[Mountain Witch] Out-of-character conspiracies

[Selene Tan]

For two Saturdays in a row, I've played The Mountain Witch with some friends. I did not GM. The people involved:

• Will, GM. Has read Polaris and wants to play it sometime but seems unduly stressed about "getting it right". Has GM'ed some D&D and I think White Wolf; has played in a lengthy campaign derived from White Wolf's Mage.
• Steph, player. Has read Polaris and also wants to play it sometime; possibly also stressed about "getting it right". GM'ed/GM's the aforementioned Mage-based campaign.
• Jonathon, player. Played a guest character in the Mage campaign. Not sure of other experience.
• Julie, player. Played in the Mage campaign. Has read Polaris and also wants to play it sometime; I think also stressed about "getting it right". I think also familiar with D&D. Not sure of other experience.
• Kevin, player. Played a guest character in the Mage campaign and has played in a Deadlands campaign.
• Andrew, player. Hasn't played with the others before. Looked at Sorcerer when I was going to GM it (that fell through). I'm not sure if he's played before, but I think he's done some D&D.
• Me, player. Forge lurker/occasional poster. Some play experience with InSpectres, TSOY, and DitV. Lots of experience with D&D. Hasn't played with the others before.

We used the poker-chip option but only had 5 colors. So I ended up doing my trust as green dice, mostly d20s. (Yeah, I have a lot of them.)

There's definitely been some of the necessary getting used to the system, and especially to the narration powers. That's getting smoother. There also seems to be an emphasis on out-of-character conspiring to produce in-game results, which worries me. I think I might be worrying too much about "playing it right."

Much of the first session was spent in character creation. There was a lot of time spent deciding on character abilities, names, and motivations. There were also a lot of jokes about hentai(*) and shounen-ai(*), suggestions that one character get the ability "hung like a moose" or that another get the ability "wind in a bottle" for that billowing cape effect. All players chose to play male characters, which encouraged the suggestions of shounen-ai pairings.

When we were finally ready to start, the GM set the scene with the characters at the bottom of Mt. Fuji. Then followed a long discussion of which way the party should go--straight up the mountain, or more circuitously through the forest. I have to admit I essentially tuned out of the discussion a little ways in, after I'd suggested the forest and rationalized my decision. Finally, the party agreed to go through the forest.

There were some attempts to cover our tracks, a scuffle, and an interrogation. People seemed a unsure of how far narrative power extended, particularly with the interrogation. I suggested that the interrogator state what kind of information was learned and the GM fill in the details. (I don't think the interrogating player had any specific ideas to pursue, which was part of the problem.) (Also, I've forgotten which player this was, eh-heh.)

We took a break, the GM took Jonathon aside for a discussion, and then we got back together. Apparently there'd been a brief snow-storm-like thing and Jonathon's character had disappeared. Then the party was attacked by guards, and there was combat. Jonathon sat it out, and then his character reappeared after combat, injured and claiming to have fought with wolves. He then presented us with information of a secret way into the Mountain Witch's castle in a very suspicious manner; apparently the player hadn't realized just how suspicious it would seem and next session asked for a retroactive continuity fix. (Basically, it was decided that his character had previously divulged information he'd gathered, but that he as a player hadn't decided what the information was and would pop it in as it became relevant.) There was a very long discussion/interrogation of how Jonathon's character knew this stuff, and of whether to follow his suggestion or not. Then we realized it didn't matter yet and that we as players had been up way too late (it was ~3 AM). The GM declared chapter break and added a figure in white watching us from the mountain top; I pulled Fate narration and added another figure beside it, with long hair. Then we adjusted Trust, and ended the session.

Later, I pulled Will aside and told him my character's relationship to the long-haired figure. He later came back to me with some suggestions for specifics, which I'm running with. I still don't have all the specifics down (and I don't want to yet), so I'm trying to throw it at other people and see what I get back. There were apparently a lot of conspiratorial meetings between the first and second session. I don't usually conspire with the GM like this.

Before the next session started, I discussed (well, semi-lectured) people about the "party hydra" syndrome. I also suggested that when people split up, to keep rotating between the groups so there's not too much down-time. (I think this is described in the book somewhere.) Then Will pointed out that he didn't do this when Jonathon's character wandered off because of "special circumstances". Steph protested that then we'd know whenever there wasn't a scene-rotation we'd know there were special circumstances, and I basically said, "So what?" I talked about how I was uncomfortable that plans seemed to be being made entirely in secret with the intention of springing them as a surprise when ready. Then Steph explained that she and the others she played with were used to a very "paranoid" way of playing, and that conspiracies of that sort were the norm. Also, it was mentioned that people felt the surprise factor was worth excluding other people. I'm still not sure it's the best way to play The Mountain Witch, but that may be because I've never seen it used effectively.

We did end up split into two groups during the second session, with Steph and Jonathon in one and the rest of us in another. There was a recurrence of the party mentality when my character was about to torn apart by a tentacle beast and the party got together to save me. (Integrating all their contributions into the narration was interesting.) Admittedly, it was nice to not have my character be dead yet, but I suppose I could have tried requesting different stakes from Will.

That session I was pushier with narration and use of my fate; I now think I might have been too pushy and even prima-donna-y. I did it because I felt like we were in danger of playing a lot of "filler" until actual plot happened, which I didn't want. There was more use of the fate narration privilege this time, which was good. Steph dropped hints that her male ronin was actually female. When a group of gaki appeared, Will (apparently on a previous agreement) had Kevin describe them. I had an embroidered length of silk be found by a mud-pool and, when a tentacle beast appeared in the pool, attempted to rescue it. (As an aside, the appearance of the tentacle beast garnered fresh comments about hentai, and specifically about tentacle rape.)

There was also a scene where Yuki-Onna appeared to Kevin, Julie, Andrew, and I, and she dropped cryptic Fate-related hints to each of us. Will used this opportunity to prod Andrew into revealing more about his fate by having Andrew narrate what Yuki-Onna said. (Andrew has been a little... shy? about narrations and revealing things.) People thought this dropping of hints was Really Cool. Clearly this means there should be more plot introduced, especially by the characters.

Kevin has been playing a brash ronin constantly looking to test his prowess against strong opponents. When Yuki-Onna appeared, he said that his character "had to" challenge her unless someone stopped him, but he didn't want that to happen. He asked people at the table to use Betrayal to prevent his character from doing this. We discussed this as players, and Will suggested a line of reasoning that might lead to the character not challenging her. Kevin accepted this and his character did not challenge Yuki-Onna. I read this as Kevin playing as if his character had a mind of his own, separate from what he wanted (Kevin said several times he didn't want his character to challenge Yuki-Onna, but that his character would do it). It's been pointed out to me that the situation may have been more that Kevin thought the result might be interesting but wasn't sure if other players would, and therefore asked for feedback.

At this point, I'd say it's obvious that my character has some sort of relationship with a woman who is allied with the Mountain Witch. and the relationship is probably love, as in the Desperately in Love fate. But after the session, Steph mentioned that the two obvious candidates for my Fate were Desperately in Love and Unholy Pact, and therefore it couldn't be either of them because that would be too obvious. I was boggled by this statement, because I certainly wasn't thinking like that.

One thing I think was interesting is that people felt like they were a little off (sick-ish, sleep-deprived, etc.) that night, but I feel like the session went much better than the last one. I think one reason is that people were more comfortable with the narration. Correspondingly, there was also more Fate-related play.

I'd like to get other people more involved in my character's story, but I don't want to do it by out-of-game conspiring. On the other hand, I don't feel like I can approach the other players about this except in that way. This might just be me being hesitant. Any suggestions on how to approach this?

A random note, and probably a sign that all of us are at a tech school, is that we keep calling the Mountain Witch book "the manual".

[Eero Tuovinen]

I'd like to get other people more involved in my character's story, but I don't want to do it by out-of-game conspiring. On the other hand, I don't feel like I can approach the other players about this except in that way. This might just be me being hesitant. Any suggestions on how to approach this?

I've never seen that as much of a problem. Just play a grabby character. By which I mean, have your character care about the other characters. Some examples:
- Confess your love to another character.
- Accuse another character of a long-ago betrayal.
- Ask another character for help against the witch / against your doubts.
- Offer to help another character in his problems.
- Like/dislike another character and let that color your actions in obvious ways.
Basicly, the kind of stuff you see in any and all fiction. Strangely enough, literary persons manage to involve each other all the time without having players conspiring on the background ;) Roleplayers, admittedly, are a callous and uncaring lot, so they usually don't care a whit for the characters of other players. But fixing that is easy, if you want to. And it's especially important in The Mountain Witch, wherein the GM is just a false lead and the real terrain of the play is in the player characters.

--

Overall I find your session description somewhat confusing; apparently the GM doesn't run a very tight ship. Lots of content that is less than meaningful in TMW. I guess you'll get rid of that soon enough, as players learn the game. Assuming the GM can keep from adding his own stuff, that is.

The conspiracy trend is a possible signal for Amber-type mix-up of character-centriness and playing to win. At least that's what it reminds me of, with players plotting to create situations and justifying their actions with imaginary character stuff. Whether this is a problem depends on whether the players get their kicks from controlling the events or spinning a story. I imagine that will clear up soon enough. For contrast, when I play TMW everything is out in the open for the players, who make their characters act accordingly. While a character might be plotted against, the player is always in on it.

[Will.Skyfall]

Hey there: this is Will, the GM of Selene's campaign.  I wanted to sit out and lurk for a while, but I had a perspective that I wanted to contribute to the discussion.

Overall I find your session description somewhat confusing; apparently the GM doesn't run a very tight ship.
Lots of content that is less than meaningful in TMW. I guess you'll get rid of that soon enough, as players learn the game. Assuming the GM can keep from adding his own stuff, that is.

I'm unsurprised; this campaign is the first where I have been solo GM.  (I've co-GM'ed one D&D campaign, and I ran a few sessions of a rotating-GM Star Wars campaign.)  I understand that the mechanical flavor of Mountain Witch is a lot different than what I'm used to (D&D, White Wolf, etc.), and I've spent most of the campaign so far trying to rein in my involvement in driving the plot forward.

One of the problems I've had so far is convincing players to shape major aspects of the world.  Except for a couple instances (one of which was Selene's handiwork), most players have been treating Critical and Double Successes as "success with extra damage" or "success with damage to a different target" (which I'm not sure is legal--I'll have to check the book.)  In many cases, players seem hesitant to narrate threads into existence, instead giving me a vague prompt and asking me to fill in the details.  (One player asked, as an extra partial success in combat, to find "something useful about the terrain.")  I'd like to encourage more active creation on the player's part: I'm willing to take vague suggestions (as in the interrogation) and run with them, but doing so only reinforces the idea that I'm the one Storyteller and no one else gets to take initiative, and I'd rather that not happen.

The GM declared chapter break and added a figure in white watching us from the mountain top; I pulled Fate narration and added another figure beside it, with long hair.

That, by the way, was the first point at which I really understood how ingenious this game is.  Part of the appeal for me, GM'ing this campaign, is the surprise and challenge of working with novel world elements that the players create.  I would certainly like to encourage as much of this as I can.

I talked about how I was uncomfortable that plans seemed to be being made entirely in secret with the intention of springing them as a surprise when ready. Then Steph explained that she and the others she played with were used to a very "paranoid" way of playing, and that conspiracies of that sort were the norm. Also, it was mentioned that people felt the surprise factor was worth excluding other people.

It's a matter of preference, I think, and it serves a purpose.  The player/character information barrier is essential for a lot of role-playing; if characters act on information that they do not and should not have, the immersive sense is lost.  That barrier can be difficult to maintain at times--who really wants to lead their character into a fatal blunder simply for the sake of dramatic irony?--and the amount of suspension of disbelief that it requires can be difficult for some role-players.  I am personally fascinated (as are, I believe, several of the other players) by the very honest, real connection between a player and his/her character when both are surprised simultaneously by a plot twist.  As role-players, we are at times both actors and audience; and immersion, in the latter case, is a fine cause to pursue.

(Which is not to say that keeping plot twists a surprise doesn't cause difficulties; especially in a game like Mountain Witch, where the richness of the story flows from the players' contributions; but I still hope that we can strike a balance between surprising the players and giving them enough information to build a compelling narrative.)

In the case of the "paranoid conspiracies," we are trying to find a middle ground between laying all the cards out on the table and de-protagonizing all the players.  If a character has the Revenge Fate, for example,  it would be unsettling if the character's player suddenly confronted another player with the accusation, "You slaughtered my wife and children in front of me, then stole my family's ancestral sword and left me to die!"  If the second player had no concept of his character as a family-slaying, sword-stealing psychopath (or the character's backstory placed him on an uncharted island during that time) a major conflict of intentions would occur.  Instead, the first player could approach the second quietly and ask, "Is it all right if my character wants to kill your character because of X?" and the two can make sure that their (as-yet unrevealed) backstories don't clash.  As Eero said, it's important that players be "in on" any major background-related business involving their characters.

In Kevin's case, he pulled me aside during the first session with a question regarding his Fate.  I approached him between sessions with some thoughts on how to promote it, expressing some discomfort about dropping hints about his Fate before he had even started to do so himself.  He liked my idea, but we decided that he should be the one to bring it up--and I stressed that if he saw any other opportunities to drop hints about his Fate, he should take them.

I am concerned that so far, the easiest way to merge Fates together is through me.  I know most of the characters' Fates, and I think I can guess the rest.  A number of characters have asked me specific questions regarding their Fates, and I've been trying between sessions to brainstorm ways to take the hints that have already been dropped and tie them together in ways that make things difficult for multiple characters.  Even so, I hope that in a few sessions enough information will be on the table that players will be able to start tying plot threads together themselves.

We did end up split into two groups during the second session, with Steph and Jonathon in one and the rest of us in another. There was a recurrence of the party mentality when my character was about to torn apart by a tentacle beast and the party got together to save me. (Integrating all their contributions into the narration was interesting.) Admittedly, it was nice to not have my character be dead yet, but I suppose I could have tried requesting different stakes from Will.

I didn't mind that particular instance of "hydra" mentality, and found it to be one of the high points of the second session.  The results of the roll clearly showed the Trust mechanics in action; the party has been consistently rolling poorly in solo conflicts, but their combined power was staggeringly potent when they banded together to save your character.  Besides, the image of Roranoa dancing on the tips of tentacles, slashing away, while the other ronin watched his back and sliced away lower-hanging members, brought glee to my heart.

Besides, there will plenty of time for opportunistic backstabbing when more Fates hit the table . . . :)

That session I was pushier with narration and use of my fate; I now think I might have been too pushy and even prima-donna-y.   I did it because I felt like we were in danger of playing a lot of "filler" until actual plot happened, which I didn't want.

I disagree.  I think you were doing exactly what you should be doing; the disparity came from the fact that the rest of the group is still warming up to the idea of narration.  I would be very pleased if everyone threw out as much Fate-related information as you did.  All the players should be dropping clues to their Fates; I will be most distraught if, for example, the first time the other players learn about a Revenge Fate is when one player chops another in half and screams, "I got you!" 

In Mountain Witch, foreshadowing is more than good storytelling--it's a thread to explore.  Everything else, as Selene pointed out, is filler--O-Yanma included.

One thing I think was interesting is that people felt like they were a little off (sick-ish, sleep-deprived, etc.) that night, but I feel like the session went much better than the last one. I think one reason is that people were more comfortable with the narration. Correspondingly, there was also more Fate-related play.

In general, I agree with you; the party became more involved in the second session.  I think one effect of the "off night," though,  was the general lack of suspicion.  I really think your character got off easy, given everything he pulled; the characters were more willing to trust each other than was perhaps wise.  That's all right . . . they'll bleed for it next session. :)

It's an interesting system.  I'm very interested in seeing where we take it in the coming weeks . . .

[Eero Tuovinen]

Hi Will! Welcome to the Forge. Don't mind it if my commentary sounds like critique, you're on the job and know best what you're doing. I'm just comparing and contrasting with how I myself play the game.

I'm unsurprised; this campaign is the first where I have been solo GM.  (I've co-GM'ed one D&D campaign, and I ran a few sessions of a rotating-GM Star Wars campaign.)  I understand that the mechanical flavor of Mountain Witch is a lot different than what I'm used to (D&D, White Wolf, etc.), and I've spent most of the campaign so far trying to rein in my involvement in driving the plot forward.

Ah. Note, however, that the part other than not messing with the plot is to provide still the setting for the events. Perhaps I should discuss the plot of TMW a bit:

There's a predefined arc of events in TMW, starting from down below and climaxing in confronting the witch in his own domain. This is not the plot proper, for everybody knows it beforehand. It's just a framework for the real drama of the game, which invariably happens between the ronin. Thus we have three natural components to the TMW fiction:
1) Places and dangers of the mountain; these are provided by the GM and there's plenty of leeway in the what and when. The game assumes that the GM has sole control here (this is a separate matter from the narration of successes in conflict).
2) Character backstory as it concerns the mission; this is created by the players in reaction to whatever the GM decides to throw out for the situation. The Dark Fates are used here.
3) Relationships between the characters; again up to the players, drawing from number two and defining the ultimate landscape of play much more than the overt hurdles set up by the GM.
Now, what I'd like to note here is that 1) is just as important as the other two, because it's a necessary frame for any real activity in domains 2) and 3). And 1) is, for good reasons, not a cooperative matter, but fully under GM control. The game in my experience is best GMed such that it's clear the GM decides what's beyond the next hill, how many trolls there are in the cave, what the NPCs say and do, and so on. Should this power rest with the players, the game takes an annoying turn towards freeforming and social pressures deciding matters.

Might be that you already get all this. Just deliberating for the benefit of the audience, and it seemed from Selene's description that in places the 1) domain of situation was handled a bit vaguely. In any case, it seems you're doing extremely well for a first-time TMW GM; I myself had probably more trouble with it the first time out.

One of the problems I've had so far is convincing players to shape major aspects of the world.  Except for a couple instances (one of which was Selene's handiwork), most players have been treating Critical and Double Successes as "success with extra damage" or "success with damage to a different target" (which I'm not sure is legal--I'll have to check the book.)

Hey, that's actually a vague bit, if I remember the rules right. I'd allow it as a GM, as it makes sense in the overall context, as long as the damage is under the same limitations that a normal bonus fact would be (that is, the narration has to make sense).

In many cases, players seem hesitant to narrate threads into existence, instead giving me a vague prompt and asking me to fill in the details.  (One player asked, as an extra partial success in combat, to find "something useful about the terrain.")  I'd like to encourage more active creation on the player's part: I'm willing to take vague suggestions (as in the interrogation) and run with them, but doing so only reinforces the idea that I'm the one Storyteller and no one else gets to take initiative, and I'd rather that not happen.

Good thinking. Confidence-building is important in this kind of game, as the play will really only sing when the players know their rights and use them.

It's a matter of preference, I think, and it serves a purpose.  The player/character information barrier is essential for a lot of role-playing; if characters act on information that they do not and should not have, the immersive sense is lost.  That barrier can be difficult to maintain at times--who really wants to lead their character into a fatal blunder simply for the sake of dramatic irony?--and the amount of suspension of disbelief that it requires can be difficult for some role-players.  I am personally fascinated (as are, I believe, several of the other players) by the very honest, real connection between a player and his/her character when both are surprised simultaneously by a plot twist.  As role-players, we are at times both actors and audience; and immersion, in the latter case, is a fine cause to pursue.

I think that you'll find with more play that people indeed will and do lead their characters into trouble. The only things you need for that, actually, are:
1) player grooving on the story
2) rules with clear consequences
A common problem with trad play is that you never know the consequences of your actions, so it's better to avoid all trouble. TMW, however, is one of those games where the rules provide such a degree of protection that players who know them are quite happy to, say, let their character be surprised in a dark forest without a weapon on them. It's not that bad if the result is just a conflict roll; the opposite, actually, because this way your character gets to be part of the excitement. The other way of doing it, for contrast, so that a player is as surprised as his character, tends to be enormously deprotagonizing most times: you the player let your character take a happy stroll through the forest, and suddenly somebody attacks with intent to kill, and then everybody laughs at how smart your opponent was in surprising you. Really fun, yes sir.

I've never tried it, but if the game seems to work that way it's all good. In other games I've played player-character information unity has just been a big hassle with long breaks, awkward shuffling of players and overburdening the GM. It's also socially problematic, as many players seem to pride themselves with their ability to talk the GM over in private sessions to garner some imagined advantage for their character. It becomes easily adversial on the player level that way. Also, when I got rid of the whole concept, I found that the thrill of surprise is just as great without secret information; you get to be surprised at different times, is all.

In the case of the "paranoid conspiracies," we are trying to find a middle ground between laying all the cards out on the table and de-protagonizing all the players.  If a character has the Revenge Fate, for example,  it would be unsettling if the character's player suddenly confronted another player with the accusation, "You slaughtered my wife and children in front of me, then stole my family's ancestral sword and left me to die!"  If the second player had no concept of his character as a family-slaying, sword-stealing psychopath (or the character's backstory placed him on an uncharted island during that time) a major conflict of intentions would occur.  Instead, the first player could approach the second quietly and ask, "Is it all right if my character wants to kill your character because of X?" and the two can make sure that their (as-yet unrevealed) backstories don't clash.  As Eero said, it's important that players be "in on" any major background-related business involving their characters.

In the interests of comparison, here's how this'd work in my games: there is no sacrosanct back-story (I think the TMW rules do not confess to such, you know), only backstory revealed to the group. Anything not revealed is up in the air, and real tough on the player who's private imaginations were shattered when somebody actually revealed something to the group. Revelation always trumps masturbatory secrets. So when a character accuses another of something, the other player has plenty of options: he can cop to it, perhaps adding additional narration about the details of the events, or he can disagree, claiming that the other is confused or lying. In either case the backstory is not objective fact. The division of narration power in TMW is pretty intentionally done the way it is: a single player can only prove or disprove claims to the character pasts via conflict narration (Goal: find proof that he slayed my family) or corroboration by another player (perhaps a GM-led NPC  or another player character can prove it one way or another). Thus a claim about past wrongs can be handled exactly the same as any other conflict: it's just characters talking as long as nobody's won a conflict about it. When the conflict is won, a character can find a discriminating relic from the other or get him to break down and confess, but up till then it's unknown who's lying and why.

Do you see how the above way of handling backstory-conflict ties into the issue of player surprise? In my opinion much of the dramatic interest is robbed from the game if I coordinate any important events with another player beforehand. I might as well be doing theatre, if all the interesting bits are orchestrated well in advance.

I am concerned that so far, the easiest way to merge Fates together is through me.  I know most of the characters' Fates, and I think I can guess the rest.  A number of characters have asked me specific questions regarding their Fates, and I've been trying between sessions to brainstorm ways to take the hints that have already been dropped and tie them together in ways that make things difficult for multiple characters.  Even so, I hope that in a few sessions enough information will be on the table that players will be able to start tying plot threads together themselves.

I think you'll find that the difficulty stems in part from hidden information and the assumption of sacrosanct preplay (that is, backstory). If players are allowed to keep secrets from other players, to the extent that they can spin whatever stories they want about their character's previous life and block events from play based on that, it is indeed pretty difficult to say anything at all concerning other characters. How do you know you're not stepping on some backstory that's apparently held in greater esteem than your Fate narration (I think this is also against the rules; Fate narration should trump any secret backstory, and even revealed ones)? You don't, so you won't do any narration that could even in theory have anything to do with the other characters. Pretty dull.

[Selene Tan]

Eero asked me for some clarification of session events in a private message, and he gave his permission for me to post the stuff here.

Why was the route up the mountain the first matter of discussion? Did the GM infodumb you on the benefits and drawbacks of the options, so that you actually had something to weight here, or did the players invent reasons for choosing either route? Why, in your assesment, did the players discuss this with interest? Why didn't you find it interesting?

I believe part of the discussion was "Do we take a full-frontal attack and (assumed, but not overtly stated) face lots of baddies, or do we try to evade them?" Kevin's character wanted to go straight for the fortress. I don't remember other arguments for or against.
I suggested the forest because two characters (mine and Julie's) had nature-y abilities, and I figured it might lead to more interesting stuff because of that. However, I had no particular investment in either course; I just wanted to pick something so we could get to the actual interesting stuff (i.e. suspicious things, dangers to be overcome, and opportunities to pull in my Fate).
I did suggest a couple of times that we initiate a conflict and thus decide which way to go, but people didn't seem very receptive to the idea. I got the impression that they were thinking along the lines of "there's no need to go for dice, we'll resolve this in a few more minutes." Possibly, they may also not have been used to the idea of using conflicts in that way.

When Jonathan's character disappeared, didn't anybody call conflict over following him? That's what would have happened in my experience. When he was interrogated, were there any conflict rolls?

We were attacked pretty much right after Jonathan's character's disappearance was narrated, and he showed up (very conveniently) right after all the enemies had been dispatched. I don't remember any conflict rolls during the interrogation.

In fact, I seem to remember a general unwillingness to use conflicts to resolve situations between players only. There was a situation event in the first session where, after a battle, a crow took wing, in a way that suggested it was a spy for the Mountain Witch. Kevin and Andrew wanted to kill it; I wanted it to survive so that I could use my "Speak with animals" ability to find out what it knew. The crow wanted to get away. I sided with the GM and got a Partial Success; I narrated knocking Kevin's character's arm aside so that his aim missed and he wounded/slowed the crow rather than killing it. This raised suspicions, and Kevin's character being brash, meant that he threatened my character at swordspoint to explain himself.
At this point, I think there was a slight misunderstanding of the rules. It was assumed that the only way to resolve player-player interactions was via a duel, conflicts being reserved for player-GM interaction. I was willing to go for either, but the general thought seemed to be "Wait, we're not even halfway up the mountain and there's already going to be a full-on duel?! Better find a way to back down!" Thus we resolved the situation without resorting to the dice; I think I explained my thinking and Kevin backed off with "I'm still suspicious of you, but I'll let it go for now."

Why did Andrew narrate Yuki-Onna's dialogue? Isn't it the GM's job?

Yuki-Onna had been put in that place to drop hints about character Fates. Will, the GM, had no idea what Andrew's Fate was, and wanted to encourage Andrew to be more pro-active about bringing it up. He narrated Yuki-Onna's dialogue to each of the other characters, then asked Andrew to narrate her dialogue to his own character.

Any idea why Steph thought you'd try to mislead the group about your Dark Fate? Do you think he's misleading others about his own? Why?

I really don't know why Steph thought that the obvious thing must be wrong. My best guess would be too much paranoia concerning such things. Steph's character now appears to be a female ronin in disguise, but that doesn't say anything about her Fate.