Troika! x Barkeep on Borderlands sesh 8 GM Commentary
We play Barkeep on Borderlands with Troika! Characters are Witch (ancient undead parchment witch), Assassin (journeyman of guild of sharp corners) and Necromancer (just that). Check pregame and part one and two and three and four or even five, six, seven
Fire and Steel
The team is in Whirling Mummy dance hall, debating whether to duel another team or do something else. (again we see this kind of lack of active choice and participation. Player passiveness doesn't jive well in sandbox style adventures) And then suddenly a group of six Paladins of Chaos shows up and stirs shit about unlicensed necromancy and stuff.
I myself chose this setback. I didn't know whether my players would get back to this pub later in the adventure and passing on Paladins of Chaos who are not holy but actually wield powers of controlling undead was too much not to use it.
Witch chose to run away with a third of patrons who slid away through backstage. Necromancer and Assassin tried to confuse Paladins to give the dancehallers time to prepare for combat. Then they walked out too. They chose to go to Brutal Legion pub. The bouncer there didn't make any problems - these are in the end dirty, armed and wounded adventurers.
I didn't actually know why my players chose Brutal Legion pub as they were really interested in Someone's Apartmentbar. I was about to find out why Brutal LEGION was enticing.
After getting inside and taking a look Necromancer started a speech to all the warriors about paladins worthy to be beaten up but the reaction roll was straight 7 so they weren't convinced. He then challenged one of malcontents to a duel. It turned out to be very beefy halfling barbarian.
They stood up, no weapons, fight to first blood. Necromancer did really well despite overwhelming odds and missed only by 1 so I narrated a near miss on his side - too much oil on the floor from warriors oiling their bodies.
After that fight warriors of the pub were impressed, allowed the team to buy alcohol and some decided to go fight paladins. But at the same time a spear thrown from the back of the pub hit next to barkeeps head. So no drinks for anyone until the guilty was found. And the team at the moment got no drinks, which meant potential disadvantage to social interactions. And so Assassin said that in the Mummy you can still buy drinks which convinced another group of people. And then Witch ordered Warmest Stew, the spiciest item on the menu (which I made up, there was no official menu). And she ate it at once with no problem (because she is undead and doesn't feel spiciness) which convinced another group of people. In the end the team convinced twelve angry warriors to join them in crusade against paladins. I was totally not expecting that! I thought they'd look for a Tiger to get another ingredient for MacGuffin Antidote.
Hot Steel versus Dead Steel
The team had to go through two Turns and in order not to risk making warriors disloyal/angry for not drinking they bought cheapest beer off the road (I'm not sure there should be such option but I didn't want my players to worry about potentially making the warriors angry and it made sense to me that you don't need to drink only in bars during the Raves). Another thing is that during hours if game time between Off-Central Park and Whirling Mummy I haven't rolled any Drinking, mostly Setbacks. Then in Brutal Legion and two turns between it and Mummy I rolled Drinking three times. On one hand it is weird that Witch walked for hours with river water in a mug as a drink. On the other hand... these rolls being random meant that in the moment we didn't really know what it was, neither me nor the players. After it passed I was like "I guess earlier you didn't drink because there wasn't the vibe but since you walk with a group of twelve eager warriors and barbarians who drink a lot and so do you. At one point Assassin got drunk and then decided to sober up. Then the Necromancer became drunk.
And this is kind of my point of contention with OSR style gaming and the world emerging from random rolls. I used to be fascinated by it, the thing that mechanical rules and rolls subtly influence and actually create the world, it is all great. But I don't feel it during play. We don't. Things just happen, randomly, you cannot ascribe to them too much meaning in the moment because another roll might prove you otherwise. The great story is what comes after, when the thing is resolved and time passed. During play you can only hope to have fun, it won't be epic until you talk about it later.
The group gets inside the dance hall where I rolled 2d6 for each side - 2d6+6 for all paladins, 2d6+3 for dancehallers (they have Ellie and numbers but the paladins can Turn/Control Undead). 9 to 7 for paladins. Then twelve angry drunk warriors gets inside and start chopping at paladins, the fight ends quickly and unholy knights, wounded and broken, must flee. Mummy patrons see adventurers as heroes but warriors as even bigger heroes. As a "setback" I decided six of the warriors chose to participate in the Dance Off as a group so the thing is not as easy to my PCs, players loved it.
I think my biggest general comment is already there. Taking the barbarians from the bar and needing to drink more than in previous three hours thanks to that is a fun emergent story to tell but felt just like a bunch of random rolls, decisions what to drink next, rolling for getting drunk and ticking off coins from inventory. And I guess I'd rather live through the epic moments during play than have even more epic stories to tell about them. It is the reason I stepped away from playing OSR games. I like reading about them, even thinking about them, but they don't play as I like them to. This is why I'm lately sticking largely to investigative or minimalist Trad and Storygames.