[BW] The Gift at GYGO-a-thon 1

[Judd]

The Gift is an odd adventure to me. Luke was kind enough to e-mail me the character sheets and some hints as to how to play it.

I played it at Gen Con and it is entirely run by the players. While I love the idea of a game like that and it is great for a demo, really making the players feel like they were the authors of their adventure, the role of the GM in this game is subtle. There were few NPC's for me to play. I'm used to games being made on the strength of my believable NPC's.

But it works. You tell the players to read the histories on their sheets, pay attention to their BIT's and if they want something, to GO FOR IT and LEAVE NOTHING ON THE TABLE at the end of the session.

We began at around 1 p.m. and ended between 6 and 7.

The game was played at a gaming event I coordinated called the Get Your Geek On-a-thon 1 in conjunction with our FLGS, Odyssey Games.
http://s7.invisionfree.com/IthacaGa...hp?showtopic=44

There were five players, one of whom was supposed to be running Vampire: The Requiem and played the Dwarven Drunk Uncle when I played the Dwarven Prince at Gen Con with Luke running the game at the last Gen Con. It was an amazing session but I realized fast that this game is made or broken on the proactivity of the players.

When I played, there was a funny moment when one of the players whispered to me, very concerned, "I don't think this was where he thought the adventure would go."

I responded, "I don't think he comes in with a pre-determined idea. That's the beauty of it, man."

I impressed on this group, quickly and briskly that they would make this adventure and Orcs weren't going to jump out of the shadows to arbitrarily attack them.

Key Moments:

* The players took the roles of the Dwarven Prince, the Seneschal, The Elven Princess, The Loremaster, The Swordsinger. We decided the Ranger was killed in the journey, slaughtered by Orcs.

* I aquired another walk-in player as the Drunk Uncle, a few hours into the game.

* At the feast the Elves gave the Dwarves the gift of a tome of their lore. The Gift of knowledge. The Dwarves were downright insulted and announced that tomorrow would be a hunt. The prince elected to go into the tunnels. When given an array of things to hunt he elected giant spiders. The Elves let it be known that they wanted some Orc, since they had killed their comrad.

Orcs it was, off they went into the heavily sealed with iron tunnels where the Orcs nest.

* They quickly realized they were in over their head after their first battle with a few goblins. Though the Swordsinger was loving it, having done the Song of the Sword to make all of his dice for swordplayer EXPLODE. He was positively giddy. "I wish all of my characters were just like this."

The game became a run back to the surface, outrunning a horde of angry Orcs who realized that an important hunting party of Elves and Dwarves were deep in the tunnels.

* The orcs set a troll on a nexus of tunnels that led back to the Dwarven hold to collapse it. The Dwarven Prince made it through the battle, killed the Lash Bearer and took up the lash for himself. One lash, a dodged Trollish Maul swing and a ob 3 Command roll later, the Troll was in the thrall of the Dwarven Prince. He hadn't ever played Poisoned Ambition but the three players (myself included) who knew the significance of He Who Bears the Lash to Orc Tribes in BW were all dazzled. In retrospect, I should have given him an Artha.

* The Uncle died at the jaws of a Black Wolf.

* A fun time was had by all.

Thanks, Luke.

[Thor Olavsrud]

Hey Judd. Sounds fun! How did they end up resolving the scenario itself? Was it a peaceful resolution? Were blows exchanged? Did the elves find a gift the dwarves would accept?

[Judd]

Hey Judd. Sounds fun! How did they end up resolving the scenario itself? Was it a peaceful resolution? Were blows exchanged? Did the elves find a gift the dwarves would accept?

The hunt the party went on made them somewhat forget the conflict among themselves and concentrate on not being decimated by Orcs.  In the end, they were bonded in battle with a common enemy and the conflict over the gift was never truly resolved.

[Luke]

The hunt the party went on made them somewhat forget the conflict among themselves and concentrate on not being decimated by Orcs.  In the end, they were bonded in battle with a common enemy and the conflict over the gift was never truly resolved.

a perfectly reasonable ending!

can you describe to me the process at the table surrounding the hunt decision?I assume the players came up with the idea, or did you suggest it? Once the hunt ensued, how did you arbritate the conflict? Did you narrate their slaughter, or script it?

thanks, Judd!
-L

[Judd]

can you describe to me the process at the table surrounding the hunt decision?I assume the players came up with the idea, or did you suggest it? Once the hunt ensued, how did you arbritate the conflict? Did you narrate their slaughter, or script it?

I am not sure how the hunt decision came down and I thought about it quite a bit because it was scarily similiar to the way the game played out at Gen Con in that respect.  Some player, definitely a dwarf, gave the suggestion.

Once the hunt ensued, there was a first scouting party of goblins with runners at either end of the tunnels, eager to make it back to their Black Wolf Rider taskmasters and from there to the main fortress of orcs.

We scripted combat and it went well.  Everyone got it.

I think the sheet with only spaces to write in your action works best.  The sheet with little dots to color in and the BW combat choices just made the players I showed it to eyes cross.  It was the first time I ran a scripted combat of that size and it seemed to go well.  I wish I had time before the game to re-read BW's combat chapter just once, that would have made it all go faster but its been a hectic week.

I've been running TROS lately and the games were getting a little crossed in my head.