Black Hack: Tomb of the Serpent Kings Session 1 of 2

#1

Black Hack: Tomb of the Serpent Kings Session 1 of 2
Saturday December 7th 2am GMT-7 or 4am US Eastern time

This is the first of two, 4 hour sessions. It is not necessary to attend both but that is of course preferred. My plan is to record both sessions to be posted/shared later if everyone agrees.

Tomb of the Serpent Kings is an OSR learning dungeon that was recently reviewed on the Gauntlet Podcast " Fear of a Black Dragon ". I think a learning dungeon is appropriate as this is my first time running Black Hack as well as my first time running a game on the Gauntlet. I have run plenty of games in person and online but have only been a player with the Gauntlet so far. This adventure is for both experienced players and those new to the system and/or the genre.

There will be violence but not gratuitous, There will be creepy crawly monsters and other fearsome denizens of the tomb. Character death is definitely a possibility and perhaps even likely. As always it will be an open door policy players can come and go freely as necessary. I am not going to worry about immersion if we are 2 levels down and suddenly the new character joins the party, we will just go with it. Costumes, props, silly hats and funny voices are appreciated and encouraged but certainly not required or expected. I want to lean into the tropes and have a light easy atmosphere at the table but this should be serious stuff for the characters so not gonzo silly. I am modifying the rules of the Black Hack to fit my play style and to perhaps reduce the lethality of the game slightly. Session 1 of this series we will be creating characters by my modified method, defining connections and the prelude journey. We will have a starter encounter to show how combat works and then finish the first level of the dungeon before we level up then cool down with stars and wishes.

We will be implementing safety tools including lines and veils, X-Card as well as a debrief including stars and wishes. This series will also abide by the Gauntlet Inclusivity Policy.

https://gauntlet-hangouts.firebaseapp.com/event-detail/-LtJFJuIlVCG7LflpRcL

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#2

Stars, dreams and wishes to @walter @erez87 and @BlakeRyan for a fun session of Tomb of the Serpent Kings. My first session running a game on The Gauntlet was a success thanks to these terrific folks. What should I expect, this is the Gauntlet. These players pushed forward and made the choices that were most interesting or dramatic and it played off. In a 4 hour session we made characters, finished level 1 of the dungeon, leveled up and got most of the way through level 2. I am pretty confident we will complete this adventure next week, one way or the other. Bwa ha ha haaa!

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#3

Black Hack: Tomb of the Serpent Kings Session 2 of 2. Stars dreams and wishes to @walter and @erez87 for the final session of this game. I was happy that we got to complete the adventure in a satisfying way. I was afraid we wouldn’t get it done. The players got to fight a couple of noteworthy foes. The second one was defeated mostly by cleverness. However the thief had a better charisma than wisdom so missed a few perception rolls. But worse through the entire first session and most of the final one there was no npc’s to talk to. They randomly changed direction and went back a different way and so they stumbled into the room with the McGuffin. But then they decided to move past that room to see what was beyond and I thought “oh well, missed it”. In the next room there were sleeping goblins so they woke the goblins up and were friendly and the thief @walter rolled a “1” they made friends and the goblins traded for the McGuffin and they won. I thought this was the most Gauntlet ending possible, solved the adventure by being clever and nice.

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