The Hound of... Devil's Thread

[aboleth]

Figured I'd post some details about my and my friends' first experience with DCC. I have run a few fast and loose BRP sessions over the year, just sort of fudging monster HP etc. to go with whatever felt dramatic, whatever would keep my friends' adrenaline up, etc. etc. But not this time! This time I would stick. to. the. rules! And the DCC rules are so brutal, especially for 0-lvl PCs. But that's just in terms of stats and combat. I'll recount our first session, and how the players injected their tastes into the story and made it their own.

And what a story it is! Those boys poured their souls into it, took it way more seriously than I had ever expected.

So I used some of the house rules pointed out by Wintersome on Youtube (search"DCC house rules"), like not rolling ability scores til they become relevant to gameplay. The boys loved it. Two friends were over to start, and each made four* characters:

Dave
- Drey the Blacksmith
- Fink the Mercenary
- Slur the Shepherd

Matt
- Hellhammer the Butcher
- Myling the Moneylender
- Askival the Mercenary

*Third friend surprised us and grabbed an uber, arrived just after character creation. Took two characters (plus Slur's dog).

Jack
- Skar the Noble
- Groth the Noble
- Barf, rottweiler, dog of Slur

It was important to me to strictly adhere to the character creation rules as they were written, mainly as a challenge for myself... but ultimately I took a few liberties for the sake of the fun factor, and I think it played a significant part in why the night started off with a bang.

First, we noticed that the guys rolled a lot of uncanny doubles--two mercenaries, two nobles, LOTS of the same non-occupation-related equipment, etc. I they got a duplicate Luck Sign I gave them the option of keeping it or rerolling--I don't care if they're 0 lvl and gonna die; they were each special to the players and that stat, of all stats, screams SPECIAL. But the trick is I didn't let them roll Luck, just like the other ability scores, til it came into play later.

In the case of occupation-specific equipment, I encouraged them to describe the item and personalize it. For example, nobles get a ring worth 5 gp or something. Dave described Skar's ring as being a curled silver serpent, while Matt made Groth's item a black steel spider pendant hung on a necklace. From a stats perspective, no difference--but it really immersed the players. Groth's sign, for example, was Survived Spider Bite, and by the time creation was done he was a sinister, spider-worshiping nobleman.

The boys got REALLY into brainstorming the relationships of the characters. Mind you this is a gang of late-20s guys fueled by a night of beer, weed, and metal--so if you think the names are immature, just you wait!

Fink and Askival both belong to the same mercenary band, the Nekro 40 ("No, with a 'K'!"). The name struck me as out of place at first but it's grown on me--sounds like the name of a pinball machine or Atari cab.

Skar and Groth are brothers and their family is among the most influential in town. The guys surprised me by being inexplicably *disgusted* by the idea that they rolled a Shepherd (playfully disgusted, but disgusted nonetheless) so they changed the name from something more intelligent-sounding to Slur ("Slurrrr!") and made him out to be a halfwit. Slur sells his sheep to Hellhammer the Butcher, who is (unfortunately for the townsfolk) into bestiality. That's about as lurid as it got for us, btw, but even then some of the ideas thrown out as they brainstormed character creation had us all groaning and laughing hysterically.

Anyway, onto the show. I opened by explaining that the town--

"Wait, what's the name of the town again?"
"Hir... You guys tell me. It's your town, give it a name."

One brief debate later, and it's "Devil's Thread". "Devil's Thread? That isn't a name, it's a bad album. No wait, not even--a song." Matt was really into it so everyone rolled w it, but we all (including Matt) kept chuckling whenever the name came up--which is great! (I do think it'll be a curiously appropriate name if the players meet the Mad Widow...).

So anyway, I opened by explaining how the town suddenly came under attack by a hulking, protoplasmic dog-thing, and how it murdered as it pleased night after night, at least until the thegn--

"Thegn?"
"Yeah, it's like a lord or a warlord, I think. Anyways the thegn, his--"
"Her! She's gotta be a woman."
"Okay awesome--what's her name?"
"Uh, Miss Thegn."
"MISS THANG?"

I had misheard them, but they liked it and after a laugh we went w it. So anyway, Miss Thang's sniveling, piece-of-sh*t adviser got an idea. He--like everyone--knows about the old standing stones on the moors near Devil's Thread, and how they have loopholes carved into them--which he deduced are there to fasten ropes and sacrifice folks. So the village tried it, fair and square, by lottery--and it worked. The hound's predations now occur only every three nights, instead of each night...

Yadda yadda. So from there I segued into actual play, with all of the PCs gathered--along with the rest of Devil's Thread--in the town center, as Miss Thang lowers her hand into the lottery box.

It worked. The guys were all really eager to see which of their PC's names she would draw. But then I threw them a curveball.

"So each of you has three characters, right? Doesn't have to be ALL of your characters, but think about one of your PCs and who is THE most important person in the village, at least for him--"
"SLUR. LOVE. HELGA."
"Who's Helga?"

Suddenly all three of them are brainstorming amongst themselves. They decide that no one could truly love Slur, so Helga must of course be the town whore. But then they decide that all three of the PCs, in fact, love Helga--truly love her, despite the transactional nature of their relationship. This is basically the best answer they could have given, in a sense; instead of rolling Luck or me picking which of the three NPCs lost the lottery, they all agreed on the SAME NPC right out the door. And between a spidery noble, a mercenary, and an unlovable shepherd, it kind of makes sense that the one person in town such disparate characters actually care about--to the point of risking life and limb to save her--is the town prostitute.

I suppose some other group could at this point have springboarded into misogynistic, sexually stunted jokey bullshit, but with the winner's identity established, they played Helga straight. And what a GREAT opportunity to roleplay and get the players absorbed into their characters and into the horror and intimacy of the moment--I had Helga wailing as she was pried away from her father (Bull Haverson!) who himself was screaming and trying to fight off Miss Thang's

"Ohhh, wait. Right. So a thegn is actually some sort of warrior or knight who SERVES the leader, which is a JARL... Whatever. Anyway, moving on. They rip Helga free from her father and begin their march to the town gates. A procession begins to form, and you--along with your buddies--and Barf, the dog--follow. But once on the road your group hangs back a bit, behind Miss Thang and her thegns on their horses, and the rest of the townsfolks on foot. And you begin whispering about how this has gone on long enough... how this is the final straw..."

[aboleth]

I should add that we covered a lot more ground than this; before our next session I'll write up the rest of it to get myself up to speed, etc. I'd be curious to see what other, more experienced folks think of how I handled combat and our journey through the woods to the Tomb...

[Blood Axe]

Sounds fun, a great start to the game! Thanks for posting.

[Max_The_Judge]

I love these session write ups.