Happy about last session

[Ail]

Hi all,

I've not been here for some time now and I haven't updated my campaign in ages. But rest assured, I'm still writing logs and right I'm writing the one referring to this Monday's session. And I'm writing here now because I'm very happy with how it ran and I felt the need to share my happiness with you.

So, what happened?
One PC who had sessions ago left the group to try adventuring by himself was finally joined again to the party. However, during his absence, his latent lycanthropy was finally revealed, just as he tried to save a girl from a cruel wizard that held them both as captives.

Those are old stories, already online. In the previous session, the two had finally escaped into Barovia, been captured by a pair of hunters and taken to Krezk to be sold, escaped the hunters in Krezk, were pursued and caught in the nigth and finally the PC's second transformation into werewolf had been enough to completely dilacerate the two hunters. And this was all heard, but not understood, by the rest of the party that is in the vicinity tracking the effigy of Ivan Szimin.

So, in this session, they found this girl washing her clothes by the river and when they tried to talk to her they were attacked by the PC in werewolf form, who's still not aware of his condition and had failed his check to revert to human form (thus far, this was all judged by the DM, the player was still not in control).

So began a fight, but the players were shocked when the girl asked them to stop the fight, not to harm the animal because he was a good person, and even more so when they understood she was in love with it. Thus far, it seemed completely perverted to them, but the animal reverted to human form some half an hour later and they could recognise their old friend. Horror Checks all around with a relatively low DC, two of them passed (surprisingly, one NPC and one PC who didn't know the afflicted character) and 3 of them failed (all the other PCs who happened to know him).

All of them caught minor effects, and I even had one player asking me to fail his Horror Check on purpose so he could fall on the stream behind him screaming "It's Nikola"

There were several reasons why I liked the session. First of all, all players are playing their characters very well now, and the player of the afflicted character returned to the sessions after a long absence. Also, despite our having heavy humour during the session (after so many years playing, we've found it's useless to fight it), people were still imagining the environment very well and earnestly thinking on what they should do; they liked the relation between the beast and the poor girl; they debated the reasons for the werewolf had to go with them or to leave them, noting the fact that Nikola (the afflicted one) does not know he's a werewolf and so has all the motives in the world to band with them again.

Also, a high moment for me was that two PCs got hit by the wolf and one of them has contracted lycanthropy, precisely the older one in the group who's a priest and the most knowledgeable in folk lore and all these matters. In short, the wisest. Problem is, no one knows this yet and they haven't even thought about it yet.

Another good point: one of my player's started a new PC on the previous session (her previous character had died) and this time her character, Mara, had this quirk: she utterly believes in vampires because her mother has been killed by one, but she despises everyone who believes in werewolves, ghosts and all those stories. She had some debates in these last two sessions with the other PCs because they were afraid of howsl in the night, so when the fight came, she simply 'drooled' in place unbelieving her eyes, and claiming that it must have been the mushrooms that another PC had put in last dinner causing her some hallucinations.

There were only two rounds of fight, but the session was intense and I loved it because of that.

Thanks for listening....

Alex

[wolfgang_fener]

That's great when the players really get into their role.

Are you planing to let the PCs play Wherewolves or are you gonna control the character each time they transform ?

I know the RL material advise against that but it could certainly be fun if your players are good roleplayers.

[Ail]

That's great when the players really get into their role.

Are you planing to let the PCs play Wherewolves or are you gonna control the character each time they transform ?

I know the RL material advise against that but it could certainly be fun if your players are good roleplayers.

I'll control the werewolves while they transform, but the trigger can be easily avoided, if they find it. However, during the first transformation, I did allow the player to roll dice to see if his humanity at least in that moment overcame his bestiality, and that's how the poor girld didn't die.

I also think I'll let them roll dice in any fight that comes, but bar that, I plan to control the werewolf as is. That's a lot creepier to the player, since he doesn't know what he will in beast form.