[IaWA] First try!
jasin:
Hi everyone, first post and first try at IaWA...
The players almost unanimously chose Blood & Sex. We got:
... A monastery and its associated shrines, each to its own god, tended by monks of uncouth habit...
... The celebration of local fertility or harvest rites...
... The graduation of an apprentice swordmaker to mastery, and its attendant celebration...
... A siren-ghoul, who entices the amorous into deadly peril...
We tried In a Wicked Age yesterday.
The characters were:
Jenna, the fertility priestess, secretly a siren-ghoul, seeking to drain the precious bodily fluids of those chosen for the ceremony.
Harold, the amorous victim and a poet, in love with Jenna.
Richard, the swordmaker and a swordsman, looking to smack some sense into his brother Harold.
Thomas, Jenna's minion and an alchemist, seeking to drain Jenna's precious ghoulish bodily fluids.
Lamur, a god of love from one of the monastery shrines, seeking to seduce Jenna.
Omid, another amorous victim, trying to be chosen over Harold (or anyone else). (NPC)
The system is weird. I've been reading a lot of Q&A with Vincent on lumpley forum, and I was trying to push for the rules as explained there, which are pretty weird for a crowed quite comfortable with traditional RPGs. We're still getting used to the weirdness, like being able to lose on dice but still accomplish whatever sparked the contest, or being able to fast-forward days between two actions in the same contest, but go from one contest to another in seconds.
Most of the elements from the Oracle slipped our mind. The monastery and the monks faded into background, to be represented exclusively by Lamur. The swordmaker's graduation and the celebration got folded into the fertility festival, which itself only served to framed Jenna's role as priestess. I also statted up some more NPCs (the master swordmaker, and another goddess from the monastery shrines), but with five players they ended up being superfluous. Omid was useful to stir things up, but ultimately quite forgettable.
We had to end the session without finishing the chapter, but there was a suitable cliff hanger: Lamur is in Jenna's chambers and they're each trying to seduce the other, Richard (let in by Thomas) came to kill Jenna, Thomas is scrambling for his alchemical apparatus to capitalize on the moment of the priestess's weakness, and Harold just climbed through the window and started reciting his sonnets at people.
So far, Harold seems to be emerging as the protagonist. There was a string of first-round absolute wins, and no-one else even got on the list.
It was fun, but was mostly independently of the system; the group is rather story oriented and enjoyed the Oracle and the characters in themselves. But I hope to play more, at least another chapter or two, because reading the forums convinced me that there is also a lean but sharp core of mechanical awesome in IaWA.
lumpley:
Cool!
Anything I can help you with? Questions or anything?
-Vincent
jasin:
What is the optimum number of players? How many is to many, and how many is too few?
I had five, and it seemed like too many for beginners. Some times it was cool to have enough PCs to drive the action themselves, but if I had more/better NPC, I think I would've been better able to prod them on in case they lost momentum, which they did.
Ouroboros:
Not to revive a kinda older thread... but.
I recently played for the first time too! I ran it for a group of three, and we did Blood and Sex as well. I'd have to say everything went pretty well considering it was a pretty traditional RPG group, except that when we were coming up with characters, people wanted to create the world and the character histories a bit too much for my liking. This might not be exclusively in IAWA, but it always seems to me that developing details like that spontaneously IC instead of having it all ready to debate the details of before you even begin play is a bit more fun, creative, and generally enjoyable.
Then, there was the rules debate. I have to admit, I'm still a bit confused on how conflicts work as well. And, having played Dogs in the Vineyard before, I gotta say I thought I would understand the mechanics of this game a bit better. But I think the rules had me a bit confused, as to when you dictate who has the right to narrate a conflict, who does it, and what the dice determine is the outcome. I've read a bunch of examples, but, I think I just might need it in different, simpler terms. Or maybe I just have to run it a few more times and see what happens.
The players didn't really enjoy the conflict resolution either, partially I think because I was a bit confused by it. They wanted to just narrate what happened in general without rolling at all (we only rolled 2 conflicts! and neither were physical!). Maybe because they didn't want to get into conflicts with each other as PC's, or maybe because they didn't want the dice telling them what to do and were so psyched about the shared storytelling mechanic and what that allowed them to do, I'm not sure.
I'd like to hear any input on what jasin has asked, because I had similar things happen that he did, pretty much.
Thanks!
Ouroboros:
I forgot to mention the most important part. Everyone had a blast! We may not have understood how everything worked, but we made the best out of it, played some awesomely entertaining characters, and really loved it. I'm excited to run it again, but, I'm hoping for some rules clarification before we do it again. I can post more detail as needed.
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