Games Night: Joining the Teens

I was able to squeeze in an extra gaming session this week, and decided to join up with Patrick's regular game that he runs with the Teens. One of the Teen's, Teen1 in Patrick's AP reports, is my nephew. In fact some months ago I introduced him and his friends to Patrick when they happened to be at our local games haunt, and as I was the only person who had turned up from the proposed group they joined in with us.

I played for a few weeks, but then couldn't keep up with two regular games nights each week; I've dipped in and out of playing LotFP with Patrick when we were available, and really enjoyed hearing about how they were getting on - or more often getting in to evermore insane situations (usually with some choice dialogue ensuing).



Last night was amazing. Patrick has already put his AP up, but I thought I would just throw in a player's perspective. My two PCs, Charley Shortbread (Specialist) and Chastity Glean (Fighter), who I mentioned in my last post, found themselves in the same dungeon as the Main Party because we were trailing an NPC who was a runaway. His family wanted him to go home, and he had been spotted in the company of a thief, Griselda, who we had tracked to the dungeon.

We came on to the scene as Teen1 and Teen2 were, I think, arguing with Teen3 as to whether or not they should retreat from the dungeon to get one of Teen3's dogs healed up before proceeding; they had captured Griselda. There was an initial stand-off as I tried to intimidate Griselda into helping my characters, and the Main Party threatened me as well. We called a kind of truce, which I supposed ended when my guys snuck away with Griselda, after the Main Party got into the first of a series of arguments.

The MP were all at least a level or two higher than my guys, and their specialist has a lot of points in Search and Tinkering, so it didn't take long for them to catch up with us. There was a kind of a stand-off again, with Teen1's "leader" insisting that he was in charge and his directions should be followed. There seems to be an element of that among him and the other Teens if I'm not mistaken. Frequently as things escalated at the table in discussion of what to do he would shout "Stop arguing!"

Patrick really is a very patient DM. The main reason why I left with Griselda to try and accomplish my mission was because it was easier than trying to act with them. A truce was again called and we went on. We found the runaway, injured but alive, and we decided to continue with them for a short time. They attacked various creatures and were attacked, but continued along quite well... Until the ambush.

Some thieves attacked us, sneak attack arrows flying in all directions and then melee. It was fast and slow: fast because LotFP doesn't mess about with rolls - did you hit? What's the damage? How did they die? - but slow because of the endless variations of "Can I move now? Can I do this? I'm going to do that - it's not your go..." A truce was called just after Charley had been struck down and pinned to the floor to -1HP. Chastity was fighting back-to-back with him, saw what had happened and enraged slashed out at Charley's attacker: the fight was back on, but now I was rolling separate initiative from the MP, who all (I think) thought that I had acted dickishly rather than in-character.

A few deaths later and a more formal truce was called with the thieves: we would all collect our dead and go our separate ways. During this skirmish my nephew, Teen1, had his Level 4 combat monster reduced to -5HP - I'm told that this is normally beyond any point of resurrection in LotFP, but since they are now evil and work for a necromancer there may be a way around that...

Anyway: we left the dungeon after that point, Charley was patched up, we got the runaway back to his family, we shared in the experience of the Main Party and I walked away with 2000sp and enough XP to level both Charley and Chastity up to third level. Which is not bad going.

(Patrick ruled pretty fairly from the start that the XP would be divided between the players for this session and not directly to the PCs; I could then choose how XP was split between Charley and Chastity)

Some thoughts:

• I'll say it again: Patrick really is a very patient DM.
• LotFP really makes for a satisfying system, and having played it twice in one week I'm even more of a fan.
• At times the Teens come up with very creative ideas for accomplishing tasks or getting the upper hand...
• ...which is somehow spoiled (a little) when the table action turns to absolute pandemonium, backstabbing and voice-raising.
• I need new d20s: I rolled far too many 1s.
• If Patrick's ultimate evil NPC does not raise my nephew's character I think I may be in his bad books for a long time...