Wednesday, February 1, 2017

Dungeon of the Orc Boss play through

Hello all! I have just a quick playthrough report of Dungeon of the Orc Boss. I decided that I would
play as Bob the fighter. Bob decided to buy a suit of light armour and a smoke bomb before setting off on his quest to kill the orc boss.

On the way across the plains, he came across a knight who offered him a challenge. Bob loses 1 Vitality point, but gets two hits in and gets 1xp.

In the first room, Bob easily slays a goblin to find a potion of curing. He then falls into a trapdoor down to level 2 into the down stairs room (decided by rolling 1 die). Bob then tries to get up to the next level to escape. He faces 2 goblins which take him down to 1 Vitality and make Bob spend a couple of xp to get rerolls to avoid death. However, he manages to get an art object worth 106 gold pieces.

In one room, he slays an orc (spending more xp) and opens a trapped chest. The chest has a poisoned dart trap which threatens to take his last point of Vitality. However, Bob quaffs his curing potion to negate that damage and opens the chest to find...a curing potion. Great. Bob also gets 1gp in coins (rubbish) and a piece of art worth 28gp.

When he returns to the village, Bob spends all his money on healing and healing salves and returns to the dungeon. He manages to slay his way through and gets to the Orc Boss. He spends a lot of xp to kill the boss and avoid the chance of losing 2 Vitality. Bob slays the Orc boss to get his 100gp and another art object. Bob returns with 199gp of treasure and a potion of curing. He gives 100gp to the villagers to get 1xp and now has a total of 6xp.

Bob has gained:

4 healing salves
74gp
3xp
A potion of curing.

Things I learnt from this play through

  • With so few Vitality points, you will be doing everything possible to save them.
  • Will points are a dump stat for fighters and, I suspect any class that does not cast spells. As long as you keep your Will above 0 so that Will loss does not lead to Vitality loss, you are fine. Wizards, on the other hand, will be stocking up on potions of clarity.
  • Experience points are vital for saving your skin. You will spend a lot on rerolls. It is for this reason, that the bard will get 1 extra experience point every time they gain experience. This was inspired by Alexis Smolensk's blog.
  • Art items will give you loads of treasure. Coins, not so much. This relates well to the idea that who is actually hoarding these coins? Where do they come from? If coins aren't so big to the economy, why are there so many underground? Also, you don't want hoards of coins to destabilise the economy.
  • The most powerful magic item I found was a potion, which is how I wanted it. I want permanent magic items to be rare.
  • Every roll made me think - do I spend an xp or a fate point to reroll? Do I use my treasure rerolls to get more gold or risk trying to get an item? However, I don't have to do any adding or subtracting.
  • The playthrough took very little time to do. In this sense, SCRAWL is the game I wanted to play - it is simple, yet gives you lots of choices with how to spend your resources. It also allows you to play a different game each time - either due to random generation or because each class forces a different approach. I'm really happy with what I did, even if I must say so myself.
You too can play Dungeon of the Orc Boss using SCRAWL both of which for PWYW.

3 comments:

  1. This looks like something that I'd really enjoy. Light, and with plenty of room for narrative. I'll have to give it a go in the near future.

    Keep up the good work. :0).

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  2. Hi Thomas. Many thanks for your comment. I hope you enjoy it when you try it. My plans: I'm currently doing encounters for the terrains you travel over. I will then do generators for towns, cities, castles, overland site adventures and different types of dungeons. After that, I will write some special adventures that you can substitute for randomly generated dungeons etc. If you email me at sl1605@gmail.com or join my Patreon, I can keep you updated.

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    Replies
    1. Hi Stuart. No worries. This is really looking very impressive; and I'm equally impressed with how fast the resources for this system are growing in volume!

      I haven't been able to pick up my copy yet, as RPGNow was throwing a fit yesterday when I attempted to pick up a copy of the core rulebook, and the supplements to date. Not a small fit either, the whole site kept timing out. I suspect that was a problem with my connection more than anything else though.

      As I say though, I was very impressed as when I went over there I had expected a rulebook in the region of 10-12 pages, but was met with 45! That just smacks of a professional production. :0).

      I'll drop you an e-mail shortly, as I would like to be kept up to date with future developments. Keep up the great work.

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