[Whispering vault] unsatisfying first session

[montag]

Short-version:
So I ran my first game of Whispering Vault and it sucked. IMO that is, players said it was ok. I take most of the blame, though I think it's fair to say the game itself was not entirely ... supportive.


This is organised into two sections, the What, a brief account of the session and the Why, my thoughts on why – for me – the session was bad.

The What
Prep: I couldn't find the time to fully read "Dangerous Prey", as Ron recommended in this thread(Prep-Advice for Whispering Vault wanted), I just managed to read the Adventure ideas. Most of them struck me as "Shadowruns", that is, adventures following a mission model. However, I really liked the longer scenario in the book, which reminded me of Twin Peaks and which thus eventually became my "vision" of what the session should be like.
I had and R-map, a couple of ideas from the TV-series, a Pain Mother NPC to help out and hoped to manage the rest during play.
I arrived late, having fallen asleep after 40+ hours without sleep and lots of other troubles on my mind.
Char-gen went well, though it took some time and didn't go as smoothly as I had hoped. Eventually we had two PCs: Selen a druid who's spiritual leadership of her community was weakened by her quest for the Unbidden. Her estrangement eventually reached the point where she did not care that the Roman centurion from the nearby fort abducted several of the village's women, though she turned the furies (Stalkers) on the Roman, when she found out he was an Unbidden's minion. Her keys were devotion, vengeful, judgemental and memory of the romans. The other PC, Jaques, was a Frankish Templar who had encountered the Unbidden on a crusade, was excommunicated for seeking help in Rome and refusing to renounce his testimony and ended up in Hungary, where he sought to protect the locals but eventually led the men he had gathered around himself to their doom. His keys were pride, conviction, courage and the memory of his excommunication.
We had a small break here, during which I tried to assemble some ideas for a plot. Since the Twin Peaks idea fit well with Selen (mapping: enigma=black lodge; Bob=Unbidden) I decided to use it as a rough basis, having an unbidden motivated by a desire to protect its creation, from industrial poisoning. To play up to the character of Jaques I decided to have the Unbidden trying to help and being rejected by humans and work in some authority-obedience stuff both on a spousal level and – through the sherif – on the community scale.
The call and the journey through the navigator went well, the guardian was ordered aside with proper Stalker attitude, and I was pretty happy to see both players assume their roles with grace.
The supplicant was a twelve-year-old girl, whose rabbit had turned strange and who had notices "strange things" occurring in the forest. She initially fled from the PCs, but once her father was persuaded of the Stalker's good intentions, Selen got a change to read the girl's mind and learned more about the rabbit (a husk for a minion). They also learned of the strange disappearance of a Mrs. Meyers, who used to run the general store in town (though the father was convinced she was merely on vacation) [This was meant as a case of the dream trying to repair itself, hiding the enigma].
Instead of going into town to investigate [and become involved with the various NPCs], Jaques used his trackers to find the nearest creature of essence.
The met the pain mother playing with Jaques' wolves on the road. I played her very friendly but a bit creepy, and kept the players in the dark as to what creature they'd encountered. Eventually the pain mother asked for Jaques arm (well, that of his vessel actually) in return for her help [I'd planned that]. On, what I'd describe as a mad impulse, Selen's player decided to attack the pain mother at this point. After they'd killed her, they burned the body and stole her car, at which point I had the local sherif round the corner in his car. In retrospect, what I saw as another chance to get involved with the local community or make a statement about the Stalker's attitutde towards humans might have seemed like punishment for killing the GM's NPC to the players. That was not the intent, but it might have come across as such, I forgot to ask afterwards
I had expected the players to either talk their way of it or kill the sherif as well, but they decided to flee.
I resolved the car chased with some dexterity rolls, the PCs got a away, but now approached town, where the deputy was trying to stop them. Selen drove their car off-road and translocated into the nearby forest, while Jaques translocated to the deputy's car and stole it while the deputy was busy with Selen. On driving away, Jaques got to play chicken with the sherif, won, destroyed the car and rejoined Selen in the forest.
Figuring the whole R-map concept had basically gone out of the window I occupied them with a behemoth (found by Jaques' trackers again) to get some time to consider what to do about the adventure, whether there was a way to involve them with the townspeople or whether I should just have them find the Unbidden, trash it and be done for the day. Just when I had resolved in favour of the latter option, the player's had an IC conversation on whether to use Jaques' mold discipline to assume new identities and enter town, but they decided against it, so we were on the same page in that matter.
Trackers found the Unbidden, but its appeal to mercy on behalf of the poisoning of the forest through the waste from a factory which just _had_ to be dealt with met little sympathy (the Aesthetic had abandoned its post because it wanted to protect what it had helped create). The fight was pretty dramatic, Selen eventually sacrificed herself to allow Jaques to bind the Unbidden (I ruled Jaques could bind Selen as well, and release her once they're back in the realm of essence).

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The Why:
I didn't like the session since – to me – it seemed to lack depth. The difference between what happened and a straight dungeon crawl, hack 'n slash game was minimal IMO and I wasn't out for that kind of game.
As stated in the quick summary above, most of the blame falls on me:
I was not prepared well enough, and had to consult the rules several times, which was bad for the game in that it broke continuity.
I shouldn't have arrived late and I certainly shouldn't GM when I got lots of other troubles on my mind. I've noticed this in the past, but forgotten about it, but basically I suck as a GM when I'm not in the right mood, enthusiastic about play and relaxed. Under these circumstance I tend to get inflexible and my creativity – which isn't that impressive to start with ;) – just tanks and I fall back on cliché stuff.
In the present game, this meant I had trouble responding appropriately to the player's decisions at several key points (after meeting the supplicant, the pain mother, the sherif) and became to fixed on the stuff I'd "planned", whereas with a more relaxed attitude I might have managed deal with these situations more gracefully, been more responsive to the player's input and could just have gone with the flow.

However, I think I can shift some of the blame to the rules, so this thread might have use beyond noting "One shouldn't GM when one is tired, tense and unprepared."
- The structure of the hunt IMO encourages mission style play, which in turn makes old habits kick in (Enter-kill-loot-leave).
- The emphasis on the aloofness of the Stalkers in the game text IMO works a bit like the windflower law in Nobilis, in that player's a supposed to break this and get involved with the NPCs. In Nobilis this is communicated by other rules, I couldn't find something similar in WV. So other than outright stating that player's are supposed to "play against char-concept", what else should one do?
- Using task resolution in combat is horrible. It kicked all of us straight back into "I hit, you hit" mode, so fights were rather un-inspiring. Granted, it was better than stuff based on the use of a particular weapon, but I really prefer conflict resolution for combat these days. (Note: I'm aware that task resolution works wonderfully for other people. Just not for us – yet.)
- Trackers: I may have missed something important about them, if so, please tell me, but as it stands I can only wonder "What were they thinking?". What's the point of having a servitor which can find the nearest creature of essence? When Trackers are used, as the GM I can either throw in a minion, a shadow or the unbidden, or in other words, one of the following scenes must take place: an essence-NPC, a fight which delays, or the final confrontation. Now, in theory a player could use them only when he or she wants to signal the desire for a fight or the end of the hunt, but that imposes an – IMO unnecessary – strain on credibility, in that characters have to do incredibly stupid things to keep the story from becoming a chase for the next clue. I don't mind chars doing stupid stuff or justifying things in retrospect, but there's a point where it gets silly and to me, not using trackers is beyond that point.
- Translocate is somewhat similar, in that it makes avoiding decisions/conflict easier. So as the GM I'd either have to set it up in a way that avoidance also makes a statement or find a way to cripple the ability. Both is more work, with IMO no benefit in return.

[Valamir]

Whispering Vault is one of those odd games.  Reading the unique, stripped down, "pervy" mechanics one may suspect WV is a screaming Narrativist Engine.

Unfortuneately the text in the game as you noted doesn't support this at all.  Seth and my take on Whispering Vault is that as written its a rules light dungeon crawl.  So I'm not surprised at all that that's how it turned out for you.

Ron I know holds the game in pretty high esteem.  But I think that's largely because Ron has a well developed sense of how to GM a narrativist game and can drift the loose structure of WV to support it.  The nuggets for Nar play are there in the Vault.  They just need to be mined but the text gives little to no support on how to do that.

[GreatWolf]

I tend to concur with Ralph.  Honestly, I hadn't even considered running it as anything more than a really cool dungeon crawl until reading Ron's rave reviews of the game.  And this is after trying to get my hands on the game for nine years.  (I read the preview in the December 1993 Pyramid and got my hands on it only when I visited Peoria in 2002 prior to moving here.)

Now, this is somewhat speculative, but I wonder if taking a page from Nobilis would be a good idea.  I've noticed the similar aesthetic approaches between the games in the past, so this could work.  (This is also somewhat speculative.)  Here goes.

Both Stalkers and Nobles are in a similar boat.  They are humans thrust into a potent spiritual role.  Much of the tension in Nobilis is from the placing of inhuman demands on human characters.  The Windflower Law is an excellent example of this.  Nobles are stuck between humanity and Imperators.  Whispering Vault, IIRC, lacks this explicit divide, because the Primal Powers don't usually show up.  If the Primal Powers (and their demands) were brought to the fore a bit more (e.g. if there were more pre-mission interaction and requirements from the Powers), it might assist in driving conflict a bit better.

Or take the Forbiddance.  What if it isn't a "force of nature" a la Mage?  What if it is more of a legal code, like Lord Entropy's Code?  This makes daring the Forbiddance less of a matter of fighting natural laws, but a choice to defy authority.  And what if the Stalker were declared to be Unbidden, because of his defiance of the Forbiddance?  And what if the Forbiddance included a prohibition against revealing oneself to humans, or, better, a prohibition against any sort of action other than that which is about the business of the Hunt?

This is very speculative, but I also wonder if it would be good to further define the ritual aspects of the Hunt.  Think of it like policework, which needs to be done in a certain way to avoid violating the accused's rights.  There is almost a ritual aspect to it, don't you think?  Especially the reading of Miranda rights....  What if the Hunt had to be performed just so, according to the Primal Powers?  And what if the success of the Hunt is endangered by the rules of the Hunt?  (This would also give a place for the whole Advocate concept:  the one Stalker who is also supposed to act as "defense attorney" of sorts for the Unbidden.)

This would also give a measure of weight to the various sentencing options that are given to the Stalkers.  As it stands, why do anything other than toss the Unbidden into the Whispering Vault?  If different Primal Powers were moving behind the scenes, though, this could become a real choice.  Do I condemn this Unbidden according to the dictates of the Powers, or do I apply a more "human" standard (which could be either harsher or more merciful)?

For that matter, why not actually include an actual trial at the end of the Hunt?  When the Unbidden is bound and the Enigma is healed, the Stalkers must Convene the Circle to sentence the Unbidden.  At this point, making the Unbidden to be a real character, and not simply the Big Bad Monster, would help.  You know, real motivations and whatnot.  And what if the Laws of the Hunt were violated?  And who wants to be in the position of defending a monster?  Yet one of the Stalkers must do it.  That could almost be its own drama....

Man, writing about this is making me want to pull out the game and give it a whirl, incorporating these ideas.

Anyways, I think that increasing the place of the Primal Powers in these various ways will highlight the human/inhuman conflict that characterizes the Stalkers, which will allow for more Narrativist possiblities.

Seth Ben-Ezra
Great Wolf

[montag]

@Ralph: I don't quite get what about the mechanics you consider remarkably helpful for Narrativist play. Ok, Karma, Effects-first, but other than that? See my comment on Trackers above.
The text on the other hand talks about theme a lot, reminding me of that other product line, but I agree, little concrete help is provided on how to inject that theme into the game other than through "show and tell".
@Seth: The main problem is: I don't have a copy of Nobilis – yet. So while I like your suggestions in general, I'm still having slight troubles "seeing" them in play. Anyway, what I get from your ideas is the focus on "people who – because of the strength of their convictions (you might also say "the extent to which the cling to the dream" ;) – have chosen to enter the service of other powers", which in turn means one would have to have Unbidden who actually are nice guys, in effect ignoring most of the game text and starting to question whether the Stalkers actually are the good guys. Not sure if that's what you had in mind, but I like it.


Some additional notes on Dangerous Prey:
I've now finished reading it, and must say I find it almost completely useless. Since Ron recommended it, I'm assuming there's something good hidden which I missed, but for now, I'm very disappointed. The only parts I found worthwhile are the introduction which is about considering the motives of the Unbidden (that part is what you get if you download the DP demo) and the scenario at the end, which helped me see what WV might look like if you focus on interacting with NPCs, who interact – if little – among themselves.
Then again, that latter scenario, "Shooting Script" also contains the following gem:

Gamemaster's Note:This part of the adventure will work better if the Stalkers penetrate the studio at night. Consider using whatever underhanded manipulation is necessary to get your players to reach this decision. Perhaps the Stalkers hear that Steve Hayward is doing a night-shoot for his latest big-budget feature again starring Marie Denver and is only on the set from midnight onward. (emphasis mine)

And – to me – the rest of the book is much the same. 6 Unbidden (all of whom will get thrown into the Vault without so much as thinking twice, much less serious deliberation), a bunch of powers for the Unbidden, dozens of Shadows, again with fancy powers, all of which IMO the GM could easily make up him/herself.
Especially in the sections on the Unbidden, there's lot's of fancy talk about how to address this theme or that using a particular Unbidden and time period, but no mention of the Stalkers. Not a word on how to weave the theme into the whole setting (beyond choosing an appropriate time period) or the NPCs so that it generates interesting thematic decisions. The advice seems focussed on "show and tell" stuff, which, as per the quoted passage above, actually seems to favour helping the GM highlighting his/her cool concept for the Unbidden, so the players can explore it (and be suitably impressed).

[Valamir]

@Ralph: I don't quite get what about the mechanics you consider remarkably helpful for Narrativist play. Ok, Karma, Effects-first, but other than that?

I don't.

A common misconception by alot of folks is that bleeding edge wierdo mechanics ---> Narrativism.  Here's a game with alot of bleeding edge wierdo mechanics, hense my comment that one might suspect it was a good narrativist game.

My point was, that its not.  Not without the sort of heavy drifting that Ron does intuitively to incoherent messes like this.


My take on the Whispering Vault is this:

The background material has a lot of color and flavor and the text suggests a fairly Sim approach, but there really isn't alot of substance there.  At its core, its a monster hunt, and the color soon gets pretty transparent if you try to dig too deeply.  It doesn't give nearly enough depth to explore for more than a session or two, so IMO its not a very good Sim game.

The monster hunt aspect with all of the kewl powers could have resulted in one hell of a fun gamist romp.  Unfortuneately the mechanics don't have much tactical depth, so playing gamist gets boring really quickly, so its not a very good Gamist game.

Narrativist is really the only way to get much enjoyment out of playing WV but unfortuneatly the text is all but devoid of any hint of this possibility, and the mechanics aren't really focused on premise, so its not really a very good Narrativist game...unless you drift the heck out of it and take everything you know about how to play a good Narrativist game and port that into Whispering Vault.  Then I think you could get the sort of play that Ron raves about.

Fortuneately the situation put forth in WV is its saving grace (and that really is all WV is, a colorful situation with some bizarre game mechanics tacked on).  Situation is very easy to derive Premise out of, and the WV mechanics are fluid enough to not divert too much attention from that.

But you really have to drift it.  As written its not a very impressive game.  Which is pretty much why I got my copy for $1 at Gen Con from a stack about 40 copies high.

[GreatWolf]

The main problem is: I don't have a copy of Nobilis – yet.

Well, get cracking.  ;-)

Have you read the Example of Play for Nobilis that is here?.  It doesn't get completely to the specific points that I'm talking about, but you do see Nobles interacting both with mortals and with other supernatural beings.  Maybe it'll kick some ideas out.  Or not.

So while I like your suggestions in general, I'm still having slight troubles "seeing" them in play. Anyway, what I get from your ideas is the focus on "people who – because of the strength of their convictions (you might also say "the extent to which the cling to the dream" ;) – have chosen to enter the service of other powers", which in turn means one would have to have Unbidden who actually are nice guys, in effect ignoring most of the game text and starting to question whether the Stalkers actually are the good guys. Not sure if that's what you had in mind, but I like it.

Well, I'm saying two things.

One possibility is to make the Unbidden more ethically grey.  If the Unbidden are just EVIL, then of course it makes sense to track them down and bring them in for justice.  Where's the ethical dilemma?  The only question that remains is what caliber of firearm is needed (or in this case, how often will you need to use Savage or Rend).

But what of the Unbidden who is killing people by accident?  A great big supernatural Rainman who just doesn't see how his very existence is destroying the world that he loves.  He wants to frolick in the daisies, even though his vampiric touch is draining the life from the flowers as he dances.  It could even be pitiful.

The second possibility is to require more interaction between the Stalkers and the Primal Powers that command them.  The text seems to read as though the Powers are "out there" somewhere, but that they do not play a big part in the Stalker's life.  A Noble's Imperator, on the other hand, is a major part of the Noble's life.  As a result, the Imperator can often make life more complicated for the Noble, especially by placing unreasonable or inhuman demands on the Noble.  I'm suggesting that maybe this would be a helpful fit for Whispering Vault.  Make the Stalkers report to a Primal Power or (perhaps better) a Council of Powers.  This Council sets the Laws of the Hunt and has invested the Stalkers with their authority.  Now, the Stalkers are more like supernatural cops, trying to walk the "thin black line" between reality and the Unbidden.  But, like any good noir cop story, at what point have the cops become the criminals?  Can you walk these mean streets and remain good?  Or, in the context of Whispering Vault, can you cross the abyss yourself and not become that which you hunt?

Now, if it is the job of the Stalkers to keep the Unbidden from crossing over to work their own will, what is a Stalker who chooses to work his own will while he is on the Hunt?  Isn't he supposed to be protecting the Dream from those that would change it?  But...but...here is this little girl who needs protecting?  Is it right to change the Dream in this case?  If so, then why are the Unbidden wrong?  Where is the ethical line?

That's what I'm saying.  I certainly hope that I'm making sense.

Seth Ben-Ezra
Great Wolf

[montag]

@Ralph:
actually, I approached the game as a historic step on the way, so no fancy-mechanics-fallacy there. In fact, part of my motivation behind trying the game was to see how a more traditional approach ("traditional" GM, task resolution in combat etc.) would work out, and whether it would generate the sort of play InSpectres and Trollbabe do.

Second, I think you're being too harsh on the game and that your original original approach in terms of "nuggets to be mined" was more to the point. IMO we shouldn't forget, that I did a terrible job as a GM that night (ok, could have been worse, but anyway) and that the result only reflects the minimum one can get out of the game (if I had the players willing to go along with this, I'd actually be interested in repeating my condition and run several games that way, to see what's the baseline/minimum in each case. Unfortunately, my players don't share my enthusiasm for self-sacrifice in the name of science ;). It remains to be seen what our group can get out of the Vault when I'm in better shape.

As to the drift you mention, I'm still hoping Ron, Scott or Philippe Tromeur will chime in and give some advice on that.

@Seth
- I have all the free Nobilis stuff, but as I'm not really interested in running/playing the game buying it has been shelved for the time being (Lots of other stuff on the "to-buy" list which I actually might play/run some day)
- got the second prong of your approach now, thanks for clarifying that.

I notice, that this second idea is to some extent already present in the game, in other words, bringing the Powers into play merely would serve to highlight the premise that's already there.
Which makes me wonder, whether I haven't made a grave error in stressing to the players that their characters have given up mortal life/the dream based on the strength of their convictions. As it stands, the PCs are a bunch of loonies already, so that makes it hard to go back and open up the moral can of worms. The PCs have already sacrificed everything for their hunt for the Unbidden, so the initial situation is a bit like (hope Ron pardons the comparison) starting a Sorcerer game with really-low-humanity-PCs and trying to work upward in terms of humanity. This in turn requires players that enjoy a drama of redemption, otherwise they can always default back to "I/the PC has already made that decision when choosing to become a Stalker and is willing to bear/carry through all the consequences from that decision".
Unless there is a mechanical or in-game consequence (like in your example: "And what if the success of the Hunt is endangered by the rules of the Hunt?") to "not caring" there is no need for breaking the rules, or violating the dream, which in turns means it won't happen ... unless you got really dedicated narrativist players.
Does that make sense or am I loosing it?