I finally managed to get a group together for some AG&G, a game I've been dying to play since Vincent first posted it. We decided to skip our regular PTA-game for one week and find a fifth member to just give the game a go without tying ourselves to anything regular before we knew if we liked it or not. The fifth player also turned up with a sixth one (that's me plus five, I'm trying to stick to the whole 'GM is a player too' thing here.)

So we've got me and three other guys who all share some indie gaming experiences (mainly a soon to be ended PTA series, a Dogs in the vineyard session, many games of the Pool and one tragically unfinished con-session of the Mountain witch) and two guys who I think have taken part in a session of the Pool I ran a year back or so. I'm pretty much the only one who is into theory (as in, I've been lurking here for a few years and I regularly read various blogs on the subject and so forth...) but I try to discuss it (based on shared actual play experiences) now and then without using any jargon and usually get pretty good results.

I don't want to get too heavily into any boring accounts of fictional events, so I will just say that what we ended up with from the Clinton oracle and ensuing discussion was George R.R. Martinesque fantasy with three noble houses joining forces to murder the king and then scheming independently for the throne. Also, we loved it. From setup to finish it was packed tight with breathtaking drama and when we finally arrived at the crescendo, a clash between two of the noble houses joined armies against the third who had joined forces with the church and also rallied the people to stand behind him as the rightful king, we had what was probably the most dramatic couple of dice rolls I have ever experienced in roleplaying. Ever.

Now to the problems we encountered:

We had the same problem with a couple of conflicts getting way out of hand (maybe not 20 rounds but at least 10-15) that Jason describes in this post. And just as Vincent points out it was only in conflicts when we had more than four dice getting rolled. If I run it again I will use the rule he suggests as a solution to that problem. However, another issue we had was what to do when a conflict goes for a couple of rounds with one side allways grabbing the advantage but never getting double. The player on the losing side had a really hard time trying to figure out how to narrate partially taking the blow round after round (he really, really did not want to lose so giving wasn't really an option.) I'm certain that we missed something, but I can't really tell what it is. I realize that it's not supposed to be played like Dogs-conflicts where you actually add stuff to the SIS everytime you put forth a challenge or an answer but it felt weird to just give the same narration every round without anything ever really happening.

Also, the "sixth player" had an issue with a conflict ending in a way he really hadn't expected (his character getting killed as the result of another character searching for him in the woods.) That was, however, totally about him not completely grasping the concept of conflict resolution and not at all about the system as such. He got beaten badly and his dice where low enough for the other character to take him out of the story without needing a follow-up conflict after finding him.

I was somewhat disappointed that we didn't finish the chapter in one session (it took two with the second one being somewhat longer than usual, five hours or so) but I think it was due to the number of players. I'm not so good at running games for more than four players, even though this game makes it a lot easier, and it was hard to make sure everyone got all the scenes they needed in the time we had. This game obviously needs a couple of chapter to reach it's full potential and I hope we get to continue the game soon (everyone seems really psyched so it shouldn't be too hard.)

Thank you Vincent for an awesome game!

Crap, I forgot to write a title for the post. I can't find an 'edit' button, is there no way to change it?

Johan, sweet. Thanks!

The new specialization rules I'm about to post on my blog will take care of the way-too-long conflict problem, I think. Watch for 'em.

-Vincent

Johan wrote:
Also, the "sixth player" had an issue with a conflict ending in a way he really hadn't expected (his character getting killed as the result of another character searching for him in the woods.) That was, however, totally about him not completely grasping the concept of conflict resolution and not at all about the system as such. He got beaten badly and his dice where low enough for the other character to take him out of the story without needing a follow-up conflict after finding him.

Narrating a fatal blow puts you in a nice, strong bargaining position, if you want the other player to accept that their character's dead instead of just injured.

If you like, you can read "take the blow" to mean "take the blow unless it's fatal, in which case you get to somehow block or dodge the fatal part, unless your dice are already low."
http://www.lumpley.com/comment.php?entry=196

Oh, I was certain I'd read somewhere that if a die is reduced to "D0" (as a result of losing die sizes from conflict "fallout") the character is removed from the story, or something like that.

Hm that post was not really worded right. What I meant was, I used the rule that if a trait goes down to zero dice as the result of injury or exhaustion the character dies (or is at least removed from the story in some way.) I'm sure I read it somewhere, but perhaps it was just some rule that was suggested and not actually in the game text. Either way I think it's a good rule, but the player was just surprised that "My guards and I find him in an off guard moment in the forest" could turn into "I kill him." The fact that you still have to drop a few die sizes (get injured/exhausted in a couple of conflicts) is a good way to make sure it doesn't happen to early in the chapter.

Johan: exactly right.

-Vincent

Johan wrote:
What I meant was, I used the rule that if a trait goes down to zero dice as the result of injury or exhaustion the character dies (or is at least removed from the story in some way.)