[TSoY] 1-on-1 Play - Divorcing TSoY from Near and other questions

[Yokiboy]

Hello,

We're about to play some TSoY for the first time. The game will have me SG'ing and just one player. Our weekly RPG group normally consists of four participants, but one is working abroad this fall, while another has some relationship troubles, leaving just two of us. We are not sure how story gaming will work out 1-on-1, as we're so used to having a revolving spotlight and everyone helping out with story ideas.

We first created a pulp hero for Spirit of the Century, but later started reminiscing about old unfinsished (A)D&D campaigns and started flipping through old adventures that we have played. In particular we once again found ourselves flipping throught he many maps of the Temple of Elemental Evil, with my friend asking me about the adventures backstory (for the hundreth time) and me saying that it really didn't have much of one.

Anyhow, we decided to take my friend's favorite old (A)D&D character, Lam'Ber'T the Paladin (alt), who has lived through numerous iterations and fast-forward his story several years. We aged him a decade or so, in which he's turned decadent, alcoholic and down on his luck. He's now down in the gutter, out of shape, without his holy powers, and decides to try and right his life.

We looked at different fantasy systems and decided to give TSoY a try. We're both FUDGE and FATE fans, but wanted to give something new a try. Now to my TSoY specific questions. A lot of mechanics support involving other characters, such as Refreshing Pools, Gift Dice, etc. How do you think the a 1-on-1 game will develop, what should I watch out for? I like how the Refreshing Pools mechanics will force him to get close to SGCs (NPCs), so that should drive the game quite well I think.

In a 1-on-1 TSoY game should I just drop Gift Dice? Oh, if we used them, would I as the SG get one or two dice, I know the rules state that the SG gets Gift Dice equal to the number of players, but is he included in those totals? Although since it's just one player one SG, Gift Dice seem to lose their purpose somewhat, unless they can be awarded to the SG?

Now to the topic of this post, we will not be using Near as our setting, instead going with a stereotypical AD&D setting (think everyone's Greyhawk mashup). Is there anything we should watch out for in divorcing TSoY from Near? Should we develop our own setting's cultures ala the ones in Near, or for a game of TSoY THAC0 should we simply not bother?

What do you think?

TTFN,

Yoki

P.S. Sorry for rambling, I've had a bad migraine and followed it up by getting sloshed.

[Eero Tuovinen]

Hmm, that's certainly an unique situation you have there. Some notes:

I'd use Gift Dice, two per player. It's not much, but then it shouldn't be, when there's only two of you. You can take them as a clap in the back: when you like what the other player is doing, pay him a compliment with a gift die. The fact that the die would always be against yourself will only further help differentiate between the interests of the player and interests of the character, which is good.

I would also consider playing without a SG, to get two player characters. It's probably not a good idea for your first time out with TSOY, though.

For cultures, I would not bother with the full treatment when you only have one player character. The only exception is if the story will be about that character's position between two cultures, in which case you obviously should have some crunch for the player to choose over. This same holds true for whatever the point of play will be: create crunch related to the scenario before play begins. If the scenario will be about fulfilling the expectations of others, then perhaps some social role -related Secrets or stuff that helps characters slide or sustain themselves might be in order, as an example. Or if the game will be about regaining divine power, then you'll need to figure out how that stuff works in your setting.

Other than that... do not fear to frame scenes aggressively and to invent situation material. In 1-on-1 games there's sometimes this feeling that the GM has to be extra careful to not walk over the single player, as the powers and authority are so lop-sided. To combat that, I recommend being very open about the gamemastering process and the situation you're building. Get the other player involved in choosing where the story is going.

[Clinton R. Nixon]

Eero answered this with way more hope than I would. I feel bad that so many of my replies are "TSOY is not the best game for your situation," but sometimes that's just true. It's really intended for a GM + 3-6 players. It also works best in its own setting, as there's pretty specific choices made about people's abilities and power level that tie into the setting. For a D&Dish setting, for example, it's expected that a 1st level peasant has no chance of harming a 12th-level warrior, but in TSOY, the two are not so very far apart in what they can do.

Anyway, that doesn't mean I'm not flattered that TSOY is the game you want to play with one other player. Go for it, and let us know what made it work or not work for you.

[Yokiboy]

Thanks Eero, that's very solid advice.

A follow-up questions, how does TSoY handle narration rights? What can the players narrate into the game through free-play, and conflict resolution narration?

For instance, If we compare TSoY to The Burning Wheel, where players can call for Circles Tests to generate characters into existance, and Wises (a type of knowledge skill) are used to add facts to the overall story. We could also compare it to Spirit of the Century and its Assessments and Declarations. Is there something similar in TSoY?

As I was typing this Clinton posted his reply, and I hear you Clinton. I raised a similar concern to the player in question, that we're messing with a working formula. Now for the good news, we don't have any of those D&D expectations, and are just using some of the cool stuff out of a couple of published scenarios as Key Scenes. You could compare it to your comment about "a knife fight under a waterfall" in your guidelines to play prep. We're just grabbing some cool bits, that's all.

The story itself will, at least from the outset, concern itself with the redemption of the PC. He wants to turn his life around, but is conflicted about how to go about this. He has basically turned into a joke of his former self, a drunken joke of a man, that brags about adventures of old, with nobody believing him anymore.

The player is separating from his girlfriend at the moment, so I'm going to play on that, by having the one person in the world that's still sympathetic to him being a mirror image of sorts of his ex. We'll see how that goes.

Anyhow, points well taken, I'm off to play now.

Thanks guys,

Yoki

[Andrew Cooper]

Yoki,

Narration rights...  TSoY doesn't explicitly define who can say what about the fiction.  It's left free in the rules for the group to define to their taste.  I played in a TSoY session at Go Play Southeast where the players had the right to narrate all sorts of stuff into the fiction that were outside the limits of "their guy".  In fact, that kind of player narration was pushed, especially if we had won a conflict of some sort.  In my play at home, the narration rights are divided in a much more traditional way.  The GM generally frames all the scenes and narrates outcomes unless a player specifically asks to do so.  This is more comfortable for my players.  Neither of these methods is actually specified in the book; although, some of the examples have the players exercising some fairly broad narration rights. 

Having said that, with two players I'd share narration rights very evenly and broadly.  There's only two of you so I wouldn't restrict much of what anyone can narrate unless your 1 player isn't comfortable with that level of freedom.

[Yokiboy]

Having said that, with two players I'd share narration rights very evenly and broadly.  There's only two of you so I wouldn't restrict much of what anyone can narrate unless your 1 player isn't comfortable with that level of freedom.

Andrew, The player is very comfortable with the freedom you mention. We've been playing Dogs in the Vineyard, Primetime Adventures, and The Burning Wheel lately, but we where just wondering if we missed the game's official stance on the subject.

We did end up playing for just a short while today, but we had a lot of fun. The player was really playing up some conflicting keys, and we had a good start to our 1-on-1 game. Perhaps I'll post more of an AP later

TTFN,

Yoki

[Eero Tuovinen]

A follow-up questions, how does TSoY handle narration rights? What can the players narrate into the game through free-play, and conflict resolution narration?

Andrew has the right of it, I think: keep the narration rights very equal between the players when you only have two. I was trying to get at this with my comment about not having more players "against" the authority of the SG.

Other than that, I think it's very nice to see the approach you're taking with this. The whole "let's take some cool stuff from an old campaign and fuzz about with it a bit" is very much something I'd like to do more myself. No pressure to perform, just a small group with too much time and a shared fiction in their hands. And the personal touch of knowing the other person and engaging in a dialogue via the game is very appealing to me as well. I hope it proves entertaining; basicly I agree with Clinton that you're definitely doing stuff that's not particularly supported by TSOY, so you're effectively on your own with it. Which is, of course, a good thing if you take it as such.

One thing you might want to do as a nigh-traditional GM in a 1-on-1 situation is to do a few NPC scenes as necessary to develop strong NPC personalities. What I'm envisioning here is short vignettes about "what the NPCs are doing meanwhile somewhere else". This might help take the pressure off the single PC when he needs a breather. It's also an opportunity to engage the other player without engaging his PC, if you ask him to participate in giving input to the fates of the NPCs.

[Yokiboy]

We had a great start to our game, and quickly established several interesting SGCs and set pieces, plus really driving home how desperate Lam'Ber'T's situation is, and how downtrodden and hurting he is.

Here's Lam'Ber'T Lejonklo ("Lion's Claw" in Swedish:
Concept: Downtrodden, both morally and physically, ex-paladin.

I framed the first scene. Where we saw Lam'Ber'T being picked out of the gutter by sweet Adele Niel, the young waitress at his local watering hole. She asked, "Sir Lam'Ber'T, you really should be going home. Can I help you?" Lam'Ber'T being severely hungover and reeking of booze decided to kiss her, with the intent of bedding her.

I proclaimed that she has the Key of Love with Lam'Ber'T, noted again that she's at least half his age, and that the stakes where that he would badly hurt her feelings by acting like the bad drunk he is after the sex. The result was that Lam'Ber'T after getting off pays her with, "Here's some gold coins, now leave me be." and handing her some copper coins, while rummaging through his messy one-room apartment for something to drink. Adele exits barely dressed with tears streaking down her face.

[Note Lam'B'er'T's player had come over to game, because he couldn't stand to be at home, while his ex-girlfriend was moving out of his aparatment. She was less than half his age too.]

Lam'Ber'T finds an earthen jug of moonshine, and takes a deep drought, but sees himself in the mirror and

[Yokiboy]

Ugh, I had to leave the keyboard, and accidentally submitted my post without completing it. Why no edit function?

Anyhow, here's the PC's stats:

Lam'Ber'T Lejonklo ("Lion Claw" in Swedish)
Concept: Downtrodden, both morally and physically, ex-paladin.
Vigor: 3, Instinct: 2, Reason: 6

Secrets:
Secret of Speciality (Diplomacy): making opponent's give up without a fight.
Secret of Scribing

Keys:
Key of the Mission: to redeem himself and become a real paladin again.
Key of the Coward: he is afraid that he can no longer walk the walk, just talk the talk.
Key of Bloodlust: he's yearning to trounce someone, but lacks the confidence.

Abilities:
Adept: Resist (R), Diplomacy (R)
Competent: Discern Truth (I), React (I), Knight (V)
Unskilled: Endure (V)

I framed the first scene, in which we saw Lam'Ber'T being picked out of the gutter by sweet Adele Niel, the young waitress at his local watering hole. She asked, "Sir Lam'Ber'T, please get up, can I help you home?" Lam'Ber'T being severely hungover and reeking of booze decided to kiss her, with the intent of taking her home to bed her.

I proclaimed that she has the Key of Love with Lam'Ber'T, noted again that she's at least half his age, and that the stakes where that he would badly hurt her feelings by acting like the bad drunk he is after the sex. The result was that Lam'Ber'T and Adele had some sloppy sex, and after getting off Lam'Ber'T pays her out of habit, "Here's some gold, now leave me be," and handed her some copper coins. This while rummaging through his filthy, little one-room apartment for something strong to drink. Adele runs away barely dressed with tears streaking down her face.

[Note Lam'B'er'T's player had come over to game, because he couldn't stand to be at home, while his ex-girlfriend was moving out of his aparatment. She was less than half his age too.]

Lam'Ber'T finds an earthen jug of moonshine, and takes a deep drought, but sees himself in the mirror and is disgusted with his mirror image. He throws the jug into the mirror promising himself that that's the last time he had a drink.

He then tries to clean himself up to go and apologize to Adele. He fails miserably and leaves with a bad comb-over, washed pits, but wearing his soiled shirt, and still reeking of booze. This left him with penalty dice for the next conflict.

Next we see him outside the Chirping Nightingale, about the only dive in town that still serves him. He's holding some flowers he has obviously picked out of someone's flowerbed. Adele's father, and barkeep Saugrin Niel intercepts him as Lam'Ber'T steps throught he door. Saugrin does not want to let Lam'Ber'T se Adele, and decides to throw him out the door. Lam'Ber'T's intent is to convince Saugrin to back down. Not so, Lam'Ber'T once again finds himself face down in the gutter and sadly limps home.

He runs into his landlord, Mrs. Zunker, along with three goons throwing his stuff out in the street and putting anything of value in a small donkey cart. On top of the pile is his plate mail. Lam'Ber'T tries to persuade them to give it back to him, but Mrs. Zunker wants the money she's owed, and will "melt the old piece of junk and sell the metal." We enter a conflict where Lam'Ber'T tries to use his Diplomacy to bargain with them to get to keep the armor, while Mrs. Zunker and her goons wants it for overdue rent.

Lam'Ber'T once again loses, but decides that he's not satisfied and Brings Down the Pain!

Here we ran out of time, Lam'Ber'T took a 1 Harm, but then we had to wrap up, and will be continuing next week.

We did pass some Gift Dice back and forth, but couldn't find in the rules if they're used up, or remain with the player that received them to be passed on again on his part?

Overall it was a very good start to what we wanted to accomplish, and so far TSoY is helping us with the fun. We hit Keys a couple of times, Lam'Ber'T has earned 2 XP so far.

Sorry for the prior incomplete post,

Yoki

[hix]

Apparently, the dice disappear.

[Yokiboy]

Thanks Steve,

Yoki

[Yokiboy]

I posted a full Actual Play report on my own Web site.

I'm very much looking forward to playing again.

TTFN,

Yoki

[Eero Tuovinen]

Nice to know that you're doing well with it. The whole attitude you guys bring to the game is something I'd expect of, how do they put, "dirty hippie storygamers" playing Best Friends.

As the SG, any idea where the game's going? If it were me, I'd build Mrs. Zunker up as an antagonist that threatens not only material possessions of Lambert's, but also his relationship to the rest of the community (and Adele, to be specific). Also, being me, I'd probably reveal a couple of sessions later that Mrs. Zunker is actually involved in something much bigger and more evil, giving Lambert an opportunity to scale that ladder towards reneved paladinghood. But then, I like doing sappy Hollywood stories with TSOY.

[Yokiboy]

I don't think "sappy Hollywood stories" is exactly what we're after, but your ideas are cool. However, I haven't prep'ed anything for this game, we're both just winging it, and will probably continue that way for now. I'm not quite sure what we'll end up with.