PRISONERS: Session 0 and trial play report

playthrough

#1

BACKGROUND:
(You can skip to the actual play report if it doesn’t interest you)
Social networks became… Challenging and I got tired of it, so I twitted I’m trying to set up a game online with new people from my feed, no experience required.

Got a group of 4, set a date, got confirmation from everyone. Without notice, 2 just didn’t show up. But that’s okay, we got a third player- Murphy…

I run my games in Foundry. 2 minutes before the game I saw a message popping up about an update for ICRPG. Turns out it wasn’t for my version and just like that, all the character sheets (for both PCs and Monsters- with all the abilities) became blank and uneditable, macros didn’t function and I kinda panicked.

After about 10 minutes of futile attempts to fix it, I decided roll with it, told my 2 players to get some pen and paper and use the basic built in dice roller- we’re going manual. went over the quickguide in about 10 minutes, asked them to assign base stats and jumped right in.

PLAY REPORT

We ran a trial I prepared as a precursor to Finigan’s Pride, based on Prisoners of Molok and Grey Hill Inferno (posted it here if you want to take a look).
TL;DR: room 1: dungeon with 2 cultists.
Room 2: a rickety bridge between 2 banks, a giant tentacle in the water.
Room 3: 3 cultists and a leader.
Room 4: cells with prisoners, shadow beasts (vulnerable to fire) and the exit.

They woke up caged or chained in an unfamiliar dungeon, with 2 cloaked, vaguely humanoid figures dragging a person kicking and screaming outside, then they heard a splash, a struggle and the a gurgling laughter.

One other NPC was chained near them. I tell them to roll a d4: they roll a 1. One round until the figures return…
They panic, P1 spends his turn attacking the door, P2 decides to talk to the NPC (Karl), trying to get information. The figures come in, I roll a d6 to see who they come after, it’s Karl.
P2 decides to embolden him, I ask for a CHA check and he succeeds- Karl musters his strength and manages to break free.
Turns pass quickly, P1 gets a nat 20 of a STR check and breaks free, he and Karl fight off the figures who turn out to be fishlike cultists.
One of them manages to hypnotize P1 twice in a row, making him lose his turns (one more and he’s brainwashed), and P2 still unable to free himself. Karl drags the hypnotizing cultist away, P1 grabs shackles from nearby and they manage to dispatch the 2 enemies.

While P2 is still chained, P1 went to search the room for loot (I described a box in the corner) and then frees P2. Before they moved on, I suggested they search everything in the room (not what I usually do, but they’re new and unaware of the concept). They find a ring of rusted keys on one of the cultists and decide to take their robes and disguise themselves as cultists trying to move Karl.

They get out to the rickety wooden bridge and all 3 pass without making a noise (avoiding the tentacle), but they know there’s something in the water. They want to examine the other bank, I say it’s close enough and describe the sound of talking in croaking voices and an unfamiliar language plus some vague snoring coming from the door. They open the door and peek inside, seeing 3 more cultists at a table with shining weapons and a bigger one (the leader) asleep at the other side of the room, near a large crate.

They plan for a while, then ask Karl to cross back to the other bank and throw a corpse to the water, he manages to pass again, but the body brings the tentacle out. They tell carl to make noise to draw the others out, hoping they cross the bridge towards him and fall or get attacked by the tentacle.

Karl roars, the 3 run out the players hide. I roll for the leader- he remains asleep. 2 cultists pass, a third is grabbed by the Tentacle, but manages to slip away.
At this point, Karl faces 3 enemies on the wrong side of the bridge with a giant tentacle in the middle… My players ponder leaving him to die, but think better of it.
They throw rocks on the sleeping leader and run to hide outside- it’s not enough to finish him, he wakes up, runs outside, misses the players and so runs across the bridge.
The tentacle, who rolled poorly the whole time suddenly can’t roll below 15, so the leader is grabbed and basically done without taking a single action… 2 cultists run to help him, Karl pushes the third in the water and runs across the bridge.

All of them rush into room 3 (which is now empty), find the loot in the crate: a healer’s kit, 2 torches and a scroll of Elemental Fire. They then proceed to try and burn the bridge… Didn’t see that coming. I said it was hard because it’s a damp area, they fail. I give them one more shot, still hard, they succeed. Then they bar the entrance to room 3 and pick the lock to room 4.
the key to the main exit door went with the leader and all the cool weapons are with the cultists on the other side, most of the loot was lost.

They get inside and can free the prisoners because they have the keys. They question them quietly about the room and the reason they’re so afraid to leave the cells.
They start to work on lights but make noise and roll another 1 on the timer- one turn later a Shadow Beast appears.

they got 1 chandelier lit and huddled under it so the beast blinks to a dark cell with a prisoner (who happened to be the only non adult prisoner, that wasn’t the plan…) P1 runs with a torch and lights the sconce in the cell, then places himself between the beast and the child, while Karl and P2 work on the other chandeliers…

They start breaking the main door, drawing another beast and fighting it with torches and shackles, killing the 2 beasts on the same turn and on the next one managing to break the door and escape with 1 on the timer for the next beast to appear… They rush with the prisoners up the stairs and that’s where we ended the session.

Conclusions:

  1. I can trust my players more, even new ones don’t need automation.
  2. Both playing with relative strangers and running a group of 2 are viable options for me, even though it’s not like playing with friends and I had to change quite a bit on the fly.
  3. The technical glitches in the beginning got to me so I was out of focus, forgot to give Hero Coins, forgot some abilities, but overall it went pretty well. I asked if they wish to continue, now that they actually tried one session and they both seemed excited for the actual adventure.

All in all, it went pretty well. Karl will ask them to find his daughter in the next session and thus, the search for Finigan’s Pride will ensue… they get to pick a form and a type and I’ll probably give them the option to swap a move for another action or something similar to compensate for some action economy, otherwise things can get brutal. They’re making backup characters, just in case.

If you got to here, cheers!


#2

Pretty awesome, I know playing with strangers online was something I was a little iffy about doing myself due to lots of horror stories and inexperience. Its honestly been full of great experiences and people so I hope you further enjoy your time with randoms.


#3

Thanks! I hope so… it was a little awkward at first but we found a rhythm quickly