[I've called this 'Under The Banner' because I figure it's marginally better to give an AP thread a title distinct from 'our game' or whatever.  And there's a banner in the game.  *shrug*]

A couple nights ago I ran a first session of Mountain Witch, which I've been keen to run/play since Tim demo'd it for me at Gen Con last year.

I recruited a new group for it, some knew each other, many were only aquaintances or complete strangers.  Two I had never gamed with before.  Some had experience with Forge-type games, some didn't.  Players were Steve (hix here on the forge), Ed, Sean, Jamie and Stephanie.

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My two main goals with this Actual Play account are:
* relate my experiences running different parts of the game, a process that I think will help me understand it better
* note down the bangs/encounters I used and how they went, as a resource for other GMs

I'm not specifically seeking feedback on anything in particular - there weren't any problems as such.  But I would *love* feedback or probing questions or anything, if only because such questions get me to understand stuff more clearly.  So if there's any questions or comments out there, go for it.

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PREGAME

Once we all got in we did some general chat and hang-out stuff for a bit and then got going.  I distributed character sheet blanks to everyone and explained in general terms about Trust, Dark Fates, Abilities and the role of the Zodiac signs.

Contrary to the book, I switched step 1 and 2 and asked my players to begin by choosing a Zodiac sign.  (I did this because I thought it was an easy decision to make that would serve as a starting point for coming up with a character.  Also I wanted the Dark Fates to *feel* like something that was being visited on a character, not something that was the starting point of that character's identity.)  I named all of the signs and players asked for a more detailed description of the animals they were interested in; most players went with that first animal, but some asked about others before choosing one.  We ended up with no enemy signs in the group, and one ally-pair (Steve and Stephanie).  We recorded trust points then.

Then I asked players to name their characters.  [Note: should have photocopied those name lists - finding that page, and handing it around, was a bottleneck here and later when players and GM both were introducing characters and needing names.]

Then we handed out the dark fates.  I gave people a chance to reflect on their choices, and explained about the players having narrative authority over their character's dark fate.

Then we did abilities.  Abilities did take a little while to sort out, as the book advised us to expect, but after I read out the examples from the pregens from Timfire's demo set people got on the same page.

Then the background questions.  This was really the first point at which the characters became characters, instead of collections of attributes.  We went around the room and people shared their backstories, which were an interesting range.  Players seemed quite happy to give their characters horrible backgrounds - Stephanie set a harsh tone by going first and saying she had become ronin after waking from a dream to find she had killed her husband and children in her sleep!

Only then did I flip the unused Dark Fate card and reveal what it was [desperately in love].  I then went through the other fates, to remind everyone what else was around the table. 

Finally I gave a potted account of the breakdown into acts and chapters, how the conflict rules worked (using a hypothetical example of 'crossing a fast-running river'), how aiding and betrayal worked, and so forth.  Some rules elements I left out, planning to explain these before session two, including buying narration of a conflict resolution for a trust point, the rules for duels, and character death.

And then we prepared to game.

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ACT ONE

(Chapter One)

As it happened, I had an out-of-game interruption due, so we didn't start right away, waiting for the interruption to happen before getting stuck in.  While we waited, the players took it upon themselves to create an introductory scene of the five ronin preparing for their quest in a tavern, having just met.  It was only half-serious, and I missed a bunch of it as I went out to deal with the expected visitor, but I believe it set up a few things and allowed the players to get a better sense of each others' characters.

Then I returned and we began.  I set the scene in the forest before the mountain.

First encounter as it appeared in my prep notes:
The ronin encounter a wolfpack.  The pack leader can speak, and orders the ronin to turn back, for the way is closed to them.

I included in this encounter five ordinary wolves (weak) and the leader (able).  Mostly this encounter was intended to be a battle, to introduce everyone to the way the rules worked.  It turned into quite a long battle, but it was consistently involving, and the players got a handle on how winner-narration went, how damage vs. facts worked (one success was used to make the lead wolf unable to run rather than damage it), and how aiding went (there was a whole lot of aiding going on!).

* I had what I felt was a clever thought right at the start, and had the wolf's first words be 'which of you is the leader of your band?'  There was hesitation before Ed had his character step forward - all the players were primed on the trust/betrayal core of the game, and the question of leadership would obviously feed into that somehow.

* The talking wolf was killed about halfway through the battle - Jamie's character impaled it on his banner standard.  I didn't want the other wolves to flee, however, in order to fully test out the conflict system.  One of the players had previously asked something about whether a killed wolf was an ordinary corpse or if it disappeared, and I ran with that to have the lead wolf dissolve into a green mist spirit form that then split into three and plunged into the surviving wolves, forcing them to keep fighting.  The players reacted to that - it was very spooky.

[This, however, was the beginning of me writing myself into a corner in a small way.  The wolf was originally intended to be blocking the ronin specifically, implying that other ordinary people still had easy access to the road to the Mountain Witch's fortress.  However, the spooky wolf, mixed in with a few improvised bits of dialogue and business later, determined that the area around the Mountain Witch was incredibly heavy with spirit activity and normal people were few and far between.  This may prove a hindrance in the kinds of bangs I can play with later on, since any ordinary person on the mountain will draw suspicion just by being there.  This is a minor thing, but it does reduce my options; or, put positively, it gives me a clear direction for the kinds of encounters to place on the mountain.]

The ronin kept going into the night.  Jamie's character had a 'see in the dark' ability so everyone was following him - in my narration I framed this in terms of trust [you all trust him to lead you?].

Steve put the first bit of dark fate narration in the game, describing the ronin coming across two dead samurai.  They had been killed in battle against soldiers.  There was some discussion about what to do about the bodies - to leave them there to rot, or take the time to bury or burn them.  Sean had his character chop off their heads so they couldn't rise up and become walking dead. 

Jamie's character was the only one who could see, so he had to decide whether to stay or go.  He deferred to Ed's earlier self-appointment as leader, and Ed decided to keep going.  They left the bodies unburied.

Second encounter as it appeared in my prep notes:
Tengu Query: (from Ron Edwards) Some tengu stalk the ronin’s camp at night, and since the ronin all look alike to them, they ask the sentry if he or she is the one who "made the deal."  Another ronin hears this exchange.

The ronin made camp and slept through the night.  I was going to use this encounter on the first watch, but Stephanie narrated that during the night the a cold wind came through and put out the campfire.  I decided this was at the conclusion of Ed's character's watch.  Steve was next in order, so Ed roused Steve, and after a bit of banter about 'how could you let the fire go out!' they decided to go out and collect more kindling to re-light the fire.  Steve woke Stephanie to take her watch early while they did this.

With Stephanie alone, I had the tengu arrive as a voice in the trees, asking her to come away from camp and speak...  She woke Sean's character, an older man, and I described the tengu fleeing the scene.  Sean's character was unhappy at being woken because of a bird, and at Steph's failure to keep the fire going.  He returned to sleep, very grumpy.  The tengu came back, and this time we established Ed and Steve were returning from their gathering so there wasn't much time.  Steph went to talk to the tengu, and I had it say 'the Mountain Witch has arranged everything according to the deal'.  Stephanie responded by asking for the specific details of what has been arranged, claiming to know what the deal was.  I had the tengu become suspicious and ask her her name.  She said (stroke of genius, this) the name of Ed's character. 

This was an interesting GMing bind.  I didn't know whether or not Ed had the Unhloly Pact fate, which this was obviously aimed at.  I played the odds and had the Tengu curse and leave, clearly Ed's character was not the one it sought.  (If it turns out Ed does have that fate, then we'll have to explain this exchange some other way, but I have faith something will work out :-)

Third encounter as it appeared in my prep notes:
The ronin are lost in a maze of tangled roots and dark trees.  A forest sprite offers to lead the Ronin to the mountain path, but only if he is given a token of the most personal significance by each ronin.

The next morning I described the ronin heading through the thick forest but constantly being turned around, each time the canopy of the forest opened the mountain was not where they expected.

I had intended, as noted above, this to be the setup for me to introduce a 'guide spirit' figure.  However, the players (particularly Steve, who was grokking the system really well by now) quite rightly jumped in and proposed a way to escape the maze of forest.  Steve's character, with the 'fleet of foot' ability, would run as quickly as possible towards the mountain, hoping to break out of the forest before the mountain moved.  Another ronin would watch from a tree his progression - he would carry Jamie's banner as that was the only thing that would reach to the canopy.  (The banner was an ability, and Jamie's entrusting it to Steve was quite significant.)  With prompting the others found ways to lend their aid - words of wisdom and support, mostly.  I gave the forest magic three dice and Steve, with aid, easily beat me.  He broke out of the forest at the foot of the mountain, and following his voice the others joined him.

End Chapter One/Act One.  We took a short break here and reassigned trust.  A lot of people built trust, some stayed the same, and the only loss in trust was Sean downgrading Stephanie for waking him up and letting the fire go out.

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ACT TWO

(Chapter One)

We began with some more dark fate narration from Steve - he described a battlefield lying between the forest and the mountain proper, covered with signs of battle but no bodies. Stephanie's character could speak to the dead, and she looked around for a ghost.  I described a single ghostly figure she could speak with.

Now, this was an interesting point.  I didn't know where Steve was going with the battlefield or what he had in mind for it, so I wasn't comfortable roleplaying the spirit.  I considered taking Steve aside so he could share with me what he had in mind, but because I know Steve and his game style from some incredible Prime Time Adventures games I asked him/he offered to run this NPC for the scene.  Steve had the spirit reveal some of what happened, and ask for a message to be delivered to his home, which Stephanie pledged to do if she returned from facing the witch.  Then Stephanie asked for advice about the best way up the mountain, and Steve handed the character back to me.  I took over and responded, and we finished the encounter.

Following up on this, I had the characters reach the base of the mountain.  Steph told everyone to go along an insignificant side path 'because it's the right way'.  This led to some nice roleplaying as people queried her confidence and the source of her information, but everyone went along with it.  I described the route leading to a nice shortcut and everyone was happy.

Fourth encounter as it appeared in my prep notes:
Blind Man’s Cottage: The blind man lives alone in a small cottage.  He will invite the ronin to take tea with him and spend the night under his roof.  He tells them the Witch can corrupt the weak, and any who are too weak will inevitably betray their fellows.  (Extra info censored because the players haven't finished with him yet.)

They reached a small stone cottage and a blind man invited them in to tea.  I decided I wanted someone else to be there too, so the ronin joined him and then another person came.  I asked the group who it was - I asked Jamie first, but he didn't have an instant response, and Ed jumped in so we went with his contribution.  The man was a foreigner, a barbarian, who was also going up the mountain.  Ed and I both figured I should be handed complete control of this NPC from the start, so we went into another room and Ed told me the basics of who he was and what he was up to.  Then I ran him - there was some shaky conversation across the language barrier, and the ronin left him to spend the night (he wasn't keen on facing the bad weather, while the ronin weren't deterred).

Fifth encounter - the other half of the third encounter:

I resurrected the unused bit of encounter three and had the ronin, on a mountain trail, meet a small spirit-critter, a kappa.  The kappa offered to show the ronin a short-cut up the mountain if they all gave it something of great personal significance.  They refused; it offered again, this time for a deep secret from everyone.  Again, refusal.  Finally it wanted one person to give it an object, but that object must be the most valuable thing in the person's heart.

As the ronin considered this offer, I had the kappa mention that the blind man was really a monster who lured people to spend the night with him and killed them.  Steve's character instantly began sprinting back down the mountain  - a surprising reaction to me!  The other ronin let him go, and Stephanie gave the kappa a locket depicting her now-deceased family.  The kappa showed them a hidden side-track shortcut in return.

The ronin split up, now.  Sean and Jamie (I think) followed Steve, while Ed and Stephanie waited for them all to return.  And that's where we ended the session.

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There's a crucial thing I've let out here - a big, in-character discussion of honour,  I was busy using the free headspace to doublecheck rules and my prep, so I didn't listen to enough of it to relate it in any detail, and I can't even remember exactly where in the session it fell - I think it was right after they left the blind man's cottage?  But it was a good moment full of character exposition, and the bits I heard seemed to lay the groundwork for a lot of what is to come.

Everyone was pretty happy with the session, myself included.  Next one is in two weeks.

If I can think of any other points worth noting I'll add another post or two.  Anyone got any questions that could provoke more details?

>Stephanie set a harsh tone by going first and saying she had become ronin after waking from a dream to find she had killed her husband and children in her sleep!
Oh.  Well.  Um.  [blush] I figured that most of the Samurai movies I'd seen were really heavy on the angst, and that I'd enjoy the game more if I jumped right in, rather than playing a half-arsed character.

>the only loss in trust was Sean downgrading Stephanie for waking him up and letting the fire go out.
I thought that was funny.  :-)

>There's a crucial thing I've let out here - a big, in-character discussion of honour,  I was busy using the free headspace to doublecheck rules and my prep, so I didn't listen to enough of it to relate it in any detail
It was basically showing the spectrum on which the characters fell about what do you do when you lose your honor.  I think it was Jamie? - the character with the banner anyway, that took a very hard line of "Once honour is gone there is nothing", compared to Steve's "Honour ebbs and flows like the moon" which was offending everybody else.  The rest of us were more in the middle.

The thing that will need the most getting used to is the idea that I can jump in and write new elements into the story.  Steve seemed to thrive on that style, but I think the rest of us found it a bit harder, particularly with the "You.  Who is coming in the door" bit.  It's interesting, though, particularly knowing that there is all this important stuff going on with the characters which the GM doesn't know anything about yet, so we're all going to be surprised by the ending.

I loved how 4 simple bits of information: the Zodiac, Dark Fate and two Why? questions (why did you become a ronin? why do you need the money?) combine to create a strong foundation for each ronin's personality.

I also love how, as players, we don't know the end-conditions for each chapter. It could be geographical (get out of the forest), or it could be psychological (first time a samurai betrays another) ... it could be anything.  We don't even know whether the rules regarding Trust will start to evolve as the chapters continue.  That gives the storyline a real unpredictability.

At the moment, I'm not sure how the Trust mechanic will escalate into situations where we'll want to betray each other - there seems to be so much mechanical benefit to building up Trust and aiding each other, but I'm betting there's a lot of implications about the building up of our knowledge about each other's Dark Fates (and our relationships with each other and the Witch) that I haven't grokked yet, and the next two sessions will draw out.

Not to sound all Myusashi and Zen on you, but ... trust the Trust.

Which is to say, at this point, you as GM are like a bunch of hamsters running on the conveyor belt, in the guts of the car. You aren't driving, you aren't navigating, and frankly, you aren't even in the seats-section with everyone else. In many ways, you're a second-class citizen in this game, although you are necessary, like the hamsters, for it to proceed.

Your job is to promote opportunities for the Dark Fates to be expressed, and to introduce savage adversity. If you want to push the dice mechanics a little, then use multi-conflict situations, in which doing X or doing Y can be goals for rolls, but doing both at once isn't available as an option.

But Trust? Betrayal? All that stuff, which generates whole scenes and whole stories on its own? That's them, up there in the cab of the car, with their steering wheel and pedals and windows. They'll get there. Based on your account so far, they're getting there like gangbusters.

Keep running, hamsters; so far, you're doing splendidly. Don't try to drive. The fun part, for you? You get to enjoy watching what they do, and to that end, and to mix my metaphor, you've got the best seat in the house.

Best, Ron

Ron wrote:
Your job is to promote opportunities for the Dark Fates to be expressed, and to introduce savage adversity.

SESSION TWO

Tonight we met for the second session.  We all sat down and went over the previous session’s events.  I went over some rules stuff I had left out of the previous session: Duels, Death, and narration. For the last I pointed out there were three kinds of ‘extra’ narration rights available to players - Dark Fates, trust expenditure to narrate successes, and good conflict results (critical and double successes).  I made clear that it would be impossible to achieve the goal of defeating the mountain witch without using these powers, as I would not hand over character goals on a plate - they would need to narrate their way to where they wanted to go, which meant bringing in their dark fates.  Everyone thought this was very cool, and it was a major point of understanding for me about how this game hangs together.

There had been no communication about game matters in the intervening time (apart from this thread) except an email from Steve to me, clarifying what he had in mind with the battlefield he had narrated.  He didn’t reveal his dark fate, just gave me enough to work with that I could improvise around his idea with confidence.

ACT TWO

(continuation of Chapter One)

The Blind Man
We joined Steve’s character as she raced down the mountain to rescue the foreigner, Geoffrey, from the monstrous blind man.  Steve explained to the group his character’s motivation - she was attracted to Geoffrey because he represented something apart from the culture and world she knew.

The blind man invited Steve’s character in, and conflicts ensued to see if Steve could get Geoffrey out without raising the blind man’s suspicions.  The blind man trapped Geoffrey in the cottage and faced off with Steve’s character outside.  Sean’s character came upon the scene around this point, as Steve’s character prepared for battle and the blind man tried to leap inside and devour Geoffrey.  The blind man had a mixed success, so he made it inside with Geoffrey but his arm was sliced off.  Then Steve’s character used a ‘smashing through locked doors’ ability to burst in, with Sean’s character’s help, and they trapped the kami beneath the door and impaled it, then raced away with the badly injured Geoffrey.

The Wolf
Up the hill, Steph’s, Jamie’s and Ed’s characters maintained a watch from a cave where they were hiding and waited for the others to return.  On Jamie’s watch I told him there was something on the path, and asked him to tell me what it was.  He decided that it was a wolf, like the one in the first chapter, heading downhill towards the other ronin.  The group decided to try and stop the wolf, succeeding in partially blocking the path.  Jamie then narrated the wolf asking advice of an invisible companion, echoing something Jamie had said shortly before, that there may be invisible servants of the witch!  (This sparked with something Steve had mentioned in his email, a possibility that the dead of the Tanaka clan had become undead servants of the Witch King; I decided then and there that they had become an invisible ghost army.)

The invisible soldiers advised the wolf that something was up, and stormed out looking for the concealed ronin.  Using teamwork, the ronin were able to evade the soldiers and maneuver to the pathway, cutting it off.  There Jamie’s character planted his banner and ordered the wolf to turn back, which was an awesome moment.  (There were lots of other awesome moments, too, but I remember to mention this one - the group approved of this.)  This was a conflict - I said the wolf’s intent was to snap the banner in half with his jaws, which was also well-received.  The coolness was amping up!  The ronin won the conflict with a double success, and Jamie narrated that the ghost soldiers hadn’t followed the wolf into battle, and the wolf had lost its nerve and scuttled back up to the witch’s fortress.  Jamie also asked that the other part of the success be a revelation of why the Tanaka clan soldiers were following the witch, and so I put the answer in the wolf’s dialogue - the Tanaka clan had won, in the battle at the foot of the mountain, the right to serve the mountain witch, and the Tanaka general was now the mountain witch’s general.  The key revelation was that this general was in fact the person Steph’s character had pledged to communicate with in her conversation with the ghost.

The Night
The group re-united at the cave and made camp for the night.  There was much discussion at first, as the fate of the badly-wounded foreigner was debated, and the group noted that it was Steph’s character’s clan  that had lost to the Tanaka clan in the great battle.  Steph revealed that she had been married to the general of her clan, the predecessor of the general who had fought in the great battle, and refused to elaborate on what had happened after this.  [The players, of course, all knew that Steph’s character had murdered her husband in her sleep, but this information was far from forthcoming in the game!]

This led, with only a tiny bit of prompting from me, of a conflict.  Jamie’s character and Steph’s character agreed to a conflict where success would force the other to inadvertantly reveal something of their personal secrets to the group.  Steve’s character joined in on Steph’s side, and Sean’s character joined in on Jamie’s side.  The dice gave a critical success to Steph, so she got Jamie to speak of his character’s connection to the ghost soldiers (he had met one before) and Sean to reveal something of his inner life (he was severely prejudiced against women - not conincidentally, both Steve’s and Steph’s characters were women).

During Steve’s character’s watch, the feverish Geoffrey - his wound worsening - bonded with her.  Then, moments later, Geoffrey leapt to his feet and fled the cave.  Giving chase and kicking the others awake, Steve’s character slid into the snow to face the floating severed head of the blind man.  (This was the other bit of that prepared encounter - at night, the blind man’s head detaches from its body to hunt.)  They leapt into battle, which led to both of them being injured as the others came out to help.  Steve’s character dragged Geoffrey into a crevice where the kami could not attack them, but the kami then controlled Geoffrey to take a knife and stab Steve’s character.  This attack was turned back through overpowering Geoffrey both physically and emotionally.  The other ronin came to the rescue and through their combined efforts the kami was destroyed.  A double success was narrated to represent spirit energy passing from the kami into the ronin’s sword - its effect to be determined later.

The rest of the night passed uneventfully, save the fire going out at midnight (narrated, again, by Steph).  It so happened that Steve’s character was put in charge of relighting it, so I announced that the sudden chill had woken Sean’s character, and once again this character woke in the middle of the night to find a woman had apparently let the fire go out.

Reaching the fortress
Geoffrey survived the night but I said he was almost certain to die by nightfall if he had not received medical care.  This became Steve’s character’s overwhelming  focus.

I told the players that the next scene I would set for them was the arrival at the fortress, and gave each player a chance to narrate something to do with their dark fate as they climbed the mountain.  Sean took this opportunity to have the group encounter a young girl sitting on the path, unconcerned by the bitter cold.  He took me aside to tell me that this was the Mountain Witch’s daughter, and that he thought she could be either good or evil as I saw fit.  I ran the encounter with her as a curious child, who knew the ronin were coming to kill her father, and acted as if she supported them in revenge for her father’s strictness.  She let a wind gust carry her back up the mountain to the fortress, and she will no doubt appear again in a future chapter!

Then I used the only prepared encounter I had for this session.  I had the ronin reach the fortress, near a side entrance atop a slope that was hip-deep in human bones.  The ronin (through a map introduced earlier by Steve in dark fate narration - it was in the blind man’s cottage) knew of other sneaky entrances as well.  As they watched, the door in the fortress wall opened and a slave was thrown into the bones, and ordered by a fierce oni to fetch out the skulls that belonged to warriors from Steph’s character’s clan.  I asked the players who this might be.

Steph immediately said it was her character’s husband’s successor, Goro, who was the defeated general in the great battle and had been enslaved ever since.  Goro was also Steph’s character’s brother!  The reunion turned ugly as Goro alluded to Steph’s character’s disgrace, said that he wanted nothing to do with her, and started calling for the oni to come out!

Conflict!  The ronin wanted to grab Goro and get around to another entrance before the oni could come out and see them.  Double success - not only did they do this, but the oni didn’t even suspect anything was amiss with Goro disappearing (“he’s probably tried to run away - well, he won’t get far, we’ll chase him down in the morning”).  The ronin made it to a sluice beneath the fortress and disappeared inside.

=======END OF CHAPTER=======

This was the end of the chapter.  Trust was re-allocated and we had a break.  Trust really started to vary in this allocation, as the players found many good reasons on which to base trust and suspicion.

We decided to keep going a little longer and do the first scene of the next chapter.  I explained that for the first chunk of time inside the fortress I would be looking to them a great deal for guidance and encounters.  I particularly specified that I would not provide assistance for the dying Geoffrey - it was up to the players to narrate their way to things like that.

ACT TWO(?)

Chapter Two (?)
The ronin made their way along a covered drain.  Jamie narrated finding some moss, which he had earlier mentioned in character as being useful to brew a potion that would allow the ronin to see the invisible soldiers.  As he harvested it, Steve’s character cornered the captive Goro and demanded to know how to find a physician in the fortress.  Goro said he could take them to him, but for wounds as severe as Geoffrey’s only the mountain witch’s mistress might be able to help.  They all recognised her name as a spirit of winter, and everyone thought it likely she was the mother of the child they had met earlier.

Then a swarm of deadly crab-spiders came scrambling out of the water to attack!  The ronin fended them off and found a way into the fortress (first conflict) then sealed the crabs out while preventing Goro from escaping (second conflict).  A double success had Stephanie add that they found in the kitchen they had entered a terrified young maid who could guide them where they wanted to go.  However, the group split up in the chaos - Steve’s character took Geoffrey off, and Sean’s character followed, while the other three stayed with the maid and plotted their next move.

And there we ended it.

=======END OF SESSION=======

Some thoughts and issues and questions and things:

* pacing!  After about five or 6 hours of play we are only just into a third chapter.  Everyone seems fairly happy with the pace of the game, and trust wasn’t being blown through very quickly, but on reflection tonight I think my plan of having Act 2 Chapter 2 begin with entering the fortress should be revised, so that in fact Act 3 begins with entering the fortress.  Anyone out there have opinions?  How have other MW GMs handled the Act/Chapter pacing in their games?

* the importance of players narrating their way to key encounters, thus having to use their dark fate to achieve this, strikes me as an absolutely fundamental element of the game’s ruleset, far more important than its status in the rules-as-written would suggest.

* Sean commented that he thinks abilities should be active, not passive - things that let you do things (e.g. smash through locked doors) rather than things that let you resist things (e.g. withstand great cold). Steve pointed out that passive abilities are really requests to the GM to put the character in situations where the ability is a factor.  Any comments out there?  Steve/Sean, care to clarify?

* I didn’t remember to complicate conflicts with complexity, with multiple crisis points forcing the ronin to split their forces.  It didn’t seem too problematic, but when I did remember it amped up the stakes massively - like an exponential increase.  Something to note for next time...

* There were a bunch of instances of Trust being spent to help in conflicts where the aiding character wasn’t even present, usually justified by the character being aided having an inspiring or insightful memory of the aiding character.  I was perfectly okay with this, and it seemed to work just fine, although I wonder if there might be problems with it down the road?  Any advice from anyone?

(Also, Steve - a couple times you gleefully said ‘fan mail!’ to people (referencing a Primetime Adventures ‘that was a cool moment’ mechanic).  Can you recall when these were?  Actual Play posts always benefit from knowing the bits that everyone thought were cool, I reckon.)

I trust the players will add in any additional details or clarifications in separate posts.  This is turning into a good record of the game, so it’d be nice if we don’t leave any of it out!

A really fun game last night (and the time before...)

I really like how the players' wish to get their own stories out there ends up creating the world, and often an intertwined world too (though I don't think this is necessary or even something to aim for... My own character's story seems more of a B story to the emerging Tanaka-Sasashi clan war background which seems to be forming a multi-player A story...  And I quite like both of those aspects.)

Some things I enjoyed in terms of players getting their dark fates and characters out there:
Ohichi (Steve) showing compassion for the barbarian Geoffrey, even to the point of abandoning the group...
Sasashi (Steph) introducing the member of her clan as the slave at the entrance to the fortress, thus giving us another opportunity to dig down into her backstory, and accepting the dare Jamie had laid down to investigate her past (which I supported), and that mysterious aggravating cold wind...
Tohei (Jamie) for introducing invisible soldiers and mysterious moss (and finding the moss in a very sensible place too...)
Ito (Ed) for his strange antipathy towards the barbarian Geoffrey.
GM (Morgue) for letting us get at it.

And there was plenty more cool stuff too...

In terms of active vs passive abilities - I don't think it's the role of the GM (in this game) to set encounters specifically tailored for individual players' abilities... I don't even expect the GM to know everyone's abilities... It's up to us to use our abilities in unexpected ways, which I think implies they should be able to used actively...  My point was also that passive abilities tend to only affect the character (for instance withstand the cold), while active abilities can be used for and against others. 

The game places the activeness of characters in the hands of players - one of the things I'm realising is that passivity is not a good option (whether in abilities or in general play).  Even when that passivity represents internal conflict... Better to externalise.

Thanks for a really cool game everyone.

Sean

I really got into the game last night, but I saved "Fan Mail" for the big stuff ...

Jamie introducing the concept of invisible enemies, and in the later conflict, the moment where he planted his banner in the snow - challenging the wolf to attack.
Stephanie ... I know there were two moments - I think one was when she introduced Goro, and the other might have been when she had the wind blow through and extinguish the fire. Specifically that one was because I realised that that made the wind into a pattern that ties into her Dark Fate.

***
By about halfway through this second session, I could see how Trust will very naturally move up and down - as a combination of in-character actions and alliances + player assessments of who has what Dark Fate, how they're expressed, and how they might come back to bite you.

***
I've been trying to actively tie myself into other players' plots. The attraction with Geoffery buys into an element that Ed introduced; the Sasashi clan as the fallen enemy of the Tanakas gives Steph a chance to reveal her backstory; and Sean and I are playing characters who are such philosophical opposites (yet we are the ronin who have aided each other the most) that our relationship feels key to my enjoyment of the game.  Jamie, I've only - in writing this post - realised that you might be wanting to create an overall vibe of 'us being suspicious of your ronin'.  If that's the case (and that's how I've decided to have my ronin feel about yours), then that may work well as a connection between us.

***
I really enjoyed setting stakes for conflicts this episode - telling you to push harder in the conflict with the blind man, initiating our first player vs. player conflict, really pushing the idea that there are a multitude of ways to deal with any situation we're confronted with.

Hey Morgue, can you give an example of a multiple crisis point conflict & how it escalated the stakes?

hix wrote:
Hey Morgue, can you give an example of a multiple crisis point conflict & how it escalated the stakes?

Sean and I work together, and we've worked on scripts and TV shows together in the past, so we're pretty comfortable challenging each other creatively. 

We were having lunch yesterday, and the conversation drifted onto this game.  We agreed that given how Session 2 finished (Sean's old ronin following my younger one into a meeting with the Mountain Witch's general), we could very well go into PvP conflict very soon next session.

1. That excites me.
2. I think it was good that we gave each other permission, out of game, to play hardball with each other.

Re: Pacing

I had for some unknown reason had a fixed idea that it would be in the final chapter where we would reach the Fortress and then it would be small and impenetrable and containing possibly merely the witch. All the dark fates and treachery having occurred long before the arrival at the castle - given this feeling I would press for an Act 3 entering the fortress, or a greater sense at the start that - 'it would take five days to get to the top if it were a normal mountain' or some such statement.

Re: Complicating conflicts

For me, the complication of multiple conflicts was a far better dynamic - forcing us to pick and choose how we aided and fought, especially since the trust dynamic makes it very easy to band together when there is a specific external threat.

Re: Absent Character Trust

I am uneasy with trust being spent without characters being there - or at least with a specific in-game character based prompt (a distant shout or a lock of hair previously given now is seen ) which allows the non-present character to instigate a memory or inspire another character.

On the whole I really enjoying it all.
ed

I hear your unease, Ed, and shall work extra-hard to provide some sort of motivation or context for using Trust, if my Ronin is separated from the party.

Did my "You remember and are inspired by the way I leapt at the kami's flying cannibal head" work for you, or was it too abstract?

Actually Steve I had a similar reaction to Ed about the use of 'absent trust'!

Reason was for me that an absent character is focused elsewhere when the use of the trust occurs...  And it reduces the effect of the absence... I feel if a character abandons or leaves the group in some way, they're leaving the group and shouldn't be able to participate - that's what leaving the group means!  I know this is only one means of participation, and I also thought your means of explaining the use of 'absent trust' were very clever and in keeping with the game - I really liked seeing the imagination there in play...  I just feel when you're gone, you're gone.  Absent characters shouldn't be lending a hand in spirit, so to speak.  Because then the characters in the remaining group have more call to say - Where were you? We needed you!

Another observation about the use of trust is that it seems kind of forced on to the other player whether they want it or not... At least that was how we were playing it, don't know what the book says anything about this?  Can players reject the trust that another player is offering for an encounter?

Cheers,

Sean

Interesting.

If there's nothing in the rules about this, we should have to have a bit of a conversation next Thursday. Where I'm coming from boils down to this:

1. Apparently the group is expected to split up (or at least the rules provide advice about that).
2. Trust seems like this resource that measures how much 'groupness' we built up before we started splitting up.
3. So I'd expect Trust to be useable, even though we aren't together - it's a way of measuring the impact we had on each other; it's a way of bribing other players to keep giving us Trust at the end of the next chapter; it's a way to keep using the central currency of the game all the time.
4. And splitting up can always be 'punished' by awarding less trust at the end of the next chapter, which gives the affected ronin less ability to participate in such absent-trust-giving subsequently.

OTOH, I just realised that a ronin that's split up from the group, like I am, is supposed to be less powerful and effective - so maybe no Trust awarding is a good thing.

Anyway, I want us to all be comfortable with how Trust's used, so I look forward to figuring it out.

Hix said:

hix wrote:
Did my "You remember and are inspired by the way I lept at the kami's flying cannibal head" work for you, or was it too abstract?

hix wrote: 1. Apparently the group is expected to split up (or at least the rules provide advice about that).

morgue wrote:
* I didn’t remember to complicate conflicts with complexity, with multiple crisis points forcing the ronin to split their forces. It didn’t seem too problematic, but when I did remember it amped up the stakes massively - like an exponential increase. Something to note for next time...

morgue wrote: ... implying that other ordinary people still had easy access to the road to the Mountain Witch's fortress. However, the spooky wolf, mixed in with a few improvised bits of dialogue and business later, determined that the area around the Mountain Witch was incredibly heavy with spirit activity and normal people were few and far between. This may prove a hindrance in the kinds of bangs I can play with later on, since any ordinary person on the mountain will draw suspicion just by being there

morgue wrote: [Note: should have photocopied those name lists - finding that page, and handing it around, was a bottleneck here and later when players and GM both were introducing characters and needing names.]

Hi guys! Sorry it took me a bit to respond, but I've been busy with GenCon and a sunsequent vacation.

Absent Trust
Actually, "Absent Trust" is forbidden according to the rules. Or more specifically, Aiding and Betrayal imply a direct, physical action taken by the character in question to help/hinder the other character. The Aiding/Betraying character must be present in the scene, and must do the deed themselves---following me? Aiding/Betrayal aren't "meta-game" mechanics, they are "in-game" mechanics.

(As a quick aside, I considered whether to make Trust more meta-game during development, but decided against it. I like the feel better as more of an in-game thing.)

Buying narration is a little different, as it is a "meta-game" mechanic. The character does not have to be present in the scene, nor is it neccessary for the character to be factored into the narration.

Now, dead characters are the exception to this rule, as they can use Trust whenever they want.

Complicating Conflicts
I do this sort of thing all the time. Actually, I like to place specific players on the spot. I say, "Player Z---player A is being attacked by this monster, and player B is becing attacked by that monster... Who do you help, A or B, or neither?"

I've found that conflicts and other situations that force players to choose---either choose between characters or choose between Fate/mission---work great. If I throw enough of these things at players, you'll start to see more and more alliances and rivalries and general PvP stuff start to develop. (The GM doesn't have to worry directly building PvP tension, just throw enough of these situations at the players and they'll do it themselves.)

Splitting the group
Splitting up the group (or simply letting the players do it themselves) works great. But remember to bring the charactrers back together for a bit. Remember, the game is all about the tension between characters, and the fun of seperating characters is seeing how they react when you bring them back together.

*****

Other than that, it sounds like things are going great! Alot of stuff happens as an emergent property of play, so do as Ron said earlier---"trust the Trust". Just sit back and follow the flow of the game, and watch the blood start flowing!

Thanks for that, Tim!

I am nodding vigourously to your point about making sure to rejoining the others.  It's the way of really hammering home the consequences of your actions.

Cheers, Tim - I knew we'd picked a less-than-ideal time for seeking advice due to GenCon but hoped you'd be along eventually.  Thanks for the clarification and stuff.

Do you have any comment about the pacing of the game, related to Ed's questions about when the chapter breaks happen?  (I could make that a tighter question I guess...  um - when you run Mountain Witch, do you find your chapter breaks fall at roughly the same places every game, in terms of group dynamics and story progression?)

And thanks to all the players who've chimed in.  Will try to answer these queries in person on Thursday if I don't get a chance to do it here!

So, session three.  I came here to comment on Morgue's actual play report but there isn't one, so I get to make it all up as I go along.  ;-)

At the end of the last session, we'd just entered the fortress of the Mountain Witch via a tunnel providing water.  There'd been a big fight with some crabs and we'd just crawled into the kitchen, finding a kitchen made cowering under the bench in the process.  Goro, my character's brother-in-law had tried to escape, but had been dragged back.  Oichi (Steve) had then left with the gravely ill Geff-a-rey seeking medical aid, followed by Yamamoto (Sean) who wanted to keep an eye on her.  Oichi finds herself in a library, facing Kengi Tanaka (the general of the Witch's army), with Yamamoto concealed on a balcony.  They have a very meaningful conversation, with embraces and hints of a very strong past friendship.  Tanaka says that he cannot protect Oichi and advises her to leave immediately, Oichi asks him to change sides (I think I got that right?).  Oichi asks to meet him on the parapet at sundown.  She also asks for medical aid for Geff-a-rey so that he can complete his business with the Witch.  Tanaka says that it would be best to leave the injured man there and that he would fetch the mistress of the Witch.  Oichi says "Great, but I won't be here" and leaves.  Yamamoto silently backs up the corridor, then walks down it again, wheezing and coughing (he is quite an old man).

Meanwhile, back in the kitchen, Sasashi (me) and Eto (Ed) are trying to calm the kitchen maid and ask her for directions.  Tohei (Jamie) is climing out of the tunnel we came in by - he was the heroic last line of defense buying time for the rest of us to get out, previously.  As we talk to the maid, we hear to Oni coming down the corridor talking loudly about how hungry they are.  Goro Sasashi gets out one yell before being gagged, the Oni call through the door "Is there anyone there, er, not a woman?" to which Sasashi calls "No, I'm cooking lunch for you" and gets ready for an ambush.  There's a big fight.  In the process, Tohei and Eto end up dragged into another room so that the Oni can deal with them more easily - one was snatched and the other followed to help.  Goro tried to fight on the side of the Oni and was skewered through the shoulder by Sasashi, along with snarls about "Where has your honour gone?".  When the fight is over, she asks him where he hid her daughter, he is about to answer, but faints.  (OOC That was because Morgue said he wasn't going to make it up for me, and I couldn't think of anything straight away.  I'm still getting used to this narrative control thing.)

The party reassembles and at Eto's suggestion ask the kitchen maid for directions to the Witch's Chamber of Secrets.  They spend a little time eating and cleaning up, Tohei takes the time to make a potion out of some moss that he had gathered in the tunnel below.  They sneak around a lot and eventually find themselves in a corridor with voices coming towards them.  They hide, and eavesdrop.  I think there was an argument between Yamamoto and Oichi at this point, but they got out of sight in time.  The voices were from Tengu chatting as they came off shift, and we were given the opportunity to say what they were talking about.  I put in the comment that the Witch's mistress (I forget her name) was really angry and eating her chamber maids, someone else that they were wondering if the Ronin had arrived yet, they decided no because Tanaka hadn't asked for more guards.  Maybe something else, but I can't remember what it was.  Anyway, their conversation had been extremely food oriented for the last ten minutes and they started talking about heading down to the kitchen which would have broken our cover.  We dive out from cover and there is a Big Fight in which the Tengu become so much spatter.  After it's over, Sasashi makes a point of moving the bodies into a side room and cleaning up the mess so people coming down this corridor wouldn't know that something is up.  For some reason people seemed to find the comment "Cleanliness is the virtue of a good wife" to be disturbing.  Go figure.

We end up in a courtyard that leads onto the bases of the tallest and second tallest tower.  (The latter is our goal.)  Although we are quite high in the fortress this courtyard is earth and is full of graves and shrines to the dead.  Sasashi can hear ghosts muttering, some about 'the Slave's Son is returning', others about the different ways they froze to death.  The courtyard is full of mist and in the half light of dusk it is very spooky.  We can see some distance away, a parapet on which Kengi Tanaka is walking.  Along the parapet lights start lighting one by one, apparently of their own volition.
We do yet more sneaking.  I'd say we should consider renaming the band to "Sneaking R Us" but that's about to change soon.  ;-)  We glide in underneath the mist, through the graveyard.  A ghost (of her dead husband) tries to possess Sasashi, but she manages to mostly get over it, albeit with a chapter wound.  They manage to make a distraction that gets the guards away from the doors of the tower and sneak inside.

Now, up until now, the cooperation of the group has been really good.  Everybody is working as a unit, everyone almost seems to trust each other.  That's all about to change.  Inside the tower is an old man, casually sitting who says he's the Keeper of Secrets.  He offers to trade information because he likes secrets.  He grins a lot, and already knows a lot about us.  The Slave's Son is Eto.  Sasashi refuses to say anything about her past in front of the others.  Tohei wanted to know where he could perform a ceremony which would activate the potion he'd made out of special moss.  Yamamoto shows the old man the contents of a scroll with an imperial seal which he has been carrying all this time.  (He will later give it to Oichi, who is interrupted by an arrival.)  They ask how to get to the "Chamber of Secrets" and the old man points to a very thin, almost invisible rope.  Eto climbs it, Sasashi follows as backup.  They encounter a Giant Spider (a Komi?) which they manage to defeat with help from the others.  They get to the top and Eto starts looking around for something to do with black powder.

Down below, the mistress of the Witch has just turned up in a gust of frigid air, demanding to speak with Oichi.  She claims that Oichi has stolen her lover from her and that she is going to take her to Tanaka for there to be an accounting.  There is a fight, in which she tries to sieze Oichi and drag her away.  Yamamoto hangs on, Sasashi clambers down and assists, Tohei stands by and watches.  In a really weird success, Oichi is pulled back outside and Yamamoto is swept off in her place.  The mistress, thinking that she has Oichi heads off to her throne room where she plans to have a showdown.  Oichi heads off into the mist after them, Sasashi follows as backup.

Up in the tower, Eto is entirely unconcerned by all this.  He has found the papers he was looking for, and uses the spiders rope to abseil down the outside of the tower, towards where the Mountain Witch is standing with Geff-a-rey and a cannon, looking pleased at how well it's looking right now.  Tohei notices this, and heads off to interfere.

Oichi and Sasashi are sneaking through the mist, unfortunately with guards after.  Migumi, the little daughter, is seen playing with some bones and giggling.  Oichi says that they're going to really embarrass her mother and would she like to help.  Migumi looks pleased and says she'll take care of the guards, but Oichi should look out for the ghouls.  Oichi and Sasashi are now facing four nasty looking monsters.  They dodge for a while but in the end Sasashi ends up holding them off while Oichi reads the scroll.  She is rather suprised by the contents.

Anyway, this is taking longer than I expected to write up so I'm going to take a break and will add more later.  My general comments though:
- By this point, Morgue's involvement was mostly cutting between different characters stories and saying "The hamster has _no_ idea where we're going guys"
- I think in the first session, everyone but Steve was a little bit flustered by being expected to contribute major details into the story; we were all used to the GMs doing that, and it felt very strange at first.  By the third session everyone was right into the swing of things, throwing in narrative elements that had to do with their Dark Fate like crazy and it caused the game to have this crazily fast momentum and a really hyper fun feel to it.  I can understand why Morgue didn't know where the game was going, because no-one else had a clue, either.
- I was reading some of the actual play reports on this site earlier, and one of them was commenting about a group that liked keeping IC secrets OOC secrets as well, which meant a lot of private conferring with the GM.  I don't think that our group would have had as much fun with that style of play.  We had a very little private chat with Morgue, most of it was upfront and out in the open.  That both meant that the game didn't get held up, and that we could mix in with other people's backgrounds better, both of which contributed so much to the momentum which is one of the things I'm liking a lot about the game.

Anyway, my 10 cents.  (2 cent pieces were taken out of circulation here years ago.  ;-))

Stephanie

It was a fascinating, edge-of-the-seat kind of session, and the sense of energy in the room from all the players was actually pretty amazing.

Morgue started by framing a conflict in the kitchen with the three Ronin vs. some hungry Oni, and he was splitting dice pools all over the place, forcing the players to make decisions about what they wanted and who they wanted to help. There was a real sense of jeopardy here, with Trust getting low, and characters starting to get permanent wounds for the first time.

The conflict between Sean's character and my own (old, traditional ronin vs. young, rebellious ronin) escalated smoothly from friendly conversation through to brutal dice-rolling interrogations.  Sean would push me, then I would push back.  About halfway through the session, our characters were about to be discovered by wandering guards and I initiated a conflict with him to get to the truth of what was driving him.  It was a face-off to see who would crack first; no matter who won, we'd only get a few seconds to answer before the guards were on us. 

"Why did your Master really die?" I ask.
<dice are rolled> 
"Because of you!" says Sean, glaring at me.
The guards are nearly on us, so we split away from each other. In-game, it's to hide for an ambush, but really it because Sean and I want to milk the tension between us & use this new knowledge to build to a REAL confrontation later in the session.

That was the hallmark of this session for me. Players throwing Bangs at each other, revealing stuff made us look at each other and wonder what we'd gotten into here.  I've only GM'd, never purely played a highly-Banged story before, and I'm really growing to appreciate the time it can take to think up a 'right' response to a Bang - something that not only defines your character, but also ... it's like, if the Kicker let's a player say "This is what I want my story to be about," then a Bang lets them say, "This is what I want it to be about, right now!"

Example - at the end of Act 2, the Mountain Witch's Mistress bursts through the door.  Five minutes of Trust reassignment later, and when we restart, I use my Dark Fate narration to say the Mistress is here and angry at my character for trying to steal away her second lover, Kengi Tanaka.  It's way relationshippy, and entirely what I was into right at that point.  And it took about 5 minutes for me to realise that that's where I wanted to go.

... Also, we trust the Trust now.  It was incredible to see this reasonably competent group of ronin completely splinter over the course of about 20 minutes, as Dark Fates and secrets and competing motivations started to come out into the light.  The Keeper of Secrets had a lot to do with that, but I'll save that for another post.

Great game, Tim!

Right, the rest of the episode, as I remember it.  (I normally don't make quite so many typing errors as in the above post.  Stupid homonyms.  Anyway.) 
Eto had been abseiling to a rock close to where the Mountain Witch and Geff-a-rey had been standing playing with their new cannon.  Tohei caught up with them and they had a big confrontation about what their intentions were.  Eto declared his intention to kill Geff-a-rey, which Tohei didn't prevent, I can't remember what else they talked about.

In the throne room, Yamamoto was dealing with the Mistress and Kenji Tanaka.  After some talk that goes nowhere, the Mistress freezes ice over the entrances and declares that only one of them will leave the room alive.  Kenji immediately draws his sword, Yamamoto tries to talk his way out of the fight, but to no avail.  Oichi reads the scroll he gave her and discovers that Yamamoto was carrying an Imperial Death Warrant for her execution.  Nevertheless, after helping Sasashi escape from the ghouls, they both head to the throne room to rescue him.  Yamamoto has, throughout, been playing a really curmudgeonly misogynistic character, so this is a big deal for both our characters.  Oichi breaks through one of the frozen panes of ice blocking the way with her Break Down Doors special ability and they rush in.  Oichi claims to the Mistress that she has no romantic attachment to Kenji, but that because he had saved her life previously, she felt that she had a prior allegiance to him that she could not ignore.  Bother, I can't for the life of me remember what Kenji wanted her to do.  It was something important.  Anyway, the Mistress gets angry about all this and transforms into an ice dragon.  Sasashi gasps that this is the dragon that she dreamed of, when she mistakenly killed most of her family.  The Mistress winds herself around Kenji and threatens to kill him, and Sasashi is about to attack.  (Also present here are Migumi and a couple of chambermaids one of whom looks a lot like Sasashi, which I suspect will be resolved in the next session.)

So far, we have four Dark Fates out, and one to go:
Eto - True Motives - wants to obtain the secret of black powder, and kill the opposition, the strange foreigner Geoffrey.
Oichi - Past Allegiance - to Kenji Tanaka who saved her life previously.
Yamamoto - Revenge - against Oichi who was responsible for his master's disgrace and death.
Sasashi - Deepest Fear - the ice dragon which she is now facing.

The only one left is Tohei, and Morgue had said that the Act would not end until all the Dark Fates had been revealed.  At this point, Jamie, the player of Tohei, is wibbling rather a lot over the way the party had split up.  I suspect from an OOC point of view that he had an ambush planned which he couldn't pull off with everyone split up like this, so he had to change his ideas.  What he did was rush in to the Throne Room and offer to trade a life for a life - he would take Kenji Tanaka's place in the battle, in exchange for the right to take his place as general.  Yep, you guessed it, he had an Unholy Pact with the Mountain Witch.

Tune in in two weeks to find how it all pans out...

I've loved this game (thanks Tim) and the last session for me was far and away the most enjoyable - with one more to come... 

We've been talking about trusting the trust, but to be more precise, it seems to me it's about trusting the trust will be overcome.  The trust mechanism is the glue, the Dark Fate mechanism is the driver.

Dark Fates set up the oppositional nature of character goals - the slow build towards this in the first and second sessions gave me that thrill of 'something to look forward to', and then in this session it all exploded beautifully.  Dark Fate narration totally drove this episode - Morgue as GM introduced incidents and moments of conflict (my favourite was the introduction of the Ice Witch at just the right time to interfere with everything), but we as players spun those incidents, and added more of our own - this session flowed like a dream.

The Trust mechanism on the other hand gave the tension of possible failure to the game - too many Ronin were going too many different ways to make the most of the Trust, so we were in danger when isolated.  The Trust mechanism is essential to offset the power of the Dark Fates - it's best to go up the mountain together rather than face the dangers alone - and then at a certain point, the power of the Dark Fates driving the characters means that the group seperates and factionalises.

I love that combination of mechanisms.  Very nice stuff.

Cheers,

Sean

Sean wrote:
The Trust mechanism is essential to offset the power of the Dark Fates - it's best to go up the mountain together rather than face the dangers alone - and then at a certain point, the power of the Dark Fates driving the characters means that the group seperates and factionalises.

I love that combination of mechanisms.  Very nice stuff.

End Game
On the parapet of the fortress, the Mountain Witch stares grimly at Eto, and agrees that he may fight a duel with the foreigner Geff-a-rey.  He hands a rifle to Geff-a-rey, who looks very surprised, but also supremely confident as he handles the gun.  Eto draws his sword, and readies himself for a duel.

***

In the throne room, Tohei is speaking to the Witch's mistress Yoki Ono, trying to persuade her to fire her current general Kengi Tanaka and take him in her place.  After a time, she releases Tanaka and appears to consider his proposal.  This is too much for Sasashi, who screams "Traitor" and leaps to attack Tohei.  Tohei ignores this, and himself attacks Tanaka, who, acting on Yoki Ono's orders, is attacking Oichi.  Oichi and Yamamoto have also leapt to attack but, perhaps more sensibly, they attack Yoki Ono the ice dragon.  Everybody connects, Sasashi even swirling around after her slice on Tohei and inflicting partial damage on Yuki Ono.  At last she has proven herself able to face her fear. 

***

Back on the parapet, Eto and Geff-a-rey face down for the duel.  They are closely matched - as fast as Eto is with a sword, he cannot outrun a bullet.  He succeeds in knocking the rifle out of Geff-a-rey's hands, but he is shot through the eye in the process.  Geff-a-rey hastily grabs an ornate pistol from the table nearby and aims to fire, but is knocked off the parapet by Eto's rush.  Eto stops and bows to the Mountain Witch, the duel is complete.  Oyama does not seem pleased however: "My favourite pistol is lost," he says, "retrieve it for me."

"I will do so but pray you will give me medical attention."

"You still have one eye to see."  The watching Oni guards sieze Eto, and throw him over the parapet.

***

Back in the throne room, the fight continues.  Oichi is attempting to persuade Tanaka to leave the service of the Mountain Witch, while Yamamoto and Sasashi continue to attack the ice dragon.  Migumi the little daughter of Oyama and Yuki Ono interferes, she weaves through the dancing blades and takes the sword of Sasashi away from her.  It turns to ice and shatters in her hands.  Tanaka is still very undecided, but takes one hesitant step towards Oichi.  This enrages Yuki Ono, and she fights harder and demands that Tohei fight for her.  Oichi steps between Tanaka and Yuki Ono, and the wave of cold coming off her rimes her face and hands, if she stays much longer she will be stricken with frost bite.  This seems to decide Tanaka, he moves further away from the ice dragon and seems to wish to reclaim his humanity.  Sasashi has ceased to fight.  Instead, she grabs Migumi and tries to persuade her to abandon her mother the ice dragon, to pursue the human part of her nature.  Cradling the girl gently, she heads for the door, where the girl she thinks is her daughter is standing.

***

Outside the fortress, Eto is standing shaking his head, watching blood spatter from his eyeless socket into the snow.  Near him is the dead body of Geff-a-rey, the red headed foreigner, the ornate pistol he was holding lying in the snow as if flung from his hand as he fell.  He picks up the pistol and stuffs it in his belt.  Above, he can see the mouth of a great cannon directed at him.

***

There is a great fight.  Oichi and Yamamoto are taunting both Yuki Ono and Tohei for their failure in guarding the fortress from their incursion.  Tohei tries to defend the defenses (as it were) by commenting that they are designed to weed out all who are too weak to serve the Mountain Witch.  Now that the samurai have made their way into the fortress, they have passed their auditon, and are worthy to be employed.  The dragon is hurt severely, and changes back into her human form, bleeding from many cuts, but all stop, as the great hall is entered by a figure walking with slow steps.  It is the Mountain Witch himself.

***

Eto looks up at the great cannon.  He can just hear Oni talking amongst themselves.  One says: "You fool!  That is the master's favourite pistol down there.  You will have to send people on foot to get him."  Eto shrugs, appears to consider these words, and starts running down the mountain, alone in the snow and the moonlight.

***

Oyama direct his attention at his wounded mistress.  "You fool," he says, "I gave you power and look what you did with it!  My general is taken from me.  My fortress is invaded.  Bah!"  He raises his hand to strike her but notices instead that Sasashi is holding his daughter.  "Hand my daughter to your relative," he says, "and serve me.  I will restore your husband to you."

Sasashi refuses: "He is dead now, you cannot restore to me anything but a shadow.'

He holds out a locket, the locket that Sasashi had given to the Kappa days before, "I can create him again, as flesh and blood.  All that you lost, all that you took from yourself, restored."

"Never!"

"Then die."

Inside her head, the ghost of her husband rises up and tries to take over her spirit.  She can tell that he is unwilling, but is forced by the power of the Witch.  Desperately, she sinks to her knees and recalls the happy times of their marriage, and their children.  Still cradling Migumi, she feels the chill of death weighing down her limbs.

***

Out in the snow, Eto leaps over a boulder and down a slope.  He is followed by three skeletons, all in the armour of the Sasashi.  Perhaps with the defection of Kengi Tanaka, the battle for the right to serve the Mountain Witch has begun again.  Over the soft sound of their footsteps in the snow, we hear the thud of drums.

***

Yamamoto and Oichi are fighting Tohei.  The Mountain Witch directs his Oni guards to assist Tohei, but they manage to push him out a window, and land in the courtyard below.  This fight is personal.  They ask him why he betrayed them, and he answers that all he wants is a lord to serve, that is the only source of honour for him.

***

In the throne room, Sasashi is unequal to the fight against the ghost of her husband.  Slowly she freezes to death.  (Sometimes the dice just don't go so well.)

*** 

At last Oichi and Yamamoto manage to kill Tohei.  Before his eyes, Oichi breaks the banner that he has carried all this time, and throws it onto him.  The last things Tohei hears are the words of Yamamoto: "You do not die without honour."

***

Eto, the samurai who climbed the mountain solely to steal the secret of gunpowder, torn and bleeding finally makes it down to the bottom of the mountain.  He sighs in relief, and reaches into his pocket to pull out the recipe.  Alas, it is gone.  It must have fallen out in his trip down the mountain.  All was for nothing.

***

And then, Oyama, the Mountain Witch strides out into the courtyard.  "Serve me, or die," he says.  Oichi and Yamamoto rise to strike, and with a wave of his hand they are halfway up the mountain on the field of the great battle between the Sasashi and the Tanaka.  The ghost of Sasashi, looking rather suprised, is standing there also.  In her hands, she holds a sword made of shining ice.  The samurai realise that this is a battle not just of swords, but words also.  They tell the Witch he is nothing, he has lost his humanity.  The three rush to attack, Yamamoto leading the charge, the two women that he despised when he began this quest his only supporters.  From the sides Oichi and Sasashi both slice through the Witch, he is in doubt, he had not realised the possibility that he might lose.  As they cut through his physical form, it dissolves, leaving only the rags he was wearing and a ghostly form that rages against Yamamoto.  At last Yamamoto wins the battle of wills, and the Mountain Witch is defeated.

Sasashi looks at them both, and asks that they care for her child and Migumi.  Oichi readily agrees, Yamamoto takes longer, but eventually says "I shall."  Sasashi nods and walks away into the forest, where they can see the form of her husband and two dead children.

And then they are back in the courtyard.  Tanaka walks up to them and nods.  He turns to the Oni guards who are looking confused.  "The Witch is dead," he says, "and your power is gone.  See, morning comes soon.  You must flee."

Yamamoto and Oichi finally have their showdown, the personal dispute they had put aside to fight Tohei.  It transpires that Yamamoto's former master Nagasaka had committed suicide on seeing the Imperial Death Warrant for Oichi's execution - Nagasaka was Oichi's father, and was horribly shamed by her heinous crimes.  Yamamoto had come to carry out the warrant, but was now struck with indecision, he now owed a debt of honour to Oichi, also.  Oichi is also struck with indecision.  She, who had previously had a very flexible sense of honour, had realised that there were consequences to her actions.  One of these consequences is that she too owes a debt to Yamamoto, and cannot simply kill him as convenience would dictate.  Eventually, Yamamoto realises the only appropriate way out of their dilemma is to kill himself, which Oichi prevents (there was a dice duel at this point), saying that Yamamoto had a higher duty to care for Migumi and Sasashi's daughter as he had promised, that this oath overrode any other concern of honour.  Also, she promises to retake the name Nagasaka, and to take her rightful place as Yamamoto's lord.  Yamamoto agrees, his honour now broken; they gather the two girls and leave the fortress.  Overhead they hear an anguished scream as Yuki Ono, the dragon flies up away into the sky, never more to return.  Thick heavy clouds race over the sky, dumping a huge weight of snow over them all, and then, just as quickly, race away leaving a clear, quiet sky, and the soft breath of the first wind of spring. 

They leave and credits appear on the screen: "Under the Banner, a Morgan Davies Production".

The credits roll over images of Yamamoto, Oichi/Nagasaka and the two girls walking down the mountain.  The snow is melting, and they see the buds of flowers peeping out.  Migumi playfully pokes at Yamamoto to be brushed kindly aside.  A rush of leaves blows into Oichi's face, and as she brushes them away she finds a piece of paper.  It is some doggerel about a black powder.  She shrugs and throws it over her shoulder.

The final image is of the fortress of the Mountain Witch slowly dissolving and crumbling into nothing.  All that is left is the body of Tohei, dead, holding the pieces of his broken banner.

GMed by: Morgan Davies
The Cast
Tohei: Jamie Norrish
Eto: Ed Lynden-Bell
Sasashi: Stephanie Pegg
Oichi: Stephen Hickey
Yamamoto: Sean Molloy

The End.

Thanks, guys, that was a truly awesome game.  :-)

Things I Found Interesting:
- I liked the granularity of the conflict resolution.  Huge amounts of narrative can swing on a single dice roll, and the fact that the winner gets to narrate the outcome means that everyone is guessing about where the game is going.  There's no way you can beat on someone and confidently expect to win eventually through attrition, on every dice roll you could live or die.  I thought that was cool. 
- Steve, Sean and Morgan have all written professionally.  I write as an amateur and would like to better myself.  I wonder if that had an effect on the way the game panned out with everyone leaping in with plot elements and aggressively pushing emotional story lines.
- Eto/Ed had to leave early, and Sean gave him a ride, so was absent for about 20 minutes.  In the gap we ended up talking a lot OOC about family and family relationships.  Since this turned out to be the big theme for three of the characters, that was interesting supporting interaction.
- It turned out that Jamie/Tohei's grand plan which he didn't get to carry out, was to hold a tea ceremony with the potion he had made out of the moss.  As billed, it would have made us able to see the invisible soldiers, but by taking us partway into death.  He had planned to bring us into the presence of the Witch and announce "Behold!  I have brought new servants for you, see, they're already partly dead."  Cool, neh?
- For all that we were there to kill the Mountain Witch, that fight turned out to be a bit of an anti-climax, we were so much more interested in Yuki Ono and our own personal dramas which were either completed or about to be completed by then.
- Throughout the game, the cold was such a presence that it felt like a character in its own right.  The whole way through there was snow, and cold wind, and trekking through storms, and thick heavy mists thronged with ghosts, and ice, and frostbite.  It was a wonderful atmospheric effect, to the point that at the end of the game I was jumping up and down insisting on narrating the closing credits with the clouds blowing away and the first soft breath of spring arriving.
- My experience of shared narrative games, (this, the Lucky Joneses that Steve is developing, and hearing people talk about PTA) is that they all seem to revolve around the idea of a film or a TV series.  I think in part this works because using the framework of a known type of story gives people a structure to work with that they can't get from the GM in a shared narrative format, but also because films and TV episodes are a very compressed story format.  They have a limited amount of time to explore their story and finish it, which means that every thing that happens in the form is building up to the ending.  These games likewise seem to revolve around plot points that will matter crucially to the ending, unlike many campaigns that I've been in that keep on going with subplot after subplot until the players find other things to do and leave the game.  One of the effects of this is that in playing the shared narrative games I often feel quite detached from the character, much more of a puppetmaster directing my attention on a restricted space of activity and entertainment than I normally do.  I'm very aware of the conventions of the base genre, and I'm very aware of deliberately linking in with other character's storylines and working on the story's themes than I normally am.  On the other hand, there were some moments in Mountain Witch that were extremely immersive, so I can't take that as a hard and fast rule.  Interestingly, one of the big things for immersion for me in this game was the idea of cold that I mentioned above.
- Going back to the above point that the shared narrative games I've directly encountered all seem to work heavily with the idea of a film or TV format as a base (how very post modern ;-) ), I wonder if anyone has written a shared narrative game that works off the idea of a novel or short story, and how that would change the format of the game.

And it's time for my dinner,

Cheers,

Stephanie

Thanks for posting that Stephanie.

Two rulesy issues came up in the final session:

1) A big, complicated, multidirectional conflict where a was attacking b, while b was attacking c, while c was attacking d, while d was attacking e...  The upshot was that everyone was willing to ignore, and thus lose, one conflict in order to engage in another.  "I will let 'a' get his stakes so I, 'b', have a chance of achieving mine."  We decided (in order to get play moving again after we'd drawn a chart of the conflict with arrows) to say the precise outcome of an unopposed combat conflict is determined by an unopposed dice comparison - as if the 'defending' player had rolled a 0 on the dice.  So the attacker rolled, and added betrayal bonus or injury penalty as appropriate, and compared to the 'defender''s total of 0 less injury penalty.  That gives the margin, which gives the precise outcome (partial success, regular success, or whatever) which is important in terms of damage.

Was there another way in which this could have been handled?  This solution worked fine to keep the game going and seemed to preserve the integrity of the system, but I wonder if there's an obvious alternative we missed?

2) In our game, the biggest betrayal happened when Tohei announced his plan to become the General.  This betrayal was enacted in roleplaying - and while we could have turned the interaction into a conflict, such didn't seem natural.  The result was that when Tohei's betrayal became an actual conflict, the characters had all known about it for several minutes of game-time and the players for a longer period of real time.  There was disagreement over whether any character could use a betraying bonus at this point, given that the surprise aspect of the betrayal was gone.  In order to move the game along, we took a quick vote, which was won by the side that said betrayal bonus could still be applied (as it represented more than surprise).  Actually, at this stage (and because there had been so little betrayal in the game - I think this was the only instance where it was used?) I screwed up the rules on how the betrayal bonus worked anyway, but that aside I would be interested to hear opinions on this issue.  (Or have I misread the trust/betrayal rules again somewhere?)

--------

A wonderful and memorable game.  Ron's hamster post at the beginning was indeed how it transpired - more and more I sat back as the game went on.

My experience was this:

* importance of GM prep and guidance in Act 1: high
* importance of the above in Act 2: fair
* importance of the above in Act 3 and 4: low to nil

The only other advice I have for GMs in the endgame is to keep clearing space around the characters for them to resolve their own conflicts.  I could have kept throwing bad guys at the ronin all day but the clear focus of interest for everyone was the ronin's relationships.  Adversity in the very final stages should be applied carefully, so as not to upstage the interactions between the ronin.

I hope this thread serves its goal as a resource for future TMW GMs as to the kinds of encounters to prepare for the early stages of the game, and as reassurance that you don't need to prepare much at all in the later stages of the game.

To align it more closely with Forge Actual Play posting goals, it would be good to add more detail about what the group really enthused about and responded to in play but from my semi-spectator's chair it seems the answer is 'all of it'.  Players are invited to contribute more detail on this stuff!

Hi guys!

The Betrayal thing: Yes, very often the most gut-wrenching betrayal are role-playing moments, not neccessarily conflicts. That's fine.

In one of my playtests, I made this deal with another PC that I would help them kill a third character if they helped me. But in the meanwhile, I started Aiding the third PC, initially because I wanted to keep them alive. But our characters started becoming friends through this. So when the moment came for me to fulfill my promise, it was gut-wrenching. It was the worst/best "betrayal" of the game. But I never used the third PCs Trust against them. As a sign of our friendship, I choose to Aid the other player, rather than mechanical Betray my friend.

The Betrayal mechanics are there to give bite to Trust. You guys did right by still allowing the player to use their Trust even after the thematic betrayal. That's the double edge of Trust--you can't take it back if the player proves themselves untrustworthy (until the next chapter, that is). Allowing players to drop their Trust whenever they want removes much of the bite of the mechanics. If you need a narrative for this, you can say that the character still holds residual trust for their fellow ronin even if the ronin acts in ways that runs counter to the character's interest.

Conflict thing: This is a bit tricky---were all those characters PCs, or did it include NPCs? Technically, according to the rules, a Conflict can never have more than 2 sides. You're suppose to group people together who share targets, even if narratively they aren't working together. You then roll the dice and let the highest die narrate how it all plays out.

So you had A -> B -> C -> D -> E? I would have split the group into A, C, E against B, D (notice how everyone is attacking someone on the other side?). Following me?

GM prep: I totally agree with you that more prep is required in the beginning than the end. I tried communicating this in the book, but not very successfully. (I'm in the process of re-writing some of the GM advice, but that still won't be available for a bit.)

The Witch: The Witch's importance varies from game to game, but I think you guys now realize how (as I said in the book) he's really just a McGuffin. The Witch's death is very often an anti-climax, just a box that needs to be checked off... Well--that might be exaggerating things, but the climax of the game is the moment characters are forced to confront one another, which very often happens right before the battle with the Witch, or right after.

Thanks for the comments, Tim.  For what its worth, I didn't think the battle with the Witch was at all an anti-climax.  Several players actually ended up using the Witch as a symbolic proxy for the path not taken/the opposite of everything they value/other heavy character-type stuff.  The narration actually made clear that the Mountain Witch was defeated because the ronin pointed out how his supposed 'honor' was really just a cover for his deep sense of shame.

Getting specific on the conflict thing:

timfire wrote:
Conflict thing: This is a bit tricky---were all those characters PCs, or did it include NPCs? Technically, according to the rules, a Conflict can never have more than 2 sides. You're suppose to group people together who share targets, even if narratively they aren't working together. You then roll the dice and let the highest die narrate how it all plays out.

So you had A -> B -> C -> D -> E? I would have split the group into A, C, E against B, D (notice how everyone is attacking someone on the other side?). Following me?

morgue wrote:
So we ended up with:
A => B => CE <=> DF

If I remember right, I didn't think it right to fold Tohei (B) in with Yamamoto and Oichi because Tohei had just betrayed Yamamoto and Oichi, and wanted to kill Tanaka in order to take his place. He also was diametrically opposed to Yamamoto and Oichi's sole goal of killing Yuki-Ona. If we had folded this in, there would have been virtually no chance of Tohei achieving his goal, because narration would probably either go to me (if Tanaka or Yuki-Onna had rolled highest), or to Yamamoto + Oichi's combined Aid total. This didn't seem a fair representation of the fact that Tanaka's decision was to ignore the threat from Tohei in order to aid his mistress.

Thanks Tim, I entirely see and appreciate your logic.  If we'd had a bit more time to think about it we might have come to the same conclusion!

And I guess that's the end of this thread :-)