Terribly exciting.

We played our first session of Villains of Safinubi tonight and it went swimmingly.  I think I'd rate it a 7 on a scale of 1-10 for fun-osity.  It didn't quite rock our world, but it was entertaining, functional, and everyone's looking forward to the next session.

Lemmie give you the lowdown on the night's activities.  Tonight we had myself GMing and Ullyses, Nik, and James as players.  Lisa wasn't feeling well so excused herself for the evening.  Ully got to our place about 6ish and bought Lisa and I dinner which we ate while discussing our previous tMW session a bit.  Shortly after 7 Nik and James hadn't shown yet so Ully and I started talking about character creation.  While Ully groked all the concepts really fast it still took him a long time to author his Advantages and Twinings.  Once Nik and James got here and prepared the snacks they'd brought they sat down to character generation too.  Interesting tidbit; James has never played an indie game before but has played lots and lots of D&D and he was the first of the three players to finish authoring traits for his character.  The humorous part is that his Advantages read like a short list of the skills and Feats that he likes from d20, Bluff and Eidic Memory being amongst them.

Character creation took maybe about an hour start to finish with Ully being the first to start and the last to finish.  I think maybe a lot of it was the fact that he had a very limited bit of setting to work with.  I've only just begun to write up the particulars of the city to hang your hat.

One character creation was done I took a little Me Time to do the three steps in Preparation.  I think it took about 15 or maybe 20 minutes for me to do.  I'm not 100% sure about the time but it sure did feel like a long time.  Probably because I was feeling pressure.  But the system worked.  In that amount of time I worked out a 6-character R-map-ish thing (I really don't know the details of the Sorceror R-map) and authored a Bang for each NPC.  They weren't especially strong, I think I just need to work on my Bang-fu a little more.  Mostly in making them more 'grabby'.  Or is it just a circumstance of meeting the characters the first time that it's difficult to create gripping bangs?

I'd like to tell you about how the CR system worked out, but I think to do so well I need to tell you about the situation that revolved around them.  But to do that well I need to tell you about the characters.

• Nik- A Treefrog UnderSmith named Sammy.  The twining I used of his tonight was a friend of Sammy's called Robear, who is a Fox Guildsman clockwork engineer (retired).

• Ully - A Bat Guildsman architect named Nicodemus.  The Twining I used from his sheet tonight was Father Bayo, a confidant and the man who performed both the marriage ceremony for Nicodemus' parents and who performed his birth rights for him.  There was also Carbonetta, a Hummingbird Councellor who's in love with Nicodemus even though he doesn't return the emotion.

• James - A Spotted Cat Folken who works as a courier in the city.  I brought in his Twining with Aryeen, a Bald Eagle Aristocrat who is his benefactor.

• The Subject I authored is the Seventh District Central Park.  It's old and crumbling but well loved by the Folken.

 

In the Opening Ritual I narrated a quick scene of the aging park.  Ully narrated his character hard at work over plans and blueprints.  James narrated his character moving quickly and lithely through crowded city streets.  Nik narrated Sammy clinging to the side of a giant gear while inspecting it's workings.

I'd like to point out that I love opening rituals for getting into gamespace.  I used to use them all the time years ago when we played Mage, but had kind of given up on them in recent years.  After our demo of Polaris with Ben I realized how much I loved them and immediately decided that my game needed some kind of ritual.  I think this one worked very well.

So, with Nicodemus at his drafting table I started in with a bang where he recieved a copy of a set of blueprints showing how the old Park would be torn down to make way for a new park exclusive to Councelors and Aristocrats.  The Folken that hang there now would be SOL.  Nico's friend Father Bayo, whom we discovered was an aging and feeble Bat with a terrible attitude and a love of biscuits, came down and proposed that Nico was a considerably better architect than the one who currently had the park project, and why shouldn't Nico use his sway with Carbonatta to get his own plans before the Council.

Now, we cut back and forth between players and scenes to make sure no one got too bored, but I don't want to cut it up that way for you.

Later on Ully suggested a scene where he would do that very thing.  He brought the proposal for the park that he'd recieved and a design he came up with that night to Carbonatta.  And we brought out some dice.  Nico hurt Carbonatta with her own love for him, but in the end it was Nico who was hurt.  He betrayed his own ideals by spending the night with her to try to get his plans approved.  And in the end for nothing.  She convinced him that the plans produced by Falicone (the rival Architect) were superior to his own (or at least she convinced him that SHE felt the plans were superior) and that she would not put them before the Council.

James' character, Mant, the spotted delivery guy, was the one who delivered the new plans to Nico.  A nice little bit of riffing off of each other by Ully and James.  He recognized that it was his benefactor Aryeen who had approved of Falicone's plans and set out to ask her what was up with that.  I mean, Mant is a Folken and we're talking about dissing his caste.  James actually had the first conflict of the night where we decided that he and Aryeen's personal assistant/bodyguard/receptionist, an Asp, had a personal thing going.  The Asp didn't like Folken, didn't like cats, didn't like Mant.  So he was going to try to insult Mant by putting him off as long as possible.  Turned out really neat.  In the first few rounds the Asp kept the lead, always winning the Edge, but Mant did the damage every time.  So the Asp was winning & keeping Mant out but the Asp was seriously considering if he wasn't going to get in trouble for giving Mant a hard time.  After all, it was clear that Aryeen likes Mant personally.

In later scenes with Mant we actally jumped back and forth in the timeline a bit.  At the end of the night we decided that his scene with Aryeen would come next session.

With Nik none of my bangs really fired.  I didn't get him riled up about anything.  Like "Hey, this is going to mean a lot of work for you UnderSmiths and no prestige.  You should totally sabotage Falicone and here's some dirt on him to do it with."  "Naw, I don't do stuff like that."  Ok, we learned a little more about Sammy, but I didn't find any conflict to roll for.  Near the end of the night I was interested in maybe trying out a little physical conflict with Nik, but my semi-bang where a Bear threatened Robear's well-being in a mugging... well Sammy just handed over his cash to save Robear.  We learn more about Sammy but don't get to roll dice.  Oh well.

There were a bunch of little scenes proposed by the players and I really didn't have to push my Bangs to hard after I got the ball rolling.  So it wasn't all that crappy of a Bang-job.

At the end of the session I had everyone do a reverse-order narrating ritual to call it a night.  Nik narrated him picking up his daughter from her babysitter, Sammy's sister-in-law (Sammy being a widower) and then said that he'd like to see Sammy in a scene or two with Aristocracy.  Maybe where he's giving working tours of the mechanisms of the UnderCity.

James narrated a scene where he was going from place to place amongst the Folken trying to discover who would benefit most from the new park plans.  I think James may be stuck in Clue-Hunt mode, but I'm not going to dissapoint.  He's looking for a conspiracy, so there's gonna be something to find.  He's looking for his scene with Aryeen and maybe something where he can negotiate for some information brokering.

Ullyses narrated a scene where Nico confessed his sins to Father Bayo of sleeping with Carbonetta and trying to manipulate her to his own ends (something that the Father had pretty much proposed anyway).  Ully suggested a future scene where he would be trying to get dirt on Falicone.  To what ends?  I dunno, but I'm excited to find out.

Finally I got a little feedback from everyone.  Ully felt pretty well undecided as yet.  I think he's feeling iffy on the dice.  Nik jumped in to say how much he liked the dice.  James enjoyed himself and seemed more concerned about if he'd "done it right" or not.  When I asked everyone if they were excited (I emphasized the word) about the next session I got a trio of affirmatives.

Whew.  That may be the single longest post I've ever made.  Thanks for sticking around to read.

For the record, all the images in my Book of Inspirations are likely copyright their respective owners.  I rudely snatched them for my own purposes to convey the images in my head quickly, in lieu of having the time to write the pretty words it would have taken to replace said pictures.  I mean no offense to the owners nor claim to the pictures in any way shape or form.

-Eric

After playtesting VoS for the first time the other night a few things came to mind that need to go into the text.  A few issues that need fixing.

At some point Ullyses asked me if, when declaring the actions of his character to be Villainous or Heroic, should that be from his POV or the character's?  I immediately said that it should be the character's POV.  And I was dead wrong.  This is supposed to be an opportunity for us to discuss what each of us thinks of heroism and villainy, not for us to discuss our character's views on the topic. 

Ully also asked me about religion in the setting.  After careful consideration I've decided that there will only be a passing nod to religion in the cannon setting.  I think there's currently plenty of good seed for conflict.  And, being a staunch Athiest I think that, should I ever get around to writing a game that seriously has religion in it, it'll be themed about the feeling of being one of the minority sane in a world of madness.  Note there that I mentioned the feeling not the fact.  If you bring arguments about religion here I'll just ignore them.  Fair warning.

I felt that the situations I came up with on the fly weren't super-grabby, and therefore were poor fuel for grabby bangs.  I'll be working on that directly.

It occurred to me that the pointy edges of spending hero and villain points can be buffed down.  I no longer see any need to make an up-front declaration before spending the points as spending the points is a declaration in and of itself.  Smoother.

No magic.  Another Ully question & answer.  My inital response was "Magic is a household item."  Now I want magic out the window.  I'm leaning on steampunk and Fantastic Machinery.  Like the clockwork chair that closed the door when it got left open too long in last night's session.

I'll likely be posting most of this to my blog if you're so inclined to make un-Forgey responses.  But I'd like to see all productive thought here.  Assuming that any of this produces productive thought.  Or any thought at all.

-Eric

Just to be clear, FH8 = VoS now?  So you've abandoned the whole "make up your setting" part of group creation?  Or is this just your house setting? 

You are so right on that the "hero or villain" choice must be the players, not the characters. 

How long did the individual conflicts take to resolve?  That was a concern I had with FH8. 

--Jason

Yeah, Safinubi is the cannon setting now.  Once it grows & festers in my head a little more it'll be a much better breeding ground for herosim and villainy to thrive in.

I ditched the whole setting creation thing because, after our two playtest sessions, I realized that I really wasn't all that interested in having to create bucket after bucket of setting material session after session.  I'm much better entertained by having a heaping helping of inspiration and setting to choose from, selecting a tasty slice, and diving into story.

It didn't hurt that Ron kept pestering me to come up with a solid setting.  Of course, I think he may be dissapointed that the Tribal Lizardfolk aren't the focal point of the setting.

I was thinking of that concern with the timeframe for a conflict.  I cannot say for sure how long it took during that session.  We only had two conflicts that went to dice but lots of other stuff seemed to happen during the session.  I'll make it a point to clock a few conflicts for you to see how they turn out.  There are still a few rough edges to iron out but I'm aiming for smooth & quick resolution.  I suspect that this particular CR system will always be slow & clunky when you first learn it but I'm hopeful that it'll turn out be speedy in the final package.

-Eric

Cool, next time we play I'll be in charge of timing things, if that would be helpful.  I'd definitely like to give it another whirl and see what's changed.