Midwest Zoom (Oct 16th '21 ???)

[iKarith]

Barbarian wandering off in his own side-direction while everyone else is off fighting four suped-up chaos warriors?

[Kurgan]

Played an in-person game with an old friend (he hadn't played hq in many years, but experienced role player in general, controlled all four heroes) over the holiday weekend. We played my revised version of Prince Magnus' Gold. Trouble is his party found the reinforcement rooms and cleaned them out. The rallying horn (plus some strategic use of pass through rock) helped the process of making it back to the stairs. The quest was just over 3 hours in total (I'm firmly convinced that one player controlling 4 heroes just makes it take that much longer, because you have to manage all that stuff instead of having your actions ready to go more or less when its your turn even if you were to ditch the combat and EW threat cards), no hero deaths.

We did playtest some other unusual house rules like shooting over the dwarf's head (major exploit, why did I agree to that?? I often thought it "made sense" but the Dwarf got to stop doors and the Elf was always close behind with his crossbow, well of course) and rolling doubles three times in a row grants the hero another random combat card (only worked once, for the dwarf... this rule needs some re-thinking though).

Used combat and EW cards, extended treasure deck (70 cards), scrolls, etc (the usual). No bonus potions or starting gold but the Heroes got four random equipment cards (and were able to search the weapons rack they found to get another piece). So new equipment: helmet (rack), crossbow (elf), cloak (wizard), shield (barbarian), warhammer (dwarf). The Heroes only found 50 gold in the whole quest (and would have lost it from the EW card), but did find Potion of Strength, Healing (1d6), Fire of Wrath (Spell Scroll).

All monsters were found and destroyed, spells used:
Wizard used: Fire of Wrath (to finish off a Fimir), Ball of Flame (same), Genie (defeat Chaos Warrior), Pass Through Rock (to make a beeline for the stairs, got half way there at least), Rock Skin (protect the Dwarf who blocked the enemy path), Courage (Barbarian wiped out a room full of Orcs).

Elf used Water of Healing (on Dwarf), Sleep (failed to put a Fimir to sleep), and Fire of Wrath Scroll he found on another monster (probably a fimir).

Essentially Barbarian and Dwarf were used to block doors and take the brunt of damage... Elf used crossbow to great effect (allowing off axis firing and the diagonal touching squares really makes this weapon useful!). Wizard used many spells, but other heroes didn't take much damage they couldn't handle (potion of healing helped the dwarf for 4 lost BP).


I suppose I could make the "reinforcements room" undetectable by the heroes, but since I didn't anticipate it would be found and cleaned out so easily, I let it go. Dwarf found and disarmed one trap, the rest either missed (spear traps except 1) or hit (pit trap), or were easily found and walked around (near the beginning).

The party discovered the first chest but didn't take it until the other two were located.

The way I handled the chest carrying mechanic, is that once a Hero searches for treasure, the chests are identified. He states he's picking it up and then he has to re-roll 1 red die (essentially resetting his movement). Any boosts I allowed (swift wind was not used, but I would have allowed 2 movement dice). Rallying Horn gave alerted heroes 1 extra red die, meaning they would have two with a chest (three without, nobody had plate armor... but even if they had plate, the chests just slow you to 1 normally). Without this it would have been much more of a slog. The Rally Horn did trigger two fimirs for the Dwarf, but he stayed alive with a little help from the others. Much equipment and potions were handed to adjacent heroes (always on the turn of the one handing it over).

A lot of monsters got bad defensive rolls, but the Heroes got their health chipped away by hazards, traps and triggered more than a few Wandering Monsters (also the EW card helped with that!).


This is essentially a very easy quest, it just takes a lot of time. The designers must have wanted to give the young Heroes a bit of a break in between otherwise tough quests (for a beginning party playing in order).

But it was cool to play in person (a local game shop opened up their "game space" for us to play... never did that before, but it was cool, nobody stole our miniatures but a few pathfinder players did compliment us on the game) finally after over a year! Next time though we'll pick a better table (it was around card table so we both hand to stand and do a lot of reaching... I also realized the GM screen I'm using is a bit too tall (or I need taller chairs). Still, a lot of fun! It will be back to zoom games soon until the next time.

[iKarith]

I actually wonder if splitting the treasures up like that actually makes the quest go faster. someone's gotta take the chest back the slow way, but that one player can do things that allow them to move faster. They also had the rallying horn—we might want to get one of those at some point.

[Kurgan]

Available now wherever heroic equipment is sold!

[iKarith]

Available now wherever heroic equipment is sold!

Yeah, it's not like we can't afford it. This party could buy pretty much any one thing in the village at this point. Might want to consider a helmet for the barbarian but he doesn't need it yet.

[Kurgan]

This coming weekend is sounding like it may be busy as well. I'll post updates as I find out what's going on.

I suppose if my old in person gaming group does get together and starts meeting regularly (in the old days it was every other Saturday), maybe we'll have to have a "virtual seat" at the table. I know they've done that with some absent friends before.

[iKarith]

UNCLE ZARGON WANTS YOU! shirt

Want.

[Kurgan]

UNCLE ZARGON WANTS YOU! shirt

Want.

Thanks! Designhill custom print for $24 (sadly, putting "yeoldinn.com" on the back would have doubled the price...).

Actually that might be a good idea if we wanted to drum up more members, if I do more public gaming. The small midwestern Games shop I stopped at complained that Hasbro wouldn't be shipping Remake HQ to his store "they're keeping all the money themselves." Apparently he'd have to buy a 'used' copy after it comes out and then charge double... which doesn't sound good.

[iKarith]

Hopefully he'll be able to order it when it goes up for sale to the general public. If he cannot, it bodes poorly for the remake being around for long. If that is the case, well, I intend to make it as easy to get into the game as possible.

[Kurgan]

Nobody has contacted me lately and I understand now that more people are vaccinated and getting busier so no worries, but I don't think it's going to happen this weekend. Next weekend I'm definitely busy myself but the following its possible (July 9/10).