Tonight my players reached the end of my Whitehack/Deep Carbon Observatory campaign.
Originally shared by Brian Ashford
Tonight my players reached the end of my Whitehack/Deep Carbon Observatory campaign. Eighteen glorious sessions of magical chaos and sudden brutal death, at no point did I know what was going to happen next and I loved every minute.
The open nature of Player Character magic and abilities in Whitehack was the perfect complement to Deep Carbon Observatory's alien, broken, and often scary environment. The two combined to give the players so many options and the freedom to experiment with different ways of pushing their characters and solving the myriad challenges which came their way.
So please consider this a massive recommendation for both Whitehack and Deep Carbon Observatory.
It's going to be a tough act to follow but the show must go on! The next couple weeks will be for one-shots which myself and Jamie Prentice next to test before Conpulsion, but then we will be back into my Star Wars: Edge of the Empire campaign. I'd better get back to planning.
Tonight my players reached the end of my Whitehack/Deep Carbon Observatory campaign. Eighteen glorious sessions of magical chaos and sudden brutal death, at no point did I know what was going to happen next and I loved every minute.
The open nature of Player Character magic and abilities in Whitehack was the perfect complement to Deep Carbon Observatory's alien, broken, and often scary environment. The two combined to give the players so many options and the freedom to experiment with different ways of pushing their characters and solving the myriad challenges which came their way.
So please consider this a massive recommendation for both Whitehack and Deep Carbon Observatory.
It's going to be a tough act to follow but the show must go on! The next couple weeks will be for one-shots which myself and Jamie Prentice next to test before Conpulsion, but then we will be back into my Star Wars: Edge of the Empire campaign. I'd better get back to planning.
Thanks for taking the time to write all this up Brian Ashford !! Whitehack is a wonderful system. It would be great to get a list of miracles that your players came up with. You're still using a Magic Point pool right? Have you changed that approach much since you spoke about it last?
ReplyDeleteHow much preparation did Deep Carbon Observatory take each session? Did you find it easy to run?
ReplyDeleteI had miracles powered by HPs as the book suggests. At no point did I wish I had given my players a safer option and four of my five players played a Wise character for some or all of the campaign and they all loved the miracle costs too.
ReplyDeleteI've said it before and I'll say it again, anyone who waters down Whitehack by adding Magic Points (and I've seen a lot of people planning exactly that) are doing themselves a disservice. You would be missing out on an awesome risk/reward system and the opportunity to be really generous as a GM when your players ask, "Can I do this?"
I'll see what I can do about getting some spells written up.
ReplyDeleteJamie Prentice, you still have your notes, would you mind writing some of the spells you used, to show the sorts of things we did?
Eda Schweiss DCO needs a thorough read through before you start and a recap of the next few pages before each session. I would redraw the maps for my players so that they could see what was going on and then I'd add to that during play. I probably spent between 10 and 30 minutes prepping each session. Maybe a bit more at the start. If you are going to run it, let me know and I'll give you some notes of things which weren't particularly clear in the book.
ReplyDeleteEda Schweiss As to your second question, I found the combination of Whitehack and DCO to be pretty much effortless to run.
ReplyDeleteNothing in DCO is laid out as, "When the PCs get here, this happens." It's just a massive list of locations and awesome things to find there. Just tell your players what they see and sit back and watch them decide what to do with it.
Brian Ashford Nice, I like that kind of adventure. Will give it a read-through and see if I'll be able to run it soon, then I may take you up on your kind offer! Interesting about the rules-as-written miracle system, I'll have to read through it again. I ran Troika the other day and really liked how the magic system worked there; a few spell-like effects (like Detect Magic) were just skills that the characters had (and which required rolls) rather than spells, and the actual spells cost the players their stamina, which as you mention creates an interesting risk/reward system. Also keen to hear your thought on the Star Wars system when you try it out.
ReplyDeleteEda Schweiss I was actually running Edge of the Empire this time last year, I love it!
ReplyDeleteI was a bit worried when I moved my group on to OSR games that we would miss the multi-layered results you get with every roll. I needn't have worried, WhiteHack was perfectly entertaining itself, but I am looking forward to getting back to Star Wars in a couple weeks.
The dice make every activity entertaining. It's easy to build the pools, and then rolling them tells you if you succeed, how well you succeed, if something awesome happens, if something disastrous happens and also if there are little side benefits or problems. Because all of these things need a little thought and planning to make use of, I found it kept the players very engaged in the details of the situation and because the side benefits can be tied into other player's actions it keep all the players interested in what each other is doing.
All in all, it's very detailed and dynamic but also simple to use. Well, it is after a few sessions when everyone is used to the funny symbols on the dice.
The dice aren't all of it though. The books are well written, with great art and they present Star Wars as a massive galaxy full of adventure. The rules do require a bit of thought but I'd say they are still easier to run than Pathfinder or GURPS.
tldr: Love it.
Brian Ashford I don't run WH with Spell Points, but I am considering trying to integrate spell dice as a mechanic (which I love the concept of). How often do your Wise characters cast miracles? Are they jumping into melee all the time wielding short swords and what-not?
ReplyDeleteJacques van der Merwe I had the wise characters casting pretty much every encounter. One of them spending most of his HP or two of them working in conjunction would be able to resolve most situations.
ReplyDeleteI started the game at level 3 so the Wise characters had about 10 HP, so they would run low pretty quick. By then end they were level 5 and in the 15-20 range which meant they could get a lot more done between sleeps. I guess each day they would cast a couple of 1 or 2 HP spells and maybe a couple d6 or d6+1. They did occasionally have both the opportunity and reason to cast more expensive miracles, but they never did.
They did occasionally get stuck into the fights but only if they had to.
Brian Ashford How did you balance them against the crows? How difficult was encounter conversion?
ReplyDeleteClark Nichols I used the conversion rules in the Whitehack book where you base a monster's stats on it's HD. I did lower some of the damage rolls for the bigger opponents though.
ReplyDeleteThe crows I ran as written but regigged them as Whitehack Deft or Wise where appropriate.
It was pretty dangerous for the PCs but they got through it.