[Mortal Coil] Recess Game 2: Old Gods

[Brennan Taylor]

I ran Mortal Coil at the latest Recess game day in New York. There was time at the mini-convention for two sessions, and rather than run the same one twice, I decided to try two different scenarios. The first one, detailed here, was really successful. The second one fell pretty flat for me, due to a number of issues. The concept for this second session was called Old Gods, a game about the gods of dead religions who gather in a bar in Philadelphia. The Old Gods premise is far more demanding of the players, since there is no built-in conflict. The players must create and generate this conflict with their character conceptions and passions, and if I am to run this one again, I will need to really push everyone to create really punchy, conflict-laden characters. In this particular session, I totally failed.

Even with the limited time at a convention game, I start with only the basic concept and the players and I build from there. From the get-go, this game of Old Gods was different from the one I ran in my own group at home. In the home group, we had established that the gods were immortal, and if they were killed in mortal form it was inconvenient, but they could return. When the Recess group started, one of the first facts established is that although gods could not die of old age, they could be killed, and when they were, it was permanent. This created a far more grim air to the game than we had in the previous game, and points out how the system allows each group to put their own individual stamp on the game world.

Adding facts to the game world was the part of the system that several players liked the best, and they put this to good use during play, creating new powers and abilities for themselves. This had a big effect on the actual play, as I will describe a little later.

When we got to aptitudes (a set of traits Mortal Coil uses instead of skills), people really started to struggle. Interestingly, it was much harder for people to come up with aptitudes for their gods than it was for the street kids in the previous game. Players wrestled with these for some time, and several players even forgot to create any magical aptitudes for their characters and had to change them afterwards.

Then the real trouble began. Players began to choose passions for their characters, and I explained what these were and what appropriate passions should be. Passions are the hooks for the character, what motivates them to act and therefore what ties them into the story. I advised everyone to choose passions that referenced the other characters at the table, and the bar that the gods all frequent. Only one player did this, and this was Bill, my friend who had participated in the original playtest and had sat in on the earlier game at Recess. Even then, Bill's character turned out too passive. I don't remember what else he took, but they were all about calm and immobility (he was playing a Japanese earth god). One of the players chose such totally inappropriate passions that I immediately spotted them as a problem, and convinced him to change them out. The two passions he originally chose were for watching people and for reading books, which would definitely have made the character a passive observer for the whole game.

As I mentioned above, none of the other passions related to any other character or to the bar. My biggest blunder here was not catching this early and correcting it right away. I moved forward with the game, and the fact that none of the passions interlocked in any way led the game to be a meandering mess, with no real exciting hooks, and I grew increasingly desperate to engage any character at all. In the end, I railroaded a scene with an assassin and gathered everyone together in a quest-style mission which I thought totally sucked.

The players all seemed pleased, however, and certainly they expressed no disappointment, and most of them were quite interested in the system after we finished playing. I wish this had been a better demo, like the first session was, but it seemed like I was the main one who noticed the serious lack (or maybe they were too polite to say it). I ended this session early because my son was starting to come around and bug me to leave.

If I run this game at any future convention, my main goal when crafting the characters will be to ensure that the passions are strong and interconnected, since that is what creates really good play with this game. I learned something, definitely, but I still feel bad that this scenario was basically a failure at this event.

[Judd]

Brennan,

Sounds like a valuable playtest session with lots to teach you.  If every playtest session went smoothly, there'd be no point.

In the home group, we had established that the gods were immortal, and if they were killed in mortal form it was inconvenient, but they could return. When the Recess group started, one of the first facts established is that although gods could not die of old age, they could be killed, and when they were, it was permanent. This created a far more grim air to the game than we had in the previous game, and points out how the system allows each group to put their own individual stamp on the game world.

You might want to have a sidebar about the effect different choices have, like those games that have dial settings that change the game's tone.

When we got to aptitudes (a set of traits Mortal Coil uses instead of skills), people really started to struggle. Interestingly, it was much harder for people to come up with aptitudes for their gods than it was for the street kids in the previous game. Players wrestled with these for some time, and several players even forgot to create any magical aptitudes for their characters and had to change them afterwards.

This sounds like something that needs to go on the book to save future GM's from struggling with these issues.

The bit about the player making limp passions, in particular, seems like it should be a sidebar right next to the part of the book on passions.

Any thoughts on having pre-made characters for future con scenarios?  Possibly, you could just read off each PC's passions and have their players choose based on that information alone.

[Iskander]

Any thoughts on having pre-made characters for future con scenarios?

How about providing a set of sample Old Gods, with a few representative members of each popular pantheon. Con players could use them straight, adjust them, or use them as inspiration.

[Brennan Taylor]

This sounds like something that needs to go on the book to save future GM's from struggling with these issues.

The bit about the player making limp passions, in particular, seems like it should be a sidebar right next to the part of the book on passions.

Any thoughts on having pre-made characters for future con scenarios?  Possibly, you could just read off each PC's passions and have their players choose based on that information alone.

I will definitely be including some good clarification in the book, and passions are probably the most important part of a character in the game. I can't really emphasize that enough in the rules, but I will be putting in some additional text to that effect. I already mention most of the issues above in the text, and I did go over those issues with the players, in fact, but they remain difficult.

Aptitudes just require a bit of a paradigm shift, that's why I think players have trouble there. They are not skills, and for players used to picking skills for their characters, switching to something that is more like a vocation seems to be hard.

As for the con characters, I am considering pre-gens. That would solve a lot of the problems, and I could still do the theme document with everyone participating. Also, what gods can do pretty much gets defined in play, so that would still be collaborative.

[Brennan Taylor]

How about providing a set of sample Old Gods, with a few representative members of each popular pantheon. Con players could use them straight, adjust them, or use them as inspiration.

What is most important here is interlocking passions, that is, passions that refer to other player characters and NPCs (not as important), and also that tie the characters to the bar location. I guess I could write passions like "I will get even with X (Hate 2)," and then have folks fill in the names as we start playing. That way I could offer a good selection and no one character would be indispensible.

[Russell Collins]

It sounds odd to me that the players could be so dispassionate about passions. Especially the passions of creatures millenia old. There's something keeping these guys running, and it isn't Ovaltine! The passions are designated by Love or Hate and so on if I remember correctly; words you can't easily ignore. If the text doesn't already emphasize that strong language, you may want to punch it up a bit to really drive the point home.

Also, I'd be curious to see what happens if you have players determine their passions first when making characters. This may ease aptitude creation as people will choose their capabilities with a clear idea of what's going to be at stake.

[Brennan Taylor]

It sounds odd to me that the players could be so dispassionate about passions. Especially the passions of creatures millenia old. There's something keeping these guys running, and it isn't Ovaltine! The passions are designated by Love or Hate and so on if I remember correctly; words you can't easily ignore. If the text doesn't already emphasize that strong language, you may want to punch it up a bit to really drive the point home.

Also, I'd be curious to see what happens if you have players determine their passions first when making characters. This may ease aptitude creation as people will choose their capabilities with a clear idea of what's going to be at stake.

The passions are heavily emphasized in the text, and I went back in after last weekend and punched it up even more. I also did try to emphasize it during the session, but obviously I didn't do that enough, and my mistake was not going in and making folks change them once I found out that they weren't powerful enough. I am going to give Old Gods another try at Dreamation, and this area is the one I am going to really focus on. We'll see if it goes off if I push the players even harder here in character generation.

There are four types of passions: Love, Hate, Duty, and Fear. A couple of people chose duty, but there was a lot of love and hate going around too. I think because the passions weren't aimed directly at other players or the immediate environment, they fell flat. As I mentioned in the other actual play, I didn't have this problem at all with the street kid scenario. Everyone created really punchy, interrelated passions (like the rules intend), and they were hit over and over. Only a couple of players had even one passion token left by the end of play, which is just as it should be.