Two fairly short sessions of Trollbabe so far last Mon and Tues, over IRC chat.
I've got a combined synched up log of the Narration channel and OOC channel in the Files area of the indie-netgaming group (click the sig below).

So far so good, a bit of a learning curve, but not too bad. I'm GM-ing with Nathan (Paganini) and Chris Edwards playing.
These were pretty short sessions 2-ish hours, maybe less the first night. My scene setting got better later. So far no relationships set yet, although they both could do so. Its a bit strange for me narrating the character's successes after play of other games, but not far from playing old-style GMing really. We haven't used multiple Action types yet.

I like ReRolls!
All of the Conflicts where Rerolls occurred seemed to have extra apeal for me...maybe it's the added color of Trollish magic or tripping over tree roots.

The IRC format makes things take longer real-time, due to typing etc. but has the added benefit of an automatic log.

When the text says "adventure" I'm assuming that it means until the Stakes get their Consequences, which isn't always in one session?
(For things like Scale change and Trollbabe travel-which change between adventures)

I plan on running a few more weeks (4-6 more sessions), and would like to see the Stakes increase etc.

Having a good time!

Hi Bob,

You wrote,

When the text says "adventure" I'm assuming that it means until the Stakes get their Consequences, which isn't always in one session?
(For things like Scale change and Trollbabe travel-which change between adventures)

Ron,

Do you commonly discuss the Stakes with the Players before, during and after play?

I know in the rules it says the GM doesn't have to.

I have so far delayed discussing the Stakes. I wanted to get to a point where the Trollbabes encountered, or acted in such a way as to impact the Stakes.
Perhaps, I should have cut even closer to the action during the first session, but I also wanted to feel out the game and the Trollbabe inclinations during play.

The stakes at the Person(s) level have now been effected, so I'll be discussing them a bit before tonight's session.

Hi Bob,

I never discuss the Stakes openly. I think it biases players toward "what they should do" in a very please-the-GM kind of a way. Stakes aren't Goals of play, and people are inclined to think that they are, no matter what you say otherwise. So I find it a lot more constructive to keep them a GM-tool, not a player-tool.

Best,
Ron

Ron Edwards wrote: Hi Bob,

I never discuss the Stakes openly. I think it biases players toward "what they should do" in a very please-the-GM kind of a way. Stakes aren't Goals of play, and people are inclined to think that they are, no matter what you say otherwise. So I find it a lot more constructive to keep them a GM-tool, not a player-tool.

Best,
Ron

Hi Bob,

Everything in your post seems reasonable and fun to me, so go for it and see what happens. Don't forget to play NPCs pretty aggressively - every NPC who's engaged in the Stakes sees a trollbabe as either a serious threat or a key to getting his or her way.

Best,
Ron

Hey Bob,

I wasn't even aware that I could use multiple Action types in one Series until after our second session. I purchased Trollbabe after the first session but couldn't download and read it until after the second. Now I know! Same thing for controling the general actions of Relationships.

-Chris

I wasn't too clear on the multiple action types until after the second session myself. I was avoiding recommending them until we had had several 'normal' conflicts before mixing things up.

Making something a multiple conflict type will be more important when someone makes the conflict type something different than you want for your Goal. Like if I made something a Fighting action type when you wanted to do Social interaction.
Like if I made you use Fighting, when attacked by the Page. You could probably add Social to it saying "I'm parrying his attacks while trying to reason with the twerp"

Even after reading the rules several times I wasn't sure I had everything down well enough. I wanted to start us off using just the basic stuff bringing everything else in later.

Updated the combined Narration and OOC doc for session 1-3 in indie-netgaming file area.

Ok, bit of a reverse from session 2...
this time Nathan (who had limited time to play) had an all dialog role-playing session, and Chris had a couple of cool Conflicts.

Both of them took on Relationships (comrades for both of them).

Chris's first conflict was convincing the Herald (now a Relationship) to consider that perhaps the Regent-to-be (who's family may have killed Trollbabe Yulari's sister) was actually behind the apparently natural death of the King of Greteham. Chris succeeded, and it changed some of the game.

Because of this, I decided it would be cool if they travelled next to a town run by the Family, since it would provide the potential of getting into trouble for Yulari, while Kincott announced the death of the King and coming Regency.

This changed a bit too, since, I remembered that Chris got to control his relationship Kincott. Kincott went to pay his respects to the local Nobleman, while Yulari and the Page got rooms and stable space.

I made the nobleman a bit paranoid, this blew right up into a Conflict! Kincott refused a Truth Elixir precipitating a Fight. We ended up using the Relationship 'Going First' rule and brought in multiple action types -Fighting (trying to get my way out of here) and Social (trying to goad him into revealling family corruption) for an Exchange by Exchange Pace.
Chris rolled really well, succeeding with both exchanges, and both action types each time. As a result I came up with some stuff off the cuff about this guy having big plans to rule the kingdom himself.

Unexpected and cool.

GMs call-on Relationships and First Actions.
Kincott was Going First on an exchange by exchange pace- I let him finish out the whole Conflict by himself since he was succeeding. I figured if he Failed a roll I would require the Trollbabe to jump in to save him- starting conflict from scratch, or if she didn't, then things would be very bad for Kincott and the Trollbabe, cutting to a torture chamber or something.

Seemed a bit strange having a pivotal Conflict with no Trollbabe on one hand. Yet, Chris had control of Kincott, so player satisfaction was there. The potential of Trollbabe pro-tag was there though, in the possibility of heroic rescue.

Fun stuff, hope things work out to play tonight.

Bob McNamee wrote: Seemed a bit strange having a pivotal Conflict with no Trollbabe on one hand. Yet, Chris had control of Kincott, so player satisfaction was there. The potential of Trollbabe pro-tag was there though, in the possibility of heroic rescue.

Hi there,

The relationship concept in Trollbabe owes a great deal to the Hero Wars rules. In playing Hero Wars for so long, the precise point that Chris makes about followers/protagonism was illustrated to me multiple times. Trollbabe is my bid to make it a central rather than an auxiliary mechanic.

Best,
Ron

A Tip to those folks planning an IRC Trollbabe game.

Make a 'session' equal to 3-4 actual play sessions for purposes of re-roll refreshment (and other refreshes).

Due to the nature of typing speed and slow connections etc, you get a lot less done in a 2-3 hour game session than you would face-to-face. Re-rolls will never get scarce at 1 session = 1 session.

Unless you're all much faster typists than we are... :>

Well, we had a major instance of player input and director stance last game, all combined with the first huge failure of the game.

Chris's Trollbabe and friends were hightailing it out of town, ahead of an angry Lord and his army. The Lord is determined to stop them before they can alert anyone that he is going to make a grab for control of the kingdom.
Chris suggested, "Hey, how about I cut across a spooky swamp as a shortcut to the Capital?"
"Great!", I said" How about we make crossing the swamp and exchange by exchange conflict using Fighting,(for physical)"
"So that's what we did"
Chris made the first roll easy...cool, The sun is rising, and the Herald says "We're over halfway..."
1 exchange for the good guys.

Then the second exchange! Heh,what a difference.
Initial roll 1-6- Fail
ok discommode, you could accept a failure and continue rolling othe exchanges. Naw, lets do a reroll- Sudden Ally-a weird Hermit (more important that he seems)

First Reroll-ally-1-6 =Fail
Doh!
Now you're injured, you could accept this and narrate?
Naw lets do a reroll on Geographic- Hermits cave

Second Reroll-Geo1-6= FAIL
Oh my,
Incapacitated! End of Swamp crossing conflict!

Chris opted not to reroll for narration rights.

So now they are captive in the middle of a swamp, held by the crazy hermit, who is expecting a bounty from the Lord on his two spies (the herald and page), and is going to keep the babe for himself.

In the meantime, the army is marching to the capital with no one to warn anymore.

Heh, I can't wait to see what happens next!

One question?
Do you typically call all physical conflicts Fighting, like skulking etc?
We had this question when Nathan's Trollbabe wanted to evade the zombies she had attracted to her in the woods. He actually called for action type - social which required a bit of a stretch. I worked it in, but we were a bit unclear about what to use. Magically evading would have been easy to decide.

I thought about vetoing Social and saying Fighting, since if you failed to evade it would become a Fighting situation. However, I thought I would let it ride, and start a new conflict if the evade failed.

Having fun with Trollbabe. Definitely not a light game for the GM, since you do lots of narrating of successes and dialog. But it builds itself well from the rolling, especially the rerolls.

After playing, I can say I will be a big fan of altering the social roll as you talked about before, Ron. It will mix things up a bit, as well as encourage a bit more missed rolls.

The first adventure should be wrapping up next session or the one after that...which makes it session 7 or 8 for one adventure for on-line play.
It would be hard to add more than one more player unless they ended up linking up physically for on-line play.

I'm liking ths a lot!

Hi Bob,

Wow, when I read, "First big failure of the game," it really hit me in the pit of the stomach. Oh, fuck! What??

Now I realize you meant failed action, with the attendant enthusiasm of a whole story to play set in this hermit's cave in the swamp ... ah, that's better! Excellent - just what the game is set up to do.

As for the Social zombies roll, it pretty much comes down to whether you want to play the zombies "socially" or not. I can see a Yes or a No depending, either way - but it's definitely a GM-concept thing, not a rules thing.

If the zombies have some modicum of intelligence and social status among them, then yes, a Social roll is possible - but the trollbabe would actually have to interact with them (Gandalf's trick with the trolls in The Hobbit comes to mind), not just "evade" them. If they don't and are, basically, rrrr-zombies, then forget it - Fighting is the only way to go unless you use Magic.

Even then, there's a possible limit on that choice. Don't forget that Magic as an Action Type (not as a re-roll) takes a long time; you don't pop off spells as stated Action Type. That's reserved for re-roll magic ("remembered spell" or perhaps "relationship" in some cases). You, as GM, have to judge whether the zombies' pursuit is desperate enough to enforce Fighting as the sole possible Action Type.

People should realize that Fighting is not Strength and Dexterity, and Social is not Intelligence. Fighting, Magic, and Social each require all "attributes" as usually conceived in a role-playing game.

Best,
Ron

Ron Edwards wrote: Hi Bob,

Wow, when I read, "First big failure of the game," it really hit me in the pit of the stomach. Oh, fuck! What??

Now I realize you meant failed action, with the attendant enthusiasm of a whole story to play set in this hermit's cave in the swamp ... ah, that's better! Excellent - just what the game is set up to do.

Oops, sorry I worded that so bad!

Heh, I can see that now when I read it. Didn't occur to me at the time.

Ok here's a question.
From page 12 example "Retta's watching out for skulking thugs" The GM says "We have a conflict" Goal-"to make sure nothing's there". This means success equals "nothing there".

What's the action type?
That's where it got tough for Nathan to decide on an action type.

He was well ahead of the zombies , who were attracted to him because he was mimicking the life force of the spy that they were fixated on (from a previous conflict), leading them away into the wilds while the spy went on to the capital with his captive. Nathan said something like "Eventually, She realizes that they will run her down and decides to evade them before she must fight them." She had enough lead to make it any action type really.

I brought the Social aspect in because she used a remembered spell in "Life force mimic" spell, that overlayed their minds with the illusion of her mimicked life force. She was discommmoded by having "feeling them looking for her, hungering with thoughts of slaying. Any time she lets her mind go blank, they are there."

I had this let her begin mentally speaking back at the zombies in the following conflict..."I'm not who you seek...etc"

Anyway it worked out well. It just wasn't a very straight forward decision. Perhaps it came out better for it. Needing to stretch for an answer came out with a more creative description.

Bah! There's only one way to handle zombies and it doesn't include talking to them. ;)

I've really been pleasantly surprised by Trollbabe. It almost plays itself. The reroll and pacing mechanics are just beautiful. I'll stop gushing now.

-Chris

Yeah, what he said!

For the lurkers etc...

I'm moving Trollbabe starting this Monday 8 CDT from the #indierpgs and #indie_ooc rooms at Magicstar IRC... to #bobsgame_nar and #bobsgame_ooc rooms at Magicstar IRC.

This frees up the regular rooms for more rotating indie gaming again!

I'd just like to say thanks for taking the effort to format and post your IRC logs. They are a super valuable resource. I've been reading along, and being able to watch how the OOC negotiation between GM and players turns into IC narration has really made several aspects of Trollbabe just pop out for me. I'm greatly looking forward to further adventures.

Thanks,

Hopefully, we're actually playing the game right,or we might teach folks bad habits! :>

This is one game I thought it would be crucial to see what was going on in OOC. You need to know what was the Goal, Pace, and when rolls occur, to see the game system with Trollbabe. For other games the narration log is good enough, or, with something like Universalis- looking at the Narration file and the Support file is enough to see what's happened and begin playing a new session.

I really wanted to be able to look back later and see why things were going on, as well as have a file that Ron could look at, in case I really got into mental trouble over the game (in case I was just plain playing wrong).

Thanks for reading it!

Edited in: It also gives a good sense of what an on-line game looks like to the participants.

We played again tonight.

Well, Failed action again!

Chris's character Yulari woke up tied to a bed (Healed I later decided).
Chris Wanted an Action by Action pace Fighting conflict to break out and punish the Hermit (who wants to keep her as his 'lady'). Broke out ok...then was injured and incapacitated again over the next two Series, while getting the Page killed.

Yikes, fighting while injured is very dangerous! Especially, when you're rolling the way Chris has the last two conflicts. :>

So now she being flown to the deepest part of the Hermit's caverns by fire monkeys, while the hermit cackles with laughter.

Cue banjo music...

The Regent was saved by Arica.
Nathan's Arica just made a bad guy/assassin-type her love interest... which should get fun fast.

Lord Gorgehart's army is nearly upon the capital now, and Arica's zombies are still coming in just a short while too...next session (tomorrow) should be quite something! The Regent was saved by Arica

Game observation---other than saving Rerolls for later, or, wanting to change the Action Type,or, really wanting to narrate that Injured Failure--- there seems to be no advantage to not always rolling a Reroll when you are at Injured level...either way your next Failed roll in a multiple roll Pace will result in Incapacitate. This seems a bit odd, and to some extent it would be nice to have a bit of lee way if you defer, but it makes sense too that fighting Injured would get bad really fast.

edited for late night typos

Hi Bob,

Sounds like it's about time to take the hermit as an Enemy, which means using him for re-rolls and gaining player-power over what he does.

H'm? Is my suspicion correct that no one thought of this? That old habits about [GM-owns-NPCs = plot] crept into play ...?

Best,
Ron

Ron Edwards wrote: Hi Bob,

Sounds like it's about time to take the hermit as an Enemy, which means using him for re-rolls and gaining player-power over what he does.

H'm? Is my suspicion correct that no one thought of this? That old habits about [GM-owns-NPCs = plot] crept into play ...?

Best,
Ron

Hi there,

Does Chris realize that the best way to kill an Enemy is to take him or her as a Relationship, then hurl the Enemy into conflicts as "buffer-first" in the way described in the rules?

Best,
Ron

Does Chris realize that the best way to kill an Enemy is to take him or her as a Relationship, then hurl the Enemy into conflicts as "buffer-first" in the way described in the rules?

I doubt it, since I hadn't even considered that myself!

You either win the Rolls. In case the Babe kills the Hermit...
or
You get incapacitated, and your Relationship dies!

Wow!

Chris...there you go....a one Conflict walking dead guy!

Thanks Ron!