My Life With Maestro

[xiombarg]

I'll have a more complete report later, but some comments from running the game tonight while it's fresh in my mind. These comments come from both me and my players:

1. There needs to be a way to reduce Self-Loathing if you're going to have a long-term game. I dunno if I called for rolls too often or what, but one PC ened up with 11 Self-Loathing and ended up allowing a crowd to tear him apart, while the one that killed the Master had a 8 Self-Loathing. If they hadn't gotten lucky in their rolls, they would have never been able to do anything.
2. Related to the above, rolling a minimum of one die is a good thing, I think. Otherwise NOTHING would have happened in seveal scenes.
3. Another suggestion for long-term play, which came from our one-shot, ironically: Being able to raise Reason somehow would be good. Innocents are a good start but it'd be nice if the PCs could do something to raise Reason.
4. I assume you go through the Epilogue conditions in order? Because we had one character qualify for two different results.

Those were the main concerns. Self-Loathing seemed to go up awful fast and the spiral didn't help in the eventual confrontation with the Master.

However, Master creation and the game overall went well. More on that later.

[xiombarg]

We did a group Master creation, on the model Paul suggested. After much discussion, the players decided on a Brain/Teacher. After much more discussion, they came up with the idea of a wannabe playwright who Needs the blood of virgins to write the play he's working on, which is supposed to endear him to the virginal minister's daughter that he Wants to impress, while teaching everyone about the value of purity. He's a rich man who became obsessed with purity after he killed the minister's wife, who he deemed "impure" after he discovered she was having an affair with the mayor (despite the fact the Maestro wanted to have an affair with her himself). They also decided at this point that the game was set in 19th century Germany, in a generic village. The Maestro lived on the outskirts of town, in a mansion surrounding a theatre he built himself with his money that no one goes to.

This set-up seemed more Feeder or Collector than Teacher to me, but I didn't push the issue because they seemed to like what they came up with, and since the categories have no game mechanical effect, I consider them mainly useful for inspiration anyway. (Which could be an interesting suggestion: Perhaps the type of Master should have some game-mechanical effect?) Regardless, the scenario they came up with, with its sordid elements, got us started on a Relationship Map that continued as characters were made, and caused us to set Fear at 4 (the Maestro is scary, but not exactly Dr. Moreau) and Reason at 2 (because of the sordid nature of what had been going on at the village).

More on character creation after I get home and can look at the Relationship Map we made. Oh, and I named the Master myself: Maestro Von Daekken. I was also amused how they came up with a Master sort of similar to Paul's group, tho I hadn't mentioned that Master at all when explaining things.

[Matt Gwinn]

After much more discussion, they came up with the idea of a wannabe playwright who Needs the blood of virgins to write the play he's working on

This is almost identical to my Minion for our Monday game.  the only difference is that my minion must use the blood of the actor playing the role which allows my character to write the ideal role for that actor's abilities.

The interesting thing is that I'm really hoping that my end game results in me becoming the master which in a way could make our game a prequel to yours.

Perhaps the type of Master should have some game-mechanical effect?

I agree with you there.  I find the distinctions very useful in describing the different types of masters you could make, but as long as you're required to label your master using those distinctions it should have some kind of effect on the game.

Perhaps Fear or Reason could be effected based on those distinctions and the effects the game has on the outsiders.  For example, if a Teacher can manage to get an outside to accept his theory Reason could be decreased or if the master is made to look the fool in front of an outsider reason could go up.

Another possibility in regards to a feeder could be:  If the master's weakness (from not feeding) is witnessed by his minions Fear goes down.

,Matt G.

[Paul Czege]

Hey Kirt,

I'm geeked to hear everything about your game. As the GM of the game's very first independent playtest, I've got a zillion questions I want to ask you. But I'm going to try and restrain myself until after your more complete report and just respond to a couple of your points here:

There needs to be a way to reduce Self-Loathing if you're going to have a long-term game.

Matt Gwinn made a suggestion last evening that players should be allowed to choose, when successfully acting on a Connection, whether to take the Love point, or to reduce their Self-Loathing by one point. And I have to say, others have suggested that the game should allow for the reduction of Self-Loathing, but Matt's suggestion is the most interesting I've received to that effect. Of course, I haven't hardly had a chance to  consider the impact it would have on gameplay. I think a good mechanic for the reduction of Self-Loathing would enable the attenuation of play, the extension of how long it takes to get to endgame, but would not allow for endgame to be indefinitely delayed or approached with greater speed. Without some additional thought, I'm not sure if the suggested rule will satisfy that expectation.

Interestingly, it was Matt Gwinn who also recently galvanized me to not introduce mechanics for reducing Self-Loathing. A few days ago he made a comment relative to his character for our current game. He said that he was hoping for the constraint where he emerged from the ashes of endgame as a new Master, but that he had decided how he would kill himself if that was the constraint he ended up with. And I was pumped. What that said to me is that he'd figured how protagonism was assured for his character across all of the possible endgame constraints, that it was not precluded by any of them.

Related to the above, rolling a minimum of one die is a good thing, I think. Otherwise NOTHING would have happened in seveal scenes.

This is definitely going to be in the next version of playtest rules, and I think is almost sure to make it into the game.

I assume you go through the Epilogue conditions in order? Because we had one character qualify for two different results.

From the rules:

"If two or more of the constraints are satisfied by a given Minion's Traits, the choice of which one of those constraints to incorporate in the character's Epilogue rests entirely with the player."

Thanks for the feedback. Just let me know when you're ready for the third degree.

Paul

[xiombarg]

Interestingly, it was Matt Gwinn who also recently galvanized me to not introduce mechanics for reducing Self-Loathing. A few days ago he made a comment relative to his character for our current game. He said that he was hoping for the constraint where he emerged from the ashes of endgame as a new Master, but that he had decided how he would kill himself if that was the constraint he ended up with. And I was pumped. What that said to me is that he'd figured how protagonism was assured for his character across all of the possible endgame constraints, that it was not precluded by any of them.

Hmmmm. All I know is my players really didn't like racking up a large amount of Self-Loathing from failed Connection attempts. Shawn, the guy whose character had the most Self-Loathing, seemed to kinda like become a tragic suicidal figure, but he would have preferred what he viewed as a chance to end up some other way.

Perhaps they weren't in the groove, but I think they felt a little helpless before the dice, since Self-Loathing negatively affects EVERYTHING except violence and other antisocial actions, and they felt they didn't have much control over anything once it got too high, because even with the d8 their chance to succeed at anything important to the character (i.e. making Connections) was so low.

Perhaps instead of gaining a Self-Loathing when you fail to Connect, perhaps the player can choose to gain either a Self-Loathing or a Weariness? So they sort of have more of a choice. I can see having people reject you making you Weary rather than hate yourself. I think the lack of choice and the way the dice seem to drive the character bothered the players.

[Mike Holmes]

Just to back this up, these were the exact sorts of feelings that I had. And I wasn't doing too bad. I'm sure that Josh felt even more constrained.

Mike

[xiombarg]

Okay, finally I'm going to finish up my report on this.

I had three players. Shawn, James, and Emily. James and Emily are the couple I ran Wuthering Heights with the first time.

As Paul mentioned might happen, the players had trouble coming up with TWO less-than-human characteristics. The only person who didn't have a problem was Shawn, and he had trouble coming up with his more-than-human characteristic. They all had trouble coming up with Connections, especially Shawn -- at first he created Connections of people he HATED, and I had to explain again that these were supposed to want to connect to.

However, it all came together eventually...

Shawn played a carpenter/actor named Job (like the Biblical Job, which turned out to be appropriate) with the following less-than human characteristics: 1. Can't talk unless quoting from the Master's works -- this was the result of trauma that came from seeing Maestro Von Daekken murder the Minister's Wife, Mrs. Klaiver. (James had named the Minister Doctor Klaiver.) Since we didn't have any bad plays handy, we decided that the Maestro's previous play was essentially a clone of Titus Adronicus, and Shawn quoted from that one Shakespeare play all session. (I had mentioned the character that could only quote Shakespeare as an example, tho not the Master associated with that Minion, so I think that's where he got the idea.) 2. Cannot kill a woman unless he's in love with her. (This was by far my favorite less-than-human trait, tho it didn't come into play much in practice.) His greater-than-human was "Can sculpt achingly beautiful works, except when motivated by positive emotions." That is, only scultures motivated by hate -- like those of the Maestro -- were beautiful. His Connections were to Getchen V., the Miller's daughter, who he was in love with and gave most of his sculptures to, and Klaus Klaiver, the Minister's son, who Job admired for his deep understanding of women -- which Job didn't realize was becaue Klaus was gay. (This was Shawn's idea.) This added three more characters to the relationship map.

James played the Maestro's son, Iscarot Von Daekken, a bastard child, literally -- the Maestro had never married his mother, who had left long, long ago. His less than human: 1. Stutters horribly except when on-stage. 2. Can't look someone in the eye, except children. His greater than human: Can pefectly defend any woman he cares for, except in the presence of religious symbols, because of his deep shame regarding his father's actions. With that in mind, one of his connections was the Potestant Minister, Doctor Klaiver, the father of the woman the Maestro wants (Eva Klaiver), who Iscarot sneaks off to confess to. His other connection was the Mayor's daughter (the same mayor that was having an affair with Mrs. Klaiver before the game began), a six-year-old girl, Illiana, that Iscarot was very protective of. That added one new person to the relationship map, as the Minister was already there.

Emily was playing a London dock whore by the name of Victoria Chapel that the Meastro had "rescued" to become an actress. She had the less-than-human characteristics: 1. Looks like an unappealing (to any man) London dock whore, spent and used -- except on stage. 2. Is a nymphomaniac, except in the presence of religious figures. Her greater-than-human: Can instantly befriend any woman, unless she's married. Her connection was to Hans, the Mayor, who she loved from afar, and to the daughter of the only farmer unlucky enough to have his property bordering the Maestro's, a woman we named Getchen S. (Yeah, we had two Getchens.) That added two new people to the map -- the farmer and his daughter.

For simplicity, we assumed the wives of the farmer, miller, and mayor (Hans) were all dead -- being a married woman didn't seem to be very healthy in that village, which is another reason we set Reason at 2 -- no real matrionly presence to provide that sort of stability. In order to increase the number of potential victims, I gave the farmer a younger daughter and the miller as well.  I also decided that Eva, the Minister's daugher, and Illiana were Innocents in the game-mechanical sense. (Part of the reason the Maestro became tough to beat was both Innocents ended up dead, driving Fear from 4 up to 6.)

Okay. I'll try to skip most of the blow-by-blow and stick to salient points. I started by having the Meastro get Intimate with his son, talking about old times with Iscarot's mother, and then ordering Iscarot (successfully) to go get the farmer's younger daughter. During this time Victoria nipped off to stalk Hans, and the Meastro ordered Job to bring Illiana to him.

TO make a long story short, Iscarot ended up killing the farmer's younger daughter and bringing the body to the Meastro, who had him put it in "the milker" to get the blood. Job screwed up sneaking into Illiana's house and ended up having to kill Hans, which is where he started racking up the Self Loathing. Illiana ended up in the dungeon.

Only twice were the PCs able to resist the Meastro's commands.  The first time was after Iscarot had been told to stay in the mansion, which allowed him to slip off to kill Eva, the Minister's daughter, after the Maestro had forced IScarot to kill Illiana as punishment for confessing the murder of the farmer's younger daughter to the Minister, which led to the Meastro ordering Job to kill the Minister because he knew too much, giving Job EVEN MORE Self-Loathing. The second time is when Victoria rebelled and killed the Master, killing Maestro Von Daekken on the second scene with a really good roll.

One of the biggest frustrations the players had with the system is the character with the most reason to hate the Meastro -- Job -- was the least able to rebel and kill him, because of all his Self-Loathing. We thought this was counterintuitive. The person who killed the Meastro was Victoria, who had the least reason to hate the Master -- she'd spent most of the game acquiring Love, including a hilarious scene where she managed to seduce the Miller (who she fixated on after the Mayor died) by persuading him to make love to her while blindfolded, so he couldn't see what she looked like until the end, when screamed and ran off looking for a shower. It seemed odd to us that the character who suffered the least under the Master was most able to rebel against him. (BTW, I assumed that when making a connection a successful roll meant things went more or less as the character hoped, while a failure meant a rejection -- but Love was gained regardless because the character is acting in a human way.)

However, Job was a fine tragic figure -- the scenes where he was trying to get help from Gretchen V. and Klaus by showing them the murdered body of the Mayor, and then blowing the roll, resulting in horror and rejection, were heart-wrenching. In the end, when a mob came looking for Job for the murder of the mayor, even before the game was over Job allowed himself to be torn apart. (I ran that as a violence roll against himself, as Job was essentially committing suicide -- and for a change, all that Self-Loathing was "helpful". It seemed to make sense.)

In the Epilogue, Victoria drowned herself at the mill because of her rejection by the Miller, and Iscarot became the town's new Minister, which seemed appropriate given his religious bent.

Anyway, aside from the issues with Self-Loathing already mentioned, one problem I had was knowing how/when to apply the less-than and more-than human characteristics. For example, you could argue that Victoria should auto-succeed in all Connection rolls with single women, but that seemed sort of unfair, so instead I just gave her an auto-success on her first attempt. Also, one could have argued that Iscarot wouldn't have been able to murder Illiana on his father's orders, but I rules that he had to be defending her against SOMEONE ELSE for his more-than-human to kick in. Perhaps I was being too harsh in both these cases -- some guidelines would be good.

On the other hand, I was very liberal with giving out the d4/d6/d8, and I doubt the group would have done half the things they wanted otherwise. In my opinion, heavy use of these dice are imporant if the PCs are to have any free will at all.

But overall the group really enjoyed the game, and seemed satisfied with the results. They were of the opinion that the game was best for one-shots, and completely unsuitable for campaign play, probably because of the tight focus on the story ending one way: with the death of the Master. This isn't a bad thing -- as I said, they enjoyed themselves, but it's something to note.

Okay, you can cross-examine me in detail now Paul. ;-)

[Paul Czege]

Hey Kirt,

Thanks so much for the extensive playtest report. You've given me a lot to think about. I'm not sure how useful it would be for me to write out a lengthy line-by-line of thoughts and reactions, but if you'd like a reaction or response to any of your specific observations, just say so.

Okay, you can cross-examine me in detail now Paul.

Here we go, four questions to start:

1) Did you use the rules for Innocents? If so, how did they work out?

2) Did the players ever use the rules for aiding each other?

3) Prior to your playtest, I sent you a summation of pretty much the same observations about More/Less than Humans as I just posted to the forum yesterday. How did you use it, if at all?

4) What was the first scene you framed for each of the characters?

Thanks again,

Paul

[xiombarg]

1) Did you use the rules for Innocents? If so, how did they work out?

Yes, yes I did. I mentioned that in my post, but you probably missed that in my information dump: I also decided that Eva, the Minister's daugher, and Illiana were Innocents in the game-mechanical sense. (Part of the reason the Maestro became tough to beat was both Innocents ended up dead, driving Fear from 4 up to 6.)

The bonus of one to Reason that an Innocent added to a scene didn't seem to have much of an effect; the Minions were just as effective as ever in the evil they were ordered to do. On the other hand, the increase of Fear caused by killing them made it a LOT harder to deal with the Master, particularly after the second one died.

IMHO, either you should suggest there not be more than one Innocent, so the Master can't drive up the Fear by killing 'em, or perhaps having an Innocent in a scene should increase Reason by two, not one. Or perhaps an "innocent die"... A d10 or something that's added to rolls positively modified by Reason during scenes with an Innocent.

2) Did the players ever use the rules for aiding each other?

Nope. On the opposite end of the scale, Emily's character did attack Shawn's character, tho, because he had killed the Mayor, who her character was in love with. I wasn't sure how to handle that, so I used the normal "acting against someone other than the Master" rule, which seemed a touch counterintuitive to the players -- I could tell they would have preferred an opposed combat roll of some sort, perhaps because they're used to more "traditional" systems. And I wasn't sure if I should let PCs kill other PCs, so I just used Weariness for damage.

3) Prior to your playtest, I sent you a summation of pretty much the same observations about More/Less than Humans as I just posted to the forum yesterday. How did you use it, if at all?

I emphasized that the Less Than Humans were serious obstacles in interacting with the villagers. You can decide for yourself how well they absorbed that advice. However, I forgot to mention that the More Than Human should have been vital to the Master's success, so instead all of them took More Than Human traits that were at odds with the Master or futhered their personal gain, which I think was an interesting trend.

4) What was the first scene you framed for each of the characters?

I started everyone together. Dark and stormy night, doing a play in the Meastro's theatre, with Maestro Von Daekken as their only audience. Emily did a lovely description of her going from beautiful to skanky after she stopped acting, and it was fun to watch James's stutter kick in. Shawn's character sort of lurked, quoting Titus Adronicus a lot.

[Mike Holmes]

IMHO, either you should suggest there not be more than one Innocent, so the Master can't drive up the Fear by killing 'em, or perhaps having an Innocent in a scene should increase Reason by two, not one. Or perhaps an "innocent die"... A d10 or something that's added to rolls positively modified by Reason during scenes with an Innocent.

I think it stands to readon that any scene which involves an Innocent automatically involves Sincereity. After all, what is an Innocent but a person who is incapable of anything but honesty?

Mike

[Paul Czege]

Hey Kirt,

You're right, I missed where you'd written about the Innocents. Thanks. Had the Innocent nature of those characters been discerned by the players prior to them getting killed? It seems to me that it wouldn't be difficult for players to figure out who the Innocents are from seeing Reason modified just one time. I'm very curious how players react to threats leveled at known Innocents.

Regarding Minion vs. Minion, it's in the rules, but not as clearly as it should be. It's a straight opposed roll, Fear plus Self-Loathing vs. Fear plus Self-Loathing. The winner gets a point of Self-Loathing, and the loser gets a point of Weariness, representing a wound. In the game text I used language like "the Minion resists" that I should probably ditch, because it makes it seem like Minion vs. Minion hostilities are a series of exchanges, resisted attacks, rather than a simultaneous conflict resolution roll.

It's very interesting to me how you chose to start your game. You went with a straight character building scene. My recommendation for a single-evening game would have been for you to begin by framing independent scenes for each of the characters, with the Master commanding each Minion to take actions against the Connections of one of the other Minions. How did you escalate conflict from your starting scene?

Paul

[Paul Czege]

Hey Mike,

I think it stands to readon that any scene which involves an Innocent automatically involves Sincereity. After all, what is an Innocent but a person who is incapable of anything but honesty?

The way I rationalize the causality of the mechanic for Innocents is that the presence of such a rare individual, in any scene, regardless of the number of other characters present, acts to bolster and galvanize the moral strength and resolve of the environment, which has its source in the decency and goodness of the Townspeople. Essentially, having an Innocent around makes it easier for everyone present to do what's humanly decent in the face of opposition, and harder to do what's not.

The Intimacy/Desperation/Sincerity dice aren't so much a reflection of the tenor of the scene, but more specifically of what the Minion is bringing to it. A Minion would be aided in resisting the Master, were an Innocent present in the scene, but hindered in taking a violent action against someone from town. Yet that Minion could still presumably earn a Desperation die for that violent action. So, I guess I don't see any real linkage between the presence of an Innocent, and the Intimacy/Desperation/Sincerity die.

Am I making sense?

Paul

[xiombarg]

You're right, I missed where you'd written about the Innocents. Thanks. Had the Innocent nature of those characters been discerned by the players prior to them getting killed? It seems to me that it wouldn't be difficult for players to figure out who the Innocents are from seeing Reason modified just one time. I'm very curious how players react to threats leveled at known Innocents.

They knew they were Innocents at the start of the game. I even circled them on the relationship map. (I have this whiteboard I use for gaming and that's where the relationship map was.)

One Innocent was a Connection for James's Character, Iscarot Von Daekken. The Master had Job (Shawn's character) kidnap her and put her in the dungeon to get blood from, and when Iscarot found out about this, the Master successfully ordered Iscarot to kill her as punishment for telling the Minister what the Master was up to. This led to an interesting scene where Iscarot killed her while shouting all the things he wanted to say to the Master -- in a sense, she served a proxy for the Master.

After his Connection was dead, the only way Iscarot could get revenge on the Master (in his mind) was by killing the object of the Master's desire -- the other Innocent, the Minister's Daughter, Eva. So that's how she died. This was in connection with the first time someone resisted the Master's command -- the Master ordered Iscarot to stay in the mansion while he went to deal with other matters, and Iscarot made his roll to resist, but pretended to assent, running off to kill Eva as soon as the Master was out of sight.

While the first murder was going on, Emily's characer was fooling around with the Miller (getting more Love) and Job had already been torn apart by a mob of townspeople over the murder of the Mayor. During the second murder, Job was still dead, and Victoria (Emily's character) was busy talking to her best friend (gaining more Love), because the Miller had rejected her after he saw who she was.

So, the main reaction to an Inncocent being endangered and killed was, due to the relationsip of the other Innocent to the Master, the last Innocent getting killed as well. ;-)

It's very interesting to me how you chose to start your game. You went with a straight character building scene. My recommendation for a single-evening game would have been for you to begin by framing independent scenes for each of the characters, with the Master commanding each Minion to take actions against the Connections of one of the other Minions. How did you escalate conflict from your starting scene?

Well, I wanted to try the d4/d6/d8 thing, so I had the Master walk off with his son, Iscarot, and talk about old time, touching him, and then ordering him to get blood from the farmer's younger daughter. Once Iscarot had left, the Master ordered Job to get blood from Illiana, Iscarot's Connection, in his bid to start ruining Connections early on. During this time, Victoria slipped out of the mansion, and spent most of the session gaining Love. In fact, I think the only time she got ordered to do anything is when she resisted and went on to kill the Master, in revenge for his role in the death of the Mayor, mostly. (This was one of the many reasons we thought it was odd she ended up being the most capable of killing the Master -- she had been influenced by him the least.)

[Paul Czege]

...the Master successfully ordered Iscarot to kill her as punishment for telling the Minister what the Master was up to. This led to an interesting scene where Iscarot killed her while shouting all the things he wanted to say to the Master -- in a sense, she served a proxy for the Master.

After his Connection was dead, the only way Iscarot could get revenge on the Master (in his mind) was by killing the object of the Master's desire -- the other Innocent, the Minister's Daughter, Eva. So that's how she died.

Geez Kirt, as you reveal the details, it sounds increasingly like you guys had an awesome game...good freakin' lord. And I think you handled conflict escalation perfectly from your starting scene.

Here's one more question, maybe even my final question: taking into account rules clarifications from this thread, but otherwise if I changed nothing about the game mechanics from the version you played, do you think you and your players would ever play it again, just from interest emerging among the group to do so?