We had our second session of my new Freebooters campaign last night. Overall, we had a great time and everyone enjoyed it. We did have some PVP action (which I haven’t run a lot of in PbtA games), and I’m not sure I handled it the best way. The evil, greedy, but not very smart Elf Thief tried to pocket some treasure for herself right in front of the other characters. They protested, and a scuffle broke out in which the Halfling Cleric tried to swipe her off her feet with his staff. I had the cleric roll to hinder the thief, and then the thief roll a DEX save to avoid the sweep, which she made.
Any thoughts on how to better handle that kind of situation?
That’s how I would have done it.
I think the main thing with PvP stuff is to make sure everyone is on the same page and okay with the possibility that it might occur. In my experience, if you’re up front about potential shenanigans and prepared for the possibility, having Chaotic and Evil characters in a party can be a lot of fun. But it can be a huge drag if it really messes someone up.
In our session last week, we had an evil dwarf fighter who was wrathful, rude, and decadent. His actions started downward spiral that ended with him and another PC dead, along with 3 friendly villagers, and the remaining 2 PCs shipwrecked with nothing to their name. It was enormously entertaining for us, but obviously you need to be in the right state of mind.
I imagine playing with new folks might pose some issues, since everyone may not be tuned in to everyone else’s sensitivities. Did it work out okay socially?
Jason Lutes Everyone really enjoyed the inter-character squabbling, and it turned out fine. The Thief was finally forced to share the treasure with the rest of the party but she spent the rest of the session pouting and demanding they give her food (she’s also gluttonous) before she would check any doors for traps 🙂 The group is really gelling quickly for a group of folks who had never jet each other (including myself) before our first session last week. People are really playing up their personality traits, and having fun with the interplay between characters. The player whose character got killed last week was back with a much tougher Halfling fighter and had a good time with her new character. In our campaign set-up, we established that this abandoned keep was the closest dungeon, that some rival treasure hunters had been driven out of it recently but not before finding the “Lion’s Eye Diamond”. I loved seeing the players’ eyes light up when I described them finding an old audience chamber with a mosaic of an ancient king riding in a chariot drawn by lions, one of which still had his diamond eye! They rushed to examine the mosaics, and failed perceive rolls meant that no-one noticed the giant slug gliding into the room behind them, blocking their escape route! We ended the session on that cliff hanger, and everyone was excited to get back and play next week. Very successful campaign so far.
Love the lion’s eye! That’s classic stuff right there. Also makes me think a random treasure name generator might be in order.
The players came up with that name when I asked them the “What thing of great value did an expedition recently find there?” question during setting generation. I could see the light of recognition dawning on them as I started to describe the mosaic and the chariot-pulling lions 🙂 A random treasure name generator sounds pretty great!