[Shooting the Moon] first game and rules questions

[Moreno R.]

Hi!

Today me and two friends of mine played for the first time "Shooting the Moon" and we have some questions about the rules.

Character creation went without problems: we decided for a setting between "Raiders of the Lost Ark" and the old Tarzan movies with Johnny Weissmuller. The Beloved was a French woman Archaeologist who wanted to organize a spedition in a unesplored zone of Africa to find the place where Prester John hid the Graal, her Dream was to restore the reputation of her father, a famous archaeologist reputed mad for his theories. Suitor 1 (played by me) was a English agent, his mission was to join her expedition and, if she found the Graal, take it back to London in secret (this was my Conflict), Suitor 2 was a German official who had already searched for the Graal for months with no results and was already ordered to go home by his superiors (that was his conflict). The prize was to be the one who would discover the Graal with her.

The problems with rule interpretation came with the first hurdle. The scene was established at the table of a bar, with the English agent (in the guise of a local hunter) talking with the Beloved about joining her expedition as a guide. The hurdle was the other suitor arriving at the table saying that he did know the zone much better, having organized other expedition already. The Opposition won the rolls (both the first and the second) but at the end there was some problem with the range of "power" of the narration of the outcome. He wanted to narrate that, after the Beloved did choose him, I would have begun to smash tables and heads in an uncontrolled rage. I replied that that was outside of the narration of a conflict outcome.

First question: What can and can't be narrated by the opposition after winning the roll? It's like PTA or other games where you narrate the outcome of the conflict ONLY and you can't force other player's character to do something not at stake, or the opposition player can narrate anything he wants?

Second question: from the examples, the trait suggested for the second pool by the opposition can be really punitive. But what about the other trait, the one that can be assigned at the end? It has to be derived from the events of play, or can be anything?

Later, during another hurdle, we had another problem with a rule interpretation: what does mean exactly "three responses"? At the same time? In sequence? Anyway we want? This problem came up because the hurdle I used on him was a sedition from his own soldiers. He questioned (violently) a soldier to learn what was happening, I told him that I had no problem with the soldier talking, but that was his first response. Then, learning what was happening, he could narrate the second and the third. He objected that in his opinion the responses had to be at the same time, so that one could not be one of them, and seeing that he had to know the hurdle to respond to it.  We resolved this during the game, but we have still doubts about the way the 3 responses work: they are at the same time or they can be sequenzial, one depending on the success of the previous one? (third question)

Fourth question: in the Beloved turn, the hurdles her player create for the suitors can be completely different, or they have to be tied in some way?

Fifth question: in the Beloved turns, the suitors players can get 5 dice if they sacrifice a trait. One of the traits of suitor 2 was "unarmed" from a previous hurdle, so he narrated how he stole a gun and wanted 5 dice for changing "unarmed" to "armed and dangerous", I objected that it wasn't a substantial change of the character, so he changed another trait, turning "prisoner" to "deserter" (and we agreed that turning deserter was a big enough change). But it seems that this rule is really open to abuse, so much that I was in doubt it applied only to attributes, not to the Traits.

[Emily Care]

Moreno! I missed your post.

First question: What can and can't be narrated by the opposition after winning the roll? It's like PTA or other games where you narrate the outcome of the conflict ONLY and you can't force other player's character to do something not at stake, or the opposition player can narrate anything he wants?
You narrate the outcome of the conflict.

Second question: from the examples, the trait suggested for the second pool by the opposition can be really punitive. But what about the other trait, the one that can be assigned at the end? It has to be derived from the events of play, or can be anything?
It should be derived from the events of play.

Later, during another hurdle, we had another problem with a rule interpretation: what does mean exactly "three responses"? At the same time? In sequence? Anyway we want? This problem came up because the hurdle I used on him was a sedition from his own soldiers. He questioned (violently) a soldier to learn what was happening, I told him that I had no problem with the soldier talking, but that was his first response. Then, learning what was happening, he could narrate the second and the third. He objected that in his opinion the responses had to be at the same time, so that one could not be one of them, and seeing that he had to know the hurdle to respond to it.  We resolved this during the game, but we have still doubts about the way the 3 responses work: they are at the same time or they can be sequenzial, one depending on the success of the previous one? (third question)
The responses narrated in sequence, but rolled all at the same time. You make a single die pool that you then roll to see what the outcome is.


Fourth question: in the Beloved turn, the hurdles her player create for the suitors can be completely different, or they have to be tied in some way?
They can be different, or the same. Do what makes sense in your story.

Fifth question: in the Beloved turns, the suitors players can get 5 dice if they sacrifice a trait. One of the traits of suitor 2 was "unarmed" from a previous hurdle, so he narrated how he stole a gun and wanted 5 dice for changing "unarmed" to "armed and dangerous", I objected that it wasn't a substantial change of the character, so he changed another trait, turning "prisoner" to "deserter" (and we agreed that turning deserter was a big enough change). But it seems that this rule is really open to abuse, so much that I was in doubt it applied only to attributes, not to the Traits.
Since it can only be used once per a Beloved's turn, I've used a fairly liberal interpretation with this rule. Traits or attributes are open to sacrifice. Changing armed to unarmed, especially armed and dangerous does seem like a fairly big change to the character as well.