[MLwM] My Appartment Con

[epweissengruber]

Toronto IndieRPG Group played a session of MLwM during the Easter Break Con. at my pad.

We tried to do a 1-shot using the recommendations in the rulebook: high fear, low reason.

We also used the recommended graph display to show the status of the characters.  It REALLY helped focus the strategic decisions and the affective roleplay.

Setting:
A wild desert planet.  The mad Baron Jever is experimenting with the "spice" produced by local giant worms.  This spice is a commoditity that prolongs life, permits psychic powers, and allows interstellar navigation.  To impress his offworld peers, the Baron is experimenting with the local populace, sucking the psychic abilities from the gifted locals and using the spice to boost his own mental powers. 

He needs: spice, fresh slaves for the spice mines, and the psychically talented
He wants: respect and admiration of his peers, power in the galactic hierarchy.

Minions:
Ditmar: Self-Loathing 4, Weariness 0
- he was the butler to the Baron
- formerly, a gentleman's gentleman in the Galactic core, now reduced to being stuck on a remote outpost with a madman
- his more than human: heal everyone with his telepathy, except children
- his less than human: cannot get out of bed in the morning unless he has heard a child singing the night before

Ditmar was highly effective in resisting the master.  He passed his time smoking a hooka in his favourite cafe, feeding the little lizards who have a warren in a corner of one of the adobe huts in town, and listening to the singing of a little blind girl whose touching songs are the only thing to awake kindness and hope in his shrivelled old heart.

But when the master took out his lizards (for a gourmet feast) and demanded that he bring in the girl, he lost all his love and was stuck in "The Horror Revealed."

We noticed that the mechanics don't explain what happens after the "horror" scene.  One player believed that you were stuck there, but I pointed out that being in this state meant that you could roll no dice and hence make no changes.  You would be in permanent freak out mode.  I think I made the right interpretation (?)

The other two characters -- a pathetic cyborg powered by draining the energy of spice mine slaves, and a tall low-grav offworlder, were much closer to bringing about endgame than I was.  We would really have to have cooperated to increase our collective effectiveness. 

So we couldn't pull off a one-shot but I could see us reaching endgame in a second session.

Overall Feel: An alternative comicbook take on Dune, a gothic version of Tatooine, a particularly sad Miazake film set on a desert planet.

[Paul Czege]

Hi,

Sounds like a cool game. Thanks for posting about it. I like the sense of ennui. It's not a commonly used aesthetic for My Life with Master. What can you say about the other player's "pathetic cyborg" character? More than human? Less than human? Connections?

But when the master took out his lizards (for a gourmet feast) and demanded that he bring in the girl, he lost all his love and was stuck in "The Horror Revealed."

We noticed that the mechanics don't explain what happens after the "horror" scene.

From page 36-37:

"...the minion misses his next scene. Instead of that scene, the player of the minion narrates a scene of horror among NPCs..."

The Horror Revealed just consumes the one scene. So the minion gets subsequent scenes as normal.

Paul

[epweissengruber]

I hope the other players will post here too.

[two_fishes]

Okay, I should have posted this first. I do suck. It is a known fact. I ran the MLwM session.

Since I have all the documentation here, I will detail the other Minions.

We have Durgan, a cyborg, who was played by Aaron.
Durgan ended the session with
- Self Loathing: 7
- Weariness: 2
More Than Human: Understands and can repurpose tech, unless it is new.
Less than Human: Cannot wander far from refinery, unless he has had a fresh battery charge.
Connections:
Enslaved woman/dancer: 0
Her son, a tech gifted boy: 3

I established right away that a battery charge involves hooking up another person to a machine and draining them of their energy. He narrated that it was one of his connections (the woman)!

Next up is Tesh, played by Josh
Tesh ended the session with
- Self-loathing: 4
- Weariness: 2
MtH: Can scare away worms, unless in the presence of an innocent.
LtH: Low-G origin, walks slowly and painfully, unless in the 0-g spice distillation room.
Connections:
Low-G Girl (Mouse): 3
Old, suicidal man: 1
Bock, a follower of the Preacher: 1

The worms and Dune sandworms. They disrupt mining of the spice, unless sacrifices are made to them.

Ditmar, a gentleman's gentleman, played by Erik, detailed above except
-Self-loathing is at 6, not 4.
- Love connections:
    Lizards: 2 (but now they're dead, made into a meal)
    Blind girl: 1 (shouldn't this be higher? You made a couple of overtures didn't you?)

We made a couple innocents to start:
- Ahmet: a wild Fremen preacher. My image of him was the Preacher from the 3rd Dune book, but not blind.
- Khatara: a waifish, veiled innocent. Picture: that famous image of a girl from a refugee camp from the cover National Geographic. We established that this was Ditmar's connection.

The Master, Baron Jever, was a horribly scarred Darth Vader type figure. It helped that I had a nasty sore throat.
He is a Brain-affected Collecter/Feeder type.
  He needs the townspeople to work in his mines, as sacrifices to stave off worm attacks, and "specials" for psionic distillation of the spice.
  He wants recognition, praise, and honour for his psi ability, as augmented by a more perfect distillation of the spice, and he wants new, offworld tech.

The Outsiders are the Sapcing Guild, and the Galactic Empire.

The session ended with
- Fear of 4
- Reason of 2

Fear had started at 3, but an innocent was killed in the course of the game.

I should detail the events of the game as far as I can recall, but a late evening fatigue stays me. Some notes:

The Minions seem to get increasingly competent at wickedness as the game continues and their self-loathing spirals higher and higher.

I found my creativity flailed a little as the session went on. All I could think of to do was send the minions out to inflict various nastiness on their connections. I want to hold back on actually killing the connections, because I do want some kind of resolution to happen (though I did get one killed.) A little bit of time to jot several ideas about directions and twists on the agreed upon demesne, and ways to cleverly use their MTHs & LTHs should take care of that for next session, I hope.

Another player pointed out the player identification/investment with the minions is very high, probably because the poor suckers are just so damn pathetic!

I thought it would be interesting for the Master to command minions to effect harm on the connections of other players, but it kind of fell flat.

The confusion about Horror Revealed occured because the minion fell into it through severing a Connection of Love, rather than an increase in Self-loathing. The wording of the rules implies that if self-loathing would increase to cause Horror Revealed, then it does not increase. Horror Revealed happens instead, thus the minion stays on the outside edge of the line, and may drop in again if Self-Loathing increases again. The sudden drop in Love, bypassed this whole tightrope effect and plunged the minion into the deep pool of Horror Revealed. The use of a chart may have attributed to this interpretation.

[Paul Czege]

Hi Mark,

I established right away that a battery charge involves hooking up another person to a machine and draining them of their energy. He narrated that it was one of his connections (the woman)!

Perfectly handled on your part.

The confusion about Horror Revealed occured because the minion fell into it through severing a Connection of Love, rather than an increase in Self-loathing....[this] plunged the minion into the deep pool of Horror Revealed.

You've seen my "Annotate Your Margins" page?

http://www.halfmeme.com/annotate.html

Yeah, the minion is in a hard place. His Self-loathing won't go up further, but he has to gain some Love, it looks like several points, or he'll trigger a Horror Revealed every time a die roll would normally increase his Self-loathing.

If it gets repetitive and frustrating to the player, use your Innocents.

Paul

[epweissengruber]

Ditmar, a gentleman's gentleman, played by Erik, detailed above except
-Self-loathing is at 6, not 4.
- Love connections:
    Lizards: 2 (but now they're dead, made into a meal)
    Blind girl: 1 (shouldn't this be higher? You made a couple of overtures didn't you?)

Um, I started at 4 and then due to the fact that I was more than helpful in hurting people I was NOT connected to, my self-loathing rose.

The Blind Girl: nope, my overtures did not increase the love.  I resisted the master when he was compelling me to do nasty things, but I did not actually get her to love me more. (Or, if I did, I never noted it on the character sheet.)     

Clearly, the Mouse is one connection we could all use to help get us out of the fear hole that we are in.

[Michael S. Miller]

[The Blind Girl: nope, my overtures did not increase the love.  I resisted the master when he was compelling me to do nasty things, but I did not actually get her to love me more. (Or, if I did, I never noted it on the character sheet.)     

You tied EVERY overture roll? Remember, you gain the Love whether you succeed or fail on the overture roll. The only way NOT to get Love from making an overture is for the roll to tie.

Otherwise, sounds like a cool game.