[Polaris] Death, dismemberment, and flowers

[GreatWolf]

(The previous report can be found here.)

Once again, we gathered for Polaris.  Raquel is traveling for three weeks, so we wanted to pick up the pieces after our last session.  So, let's get to it, shall we?

Long ago, the people were dying at the end of the world.

Quotables

"Black, scaly and oozy...that has to be good for something."

"Do I get to bleed acid?"
"If you're good."

"There's a talking head in my basket."

"Not dead yet."
"Well...decapitated."

Overview of play

We played through five scenes during this session.

Scene One
During Maia's recovery from the wounds that she had suffered, she begins to transform into a snake demon herself.  All the parts of her body that were injured by the snake demon grew black scales, and her one eye turned deep red.  She tried to conceal this, but one of the junior Healers noticed and ran to spread the alarm.  Maia slipped from the building, but not before the damage was done.  In a public ceremony, Maia was removed from the Order of Mesarthim, much to the relief of Raquel's fellow players, who had a hard time remembering this name.

Scene Two
In the meantime, Rastaban was summoned by his lord Thuban to deliver a basket to Chancellor Almech.  In this basket was the head of Andromeda, the daughter of the Chancellor.  So, Rastaban went by secret ways to deliver this present.  However, not all was well.  Andromeda's head was demon-possessed, for it began talking to Rastaban, demanding to know where the Spring Child was.  Even when he clove the head in two, it was no use.  A demonic slime creature (like a shoggoth, for those of you who know what that is) was pursuing him.  As Rastaban cast about him, a door opened and voices shouted to him to hurry.  Rastaban leaped for safety but was assaulted by those on the other side.  Although he fought valiantly, Rastaban was quickly overwhelmed and bound.  As he was held fast, both Chancellor Almech and Thuban entered the room.  Apparently their feud was a lie, masking their secret alliance.  Again, the question was put to Rastaban.  "Where is the Spring Child?"

Scene Three
For Sadal's scene, we stepped backwards in time a bit, returning to the death of Gemma, his sister.  He came down from the tower and entombed his sister in a case of ice, which he placed in his home.  Her death drove him insane with grief, leaving him a wreck of a man.  All he could do was sit in her presence, mourning his loss with anguished cries.  Then, in the midst of his grief, he heard Gemma's voice.  "Go to Thuban, and swear to him your sole allegiance."  So, he sought out Thuban, who gladly accepted his oath of personal fealty.  But he required a test of loyalty.  On the bed in the room was the daughter of Chancellor Almech.  Thuban required that Sadal demonstrate his loyalty by executing her.

Sadal drew his sword and raised it.  Then, he looked at Andromeda.  She looked so peaceful, so much like his sister Gemma, slumbering like he remembered from when they were younger.  He hesitated.

And then the blade came down.

Scene Four
In shame, Altair wandered out into the wilderness.  Although he was not consciously directing his steps, he soon found himself in the ruins of Muphrid, where he had first found the Spring Child.  There he found Muliphein, the Knight of Haunting Beauty, whom he had dueled in the battle for the remnant.  Altair hotly accused Muliphein of being a traitor, but Muliphein demurred.  "Look around," he said.  "Change is coming.  The snow is melting.  The remnants themselves are melting.  It is inevitable.  I merely support the rising tide."

"I must protect my people," Altair replied.

Muliphein nodded.  "Of course."  Then he gestured to the ground.  Snowdrops were blooming.  Altair bent down and picked one.  As he turned it over in his hands, Muliphein spoke again.  "It is so beautiful, is it not?"

Altair looked at the knight.  He looked to the melting towers of the remnant.  Then he placed the flower in his hair and turned back toward the remnant.

Scene Five
Through her knowledge of Chancellor Almech and a measure of cunning and desperation, Maia found and rescued Rastaban.  This cost her, as another arm sprouted from her right side.  But, as she did so, she was discovered by her friend the Chancellor.  His bodyguards carried torches of flame, and so his dealing with the darkness was made obvious to her.  In return, Almech seemed amused by her outrage, especially in light of her ongoing transformation.  Perhaps he was merely amused by her apparent hypocrisy.  At the same time, he actually seemed to find Maia attractive in her new state.  So, he permitted her to leave.  Rastaban had already made his escape at this point, but they met outside the Chancellor's stronghold beneath the tree that had once been Al Bali.  Together, they left to recover the Spring Child from her hiding place.

Behind them, a figure left the shadows and followed them.

Sticking it to Rastaban

Argh!  Once again I feel like I dropped the ball as Rastaban's Mistaken.  At least, this time I think that I have an idea why.

When I framed Rastaban's scene, I was originally wanted to escalate the conflict between Thuban and Almech.  After all, this conflict has provided much of the shape of the story up to this point.  Murdering the child of the Chancellor seemed like a good way to do it, especially if the head was actually a trap.  The scene that followed was freaky.  I did my best to paint a disturbing picture of Andromeda's head, first speaking and then levitating from the basket, gradually morphing into a horribly demonic form.  It was creepy and disturbing.

Just one problem.  In no way did it put stress on Rastaban.  Doh!

As I was thinking about this earlier today, I realized a portion of my error.  Up to this point, Rastaban has been the uber-cool Knight, capable of amazing feats of stealth and prowess.  As a result, the last thing that I need to do is give him more opportunities to demonstrate his coolness.  Instead, I need to get under his skin.  What other hooks do I have in him?  Well, he is engaged to a woman that he loathes.  Maybe I ought to do something with that, eh?  Or what else is on his Cosmos?  What does he love?  What does he care about?  Maybe I need to start hammering that a bit, eh?  Might be good.

Bringing a Bang

So, Polaris is a prep-free game, right?  Well, I'm beginning to wonder if that's not completely true.  I would suggest that each player should have an idea of where he wants to direct the story, but more practically, I think that each player should show up with a Bang to toss at the protagonist for whom he is the Mistaken.  Just one should be enough, mind you, and it may not even be needed.  But, I think that play would be improved if each player had a scene in mind to pitch at his "opponent".  That's what I need to do for Rastaban, and it's probably good advice for everyone.  Come with a little bit of prepwork done, so that you can help get the ball rolling.  Once it's in motion, there's usually not much problem in keeping momentum, but getting started can be hard.  So, come prepared to give things a push.

Final Thoughts

Again, the post-game debrief was helpful.  It was generally determined that we needed to detour into some interpersonal issues, especially with Maia or Rastaban, or we would find ourselves ending the game far too quickly.  Of course, when we say "interpersonal issues", we actually mean "love triangles".  For some reason, Polaris brings out the soap opera in all of us.  But, since Raquel is traveling, it will be late May before we can return to the frozen wastes of the North and discover what happens next.

But that all happened long ago, and now there are none who remember it.

[Christoph Boeckle]

This is teh magnificient!

I'm using your Polaris APs to lure friends to a game, if that can give you an idea of how cool I find them. The poetic scenes that occured in this and last session (the tree was superb!) gave me a strong graphical impression, as well as acting for a nice metaphor to the changes occuring in the narrative.


I also really enjoy the way you write your posts. Some infos about the players, the quotes, the action, a few interesting remarks and possible solutions for better play yet. And the key phrases!

That's all I got to say, but I wanted to say it!

[GreatWolf]

Thanks.  I'm glad that these posts are helpful.

For me, the most important part is the thoughts about improving further play.  If all I do is write up an account of "what happened", then it's really not much use.  All you're getting is a recounting of the recording of the transcript.  Being several steps removed from the activity is no real substitute for the real thing.  However, by considering how to improve play, I figure that I'm adding to the sum knowledge, not just of Polaris play, but of all roleplaying play.  It's not like my group is dealing with unique issues.  Hopefully, by recording our solutions to problems and our ongoing attempts to improve play, I can help all of you.

Here's hoping that doesn't sound egotistical.

[Darren Hill]

Good stuff. I agree with you're reasoning - I find the "considering how to improve play" to be the most useful and thought-provoking part of the post.

I also agree that games like this (I suspect I'd include Universalis and Capes, once I get a chance to play them) do benefit from some out-of-session reflection, and consideration of what sort of things you want to see and what sort of things would be fun to pull against other players.

[Ben Lehman]

Hey, Seth.

I always like reading your play reports.

It's funny, you know.  I never envisioned Polaris as a prep-free game.  I always thought that the game would go best if the Moons and the Mistaken plotted behind the scenes against the Heart.  As it it turns out, it's pretty easy to just wing the game, but I still hold out hope of someday playing high-prep Polaris.

So, yeah, some bangs would be ideal.  I advise you to consult your Moons, too.  And, speaking of which, who's in Rastaban's Moon boxes, anyway?

Love Triangles are always great, but I encourage you to look beyond them, too.  I, for one, love family strife and internal knightly politics.

yrs--
--Ben

[GreatWolf]

Actually, we started off with internal Knight politics shaping the backdrop of the story.  Almech and Thuban are the heads of rival clans (Andromeda and Draco, respectively.)  Thuban's possession, in some ways, has downplayed this element.  I wouldn't mind bringing it back into the foreground of play, though.

Unfortunately, I don't have Rastaban's character sheet at hand, but I do plan on spending some time contemplating it before next session.  I do know that his fiancee is in his Full Moon section (that's not a typo, by the way), so there's plenty of room for stress there.

[Valamir]

I admit to doing a little prep as Seth's Mistaken both this and the last session.  I didn't so much come up with bangs, but more ideas of things I wanted to take away or put the screws to.  In the last session I knew I wanted to break up the Altair / Antares buddy act.  So I basically just looked for opportunities to insert appropriate conflict phrases without worrying to much about what caused it.  This session I knew Altair was all depressed and dejected so I wanted to do a "reach out and convert" thing...inspired by the archetypical figure of the King as Demon from the book but substituting Muliphien.  The angle was basically that the demons were the good guys trying to get the people ready to embrace the inevitable change of the sun, while the knights were actually the bad guys dooming the people the people to oblivion.  I didn't have anything more prepped than trying to present that idea to Altair via Muliphien and basically just played off of Seth's dialog to see which way he wanted to go.  In the end he had Altair pluck a flower and walk away...a choice was made.

I didn't do a very good job of prepping what I wanted to accomplish as Rastaban's heart this time.  Last time I knew I wanted to do something with Al Bali (from my mistaken) and advance the "spring is coming" plot with a tree sprouting in the midst of the remnant.  But this time...I had nothing.  Which meant part of Seth's problem as my mistaken this time was my own fault.  I didn't give him anything Rastaban wanted for him to try and take away.  In fact, I'm having trouble envisioning Rastaban as a protagonist in the literary sense.  He's sort of developed into the "perspective" character.  You know the one who winds up narrating the story, but the tale's really about other people.  I don't know that that's a bad thing.  The game doesn't necessarily need 4 protagonists.  But maybe I'll be inspired to come up with something. 

As I play I'm getting a better idea of what Polaris prep looks like.  We're only playing 2 hour sessions which is about long enough for everyone to have a scene with maybe a couple of extras.  I'm thinking that's about the ideal Polaris session length.  Prep then means coming to the table with 1 thing I really want to screw over the character for whom I'm the mistaken with.  1 thing I really want to complicate the story of the characters for whom I'm a moon, and 1 thing I really want to accomplish for the character for whom I'm the heart.

If I know all of these 4 things in advance (and so far I generally have only brought 2-3 at a time), then Conflict Statements become the easiest thing in the world.  I'm my heart, I narrate something that kind of important but not my real important thing.  My Mistaken tries to screw me on that so, assuming I can live with the screw job, I use my conflict statements to "but only if" one of the 4 things I came to the table with...getting what I really wanted for my heart...laying the beat down on my mistaken...or throwing a wrench into my moons.  Pretty much the same choices when I'm playing the Mistaken.  Polaris conflict is a big shell game...here's what I'm showing you...but here's what I really wanted and now I've backed you into a corner where you have to let me have it or eat the big shaft job.

This is collosally hard if you come in blank...I literally could not think of a single thing to do with Rastaban...despite the fact that I was totally grooving on Seth's demonic head...I had nothing.

But its collasally easy if you come in with prep.  Last session's big conflict with Altair was a peace of cake because I knew exactly how I wanted to screw Altair and let Seth walk Altair smack into the middle of it.

So yup.  Prep is essential.  But not really "prep" in the traditional sense.  Just 1 thing that you want to accomplish for each of the characters at the table, consistant with the role you play for each of the characters...I think that's sufficient.  The hard part for me is going to be figuring out something I want for Rastaban, so I can "but only if" it into my conflicts with Seth...and thus give him something to escalate around.