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chaos session

started out the players in "the cells"
just some rando 1st level pc's
these guys caused the death of the medusa
by resurrecting her dad. rescued him from the puzzle box
2 or 3 of them died to Desdronothal's 'riddle blast'
the rest ended up running around the cells after the medusa died
so there was a bunch of strange characters  they dealt with
ended up not escaping, as "exofirskosten" doesn't get them out of the maze\
.

THIS SESSION OF THE MAZE WE GIVE THEM FOURTH LEVEL CHARACTERS

attempting to steal back the painting from the saurid chameleons, they fire a *cannon* at the painting
this cannon blast wakes up half the local population outside the painting and summons the watch
(anachronistic for 1600's england, so...)
the pc's are held up dealing with a sargent, who they manage to push into and out of the maze
he is convinced there is devilry afoot

the pcs escape on the back of a well-laid plan to fake their own arrest
they arrive at a tavern, owned by a respectable thief
apparently a den of rogues has been tracking the movement of the painting across the city
thus, the 4th level characters

the cannon blast indeed scared off the saurids
proceeding apace the new 4th-levels wander through the maze
come across the arboretum of zamia
(failed to be entranced by her body, this being my fault for omitting)
are accosted by orchardmen
these they lead in a chase that ends in Ngu-maga, the golem-snail
the golem snail becomes locked in combat with the orchardmen, who defeat and ingest it
meanwhile the pcs make their escape, into the gallery

they've found out by now that the gallery spoils their rations
they're ostensibly looking for a "base"
within the gallery they encounter a handful of problematic artworks
one which explodes and covers them in a vile gas
this which nearly kills them, disfigures them horribly
one pc has no nose any longer, just a hole
another one's arm's exposed muscles
one's side of the face is divots of ruined skin
you know

another artwork's the exploding statue which spits out gas
kindof a subtheme of this part of the maze
anyway this statue causes people to do improv
that was a thing, they ended up smashing it

finally we get to the ruinous globes
these globes ended our session
none were able to evade them
well, they evaded them, but could not stop their approach
they fled back through the painting
not before getting the "gimme the thing" statue to kill itself
in the antimatter painting causing a massive explosion
which incidentally killed a bunch of oku

conclusions:
maze is fun, people are having fun
having roleplayers who take a leadership role is good, too
I need a better understanding for how "the oku" work
like, do they have scouting parties? how do they travel through the maze?
normally I have them all clumped up, which is stupid.
Should put together a design doc

also keep a list of ppl previously lost in the maze, and have some of them show back up (dead?)

another tpk
I'm seriously considering advancing everyone to fourth level
well it's kinda strange
half the players have this semi-interested stance to the game
that is, it's a character drama
D. and S. both play stilted characters who seem interested in things not moneygrabbing
and M. plays characters sort of disinterested in the drama
well lemme just say what happened

so players scramble for about two hours and we get to the painting
D. currently has a system where someone stands on the roof, holding the painting off the side of the building
while simultaneously holding a steel mirror so they can see thru the painting while holding it away from them
this so that anything coming thru the painting without approval will fall off the side of the building and take 2d6

anyway so the end up in Elatior
(an island connected to the maze)
they dick around in Elatior and M. plays a tribesman who attacks the party
the party: A Magic-User who makes sculptures out of bodies, a nonunderstandable 70-year old blunderbuss toting hillbilly, a soggy guy with a crossbow who got wet from the previous painting shenanigans, a drunk old woman with an ever-flowing wine bottle, and a bear
the bear is a literal bear that is mostly friendly
anyway the tribesman played by M. attacks the bear and then the hillbilly shoots the tribesman and the Magic-User pushes everyone-minus-tribseman back thru the painting
tribesman delivers painting to priestess, priestess takes painting back into maze to Lady Nine Bones

the party then has a protracted conversation with Lady Nine Bones, who
a) decides that they are probably Loa, because they are so strange
b) gives them helpful tips and advice about the maze semi-cryptically
c) reacts passively, although not without tension, to both romantic overtures as well as violent ones
__these romantic overtures coming from Magic-User who brings her corpse flowers (flowers made out of a corpse)
__violent overture coming from Hillbilly who puts his gun and eventually grabs her wrists although without effect
Polypore Squamoses, the Lady Nine Bone's zombie servant, is recruited to follow around the party, but he's too depressed to provide directions and after a kidnap attempt (they push him thru the painting, he comes back out) he returns to Lady Nine Bones's side

The party wanders over to the "eye" room, and while shooting at and fishing for jade eyes they are ambushed by a party of about 8 Chameleon Ladies
the chameleons spit a Web and a Stinking Cloud at 3/5 of the party and kill them quickly
The drunk old woman and bear are unharmed, but are pursued by a Woman each

The session ends with the old woman escaping and hiding behind a gallery installation, while the bear's pursuer is scared off by a small statue of an orange goblin shouting "GIMME THE THING!"

Actually, in retrospect, I don't think the level of the characters involved would have really made too much difference
After all, the Chameleon Women scale 1 HD/group the players defeat
I just think disorganized parties generally get eaten by the maze, go figurre
Really the issue is that 1/3 of the game time is spent inside the maze
Not sure if this is a full "issue"

DOUBLE-TROUBLE TOIL AND RUBBLE
TOIL IN THE RUBBLE OF THE SAURID EMPIRE
the pc's are back
they stole the painting back
the magic painting that gets them to the maze
the reverse-side of it, the maze side
got stolen and hidden in the ship
the ship of the reptile-women
the chameleon ladies
well
they came through
and got attacked by snakes
I designed the inside of the ship to be one giant cage
one giant cage made of a series of cages
where you walk around on other cages
its pretty cool
the pcs fucked around in there
got attacked by some women
got lost
jumped back out
then the chameleon women took the painting and keelhauled it
like roped it under their moving ship
so when the pcs came back out they were floating in the ocean around Elatior
the pcs were mad about this
but the chameleon women's ships stop moving at night
because they use thermal energy to move, a ha ha
and so the pcs launched a stealth mission to get the painting back
they succeeded, swam up to the side of the boat
found the painting, retreated
one of them got bitten to death by chameleon women
so now they have the painting again
by the side of the beach
they met up with Bofur, who was B.D.'s old character
who they left on Elatior
Bofur's not gonna starve to death now
all and all, good roleplaying

THIS IS A DEAD FORUM BUT I'M STILL POSTING IN IT TAKE 14:

everyone leveled up, by robbing the art gallery
they lured all the cannibals thru the painting to a 20ft drop and some spears
they survived an encounter with the ratleopard
they pried a giant purple wyrm head (like, room-size) off a wall and took it with them through the painting
the head destroyed their house coming thru

basically the painting/portal is becoming a huge problem
more or less because it enables the five minute adventuring day like mad

This session they captured an Oku and pulled it back through the painting. I got to LARP it for a half hour. Vetchling drew them a map and survived a poisoning attempt.

I'm getting exhausted quicker... need to sleep more.

Outside of that, they explored the galleries a little and killed an ape. That's when all the oku got involved-- they tried to trap them in the Ape's cage. Left the false chanterelle painting on the back of the apple sculpture, we'll see where the cannibals put it next week-- or will they leave it alone?

MORE MAZE

6 people, all really cool, guy brought some nice sweet breads. Things looked up, but by the end of the session everyone was kinda down, worrying. I did not drink as much (maybe that's the issue?)

I talked to Patrick Stuart about this before I started, I asked if 1st Level LOTFP characters would survive the Maze. On reflection, I think that the actual level of the characters is semi-unimportant, b.c. the decisions the players made in the Maze (this time) were kinda independent of character level, but we'll see...

They go in the maze; immediately, one PC makes a ?wise? move to cut the return painting out of the frame and roll it up and take with her. This is crazy but it's OSR so I let it go; wild thinking the whole's biz. The Bondeye Repartee show up and freak out the PCs for a minute.

There's no real encounter 'til the Starlight room where they meet like 13 "Oku" trying to rob them. Things break down into combat and people start falling into each other's shadows as per the room (new readers: shadows create 10' pits in this room). After some lethal-ish combat the PCs willingly give up (most) of their gold and rations and everyone sets about rescuing each other from the pit.

From that point on, half the group grabs swords from the Throne room while the other half starts dealing with the Chess King two rooms over. The Chess King wants to be polished in exchange for safety "within his kingdom."* Meanwhile the "Oku" from earlier are crossing the rope bridge in between the Throne and the Chess room so two of the PCs, the ones with the swords, try cutting the bridge. Both get spiked by Oku arrows. One survives, and makes it back to the Chess King, where everyone camps out with his protection.

Two days of rest pass; another PC shows up out of the painting (they are carrying it with them). There's some encounters with Chameleon Woman and the Lion in Lapis Lazuli, neither of which can attack the PCs in the Chess King's "kingdom" due to the King's psychic powers. The PCs have fun yelling at the Lion and hurting its feelings.

They set out again. There's an encounter with the hypnodiscs and the nazca lines before some Orchidmen show up and everyone loses their nerve and jumps back through the painting. The painting is left lying on the ground next to the Ambush Scarab, to be dealt with by (someone, probably). Net loss for the PCs who lost everything they got (the swords, which fell into the pit beneath the rope bridge) and also got robbed and killed.

Everyone was emotionally down at the end b.c they got no treasure. Things seemed too hard. Then again, the risks they took-- fighting 13 "Oku", and trying to cut the rope bridge-- were pretty commiserate with the damage they took. Getting pwned and then trading sexual favors for safety with the Chess King... middling to bad.

RULES NOTES: I relaxed the "you don't get hp back inside of the dungeon" LOTFP bit. Seems hard not to do this, as I've done this before, with Legends of the Scarecrow. Maybe there's something I'm missing-- pleasures of hardcore gaming? Force PCs to leave, escape? Would like some clarification on this.

CONCLUSIONS: Describing each room was a challenge. MOTBM says not to read the description text but the players urged me to do that, with good results. I may start reading description text more, or at least referring to it more. I usually say something like "giant weird line painting" while the text says it more eloquently.

OTHER CONCLUSION: I'm too obsessed with this book for my own good. I feel like I'm bringing people into my obsession with too little practical thought for their own enjoyment. Everything is too hard, with too little reward. I fear that hardlining OSR-style play is driving people away from the game.

THIRD CONCLUSION: 1st level play, inside the MOTBM, isn't impossible, and there's many encounters which are deathtraps no matter if you're 1st or 5th. But the difference is that with 1st level you have 4hp so you're able to advance less far without taking a break. 4hp is a really frustrating amount to start with, but, again, maybe there's that OSR hardline carrot somewhere.

FOURTH, POSSIBLE CONCLUSION: Give everybody more hp?????? Any thoughts would appreciated if anyone's reading this.

*One of the PCs made this super sexual which is awesome.

MAZE OF THE BLUE MEDUSA W/ 6+ PLAYERS:

(SPOILERS PLAYERS DON'T READ THX)

The PC's take Ashen Chanterelle with them to the Dead Wedding via Tyko; A.C. has agreed to "guide" them in the maze. In the Wedding Tyko takes them to Sophornia Wort who lies to them a bunch. They get distracted by Decadent Waste who lures them to Tyko's Wort, who catches the PC's by surprise and kills one (they thought it was just Tyko). Later they get chased by a bunch of Aurum Specters out of the maze and A.C. disappears in the confusion-- 3 PCs die to the Specters.

For this session I had a lot of premade characters from http://character.totalpartykill.ca/lotfp/. These were great b/c players could spring in even after character generation, and because they took away all the burden of figuring out stats for new players.

Really good things that happened: Decadent Waste worked perfect, Tyko worked perfect, Sophornia worked perfect. Each was a mixture of comic relief and genuine challenge/oddity. They were all easy for me to roleplay because they had easy distinctive traits: Tyko's silent, D.W. lures people and is a shiny bird made of rubies, Sophornia lies and is an old lich. D.W. especially provided a great deal of comic relief and danger.

The whole maze has this mixture of humor/danger to it: what's comic relief is also genuinely problematic. Also there's some stuff that will just straight-up kill you like the Aurum Specters.

Combat slowed us down, at first, like trading hits with Tyko's Wight was pretty boring, even with the very real danger he presented. When the Specter's attacked it was a lot more along the lines of the "swarm of bees" example from this with everyone panicking, dragging dying people, crying in grief, leaving friends to die, etc.

CONCLUSIONS: Maze of the Blue Medusa is going swimmingly. I think the writing comes through so well- there's so many interesting ideas that pull the players in, and the moving parts-- Tyko and Decadent Waste-- were excellent.   There was a lot more table talk with like 6 people, and the Ashen Chanterelle bit took a while, but I feel like everything is well established, and we got a lot of play in. I even think the deadly, LOTFP combat was good because everyone learned a lesson, which was not hard to recover from due to the abundance of back up characters. Everyone had a great time, including some newbies. Go OSR!

I did some playtesting with Maze of the Blue Medusa with one of my friends. He played a 1st level magic user, it was just him. He did ok for a while, ended up decapitating Ashen Chanterelle and selling the head to Lady Crucem, but not before cutting out half the earbones to trade to Uriel. Uriel ended up killing him anyway.

Playtest 2: 1st level Fighter-guy manages to alert Chronia that (spoilers) the Medusa loves her, which sends the Crackbeast into a rage. In the confusion he steals the magic candle that Chronia has and is about to bring this to the Dead Wedding when he's flipped around the escher stairs after an "Oku" opens a door. He dies from the fall.

In both playtests the player had read the module beforehand and so was allowed to play with the knowledge they could remember. I figured it was fair since they were solo-first-level. CONCLUSIONS: I think this is a good way to "test" the module and get a good sense of the characters involved. Going to run this for my larger group tomorrow, see how it goes. I think I'll let them start 2nd level.

Main takeaway may be from mcing Apocalypse World: let your players know the stakes. IF they're fighting the giant slime monster and they have no hope to win you should let them know. Important answers happen after big questions.

I like LOTFP because the deadliness enforces important answers: you are likely to die so what are you gonna do to NOT die?

There was a good moment during THE GOD THAT CRAWLS were I played some live recorded hymns when the villagers got the PCs down into the pit. I played this music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A8E1Om8NjEE