Spinetooth Oasis actual play

First session of running the Spinetooth Oasis with the Black Hack.

We used the Fabulous Tiny Guild mini-zines to create the characters, this worked very well as the tiny illustration inspire the players but at the same time they are simple enough that you can interpret them in different ways. They kind of work like canvas.

The group:

The setup was that the player characters were the henchmen of the Wizard and now that he is dead they have to work for themselves and become full fledged adventurers. But after a while I realized that since the Black Hack award levels for completing quests or something that I had to give them goals. So we modified the setup a bit. The players are now in charge executing the will of the Wizard and to bestow the items from it inheritance. So instead of delving to find loot, they delve to deliver loot!

The first item to bestow was a frog bottle of transmutation to the Cactus Mother.

• They met some owl faced cultists and learned about their vendetta against the city state of Zar Naf.
• They walked through the purple grass and avoided a group of lost soldiers from Zar Naf. 
• They picked up some narcotic cactus flowers. 
• They encountered the succulent owl bear and pointed him toward the soldiers.
• A halfling kid shoot someone in the head with a sling shot and vanished in the cactus bushes. 
• They encountered a group of sisters of filth who stole cactus flower from the Reboo's gang. 

Session 02
There was no fights, but there was a lot of fun interactions.

• The group evaded goons from the Reebo's while hiding in the cactus grooves. 
• They met with the Cactus Mother who revealed that the old Wizard was once her apprentice. 
• They gave her share of the wizard's inheritance: a bottle of transmutation liquor. 
• She made one of the PC her champion and transformed him into a giant jade spider. She gave them the quest of awakening the statue of the Succulent Goddess.
• The group ventured in the caves and traded with the succulent guardian. 
• Someone tasted the nutritive poop and said it tasted like caramel pudding. :P 
• The group was ambushed by succulent spiders but the jade spider PC was able to recruit them. 
• They awakened the Succulent Goddess and convinced the owl cultist that her people must help the goddess to protect the oasis instead of desiring vengeance over the city people. 
• The goddess transmuted back the PC. 
• Everyone leveled up to level 2. 

The next item on the list is a set of garden gnomes that must be delivered to Reebo Carubo!

I think that the cactus caves could have used a few more rooms to explore, but it would have been probably a bit different if the succulent creatures were not friendly to them.

I like the Black Hack but I think that I don't like awarding levels for quests because it short-circuit the exploration as the group only focus on accomplishing their goal. I prefer exploration oriented award but I am also curious about the option of awarding a level each session presented in the Black Hack book. I want to see what happen when the players don't have to worry about doing specific things to level up.

Since we rarely have the occasion to play, I think that I will use this option and award a level every session. This way if we play up to level 09, this will give us a 9 sessions campaign. Considering that we play maybe once a month, this give us reasonable campaign length and pacing.

To avoid the feeling that the whole campaign is a accelerated 9 days leveling up, I will run it as a episodic campaign, a month passing by between each session. This will also let me re-setup the seting a bit to underline the consequence of the player character's actions.

Mutant Year Zero - Actual Play 02

Session 06

I was so frustrated with my work day, when I arrived at the game table I was simply unable to roleplay. I tried to play but I was starting to troll the NPCs. So when the group left for the zone I said: look when I am in this mood I fear to sabotage things, so I will just sit this one out. My character will remain at the Ark and I will just listen to the game instead of messing up my character or the session.

So what happened in the fiction? We worked on the Ark's projects. Clarissa and Allia tried to build some barricades, but there was a work a accident and the slaves were angry and they made no progress. Brando worked on the temple and I made some deals to finish the fighting arena. We named the arena after Otiak (our first but memorable character casualty).

After that I started to spread lies to make some NPCs hate each others but I stopped myself before going too far and getting out of character. I guess it was a bad day of Fillix.

The rest of the group decided to follow a rumor about a stalker who became mad in the zone. They filled up the car we had found with booze and ventured into the zone. The group fought a giant worm that nearly destroyed the car. But after studying it, Brando spotted it weak spot and nearly killed the worm in one mighty blow.

The group arrived at a old factory contaminated with giant fibrous mushrooms. They were brave or foolish enough to venture inside to find what happened to the mad stalker and to look for artifacts.

They were lucky and they found two "metaplot" artifacts: a key card and a video camera. But Brando and Allia got infected by the spores. They felt weird on the way home but nothing happened.

Just before reaching the Ark they encountered a group of women mutants slavers armed with good quality riffles. They asked about the male mutants that we rescued in the zone. The group sent them toward a other direction. Both side were pretty suspicious of each other. Interesting.

So in the end it was a interesting session. I am glad that my bad day mood did not ruin it.

I have spend 5 xp on Juna and the trait admirer to develop what have happened between her and Fillix. I was not in the mood to explore this during this session, but still, things are building up.

Session 07

We moved our gaming night and I was in a far better mood this time.

Brando the Bear Warrior spent some of his XP to become a Boss. So now he have a new role and gang of animals. He only have 2 points of wits to roll his command skill, but I really like this character development. I am looking forward to see if Allia will also change role to eventually become free.

During the hall meeting, Zidane, the animal seer, proclaimed that the temple should be dedicated to the Elder Humans. Clarissa and Brando were not happy about this because seeing the weak humans that we have rescued from the zone cannibals made them realize that we can only count on ourselves to find our place in this rotting world. On my side Fillix tried to publicly undermine Boss Astrina and her politic of self isolation from the zone.  I also managed to get involve in the temple doctrine by showing a elder chronicle I had found in the zone: The Chronicle of Narnia. Astrina and Zidane were quite upset about this. :)

But them the earth shook and a portion of the Ark crumbled down in the earth. The group went down to see what happened. Astrina sent my chronicler lover Juna to report on the events. I tried to move Astrina away from the elder room persuading her that as the boss of the Chronicler she had to see this event with her own eyes. But she was too chicken shit to venture away from her precious elder. So I decided to remain on the upper deck of the Ark to spy on her. Since I could not sneak into the room of the elder I sneaked into Astrina's room and I stole a old photography of the elder wearing a strange yellow suit. It felt weird to imagine him young like us.

Down in the ground, the rest of the group found a old tunnel that lead to a secure high tech door. Clarissa opened the door with the key card they had found in the zone. Inside everything was old and rotten. By the time they reached the inner room, I managed to get back to them with the help of a NPCs mutant.

The central room was protected by two half disabled robots! The robots shooted at us with laser beams! Allia and Clarissa (with a amazing bow shot!) destroyed one of them but Allia went down, then Brando and Clarissa! I used my mutant power to transfer my life force to Allia. Doing this taxed me too much and I also went down but Allia was back in action! She damaged the remaining robot and Spoutnic, one of Brando's gang member finished him off. This was a close one. :)

I really like how the stats degradation really balance well itself. The robots had super dangerous weapons and armor, but they pushed it too much and it quickly degraded, giving us a chance to take them down. Clarissa also went down by pushing herself too much. We thought that Allia was invulnerable with her "shake it off" trait, but one bad roll and she also went down. Having to roll 6s for success make even the big pool of dice unpredictable. You can't really trust your abilities all the time, they will eventually fail you. It could be annoying, but this work very well with this setting.

We explored the rest of the bunker but we found nothing of interest except some old batteries. It seemed like the bunker was never inhabited. This fueled Fillix's curiosity about the elders.

The gearheads salvaged the place and the next day we worked on the Ark's projects. We made some progress on the fortifications. Brando started to train a milice. Allia helped to build a tavern but the place is a crappy hole and our culture only raised by 1 point (on a d6 roll)

I made a 6 xp points of of 7 possible XP rewards! So Fillix learned a lot of thing. I want to tone down a little bit my selfishness and I am thinking of spending some XP on Read Emotions. I want to get closer to Juna, Astrina and the Elder. The fight also made me realize that I need a long range weapon, so I am going to spend some bullet on a scrap rifle.