First Session of GURPS was great!

Resuming GURPS like putting on a nice comfortable pair of slippers. We were a little rusty but soon we were in the thick of the action. The campaign is set in the City-State of the Invincible Overlord. This time I am not the referee, my friend Tim Shorts took up the reins.

Tim decided to start game off with a bang with me, Paltar Longshanks, and Dwayne, Cal, woke up blindfolded and chained in somebody's dungeon. Cal is a Mage of the Order of Thoth and a member of City-State's Guild of Arcane Lore. Waking up he used his locksmith spell to free him and myself. Then wandering in come Robert, a poor servant to the big bad that owned the dungeon. We quickly figured out from Robert's description we were dealing with a Medusa.

Without weapons, and warned that "she was coming". We were chained up again and put on our blindfolds again. We felt this monstrous presence pass by us and I got chills when she said to me "You are the one.". However with Cal's locksmith spell available we both were not quite sweating it yet.

She left and once again Cal freed us both. However the use of Locksmith four times it quite fatiguing for him so he had to rest for 40 minutes. GURPS Magic requires expenditure of fatigue which is based off your health (D&D's constitution). GURPS attribute are very roughly scaled like D&D with 10 the normal and 15 on the high end. Palter had a 11 strength, 13 dexterity, 10 IQ, and a 10 Health. Pretty good for a starting 100 pt GURPS characters. I min maxed a bit by taking two points of Striking Strength which increased my weapon damage, but not any strength rolls. I rationalized it as Paltar spending much of his left as a mercenary.

We only get 20 minutes into the rest period when two guards come into the room. Cue the battle music as we get into our first GURPS combat in a year. The combat system is one of the great things about GURPS. It can be straightforwardly simple or use the full monty of detail. We are a full monty group.

We heard the guards coming so we stood there with loose blindfolds and grabbing the chains. The guards checked us over and one was getting suspicious. So in the first second Cal fires off a Blindness spell. He knows it to the point where he can cast it with a small gesture or incant. The guard start screaming "I'm blind, I'm blind". Paltar was holding a loose piece of chain, stepped forward and cracked it across the second guard's chest causing him to fall back three feet.

We fight back and forth the next few rounds and all seems lost when two more guards come running in. Luckily one of them had my spear! While Cal was casting Sunbolts, Robert the Servant, joined our side and began stabbing guards.

Then I remembered something in Martial Arts that could help. I found the rule on doing a sweep maneuver basically trying to kick or push over the target. So I grabbed the spear and kicked at the guards legs. I succeeded despite the minuses and he failed his defense badly leaving me in possession of my spear again.

I then proceeded to run it through the remaining guards in a series of all-out attacks opting for two attacks per round. The big risk is that I forego any defense roll but the situation was such I could take on the one guard and then pivot and get the other guard from the side. With Cal and Robert continuing their fights I was in position to quickly end the combat.

Unfortunately we attracted the attention of the Medusa, I maintained to make a saving throw against my health and not be petrified into stone. But Cal was down to 1 fatigue, and then she geased me to seek the Column of Conquest in the Cave of the Bev'el. An ancient race of demons imprisoned by the self sacrifice of a legion of dwarves.

The medusa let us go for me to fulfill the quest. What followed was a nice bit of roleplaying where I was still playing Paltar but with a very singular focus. Dwayne played Cal well suckering me into the guildhall and enlisting the aid of his fellow mages to dispel the geas.

We reported what happened and learned a few interesting things that we will need to follow up on.

Tim gave me an an excellent character background to work with. He is a master of doing this far better than anything I do. I am not going to post details yet until I understand how this works out with Dwayne's characters. Plus we have an old friend returning to gaming. This GURPS campaign promises to be very interesting.

This is the first GURPS sessions where we tried our new XP system. Basically whatever skill you used you get the roll 3d6 and if you roll higher then you get a single character point. It like old Runequest and it is designed to make character progression more natural for the way we play GURPS. We tend to roleplay each day with some sessions only covering a single day's worth of game time. This results in characters zooming from zeroes to GURPS style megaheroes in a game year or so.

In addition to the skill rolls, there will be lump awards given at the completion of a major goal. Some are character driven other stem from the events unfolding around us. This session I got a point in the Kusari skill for the successful use of the chain in melee, a point of spear, a point in the sweep technique. Eventually I can raise this high enough to negate the -3 penalty it imposes when you use it. For now I will need another point to get it down to -2.