Of Ghost towns and Ghost babies : PALADIN actual play

[b_bankhead]

My attempts a playing Paladin actually got off the ground on Tuesday on the indie-netgaming group, I was only able to intrigue Doyce Testerman to actually play (some of the ING usuals have some ill-defined beefs about Paladin) ,this was after last weeks character counseling session.

   Presently I am using the game Themechaser by Anthony Irwin (availiable on the ING yahoo site , I don't know where else) as a means of interrogating character's about premises signifigant to their character (if you want more specifics about how go to the website I have for the game at http://www.geocities.com/b_bankhead/ ) eventually I hope to use elements of the game as a means of giving players scene framing privileges ,for now I am focused on learning to use 'vanilla' Paladin .

   Doyce already had two character's developed last week, Connor, a classic brooding loner and Tye, a character whose tendencies toward levity ruffle a number of feathers in the straight-laced SOH organization. In the first game Doyce chose to use Tye which pleased me as the character seemed to have more obvious RP potential. As a Paladin Character Tye. Looks like this

F/ Vitality 3,Stamina 3, Charm 3
L/ Training 1,Wisdom 1, Humor 4
D/ Wrath 4,Cynicism 0,Subversion 2
Human Empathy,Lifting ;LA 6, DA 0

   My notes from the Themechaser counseling session look like this:
Tye
Theme -good humor in the face of despair,i
Character -Martina/Older female sword who remonstrates with him
for his humor, one of his trainers and leaders who ran at least one of his mission

Foundations
Place : High clif overlooking deadlands: SOH training grounds
Time :Induction into the sword
Event: seeing and undead army marching,getting recruited, trying to pick up Martine and getting shot down
Trappings: a light tone, calming or saving villagers,ring from girl at the bar,trinkets given to him for luck,about what he's fighting for

   From actually creating Paladin NPC's I would say that Paladin does an excellent job of forcing the user to think more along the lines of what the character is ABOUT more than almost any other game I can think of. Coming up with just the right nine words to define a character can be challenging but, certainly less so than making a Champions character with an odd power, it's type of challenge just different that 'normal' RPGs. (though I would reccomend if you are going to be playing a bunch of Paladin and most particularly if you are running it GET A THESAURUS! although I think future versions of the game would benefit from a list of likely words, as long as Clint puts right in the text in big block letters THESE ARE ONLY SUGGESTIONS FEEL FREE TO COME UP WITH YOUR OWN!!! ) Plus it does an excellent job of bringing these qualities right into play.  This has been a sore spot for me with 'normal' RPG's, most character stuff like Tyes humorous nature get written down on the character sheet and then promptly ignored as the GM goes off and does his thing. One point in the favor of Paladin.

   Doyce complimented me after the initial player counseling session on the amount of thought I was putting into the game ,I smiled to myself at that one, HE was doing most of the thinking ,I was just herding my first white rat through the Themechaser maze and seeing what would happen. This was encouraging, and it was even more encouraging when he showed up the next week......

   Onto the actual game session!  I started off with a whoop and a holler framing Tye right into the situation during the aftermath of a big battle where a major incursion of the unliving had been beaten back by the SOH and one of Tyes theme character's (Martina) was leading a group chasing them back to the dead lands (can  you say 'future rescue bait"? ,I thought you could....)
Tye was detailed to send a message back to HQ on Mons Calpe for reinforcements ( wanted to give him a mission that was important but not so immediately vital that he would have time for a little side trip ,heh-heh-heh).  Doyce was very good with coming up with RP and creating new character's on the spot, I immediately went with this, and there were some potentially interesting and amusing rp incidents being created by him ,including a difficult first meeting with the belligerent horse Gibbon (a good chance to bench test Paladin's flexibility). I say 'potentially' because although I was VERY glad to see Doyce's interest in these sorts of things ,I don't think the distancing quality of IRC play made me seem as appreciative an audience as I really was ,plus as GM I was too busy juggling actually running the game. I think a charcter like Tye would have benefited from the feedback and byplay of more player's (HINT,HINT,HINT) but after the initial meeting of the minds he and Gibbon came to an understanding (after judicious activation of his Light animus traits) and Tye was on the road....

   Along toward nightfall,(of course ) Tye was wending his way off the main road and pulled into the village of 8/12 Delves ,a mining town ,now mostly abandoned as the mines have played out, I emphasized the mood of desolation, with all the empty,tumbledown and burnt out  buildings. In the gathering darkess Tye noticed to his concern that everything was shuttered down and everbody seemed to have freshly painted protective symbols on them......
After convincing the people in the biggest occupied house to let him in he got the lowdown on what was going on....

   It seems the village idiot(and a bastard in the traditional sense), one Vuldy had somehow come upon a nasty red magic sword.  Taking revenge for years of being the butt of every joke he had slain most of the towns children, and occasionally emerged after Dark to come down and off somebody new. It was too far to the next town to make it by dark,all the horses had run off and everybody was bunkered down shivering in terror, and also the ghosts of the dead kids occasionally came back to the town after dark trying to come home.....

Naturally like any good SOH, Tye set himself up into the village square to wait and see what would happen....he quickly sensed the stench of Dark animus and followed it to a nearby cottage, first he saw that the door was open (unlike everyplace else which was bunkered down) as he approached I graaaaadually revealed more details, he could see the light from a fire, and then an oddly bobbing shadow projected on the wall, as he entered he was faced with a man's corpse (with no wounds and a look of horror frozen on his face...) and someone in a rocking chair faced away from him at the fire.  A woman's voice sang tunelessly as she cooed to something she carried in her lap....she explained (while drooling like a classic Call of Cthulhu headcase) that her child had been lost but now returned to her, said child climbing off her lap and tottering happily over to Tye, his entrails spilling out and the fire shining through his translucent body....

   A word about these ghost kids, I think of them as non-material ghosts just Dark animus attributes , an ability or two and some Dark animus. Pretty much anything they do requires DA to power.  They attack and damage Light animus and if you loose them all you are a nutcase until you regenerate them. Lose them all in one attack and you drop dead from fear like the guy on the floor.....Since they have no flesh about the only thing that can damage them are direct application of animus or reactivating an animus attribute (Dark or Light) and using that to attack....

   Tye quickly took the kid down but ,like any good mother  she picks up a set of fireplace tongs and sets about trying to bash Tye's head in with them.  Immediate dilemma of course, you get heaps of Dark for killing an innocent, is she innocent? kill her and find out....Doyce was to smart for that (another thing I like about Paladin, D&D types would have slaughtered her out of hand.) and tryed to take her down humanely, I was concerned about his until carefully examining the damage rules I realized that issue had been accounted for, you can temporarily penalize somebodies flesh attributes in combat if you are using reactive attacks, I ruled if he could get them down to zero she would be humanely immobilized, each round he failed to do so she'd get another crack with tongs....
Joyce judiciously used his abilities to do so and tied her up, with animus awards he wound up at status quo with regards to light animus, good thing ,he has 8 more ghost kids to go, then Vuldy and his sword....

We ended at his point, I had intended to do a series of single session one shots ,but gaming over IRC takes more time than I thought, I think even a whole group would take more than one session for that reason.  Overall though it was an interesting and satisfying first session (even though it seems like much didnt happen as I read this) Doyce said the crazy woman and the ghost boy 'scared the hell ' out of him, glad to hear it , things are going to get a lot worse before they get any better, so he better invest in rubber underwear.......

All in all an acceptable kick-off from my perspective ,Doyce seemed to like what I'm doing and I hope to see him next week, though It would be better with more player's of course.  As a system I'm finding Paladin well suited for IRC in it's flexibility and simplicity (I can't even imagine how people run games like D&D3e or Champions in a medium like this....) It has plenty of positives though, and unique features that wire premise right  into play. Looking forward to the next session.

[Doyce]

D/ Wrath 4,Cynicism 0,Subversion 2

Actually, that's "Wrath 1" :)  I'm not that angry. :)

Speaking as the player, I had a great time with Bryan's scene set ups and atmosphere (and kudos to him for flowing with my own unasked and unasked-for Authorship of various elements in each new scene).

I had... a pretty good time with the system.  There are a few spots I'm still trying to get my head around:

- I see what people mean when they say the Flesh Descriptors are pointless and unused -- while I enjoyed picking out appropriate words, they don't really have any effect on play, except as style.  Conversely, I can see where Light and Dark descriptors can really give the GM a lot of insight into the kind of stories that a player's interested in -- for example, when you've got Flesh Social as "Charm" at a 3, "Humor" for your LAS at 4, and DAS of "Subversion" at 2, PLUS one of your abilities as "Human Empathy" -- odds are very good that you want a chance to win friends, influence strangers, and convert the heathen.  Tye is a guy designed to quiet rioting mobs :)

- I found, much to my chagrin, that having a '1' in Light Animus scores nets you bupkiss when you want to reactivate an attribute using Animus -- at least for me, that is -- I kept failing with 2's and only managed to use a reactivation on 1 die the whole night  :P  A more balanced distribution of Light Animus points would have served me well in such a solo setup.  (again: HINT HINT for more players)

- I felt like I was pretty darn low on Animus points by the end of the mission.  Bryan notes that Tye was (paraphrasing) 'back up to normal' on animus points, but by my count I'm down to 2 out of 6 -- I used 2 calming down my mount (which I can't bitch about, since I introduced the disagreeable cuss to the scene), and three or so dealing with the ghostly kid.  (Luckily, the mom didn't require any.)  I can see where going through APs and getting down to 0 could be quite a problem.

- Accurately accessing challenges is of key importance.  When "Jumping a River" or even "Running down the River on Top of the Water" has a difficulty of only 3 (and rightfully so, because coming up with 3 successes can be HARD), you really have to sit back and say "is this really hard enough to warrant a difficulty of 2?  Is this something on the outside edge of what a Human can do, or do I just want to get the player's attention -- I think as a GM it would be difficult for me to get this right the first time -- overcompensating in favor of making it harder and causing lots of Animus-point problems.

- I kept thinking there should be a mechanic for getting extra bonus dice for doing things "cool" or tactically well (a la Sorcerer) -- such a high-powered game setting seems particularly appropriate for such a mechanic -- it's a damn shame it's not in there.

- Looking at the damage mechanics, I sort of felt like there was an unspoken "Just look at the Sorcerer rules, and here's where they're a bit different."  Nothing wrong with that -- there's enough in the Paladin rules that's somewhat like Sorcerer that a similar mechanic works fine -- I just wanted about three more examples of what it would LOOK like in play, because it's NOT quite the same.

- One nice things I like about the setting is that you're encouraged toward a certain kind of role you wouldn't normally embrace.  I'm not the sort of person who says "well, there's evil about -- let's light a big fire in the middle of town square to attract it and wait outside, alone, to see what shows up"...  Paladin's are -- that's level of devotion to a cause is kind of fun to play, I have to say.  The Sword of Heaven folks don't do things by half-steps.  Then again, that's probably why there's so few of them left :)[/i]

[b_bankhead]

- I see what people mean when they say the Flesh Descriptors are pointless and unused -- while I enjoyed picking out appropriate words, they don't really have any effect on play, except as style.  

That's because you (and most people playing Paladin) are almost entirely using them for combat, which more or less has the same outcome no matter what descriptors you use. The value of differentiation becomes more signifigant in non-combat use. An example is given right is the Paladin rules. You can use Deftness to help you pick a lock on a a door, or you can use Strength to batter it down.  Both get you on the other side of the door, but one leaves the door intact, the other leaves it in pieces. Likewise while you can use Charm or Leadership to influence someone but the NPCs are going to relate to you differently afterwards depending on which you use(buddy-buddy as opposed to superior-subordinate).
. The differences I think primarily come out in the aftermath of their use..... Also  I think the descriptors delimit when they are used, Leadership wouldn't get you into the budiour of a pretty girl very well, but Charm certainly would...(nothing in the code about celibacy!)

- I felt like I was pretty darn low on Animus points by the end of the mission.  Bryan notes that Tye was (paraphrasing) 'back up to normal' on animus points, but by my count I'm down to 2 out of 6

Heh, you forgot the awards. you get 2 animus for facing the baby and the woman (two minor adversity) and two more for the baby's Dark animus value. Based on other Paladin threads I am awarding animus immediately after the scene in which they were earned.

Code Select Expand

- Accurately accessing challenges is of key importance.  When "Jumping a River" or even "Running down the River on Top of the Water" has a difficulty of only 3 (and rightfully so, because coming up with 3 successes can be HARD), you really have to sit back and say "is this really hard enough to warrant a difficulty of 2


I experienced this issue many time is assessing attributes for threats. Origianlly I was going to give the woman an active Flesh of 2 bet then I thought, 'should she be 2/3 as tough as an elite warrior?', deciding not, I made her  1....
The mean number of successes in Paladin is 0.5 per dice rolled so you should need a mean of 6 dice to get three which is quite a hefty roll in Paladin.

- I kept thinking there should be a mechanic for getting extra bonus dice for doing things "cool" or tactically well (a la Sorcerer) -- such a high-powered game setting seems particularly appropriate for such a mechanic -- it's a damn shame it's not in there

.

Myself I am thinking of offering 2 dice for use of an ability rather that one...

- Looking at the damage mechanics, I sort of felt like there was an unspoken "Just look at the Sorcerer rules, and here's where they're a bit different."  Nothing wrong with that --

Actually there is plenty wrong with that, a rules set should stand on it's own, not require you to get another unrelated book of rules! Actully I didn't experience overmuch difficulty applying the damage mechanics....

- One nice things I like about the setting is that you're encouraged toward a certain kind of role you wouldn't normally embrace.  I'm not the sort of person who says "well, there's evil about -- let's light a big fire in the middle of town square to attract it and wait outside, alone, to see what shows up"...  

You know his approach to this WAS something of an eye opener, I'm used to players who take more of a Ghost-Recon/Splinter-Cell type approach to this kind of thing, Doyce's extremely direct one was a bit of surprise but completely in character for the way SOH types do things....

[Doyce]

- I felt like I was pretty darn low on Animus points by the end of the mission.  Bryan notes that Tye was (paraphrasing) 'back up to normal' on animus points, but by my count I'm down to 2 out of 6

Heh, you forgot the awards. you get 2 animus for facing the baby and the woman (two minor adversity) and two more for the baby's Dark animus value. Based on other Paladin threads I am awarding animus immediately after the scene in which they were earned.

Yeah, somehow I missed the thing about the Dark Animus value adding to the awards -- that's nice, espcially since those challenges that require 'pure' animus are pretty dang hard :)

You know his approach to this WAS something of an eye opener, I'm used to players who take more of a Ghost-Recon/Splinter-Cell type approach to this kind of thing, Doyce's extremely direct one was a bit of surprise but completely in character for the way SOH types do things....

That recon thing is the sort of tactic I'd be more than happy to use when I'm (a) with some allies or (b) know where the bad guys are, but in this sort of 'defend the town on your own', it's one of those situations where the best thing you can do is either hide (unacceptable :) or do what you can to pick the area of conflict -- I didn't want fight with a lot of potential hostages around and with at least one psuedo-ally (the horse) -- so I basically fired up a signal flare and hoped they took the bait.

Good stuff.  Fun game :)

[Tony Irwin]

Presently I am using the game Themechaser by Anthony Irwin (availiable on the ING yahoo site , I don't know where else) as a means of interrogating character's about premises signifigant to their character (if you want more specifics about how go to the website I have for the game at http://www.geocities.com/b_bankhead/ ) eventually I hope to use elements of the game as a means of giving players scene framing privileges ,for now I am focused on learning to use 'vanilla' Paladin .

Thanks for posting this! Due to redundancy and a relocation for my new job, I haven't been able to follow ING for ages. Hope your game goes great.

That's because you (and most people playing Paladin) are almost entirely using them for combat, which more or less has the same outcome no matter what descriptors you use. The value of differentiation becomes more signifigant in non-combat use. An example is given right is the Paladin rules. You can use Deftness to help you pick a lock on a door, or you can use Strength to batter it down. Both get you on the other side of the door, but one leaves the door intact, the other leaves it in pieces. Likewise while you can use Charm or Leadership to influence someone but the NPCs are going to relate to you differently afterwards depending on which you use(buddy-buddy as opposed to superior-subordinate).
. The differences I think primarily come out in the aftermath of their use..... Also I think the descriptors delimit when they are used, Leadership wouldn't get you into the budiour of a pretty girl very well, but Charm certainly would...(nothing in the code about celibacy!)

That sounds spot on. Wish I'd known it my first time running Paladin! I think the significance of the flesh attributes isn't especially in what they do (with a bit of imagination any attribute can resolve pretty much any conflict) but rather in their later consequences, or "fall out". Each player will be able to accomplish the same goals, but experience different long term consequences depending on the nature of their attributes. That's where the GM has to pay attention and ensure that reward/retribution comes later down the line, otherwise the attributes are just inconsequential colour.