| Down the nerd rabbit hole with Dungeon Crawl Classics and the Mythic GM Emulator (cont'd)

OK. So having created characters, we moved on to the next order of business, which was to watch this blast from the past:

I actually watched, and was bewildered by, this when I was a kid.

Anyway, then we needed to come up with the plot of the adventure. We started by rolling up a random event. We rolled that something bad had happened to one of the NPCs, specifically Aeryk's (Mordecai the Black), and that what had happened to him was "Imprison". We talked it over and decided that Mordecai the Black was the wizard who'd killed Eric's 0-level character, and he'd stolen an heirloom that we desperately wanted back... but Mordecai in turn had been captured by the Lion Clan, who called themselves the "Champions of Light". We decided that the first scene would be in his village, which had been overrun by slavers. Asking questions and rolling for answers, we determined that a few survivors lingered on. We questioned a dying old man for information; clAeryk tried to heal him, but Justicia found him wanting. The players basically decide when a scene is over; when that happens, you write down any NPCs that came out of the scene (the Lion clan; their leader, the she-bitch known as The Griffon; the dying old man; the villagers; and Mordecai the Black himself), as well as any plot threads (rescue Mordecai; free the other townspeople). Next, the players decide what the logical next scene would be, then check to see whether the scene they come up with is altered (changed slightly) or interrupted (transformed into a totally different kind of scene).

We decided that logically, the next scene would be the entrance to the dungeon (the Lion's Den), and the dice agreed:

The "path"

We figured it was likely there would be a couple of guards, and the dice agreed, so we set up a couple guards at the entrance; then we asked whether we'd been able to see them before they saw us, and the answer was no. We weren't in the mood for parley, so shit was on immediately. At this point we used the standard DCC rules to resolve the fight. I'm bad with this stuff but basically in every fight me and Aeryk's mains didn't do much, enr0n's halfling always critted with one of his staves, and my 0-level acquitted himself really well. Anyway we whipped those guys' asses. We determined the door wasn't trapped or locked and entered the Lion's Den, which seemed like grounds for a new scene.

That scene over we decided that the next logical scene would be entering the Lion's Den and hearing voices from further inside.

This event was sponsored by Lagunitas Brewing Company. Professional hand model. Do not attempt at home.

However, the dice threw a curveball and we had to alter the scene. We decided that if the voices weren't coming from INSIDE, they were coming from OUTSIDE. Holy shit, a patrol!

My characters scrambled to recover the guards' bodies before they could be spotted, but it was too late -- a ranger patrol caught us right in the act. We determined that these guys were crack shots, so they had some good ranged attacks on us (killing one of the 0-levels) before we got in there and gave them a proper whooping. enr0n, once again, critically staff-attacked one of the poor sons of bitches to death. I think he basically went apeshit on the attack and hit me too.

ANYWAY, I'm not sure I need to keep going blow-by-blow, but basically we did two more scenes after this. Going back to the dungeon interior, we determined that two members of the cult were arguing over differences of opinion of what to do with the prisoners. One of the cultists was shocked by the idea, but we didn't overhear much more before overrunning the room, commanding one by the word of Justicia to attack his friend (courtesy of clAeryk), then having the halfling demolish one or both.

That halfling was seriously a motherfucker

We then determined all the other exits from the room were locked from outside and decided to enter the room with the weird circular structure. We determined that it was a pool -- specifically a strange summoning circle -- and that it was obviously unstable, but that it was not presenting any immediate danger. However, there was a demonic entity trapped in the prison cell adjacent to the room:

It's lucky for him he didn't have to take a beating form the halfling too

At this point, in the most anticlimactic possible ending to the game, we totally ran out of steam (well, me and Aeryk at least; I think enr0n could've kept going) and so we shut it down at this point. BUT, my feeling was, and I think the others agreed, that as a way to play an RPG with basically zero prep time, that it was a success. I totally want to try it again at some point.

There are other things you can do with it too. For example you could still have someone be the GM, in terms of running the monsters and guiding the tone of the answers from the dice, but still have no or little prep work and have everybody guided by the answers the GME rolls up to the players' and GM's various questions. You could even try playing solo.

jr0n: "The first scene is that I play a solo RPG with the GM Emulator, and I'm super happy about it!"
GME: "The first scene is altered. You play a solo RPG with the GM Emulator, but you are instead very sad."