GM

Well, I couldn’t make the EndGame Monster Party, which made me very sad, but I was happy to be playing a Monsterhearts game of my own. Scott White and Rich Rogers (who I play PTA with) recruited me into the game, and I was very excited to get my angst on.

The first session was character and setting creation. It was also the players getting to know each other. I had never gamed with Adam or Jack so we spent a lot of time dong the dance of “this is how I play. I want to make sure you’re down with playing in a compatible way, without coming out and telling you ‘you must do this thing’”. I think we all got some buy into playing teenage angst and our characters digging their proverbial (and perhaps literal) teeth into each other.

What I’m still very dubious about though is play style. Jack and I have characters that are nearly identical (teenage female ghoul musicians who died in fires… I know, crazy), but we have very different approach to secrets in game. I’m super hippie-indie “lets all talk about our character secrets so we can frame cool scenes around pushing on them.” Jack, is old school and has character secrets that are shared between him and Scott only. I was pretty heavy handed about saying “I want us all to collaborate” and in fact talked a lot more about my character than I expected to at first, to show that doing so is safe, but I think Jack has very different sensibilities than I do. So we’ll see how it plays out in game.

Seating Chart

Character Roster

Fee was born in 1970 in the Prypiat (Ukraine) and in 1986 was incinerated during the Chernobyl disaster.  Buy she didn’t die, or she died and came back, she really didn’t know. Either way, she came back, physically untouched but mentally and emotionally vacant. She has been wandering the world for over 20 years lost and empty, until recently she found something that makes her feel alive again. Spreading the chaos that caused her death. Still with the emotional maturity of a 16 year old girl, she seeks through music to incite the same longing she feels into others… to burn it down, burn it all down.

“We all know it. The universe is expanding and moving to a state of greater entropy. All I’m trying to do is help it along. It’s like watching a tiny bird almost ready to take flight, all it needs it a little nudge to push it out of the next and set it free.” -Fee

Fee is of course short for Phoenix Levitski, but her real name is lost to her. Something like Elena no doubt. She currently lives, as a foreign exchange student with the Browns. They have one (biological) son named Doug who is 15 and would have had a daughter that was Fee’s age if not for a miscarriage.  The browns never got over their first loss and are always terrified they will lose Doug as well, so they are incredibly protective of him, terrified of anything that might put him in danger. Not surprisingly the browns are not delighted with Fee. She’s super goth, she makes a lot of noise, she doesn’t play by the rules, but worse of all, when scolded, she just looks at them with these dead eyes, oblivious to the threats they make. The truth is she always has dead eyes, it’s just only in times of anger that they notice.  Fee is terrified of them trying to send her back.

Dante is a misunderstood kid with no right to be as angsty as he is. His family loves him and they are good people. His brothers and sisters are well adjusted, and his parents have noticed how distant he is, tried to help, but haven’t been able to figure out what is wrong, let alone how to fix it.

Music speaks to him though. He mixes it, remakes, and turns it into something. He’s found a mixing service that allows users to do re-mixes online and has begun connecting with the DJ community, specifically the owner of the site, who has become his patron. Really. His effing dark patron!

Now Dante gets help from the owner Brom Silva (whose real name he doesn’t know), in exchange of course for doing things that are in their mutual interest.

Abraham was groomed to be great. He’s a Serpentine and was told by his parents, specifically his father. Brom Silva, that if he followed in their footsteps, power would all but be given to him. Yeah, but what teenager wants to do what his “father knows best” father tells him? So he’s taken his inherent knack for getting his way, a household servant and a modicum of the family’s wealth (which is still quite a lot) to Hilldale. Unfortunately, there are always strings (get it, strings?) attached. His “servant” is more of a watcher than anything else. He’s gotten a job at the Hilldale highschool and now teaches History and Homeroom. Yay for our new homeroom teacher Mr. Drake!

Abraham has a posh apartment that overlooks the Hillsdale docks and next door is Mr. Drake… who has a key to Abraham’s place. Yay. His father has let Abraham go on his walkabout but holds him on a leash both with the presence of Mr. Drake and tight control over Abraham’s accounts.

Tiffany Darrens is a girl in search of who she is, or what happened to her. She lives in an abandoned house that is rumored to be haunted. She is a classic rock chick, a singer, and dressed the part. Tiffany has a reputation for being vengeful and wicked.

She is a ghoul who was burned to death in a fire. Unlike Fee, however, she ages, and when she was killed in 1990, was only a young child.

Strings

After going over the character concepts, we did strings and figured out how we all had hooks into each other.

Dante – Abraham likes his music, Tiffany hates it. Fee saw him stealing Tiffany’s amp but didn’t say anything about it.

Abraham – Knows where Tiffany lives (in the “haunted” house). His father Brom, also holds his purse strings and has Mr. Drake watching over him.

Tiffany – Dante reminds of her of what love means and she’s drawn to him (which sets up some awesome tension give that have such a contentious relationship otherwise). Fee saw Tiffany die and be reborn so many years ago, and is fascinated with her. Are the they same?

Fee – Fee sees the power running through Abrahams veins and she is drawn to him like moth to a flame. She wonders how someone can be so “alive”. Abraham has agreed to mentor Fee in history. Just before the game starts, Fee caused an accident at the docks. She made a cargo container fall from a lift. It crushed her underneath it and after she died, she burst into flames and started a fire on the dock. Tiffany saw it all.

Setting

Hillsdale is a small town in Oregon, near enough to the music scene to have aspiring musicians but far enough away for anything real to happen. It has some interesting features.

The abandoned house on the hill. Supposedly haunted.

Dudley’s Diner – Run by Mack Dudley (the chef) and his cougar wife that hits on every attractive boy or man who walks in the door.

A fishing port that primarily has locally owned and operated trawlers, but occasionally a massive commercial vessel will come into harbor. As mentioned above a big fire just broke out at the docks. Big enough that it is in the newspaper.

Mr. Drake is our Homeroom and History teacher.

Thoughts on this game

I think we created a rich set of characters and setting. It should give us plenty of fuel to start our own funeral pyre.

I was disheartened that we didn’t get to actually “play”. It took almost four hours just to create characters and the town/school were were in. Part of that was because of doing it online, with all the complications that creates.

I’m concerned about having very different play styles. We’ll see how that works out in game.

GM

We finished this “session”. It only took three weeks. But it was very satisfying. It felt more like an “adventure” than a typical Burning Wheel session as well. Travel to a place, rally the troops, and fight a huge battle. And we did it, all of it.

As per the last session, we streamed this episode, all 3+ hours of it on youtube. If you’re particularly fond of actual play, check out http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XPCM_Ms5oK4

Range and Cover

I suggested, perhaps foolishly that since Moya and Afon had range on the Trolls, and they had ranged weapons, and the trolls didn’t,  maybe they should use the Range a Cover rules. This seemed like a good way to engage the mechanics and justifiably give the heroes a few shots at the trolls before they ripped them to shreds.

That turned out to be a learning experience. Not being familiar with Range and Cover (as a group we rarely use it and we’ve never used it in this campaign).  While the heroes on the hill fought to maintain positioning dice and script moves that would all them to shoot trolls without becoming troll food, I blissfully engaged in…

Fight!

The two militarily leaders Baldric and Andon Toryn met in the field of combat and crossed swords… or in this case crossed sword and mace. So, here’s an interesting thing about maces, they are really good a crunching armor, (requiring 3 armor successes rather than a swords mere 1). This pretty much told me that a) I didn’t want to get hit and b) I should take that mace away from him as soon as I possibly could.  The fight played out quickly. In the first exchange we traded blows but our armor held out both times (phew for having 6 armor dice in my torso) but at the end of the exchange Baldric disarmed Andon.  That was key, from there out I knew I could press the advantage that he needed to get back his mace, or draw a dagger and that I’d have both positioning advantage on him and the ability to script as follows:

1: Aggressive Stance, Intimidate
2: Push
3: Set, Great Strike.

Here was my logic. If I could intimidate Andon into surrendering, great. If not, I’d push him down and then chop off his head. As is, the intimidate went off (I knew he only had a B3 Will) and he lost many, many actions.  I was ready to break from combat there, but Shaun wanted to see what I had scripted for the next volley, which thankfully was only push, ending up in Andon dropping to his knees to surrender and Baldric kicking him in the chest so he fell back into the mud. Good times.

Meanwhile

Eventually the trolls closed, at least on Moya, and then Afon wanted part of that fun too… Ayernand stayed in R&C for a round until the troll closed on him and entered yet another Fight! I have to give Shaun props, he kept all this shit straight in his brain, which was no easy task.  Unfortunately I had to step out to take care of the kids for half an hour in the middle of this, so I didn’t get all the details, but mostly it sounded like Afon and Moya roasted one Troll but that burned out Moya completely (Forte dropped to 0).  Ayernand set up the “Ayernand Gambit” which was to be beat down by a Troll enough that it throws caution to the wind and tosses you over its shoulder, right in the perfect place for him to shove a sword up under it’s jaw and into it’s brain! Boom, Ayernand… Troll Slayer!

Wrap up

We took the king’s cousin as a captive. That was easy. Then we had to figure out what to do with all the people that were suffering in agonizing pain from the horrific burns. That was tough. Baldric ordered them put out of their misery but didn’t participate in the butchery himself (he’s such an ass sometimes).

Thoughts on this game

Ayernand made the beginner’s luck “Troll-wise” to state (sucessfully) that trolls hate wizards. Awesome!

Ayernand was also in there killing the soldiers that were wailing in pain. He had suffered the same wounds himself and knew how horrible they were. He truly was granting the mercy.

Baldric and Ayernand had a fun tied versus contenst where they both got what they wanted. Baldric made Ayernand stand out as the “Troll Slayer” but Ayernand brought down the mood of everyone with the horrors of war.

The 12 year old soldier came back in to play. Killing along side Ayernand. Horrible.

God we were Artha starved all the sudden. Everyone was out. It was close.

Welcome back to Narrative Control, season 3. This season we’re taking calls from listeners and offering up what advice we can about their gaming conundrums. This week we talked to Austin Smith about both dropping clues to your players, keeping them attached to the outcomes, and introducing a rich setting.

Hosts: Sean Nittner, Lenny Balsera, and Eric Fattig
Guest Caller: Austin Smith

Length: 1:01:36

The conversation continues… here.

GM

Action – Reflection – Response

Yay! First off, very fun game. In response to my previous game write up, we started this game having some discussion of intent and expectations. I mentioned the ideas that I had namely that I want everyone to play bold, getting into danger characters, and that I want us to shine the spotlight on our characters with a sympathetic eye.  Just like heroes of stories, the lens that we view our characters through makes all the difference.

Shaun pointed out that all characters in Burning Wheel are like Walter White. They are melodramatic, and it is their successes (and failures) that drive the story forward, not an external plot.

Noam also established some expectations for his character, namely that he wants the payoff of a showdown with Baldric or Moya (or both) to be something he builds up to. My hope is we can have many “minor” squables along the way.

Recording

Wow, everything on the internet is forever. Our games are now streamed on youtube. Sadly my video decided to die when we started this. We actually had lots of technical difficulties. It’s sad because I get pretty crazy eyed and emotive during play, especially tonight. Hopefully you’ll be able to see my pretty mug in the future.

To see this game (and others) hit up Shaun’s youtube channel: http://www.youtube.com/shayworth

The play is the thing

Well, you just watched two hours of us playing, right? So no point in detailing it here. HA!

Duel of Wits!

We started off (once we got started) with Baldric meeting Moya on the battlefield as she joined him to parley with the King’s men. And I opened it up with a fight “Why have you abandoned your post on the hill?” A gnarly accusation if there ever was one. Sure enough Baldric and Moya were fighting over who was in command. Baldric wanted Moya to not only recognize his command, but also support it. Moya wanted a non-drunk to lead the army.  Baldric had some point, that morale would suffer if she took over, but mostly this was pride talking. Moya was cool and logical. She was loyal to the duke, not to Baldric. If Baldric got in the way of her serving him, she was going to remove the obstacle.

Moya’s statement of purpose: Baldric isn’t fit to lead. I’m taking charge of the army.

Baldrics statement of purpose: Moya will not only follow my orders, but she’ll enforce them to the troops as well.

Result: 0/0 We both went for the jugular. Moya scripted Incite, Point, Dismiss. Baldric did Point, Rebuttal (missed due to incite), Point.

Compromise: Baldric stays in command, for now. The moment he takes another drink, he’s OUT!

Dude, dude. I can’t wait for the will test I’m going to impose on myself after the battle. Of course he’ll want to drink. Can he resist though? Can he resist at +1 ob because of his hang over. What if he’s wounded and has dice penalties?

Parley

Moya held up her end of the bargain. She rode back up the hill and even sent Ayernand down to treat with Baldric. She even did it with vigor. “Ayernand, take my horse and get your ass down there.”

Baldric, as representative of Duke Roderick and Ayernand, as representative of  Redvale rode down to treat with Sir Adalon Toryn, cousin of king Kentigern.  Kentigern’s kin offered us terms of surrender. He was a reasonable guy actually, and Baldric found himself really wondering how the usurper king had all these honorable people (Sgt Telgarn, house Toryn) who flew his banners. It’s something worth further investigation in the form of a future belief about the king. For now though, he gave us a chance to surrender. Their numbers were overwhelming and redvale was hardly defensible. If we bent our knee to the king, no blood had to be shed.

Ayernand spoke. Though the village would be saved lives, he personally would never bend a knee to the Silver King. And Baldric pretty much echoed that. He warned the knight that his army was on the other side of a choke point and that fiery death would rain down upon them if they tried to cross.  He offered to duel the opposing lord, but as his reputation had not spread to house Toryn, the elder knight saw this only as a boastful jest. He did not think it fitting for noble blood to be spilled over such an inconsequential battle.

Ayernand tried to goad him. If he would not accept a duel with Baldric, at least he would meet him in the field of battle. A reasonable request, but offered as an insult to his bravery (Sir Blueblood), this only served to incite the knight to launch his attack early.  ”Archers! Fire!” Woot, beginners luck intimidate.

To Battle

So, some pretty awesome things happened.

First off, Moya and Afon tried to get their people under cover. She got most of them moving, but in doing so, was the last to seek cover and suffered glancing blows from arrows lobbed up on the hill. Woot, beginners luck command.

After the first volley of arrows, Toryn sent his foot to charge across the bridge. Everyone knew it was the major obstacle. If he could rush across , he could take the field and wreck us. This is where everything hinged. Baldric needed to use the bridge as a choke point to hold off the bulk of his forces so that Moya could split them apart with her rain of fire. Woot, beginners luck strategy. Wait, no. This was a roll that REALLY mattered. I mean, Aldon’s intent here was that they crushed our line and moved across the bridge, foiling all our plans. Thanks to 3 Persona, several helping dice, AND Aura of Determination, Baldric pushed forward with his foot behind him and met the kings men in battle, holding the bulk of their forces (at least for now) on the opposite side of the bridge. Woot!

This was Moya’s cue. She was one casting away from being able to do her second read of “Rain of Fire”, but that still meant her Ob was 6. 7 because of the superficial wound! The last of the persona spent, FORKing and casting carefully, she pulled it off. B9 traumatic wounds all around. The horribly brutal thing is that most of these soldiers probably had a B10 Mortal wound. Which means that most of them probably didn’t die from the spell, but instead were horribly, horribly, burned, and would die very painful deaths very soon, but probably not soon enough.

Afon, perched on the hill, made the final act of the game. Looking at the wreckage below he saw something moving in the water. Huge lumbering forms hiding in the river. “TROLLS!”

Epilogue

We were still in the middle of the action. Ayernand had not yet really reacted to seeing the devastation of Moya’s spell, Moya and Afon were going to ride down to fight the trolls and Baldric had spotted Sir Toryn (and vice versa) and the two charged at each other.  So, basically, as Shaun she, ”Normally I’d award arta here, but we’re still in the thick of the shit!”

Thoughts on this game

I was really happy that we both talked about what we wanted before game and in game, we went to the dice, allowing each side to state their intent.

Looking forward to Fight! next game. But damn, Trolls! Oh, and the cavalry are coming. Shaun is playing hardball. Hell yeah!

Here are some game facts:

• The players (my kids) want to free the dragons and train/ride them.
• The players characters are renowned for their climbing skills, and while they haven’t reached the top of the tree (where the dragons used to roost) they have gotten higher than anyone in recent history.
• There was a great hero, Nadaar, who was trying to free the dragons, a process that involved a great quest, ending (or at least including) climbing the Dragon Tree with a ruby pendant. However, he fell from the tree and then was beset by agents of an evil vampire dragon (apparently the only kind that is free of the Red Tower), who stole the ruby pendant after killing him.
• The king is unconsolable (due to a failed diplomacy roll) and will weep for his fallen knight for a year and a day, rather than take any action to avenge his murder.
• The players wish to explore these places in game: Ghost City, Troll City Ruins, Dissapearing Lake, and the Red Tower.
• The players failed a History roll to do research in the library, resulting in finding books that they knew were old because it held contradictory information (namely that all the ruby pendants were destroyed when they just saw one the day before)

Questions for developing Fronts

What if the dragons didn’t leave the Dragon Tree, but instead were banished? What if they were banished because they used to rule over men (that they kept as slaves) and the races of men (PHP playable races) eventually overthrew them?

What if all that was true, but it had been so long that people forgot, and instead remembered Dragons as mythical creatures of legend, diefying them? What if only the line of kings or some holy order, or what not still remembered the truth. And those people were charged with stopping anyone from releasing the dragons, lest they rule over man again?

What if it was someone in that line or order that actually pushed Nadaar off the tree, rather than just him falling. What if they were doing it to stop him from releasing the dragons. What if he was going there to free the dragons (or some of them) to help fight the evil vampire dragon Visceriath who had escaped (or perhaps was never caught)?

What if the author of the book they read, was an elf named Glessil, who had been cast out, killed, cursed or otherwise had to leave Dragon Tree, and now resides in Ghost City (as a ghost of course), where the rest of her (more accurate) works are kept. What if her name is on the text and it is known that the rest of her works are in Ghost City?

What if I ask the kids if the kings son is a good guy or a jerk. If he’s a good guy, he might say that there is more to Nadaar’s death than they know. That they should try and avenge him but keep quiet about it and sneak out of Dragon Tree to find out more in Ghost City? If they say he is a jerk, what if he banishes them because they are Dragonborn. He was the one that pushed Nadaar off the tree and wants them out of the city because he knows they were Nadaar’s allies. What if he sends them to the Ghost City as punishment?

What if, on their way to Ghost City, the Tanglewood forest presents many dangers but a specter in the woods encounters them with riddles. Easy ones like “how far can you walk into a forest?” The riddles, if answered incorrectly will lead to an encounter that shows them the answer, so they can be asked again later. If answered correctly, will grant them a boon in the form of avoiding some danger. Either way they will a) get them closer to Ghost City and b) answer 1-3 riddles which answers can be brought back in later in the game (if applicable) to help them or reinforce a theme?

Mature Content

I’m liking where these ideas might be going. I can see lots of turmoil between the people that want to free the dragons and those that want to keep them caged.  I wonder though if introducing slavery, and the possible redemption or forgiveness of the slavers is too mature a theme for kids? Also, how will they feel if the creatures they worship end up being slavers? Does that betray their original campaign concepts?

Players

Well, of all playsets to be the first one I’ve played twice, I didn’t expect it to be the Nut People. But, when life hands you a pile of pecans, make pecan pie I guess.

Notable quotes

“Forbidden love nuts.”

“Saving is for ugly people.”

“You good at trying to, or are you good at fixin?” “…Yeah.”

“You slept with my Sugar?” “It wasn’t sleeping, it was just hate’n”

The setup

Fighting for love

Early on we had some hi-jinks in an air balloon, a staged kidnapping, and even later a staged arson, that turned into a real arson. But all along, what we we realized is that both Sugar Mitter and Chris Quick wanted the love of Mara Bea. Mara Bea was never going to love Chris on account of her being a lesbian and she was never going to trust Sugar, on account of sugar being so horribly impulsive that she slept with Chris behind Mara Bea’s back to have a baby (Barlow) for them to raise together.

This led to one of the coolest fights I’ve ever had in a game. Mia and I were both yelling at each other, making accusations of one kind and another, which finally led up to the quote from above.

Mara Bea: “You slept with my Sugar?”
Chris Quick: “It wasn’t sleeping, it was just hate’n”

I loved it. It was the result of the Tilt (Truth -> An unwanted confession) but it was so powerful that it really drove the rest of the story, which of course, was abysmally bad for Mara Bea.

How it happened

This for me, is the most important part of why this game worked so well. At the break (for the tilt) I mentioned that Sugar and Mara Bea had really good motivations. Strongly trying to protect what is there, reform and/or impress the other and were generally providing a good enough story that the rest of us could be supporting characters.

Mia though, was really creative in trying to find ways to bring Chris more into the story. She suggested a flashback scene (we ended up having several) that tied Mara Bea and Chris together (more so than my original idea of Chris wanting pecan wood from Mara Bea to start making pecan wood toys). Unsurprisingly Chris was secretly in love with Mara Bea, and when she came to him, drunk and miserable from breaking up with Sugar, it became obvious how he felt.

Thoughts on this game

Xander had to leave after the tilt, but we were able to work that out just fine. We took out two dice, and made his character (the vagrant nut thief Darren John Bob Sadley, Jr.) a minor character from that point forward.

I had some confusion about some of the character metioned. I rolled up that Xander and I were “Darren Sadley Jr. and Chris Quick, pecan visionary.” I figured out something to do, limp though it was, as a pecan visionary. but the score didn’t give us any idea of who Darren Sadley Jr was, nor did the relationship. We eventually decided he was a local vagrant, but this did take us some time to sort out. It started me thinking about the you make me feel game we had been playing during the workshop.  I wanted <adjective> <relationship>, and <name>. This particular relationship just gave us names and we struggled a little bit with it.

Join us on May 6, 2012 at EndGame in Oakland for an integrated improv/gaming workshop! We’re going to explore dynamic characters, collaborative scene-building, and the success/complication model as it applies to role-playing games. Local improv instructor Mia Blankensop will lead a series of exercises in the first half, and the second half of the day we’ll be putting it all together by playing some Fiasco.

Bonus coolness: We’ll have awesome prizes to give out in a raffle at the end:  a signed copy of Fiasco, a Fiasco T-shirt, and a Fiasco Kit (complete with dice, index cards, and playsets)!

All Fiasco rules and playsets provided.

Many thanks to the fine folks at EndGame for hosting this event.

What people said from the May 6th event:

“That was awesome. Thank you, all!” – Noam R.

“Nicely presented today and my goodness I won my first con prize in several years. I’d like to thank my agent and my producer.” - Shannon M.

“Terrific event. Sad I was only able to stay for the first half, but what a first half it was. Thanks for Sean, Mia, Karen and Matt for their work and presentation. And I learned stuff too!” -Vanessa B.

“Martin and I had a really great time at the workshop! He’s super into Fiasco now, it really got him excited.” – Elizabeth B.

All our happy improvers

All our brutal samurai

 Tableau: The garage

As Memorial day approaches, The Wolf wants to deputize fellow gamers to spread the “Howl of The Wolf”. In exchange, you get to be part of the con (listed in the credits as an supporter), get a shiny “Howl of The Wolf 2012” pin, and get a matching “Howl of The Wolf” badge for profile.

What The Wolf wants from you:

The Wolf has a big pile of shiny Big Bad Con Fliers and Business cards to hand out. You get a stack of 10 of each (or more if you want them). Give them out at your games or to people you talk to at the con.

What The Wolf will provide:

When The Wolf sees you at Kubla Con, he’ll had over the fliers and business cards. The Wolf will also link you to a the “Howl of The Wolf” badge you can add to your profile.

When you attend Big Bad Con, you’ll receive a special “Howl of the Wolf 2012″ pin, which is only available to gamers who help advertise for the con in advance.

How to do it:

Simple, let The Wolf know you’re interested by joining this event on Facebook, commenting below, or emailing TheWolf@bigbadcon.com and he’ll arrange getting you the promotional material as well as get your name as you want it to appear on the credits for the con.

If you’re not attending Kubla Con but still want to spread the word (amongst your local gamers, at a store, at StrategiCon, etc) The Wolf is happy with that too, just let him know that when you click “Yes” and he’ll make arrangements to get you the goods.

More info at: http://www.bigbadcon.com/ or email TheWolf@bigbadcon.com

Hah. I loved the beliefs that we have for this game. Baldric and Moya are up to their their normal conflicting beliefs.

Baldric: I can no longer live without Moya. She detests me because of my actions in Kashkyr, most of which is a drunken haze. To make amends, I must first find out what I did. I’ll get the information I need from Afon.

Moya: Baldric’s affections are overbearing and unwanted. I will involve myself with Ayernand to put him off for a while.

Introducing Ayernand

The game started with an introduction to Noam’s character Ayernand. He was in the village as our soldiers approached and Baldric had finally gotten sick of watching people flee before the battle even started (the road had been full of villagers making for the hills).  My goal was to have a powerful and charged interaction with Ayernand. To do this I had Baldric grab a villager and the were leaving and set into him, shouting “how can you flee your homes, when we will go and die to protect them? do you have no courage, no honor?” This of course to a 12 year old boy who had never used a weapon before in his life and would surely die moments after any pitched battle began.

As I hoped Ayernand stepped up in his defense. Said that he was just a boy and the rest. Baldric asked if he too was a coward and would flee and when he said that he would stay and fight, Baldric decided that his man, maimed as he was, would be a symbol of the people. I nailed a conspicuous roll to get everyone’s attention on him and to rally some of the villagers to stay and fight.

Ayernand’s backstory is that he knows Baldric and was sent to fight (where he got maimed) in a battle that Duke Roderick kept Baldric from fighting in. So there was some animosity there to begin with, and then when Baldric did even recognize him, and commanded him to fight on the front lines, that old wound opened and reeked of pus.

Scouting for a beard

While Baldric was dealing with the affairs of setting up camp Moya set out with Ayernand and Afon to go scout the enemies forces. While they found that we were outnumbered almost 2 to 1, they more importantly go to spend some time together.  Hilariously Moya used that time to put the moves on Ayernand.  ”So, you seen like a pretty good guy. Want to have dinner in my tent tonight?”

She also saw that there was a single bridge the army would have to cross, not far from Redvale, and a discussion of blowing up said bridge. Woots. Magic. (Ayernand hates magic).

Stand down

Back at the camp, Lord Martin approached Baldric and told him, in short, that he didn’t want to fight, didn’t want to lose his family.  Baldric told him that the fight was happening with him or without.  He didn’t want to fight, so Baldric excused him from his post. Martin was infuriated but what’s a knight going to do?

I made a circles roll and Baldric, thanks to his reputation, found a young and eager farmer named Leon, who he put in charge of gathering supplies from the village (food, tinder, etc).

We didn’t roll and dice here, and I wonder if that is why I felt somewhat uncertain about this scene. I wasn’t really sure what Shaun was pushing for, and probably should have just asked “what does this dude want?” It might have resulted in a DoW or a versus, I’m not sure.

Town council

When Moya returned, we adjourned in the recently deposed mayor’s home to review our strategy. The bridge was the key, we knew that. But the conversation quickly wasn’t about that. It was about the burning in Baldric’s heart that drew him to Moya like a moth to a flame.

A moth she quickly and vehemently batted away. The two argued but it was clear that Baldric’s affections, despite being rejected, weren’t going anywhere. Moya stormed out to go have “dinner” with Ayernand. Baldric was supposed to noticed this, but it only barely registered. Like, he heard it, but it would be a while until he would pick up on it.

Dinner for Two

Moya tried to befriend, perhaps even seduce Ayernand. She wanted some measure of protection from Baldric and thought that hooking up, or appearing to hook up, with another man would do it. The initial invite to spend some nights sleeping in her tent didn’t go over too well, but when she revealed she was the Duke’s bastard daughter and Ayernand realized he would be serving the duke and preventing incest by having dinners in her tent, he relented.

Drinking with Afon

Baldric, confused as to why Moya kept spurning him, had decided that he must have done something horrible while in Kashkyr but he just couldn’t remember what it was. What he actually didn’t remember was that Moya was his sister, but he didn’t know that.

So Baldric went to drink with Afon and try to find out from him, what he had done to drive Moya so far away. Eventually, after many, many, drinks Afon told him that she was his sister. Because the mercenary was avoiding giving him a straight answer for so long, Baldric kept getting the wrong ideas “No, she’s not my spiritual sister under Argent.” “What, are you saying she’s half-dragon?” Until finally Afon blurted out “Your dad banged her mom.”

Baldric’s response. “Oh….” (long pause) “I need to go take a walk.”

Enemy at out gates

Having drunk way too much Baldric and Afon woke up on the hill overlooking the bridge to Moya kicking them both awake. Infuriated that they were drunk, she merely told them to suit up, the battle was upon us.

Bearing the white flag

Once dressed for battle, we waited to see Kentigern’s forces advance across the bridge, where we would cut them off.  Instead the spent a small convoy bearing a white flag. Baldric charged down on his steed to meet them. Moya, seeing he brother in danger, followed suit…

Thoughts on this game

I felt somewhat cynical and upset about the game and it’s taken me a couple days to figure out why. In game this manifested as me teasing the other players for what I considered unambitious or overly cautious play. Teasing isn’t considerate or particularly mature and I shouldn’t have done that.

Here’s what was getting under my skin. I’m totally down with Baldric being hated or reviled, but what I’ve never wanted was a character that was dismissed. There were several times when Moya has undone any of Baldric’s assertions by saying “he’s just a pampered boy” or “oh, that’s just Baldric, don’t mind him”. And that gets under my skin, I’ve never consider Baldric comic relief, or someone to be taken lightly. I don’t want him to be universally loved or followed, but I do think he’s done enough that he should be respected, at least as someone who is dangerous. Instead, he’s been treated like a child throwing a temper tantrum.

Which begs the question is he a child having a temper tantrum? There have been several decisions I’ve made for the character that I thought would serve the good of the story. Someone had to make a folly for things to move forward, someone had to make a move based on emotion, rather than reason, for the story to be interesting and compelling.  Some examples from the last few games:

Example 1: The Hand

When Baldric was prosecuting Afon, as a player I was pretty much at a loss for what punishment to ask for Afon. I suggested indentured servitude because it seemed like a) the thing that would seem reasonable and b) would keep Afon in the game (a apposed to say being locked in the dungeons). Justin was totally not interested in those stakes though, and in that moment I realized I wasn’t invested in his prosecution one way or another. But this was Afon’s case, and to make it dramatic, Afon needed a foil that would be a real threat. Justin wanted his hand on the line, so I went for that. Baldric pushed for the punishment to be to cut the thieves hand off, because Justin wanted that!

That move however, earned Baldric a whole lot of shit from Moya and Afon. I had been trying to portray Baldric as someone who was basically a reasonable person when he was sober, but made really bad mistakes when drunk, and sought to be drunk often because he was miserable. As he tried to “clean up” and at least stay sober for important decisions (like this one), he ended up in the role of asshole regardless. The way I look at is that I was advocating to make another character (Afon) look awesome, and for that I earned my character being cast as a dolt.

Example 2: The introduction

I wanted a charged introduction with Ayernand. As players we had all talked about having these built up animosities with each other. Things that would cause tension between the characters. Ayernand was supposed to hate both Baldric and Moya for his injuries. Baldric because he was privileged and didn’t have to fight in the war that Ayernand got maimed in, and Moya because she was a wizard and it was a wizard’s spell that did the maiming.

We had talked about this as players, we were excited about it, and so I pushed for it. I started off our first interaction by Ayernand seeing Baldric trying to press a helpless villager into service. I wanted to open that old wound immediately, so our characters would start with a charged introduction. I also tried to emphasize that although the characters were fiercely at odds, they were both important to each other, and would butt heads again.  In my opinion, I brought the goods.

Moya and Afon’s introduction, however, was much more moderate. Even with the introduction of Moya’s magic Ayernand was perhaps uncomfortable but still had a mostly amicable relationship. That, on it’s own, seems fine. It doesn’t have the charge of “You’re a witch! I lost my man parts because of magic, get the fuck out of my sight!” What bugged me was that during the discussion it was Baldric that was depicted as a an asshole and a buffoon.

So here’s the crux of it. I play a vulnerable character. He make mistakes, he leads with his emotion, or he does things to satisfy or challenge other character’s beliefs. For instance, I had planned to have Baldric leave Moya alone in the last session, instead focusing on Afon. Moya’s belief however was that “Baldric’s affections are overbearing and unwanted” so I played that up. I had Baldric make more advances, serious ones this time (last time they were drunken sloppy advances) so that Moya would have something to really push off of. This wasn’t done for me, this was done for Kristin, so he belief would feel real.

Going forward

I think we all want to play big, bold characters. The story will be driven forward based on that.  So I think the direction to is for all the players to collectively work on our characters being bold and flawed individuals that are always the protagonists of the game. I think this means sometimes stepping back, out of character, and out of game for a while and taking an author/director stance to make it happen.  Example “Okay, this looks like your character is being undermined. How do we stages this such that either he can regain control, or that the undermining is a big deal and he needs to fight for status, etc.”

Talking to Shaun and Kristin

I hung out with Shaun and Kristin on Friday night. We talked about this for a while and everyone brought up some really good points. Kristin pointed out that Baldric feeling dismissed is something he should bring up, and fight to assert his station. Shaun also noted that this kind of thing has happened in other regards, even perhaps by accident. There is a spell for instance, an incredibly powerful one, cast by a dragon, that was supposed to literally steal Moya’s family name from her. Not like she forgot it, like it isn’t hers and it never was. Unfortunately that hasn’t been observed in game. And so the ALL POWERFUL DRAGON MAGIC has been reduced to a running joke about things the Auley family has forgotten.

I have really good hopes that we’ll be able to address these concerns both between the players out of game and between the characters (in game) via Duel of Wits, versus tests, etc.

GM

My daughter and her friend have been asking me for a while to play Dungeons & Dragons. Not TSoY, not Dungeon World, not Burning Wheel or Mouse Guard. Dungeon & Dragons. Like Ron years ago, I lost to the cultural icon of D&D.

We stated by talking a little about Dungeons & Dragons as a game. A little about the setting (fantasy setting, magic, dragons, etc) and then a talk about what kinds of things they wanted to do. What I got from the three of them was: Explore dungeons, Solve mysteries, and train dragons. I told them that D&D is built on fighting monsters, so a lot of the game would be trying to achieve those ends and enemies trying to stop them. They were pretty down with that.

I wanted to build the world around locations and events, so I pulled out a blank piece of paper, write down dungeons, mysteries and dragons on it and then told them to start drawing major landmarks and naming them.

The world we live in

Dragon Tree – A giant tree that used to have a dragon rook at the top of it, but the dragons have been gone for generations. At the foot of the tree was a sprawling city, ruled by the Elven King Varis.

Troll City Ruins – Ancient (and giant) ruins of a troll city that is known for the dungeons below. The trolls once lived on the surface, but they have retreated underground.

Ghost city. A city of the dead. Filled with burnt sycamore trees.

Dissapearing Lake. A beautiful and flat lake, that people have dissapeared into, never to return.

Red tower. A giant tower where the dragons now live, locked inside. The tower is surrounded by a mountain range and the one pass in is blocked.

Heroes of Dragon Tree

Jengoh – A Dragonborn Wizard

Kaplatch – A Dragonborn Rogue

Audrey – A Halfling Ranger

I didn’t ask a lot of “tell me about your character” questions, because the girls didn’t seem to keen is talking about themselves. They were more interested in what they were going to do and what they had (“I have a short sword and throwing stars.” “I can cast a cloud of daggers.” And so on).

Making characters with a single PHB and new players predictably took a long time (about 2 hours before we actually started playing). In part this was because I haven’t played D&D is 643 days, so I was a bit rusty. In part, it’ just a lot to slog through. I could tell the girls were getting bored, so I just skipped feats, we’ll add those next time.

Backstory

So, now we had something of the world and the characters, but I wanted to know how the characters were going to fit into it. I started with the vague and drilled down to the very specific.

• Q: Why do you care about Dragon Tree?
• A: It is the old home of the dragons, and we want to see them return.

• Q: What do you do in the city?
• A: We are expert climbers. We haven’t made it to the top, but we’ve climbed higher than anyone in recent history. The only one who has climbed higher was the Tiefling Paladin Kobok, who got almost all the way to the top, but is rumored to have vanished at Disappearing Lake ages ago.

• Q: What horrible thing just happened, that has everyone upset?
• A: The tree is cursed. It’s been cursed for a long time since the dragons left, but now the curse is worse.

• Q: Who did the curse just strike?
• A: Nadaar, the king’s best knight. A half elf. He was climbing the tree and fell off it.

• Q: Why do you care about Nadaar?
• A: He rescued us from a vampire dragon. Even though all the dragons are locked up, vampire dragons are free.

• Q: What time is it when Nadaar falls?
• A: Midnight

• Q: Hmm… I wonder why he is climbing at midnight, that isn’t a very safe time to climb. It must be something urgent. What are you doing when he falls?
• A: Chasing squirrels and burning them with our acid breath.

Sweet, that was totally enough to get rolling.

The play is the thing

In the dead of night you hear a scream from above and you can hear the sound of your hero, Nadaar falling from the Dragon Tree. There is a horrible thud as he hits the ground below. Immediately after you notice small creatures, the size of Audry sneaking through the streets. They hop off buildings, rush from alleys, and scamper down from nearby wagons to run into the plaza where Nadaar fell. At first you think they may be halflings, but then as one turns, beneath his hood you see menacing red eyes, burning in the night. Roll initiative!

I can’t believe I started the game with roll initiative, but it seems fitting for the first thin you do in your first game of D&D. I wasn’t worried about rounds, or a battle mat, but I did let the girls pick out miniatures from my collection and I put a big d20 in the middle of the map we drew indicating the tree. I put a fallen knight at the base of it and a bunch of d4s (evil, evil d4s) around him.

They rushed over to find out what these creatures were and what they wanted with Nadaar. Kaplatch was up first (a natural 20 for initiative. The first roll of the game, that seemed like a good omen). He ran over to get a better look at the creatures (I encouraged all the kids to use the skills they had trained as they were good in them and that I would try and find ways to help them use them if they couldn’t figure out a way themselves). The roll was low however, even with a sizable bonus and immediately I was struck with the D&D conundrum I hate: Failed rolls = null results.

I couldn’t really accept that, at least not at first. So i decided that the reason Kaplach couldn’t get a look at them is that one was in the Dragon Tree and jumped down from a branch onto his head and pulled his cloak down over his face so he couldn’t see. This was fun because it gave Audrey something to do immediately, which was to wrestle the creature off. Jengoh followed up to get a good look at the creature and find out it spoke dragon tongue. It screeched in a language that only the two Dragonborn could understand “Your city is doomed. Visceriath will control it all!” From it dragon tongue and reptilian skin and snout, they knew it was some kind of dragon-kin creature but I told them, it isn’t one that has been seen for generations. Jengoh made a history roll (it was his best skill, a +10, see there is a benefit to playing a Dragonborn Wizard) and was able to identify the creature as a Kobold, the servants of the vampire dragon Visceriath.

After that fighting in earnest broke out. Another failed roll, this time Audrey with her battle axe, introduced a second SoV (Servant of Visceriath) with a whip that caught the haft of the blade in mid swing. The kobolds didn’t really want to fight, they wanted to get to Nadaar. And the heroes wanted the same thing but neither side wanted the other to get to him, so fight it was. The kobolds were dispatched (it took some time though, things are freaking tough in 4E) but notbefore the heroes realized that they were afraid of the dragonborn, especially a wizard. The tried to run but Audrey used her daily power: Split the Tree to fire a deadly arrow at both of them.

After their skirmish was done, Kalpatch climbed a bit up into the Dragon Tree to get a look at what was going on. I treated her “scouting” as an aid maneuver. Since she got a 10+ on her perception roll, she could give someone +2 on a roll to help out Nadaar. What she saw though was a grisly scene. Nadaa was fighting on one knee, his leg was broken in the fall. He was swarmed by the Servants of Visceriath and even though he would fend off one, another five would leap in to attack.

Since the rogue was up in the tree the the other two characters were both ranged fighters, they started just trying to pick off the kobolds but spreading their attacks out to hit as many as they could. Jengoh used his powerful Acid Arrow spell to hit three of them, and Audrey shot another. This got their attention, but in the middle of the fight one of the servants finally struck a killing blow on Nadaar. After that they grabbed a ruby pendant from his neck and ran off into the night.

Audrey was there to hear Nadaar’s last words “Audrey, it seems I saved you once, now you will have to return the favor. I am not long for this world, but my cause is just. You must carry on my quest, find the ruby pendant in the Troll Cave Ruins, and use it to fight the evil Vampire Dragon Visceriath.” With that he reached under his armor and pulled out three dried roses (I happen to have cut three roses before the game, and new I would find some way to use them). “Take these, they will protect you from the diseased filth in the Troll City Ruins.” To find you’re way there, first you must go to the ghost city. Good luck Audrey, you are all the kingdom has.” And then he passed.

Life after Nadaar

Audrey wanted Nadaar to be brought before the king so he would know that his knight died valiantly, but she rolled poorly on her diplomacy check. I thought for a bit about having the guards think the heroes had killed him, but I didn’t thing we were playing that game. Instead I decided that the king was heartbroken that his knight had died and so King Varis would mourn for a year and a day after his fallen Nadaar.

I had a real reason for this. It was a great opportunity to show the players that evil was afoot and not only were they the only three bearers of “Nadaar’s Rose”, they were also the only ones who would do anything about, because the kings was in mourning.

They hit the library, found that the books there had old or wrong information (due to really bad rolls). One said that they pendants allowed the wearer to speak with dragons, but it also said they were all destroyed, and clearly they had just seen one. The other said that were tunnels under the mountains around the red tower, but gave no information about how to find them. All in all, I think I gave them just enough information to get started, stay curious strike out on a noble quest.

Next up

I’ll put the fire under the burners. The evil dragon Visceriath has all he needs now to wage his war against the Dragon Tree! Will the heroes be able to find the ruby pendant in time to keep him from destroying the Dragon Tree itself?

Thoughts on this game

Wow, we did some cool stuff with the backstory questions. I was very pleased with the characters connections.

Character creation took forever. Next time remember to give them feets.

I wasn’t sure how much XP to give them for the fleeing Kobolds. Since we’re not likely to play often, I gave them 300 each, which was generous, but I’d like to see them gaining levels every 3rd game or so if we do keep playing.

I think avoiding the battle map was a good idea. Yeah, it make the rogues sneak attack more arbitrary, but frankly I think it worked out fine, and kept the feeling of the game fast and exciting.