Whelp, I fucked up DMing my first one-shot.

[Kyris]

Sit around the campfire, little imps and terror tots, and let uncle Kyris regale you all with the story of my first time FMing a game of Through The Breach, and how many times I messed up the rules. - admittedly, most of the rule mess-ups were being more used to Malifaux than TTB and not realizing that some rules were different.

 

So, a little background first; I'm a member of a board game and roleplaying club at Portland State University in Oregon, and am introducing the game to the club, running a bunch of one shots through the term, and then I'm going to use summer break as a chance to plan out a longer campaign(or just buy Nythera) and run a full campaign starting next school year.

Last friday I was DMing my first game, a one shot adventure of the Sixteen Tons adventure, I had 4 players, all of whom are COMPLETELY new to the system and the setting, Malifaux is an entirely new world to them which is great because everyone seemed interested in the setting and the lore and the models I used.

Another little side note; I have two sort of Philosophies as a DM; Never say no, and don't push the players into anything, I don't railroad, and I try not to even HINT unless it's absolutely necessarily. I will, however, give players all the information needed to make a choice for there character. So, for instance in the mine, I DID mention how valuable a soulstone is, but I only mentioned that there were some on the ground(as per the one shot) after they mentioned looking around, and I didn't mention stealing it at ALL, Burt's player asked if he could(Burt's player is a much more veteran roleplayer than the others, so he did kind of take the reigns so to speak).

So, the players are in the mine and I read off the beginning of the adventure sheet; immediately everyone is rather apathetic, but at the same time a little curious. All of this in character of course. It was less "we need to see what happened" or "well that might cause a cave-in, we should get out for our own safety" and more "well fuck it, we can get off work early". So, we go along that path and introduce them to poor Mr Dobbs. Hurling dynamite behind himself...as he does. Everyone makes their Evade check and Burt's immediate response is to grab him and slap him around a bit demanding an explanation.

Now, here's my first fuck-up. I accidently misread the text and didn't realize it was a moleman arm that Dobbs had blown off...making the entire encounter much more comedic and making Walter look a bit less sane. No, don't ask me how I missed the entire sentence going into detail about how it's a moleman arm.

Because of this, Stanimer and Yong Gim's players are immediately skeptical to even the existence of molemen, Annabella is a bit more receptive due to her character being magical while Burt is as well because he decided "I've seen weirder shit than molemen" , they decide "fuck walter" and just go straight to the Elevator shaft. I explain it's broken and that there was signs of strange damage, Burt decides he's going to try and fix it, he succeeds with everyone else standing around watching..and it's here that Annabelle's player decides she wants to go investigate tunnel one(splitting the party is always good, right?)

Now, it becomes immediate obvious to me that I have to be missing something about the combat. and I did...big time....So here are a few of my fuck ups right off the bat that persisted through the entire game(we were at least consistent)

 

I gave them 3 AP instead of 2. No idea why I thought it was 3.

I was following the Malifaux rules for both red joker on damage flips(IE, severe+weak, not severe+critical) and for blast tokens(which is a..big problem)

I completely forgot about the "margins of success" for to-hit flips.

I killed off NPC's after their wounds hit 0, thinking that critical effects were only for players(this one I chock up to my experience with Savage Worlds where most NPC's only get 1 wound and die super quickly)

and...I was flipping for NPC's attack/defence, thinking that the brackets were a sort of "if the players are doing too well beef up the NPC to give them more of a challenge" thing..

 

Yes, yes, I am an idiot. See the title? I meant it. I FUCKED UP.

 

So, that said, Annabella goes off to tunnel one and gets attacked by a moleman. She immediately turns around and starts booking it back to the other players - she's smart that way. So, the moleman attack goes off..fine, but because of the rule fuck up...the molemen didn't even stand a CHANCE, So now that they know molemen are real, my players decide "yea, lets investigate tunnel one, get us some dynamite and we'll be fine." Here's where..my favorite part of the whole night happens...Well, the players decide that, except for our favorite undead friend Stanimir. He wants to stay by the elevator with Walter.

Burt, Annabella and Yong go down tunnel one, get some dynamite and I decide "you know, they had it kind of easy, so I'll attack them again with 3 more molemen which goes about as well as you expect, and then Burt decides to investigate the tunnel and the area, this is when he decides to steal the soulstone. and now for my favorite bit; Burt decides he wants to be sneaky about it, while Annabella decides that she wants to watch him doing it...I make them flip a challenge duel against each other, Burt's Stealth and Cunning vs Annabella's Notice and Intellect. Burt wins...But then asks if he can see Annabella seeing him; I ask Annabella if she was in any way trying to hide herself watching him or just sitting there staring, we agree she was trying to hide it, and so I have them reverse their duels; now it's her stealth and cunning vs his notice and intellect, this time Annabella wins. Leading to Burt stealing the soulstone, Annabella seeing it, but Burt not knowing that she saw and thinking he got off clean.

This is when both Burt and Annabella remember...oh, there were more soulstones in Shaft two. Annabella makes the excuse of losing something personal in shaft two, while Burt makes the excuse of "going with her to make sure nothing attacks". they have a conversation about how to split the soulstones; Burt initially saying they should "each get one" but Annabella says she knows he has one; they agree to let Annabella hold onto two, they'll sell one and split the cash later.

Yong meets back up with Stanimir at the entrance and they all decide to go up while Burt and Annabella are finishing up in Shaft two, but decides he doesn't want to go up with Stanimir because of the smell. So, Stanimir goes up, Yong goes up with Walter, Burt and Annabella both come back and go up.. Stanimir leaves to investigate the flash of light down the hill as soon as he gets up top. Yong gets up, sees him running and chases after him, Burt and Annabella get up just in time to see YONG running and chase after him.....and I played Yakkity Sax immediately after describing all of this.

 

During the fight with the molemen, corinne and the snek, during Annabella's combat phase, the players are discussing what to do when Burt had a brilliant idea; can he try to like...see if Jared is still in there somewhere, Unfortunately this was during Annabella's turn, and she one-shotted him and the other molemen with a dynamite blast(because I messed up the wounds/blast rules). Corinne and basil went down relatively quickly as well.

 

All in all, it was a lot of fun, the players enjoyed it. We did at least remain consistent on the rules for the night. Maybe it's not as big of a fuck up as I think it was, but just..how many things I got wrong feels awful for me.

[Sernus]

"If the gaming was fun, it means that you won!"  Sounds like you did just fine with the DM/GM/Keeper/FM's primary role: run a session that the players enjoy!

Not to worry too much about the rules fumbles... you'll get that dialed in as you get more time using the system.  Keep on keepin' on!

[explorator]

Sounds like you did a lot right.

3AP lol not a big deal in a one-shot though.

I think we have all mixed up the Red Joker dmg with Malifaux

Margins of success are important, but again no big deal in a one-shot

Some FM's drop Minions when wounds hit zero just to keep things moving. For Enforcers or above, Crits are more important.

Flipping for NPC's is probably the biggest no-no. Just try to remember you only touch the fate deck to shuffle it.

Hey, you got a new group together to play Through the Breach! You are a Fate Master. Cool. Just keep it up and make sure you review the misplayed rules with everyone so you are all on the same page.