First steps on the dragon belt (playtest report)
The setting is inspired partly by the wild west, and partly by Morrowind (I won't explain how in this post). The aesthetic is also influenced by late 90, early 00 anime and mangas, more specifically Cowboy Bebop, Trigun and Et Cetera.
The dragon belt is a lawless place filled with charismatic wayfarers, sketchy bandits, forgotten tombs, mysterious mines and ghost towns. I had the opportunity to run a few games with it, using my troll's bridge poker system (keep in mind that this version is already quite outdated, but will give you an idea of the rules used). These sessions helped me refine the system, get a good feel of the place, and the last game was especially fun. Here is how it went :
Roy the wandering seer, Allan wizard extraordinaire, Salay the lying blade and Fenchel the unflinching arrived at the small town of Old run road after a long trek along the ghoulgloom forest. Their wagon devoid of rations, and Lasagna, their old horse, tired and hungry, they had to make the stop to resupply, as their objective lied beyond the forest, in the ranch they inherited from their old friend, Tom.
After just a few hours in the saloon, they quickly discovered the town used to be a prosperous place, until some calamity caused most of the population to relocate. The old nearby mine was now home to a group of bandits who frequently visited the town wreaking havoc. After witnessing a duel (and a few tarot reading from Roy), the group decided to visit the old abandoned distillery in the hope of securing some supply (or maybe a place to sleep).
It didn't take long for them to discover a suspicious pack of whiskey bottles (although the bartender told them the supplies were curiously low in this town), and ending up ambushed by four Darkdust bandits from the mine, coming here to collect the package. Roy upstairs, Allan hidden, Fenchel against the wall and Salay outside, the situation quickly became a lot more tense, Fenchel using his authority and charisma to lower the bandits' suspicion, managed to split them and backstab one.
The situation devolved quite quickly into a full blown brawl, but thanks to a few well shot bullets from upstairs, a lucky strike of a bottle and the cowardice of the bandits, our ragtag group survived, Fenchel's Jacket being the only casualty of the fight. Fearing reinforcement, they escaped the distillery after discovering a corpse and a few strange marks of a ritual in the basement.
The group then headed toward the forest, after learning more about the local cult lurking in Ghoulgloom, the dreadful Darkdust bandits, and the reward offered for a suspicious ledger they kept in the mine. The journey was uneventful, despite the trace of a giant grizzli haunting the woods, and they managed to arrive at the ranch, only to realize it was inhabited by a peculiar old man.
The man told them about the nearby ruins of "the long face", an opening in a stone skull leading to a subterranean megadungeon. Despite the intimidation attempts, he remained unfazed, laughing at the possibility of his own death. The group decided to keep him alive for now, but Roy made one terrible mistake by offering the old man a tarot reading against a single piece of gold.
Until now, Roy's tarot had proven quite inoffensive, it was purchased from an old superstitious crone who replaced death, lover, devil by 3 towers. Roy himself had, until now, no knowledge of tarot reading (the player picked the con artist background and had fun playing the part). And yet, as the reading began, a sixth presence manifested, as Roy could feel old hands wrapping around his shoulders, the voice, coming from a certain Mugavoth encouraged him to draw the cards, and as Roy was about to announce the old man's future, the presence uttered a last warning.
"Guess right, or your soul is mine"
To which the con artist replied that this part of the reading would be postponed. But the demon was not ready to let him go.
"Until you complete the reading, I shall watch over you, each time you draw the cards".
This marked the end of the session, that last impromptu manifestation was quite unexpected but left a solid impression on my players.
So how did it feel :
-The players seemed quite enthusiastic about the backgrounds provided. Each one had a starting equipment and also offered a random boon rolled on a d6 table. The game having no stats (only hp and level) giving an additional random input at creation kept the character creation feeling too much like "picking a preset" (according to one of my player).
-The combat did not drag but the basic chances of success (40%) ended up causing a lot of miss, however, most hits were very brutal, and thus, the game felt dangerous enough. This is the part of the system I'm not 100% sure about yet, and will probably need more playtest to correctly balance. The hit location was not very relevant for this session, but having it ready felt nice, armor saves worked quite well, Arneson was onto something when he wrote Adventure in Fantasy.
-The few locations I wrote as a starting point for the zine felt good, Old road run seemed engaging enough, and the atmosphere of the dragon belt felt distinctly western-y with that touch of magic and folk horror that made it quite compelling to my players.
Overall, I'm excited to dig back into dragon dust, I hope I'll manage to gather that specific group for more sessions and maybe I'll manage to get a better feel for the limits of the system.
To be continued (hopefully)
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