[PtA] Veritas Mundi - Spirits and Black Leather Coats

[Frank T]

Oh my, shame on me, I was in a hurry, but that is no excuse for forgetting my local patriotism:

Hummel Hummel

Mors Mors! :D

(Please pardon me for being totally unconstructive on this post.)

[Frank T]

The blow by blow can be fun to read, but it doesn't really tell us lots about the game play. Can you comment at all about how the real people reacted to how the rules affected play? Heck, did they have fun?

You are right, the blow by blow doesn’t say that much. So, here’s the beef:

To me, too, the game is a lot of fun, especially since the players are very active and make my job as producer easy. The style of play is very cooperative, all major decisions regarding the plot are made amicably. Thus far, of course, it is the players and not the rules that make the game fun.

As for the rules, I can only repeat myself: The Issue and Screen Presence are very nice and give the individual characters’ stories a red line, but the real explosive are the Stakes. Defining the Stakes for each Protagonist in each Conflict and checking the outcomes separately works just brilliantly. For example:

The scene with the poltergeist in Episode 2. We have a conflict with three Protagonists involved. Alinas Stakes are, the truth is revealed, or stays secret. She wins, her secret is kept. John’s stakes are, will Farzaz destroy the poltergeist, or won’t he? He wins, the poltergeist is destroyed. Jolene’s stakes are, can she still be loyal to Alina after she suspects about her putting the Russian thugs on Sandra? She loses, so she just stands by, edging ever farther away from Alina. The last one didn’t have much of an impact on the Scene itself, but a large impact on the story itself, since the chasm between Alina and Jolene, that had just been sealed the Episode before, now gapes wider than ever.

Now think the many other possible outcomes of the Conflict. And every single one not only would have been interesting, but would have changed the whole course of the story.

[Matt Wilson]

Jolene’s stakes are, can she still be loyal to Alina after she suspects about her putting the Russian thugs on Sandra?

That's cool. You don't often see players choosing to put that kind of character positioning up for a roll. Usually it's quite the opposite.

[Frank T]

Since I have been instructed to raise a point whenever I post here, I will spare you the blow-by-blow of our Season Finale, John's Spotlight. Sorry for wasting your precious time with all the in-game detail thus far.

In brief, how did it turn out for the Protagonists? Alina joined sides with the villain Alexandre de Villiers, only to be defeated and chased off by Mortimer, John and Jolene. Jolene finally found love with Peter. John tried to stand up to his demanding spirits, but failed. Nicolas put that up for a roll, I tossed in all I had as Producer, and Marcel (Jolene's player) spent Fan Mail - against John! So the Season ends with everything falling apart. We will almost certainly play a second Season.

I have already told you how well the game worked for us and why. The final Episode went much the same way. However, there was one Scene that provoked some argument. The mobster John owed money to, his Nemesis, had kidnapped John's sister, holding her prisoner on a junkyard. It was my Scene, Focus was... whatever (as I said, the plot was all about the characters, so Focus didn't really work for us), Agenda was freeing John's sister.

Now, I set the Scene with John ans Jolene arriving at the yard, some streetkid buddy waving goodbye to them and Jolene wispering, "I owe you something." Nicolas didn't like this entry, he wanted to get more to the point. What he wanted was a chatter with his mobster Nemesis and then roll Conflict. I for my part thought it nicer to have a little color first, showing the audience how our heroes had gotten to the place.

So we argued for about 20 lines (IRC game), Nicolas was, "that's so Sim", I was, "why don't you just play along for a second". In the end I had my way (I was the Producer, after all). We played about 5 lines of blowing car wrecks and mooks away, then we arrived at the moment when John's Nemesis stood facing him, pointing a gun toward his sister's head.

Now what's the point in that? Well, I don't know, but there must be one.

[Nev the Deranged]

Since I have been instructed to raise a point whenever I post here, I will spare you the blow-by-blow of our Season Finale, John's Spotlight. Sorry for wasting your precious time with all the in-game detail thus far.

Hey, woah, let's not be hasty here. Some of us enjoy the blow by blow accounts. Just cuz one person's ornery, don't take it out on the rest of us, *chuckle*