opened a little and squeezed under it. They held the gate up for the others, and saw that behind the other team that was coming a mass of Runners were right at their heels. The other team squeezed through under the gate and closed it time before the Runners got to them. Because these are not your typical zombies, the closest ones dove and tried to slid under the gate, but they got smashed as it closed.

The PCs managed to escape and realized that the subway station left them only a few blocks from the entrance to Baker's Town. They looked back one last time towards the Infected, as they tried to get through the gate, and again found the 'Alpha' grinning at them. A few moments later it receded back into the mass of other Infected, disappearing from sight.

That was the end of the session. The players and I liked it very much so I think I'll try to use the Immersion RPG rules the next time I run it. I just hope that I gave the setting the justice it deserved; and those that haven't looked at it, they should. Hopefully, they will be blown away as I was and also come to realize that these are zombies on steroids.

Numenera One Shot: Keford's Lumber Problem

So, today I ran a one shot using Monte Cook's Numenera. I will begin by saying that we couldn't finish due to the small hiccup of a late start.

Protagonists:

1. Amros is a Tough Glaive who Works Miracles
2. Jarbel is a Mystical Nano who Talks to Machines
3. Jernix is a Mechanical Jack who Talks to Machines
4.  Kosuke is a Graceful Nano who Rides the Lightning

The adventure began with the players arriving at the town of Keford.

"Keford is a lumber town. Ships sail Ryness Bay to reach it and leave laden with some of the Steadfast’s finest wood. The lumberjacks of Keford frequently cross the border into Navarene, and while that kingdom has no efficient way to watch that stretch its boundary—the woods are too dense—Navarene soldiers in the area find that those coming from Ghan are likely to attack them on sight just on principle. 

Keford has a wooden palisade. About 4,000 people call the place home, although at any given time there are another 500 or so sailors in town."

- Sage, an Exiled Nano who Travels Through Time

Of course, this description is from the book but it sounds so much better coming from and old sage doesn't it? Anyway, the PCs answered the call for adventurers that Keford put forth. After they made their way through town they found themselves at the Mayor's house. The Mayor explained that recently people who had been sent to get lumber from Westwood hadn't come back. It started a few weeks back and because of it the economy of the town had dwindled; and this made the nearby towns and cities investigate what had happened at Keford. The other towns depended on their lumber for their daily necessities.

After they had a talk with the Mayor, the PCs headed toward what appeared to be a morgue. Here, they found the body of the last person to have come back alive. The victim's name was Berg and he was a lumberjack. He was the only survivor of the last group to go get lumber from Westwood. The investigation of the body led to the conclusion that a type of creature had mangled and scratched the victim to death. They decided to head towards Westwood and find out what was going on inside those scary woods.

"Vast, lush, and green, the Westwood is a verdant forest dominating Navarene’s coastline. It’s known for the ancient redwoods that stretch taller than any trees in the Steadfast. One particular tree—simply known as the Emperor of Green—rises high above the rest. Twice as tall as any tree around it, the Emperor stands at almost 700 feet (213 m). It’s clearly of a slightly different species than the other trees. Its trunk is more than 60 feet (18 m) in diameter at the base, and at seemingly random times in the year, a door appears on the north-facing side. It disappears again after an hour. Few, however, have reached the tree to look for it. Far fewer have seen it and if they have, they haven’t returned to report what lies on the other side.

For long years, people feared the Westwood, calling it impenetrable and dangerous. Rumors commonly spoke of ghosts and ravenous beasts dwelling within. The Westwood and its hungry spirits were part of the folklore all along the coast. But today the people of Navarene have claimed the forest for their own, determined to carve out safe roads to the coast and land for farms and towns. For their efforts, they have stirred an enemy—not the ghosts or tree-spirits of legend, but the culovas. These creatures claim the majority of the Westwood for themselves and attempt to defend it against encroachment. 

In the eastern edge of the Westwood you can find many mills that supply lumber to Navarene and the surrounding lands. Lumber is a major export for the country and is part of the kingdom’s wealth. The wood—particularly the redwood—is highly prized. 

A noble family, the Emols, owns and operates a huge, mobile machine that cuts down and processes trees at the same rate as a hundred loggers. Called the Dark Smoker for the greasy muck it belches into the air while it works, the machine is a jury-rigged mess, requiring a staff of mechanics to continually service and repair it to keep it operational. Repeated attacks by the culovas damage the rickety device frequently, but technicians and nanos always manage to fix it. The current head of the family, Charina Emol, has placed a 10-shin bounty on the head of any culova brought to her. 

Near the Westwood, you can also find a number of paper mills, particularly around the city of Harmuth."

- Sage, an Exiled Nano who Travels Through Time

The PCs went inside the woods only to find a trio of Culovas waiting for them deep inside the woods. In the heat of battle, as the players seemed to take the upper hand (some of the Culovas had lost some of their legs and limbs) the ground started to shake. A couple of seconds passed and, while the ground shook, it split apart revealing a huge dark metal hole underneath the earth. From this hole, a giant Culova (three times bigger than the other ones) came up dangling from a web a couple of inches thick. 

The Culova had mechanical limbs and half its body ran with metal parts and wires. It tried to talk with the PCs, but out of nowhere a yell rang throughout the forest. It came from a warrior named Barrall, who was from Keford. He struck down the huge spider, who fell inside the hole; the rest of the culovas following behind. The ground closed after them leaving the PCs barely alive to catch their breath...

Unfortunately, the story ended here but trust me when I say it wasn't the finale. What would've come after? Had they been able to continue, would they have resolved the mystery which ailed Keford? 

Maybe... maybe not... I do not know, but what I do know is... the answer only lies in the Numenera. 

Ghost DM