Solo All-Out Apocalypse Session 1
In session 0 we established a party and a quest: Fly, Altivo, and Baby must find chlorine or something similar within the bowels of the Blood-Bird infested West Edmonton Mall. I also set Fly on a quest to find a nice teddy bear as a present. Altivo and Baby won't know about it. Fly has a soft spot for babies having grown up with a bunch of nieces and nephews, but being a big softie goes against his public persona as a hard-ass so heās going to hide it.
Since they're questing on behalf of the town I've decided they have a cow and cart at their disposal. They don't belong to the party, so they are responsible for their safe return, but I figure it's in the town's interests to ensure the sanitation supplies are as easy to transport as possible. I thought it might be fun to roll on the Wandering Monsters chart to see if they got some weird beast of burden, but the result [9: Dabber] didn't make sense so I'm just going with a cow.
Iāve decided they're approaching from the East only because that means that they have more mall to get through in order to reach the water park, and I think that's more interesting. Narratively Iāll just say the other entrances arenāt viable, and they donāt really know the layout of the mall that well anyway: as we established in Session 0, the mall is infested with Blood Birds so itās not well traveled.
The Adventure Begins
After a few days' careful travel the party arrives at the West Edmonton Mall. They approach via the intersection to the south-west. From here the mall isn't much to behold - Google Maps shows me there is a multi-level parking lot on this side, which is unsightly, but seems like a good entryway. Theyāll have to choose if they want to go into the underground portion or the rooftop portion. The passage leading into the lower section looks pretty spooky on Google street view, so Altivo comments that he's "pretty sure itāll be full of bugs." The ramp up to the upper section seems like a much better choice provided the weather is reasonable. Letās sort that next.
I will say that a 1-3 is clear, 4-5 is a regular rain storm, and 6 is a dangerous radstorm which will do damage to anyone who's outside each turn. [2: Clear] The weather is nice and clear so they are safe to take the above ground route over the parking lot. They trudge up the ramp slowly, with Altivo slinking ahead. No sense letting the cart wheels alert any hungry predators to their presence.
Next, I'll roll for wandering monsters using the OSE dungeon adventuring guidelines. I'll roll a D6; on a result of 1 they encounter a monster. [5: No Monster] They are safe to proceed. After a careful and thorough inspection of the parking lot, Altivo feels confident there are no lurking threats, and waves the rest of the group onwards.
I took a screenshot of the mall and - knowing roughly the dimensions of the mall end to end - I was able to lay a grid on top that corresponds to a dungeon turn per square. The OSE rules suggest rolling for random encounters once every two dungeon turns, and considering we just rolled to see if they would have a random encounter outside in the parking lot, I think that they are clear to travel through the Hudson's Bay building without rolling for random encounters. Although thatās assuming they donāt decide to scavenge for supplies.
I'll roll a D6 for each party member to decide if any of them want to stop and scavenge. If I roll 1 on any of the dice that will determine which one wants to stop. [1, 5, 3] Fly wants to stop (presumably to look for a teddy bear). I don't think he wants the others to know this, so he is going to try to cover it as a regular supply run.
"Place seems quiet enough. We'll take a look around here, replenish our stock a bit."
This puts the other two on alert since it's uncharacteristic for Fly to lose focus on the mission, but they are a bit scared of him and so they're willing to stop and have a scavenge.
Since this is a department store, I might consider it a Hoard according to my scavenging rules, but because the area is likely well picked over (it's an obvious scavenging spot and has multiple entrances), I'm going to downgrade it to a regular lootable area. None of the three characters have the scavenging skill so Fly and Baby will make unmodified tests to scavenge while Altivo tests to keep watch (also unmodified).
[1 success], [1 success] Fly and Baby both get one success on their scavenging rolls, which means they each find one useful item of their choosing. I think it's reasonable for Fly to find a teddy bear here, but I'll roll a d6 to see what condition it's in which may contribute to his choice whether or not to search for a better one. [3] We'll say that it's of middling quality. Undamaged but sticky with some kind of oil. Baby wasn't looking for anything in particular, so I'll just roll on the d100 Random Junk list from the All-Out rule book. [51: scented candle] That seems very on brand for Baby.
[3 successes] Altivo is ridiculously alert which is a bit of a waste considering I rolled no random encounter.
Content for now, Fly is going to give up the hunt for a better teddy bear and carry on with the main mission. Maybe an opportunity to find a better one will present itself later.
Because noise is a concern (it potentially triggers Blood Birds for starters) I think theyāll need to roll to get the cow and cart through the store into the main part of the mall without making a racket.
Nobody really has any skills for helping to navigate this bull through the china shop, so they all just roll their dice. [2 successes] They are able to move the cow and cart through the department store and find the doors into the mall proper. This process takes them a couple turns.
Now they enter into the mall corridors properly, triggering another wandering monster check.
[1: Wandering monster] Oh dear, thatās a wandering monster! Iāll roll on the chart to see what they encounter, and roll a D6 to see how many. [12: Horl choo] [4] Spiky rolling plant monsters! Territorial, mobile cacti, essentially. Certainly could be worse, but still nothing to sneeze at. The D6 roll tells me that four of them are growing in the passageway here, soaking up dim sunlight from a broken skylight, probably sinking their roots into some carrion.
Next time weāll see how the party deals with this road block!