New to Diceless Ropleplaying:GMing LoO, Campaign log!

[Daniel]

Hello everyone! Well, since I got the LoO book from the Pundit himself, I had a great time with it,seemed like an awesome system, so I decided to run a campaign for it.

Only problem, I had never played OR DMed a diceless RPG before!It s never too late to start,though, so I decided to read up on the whole book and give the game a try.

Here are my experiencies with the game and I l be posting a campaign log if possible, remember that nor me nor my players have ever played Amber/LoO,or any other diceless RPG before,so this will be an experiment to see how well can LoO do for first timers on DRPGs all around. Any suggestions, campaign ideas, etc you may want to give will be greatly apreciated, for my players do not check this forum .

1.The character creation

The main and first thing to do in character creation was choosing a theme, wich using the optional rules given in the book, would be a central element of the characters and campaign (anything done that has relevance to their theme is considered one class higher) some players decided their themes before even starting the auction, some of them chose them along the way of character creation, and some of them at the very end.We got very intresting themes for each character,wich I will explain in more detail later, but first, we had to get into the stat auction.

At first, the players got into the auction system way too excitedly, even when remembered they should leave at least 40-60 points for other powers, 2 players went to fight for the Ego First Class, wasting a total of 120 points!We decided to restart the auction, even if it gave me a possibilty of being truly evil to those players, I didn t want the experience to be unbalanced on their first game.

Still,they didn t pull punches on the 2nd auction either, the players all wanted the First Class in Ego, and ended spending 56 points in Ego for the first class character! The less auctioned for stats where Might and Prowess, reaching a maximum bid of 26 points,one player, Lolo (Adamantium), decided to take advantage of the players less desires in those classes, and took first class in Might, second in Fortitude and 3rd in Prowess!This showcases the game s ability to truly favor those with strategic thinking, both in the auction and in game. As a DM, I truly enjoyed the sensation of auctioning the stats, an almost sadistic smile on my face when I told the players "are you gonna let yourself get beaten for just 1 or 2 points?", it was defenitively one of the things my players highlited about the system, it was fun, intriguing, and competitive.

For the power section,it was a bit different, each power had many options, and we were taking too much time deciding wich powers to choose, we WANTED to play, so explaining every power again and again,with so many options included in each,made me moderate myself to a more general description of the power rather that what it could exactly do druing character creation. I am planning to have the players take note of the exact possible effects of their powers before starting the next session, because checking the book everytime they used a power was a bit confusing.

Finally, the extras where few, for many players already had negative luck,and didn t want to spend any more points, so I chose the divine parents according to each character themes and their luck rating, having used about 3 hours into character creation(mainly explaining everyone how everything worked in the system and for players to understand the rules, plus the character questionnaire), not too shabby for a first time character creation, I m sure if we did another campaign from scratch, it would take much less time.We were excited, and the inmersion was already starting to grow, some of my players are big fans of greek mythos, so they where already almost scheming against each other in their own minds, thinking about their character traits and personalities, I shared that excitment, and we went straight into play!

2.The characters

Here s a brief description of the PCs and their themes, along with their essential personality traits and divine parents:

Character name: Dhaos,God of Glamours and Misguiding images, Player: Diego
Divine parents:Hypnos and Pasithea

With a primordial and a hippie for parents, Dhaos doesn t care much for his first visit to the Olympian court, only wanting to have fun and enjoying misleading mortals , be a true force of decieit. He takes his powers from his own dreams(wich are incredibly weird thanks to Pasitheas parentage), making his glamours and images much more stronger and credible than usual.

Character name:Raucus, God of Rumors Player: Gonzalo
Divine parents:Hermes and mortal mother.

Having a crazy messenger parent, Raucus was literally born of a rumor. Her mother Marcia, a mortal ,flirted with Hermes, and most of the olympians where babbling that he would soon marry her.All of this wasn t true, Hermes had only a flirty intrest in her for a moment of drunkedness in his voyages, but never had any romantic intrest to her, and didn t even lay with her, yet the rumor spread wide, reaching the point of Zeus,Hades and Poseidon beliveing that Hermes had now a child, each sending agents to look for the kid to see if he had potential, but there was no kid...yet.Few weeks after the agents returned to their respective bosses, Marcia found herself a preagnant virgin, and ended giving birth to Raucus. Hermes took the child as his own, taking care of him and then sending him to his first visit to the Olympian court as soon as he possibly could,beliving that there is no other possibilty than him being the actual father...Or is it?

Character name:Umbra, Goddess of dark night shadows Player: Valentina
Divine parents:Hades and Persephone

Not being with her mother half of the year has really made Umbra s heart as bitter and uncaring as her father s, she finally got the chance to go visit the Olympian court, and while she respects her father, she wants to obtain power by her own means.

Character name:Adamantium, God of Stubornness and persistance Player: Lolo
Divine parents:Hephasteus and Alglaea

Hephasteus wanted not only a new son, but a new creation,a new form of life, making it so beautiful, that Aphrodite would fall over for him. Using one of the rarest minerals found in the multiverse on a huge meteorite,Adamantium, he planned on actually forging new life itself. And so he tried, again and again, yet all his intentions were futile, there was something missing.Alglaea, the nymph, one day noticed Hephasteus frustrated and crying on his forge, giving up on his task, the nymph approached, and smiling to Hephasteus, kissed the forehead of the mold, and so Adamantium was born. Hephasteus decided to bring him to the Olympian court for the first time, but, sadly for the god of the forge, didn t impress Aphrodite at all.On the first session,Adamtium won the best roleplaying award, himself having won the friendship and respect of the mighty god Heracles, whom he actually resisted in a wrestling match for about 30 seconds.

Character name:Haxxor,God of Schyzophrenia Player: Liber
Divine parents:Phoebetor and a mortal.

Born from an insane sadist who raped her mother cruely and killed her, Haxxor was tortured from childhood until driven mad as Phoebetor tried to turn him into his little killing machine. By request of Zeus himself, the child was given the chance to visit the Olympian court for the first time, even with his dreaded father relatively close, totally insane yet still caring and compassionate,Haxxor wants to stop Phoebetor from his evil deeds.

Character name:Luxa, Goddess of the Unstopable Libido Player: Kai
Divine parents:Zeus and Aphrodite.

Having a great position in the Olympian court isn t enough for Luxa, she wants power and dominion over mortals, she sees them as play toys, and will stop at nothing to gain more power in the Olympian court, whetever seducing or flirting or straight up deceit and brute force, Luxa want to show her mother what a True Olympian Beauty can do, Hera, the wife of Zeus, hates her, and hasn t had any problems in publicly trying to defame Luxa as a slut (even if she is right, in a way...)Her own mother, Aphrodite, views her as competition, and mantains a calm hypocritical smile around her, for now...

Next post will be about our first game session, wich I will give as soon as I can,please feel free to post any suggestions, plot devices, comments , etc... They will be greatly appreciated!

[RPGPundit]

Thanks for this excellent report, dude!

Like I said to you on Saturday; I would totally have made them stew in the juices of their own making in that first Ego auction, but maybe since everyone involved (including yourself) was a total newb to diceless RPG play, it may have been understandable that you'd not want to start out that way.

One thing you could have done; which I've sometimes done in games where most everyone is a newb, is just assign any power or powers that I absolutely want someone to have (in this case, possibly Immortality if you feel all players should have that) and then skip the rest of the powers section, and keep everyone with a large margin of Good Luck instead.

Then, in actual play, people could roleplay finding out about the powers and going off to study them, with a relatively early advancement period a couple of sessions later to let people buy what they've decided they want for their characters.

I think its really cool how you're using the "strong theme" option, too!

Basically, this is probably one of the best pieces of good publicity anyone could make for Lords of Olympus, so thanks. Hope to see more threads about stuff that comes up for you running the game in the future.

RPGPundit

[Daniel]

Chapter 1:The Kingless Throne.


In the first session, all the characters where attending their first Olympian Court party, with the idea of uniting and knowing the gods from the 6th generation of Olympians(wich are the PCs, there can be possible NPC addings on the earlier generations there!) Many of the Gods where new and unknown to the characters,some having more experience with the court than others.As a good Godling party, there where countless orgies, wrestling matches, competitions, pools of infinite wine, etc... and the Godling PCs enjoyed them all, specially the competitions, some of the characters raced in a 1000 meters sprint, one of the characters,Dhaos, won cleverly with the almost unpercivable use of his Inneffable Names. Adamantium won in the wrestling matches, and instantly gained Heracles attention, they talked for a moment, and both seemed to have very compatible personalities.

The three rulers of the Multiverse, Zeus, Hades, and Poseidon decided to call on the PCs for a contest of wits,with the possible prize of a Magical Weapon for the one who wins,(and of course, the intrest of the big 3 in their career).
Classical Greece was started having trouble again with the Persians, who stole and somehow managed to control a Hydra Mother, and now, they where planning to hatch their eggs on a military camp found not far from Athens.. The competition was not only to see whom could get the eggs, but to also help the Greeks in the upcoming battle against the Persians,Adamantium refused to go for the Eggs, vowing to Zeus to protect Greece from the Persian attack with his own life;Zeus, both pleased and intrigued by this behaviour,decided to accept, and Heracles went with Adamantium to form a line of defense in Athene against the upcomming persian attack, teaming up with the Theban general and Hero Epaminondas. In the night they where preparing the attack, Heracles challenged Adamantium to a wrestling match, and Adamantium gladly accepted,Heracles saying that if he won, he would make sure to have Zeus teach him the Olympian World Walking. Heracles moderated his strenght, testing just how much Adamantium could truly resist, stubborn and persistant to win the bet, Adamantium got over his own limits, burying his feet on the earth to get more resistance as he tried to win to the god of Might by tiring him.(With all the appropriate bonuses,including his words of power, he actually managed to get to a Might First class +3!) Heracles was impressed, but soon overpowered him by using more of his inmense strenght, he told Adamantium he would be watching his career closely, to wich he only replied with a smile and the words "Thank you"

Heracles, The God of Might

Meanwhile, the other PCs decided to cooperate to infiltrate the Persian camp, but knowing the prize could only be for one, and so they did, with a very bad cover,Haxxor summoned to him a Persian general with his Primordial Magic, then Luxa seduced him and killed him outright by chopping his balls off with her own hands, Haxxor returning the dead body to the middle of the camp. Raucus tried to disguise himself as a persian(and he s white) , that, added to the fact that Dhaos decided to sneak to the nearest powder vaut with his illusions, then blew the whole place up, made only for a lot of angry persians chasing them downhill, and a Mother(and new born child hydra) almost cripling Raucus.They managed to flee, when suddenly , Haxxor said "Oh,why didn t I think about that?!" He opened a Maelstorm in the wilds, then chose to summon Hydra eggs with his tentacles,then laughed histerically, saying to the other characters that "it would have been boring to just use my Magic" even though he did get the 5 eggs for himself, the PCs heard the angry roars of the Mother Hydra up the hill, and decided to join Epaminondas and Adamantium on the epic fight against the two hydras and the persian army.

The battle was epic, and the players really got the concept of the task resolution system, they tried new and clever ways of gaining bonuses and managing to hit the Hydra and penetrate her tough armor(for example, entering her mouth and stabbing her from the insides)The Persians ended up fleeing, giving one more victory to Epaminondas s legend,as well as the 6th generation Godlings, and the Athenian people granted the general a sculpture for his service to the Polis.


Epaminondas Statue

They returned to Olympus,where the winner,Haxxor was given his prize, but when the celebration was about to restart, a mysterious figure appeared in the door...

It was Karleah, the current Oracle of Delphi! (Karleah is also used as a fortune teller like recurring character in my campaigns)

Karleah, The True Oracle of Delphi

Zeus was outraged just at the though of having a mortal being come to Olympus without permission, and asked the meaning behind this insult.

-"I have done no offense, for Fate has told me to reveal this message unto you.From here on out, Fate has decided you are no longer the True King of the Multiverse!" She said.

Not beliving her words, Zeus though the woman went insane

-"How can a mere mortal say such despicable things unto Me?You dare defy MY kingdom?"

-"The throne will soon lie in the hands of whoever plays his cards best, Zeus, you better watch out, for all Olympus will know that the right to the new throne has still to be decided!" Karleah replied.

Enraged by her insult and preddiction, Zeus told the grim Hades,who didn t say a word in the whole party(even when Umbra tried talking to him) to emprison the insulting Oracle in Tartarus.Hades smiled wickedly, knowing the stakes where set.

-"No..."

-"Then I shall do so Myself!" Zeus said as he used powerful magic, imprisoning the Oracle in the dark realm as she screamed of agony. "If anyone wants My throne..." he said to all who saw him "then come get it."

The room fell into a deep silence...

That was it for the first session, we had a great time, and hopefully will continue to do so,players got deeply inmersed in their characters, some of them already plotting what they can do to get into the race for the throne, , the adventure was mainly done for both players and DM to get used to the system,and establishing the main plot of the campaign at the same time.As soon as I can I l post the next adventure(we re playing every tuesday) again, any comments, suggestions, advices, hooks or ideas you may have are greatly apreciated!

[Daniel]

Thanks for this excellent report, dude!

Like I said to you on Saturday; I would totally have made them stew in the juices of their own making in that first Ego auction, but maybe since everyone involved (including yourself) was a total newb to diceless RPG play, it may have been understandable that you'd not want to start out that way.

One thing you could have done; which I've sometimes done in games where most everyone is a newb, is just assign any power or powers that I absolutely want someone to have (in this case, possibly Immortality if you feel all players should have that) and then skip the rest of the powers section, and keep everyone with a large margin of Good Luck instead.

Then, in actual play, people could roleplay finding out about the powers and going off to study them, with a relatively early advancement period a couple of sessions later to let people buy what they've decided they want for their characters.

I think its really cool how you're using the "strong theme" option, too!

Basically, this is probably one of the best pieces of good publicity anyone could make for Lords of Olympus, so thanks. Hope to see more threads about stuff that comes up for you running the game in the future.

RPGPundit

Thanks!:) I also love the feed back you and the other people in this forum can give to make the campaign better, I will defenitively keep on posting the campaign log as it goes on, and will ask any issues that might arise from the play.

[RPGPundit]

That's great!

RPGPundit

[Daniel]

Sessions 2 and 3 are going to be placed on the same post, and we will begin by looking at what each character did individually or groupally, so the posts don t get way too long.

Both sessions where amazing, and the game got quickly popular between my friends, not only did we have a new player join the game, but I have also gotten 3 more requests from different people to join!I don t even have that much size on my table, so I can only let one more person enter the game.

Here is his character, who was very clevery played  and won the best roleplaying award of the second session!

Character name:Relator, God of Fantastic Stories Player: Franco
Divine parents:Apollo and Thalia

Apollo once decided to take on one of the graces, servants and friends to him, yet, he knew he wouldn t be able to seduce them easily, so he told the most beautiful story ever known to the olympian cout to try to seduce the beautiful grace. It worked, days after, Thalia couldn t stop thinking about the perfection found in the narrative, the lyrics, the perfect rhyme and character devellopment, and they laid as Apollo retold the story in her ear, and so a new God was born. Relator isn t his true name, yet he wants to be known as that.

Relator spend most of his life visitng different earths, writing stories that he saw, and sometimes losing them on the Olympian road.Relator is an inspiration and the true writer of many popular stories like Star Wars, Narnia, Harry Potter, Spiderman  ,and lots of Gabriel Garcia Marquez books(competing clearly with Clio, who doesn t see him as a friend, but a rival and a threat to her title)

Relator can t talk for more than 30 seconds without getting astray on one his famous stories, yet he still keeps track of everything and is a careful planner.Not completly intrested in Olympian politics, his true goal is to hear the ultimate story, one that is original in every sense of the world, and not inspired on anyone or anything else, still, Relator knows that the only way to get to such perfection will be with the help of other powerful Olympians, and thus has decided to make new alliances.

Chapter 2: Making new friends.

One week hadn t even passed before the big Olympians had already started trying to recruit the new Godlings of the 6th generation to their side of the soon to happen conflict, Zeus called on her daughter, Luxa, and on the son of Apollo, Relator, to make sure of their loyality and sent them on an important mission. They had to go to classical Earth and help the most incompetent captain of the 7 seas, Leonthichus, a drunkard who has lots more fleets for the greek army than anyone else,to regain his honor as a mercenary so that the persians will take him to their side (he will do better for the greeks there!)


Leontichus, the drunkard pirate general.

Before they left, Apollo talked secretly to his son,Relator, and told him to inject a weird obeject into Leontichus s body, an object that was made by Hephasteus and would make Leontichus the most competent of captains, foiling Zeus s plans. Apollo, usually loyal to Zeus, was furious at him throwing the True Oracle of Delphi to tartarus, and messing with his realm s authorities, so he wanted payback, and tricked Hephasteus on to make that device in exchange to heellp him get to Aphrodite s heart.

The two found Leonthicus in an old tavern, crying for his failures, and the gods tried to convince him of regaining his honor...The only way to do this, though, would be to capture the most fearsome corsair, who had ruined Leonthicus s honor again and again, a woman so elusive, that her ship is literally said to dissipate in thin air...Her name is The Corsair Queen!(also known as Maggie o'Dare, another reccurring character in my campaigns)


The Corsair Queen

When at night, Relator implanted the device on the captain, Luxa managed to discover  him right on the act, Relator failing to inject the object correctly into Leonthicus s neck.Now, he was a fearsome pirate…but only when he wasn t sitting,apparently , something didn t go as Apollo had planned. Leonthicus kicked the shit out of most of the sailors in the tavern, and with his now fearsome reputation slowly getting restored, got help from Luxa s wits to get a new crew to sail and look for Corsair Queen.Luxa, confused by the whole issue, not trusting Relator s lies on the nature of the artifact, decided to force him to return with her to Olympus, and then, she made the terrible mistake of going to ask Hephasteus about the nature of the object.

Hephasteus, God of the Forge

Hephasteus nervously left the room, telling them both to wait as he called on Apollo s help to try to erase Luxa s memory of the artifact, when Apollo came in to the forge unexpectedly for Luxa, they tried to submit her and erase her memory of the scheme against Zeus, but thanks to a massive luck stroke (very high luck rating there, and a Patron power) , Zeus kicked into the forge to rescue his daughter, having been seeing her through scrying and spies on her mission. He was disappointed and furious at both Hephasteus and Apollo, yet both of them had been very loyal to him all the time, and with Relator s wits and diplomacy, he managed to convince Zeus that they were sorry, and not thinking straight, Zeus accepted the apologies, but told both Apollo, his son, and Hephasteus to make a public statement on the Olympian court, asking for forgiveness. Apollo s scheming against Zeus isn t over though, it has just merely started…

Meanwhile, Adamantium wishes to create the most powerful weapon in existence, even stronger than Zeus s thunderbolt spear, to be recognized as widely as his father on the Olympian court, Hephasteus told him that if he was going to embark on such an ambitious project, then he should have help from his own father, both quickly became allies for this new quest.Hephasteus told his son that the idea could be used to give it as a present for Zeus, (latter on this idea was reinforced, Hephasteus now wanting to calm Zeus s ire on him), for starting such a weapon, though, they must adquire incredible materials.

One of them was the Stone of Thunder, a rare stone found only on the island of the Cyclopes on classical earth, wich was used in the forging of Zeus s thunderbolt and is essentially a stone of unlimited energy. This stone is zealously guarded by the barbaric Cyclopes, and even with Hephasteus s friendship with the oldest of the Cyclopes, he wouldn t be able to get the stone just by influence. Knowing that the big 3 (and the only truly intelligent ones) where missing as they traveled the multiverse, he sent his son to take the sample of the stone they needed by entering the island and stealing it, knowing that not even the big 3 cyclopes wouldn t notice the difference on such a small portion, with that, they could start forging their new “surprise gift” for Zeus.

A cyclops

Adamantium took Heracles with him, telling him that they were preparing a surprise for Zeus, wich Heracles viewed as an awesome idea, and helped him travel to Classical earth , to the island of Naxor, where the cyclope s city was found. After some harsh fights where both Heracles and Adamantium showed off their might and prowess in combat, and the clever use of earth elementalism spells, Heracles and Adamantium escaped with the thunder stone unharmed.

Heracles with his new battle costume

Dhaos was called by Hades, who looked exceptionally happy because Persephone was in the underworld. They told him to get to his father s realm, the dream realm, so he could talk secretly with the now captured Karleah, the true oracle of Delphi, and ask about the specifics of the prophecy that got her into the dark hell that is Tartarus without having to free her and Zeus noticing. So Dhaos asked his primordial parent and went into Karleahs insatiable nightmares, fighting off Karleah s nightmares,  including three beings who were placed by Zeus on her nightmares to torture her even as her soul slept and her body burned, those beings are Dursilla White, an oniric vampire girl accompanied by her murderous white cat, little Mr Wight, and her father, The Sandman.

The Sandman

A true picture of Mr Wight.BEHOLD,THE TRUE TERROR!

Having almost unlimited power in the dream realm, Dhaos illusions are actually true in this world, thanks to a deal made with Hypnos by Hades to temporarily give him this rank, almost anything he wanted to do was possible. Still, Dhaos power wasn t enough and he fainted to his grave wounds after killing Dursilla (who also had the same power) and catching her soul on a gemstone using his almost omnipotent power in the dream realm.

Having been missing in the sleeping chamber for 3 days without returning, Hades thought Dhaos died, and sent Umbra to get the rest of the job done. She rescued Dhaos, and then they reached Karleah s final nightmare, a palace protected by the Sandman where she would burn eternally in a diabolical cage. Offering the soul of her girl in return, the Sandman let Dhaos and Umbra talk to Karleah. Dhaos omnipotent power in the dream realm allowed him to take the prophecy memory away from Karleah s mind in another gem stone, but this is where things get interesting. Umbra, not understanding his power, didn t knew Dhaos actually created 4 copies of the memory gemstone. Three of those memories gemstones where modified to reveal a false prophecy, in wich Hades took the throne in a big war the day that Zeus had his 150 century anniversary as the ruler of the multiverse (wich will happen in 2 years), one was given to Umbra to present to his father, one was given as a copy to Dhaos, and one was incrusted as a memory  in Dhaos s mind, the remaining gemstone, containing the true prophecy, was also installed in his mind as a glamour ward, mixing his enchantment and illusion powers, Dhaos would himself think of the false prophecy being true until 3 days before the 150th century anniversary, in wich then the glamour ward in his own mind would activate, returning the true prophecy, hidden until that moment, to his mind.

As they returned to Hades, he was pleased by seeing both return with such great news and laughed manically as he watched the prophecy. He made sure this was true by reading both Umbra s and Dhaos s minds, wich they both agreed on doing, but he only found the false prophecy as he broke the 2 copies to dust, making sure Zeus wouldn t get a hold of them.Dhaos had tricked Hades into believing that he will be the true ruler of the multiverse in just two years… His purpose comes closer every move he makes…make the ultimate misleading and misdirection, that all Olympians will remember…forever.
This bold move gained Dhaos the best roleplaying award of the 3rd session, as well as a lot of luck points award for the next advancement period, since he already has fulfilled some of his objectives on his objectives wish list.

Next post, I l give some information about where Raucus and Haxxor have been, having both met new,powerful allies, who rised to one of the tallest positions in the multiverse...and the not so tall too...

[RPGPundit]

I have to say, your campaign sounds batshit gonzo.
I bet its a lot of fun!

RPGPundit

[Weehawk]

If all those gods work together in concert they can make anyone loose their sanity!!

Glamours
Rumors
Schyzophrenia
Unstopable Libido
dark night shadows
Stubornness and persistance

D@MN!!!

[RPGPundit]

True.  

I know Daniel had been away for a while, which explains his lack of updates but I hope they'll be playing again sometime soon to hear how its going.

RPGPundit

[Croaker]

Awesome campain!