My group had our first session of My Life With Master last night.  None of us had played the game before, so it was a trial of fire.  Overall I thought the rules were entertaining, but perhaps a little loose.  More concrete examples would have been useful in some circumstances, especially if I had been playing with RPG newbies.  The Intimacy/Desperation/Sincerity rules in particular were a little difficult to get our heads around.

Creating Master as a group was a lot of fun, just like we had really enjoyed building the world collaboratively in Burning Sands: Jihad.  The Types were a little difficult to explain.  The players seemed to find it helpful to have concrete examples (i.e. Dr. Frankenstein was a Breeder).

Here's what the group came up with:

Name: Gloria Deschampes (really nice to see them suggest a female Master; really turned the genre on its head a little and made us think more!)
Aspect: Beast
Type: Collector (monsterous reinvention)
Needs: To absorb the souls of innocents to purify her soul and ascent to heaven (rebirth)
Wants: To convince the clergy of her sainthood
Fear: 4 (seemed like the good middle ground for a multisession game from the rules)
Reason: 5 (a little unclear of what this should be, but it sounded like Reason higher than Fear was a good idea)

And next were the Minions; the 'More than/Less than Human' were the most challenging parts of MinGen (trying to get into the Forge spirit here:)

Mark played Piter ("I said it's pronounced 'Pyter'!"), a gamekeeper with one eye and one arm.
Self-Loathing: 1
Weariness: 2
More than Human: Can lasso anything but a beautiful woman
Less than Human: Can't look at a woman unless she touches me (can you tell Master has an effect on him?)
Connection 1: I love the beautiful widow 'Fraulein Biergarden'.
Connection 2: My younger brother is a priest.

Shannon played Basil Blankenshield, a washed-up deacon.
Self-Loathing: 3
Weariness: 0
More than Human: Can judge the innocence of anyone not wearing a crucifix (seemed powerful given Master's Wants, but early in the session Shannon proved how fun it could be!)
Less than Human: Mute, except when praying
Connection 1: Alise, the blind daughter of the tailor.
Connection 2: Leon Tufnell, a seedy gambler; only you know that he is more innocent than he acts.

Chris P. played Fang, the Wolf-boy who runs errands.
Self-Loathing: 2
Weariness: 1
More than Human: Stealthy and undetectable, except when distracted by food.
Less than Human: You horrify people, except for children.
Connection 1: Has a crush on the town schoolteacher. (nice!)
Connection 2: Wants to be friends with the girl who plays ball in the cemetary.

Master and her Minions live in an old decrepit cathedral outside of town.  It stands in a forest clearing, just across the cart track from a creepy cemetary.

At this point we were halfway through the three-hour session and I couldn't have really come up with encounters or bangs ahead of time.  So I asked for a five minute break to come up with an initial scene.

Scene: There is a massive thunderstorm tonight, with flashes of lightning shining through broken stained glass windows and creating grotesque paintings on the walls of the cathedral.  Master is playing badly at the pipe organ, with Basil huffing as he works the bellows.  Fang is busy getting Gloria's dinner ready.  Through the numbing noise several thumps are heard.  Then they happen again and Piter notices that someone is at the door.  He shuffles off to answer it.  As the massive oak door opens with a creak, he sees three waterlogged figures huddling against the storm.  It is a working-class man and two figures who he can't bear to look at.  He tries to turn them away, but they beg for shelter against the storm.  "We are traveling to town to look for work, and my wife...she is of child.  Please give us shelter!"  Piter grimaces and leaves the door ajar as he shuffles back to tell Master.

After hearing about the potential souls, Gloria considers the possibilities.  "Basil, go see if any of their souls are innocent!"  He nods and walks back to the entrance, where the sad trio is standing just inside the doorway.  The man has seen better days and is no longer innocent, as is the wife.  And something in her belly seems to be quite innocent, but not quite complete.  But then he sees the girl.  Even her soaked hood cannot hide the trestles of golden hair.  She was a fair maiden, barely fifteen years of age, with a beautiful face and a pure heart.  Basil smiled and bid the group to enter.  He and Piter took them downstairs to their room in the old Monks' cells.

Gloria was incensed at hearing that the girl would be protected by her father at night.  "Imbeciles!!  Fang, go down to their room and...convince them to move the girl into her own room."  Chris P. chose to resist this order, but her seven dice vs. his one die meant that he basically had no choice in the matter.

This point was for me a watershed in the game.  Up until now, the players had been feeling their way through the game and wondering how the mechanics would work.  I felt like once they saw that they basically had no will to resist Master until they could gain Love from their Connections, they really embraced their situation and started doing evil things instead of trying to "beat" the system.  It also empowered me as a GM to really demand grotesque things and let the Minions sort the details out.  Things started to get really interesting here.

Fang entered the family's room and the father (Samson) and mother (Merelie) seized up with horror at his appearance.  The girl (Natasha), not quite a child or an adult, wasn't crazy about Fang but wasn't disgusted with his appearance either.  Instead of trying to convince the father, Fang tried his wiles on Natasha, and it was creepily brilliant!  "We have so many places to sleep here.  Wouldn't you like to get away from your parents for the night and stay in your own room?"  They both rolled a "9" and tied.  So I narrated Piter interrupting them and entering the room to announce, "Dinner is served".

The old wood dining table was long and narrow as in past days it had seated two dozen monks.  Gloria sat at the head of the table, eating the rustic fare from a mismatched set of silver place settings stolen from various churches.  All the way at the other end of the table sat the quiet trio.  The Minions stood respectfully nest to the table but closer to Gloria.  Samson certainly wondered why the group was living in such a rundown place, but appreciated the shelter and the meal and wisely kept his questions to himself.  Gloria chatted banally with the family and finally asked, "So how are you finding your ROOMS?"

"Oh, we are all in the same room, but it is quite comfortable.  Thank you."  Samson politely smiled and Gloria glared at Fang, who shrank a few more inches.

After dinner was over the and family had retired down the stairs to bed, Gloria called the Minions to her room.  "Basil!  These incompetents have failed me once again!  Wait until the family has gone to sleep.  And then I want you to hang that man and bury him in the cemetary!"  It didn't take much imagination to guess what would happen to the women after their protector was gone.

Interestingly, Shannon chose not to resist Master and instead seemed to revel in the possibilities.  After leaving Gloria's bedchamber, he formulated a plan and said a prayer that communicated to Mark that he wanted Piter's help to lasso Samson around the old elm tree in the cemetary.  In the middle of the night, Basil snuck down the stairs and opened the cell door (which was locked from the outside of course).  He successfully convinced the father to come with him, and led him outside and across the road.  The rain had let up, but the thunder still crackled in the distance as the inquisitive Samson wondered what this was all about before feeling the rope around his neck.  I faded out the scene and drew the camera back while describing the two dark figures silhouetted against the gravestones and a third swinging from the elm tree.

Wow, what an ending!  The start of the game was a little disjointed as we tried to understand some of the intricacies of the rules.  But once we got into the meat of the game, I really got into it and hope the players had fun as well.  Next session is in two weeks and I will post here again.

Chris
Caesar_X@yahoo.com

Chris,

Very nice.

Paul

Hello I am new to the troupe and was wondering if I could get written into this or if it is to late, I have a made up char and a way to write him in but once again its up to you possibly its to late. Please see if you can get back to me asap so I know what to do. Thx

Oh hey, if this is the Jonathan who just joined Troupe Berkeley, unfortunately this next session will probably be our last as we are getting to the end of the story arc.  And it would be difficult to introduce a new character at this point.  Sorry bout that!

Chris