nemomeme's slumberland

Having spent the prior week walking around Manhattan and hanging out with a friend, I was already pretty tired as the convention got underway.  I overslept on Saturday and missed an opportunity at a Swansong game run by Clinton R. Nixon which had a couple players I'd played with last year and with whom I really wanted to play again.  And then I opted out of the midnight Dirty Secrets game I'd also been looking forward to.

Still, including four playtests, I played in seven games:  Swashbucklers of the 7 Skies, Grey Ranks, Kingdom of Nothing, Criminal Element, Giants, Burning Wheel, and In a Wicked Age.  Each of the games was run by their creators, excepting the IAWA game which I understood was being developed as a post-apocalyptic setting hack for that game, a "Project Bearclaw."  I might have this wrong; I was checking out of my room and arrived at that game a bit late Sunday morning.

The S7S game had too many players in it (seven) for me to really get a good sense of the system.  By the time we got an overview of the world and had created characters we only had one or two opportunities for each of our characters to interact with the mechanics.

Kingdom of Nothing was just a game concept at the Dreamation designer panel last year.  All the characters in Kingdom of Nothing are homeless street people who've lost their past.  It's got a Gaiman/World of Darkness vibe that takes some inspiration from Don't Rest Your Head.  I played a sixty-something scrap-metal-collecting alcoholic named "Rattle" that was inspired by "Bubs" from The Wire.  It was really cool to see how much work its creator had put into it since the panel and he was really open to all of the playtesters thoughts on where it might need some work.  Based on his latest playtests, it looks like Jeff is going to tweak quite a few things, including stripping out entire subsystems of the game.

Both Swashbucklers of the 7 Skies and Kingdom of Nothing show a lot of promise.  I really like what I've seen of their settings and look forward to their completion.

Criminal Element and Giants were two other playtests I participated in.  Both of these seemed closer to finished and I would be surprised if they weren't available next GenCon.

Like the S7S playtest, Criminal Element might have benefited from one less person; after character and situation creation we again only had time for a very short scenario.  Criminal Element allows you to play characters in a heist film like Reservoir Dogs or Heat.  I had browsed a draft of the rules several weeks before, and had even contemplated running a game of it before I ultimately decided I wouldn't be running anything at Dreamation.  I played a larger-than-life wheelman named Parker inspired by one of the characters from the Jock/Diggle comic book, The Losers.  As in all heist films, things quickly went pear-shaped for our group.  Despite the abbreviated scenario, everyone seemed to have a good time - lots of laughs all around.  I *really* like the Blackjack inspired conflict resolution mechanic in this game - it is very fast, yet still has interesting risk/reward decisions and tension and matches the genre perfectly.  When it comes out, I expect to add this game to a stable of low/no prep games that I can have ready to run at any time along with Dust Devils, PTA, Contenders, Don't Rest Your Head, and maybe In a Wicked Age.

Giants might be another such game; the group collaboratively creates the situation they will play in together right before play.  Using pre-generated characters each of us named and added our giant character's community and other towns and geographical features to a blank map.  We then proceeded to stride across our new-sprung land, engaging in titanic struggles against an enigmatic foe known as Firebringer.  I enjoyed this game for the opportunity to play with Shane Jackson again (he was in three of my games last year), as well as to play with Fred Hicks and Rob Donoghue of Evil Hat, two of the three designers of my favorite game.  I met them last year but didn’t have the chance to play with them.  It was fun creating a map together, each of the players playing off of and adding to what the others had contributed.  Afterwards, I had a few ideas about some possible tweaks for the game, but preferred to listen to the geniuses of FATE offer their suggestions.  (Man, those guys can talk!)

The two heart-wrenching games of the convention were Grey Ranks and Burning Wheel.

Of all the games I’d signed up for, I was most anticipating the Grey Ranks session.  Follow the link for more information about it; I won’t dwell on the game much here.  I expect to find a way to play a three session arc of it sometime this year and post more about the game then.  It was extremely cool, but I especially felt the “pang of the one-shot” with this game.  By that I mean I’ve really begin to realize how much I prefer a game that goes for three or more sessions.  There was so much more to explore in the amazing characters and situation the players and the game system afforded, but no time or opportunity to do it.  The Polish child soldiers, Bear, Slaz, Mar, and the rest are lost portraits, frozen in time.  This was my favorite session of the convention as well as the session that makes me think conventions might not be for me.  I went to Dreamation last year and this year because I’ve had so few opportunities to play these small press games at all, much less on a regular basis.  I’m hoping this is starting to turn around with the development of the community of indie gamers here in Portland.

The Burning Wheel scenario, The Sacrifice, was equally poignant.  Each of the pre-generated characters’ beliefs is at odds such that a tragic end is almost inevitable.  I was glad for the opportunity to finally play Burning Wheel, one of the first small press games I ever purchased, but knew (and still know) that it’s not a system for me.  It just has too much “crunch” for my present tastes.  Its author, Luke Crane, is an energetic and talented game master who really projects his enthusiasm for his game and the hobby.  He went right for our characters’ hearts and throats and made us like it.

The Sunday morning game, In a Wicked Age/Project Bearclaw, was a little stilted and meandering.  We had rules questions and confusions.  I’ve read the rules three times and played it once and am still not quite sure how to play the thing.  The situation creating “Oracle” and the resolution mechanic at its heart are appealing enough for me to keep at it.  It could end up being an absolutely great game for me.  I think I’ll need to un-train myself from some of the stakes-setting instincts I’ve learned from similar games to play it correctly.

Even though the game was really bumpy, good players still made it fun.  John (jenskot) from the Mu game last year was there.  All the characters in this post-apocalyptic setting were interesting/funny.  I played a simple farmer named Loam Tilman with John played my blindly optimistic wife Emma, and Rob Donoghue playing a hard-nosed tin mine manager.  Kevin Allen Jr.’s accent and mannerisms for his collector/merchant character, Barnigut, had me in stitches, and there was a feckless charlatan inventor named Mr. Volts who somehow made good on his promises of creating a rain machine in the end.

So, I’m still not sure about conventions generally but this one has lots of neat people and talented role-players who are really bringing special qualities when they sit down to play.  At least as long as I have my good friend Eric in Manhattan, I don’t intend to miss out on Dreamation.

So while I've been enjoying and partaking of the EN World site for, well, all of this millennium at least, I didn't vote in the Ennies until last year. I felt strongly that the Guardians of Order deserved recognition, even as they went out of business, for what I felt was one of the best RPG products ever made: The Game of Thrones RPG.

This year, I feel compelled to vote again and to encourage others to do the same, as there are two wonderful podcasts, and two game products that have provided me a huge amount of entertainment over the past year, and which I feel are of similar quality.

Best Podcast (first time category): Sons of Kryos or Have Games, Will Travel. If you aren't listening to these, (I enjoy and listen to all of the nominees here), you're missing out on some great material to improve your gaming life. I voted for the one I don't (can't) subscribe to with token financial support.  Both are beyond worthy. Even if you don't get around to voting in the Ennies, reward yourself by listening in to Jeff, Judd, and Storn (SoK) and Paul (HG,WT).

Best Writing: Dictionary of Mu.  My best single role-playing session in the last year was set in this game's world and run by it's author, Judd Karlman.  I'd owned the game for a couple months prior, but had only browsed through it.  After my Mu session at Dreamation, I dug into it voraciously.  The writing really is great.  It's sublime, accessible poetry.  Beyond that, it's provided me a wealth of ideas for the feel (and some elements), of the FATE campaign I've been working on here and there.

I actually own and have read each of the nominees in this category save one.  They're all good stuff, but Mu is Khan.  It's up for Product of the Year and gets my nod there as well.

Best Rules: This was easy for me.  FATE is my favorite RPG system.  Spirit of the Century represents the latest refinement of that rules system in Pulp form.  The rules are almost perfect for the game it is set in, but what really excites me about Spirit of the Century is what the "Aspects" part of its rules do for it.  I find myself wanting to add Aspects to any number of other rules systems, and I've had great joy hacking SotC's rules for my own fantasy game.

It might sound strange to talk about hacking rules for a game that one is claiming has great rules, but that's all a part of the FATE/Fudge mystique.  It has great templates, a framework that can be tweaked without easily breaking it, and a DIY community surrounding it.  Spirit of the Century is one facet on a gem with a thousand sides, and it's a craftsman's cut.

Spirit of the Century has the best GM'ing/session planning advice I've read in any RPG tome in twenty-seven years of gaming.  Period.  I consider those as rules - rules too many RPGs leave out, but which Spirit thankfully did not.

***

Fred Hicks of Evil Hat Productions and IPR, along with some others in the small press gaming community are making a get out the vote push for indie games.  I'm providing links for their ballot below.  While I didn't vote a "party ticket,"  I think every product advocated is a contender worthy of consideration.

I like the idea of some of these creator-owned products making a splash in an award context, leading to potentially greater sales, leading to a larger community from which great new designs, mechanics, and forms of play can spring.  Which I can then further enjoy.  This is a great time to be a gamer.  The Ennies nominees this year really reflect that.  Too bad my wallet reflects it as well.

Speaking of which, If anyone has $125.00 lying around, feel free to send it my way.  The Deluxe Galleon nominee for Best Miniature Product is calling to me.  Arrr!!!   Now go vote, mateys, or walk the plank!

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You're the fighter you've got the fire
The spirit of a warrior, the champion's heart
You fight for your life because the fighter never quits
You make the most of the hand you're dealt
Because the quitter never wins

                        - The Warrior’s Code, Dropkick Murphys

I've been neglecting my blog, but played a game last weekend that demands a play report: Contenders.

Jake hosted another Go Play SE Portland event for more than a dozen people associated with Portland Indie Games, and I moderated this GM-less role-playing game for Jake, Christian, and Nick.

Contenders bills itself as “a role-playing game of blood & sweat, pain and hope.”  It’s a game where each of the players plays down on their luck boxers trying to escape from the gutter.  I think there are some mechanical issues with the game, some of which I could see coming before play, but it really delivers an experience true to the genre it's emulating, along with a great time.  It's a game I've really looked forward to playing.  It works fine for a one-shot (five hours), but I think it wants a slower build-up; I'd prefer to spend two or three sessions with it if I get to play it again.

You can pick any setting you want for your boxers.  We arrived at January, 1931 in Hell's Kitchen, Manhattan.  There's snow and sometimes blood on the ground.  Prohibition, labor agitation, organized crime, redemption, and romance were also a part of our backdrop.  And of course pain and hope.

Characters:

Jake - "Big" Leroy Biggles: The big man from back West (Oregon) who learned boxing in the Army and has come to the Big Apple to make his fortune.  He's earnest and good-intentioned, but not above getting dirty in the ring if that's what it takes to win his old flame, Jill Jameson back.  Jill's currently engaged to Boris' trainer Henry Lovitt.  She has a young boy named Frankie who's got Leroy's eyes.  Leroy isn't certain that Frankie is his son.  Whatever the case, Jill seems to have moved on and is looking for a more reliable provider for Frankie.  Leroy's great hope is to prove himself to Jill before she marries Henry.

Nick - Halim "Lincoln Washington" Jubar - An Iranian immigrant who grew up in privilege but disappointed his parents by coming to America and putting on boxing gloves.  Taken with the culture and history of his adopted home, he intended to go by the All-American name of Lincoln Washington in the ring, but was quickly typecast as a Persian villain.  His parents have cut him off financially.  Unless he can prove himself worthy, he risks deportation and then execution back home.

Christian - Boris "The Brute" Kachalovsky – son of a staunch Socialist worker, Boris’ family immigrated from a Jewish community in Western Russia to the states when he was a little boy.  Both his parents are desperately poor, and Boris earns money for his family by boxing because his father’s reputation makes it impossible for him to get a factory job.  His sister Alena is an active Socialist and is in danger because of it.  She’s borrowed money from loan sharks to support the cause.  Boris has secretly taken on anti-union tasks (scaring and roughing up unionists), but feels conflicted and guilty about it.

Me - "Fearless" Finian Walsh – Son of an Irish longshoreman, Doyle Walsh, Finian grew up hard of the streets of Hell’s Kitchen.  He’s hired out as muscle to a local gang boss now and then, primarily for protection rackets, but doesn’t relish the work.  He just needs enough set up his younger brother Rory for college.  He’s seen Rory hanging around Murphy’s pool hall lately and that has him worried.  Finian is also muscle for some of the longshoremen who are trying to unionize and who are being intimidated by anti-union thugs hired by Robert Evans, a wealthy importer.

I brought my ipod and portable speakers for the game, something which is becoming a favorite gaming accessory.  I know there are times when music can be a distraction for some, but I like what the right music can add to a session or parts of a session and want to develop the uses for this tool further.

Of the background music options I suggested, (including no music whatsoever), we settled on having the 1920s playlist that I compiled for The Shab-al-Hiri Roach playing softly in the background for most of the time, with an anachronistic switch for boxing matches.  I’d put together a short list of twelve songs found by searching “Boxing” on iTunes which included songs from various Rocky movies interspersed with some fairly rowdy fight-themed rap.

My other ever-present accessory was my case of poker chips.  I’ve gained a fondness for poker chips since they were used heavily in an Iron Heroes game GM’d by a good friend a couple years back.  I like poker chips for any game with currency that changes relatively rapidly or that might otherwise be forgotten, languishing unused on a character sheet.

In Contenders, “Cash” changes frequently – green chips, and a boxer’s In-Ring Traits change during and between each boxing round.  We used white chips for “Technique,” red for “Power,” blue for “Cover,” and black for “Conditioning,” and this seemed to work out pretty well.  Given that Contenders uses standard playing cards for scene and fight resolution, the poker chips seemed especially fitting.

Christian volunteered to start things off as Boris, choosing a “Work” Scene delivering some coats to the wealthy socialite, Jenny Franks, to earn some quick Cash.

A red Joker was drawn during this scene mandating that the following scene link with this first one in a positive light.  Though we never drew another Joker outside the boxing ring for the rest of the night, we tried to connect the characters as often as we could.  The players really worked toward this end, and Jake had a great idea to stop mid-session and talk about where the characters’ stories were and where they were likely headed.  Some people are bothered by this kind of discussion, but I both find it helpful and enjoy it as an activity on its own.

I’ve allowed too much time to go by to be able to provide a blow-by-blow account of the game.  I’ll simply detail some highlights and some impressions.  Hoping other players will talk about their favorite aspects of the game in all the blank spaces.

• Leroy had some great scenes with his former and future gal, Jill.  I could just visualize him in the snow outside the tenement where Jill lived, begging for her to come out and “just give me a chance!”  I played Jill and decided to keep my shoddy Irish accent thing going with her character as well as Finian’s.  There’s just something about the Irish lilt that invites drama and pathos, hopefully even if it’s being slaughtered by an American tongue.  There was a great scene early on where Jill, on Henry Lovitt’s arm, discovers Leroy washing dishes at the McGuiness diner.  Leroy is somewhat embarrassed by the situation, but is serious in his efforts to prove that he can win her affections back and be a good provider and role-model.  Jake and Nick had a nice scene as Leroy and Frankie, (father and son), down at the gym where Leroy trains.

• Although Halim’s Connection was ostensibly his parents, they were established as being outside the country, and some unnamed representative of this family was determined to be his Connection.  Because he lost his first couple of fights right out the gate and had a couple other scenes go poorly, I don’t think he ever visited his Connection to try to gain Hope.  While Nick had some great NPC cameos, especially as Frankie and Alena, and seemed to have a good time narrating Halim’s hurricane fighting style, his boxer character seemed a bit isolated from the rest of the common story.  I’m seeing this on reflection and feel badly that I didn’t do more to get Halim involved in what became the main storylines of the evening.  Halim quickly got cast in a villain mold by his early Pain gains, his cheating in the ring, and his ethnicity within the context of the setting.  I’m not sure that’s quite the direction Nick wanted, but he did seem to enjoy himself regardless,

• Boris had some bad luck in early Connection Scenes and fights.  In his first boxing match, he was ahead on points against Leroy, but then was narrowly knocked out.  This put him on a path to Pain similar to Halim.  Christian seemed to have a great time anyway whether as a boxing announcer, promoter, press agent, pawnshop weasel, Finian’s brother Rory, or wallowing in the doom of Boris himself.  He, “Vic the Russian”, and several other anti-union thug types put my father and several of his longshoreman buddies in the hospital while Finian was out having coffee with Boris’ sister Alena.  This put Finian and Boris on a collision course which built in an all out “Gangs of New York” style fight at Five Corners and then peaked in the ring at the sold-out venue of the New York Hippodrome.  Boris’ brutal beatdown of the rising star, Finian, lost him his sister forever.  A good thing for her as detailed here.

• Finian never fought dirty, won his first couple fights, had no complications problem in any of the jobs he took, got his brother Rory to keep out of the Irish mob and hit the books, and found romance with Boris’ sister Alena.  I enjoyed playing Finian, but would have like to seen a little more of a personal struggle on his road to triumph.  I wonder how often the game system offers that.  Two boxers got on a hard road and stayed there, whereas Leroy got mostly good news and Finian pretty much sailed though without a scratch until his final fight.  (which I knew as a player that Finian needed to lose if he wanted to save the life of his woman)  The players provided good opposition and struggle for all the boxers in our role-play but the cards didn’t always reflect that balancing act that seems to occur for boxing protagonists in the middle third of most movies of the genre.  I came to the game prepared to weep at the trials I was sure to endure.  Finian was livid when he discovered that Boris was behind his father’s beating and guilty at having not been there to defend him, but that was all apart from the games mechanics.

• We got a lot of great play in five hours.  There are a lot of characters, locations, scenes and themes I’ve not mentioned in this overview.  I really like the structure of lots of different kinds of Scenes each with different, but still simple resolution mechanics associated with them.  Having each Scene have a narrow goal aimed at improving a specific attribute of a character seems to help the “getting stuck” part I’ve occasionally encountered in the three other “GM-less” games I’ve played.  But each scene is still really rich with possibilities within the constraints of the genre.

• It may be an emerald the size of a boxer’s heart, but I view this game as an unpolished gem.  I have a few concerns, but my main one is with the Pain attribute both in how quickly and how much it can outstrip the Hope attribute, and with what that does to a player who can see their boxer has no chance of having a positive outcome to their boxer’s story.  Once they know their Hope will never equal their Pain, they have nothing to lose in “Bringing the Pain” in a boxing match.  Two of the boxers had double-digit Pain in the course of one evening’s play, never mind a multi-session game. If they “Bring the Pain” against another boxer, they are going to knock out that boxer every single time, eliminating any of the tension that the early boxing matches had, and which is a big positive for the game while it’s present.  If the other boxer brings the Pain in defense, he may survive if he’s got a good Pain rating, but the winner of that bloody bout *will* be eating the mat.  We had three of our boxing matches end in first round knockouts that you could see coming a mile away.  If I were to play this game again, I’d cap the amount of a boxer’s Pain that they could add to a Domination or Damage check to 6.  Bringing the Pain would still be a significant factor, outstripping the tactical option chosen and likely of greater potency than the boxer’s In-Ring Traits, but not guaranteeing a knock-out.  Cover seems to be a bit of a dump Trait as well – I might allow it to be trained concurrently with another Trait if the boxer has the Cash to pay for it.  (A Scene spent training seems to be a more vital currency than the Cash spent while training, especially towards the mid and endgame).  These are off-the-cuff thoughts that would need playtesting, obviously.  I think the currency of the whole system could use a second look, maybe with built-in differences depending on whether a one-shot or multi-session game is planned.

• Nothing in my comment above should dissuade anyone from giving this game a try as soon as they have the opportunity.  This was one of the best times I’ve had role-playing in recent memory.  Even if the mechanics don’t always parallel the genre emulation in every instance, the game text and basic drift of the rules do an absolutely terrific job of setting you up for great scenes that make you feel like you’re in a great movie.  Players like Jake, Nick, and Christian don’t hurt either, that’s for sure.  Thanks guys.

And the women and the money came fast and the days I lost track.
The women red, the money green, but the numbers were black.
I fought for the men in their silk suits to lay down their bets.
Well I took my good share, ma, I have no regrets.

                                                - The Hitter, Bruce Springsteen

• Both my Polaris and Shock sessions at Dreamation.
• The Shock: Social Science Fiction game I hosted on the 24th of February.
• The final session of our Game of Thrones campaign.
• Thoughts on the upcoming Gamestorm convention.
• Notes on prep I'm doing for a mini-campaign using FATE.

So I lied.  As many a good story or role-playing session is told out-of-sequence, I'm breaking my Dreamation chronology to talk first about Dictionary of Mu.  That play session inspired a lot of ideas.  I took almost no notes during the session and want to get some of my thoughts down here before they're as lost as Atlantis.  Lo!  Even now the winds of forgetfulness shift the red sand dunes o'er the tablets we inscribed on the world of Marr'd.

Context: I read the core rules for Sorcerer and for one of its supplements, Sorcerer & Sword, a couple years ago.  I appreciated the bibliography and many of the ideas in both books, but the rules didn't really grab me.  Sorcerer was not a high priority for me, and within the context of not being able to get many small press games to the table, I'd never actually played before.  I ordered Dictionary of Mu shortly after it came out based on some advocacy (pimping) by Fred Hicks and because I am a big fan of both Howard's Conan, and to a lesser degree, of Burroughs’ Barsoom series.  I had a sense that it might be up my alley, even if I never got the opportunity to use it with its core rules.  It arrived about the same time as my Spirit of the Century pdf, several other books, and a busy period at work followed by an Italian vacation.  In other words, I'd admired the layout and artwork and browsed maybe a dozen entries, but hadn't really dug into it the way I think most of the other players in my session had.

I'm going to discuss, in a scattered mode, this session in more depth than the others at Dreamation.  There's the story itself to tell, there's a Campbellian treatise on the power of myth knocking around my head, and there's game craft, along with my usual sidebars.  This would ideally be three different posts, edited and refined.  Instead you get the jumbled mess to follow and I will treat each subject roughly.  My main purpose in going over sessions like this is to aid my memory when I go back later to try to figure out what worked and to speculate on why.  What makes one play session absolutely ROCK where another is merely enjoyable?  There are dozens of factors, not all consistently repeatable.  But I believe many factors are, and they're only ferreted out by reflection and practice.

The IGE room and the hallway and tables outside were full, so Judd led the players to the main lobby downstairs.  We gathered large comfortable chairs around a tiny table.  For most of the session, it was considerably quieter than the space in the main room.  I think these conditions contributed to a feeling of intimacy that put us in a more receptive and creative frame of mind than we might have otherwise had.  Environment is important.

I introduced myself to the two players whom I hadn't met yet, John and Terry from nerdNYC, who play together frequently.  This might seem like a step you can take for granted, but I just saw a thread relaying experiences where con players never did introduce themselves to one another.  Talk about getting off on the wrong foot.  Shane, who I'd met in the Shock game the day before was the other player, along with our GM, Judd.

Judd indicated we would play using pre-generated characters taken from the Dictionary of Mu and read the "Kickers" for five of them to us, saying to speak up if we were especially taken with one.  A Kicker is something that happens to your character just before play begins.  I think the term Kicker was coined by Ron Edwards in the Sorcerer core book, but it's essentially borrowing a timeless piece of film or writing craft and twisting it to role-playing ends.  There are different kinds of Kickers, but they are usually something that puts the character in a dangerous or untenable situation and/or presents them with a choice that will almost certainly drive further events whatever choice they make.  Like the beginning of a James Bond film, or the strange occurrence at the beginning of a mystery novel that seeks to hook the reader into the novelist’s world and make them care about what happens next to the protagonist, the Kicker is an excellent tool to begin a campaign or a one-shot.  Well, the purpose is a little different in a James Bond film, but that’s the idea.

I’ll leave it to more studious RPG history scholars to decide just how innovative Kickers are, but most of the games I played at Dreamation place a lot of importance on good Kickers, either in the game design, in GM-craft, or both.  It seems to be a tool that’s been thoroughly internalized among the small press designers and players.  That’s not often the case in a lot of my role-playing experience over the last twenty-seven years.  The most common “Kicker” I recall from my teenage years was “So you all meet in a tavern…”  which most role-players of any stripe will tell you is weak tea in terms of setting events in motion.

Each of us waited until we'd heard all five and then indicated which one we preferred.  The Kicker I settled on was the first he’d read: “You have gathered the merchants who run their corrupt businesses from your temples in order to pass judgment upon them.  There are spies among them, be they from local rivals or the Witch King himself.  The crowd is restless and frightened.  It is time to make your decree.”

Getting to choose, or ideally create, your Kicker is great because it speaks to what interests a player and creates the buy-in that is important to a game session working well.  I rarely play with pre-generated characters, but this was a nice change of pace.  It allows you to play challenging characters you might not incline yourself towards, and presents you with ideas you might not have thought of, (or dared to try).  Judd told us where to turn in the Dictionary for our character, based on our Kicker choice.  My character was the Damsel Messiah.

Everyone started browsing through their character write-ups.  I’d chosen the first Kicker thinking, “Hmmm… that sounds very familiar.”  One of my favorite stories about Jesus of Nazareth is when he overturned the tables of the money changers and the dove sellers in the Temple in Jerusalem.  I’m very attracted to Jesus in his role of religious reformer and radical, exposing hypocrisy and condemning corrupting influences in religion.  Apologies for this aside, but I mention it because the Kicker for this character was very powerful to me and helped me care about the character immediately.  I think the Kickers did the same for each of the other players and worked to facilitate the amazing experience we had.

Another aside.  I love mythology.  Greek, Egyptian, Hebrew, Norse.  Hell, from almost any culture.  The Dictionary of Mu borrows strong themes from the Bible and elsewhere, and is the more powerful for it for me.  Books like the Lord of the Rings trilogy and movies like Star Wars, borrow a lot from older texts and themes, and are better for it.  But their borrowings are often subtle, disguised, and removed from their sources.  The closer and more direct the pilfering, the better as far as I’m concerned.  Keep your Rand al’Thor and give me Perseus, Beowulf, and Gilgamesh.  Along these lines, I’m looking forward to giving Agon a try later this year.

So, I’m looking over the Damsel Messiah, saw that her Demon was ‘The Serpent from the Garden,” and started thinking about it in the context of Sorcerer.  Judd was talking to John and Terry and I didn’t want to sidetrack things, but I had two immediate thoughts I nearly voiced.  First, “Damn, this is some dangerous, blasphemous, s***!”  Second, “Okay, this is going to be cool.”  I was still trying to decide whether this character might be more properly played as a sort of Princess of Peace, or a female Jim Jones when we got underway.

Judd had each of us narrate how we were summoning and binding our demons, in part I think as introduction to each of the characters and also as a primer on an important mechanic in Sorcerer.  Everyone’s method was really creative and set a great tone.  Judd gave out 2-3 bonus dice to each of us for our summonings based on our descriptions.

I told the Serpent that we would erase corruption from Marr’d, even as he had erased his Name from the stone I used to summon him.  That was pure, thoughtless improv, but it set me towards a mold of religious reformer even though I hadn’t consciously made up my mind yet how I was going to play my character.

Shane set a strong tone for what much of the session would be about by promising with chilling sincerity to meet The Lady of Silt’s desire to cause mayhem, and her need to turn all of Marr’d into a wasteland.

We did my Kicker scene first.  Judd had indicated that we feel free to write our own history of Mu and not let any knowledge of the setting or characters constrain us (I had almost none).  But I had still not made up my mind how to play the Damsel Messiah.  She read like a cross between Jeanne d’Arc and an arrogant Jesus.  Her entry said that her first decree as the ruler of Hy-Brasil was crucifying the moneylenders who did their business in the temples of Battlehymn, so I let that, and my overall impressions of the bloody history of Marr’d be my guide.  The Damsel ordered her warrior-priests to cut down the moneylenders, letting none live.

After absorbing this brutal dictate, (he had to do that a lot this session), Judd had an excellent GM impulse (he had a lot of those too).  My command was obeyed and carried out, but Judd brought out the dice and said, “Let’s see whether any of them get away.”  There were rivals to my power among the moneylenders gathered.  Any of them escaping could provide interesting plot threads as they returned to conspire to overthrow my reign in Battlehymn.  I recall I absolutely crushed Judd in this roll.  I felt my GM-heart sink a little and imagined Judd’s possibly doing the same.  There would not be any immediate external rivalry to my power in Battlehymn.  As Judd proceeded to the other players, I listened, but also reflected on what this meant.  I didn’t come to it right away - the other players’ actions moved me toward it, but I thought that meant maybe an internal conflict was in order.  Redemption is one of my favorite themes, and that became an interesting possibility that the dice left open.

Each of the characters started in different parts of Marr’d.  Judd suggested that we could join together or might oppose one another – anything goes.  As the game progressed, it looked as though John’s Primite Prince character and Shane’s Khan of all Khan’s were almost certainly on a collision course.  The Primite Prince had just opposed his father to free their slaves, but was still in a strong, warrior culture mode, and the Khan wanted metal from the Primite’s iron mines to feed his war machine.  Terry had decided that her runist, Oghma would travel to Battlehymn to record the recent events there.  Given the likely rivalry between the Khan and the Primites, I decided to attempt a sort of alliance with Oghma.  The Damsel's past and youth seemed to need a mentor figure, and her gradual move toward a possible redemption would want an objective observer and recorder.

Terry expressed a desire for an apprentice figure to carry on Oghma's work, as he was very old and feeling his mortality.  Judd provided a great opportunity, narrating a crying girl who was inscribing the rune for “Father” on the post where her moneylender father’s body had been crucified on order of the Damsel.  It was a pretty heart-wrenching scene.  That, along with the violent proclivities of the Primite Prince and the Khan, resolved me towards a peaceful path both for contrast and redemption.

The Damsel decreed for the merchants and moneylenders to be replaced by more faithful souls, those who remained who possessed the art of letters, as her earlier decree had left Battlehymn in administrative chaos.  In a follow-on scene, I made an offer to Terry that I felt Oghma would be unlikely to deny.  I ordered the construction of a library in Battlehymn and asked Oghma to bless it with his presence and to assist in its nurturing.  Knowledge and Peace would be the two main planks in the Damsel’s platform for Battlehymn.

I got the sense that Oghma approved and was generally allied with the Damsel but he successfully hid from me the fact that he was a sorcerer, and may have had some ulterior motives had not the greater threat from the Khan appeared.

The Primite Prince was vexing his father with demands and philosophy that was alien to him.  There was some pretty scary brinksmanship that was being played.  It felt like John was throwing some serious and surprising curveballs at Judd, some have which might have ended in some difficult dead ends for the Prince story-wise, but Judd provided some ways out and the dice favored John so it worked out fine.

The Khan, meanwhile, was engaging in one frightening act after another.  He’d determined that if he killed every sentient being on Marr’d he would, naturally, be God by process of elimination.  When his Khans muttered against him, he made bloody examples of them.  At one point, he threw the head of the latest questioner among the assembled and “invited” anyone who had thoughts about his plans for conquest to feel free to enter his tent and voice them.

Oghma’s apprentice was seeking to set Oghma against the Damsel, wanting revenge for her slain father.  Oghma advised patience, but the apprentice (in another inspired move by Judd), ran away and sought out the Khan as instrument for her revenge.

The Khan took and razed the city of Mu’s Bed, made the Witch King of Stygia a blind, mutilated wretch, and bound his demon, the sword History Eater to him.  He was growing in power.  The Primite Prince sought alliance with him, but the Khan wanted only metal from them.  There was a sort of arena challenge between them with the ten best Men against the ten best Primites, the Khan and the Prince included.  Bested in battle, the Prince yielded and promised to deliver iron to the Khan.  The Prince discussed the matter with his father and they were wary to sell metal that might someday be used against them.  Some kind of double-cross was likely in store.

With the Khan’s armies rampaging, the Damsel hoped that the Khan would seek other conquests before turning towards Battlehymn.  She sought Oghma’s counsel who told her to seek allies, both material and supernatural.  Oghma summoned a demon of forgotten places, specifically the lost city where the tribes of the Khan had their origin, but which had been lost to them.  Oghma’s studies and rituals were telling him that perhaps only a marital union between the Khan and the Damsel would allow for peace to prevail.  He made preparations to put this plan in motion, but did not overtly make the Damsel aware of this.

The Damsel attempted to summon a martial defender to safeguard Battlehymn, but failed.  She instead found a beauteous presence named “Lightbringer.”  He indicated he would bind himself to the Damsel, but only if she could assist him in his need to corrupt the powerful.  The Damsel was tempted because it looked as though the fragile peace she had started to build in Battlehymn would fall to the Khan without much more assistance, but she could not make this bargain.  It stood against everything she had hoped to build.  Though she was arrogant and had shed blood in pursuit of purity and peace, she would never seek corruption in herself or others.

The Khan wanted to please his newly bound demon, History Eater.  History Eater’s need was to eat other demons.  Shane told Judd that he wanted to summon the spirit of Peace to feed to History Eater.  Demons can be many different things in Sorcerer and in the context of the Dictionary of Mu, they are the spirit of dead or forgotten things, be they ideas, people, or empires.  On such a bloody planet, Peace certainly fell into this category.  Judd put his head in his hand, chuckled, and said, “Dude, that is so efffed up….”  The Khan’s Lore skill was low so this would be a tricky feat.  He managed to summon Peace, but not to successfully bind it.  Judd had the lightning bolt to have Peace be a parasite demon which infested the Khan briefly.  It was an alien feeling for the Khan, but an intriguing one.  It gave him pause and gave him something to think about.

The Khan did feed The Lady of Silt to History Eater.  Intentional stratagem or not it opened up the possibility of a peaceful end, because it meant the Khan no longer had a demon whose need was to make Marr’d a wasteland.  Still, his momentum was for more bloodshed towards the assumption of divinity, and his armies marched towards Battlehymn.

The Primite Prince sought audience with the Damsel and was granted it with all respect.  He ultimately allied himself with Battlehymn.  He indicated the cost of the alliance would be dear, but the Damsel was pretty desperate for any assistance at this point.

To make sure, at least, that she had the Serpent firmly under her control, the Damsel met his need by decreeing that every soul in Battlehymn be pledged to him in ceremony.  The principal of the religion of the peaceful Garden, with the Serpent as its protector was established.  The Damsel had asked also that the Primites be sanctified and pledged to the Religion of the Garden in preparation for the coming battle, but the Primite Prince declined.

Terry had a very cool narration of Oghma sending a dream to the Khan, planting the seed of a possible union with the Damsel, hoping to keep him from razing Battlehymn.

As a safeguard to keep the promise of Peace alive, even if the Khan destroyed Battlehymn, the Damsel asked that Oghma, (or a designate) lead a remnant from Battlehymn to a peaceful, forgotten place where perhaps the Khan would not find them and they could live outside his reach – very Battlestar Galactica, as Terry noted.  Oghma, having bound the spirit of the forgotten ancestral home of the Khans promised to do this.  The Damsel further decreed that any that stayed behind to defend Battlehymn would surely be among the 144,000 to join her in the heavens when she ascended there as prophesied.

The armies of the Khan camped outside Battlehymn, and the Khan sent a messenger to Battlehymn saying that the Damsel must meet the Khan in his tent.  Other cites he had attacked and razed without prelude.  Perhaps there was hope.

After some confusion about the exact conditions (I was fatigued and hadn’t heard that it was important that the meeting be in his tent, rather than a tent of mediation placed between the city and his forces), the Damsel acquiesced and met with the Khan, bringing only Oghma to record  whatever was to come.

I didn’t know at this point whether the Khan would simply murder the Damsel or have words with her, but it seemed the only hope for Battlehymn.  The Khan was very unhappy that the Primites, who still “owed” him metal, had joined in alliance with Battlehymn.  Further, Oghma’s apprentice was inciting him to kill the Damsel, calling her a murderer and a hypocrite.  Oghma gave a speech that moved the apprentice to quell her vengeful hatred, opening the possibility for further diplomacy.

The Khan was curious about these “gardens of Battlehymn” the Damsel was asking him to spare, and asked to see them.  He said that he would brook no Primites near him, as he now hated and was angered by them.  The Damsel sent word back to the city that the Khan was entering Battlehymn and that only the “faithful” could show their faces, and that the unfaithful (which included all the Primites) must put themselves out of sight.

John could see where the threads of the story were headed and offered up a rationale for the Prince not immediately ambushing the Khan, saying to himself, “What a clever stratagem!  The Damsel is wilier than I gave her credit for.”  Very cool of him.  I think we were all on the same page there at the end.  We were as players, if not characters throughout the session.

We were running short on time, so after a brief scene between Oghma, the Damsel, and the Khan in the gardens, Judd suggested we leave it there, with the hopeful promise of a peaceful outcome.  It definitely looked like it was headed that direction.  Terry had Oghma add a few nice narrative touches to put a bow on the epilogue, which included the likely marriage of the Khan and the Damsel.

Judd asked us all to add to the Dictionary by defining a word central to the history we made on Marr’d.  He keeps these scraps as remembrances for the Mu games he runs.

My addition was, “Peace: A fragile spirit on Marr'd that could not be eaten by its bloody history. It can still be found there in places quiet and cool.”

Final thoughts:

The Dictionary of Mu and Sorcerer are both over-the-top awesome.  I want to find a way to play both again soon.  I don’t know if I can run it well - there’s definitely some tricky bits that Judd wisely chose not to fiddle with in the context of a con one-shot.  I’ll have to do some more reading on both and see if I can find some willing guinea pigs to give it a go with me.  But the setting of Marr’d, and some of the things that are built into Sorcerer are really intriguing.  It seemed like Judd was having a great time playing the demons of the characters - tempting, wheedling, suggesting, and demanding.  I could see how that part would be a lot of fun for me as a GM and also a great tool to drive characters towards interesting conflicts and choices.

You can get a amazing amount done in a four hour session with a focus on what is important to the story and with a system that supports that focus.

My re-telling gives short shrift to the other players whose contributions and stories were equally interesting and involved.  A note for me is that all of them kept mostly to character in voice and mannerisms.  I did not.  I go back and forth on trying to mimic female voices.  When the character or setting is lighthearted, I’ll attempt a falsetto or a breathy Monroe, but when the character or mood is more serious, I have a harder time.  Not able to do a voice well, I determine mostly to not even try because I don’t want to risk my attempts adding unintended humor to a serious scene.  It’s something I’m going to try to work on.  I almost never play female characters, but I had the happy accident of opportunities to play two of them at Dreamation.  First Jane Justice in the Spirit of the Century game when there were only two pre-gen characters remaining when I spoke up and the other didn’t appeal at all, and then the Damsel when I chose her based on the Kicker, not knowing her gender.

After dinner, I picked up a nice print of the character I’d played from Jennifer Rodgers who graciously signed it.  Not sure where I’m going to put it, but it’s a very cool keepsake of my time at Dreamation.

Thanks to Judd, Shane, Terry, and John for a rockin’ session I’ll never forget.  Maybe time will find us all together on Marr’d again someday.

Jake was not able to make it so there was just the four of us for the Shab-al-Hiri Roach game on Saturday.  With our characters previously made, we took about thirty minutes to go over the rules, pick our Enthusiasms, and establish our Relationships.  Per the rules each of us had an initially negative Relationship with the player seated to our right and a positive Relationship with the player seated to our left.  All the players warmed quickly to the Relationship staging, narrating colorful reasons why they were inclined towards or secretly disdained their neighboring colleagues.

The game got off to a bit of a rocky start.  For better or worse, the Roach can't be played with many pre-set notions of what your character is going to be like, or even what their primary issues are going to be.  Dave had made the gaining of tenure for Dr. Peixoto central in both his background and Relationship narration, and drew a card prior to the first Event indicating that he had gained tenure.  This was a little off-putting, I think.  I had it mind to play the straight man for as much of the story as I was able, to contrast the relative zaniness of Professor Haversham and Professor Muthusuthubran, but my character was possessed by the monstrous Roach in the first Event along with Haversham.  I was still able to do this to some degree, narrating resistance to rather than acceptance of my Sumerian invader.  I would manage to divest myself of the Roach mid-game, only to fall unwilling victim to it again in the final Event.

I set the first Scene, following the Roach's command to terrorize Rajib, dressing him down for his comments about tenure and Dr. Peixoto in front of Chancellor Ferguson in the foyer just before the Convocation.  The Stakes set were whether any observers felt that Rajib had it coming or if he was perceived as the victim of an overzealous Stafford.  The scene was pretty flat, with a rote "I'll DESTROY you!" proclamation from myself, but it served to establish the conflict mechanics and we sort of fumbled our way through it.

The other early stumbling point was when Doug began framing the motivations of Pembertonian Faculty Senate Chair, Professor Campbell Stoudenmeyer.  Doug narrated that he (as Stoudenmeyer) had been having an affair with Peixoto's wife.  Under the previously set guidelines of counter-offers and negotiated scenes, I suggested that perhaps Stoudenmeyer merely had designs on Peixoto's wife at this point.  Dave had two primary character hooks for Dr. Peixoto, and the first had already been undercut by his first Event card draw.  The second tenet was that his tenure-threatening marital friction was caused by his wife's homesickness for Brazil, not infidelity, so I didn't think it was appropriate for Doug to revise this aspect of Dave's character, at least not without making it the Stakes of a conflict.  Dave wasn't comfortable with the direction, and Doug happily revised, but I felt a little abashed for stepping on Doug's story-weaving toes so early in the game.  I worried it would set an overly cautious tone, but I don't think it was ultimately an issue.

All in all, I'd say the game was a mixed success.  I was very happy to have the opportunity to try this game out, and I think everyone else felt the same way.  There were a lot of moments of laughter and appreciation for the different ideas and directions each of the players provided.

Some highlights:

• Doug's funny voices and improvisation in general.  For  Professors Muthusuthubran and Stoudenmeyer in particular.

• Colin's, wild-eyed characterization of the mad Jack Haversham with references to unholy power and starry wisdom.  Honorable mention for his portrayal of the hapless Chemistry student, Townsend "Gorilla" Van Foy.

• Dave's disquieting Reverend Talley, gruff Coach White and Dr. Peixoto's unwavering campaign of plagiarism accusations against Rajib.

• Colin drew the SUL LUM UR-UR MAR card directing him to let all see his disgrace, and used it to act against himself in a plot laid by Dave for him involving a play lampooning his character during the Pemberton Follies.

• The wacky, cartoonish scene during that same play when the first murder occurred with Jack, Helvio and Rajib all conspiring to do in Reverend Talley.

• The Faculty Senate Meeting when Professor L Scott Collins, armed with biology research from Stafford, rapidly punched Rajib twice in the solar plexus as a catalyst to expel the Roach from his turban.

• The visual imagery of three of the professors running down Prescott "Rusty" French at night out on the old plank road.

• The horror at the Gamma Gamma Gamma Christmas Ball including the "death by punch bowl" of Dean Wakefield-Nutter and the inevitable demise of Regina Sutton, all to the tune of "When You're Smiling (The Whole World Smiles With You)."

• The ironic pathos (in my mind's eye at least), of the suicide of Henry Stafford on the grave of his dear friend William Appleby-Jenkins.

• Doug's epilogue, which included a very "Kiss of the Spider Woman" scene of Rajib and the lovely Professor Zuccaro-Fazio on a water-lapped sandy beach in South America, hot on the trail of the renegade Professors Haversham and Peixoto (leaving room for the sequel).  Also the cover-up of the events at the Christmas Ball by a Roach'd Chancellor Ferguson, blaming the whole dreadful incident on French Communists.

 Some lowlights:

• I'd purchased a bunch of 20s tunes (slightly anachronistic, but lots of Jazz and Ragtime) for mood music, but was having distracting ipod troubles (turns out its drive is kaput and needs service).

• The game was mentally exhausting, and I think all of us started to lose a lot of our energy about two-thirds into it.  You are improv-ing, dealing with mechanics, and negotiating Stakes pretty much non-stop.  There were good moments throughout, but definitely less inspired Scenes and Stakes overall towards the end.  On top of all the game concerns, I was worried as the host over whether everyone was having a good time and started to get a pretty bad headache towards the end.

• I fell into some ruts with an ongoing plot over Appleby-Jenkins' journal, and setting Stakes that involved whether people perceived different characters well or not.  I didn't model a good mix of examples of the kinds of Stakes that might be possible, and we tended to have trouble coming up with new Stakes towards the end.  I had some great ideas for Scenes and Stakes after looking more closely at the "Cheat Sheet" provided with the game - the next day.  Bottom line: however I might like to think of my GM/moderator capabilities, I am seriously rusty and need improvement to pull off a game with little-to-no prep.

Other thoughts:

• It's an interesting design.  We had a good time, but I could be convinced there are elements in it that are working at cross purposes.  The Reputation token mechanic feels unnecessary.  Doug "won" the game 24/9/3/2, but none of us were really setting Scenes or wagering based on the mechanic.  We had players rolling dice of Pembertonians assigned to them both for and against their own character's interests.  The setting/setup is interesting and conducive to the kind of game experience it's intended to produce.  The game text has great advice toward producing a good play experience.  The cards are great grist to riff off of.  Even the layout and artwork in the game is handsome and evocative to that end.  But with all the cautionary notes about not letting "winning" the story game get in the way, why bother with it, I wonder?  The cards, the poisonous environment, and the initial Relationship frame seem adequate to get the ball rolling in a good direction.  I think we had a positive experience due to some parts of the design, but maybe owing more to the buy-in and creativity of the players gathered for the experience.  It feels a bit like a fun machine that does a lot of things well but has some bright red buttons on it marked "Implode," and comes with excellent instructions that include warnings not to hit the red buttons too hard.  That's likely overstated.  We had a wicked good time at Pemberton U, but it might have gone horribly wrong in more groups than it should.

• Including rules overview and the rest of character creation, we met our goal of playing out all six Events in just under five hours.

• Everyone else seemed to feel that the game probably didn't have much replayability.  I think that there is, but I don't know that I'm eager to do it soon simply given the backlog of games I want to play.  With all the cards that we didn't see, with how differently the same characters might be played, and the variety of scenes and conflicts that might occur, I could see trying it again sometime.

Thanks