A Little More Pulp Alley - Beneath Castle Wotzitstein

My wife, Jenn, and I decided to introduce our girls Anna and Nimue to Pulp Alley. Nim has been excited to play ever since we showed her the game, but alas life has placed itself firmly in the way for some time. I haven't really managed to finish any painting or new scenery since i last "reported in". so, using my newly acquired supply of Dwarven Forge dungeon pieces I set up a board with a 3-way "Race Against Time" scenario. My wife would play my league, reprising the role of Countess Velasco and her mercenary treasure hunters, while Nim would play the Gold Lama and his faithful helpers. Anna would play my wife's league, Dr Mentallo and his mobster minions.

 

The game went five turns before we called it and the image above shows the status of the board about Turn 2. The Gold Lama had entered through the staircase bottom left, while Dr Mentallo had entered through the staircase top right. The game was a learning game for the kids, but I am not sure if I got the scenario objectives across to them all that well as neither made any attempt to directly engage Countess Velsaco as she worked to open the casket at the center of the grand tomb. This allowed her to complete the task with only perils and challenges to contend with, but the even that didn't continue as the girls were far too liberal with the use of their cards for playing perils.

We didn't use perilous terrain at all, but instead all closed doors were considered locked and took an action to open. Doing so was considered a Perilous action as the Countess has surely booby trapped them to protect her stash of supplies and ill-gotten treasures. The two caved in sections of hall were used as spawn points for minor wandering critters - rat and spider swarms and horrible single giant rats. These creatures were considered simple 2d6 Brawl, Dodge, and Might. They appeared if a "People" symbol was drawn on any card and moved if an "Magnifying Glass" was drawn. I'm afraid the proper terms for these icons escape me. But I got the basic idea from the recent "Escape from Hell" AAR posted. In addition there were two secret doors on the board that required 2 successes on Cunning, as an action, to detect and then could be opened as a Perilous action, as they were likely protected by ancient traps.

By the end of Turn 5, Countess Velasco had completed the Major Plot Point and one Minor Plor Point. Each of the girls controlled one Minor Plot Point but were also down one league member each. Both girls want to play again and the current plan is to have them each design their own league and then get the figures so they will have a personal investment in their league.

It was really fun and can't wait to get more games under the belt.

-Eli