This is the sequel to this thread.


We haven’t played out the Redgard map yet, but it looks like play may move around the region a bit over the next couple of sessions or so. There’s a number of options here, depending on what the players decide to do and how I present things.

Apari is about to ride out with Roland and kill some orcs, planning to head for the snow elf stronghold Autilar afterwards. Katrin is planning to run away from the Pike with the snow elf prisoner Nollorn, to escort him to Autilar.
The advancing orc army might complicate matters a tad … and so will Uilia, Snow of Autilar and Nollorn’s mother, now on her way to the Pike to demand her son to be released.



Katrin

With Katrin I’m still running strong on the initial bang material. Here’s my current list:

Info:

Olec is betraying House Norfell by allying with Roland in his own name.

Veddia entangled in a wild kiss with Olec – as he storms off (to ride out with Roland and Apari), she claims he forced her and complains bitterly of Olec’s sway over Roland and the Pike.

Olec’s sword oozes black blood when he prepares to fight to the death.

To be demonstrated as needed: Reifels knows magic that can help in a fight.

(Note to self: Charankh's ghost!)

Bangs:

- The staircase down to the dungeons is guarded by two men, who deny access on “King Roland’s” and “Prince Reifels’s” orders. (No match for Katrin in an armed fight, as all three of them know.)

- Veddia begs Katrin to write a letter to her father explaining the situation, distancing herself from Olec and assuring him of Katrin’s and Veddia’s loyalty to House Baden. Veddia has “a courier she can trust”.

- A bruised Reifels reminds Katrin of the quest for the Crown, and insists that Katrin can’t leave while Olec and his two thug cousins are on the Pike: “Olec and Veddia will take over.”

- Once Katrin and Nollorn are away from the Pike, Reifels (with huge book) and Tam turn up, either alone or together. Reifels implores Katrin to turn back; if she won’t, he will come as well. Nollorn isn’t in shape to go on by himself.

- A large force of orcs starts moving into Glass Valley (ice needles) from the north just as Katrin & Co are getting ready to cross from east to west, trying to reach snow elf territory on the far ridge. (Either spearhead of Izrador’s army, driving in a wedge between Dorns and snow elves; or Ice Fang Mothers, the snow elves’ allies.)
- Turning back quickly is safer than going on. Either is safer than waiting for long because of orc outriders (on war boros – small mammoths). Neither is completely without risk.
- Nollorn will go on, by himself if no one else comes.
- Tam speaks in favour of going back “to our own people”.
- Reifels feels he carries the future of the Dorns (in his book) and must bring it to safety with the elves.

- Hot pursuit: Stand and fight a rearguard action… or have Tam do so? (He’ll volunteer of course.) Or run for it together?
(Lucy keeps asking for Katrin to "hit rock bottom", so now I feel almost obliged to present her with a chance to fall into orc hands...)

- Many myths: looking more closely at the myths of the Dornish Crown it becomes apparent that there is one slight problem. In all the stories Reifels is the strong warrior and his wife helps him out with magic as he battles his way up the slope. Not the most feasible combination, with Katrin and present-day Reifels…


Apari:

Still working on understanding the player, so my thoughts are more tentative here. Discussion of the player’s own plot input follows the bangs list.

Info:

Some arrows are missing from Apari’s quiver.

Olec’s sword oozes black blood when he prepares to fight to the death.


Bangs:

- Leia’s ghost, mad with grief and guilt, begs Apari to forgive her and “bring her babies back” so she can find peace. (Leia’s sister Catti, also a ghost, told Apari last session that she knows where the babies are.)

- Catti’s ghost tells Apari that she has magically bound his daggers to her and that every time he uses them, he will “come closer” to her.

- Orcs rush Apari: will he draw his daggers on them?

- Catti will augment his dagger fighting with her desire for him - player may choose to apply his love for his wife, for a total penalty.

- Each time Apari draws blood with his daggers, ghostly babies wail.

- Roland is shot in the back with one of Apari’s arrows.

- Surrounded by a flying squadron of snow elves on giant eagles: Uilia Snow of Autilar demands her son.



Player’s plot input

Apari’s player gave me some utterly cool stuff to play with. Two ghosts pursue Apari: his wife Leia, whom he killed by mistake (Love Leia 20w); and Leia’s sister Catti, who wanted Apari for herself and set Apari up to kill his own wife. When Apari found out about this, he killed Catti in a dagger duel (Hate Catti 10w). He left the daggers that had killed both women behind and still won’t use them, but is now carrying them again since his wife’s ghost brought them to him.

The player tells me that he sees Apari go gradually mad, as he’s drawn more and more into talking with ghosts rather than interact with living people.

(Between sessions, the player asked me whether we could have a scene in which Apari’s wife appears and tells him to use the daggers. I said ok, but wouldn’t that kind of do away with his whole cool idea? He thought for a moment and agreed. He agreed to let me try and create something more dramatic and complicated – whew!)

He appears to have been ok with the Catti scene we did last session; the character ended up all clenched with rage but I think the player enjoyed himself playing that. So I'm going further down that route.

Here are my thoughts. When Leia died, Catti magically captured the spirits/souls of Leia’s and Apari’s unborn twins. She has magically bound them to the daggers in some way.

Leia is desperate to have her babies back, bordering on madness with grief and loss and guilt for having contributed to the mistake that made Apari kill her, hence the bang that has her pleading to Apari. Once Apari and Leia figure out that Catti is behind things (again!), she may end up begging Apari to do whatever Catti wants because she can think of nothing but her missing babies.

Catti wants Apari to bring her back to life: last session she told him, “you know we belong together, you know we are meant to fight side by side”.
My initial thought was that she wants him to use the Tear of Healing on her, but perhaps there’s some sinister way in which the baby-imbued daggers drinking blood will feed her and will gradually bring her back. (Be careful not to go too Hellbound Heart here...)


We have some added potential for the future in the fact that by elven funeral customs, Leia’s corpse and soul would likely have been bound to a tree in Erethor after she died. So she escaped, or was set free by someone, or something, for some future purpose. For example:
- Catti freed Leia, either inadvertently when she stole the babies or knowingly for her own nefarious purposes.
- Leia received help from one of the many demons haunting the Aruun jungle, for the demon’s (nefarious?) purposes.
- The “demon” who helped Leia was actually a creature working against the Shadow. (An angel the PCs freed in an earlier scenario would fit the bill.)
- Some horrible large-scale event destroyed trees and set souls free in Apari’s and Leia’s home region.

(quote copied from actual play thread:)

Mike Holmes wrote: It seems that what you selected for a goal for Olec was something like "ensure that Roland never listens to her over me ever again." You could have done other things like "Get Roland to kick her out" or "Make everyone in the room think she's crazy" or just "defend my position in Roland's council" (this makes the "damage" of the contest very one-sided - losing would mean that she'd just never be able to discredit Olec in front of Roland again. Sometimes contests just are sorta one-sided in terms of what the results might be (you can give a bonus to a character who attempts very small goals, if you like).

I'll comment on what this means about Bangs in the Bang thread. ;-)

By "one-sided" I mean that one side is looking to do some harm to another in the contest, and the other side is only looking to prevent the harm for the most part.

Again, you can have two characters fight with a goal to kill each other, or one can be out to kill, while the other only seeks to get away from the other character.

The point is that the potential outcomes of the goals don't have to match in any way. It seems "unbalanced" that the outcome of one side is likely to be death, while the other side's outcome would only be to become unable to find the character or somesuch. And, well, it isn't parallel. This happens, and it's OK.

That said, what's often fun is to try to find the "hidden" agenda of the guy with the goal that seems weaker. For example, the guy who tries to kill himself from the lethal attacker may be trying to teach a the attacker a lesson. The example I keep thinking of is the kung fu master teaching a violent person the error of his ways by subduing his attempts to kill the master. The goal might seem like it's just for the master to stay alive, but he may really be intending to alter the attacker in such a way that he understands the futility of his violence. In fact, in many ways it's much more powerful to transform a living enemy into an ally than it is to convert him to a dead person.

Anyhow, you've basically allowed her to get away once with failing to Olec in a way that seems pretty one-sided. She just can't assault him again, she's otherwise undamaged herself. Next time, make Olec go for something more damaging to her goals. Have him discredit her or something. Or actually get thrown out of Roland's court.

Now, that said, this is a somewhat "final" option in some ways. It might be time for it, but maybe not. Just like selecting "dying" and then killing a PC is not a good idea in most cases, having a contest remove a character from conflict in play is not a good idea, either. So only use this option if you think that:
- Lucy will try hard to find another way to get back "in" at court (maybe she helps Reifels overthrow Roland or something, I dunno). Or
- The dramatic potential of that R-Map is pretty much used up.

Also, only do this if you have some ideas for where they might go, and bangs for that. Otherwise, there are always other options. Again, Roland needs Katrin for some things. So as a result of losing the next contest to Olec, Roland might offer to let her stay, but only if she permenantly gives something up, like marrying Tam (marrying Roland instead). Or maybe he just never listens to her suggestions again. There are lots of ways to permenantly damage Katrin if Olec wins next time.

Now, that said, maybe she wins next time. Note that an interesting thing about HQ is that even if she's an underdog, she might win some contests she doesn't expect - the HQ odds are designed to support this possibility. So her goal of "bottoming out" might not be possible from a mechanical POV.

But that's OK. Because she can still do it. Here's the thing - "bottoming out" isn't really about wining or losing contests. That can be part of it, but it's very possible to bottom out through winning. Take Hamlet. He rolls well, and accidentally kills his girlfriend's father. She then kills herself, etc.

Bottoming out is about losing everything that you care about. So it doesn't matter how it happens, but at some point her plans to become politically important have to grow thin to non-existent, her plans to marry Tam should be in a shambles (perhaps with him dead, even), and even her family thinking that she's a failure, etc. Basically look at every value you can discern on her character sheet, and figure out ways to have the source of the value be eliminated.

The theory is that at some point, as she gets very close to nothing left, the player will grasp onto one small remaining thing - perhaps just one remaining personality trait like Hopeful. And then they'll make a comback to turn things around. At that point, then you have to find ways to allow the character opportunities to fix some of her situation, or make things "right" again as much as possible.

It's tricky in terms of pacing. You don't want to crash everything all at once, but you want to do it relatively quickly. Or else the fall will get boring.

So, what's the first thing you're going to do in engineering her bottoming out?

Mike

Thanks for the brilliant explanations of one-sidedness and hidden agendas. You answered a number of unarticulated questions on my part.

Mike Holmes wrote: Anyhow, you've basically allowed her to get away once with failing to Olec in a way that seems pretty one-sided. She just can't assault him again, she's otherwise undamaged herself. Next time, make Olec go for something more damaging to her goals. Have him discredit her or something. Or actually get thrown out of Roland's court.

- Lucy will try hard to find another way to get back "in" at court (maybe she helps Reifels overthrow Roland or something, I dunno).

Or - The dramatic potential of that R-Map is pretty much used up.

Bottoming out is about losing everything that you care about. So it doesn't matter how it happens, but at some point her plans to become politically important have to grow thin to non-existent, her plans to marry Tam should be in a shambles (perhaps with him dead, even), and even her family thinking that she's a failure, etc. Basically look at every value you can discern on her character sheet, and figure out ways to have the source of the value be eliminated.

So, what's the first thing you're going to do in engineering her bottoming out?

StalkingBlue wrote: Yes it was one-sided, my bad. The way Lucy played, all Olec had to do was stand and watch Katrin demolish herself, so it was plausible (and sufficient to carry the scene).

That said, as I've said in the other thread, depending on what Lucy wants we may yet settle on a more far-reaching Consequence for this contest that may include Katrin's standing with Roland in general. I'm not going to go beyond what I envisaged as Olec's goal in the contest on my own, but if Lucy wants it, that's what we'll do.

We talk about that every time it comes up and she ends up being reassured and happy with how things are going, but it keeps creeping back.

That was probably part of my (inarticulate) hunch in my original planning, to put Apari on a different map at first. It would have given each of the characters their own set of conflicts and cool moments (both shining and grim), with less danger of comparing levels of "successes".

By no means. If we staid exclusively on that map we'd have at least another couple of sessions of play, and that's not even counting a possible heroquest. And I'm now letting snow elves in, and possibly orcs, which will draw things out further.

Hm. You see, I'm not at all sure that Lucy is aware of what it is she's asking for. So what I need to do is provide a way for her to get a feel for what story developments do in terms of character change. Which means that perhaps I should suggest to her that we go for a far-reaching Consequence of the last contest when we settle that.

In order to make a loss of Tam count, he has to be present and there has to be a seeming chance for the two of them to make up again before this happens. (I'm planning to have him seen ride out, much pained, after orcs with Roland & co., but he'll turn up when Katrin makes her run for it with Nollorn.)

In swearing her oath to Roland as "King of Dorns", Katrin has made herself subordinate to him even though she should be his equal. Worse, without realising it (and Lucy doesn't know this yet but will find out prob this session), she has put herself on the same footing with Olec, who is not only of inferior blood (from a retainer clan like Tam) but a traitor: he is betraying House Norfell by allying with Roland of Redguard.

Hm. Which reminds me. Once she leaves with Nollorn she'll have violated her oath of loyalty to Roland.

A new ability: Oath-Breaker. I think it rates 5w: higher than her Love Tam (3w) but lower than her Honourable (12w) - she does run away from Tam, but part of her reason for leaving is that she feels she's responsible for Nollorn having got himself captured looking for her, so that's honourable, too, in a sense. About reasonable?

I can so see them overreacting to undead people strolling into their capital asking to talk to Lady Katrin of Baden. And Katrin being who she is won't like seeing Arrenu put in a cage like a wild beast, and won't distance herself from him I'll bet, at least not right away.

Ok, one point warrants its own post.

I don't mean to say that Lucy should stop trying to win. Not at all. From my discussions with Lucy, my understanding is that she's relieved that she doesn't have to think about winning, nor worry about losing, any more. She loves making a story and she doesn't have a problem with putting her characters in horrible scrapes - in the past she did that in backstories, now we can see what we can do with that sort of thing in play.

That's where all our talk about losing and "hitting rock bottom" comes from - that and the fact that in some situations, despite me and despite herself, Lucy will suddenly sit there feeling that there's a "challenge" somewhere that she has to "beat", and will freeze up. I've learnt to stop and ask whether she's all right, she will say she doesn't know what to do and she isn't good at this politics, tactical thinking or whatever it is she perceives as the framework for the "challenge" at the time.

I offer guidance, I answer questions, I've sometimes suggested a number of possible decisions that she could take for Katrin and the direction that would likely take the story in. That takes the pressure off her for the moment and she ends up doing whatever appeals to her most, not necessarily using any of my suggestions, which is great of course. Most of the time her choice doesn't have much to do with wanting to win.

Currently as a result of all that Katrin's scenes have a lot more "pull" on all of us as the audience than Apari's do (for all his "winning" recently, no one's really rooting for him yet), and I think Lucy is very much aware of that and is enjoying it. This bears repeating: Katrin is the cooler character and I think Lucy knows that.

Yet whenever Apari's player gets fun out of winning something (and I haven't yet presented him with opportunities to risk something big and lose it, so if you like, the picture and the character are incomplete), it's like it triggers that old worry in Lucy: am I playing stupidly? Am I overlooking where the "real game" and the "real fun" is?

Which would have been the case in D&D. I know her pain, I've felt it. (Damn, I still feel it when I play a player character.) In past games we both made huge creative investments in what in D&D amounts to nothing but Colour. People will applaud you for it but at the end it counts for naught. The player who comes out ahead is always the one who has read up on the tactics and the feats and has (wisely, I should add) avoided investing creatively in a character.

That doesn't mean Lucy should or will never want to win again, of course not. She should, whenever she likes. It's still part of her play anyway, everything she says about "hitting rock bottom" is geared towards winning in the end. I see that very clearly.

It's only that winning doesn't have to be her sole and overriding concern anymore, she now can afford the luxury of going for (or not going for) the most dramatic, melodramatic or heart-breaking choice whenever she wants. But when another player still plays in a way that looks like winning is "the winning option", it's only natural for old memories to come up and wonder, am I playing this game in the right, fun way? Or am I going to be left stranded as I've been in the past? Am I (again) playing a giant with clay feet?

I think that is what is going on here. I'd repost this bit in the actual play thread for Lucy to comment, but I know she's currently very wrapped up in other stuff and doesn't have a lot of free resources for posting, so I'll print it out for her instead.

And sorry if I sound like I'm overanalysing - my feeling about this is very clear but trying to communicate it is hard, hence all these words. Dunno how to do it better.

Regarding Olec:

I should have given Olec a hidden agenda to frame the conflict in a more dramatic way because Lucy was aiming for a dramatic defeat. I do think I should have honoured that. (I did actually, as best as I could think of at the moment, but I'd like to do better next time.)

I do appreciate that you were talking not about "balancing encounters" but about increased variety in conflicts and goals, that is cool and helped me a lot putting things into more context.

I was merely drawing a (limited) conclusion from it for the Katrin's last contest against Olec, I now understand better why I wasn't quite happy with how I handled that.

(Not that I expect to be perfect in the future, but I learn by looking at why something didn't work as well as I'd have liked to and what I could do better. I also learn from the good stuff but I don't have to think about that too much, it kind of files away as a buzz of "this way" feeling that I can call up later. So, sorry for focussing on the not-so-good stuff; it's not that it figures bigger in my mind, it's simply what needs thinking about more, for me. )

Regarding your other comments:

Do I sound like I'm turning into a controlling narrator suddenly? Must do, judging by some of your comments. I was looking at my own techniques in isolation (and in wonder, and sometimes faint terror - yes it's still all very new and strange to me). That doesn't mean I'm going to enforce them in play like that, certainly not overriding player input.

Mike Holmes wrote: So, don't force them to stay, but definitely don't create any outcomes that force leaving, either. Make that a player choice. In fact, bangs about this are probably becoming more and more an option. Give strong incentive to stay and to go, and force the player to decide. Save that bang for when you're really ready to abandon the current characters.

Otherwise, just make the bangs about staying with X or staying with Y or the like, and leaving will not happen too soon.

I mean, if she's thinking her character needs to start coming back now, then make this as "bottomed out" as she requires.

This is good to note. Losses that she doesn't cause are not "bottoming out." That is, if somebody just takes away all the things that she values, that's not bottoming out, that's looking to make her into a revenge machine.

In swearing her oath to Roland as "King of Dorns", Katrin has made herself subordinate to him even though she should be his equal. Worse, without realising it (and Lucy doesn't know this yet but will find out prob this session), she has put herself on the same footing with Olec, who is not only of inferior blood (from a retainer clan like Tam) but a traitor: he is betraying House Norfell by allying with Roland of Redguard.

Danger Will Robinson! She didn't realize this when she did it? Who? The player or the character or both? This could be seen as railroading. You gave a choice without the player having the knowledge of what's going on, potentially (and you'll have to tell us) without indicating that it was a risk.

I can so see them overreacting to undead people strolling into their capital asking to talk to Lady Katrin of Baden. And Katrin being who she is won't like seeing Arrenu put in a cage like a wild beast, and won't distance herself from him I'll bet, at least not right away.

Or, if she does, she alienates herself from him (could send him into an undead rage or something, no?). It works either way, IMO.

On the issue of Lucy stalling out when decisions come up: taking what you've said quite literally, it sounds like standard GNS incoherence. That is, if it's true, Lucy sees Apari's player as playing using gamism, and she's been informed by you that you're all supposed to be playing narrativism.

Classic, really. The question is whether or not it's accurate. I don't know why, but something about the description of how it happens seems to be wrong. Can't put my finger on it, but, basically, I think that Apari's player isn't really using gamism. Maybe it's just a mistaken perception of gamism. Any thoughts on that? If not, then I'm sorta reduced to making suggestions regarding incoherence only.

Important question: did Lucy exhibit this apprehension before Apari's player joined the game?

The suggestion in the case of the incoherence is to get Apari's player on board with the mode. Or at the very least to display better being on board with it. That doesn't mean that he has to do things to get his character in trouble (though that would help if he did decide to do something like that once in a while). But if he would, at least display appropriate metagame signals. For one, instead of being bemused or confused about Lucy's play, he needs to understand what she's doing, and appreciate it to some extent. He doesn't have to agree with her decisions in all cases, but he should agree that they're hers to make, and that it's legitimate to drive your character into danger and trouble.

For his own play, perhaps some commentary on why he likes winning would help. That is, for the contest about Olec, was he excited about winning? If so, why? It's vaguely possible that he feels the gamism boost in self-esteem, but if so, I'm not sure why. There's really very little that a HQ player can do to stack the odds in his favor - and even if he does, he needs narrator compliance to do so. Meaning that every win of a contest is really just about the random roll of the dice. It doesn't really say anything about player skill or ingenuity. As such, there's nothing to rejoice over. But, ironically, RPG players have been trained to see their characters' successes as their own, and may miss this fact somehow.

But it's also possible that what Apari's player is enjoying are the choices he's making from a thematic POV, and just likes his character to be a winner. In that case, ask him what it is that he likes about the outcome for the character. Is winning against Olec cool simply because Olec is an ass? That's theme. He wants to win to make a statement about asses like Olec, not to make himself look good. If Lucy saw this, she might understand better that he's not playing to win as a player.

StalkingBlue wrote: Do I sound like I'm turning into a controlling narrator suddenly?

It was quite clear to Lucy that Katrin was taking a risk, but not actually what it was.

My feeling is that Lucy very much wants Katrin to leave for now, so bangs that I throw at her in tonight's session will give her that option. (I may ask her whether she wants to play out what happens, or start out in the snow alone with Nollorn.)

Apparently not. :-) She says it's doesn't feel like rock bottom yet, that's why I said I have to play it by ear. She, too, by the way.

All the while Apari's player was shuffling in his seat, not listening to what we were saying but signing and mumbling like some desparate pupil in class that this oath thing mustbe a bad idea and surely I the devious GM was setting a trap for poor Lucy...

(Apari's player had Apari enter the scene at that point, insisting he need to talk to Katrin urgently. Lucy told him no and went ahead.)

Protect Innocents (& Soft-Hearted & Devoted To The People):

Cool. That completely slipped in beneath my radar. I so need to use that for a complication very soon... which would be easier if we had Katrin in Baden's Bluff or elswehere in occupied territory.

Incoherence indeed.

Lucy said I hit the nail on the head with this:

StalkingBlue wrote: It's only that winning doesn't have to be her sole and overriding concern anymore, she now can afford the luxury of going for (or not going for) the most dramatic, melodramatic or heart-breaking choice whenever she wants. But when another player still plays in a way that looks like winning is "the winning option", it's only natural for old memories to come up and wonder, am I playing this game in the right, fun way? Or am I going to be left stranded as I've been in the past? Am I (again) playing a giant with clay feet?

Mike Holmes wrote: I don't know why, but something about the description of how it happens seems to be wrong. Can't put my finger on it, but, basically, I think that Apari's player isn't really using gamism. Maybe it's just a mistaken perception of gamism.

The suggestion in the case of the incoherence is to get Apari's player on board with the mode. Or at the very least to display better being on board with it. That doesn't mean that he has to do things to get his character in trouble (though that would help if he did decide to do something like that once in a while). But if he would, at least display appropriate metagame signals. For one, instead of being bemused or confused about Lucy's play, he needs to understand what she's doing, and appreciate it to some extent. He doesn't have to agree with her decisions in all cases, but he should agree that they're hers to make, and that it's legitimate to drive your character into danger and trouble.

For his own play, perhaps some commentary on why he likes winning would help.

It's vaguely possible that he feels the gamism boost in self-esteem, but if so, I'm not sure why. There's really very little that a HQ player can do to stack the odds in his favor - and even if he does, he needs narrator compliance to do so.

But it's also possible that what Apari's player is enjoying are the choices he's making from a thematic POV, and just likes his character to be a winner. In that case, ask him what it is that he likes about the outcome for the character. Is winning against Olec cool simply because Olec is an ass? That's theme. He wants to win to make a statement about asses like Olec, not to make himself look good.

All the while Apari's player was shuffling in his seat, not listening to what we were saying but signing and mumbling like some desparate pupil in class that this oath thing mustbe a bad idea and surely I the devious GM was setting a trap for poor Lucy...

See, classic incoherence indicator. Again, it might be a stylistic thing, or it might indicate actuall incoherence. That is, either Apari's player is actually concerned about "losing" to the GM, or he's joking about it to create thematic tension. Either way it's a bad idea, because it's confusing.

In fact, it's quite possible, that his statements are in a "kidding" mode, because he's confused about the mode of play.

In any case, it has to stop (or you two have to agree to play in another mode). The way to do this is to engage the player like, "Do you think I should set a trap for Katrin? Do you think Lucy would like that?" That's kind of stilted, but you get the idea. Basically address the isssues being brought up by the player's comments in clear terms.

As always, the best bangs have multivariate possible outcomes. The tendency is to make dilemmas because they're simple to create and easy to note. Try to have some that are more open-ended, however. Often this involves giving some power or thing to the PC with no suggestion whatsoever to do with it, just the question, "OK, now what do you do with it?" There are other typical ploys here as well.

See what I mean by alternate routs? The idea is for the character to "realize" that the rout they've been taking generally has not been working, and that they have to embrace some other of their values (forsaking the original ones) to head back to redemption.

Oooh, really poingiant: have her encounter somebody dying in the snow from having fallen on a sharp branch under the snow. They've been lying there in pain for hours, but she can help by taking the pain away, and allowing them to die peacefully.

She can realize that her religious values that give her this ability (or wherever she gets the ability from - see how important the "where it comes from" question is?) are what she should turn to.

Night King, Dragon, Undead Sarcosians...do them all. Write up bangs that include the introduction of each. No you won't be able to get to them all. But the ones that do get introduced will be the best for what's going on when you do introduce them.

Gotta have the princess show up. :-)

More thoughts on Apari’s player.

It certainly felt as if he was trying to play D&D last session, and (not surprisingly) being constantly frustrated. Whether D&D is all he wants, as BirdMan suggests in the actual play thread, isn't a question I can answer at this point. The player doesn't (yet?) get the narr mode of play - all I can do is try to analyse what happened, see whether I can do better in engaging him, and if I can't, well then I can't.


I've been wondering what was different from the two sessions before, when his play was like he was feeling his way into the new mode and enjoying it. I think the greatest difference was that before, he was able to introduce his character into the other PC's conflicts and scenes (to the point of abandoning Apari's own conflicts), while this time he was on his own.

It's difficult to tell because he doesn't want to discuss his preferences, but I get the feeling that it is a bit like this:

• He obviously realises that the other player is having fun in her scenes. I also believe that he feels the "pull" of the story we are creating: he's being pulled into it as if he were reading a book.

• He isn't reading a book of course, he's playing a game, so he wants in on the fun. Great. But ...

• He can't identify the mode of play. All he sees is the fun in the other player's scenes, and confusing, unexpected and difficult things happening to his character in his own scenes. He's not seeing that by simply responding and playing whatever the hell he likes with them he'll get his own fun going.

• So he evades his own chances to play and instead has his character wander over to where the "real fun" is. Which doesn't work all that well because in this mode of play it doesn't make his PC a party member with equal chances of competing at being "the best", it makes him a supporting character to the protagonist PC. Not good, and even less good when he wants his own PC to be cool but the protagonist PC is losing contests. So he muscles his way in to "win some" and (in his eyes) proves he's the best - because that's how it's worked in the past, right? So it ought to work again, right?


Only it doesn’t, of course.

Now is there some way I can engage him and get him to give our new mode of play a chance? Not sure.

Although at least he's seeing that the system isn’t giving him proper risks and challenges, and that is making him uncomfortable – it’s too easy beating it. (It’s noticeable that he thinks my skills at running the game with this system quite poor, but he’s working hard to not admit that without actually lying to me: anything to protect me from finding out that sore truth…) So if I tell him that the game isn’t about challenges and that if he wants to give the new style a chance he’ll have to think differently, that much might actually get through to him.

Which still leaves me to show him where the fun actually is, not just where it isn’t. I need some bangs for him that he won’t be able to dodge as easily as he did the ones before. So where does he engage?

I’ve tried the ghosts he created; he doesn’t like playing with them so far.
At his request I’ve given him a chance to bring his wife back to life if he can find the Tear of Healing, but he simply told Reifels to stop researching that and help his father make maps instead. He’s said he could never refuse his wife anything, but had no trouble lying to her when she asked him to find her babies. (It’ll be interesting to see whether he changes his mind about that now he knows the babies are somehow linked to the daggers. Perhaps he was just trying to wriggle out of something that he felt he had no way of solving – still looking for beatable challenges.)

I’ve tried the prisoner elf; he left him in the dungeons to be maltreated and went off to “save” Katrin from swearing loyalty to Roland instead. He did try twice, later, to get Nollorn out of Roland’s clutches, by betting on Katrin in her duel with Olec and by negotiating with Roland to let him take Nollorn to the snow elves in his investigation. (Even spent a HP trying to achieve this.)
Cool play, all the cooler because he never tried to take the extreme step of setting Nollorn free… but now Katrin has done just that, and I think Apari’s player is jealous that he "lost" and she "won".

I’m giving him a big political mess with Roland, whom Apari has acknowledged King of Dorns, practically taken hostage on his own land by snow elves, who Apari feels some abstract loyalty to. The player tried to muscle his way out of that regardless of the price, by threatening the snow elves with war from the wood elves if they don’t do what he says. (Not sure how to handle that. When he realised that this contest would be hard to win he didn’t want one, but insisted he made the statements nevertheless. I can’t really see the snow elves simply ignoring a threat of that magnitude – if they believe him they have every reason to not let him get away alive.)

After the session the player mentioned to me how the Dorns and snow elves really ought to work together and not act hostile towards each other. That way at least they would “survive a few minutes longer” once Izrador’s army strikes. When I said that it was all up to him to try and turn the situation into a political summit, he shrugged and told me Apari wouldn’t want to do that: “Apari is miffed now. He’s never been threatened by an elf before.”

Hi,

I think that you need to directly engage the player in a discussion, totally independently of his character. He seems to keep responding to overtures to discuss the game with "My guy wouldn't do that", which indicates to me that he's not getting the mode.

I would make an effort to talk to him as a player, and try to get him to articulate what he's liked and not liked so far, and do it entirely out of character. It seems like he wants interesting, beatable challenges that make his character look like the mental picture of him in his head. I'd suggest telling him that he can have that, but that you would like to bring out the subtext behind those challenges, and that even if his character isn't aware of that subtext, he as a player should feel free to work with it.

Look at that discussion you had about the possible political summit. The player's engaged, but he's keeping his character away from the situation. Why? Because he's been taught in D&D that making things happen in-game that your character wouldn't want to have happen is "bad play". This is a place where you might say something like "What if this political summit ends up having to happen, would you find it interesting for Apari to be involved even though he's miffed?" (There's an angle -- okay, the character's affronted, he doesn't like elves, but this is a setting where the enemy of my enemy is my friend. Is he really willing to let the Shadow advance, even a little, for the sake of his pride? That's a fascinating scenario that would "fizzle" and leave him frustrated in Actor stance, but could be a blast to play in Author stance, coming up with reasons why he keeps coming back despite his anger, etc.)



This is pretty far off track, but I wanted to talk about a situation I had similar to what I think I see. The player was very much about having his character look calm, cool, and competant, and was doing the whole "sarcastic loner" thing between opportunities to shine. I gave them a line on allies and resources that they exploited to the hilt to get "the job done". I then played out the natural consequences of them having exerted so much pressure (we're talking casual blackmail and exploiting budding romantic relationships for backup, serious stuff). The character's story, such as it was, had a "How far will you go for power? All the way" vibe to it. That might not have been totally satisfactory on its own, but the contrast with the other characters was really interesting -- they all said "The line is *here*", where here was different for each, and he said "There's no line at all."

Basically my take is that if someone wants to play a Jack Bauer (from 24) type of character, I let them do it, with the explicit understanding that the cost of victory is an explicit subtext.

I hope that helps a bit. I agree that there's no sneaking up on mode, so I think you'd be best off being explicit in telling him what you're trying to do. Good luck.

More news, good ones I think. Apari's player and I went for drinks tonight, with another friend who also games, and we managed to talk briefly about the Midnight game.

I told the player once again that the game isn't about risks and challenges of the D&D type and that if he keeps looking for them he'll just be frustrated. We clicked on this (for the first time) when I mentioned that obviously I wasn't even preparing stats or "encounter levels" (I don't pretend otherwise at the table), and was creating resistance TNs as the conflict warranted, as a story decision and not as a "challenge to beat"; he nodded and his eyes brightened, I think he suddenly understood what I ain't doing in the game.

When I said that the core of the new game style is presenting choices to players, preferably difficult ones, he confirmed that: yes there are choices, difficult ones for him. Wow. Playing with that doesn't come easily to him, but on the whole he does enjoy it. Even though he does tend to wriggle away from it, and although he was a bit sad (but also kinda relieved to have clarity) when I said that there weren't going to be D&D-style challenges anymore.

He still isn't really sure what defeats would add to a character, but this time round when I asked him whether he could tell me of any cool hero in a book or film who never suffered any setbacks (we've been through this before), he admitted that no - "but they win in the end". Of course, I said. Hm. In D&D you'd die, he said, thinking.

I tried to get through to him again that whatever choice he makes just leads to a different kind of story, they are all valid and all fun. I gained a bit of ground on that I think, compared to last time we spoke.

He says one reason he's been growing a bit uncomfortable at the table is that he doesn't know what he can and can't say. Can he make suggestions to the other player Lucy in her scenes? Can he laugh when a particularly melodramatic moment amuses him? What kind of feedback is he allowed to give? Is teasing allowed or will it be considered offensive? It sounded like he's been falling back on the old D&D-style jokes half because they felt like a "safe outlet" and only half because he was still trying to reinforce his preferred and familiar mode of play. (Yeah, that too. But I think he got my point this time round.)

So it's looking like he's trying to give the new mode of play a chance even though it's harder work for him than playing gamist - and he's beginning to see what our play is and isn't about, which is great.

Mike Holmes wrote: I think that you may want to consider that you've just got a different take on Apari than his player does. That is, what you're seeing as his issues, and what the player is seeing may just be different.

For example, you keep on trying to hammer on reproductive issues, like Apari's children. The player isn't interested. Consider that he's male, and that issues about children, especially if the player doesn't have any of his own, are just not as interesting as they tend to be for women, or people with children.

I mean, he's even told you point blank that he doesn't want to deal with the knives issue. He just wants it to be some backstory to make the knives all the cooler. Yes, I think that you may have "influenced" the player when you asked him if he wouldn't want to keep the conflict about his character's wife alive. That you should have gone with his original request.

Can you make conflict out of "power?" Sure, it's easy, really. Just give two choices of power. Become poliltically important with Roland, or go off after some artifact of power? Apparently he's playing this issue already, with his comments about choosing who to back.

Now, the real question which remains unanswered is whether or not these issues are "challenge" issues, or "thematic" issues. The player may be misusing the terminology, or he may not, when he says he wants "challenges." If he's got it correct, what he's saying is that he wants you to place challenges before the player to get the things he wants. So there's not really any question of which thing to get, but just how best to get them as a player. Gamism vs. Narrativism, basically.

I know you talk about your "group" and how they seem adverse to this sort of play - have you considered making some players out of non-gamers?

Andrew Norris wrote: Look at that discussion you had about the possible political summit. The player's engaged, but he's keeping his character away from the situation. Why? Because he's been taught in D&D that making things happen in-game that your character wouldn't want to have happen is "bad play".

Is he really willing to let the Shadow advance, even a little, for the sake of his pride? That's a fascinating scenario that would "fizzle" and leave him frustrated in Actor stance, but could be a blast to play in Author stance, coming up with reasons why he keeps coming back despite his anger, etc.

The player was very much about having his character look calm, cool, and competant, and was doing the whole "sarcastic loner" thing between opportunities to shine. I gave them a line on allies and resources that they exploited to the hilt to get "the job done". I then played out the natural consequences of them having exerted so much pressure (we're talking casual blackmail and exploiting budding romantic relationships for backup, serious stuff).

I hope that helps a bit. I agree that there's no sneaking up on mode, so I think you'd be best off being explicit in telling him what you're trying to do. Good luck.

First, about "falling behind," ask her how she might feeling that she's falling behind. Does she get fewer HP? This seems troubling, because if she's having fun, then why would she have such a question? I'm not saying she's not having fun, but worrying that you might not be having fun when you're having fun...well that's just wierd. No?

Apari's player (can we just call him Bob or something?), is not playing My-Guy play at all, from what I can see. My-Guy involves being reactionary often becuase of a perception of being manipulated. I think that, if anything, this is just garden variety incoherence. He's just playing gamism or whatever. I mean, it sounds like he honestly just wants to play that way - not that he's dysfunctionally avoiding something else. Just a clarification.

It sounds like you had a player expecting gamism who's now understanding, at least, what you're offering. Well done, getting him to grok it. I have to say that often this sort of conversation ends up with nothing but frustrated players. Just quickly, terms to avoid ever using in such discussions include "story." Seems like an innocent term, but it's not.

but seeing his reaction it is very likely that he wanted it to be background-cool and not actual-play-cool.

He says one reason he's been growing a bit uncomfortable at the table is that he doesn't know what he can and can't say.

Mike Holmes wrote: I'm not saying she's not having fun, but worrying that you might not be having fun when you're having fun...well that's just wierd. No?

Apari's player (can we just call him Bob or something?)...

That sort of thing. Again, hidden Male keyword. Once he realizes that he hasn't taken "Awesome Lover" watch him buy that at the very next opportunity.

Well, what did you tell him? That it's OK to say exactly what he feels? That, in fact, you encourage him to do so? Did you tell him point blank that you want him to play using his OOC knowledge? Not to "abuse" the game, but to help make the story better? Not to decide on how Apari reacts to Roland based on the character sheet, but on which decision will lead to the most interesting outcome for the players (meaning to use OOC knowledge to make the decision).

Did you tell him that one of your favorite moments in play was when he came into one of Katrin's scenes just at the right time? That you want him to do that constantly?

Lots of reading on this one in a series of threads about the game called "The Pool" about "Wallowing at the bottom off the Pool."

StalkingBlue wrote:

Mike Holmes wrote: I'm not saying she's not having fun, but worrying that you might not be having fun when you're having fun...well that's just wierd. No?

Not weird, no. It's a reaction to incoherence and its possible dangers.

The player's name is Ravi.

Your analysis about situation and premise is brilliant.

First, killing things and being powerful doesn't make a "male story" in Ron Edwards's sense, not any more than caring about your kids would make a "female story".

Killing things, power and offspring can (but don't have to) come into either type of story. In fact power is mentioned in the definition of the female story model (one of the facets of which is attracting sex partners btw, see table on p. 31), while offspring is at the centre of the conflict "zones" for the male story model on p. 28.

Back barbarian Dorns or potentially treacherous snow elves?

When he told me his backstory and insisted to bring it into play by taking relationships only to those ghosts, my first thought was, "Bollywood." (I'm so not into Bollywood films.)

"Traditionally female" themes just don't engage me in stories. At all. Thanks to HQ and R-maps, and your suggestions, I'm beginning to learn how relationships (and more specifically blood and sex ties) add an important dynamic to a game - but as themes as such they don't get me excited. To the extent where the notion of people making me play "their male game" is absurd, I'd choose a male game over a "traditionally female interest" game any day.

So... Ravi may see himself as "the minority" in our group and may feel that he has to ward himself against us, but I can't see how that has much to do with the way we play. Unless it's all those marriage proposals flying around, which after all were another man's idea. :-)

That sort of thing. Again, hidden Male keyword. Once he realizes that he hasn't taken "Awesome Lover" watch him buy that at the very next opportunity.

Female story! Female story! ;-p

Well, what did you tell him? ...

Yes to all.

I couldn't find them, neither in the Random Order Creations forum nor by searching bottom and pool. Definitely related to the Pool, yes?

Mike Holmes wrote:

The player's name is Ravi.

Halleluja. I thought he might be persued by the mob or something, and needed to be protected.

I was being a tad facetious.

See, violence is an option (to paraphrase Orlanth)! ;-) I wasn't saying it's the only option. Just what a lot of guys go for in adventure stuff.

So, the term I'd use isn't "Traditionally Female," but Anti-Bachelor. :-)

Well, now you're contradicting yourself. You say that, yes, you were throwing some "traditionally female" stuff at Apari, but you don't like that sort of stuff? So why were you throwing it at him then?

I'm just saying throw him some really macho action so he can feel better about participating in this game.

Yup, I'm willing to admit that I made a mistake if you are.

Mike Holmes wrote:

StalkingBlue wrote: And when he came up with the idea of Apari travelling back in time to save his wife, he immediately said that of course Apari hadn’t thought of that yet, and that of course he as the player wouldn't mind if this quest doesn’t come up until 50 years or so further down the line (i.e. outside the scope of our campaign). We’ll see what he does when he gets offered a chance… Although I’ll certainly not force it on him.

This is, of course, a heroquest to the realm of memory, where, no doubt, the soul of his wife is trapped.

Exactly what I was thinking.

At some point when others are messing around with the veil, make it clear somehow (without being pointed about it) that one can access the past and make it real in the future again by questing in the veil for memories and bringing them back to the "mundane" world. Then also have the war about to start or somesuch at home, and have him have to decide between his current real world responsibilities, and going chasing after shades.

Too cool. BTW, how old is Apari? How old do elves get in Midnight?

Mike

Mike Holmes wrote: Then also have the war about to start or somesuch at home, and have him have to decide between his current real world responsibilities, and going chasing after shades.

BTW, how old is Apari? How old do elves get in Midnight?

Notes for regional NPCs on R-map

I currently have four main groups in the region - Dorns and Sarcosans, snow elves, and orcs (some of whom are Izrador's followers, and the Ice Fangs currently dealing with the elves).


Dorns


Skyrfell Pike:

Roland Redguard, Lord of the Pike, self-styled King of Dorns, Iodor's old rival: Wants to be acknowledged King of Dorns and bring Dornland back to its previous warlike glory. His son's loyalty.

Prince Reifels, Roland's son, friend (of sorts) to Charankh: Wants to rebuild Dornland and shape its capital into a centre of enlightenment and learning.

Roland's general Olec, by birth a retainer of the Norfell family, hates the Ladies of Norfell: Wants power. Be free of the "yoke of the Norfells".

Each of them, naturally, wants the Dornish Crown.


The Allins, historically retainers of the Baden family:

Veddia, Roland's mistress and perhaps previously Iodor's: Wants a safe position of her own and to outrank Marja, Iodor's wife.

Tam, Veddia's little brother, Katrin's fiancé: Wants Katrin to himself. Family loyalty to Veddia.


Baden's Bluff:

(Need tie between either or both of Katrin's parents, a close mesh of old mutual favours and obligations most likely: the Badens live a cover as well-off Church-approved merchants, the Norfells are pirates and smugglers on the Pellurian Sea.)

Iodor Baden, Katrin's father, Roland's old rival; currently on the brink of being betrayed and arrested: Wants to maintain his cover, and serve the name of Baden until the end. To see Katrin again before he dies. (Could be Arrenu helping Iodor out.)

Marja, Iodor's wife and Katrin's mother, an expert seeming collborator; hates Veddia who she is convinced has had an affair with Iodor: Wants peace in her own home, to counteract the many daily lies and fears of her life, and the horrors beyond the Badens' relatively protected sphere. Never to see an Allin, or hear the name Allin again.

Nes & Tara Norfell, the Ladies of Norfell (House of Pirate Princes), regents for their sickly and feeble-brained child nephew Leo: Want to uphold the name of their House. Find a way to preserve the line. Expose Olec as the traitor he is and have their revenge on him.


Sarcosans

Arrenu, former Sarcosan Freerider, had an affair with Katrin, now undead; currently Jahzir's emissary: Wants release from the Hunger. Sarcosan glory restored.

Night King Jahzir, Sword of Shadow: Wants to destroy Sunulael. Become King of Erenland at last.

Night King Sunulael, the undead Priest of Shadow: Wants all of Aryth pliable in his own cold claw.


Orcs

(Need ties between some or all of these four.)

Ghost of Charankh, former Ice Fang priestess(shamaness?): Wants recognition of the plight of the orcs. Revenge for her own sufferings and violent death.

General Grial, commander of the Northern Arm of the offensive, an army hardliner, feared strategist and one of Sunulael's favourites: Wants Caradul in his grip.

Skoon, a person of some rank in the Northern Offensive and secretly a follower of the White Mother: Wants to spread the word of the faith, undermine the Shadow Church's hold and awaken orcs to the realisation that in the end they, too, will be used and then discarded by Izrador.

Priestess(Shamaness?) Sojjok, a member of the Ice Fang delegation to Autilar, has (had?) and affair with the Blood of Autilar: Wants to protect her secret. Keep the treaty with the snow elves, which she sees as the only chance for her tribe to escape destruction by Izrador's armies.


Snow elves

Uilia, Snow (head mage) of Autilar: Wants Nollorn safe. Then to defend Autilar and the snow elves as long as she can.

The tracker Nollorn, Uilia's son:Wants to bring Katrin and Reifels to Autilar.

The Blood (warleader) of Autilar: Wants to defend Autilar and Uilia to his last breath. To regain Uilia's respect.

Esne, Tree of Autilar, (half-?)sister to Ardherin and Latar: Wants orcs out of Autilar. Now. Wants Ardherin dead and forgotten.

Latar the Herbalist, (half-?)brother to Esne and Ardherin: Wants to pacify Esne. Wants Ardherin saved from evil (through a memory quest).

Night King Ardherin, formerly High Quees Aradiel's consort, now Sorcerer of Shadow, controller of demons: Wants Aradiel in his power, hall his rivals dead and all the demons of Aryth at his beck and call.
(As far as anyone in our group knows, A. is a snow elf. I'd like him to have jungle elf blood though, at least partly, to make him more interesting for Ravi. That would also explain Ardherin's passion for controlling demons, which is how Izrador trapped and turned him in the first place. Ardherin's appearance has changed since he became a Night King, to a very unnatural white (ugh, the Michael Jackson of elves... now there's a scary thought), which is why he's widely believed to be a snow elf - but he might well have been dark bron and tattoed before.)