[1st Quest] Wolves of the World Tree

[andrew_kenrick]

Last night I ran a playtest session of 1st Quest, Judd's new game. We played through the World Tree Pack tutorial from the book - essentially you play members of a wolf pack roaming the World Tree of Norse myth, fighting mythical beasts and trying to avoid the encroaching humans.

We ran through the tutorial that is included in the book, although re-tooled it as an extended form of character creation, which worked really nicely. So we came up with concepts and names and abilities, then framed a conflict scene apiece; then we picked banners, and framed a scene related to one of those to gain some xp; then we spent an advance on buying a ring and assigned pools, and played a related scene. Finally we played a scene for pool refreshment, and ended up by assigning scores to the rest of our abilities and spending the remaining advances.

As is customary for our games, I've made a wiki where we've got the characters up. So far we have Boo, the inquisitive runt who could talk with humans, and Minsk, the sly raven whose shrill cry could wake the spirits and gods of the Tree.

We started off with a first conflict with Boo where he tried to hunt a large beast through the forest, a giant elk with 4 great antlers, eyes like burning coal and hooves like sharp rocks. He failed, and found himself far from home and lost.

Minsk framed a conflict where he flew to meet a new pack that had moved into the area and negotiate some sort of peace with them. He succeeded, and well, and formed a friendship with their alpha.

As one of his banners, Boo had the Banner of the Human Friend, so we framed a scene where he found a human child playing in the snow, but as he nuzzled her the elk returned and tried to trample him and the child. Boo tried to scare the elk off with a loud growl but failed, getting trampled underfoot. Boo opted to make a stand and try to drive the elk off with his teeth, and successfully did so.

Meanwhile, as Minsk returned from his negotiations he spotted smoke rising from over a hill, and flying to investigate found it was a group of humans chopping down trees and burning a great fire. He flew close, hoping to scare them off by pretending to be one of Odin's ravens. The lumberjacks saw through his trickery and shot him with an arrow. Minsk opted not to make a stand though, and fled. When he returned to the pack he persuaded the hesitant and unsure alpha, Weren, to send some scouts to keep an eye on the humans.

Once Boo had chased the beast off he used his Ring of the Human Tongue to ask the child where her pack was, and was told that her father and his friends were busy chopping down trees not far away, to make fire. Boo didn't understand what she meant by making fire, but his curiosity was piqued and the girl told him about wild how men could tame fire. As they talked, Boo heard voices approaching so bid her farewell and ran home.

After speaking with Weren, Minsk used his Ring of the Gods' Howl to call up the Spirit of the Forest to find out more about what the humans intended. The spirit told him that the humans were defiling the tree spirits and causing great pain and suffering. Minsk reassured it that the wolves would drive them off soon enough.

Boo found his way back to his pack where he spoke to Elder Balder about humans and their ways, asking him whether it was true that men could tame fire (this was Boo's refresh for his civilisation pool). Balder warned him about such things as dallying with humans, telling him they were arrogant and ignorant, and no man (or wolf) could truly tame fire.

Minsk refreshed his Howl pool by picking juicy lice out of one of the wolf scout's fur.

So using the tutorial as a prolonged character creation session worked well, although I'm not entirely sure that's how it intended. It's created some good characters as well as setting up a fantastic conflict and dilemma for next week (do they drive the humans away, and can they do so without harming Boo's new friend?) when we play properly.

[Judd]

Andrew,

The tutorial was inspired by two things:

• 
  Accomplishments in Dogs in the Vineyard's chargen
  
  Playing Battle Lore and learning to play through playing a set sequence of battles.

So, the way you used the tutorial was splendid.  Thank you for doing so.

Did you feel like after the tutorial the players at the table had a decent grip on how the rules worked?

It sounded like those conflicts were ready to feed into the beginnings of your campaign, which is fantastic.

Thank you so much for playing.

[andrew_kenrick]

I think the tutorial worked wonderfully. It introduced the players to the rules piece by piece, as well as (inadvertantly, I must say), setting up a juicy situation for the beginning of the campaign. By the time we were done the players had a firm grip on the rules and on the setting, and I don't think you can ask for much more than that. I wouldn't hesitate to use it like that again, and wholeheartedly urge you to underscore its usefulness as such in the book.

[Judd]

I think the tutorial worked wonderfully. It introduced the players to the rules piece by piece, as well as (inadvertantly, I must say), setting up a juicy situation for the beginning of the campaign.

Do ya think it was inadvertent?

3 conflicts set up by the player and the GM together with the cornerstone skills of each campaign world.  Play that leads into two Banners and then play surrounding the new powers the player buys with said XP?  I'm not sure that's inadvertent, seems like it is working just like I wanted it to.

I'm glad it worked for ya.  I will be careful about how I introduce the tutorials in the text.

Thanks again.

[andrew_kenrick]

Do ya think it was inadvertent?

3 conflicts set up by the player and the GM together with the cornerstone skills of each campaign world.  Play that leads into two Banners and then play surrounding the new powers the player buys with said XP?  I'm not sure that's inadvertent, seems like it is working just like I wanted it to.

I'm glad it worked for ya.  I will be careful about how I introduce the tutorials in the text.

I think it was inadvertant by me as the GM, not by the rules or your design - I never went into the tutorial intending to get a ripe situation out of it. If that was the intention of your design, then I must say it worked perfectly.

As an aside we only ran 1 conflict at the start, with each player picking one of their skills to have a conflict in, which seemed to work nicely too.