Spoilers contained below. Read at your own risk.
So we gather together at 10am on a Saturday sitting around in a living room. We most often play table top games so the lack of a large table to gather around is unusual but enjoyable as the seating is most excellent with plenty of room to spread out.
Players
Andy - Paladin (our GM had some download that offered the class).
Rick - Dwarf and most amicable host.
Sean - Cleric.
Steven - Halfling.
Matthew - Elf (me)
GM - Ross (who excellently made cards for items and conflict actions and printed out sheets for starting gear selection - this was crazy helpful!)
(Note about the group: we are a rather seasoned group and have played together in many different game iterations with most having gmed at least a one shot, or campaign. Two people had backed the kickstarter. )
We start off muddling through character creation, each trying to take a different route so we can widen our experience of the game. It takes us about 90 mins to work through everything including gear and all. We get a good mix of friends, enemies, mentors and parents.
Goal and Instinct setting was a bit of a challenge, at least for me. It was difficult to know what was or wasn’t vague.
GM starts setting the scene and a quick synopsis at which point we set goals. (I wanted my goal to be to find something unique or unusual because it fit my Curious Elf very well, but it’s a bit vague. Would love to find a way to reword it so I can use it in the future.)
We begin by looking around and find scales. Our first test! We fail and while figuring out they come from Kobolds, five of them get the drop on us. Our first conflict! We judge it to be a Kill conflict. The kobolds want us out, but we aren’t leaving.
The Elf Maneuvers with his dagger as the first move and while the Halfling covers him with his own sling, he manages to disarm the kobolds of their own slings while they hit us with a few penalties. The Cleric Defends an Attack next, and rolls well, no damage taken. The Pally aids the Dwarf who attacks and kills 2 kobolds.
Second round - the Dwarf opens with an attack (we realized this was a mistake after the fact as the Dwarf could not go again) and gets aid and kills the last 3 kobolds. ‘Man, killings things is easy. We should do this a lot.’ -Dwarf
This marks roughly two hours in, three turns.
We prep torches and begin down the steps. GM rules that being in dim light x2 counts as bright so we use two torches to light the whole group. (Rules advice welcome).
Cleric and Ranger set off a trap. The stairs collapse. Health test. The Pally and Dwarf are Injured. Suckers.
The Elf spends a turn using Survivalist to make a torch from some broken wood. Existential conversation abiut effective use of turns ensues. Perhaps the Elf should have made more torches all at once?
We briefly listen at one door, then remove the junk from the other door. The Dwarf succeeds at Laborer and we open the door. Torches begin burning out, no one is Fresh. Everyone eats/drinks.
We find a dog! The Cleric or Halfling, not sure which, befriends him with a failure. Kobolds lock us in the cellar and bar the door. Crap. We name the dog Hound and decide to search the room, find fout casks of beer and a rolling wall! The wall falls in the Halfling to Injure him, and the Pally and Elf become Afraid! Drink!
We find much loot and split it up. The Elf checks for traps with help from the Halfling. Succeeds and finds none. The Halfling goes to pick the lock and breaks a few picks in the process, becoming Angry!
We get back to the locked door and discuss smashing it open. The Cleric suggests we make a catapult to launch beer casks at the Kobolds, but no one can Carpenter. We smash the door! We needed five successes, the Dwarf, with help hits SIX successes! Everyone cheers. Dog is now named Bojangles?
(At this point we are roughly three hours and about 5 torches in. We sadly have no checks amongst us, as we keep forgetting to use traits against ourselves.)
We head into the next room and find assaulted pork. Or rats eating a salted pork. We aren’t sure which. Dog is now named Barkspawn.
Drive off conflict with the rats. We will lovingly call it a f@ck off conflict next time. Dwarf takes lead and woth help rolls up 6 hp to the rats 3. The Halfling goes first with his sling, and with help from the Elf and Pally rolls 5 successess on his Maneuver! He penalizes the rats next roll and boosts both the Dwarf and the Clerics next rolls. (Can you stack multiple bonuses on one character?)
The Dwarf goes next and takes a hit to the helmet while driving off two rats. The Cleric rolls no successes. The Ranger drives off the last rat. We have used 7 torches now and have no checks for camp…however…
The GM wants to run a camp anyway, to get a feel for it. We get a minor inconvenience of rats getting into our gear but the Cleric’s instinct is to always keep his gear safe. The GM rolla randomly to see whose gear they went for it, and it landed Cleric so his stuff was safe. Nice!
The Hafling makes some food. The Dwarf fails at healing the Injured condition ‘Thanks, Obama.’ And we wrap up our session.
We didn’t do session ending stuff because if we run a campaign, Ross will do his own thing and we will likely roll new characters.
We were all very happy with the game!
Few other questions:
How many wises do Humans get?
Do you need to call bonuses and traits and such before the roll, or after?
Ex. I roll to search for traps and succeed, could I use my Loner trait at that point against myself, or did I need to call it beforehand? If the Halfling rolls to befriend the dog, can the Cleric add his animal wise after the fact if the Halfling had failed?
All in all, great game!