New Years Gamin': Casual Session Report

Today I was quite tired from working consecutive late nights. I'm bouncing at a bar and New Years Eve was a particularly tiring night. I decided I wanted to do nothing but chill today and, to aid in those efforts, asked my sister, her girlfriend, and my partner if they wanted to play. My sister and her girlfriend said yes, while my partner did not want to. My sister tried to peer pressure my partner into playing, and I repeatedly assured them that they don't need to play but, given that table top gaming takes up the living room, they decided to play given that there wasn't much else to do.

Mechanically, I just ran a simplified OSE with only a single saving throw. On reflection, I would've not had the players roll for attributes, and I would have quickly whipped starting equipment to make sure they had everything they needed for the dungeon delve. My sister is an experienced gamer, so I let her take charge in terms of hirelings and equipment. My sister played as her hombrew class, a Pyran (fighter that can cast fireball once a day, weak to water, and can heat things with a touch. Needs 2250xp to level up). The characters were as follows:

My Sister: Smeltzer - Pyran
My Partner: Carl Johnson - Fighter
My Sister's Girlfriend: Nameless - Thief

CJ rolled very well for HP, and Smeltzer had lots of starting cash to afford good armour and three hirelings. With some surplus money, my sister wanted to start with something magic, so I rolled on a random table for potions and my sister started with a potion that (unknown to her) would reduce her age by d20. For Nameless's Thief skills, I used Dolmenwood's simplified d6 system. For the session, I used the Island Fortress in BFRPG's Morgansfort. My sister and partner had actually explored this before, but I wasn't too worried about them figuring that out as that was years ago.

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This session was notable for being the first that I've ever run that devolved into PvP. I thought it was absolutely hilarious. At the very start of the session Smeltzer drank the potion and, after rolling for age and getting 20, had his age cut down to 10. Smeltzer decided to just wait outside the dungeon to see if the effect would wear off, as Smeltzer's player was kind of pissed they couldn't wear their Splint Armor.

The rest of the party went in. They explored for a bit, and found a large meeting room to the north. At this point, Smeltzer decided to join back in. CJ and Nameless both made fun of Smeltzer for being a child, and would continue to try to undermine Smeltzer's authority.

On the way in, Smeltzer stepped over a trap door but, due to being a child, was too light to trigger it. The party circumvented the traps, and CJ found some fine porcelain on the tables in the room. After bagging those, Smeltzer told the weakest hireling to bury the porcelain outside for later. The hireling left with no incident. After searching around some more, a group of 4 Goblins barged in. The Goblins rolled very poorly for their reaction roll and attacked immediately. The party were all surprised, and the toughest hireling died immediately. Smeltzer used his fireball and killed two of the goblins. CJ and Nameless finished the others.

At this point, they found 7 silver pieces on the Goblins and Smeltzer pocketed it. He assured the party that it would be split evenly among them. Nameless shook hands to seal the agreement, but CJ refused to do so because Smeltzer was a "stupid ass kid." Smeltzer then used his Hot Hands to burn CJ, dealing 1 damage. This devolved into threats of violence but, before initiative was rolled Nameless interjected and managed to calm everyone down. However, as they were leaving the room to the south CJ decided to try and throw Smeltzer into the trap door. This failed due to the intercession of Smeltzer's hireling who grabbed CJ from behind. But... CJ choose to throw themselves into the trap door with the hireling. A rolled to see who was on top and CJ landed over the hireling. The drop was 10', and the hireling's ribs were crushed. CJ also took 4 more damage, leaving them with 3 HP left. 

At this point Smeltzer walked out and, fumbling around in the dark, Nameless drove a spike into the ground and attached a rope to climb down and rescue CJ. CJ, who had all the sources of light outside of one torch, walked through the pit. It was covered in goop and slime, and smelled terrible. He heard a terrible gurgling, and went back toward the trap door he fell through. Nameless descended and, surprisingly, rather than run from the gurgling CJ chose to charge in. As he ran up, CJ saw it was a large slime. CJ landed a critical hit with his dagger and did pretty good damage. Nameless tried, and failed, to hide and a ferocious melee ensued. In the middle of the fight, for some unknown reason, Nameless decided to eat some of the Ooze. They failed the saving throw and contracted a disease (I did not tell the player, but they would die in a month and a new Grey Ooze would emerge from Nameless's body). CJ landed another critical hit, leaving the Ooze at only a few HP. However, their luck was poor and the two heroes died in the pit.

Smeltzer left with the meagre loot found and asked a sage in a nearby village if his childfication was permanent. After paying all the money found, Smeltzer discovered that, yes, it is permanent. Additionally, the single surviving hireling never wants to work for Smeltzer again, and has warned others in the village of Smeltzer's poor leadership.

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This session was super hilarious! The party's bickering made me laugh a lot, and I was super happy that my partner went through with trying to fuck over Smeltzer. A lot of this aggression probably came from the fact that my partner did not really want to play in the first place. Nameless's player was definitely overwhelmed by mechanical stuff but got more comfortable immersing herself into the world after a while. The way I run games, I tend to just focus on letting player's decide what they do while I handle the mechanical side and determine which tool is best used to resolve their action. My partner did end up rather frustrated after the session, which I feel bad about, but I feel that they did a good job playing their character. 

One issue in this session were the various levels of investments. My sister loves TTRPGs and has been a player in my games for years, while her girlfriend is a curious neophyte who is intimidated by the math and rules. My partner has played TTRPGs before, but mostly as a way to hang out with me and my sister. They also did not really want to play. Because of this, I had to cater to three players with vastly different needs. 

This session has made me super excited to convert my 5e campaign to an OSE-style. I've finished writing up all the most important stuff (Character creation, classes, combat rules, weapons/armor, etc). The only thing left is to write the different Origins (Elves, Dwarves, etc). While originally I wanted to do a proper dungeon crawl in 5e before switching to OSE, I've changed my mind. I want to get to a more fun and easier to use ruleset asap.