[S/Lay W/Me] Lugh and the Morvah

[Motipha]

Played S/Lay W/Me last night with +Rob Ryder.  Really good!  He was the hero, sick and lame but with an iron will that commands the dead.  He was returning to his home that he had left, dishonored and exiled, a celtic inspired place where the people were  engaged in a losing war against the last monster of the Sidhe, the Morvah.  The Merlin had provided them with a clockwork army (setting choice), powered by the blood and soul of one of the warriors, and Lugh "Long-arm" Dragoon had returned, syphilitic and with madness in his eyes as he had heard that his son was to become the latest heart of the machine.

Lugh arrived to find the Romans being welcomed in, with King Connacht about to swear fealty to Rome in exchange for the help of the Romans to kill the Morvah.  Between killing Romans, trying to free his son, and speaking with Medb  (Lughs old lover, Mother to his son Cormac, and now Queen) Lugh eventually ended up killing his son trying to free him from the machine, revealing his own undeath when he tried to use the machine and instead broke it, reviving his son using life stolen from the Morvah before finally showing that he and the monster were much the same and commanding it to return to it's slumber (it buried itself in a cairn of rock, creating an avalance that wiped out the town of the people).  Our last seen was Lugh, Cormac and Medb disappearing in to the forest, With Medb and Cormac appalled by what Lugh has become but unwilling to leave him.

The mechanics of passing Goes back and forth was pretty powerful.  We weren't great at taking a more directorly stance when it was our go:  both Rob and myself tended to default to a more traditional position of Rob just describing the actions of Lugh and me describing everything else, but we started working towards more global control.  I think now that we have a little experience and understanding of the system, that should come a lot more smoothly.

In terms of creating conan style phantasmagoric fantasy stuff, this did a bang-up job.  The rule set is well focused while allowing a lot of free play stuff, and Ron's emphasis on "take your time, let it develop at a good pace" helped us get a good game out of it.  I'm going to release the audio as a AP for the Jank Cast eventually, but figured I'd post this here first.

[Motipha]

Just read this: http://indie-rpgs.com/adept/index.php?topic=67.0

In light of Ron's comments, I see that we didn't quite hit the mark in terms of how the story developed.  I came up with a lot more setting stuff ahead of time than was needed, and we really should have taken time to tune the Goes, which we didn't.  Still, it was fun, and we have a basis for new sessions going forward, so I feel no remorse.

[Ron Edwards]

Hi Timo!

The first round is always a learning-step, for this game. Seems like you did just fine. As with a lot of my games, it's built to jump forward on the second, continued experience with the system, and you'll see how much the previous events become very, very relevant to the next story. I'll look forward to the podcast!

Best, Ron