7th Sea: Children of the Withered Rose

[jburneko]

Hello All,

I've been kind of quiet in Actual Play for a while.  Both of my regular groups are still rolling along but I wanted to let both games simmer a while before discussing them.  On Saturday I ran the 5th or 6th (I've lost count) session of my 7th Sea game Children of the Withered Rose.  Somethings were revealed that I thought were worth discussing.

First of all, I must say that this is absolutely the best game I have run to date.  Every session (with the exception of a few earlier ones) has been very productive and have moved things along in an exciting and interesting way.  In the self analysis department I'm very pleased with how I am running this game.  I do occasionally have these self reservation about certain moments of play where I feel like I may be being too heavy handed but I think may be mistaking "Getting to the bangs" with "railroading."

Now that play styles and preferences have settled down a bit into something that is consistently fun and entertaining I think the game has, unfortunately, revealed some disfunction at the Social Contract level.  For one player this is particularly tragic because her personal social issues are interfering with her wonderful sense of artistry she puts into her characters.  Ideally the former would be an engine for the latter but that just isn't how it's working out in practice.

In this game she has created a character who is a Vodacce Fate Witch.  She managed to escape Vodacce and marry an Eisen nobleman.  Since then her husband and son have been killed in the many Eisen skirmishes and her only daughter has been married off to a Montaignian noble family.  All very empty nest type stuff.  Durring character creation I told her that this was all very picturesque but that her character needed some motion.  I hadn't asked explicitly for Kickers for this game but each character did have some kind of activity going on.  For example, two of the PCs were engaged to each other.  Anyway she told me that her daughter had written to her and the letter indicated that she had started to develop fate witch powers.  Her character was planing to go visit her.

What has ended up developing over play is that a lot of the other players have criss crossed paths, joined up at one or another time while her character has kind of been isolated in this sort of romancy family drama tied up in the history or sorcery in Theah.  At the end of the last session the player in question made some comment about how the next game we play she wants the rest of us to make her character for her.  We were all a bit baffled.  Some discussion ensued.

Here's my interpretation of the situation.  You see, in the real world this player has a lot of acceptance and abandonment issues and it seems that the issues have transfered into the game world and not in a good way.  From my understanding she is feeling "left out" because her character isn't someone who can "get along with the group."  I tried to explain that it didn't matter to me as a GM.  The other players confirmed that it didn't matter them.  We've all been very engaged and interested in her storyline.  But apparently none of that mattered to her because her character isn't accepted by or useful to the other PCs.

I reflected on this a bit and realized this is a repeat problem with this player.  She builds this BEAUTIFUL "romantic loner" type character.  This character gets involved with romantic loner type situations and then the player complains that she's constantly getting "left behind" by the other PCs no matter how engaged the real-world people are in her character's actions.

On the flip side of all this Saturday also involved perhaps one of the most exciting and pivotal moments of the entire game to date and it happened because I deliberately channeled one particular player's real-world issues into in-game content.

Here's the situation.  This player usually ONLY plays magic weilding characters and if possible fire magic weilding characters.  In D&D, Fireball is this player's most cherished spell.  It is clear to all, including herself, that she has empowerment issues.  She has also made it pretty clear that she dislikes children greatly.  In this game, however, she went out on a limb and is playing a non-magic weilding character.  Instead, she built a large and powerful axe-weilding Eisen woman.  Basically, she traded out blowing things up with smashing them to bits.  She did however take the "Orphaned" background and that's when I got a very interesting idea.

In my scenario Stefan Heilgrund (one of the warlords of the fractious Eisen) is attempting to restore the wiped out sorcery of Eisen by finding two people who are distant decendants of the dead bloodline and getting them to marry and produce offspring who may then exhibit the corrosive powers of Eisen sorcery.  So what I did is make this particular player a decendant of this bloodline.  On Saturday I had Heilgrund make Eva (the PC's name) an offer.  He told her that she contained the bloodline of a powerful sorcerous heritage and that if she married wisely it was possible that her children would exhibit the full power of the bloodline and indeed that such a child at the head of a sufficiently powerful army could reunite Eisen into its former glory.  Stefan then offerend to arrange such a "wise" marriage as he had located a male member of the bloodline.

So you see, I granted the player an incredible power she was incapable of weilding directly and tied the key to unlocking that power to childbirth.  I ended the session just after Heilgrund's offer so I'm very curious as to what she will do.  The other players I think were a bit stunned that I went there but so far I don't think I've upset anyone, particularly the player in question, so we shall see how things develop.

Jesse

[Paul Czege]

I ended the session just after Heilgrund's offer so I'm very curious as to what she will do.

Okay...so it's a month later. What the hell did she do?

Paul

[jburneko]

Hello Paul,

She's entered into a tentaive courting relationship with the man in question with the definite character portrayal that she's the agressor in the courtship.  I've been portraying Gunter as a very well meaning arristocrat who is a bit over whelmed by his bride-to-be's interest in such things as weapons and her past history as a shield-man for an explorer (another PC).

The best part on her end is that the player is very very much playing up an inner conflict.  She's decided that her character really LIKES Gunter but that the thought of being tied down as an arristocrat's dutiful wife scares her.

On my end, I'm having fun playing Gunter's own confusion.  You see, part of his back story is that he's already married and has a child.  Heilgrund is holding them prisoner and is forcing Gunter into this new relationship based on sorcerous ambitions.  But during the last session I decided that Gunter ALSO really likes Eva (the PC).  Gunter's confusion first manifested when Eva made sexual advances toward him.  I had him flip out and flee from the room.

The net result is this sort of wonderfully angsty romance.  The two characters are clearly in love** but can't quite get together because each thinks they're scaring the other off.

**Note: This romance is SO strong I've actually had other players (playfully) threaten me about it out of game.  Because Gunter is clearly hiding something the players in question (not Eva's player) have told me that if he turns out to be evil or in some way hurt Eva they're going to have words with me.  Apparently this relationship is some how "destined" to be and anything I do as a GM to threaten this "true love" is going to be frowned upon.  I've NEVER had my players THAT passionate about an NPC before.  Ever.

Jesse