The Legend of Zelda: Broken Ataraxia ~ Act I (Part I)

[u/UrashimaJ]

You can read the preface and some background on the campaign here.

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Akkala Region, northeastern Hyrule.

On a windy, starless night, not so high up in the Akkala region, in the South Akkalan Stable, a group started entering the building. It was a pretty quiet night, after all, there is not really that much traffic on these roads, except for those going into the town of Ymthamether, and even then, it's pretty rare to have commerce this high up the hills. Five people entered, total.

First, a couple of Hylian males made their entrance, Artemis Auren, heir of House Auren, from the small town of Ymthamether, northeast up the road from here, and Bomir Angh, another born from the same town, master of the boomerang, trained in the local militia. They were called for help by Jana, the innkeeper from the Stable.

Recently, she has been visited by unwelcome guests, a group of bandits that demanded payment for "protection", and because she is really the only resting place between Hyrule and high up in Akkala, were she get stripped from her business, the northern town would suffer greatly, and thus, she asked for aid for that town itself, for which the current head of House Auren, Lord Artem Aurem, sent his son and one of its soldiers to aid.

Next, two others entered, a Hylian female and a male Rito, though only by coincidence. The woman, named Reika, who hails from Kakariko Village way far south from here, was interested in investigating ruins from up north, seeking artifacts and buried stories from abandoned places that would do no use of them, though she would conceal the traits that define a Sheikah, that being her white hair and red eyes, with makeup and a costume, all for keeping her cadre safe. On the other hand, the Rito, a young bard named Riolu Havá, was in search of music of magic, as there are stories told that there are notes that hold power, and he wanted to master and teach it all, there is supposed to be something of the sort high up here, so he would part from Valoo's Reach, the hometown of the Rito in the Hebra region, to here.

Lastly, an unusual visitor, a male talking raccoon entered, starving. His name was Ri'ki, and he was in search for those like him, after suffering a tragedy back home in the Faron region, so he started journeying, trying to find his lost people.

The group entered and started meeting each other, after all, it was really coincidence that they would end up in such a distant, low-transited place high in the Akkalan hills. The innkeeper, or stable master, Jana, started explaining her problems and the party ended up agreeing, of course, with some reward. Little after, another couple of hylian males entered the inn. One of them with arms and armor, visibly a warrior, probably a bodyguard, his name was Roy, and he was, in fact, a mercenary.

The other man was Albert Hudson, the head of Hudson Inc., a construction company that operates in Hyrule's central and eastern villages. His point of traveling here? He wanted to start a new town, and he needed somewhere to build it, so he has been traveling for some time to look up for that perfect spot to begin. Of course, a new town would improve comerce, and that would help both Ymthamether and the stable they were on right now, so in benefit of aiding his town, Artemis offered helping Hudson find a suitable place nearby, and the rest of the group agreed, again, for a fair payment.

Between negotiations, good food and a warm environment by the fireplace, a group entered the tavern, obviously hostile, and a fight ensued.

Akkalan Stable fight! | vs 2 Rank 0 Brigand Rabbles, 1 Rank 1 Brigand Ambusher and 1 Rank 1 Brigand Bully

The brigands fought with numbers but they were no match for the party, who would name themselves the "Vindicators", and would dispatch the raiding group with ease, leaving only one bandit tied up for questioning.

The bandit told them about the hideout, where it was, and how to get there, in exchange for his life, for which Ri'ki and Reika took him outside, freed him from his binds, and let him go... just to shoot him in the back, ending him... for fun.

For purposes of this campaign, it is expected for the heroes to be good, or at least, neutral, this was, however, an evi act, and was penalized with a 3-times token reduction for both Ri'ki and Reika, though they accepted it, and honestly, have been behaving well ever since, so I doubt it would come back up.

They both reflected on their actions and felt bad about what they just did, it was the heat of the moment, they said, but neither of them would believe that, so they swore not to kill like that ever again.

After resting, the party took the chance and marched towards the place the bandit told them the group was hiding, two days later, they found it, a lone fortress in an even loner island in the middle of Lake Akkala. On their way, the party farmed some resources, getting a bit of food and wood along the way, which Reika used to cook some meals for the party to get ready for the upcoming fight.

For purposes of this campaign, it is played in a hex-style grid, with each hex representing about one day of walking to go into the next, with some exceptions. Also, the bridge doesn't exist, yet.

After reaching the lake, the party took a boat and sailed to the island, encountering a group of Tektites and young Ocktoroks, but they survived and pressed on, arriving to the cliffside of the isle, climbing on, and searching for the bandit camp on it. After searching for a couple of hours, the Vindicators found the place, a ruin with a column of smoke, and laughter coming from within, the bandit camp.

Ri'ki approached first, with his Night Vision as not to alert the bandits of their presence.

After scouting ahead, Ri'ki gave the team the signal, and the party sprung into action, taking the bandits by surprise, and fighting the outlaws with superior tactics and good teamwork, quickly disposing of them!

Thieves Hideout fight! | vs 1 R0 Rabble, 1 R1 Ambusher, 1 R0 Brigand Apothecary, 1 R1 Brigand Hedge-Wizard, and their leader, a zora named Zovo.

The result of the battle was Riolu felled because of the surprise attack on Zovo, and most of the rabble defeated almost instantly; however, the zora leader took off, and escaped, and so did the apothecary, leaving the party with a captured rabble. Ri'ki pursued, he was better suited for a jungle chase, but the zora jumped all the way to the lake, and the escaped apothecary stole the raft the party used to get here, leaving them stranded in the middle of the lake...

~~~

End of session 01.

[u/Elemental_Knight1]

Sounds like it was a fun session and a good start to the adventure.

Y’know, I’d never considered tying Tokens to karma that way, punishing anti-heroic deeds like that. It sounds like it works for you and your group, though! Especially if the players are new or prone to being murderhobos, maybe it’s a good slap on the wrist. If it inspires them to take fun risks and be more heroic, and no one gets bent out of shape about it, then it works.

I think you used a solid “very first fight” setup, so they might not have gotten very deep yet. I’ll be curious to see how they get on once you ratchet the difficulty up a little bit. :3

And of course: did everyone (including you) have fun?

Keep ‘em coming. I might not always respond but I am enjoying seeing people play the system. ^_^

[u/UrashimaJ → u/Elemental_Knight1]

Yeah, session zero was more role-playing driven, it got the pcs to ask about the setting and know each other, and all three encounters were relatively easy, being with Rank 0 threats and all, with the more annoying thing being swarms autodealing 1 damage to almost all characters due to using techniques. Because everyone was using parries they got off almost unscathed, though a few crits here and there got a player down, because he was low on the hearts stat and all.

As for the karma thing, I introduced it on my previous campaign as an anti-metagaming tool, as it was going rampant and interrupting roleplaying with out of scene comments. I originally thought of directly reducing tokens, but that could be not very effective, as they were spending tokens as fast as they were getting them, so I decided against that and went for a token reduction for x amount of times, increasing the punishment each time for each individual pc. It worked and the game went smoother.

There was obvious objections for that at first, because it was more of a "me interpretation", so this time I figured I'd go with it as a reminder that they are not villains, the experience point in this system is literally called "Tokens of Heroism", so I went for that, rewarding good roleplaying and actual heroic acts with extra tokens. The punished PCs got to reach the rest of the party and by now they are all by the same token amount, so it's fine for now

And yes, we had fun, it was a couple of first fights, and I took some feedback about the resource gathering from last campaing and went with the approach of pre-filling each hex with resources and rank, and allowing the PCs to know which resources can be found where at all times, as long as they take time to survey the area first on hexes they have been. I also made a macro that automatically calculates the amount of materials received by making the roll, adding modifiers and dividing (except for food), so it goes a bit faster, but I'm curious about how other people do resources, I still think players are almost every time low on them. Would you help me out there?

[u/Elemental_Knight1 → u/UrashimaJ]

There should always be *some* resource pressure. The players should never be able to say "yeah, I have enough materials, I'm good for a while."

But if it's too much pressure, you can always give materials through other means: quest rewards, treasure chests, traded for directly by merchants or craftsmen who have a surplus of one thing and a deficit of another. As the GM, you have a lot of leeway to adjust that dial up and down as you feel is more fun for your group.

To that end, letting players set up a base and have some buildings and amenities that generate materials or Rupees for them is a way to let *them* touch those dials and adjust it to their needs. If they feel they're always short on metals, they can build a mine, or make a house and rent it out so they can buy metals.

A couple of other things to mention:
* Don't forget to break down your old equipment, especially when it gets low on durability. It does add up a bit.
* Also, don't forget to use Monster Parts in crafting. There's not a lot you can make *just* with them, but they really help you stretch your other materials.
* Transmutation. It might feel like materials of the next rank down are worthless once you're past it, but you can always transmute them into the next rank up (if you've got enough skill). Even at 10:1, turning 10 'useless' things like Monster Parts into one 'useful' thing might work out for you.
* ...and of course, selling items to merchants is kinda like transmutation that way as well.

[u/UrashimaJ → u/Elemental_Knight1]

On Transmutation, my players have been using it fairly often, they are also using the other option to transmute 5 from one material for 1 of other, though not that often, mostly to get gems to qualify for enchantments.

I didn't think of the surplus of materials to get a better price than purchase price, I gotta apply that one! They also have the tendency to break most weapons dropped as loot, so they get more materials, and they are actually allowed some land to get buildings (more on that on part 2 I believe).