Riddle of Steel: Who's that man?

[Bankuei]

Quick recap of last time:

Having rescued Artis, a serf sentenced to die, from Baron Duvalle, as well as his wife and son, our ragtag group made its way to the capital, where Artis and his wife were hiding out.  Thomas, the son, also had left the farm to make his way out here, but was still MIA one week later, and the big tourney was coming up in a few days...

This week:

Both Jocelin and Savaric investigated and found that the Gelurian agents were holding rallies to incite peasant uprisings and disenssion, with a charismatic man known as Baptiste, and his Gelurian benefactor, known only as "Puck".  

Martin queried amongst the upper classes to some success, trying to find out the connections between Baron Duvalle, his half brother, and Stahl.  Along the way he makes friends with Vladamir, a Stahlish warrior, fond of wine and women.  They agree to duel in the tourney to show Farrenshire "the fine art of fencing".

Artis' family is reunited, and Puck is to credit(blame?), although something just doesn't seem right...

At the tourney, Vladamir and Martin make an excellent show and rouse the crowd, with a great display of skill(14 Combat Pools and every maneuver they could pull), but Martin is outdone 3-1 "touches".  

Drama erupts as Baptiste flies overhead through sorcery and lands upon the King's platform, armed with spear.  Before anyone can stop him, he flings his spear, but the King manages to dive, leaving his chair to be impaled in his place.  Jocelin uses his quarterstaff's reach and shatters Baptiste's shin, then makes his way up to the platform, along with Martin.  

The crowd erupts and the peasants pour forth, the uprising has begun!

Magical smoke blasts forth around Baptiste and he is spirited away by unknown magics.  Savaric attempts to tackle Artis, whom he had rescued a week ago, only to catch a wooden plank that shatters his forearm...  Artis, recognizing all too late whom he's hurt, picks up Savaric, but continues to run.

Then Baron Duvalle brings forth mercenaries from Stahl to quell the uprising.  No quarter shall be given.


That's the sum of the story.  As far as actual play:

We had a blast again!  Having a better feel for the mechanics, we were more comfortable using skill rolls, and trying our best to use them as much as possible.

The relative infrequency and deadliness of combat made it much, much, much more tense.  I can say this got me way more excited than counting hitpoints in any way.

We did have to look up quite a few things this time around, but almost every manuever that could be used with a rapier got used, and I'm sure by next session we'll be doing it more.

SA's came into play at the end of the session, and were a big difference in terms of effectiveness.  

Um, that's all I can think of for now.  Great tho.

Chris

[Jake Norwood]

I confess that this is mostly for personal gratification, but I want to know more about what the Game itself did/does to make the experience special. You touched on a few points (tenseness in combat, SA's making a difference, etc), but I want MORE!

And I think it'll make for good discussion, too.

Jake

[Clinton R. Nixon]

Notes, and how the game made it more special:

- This isn't system, but setting: the setting for RoS rocks out. It's made the theme of my campaign (individual freedom vs. society) work. Farrenshire, being a small, productive little country easily threatened by Gelure, has worked great as a staging area for this.

- The combat system worked great as well, and led to some surprises. We went one-and-a-half sessions with no combat when Chris's character, Jocelin, swung a blow with his quarterstaff. Thomas (aka Bapiste) just threw a spear, missing, and Jocelin swung at his legs. Thomas is a big guy, and I didn't expect much - but one solid hit and his leg cracked like dry kindling, and the action started at a hyper-kinetic pace.

- The sorcery is really cool. Unlike, say, D&D, where it just becomes another weapon, people got scared when they saw it in action - one guy flying in too fast to even see, and another creating smoke so thick you couldn't see your hands.

Otherwise, I'll give you some "behind-the-scenes" tidbits from the game that really worked for me:

Last week, the characters rescued a serf sentenced to die, Artus, and his family. The son, Thomas, being separated from his dad, assumed his father was dead, and became intensely angry. The kid's also going through puberty, and was found by a Gelure Gifted, who recognized the kid's Gift.

Now, he's been running around all week, using his Movement 3, inciting serf uprisings. The toll of so much magic so fast aged him to 35 - his dad's age, which makes things ever so interesting. Now that he's found his father, and thinks he was rescued by Gelure spies (the characters disguised themselves as such), he's even more dedicated to the cause.

The system really worked here, and set things up even better for the big conflict to come because I'm giving important NPC's Spiritual Attributes. Thomas and his father both have the same Destiny: lead the serfs.

The game this week ended in a great tense moment: Thomas managed to get enough concentration to spirit himself away (and wait until he returns - Jocelin's earned his ire in a big way), the king is prostrate on the ground, the serfs in the crowd are at a fever pitch, and Baron Duval, the enemy of the PC's, and the half-brother of one of them, just showed up with his mercenary platoon. Next week will require quick work on the PC's part to save the king (and Baron Gregori and his daughter Deanna, the love of one of the PC's), prevent the serfs and Duval from turning the place into a meat-grinder, and figure out what to do with Artus - he's upset about his son, feeling guilty over breaking the arm of his previous savior, and Duval's right there and will probably see him. (He's the serf that was sentenced to die at Duval's farm, and now he's a runaway criminal.)

[Bankuei]

I can definitely say that the skill system encourages its use.  Pretty much any system that rewards successive use is a perfect way to make people use it.  I also found that the SA's being capped at 5, is forcing me to strategize which SA I want to spend from and how much.  I'm also finding that I'm going to have to be using all of them if I want to get any kind of higher scores built.

As far as setting, I also gotta go with Clinton on that, and I think it's important to remind folks to keep the focus on a "relatively" small area.  I'm also rather interested to see the reoccuring NPC's.  Jake, do you have any suggestions/examples of good use with SA's for NPC's to drive forward the story, or to make for good development(in general)?

Chris