[IaWA]
Yokiboy:
Hey,
I have a couple of questions for experienced In a Wicked Age... players.
1) How long does the Oracle part and creation of characters take you on average? That is, how long does it take before you actually dive in and play?
2) Have you found that you get faster with experience, or does it still take about the same time as your first few sessions?
3) Any tips for speeding up this process for the slow pokes around us (yup, that would be me and my group)?
4) Do you frequently have PC vs PC Best Interests in your games? (My own two chapters have sadly featured exclusively NPC vs PC Best Interests.)
5) What is your ratio of returning characters? Do you find that your players buy-in their characters in each chapter if they can, or is it mostly just the one returning PC?
TTFN,
Yoki
Yokiboy:
Darn... I meant to have a more descriptive subject, but can't edit it after the fact.
Brand_Robins:
1) Depends on the group, but usually less than 30 minutes. Some of the folks I play with a very high context, and so it takes longer, and some folks are pretty low context, and so we can go so fast that the GM is always scrambling and trying to get down NPC forms before everyone starts yelling at him.
2) It gets faster with experience, mostly around the defining and setting of best interests. Not hugely faster, mind you, but a little faster. (Mostly it gets better, rather than faster.)
3) I dunno, what's your current process look like?
4) We usually end up with PCs with best interests that obliquely oppose other PC best interests. Like, we don't have a lot of "I need to kill the head of the temple" where the head of the temple is a PC, but we do have "steal the holy scepter from the temple" where the head of the temple is a PC.
5) Depends a lot on the player. Mo, for example, has almost all of her characters return a lot. My characters almost never return. Coincidentally (ha) Mo only really starts to get big buy-in on a second or third recurrence of a character, where I often buy-in best with a new character I can ride hard and leave dead. Others in the group fall kinda evenly between. I have noticed a slight tendency for most of the folks that aren't me to make one or two of their characters "their PC" and to play other characters more like NPCs -- with some buy in, but not the same focus on their recurring characters.
Yokiboy:
Thanks for the reply Brand.
Quote from: Brand_Robins on November 14, 2008, 12:37:22 PM
1) Depends on the group, but usually less than 30 minutes. Some of the folks I play with a very high context, and so it takes longer, and some folks are pretty low context, and so we can go so fast that the GM is always scrambling and trying to get down NPC forms before everyone starts yelling at him.
Okay, I think my problem, as IaWA GM, is that I'm the high context guy at our table. The start of our second Chapter had me at a total loss, I just couldn't get out of the starting gates before everyone else where done with their characters.
Quote from: Brand_Robins on November 14, 2008, 12:37:22 PM
2) It gets faster with experience, mostly around the defining and setting of best interests. Not hugely faster, mind you, but a little faster. (Mostly it gets better, rather than faster.)
Better sounds good, and I can see why.
Quote from: Brand_Robins on November 14, 2008, 12:37:22 PM
3) I dunno, what's your current process look like?
We follow the flow of the book. We start with chosing the Oracle, which goes quickly, then we define the four individual elements. I think this is where I actually start getting stressed out as GM, I can't write fast enough or something. The character brainstorming is great, but again, as GM I spend all my time writing and listing ideas that I'm sort of detached from the actual process.
Then when we select our characters, the players go first, and I'm left with whatever characters they seem connected to, or we as a group are interested in. I feel very confident with defining the Forms, takes seconds, and picking names, the description is basically just copied, but still takes a few moments to write down.
Now I seem to go fuss over the Particular Strengths, and as I try to record all of them along with cool descriptions, effects and the attached game bits, my stress starts mounting. I should probably just leave most of them blank, and make them up during play when or if needed.
Now sometime during the Particular Strengths process, my players complete their characters and want to get on with Best Interests. Now this throws me for a loop again. I have to put aside fussing over my NPCs, and be the first one to come up with two cool Best Interests for one of my NPCs, and both should be direct attacks at PCs, preferably in a Form where they're weak.
I think the reason I'm confused when we start describing Best Interests is that I hardly know who the PCs are at this point. I don't know what Forms they're best, or worst, at. Not knowing what they want yet, i.e. their Best Interests, I also feel like my first two Best Interests usually come out lame. Like, "He wants you dead" kind of lame.
Quote from: Brand_Robins on November 14, 2008, 12:37:22 PM
4) We usually end up with PCs with best interests that obliquely oppose other PC best interests. Like, we don't have a lot of "I need to kill the head of the temple" where the head of the temple is a PC, but we do have "steal the holy scepter from the temple" where the head of the temple is a PC.
Sounds great! We don't even have that. We have three PCs that are in the same story, but only connected through the antagonists.
Quote from: Brand_Robins on November 14, 2008, 12:37:22 PM
5) Depends a lot on the player. Mo, for example, has almost all of her characters return a lot. My characters almost never return. Coincidentally (ha) Mo only really starts to get big buy-in on a second or third recurrence of a character, where I often buy-in best with a new character I can ride hard and leave dead. Others in the group fall kinda evenly between. I have noticed a slight tendency for most of the folks that aren't me to make one or two of their characters "their PC" and to play other characters more like NPCs -- with some buy in, but not the same focus on their recurring characters.
Very interesting reply Brand. This is what excited me about the game (well, the S&S genre too). I have a player who loves to run PCs into the ground, and quickly loses interests and wants another one, while the other two players are more into slow build-ups and retaining their PCs.
Thanks again for the replies. I hope to hear from some more IaWA players eventually.
lumpley:
If particular strengths are slowing you down, just don't make any. Nothing says your npcs have to have particular strengths.
Once your players have created several particular strengths, you can start giving those to your npcs, if any of them really need one.
You can also make up a batch of commonsense "standard" particular strengths outside of play, if you want. I'd wait until you've gotten a couple of sessions in, so they're tonally appropriate.
But most importantly, don't hang yourself up. Not every npc needs a particular strength, and it's perfectly fine if NO npcs have one.
-Vincent
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