[TSoY] I fought "The Party" and "The Party" won
Joel P. Shempert:
I ran a Shadow of Yesterday one-shot for Portland/Vancouver's Gamestorm con this weekend last. It was my second time running the game. In some ways it went better than the first time, on other ways it was a bit worse. Overall, I had fun and learned a lot.
Like last time, I ran a game smack-dab in the Ammeni-Khale conflict, with the Zaru caught in the middle. For those who don't know, Ammenite merchants are sending troops and settlers into the Khalean forest, seeking priceless Moon Metal, and the Kahalean tribes who worship the trees as ancestor spirits are resisting fiercely. The Zaru are pacifist slaves, the people of the last nation Ammeni annexed, and shunned by their own if they resist their oppressors.
I had five players; Willem played Wind, a tranquil and conflict-avoiding Elf traveling for curiosity and amusement; Gilbert played Duval, a Khalean orphan raised as an Ammenite fleeing to find his native people after his foster parents' assassination; Brandon made a wild warrior elf named Thag, seeking ever-greater challenges of glorious combat; Petrea played Long-Whiskers, a Ratkin aiding the Zaru cause who was taught the secret of Zu by the Moon Men; and Zach played Griskin, Gilbert's former Goblin pet, now become Human through the Affliction of fraternal love, and harboring the secret that *HE* killed Gilbert's parents!
The action took place across about three scenes: the Ammenites guided by Wind met Long-Whiskers who led them to a Khalean village, where Duval was accepted as a lost son, and they all (joined by the bloodthirsty Elf) went off to raid the local Ammenite settlement at dawn. In the raid, Thag sought out the biggest baddest soldier to challenge and got his ass beat, while Long-Whispers went to see to the safety of the Zaru slaves, who were arguing over whether to rise up against their oppressors. A handful did, but were routed with no serious injury. Meanwhile, Duval and Griskin took the Magistrate hostage and tried to persuade him to surrender to avoid bloodshed, but they failed and the Magistrate instead summoned his Guard. They fled the house, but not before seizing some documents from the Magistrate's desk that cast suspicious implications on the murder of Duval's parents.
The Khaleans withdrew, and back at the village Duval confronted Gliskin who told everything--his parents were going to enlist him in the military, he killed them for Duval's own good! Duval, enraged, stormed off into the forest. There he encountered Khalean raiders from a rival tribe, striking when their foes were tired and weakened. Gliskin came to his rescue, and Duval rushed to the village and stilled the battle with the Secret of the Perfect Chord, blessed by Long-Whiskers' uttering of "Zu." The Chief made an appeal to the raiders to let the feud end and unite against their true enemy. The raiders were doubtful their chief would agree, but left deeply touched by the Khalean prodigal's song.
* * *
This was an interesting TSoY session for me. A lot of things were sub-optimal, but there were a few things that were really, really right.
First, the awesome: I got to see Keys in action! What with just running a one-shot, so I didn't think I was going to get much Key-engagement beyond a general signpost for play direction. But I had a couple of guys (Gilbert and Zach) who set up a great conflict-pairing with their keys and drove the characters straight toward crisis. It was wonderful to watch. And Brandon with his Bloodlust was quite eager to take XP as Thag waded through hapless Ammenite troops.
Speaking of which, I got to see Bringing Down the Pain in action, which was great fun. Brandon initiated it before the roll, as he'd heard me mention it was the only way to kill a named character. It ran really smoothly; Thag's intention was to kill the Sergeant, and the Sergeant's intention was to drive Thag out of the barracks. We had one Parallel action, when Thag taunt the Sergeant as the Sergeant pinned Thag to the wall with his spear-shaft. Thag took loads of harm, filling tracks 1-4, and Gave. He was flung out of the Barracks and the Sergeant turned to muster the remaining troops.
Second, the not-so-awesome: I'll start with my own failings: It was early and I was tired, and and at first I forgot to set proper losing stakes for a bunch of conflicts. For simple combat, it was easy to infer "if you lose, you take Harm," but for other Contests it was a cause for confusion. I recovered, but I'd lost some ground in terms of establishing what TSoY does and how it does it. I think I missed some great opportunities for compelling stakes.
The biggest issue I had with the game was how easily the group fell into "Party Play" despite my best efforts to prevent it. My pitch was basically, "three factions in conflict, pick from them and go at it!" and envisioned a disparate group all converging on the same location with possible blood opera ensuing. But the players all drove toward "partying up" --like Brandon who had announced he'd have Thag make an entrance whenever there was a fight. I had him challenged by Khalean sentries, figuring he'd fight them, but instead he very carefully made peace with them and made signs to be directed to their chieftan, thus insuring that he was placed with "the group" both by proximity and allegiance.
There was a lot of player passivity as well. As I mentioned above, I got a lot of great engagement and proactivity out of Gilbert and Zach, and Brandon if single-minded at least drove toward character action. The other two players, not so much. I've played other games with Willem and found this not to be the case, but here he basically created a character who didn't care about anything. He had the Key of the Coward and the Key of Conscience, but never acted on the latter. Willem's stated himself that he dropped the ball. The other case was more perplexing: Petrea tied her character specifically into the conflict as protector and helper of the Zaru, but no matter how much Zaru tension and Zaru endangerment I threw at her, the responses were just. . .passive. "The Zaru leaders are arguing about whether to hunker down or rise up and fight." "I stay and listen." "The Zaru are rushing the troops, and some soldiers are breaking off to put them down." "I watch and see if any of the Zaru need healing." I just couldn't quite intuit what would compel action.
Thinking about it now, I can see I did drop the ball on one count: she had the Key of the Collector (collecting Zu syllables), and I failed to give her any to collect! She approached the Zu priestess early on and gave signs of recognition from the Moon men, and I had the Zu priestess reprimand her and tell her that the Moon Men are decadent fools for allowing Zu to spread through the masses. But that was that; I didn't press it any further, and her in-character reaction was basically "Oh, OK." Long-Whiskers didn't have any syllables beyond "Zu," so there wasn't anything for the priestess to try to wrest away from her. . .and I totally missed the opportunity to have the priestess use a syllable--owing mostly to the fact that I found in play that I'd forgotten to give her any! I couldn't think of a good one on the fly, so the priestess ended up playing a passive role herself. Damn! Now I'll never know if Petrea would have jumped on the opportunity to get in a Zu-battle. Man, what a waste.
Overall, I feel like I had a strong two-person game on my hands, with several background/window-dressing characters. I'm not entirely satisfied, but the good parts were really good. What I'm looking for here is to hone my TSoY-fu for future play; any advice or observations would be extremely helpful.
Peace,
-Joel
Christopher Kubasik:
Hi Joel,
I might be reading your description of "the party" issue incorrectly, so if I'm off base, forgive me:
Because we around here have made a lot of noise about there not needing to be "a party," that doesn't mean anyone is saying the Players can't have their characters play together, cooperatively, or whatnot.
I found it funny when yo wrote, "My pitch was basically, "three factions in conflict, pick from them and go at it!" and envisioned a disparate group all converging on the same location with possible blood opera ensuing." I mean, that's sort of like "anti-party play" where the GM has as strong an expectation of the Players not having their characters be cooperative for the game to work well as a lot of GM have a strong expectation that the Players better party-up for a game to work well.
The "there doesn't need to be a party" thing is never about making sure there's blunt conflict within the group. It means that the Players are free to move in and out of alliances within each other. There might be conflict, there might not. This let's the PCs make any darned choice the Players want them to make in terms of actions. Which is the point. It isn't: "Hey, Players, have conflict with each other!" It's, "Okay, guys, given that you can go any direction you want, which direction will you go?"
In the HeroQuest game I'm writing about (really, I've got the next post half written on my laptop!), it looks like the PCs are all in conflict. But when a big Bang arrives that hits all of them, the PCs each put their differences aside and went off together to take care of business -- the father and the two sons bonding more strongly as the adventure continued. I never saw it as "partying up." I saw it as the progress of the story -- and, more importantly -- as the choices the Players wanted to have their characters make.
One of your Players wanted to be the outsider who makes peace with his enemies. Cool. Now just throw his own people at him or his new friends! That's all. Let the Players figure it out. It's their problem now. Time for new choices!
The kind of play your trying right now, having expectations about how the Players should end up playing in terms of the choices they have their characters make is going to lead to a lot of frustration on your part. After all, you're inviting them to make choices! You have to let them do that! You're simply not allowed to have expectations about where the group is going to end up -- as a group or as individuals.
An example:
Last weekend I played a Sorcery & Sword game, run by Jesse. Jesse set up a situation where there were these orgies that were part of lore rituals taking place in his Gothic Fantasy setting. A disease was spreading from the parties of demonic origin.
I created this good-guy sorcerer hunter; a proud member of The Order of the Scarlet Petal. I decided that my character's Kicker was that my sweet, good-hearted fiance had gotten the disease. (What this meant in term of my fiance's moral character -- innocent or secretly bad, I did not know.)
Another Player created a Kicker where he'd been finally invited to the big-big orgy held by a certain lord, but he had to bring a "guest" -- even if it meant bringing her against her will. The name of the guest on the invite was my fiance.
Well, I assumed that my PC and this Players PC would be at each other tooth and nail the whole game. And sure enough, he was sneaking around my character's home looking for clues to my fiance's whereabouts when I returned. He was invisible at the time, but I made a lore roll, whirled with my sword after sensing him, and went at it.
But during the fight we exchanged words, and I realized he might lead me to the source of the demonic disease. (I didn't know what he intended to do with my guy's fiance.) He wanted to live, I wanted the disease, he lied well. So we ended up becoming allies, racing from the house to work together.
It was great, with the opportunity for tension to erupt between us hanging over the rest of the game. I didn't see it as "partying up" -- I just saw it as cool story stuff.
In my view, you had the opportunity for cool story stuff from the choices of your players as well. But you got caught up in your expectations of what you were expecting the players to do (the "right" thing for the players to do!) even before they got a chance to take action. And that's not where we're allowed to go with this stuff!
***
And a separate issue. You referred to stakes in your description -- as in "If this happens, then this; and if this happens then this." I don't think TSoY is played with those kinds of stakes. I believe the game is best played with "I attempt to do this," rattle-rattle, "Okay, here's what happens," and then, "And now I attempt to do this," rattle-rattle, "Okay, here's what happens," and then, "And now I attempt to do this," rattle-rattle, "Okay, here's what happens," and so on, till resolution is reached.
I'm no expert on TSoY, but having read it and read about it, I believe, like Dogs, Sorcerer, (and in my view, PtA), it is best served by having the Players state active intentions for the PCs ("I'm gonnat try to confuse him"), with specific descriptions ("Insert color details here") and roll dice, and then decide and narrate results after the dice determine which way the narration should go, combined with the color details to inform the narration.
Best,
CK
Willem:
Hey, I played Wind in that game. I heard about the 'buddhists = elves' angle and I thought I'd explore that idea. It inspired me - could a person stay detached in a whirlwind of worldy conflict? So I chose 'coward (conflict avoidant)' plus 'compassion' as my keys, to represent that conflict.
Everytime I could, I avoided conflict, and when it came up, I chose compassion over conflict avoidance, but the situation rarely came up. Meanwhile the other warrior elf gained XP every combat round. :) I pursued my keys as best I could, but I felt like I had entered the wrong story for my character. I had a hard time finding his place, and couldn't feel anything to push against.
Meanwhile, I totally envied Zach and Gilbert's pairing up, as they immediately saw their opportunity.
I would recommend, though Christopher speaks against 'splitting up the party' for its own sake, if you really wanted to anyway, next time it would have helped me to develop IAWA-style best interests. Then I think I could've gotten a better handle on the whole thing. The keys just felt too abstract to develop in such a short timeframe.
I could see the warrior elf and i immediately going at it over the philosophy of 'conflict'. it didn't seem to fit though, when we played.
Joel P. Shempert:
Hi, Chris!
Quote from: Christopher Kubasik on April 06, 2008, 08:20:24 AM
I found it funny when yo wrote, "My pitch was basically, "three factions in conflict, pick from them and go at it!" and envisioned a disparate group all converging on the same location with possible blood opera ensuing." I mean, that's sort of like "anti-party play" where the GM has as strong an expectation of the Players not having their characters be cooperative for the game to work well as a lot of GM have a strong expectation that the Players better party-up for a game to work well.
The "there doesn't need to be a party" thing is never about making sure there's blunt conflict within the group. It means that the Players are free to move in and out of alliances within each other. There might be conflict, there might not. This let's the PCs make any darned choice the Players want them to make in terms of actions. Which is the point. It isn't: "Hey, Players, have conflict with each other!" It's, "Okay, guys, given that you can go any direction you want, which direction will you go?"
Hrm. You make a good point. It is pretty counter to the "you can go in any direction you want!' philosophy to have a particular group paradigm in mind, even if that paradigm is blood opera. I guess, now that I examine it, my purpose was not to have players "do anything you want!" "Anything you want!" is a sure-fire recipe in my experience for disjointed, incoherent play. My goal was to have a game of fun and grabby conflict, including PvP conflict, centered on a tense socio-political situation. I'm not sure if I communicated that well. I think my own mindset just sees that three-way conflict and assumes that at least some players will be on different sides.
The thing is, I've generally found "party play" dead boring, and had no desire to indulge that. In practice it's generally meant that either every PC pretty much follows the same ideals, or else a group of misfits with completely incompatible ideals is jammed together and has to constantly contrive lame reasons to tromp around like a big amoeba, and look the other way or bend over backwards to keep the ideals clash from coming to a head and self-destructing the group.
My gripes about the session all speak to that, I think. I agree that it can be great to have PCs unite, sometimes unexpectedly, for some purpose arising from the flow of the story. Awesome! I can't wait to hear how your Heroquest game turned out. And with a group of PCs that start out united in general purpose and ideals, that's cool and a fertile field for conflict as problematic situations arise (see: Dogs). But a situation where everyone's just kind of "together" for no real good reason, and pretty much ignores each others' business save to "team up" in battle or something. . .yeah, that's pretty unsatisfying. Like the example I gave above: Brandon said he wanted to get in a fight as soon as possible. So I started him out with a challenge from hostile sentries. But instead of fighting (which by way of character concept he had no strong reason not to), he made peace with them so he could get introduced to the village and the PCs as an ally and team up with them.
I think, really, it boils down to the passivity thing (you can regard "the Party" as a red herring if you like). If we had a motley crew of unlikely companions traveling around as Ye Olde Fantasy Party, I'd still enjoy it (with reservation) so long as everyone at the table was invested in everyone else's shit and playing into each other's issues (that is, Keys) in fun and conflict-inducing ways. But when you've got five people playing parallel games there's not much of a payoff, and it certainly doesn't play to TSoY's strengths. That's why I'm glad Gilbert and Zach created the collaborative character arc that they did; it saved the game for me.
Incidentally, in my own Heroquest game at the same con (which I'll be writing up shortly), I only had two players and they teamed up from the start. But it didn't bother me. It was a different sort of story we ended up telling and it had just the right amount of dramatic tension, with believable character motivations and a satisfying conclusion.
Quote from: Christopher Kubasik on April 06, 2008, 08:20:24 AM
In my view, you had the opportunity for cool story stuff from the choices of your players as well. But you got caught up in your expectations of what you were expecting the players to do (the "right" thing for the players to do!) even before they got a chance to take action. And that's not where we're allowed to go with this stuff!
Well, there's no doubt in my mind that I missed a lot of great opportunities. I found myself at a loss for how to address many of the PCs' flags, and let possibilities slip through my fingers. You may be right about the reason for some of those slip-ups. I'm just not sure how to approach it differently. I want to be open to player choice but I also have a minimum standard for my personal enjoyment.
Quote from: Christopher Kubasik on April 06, 2008, 08:20:24 AM
And a separate issue. You referred to stakes in your description -- as in "If this happens, then this; and if this happens then this." I don't think TSoY is played with those kinds of stakes. I believe the game is best played with "I attempt to do this," rattle-rattle, "Okay, here's what happens," and then, "And now I attempt to do this," rattle-rattle, "Okay, here's what happens," and then, "And now I attempt to do this," rattle-rattle, "Okay, here's what happens," and so on, till resolution is reached.
I'm no expert on TSoY, but having read it and read about it, I believe, like Dogs, Sorcerer, (and in my view, PtA), it is best served by having the Players state active intentions for the PCs ("I'm gonnat try to confuse him"), with specific descriptions ("Insert color details here") and roll dice, and then decide and narrate results after the dice determine which way the narration should go, combined with the color details to inform the narration.
Well, actually, TSoY does have upfront stakes. The [urlhttp://tsoy.crngames.com/Resolution#Types_of_ability_checks_and_how_they_work]relevant passage[/url]:
Quote from: the TSoY Wiki
First, the player states the character's intention and the Story Guide sets the stakes. This should be easy: "Pieter is going to try to climb that boulder" is a good example. The Story Guide could reply "If you succeed, Pieter's over the rock," but that's pretty implicit. Usually, the results of success are easily taken from the what the player said. The results of failure are determined by the Story Guide and players. In this case, failure could mean Pieter's not over the rock or it could mean something worse. The Story Guide has free reign here to say, "That's a giant boulder. If you fail, Pieter falls and will break a bone." What's important is that these stakes are stated up front.
So I'm doing that by the book as far as I can tell. It's important in TSoY to have the cost of failure up front, so that a player who fails an Ability Check can judge whether it's worth it to Bring Down the Pain.
Peace,
-Joel
Joel P. Shempert:
Hi, Willem!
Quote from: Willem on April 06, 2008, 01:58:00 PM
Everytime I could, I avoided conflict, and when it came up, I chose compassion over conflict avoidance, but the situation rarely came up. Meanwhile the other warrior elf gained XP every combat round. :) I pursued my keys as best I could, but I felt like I had entered the wrong story for my character. I had a hard time finding his place, and couldn't feel anything to push against
Interesting. I totally didn't get that from play. I mean, yeah, I got that from the Key selection, but in terms of actual character action, nothing. I don't recall Wind ever taking action to help others in danger, but maybe I'm misremembering. Then again, perhaps I didn't provide you with enough juicy opportunities to explore that Key! That's entirely likely, as I kept forgetting you had switched from Key of the Unanswered Question.
I'm not familiar enough with In a Wicked Age (I know, I know! All the cool kids are!) to know how Best Interests work. I'm a bit surprised though, that you found Keys too abstract. To me they're pretty straightforward and easy to use.
Thanks for playing! I'm sure we could have a better go at this if we both get the kinks knocked out. :)
Peace,
-Joel
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