[Stranger Things] Lock, Stock, and Smoking Dragonhide

[Bankuei]

Fun?  Lots of fun.

First, I ended up with 5 players, which is more than I wanted to handle, but I expected at least one person to flake.  Instead, everyone shows up.  Ok.  3 players I've played with before, 2 I haven't.  The two I haven't have primarily D&D history.  4 men, 1 woman.  Ages early 20's to mid 30's. 

Second, no one outside of myself has really done the indie game thing, or much in the ways of player input, player narration & scene framing, etc.

So what happened?

Kit Wickett, procurer of artifacts and antiquities rare and strange, is trying to cut a deal with a vampire gang lord in Salacious Alley.  After refusing a bum deal on some ratty Dragonhide in exchange for the magical whip he acquired, he begins his quest to get some good Dragonhide.  Taken, the mysterious masked wizard woman, desires the magic whip for study, and agrees to trade him 4 (not 3) yards of dragonhide... 

Meanwhile, Cresey Eden, a Stranger who freezes things upon touch, finds her gloves are wearing thin, and all she wants to do is be able to eat a hot meal without freezing it first.  She hunts down "Isabella" some crazy spirit who possesses Gypsies to give her some advice.  The solution?  Dragonhide gloves. 

Marcel, the hack writer who glows with magical light, finds his neighbors are not quite as amused at his "sunny" demeanor- some people have got to sleep at night, and his curtainless apartment blasts out enough light to keep many of them up at night.  He finangles a deal with Kit to get some magically enhanced curtains... the price?  Dragonhide.

Azzizya, a Hellboy/leatherboy metal worker, manages to catch a thief in his shop- Renzo the Gnome, trying to make off with his magical bellows.  After apprehending the fellow, he discovers Renzo was trying to take the bellows to begin a new counterfeiting operation with the old coin mint plates he stolen from the Mint (which, by the way, is operated entirely by goblins, because we thought it would be fun).

I wish I could explain all the madness that followed, but... imagine a Guy Ritchie movie that ends with a worker riot between humans & Gypsies, a massive dragon being released into the sky, a terrible fight thereafter, and sorta, mostly happy endings for everyone involved...

Epilogues- Cresey finally gets to eat a hot meal- a frozen tear falls from her eye.  Marcel is hailed as a hero for "slaying the dragon", though in fact, he really didn't.  Though the party's at his apartment are loud and bright, no one complains.  Taken gets the magic whip and wanders off.  Azzizya has become a kingpin, leader of a band of goblin, gnome, and leprechaun thieves, a bunch of disgruntled quarry workers, has a monopoly on the tin supplies for the whole City for the foreseeable future, AND opens his own bank (with his face on one side of the coins, no less).  And Kit is in Salacious Alley, a lance over his shoulder, trying to cut a deal with a dragon...

Thoughts & Observations

1) Nearly all of my prep got thrown out the window.  Granted, yes, I could have framed scenes and shoved in the stuff I had in mind- but it was just too much fun watching what everyone was doing. 

2) 2 of the players enjoyed taking the roles of some of the NPCs for other folks' scenes.  This worked out exceptionally well, as I don't do such a great job when I'm forced to juggle 12 NPCs or so.  I would guide by either throwing out information about the NPCs, or declaring a Conflict in certain areas.

3) Nearly everyone chose extreme numbers.  Failure didn't happen very often, as folks tended to stick to their strengths.  Also, only one person took 2 injuries, and only 1 other person took 1 at all.  I personally needed to step on slamming conflicts against folks which hit on their weak points in order to up the tension. 

4) Everyone had fun, and a couple of the players were very interested in running it over the long run.

5) Only one player was extra active about making relationships- though none got used for rerolls.

6) One player wanted the map tiles to be broken up into smaller sections, and to get placed as you play, not before hand.

7) One of the new folks, wanted items to give mechanical differences, as well as have a mechanical chance of character death.  I suspect this just wasn't the game for him.

8) I want to color the map-tiles.  I think colored buildings would make it easier for me to recognize what's going on and to also draw more attention to them.  I think a colored version of the maptiles would work really well.  Nothing super detailed, just bright colors to help differentiate the buildings and the areas.

The Nitpick:
- Blood/Flame/Shadow Style is listed as Fighting/Magic/Social style on the chargen list- caused some confusion amongst the players.

The Question:
For the reroll chart, do you have to choose which column or the combo option before play begins, after your first reroll, or after your second reroll?  We went with the last option, though only one person made a second reroll...

Chris

[John Harper]

Sounds like a wonderful session, Chris. I'm glad you were able to handle 5 players. Yikes!

I love seeing how other people imagine the ST setting and the Strangers themselves. It's always different from my own vision, and that's awesome. Like, dragons?! Whoah. Cool. All of the Strangers in your game sound really great.

For the re-roll thing, you decide before your second re-roll. You either use one from the column you've already used (thus committing you to that column) or you use one from another column (thus "closing down" the column of your first re-roll).

About having mechanical differences for items. Wilhelm pointed out that since Stranger's can take relationships with anything, including inanimate objects, you can take a relationship with an item. Which then gives you re-rolls. Which makes it pretty darn special (and prone to destruction). I like this. Also, the guy with a relationship with his pistols? That says something.

I agree about colored map tiles. I may make some available for download in the future. The map sheets in the book will almost certainly be black and white, though. Coloring them yourself could be fun, too.

Thanks so much for playtesting! I really appreciate it.

[Judd]

Chris,

Thanks for posting yet another Stranger Things AP that makes me hunger.

Could you post one or two examples of conflict and how the system handled it?

[Bankuei]

Hi John,

Oh yeah!  I totally forgot about relationships to objects!  Good point.

With a little extra thought to it, I realized two of the players really drove the session, as they produced "instant kickers" for their characters while the other three players sort of never developed a real direction or solid conflict.  I think I backed down when I should have shanked them with conflict.  I really got to learn to take the kid gloves off.

The two players who did push things hard, also were the most interested in seeing what would happen in longer term play, while a couple of the other players remarked that they didn't really feel like much was happening in the way of character development- which I thought was an interesting observation.  I think character development would hit much harder if I managed to get people pulling on relationships for rerolls more often.

Either way, way more neat stuff happened in about 3 and a half hours than most people get in several sessions of play.

Chris

[Bankuei]

Hi Judd,

The Ice Cream Fight-

Poor Cressy decides that she might as well get a bite to eat of something that she can eat without spoiling the temperature- ice cream. (We had decided earlier that ice houses and ice blocks were legit tech for the City, so, you also get ice cream).  She's sitting down at a table at a sidewalk cafe, when Renzo the gnome, and his gang is making a run from Kerka the Troll, and the whole group is barrelling through everyone and everything.

Cressy fails the roll to avoid having her sundae knocked all over her (Blood roll, failed), and her player doesn't go for reroll, but instead declares a new conflict- a fight with Kerka.  We go for Action by Action, the best of 5 rolls.  She succeeds at 1 roll, successfully angering him and getting him to lunge at her.  Cressy succeeds at the second roll and headbutts Kerka, knocking him back.  Kerka, in a rage, tries to swing at her, and she succeeds a third roll, freezing his arm then shattering it...

Tell me why everyone wants you-

Renzo is making good on his escape, when Kit reaches out from an alley way and snatches him up.  "Renzo, why is everyone looking for you?  What's this I hear about minting plates?"  I call a social conflict, and we do it as a single roll.  Kit fails at first, Renzo stumbling and stammering, but Kit makes a reroll on Cruelty (pinching Renzo's ears) and succeeds.  Renzo spills the beans about the minting plates and Kit figures out what's going on...

The resolution system works wonderfully, though there were a couple of times I would have done better to get more clarification up front in terms of goals and such.  I think it might work best for the GM to take an informal role similar to the the GM in Dogs in the Vineyard- to push for lesser outcomes in order to extend the conflicts in certain situations.  For example, the players wanted more of a "fight" to defeat the dragon- I think I was too afraid of negating their input and didn't look to negotiate lesser possible results before throwing dice.  I know I caught myself once or twice failing to totally fulfill the goals stated at the beginning of the conflict... ack bad gamer habits.

Chris

[Judd]

Really interesting stuff, Chris.

Thanks.

[John Harper]

Chris,

Was Cressy's goal in the first conflict "Don't get covered in ice cream"? Because... that's the cutest conflict goal I've ever heard of. "I am a creature of blood, flame, and shadow! Beware my powers, for my wrath is... LOOK OUT! ICE CREAM!" :-) Man, that's killing me. So. Good.

[jetboy]

Hey:  I was one of the less outspoken characters:  Taken -    Actually it was a very good session, and fun!  and I think the game succeeds at everything it is attempting to do, I just thought it could be improved with a couple points, or perhaps variant rules, one which has already been answered above in this forum (importance of items).

1. Element of Danger:   I never felt like there was any danger involved with any action I took. Wander in and talk with a den of vampires?  No problem. Jump a 150 foot dragon and pound it into submission?  No problem.  This is a problem for the game (for me) because the thrill, or quickening of the intensity of a situation looses some of its edge.  Even in a Guy Ritchie movie you expect some of the people to end up bloody and broken - riddled with holes.   and the characters in teh movies rarely wnat to end up ridled with holes!!!  I want an element of fate, and more danger from NPCs.  the answer to this might just be Strangers vS Stranger fights.  I was quickly bored with conflicts with NPCs who basically could not counter-conflict  - and was thinking of attacking a fellow player just to make the danger level rise.


2. Items - what use are they?  But above you noted the relationship with items, something we had forgotten!!! so thats cool

3. relative power limits - players or the GM have to be careful with what the character can realistically accomplish as a goal.  Some genereal guidlines noted in the player creaton section might help.  There is a danger of escalation - My ancient mage (a 2!) was bursting with demonic power after sucking hundreds of souls and being buried for the last 600 years. 

but if I went up to a NPC dragon and hit it with my fist, I have a 10 percent chance of defeating it.  (maybe more than one roll conflict, but I have rerolls on my side.. ).  I don't believe my 2 should ever kill a dragon with my fist - not even a 1 percent chance.  not even in the realm of possibility!!  So I play it that way.
But another player may not think the same way that I do(also a 2), and actually goes and kill a dragon with her fist - this blows my characters constructed reality - and makes it less fun for me :)

This didn't happen in our game, it was a 8 that punched a dragon, so that fit in with my characters version of reality - but the possibility was there for the guy pummeling the dragon tohave been a 2 or 3. 

it would be cool if the Blood/Flame/Shadow chance level was reflected in scale of influence in those realms. 

my 2cents.

[Bankuei]

Hi John,

I believe her actual goal was "have a quiet meal" which, was rather fun a conflict to screw over.

Chris

[rafial]

1. Element of Danger:   I never felt like there was any danger involved with any action I took. Wander in and talk with a den of vampires?  No problem. Jump a 150 foot dragon and pound it into submission?  No problem.  This is a problem for the game (for me) because the thrill, or quickening of the intensity of a situation looses some of its edge.  Even in a Guy Ritchie movie you expect some of the people to end up bloody and broken - riddled with holes.   and the characters in teh movies rarely wnat to end up ridled with holes!!!  I want an element of fate, and more danger from NPCs.

You want danger?  You want broken bones?  Put yourself in positions where they are plausible, declare conflicts, take a long pace, and keep pushing for rerolls.  You'll hit incapacitated before you know it.  You have to do it to your character though.  It's a deliberate feature of this style of play and these rules that the character cannot become hurt or killed except with the consent of the player.  Obviously, this isn't a style that suits everybody.

[Alan]

1. Element of Danger:

... declare conflicts, take a long pace, and keep pushing for rerolls.  You'll hit incapacitated before you know it. ...

Another technique is to declare conflict in the area your character is poor in.  You'll have trouble and you'll get to do a lot of narrating.

[jetboy]

Some general questions:

1.  Say my character, Taken the Mage (2) hires a NPC ("Master Shadow"), forming a relationship, and that NPCs task is to go steal a Frumbalizer from Jargo the Red.  (when I say hire, I mean I dominate their mind and make them do my will - a (Demon) Magic conflict to make them follow my orders)

Do I roll my shadow to see if he can steal the item? Or does the GM (with player input) simply decide without rolling to see if the NPC succeeds.  Is this complicated if Jargo is another Stranger(character)?


2. If the game is really all about the story telling, why have a number at all?  Why not just have the 3 - Blood, Fire, Shadow, and have the players decide generally how good they are at each, with the understanding that no one can have it all.  decribe it on a scale from :    "Clueless" to "The MAN!" or however else you want to describe your own proficiency.  Then just decide if you fail or succeed depending upon how difficult the goal is.    Only if you can't decide for some reason, if you are just stuck, then flip a coin or something,  call it a Fate roll

Having the number just confuses my simple mind, because its adding a seemingly arbitrary structure to a non-structured story driven game.  I end up wanting More numbers, or None at all!!!

When I was 10 years old, before my brother allowed us to play D&D with him, my friends and I played basically this exact game - we just sat around making up stories about our imagined characters and making any determinations needed by various on hand random generators - throw a pencil up and see where it points, flip a leaf, watch which way the beetle crawls.(we had no dice)  I like adding a little element of Fate/Chance into any story line - but dont see the need for the number, or really any dice at all.  (OR I want lots of dice and rules because that can be fun for different reasons)

-j

[rafial]

Say my character, Taken the Mage (2) hires a NPC ("Master Shadow"), forming a relationship, and that NPCs task is to go steal a Frumbalizer from Jargo the Red.  (when I say hire, I mean I dominate their mind and make them do my will - a (Demon) Magic conflict to make them follow my orders)

Well, once you have a relationship with an NPC, you can simply tell the GM what they do, no roll necessary.  To get that relationship you need to have been in a conflict which involved that NPC.  Your proposed Flame conflict to mentally enslave someone might qualify, but such means aren't always necessary.  If you came into conflict with Master Shadow in a social setting, or a duel, and took him/her as a relationship, you could later decide that he goes to steal the item your behalf.  The GM gets to say why he does it, and and how he feels about it.

Do I roll my shadow to see if he can steal the item? Or does the GM (with player input) simply decide without rolling to see if the NPC succeeds.  Is this complicated if Jargo is another Stranger(character)?

It basically boils down to if you or the GM wants to make a conflict of it.  If you say "Master Shadow goes to steal the Frumbalizer" and the GM responds "you hear later that he was caught and hurled into a dungeon" you could respond "No way!  Conflict".  In this case you'd use the "Relationship goes first" clause from the conflict rules, and yes, it'd probably be Shadow.  If you blew the roll, and didn't want to accept the failure, then you could have your PC enter the scene directly in some fashion to continue the conflict (you might have your Mage show up to rescue you hapless minion, or you might say that Jargo the Red has tracked Master Shadow and the Frumbalizer back to you and is now confronting you directly).

If the game is really all about the story telling, why have a number at all?  Why not just have the 3 - Blood, Fire, Shadow, and have the players decide generally how good they are at each, with the understanding that no one can have it all.

I must admit that I find the single number thing to be a bit of a gimmick.  I've often though you could just say "distribute 13 points across your three attributes" or something like that.

Having the number just confuses my simple mind, because its adding a seemingly arbitrary structure to a non-structured story driven game.  I end up wanting More numbers, or None at all!!!

Ah, but TB/ST is a very structured game.  It's just that the structure is more about apportioning credibility to say "what happens next" among the players and not about deciding if "can my PC pick this lock".

I like adding a little element of Fate/Chance into any story line - but dont see the need for the number, or really any dice at all.  (OR I want lots of dice and rules because that can be fun for different reasons)

Well, free form play in which the players bounce ideas off each other and then agree on stuff is definitely enjoyed by some.  But that's not what TB/ST is.  It encourages everybody to put their ideas in the pot, and then has a very structured, fortune based mechanism for determining who has the final say about what happens next.  Some like it, some don't but do not mistake it for something it is not (a "free-form" "storytelling" game).

[Alan]

I've always thought that fortune in conflict resolution served two important purposes:

1) The possiblity of not getting what you want pumps excitement.
2) How far a player (not a character) is willing to go to alleviate random setbacks forces the player to clarify what they care about in the game.
3) Random setbacks or unexpected results in general actually demand creativity from the players, raising their performance to a higher level than if they were just sitting around making consensus decisions.

[John Harper]

Yes, fortune-based and freeform games are different. I don't think we need to discuss their relative merits here.

Suffice it to say, Wil is right. ST is not a "freeform storytelling" game, and its mechanics are not designed for that kind of play.