For background about our group, our system and what we're doing, see this thread.

As promised, here's a report of last night's session.

Overall, things went really well and everyone had more fun than usual. As planned, I didn't try to introduce the specific Nar techniques mentioned in the other thread but we got our feet wet with several other "supporting" techniques which helped a lot. If I had to take one lesson away from the experience so far, it would be this: Our Sim-by-habit group previously went to great lengths to avoid any metagame discussion. (Everything was driven by in-game causality.) Opening up frank metagame discussion with the players before, during and after play has dramatically improved our enjoyment of the game.

HIGH LEVEL GOALS: (as discussed with the group)

* Get more done.
* More focus on the game and less general fooling around during play.
* Eliminate minutia. Focus on what's important.
* Stronger emphasis on Character

TECHNIQUES: (new to us as of last night)

1) Round-robin narration. Each player narrated a scene in turn, with the GM handling transitions and some scene framing.
2) Player narration of results following TR. (FitM -- no teeth)
3) Set explict stakes for each challenge.

Let me share the email I sent to set this up.

============================

... First, we eliminate minutia. Call me on it. Is this really important? Is this challenge meaningful or just filler? Get on with the good stuff.

Another the major point that I took out of our discussion was that everyone expected and assumed that the GM is 99% responsible for the "Story". It's up to me to put you in situations that make your characters look cool, it's up to me to drive the plot, it's up to me to provide interesting, meaningful challenges.

That's typically how we play, whoever is behind the GM screen, and it works; but ...

1) I realized that on average, a given player only has the podium (actually speaking in character or narrating your actions) for about 5-10 minutes per 3-4 hour game session. Should we be surprised that it's hard to keep everyone involved and focused?

2) There are five very creative people at the table, not just one. We're missing out on a lot of fun, creative opportunities.

3) Good communication among the GM and players is critical, but no matter how well we communicate I can't be inside your head all the time. YOU know best what is fun for you, what is cool for your character, and what makes an interesting story.

So let's shake up our traditional roles a bit. We've had great success collaborating on your backstories, so the idea of a player adding content to the game isn't new. Paul and I fleshed out the Solari, he created the Magus Misteriorum, the Brotherhood of the Fallen and Blackbane were all Mark, and most of the main plot comes straight out of Vendal's background. Much of Fate's personality and cool comes from Ando.

Feel free *outside* of play to suggest any story idea, any plot device ... not just those which relate to your character. You and I will collaborate as we have been and I'll make sure the idea "fits" with the Big Picture. *During* play, I'd like you to suggest new challenges when an idea strikes you, driving the plot not just through your character's choices but also creating Situations which set up those choices. I also want all of you to take over a large part of the narration. It may take practice to work out the details, but here's a rough cut:

The narration role passes around the table so that everyone has the podium once per session. I will probably remind everyone of where we are in the story, then pass it off to Andy for example.

Andy: "OK, it's almost midnight on the night we rescued Leela and Kenlei is on watch. I'm standing at the edge of the camp looking out. Between the campfire and moonlight it's easy to see. I hear a noise in the camp and turn around as Leela walks up to me, still wrapped in her blanket. 'Can't sleep?' ... "

... and the scene continues from there. It's OK to create not only color (campfire, moonlight, noises) and props ("there is a big, flat rock we can sit on ...") but you can direct important NPCs in a general way and have them show up when you want to talk to them. You can create bit-part NPCs on the fly. My job will be to contradict you if you step on something critical to the plot or move an NPC in a way that defies his personality. If you declare that Corolan comes riding up on a horse I'll let you know that in fact, Tellarians don't ride horses and even so Corolan is 100's of miles away and rather busy at the moment. I don't expect to need to edit your descriptions often enough to be intrusive.

When narration involves a Challenge, we'll re-order things a bit. 1) realize this is, in fact a Challenge 2) set the stakes: win, lose or draw 3) roll the dice 4) the GM clarifies the results if needed 5) the player picks up the narration and describes the results.

Mark: "When you wake up in the morning you find Tusk has been awake for hours. I'm fully dressed and armored and the Sea Serpent's head is sitting in my lap while I clean it out."

Me: "OK, I can't wait to hear how you got that to the top of the cliff. Give me a Climb check, straight up. If you fail you still get to the top, but you had to find an easy, round-about path up the cliff face."

Mark: "Sure. A special success! I scaled that cliff like it was nothing, hundred-pound skull in one hand, climbed with the other. Didn't even need a rope."

Thus Mark gets to define Tusk's cool the way he sees it (which is certainly nothing like the example above) and the game mechanics keep everything in line. Notice he sets up a challenge for himself, something which highlights Tusk's cool.

So what shouldn't be OK? Well, for now, anything that pumps your character's Effectiveness or moves your story forward in a significant way is off limits. Eventually, I want you to be able to do both but you will need to spend something like Hero Points to do it. Finding a broken sword on a battlefield is fine if it's a prop. Finding a greatsword you can sell is not, nor is finding a quiver of arrows when you happen to be out. If Andy started his description with Kenlei and Leela all tangled up and naked, my objection would be that we missed out on the really interesting part, which is how they went from "thanks for saving me, Stranger!" to tangled up and naked. Likewise, you're not going to create a book that contains everything you need to know about the Unmade Beast. When you want to drive the plot in that direction, you CAN create a rumor that tells you where the Beast was last seen.

See the distinctions? Instead of saying "Tusk keeps looking suspiciously over his shoulder" and hoping I will take the hint and setup the Blackbane ambush, Mark could just tell me "When we get to Akyr it would be cool if Blackbane ambushed us." (Between sessions please, so I have a chance to prepare their stats.) Then I would make sure Mark was narrating when you got to Akyr and he would describe the when, where and how of the ambush.

This may be a little awkward at first and it will take practice but I think it will be a huge boon in the long run.

============================

Next post ... how all that really worked out in play.

Looking forward to your next post.

Opening up frank metagame discussion with the players before, during and after play has dramatically improved our enjoyment of the game.

(Hopefully) quick plot sysopsis:

The PC's are on a remote island a thousand miles from nowhere. After a long, difficult journey they finally found the island, slew the Sea Serpent and rescued the Girl. Five years ago the Girl was kidnapped and imprisoned on this island; shortly afterward blackmail instructions were delivered to the girl's mother. Mom is a wealthy and powerful politico back home who offered big bucks if the party can find her daughter and bring her home safely.

Bang #1: Who gets the girl, if anyone? Handed narration off to Andy, who punts. "We make small-talk." was the gist of it. He did a good job with color describing everyone making camp for the night, gathering food and wood, etc.

Transition: What's the plan? Paul's char (winged human race) needs to fly to where the ship is beeached on the other side of the island and tell them everyone is alive and well. How and when do they load the Serpent's corpus on the ship? How do they sneak a naive 19 year old beauty aboard ship without incident? Let Paul narrate flying and the meeting with the Captain. More good color but players are interrupting and interjecting ideas and suggestions, cracking jokes. Rather rude and breaks up the flow of the story. We'll work on it.

So far no one really went out on a limb to create Situation, but the party is up to its ears in GM-presented Situation already so that's not surprising. The players are catching on.

Bang #2: Do we loot the abandoned Chaotic Good Shrine? The party splits with the mages and ranger heading to the island's summit to see what that big source of magic might be. Turns out to be a Shrine to the God of Air. A huge stone Arc (as it Raiders of the Lost ...) catches their attention. The lid of the arc weighs a ton or more but there are poles and pull-rings. Alas the strong fighters are below at camp so the mages leave the Shrine alone for now and go back to camp.

Example of meta-game, during the game: During the fight with the serpent, one fighter's hand was crippled. The mage has a neat spell that puts one person in a cocoon of accelerated time, allowing very fast but natural healing. He cast it on the fighter in the morning an I let him know it would take 8 hours in the cocoon to heal the fighter's hand. Now it's clear the party will need to wait around for hours, so in the interest of getting things moving (metagame concern) the mage's player asks if we can agree that he cast the spell last night instead. This doesn't disrupt continuity much so I said sure and the mage released the fully-healed fighter as soon as he got back to camp.

Setup: Load up the carcass, sneak the girl on board. Gave narration to Mark and he really seemed to "get it." He wasn't bashful about directing where and how the NPC's acted and he played up how impressed the sailors were with the fighter's prowess. (Something I hadn't thought to do, if I had narrated the scene. Even if I had, it was much more effective coming from a player's perspective.) They sail back to the safe, sandy side of the island.

At this point I made some strong suggestions, bordering on Force. Andy later said they were "buffaloed." The impression in this case is what counts, so I'll leave it at that. I pressed these points: Do you want to go back to the Shrine? Do you want to stop for a day or half a day to forage more supplies for the long trip back? (Part of my plan, you see.) The players agreed to both.

Bang #2a: OK, NOW we loot the Shrine! This was a great bit of Premise I didn't expect. Andy and Paul strongly objected to raiding the Shrine. refused to go and swore off their share of any loot from it. The rest of the group went for it. This generated some great dialog.

Bang #3: Choose your Curse. Mark did another good narration of his super-strong fighter lifting the heavy stone lid. FitM worked really well here and his description meant more and did more for his character's cool than I ever could. Unfortunately for the PC's, the Shrine was guarded by a powerful servant of the Air God. They had no doubt it could smite them so they quickly put back the relics and agreed to accept a Penance.

This was my way of injecting a challenge with some Premise to it. The Air God values Free Will, so you get to choose:

A) whenever someone addresses you you must bow or kneel so that your head is lower than theirs
B) whenever you speak, it must be in the form of a question

So which would YOU choose? Which hurts your character's ego less? Bowing and scraping or sounding like a fool? The players liked this and got into the spirit of it immediately.

More metagame: rather than waste time experimenting, I flat out told them that each time they screwed up and forgot their Penance, they would get 5 points of damage (not much) to remind them. Knowing this up front helped the players accept the whole idea and get excited about it.

Bang #4: Where the #*$*$* is the ship?!?!? Returning to the beach, they find the ship long gone and Andy (who stayed behind) lying on the beach under a sleep spell. They revive Andy and Paul flies out to find the ship.

Cliffhanger: Paul confronts the villain alone aboard the ship. It's the First Mate, who explains he is Mom's Agent and his orders all along were to make sure the Girl came home safely and the PC's didn't come home at all. Mom doesn't want mercenaries running around who know all about her little blackmail scandal. Moreover, the First Mate gloats, Paul's mage is going to go back to the island without a fight because any other course of action makes it LESS likely the girl will get home. The First Mate is the ship's navigator and they are a thousand miles from nowhere. If the crew finds out there's a girl hiding aboard, things could get ugly. So just suck it up, turn around and be marooned.

Will Paul make a noble sacrifice to ensure the girl's safety or is it time for some payback? Tune in next week.

More Metagame: Today it was nice to offer a very open choice to the players: let the ship go and be marooned. Obviously you will get off the island and according to plan go to the next piece of the Big Picture OR take over the ship and drive the story any way you want, you can always catch up with the Big Picture later. I also laid out in a "set the stakes" way just what it would take to gain control of the ship. (Not easy.) In the past this situation could have led to all kinds of misunderstanding and arguments, now the players can make an informed choice about what is fun for them.

Hi John,

I gotta say it sounds like you manipulated the players into the most important plot event of session--the ship taking off while they raided the temple. That's not cricket if you want narratism.

It might have worked better if you had given various NPCs agendas that lead them to want the PCs to participate in their own plans. Rather than giving the PCs the (in my opinion) tepid opportunity to roleplay angst over looting a good temple, what if the ship's cleric wants them to help him relocate it while the captain wants to leave immediately? And  the Mate wants to recruit the PCs to dispose of the captain and go sell the girl to the family's rivals. The Captain wants the PCs to protect the girl's virginity so she can be married off in an arranged married. The girl wants out of the marriage, perhaps seducing a PC so she's no longer "worthy."

Play the NPCs, set the scenes, let the players actions and the die rolls determine how the plot unfolds.

Alan, those are all cool ideas but they aren't the same kind of situation I wanted to create. Can you describe some techniques which would set up a "trusted NPC stabs you in the back" situation without manipulating the players?

It's worth mentioning that none of the players were very upset about the railroading, and they loved the twist. I'd like to keep that kind of situation in my toolbox. As long as they can make some meaningful choices every session, it should be OK to hit the PCs with something beyond their control right? In my experience the key is making it clear to the players that it's beyond their control so they don't waste time flailing at a no-win situation.

Speaking from my experience, I don't think one can have it both ways.  As long as you keep those Illusionist GM's tools in the game, it will send a powerful message to the players that the GM is ultimately running things.  There's nothing wrong with that, of course, you can have a lot of fun with that kind of play and spice it up with all the techniques you mentioned, but you can't get to full-bore Narr gaming that way. 

John wrote:
Alan, those are all cool ideas but they aren't the same kind of situation I wanted to create. Can you describe some techniques which would set up a "trusted NPC stabs you in the back" situation without manipulating the players?

I'll have to agree with Alan, although I think he's trying to be too straightforward with quick off-the-shelf solutions. Your material here was mostly fine and similar to how I'd do it myself (although I find your penances aesthetically ridiculous, I'd put in something with moral weight; mileages vary). Let me give you a run-down of how I'd have handled the marooning thing:
- When the situation was established as "player characters have a ship with deceptive crew" through play, I'd get the idea: "Hey, wouldn't it be cool if they were marooned on some island?" I'd write it down for later use. I'd also think up other ways for the betrayal to come by: perhaps the crew could mutiny on the open sea in some clever manner, preferably over some real grievance?
- Later on, the characters are on this island and most of the group goes to the temple. While the rest are gone, put out the bang: the lone guard-PC is assaulted by the crew. Or perhaps the crew try to bribe him into joining them. Continue from there: if the PC manages to keep the ship from departing, well and good, as the game continues into judgement of the failed mutiny. If the PC fails, all the better, as he is now at least partially responsible.
The other option, by the way, is that I wouldn't have had the betraying First Mate specified beforehand: I could just decide during the session that having one could be cool. This latter technique is only OK, however, if no focus has been turned upon the crew previously. It's like unmapped territory: as long as the campaign hasn't touched on some particular place you can change it around as you wish, but when it is described, you should stick to what is said. It's the same way with the First Mate.

As you can see, I'd play it almost like you did, except I never go through the plot-affirmation phase in my planning, where I decide that this is what must happen. Instead, I'd just keep the Situation of  "unreliable crew" in mind, and throw it on the table when the opportunity presents itself. I also consider "Returning to the beach, they find the ship long gone and Andy (who stayed behind) lying on the beach under a sleep spell." to be the most open and cruel example of Force in your description: how come Andy was spelled to sleep, just like that? Extremely deprotagonizing, and rather useless, as far as I see: what's the point of taking the confrontation scene away from Andy and giving it to Paul, especially as the latter already was involved in a scene at the temple?

Well, that's that little bit. Not really game-breaking any way, we're just bitching about it for hygienic purposes: GMing is much, much easier if you don't try to mix certain techniques, like bangs and plot-control. Either do one or the other, unless you really know what you're doing. Speaking of which, could we get a bit more background: what kind of plans do you have for the overall plot of the campaign? Was it important to get the girl away from the PCs? Do you have any firm idea about the forces arrayed against the PCs and their motivations? Where do you see the moral failures in the backstory? What is the backstory, actually?

Thank you all for the great feedback.

There seem to be at least two different approaches to Narativism at the Forge: this ...

Eero wrote:
A central idea to realize is that while we describe narrativism as "creating story cooperatively" this needs not have anything to do with a no-holds-barred storytelling fest. It is quite possible to "create story cooperatively" with players only controlling their characters and not having a whit of say over the NPCs, Setting or anything else. The narrativism comes from allowing player protagonism through the actions of their characters, not from some vaguely egalitarian freeform idea of "respecting other players' input" or whatever pussyfooting might be on the table.

Danny_K wrote:
Speaking from my experience, I don't think one can have it both ways.  As long as you keep those Illusionist GM's tools in the game, it will send a powerful message to the players that the GM is ultimately running things.  There's nothing wrong with that, of course, you can have a lot of fun with that kind of play and spice it up with all the techniques you mentioned, but you can't get to full-bore Narr gaming that way. 

Eero wrote:
- Later on, the characters are on this island and most of the group goes to the temple. While the rest are gone, put out the bang: the lone guard-PC is assaulted by the crew. Or perhaps the crew try to bribe him into joining them. Continue from there: if the PC manages to keep the ship from departing, well and good, as the game continues into judgement of the failed mutiny. If the PC fails, all the better, as he is now at least partially responsible ...

I also consider "Returning to the beach, they find the ship long gone and Andy (who stayed behind) lying on the beach under a sleep spell." to be the most open and cruel example of Force in your description: how come Andy was spelled to sleep, just like that? Extremely deprotagonizing, and rather useless, as far as I see: what's the point of taking the confrontation scene away from Andy and giving it to Paul, especially as the latter already was involved in a scene at the temple?

Eero wrote:
Speaking of which, could we get a bit more background: what kind of plans do you have for the overall plot of the campaign? Was it important to get the girl away from the PCs? Do you have any firm idea about the forces arrayed against the PCs and their motivations? Where do you see the moral failures in the backstory? What is the backstory, actually?

John wrote:
There seem to be at least two different approaches to Narativism at the Forge: this ...

Alan, your #1 and #3 don't allow for the players to be surprised, which was part of the payoff for that situation. Your #2 is very close to what actually happened. I had the betrayal floating around for the entire trip and looked for the best opportunity to spring it. Had the players emphatically wished to leave the island I would have let it drop, I just had the NPC make one last attempt to set them up and they took the bait.

For reasons I won't print just yet the First Mate needs to match a certain profile (both abilities and personality) and that profile and the basics of the combat and magic system drive the way things went down. There is no way he could engage Andy's fighter directly and as he knows Andy is very vulnerable to magic, a sleep spell was the way to go. I agree it was deprotagonizing for Andy, but not for Paul.

Whooo ... the backstory would fill more pages than I can type right now. I know exactly who is opposing the PC's and why. I know what the PCs have been working toward. The players do not know any of this yet. They are working as mercenaries doing jobs for one or more powerful patrons, some of whom have competing interests. The PCs have their own goals which weave in with the goals of certain patrons and run counter to others.

The girl's mother is one of those patrons. She wanted her daughter back, but she doesn't trust a bunch of mercs to keep her blackmail secret, so she sent the First Mate to make sure the PCs didn't come back from this trip. They had the info needed to save the girl, so the plan was to follow them to the island, let them defeat the Sea Serpent then dispose of them out in the middle of nowhere. Hence the girl needed to be on the ship and ideally the PCs needed to get off. Otherwise it was just the First Mate vs. five very dangerous adventurers and he didn't like those odds.

At least that's the way the First Mate presented it.

Fate plays a strong role in the story, which gets tricky with lots of PC freedom but it can be done. Ultimately, the players will decide how things go and how they end. I'm shooting for the feeling that a series of rather unlikely events leads the PCs where they need to be as the story unfolds. Getting marooned is one of those events and leads directly to one of the major pieces of the puzzle, but if they don't get marooned they can come back that piece later.

The backstory is full of moral failures and questions. John is motivated by revenge. What won't he be willing to do to get it? Andy thinks he is the perfect killing machine, but who will he kill and why? Mark's character is just morally bankrupt, hooked on hedonism, drugs and loose women. Where is his conscience? Will he take a stand on anything? Paul is after knowledge which is a pure enough motive. One of the patrons is motivated by revenge and wants to destroy [censored]. Several patrons are motivated by a lust for power in various forms, others, like the girl's mother, by fear. Even the most selfless patrons may end up doing great harm with their good intentions.

It's worth mentioning that none of the players were very upset about the railroading, and they loved the twist. I'd like to keep that kind of situation in my toolbox. As long as they can make some meaningful choices every session, it should be OK to hit the PCs with something beyond their control right? In my experience the key is making it clear to the players that it's beyond their control so they don't waste time flailing at a no-win situation.

That's a great post, Eero!

John, one thing I want to draw attention to is that narrativist play requires a different distribution of authority that you seem to be used to. Don't mistake freeform for a narrativist-supporting environment. Narrativist play of either approach (backstory or no myth) requires a strong set of rules and a distribution of authority for putting facts into play. Specificially, narrativism requires a mechanism which gives players strong influence over the revelation of plot events. In many game designs, the dice roll (or card draw) actually determines whether a plot event is revealed to the characters, and both the GM and the players must use that system. You can see this in some of Eero's examples.

Ron wrote some great posts a while back on the different varieties of authority and how they can be distributed. I found it very enlightening and I urge you to read Ron's posts in this thread:

http://www.indie-rpgs.com/forum/index.php?topic=20791.0"

I ran across the "Silent Railroading" thread but I hadn't read the whole thing, nor did I realize just how relevent it was to my current situation. Thank you Alan!

Paul wrote:
My thesis, essentially, is that the desire to see a predetermined outcome in the future makes a player withdraw from making meaningful contributions to the game.

Eero wrote:
In my experience this is a prime signal that, psychologically speaking, you should let yourself out of the mousetrap and reveal your big plot to the players via some well-chosen bangs. Then you could start actually playing with your players concerning the events of the big plot, instead of playing temple lootings and forcing the big plot forward on the side.

Did you hint about the betrayal to the players? Did you frame the suggestion to go to the temple through the First Mate, or did you suggest it as the GM?

... setting up "heroic" situations for characters without letting them earn it, you're actually taking away a part of the protagonism.

... whenever it would have seemed interesting and relevant, I would have had the first mate do something traitorous. Possibly a character could overhear him explaining his plot to somebody else, or simply, the first hint would be when he suggested the temple-raid. Either case, I would declare to the players that the first mate is planning betrayal, and called for system-appropriate conflict over whether the characters figure/find it out. (It very much depends on system whether characters have good or bad chances, or chances at all, for figuring something like this out.) If they fail, I have a free hand to set up a most brutal betrayal, because we have established that the characters trust in the first mate. If they succeed, we can frame a situation where they catch him, or the succeeding character can simply realize the situation and refuse to walk into the trap.

What I mean by this is that Fate seems like a cop-out to me, there is no reason to call GM Force that, unless you're willing to let characters know about Fate and interact with it.

Of course group harmony is the first requirement of good play, but it doesn't necessarily guarantee it: in my experience it is very common for players to get "shell-shocked" by "bad" play practices, leading them into all manners of less-fun expectations. Players schooled in this manner might be quite pliable for anything the GM thinks up, but that doesn't mean that the GM should do anything those other players allow. I'm not saying anything about your group here (they seem rather skilled, in fact), just noting that group concensus does not justify GM abuse.

Ah hah, secret stories, mysteries within mysteries, all waiting in the GM's head for the eventual big reveal... doobledum.

Great job with the torture scene, Mark. Tusk has me a little creeped out and that's a good thing. =)

We should have set the stakes before making the torture roll. You caught me a bit off guard and I didn't want to give away too much. The stakes should have been something like ... Lose: he won't talk, Draw: He gives up some information, Win: he sings like a bird.

You won the test, so here ya go:

* Kagen was a member of the Ghostknives, the same group that set you up in Vale and wanted you to deliver the blank blackmail note. They were trying to recruit Vendal, but he didn't play along. Naturally before they recruited him they wanted to get his hands dirty.

* The Ghostknives all serve one man: a powerful human mage named Malbolge. (Hence the "M" signet on the letters.) Kagen couldn't tell you much about him; he's a shadowy figure with a powerful presence. No one knows about his past, where he's from or what he wants. Kagen suspected Malbolge is very powerful and utterly ruthless. He feared him greatly.

* Kagen became a Ghostknife to learn magic and the ancient Way of Kur Tai, the dual dagger technique he used to flay Captain Bonham.

* They do not worship Sith, the Skull and Crescent is the symbol of the Ghostknives ... it's just a coincidence that it's similar to some holy symbols of Sith.

* Malbolge engineered the whole blackmail plot. The Ghostknives kidnapped Leela and delivered her to Ruulshan who created the cage and flew her to the island. Ruulshan kept an eye on her for 5 years hoping she would agree to marry him and had no idea who the Ghostknives were or that they blackmailing Lady Veronica. If anyone found out about the blackmail, Ruulshan would take the fall. Unfortunately, the old man died, which means the blackmail had to end.

* Thanks in large part to you, Veronica believes she was being blackmailed by Ruulshan. Somehow Malbolge knows this. He has Ghostknife spies in many important places or maybe he learned it using magic.

* Malbolge wants the whole blackmail incident to go away quietly. He doesn't want to tangle directly with Veronica or the Lords of Vale, at least not yet. He's happy to let Veronica think Ruulshan was behind the blackmail and figures she will just cover it up. No sense taking revenge on a dead man.

* Veronica did NOT order your death. Malbolge wanted you dead because you know about the blackmail and you might talk. That's why Kagen killed the captain: if he could get Leela home, great, it makes it more likely Veronica will cover up the whole thing. If not, at least make sure all of you die. Without a captain or navigator there was little chance of you getting home.

* Kagen told you Veronica ordered your death so that if you somehow escaped from the island and returned to Galadon you would seek revenge against Veronica. Either you kill her and run from the Law or she kills you and covers it up. Either way, the blackmail issue is buried.

* Kagen started working for Veronica 4 years ago in order to spy on her and make sure she carried out her blackmail instructions. He was the mole in her household that you suspected. She trusted him as one of her best agents. Veronica did order Kagen to sail with you and make sure Leela got home safely.

* You have a detailed description of the blackmail itself: who Veronica influenced, how and why. In a nutshell she influenced the Lords of Vale to limit the power of the Temple of Terra in Vale and work against the Noble Orders in general. In particular she organized a coalition to oppose the Edict of Succession which requires that the next Emperor be a member of the Noble Orders.

* You get the impression that Kagen didn't give a damn about these political maneuvers, he was just following orders. Malbolge on the other hand *loaths* the Noble Orders for some reason.

John wrote:
The bit I'm still hung up on is mystery. I like surprising my players, my players seem to like it too; but I agree that it disengages players from the backstory if they don't know what it is. There's also the standard author's dilemma: large blocks of exposition are just plain dull. How do you work them into the story without grinding the story to a halt? So the key point here is how soon is "soon" when it comes to introducing important plot elements? My players need to see more of the Big Picture now.

The Mate all but insisted the ship land and take on supplies for the journey home. The PCs gave in to that. As Andy pointed out last night he didn't think it was an important decision, his attitude was "let's just sail and get on with it." As long as taking on supplies took very little real time he didn't object. That was the source of his confusion and where he felt GM-force.

Andy was OK with the Sleep spell, though he felt it was too powerful an effect for a not-very-powerful-mage like Kagen (the First Mate). This is the first time anyone has been hit with a Sleep effect. The magic system and combat system are both well defined, interesting and protagonizing. Paul is a pure mage and he nuked the bejeezus out of Kagen in mage vs fighter combat, all handled by the rules. The important thing to realize is that all powerful magic effects require 1-2 rounds of combat to cast and are easily interruptable, so a mage in melee isn't getting off a powerful spell. At range though ... whoo boy. Hence the First Mate needed surprise to spring the Sleep spell on Andy. Andy got a saving throw (20%?) and failed. If he had succeeded I would have told him Kagen cast a spell on him and it would have been clobberin time.

... setting up "heroic" situations for characters without letting them earn it, you're actually taking away a part of the protagonism.

I'm intrigued. What do you mean by "letting them earn" "heroic situations"? How was presenting Paul with the classic "catch the villain or save the girl" dilamma deprotagonizing? or do I mistake your meaning?

Wow.

Um, what Eero said. I mean, that post is really dense, but that's the answer, and all of it.

Best, Ron