[TSoY] A Very Brief Engagement - Actual Play

[James_Nostack]

Ran through my first session of The Shadow of Yesterday last night, with four players attending, including Clinton R. Nixon, the game's creator.  I assume a log will be posted to the Indie Netgaming Yahoo Group someday.

The session revolved around a depraved surgeon/sorcerer; this bad guy long ago acquired a native princess as a slave, and now intends to wed her to his snivelling goblin henchman.  The players control various members of the household, from resentful underlings to lovestruck tutors, to even the goblin groom-to-be, who is instead in love with the sorcerer.  

We didn't quite make it to the wedding scene, but there was some fun machinations and plotting goin' down.  Lots of poison-brewing!  

Some comments:
* I'd been having a rough day, had barely done any prep, and was gaming an unfamiliar system for its creator and three strangers.  Everything turned out okay; I just wish I could have relaxed a bit more.

* The system is pretty invisible in normal play.  Then again, a lot of this session was conversations and exposition.  Perhaps a more feisty, action-oriented session would have put the rules through more of a work-out.

* I misunderstood how Penalty Dice work, and didn't figure it out until after the game.  But no big worries.  Next time I'll try reading the rules, instead of intuiting them.

* The gift of dice worked pretty well; players had a notion of what would be a cool scene, and rewarded each other appropriately.  One player, summoned before the sadistic captain of the guards, had the presence of mind to hold some poison in his mouth--and spit it at the lout.  That was fun.  

* We had one instance of "Bringing Down the Pain," TSoY's version of gritty combat.  Which was, instead of combat, used to argue with the head chef about the quality of his cooking.  (And afforded the character a chance to poison the soup.)  Bringing down the pain effectively turns any exchange, no matter how trivial, into an operatic showdown.  This was entertaining, but kinda slow since the characters involved had low stats and we didn't stop to figure out what would serve as a "weapon" for a food critic.  As Clinton pointed out, having a weapon (or other tool) speeds up the process by inflicting more harm on the enemy and reduces whiffage.  

* I forgot about handing out XP, key scenes, and that stuff, but the players did too.  Still, the whole key system makes it pretty easy to design melodramatic hooks for the characters.

* There wasn't any serious combat or sorcerous mayhem... this time.  That might change when we finish up on Monday, Jan 3.

* Overall, it was a good time and I think the players enjoyed themselves.  Goblins are pure comedy gold.

[J B Bell]

Just chiming in here.  Very funny title.

I played the goblin, and the relative lack of contact with the system can be attributed to a very tightly spun situation, I think.  It led to an almost MLWM flavor.

The majority of my contact with the system was simply the chargen, and it is some of the most fun I think I've ever had with that, because I decided to take the Key of Vengeance and the Key of Unrequited Love for the same person.  Being ordered by the villain NPC (Chenard) to marry a relative innocent led to some fun with goblin psychology, on the assumption that goblins know plenty about sex and zero about love, so Pendejo (my goblin character) got to go around asking other PCs questions about what, exactly, was expected of him to please his Master, in very vulgar language.  Love and hate, innocence and depravity, in the goblin as much as in the potential despoiling of an innocent (near-) maiden--these things are role-playing gold to me.

Keys could have been invoked more often & I can blame myself partly for this--with the Key of Masochism, I did inspire others to beat up Pendejo a couple of times, but didn't ask for any rolls.  Resisting the Master's commands, or just dodging Lucretta's kick or counter-attacking, could have garnered some XP if I'd gone for it a bit more persistently.

I was a bit reluctant to Bring Down the Pain myself in situations where it might have been interesting partly because of the short time window for the game (and I was 20 minutes late, forgetting the correct time zone offset).  I think a face-to-face game would have shown bolder moves on the players' parts.

I'm almost horrified by the character I've made, not because he's just kind of disgusting, but system-wise he's a bit of a monster--with the Key of the Masochist, as well as his Secret of Addiction being Masochism, and the whole Love/Vengeance thing going on, one fight with Chenard would pay out XP in large quantities at high speed, I'm thinking, and he could Adapt in the middle of battle since getting hurt refreshes his Vigor.  Yipe!  Is this system abuse?

--JB

[James_Nostack]

Keys could have been invoked more often...

Perhaps, but it was only a two hour session.  Keys are likely to prove their worth over a longer time period.  Also, there were relatively few NPC's to interact with: it's hard to get another player to torture your masochist character, but perhaps the Captain of the Guard or his lackeys would do so.  

he could Adapt in the middle of battle since getting hurt refreshes his Vigor.  Yipe!  Is this system abuse?

Actually, it just occurred to me that Pendejo could ask Chenard for one last vivisection for old time's sake--refresh his Vigor through the Secret of the Addiction--and then use his Secret of Adaptability to cause his Savoir-Faire (sexiness, suaveness, etc) to skyrocket just in time for the wedding.  It'd be like a goblin bachelor party!

[friartuck]

This sounds great. I'm definitely going to have to order a copy of the game. Please post after the next session, with some information about how a heavier application of the mechanics affected game play.

Also: only a two hour session? How long did character generation take? How familiar were the other players with the rules (excepting Clinton, of course)? How much of the two hours were actually devoted to playing the game? I'm trying to get an idea of what this game's learning curve is like. It sounds like something I'd like to introduce to my group.

[James_Nostack]

Character creation was handled prior to the game, so aside from the idle time of waiting for players to show, the game lasted about two hours, and we accomplished maybe 2/3 of what I had in mind.  It was mostly several quick little scenes, instead of some big set pieces, but that's because I didn't have much prep time and wasn't sure who was gonna show.

[J B Bell]

So, we wrapped up the game last night.  It went about an hour over.

For the last 45 minutes or so, I had to pee.  I did not get up.  IRC games often seem a bit less intense than in-person ones, because you can get away, to an extent, with looking at other windows during downtime, checking your email, or whatever.  So there was no downtime, really, because it was all very engaging for me.

The Guide and players conspired a bit to put the system through its paces more.  We had two Bring-Downs this time, one more or less forced by yours truly, the other the anticipated Fight with the Big Bad.  Plenty more rolls for making poisons, intimidating lackeys, and other stuff I think I'm forgetting.  I think it's something of a testament to the world, the system, and experienced players that the characters were engaging and well fleshed-out enough from the get-go that we probably could have done this almost totally free-form.  But I liked it even better when we brought the system in.

My favorite non-Bring-Down roll was provoking Duval to attack Pendejo so I could activate my Key of Masochism and Addiction: Masochism in order to let me pull my adaptation trick (and grab XP of course).  This was a roll against my Savoir-Faire of 2, with a bonus die for "lowballing" (that is, I was not really trying to demonstrate Savoir-Faire but its opposite).  This resulted in a relatively brief bring-down where I conspired to get Pendejo Bloodied as quickly as possible (it took a bit, as he's a rather tough bugger with a Stay Up of 4).

That fight also resulted in a Buy Off of Unrequited Love in that Pendejo's allegiance was turned when he got himself a new source for his addiction (not to mention his addled sense of conscience).  Duval and Aloux (who joined the fray) got points for hurting Chenard by bashing on his servant as well as working to protect Kamala.  Intra-party conflict agreed on by all players, even though it was nasty for the characters.  Fun stuff!

The final Pain just kind of sucked everybody in once it got going, handling three things at once:

[*] Chenard used a word of Zu, and Aloux decided to steal it
[*] Dubro, the albino rat warrior, decided to try to kill Chenard then and there
[*] Pendejo also decided to kill Chenard when he spotted Dubro's move
[/list:u]

After a bit of discussion whether Pendejo's and Dubro's intentions conflicted, the last two became simpler.  In fact, we collaborated on Chenard's messy death, which saw his head lopped off by Dubro while Pendejo's specially tailored Chenard-killing (+3 damage, ouch!) claws held the bad guy in deadly embrace, thus spattering Pendejo in his nice tux with a spray of arterial blood, with clean tracks where Pendejo's tears flowed.

Awww.  I loves me a romance.

So, summary remarks:

[*] The second session, while much more mechanically intense, and still sustaining more than one scene at a time, seemed to go more smoothly.  The mechanics run quite fast with IRC and I think they'd go like bats from hell in person.
[*] GOBLINS RAWK!
[*] James Nostack was a fine, fine Story Guide. Kudos for managing so much in so short a time, especially with some fairly headstrong players.
[*] Getting a solid handle on SoY's enforced IIEE sequencing seems slower at first, but I think it is actually quicker with practice because there is almost zero need for retroactive continuity.  It definitely does have a bit of a learning curve when you're used to traditional ways of thinking about it ("I hit him" instead of "I'm trying to compromise his position").
[*] I had thought that the resource management might diminish the tension that dice can introduce.  Nope.  I rolled five dice and still got a five total for one roll.  My best roll, a 12, used only two.  This is a good dice mechanic.
[/list:u]

Thanks to everyone; I had a blast.  Hats off to Clint for a design I want to experience more of.

--JB

[rafial]

I'd just like to congratulate everyone involved that the Goblin was named Pendejo!

[James_Nostack]

It was a fun session.  The first time, I didn't really have any specific scenes in mind, and was kind of flailing around.  The second time around, I felt a little more confident about my prep and understood the mechanics a little better.

The Guide and players conspired a bit to put the system through its paces more.

The Storyguide did no such thing, and at certain points was barely keeping his head above water for some of that.  The Bring Down between Pendejo and his rivals was mechanically simple but so conceptually twisted (and brilliantly played by JB) that my head was spinning.  

The climactic Bring Down, however, had all four players flinging dice in every direction, and it was here that the limits of IRC play became apparent.  In a D&D-ish system, you roll once and that's your result.  In TSOY, if you're unhappy with the results you can pile on dice from your pools or from other players, which has enough time delay over IRC to confuse the bejeezus out of the SG when everyone's talking at once.  I doubt it's an issue at the table, but I was losing it toward the end.  I presume this would go away with increased familiarity.

James Nostack was a fine, fine Story Guide. Kudos for managing so much in so short a time, especially with some fairly headstrong players.

Ah, I love seeing that!  But seriously: the players were excellent and JB had everyone in stitches for most of the game.  

Thanks to everyone; I had a blast.  Hats off to Clint for a design I want to experience more of.

Yes, it's a fine little game!  I'd be willing to run it some more, if my schedule ever lightens up.   In the meantime I will post the supporting cast to the TSoY wiki along with plot outlines and transcripts, and sometime this week will put up a review on RPG.Net.

good times!

[Nyarly]

Yes, it's a fine little game! I'd be willing to run it some more, if my schedule ever lightens up. In the meantime I will post the supporting cast to the TSoY wiki along with plot outlines and transcripts, and sometime this week will put up a review on RPG.Net.

Ooh!  Please do let me know when/if you decide to run TSoY again.  You'd have at least one player.

Judson

[James_Nostack]

Ooh!  Please do let me know when/if you decide to run TSoY again.  You'd have at least one player. --Judson

So... tempting.... But right now I have a lot of crazy stuff going on in real life.  Maybe some kind of rotating Storyguide type of thing would work?  (I'd love to play a pudgy swindler who pretends to be a Three-Corner Magician but "the Spirits of the Netherworld are not to be disturbed simply to prove my power to one such as you.")

[Nyarly]

Rotating SG sounds very interesting.  I'd need to clear some time out before I could volunteer, but I'm willing to try to clear the time out.  Of course, if anyone else has the spare time...