The Shadow and the Light

I have been wanting to play the second edition of TSOY for a while now, and last Saturday I sat down with Joe and Aaron, both of whom I have played Sorcerer with before, to create characters. I would have liked an additional player, but none were available and we decided to go ahead anyway. This were our first face-to-face attempt at the game. Joe and I both have the printed book and I played the first edition via IRC. Aaron did not know the game beforehand, and had reservations about the very open and un-described setting. We then played a short introductory session Monday night, and are planning to play again this Saturday, where Justine (also from our Sorcerer game) probably is going to join us.

The pre-session was character generation only, as well as a brief discussion about the game and setting. This is what the player came up with, including later changes: Gros Phillipe and Misty the albino ratkin with spectacles.

Name - 'Gros' Phillipe Vignon
Species - Human
Culture - Ammeni
Advances - 5 (1 remaining)
Experience Points - 3 (session 1)

Pools -
Vigor 3
Instinct 4
Reason 5

Abilities -
Adept [Deceit, Endure]
Competent [Bladework, Complex Crafts, Distill Herbs, Haggling, React, Savoir Faire]
Unskilled [Resist]

Secrets -
Imbuement (Wagon is +1 Armor vs Officials)

Keys -
Imposter
Pedagogue
---
The Key of the Pedagogue
Your character often acts as a mentor to others. Gain 1 XP every time
your character opens the eyes of another. Gain 2 XP every time your
character teaches something significant to another. Gain 5 XP
everytime your character's teachings dramatically change the life of
another.

Buyoff: Ignore an opportunity for education.

Meolc Eage (Misty)

Species: Ratkin
Culture: Maldorian

Pools
Vigor: 2
Instinct: 3
Reason: 6

Abilities
Adept:    React, Scrounging
Competent: Woodscraft, Resist, Archeology, Fine Crafts, Scrapping
Unskilled: Endure, Litterbond, Animal Ken

Secrets
Scribing, Languages (Ammeni), Rat Vision, Rat Familiarity

Keys
Outcast, Precious

First session: Slavery and food

I had prepared a brief encounter outside a trading village at the banks of Absolon's Way, where I wanted to introduce the decadence of this particular village's inhabitants as well as putting out some leads for the players to pursue if the liked them. I had a loose description of the village, its role and produce, the name of the family in charge and a local restaurant. I wanted this place on the border between Ammeni and Maldor to be hot, humid, rainforest, decadent. Village name is Orscha, kindly borrowed from my last TSOY game. Same name, different place.

Misty and Phillipe are a couple of hustlers, salesmen, trader, travelling in a covered ox-drawn and painted wagon, along the banks of Absalon’s Way. They are in a way both “on the run” from their home, Misty even from his own kind.

A mute Zaru teenage-girl slave is being used as bait by a local hunter to catch a huge bear. Our heroes first encounter the girl, then the chasing bear, and Phillipe boldly, and unsuccessfully, tries to scare the bear away. Misty has trouble keeping the ox and wagon under control, but joins in the scaring away bear stuff. Phillipe tries to cut the rope the girl is tied with but manages to gallantly throw his knife into the bushes.

Just before things get ugly, the local hunter, Jacques, steps out of the forest, paralyses the bear with poison and removes its heart while it's still beating. Apparently an Orscha delicacy. He leaves the rest of the animal lying there, in the middle of the path.

I tried to create some kind of conflict as soon as possible, to test the resolution system as well as our (especially mine) handling of the system. It’s surprisingly fluent and easily accessible.

Joe used the situation after the “hunt” to start educating this local person and starts cashing in XP. This scene very much established than the session, and probably the campaign, is going to be about slavery – and food.

Seconds after hearing that there is a village with a good restaurant (The Turn of the Table) and a feast of exotic dishes in honour of the residing Ammeni ruling family, the Chernoux, Phillipe declares that he and Misty are a couple of “wandering gourmets” from another noble family., and promises to cook spectacularly.

Orscha is a harbour village, with bamboo huts and houses down to the very river, and an imressive harbour. The area trades in chilies, rice, fruit, slaves and water ox. The Chernoux residence is a big bungalow built of dark rainforest wood further up the slope from the river.
To cut a short story even shorter our heroes enters Orsha and immediately starts a Public Relations campaign to prepare  for Phillipe’s arrival at the Turn of the Table. They are broke, see, and are hoping that (albeit, made-up) fame will pave the way for a free meal.

Misty actually paints a big sign sayin “Philippe the Master Chef” or something like that, and tours the village with it. That triggered Gift Dice from me as the SG and Aaron’s successes became bonus dice when Phillipe arrived at the restaurant. The whole goddamn village knew about him at that point, he was soooo famous, and was received with open arms by innkeeper Hugo. Phillipe was also invited to prepare one of the 40 dishes for tonight’s feast, which was actually celebrating a family council meeting between the Chernoux and the Vignon family.

Misty gets ignored big time for being a Ratkin and not even a secons-class citizen, hell not even second-class. He meets three Ratkin kitchen hands, who he manages to insult thoroughly.

After eating and drinking on the house, Phillipe gets down to business to prepare his fantastic, superb, blow-your-socks-of (but simple) dish of flowers, spice and vinegar. Lots of bonus dice, but the evening’s worst roll. He blows it, burns the delicate flowers, ruins the vinegar and probably tries to hide it all with chilies. A disaster, a culinary crime.

And that wrapped up the session :)

Questions not answered in our SIS in this session:
Who is Jaques, and why didn’t he want to accompany our two heroes into Orsha?

Why is Iro, the teenage Zaru slave, mute?

Who from the Vignon family is visiting Orsha for the council meeting? Will they recognise Phillipe?

How will Phillipe’s botched meal go down with the nobles?

Will Misty get his ass kicked by the three kitchen Ratkin?

More on that later. Thanks for a great game, Clinton, precisely my cup of tea, really enjoyable.

Joe, Aaron, anything to add?

Thanks, Per, for running the session and posting Actual Play. I realised afterwards that I had a problem with how two rolls were interpreted (which we're now discussing in mail).

When protecting the girl against the bear, Phillipe fluffed his bladework roll, and managed to 'gallantly throw his knife into the bushes'. I wasn't comfortable with that at the time, though that was what the poor roll seemed to suggest. It reminded me too much of deprotagonisation, whiff, and so on. I later felt we had focused too much on the _task_. If the conflict was between Phillipe and the bear, then a poor blades roll could mean a successful cut of the restraining rope, but one which didn't protect the girl (so perhaps she remained transfixed with fear).

So I suggested that we pay more attention to the intent and stakes involved in rolls, and be much more explicit about it.

Later in the session, Phillipe prepared a meal and despite a handful of bonus dice, rolled badly. We interpreted that as a rotten meal. But again, we should have been clearer about the stakes and purpose of the roll. If Phillipe was cooking to impress, then the meal might have turned out servicable but gauche. If he wanted to show off his skill, then perhaps he'd turn off the crowd with his arrogance.

That said, I imagined the meal - fresh white flowers, gently fried and dipped into an astringent vinegar and chilli sauce - later that night and realised it'd be a perfect analogy for Zaru culture, immersed and soured by Ammeni cruelty!

So that's a 'Secret of Hidden Meaning in Cookery' for Phillipe next session. Or perhaps he'll pick up a divination secret?

I really enjoyed the dice throwing. Bonus dice were more simple and straightforward than my reading of the rules suggested. _All_ the system was more clear in play than in the book.

Building the setting and conflicts as we went along worked as well as I'd hoped, and I'm looking forward to (much) more of it.

And character generation was more concentrated fun than most _gaming sessions_ I've had. I loved comparing how different 'experience point engines' would each add a different tone to the character. The abilities were flavorsome (I liked how some overlapped). And the system asked just enough about our characters to get us started, without bogging us down in decisions and dead-end characterisation.

I particularly enjoyed how character generation had asked us nothing about heroism or our thoughts on slavery, and instead left that to the very first scene. Tremendous fun.

All in all, I can't wait till Saturday.

Joe.

Before I forget, the 'fame' roll midgame was terrific.

Misty asked Phillipe how we'd get into the restaurant without any way to pay. I suggested Phillipe wander around town, letting everyone know a marvellous travelling chef was in town. Easy - Deceit, maybe Savoir Faire rolls, and a point from a pool to improve the roll. I asked Aaron how he could boost my roll, and we looked at Misty's character sheet. I joked that he could roll Scrapping to beat enthusiasm out of the townsfolk, and he joked back that Misty could paint a sign. As his Crafts ability was high, this was perfect!

One thing character sheets provide for me is a range of suggested actions. There's a monster? Cool, how can I attack it? Can I toss a fireball? Or sneak past it?

In TSOY, as all the abilities can snowball into other abilities, each combination of abilities suggests *really* cool scenes I'd never have ordinarily considered.

Joe.

Joe and Per,

I am so incredibly happy to hear about your game. It sounds like a really good time.

As a designer, nothing tickles me more than when people talk about what they're enjoying in TSOY and I realize, hey, that's what I wanted it to do.

I'm in a really good game of it myself. Hopefully I can post about it soon and we'll compare notes.