Topic: AAR: God that Crawls

Spoilers, naturally.

Now my boys drink some so this was largely comedic but if you want to see how stubbornness and pathfinderitis combine to lead to a major failure, do read on.  What's more, I myself had come off of a 4-530 Happy hour, and hadn't run OD&D since around 1987.

We had two players that were long time d20 GM's who were constantly badgering me during the game whenever I would make a slight mistake (like not knowing off the top of my head various incredibly obscure rules/game data like how much 10 foot poles cost, etc.) repeating for all to hear that I am not an "IRON GM after all" since they both... were.  These gentlemen were also the most drunk, or so I thought.   One player had never in living memory played D&D before so this was essentially his first game, and the two others were members of a 10 year + pathfinder campaign.  The players were quite miffed that the game was in 17th Century England and so I was peppered with historical questions through out the session (which is a warning our benefactor mentions in the grindhouse referee book will happen).  Some of the attack-facts were real (from wikipedia that they were diddling with on their phones) and some facts completely made up.  They also looked up maps online of England at this time to find the village where the church was located...especially when I said it was two days walk from Dover-- one guy pointed to a map on their phone and said "here?"

Party make up was a Cleric (who I believe named his character with the same first name as one of the players, to add to the confusion), A fighter, two dwarves and one specialist.  During character creation I stressed a couple of things regarding the difference between say, pathfinder or 13th Age and this game.  First, no one was assumed to have an 'adventurers kit' of rope, flint and steel, torches handy on them at all times, so they needed to purchase these items and check their encumbrance.  Second, I eluded to the fact that this may be an underground adventure.  These warnings were unheeded and no one bought any torches, not anything to light anything with, and one of the dwarves bought a lantern without buying oil and instead bought a mirror and some lard. Someone cried out at one point that they were buying torches, but did not.

The lead in was that an Archdeacon in Dover asked the Cleric to retrieve a book for him for some sundry sum from the catacombs of some small church to the west in the hill country.  The paintings within the church may give a clue as to the book's location, and there is also a door on the side of the hill the church is on. As the party's cleric was a worshiper of Bacchus (!?), it was seen as a justification for sending him rather than any of the Anglican clergy going themselves. Since, per the adventure, all the higher clergy were in on the secret of the god, this archdeacon was doing something very naughty. 

The party ended up in said village (that I named some random English mash up like Clapford Fell or some nonsense) and the party immediately began accosting villagers about THE BOOK!  After some bustling (no Inn in the village really helped-- highly recommended to keep the party from one of those village in slaughters) the characters got to the church, walked in and started rifling through things.  The Father came out from the back, asking what they wanted and the fighter immediately pulled out his axe (in front of the children) and started threatening with it.   The party's cleric calmed things down and suggested that they have some of the churches' wine together and that the good father should get some.  They drink.

And wake up in the pit.  This caused many complaints (note the you're no IRON GM!! comment above came out quite a bit at this point) about not having saving throws and the fact that the priest drank the wine with them to which I said "likely the priest passed out too, but that doesn't matter."  The villagers sang on and the gong was rung and the characters cried out all the things most foul that would pass within each of the villagers bodies, the bodies of their children, and their wives.  The apology by Father Bacon incensed them even further so the fighter threw a caltrop that hit him in the shoulder, backing the villagers away from the pit.  (who buys caltrops and no torches or light source?)

They go into thinking-cap mode and try to build a human pyramid to get out of the pit (dwarves on the bottom) when the god arrives.  Combat begins, and it's the rest of the session.  I could stop here for effect, because the ridiculous stubbornness of my players became absolute insanity.  I described that when they hit the creature, it regenerated, but they were able to chop pieces off and chop chunks here and there-- and the pieces would slowly coalesce together again.  I don't know if other GM's had this problem, but I was aghast, even after multiple character deaths, that they kept going with the fight with the only rationale being that the fight MUST be balanced to their party (pathfinderitis is what I'm calling this now, but maybe Torchlight2itis or WOWitis...)   Here are a few things they tried:

1) the specialist had no weapons at all, his short bow being taken by the villagers, so he tried to 'taste' the god and then punch it throughout the fight.
2) thinking that the hymns were regenerating the god, the cleric began singing 'satanic' songs to the god to block out the hymns. Good thinking, but no.
3) One of the dwarves jumped onto the back of the god to grapple with it.
4) The cleric, instead of using cure light wounds, begs his god (bacchus) for a different spell, which I grant him IF he reduces his hit points to 1.  He changes it to Curse and curses the god that hampers his effort to hit with an attack once...
5) begged the villagers to "die by fire" thinking that flame will kill the god if they throw pitch down-- the assumption is that the villagers want to kill the players-- but to me the villagers just want to give them to the god and not have their actual deaths on their hands...hence they leave them with weapons and such.

Finally, one of the dwarves ran blind down a passage to the south and eventually crawled to the third level of the dungeon.  The fighter is killed (he constantly pressed his attacks and died d6 HP at a time) and shortly after the punchy specialist also croaked.  The remaining dwarf and cleric fighting the god miraculously reduce the saint's hit points to below zero, stopping it's attacks--but not it's regeneration.  They begin throwing the pieces of the god up at the villagers, who simply kick them back down the pit. 

At this point I stop being the impartial GM and tell them they can continue trying to keep the god in pieces, it seems, ad infinitum. They complain terribly that it's my fault that they have no light source and I should have warned them or told them they were going into the dark or let them buy things at the village (!?). That a 'good' GM concerned with pushing the story forward would have done so. I explain that I run 13th Age and Exalted and FATE and I know what the story games are trying to do with their fail forwarding and setting declarations, essence/fate economies and THIS IS NOT A STORY GAME. I was trying to be as impartial as possible while this dungeon tries to fuck you so hard it's wearing your appendix as a tiny little hat.

I tell them their choices are to deal with the god, which is likely impossible, or go into the dark and find a way out.  Reluctantly, the Cleric and dwarf slink off the direction that the other dwarf went as the god mends itself and devours the specialist and fighter for a few hours.  After many turns of wandering with hands along the walls in the pitch black, eventually find the other dwarf in the dark (they expect that there are other monsters everywhere so can't understand why they aren't dead) and that's where we left it. 

My tactics at this point is to have one of the newly rolled up characters come in to 'save' the characters from the terrible villagers with a light source of some kind (how did he get in the catacombs without just showing the way out again? that's a tough one) let them know there is a way out, it's just going to be very difficult to find in the dark (but I think less dangerous because they won't mess with the trap rooms and treasures, or just tell them those characters are toast and have them come back (100 years later) with new characters.  All they want now is to slaughter the villagers and rape the priest and his wards to death but there are a lot of dark tunnels with no mapping to get there in their present state.

Re: AAR: God that Crawls

This was a great read!

My players suffered from "Pathfinderitis" when they played the Tower of the Stargazer.  One of them went in the dungeon area to look in to the bloody bucket, was nabbed by the giant spider, instantly killed (failed poison saving throw) and dragged down into the spider's crevasse to be feasted upon.

The rest of the party was all about saving him.  They were trying to figure out the best way to crawl down into the crevasse, etc., until I handed him a new character sheet (about 30 minutes after their machinations, discussion, etc.)

Since then, they *mostly* get it.

Re: AAR: God that Crawls

They may get it next time.  It's funny to see a session report posted here on the same day where no one died compared to this one.  They just had a lot of really bad ideas that were pushed through the party like the human pyramid (what were they going to do when they got to the top? get pushed back in?), and non-cohesive/nonsensical item purchases.

Thanks for the tip about the church-- the small little hints helped me to get them focused a bit more on that than the door in the hill, which, while arguably a better entry for the players, is more boring for me.  After they brandished an axe in front of the priest and called him a pederast (I forgot that part) in front of the kids my impartiality started to flit away and I was looking forward to killing off the players or sending them to the city of the stars on the moon. When the cleric ASKED Father Bacon for wine, I almost laughed out-loud.

Re: AAR: God that Crawls

littlemute wrote:

killing off the players

Freudian slip?

Last edited by Lord Inar (2014-08-21 22:33:45)

Re: AAR: God that Crawls

Lord Inar wrote:
littlemute wrote:

killing off the players

Freudian slip?

I don't follow.

Re: AAR: God that Crawls

littlemute wrote:
Lord Inar wrote:
littlemute wrote:

killing off the players

Freudian slip?

I don't follow.

I think he's making a distinction between killing off the players vs killing off the player characters.  (I often use the terms interchangeably too, but they are technically different...)

Re: AAR: God that Crawls

Huzzah!!!  I'd go more for the emotional maiming rather than physical.

Re: AAR: God that Crawls

Crunk Posby wrote:
littlemute wrote:
Lord Inar wrote:

Freudian slip?

I don't follow.

I think he's making a distinction between killing off the players vs killing off the player characters.  (I often use the terms interchangeably too, but they are technically different...)

Yes, that is what I meant!

- Ever Obscure Inar