STAR WARS INTRO THEME GOES HERE

STAR WARS
FORCE AND DESTINY GAME

It is a period of enjoyment for the HITLER AND DEAD BABY GAMING SOCIETY. Presented with a new roleplaying system, FORCE AND DESTINY, the group jumps at the chance to play heroic FORCE USERS. (Except for one of them, who really wanted to play a bounty hunter.) With the IMPERIAL MARCH blaring over the gaming table, the DM shows them an intro on his tablet. It is set up like an opening scroll, complete with music.

It is too angled and no one can read it, but it’s pretty awesome nonetheless. The DM passes them the actual sheet he wrote it from, which is from the BEGINNER SET. The PCs have assembled under a mentor, who has been captured by an evil servant of the Dark Side, MALEFAX. The PCs now climb the snow-clad slopes of Mt. Tellac…

DM: First of all, from the blowing wings, miserable temperature of Mt. Tellac, you all suffer 2 strain. Blowing snow wraps around you. After hours of trudging through the drifting snow, you’ve reached the final ascent. You stand at the bottom of steep stone rise, clad in snow and ice. It’s not especially tall but you will need to brave the elements and exert yourself to reach the top.

The game immediately starts on a rules argument and bitter recriminations all around. The players ponder how to get up the rise!

Zareq: I’ll use my Cool to stay cool and make my way up to the top.
DM: You maintain your presence under the harsh conditions. However, this does not move your body.
Zareq: Damn it. If we were Jedi, I could… I could use my Athletics to climb. Everyone have Athletics?
Kon: Nope.
Brenan: Nope.
Zareq: Path it is.

Singing about not splitting the party, they begin clambering up the path, fighting over who’s in front the entire way. Nolnaru, pushing his way to the front, makes a Resilience check – this being a deliberate introduction to the rules system, it’s fairly simple. The DM promptly punishes him by upgrading the difficulty with a Dark Side point.

Kon: You literally – this did nothing to you, you had three successes and three advantages.
Brenan: You couldn’t have done that better.
DM: It would be difficult to. Leading the way, you manage to forge your way through the drifting snow. The person who comes behind you will gain a boost die to represent the path you made.
Nolnaru: Glad I could help!
Brenan: You just Legolased up on top.
Nolnaru: Actually I did a Boromir, because he’s the one who plowed through the snow. With two hobbits on either arm.
Kon: I have just advantage. No successes, no failures, just advantage.
DM: The ascent is harrowing to you. Although you manage to make it up, you’re going to suffer a setback in the future. Be well advised. Who will follow in his footsteps?
Zarshaan: Me. My Brawn is 2 and I have no Resilience…
Nolnaru: So she has two successes and a TIE Fighter window…
Kon: Disadvantage.
DM: You push on ahead through the path. It’s easy going for you but you’re not as careful as you could be. Behind you a branch drops into the path and whoever follows you will have a setback die.

Zarshaan attempts to use her racial power to offer aid, but the mountain climbing is a solitary affair, so is unable. Zareq rolls and rolls excZarshaantly, using the fallen branch to sweep the path a little and giving Brenan a boost die, which helps him succeed!

DM: If anyone is behind you, you’ve cleared your trail very well. You carefully walk—
Zareq: Scooting your butt on the ground.
Brenan: Not very dignified, but that’s why I’m in the back. No one can see what I’m doing.
DM: Dignity is overrated.
Zareq: ‘I shouldn’t have eaten those space-chimicangas.’
DM: Space-chimichangas…
Zareq: ‘Space’ is going to be added to a lot of shit in this game.
Nolnaru: Awww, galactic tacos!
Zarshaan: I shouldn’t have drunk that juice-nerf-juice.
Nolnaru: That’s the last time I get the surprise at the Mos Eisley tavern.

They reach the top, and flavor-text ensues, though the lack of tauntauns angers Brenan. Another hour of travel awaits, but a flickering ghostly figure abruptly appears before them.

Zarshaan: Force ghost!
Nolnaru: I don’t trust him! I’m gonna punch him!
DM: (wisely ignoring this) “Welcome to my valley. You handled the climb well. First, I must know: what is your purpose here?”
Nolnaru: “I don’t know, I was just told to lead the pack…”
Zareq: “We’re here to rescue our mentor.”
Zarshaan: “We’re here to rescue our mentor, yes.”
Kon: “The one who guided us. We’ve had long discussions on how to pronounce her name…”
Zareq: She never told us.
Kon: She wrote it down.
DM: “Who do you seek to rescue her from?”
Zarshaan: “Malefax?”
Zareq: Someone remembered!
Kon: I was gonna say ‘Malefac’.
DM: “My temple is currently occupied by a servant of the Dark Side of the Force. I wish this villain removed before his corruption of the sacred valley becomes permanent. The question is whether you are the people for the job.”
Nolnaru: “How much ya payin’?”
Brenan: “Who else is there?”
DM: “There are others—“
Brenan: ‘I challenge you to a duel!’
DM: ‘WELL DAMN!’
Kon: “Do you have a test for us to pass?”
DM: “I have seen but little of you. I have watched your climb. It seemed… promising, but I still do not know, if I send you up against this fellow, whether you will fall or he will. I am as yet undecided.
Brenan: What’s it to him if we fail? He still needs to find a champion… If we fail, he’s lost nothing. I’m not trying to convey it in that assholish a way, that’s why I’m trying to put it as a nebulous question. I’m not trying to Coerce him!
DM: Why don’t you roll… Negotiation.
Brenan: Oh boy. Negotiation? We’ve lost all communication!

Brenan burns a Light Side point from the Destiny Pool and promptly rolls a Despair and a Triumph both. The overall test is a failure, but with several advantages and both those critical results. In the background, the discussion veers far afield.

Zareq: Let’s go to Wookiepedia and see their average lifespan!
Zarshaan: What?
Brenan: Lualyrr!
Zareq: Average lifespan, up to 70 years.

The game gets derailed as a missing player begs Zarshaan to drive a coworker home. The DM is furious! After a few minutes, they pick up again…

DM: “I am not certain if you are worthy of my aid. But I will offer you this warning. A group of hunters is following you. You did well to hide your tracks from them, but I fear the test will be undoing your hard work. Best you not fight them with your backs to the cliff.” Then the Gatekeeper vanishes. You hear the hunters approaching from the trees. You flee, but the hunters pursue. They corner you in a ruin on the edge of a lake, wielding old-style slugthrower rifles, their faces daubed with blood. Surrounded and outmaneuvered – the Gatekeeper must be aiding the enemy. Time to fight for your lives.
Zarshaan: That bastard.
Zareq: Aaah, he’s testing us.

Initiative is determined by fiat for this encounter, and the PCs ponder who to assign to their first initiative shot. Nolnaru, the strongest range attacker, is voted in!

Nolnaru: So wait a minute, I’m the strongest ranged attacker AND the strongest melee?
Kon: My class doesn’t have any skills in it.
Brenan: I’m gonna be throwing snowballs if you want me to do ranged.
Nolnaru: How bout I take off one of my gauntlets, and you use your telekinetic power to beat them with it?

Nolnaru, first to act, whips out his heavy blaster pistol and squeezes off a shot as he ducks behind a rock. He rolls… a lot of failures. A LOT of failures. But one advantage gives Zareq a boost die as it makes a hunter stumble. The hunters fire!

Nolnaru: He says forget the shooting, and he THROWS his blaster! It breaks through the rocks behind the hunter!
DM: The first one takes a shot at Zareq! Oh, that’s a lot of Threat. He succeeded, but things didn’t go so well for him.
Nolnaru: So it bounced off of Zareq but went back at him.
DM: You take seven damage as the soak hits you, minus your soak of course. However, the guy as he steps forward finally completes the motion from the snow blasting, and he falls prone! The rest of his action is spent clumsily picking himself up, unable to do more. This next one is coming for Nolnaru – oh no, that didn’t go so well either! You are not hit.
Nolnaru: Dude, I am 6’3”, these guys couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn.

Zarshaan gets hit hard, taking 10 before soak, 7 altogether. They bitterly predict they will all soon be blue ghosts. Kon takes 8 damage, and the last hunter misses Brenan entirely.

Brenan: I strike a pose! As he put a hole in my robe. That’s gonna make me angry.

Zareq surges forward, then uses his Move power to rip a gun out of one of those guys’ hands. Brenan barrels forward in turn to do much the same!

DM: Another slugthrower rifle goes flying in the direction of your choice! Into the hands of the first guy who lost one.
Kon: The second time they’re like, “Wait a minute. Something might be happening.”
Brenan: I don’t know if this is up to you or the rules strictly permit this, but I’d kind of like to send it straight into the head of one of his companions.
DM: You need a higher level to move it aggressively.

Brenan pulls it to the snow at his feet, then taunts the enemies confidently. Kon fires his light blaster, but rolls a net nothing and blasts only the snow. Zarshaan darts forward, firing her holdout blaster with no skill, coming up with two failures. Nolnaru recklessly runs in!

Zareq: Strain that groin.
Nolnaru: So I can take 2 strain and that basically puts me in melee range…

Nolnaru engages a blaster-guy, and the DM spends a Dark Side point to upgrade his difficulty. With the Enhance power, Nolnaru adds in a Force die to try to gain strength. He rolls a Triumph but two failures, and the temptation of the Dark Side isn’t enough to push him over to a success – but his positive Advantage and the Triumph gives him a lot of options. He regains his strain, then elects to be awesome.

DM: You slam into the guy, not enough to do any damage as your punch goes wide, but he shrieks like a little girl and leaps out of the way. His foot gets trapped in a hole, and he finds himself unable to disengage with you as he would have liked.

Brenan: Their turn again. Somebody’s gonna die.
Nolnaru: Me.
Zarshaan: Me.
Brenan: EVERYONE’S gonna die.
DM: The one that you ripped the slugthrower out of his hands—
Nolnaru: Brings up a vibroblade! Fuck!
DM: No, he has nothing to fall back on, so he simply charges forward, eating some strain as he does… which because he doesn’t have strain at his level of NPC, is actually hurting himself to do this, but blood has clouded his vision and he’s determined to take you down. He closes to melee range and takes a punch at you! He hits you, however you will gain a boost to hit him with whatever you do. He only does 2 damage, so I believe your soak ignores that entirely.
Nolnaru: I like how in this game, the DM is actually rolling in front of us, instead of doing one of these. ‘He hits you! And he dooooooes… 47 points of damage!’
DM: He takes a point-blank shot on you. I’m gonna make this harder on him because of what happened/
Zareq: Oh! Triumph…
DM: You’re in a world of hurt. He gains 1 success on you… and the Triumph symbol upon you.
Zareq: Blows your face off!
DM: You take 7 damage, minus your soak of course, however he is inflicting a critical injury on you!
Nolnaru: Aaaaand he burned a hole through my shoulder. I can’t use my arm!
DM: It’s slightly possible… 58. You have an agonizing wound. The difficulty of all Brawn and Agility checks is increased by 1 till the end of the encounter.

Zarshaan takes a blaster hit and attempts to declare herself dead, but then someone corrects her math and she’s ALMOST dead! The DM rules the disadvantage costs the assailant a strain.

Zareq: His groin!
DM: No, that’s good, it counts as a wound for him. You see him grit his teeth in pain.
Zareq: ‘Not the groin!’
Nolnaru: I like how everybody’s straining their groin.

Kon eats a blaster bolt and gains a boost die on his next check, while the last one tries to punch Brenan and suffers a boxer’s fracture that bounces off Brenan’s armor. Zareq draws his ancient sword and takes a swing at the hunter who punched him, while Nolnaru busies himself rolling the Force die for no reason.

Nolnaru: Why do I keep rolling Dark Side?!
Zareq: It knows who’s rolling it.

Zareq’s strike drops the hunter, and Brenan rolls amazingly and scores a Triumph to boot!

DM: So I’ll tell you right now, you killed him…
Brenan: Clean sweep of the head!
Zareq: ‘Shoot me point-blank, will you?’
DM: You whip your sword through his neck, then as the blood spurts out, make a gesture with your hand. It flies over, spattering into the eyes of your opponent.
Nolnaru: That’s awesome!
Brenan: That’s messed up. Ah, without a lightsaber, it’s fun, with the blood….

Zarshaan debates her choices, and elects to attack rather than stimpack herself in the hopes of taking out her opponent before he can deal more damage. Somehow she manages to rack up four failures on her roll, but boosts Nolaru’s next attack. Nolnaru continues to roll Dark Side on his Enhance roll, but he manages to kill his foe without giving in to it.

DM: You slam him brutally in the gut, and he drops to the ground in a vomiting pile?
Nolnaru: In the gut? I was gonna punch him in the face!
Zareq: I thought he was gonna stuff him in the rabbit hole.

The first remaining hunter stings Nolnaru for 8, dropping five for his soak, and the second one rolls fantastically to zing him for 11. Zareq cuts down his foe with his sword, then Benan engages the final one and annihilates the last one. The PCs quickly distribute stimpacks among themselves and demand a Bacta tank or two appear.

DM: You don’t have one.
Zareq: It’s on the ship we don’t have any more. We sold it for credits.
Kon: If we were playing D&D, one of us would be carrying it on our back right now.
Zareq: Wait a minute, this is Bacta snow!

Zarshaan ponders the use of Medicine to treat Nolnaru’s critical injury, leading the group to giggle maniacally over the idea of how bad failures could be. Zareq, though, has the best chance of doing it, but the conditions are so poor he’d gain a setback die.

Brenan: Gatekeeper, how ‘bout you heal our friend after you tried to murder us?
Nolnaru: Dick.
Zarshaan: More like, “So, have we passed your test?”
Zareq: You say to nobody.
Nolnaru: I’m gonna be pissed if we used all those stimpacks and the Gatekeeper is like, “I heal you!”

The Gatekeeper, AKA Zoltan Kuule, appears again, leading the PCs to question if he’s a Force Ghost or what. The Gatekeeper only calls himself a ‘legacy’, leading Brenan to be certain he’s identified the guy from lore (and complain that the guy knows the skill! The Gatekeeper bid them step into the ruins.

DM: You step into the pit…
Zarshaan: And a rancor comes out. Aww, shit.
DM: In fact you do take just a few steps into the ruins before you plummet into a deep pit, a stone-walled chamber with no visible source of escape. Each of you falls into a separate pit in a spray of snow and gravel. You see no obvious way out, just some ropes well out of your reach.
Zareq: I wish I had Force Jump.
DM: The figure of the Gatekeeper pops up again. “Don’t bother trying to climb out. The walls are covered in ice, and it’s just above freezing, they’re slick with ice melt. No, I’m afraid you’ll have to use the Force to have any hope of success here. Should be quite an interesting test from my perspective.”
Nolnaru: Dark Side! Punch the wall!
Kon: I really should have used my Foresee power before walking in there.
Brenan: Well, who knew that Kiari Mundi was such a bitch in the afterlife?

Kon attempts to use Foresee to see the future of his escape from the pit, but refuses to call on the Dark Side to succeed. Zareq tries to pull a rope down with Move, and the DM attempts to encourage him to give in… using his player’s name, which makes Kon crack up at the knowledge of the Dark Side of such secrets. Nolnaru, with his Enhance power, tries to clamber out and scores Light Side points. Success is his!

Nolnaru: Now do I lose my Conflict? Or do I gain 2 Morality?
DM: No. You drew upon the Dark Side in a situation of violence. You were giving in to punch someone better. Normally using the Force doesn’t make you more moral.

Nolnaru lowers ropes down to his fellows, and then everyone goes to the lobby to get themselves some snacks. The DM awards 10 experience, which pretty much leads to the end of the game since I started very late (due to character creation, of course).