Gothpunk D&D Session 6: All Slash & No Stash

I entitled the G+ event invite for session six, "Nia thinks you're a scaredy cat." Nia if you remember from [Session 5: Stash & Slash] is the NPC with the caustic wit and Slavic accent. The Slavic accent I place directly at the feet of +Doug Kovacs and his wererats which have become firmly entrenched in my mind and the caustic wit? Well, if you had to witness the blustering of Eldritch and Chu-Chu while at the same moment analysis paralysis overtakes the group of "seasoned" murderhobos on whether to take the North or East passage or perhaps they should simply return to that shittheap full of primitive screwheads to inquire if they have a fully stocked apothecary within their village limits or say perhaps a sauna where one might procure a full Brazilian ... even Mother Teresa would probably utter a few choice, "For fuck's sake." along the length and breadth of her rosary. Does this establish the character for you?

We were joined by a new player this week, +Kevin Parker  who started the session by asking, "Do you guys actually remember high school?" which was a huge relief because honestly, no sir I do not. I remember parts of it, but most of those memories usually revolve around hunkering down in +J. David Beutel's mother's classroom when it wasn't in use to play D&D, Top Secret (which we fucking loved), Gamma World, Boot Hill, Gang Busters, and whatever other crazy shit we stumbled across. There was a smattering of cardboard chit wargames, Star Trek games and I'm sure David remembers a bunch I'm forgetting. Ours was a small rural high school in Vt in Reagan's America which didn't have money for shit and Ms. Beutel taught Special Ed meaning the small population of kids with disabilities in that high school were underserved (someone sold them a crate) and that classroom was empty for large swathes of the day. 

Obviously being called a scaredy cat was one step too far for Harry because he started the session by saying he wanted to return to the mysterious pools of water, from all the way back in [Session 4], to quaff a big ole mouthful of water simply to show Nia he ain't scared of no ghosts.  "There's no treasure there." "Haven't we killed everything in there?" Oh the tactical discussions I hear. Murderhobos. Most use it as a term of derision. I use it as a term of endearment. Seeing as no one could come up with a reason that wouldn't provide a few good yucks, off they went to the cave of mystical bunny water. "I haven't seen mystical bunny water like that since '92," quipped Nimway. 

Once in the cave Harry rolled his pant legs, tied a rope around his waist and waded into the water. I rolled for wandering monsters. 1. Hell yeahs. Roll the d20. 20 which means wolves. Fuck that noise. Now I know the cats that wrote these old school items we love were high as fuck and threw stuff in because it was cool. If you don't believe me read their offerings. "Yeah, put werewolves in that room. *inhales* "Fuck yeah a beholder right next door, that will blow their minds! Oh oh oh a dragon man! Put a dragon there!" "That room is only 10 by 10." "Oh yeah. Shit." *inhale* "I know! I got this. It's a trans-dimensional dragon." Don't lie, you've known it all along. You were in denial. I'm being kind keeping it to weed. If there was some Midwestern kitchen pharmacology going on it wouldn't surprise me one bit. Let them with eyes to see, scales falling off and all that bible thumping hypocritical bullshit slots right in here. 

We dear heart are not required to follow blindly no matter what the chucklefucks with their, "the old ways are the best ways" crapfest mantras say. "God doesn't play dice with the universe," and neither do I (though I do indeed talk to him frequently. Sour Diesel and King Tubby will put you in direct contact as well) so I grabbed that die and rolled again. 16. Spider-crabs. This I can work with. "Three indistinct shapes, pale ghostly white and roughly the size and shape of a manhole cover trailing vaguely phosphorescent streamers can be dimly seen appearing under the rippling water. It's hard to track them with the flickering shadows cast by your torches, the deep shadows of the cavern and the refracting qualities of the water..." Now let's be honest here. I have no freaking clue. I'm just remembering those big ass crabs people post on Tumblr and riffing my ass off. Fuck it. It works. Pandemonium ensues. Crit roll on putting the fear of fuck fuck into your players. Actually my biggest fear was my wife, Ms Amateur Fucking Naturalist saying, "Well actually spider crabs are...." but apparently I came close enough to pass muster for once. Thank the freaking gods. 

Turns out I was imagining a cross between a spider crab and a coconut crab. Score one for imagination!

Crab killing commenced with a gusto. PETA would declare a fucking fatwa on my band of murderhobos if they heard one half of the comments that were said in this melee as Harry Two Feet, Cedric Stonecutter, Poe the Perplexed and Nimway the Cranky Bitch made plans for a post melee crab boil. I was trying to figure out how many sp to charge them for Old Bay seasoning as Harry speared a crab through the middle and tossed it up onto shore, Ely cracked one straight through its carapace, "Nice," said Nimway, "I was going to say thorax but I knew that wasn't right." I told you. It gets strange around these parts. Cedric proved a Dwarf was a valuable addition to the party by making quick work of the third crab. Plans were being made for crab brunch. "Sipping mommy juice and playing D&D is a business plan!" declared Nimway while Harry, not to be outdone, took a big drink of cave pool water.

"I'm going to need you to roll against your wisdom there Harry."

"Oh shit! Harry Burning Man'd!"

"I rolled a 1."

 "A 1?"

"A 1."

"Harry ate the brown acid."

"Harry is overwhelmed by visions and sensations. His eyelids flutter, his eyes roll back in his head, and he falls back unconscious in the water with a loud splash." 

"Fucking burnout. Does that mean we have to carry him? Is he still alive?"

"He's still breathing."

"Godamnit."
"Umm guys. The crabs lived in that water, right?"
"Oh fuck. I'm not eating them."
"Neither am I. Throw them back. Throw Harry in too."
"I guess we could carry him."

"He doesn't weigh that much."

"We could just stash him in the room."

"Just had to drink the water. God I love Doritos."

Fortunately for all involved Harry regained consciousness by the time they reached their Murderhobo Stash Room. I say this because I wouldn't put it past one of these shifty eyed miscreants to quietly shiv the day-tripping squat and then divide the plunder among the survivors. This may have even been discussed in between talk of Dorito love, mac & cheese lust, yadda yadda yadda. Rolling high. Not just about the numbers on the dice.

Our band of miscreants has learned their lesson well and now diligently listens at every door. Problem is a whole gaggle of mummies seated in lotus position around an altar don't make noise. Until you interrupt their millennium long meditation that is. While we're at it, what would you call a gathering of meditating mummies? A murder of mummies? A murmur of meditating mummies? A gaggle as I previously wrote? Did Edward Gorey ever address this issue? It certainly seems to fall within his purview. 

Raffie and Ely successfully turned all but four of the mummies. Tippy rushed into battle, dealing near fatal damage to the nearest mummy who reataliated with....

...the first player character death within Gothpunk D&D. Considering Tippy was at 3 hit points this dirtnapped the living fuck out of him. I envision Tippy the Elf cutting the wax mummy with his sword, the mummy looking at the wound and going, "Fuck me? No fuck you Legoland!" and pile driving his snow-walking ass so hard CSI won't have to chalk outline that body, it's imprinted for all eternity on the floor of the Palace of the Silver Princess.

Harry was the cat that figured out what I was laying down and lit up one of the remaining mummies with oil and fire while Cedric Stonecutter added Mummyslayer to his CV -that will go down a treat at Walmart. "I think I'd make a great customer greeter. I show personal initiative. I can kill the fuck out of wax mummies should they invade the premises ..."- and soon our group was back to doing what it does best, Kvetching that the mummies had nothing of value and turning to looting dead Tippy the Elf's belongings. "Tippy the broke ass elf," was the honorific assigned as it was discovered he was carrying three copper pieces, rations, his weapons and various sundries.  "Do we carry him to the stash room maybe try to find someone capable of resurrecting him?" "I know, Viking funeral his bitch ass!" In the end they just left him. "Tippy was my back of the book character," +J. David Beutel  said. Which brings me to an interesting point and a great synchronicity. In RPG yesterday +Michael Prescott posted, "What's amazing about Moldvay Basic D&D is just how compact it is. No time wasted on explaining things, just, "Here's the DCC funnel in one line."

That hit me like a ton of bricks because I've been having my players roll one character and then assigning them one of the pre-gen characters from the back of the original B3 Palace of the Silver Princess module. Not that I feel Palace is particularly difficult but nearly everyone involved hasn't played in a few decades so having a few characters helps soften the blow. Plus we're adults. Shit happens. I don't want people to feel bad if they can't make it a session. This way we always have a large enough party to whoop some ass. Plus let's be honest here. When most of us last played AD&D was king, we walked around with silver everything dripping belladonna (if it was on the equipment list we were going to get it) and leveling up your character to kick the ever loving shit out of Tiamat, Zeus or Cthulhu was the ultimate goal. Now I love the meatgrinder and rolling up new characters is an opportunity for new creativity but it took me a lot of DCC funnels, [Purple Sorcerer] char gens and finally the lesson of  [Monday Night Open Table] to learn the lesson of "a great character death is worth a thousand times more than waiting around playing it safe." That adjustment takes a while and it makes me feel good to know I inadvertently stumbled into what Moldvay elucidated so long ago.

From there the party found themselves in a deserted torture chamber complete with implements of torture. Nimway was disappointed that the chains weren't chain weapons like those found in Kill Bill. Then she was completely skeeved out by a book that was a collection of faces carefully peeled from former victims, collected and collated. Does Michael's have a section for that in their scrapbooking section? Cedric wanted to know if the faces could be removed so you could, you know, dance around in them and such. I do believe everyone was enjoying Nimway the Cranky Bitch's sudden attack of squeamishness. This was after all the woman who delights in bathing in the gore of her foes, the severing of limbs, all of that great Robert E. Howard vicissitude. "I don't like strange magic," Nimway explained. This of course was too good for +Cathleen Shattuck  to pass up and in the Gothpunk community appeared:

"For Nimway, forever objecting to strange magic in the torture chamber." Cathleen

"I object to E.L.O. in the torture chamber all the time." Acep

"Well it is a torture chamber!" Cathleen

What can I say? My wife loves E.L.O. And prog. Fucking loves prog music. Goth and prog. Such a strange combination. Anyways, after the torture chamber -ignoring my suggestion to throw money at the skeletons in cages to make them kiss, I guess no one goes to the clubs I go to (or watches American Dad)- they decide to hit one more room. Where nearly everyone fails their saving throws and are blinded/overwhelmed by the smell of rat piss. That was it. Enough. Blinding rat piss causes murderhobos to say it's time to retreat to their hidey hole and lick their wounds. "What type of a fucking princess lived in this shithole anyways?" "I guess it suggests the Nietzschean dichotomy of man sir."

Gothpunk D&D Mix #6

1. Under the House by PIL

2. Sacred Love by Bad Brains

3. Time to Die by Void

4. Lady Killer by Vandals

5. Dance This Mess Around by B-52s

6. Beneath the Remains by Sepultura

7. Release the Bats by Birthday Party

8. Libido by Naked Raygun

9. There is No Shame in Death by Danse Society

10. The Thing That Should Not Be by Metallica

11. I Got Nothing For You by TSOL

12. Werewolf by UK Decay

13. Haunting the Chapel by Slayer

[Listen & Download Here]

"My thoughts drift back to erect-nipple wet dreams about Mary Jane Rottencrotch, and the Great Homecoming Fuck Fantasy. I am so happy that I am alive, in one piece and short. I'm in a world of shit. Yes. But I am alive. And I am not afraid." 

- Joker