Lumberklik is running a game!

There's alot of stuff Jennifer and I need to take care of before we head to Con Carolina. Besides, after today, it might be pressing my luck to go up to TBS tomorrow, pushing Untold...

If I was any closer, I'd be there in a heartbeat! :P

Ben, I think you're good with TBS man, I would not sweat it. However, you can pass the word to your gaming pals - they might be ready to jump into a game of Untold!

Please let us know how the game goes - if you can, take some pics and we'll post them on the web! Also, I NEED TO TALK TO LUMBERKLIK!! I'VE BEEN TRYING TO CALL HIM ALL WEEK! :( Please ask him to email me!

Just messaged you. Please check.

Got it - thnx! I may not be able to call until tomorrow (or after, depending on your schedule) as it's about to be movie time with Mrs. Ashy! ;)

NP - Have fun! We will be out in the middle of the day, but we should be home by 7:00 Central time tomorrow evening at the latest.

I'm still on good terms with TBS, but the story is funny. I did spread the word through the grape vine that anyone looking to get their Untold fix should head up there tomorrow. Good luck guys, sorry we can't make it!

I'm busily sorting out cards and getting ready what I can now. For reference, it's a 60 UP game and I'm considering undead to be "supernatural". No more hints though...

Sure sounds like fun! I need a teleporter....and a cloning machine! :P

I ran a fairly simple adventure based on a story seed I'd posted elsewhere:

• Ghostly lights have begun appearing nightly at a PE installation that is supposedly haunted.

The players included exclusively my family, but Melissa came up with two characters in case someone showed up and wanted to join the game without having to draw up a character first.

• Chip (Churl prodigy) - At 10 years old, Chip is the youngest Churl allowed by the tribe to hunt by himself. However, he seldom hunts alone. On an early foray into the adjacent forests, he met Echo and the two became good friends. They hunt and play together often. With either spear and bow, Chip is quick, accurate and deadly.
• Echo (Twilight scout) - This magical creature enjoys exploring new places and getting into trouble. He can be sneaky and will often search the woods ahead of Chip, and alert the young hunter to any potential quarry or threats. The ability to lull creatures to sleep makes hunting easier, and Echo enjoys helping his friend bring back a large portion of the food needed to support the tribe.
• Victoria (High bred explorer) - Even if the Event hadn't radically altered coastlines and landscapes all across the globe, the subsequent collapse of civilation caused vast expanses of the world to become unknown frontiers again. Victoria is NAU trained but often works freelance to help travellers seeking to cross unfamiliar territory. She finds NAU fortifications too confining and prefers the freedom to discover pristine vistas that have not been seen for centuries.
• 5734M (Klik companion) - This Klik carries himself(?) with an air of refinement. He is unflappable, and not even the most dire circumstances cause him concern. Indeed, it is his unshakable opinion that calm reasoning and careful planning can resolve even the most dangerous situation. Steam, as he is sometimes refered to, has ventured alongside Victoria for quite a long time and knows that helping her uncover new regions benefits all those who try to survive on this shattered planet.

Background
In the area in question, Chip's tribe has long known about a pre-Event installation high in the foothills. There is a stream running from a drainage grate on one wall. The water is clean and Chip and other hunters frequently track game to this stream and try to catch prey unawares there. Recently, animals have been avoiding this brook and hunting has become more difficult. Usually the hunters retreat from the woods at night, before more dangerous creatures prowl. However, with game being scarce, Chip and Echo have been lingering later in the evening the last few days to try and bring aomething back to the tribe. Last night, the pair actually remained in the woods until after nightfall. They spotted lights and movement in the abandoned facility and quickly returned to the tribe to report what they had found.

A few weeks ago, Victoria was hired by a NAU outpost that had learned of some pre-Event facility that may have lain undisturbed for centuries. After being supplied and paid a small advance, her mission was to scout the area and establish a base camp nearby before the larger contigent of NAU arrived. She and Steam found an adjacent hilltop which commanded a view of the ancient complex, albeit from a slightly lower elevation. The time of the scheduled rendezvous came and went a few days ago, and last night strange lights appeared behind the walls of the installation. After taking the day to secure the supplies in the base camp, Victoria and Steam venture forth at nightfall to learn more about this facility.

Back at the tribe, the churl are upset. Legends already maintain the hilltop structure is haunted, and the lights are simply proof to some. The tribe is torn between scouting closer and leaving the area altogether, especially with game suddenly becoming scarce. The discussion continues past sunset, at which point Echo and Chip sneak away from the tribe to learn more about the strange new lights.

The Adventure
As fate (or GM fiat) would have it, the two pairs of nocturnal explorers soon ran into each other, although some really bad rolls early on made me wonder if the groups would notice each other before running into combat. They joined up and decided to venture along the stream towards the ancient walls. After carefully scouting ahead, Echo arrived as the walls. There, the water draining from a grate forms a small pond from which the stream flows. Among the plants and logs populating the pond, the L'na spotted a Shell Shepherd sitting low in the water. He successfully put the creature to sleep, leaving it helpless before returning to warn the party. As a group, they approached the pond. Victoria took the first shot at the creature, who apparently had shaken off its slumber and was ready to defend itself. The first shot bounced off its shell harmlessly, but Chip lunged forward and struck a powerful blow with his spear. However, entering the water cause two of the "logs" to swim towards the party and suddenly a pair of Roving Maws leapt from the pond. One bit Chip painfully while the other unsuccessfully tried to attack Victoria. Steam helped defend Victoria and his steam-driven saw did a lot of damage to the beast. Echo tried to inflict mental damage on the Shell Shepherd but apparently had a difficult time focusing. Nonetheless, the party persevered and although Victoria was also injured during the course of the fight, the group emerged triumphant. Since the tribe still needed food, Chip wanted to bring recover some of the meat from the creatures. Steam obligingly used his saw to remove the large claws from their crablike foe, which Chip placed in his satchel for later.

At this point, the sounds of automatic gunfire could be heard from beyond the walls. Patches of razor wire made climbing over the walls dangerous, and Echo didn't want to scout too far ahead if the others could not follow. The group instead ventured up the pipe after Steam had done the courtesy of removing the grate. The pipe was over a meter high but not by much. After travelling uphill for less than a minute, the pipe opened onto a circular room that collected water form many other pipes that emptied from along the walls of this chamber. At the far end, a ladder led up to a circular metal covering. Chip ventured up the ladder first and knocked the cover free with a mighty blow, sending flakes of rust showering down. Poking his head from the hole, Chip saw four Wretches wandering about the courtyard, the acrid smell of gunpowder still lingering in the air.

The wretches were caught completely unawares, as indicated by my pathetic initiative roll. This gave the party the chance to scramble out of the whole and engage the undead monstrosities. Quick coordination allowed the group to destroy one of the foul creatures before it could attack. The Wretches soon regrouped, two attacking Chip while the third tried to injure the Klik. While Chip dealt a great deal of damage to the mosters, he still got tagged a few times before the two creatures near him fell. Steam quickly dispatched the solitary wretch with a few well-placed slices (and a little help from Victoria's markmanship). The party searched the complex to discover the remnants of the NAU contingent that had hired Victoria originally. They had apparently ventured directly to the facility the previous night and had unwittingly disturbed the Wretches that were trapped inside the complex. The Wretches had waited until nightfall to ambush the soldiers and were possibly waiting to infect the surviving NAU soldiers before leaving the facility and terrorizing the vicinity. The party and the survivors quickly left the place to return to the relative safety of the local tribes.

Conclusion
We all had fun playing, and a few people wandered over to see what we were doing. When we explained that Untold is a new Card Based RPG, he asked if we were going to be running games at TBS regularly. I told him I certainly hoped to be doing something like that in the future. We invited him to play one of the characters, but he was waiting on someone to finish shopping next door, so he had to leave soon (and being the quick thinker I am, I failed to direct him to the website).

Again, I tried the little trick with the colored tokens for tracking boosts, but that seems superfluous and unnecessary. With only three boosts to worry about and the fact that you only usually boost on your action, you don't really need to remember later in the turn if you've used all your boosts yet.

I did use the red character cards to track position during combat (and establish marching order at times). I think just having the cards visually on the table helps track the action, especially if you're trying (like I was) to avoid using exact measurements and instead focus on the story.

Filing this under the "old habits die hard" category, I did not award a single UP during play. I'm still used to figuring out XP and waiting until the end of the session to reward players. (The worst part was I mentioned on the way over to TBS how much I was looking forward to being able to reward players almost instantaneously for success.) Nothing can bring a gaming session to a faster standstill than someone saying, "Oh, I've got enough experience to level my character" and suddenly you've got to let that one person make their character appropriately more powerful. (And it's even worse when only one or two players "level up" and everyone else sits around with nothing to do for a while.)

Card issue: It might be more grammatically correct if the text on the Wretch card stated that "the first shot had better count."

I would have loved to play Steam! :) Regardless, it sounded like everyone had a blast and you stirred up some interest! Way to go gang! WOO HOO! Lumberklik, let me know if you get some interest going there and we can set you up with some CUBE-like promo stuff for running games. :)

I LOVE the idea about using Race Cards to track position and marching order!!!! Why have I not thought of that before?!!? SO COOL!!!

Er....so what does the Wretch card say currently? :P

The version of the Wretch card I have reads "the first shot better count." Unfortunately, that sentence no verb. :(

Ah...

Thanks. :P