ICRPG: Shadow over Iceton

I wanted to run another ICRPG adventure, this time falling back to fantasy simply because I know the genre so well, I knew it would be a good measure of how I felt about the  system and if I felt I could run many games using it. Thus, I began my search for good concept art for the adventure I had in mind: a dark force has befallen a small, frozen village called Iceton. Many heroes have gone forth to solve this puzzle but none have returned and now the mayor is desperate, sending out word that he will pay well for a solution to be found!

Our intrepid heroes ventured to the small village perched on the edge of a steep mountain cliff (check out that artwork!) and made there way across the snow to the largest building. The building sat perched out a think outcropping of stone, just before a large keep.

They entered what ended up being a large but run down pub (I quickly decided to add a scene here and grabbed a random tavern piece of art, ended up being for a pirate setting! Haha! I decided to roll with it.) Inside they met a Kitt named Reek manning the bar (from the Warp Shell setting but I think they are cool), a small ferret-like creature. He uses 2x4s nailed down haphazardly to navigate around the human sized bar and serve drinks. The players laughed a little so I think they enjoyed interacting with Reek. After some friendly banter, and generous payment, the small bartender suggested they speak to an old man named Rolfe rather than speak to the mayor directly. They secured a guide in the form of a young hearty ranger named Gwenvold, she would take them to The Tomb of Ergot, the place Rolfe believed the evil was emanating from. Rolfe also suggested they visit a local seer named Marvinikov. Unbeknownst to the two adventurers, they were being sized up and their true nature being weighed by the old man and the seer. Found to be worthy, the seer provided them with clues to how to defeat the dark forces in the tomb. "Seek the eyes of Ergot, the eyes are the secret; Only the flames can close them; Without his eyes he has no sight and thus ends his doom!"

This meeting with Rolfe later proved to be pivotal as the mayor was later revealed to have been in league with  dark forces and was sending men to die for their souls to feed this unknown dark forces.

Soon, the trio headed out on the wind-blasted ice and snow, hours later  coming to a frozen waterfall that must be climbed. Here I used a timer as well as the effort mechanic to track each man's climb up the wall. They had secured ice-picks in Iceton so they were able to use the Tool effort die. As the timer wound down, a large bear appeared atop the waterfall, momentarily freezing the men in their precarious position on the ice, but the creature quickly grew bored and wandered away.

Moments later the trio were able to finish their climb, only to discover that the one bear had become two! A large mother and her cub now watched the three as they scrambled off towards the tomb. 

The tomb door was solidly closed and would require another 1 Heart effort to open, unfortunately the bears were hot on their trail! Some quick thinking on Brooke's part saved them. As he approached the stairs, he tore up a trail ration and spread it along the trail, then continued to help his friends open then large stone door. The hungry bears could not pass up the yummy trail rations of dried fruits and nuts and gave the PCs enough time to safely enter the tomb and close the door behind them.

Next, they entered a cold, gloomy tomb, but unlike one they had experienced before.  A frozen path led to a steep stairway down to a thin path that wound around in the bluish gloom. Over them stood a large and imposing face carved into the very rock! Embedded in it's sockets were glowing blue gems! The path was covered in ice and slick, requiring DEX checks to keep on the path. Multiple failed attempts left the PCs down some hits (-1 per slip from falling, then slamming into the cold rock walls below the path when their ropes saved them). Eventually, some good rolls got them up to the eyes and they melted the ice holding the gems in place.

The  PCs attempted to burn the gems, hoping this was the flame the seer spoke of but the fire had no effect. They decided to push on deeper into the tomb in hopes of finding a clue to end the dark cloud over Iceton. Continuing down the path, they then came to the final area:

A chamber stood before them, the roof open to the elements, soft snow floating down onto the scene before them. A huge  skeleton kneeled before a raised throne, large chains pinning him to the ground. On the throne sat a massive skeleton, a heaty axe splitting its skull. Before the throne sat two braziers, blue flames blazing high. The PCs acted quickly but not fast enough.

Ringo burst forward as chains erupted from the floor, narrowly missing him. Brooke was not as lucky and a chain ripped into his leg, halting his progress. Ringo continued forward and was able to toss a gem into one of the braziers. A jet of flame shoots skyward, blasting Ringo with ice cold air. The skeleton on the throne stood and removed the ax from his head, roared at Ringo's insolence. Brooke tried to toss his gem to Ringo but the toss went wild! 

Dodging another chain, Ringo was able to rush and pick up the gem while Brooke distracted the giant skeleton lord with a crossbow attack. With a lucky initiative roll, the pair was able to toss the last gem into the fire and the giant crumbled into a pile of bones at the bottom of the stairs! Fate had smiled upon them this day!

Thoughts. . . . . .

I was really impressed with ICRPG in play. As a GM, I was able to create this full adventure in very little time, even making major changes to the scenario moments before the players began a scene. A perfect example is the scene with the large face. I had performed a search for just the right piece of art numerous times and until moments before our session started I had been unable locate just the right piece. I was able to drop it into the Runehammer VTT and quickly work up how the scene would work just as the players were opening the front door to the tomb!

We had some discussion following the game regarding if ICRPG would work for a longer campaign, if we thought it would work or not with how progression is handled. I did a little digging on the forum and some solidly good points were brought up. I think I am going to see if the players want to continue adventuring with these characters, I will likely be adding some elements alien to ICRPG and more akin to OSR games like resource management like rations, gold coins (for purchasing things), and increase the focus a little more on exploration/hexcrawl type things.

We will see where this goes....

Star Wars ICRPG

I have recently fallen for ICRPG. I know, I know, many of you old schoolers are going to cry and whine, probably click away. That's cool, be well.

The rest of you that stayed...wow! First off, I had this silly idea of trying to run a Star Wars 'one shot' using ICRPG without a major muscle movement. I did not want to spend days creating new bioforms, creating weapon lists, equipment details, etc. I wanted to see if I could run it as is but get the feel of Star Wars. So, to that end we used the rules as is, we made nothing, created nothing and just went for it.

Using the image-not-a-map method I discussed previously here, I dropped in some concept art for The Lodge (where Lando plays Sabac) from Solo. I used the Runehammer VTT, which is a quite slimed down and easy to use VTT. Many of you have used other VTTs will balk at the limited powers of this but that is actually it's strength. This no-frills VTT allows you only enough tools to run the game using the ICRPG rules.  

Lox and his pilot, K-3SO ;-) were hired to take Kaz and Torb on this heist: robbing an Imperial Conveyex Train of a small portion of coaxium hyperfuel without being detected.

Our adventure was a riff off the train heist in the film Solo with a few added bits. The tracks had sensor towers that could detect a ship coming in, so our hero had to be dropped in out of sight, trek to the cliff above the sensor, then rappel down to the sensor. To add to this, the wind was violently dangerous and could rip him from the cliff face, building in strength every so often. I used a countdown timer to predict when the wind's howls would increase and a moment later the wind would blast him. Roll and repeat.

In addition, Imperial probe droids patrols the track, coming by every so often (again, determined by a countdown timer). Lox, our little hero managed some amazing rolls and was able to get down very quickly and easily. Then he had the fantastic idea of hiding in the sensor tower's probe droid ports (they had to hide from the strong winds too). Hiding inside, he again made amazing rolls with the idea of hacking the system to close the door over the port. Instead, he managed to close ALL the port doors, effectively trapping the incoming probe droid just as the wind picked up. That sucker was bashed against the cliff by the strong winds and destroyed immediately (he rolled a nat 20 here). Next, Lox quickly disabled the sensor tower and was picked up by his ship.

Lox, Kaz, and Torb dropped onto the train and began searching the cars, looking for the coaxium. I rolled randomly, counting from the back and sadly it was in the most forward car. Here I added a countdown timer (a d6 this time, sorry Hank) that determined when the train hit a sharp turn and basically went completely sideways. This would require characters (not wearing those fancy magnetic boots, standard issue for Imperial Range Troopers) to make a DEX check to stay on the train.

As they got to the next to last car, the Range Troopers climbed out of the first car and began to defend the train. The fight went very fast, deadly, and fantastic. 

A few points:

1) I used the Effort mechanic for Lox to climb down the cliff face and for hacking the sensor tower. I honestly questioned this before the game. I have to say this is SUPERIOR to any other method of determining the resolution of something that might take multiple attempts (like bashing through a door, hacking a computer, repairing an engine). I absolutely love this mechanic. My friend who played Lox stated the same thing. This alone is worth the price of admission. 

2) This game is deadly! Troopers used blasters, which use d8 effort and when most beings have 1 Heart (10hp for you grognards), two hits....or a single hit with a critical is very dangerous. When you roll a critical, you roll your normal effort die, in this case d8 for guns, PLUS a d12 ultimate effort.

3) The ease of creating a SW adventure with little effort has me wondering what other games/genres could be ran using this. My friend wants to run an adventure in the vein of Dresden. Can't wait. I am really interested in an Colonial era Vaesen-style game.

Solo Conveyex Sensor Tower (ICRPG)

 

Drew up a sensor tower for my upcoming ICRPG Star Wars game, this is similar to the towers that were lined along the train in the film Solo. I have added three portals, these will be small slots that the Imperial Probe Droids will drop into when the wind becomes too strong. I am changing a few things from the Solo film to make it a little more interesting.

ICRPG - Star Wars!

I have found a new love for ICRPG, mostly from watching Kane's Kiln videos on YouTube. If you want to understand how ICRPG runs and works, I highly recommend these videos. Certainly changed my thinking on the game. Above is the KX model droid I made last night for the game.

I am going to be running a small game, what I call a mini-series, for a friend of mine set in the Star Wars universe, ripping off of Solo a bunch for the general concept. I will be using many of the ideas Kane discusses in his videos. One I particularly really want to give a go and see how it plays out is using art instead of maps in the VTT. 

Now, hold on. I know what all my OSR peeps out there are saying. What?!?! No map, Matt?? How??? What the fu...??? If you watched this video: https://youtu.be/hSD4CgY-yDM  there is a moment where Kane uses an image of a town and has the player move through the town, consulting with merchants here and there looking for Rings of Power.

Not finding them, he pushes on to another merchant.

Not finding them still, he pushes to a third merchant

The thing I really like about this is that you can convey a theme, atmosphere, or feeling for a location through artwork far better than a map. This works for encounters too and can really set up a scene beautifully. For an example, look at this amazing artwork he found online to use for an encounter at a waterfall.

I know what my OSR grognards are already thinking; "But..but...the tactical positioning...yadda yadda". I get it, I thought the same thing at first, how do players move around the map, how do you measure distance, range, etc. What it comes down to is "Does that really matter?" or does the dynamic feeling of the image matter more? Depends on your style of game I guess. 

Me personally, I really like the use of that image, and players can still drop their tokens/minis on there and move around. I do not see how the differences in measurements across that image would make that much of a difference. IMO if you are measuring inches on the map and determining if characters can do something based on a difference of a few inches or a foot....that sounds less than exciting, but maybe that just me. 

Another example of atmosphere being conveyed in ways that a map probably never could. I am actually not sure how one would draw a map of this location!

For example:
old school style
Player: I want to blast that ghost with my Fireball of Spookblasting spell!
DM: (gets out ruler, measures distance) Sorry, the range on that is 15 feet, and that ghost is 16 feet away.
Player: ....bummer

ICRPG style:
Player: I want to blast that ghost with my Fireball of Spookblasting spell!

DM: Looks like you are in Near range, blast that sucker!
Player: (happily rolls some dice)

I have always been a little loosey-goosey with the nitpicking of rules anyway, so I am starting to think this fits my style of GMing anyway.

A couple other interesting locations you could use that would be difficult to use in a map form and still get the atmosphere and feel of the place: