Play Report: Mission Excalibur

Game: Mission Excalibur

Creator: Sean McAnally

Publisher: Nerd Glows On

System: The Black Hack

Number of Players: 3

Play time: Three sessions (~7hrs)

Game type: Virtual (Discord)

I have been itching to run this adventure since I listened Between Two Cairns's review a few months ago. It's a a cool premise - Germany won the war with dark magic, demons prowl the Earth and you play special operatives dropped into England to make sure Nazis can't harness the power of Excalibur. The fact that it was system agnostic (in its current version) and suitable for any old school fantasy game made it even more appealing.

Sometimes you just don't want to learn a new game for a single adventure, so it's nice to be able to dust off an old favorite. You know I had to do it to em with The Black Hack. We played this adventure across three sessions, one in July, one August and the final one in September. A lotta that is my fault, it is much harder to find the time to run games when you have a baby who refuses to sleep before 10pm. Seriously. I am blessed this kid sleeps through the night but until bed time? Awake and alert like a Swiss Guard.

I whipped up some quick character sheets to help my players catch the vibe and then we were off.

Play Summary:

 

Our party - Godfrey (Thief), Angelo (Warrior) and Lady Vivian (Cleric) - make their way into Sourhampton-Upon-Stull using all the guile they can muster. Godfrey enters with the cover of night while Lady Vivian poses as a weary traveler with Angelo as her manservant. 

Godfrey infiltrated the town first, sneaking in at night and slipping into The Dog & Trumpet, the local public house. He immediately drew attention by being a Jamaican man walking into an English pub at the end of the world. Flashing cash to the proprietor, Godfrey secured a room for a few days and then began picking up rumors.

Lady Vivian and Angelo enter town the next morning. They were accosted by a Nazi Berserker, but managed to talk their way out of trouble after showing proper papers. 

After locating the agreed upon signal (a copy of the Once and Future King posted in the window) the trio unites at the Dog and Trumpet. Godfrey makes it known that there may be a supernatural power that can help them at the finishing school. 

Vivian and Angelo go to the school while Godfrey befriends a very put upon local.

At the finishing school, Lady Vivian finds the building suffuse with occultic energies. Reverend Bee, the headmaster, explains that the pupils are girls who were left here at the start of the war and have no place to go now. His sister, absolutely drenched in the same ocult energy as the building, is gruff and mostly avoided the visitors. Vivian pretends that she is seeking accomodations for her niece and makes a donation to the school in the form of a diamond ring. They are given a tour where they are shown everything but the cellar. 

When they leave the finishing school, the group is trailed by a trio of Nazi guards who seem physically unable to approach the school grounds. They are followed by to the Dog and Trumpet where they are accosted by these Nazis, one of whom insists that Lady Vivian entertain his company. End of session 1.

Session 2 Opens with our party embroiled in an Inglorious Basterds type of pickle.

The Nazis can't seem to understand why a high bred lady like Vivian is in the presence of inferiors. Thankfully Godfrey and the Bartender (secretly a resistance member) disabuse them of their superiority with some shot glasses, turpentine and matches.

The party makes quick work of the Nazis, seizes their weapons and makes contact with the local resistance contacts while the Bartender sets the neighborhood on fire to draw Nazi attention. The party gets a lot of guff for ruining months of fine planning, but Angelo negs his local contact into agreement as the group agrees to storm the finishing school for whatever magic is being hidden there.

Ducking Nazis patrols, the party barges into the finishing school and strong arms their way into the cellar where they find what the Rev has been hiding: a delirious, comatose Angel. Apparently it was felled by an anti air shell and landed in the school courtyard. The group wakes the Angel some physical violence and gain its magical aid to sneak into Castle Stull.

They are immediately spotted as they attempt to bolt across the courtyard. Things look dire until the Angel draws its flaming sword and cuts down a Nazi patrol like running a hot knife through butter. Unfortunately, the same way the Angel wasn't anti-aircraft round proof, it is no match for a well aimed sniper round. The party gasps in horror as it is felled before them. End of session 2.

Session 3 opens with our party trying to grapple with the fact that Angels aren't bulletproof. Godfrey manages to duck Nazi fire and grab the Angel's flaming sword - surviving such a brazen only because deep down he's a good person. The party makes their way deeper into the Nazi hideout, fearing sniper fire every time they're out in the open. Lady Vivian is shot but thankfully doesn't take too much damage. Using all the grenades they managed to steal from the Nazis in the bar, the ground destroys staircases and wounds a majority of the Nazis gathering in the castle control center. Unfortunately they must do battle with Commandant, a high level spellcaster.

One blast of his magic missile reduces Angelo to a bloody smear. Godfrey engages him a sword fight while Lady Vivian lays down suppressing fire.

Angelo finds himself at the pearl gates, learning the unfortunate fact that due to Earth falling to demons, no souls will be allowed in Heaven. So he gets the next best thing - he's sent back to Earth where he is reborn as an Angel from the corpse of the one they lead into a killbox. He arrives right as Godfrey survives a wild tackle that sends him and the Commandant careening from the second floor of the castle. He lands stop the Nazi as his skull is crushed in the courtyard. Godfrey almost becomes the sniper next target, before Angel shoots his nest to ribbons with his divine machine gun.

After that, the party pretty much makes short work of the remaining Nazis and Lady Vivian is able pull Excalibur from its stone scabbard. 

Credits roll as the gang rallies the resistance to march on Berlin.

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We had a pretty good time with this adventure. It's a very evocative Soldiers & Sorcery mini setting. I could absolutely see running more adventures in this world as a leadup to this heist or as an alternative to it.

I think there are really only two pain points: there are hooks for side quests around town that I don't think really work. Not because they aren't interesting - my player who rolled Godfrey spent most of the first session sniffing around a few of them - but because there's kind of a ticking clock built into the mission (you're trying to stop the Nazis from unlocking excalibur's power). Unless there's some very quick witted play (or maybe a more creative GM than I am) I think it would be difficult to really get into those hooks and the main quest. And I guess that feels kind of weird to say considering my players spent an entire session just hiding in alleys and harassing a priest.

The other big pain point (depending on your perspective) is that all of the modern weaponry does crazy damage. Guns do 2d6, rifles & machine guns 2d8, Shotguns 2d10 and grenades 3d8.

I took the advice mentioned by Brad in his review to treat every human as a level 1 character. The players and the enemies were both incredibly frail. It upped the importance of stealth and made every hit feel very dangerous. It made me a little hesitant to roll on the random encounter table I created lest it lead to a TPK. And the entire party very much almost did die storming Castle Stull. 

I think if I ran this again I might either let the players be a slightly higher level or play up the importance of armor and other equipment (maybe some magic items?) The way damage worked out might have also been a consequence of running this in The Black Hack instead of another old school system. Your mileage may vary. 

 

I also had some quibbles about the clarity of the maps, but I want to chalk some of that up to the parenting brain fog. 

 

Anyway, I definitely recommend this adventure. You get a lot of entertainment for your $2 in a nicely put together package. Give this one a shot at your table if you're looking for a Nazi killing adventure.