[Don't Rest Your Head] First Characters and questions

[RPL]

I just want to start by saying the DRYH system completely rocks arse, has I read and unveiled the premise "you can put a lot of dice to succeed at a conflict, but at the same time you will expose your character at greater and greater risks" I just feel in love. I also think this system would be great at a super-hero game (trading Talents for Super-powers) but that's a whole other story.

The setting is also insane, brilliant, insane, gritty and insane, with big chunks of "Who ate The Jokers brains to come up with this?!" thrown on top of it, not only that but it also encourages you to dive head first, no protections needed into that feel, witch Is something I love in RPGs.

But enough brown nosing, lets get to it.

A week ago me, my girlfriend (Rita) a friend of mine (the evil GM) decided to finally start playing.
I had already bombarded her with my feelings for the game and already had a PC in mind for me, so it was very easy for us to come up with characters and get a handle on the system.

Me
My Name is: John Smith (John Doe for friends and family)
What's been keeping you awake?: The guilt from killing my partner because he was going to talk to Internal Affairs about us planting evidence on a criminal we couldn't catch, plus the paranoia and fear of being caught by IA.
What just happened to you?: I'm being chased down a dark alley in the industrial district of the Slumbering City by someone connected to international terrorism who I just caught selling weapons to a terrorist cell.
What's on the surface?: A clean detective, the pride of the cities finest, a good man with a good heart who works everyday to keep the city safe.
What lies beneath?: A crocked cop who's on the Italian Mafia payroll.
What's your path?: Find inner peace and a clean conscience.

For all you movie fanatics you may think there is a strong Insomnia-Al-Pacino-role influence here, you're right.

Rita
My name is: Maryam
What's been keeping you awake?: I'm a women disguise has a man to gain acceptance in my community and join the terrorist cells. I fear being discovered by my colleagues.
What just happened to you?: I was caught by my best friend in the cell.
What's on the surface?: A loyal terrorist man who will do anything for The Cause.
What lies beneath?: A woman who really wants to find a new life for herself in the western society.
What's your path?: Find acceptance.

In the end we decided to link both characters by having the man me and my partner "framed" one of Maryam cell partners, we'll see how this works out in the end.

Whe did get to play a little, but since the GM didn't have anything prepared at the time and was mostly improving we decided to postpone the session so has to give him time to develop some cool ideias to throw at us next time around.

However I'm going to write a short AP about what we played and the how everything worked. I'm really looking forward to play some more and really explore the setting a mechanics of the game, I think I've found a winner here.

I do have a couple of questions:
- How long do you guys figure a DRYH can last? I think we can make a full 6-10 sessions out of it, involving the completion of ones path and the beginning of another.
- Does DRYH function well in a adventure mode campaign? I think you can make a quest like game out of it if you make the reward for the quest the answer to the "What's Your Path" question, and have a handful of side adventures to build conflicts to resolve that one quest.

[iago]

Ooh, nice.  Touching on a hotbutton modern theme like terrorism with your concepts is a good way to really dig deep into the modern-metaphors-made-flesh terror angle of the Mad City.  Good call.

I do have a couple of questions:
- How long do you guys figure a DRYH can last? I think we can make a full 6-10 sessions out of it, involving the completion of ones path and the beginning of another.

None of my playtests have gone a full 6-10 sessions, but neither have they featured the conclusions of their stories.  My feeling is that so long as the despair/hope economy stays active (and the burden of that is on your GM), the characters will have the resources at their disposal to pull themselves out of some of the nastier spirals that the system offers.  But I'm still feeling out the answer to this question -- I'm not sure it's a predictable thing.

- Does DRYH function well in a adventure mode campaign? I think you can make a quest like game out of it if you make the reward for the quest the answer to the "What's Your Path" question, and have a handful of side adventures to build conflicts to resolve that one quest.

Absolutely.  I tried to design DRYH so you can play it in a mode that best fits your group's playstyle.  The only truly common aspect of play that I encourage throughout all of those playstyles is getting the GM on the same page as the idea that you should look deep and long at the answers to the character questionnaires, and grow your play out of the bits and pieces of ideas presented there.  Always ground your story in the players: they're what's important (I think this is underscored by the system -- the players get the most varied mechanics, and they are their own worst enemies, moreso than any Pain that the GM throws at them).

[RPL]

Thanks for the quick reply.

Another question came up during play that we didn't know what to do and didn't found an answer in the book, altough we may have missed it: How exactly does scene framing work in this game? is it like PTA were all players get their take at framing a scene one at the time, or is it something just for the GM to do?

We went for the PTA option, everyone takes turns at framing scenes.

Note: I'm from Portugal so I apologize in advance for my bad engrish hehe.

[iago]

Both methods are correct!  DRYH is purposely agnostic on that front.  Do the method that best suits you.

To an extent, players always frame their *first* scenes, though, going by the guidelines for how to use "What Just Happened?"

[Darren Hill]

I do have a couple of questions:
- How long do you guys figure a DRYH can last? I think we can make a full 6-10 sessions out of it, involving the completion of ones path and the beginning of another.
- Does DRYH function well in a adventure mode campaign? I think you can make a quest like game out of it if you make the reward for the quest the answer to the “What’s Your Path” question, and have a handful of side adventures to build conflicts to resolve that one quest.

On the time thing, I have played one session, but my impression is that it can last as long as you want it to. There's an inbuilt escalation of Exhaustion, but my impression was like this. Play will be split into discrete units (a session, an adventure, whatever), and within that period you are involved in a cycle of rising Exhaustion (other resources are being managed, too, but the key one is Exhaustion). If you can manage its level and stop it rising to level 6, and often you will be able to, then you've made it through that cycle. In the next session/adventure/whatever, you'll start all over again.
And even if you fail and crash, there are ways to come back from that - not easily but it's possible.
So I think the 6-10 sessions is certainly doable.

Adventure mode: yes, I think DLYH will work fine for this sort of thing. My one session was essentially two PCs having their own fairly linear adventure that happened to overlap in a lot of places. Which reminds me, <blushing> I must get that actual play written up.

[RPL]

Sidenote: I forgot to post the Talents we chose for our characters
Me
Exhaustion: Fast Weapon Reload
Madness: Forward planing, I forgot how it's spelled, it's that Talent where can pull a rabbit out a hat even if you've hadn't the rabbit before... or the hat for that matter.
Responses:
Flight: 1
Fight: 2

Rita
Exhaustion: Uncanny grace when wielding her scimitar
Madness: Dead gaze witch turns things into sand
Responses:
Flight: 0
Fight: 3

This brings me to another question that came during character creation, when you chose your Response your response boxes are the ones you selected considered "checked" for Madness Dominance resolution?

Example with my character:
If I had a roll in witch Madness was dominant, would I have to choose between my 2 Fight boxes and my 1 Flight box, or are those boxes already considered to be "checked" and I would have to choose between my 1 Fight and 2 Flight boxes? During play we went with the first option, because it made more sense to us since the other option didn't made much sense.


Darren,

Measuring the duration for the adventures in Exhaustion cycles seems pretty cool to me, are you using that in your game? If so could you report on its functionality?

[Darren Hill]

Darren,

Measuring the duration for the adventures in Exhaustion cycles seems pretty cool to me, are you using that in your game? If so could you report on its functionality?

I've only played one session, and won't get to play another for quite some time. But my adventure was built around a mental hospital, and by the end of the session, one player had completed his 'quest' and crashed on his very last roll. So he fell asleep in a place of safety having escaped the Dark City. The other character completed his goal, and was on the verge of collapse (highest Exhaustion he could have and not crash), and since he'd just become a 'guest' of the (now safe) hospital, he was taken back to his bed and sedated.
So it striuck me that if you can arrange to have your Crashes at the end of an 'adventure' (if you have your sessions set up that way), you do get a cycle like that one I described. I could see a campaign where at the end of each adventure, the players characters have the opportunity to collapse into bed, though DRYH isn't meant to be run that way.

But even if you don't plan to run it that way, it looks to me like a similar cycle may emerge in play (without the sleep).
In traditionally prepared such adventures, typically, you'll start out with easier rolls, gradually build up to the more difficult ones, and have those difficult ones interspersed with occasional easier rolls.
So, you probably end the adventure with a high Exhaustion, and at the start of the next, have the opportunity to reduce it when things are going a bit easier, and when the tension ramps up again you're a bit better prepared to deal with it.

One think I also suspect that if the group is acting like a team, Crashes will replace the D&D Recover Spells period. At some point, you'll have one person Crash, and if he has allies around to protect him, play will stop for a few game days as the other guard and protect him (maybe play won't stop, as the guards may be challenged, or individuals may head off to do things while some continue guarding). Maybe another with high Exhaustion may take a risk and collapse at this point while under guard. (That all assumes there isn't some time pressure the rest of the players are under.) If this happens too often, and it becomes too D&D-like, it will probably spoil the game;s flavour.

[iago]

At character creation you select what boxes are available to be checked in play. 

On my character sheet, I color in the boxes I *didn't* pick, leaving empty boxes representing the ones I *did*.

[RPL]

As promised: The Actual Play. Not at all short since I cramped up two sessions.