[Polaris] Memento, with ice castles and lightsabres.

[sirogit]

Second session: We had a little bit more time for this session, but it was still pretty short. On the other hand, we're appreciating how the brevity of the sessions is leading to punchy narrative.

First off, Chris makes Mira his protagonist as he's digged her alot, with the rather juicey Aspects of "Incompetent" and "Event: Finds out Arcellus killed her parents." I felt kinda the opposite of how Chris felt about my character("What? All I get to play around with is a cobbler and Arcellus?") Than Kevin sets up the Scene: a tavern in which Mira is being sneered at by Vega's table, when a very large knight approaches her and bets her that she couldn't beat him with her sword if he were unarmed. Mira opts to try to beat him up without it, and fares decently, breaking his arm and giving a speech to win the awe of her comrades before Vega dumps a pitcher of beer over her.

I had fun playing out some background characters in the scene to establish mood(Me: A minor male knight bets 20 on the larger soldier. Tony: Uh?... Geez. I don't know how to roleplay without a character. the minor female knight starts making out with him.")

Second Scene, Arcellus is talking to the Queen Capella in a roundabout way about how he's been losing tracks of time. I forget how the details go, but Tony states as part of a conflict that the queen is acting aloof and remote. And than Chris states that the queen demands to know what's wrong with Arcellus. Kevin adds in a really cool detail about a staute of Arcellus' father, Archema, being on the ceiling, looking down on him imposingly as if to demand that he tells the truth. As this was turned to a conflict, I use a "But if" of "The queen is really worried about me and is overstepping her bounds" and Tony's like "That invalidates what I said about her being aloof." And I said "Kind've. I guess I thought Chris was portraying her away from aloofness." And chris says "Yeah. I was conflicted on how to portray her because it says 'confident' on her sheet and she's a new moon." Tony's mostly concerned about my line about stating the Queen cares about me. So we drop it and I take a minute to think of a new Ritual Phrase.

I come up with this great idea just as chris comes up withb something he really wants me to use. I insist on what I came up with "But only if I agree to tell her what was really bothering him, and we learn through flashback, and As so it was."

Third scene: Arcellus is lying in his bed next to his wife without remembering how he got there, only remembering it's been years since he shared his bed with his wife. He stirs to try to leave, when his wife reaches out for him, wearing an alluring nightgown and smelling freshly of perfume. She speaks of how she has made such work to seduce Arcellus into his marital bed but he still igonres her. Does he find her unattractive? Is there another? Is it Mira?

At which time I was like: WHOA! Kevin is whupping my figuritive dramatic ass. I have no clue what Arcellus would do in this situation. So I go with what I know: Stammering and vague. I'm having some trouble of thinking of how to continue the scene, but I come up with this one idea which I think would play off really cool and stops me from having to decide how he'd react right away "He is about to say or do something -really- important, he touches her cheek and his eyes start to tear, he fills up with despair and gets an expierience check and that is the end of the flashback."

Other players: Wha?
Tony: But I really want to see where that scene was going. I think we should play more of it.
Me:  I'm going somewhere with this.
Tony: Can you contest an And so it Was?
Me: Huh... I don't know.
Players: Hmmm.
Me: I swear it'll be great.
Players: Hmmm... go ahead.

Fourth Scene: Back in the queen's chambers, only now Cappella is leaning foward, very curious on the conclusion of Arcellus's story. Arcellus stares out into the distant halls and says "I... don't remember what happened after that." The queen demands that he sort this thing out with his wife before he'd let him lead a raid on the northen town, and he obliges.

I felt it was important to get people's feedback on my scene-framing in scenes 2-4 as I did promise them it'd be cool. Tony and Chris said it was very satisfactory so I'm not so worried, but it still felt somehow wrong. I am pretty excited about how Arcellus's next scene will play out though; By that time his delusion will wear off, and it'll be the time to reveal what he has done while suffering under the delusion, all the while he was resolved to run to his wife and give her the love he had holding back for many years, unknowing if he has already championed his marriage vows or forsaken them.

There was a fifth scene, but after the fourth scene I was kinda dazed plus I didn't do anything during the fifth scene, so I thought it'd be good if someone else, perhaps Chris, or Kevin, could illucidate on that.

Feedback I'd love from Ben: What would you think about treating "And so it was" as a conflict statement?

[Darren Hill]

Second Scene, Arcellus is talking to the Queen Capella in a roundabout way about how he's been losing tracks of time. I forget how the details go, but Tony states as part of a conflict that the queen is acting aloof and remote. And than Chris states that the queen demands to know what's wrong with Arcellus. Kevin adds in a really cool detail about a staute of Arcellus' father, Archema, being on the ceiling, looking down on him imposingly as if to demand that he tells the truth. As this was turned to a conflict, I use a "But if" of "The queen is really worried about me and is overstepping her bounds" and Tony's like "That invalidates what I said about her being aloof."

Maybe she only appeared aloof?
Was Tony a Heart or Mistaken here?
If so, then the proper response would be for him to a) make a following conflict statement so extreme that it encourages his opponent to make the statement that undoes the last two statements, b) make the statement that gets you to change your statement, or b) suck it up and accept that the Queen's aloofness was an act, and she really feels concerned but is hiding it.

If Tony wasn't a heart or mistaken, then he can offer suggestions to whoever is to encourage them to respect the character he has portrayed - which may lead to the Heart or Mistaken changing their statement, as indeed happened in your case. Based on my limited experience, the first few sessions of Polaris for a group will involve finding how they want to resolve situations like these. Just remember that the Heart and Mistaken have the final call on those statements during a conflict - they should respect the Moon's visions of their characters, but they should also respect and have confidence in their own vision. It probably takes a few sessions to develop that confidence.

Tony: Can you contest an And so it Was?
Me: Huh... I don't know.

I'm not Ben, so his response whatever it is obviously trumps mine, but my gut feeling is that you can't. For a couple of reasons:
Have you ever been a player in a game, and things have been getting exciting, and at that point the GM says, "right, at this point we cut to the other players," or "and that's where we end the session,"  and everyone screams "nooooo!"
That's a good thing, and the Heart and Mistaken both have the ability to create those moments.
But also, often you'll want to end a scene because something has happened that you want to reflect on or maybe you're feeling overwhelmed by the dramatic changes that have just occurred. Being forced to play on the scene in a conflict when you're really not ready for it is not a good thing. Being able to contest And So It Was robs you of that.
Most of the time you end a scene, it'll be more low key than either of those - "And So It Was," "oh hang on, there's something else I want to do, can we continue?" "Yeah, sounds good." That kind of situation is fine, but it's not a conflict, it's cooperation. But you could refuse if you wanted, and that ability is important to keep, I think.

[Ben Lehman]

More comments later, but here's the official rules answer.

You cannot conflict "And so it was..."
You can conflict anything that enters the fiction, including things said right before or after "And so it was..."

So you end the scene with "And so it was the Rigel woke up and realized it had all been a dream" I can't conflict with the scene ending but I can conflict with the dream.

Make sense?

yrs--
--Ben

[GreatWolf]

Generally, in our games, we tend to negotiate unofficially the end of a scene between the Heart and Mistaken.  The one looks at the other and says, "And so it was....?"  And the other says, "And so it was."  Or the other person lodges an objection.  An exchange like you wrote would be fairly normal in our group and probably would have played out about the same.

[sirogit]

I believe I'll keep posting to this thread, as the game happens twice weekly and I don't want to clog up the forums, I'm not an rpg luminary who has a bazillion replies per session report, and I just ran out of pithy thread titles.

So the game is ran pretty often(2 times a week) with a hard closing time of June 17th(That's when Tony and Kevin turn into pumpkins). Tony and Kevin both have somewhat incompatible schedules, so we've decided to do a number of games with either Tony or Kevin absent. We're entering the mutant-ridden forbidden zone of diverging from the 4-player forumula.

This session we had just Kevin, Chris abd I, leaving an omnious space where Tony was, and put on some theme music that had a very light but nice touch on the game.

Kevin made his Heart: Merak, the huge oaf who challenged Mira to a fight. He's got the Aspects Attribuite: Huge and Greater Starlight Weapon. His NPCs are Vega, Capella, Rigel(Who are some kind of weird trifold who are in everybody's cosmos) his crazed father Zuben who has become an embarressment for him, Arcellus's dead father Archema who is the role model that causes him to envy Arcellus, Kuma with whom's he's had a brief love affair, and Keid, a politician who desires the love of Kuma and is using his status to make life ardous for Merak out of spite.

First Scene: Merak is headed after the mountain where Rigel Kentaurus sits for the glory of defeating him, even though the Knights have delayed on an assault on Rigel at a later date due to his dangerousness. First conflict:

Chris(Mistaken): As you climb up the wall the Knights have constructed before Rigel's domain, a Knight spots you.
Kevin(Heart): That knight is one of Merak's trusted friends.
Chris(Mistaken): And that was how it happened.

Merak and his friend(Al Gorab) briefly chat. I'm getting a decent feel for Al Gorab - Scruffy beard, gruff, similar to Merak in that he's much more glory-oriented than duty-oriented, basicly easy going guy. Merak confides in Al Gorab that he plans to sneak past the wall to fight Rigel on his own.

I immediately want Al to go with Merak. Plus, I want to have Al be a traitor, to really put Merak in a tight spot. I play Al as being extremely against Merak going to Rigel as he fears that Merak will discover his dealings with the enemy, but I think both Kevin and I know that they're going there. "You'd be throwing your life away out there!... ...You knew I wouldn't let you go alone. You bastard Merak!"

Second scene: So Merak and Al Gorab manage to get quite far up the mountain, when they're start being chased by 20 people. I say that those 20 people are not demonic soldiers, but regular people. They state that Merak should leave now, and Merak states that he must kill Rigel. At this point, I'm a little unsure of myself in two areas - Maybe these people should be considered antagonists, so Chris should be feilding them - and why would they want him to not kill Rigel? Rigel's a grotesque fiend. To the first question, I figure I might aw well run with it and Chris seems to strongly approve of what I have them do, and to the second, I decide "cult".

I state that the people say that Rigel is their leader and start to form a line blocking Merak. Al Gorab is sweating hard and telling Merak to cut them all down. Next conflict:

Chris(Mistaken): Suffering an attack of conciouss, Merak has no choice but to abandon his journey
Kevin(Heart): You ask far too much.
Chris(Mistaken): Hmmm...
Me(Moon): ... I think one thing to remember is, that after your response to You ask far too much, Kevin can choose which of the statements he wants to use... So don't look at it as him throwing a wall on your idea, think of it as him asking that you make a fork in the road with two different paths. How about 'Merak slaughters the villagers who don't fight back and receives an expierience check'? That way he has to choose.
Chris(Mistaken) Yeah, I dig that.
Kevin(Heart): But only if Merak pleads at length with the villages that they stand no chance before killing them.
Chris(Mistaken) Would he still get an expierience check?
Me(Moon): I think so. He's not really hatefull of the people, but it's pretty callous. Your call.
Chris(Mistaken) And that was how it happened.

In retrospect, I think I should've recognized that my idea for villagers still made them antagonists and handed them over to Chris officially, while pushing for the line-of-people blocking his way thing.

Third scene: Carina, a girl Mira has a crush on and the queen's daughter, has sent her a letter and asked her to meet at the Exalted observatory at night  Mira obliges, and goes in searching for her; she finds Carina, but is also spotted by the queen who is also looking for Carina.

Carina grabs Mira's hand, and a combination of her touch and the dazzling starlight shining on her skin from the ice dome ceiling causes Mira's heart to skip a beat. Carina says there's something she must say but than sees her mother out of the corner of her eye which causes her to give flight. cue conflict:

Me(Moon) Carina drags Mira by the arm out of the observatory.
Chris(Heart) But it was no matter.
Kevin(Mistaken) We shall see what comes of it.
Chris(Heart) You ask far too much
Kevin(Mistaken) Carina drags Mira into a different part of the library
Chris(Heart) But only if she is dragged into the archives
Kevin(Mistaken) But only if its a dead end.
Chris(Heart) And that was how it happened.

In the archives, Carina is searching desperately for a place to hide, and she takes Mira to a small inclosure, just barely room enough to lie entwined in, which again causes Mira's heart to flutter. I state that Carina knows that she only has now to tell Mira her secret before the Queen catches them.

Carina says "I've feared speaking of it, but I know I will burst if it is not said. I'm in love with" and just than Carina is seized by queen Capella, but blurts it out anyway "Arcellus!"

Carina is thrown into a dungeon by the Queen. Mira asks her to let her go, but the queen will only offer her one hour with Carina, and only if Mira brings her the head of Rigel Kentarus. Mira obliges.

More to come.

[Raquel]

In retrospect, I think I should've recognized that my idea for villagers still made them antagonists and handed them over to Chris officially, while pushing for the line-of-people blocking his way thing.

We only this realized after our first game, but it's not necessary for 'antagonist' to equal 'mistaken'. Seth and Ralph particularly seem to enjoy using Moon status to heap trouble upon the Hearts. It's an interesting counterpoint to the Heart/Mistaken rivalry that Gabrielle and I then come to together as Moons to give them as much trouble as possible in their scenes.

[GreatWolf]

Raquel makes a good point.  Remember that either the Heart or Mistaken can wave off a Moon statement with "But it was no matter."  At that point, if the other player takes up the Moon's statement, then it becomes a conflict.  The key as a Moon is to stir the pot while being sure that either the Heart or Mistaken will support you in a pinch.  This is a fairly important concept to understand the Moons.  Otherwise, they tend to sit by idly while the Heart and Mistaken battle it out.

In the same vein, I'm thinking that the Heart and Mistaken should probably be courting the Moons for assistance during a scene.  The problem in our games is that we're just twisted enough to want to see the Heart backed into a corner at all times.  Therefore, it can be hard for the Heart to appeal for assistance, when the rest of the table is looking for a little blood.

[sirogit]

Fourth scene: Merak and Al Gorab climb the mountain to its peak, where Rigel Kentaurus, the 100 foot tall bloated eyelid-less demon sits.

Chris(Mistaken): Rigel Kentarus lifts a huge arm to point at the most dazzling sunrise imaginible, which causes Merak to look at it abd be completely stunned.
Kevin(Mistaken): But only if Merak would regain his senses completely were he attacked.
Chris(Mistaken): You ask far too much.
Kevin(Mistaken): But only if Merak is still able to defend his friend.
Chris(Mistaken): And that was how it happened.

At which point, a soldier wearing unholy green horned armor, one of Rigel's lieutenets steps forwards to greet Al Gorab friendidly and asks him for patrol routes. Al Gorab syays the patrol routes are forthcoming and nervously turns to Merak. Merak replies by sending the green-armored soldier over the cliff.

At which point the battle with Rigel rages on. Merak cuts off a finger, Rigel's blood seeps through Merak's armor and paralyzes him. Kevin states that Al Gorab leaves, but I state that he'd want to stay and help his friend, which is put in via conflict. Al Gorab gets the blood off of Merak, but in the process poisons himself.  Merak succeeds in knocking Rigel off of the mountain, but not certainly killing him. Al gorab goes into convulsions and unconciousessness, but is assuredly not dead.

I was worried that the way I was playing Al Gorab, he turned into a lot more of an quarlsome jerk than I planned, and that this would have less contrast with his revelation as a traitor; fortunately, it helped the contrast with the fact that he's loyal to his friend at a fault.

Fifth scene: Merak is headed down the mountain, over on shoulder his friend AL Gorab, and in one shoulder the huge finger of Rigel. a captain tries to reprimand him for disobeying orders, but when the guardsmen on the wall see that he carries the finger of RIgel, they start to cheer loudly, drowning out the voice of the captain. Kevin gives Rigel the aspect "Reknown champion".

It was at this point that we had a host of ideas for what to use as the next scene. Chris was notably against any scene involving Arcellus, as he'd want Tony to be present in such cases because we might want to follow-up such a scene with Arcellus as a protagonist. I said such concerns should be put aside because Arcellus and Mira have a very important connection as Arcellus is one of Mira's two full moons and Mira is one of Arcellus's two new moons, and the other such characters are rather indisposed at the moment, and besides, this is the last scene. Chris said that his concern trumps the others.

Later on, we discovered through discussion that while I saw that Mira was a rather important figure to Arcellus's character, Arcellus isn't that important to how Chris sees Mira, and he's abit more intereasted in the other stuff going on with her - A bit of cognitive disconnect that logically progressed from Mira's transformation from Arcellus's NPC to a PC of her own, and my resulting loss of "ownership" of her. I'd advise such concerns before considering an NPC-to-PC scheme.

Sixth scene: Mira is gathering her gear to leave for the mountain, attempting to gain the already defeated Rigel's head. Vega stops her in the barracks, stating that the equipment belongs to the Qeeen, and that if she is going to throw her life away that who is going to retrieve the queen's property. Mira dares Vega to accompany her, which she complies, and manages to turn the crowd to recognize Mira as a coward for asking for Vega's accompaniment.

I'm kind of curious if our progression of zeal/weariness is faster than the standard: After 3 sessions of around an hour each, two characters with Zeal 2 and one with Zeal 1.

[sirogit]

In the last session, tony was present but Kevin was absent. Tony decided to take over the role of Kuma.

There was a little confusion over where to set the game. Chris was pushing for as a "meanwhile" towards the session with Kevin, but Tony established during the first scene that it was after Rigel had fallen.

There was a recurring issue through this session and a one-shot of polaris I played with some other friends - People using the conflict system to establish things using a minimum of color, and than wanting to narrarate it to add the color, often in the process adding concrete accomplishments that people would like to contest, but made somewhat awakard due to the complications over what is established and what is not.

At the begining of the game, Tony wanted to get cracking in the whole "delusions fading away" aspect of Arcellus, and started a lengthy set up involving him killing a whole bunch of innocents, I used a lot of Far Too Much, which changed the victims to his wife and than no one. I used a somewhat sneaky trick of asking for an aspect of "Atribuite: Strong Concious" and than using it on another Far Too much after an And Furthermore and I had exhausted most of my other themes.(Any official word on the kosherness of that?)

After that exchange, Tony was like "Huh. That wasn't really a scene. Should we set up a scene for that?" "Would seem kind've boring exposistion to me" "But it'd want to see it."

The scene didn't turn out that bad. In the middle of it I established that Arcellus had seen that Baiten was building a colliseum, and after Baiten revealed that he was killing the people who witnessed him on that day, Arcellus expressed his disgust and left, moving Baiten into his Mistaken.

Kuma befriends a demon-woodland-spirit-critter, than goes through an iniatation process to become a Knight; In the first part, he passes an obstacle course but is tired and unfit for battle afterwards. In the second part, he has to fight Mira who although is emotionially complicated, he is able to defend himself against but can't bring himself mentally to strike at her, and so she is replaced by Al Gharib(Which actually breaks continuity, because he was supposed to be in limbo somewhere.) beats him - and faces the third trial - tricking a demon infested man into killing himself, which he passed without any hesitation, and gains the aspect "If there is any doubt that it is a demon, kill it."

Arcellus reconciles fully with his wife, smashing her stained glass window which she watched the sun through in the process. But after lovemaking, she revealed that he had promised a demon her firstborn son for the help it granted Arcellus during his delusion, and he set out after it.

Arcellus is wandering out in the snow, and comes across Mira, who he grabs and looks deeply into her eyes to see if she reallly had romantic feelings for him. HE finds out that she does, and as a result, is so disgusted with himself he gains another advance, goes to Zeal 1, and takes up the aspects "Attribuite: Cold" and "Idea: Bad Fathers"

[sirogit]

The last session was unfortunately the very last session to feature Kevin, as he wasn't able to be present for the planned closer due to packing issues.

We decided we really wanted to have all characters either die or be removed from the game even with the tight time constraint, so we decided to implenet expierience rolls for all characters in-between every scene, thinly justified by the dawn rearing an bright and strange glow over the sky.

At the start, Arcellus, Mira and Kuma were all at Zeal 1 while Merak was at Zeal 2.

To start off, we had mira going through the frozen wastes in search of Rigel's head. Chris announced that the point of this scene was that Vera was going to befriend Mira, but the results of the conflict resulting in pretty much the opposite - I believe the words "Irrevocable hatred and ire" were used. Part of such a result was that Chris admitively doesn't make his conflict statements too definitive, and is usually very happy to accept the nasty keenness that Kevin serves up, which is usually chock full of defintiness.

Due to that scene's rolls, Arcellus winds up at Weariness 1. I always envisioned his meeting with the solar knight taking the form of his father, Archema, but Tony said he had a good idea, and I thought it better to let him have the input in this situation, plus it jives with the Mistaken-prioritiness present in the book.

Instead, Arcellus meets the frost maiden, he comes to him besides his bed, and shows him the vision of the future, of his wife cheating on him with his brother Baiten, and himself standing next to the frost maiden. She states that this can be avoided if Arcellus betrays the people, and I state "But only if Arcellus picks up the Attribuite: Rage" which I got. So Arcellus storms out of his house.

Next scene, Kuma's advance to Weariness. This wasn't really the greatest scene, and I'd put the blame squarely on me thinking two things would pan out that definately didn't, and than not jumping on another idea..The scene started with Kuma sitting on a city bench, and seeing Arcellus pass by with his eyes full of cold anger. I added a flashback that Kuma had witnessed Arcellus and Mira talking in the woods, and was privy to Mira -and- Arcellus having romantic feelings towards each other. Tony responded with "But only if Kuma is not disturbed at all by this, and feels great respect and love towards Arcellus wishing him to be happy".

So this meant that the first idea of mine didn't really pan out, but I got an intereasting curve to play with - and couldn't think of anything intereasting to add to it at the time, so I just "It shall not come to pass"'d it, and was successfull, also causing Kuma's weariness to go to 2.

After Arcellus passed by, I had the Frost maiden come out of Arcellus's house with a casecade of frozen imagery, coming closer and closer towards Kuma. As she was nearly touching him, she lifted off her veil to reveal herself to be the demonic doppleganger of Mira, Mira of the deep, and told Kuma through a vison what she had tried to tell him all along - That she was the real Mira, who died when her parents were killed, and that the other was a demonicly possesed fake. At which point Tony said Kuma absoulutely disbelived her, and asked for chris's permission to drop the big bomb, that "what she says is the absoloute truth".

And Chris was all "No way. I don't know how to play a demon. I'm working on playing a protagonist."

So I stalled for abit coming up with an alternate way to continue the scene, and I was gonna close it somewhat quickly, but Tony said "You didn't get to the part about betrayal of the people". In which case I backed up, thought really hard, but couldn't for the life of me think of any way to work it in - Except for "You are cursed to betray the people" Which hit me as overly flat and unfitting with the rest of the mood of the scene - So I added that the frost maiden asked for Kuma to stop Mira from taking Rigel's head, which would allow them to be together - figuring that I could tie up the recovery of rigel's head to some apocalyptic event later down the line - But the other players seemed somewhat dissapointed I didn't work in betrayal right than and there.

We finished up the session with a nifty scene with Merak - He's walking down the city strets, trying to avoid a little bit of the all to common accolades for his defeating Rigel, when he comes across a group of hoodlums with black face paint who are beating up on an old man - and finds out that that old man is his lunatic father who he's always resented. He steps forward to confront the thugs, when one of them is frozen with awe, and extends his hand wishing to shake the hand of the glorious brute that Merak is known to be, a hand still covered in Merak's fathers blood, which calls for a great amount of self-disgust from Merak and an expierience check... Merak chooses to ask the thugs to line up in the row so that he can punch each one in the gut for picking on the defeneseless, and than asks his father for an explaination of how it happened, and when his father gives him a bunch of meaningless babble, Merak throws him into a frozen moat - calling for another expierinece point for callousness.

At the conclusion of the session, I was like, "Cool, Arcellus is turning into this neato ice samurai, with determined, strong concious, cold, rage... and Weariness 4, meaning he's only really got one more scene. Ah well, all good things."

It was somewhat frustrated that Merak's still got Zeal 2, which would take him abit to get to the juicey end... though it is sadly not to be, as Kevin at this very moment is heading towards San Obsipio.

There's very likely not going to be another session, as Chris is going away for a week, and tony's not going to be around much after this week, but it was a blast while it lasted, I plan to set up another such game as soon as my gaming circle recovers, and I'd like to give major thanks to Ben Lehmen for writing such a great game.

But that was long ago, and now there are none that remember it.