Thus the adventure commences! We began sort of mid-stride, our mercenary group had sent our party on a delivery job. We were already on board a ship on our way to meet our contact.
After Hisui explained the mission, the situation, and the ship he turned to us and very simply said “So, what are you doing?” At this point, I had no idea what to do, I felt like a deer in the headlights! Luckily, some of my friends were much more ready to jump into character which gave me time to observe. Even after that though, I had a hard time figuring out what my character would be doing. It was a lot easier to react to people and situations than for me to initiate anything.
Having written a lot of back story and descriptions beforehand, playing was so different. I had to think on my feet and I don’t think I fully succeed. The infinite options is what is both cool and terrifying about the game. Since we ended the session as we were coming into port, I am going to come up with a few things my character might be doing before we play again.
There was a lot of excitement this session! Two of our members dueled, much to the delight of the sailors; we uncovered a demonic cult on the ship who were trying to transport some artifacts and who stabbed our paladin in the back; we met an odd but knowledgeable Orc named Titan; and we fought off a band of pirates who tried to commandeer the ship. I actually felt exhausted by the end of it all.
Using a program called Tabletop Forge for Google+ was really handy. Setting things up was a bit slow, but once it was all done it was a fun way to see what was going on. It made the battle really cool. I enjoyed combat, some really wild stuff happened during it. I also botched a role so bad that I ended up killing a sailor instead of a pirate.
Everything was vividly told and that is thanks to Hisui’s storytelling. I could see it all playing out. I had a lot of fun watching it all unfold, there were some truly shocking and cool moments throughout the session. But I didn’t feel like I contributed a lot to the story. If it had just been me, it is possible nothing of any interest would have happened on the voyage! I know what to work on for the next game.
After five hours of gaming, I kid you not I had dice rolling D&D dreams.
Reverse Thieves 
Sounds like you had a good time! I’ll have to look into Tabletop Forge and G+ as a way to run/play games in the future.
When in doubt, just go exploring random areas. The DM I’m sure will throw something at you to either keep you entertained, or steer you in the direction they want you to go. Hence why I decided to go snooping around the cargo hold, because if there’s anything weird on the ship, or anything worth studying, that’s probably where it’s going to be.
I’m just glad I had good rolls down there and put a lot of skill points in my search/disable device/listen/hide skills. For all I know I could have ended up face down with a knife in my back or blown off one of my hands while fiddling with other people’s goods.
I’m definitely looking forward to our next session :)
Well you also picked a good time to search as a majority of the crew was far too busy settling the winnings over their bets on the duel than to make sure the cargo was secure.
Skills and timing are a good combination.
But I think Kate will have a bit more to due in town because unless you actively hunt down your contact to start the next leg of the mission early you all have a little over a day to explore the city and get into trouble.
I think with a game under her belt Kate will find a bit more adventure.
– Hisui