I’m happy to say I’ve started a new group and we’re going to be trying our hand at Star Trek Adventures. Here is a prologue:
Star Trek Adventures: Prologue
The door slid open with a chime. A tall, dark-skinned man wearing a Starfleet uniform and Captain’s insignia on the collar walked in. “Captain Thabo Mbeki, reporting as ordered.” He saluted and stood upright in a stiff, formal posture.
Admiral Hicks stood up from his desk and smiled, the gesture making him look much younger than his graying hair would indicate. He waved off the salute. “At ease, Thabo. You’re not even officially on duty yet. Please, have a seat.”
Mbeki paused for a moment, looking uncertain. “I was given to understand…that is, I thought – “
Hicks nodded in understanding. “You are wondering about your medical evaluation. Well, don’t. You’ve been cleared for duty. And we have a new posting for you.”
Mbeki took a deep breath, visibly relaxing. The admiral motioned towards the chair in front of him, and Mbeki let himself relax into it. “It’s taken so long, Adam. I thought Starfleet was through with me.”
“We’d all be fools if we were,” Hicks replied, “considering your knowledge and experience… and what you went through, for the good of the Federation.” The Admiral’s gaze scanned Mbeki. Starfleet’s surgeons had done an excellent job, but if you looked close enough you could see the scars on his face and head.
A sad smile came over the Captain’s visage. “Thank you for saying that. With the investigation, the months of interrogations, I was sure they were looking for any excuse to get rid of me.”
“Oh, some of them were. But I watched them like a hawk. Anyone attempting to cast doubt on your loyalty I gave chapter and verse to. Still, it was a near thing: I was the deciding vote on the commission. After what happened, some people are always going to have doubts. I know it’s unfair. But that’s just how it is.”
Mbeki looked down for a moment. “Yes,” he sighed, “the world is imperfect.”
Hicks gazed at his friend for a while, then reached under his desk, bringing out a bottle of blue liquid. He poured two shots, and slid one glass to Mbeki. “Medicinal purposes.”
The Captain studied the blue concoction, raising an eyebrow. “Is this…?”
“Yes,” Hicks smiled, “Romulan ale. Don’t ask me how I got it.” He downed his shot, the fiery liquid exploding in his mouth and down his throat. Mbeki shrugged, then followed suit.
After the tears cleared from his eyes, Hicks said, “Listen, the admiralty is not what it’s cracked up to be. You deserve a promotion. But given the -“
Mbeki waved him off. “I don’t care. I don’t want a promotion. I don’t want to command from a desk. I want to be out there, on the deck of my own ship, working on behalf of the Federation.”
Hicks stared at him for a beat. “You are sure that’s what you want? I get not wanting to become an admiral. And I know what the medical evaluation said. But tell me, man to man, are you ready to get back in the saddle?”
Captain Mbeki straightened up and looked the admiral straight in the eye. “Yes”, was all he said.
Hicks gazed at him, then nodded. “Very well. Then I am officially placing you back on duty. You will take command of the USS Venture, effective immediately.”
Mbeki’s eyebrows went up. “The Venture? So…the rumors are true?”
“Unfortunately yes. The incident claimed the lives of a good portion of the crew, including Captain Kulak and most of the command staff. The ship has been repaired, and awaits in the shipyard.”
Mbeki looked thoughtful. “A challenging situation. It will take time for the new crew to learn to work together as a team.”
“Unfortunately, time is a luxury you don’t have.” Hicks passed a tablet to his friend. “You have a mission. Here are your new directives.”
Mbeki frowned as he read, then looked up sharply. “Is this correct? A potential first contact, in the Epsilon Hydra system?”
Hicks nodded. “Clear FTL waves were detected from the borders of the system by Deep Space Six, near the neutral zone. There’s a lot of subspace interference in that region, so we don’t know how long that species has had the technology. We know nothing about them at all, in fact. But now that we know they’re there, and have the requisite level of technology, we’ve got to make contact before the Romulans do. And of course invite them into the Federation. So there’s no time to waste.”
“I understand.” Mbeki rose to his feet. “Thanks for everything you have done for me, Adam. I will not let you down.”
Hicks clasped hands with Mbeki. “I know you won’t. But be careful – the Romulans cannot be trusted. Godspeed, Thabo.”
As the Captain left the room, Admiral Hicks sighed, and poured himself another shot of Romulan ale. He paused for a moment before partaking. He couldn’t help but wonder if he had really done his friend any favor at all.
In the first part of this series, I examined what roleplaying games are by exploring what people actually do in them. In the second part, I outlined the different reasons people enjoy participating in these games. Now I want to focus on how to play roleplaying games well—specifically, how to be a good player.
When playing, we often need to balance our own enjoyment with contributing to—or at least not hindering—other people’s fun. Fortunately, good roleplaying tends to emerge naturally when we’re doing what we enjoy while remaining curious about what other players find enjoyable.
The Number One Principle: Be Curious
Be curious about:
The world and setting that the GM is creating for you
The other player characters—who they are, what they want, and what they’re willing to do to get it
Your own character—we often discover who our character truly is through play, as they interact with the setting, the GM’s characters, and the other player characters
Core Principles for Collaborative Play
1. Be Curious and Engaged
Ask questions about the world. GMs invest significant effort in establishing the setting and scene details, and they appreciate when players show interest. Understanding more about your shared imagined world gives you more elements to play with, creating a richer experience for everyone.
Show interest in other players’ characters. We all appreciate when others take an interest in our creative work, which is exactly what our characters represent.
Be proactive. Look for hooks to engage with rather than passively waiting for the GM to direct you (unless the scenario explicitly calls for that, such as a mission briefing). Put yourself in your character’s shoes and decide what they would do based on their motivations and abilities.
2. Play With the Party
Avoid lone-wolf behavior unless the group has explicitly agreed to it. While some games are designed for characters to pursue separate goals in different scenes, it’s generally wise to check whether the other players prefer when characters stick together.
3. Be a Good Scene Partner
Share the spotlight. Don’t try to dominate every scene—ensure other players have opportunities to actively participate.
Support other characters’ moments to shine. Help create situations where each player can have breakthrough or significant moments, and have your character acknowledge their efforts when appropriate.
Ask other characters questions and engage in dialogue. This helps everyone learn about each other’s characters and explore what motivates them.
Set others up for impressive moments rather than always taking center stage yourself. The most memorable sessions often happen when players elevate each other.
Be a fan of the other player characters. Enthusiasm is contagious and creates a positive table culture.
4. Embrace Failure & Complications
Don’t resist bad rolls or consequences. Some players treat failed rolls as personal failures and struggle to enjoy the game when things go wrong. In reality, failure can lead to interesting situations and compelling stories. Often, failure drives the most engaging story developments.
Play to discover what happens. If you knew the session’s outcome in advance, wouldn’t that be boring? When a roll has significant stakes and the outcome is uncertain, the anticipation creates genuine excitement.
5. Learn the Rules
Take time to learn rules relevant to your character. This doesn’t have to happen all at once, but make an effort to become familiar with them over time.
Know your character’s abilities and how they interact with game mechanics to avoid time spent looking them up.
Help the GM track your resources (spells, equipment, etc.). This prevents the GM from becoming overwhelmed and keeps the session flowing smoothly.
6. Communicate Out of Character (OOC)
Check in with other players during intense scenes, especially if you’re unsure about their comfort level.
Clearly distinguish between your opinions as a player and your character’s thoughts and feelings. In emotionally charged scenes, other players might confuse character emotions for player emotions, so be transparent about when you’re roleplaying.
Use safety tools when needed. The simplest are:
“Let’s fade to black on that” when you prefer not to hear potentially disturbing details
The “X-card,” where saying “let’s X that out” signals you don’t want something included in the setting or gameplay
Remember that good play requires trust, and communication helps build it.
7. Show Up Ready to Play
Be on time.
Come prepared with your character sheet, dice, and notes from previous sessions.
Minimize distractions.
Put away your cell phone. Checking your phone while the GM is describing something or another player is having an important moment is disrespectful and demoralizing to the group.
And there you have it—my current thoughts on being a good roleplaying game player. How does this list compare with your own experience? Did I miss anything important? Is there anything I should have left out? I welcome your comments!
The first thing I did in my prep was read about Seattle in the 20s. The population at the time was 315,000, wages were about $35 a week, $1750 a year on average. A full, fancy lunch at a restaurant cost 40-80 cents, and a slice of pie 5 cents. There was no TV. Commercial radio had just started. There are phonographs and telegraphs; there were phones, and you could call throughout most of the country by this point. The Great War had ended in 1918; and the deadly 1918 flu pandemic was mostly over by 1920. Prohibition was in full swing, and smuggling booze was big business.
The famed Seattle General Strike of 1919 had just drawn global headlines. The strike was one of the first citywide work stoppages in a major U.S. city, and terrified the business community that a Bolshevik Revolution was about to sweep the country. The FBI swooped in to stop the strike, arrested the labor leaders, and shut down the labor newspapers.
This led to the country experiencing its first Red Scare, a time of national hysteria that brought crackdowns on trade unionists, socialists, anti-war activists, and so on. Vigilante groups such as the Seattle “Minute Men” formed, with the goal of discovering German spies.
The Ku Klux Klan was a powerful component of the Democratic Party at this time, and led an anti-immigrant crusade. In the same vein, Woodrow Wilson’s government launched the “Palmer Raids,” where the federal government rounded up and jailed or deported more than 500 immigrants throughout the country.
There were several incidents of political violence. In what’s come to be known as the Centralia Massacre, a vigilante group marched on the local headquarters of the IWW. In the resulting shootout, 3 of the vigilantes were killed. The police stopped the confrontation and arrested a Wobbly member, Wesley Everest. Later that evening, a mob raided the jail and lynched him from a bridge.
So, when I looked over this bit of history, quite dramatic and violent, I found myself drawn to the horror of the Centralia massacre incident. What if, I wondered, the slain man had a relative that wanted revenge – and was willing to go to extreme lengths to get it? In a Lovecraftian context, that would mean getting the power to identify Everest’s killers, and then bring to them a bloody justice. Suppose that was his son, who made a deal with a spawn of Nyarlathotep to gain dark powers. With that as a seed, I brainstormed from there.
In order to get the spell needed to identify his father’s killers, Everest would need a particular spell. How? Perhaps from a dealer in stolen or exotic goods. Let’s call her Gwendolyn Love, who does business out of a speakeasy. Love has her own problems – a rival, let’s say; Dave Vance, of Vance Export-Import Co., Ltd.
Vance will be a pretty bad guy. Looking over the history, I notice the KKK was quite active, holding large public rallies. Let’s make him their Grand Wizard, and have him be an actual sorcerer with a few spells in his pocket. He and Love have a gangland-type competition, not only in liquor but exotic goods such as scrolls. They’d each like to take the other out, and are looking to recruit others to help.
In addition, the local KKK suspect Everest knows or has some book or scroll from which he gained sorcerous powers, and are harassing him to get their hands on it.
Now, what about a starting scene to let the players know about and get into the thick of the situation? Well, suppose a couple of KKK thugs went a bit too far in harassing Everest, and he responded by letting the spawn of Nyarlathotep loose, killing them. The release of sorcerous energy would be felt by the PCs, who when they went to investigate would find the dead men, and a matchbook with the name “Jake Everest” circled.
I made a few notes on a few locations – the speakeasy, the Vance Company warehouse, a farm used for a KKK rally, and so on. I fleshed out the NPCs more, and my prep was done.
The characters created by the players included:
Name: Joseph Harbinger
Studying as a Jesuit exorcist, Joseph Harbinger discovered a book of arcane formulae that could twist reality. One formula summoned the Whispering Void, which told him secrets that destroyed his faith. He left the order and seeks the Book of Thomas the Other, rumored to contain proof of a benevolent god. Pursuing the book, Joseph had an education in the seattle underworld and persuading people.
Jesuit exorcist +1
Arcane formulae that could twist reality +2
Summoned the Whispering Void +1
Faith +1
Seeks the Book of Thomas the Other +1
Proof of a benevolent god +1
seattle underworld +1
persuading people. +1
And
Name: Silas Whigham
Accompanied by Jenkins (a rat) and plumbing tools, Silas leads the Subterranean Hygiene Intelligence Team. He knows the city’s underground, which is why politicians, detectives, and military officers call on him to deal with unspeakable messes. Silas inhales mind-altering fumes venting from underground: He’s convinced they inspire his prophetic visions. Silas uses his workman demeanor to persuade citizens that his activities are safe and authorized.
Jenkins (rat): +1
Plumbing tools: +2
Subterranean Hygiene Intelligence Team: +1
Knowledge of the underground: +2
Vision-inducing fumes: +2
I had the players introduce their characters and say what they were doing, and then described the initial scene. Unfortunately, I immediately ran into a problem: one of the players got angry with me, accusing me of railroading. The player of Harbinger refused to go to the scene I had prepped, instead wanting to go to the university in pursuit of the Thomas tome. At the time, I was taken aback; I was confused by the response. I went with it the best I could. My notes on the Thomas tome were minimal at best, so I quickly made up a few things – the tome is in Palestine, owned by a man named Mazran. Other people wanted the book as well, for different reasons. Both Love and Vance would have the contacts to broker a deal, but everyone involved was a backstabber. With this background in mind, I kept playing, alternating scenes between the two players.
After the session, I asked this player what was going on. It turns out he and I had a basic misunderstanding: when I did my prep for the game, I did so with no regard for the PC backgrounds at all – similar to how I’d prep for running a dungeon crawl. The player, on the other hand, assumed the exact opposite, that I would base my preparation on his character background, as he wanted pursuing the tome to be his central focus of play. Ron Edwards has some terminology for these two approaches for GM prep, and also distinguishes a third option that’s in between the two, but unfortunately I can’t recall them or where to find them, so you’ll need to ask him if you need clarification. But the point is, the problem arose because the player and I had different expectations of what the focus of play was going to be. Once I learned what the player wanted, I then prepped the next session accordingly.
Anyway, Joseph Harbinger wound up at the Blue Royale, the speakeasy where Gwendolyn Love operated. For a price, she got him the contact information for Abdullah Mazran, the current owner of the tome.
Meanwhile, Silas Whigham pursued the clues he found on the dead klan members, and managed to sneak into Jake Everest’s apartment. Once inside, his luck ran out. After several failed rolls, he became possessed by another spawn of nyarlathotep, who Everest had been keeping in a box he’d hidden away. While the entity didn’t have total control, Whigham’s player would have to make rolls to resist when it tried to exert it.
Behind the scenes: between scenes, I made brief notes about what the NPCs were up to. Everest went to Love in pursuit of the pnakotic manuscript, from which he could learn the spell Azathoth’s shadow (this would give him the ability to look into the past and discover his father’s killers). Everest wouldn’t be able to afford to pay cash for the scroll, so what would Love accept in exchange? She agrees to give him the manuscript if he kills Vance. As this is happening, Vance is preparing to lead a KKK rally. He plans to use the energy of the rally to cast a spell at Love, to kill or enslave her.
The session ended and the players advanced their characters according to the standard Pool rules. Silas’ player added “Possessed by a demon, he has developed secret mental reserves to resist his dark master” and “Mental resistance to parasitic demons: +2”.
It would take a bit of time to describe the rest of the game in detail, but here are some of the moments that stand out:
Since the KKK rally was widely advertised, Jake knew where Vance would be, and followed him there. Silas encounters Jake at the rally, and they have a conversation. They can see the spawns in each other, and Jake is slowly losing his humanity. He reveals he is going to kill Vance. Vance arrives, heading for the speaker stage, and Jake closes in for the kill. Silas has the chance to intervene, but chooses not to. Jake kills Vance, and loses control to his spawn, which proceeds to massacre a number of the rally attendees, absorbing their life essence and growing stronger.
Harbinger locates and makes a deal with another antiquarian, a Mr. Said, who wants the Thomas book for himself but is willing to let Harbinger study it. Their plan involves taking Mazran’s son hostage, and demanding the book in exchange for him. To get the son requires Harbinger to cast a kind of dimensional gate spell, which unfortunately goes disastrously wrong. Said is sucked, screaming, into the void. Harbinger is left with nothing.
Silas is concerned that Jake will lose control and let something horrible into the world if his plan succeeds, so he follows him.
Harbinger goes back to Love, but fails to get anything out of her. Angered, he destroys the entire building with dark magic. He then goes to a church and causes a priest to lose their faith.
There is a final scene where Harbinger, Silas, and Jake are in a church. Jake is ready to cast his spell, and begin to take vengeance for his father. Silas repeatedly tries to do things but his player keeps failing his rolls. Finally, they both try to stop Jake, Silas grabbing him around the neck and holding him as Harbinger’s void spell consumes them both, then himself, leaving no trace of any of them. IIRC, both players succeeded in these final rolls, and both chose to do a monologue, so they collaborated on it.
Although I enjoyed the game overall, I felt bad because the players kept failing rather spectacularly on critical rolls – and I saw my role as to make sure these rolls had serious consequences. My impression was these multiple failures frustrated them a bit, but I didn’t know what I could do about it.
As always, I appreciate any comments, questions, or analysis. In particular, what is your experience when players have really bad luck with multiple critical rolls?
Having heard from some people, such as Ron Edwards, that T&T was the quintessential dungeon-crawling game, I wanted to give the game a spin to see how I liked it and what I could learn from it. The 5th edition of the game is what got the most praise, so that’s the one I tried. My bottom line: the game as a whole is clever and worthy of play, but the text is vague enough that it requires interpretation; such interpretation can differ dramatically from table to table. I’ll include what I came up with below in a comment; for Ron Edwards’ (substantially different, but also perfectly functional) way of playing, please see his website, http://adeptplay.com.
Here’s what happened during the actual game:
So the setting of the game is my own. The evil queen Aletheia, recently released from centuries of imprisonment, and her right hand mage Judore, took over the realm of Varhold, enslaving its inhabitants. From there, she called all the remnants of the Elven diaspora to her. Together, they continued enslaving and conscripting humans and other races into her army, and began a campaign of imperial conquest. None seem to be able to stand against her forces. Desperate for any chance, any hint of weapons or items to fight against the evil queen, rulers of the surrounding territories are willing to pay high prices. So, brave adventures roam the land, exploring caverns and ancient ruins in search of such treasure.
In the dwarven town of Boltheim, refugees fleeing from the depredations of the elven forces have found that their trials are only just beginning. The locals tell of how strange creatures are coming into town and abducting people, who are never seen again. Recently, a teenage abductee successfully escaped, and told how she was held captive in some sort of cave, where she could see chests full of crystals glowing with strange magic. Pleading for someone to help rescue her family, she gave directions to the location from which she escaped.
So the adventure begins with the player characters in front of an iron door leading further into the caverns. I was GMing for two players, each of who controlled two characters, who included warriors Hayoshiko, Atticus, and Enneada, and Sezerain the rogue. The characters were able to enter the door, forcing it open with a combined strength roll. One rules point here: the fifth edition rules talk about saving rolls, but these are really attribute checks. The easiest way for me to understand them was that the player rolls two dice (doubles explode), and adds the relevant attribute value to the total. They need to equal or exceed the difficulty number, which is five times the difficult level +15. The level of difficulty is determined by the GM. So 2d6+attribute >= 15 + (difficulty level X 5). This is mathematically equivalent to what the text describes, but it is more intuitive for me.
The characters quickly found themselves in a room with a fancy rug on the floor, and three doors to choose from. They noticed the rug was clean and looked pristine, so they were quite suspicious of it and avoided stepping on it. I asked for some IQ checks here as basically perception rolls; for those who didn’t roll a 20 or above, I just gave very basic information. One character rolled above 20, and I mentioned how they could hear people screaming faintly in the distance, and that the doors to the east and south were closest to the sound.
The players open the door to the east, and see nothing inside, except a chest and another door. They are suspicious, and don’t go in. They then proceed to the door to the south. One character opens it, and because they didn’t use the key, it triggers a trap. Three giant, hungry spiders are released from above them, and proceed to attack.
Now, when creating the spiders, I gave them the following features. I thought I would give them a monster rating of 20 – but that would mean they’d roll three dice each, and add 15. This seemed too harsh, so I gave them three dice and an add of just five. I was then worried this would make them too easy, so I thought that I would make it so that they didn’t get weaker (roll fewer dice) until they were down to a 5 constitution. In other words, instead of them taking damage to their monster rating they’d take damage to their Constitution of 20. In addition, I gave them a web spinning attack: they can spit out webs, forcing the targeted character to make a dexterity save of 20 or be trapped; once entangled, a character would have to make a Strength roll of 25 or above to escape.
Unfortunately, I didn’t realize just how challenging the spiders would be. A giant spider managed to corner one of the characters, Hayoshiko, into a one-on-one battle. This became a bit of a grind, as the character was a warrior with 12 points of armor. After several rounds where no one did any damage to each other, we quickly instituted the spite damage rule: if you roll a six, then someone on the opposing side takes one point of damage, regardless of armor. Slowly, they were each getting hurt. Hayoshiko tried to retreat to join the other characters so they could fight together. I interpreted this to be a dexterity roll. Unfortunately the character failed (they rolled less than 20). Now here is the first rules question: when someone does a stunt like this, how to adjudicate the attack from the opponent? Normally, you compare the total of weapon rolls from each side, but when one side isn’t using a weapon roll, how to determine the result of the opposing attack? In this particular case, I rolled for the spider as usual, and compared this total to the player’s total for their dexterity roll, basically substituting it for the weapon roll. The spider’s total was less than the player’s. So I interpreted this to mean that the character was not able to reach his companions, but also the spider was not able to damage him. But I’m not clear on how this works in general.
Meanwhile, Enneada, Sezerain, and Atticus were fighting together against two spiders. The first round goes well for them, and they’re able to do 20 points above the spiders’ total, so do 10 points of damage to each spider. The spiders then unleash their web attacks. Atticus and Enneada fail their dexterity saving throws, and are entangled. Facing two giant spiders, Sezerain backs into the room with the chest, hoping to use the doorway to keep both spiders from attacking him at once. I winced inwardly as the player told me this, because I knew there was a pit trap just inside the door to the chest room! The pit trap opens. However, the player makes their saving throw – they needed a 25, and they got a 26. So I say they’re able to roll to the side, their lantern rolling onto the floor beside them.
So now we have three separate fights going on. Hayoshiko is fighting one spider to the west side of the room, one spider is attacking the entangled characters, while another spider is trying to get at Sezerain, who is in the room with the chest, balanced on the edge of the pit trap.
Over the course of several rounds, Hayoshiko tries a number of maneuvers, retreating and trying to get back out the main entrance, trying to get the spider to flee using his torch, and again trying to reach the other characters. Unfortunately, each maneuver fails. I interpreted them as dexterity rolls, with maybe one luck roll in there. Now, the way that I read the rules, when someone does a stunt like this I should give them the difficulty level, consequences for failure, and the benefit of success. The benefits of success were easy to determine each time, but I wound up being continually confused about what failure would mean, in particular how to adjudicate the spider’s attack after the player failed. What I wound up doing was just applying the spider attack to the total of the players dexterity roll. The result was a slow grind, with spite damage slowly wearing away at each combatant.
Sezerain fought the giant spider with his spear, and the results were similar to Hayoshiko’s battle: they were slowly grinding each other down. Meanwhile, the third giant spider made free attacks on the entangled Atticus, eventually killing him. Enneada tried several strength rolls to get free, failing several times, helpless to prevent the spider from savaging the poor Atticus.
The battle continues, Enneada fails to escape, and gets bit for some damage; Sezerain keeps fighting the spider and finally kills it. Enneada finally breaks free of her web, and attacks the spider. Sezerain throws his spear at the spider, so I interpreted that as a combined melee attack. This attack is able to take that spider out.
At this point, after several failed rolls, Hayoshiko is fighting a giant spider in the dark, armed only with a rock. Sezerain and Enneada want to quickly join him, so I gave them a choice: Enneada can help Sezerain across the pit trap quickly with a combined strength roll; if successful, they’ll be able to reach Hayoshiko in time to make a combined attack against the remaining spider this round. Or, they can play it safe, Sezerain can cross automatically without a roll required, but they won’t be able to reach Hayoshiko until the next round.
Here’s where another rules question comes in. They each made a strength roll, Enneada succeeding, but Sezerain failed by rolling a 4. Now their combined total was more than enough to beat the level of difficulty of 25 – but because one of them failed their roll, how to interpret the results? In this case, I erred on the side of harshness, saying that Sezerain almost slips but he manages to get across, but not in time to help Hayoshiko this round.
Regardless, Hayoshiko and the spider do only a slight bit of damage to each other from spite damage. The next round, the characters join up, and are able to take the spider out with their combined attack.
I felt a little bit embarrassed, because I hadn’t meant the spiders to be that much of a challenge. They were powerful enough to almost take out the entire party. But I suppose that’s just my inexperience with the system. I felt sorry for the characters, and wanted to change the spider stats on the spot to help them out, but the players saw what I was doing and spoke up, refusing to let me go easy on them, which of course was the right call.
The rest of the game went smoothly in my opinion. The characters cleverly disarmed a trap in the chest by pushing it into the pit trap so that it broke open. The sleeping gas it contained was released, but it dispersed sufficiently that it didn’t get anyone. The party proceeded further into the caverns, and found where the screams were coming from. They observed humans tied onto stone slabs, their blood being slowly drained and dripping into containers which glowed, gradually getting brighter the more blood dripped into them. In addition, they found a humanoid mushroom tied onto the one of the slabs, with a battle hardened Elven veteran and a pair of orcs experimenting on it, trying to get it to bleed. They also saw a couple of human slaves, with iron collars on their necks. One of the slaves noticed Enneada, but turned their head, not acknowledging her presence.
After a brief discussion, the party decided they were too wounded to attempt a rescue, and took the treasure they found and ran back to town. And that’s where that session ended.
Overall I had a lot of fun, but I admit that, during prep, I had a very hard time understanding this text of Tunnels and Trolls. I’m speaking of the fifth edition here. To me, some of the most important parts of play were completely left out. It’s like, the game text makes perfect sense if you already know how to play the game – but if you don’t, it’s very difficult to know how to play from reading the text. I often find this problem; the authors are so familiar with their game that some of the most important practices or rules are so obvious to them that they don’t even think of writing them down. However, these are not obvious to most other people. Without exception, when I’ve heard a game designer say, “it’s obvious that you’re supposed to do such-and-such in that situation,” or the like, they’ve been completely wrong. Certainly their point was not obvious to me at all.
One caveat: considering the time this game was written – 1979, I believe – it’s better than most comparable texts, and remarkably innovative. Despite the issues I had with it, I don’t want to forget this point.
The Hollows and Hobgoblins Blog 