[Apologies in advance - this may end up being a double post as I
think my computer ate my first attempt]
Jane and LC asked to see how the chained contest went. Poor fools ;-)
BACKGROUND:
The multilegged party monster (the PC's) are on a heroquest which
has something to do with remembering their funereal rites. They are
accompanied by an ancient Kralori shaman (i.e. an Uz who is in the
form of a giant scorpion) and her dead-but-now-a-zombie Zorak Zorani
son. They are supposed to go down into Snakepipe Hollow, follow the
river upstream, get "Good Bluefire" off a giant by making him cry,
then at Skyfall take their dead into the underworld or something.
Sorry to be vague :)
It took rather too long to get down the cliff as I chose to run the
scorpion men trying to stop them getting down as an EC (talking
PbEM). One of the PC's (Vurth, Uroxi, that's Jeff N.) just died
because he fell off the bat-scorpion-man-thing he was trying to beat
up. That's not directly relevant, though, and the PC as a playable
character isn't really dead, just different, we'll sort something
out. Point is, the game has been slow lately (with me moving country
and all) so I want to speed things up some.
At the foot of the cliff, Skade the Giant (think Noddy from Slade,
there's even a Gloranthan song with dwarves, rising moons and all
http://www.elyrics.net/read/s/slade-lyrics/be-lyrics.html) appears,
saying Fie Fie Foe Fum I Smell the Blood of a Thieving Duck
(Silverquill the duck (Soren) stole a tear from him some while back,
this is now a blue lightning orb). I got two great posts almost
simultaneously from two players with ways to distract the giant,
each post with abilities and numbers. So, I chose to start this as a
chained contest.
- Faren the burly farmer (Bryan) grabs a dulunut bush (Vurth the
Uroxi was using this to hit the bat scorpion man) and lights it with
his lightning magic, hoping the smell of roasting nuts will distract
the giant. Faren's ability is the heroband blessing Bountiful
Dulunuts with a pile of augments. Skade the giant resists with his
Hate Little Thieving Pompous Ducks 20W plus and minus some stuff.
The rolls give a marginal defeat to Faren, but Faren hasn't done
anything else yet (I've a nice idea of what he could do but Bryan
probably has a better one). The giant decides he is going to
eat "Duck a la Nut" for tea.
- Gyffun the skald (Paul) sings his Run Rabbit Run song to get
everyone to scatter and thus confuse the giant. Skade resists with
the same ability and gets a critical, a major victory. Skade bends
down and blows Gyffun away (ouch!). He's at -50%
- Silverquill decides to attract the giant's attention which is a
tricky one as the giant is looking for the duck anyway. I roll
nevertheless, Loud Quacking for Silverquill, using a default 6 for
Skade, and Silverquill gets a marginal victory. Skade falls over
looking for the duck but pins Silverquill's beard (he's a sage) to
the ground under his little toe. [at this point I posted my Q to the
list]
- Silverquill releases himself from the beard and tries to talk to
the giant but but the giant tries to smash him with a fist. Lacking
my notes, I used a generic squash duck abilitiy which Silverquill
resisted with his Nimble, Small etc. Skade's marginal victory is
converted to a minor for Silverquill with a HP and Skade's fist
slams into a rock. He slumps against the cliff face declaring that
none of it is fair, he just wants his tear back. He also mentions
that he can't cry.
- At this point, Vurth's ghost is running up Skade's trouser leg,
aiming at a soft spot and this is tickling Skade. Silverquill has
recruited Gyffun (the skald) to tell the giant a sad story to get
him to cry. Gyffun is using certain abilities without the wounded
modifier (-50%) but is augmenting with some abilities which are at
half. I'm going to allow others to augment and resolve it all in a
final roll I think.
So, all rather rough and ready, but the chained contest does allow
me to be a bit more fleet-footed than with an EC. I think I approve.
Sam.