I told Luke I was going to write this session up, but I've been thinking heavily about it, trying to figure out where my frustrations came from.  All in all, I thought the game went really well.  It was exciting, people were yelling up and down and screaming at each other in the first 20 minutes, the other games were telling us to shut up, and the players seemed to really match well with their characters.

However, there were some issues.  I was finally provoked into writing this due to Luke's recent interview on Treasure Tables (my initial, annoyed reaction to the interview was, "If you wanted us to play that way, Luke, why didn't you tell us?") and by Adam Dray's recent account of his experiences in The Gift, annother demo run at the same con.

The story surrounds inheritance claims among vikings. The main plot of the demo revolves around grandfather's will, the contents of which are unknown and only readable by the dwarf.  The main issues that we dealt with were 1) whether the exiled second son will be allowed back into the family, 2) who will marry the daughter of the mad priestess, and 3) will the house continue to follow the old ways or succumb to the Christianity that has secretly begun to infiltrate it?

The cast was:

King - a stately older gentleman, devoted to Thor and the traditional ways
Queen - me, just trying to protect the family from themselves
Exiled Second Son - Remi, who just wanted to prove his true worth
Third Son - Clinton, your classic angry, idealistic young man
Dwarven Runemaster - a great guy we'd just met [name?], as a noble, tragic drunk
Mad Priestess - Nik, a murderous, controlling Medea-witch

The early part of the game was hot with action and emotion, but I felt like my character, the Queen, didn't have as many obvious ways into the heart of things as some of the other characters.  As I interpreted her, she doesn't get to make any big decisions, but her status is secure, so she's ends up working on other people's behalf (I realize now that she might have been more interesting if I'd played her as being more selfish, but I was trying to work from her desire for martyrdom, stretching her thin and seeing when she snapped).  

We began at grandfather's bonfire, which the Exiled Son turned up for, surprising everyone there.  A verbal argument broke out about whether he should be there, but eventually the rest of the group made it's way to the feast, leaving the Exile on the beach.  I protested loudly (even freaking out the guy playing the King a bit, I think; Luke warned me off a bit) and tried to support my son, but things kinda moved on, which was fine.  It was like a kung fu film; you have to lose early on so you can fight hard to win later.

Once we got to the feast, some small discussions happened, but then Nik totally stole the show by being completely rude and crazy, shouting, throwing dishes around, spitting on the floor, basically doing her best to ensure that everyone knew what she wanted to happen and how much of a mess she was going to make of things if she didn't get what she wanted.  And this was where I finally thought I had figured out what I was supposed to do.  Sure, I couldn't really compete with these men in their field's of authority, but I could certainly deal with this witch who was trespassing in my house.  So I decided to make the Queen's story about destroying the Mad Priestess, something I was sure was going to bring the Queen down too, which was perfect for her desire to matryr herself.

So, after Nik had totally destroyed the feast (which was just delicious to watch, really truly awesome), I got up out of my seat, in a totally fury, and just screamed at him, "I have had enough of your foolishness, witch!" (or something like that).  This was when everyone else in the room asked us to quiet down.  I honestly don't know why I enjoyed screaming so much in this game.  I think it was Luke's infectious enthusiasm.  He was jumping up and down and yelling and that made me want to do the same.  Now I feel a little self-conscious describing it, hoping that I didn't freak the other people out, but it felt right at the time.  In any case, Nik and I made our opposition to each other clear and basically decided, without saying anything, that we were just going to keep pushing each other and see how it all turned out.

Then we broke up into smaller groups, Diplomacy-style (and this very much made it seem like a mini-larp), to talk about the various issues and concerns that the characters had.  Various groups met.  Secretly, Nik decided to shave his beautiful daughter's head and use her hair in some sort of crazy ritual totemic thing, which he placed right outside the hall door, for everyone to see.  I talked with the players in charge of the King and the Dwarf, trying to build an understanding that the family must be protected from harm.  Strangely, Clinton and I didn't talk at all, because it was written so that I have much closer ties with the elder, exiled son.  But I think we should have met and decided that the Queen was obviously ignoring the Third Son instead of just not saying anything.  However, my knowledge of what most of the male characters were up to was relatively little (and I didn't find out about the head-shaving until much later, since that was between Nik and Luke).

As part of all this, there's also this great series of scenes between Nik and the other players, where everyone comes, in turn, to meet with the Mad Priestess, who's obviously the main person that everyone has to deal with, just because of how Nik's playing her.  She meets with both sons and then the King and Queen arrive to figure out what she really wants and what she's willing to compromise on.  This is where we get our first big argument, where the rules come in and really show us the coolness of Burning Wheel when it comes to social conflicts.  So a compromise is arranged, but not one that anyone is really satisfied with.  At this point, it's pretty clear that the Priestess is destined to die in some manner, but it might end up being a race to see who's going to kill her first.  And since I had decided earlier that the Queen/Priestess conflict was going to be my main purpose in the game, I knew I had to really push that or it was going to get taken away.

There was a cool private scene between Clinton and I in the midst of all this, where Clinton's Third Son same to ask for his dead older brother's sword and my blessing.  The Queen told him that he could have the blessing or the sword but not both, since she didn't approve of the killing that would inevitably happen, and Clinton had the son choose the sword, which I thought was royally hot.  That was our one real moment.

There was another private scene between me and Remi, where we whispered conspiratorially and argued about whether we would let the dark, secret truth come to light, but there were no major decisions made out of that meeting, I don't think.

So finally, after all that, I requested a quick public scene with Luke, where the Queen asks the Christian priest (an NPC who serves as an advisor to the King) if the Bible does not indeed say, "Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live" and whether doing God's will was ever wrong, revealing that the Queen was both 1) a Christian, and 2) planning on killing the Mad Priestess.  So after all this secret stuff, I was trying to declare my plan of action and really get things going.  I did this publically because I knew the other players had their own plans and I wanted to give them notice so they could figure out how their plans fit in with mine.  There was lots of plotting going on and, from Diplomacy, my experience has been that, if you have all these carefully laid plans and they all come to no effect at all, you feel terrible.  If the plans blow up in your face and cause chaos and destruction, that's fine, but they have to have some effect.  Otherwise, it's crazy de-protagonizing.  You do all this work and you don't get to show any of it off.  It's like being so close to winning with a crazy-awesome hand in Ma Jiang, but not getting to lay your tiles over, so no one knows but you.

In any case, then I pull Luke aside and tell him that I want to try to kill the Priestess in the middle of night, but wanted to do it while she was awake, being too much of a viking to cowardly kill someone in their sleep.  However, Luke was more interested in having the game progress to the next morning, when the will would be read and the whole blood operaness of the whole scenario would act itself out in one giant climax.  This was a bit frustrating for me, because I really wanted to be able to try to kill the Priestess.  I didn't have to succeed, but I wanted to go all out in the attempt, and I was worried (thinking in retrospect now, I don't know if I would have been able to say this at the time) that if we let everything play out first, that somebody else would get there and I'd be left with no real purpose in the story, that the story would end up being about the men and not the women at all.  But Luke prevailed on me and I decided that I'd just lunge for Nik's character the first chance I got the next morning.

So the morning arrives, the dwarf reads the will (the details of which I won't give you, because it's complicated and it might spoil the game for those of you who have yet to play it) and it pretty much gives the Queen everything she wants for her family and their house, except that it doesn't eliminate the Mad Priestess or make everyone necessarily agree with what she wants.  Through the whole reading of the will and the angry discussions that followed, Nik and I remained mostly silent.  For me, it was because I was trying to figure out when Luke would let me try to kill the Priestess, since that's what I was focused on.  I don't think I was even really aware that the Queen should try to fight for the decisions that the will had made for the house.  Nik, I think, was trying to figure out how he was going to destroy the whole house, since it was clear that the Priestess wasn't going to get what she wanted.  

Luke tried to provoke both of us into stronger participation, mostly by saying stuff like, "Why aren't you getting in on this?" and even, at one point, shouting, "You lose!" at Nik, which, honestly, made me want to hit him (no offense, Luke, but that was totally uncalled for, though I know you were frustrated with him).  He totally took this as turtling or "My Guy" syndrome, and I could tell this at the time, but I felt like there were more complex things going on.  If I was turtling, it was because Luke had kept me from attacking the Priestess earlier and I was totally focused on that now, to the point of not being interested in other things.  I hadn't gotten what I wanted, so it made me want it more.  Nik, I think, didn't think the Priestess really wanted to get involved in this petty squabbling that meant nothing to her.  She just wanted to watch the whole thing burn.  This was a bit of "My Guy" maybe, but I totally found this consistent with earlier choices and was waiting for the moment when all of the mens' squabbling would be silenced by some pronouncement or curse that Nik made happen.  We were both being silent because we were preparing to blow, basically.

(Ha!  I exceeded maximum length!  Here's part 2).

So the conflict started with another verbal sparring match between the Dwarf and the King, in which the King had to compromise in a major way that left him stymied and unsatisfied.  In the middle of all this, after Luke started yelling at Nik and I and telling us to get involved, I pulled Nik aside and talked about how we had to make sure the women had a final say in all the violence and chaos that was brewing.  I was worried, as earlier, that once the men drew swords and started killing people, that all the decisions the women had made would be invalidated, that it would be the male characters' will, and not either of ours, that would ultimately prevail and would become what the story was "about."  So I suggested that Nik kill his character's daughter, to ensure that no of the King's sons would marry her.  Nik grinned and said that he'd already been planning that.  Then I asked how he was planning on razing everything to the ground and we talked about that a bit.  At that point, it was clear to me that it would be better if the Queen died while trying to kill the Mad Priestess, so that Nik could succeed in bring the whole house down, but we didn't really talk about that.

We rejoined the conflict, Luke yelled at us some more for not doing anything (and I exploded back at him, pissed off that he was assuming that we didn't know what we were doing), and then the social combat ended with everyone unhappy.  And the killing began.  The King attacked the dwarf.  The Third Son tossed the dead First Son's sword to his brother, the Exile, and then drew his own sword to help the King, and they stabbed their ex-friend the dwarf together, basically crucifying him.  The dwarf pronounced an evil curse of DOOM on the house.  The Exiled Son, meanwhile, attacked the Priestess (apparently, this was something Clinton and Remi had planned out, just as I feared), and I quickly moved to do the same.  This is where the real trouble began, as far as I was concerned.

So the Exile Son was a fantastic swordsman, which was problematic, because in order for Nik to enact this revenge that he'd spent so long planning (the reason for his silence), he needed not to go quietly into the darkness of death.  And the bloody nature of physical combat in The Burning Wheel almost made that impossible.  I don't think either Remi or I (and certainly not Nik) wanted the Priestess to be killed, because it would be more interesting if she didn't.  We, as players, wanted to fail, even though our characters wanted badly to succeed.  But, initially, it looked like the Priestess was just dead.  Then Luke went over and pointed out some additional magic stuff and ways for the Priestess to get more dice, so she ended up stunning both the Queen and the Exile in their tracks.  My comment at this point was that Nik had just been "re-protagonized."  If the Priestess had died right then and there, I would have become totally pissed off by the unfairness of everything.  I don't know that I'd have walked away from the table, but I would totally have disrupted play by making a big fuss.  If, after all the shit Luke had given Nik, if Nik hadn't gotten to prove that he had good reasons for acting the way he did...  Anyway, enough about that.

Nik's Priestess then pulled back the marriage headgear he'd made for his daughter, to show her ugly, scarred head from where it'd been shaved, and, drawing her husband's sword, slew the daughter.  Then, cackling madly, she threw herself in the great fire, throwing the logs about the hall, so that the whole place would burn.  And what frustrated me here was Luke's response.  Normally he was crazy-excited about the cool stuff people did, jumping up and down and saying things like "Yeah!" and "Awesome!"  But here, a major character was killing herself and burning the house down around his, and he was like, "Okay, that's cool," and moved on.  After all that, no affirmation.  And the rest of the living just continued about their blood opera, unconcerned by the building burning down, which seemed to put a dampner on the whole business.

In any case, I was now frustrated with my character too.  What I had been hoping for, martyring her in some crazy scheme to kill the Priestess, had now become totally invalidated.  The setup scene I had done with the priest now seemed wasted.  And, since the Exile Son had tried to kill the Priestess at the some time, I didn't have that uniqueness to let me stand out as a character.  I had been support in the big killing attempt, not the person who actually did anything.  It was going to end, like I'd been dreading it would, with the efforts of the female characters coming to naught.  I was miffed and somewhat pissed-off at this point, though, again, at the time, I wouldn't have been able to articulate why. But I had no direction as a player or character.

To be fair, Remi was probably in a similar position.  His big plan had been for the Exile to compose a great epic poem on grandfather's behalf, which would earn him entry back into the family.  This challange had even been laid down and accepted by Clinton's Third Son and, nominally, by the King too, but it quickly got passed over and forgotten once the killing began.  There was some great imagery involved in the plan too.  The sons were going to sail out to a rock far out in the middle of the bay, from which point the sound of their voices would be disguised and the crowd assembled on the beach would be able to decide fairly whose poem was better, not being able to attribute it to either son.  But that was all lost.

Meanwhile, the Third Son and the King were trying to decide how this was all going to end, with me pleading to basically avoid any more violence.  My family, so far, had survived intact, which is what I wanted.  I told the King that, while his sons would no longer tolerate his rule of our house and the dwarf's DOOM had declared that this entire line would never continue, that the two of us could set off for a new land, far across the ocean, and start a new house to replace this old, dying one.  He couldn't accept this, of course, and killed the Queen for betraying him, so I finally got the martyrdom, which was cool, but it still seemed (in my mind) a bit disappointing.  However, it was better than being totally denied any chance to have the spotlight.

The Third Son killed the King, in revenge for my death, and then the Exile slew his brother.  So Remi, after all this, was the last man standing.  This, I think, helped mitigate his sense of loss and disempowerment.  The Exiled Son ended up sailing out to the rock where the contest was to have taken place, watch the house burn, and then sunk his boat so he couldn't return, stranding himself out there and dooming himself to a miserable death.  In this way, Remi worked part of his contribution back into the story and left feeling somewhat fulfilled.

In any case, wow, that was the session, crazy and emotional as it was.  Honestly, the feeling I got from playing this game was extremely similar to the one I get playing Diplomacy, where everyone can't win and some people are stiffled and inevitable don't have as enjoyable of a time.  And I have to say that this was an unusual feeling for a roleplaying game, in my experience, since I've been playing games that were much more collaborative and supportive in feel.  Sure, during the game, players collaborated with each other on things, but there was also this inescapable sense that we, the players, not just the characters, were competing with each other for the chance to shine and have our say, and that not everyone would "win" in this sense.  While this was invigorating and is probably what led to all the screaming (a way of getting attention), I have to say that this detracted from the fun in the long run.

Both Clinton and Ben Lehman read my LiveJournal post and assumed, from what I said, that I didn't enjoy playing.  That's not the case at all.  I'd play with Luke again in a heartbeat (he's a crazy-awesome exciting GM, after all, and I told him so after the game). I think it would be even better next time, because I'd know more what to expect.  Despite my frustrations though, this game was awesome.  I'm just trying to be public about how I felt, to help educate myself and others and to further our understanding of these things.  It's quite possible that it's not necessary for me to have a great time all the time and that some of my frustrations were, in fact, important in the negotiation process and in giving the game as much pizzazz as it had.  If I had completely gotten my way, the game would have been about the women, despite what the male characters wanted, and that wouldn't have been fair either.  The negotiation and frustration and adapting to imprefect circumstances is part of play and I don't think we will ever (or that we should even try to) fix that completely.  But there are definitely elements of this game that could have been handled better, on my own part as well as the other players.

In any case, that's enough typing for a while.  I'll come back and add additional comments later.

I played in this game, and have one, simple criticism:

The whole "let's hide over here and talk" syndrome is retarded, and it was encouraged by Luke, and I do not fucking get it. If characters A and B are doing something totally awesome, why not share that with everyone? Is it some "my character can't know that" business, because if so, I say Luke gives mixed signals about playing "my guy." For my part, whenever there was a good secret scene, I came back to the table and told everyone what was up - like about the scene with me and Jonathan and the sword and blessing.

It would have solved every problem above. Have a cool plan, and don't want it to be crushed later when my character has a different cool plan and better dice to back it up? If I knew before-hand, it could happen.

Hi Jon,

Thanks for posting this. I'd like to respond as a player-GM, not as a "ze author."

I yelled at you and Nick because, to my eye, you were turtling while everyone else was throwing their conflicts on the table. I'm not the best cheerleader, I'll admit. Perhaps I could have been more constructive. I got even more frustrated when you two started scheming together behind the scenes, but still weren't participating in the overt conflict.

When Nik finally revealed his awesomeness, he played it extraordinarily badly in my opinion. What the fuck am I supposed to do with, "Ha, I shit on the rest of you and committ suicide!"? He killed the daughter and burned himself to death. Cinematically awesome, but the game wasn't over. He removed himself from the game and stymied any real reaction the other players could have to his murderous act.

As Clinton pointed out, it is vital to externalize internal conflict in this medium. You can do this via "my guy" behavior or through overt OOC stuff. Either way, it's cool. But, in my opinion, it is a player's responsibility to get his shit onto the table where it can be played.

That reasoning supported my decision to have you confront Nik in the open at the reading of the will. You two had internal strife going that no one else was a part of. I hoped that by getting you to committ the murder in public, everyone would be involved. My hopes were neatly trimmed by Nik's suicide. I think that deflated both you and I.

Those are my observations as a GM in that scenario. I hope you find them useful.
-Luke

Huh,

Sounds to me like there was a lot of confusion at the table between the "we're working together to make a story" angle and the "push your character's agenda as hard as you can to make a story" angle. On one hand we have statements comparing the game to Diplomacy, private conferences in which players work on strategy and ideas away from the table, GMs who yell at players for not pushing hard enough, and characters who push their agenda to a burning death that sets the whole house on fire regardless of the plans of the other characters. On the other hand we have people reporting back all their information to the table as a whole, players being pushed to keep their characters in check until the "right" time to bring the issues out or seen as doing poorly because they push in ways that don't allow for obvious responses, and people who want to kill each others characters communicating to help each other because they are afraid the characters on their side will not allow them to do what they want with the story.

Now, this is certainly not an impossible thing situation. You can mix competition and character-pushing with cooperative storytelling. However it also isn't an easy or automatic thing, especially when playing with a group of people you've never played with. If the scenario had been played straight up "push to get it or you get nothing" it may have worked better. If it had been played straight "we're all working together to tell a story of passionate characters" it may have worked better too. As it was it sounds like it worked well, but uncomfortably because the social and emotional agenda of the game wasn't clear to everyone playing and lead to people actively working against each others wants in the game because they weren't playing to the same call.

Jonathan, do you think the game would have gone better for you if, as Clinton suggested, you'd had everyone doing all their "private" stuff at the table in public? Or if everyone was open about the story things they were trying to do? Alternately, would it have worked better if it was all competitive and you'd been able to push how you wanted when you wanted? Or would that just have made it worse on you?

Also, when you were playing the game, were you thinking "we're in this together" or were you thinking "I'm in this to prove something" or "I must push my character" or "I must help others tell the story" or what? From your post it sounds like you had it fairly set in your head that it was your job to push the Queen and tell the women's part of the story, rather than your job to make sure everyone had a chance to fully tell their story. Is that accurate? And how does it compare to Luke's statement that Nik's response was poor because it didn't give the other players a chance to respond?

Jonathan wrote: The early part of the game was hot with action and emotion, but I felt like my character, the Queen, didn't have as many obvious ways into the heart of things as some of the other characters.  As I interpreted her, she doesn't get to make any big decisions, but her status is secure, so she's ends up working on other people's behalf (I realize now that she might have been more interesting if I'd played her as being more selfish, but I was trying to work from her desire for martyrdom, stretching her thin and seeing when she snapped).

Following Thor's questions, I want to know: Did you use Duel of Wits to get what you wanted?

It sounds like your character could really kick some ass and take names in a DoW.

I admit that I was probably bringing quite a bit of baggage, as the Queen.  I think, from the beginning, I was thinking "The female characters in these type of stories never do anything important, unless they're evil Medea witches," and since Nik was the evil Medea witch, I was struggling to find a way to make the Queen important, instead of just assuming that she already was important.  My bad, definitely.  Trademark First Wave Feminism mistake.  Needed more Powerpuff Girls or something.  That kind of "of course!" attitude that never really pays attention to gender at all.  So I'll freely take all the blame for the Queen not being especially central or important.  So, to answer Brand, I was definitely in there to prove something.  And the only time I felt we were all in this together was in the Feast scene and the stabby DOOM ending, when everybody got the spotlight and it felt like this was a group effort.

Part of it could also be that, in the demo, I didn't really have any real sense of a character's strengths and narrative potence because I didn't understand the rules.  Luke told a story about a game in which he reminded the player of the bodyguard character (who was an NPC in our smaller game) that he was a badass warrior, and that that comment changed the way the bodyguard's player viewed the game and, likewise, the outcome of play.  Quite possibly, I was too dense to have that realization.  I do remember Luke saying, "You're a hardcore viking woman!" at one point, but that didn't do it for me, somehow.  This kinda goes back to some of my ideas about "agency," in that I had these tools (stats, skills, etc.), but I didn't know how best to use them to achieve my goals.  I think Adam said something similar in his post, and that may just be a trait of certain games like BW, Riddle of Steel, Continuum, etc.: that you need to be somewhat proficient and comfortable with how to play in order to really play effectively and efficiently.  And this just isn't going to happen in a demo, most times.  No real suggestion there, just an observation.

I think Clinton and Luke are both right that more of the "secret" dealings should have been public, which would have taken some of the edge off the inter-player competition.  It would have also put more pressure on people to keep their "secret" meetings short and to the point, full of bloody story meat, because everyone else would be watching them like vultures, waiting for their turn.  And there would be the "Oh snap!" anticipation factor, as people marked out where they stood and it became clear that we were all gonna die.

Another thing that surprised me was how little we actually used the game rules or rolled them bones.  Aside from the two social conflicts, a couple of spells cast by the witch, and the stabby DOOM of the ending, there really wasn't any mechanical support, it was us just freeforming our way through things (which is still "system," obviously, but a different brand of system).  This is at least as much the players' lack of initiative in using the tools at hand as it was Luke's GMing style.  And some of that may also have come from unfamiliarity with the system.  I encounter this all the time when I run Nobilis for people not used to resource-based, diceless games.  They don't use any of their cool powers because they don't really know how to and are worried about wasting their precious resources.  I have to have people attack them, forcing them to use kewl powers to defend themselves.  And this is what Luke did when he got us to start in on social combat.  Nik, because he knew his character was a witch, asked early on about what kewl magic stuff he could do.  I don't recall anyone really pushing to use their badass social skills or anything else, besides that.

Let me be clear too (I've tried to do this from the beginning) that I don't mean to criticise Luke or any of the other players.  Like I said, I think they were all badass and played their characters to a T.  I'm just trying to figure out why the game, while there were definitely some awesome moments, wasn't quite as awesome as I felt it could have been.  It's been a long time since I was regularly being a player (since I usually GM) and I'm trying to figure out how to be a better one and learn from my mistakes.

And, since Adam just commented, no, the Queen was never the focus of a Duel of Wits, though I assisted in both of the two Duels that occured.

abzu wrote:

That reasoning supported my decision to have you confront Nik in the open at the reading of the will.

Alex,

thanks for the lesson in doublespeak.

-Luke

abzu wrote:
Alex,

thanks for the lesson in doublespeak.

-Luke

Hi Alex,

You criticize my in-game call and the language I use to describe it. Then you describe your process, which involves getting players to do what you want when you don't think it's appropriate to the game. Or, to put a gentler spin on it, you, like me, make suggestions -- sometimes strongly -- regarding the direction of the game. In other words, you are saying and doing the same thing that I said and did.

It irked me that you would offer advice to me by restating what I said in your words.

Don't apologize. Please just don't do it again.
-Luke

abzu wrote:
Hi Alex,

You criticize my in-game call and the language I use to describe it. Then you describe your process, which involves getting players to do what you want when you don't think it's appropriate to the game. Or, to put a gentler spin on it, you, like me, make suggestions -- sometimes strongly -- regarding the direction of the game. In other words, you are saying and doing the same thing that I said and did.

It irked me that you would offer advice to me by restating what I said in your words.

Don't apologize. Please just don't do it again.
-Luke

lampros wrote: 1. The action is so egregiously out of character as to break the 4th wall. (It didn't seem like it to me, but I wasn't there.)

Guys, can you not start a fight in my thread, please?  Thanks.  Take it somewhere else.

Iskander wrote:

lampros wrote: 1. The action is so egregiously out of character as to break the 4th wall. (It didn't seem like it to me, but I wasn't there.)

What fourth wall? I'm confused.

Thor wrote: Anyway, we deliberately attempted to design these women to be very potent. In our playtest session, in which I played Tyrvald, Fulla dominated play. The climax came when Tyrvald cursed her and attempted to run her through. He was killed by Einherjar's man instead. Einherjar killed his man for killing his father. And Fulla slit her throat in front of all for what she had done. So our initial experience was very different from yours.

Can you explain a little more why you felt that she wasn't at the heart of things?

Krista,

That wasn't a defense. That was honest head scratching at the idea that the landowner's wife was not at the heart of the conflict, and shouldn't get involved in the "men" stuff, especially when the "men" stuff concerns the life of her son. It was me wondering whether the way something had been written suggested that she wouldn't challenge a man. I think the mechanical issues are a red herring. Yes, if you're trying to game the situation (and please don't construe this to mean I think that's a bad thing) then you need to understand the mechanical capabilities beyond the Beliefs. But I don't think it's necessary in order to address the character's issues.

It's her son that murdered her other son. It's her son that her husband exiled. It's her son that the priestess demanded be sacrificed to the gods for his sins. It's her husband, Tyrvald, that is struggling to find his way. And it's her family that is being shivered apart, largely due to decisions she has made.

This is just one of Fulla's beliefs: "I am guilty of a great sin—Einherjar murdered Baldir to protect me. Now I must shield him from Tyrvald’s wrath and gain him the forgiveness he’s deserved."

Yes, we designed her to be extremely potent mechanically, but I don't think understanding that she has a heroically strong Persuasion skill is necessary in order to choose a path for the character and a reason to mix it up with any and all characters in the game. She has a strong call to action.

This isn't about mechanical effectiveness. It's about willingness to engage with a character's issues. I'm sorry if this comes off as harsh. This is not an attempt to berate Adam and Jonathan. If you don't connect with a character, you don't. That's a danger of pregens and there's nothing we can do about it. But I think it's important to note that after running and playing in these scenarios many times, it's clear that one type of player will consistently have the most fun. And that type of player is the one that gets a character, decides on a course of action based on the character's Beliefs, and then continually asks himself (or herself) "How can I pursue this course of action in a way that creates the most fun (and most interesting decisions!) for everyone else in the group?"

Thor wrote:
But I think it's important to note that after running and playing in these scenarios many times, it's clear that one type of player will consistently have the most fun. And that type of player is the one that gets a character, decides on a course of action based on the character's Beliefs, and then continually asks himself (or herself) "How can I pursue this course of action in a way that creates the most fun (and most interesting decisions!) for everyone else in the group?"

Librisia wrote:
Adam Dray, it seems that you know all of the ins and outs of the system, and know how to play a character and how to maximize your play by simply looking at a character sheet.  A new player has NONE of the that knowledge.  Jonathan could not, as a new player, look at his sheet and say, "Wow, I'll be able to kick butt in contested social roles!  Now I know how to play the character!"  Though there was a lot of passive character involvement in the Queen's history, perhaps there needed to be more active story elements that showed how the Queen could have been involved.  Some kind of non-vital bargaining session early on as a demonstration ... (just a thought).

As always, I think it just comes down to good communication. Every GM and player has to know he's on the same page as everyone else. Maybe things would have been better for Jonathan and Nik if Luke had said, "Okay, here's your character. Don't worry about winning. Concern yourself with doing the coolest thing possible that creates the most fun for the group. Make it yours. If you want to have the character change from what is written, here's how you do it." Or if Jonathan and Nik had chimed up about their frustrations earlier. Or any number of places where people weren't talking when they needed to be. Same problems in the game I played in, I'm sure.

Guys, we've reached the realm of purest speculation. So snow pure, in fact, that you're speculating about things that actually happened at the table.

Adam wrote:
As always, I think it just comes down to good communication. Every GM and player has to know he's on the same page as everyone else. Maybe things would have been better for Jonathan and Nik if Luke had said, "Okay, here's your character. Don't worry about winning. Concern yourself with doing the coolest thing possible that creates the most fun for the group. Make it yours. If you want to have the character change from what is written, here's how you do it."

Luke, I think we're cool.  I mainly wanted to get this out there as game data, for all the people involved and for people not specifically involved to consider and reflect on.  I think people have hit most of the major issues at some point or another and I certainly gained a lot from writing the post, reading and articulating responses, and working through the emotional stuff lingering from the game.  I think specific suggestions about how to handle play is probably not the greatest solution, because roleplaying is a negotiation that requires new things each time, especially in dealing with the kinds of issues brought up here, but increasing awareness means we can all make different choices (if we decide that's what we want) or at least better informed choices (even if they're the same) next time.