I'll have a more complete report later, but some comments from running the game tonight while it's fresh in my mind. These comments come from both me and my players:

1. There needs to be a way to reduce Self-Loathing if you're going to have a long-term game. I dunno if I called for rolls too often or what, but one PC ened up with 11 Self-Loathing and ended up allowing a crowd to tear him apart, while the one that killed the Master had a 8 Self-Loathing. If they hadn't gotten lucky in their rolls, they would have never been able to do anything.
2. Related to the above, rolling a minimum of one die is a good thing, I think. Otherwise NOTHING would have happened in seveal scenes.
3. Another suggestion for long-term play, which came from our one-shot, ironically: Being able to raise Reason somehow would be good. Innocents are a good start but it'd be nice if the PCs could do something to raise Reason.
4. I assume you go through the Epilogue conditions in order? Because we had one character qualify for two different results.

Those were the main concerns. Self-Loathing seemed to go up awful fast and the spiral didn't help in the eventual confrontation with the Master.

However, Master creation and the game overall went well. More on that later.

We did a group Master creation, on the model Paul suggested. After much discussion, the players decided on a Brain/Teacher. After much more discussion, they came up with the idea of a wannabe playwright who Needs the blood of virgins to write the play he's working on, which is supposed to endear him to the virginal minister's daughter that he Wants to impress, while teaching everyone about the value of purity. He's a rich man who became obsessed with purity after he killed the minister's wife, who he deemed "impure" after he discovered she was having an affair with the mayor (despite the fact the Maestro wanted to have an affair with her himself). They also decided at this point that the game was set in 19th century Germany, in a generic village. The Maestro lived on the outskirts of town, in a mansion surrounding a theatre he built himself with his money that no one goes to.

This set-up seemed more Feeder or Collector than Teacher to me, but I didn't push the issue because they seemed to like what they came up with, and since the categories have no game mechanical effect, I consider them mainly useful for inspiration anyway. (Which could be an interesting suggestion: Perhaps the type of Master should have some game-mechanical effect?) Regardless, the scenario they came up with, with its sordid elements, got us started on a Relationship Map that continued as characters were made, and caused us to set Fear at 4 (the Maestro is scary, but not exactly Dr. Moreau) and Reason at 2 (because of the sordid nature of what had been going on at the village).

More on character creation after I get home and can look at the Relationship Map we made. Oh, and I named the Master myself: Maestro Von Daekken. I was also amused how they came up with a Master sort of similar to Paul's group, tho I hadn't mentioned that Master at all when explaining things.

After much more discussion, they came up with the idea of a wannabe playwright who Needs the blood of virgins to write the play he's working on

Perhaps the type of Master should have some game-mechanical effect?

Hey Kirt,

I'm geeked to hear everything about your game. As the GM of the game's very first independent playtest, I've got a zillion questions I want to ask you. But I'm going to try and restrain myself until after your more complete report and just respond to a couple of your points here:

There needs to be a way to reduce Self-Loathing if you're going to have a long-term game.

Matt Gwinn made a suggestion last evening that players should be allowed to choose, when successfully acting on a Connection, whether to take the Love point, or to reduce their Self-Loathing by one point. And I have to say, others have suggested that the game should allow for the reduction of Self-Loathing, but Matt's suggestion is the most interesting I've received to that effect. Of course, I haven't hardly had a chance to consider the impact it would have on gameplay. I think a good mechanic for the reduction of Self-Loathing would enable the attenuation of play, the extension of how long it takes to get to endgame, but would not allow for endgame to be indefinitely delayed or approached with greater speed. Without some additional thought, I'm not sure if the suggested rule will satisfy that expectation.

Interestingly, it was Matt Gwinn who also recently galvanized me to not introduce mechanics for reducing Self-Loathing. A few days ago he made a comment relative to his character for our current game. He said that he was hoping for the constraint where he emerged from the ashes of endgame as a new Master, but that he had decided how he would kill himself if that was the constraint he ended up with. And I was pumped. What that said to me is that he'd figured how protagonism was assured for his character across all of the possible endgame constraints, that it was not precluded by any of them.

Related to the above, rolling a minimum of one die is a good thing, I think. Otherwise NOTHING would have happened in seveal scenes.

This is definitely going to be in the next version of playtest rules, and I think is almost sure to make it into the game.

I assume you go through the Epilogue conditions in order? Because we had one character qualify for two different results.

From the rules:

"If two or more of the constraints are satisfied by a given Minion's Traits, the choice of which one of those constraints to incorporate in the character's Epilogue rests entirely with the player."

Thanks for the feedback. Just let me know when you're ready for the third degree.

Paul

Paul Czege wrote: Interestingly, it was Matt Gwinn who also recently galvanized me to not introduce mechanics for reducing Self-Loathing. A few days ago he made a comment relative to his character for our current game. He said that he was hoping for the constraint where he emerged from the ashes of endgame as a new Master, but that he had decided how he would kill himself if that was the constraint he ended up with. And I was pumped. What that said to me is that he'd figured how protagonism was assured for his character across all of the possible endgame constraints, that it was not precluded by any of them.

Just to back this up, these were the exact sorts of feelings that I had. And I wasn't doing too bad. I'm sure that Josh felt even more constrained.

Mike

Okay, finally I'm going to finish up my report on this.

I had three players. Shawn, James, and Emily. James and Emily are the couple I ran Wuthering Heights with the first time.

As Paul mentioned might happen, the players had trouble coming up with TWO less-than-human characteristics. The only person who didn't have a problem was Shawn, and he had trouble coming up with his more-than-human characteristic. They all had trouble coming up with Connections, especially Shawn -- at first he created Connections of people he HATED, and I had to explain again that these were supposed to want to connect to.

However, it all came together eventually...

Shawn played a carpenter/actor named Job (like the Biblical Job, which turned out to be appropriate) with the following less-than human characteristics: 1. Can't talk unless quoting from the Master's works -- this was the result of trauma that came from seeing Maestro Von Daekken murder the Minister's Wife, Mrs. Klaiver. (James had named the Minister Doctor Klaiver.) Since we didn't have any bad plays handy, we decided that the Maestro's previous play was essentially a clone of Titus Adronicus, and Shawn quoted from that one Shakespeare play all session. (I had mentioned the character that could only quote Shakespeare as an example, tho not the Master associated with that Minion, so I think that's where he got the idea.) 2. Cannot kill a woman unless he's in love with her. (This was by far my favorite less-than-human trait, tho it didn't come into play much in practice.) His greater-than-human was "Can sculpt achingly beautiful works, except when motivated by positive emotions." That is, only scultures motivated by hate -- like those of the Maestro -- were beautiful. His Connections were to Getchen V., the Miller's daughter, who he was in love with and gave most of his sculptures to, and Klaus Klaiver, the Minister's son, who Job admired for his deep understanding of women -- which Job didn't realize was becaue Klaus was gay. (This was Shawn's idea.) This added three more characters to the relationship map.

James played the Maestro's son, Iscarot Von Daekken, a bastard child, literally -- the Maestro had never married his mother, who had left long, long ago. His less than human: 1. Stutters horribly except when on-stage. 2. Can't look someone in the eye, except children. His greater than human: Can pefectly defend any woman he cares for, except in the presence of religious symbols, because of his deep shame regarding his father's actions. With that in mind, one of his connections was the Potestant Minister, Doctor Klaiver, the father of the woman the Maestro wants (Eva Klaiver), who Iscarot sneaks off to confess to. His other connection was the Mayor's daughter (the same mayor that was having an affair with Mrs. Klaiver before the game began), a six-year-old girl, Illiana, that Iscarot was very protective of. That added one new person to the relationship map, as the Minister was already there.

Emily was playing a London dock whore by the name of Victoria Chapel that the Meastro had "rescued" to become an actress. She had the less-than-human characteristics: 1. Looks like an unappealing (to any man) London dock whore, spent and used -- except on stage. 2. Is a nymphomaniac, except in the presence of religious figures. Her greater-than-human: Can instantly befriend any woman, unless she's married. Her connection was to Hans, the Mayor, who she loved from afar, and to the daughter of the only farmer unlucky enough to have his property bordering the Maestro's, a woman we named Getchen S. (Yeah, we had two Getchens.) That added two new people to the map -- the farmer and his daughter.

For simplicity, we assumed the wives of the farmer, miller, and mayor (Hans) were all dead -- being a married woman didn't seem to be very healthy in that village, which is another reason we set Reason at 2 -- no real matrionly presence to provide that sort of stability. In order to increase the number of potential victims, I gave the farmer a younger daughter and the miller as well. I also decided that Eva, the Minister's daugher, and Illiana were Innocents in the game-mechanical sense. (Part of the reason the Maestro became tough to beat was both Innocents ended up dead, driving Fear from 4 up to 6.)

Okay. I'll try to skip most of the blow-by-blow and stick to salient points. I started by having the Meastro get Intimate with his son, talking about old times with Iscarot's mother, and then ordering Iscarot (successfully) to go get the farmer's younger daughter. During this time Victoria nipped off to stalk Hans, and the Meastro ordered Job to bring Illiana to him.

TO make a long story short, Iscarot ended up killing the farmer's younger daughter and bringing the body to the Meastro, who had him put it in "the milker" to get the blood. Job screwed up sneaking into Illiana's house and ended up having to kill Hans, which is where he started racking up the Self Loathing. Illiana ended up in the dungeon.

Only twice were the PCs able to resist the Meastro's commands. The first time was after Iscarot had been told to stay in the mansion, which allowed him to slip off to kill Eva, the Minister's daughter, after the Maestro had forced IScarot to kill Illiana as punishment for confessing the murder of the farmer's younger daughter to the Minister, which led to the Meastro ordering Job to kill the Minister because he knew too much, giving Job EVEN MORE Self-Loathing. The second time is when Victoria rebelled and killed the Master, killing Maestro Von Daekken on the second scene with a really good roll.

One of the biggest frustrations the players had with the system is the character with the most reason to hate the Meastro -- Job -- was the least able to rebel and kill him, because of all his Self-Loathing. We thought this was counterintuitive. The person who killed the Meastro was Victoria, who had the least reason to hate the Master -- she'd spent most of the game acquiring Love, including a hilarious scene where she managed to seduce the Miller (who she fixated on after the Mayor died) by persuading him to make love to her while blindfolded, so he couldn't see what she looked like until the end, when screamed and ran off looking for a shower. It seemed odd to us that the character who suffered the least under the Master was most able to rebel against him. (BTW, I assumed that when making a connection a successful roll meant things went more or less as the character hoped, while a failure meant a rejection -- but Love was gained regardless because the character is acting in a human way.)

However, Job was a fine tragic figure -- the scenes where he was trying to get help from Gretchen V. and Klaus by showing them the murdered body of the Mayor, and then blowing the roll, resulting in horror and rejection, were heart-wrenching. In the end, when a mob came looking for Job for the murder of the mayor, even before the game was over Job allowed himself to be torn apart. (I ran that as a violence roll against himself, as Job was essentially committing suicide -- and for a change, all that Self-Loathing was "helpful". It seemed to make sense.)

In the Epilogue, Victoria drowned herself at the mill because of her rejection by the Miller, and Iscarot became the town's new Minister, which seemed appropriate given his religious bent.

Anyway, aside from the issues with Self-Loathing already mentioned, one problem I had was knowing how/when to apply the less-than and more-than human characteristics. For example, you could argue that Victoria should auto-succeed in all Connection rolls with single women, but that seemed sort of unfair, so instead I just gave her an auto-success on her first attempt. Also, one could have argued that Iscarot wouldn't have been able to murder Illiana on his father's orders, but I rules that he had to be defending her against SOMEONE ELSE for his more-than-human to kick in. Perhaps I was being too harsh in both these cases -- some guidelines would be good.

On the other hand, I was very liberal with giving out the d4/d6/d8, and I doubt the group would have done half the things they wanted otherwise. In my opinion, heavy use of these dice are imporant if the PCs are to have any free will at all.

But overall the group really enjoyed the game, and seemed satisfied with the results. They were of the opinion that the game was best for one-shots, and completely unsuitable for campaign play, probably because of the tight focus on the story ending one way: with the death of the Master. This isn't a bad thing -- as I said, they enjoyed themselves, but it's something to note.

Okay, you can cross-examine me in detail now Paul. ;-)

Hey Kirt,

Thanks so much for the extensive playtest report. You've given me a lot to think about. I'm not sure how useful it would be for me to write out a lengthy line-by-line of thoughts and reactions, but if you'd like a reaction or response to any of your specific observations, just say so.

Okay, you can cross-examine me in detail now Paul.

Here we go, four questions to start:

1) Did you use the rules for Innocents? If so, how did they work out?

2) Did the players ever use the rules for aiding each other?

3) Prior to your playtest, I sent you a summation of pretty much the same observations about More/Less than Humans as I just posted to the forum yesterday. How did you use it, if at all?

4) What was the first scene you framed for each of the characters?

Thanks again,

Paul

Paul Czege wrote: 1) Did you use the rules for Innocents? If so, how did they work out?

2) Did the players ever use the rules for aiding each other?

3) Prior to your playtest, I sent you a summation of pretty much the same observations about More/Less than Humans as I just posted to the forum yesterday. How did you use it, if at all?

4) What was the first scene you framed for each of the characters?

xiombarg wrote:
IMHO, either you should suggest there not be more than one Innocent, so the Master can't drive up the Fear by killing 'em, or perhaps having an Innocent in a scene should increase Reason by two, not one. Or perhaps an "innocent die"... A d10 or something that's added to rolls positively modified by Reason during scenes with an Innocent.

Hey Kirt,

You're right, I missed where you'd written about the Innocents. Thanks. Had the Innocent nature of those characters been discerned by the players prior to them getting killed? It seems to me that it wouldn't be difficult for players to figure out who the Innocents are from seeing Reason modified just one time. I'm very curious how players react to threats leveled at known Innocents.

Regarding Minion vs. Minion, it's in the rules, but not as clearly as it should be. It's a straight opposed roll, Fear plus Self-Loathing vs. Fear plus Self-Loathing. The winner gets a point of Self-Loathing, and the loser gets a point of Weariness, representing a wound. In the game text I used language like "the Minion resists" that I should probably ditch, because it makes it seem like Minion vs. Minion hostilities are a series of exchanges, resisted attacks, rather than a simultaneous conflict resolution roll.

It's very interesting to me how you chose to start your game. You went with a straight character building scene. My recommendation for a single-evening game would have been for you to begin by framing independent scenes for each of the characters, with the Master commanding each Minion to take actions against the Connections of one of the other Minions. How did you escalate conflict from your starting scene?

Paul

Hey Mike,

I think it stands to readon that any scene which involves an Innocent automatically involves Sincereity. After all, what is an Innocent but a person who is incapable of anything but honesty?

The way I rationalize the causality of the mechanic for Innocents is that the presence of such a rare individual, in any scene, regardless of the number of other characters present, acts to bolster and galvanize the moral strength and resolve of the environment, which has its source in the decency and goodness of the Townspeople. Essentially, having an Innocent around makes it easier for everyone present to do what's humanly decent in the face of opposition, and harder to do what's not.

The Intimacy/Desperation/Sincerity dice aren't so much a reflection of the tenor of the scene, but more specifically of what the Minion is bringing to it. A Minion would be aided in resisting the Master, were an Innocent present in the scene, but hindered in taking a violent action against someone from town. Yet that Minion could still presumably earn a Desperation die for that violent action. So, I guess I don't see any real linkage between the presence of an Innocent, and the Intimacy/Desperation/Sincerity die.

Am I making sense?

Paul

Paul Czege wrote: You're right, I missed where you'd written about the Innocents. Thanks. Had the Innocent nature of those characters been discerned by the players prior to them getting killed? It seems to me that it wouldn't be difficult for players to figure out who the Innocents are from seeing Reason modified just one time. I'm very curious how players react to threats leveled at known Innocents.

It's very interesting to me how you chose to start your game. You went with a straight character building scene. My recommendation for a single-evening game would have been for you to begin by framing independent scenes for each of the characters, with the Master commanding each Minion to take actions against the Connections of one of the other Minions. How did you escalate conflict from your starting scene?

...the Master successfully ordered Iscarot to kill her as punishment for telling the Minister what the Master was up to. This led to an interesting scene where Iscarot killed her while shouting all the things he wanted to say to the Master -- in a sense, she served a proxy for the Master.

After his Connection was dead, the only way Iscarot could get revenge on the Master (in his mind) was by killing the object of the Master's desire -- the other Innocent, the Minister's Daughter, Eva. So that's how she died.

Geez Kirt, as you reveal the details, it sounds increasingly like you guys had an awesome game...good freakin' lord. And I think you handled conflict escalation perfectly from your starting scene.

Here's one more question, maybe even my final question: taking into account rules clarifications from this thread, but otherwise if I changed nothing about the game mechanics from the version you played, do you think you and your players would ever play it again, just from interest emerging among the group to do so?