Virtual Illusions

I think this was one of the standout games of my con.  It was run by Fred Hicks of Evil Hat fame.

Twilight Knights

We all played aged british knights.  It turns out the title wasn’t entirely ceremonial.  I played Sir Salman Rushdie, we also had Arthur C. Clarke, Agatha Christie, Fred Hoyle, Richard Branson and errr….. the race car driver, who’s name escapes me at the moment.

We ended up playing more MIB then ancient covenants but it was great fun.

I’d never played InSpectres before, systemically it’s pretty easy.  There are 4 skills: academics, athletics, technology and contacts.  These are rated 1 to 4 and represent how many dice you roll in that kind of conflict.  Only the highest die matters, there is a chart to dictate outcome going from Terrible (the GM gets to hose you with a terrible outcome) up through Not Great (The GM decides your fate but you get to dictate a single good element) up to Amazing (Describe the result and gain 2 franchise dice.  I’ll explain franchise dice later.)

There is also stress.  Whenever you encounter somethng that has the potential to make you WAUGHH you must make a stress roll.  The more stressful the situation the more dice you must roll.  Stress rolls are sort of the inverse of skill rolls.  Only the lowest die counts and the results start with Too Cool For School through Annoyed which causes a 1 die penalty on the next roll down to Complete and total nuclear meltdown which causes you to loose a total of 2 dice off your skills.

The final element of the system is the time element, franchise dice.  Each mission has a certain number of franchise dice.  When the players succeed especially well the players get one or two of them.  When the GM runs out of dice the mission is resolved.  At the end of the mission players can spend the franchise dice to heal dice lost to stress or store them in the franchise where they can be used later.

There are few other wrinkles: Talents and Documentaries.  My talent was Security Detail.  The documentary allows one player to ask another player a question as if they are asking a question in the documentary later.  Anything suggested by the either the questioner or the answer is true.  Each player can call for one documentary per mission.

The Case of the Time Dilating Brain Slug

So we got a call that there was trouble in the underground.  Once we found the phenomena, it turned out to be a weird time dilation effect.  At the center of it was my old enemy the Ayotola Khomeini.  It turned out to be a disguise and when Agatha Christie pulled the fake face off it was the queen.  Appearntly she was being mind controlled by a brain slug.

Sir Richard Branson pulled it free and tossed it aside.  It grew into a proper gelatenous mass.  Salman Rushdie engaged the slug in a philosophical debate convincing the slug of the slug of the importance of human rights and free will.  It said oops, sorry and beamed away.

This was about a 9 frachise dice mission and we took more stress thanwe got in franchise dice so we started the second mission down a bit.

There can be only one

We started getting calls, “Then there were nine.  Hahahaha”.  “Then there were eight.  Hahahahaha.”  At this point Sir Sean Connery is killed.

We convened at the Highlander castle for reasons that I’m sure were completely logical.  Once there we found a secret door that came into a gallery full of empty suits of armor standing guard… of course they were animated.  Sir Richard Branson out awsomed the ghost of Sean Connery and donned his armor.

On the other side of the door is Christopher Lambert driven mad by lack of work and knocking off his co-stars from Highlander, becasue there can be only one.

This was a five dice mission and I think we took less stress than that.

Martian Chocolate

This was a big 13 dice mission.

If I recall correctly, Richard Branson got a phone call to the effect of “It’s missing.”  Appearently the phone call came fromr with Branson’s Volcano base… on Mars.  We took Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShiptwo to get to Mars.  Somewhere along the line we discover it in this context is Sir Richard Branson’s Ego.

Once we got there the Olympus Mons base was empty, no service staff or anything.  Down the elevator filled with stressful cobwebs.  Downstairs there is the scariest sight in the univere…. a little girl… on Mars… with a box of chocolates… or maybe souls.

Taking my instruction from MIB I instruct my security detail to kill the little girl.  It turns out she was a hologram and we manage to secure the computer interface.  About here we lost power and there was a lot of tumbling around.  Hoyle uses our lasers which bounce off everything but black body objects to illuminate the room.  For some reason the control panel was black body object.

Through the door is a room full of cloning tubes, that had little grey aliens in them…. made of chocolate.  Accessing the computer core we learn that the chocolate aliens have the souls of people who have crossed Branson.

Branson’s double/ego calls up to gloat.  We feed the chocolate into the Olympus Mons magma chamber thus causing it to eject the chamber to Earth.

We land on the top floor of Virgin Atlantic HQ where Branson fights his double/ego.  Eventually with the help of the team Branson’s ego is defeated, thus making the Kingdom safe once again.

We called the game at this point because it was going to be hard to top.

Gaming

So I’ve been doing some art like stuff for Nephilim’s Song.  These are images I did in Gimp.  They are released under a creative commons license.  Go to my Deviant Art page for full sized versions and licensing information.

Gaming, Media

Session10 - July27

• Bill - [[Dorn Roka]] - [[Imzuni]], [[Warrior Guild]], [[Holy Nephilim]]
• Jim - [[Olthisal]] - [[Imzuni]], [[Information Guild]], [[Holy Nephilim]]
• Heath - [[Lilith]] - [[Gezz]], [[Warrior Guild]], [[Holy Nephilim]]
• Chris - [[Imleth Civzal]] - [[Gezz]], [[Warrior Guild]]
• George - [[Jolan]] - [[Quepa]], [[Seeker]], [[Church of Anquon]]
• Roman - [[Kalrel]] - [[Duzal]], [[Warrior Guild]], [[CoA]]

Session begins with the group discussing who to support and what to do.

After debate the group comes to the consensus that they must first find the heir of Limwrach and that the Coundt of Dawa, [[Neten Rejahn]], may be someone who can be turned to delay any sort of convening of the [[Council of Counts]].

At a break in the debate the Knights hear sobbing. Going to investigate they discover [[Sashira Orket]] sobbing over the dead body of her first blade, [[Whistal Erok]]. Arrayed around them are a dozen dead Woolette soldiers. After identities are established the young, blind seer asks to
be brought to her Uncles. Imleth discovers that the dead first blade was more than just the seer’s guard.

The uncle is a grizzled old veteran, [[Jantof Figund]], who survived some of worst that was  offered and managed to retire more or less in tact. He thanks the Knights for returning his niece and after the Knights show their lack of love for either of the hiers of Rumah asks a boon. He asks if they would go to the Holy Nephilim Elohim and get her to release the ”Oath of Limwrach”. The Knights are confused and after a bit of back and forth get Jantof to tell the story of how when Limwrach made his oath that his line would always protect Mazur, it was a blood oath and the knife used to cut his palm for the oath still survives and the Elohim has it.

The Knights, who hare members of the Holy Nephilim Church of Light, go to visit the Elohim. The Cathedral is suitably fortified given the situation. After working their way up the bureaucracy the Knights are granted an audience with Elohim [[Salri Katib]]. The Elohim is guarded by a squad of [[Seekers of Light]] and is accompanied by the Paladin [[Prelka Amadoon]] and the Prince [[Balim Rumah]].

The Knights begin with ploy about how they wish to protect the Oath as is their duty. The Paladin takes exception to the idea that her troops can’t protect the Cathedral. They get into an uncomfortable discussion with the Prince about succession that doesn’t look like it is getting them any closer to the Oath.

Othisal admits that it is all a ruse the truth is they want the Oath because they believe the Lords will the Heirs of Limwrach to be found. The Paladin and the Price look as though they are going to jump down his throat but the Elohim raises a hand and questions the Knights about the Lords will, satisfied that they will follow the Lords will, releases the Oath to them. She tells the prince, “If the Lords mean for you to rule, there is no risk.”, for which the Prince has no political response.

The Knights are led from the Elohim presence and are brought the case containing the [[Oath of Limwrach]]. They feel the nephilim swirl around it and embedding in it. When the cases is opened the knife comes to float on its tip. It agrees to help them find the Heirs and tells the Knights that there are three of them. Two of them are in the Central Square, one is in Guilder’s Lane.

The Knights gate to a flux dead zone and almost immediately a second gate begins to opens, Olthisal manages to prevent it from opening. Knights make several transits through flux dead zones before coming to a hideout.

During this time Dorn makes a foray into the bars putting out feelers forsupport. After not too long a group of Seekers of Light confront him, demanding the Oath. He manages to dispatch them and Dorn cautiously returns to the others.

The Knights check out Guilder’s Lane first and discover that Sashira is an heir.

Next they go to the Central Square and discover one of heirs in the Seekers Guild. Jolan and Lilith go in a follow the Oath’s clues until they zero in on [[Ligra Keleb]] and his wife [[Gesha Surrez]]. Jolan talks to him and takes his measure. Jolan reveals himself as a Knight and offers help if they should need it.

The last heir is in the Ministries building. The Knights wait for him to come out. In due time [[Mazun Vagar]] and a group of others leaves the buildings they tail him and learn his name and where he lives. They also learn that he tends to believe himself in a higher social position than
the rest of the group regards him.

Imleth and Dorn go to visit Jantof and Sashira. Imleth discusses thingswith Sashira and discovers that she alread feels burdened by her sight and that she would not welcome more. Talking to Jantof separately they tried to avoid telling him who the heirs are, but eventually blurt out the three names. Jantof is not inclined to put more burden on his niece and is looking toward the other heirs.

Olthisal goes to the Infomation Guild and tells the story of what happened in the Elohim’s audience. This causes quite a hubub. He then proceeds to research about a dozen Quepa, many orphans and people of note to cover the research into the 3 actual heirs and Jantof.

Sashira comes from a long line of Seers and when she was very young she was kidnapped and her eyes were stolen. Those responsible where never found. Oddly she has never had eyes regrown. Her grandmother died recently leaving the duty of being the Quepa Seer to her.

Jantof had a distinguished career serving the War Division. He was the sole survivor of the battle of Yano’s Pass. A bloody battle between the City guard and Woolette. It was a proxy battle taking place for the control of Gorval. There were 400 men in the fight and only Jantof walked away from it. Since he has become involved in the Restorationists, taking a fairly central role. He is well connected and is considered by Solid by those who don’t consider Restorationists traitors.

Ligra Keleb comes from questionable stock, his father was killed on a seeker run, it is unclear if this was piracy of if he was betrayed by his own crew. In either case Ligra was left with a cloud over his name. This cloud was enhanced when he was closely associated with another junior
seeker, Rilius Tagar, who was under suspicion of murder. Rilius was eventually cleared when it was discovered that the victims father had been manipulated into killing her. Ligra became close to and eventually married a close confidant of the victim. [[Gesha Surrez]] is his wife, they follow differing churches.

Mazun Vagar is a low level bureaucrat. He works in the Ministry of the Interior as a liaison between the government and several small outlying villages. He should have followed in his fathers footsteps and joined the Space Guild but ended up in the Speakers Guild instead. He is driven to position and power but his personality has largely stopped him.

While this is happening Imleth talks to Jantof. She tries to get him to talk about himself and his niece. He skirts discussion away from her and talks about his own history but refuses to discuss anything that happened around the time of the Battle of Yano’s Pass.

Imleth talks to the City and tries to get it to choose an heir.  It refuses to do so.

Olthisal goes to temple and prays for his Lords guidance. He receives no direct answer. He contacts the Elohim and seeks her guidance, she plays her cards close to her chest and hides behind the Lord’s Will.

The Knights vote and all but Othisal who abstains vote to draft Ligra. They get assurances from Jantof that he and the Restorationists would support that. We faded to black with the Knights about to tell Ligra of his fate.

xp: 120 (80 if absent)
24 connection points (should put people at soul 4)

Gaming

The Friday night/Saturday morning midnight to 4am slot I appropriately filled with Don’t Rest Your Head run by John Farish (He probably hangs out at There is No Screen, since he was handing out cards for it, but I’m don’t know who he’d be there.) I got lucky and picked the right pre-gen character for a late night game.

I choose Eric who was for all intents and purposes the embodiment of wrath. Despite being a PC he was in a lot of ways the villain of the story. He was a very compelling and elemental character, I’ll have to see if I can borrow him for something. Basically he has a dead friend who was killed or became a nightmare and Eric sees it as his duty to protect others from nightmares. Eric was a master swordsman and with madness he became pretty hard to hurt.

Names are only approximates… I’d really have to have written them down to get them right… and well I didn’t.

The other characters where Spicoli (spigoli, something like that) who could know where anyone was and alter the trajectory of anything moving in the air. He was an ex-mob private eye and reasonable but due to history with Eric and his ex-mob ethics supported Eric. There was also The Amazing Drago who was a magician who could actually pull stuff from hit. We lost Drago’s player about half way in due to sleep requirements.

The Hooks:

Spicoli is confronted by a Lost Boy telling him to stay out of the situation. He has a paper from the Paper Boys. Chaos… 30 deaths, etc. All that has to be done to avoid that is do nothing.

Someone was following Eric, when Eric confronted him it turns out he was Grandpa (I’m sure he had a real name). He used to live in the City but had returned home. A nightmare had come out of the closet and taken his granddaughter. He was to old to handle the situation and asked if Eric would look into it. Eric is a weapon, this is Grandpa aiming him and pulling the trigger.

Drago found himself confronted by a little girl asking for help. Apparently her bother had disappeared and wanted help looking for him. Drago, not knowing what to do with the kid, brought her to Nicole (the unused pregen) because you know she’s a woman, she’s got to have maternal instincts. Nicole did not have maternal instincts.

Investigation:

Spicoli goes looking for Drago to see what can be done about avoiding 30 or so deaths. Once they exchange information they decide to investigate where Drago’s little girl was crashing, to see if there was something that Spicoli could use to invoke his power to find people. They find a picture of the boy, but they also find some beasties. I think they were bears with scorpion tails, but I could easily be wrong about the base animal.

Eric hears shots fired and since he’s Eric goes to investigate. All the fighting is done by the time he gets there. He tells his part of the story and asks Spicoli to ind the Granddaughter. Spicoli tries to push the 30 dead issue, but Eric responds with ‘Stolen Kid’. So everyone goes to Tony’s (a bar) where the Grandfather is waiting.

A picture is acquired and the Granddaughter is with the Boy.

I’m missing a bit here somehow we end up talking to a lost boy but right at the moment I can’t recall the lead up to that.

The Lost Boy claims that the kids were taken for their own safety. Theres some back and forth and Spicoli barters a deal where person who took the kids will meet us at Tony’s and we’ll discuss things. When the kidnapper got there he was a nightmare.

Gaming

Saturday night in the 8pm slot I played Misspent Youth written by and run by Rob Bohl. This was an unexpected favorite for the con. I had high expectations for PTA and a few other games, this one I actually skipped over on my first pass through the games on tap. I wasn’t sure whether playing kids was going to be that compelling, but I read a little more of the write up and idea of rebelling against the authority did sort of grab me. By this time the game was full so I signed up as an alternate and by chance managed to get in the game. I’m glad I did.

Misspent youth is actually an ashcan which means its meandering its way to being available but Rob isn’t generally selling it yet. But its close.

We kicked off with world creation which is bit more guided than other instanced I have seen. Our authority was a corporate state trying to make better consumers. There were a bunch of individual decisions that went into creating the world and I’m not going to remember them all.

We ended up with a world where the cities were the only habitable places and the people communicated by text messaging each other. There was a conflict between the corporate provided subsistence and lost DIY ideals.  The thing we were trying to stop was keep the corporation from beaming advertising directly into people’s minds that would turn them into zombies. Advertising was really big in the world.

Each game begins with asking a question of the character to your left. The question is about the friendship between the character and should create a new authority bit. This seems really useful and produced a bunch of the elements we used in the story but it is a bit rough in the con setting.

Misspent Youth’s conflict resolution system is pure genius and intend to drift it to use other places. It starts off pretty standard story game, frame a scene, define stakes. In some games this results in scenes that are actually anti-climatic, the actual playing of the scene is a bit superfluous. With MY the conflict resolution mechanic is iterative. There is the immediate conflict and youthful offenders do something to get around the problem, then the authority responds and it becomes iterative. Action, reaction, action, reaction until the scene is resolved.

The actual resolution mechanism is essentially craps, or at least as I understand it. I’ve only played craps once. A youthful offender, the first that grabs the dice, rolls the dice. They put a chip on the number rolled and describe how they are using one of their traits to overcome the immediate problem. The authority escalates the situation and puts a chip on 7 and another number (depending on the difficulty of the scene). The youthful offenders do something to overcome the new situation and roll, again putting a chip on a number at this point with each authority escalation the authority starts from the the statistically least likely number until the conflict is resolved.

Resolution occurs when a youthful offender rolls a number that already has a chip on it. If it is a youthful offender chip the players win the conflict, otherwise the authority wins. Depending on whose chip it was and what trait was used to put it down, will determine the final narration of the youthful offender.

We had the rich girl who cuts herself (Sunshine), the hacking skate rat (Sp4z), the cook who knew the outside (Bobby the Blob) and me the scavenger and jury rigger (Terra).

Each session of MY has 7 (I think) scenes, each with set difficulties and names, where certain things are supposed to happen to invoke the right feel.

The first scene was out in the outskirts. Bobby had pulled us of the city to try camping or something, Somehow a fire got started and soon Quality Control was bearing down on us. We ended up hiding in the sewer while Sp4z lured them away. We managed to fool there sensors and get Sp4z safely hidden with us. Once QC left we found one of their agents dead, shot in the back.  The stakes for this scene were we were either caught or we found information in the form of the dead agent.

At this point there is a planning phase where we decide what the story is about.  We decided the corporation killed the agent for marketing purposes.

In the second scene we found the agent’s widow. On the way there we had trouble with the robo-taxi and old ladies on the street thinking kids like us didn’t belong in such a nice neighborhood. Meanwhile the company had started selling security against barbarians using the dead agent’s image. We managed to convince the widow to direct us to a friend of the dead agent, think he may have shared something related to why he got killed. The widow worked for the Division of Scientific Truth, the corporate religion and was willing to put information into the lesson plans if we could prove the company killed her husband.  The stakes for this scene were either the widow was helpful or actually she was just a hired actress for the ad and didn’t actually know the agent.

The third scene was meeting with Delay, an old nemesis of Sp4z and apparently a friend of the victim. There was a lot of cyberpunkesque distrust and pointing guns. We hoped to get information but he ended up betraying us.  Errr…. I don’t actually recall what the stakes for this scene was.  I think it involved Sp4z and Delay’s history but I can’t be sure.
The fourth scene was when Delay came to give us the information. We managed to notice that it was fake and get the real information from his laptop without him knowing it.  The stakes for this scene were either we noticed we were being betrayed and got the real information or we were oblivious and transmitted the wrong information ending up with egg on our face.

Fifth scene was the finale. Getting the information to the widow for distribution. Sadly since Delay betrayed us the widow had been reprogrammed. She was gone but we managed to figure out how to get her to do the things we wanted her to.  The stakes for this scene was whether the widow could be manipulated to help our cause or if she was lost to us.

In the sixth scene, after the message went into the lesson plans, the house went into lockdown mode and we had to escape before QC got there. Bobby managed to keep the door from sealing and we slipped out before QC arrived.  I think this was just escape or capture at stake.

The seventh scene was supposed to be a cool down but in a lot of ways it was the roughest. Delay came after us, knowing we had gotten the data from him and the company would blame him. We only got out unscathed because Bobby sold out a trait and became brutal.  I think the stakes for this scene were whether we lost our crash pad or if quality control didn’t notice us, but I’m not sure about those stakes.

Overall just a great game.

Gaming

I woke up all early so I could make the 2pm Prime Time Adventure game run by Jeff Collyer. This is the first time I’ve played PTA but I’ve heard a lot of really good things about it.

I thought the pitch session was a lot of fun. We had about 4 broad ideas and we ended up mashing a few ideas together to come up with our series.

We played a sort of Indiana Jones crossed with urban fantasy heavy on the secret society set in the 1920s. I played a possessing spirit who could perceive the strands of fate. His issue was “What does it mean to be human”. I called him Nephilim, which is the first time I’ve had a character named that, he also had another name that was the name the possessed body was born with.

Other players had strong feelings against playing the pilot so we ended up playing the finale. I think I would have like to have run the pilot just to see what that is like. PTA has this idea of screen presence. We had one spotlight episodes, a couple of episodes where we were major contributors, and a couple where we just had bit parts. I was a major player in the finale which took place right after my spotlight episode. We basically started at the first episode and scripted them in quick sketches making sure everyone got the right amount of screen time in each episode.

We had a mcguffin (Amulet of the Sun) and a BBEG who was holding the Sister of one of the characters hostage demanding that we deliver the amulet of the girl gets it. He was going to use the Amulet, and likely sacrifice the sister to open a rift and let some sort of Lovecraftian death through.

The mentor of one of the characters, the Warrior, came to our base and ordered him to kill the Sister. He was overheard and while the brother the Medicine Man contemplated the garden there was a lively discussion between the Professor and the Liason. I was at that scene and got to make cryptic, unsubstantiated pre-cog statements like, “If we do not go, she will die”.

Then I went and talked to the Medicine Man. We had a quick scene saying it was time to go, then I brought him back through his blood line to an ancient time when his ancestor had killed a member of the blood line and opened a rift, bloody carnage ensued. Returning the presence we talked a bit more and ended with “Who’s side will the others be on?” “As always, their own.” It was very cool, and I got fan mail.

We were running short of time for the final scene, so we did a bit of poor editing but it left us in South America facing down the BBEG. The Warrior had disappeared. We bantered with BBEG for a bit and then fighting ensued. The Warrior emerged from the forest to killed the BBEG, saving the Sister.

It occurs to me that I don’t recall actually using the conflict resolution system once during my time playing. It had something to do with cards, but that’s as far as I get.  It isn’t clear to me whether I used the resolution system and it was so transparent it didn’t register, or if it just never came up.

I give it a definite thumbs up.  It was full of awesome.  Given that I don’t remember using the resolution system, it’s hard to say if there is anything I’d steal.

Fan mail is the usual thing, and that might be because it is close to the only play mechanic (vs set up mechanic), not that I recall what fan mail was used for, but it is a token used to ramp up your awsome (i.e. fate, hero or drama point).  You start off with a few, and there are also some on the center of the table.  When someone does something cool any of the players can give one of the tokens in the center of the table to that player.

I may be able to create a fan mail variant that works with Inspirations.  I have the problem of not compelling enough, this would push more inspirations out and hopefully create a more dynamic situation, but I’d probably have to trim the initial Inspirations.

Gaming

This is the first of the Dexcon 11 posts.  Think of it as sort of an introduction to the con before I start talking about the games I played.  This is the first con I’ve been to since I was in highschool so it’s unlikely that I’ll talk about anything anyone who has been cons regularly doesn’t know.  I did go alone, knowing no one there and without  a meaningful Internet presence to expect people to know who I was.

I woke up god awful early on Thursday morning and left for the con at about 7am.  Which means I was cutting through DC just before rush hour and hitting rush hour full on for Baltimore and Philadelphia.  Despite that it was smooth sailing, taking about 4 hours.  I listened to Elric of Melnibone by Micheal Moorcock on the way up.  Fixing a long standing deficiency in my reading.

I got there plenty of time for my 2pm game of Prime Time Adventures.  I explored, found the con suite and the game sign up sheets.  I’d mapped out what games I wanted to play.  There were a few time slots where the games I wanted to play were full.  One of those ended up with me in a game of Mispent Youth run by Rob Bohl which was a surprise favorite.  Next time I will be sure to sign up in advance as those Friday night and Saturday games fill up.

There were a couple “I expected better” moments involving the hotel.  I was surprised that a modern Hilton did not come with a refrigerator in the rooms.  Econolodges have them, there was a space for it in the furniture, but no actual fridge.  Assuming a Hilton would come with this amenity, I packed makings for sandwiches.  I had to make regular stops at the ice machine to introduce fresh coldness to the cooler.  The ice machine had a note proclaiming that it wasn’t to be used to fill coolers and similar activities.  I filled my cooler anyway.

The other thing was that the Internet wasn’t free.  Again hotels $30 cheaper come with free wireless and free HBO.  Home lost power on Friday so I wouldn’t have been able to check email anyway but it’s the principle of the thing.  Onward…

The ballroom level of the hotel was most of the public con space.  There was the dealers room, wargame room, boardgame room, con suite, some areas where the LARPers met up, a seminar room, 3 rooms dedicated to some sort of computer or console games and a video room.

Of those I found the con suite most useful, they kept me in lemonade.  I brought my own lemonade but somehow managed to not bring a pitcher to mix it.  An ever-flowing supply of lemonade and various other beverages flowed in the con suite.  Thee were also enough cookies that I ate too many of them and they kept resupplying.  There were also infinite chips, but I didn’t touch those.  Given all that, they cranked the sugar level up Friday and Saturday night.  Friday night was a sort of chocolate Fondue night.  There was a large amount of food, usually with a lot of sugar, which you put in a bowl and then it got covered in chocolate.  That was considered too diluted for Saturday night.  Diabetics were murdered on Saturday.  The center table on the Saturday event was pure sugar, there was candy corn and jelly beans but the center piece was a mound of pixy stix 2 feet high and 4 feet wide.  There were enough pixy stix left over on Sunday that people were building structures with them Lincoln Log style… and they could choose to only use blue.  I wish I had a picture of that.

I spent some time in the video suite, but they didn’t seem to be playing anything that really grabbed me which is just as well given that I usually didn’t have more than an hour free at a time.  There was the Cherry Hill Experiment which was playing really bad movies, but I only caught a partial of one of those.  There were a few anime which I caught that seemed good, but I don’t have the name handy.  It seemed most of the time I went, they were playing a childrens cartoon that seemed to be placed in the 1600’s that was about Spanish Conquestadors, and Inca girl and some pre-Incan lost civilization.  Watching the whole thing might of been worthwhile but the snippets I was never seemed that exciting.

I prowled around the dealers room, but didn’t really find anything I had to purchase.  On level C (Concorse?) was the RPG room and the IPR presence.  I picked up Dogs in the Vinyard, Mortal Coil and Arsenal of the Gods.  They had PTA earlier, but I waited too long to make my purchase and they were out by then.

Sunday I signed up for independent publishers round table, but when I actually got there the people and the feel of the room felt more like the IPR round table.  I was feeling worn down and I wasn’t feeling like it was targeted at people like me who mostly just want to bring their free PDFs to the next level.  But I think mostly I was too tired.

It was just as well, the drive home was hellish.  It took me about 4 hours to get up there, I think it took 6 hours to get back.  And I was tired.  For a while I was stopping at every rest stop so I could stand up and move blood and get a fresh injection of sugar.  It’s times like this that I regret not drinking caffeine, specially given that NJ Transit Authority (or whatever) stock a sucky selection of candy bars.  Skittles was the magic elixir that got me going.

Next I’ll talk about the games I actually played.

Gaming

Another post of the Nephilim Song 4.0 design series.

After, before or maybe simultaneously to choosing goals the PCs should choose a faction.

A faction represents a group, any faction can be broken down into sub-factions in a fractal infinite regression until the great empire is broken down into tiny factions a dozen people in size who’s main concern is trying to get better work assignments from the local employer.

Each faction, no matter its size, needs a goal. The goal is what differentiates a faction from people who happen to be at the same place at the same time. This goal is what bind the members together and allows them act as one. This goal doesn’t have to be particularly lofty or idealistic, but is usually concerned with one scale higher than the faction itself.

The Mercenary’s Faction in the Warrior’s Guild is concerned with attempted to control the course and decisions of the Warriors Guild. Specifically they want the guild’s teachings to more centered on mercenaries, their business and specific training. The Soldiers Faction seek to eject the Mercenaries and train the adepts to join the established tribe and state armies.

A faction that accomplishes its goal must find a new goal or it will start to splinter and fracture. A member of a faction can attempt to change the goal of a faction even if a goal is incomplete. At no point can the goal of a faction radically change. A faction’s goals must be changed by small incremental changes.

Before we can address how to change the goal of a faction we need to mechanically define them. Factions are defined by five qualities: Force, Influence, Wealth, Infrastructure and Loyalty. These qualities range in value from 0 to 6.

Force - Force represents a faction’s ability to mount military operations. A faction with no appreciable force, such as a group of bureaucrats or pacifist monks, have a Force of 0. Mazur, the Gezz and other major standing armies with experienced soldiers and solid commanders and command structure have a Force of 6 and are capable of waging a war on two fronts.

Influence - Influence is a faction’s ability to gather and plant information. A faction of plantation ditch diggers would have a 0 influence, they are too isolated to hear much or to be able to affect the thinking of others. The Information Guild on the other hand is seems to know everything and what’s more if they want something wandering its way through the rumor mill it is on everyone’s lips within the day. The Information Guild has an influence of 6.

Wealth - This is the faction’s liquid assets. Factions with a wealth of 0 are in a pitiful state. They have no financial interests or reserves. Any tools are worn down and its members are often mistaken for beggars. A faction with wealth 6 has reserves beyond counting and vast financial interests. Supplies are plentiful, tools are new and members strut around in royal opulence.

Infrastructure - This represents the faction’s logistical and support capacity. A faction’s ability to get information, troops and supplies where they need to be is dependent on its infrastructure. A faction with infrastructure of 0 has no way to facilitate coordination and movement. Everything is done by getting everyone together and having a big meeting, individual members or responsible for finding their own way to where they are needed. On the other hand a faction with Infrastructure 6 has vast networks of agents, fleets of troop transports and a quartermaster corp that are at the front lines with the troops. Information, troops and supply move in a complicated dance that ensure they are always where they are needed when they are needed.

Loyalty - This is the lifeblood of the factions, if loyalty ever drops to 0, the faction has shattered. It also represents how dedicated the members of the faction. A faction with a loyalty of 1 distrusts the leadership and is just this side of open rebellion. They can be counted on to do what’s is in the best interest of the individual members but not much else. A faction with a loyalty of 6 believes the leadership over their own eyes and ears. They would literally sacrifice their very lives in support of the faction.

This is where I dropped off last night…

Since then I’ve written an almost complete testing harness for factional conflict.  I’ll probably have a workable pdf of it by this weekend.

Gaming

So I’ve been thinking of Nephilim Song 4.0 design and my goal is that characters naturally emerge that pass the empty room test*. The empty room test is if the GM tells his players, “Okay, it’s Tuesday morning, you wake up. There is no imminent threat, action or plot hook dangling in front of you. What do you do?” I don’t recommend GMs ever do this, but that isn’t the point.

A character that passes the test will immediately have something to do that drives the game forward. Having something to do that drives the game forward is different than just having something to do. A character can answer the empty room challenge by going down to his lab and quietly working on a gizmo that will increase his character’s power, but that doesn’t inherently drive the game forward. That answer lacks interaction with the setting or conflict. A GM can twist it into situation by forcing the character out into the setting to collect a flux capacitor since his burnt out yesterday, but this would be GM driven drama, not character driven drama.

There need to be goals or something that drives the characters to choose to interact with the setting. There should be something they want or need and there should be inherent conflict in trying to get it. “I want to destroy the rebels.” is such a goal. The rebels don’t want to be destroyed and it represents something the character can pro-actively pursue if he finds himself in an empty room. He can go out and seek information about rebel cells or operations, form and train a squad of anti-rebel forces, gain the backing of the Ministry of Security, etc.

Destroying the rebels is probably a campaign scale goal, meaning achieving that goal will be a campaign altering, if not ending event. A character should have at least one revolving arc scale goal as well. This could be the character’s immediate stepping stone towards his campaign goal or it may be unrelated if he has been distracted from his larger goal by a pretty face.

That would give me more than I’ve ever had before, but the question is could I add a third type of goal reserved for a conflicting goal. A character’s campaign goal is to destroy the rebels, but his conflicting goal is to learn swordsmanship from his uncle, who is a rebel commander.

That creates a complex, nuanced character. It provides flags for what the campaign should be about, what the character will be pursuing in the next few sessions and where the character’s big conflicts are.

Clearly in creating such a flag system, at least for the campaign scale goals, the players should talk and discuss and come up with what they want the campaign to be out. This doesn’t mean that they should all take the same campaign goal, but they should be thematically compatible. Unless you are going for a PVP game if one character has a goal, “Destroy all the rebels” another character should not have a goal of “Assassinate the King.” If you are going for a PVP game, have at it, in fact make sure the character’s goals are in meaningful conflict.

So since this is nominally about design I have to ask the question of whether there should be mechanics to support and reward pursuing goals? My instinct is yes. An easy solution is to turn them into quasi-aspects and so if they are pursuing their goals they will always have the ability to spend an inspiration to gain the +2 in a conflict. In the same sense they can be compelled and invoked for effect. Since they by definition are being pursued, it seems they would be compelled often causing the character pursuing his goals to gain inspirations.

The main issue with this is the arc scale goal will often be in effect unless the character’s are pursuing a different character’s arc scale goal. Someone’s arc scale goal will be invokable (Unless the GM sent ninjas to attack for pacing reasons).

Another option would be to award XP bonuses for pursuing the character’s goals. For that to work there should be some clear definitions. I’d like to avoid the sort of fuzziness that lead s to player pleading for the XP reward even if they didn’t do anything meaningful to pursue their goals. This will lead to rewarding players for driving the game. Bonus. However, it’ll probably lead to one sided rewards where pro-active players or characters whose goals are related to the central storyline are rewarded disproportionately compared to reactive players or character’s who goals did not end up being as central.

So I’ve pretty much talked myself into goals being quasi-aspects.

I still have to think about the changing of goals. They should certainly be able to change, heck the arc scale goal should change every few sessions. But they shouldn’t change moment to moment for maximum advantage.

My first thoughts is goals could change at the completion of a goal or a significant reveal, if the new goal is related to that reveal or the reveal is related to the old goal.

If a character had an arc goal of killing Stenri Gorvan because he had killed a cousin he could change that goal if the character killed Stenri Gorvan, it was revealed that Stenri was not the murderer or if the character chose to pursue Kefni Mei who gave the order rather than Stenri who did the killing. The character could not change his goal to an unrelated goal unless there was a new reveal about the new goal. The character is in pursuit of Stenri when he meets Sashira and is smitten. He puts aside vengeance for the time being and changes his goal to forming a relationship with Sashira, a hot and sweaty relationship.

Those are my thoughts for the time being.

* The Empty Room Test was derived from comments made on the Sons of Kryos podcast.

Gaming

From Fred Hicks livejournal:

I need a banner in my gaming area that says:

This is how I make you awesome.

I think if people kept that in mind while gaming it would definitely awesome up the experience.

Culture, Gaming