So the one game of IAWA I played was an absolute hit. Probably my favorite night of gaming in at least a year or more.

But I have some procedural questions:

1.) In conflict, when you compare highest dice *after a roll*, it's always read from the highest number showing, not the size, right? So if my d8 comes up a 2, and my d6 comes up a 5, my roll is read as 5, 2.

2.) Does the advantage die always attach to the die of the highest *size*, or the highest *number* after the roll? So if I was rolling an advantage die with the example in #1, and it came up 3, would my roll be 8, 2 or 5, 5?

3.) One conflict we fudged our way through in my game was a case of alcohol poisoning that was self-inflicted by a soldier trying to cope with the aftermath of murdering a woman while possessed by his intelligent shortsword. We decided that really, the most interesting thing to do with that was to have the character struggle against the poisoning itself, to see if he could grit his teeth and stomp out that door to try and make things right, and at what cost. He lost and overcame it with the price of exhaustion (because of course, leaving him in the inn would have been just lame).

Now, the alcohol poisoning is a one-shot deal obstacle - not really worth making it an NPC because it has no sense of agency. I gave it a d6 d6 for the conflict and left it at that. For those rare moments that you do have an obstacle instead of a character as the 'opponent' in a conflict, is there a more 'right' way to handle this?

I''m not Vincent, but I've read enough IAWA Q&A threads to know the asnwers to your first two questions.

1. Yes: read in order of result, not dice size.

2. Yes - find the highest roll, then add the advantage die to it.

3. Hmm, that's a tough one. If the woman had stats, I might have done the attack using her stats - it's her memory, lingering. Then again, the guilt itself could have been created as an NPC, and might stalk the NPC -  attacking him in future scenes! And maybe, in a Heroquest-like game, and depending how things went, that guilt might have become incarnate - some spirit of rage or shame or despair - to affect other people too.

What about having the character opposing herself?  Different aspects of the personality, and therefore (maybe) different forms?

That could be really rockin.
D

Darren wrote: 3. Hmm, that's a tough one. If the woman had stats, I might have done the attack using her stats - it's her memory, lingering. Then again, the guilt itself could have been created as an NPC, and might stalk the NPC -  attacking him in future scenes! And maybe, in a Heroquest-like game, and depending how things went, that guilt might have become incarnate - some spirit of rage or shame or despair - to affect other people too.

As I see it, since you only roll the dice if another character can and will oppose you, Hero-guy could just walk out that door if he chose to.

Of course, then Evil-dude could say: "When I was nursing you back to health, I was actually making the poisoning worse. So you aren't going anywhere".

Then dice would roll.

A "Save vs. Alcohol Poisoning" is not what I would do.

The "alcohol challenge" is interesting.  IAWA assumes conflict is inter-character and it's not really a conflict in scope for the game, so the "warranty is void" if you start taking it in that direction (not that aren't all sorts of warranty-voiding fun to be had with all sorts of things).

Conceptually, depending on motivations etc., could it have been a conflict with the Sword.  In the story of this character it looks like the issue is particular case is dealing with or breaking under the stresses of the Sword's influence and its interests at conflict with the character's.

Overall, that sounds like a blast.  So very Elric.

Rob

Lars wrote: A "Save vs. Alcohol Poisoning" is not what I would do.

A "Save vs. Alcohol Poisoning" is not what I would do.

Hey Landon, did I meet you at Dreamation?

I'm falling on the side of "make alcohol poisoning an NPC," myself. You'd be like "I walk out the door" and alcohol poisoning would be like "oh I totally stop you." Call it action d12 d8, maneuvering d10 d6, self-protection d6 d4, but all it's likely to ever do is action.

With Darcy, you could also get hinky and have the PC oppose himself. That could be cool.

Or how about you make it a particular weakness? Stat it out like a particular strength, but give the die to your opponent instead. That's pretty nifty.

-Vincent

Whereas I think that stating up an alcohol-poisoning NPC is a terrible idea. :-)

I mean, yeah, as a transitional measure to ease out of "having a conflict over X" type of play and into "only roll when someone opposes your actions," type of play -- then yeah, I can see it. But I'd ditch the proto-NPCs as fast as possible.

But I'm crotchety. I play Wicked because it doesn't feature "let's have a conflict about this!" in the system. I like to take a break from that kind of play, and Wicked is the place I go. Not that there's anything wrong with it (PTA is the bomb!) it's just a different thing. The times when we have tried to slip into conflict/stakes mode with Wicked have been the times when the game was weakest, IME.

Making proto-NPCs to stand in for alcohol or the mountain you have to climb or the memory of your sister? Nah. Not for me, thanks. You don't need dice and consequences for those things to have power and meaning in the game.

lumpley wrote: Hey Landon, did I meet you at Dreamation?

I wouldn't have gone to the dice over the alcohol at all. It doesn't meet my threshold for when dice come out in Wicked. Like you said, "...there was no other character around for him to reasonably have a conflict with." To me, given the spirit of the game as I interpret it, that means there's no dice -- and I don't go looking for a way to add them. To me, you never, ever roll dice in Wicked to see if someone can do something, or even how well or poorly they do it. You only roll when someone steps in to stop someone else, or two people undertake actions that interfere.

The guy has a serious struggle with the alcohol, and that's awesome. I'm riveted, whichever way he decides to go with it. We don't dice over it, but it still matters.

lumpley wrote:
Hey Landon, did I meet you at Dreamation?

John wrote:
You don't need dice and consequences for those things to have power and meaning in the game.

I realize that Vincent has spoken, and therefore there's little room for debate on this -- but I want to agree with John Harper about the strict interpretation of "Roll dice when one character undertakes to do some concrete thing, and another character can and would try to interfere."  I love that part of the Wicked rules!  It's "Say yes, unless some other active participant in the game says no".

All of which means that I think Darcy has the right answer.  There is only one character in the scene, but that player's character feels seriously that somehow there should be opposition to the thing he has his character undertaking.  He's in opposition to his own character's action, which is cool:  He is stating that his character is in conflict with himself. 

On the one side; "I have to fight through this fog, and get out there and stop this from happening!"  Call it 'for Others' and 'Directly' or even 'for Others' and 'with Love' if the emotional context is right.  On the other side;  "You're too drunk, too tired, too depressed, to defeated to do this.  Just give up and pass out."  Call that one 'for Myself' and 'Covertly', since it's that insidious little inner voice telling the character "you can't".

Now roll the conflict.  It's all internal, in his head, externalized only by the staggering around, the breaking of furniture, and the puking up of his guts. 

The weird part is, the player is the only one in the conflict, so when the win/lose comes about, he is negotiating consequences with himself...  "I make it out the door, but I'm Exhausted."  or "I fall flat on my face in a pool of vomit -- I'm Injured." or "In a drunken haze, I stagger onto the street, I'm down one die type to my 'Directly' because of blurred vision and DTs".  or "I'm snoring peacefully at my table, not even twitching, when someone finds me after sunup, but I take no stat losses."  or whatever outcome seems reasonable to him (and is legal under the rules).

Hows that for a take on the situation?

The same technique could be used for other cases where a player is unsure of what his character might be capable of making himself do -- is he really brave enough to face down the dragon, cowardly enough to leave his friend behind to die, vile enough to commit human sacrifice, etc.  Of course, if the player is sure of what his character is capable of making himself do, there's no conflict, he just narrates the event.

--
DainXB

Ryan wrote:
Actually, it was me you met and only briefly asked that question while we were both busy.  I was bummed to not get to sit down with you later about it.

DainXB wrote: It's "Say yes, unless some other active participant in the game says no".

On latter, my view is sorta, "yeah, not meaningful" as in "not meaningful enough the rest of us should spend 3 rounds of dice every now and again watching you play out a dispute with yourself".  However, "fine for you to narrate the detail of your inner conflict, that's cool and fun to watch", or even also "if you want to narrate the existence of a shadow self as effectively a seperate character sharing shame physical body, and somebody else gets to play that shadow self, cool, but then they're the one's disputing, negotiating etc".

But that is likely a very much individual taste thing, so only speaking for my taste.

Rob

I'll speak a little more broadly: the kind of fiction that In a Wicked Age is good at isn't really about internal conflicts. Lots of fiction, lots of narrativism, is; In a Wicked Age's, not so much.

What would be totally in keeping with the Wicked Age, and playing to its rules' strengths too, is to just go ahead and make alcohol poisoning into a demon. Give it best interests, have it act, maneuver, and protect itself. Maybe even give it particular strengths.

Me and my damn demons, I know it. But externalizing internal conflicts is one of the ways that this kind of sword & sorcery fiction deals with them.

-Vincent

Well you've got Tanith Lee's "demon" books in the inspiration list so making "demons" out of desires/forces/temptations resonates very nicely with me :)

(I love Tanith Lee though I admit one can overdose on her style).

Rob

Yeah, Vincent and I are agreeing, actually.

If "alcohol poisoning" was to come up as a really important thing in Jack Vance or Tanith Lee, you can bet it would be a demon, or curse from an evil sorcerer, or something with some agency. So, yeah... if it became a thing in a Wicked game, maybe it's best to quick write it up as an NPC demon-y thing to keep it from being a simple internal struggle. I totally buy that.

This would mean, of course, that now there is a demon of alcohol poisoning loosed on the world, with its own interests, that sticks around and is a problem outside the scope of a one-off moment or scene. This is pretty key, I think.

Lenny: That's a good question, and I bet my answer is obvious and not too exciting. The guy playing the drunk would talk about what his character did and said in the scene, and we would all listen to him. He would be all, "Long past the point of no return, I stare into the glass and try to talk myself out of it. But I can't. The last swallow goes down without a fight and it's all darkness." And we would all have some goosebumps and respond with nodding or "damn.." and relfect a little, probably, on a person we have known like that. And then we would carry on with the business of the game.

The business of the game being the conflicting interests that we established at the outset of the chapter. The drunk guy having his sad little moment in the bar is cool, but it's not what the chapter is about. We appreciate it, and it might even be a highlight that we talk about later, but Wicked, as a game we play to tell a certain kind of story, isn't focused there.