[Let's Play] Fighting Fantasy 61(?) - Howl of the Werewolf!

Stories about games that you run and/or have played in.

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Omegonthesane
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Post by Omegonthesane »

Mirrors.
Kaelik wrote:Because powerful men get away with terrible shit, and even the public domain ones get ignored, and then, when the floodgates open, it turns out there was a goddam flood behind it.

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SGamerz
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Post by SGamerz »

And that's a second vote for mirrors!
The Hall of Mirrors isn't very impressive: it's not very large for a start, and seeing yourself morphed to be taller and thinner, or shorter and fatter, than you really are can only be funny for so long. The longer you find yourself staring at the distorting mirrors the more uncomfortable you begin to feel, until you become paranoid that others can see you for how you truly are. The claustrophobic confines created by the mirrors is also starting to get to you. Roll two dice. If the total rolled is less than or equal to your CHANGE score, turn to 92. If it is greater, turn to 78.
We can't roll higher than 1......
On the verge of screaming, you run out of the Hall of Mirrors, overwhelmed by the feelings of paranoia and claustrophobia. Add 1 to your CHANGE score and make sure that the codeword Egnarts is recorded on your Adventure Sheet before turning to 167.
That's the 3rd time we're asked to note that codeword.

And the first time we actually gained CHANGE points since we got bitten.

And the first outright "bad" location we've visited in the Carnivale.

Do we still want to visit the rest of it?

Madame Zelda, Mistress of Mystery?
The Hall of Mirrors?

The Cage?
Archer's Arrows?
The puppet show?
Crookshank's Cabinet of Curiosities?

Leave the Carnivale?

Adventure Sheet:
Name: Wolfgang W. Wolfenstein (a.k.a Triple W)
SKILL 10/10
STAMINA 10/15
LUCK 11/12
CHANGE: 2
Equipment: Sword, Leather Armor, Lantern & Tinderbox, Signet Ring, Flintlock Pistol
Gold: 11
Provisions: 7 Meals (+4 STAMINA)
Codewords: Avokez, Egarts, Dloterof
Thaluikhain
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Post by Thaluikhain »

You mean can't roll less than 1, or have I misread something?

In any case, keep looking to see if there is something worthwhile here...cage next?

This is a disappointingly not-scary scary carnival. As an aside, Jonathan Green used to write stories set in the Warhammer World. And, as we all know, they decided to kill off the whole planet. Now, not saying that this is due to his stories, but you never know...
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SlyJohnny
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Post by SlyJohnny »

Archers arrows next. The cage last.
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Post by SGamerz »

Thaluikhain wrote:You mean can't roll less than 1, or have I misread something?
That was a typo by me. The section I quoted was correct though.

If we roll below our CHANGE:
We not only gain the CHANGE point, but we also pass out until night falls and the Carnivale closes, and miss the chance to visit other areas.
Anyway, we'll visit the last 2 places. Since one of the votes specifically stated an order, we'll go for Archer's Arrows first:
Archer's Arrows is a straightforward game of skill. Archer - for it is he who runs the stall - and his assistant, and attractive young woman, have set up three targets at the back of his booth: 1 Gold Piece buys you three arrows with which you have to hit the targets, one in each. If you do not want to play, turn to 167 now; if you do, read on.

You hand over your money to Archer who says to his assistant, 'Come on Leisal, give our challenger his three arrows.' (If you have the codeword Retsis on your Adventure Sheet after you have finished playing, turn to 117.)

To hit the first target with the first arrow you must Test your Skill: you succeed if you make a successful roll. Do the same for the second target and arrow but add 1 to the number you roll when Testing your Skill, and on the third go add 2 to the number rolled. If you succeed with all three rolls you win 5 Gold Pieces and then have to leave the stall. If you fail any of the rolls you lose. You may have up to three goes before you have to move on from here.
Do we want to play?
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SlyJohnny
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Post by SlyJohnny »

Our odds of making all three shots are what... 50-50? Slightly less? I think that's a good bet, at 5-1 odds.

Play until we win. Or notice that the targets are living people or whatever.
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Darth Rabbitt
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Post by Darth Rabbitt »

Play until we win, or play up to three times, if that's sooner; after that I suggest we leave for the cage whether we've won or not.
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Post by SGamerz »

Triple W loves to shoot his load!

1st shot: Dice roll = 4 (Hit!)

2nd shot: Dice roll = 5+1 = 6 (score!)

3rd shot: Dice roll = 7+2 = 8 (We win!)

We get back 5 Gold and now have 15!

And now, we check out the Cage!
'Who will face the challenge of the Cage?' a bald-headed strongman dressed in a leopard-skin leotard and sporting a fine moustache calls to the crowd from a roughly erected stage. 'Tame the savage Grendel and 10 Gold pieces could be yours!' Standing behind him, before a painted backdrop, is a large cage. Inside it is the beast he speaks of. It is at least a head taller than the strongman and as broad across the shoulders as a gorilla. Its arms are as thick as ship's cable, corded with muscle, and end in club-like fists. The creature's skin is green and pitted, its face suggestive of a primitive ogre bloodline. As you are considering taking up the challenge you see that a thickset, bearded man - whom you take for a blacksmith - is being led away from the stage holding a hand to his bloodied and broken nose. The aim of the game is to enter the Cage unarmed and subdue this Grendel. If you want to take up the challenge it will cost you 2 Gold Pieces. If you would rather leave it to some other mug to tame the beast, turn to 167.
2 Gold for 10. Another game with 5-1 odds! Do we want to try and Tame the Beast?
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SlyJohnny
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Post by SlyJohnny »

I don't think the gold is worth the possible Stamina loss.
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Darth Rabbitt
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Post by Darth Rabbitt »

It probably isn't, but we might get more than just the gold if we wrestle, so wrestle the Grendel.
Pseudo Stupidity wrote:This Applebees fucking sucks, much like all Applebees. I wanted to go to Femboy Hooters (communism).
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Post by SlyJohnny »

Okay, I'll change my vote.
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Post by SGamerz »

A young woman takes your backpack and sword-belt from you, once you have handed over your 2 Gold Pieces, and then, taking a deep breath to steady your nerves, you enter the Cage. The Grendel-ogre goes for you immediately. You are not trying to kill your opponent in this contest: your aim is merely to subdue the beast. To do this, you need to win two Attack Rounds in a row. Roll for Attack Strengths as normal (reducing yours by 1 as you are not using your sword) but do not remove STAMINA points for damage sustained, merely keep tack of who has won the round.

GRENDEL SKILL 8

If you win two consecutive Attack Rounds first, turn to 470. If Grendel wins two consecutive Attack Rounds before you, turn to 488.
With our effective SKILL at 9 in this combat, we still have a slight edge in this.

COMBAT LOG:
Grendel 14, Wolfgang 16. Wolfgang wins 1 round.
Grendel 13, Wolfgang 20. Wolfgang wins a second round.
To the uproarious cheers of the crows you force the beast into a headlock and, with the ring of a bell are declared the winner. Reluctantly the strongman hands over your winnings (a bag containing 10 Gold Pieces) and his assistant returns your other possessions. As the leave the stage the strongman tells the crowd that the Cage is closed for business for the rest of the day to a chorus of light-hearted boos.
Our Gold is now up to 23!

Having visited every spot available, it's time to leave the Carnivale....
If you have the codeword Retsis or Egnarts recorded on your Adventure Sheet, turn to 209. If not, turn to 90.
We have one of those codewords. In fact, we were told to record it down 3 times.
There is something strange going on within the Carnivale, of that your are sure, but what exactly? You feel that the only way you are going to be able to find out more is if you sneak back this evening under the cover of darkness to investigate further. If you want to do this, turn to 238. If not, turn to 90.
Well, if you didn't find the Carnivale scary in the day-time, now is the chance to find out if gets scary at night!

Shall we sneak in?
Thaluikhain
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Post by Thaluikhain »

Investigate. Otherwise visiting the Carnivale has been a good idea, on the whole.
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SlyJohnny
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Post by SlyJohnny »

Investigate!
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Post by SGamerz »

You while away the rest of the day in the village of Balci itself. There is nothing particularly special about the place: it has a mill, tavern and forge, and its people spend their days tending the land or laboring in the forest to the south-east. A basic meal of meat and potatoes, along with a flagon of ale at the village tavern, will cost you 2 Gold Pieces and restore up to 4 STAMINA points. As dusk falls you make your way back to the area of the Carnivale. The circus is now closed to the public for another day and most of the place is in darkness. You skirt the perimeter awning the circus people have set up until you are in a position where you are sure no one can see what you are doing. Loosening a sheeted panel you slip inside and make your way stealthily between the tents, stalls and standing wagons. You are just trying to decide where to explore first when you hear a noise. It is the sound of urgent voices. 'I tell you, someone's broken in,' one says. 'They won't get far,' says another. The voices are getting closer: you are going to come face-to-face with their owners any moment. If you run you will definitely be spotted, but there might be another way out of this. If you want to stand your ground and face whoever is approaching, turn to 257. Alternatively you can try to hide. If so, will you hide in the large tent to your left or the painted caravan to your right?
Confront, tent, or caravan?

Also, do we want to spend 2 Gold to restore 4 STAMINA before that?
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Post by Thaluikhain »

To the painted caravan, there'll likely be something weird going on there.

I'm leaning towards saving the gold.
Omegonthesane
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Post by Omegonthesane »

Hide in the caravan. Spend the gold.
Kaelik wrote:Because powerful men get away with terrible shit, and even the public domain ones get ignored, and then, when the floodgates open, it turns out there was a goddam flood behind it.

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Post by SGamerz »

Ducking inside the wagon you shut the door carefully behind you. You hold your breath as whomever you heard walks right past the caravan and around the Carnivale camp. It is only after their voices have faded into the distance that you dare to breathe again and take in your surroundings. Puppets appear to cover every available surface inside the wagon. Glove puppets lie in piles on the bed, while painstakingly painted and varnished marionettes hang from the roof beams. Other incomplete puppets, some operated by wires, lie on a workbench to your right. You walk the length of the caravan amazed at the detail and craftsmanship on display. The first inkling you have that something is wrong is the tap-tap-tap as of a wooden leg on the boarded floor behind you. You turn, expecting to see the caravan's owner returning, but instead you see a gaggle of marionettes moving jerkily towards you - and no one is pulling their strings! What malign magic is at work? And then the puppets are on you, wooden-jointed knights and sock-puppet dragons fighting alongside grinning papier mache skeletons and hook-nosed jester-clowns, trying to swamp you with their multitudinous numbers. And all the while chiseled wooden jaws clack-clack-clack as they try to bite you. You have invaded the Puppetmaster's innermost sanctum and now you must pay the price.

PUPPETS SKILL 6 STAMINA 12

Where one puppet falls to your hacking blows, it seems that another takes its place in an instant. If you have not defeated the puppets within ten Attack Rounds, and you are still alive, turn to 344. If you win this battle within ten Attack Rounds, all it means is that you have managed to fight your way back to the door and so can escape from the caravan.
Creepy Puppets! At least the SKILL is pretty low, so I don't think we'll have trouble beating them in 10 rounds.....

COMBAT LOG:
Puppets 10, Wolfgang 16. Puppets are at 10.
Puppets 18, Wolfgang 15. Wolfgang is at 8.
Puppets 12, Wolfgang 19. Puppets are at 8.
Puppets 13, Wolfgang 18. Puppets are at 6.
Puppets 11, Wolfgang 21. Puppets are at 4.
Puppets 12, Wolfgang 14. Puppets are at 2.
Puppets 15, Wolfgang 15. Tie.
Puppets 14, Wolfgang 13. Wolfgang is at 6.
Puppets 16, Wolfgang 17. Puppets are defeated.
Woah, that lasted longer than I expected (took us 9 rounds.....one more round would have led to something disastrous!). We even got hit twice.

The votes on whether to spend on a meal in the village was tied earlier, but now I'm going to retroactively rule that we did pay for the meal, so STAMINA at 10, and our Gold at 21.
Out in the open, under the blind white gaze of the moon again, will you flee the strange Carnivale, or persist in your investigation?
Should we leave now?

Adventure Sheet:
Name: Wolfgang W. Wolfenstein (a.k.a Triple W)
SKILL 10/10
STAMINA 10/15
LUCK 11/12
CHANGE: 2
Equipment: Sword, Leather Armor, Lantern & Tinderbox, Signet Ring, Flintlock Pistol
Gold: 21
Provisions: 7 Meals (+4 STAMINA)
Codewords: Avokez, Egarts, Dloterof
Thaluikhain
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Post by Thaluikhain »

Fleeing would be the obviously wise choice, so keep investigating.
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Darth Rabbitt
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Post by Darth Rabbitt »

Keep investigating for the reason that Thaluikhain said.
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Post by SGamerz »

Suddenly surrounded by Carnivale folk, you are seized and your weapon taken from you. You are taken inside the larger, grinning maw tent at the centre of the encampment. You find yourself standing at the centre of a circle of the strange Carnivale players. Many of them bear some kind of mutation. You see one man with gills in his neck like a fish, and a woman joined at the hip to her twin. The diminutive Carnivale Master pushes his way through the crowd and peers up at you from beneath the shadowing brim of his top hat.

'People are suspicious of us Carnivale folk, with our unfamiliar Carnivale ways, but we do not mean any harm. We are just trying to make our way in the world like everybody else. We offer sanctuary to the dispossessed, the unwanted and the outcast. Most are happy to leave us be, paying for the privilege of glimpsing a world they are fortunate enough not to be part of. But then some people like you,' he says, stabbing an accusing finger at your chest,' never let us be and force us to move on from town to town, village to village, never able to rest for fear of the false accusations that follow us. And what kind of person are you anyway, to think the worst of us?' If you have the codeword Rellik written on your Adventure Sheet, turn to 418. If not, roll two dice and add 2 to the total. If the total is equal to or less than your current CHANGE score, turn to 3; if it is greater, turn to 509.
Due to the +2 modifier, we once again cannot roll below our CHANGE score.
In this case, though, the Carnivale people are amongst the minority who would welcome werewolves....because we'd be freaks like them.

At least this isn't the worst result....if we've killed a living person (or more) in the Carnivale, we'd have been sentenced to death immediately. Fortunately, as realistic as they are, destroying a bunch of puppets wasn't quite enough to get us labeled as murderers.
'Your place is not with us,' the Master says, his face a grim mask of indifference. 'So you are not welcome here.' Before you can speak, the little man tosses a handful of sparkling powder in your face and you collapse unconscious in an instant...

When you come round again it is still dark and something tells you that you are a long way from where you started. You are lying at a crossroads surrounded by dense woodland and you are utterly alone - there is no sign of the Carnivale. A quick check of your backpack reveals the theft of all your Gold Pieces and any Silver items you may have had with you. (lose 2 LUCK points.) Cursing your misfortune, although doubtless you brought it on yourself, you decide what to do next. A signpost marked with four place names stands at the crossroads: Balci to the north-west, Strigoiva to the south-west, Vargenhof to the north-east and Maun to the south-east. Having travelled from the west already, and sensing that your onward path lies to the east, you are left with two choice. Will you head in the direction of Vargenhof, or follow the less well-trodden path to Maun?
Damn, we got robbed! So I guess spending some gold on a meal earlier was the right move. At least we didn't have any silver objects to lose.

Which way now?

Adventure Sheet:
Name: Wolfgang W. Wolfenstein (a.k.a Triple W)
SKILL 10/10
STAMINA 10/15
LUCK 9/12
CHANGE: 2
Equipment: Sword, Leather Armor, Lantern & Tinderbox, Signet Ring, Flintlock Pistol
Gold: 0
Provisions: 7 Meals (+4 STAMINA)
Codewords: Avokez, Egarts, Dloterof
Last edited by SGamerz on Wed Mar 01, 2017 12:20 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Darth Rabbitt
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Post by Darth Rabbitt »

Take the road less traveled.
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SlyJohnny
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Post by SlyJohnny »

I'm kind of annoyed the book was telegraphing these things as ominous, rather than neutrally presenting the information and seeing what we did with it. Our character acted like snake women and such were bad news, and it's not like I know enough about this setting to contradict him.

Anyway, Vargenhof, because we should keep going northish.
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Post by SGamerz »

SlyJohnny wrote:I'm kind of annoyed the book was telegraphing these things as ominous, rather than neutrally presenting the information and seeing what we did with it. Our character acted like snake women and such were bad news, and it's not like I know enough about this setting to contradict him.
One of the things in the Carnivale was indeed bad news and we could have gained a potential plot coupon for getting rid of it. But we took the wrong turn during our night investigation.
Any tie-breakers?
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Post by Thaluikhain »

Less well traveled path sounds like it might be interesting.
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