Last night we had our first actual session of 13th Age (after a character creation session). I was running the adventure The Strangling Sea. The setup for the adventure is based on the character's relationships and some random rolls, so we were perhaps a little slower getting started that normal (of course the biggest delay is always the pre-game chitchat), but it ran pretty smooth after that being a D&D derivative.
The party was sent by a wizardly patron connected with the Archmage to find a missing artificer. Their only clue was a friend of his in a distance town. This necessitated a travel montage, which is one of 13th Age's dfferences from other sorts of D&D, which asks the player's to essential describe what happened in a round-robin description of incidents. There seems to be a bit of reticence here in the players' parts, surprising since all of them have run games before and two have published works. Likely, it was just being put on the spot.
After the travel we got to the only combat of the adventure. A battle with some thugs in service of the Diabolist:
The player's triumphed, though without the escalation die, it might have been a close thing.
I rather liked this adventure. It's rather basic but a decent introduction to the system and setting, and pretty easy to fiddle with so it fits with any group. When we ran through it our patron was definitely not the Prince of Shadows, because of course he doesn't exist. Just a myth to frighten shopkeepers with. :)
ReplyDeleteThe escalation die saving the day for the PCs is exactly how things are supposed to work, the math's all built around the heroes starting at a slight disadvantage. One of my favorite aspects of this game, and easily stolen for other rule systems. The players will come to truly hate the rare monsters that get benefits from the ED or mess around with it the way some PCs can (eg many Commanders, some humans with their species power feat) can.