The Meeting of the Telvrans: Session One

 

The goal of Crescendo is to truly enable long-term play. It requires a full set of standard dice, zocchi dice, and a journal. 

This is a play report on a playtest. While most of the game is nailed down I'm still refining a few things, here and there. Sometimes that means I'm rather wrong in an idea.

The setting of Crescendo is always in flux, it's always shifting around. The Seven Dooms are the ways, that the setting is in flux. These are goals, with the means of accomplishing them totally up to the Judge. Doomsd are public knowledge so that the players are aware of the pressure cooker. 

Yes, seven is too many. That is on purpose. 

No matter what the players do the setting will shift beneath their feet, creating new problems that they could not have anticipated. This is essential for a game story that needs to run a long time, as story threads wrapping up kills stories.

The Seven Dooms

1. Not all post-medieval information we have is true, especially gunpowder and antibiotics; people are at the mercy of nature.

2. There is a flame of goodness at the center of Heranyt, linked to the hearts of all creatures on the planet. This is not so for other planets.

3. Some beings have set up their own anti-flames, anti-points of light. They are corrupted and horrific beings, who try to destroy those not like them.

4. The elves fly amongst the Ring of Tears, the sub-orbital remnants of their continent. Strange things are said to live there.

5. The dryads of The Glade will go to war with Fort Falls.

6. La Fourchette will be abandoned, even with oncoming winter.

7. The dwarves will provoke Fort Falls into a war.

The rules of Crescendo dictate that the player picks one of these Dooms for the Judge to challenge them with. Prince picked #5, The Glade wanting to go to war with Fort Falls.

Girac's Beliefs 

1. Superiors should be obeyed. 4 RP

2. It is natural to use force to advance your own interests. 7 RP

3. You should stick by your comrades. 5 RP

Yes, Beliefs have health, called Resilience Points. If you fail rolls it hurts your Beliefs, and there are also Resilience Rolls, which target RP as well. You're going to see them in this session and this session only, because they've been removed in future drafts.

Girac's Traits: Loyal, Quick to Anger 

The Judge gets to pick one of the player's Beliefs. I decided that I wanted to see what would happen if Girac was forced to go against the "using force" Belief for an extended period of time. Would he go along with it? What would he do? So I decided that there was a dryad who wanted to stop the oncoming war and was willing to actually talk with the humans... who she usually despises for being susceptible to her charms. It was a delightuflly easy pressure cooker to set up: Girac was already a short-tempered guy, so let's see what he did when he had someoen who didn't like him trying to actually use diplomacy!

The Poem, drafted in the last session, is a thematic reinforcer for a few sessions. Prince will be rewarded for choosing actions that speak very strongly for or against The Poem. After testing for about a year without a poem it became apparent to me that a thematic focus was necessary for arcs, one that shifted every few sessions to change things up. This is what we drafted up for the session zero:

The Poem

Sing to me, O Muses!

Of man-killing Sota

And the zenith of his rage

With his resentful fist of iron

Sota smote Tuntemata

he split and crackehis silver skin

And nightshade blood rained from the heavens

Before Sota then came The Inquisitor (Viivoty)

And queried "Why then have you smote my son?"

Sota laughed: "How could I not, given what we are?"

With all that done (it took less than five minutes to pick a Doom and a Belief), we began play! Crescendo is meant to be mostly conversation, with spikes of mechanics that shift things in wild and unexpected directions. The book is chonky, sure, but it's a book that only gets used in spurts of intense moments, with everything going back to the conversation right afterwards.

Girac was waiting at the docks for his brother-in-law Galbert to come back from his logging expedition along with his sister Veronique and his sun Luc. It had been a few months and everyone was eager for Galbert to come home. Galbert did not come to his wife and adopted son, but went straight to Girac and asked to talk in private, immediately. Galbert and Girac went to a nearby alleyway. Galbert's explanation poured out hardly a moment later: Galbert had met a dryad. A real dryad. Things had... happened... with said dryad. And she had asked to talk to a soldier of Fort Falls. Girac made Galbert swear a solemn oath to never have relations with the dryad again. Galbert tried to say that his oath may not be worth much, for he could not resist the dryad, but Girac forced the point, making him swear heavily to never see the dryad again. Commending Galbert for his resolve, Girac told Galbert he would meet with the dryad at one in the morning, two days hence. Galbert promised to hold to his oath and left. By the time he came back Veronique was upset, but Girac helped smooth things over.

Girac went to Master Girard and asked him what he knew about dryads. Master Girard told Girac druids were very secretive creatures. They had a bewitching effect on anything sapient at all, and were highly dangerous in that regard; it was almost impossible to resist a dryad, at least for long. Reaching into his desk Master Girard pulled out a curious dagger, explaining that dryads were deathly afraid of cold iron, and if they found someone with cold iron on them they would fly into a rage. To provoke a dryad was to die. He handed the dagger to Girac, repeating to not get caught with it.

Girac then went to one of the soldiers who was on guard duty. He told the guard that he was set to met a wench from La Fourchette, the town just outside of Fort Falls, and he asked if he the soldier would let him out. The soldier smiled wickedly; this was old hat, he let soldiers out of the fort all the time for such ventures, in fact he considered it his primary duty! Girac told the soldier if he wasn't back in a half hour to call the guards and get ready for trouble; the "girl" had brothers and they may not take kindly to someone messing with her. The soldier was only too happy to comply with such a request.

When the night came, Girac snuck out to the docks of La Fourchette and waited for the dryad. When she showed up Girac was shaken to his core; here was something far more beautiful than he could have ever expected. 

It was here I interjected by calling for a Save. Saves are only called for when a player's narration doesn't have a plausible explanations for time, skill, tools, and general temperament like traits or bad crap like traits. In this case dryads are passively enchanting and arousing to other sapient creatures. It is not something the dryad controls, others are just immediately captivated by her. Girac had to try and resist this unfortunate fact about dryads.

There's six stats to the game, rated in dice sizes: Brawny (strength and constitution from other games), Nimble (fine motor skills), Agile (gross motor skills), Cunning, Empathy, and Willful. Prince and I agreed that Willful, which doubles as a spiritual/social resistance/offensive stat, was the principle stat to use in this case. Girac had Stoic at +4, which was a really damn good skill for this particular case. He also had the cold iron knife, which I ruled improved his Willful die by a step, from D7 to D8.

I, as Judge, always start at a D20, and add something called the Fate Counter. That starts at 0, but is increased by the margin of success of the players. So the better the players do makes the game harder on them. Eventually the Fate Counter will trigger a Twist, which is a plot twist that also resets the Fate Counter to zero. So there's a natural ebb and flow to the game, as the world resists the player more and more until things finally reach a boiling point, and then resets.

I then introduced Prince to Stones, which are a type of metacurrency that make dice rolls easier for the player. You get more of these Stones from either the character There are three types of Stones:

Mythos Stones: when you spend these the Judge has to lower his dice by a step (so from D20 to D16, to D14, D12, D10, etc). The immortal of the poem (in this case Sota the Suicide) interferes with the game to your benefit. The Judge says how. Both players then journal the supernatural occurrence into their journals as they see fit.

Dynamis Stones: this lets a player reroll his stat die and/or the Judge's save die. The player narrates how one of his Traits gave him a burst of strength, and he and the Judge write down their versions of it in their journals. The player underlines what he wrote.

Persona Stones: the player increases his Stat die by one step. He has to tell the Judge how his relationships with others and the setting have given him strength. They both write that down into their respective journals.

Prince currently has two of each kind, and can only spend two at a time. So Prince spent a Mythos and Persona point, decreasing my dice to a D16 and his dice to a D10.

Here's what I wrote in my journal for the Mythos Stone: "A bee, a symbol of Sota, flitted near the dryad, and the enchnatment lessened a bit as the dryad's passive focus shifted to the bee; dryads love bees the way humans love dogs".

For the Persona Stone: "Remembering his conversations with Master Girard and Galbert, Girac tried to summon more strength. He had to resist! This was the enemy!"

The roll off happened, me at D16 vs Prince's D10+4. 

He failed by 1, meaning his Belief " It is natural to use force to advance your own interests", which had 7 RP, now had 6 RP instead. You don't want it to hit 0, bad stuff happens. I gave out a Condition "Enchanted by the dryad" at level 1, and we got back to it!

He could feel the enchantment, the need to be possessed by her, to be with her, come over him. He had to resist. He must! A bee, a symbol of Sota the Suicide, drifted by the dryad in the dark, and she was distracted a moment, as dryads all love bees the way humans love dogs. Girac could not resist; he was under the sway of the dryad.

The dryad, for her part, regarded him with annoyance. She could not control the effect she had on Girac, but did not want him, not now at any rate. She had come here to talk. She took a step forward and Girac growled at her, telling her to stay away, to not come even another step closer! The dryad acquiesced, asking Girac of whether he knew of the declared vengeance her sisters had sworn upon Fort Falls for the attempted rape of their Queen. Girac said everyone knew of it and were worried. The dryad told him that she had personally stopped the rape attempt and had killed the man herself. But something about the whole incident was wrong to her, and she needed a human who knew the uniform of various soldiers to identify the body. Would he come with her? If he did they may be able to stop the attack on Fort Falls and La Fourchette. Girac agreed without hesitation, he needed no enchantment to agree to such a proposal!

The pair hurried out of La Fourchette, into The Elder Forest. Baleful Eous and Observant Tuntematon, the moons, were bright, the stars were out. The Ring of Tears, the remnants of the elven continent, glittered as they hung in the sky, oversized jewels.

Within a few steps into The Elder Forest the dryad turned and snapped at Girac: could he please be quieter???  Girac apologized, but the only way he could move quieter was to move slower. The dryad took hold of  Girac's hand and spoke in a voice that sounded like the wind rustling through leaves. She then ran, hand in hand, with Girac.

Right through a tree.

And a bush.

And so on.

They ran much more quickly than Girac ever could have expected, with an abandon no human could have ever managed. By the time they got to a glade and stopped Girac was exhausted. The dryad spoke once more as the wind and all of a sudden Girac could feel his body on the ground again, he could feel the wind, the moons' mixed lights, all of it, all over again. It was thoroughly disorienting. The dryad gave Girac about ten minutes to recover, and then showed him the body.

It looked nothing like Girac or any other human he knew in Fort Falls or La Fourchette. The man was bald and clean shaven, covered in a light black and white cotton that would have made more sense in a warmer climate, as opposed to the more northerly humid climes of Fort Falls and La Fourchette. The dead man had a bag on him made out of a strange leather. Girac picked up the bag; in it were four strange cylinders, one of which shone with an odd green light. The dryad cried out in agony, pleading with Girac to put it away. She screamed that thing was profane to all life, to put it away, now, now please!! Curious, Girac put it away gingerly. He swore that he had never seen such a thing in his life, had no idea what it was, and that the dead man was not of his locale, and never had been. The dryad touched the garments of the corpse and Girac's, nodding to show she understood the difference. She was going to call her Queen, who had exiled her for reasons she would not get into, not right then and there. The point was that Girac was walking into a very fragile situation and needed to keep his head down unless the Queen herself talked to him. Girac made his promises.

The dryad opened her mouth and spoke like the wind once more.

So I'd forgotten to do a Resilience Roll, again. It's something I thought was necessary for the game because it keeps to the concept of the psychology of the character being primary. A roll-off occurs, with the margin of success going to the Fate Counter (which is currently at 0) or the margin of failure damaging a Belief. 

Prince spent a Mythos and Dynamis stone, and this is what I recorded:

Mythos Stone: "The glade was mostly composed of yew trees, which allowed Sota to help Girac."

Persona Stone: "Girac's loyal nature provided him an enormous burst of internal strength".

And Prince forced a reroll on me, and passed a by a huge margin of failure, to 4! So the Fate Counter goes up to 4.

At this point in the cycle a Resilience Roll always precedes a Save. In this case it was to see if Girac would be ensorcelled by the Queen of The Glade as well. Prince argued that his previous Condition should actually count as a bonus to his own roll! I agreed, and he got a +1 step to his stat die, which we decided would be Willful again, along with another +1 step because of the cold iron dagger.

The roll-off was me at D20+4, versus Prince's D10+4. Not good odds, but after an initial bad roll Prince spent a Dynamis, which forced a reroll: he succeeded by 5!

Here's what I wrote for his Dynamis expenditure: "The loyalty of Girac was so powerful that it drove him, demanding more of him, pushing the wiles of the Queen of the Glade away."

Now, part of what's going on in the background is that, every time that Fate Counter goes up (it's currently at 9) I'm rolling a D20 to see if I roll under said counter. Whenever I do a random twist occurs. We'll get into what the means more next session, but just understand for the moment that each success drives the chances of something crazy happening in the narrative up.

The light became brighter, the birds louder, the wind kicked up. In walked the Queen of the Glade, in her fully unadorned splendor. It was a level of allure and beauty totally unexpected. Girac, even though he was enchanted by the other dryad, could feel that the pull of the Queen was of a completely different level. He had already failed once, he could not afford to fail again. Looking at the yew trees, the symbol of Sota the Suicide, holding the dagger he had hidden on him, and steeling his resolve, Girac refused to give in, even a little bit.

The Queen laughed; it had been a long time since anyone had resisted her, Girac was an interesting human being indeed! She also found it funny that Girac had a cold iron knife on his person; did he really think he could threaten her with it? She conversed with the dryad a few minutes, and confirmed with Girac that the human who had attempted to rape her had nothing to do with the humans of Fort Falls and La Fourchette. Girac swore it was so. He then brought out the green-glowing tube. The Queen flinched, and demanded that Girac put it away; it was the remnant of a dryad, somehow ripped from her tree and imprisoned. It was the foulest of things, a profanation that nobody should tolerate. Girac put the cylinder back in the bag immediately, apologizing profusely.

The Queen then requested that Girac allow himself to be examined by the other members of her Glade court. They would want to verify themselves that the human in question was not of Fort Falls or La Fourchette. Girac reluctantly agreed. They relocated the corpse into a small thicket, so that Girac would not have to contend with the effects of all the dryads of the Glade at once. Eight of them came and examined the corpse and Girac, one by one.

This is where it gets bad. See, by now the Fate Counter is at a +9, which is a pretty heft bonus to my rolls. Prince has spent a lot of his Stones, having only one Dynamis left, which means he can't shift luck to his side all that much. He either makes the rolls or he doesn't. So far Prince had been rolling hot, but would his luck hold? Would he be able to withstand the wiles of not one, not two, not four, but eight dryads, one after another? For the good of his people?

We agreed it should just be one Resilience Roll and Save for all the dryads. Eight rolls was too much, and frankly Girac had shown an unusual willpower up until this point.

He bombed the Resilience Roll, knocking out "It is natural to use force to advance your own interests".

The Save was even worse, even with the reroll.

Dynamis: "The dryad's promise to protect Girac gave him strength, allowing him to have more resolve. The tree trollops would not enrapture him! He would stand strong!"

The margin of fail on the Save, which always damages a Belief, also knocked out another Belief. I asked Prince which one he wanted to reduce to zero, and he chose "You should stick by your comrades", because screw Galbert for getting him into this crazy situation!!!

So that's not one but two Beliefs knocked out. What does that mean? What's the terrible thing that happens with one Belief going out, nevermind two? Prince wanted to find out but we were out of time.

NEXT TIME: we'll find out. I've run enough of these to know it's not good. Oh, and Resilience Rolls will be mercifully gone. It's clunky in game and even clunkier to write about.

If you want to hop onto the Discord to ask questions or read the current draft of Crescendo, click here!

The Meeting of the Telvrans: Introduction and Set Up

It all began on Reddit.

No wait it’s okay, this story doesn’t necessarily end bad!

Like I said, Reddit. We’ll call him Prince. I saw a post of his I appreciated enough to DM him, giving my appreciation for his candor. We got to talking and eventually Crescendo, the RPG I'm developing, came up. Prince was intrigued and we decided to give Crescendo a trial run: one act, which should be about six sessions, session zero not included. But first Crescendo requires a pretty detailed setting bible to throw at the players. I had to get that done first. 

I decided to finally draw up my long-running setting, The Wanderers’ Psalms, and pitch it at Prine. I’m not gonna lie, I wanted someone with the quality of Prince’s candor to rip my baby game apart. So I decided to throw the best I got at him. And frankly it was only a matter of time; two years of not really playing on Heranyt had been too long.

It was time to return to my old home.

You don’t really need to know the mechanics of Crescendo to appreciate the setting bible, beyond that Prince and I both have a journal and the following is copied into both of them. And yes, the journal has mechanical weight. All of the below was generated by the mechanics of Crescendo and is necessary to play the game. Yes, that means it's a bit of set-up, but in comparison to your standard open table game it's about commesurate. Well, at least the way I set up an open-table game that is.

Again, I am just following the directions in my game. I'm not deviating to the right or to the left, I'm running the instructions out of the book.

The below is what I sent Prince, with my commentary upon it in italics.

The Meeting Place of the Telvrans

Languages Appropriated

I have personally found that very few things help world building like stealing real-world languages and modifying them to your native ability. Given that I barely have my own American English down pat, this is likely to lead to some hilariously bad pronunciations, for which I think God the reader cannot hear... although Prince with his beautiful French will. RIP.

The dwarves use a bastardized Japanese

The elves use bastardized Finnish. Humans, when trying to be fancy, use bastardized Finnish.

Humans from The Seven Iron Kingdoms use French, probably really bastardized.

The Seven Dooms

Dooms are the Judge's goals for the setting that are also world-building tools. Crescendo plays out in what are called Acts, where three Dooms are addressed. The other four then act upon the setting and change it.

1.       Not all post-medieval information we have is true, especially gunpowder and antibiotics. People are at the mercy of nature.

2.       There is a flame of goodness at the center of X ,linked to the hearts of all creatures on the planet. That is not so for other planets.

3.       Some beings have set up their own anti-flames, anti-points of light. They are corrupted and horrific beings. They wish to destroy those not like them.

4.       The elves fly amongst The Ring of Tears, the sub-orbital remnants of their continent.  Strange things are said to live there.

5.       The dryads of The Glade will decide to go to war with Fort Falls.

6.       The people of La Fourchette will begin to abandon it, even as winter comes on.

7.       The dwarves will enrage Fort Falls into war.

The following entries (Current Five and the planets) are the immortal pantheon of the game. These immortals are constantly acting upon the setting, and play a major role in the story. With each immortal are also symbols, like swans and elder plants, that those particular immortals favor.

The Current Five

1.       The Outsider. Prophet and Observer. Lit the Flame Eternal by becoming a member of each race, who all betrayed him in equally repulsive fashion. His deaths lit the Flame Eternal.

·       Swans, dandelions, tin, wind, creation, travel

2.       The Flame Eternal, The Secret Source. Integrator and Lover, servant and creation of The Outsider. Blue.

·       Fire, courage, magic, doves, copper, elder

3.       Telos, Leader of Those Who Sailed. Prophet and Inquisitor. A former anti-flame who was converted by the Flame Eternal. Black.

·       Bears, lead, seas, grief, protection, yew

4.       Eous, Leader of the Anti-Flames. Warrior and Trickster. One of the two moons in the sky, placed there as punishment for creating the Anti-Flames. Sickly Teal.

·       Chaos, defilement, crime, bees, bloodroot, iron

5.       Verzhoben, The Corrupter of Creation. Inquisitor and Observer Led the origin race known as the ensivalo in rebellion, extinguishing the first flame and dooming the planet for millenia.

·       Beetles, iron, deadly nightshade, void, betrayal, harvest

·       NOTE: all spells invoking Verzhoben are called “tech”.

The Seven Planets

1.       Enusta, The Mysterious Elder. The sun (gold). The Integrator.

·       Dandelions, fire, gold

2.       Tuntematon, The Painful Friend. The real moon (silver). The Observer.

·       Seas, grief, deadly nightshade

3.       Sota, The Suicide. Red. The Warrior.

·       Bees, iron, yew

4.       The Triplets (Epasointu, Epatoivo, Lahjonta), The Baneful Ones. Yellow. The Trickster.

·       Betrayal, chaos, bloodroot

5.       Rakkaus, The Hidden Devourer. Blue. The Lover

·       Elder, doves, copper

6.       Viivoty, The Mother by the Gate. Green. The Inquisitor

·       Swans, crime, travel

7.       Viestinta, The Destroyer. Orange. The Prophet.

·       Defilement, protection, deadly nightshade

The Myth

The myth is the cultural myth that everyone in this small little section of the setting uses to explain the immortals they've encountered. This myth is generally considered reliable by those in the setting and those at the table. Don't be looking for any real subversive stuff going on here.

Once upon a time Verzhoben decided that he did not wish to serve creation, but to master it. He corrupted himself and the ensivalo, along with all their slave races, extinguishing the First Flame. When they did so, the ensivalo realized they cared nothing for their own genetically engineered creations, and left them, to parts unknown. Without the First Flame the races fell to barbarism and undeath.

The Outsider intervened. He incarnated as each of the races -elves, orcs, minotaurs, dwarves, dusken, wolves, dryads, and humans - trying to get them to accept him… only to be killed by each of them, in turn. The humans didn’t even let The Outsider survive childhood. But as the last incarnation of the Outsider was killed, a pillar of blue flame leapt from the corpse and burrowed into the planet, straight down to the core… where the Eternal Flame now rests. The undead plague ended. The insanity ended. Some were nostalgic.

Led by Eous, some began to try to extinguish the Eternal Flame, to no avail: the Outsider’s will was behind The Eternal Flame. Telos, Eous’s right hand man, turned on Eous, founding a resistance group, Those That Sailed. Unable to extinguish the Eternal Flame Eous forced the flame within him, which he could not extinguish, to turn to his mind, to his goals. And thus the first Anti-Flame was born. Others followed suit, drawing power from Herna, the Abyss.

Telos and the Eternal Flame begged The Outsider to force the Anti-Flames to relent, traveling to the very heights of Seitseman to plead their case. No one knows what was said that day; Telos and the Eternal Flame will not speak of it. But Telos, along with Those Who Sailed, have spread throughout the world, working towards an end goal that none know of. Someday we may know of it.

Seasons

A cold spring, a mild summer, a vicious fall, and a bone-chilling winter, as the wind usually comes in against the Etranger Mountains.

The Feast Cycle of the Seven Iron Kingdoms

Yes, there's a cycle of celebrations, and it is relevant! Players use these to heal up from long-standing conditions and get a lot of XP from participating in them.

The Gathering and Forgiving Days: The first days of harvest. With each barn filled an attempt is made at resolving a grudge with copious amounts of communal drinking. Small trees are placed into the ground with a secret desire whispered into them.

The Day of Mourning: The winter solstice. All lights are extinguished, even the eternally communal bonfire. The bonfire is relit by a child at midnight, and the party begins.

Finding Seitseman: the spring equinox. Telos and the incarnation of the Eternal Flame had to learn the way to Seitseman by climbing a tree and watching the cloud formations. Roof parties and tree crownings are held.

Secret Day: All gather around the trees they planted, and reveal whether or not their secret was granted.

Yes, I drew the map in Paint. Yes, the circles in the top left are trees. Shut up.

 

The Local Area

The Glade: where the dryads gather, location actually unknown. They were last seen gathering for a push against Fort Falls for cutting down several dryad hometrees.

Fort Falls: Right at the meeting of The Telvra River, Telvra Falls River, and the Minor Telvra River, Fort Falls is the last military outpost from the Seven Iron Kingdoms. It protects the town La Fourchette, but both are losing more and more people to migration south each year.

La Fourchette: Colloquially just called “Crotch”, La Fourchette was once a prosperous trading post with the dwarven strongholds Sakabun Horu and Kami Horu. With the slight of Warlord Akio, however, the trade dried up, with the dwarves growing ever colder. If Crotch doesn’t fall to the dwarves, it’ll become a ghost town, whichever comes first.

Sakabun and Kami Horus: The two closest dwarven strongholds still in existence, the dwarves have total control over all natural resources in the area, including up to the area of Fort Falls. After the slight to Warlord Akio a growing resentment to the human presence in the land has been brewing, including raiding parties.

I sent all that over to Prince, who was supposed to read it and make a character with that context in mind. Crescendo makes characters by a structured series of journaling prompts, which the player uses to make one of those overly long and drawn out backstories that folks like myself love. Here's what I got back:

I grew up in Fort Falls. My father was a sergeant there, my mother a seamstress. I remember watching the logs going on the barges of the Telvra River. Even then I was headstrong, fearsome, quick in anger. The old woman said it was the Sign of Sota, under which I was conceived. She took her own life during the Day of Mourning, two years later. When they relit the bonfire she was gone.

They were a tough breed, army brats. By day we ran all manner of errands for whomever asks. You learn to stand up to the elder children or you will be worked to the bone. Sota the Warrior. When we were sent outside the walls to collect firewood I split a boy's lip with a yew branch; he was two years my senior. Father thrashed me, but I could see in his eyes he was proud. In the fall my mother gave birth to my sister Veronique and passed away shortly after, while I held her hand.

Life became harder then. The groups of boys would chase me, but I was nimble enough to run and hide amongst the beekeeper's hives. Other times I took a beating, sometimes badly. Father would ask me how and, when I told him, he would grunt and reach for his bottle, telling me to do better on the morrow. It was a harsh existence. Fearful, painful. While I made few friends, the next years were easier. The elder boys became apprentices and were gone. I then made two friends, Sal and Rene, and we watched the lumber barges pass in the summer, while the younger boys gathered firewood.

The masters came at the appointed time, Finding Seitsemann. While parties were being prepared and trees were crowned they inspected us in a cold hall. Master Girard selected me for the polemen. I was so happy I cried.

Master Girard was hard, his piercing rasp never failing to elicit verbal jabs from the other apprentices. He would know if you were lying or scared or hiding something. I feared and respected him.

My hot blood made me ill-disciplined. It took many cuffs and mess duty shifts before I could march in step. The intricate formations and maneuvers of a pike-man became mine over time. I learned also to control my temper. Your fellow apprentices  were tied to your fate, and if your unit fell short all were punished.

If we were not being trained there were endless tasks. Bringing water, mending tunics, sharpening pikes. An hour every day we would have to ourselves, one we would play cards for coper. If Iwas indifferent to marching I was a gifted Bez-lue player. I gained a reputation for stubbornness. After the second year our apprenticeship was over, and I was allowed to wear the colors of the Papillion, Fort Falls' block of pikemen. I married Genevieve the same day, a match made by my father and hers, and though I loved her little she was kind and doe-eyed.

Our duty began in earnest. We patrolled walls, roads, and the forests of Fort Falls. We had to quell unrest in La Fourchette. I gained a reputation for discipline and courage. I never saw dryads, but men would go missing on patrols or be found in unusual places later. I found an unusual talent: I was a natural carpenter. Soon Papillon found me a hundred tasks to train that skill. I set wheels, mended barricades, and repaired the commander's tent. I grew in time to be respected.

Genevieve passed away giving birth to our son, Luk. I asked Veronique and her husband Gelbert to take him in, for I had no time to raise a young boy.

I worry for the future.

And with that the backstory concluded. Haunting stuff. Prince then figured out his relationships, based upon the number of times he'd written about them in the backstory:

Veronique, level 2

Gelbert, level 1

Luk , level 1

Zak level 1

Rene level 1

Father level 4

Master Girard level 2

We drew up some gear for Girac: a decent pike and some armor that could take a hit or two.  Nothing terribly fancy, and Girac had some money left over.

We then drew up three Beliefs for Girac. Beliefs are subjective statements that are part characterization and part plot hook. Beliefs have what are called Resilience Points (RP), which tell you how hard the character believes in them. They're roughly equivalent to HP from old-school games, and the numbers mean just about what they mean there:

Superiors should be obeyed, 4 RP

You should stick by your comrades, 5 RP

It is natural to use force to advance your own interests, 7 RP

So yes, those are very low. The beginning of Crescendo is usually of a brutal nature that most games do not think to show, that of the effects of adventuring upon the mind and its need for constancy... as opposed to all the shit that can happen to you if you go out your door.

Prince then chose two Traits for Girac, adjectives that described his base personality: Prince chose Quick to Anger and Loyal, both at level 1. Trait levels tell you how powerful the Trait is in influencing the mechanics of the game. HINT: level one's not very good.

Last, but not least, we drafted the Act's Poem. Yes, you make up a poem in Crescendo. It is used as world-building and a set of thematic rewards is based upon it. Prince seemed a bit skeptical at first but took to the process like a duck to water, practically writing the Poem, much to delight and surprise. Here it is!

Sing to me, O muses!

Of man-killing Sota

And the zenith of his rage

With his resentful fist of iron

Sota smote Tuntematon

he split and cracked his silver skin

And nightshade blood rained from the heavens

Before Sota came then the inqisitor

And queried "Why then have you smote my son?"

Sota laughed: "How could I not, given what we are?"

And with that prep was done. 

Thanks for reading!

If you're wanting to see the current draft of Crescendo, please click here.

If you want to come to the Discord server and ask questions and possibly even see a game or three, click here!

Crescendo's First Arc: Reflections

 

I didn't realize it, but I'd been holding my breath the last few months. The first arc playtest of Crescendo has been going on and I kept asking myself "Is it going to be any good? At all?" I have a lot of ideas in this game that I was nervous wouldn't work, that would prove to be unrealistic to throw at a table. I mean, if it doesn't work that's fine... okay it wouldn't have been fine. At all. I've written a lot on this game and spent about a year fine-tuning it. And, despite the fact that the first playtest of the first arc had been going really smoothly, I didn't want to believe it. What if it failed at the end? What if the game failed to provide a good conclusion to the first arc it had ever truly run? Well, it didn't fail. There's a lot to improve and work on, but it didn't fail. Crescendo helped create a story filled with nuance and failure, character growth, a fantastical dream-like quality, truly tense plot, and a fitting coda.

Crescendo's mechanics create situations where characters must fail themselves. There are no squeaky clean and awesome characters; everyone does more than a few things they regret. As in, there are prompts generated by the game that tell you, the player, that your character fails himself, and you get to figure out what that looks like. These are profoundly humbling moments, as you have to figure out why and how your character has gone off the rails. But the other factor for the characters feeling human was that their successes could lead to unexpected consequences, in a  way that was fair and transparent, but unpredictable. The lack of total control over the plot makes the characters feel much more fragile, limited.  Because player control of the world and their characters wasn't total they took more time and care asking "What does my character really want out of this situation?" The mechanical refusal to deal in black and white results made the character's intent just that much more important.

The biggest drive to character change is failure. Because of the omnipresence of failure, as well as character change being based upon the ebb and flow of the mechanics, players are more in a role of directing the character growth. Character growth becomes the subject of the game itself, allowing players to disengage enough to where they can roleplay a character who is not like them. All the mechanics point back to the question "What does the character feel?" So many inputs into the system are subjective that you can't really get a moment where you could say "This is what the character should do." And players really responded to this! With the mechanics disengaging from a simple success/failure dynamic what the character turns into becomes the only thing the player really controls.... and the timing of that is a bit questionable as well.

Crescendo is a game of mythic fantasy. The immortals are alive and well, constantly mucking around with things, influencing the world to their own ends. Without the immortals Crescendo would be a good, if somewhat standard, fantasy game. But the addition of the immortals completely changed things for the players. Visions would just... happen. And completely recontextualize the action. Omens would appear around the players, helping them and showing them to be favored. But by whom? It wasn't entirely clear sometimes. Immortals would use similar omens, and sometimes in ways that confused the players. With the mechanics designed to keep players constantly on their toes, this existential meddling tipped the players into a world they're just certain enough about, but not too certain. There was always a dream-like quality to the story, where nothing was quite as it appeared. And that forced things back to the character, the only thing the players really had a true knowledge of.

But perhaps the biggest surprise to me was the evolution of the plot. Crescendo uses extensive journaling and a mechanic called The Black Swan: everyone at the table opens to a random page of their journal and puts their finger on a random passage; the GM takes these passages and makes up a plot twist, with the emphasis being on making an intersecting  narrative which intrudes on the players’ story. With Black Swans the GM becomes less the master of the plot and the interpreter of the signs. You can just sit back, and let the game ebb and flow around you, being just as surprised as the rest of the players at twists and turns. With the knowledge that the plot was not being "handled" by the GM, the game truly let go of the feeling that there was anything for certain. Only one question could possibly matter at that point: what did your character think of the events they had in front of them, right then and there?

Endings are beginnings where you stop. A story should have a strong end, one where the world doesn’t stop but the story does. RPGs usually don’t have ending mechanics, leaving that up to the players to figure out. Given how important endings are I’ve always found this to be a surprising hole in most designs. So I designed The Festival, which is designed to propel the world and PCs forward, while wrapping up the parts of the story that the game considers important: how the PCs and the world changed. This is done in the context of a cultural celebration. Everything has calmed down, and if you think pre-modern folks are just going to sit around and wallow in whatever just happened… well they can’t. May as well have fun! So characters get reputations and traits voted onto them, and then the players play out the scenes where they realize that their characters realized they changed. The setting is then more or less randomly moved forward, with new plot hooks being generated by the table. 

And it works beautifully.

The synergy of group discussion and in-story development produced scenes worthy of a true end to the journey the players and their characters had been on. The new plot hooks enveloped us in a feeling of constant motion, a sense that the world was moving on. The players wanted to see what happened next. Their characters had not only changed but were  given the opportunity to acknowledge it. If we could never return to this story it ended in a way we could be okay with.

Crescendo still has a ways to go. I'm testing out another first arc as we speak, which has more world building mechanics in it, at the cost of slowing the pacing of the story down, but with more depth. The second arcs won't be starting for a little while. But we ended the first arc deeply satisfied with the arc itself and excited to see where it was going. And I feel more than a bit of relief! Crescendo not only stuck the landing but did it with style.

But who cares what I think? I’m the designer, course I’m going to like my own product. What do my playtesters think? When I asked here’s what they told me:

Zac

Why play this game 

Character development. It is easy to create a living, breathing, real character. The slower pace of play really gives you time to think about your character’s actions and motivation. In fact the game demands that you do. And when things go wrong (and they will), the system gives you the time to work through how this character manages and rationalizes the events that take place resulting in a character that is far more believable and inhabitable because their decisions make sense and their motivations make sense. At least to you. There are plenty of opportunities for the GM or other players to challenge your decisions and at the end of a story arc what the other players think of you actually matters. I also enjoyed the lack of a party system. While the game is a cooperative storytelling experience, I didn’t need to worry about how my character’s growth and actions would affect the party (or split it). Also, no one else needs to feel pressured to take actions to keep the party together after my guy decides to go do his thing. While I think the party mechanic has its place in many games, particularly the combat oriented, I think many times it can also hinder your growth if an emotional revelation means the group is understaffed for an owlbear encounter.

 Martha

The first thing that jumps out about Crescendo is the rules don’t get in the way of gameplay.  So much of RPG time is spent trying to ‘outgame the game’ (think peasant rail gun). A lot of it is you vs the GM; who can make the story work better for them.  Crescendo is a collaboration between players and GM, which takes the competition out of the picture, and focuses characters and the moderator on making a good story and a good experience. Story and content is key, and the rules take a back seat. They are there to facilitate only and they aim to not be part of the problem. This is perfect for me, because I despise the dynamics between players and the GM in traditional games. I want to create a great story with them, instead of fighting for my own way every step.

    Throughout this play test the rules were changed a lot, and every single time it was because the rules were somehow blocking story development, they were too visible. Because you aren’t crunching numbers every five seconds, or pulling out power cards at every conflict, it leaves things open for creativity and collaboration in a way that mainstream RPG’s don’t. This is something that games like Trophy do marvelously, and something that is relatively hard to achieve. Unlike some other games I have played this game isn’t ‘rules light’ it’s ‘rules invisible’, which gives it the support structure of a traditional game, but all the flexibility and creativity of a game like Trophy. While Crescendo mirrors some concepts from games like Burning Wheel, they are combined with original concepts, and reworked themes from different games that work in a pretty great symmetry.

    Almost all stats and numbers are developed outside the actual game, and you have to pay attention to at most one number of your own, and help from others, that’s it. To top it off, the black swan mechanic helps develop the story in a completely random fashion (which is very realistic) but still pulls from the past sessions and lore to make it relevant and somewhat consistent. You know that something is going to happen, but you know that inevitably it will happen in line with the rest of the story. It makes for some pretty great plot developments. 

    The last thing I would like to mention about the mechanics is the journaling.  Everyone has a different style of journaling, and often they write it in the voice of their character.  This makes read throughs and black swans very interesting, because you’ll catch a line or a story from a different character’s perspective, and it makes you question how that interaction actually went down. This coupled with the vision mechanic makes for some very interesting interactions, and developments. 

    As to the story itself, it was a lot of fun.  You can spend quite a lot of time on a pretty simple scene and still feel like it is full of action, questions, and plot development. Several of our sessions took place over several hours but only really covered a couple of minutes in actual game time, but you didn’t really notice it, and it was still pretty satisfying. There are several different ways to play characters in this game. You can defy your traits and drives and constantly be putting yourself into confusing circumstances, or you can play them up and call upon a whole new set of crises. My character in particular stayed super true to her ideals and self and ended up in a place that she really didn’t want to be, even though she did everything just about perfect for her traits.  On the other hand, another character really played with his traits, and ended up getting exactly what he wanted.  But I could absolutely see it working the other way around, making for a bunch of story possibilities in the future. 

    Altogether this was a very satisfying and productive play test and I’m looking forward to  more!

Bryan

Crescendo Review.

How would I describe a game like Crescendo? In short it is fun unique form of table top RPG that I have not seen the likes of before. It is extremely different from D&D removing the combat heavy focus of gameplay for a game centrally focused on character development. In fact, the game the heavily reminds me of Burning Wheel, another game that the Nathan has GMed, and that I have had the pleasure to play with him. However, I think personally that Crescendo improves upon Burning Wheel. For instance, the belief and instincts mechanic on Burning Wheel can feel a bit overwhelming, while the drive system of Crescendo is stream-lined and far more manageable. Another thing that has jumped up at me, is dice rolling system. Instead of rolling a standard D20 for everything like in D&D, this game has you rolling different types of dice depending on your stats. (BTW the highest dice I have rolled in this game is a D12)

The Story of Crescendo has been a blast. While Nathan at times tries a more hands off approach to storytelling, allowing for more player input then some other GMs would, He still manages to weave together an epic that keeps players coming back. One of my personal favorite moments in the game so far has been when Roisto, one of the PCs threw the Captain of the Dragonslayers overboard while the palming the Shard of Typhon (BLOGGER’S NOTE: The Shard of Typhon is a Macguffin that can bring back Typhon, the king of monsters, radically changing the world) over to him. The result led to complete chaos where we realized we may have just doomed everyone. Of course, this wouldn’t have been possible without one Crescendos most central features, The Black Swan. This concept of reading our own personal journal experience, (which is another thing that make this game unique; taking notes of what your character is doing has an actual gameplay mechanic to it) makes the twist feel more appreciative since the player actively contribute to it. 

To sum up, Crescendo is a game that I highly recommend to anyone wanting to try something new. It forces you to take your character seriously and you’ll be surprised what kind of changes your character and yourself will go through 

Thank you to three of you. Crescendo is a much stronger game because of your generosity with your time! 

If you want to see where Crescendo is at now click here to join the Discord and get access to the alpha version!