[Nine Worlds] Pace for resolving muses

[Dean Chung]

Hi, I am going to be starting a new campaign with Nine Worlds, and I have a question concerning muses.  Since muses play an important role in the progression of characters, I was wondering what an "expected" pace for muse resolution should be.  Should muses get pushed to completion for each character every session (~3 hours of play)?  I was wondering just how much adversity one should use before the resolution of a muse.

[Jon Hastings]

Hi Dean,

No doubt, in play, you'll hit on a pace that suits your group.  When I played, players tended to resolve a couple of Muses each session.  I'd also add that there's a serious mechanical benefit to having different Muses that are resolving at different paces.  A neat trick is to have "nested" Muses: a Muse that covers a goal with a large scope and that might take a few sessions to complete, and then a few Muses that deal with smaller goals that represent smaller bits of the larger goal.  For instance, a Large Muser of "I want to take over the Lost Armada" might take a couple of sessions to resolve, but the smaller Muse: "I want to get Philoktetes on my side" (so he can help me gain control of the Lost Armada) might resolve in just a session.

The adversity question is a bit trickier and also depends a bit on the scale/scope of the Muse.  My preference as a player, would be for a long term Muse to involve a series of tough conflicts over the course of multiple sessions (i.e. against an NPC of equal or greater power).  For "short term" Muses, however, I'd probably want a little less tenacious adversity.  But, like I said, that's my preference and (I think) each group will come up with their own standards about what "feels right".

[Matt Snyder]

Hi, I am going to be starting a new campaign with Nine Worlds, and I have a question concerning muses.  Since muses play an important role in the progression of characters, I was wondering what an "expected" pace for muse resolution should be.  Should muses get pushed to completion for each character every session (~3 hours of play)?  I was wondering just how much adversity one should use before the resolution of a muse.

Jon's already provided some sound advice.

There is no specific standard time for resolving Muses. I've seen people create a Muse in one phase and resolve it in the next phase (same conflict!).

People frequently take on a couple of different strategies. Often, a player focuses on one Muse as his "main" Muse struggle and milks it for several sessions. But, at the same time that same player has "lesser" Muses he or she milks those for added effectiveness over a session or two and then resolves them.

So, my answer to your question is that often players will pretty naturally decide when they want to resolve a Muse.

Many players weigh the numerical, mechanical benefit over their desire to make the Muse happen more dramatically, which sometimes means keeping a high Muse for a long time until they WANT to resolve it, rather than when they SHOULD to reap the highest mechanical benefit.

I'm not sure that provides the specific answer you may be looking for. Please let me know if you'd like me to offer more specific advice!

[Dean Chung]

John, Matt, your advice is helpful.  I like the idea of giving the players a fair bit of autonomy there.  What I'll probably do is to merely mention to the players how the scope of their muses have game mechanics implications, and make sure to allow at least some muses to get resolved in a reasonably straightforward manner.

Dean

[Jon Hastings]

Dean -

Cool!  One other thing to keep an eye on as a GM: if you're playing at all in "party-style" play (i.e., the PCs are all going to be going up against the same opposition), you want to try to make sure that everyone is getting a chance to resolve Muses and deal with challenges that relate to their Muses.  In this kind of game, it probably helps if the PCs have some Muses that relate to each other.  Actually, that's good advice for any style of game, but in the case of Nine Worlds there's a chance of a power imbalance spiral if, say, only one character is resolving Muses and reaping the benefits.  (You can also play "spotlight"-style: each PC is kind of doing his/her own thing, with lots of crossing & weaving of NPCs).  Hope you have fun with the game: it's one of my favorites, but (or maybe because) the system has a lot more depth than was apparent (to me) on first reading.

-Jon