Driftwood Indie Game Night: FVLMINATA part III

[Jake Norwood]

We played the final installment in this story ("Fabula," that is) last night. It was a hum-dinger of an ending, with the entire Imperial Palace going up in  a cloud of smoke, Caesar being dragged to death under a chariot, sudden last-minute plot twists, murder, and a change of sides for the players. They came out wayyy on top, which I hadn't expected.

Observations on FVLMINATA:
The tali are a lot of fun, but I have reservations concerning them which are mentioned in previous threads.
The influence system is keen.
I modified combat a little by replacing "unconscious" with "dead" unless caused by blunt trauma. This prevented the DnD effect of having to stab a guy like...well, like Julius Caesar (37 times, wasn't it?). This sped up combat and kept it intense and visceral...kinda like playing D&D with only 10hp and most weapons have a potential to do 12pts of damage pretty regularly.
I really would have killed for a map of Rome, the Colleseum, and other important places.
Despite a few issues that bother me a little, the game is immensely playable and a lot of fun. In our case, at least, it really fostered intrigue and social interaction during the glory of Rome. That made it an intense and welcome change of pace from the more "physical" campaigns we normally run.

Observations on actual play:
Kickers, as stated in an earlier thread, rock.
Running a story that's 100% based in intrigue and plot twists is hard. Very hard. We finished it at three sessions, and although I am positive we will return both to the game and to the same characters later, I need a break from all the mind-bending plot-weaving I had to do to make things really work. This is a game where constant and zealous note-keeping and preparation could/should/would really pay off.
For the last game I took a peed at every character sheet and figured out which skill(s) were the highest on each character. I then made sure that that character's "climax" highlighted that skill. It worked wonders, and everyone seemed very very pleased at the end.
My group loved the game and the intrigue...if anything it's made them want more (which frightens me).

Valete,
Jake

[ethan_greer]

For the last game I took a peed at every character sheet

Didn't the players get annoyed at you urinating on their characters?

Sorry, sorry, couldn't resist...

And I actually have a serious question.  One of my players recently purchased FVLMINATA (he's all into that Rome stuff).  In an unrelated aside, he's always expressed an interesting in playing heavy political intrigue games.  So my question is this:

Given that you mention that running the intrigue games is difficult, and FVLMINATA pretty much calls for that sort of game, does the book contain any good GM advice for running that type of game?  If so, I'll borrow it from my friend and give it a peek. ;)

Thanks,
Ethan

[Jake Norwood]

Given that you mention that running the intrigue games is difficult, and FVLMINATA pretty much calls for that sort of game, does the book contain any good GM advice for running that type of game?  If so, I'll borrow it from my friend and give it a peek. ;)

Thanks,
Ethan

doh...so much for spell checker.

I don't recall FVLMINATA having any amazing advice for intrigue games, though there is a section on "running fabulae" that's pretty good. Rather the game istelf reeks of it in the way its put together.

Jake

[Bomilkar]

Now that you've finished your fabula, I'd like to get some more details on your personae and your plot. Of what rank were the player's personae? Was there any player-vs.-player intrigue? Were there any attempts to solve conflicts physically instead of relying on influencing?