Rat Bastards - Redwall Playtest part 1

Deus ex Parabola, of the Numbers Aren't Real blog, is currently running a playtest for a Redwall-based GLOG game. Set in what was described to me as 'furry Game of Thrones,' based on a popular children's book series, we got down to some largely wholesome, and only slightly bloodthirsty, fantasy hijinks. I've never read Redwall, but I watched The Secret of Nimh at a formative age and it seems close enough.


Our cast
Blacksnout the Frail, Fox Wanderer - played by me
Rillbarr Riverstone, Otter Hunter - Ahistorian
Welko, Shrew Riverfolk - Xenophon of Athens


The Game
The game began in Redwall Abbey. But shock! Horror! The Sword of Martin the Warrior had been stolen! Could it have possibly been the rat who appeared in Redwall just days earlier, muttering about a young rat warlord in the east? Probably, yeah.

Our mission, which we chose to accept: recover the Sword of Martin. Getting the party together and gathering some basic equipment, we headed north along the Old Road. Along the way, we encountered a trio of moles, best approximated as Tolkien dwarves. They spoke in an unintelligible West English dialect, moved slowly, and seems to be alright folk.



'Moles are well known for their racism.' - Rillbarr Riverstone

We passed them by and after two days of travel reached the river... which was 60' across and wasn't forded over. Luckily for us, we didn't have to get across. We just had to wait for a squadron of shrews - the Guosim - to arrive in their canoes and row us east. The party sat by the shore and skipped stones, then set down to camp, and early into the night, on the otter's watch, we were interrupted.

A great shadow spread its wings over the fire from a high tree. An owl! Which to our eyes was about the size of a dragon. 'Who?' it asked of each of us. With some bluster and deception, we convinced the owl that our shrew was a actually a cornmouse, very bitter to the taste, and a band of shrews had already passed us on the river east. It could surely catch them and have a much better supper.

Adam Harvey

'Finger-lickin shrew' - Rillbarr Riverstone

The owl silently winged east, and we all breathed a sigh of relief. The Guosim arrived the next morning, and we traveled with them three more days, thankfully avoiding the owl. We were dropped off on the road to the eastern Port, where the Sword was on a ship waiting to be sailed to the warlord's island hideout.

The good vermin-folk of the port directed us north along the shore, where some rat corsairs had been causing them trouble. Given that we looked like more trouble, it made sense for them to send us on a collision course.

'We look like troublemakers, not trouble-making do-gooders' -  Rillbarr Riverstone

The party encountered a beached pirate ship, loaded to the gills with chests and various treasures. Three pirate rats with swords and clubs, led by a malformed, gigantic albino rat who looked strong enough to beat us to death with his bare claws. After warning us off, the party launched a surprise attack... in which Blacksnout rolled a critical failure. Thankfully, non of his allies were hit.



'Actually, I haven't done anything to you yet, so I'm not actually an enemy' - Blacksnout

The combat continued apace, dodging tide pools and hopping on sand dunes, avoiding the rat's charges. Rillbar and Welko focused on the leader, while Blacksnout made straight for the boat. The Sword must have wanted us to succeed, as the rolls were strongly in our favor. Most of our attacks hit, and none of theirs did. The giant rat was slain with slings and javelins, and each of the remaining rats failed their morale checks, running off into the night. Blacksnout, who had done almost nothing the entire combat, climbed atop the boat's prow and crowed victory.

With the Sword of Martin safely recovered, the session ended. But who was this 'Crowed Rat'? Why was he stealing priceless treasures from across the land? All this and more in the next session of...

...Redwall - The RPG Playtest


Takeaways

Much of the game was a haphazard fusion of Many Rats GLOG with Deus' new system. The encounter rolls in particular took up a good deal of time. For wilderness, it's best to roll fistfuls of d6s at a time, or take the UVG route and guarantee one encounter per time period.

Online play is difficult, and Roll20 isn't the most convenient tool in the first place. It's surprisingly hard to do combat turns, since someone will take an action, then forget they had a movement until the next turn, and so on. That just takes practice on everybody's part.

Pre-writing sections of the game you know are coming is a habit I picked up running my Morrowind PbP game, and it pays off, either to read from it or paste in the chat. It really speeds up the game.

Playing as woodland animals is easier than I thought, especially without knowing anything about Redwall. There's a lot of space for humor there, and tone is quite lighthearted so far.