MLWM First Session: Are We Doing This Right?

[Paul Czege]

Lisa,

Timmy Deeth was told to keep the workers at the machines night and day. He didn't try to resist the master....Deeth ordered the workers to work. After looking through the rules, we concluded that no roll was necessary, given that his More than human ability, to intimidate people, should work automatically. Was this correct? We also weren't sure whether success increased his Self-loathing, since no roll had been made, but Erik checked the rules, and as far as he could tell, it should increase, since villainy was successfully perpetrated. Was our reading correct?

Yes to the first question, if the conflict is about intimidation, then automatic success. No to the second question. A cat doesn't get Self-loathing for killing birds. More than Humans are super-natural abilities.

But more broadly, from a GMing standpoint, it's your job to push meaningful antagonism at the character. If the player doesn't have the minion resist a command, take that as a hint that you missed the mark. No big deal though, as long as you recover well and make the circumstances of executing the command really powerful. Timmy can't intimidate anyone smaller than him? I'd have him in a scene with a little girl whose job it is to constantly grease the giant machine with a brush and a battered bucket. Maybe she's playing with a stray kitten, and he has to separate her from it and send her back to work. Have a tear run down her soot-stained cheek.

Paul

[Erik Hanson]

Yes to the first question, if the conflict is about intimidation, then automatic success. No to the second question. A cat doesn't get Self-loathing for killing birds. More than Humans are super-natural abilities.

But more broadly, from a GMing standpoint, it's your job to push meaningful antagonism at the character. If the player doesn't have the minion resist a command, take that as a hint that you missed the mark. No big deal though, as long as you recover well and make the circumstances of executing the command really powerful. Timmy can't intimidate anyone smaller than him? I'd have him in a scene with a little girl whose job it is to constantly grease the giant machine with a brush and a battered bucket. Maybe she's playing with a stray kitten, and he has to separate her from it and send her back to work. Have a tear run down her soot-stained cheek.

Paul

Very interesting, but confusing at the same time.  It almost seems as if you're saying that a player can avoid accumulating Self-Loathing if he can logically incorporate his More-Than-Human Trait into the task.  For example, what would happen if Josh's thief were commanded to steal some rare medicine from an elderly lady in town (without which she will surely die)?  His More-Than-Human certainly comes into play - he can steal anything so long as he isn't in the country.  Stealing the medicine would be a breeze for him.  But it's still a loathsome act.  Just because the Minions are preternaturally good at doing certain things doesn't mean that they see nothing wrong with what they're doing.

This also raises the question of how much control the GM is supposed to have over the narration of the scenes.  I was under the impression that the player had full freedom to narrate the scene once the outcome was resolved.  Such was how the scenes with Lugosh and Otto played out.  Once Avram made a roll for Lugosh, he narrated the whole scene of Lugosh going out and kidnapping the girl.  I didn't have to make a roll for Otto - he simply made a machine that he felt terrible about, and I narrated how the machine went about its grim purpose.

[Ron Edwards]

Hello,

Erik, regarding the issue of More Than Human and Self-Loathing, see my first post in [My Life with Master] Hell and heresy, concerning the character Marek. It's important to remember that the More Than Humans represent what the minions are used for, relative to the Master's nefarious designs. They are perhaps best thought of as the least human features of the characters, despite the name.

Since as far as I can tell, your group's Master didn't have any nefarious designs (not know what the factory's for? urh?), the More Than Humans are just kind of sitting there, in thematic terms, doing nothing, no matter how often they get utilized as Powerz by the players.

In the game I referenced, the character Marek's More Than Human was very powerful, making the character quite lethal. At worst, it transfers all the responsibility: "Master makes me do it." At best, it gives the minion a curious sort of animalistic innocence.

Best,
Ron

[Lisa Padol]

See, from my pov, what the factory makes isn't that big a deal -- the factory exists to do certain things:

-- Make the Master rich
-- Oppress the Village
-- Justify any Foul Devices the plot happens to need

Also, the logical thing to do would have been not to start play that day. But I wanted a feel for the system, and some idea of where the bumpy spots would be. For what we played out, it didn't matter what the factory made. What mattered was whether we had the mechanics down, whether the players found play fun, whether the scenes I was framing were in the ballpark -- that sort of thing.

The More-than-human thing is interesting. If I'm the Master, well, my Minions' MTH abilities are bloody useful to me. Why shouldn't I be making them work for me, as a properly evil Master? Why wouldn't I have Otto build Foul Devices, Karl steal trinkets, Ms. Gray talk people into letting me Have My Way? But that leads to an odd situation where the Minions don't build up Self-loathing or Weariness. This is a bit confusing, and I'm much more concerned with making sure I get the paradigm we're dealing with here. Then, we can decide what the factory makes. Smog, perhaps.

-Lisa

[Erik Hanson]

I agree that the factory product is completely secondary to the plot of the current game.  The Master's unattainable goal is acceptance in the rich nobility.  His means are to use the factory and despicable labor practices and whatever other means are available to keep grinding out every cent he can.  The Master wouldn't care if his factory made widgets, toys, weapons, or five-foot herring models, so long as it made Money.  Deliberate vagueness in the product would allow, as Sydney suggested, a perfect avenue for a Horror Revealed scene.

Now, if the Master's plan were to somehow achieve World Domination through his product, then yes - knowing what the heck the Factory made would be really important to the plot.

I still dislike the notion that Minions only gain Self-Loathing through "successful" die rolls to perform Violence or Villainy.  That means that a Minion's More Than Human trait doesn't just define a skill, but defines the Minion's personal moral code in life.  By this logic, Otto would see nothing wrong in building toys that decapitated children, but would hate himself every time the Master commanded him to plant flowers in the local garden.

People hate themselves because they know what they are doing is wrong - not because they face some difficulty in what they're doing.

[Michael S. Miller]

Hi, Erik.

Your second point about Self-Loathing and More Than Humans is a whole kettle of fish unto itself, I think. I just started a thread about that particularly in the Half Meme Press forum: Self-Loathing and More Than Human