BareBones Fantasy Play Report, Part Four

If you missed part three, it is here: Part Three

The group managed to manhandle the kobolds that they encountered with little problem. We had some interesting moments where people rolled poorly and we did some ruling-on-the-fly which is what is making me call +BareBones RPG an Old School game. Alex got his hammer stuck in the rock of the tunnel so for his next attack he switched over to punching the kobold in the face. Sure, you might say "Well, every ruleset can do that" but the fact that he threw this in without a thought and without looking up the rules in a book, well, that is a testament to the old-school feel I see running through BBF. 

Carolyn has a familiar and she managed to role-play the heck out of her little circus monkey to great effect. Carolyn, to my knowledge, has never played a RPG before this game and she took to it wonderfully and in the best way. Did the monkey attack, did she aim to harm the kobold? No, she instead went for an effect, the monkey simply annoying the kobold to distract him. This is one trap I think we experienced gamers fall into frequently: looking for a mechanical result to our actions. Did Carolyn hope the monkey's annoyance would help her? Sure she did, but she was not looking for a mechanical payback from her efforts. Perhaps in my own experienced gamer mentality I gave her one as the result of the monkey's actions. Either way, she played great this session and really seems to be taking to the game.

After the kobolds were dispatched, Cormac inspected the door to the left. The door turned out to be a single slab of stone. A cup looked as if it had been melted to the stone, about waste high.  In old dwarven runic, which luckily Cormac could read, was carved the following:

With life water,

I shall be free!

Normal chaps would have said hell no, but Cormac almost immediately cut his thumb and dribbled a few drops of blood into the cup. Suddenly it glowed orange and then disappeared. Then, much like Tron, orange lines of light began to draw about on the stone, including a large line that split the door in twain. Moments later it opened, thick white smoke billowing out of the opening. He bravely stepped into the room, eyeing the mysterious glowing orange smoke that filled the room. When I cleared the vision in +Roll20 there was a unanimous "Oh shit" moment from the players. I dropped a VERY large token on the map I had gotten earlier that day from the Roll20 Marketplace, one of Max Rinkel's excellent token packs...it literally filled the entire room and gave the players a moment of second thought. You can see the sheer size of it below (of fun note, check out Jerric's comment in the chat bar):

clicken to embiggen

The creature was roughly 25 feet tall, appeared to be made of orange stone and the cracks and wrinkles in it's "skin" glowed fiery orange color as smoke poured out. Cormac made a brave attempt to fight the creature, which merely smacked him aside. Then it burst out of the room, crashing through the tiny door frame and sending debris everywhere. Jerric made a brave stand and blocked the creature from Victoria. 

GM Note here: Earlier the group had discovered a pendant and Victoria had secured it, but never said where she put it, I made the mistake at the beginning of the encounter to ask what she did with it. So players metagamed (yeah, I am looking at you Alex) that this pendant and the creature were related. Bad GM. 

The creature seemed interested in Victoria and approached, Jerric attempting to stop it and was brushed aside. Cormac attacked from behind and was slammed into the rock wall. The creature seemed to be slapping away gnats. Victoria attempted to control the creature with the pendant but failed to have any effect. Then the creature stormed off to the bridge and literally walked out into the air and walked away. Quigley barely managed to jump to freedom and escape the behemoth before it crushed him.

The group took a moment to reflect and hell some as the encounter with the giant had left Cormac pretty banged up.

to be continued...

Just a quick note, the tokens from Max are outstanding, unique and not the standard fantasy variety, so they will offer some thrilling new creatures for the players to encounter...fun fun fun.