I had an enormous amount of fun on Sunday creating and then playing through a largely random mission to attempt the rescue of a Human Resistance operative who had been taken prisoner by the Hexen. This was the opening move of my Open Table game idea from last week.

Here’s what I did…

The imagined mission was that a single Resistance Scout was to infiltrate an underground structure designated a “Hexen Patrol Base”. Intel suggested there would be no more than two Hexen Warriors present and that a Resistance Prisoner was inside being interrogated.

First, I created two creatures: a Hexen Hound – basically a six-legged hunting dog tweaked from the animal stats in GURPS Basic Set (Campaigns); also a Hexen Warrior which was tweaked from the Myrmidon stats in GURPS Fantasy. Because I had no idea how Ultra-tech stuff feels in GURPS, I gave the Warrior a blaster pistol and a force sword… which turned out to be overkill.

Next, I grabbed a Location Crafter sheet and wrote up the Hexen Patrol Base for use with that solo tool. This is a great approach and just as useful when I have other players at the table. All it requires is a little bit of tracking and 1d6. This meshes well with GURPS… seeing as that’s a D6-based game system.

From there, I grabbed out the highly-versatile mega-hex tiles from my copy of The Fantasy Trip and used those to run the mission with some stand-up paper minis. As a location was entered, I added the appropriate mega-hex tile to the growing map. The only thing I really need to add for live play is some decent paper minis for Hex-shaped Sci-Fi doors and the Hexen Warriors: something insectoid with weapons would be ideal.

Finally, I created a quick character (using my GURPS Go Kit) for the raiding Resistance Scout and had them delve into the location. They did well initially – breaking through five locations, killing a couple of Hexen Hounds, and picking up some cool bits. It all went wrong when they broke into the Control Room and encountered the Hexen Warrior.

I wasn’t quite ready for the impact of a Force Sword: 8d6 damage which divides armour by 5. Ouch! Yeah, poor old Jens died horribly… but it was a load of fun to run!

I am going to dial down the Hexen Warrior’s gear for next time. It’d also run better with a small team, making this an ideal mission for an actual player-led group. But, on the whole, this was a really good success.

Perhaps I will be able to tempt someone to try it out sometime soon.

Game on!