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Feb. 1st, 2020 12:52 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pedantherThis month at the gaming group, I played 7 Wonders: Duel and Elder Sign: Omens of the Deep.
In 7 Wonders: Duel, I tried for a military victory, and got very close, but I couldn't get the last card I needed because I was short of money, having spent lavishly earlier in the game. That gave my opponent the chance to get the last card he needed to get the scientific achievement victory.
I've owned the app version of Elder Sign: Omens for ages, but this was the first time I've played the original tabletop version (for a value of "original" that includes this being an expansion that significantly alters the gameplay). It's a co-operative game where everybody is trying to prevent some Lovecraftian horror from arising; the base game is set in a museum, but the Omens of the Deep expansion is set on a voyage to a remote and sinister island. Gameplay is in two phases; the voyage, which is mostly devoted to collecting useful artifacts and amulets for phase two, and then the island, which is mostly devoted to not getting killed. We made a few mistakes due to unfamiliarity with the rules (some people had played the base game, but it was the first time playing the expansion for everyone), one of which was triggering phase two with not nearly enough useful artifacts and amulets gathered, and the result was that we all ended up being devoured one by one by the Lovecraftian horror. But we had fun.
This month we also had the second session of the RPG campaign. We did two more training exercises, and next session we'll start the proper campaign.
First exercise this session was trying to break into an old wizard's tower (the tower was old; the wizard was long dead) guarded by an Observer (like a Beholder, only not quite as scary). Our ranger decided to try talking to it first, in case it could be persuaded to let us past; it couldn't, but it turned out to be quite lonely and happy to have someone to talk to, so the rest of us left the two of them talking while we snuck around to another side of the tower and climbed up the ivy-covered walls to one of the windows. We managed to climb up, loot a valuable magical artifact, and climb halfway down again before our luck ran out and we made a noise the Observer came to investigate. After it decided it didn't believe our protestations of innocence, the ranger quickly explained that we were gathering ivy for a special brew for the tea party she and the Observer had been planning, and backed it up by rolling a natural 20 on her deception skill check. We promised the Observer we'd come back later for that tea party, and had away with the looted artifact, and then we had a bit of a break and the GM told us about the carefully-planned combat encounter we'd managed to completely bypass.
The second exercise of the session involved getting past a magic user with a variety of area control spells including fast-growing magical thornbushes and a giant snake. (Our GM has been having a lot of fun collecting and deploying miniatures.) Unfortunately, she wasn't the talkative type; fortunately, all the spells she was using required concentration to maintain, so we didn't have to defeat her entirely, just disturb her concentration enough for the obstacle to disappear. Which was a good thing because by the end the only party member was still conscious was the ranger, and she probably wouldn't have been able to take the mage down single-handed but she did manage to distract her long enough to complete the objective that ended the exercise. So the ranger got some action to make up for spending the entire previous exercise standing around talking, and the rest us got to practice making saving throws against bleeding to death, which will probably come in handy again at some point.
In 7 Wonders: Duel, I tried for a military victory, and got very close, but I couldn't get the last card I needed because I was short of money, having spent lavishly earlier in the game. That gave my opponent the chance to get the last card he needed to get the scientific achievement victory.
I've owned the app version of Elder Sign: Omens for ages, but this was the first time I've played the original tabletop version (for a value of "original" that includes this being an expansion that significantly alters the gameplay). It's a co-operative game where everybody is trying to prevent some Lovecraftian horror from arising; the base game is set in a museum, but the Omens of the Deep expansion is set on a voyage to a remote and sinister island. Gameplay is in two phases; the voyage, which is mostly devoted to collecting useful artifacts and amulets for phase two, and then the island, which is mostly devoted to not getting killed. We made a few mistakes due to unfamiliarity with the rules (some people had played the base game, but it was the first time playing the expansion for everyone), one of which was triggering phase two with not nearly enough useful artifacts and amulets gathered, and the result was that we all ended up being devoured one by one by the Lovecraftian horror. But we had fun.
This month we also had the second session of the RPG campaign. We did two more training exercises, and next session we'll start the proper campaign.
First exercise this session was trying to break into an old wizard's tower (the tower was old; the wizard was long dead) guarded by an Observer (like a Beholder, only not quite as scary). Our ranger decided to try talking to it first, in case it could be persuaded to let us past; it couldn't, but it turned out to be quite lonely and happy to have someone to talk to, so the rest of us left the two of them talking while we snuck around to another side of the tower and climbed up the ivy-covered walls to one of the windows. We managed to climb up, loot a valuable magical artifact, and climb halfway down again before our luck ran out and we made a noise the Observer came to investigate. After it decided it didn't believe our protestations of innocence, the ranger quickly explained that we were gathering ivy for a special brew for the tea party she and the Observer had been planning, and backed it up by rolling a natural 20 on her deception skill check. We promised the Observer we'd come back later for that tea party, and had away with the looted artifact, and then we had a bit of a break and the GM told us about the carefully-planned combat encounter we'd managed to completely bypass.
The second exercise of the session involved getting past a magic user with a variety of area control spells including fast-growing magical thornbushes and a giant snake. (Our GM has been having a lot of fun collecting and deploying miniatures.) Unfortunately, she wasn't the talkative type; fortunately, all the spells she was using required concentration to maintain, so we didn't have to defeat her entirely, just disturb her concentration enough for the obstacle to disappear. Which was a good thing because by the end the only party member was still conscious was the ranger, and she probably wouldn't have been able to take the mage down single-handed but she did manage to distract her long enough to complete the objective that ended the exercise. So the ranger got some action to make up for spending the entire previous exercise standing around talking, and the rest us got to practice making saving throws against bleeding to death, which will probably come in handy again at some point.
