[TROS] Situation Driven TROS in Westeros

[Ron Edwards]

Hi Adrienne,

Those are extremely well-articulated and relevant points. Let's see if my take on them is useful for you.

Generally, I was wondering if people had suggestions for including SAs. Do I just need to form the habit of scanning the list before I make rolls, or is there anything else I should do?

Scanning the list before rolling is good, and probably necessary if you're not doing it now ... but I suggest a little more. If you can make those SAs well-known to everyone in the group, both through role-playing in-character and through simply telling the other players outright, then you can enlist the other people to help you note when a given action is "for" or "against" a given SA (either of which is good TROS play).

The second problem ... There are likely to be a number of important things being accomplished by force, and non-combatants (such as my social-heavy character) are not immune to violent fallout from these events. Already, I'm beginning to get the sense that Jessamine is being swept along with little control over her fate. ...

Ralph (Valamir) points out that your SA rewards are a nice resource for buying combat-relevant skills, but more importantly (and perhaps more satisfyingly given your character concept), he also points out that a character with a relatively small combat pool can still be a beast in combat with, say, three SAs firing at maximum at once. To me, that resulting "effectiveness through passion" which brings a character alive through many a combat, is very common in rousing fiction of all kinds, in any medium.

... The other issue is that Osric's SAs work mostly in harmony, while two of my character's Passions are in near-constant conflict. While I enjoy playing it, my character's waffling is holding her back from gaining the benefits of choosing a side that Osric seems to have.

... I'm curious whether folks who've played TROS before have any advice to offer on conflicting SAs--are they a bad idea in the long run, or just as workable as a more focused character?

There is indeed a bit of a trade-off between (a) the character who has five compatible SAs and runs the risk of being a bit of a robot, and (b) the character whose SAs may be quite conflicting and runs the risk of, basically, having less dice. But it's not necessarily a bad thing at all. In fact, a negative outcome for the latter character (at worst, dying in combat, e.g.) can be an extraordinarily satisfying moment of play - an Ending, if you will, which matters thematically, rather than being a mere quantitative outcome.

And oh, yes - consider as well your freedom to mutate your SAs nearly at will during play. Review those rules carefully if you don't know them yet. It's quite possible to alter your SAs for purposes of surviving a given scene (or rather, maximizing your chances of doing so) and altering them "back" later.

Best,
Ron

[Valamir]

I'd also add the following.

SA points are not awarded every single time you do something that happens to correspond with an SA, but when you do something noteworthy that reinforces it.

If you have conflicting SAs, then I'd submit that every time you're forced to choose between them, that that automatically counts as a noteworthy event and earns SAs.  As GM, I'd be more inclined to award SAs more rapidly to SAs that are in conflict than perhaps I otherwise would.

That's not in anyway a "found in the rulebook" rule but perhaps something to discuss with John.

[CPXB]

For the record, my character does have conflicting SAs.  Its just his Passion: Pride in the Lannisters has not yet been able to conflict with his Passion: Hates Tywin Lannister.  :D

More generally, I think it is a good idea for the players to know each other's SAs to encourage them and such.  I think I'll try to write mine down on a notecard to give to Adrienne and hope she does the same for me for next game session.

*goes back to strategizing how to kill Ned Stark*  :)

[johnmarron]

As Chris and Adrienne have noted, we had our second session of our TROS/Westeros game last Friday.  The physical conditions were a bit more challenging this time, since we play in a game store and a CCG tournament was using all of the tables, but we persevered.  I'm afraid there's no way for me to summarize the action of this session without some big spoilers for the first third of the first novel (A Game of Thrones), so if you don't want to have some plot developments from the novel revealed, I'm afraid you may not want to read this post.


That said, here's what occurred.  After the tournament and feast that occurred during last week's game, Lady Jessamine returned to her chambers to find a note written in what appeared to be a female hand stating "The king is in danger.  As you love your own life, look to his".  I don't know if this qualifies as a bang, but my intention was to spur the player into making a decision as to whether she would follow her love of her family (the king is her cousin) or her loyalty to the queen (whom she suspects of planning to harm the king).  I didn't care what decision she made, only that she make one.  In an attempt to balance both passions, she approached Ser Osric (the other PC) and asked him to convey the warning to the king.  She went to great efforts to hide the fact that she suspects the queen.

The next day, the king and some of the high ranking guests from the tournament went on a boar hunt.  Ser Osric, as the king's squire, went along, bringing the two wineskins of fine wine that the queen had given him last week as a "peace offering" to her husband.  Her plan was that Robert (the king), a notorious drinker, would become drunk on the hunt and come to some harm.  Strangely enough, the drunken king attacked a cornered boar in a thicket against all advice.  We played out the battle, with Chris's character Osric arriving after a couple of rounds, and Adrienne playing the drunk king with proper disregard for his own safety.  I was perfectly happy for the outcome to vary from the book, but the king was seriously gored in the abdomen a couple of times, and only the timely arrival of Ser Osric saved him from immediate death.  Osric skewered the boar through the throat with a nice SA augmented combat pool (his drive to become a lord spurring him on to save the king, his current meal ticket and best hope for promotion).

Upon returning to the city with the mortally wounded king, Osric approached Jessamine and demanded to know how she knew the king was in danger.  She revealed the note, and Osric brusquely took it from her, using his physical power to intimidate the lady.  Later, Osric was approached by Varys, the king's eunuch advisor and head of "secret police".  Varys asked for the details of the king's encounter with the boar, and hoped that Osric might supply him with further information in the future.  Osric reacted with manful and noble disdain when the low born eunuch became overly familiar.

Suspecting that the effeminate handwriting on the note may have been Varys's rather than a woman's, Osric set Jessamine to trying to acquire a sample of the eunuch's handwriting, unsuccessfully.

That night, the king died.  Jessamine, having had some conversation with the king's younger brother (and her other cousin) Renly the day before, sought him out only to find that he apparently had left the city.  Very strange behavior, since his brother's funeral would not be for a few days yet.  Later that morning, both Osric and Jessamine were summoned along with the whole court to the throne room, where the queen presided over a ceremony crowning her 13 year old son Joffrey as king, also in defiance of custom since his father was barely cold.  Osric and Jessamine both noted a lot of tension in the air, and the fact that the large numbers of city guard present were heavily armed and armored.  As the ceremony concluded, the King's hand (main advisor) Ned Stark arrived with armed men and seemed intent on causing trouble.  We closed the session with weapon's being drawn.

One of the interesting things about this session, in terms of playing in a "licensed" setting, was that we played out two major scenes that occur "off-camera" in the novel.  Both the actual boar hunt and the coronation scene are not described in the book (the book uses a different viewpoint character for each chapter, and these events are described after the fact).  This allowed me to feel less constrained to be true to the setting than I might otherwise have been (irrationally, since I'm consciously willing to deviate from the books).  Osric plans to attack Ned Stark in the upcoming melee, so we have a big opportunity for our game to veer away from the novels there.

As far as TROS mechanics are concerned, I was much freer with the SA points than in the first session.  Things are heating up and hopefully the story is impacting the characters' SAs a bit more now.  I'm finding it somewhat difficult to determine when Osric's Drive to become a lord should and shouldn't apply, but the player has been convincing in tying it to many of his actions, so I've been erring on the side of generosity, since it definitely helps protagonize his character and lets him shine.  I was a bit rough with the combat mechanics, particularly with the boar fight since I forgot I had OBAM for the first couple of rounds.  My prep time is minimal since I have a 3 month old at home and am either working long hours or babysitting most of the time, but I'm going to try and put more time into statting out potential NPCs for the next session's action.  I think the scene cutting between characters was better this time, and I think both players got equal spotlight time.  I used Ralph's suggestion of having Adrienne play an NPC during a combat scene, which kept her more engaged and let her try out the system.  I think both players made multiple important decisions with their characters during the session, and everyone, including me, seemed to have a good time.

As always, I'm open to suggestions for improving the game, so feel free to make 'em.

John Marron

[Ron Edwards]

Hi John,

As far as I can tell, people ought to be going to you and your group for advice on improving their games, instead of the other way around. Two of the specifics that stick out for me include:

1. Recognizing various limitations on your time or in a venue, and not letting it throw you during the "we are actually playing" time.

2. Not worrying about getting everything perfect at every step while everyone is still learning the game, but also making sure to improve your use of the game/rules as well, as you go.

Your SA-fu seems to be hitting just right for your group and the nature of the developing story, which also makes sense. The Riddle of Steel, like Sorcerer, often includes a kind of "figure out where you stand" phase on the players' parts, which is very distinct from the "figure out why we're being attacked or why our lives just got so weird" in many other games. So the GM's job during this phase is merely to keep providing events and to apply the respective game's powerful feedback mechanics as you go.

And I really want to say that I am enjoying reading about you having an unequivocally good time with role-playing. It's been quite a road for both of us over the last decade.

Best,
Ron

[CPXB]

Osric skewered the boar through the throat with a nice SA augmented combat pool (his drive to become a lord spurring him on to save the king, his current meal ticket and best hope for promotion).

When you put it that way, it seems so tawrdy -- like Osric is merely a kiss-assing yesman trying to claw his way to the top . . . oh, wait.  He is.  :D

I'm finding it somewhat difficult to determine when Osric's Drive to become a lord should and shouldn't apply, but the player has been convincing in tying it to many of his actions, so I've been erring on the side of generosity, since it definitely helps protagonize his character and lets him shine.

I'll actually be changing it *after* the next session to a different drive -- probably something cliched but more discrete such as "to be the greatest knight".  I think the drive to be lord is very . . . vague.  I think that I will swap out my as yet unused Destiny -- heck, I even bought it down to zero already to help raise my MA -- and make it a destiny to be a lord.  But as a drive I find myself going, "Hey, I could say this helps me become a lord!" in a very wide variety of situations.  Which, therefore, puts you in the situation of having to decide which is legitimate and which isn't.  I acknowledge that the situation isn't clear a lot of the time so for ease of play for us all I'm thinking of swapping it out.  And if I change it to a destiny I'll still get to play the whole smarmy ambitious thing (which I have enjoyed).

But not until AFTER the next session.  I'm thinking I'm gonna need those four dice to have a chance against Stark, hehe.

I was a bit rough with the combat mechanics, particularly with the boar fight since I forgot I had OBAM for the first couple of rounds.

*snip*

I think both players made multiple important decisions with their characters during the session, and everyone, including me, seemed to have a good time.

We were all rough with the mechanics.  I'd read through them once and only noted what I thought was "cool" instead of what might be actually useful to know -- such as the details on how a single person fights multiple foes, hehe.  I plan to go through those rules before the next session so I have a grip on them.

And I know both Adrienne and I had a lot of fun.  :)

[CPXB]

The Riddle of Steel, like Sorcerer, often includes a kind of "figure out where you stand" phase on the players' parts, which is very distinct from the "figure out why we're being attacked or why our lives just got so weird" in many other games. So the GM's job during this phase is merely to keep providing events and to apply the respective game's powerful feedback mechanics as you go.

I've been feeling this quite strongly, myself.  When we made characters in TROS I was asked to make all these really seemingly important decisions about my character.  About his epic passions and drives, his destiny, all that -- and I didn't really know the character well enough to say.  While it is true that the fact of answering the questions helped me to get to know Osric, I didn't know how the SAs would interact with the world.  So during the first two game sessions, in particular, I found myself sorta scratching my head sometimes with SAs (and I think that Adrienne is doing this more than I am in some ways).

However, since it is so easy to swap 'em out, this is not a big deal.  I'm agreeing that there is a time during the game where you get know your character via feedback from the environment that isn't present in a lot of RPGs that I've played (where the character's motivations and drives are less important).

[Adrienne]

Scanning the list before rolling is good, and probably necessary if you're not doing it now ... but I suggest a little more. If you can make those SAs well-known to everyone in the group, both through role-playing in-character and through simply telling the other players outright, then you can enlist the other people to help you note when a given action is "for" or "against" a given SA (either of which is good TROS play).

This sounds like it will work.  As Chris noted below my post, I'd forgotten that his character also had conflicting SAs--which just goes to show that it's easy to lose track, even with only one other player.  We'll swap SA lists, and hopefully I can get some play out of the Cersei vs. Baratheon Passions before one of them comes crashing down.

...By the way, John, please don't feel obliged to bring Oscric's warring SAs to bear.  Although it would be fun to watch Oscric squirm, I'm not sure it's worth having Tywin in the castle.  ;)

Ralph (Valamir) points out that your SA rewards are a nice resource for buying combat-relevant skills, but more importantly (and perhaps more satisfyingly given your character concept), he also points out that a character with a relatively small combat pool can still be a beast in combat with, say, three SAs firing at maximum at once. To me, that resulting "effectiveness through passion" which brings a character alive through many a combat, is very common in rousing fiction of all kinds, in any medium.

Although it seems obvious in retrospect, I hadn't thought of things this way.  I like the idea of Jessamine having a sudden burst of "heroism" at an unexpected moment.

Thanks for the advice!


-Adrienne

[Adrienne]

That said, here's what occurred.  After the tournament and feast that occurred during last week's game, Lady Jessamine returned to her chambers to find a note written in what appeared to be a female hand stating "The king is in danger.  As you love your own life, look to his".  I don't know if this qualifies as a bang, but my intention was to spur the player into making a decision as to whether she would follow her love of her family (the king is her cousin) or her loyalty to the queen (whom she suspects of planning to harm the king).  I didn't care what decision she made, only that she make one.  In an attempt to balance both passions, she approached Ser Osric (the other PC) and asked him to convey the warning to the king.  She went to great efforts to hide the fact that she suspects the queen.

Heh.  I am the Amazing Waffle-O-Player.  I'm finding the contrast between Jessamine and my "standard" type of characters to be interesting.  It's unusual for me to build contradictory motives into a character, so Jessamine's frequent moments of indecision are mostly a new game experience for me.  Right now she's deceiving herself as a way of avoiding the decision, but I'm not sure it can last past the next session.

I used Ralph's suggestion of having Adrienne play an NPC during a combat scene, which kept her more engaged and let her try out the system.  I think both players made multiple important decisions with their characters during the session, and everyone, including me, seemed to have a good time.

Indeed.  I said to Chris after the game that I'd better hurry up and read the combat rules, since I'd hate to be responsible for the Kingsguard being spanked by Osric or something horrible like that.  ("Ser Jaime will put all his dice in offense!  Oops, forgot defense again.  Aargh!  Oh, well, I still have three Kingsguard left.  What were those maneuvers again?")


-Adrienne

[johnmarron]

Hi John,

As far as I can tell, people ought to be going to you and your group for advice on improving their games, instead of the other way around.

Thanks for the supportive comments, Ron.

And I really want to say that I am enjoying reading about you having an unequivocally good time with role-playing. It's been quite a road for both of us over the last decade.

Best,
Ron

Yes, I think we've both come a long way from those Market Street Pub discussions.  In the past few years, I've had many, many games that have fizzled out.  I tend to blame the system as one that I can't run/don't enjoy running, but I think now that most of my problems have arisen from a lack of pre-game discussion about what we all want to get out of the game.  Applying the GMing techniques I've picked up here is working really well so far, and I'm enjoying this game more than any in recent memory (having good, engaged, and proactive players is also a huge help).

Speaking of Forge inspired GMing techniques, has anyone given any thought to publishing a Forge GMing primer?  It could have GNS specific techniques as well as universally useful tools or style articles contributed by the Forge luminaries.  I have the Sorcerer sups which are an amazing resource, but I'd like to see a book that pulls everything together into a "GMs toolkit".  Just a thought.

John