Friday, November 9, 2007

Fate: Dark and Stormy report #9

After a few weeks off, the whole team was back together to pick up our adventure through Hightower tor. This week, it was Leo's turn to start us off.

Leo, pleased with his new sword, attempted to hack at the nearest spider leg he could get to. I approved the use of his Fists skill for this attempt. His Fists skill (+2), a +1 roll, and a -1 (supplemental action to get up and run at the leg) gave him a +2. Here, I mistakenly rolled using the spider's Endurance skill, which we later decided wouldn't really be the correct roll. I should have simply given the task a difficulty, or had the spider fight back with something like his Melee skill. The spider's roll, in any case, came up a +5. Leo did no damage. Below, you can see Elros and Leo positioned for attack. Our makeshift spider was quickly prepared by Llama before the game.


The spider now lifted a leg to squash Leo, rolling a total of +5 for Melee. Leo rolled for Athletics, hoping to dodge the blow, rolling a total of -1. Leo's player, J, said, "Having been trained in this type of dodging by Sporren, Leo is likely to get a successful dodge". So, using his "Trained by Sporren" aspect, J rerolled, acquiring a +3 total. I informed him that this wasn't enough to dodge the spider's +5 attack. J used Leo's "I've still got what it takes" aspect, saying, "Leo doesn't want to fail in front of his younger party members, he puts in extra effort to use the spider's leg to push off of and move himself out of the way." Adding +2 for his aspect, and spending a fate point, Leo successfully used the spider's leg to pull himself out of the way of danger, rolling to the side.

Rwake, still wrapped in webs up to the waste, pulled out a 10-inch dart, dipped it in spicy hot chubo juice, and loaded his blowgun. Aiming for the spider's eyes, he shot, rolling a -1. The spider rolled a +3, a fact I disclosed to Llama, Rwake's player. Llama used Rwake's "I can blind both eyes of a snake. With one shot. As it strikes." aspect to attempt an improved blowgun attack, paying a fate point. He rerolled, getting a +1 this time, still not enough to succeed against the dodging spider. Below you can see Rwake back in the hallway, launching his blowgun attack.


Elros harnessed as much Energy magic as he could and channeled it at Leo in an attempt to lift Leo up onto the spider's back. I decided the difficulty would be Great (+4) for this feat. After all, he didn't have much time, Leo was a relatively heavy item to lift, and he was trying to lift Leo a long way up with a lot of control. He got a base roll of -1, added his Energy Magic skill of +5, and spent a fate point to invoke his "Trained at Prestigious Highcloud Tower" aspect to add 2, giving him a total success of 2. In my magic system, this is called a Level 2 spell. Because he had rolled a high Resolve check before casting, the spell did no composure stress to him. Leo soared up and landed directly on the back of the monstrous spider.

Leo used his Close at Hand stunt to pull a chisel and hammer quickly from somewhere on his person, with no supplemental action deficit. He felt around for a joint in the spider's exoskeleton. Then, jamming his chisel into the joint, he began hammering it with all his might. Again, I allowed him to use his Fists skill (+2), since this seemed like close range melee combat to me. I gave this attempt a difficulty of Great (+4) because, according to the SotC table of breaking things, the exoskeleton was agreed by all to probably have Great thickness. Leo rolled a +2, giving him a total of 4. He would need more than that to do damage.

Elros wanted to help, so I allowed him to use a feature of Fate 2e: to spend two of his own fate points to give a +1 to Leo's roll. This gave Leo one shift, which I counted as damage against the spider. SotC experts may find some errors with my GMing in here. I admit I may not be right on with the rules, but for our group, flow and cinematics are more important than looking up rules during the session. I run my rulings by the group before using them, and they approve. Here's Leo on the huge spider.



The enraged spider screeched again and reared back to throw little Leo from his back. The spider's roll of +2, plus his Melee skill of +4, gave him a total of +6. Leo rolled a +3 for Might to hang on to the spider's hair, but lost his grip and flew back several feet to land on the hard ground, amidst piles of cocooned corpses. Stunned, he took a moment to look around and decide what to do next.

Rwake, finally fed up with his stationary state, lit a torch and burned up the webs still binding his legs, saturating the area with an acrid stench worse than burnt hair.

Elros had managed to stay safely positioned in front of the spider during all of this, and now decided to use his skill as a swordsman and attack. His initial roll was not great. But with his Swordsmanship skill and his "Never good enough" aspect (for which he spent a fate point), he boosted it up to a +6, remembering his humiliation at being defeated by the king's champion all those years ago. Strengthened by his resolve to succeed, he leaped forward, aiming a deadly stab at the spider's exposed underbelly as it launched Leo from its back. I set the difficulty of damaging the underbelly to Good (+3). This gave Elros 3 shifts. The spider took 3 damage. The sword had pierced the spider's belly, but not deeply.

We begin next time, once again, with Leo.

This was a great session. First of all, we were glad to finally be playing again after the few weeks off. But on top of that, everyone contributed to a very creative and cinematic session. AC always works hard at making Elros' actions interesting, and he really delivered today with his "make Leo fly" action. Then, on top of that, when J took the camera, he delighted us all by having Leo pull out a chisel and hammer of all things! All in all, it was an exciting session, reminding us all what a great hobby roleplaying is.



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