Tons o'games at Origins

[Ron Edwards]

Hey there,

And did we play. Oh my. These are what I got to play in.

SORCERER
I ran the Lincoln High Reunion demo scenario, with John Clements, Jared Sorensen, Jake Norwood, Tod Olson, and Ben Moore for players; with Mike Holmes and Ralph Mazza present as well. I modestly report that one player said it was the best single role-playing experience he'd ever had. Other comments from participators, even less glowing ones, are welcome.

UNIVERSALIS
Mike Holmes presided over (can't really say "GM'ed," more like "taught") a session with me, Jared Sorensen, John Clements, and Ben Moore as players. It turned out to be ... well, a Gothic horror-drama occurring at the shooting of a Dadaist porn movie in the 1920s. Freakily enough, it flew really well; I think it would have won a Sundance at the very least. Ocular damage, raindrops streaking a windowpane, art triumphing over life, dunce caps ... tellin' ya, it was good. I thought it wasn't working until about three-quarters through, when suddenly it all just did.

INSPECTRES
Jared ran this with Jason Blair, Mike Holmes, Chris Passeno, and me for players, with Jake Norwood and Ben Moore present as well (and who took brief cameos too). The good news is that we stopped the devil-octopus lady thing in Acapulco. The other three characters were all pretty big tough guys, which is why I was very proud of my character, a nice fellow named Shmuel Livitz, the gofer for the company. Ben drew an incredible picture of Shmuel which I simply must own.

THE RIDDLE OF STEEL
Jake ran this with Mike Holmes, Ralph Mazza, Jared Sorensen, me, and Ben Moore for players; Jason Blair was present as well. Oh my goodness - Akira Kurosawa meets Sam Peckinpah. This was one of those golden moments when we all realized, simultaneously, that two key misunderstandings were going to destroy everyone's hopes and dreams, and that the only thing left to do was crank up the opera music and let loose. Action-packed, yes, but wonderfully depressing, like Swedish-level depressing. You've never seen anyone cheer as loudly as Ralph when his character was hung by the neck until dead, or me when my character's arms were severed, and his sister used his sword (still held by a hand) to stab herself.

Regrets: I didn't get a chance to play Starchildren, Children of the Sun, or Little Fears. Anyone play these, or others? How did that go?

Best,
Ron

[Jared A. Sorensen]

THE RIDDLE OF STEEL
Jake ran this with Mike Holmes, Ralph Mazza, Jared Sorensen, me, and Ben Moore for players; Jason Blair was present as well.

Alas, I was out dancing. Ron must be thinking of that other guy (Jared E. Sorenson).

The Sorcerer demo was okay -- I liked my character (a delusional, disheveled street poet who looked like Steve Buscemi) and was disappointed that the game was more about the plot than the characters. It was a demo game though and I think that's why it played the way it did

I remain intensely uncomfortable running games, even InSpectres. I'll probably be playing InSpectres this weekend and I'm curious how it plays when someone other than yours truly.

And as usual, I'm more confused about RPG play and design more than ever. Of course, this may be a result of lack of sleep and travel sickness but I just get the feeling that I'm missing something...

[Mokkurkalfe]

THE RIDDLE OF STEEL
Jake ran this with Mike Holmes, Ralph Mazza, Jared Sorensen, me, and Ben Moore for players; Jason Blair was present as well. Oh my goodness - Akira Kurosawa meets Sam Peckinpah. This was one of those golden moments when we all realized, simultaneously, that two key misunderstandings were going to destroy everyone's hopes and dreams, and that the only thing left to do was crank up the opera music and let loose. Action-packed, yes, but wonderfully depressing, like Swedish-level depressing. You've never seen anyone cheer as loudly as Ralph when his character was hung by the neck until dead, or me when my character's arms were severed, and his sister used his sword (still held by a hand) to stab herself.

Eeeh, im not sure if that's supposed to be good or bad. Could you explain a little? What are these misunderstandings you're talking about?
Oh, and then there's something nobody wants to tell me, whaddaya mean with Swedish-level depressing?

[Ron Edwards]

Hey,

Corrections first: the TROS players were me, Mike Holmes, Ralph Mazza, Tod Olson, and Ben Moore.

Mokk, all my comments about that game are positive comments. It was exciting and grim and tragic. By "Swedish-level depressing," I am poking fun at the films of Ingmar Bergmann, the famous Swedish director whose movies are best described as bleak, traumatic, and long. By "misunderstandings," I am referring to the characters' understanding of the situation they were in - an extremely virtuous character was held to be a rapist by another, and in turn that virtuous character found himself fomenting a bloody uprising. Among other things, these misunderstandings and decisions led to tragedy, even though to the characters involved, they were the only decisions they could have made.

I especially liked the foreign "Moor" character who was the only Voice of Reason in the story, and he ended up being a very lonely voice ...

Best,
Ron

[Mike Holmes]

Jared and I talked about his opinion of his own GMing abilities. While he may be "intensely uncomfortable" running a game, you'd never know it. His addition of a Federal Inspector, and later his ghost, were brilliant. On the whole, InSpectres did what, IMO, it is designed to. I laughed my posterior off, and had a really great time. Despite Jason firing me from the company at the end (you not funny, Blair! I get you nest time.)

Unfortunately, I left the Sorcerer demo before it really got rolling (I was just observing that one anyhow). What I did observe, however, was pretty nifty. Should make a fine intro demo.

To be fair, I ambushed the guys with Universails at lunch one day (I just hate to not be role-playuing with that sort of talent around; sorry gentlemen). I am surprised in a way that the scene we did turned out at all. Not really a conducive environement. But as usual the wierd Universalis thing happened, and a story of sorts arrived right on schedule from somewhere out in left field. Call it one more playtest data point. Just glad I could show it off.

TROS. Whew whee! When Ron first saw it he told me I'd like it. He was right, of course. The basic engine is outstanding, and the combat is...sublime. The system accompishes what so many have wanted for so long. It has realistic combat, and yet the heroes can be heroic. And it all makes sense in-game. The "meta-game" represents the character's very in-game drives. All very cool. Which we knew, just good to confirm it with some actual play.

What Ron is trying to say is that it was a shload of fun. And I agree. Everything that you might want it to be. Not just from an artsy POV, but from a sheer kinetic sense of adventure.

Mike

[Blake Hutchins]

I dunno, Ron.  I thought Bergman's "The Silence" was uplifting and inspirational.  The feel good chick-flick of the year...!

*cough*

Best,

Blake

[Jason L Blair]

INSPECTRES
Jared ran this with Jason Blair, Mike Holmes, Chris Passeno, and me for players, with Jake Norwood and Ben Moore present as well (and who took brief cameos too). The good news is that we stopped the devil-octopus lady thing in Acapulco. The other three characters were all pretty big tough guys, which is why I was very proud of my character, a nice fellow named Shmuel Livitz, the gofer for the company. Ben drew an incredible picture of Shmuel which I simply must own.

I have to contest this. "Discount Steve" Stevens is no big tough guy. However, I was amazed that my former personal injury lawyer never once failed a Stress check. And what Ron failed to mention is that no one else in the agency could turn into a big bad wolf. ;)

The INSPECTRES rocked and I definitely want to play it again. So, Jared, remember the six-siders at GenCon. ;)

[Chris Passeno]

I agree, INSPECTRES rocks.  I'd never played it before, and being in the group with such talents like that was more than anyone could have asked for. (pauses to rub leg.)

Looking back, I wish I could have stayed for the TROS game.  A demo run by the creator really shouldn't be missed.

[Clinton R. Nixon]

It sounds like you guys had an amazing time playing.

I saw a few names above I don't recognize. I want to hear crazy success stories about people who never heard of your games before and got to play, and loved it. Does anyone have any of those?

[Paul Czege]

I saw a few names above I don't recognize.

I wondered about a few of those names. Is Ben Moore actually Ben "Amazing Kreskin" Morgan?

[Ron Edwards]

Hey,

Ben Moore is one of the Driftwood cohort; he's an artist and drew the naked pagan chick in the sorcery section, the fun encumbrance pictures, and the little fairy about to get stepped on, among others. He is not Ben Morgan.

John Clements is the head man of ARMA.

Both of them seemed more than a little enthused about explicit Narrativist play.

Best,
Ron

[Jake Norwood]

Hey all. The Saturday TROS game was one of the best I've ever run. It was phenomenal...definitely some Kurosawa in there (who I think is the best model for TROS play...). I now trying to figure out how to get that kind of response all the time!

Any chance someone other than me who was there could give us a devoted actual play entry on that session? I'd really like to see it from a non-Driftwood perspective.

Jake

[Valamir]

Beyond a devoted actual play post, I want to see the session actually written up as a legitimate short story to be preserved for posterity...it was really that good (I'd be happy to work on it with someone whose interested, I think it would be particularly cool to have each player do a piece of it from inside his characters head at the time).

As for what I got out of the session, really two things.

1) the lesser of the two...before playing the GM really has to know his combat maneuvers cold so he can run them out without referring to them in game.  Playing with Jake as GM was a natural advantage there because alot of momentum would have been lost if combat had turned into a "look-up-the-rule fest".  My advice...if you don't know 'em, don't use 'em.  I'm planning on trying to categorize all of the maneuvers to see if there are certain mechanical concepts that get used over and over that will make them easier to learn and remember.

2) More importantly, something Ron and I et.al. have talked about before with regards to Alyria...group designed Relationship Maps at the table before play is a very very very powerful tool.  When you then make sure character SAs tie into that group designed relationship map you go from 0 to 60 really really fast.

From scratch we went from my character as an atheistic "insurrectionist" battleing against an oppressive government official; to Ron's character who was somewhat rivalrous with the official while trying to arrange a marriage between him and his sister; to Ben's "do-gooder" character who was in love with but "not worthy of" the sister; at which point we had the core characters of a great tragedy.  Throw in a priest and a "turk" to act as witnesses and represent the drowned voice of reason and wow...fabulous.

All prepared with zero pregame prep (other than modifying some pregen demo characters) and only cursory knowledge of the area of the world we were in.  Which, by the way, reflects strongly on a point I've repeatedly made in other threads...when dealing with setting...start small.  There was no globally sweeping epic going on at our table.  The entire game was set in one rural village with references to some "foreign places".  

Suggestion:  Jake, I remember you saying that you use that group SA creation technique frequently.  I don't know if you mention that in the GM section of the rules, but it definitely deserves expanded treatment on your web site...sort of a "how to get more bang for your buck GMing RoS" essay.

[Ron Edwards]

Hi there,

I wanted to call attention to a technique that Jared used in his InSpectres game. We were playing at a round table, near which was a kind of wire-mesh metal bench. You know the sort, kind of a continuous curved design. (For those of you familiar with the convention hall in Columbus, it was in the breezeway between the convention center and the hotel.)

What Jared did, was have the person who just called for a Confessional sit in a chair facing the bench, and everyone else get on or around the bench as audience. So when someone said, "Confessional!" everyone would hop up and trot over to the bench and the chair. Then afterwards, we'd return to the table.

OK, we are talking about seven men: Jared, the four players, and Jake and Ben (who were semi-participatory audience for the game). Some of us were big people, like Jason Blair and Mike Holmes, and Jake's no li'l stubby person either. The average age was a bit older than most of the con-goers; I'm 37 and Mike's somewhere in that range, for instance.

And starting with the first Confessional, which happened to be mine, and continuing through all four Confessionals of that session, something really interesting happened. We bounded up, and ran over to the bench, and posed in position. It couldn't have been cuter or more swiftly-executed if it had been professionally choreographed.

Whoever had the chair, had the chair. The bench had room for three or so people, and they'd slam into position, and cross their legs or lean back in a distinct "audience" posture. Someone would stand at the end and put his foot on the bench and his elbow on his knee. Others would lean on their forearms on the back of the bench.

We did this four times, without any direction from Jared, discussion about it, or other communication except for the shared excitement of running the few steps over there. It was an extraordinary example of Social Stuff underlying, being reinforced by, and in turn reinforcing the enjoyment of the imaginary events (and their creation).

I will always use this in playing InSpectres in the future.

Best,
Ron

[Michael Hopcroft]

Now I feel so left out. I didn;t play in any of those games. Instead, I got quite a bit of FUDGE practice in preparation for the demos I'll be running at GenCon. I got to play in one of the notorious FUDGE: Tick games, but that's neither here nor there.

What REALLY bummeed me out was that aside from one trade for Chain of Being I didn't get to take much home with me from the con. A copy of Silver Age Sentinels (beautiful game, but Guardians of order is hardly a small press anymore!), a hand-airbrushed T-Shirt, some freshly commissioned HeartQuest art and that was about it. I didn;t get to play in many demos or roll up many characters. I feel like I missed out on something.