playtest – Page 4 – Sean Nittner

Actual Play – Big Bad Gauntlet [Playtest] (9/27/2015)

Participants (in various roles): Lali Cheshire, Karen Twelves, J Li, Ezra Denney, Tom Vallejos, Colin Fahrion, Eric Zim, Brian Williams, Sophie Lagacé, Edmund Metheny, and Sean Nittner.
System: Fate Accelerated (in pieces)

Big Bad Gauntlet designed by Lali Cheshire.

After many slack conversations, emails, phone calls, google docs reviews, and much tinkering, we got together to try out a playtest of the Big Bad Gauntlet for Big Bad Con.

The playtest was vastly informative. As we had it structured the GM/Leaders were really a first among equals and the Agents, coming to them with challenges were the actual authority/GM. We were using a PTA style resolution system with decks of Fate Cards. It felt like it had a lot of promise but when we started breaking down the structure of play, it became pretty apparent that this was only working because our players and GMs were doing their best to keep it working.

After a lot of discussion we decided to go with a more traditional model of GMs running their own games but having a very limited fate point economy (and what fate points they did have went away when used) that could be supplemented by bribes from the Agent and help from the Audience.

We walked out ready to have more slack conversations, emails discussions, and start some new google docs!

A note for future games: A hand of Fate cards, where each player secretly puts one card face down into a pot, works in effect a lot like the crisis mechanics in BSG. It didn’t end up being utilized for this, but I really like the idea of using this more in the future.

Actual Play – The Shining Coast (9/7/2015)

GM: Sean Nittner
Players: Kristin Firth, Stras Acimovic, Shervyn von Hoerl, and Keith Stetson
System: Torchbearer (playtesting Journey rules)

Every since I got my hand on these I wanted to test the journey rules for Torchbearer. Not only because I like playtesting Torchbearer, but also because the journey rules might have direct application to Stone Dragon Mountain.

Thought the journey rules are meant to be a supplemental to existing adventures, for the sake of testing them out I made an adventure based solely on travel called The Shining Coast.

I had been pitching Torchbearer all con long but it seems fitting that on the last day, when people were all a bit exhausted themselves that brave (and foolish) adventurers would strap on their packs and set out for a trek, as we would all be making one ourselves soon enough.

Intro to the game

Shervyn and Keith were both familiar with Torchbearer but (if I recall correctly) hadn’t played much of it. Stras and Kristin had heard of it but didn’t know too much about the specifics. We were all a little frazzled and I didn’t want to spend much of our short time together going over rules, so I started off just by introducing the Beliefs, Instincts, and Goals (which we didn’t write down until after the adventure questions were answered).

In play we brought skills, abilities, traits, checks, wises, and conditions into play. This is my preferred method of teaching the mechanics, but I do worry that players get a bit short changed on the early rolls (and our first one was a Pathfinder Ob 4 roll, ouch).

We introduced inventory when that became relevant, but once that happened the game of “what can I carry” and “what do you mean I can’t wear my cloak and my backpack and my armor at the same time?” began.

Our Shining Coast (adventure set up).

What burden do you bear? What are you carrying, and why is it so important that it must arrive?

A prisoner. What crime have they committed? What judgment will they receive?

A witch that has been possessed by a demon (perhaps the only reason she is a witch). She is to be taken to Widow’s Peak, where the demon can be exorcised and the witch can be drowned then burned. She is bound in iron and cannot use her magic, but she is still very dangerous.

What haunts your sleep? Why must you delivery be made now? And with such haste?

Unstable parcel. What threatens the integrity of your parcel? What must you do to sustain it?

If the witch dies, the demon will be set free to possess another. She must be fed blood regularly to keep her alive. Goats are tethered to the mule drawn wagon that holds her cage, but they will not be enough. The adventurers will have to hunt or find “other ways” to sustain her.

What lies ahead? The Shining Coast is riddled with dangers, even overland. What challenge do you know will greet you?

Natural Disasters. What terrible weather has just passed through? How has it blocked your way?

It is late Autumn and one of the fabled Shining Storms has just passed through. They sometimes roll in from the sea. Like a normal storms but filled with occasional cinders that can destroy homes and burn down fields. Reports that the North Bridge, which they must pass over or enter the Warlords Gulch, has been damaged by the storm. An inauspicious event to be sure.

Note to GM
Populate the map with details as needed. Mark locations and time to travel between them. Hand it off to the players do the same. Are there sufficient troubles ahead? If not, keep asking questions until they are!

We agreed this would be a long journey. Two weeks. Eight days out there is a small hamlet called Dosh, not much bigger than Eagle’s Crest. From there it was another six days to Widows Peak, assuming they made good timing. Also, I didn’t tell this to the players, but I decided that the path had been wash out during the storm and a short ways out of town, they would hand to either find it again, or go forging into the wild on their own.

Setting out

At first I was a bit resistant to “giving” the player a wagon, but realized it was just going to be delicious source of problems later on. So sure, why not. I called it a cart [Resources Ob 3 (already paid for), 15 inventory slots (nine of those taken by the witch’s cage), travels 15 miles a day over roads or hard, flat terrain]. Three of the remaining six free inventory slots were filled with hay to feed the goats.

Complications. I then rolled 2d6 to determine the number of complications on the first leg (8 days) journey. I got a 4 so they would only have one complication. Lucky them! I noodled a few ideas considering either the witch herself breaking free, or raiders from Warlord’s gulch, but didn’t decide (I picked raider) until a bit longer into the game when it was clear they weren’t taking their eyes off the witch and giving her some special way out when her magic was contained and she was physically bound in a cage didn’t feel like it was following the fiction. Though I certainly hinted at it a lot!

Base Fatigue. Since they were traveling in autumn, I set the base fatigue at 2. This (modified by other events and weather as they travel) would be the Ob of the Heath test they would have to make when arriving in Dosh.

Weather. I started off day one and rolled Blustery Winds! [Fatigue Ob bumped up to 3]

Turn by Turn

Turn 1 – Not far out of Eagle’s Crest, after it had gone inland far enough the coast could be heard but not seen the road grew fainter and fainter due to infrequent travel. After the last Shining Storm, the light tread formed by the occasional wagon wheel be came indistinct from the scrub. Soon they saw nothing but deer trails winding this way and that. [Pathfinder test Ob 4, Destination nearby (the rest of the road), ovegrown or washed out]. After some dice monger and complaining (I told them complaining about RPG rules was only a Ob 1 Peasant test if any of them wanted to beginner’s luck it), Karolina failed the test, and the whole of them were lost in the rhododendrons and other scrub brush. [Twist]

Turn 2 – Knowing the coat was basically “that way” they continued moving, convinced the would come upon a landmark that would reset their bearings. After some time they came up a fast moving creek bed, the water no deeper than a halfling. When they arrived the mule stopped, began to drink, and then just stopped, with no apparent intention of crossing. The could also tell that the creek bed was uneven enough that even if the mule got moving the cart might easily tip over. Beren, ever crafty took both his rope and Gerald’s fastened them to each side of the wagon, such that the adventurers could walk along side it holding the ropes to keep it steady [Ob 2 Carpentry, building materials, covered by Dwarven Crafting nature. Success!]

Turn 3 – Wagon secured, now they just needed to get that stubborn mule to move. The witch offered to aid in coaxing the mule to move, but nobody wanted to hear from her. Taliel, instead crossed the creek herself and from the other side began singing an enchanting elvish verse about journeys home. The mule, ensorcelled by Taliels ethereal beauty perked up and slowly made its way across the creek so that it could be closer to her presence. [Peasant OB 2, herding plus a factor for the blustery winds. Success!].

Good idea – The creek found they were able to make their way back to the coast and get back on the trail.

Turn 4 – As the day passed and night was coming close, the party worked together to find a safe camp site with protection from the elements. [Survivalist Ob 2, typical camp with “shelter” amenity. Success!]. Everyone was Hungry and Thirsty.

Instinct – Camp made Karolina and Beren set off to hunting for dinner. [Hunter Ob 2, one portion of game, forest and fields. Success!]

Instinct – Nearly alone with the witch Taliel spoke with hear to learn of her possession and how the demon could be contained if she dies. The demon spoke for itself, and told her that there was another way to contain it it. Merely give the witch as kiss on the lips and then it would pass from her to Taliel, where she could keep it safe and secure, and the witch would not longer be a danger. [Lore Master Ob 3, magical phenomenon. Success!]

Instinct – Gerald took the rabbit Karolina and Beren brought back and cooked a find supper. Someone drained the rabbits blood into a bowl and slid it into the witch’s cage. [Cooking Ob 3, game for the whole party. I can’t remember the outcome, it I think was a failure with a condition, but if you were in the game and remember, let me know].

That night, lights moving far to the west could be seen. A ship out at sea, coming closer to the coast.

The next day passed without incident, and besides the usual hunting and cooking (which I didn’t have them roll for, see below) little transpired. The did see the great ship off on the distance rising and dipping with the waves. As it go closer they saw it rise up and then descend with a great crash. The ship did not rise again.

That night torches were seen in the east moving towards them.

Turn 5 – Fearful of the raiders from Warlord’s gulch, Gerald rounded up bushes and other coverings to cover the wagon, so it could be hidden from the raiders [Scavenging. Ob and result not recorded, but it happend!]

Turn 6 – The adventurers moved away from their own camp site but left Taliel and Gerlald behind, hiding in the bushes. [Scout vs. Scout. Success!] Taliel saw the raiders sneak up on the camp, and then, when they found it unoccupied, quickly decided to make use it themselves, without to much concern about who was using it before them. The spoke of the spoils they would find on the shores and they and that they had best move fast to get there before anyone else.

Turn 7 – After the raiders were settled in and went to bed, only one guard was left on watch. Gerald led the group to quietly sneak up on him. [Scout vs. Scout test. Success!]

Turn 8 – Murdered happened [As he was unaware I made this a simple Fighter test rather than a conflict]. The guard was murdered, the throats of the rest of the raiders were slit, and what good they could take were loaded on the wagon. This was hungry and thirsty work!

Another two days passed and the weather continued to be Blustery Winds [Fatigue: 4].

Turn 9 – At night again, while Taliel medidated the demon wormed it’s way into her dreams. offering every earthly desire. Love, wealth, fame, knowledge, power, success. Anything the elf could desire. Simply wake up, kill her allies in their sleep and all the power would her hers. A desperate adventurer she might be, Taliel was not that desperate… yet [Will versus test. Success!]

On the seventh day, the wind broke and it was Clear and Cool [Fatigue: 3]

Turn 10 – The adventurers arrived at the North Bridge to find the damage was worse than they had heard. Two chains ran across the length of the bridge, with wooden boards fastened between then. Nearly in the center of the bridge the wooden boards were blasted away leaving the chains exposed and swaying in the wind. Across the way two milk farmers stood with their cow, looking at the bridge in awe and confusion. The argued about whether or not to go east to where the river could be passed but they would be close to warlord’s gulch, or just go back home. Beren meanwhile got to completely taking apart the cart. He stripped it down to individual boards, and then started using those boards to replace the shattered pieces of the bridge. It wouldn’t “repair” the bridge, but he thought he could make it passable, at least for a person. [Nature test, Success!]

Turn 11 – Tentatively prodding his work Beren was convinced it would hold a person, but it couldn’t be sure if it would hold two people struggling to carry a heavy iron cage with a witch in it. They had to go slowly to not lose their balance, but fast enough the bridge didn’t give out. Taliel had a back up plan. She was prepared to cast lightness of being. The ran spears through rungs in the cage so they could hold it at a distance and then made the difficult treck over. The whole thing took hours, and when they were done, everyone was exhausted! [Ob 6 Health text. Failure, Condition Exhausted]

Elated by their success (and the not dying). Beren collected the boards on the bridge so they could rebuild the cart and continue their very long, and very perilous journey…

What Rocked

At some point, you know just to add more gonzo to the mix, someone said the witch was a shapechanger as well. Oh good. So throughout the game I kept depicting the witch as mix of different appearances. A hulking brute barely contained in the cage, a young girl, malnourished and weak, an exceedingly handsome man with a devilish smile, a bald old woman with squinting eyes. There was no mechanical effect of this but I very much enjoyed never describing the change, but always the particular effect. “He hunches over, his shoulders pressed against the bars.” …. “She looks hungrily at your dinner, her stomach rumbling and the manacles dangling loosely on her wrists.” Yeah, I enjoyed playing that witch quite a bit.

There was some really interesting discussion about what to do with the raiders. They weren’t really interested in the adventurers, but they were a threat. And while they might have been able to sneak past them all, there was no way they would get the cart and the goats past them without notice. In fact they had to move the carter farther away than expected because the witch wouldn’t be quiet. Thanks to those blustery winds for muffling her voice! So, they thought about all of their options, and the safest thing was murdering them all in their sleep. Grim.

There were great moments where the system shined and people were like “damn” that is awesome. Getting across the creek at first wasn’t that challenging a task (two Ob 2 tests). But they way the players did it was beautiful. Kristin was like “hey, my character has rope. He can make a harness. Anyone else have rope?” Gerald did and so he and Beren set about like an A-team montage. Then when Stras asked what elvish singing was for and I read the description his eyes lit up. And when they did it everyone had this great sense of accomplishment…from crossing a creek!

What could have improved

There was some real clashing with the constraints of the system. Stras in particular brought up some things that frustrated him. I want to take the cloak and put it on. No room to put it on, okay, I put in in my backpack. It take two slots, okay, I put it in a sack. I have to hold the sack in one hand once I fill it? Okay, I roll it up and tie it to the top of my backpack. That takes a laborer test to carry additional items? Okay, I put it on the wagon. The wagon is full? I just drape it over the feed barrels. That takes a laborer test? Okay, I have an empty head slot. I wrap it up like a turban. That takes a weaver test? I burn the fucking cloak.

This happens. It’s one part player expectations (Torchbearer is a very different game than many fantasy RPGs) and it’s one part making sure to follow from the fiction. In a later discussion with Stras, I told him “I should have never said no, I just should have asked what you did to make it work and then had you make a test accordingly.” Stras pointed out that would have felt like a gotcha, which is another thing I’ve run into in other games, specifically the players feeling “tricked” into using up their resources (turns) on things they didn’t think would be tests. This is a kind of connotative dissonance that results from different expectations and I think early investment in establishing those can really help. Also, once you’ve been playing for a while, so long as everyone keeps a positive attitude and doesn’t take it too personally, you fall into a rhythm and it gets easier.

I felt it a bit redundant that I made two challenges which were essentially both “get across this thing”. I like those kind of challenges, but I think I should have filled the first river crossing with some other features to make it more distinct. Raging waters, a predator stalking them on the other side, goats getting skittish (though the mule already was), the witch momentarily regaining her power when crossing over the water. Of course all these ideas come to me now, but damn, in the moment I was like “uh, stubborn mule, top heavy wagon, Go!”

Rules clarification for myself to look up. When a’mn instinct is triggered by “camping” does it require the camp phase, or can it be done any time someone says they are settling down for the night. In our journey days passed and they hunkered down, but they stayed in the adventuring phase (at first because nobody had checks and later because they didn’t need to remove conditions or do other camp actions). I allowed it but I’m not sure that was correct. This seems particularly important for long overland journeys.

There were very few failed rolls in this game. Now, that’s hardly a problem per se, but it’s usually failed rolls leading to a twist that really get the action going. It’s also twists that reveal how the mechanics reinforce the fiction. Tried this and something else happened, now you’ve got to deal with that! Not a horrible fate for the game, but oh how I would have loved it if Beren’s roll to fix the bridge had failed…

Playtest specific feedback

In addition to the things noted above, here were my observations:

A journey is not enough to make an adventure. If the journey is just one leg of an adventure, it’s probably adequate to do some inventory management, handle a few complications, and then make health checks at the end. For me though, I wanted to play out the trials and tribulations of getting to Widow’s Peak and so I found myself adding a lot more challenges to the mix. They were fun to play, but I was doing it all off the cuff. I missed my dungeon rooms!
I wasn’t sure about pacing and resources. When do you play out ever step of the road and when do you say “three days pass, mark off three rations each.” This becomes especially relevant when the Halfling says “wait, wait, I’m going to cook every night so we only need three rations total”, and then the Warrior says, “wait, wait, I’m going to hunt every night, so we don’t need any rations at all.” Do you treat all of these actions as part of the adventure phase (thus potentially denying camp based instincts, see above) or do you make the do something so they can earn a check, so they can enter camp phase, so they can use these instincts. As a GM, what’s a good way to parse the conversation? Here’s a few ideas I can think of:
- Tell the players. “You need to travel for X days, so unless you want to do anything along the way, everyone mark off X rations.” Then wait to see if anyone objects.
- Ask the players “How do you want to handle this journey. Take your time and resources [Turns] to go hunting an cooking and what not, or use up supplies you have?”
- Or play out every day, one at a time, even if there isn’t an event or challenge to be had per se (this seems the slowest, but most fitting with the rules as presented).
- Hand wave it and say “Okay, it takes X days but because you hunt and cook every night, don’t worry about rations just the complications as they come up. What do you know, there’s a bugbear in your path!” This is the worst and the best option. The worst because you’re disengaging all the gears of Torchbearer. The best because as a GM, you’re electing to dive right into the bits that are exciting you. Note, feel free to replace bugbear with fire, flood, bandit, magical phenomenon, candy house, etc.
Travel distance and time seems oddly more concrete than most aspects of Torchbearer, which are abstracted. I wouldn’t think to specify the number of miles between two locations, and then to do the math to divide that into the speed of travel. I mean it can be done, but my inclination was much more along the lines of, this will take X days. Given different rates of speed though, I can see how X days isn’t as useful. I’d consider a roll (not necessarily a test) made at the beginning of a journey, with modifiers based on the speed of travel. Walking would be flat and other modes would give penalties (if slower) or bonus (if faster). The result of the roll would be a days added or subtracted from the base. So if the base time for a trip was six days, you’d roll and see if that could be done is a day less, or a day more, etc. To be efficient, this could be attached to the complication chart (as an additional column) so the amount that a journey could be modified by would be based on how long the original journey is in days.

Actual Play – Seco Creek Vigilance Committee (9/6/2015)

GM: Keith Stetson
Players: James Stewart, Sean Nittner, Jason Morningstar, Stras Acimovic, Zak Deardoff
System: Seco Creek Vigilance Committee (Playtest)

Keith has, from what I’ve heard, run one sort of Western drama or another for ages. He is honing his art. Seco Creek, which shows strong mechanical inspiration from The Shadow of Yesterday and Lady Blackbird, is his current iteration of that Western.

The situation is that three men have been locked up for the crime of theft and murder. A sheriff and his posse stand guard over the men as they wait for the 3:10 train to come into town to deliver them to Bright City, where they will be given a trial. Outside the small town grieves the loss of their own, a school teacher murdered during the robbery, and want their own personal justice inflicted right here. Further afield, Duke Cahill, leader of the Cahill gang, plots to free his men by means of either manipulation of the judges or outright overpowering the posse to take them back before they can be put on that train.

3:10 to Yuma and the first episode of Deadwood were both playing in the back of my head the whole time. Some pretty awesome sources of inspiration!

Internally, there was plenty of friction as well. In fact the internal debate was what drove all of the action in our game.

The sheriff was going to see those men on the train, come hell or high water. He was not backing down.
The businessman wanted what was good for the small town. Growth and prosperity came from following by societies rules. He cares about the town both generally in terms of it’s future and specifically in terms of individuals that he wanted to see prosper (notably the town drunk)
The reformed outlaw was going to see justice rather than the law be done. Of the three men locked up two of them he knew to be innocent of the crime directly. The were accomplices at most. One of those two was his brother. The third was a brutal killer. Of the three, he wanted to ensure that the innocent(-ish) men walked free, and the guilty was hung. He feared that if they went to trial, the opposite would happen.
The deputy knew they had all stepped in a pile of horse shit. Extricating themselves was going to be messy but he had the experience and the acumen to know a losing battle when he saw one.
The rancher looked out for himself and his own. He had dealings with the Cahill gang, buying stolen cattle off them, and little stakes in seeing any of these men live or die. He did however want to ensure his own relevance in the town, one which sought to move on without him.

Highlights of play

Trying to stand on the post to calm the people and constantly being torn down, then watching the businessman do it far better than I could (as the sheriff). Part of this was because of his station in the town, but part of it is because James is a very intelligent and eloquent speaker.

Recruiting members of the would-be mob to stand watch over the jail and protect it from Duke Cahill or from others that would see personal justice done. Then having that all go horribly awry when Richard, skittish and uncertain, stabbed our town drunk as he approached. Yes, the drunk had a shotgun, but no, he probably wasn’t going to use it. This created a really tense situation where the “right” thing to do would be to arrest a man for defending the jail and turning the entire town against us. I did not do the right thing.

Jason and his knowledge of early 20th century “heath” tonics! Oh my god.

Freeman’s Chlorodine – Mix chloroform 75, tincture of capsicum 25, tincture of Indian hemp 100, oil of peppermint 2 and glycerin 250 with alcohol (20 per cent) 450. Dissolve morphine hydrochloride 10 in the mixture. Add to it diluted hydrocyanic acid 50 and enough alcohol (90 per cent) to make 1000.
Lydia Pinkham’s Vegetable Tonic – Even worse!

Through the deputies ministrations, we stayed up all night (quite buzzed) and put a dying man out of his misery by drowning him in a bottle of tonic!

Our outlaw’s internal debate. He wanted to save his brother. He wanted to give up a life of crime. Those two things just weren’t both going to happen. So fuck it, he’d be a criminal again (scratching off the Key of Redemption) if that’s what it took. Unfortunately, it still ended with a bullet in his head…but the road getting there was amazing.

Our rancher being singularly able to talk down just about everyone. The sheriff, Duke Cahill, even our zealot guman. It was one park “I’ve seen it all” and one part “that makes good sense”, but he was always able to find a topic of conversation to calm the restless and trigger happy.

Our final showdown was amazing. The deputy had abandoned a hopeless fight. The rancher was still there, gun in hand, but not picking up the badge. Duke Cahill probably would have gotten what he wanted if the un-reformed outlaw hadn’t put a bullet in his head. We had a great speech by way of pontificating at the end.

“The way I see it Sheriff, only one person has to die today. Duke is dead. You had over those three men and we’ll go our separate ways, never to be seen again.”

“It sounds like a good plan, but I think your arithmetic is off. By my count it’s two.” BAM!

And with that the Cahill gang fled to the woods, sure to come back again some day, but for now without a leader, and without anyone to buy off the judges who would preside over these three men’s fate.

What Rocked

The play itself was fantastic. I remember this terrible tension building up in the back of my neck. This feeling that I need to keep everything together, and that probably wasn’t going to happen.

The question of what is “right” vs. what is “good” came up (at least in my head) often. Is it right to send these three men to hang when only one is guilty? Maybe. I mean, they were all guilty of something. But that’s not why we did it. We did it because it was good. But good for who? For the businessman it was good for the stability and peace of the town. For the sheriff it was good for upholding the law and maintaining authority.

What was the right thing to do when Richard killed the town drunk? Was it to console him (and eventually deputize him) or was it to arrest him? I feel like in a TV show the answer to that would be based on the mood music playing in the background. I mean seriously, it was all a matter of who you sympathized with and what you thought the likely outcome would be. For the businessman, the drunk represented the towns potential. If he could be saved, then why couldn’t any of us be saved. When he died, the businessman wanted vengeance, something to show that preying on the weak would not stand. For the sheriff, he knew that the townsfolk were just barely pacified. To take one who had stayed up all night to protect the jail and then arrest him for doing just that…the hypocrisy would not be tolerated. That would have been the end of peace in Seco Creek.

The privilege mechanic was a great one. The system is diceless. When a player character interacts with an NPC the GM weighs the fictional positioning and says what outcome is. When two PCs interact the players decide among themselves how it plays out, and they have some resources (basically anything on their character sheet) that they can barter with. For instance, if the the outlaw wants the rancher to stay out of the saloon so he can do his business, after the players have discussed it the outlaw’s player might offer favor with the towns folk, or to give the rancher a privilege for interacting with him in the future, or to remove a key, in order to get what he wants.

Privilege, however, allows a PC to circumvent this negotiation in specific areas. For instance, both the outlaw and the sheriff have a privilege that if that they can do violence to another PC without negotiation. If either of them say they shoot you, it just happens! The others had more nuanced privileges that would gain them favor or provide other benefits. This system was great, because it very clearly illustrated both how to get what you want, and in which ways you stand out. It was one of those cases where the exception to the rule was more helpful in teaching the rule than the rule itself.

What could have improved

We talked at length at the end of the game about how it played and which mechanics were engaged. Overall it seemed like the favor mechanic didn’t shine for us because it primarily had to do with PC-NPC interactions, of which we had few. In play, the were just a bit too much to keep track of. I have the same feeling with aspects in Fate sometimes. In a perfect world, nearly every complication the player face would be tied to their aspects, and each aspect would come up with some regularity. In play, the GM often focuses on one or two, because it’s too hard to keep track of them all.

I didn’t realize till the end of the game that everyone else was playing dynamic character (who was changed by the world around them) and I was playing an iconic character (who changed the world around himself). The outlaw gave up on redemption. The deputy threw down his badge. The rancher sided with the law against his old business partner. The businessman gave up on the town he was trying to save. But the sheriff, he just stuck to his guns. And while there is some attraction to that, I also felt like I never got “give” in a conflict. Part of that was pride, but part of that was also knowing that the moment the sheriff went form high status to low status in an interaction, he was never coming back from him. He could admit uncertainty to his deputy when he thought they were in agreement, but when push came to shove, he held is ground and watched the deputy walk away rather than admit he might be wrong. This is just a personal thing for me, but high status characters who never relent are uncomfortable for me to play. I dislike what they say about me as a person when they are unwilling to give.

Actual Play – Ghost Court, Cape May County (9/5/2015)

GM: Jason Morninstar and others
Players: Others, living and dead
System: Ghost Court

Tagline: Ghost court is a game about ghosts, and people, and all the dumb ways that ghosts and people can’t get along.

Sean’s thoughts: This is the best LARP ever.

Why is it so good?

It only requires five people (judge, clerk, bailiff, plaintiff, and defendant) to be “playing” at any given time. That means the rest of the time we’re all audience, who can boo or cheer or moan or rattle chains, or just have drinks and talk to our friends.

Each trial is five minutes long, ensuring lots and lots of different shenanigans. And the shenanigans are so good. Jason has written up twenty cases, I believe all based off real life cases, and they are hilarious to behold and even more ridiculous to preside over!

You want this game to come out, and when it does, you want to play it with all of your friends. I know I do!

Actual Play – Free Spacer (6/27/2015)

GM: Christoph Sapinsky
Players: Morgan Ellis, Soren Ludwig, Kurt Ellison, Zac Bond, and Sean Nittner
System: Free Spacer (playtest)

Christoph got in touch with me before the con and asked if I was interested in checking out Free Spacer. I’m generally fond of playtesting new games and anything Sci-Fi perks my interest because I’ve found so few that I enjoy. The genre almost always requires ridiculous amounts of knowledge about the setting before you can really appreciate it. I love Star Trek, in part because I’ve watched hundreds of episodes.

Free Spacer endeavors to be hard sci-fi at it’s core, with room for the fantastic around it’s periphery. Really more Farscape or Firefly than Star Trek, but it could probably tackle most of the genre. The setting is vast. It is filled with eight dominant species, and many others on the periphery. There are multitudinous faction, enterprises, and interests. The technological advances like FTL travel and software imprinted matter feel both familiar (we’ve seen this before in other mediums) and distinct (they have a particular place in the world and have been created for a reason, or as a result of something in the setting’s history).

The action of the game felt like a slightly less seedy version of Shadowrun. You play independent operators, which might mean mercenaries or it might mean freelancers, depending on the group. You go on jobs, which are defined through a fairly in-depth negotiation mechanic, gain resources, build up your gear and ship, and presumably repeat. I don’t recall if the system has a faction status mechanic, but even if not it’s clear that you’ll be making friends and enemies along the way.

Our game was a bit slow starting, but we still accomplished one job, and set ourselves up to start a small enterprise of our own.

What Rocked

Player investment in playtests is sometimes hard to come by. Nobody is really sure how developed the game is, and if the game designer or GM is unknown to them, they may not participate fully. What I saw at GPNW was five players all giving it their all to engage with the setting and the mechanics. I think it is fantastic to get that quality of player in a game.

As a GM Christoph is quite liberal about handing out either advantage dice (for leverage we muster in the fiction) and threat dice (to represent additional challenge). I think that’s an important skill running any game, as it gives the players a sense of consequence for their actions. Build up a lot to make a payoff -> Get an advantage. Try something really challenging -> Face greater threat. Not all rolls are made equally.

The core mechanic of rolling d10 based on your skill level and d6s based on the threat (with the d10’s providing success, and the d6’s taking them away) gave room for a large flux. Like the d6-d6 mechanic of Feng Shui, this allowed the outcomes to have a predictable average, but still potentially vary widely. The dice “feel” was solid.

Christoph clearly has a love of hard sci-fi and went to a lot of work to think out the ramifications of technology and society. It came through a lot in his telling of the game and in the rules themselves.

The robust negotiation mechanic is novel and interesting. It reminds me of Wilderness of Mirrors, but with an in-fiction rationalization. The payers are essentially building their own adventure, but additional risks or challenges they add result in additional income. Additional perks or rewards they get take from that. In play our negotiation took a while, but I think with refinement that will be one of the definitively novel components of the game.

What could be improved

Complex settings are always a challenge to convey and Free Spacer is certainly a victim of this. Christoph blamed himself for not having the pitch down, but even when he’s got it refined (which I think he’s doing), it’s still a lot of setting to deliver in one go. My suggestion is to limit each pre-game pitch to conveying three major elements that are easy for people to grasp. Example: 1. We’ve got FTL travel, but only orbital communication. 2. Free Spacers pull jobs for various competing factions and organizations, often of dubious ethical nature. 3. The relevant sophont (species) in this adventure are the Atoli, traditionally matriarchal, and the armadillo species (name is slipping my mind right now), who previously were in control of this mining area, but have recently been deposed by two Atoli who call themselves “The Princes”.

Related, I think focus is better than options when selling your game. Typically when I hear “this system can do anything” I turn away. I know, I know, the irony of working for Evil Hat who’s best selling game is Fate Core is not missed on me. Just the same, I’d like to see more focus as I feel like Free Spacer is currently trying to cover all walks of the Sci Fi genre. I’d like to see a solid setting pitch like: “In the wake of the Exploration Wars, the CMA has taken control of the Orion quadrant, but it’s grip is tenuous at best. You’ve, the Free Spacers have, have been hired to tackle the jobs the CMA can’t on it’s own, often resolving disputes with local provinces that remember a time when then bent knee to no one.” That’s probably not the right pitch, but the point is to focus quickly on the role of the PCs and the actions they will be taking in the game, as well as paint a broad stroke over the threats that loom.

Mechanically there are some oddities that I might not have understood correctly, but seemed like they needed some revision or clearer presentation. For example some skills are your specialty skill (marked with an *), on those you get an advantage die. I couldn’t tell any distinction between an advantage die and an normal die, so the ratings of 3* and 4. They both meant you rolled four dice. Similarly their was a trouble skill that you got one less die on. I couldn’t see any reason not to just lower the rating by one. The method of building dice pools, as displayed on the sheet, felt arbitrary. For some rolls you just just rolled your skill, for others you added in dice from traits, social connections, or technology. In some cases points from technology had to first be spent for certain effects, and then any left over could be used for dice. This all feels like it can be worked out with a combination of streamlining and presentation.

I wish Christoph the best in continuing to develop this game. It’s very clear a lot of love has gone into it.

Actual Play – Yesterday’s Tomorrow Playtest One (2/10/15)

MC: Dylan Nix
Players: Lindsay Nix, Noam Rosen, Karen Twelves, and Sean Nittner
System: Yesterday’s Tomorrow

Dylan has started up a playtest group to help playtest a multitude of games in development:

More spiteful, player-versus-player rules for Blom, (family-game-night card game: http://www.drivethrucards.com/product/120710/Blom)
Game-like activities for Blom, aimed at kids
Yesterday’s Tomorrow (RPG published with Different Play: http://patreon.com/different_play)
Expanded/supplemented version of Hirelings (another RPG: http://yepnix.com/games/hirelings)

I’m excited about some of those as well as supporting local developers so I got on the list! (Note: If you’re interested in playtesting these games in the future, shoot me a like and I’ll put you in touch with Dylan).

Welcome to the World of Tomorrow

“The Future is Now,” eh? Several millennia ago, they were claiming the future had come. They had no idea what was in store for them. Now we’ve got it all — a “post-scarcity” society. No more hungry, no more poor, no more homeless. Everyone has a seat at the table.
Everyone, that is, except you. Unceremoniously unfrozen from your cryogenic state, you found yourself outside the glorious system. You’re not even human, are you? Maybe you were back in your home time, when we still lived on that blue marble we cracked and crushed to dust. But now? Evolution has rendered you uncategorized, obsolete, outdated, and unrecognizable.
What do you do when the whole universe fails to acknowledge your humanity, when your humanity is all you have left?

Welcome to Yesterday’s Tomorrow. We’ll walk you through the process of setting up your take on the game and character creation.

Thoughts on the Game

What really worked

Framing character creation to make us all feel marginalized. Linsay’s character went from being part of the mainstream to suddenly being outside of it, and her reaction of angry depicted someone having that shocked moment of realization “this is how bad it really is? this isn’t right!”. My character was a medical test subject, had presumably saved hundreds or even thousands of lives, but was now irrelevant to society and given only a perfunctory thanks before being cast on out on her own.

Making us fight among the scraps. The game is designed that at start we only have one of the following: health, food, shelter, or transportation. Those are not immutable however. We could lose what we have, it is challenging to get more. Quickly we started ranking these attributes. Sharon’s stolen subway pass was not, in general, as prized as Lucy’s utility closet that she was allows to stay in by the hotel management.

Initial steps of character creation. Selecting why we were frozen, what our reaction to waking up in this alien world is like, and what we miss from the old world was great. The questions were all very easy to answer and helped form my understanding of our characters quickly.

What can be improved

Setting establishment. Our future was vaguely defined during character creation. We knew there was constant daylight and that people wore masks outside to shield them from it. But it was so far in the future (I think we figure out like 5000 years) that we kept not knowing what to expect. Our future ended up looking a little like Blade Runner, Demolition Man, and Minority Report mashed together. Not a bad setting, but hard to imagine in my minds eye. I think the setting needs some more touchstones (what does it have/what doesn’t it have) and a few dials to turn (tone, technology, society).

Mechanical aspects of character creation. The mechanical choices we had weren’t obvious either in how they flowed from our character choices or in what they would allow us to do in the game. We talked about this a fair bit during the playtest itself and pitched a few ideas for how to make this process more intuitive.

Disparity. The setting we depicted was a bleak, joyless world. Our characters certainly felt low on the totem pole, but we didn’t really see other people as particularly high. Privilege (and lack there of) is a central tenant of the game and it needs to be reflected strongly in play. Like an Apocalypse World front, I want to see privilege as the primary scarcity in the setting. This was also discussed at length at the end of the session.

Actual Play – Gods? Enough of this nonsense! (12/28/2014)

GM: Sophie Lagacé
Players: Sean Nittner, Karen Twelves, and my daughters
System: War of Ashes

MOAR PLAYTESTNG!

Edmund was sick so Sophie took over as GM. We knew we wanted a social conflict. We had been talking about it over emails and now that Froth was feeling pretty fine in physical combat we wanted to see how it would fare with mouth words.

One advantage we’ve got – We’re not using weapon rules. As many times as I’ve thought “oh, lets use weapon damage to make folks weapon of choice more meaningful” I’ve know that if we have weapons we’ll have armor, and those two create a zero sum arms race not only negates each other but also force everyone to use the best weapon and armor all the time which is counter to the kind of pulp action we want to see.

Not having weapon damage rules turned out to have another benefit when we got into social conflicts, we didn’t to create an social analog. Aces!

“What the Hell?”

That’s what Gailus, the god of Ylark who had just appeared in front of us said. Directly. To. Semela.

Semela, an Elovrix Priest trained in the temples of Atronia knew how to respond to that question. Point the blame at someone else! She found the closest Elovix she could and was just about to say “She did it” when her second Ylark horn (you know the one she grew after casting the spell to make the earth rumble) fell of and landed on the ground with a thud. Then a Ylark fell from the sky on the other side of her also with a thud. Nice compel!

Pretty soon, it became clear that if Gailus was here he wanted to party. Never mind that the town was torn apart. Or that the Kuld would come back. Drinking Kog and a celebration were called for.

No time for that. We’ve got work to do!

We opted for a social conflict between the players. Lele was infuriated that Semela, the self-appointed mayor was drinking Kog and dancing with a short Elvorix buck instead of seeing to the needs of the city. Semela was honoring one of the gods and wanting to make sure that nobody made him angry…or to happy. We’ve just got to endure him, like if Santa Clause arrived and wanted to pinch your cheeks. You just gotta tough it out and get back to work once they finally get bored and leave. Mac and Cheese and Ficca sided with Lele. They wanted to see the town taken care of, not wrecked worse by a giant party.

We made up a zone map that indicated the various audiences that we might want to influence. I didn’t take a picture, so here’s a reproduction as best as I could remember it.

The idea of movement here was a little bit physical and a little bit abstract. In order to go from talking to the folks rebuilding brambletown to the people having raucous celebrations you needed to both physically move between groups, but you also needed to give your attention to each of them to win them over.

Imitative Order – We decided that Flash ruled the day in his conflict. It was going to take getting a lot of people’s attention to shift the crowd’s activities.

Roar Phase – Worked as expected. We each made aspects to show how we were preparing for the argument. This worked as expected. Good times.

Notable actions:

Semela started by making a maneuver to add an ally, in this case Gailus himself. We decided that adding an ally increased your weight and the difficulty was based on the ally’s weight. Gailus in a social contest is weight 4 (he’s a god after all) so I had to Overcome at a Great [+4] difficulty to add him to my side. Ficca did the same thing (albeit with just a small force of workers from her zone. Weight 2).

Ficca moved zones to the Elvorix avoiding attention and changed the zone aspect by convincing them that they could avoid the party and be working on fixing up their homes at the same time. They agreed so she would stop talking to them and thus drawing attention to them. Aspect changed to Working Elvoix Avoiding Attention.

Mac and Cheese spent the first exchange just moving among the people to get the revelers to pay attention to it. On the second exchange it did a maneuver to remove Gailus from aiding Semela by belching a great kog belch and pointing outside the town, indicating that there were better parties out there.

Lele bided her time and waited until she could find a quiet space to talk. We represented that with an Overcome action to create a new zone (and choose the aspect in it). After finding the moment of quiet, she did a maneuver to pull Semela into it “we need to talk”. Semela had been busy partying creating aspects like “Most important person here” as a form of ablative armor against any would be detractors.

When they finally did duke it out Semela had her big guns (Gailus) removed and was frothing with her worst approach, so she went down pretty quick. She took two consequences “Acting like a drunken fool” and “Responsible for these sentians” before conceding the fight.

Meanwhile Ficca slipped a sleeping agent into the kog of the revelers to they all passed out (we added the word “sleeping” to the zone aspect) and we just kind of left the Vidaar to burn themselves out eventually.

Map by the end of the conflict:

Divine Milestones

We ended the session after the conflict and performed out Divine Interest Milestone, where we diced as a grout what aspect we would collectively get as a result of being taken out by divine consequences. Given that Gailus left us to go find a better party somewhere else, we decided on A Disappointment to Gailus. That went on our Divine Interest sheet (one shared by the group) as a permanent aspect. Woots!

Thoughts on the game

We had some cool things happen in the conflict (winning over various groups, using maneuvers to add/remove weight, and making new zones) but it didn’t represent the simple thing Lele was trying to do in the first place, which was talk to Selema. Or if it did represent it, it imposed a lot of barriers to do it (basically taking a few rounds of fighting with the environment to start the actual attacks on each other.

For something like a political battle where there were many factions with various interests, I see this working very well, but for a more personal argument it seemed like a bit much. Of course we were trying to test out social conflict with the War of Ashes rules so I think it was good we did a full blown conflict. In a normal session we probably would have handled it either in play talking to each other or with a single opposed overcome roll.

What I did like was that tactically we had a handful of interesting options that would be present in Fate Core to work with. While Shieldwall is a miniatures game and doesn’t handle social interactions, I think our Roar/Froth/Weight incorporated the spirit of the game well.

We also, since the god was there had four Divine Aspects in play, with the rule that there were three favorable ones and one “trouble” aspect. The favorable ones could be invoked once a turn as many times as we wanted, but for each time we did, the GM got a free compel or invoke on the trouble aspect. That’s how we lost Gailus actually, was that Sophie compelled the “Not a People Person” trouble aspect and had Gailus wander out of the party and into the snow. I think it worked, but it was hard to tell because we had so much else going on in the conflict that I frankly forgot about the divine aspects (even though we had them on the table as post it notes) most of the time.

One thing I’m very satisfied with is that is clear that we left the world CHANGED. Like you can see with the map zones changing above, and with the new Divine Interest Aspect, our characters changed the world around them and were changed themselves in the process. Most of that is just native Fate tech, but I’m really glad to see it present in War of Ashes.

Actual Play – Kuld at the wall! (12/21/2014)

GM: Edmund Metheny
Players: Sean Nittner, Karen Twelves, and Sophie Lagacé
System: War of Ashes

Back to the Playtest Grindstone. My kids weren’t with us but we persevered,

Focus of the playtest session

Froth as a separate create advantage action during the Roar Phase. Aspects associated with frothing are tied to the approach used, and if any but the approach or those adjacent to it were used, the aspect is lost.
Weight tested with 2:1 odds granting a fixed “+” before the roll and 4:1 odds granting a fixed “++”.
Spellcasting both during the Roar Phase as and in the conflict proper.

What all of that needed was a good conflict to test out and thankfully Edmund was more than happy to offer it with a horde of Kuld descending upon us!

Roar Phase

We decided the that the GM would take turns “Roaring” with the characters. So, highest Quick PC Roars and generates an aspect, then our opposition does the same, on through the list. This way a single big opponent doesn’t miss out on the Roaring, nor do huge swarms of little guys get tons of aspects created.

All difficulties set at Fair [+2]

Vala rallied the Vidaar with Flashy – “Vidaar, to me!”
The Kuld Augurst and began summoning forth The Source to suck up all the water in air and leave us “withering with thirst”
Lele coordinated the Jarl to intentionally open up one hole in the brambles to channel all of the kuld into the stone wall surrounded temple district where as a choke point. Frothing with Clever.
The Argust continued to summon (adding another free invoke to the aspect).
Semela called to Atronia, goddess of the earth to make the ground devour our foes, creating the aspect “churning earth” in the temple district zone. She was frothing with Flashy as well and gained a minor Divine Interest consequence.
The Argust finished their battle magic (adding a third free invoke to the aspect) and we all the dry cold chilling our blood.

This worked out pretty well. It meant we all started with a few aspect we could use, were tied to an approach (or in the case of the NPCs frothing restricted to doing anything but what they are listed as “bad at”). and ready to jump into the fray. As I hoped it reminded me of the charging up mechanics from Anima Prime.

Where it was slightly less clear was that the Froth aspect is meant to be a personal one (with the exception of spellcasting) but “Hole in the Wall” (Lele’s aspect) was definintely not something we interpreted as personal, where as “Vidaar, to me!”, was very tied to Vala. More thinking on that later.

The Fight

The first to break through where the Shuda, vomiting horrific bile onto all of us. Mahrn were outside as well but thanks to the Ice Wall aspect created last session by Ficca and Mac and Cheese, they had to work a bit to get through it (Edmund required a number of successful overcome rolls for them to break open enough of the wall to get through.

Oh the havok we caused. Pillars toppled over. Braziers burning with incense for the gods thrown into the open mouths of Shuda, and all the while the earth churning and gobbling up our foes (Semela counted four devoured by the gods).

When the Marhn broke through it was trouble. Mechanically they have weight 4, so even one throws off a battle in a big way, Two is super bad news. Semela used a maneuver “Hey dum dum, look over here” to get the Troll onto the wall with her (and out of temple district with the other). It worked but just barely (tied on the overcome action). Edmund decided the bad news was that I got him in my zone… and that mean it was IN MY ZONE!

Vala and Lele pulled some pretty awesome heroics. Plunging a sword in the foot of Marhrn and then smashing him in the face when he bent down to pull it out. Vomiting Shuda were plugged up with other Shuda. It was a mess.

On the wall Selema ran from the Mahrn who destroyed everything around her. Even though it slipped and fell off the wall, it just clambered over it and kept up it’s chase. She snatched a farmers sickle and prayed to Atronia to enchant it to delver fatal blow to the Marhn. Mechanically this is a standard use of a spell to make a stunt, in this case the stunt was “once per session, my farmers tool can deliver a lethal blow”. Charged with a bunch of aspects and a stunt, Semela jumped off a building onto the back of the Mahrn and like separating the wheat from the chaff, she cleaved off it’s head.

Inside sword removed from the Mahrn’s foot, it was them emailed in his stomach!

Victory!

Notice from the Gods

Semela’s 2nd spell cost another divine consequence, which pushed us over the edge (we had a few others from +4 and -4 rolls that I hadn’t mentioned) and we were “taken out” by Divine Interest.

A huge thunder shook the ground, we heard a massive bellowing voice, and then we looked down. To find a very short Elvorix with Ylark horns (note Semela had grown Ylark horns during the first as a consequence as well so they matched) and holding a keg of kog. He looked up at Selema and asked with divine frankness “What the hell?”

Thoughts on this game

Spell tested (from both PC and NPC) and worked well in the Roar Phase. I’ve got some concern about players getting confused about the difference between a normal ritual (which generates a stunt) and the battle rituals you can do in the Roar Phase.

We haven’t talked about what being taken out by Divine Consequences means yet, but we’ll work on that next session.

Froth as Roar worked well. It put enough aspect on the board that Edmund could hit us pretty hard when he wanted to, but we also had many resources ourselves.

Weight as dice not rolled (but fixed to +) is clunky and hard to remember. We’re going to work on revising it to be easier to manage. We noticed at the end using Fate Coins to mark weight was really helpful.

Maneuvers worked great. Given the weight rules, there is a strong incentive for player characters to push (and pull) around their opponents which is awesome.

To test next time:

Froth and social conflicts
Divine Interest Milestones

Actual Play – Refuges in Brambletown (12/6/2014)

GM: Edmund Metheny
Players: Sean Nittner, Karen Twelves, Sophie Lagacé, and my daughters
System: War of Ashes

After two rounds of alpha and beta playtesting, many internal revisions, and an in depth review of the system from Rob Donoghue, and then a discussion of that review with Fred Hicks, we decided that the existing systems needed more work and refinement, which meant more playtesting! Instead of releasing a third round of open playtesting we opted to playtest it internally so we can make rules changes on the fly and test them.

Our focus was on testing the new systems introduced in War of Ashes:

Magic – A powerful ability that attracts (usually unwanted) attention from the gods.
Froth – A pre-combat fervor sentians use to push themselves the extra mile.
Divine Interest – A method for tracking the attention of the gods.
Weight – A means to measure the advantages one side has over the other when they outnumber or outweigh (in the case of large critters literally outweigh you).
Zone Aspects – Already pretty well tested (and vetted) so far, but continuing to play with free aspects in every zone representing the terrain.
Lethal Damage – Damage that cannot be absorbed with stress, only consequences.
Maneuvers – Tactical options that are meaningful in WoA due to the inclusion of new mechanics: Zones aspects, weight, and lethal damage.

Phew, that’s a lot to test, but we’re dedicated to doing it. Also thankfully some of the new mechanics (zone aspects and lethal damage) have already proven to work very well. Others like weight we’re sure about how to trigger it (2:1 or 4:1 odds) but just needed to tinker on the effects. And lastly maneuvers are just reinterpretations of overcome and create advantage actions, so it’s just a matter of determining how they should interact with exiting mechanics for things like forced movement (moving someone to a different zone).

The two big ones are at the top of the list Magic and Froth. Those are our big nuts to crack!

Edmund, our beloved and beleaguered GM

Since we’re all still in design mode, Edmund offered to GM for us, which was great. That way were were free to think about the systems without also trying to run the game and present story options for the characters.

We opted for a motley group including ever faction (even a Kuld!) to once again see if we thought it was viable within the fiction. Edmund gave us the prompt that we were all refugees heading to a small town after a Kuld attack. We decided that during the Kuld attack Mac and Cheese (my nine year old’s first response when we asked what her Kuld’s belches smelled like) had some epiphany then and realize it didn’t want to eat us. It seems change was gastrointestinal in nature because the other Kuld could smell the difference and now they wanted to eat Mac and Cheese!

Our characters are:

Vala the Loud – A brave Vidaar warrior who fashions herself an inspiring leader.

Lele – A Jarl survivalist long cut off from the other Jarl, Lele has taken to living off the land.

Semela – An evangelist of Atronia, sent to Brambletown to give them aid (and mostly to get her god attention getting self out of Atronia) but her entourage was lost in the attack.

Ficca – An Elvorix alchemist traveling afar to look for strange new ingredients.

Mac and Cheese – A guldal rider (guldal is called Strawberry because of it’s red coloring with white spots) that must have eaten something strange because it suddenly became cognizant of Sentians as something other than food! A monster battling with it’s identity!

KULD ATTACK!

We started with the attack that left us stranded. The combat was en media res where our supply caravans were already destroyed and while some of the Kuld had been defeated, more were coming.

Edmund sent a several mobs of Kuld and one Ur-Kuld leader after us. Here’s the systems we tested (beyond the normal Fate Core rules):

Zone Aspects – worked great. We started in the wrecked caravan. Near us was snow drift, a frozen lake, and even a “boring spot”. Not only did those aspects get used but they added a lot of fun to the fight. Aces.

Weight – We played with this a lot. As we fought the weight kept changing and moving around in zones made a big difference. Weight put some nice tension in the game but we realized that our current rules (dice fixed with a “+” at 2:1 ratio) prevented us from using the Fate Deck. We also noticed that we kept forgetting to factor in the fixed “+” on the die and that it felt awkward to resize our die pool. “Oh, roll 4dF for most rolls but roll 3dF for these.” While we really liked the Lethal attack that happened when Vaad ran in and was outweighed 4:1 something felt off about giving one kind of bonus (a fixed +) for 2:1 odds, but a different kind of bonus (Lethal damage) for a 4:1 odds.

Froth – Used but barely tested. Vaad frothed and we realized that the uses of it need to be articulated as “as part of an other action” otherwise they are pretty weak. Locking approaches usable was cool, but we didn’t get the oomph we were looking for. More testing.

Lethal Damage – Awesome. Vaad took a gnarly blow she had to eat with consequences. Six stress could have been a moderate consequence and two stress but this was lethal so severe it was. Which lead us to…

Divine Interest – This was quite awesome. With the new rules players can defer consequences they would take to turn into Divine Consequences that affect the whole group, very much like Collateral Consequences from Atomic Robo RPG. And our first one was a big one. Rain of Ylark! Oh yeah, it was awesome watching Lele (the atheist) explain that as a strange weather formation!

Not bad for a single combat. Weight and Froth felt like they needed some work but the other were solid. One change we didn’t expect was in consequences, namely that in Fate Accelerated they go away pretty quickly, and we realized that our mild consequences would drop right after the combat, which felt a lot less “grim” than we wanted, so we added that to the list of rules to review.

A town in shambles made of brambles!

When we arrived at Brambletown we discovered it was named after the wall of brambles that had grown up around the town, serving as a mediocre defense against most foes, but probably just an appetizer for the Kuld.

At first we were told to turn away at the gate, the town was already too full, but when we offered Ylark (and in fact some were still falling from the skies) we were gladly let in. The town itself was divided into four quarters. An large Vidaar district with a grove to Akka-Maas, and Elovrix district, a small Jarl enclave, and a stone walled temple district that the Jarl prohibited any from entering.

When asked who was in charge an Elvorix scholar, a Vidaar bravo, and a Jarl tactician all stepped forward pronouncing they were in charge. Semella then through her hat in the ring. She was sent from Atronia to give aid to Brambletown, she brought everyone Ylark, so she was in charge. I wanted to try Frothing outside a physical battle so I frothed with Flashing (making her Dazzling) and then tried to get Semela appointed as mayor of Brambletown… which was surprisingly easy! Now she got to deal with all the problems!

The first order of business was to enter the temple district, but despite her new appointment, the Jarl would not let anyone in. Lele asked why and was told they were preventing anyone from doing any praying at the temples. Lele suggested that the temples and the stone wall around them should all be broken down and turned into fortifications to protect the town. The Jarl all nodded sagely, liking the idea very much, but Semela was incensed. “You can’t desecrate the gods! Look at all they do for us!” *Ylark Drop*

We decided the debate would be handled as a Contest (First person to win three opposed overcome rolls wins) and I thought “okay, here’s a chance for Frothing with Flashy to shine”. Only… it didn’t. None of our Frothing options made sense in a Contest. I couldn’t do lethal damage (we weren’t attacking), moving my opponent didn’t make any sense, changing my weight was immaterial. Soo… this is a problem. Clearly Froth doesn’t work in a contest, but I also don’t think it would work in a social conflict. That was a problem to address (see below).

The Kuld Are Coming!

The contest end in a tie roll, where the GM is instructed “If there’s a tie for the highest result, no one gets a victory, and an unexpected twist occurs.” What was the twist? Of course, it was the Kuld drawn to our warmth and maybe even the falling Ylark!

Luckily while we had been arguing about what to do with the temples Ficca and Mac and Cheese were working on stacking snow on the wall of brambles and then with the aid of Ficca’s alchemical concoctions turning the snow into hard ice! A frozen bramble wall is better than no bramble wall!

Thoughts on the game

There were some things we didn’t use and should test in future games. Swarm rules, Adventure Approaches, Magic, and Milestones (since we have some new ones).

There were some things we did test that I found wanting, namely Froth. First off, Froth was hard to define in the narrative, what does it actually “do”, and it’s also doesn’t have a clear mechanical effect in the minis game as it can be spent like currency to give each side a wide range of options. I thought on it for a long while and eventually sent this dreaded email to Sophie and Karen (writer/developer and editor).

I’ve been thinking more (dangerous I know) and part of the reason I’m having a hard time with how Froth should work is that Froth isn’t something that is clear in the fiction.

Zones are easy. Relative positioning. Even if we extend that to social conflicts (threats, bribes, persuasion), they hold up pretty well.

Weight is also easy, even if our 2:1 and 4:1 results end up changing, the concept is simple and makes sense.

Froth is, well it’s a lot of things. In Shieldwall is the ability to do tricks or tweak the rules. It’s also something of a bargaining chip (though since the only person you’re bargaining with is your enemy, that mechanic is not a strong one in my opinion). But what it represents is perhaps a bit of extra vigor, courage, or ingenuity. All of those are pretty damn vague and hard to pin down with rules.

I’ve got a radical idea. And please don’t hate for suggesting this.

What if Frothing is a special phase in conflicts (like it is in shieldwall) where all people can do is create advantages. So the clever folks can devise strategy, the forceful ones can bellow thunderous roars, the careful ones can measure the distance to the enemy, etc. End result is that conflicts would start with lots of free invokes on both sides. More for the sides that rolled better. A suggested “cost” for failing the create advantage roll would be taking a consequence which would be similar a bad roll in SW and it’s also something that could be shifted to DI to get the gods interested in the fight.

This would effectively create a “charge up” round like you see in Anima Prime and it would allow players to call on the advantages created to get the same kind of perks/bonuses that Shieldwall offers them.

Also, this would address the point Edmund made, that it’s hard to hurt the players. If your opponents start the fight with say six free invokes and the GM just waits till the players use up a few of their free invokes, it wouldn’t be hard at all to generate a big monster attack.

I know the major downside of this is that it means removing a section that we have put TONS of work into so we shouldn’t consider it lightly, but lets consider it and see if it makes any sense.

And to find out what misadventures that caused, stay tuned for my next report…. Kuld on the wall!

Once again kudos to Edmund and my girls for having the patience to player a game where we stopped every 10 minutes to discuss (and sometimes change) the rules.

Actual Play – Secret Mystery Game (10/19/2014)

GM: Luke Crane
Players: Matt Glover, Shaun Hayworth, Matt Troedson, and Sean Nittner
System: Torchbearer-ish (USCMC)

Edit (1/6/2015): Now that is been released. The game we were playtesting was the US Colonial Marine Corpse

Recorded for posterity sake. Luke playtested a new game with us at Big Bad Con that was fucking awesome. We can’t say anything about it so instead I’ll talk about the people.

Shaun brain vs. Luke brain. We had a conflict that lasted three rounds (9 actions) and Luke and Shaun (the conflict captain) scripted the identical action NINE TIMES! I’ve never seen it before. And there were some pretty furious debating on our side to come to it. What the hell could Luke be thinking? What cues in the fiction would he take to spin off of? Note, it’s not exactly good strategy to script identical to your opponent. Feint for instance (which was scripted) really tips the scales if you can manage to get it against a Defend or against you if your opponent scripts Attack. It’s just remarkable to me that we scripted identically!

I know Luke runs games for pretty diverse groups (like say, a bunch of the staff at Kickstater) so I’ve been curious about his GMing style for a while. What does he do to engage new players? How does he teach the rules? Does he use funny voices for his NPCs? Here’s what I found in the session we played. Luke’s style is pretty conventional. He doesn’t jump up on the table and shout at his players or use multimedia slideshow presentations during game. What shines is his experience and comfort with the system. He’s got reflexive knowledge not just of the rules but of how to employ them. For instance when should you call for a test or a conflict, what skill and obstacle for a challenge, how to best pick compromise results. etc. He’s also a high energy, enthusiastic GM. He was excited about the game, and excited about showing it to us.

Matts and S[h,e]a[u,-]ns. It was pretty cool getting to game with these guys. We’re all Torchbearer and BW fans and most of us have played together before. Our characters weren’t at each other’s throats but there was some fun friction when I told Shaun to do a stupid, stupid thing and he, with all respect, told me just how stupid it was. Good times!

I learned something that I didn’t pick up from the text of Torchbearer. You don’t share your goals with the group (or the GM) until the end of the session. There is a mention to this on page 107 under the New Goals header but I hadn’t picked up on it before, “At the end of the session, you’ll review your Goal.”

Thoughts on the game

It will probably still be a while before any news about this game isn’t NDA but here’s four happy dudes playing it!