Hot Trollbabe Action!

[Jeffrey Straszheim]

We played this over the weekend.  Things went pretty well.  We continued for about two hours before stopping.  Here are some details.


Cast

Me: The GM.
Bridget (my wife): Player of Ilse


Her Trollbabe

Name: Ilse
Number: 7
Fighting: 1-6 Hand-held
Magic: 8-10 Troll magic
Social: 7-10 Feisty
Equipment: An axe, trollish clothes, her pet pine marten (named Day)

As you can see, we used the new mechanic for Social.


What Happened

Ilse was traveling to Spider Mountain, where she came across a small town of about fifty buildings.  The town was guarded by both humans and trolls.  She was escorted to the chieftain's hall.


Scene 1

Chieftain's Hall.  There were two big chairs in the hall, one belonging to Hrothgar, the chef of the humans of the town; the other belonging to Goob, the chief of the region's trolls.  It turned out that over the last year the spiders of the mountain had grown into an army, and the trolls and humans had allied for mutual protection.  The chiefs invited Ilse to stay in the town if she liked, but that she would be responsible for helping to fight the spiders.

A teenage girl was led into the hall.  She was a stranger to the town, and explained that she had traveled from afar searching for her father.  He was a magician, named Balthazar, who had a year ago journeyed to Spider Mountain, but had not returned.  Balthazar had passed through the town and the chiefs remembered him.  However, he had not returned down the mountain.

The girl, named Oksana, then asked if anyone would journey with her up the mountain to search for her father.  The folks of the town decided that it would be far too dangerous, and furthermore suggested to Oksana that she give up her quest.  Naturally she refused, and left.

During all this Ilse looked on, but chose not to get involved.


Scene 2

Mead Hall.  Ilse left the Chief's Hall and went to get a drink and make some friends.  At first she was harassed by a big drunk, rather offputting fellow, then she met Lars, a skald.  He was composing a poem about the heroic actions of the folks fighting the spiders.

Notes.  During this scene Bridget requested a conflict "to make a friend".  She was successful with a social conflict.  She wanted someone "cool, not a big, burly viking type".  So she created Lars.  I helped with him a bit, as she was not aware of what a skald was..


Scene 3

Mead Hall again, but now in a somewhat private corner with Lars.  They talked about their lives.  Ilse revealed that her father was a troll and her mother a human.  Also, she told him about Oksana.  He felt it would make a great poem, but personally wouldn't want to travel to Spider Mountain to find out more.

Suddenly the clan medicine woman (who had been in the Chief's Hall when Ilse was introduced) rushed up to them.  She had been looking for Ilse believing that she must have "strong medicine".  A woman in the town was giving birth and it was going very badly.  The medicine woman begged Ilse for assistance.

Notes.  The primary purpose of this scene was to cement a relationship with Lars.  The stuff on Ilse's background was made up at this point by Bridget.


Scene 4

Birth Chamber.  Ilse was led into a building where some men were waiting with very frightened faces (these were the father and his kin). They passed through a curtain into the woman's area where the mother, named Irena, was struggling.

At first Ilse tried to calm Irena by getting her to breath in a potion, but the mother was unresponsive, and refused to breath deeply.  Then Ilse layed her hands on the belly, and determined that the baby was too large, and this was causing the problem. Fortunately, Ilse knew a chant that would help make the baby temporarily smaller, and the birth canal temporarily larger.  It worked and with much struggle the baby was born.  Both it and the mother lived.

However, chaos broke out when it was discovered that the baby had .... horns!  It was a baby trollbabe.  The father accused his wife of being unfaithful WITH A TROLL!  Others blamed Ilse, saying her bad magic had warped the child.  The mother cast the baby aside.  The father refused to touch it.  Ilse and the medicine woman grabbed the child, and fled from the chamber.

Notes.  At first Bridget was rather unsure what to do.  The idea that she can do pretty much anything with magic hadn't yet sunk in. We ran the birth as an exchange by exchange conflict.  It went like this:

[*] Failed roll.  Bridget narrated that the woman is refusing to breath the relaxing potion.  She chooses not to take a reroll.
[*] Success.  I narrated that she determines through laying hands that the child is too large.  She decided that she will attempt to shrink the child.
[*] Success.  I narrated the successful birth.
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Scene 5

The Medicine Woman's Hut.  Ilse and the medicine woman discussed how to help the child, and the need to get the mother to accept it. The medicine woman also pointed out the danger that this birth could ruin relations between the humans and the trolls.  Also, we now learn that the medicine woman does not have a name; she had traded it to the gods for her magic.

Notes.  Here Bridget cemented a relationship with the medicine woman.


Scene 6

Back in the birth building.  Ilse and the medicine woman returned to convince Irena and her clan to take the child.  Ilse explained that the child might be from Spider Magic attempting to break up the troll and human alliance.  However, the clan pointed out that she is an outsider and not to be trusted.  The medicine woman then steped up and berates them for not trusting this woman who saved Irena's life.  The family accepted this, and agreed to take the child.

Notes.  This was another social conflict, which was at the Entire Conflict pace.  The first roll was a failure, and Bridget narrated the clan not believing her.  She re-rolled using her relationship with the medicine woman, and I narrated the medicine woman's speech.


Interlude

Night passes.  The next morning Ilse met Lars in the Mead Hall. They were discussing his work when a commotion was heard outside.  They went outside to see.


Scene 7

Outside in the town square.  A huge crowd had gathered around a freakish figure, and were poking it with sticks.  The figure was Oksana, the girl searching for her father.  Except she had been transformed into a hideous half-spider, half-human monster.  Folks demanded it be killed.  Some were trying to protect her.  Hrothgar, the human chief, arrived and joined those calling for its death.  Goob, the troll chief, arrived and joined those calling to protect it.

Ilse stepped in on the side of the girl, again warning against fighting among themselves.  She pointed out that at least folks need to hear from Oksana what happened to her, that knowing this might help them fight the spiders.

The towns-people refused to listen.  "Shut up outsider," was heard from the crowd.  Then Lars stepped up and reinforced Ilse's points.  Folks calmed down a bit.  It was agreed to take Oksana into the Chief's Hall and to hear from her her story.

Notes.  This was a social conflict again, and played out virtually the same as in scene 6, with Lars instead of the medicine woman.


Scene 8

Chief's Hall.  The divisions were clear when the folks entered the hall. All the humans gathered on one side around Hrothgar, all the trolls on the other around Goob.  Oksana relayed that she found her father on Spider Mountain, but that when she did she was transformed into a hideous beast.  She was not very cogent or clear in her story.  Calls began again for her death.  Then shouts and accusations began between the trolls and humans.  Just when a fight was about to break out, Ilse, who had stood in the middle between the two groups, steped up to try to defuse the situation.  However, once again she was ignored.

Pandemonium broke out.  Hrothgar was killed.  Fires were started.  Ilse saw Oksana fall beneath a pile of bodies.  Ilse herself, along with Lars and the medicine woman, escaped from the fray, but it was rapidly spreading throughout the town.  They saw fires springing up.

Notes.  Once again we have a social conflict where the first roll fails.  This time Bridget said, "Screw them, if they want to fight let them fight."


Scene 9

The birthing chamber.  Ilse and her crew get Irena and the child and helped them escape from the town.


Scene 10

Outside of town.  Ilse, Lars, and the medicine woman decide they are going to travel up spider mountain.  Irena and the child were safe, and headed back to Irena's home clan.

At this point we stopped play.  Next week we will continue the story.


Bridget's Thoughts

I asked Bridget to name her favorite part, and her least favorite part.  She liked the whole bit where the baby turned out to be a trollbabe.  She didn't like the fact she kept failing her social rolls, leading to a distinct "whiff factor" for her.  After she said this, I explained to her the difference between conflict and task resolution and how she can use her right to narrate to overcome the whiff factor.  We'll see how it works in future weeks.


My Thoughts

I am pretty happy about how things turned out.  If you've read this thread, where I discussed the prep for this game, you'll notice that my worst fear was realized.  Once again Bridget declined the first adventure hook I gave her.  I did flounder a bit in the start of Scene 2, until I said to her, "OK, what do you want to do."  Here was where she decided to make a friend, which got things rolling.

I think in the future I'm going to give up on throwing a hook at her in the first scene.  Instead I'll just start with a sort of You're in a town, what shall you do type start, and then to ease her into the story's stakes.

[Bob McNamee]

Hey!

That came out really well!

I like that the girl returned to the town changed, showing some consequences of the choice to help her earlier.

Cool use of Magic in the birthing scene.

I like the new rolling scheme in theory, but I do like the idea of Social being the highest range in a Relationship heavy game. I haven't tried the new scheme out yet. In a way I would welcome more failed rolls since use of ReRolls really propelled some of our scenes on indie-netgaming.

Good post, I look forward to finding out what happens next.