[Ensemble] Pompeii on IRC

[Lxndr]

Two Sundays ago, Paul Czege, Eero Tuovinen and I created characters for Ensemble, a new game of mine that's in the process of being developed.  Yesterday, we played the first session.  The unedited IRC transcripts, along with all the characters so far made, can be found on the wiki (link below).  Also there is the link to the most current version of the rules.

http://www.twistedconfessions.com/confessional/index.php?n=Ensemble.HomePage

The setting is simple:  A fantastical pseudo-medieval setting where magic is real. 

[*]My character, Ovidio, is the Duke of Pompeii, a city-state under the Church Mural.  My wife is the cousin of the King of Veloria, a nation to the north, and there's also some political tensions with Barcelo, a city across the sea to the west.  I am a student of magic, which I consider the 'way of the future' - it's something that these ornamental mercenary groups we keep about know little (apparently in part due to the edicts of Church Mural, or so we established in the first session).
[*]Eero's character, Giacomo, is a deposed lord of the Lucans, who wants his throne back.  He was also until very recently an active Condottieri, though a recent proposal from Ovidio has taken away his soldiers and given them to a possible rival, Scevola di Gualente, a condottieri in my (or more formally, Pompeii's) employ.
[*]Finally, we have a ward of Scevola, Caetano DelArco, Paul's character.  Caetano is a political hostage, the child of an influential noble in Barcelo, who is currently at peace with Pompeii, but for how long?
[/list]

The OOC discussion has some excellent questions and points from Paul and Eero.  In this first session, it became obvious I was giving out way too many beats at the start (most characters take no more than 3 to create, and people started with ten).  For the moment, I've reduced it to four.  Beats, for those who aren't reading the rules, are used to both (a) create new characters to play with, and (b) to increase effectiveness in conflicts through the use of character traits. 

Additionally, Paul's confusion over who got to play what led me to add a quick-reference chart to the document. 

Finally, discussions over the uses of characters have led to a few minor changes.  Before, you had to pay a beat to create an extra.  Now, extras are completely free - characters only start costing when they start having mechanical/narrative impact.  Minor characters are also a little easier to bring into the game - you just have to get permission from any one player in the scene, rather than the Source.  This helps mix things up a little bit, both in the narrative, and in the passage of the blocks.

There's another change I've implemented at the moment that I'm less sure about:  the Source has another exception - he can play any foil, except his own, instead of being limited to those to his left and right.  Others are still limited to the left/right foils.  On one hand, this gives the Source a bit more freedom, and can mix up who plays the foils a little bit.  On the other hand, it reduces the 'ownership' people might feel over the left/right foils, since they're no longer exclusively theirs (just mostly theirs).

Anyway, I'm pretty happy about the game's overall structure, and how it's proceeding, both mechanically and experientially.  More players are certainly welcome at this Sunday game, if anyone is interested:  it's at 7pm Eastern Daylight Time, I think (Paul, Eero, feel free to correct me!).  This next week, Eero will be gone, so there will be no game unless we find another player, so...