Monday, September 10, 2018

Boy vs the Maze of the Blue Medusa Actual Play Session 1

On my little brother's whim, I ran Maze of the Blue Medusa using Into the Odd. My solution to running a dungeon that has adult themes with a little kid is to work my way around them when I get there. It's not something that came up because I  skipped the first room with it's specific entering instructions and plopped him down in room 2, using the fact that he had a Space Folder arcanum as justification. I'm also using a fake name for the sake of not throwing real names on the internet.

  • Sanford is teleported in by the Space Folder.
  • He meets Lady Capilli, she hands him paper and pen and tells him to go and right down someone's story that has to be original.
  • Sam checks the three doors available to him and decides to go in the middle one.
  • There he hears the riddle of Cynoxantha and decides to walk across the room.
    • Maybe I should have been stated the riddle more clearly.
  • Where he is made into a mosaic, and has a little scuffle with the snake where in both take two damage.
  • He forces he's way out of the mosaic room back to where he was.
    • Which required him to pass a Will save.
  • Once outside he was still 2 dimensional, but used the Space Folder to become 3D once more.
  • He than went over to the left door and went to the room with weird shadows. There was no one there and he noticed from a sudden draft that there is a hole where his shadow should be.
  • Sam was going to pry a stone from the floor but reconsidered when I told him it was going to cause noise.
  • We went to the door at the other side of the room and was only able to determine that there is blackness in there. As the handle didn't open he decided to leave the door alone and head back.
    • Maybe I should have said that he has the options of smashing the lock or pouring the acid he had there.
  • He walked out of the shadow room to the door on the right, where Lady Capilli was visibly annoyed.
  • He went into the Etcher Stair room where he saw 5 lizard women trying to hide behind the knot of stairs.
    • I started describing them before I remembered that the Chameleon Women will try to stalk the player. So I went with them failing to be sneaky.
  • After a short exchange where they realize their cover is blown they charge Samford.
  • Samford attempts to teleport behind them but in his hastes only ports over his Space Folder.
  • As they are almost upon them he tries to knock one of them off the edge. He ends up falling over instead.
    • Those were two nat 20s in a roll.
  • In a last ditch attempt, Samford throws his acid flask that gently sails over and smashes somewhere.
  • Samford lands on the cold hard ground and blacks out.
    • Failed his Critical damage roll.
  • When he comes back he is tied up and interrogated for information by the Chameleon Women.
    • I rolled up that their sorceress has a Bone Magnet and a Heat Ray at this point, even thought it didn't come up.
  • He truthfully tells them everything he knows. That being the several rooms he's been and the quest Lady Capilli sent him on.
  • They decide not to murder them as to not annoy a dragon and let him go free, without his Space Folder, because who would trust a dirty mammal with such an artifact.
  • He camps in the Stair room for a couple of days to regain his Strength without any incident.
    • Literally, he was down to 5 from the fall.
    • Four encounter rolls and all any of them showed was that he's light was going out.
  • He set off down the east stair way and the session closed there because I haven't read that part of the book yet.
  • Samford doesn't know, but two of the Chameleon Women are defiantly tailing him now.

Questions for next session:
  • What is the relationship between the Chameleon Women's nation and the wizards that sent out Lady Capilli
  • How should I handle resource management?
  • Is a bad thing that I allowed Samford to heal 2d6 Str from camping in a dungeon? 

What went well:
  • I didn't stammer into a hole to much and I didn't start panicing about stuff. I don't know.
  • Referencing things in the book was fairly easy and I had no problems wrestling with Into the Odd that I have with every other system I've tried.
  • I enjoyed playing the Chameleon Women foolishly.

What didn't go well:
  • I don't think I communicated what was going on clearly, me and Samford weren't on the same page about fictional reality nearly as much as we should be.  I'm not sure I've figured out what is the right amount of information to give in any given senerio yet and I don't know if I've called for rolls at the right time. 
  • During the interrogation I ruled is so that they wouldn't kill him, which may not have been the most OSRy way to do it.

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