Az Iz Recap
Excerpt
So then I wander around the booths and my dad heeds the call to referee a 5E game with no prep to substitute for someone who was sick.
I walk around with my roommate for a while, then they leave and I sit on a bench - and I go, "ok, now is the time to make something up"
I go to the LotFP discord, because I have loved Zak's blogpost about Jeff Rient's halfling stew game for ages and Aleksi Soukka had just recently done a version of it based on that post.
Here is Aleksi's instagram,
it has lots of cool art, and the halfling stew map and play reports are
on the LotFP discord and facebook, you should go give them a look!
So I looked at the map made by Aleksi, copied it for the most part - then added my own setting specific ideas and changed some of the room layout - namely:
There is a ice troll - the place is filled with ice - there is a system for slipping on ice - there are spikes and pits and things that make noise - and there are moths that drop snow and try to slip players into pits.
For the convention, my idea was to have all the players be dwarves - and I thought "I should give them each one item of their choice, one item that they managed to smuggle in their beard"
I also thought, "wouldn't it be cool if the ice troll has frost breath, and has stuck them to the roof with it like the Wampa on Hoth?"
So
I sketched those details on the map, made 6 dwarves while I sat with
Nik later on - talking about Raggi and Zak - and the issues with Patrick
Stuart and the problems with the OSR as a whole - then the game began
after some people arrived.
Three people that were scheduled show up, and one player from a previous game shows up, so I just give em' all a sheet and we are off to the races.
I have them each pick one item to smuggle in their beards, then tell them - "You all are traveling through a cold and icy land on the way back to your home fortress - one night when the wind is howling you all start to drink in your tent, then disaster strikes. Something smashes the tent and in your drunken state knocks all of you out. Each of you were prepared, and have managed to sneak one item in, you each carried something in your beard. You awaken, feeling like you are hanging from your feet - it is pitch black."
So they put the key in the lock - it creaks like crazy, they go through - they put their lil' dwarf handeses through the bar and re-lock the gate - the troll does not wake up.
They go southward - entering a room, feeling around, they find two piles of bones and refuse - and a TINDERBOX!
It has enough to light a torch 3 times, they light a torch and look around the room.
They see the garbage, and the two exits to the east and west, and I clearly drop a hint and say "you can see the ceiling reflected on the icy floor"
They freak out and look up, and in a corner of the room is a large pair of white shoes - at least that is what it looks like.
They try to knock it down with the sling - but miss and it flies over them, they roll initiative and the moth goes first - flying overhead and dropping magical snow - they all make a save vs breath, and the one or two that fail fall over.
It flies down, towards the right-hand passage - and combat is over.
They then walk around, finding a room filled with blocks of ice containing stuff like a shovel, a sled, and silver coins. then they so south and suddenly when it starts to slope down the snow moth swoops overhead, attempting to have them slide right into a pit - enough of them save vs breath to not fall into th' pit.
Memory starts to get hazy here - mostly they poked around and eventually went into a room with blocks of falling ice - they realized that some of the blocks were covering an exit - so they slipped and climbed up and broke through the top and crawled down the hole - realizing that it was a slippery slope - they slid and realized they were headed right for a wall of ice - and stuck weapons and bones down as makeshift brakes.
Then they broke through - walked around the room - saw that there was an exit - and saw that there was a gap.
So - someone I don't remember who - was like "Lets use our crate lid shield as a sled and sled down the slide and hop the gap that way"
And I was all like "hell yeah"
So they did that - hopping the gap, but not realizing that there were multiple gaps - so they hit the second gaps far side corner and the lid broke in half - they clambered up and were in the middle of a pit trap filled hall.
um, This is where my memory completely fails - but I recall some points of note:
I think there was a moment where they planned - and then executed the plan
They eventually got the hay and lard - and basically firebombed the Ice Troll - this was after they poked around more and realized that the door out needed a key - and the key was extremely likely to be in the troll's quarters
So they fought the troll - figuring out that fire dealt triple damage, and melting it - then getting out of the caves.
one of the players was really jazzed to have used the lard to kill a troll
Some notes.
Az Iz Stats
Rudimentary Map
Dwarf Character Sheets - Missing one
The Base dwarf stats and some notes
The entire concept worked very very well.
I learned about tracking light, and time, and equipment -
I
got to see firsthand players making a good idea, one so good I just had
to roll with it, TWICE - Once was a lard firebomb, the second being a
unwise sled ice ramp method to bridge some pits -
I learned that saying "Seemingly, It Appears, and You Can't See" are all useful tools -
I figured out just how little is needed on paper, just a clear map and choreographing and telegraphing certain things -
I saw how important items can be in the right circumstances, some ways to suggest manipulating and altering equipment, and what kind of equipment is fun -
I learned that Index cards for character sheets are all that should be needed -
Here is a cleaner version of the map, and a elevation map:
Az Iz Az Iz does.
ReplyDeleteI still think the "hiding things in their beards" thing is hilarious, and also exactly what drunken dwarves would do as a party game.
Yeah - I thought that idea was particularly funny - but I had to figure out a good way for them to start with something, and that seemed like an ok way to do it.
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