Crimson Dragon Slayer Critical Mayhem RPG (I'm going with Crimson Dragon Slayer for short, or CDS) is a +Venger Satanis creation, best described by the man himself in the opening of his current (at the time of this session running) rules document:
"This is a neo-vintage, paper & pencil scifi-fantasy RPG inspired as much by cheesy films of the 80's as the old school renaissance."
The general premise is that ordinary characters from our current reality have been sucked into the realm of Valeece (on the planet Thule) as a part of a scientific experiment that they had no knowledge they were taking part in. Thule is filled with dragons, robots, magic, death, and insanity - its pulpy, its fast, and its designed to be played out in a balls-out-middle-finger-in-the-air kind of way.
Given this hyper science-fantasy setting, naturally I chose the LotFP adventure No Dignity in Death: Three Brides to play test it (in particular the second part). In reality, the reason for this was that it was an adventure I had learnt not too long ago but not got round to using, and the base idea is fairly portable even into the over-the-top setting of CDS.
Note: There are spoilers ahead for "No Dignity in Death: Three Brides". This adventure can be purchased from DriveThru RPG though I highly recommend you also purchase "People of Pembrooktonshire" to accompany it - PoP has some amazing NPCs to drop in and makes for a fantastic resource.
The night began with some quick character creation. CDS, being of the OSR breed, is straight forward enough and in no time at all we had our plucky characters! Rolling on the 'previous career' chart led to some interesting creations, so I had the PC's meet in a pub and one by one they explained who they were:
I let them chat for a bit before pulling them sideways through reality into Thule - they all kept their drinks in their hand which was a good start!
I played through the CDS intro more for the amusement factor; the end result was they saved the old man's life after shoving him into a bush, patching him up with alpaca wool and giving him enough medical attention to keep him alive for precisely 6 more years. This allowed him to monologue some more causing the players to instantly regret their choice and leave him there (though not before robbing him and removing his gold teeth).
It was explained that this had occurred a month previously, and heeding the now-lively (though poor) old man's words they had found themselves entering the town of Pembrooktonshire in search of mighty deeds to complete.
CDS's Pembrooktonshire was a run down shanty town, built into a crater in amongst the mountains. As the players entered into the town square they found it filled with races from all walks of life drinking and jeering around a circle containing 6 pompous men fighting really badly. Fhtog, smelling fun, charged into the circle which caused the square to go quiet and the fighting to stop.
As she looked around confused, two heavily armed reptile guards approached and asked her to stop disturbing the peace. Over the next few minutes it was explained that the fight was a part of a ceremony to be held between the future husbands of the town (they indicated the future wives sitting nearby, watching). With some quick work and persuasion rolls, they convinced the town mayor to accept Fthog as an entry with Tanaka being put up as the bride (Tanaka was not happy about this but Ben and Finn forcefully escorted him to the bride area).
The fight resumed and Colin tried to place bets but the crowd quickly realised that Fhtog could actually fight as opposed to the dandys who had been flopping around previously so his dreams of earning bags of money were short lived. They did learn the rest of the information about the ceremony however - it was the Celebration of the Spirits, and the men were competing to see who would die first. Whoever died first during the next few days of trials would be declared the winner, and their fiancée would be sacrificed to the spirits in the mountains to ensure another year of peace and prosperity. It transpired that the spirits kept the town safe from the crimson dragons and bandits.
The local business owners began to sponsor the not-so-happy 'bride' Tanaka in the way of jewellery and finery and, thanks to Colin and Ben's critical negotiation rolls, they managed to secure some rooms free of charge at the swankiest inn in Pembrooktonshire, "The Dislocated Hip".
A bell sounded out to signify the end of the wrestling contest with no winner yet, though a lot of men wishing they had been killed as Fhtog got confused at the stoppage. Saddened by the lack of fighting, Fhtog decided she wanted to go find a cat to cheer herself up and, if possible, offer it self-confidence or self-defence classes. Unfortunately, she got a half success so I gave her half a cat. She managed to cheer up the moggy who was missing its back half and strapped it to her shoulder for company.
After getting enough information out of the town mayor regarding the next challenges, they learnt that tomorrows challenge involved the contestants running up the crater side dragging a cart full of stones then having to run back down the slope with the cart still being pulled behind them. The players reasoned that the best entirely logical approach would be to sabotage one of the carts and then mark a safe cart for Fhtog the next day.
Colin had Michelle pull some of his circuitry out so he could spin around in circles in the main town square with smoke and Esperanto spouting out of him. This created a suitable enough distraction amongst the drinkers and party-goers still hanging around at the late time of night. During this, Tanaka went a bit rogue with the idea and subsequently greased every single cart except one. The safe cart had a cat on the side of it as it was owned by the company "Pussy Products" but Finn suggested painting a lightning bolt over the top and calling the cart "Greased Lightning". They went to sleep, confident that nothing could go wrong the next day.
That next day, Tanaka was woken up and immediately given a makeover. He seemed oddly fine with getting the wash and the Brazilian but drew the line at getting shoved into a bridal dress. A successful negotiation roll later and he was able to force them to get him a decent suit.
The race started about midday, with most the populace of Pembrooktonshire being quite quiet after the heavy drinking the night before. Fhtog looked to be the only one actually awake enough as she stood next to her cart with her half-cat duct-taped to her shoulder. There was a bit of a disturbance with the owner of Pussy Products who demanded to know what had happened to his cart but he was quickly shushed.
The race started off with the other contestants remarking that this didn't seem as hard as they had imagined. In fact they were really surprised at how easy it was to pull the carts up, and quickly pulled ahead of Fhtog. When they began to go back down the crater though it all went hideously wrong as one by one they all realised that the carts were moving so much more freely and they struggled desperately to keep up. One by one, each of the other contestants fell forwards, smashing their skulls open on the ground before being crushed by their cart full of stones. Fhtog strolled down the hill at a leisurely pace to a very silent crowd.
The crowd eventually erupted into cheers, successfully drowning out the sobs of all the now-widows lined up on the podium, thanks to the encouraging claps of the players. Ben wasted no time in linking Fhtog's success to having half a cat strapped to her shoulder, and offered a "cat reduction" service to some of the townsfolk who were quickly off in search of cats.
Order was restored quickly however as a procession containing the widow of the first husband to die was led up the mountain to be sacrificed to the Spirits. The player's tagged along, now best buddies with the town mayor, who confessed that there were no spirits in the mountain and that in fact it was a friendly dragon who lived in the cave. They had struck a deal hundreds of years ago for the dragon to protect them in exchange for one maiden a year. He advised the party to leave before the dragon came out to eat the girl (who was now being tied to the stake with all her finery and jewellery) but didn't force them as the procession went back down the mountain.
A gout of flame erupted from deep within the cave but this got Fhtog curious - she wanted to slay a dragon, while Michelle was very keen to try riding one. They wandered into the cave past the girl and soon discovered that while there was indeed a dragon in the cave it had in fact been dead for hundreds of years by the look of it. Next to the skeleton however was a giant contraption which appeared to be capable of belching out flames. They heard two little voices inside the skull of the dragon, urging the players to just piss off before they ruined everything.
The rest of the party followed into the cave, dragging the girl along with them so she could see it was safe, and some grappling ensued with the two dwarves inside the dragon skull. Once they had got them bound up, Michelle rolled to rip a fingernail off one of them - a success. As the dwarf began screaming, I dropped her a GM hint and advised that normally you ask a question before ripping nails off.
The other dwarf quickly spoke up though and explained that the dragon had died long ago but the dwarves felt it a good idea to continue the sacrifice - they got a yearly lump sum of gold, they knew the townsfolk would never venture too far into the mountains and disturb them, and all they had to do was protect the mountain range which they were doing already.
The players reasoned that they couldn't give a shit what happened to Pembrooktonshire or the dwarves, so instead they nicked all the gold and set the girl free to run back to town and tell them what happened while they legged it to safety before the rest of the dwarves showed up.
The group feeling was that the system was very straight forward. It had the mechanics there to support combat while keeping things open enough to let the play flow. From a GM perspective it was a hell of a lot easier to have player's just roll 1, 2, or 3d6 depending on their advantage to solve any issue and the players readily bought into the balance of it all.
We didn't get too much combat however which would have been useful for playtesting purposes, sadly, but the character creation was very quick and painless. The only general grumble was that 3d6 was not enough cash to start with - I'd be inclined to increase that to allow players a chance to kit themselves out a bit better for future playtests.
The difference between "elf" and "infernal elf" was a bit redundant - no one wanted to play a normal elf when they could just play an infernal elf to get all the same modifiers plus an increase in racial HP.
The use of AC was a bit confusing - as you never roll against a 20 value to hit, having a default AC of 10 just confused things. Unless AC is going to be implemented in future versions in some way, I'd be of the mind to drop the term completely and just note how much damage each armour piece deflects.
Personally, I think it'd be good to factor in 1s into any roll to amp up the excitement a bit. The group last night rolled a surprising number of 6s and 5s so nearly everything went perfectly; it'd be nice if for example a player rolled two 6s and a 1 that they still succeed but something goes hideously wrong in the process (like, "You mange to fire the experimental laser turret and knock out all the enemies, but it blows up after you finish!").
So where was it left? The session was a great laugh, with everyone appearing to enjoy themselves and it looks like people want to see it run again in the future once I've finished running Purple over the next long block. I'd say thats a good sign!
Interested in finding out more about Crimson Dragon Slayer Critical Mayhem? Check out the G+ Community or circle +Venger Satanis. Dragon artwork at the start by HELMUTT, owned by Venger Satanis.
- Ben, the child care worker (who would later become a ranger dwarf)
- Tanaka, the suspicious "herb" farmer (who would later become an infernal elf thief)
- Finn, the alpaca farmer (who would later become a reptilian ranger)
- Fthog, a particular thick small business owner who made a living by offering self confidence and self defence classes to cats (who would later become a human fighter)
- Colin, a depressed telesales worker (who would later become a depressed robot wizard)
- Michelle, who worked in construction (who would later become an infernal elf warrior)
So What Happened?
I let them chat for a bit before pulling them sideways through reality into Thule - they all kept their drinks in their hand which was a good start!
I played through the CDS intro more for the amusement factor; the end result was they saved the old man's life after shoving him into a bush, patching him up with alpaca wool and giving him enough medical attention to keep him alive for precisely 6 more years. This allowed him to monologue some more causing the players to instantly regret their choice and leave him there (though not before robbing him and removing his gold teeth).
It was explained that this had occurred a month previously, and heeding the now-lively (though poor) old man's words they had found themselves entering the town of Pembrooktonshire in search of mighty deeds to complete.
CDS's Pembrooktonshire was a run down shanty town, built into a crater in amongst the mountains. As the players entered into the town square they found it filled with races from all walks of life drinking and jeering around a circle containing 6 pompous men fighting really badly. Fhtog, smelling fun, charged into the circle which caused the square to go quiet and the fighting to stop.
As she looked around confused, two heavily armed reptile guards approached and asked her to stop disturbing the peace. Over the next few minutes it was explained that the fight was a part of a ceremony to be held between the future husbands of the town (they indicated the future wives sitting nearby, watching). With some quick work and persuasion rolls, they convinced the town mayor to accept Fthog as an entry with Tanaka being put up as the bride (Tanaka was not happy about this but Ben and Finn forcefully escorted him to the bride area).
The local business owners began to sponsor the not-so-happy 'bride' Tanaka in the way of jewellery and finery and, thanks to Colin and Ben's critical negotiation rolls, they managed to secure some rooms free of charge at the swankiest inn in Pembrooktonshire, "The Dislocated Hip".
A bell sounded out to signify the end of the wrestling contest with no winner yet, though a lot of men wishing they had been killed as Fhtog got confused at the stoppage. Saddened by the lack of fighting, Fhtog decided she wanted to go find a cat to cheer herself up and, if possible, offer it self-confidence or self-defence classes. Unfortunately, she got a half success so I gave her half a cat. She managed to cheer up the moggy who was missing its back half and strapped it to her shoulder for company.
After getting enough information out of the town mayor regarding the next challenges, they learnt that tomorrows challenge involved the contestants running up the crater side dragging a cart full of stones then having to run back down the slope with the cart still being pulled behind them. The players reasoned that the best entirely logical approach would be to sabotage one of the carts and then mark a safe cart for Fhtog the next day.
Colin had Michelle pull some of his circuitry out so he could spin around in circles in the main town square with smoke and Esperanto spouting out of him. This created a suitable enough distraction amongst the drinkers and party-goers still hanging around at the late time of night. During this, Tanaka went a bit rogue with the idea and subsequently greased every single cart except one. The safe cart had a cat on the side of it as it was owned by the company "Pussy Products" but Finn suggested painting a lightning bolt over the top and calling the cart "Greased Lightning". They went to sleep, confident that nothing could go wrong the next day.
That next day, Tanaka was woken up and immediately given a makeover. He seemed oddly fine with getting the wash and the Brazilian but drew the line at getting shoved into a bridal dress. A successful negotiation roll later and he was able to force them to get him a decent suit.
The race started about midday, with most the populace of Pembrooktonshire being quite quiet after the heavy drinking the night before. Fhtog looked to be the only one actually awake enough as she stood next to her cart with her half-cat duct-taped to her shoulder. There was a bit of a disturbance with the owner of Pussy Products who demanded to know what had happened to his cart but he was quickly shushed.
The race started off with the other contestants remarking that this didn't seem as hard as they had imagined. In fact they were really surprised at how easy it was to pull the carts up, and quickly pulled ahead of Fhtog. When they began to go back down the crater though it all went hideously wrong as one by one they all realised that the carts were moving so much more freely and they struggled desperately to keep up. One by one, each of the other contestants fell forwards, smashing their skulls open on the ground before being crushed by their cart full of stones. Fhtog strolled down the hill at a leisurely pace to a very silent crowd.
The crowd eventually erupted into cheers, successfully drowning out the sobs of all the now-widows lined up on the podium, thanks to the encouraging claps of the players. Ben wasted no time in linking Fhtog's success to having half a cat strapped to her shoulder, and offered a "cat reduction" service to some of the townsfolk who were quickly off in search of cats.
Order was restored quickly however as a procession containing the widow of the first husband to die was led up the mountain to be sacrificed to the Spirits. The player's tagged along, now best buddies with the town mayor, who confessed that there were no spirits in the mountain and that in fact it was a friendly dragon who lived in the cave. They had struck a deal hundreds of years ago for the dragon to protect them in exchange for one maiden a year. He advised the party to leave before the dragon came out to eat the girl (who was now being tied to the stake with all her finery and jewellery) but didn't force them as the procession went back down the mountain.
A gout of flame erupted from deep within the cave but this got Fhtog curious - she wanted to slay a dragon, while Michelle was very keen to try riding one. They wandered into the cave past the girl and soon discovered that while there was indeed a dragon in the cave it had in fact been dead for hundreds of years by the look of it. Next to the skeleton however was a giant contraption which appeared to be capable of belching out flames. They heard two little voices inside the skull of the dragon, urging the players to just piss off before they ruined everything.
The rest of the party followed into the cave, dragging the girl along with them so she could see it was safe, and some grappling ensued with the two dwarves inside the dragon skull. Once they had got them bound up, Michelle rolled to rip a fingernail off one of them - a success. As the dwarf began screaming, I dropped her a GM hint and advised that normally you ask a question before ripping nails off.
The other dwarf quickly spoke up though and explained that the dragon had died long ago but the dwarves felt it a good idea to continue the sacrifice - they got a yearly lump sum of gold, they knew the townsfolk would never venture too far into the mountains and disturb them, and all they had to do was protect the mountain range which they were doing already.
The players reasoned that they couldn't give a shit what happened to Pembrooktonshire or the dwarves, so instead they nicked all the gold and set the girl free to run back to town and tell them what happened while they legged it to safety before the rest of the dwarves showed up.
Thoughts on the System
The group feeling was that the system was very straight forward. It had the mechanics there to support combat while keeping things open enough to let the play flow. From a GM perspective it was a hell of a lot easier to have player's just roll 1, 2, or 3d6 depending on their advantage to solve any issue and the players readily bought into the balance of it all.
We didn't get too much combat however which would have been useful for playtesting purposes, sadly, but the character creation was very quick and painless. The only general grumble was that 3d6 was not enough cash to start with - I'd be inclined to increase that to allow players a chance to kit themselves out a bit better for future playtests.
The difference between "elf" and "infernal elf" was a bit redundant - no one wanted to play a normal elf when they could just play an infernal elf to get all the same modifiers plus an increase in racial HP.
The use of AC was a bit confusing - as you never roll against a 20 value to hit, having a default AC of 10 just confused things. Unless AC is going to be implemented in future versions in some way, I'd be of the mind to drop the term completely and just note how much damage each armour piece deflects.
Personally, I think it'd be good to factor in 1s into any roll to amp up the excitement a bit. The group last night rolled a surprising number of 6s and 5s so nearly everything went perfectly; it'd be nice if for example a player rolled two 6s and a 1 that they still succeed but something goes hideously wrong in the process (like, "You mange to fire the experimental laser turret and knock out all the enemies, but it blows up after you finish!").
Interested in finding out more about Crimson Dragon Slayer Critical Mayhem? Check out the G+ Community or circle +Venger Satanis. Dragon artwork at the start by HELMUTT, owned by Venger Satanis.
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