Lunch Break RPG - June 10th Play Report

Overview

This is a play report for my ongoing ttrpg I run during occasional lunch breaks at work, all dependent on who is available for that day. This occurs roughly once a week, but there are occasional longer breaks when people are unavailable. I require a minimum of two players to run a session. I am using Index Card RPG and various other resources to run the sessions.

Please refer to this post for more details.

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June 10th Play Report

Each session, players present are given a sheet in the style of a Classifieds ad. This ad contains features five problems occurring in the aptly named Dungeon Town. Players are asked to select from these five options as the adventure for the session.

This session, the players chose the following scenario:

In Need of Medicine

Brothers Silas and Russell have been suffering from ‘flux gut.’ It is known that caramel slugs from the nearby Bogbeast Mire are capable of curing the terrible disease.

Player characters present:

• Clara, Elf Mage
  
• Siel, Gnome Shadow
• Rupert, "Human" Bard
  

Preparation

I did not prep anything for the scenario beyond the pitch above. "Flux gut" would be an illness in which the afflicted continues to vomit up random junk until cured or it kills them. I planned that obtaining the caramel slugs would involve an encounter with a larger monster of some sort.

I had the following resources available to myself for prep:

- Index Card RPG Master Edition ; This is my core rulebook for these sessions. I am not using the actual setup of "difficulty per location" that ICRPG uses, instead using the more traditional "here is the number you need to beat". I also adjusted the Effect dice so that D6 is "Bows & Tools" and D8 is "Weapons" because I did not want to include guns. Otherwise, pretty much using the system as is.

- Dungeons & Drawings ; This is my favorite monster manual. It has a set of generic stats to describe the creature, a paragraph of text on the creature, and a full page picture. It is not specific to any rpg system, but gives me enough tools to pull in a creature and run it if I understand the system itself pretty well.

- Monster Miens ; I wanted a reaction table like the Miens for Troika!!, but just some general lists. This is sorted by creature type, which I thought would be great for the quick reaction I want as a GM during the sessions. I may need to replace this in the future if it begins to feel too repetitive, but for now it works.

- Story Cubes ; The plot for this adventure was generated with three Story Cubes pulled out of a bag of dice. This was just basic inspiration that evolved into the larger problem provided to the players.

Session Summary

The players arrived at the home and business of the two goblin cobblers, Silas and Russell. Before entering the building, the players witnessed a large people of random objects in the alley outside of the building. Clara chose to stay behind and investigate the pile of objects for anything useful while the other players entered the building to meet the ailing cobblers and gather more information about obtaining the caramel slugs.

Using Clara's Intelligence stat (+5), Clara was given five percentile rolls on the Bizarre Loot table in the ICRPG book. She obtained a Sandwich, a Jar of Spores, a Giant Egg (containing an unknown monster), a Fin Ring that improves swimming speed, and a Magician's Hoop (an unbreakable hoop that can be attached to anything magically).

Meanwhile, Siel and Rupert met with Silas and Russell to discuss how to best help them. Siel and Rupert witnessed the disturbing symptoms of fluxgut: the afflicted continue to vomit up random objects until they finally perish.

Silas stated that caramel slugs can be found on resting Wyverns in the Bogbeast Mire. When Siel questioned how Silas knew this would be a successful cure for their fluxgut (all while Silas vomited up a towel), Silas insisted this knowledge came from his grandmother. Siel took this as a unquestionable answer and the party proceeded to Bogbeast Mire to locate a Wyvern.

With some luck, the party was able to quickly find a Wyvern. The caramel slugs engage in cleaning symbiosis with the Wyverns, slowly scrubbing their scaly bodies to consume excess scales or scraps. Siel's exceptional training in stealth allowed her to easily pluck a slug from the Wyvern's body without drawing any attention. The party quickly fled and returned to provide the remedy.

Silas and Russell were grateful for the assistance and offered two options for payment: some very nice shoes or a more useful item from the collection of random objects they had "produced".

Clara and Rupert both took the shoes, obtaining some very nice shoes that could provide some benefits when they impress others. Siel, deciding against shoes, was rewarded with a magical miniature houseboat that, when rubbed three times, would grow to full size.

Reflection

I think this session went well but did need some work to speed things up as time was cut a bit short. I really enjoyed taking the time to craft this adventure a little more than the previous adventures. I am hoping to have more plans in place for future adventures rather than operating solely off of the prompts and random generators I have been utilizing. Now that I have a more stable, recurring group of players, I think some advance planning is more reasonable. I will still focus on one shot, one hour sessions that do not require consistent participation for players, but I can definitely put more work in than I am currently doing.