The Slaying Stone - Session 0 and Preamble
I am officially running a game again. God bless America. Running a game is awesome and cool but has been basically entirely aspirational for me for the last 8 years; I was GMing a game in high school but then every attempt since has fizzled out due to scheduling or dumbass-induced anxiety. Overcoming the dumbass anxiety is still an ongoing issue, but it's fucking lame to let fear of being a bad GM stop me from doing the only thing that could possibly make me a better GM. I have 8 years of reading and listening to TTRPG Thought Leaders and my normal ass friends, I've been playing in 5e games on and off, surely I have learned everything there is to learn. Just run the game!!!
To be clear, I have ran some really fun oneshots - I ran Mausritter and converted someone who gave up on ttrpgs into an NSR gamer, I've done little playtests for tactiRPGs like Trespasser and Tactiquest. All of these were super fun! But realistically, oneshots are not examples of TTRPG play. There is so much more stress that goes into the pacing and the prep of a good oneshot, and it doesn't even really prepare you for what campaign play is like. As a player in our 5e game, I know our GM is doing work in the background to make this game slap (because it does slap) but the minute to minute of most sessions feels player directed and that's what I miss. Every railroady oneshot I have to run feels like I am Big Brother ensuring everyone is enjoying their mandatory fun and maximizing the efficiency of the group. Whether this is a quality of oneshots or my control freak nature is soon to be discovered.
Part of the waffling has been about System. I went through a post-5e-cocoon where the agony of dancing monkey play turned me into a pile of caterpillar sludge and I had to be manually scooped into a chrysalis. Eventually the mantras of OSR marketing got to me. Yet, there are two wolves inside of me and one of them fucking loves moving little guys around a grid and hitting things.
At some point my amigos on the Discord of Many Things brought Tactiquest to my attention and I have been enamoured with it ever since. It is a tactical RPG, a genre that I am mostly personally defining as "dedicating most of its rules to moving things around a grid". You can argue 5e is a tactiRPG but it's deeply embarrassed of being one. Just come out of the closet king, we all saw 4e. The big names in this genre are DnD 4e, Draw Steel, Lancer and ICON, and Gubat Banwa - but two smaller ones, Trespasser and Tactiquest, are the ones after my heart. They're sweet and indie and the devs are nice, and more importantly the type of games they are oriented towards deeply appeal to me. Tactiquest is diceless and suggests the GM run games with it that are very much zero to heroics fantasy, traversing the world and resting in safe havens, and fighting Big Bad Evil Guys. Totally the kind of system I would want to use for lots of classic fantasy games!
So, system waffling over. Module picked off a wall at the suggestion of another friend - 4e modules are probably fairly convertable, so I went with one of the most common level 1 adventures, the Slaying Stone. It takes a good bit of converting but it'll work. Game scheduled. Recruited players. Gaming!
The Game
We had a very productive session zero! Our two Tactiquest experts (the author and a major contributor) came with characters more or less complete - a human bruiser from Kiris Dahn, Cadence, and a goblin earth priest. Sable. Our newcomers put together a dwarf bard, Rosa, and an elf scoundrel, Thada. The group knows each other already - Rosa ran the tavern in Kiris Dahn before the empire fell, and each member has visited her or done work for Treona in the past.
The party first met with Treona, the wise diviner of imperial wisdom, and Kiris Alkirk, the youngest heir of the Alkirk family. Treona imparted their quest to find a rock of instant murder and gave them three rituals of Locate Slaying Stone to help them as they investigate the city. The party qutie dislikes Alkirk given his imperial-lean, but is willing to work with Treona. They navigated from the tower towards Kiris Dahn, approaching from the east and deciding to tiptoe through the forest. By crossing a river with the assistance of the bard's ability to share swimming abilities and the earth priest turning into an owl, the party manages to escape notice as they slip into the fields at the edge of the city and stop at the first destination, the temple of the moon.
Upon entering, the party finds the place barren, short of muddy footprints down to two staircases and a mural depicting a rabbit being chased by a wolf. The party's knowledge of culture and monsters shows them that this represents the enemies of moon worship. More common during the empire, the wolf is chasing down the innocents of their flock, as well as a reminder of what the moon does to it's enemies, the curse of lycanthropy. They descend down a staircase and find a locked door with labored breathing behind it; upon opening it, they find Kiris Hoyt, who appears to be a prisoner of this place. The warrior of the party recalls that Kiris Hoyt has been dead for years. Hoyt informs them that he is sick and they need to leave him here, but the party interrogates him and assumes that he is a werewolf. He does not know anything about the Slaying Stone, but predicts if it was lost, the library would be where to look.
As the session comes to a close, the party hears footsteps from above. On the far side of the room, behind metal bars, the party sees their visitors - red hats, fluffy beards, and a feral glint in their eyes. It's the gnomes!
Learnings
On my previous goals: definitely did not feel like a dictator in this session, which is great. Having players that already know the system helps a lot, because playing both teacher and GM is a pain. More importantly, I found myself staying quiet as much as I could, and only stepping in when the World needed to respond. Pacing is a skill that I am looking forward to developing, but it's so nice to learn it in a situation that isn't the breakneck oneshot pace.
Tactiquest is a diceless system. It's been a very interesting back and forth with players, and I find myself referencing their skills a lot as I provide information. In situations like the river crossing, it's nice to be able to say, "Ok, these two are able to swim across fine, what is the plan for the rest of you?" and they decide what resources they put on the line. It is hard to ignore the gremlin in my mind going "dice? dice? roll dice for potential consequence?" but I think it is generally making me a better GM to focus on that ICI loop I love. The system also has some really interesting features that the PCs can leverage there, so I'm really happy with it so far.
As far as things I'd like to improve on - my narration is ROUGH. I interrupt myself, I pick the wrong words and have to clarify, I'd like to pick up some voices but saying the Words I Mean To Say comes first. I know this is all practice but I might try to listen to audiobooks more so I get a better sense for it. I had a good amount of General Stuff Prepped but I think I should've prepped the specific keys a little better - I knew I wanted the mural, but I should've had some boxed text for myself. I forgot about footprints and those other clues until they were already in the room. It's nice I only had half a session to struggle with mediocre prep so hopefully I'll be better prepared next time.
Lastly, the game is obviously a Game About Tactical Combat but throwing the gnomes at them at the end of the session felt forced. They're meant to be a surprise and I'm partially doing it because I'm like oh, it's time for a fight, but their inclusion did feel odd. I think if I could go back in time, I'd let the players react a bit more to the footsteps they heard before sending in the enemies, or maybe end the session before and then we could have a Strong Start™ next session instead of balling straight into combat.