[Solipsist] Superman and John Constantine get on a plane...

[Hituro]

(crossposted from Gregor Hutton's post on collective endeavour, I hope that is okay for the rules of this site)

Anyway, tonight I was over at John Wilson's and we had a game of Solipsist with David, John and me. David ran it and we followed the rules and advice in the (very) latest version of the text, starting at the top and following it for a "single session" of play.

Generally it went pretty well, actually. The thing that took a fair bit of time was character creation. The method is very simple but thinking up appropriate Visions, Obsessions and Limitations takes time. We created our characters together and gave each other advice and ideas on what we were looking for. So it was really collaborative and informative for John and me to go back and forth with each other. It's also really generating some situation as well, since your Obsessions and Limitations will inform the GM of the world and its inhabitants as well as the themes you'll be ploughing.

My character looked a bit like John Constantine in the end, possibly.

Vision
My vision is of a ... endless summer where the flowers are in bloom and in the balmy evenings new-found friends drink wine with me.

Obsessions
I want the summer to never end (1)
I have enough wine for me and my friends (2)
I want to meet new people (2)
I want to make friends (3)*
I want better weather (1)

Limitations
I upset people (2)
I can't get away from my ex, Lauren (3)
It's always raining (1)
I must fight the shadows (2)
I am an angry drunk (1)

Tears
Start at 3, for a one-off (or in media res game, I guess)

Name and other stuff...
Grant Kerr
hipflask of wine
5 o'clock shadow
tinted glasses
left-handed (probably)

John's character was really like Superman from Smallville or something. Homesick for the countryside, aging adoptive parents, responsibility of power, etc. Name was Dr Marten Wessex.

So, the game started with us on a flight across the American Midwest, we got hit by lightning and had a forced landing at Hicksville Airfield. From there we ferried the other passengers to safety in a school bus (just happened to be there...) to the Wilson Place, an abandoned farm some distance away. There was bad weather going on and tornadoes threatening the area so we were being pushed along by that. Along the way I picked up a new girlfriend Carly, and made friends with the bus driver too and a little later a priest. Then we made our way to the Shadowy Mountain that was the source of all the bad weather to put the crazy devilman Albuquerque Wilson to rest for good. He had some beef with John's character and had struck our plane with lightning. The shadow manifested in him as we dug up his grave (y'know David's examples of banishing Shadows were all goody-two-shoes things you might do... but, no, we went the grave desecration route instead...) and we split him six ways to Sunday in an explosion of Infestation and Obsession.

We had six or so changes during the game (maybe a few more solo ones?) and we were quite careful between us as players to hit the 0 mark as often as we could. That worked pretty well for our play style/preference actually. Our characters were quite complementary and we didn't jerk each other about -- the opposition was coming from our own limitations and the GM owned Shadow Pool.

We overshot once quite solidly to rack up on Infestation before facing off with Albuquerque, and that worked pretty well. We did get only a few tears, though, and our Obsessions clicked up with our successes. For future sessions I'd be failing for sure to get some more Limitations. I also was going to burn off some Infestation in down time to convert Carly to a Limitation. Oh, and Lauren was sure to turn up if I had a future Limitation scene, David and I both knew it. (Hey, she's maybe even be Joh's character's true love...)

Working through the story is quite a deliberate thing in Solipsist, with lots of going back and forth, editing/approving and then "stamping". It's not a bang-bang-dice roll-whack-thump style of play.

Lots of fun, and our characters were interesting too. Oh, we amended some of the Obsessions/Limitations at the end of the session having found our feet in play as advised.

Reminder for David: fail check, no Limitations used, what gets ticked? GM's choice of limitation, right?

David, anything from you? We'll never get John on here, right?

*This became "I want to be with my friends" at the end of the first session, that was a better fit to how I wanted to play it.