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| Trying a New Setup - No Laptop In Sight! Off to the left: Whitebox Heroes, Mythic GME and folder containing my various home brewed systems. |
[I couldn't find reactions in S&W:WB, so I used the standard 2d6 in b/x / On the NPC etc.
I gave +1 thanks to the gold and got an 8]
The two figures looked at each other, whispered something and then one replied "Make it 10 and we never saw you."
Ygg, who was out of money now turned to the party, Lykidas had gold to spare and coughed up the other five coins. The guards walked out the door opposite the steps [The PCs are in room 1 for those following along on the map.] counting their gold.
The party worked their way into the adjoining room to the East where large roots, presumably from a large tree, had begun to break through the ceiling. What they noticed to a one was a sense of permeating evil. Searching the room yielded nothing of note and the party readied themselves to go up the steps behind the North door.
[The party is in room #3. For the room contents I rolled Special with Treasure, using my own room stocking tables from 6 Iron Spikes & a Small Hammer #2, but decided that they only had a 20% chance of finding it even if they searched. I rolled 75% - oh well.
The tree came courtesy of Rory's Story Cubes]
[The stair well had been trapped previously with a Magic Missile trap, I decided that necessitated rolling to re-stock. I used the traditional stocking table from b/x and rolled a trap. Using my own trap generator from 6 Iron Spikes, I generated a non-magical trap that had a nauseating effect.]
As the party moved up the steps, they failed to notice the recently installed and somewhat crude gas jets. A noxious cloud quickly engulfed them with all but Ygg vomiting and weakened by the foul stench. For once, his diminished sense of smell, the result of a childhood incident, paid off.
[S&W: WB has a fantastic single saving throw mechanism to use in all situations. No categories of Death Ray, Dragon's Breath, Paralysis etc.
Ygg was the only one to pass and I decided this merited some sort of narrative addition. Hence, the diminished sense of smell.]
As the party slowly reached the top of the steps, worse for wear, although perhaps a touch lighter due to the lost lunches, a snarling twisted figure, not quite human turned the corner in front of them and bared hideous yellow-grey fangs as saliva pooled then dripped from its once human mouth.
Ever vigilant, the party was not surprised to see this frothing beast before them and Ygg raised the symbol of the Hedonistic Lumberjack (a double-bitted axe crossed with a beer stein) to try and turn the ghoul. He closed his eyes and murmured a quick prayer. To his, and frankly, everyone's surprise, the creature backed away and out of sight, refusing to approach the party.
[Turning is very different in S&W: WB. You roll 3d6 vs the target number, compared to 2 in b/x or LL, and then all undead of the targeted type flee for 3d6 rounds - in this case 13 rounds ]
No one felt much like chasing the creature down and instead they took a listen at the nearest door before knocking it open in the typical fashion.
[I figured the party would be on board with not going after it, but I checked with Mythic GME just to be sure, and set the chance at Likely that they would go into the room instead. ]
Rubble, rotting vegetable matter, rat carcasses, the chitenous remains of giant centipedes and more lay strewn about the room. A broken marble statue of a minotaur, missing his right arm, lay toppled in the corner. The graffiti in goblin on the opposite wall was translated quickly by Ygg, "Don't Cool Things Down Here, The Scrubber Will Eat You" (a slight mis-translation due to failing to understand goblin colloquialisms).
Using the map to locate the secret door, the party took a quick listen and heard the sounds of steel clanging on stone, of yelling and hissing on the other side.
[Once the listen check was successful, I decided to roll the contents of the room and got Monster. When I checked my "What is the Monster Doing?" table, I got "fighting", so I rolled up two monsters]
As the door slid open, the party saw three battered and bloodied armored men fighting a giant tiger beetle, which was most definitely getting the better of them. Noticing the party, the men called for help.
[First, I checked to see if they were the chaos warriors at 50/50 and got a 90, no. I decided the party would join in because, adventure!]
The melee was vicious and the beetle killed two of the warriors before the third fled to leave the party to finish the job. Unfortunately, they were of little help, no doubt due to the excitement of the situation.
Of all the strikes made against the bug, only Runolf managed to do any damage. This he accomplished despite the searing pain radiating from the gash in his leg caused by the tiger beetle's mandibles [he took 6 points of damage]. In fact, he manged to kill it by himself, and then immediately set about binding his wounds.
The rest of the party busied themselves searching the room to avoid thinking about their embarrassing display of ineptitude.
Perhaps that is why they did not hear the party of six dwarves approaching.
[Reaction check: Hostile
Their arrival so quickly after the combat seemed to me to imply that they were looking for the warriors and that the beetle was part of their hunt.]
These were not happy dwarves, but dwarves of the very grumpy variety. The leader pointed his dirt covered index finger at the party and shouted something clearly disparaging despite the language barrier.
Eomond, surprisingly a polyglot, translated for the group:
"He said 'We've caught you thieves! You have killed our hunting beetle but you won't defeat us! Give us back the ring!'"
Ygg, through Eomond, offered apologies and tried to explain that this was a case of mistaken identity, that the two dead men and their escaped fellow were the thieves.
[I rolled again for a reaction check and got hostile again, I figured this meant the fight was on ]
Unconvinced of the sincerity of the apology or of the party's innocence they dwarves drew their swords and spread out.
But the party was ready and Lykidas ordered everyone to fall back as he unleashed his Sleep spell on the dwarves; all six of them dropped into a deep slumber. After a brief debate, the party opted not to bind the dwarves, despite whatever threat they might pose in the future.
Quickly, Ygg led the group out the South door towards the unexplored.
Well at least Runolf got a kill.
ReplyDeleteHow are you liking "White Box" so far?
-- Jeff
Hi Jeff,
DeleteThe short answer is, I really like it.
The longer answer is, I really like it, but I have to remind myself that it's not Basic/Expert and when there isn't a rule for something (which is far more often than b/x), stop myself from inserting the b/x mechanism. There's nothing wrong with doing that, but I don't think it's fully in the spirit of Whitebox.
One thing is for sure, at some point I'd like to do a b/x game using the default 1d6 damage for all weapons, rather than variable damage. There's something about the 1d6 for all that I rather like.
I do something similar to that (weapons at 1d6) except that I do make some variations . . . but not by weapon but by class.
DeleteI figure that pure Fighters should be better so they get 1d8 as their basic die; most other classes get 1d6; and pure Magic-users (and normal men) get 1d4.
-- Jeff