Yesterday I played a nice and fun one-shot session of "The Pit of Kutallu", an adventure for the Free RPG Day 2017 for the recently released Conan RPG by Modiphius Entertainment.
The host of the game was GM Alex, from True Mask Games.
I must admit, he did a really good job. He was fun, very expressive and evocative, and from my point of view of a non-English native speaker, he was also very clear to understand and good at explaining both the rules and the scenes during the game.
I've been "recruited" in the session on the Facebook group Tabletop RPG One Shot Group, that if you don't know it I suggest you to pay it a visit.
We've been given pregenerated characters ahead of the game, those coming with the adventure itself.
The character were:
- Papius Varro, an Aquilonian Noble Warrior played by Erik
- Hypatia Vesnius, a Bossonian Archer played by Luka
- M'Tanga Nedja, Corsair of the Black Kingdoms played by Peter
- Kellan, a Cimmerian Barbarian played by me
My character was quite easy to play, and since I'm listening some audiobooks about Conan the Cimmerian I had some reference on how he would behave and speak.
You would not believe me, but even being a Game Master from 6 years I'm still not very good at entering in-character when playing as a Player. It's the experience I'm missing, I suppose!
During the session we had some interesting scenes, including:
*** SPOILER AHOY! ***
- A long series of very bad rolls by me
- A battle with pirates on the deck of a ship in the middle of a fierce storm
- A words confrontation with their pirate chief after a shipwreck on the Black Coast. A confrontation that ended pretty soon after Hypatia, the archer, pierced his only left eye with a hell of a shot, killing him instantly.
- A fight in a mysterious swamp with a group of frog-fish-men (Deep Ones were called if I'm correct) where I finally was able to soak myself in sweet fish blood
- A mysterious cult of these deep ones and a human priestess doing a very seedy looking ritual in the ruins of an ancient zigurrat
- A giant tentacled abomination in a pit (our dear friend Kutallu)
At the end of the night after another (well, yet another) hell of a arrow shot by my untrustworthy Bossonian companion, I was able to hack Kutallus's head with my axe and rip one of his many eyes from the inside of his skull, BY CROM!
Of course right before that I jumped over the foul creature a-là Drax (have your really not seen Guardians of the Galaxy 2? It's in the first scene anyway, no spoiler here) landing on his head.
In the meanwhile our courageous Aquilonian warrior Papius was dealing with the priestess, finally hurling her in the mouth of the beast, and M'Tanga distracting the deep ones mob from reaching us.
It was a good teamwork.
And jeez, the Bossonian archer was waaaay OP.
And jeez, the Bossonian archer was waaaay OP.
| A shot of the Roll20 virtual tabletop interface. You can also see the tokes we used: Momentum (the swords), Doom (coins), Fortune Dice (ehm) |
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Talking about the rules themselves, I liked them but they're too complicated for my tastes. There are very interesting choice mechanics that can really help you in various ways, but they're too many to keep track of in my opinion and taste.
We were still trying to learn the rules, and the GM with us, and I'm sure once you've played some sessions the management of all the tokes will be immensely quicker, but I found it to be distracting from the action itself.
I prefer less rules and more action!
Aaaand I can't stop thinking at this adventure trough the Risus goggles. I'll have to try it!
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In a final note, it was my really first time playing in English, and I think it went pretty well after all.
I have to do it again, maybe with my Game Master hat.
Damn you, comfort zone!
I thank again everyone involved in the session, I hope to meet you again around some other virtual tabletop!
Here you can see the full session. Enjoy!
Resources (both free)