[MLwM] 200g mixed expectations, 500g fun, 15ml blasphemy

[cthulahoops]

Hi,

I'm trying new games at a great rate at the moment, you spend years doing the same things and then lots of new things happen at once.

This game arrived through my letterbox on Tuesday morning and I couldn't wait, so last night we ran a game.  I really like this game, and we had a lot of fun.  It didn't quite work properly for us, but I want to stress that we had fun right here at the top.  The proof is that when I checked my watch at midnight, no one had realised it was that late.

Oh, and this post is going to be long.

The master was Monseigneur Jacok Von Reikenbeck, a preist outcast from the church for his belief that he could bring about the second coming of Jesus.  He has a piece of the true cross with traces of blood on it, and as soon as he can perfect his cloning technique he'll be able to make his own messiah.  In the meantime, he's set up home in a small town in Liechtenstein - where believes that decendants of Mary Magdellan live.  He intends to use these as test subjects until he's ready to work on the real thing.  To do this he has to recreate the conditions of the crucifixion, and so we have a master who abducts townspeople and crucifies them.  Then he'll show the world and the church hierarchy who was right.

The minions were:

Elizabeth:  (Von Reikenbecks daughter) Utterly charming, except to children.  Compulsive Liar, except on Sundays.  Barmaid who reminds her of her mother and the young man she sees walking in the woods.  (SL: 0/W: 3)

Lizzy:  (Elizabeth's clone) Can produce useful and beautiful things, except technological.  Looks constantly ill except when excited.  Lisa, who has a loving family.  Karl, the carpenter whose handiwork she admires. (SL: 2/W: 1)

Franz:  (Scientist)  Well educated, except on literature and poetry.  Mutters incessantly, except in churches.   Gretal, the baker's daughter.  Local doctor, because he uses his knowledge for good.(SL: 2/W: 1)

Father Carlos:  (Priest who visited Von Reikenbeck and was taken in by his ideas.)  Technological genius, except on religious holidays.  Smells of alcohol, except when drunk.  Local astronomer, admires scientific ideals.  Nikki, girl who lost father to Master.  (SL: 2/W: 1)

I think I'm more likely to reconstruct what happened if I tell the stories character by character rather than as they happened during play, so here goes.

Elizabeth was invited for wine by her father who informed her that the bishop was coming to down.  She was put in charge of inviting the bishop to dinner and organising the meal.  She wrote a letter in which she pretended her mother was alive.  The next morning on the way to town she tripped over a branch near the boy she saw walking the woods and picked up a point of love.  She got to town and delivered her letter.   The bishop asked was her mother not dead and she told him that Von Reikenbeck liked to pretend she wasn't.  She went off on a little tangent involving two headed cows, and then returned to the castle.  The master ordered her to find Nikki and bring her to castle.  She failed the roll to resist.  (Somewhere she picked up a point of love from the barmaid but I've forgotten the scene.)

Lizzy started off hiding in the attic from the master, but naturally he found her and told her to go to the library and get the town records 1770-1785.  She went off, but had to get the librarian out of bed.  The librarian was upset about this intrusion by the Master and a point of SL was awarded.  (I counted this as villiany.)  She encountered Franz who told her that the master wanted a different book.  She refused to give him the book, and would not fall for this villainy due to Franz's muttering. She returned to the castle and gave the book to the master who confirmed it was the right one.  The next morning the master came and gave out to (to give out to (hiberno-english): to tell off) her about bringing the wrong book, and told her that he'd get someone competent to get the right one.  (1935-1950)  In the meantime, she was told that the baker's family kept a log of family records and told to go and get it.  She went to the carpenters and left a wooden nutcracker she'd made on the doorstep, knocked, and ran away, watching from across the road.   The roll was tie, so the carpenter was drawn away by his wife's scream.  The dog had dragged in the hand of a previous crucifixion victim.  But, Lizzie placed the nutcracker on the table inside the house, and the carpenter found it on the way out.  (+1 Love).  Then, she went and talked to the baker, who refused to give her the book.  She begged and pleaded for a bit.

Franz started in the lab and the master came in and nearly knocked everything over.  The master told Franz that he thought the baker would be the next perfect test, and that he'd sent Lizzy to get the town records.  Franz asked to have the next day off.  He went to town and failed to stop Lizzy returning with the book.  He returned to the castle waited until the master had gone to bed, then snuck in to look at the book.  He confirmed that the Baker was in the records, then the master caught him.  (Where's the rules for villainy against the master - all that I can think is that it is always going to fail.) The master "accepted" the excuses and gave out about Lizzy getting the wrong book.   He told Franz to get some bottles of the '75 at the inn tomorrow.  The innkeeper claims to be sold out, but always keeps some for himself. Franz went to town and bought breakfast at the bakers, earning a smile (and love) for his comment on the daughter's lovely flour covered dress.  He visited the library and doctored the Baker's daughter parentage, but got caught and banned from the library.  Carlos showed up, and told him that the master needed a book from the library - Franz convinced Carlos to get the book instead.  He then proceeded to do everything he could to avoid stealing the damn wine.   The magistrate still has some bottles, but won't sell them (he wants them for the bishop), the innkeeper won't sell his (except to the bishop) and I don't think mugging the barmaid on the stairs even occured to them.  Instead, he set of back to the castle with a couple off bottles of the '80.

Finally, Father Carlos started off getting heavily drunk in the castle.  The master sent him off to talk to the priest about what the priest was saying in his sermons.  Carlos was too drunk to effectively do this.  The next morning he tried again, and suceeded in thoroughly terrifying the priest.  He visited the astronomer, and advised him on telescope improving techniques for a point of love.  He returned to the castle where the master told him to get Franz to get a book of records, and that the bishop had a piece of John the Baptist's finger nail - which Carlos was to steal.  Carlos headed down to town.   He agreed to get the book himself, but made the mistake of using Franz's name to the librarian and was instantly banned pending a letter of apology from the Master.  (Yes, the librarian appears to have a death wish.)  He learnt when the Bishop was going to dinner with the magistrate.  He waited, built himself some lockpicks, entered the Bishop's room, got cash and finger nail, only to be caught by the arrival of the Magistrate's ten year old son.

Having written all this down, it's not a bad narrative.  Now onto some analysis.

The main problem that arose was that I didn't manage to fully communicate the position of the minions, and the extent to which they are controlled by fear.  So, the system (and I) were trying to tell "Minions controlled by fear do damage to town, until they find a way to fight fear", while the players' perceptions of their characters were trying to tell "Minions cleverly minimise the effects of Master's orders and evade his wrath".  The system fails to resolve this, as players can evade an order without breaking it through continued procrastination and half-hearted attempts to fulfil orders without law-breaking.  A large part of this was that the main source of fear for the players (not characters) was the townspeople and not the master.  For me, this is embodied in the decision by Franz to return with the wrong wine and face the master's wrath rather than the right one and face conflict with the town to get it.  It's also worth noting Elizabeth.  I don't see a problem with the creation of a relative of the master as a minion - the statement being "the master treats his family like minions", but the player expected Elizabeth to be treated better than the other minions and was somewhat jarred by the order to kidnap Nikki.

The highlight of the game for me was the overture to connections.  Everyone played these brilliantly and they produced some beautiful moments.  There were a couple of almost overtures, such as Lizzy watching the carpenter work - but which weren't because there was no exchange, no risk.

It did, however, highlight my confusion about More and Less thans.   What conflicts can a more or less cause automatic success/failure in?  In particular, can a More Than be brought to bear to bring automatic success in an overture?   I allowed this in the case of the astronomer because it fits well, but it seems that it would be easy to get to a stage where the character uses the More Than continuously to bypass the possibility of rejection.  I'm also wondering if the More Than can apply in End Game to lead to the automatic death of the Master, or automatic defiance of a command at any stage.  I've just noticed the word surreal in the description of More Thans.  Is the problem that our More Thans are too human?

The scene cutting worked in a mixed way.  I tended on the side of allowing players to narrate their own scenes, rather than narrating scenes for them.  This narration was most powerful in the overtures, and at other times I don't think there was realisation of the scope of their ability to narrate things outside their character's actions.  For example, Carlos was wondering he'd get into the Bishops room if he was there.  It was known that the Bishop was eating with the magistrate later, but not bt the character.  So, I pointed out that the player could narrate the character over-hearing this information and then cut to a robbery scene - which he did.  There were several scenes which only existed as exploration of the village and didn't move the story, my feeling is that these came from a simulationist agenda.

I probably should have handled scene framing more myself, but I was afraid that the players would lose control of events too much - and also working without preparation.  Basically, it's something we all need practice with.

The Pink d4 of Intimacy, the Speckled Orange d6 of Desperation, and the Speckled Grey d8 of Intimacy didn't come into play much.  I forgot about them later in play, and I think the others did too.

We had a good discussion after the game, and this is when we realised that the players hadn't grasped the characters' situation fully.   I suggested that we could start anew next time, but this was rejected, so we're continuing this, and everyone agreed to try and play to the fear more next time, and we'll see what happens.

I want to finish by pointing out the highlight of this for me.  None of the above characters, setting or events exists before yesterday evening.   The fact that a setting and story can be produced with no preparation is a triumph of creativity.

Arg - I'm sure I've forgotten half of what I intended to say, let's just post the damn thing.  Any and all comments, suggestions and opinions are welcome.

Adam.

PS.  In a case like this (and sorcerer) is there a preference between posting to the game's forum vs. Actual Play.  I prefer Actual Play on the wide audience, but I don't know if the focus in one place approach is better.

[Mike Holmes]

The main problem that arose was that I didn't manage to fully communicate the position of the minions, and the extent to which they are controlled by fear.  So, the system (and I) were trying to tell "Minions controlled by fear do damage to town, until they find a way to fight fear", while the players' perceptions of their characters were trying to tell "Minions cleverly minimise the effects of Master's orders and evade his wrath".  The system fails to resolve this, as players can evade an order without breaking it through continued procrastination and half-hearted attempts to fulfil orders without law-breaking.  A large part of this was that the main source of fear for the players (not characters) was the townspeople and not the master.  For me, this is embodied in the decision by Franz to return with the wrong wine and face the master's wrath rather than the right one and face conflict with the town to get it.  It's also worth noting Elizabeth.  I don't see a problem with the creation of a relative of the master as a minion - the statement being "the master treats his family like minions", but the player expected Elizabeth to be treated better than the other minions and was somewhat jarred by the order to kidnap Nikki.

I'm not seeing the problem. I "game" the system all the time, and try to avoid the Master. I think it's part of play. It's up to the GM to create the fear if he want's to in the player. As you did in the case of Elizabeth. Let the players think they can "get away" with stuff. The shock that they feel if they're taken by surprise is just a free bonus.

It did, however, highlight my confusion about More and Less thans.   What conflicts can a more or less cause automatic success/failure in?  In particular, can a More Than be brought to bear to bring automatic success in an overture?

All overtures are automatically successful (they always get love). I don't believe that there would be a time when the minions roll for Self-Loathing would be influenced by a more than. How did you rationalize it in the astronomer's case?

I'm also wondering if the More Than can apply in End Game to lead to the automatic death of the Master, or automatic defiance of a command at any stage.  I've just noticed the word surreal in the description of More Thans.  Is the problem that our More Thans are too human?

Way to human. "Smells like alcohol" makes you less than human? No, that would have to be something like "Smells stonger than the brewery which makes people vomit unless they have a cloth over their face." That would be less than human. :-)

There were several scenes which only existed as exploration of the village and didn't move the story, my feeling is that these came from a simulationist agenda.

Sometimes players just don't get these things the first time out. ::shrug::

I probably should have handled scene framing more myself, but I was afraid that the players would lose control of events too much - and also working without preparation.  Basically, it's something we all need practice with.

It's probably best to do a little of each. But, other than that, I think that any mix works fine. Basically, as GM if the players aren't moving things, then take control and move them.

The Pink d4 of Intimacy, the Speckled Orange d6 of Desperation, and the Speckled Grey d8 of Intimacy didn't come into play much.  I forgot about them later in play, and I think the others did too.

Yikes. Central mechanic. What was the Fear/Reason?

PS.  In a case like this (and sorcerer) is there a preference between posting to the game's forum vs. Actual Play.  I prefer Actual Play on the wide audience, but I don't know if the focus in one place approach is better.

I think that the authors are both ambivalent about it. I think that most people who read the specific fora also read here, so this was probably the best choice.

Mike

[cthulahoops]

I'm not seeing the problem. I "game" the system all the time, and try to avoid the Master. I think it's part of play. It's up to the GM to create the fear if he want's to in the player. As you did in the case of Elizabeth. Let the players think they can "get away" with stuff. The shock that they feel if they're taken by surprise is just a free bonus.

Hmmm... let's try and state what I mean.  The players didn't create characters with a level of fear of the Master that reflects that provided by the rules.  The rules state that a minion must fulfil the command, but the player's perception of the characters was that the characters would avoid the command.  Immediate clash?

So, I guess the problem (in my mind) is less that the characters are avoiding the Master, for example, I expected Franz to resist the Masters attempts on the Baker - but that they were unwilling to engage in villainy at all.

The players feared the village more than the Master.  And yes, my plan for this is precisely what you suggest.

This reminds me of another question... there's no rules for the master to actually punish a minion.  Can he just beat a point of weariness into them, or is it a matter of nasty orders?

All overtures are automatically successful (they always get love). I don't believe that there would be a time when the minions roll for Self-Loathing would be influenced by a more than. How did you rationalize it in the astronomer's case?

My understanding was that the overture could succeed in which case the minion gets a point of love and a positive reaction.  Or fail, in which case the minion gets a point of love for the attempt, a negative reaction and a point of self-loathing.

If the attempt had failed I would have responded with, "The astronomer mocks your suggestion:  'all telescopes  have had that feature for the last century, stop wasting my time.'"  Technological genius precluded a negative reaction to an overture based on technological advice?

But, yes, More and Lesses need to be More or Less than Human... oops.

Yeah, I know the extra dice are core.  But then, I managed to forget Humanity in Sorcerer.  It's a special skill I have.  :)  Actually, there weren't that many dice rolls as the characters weren't attempting villainy!

I set Fear at 4, and Reason at 3.  This was a difficult decision as there's no example values for reason, but it seemed an okay default.

Adam.

[cthulahoops]

If the attempt had failed I would have responded with, "The astronomer mocks your suggestion:  'all telescopes  have had that feature for the last century, stop wasting my time.'"  Technological genius precluded a negative reaction to an overture based on technological advice?

This is the bit where I answer my own question...

He could have responded... "Yes, very, clever... uh... my God man, want have you been drinking... it's not only midday."

Adam.

[cthulahoops]

Hi,

I ran the second session, and it went very well.  I'll just touch on a couple of my favourite moments.

Father Carlos strangled the magistrates son and left and headed off to one of his connections' (Nikki's) house.  He talked to Nikki's mother instead, giving her money he'd stolen from the Bishop.  (Establishing her as a new Contact.)  Elizabeth showed up to invite Nikki to dinner (well, the cells), and got an enthuasicly positive response.  Carlos confronted her in one of the best scenes of the session, and then told Nikki to get the hell out of town.  Elizabeth, without prompting from the Master, went to the other town, kidnapped Nikki and brought her back.  Carlos, meanwhile, framed one of Elizabeth's contacts to throw the master off the track of Nikki.

The librarian got invited to dinner (um, cells again) for banning the minions, and Franz took the ban very, very personally.  He spent the afternoon plotting to poison the librarian.   I'm interested, that after commenting that the PCs were too reluctant to commit evil acts, three of the players went to the extreme and started commiting acts above and beyond the Masters order.   This produces a fascinating sense of dual-personality, as a character moves from murder scene to overture.

Lizzy's character stayed closest to the portrayal in the first session - which this time produced an interesting contrast to the villainy of the other three minions.  I think I needed to feed more events to this character to keep things moving.  It's hard to know how much external stimulus to provide and when to sit back and let the players to their thing.

The mechanics really require you to think about them as resolution of conflicts rather than actions.  As any villainy roll has the same chance of success, it can be difficult to justify dice rolls mentally until this realisation clicks.  We managed to make better use of the IDS dice.

So... questions.  My main one is how people pace sessions in terms of passage of game time.   The game so far has taken two days of game time, and there's a real sense of everything happening at once, there's about five people coming to the castle this evening.   It would be possible to spread scenes over a much longer time frame, skipping forward a couple of days between scenes and I think this might produce a better story.  There's a problem I see with any game where the PCs mainly act separately, does it matter if their stories become separated in time?  What do you do when two players need time to flow at vastly different rates?

I'm quite wary about the upward spirals of self-loathing, and looking fearfully at the Love - Weariness vs. Fear + Self Loathing.  Lots of people seem to have this fear and I'm going on faith that this thing works.

Anyway, more fun.

Adam.

[Paul Czege]

Hey Adam,

It sounds like a great game :)

...where the PCs mainly act separately, does it matter if their stories become separated in time?

I think you'll find that when everyone is invested in the game, solutions to timing and event-flow awkwardnesses will be offered up by participants as the need arises.

Player: "Y'know...how about if Gustav sleeps peacefully in the glade until sunset, and only then proceeds to the crematorium? That way the scene will be at night and Thom will already be hidden and waiting."

Game events don't have to proceed forward with clipped perfection like toppling dominoes, unguided by human intervention. Allow yourselves to have fun as a group creatively handling and managing how and when scenes happen and events occur. Perhaps a player wants an Overture scene, but doesn't want his character to leave the circumstances of the Master's bedchamber. You can have the Overture be a dream, or a flashback.

I'm quite wary about the upward spirals of self-loathing, and looking fearfully at the Love - Weariness vs. Fear + Self Loathing. Lots of people seem to have this fear and I'm going on faith that this thing works.

Faith is good...but don't forget The Horror Revealed. It governs how high Self-loathing can go.

Paul

[cthulahoops]

Faith is good...but don't forget The Horror Revealed. It governs how high Self-loathing can go.

Paul

Hi, thanks.

You're right, faith is good.  The endgame works!  :)  I hadn't forgotten horror revealed, it's just that SL and Love were rising in parallel.

I'm fascinated by your suggestions about the overtures.  I have been running them as requiring an exchange between the PC and the NPC, so that even if a lot of it is in the minion's head - it requires a human response from another person, which rules out dreams.  Flashbacks strike me as slightly strange, as it may interfere with the previously established facts, though I guess that depends how far you flash.  If you simply hit an unnarrated point  before a recent scene - this could be experimented with.

So, the end.  Elizabeth rescued Peter from the dungeon, and escaped the castle.  Carlos rescued Nikki but was ordered to bring her back.  He messed up the villainy roll though and she escaped.  Carlos and Lizzy went out captured Elizabeth and dragged her back to the dungeon.  (Captured is usually by town, but in this case, by Master seemed appropriate.)

Lizzy found Nikki hiding in her room, knocked out Franz when he tried to retrieve her and ran away.

Elizabeth awoke in the dungeon, but was rescued by Peter.  She went upstairs where she encountered the Master.  (At this stage she had nine love, and end game is possible for Elizabeth.)  The Master ordered her to the dungeon to return to the dungeon with Peter, and allowing her to stay with him.

He went to retrieve Nikki, and ordered Lizzy to tell him where she was.  (At this point endgame was possible for Lizzy too.)   She tried to refuse and failed.  Carlos turned up, and the Master ordered him to take Nikki back to the dungeon, Lizzy threw her weight behind the resistance and Carlos refused.  (But could not trigger Endgame.)   The Master knowing he was at a disadvantage, ordered Lizzy to leave so he could deal Carlos alone.  Despite Carlos's support she failed, and was forced to leave.  The Master turned back to Carlos and ordered him to kill Nikki.

The Master went down to the dungeon, had an arguement with Elizabeth and ordered her to go to her room, she resisted: Endgame.

Carlos chased down the fleeing Nikki and strangled her.  Crippling both his and Lizzy's love totals.

Elizabeth tried to leave the castle, the Master tried to stop her physically, Peter intervened, the Master fell back was killed.

So much for worrying about checking for the Master's death.  One attempt does it.  I interpreted Peter's role in this scene as a weapon that Elizabeth uses against the Master - with no game effect only colour.

Elizabeth set fire to the castle and set off for the town.   She married Peter and lived happily ever after.

Lizzy, overcome by the horror of allowing Nikki to die, killed herself.

Carlos, confessed his sins to the bishop and the magistrate, and then killed himself.

Franz returned the castle, allowing himself to burn to death, hence, killed himself.

I think it went really well, it was much tighter than the previous sessions, with everything running quite nicely and I think more situations which addressed Premise.

One of the highlights of the session for me, was when I turned to Franz's player for his first scene and his response was "The door-bell rings..."  Director-stance-tastic.

There were a couple of rules-oddnesses.  Firstly, when a minion tries to hide (or hide something) from another minion.  It doesn't seem to be quite villainy, as I can't see an opportunity for self-loathing gain.  Examples:

Elizabeth sees Franz coming looking for Peter.  She tells Peter to hide, and proceeds to bluff it.  I played this as an overture.  Elizabeth says "I'll lie to protect you", a failure says "I'm too incompetent to do this..."  This seemed to work well.

Elizabeth takes Peter deep into the forest to hide, Lizzy and Franz go looking.   I handled this as an extended Violence check - success "You find Lizzy, beat her up and drag her back" - failure either be "You search for hours and find nothing", or "you find her and she gets away".
I don't think this works well.   It gives no advantage to Elizabeth for hiding,  it doesn't provide a way of saying which failure is true and it leads to an oddness when having determined the success of the conflict, dialogue leads to characters thinking about changing declared goals.

We triggered two the Horror Revealed in the end game and didn't get to play them.  I still want to see them in play.

Lizzy's player was somewhat disappointed by her character's fate and the events that led up to it.  She felt she had gained Self-Loathing for more minor acts than the others.   I played the Master for maximum evilness in the sequence that led to Nikki's death - but it was all fair and square - the dice went against them and I think they made a mistake in confronting the Master so directly.  I loved this sequence,  and I think I played it fairly.

I should have taken more input from Elizabeth's player in narrating the death of the Master.  Ooops.

I was quite generous in having Peter rescue Elizabeth, it seemed a reasonable way to bring Elizabeth back into play, but it was quite a pro-activive act for an NPC.   It seemed justified in terms of the amount of Love involved, but it put her in a much better position than she would otherwise have been in.

Fun... exhausted...  sleep now...
Adam.

[firstagainstthewall]

Hi there,

As a player in this (Franz), I thought that I should probably make a few comments on how I felt this went, too.

I felt the Self-Loathing increases were awarded with no variation for the severity of the actual crime.  One instance was that Lizzy was awarded Self-Loathing for waking up the librarian to get a book, whilst Franz was awarded an equal amount for murdering the librarian and stealing the keys to the library from her rapidly cooling body.  An interesting question is whether Elizabeth would have got a point of Self-Loathing had she failed to resist the order to go to her room?  Given the exceedingly vital role played by Self-Loathing, it seems a little strange for it to be so arbitrarily awarded.

Another problem was the time synchronisation.  It's not so much of a problem when one player lags behind, but if one person gets ahead of the rest then you can't just tell the others to hurry up.

My final problem with it was how easy it was to have an NPC go round with you and get overture rolls every scene.  It's a reasonably uncommon occurrence for someone to fail an overture roll, and even then they get closer to the endgame.

However, these were all pretty minor points in the Grand Scheme of Things, and I absolutely loved the game.  I loved the setting, I loved the simplicity of the rules and I really loved playing the game with the people I did.  I can't wait until the next time we play, especially given that we'll all know better how the system operates.

One final point, though, to finish with - Franz's death was highly underreported!  He told his connection to "Run away and never look back" before returning to the castle and poisoning himself with a decanter of wine whilst the castle burnt around him.  Probably a little over dramatic for the evil scumbag he was, but I do love a good death scene.
:-)

Nick

[Paul Czege]

Hey Adam,

I'm fascinated by your suggestions about the overtures. I have been running them as requiring an exchange between the PC and the NPC, so that even if a lot of it is in the minion's head - it requires a human response from another person, which rules out dreams. Flashbacks strike me as slightly strange, as it may interfere with the previously established facts, though I guess that depends how far you flash. If you simply hit an unnarrated point before a recent scene - this could be experimented with.

Well...direct interaction between minion and Connection is definitely the standard. But when you think about it, what's really important about overture scenes story-wise is that we see the minion differentiating himself incrementally from the relationship with the Master. So if there's something logistical, event-wise or setting-wise, problematizing a minion's ability to have immediate direct interaction with a Connection when the player calls for an overture scene, then you just do something that achieves the same exposure of the minion's pursuit of human connected-ness: a dream, a flashback scene, an out-of-body experience, etc.

And Nick, yeah, your epilogue for Franz is pretty damn cool :)

Paul