Indie Monday (Sep 30, 2002) - Donjon Planescape

[Zak Arntson]

Okay, we played Donjon Planescape (at least, a Zak-butchered version of it, not _that_ different from the real thing) last night. Here's a link to the characters: http://www.indie-rpgs.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=35020

Character Creation
This went fine. There was some confusion between Main and other Abilities, due to the "A combat ability can be attack, defend, damage done, or resist damage" rule. Aside from that, I made sure everyone had at least one ability that would give narrative control.

In short, we had a Swedish Werewolf, Ninja Thief, Half Dragon Human (a big guy with four arms from Mortal Kombat), and a Mummy Wizard (whose permanent item was a floating gold-plated coffin).

The Setup
I'm using To Baator and Back from the Planescape Well of Worlds supplement. The thing starts in a small village, so I ask the players what the hell a werewolf, ninja, four-armed monster and mummy were doing in a small village.

"Playing Poker!"

Okay, so we establish that the Mummy's losing because he keeps dropping the cards (he's not very coordinated, being all stiff and dusty) and everyone can see his cards reflecting in the coffin. I bust into "paraphrase from the book mode" and the players hear about some villagers disappearing in the Wizard's Mound.

The players get interested, so Four-Armed Thing saunters over to make a diplomatic approach. The Ninja walks over and says, "Eat Butt!" or something similarly intimidating. Rolls are made, everyone's properly intimidated, and with his facts the Ninja makes sure that "they offer money" and "lots of it" and "we get a guide."

Aside: I love the fact system. Oh, and the absurdity of the PCs was already making the game awesome. The Player playing the Mummy, whenever asked a question, would just say, "Mruuuunh!"

A Fight!
The guide turns out to be an 11-year-old brat, who's excited about adventure (though a little scared of the party). So they're travelling along through the woods and they hear a deep, scary screeching. The werewolf flubs his "Brother of Wolves" ability to find out what's going on, which means he howls, hears some wolf howls in response, but they speak a different dialect. Norwegian, probably.

Then an owlbear trots around the corner! I had originally (bad Zak) made this thing a level 6 monster (using the Hit Dice from the D&D adventure), but quickly brought it down to level 2 after it kicked ass in the first round of combat.

The thing comes around the corner and looks real mad. I tell the players they look down to see a nest (previously unseen, but we're not sticklers for detail) at their feet. The Four-Armed Thing uses his "Calm Animals" ability, but fails (the Owlbear has "Mad at Adventurers" Ability which acts to counter this. Hey, what else are Owlbears for?). So the facts I give him are: "It's not calm, and you've got yolk on you."

Aside: Don't assault a party with a high-level monster. It just doesn't work. The rules explicitly tell you NOT to do this, so no worries there. My advice: Follow the rules. When I brought the monster down to a comfortable level (i.e., Donjon Level + 1), things went smoothly.

Combat took a while, and leaned towards the dull side. Even after the owlbear stopped kicking ass. The Actions system, where everyone has Actions = Discernment meant that the Ninja got the shaft. He wound up getting bored watching everyone else (especially the Mummy) act a lot. The Mummy did real well, and was a Magician, so he got to do the most interesting things.

Aside: Magic is awesome and encourages a lot of improvisation. The system, where combat successes are most likely applied to attacking and damaging (instead of facts) doesn't encourage as much variety. There needs to be some effort by a) the non-mage Players to spice things up, and b) a non-magic system on par with magic for cool improv.

Oh, and the Ninja and Mummy both cast some spells: Be Silent Motherfucker, Terrible Sandstorm Breath and Sandstorm Hadouken. Watching the Mummy do a Street Fighter-style fireball with burning sand was freaking hilarious. He killed the thing with a fact left over, so the Owlbear, on fire, fell in slow-motion saying "hoo-ah, hoo-ah". That's a real geeky Stree Fighter joke.

Loot the bodies! I love the treasure system for how ridiculous it gets. The Four-armed Thing finds some armor with four arm holes, the Ninja finds some ninja slippers of wall-climbing, the Mummy looks for treasure and finds bupkis, and the Werewolf doesn't find any items.

Aside: I'm considering giving everyone's Main Ability words, and everyone gets "Special Moves" as opposed to only magicians casting spells. That way everyone can get a chance to be bad-ass. Oh, and it would better reflect the video-game-centrism of my group.

The Dungeon
So they make it to the Wizard's Mound. The guide is real scared, but the threat of being put in the coffin makes him stay. First thing they find is a closet full of old robes. The Ninja puts one on (blue w/ faded stars), and the Werewolf makes a Provisions roll to find soap, water and a washboard and proceeds to moisten and disintegrate an old robe.

Aside: In retrospect, I should've rewarded the Werewolf's player for the water & soap instead of having him basically "whiff" his success. Bad Zak.

So a bit of exploring ensues, with the finding of a treasure cache. Four-armed Thing finds no items, Ninja finds a belt of shuriken, Mummy finds a cowboy hat and Werewolf finds a Golden Headband of Damage Resistance +1.

A bit more bumbling about and they find a secret laboratory behind an obvious secret door (which the four-armed thing fails to destroy outright, but luckily it just swings open). In the center of the room is a golden magical circle. The Ninja uses his slippers to climb up above the thing. A failure and some facts I provide ("You fall"), leads to Ninja walking right above the circle, look around, and his slippers give out. He falls into the circle, is enveloped by blue flame, and disappears.

The other players are pushed out of the room through magical force and the secret door slams shut. The Four-Armed Thing tries to bash it open, and rolls so completely well that the door disintegrates and rushes into the wizard's lab, creating a vacuum where the door was which then propels the Four-Armed Thing into the room and into the circle. Blue fire, no more Four-Armed Thing.

The last two players are wondering what to do. The Werewolf suggests to the guide that he goes in next. The Mummy then moans, the guide shrieks and runs into the circle. More blue fire.

Finally, the Mummy hops into the coffin, the Werewolf jumps on top and rides it like a surfboard, and the pair head into the magic circle.

The Other Side
Everyone shows up in the first layer of hell. There's a wimpy little devil guarding the portal, but nobody trusts him. Eventually they learn that the Crazy Witch who lives nearby might help them get home. So off they go, with devil in tow (by way of Ninja Grappling Hook & Rope).

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And that's where we ended things. We all had an awesome time and are looking forward to next Monday. I may try to streamline combat and find some ways to encourage the non-mages to do more improvisation, though this may fix itself as the players get more involved with providing crazy facts. Great work, Clinton!

[Valamir]

Two suggestions Zak.
Tie initiative into the characters Schtick.
If they are body quick let them use Adroitness (which the Ninja has in spades I bet).  If they are mentally quick let them use Discernment (which apparently the Mummy has).  If the mummy tries to get physical or the ninja tries to get mental...reverse it.

2) I know Clinton really doesn't like this idea...but your experience with Facts in combat seems to be the standard.  My solution...ditch the "or".  In otherwords instead of getting a d6 bonus OR a Fact, get both.

The way I do this is have the players describe what they are doing using the Facts, then the GM assigns an appropriate thing for the bonus to role into, then the player decides how many successes to sink into that thing.

So with Four Successes a player narrates up to 4 facts.  The player says "I slice him across the face with a backslash and dance nimbly out of the way"  Ok that's 1d6 towards a damage roll over, 1d6 towards next rounds defense and the player has 2 more d6 to use for some combination of this depending on how he views it.

Would that have helped do you think?

[Zak Arntson]

Valamir,
I'm actually thinking of rewriting a fair portion of the rules. If I don't go that drastic route, I heartily agree with picking your Attribute that determines Actions. It could even be all old school and named, "Prime Requisite."

As for facts & combat, that's a good idea. I'd be tempted to do something like, "every 6-success  rolled = 1 fact in addition to a damage die" or "Half of your successes are facts in addition to damage dice."

I'm working on removing the whiff-ability of the damage roll (i.e., after a successful attack, you still have to roll damage vs. armor to hurt the baddie). But this partly relies on a massive retooling of Attributes. You can see my work in progress at http://www.harlekin-maus.com/donjon/donjon.html.