I ran my first Desolation adventure recently. It was simply a scouting/hunting trip to Wolton from Penroe (based on information from Journeys. I've previously run HEX so the system wasn't totally new to me. A credit to the Ubiquity system is how fast the players grasped the basic concepts, and liked them. Afterwards they asked me to continue the game, so that's pretty exciting.

Other than introducing the town of Penroe as background, I didn't go into a great amount of detail about the town. I gave them enough to have a bit of a homebase feel to it. The players were quite willing to get out of town (doing their part to help it survive), and off of guard duty for a bit after the long winter. The encounters both happened around an patch of semi-intact forest about a half day out of town.

The Elf did a good job at portraying wonder and excitement at NOT being rejected by nature at this point (her specific background, tied into a budding elemental magic ability and return of the song)..I figured at least in her case, the "unnatural" would be dampened down a bit. They had some excitement when their first living animal encounter turned out to be a squirrel.... But before long, combat ensued as a large Broken Boar attacked them (to introduce combat).

They chose to haul as much meat as they could back to town before proceeding, not wanting such a resource to go to waste.

Upon returning past the patch of forest the next day, they were attacked by a group of Combined Corpses. It was a bit tougher fight, and the Corpses (or the way I described their actions with the remains of the Boar entrails...and their cobbled together appearance, disjointed but quick movement) really grossed the players out effectively, but also cemented their desire to play more in this world.

I'd have to say that Desolation is the best game purchase I have made in a long time, and I hope to be able to spread the word.

I got to run a second scenario with the same group as the first, a continuation if you will. I had all kinds of non-combat encounters pending, including the smallest "community" I have created to date. "The Cart," is a small group of mostly Goblin merchants, but headed by a weave-touched Sorcerer (a bit crazy..ok, more than a bit). The Sorcerer is convinced that his life's purpose is to rebuild roads between communities, and is looking for an earth elementalist or two to "enlist," into his group. He was studying goblins in the before, and managed to save several of them from the village. The Goblins stay with Zarcon out of loyalty and because he still protects them with his magic when needed. They act as liasons and trade in various items, but specialize in bone (of various sources) tools, weapons and other improvised implements.

But, we did'nt get to that. They ran into an abandoned, mostly destroyed farm and were ambushed by a group of Rubble Rousers when the moved to search it. The encounter proved almost lethal, with all but one of the group ending up unconscious/dying by the end (and pretty tapped of style points as well). BUT everyone had fun and wants to continue.

Great to hear! Part of the fun is getting to hear how each group puts their own individual spin on the setting.

So keep 'em coming!

Hullo, Schreg,



Excellent to hear of another game of Desolation going on, and love the play reports and the like.

I agree with you that the Ubiquity system is really easy for players to get the handle on, and they also seem to glom onto the fact that the world of Desolation is so interesting but also atypical of most fantasy. That, to me, is the game's real strengths.



Great game report, mate! While I love Combined Corpses, I have to say that I'm probably not fond of them from a player's point of view! Sounds like you had a great game session, and glad to hear that the players want to continue on with the game.

Hullo, Schreg,



Sounds like a neat community. Any chance of presenting the write-up in the form used in the game system for Communities, here in the appropriate forum? (Mind you, I could take what you've written above, and do something with it for myself if you don't want to post it up.)



Yeah, the Rubble Rousers can be quite deadly. So, how did the group of characters manage to survive the encounter?

Thanks for posting these reports of the game sessions. Always love reading this stuff! Please continue to do so.

John...Thanks for the comments. As far as how they survived, I forgot to mention that the party had with them two legionaires from Penroe (I'm using that as their base community, but only loosly following the "Before and After" campaign, adding lots in between and switching things around a bit... but Penroe seemed like a good starting point). So the extra muscle helped. The Elementalist made a desparate attempt at casting a spell after being wounded and found out the hard way about burn and was knocked unconscious (she hasn't really tried to cast anything big since realizing she is starting to hear the song again).

Anyway, I'll get my writeup on "the cart" neatened up and post it. Thanks for asking.

Eric

Hullo, Eric,



You're welcome.



I'll bet it did. One of the things I've found in my Sunday group, with just the two, now three, players, is that an extra NPC or two along for the ride (if I can justify it in character) with useful skills is always a good idea with such a small player group.



Magic has a strange effect on players in this game system. The concept of Burn when the players finally see it applied to their characters will either turn them off casting spells, or make them all that more gutsier with magic, since the risk factor seems to excite some players. It is also a matter of how the mage characters in your campaign are treated by the world at large - and the other player characters!



I look forward to it. Please remember to post it to the Pass It Along section of the forums.