[BW] Must. Kill. Wizard. Part 2

[Luke]

So we played the next session of this arc.

This session was a bit belabored by the exigencies of our group and their play style. First, we had one player an hour late, one an hour and a half, and another just never showed. Lovely. Second, the middle of the session--a good hour plus!--was occupied by the dreaded "planning debate". Do we retreat or do we press the attack?

Before we get to the boring stuff, let's get to the good. The highlight of this session by far was the "pre-game" with Dro and Pete. If you recall from last session, after the tumultuous battle at the gate, everyone fled except for Pete and Dro's characters. They instead remained incognito--disguised as brainwashed drones--on the inside.

Pete and Dro showed up at 5, everyone else was supposed to show at 7. (except Dro was a half hour late, too! Yes, i'm pretty annoyed at the lateness. We could have done a lot more with the full session.)

Anyway, on to the good stuff! Some background: Pete's character was designed for this adventure in particular. He made a former slaver who had been mutated by the storm. Being so mutated induced him to turn against his former masters and seek their demise -- for turning him into this freak of nature! The character is a well-rounded social type focusing on Falsehood and Inconspicuous with a little Intimidation and an awesome Wise. The wise, Hound-wise, saved his ass tonight because it was an applicable to FoRK into nearly every test he made. ("The Hounds" is the name of the slavers.) He was the perfect inside man.

Dro's "Architect" is also a heavy social character, but with a lot more to back him up. Falsehood and Incon are high, but he's also got Engineering and Architecture, plus Poisons and Disguise! He's essentially a gentlemanly assassin. The short history: his best friend became very wealthy and powerful, got into some trouble and needed someone to bail him out. The Architect took care of the dirty business, but then his friend lightly blackmailed him into doing more of the same. He's free of that yoke now, using his incredibly inconspicuous airs to use his skills to his own ends.

So Dro had the two characters disguised as slaves ahead of time. Using their disguises they snuck into the currently empty kitchen, where Dro used his Poisons skill to mix up a dose of deadly poison. An Ob 7 test that he just made (using his high skill, a bunch of FoRKs like Cooking and Herbalism and a little luck!)

They had one dose of the poison. At this point, Dro handed the reins over to Pete. It was up to him to find some way to get it into the wizard's system. Pete's plan was daring, and suicidally brilliant! He used his Intimidation, Falsehood and Hound-wise to convince one of the now awakened kitchen staff that she was wanted by one of the Hounds on site for an unnatural act.

The Hound was preoccupied by his friend's health. Two of his mates were badly stabbed in the last episode, so all of the slaver higher-ups were hanging about anxious for news and swearing revenge. The slave girl did as she was told and approached the taskmaster, but he shooed her away. At this point, Pete sent Dro in to sinch the deal. Trotting up, looking for all the world like an old slave, he asked what the problem was. He said, "Shaggy sent her, you can use his cabin." Pete had rolled an amazing 8-success Perception test to eavesdrop and pick up some relevant names from the conversation. This counted as a helping die for Dro when he went into the scene with is own formidable Falsehood. Between them, they easily convinced the tired taskmaster that he could use some nooky and a nap.

Of course they bushwacked him in bed. These characters are not physically potent, so this was very risky. It was looking bad for them, but I made the Hound's Steel test vs surprise. I flubbed, and he hesitated. Choosing the Steel result was interesting. Run and Scream and he would have had to run, with his pants around his knees, out into a crowd of his friends screaming about how slaves were attacking. Not this guy! These were just stupid slaves, anyway! He chose to stand and drool...and that was his end. They had him muzzled and incapacitated before he caught his breath. The girl was silenced by Dro with a successful Falsehood test, "Stay quiet and you'll go free!" Heh.

Pete then admitted that he had the Murderous trait. He felt his character would kill this guy after he got the uniform off him. Hm, I told him that doing so would earn him a Fate point, but cause future ramifications. After a moment's hesitation, he knifed the guy and took his point of artha.

This is where is gets even cooler. They took his uniform and wrapped it in thatching. Dro instructed Pete (using his Engineering skill) on how to lay thatching. Then they split up. Dro's part was done, all he had to do was stay out of sight for 15 minutes or so. Pete's character headed for the long house. Atop the main building was a repair crew repatching the thatching. In the last episode, Andy's Giant had been hurling flaming debris into the compound. One of the pieces hit this long house (the one with the wizards inside). The wizards easily doused the flames, but the hole had to be patched. The crew was working by lantern light to get the job done quickly, and were being supervised by a Hound. As Pete's character approached, another slave took his bundle from him. Pete flinched momentarily but then said, "I don't worry about it, I ignore it (but keep my eye on it). I want to use my Inconspicuous to climb up on the roof and slip into the crew." He did so with a couple of successes. Not enough, really. So when he arrived at the top, the taskmaster started bawling him out and telling him to get off. Pete made a brilliant Falsehood test and managed to convince him that he was needed, "I was a master at this back home." Oy vey! Still, he passed the test. So he shimmied over to the hole and grabbed his bundle from another laborer's hands. "Here, let me."

Pete considered his options for a moment and then simply "fumbled" the bundle and dropped it in the hole. There was a guard in the room below, but he had a plan. The overseer started screaming at him and coming for him, so Pete had his character dash through the hole in fear, "I'll get it, I'll get it!"

He dropped to the floor and the Hound guard set on him (it was Shaggy, no less!), punching him in the face. "What do you do?" I asked. "Nothing," he said, "I've got to suck it up." For his trouble, I gave him three superficial wounds -- -1D.  Right when it was crucial for him to have all his dice! Hee! It was mean GM-thing to do, but it really raised the tension!

So he grabbed the bundle and fled out the door. But instead of leaving, he assessed for a hiding spot. He could hear the wizard and giant lords talking in one of rooms down the hall. They were talking about his friends -- they knew exactly where they were! Knowing the giants weren't in their own rooms, he ducked in and changed into the Hound uniform. A new Inconspicuous test was made. He ducked across the hallway into the wizard's private kitchen. The slaves looked at him suspiciously, but he was dressed like an overseer now. "Who serves our master? The injured one?" He barked out. "The surgeon has ordered that he be given this medicine in his tea immediately." He handed the slave his poison and watched him make the cup of tea. Then he darted out of the kitchen back over to the giant's quarters. He changed back into his slave garb, rewrapped his bundle and fled the longhouse.

Now, Pete and Dro don't know if the wizard drank the poison or not, so I can't tell you. But I think you'll agree that it was a well excuted piece of suicidal brilliance!

After that, they barely escaped the compound as the body of the murdered Hound overseer was discovered, Free, they rushed to meet their friends -- whose location was described by the ranting wizard!

The remainder of the session was two distinct halves. Arguing about whether or not to flee or stay and fight, and then staying and fighting.

The wizard's have a cadre of Ranger-type assassins working for them. After the previous session's attack, they were brought in from the field to hunt down the PCs and kill them once and for all.

We used the new positioning/Range and Cover rules to resolve the scene. Overall, they kicked my ass. Chris' sorcerer turned the giant and the insurrectionist invisible. The rest of the group took cover and acted as spotters for the two bowmen in the group. The invisible characters/players just rocked. They tore up their opponent (literally!). The others held off the rangers, but an interesting thing happened. As the rangers were fleeing, my dice started to heat up and I actually tied a test and then won two in a row. The result was that I shot and Severely wounded the party's Ranger (Danny). Taking him out knocked a pile of dice out of the test's pool and the injured and beleaguered opposition was able to make their escape. Also, Danny's now out of it for at least one session. That's ok, he was an hour and a half late tonight, too!

Next week, they press the attack and see if they can bring home their advantage.


For me the mechanical highlights of the session were using some of the new mechanics. Artha is functioning like a dream. Rich is a hair's breadth away from graying out his sword. And the "using your BITs to make things difficult earns you artha" cycle is just delicious.

Also, at Rafial's suggestion -- and taking a page from Ron's book -- we've incorporated Linked tests into the game. If one player makes a successful test that another character can then use to his advantage, a bonus die is granted. This gets used like crazy. Pete and Dro were riffing off each other, making tests and feeding each other bonus dice. The difference between this and helping, is the characters don't necessarily have to be together or in the same scene. For example, Dro used his Engineering to instruct Pete about the thatching. This got Pete a bonus die to his Incon. Or Pete's successful Perception test to overhear the names of the Hounds translated much later into a bonus die to Dro's Falsehood test.

Also, some of the players were a bit disgruntled about the introduction of the positioning/Range and Cover rules in the middle of the adventure. I sympathize, but the scene just demanded it. And, it should be noted, without said rules, the game would have gone very differently. It would have been single Perception vs Stealth test that I likely would have easily won. Using the positioning mechanics, the players were actually able to use clever strategy and their wealth of helping dice in order to win the day. It was very cool.

-L

PS Invisible giants. Ugh.
;)

[Kaare Berg]

Beatiful infiltration session. Specially liked the: do you want your Artha? dilemma. My favourite problem too.

Raises a question I'm curious about: How stringent are you in your artha awarding? Me I'm pretty loose, but then my players burn through an avrage of ten fate and five or six persona pr. session. Hell sometimes they burn two or three Deeds a session (oh-boy do they regret this the next one.)

If one player makes a successful test that another character can then use to his advantage, a bonus die is granted.

Consider this adopted and in use. Can't wait.

The eternal, never-ending "planning debate". Know that. Suffered that, and have started to play dirty when it comes to it. After all the session is supposed to be fun for me to.

Taking a cue from the narrativists, a planning debate is a perfect moment to drop a Bang. This can be assassins barging in the door, or it can be the subtle appearance of an evil shade that offers a further dilemma, with a simple time limit. The clue isn't to force the Players in a direction, but to force them to decide now.

Took me about 14 to 15 years to realize this, and I'm still not perfect at it, but I'm getting there.

The fight sounds like it rocked, hmmm, invisible enemies, must use that.

Also, some of the players were a bit disgruntled about the introduction of the positioning/Range and Cover rules in the middle of the adventure. I sympathize, but the scene just demanded it. And, it should be noted, without said rules, the game would have gone very differently. It would have been single Perception vs Stealth test that I likely would have easily won. Using the positioning mechanics, the players were actually able to use clever strategy and their wealth of helping dice in order to win the day. It was very cool

Do you happen to have a summary of these. The thread is 6 or 7 pages long now, and I get lost after two. People are getting home for Christmas and it is getting close to decision time in Miranna.

K

[Luke]

Hi Kaare,

Depending on what the players accomplish, I award a few points at the end of every sessions -- a fate if nothing at all was accomplished (a really bad session) or a fate and a persona if they moved things forward. During the session I award fate and persona as the players accomplish goals and riff off of their BITs. So usually 2 fate, 1-2 persona per session.

It is vital for me that the players decide when, where and how to spend artha. If they have an excess of points to spend on every role, it really dilutes the tension for me.

In this last game, Pete had only 1 pt of persona to spend for the whole infilitration! Every time a test would come up -- they were all crucial -- I would ask him if he was going to spend it. He kept putting it off, holding on to it until he was in the wizard's kitchen, trying to convince the servants to give the wizard his medicine. It was extremely valuable then! And suddenly the escape was even more tense. Pete and Dro had to make Ob 4 Inconspicuous tests to escape and neither had Persona to juice into the roll (i think they each only had one fate point left).

I try very hard to make artha a valuable and scarce resource.

As for the planning sessions.... This is an interesting phenomena for me. When I run con games, such nonsense is absolutely verboten. Even the players understand that. At home though, we have something of luxurious time schedule -- we play 4-5 hours a week in the same campaign. So the players rarely feel pressure.

And I am very much to blame for letting things go on too long. I sit, listen and wait for them to hatch a decent idea. I don't want to rush them into getting themselves killed. I don't want them to feel railroaded with GM surprises.

What I keep forgetting I can do (new rules!) is call for a Duel of Wits among the dissenters after they have chosen a couple of plans. Clears things up right away! What I did last night, and what I often do, is kind of stop the game and remind them about a few points. Players often get gunshy after a big encounter, asserting they aren't powerful enough to take of themselves. So last night I went over the basic numbers/mechanics of the range and cover rules and assured them that they would have a chance against the rangers.

Then, I told them that it was morning and whether they decided to flee or stay, the rangers were here and on to them. I made a Tracking test right in front of them -- 11 dice vs Ob 5 (lots of rangerly help). I succeeded, so they knew that they had to choose.

As soon as they did, we moved right  into the new shooting/stalking contest mechanics.

Worked pretty well, I just let them argue about it a little too long before I invoked the game mechanics.

-L

[taepoong]

Luke's summary is spot on! The infiltration was so exciting because I just kept taking these extreme chances and was able to pull all of them off. I only had 3 pts of Fate and 1 Persona for an operation that would require at least a dozen crucial tests. Yet, this character was designed just for such scenarios and I wanted to play his Traits and Beliefs to the hilt.  I totally went for Luke's Artha Bribe ala using my Murderous trait! What he didn't tell you was that he offered me a Persona point if my character acted out another impulse - man-rape!

After the rest showed up late, the session turned from exciting to tense. Perhaps Luke's obvious displeasure at people arriving late spilled over to the rest of us? I mean, one player was an hour late because he couldn't stop playing Knights of the Republic,another player decided to go to a party, and a third didn't show up and didn't call! I think he's been officially fired at this point.

Couple this annoyance with new rules that we veteran players weren't familiar with and that makes for some tense out-of-game conflicts.

And then there was the stupid in-game debate about what to do. A plan is hatched, the plan is shot down by the only players capable of making the plan work, we argue for an hour, and then the exact same plan is accepted. So friggin' annoying!

The new range rules work well, but they still need some cleaning up in my opinion. Not being the principle die-roller in a large helping test, I gave over my helping dice and then had nothing to do for quite some time, really. I suppose this is the danger of helping, in general.

[rafial]

Not being the principle die-roller in a large helping test, I gave over my helping dice and then had nothing to do for quite some time, really. I suppose this is the danger of helping, in general.

Isn't this as simple as letting the helpers roll their contributed dice themselves?  I recall doing this in my Tarshish con demo, and there was one big test where nearly everybody contributed, and then we went around the table calling out successes and totalling them up.  When it came to the last guy, they were still pretty short, and when he announced a really good roll that put them over the top, everybody went wild.

[Luke]

yes, we do use this option for the big simplified combat tests, but we didn't use it last night (as we were testing the new Range and Cover rules).

I'd prolly use that method in the future for big positioning tests with 4-5 players contributing.

-L

[Kaare Berg]

Luke,

I run a different game when it comes to Artha, IMO this dosen't diminish the value of it. They've just got so much invested in the game that they'll burn artha on nearly every roll they deem important.

I do belive this ability to make the character succede when it is important for the players, without making it a default option, is what has given our game that vaunted "epic" feel. I love the player empowerment inherent in your Artha rules.

I can see that your approach creates tense games (and will try it out in a different setting) but my group would most likely horde these artha points and never used them. It wasn't until we began using the alternate artha awards that artha began to be used. Hell, I get misty eyed thinking about our first artha use back when we thought that one point was alot.

Yet, this character was designed just for such scenarios and I wanted to play his Traits and Beliefs to the hilt.

I think this here is the most important observation and the answer to why the infiltration rocked. You had a character made for this type of game and Luke let you play it. Dman took me long to learn that.

K