9th March 2019

It's Saturday and game night at Matakishi's place.
Tonight is the continuation of part 1 of Matakishi's Oubliette campaign using the Black Hack rules.
You can find Matakishi's full report on it here.

In the previous session, we had left it at the troll bridge.  And that's where we picked it up. We had to decide how to proceed: Fight the troll or cross the rickety bridge.
There was also Remuz's 'cunning' plan, which we immediately dismissed, leaving us with the original 2 options.

In the end we decided that the potential risk of the rickety bridge was a better bet than the guaranteed trouble we would have with the troll.
In the end we crossed the bridge without incident.

We continued. We encountered The Lady Cassandra who somehow joined our band. We encountered some food all laid out and looking tasty. We were all immediately suspicious of it. All except Remuz. It seemed to have no effect on Remuz, so The Lady Cassandra had some and promptly puked. Nonplussed, we pressed on.

Next we came to an area with gear. There was a sign that implied that we could swap our ramshackle kit for better equipment. So we did. We left with some actual useful that wouldn't fall apart after any sort of prolonged usage.

We continued exploring, eventually we encountered what appeared to be vast and bottomless chasm. We could see an exit on a far wall. There were numerous columns or platforms dotted throughout the area that could lead to the exit.

With great caution we began traversing these quite frankly dodgy platforms. Partway across appears a flying super giant insect. It was quite a nasty thing and it attacked us.

On the platforms when it attacked, there was the risk that we could be knocked off the platforms and into the inky gulf below. The fight was desperate and stressful but but we prevailed and then made it to the exit and left.​

16th February.... I think?

Our play-through of Oubliette continues with Matakishi as GM.

In the first session we were mostly just ghosts.
But things have got better.... sort of!
We're actually corporeal now, yay! But we're sorely lacking in equipment, weapon, light sources and food. Most of all, were sorely lacking in any idea of where we are or what we should be doing.

We explore the region and frequently encountered warms of nasty crawling or flying things which do nothing other to make trouble for the party. - They can just sod off! I spent most of these altercations as a observer, without a decent weapon I had nothing to contribute other than being a (rather small it has to be said) HP sponge.

During our fumbling we encountered weird rock columns, adorned with talking heads. Typically, Remuz was entranced by these heads and chatted with them a lot. He even took one with him.

We also found a horrible looking fly-hive, after driving off yet another swarm, we made a hasty exit.

We also discovered a river that runs through the centre of the area and discover 3 bridges.

​The first bridge we encountered led to a dead end with some sea shells and suspicious puddles of water. I suggested we leave, worried the place might flood. We took some shells, it turns out that their magical.

The second bridge looked rickety and rotten. We decided against trying to cross it and moved on.

The third and final bridge was guarded by a troll. He seemed a friendly sort and was happy to chat. But in no uncertain terms, he made it clear that there was no way he would allow us to pass.

The session ended with us facing a choice. Which bridge to try and cross.

Saturday 2nd February - evening.

Time for the 2nd RPG session of the day.
In the evening we started play-testing a new campaign in a setting called Oubliette.

Oubliette uses The Black Hack rules and was run by Matakishi.
At the start of the campaign we start in some sort of underground complex with no memories of our previous existence. This means that we begin the campaign with no stats, and 'discover' our abilities during play. - In other words when we need to use a stat, then we generate it.
Also;  as play progresses, we accumulate 'class points'. Thus by behaving like a thief, you accumulate thief points. The, when we exit the initial dungeon, the highest points we acquire will determine our class.

I've heard of other games which do similar things and have players start a '0' level and then generate a character during play. It's even an idea I've mulled over a couple of times.

I'm not sure how I feel about it. Matakishi explained a little of how our actions would influence our classes. This meant that we could 'game the system' to get a spread of different classes.
If we hadn't of known this then we might have ended up with a skewed set of character classes.
Matakishi has written an in-depth report about it here.

Personally, I'm not sold on the idea, nor am I entirely dismissive.
I look forward to the rest of the campaign though.

Saturday 19th January.

In the evening we played in the 3rd of Matakishi's Cthulhu Hack adventures. This was - as Matakishi informed us - actually the first adventure that he had written of the 3. It was also the smallest, having half the page count of the previous adventure.

The adventure or should I say investigation begins in media-res, which is always cool. We were close to the conclusion of a previous case when this investigation begins.

Without giving anything way, we proceeded to investigate some very sneaky cultists. Luckily, we're a suspiscious bunch and let's just say, we don't get fooled twice or perhaps thrice.
Since it was a shorter scenario, we concluded it in a single evening. Matakishi explained to us afterwards that there are several outcomes that can occur. I found our outcome was suitabily Lovecraftian.

Saturday 12th January 2019.

This was the conclusion to 'The Flame from Space', Matakishi's 2nd Cthulhu Hack adventure.
By this time we had committed some heroic deeds to foil - or at least delay the plans of the agents of unspeakable ancient horrors. However we reasoned that this might not be enough. So we went back to place we had fearfully left in the previous session to see what else we could do.
What transpired there cannot be committed to written word - it may spoil the adventure.

In the end our wits and experience won us through. Just don't ask Alan about it. He spent the entire session hidden in the fire engine!

The new gaming year kicked off on the 5th January.

Saturday afternoon at 'The Sovereigns' pub in Woking was the venue for the 1st session of Matt's 50 Fathoms Savage Worlds campaign.

We started with character creation and another addition to the Fluke family: Jacob Fluke, the even less successful relative of the Flukes. Bankrupt and on run from the wrong kind of creditors, Jacob fled a ship at night in a rowing into fog bank and emerged in the world of Caribdus.

Shipwrecked on an island with some companions, we encountered the bestial worshippers of a strange monkey god who they like to appease with bloody sacrifices. We now have to fend off the giant monkey thing they have summoned.

Savage Worlds: Often described as 'rules-medium', the Savage Worlds rules have been around for about 15 years and are designed to give some depth to mechanics, but to also lessen the burden on the GM.

50 Fathoms: This is a Savage Worlds campaign setting, a bit of a cross 'Pirates of the Caribbean' meats D&D! Set in the fantastical flooded world Caribdus, it blends swashbuckling, fantasy and the supernatural.

The 5th of January was a good day of gaming: Since, a few hours after playing 50 Fathoms, I went over to Matakishi's place.

The evening continued with the 2nd of Matakishi's Cthulhu Hack adventures - 'The Flame from Space'.

Our wayward characters were drawn into the mysterious events surrounding a meteor strike and the strange goings on in small village that lead to a shocking discovery.
Our encounters involved strange flame entities and a visit to a strange place.
It was all to much for Alan, his alpha-male yuppie bravado was all spent and the spent the latter part of the adventure hiding in a fire engine.

Black Hack: Written by David Black, this is a lite RPG that has a old-school look to it, but don't be fooled. The game sneakily contains some very modern game design to it.

Cthulhu Hack: This is Paul Baldowski's err hack of The Black Hack and contains several tweaks to make the rules fit the genre more.