It was such a great night I hardly know where to start.  I'm sure I won't get all the interesting bits down, but they'll come by eventually, if it takes the other players poking their heads in to help me out.

The original intent was to have a maxed-out group of six ronin but one player had other real world obligations pop up and got delayed.  Or players were myself, Lisa, Jason M, Nik, Ullyses, and Lara, a new gamer to our group.  This marks her first indie-Forgite game.  Lisa, Jason, and I had all played tMW once before.  Lisa and I at GenCon and Jason way back when it was still no more than a really good Chef design.

I'd like to tell you how I did some of my prep.  See, I'm planning to run tMW for a few 6-hour con blocks over the next year so I've been working on streamlining things without ruining all the player choice.  Before all the players arrived I'd set out at each seat a stack of colored poker chips for trust, a strip of paper with a dozen or so choices for their characters' names (no duplications between the sheets), and two each of Tim's nifty zodiac-specific character sheets.  I'd done a bit of number crunching and discovered that if you placed two specific character sheets in front of each player to choose from then, assuming 6 players, everyone was guaranteed at least one initial enemy or ally.  I think all that prep work went very nicely.  What I know I'm missing that's important is a longer list of example abilities.  If players are going to have the choice in the matter then they need a quick kick in the pants for what items may or may not be acceptable.  And hey, if they choose right from the list then that's just fine too.

I opened with the 'opening credits' where I asked each player in turn to tell us what about their character the camera focuses on as it pans by their group.  I liked very much how this turned out.  I suggested that each player tell us if their character is interacting with any of the other characters and if so, how.  I also suggested the possibility that the camera may focus in on a possession that might foreshadow their fates.  Hey, why not start right off the block, right?

I think I'm going to give you the big overview of the storyline and let the players give you the details of what happened from their point of view.

For Act I, I dug in deep.  I started right out with a Meaningful Choice.  Even though I forgot to back it up later on.  A heavy snow was threatening to hinder their way up the mountain.  Soon.  But there was a side-path in the woods where it seemed that an Ogre had taken a child for his dinner.  I was straight up with the players about it.  Deal with the Ogre or beat the snow?  Four out of five took the Ogre deal.  One moved on to make a base camp.

We had a few minor conflicts on the side of the mountain after the ronin convinced the Ogre that he didn't need to eat the child.  I stuck true to my word that none of the conflicts would be strictly about hurting the ronin.  In reflection, I think that having NO conflicts about hurting the ronin hurt the story.  Next time up the mountain I expect a large-scale zombie battle or something.  Jason suggested I start in media res with it and I think I shall.  In fact, I think I'll combine the opening-credits pan with it. 

Oh!  That technique where you say something like "You recognize that severed head, who was it?"...  I prepared almost a dozen different questions like that and managed to hit 4 out of 5 players with them (I regret that i didn't hit them all), but it was a HUGE success!  Players were foreshadowing their Fates left and right!  By the time we got into the castle I think every player had a pretty strong idea of how their character was related to everyone else in the group!

Egads, it's late as heck.  I'm going to send off an email to everyone else in the group to post here when they can.  I'll be back later on to have more goodness of tMW to tell.  Along with some insight and some questions we had.

Until then.

-Eric

It was a good game!  As a sort of dry run for con play, we compressed the process into about four hours and managed to reach a conclusion, with the Witch dead and our fates resolved individually and collectively.  To accomplish that some stuff had to give. 

We ran through about six set pieces, each of which had one or more conflicts, if I recall correctly.  Some of the choices we made slowed things down (at various points the five of us were in three different locations), but I can't see a solution for that.  There was considerable down time as Eric shifted from conflict to conflict, and not all the conflicts seemed to matter.  Lisa and Nik got into a scuffle over Nik's dude's magical malfeasance, for example, that didn't really seem to go anywhere. 

The people unfamiliar with tMW took a long time to get their characters straightened out.  Abilities seemed to be a particular challenge.  Having a big, representative list to consult would be useful in con play with strangers.  The "here's two zodiacs, pick" thing worked well, although the resulting enemy/friend dichotomy was unbalanced, if that matters. I was all too happy to get the short end of the stick, myself!

Eric used poker chips which are a fabulous visual way to track trust.  Very non-confusing.

Thinking about con play again, the action really heated up when the fates began to manifest themselves - in our case, once we had entered the Witch's main gates.  Finding ways to force this earlier and harder would be fruitful.  The conflicts before that point were, in retrospect, largely irrelevant to what happened later.  Not much trust changed hands.

More later...

--Jason

OK, here's how it went down from my point of view:

I played Goro, a wizened old ronin.  His zodiac was Dog - solid, loyal, taciturn.  His Fate was "Obsessive Love".  His Abilities were Limitless Sorrow, Implacable Dignity, and Tough as Nails. 

Goro's Diamyo had disgraced himself and demanded that Goro take the blame, promising that he would be returned to honor and service later.  He never was.  Goro wanted a share of the Witch's treasure to buy back his position with his former lord, who he still loved.  Originally, the Diamyo was the focus of my Fate, but I changed this later.  It worked out well that he had a hopeless, impossible love for the Diamyo's wife, Miyoko-Hime. 

I played Goro as very straightforward, practical, and dependable.  He took an instant dislike to Miki, a Dragon zodiac played by Lisa who, right off the bat, started trash talking about how "the only blade that will touch you is mine". 

Conversely, he immediately hit it off with Ryo, played by Ulysses, who seemed like a solid, "got your back" kind of middle-aged guy.  This early friendship and trust proved to be essential for the blood opera to come.

Nik's ronin, the Fat Man, was really some kind of bad-ass sorcerer, complete with a rusty katana and all kinds of helper spirits.  I knew he was bad news and our characters never got along much. 

Lara's character was pretty obviously the product of someone new to, and maybe uncomfortable with, narrativism.  Her abilities were "turn invisible" and "regenerate".  She kept to herself and did her own thing, so I never had much interaction with her.  We all should have been more sensitive to her circumstances and made a stronger effort to incorporate her character into conflicts, but the character was so outlandish and uninspired that it just didn't happen.  That's my take, anyway - I'm interested in what others think.

We started with a couple of initial conflicts that didn't really propel the story - we fought an ogre and I persuaded Ryo not to kill it, and Miki freed a child that it was going to eat - also, the invisible lady fought some spiders.  Then we entered the fortress of the Witch.

Almost instantly, things got squirrelly in a good way.  Fates started to play out.  Eric had a couple of killer bangs to propel this - I heard music and decided it was a composition known only to my star-crossed love, Miyoko.  A magic bird gave us a key and a note that said I TRUST OUR DEAL IS NOW CONCLUDED, or some such.  Accusations fell like rain.  The Fat Man got all hinky and used his witchy magic, endearing himself to no one.  It was cool.

The invisible lady skulked off in one direction, Miki and the Fat Man went to a wedding party the Witch had prepared, and me and my boon companion Ryo followed the music.  We found some crazy ice-maiden playing a samisen and tried to question her.  She was wearing Miyoko's opal necklace, and Ulysses and I decided that we BOTH loved Miyoko - this was very, very cool.  He was twenty years Goro's junior and we had a very tense and dramatic moment where this magic lady enchanted us and forced us to hurt one another with words - no big stretch, since we suddenly, instantly hated each other.  Ryo and Goro agreed to remain honor-bound to help each other until the Witch was dead, and then settle their problem like men.  Again, so cool!

Miyoko became a pivot point - Miki was her long-lost daughter, who had sworn revenge upon Ryo, who was actually her father.  Plus, a small detail - Miyoko was to marry the Mountain Witch, TONIGHT!

It turned out the Witch was getting married to the love of my life, and the invisible lady (unholy pact Fate) was a guest of honor.  She saved our bacon and took us to see the witch, who she also wanted to slay.  We fought the witch and killed him without too much struggle, although the Fat Man betrayed us and fought for the Witch.  Bastard. 

Ryo and I, true to our promise, fought an awesome duel for the love of Miyoko.  Ryo lost by a hair's breadth and committed seppuku, with Goro as his second - awesome!  Then I, having lifted my love from disgrace, gave her my share of the loot and wandered down the mountain, alone and sorrowful, knowing that she did not and never could love me.  The Fat Man ended up marrying the creepy ice maiden chick, and assuming the role of the Mountain Witch himself. 

Very fun!

I was just thinking of the emaciated ogre scene.  I think it did have a pretty solid effect on the plot.  Not because the ogre had anything to do with the witch, but because that scene had an effect on everyone's trust when we went on to Act II.

Which leads me to think of the scene between Yoshi, Lara's character, and the spiders.  In a futher attempt to avoid combat solely for the purpose of mechanically substantiated hurt I set the spiders' goal as "marking" her.  The spiders succeeded but the subject of her being marked never came up again. 

Which leads me to realize that happened alot last night.  Something nifty or semi-nifty happens but then never got picked up again.  The key dropped by the crow for instance.  It only served to make everyone distrust the Fat Man in the final scenes.  Which was cool in and of it's self, but I find it mildly dissapointing that no player claimed the key and the message as their own.

More thoughts to come.

-Eric

A big problem was the failure to articulate the degree of player control over the narrative.  Everyone was in a reactive mode, waiting to be given something to hang their fate on.  Including me!  Not sure why, since I knew what the parameters were - I guess I got caught up in that mode of play.  But the folks who had never played before probably didn't know any better.  This particularly hurt Ulysses, who didn't really get to chew on his Fate because of it. 

So, for your convention games (I almost wrote "con games", which I suppose is apt), spell it out in great big letters that you can grab control of the narrative where your fate is concerned, invent people and places, bring in cool stuff.  That just wasn't happening with us too much.

I take your point about the ogre scene, but honestly think it could have been dispensed with.  I was sort of stunned when everybody just let that little girl wander off without a word.  I figured somebody would latch on to her and make her important - same with the ogre's belt of stuff we had all lost at one time in our lives. 

--Jason

Agreed.  Apparently you're in my head today.  I was just thinking of Reactive Stance vs. Proactive Stance, etc.

Knowing that Lara was the noobest of noobs amongst us I think I should have directed the authoring questions at her directly first.  And I think that the questions should have been just a tad more specific.  As in;

The [item you see] belonged to someone important to you.  Who was it that used to own the item and how does your character suppose the item got to where it is now?

Nice!

Eric, it's good to see that you "found your feet" so to speak after that GenCon session. I'm really happy that you guys had a good time!

You guys mentioned that it took players a bit to straighten out their characters, and to get things rolling with their Fates. I think that's just the nature of the beast, and its one of the things that make Con games so hard to run. If you try to rush the game too much, everything becomes really shallow and forced, and the game loses some of its emotional & thematic impact. It's pretty amazing that you still got through the game in 4 hours. My shortest game is... 4.5 hours, I think. The other few times I've run short games its taken me like 5-5.5 hours. Anyway, I would advice that you don't try rushing it any more than you already are. Sometimes, you need to let things take their time and stew for a bit.

On the Abilities front, selecting Abilities always takes a little time. I wouldn't worry about it, unless you're spending more than 10-15 minutes on it. If you want to speed things up, you can limit the number of Abilities to 2 per character.

I have a question for you---When the Fates were revealed, when did it happen? In the middle, or at the end? Did the revelation of Fates act as the apex of a character's story, or as a beginning/middle point? In the short games I've run, they usually occur at the end and act as the apex of a character's story. In longer games, they tend to occur more towards the middle and act more like beginning/middle points (they act more like Kickers in Sorcerer).

Oh, and about cool things happening and then being dropped, welcome to the world of co-authorship! As the Gm, you no longer make up the story. You no longer decide what's important, the players do. Your job is just to give the players fuel. If the players like what you've given them, they'll incorporate into their Fate. But if they like something better, (sadly) they'll likely just drop it. It's not a big deal, players come up with some pretty cool shit!

Eric wrote:
... And I think that the questions should have been just a tad more specific. As in;

The [item you see] belonged to someone important to you. Who was it that used to own the item and how does your character suppose the item got to where it is now?

'Cuz when you handed off the belted items issue to the rest of the players everyone got off a little too easy. As I recall Lara said "It belongs to the Witch". Which was either too easy for her... ooooor, everyone let her get off to easy when she said that. We totally could have dogpiled on top of her for it. "How do YOU know it belongs to the witch??" Or some such.

Hi Tim,

I ran tMW, based on the Game Chef version, in about 4 hours a while ago - I wrote you about that and was a little surprised to hear that it is "supposed" to take three times as long.  Now I'm gearing up to try a slower-paced run over three four hour sessions with the same crew. 

In the game Eric ran, our fates came out toward the end, and then only with some coaxing.  I laid mine out as soon as I practically could, but there was a real late-game flurry.  Ulysses didn't really get to reveal his until the final scene. 

The conundrum with prepping a convention game is that a lot of the coolest stuff happens in the final chapter, so there is a natural pressure to get there which, as you note, may impact the quality of the experience. 

--Jason

Jason wrote:
I ran tMW, based on the Game Chef version, in about 4 hours a while ago - I wrote you about that and was a little surprised to hear that it is "supposed" to take three times as long.  Now I'm gearing up to try a slower-paced run over three four hour sessions with the same crew. 

Hiya Tim.

Thanks for the advice.  I'm sure it'll all apply very well to playing the game as you'd intended it.  Thing is I'm pretty well focused on tweaking things for a 6 hour Con run.  So, if my intention and direction seems to be a bit off of how you'd intended the game that's only because I'm not only expecting to run it in half the time you normally allot, but I'm also looking at hooking, motivating, and introducing up to half a dozen players whom I've never met before and may have never played any kind of co-authored game before.  That's going to require me to learn much more direct techniques than just letting players go on their own steam.

I think the fates came out both mid and late story.  In the con version I expect to underline strongly what the Fates are really about.  I suspect that, being that the fates start out face-down, that they may inspire that old bit of gamer baggage where the players try to keep that information from the GM as long as humanly possible, expecting to get screwed as soon as they reveal it.  So, I think if I tell people that it's a tool they get to use to keep everyone else in suspense for a little while, then it might be easier for OldSpeak gamers to get it.

And just to be clear... I wish I'd brought up those items that got dropped not as a GM but as a player who would have liked to hear more about that.  Nothing would have been hurt if I'd mentioned the heavy snowfall causing trouble after it was initiall mentioned or if I'd have asked if anyone wanted to claim ownership on the silver key.

-Eric