[TSoY Clockpunk] The City of Petrana, Session Two

[Doyce]

(To which the author appends... "Finally!")

This is a really long, detailed post, but I wanted to list everything off -- questions, comments, rules corrections, and whatever else is welcome.

EDIT: In fact, it's too long to post here, so I'm simply put in on the Wiki.  Link below.  I'd really welcome some feedback on the game, though, so if you want, please feel free to use this thread to comment on the AP link.

Awhile back (a long while back, actually: November of 2006) my play group got together to make up characters for a new game -- we'd been talking about it for awhile and the general consensus among the players at the time was that we had a lot of interest in something kind of Steampunk. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steampunk

For the setting, I went back to an oft-visited creative well and presented the group with the psuedo-italiano city state of Petrana.

After some talk about possible systems and what those systems would, in turn, bring to the game (Mortal Coil was bandied about as a way to really explore the magical-science of a setting like Girl Genius), we settled on The Shadow of Yesterday.  All of the players had done a little stuff with Heroquest before (to which TSoY bears a passing philosophical resemblance), and most had done at least a one-shot in TSoY.  It seemed like a good idea, so that's what we went with.

We using the basic TSoY rules with few additional Abilities, some new Keys and a whole slew of Automaton-related Secrets that I put together from some great threads on the Forge.

After our first session (which wasn't much more than roleplaying introductions), we ran into some end of year holiday planning problems, finally got rolling again in January, and added two players, bringing our PC total to five;  we also determined that "Clockpunk" was more appealing to us than straight steampunk. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clockpunk

The PCs really only had one GM-directive -- I wanted everyone to have some kind of relationship to the Duke's son, Leo.  I painted him as a good-hearted Prince Harry sort, much more interested in carousing (a new skill!) and reckless adventure than in learning to be his father's heir.

Quite a lot of good character stuff done up -- followed by about three months of unplayable schedules.  We finally got together last night to play.

I had a number of things I wanted to accomplish with last night's get together
1. A discussion of campaign length for both this game and other games (both past and future) -- prompted by a Sons of Kryos pod cast.  I thought that was very productive.
2. Refamiliarizing with the rules.  It'd been ages since we'd really PLAYED the game, not counting character creation, plus I'm running and maybe even playing TSoY at Forge Midwest, so I really, really wanted to get into the system and have some proper conflicts -- the more convoluted, the better.
3. Knock out any rust or dents from our initial character concepts.

I was very pleased with the results.

http://random.average-bear.com/Petrana/SessionTwo

[Eero Tuovinen]

Hey, this is the game for which we made them clockwork monsters, right? How did the animatron rules work out? Looking at the stuff now, it must be a pain in the butt to work within the limitations of the "tools" abilities. Then again, I must have known what I was doing then...

I'm surprised that you didn't change the automatons to use the same basic idea with them. Now you have animal-like automatons and rather exotic animatrons.

Anyway, glad to know that the stuff is seeing play.

[Doyce]

Hey, this is the game for which we made them clockwork monsters, right? How did the animatron rules work out? Looking at the stuff now, it must be a pain in the butt to work within the limitations of the "tools" abilities. Then again, I must have known what I was doing then...

I think you must have.

As a general rule, it's been working well. The nigh-but-not-totally-ubiquitous penalty die on Aribella's actions hasn't proven too much of a detriment thus far -- she's only tapped one of her Fuel pool so far to negate the penalty die, but that's at least in part because we've been doing Group conflicts, and people keep handing her bonus dice -- the few times she acted solo (such as tackling her ward) were when she spent some fuel.

Also -- I distinctly remember her saying "oh, I need to use up some Fuel so I can have a refueling scene later."  Her refueling involves her ward (heir Leo) winding her back up with a special key, and she wants to explore that scene, I think.

I'm surprised that you didn't change the automatons to use the same basic idea with them. Now you have animal-like automatons and rather exotic animatrons.

That's actually worked out really well in the game, because we continue to bump against ways in which the Automatons (using beast/Qek summoning rules) are different from Animatrons (using the rules you sussed out here).

Brun-player: "We only have to get the thing down to Broken and it'll be done -- 'broken incapacitates automatons.'"
Aribella-player: "Really? (looks at me)"
Me: "That's just for Automatons. Animatrons are better than that."

It hasn't come up yet, but I look forward to explaining the difference in the two names: Animatrons aren't called that because they are more animated, but because they, unlike a basic automaton, possess 'anima' to a least some degree.

Also, the best Automaton you can make with Craft Machines has 18 advances to spend ((Skill of 3, plus 'perfect' die roll) x 3).  Animatrons are built with a few more total advances than that.  The conclusion from that is obvious, Animatrons are (at this point in the setting's 'history') solely the result of Transcendence.  To my mind, they should be as unlike as man and beast, but also not wholly dissimilar.

It's all quite poetic.

[Doyce]

So here's a challenge I'm now facing.

I have a player in the game who's character is an automaton-creating tinkerer, and who had two Keys:

Key of the Craftsman
Building is what you love to do the most; having some concrete representation of your efforts in life is something you strive for. Gain 1 XP every time your character successfully completes a Crafting project. Gain 3 XP every time your character completes a Crafting project that is met with great appreciation from many. Buyoff: Destroy one of your creations.

Key of (Metaphorical) Impotence
You ought to be able to do something just fine, but for some reason you can't. This difficulty could be sexual, social, or physical; the source of the problem may be self-doubt, overconfidence, or an evil curse. In any event the player should select a single skill when choosing this key, and may apply a penalty die to that skill at any time to reflect these mysterious difficilities. When the penalty die applies to a routine situation, gain 1 XP. When the penalty die applies to an important situation, gain 2 XP. When the penalty die applies to an urgent, life-or-death, out-of-control-story-madness situation, gain 5 XP. Buyoff: Overcome the source of this anxiety.

At the end of the last session, she had the opportunity to (a) destroy one of her creations (an automaton that had run amok) and thereby (b) get rid of Key of the Craftsman.  She wasn't very happy this key (since it created, in her words, a "mage scroll-scribing economy" where the character could just sit in a locked room and make cuckoo clocks to churn xp, and didn't seem to 'fit' with the TSoY-mojo of 'interacting with other characters is where it's AT), so she dumped it.

Now, the plan is to replace that Key with a new one that is much less about 'creating new stuff all the time' and much MORE about 'making the stuff that I create more fun for everyone playing.'  In essense, some kind of Key, that functions in the same philosophical vein as this Secret:

Secret of the Heart of the Machine
Your character has more oil in his veins than blood. For the purposes of refreshing ability pools, your character may count machines as characters, whether they are sentient or not. In other words, spending a long night tinkering with the engine of an airship is the same for you as drinking with a buddy.

In short, a key that rewards the player for (re)incorporating her creations into scenes with other characters.  Or something.

Problem: I'm a bit stumped; I call about the power of the Internets to help me put together a good key for this.

Thoughts?

[oliof]

Why not use the key of renown, tied to how people perceive this character's creation?

A quick hack to put some color onto the key:

Key of the Infamous Inventor
Gain 1XP whenever you point out one of your creations as your own to someone else. Gain 2XP if this brings you into considerable trouble. Gain 5XP if you stand by your creations even if it means great danger to you.

(hopefully someone can now step up and say "no, there is a better way...")

[Eero Tuovinen]

My first idea would be to keep the character building stuff, but make sure that the build-up is color and the focus is on the consequences:

Key of the Madgirl
1xp: Whenever you introduce a new invention of yours. (Max thrice per session, note.)
2xp: Whenever an invention of yours causes trouble or turns into an unexpected direction.
5xp: Whenever a great misfortune is visited upon others because of your inventions.
Buyoff: Decide to stop being an inventor. (Futilely, of course, but the character doesn't know it.)

That's just one possible version, focusing on the typical theme of science-gone-wild. Ideally you'd ask your player what kind of interaction she imagines for her craftsmanship in the first place; I tend to assume that a player who wants to play an inventor wants the inventions to be a cause for adventure, with frequent deliberations about the role of science in the life of man. But for all I know, the player might want something else. Just insert that something else in there.

It is also possible that a player doesn't want any kind of thematic role for her craftsmanship. She might just want her character to have appropriately colored tools for dealing with a wholly different bunch of problems. In that case it's best to not make it a key at all.