[IaWA] Questions
steven807:
So our group finally (finally!) got together again to play another chapter. We understand things _much_ better now, thanks to the above help from everyone, as well as the great explanation of Sorceror at Story Games (which has such a similar mechanic for conflict resolution). Not to mention Ryan Stoughton's awesome IaWA flowchart, which smoothly resolved our questions.
The story was very Conan-ish. My character, the only one from the preceding chapter, came to a town just about to have the Spring Festival, which turns out to involve blood sacrifice and the consumption of drugs; the newly-arrived stranger was a perfect person to add to the sacrifice. But a beautiful air spirit in the guise of a dancer, offered to aid to the stranger in exchange for help in retrieving the lamp to which she was bound. Meanwhile an ambitious priestess of the cult sought the lamp for her own ends. 3 PCs and an NPC all had a long conflict trying to retrieve the lamp, but ultimately my barbarian and the spirit were captured. The barbarian escaped, but rather than leave he foolishly attempted to seduce the priestess. He ended up bound on the altar, but the spirit sent a wind carrying a knife, which let him escape his bonds and kill the leader of the cult. The priestess allowed this to happen, as it meant she would become leader herself.
We still managed to complete only one chapter in the session (roughly 5 hours), but the time for conflicts went from about an hour for the first one to 10 minutes for the last, as we familiarized ourselves with the process.
Our concluson at this point is that the game is really cool -- no prep involved, lots of scope for creativity, interesting mechanics, etc. But the game text leaves a lot to be desired (sadly, the number of questions asked and answered on this forum is a testament to the lack of clarity in the game). Now that we are starting to appreciate the quality of the game, I can speak for my whole group when I say that I hope there will be a new edition that spends a lot more time clarifying the system, so that more people can appreciate the elegance of the design and the fun of play.
Steven
steven807:
Oh, I should also mention that GM was very enthusiastic about the Alan's Best Interest diagram. The map helped him choose interests for NPCs that kept the PCs involved, it helped the players choose interests that kept everything churning along, and it helped us all establish a coherent, simple situation rather than a tangled skein of disconnected motivations.
Steven
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