This continues a (hopefully) long-form campaign, Zen and the Art of Caravan Maintenance.
Joshua and Emmett are now cattle ranchers, both seeking a quiet change in career for various reasons. They’re driving buggalo from Emerald City to the Porcelain Citadel
Last session they were approaching Violet City, and had resolved to kick back and explore for a week.
Story
Emmett and Joshua stay in the Plucky Penguin, a no-frills place that put a bit more effort into looking after livestock than people. It’s run by dwarves as a commune - any attempts to find names or distinguishing features results in a “man, property is theft” which confuses as well as rebuffs.
Some Lime Nomads are staying here too, letting off some steam now they’ve arrived in the smoke. They’re going on a pilgrimage to see the Elevated Tree by the Circle Sea and invite the pair to come along the next day. This gives time for a night on the town before going out!
After exploring the shadier areas of town, Emmet starts gambling. He’s surprisingly good at it, particularly annoying the shark who was not anticipating this. The shark tries to double-or-quit by offering Emmett some cat coffee for free, in the hope of selling some more. Emmett overrides the panicked Joshua, trying the drug. He does compromise on not buying a supply of it with their minimal funds though - perhaps the temporary Intelligence boost helped?
They smartly withdraw, although their unfamiliarity with the city means that they’re soon cornered by the shark with a revolver! Joshua uses Hold Person while Emmett disarms him and they flee.
The next day they set off to visit the holy tree with the nomads, a few days out of town It turns out to be rooted to a boulder suspended by a fragment of invisible stuckforce. Even with Emmett’s cat coffee withdrawl, the pair can both appreciate this place. Pilgrims take it in turn to climb a rope up to the boulder - helped if needed by cloaked silent individuals at the top - and spend a moment in contemplation before climbing back down again.
Tools
Unchanged from last session.
I’d written new weather tables to roll in the game and encounters to select from. It probably wouldn’t hurt to just do that ahead of time - at least see if it makes prep easier.
However what I don’t want to do is just turn this into a purely-narrative session. This is entirely a preference by me, rather than a value judgement!
Lessons learned
In UVG, the character in the party with the lowest Charisma rolls on the Misfortune table. This is perhaps misnamed as it has a few fortunate things on it as well.
I have been using a Charisma Test in Black Hack to indicate whether misfortune is required and then picking from a list of encounters I’ve been thinking of along the way. One of my players pointed out that this means there’s less encounters, as a successful test gives nothing happening at all. As Black Hack doesn’t have modifiers (roll under stat for success), there’s no straightforward way to get that Charisma bonus when rolling in the Misfortune table either.
I might have good and bad encounter ideas and pick between those, based on the Charisma Test? That requires generating some more stuff, but does preserve the odds from the Test itself.
A more minor lesson I learned is “I can’t GM through jetlag” having travelled across the Atlantic the day before - I faded rapidly through the session!