RPG Stories: The Inquisition: Part One

Okay, this is the tale of “The Inquisition” which was the first (And only) RPG campaign I’ve done at the time of typing this. This happened back around 2015-ish when I started going to the board gaming club. What really kick started my interest in board games was the online show “Beer and Board Games”. They seemed to have a fun time playing board games and RPGs and the like, and to be fair, I had a really great time at the board gaming club. I met a lot of neat people, and it was a good way to blow off some steam on a Wednesday evening.

This Knight knows what's up.

Anyway, to start off, I’d like to say that I may not remember all the specific details and names, which is embarrassing, but I digress. Forgetting names is awkward, but again, I digress.

For the sake of whatever, I’ll address the characters as Oliver (A soldier, myself)

Tallyho!

Kaladin the Paladin,

These guys were basically Medieval France's version of the Avengers

Strider the Ranger,

Green tights and all

James the Scholar,

Books are sorta his thing

Kyle the Cultist,

Basically, this, but with magic and stuff

And of course, Tyler the DM (Or Dungeon Master, the one who runs the game)

Basically this, but with less magic and stuff

I originally wanted to be the Paladin, because Paladins kick ass. When Kaladin was picked, I decided to go with the next best thing, the Soldier. In hindsight, the Soldier was probably my best option, but I’ll get to that in a minute. However, the guy playing as the Paladin was a bit… Out of character, but I’ll get to that in a minute. The guy playing the Scholar played it pretty cool and passively, but I’ll get to that in a minute. The guy playing the Cultist was our wild card, but I’ll get to that in a minute. And Strider had the ability to kick f-ing ass, but I’ll get to that in a minute.

Without going too much into Meta, this adventure was created using the Cyberpunk gaming module. Though it wasn’t the best for hand-to-hand melee combat, Tyler knew the system inside and out. To his credit, he made the rules easy to follow and simplified the Cyberpunk module into something we could understand. There wasn’t any real “leveling” per se, but at the end of every session, we were given experience points and were able to individually level up stats. Hell, there were only five of us, but Tyler gave us plenty of options to work with, and put in about 8 classes. What a guy.

So, the backstory of this adventure is… Complicated. Basically, there was an evil sorcerer that amassed a demon army or something and started a cult following. A war started between the cultists and the Empire, the sorcerer was eventually killed, blah blah blah, and there’s something about a three-headed god named the Tribunal, kinda like in Marvel, and to sum it all up, the Empire has been crippled, the lands are becoming barren, the remaining cultists have been “drafted” into service (Though to be fair, it’s more like a f’d-up conscription) and there’s another sorcerer that’s trying to bring about another demon army. We were in a group that was heading to one of the capitals of the empire, which is where our adventure begins.

I’ll give Tyler a thumbs-up for not starting us out in a tavern. Instead of forcing us to let us get connected, we were thrown right onto the road. To be fair, there’s no way Kyle and Kaladin would have just got along. No, this wasn’t a team of friends, this was a team of people who had no choice but to co-operate. After traveling in the forest, we set up camp, and Kyle, being our only real magic-user, summoned a boar familiar to scout the area around us for danger. I also decided to scout the area, being the stalwart soldier. However, I failed a survival roll, and I ran into the boar, which I thought was an enemy. I ended up stabbing it through the skull with an arming sword. The first fight, and it was an accident, and we decided to move on.

Kaladin and I, scouting deeper into the forest, found some sort of figure in the distance. We didn’t want to go near it, because looking from far away, we could see that it looked emaciated… Just… Trudging along. It was clear that the thing was humanoid, but was far from human. It was a walking skeleton… Carrying a giant, rusty version of one of Kratos’s blades from God of War. This thing was going down. And I knew how to take down an undead son of a necromancer. With my gun.

That’s right, I was the only player character with a gun. And let me tell you, this weapon basically defined my character. It was a flintlock musket, which should basically tell you everything. It’s a motherf-ing flintlock musket. An f-ing gun. As a soldier, I had three choices for a primary weapon: A Halberd (Cool, an axe-spear) a flintlock pistol (Much better, but knowing what I learned from Spike’s Deadliest Warrior, a flintlock pistol isn’t going to hit anything from farther than 10 feet away) and of course, the flintlock musket. I think it should be apparent why I picked the flintlock musket. All because I only had to take one good look at the damage it could do.

Yup, a gun. A gun like this.

Typically, a standard, run-of-the-mill starting weapon in a tabletop RPG is around… Let’s say 1d6, 1d8, or perhaps even 1d12 if you’re using a greatsword or something of that caliber, pun intended. For those of you who are unaware, a d6 is a standard six-sided die. RPGs use a lot of fancy, odd-shaped dice for all sorts of reasons. My musket? 5d6 for damage. I’m not even kidding. 5d6. In terms of these game rules, the worst damage I could possibly roll was 5 if I rolled five ones. But again, that was if I was unlucky. Let’s say if I rolled an average of 3 for each roll. That means I could roll an average of 15 points of damage. 15 points of damage will put most enemies in the red. And by red, I mean, covered in their own blood, crying and screaming bloody murder. Now, let’s assume I rolled 15 points of damage… After rolling a critical success, which doubles total damage, totaling 30 points of damage. Now, the thing about ranged combat in Cyberpunk is that you have to roll 1d6 to determine where the projectile hits. 4 limbs, 1 torso, and 1 head. Obviously, the hitting the head will do more damage. Let’s assume I rolled five 3’s, on a critical success, and I hit the head. Quadruple damage. 60 points of damage, and that's just the from the average roll of 15. Imagine getting shot in the friggin’ head with a musket ball. Fricking. Imagine. The muzzle velocity of a melonfarming flintlock musket. Your head would explode, no ifs ands or buts. 

While muskets are perceived as being inaccurate, that’s not really the case. The reason why muskets replaced bows is that they’re much more accurate, powerful, and easier to use. Sorry XxxLegolasxkatnissgirlxxX, but a longbow isn’t going to punch through a knight’s steel-plate armor from 150 feet away. A musket ball, while it may be significantly slower and less ballistic-friendly than a modern bullet, travels at around 400 feet per second, and will kill a knight and the knight behind him. It took that knight his whole life to learn how to fight with a sword and a lance, how to ride a horse, and taking oaths-BLAM! Dead. Killed by a dirty peasant wielding a weapon that took him less than a week to learn how to use.

Even one of history’s greatest swordsmen, Miyamoto Musashi stated in The Book of Five Rings that guns were the greatest thing since sliced bread. And keep in mind, this man spent his whole life learning how to dual-wield swords like a complete badass. (Note: This is one of many tangents I’ll go off on. Bear with me.)

I know that the katana and the samurai are sort of over-represented, thanks to the fact that most people compare the katana to a lightsaber. While the katana had its place on the battlefield, the samurai’s main weapon was the spear or bow and arrow. The katana didn’t really become perceived as the samurai’s main instrument of slaying until around the early 1600’s, where the warring states period of japan basically forced hundreds of unemployed samurai to seek out and kill each other for the hell of it. They could only hope to die fighting, and this really defines how samurai are commonly perceived in today’s pop culture. The wandering Ronin, only hoping to die with honor. Musashi didn’t die fighting, he died writing how to do the fighting, and how to do it well, to make more people die fighting. What a guy.

In a nutshell, even the most hardcore of samurai knew that the gun signified their end. My character, Oliver, was carrying one in his hands. Depending on how I rolled and where I hit, he could inflict anywhere from 5 to 120 points of damage. As Kaladin charged towards the skeleton, longsword in hand, I loaded my musket. Sure, it took a turn for me to load it, but 120 points of damage was too tempting not to try and do it. I ordered my character to take aim at the undead menace. “I fire at the skeleton!” I cried. “You realize Kaladin is right next to the skeleton, right?” said Tyler. Oh crap. I forgot about Kaladin.

I knew in an instant that firing into melee was a costly, dangerous, and ultimately dangerous move. Remember what I said about a peasant with a musket killing a knight from 150 feet away? There was a 1 in 2 chance that I’d blast Kaladin, taking him out of the fight, and a 1 in 12 chance that I’d shoot him in the skull. The same goes for the skeleton, but that’s only IF I managed to hit anything. You see, there was a problem with my character. I didn’t put enough points into his gunpowder ability. The difficulty check for hitting something with my musket was based on my perception plus my gunpowder points plus my die roll. When you make a character, I figured, it’s important not to make them a jack-of-all-trades, unless if you’re making a bard-type character. Needless to say, I was no marksman, and I wasn’t going to fire into melee like a total nitwit. I shot my musket into the air, wasting a round. Why? Because if I didn’t, the gunpowder would cake and erode the barrel of the musket. You don’t want to keep a delicate explosive substance into something that makes it explode for too long. Tyler was very clear about that. My weapon wouldn’t work if it was raining, I couldn’t use it after swimming, and to top it off, if I botched on a roll, the thing would blow up in Oliver’s face. Which would have been very bad. For me. 

When I later asked Tyler about using an 18^th century grenade launcher, he said “No”. I think I know why. So, I wasted a shot, and decided to close in on the skeleton to help out Kaladin. Being a soldier, I was the secondary melee fighter in the group. Thankfully, I had armor.

I tried to swing my short sword at the skeleton. I was ready to slay the undead monster. I rolled a 1. The thing about rolling a 1 in Cyberpunk is that, if you happen to screw up, there’s a whole plethora of ways you can screw up. How did I screw up? I rolled my die again, and I ended up throwing my sword at the skeleton, missing it by a mile. In two separate swings, I’ve killed my ally’s summoned animal, and I’ve missed by a mile. I was a soldier without a weapon, and loading my musket would take an entire round to do. The turn after that, I decided to run away. Kaladin backed away, because Strider caught up to us… And what he did was the opposite of how I spent my points.

Strider had dumped… Let’s say nearly 20 points into his bow skill. I don’t think he ever missed a shot. Mother of god, could Strider make his mark. Forget what I said about XxxLegolasxkatnissgirlxxX, Strider made Legolas and Katniss look like doctors in training. To top it off, since you had the option to take a penalty to aim at specific points of the body, Strider was able to sacrifice chance for accuracy nearly every single time. Meaning, if the unlucky son of a snake failed to dodge, he’d most likely get hit in the face with an arrow. Strider’s skill with the bow had saved us more times than I can recall. Needless to say, Strider took down that skeleton. Kyle, being the cultist/weirdo of the group, picked up the skull. He determined that this was the work of necromancy (duh) and when the sun rose, we set off. Kyle put the skull on the top of his staff. I think his character was proud of being an evil goofball.

So, from then on, we had two options: Find the jerk who made the skeleton, or head towards town for clues. Since the trail lead to town, it was the logical choice. More on the logical choices later. So, a few hours walk, and our group made it to a town. From Tyler’s description, it wasn’t too pretty. Now, the thing about Cultists… is that they frighten people. They have pale faces, their unholy symbol is branded on their foreheads, and they have scary reality-warping powers. Kyle putting a skull on the top of his staff (Which we named “Yorick”) didn’t help with his image. I think he knew that, and just laughed at the absurdity of the idea. 

To be continued...

Jim Jones picture taken by Nancy Wong, Chess Piece picture is copyright of Ricardo 630, Dungeon Master digital artwork created by Alexandre Salles from DeviantArt, Matchlock Musket picture taken from Military Heritage, all pictures are taken from Wikipedia and are in the Public Domain unless stated otherwise, please don't sue me.