[Thy Vernal Chieftains] Passion and politics

[Ron Edwards]

They were all adverse, every time. Tim threw me a real nasty one with the ostracism by the town, because it pretty much forced Aebitus Bestia into pro-Celt mode. Even my "storms ravage the coast" was harsh because it meant that as Arthur tried to throw Romans out of town, they literally could not leave without intensive effort and risk and therefore had perfectly sensible reasons to consider him out of line.

As an unrelated point, I was thinking over our story and found that it made sense to me to have taken place so far over a fairly long period of time, as in years. That makes more sense in a lot of ways - for instance, if Arthur as a chieftain is now 39 instead of still 29. It also allows more room for Aebitus Bestia's rather radical reversal toward Nerthach, for the marriage to be comfortably established rather than still-fresh, and for any excitement over Arthur's killing of Corvus to have died down over time. I like the idea of Arthur's family fortune basically hanging over him like a shadow for that long too.

The rules don't stop us from doing that, and I'm not calling for any slavish mechanistic effect (every turn is a summer, blah blah), but perhaps acknowledging the possibibility can call the enjoyable features of this option to readers' attention.

Best, Ron

[Paul Czege]

Yes, I like the possibility of the narrative playing out over many years. We haven't had that happen in our playtest, but George's closure of two Goals last night was effected via a montage.

Paul

[Ron Edwards]

We finished the game! To my surprise, it took four more full turns, which is something I'll discuss more in a minute.

For the fifth turn, Arthur had the Destroying goal to bring Celtic leadership under the Briton justice system. Tim accepted the Trait "tired of fighting" with its Price of a split between druids and secular Celts. This goal remained unclosed.

Aebitus Bestia had the Consuming goal to amass wealth, and as he was now a chieftain, in doing so to bring prosperity to the town (the sting in this was that I said he'd do this by establishing trade with Saxons). I accepted the Trait "viewed as a judge" and the Price that our Romans were hoarding and thus disinclined toward business ventures. I rolled a setback + closure, without Tokens.

I should mention here that Tim and I took care to have all rolls be genuine Fortune in the Middle. That meant that stating a goal, naming Traits, accepting Traits, and naming prices always became stated imagery and action. Something was being said or done by the character along the way, such that the final narration was a mini-ending rather than the beginning of in-fiction play. Both of us absolutely loathe story-boarding play and wanted to enjoy "being with the characters" as much as possible.

For the sixth turn, Arthur had the Consuming goal to subsume neighboring towns' and villages' resources, mainly by teaming up with Saxons. Tim accepted the Trait "tired of being poor" and its Price of Arthur harboring thoughts of suicide, which jarred him a little. This goal underwent progress and closure!

And again, I now had the chance to end the game. Aebitus Bestia had the Destroying goal to burn the druids' Sacred Grove. (Remember, Destroying was his only Sphere without a closed goal; that's why I kept coming back to it when I could.) I accepted the trait "atheist" with its Price of his wife's opposition. I rolled a failure to close the goal, but accepted the Magic token anyway because it fit nicely into the narration.

For the seventh turn, Arthur had the Creating goal to construct a Celtic monument to "remember" their culture, implying an upcoming catastrophe for them. It was a little bit incoherent. I think Tim was getting a little tired and frustrated, and his goal creation was becoming simultaneously flailing and directed toward some story-before. I don't blame him. My failing to end the game on the previous turn was a downturn for both of us. The game had become a grind. Anyway, Tim accepted the Trait "I will be remembered" and its Price of being grievously wounded. (I considered naming the Price "you die" but decided to stay away from that for now.) This goal also underwent progress and closure!

I was a little bit at sea having failed both attempts at Destroying, was fatigued at the thought of busting through two more full turns, and couldn't think of much to do with the character in the other Spheres. I finally decided Aebitus Bestia pursed the Understanding goal of conducting, for lack of a better word, nature tours for Britons and Romans around the Celtic woods and homes. My relatively weak justification was that he started out by assessing possible targets for the eventual purpose of burning the grove, but as time went by, this aim for him and others sort of petered out as people got more into the improved contact. I rejected the offer of the Trait "distrusts Celts" and therefore gained no Price either. This goal underwent Progress + Closure with a single 1, so without Tokens.

For the eighth turn, Arthur's goal was Destroying, specifically to hire Saxons to massacre the druids. Tim rejected my offered trait (I can't remember what it was), and the goal remained unclosed. Again.

Aebitus Bestia had the Destroying goal to neuter druidic political power. I accepted the trait "they want to believe me" with the price of losing someone close. This goal made progress with Song, and closure without a Token. I resolved all three open Destroying goals. First, the druids remained as a cultural feature but became hip and quaint - people got married in the sacred groves and grooved on the secret chants and stuff, but it wasn't really religion any more. The Song came in because I said the sacred songs became popular ballads. The sacred grove was therefore not burned, and in a little fit of vindictiveness, I said that Nerthach was not executed, but grew old watching his religion dwindle even as it was adopted by everyone, with no political power.

Epilogues

Throughout Europe (and with attendant consequences for areas east as well), religion remains personal and does not become an institutionalized, political power. So, uh, that's really a big deal. In Britain (-on?), police/security forces do not develop to their historical extent. We mused that although oppression of that sort doesn't arise, dissent typically escalates to civil strife instead.

Looking over our experience thematically, it is no surprise that politicized religion and security issues were front and center for us. After all, Tim and I mix it up about these issues in real-people political talk all the time.

Rules issues

1. Britons don't close goals. We played eight turns. Tim closed two goals out of eight, and his character was absolutely defined by frustration and impotence that turned to violence. If Britons are supposed to be a constructive blend of Roman and Celtic values, Tim's Arthur was a grim and borderline-evil counter-example. And believe me, I used every Token possible to help him out.

The frustrating thing is that I think play would be wonderfully fun if closing vs. not-closing were both enjoyable outcomes, with one or the other preferred on strictly aesthetic grounds in individual cases. But with one character having such a fucking hard time closing, it (a) put the story-ending totally on me, which led to the sense of a dull grind waiting for the dice to let us end the game; and (b) made closing more valuable and desirable, completely independently of the SIS.

2. The Tokens are not having much effect, because their impact, to remove a 1, was absolutely the opposite of what we wanted to do, having so many rolls with a single 1 (and significantly, so many without any). A lot of the time, we want to use them for the content but do not want to affect the dice. Our game was distressingly lacking in all that Color, or rather, the fun of accepting imposed Color from player to player, due to this issue.

3. Crossing off Traits does not happen enough. I think I understand the concept and I really like the idea of a character's "Trait profile" evolving through play, but the signal to mark a Trait (you don't roll a Continuance and someone else does) is not very interesting and not very common. I suggest that the signal be something that happens more often, and also not to be an if-this-and-this sort of signal, either. One thing: when you roll a 6, when you don't roll a Continuance, when you do roll a Continuance, when you give a Token ... none of these are serious suggestions, but rather illustrating that it can be anything and it should be one thing rather than two.

I think #2 is the most important. If you work with that in some way, then #1 ceases to be an issue. #3 is relatively minor and can be dealt with in isolation.

Best, Ron

[Paul Czege]

Hey Ron,

I should mention here that Tim and I took care to have all rolls be genuine Fortune in the Middle. That meant that stating a goal, naming Traits, accepting Traits, and naming prices always became stated imagery and action. Something was being said or done by the character along the way, such that the final narration was a mini-ending rather than the beginning of in-fiction play. Both of us absolutely loathe story-boarding play and wanted to enjoy "being with the characters" as much as possible.

Could you give me an example of this in some detail. As I wrote earlier, our local playtesting is characterized by a bit too much workshopping. I could use some insight into the character play and dynamics of your not storyboarded back and forth.

And yes, the tokens aren't getting used enough. It's a characteristic of our local playtest as well. There wasn't a single token used in our session last Thursday.

Paul

[Tim C Koppang]

Paul,

Perhaps I can provide an example, although I'm not sure what stage of the game your group is having trouble with.

One of Arthur's goals in the last session was to stamp out bordering tribes by absorbing all of their trade partners.  When I announced my goal, I gave a few reasons as to why Arthur had become so obsessed with domination.  Long story short, it was all linked to his previous inability to reclaim his lost family fortune.  This wasn't a long narration on my part; just a bit of background so that Ron would know what I was thinking.

Ron then suggested the trait, "tired of being poor" and "thoughts of suicide" as the price.  While making these suggestions, Ron offered up a bit of his thoughts as to why the trait/price combination made sense.  Essentially, he was communicating his ideas about where my character was heading.  There wasn't any extensive discussion of the issue; just a suggestion.  As Ron said, I was a bit thrown by his price, but I decided that I liked the twist.

You'll notice that at this point, I hadn't narrated much of anything regarding the fiction of how Arthur did or did not stamp out the bordering tribe.  We waited until after the dice hit the table.  On the other hand, we both had a pretty solid grounding as to what Arthur was up to.

My first roll was a continuance, and I narrated how Arthur befriended the Saxon invaders and made his way up the coast -- essentially with a band of thugs for some intimidation.  I stopped my narration just as we were entering the town to the north.  It wasn't clear how the villagers would react.  They were afraid of us, sure, but I had no idea if they would react with violence or some other form of rejection.

My second roll was a closure (hurray!).  My narration was all about how the villagers basically gave in.  Arthur and his gang bullied the village into submission.  We took what we wanted, and made it clear that all trade ships should be sent down south.  The penalty for disobeying would be a Saxon smack-down.

Finally, on the voyage back, I narrated a bit about Arthur's regrets.  With him staring out into the ocean, he mused about how far he'd fallen.  And of course he contemplated throwing himself overboard in an effort to repent for his sins.

Throughout these narrations, Ron may have offered up a few clarifying suggestions, but it was largely up to me.  There wasn't much back and forth.  Minor revisions aside, it was understood that what I was narrating was the story's fiction as it was happening.

---

Paul, I hope this helps.  I'll be honest, I'm not exactly sure what sort of trouble you're group is experiencing.  Perhaps you could give me a counter-example?

[Ron Edwards]

Hi,

My take is that there are several points at which narration, or the description of the fiction, can be applied.

1. Just before the statement of the goal

2. Just after the acceptance/rejection of offered traits

3. After the various rolls (this is where the text says "narrate")

4. At the very end of the turn, i.e., after others' narrations

I want to stress that I'm not talking about formal SIS back-and-forth among players within any of these. There's no need for GMing one another, or for me to say, "OK, you play the Celt chief ..."

What I'm talking about is simply the potential existence of 1, 2, and 4. In my scene with amassing wealth, I did #2, describing before the roll how Aebitus Bestia had a number of notables over for meetings and snacks, one by one, as my wife (whom they all used to cut dead) served them trays as a respected hostess.

I could have done this after the roll, sure, but it helped me a lot to do this first. I like my fiction re-visited or re-entered if you will, at a fairly constant during play, and as I mentioned earlier, to a certain extent before the roll as well as after.

I'm not suggesting that any of this be mandated except for #3, which it already is. What I'm suggesting is that a given group may consider being open to the additional narrational opportunities for people to use as they like. I know that at the very beginning of play, I had an image in mind of Aebitus Bestia looking at his father's sword and stepping out of his house in the morning looking very un-soldierly (kind of weedy, friendly-seeming). I wish I'd stated it at that point (#1) because it informed my thinking throughout that crucial first turn.

Basically, when you imagine something that you like, and as long as you don't introduce a goal, adversity, or decisive actions about them when you shouldn't, then say it. That's where I'm coming from.

Best, Ron