[IAWA] Conflict questions/clarifications

[Tancred]

I ran In a Wicked Age for the first time last week for 4 players and it worked very well I think. There were a couple of minor questions that cropped up, however - I haven't seen them answered elsewhere, but apologies if they've already been covered.

1) Can other characters enter a conflict in the second or third round? I ruled they couldn't, but on reflection I can't see anything would break if I had allowed it. I think they would automatically be ineligible for the Owe list, however. Am I missing something here?

2) Can the Forms/intentions change once a conflict has begun? For example, a character starts out running away using 'Directly' and 'For Myself' but the player decides on a change of tactic in round 2 and has his character stand their ground, swinging fists and suggests using 'With Violence' and 'Directly' instead. The examples in the book don't address this issue, and I ruled that you couldn't change forms halfway through, mainly because allowing the change seemed to encourage starting round 1 out with low dice to get on the Owe List, then switching to strong dice in the 2nd and 3rd rounds to win the conflict. On reflection though, I'm not sure this is such a worry and allowing the Forms to change seems intuitive.

3) I infer from the book that Particular Strengths can come in part-way through a conflict, and similarly do not automatically apply in every conflict round if the player's narration implies otherwise. Is this correct?

4) In our game three characters ended up trying to catch a golden armlet thrown into the air. When a winner emerged, we separately agreed consequences would be no dice lost for the losers, but the winner now possesses the armlet. However, if one of the players had resisted, refusing to give up the armlet and being Injured or Exhausted instead, what would happen to the armlet? Would we need to run another conflict immediately after for just these two characters because its possession is still contested?

I'm hoping the game is a success with the players and we'll get to give it another go!

Cheers,

Adrian

[lumpley]

Those are good questions.

1) I suspect nothing would break, but let me recommend instead that you have everybody who's there and who might possibly ever want to be in, roll in on the first round.

2) Keep using the same dice. You're allowed to have your character change tack in the fiction, absolutely, but you don't change dice.

3) The timing on that is potentially very complicated. My advice is to take it case by case every time, but generally to be generous with who rolls how many dice upfront, and stingy with changing dice midstream.

4) The armlet would fall in the dirt, I imagine, with the characters grappling and scrabbling instead of catching it. Whether you'd run another action sequence immediately after depends on who does what, and who tries to stop her. It certainly wouldn't be automatic that you would, nor would it necessarily be between just those two.

Followup questions always welcome!

-Vincent

[Tancred]

Thanks very much Vincent, that's all very helpful. Regarding 2) what tended to happen is narration followed the forms in round 1, but tended to stray from them in the following rounds implying other forms would have been better suited.

No further questions!

Adrian