[Sorcerer S&S Charnel Gods] As the hands turn...

[Mike Holmes]

There doesn't seem to be much here in the way of unifying action. That is, are you using a Relationship Map or anything as the center of activity? Pike, for instance, seems to only have met one of the other PCs by accident (which has lead to a fight between them).

I'm not suggesting that you should be playing party play or anything. But what you have here seems to be several unconnected stories. Is there something going on that will provide the means for the PCs to plausibly interact more in the future?

Also, some of what I think are your bangs don't seem very "bangy." That is, following Pike again, where were the players moments of decision? In the first part, could she have stuck around to ask questions? Was fleeing her idea? In the second part, why did she flee from the guy with the rapier? Seems like potentially a very narrativist decision given the fact that it seems likely that she could have wiped the floor with the character in question. It's just seems rather implausible. She wants to chase him, until he has a rapier in his hand? And that changes her mind? Hmm.

Then finding he hanging woman - what choices there? Also was it Albrecht's player who ended up deciding to attack? Did that seem like the player considered the decision? It certainly didn't leave Pike's player with many decisions.

I'm probably missing the decision points because of your narrative presentation. Could you cut through the recap, and just tell us where the players made interesting decisions?

Mike

[Old_Scratch]

There doesn't seem to be much here in the way of unifying action. That is, are you using a Relationship Map or anything as the center of activity? Pike, for instance, seems to only have met one of the other PCs by accident (which has lead to a fight between them).

No relationship map. I debated the idea for a bit, but wanted to give the players a bit of freedom to choose what they ultimately wanted to play. If it didn't work out, I thought I'd give the r-map a try next time - after all, it is Charnel Gods. Having done this now, I can see why the r-map is such a useful tool. As for unifying action, I'm scrabbling to weave the stories together, but I think I'm a bit closer to pulling it off than it looks - the white dust that keeps appearing (the Pike kicker - the guy at the cemetary, the Order of the Ivory Sun) weaves through all three stories - I figure it is the powdered bone remains of a Nameless One being used for alchemical applications. Pike has been exposed to the stuff - what happens to a human who breathes in the essence of a Nameless One? What will it do for the half-dead half-living? And where is this stuff coming from (the Forest Folk).

I'm not suggesting that you should be playing party play or anything. But what you have here seems to be several unconnected stories. Is there something going on that will provide the means for the PCs to plausibly interact more in the future?

I'm hoping so now... Originally, I thought the shared themes of the story might be sufficient, but I'm thinking that in practice it wasn't as successful as I originally hoped. Again, I'm hoping that some of the plot elements will draw the characters together - but with players, you can never be certain.

Also, some of what I think are your bangs don't seem very "bangy."

Well, the Doktor Albrecht character ran almost solely off his Kicker. I used one Bang the entire session with the guy (the guy in the cemetary). The whole grim ransom episode I had never conceived...

The Pike elements had very few Bangs, first working off the kicker - the character ended up on their own free will at their Patron - I had to come up with something quick, so I had the argument as a spur of the moment bang - get involved or not? Two other bangs were the ones I generated. The first got dropped - the little living package. The character didn't want anything to do with it and tossed it - the quick use of her weapon's powers meant there was almost no time to do anything with the bang. The last bang was the confrontation with the Inquisitor. The whole incident with the other character was her idea. So basically one off-the-cuff bang, one "stillborn" bang (heh heh heh...) and one actual planned bang.

Angil on the other hand, I burned through a lot of her bangs. This player is the quietest and most passive: the deal with the noble of thorns, the encounter with the merchant and the brigands, the encounter with the Knights and Inquisitor, the chase of the woman and children, and the hermit were all pre-planned bangs.

So Doc: 1 bang, Pike 2 bangs, Angil 5 bangs.

That is, following Pike again, where were the players moments of decision? In the first part, could she have stuck around to ask questions? Was fleeing her idea?

Fleeing was her idea. The character fled a lot!

In the second part, why did she flee from the guy with the rapier? Seems like potentially a very narrativist decision given the fact that it seems likely that she could have wiped the floor with the character in question.

It seems to me like she was worried about killing someone associated with her patron as well as the potential act of killing. The character bowed out of a number of conflicts throughout the story, rather than resorting to violence.

It's just seems rather implausible. She wants to chase him, until he has a rapier in his hand? And that changes her mind? Hmm.

Again, I think the intent was to drive him off, scare him as long as Pike had a perceived advantage. Again, this is a street urchin character, somewhere between childhood and adulthood. But I'll chat with the player a bit and see where they were at in the decision making process.

Then finding he hanging woman - what choices there?

The player seized the opportunity and started narrating where she was at and seeing the light... so I just went with it. It wasn't actually my bang. She just wanted to meet up with the other character.

Also was it Albrecht's player who ended up deciding to attack?

Yup. Boosted his Stamina to something like 10 or 12 and gave the character a toss.

Did that seem like the player considered the decision? It certainly didn't leave Pike's player with many decisions.

Well, we didn't know what diabolical plot that Albrecht had going with his hostage at the time, so we were wondering about his decision as well, but I think he really didn't want his story to be compromised - worried that Pike's intrusion might rob him of his hostage and the direction he wanted his story. I think he really wanted the girl to go in a hole in the ground and the father to suffer. He also felt it was in character, he himself had been buried alive, and wanted someone else to suffer  it as well. He would have explained himself a bit more, but really he stopped explaining his actions, following the advice of the "Man of Action" Charnel Gods note to not bother explaining why you're doing something. While great in theory, in practice, it has left me a bit cold.

I'm probably missing the decision points because of your narrative presentation. Could you cut through the recap, and just tell us where the players made interesting decisions?

Hey, this is a ton of work! I'd love nothing more than to recap the decisions... but I thought for one session, to evoke the spirit of play as well as the genre of pulp and Sword and Sorcery, I'd give a fuller presentation. But never again! It took longer to write up then it did to play! So I'll end the whole thing with how the bangs and kickers and other moments ended up so we've got both.

[Old_Scratch]

The last session post! Phew!

Hell Gaunt
Leaving the site of his grave and his latest atrocity, the Hell Gaunt/Doktor Albrecht leaves the graveyard and his ghastly gift to his former rival. Mulling over the words of the man he'd rescued the night before, he decides to venture forth towards this manse.

Climbing down into the sewers, the Hell Gaunt lands amidst a swarm of rats, who all bow down before him and begin to follow him quietly. Passing a body floating in the sewer, he rises from the sewer as he nears the mansion.

Seeing the mansion of the patron of the Order of the Ivory Sun, he climbs up its wall, perching atop and looking for any guards. A few rats scurry over the wall, and after a moment, a large mastiff appears, but sighting the rats it begins to chase the rats all about the yard.

Hell Gaunt leaps down and glides through the yard, looking up to see the silhouette of an elderly gentleman smoking a pipe in the window. Moving in the shadows, he ventures into the back where a number of low brick buildings have been constructed. Nearly hermetically sealed, with no windows and thick doors, Hell Gaunt toys with the doors, but leaves them, and having satiated his curiosity for the nonce, he slips away, over the walls, and creeps about the streets of the city.

By some quirk of fate or chance, he finds himself before Praag's famed astrological clock, and looks up at its face, noting that as it tolls, the time has struck midnight! Elsewhere in the city, a father is digging up the grave of his daughter! The bell tolls mournfully and the storm above suddenly breaks and lightning comes streaking down, one bolt striking the clock and arcs of light and energy play across its surface and its orreys suddenly shift into an ill-omened position before the Hell Gaunt's eyes. Lighting pours down like rain! A bolt strikes a carriage, frying the occupants and lighting it while other bolts pelt rooftops, blowing off tiles and starting fires! As the winds increase, the heavens roar in shame, and people cower in their beds as the skies rage. Madmen have heralded the coming of the end, and most people scoff... but tonight, for a few hours at least, some fear within Praag fear they speak the truth!

Pike
...a drop of blood strikes the pavement, and the crowd surges forth towards Pike, attempting to seize the heretic! Enraged, Pike draws forth the Fell-Weapon bastard sword and swings wildly. With ease the swing cuts through bone and gristle and muscle and the head of one of the crowd flies off as the trunk sprays blood over the crowd – many are shocked and horrified, but the momentum of others brings Pike down.

Pike struggles to attack again but the mob is pressing in close, and the Inquisitor and his dripping scourge come ever closer...

Hands grab at Pike's fingers, in an effort to disarm, and Pike desperately cries out to the blade, commanding it to summon forth the birds about the square. In seconds, hundred of frenzied birds, heeding the call of the blade, turn from passively pecking at the ground or roosting on walls and roofs, to swooping down at the crowd and pecking at eyes and ears and pates. The crowd panics and a great buzzard swoops down upon the Inquisitor. As people turn and panic as more and more birds descend, Pike slips free and begins crawling under the legs, watching the interplay of shadows between the people and birds. Crawling into a shadow, Pike disappears just as the Inquisitor slips down to follow Pike. Pike's weapon teleports her from the scene of chaos...

[If you're wondering, the player changed their ability from "cloak" to "command" – forgot to change that in the original write up!]

Angil
Angil continues riding across the slope, nearing the castle that the Tilter Horde have harbored, when she notes the craggy outcropping, home to a reputed hermit and seer. Turning her horse to seek out the hermit, she is startled when a figure leaps out of the tall-grass about her, brandishing a rusty, blood-crusted dagger...

...kicking the figure away, Angil readies her axe. Then her face convulses in disgust, this figure, in rough worn clothing is revolting! There are bloody stumps where the ears once were. Pus drips from the holes, and maggots swarm in the rotting meat...

The figure speaks! "It was the voices, the whispering voices! They offered wisdom and power, but they were naught but lies! What else could I do? I couldn't stop the voices, my only option... was to cut them off!" He brandishes the knife, and then points it at where the ears once were.

"But that alone hasn't been sufficient I'm afraid. The voices remain on the wind. Others can hear it, I can see that you have heard them as well! Come hither, I'll cure you and I have cured myself!" He again brandishes the nocked and rusty blade. Angil pulls back from him, urging her horse to take a step aside.

The hermit's eyes rise, finally noticing the axe held aloft, a gleam comes to his eyes! "Aye, there is such a whisperer! It offered all to me, but I rejected it... It was within my clutches where the dead lie, and I spurned it! Spurn it too! It will be your end! It may be the end of us all!" He utters, pointing at the axe with his knife.

Angil turns and bolts, kicking at the sides of her horse, and as she leaves the mad hermit behind, she sees a towering castle up ahead, the prison of her father and twin sister.

-=END OF SESSION=- -=End of Typing!!!=-

[Old_Scratch]

As Mike requested...

The Session Summarized by Bangs

The Hell Gaunt (formerly the Internal Alchemist and Scientist Albrecht)
The Monstrous Hell Gaunt/Doktor Albrecht glides through the graveyard, lurking from tombstone to tombstone as the cart with its grisly cargo and driver make exit from the crumbling graveyard.

Kicker Inspired: Confronted by the knowledge of someone conducting his own experiments, he sets off in pursuit. In a seemingly display of still being in touch with his humanity, Albrecht leaps down and attempts to rescue the woman. A few low dice rolls in the ensuing combat are turned around through gory description and action and the player flees into the night with the fair maiden, but not before the player decides that one of his pursuers is/was his last apprentice responsible for his transformation.

Pike
Pike is startled, and starts to back away, dropping the parcel on the ground.

Kicker Inspired: After the accident, the character flees, and in the first (of many uses) the character flees the pursuit. This seems in hindsight a weak Kicker, something aggravated by my mishandling of it, giving the player very little option once he screamed "thief!". But we both figured that spilling the powder was BIG TROUBLE, so I'm not sure how to have better handled it...

Angil
For Angil, there is no dilemma – her family needs her!

Kicker Inspired + Bang: Choosing to go home rather than stay another day for the audience, the PC makes a bargain with a stranger. Again, a sort of weak Kicker, but we tried to make it stronger by having the audience already arranged – do you rush home right away, and still too late or follow instructions and make a more convincing presentation with your father's bloody talisman. But it seems that the player had already decided...

Pike
As commanded, Pike's demon has brought them both to the house of one of Pike's patrons, a woman of the noble class.

Spur of the Moment Bang! Appearing uninvited at her patron's, the player hides while the patron and another argue, eventually turning to violence. Pike finally intervenes, only to be taken aback by the strength of the opposition and a series of losing rolls! Drawing upon her weapon, she follows the man until he arms himself with pistols and rapiers, and appearing cowardly yet again, Pike flees into the night.

Angil
A day has passed and she nears the land of her people.

Bang! When the merchant she is guarding is robbed by her own people, she is faced with a decision – but instead of resorting to violence in the face of insults, Angil manages to use diplomacy to sort the situation out, aided by a will test against the bandit leader.


The Hell Gaunt
Again, the Hell Gaunt flees across the rooftops of Praag, skimming the rooftops, his feet barely touching the tiles.

Bang + Player Motivated Scene: When Albrecht learns that the woman he just rescued is the daughter of his rival (Bang!), Albrecht decides rather than free her to engage in further crimes. Writing a ransom note, he engages in murder as a means of delivering the note, lingering long enough to taunt the audience below. This would have been a good time for a Humanity check, but I spaced... it caught up with the player later anyways...

Pike
Fleeing from the scene of a fight, Pike wanders the city, heading to one of her various bolt-holes throughout the city.

Player Motivated Scene: The Player grabs the reins and narrates that she is near Albrecht's warehouse, and finds his captive, only to be present when he arrives. This was an effort by the player to bring the two stories together, but the effort was repulsed by the other player!!!

Angil
Seeing the smoke rising from the place of her clan homestead, Angil drives her horse onwards and as she nears, she sees the smoking remains of her family home and some figures lying on the ground.

Bang: Arriving home, she finds three soldiers of the church present in the ruins and battles them. A series of humiliating and punishing dice rolls ensue where the superior powers of the player are overcome... making a bargain with the weapon (finally!), the PC manages to overcome, but at the cost of watching loved ones devoured by the demon. Player makes a Humanity test but passes.

Hell Gaunt (as the good Doktor Albrecht is now known in Praag)
Having left his rival's party in disarray and horror, Hell Gaunt flees back across the rooftops as bats flutter alongside towards his warehouse.

Multi-Player Encounter (Player Inspired): Returning home, Albrecht finds someone interacting with his hostage. While an effort is made to parley, the player brushes it aside, boosts Stamina (12 dice!), beats the other player to the punch and hurls the other player across the warehouse and absconds with the hostage.

Bang! After dropping off the hostage, the player sees someone being buried alive and saves them, only after menacing them and threatening to put them back in the ground. He then demands repayment at a future date – I decline to give the player a Humanity raise check.

Pike
As the girl's eyes widen in surprise, Pike spins about and sees a terrible figure towering over her...

Multi-Player Encounter (Player Inspired): After encountering Albrecht and before barely being able to act, the player is subject to a dramatic display of violence, and hobbles away quickly.

Hell Gaunt-Once-Doktor-Albrecht
Having slept through the day, Hell Gaunt awakens as the sun sets and begins his task for the evening.

Player Motivated Scene: Having arranged a ransom, the player decides that money isn't important, and buries the girl in the grave, and then sets off to sort out some more details about this Order of the Ivory Sun.

Pike
Pike awakens, damp and cold, to the smell of fresh baked bread.

Bang: Player delivers a package which seems to be alive. The player freaked out, wanted nothing to do with the package, draws upon the sword to teleport and then dumps the package off. I'm still trying to find a way to reuse this, but I consider this a bang that didn't fully develop – still mulling over this one.

Bang: Upon returning, she finds that her association with a boy has resulted in him being tortured and tormented publicly. While she gathers information, she draws attention to herself and comes to the attention of the Inquisitor and the mob.

Angil
Enraged Angil rides across the countryside but pulls up when she notes some of her kinfolk in pursuit.

Bang! She finds that her kinsfolk are hunting down a woman and her children. Rather than participating, she distracts her own people and allows the barbarians to flee. Player made a humanity roll and gained a point! Woo hoo!

Hell Gaunt
By some quirk of fate or chance, he finds himself before Praag's famed astrological clock, and looks up at its face, noting that as it tolls, the time has struck midnight!

Not really a Bang, more of a Horror Revealed Scene! The PC was wandering about, so I had them end up in front of the astrological clock at midnight, just as his rival is digging up the grave. Since everyone knew what was happening, I deemed this the time to carry out the Humanity test for the act of burying another person alive! Player fails, loses a point of humanity, and I'm going to try and carry out the consequences of this in later bangs, as noted in Charnel Gods. This character looks to be on the fast track to becoming a Charnel God himself...

Pike
...a drop of blood strikes the pavement, and the crowd surges forth towards Pike, attempting to seize the heretic!

Continuation of above Bang!: When confronted by the mob, PC goes berserk, pulls out the blade, urges the weapon to do lethal damage, and tries to cut their way out of the crowd. One great roll followed by a series of bad rolls resulted in the character in near-dire circumstances. Again, the character, for the fourth time, evokes the power of the weapon and draws upon the birds to effect an escape, and then for the fifth time, shadow jumps out. Pike has made the most use of the weapon, and now that she's come to rely upon it, I think it really is time to start focusing on the weapon and her relationship with it... its going to get very demanding, very quickly.

Angil
Angil continues riding across the slope, nearing the castle that the Tilter Horde have harbored, when she notes the craggy outcropping, home to a reputed hermit and seer.

Bang! Angil encounters a hermit who has heard the same whisperings as her, and has cut his ears off in an effort to silence them and claims to know Angil's weapon. Rather than stay and chat though, Angil turns and leaves the beggar screaming.

[Mike Holmes]

Cool, now that I can get into. :-)

With your background info, it seems a lot cooler.

Mike

[Old_Scratch]

Well, I thought the mini-campaign would last for more than two rounds before someone's humanity bottomed out and the endgame began... but alas... after over a month of preparation, the world is going to end after two sessions! Two!

Angil: Player-inspired Scene – Angil arrives at the home of one of her young friends near the castle where her twin sister and father are held hostage. After a bit of convincing, her and her friend sneak out at night from the house for a midnight assault upon the castle. Prying their way up the sewage chute into a garderobe, the two end up in a running battle and cat and mouse chase through the halls of the castle, freeing her family and friends and causing a few casualties.

Pike: Bang (Pike used a lot of the sword's powers last session – more than anybody else so I decided to draw upon his/her (?) relationship with the weapon) Pike had fled a mob scene started by a religious zealot, teleporting to an abandoned school house. The character is paranoid to leave and fearful, but her weapon is needing and acting petulant. Pike notices that a number of birds seem to have gathered around the schoolhouse, and over an hour or so, the schoolhouse and its grounds are packed thick with them and its drawing the attention of the neighboring community. Pike realizes that the sword is still summoning birds to Pike's presence and the blade itself refuses to unsheathe. Pike then decides to meet its need – to destroy the creative means.

So scurrying about from rooftop to rooftop, Pike decides to "visit" a young man that had ripped Pike off during some sort of sexual exchange – those of us at the table are waiting to find out what Pike's ambiguous sex really is! So Pike arrives at his place and sneaks into his room. Emboldened by Pike's arrival, the young male prostitute asserts that "See! You came back! Best damn thing you ever had – I was worth every cent I took from you and more..." At this point the male prostitute pushes Pike down towards the bed and begins tugging at his trousers and Pike's. Pike then draws the blade...

...well... there's no need to go into what happens next, other than to say that blood was spilt, Pike met his or her weapon's need and incurred a Humanity Loss roll which Pike successfully coped with. Leaving the man screaming and bleeding to death, Pike once again runs across the rooftops of Praag to a new hiding place.

Hell Gaunt (The Fiendish Doktor Albrecht) Bang: While gathering materials at the asylum outside of the city, he hears a name calling him, and it is Voloshinov, one of his early assistants that he fired. Turned out that after electro shock therapy, Voloshinov died but is still alive, none at the asylum have noticed it. A side-effect of the experiments inflicted upon him are that he sometimes channels the voices of the dead – including his own former Assistant and Walking Corpse and his colleagues. Figuring this might be useful, he keeps Voloshinov around for a short time.

Angil: Player-Inspired Scene – Fleeing the castle with the refugees, Angil and her family arrive at an old crone's house, where the old crone notes that Angil has fulfilled a number of prophesies, bearing the weapon of winter and the talisman of the Fellowship of Thorns (her father's talisman delivered by the Raven) and that she is to be the first woman initiated into the Fellowship of Thorns.

Pike: Player-Inspired Scene – Pike likewise is seeing out wisdom, and heads to the old woman who warned her earlier of her friend's persecution. Arriving at the old woman's tent at the Square of Princes just near the Clock, she receives a bizarre tarot card reading with the last two cards being The Tower (struck by lightning and falling – the figure in the picture is her) and The Fool walking off a cliff with a sword on his back – again with her features. The woman staggers out of the tent, leaving the cards behind and weeping. Pike asks if she wants her cards back, but the old woman says – "No, they're the only cards I've used for fifty years, and I will never touch them again..."

Hell Gaunt (The Inhuman Creature Once Known as Doktor Albrecht) Player-Inspired Scene: Apparently still driven by an intense hatred toward his rival, Hell Gaunt has conceived of yet another twist in the torments inflicted upon the family. He returns to the house of his rival, Archibald, whose daughter he rescued and then buried alive in some sick prank. The body has been exhumed and is being prepared for the funeral in a room in the house, a house aswarm with activity as nobility and priests come to pay their respects to the grieving family. Three old women are attending the body as it lays in state.

Hell Gaunt bursts through the bay window of the room the body is lying, ripping at the curtains and their bar and hurling it towards the door! One of the old women has a heart attack. Hell Gaunt scoops up some candles and hurls them on the drapes and the doorway is ablaze! He then grabs up the body and disappears into the night, returning back to his base where he attempts to reanimate her. His efforts fail, something is wrong with the heart, and he surmises that he needs the heart of a young woman, roughly her age... a fresh heart...

While leaving the warehouse, his new minion Voloshinov starts talking in an inhuman voice, saying "He's in the warehouse" and moments later some Zombie Automatons like he created burst in, searching for their hated "father". A big battle breaks out with the two Steam-Zombies getting trashed left and right and Hell Gaunt fleeing with all his necessary equipment to a new laboratory location.

Angil: Bang – She is the first woman initiated into the Fellowship of Thorns, and as she is lead to the Briar where the ritual is to be conducted, her father reveals that their Clan once fought beside the First Thearch and guarded the Thorn Gate at his command – but since then their folk traditions of her Clan have been viewed as blasphemous and hostility between the Vigil (the religion) and their own traditional practices have increased dramatically.

Crawling into the heart of a giant briar dome, led by men with thorns tattooed up their arms, each pricks themselves on a thorn at intervals, and their blood remains there, hanging, and the blood of every person ever shed still lingers precariously on the thorns, even after centuries. Angil follows them, arriving at an ornate gate of woven thorns. As she pricks her forefinger, this time the blood drops and is suddenly sucked into a void that has appeared in the intricate archway. The black and red leaves blossoming here within the plant shudder at the charnel winds blowing through. The men of the Fellowship are awed that the gate has opened again, and Angil steps through...

..and enters the Carrion Fields, and decides that she is going to seek out a second weapon. It is not long before she finds a large two handed sword in the arms of a mummified woman, a wicked barbed sword with vine and thorn designs running up the blade, one that drips blood...

Pike: Player-Inspired Scene – Fleeing the inauspicious augury, Pike hurries across the square (it is now midnight – at the same time of last session when Hell Gaunt / Albrecht lost his first point of humanity. The storm gathers, lightning strikes, and the Clock Keeper comes out, to stare in horror at the omens the clock gives. Him and Pike begin talking and he gives Pike spiel about the history of the clock and his role in it, and with a slip of the tongue Pike discovers that he is at least 250 years old... Pike leaves and outside meets a shadowy figure who convinces Pike to enter a rich coach.

The coach takes Pike high up the Hill that Praag Castle is on and she soon meets a Merchant Prince, a woman, one Mira Radozic, one of the anti-Vigil pro-commerce and progress factions of the ruling council. She reveals that other Bearers of Fell Weapons have appeared in the city, many have been hired or used by others, and that Mira will see that Pike's needs are met as long as Pike can provide the power of the sword to Mira's faction. Pike agrees, now entering the dark and seedy underside of Praag's politics.

Hell Gaunt / Albrecht, Internal Alchemist: Player-Inspired Scene, needing a heart of a young woman, Hell Gaunt ventures forth towards the redlight district when he notices a woman walking alone down the street quickly. When he discovers she is wearing rouge, he assumes she is a prostitute and summons forth his rats. They scurry down the building and pursue her into the alley – and jumping down from the roof, Hell Gautn snaps her neck and runs off with her body. It is only then that he realizes that she is richly dressed and looks familiar, turns out she is one of the Prince of Praag's mistresses. He is seen fleeing when a young nobleman hears her screams about the rats, sees the Hell Gaunt sneak off with her body, and discovers her necklace that fell off when her neck was getting snapped.

The cold blooded murder of yet another young woman earned Hell Gaunt another potential Humanity Loss roll – and he loses his second consecutive roll. Again, lightning strikes as he's racing across the roof-top and word spreads throughout the city of his other heinous act.

Returning to his laboratory, he spends the next couple of hours completing the reanimation ritual, and brings the daughter of his rival Archibald back to life. She awakens, and he commands her...

...to return to her home to give her family and his rival his apologies for her premature death. As she returns, he follows her to her house to watch the resulting turmoil. I figure that the false rescue, mock ransom, burial of a daughter, theft of her body, and resulting reanimation to taunt and mock an academic and political rival is deserving of yet another humanity loss roll. Third failed roll. Character bottoms out at zero humanity. The End Game has been triggered.

None of the players knew what happened at zero humanity, about the endgame, or the cycle of apocalypse cosmology.

I then inform them that at that moment, the whole world seems to quiver and they sense the presence of the Charnel God and their weapons now reveal to them the cosmic horror of their very existence, that the weapons were created to ensure that their world would be destroyed, collapsing reality and piling their bodies into the Charnel Fields to block the void from with the Nameless seek to burst forth and destroy all of reality.

I figure we've got a session or two left to wrap up this game. It was very successful, keeping the players in the dark and the big secret revealed seemed particularly dramatic to them. I highly recommend keeping them in the dark for at least the first game. I've also asked them to not mention this to other players who may join in to later games.

However, I'm a little bummed that two games in the campaign has already swung into Ragnarok phase. The Charnel God, Hell Gaunt / Albrecht never made a single successful Humanity Roll but failed them all. Did I make the rolls too frequently? It seemed to me that each of them was called for? Should I have given the player more opportunities to make Humanity Gain rolls? Finally, how much worse can this be if players know what happens when humanity bottoms out? There's the potential for a race to zero humanity, and it seems to me, in hindsight, that in Charnel Gods its extremely important to tie the players into society or make their bonds to humanity important so that they're not prone to charging headlong down the road to damnation.

Any feedback or ideas of how this could have been handled better? Or did it work out fine? After all, the destruction of the world is inevitable...

...but after two sessions?!?!?!

[rafial]

I have to say, reading your world building posts early on, my thought was "such a lovely thing, and it's all going to get blowed up!"  Two sessions is perhaps agressive, but my experience with Charnel Gods is that when the humanity goes, it goes fast.

While the idea of the dramatic reveal is cool, I actually wonder if letting the players in on the secret might have allowed things to drag out a little more.  Even those players that revel in hellfire and damnation, as the Hell Gaunt has done, often want a little more time to strut their stuff upon the stage, and so may temper their evil deeds with humanity gaining actions in order to stave off the inevitable, which of course just makes the saga that much richer.

On the other hand, that player seems to be an excellent choice for the harbinger, and I'm sure they are going to have a ball heralding the end of the world.  I have this vision of the dead gods of the carrion fields "revived" by the hellish science of the mad Dr. Albrecht.

[Old_Scratch]

I have to say, reading your world building posts early on, my thought was "such a lovely thing, and it's all going to get blowed up!"  Two sessions is perhaps agressive, but my experience with Charnel Gods is that when the humanity goes, it goes fast.

Sigh. Yes. But I suppose I can use it again in the future, as well as using it for a different non-Charnel Gods game. With a few tweaks, it could easily be used as a Sorcerer & Sword setting.

While the idea of the dramatic reveal is cool, I actually wonder if letting the players in on the secret might have allowed things to drag out a little more.  Even those players that revel in hellfire and damnation, as the Hell Gaunt has done, often want a little more time to strut their stuff upon the stage, and so may temper their evil deeds with humanity gaining actions in order to stave off the inevitable, which of course just makes the saga that much richer.

blink. blink.

Hmmm... Yes, I suspect you're right. Case in point, when the player carried out the last fell deed the character started to sort of argue about the Humanity Check, but I seriously believed that this last monstrous act was deserving of it - the character knew something terrible was going to happen to him, and thought his character was going to die or become an NPC.

However, I think that if they knew what was going to happen, they might have tempered their behavior. I suppose I have to chalk this one up as a learning experience. Perhaps I should have had a sliding scale of atrocities - for a humanity check to be made, it must be something worse then the previous check (although I have reservations).

On the other hand, that player seems to be an excellent choice for the harbinger, and I'm sure they are going to have a ball heralding the end of the world.  I have this vision of the dead gods of the carrion fields "revived" by the hellish science of the mad Dr. Albrecht.

You hit the nail on the head. When I read the game, I thought "Charles is going to love this game... Odds are, he'll take the first humanity dive. He was also quite delighted by the endgame aspect.

However, I think this is where some of the life in the setting might come through - we can extend the endgame considerably with a little help from the player, and I'll try to encourage him to nurture and develop the conclusion in an epic, so it might make for an interesting endgame with the players knowing the end is coming and doing all they can to try and prevent the inevitable end.

Thanks for the great feedback, I think I'll give the player some limited omnipotent powers as the Charnel God and give him a few more details about the world so he can see where some of the "fault lines" lie and can implement that into the end of the world.

[Ron Edwards]

Wait - am I understanding correctly that you were running the game without the players knowing that Humanity = 0 spelled the end of the world?

Best,
Ron

[Old_Scratch]

Wait - am I understanding correctly that you were running the game without the players knowing that Humanity = 0 spelled the end of the world?

Best,
Ron

Yeah. I explained to them the Humanity mechanic in Sorcerer and how it has different effects in various games, explained what humanity meant, told them that this was a sort of "end of the world" apocalypse game, but did not explicitly mention the tie between Humanity 0 = Apocalypse. Thought I'd keep the cosmology a surprise for the players. It worked, they were were pretty impressed and enjoyed that element, but it also didn't work in that the characters were uncertain of what the reprecussions were when they bottomed out.

While I suppose it could be considered a Game Contract failure in that I kept an important part of the game secret from the players, my players have explicitly told me before that they like to work with only partial knowledge and like for me to keep secrets, particularly big and cosmological things, from them in the past, so I was kind of adhering to our own particular group contract.

Thoughts? In Sorcerer, is it critical that players know the consequences? Or can the consequences be shadowy and unknown to players?

[Mike Holmes]

Critical. Keep other stuff secret, but humanity makes the whole system work right. If the players don't know that they're taking a step towards the end of the world with each bad act, then it's not the same game at all.

Mike

[Old_Scratch]

Critical. Keep other stuff secret, but humanity makes the whole system work right. If the players don't know that they're taking a step towards the end of the world with each bad act, then it's not the same game at all.

Mike

Could you or someone else elaborate further upon this?

First, in regards to Sorcerer:

Why are the nitty-gritty details of Humanity Zero necessary for a Sorcerer game. I mean, often in fiction and films, much of the dread and anticipation is a murky sense of damnation without the particulars completely outlined. I enjoyed CoC more when I played and didn't know the particulars of what happened when your Sanity tumbled. It seems to me like part of the dread is heading toward that murky unknown.

So I suppose I have to ask, what is the difference, in Sorcerer, between the player knowing that something terrible is going to happen and that their demon will possess their soul and run amok in their body and they lose control of their character, or that the character is then mandated to come to a grisly end? Is it a contract issue? Or does it affect the way the player relates to the character? What if players explicitly don't want to know what happens at Humanity Zero?

Moving from Sorcerer - is it possible that Charnel Gods might be different than Sorcerer. My thinking on the matter:

The options:

1) Express to the players this is a Stormbringer type games: The weapons of the gods and the end of the world, and that humanity means something bad happens.

2) Sit down, tell the characters their weapons are fated to end the world, and that when humanity hits zero, that particular character becomes a god, can't die, gets minor GM powers.

It seems to me, depending on the group, that either option is effective, and that for some groups, the nebulous dread of option 1 might be more effective than the potential competitive head-long race to crash your humanity in Option 2 that might be present in some groups.

I'm still new to the intricacies of Sorcerer (and Charnel Gods - which I think is different enough a game that it might merit special discussion), so if anyone would care to explore these elements in greater detail or provide the threads where it has been covered, I'd appreciate it.

Thanks again in advance!

[rafial]

Why are the nitty-gritty details of Humanity Zero necessary for a Sorcerer game. I mean, often in fiction and films, much of the dread and anticipation is a murky sense of damnation without the particulars completely outlined.

I don't think that the precise details are necessary, but the level of the stakes certainly should be public knowledge.  As I see it, the preferred mode of play in Sorcerer empowers players to make strong decisions about the direction in which they'd like to take the story, which means the players need to be working with good information about the consequences of their actions, even though the characters might not be.

It's a much bigger thing from a players perspective to say "hmmm, by doing this I'm risking losing my PC, am I ready for that", compared to "hmmm, by doing this, I'm risking bringing down the curtain on the whole show, are we ready for that?"

Incidently, I'm curious to know if you plan to run a sequel at some point with the same fell weapons and a different background?

[Mike Holmes]

What Raf said.

When the player decides to do something that might lower his humanity, he does it in the context of what's being traded. "What would you do for power?"

Would you risk your own life?

and

Would you risk everybody's lives?

are two very different questions. The game is about the players (not the characters) answering that question.

In any case, there's loads of things that you can keep secret that don't impact the mechanics thusly. So you really don't have to give anything up.

Mike

[hardcoremoose]

Hey there...sorry to have been so absent the last week or so.

Mike and Raf covered the first point well, so I'll leave it at that.

As for whether Charnel Gods is a different game than Sorcerer...I don't think so.  Ron has often gone on about how zero Humanity can mean all sorts of different things, both to the characters and to the players.  Charnel Gods takes advantage of that, but I don't think it breaks Sorcerer or makes it something different.  Yeah, I cold see a "race towards the finish" scenario arising, but hopefully Charnel Gods is robust enough that story would emerge anyway.  My experience with the game suggests that's true.

I just want to say, your game sounds great.  Two sessions?  Oh well, that's the beauty and the pain of Charnel Gods.  And like you said...the game's not over, it's just changed from now until everyone gets their Kickers resolved.

Best,
Scott