1st minor play test
The Great Works area has been labouring away under the curse of a swarm of Plague Flies for as long as anyone can remember. Nothing seems to get done about them and when it does, they come back again within a short period of time. The playgroup has decided that they could raise their Status if they could find a way of getting rid of them permanently. To this end, Chisel, a PC who works in the Workshops that suffer the greatest from the swarm has been working on a wooden trap to capture the giant variety of the flies, hopefully meaning that the smaller ones can then be dealt with piecemeal. Chisel has the skill Craft – Carpentry 3 and his Pragmatism is 4. He rolls 7d6 for his craft roll to create the trap. He gains 2 successes. The trap is made to a high standard. The player has already informed the GM that he works on this project in his free time, so the GM decides that it takes 2 weeks for the item to be made.
The rest of the group: Dr. Carpetbagger (the charlatan) and Mr. Stalker (the kennel worker) congratulate Chisel and decide to make an expedition into the bowels of the workshop to try and trap a giant Plague Fly. It will be dangerous and only Dr. Carpetbagger has a weapon - his trusty knife. So Mr. Stalker brings along Grizzle, his Canine Companion (Kennels Feature special ability) and Chisel attempts a Protected test (Workshops special ability). Chisel is successful and gains one guard to come with him. The GM gives control of the guard to the player controlling Chisel, informing him that the guard has a Morale rating of Hurt (when the guard enters the Hurt health category, he must make a Jitters test). Prepared, the PCs, Grizzle, and the NPC guard travel into the bowels of the workshop feature, trap in hand.
The damp interior of the workshops prey on the travellers and the tension is ramped up nicely as they proceed. At one point, a rusty duct tube blocks their path and unless they want to make a large detour, they must clamber over it. The PCs decide to climb over it. The GM states that because of the equipment they are carrying and the sharp rusty metal of the duct, that a Climb test will be required. Failure will result in the loss of 1 Health Point, but successful clambering over the impediment. Success means that they will not be injured. None of the travellers have the Climb skill, however, that does not mean that they cannot attempt the climb. Unskilled attempts at skill simply use the skill’s parent Statistic to determine how many dice are rolled. In all cases, this turns out to be 4 dice (except the NPC guard, who has 5 dice to roll). All bar Mr. Stalker succeed. The unlucky kennel worker cuts himself on a piece of metal and marks one point of Health damage on his Health Point profile, which puts him into the Lightly Injured category. He suffers no dice penalties to skill attempts yet…
They continue on into the disused interior of the workshops, a veritable maze of un-travelled passages and echoing chambers. Finally, they hear a low buzzing noise! The Swarm! Peeking ahead, they see 2 giant Plague Flies. Oh no, they only have room for 1 in the trap! They have a quick argument about how to proceed, finally deciding that with the guard and Grizzle’s help, they should be able to catch one and deal with the other.
Dr. Carpetbagger uses Stealth to creep to a better position to force the fly into the trap, rolling a Stealth test. He rolls 6d6 and achieves 2 successes, enough to gain his position. Mr. Stalker uses his Dog Training skill on Grizzle, trying to get the dog to run out, bark at the flies and then run back, hopefully getting them to follow him. He rolls 6 dice. He also gains 2 successes, so far, so good. Chisel then manoeuvres the trap into position, requiring a Portage test. He also rolls 7d6 but gains 3 successes. Not only does he get the trap into position, he does it noiselessly.
The plan is afoot. They go! Grizzle runs out as planned and barks a challenge. This gains the flies’ attention and the huge things fly towards the hidden party. Things are getting tense. Grizzle runs back to Mr. Stalker’s side, preparing to guard the kennel worker from attack. As the flies near, nasty proboscises protrude from their mouths, dripping foul ichors. The guard steps aside at the last minute, revealing the trap. The GM has Chisel’s player attempt a Reflexive Manual Dexterity test to catch one of the beasts. He only has 3 dice to roll. Sadly, he fails and the flies close in. Dr. Carpetbagger leaps from his hidden position behind the flies and aims a blow at one of them. He rolls 4 dice, gaining 1 success. Daggers inflict +1 damage, so he adds that to the number of successes achieved to determine the amount of Health Point damage he has inflicted on the fly. As it was an attack made from the fly’s blind-side, he doubles the resulting damage. He inflicts 4 Health Points of damage to the fly, lightly injuring it. Grizzle then leaps at a fly, inflicting 2 points of damage and the guard attacks Carpetbaggers opponent, his greater skill inflicting 4 more points of damage. This damage puts the fly into the Hurt health category (and only 1 point from the Heavily Injured category). The fly now suffers a 1 dice penalty to all Reflexive tests.
The flies then attempt to inject the PC with foul fluids. Rolling 6d6 each for their attacks. One targets the guard and the other targets Mr. Stalker. In the meantime, Chisel is manoeuvring the trap for another capture attempt. The guard is hit with 2 successes (no additional weapon damage) and he attempts a Reflexive parry. He gains 2 successes, negating the fly’s attack. Mr. Stalker is not so lucky; he gets hit for 2 points of damage also and does not dodge the attack. He has now suffered 3 points of damage, leaving him close to entering the Hurt health category (and a 1 dice penalty to all reflexive tests).
The next round in the scene starts with Chisel. This time he succeeds in trapping one of the flies, leaving only one to deal with! Between them, Grizzle, the guard and Dr. Carpetbagger inflict another 6 points of damage to the fly. This is enough, not only to take it into the Heavily Injured category, but also enough to take it through the Dying category and also strike the single point that denotes death. The party is victorious with only Mr. Stalker being injured.
Still, this being a Giant Plague Fly, later in the session, the GM has the player of Mr. Stalker attempt a Physique test. He rolls 4d6, gaining 1 success. Looking up the entry for Plague Flies, this means that over the coming week, Mr. Stalker will become ill, suffering a 1 dice penalty to all actions. With care and rest, he will recover.
The party return to the Great Works area with the captive fly and are the centre of a small scrum of apprentices and workers who admire their efforts. When the workshop Duty Leader arrives however, there are remonstrations and punishments for the PCs (he doesn’t like having his authority and Status usurped – the GM had rolled an outlook of Jealous for this Authority Figure. Perhaps the PCs have made an enemy for later sessions). Still, the plan was a success and the PCs receive a temporary addition of 1 point to their Status (which the GM decides will last for 2 game sessions). If the PCs want to increase their Status permenantly and thus increase their characters a level, they will have to solve the problem of the Plague Flies once and for all and now they have a jealous Authority Figure to deal with. Personality politics and abuse of power has now entered the equation. The players are somewhat rueful, but determined to carry on with their planned eradication of the vermin. In fact, maybe that weird Glass ceiling could help in some way? Maybe if they could find a way of opening it, they could drive the flies out and then close the thing up again.
A number of riddles (a custom of the political area – see above, are created to explain the PCs exploits over the coming weeks).
They look forward to the next session.
Edit: Due to this playtest, i've altered stat levels so that starting characters typically have a dice pool of no more than 7 dice in areas where they are skilled. This guarentees at least 1 success in skills with this number of dice, which will have varying results depending on the skill being used and how it is being used.