Gamestorm 15: Day Three
March 30, 2013 ArticlesIntroduction
Day 3 of Gamestorm was a little less eventful than Saturday, day 2, but I still had a lot of fun. I showed up around 7:45 and was ready to go for whatever 8 a.m. game of Pathfinder I could get involved with. It didn’t take long before I was assigned to a table that wasn’t full of players, and I sat down and got ready to play.
Rise of the Goblin Guild
My first PFS game on Sunday was Rise of the Goblin Guild. I was the only person at the table with a character high enough level to play above 2nd level, so instead of bringing my 4th-level Sheriff along I pulled out my 2nd-level Flowing Monk instead. If you’re not familiar with Pathfinder, Flowing Monks are sort of Aikido-style martial artists; they specialize in redirecting enemy attacks.
The highlight of the adventure is when I made a silly mistake. I don’t know why I thought the name of the adventure was Rise of the Goblin King, but for some reason I did. When we finally entered the throne room of the goblin chieften, the Game Master was trying to come up with a way to describe him. One of the players insisted he be called a chief, because goblins have chiefs. To be contrary I suggested that he was, instead, a goblin sheik.
GM: “Okay, so the doors open and you see an enormous bugbear wearing a turban.”
We all got a good laugh. Then the bugbear smacked me with his glaive and I was knocked unconscious in one blow. Fun times.
The Disappeared
For my second adventure of the day, I was told to expect “Mission Impossible: the RPG.” What my friend meant when he told me that is “The Disappeared” is an espionage-heavy adventure that requires more stealth and subterfuge than the typical hack-and-slash game of Pathfinder. I wasn’t disappointed.
The Disappeared was a lot of fun. Once again I was playing Abasi, the Flowing Monk, and he was pretty well-suited for the task. He’s very sneaky and acrobatic, so he can go places and do things quickly and quietly. We were tasked with sneaky through a mansion, gathering some evidence, and getting out before anyone knew we were missing. Ultimately the mission was a success, but it wasn’t without its share of hiccups.
Once again, I wound up being part of the silly mistake that made the whole game that much more exciting.
At one point in the mission we wandered into a library filled with bookshelves and tables and chairs. My character and another player, a rogue/thief-type character, spotted something strange.
GM: “You get the feeling that the chair is looking at you. But then you look at it and it appears normal.”
This could have meant one of two things: there was an invisible character sitting on the chair, or the chair was some form of mimic (a monster that disguises itself as mundane objects).
Rogue: “Hey Abasi, do you still have that dust we picked up earlier?”
Me: “Yes, but I don’t know what it is.”
Me, out of character: I imagine it’s either a Dust of Disappearance or a Dust of Appearance, but we never identified it and my character would have no clue; he’s not magical at all.
Rogue: “Throw it at the chair!”
Me: “Uhh… sure! I throw it at the chair! (Hopefully it is a dust of Appearance…)”
GM: “It’s the other one. And the chair attacks you.”
Great. Now we were stuck fighting an invisible chair. And it was apparently made from solid oak.
We made it out alive, but boy was that one rough fight.
Wrap-up
One thing I did notice about the event that I hadn’t mentioned elsewhere were the number of gamers in attendance with a variety of physical challenges that didn’t seem to set them back at all. There were at least two other blind gamers there this year and several more in wheel chairs. I regret that I didn’t get a chance to speak with any of them, let alone sit down and play with any of them, but I’m sure they were having a great time. I noticed that every stranger I gamed with seemed genuinely helpful and at ease with having disabled gamers at their tables, so it was exciting and comforting to know that we can have just as good a time at a convention without feeling like outsiders.
I had a great time at Gamestorm this year, but was happy to go home and take a break from a long weekend of gaming.
