Champions of the Spheres, Vikings and Irish Blarney – A Campaign Retrospective

This was one of my longer campaigns, with only a FFG Star Wars Edge of the Empire campaign and an AD&D Temple of Elemental Evil campaign running at least as long.

Cons:

The players didn’t seem to feel all that motivated to engage with the setting, even with the map, they were laser-focused on their divine objectives and keenly aware they had been dumped here by their patrons.

-          Maybe in the future, set it entirely within the setting, the initial planar jump being a genre-approved way of mixing the rules assumptions with the setting.

The demon axe dominated all the combat once it kicked into gear. While this is normal for demon weapons in Stormbringer and I could have not gifted it, the fact remains that there is no downside to investing a big chunk of the initial points into the STR Absorption power and starting with a lower STR. STR never drains out of the axe Rules as Written.

-          I should have either copied the power ebbing as the description of Stormbringer (the sword) or made more about Scarsbad getting greedy with all the powers not being released.

The players were very hesitant to use their marines, knowing they cost X5 more per day if they did.

-          Really the only thing I could of done was emphasis how many hands make light work.

The players didn’t like how monsters and armor meant most attack plinked off foes or went straight through on a critical.

-          That is three problems, the nature of Basic Role-Playing favors heavy armor. Even Runequest 2E/Classic has an issue where it’s a race to 6+ AP for most warriors. Parries slow everything down too, but's normal.

-          The second issue was that I decided that Supernatural AC meant an additional +6 AP, turning most monsters from a d6/d8/10-1 into a high number. I could have come up with a better solution, but I had already used half-damage somewhere else. Perhaps I should have not.

-          Critical are lethal no doubt, but that blame lies on me using Google Dice, which reuses the random seed if you click too often and too fast. Meaning one critical in a big group become several critical. And the high roll for damage becomes many high damage attacks which compound. As seen in the last fight when each player was fighting 5 iron-blooded at a time.

A small number of players dominated the game, they struck first, argued first and roleplayed first. Even when I tried to engage the others, they could be a bit non-committal.

-          Maybe it was simply they weren’t that into it or they kept coming in late and so were never up to full speed. I could have had a round-table system where each player needed to contribute and got a separate talking turn outside of the combat.

I decided to throw The Isle in the game as a spur of the moment thing, based on the reavers zine. That was a mistake as it bogged down the sessions and derailed the momentum. Though the momentum was flagging fast anyway.

-         I simply could not have done it.

-          Every encounter took longer, had more exposition and more debating methods that didn’t work because the players tried something, and the natural course of the game went against it or they wanted to wait something out. Like stringing up a net in the entrance and not disguising it or expecting the berry juice to last against a through soaking. I should say yes more often or have the successful character rolls explicitly disallow certain ideas as unworkable.

Pros

They loved exploration, at first a little hesitant, once they got the map, they were actively seeking adventure and monsters to fight. And every opportunity to expand their weird and wonderful powers and reputations was embraced. The karvi was their best and most coveted resource.

Battles were tense and violent fun. Critical hits and hewing of bodies were a lot better than saying I Attack each round. Though the lower starting skills and aggressive pigeonholing of professions meant some were innately better suited. Everyone got at least one moment of epic heroism.

 Stormbringer does a good job in simplifying Runequest 2E and the start of RQ 3E. Very much fast and fun, with dodges, parries and not as much lookup than a D&D variant.

The conversion process made the game low powered. While this is probably a Con for many, the outdated 90s adaptation website I used pegged HD to HP as HP = 10 + HD, meaning no monster could survive more than a few good whacks, like the PCs and mostly did 1d4/1d6+1d6 damage back. Enough to do the same and made the armor perhaps too important. But it meant that monster slaying and triumph were never out of reach for the players.

-           This reinforced the theme of this low-magic, iron-age world better than describing the weird monsters or accents.

-             They did like the &Monster descriptions though and a bunch of the freakish stuff from the Isle.

Wolves Upon the Coast magic was easy to acquire once they got the Flagstone yet was never used. Mainly because the strange descriptions kept the players always looking out for some reagent or loophole, they could use. Eager to see what wacky things were needed for the next supernatural yet minor power. What magical items they remembered to use served them well. The more elementally charged magic from The Isle meshed well with the elemental controls from Stormbringer.

They were eager for more, the game ended because we found a point to stop, however unwilling. Not because half the players slowly stopped turning up. That told me they were engaged, even if some were beginning to express dissatisfaction with schedules.