Raleighwood Game Night: Paladin [6.12.02]

My two gamers, Adam and Jon, are fairly new to gaming, and have only been exposed to a couple of games (one indie, one not). They're both Star Wars fans. I'm not a Star Wars fan.

We played a game of Clinton Nixon's Paladin last night, for the first time. The setting was Tatooine, ten years after the events of Episode VI.

The players created two young Jedi, named Jagr and Tereth.

Jagr: Impulsive, violent, drawn to the dark side, and quite full of himself.
Tereth: Personable, reserved, firmly on the light side, and level-headed.

The characters' dispositions were not pregenerated. First, I explained the concept to the group, and discussed the 3x3 matrix with them. That done, I hustled them into character creation, with some interesting results. Tangential: I was reminded of word-association games that reveal deep and dark and profound psychological secrets and neuroses. Seriously.

Rather than allow the players to spend too much time, I simply posed each attribute as a series of questions: "Where is your physical strength? What is your strength when you walk on the Light Path? What is your strength when you walk the Dark Path?"

Almost immediately, their characters took shape. Jagr's Flesh attributes included choices that I would not have made, choices that I wouldn't have considered: Flash, Swagger, and Con Artist. Obviously, a Jedi in need of a stable partner. Tereth's Light attributes included Confidence, Level-Headedness, and Encouragement. A perfect match.

Distribution of points between the nine attributes of the 3x3 matrix went quite smoothly, as did allocation of points between Light and Dark Animus.

The game's simplicity lent itself to quick decision-making, and the fact that the characters were Jedi allowed the players to hurl themselves into conflict fearlessly.

One difficulty manifested itself early on. When trying to convince an informant in the Mos Eisley Cantina to divulge information, Jagr used the Light Animus to activate his Light Relationship attribute ("Charm"). Since he had an equal number of Light and Dark Animus at the time, using the one point of Light Animus put him over the edge.

At this point, he could only use Light Animus to diminish his Dark Animus, on a one-for-one basis. Initially, he had three of each. After activating Charm, Jagr only had two Light Animus, and three Dark Animus. He was pretty much stuck using Dark Animus at this point, since Light Animus can't be used if there's more Dark Animus.

I think I understand the idea behind the mechanic, but since his highest Light Attribute was 4, and his highest Dark Attribute was 2, he felt that he was penalized for activating a Light Attribute.

Had he used something else on the informant, like his Dark Attribute, "Lies", he would have used up a point of Dark Animus, and all would be well with the world.

Of course, had he created a character with six Light Animus and no Dark Animus, this wouldn't have been a problem. He complained, however, that he wanted to know what it was like to be a Jedi wrestling with the allure of the Dark Side. I said, well, Sparky, now you know -- it's hard, ain't it? Ha ha. He didn't think this was funny.

I see the beauty of the mechanic, but the rules might mention that it's something of a slippery slope. If a character doesn't gain new Light Animus (after all, during a series of conversations in a Cantina, there's little personal danger unless Greedo pulls out a gun and shoots -- nevermind), and uses up his points and gets left with more Dark Animus, then there's no way to get rid of those Dark Animus points, short of using them. Could be tricky.

Eventually, they were beset by assailants, and there was much leaping and lightsabering. The rules streamlined combat immensely, and I required characters to define their actions in terms of the Attribute and Ability in question. For instance, Tereth used the Attribute of Speed and the Ability of Leaping to fling himself headlong into the fray, blurring between his enemies, and then he made lightsaber noises and it was rather unsettling how much I liked it.

Mook creation was simple and allowed them to explore combat creatively with Sand People cannon fodder. The rules for contested actions will no doubt be explored next week, when our young Jedi come face to face with the horrific Darth Kiar'Aht.

Overall:

* Character creation took no time at all, and allowed characterization and personality development during the process.
* Combat was smooth and quick.
* Light and Dark Animus were a little confusing at first, but it righted itself soon enough.
* I'm looking forward to seeing how the Code (and violation of the Code) will work out.

More later.

-- Rafael

[Edited to include a link to Mister Double-Impeachment's game page. Ho ho, I'm original. Yes, I know.]

Rafael,

Rock on. (By the way, I think we're the first two people to actually go through with the Designer Swap.)

Your problem with spending Light Animus put a character over into the Dark Path (I like that term, by the way. I'm stealing it.) is a relatively serious one. I'd seen it before in the game, but I believe I have a way to fix it. (Whenever you spend Dark Animus, it decreases Light Animus currently. However, the converse doesn't happen. I think I'll make it where it does. In that case, Jagr would have gone from 3 Light/3 Dark Animus to 2 Light/2 Dark Animus.)

E-mail me your players' names, so that I can list them as playtesters.

- Clinton

I believe you're right Clinton.

Maybe you should start a sticky thread at the top of Actual Play to list Design Swap Success Stories. Sort of a "hall of fame" of Forgeites who actually followed through...a carrot, if you will, to encourage the practice.