Short foray into goblin infested ancient elven ruins. Played via Roll20, 2ed BETA books.
They got through 4 rooms, 2 conflicts, many flasks of oil, one is sick from poison and injured as well (can’t wait to see what happens to him next time).
Of course the problem was that some of the lazy bastards had read the rules and few came in with the usual “ummm yeah I browsed them”. But I knew that would happen and had prepped accordingly!
Out of 4 players one absolutely loved it, two thought it was really good and said “we really need to study the manuals more to get more out of this one” (duh… what did I tell you guys??), one didn’t like it and said he preferred the fluid dramatic nature of Blades/FitD that we have been doing for the past two years. Apples and meat loaf imo so not making comparisons here.
So overall pretty good success for our first delving.
I was positively surprised that players really liked the conflict resolution system and the tactical possibilities it has. I was afraid they would think it differs too radically from the usual combat systems available in trad and/or story games. But they loved it and descriptions that flowed through mechanics were colourful and exciting as well.
I personally think one combat dragged a bit too much because I succeeded in one Defend action really well at the right time turning the tide. But it was a good lesson for all of us that it ain’t over till it is over. In the future I might try to script not only with the “creature behaviour” but also game pacing in mind too. Also not having to check the manuals all the time in the future will obviously quicken the pace.
Next session I have some more verbal stuff planned so the wizard can shine more in conflicts too, he was a bit left to the sidelines now but what was really good about the system was that he too was forced to do something. And people were really finding ways to help him because you really don’t wanna lose any disposition.
What also caught me off guard was that they liked the grind and the bit “metagamey” one check/one turn time approach. The resource management was clear and precise and the system allowed them to plan: what is important to us now? Do we proceed still? Do we have time to check this and that?
Overall our first impression is that TB does the nitty gritty “dungeon delving” thing in such an unique way that none of our previous systems manage to accomplish that level of desperation and excitement.
Now we didn’t really do Nature yet because it is a bit overwhelming to take all the mechanics in from the start so I will introduce that next session. Just did Beginners Luck for now if there was no skill. What I also didn’t cover was the use of Fate/Persona since they obviously didn’t have any. I just told them that they are brownie points you get in the following ways and try to get them because they boost you next time.
Also had discussions about Beliefs and how to write a good one. It is not easy to write a belief that you can clearly bring forward in your playing but hopefully they will improve after a few sessions.
Roll20 sheet seems to work ok but sometimes it rolled twice and sometimes the negative modifiers weren’t so clear in the UI after the roll but my guess is that we are not just yet familiar enough with it.
Anyways overall I am very positive about the whole process, we will continue next week!