Cowboys vs Dinosaurs

Admist all the writing, layout and the business side of D101 I do get to run a monthly game myself.  In recent years appart from the odd session or two for playtesting purposes, I’ve been using these sessions to have fun.  Mega Gaming Fun 🙂

Last six months or so we’ve been playing a very straightforward game using the Fate Accelerated ruleset (a very nice 60 page condensed version of Fate). Mainly because I wanted to finally run a game of Fate and also because I wanted to run a game of Cowboys, Indians and Dinosaurs…..at the centre of the Hollow Earth.

This season was not the big finale at the evil Aztec City of Doom that I had planned, due to player absense. Instead we played a hugely entertaining two player side quest where the Mexician Bandito and Indian Brave of the group got to go liberate a gold mine and find a spooky Ziggraut in the middle of a dark underground lake and defeat its inhabitants. There were blow dart firing bowl cut hairdo indians, Jaguar Azetc Warriors and shapeshifting Aztec/Serpent Men priests. On the dinosaur front they adeptly avoided the divebombing Pterodactyl and the ancient massive pliosaur, who was in the process of being summoned by the Priest when he was mauled to death by the grizzly bear that was accompanying the party for reasons that it only knew of.

The Fate system is really singing for me now. We’ve really got the hang of Aspects, Fate Point Economy and ticking off damage on Stress Tracks (this session was the first where I’d really been able to bring the pain down on the players)  and I’m itching to take on some of the complexities of Fate Core in my next game.

Best thing about it that I got to run an intelligent Grizzly Bear, who communicated via grunts, and none of the players asked WHY? :)