[Actual play] Dark Border

[Adrienne]

My goal for this session was to introduce a bunch of NPCs, have the PCs interact a bit with each other, and provide a hook at the end to get them more directly involved in the Manjipor court.  To introduce the characters... Stephan is a Seynyorean aristocrat who's come south to fight the Shadow and hopefully either find a wife or some land (or both).  Lokesh is the second son of a local landowning rancher who's come to the city to live a little and make a name for himself.  Barbon is a Seer, also from Seynyor, who has come to the Border lands to fight the Shadow and to remove the burden of supporting him from his family, who has fallen on hard times recently.

We started by finishing up some character creation stuff.  I'm giving the characters five points to raise their keywords or their set of ten chosen abilities, and 30 points rather than 20 to raise abilities besides.  Interestingly, Lokesh's player chose to lower many of his keyword abilities, feeling that his character wouldn't be equally good at all of them.  After a little more dithering around dividing up extra points, we got started.

I briefly described Manjipor and then declared that today was a big day of celebration, because the planting has been finished.  It's a very hopeful time; the hard work is over for now, and the inevitable pain of seeing many of the crops blight and fail hasn't set in yet.  The decorations and food spread were pretty poor to the eyes of the two Seynyoreans in the party, but there was plenty of heartfelt singing and dancing.

Stephan introduced himself to Fiora, the wife of the vicar who rules the city, and then met Vitale, a diplomatic envoy from the costal country of Portona.  Meanwhile, Lokesh made the acquaintance of Delfino, Vitale's glum personal assistant.  Then Stephan and Barbon met up and sparred a few friendly rounds.  A little while after that, Stephan met Tulasi and Davlesh, a couple of local aristos looking to make friends their own age.  Finally Stephan and Lokesh met, as Lokesh tried (and failed) to steal away one of a group of ladies that Stephan was flirting with.  The two gentlemen chatted and Lokesh decided to show off his whipsword, a local exotic weapon.  Stephan couldn't resist the challenge of giving it a try, and managed to cut himself on the leg.

As he was limping off to have his wound bandaged (although he stayed and chatted for a few minutes, just to show that it didn't bother him), there was a big stir at one of the food tables.  A whole roasted pig that had just been brought out spilled a mass of rotted flesh and maggots when it was cut.  The mood of the gathering quickly soured, as everyone was reminded that they're all living on time stolen from the Border.  A local noble, Nayan, announced that the animal had come from his lands, from stock that he thought was safe.  He said that he would go investigate immediately.  Stephan volunteered to help (being currently unattached to any fighting effort), and Lokesh was enlisted as well (his father's lands border on Nayan's, so they recognized each other).  Barbon was volunteered to help by Stephan, and we ended on that note.

I was a little too contest-happy tonight, probably in part to introduce the system to people.  Also, although I used the standard resistance of 14 for almost anything, a string of low rolls on my part turned out several marginal defeats for the characters as they tried to gather information or socially impress people.  No one seemed to be getting terribly frustrated, but I was a little worried and I'll probably be a little more free with automatic successes next time.

Barbon's player is definitely cautious right now.  Most of his play during the evening consisted of saying that his character was hanging back and watching what was happening.  I'm not sure exactly where things will go with him in the long run.  He's playing a Seer because they have psychic powers, but use of their powers is restricted by social rules.  I don't mind if he breaks those rules, but I'm not sure that he's intersted in dealing with the consequences.  So, I'm a little torn about how far to bend my game desires to make him happy, especially when the other two players seem to be on the same page as me.

I was a little concerned about Lokesh's player, because he's just as new to the system, but he seems to be adapting nicely.  When he decided to introduce himself to Stephan by attempting to steal a girl, he swiftly committed one of his unused ability slots to be "Good wit da Ladies."  

Most of the contests were social in nature.  While I think I know how to apply the consequences of victory or defeat in these cases, I'm a little fuzzy on how long "wounds" should take to heal, or what that healing will entail.  I think I might need to start jotting down contests, because now I think I might have forgotten one or two that should still be "healing" for a while.  Still, I had fun, and the players claimed that they did too.

[Kerstin Schmidt]

Sounds like a fun game, hope to see more soon!

On the narrator side, what you said about contests struck a note with me because I'm beginning to narrate HQ and have the opposite problem:  I'm liking the freedom the system provides so much that overlook opportunities for contests.  

If you like, do you have examples from your game?  What was the best situation for a contest you had, did you use a contest, and what happened?  Was there a clear "Damn that should have been automatic just now" situation for you, if so what happened?  Did you have any contest in which the outcome suprised you?

[Adrienne]

If you like, do you have examples from your game?  What was the best situation for a contest you had, did you use a contest, and what happened?  Was there a clear "Damn that should have been automatic just now" situation for you, if so what happened?  Did you have any contest in which the outcome suprised you?

The best situation is tough to say.  My favorite might have been Lokesh's attempt to disrupt Stephan's flirting.  Rather than just have Lokesh go up and introduce himself, the player decided to compete with Stephan and gain his attention that way.  Rather than two separate contests of player vs. NPC, I ran it as Stephan's flirting skill against Lokesh's.  Stephan won, because he's invested in social impressions much more heavily than Lokesh.

In the "d'oh, why was that a contest" category was the introduction between Stephan and Barbon.  During character creation, to provide some link between the two, we'd decided that Barbon's family was from land owned by Stephan's family.  Rather than just assuming that Stephan thus knew about the family, we rolled, and Stephan failed.  The player gamely went ahead with his ignorance before I had a chance to apply a patch by suggesting that his marginal failure simply meant that he didn't know any details about the family.  Oh, well.

In case it'll help, here's a list of the contests I remember us going through.  First is Stephan:  reading the Manjipor political situation; ingratiating himself to the local aristocracy; trying to tell whether a diplomatic envoy was really an aristo or just a jumped-up merchant; recalling information about Barbon's family; testing his sword skills against Barbon; testing his flirting against Lokesh; and trying out Lokesh's whipsword (and cutting himself due to his lack of training, woo-hoo).

Then Lokesh:  besides the ones mentioned above, he lead a group of exuberantly singing locals past Vitale (the diplomatic envoy) to annoy him.

I might have forgotten a few.  Listing them out like that, I'm starting to wonder if I should worry about the disparity in contests between Stephan and the other two characters.  Anyway, I hope some of that answers your question.

[Kerstin Schmidt]

Thanks for the examples, that's great. I liked to see how the contest mechanics contributed to shaping what happened in game.  Also interesting to see how many PC-PC contests you had - the majority of the contests you list didn't involve NPCs.  Are you aiming to focus the game on relationships between PCs a great deal, or was this just an accumulation of coincidences in the session?

Cool flirting contest btw.  What goal did you use for Lokesh in the contest, success in the flirt or attracting Stephan's attention?  

Who asked for a contest for Stephan to know about Barbon's family, you or the players? If Stephen's or Barbon's player wanted the dice to decide, then maybe wasn't a superfluous contest.  If on the other hand you all wanted Stephan to have the information, then yeah, automatic success or freeform negotation would have worked better.  (Just sayin'.  I've run a whopping three sessions of HeroQuest yet (although more in other systems), so who am I to talk...)

I wouldn't worry about a disparity in contests much yet, I think the amount of contests will likely vary from session to session.  What was the reason most of the contests involved Stephan, do you think? If he is more proactive than the other players, then you might want to provide more or clearer opportunities for the others to get into the spotlight.  
If on the other hand he was the "contest-happy" one and the others managed to get their fair share (or more) of screen time by doing non-contest stuff, it's not a problem.  Also with Stephan being the diplomatic specialist, the environment for the first session may have favoured this player - again not necessarily a problem to have a "Stephan session" or even a "Stephan episode", as long as Barbon episodes and Lokesh episodes follow.  When I'm a player I much prefer to see amounts of spotlight vary between characters, so sometimes I get to be entertained by another's performance and sometimes I'm more in the centre;  and in my experience most players can live with that well once they realise they all get their turn.  

Oh, and I forgot to say earlier:  Barbon's player may be hanging back because he needs time to start trusting you.  Lots of players have played under GMs with an "Anything you say or do will be used against you" attitude and won't engage until they have a clear "adventure hook" and know what they are "supposed to do".   With these people, giving them time and inviting them in again and again and making sure their PCs get opportunities to look cool can help.  
What abilities did Barbon increase, his psychic powers?  If those are his only strong points (which in itself would suggest that he's used to games about winning), then starting out in a diplomatic situation might have been difficult for him to handle if he has trust issues:  the player knows he could make his character look cool through successfully using his powers, but he "knows" there's a GM out there only waiting to pounce on the PC and make him look stupid (arrest him, get him thrown out of the gathering or use him as adventure hook in some other unpleasant fashion), so he's probably sitting there watching for the "more powerful NPC psychic" who will expose the PC when he starts psychicing around.
Assuming for a moment that I'm not completely off track (which I may well be, piloting on near zero data here) and Barbon's player has trust issues,  then perhaps consider offering him a chance to shine with his powers in a situation in which he knows their use will be accepted, or remain undetected for sure.  Just an idea.

[Adrienne]

Thanks for the examples, that's great. I liked to see how the contest mechanics contributed to shaping what happened in game.  Also interesting to see how many PC-PC contests you had - the majority of the contests you list didn't involve NPCs.  Are you aiming to focus the game on relationships between PCs a great deal, or was this just an accumulation of coincidences in the session?

Cool flirting contest btw.  What goal did you use for Lokesh in the contest, success in the flirt or attracting Stephan's attention?

Even for the contests that did involve NPCs, I usually found myself using the default resistance of 14.  That's something I might try to practice next time--getting into the habit of thinking, "would this person have an ability to resist?" to vary contest difficulty a bit.  The resulting focus on PC-PC contests was pretty much an accident.  For flirting, Lokesh's player specified that his goal was to steal one of Stephan's audience.  He figured (correctly) that success or failure would get him the desired attention from Stephan, and maybe a date on the side.

As for the Stephan-Barbon family contest, I don't remember whose idea it was to roll.  I certainly had the opportunity to say "let's skip that," though, and I'm a little embarrassed that it didn't even occur to me.  I did want them to feel the connection, so you're quite right that an automatic success or discussion would have been better.  If I keep posting play reports, expect more "oops" moments like this, as thinking on my feet isn't my strongest suit.  :)

I wouldn't worry about a disparity in contests much yet, I think the amount of contests will likely vary from session to session.  What was the reason most of the contests involved Stephan, do you think? If he is more proactive than the other players, then you might want to provide more or clearer opportunities for the others to get into the spotlight.

Stephan's player is both more proactive and more eager to get in contests.  The contest list I gave underrepresents Lokesh's screen time, but is pretty accurate for Barbon.  In the next week or to, they'll probably be heading out of court to one of the local fiefs, where I intend to have Lokesh's knowledge of farming and the local area be significant.  As for the third character...

What abilities did Barbon increase, his psychic powers?  If those are his only strong points (which in itself would suggest that he's used to games about winning), then starting out in a diplomatic situation might have been difficult for him to handle if he has trust issues:  the player knows he could make his character look cool through successfully using his powers, but he "knows" there's a GM out there only waiting to pounce on the PC and make him look stupid (arrest him, get him thrown out of the gathering or use him as adventure hook in some other unpleasant fashion), so he's probably sitting there watching for the "more powerful NPC psychic" who will expose the PC when he starts psychicing around.

Barbon's only point expenditures have been to increase each of his keywords by one point and to choose (not raise) one of his extra abilities.  It's hard for me to tell exactly what he wants, because he's hesitant to commit to a path for his character resources.  I think you might be right about the trust issues, although for a different reason:  he's the youngest and least experienced gamer in the group, and I think he's worried about looking silly if he asserts himself.  I don't know how to cure that, but I can at least throw him a couple of softball contests to try to draw him in a little more.

You also have an interesting point about fearing the "powerful NPC psychic" will come and punish him if he breaks the rules.  There are definitely such characters in the setting, and I've mentioned them, although I wouldn't use them to smack down his character (because that would be much less interesting than the social or moral consequences of continued abuse of his powers).  Heck, maybe I have trust issues with him--I'm doubtful of his ability and/or willingness to play out those consequences, so I'm steering him away from that path more strongly than I otherwise would.  I'll have to think about that.  But, I can definitely work in some situations where his powers are both useful and "legal"; I think that will satisfy both of us, at least for now.

Thanks for the thoughtful questions!

[Kerstin Schmidt]

Even for the contests that did involve NPCs, I usually found myself using the default resistance of 14.  That's something I might try to practice next time--getting into the habit of thinking, "would this person have an ability to resist?" to vary contest difficulty a bit.

Or you could look at the scene and think, "Is this moment cool enough to be spiced up by a contest?" If no, make it automatic and move on.  If yes, then ask "How much spice (ie drama) do we want here?" and select the resistance on that basis.  If the NPCs are mooks, no reason for them to "have" anything special.  If they are important for the story, spice them up.  In this case, if a neat ability occurs to you on the spot or is sitting waiting in your prep notes, then by all means narrate its use to entertain the players;  if not, just select your level of spiciness and move on.  The HQ book has "spice guides" in the form of tables with sample resistances and NPCs' sample best ability ratings.  

I find this easier to decide on the spur of the moment than to work out (let alone note down and keep track of for future reference) what individual abilities each NPC should reasonably have.  I'm currently working on the hypothesis that as long as I have a "benchmark" in mind for an NPC (roughly, the number of masteries in their best ability) I'll be able to be halfway consistent without worrying about details too much - and it won't bog me down as much as managing NPC augments and ability ratings.  If I do numbers management, I'd rather check over a player's character sheet to help them identify additional augments they haven't thought of using.

The resulting focus on PC-PC contests was pretty much an accident.  For flirting, Lokesh's player specified that his goal was to steal one of Stephan's audience.  He figured (correctly) that success or failure would get him the desired attention from Stephan, and maybe a date on the side.

You see, when I first read about this flirting contest, I assumed that the goal of the contest must have been "Pry Stephan's attention away from (whoever is holding it)".  In which case it might have been a contest between Bardon drawing attention by flirting and the NPC or NPCs holding Stephan's attention at that moment instead.  Not that this makes for a better contest necessarily, just different.  

As for the Stephan-Barbon family contest, I don't remember whose idea it was to roll.  I certainly had the opportunity to say "let's skip that," though, and I'm a little embarrassed that it didn't even occur to me.  

Hey, there were three of you actively involved in the contest and four people in total at the table.  And it's their responsibility, too.  Although if they are used to traditional styles of play they may not realise that yet.  In which case, the more often you ask for their input on whether or not to make something a contest, the more responsibility they will start taking on their own.  

I did want them to feel the connection, so you're quite right that an automatic success or discussion would have been better.  

I learned about avoiding die rolls for information I needed PCs to have through running linear DnD scenarios and having players roll for things the PCs needed to know for the scenario to progress.  Die roll fails, player shrugs. Kerstin sits there silently cursing herself.  And I did that again and again, would you believe it...

If I keep posting play reports, expect more "oops" moments like this, as thinking on my feet isn't my strongest suit.  :)

You mean when you post them, I hope? :)  I'd like to read more. The cool stuff for sure; and the oops moments, too, because I learn from them.  Also some oops moments aren't so oops once you start thinking about them properly.  (At least that's true for me.)

Stephan's player is both more proactive and more eager to get in contests.  The contest list I gave underrepresents Lokesh's screen time, but is pretty accurate for Barbon.  

Yeah, Lokesh's player sounds like he's getting his fun already.  He's lowered his scores, engages in stylish rubbish like try out the whipsword (which can only go terribly wrong - I loved that), and stuff like that.  Sounds like a wonderful player to have.  

I think you might be right about the trust issues, although for a different reason:  he's the youngest and least experienced gamer in the group, and I think he's worried about looking silly if he asserts himself.  I don't know how to cure that, but I can at least throw him a couple of softball contests to try to draw him in a little more.

You have stated the cure I think.  Throw him soft balls and let him know how much you enjoy it when his character does stylish things in response.  Narrate scenes involving him in ways that make the PC look extra cool.  Not only in contests, also in automatic successes.  Let him feel that his PC is a star no matter how well he roleplays or what.    

You also have an interesting point about fearing the "powerful NPC psychic" will come and punish him if he breaks the rules.  There are definitely such characters in the setting, and I've mentioned them, although I wouldn't use them to smack down his character (because that would be much less interesting than the social or moral consequences of continued abuse of his powers).

Are you concerned about him powergaming?  Or why do smackdown and "continued abuse of his powers" come into this?  What's your previous play experience with him?  

Heck, maybe I have trust issues with him--I'm doubtful of his ability and/or willingness to play out those consequences, so I'm steering him away from that path more strongly than I otherwise would.

So just how strong are those consequences in your game?  Are they strong enough to frustrate his character concept if he wants to focus on exploring the psychic stuff? What will happen if he's found out wandering through the court reading minds in passing, say?  Are there cool compensations for him if he's found out and marked an outsider because of it?  

Thanks for the thoughtful questions!

You're more than welcome. I learn stuff, too, both from reading your posts and from thinking about answers and more questions to ask.  Looking forward to see how your game develops.

[Adrienne]

(snip good advice)

Are you concerned about him powergaming?  Or why do smackdown and "continued abuse of his powers" come into this?  What's your previous play experience with him?

My previous experience with him is a little bit of D&D and a little Universalis.  (He did fine with Universalis, which is the main reason I invited him to a regular game--unfortunately, he doesn't seem to be coming up with ideas in HQ the way he did in Uni.)  I'm not worried about him powergaming at all.  It's just that the psychic aspect seemed to be what interested him most during character creation, and it also happens to be the one that's most socially restricted in play.  I'll definitely make an effort to insert "legal" uses of his Seer powers, but I don't know the player well enough to guess if that will be enough for him in the long term.

So just how strong are those consequences in your game?  Are they strong enough to frustrate his character concept if he wants to focus on exploring the psychic stuff? What will happen if he's found out wandering through the court reading minds in passing, say?  Are there cool compensations for him if he's found out and marked an outsider because of it?  

It's a little hard to say, because the only character to abuse such powers in the books is otherwise so far over the line that reading people's minds is pretty much the least of his sins.  If Barbon went around reading thoughts and was discovered, I'd probably have a talk with the group about it--I'd explain that he was headed down the road to being reported, and brainstorm for interesting ways to avoid that consequence (blackmailing the local lord to keep quiet, for instance, or finding some way to explain to the lord that it was all "for the best").  I don't know if he'd consider that cool, because I'm not sure if he has a clear character concept in his mind beyond "I want to play a magic character."

For tomorrow night's session, I've decided to try out a softball "bang" to draw him out a bit.  (I use quote marks because I'm not experienced at that kind of technique.  Last week, I joked to Stephan's player that I'd done something "sort of like a bang, almost" and he dubbed it a "pop.")  If he plays it safe and doesn't take the bait, no harm will come to him.  If he goes for it, though, I might arrange for a tempting chance to use his powers illegally, and see what he does.  I just don't want to come off like I'm pushing him into playing a certain way and then punishing him for it.

Anyway, that's probably more of a response than you were looking for, but I admit that I'm thinking out loud here.

[Bryan_T]

My previous experience with him is a little bit of D&D and a little Universalis. (He did fine with Universalis, which is the main reason I invited him to a regular game--unfortunately, he doesn't seem to be coming up with ideas in HQ the way he did in Uni.) I'm not worried about him powergaming at all. It's just that the psychic aspect seemed to be what interested him most during character creation, and it also happens to be the one that's most socially restricted in play. I'll definitely make an effort to insert "legal" uses of his Seer powers, but I don't know the player well enough to guess if that will be enough for him in the long term.

Reading this raised a whole bunch of questions in my mind.  Sorry, I'm better at questions than answers when it comes to this sort of stuff!

- In the other games where you played with him, did he also go for "magic" characters?  If so, what sort of magic?
- By chance have you read Robin Law's booklet "Robin's Laws of Good Game Mastering"?  In it he talks about player types, one of which he calls "the specialist", like the person who always plays a ninja type person.  He suggests that part of what you need to do to keep this type happy is let them do whatever it is that makes their character special. Your description makes me wonder if this guy is a some type like that?  You'd have to look at what he does with magic in other games to get a feel for that.

- How wedded are you to being faithful to the source material?  That is, is your preference that his powers work in exactly the way they do in the books?  Or are you open to saying "What would make his powers really interesting?" using the book as a baseline but knowingly contradicting it if necessary?  (I'm not advocating one over the other, but it seems being clear in your own mind will help clarify what to do).

- Do you have a feel from him for how he wants his magic to work out?  That is, is he expecting that using his magic will be able to regularly affect the plot?  Or is he more looking at it as a story element, the issue of whether or not to use it and how to get away with using it, being more important than the cool things he can do with it?  Or so far does he just like the image of the repressed seer?  Or something completely else?

OK, after all the questions, I did have one maybe suggestion:  If you let the seer's player see another  character get stomped, and how cool it actually can be, that might make him relax a bit more and trust you.  Might--no promises!

--Bryan

[Kerstin Schmidt]

It's just that the psychic aspect seemed to be what interested him most during character creation, and it also happens to be the one that's most socially restricted in play.  I'll definitely make an effort to insert "legal" uses of his Seer powers, but I don't know the player well enough to guess if that will be enough for him in the long term.

Here's another suggestion. Think about cool things to happen to the character once he has used his Seer powers and been discovered.  So perhaps he's no longer so welcome in certain circles.  At the same time, other people (or, even cooler, the very same people who officially point fingers at him) start coming to him in secret trying to obtain his services.  

Your ideas for covering up the scandal of Barbon being a Seer are nice - also think of NPCs who'll immediately catch on to the fact that a seer is more useful as a secret weapon and who'll be willing to help out regardless of what the other PCs do.  

Consider giving the player a bang involving an NPC who desperately needs a Seer's help.   Let's call him the Client.  It turns out the Client has previously used another seer, a well-reputed, pristine old lady just around the corner.  She, unfortunately, has died/disappeared/gone travelling/been hired by the Client's opposition or whatever, to make her unavailable.  The Client of course has not the least idea that Barbon is a seer, but is merely confiding trouble.  Which gives Barbon's player a number of options:  disclose what he is to the Client and help;  help in secret;  or stay out of it and live with the consequences of the Client not gaining help (of course then the Client's daughter turns up in tears begging for a loan to bail her father out).    

Make sure the player realises that whatever he has Barbon do will lead to cool results and that it is merely a matter of choice between various stories.

It's a little hard to say, because the only character to abuse such powers in the books is otherwise so far over the line that reading people's minds is pretty much the least of his sins.  

Ok, so the books don't provide any guidance. This is brilliant actually, because it leaves you and the player free to discover in play whatever is most fun for you both.

If Barbon went around reading thoughts and was discovered, I'd probably have a talk with the group about it--I'd explain that he was headed down the road to being reported, and brainstorm for interesting ways to avoid that consequence (blackmailing the local lord to keep quiet, for instance, or finding some way to explain to the lord that it was all "for the best").  

Nah. Draw him into it. Tempt him.  Give him cool results when he mindreads, also mix in all sorts of unwanted results. Someone who reads thoughts is bound to uncover all sorts of embarrassing, unwelcome and terrifying things - and then what?  Does he tell his best buddy that his wife is cheating on him? Does he take the specific images of a bloody knife murder of the mayor seriously, and if he does, does he act on them?  

And let him know that being discovered won't be the end of the world. If the bang I suggest doesn't work for you, let NPCs mention in passing that they have been using a seer, or supect someone envied by them to be using one.  Maybe give him OOC guidance on this.  

If he plays it safe and doesn't take the bait, no harm will come to him.  

Have cool consequences prepared for him whatever he does, or refuses to do.  

If he goes for it, though, I might arrange for a tempting chance to use his powers illegally, and see what he does.  I just don't want to come off like I'm pushing him into playing a certain way and then punishing him for it.

Then don't punish him. Make the consequences of discovery as interesting as the results of remaining undiscovered.

So what's the bang you're planning? I'm curious now. :)

Anyway, that's probably more of a response than you were looking for, but I admit that I'm thinking out loud here.

On the contrary. I can't wait to hear more.


Edit: Yes, I'm tempting you. I'm tempting you to exploit this wonderful, wonderful mess that he's presenting you with.  This is a character with cool, useful, not-so-acceptable but oh-so-useful powers. Not only useful to him, but also useful to others.  Very cool stuff is bound to come out of it once you two step over the line of social acceptability and dare dance on both halves of the floor.  So... won't you? :)

[Adrienne]

- In the other games where you played with him, did he also go for "magic" characters?  If so, what sort of magic?
- By chance have you read Robin Law's booklet "Robin's Laws of Good Game Mastering"?  In it he talks about player types, one of which he calls "the specialist", like the person who always plays a ninja type person.  He suggests that part of what you need to do to keep this type happy is let them do whatever it is that makes their character special.

My experience with him elsewhere was quite brief, so I haven't seen him play a magic character.  I haven't read the Robin Laws booklet, unfortunately.  If it helps at all, he said that he wanted to play a magic character because characters without magic powers only have "hack and slash" options, and magic gives variety.

- How wedded are you to being faithful to the source material?  

- Do you have a feel from him for how he wants his magic to work out?  

I'd like to be pretty faithful to the source material, where it exists.  In the books I've read, however, there isn't much detail about Seers.  I want to keep the restrictions on abusing psychic powers, because I think that they  and the rest of the Blue Robes' laws are an important force that shapes the culture.  That said, enforcement of those laws depends on infractions being reported, so I can give the player a fair bit of wiggle room both mechanically and in play if he wants to go down that road.

As for what he wants, the paraphrase above as well as his statement that "psychic powers sound cool" are pretty much what I have to work with.  I'm fairly sure that he's not viewing it primarily as a story element in the sense you suggested.  My suspicion is that he views his character mostly through the lens of "what does he do in a fight," because I think that D&D has made the strongest impression from his RPG experience so far.  (Which isn't a jab--I love D&D--but it's not what I'm trying to do with this game.)

OK, after all the questions, I did have one maybe suggestion:  If you let the seer's player see another  character get stomped, and how cool it actually can be, that might make him relax a bit more and trust you.

You've inadvertently suggested one of the things I'd like to be able to do, but haven't much practice at.  :)  That is, I'm not sure how to make failure exciting and cool (assuming that's what you mean by "get stomped").  I still like the idea--between that, and StalkingBlue's suggestion of giving him some nice successes, I might be able to draw him out.  Thanks for your questions; like hers, they help me think about the game.

[Adrienne]

If he goes for it, though, I might arrange for a tempting chance to use his powers illegally, and see what he does.  I just don't want to come off like I'm pushing him into playing a certain way and then punishing him for it.

Then don't punish him. Make the consequences of discovery as interesting as the results of remaining undiscovered.

So what's the bang you're planning? I'm curious now. :)

Lots of great ideas--thank you.  I'll answer your question when I write up tonight's session, because I don't want to give away everything in advance to Stephan's player, who I think is still reading this thread.  :)

I really like a lot of your suggestions, and I think there's great story potential in Barbon using his psychic powers to invade people's heads.  But here's the sticking point:  I'm unconvinced that the player is interested in exploring that story.  My fear is that he wants Barbon to use his powers because "psychics are cool," and that if I start introducing complications like unsavory Clients seeking him out, he'll view it as a sign that he's making the wrong decisions.  My sense of the player from out-of-game conversation is that he doesn't like to think about moral issues too much, and wouldn't enjoy having them arise in his character's life.

So my (maybe unanswerable) question is, how do I tell in advance if complicating Barbon's life would be badwrong fun?   I don't know if I'm correctly reading his preferences and avoiding play he doesn't want, or just being an elitist GM who's stifling his potential.

[Bryan_T]

So my (maybe unanswerable) question is, how do I tell in advance if complicating Barbon's life would be badwrong fun? I don't know if I'm correctly reading his preferences and avoiding play he doesn't want, or just being an elitist GM who's stifling his potential.

When in doubt, ask :)  OK, you might have to throw some stuff at him, but make sure there is time to discuss it afterwards.  "Did you like this?  Or would rather go elsewhere?  What worked, what didn't?"  You can also use email for that sort of thing, to give him more time to think--if he's good about answering email.

Most of my early gaming experiences were intensively game-ist, which wasn't so much my thing, but there was this one narrator who kept enthralled through beautifully mixing stomping us and letting us succeed. So I can assue you, the whole stomping thing is not only a narrative technique, and you don't have to have a player steeped in story telling to make it work.

Which is not a guarantee that it will work for him--but when you think about it, it is the basic story format--trouble happens, the heroes get out of it, repeat as necessary.  Hero failure is necessary to make the successes that much more enjoyable, IMO.

I'm sure others could articulate that theory more lucidly, but I hope you get the gist of what I am saying.

-Bryan

[Adrienne]

Session Two:  Picking at the Threads

(Events in this post, discussion in the next one.)

On his way home from the celebration, Stephan stops to break up a group of arguing Seynyorean and Borderer soldiers.  He dresses down the Seynyoreans and the Borders go off mollified.  Upon arriving home, he finds an anonymous gift, a jeweled pin.  Meanwhile, a message waits for Barbon at the cheap inn where he's staying:  a note saying simply, "Don't trust Nayan."  Hmm.

Next morning, our three heroes ride out with Nayan to his holdings.  As they go east of Manjipor, towards the Border, the area starts to show more signs of sickness, burned out houses and streaks of dead land.  Nayan mentions with some pride that his land has been arable for twenty years--Lokesh's family, his neighbors to the south, aren't doing quite as well.

They arrive at the village that supplied the pig, and find it absolutely silent.  Lokesh goes off to investigate the livestock barns and finds the bodies of pigs, split open and spilling maggots like the one at the feast.  His major success on the investigation also tells him that the pigs were alive when they erupted, and that a substantial number of them are just plain missing.

Outside, Stephan calls out to see if anyone at all is around.  After a silence, a door down the street cracks open and a child peers out.  Questioning him, they find that almost everyone in town got sick a day or two ago, and most of them are packed up in the lord's manor house--he stayed to take care of his mother.  Nayan rides off to get a Healer, leaving the three others to handle things in town.

They do what they can for the woman--Lokesh, thanks to a marginal failure to diagnose her, thinks that she's suffering from the same ailment as the pigs--and then head up to the big house.  They find what seems like the entire population of town in crude pallets on the floor, living mixed in with the dead, and one exhausted woman tending them.  Telling her to get some rest, they take over.  Lokesh handles the funeral rites and they burn the corpses on a pyre (necessary, because this close to the Border the dead don't stay in the ground).

As they finish that hard work, night is falling, and Stephan notices need-fire flickering on the Border--a sign that an attack is in progress from the other side.  They move the two stragglers up to the manor house and hunker down for the night, keeping a watch.  Goblins attack, but Stephan and Lokesh drive them back with dazzling swordplay and much gore.  As dawn comes, the area is safe.  The first sick woman they found, who Barbon has been nursing all night, comes out of her delirium.

[Adrienne]

After Lokesh investigated the pigs, everything that happened was part of an extended contest.  I thought it would be cool to use those mechanics to handle the day-long struggle against the forces of plague and Shadow in the village.  Confusion began almost immediately, as I realized a starting resistance of 18 or so (comparable to Lokesh's first action in the contest) would give the "enemy" only 18 AP, a total that wouldn't last long against the efforts of all three PCs combined.  However, setting the resistance at 20W2 to give a good AP total would cause the characters to lose every step of the contest along the way... also not good.

Well, okay, so I suggested splitting the "enemy" of the contest into sub-tasks like diagnosing the disease, properly disposing of the dead, etc.  That didn't make much sense to Stephan's player--was there one opposing force, or more?--so we decided to run it as three separate extended contests, one per character.

Since Lokesh's efforts focused on investigating the disease and seeing to the proper rituals, I decided that his enemy (broadly speaking) was ignorance and confusion.  As the day wore on into night, he started to get frustrated with the mystery of the disease, and also the question of where the missing livestock had gone.  Were they headed toward his family's land to the south, carrying the splague while he stayed to tend a bunch of strangers?  He almost broke down and abandoned the village to go warn his family, but stayed on.  In the end, he came out of his contest with -6 AP (I'm thinking of some lingering nightmares or doubt that will last for a few days).

Barbon focused his efforts on nursing the first woman they found (more on this later, heh).  His rounds were the most straightforward; his enemy was the disease in her.  After a long string of verrrrry cautious bidding (2 or 3 AP, every time) Chris finally pointed out that with an aggressive bid and willingness to spend a hero point, he could finish in one round.  He tried it, and the gamble worked, as he drove the disease down to -6 AP.

For Stephan, I had the hardest time pinning down the opposition, in part because the ideas I had were tied into secrets his character doesn't know yet.  So, I decided that secrecy and the Shadow were his enemy.  He began with a string of failures--trying to talk to the conscious villagers for information proved fruitless, as they were too confused and tired to remember anything.  He helped Lokesh with the funeral rites, stayed alert, and then risked much on a high bid when the goblins attacked.  He rolled a success and bumped to a critical, and I rolled a fumble.  Final AP total:  95 to -35.  The village will be safe from attack for some time, and in the next session he'll be finding out some of the secrets behind the plague.

The extended contest rules bogged things down a bit.  I was confused at the beginning about how to define the opposition, and I had to stop several times to explain some rules bits.  Overall, the result was ambivalent.  For Stephan and Babon, a few simple contests would probably have worked as well and been much easier.  For Lokesh, though, I think the extended framework was great for showing the development of his mental state over the night.

Barbon's player is nigh-inscrutable to me.  He's keeping his Seer powers a secret from everyone, so Nayan couldn't ask him to call for a Healer from Manjipor.  I even mentioned the possibility of calling for help like that, in case it hadn't occured to the player, but he was uninterested.  He didn't read anyone's mind to find out what had happened, he just... nursed the sick woman.  I had planned for him to communicate with the Seer in Manjipor, which would have been a very helpful and legal use of his powers.  I completely didn't expect that he would ignore that, after psychic powers were the only thing he'd explicitly identified as drawing him to the character.

[Kerstin Schmidt]

So what was the bang for Barbon? :)

I'm unconvinced that the player is interested in exploring that story.  My fear is that he wants Barbon to use his powers because "psychics are cool," and that if I start introducing complications like unsavory Clients seeking him out, he'll view it as a sign that he's making the wrong decisions.  

I didn't mean unsavoury clients.  Unsavoury clients wouldn't compensate the player for risking to use his powers.   I was thinking of people who are desperately in need of help and who the players can root for - say, the merchant with the wife and three sweet young children, who's going to be bankrupted by his corrupt competitor unless he can find some evidence regarding the competitor's evil plans to take over town trade and blackmail the mayor.  (As an added benefit, helping the merchant might set the PCs on the trail of a conspiracy from beyond the Border.  And at the same time Barbon might learn stuff he doesn't really want to know, about who else is cheating on whom etc.)  


I may be completely off track, but from what you are posting here and above, it feels to me as if you may have two conflicting things in your game:  

(a) You consider use of seer powers as unsavoury - dunno whether that's your value judgement or a value judgement in the setting or both (and in any case my apologies if I misunderstood);  and
(b)  the player expected seer powers to be "cool".  

(a) is fine, taken on its own.  (b) is fine, taken on its own.  (a) and (b) in the same game won't mesh.  You'll get a lot of grief out of that seer stuff if you have both (a) and (b).  Do you think that might be the case?