Hello faithful gamers, Cap here, fresh from the play-test of the new and improved Untold! Now, before you get your undies in a wad, this is not a 4e-ism, but rather a streamlining improvement of the core Untold rule set.
We’ll get to that, let’s begin at the beginning…
Beginning of last week I received a call from a breathless Brannon “Ashy” Hollingsworth, begging me to come down to Alabama because my expertise was desperately needed to help guide this pivotal play-test. It came out more like: “If you ain’t got nothing going on, we’re playing Untold this weekend.” With such an invitation I set out Friday morning for an odyssey of Homeric proportions. I.E. I took a wrong turn at Albuquerque and drove the ENTIRE interior of Alabama!
After arriving, I just want to say that Brannon and his wife Heather are the most generous hosts a guy could hope for. They fed me copious amounts of delicious Bar-B-Q and lemon pie…mmmm pie.
Anyway, thanks to them for their hospitality, I can’t say enough.
Saturday morning saw Brannon and I at the dining room table talking all crunchy things about Untold and preparing for the game. (There is a lot more to this but that is for the Wandering Men to discuss.)
The table was prepared and the players arrived all twelve of them! The group was as eclectic and varied as the food that was offered. From hard core gamers with twenty-five plus years experience to the mother of one of the players that had only sat at the table a couple times, to a player brand spanking new to gaming. Now the food, a dear subject to me as anyone who knows me can attest to! Tacos, chicken pot pie, hot wings, cookies, cup cakes, nachos, red velvet cake, and pumpkin pie, on and on. I actually had indigestion by the end of the night, not a small feat for me!
This just goes back to the hospitality thing and the circle of friends that had assembled…
The game itself saw several L’na, Klik, High-Bred, and Churls. Guess who got to play one baaaad churl? You got it, me! The characters were built on 60UP and I built a bruising basher of a fighter, named Helm. A character that might appear as a Hebdomadal Persona very soon.
The basic set up was a High-Bred, underwater research facility, and several of the characters, mine included were imprisoned there for study and experimentation. My main motivation along with another player that was married to my brute was that there daughter had been taken from them. (This is what happens when you sit down with the GM without a back story). Other characters had been in previous games and “popped” in via a flux rift. Things took off from there.
Two Klik played by Brannon Hall and Heather Hollingsworth were confined in a space with a lot of electrical surveillance equipment and the video feed showed them the prisoners, including another Klik splayed on a table being dissected. They sprung into action, and then the Apoc-shark attacked! Think megladon, but meaner and irradiated!
Klaxons are going off and the opportunity for escape presented itself to my character and his spouse. Since I did not have my armor or my massive hammer, I dropped those cards from my deck and by creating the story of rage and futility over the imprisonment and loss of his child; I bumped up Helm’s Body card. What is a Body Card, those of you that have played ask? Ah, this is where play-test information takes over from the narrative:
The Wandering Men had gone up to Illinois for KWAKCON not too long ago and while débuting Untold for the group up there. That worth company offered suggestions for improvements. Among these was to discard the six ABS card, the Path cards, and streamline boosting. This is what they did. The ABS and Paths cards were replaced by three simple Aspect cards, Mind, Body, and Soul. From these Boosts were driven in a more straight forward manner. Nine cards were replaced by three.
This was the major change in Untold, a simple thing that all the players agreed made play faster, easier, and more intuitive. Exactly what the Wandering Men were going for.
So back to the action, Helm busts out of his cell, while Apenimon, an ape/bear L’na had also escaped and was tearing through several High-Bred soldiers. So without actually teaming up the two of us were ripping through the ranks of soldiers. He, for the joy of killing “two-legs” (a very dark L’na) and I with the single question before I killed my foe: “where is my daughter” meanwhile, the player running Helm’s spouse was using her "Wind Talking" Power card to try and contact the child.
The high-Bred character-players were trying to find out what we were up to, the Klik were attempting to reach the other Klik that was strapped down, who had actually escaped using of the many gadgets built into it. The other L’na had also quickly affected an escape and were heading toward the control room where the Apoc-Shark was still trying to gnaw on the station.
Eventually Helm reached the control room and one of the High-Bred players decided that the destruction of the bridge was the logical course to stop a raging churl. As the shark pounded the outer glass, cracking it, he shot it with an ion pistol. As the glass shattered the two L’na that had made their way to the bridge both used their innate magic to stop the flow of water and put up a protective force field. Meanwhile the Klik played by Dave, who had made his escape shot the shark with an explosive drone. The other two Klik, played by Hall had Heather had cobbled together an escape pod and wrapped themselves with wet suits, tying the legs off above their heads, so they resembled bunny ears.
Apenimon had hamstrung the base commander during a fight, the commander convinced him not to kill him, because he was not responsible for the testing, but a High-Bred scientist Johann was. He told the L’na they needed to get to the bridge, so the L’Na carried the man, running up on the High-Bred soldier that had shot the glass out. He explained that the churls had done it and the base was doomed. The commander was undeterred in reaching the bridge.
They reached the top to find the water being held back by the L’na, the enraged Helm and his wife, and a Klik. Then Hall and Heather’s Klik came flying out of the security room, strapped to their rocket sled, propelled by numerous dive tanks. The pair gave an R2-D2 like squeal as they burst out the windows held together by magic.
The commander activated a flux grenade which swept all the characters away out of the crushing path of the ocean.
The second half of the adventure may be related later…
The group had a BLAST with the adventure. It had a party atmosphere with gaming thrown in. The tweaks on the Untold system were, in my opinion, a success. The streamlining of the boosts eliminated checking a lot of cards and doing various kinds of math. The cards are cleaner and easier to understand. Alpha, Beta, Gamma, have been eliminated to favor of more straight forward boost multipliers based directly off the boosting card.
It was 2 in the AM when I finally saw my bed and I was up early for the trek back home. It was an exhausting drive, but I had smile on face the whole way… up till Mrs. Ashy called to yell at me for sneaking out like a thief without saying good-bye. After the night before I had thought it a good idea to let the GM sleep.
Thanks for reading! Thanks for playing!
“Cap”