[Trollbabe] VoIP Play Session 4

[Chris Gardiner]

Previous write-ups:-

Session 1: http://www.indie-rpgs.com/forum/index.php?topic=19034.0
Session 2: http://www.indie-rpgs.com/forum/index.php?topic=19075.0
Session 3: http://www.indie-rpgs.com/forum/index.php?topic=19168.0

This session went much better than the last one - I think it was everyone's favourite so far. I made a conscious attempt to cut from scene to scene much quicker (I kept a clock open on my desktop, and tried to jump between players every 5-15 minutes), and asked for the players' help with this beforehand. It helped not only keep everyone engaged, but cutting away during or just before a conflict gave people a chance to consider their next move, which led to some really nice scenes.

Monolith laid an ambush for Harrek, who was hunting her and Cullen after their escape. Skel, Harrek's father, had choked in the smoke of the fire Monolith had started, making Harrek the new lord. Monolith defeated him and his men, laid a curse on him that would cause the creatures of the wild to rise up if he proved to be the sort of huntsman his father was, and left with Cullen (who she took as a relationship). The whole sequence of conflicts here was really cool - I'll come back to it later.

Breaker, determined to get the troll Cult of the Ninth Wind to the Festival in time, tried to scare off the human Disciples of the Lamb by casting a spell to make the river run red as blood. I ruled that getting them all to flee was beyond the game's scale (still Personal) so instead, the player chose to scare off one of the Disciples' leaders, in the hopes he'd take his followers with him. There were two factions among the Disciples - one larger but more peaceful, the other smaller but more likely to flip out in a frothy religious smiting frenzy. The player decided to get rid of the latter, and managed it using a reroll ("a sudden ally" - described as one of the Disciples drinking from the river when it turned to blood, freaking out, and spreading panic among the others). Left with the more determinedly pacifistic humans, Breaker laid down her sword, and with a social conflict kept the humans calm while the trolls passed by.

That was another scenario finished (the Stakes were "does the Child of the Wind (a troll child the cult carried in a palanquin) reach the festival in time"). This time, the player chose to up the stakes!

Fire-Eyes and Monolith were escorting the now-homeless trolls of the Silent Forest (which needs a new name, now) to the Festival of Vagrant Gods, hoping that they'd be able to find someone who knew of lands they could settle, and information about what destroyed the ancient civilisation of Vuhl (in the hopes of using it against the stone god). The festival was attended by all the weirdo troll cults I could think off, including the implacable justice-cult that Monolith belonged to, the Cult of the Ninth Wind, the Wanderers (a new cult in search of a Promised Land, ripped from the Trollbabe book), and the Birdcallers.

At this point, we had all the Trollbabes meet up, and everyone got to talk. I thought things lagged a bit here, but the players were happy being able to do a bit of good old intra-party roleplaying, and it made for a nice change of pace. The session ended with a group of the Rhadamanthine (Monolith's old justice-cult) appearing on the isle with three prisoners with their hands bound around heavy stones they were being made to carry: a wild troll and two humans - a squirrelly pirate who had been one of Yorick the Blue's men and was known to Meg and Breaker, and the man who had saved Monolith from death when her horns were cut off.

My favourite moments were Breaker's spell to turn the river to blood, and her player adding some fantastic elements of colour to the setting (like her and Meg being given wind chimes to carry at the festival to show they were uder the protection of the Cult of the Ninth Wind), and Monolith's confrontation with Harrek. I'd like to go into a bit more depth on how that conflict unfolded, because I really think it showed Trollbabe's rules driving the game forwards. Apologies for the length of the post.

Extended Conflict Example:-

It started with Monolith springing her trap, stamping a foot to bring scree and boulders down on Harrek's band with the declared goal of putting him at her mercy. This was a success, and the player followed it with a spell to curse Harrek - if he hunted again the things of the wild would rise up against him. I called a magic conflict. Her goal was that Harrek change his ways. My failure goal was that the spell still worked, but that Harrek didn't buy it, and ordered his men to attack.

This time, the roll failed, and the player gave immediately, grabbing the opportunity to narrate failure - she described how a cry went up from every wild throat in the land including Cullen who, being a shapeshifter, had something of the wild in him (I added that the spell actually changed his shape, and he took his cat form).

The player immediately declared a Fighting conflict against Harrek's attacking men, won, and defeated them with her ninja troll skillz. As I narrated her victory, I declared another conflict - that Monolith's spell had chosen as the instrument of its vengeance Cullen, who was stalking towards Harrek and about to tear out his throat.

Monolith's player stated she wanted to talk Cullen out of killing Harrek in order to end the cycle of hunter and hunted that was plaguing the land. She failed, used A Sudden Ally as a reroll, having Cullen's father Feargus call out his son's name. This time, she succeeded. Harrek lived, convinced of the power of the curse, and was left a broken man, determined to change his ways. Feargus put Cullen in Monolith's charge, hoping she could help control his growing wildness and keeping him away from Harrek.

The whole sequence was great, and went all sorts of places neither of us expected - that unpredictability is something that makes Trollbabe so much fun for me. I'm also hugely chuffed at how thoroughly that player has taken to the game - she's an experienced GM (which is one reason she's taken so quickly to player-narration), but she's never been what you'd call a rules-monkey. With Trollbabe, though she's grabbed the system with both hands (particularly failure narration) and produces fantastic stuff with it. I think she'd run a great Trollbabe campaign.

[Ron Edwards]

Hooray! Good work on the cutting among scenes; that's a skill that will serve you well for the rest of your role-playing.

And you were the one who was alllllll worried about having trollbabes in the same area.

I do have one minor criticism - those are some weak-ass Stakes. Whether some kid gets to some festival in time? Stakes are supposed to be about drastic outcomes.

Best,
Ron

[Chris Gardiner]

I do have one minor criticism - those are some weak-ass Stakes. Whether some kid gets to some festival in time? Stakes are supposed to be about drastic outcomes.

Yeah, I know. I was seeing the urgency like this: the Festival has a big ritual function to ward off an evil, and the kid's important to its success. But for a start, those stakes aren't Personal, I did make much out of them, and it was all a bit vague - I hadn't decided that, f'rex, the failure of the child to arrive in time would automatically mean the ceremony was a failure.

Looking back on it, a scene in, the adventure became about "Does Luke (one of the leaders of the Disciples) die for his faith?" I wish I'd realised that from the start - I'd have done some things differently, and pushed the schism in the Disciples harder.

I need to do some thinking about the Stakes for next session. What I've got at the moment is "Do the Rhadamanthine execute their prisoners". Monolith's tied into that deeply, Breaker somewhat, and Fire-Eyes and Mountain-Cloud aren't, yet. I've got some bangs that'll involve people, but I'm wondering whether that one set of Stakes is enough for all the players, or whether I should have another scenario and set of Stakes happening at the same time.

I'm thinking that those stakes will be enough, and that the goals of other characters will interact with them in enough interesting ways to drive the session.

[Ron Edwards]

Ha! I spot an opportunity for an object lesson. Contrast:

"Do the Rhadamanthine execute their prisoners"

with

Do the prisoners live or die?

The first one isn't a Stakes statement; the second one is.

Best,
Ron

[Chris Gardiner]

Ok - I've been thinking about this.

"Do the Rhadamanthine execute their prisoners?" makes the game about whether or not the players prevent the NPCs from doing something. Essentially the conflict is a binary "the players stop them/the players don't stop them" deal.

"do the prisoners live or die" doesn't make assumptions about the players' actions. They could choose to side with the Rhadamanthine, dispense justice themselves, intervene on the prisoners' behalf, circumvent the trial process altogether and just bust the prisoners out, try and fail, stand and watch, or whatever. The end condition for the scenario is purely the death, or continued life, of the prisoners, without any restrictions on the events that get us to that point.

Am I close?

/ Crosses fingers

[Chris Gardiner]

Ahem.

Or to put it another way:-

The first one is just about whether a bunch of NPCs take a certain action.

The second one is about the consequences of the interaction of all the involved parties.

[Ron Edwards]

Your first try was close but needed discussion; your second try nailed it.

I hope you can see that the most relevant rule to the Stakes, during play, is "the trollbabe(s) cannot leave the scenario."

Best,
Ron

[Chris Gardiner]

Yep - I get that. I'll be sure to consider it more explicitly when working up stakes for future scenarios.

Thanks for all the help, Ron. It's much appreciated!