There’s nothing that brings a gaming party together like a first session of a new (to us) game system. We recently started playing Outgunned, a cinematic action RPG. Skimming through a subset of the 200 pages in the rulebook, it seemed we were being promised high stakes, higher adrenaline, and a distinct lack of respect for the laws of physics. But more on that last part later.
Based on the artwork in the rulebook, which resembled this image, I expected my character to be a suave, gun-toting secret agent. He was not. (Source)
I played Raymond Suri, a university professor who fits the “Cowardly Lion” trope well. His flaw was a fear of heights. So, naturally, the Director (the Gamemaster) started us out clinging to a cliff face in the freezing cold. It was easy to act afraid and want to be the closest of the party to the ground, because I myself have a fear of heights. Gah, I have been typecast!
Spoiler Alert: The rest of this post includes spoilers for Act 1 of the Outgunned adventure “Fall of Atlantis”. Proceed at your own risk! If you’re avoiding spoilers because you’re about to play, use this dice roller tool we created!
The Climb and the Fall
This session was a tutorial mission, meant to help us learn the rules. In a universe where our party does well rolling dice, we would probably have succeeded in the first roll of the day.
We did not succeed.
We failed to properly secure a piton into the icy cliffside. Keeping with the cinematic vibe, the tension heightened as we nearly plunged to our deaths! Thankfully, the “Grit” system (the Outgunned version of health/morale) was forgiving. So, instead of plunging to our deaths we caught ourselves, looked a bit less gritty, and moved on.
We reached the summit, where we found an ancient Christian temple. Surely this is where the great treasure we were after would be! We found a memorial stone encased in ice. In the stone was a slot, perfectly shaped for a round object called “Odin’s Key”. Which, of course, we had. With little hesitation, I inserted the key. The mountain started to shake. The ground crumbled. We started falling!
I really hate gravity.
Treasure Hunt, Take Two
It is unclear how we survived a fall like that. Grit is one heck of a plot armor! As we dusted ourselves off, we saw an entrance to a cave. Convenient. Once inside, we found an unlit torch. As is tradition with our dice rolls, we were extremely successful at the most unimportant task: lighting a torch.
We made our way down into the depths of the cave, which opened up to a thousand-year-old stone hallway. The floor was covered with old tiles of various colors and patterns. At the opposite end of the hallway was a statue of Odin, complete with a golden eyepatch. Stepping on a wrong floor tile caused Odin’s spear to rise and water to start to flood the hall, until Jason, our “Reluctant Hero”, swam over and lowered the spear, stopping the water. After some investigation, I noticed Odin’s eyepatch was on the wrong eye. Tricky dungeon. Flipping the patch to the correct eye opened a false wall behind the statue! Onward…
At this point in the cave, we were warm enough to ditch the winter gear, leading to the most essential part of any action movie: the dramatic reveal of our signature outfits! My bowtie looked delightful.
The Ship in the Chasm
We entered a massive cavern spanned by a suspension bridge of sorts: an ancient Viking ship wedged between the chasm walls. Below the ship, nothing but endless darkness.
I really hate gravity.
We suspected the treasure we were after was inside. So, after some hemming and hawing, my desire to see ancient treasure overcame my fear of heights, and I made it to the ship. Lucas and Jackie forced open a heavy door to the hold below, unleashing a smell of fish that had apparently been fermenting for a while. Inside, amidst barrels of putrid liquid, we started searching for a secret compartment. That’s when the dice foiled us once again: we tipped the ship, enough to cause some of us to lose some more “Grit” from the terror of the situation.
Another character, a detective with a knack for the criminal, managed to pick the lock on the compartment as the ship groaned around us. Inside was a Viking skeleton clutching a letter and a cipher disc. The text was Greek: Ἀτλαντὶς νῆσος.
Translation: Island of Atlantis.
We barely had time to process that we were hunting Vikings in search of Atlantis when the ship lurched once again. We ran! The dice did not play nicely, and two of us slipped on the rope along the wall of the chasm. Even a final roll to avoid plunging into the darkness failed.
Did we die? No, of course not. Remember: tutorial mission. And also remember: action movie tropes. We dramatically clung to the ledge we had no business reaching, and the party helped us up to our feet. We live to fight another day. Even better: Atlantis is an underwater city. I won’t need to worry about falling there, right?
A Tool for the Job
We did a lot of dice rolling (and failing) in this first session. Outgunned uses an interesting dice mechanic where you look for matching numbers (two 2s, three 4s, etc.) rather than trying to roll high or low.
To keep the game moving quickly, Jeffrey built a custom dice roller specifically for this system. It handles the matching and the re-rolls for you. Several of us used it heavily during this session, and it saved a lot of table time.
Outgunned Dice Roller Screenshot. Do you want to go All In?
We believe in removing barriers to play, so we’ve decided to release this tool for free on our website. You don’t need to buy anything; just load it up and start rolling. It’s our way of helping make gaming easier for everybody - even if we can’t help you with your fear of heights.
