Part 2: Getting into Play[I should preface this by saying that Leah had a long and hard week at work, she was getting tired by the time we'd finished generating characters. Add to this the fact that Bill had been getting into character by using an obnoxious Irish accent and interrupting people whenever he could. As mentioned earlier, Freya was still pretty new to the whole role-playing thing. Philip is our resident critic (and some would say muchkin) and he had already started trying to pick holes in the rules set, or at least min-max things so that his character would be all things to all people. None of us had properly roleplayed for a few weeks, and Ingrid was really in the mood for play. With this many conflicting agendas, it was a recipe for disaster but I really wanted to see the rules that I'd developed in action.]Play began with each player being dealt two red cards and two black cards from a deck that I've called the wind (a reference to the fate and destiny of the crew being controlled by the winds of the sea...), as well as these each player was handed a number of poker chips equal to twice the total number of players (Six players, so each of them got 12 chips), these are referred to as "Pieces of Eight". As captain, I got twice as many Pieces of Eight (24).
Act 1 Scene 1
I've established the idea that the captain always goes first to explain the mission/journey that is about to unfold. This is done by either a random draw of cards or by spending the Pieces of Eight. Since the printer wasn't working, I spent six pieces of eight on six storyline elements that I wanted to bring into play as the captain. I had explained the idea that each piece of eight could be used to introduce new storyline elements while each red card made the current circumstances easier and black card made the circumstances harder. Everyone was happy to let the mission be set up as they didn't really want to rock the boat too much as this stage. Bill often moaned in his dodgy-irish accent that he'd never free his people from the english if the crew kept heading off to foreign lands, but he didn't want to put his pieces of eight where his mouth was when he was pressured on the issue.
[In the process of this I decided that I'll have to incorporate clearer rules about how the captain can set up the storyline, and how the other players can interact with this goal setting stage].My six Pieces of Eight give the following:
- A Map from the late 16th Century
- An island in the North Pacific
- A treasure of arcane value (hoping this might attract the attention of our voodoo priestess)
- A creature from the deep (hoping this would draw in the exorcists)
- Atlantean Script (knowing that this would attract the navigator)
- A legend of a ghost ship
We hadn't decided where we currently were, except for the fact that the crew recruitment rolls earlier had occurred during a modern day setting (since the IRA are a relatively recent phenomenon in the grand scheme of all time and space). The question arose, and I asked the group if they had any ideas. Since no-one wanted to spend one of their pieces of eight to influence the storyline on this point, I said spur of the moment "Fine, we're in Barbados, in the Caribbean"
Leah wanted to keep playing but had fallen asleep in the corner as the description of the upcoming journey was laid out, so I sent her to bed. As captain I said that the crew would have to ensure suitable gear and provisions were gathered while he prepared the ship with the gathered crew.
The crew decided to split into three; where Freya and Philip looked for food, Bill looked for suitable cold weather gear and exorcist lore about the island from a nearby catholic church and any weapons that might be needed for such a journey to a desolate and distant island. Ingrid made sure the temporal drives were working and wouldn't malfunction during the trip. The captain gave 4 provisions of gold to the crew to get as much as they could (basically equating to four skill attempts to earn the necessary items).
Cards were drawn for scene initiative during this first act. Freya and Philip went first, Bill went second and regardless of the draw Ingrid went last because her first action was going to be transporting the group to the island using the temporal drive.
Scene Ends
Act 1 Scenes 2 and 3
Freya began by haggling with some local fruit vendors and market stall owners for foodstuffs. Ingrid and Bill got into the play and took the roles of competing fruit vendors, I told them that the player who gained Freya's business would earn a piece of eight. This upped the ante considerably. Eventually Ingrid won out.
I asked the players what the goals of their characters were. Freya's primary success condition was to buy the food, with any additional successes increasing the amound of food bought for the same total cost. Ingrid's goal was to sell sell only worthless and rotten food with one success, or to drive off the crew altogether from the market with two or more successes.
There are Seven levels of difficulty in the game (Automatic, Routine, Straightforward, Tricky, Hard, Very Hard, Legendary, and Just Plain Stupid). Unless otherwise indicated, all skill attempts in the game are considered Straightforward.
Bill played a card to up the difficulty of the challenge to Tricky (probably being a bit sore at missing out on the Piece of Eight). Freya tried to get the best deal that she could out of the market vendor and failed, but since Ingrid only scored one success, she could try again. This morphs into Scene 3 as Philip takes the lead, and tries his luck with the market vendor. He succeeded well enough with two successes to get two week's worth of food. But two provisions of gold had been spent.
Scene ends.
Act 1 Scene 4
Bill is at the local Catholic Cathedral talking to the resident priest. No-one wants to take on the role of the priest, as Ingrid and Freya have just done a heavy roleplaying session interacting with one another, and Philip has other ideas in mind...so it defaults to me. I do my bad Jamaican/token-caribbean accent, and Bill does his bad Irish accent. It turns into a contest of who can make the other laugh and break out of character first.
A few people throw some red cards and black cards into the mix to show their appreciation of our voice work. After a bit of roleplaying, I ask what Bill's agenda for the scene is, and explain the agenda for the local priest. Just as we are about to describe these, Philip says out of the blue..."Now that I've finished helping Freya, I show up at the Cathedral"...I instantly think to myself that this is exactly the kind of thing I was trying to avoid by splitting the game up into scene with different active players.
[Note to self....work on this bit of the rules to stop a single player from railroading the group, or derailing a storyline that is otherwise building nicely...]Bill's primary aim was to gain cold weather gear from a sailor's mission near the church, his secondary objectives were to gain occult lore about the island, and a batch of bibles translated into "Inuit" or some other language spoken by the islanders of the Alaskan archipelago. I made sure the goals were in this order, because that was the general level of difficulty that each would incur. If anything seemed out of the ordinary, it could always be used as a loose end in a future game. I decide that the local priests agenda is to get some donations from the Irish priest, and any other successes will be used to give Bill a secondary mission for the game that will prove a conflict of interest at some later stage.
The balance of black cards raising the difficulty and red cards lowering the difficulty is slightly in the red's favour (4 to 3). So the skill for this works out to be a routine check and Bill passes admirably with 3 successes.
He gets all three.
("How did they get those translated bibles in Barbados?" "Oh Crap!! We'll have to go and get some from Alaska, and then use some careful temporal navigation to hide them in the storage shed of the cathedral at a time just before the priest goes to look for them.")
Scene Ends
Act 1 Scene 5.
Everyone returns to the ship. Ingrid is in the middle of a discussion with one of the crew members about a worn flux capacitor and a oscillation overthruster that might need repairs sometime in the near future. But the captain decides that these can wait until the treasure has been found. Once they sell it off, they'll be able to afford a new ship which won't have these problems.
The navigator flips the switch.
Temporal jumps have a difficulty based on how far the jump is going, time-wise and distance wise. A few quick calculations show that the whole challenge is roughly equivalent to being "Very Hard". Ingrid's first success condition is the right time, the second victory condition is right place, and the third victory condition is the right version of reality. The standard failure conditions are no jump, jump to wrong time, jump to wrong place, random jump to anywhere in timespace.
Miraculously, despite playing with less cards, Ingrid gets the three successes. The ship jumps through time and space and the island is seen in the far distance.
Scene Ends.
Act Ends.
It was getting late at this stage as things had progressed slowly with the explanation of the rules along the way...and the complications of having no pre-printed sheets for handouts. We broke for dinner from the local indian take-out, and discussed the way the game could possibly be improved.
Everyone is excited about the way the game seems to be heading, and while we all agree that there are a few finer details to be resolved, it seems to be a fairly sturdy framework for future expansion.
V