Dungeon Crawl Classics Funnel - Madazkan's Court
Man, do I love a good Funnel.
This was a short notice game and we had Valor and Raven L. with four zero level Purple Sorcerer generated peasants each. We had another player who sadly needed to drop.
The party established themselves as the Swarthy Rapscallions Adventure Company in Mustertown. They met Old Soily (proprietor of the Soiled Dove and sought out the Lady for advice before heading to the Sending Stone. I added a few nightmare effects that made it clear that Sender may have its own agenda, and the party soon found themselves deep in the Great Swamp. They did spot the ruined coliseum and headed in a direct line in that direction. Soon they ran into the lowland area with the dead opposuman and the crocodillos...and had their first casualty. For a moment it looked like a crocodillo TPK, but the tide soon turned and the party was rewarded with a little loot, including the Malloc statue.
Travel to the collosium continued and they found themselves searching bodies in the stands. Then had bought grappling hooks in Mustertown which were used several times to good advantage, including getting into Madazkan's box seat and looting the corpses of weapons and armor.
Unfortunately, the party Dwarf, Garreth, played with the levers and activated all of the traps on the stadium floor. Eventually, the party made the call to enter the stadium arena and were immediately set upon by the many traps. Several implements and electrocutions later, the party fell or slid down the grappling hooks to the underground. By now down to 5 or 6 characters, the party went through the animated skeletons, lost Garreth to the dead gladiator's poisin gas, the party's presumptive wizard bound with Malloc, and made off with the gem coated chalice.
But...to escape, I had the opening to the grotto exiting to the swamp...which meant getting past Whiskers...yep, the party killing catfish. Whiskers upended one of the two tubs the Swarthy Rapscallions were escaping in and killed all occupants (eating the last Sam the Begger whole on a crit). The survivors; Lorraine the Animal Trainer (now Warrior) and Cheddar the Cheesemaker (now Wizard) decided to get engaged and set out into an unsuspecting world for high adventure!
Gamewise, we went a full five hours, and still cut a good deal (the Opposummen never made an appearance and I cut the escape and possibility of mutilization from Sender). But it was a blast and more proof that the DCC funnel is a quick and crazy fun way to introduce the game to new players.
This was a short notice game and we had Valor and Raven L. with four zero level Purple Sorcerer generated peasants each. We had another player who sadly needed to drop.
The party established themselves as the Swarthy Rapscallions Adventure Company in Mustertown. They met Old Soily (proprietor of the Soiled Dove and sought out the Lady for advice before heading to the Sending Stone. I added a few nightmare effects that made it clear that Sender may have its own agenda, and the party soon found themselves deep in the Great Swamp. They did spot the ruined coliseum and headed in a direct line in that direction. Soon they ran into the lowland area with the dead opposuman and the crocodillos...and had their first casualty. For a moment it looked like a crocodillo TPK, but the tide soon turned and the party was rewarded with a little loot, including the Malloc statue.
Travel to the collosium continued and they found themselves searching bodies in the stands. Then had bought grappling hooks in Mustertown which were used several times to good advantage, including getting into Madazkan's box seat and looting the corpses of weapons and armor.
Unfortunately, the party Dwarf, Garreth, played with the levers and activated all of the traps on the stadium floor. Eventually, the party made the call to enter the stadium arena and were immediately set upon by the many traps. Several implements and electrocutions later, the party fell or slid down the grappling hooks to the underground. By now down to 5 or 6 characters, the party went through the animated skeletons, lost Garreth to the dead gladiator's poisin gas, the party's presumptive wizard bound with Malloc, and made off with the gem coated chalice.
But...to escape, I had the opening to the grotto exiting to the swamp...which meant getting past Whiskers...yep, the party killing catfish. Whiskers upended one of the two tubs the Swarthy Rapscallions were escaping in and killed all occupants (eating the last Sam the Begger whole on a crit). The survivors; Lorraine the Animal Trainer (now Warrior) and Cheddar the Cheesemaker (now Wizard) decided to get engaged and set out into an unsuspecting world for high adventure!
Gamewise, we went a full five hours, and still cut a good deal (the Opposummen never made an appearance and I cut the escape and possibility of mutilization from Sender). But it was a blast and more proof that the DCC funnel is a quick and crazy fun way to introduce the game to new players.
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