The end of a beginning.

Its been a long time, but here is my latest foray into roleplaying with the forgite twist. As my game stand now, some of the ideas and input given me by you guys have taken hold and some new ones are dangling around. One such thing is this:

Burning Wheel has “karma” point system called Artha that is used for different things such as bying rerolls, the ability to reroll sixes and so forth. These points are after some revision futher defined into three types Fate, Persona and Deeds. The latest suggestion was to enable a player to buy his way out of a failed roll by spending a persona point and taking a heavy complication.

Very interesting stuff, Kaare.

This saw some intresting use of traits by the players, Christer (liam) nearly had the trait: quiet, backfire on him as Liam usually takes great pleasure in apperaing unseen and unheard by people, suprising them. As stated above the dwarf came close to attacking him. While Gorin who shares the trait “loud snorer” with both Kornsworth and Thorgen reduces the party efficiency by keeping them awake at night (this is a concious decision by the player Jon), to the extent that it forces Liam to sleep outside the camp-site and is a dead give away in enemy territory.

The complication worked, but I could not help to feel bad because I had overruled Christer’s attempt at narration. Yet at the same time I felt the need to demonstrate what my definition of a suitable complication was. I know there is a lot of input on this waiting outthere and if you have any hints and tips at using this technique please let me know.
While you ponder this my story moves on . . .

Thanks for the feedback Luke, here’s part two for all of you to enjoy.

There were some changes to my group between the two games, leaving me hanging at the point where I did not want to be:

In the middle of a scenario with half my players gone and no easy introduction. I guess this stems from me being lazy and a fading, irrational dislike of split party games.

Thus my set up looked like this:

Espen, Calem, had to leave early last night and was off somewhere in the ancient dwarven halls.

Jon, Gorin, and Christer, Liam, were deep in the bowels of the dwarven keep, having just freed a bunch of women and children from the troll spawning pits.

Thomas, brother Fevrel, had left us, and so had Ole Morten, Locklear.

Joining us for the game was Peri, Joshua, and Christian, Tengel, both who were with the main army marching on the gates of the Forsaken Keep.

Great! Not only were they split physically, they were split in time as well. Luckily I was armed with experience and the discussion by Lisa Padol in his forum. This is how it went.

Both Peri and Christian wanted some time to think on their character motivation, so we began our session in their company just as Joshua was caught up by his lack of ambition.

Being the only ranger in the Vale (a position he had wrangled to escape the irate NCO Simon) Joshua was ordered by earl Stennarch to lead the army into the Tirnen Pendrath Pass. Unable to do anything about it and not knowing anything about tracking, the young man led the force to the pass by a roundabout way.
Meanwhile Tengel was chosen to lead the vanguard, riding side by side with the redeeming sgt. Barringer. Around them was the nobility of the Vale and a levy force of close to two hundred man. Not enough to do what the trolls had failed to do for a hundred years.
Entering the pass they rode down the lone sentry and more due to luck than planning came upon the Forsaken Keep unnoticed.

Deep in the mountain and further into the future the lone mage came closer and closer to the battle. Casting a few spells to protect himself he moved cautiously. But soon he came upon a group of wood trolls. Trying at first to bluff the trolls into thinking he was the Hooded One he made the mistake of trying to intimidate them when his ruse failed. As Calem was about to learn is that wood trolls believe that if one kills an enemy that is stronger this ties that enemies soul to the killer. Thus his show of force made them all rush him in a frenzy.
His magical shield held out, but the trolls hacked away at it relentlessly. Calem again resorted to druidic magic, blasting the trolls with magical flame, scouring the corridor of enemies. Unfortunately the spell had a high cost and it took a tremendous effort of will for the mage to maintain his magical shields.

Espen has not been present when the Jon and Christer painfully learned this particular aspect of wood troll psychology, and when he began to intimidate the trolls the knowing looks between the two was sweet. It was time to leave Espen and see how the last duo was doing.

At the same time the group from last session was leading the terrified women and children out from the spawning pit. Being very careful to avoid making any noise to attract the green tentacles they could see swirling around the edge of the pool in the circular hall. Climbing the stairs they heard two sentries replacing the two killed previously. Fevrel and Liam killed two with one falling into the pool, which now began to boil. Hurrying as much as they could they tried to guide the scared villagers up.

This was the hardest part to time correctly, but by now I had gotten into the flow, and I cut to the two outside.

A council of war discussed the possible approaches to the keep. An unguarded ramp would let the army onto a raised courtyard and thus the walls, much more than they had hoped to achieve. But Tengel’s cousin Fedred spoke out against this, reminding them all that they were there to create a distraction, not capture the keep. Besides the army could not reach the ramp before the trolls would cut it. Tengel spoke true and well, saying he would lead a small group up on the ramparts and hold them until more men could be brought up. He also trapped Fedred by playing on his apparent honour and bravery making him ride in this vanguard.
Earl Stennarch gave Tengel his family horn and gave him the honour of starting the attack. All eyes were upon him as he raised his sword and shouted: “For honour, for the innocents. Attack.” He then blew the horn.

The conflict between Christian’s Tengel and his cousin stems from sometime after the second session when I asked each of my players for a subplot they would like to explore next to the main story. Christian wanted Tengel’s “evil” family to enter the game more. Thus Fedred came to act as his foil. This was my first attempt to give the players narrative input and Fedred is well the one element I have included the most. When Fedred spoke up against Tengel’s plan there were mutters of “oh its him again”. It was also this man who grabbed a smug and safe Joshua and dragged him along with the vanguard.

Tengel’s vanguard thundered the short way to the ramp and captured it before the trolls could cut it down. They then proceeded to slaughter the trolls scattered about the courtyard. Joshua tore loose from Fedred, and found a corner from where he would use his bow to keep the trolls away from the ramp. It seemed that the day would be theirs until more trolls poured from the doors of the Keep.

Calem continued his stealthy trek under the main battle. He came into a hall that served as the courtyard for the surface keep. The hall was filled with trolls that chanted war cries and prepared to charge into the army outside. He also spotted a door that he surmised would lead him to the Hooded One. (The big troll guard was a give away). Having nearly made his way there he saw the gates beginning to open. Climbing up on the battlements he wondered if he had the strength to cast a spell that would bring the roof down. But his skill was not up to the task.

Sad to say I failed to provide much for Espen to do. He could have attacked the trolls opening the gates, but its fair to say that he would have thrown away any chance at getting to the Hooded One. Since they were in an underground cavern there was no way for him to cast his only area destructive spell, so he tried to find some way to use druidic magic to do this. Though it would have been cool and “dramatically appropriate” it would have bent the rules too much. But I’ll keep this scene in mind some day in the future, when his character has grown in skill.

The rescuers where busy guiding the terrified villagers away while fighting of the tentacles that tried to drag the unwary to their doom. Liam having led some up to the passage they had snuck in through went to stand guard at the doorway leading to the surface part of the keep. To his horror he saw he saw a bunch of humans and trolls sneaking down a hallway towards a robed and hooded figure. Liam, despite horrible wounds, drew his bow and shot the hooded figure. Alas his arrow bounced of the sorcerer’s magical shield.

I suspect Christer knew that the robed man was Espen’s Calem, but he played his character to the hilt and shot at him. Liam was still sorely wounded and he rolled good for a player with so few dice. Espen most certainly knew who the robed person was, and the agonized look on his face was priceless. But he kept his mouth shut.

The ambushing shadow-servants turned towards Liam, and then charged the wounded ranger. It looked like Liam would die.

Outside the troll-army had engaged the humans and it looked like the line would not hold for long. On the wall four armoured grey trolls ran upon the command of their big leader towards the wooden ramp. Knowing that if this ramp fell the vanguard would be lost Tengel charged them. Unnoticed by all Joshua rose to the occasion and actually dropped two of these trolls before they could reach the ramp. Tengel rode one down, but became locked in mortal combat with the fourth. It was not until Joshua wounded the troll that Tengel secured the ramp.
Charging from his place by the door the big leader ran towards the ramp as if something scared him away from the doorway. As Tengel braced himself for impact determined to hold the ramp he looked on with surprise as Joshua put an arrow through the troll’s throat.

I would dare to say that most of us had written of Joshua as the comic relief character. I think even Peri might have done so. However, here he rose to the occasion and actually carried the day. He used a lot of Artha, but it seemed that despite his lack of ambition the young man suddenly became a force to be reconed with. In this scene he truly shone and I have to give credit to Peri for not giving up on Joshua.

Inside things looked grim with Locklear and Thorgen desperately trying to keep the tentacles from grabbing any villagers and Liam and fevrel about to be overrun by trolls and evil men. Gorin who was bringing up the rear could do nothing but watch, until the thought struck him and he raised the Horn of the Herald. The deep note filled all the men and women on the side of good with renewed courage and strength.

The in game effect of this magic item was that all on the horn-blowers side would ignore all wound penalties and their morale would be bolstered. Jon’s timing was impeccable. Unfortunately for them I took control of their Physical Tolerance Grey Scales (used for tracking wounds), meaning they would not know what damage they would take in the battle to come.

In the brutal battle the ambushing trolls and men were killed, Calem fried the troll guarding the door leading up, and the spawn in the pool tore down the gate after the refugees. Leaving Gorin and Liam to follow Calem’s tracks through empty halls.

Upstairs the source of the troll leaders fear became obvious as the Hooded One stepped through the door. A young knight desperately charged the mage who killed him without breaking his stride. At this moment Fedred fled with a wounded sir Bran (from troll winter) and sir Pellogres (also from troll winter) tried to rescue Joshua. The mage cast a spell and the ramp was disintegrated, Joshua barely had time to throw himself of the horse before the brave knight fell off the wall.

I was trying to set the scene here for all to join for a final climatic battle on the battlements, but as usual my players got the better of me. Where I had intended for the Hooded One to hold his evil monologue and may bash the two around until the rest arrived, Christian had other plans. Having sent Tengel into the midst of the frenzied wood trolls to shield himself against magic of the sort Calem throws about (burning rain, very bad), Christian saw an opportunity. Drawing on all the artha he had left he charged the mage from behind.

Tengel raised his sword and spurred his horse. Driving the beast towards the overconfident sorcerer. Joshua shaking the cobwebs from his head saw his friend’s foolhardy charge and raised his bow. Hoping to get the mage’s attention. The mage raised his arms to cast a spell to blast the little man away and thus let Tengel hit him square in the back. His sword crashed through the magical shields, cutting a deep wound in the mage’s back. The arcane shields he held by the force of his will crumbled. Leaving him vulnerable to the Joshua’s arrow. With a startled cry of pain the mage they had opposed for two years died.

I think everyone was in shock. In one round of combat the two had cut down the main villain for all the previously episodes. But this was not a bad thing. The players Christian and Peri spent a sizable amount of artha and thus bought this ending with points they had earned themselves. It didn’t go as I planned it, but this was better and filled with infinitely more coolness than anything I had envisioned. It left the other three a little robbed though, but they would soon make a great impact.

Seeing their mighty lord fall the grey trolls took to flight. Tengel and Joshua’s joy turned to chagrin as they heard the collective frenzied howl of the wood trolls all around them. As one they turned on Joshua and the ranger/thief was very alone. Then Barringer entered the scene and repaid the two, dragging Joshua into one of the towers, leaving the door open long enough for Tengel to ride through.
As the trolls tried to hack their way in the remaing three entered the courtyard. Seeing the seething mob, Gorin raised his horn and blew a long note. The trolls turned to them and filled with bloodlust they charged. Though Liam’s arrows felled many and Gorin’s hammer was ready it all came down to the mage. Though he didn’t feel it Calem knew that his body was sorely taxed, yet he began his most powerful spell.

Jon didn’t hesitate and blew his horn the moment the three entered the battle. We were all caught up in the moment and it seemed the right thing to do. Espen, who always casts paintently and carefully to reduce the risk didn’t have time. Nor did he know how badly taxed his character really was. They could have run. But he chose to cast his spell.

The trolls drew nearer and the mage chanted. Then when they where a scant few paces from the heroes he unleashed his spell and scoured the courtyard of trolls. The mage then coughed up blood and fell, dying.

Espen spent artha for the “will to live” and staved off the mortal wound he received when he overtaxed himself. The trolls routed and the forces of good where victorious. What followed was a period of rest both for the characters and the players. It had been some intense hours. Though this session had for all intents and purposes been nothing but a four hour scripting marathon (i.e. one big battle) the heroism chosen by my players, their ability to seize moments and elevated them gave this game a feeling that has been discussed a lot here lately.

Yep IMO this felt epic, and it had nothing to do with the scale of things (it was a battle involving no more than five, six hundred combatants ), nor was it earth shattering (it was an agent of evil, but not the biggest one they will meet and his defeat saved only a few villagers), and the protagonists were far from mythic in skill and ability. What gave us that vaunted feeling was the players commitment to the outcome of the battle and their acceptance of the nature of my game.
We had some of the tropes; the heroic charges, the revesal of fortune, the desperate stand and the heroic sacrifice. I had given them stakes in the battle, and it had ramifications on their home (albeit only Shiring Vale).

And my two cents to the raging debate over at the RPG Theory Forum is that to get that gooey, elusive feeling we struggle so hard to define, one needs to have a social contract with one’s players that defines this as the type of game one is heading for and that the group as an entity works towards this common goal. I fear in our attempts to quantify this elusive concept the discussion got too bogged down in trying to quantify the one thing one really can’t quantify, a feeling.

So no matter how one defines an epic game my input is that to achieve this both the players and the gamemaster must be in agreement that this is the type of game one wants to play. Then all involved has to work to achive it. With everyone working towards this goal one gets commitment, and then one begins get stakes in the confrontation.

Our session however didn’t end here. So I will leave the words above to glow for themselves, and hope they made sense. The rest was like an epilogue, only with a whole lot more action than usual.

Espen took the character Fevrel, since Calem was close to death, and they all set out to examine the quarters of The Hooded One.

The fair lady Gwen had not been found, and the heroes made their way up into the highest part of the keep, seeking out the chambers of the Hooded One. Defeating two guards the heroes entered some torture chambers. There Thorgen found a survivor, the dwarf Eirik, who had been a travelling companion to Thorgen’s son Narvi. Thus they learned of Narvi’s fate and sacrifice. But before the wounded dwarf could be carried to safety a stone troll charged in on the heroes.
Desperate battle was joined, and the rock-like skin of the troll frustrated the heroes time and time again. Fevrel nearly fell to his death as a blow from the troll crushed the balcony he stood upon, leaving the poor monk dangling a hundred paces above ground. Tengel summoned all his strength and with a mighty trust forced his sword into the mouth of the troll, sending it tumbling over Fevrel robbing Tengel of his sword.

Espen used a persona point to save Fevrel when the monk/assassin failed his avoid roll and asked if the troll could miss, but crush the balcony the monk stood on instead. I found this a perfect complication and it was so. At same moment Christian threw another bunch of Artha into his strike, and struck the troll with fourteen successes (1 over obstacle is a hit, 5 is a superb hit). This left me in a pickle since a sword by the BW rules can only do so much damage, and a troll can take so much more than that. I let dramatic necessity over rule the books and let Tengel kill the troll with one blow, robbing him of his sword in the process.

Hearing screams from above the party rushed up and through a room with a body covered in white cloth. Barging in to rescue the fair lady Gwen they left the room undisturbed. The next fight was short and brutal ending with the death of the Hooded One’s troll torturer dead and a swooning lady Gwen rescued.
Joshua who had stayed behind downstairs came up to find the white cloth on the floor, curious he bent down to examined it only to be landed on by a mysterious assassin. A brief, silent and deadly scuffle resulted in the assassin pinning Joshua. A rasping voice revealed the attacker to be none other than Aelfric, and assassin previously killed by Liam. The assassin took the very dagger that Joshua had taken from him and took an ear as payment. Weakened the assassin took flight, leaving an unconscious Joshua with a message for Liam.

There after some of the heroes escorted Thorgen down to his sons resting place, the tomb of Niall IV (last lord of the dwarven keep) and there the dwarf said farewell to his son, giving the item he died for, the stone of sacrifice to Gorin.

The rest was just bookkeeping.

The above though not inherently epic in itself, it is the type of gaming I feel is important if one needs to refine and keep the epic feel alive in games that aim for that feel. It may seem from my initial definition that to achieve epic feeling one needs to have dramatic battles and a lot riding on every toss of the dice. Well this gets wearisome after a while and is not what I mean. To build the feel one needs to start small and work on the details.
The above could quickly have become what Valamir defined as filler, but by now I truly embraced player motivation and by combining that with the contract mentioned in my definition of epic gaming, I bring the high drama into even smaller events. Sure, they rescued the girl and found the lost stone of sacrifice, it is the meat and bone of nearly every cheesy rpg plot. But it is not the events themselves that count, but the way they came about.

My players act and talk like the characters of LOTR do, and I let them. They move in the high circles, and they get to make the decisions that count. Yet some times I need to give them information or to set the scene for future adventure, like above, and some time the fellowship needs to go through Moria and stop by Balin’s tomb. Am I making sense.

Thus my final argument as it stands is:

Epic gaming can be achived by a common concensous among the entire group to work together to achieve the epic feel. The players aswell as the narrator must be aware that the stakes will eventually be about something larger than the characters themselves. Armed with this knowledge the group must them communally work to create an environment where the feeling of epicness can grow.
When one achieves this environment the scale of the individual scenarios are insignificant as long as the group itself is making a gradual progression towards agreed upon final conflict.

To clarify this a bit I'll tie it into my game:
I said: look I am going to create a world and a game where you, the players will deternine the final out come in the third war against evil.
My players said: cool, we want to play these charcters.
I said: ok but you need to play heroes for this to work.
after a few sessions and some forgite wisdom they all said: so this is what you meant. We will be the heroes and you will tailor the setting around us to make our decisions count.
I answered: basicly yeah, you now know where we are going with this, I'll set the scene but you need to play it.

And they replied with the session above.


Thanks for a great game Luke.

Peace

K

Amazing! I am learning a lot from your posts!

Thanks!

Wowee, Kaare. You had me on the edge of my seat, laughing and cheering.

I would dare to say that most of us had written of Joshua as the comic relief character. I think even Peri might have done so. However, here he rose to the occasion and actually carried the day. He used a lot of Artha, but it seemed that despite his lack of ambition the young man suddenly became a force to be reconed with. In this scene he truly shone and I have to give credit to Peri for not giving up on Joshua.

I think everyone was in shock. In one round of combat the two had cut down the main villain for all the previously episodes. But this was not a bad thing. The players Christian and Peri spent a sizable amount of artha and thus bought this ending with points they had earned themselves. It didn’t go as I planned it, but this was better and filled with infinitely more coolness than anything I had envisioned. It left the other three a little robbed though, but they would soon make a great impact.

The trolls drew nearer and the mage chanted. Then when they where a scant few paces from the heroes he unleashed his spell and scoured the courtyard of trolls. The mage then coughed up blood and fell, dying.

Espen spent artha for the “will to live”

Espen used a persona point to save Fevrel when the monk/assassin failed his avoid roll and asked if the troll could miss, but crush the balcony the monk stood on instead. I found this a perfect complication and it was so. At same moment Christian threw another bunch of Artha into his strike, and struck the troll with fourteen successes (1 over obstacle is a hit, 5 is a superb hit). This left me in a pickle since a sword by the BW rules can only do so much damage, and a troll can take so much more than that. I let dramatic necessity over rule the books and let Tengel kill the troll with one blow, robbing him of his sword in the process

Glad you liked it.

One last question (for now), how did you handle the mass battle stuff? Did you simply describe it? Or did you use a mechanic?

The hall was filled with trolls that chanted war cries and prepared to charge into the army outside.

Oh, and another thing, were you awarding artha on the spot? If so, can you point out some places where you awarded a point?

All eyes were upon him as he raised his sword and shouted: “For honour, for the innocents. Attack.” He then blew the horn

Liam, despite horrible wounds, drew his bow and shot the hooded figure . . . Christer knew that the robed man was Espen’s Calem

As for the sword hit, I'm a bit more dubious of that. It seems you were caught up in the moment of heroism... A tenet of BW is that everything has its limits, including a heroic sword strike.

. . . so he tried to find some way to use druidic magic to do this. Though it would have been cool and “dramatically appropriate” it would have bent the rules too much.

For now I'll leave you with the question: why is it ok for my players to circumvent the rules(above), while it is a no no for me, their GM?

No attack inferred.

And do not take my fudging to imply that your game dosen't work, it does.

Discuss I will though,

Because the players are using an acknowledged mechanic, whereas you are just being arbitrary.

Tengel's player could have made quite a case against you for taking his sword away

This isn't storytime or acting class, it's a game.

GM and Player abide by the mechanics in order to create a shared reality. Violate the mechanics and the shared reality becomes questionable.