1st Quest Monthly game: Pool Renewal, XP Hesitancy, and Pushing Conflicts Hard

[Judd]

Pool Renewal

At this game pools were renewed with scenes in which the PC's meditated in a field of pixies, counted rocks, flew through the forest, sharpening of weapons and a dump was taken in another player's shoes.  They are really nice little moments of player-authored color that I am really pleased with.  They reinforce the game's vibe and they are all authored by players in between conflict-heavy scenes.

Banners and Secrets: Powers on the Fly and XP Hesitancy

Some of the players really were feeling like they were taking advantage by playing their Banners hard and getting a good ole pile of XP.  I really urged them to maximize their Banners and play off of one another and pursue their Banners' goals.  And they did and ended up with great heaping piles of shiny XP tokens (little colorful pieces of plastic).

I think there was some kidn of -I don't want to munchkin and take advantage of the rules- vibe and we broke away from that this game in a satisfying way.

There has been a whole lot of making up new Secrets on the go, which has been going well.

Pushing Conflicts Hard

Man, I don't push conflicts hard enough.  I am kind of rooting for my players and I think many of my conflicts and encounters just aren't challenging enough.  Ron said that in Sorcerer, the demons need to be played like they are the GM's beloved characters and I need to take that to heart for my more villainous and threatening NPC's.

I'm getting better but it is a long-running problem in my games that I can trace back throughout this campaign to many of my Sorcerer games.  So, something crafty for me to work on in the GM's seat.

That said, it was a very successful game and at the end, my girlfriend wanted to keep on playing.  I think we are creating the very campy and dark fairy tale that we set out to play.  The threat of work and school the next day was all that stopped our play.  We talked for an hour about gaming and movies and life before going home.

[Anders]

Judd,

Sounds like a good session.

At this point in your design and playtesting, what do you feel differs most (in a good or bad way) from your experience with TSOY as is?

Also, making up new Secrets while playing sounds cool. Any that might go into the game, or rather advice on how to do it yourself?

Thanks,

/Anders

[Judd]

At this point in your design and playtesting, what do you feel differs most (in a good or bad way) from your experience with TSOY as is?

The way Banners allow a player to give another player XP for playing off of them is neat and creates an economy of XP that is a bit different than TSoY.

Also, making up new Secrets while playing sounds cool. Any that might go into the game, or rather advice on how to do it yourself?

TSoY has more than enough on making your own Secrets and Keys but yes, I will include more in 1st Quest about the process.

[Anders]

The way Banners allow a player to give another player XP for playing off of them is neat and creates an economy of XP that is a bit different than TSoY.

The Gift Dice were a big hit with my group when we played TSOY. I can see how this would reinforce the enjoyment we got from that as well as hitting Keys even more. Cool.

TSoY has more than enough on making your own Secrets and Keys but yes, I will include more in 1st Quest about the process.

Yeah, TSOY really encourages this. We did it with Keys in our game.

I think it'd be cool to read about the process in an example of play, like a transcript from your table.