Last sesssion (here) Katrin was having a bit of a bad morning losing a duel against the known misogynist, Roland’s new general Olec and then learning from Reifels that uniting the Dorns may require marrying him as part of a heroquest for the Dornish Crown. We started the session slightly later in the same day.

The players are Apari’s player, who likes winning; and Katrin’s player Lucy, who’s developing a taste for … other cool things that could happen.


How the game went:


Apari stands on the Broken Tower, staring stonily out into the howling snow storm. Looking with his eyes, we see more than snowflakes on the wind. streaking, howling faces. Orcs; Dorns; and yellow, wild and fey-looking elves of a kind that no longer live in this world. Close to Apari and around him snakes a ghostly form with the tattoos of a jungle elf: Catti, his wife’s sister. She lures, goads, mocks him insanely, torn between her passion for him and her rage at (still) not falling for her. She tells him she has the power to bring back his unborn twins who died with his wife, if he only acknowledges that he and she belong together. After a while of this, Apari begins to look as if his teeth are about to splinter, he's clamping his mouth shut so violently.

***

Katrin is in her room, getting her cut face washed and treated by an incessantly prattling Veddia. Veddia complains about “what beasts men are” and tells Katrin she talked to Roland all through the night to appease his fury at Katrin killing his blind “pet” orc. Apparently Roland had sworn to have the orc (captured in a bloody orc attack the night Reifels was born a cripple) suffer for as long as he “would suffer from having a cripple for an only son”.
Veddia then confides that she was pregnant recently, but grew very sick and lost the child. She suspects Reifels of poisoning her, and gets Katrin to promise to spy on Reifels, find out whether he has poison in his study and try to get him to admit to his designs against Veddia.

***

Apari meanwhile has got rid of Catti and comes striding purposefully (yet still fuming) down into the dungeons to question Nollorn the snow elf, as he had promised to Roland. Eric and Aleric, the two cousins of Olec, are already there and having their own little fun with the prisoner. Apari decides he has had enough of a bad day and calls up his Waking Nightmare magic to make him look more intimidating. Deeply shaken and humiliated, the cousins sidle out.

Nollorn tells Apari about the snow elves’ truce with the Ice Fang Mothers, a tribe north of the main snow elf stronghold Autilar. Apari remains sceptical about a story in which orcs ally with elves against other orcs, but promises Nollorn to travel to Autilar and find out the truth. He goes to talk to Roland, but finds him and his people already at lunch in the Great Hall among his people, so he decides to wait.

***

Over lunch Reifels tells Apari that he hasn’t had much time to research the Tear of Healing, because his father is pressurising him to draw more maps for him. He offers, however, to make time for the research if Apari will do him a favour and talk to “a friend” by the name of Charankh, who has been pestering Reifels because she wants to meet the elf.
Apari tells Reifels sternly that he should obey his father and not waste time on research now (which is interesting because Apari wants the Tear of Healing to bring his passionately loved dead wife back), but agrees to talk to Charankh anyway later, when he has time.

Olec greatly amuses himself and Roland making snide remarks about women’s poor fighting skills in general and Katrin's in particular.

And in the midst of all of it, Roland suddenly wraps a brotherly arm around Katrin’s shoulders and proposes to his “spirited, if impetuous dear cousin” – and without bothering to so much as wait for an answer, cheerfully calls out a toast: to “the new Queen of Dornland”. Cheers echo round the hall and already the news is running out and down the corridors on all sides, while Reifels blanches, Veddia turns a twisted green and Apari watches in intense amusement … as Katrin exclaims, “Hold it!!!” And tells Roland no.

What now, girlish resistance? Has she no sense of politics at all? Surely she must know old Roland is not one for romantic tittle-tattle! "Come on. Say yes already!" Katrin protests that she is engaged to another.

She knows she isn’t getting through when Roland grins widely, still sure of his answer, about to say something more; only he’s interrupted by cries of “orcs!” and running. Armed Dorns come rushing into the hall, bespattered with blood and encrusted with snow: a patrol. They carry one of their number with two arrows sticking out of his belly. Their captain empties a sack of orc heads on the floor. “We were ambushed. Again.”

In the last man to step into the hall Katrin recognises her fiancé, Tam Allin. She shouts his name and races to clash with Tam in a thunderous Dornish embrace; Roland, worries, orcs and even Olec are forgotten.

Meanwhile Apari steps around the table to inspect the arrows (snow elven) and orc heads (which don’t show Ice Fang Mother markings). The dying warrior at Apari’s feet goes into a spasm and (no real healers being in evidence yet) Apari tries his best to give first aid, but fails – the man’s life ebbs away under his hands.

Katrin’s bliss doesn't last. Before she can blink, the haggard-looking Tam has taken offence at her enquiring about the camp she left him to guard instead of asking about him first, and is stomping out, leaving her stranded. Bad day. And about to get worse.

***

Roland has granted Apari a private audience for as long as it takes to get Roland’s horse saddled. He, Olec and his two cousins withdraw with Apari into the council chamber. Katrin follows, still looking stunned.

Apari offers to make sure that Roland personally will be recognised as King of Dorns by the elves. Condition: Apari will go to Autilar with Nollorn, to investigate further. Olec works himself up into a lather, telling Roland that without any doubt Apari has fallen under the evil white elf’s spell and is now working for the Enemy; he even worked sinister magic on Olec’s cousins when they interrogated the prisoner and were close to breaking him!

“Shut up Olec,” Apari says, and Katrin, “SHUT UP OLEC!!!”

A heated discussion ensues, in which Apari manages to completely cow Olec’s cousins (already shaken from their encounter with the scary elf in the dungeons); Katrin finally has enough and tells Olec that he is a stupid man who needs to sit down and shut up, then realises she may have made one huge irreversible mistake when a furious Roland sends her out of his council; Olec draws his sword and makes to physically jostle Apari out of the council chamber after her, but is browbeaten to the point of fleeing after Katrin when Apari simply stands there reminding him that he is the elven emissary; and Roland finally grudgingly agrees to let Apari go to Autilar and return in peace to report on his findings – however, he refuses to let Apari take Nollorn with him.

We ended with Apari getting ready to ride out with Roland against the orcs - while Katrin is on her way to the stables, planning to steal a horse, free Nollorn and escort him home to Autilar.



("What worked" and so on to follow.)

Contests

Apari had two simple contests, intimidating the two men who were maltreating Nollorn in the dungeons (major victory - we so need a religious underpinning for his Waking Nightmare stuff!) and trying to stabilise the dying warrior (major defeat). Katrin had no simple contests.

The main part of the session went into an extended contest in the council chamber. There was wonderful turn of events when Lucy suddenly decided in mid-contest that she wanted Katrin to lose this one. Badly. And instead of looking for chances to succeed, thought up a way of getting Katrin really, really into trouble.

Hence Katrin's tirade against Olec, which I believe started, "I can see you are a man who only understands short words. So I'll be using short words to get this through to you." And went on in the same vein, ending on "Now sit-down-and-shut-up." (Rather like one would talk to a dog...) The dice must have been listening for once: we rolled and Lucy very happily ended up with a complete defeat (-53 AP or thereabouts).

Apari's player followed this entire exchange with a look of utter consternation. :-) He promptly went on to win a complete victory against Olec, and when we could stop laughing long enough to play another round after that, ended the contest with a minor victory against Roland.
He spent a hero point on this because Nollorn's fate was important to him (minor victory meant that Roland promised to keep Nollorn safe until Apari returned) - which is interesting because he'd always insisted before that he'd never, never use HPs to bump.


What worked well

This whole bangs stuff is really growing on us. We had tons of fun this session. I don't have a very good feel for Apari's player yet, but that didn't matter so much because I didn't get to any bangs I'd prepared for him; instead he was busy creating his own scenes and conflicts.

Lucy maneuvering Katrin into complete defeat land was awesome. And very funny, mostly because of Apari's player's utter disbelief. And it's providing us with some wonderful new story options (and Lucy with a shiny new Hate Olec flaw).


What didn't work so well

Keeping a grip on that extended contest. I so need a contest assistant. Or more practice. Preferably both.

Lucy wanted to have Katrin act on her own rather than augment Apari, which sounded like there was a potential Katrin-Olec clash in it. So I treated Olec and Roland separately (with the half-cowed cousins as Olec's followers) and I still think that was the right way to do it - Apari working on Roland and Katrin clashing with Olec.

It was much harder than I expected to keep track of the two NPCs' various TNs (and what kinds of actions I'd calculated them for), to explain things to Apari's player as we went along and keep track of AP. I'd planned on giving the players their opponents' AP totals to track but it turned out that Apari's player, who hadn't played extended contests before, got confused trying to do that.


Open questions

I'm not entirely sure what the Consequence should be for Katrin's complete defeat against Olec. Basically I'm thinking Katrin has lost for good against him in political matters, at least in front of Roland. Lucy was also asking that Roland should fly into a rage at Katrin and should send her out (which is what I narrated), but that was momentary of course. I'm not sure just how far the waves of that policial defeat should travel.

As Consequence for Apari's complete victory over Olec I think: Olec can no longer try to undermine Apari's political position as the elven envoy.

Not sure whether I'm getting that right or not.

StalkingBlue wrote: I'm not entirely sure what the Consequence should be for Katrin's complete defeat against Olec. Basically I'm thinking Katrin has lost for good against him in political matters, at least in front of Roland. Lucy was also asking that Roland should fly into a rage at Katrin and should send her out (which is what I narrated), but that was momentary of course. I'm not sure just how far the waves of that policial defeat should travel.

As Consequence for Apari's complete victory over Olec I think: Olec can no longer try to undermine Apari's political position as the elven envoy.

Adrienne wrote: Apologies if I missed it while reading, but what were Katrin and Apari's stated goals in the extended contest?

Here's my piece of advice. Don't do group extended contests, unless the PCs are really trying to do the same thing. If they have even slightly different agendas, then split the contest into two or more contests. And consider making them simple contests. Because otherwise things get confusing. I can't even really follow from your description just what was happening.

Generally, you might want to do a training session regarding extended contests. Making a contest between characters that nobody really cares much about (basically not PCs) lets them focus on the rules more. Set up a prototypical fight between some elves and orcs or something (say it's historical), and then duke it out. Have all the numbers set up before hand, but have a checklist that prompts you to tell the players what's happening at each step. Then be sure to use all of the features like Parting Shots and combacks, etc. It's fun, and when the players know the system better, they'll be able to help rather than hinder. Also, preparing this all, and going through it will make you more expert with it, so you'll be able to better facilitate, too.


I think you did the contest outcomes just fine. Remember to try to identify not just the player's goals, but those of the NPCs as well. 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. ;-)


But let's look for once at the good stuff. I note that there was laughing. Assuming that Apari's player isn't becoming alienated by not getting the joke or something, this is very, very good news.

Apari's player is so active that you don't need bangs. That's good. But consider this. You can hit him with Bangs anyhow - and you're probably doing this already. I mean, did you make everyone comply with him? Or has he had opposition? I mean, Reifels talking with him was a bang - he had to decide whether to agree with Reifels, or to scold him (he chose the latter). That exposed the character.

Now, you may not have been thinking that this was a bang, in fact it could have been completely accidental. But you'll notice that when you're playing your NPCs in this sort of play that these "accidents" happen a lot more frequently.

Apari's player used a HP. The system is doing it's thing. He's making decisions about what's important to him. That's a great sign. The more players are torn about their expenditures, or excited so much about them that there's no question about how to spend their points, you know that things are going well.

It took her this long to get the Hate Olec trait? About time! Lucy, you're aware that you can use this ability as an augment against Olec, right? So did you take it really high? A 10W2 is a +5 (or possibly more if you use the Variable Augment rules with it) to do bad things to him. (And don't worry about Kerstin using it against you, she won't be able to think of anything to use it for, I'm sure...)

That first scene sounded really cool. How did it get set up?

Mike

Mike Holmes wrote: Here's my piece of advice. Don't do group extended contests, unless the PCs are really trying to do the same thing. If they have even slightly different agendas, then split the contest into two or more contests. And consider making them simple contests.

Generally, you might want to do a training session regarding extended contests. Making a contest between characters that nobody really cares much about (basically not PCs) lets them focus on the rules more.

I think you did the contest outcomes just fine.

Remember to try to identify not just the player's goals, but those of the NPCs as well. 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" ...

But let's look for once at the good stuff. I note that there was laughing. Assuming that Apari's player isn't becoming alienated by not getting the joke or something, this is very, very good news.

Apari's player is so active that you don't need bangs. That's good. But consider this. You can hit him with Bangs anyhow - and you're probably doing this already. I mean, did you make everyone comply with him? Or has he had opposition? I mean, Reifels talking with him was a bang - he had to decide whether to agree with Reifels, or to scold him (he chose the latter). That exposed the character.

Apari's player used a HP. The system is doing it's thing. He's making decisions about what's important to him. That's a great sign. The more players are torn about their expenditures, or excited so much about them that there's no question about how to spend their points, you know that things are going well.

That first scene sounded really cool. How did it get set up?

StalkingBlue wrote: That would have made things so much easier. I should have done both: split Katrin's contest off, and made it a simple one. That would have brought her own conflict out more clearly, and would have let me focus on Apari's extended contest, and Lucy would have helped I hope - she's really good at that sort of thing.

I was thinking the first, but we could change that, depending on what Lucy prefers. We can justify either on the basis on what happened in play: Roland did send Katrin out of the council chamber in anger (at Lucy's request), but whether that's a permanent thing or not hasn't been decided.

Oh he was laughing, too, once he realised that Lucy wasn't only sounding like she said she was aiming for a big defeat, she was actually saying just that and meaning it. He ended up saying he didn't get it, but as long as he could aim for winning his contests, Lucy could do whatever she liked with hers.

The first scene with Catti-ghost had a bang in it, with her offering to give him his babies - the player checked his char sheet repeatedly to confirm that he hadn't taken a relationship to the babies.

Apari telling Olec in front of Roland to shut up in council was the result of an "accidental" bang if you like: the player decided that Apari, being from a non-sexist culture, had had enough of this chauvinist boor.

Catti was created by the player before the session. (More detail in the new bangs thread.) I suggested to lead in with a scene with Apari being visited by Catti's ghost. We negotiated that having him outside staring into the snowstorm/ghoststorm would be cool, and played.

Mike Holmes wrote: Remind the player that he can do whatever he wants. He's not bound in any way to the character sheet. This is often a revelation to players used to the idea that psychological stuff on the character sheet is limiting somehow. In HQ, it just provides incentives and inspiration, which the player can react to however they like.

That said, does he have a "family" relationship of some sort?

Apari telling Olec in front of Roland to shut up in council was the result of an "accidental" bang if you like: the player decided that Apari, being from a non-sexist culture, had had enough of this chauvinist boor.

Right. The implicit question is whether to let him get away with it, and maintain decor, or to do as she did, berating the man, and threatening her situation. Often bangs are so subtle that you don't see them until the player takes the "radical" rout. If she'd decided to remain quiet, the bang would have gone pretty unnoticed. But, yeah, any time you have Olec do anything boorish from now on, it's a bang, becuase of how Katrin feels about him. There'll always be a question like, "Do I take the abuse, or do I do something about it?"

And here’s what happened last session.

The scenes with Lucy went fine, Lucy and I had a lot of fun. It feels like she and I are falling into rhythm, playing this mode together.

The scenes with Apari’s player on the other hand… Either he’s not getting the mode or I’m not getting him, or (quite likely) both. The signals I get from him were mostly about identifying and beating challenges, with strange non-gamist "but my character would" moments thrown in. I’m providing OOC detail scene by scene for him, omitting constant arguments about what further augments should apply in his favour and trying to haggle the resistance target numbers down.


***

Close shot of Apari’s quiver on his bed. Grubby child’s hands pull three arrows out. Partly depleted quiver, on the bed.

Cut to Apari coming to pick up his gear; sitting on his bed checking his arrows one by one, counting them and frowning in annoyance.

In the two previous sessions Apari’s player had enjoyed cooperating on scenes, working out how Apari could have got himself captured and stuff like that. This time I wanted to invite him further in, so I told the player that some of Apari's arrows had gone missing, asked whether he wanted Apari to notice and how he saw the scene. The player said Apari would definitely notice, being a jungle assassin he’s very careful about things like that. So far, so fine.

Apari shoulders his bow and is heading out, but stops as he notices an empty jungle elf cradle in one corner of the room. A jungle elf woman with long hair in a simple white dress (funeral garb) is hovering over the cradle, wringing her hands and crying: Leia, Apari’s wife whom he killed. She stretches her arms out to him.
Player checks character sheet to satisfy himself that his love for his dead wife is overriding anything else at this moment, and declares:

Apari can’t resist her silent call and steps closer.
I explain (again) that he’s free to make decisions for Apari and doesn’t have to go by ratings on his character sheet, and that if he likes he can always roll a contest between his love for his wife and, say, his eagerness to go orc-hunting. The player says no, he doesn’t want Apari to have any choice in this.

For the first time Leia’s ghost speaks to Apari, blaming herself for losing her children and appealing to him to find them for her. Apari tells her it isn’t her fault, it’s all his fault for killing her, and that the babies are now spirits and don’t need her anymore. He leaves.
This is the player refusing to engage, not Apari. He’s uncomfortable throughout this scene. He shrugs to Lucy and apologises wryly, saying that “Leia never used to be like that when she was alive” and asks me whether with his experience with ghosts, Apari can tell that dead people can go funny in the head, offering to make a roll to see whether Apari knows that.
I remind him that Catti’s ghost (in love with Apari) has told Apari she knows where the babies are. The player says he knows, and shrugs.
Note that the whole backstory including Apari not touching the daggers is the player’s idea. At one point he was asking for a scene in which his wife would forgive him so he could then go and use his daggers, but when I said whether he wanted to resolve all that backstory just like that without using it in play, he said no, and agreed for me to create complications.
He doesn’t like the complications I introduced here, nor later (see below), and does his best to ignore them.

***

Katrin, face still stormy from her very recent run-in with Olec, bullies her way past the two men guarding the door to the dungeons. She gets Nollorn out of his cell and carries him up the stairs despite the protests of Old Hon.

I mention to Lucy that stealing Roland’s prisoner will mean a violation of Katrin’s oath of loyalty to him, so she may come to be seen as an oath-breaker by some. We briefly talk about a possible Oath-Breaker ability, but don’t settle anything at this point.
Apari’s player tries to distract here, by saying that saving Nollorn from more torture and possible death is an honourable thing to do. It doesn't sound as if he's thinking about who Katrin is but he clearly wants to "help Lucy out" of getting a flaw for her character; he actually asks me whether he may “help her out” before he puts his suggestion forward, which is a sign that he’s thinking adversarial again.

***

Apari mounts his horse in the courtyard. Dorns are assembling, orders are being shouted. People are ready to move out. Somewhere in the throng, one of Olec’s thugs surreptitiously hands a chunk of bread and cheese to a grubby child, and throws a fearful glance in Apari’s direction, patting something hidden his saddlebag.
Apari’s player complains that I shouldn’t give him information his character wouldn’t have because this is forcing him to play Apari “dumber than he really is.” I say that’s not my point at all, he’s free to have Apari act in a way that he thinks is going to lead to cool story. Ah, says the player, thinks for a moment and starts working on a way to have Apari get things under control. I go along with him to see what he does, which is:

Apari’s arrows are treated with a mild jungle elf poison. People who don’t know how to avoid this will get injured, small people may die. As the little boy runs off and starts gnawing his cheese hungrily, Apari notices how he suddenly cries out in pain, drops the food and shakes his hands as if they are burnt.

Apari checks the child’s hands and recognises burn marks from the poison. He tries to menace the child into telling him who has the arrows.
Player doesn’t look happy with what he’s doing, but is visibly going through the "roleplaying motions" working up towards a contest in which he can use his Commanding Presence and Living Nightmare. I ask whether this how he sees Apari here? Threatening? The player shrugs uncomfortably and points to Commanding Presence on his character sheet. I explain that he can always use some other ability, and if he really doesn’t have an ability that is applicable then it’ll be something like Gain Children’s Trusts 6, augmented as normal.

Player now changes track and follows his uncomfortably menacing talk with a friendlier version of the same. In hindsight I’m not sure whether he made that change because he didn’t like casting Apari as being nasty to little children or because he assumed (incorrectly and despite what I've said to him) that I was signalling that his play was inappropriate and I’d like him to play differently.
Tie. I remind the player that he can spend a hero point to gain a victory if he thinks that’s how the story should go. He doesn’t. (Maybe I should have had Apari succeed automatically to make a point. The player definitely didn’t enjoy the story that he was making, and if there’d been fewer “challenges” to perceive he wouldn’t have had the excuse of looking to play tactically.)

The child looks indecisive for a moment, but Apari has run out of time. Roland shouts an order, a horn is blown and the Dorns ride out of the gate, with Apari hurrying to get to Roland’s side.
Player, annoyed at not having won the contest, tells me Apari informs Roland about the missing arrows. He suspects that someone will try to assassinate Roland with them, with Apari being blamed, and decides to stay at Roland’s side throughout the orc hunt to make sure that doesn’t happen.

***

The last man at the gate is Tam, Katrin’s lover. He looks around and up at all the windows, then turns and spurs his horse out after the others.

Katrin meanwhile is carrying Nollorn to the stables. Some horses are there, still in their saddles. Just as Katrin enters through one door carrying Nollorn, Olec parts from Veddia, who he’s been kissing, and drags his horse out through the other.

Veddia looks confused, half guilty and half-revolted. She begs Katrin not to go, saying that Olec is betraying House Norfell and means to become not only head of a new House replacing the Norfells, but King of Dorns. Katrin dryly tells Veddia that she’ll be back and to tell Tam she loves him, and rides out with Nollorn slumped in the saddle in front of her.

***

Out in the snow Apari is riding with Roland, exchanging boasts and banter with Dorns about who will kill the most orcs.

Orc ambush. Due to the heavy snowfall Apari doesn't spot the orcs buried in snow until the first of them leap up and start shooting arrows.

Player accepts defeat with a nod. Neither dithering nor arguing over applicable augments here, he’s obviously waiting for the “contest that matters”, which will be the fight.

I ask for the player’s input, he’s thinking task resolution, I explain again about conflict and goals and give examples: go for the leader, kill as many as you can, organise a retreat out of the ambush or whatever. Lucy steps in to suggest possible goals for Apari.
Player says Apari would use his daggers, but only if he can’t win any other way. He asks what Roland does and decides that Apari stays with him as Roland (foolishly, the player thinks) charges at the orc commander, after he realises that I’ll let him use Apari’s dagger fighting ability with a sword, at -15. (“Oh that’s still pretty good, I'll do that; but I’ll stay away from the commander, I’m sure I can’t beat him.")
We agree to make it two simple contests: Apari tries to keep Roland safe as he fights his way through the throng to get at the commander. Then, depending on how that goes Apari may make a second decision whether to take on the commander anyway, evacuate Roland or whatever.
Minor victory.

Apari fights his way through the orcs, keeping Roland’s right side clear. He moves with an almost slow grace, twisting out of a vardatch’s arc, killing the orc with a clean thrust. Just as Roland reaches the commander, still unwounded, a faling orc gets entangled in his reins, his horse stumbles and Roland is thrown, somersaulting off and rolling to get to his feet.
Player narrates Apari’s style but nothing else. He’s shocked at Roland’s fall, then relieved: “good man.” He responds as if I’d made a die roll for Roland and won to achieve this!

Just beyond the commander, a massive hulk rises to its feet and raises a pair of giant icicles as orcs let go of chains and scatter: an ice troll.
Player asks whether Apari knows who of the two opponents is more dangerous, and when I tell him what TNs to expects, can’t make up his mind which of the two to engage and is annoyed because it’s looking like whichever one fights Roland will kill him. I suggest that Apari can try and shield Roland from both enemies – it will likely mean a defeat and Apari being wounded, but Roland wouldn’t get killed unless Apari ends up with a complete defeat.

***

Elsewhere in the snow, Katrin has dismounted and is bandaging Nollorn’s many wounds and taking some of his pain away with her magic. Nollorn recovers enough to cast snow elf magic on their tired horse so it won’t sink as deeply in the fresh snow as before, but Katrin knows that he is seriously injured and will need a proper healer soon. Just as she loads Nollorn back onto the horse, two snow-laden figures approach through the whirling snow, pulling horses behind him. She mounts and draws her sword, and challenges them.

The first man draws his hood back: it is Tam, looking grim. “My lady. I bring you your fiancé.” The second man emerges from his layer of snow: Reifels.

Katrin blinks, then tells Reifels sternly that she never gave him any answer on his proposal and that he knows she loves Tam. Reifels nods and waves her words away. He insists that he had to leave the Pike because he’s no longer safe there. Olec’s cousins have been threatening him about the Crown. He’s carrying his notes on the Crown in a huge folio.

Apari’s player is sitting well back from all this and shaking his head. I ask what he’s thinking and he says, nothing. This happens another couple of times during Lucy’s scenes – hard to tell whether this is because he perceives challenges that Lucy isn’t meeting, or simply dislikes the theme. (He has been joking to a common friend that the game was pretty much a Mills&Boon novel now.)


A brief exchange between Katrin and Tam. As the little group turns to move towards Autilar, Katrin and Tam have made up.

***

Roland is stumbling out of his roll and to his feet and gathering his bearings. The commander and the ice troll turn on him. Apari steps between them, daggers drawn. Catti is hissing, goading him on to use the daggers and bring her closer to him.
Player asks to have his wife step in and tell him “not to be stupid” and fight with his daggers, so Apari will get an augment from his love to his wife this one time. He ends with a minor defeat, bumped to a victory “because this first time using the daggers Apari should look really cool”.

Apari, helped by Roland, beats off the orc commander, wounding him lightly. The commander retreats behind a screen of orcs. Roland has been hit over the head in the melee and is on his knees, helped up by Apari as the orcs withdraw. For now the Dorns have won. People are crowding around Apari congratulating and admiring him.
When Apari thrust his dagger through a chink in the orc commander’s armour, the dagger grew warm and there was a wailing of babies. Player’s comment: “Well, at least now we know where they are.”

Before the Dorns can regroup properly, two things happen: First, Olec is found half-conscious and cursing, with one of Apari’s arrows in his back. A healer states that the wound is serious and he needs to get Olec back to the Pike.
Player states that Apari checks whether the wound looks dangerous, I say it does. He asks me whether Apari can tell for sure that Olec would never have risked a wound that dangerous to set Apari up. I confirm that it doesn’t look like a fake wound.

Second, there's a rush of wings in the snow-obscured sky as the Dorns are surrounded by a flying squad of snow elves on giatn eagles. They demand Nollorn to be released. Apari tells them to go home and he will bring Nollorn to them in a few days. When they refuse he says he’s an emissary of Caradul and if they don’t do what he wants they will be at war with the other elves. The snow elves respond by demanding that Nollorn be fetched from the Pike immediately. They will let three people go, but no more. If Nollorn hasn’t been brought by Midnight, they will start killing Dorns.
I give the player a choice whether to push for a contest now, or try to talk to people separately and gain support or work out other solutions. He doesn’t want the contest when he realises that he’s unlikely to win it, but keeps talking down to the elves nevertheless, threatening them with his power from Caradul and accusing them of allying with orcs.

We end the scene with Apari telling the furious snow elf commander (our of the Dorns’ hearing) that Nollorn is in bad shape and he has been protecting him from being mistreated.

***

Katrin and her little group have meanwhile reached the ridge of Ice Needle Valley. If they can make it through to the other side, they will be in snow elf territory and will be able to find help soon – another couple of hours perhaps. But their horses are tired, the one that has been carrying Katrin and Nollorn is almost blown. And not enough, but something that looks like a black lazy river is pouring into the valley from the north: the biggest war horde they have ever seen. The Shadow’s offensive against Caradul has begun.

Nollorn insists that he will go ahead but is in no shape to sit a horse on his own, let alone walk. Katrin says she’s going with him: “I promised, and I keep my word.” Lucy and I grin evilly as she says that. Lucy: "well, most of the time." Cool.

Tam hangs back and says they need to go back to their own people (thinking of his sister). Reifels spurs his horse on and says he can’t turn back, he’s going ahead.
Just to be sure I say to Lucy that going ahead is more dangerous than running back, at least in terms of evading that warhorde. Sure, she says, and narrates:

Katrin spurs her tired horse on, downhill into the valley. “Are you coming, Tam?”

***

Lucy had fun and tells me so. She's looking forward to exciting stuff happening as they try to get through the valley without getting caught by orcs.

Apari's player is hanging back, which is different from the two sessions before when he was pretty enthusiastic. He's unhappy with the PCs being separated (while Lucy loves it because they are part of the same conflict and get to affect things in different ways by being in different places). He has asked me not to provide him with OOC information anymore, he doesn't enjoy that. Overall he said the game was ok for him because I was giving him challenges ... and then added that he also played "to be a character in a game world". (Sigh.)

Writing this summary has made me realise how little I'm enjoying Apari's scenes. It was a bit similar in the sessions before, but then I was still too busy introducing him to the system and trying to work out his preferences to worry much. I was also thinking I saw promising tendencies that I could build on. Now I'm not so sure.

StalkingBlue wrote:
The scenes with Apari’s player on the other hand… Either he’s not getting the mode or I’m not getting him, or (quite likely) both. The signals I get from him were mostly about identifying and beating challenges, with strange non-gamist "but my character would" moments thrown in. I’m providing OOC detail scene by scene for him, omitting constant arguments about what further augments should apply in his favour and trying to haggle the resistance target numbers down.

BirdMan wrote: From your descriptions of Apari I'm seeing a icy-cold, solo killer with a tragic past, which might be hard to play in a game like HeroQuest that stresses character relationships as a strength.

It's also possible that Apari's implied relationship with Katrin (They're both player characters, thus the implied "band of brothers" thing that pulls most game groups together) is the one that Apari's player wants to game out at the table -- which would be less than fun if the Katrin and Apari are always apart.

StalkingBlue wrote:

BirdMan wrote: From your descriptions of Apari I'm seeing a icy-cold, solo killer with a tragic past, which might be hard to play in a game like HeroQuest that stresses character relationships as a strength.

Could be, although that's not what he presented to me. (Which is what made me so optimistic at first.) He insisted on taking relationships to his ghosts, whom he created. He told me he wants the character to go gradually mad as he focuses more on the ghosts than on the living. He even decided to make the relationships flaws and took fairly high ratings in both his love to his wife and his hate of her sister. So judging by what he’s telling me he wants this ghost stuff in the game, big time. Only when we play it, it doesn’t click.

Mike, I'm replying in the other thread. Sorry about the split, this is confusing. I should have known to post my entire reply to BirdMan over there.

We played again on Thursday. This time Apari’s player Ravi played solo because Lucy couldn’t make it.


The good and not-so-good:

The session was cool, if short. It felt like we were much more on the same wavelength than a fortnight ago. No wrestling over the mode of play, just discussion and gradual approach. Our talk after the last session about how not to expect a risk-and-challenge style of game really has helped. Cool. Also I tried to give Ravi as much feedback on what I liked about his play as I could. And I stopped trying to guess what he might likely want me to be presenting to him and just went by what I like. (Which worked much better than me thinking around three corners trying to do what I hoped he’d said he wanted me to do, but really hadn’t.)

I wish I’d foreseen that Ravi’s main goal this session would be for his character to continue what Lucy’s character had started the session before; as it was I didn’t think to agree something with Lucy for how to deal with her character, our group has no SOP for this situation in the new mode of play, and I didn’t feel comfortable just deciding to NPC Katrin. I’ll be smarter next time, and make sure we have some kind of arrangement in place.


The scenes:

[Brief discussion about where to start. Ravi isn’t too keen on Apari fighting the snow elves after all but isn’t too sure what Apari can achieve here. Ravi knows (even though Apari does not) that an orcish army is close; I tell him that if he wants this to become obvious IC at any point, he can simply ask for it. He decides not to – I think he prefers to operate mostly IC for now. Fine by me of course. We agree to pick up where we left off last session, literally with the same shot: ]

Apari, who has walked up to the Blood commanding the snow elves, tells him quietly that while he has been able to protect Nollorn to some degree, Nollorn has been maltreated by the Dorns and is in poor shape. The Blood looks grim but unsurprised. He mentions that only recently snow elves were driven off the land that Roland claims as his own. He insists that the orcs who ambushed the Dorns today aren’t the ones his people have allied with, and claims that the Dorns themselves have given elven arrows to the orcs. He tells Apari not to be a fool and get himself killed over some humans; if Apari walks away, no snow elf will stop him. Apari ignores the suggestion.

***

[ Ravi asks to frame forward (yay! he's using OOC info...) to a point a few hours later, when Roland’s messengers will return from the Pike with the news that Nollorn and Apari’s friend Katrin have disappeared. He wants Apari to learn that Katrin has helped him escape, but wants me to do the framing. We kinda cooperate on it, like so: ]
(Kerstin: ) It’s growing dark and the snowfall continues to thicken. Apari is sitting on a gnarl of snow by himself between the two sides. (Does that fit? What’s he doing, letting us see some cool dagger play probably? Ravi: ) He’s whittling away with his dagger at a wood figure he’s making. It’s a figure of his wife.


The Dorns’ healer has just come to ask Apari to negotiate with the snow elves that the wounded can be moved into the lee of a snowdrift further below and out of the cutting wind, when Apari hears horses arrive, and then Roland cursing and bellowing. Moments later the Lord of Redguard comes stomping up the hill, brandishing his sword, beard flecked with spittle in his rage.

Apari looks at Roland placidly. (Yeah, Look Placid. Combined with a Commanding Presence in the high w2 range. I loved this.) “What happened?”

Roland’s son has betrayed him. That useless girl who wanted to be his second general has betrayed him. The accursed snow elf has bewitched them and made them help them flee! Roland screams for his men to assemble to make their stand, and tells Apari to choose sides because the fighting is about to begin.

[ Ravi is reluctant to go into a contest because he is worried about accumulating penalties if he loses, but goes ahead after a bit of discussion about what a penalty would likely mean in this case. ]

Apari does his best to reason with Roland that Katrin can be trusted and that there probably was a good reason for her to help Nollorn if that’s what she did… but Roland is too worked up about “losing” his son to the elves whom he hates.
[ Minor defeat, with Ravi’s roll the higher so he can’t turn tables with a HP. ]

Apari strolls over to the snow elf commander and tells him what he has heard and that he’s tried to talk Roland down but failed. The two elves look over at the humans, now huddling in a tight cluster behind their shields, and shrug. Apari manages to convince the Blood not only that his friend Katrin is trustworthy even though she’s human and is probably on her way to Autilar with Nollorn right now, but further that it would be a better idea for the Blood and him to try and find Katrin and Nollorn than to stay here killing moronic Dorns.
[ Ravi says that he can’t use Commanding Presence here because Apari has basically given up on the situation and is merely bearing news… which costs him a mastery and a half for his TN. Wow. Minor victory, after bump. ]

The Blood wants a Dornish hostage along as well, but Roland refuses and orders his mean to shoot his elven-speaking captain when she tries to walk over to Apari. [Another Minor Defeat against Roland, again with the higher roll… ] Reluctantly the Blood (who has reasons of his own for being desperate to find Nollorn before he returns to Autilar) agrees to Apari’s suggestion to leave the volunteer hostage behind. Under a shower of arrows that land at the Dorns’ feet or stick in their shields (obviously mere covering fire), Apari swings himself into the saddle with the Blood and the elves take off into the blinding snow.
[ The Blood was much easier to convince of Apari’s plan that Ravi expected. I asked Ravi (after the contest) whether he wanted me to tell him why, he said no. We’re both getting more comfortable with this, me asking and him (most of the time) saying no. ]

***

[Here Ravi wants to find Katrin & Co. and take them to Autilar. I’m not comfortable whisking Lucy’s character along (although maybe I should have been).

So Ravi and I talk briefly about whether there’s other stuff he’d like to explore, I mention that I felt that I was doing with his dead family wasn’t fun for him and we can deal with that in whatever way he likes – have it fade away, find a solution to that bit of plot, keep it in the background, whatever.

Surprise. He says no, he likes the annoying sister-in-law and he wants to find out whether Apari goes insane from all the ghosts in the long run. He’d also like Apari to at some point get the idea that he can try and “go back in time” and save his wife. So... ]

Night has fallen. The squadron lands in lee of a snowdrift to rest the exhausted eagles and discuss what to do next, looking deeply snow-encrusted and beaten. They have flown along the most direct route between the Pike and Autilar without having found Katrin and Nollorn. In this weather Apari can’t even track.

The snow elves are talking amongst themselves in their sign language. Ghosts cluster around Apari: the ever-present Catti, some freshly-dead Dorns clamouring for a healer and angry orcs demanding unintelligible things in their foul language. A wizened old snow elf walks up to Apari and rubs his numb hands with a low chant, that starts warming Apari up. The snow elf remarks on the astonishing number of ghosts Apari attracts, which tells him that Apari must be very accomplished with them.

It takes Apari a while to figure out that this elf, Latar the Herbalist, is real and not a ghost. It’s confusing, with all those ghosts flitting around distracting Apari… Latar doesn’t leave footprints in the snow, but then neither do the other snow elves; and he evidently sees and talks to ghosts himself, ghosts who look much fainter to Apari than his own lot.

Latar is very impressed by how Apari has managed to bind “those very tiny souls” into his daggers, apparently an extraordinary feat.

“That was no doing of mine,” Apari says between his teeth. [Very cool performance from the player.] He agrees to come see Latar and learn more about ghosts and how to further refine the ghost-talking power when he gets to Autilar...

[And there we ended. ]


Outlook:

I need more opportunities for Ravi to find things that he can get Apari involved in, and I need to make clearer than I have (apparently) that getting involved in things of his own is right and fine and permitted, and makes the game more fun for all of us. I hadn’t quite realised until this session that his personal-goal-avoidance is another habit acquired in traditional play: he’s always making up cool goals for his PCs, but always dutifully keeping them out of the way of the GM and out of the way of the “party”.

He said after the game that he was trying so hard to find Katrin and her little group because saving Nollorn and Reifels (two of the NPcs currently with Katrin) were the only things that mattered right now. Mattered to Apari? No, mattered. Oops. Ravi was looking to rejoin the scenario. My bad for not realising that.

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.

He agreed for me to write up some religion stuff for jungle elves, for him to try out in play. He’s finding it difficult and tedious to try and imagine what this kind of stuff will be like in play... but he seems happy to try it. And he's getting much more interested in communities anyway since I told him that one great way of making a powerful character is to load up on Relationships. :-)

Sounds like a lot of positive progress to me. Especially considering the history here.

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.

Mike Holmes wrote: Shall we move to the bangs thread to talk about what to do with this bounty of premise? :-)