(mountain witch) questions while prepping

[pedyo]

Y'all,
I'm prepping for GM'ing my first game of The Mountain Witch and I've got a few questions that I hope those of you who've had the chance to play the game can help me with.
(note: I did search the threads here and I've found some really good advice. Still, I'd like a bit more).
1. The practical differences between partial and mixed success is a little unclear to me. I worry that I will have trouble making the right calls during play (OK, go ahead and call me a worrywart). If anyone has any examples from real play that would be awesome.
2. Bangs. Man, I'd so like to hear some more examples - and also how they played out. The movement from more general Bangs over Trust-related ones and to Fate-related ones is especially important to me. I fear that the general ones will be, well - too general, and that play will suffer for it.

OK, I promise to post my actual play here as soon as we've played :-)

Thanks in advance
Peter

[Matt Machell]

For bangs, I went for general situations that force the samurai to doubt the mission or doubt their companions, then mixed in player provided details. For example:

The characters see another ronin heading back from the castle. Who is he? (player provides details of a character) He's doing work for the witch, who hires ronin to act as emissaries. He's actually going to meet the character's employer, with a message. Yeah, the witch is a great employer. Yeah, haven't seen you for a few weeks...

For my group this played out into a scene where the characters argued over whether they should attempt to sneak into the fortress under guise of gaining employment and how dishonourable this was, which then led to changed trust levels. It also allowed the player with Unholy Pact to foreshadow his fate by showing his character's knowledge of the area. Obviously who the player decides the other Ronin is has a big impact here and can lead in all sorts of other interesting directions.

-Matt

[Ignotus]

Yeah, the Mountain Witch desparately needs a thread full of compiled bangs.  It's really quite difficult to prepare for. 

I first played the Mountain Witch at Ubercon in '05; it was a great game, and I wish I could remember the GM's name.  I bought the book as soon as I got home, and it seemed like the GM at Ubercon had houseruled the game a lot; I wish I knew the full extent.  I ended up stealing some of his techniques (and a bunch of his encounters, natch) when I ran it for some friends later on.  Note: this may seem like a good game for rpg first-timers, but I don't think it actually is.  I had hoped that the added structure would make the experience easier, but one of my new players said instead that he wished their was a board charting their progress towards the Witch, like a board game - in other words, he viewed the experience as a vague and unstructured board game instead of as an rpg in which characters had narrative agency.  I think I would have done better to introduce him to a more open game, like PTA or Dogs.

Anyway, here are two bangs that worked pretty well:

A slippery frozen river; failing to get accross means falling down an icy waterfall, or worse.  Gives the PCs a chance to decide whether to risk themselves to rescue fallen comrades.  This was in the game at Ubercon, and I stole it shamelessly because it's so understated - it just seems like a random encounter - but really gets the trust going a bit.

Near the end, I had a classic doppleganger encounter, but with a twist.  Each PC met a version of himself as he would have been, had he remained true and not become a ronin.  Each character got a chance to define themselves in relation to their past choices, and to decide who was worth helping and who had to fight themselves alone. 

I'm sorry to say I broke Tim's rule and played the whole thing in one session both times; I didn't have much of a choice.  I'd love to try an extended version some time.

[timfire]

Hi,

I'm not ignoring this thread, its just that these next couple of days are kinda busy for me. If you don't mind being patient, I promise to write up something big and long in a few days.

I will say, though, that one reason I didn't write more in the book was because I wanted people to come up with their own ideas. TMW isn't a module that's suppose to be played the same everytime by everyone. And it's difficult to write a list that's inspirational rather than prescriptive. That said, I recognize that the advice portion needs a little something more. So I'll try and compose something that focuses more on the principles needed to come up with bangs---and yes---alongside some more examples of bangs from my own actual play.

In the meanwhile, others who have played can chime in with some of their own ideas.

Thanks for the patience!

[pedyo]

Don't sweat it, Timothy. As far as Bangs are concerned, I don't think the book needs a whole lot of extra work - but a short list of examples in an article on the website or something like that would be very helpful. I get the feeling (since I'm constantly getting ideas for the game now) that once you crack the code and see what constitutes an interesting situation for MW, it's not that difficult to come up with new Bangs.
Best
Peter
PS: your mw-demo document was very helpful, by the way - especially the second situation. It gave a kind of look into the GM's mind that made things a bit clearer.