[Burning wheel] Trial and tribulations - Very verbose

[Kaare_Berg]

It was time for our third session and this time I was woefully unprepared.

Our two previous sessions can be found here http://www.indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?t=8854 and here http://www.indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?t=9079.

A brief recap
Three of our heroes had rescued Sir Yolains from the clutches of an icetroll. The Icetroll, Kaldbane, came after them into their Valley and they defeated it by convincing some of its followers that they would be given clemency if they surrendered and killing it in the subsequent hard battle.

The cast
Same as before, with a single addition.
Sir Tengel - a pious knight seeking redemtion for crimes unspeified.
Calem - a mage seeking a lost art of magic.
Liam - a rootless ranger who has begun to tie to the two above.
Gorin - a dwarf seeking to rekindle the Eight Virtues in his people.
Sir Locklear - a knight who wishes to join a dying Knightly Order.
Joshua -*new* on the run from his former friends posing as a soldier.

Where we begun
Two weeks after the Battle of Woodford and the players are now seen as heroes. There is the matter of seven surrendered Brigands who have been promised clemency by Sir Tengel, a promise that was not his to give. However all has had to wait for the reward ceremony.

The Game
This time it began with the six all sitting round a table drinking dwarven ale and discussing the recent events.
We were going to do this in character, but all the characters are the non-bragging type, except the dwarf but his player was so hung over it was hard to get anything intelligble out of him the first few hours. So we dropped it.
The only other dwarf in Shiring Vale asked to buy the head of Kaldbane to hang on his wall (for a pathetic sum), and the heroes thought it would be a nice touch that the money should go to the families of the two men that died in the Battle. The dwarf agreed to a years wage for each family, but my players wanted an auction to rise the stakes.

Next day came with the reward cermony and all the heroes where given their just rewards. Tengel and Locklear were given the Southpass as their fief and duty. Tasked with keeping it safe from brigands and trolls, living of the toll they would be allowed to demand. Something they thought was just and useful. Liam the ranger was made protector of the Forests, a sort of Head Scout with an annual stipend. Gorin the dwarf was declared a friend of Shiring Vale and for all time welcome as an honoured guest. And finally the mage, Calem was granted the services of above mentioned knights for an expedition into the ancient ruins in the southeast part of the vale.
This was meant to be the main part of tonights tale, but as things turned out I never got them there, keep reading.
At this stage there was an auction for the Trollhead, an idea the gathered nobles found odd, yet amusing. But then they all agreed Tengel was an unusual man.
A part of the long term goals of my campaign is for the players to rekindle eight neglected virtues and two of the characters Tengel and Gorin are built around this concept. This auction tied in as an attempt from them to make the nobles aware of the virtue of sacrifice.
To much amusement the dwarf Thorgen got the head for much more then he had initially offered and grumbling he paid.

The party went on with Tengel trying to plead the seven brigands case to the Earl, only to be told they would get their trial in a weeks time. Tengel and Locklear then sent Joshua and a NPC called Simon with food to the men in the cells below the Keep.
Like most of the valleys population Simon was of the opinion that the brigands should have been killed and never been allowed to survive and he pulled rank on Joshua to bring the prisoners only stew. Joshua disobeyed and snuck some treats into the stew.
BW has a way of letting it all ride on one roll and this is a wonderful story-mechanic. Joshua's player rolled very well.
The party died down and my players prepared for the trial. Here there was some more interaction between the two men-at-arms Simon and Joshua. With Simon becoming the grumbling NCO and Joshua the shirking private. The fact that Joshua served Locklear and Simon Tengel, gave Joshua some protection from Simon, which he used to snipe at the fuming military man.

The trial came and it was a sombre group of nobles that gathered to watch the proceedings. The case against the Seven was simple: murder, robbery and consorting with creatures of the Shadow (aka trolls). Only three would speak for the accused.
Tengel who spoke of the men's timely defection and that he had given them his word. People shook their heads, but then Tengel was a strange one. The Earl told Tengel that it was not a promise for him to make.
Next Sir Locklear spoke offering an alternative use for the men, siting a need for men to till the lands they had been offered. He was listened to, but few saw the justice in it. These were murderers after all.
Finally Liam the ranger told of the brigand Taft's bravery when he stood up to two Grey Trolls and kept to his part of the bargain.

The three judges (Earl Stennarch, his brother Sir Yolains and son Gondrins) retreated to a chamber to deliberate leaving the characters to their buisness. The lords (Tengel, Locklear, Calem and partly Gorin) debated among themselves and tried to find the reason behind the evil looks between the earl and one of the accused: Barringer.
Tebgel's player commented; "our Lord may have a flaw in his character and this concerns me"
The two "common" men went off so that Liam could train Joshua in forestcraft. They found tracks leading to the from deep in the forest to the keep. No good could come from this.
At first they went to warn the Earl, but his two guards would not let them pass. The Earl had expected Tengel to try to speak to him and forbade it. Our heroes began to search for this intruder who had hidden in the keep for two days.

Much to their suprise the assasin was not after the earl, but after Calem and it was Locklear's credit that the man survived. Suddenly my players discovered the nasty side of suprise.
BW scripts combat and if you fail your hesitation test you have to hesitate as many actions as you lack successes. Only Locklear who spotted the assasin passed.
When the confusion passed Tengel hunted down the assasin and cut him down.
BW makes you roll for hesitation when you recieve a wound that causes you to loose a die. After Tengels first hit, our panicky assasin was finished. It took some doing, but he never gained the initiative, nor the prescense of mind to surrender.
The mage dropped the spell he was casting, was Taxed, cast Turn Aside Blade and was Taxed again and barely created enough successes to raise it.
Despite the player knowing he had no sucesses he kept the spell raised because he figured there was no way Calem would know the level of success.
The would-be assasin was handed over to the surgeon, but would not be able to answer questions for a month. Tengel was again applauded for his bravery and skill at arms, and they all awaited the trial-conclusion.

With out any undue cermony the verdict was read the next morning. Six of the brigands where given a five year tenure as men-at-arms under Tengel, and Simon was to be their sergeant with Joshua as his corporal much to Simon's delight. The last of the seven, Barringer (yes from KODT) who also face the crime of desertion was to be sent to the capital to be sentenced and hung.
Two things of note happened here. Tengel tried to argue Barringer's case and was publicly chasticed. And more importantly Locklear forgot himself and spoke badly of the Lord who has given him so much. His fellow knights looked at him with disgust and the word would soon spread.
We play with a rule that anything a player says his character says, Locklear's player forgot this and said that Barringer knew something that the Lord wanted to keep secret.

A month passed, and the heroes trained for their expedition to the Southern Ruins. At this point they returned to Laranne to interrogate the Assasin.
We played around with the training rules here and they handle this excellently. All praise from us
The interrogation was a failure. The assasin, Aelfric, stole a blade from Joshua, and threw this through the mage's shield. Knowing his true target they went to Thorgen the Dwarf's inn (now named Trollshead Tavern) and drank. Joshua, who had stayed behind to wait for the castle guards, came and told what little he had learned: There was a war on and that they were on the loosing side.
This is the first ingame mentioning of war that is to end the Third Age and it was meant to raise the stakes. Only the dwarf knew what the Assasin meant, but Thorgen forbade him to speak of this to outsiders. The others assumed this meant an invasion of Shiring Vale. (This includes not only characters bu some players)
Yes, I told y'all. I steal Ideas.
For one hour real time my players discussed this piece of information and what to do with Barringer.

The next day they again spoke to Aelfric, and the mage discovered and dispelled a prescense scrying on them. Without his evil master looking out for him. Aelfric told them more. Calem was to die because he was a nuiscance and the rest were insignificant. No more did they learn from him.

Having finished with the assasin they went to speak with Barringer. After some discussion back and fort, a long, oblique conversation with the Earl's wife and futher pressuring of Barringer they learned of an old love triangle, abuse of power and a rival's needless but heroic death. Having the earls motivation for not granting Barringer clemency the Lords (Tengel, Calem and Locklear) discussed how to proceed.
this would take the better part of an hour, and liam's player exasperated pointed out that "they were trying to make assumptions based on knowledge they didn't have and would never get. There was no way to be certain and safe. Take a chance, just do something."
The Others (Liam, Joshua and Gorin) went hunting and were run down by a pack of wolves. Not able to reach the safety of the town they had to make a fire and stave of the wolves. Having wounded some and killed two the wolves slunk back into the night and the three returned just as Tengel and Locklear had finally manned themselves enough to confront Earl Stennarch with his secret.

Again Tengel spoke of the Virtues, and of redemption, while Locklear who by now stood in very poor light with the Earl spoke of matters more practical. They spoke truly and Lord Stennarch gave Barringer a second chance. He would lead the two knights to the lair of Kaldbane's master and aid them in scouting it. The two young men knew that this was both a boon and a punishment for they had presumed much in approaching the Earl in this manner.
I was impressed by Tengel's speech at this point, and they made a good case. They won Barringer's life, but lost much in Earl Stennarch's eyes. They have a lot to prove in the time to come
Again they went back into training for their spring expedition. And it was four o'clock and we called it a night.

Lessons learned

Don't play with Norwegians on the Third day of Christmas if you are not prepared to drag them into action. Plan a high-action adventure and not a social one like what this turned into. (some of them thought they were still drunk when we began around eight. Pm.)

Social adventures require thight time-schedules or my players will wallow and waffle about what-ifs forever. Plenty of events should do it too.

Since my group has sort of polarized into two camps, The Lords (Tengel, Locklear and Calem) and the Commoners (Liam and Joshua) with Gorin somewhere in the middle being a dwarven lord, I need to create social adventures that let both group have much to say and do. My fault here was that this became mainly an Upstairs adventure, and I had little for Downstairs guys to discover.

I had planned the above to take an hour or two. The combination of my players' vested interest in the fate of the Seven, and some great scenes with much fun roleplaying led to the above taking all of our eight hour session.
I never got to what I planned. Again.

K.

[Luke]

The combination of my players' vested interest in the fate of the Seven, and some great scenes with much fun roleplaying led to the above taking all of our eight hour session.
I never got to what I planned. Again.

This doesn't sound like a necessarily bad thing. It looks like your players are enjoying themselves and playing out their characters as they see fit.  As you said, they had "vested interests in the scene." If you want to steer the direction of the games, make sure that at least one of the players' characters has a "vested interest" in what you are planning.  If you can tie in their Beliefs, Instincts and Traits into your scenarios, then you are guaranteed to pique their interest and get their involvement.

-L