I'm planning on running an IRC game of Le Mon Mouri starting tomorrow, but there are a few aspects of the rules I'm not entirely clear on. If someone who's played it a bit (Ron?) could clarify a bit, I'd appreciate it. I would just e-mail Sean, but the last time I did that (to get the game in the first place), it took at least a week for a response.

If some of these don't look like questions, just assume I'm asking for confirmation of my conclusions.

1) Statistically, transferring aspe is risky to do if the aspe aren't balanced. You're much more likely to further drain the lower one (possibly even all the way to maladi) and gain some feb than you are to bring the two back into balance. The action is much more useful to unbalance two balanced aspe in preparation for a more powerful attack.

2) I don't really get combat at all. Which of the following happens:
a)Each combatant picks an aspe and rolls with it against a TN of 2 + their selected aspe. Damage is subtracted in the loser from the winner's chosen aspe.
b)Each combatant picks an aspe and rolls with it against a TN of 2 + their selected aspe. Damage is subtracted in the loser from the attacker's chosen aspe.
c)Each combatant picks an aspe and rolls with it against a TN of 2 + their selected aspe. Damage is subtracted in the loser from the loser's chosen aspe. (The example points to this, but the rules text is unclear)
e)something else?

3)Lowered aspe become very hard to restore, as the opposed aspe has a tendency to defeat attempts.

4)On fully depleted aspe:

Fully depleted Aspé may be regained by sacrificing dice from other Aspé. Two dice may be sacrificed to add one die to a fully depleted pool; the player must fail a standard roll to transfer dice in this manner.

Hello,

This is going to be very difficult to answer, for two reasons. The first is that it's been quite a while since we played, and the second is that Le Mon Mouri did not mechanically satisfy me or my fellow players when the system really kicked in. So when you ask "how it works," the question splits into procedures vs. dynamics, without the two of them actually holding together (in our experience) as well as I'd hoped when we began play.

1) Statistically, transferring aspe is risky to do if the aspe aren't balanced. You're much more likely to further drain the lower one (possibly even all the way to maladi) and gain some feb than you are to bring the two back into balance. The action is much more useful to unbalance two balanced aspe in preparation for a more powerful attack.

2) I don't really get combat at all.

3)Lowered aspe become very hard to restore, as the opposed aspe has a tendency to defeat attempts.

4)On fully depleted aspe:

Fully depleted Aspé may be regained by sacrificing dice from other Aspé. Two dice may be sacrificed to add one die to a fully depleted pool; the player must fail a standard roll to transfer dice in this manner.

Because the aspe in question is at zero, isn't the failure of a penance/recovery roll a given? Or does it require failure of some other use of the aspe, such as combat?

The more I look at these mechanics, the more impressed I am with the balances and interrelations between the three aspe. They seem considerably more subtle and intreresting than your average set of game stats.

Hi Albert of Feh,

I'm still enamored of Le Mon Mouri even though we got frustrated with the mechanics of the game. I love the idea of memories as fuel for the character to burn. It has been awhile since we've played so I'm looking at old Forge topics and some email to see if I can answer your questions.

1. Transferring Aspe regardless of balance or imbalance is always risky. As Ron already mentioned, it seems to be best used in desperation. I'll also point out that Malady was the hardest quality to track consistently over multiple play sessions.

2. Combat; I think (e). First, the players are using the same Aspe for there target numbers. So if character A attacks with Gros Mal Ange, character B must defend with Gros Mal Ange and it's character B's GMA +2 that is used as the target number for both players. I hope I'm remembering that correctly. Here is an example that I described in an earlier post:

Sebastienne is attacking Lyonette in a Ti-Bon-Ange conflict; the former has TBA 4 and the latter has TBA 6. This means that both characters roll TBA with a target number of 8 (the target's TBA + 2). Whoever gets the least successes will take the differences in successes as damage to TBA.

If, say, Sebastienne loses by one success, her TBA drops to 3. Then Lyonette retaliates with a similar attack, with her TBA of 6 against Sebastienne's new value of 3. This time, the target number for both characters is 5, as 3 + 2 = 5.

This interpretation works very well, as far as we can tell. Note that if you are attacking someone whose targeted Aspe is 0, the target number for both rolls is 2 by our interpretation. (To complete this picture, as stated in the rules, they roll dice equal to another Aspe but must discard the two highest values and lose twice the normal dice.)

[Taken from Le Mon Mouri Questions.]

Sean Demory confirmed that this is an accurate description of combat.

3. Yep.

4. Recovering fully-depleted Aspe. I was dissatisfied with how this works, and I could never quite grasp the purpose of a "standard roll" in order to permit the sacrifice of dice from one Aspe to another. Eventually, it goes beyond a death-spiral to self-consumption.

I'll dig up my notes this evening and see if I can add anything else.

Julie

Ron, Julie,

Thanks for your quick replies.

Ron Edwards wrote: As written, Le Mon Mouri seems to be a "choose your death spiral" game, which is not necessarily a bad thing, but rather a shock if you were hoping for a little up-and-down spiking rather than a tailspin. Ultimately I was only able to gain satisfaction in play through deciding how my character truly died.