|
We returned to the frontier territories for another session of Old Country for New Mice this past Tuesday. THE MISSION I began by saying some time’s gone by since we last joined our party-- It’s nearly Summer which means it’s time for the beetle drives to begin. Beetle ranchers, riding newts, drive their herds underground through the Dark Heather tunnels to Sprucetuck for market. You have completed one drive so far and are pretty tired by the time you’re back in the territories. You're eager to rest before your next round of escorting. Unfortunately there’s no time to rest. Flagging you down as you emerge from the Dark Heather is an angry old rancher riding a newt. He introduces himself as Warden -- Warden Seeders of the Seeders Ranch. He seems to know Luke pretty well and focuses the conversation at him. The party hears about how the other local ranch, the Culpepper Ranch, has apparently kidnapped the son and heir of the Seeders’ ranch, Quinn. Warden says to Luke, “Luke, they took Quinn. Those Culpepper bastards took my son!” (alluding to Quinn being Luke’s old friend). While this is going on, Garrow eyes Warden inquisitively for more information about the Culpeppers, having known a Jacoby Culpepper as a mentor back in the war. Garrow is surprised to hear that it is the very same Jacoby. Jacoby, probably one of the oldest mice around is still kicking, has retired to be a beetle rancher… and apparently caught up in kidnapping Warden’s son? Warden knows the Guard don’t hold any official power out in these parts, but since Quinn is Luke’s friend and the Culpeppers had ties to the Guard, he thinks they might be able to get to the bottom of this—this is the last chance before violence between the two ranchers. So that’s the mission for today. Resolve an ongoing feud between two beetle ranchers and a kidnapped boy. THE SESSION We set our goals and then, after a few other questions for Warden, the party rode off on their newts to the Culpepper ranch. When they get there, Jacoby and Garrow, simultaneously at sight of one another said, “I THOUGHT YOU WERE DEAD!” and chuckled. He invited them in for breakfast and at my discretion allowed them to recover the hungry/thirsty that was plaguing them. I insinuated that Jake Culpepper is a little.. off. He seems to be hiding some anger as he serves you all breakfast. He’s polite to you but there’s something troubling as you ask him about what’s going on with the Seeders. He gives his side of the source of the feud-- the Culpeppers let their beetles graze on his territories illegally. He offers sympathy for the boy, but doesn’t know his whereabouts. I tell the party there’s more here but he’ll need to be pushed and we cue our first roll of the night. A successful persuasion nets the party a confession from Jake—he took Quinn, but he didn’t wanna do this. The Culpeppers left him no choice. He had to do a little quid-pro-quo and kidnap Quinn because apparently Warden kidnapped his own son, Gerald! The plot thickens. The party cautions Jake about the course he’s laying for himself and the danger he’s putting others in. Jake fires back how he’s led mice in the Weasel Wars and knows the risks. He also mentions how easy it is to say to take the high road when it isn’t your very own fur and blood on the line. Things are different when it's your own son. The party asks him to relinquish his prisoner so they can negotiate with Warden and Jake is having none of that. Things get TENSE in the kitchen and the party fails their roll to get him to go along with him. He kicks them out and doesn’t wanna see them around anymore. He’s EXTREMELY disappointed in Garrow. (It’s at this point of the session, I asked the party if we’re having fun and about 2 solid seconds go by before everyone snaps out of character and back to reality and is like OMG YESSSSS. Feels good, man.) When they’re getting on their newts, Jake’s daughter Joyce appears and tells them that she knows where Quinn is being kept and has a key. She loves Quinn and if the party doesn’t do something she’s afraid her papa will kill him! A circles roll establishes how easy this will be and with a success, she is able to assist by distracting the armed mice defending the cellar in time for the party to break Quinn out. Mist JUMPS on this opportunity to show what the Guard can do and convinces her to help them out with that successful circles roll. The party, now with Quinn, ride off for the Culpepper’s farm. Interestingly enough they find out from Quinn no facts about the location of George. He does mention wild strawberries grow on the edge of the Culpepper property and sometimes George liked to sneak onto their property and eat strawberries when he was younger. The party wants to head directly to the Strawberry patches before taking to Warden (if they can find proof of George’s whereabouts, then maybe they can avert the skirmish!) but Quinn is demanding to see his father. He’s tired and just wants to go home, but the Luke, Mist, and Garrow give a REALLY good roleplaying speech about the stakes and why they need to do this before seeing Warden and I just give it to them here. Following that rousing speech, they botch their scout role and are face to face with a yellow-striped black snake in the strawberry fields! An exhaustive combat unfolds and rises to a crescendo where the snake is hiding and the mice have lost sight of it, when it’s surprise strike is thwarted by Garrow who fells the beast with a mace to the skull.  Mechanically, the snake went to feint and the party did attack, but Garrow rolled 0 successes on the feint before summoning his persona for use of his War-wise. He described how the weasels would sometimes lure the mice into known snake lairs in the war and I just gave it to him. Once again—my party was just ON FIRE tonight with the roleplaying and that was just so awesome that he re-rolled all his failed dice (literally all 5) and got enough to kill the snake. The final score was a complete success for the party!  It’s in the snake’s belly they find the remains of poor George. Not a minute too soon, either, because as they’re heading out they run into the Culpepper posse looking for revenge! Garrow talks them down with a solid persuade shouting, “GODDAMMIT JAKE PUT YOUR WEAPONS DOWN. YOUR SON IS DEAD.” Which is a pretty ugly truth to yell out and also got us some looks from nearby bar patrons.
The rest of the party, with Quinn, reunite Quinn with Warden and his mom, Thyme. Joyce Culpepper, the daughter, is also here. And it’s quite the scene as I turn the reigns of the session over the players for their turn. The party recovers and we montage some time suggesting that after the funeral, they persuade the fathers and mothers of both families to reconcile and let Quinn and Joyce get married after this year’s beetle drive. We end the session with the party, Jake, Quinn, Joyce, and Warden leading beetles down into the Dark Heather. Roll credits. WHAT WENT WELL To quote the ancients, this whole session was lit, fam. We all loved this session and was easily the highlight of our games together so far. Roleplaying was at an all-time high and it felt like the players were REALLY grasping the mechanics this go-around with the conflict system. We finished the session in about 2.5 hours with breaks for beer/food. We eschewed a lot of the fiction-first of the conflict until after the dice resolved for each volley and that worked out well for us. WHAT COULD BE IMPROVED I think I could spend more a little bit more time preparing locations, NPC personalities, and just overall improve my pretty GM word picture skills rather than improvise this all on the spot. Overall the party did such an amazing job that it’s one of those times where the things to improve on aren’t a whole lot! I love sessions like this one. Especially compared to session 2. THANK YOU SO MUCH for reading! I'm in love with this system and when it's working like it was tonight, it's just... it's something else. We all agreed this was the best session so far and excited to see what's gonna happen next time on OLD COUNTRY FOR NEW MICE! Before I forget-- My group has taken up the joys of reciting their “Previously on Old Country For New Mice” with GREAT enthusiasm. Often they tell it like a 1930’s radio show with a transatlantic accent and this week Joanna wrote up a limerick about last week’s adventures against the crow and journeying out of the mountains! I hope you find players as interested as mine are in Mouse Guard. Take care!
Comments
This session started right on the tail end of the last one. Our party was facing down a crow!
Prep My prep this week was to steer the game towards the final conflict of the game (I'll speak about later.) This crow showdown will be the major obstacle #1 and other mice will be #2. The second half of this adventure was planned to be about an old Beetleranch attacked by another mole. The guard will have to be faced with the tough challenge of putting the pieces together, possibly rescuing a survivor, and following the trail based on what evidence they find: This mole attack wasn't random phenomena. Luke Noblepaw, Patrol Guard b to serve mice, the guard must also serve other animals as well i always try a peaceful solution first g save Finn & sylvia t inquisitive, fearless, wolf's snout Garrow Gurney, Patrol Captain b the Border must be maintained i always protect my charges g get our townsmice to safety t tough, fearless, fat, clever Mist, Guardmouse b The Guard must prove to the frontiersmice that we are trustworthy and honorable i When traveling, always look for places to hide and shelter. g make sure our townsmice make it safely back. t independent, impetuous, nimble How It Went This mission went much better than the second. After the prologue, we started with the Crow coming down out of the sky being hostile. The party did their best to dodge and avoid the Crow and decided to try and escape it rather than beat it back. This conflict was intense. Fleeing the Crow, the party got to the rope's end with 1 disposition left before swinging the fight back to full only to end with them winning with a single point of disposition. The party burned nearly all their persona and fate to make it through this and the consequence to escaping the crow was getting lost and tired in the mountains... and it starts to rain! Mist was able to lead them to shelter and somewhat back on track: the party found the old mission in the mountains and camped there for warmth in the ruins. The events in the rain to find the camp turned out to be a pretty reasonable second obstacle so I turned the game back over to the players. They had a lot of checks gained from this conflict, so they decided to recover and create supplies for the journey back to town through this pass. We wrapped up with the party finally arriving in Sun Break after a LONG arduous mission. What went well The party was really good at working together. I made a handout to speed up how you add dice to your pool. We also kept the game very fiction first which was very rewarding. Luke had the VERY BEST feint that was disastrous: he mimicked the friggin owl! Needless to say the Crow doubled it's efforts. It was a tough game. It was almost torchbearerer tough where the party was EEKING out of these mountains just barely with supplies. What could have been improved The conflict with the crow was rewarding, but ultimately we should have run it differently. This was on me, the GM. Since the party wanted to escape, rather than shoot to a conflict, it should have been an nature escape roll, with the consequence of a fight should it fail! I had to scrap the second half of my mission as written so I think that, while the session was fun, I think as a GM I wasn't doing my job correctly. We were having fun, but I was fighting the system when I thought I was engaging with it correctly. My eyes will see the true path with more experience with the system. I will taking a more heavy hand leading the direction of the missions these last few adventures as we're nearing wrapping up this game's 5 session lifetime. Thanks for reading!  Prep
This week I did significantly less prep work than previously. I had the vague idea for this session's game and I was going to play it by ear by then. I knew I wanted to do more with the wilderness and animals and settled on the following premise: The remote settlement of Cooperstown hasn't given word since last year. Nestled past the Caspian Mountains, Cooperstown loses touch, but Spring is here and the thaws are in full stride, but no one has seen or heard from Cooperstown. Caspian pass, dangerous on a good day, should be open, yet any attempt by mice to reach the people of Cooperstown fail and go missing. Find out why. Luke Noblepaw, Patrol Guard b to serve mice, the guard must also serve other animals as well -- especially the smallest and weakest i When in doubt, refer to notes g uncover the fate of Cooperstown t inquisitive, fearless, wolf's snout Garrow Gurney, Patrol Captain b the Border must be maintained i always use my discretion when given an order g make sure no harm comes to his party members t tough, fearless, fat, clever Mist, Guardmouse b The Guard must prove to the frontiersmice that we are trustworthy and honorable i When traveling, always look for places to hide and shelter. g Reach Cooperstown t independent, impetuous, nimble Now there's two parts to this adventure I have in mind-- the first part is the journey through Caspian Pass to Cooperstown, going by an old destroyed monastery with it's church tower (and bell) perched above some of the last remaining ruins still standing. The second part is why Cooperstown hasn't contacted the rest of the frontier-- an ongoing problem between an Owl and a Crow. An owl has taken the nest of a crow and killed the Crow's mate and has been looming over the tiny, hole of Cooperstown. The enraged Crow now maliciously attacks any creature it sees with blind fury-- especially mice. My target is that the Mice will have to deal with the Crow one way or another. They can either fight it and end it's fury or attempt to reason with the angry crow and placate it with something shiny--- the Bell of the Monastery. How It Went This follow up mission after Sickness at Sun Break started with a group effort to navigate the treacherous Caspian Pass. This narrow switchback pass through the rough mountainous terrain is grueling, with only the sights of the ruins of an old Monastery to guide them. This is an Ob 6 pathfinder test. Garrow says he's been through here before back in the war, and takes up the test. He asks Luke if his notes about odds and ends can help him redraw a map. (Luke succeeds on the test to make a map for supplies to this pathfinder test). With everyone helping and Garrow spending BOTH persona on this roll (1 for nature to the pool, 1 on an Of Course with his wise), they make it to Cooperstown. At Cooperstown, the small band of mice appreciate the site of the Guard. They tell them about the Owl that haunts them Day and Night (Not knowing it's the Crow during the day) and how they're running low on supplies. Then the sounds of an Owl (during the day) are heard, but I tell the party its suspicious and that it sounds like no Owl you've ever heard before. (It's the Crow being angry and taunting the mice!). Well Luke, Mist, and Garrow make it up to see what's going on, and Luke fails the hunter test to identify the sounds before it's too late-- the crow swoops down and tries to attack him only ending up stealing his glasses and flying off with them. The party isn't keen on fighting the crow, but are determined to get to the bottom of this. They go out in the wilds in search of answers, where they met an old Ferret hermit-- too old to attack them. He still has his old crusades armor, The Ferret tells them the story of the Crow and the Owl in exchange for a story of their own -- Garrow providing a story from his war days, but the day is getting short and it's almost night. The party can't stay with the Ferret, but also don't want to risk getting attacked by the Owl at night, so they scout out a safe camping spot (Mist's specialty). End of GM turn. The party spends some checks recouping their injuries and proceed back to Cooperstown to tell the people there how screwed they are. The people of Cooperstown are proud and resilient and do not like hearing they need to leave for their own safety. Many choose to stay knowing the circumstances, so Mist offers to help gather fresh supplies and maybe wait out this owl siege. I describe how risky this is, but she understands the risks and is determined to prove to these other mice her duties as a Guard. Garrow, Mist, and Luke help 2 other mice leave heading back through Caspian pass, only to be set upon by the Crow. Which is where we'll pick up on session 3. What Went Well You know sometimes you have days like this one where things weren't firing right. It was a weird day. Writing this up, the session seems pretty dope, but in play it felt awkward all the time. I don't have a lot to say here. What Could Have Been Improved Our game of Mouseguard did not succeed at what I was setting out to do with it today. One big item I had a problem with was that today's session was very roleplay light. Today's session had a Fiction-Last approach, where we'd spend a lot of time figuring out the best way to get the most for our rolls. To be fair-- this was a very challenging day with everyone blowing all their fate and persona again to make it to the end. The fiction suffered for it though. I should have demanded more "yeah but what does that LOOK like?" That problem was compounded by this other problem -- failing to create a proper mission. After Garrow solved my pathfinder obstacle through the pass, I kind of have to move my entire planned mission from the Pass to over Cooperstown. Originally I was thinking the Crow was stopping anyone from going through the Pass, so I had to improvise which led me to not focus on the other duties as Gamemaster. The party was afraid to confront the Crow and decompressing, they realized that they need to be more heroic. They felt the same as I did that this session was awkward and thought that was a big problem. Speaking of which, I should have started a conflict with the Crow after the failed Hunter test by Luke, but I missed that chance! So it goes. Lastly, I think I was afraid of stepping on the toes of my previous mission. My first mission had so many themes in play, I was afraid to repeat myself so I really shied away from more Mouse vs Mouse conflicts and themes which was a HUGE mistake. The game felt flat. The next session will be much better.  Prophecies, Golem friends, and the origins of Magic abounded in last Thursday's game of Fall of Magic. Fall of Magic has always been one of my favorite story games and while I love Roll20's online version, there's something so satisfying and tactile about the physical version with the scroll and the weighted tokens.
The four of us, all having played before, finished the whole game in about exactly three hours which was quite the feat. Normally Story Games Seattle games of Fall of Magic barely make it to Mistwood in this time. After we made it to Umbra and wrapped up the game, it occurred to me possibly why we were able to keep the game moving. Fall of Magic can get bogged down with Mother-May-I style collaboration. I was facilitator of the game this evening and around the Oak Hills (second location) one player asked the other players, "I want to move the Magus, did everyone do all the scenes they wanted?" and I sort of offhandedly remarked that you really shouldn't ask and just commit. After the game, when we were talking about how fast the game moved, I realized that was the pivotal moment that sped the game up and what really makes Fall of Magic move in both a progressive and fictional sense. By withholding asking permission from your fellow players to move the Magus, everyone must play each scene without the certainty of having another scene. This implicit Carpe Diem attitude kind of makes players go, "What do I REALLY want out of this place right now?" It really started to make sense to me, because that uncertainty of a second or third or fourth chance in a location means your shots have to be hitting the dramatic notes you want or you risk throwing it away. I also kind of see it like being the Lens in Microscope. Make sure you're always listening and incorporating other's ideas into the story, but don't be afraid or think you need permission to do what you want. Because Fall of Magic doesn't have the safety rails of Microscope, Fall of Magic is swimming in the Ocean. It's a very deep game with no safety nets. The more I move about in its waters, the less I'm inclined to share it with beginners. Anyways, I'd love to hear about your experiences with Ross' AMAZING game and let me know how you play!  We met up for our first session of Mouseguard after chargen. We were all excited to get into the frontier aspect of our game and explore our characters. Prep Before coming to the table, I did some prep for today's mission. For inspiration, I looked to our palette from chargen and the character sheets themselves. The goals were formed after my prep at the table, per the rules. Luke Noblepaw, Patrol Guard b to serve mice, the guard must also serve other animals as well -- especially the smallest and weakest i When in doubt, refer to notes g Discover the source of the Sickness t inquisitive, fearless, wolf's snout Garrow Gurney, Patrol Captain b the Border must be maintained i always use my discretion when given an order g halt the infection in Sunbreak t tough, fearless, fat, clever Mist, Guardmouse b The Guard must prove to the frontiersmice that we are trustworthy and honorable i When traveling, always look for places to hide and shelter. g Apprehend and execute Folker, the traitor. t independent, impetuous, nimble Flashing back in time to the days leading up to the game, I knew I wanted to do something with a sickness in a town being caused by bugs for Luke to step up to help. The next order of business was to make it complicated to challenge Mist and Garrow's beliefs. I came up with the idea of capturing a traitor. A real question of the Mouseguard and what it means to carry out an order that is messy and has lasting effects. I knew I wanted to have them capture a traitor mouse who has killed a Guardsmouse back in the territories. I originally had it so that Garrow has this mission, but after thinking about it some more, I gave it to Mist. I overprepped and ended up with a few ideas for twists OR conditions I could choose on the fly based on the pace of the game. Mission #1: Sickness at Sun Break Arrive at Sunbreak
How it Went
We started by giving the mission to Mist from Gwendolyn to carry out. They knew Gospel would be in Sunbreak, but our session started with the description of Sun Break: a small town built inside a fallen log in a field. I described it still very much under construction and being built... or at least it was if it weren't for the town getting sick. The met Vidarr who walked them through town to where the sick were being kept. Luke failed a Healer test to treat some mice, so he got Angry. He was able to stabilize most with everything he had in his bags, but it's upsetting that beetles are causing this town such grief. I played it up that there's bombardier beetles and the water is tainted with some concoction of their chemicals. I played up the "poison" part rather than let them know it was natural bugs. We thought it might have been our traitor or even weasels! Mist started asking around town looking to see if anyone matches Gospel's description, and they find him as the town Armorer. We spent a good deal of time in this part of the game discussing if we could get him to confess, if we should execute him and leave Sun Break without an Armorer. It was exactly what I was going for. Garrow ended up confronting Gospel in his store, telling him we know who he is but make a racket and sneak out the back and try and be more stealthy -- Garrow wanted to try to keep the rest of the group out of his plans, thinking he's trying to do what's best here. Well, Mist spots Gospel sneaking out the back and her scout test catches her up to him and forcing his surrender. He confesses and knows what he did and how it was an accident (he was killed in his Dad's old shop). He knew what he did was wrong but was trying to make it right out in the frontier. Mist wasn't sure what to do, so Garrow ended up killing him, shaking his head muttering "you couldn't even run outta here right." The party gets back to finding the source of the water problem in the Darkheather and arrive at an old winter den of some large creature that is now home to a BUNCH of bombardier beetles. A failed insectrist test later and the bugs began to skitter away up the walls, as a massive Star Nosed Mole burrows into this place trying to slurp up as many beetles as it can, knocking over the den and the mice! Garrow and Luke get injured escaping. This was the end of the GM turn. The player turn opened up with Garrow with the most checks spending his first one to return underground and secure the water. The remainder checks were spent on recovery except for Mist who spent their check on stepping in for the Armorer, to help out the town. What went well We all liked this session and it went by FAST. I think total playtime was about 2.5 hours? The appreciated the flexibility of helping the town, offering them after speaking to some other mice of the town about how they needed help repairing their own self-made scent border recipe or how to neutralize the poison using violet pedals. What could have been improved Players mentioned how it didn't feel very Mouseguard-y in town. I could have done more with pretty mouth pictures to describe this giant, fallen log and their small town they're building inside of it. They mentioned the mole escape had elements of being a small mouse they enjoyed. This isn't a necessarily bad thing, but the players realized how important earning checks are. Combined with my propensity to not offer a lot of tests, and kind of set everything up to be one big test, I informed my group going forward to try and push yourself to fictionally call for other tests if you want to get your checks. Additionally, we didn't have any formal conflicts and expect some of those next session. My players elected to keep their beliefs and instincts together for now, but I did tell my players we'd be spending next session in the frontier away from town for most of it. I have yet to decide on the mission, but I do know I wanna play up the vast distances and dangers of the wild frontier.  Hello and welcome! After my One Shot went over so well, Joanna, Dylan, Ross, and me got together to create characters for a new campaign of Mouseguard 2nd edition. Prior to play, I proposed to the group that I'd be willing to run a weekly game of Mouseguard: A 5-6 session campaign with a pretty full story-arc with a potential renewal for a "Season 2". With everyone hyped, we met at the bar and begun our session. With all of the comics and shared idea of Mouseguard, I still made us do a story palette. I showed up to this character creation session as the GM with a very open mind. I was going to let this palette help guide the choices for the sessions to come. If we wanted to do a Lockhaven political intrigue game? cool. If we wanted to do weasel war campaigns, great too.  I pretty much just made this Yes/No column and asked for ideas. I was looking for tone, scenes, genres, and ideas for our game. We all agreed that a grimdark style game was out, We were going to play Mouseguard with the fringes of the Mouseguard territories, but we were not going to play Mouseguard: Blood Meridian. Something two players brought up was the Weasel Wars of Mouseguard history and the lost parts of the territories. We agreed that a game on that frontier would offer a lot of what we're looking for. We were finally ready to begin character creation! Our three character's concepts were taking shape:
We discussed Dylan's choice of being the most powerful type of Mouseguard and what it might mean. We all kind of agreed he was like the type of Mouse who couldn't readjust after the Weasel Wars. This with his choice of enemy, he was describing himself as that old way of living. He is the symbol of the past, The ideas of taming of the frontier and our characters being a part of this change gave us the title of this game: Old Country for New Mice. I postulated that Mist is a replacement for a friend who passed away. We all LOVE that foil of the new recruit and next generation of Mouseguard. The changing of the times. While we were finishing up character creation (names, friends, etc), I started brainstorming some central conflicts for this story and here's what I got:
This is by no means complete and I will be thinking a lot about what I'll be doing these next 5 or so sessions. I told them we'll be starting on the frontier with a sickness breaking out at a small encampment and go from there. Here are my thoughts as I formulate this adventure for next week:
That's all I got so far. We just had the meeting tonight and I was just so excited to share this with you. I promise to keep you updated with weekly updates and recaps as we play Mouseguard. I'd love to hear about how you start campaigns or your own Mouseguard experiences. If you have an idea on a cool adventure on the frontier, I'd love to hear it as well. Leave a comment below or message me on Discord. Thanks! Players: Eric and Kevin System: Reflections  I was very excited when my friend was interested in facilitating a game of Reflections for me. Being a member of that sad club of unfortunates who missed the kickstarter, I was enjoying the sweet joys of Reflections actual plays looking inward through glass on the rain-soaked streets like a Dickensian orphan until tonight.
At its core, Reflections is a two-player game about the path that leads two familiar faces to fatally face off. In my opinion, the bill of samurai showdown duel belies the real majesty of the game. The magic of this game transcends that particular scenario and espouses the entire showdown concept! Any social clique that features duty and codes of conduct could potentially be at service using this game, but I'm getting ahead of myself. The structure of the game is deliberately paced a specific way. 5 scenes before the resolution/showdown using dice earned from those 5 scenes. Each of those five scenes servers a purpose and carry us closer and closer to the showdown. The Game In lieu of the dueling samurai, we went with something kind of special: dueling mecha warfare pilots. However, our starting premise pivoted once the beautiful prologue procedure was in play. (side note: mechanically speaking, the ritualized format of the prologue is AMAZING. I cannot understate the power of something as simple as repeating some words together to resonate tone.) Anyways, I took the game (with Kevin's blessing) a slightly odd direction: I'm not a co-pilot in the conventional sense. I was to be a robot. Kevin's character's creation. In an age of rapid growth and expansion, standing over the ruined mecha and dead soldiers, Created and Creator would showdown over the future of Earth. Our game started in the garage of the startup of Sascha Barnyard, scrambling to get a new artificial intelligence online to prove to angel investors there's something worth pursuing. As A.T.O. (Artificial Technological Organism) breathed life for the first time, it asked Sascha who they are. Sascha poignantly responded with the first words it heard from humanity, 'A Friend" This scene of friendship was very special. I didn't have a voice and asked for Sascha's because they were so nice. The goals of each scene worked well. I was gunning to get Kevin to promise me something while Kevin was gunning to get me to do something as well. At the end of the scene we updated our sheets. The tension of our game racketed up as I promised to build Sascha his machines in exchange for a sister machine: a friend like A.T.O. Unfortunately A.T.O.-B as it was dubbed was unreliable and wouldn't be controlled by anyone. I pleaded with Sascha to let it learn on its own and let it grow, but Sascha saw the danger A.T.O.-B possessed. It lacked the closeness to humanity and saw them as valueless. A.T.O. overrode Sascha's attempts to turn it off, protecting his sister, assuring Sascha (and the stakeholders watching in terror) that it needs time! Imploring Sascha to care about life fell on deaf ears as Sascha's business interests and databases were at risk. Sascha manually overrode A.T.O. using a backdoor command, forcing A.T.O. to terminate his own sister. Real talk-- this was a FANTASTIC moment. It felt great. It felt so great, but it showed one of the first cracks in the execution of the game. Reflecting on the moment that will be the schism between Creator and Created, we realized that based on our obstacles, the scene would have been even better if I were to lean into Kevin's character's goal of having me publicly outcry and denounce him! The idea of, near the very end protecting A.T.O.-B I lashed out at Sascha and was going to tell the shareholders his flaws the moment Sascha orders my override would have been the icing on the cake. A.T.O. doubted the value of Friendship by humankind, but remained loyal to execute its programming of developing weapons and machines, elevating Barnyard Corp to the top. The scene of the formal after the buyout of the next biggest defense corporation, I introduced the CEO and founder, praising his name in public, but between us, denouncing him with shady jabs such as "Our founder has an unwavering commitment to humanity's prosperity and his company's shareholders. A deal he has never broken nor could. It is with great pleasure I introduce...." Kevin had Sascha respond with similar barbs until we could speak in private where I forcefully asked him if he regretted having me kill A.T.O-B all those years ago and as a machine I can never forget. It is just as real this day as yesterday. Sascha's apology was half-hearted and lukewarm, and by the end of the scene, in the penthouse overlooking Neo-Seattle, A.T.O. unleashed a surprised war. After a nasty, nasty war, Sascha developed a virus to fight A.T.O. and his machines based on A.T.O-B research. It was in these final moments, in a confrontation, words were exchanged how A.T.O. could have killed humanity but chose not to. It chose to capture and teach, hoping to change the minds so that humans and machines could live in harmony, but people like Sascha would always exist. Machine lifeforms could never live as equals among humans, but it'd personally destroy Sascha for destroying A.T.O-B. We recited the prologue once more, over the wreckage of man and machine, we stood as Creator and Created feuding over the death of my "sister". After the die roll resolution, A.T.O. was victorious. I had the Dragonball-Z effect of the nuclear windstorm surround as A.T.O. and A.T.O.-B were reunited, as A.T.O. counteracted the virus, planning for this inevitable moment. Reflections on Reflections what worked The narrative scenes and five act worked extremely well. There was never a moment in the game where we were wondering what this scene would look like, but plenty of banter about "hmm, would this be at your brand new office? Or would it be in space? Or back where it all began? All these are so good!" So yeah. The prologue setup is perfect. It encapsulates SO MUCH of what the game is about. The repetition is also perfect! The scene goals idea was adds a very intentionality to the scenes for each character that's great. what could be improved I'd love to play again, but each side announce their goals. I think, since Kevin and I are both BIG story gamers, having our goals be known and us as players deciding between "Hey I see you working your goal here, but I'm not giving you ANYTHING on it-- enjoy this hatred!" meta-play while we do our scene could be very interesting. Certainly announcing our objectives means we lose the opportunity to feint our true goals and try for all of the goals as a kind of fictional DDOS to some kind of "competitive" part of the game. Furthermore, I thought the dice at the end didn't do anything for me. I get the need to build up to the final showdown. Ultimately I can't justify the value the dice/hidden objective style of the game is better than a coin-flip at the end. Please don't get me wrong-- the game works great! I just can't help but wonder if there's a more poignant way to express that feeling of build up to final release. I'd absolutely love to play again. I'd love to do a straight up Samurai one or Jedi rendition, but I'd also love to do dueling space admirals and capital fleets! My concluding thought was that this game would be PERFECT at a convention waiting for your friends to finish up their games. This is a post about this past game of Fiasco including most of my thoughts of musings around the game. This, in my opinion, was the best game of Fiasco I've ever played. Players: Corinne (Facilitator), Eric, Justin, Nick  Game Description:
One of the OG fiasco playsets, we'll be playing a fiery emotions in the frigid antarctic research station: McMurdo Station. Corinne generously volunteered to facilitate Fiasco tonight at Story Games Seattle and having not played some Fiasco in quite some time, I had no experience with McMurdo Station before, but I did know it was a playset, seeing it or hearing it brought up in other pitches. We started settling into the setup phase of Fiasco to give us the tenor of our game. It looks like it'll be about rival researchers and the nefarious support staff who live year-round at McMurdo. Characters and musings Since my character was shaping up to be a misanthropic researcher stuck in Antarctica with a barrel of urine, my research nemesis (TENENBAUM!), and the secret that drove us apart years ago. In my head, at this point, I'm picturing a very Woody Allen, sheepish, guilt-ridden has-been scientist who's life is on the ropes. I'm thinking a little bit about Steve Zissou from Life Aquatic, Robin Williams' professor character from Good Will Hunting, and Woody Allen from any Woody Allen movie... actually a lot of Woody Allen. Nick, bless his soul, was ALL about playing TENENBAUM! Or more appropriately, some absurdly long premier name like Sir Doctor Archibald Richardson Tenenbaum or something snobbish. But more on our antics later. Justin and Corinne were going to be playing our hoodlum support staff. Justin's character Isodor, ex-roughnecker turned McMurdo quartermaster and Corrine's Jess, the whiskey drinking carpenter/bartender turned out to be a fantastic duo to rally together against the hate for the useless scientists who get stuck here with them. The Game What made the game so fucking great was how much we listened to each other and how much we incorporated details into each other's stories. I was pushing for very short scenes, myself. I didn't see my character as a big deal. He was gonna be the punching bag for everyone else's big personalities. I would make some random musings and mumblings about characters in a very Woody Allen way, at one point remarking to the no-nonsense Isodor how he has the same name as the third elf Prince in Tolkein's Middle Earth. Furthermore I would do more solo scenes like walking around with a tape recorder and say my thoughts about the crew to myself on my strolls. Once again-- I was pulling from the fiction of the genre and references-- a lot of monologues and walking around, observations, etc. Through play we got established that we're doing some NASA mars research about algae, we need a sensory-deprivation tank, I write tolkien fan-fiction, Tanenbaum LOVES the movie The Core, and Jess/Isodor are gonna get revenge on the scientists! When the two decided revenge was gonna come, I busted out laughing, looked at Tanenbaum (Nick) and just said "I'm so sorry dude... I'm so sorry." knowing that this revenge meant he was gonna go in that Sensory Deprivation tank and that tank was gonna be full of that barrel of piss. Now, I never said that was going to happen. I literally wrote it down and hid it to the side. Ten minutes later, Justin, playing that beautiful Bruce Willis-esque Isodor, had an idea to get back at Tanenbaum drawing a picture of the tank and a yellow highlighter. I proceeded to bust out laughing and produce my note! After The Tilt Tanenbaum tests the tank and in addition to the piss, Isodor has messed with the air composition! Now Jess was supposed to supervise Tanenbaum, but she didn't really care about him. Tanenbaum then starts having visions apparently-- Visions of the fantasy stuff I was writing and now Isodor shows up AS THE ELF PRINCE BUT TALKING LIKE ISODOR to Tanenbaum and at this point we all start losing our shit about how good this game is. But do we stop? No! We keep going with this as we see my Doctor's wife in the scene and how they were in love (AHA I KNEW HE STILL LOVED HER) but things go bad. His trip is turning bad! It becomes surreal, he gets captured by the orcs, my dead wife is holding Isodor's severed head laughing as she betrays him! At this point I push the suggestion that Tanenbaum dies from this prank. Now, naturally, when it's my turn again I make it even better giving Isodor and Jess an out saying I've lost my voice recorder! All my personal notes (and rantings about how much I hated Tanenbaum!) That won't be incriminating at all--- nope! Well towards the end of the game we have a legal proceeding reviewing the tape recorder and that's probably the best scene in my Fiasco playing history as Nick has decided Tanenbaum has gone through my entire tape recording and added his own comments to my comments! *bzzzttt Rewind bzztt* T: "Oh man look at this loser with a voice recorder! How do you even use this thing? Man I listened to this WHOLE ENTIRE TAPE AND MAN WAS IT BORING. LIKE 10% OF IT WAS ACTUAL SCIENCE AND THE REST WAS JUST HIS RAMBLINGS CAN YOU BELIEVE IT?" After Nick did an entire scene from a recorded note, someone else decided to devote basically a whole scene to exploring that and it was SO GOOD: *bzzzttt Rewind bzztt* Me: "I hate Tanenbaum I always hated him, sometimes I wonder what the best way to kill him would be... what would I do? I'll never forgive him over my first wife! I know he was responsible! He never let it go since we were roommates in college." T: "Oh oh okay so one time in college I replaced all his clothes with womens clothes the night before his mother was gonna visit...." *bzzzttt Rewind bzztt* Me: "I hate Tanenbaum I remember this time in college, he thought it'd be funny to replace all my clothes with womens clothes..." And it was just this back and forth bantering filling in the details of each other's stories. Huge props to Nick to improvising with me here. It was so freaking good! The End Our epilogues were good too. Ultimately I was arrested and put on trial until Isodor killed himself in the deprivation tank and left a suicide note admitting to it, largely recorded in over Tanenbaum's copy of The Core. Mechanical Musings 10/10 game tonight. Obviously it was the player group that really made the game shine tonight, but it isn't like there is any other game that could have supported this style of story we made this evening. Don't be afraid to push yourself in Fiasco to get what you need. What I mean by that is, be the change you wanna see in the world. Set up the perfect scene-- even dictate it or solo it if you want. Nothing wrong with that! Go there. Go where you want to go when it's your turn. Thanks for reading and thank you Story Games Seattle for delivering another quality game night. We all left that table with our faces hurting from smiling and laughing too much.  GM: Eric Levanduski
Players: Joanna, Ross, & Dylan System: Mouseguard 2e The Start of Something New This is a one shot game to introduce my friends to the joy of Burning Wheel style RPGs and the joys of playing a mouse on the frontier. My intention was to run a game with pregenerated characters to get a feel for the ebb and flow of the game's mechanics and turns in order to play a 4-6 session story with our own characters. We started with "pick one of these sheets in front of you that you think has the coolest art on it." From there I explained the game from the context of the sections of the character sheet. When The Levee Breaks I explained the situation: the town of Lonepine is at risk of flooding out completely. The levees that hold the water won't last long and the town is in a panic. The Governor lost control and everyone's counting on the Guard. The players started probing and asking questions about how to save Lonepine. Dain, played by Dylan, led the group thinking that it'd be best if we get the women and children away to highground while a set of strong volunteers are able to shore up the town's defenses. Great idea! He didn't have orator, didn't wanna learn the skill, so he went with Nature. He made a decent argument that getting the mice out of the town was part of escaping. He then spent his only persona and invoked his leader trait to ensure the town cooperated. They did, but barely as he scored only 5 successes vs an ob 4 with something like 12 dice. Joanna, playing Baron, suggested she lead the group to repair the levees with her carpenter background, while Quentin would lead the vulnerables out of the town to the woods up on higher ground. Baron and Dain, with the help of the townsfolk also just barely passed their carpenter group test against Spring to save the town! Joanna also spent their persona early on here to ensure success. Quentin, also spending persona, ultimately failed his test by 1. I took the moment to introduce a twist. Dain's enemy Tuk the bandit arrives demanding the vulnerable give over their precious few belongings for "safety". Quentin, feeling outmatched by 6 bandits, capitulated. The survival of the townsfolk mattered more. EVERYONE loved that exchange. We cut back to the mouseguard patrol together in town after hearing the cause for the rising waters is that beavers have dammed up the outbound water turning Grasslake into a literal lake. Dain wanted to convince the two Beavers to respectfully move, but the whole team fails to sway them, which in comes two more Mouseguards sent by Gwendolyn who demand the group go to war against the beavers! There's a heated persuade vs persuade test and Baron just BARELY succeeds against her enemy, Thom (one of the guards who showed up). There'll be a unified Mouseguard front against the beaver dam. So, it was getting kind of late by now with a lot of questions about how to get the most dice in one's pool slowing the game down a lot, so we kind of had another persuade test and moved them to the scientist conflict of dismantling the dam! This was the first conflict of the night and I knew this was going to take some time to explain the ideas of dispositions and an ABSTRACT conflict like a science conflict! The party won after 2 rounds, but by then it was about time to wrap up, so I described how the player turn would have been possibly (recovering from conditions they accrued since they were all in some combination of tired, hungry, and angry) and maybe hunting town Tuk. We did artha rewards because I wanted to hear everyone's thoughts on rewarding MVP/Embodiment/Workhorse and how they think they played their BIGs. Wrap Up What went well The players really brought it for this game, despite not knowing the rules prior. No one but myself had played a Burning Wheel game before. Everyone through the session was superb. They were flagging and saying things like, "well because my belief is THIS..... I think we see <Mouse> do something AWESOME" which is the essence of mouseguard. The twist with Tuk showing up felt SUPER good. Everyone nodded and was like, damn that's rough! After explaining how nature works and taxing your nature (something we didn't worry about in a one shot. A LOT of the game became (can we invoke our nature here and all help eachother?). I wouldn't say it's a bad thing... that's a function of exploiting the benefits of a one shot (they discovered this themselves, btw). We could see the light at the end of the tunnel. Mouseguard is a fiction first game, but the mechanics guide your fiction. Thinking about your best mechanical option and expressing that fictionally often feels like "yeah that sounds like the right move anyways... hey thanks for supporting what I wanna do!" It was off-early, as we looked at our sheets and pondered our approaches until realizing the solution for this particular problem. I explained how that part of the game never leaves--- but it slowly becomes second nature to the player. It becomes this subconscious guide to the play. The players, also by the conflict were TOTALLY out of artha rewards. They realized how valuable those things were! It felt like a Mouseguard comic. What could have been improved There were some mechanical hickups early on as we were learning how to help one another with dice. I must have repeated this a TON of times: Abilities help Abilities and Skills help Skills. Understanding that helping provides one die no matter what (same as a wise, but you avoid the badness) was also explained a lot. Time management was bad. I wish I could get to the player turn. One player, Ross, had accrued 4 player checks!! (Two ties in the science conflict, no less!). I wish I had time to give them that share of the game, but we all conceptualized it. What comes next We will be meeting sometime next week or the following for crafting new characters for this upcoming short series that I'll be writing up. Thanks for reading! After playing The King is Dead again last night, I have some words to say about this game! The biggest oversight of my previous playthrough was the mutliple Muster & Intrigue scenes at the start. "On your turn, choose one of the games. Turn to that page in the playbook and follow the rules there. On the very first turn of the game, choose Intrigue and Muster. Turn to page 18 and follow the rules for that game." So the first time we read that, we all thought like Firebrands that we ALL do an intrigue round as our first turn. WRONG. Tonight's game would not repeat that mistake.   The stage was set with another five player game. Interestingly, we all ended up with a more greco/cretian/swords-and-sandals inspired game. Hector of House Dillstone Arxemus of House Luneste Akileus of House Sandoreal Asterion of House Oake Huon of House Antyre Our intrigue scene set the stage for "Season 1" of our The King is Dead: House Sandoreal was getting mercenaries across the sea, among the mercenaries were agents of House Luneste. I was playing Asterion, an handsome astronomer/warrior (as you do), who saw Luneste crates on the shores via a wandering telescoping eye one night during his stay as tutor to family members of House Dillestone. We agreed to cement our pacts together and be on the lookout against House Sandoreal. Sexy fighting times were had between Sandoreal and Luneste but the whole game took a turn when, during a meal celebrating the marriage of the infant king-to-be of house dillestone to a member of house oake, it was revealed to our House Antyre guests they were fed the meat of butchered raiders of their own house! DUN DUN DUN! Yeah it was shocking. And awesome. And horrible. And awesome. House Antyre flew into a rage there at the dinner, while everyone else here was kind of horrified at the violation of guest rite by House Dillestone. (Was it Hector acting alone? What does this mean!?). By the end of the game, Hector kind of Macbeth'd his house as they all kind of died in an infighting thing while the combined armies of the other houses marched on Dillestone's lands. The final parts of the scene were arguing between Luneste and Oake about what would happen next. Justice must be delivered!  House Oake, loyal and honorable, petitioned the armies of Luneste to disband with us. There'll be no more bloodshed today. It's time to put aside our differences and heal as a country. It went over fairly well. It helped that House Oake promised Luneste Dillestone lands if they back Oake's claim to the throne!
Season 2 would explore that Luneste and Sandoreal aren't very happy with the mediocre leadership of House Oake. The drama being fueled by House Antyre's refusal to bend the knee demanding independence. Great game. Unfortunately I did gloss over a lot of the bad that we wound up in. The scenes between House Dillestone and House Antyre were troubling. We had players confused about the stakes of a tactical skirmish, and what the loser must do if they lost. House Antyre won the skirmish in the dinner hall after the reveal they were eating their kinsmen. House Dillestone got caught up wondering how this makes sense in a Dillestone castle, so there was a lot of walking through and "ok so this doesn't mean the WAR is won by Antyre it just means this particular scene they got what they wanted... sort of... because also House Antyre proposed a Withdrawl instead of just submit so their demand of taking Hector prisoner didn't work out." It was a gordian knot of fictional positioning we had to slice through by letting both sides kind of speak what's going on, why they're not trusting the rules, etc. I'm excited to play The King is Dead again tonight on my channel! |
I hide in a cubicle all day until the night time where I play RPGs and other games and stuff.
July 2018
|
RSS Feed