Pool Time with Swim Allen

cramOS Play Report

System: cramOS TTRPG by Shurebis

Module: B4 The Lost City

Runtime: 3 Sessions (~5-6 hours), 1 Droid

Notable procedures: Treasure finds converted to 1 scrap or d6 roll on "dead droid" table. Otherwise 1 in 6 chance for scrap or something useful out in the open. Torches usually burn out end of session, (if I remember). All Humanoid converted to droids.

Current Status: unnamed droid

Body: 2/8 // Mind 10/10 // Spark 9/9

HP: 0/4 // Armor 1 // Firewall 0

Parts:

Inventory (much of this is from "fast pack B"):

SUMMARY:

Room 1. Propped closing door open with a torch. Unwittingly avoided trap 1b gas build up. (Spark save, d6 damage/round). From here on, I forget that the doors are supposed to automatically close, oops. Experimented with detachable hand and avoided other traps. Located trap 1e and safely lowered herself through hole to Tier 2.

Room 6. Wandering encounter: 6 Camel-masked Cynidicean droids avoiding invisible "snakes". Noticed her first but were friendly. Chatted for a bit to little gain. Spare gears and springs stored here proved not useful as scrap. Followed slow procession of Camel-masked droids towards the stairs down to Tier 3.

Room 4: Quick sidetrack before stairs. Found the holy symbol of Grom and 2 scrap in a dead droid's satchel. Noted giant insectoid stinger in droid's head.

Tier 3 Hallways: Passed through the revolving passage without experimenting with buttons, but did check for traps, which was interrupted by 3 giant centipedes (wandering encounter). Lucky break on surprise roll allowed her to run away.

Room 17: Peeked into mold filled room and nope'd out.

Room 20: Searching around chapel ruined by Zargon's cultists revealed ramp 20a. Experimented for a while with the detachable hand. Eventually chose to descend to Tier 4.

This was the end of session 1, and I was surprised by how easily she solo'd this deep into the dungeon. I dare say it was designed to encourage over extension. Interacting with the Camel-masked droids was fun. She hadn't quite clocked importance of trade & cultivating relationships yet, but I could see the gears turning. In her defense, these guys are basically crazy and walk very slow.

Session 2, we had one of those "why am I exploring this dungeon?" conversations. Informing her of this rule: "At the start of each session, spend a Scrap or lower one Condition Dice Tier," answered that. We agreed to invoke this rule every other session since we only play for a couple hours at a time.

Room 38: Had the prank in this room fired off, it would have been entertaining. But it's a bit over complicated. I suspect it rarely works as intended. Instead, she merely noted the Jester's ashes and moved on.

The brass jars look empty, but any item put completely into any of them will be instantly teleported into a large concealed hollow beneath the coffin. The jars were used by the jester as his master trick, in which he made items disappear to amuse the court. The party can get to the hollow by removing the coffin.

Room 31: Sorely tempted by the plate mail halberd in this room. But decided not to test the 9 skeleton warriors inside.

Room 37: Successful Mind save to notice the squeaking behind the door. Left it be.

Room / Rolling Bolder 39: She accidently saw this trap when my map bled a bit. But was a good sport and triggered it anyways. As written, the bolder is easy to avoid in any case. She ducked into the door. Found a parchment map of an area of the dungeon she hasn't explored yet.

Room 40: Saw treasure in this room, but also attracted a carrion crawler. Successful body save to outrun crawler. All the way back to Room 39. Laid a fire trap. Decent idea but unlucky with damage. Also hid inside the noble lady's sarcophagus, which was a better idea. Crawler eventually left. (Had the crawler successfully attacked, it would have retreated after tasting metal. In the future, I'm going to make more of the non-humanoids Dimmed machines.)

The bolder now blocks the path at the end of the hall. Remarkably, 0 wandering encounters this session despite 6 or 7 checks.

Next session she went back to the skeletons at Room 31. Interrupted by wandering encounter: 6 neutral Droids also exploring the dungeon. Successful spark save convinced them to try the room with her. The ensuing battle was ranks of 3 vs. 3 fighting in the hall. She polevaulted over allies to avoid being in the front rank. Improvised a rope-dart (d4 damage) to attack from from the 3rd rank. All of her allies were slain.

Now she runs to and tries to kite the skeletons. Mind save for the tactic to work, and allowed her to methodically take out d8 skeletons this way. A wandering encounter was triggered during this process, which would come-up as soon as I had mental space to integrate. Eventually, she was cornered by skeletons in Room 38.

Some desperate ideas now. Throw the jester's ashes! (50/50 to make skeletons hesitate, it works, take the initiative). I let her attempt a body save to avoid some damage, but she failed and took 3x d6 attacks. Go all in duel wielding a torch and the knife. (Upgraded her damage to d8. Rules error! should have been d12 if I was going to allow this.) Not enough damage to clear the room.

In dire straights now. Hazard protection wiped out. Most condition dice on d4. Body nearly wrecked. She produces the holy symbol. Spark saved and it works to deter them for a moment. Now the wandering encounter: 8 Brothers of Gorm! Naturally, they are willing to save someone brandishing their symbol. Nevertheless, 4 brothers die putting down the skeletons. They take her back to their leader in Room 12, as directed by the module. First, she quickly loots the weapons of the 6 droids who died at Room 31.

Room 12: Meets leader Kanadius. He explains about Zargon and the city Cynidicea below. Most Cynidiceans are on the edge of dimming.

On display: Torso w/ Magnetic field detector (d8, F0) for 6 scrap. To rich for her! She sells her mirror for 1 scrap, failing the spark save to get a second. Holds onto holy symbol despite it being in demand.

Waived gender requirement to join Grom brotherhood. My player never declared a gender. And also it's robots. Reaction rolls specifies she is permitted to join, but will not be asked. She asks. She'll be given a blue tunic, chainmail (A1, I'm deciding), and a gold Gorm mask (worth 1 scrap to the right buyer).

As written, joining one of the factions obviates supply upkeep as long as their stronghold in Cynidicea is reachable. This will obviously take wind out of the scrap economy sails. So I've given her a number of strictures for joining the brotherhood. Mostly formalizing info from the module and cramOS:

I'm hoping these will be enough of a pain that we'll maintain tension. In particular, keeping her allies alive will be hard. We end planning to do respite & repair next session.

THOUGHTS

I was expecting my player to burn through 2 or 3 droids after this many dungeon rooms. With smart play and condition dice, droids have quite a bit of runway they can use to mitigate danger and failure. Nevertheless, as the threats became serious the temptation roll condition dice grew too large to ignore.

Interacting with the core systems was satisfying. The tradeoff of saves & condition dice strike a nice balance of high agency and long odds. I quite like the simplicity of bartering for 1 or 2 scrap as well. "1 might not be enough, 2 is far too much" - Brilliant

Now that her unit is nearly bricked, it will be a long an expensive process to get back to par. The run would probably be over if she had not found the brotherhood and thought to request membership. The quest to repair & upgrade will further motivate droid-droid interaction, I think. This is a social RP game disguised as OSR survival.

We have not dealt with any magical threats yet. That will be the cue to introduce mind and spark damage.

Need to get a bit more confident running Odd-like combat. It feels so mean! I allowed a body save to dodge, which was really me just falling into Borg habits. Probably justified in this case since there was an ash cloud and holy symbol ect. But in the future I'll be mindful.

Now that the playtest material is out, I'll see if I can work in some of the guidelines on burrows, resources and travel. Mostly we're just following B4 here, but if she makes it to Cynidicea, there will be point-crawling procedures to be had.