[The Emperor's Heart] The Library

[Chris_Chinn]

The Emperor's Heart is the laser-sharked space-wuxia game I've been working on for a few months now.  Take the classic "Outlaws fighting against corrupt eunuch-run Imperial government" add spaceships, robot armies and make the eunuchs immortal cyborgs and you get the idea.

I was playtesting this with my friend N, who has never roleplayed before.  He read a few White Wolf books, but never actually played an rpg and his closest relevant experience is as a creative writing major at school.  (I also intend to get a few of my friends who have never roleplayed before together, and also try playtesting with them, just to compare and contrast to experienced roleplayers). 

The Library

Setup for play involves choosing from sets of cards- a group of outlaws, a scenario, a resource, archetypes to build heroes, drama cards to build personal situations and backstory, and villains.   Basically, the entire setup is built on "Menu A, Menu B" logic, and the cards are designed so that people who might not be familiar with the setting really can easily grasp it and get into play quickly.

In both regards, this worked really well.  We chose the Phoenix Swordsmen as the outlaw faction- the archetypical philsopher warriors on the run.  For the scenario, N. was intrigued by the Library, and it made sense to choose The Lost Books of the Phoenix School as the resource the heroes were there to acquire.

Heroes, Villains

Heroes are actually built out of choosing 3 cards as a sort of skeleton to build the concept on.  You choose an Archetype and 2 Drama cards, which in many ways works like Feng Shui's Archetypes or Capes Click-N-Locks to build a hero quickly and easily.  N. choose the Assassin, Hidden Crime and Dangerous Ambitions.  I chose the Cynical Maverick, Debt of Honor, and Friend on the Other Side.

We quickly wove this into a conflict laden situation, also creating Villains in the process.  Let's see if I can break it out:

Tattoo Lao (my hero)
- used to be lovers with General Mei (a Villain)
- had promised to see her brother safely away from the intrigues of the court, into the protection of the Phoenix Swordsmen (had she cut a deal?  Was she working both sides?  Was he a spy? We don't know).  But he was killed.  I swore I would find the killer since.

Snake Wu (N.'s Hero)
- once trained with the Imperial enforcers as a youth, but decided it was too dirty to keep going
- instead decided to team up with the Phoenix school, but knowing her history, instead killed some of the disciples and took one of their identities to get in, and has been living undercover ever since
- and has the ambition of becoming the head of the whole school.
- one of the disciples she killed was Mei's brother, whom Tattoo was supposed to protect, but he doesn't know that Snake is responsible.

General Mei (played by N. mostly)
- Embittered Veteran Card
- Tattoo's ex lover
- now in love with "Bloodless Fist" Li
- is known as "Thousand Graves" Mei, for some unspecified battle or massacre
- is at the Library because it has been decided several wings of the library would be closed down, and will see to it that those who worked with such dangerous information don't escape.

Enforcer Li- The Bloodless Fist
- Dragon School Enforcer Card
- Was childhood rivals with Snake Wu
- is General Mei's bodyguard and assassin... and lover
- has no qualms as a tool of oppression

Play

Players take turns setting scenes and providing conflict for each other.  Overall, this works out really well.  It's pretty easy to make good scenes simply by crossing the issues of trying to acquire the Resource against the Drama Cards (and situation set up by them) along with the Turmoil- a seperate situation listed on the Scenario card- in this case- the fact that the Library was being downsized and all of the librarians, scholars and servants are scrambling to save their hides. 

Though I was worried at first that this might prove to be too much going on, it worked well because it fits the usual pulp/action/adventure formula and also that we naturally focused on the aspects we found interesting and the rest became filler and color. (in this case, the Librarians were really just furniture).

The Story

Our heroes had disguised themselves as part of the Imperial retinue- Snake as a Dragon School Enforcer, Tattoo as her servant.  The first conflict was simply getting in unrecognized, which was failed terribly- though N. narrated that General Mei recognized the heroes, and shot them each a look but let them pass.

This being wuxia, we naturally needed an action scene- so I framed that Enforcer Li actually had her own ambitions as well, and decided to test all the enforcers put under her- by having them spar as to choose the best for her own retinue.  While the conflict was, "Does Li recognize Snake Wu?" the sticky part was the back and forth of trying to a) fake the appropriate style, b) appear good enough not to draw attention, but c) not good enough to draw attention.

So the scene is Wu sparring between the shelves of books and scrolls, with the condition being that you can't disturb a single sheet of paper while fighting.  During the fight, it becomes very clear that Wu is throwing the fight and her opponent presses the attack- until she kills him out of reflex...  So Enforcer Li decides to spar her, still trying to figure out what's going on.  Wu manages to hide her identity, but stands out as probably the second best fighter there (as she throws the fight to Li, getting slammed into a bookcase at full force, which causes it to rattle and one scroll to fall down).

A few more scenes go down involving deception and acquiring access to the scrolls, ending with Snake getting caught in her lies, and trying to escape both General Mei and Enforcer Li at the same time, only to be captured before reaching the gate.  N. chooses to "Go All Out"- an option where you get extra dice for a conflict but take the chance that your hero dies.  Since he fails that roll too, he narrates Snake Wu confessing to killing Mei's brother before committing suicide through self inflicted pressure point attacks- "...and blood starts pouring from every orifice as I laugh and laugh, leaving them with nothing."

Thoughts

We both had tons of fun.  N. - "This is roleplaying?  I think I like it."  In fact, we played a second game right after this one, which I'll post about soon.

The current draft of the game hits a lot of the design goals I want, though I have some things I want to tweak. 

First, the game has an endgame pacing mechanic, based on when you run out of Award Tokens (basically, Fan Mail from PTA).  From this time and the one playtest before, I realize I want to give a couple more tokens to extend play just a notch.  This is going to be more tricky when I playtest with 3 or 4 or more people at a time, since it depends on how fast rewards happen.

Second, I feel like I want to add some more mechanical weight to Drama Cards, to make them more than just flags and situation generation tools.  I have some ideas, so I'll tool around with that a bit.

Feel free to ask questions, though it'll probably be a few weeks before I hack together a readable draft of the rules for all the nitty gritty mechanics.

Chris

[Darcy Burgess]

Hi Chris,

The Emperor's Heart sounds great!  I'm looking forward to reading your draft -- please do check back in when it's done.  I understand the horrible woes surrounding getting a game from Lovecraftian scribblings to something that normal humans can read.

Cheers,
Darcy