A few weeks ago, when I was on
vacation with friends, we played a long one-shot. It took about 8 hours and
when we finished the story was almost over, but not completely. It all took
place in the Ultraviolet Grasslands,
which is a pointcrawl and setting by Luka Rejec of WizardThiefFighter. I am
backing his Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/wizardthieffighter/overview
) and it was nice to play the setting instead of only reading it. The system we
used was made out of Luka’s blogposts put together (at http://wizardthieffighter.blogspot.com/p/wtf-house-rules.html
) and the three characters were a martial arts priest (fighter), a cowboy (thief) and a
pictomancer (wizard).
We decided on going for an assassination
of a Porcelain Prince in the Potsherd Crater. That would be doable, I thought,
in the timeframe we had.
I will now list things with
bullet-points:
Things the players liked:
· The setting of
Ultraviolet Grasslands
o
The cat theme of
the Violet City
o
The drugs theme
throughout
o
The idea of
porcelain golem bodies to try and be immortal
· The barber set the
cowboy (Burt) got at the start. He used it to kill a shady NPC
adventurer.
· The inn where they
killed the adventurer, hired another and got information out of a third.
Things the players didn’t like:
·
My combat was way
too easy. Part because I had planned three combat encounters but we only
finished one. Part because I didn’t used my own rule set for creating the encounter.
·
The wizard saw
ghosts because of drugs and was clueless what to do. I should have given more
information, or phrased it in a better way.
·
That the one-shot
took so long. I wasn’t sure how long travelling would take, so I cut down on
the last travel encounter and that was breaking immersion.
Things I, as DM, liked:
·
The whole setting
of the game and the idea of travelling long, reaching steppes. Also the easy
way I could adjust or improvise in it.
·
The pictomancer who
could create his own spells by drawing.
·
I enjoyed an
encounter with a shaman who gave them drugs to learn from spirits. They didn’t
learn anything, but I liked the roleplay.
·
Using rolling
tables, which I’m not used too, during the game.
Things I didn’t like:
·
Noting supplies is
nice for a campaign, but was a bit much for this one-shot. It made them think, though.
·
That my combat was
way too easy. I have to up my game and actually use the encounter rules that I
love, especially with timers.
·
The hedge maze that
blocked them from entering the mansion of the Prince, was not detailed enough
and overcome quite easily. They said it felt the most game-y part of the game
and I agree.
In the end I really did like
the setting and I can only encourage you to buy it when it comes out. On the
Patreon of WizardThiefFighter the writing on Ultraviolet Grassland has finished
since yesterday. I hope Luka’s system rules will be published and edited
somewhat later too, because there seemed to be interesting ideas in it.
I enjoyed the game. I
improvised a lot actually and learned more about DMing and running such games.
I’m also working on my voices (got a compliment about that), but I need to
seriously get tougher in doing combat.
Here’s Luka’s current blog/site
to end this post: https://www.wizardthieffighter.com/
No comments:
Post a Comment