Meatheads v1.5 Play Report; Mussel Beach Preview
The following is a partial play report from a session of Meatheads v1.5 played on 03/16/25. It was the first time playing v1.5 at the table, providing valuable insight into the new edition.
The purpose of this post is to spotlight the routine of editing through play and for finding clarity in intention. More so than anything else, it is for educational purposes for myself. This session picks up from a cliffhanger of a previous session, one that was played using the “Skin-n-Bones” edition of Meatheads previously available. During the initial Skin-n-Bones session, I found dissatisfaction with moments of play and procedure. Most notably a specific instance that will now become a benchmark for future projects that I refer to as the “crank problem”.
Picture this: our intrepid crew of Meatheads enters a cavern with a bridge turned 90 degrees away from the entrance and exit, being perpendicular to their progress. There is a rusty giant crank, the obvious mechanism used to rotate the bridge and fill the gap inbetween. Our brawny crew take a crack at turning it one by one, and one by one they fail their rolls. So that after 4 such tries they finally accomplished the obstacle of turning the crank.
Sucks ass, right? I think so too. Why make an obstacle to interacting with fiction? Why not just have them turn the crank? Real smarty pants are stroking themselves now about how they would simply adjudicate a better decision because of course they can as a reader after the fact. Rulemaking or adjudication is not my point or problem, I simply saw during that moment I needed the system to become further out of the way, to stop it from dictating the fiction of the game at my table.
Here I made a game about being big tough guys doing big tough things, yet poor stat-scoring shrimps were common. The trend would be to slink behind the strongest member of the party while they solved obstacles by brute force. I sat and thought about this, and bringing it up with my editor we hashed out some ideas. So we had the idea of cutting and leaning it out more, a way of svelting the system.
Let’s see how that goes.
Joining me for this session are my players, Dylan, Neal, Jesse and Skippy.
Dylan is my longest known friend and former college roommate. Our first day of meeting we bonded over Pavement and Guided by Voices. He is the person whose taste is most aligned with my own. As my best friend, I trust his judgement and thoughts. He is a big fan of Pathfinder 2e, enjoying the in-depth character creation it presents and clear internal logic towards its mechanical resolution. As a player, he is valuable for his honesty, sense of taste and rooting out mechanical inconsistencies. Dylan plays as Joe Barnacle.
Neal is my older brother, the second in a line of three (myself being the youngest). I suppose you could say we have been playing together in some regard since we were children with dinosaur toys and xbox and what have you. It wasn’t until after college did I play a tabletop game with him. He invited me to his pathfinder group in 2015 and I’ve been hooked ever since. Kudos to him for that. As a player, he is the person who I’ve been playing games with the longest, I’m just happy he is around. Neal plays as Doctor Frizzle.
Jesse is a friend made sometime after moving to Chicago. He is a newbie to any and all tabletop roleplaying games, the main game he plays in is a Dungeon Crawl Classics that I run monthly. Jesse is a big movie buff, of which I find myself aligned with. Having a repertoire with movies, Jesse brings a sorta tonal geiger counter to the table. If he gets it, the info is getting across clearly. As a player, he brings an unbridled perspective and no preconceived notions from other table top role playing games to playing at the table. Jesse plays as Jacque Strap.
Skippy is a wildcard, pure and simple. A good time pal who wants to crack beers and jokes at the table. He brings a total abandon for procedure and full creative (if sometimes destructive) force to the table. A force of nature no system can contain, an earthquake that better secures the foundations to minimize the future damage. Skippy is Chaos. As a player, he brings creativity beyond what the system could ever contain, fully seeing his imagination play at the table. Skippy plays as Poncho.
Normally, I wouldn’t put too much importance on things I make as a product. Like most other freaks I make shit for a variety of reasons. But by the virtue and generosity of the wonderful backers of kickstarter does Meatheads get the privilege of being a Product. As a game, Meatheads should be whatever you need it to be at your table. As a product, Meatheads has to at least deliver what it promises.
What follows is a collection of memorable moments from the session using the new ruleset highlighting player problem solving and creativity. During this session, so as to lessen the deadliness of combat and not have players make new characters on the spot, we implemented a “Mario” rule where each character had 3 lives to use up before being out of commission for good.
The session begins with the party of Meatheads moving between from one towering sea spire to the next. A dilapidated stone bridge punctured with sinkholes stretches over the foamy gray surf crashing against rocks. Four hapless sailors are trapped in rusty cages suspended over the swirling waves, calling for help. Across the stone bridge is a cadre of skeletons; 3 footmen on the bridge and 3 crossbows on the ridge above the second spire entrance.
Joe Barnacle leaps from the bridge and swings from hanging cage to cage, using the momentum to swing the last cage up hard enough to snap the chain as a mighty feat, launching the cage high enough to come down onto a crossbow skeleton and crush it. He leans out from behind the cover of the cage blasting away another crossbow skeleton with his pistol.
Puncho heaves up a cage with a sailor inside, who profusely thanks him for rescuing him. However, Puncho uses the newfound slack from the chain to loop it around the leg of a skeleton warrior, pushing the cage back into the bridge hole, dragging the skeleton down with it and into the rocks below (much to the fright of the still trapped sailor).
Doctor Frizzle runs into the fray to fight a skeleton warrior. During character creation, he rolled the “Know It All” background, gaining bonus language points and being somewhat of an egghead. He also chose the spelunker equipment pack which specifically comes with a journal. So, whipping out his journal, he holds the two covers to the sides of the skeleton’s skull, with its head in between the pages he accomplishes a mighty feat to smash the skull in between the pages. “Take a page out of my book” he says, smugly. This mighty feat happened to roll double 6s, so Dr. Frizzle immediately jumps up from 1 Strength to 2.
Jacque Strap enters combat by bashing a skeleton warrior off the side of the bridge, then does quick work to heave up the caged sailors. He is adamant to befriend them to retain their services as Toadies.
The party makes quick work of the rest of the skeletons, yet a wicked corpse wielding a rusty greataxe cleaves into Puncho. Having eaten a meal, he passes his death save, thereby gaining scar tissue and bolstering his HP further.
As the battle ends, the Meatheads free the caged sailors who offer their thanks and their services as Toadies. They are named Judy Drench, Keanu Speeds, Rick Piccolo and Cannon Printer.
I’ve always been rather content with the combat system in Meatheads, but now the streamlined version pairs really well with it. Players developed signature moves, used bashing creatively and intuitively knew when to attempt mighty feats as the session went on. This adventure being my contribution to the Mussel Beach Zine, I won’t spoil too much onwards but instead highlight some fun moments.
- Belly bumping a flaming skeleton into an oil drenched lich.
- Deducing from a room’s layout that a secret door existed and solving a statue puzzle to open it.
- Bisecting a skinless hulkazoid with a magic axe.
- Teeter tottering a stranded ship full of pirates atop the sea spire until it hurtled down the slope, crashing into the waves far below.
- Swinging from flaming vines while fighting a giant mad mandrill over a shark filled pit.
By the end of the adventure the party was settling down in a private beach to grill, surf and pump iron.
Simply by cutting away a redundant mechanic did things flow so much more smoothly. The needless actions and reactions built into so many RPGs turns player agency into carefully planned action economies. Simply letting players interact with the fiction without recourse for rulings still had everyone playing on the same page.
The lesson here is for myself, when you encounter a “crank problem”, something that gets in the way of play progression for no other reason than throwing obstacles by the way of system interaction, ask yourself what purpose it does to not let the players do things without mindless minutiae of game mechanics. You might just even start playing rather than gaming.