Impact!: Session One

So, in order to understand what happened this session I need to go over the incredibly nasty history of Krakeru and The Lone Keep.

Who is Krakeru, you may ask?

Krakeru, a dark elf cultist, was the beginning villain of The Undertow. He was the end result of generations of inbreeding and murder, in an effort to create the dark elf messiah called the Yetekaida. He raped his own daughter, the main character Mikansia (who was played by Lena), and tried to break her will to make her join him in overthrowing the cult that had so defined his life, The Lone Keep. Mikansia refused his offer, killed him, and then found The Lone Keep (which was orbiting above their planet) and knocked it out of the sky. 

Well, inside The Lone Keep were dozens, possibly dozens of Eldritch Eggs. Eldritch Eggs are gigantic structures that are formed when a person fully gives into despair, causing a link between Rayona, the Dark Ocean (what most people think of as The Far Realm), to appear. Eldritch Eggs can allow the dead to come back to life.

When The Lone Keep hit the ground all of the Eldritch Eggs within were pulverized, filling the atmosphere with a substance known for linking the living back with the dead. 

The last time we saw Krakeru he had been grabbed by his long'time foe Akseli to aid Mikansia in saving the elven kingdoms. 

This session is a week after The Lone Keep hit the ground, killing four armies on the continent of Armo. Krakeru, who is a ghost, hasn't been grabbed by Akseli yet. That's a little while away. There was a massive four-way war going on between minotaurs, orcs, wolves, and roden. In the climactic battle the Lone Keep smashed down, killing almost all of those present at the battle.

Before the session we got Lena's character cleared up: his name was Tekoshai, an orc who was renowned for his luck. He was named because he was the only one to survive The Lone Keep falling into the battleground.

Tekoshai

B1. I will check out the structure the sky devils crashed to look for information and a suitable trophy for my collection”

B2. Minotaurs are only useful at the end of a harness or spit. 

B3. Those who aren’t causing pain are enduring it; always make sure you’re the first. 

I1. If someone challenges the hierarchy, put him in his place immediately. 

I2. Always use others when expedient

I3. Always protect yourself at all costs

Traits: Life is Death, Born to Rule Them All, Enemy of the Sun, Silent Hatred, Intense Hatred, Savage Consequences, Unrelenting Savagery, Where There’s a Whip, Sixth Sense, Sadistic

Last time I'd talked about burning up Idiota, the minotaur. He's an outcast minotaur who has just been  informed that somehow he's the one now in charge of the united wolven packs. He's not surprised, unlike the rest of the world.

Idiota

B1) The tower of mass destruction must have weapons of mass destruction hidden inside.

B2) These strangers are out to get me

B3) I will not be persuaded from believing I'm the rightful heir to the throne.

I1) when startled attack

I2) before entering a room, scan for danger

I3) once in a room scan for all possible exits

Traits

Elves are bastards, rightful heir to the throne, Bando brand, crust dwellers ( Minotaur tunnelers) brand, wandering soul brand

The remaing nations sent out Idiota, Tekoshai with his gang of orcs, and five roden, to investigate The Lone Keep. Which was somehow standing, none the worse for wear from falling from the atmosphere. Idiota muttered this was clearly the orcs' fault. Tekoshai's whip came out.

You know what I can't find in the Burning Wheel book, even now?

The freaking whip skill.

Spent five minutes trying to find it after being told by Lena that whip wasn't in a single orc lifepath. I just sorta assumed there was one. If there is and we missed it let me know! I decided to make it an Agility versus Agility test. Which Tekoshai won, overwhelmingly. Idiota stepped in, trying to grab the whip, but got cracked acrost the back. "The name's Tekoshai. Best to get used to saying it, cause I'm in charge", snapped Tekoshai. Idiota didn't argue.

As they got closer the dread of the Keep affected all but Tekoshai; those Steel tests were rough. But one good Command roll saw Tekoshai bringing the whip to everyone, forcing everyone back towards the Keep. It is here I must apologize to Will: he's genuinely one of the funniest people I've had the pleasure of knowing, and had Lena and I rolling in the aisles the whole session. This all sounds very dark and drab, but apparently the spirit of early Spider-Man has taken full possession of Will, because getting him to shut up in the middle of my dark and serious prose is impossible. And absolutely hilarious.

Anyways, so Idiota and the other orc were going to check out the Lone Keep, while the others waited. Idiota told the orc that he would turn on him given the first opportunity. The orc felt likewise. Idiota noticed that the Lone Keep stones were constantly shifting. There was a large opening where a portcullis used to be. The orc went in through the opening, trembling.

Idiota didn't.

Idiota came back to Tekoshai. "You said I needed to find a way in. Didn't say I needed to go in it myself." Cursing, Tekoshai sent Idiota and another orc back.  When they got there Idiota saw an elf standing in the opening, who invited him in. Minotaurs had been given the genophage treatment by elves millennia ago, so Idiota told the elf to fuck off, as he was no friend of any elf, ever. The elf protested his involvement with such an enterprise. But he was willing to help restore the minotaurs to glory, if Idiota would only listen to him. Idiota waved to Tekoshai and the rest to come join him, and told the elf to go on.

The introduced himself as Krakeru.

He invited Idiota into The Lone Keep. What followed was five minutes of Will cracking joke after joke about how stupid Idiota was for going in. And then Idiota went in, as Lena and I were starting to get stitches. But only after making sure there were four exits in the next room, which was extremely large. Tekoshai came up to the entrance but didn't go himself, choosing to listen by the opening. 

Krakeru offered Idiota a weapon that would allow the minotaurs to claim the glory they deserved. Idiota said he wanted to see the weapon. Krakeru vanished, and then reappeared with a vial. Opening it, he offered it to Idiota, who drank it. A minotaur who reminded Idiota of himself appeared. The strange minotaur congratulated Idiota, for it was time to restore the minotaur race.

Krakeru appeared next to Tekoshai, who tried to stab him with his spear out of surprise.  The spear went straight through Krakeru, who informed Tekoshai he was dead. Tekoshai, suspicious of the sky devil (And Lena trying to laugh off the dark humor of becoming besties with... well... Krakeru...) asked what that meant. Why was Krakeru here, if he was dead? Krakeru said that all he wished was to provide his weapons to the living... provided they were of one mind. Undivided.

What followed was five minutes of Lena and Will asking what the hell that meant, while I kept dropping ever greater hints that Krakeru would only deal with one faction; the one that still lived. After about a minute I kept dropping hints simply because I found it funny.

But eventually the roden charged the orcs. While Tekoshai dealt with all five roden at once, one of the orcs ran after Idiota, who ran into the Keep itself. Tekoshai killed the five roden, impaling the last one to watch him suffer. Grinning hideously, Tekoshai took an axe and sawed off the roden's foot, relishing every twitch of anguish from the roden, who couldn't scream due to a spear in the gut.  Hanging the foot off his belt, Tekoshai told Krakeru they were all of one mind. Krakeru aproved, and Tekoshai found he didn't hate this sky devil so much.

Idiota found himself in a large room, where ghostly eldritch eggs were materializing (they normally take months to years) into depressive cups in the ground. Idiota asked what this was. The minotaur he was with said this was the beginning.

Suikhulahde: Session Seven

So this is a bit of a strange situation. There are some times when you're playing Burning Wheel and you find yourself wincing, because you know exactly what the character would do but you, the player, do not want to do the thing. I think we can say pretty safely this is Lena's current experience with Nomi. Nomi is off on a journey to break the space/time continuum... something Lena didn't think was a good idea. I mean, I don't either. But you play what's before you! I basically said we should play it out and see what happens, keeping in mind the boundaries we had set up.

Yes, that's foreshadowing to that getting a little weird. Boy this act is getting surreal.

Nomi

B1. I don’t care how weird Dream is, I’m going through it until I’m able to get to Constantine in time.

B2. I will direct Olivia’s focus to Anneli and get out as fast as possible. 

B3. My personal life is no one’s business but my own, pry at your own risk. 

I1. Always bend the truth for personal advantage

I2. When in trouble always try to talk my way out first

I3. Always disregard others’ personal feelings

Traits

Educated, Call of the Sea, Spite, Deceptive, Compulsive Liar, Callous, Charismatic, Memory’s Influence, Bitter, Guarded

Anneli

B1. Giving aid to the corrupt Aloysius was my greatest shame, but I can atone by saving Constantine.

B2. When I failed to see through Nomi's treachery, I failed Fingar and Thungl.

B3. I don't have time for my past when the world is ending.

I1. Never reveal my intentions.

I2. Always take command.

I3. Always give Nomi a space to speak.

Traits

Call of the Island, Righteous, Mortally Wounded in the Head | Shaky Hands | Slightly Clumsy, Haunted, Commanding Aura, Driven (Pilot)

Anneli and Nomi got to the strange Island from Session Three, just as before. Anneli and Nomi made excuses and headed to the woods, supposedly out to look for deer. Nomi told Anneli how Sydanelma worked (cutting a hole into Dream) and handed it over to Anneli. Anneli didn't realize that elves with Spite were different. Nomi, flustered, told Anneli that could be explained later. Open the portal! So Anneli, holding Sydanelma, focused on the deaths of Fingar and Thungal, and how dai thought dai had failed them. Anneli cut a hole into Dream (I finally gave it a proper name! Havay!)

Olivia the Thunderer, Nomi's and Anneli's legendary mother (not to mention dead), was standing on the side of Dream, glaring at her daughters. I called for Steel tests. And Andy and Lena screwed that up, royally.

An uppercut knocked Anneli on dail rear. Olivia backhanded Nomi so hard dai fell backward. Sydanelma flew out of Nomi's hand, cutting through a nearby tree. I should have handed out Superficial wounds. I really have. Damnit. Olivia told them they were crazy for what they were planning. She told them they couldn't save Constantine. Dark shadows began to appear around her.

I challenged Lena and Andy to a Duel of Wits, in Big Deal mode.

Wait, Burning Wheel Gold Revised doesn't have the Big Deal mode?

No. Nope. That's a good rule. We're keeping that.

Olivia's Statement of Intent: You cannot save Constantine. I got 16 hp (yeah, I know, that's not the term, but I can't remember it right now)

Anneli and Nomi's Statement of Intent: You will be proud of our efforts. They had 15 hp (see above)

And here's what we scripted!

Olivia:  Obfuscate | Incite | Dismiss

A&N: Rebuttal | Obfuscate | Point

Now, I'll freely admit that I'm a bastard when it comes to my plotting here. Oliva is dead; she has a full set of powers the living do not have. Olivia also does not have that many scruples, even now, as she's passed onto Seitseman (yes, Lena, I named Heaven too). So I'm throwing around a good many more dice than you'd think. 

The shadows coalesced into the people Nomi and Anneli had killed, particularly Nomi. They whispered that Constantine wasn't the only collateral damage; why not use Sydanelma to help them, too? Nomi replied to the ghosts that they were trying to honor the deaths they'd perpetrated by saving Constantine, who could help keep the Argentum Empire from falling apart further.  Anneli scoffed at the shades, telling Olivia to face her children directly. Lena rolled against me, and I won with Obfuscate. Huzzah I get an extra success on the next interaction!

Olivia wasn't impressed. Her daughters were phenomenally selfish, thinking their own cause more important than others' needs for their dead loved ones. The shades asked if their value was truly less to Anneli and Nomi. Anneli began asking what value was; Andy truly delivered a brilliant Obfuscation that beggars description. Nomi said that, maybe if Olivia had been a bit more loyal to her own family, then none of this would have happened in the first place! Olivia was a hypocrite for talking about loyalty, of all things. And this is where I got tripped up. I thought of Incite as making Anneli make the Steel test, canceling out the next action, giving me an open shot with Dismiss. Even if I didn't knock them out in one shot I'd be able to avoid the incoming blow. But Andy pointed out (logically) that if Nomi was the next actor it would be Nomi to make the Steel test. And I wasn't about to be that level of unfair.

Of course Nomi passed the test, dai has a freaking B7. Jeez

Crap.

So what was supposed to be getting a free shot became a broadside exchange. And believe me, this is where I went and was unfair. Olivia peeled back the mask of reality and showed them everything. The Dahaka, protector of the timeline ("You are in a test, barely allowed by the Dahaka, Constantine is outside those bounds"). The fact that Dream could connect to all points in time, which meant that they could use Sydanelma to save all the people they were responsible for killing. All. And they were only going to save Constantine? Everyone matters. Nomi, trying to block all that out, said that had nothing to do with saving Constantine.  I did 11 points of damage with my Dismiss. And they got 13. 13! What the heck??

They scripted a Point, of course. Anneli told the stunned Olivia that the smallest things could become the biggest, it was just a matter of perspective; Constantine was everything to Nomi, and to Anneli, and therefore needed to be saved. Yeah, Andy got that. Olivia smiled, and then said if they were going to save Constantine they couldn't force it. No manipulation. That was my major compromise: they couldn't just save Constantine, or try to force his brain from falling apart, like they'd done with Fingar. They had to accept what Constantine's decision was, period. Even if it meant letting him die. Andy and Lena agreed.

Nomi got Sydanelma. Anneli and Olivia shared a significant glance, and Anneli felt a bit more at peace with dail mother. Olivia transported them to Constantine herself. Constantine was sitting on his bed. It confused Anneli that someone so noble could love the two-faced Nomi. Constantine saw them. And he remembered. He remembered being murdered by Aloysius and the despair of his wife. And he screamed. An Eldritch Egg, which is a manifestation of despair and link to Rayona, the Dark Ocean, began to appear. Much, much, much too quickly. Constantine was having a breakdown from the two timelines converging in his head. 

They don't have much time to save him, before the Eldritch Egg completely scoops him out and can manifest fully into the world. It shouldn't be moving this quickly, but there you have it. Session Eight is looking brutal.

Leaving Torchbearer Behind

Boy, this is not the post that I wanted to write. Nor was it something I expected to. But I will not be playing Torchbearer from here on out. Three things stick out to me: being told what to play, the advancement system, and The Grind. I've wrestled with these points for awhile, but I've found I can't compromise with them. This isn't me trash-talking Torchbearer. It's a fantastically designed game, with designers that I have a great deal of respect for. I'm just processing about a game that I wanted to like, but don't. If you do, please, have fun with it!

I am going to stick this paragraph right here to hopefully soften things. BWHQ games have a lot of extremely passionate supporters. I am one of them. And Torchbearer deserves it! I love how grounded and rooted the game can be. I like the incredibly gritty carrying system. Hell, I love it.  I love how they simplified conflicts while adding some additional stakes from Mouse Guard. I love the jokes that spring up around putting alcohol in your skin, because God knows you'll need to drink a little bit in real life from some of the bullshit that can happen to you.

But rules support conversations. And the conversations that come out of Torchbearer are not the ones I want to have.

I don't like very specific frameworks, by and large; I don't like being told what to care about. Torchbearer is about just exploring dungeons. Don't get me wrong, Torchbearer has a lot of variance and depth on characters! The new town variations are really cool, as are a number of the variant rules. That stuff looks interesting and I'm tempted to steal a lot of those structures for other games. 2e's instructions on building a dungeon are very well thought out; again, very stealable. But it is unabashedly a game about exploring dungeons. All the rest of those juicy mechanics is for dungeon exploration. And yes, that seems to trip off the "Don't tell me what to do!" instinct I have buried deep in my soul. Call it ornery, call it unreasonable, it is whatever it is.

I adore Burning Wheel's advancement system. There is a level of freedom to that system that, properly utilized, creates some really interesting puzzles. Since success and failure don't matter to the system, by and large, you're free to try all sorts of crazy things; you will get that stat or skill up. Torchbearer and Mouse Guard have another system, which I like a whole lot less. You instead have to get a number of successes and failures to improve your stats and skills.  I just... I don't like it as much. It's really that simple. There are things in Mouse Guard that make me put up with the system, but Torchbearer doesn't have the Player and GM turns going for it, which are simple and powerful ways of shifting narrative control. By proxy that means I don't like the Traits system all that much either; it's proven to be unintuitive to most of my players. Burning Wheel compensates its players by having a lot more rewards, meaning that the late game ramps up in power significantly as mastery of the system creates some truly impressive surges of power, a la temporary (and later permanent) shade-shifting. One could argue that tapping your Nature is similar, but I think it actually happens too frequently to be considered a rush of adrenaline you'll remember later. And I think those rushes of adrenaline are necessary to complex and difficult games like BWHQ's fair.

But the nail in the coffin is The Grind. I just can't do it. I like it when people roll. I like mechanics, I want them to generate mechanical inputs! I don't feel that with Torchbearer. Each and every roll gets you closer to earning punishing conditions, meaning that it's a downward spiral. Now, my players were learning to manage that situation and gauge when something was too risky and whatnot. And that was... interesting? But then they weren't advancing. Which then meant that they continued to get the crap kicked out of them.

Now, there's bound to be a number of people who adore Torchbearer who are going "YOU GOT IT ALL WRONG". You've already got a half dozen ways to tell me how to learn to adapt to the system. BWHQ games are meant to be taken on their own terms and all that.

That's fair.

I hear you.

I do this with Burning Wheel. And not very charitably at that.

But here's the thing. 

This is a game. And it's meant to be played over 20 or so sessions, which is a long time. If I'm going to invest that much time in even one campaign I have to be completely on board with the game. And that means little, irrational, things matter. I have to want to adapt. And I don't. Torchbearer is a great game and it deserves all the success it's gotten, and then some! I love that this game exists.

But it's not my game.

And that's okay.

All the best.

Revisiting Trophy Gold

 

So I was really happy with Trophy Gold after the first campaign. I had run what I imagined to be the perfect OSR game: lots of puzzles, scary monsters, and so much blood. I. Was. Happy.

I think Will may still be sitting in a corner, gibbering in incoherent ramblings of triggerdom.

When I asked my players what was wrong (because the rest of them were in shock as well) it was explained to me that they had no idea that was coming. These were storygamers: characters needed to matter, a narrative needed to be forming in the fiction, and so on. Kinda hard to form an acceptable narrative when everyone's dying left and right! I reveled in my blood and told them that Trophy Gold was not for them.

Alas, I am not a complete asshole. 

Cause I wanted to play again. And I knew that in order to do that I would need players. And those players were not going to try the game again. I mean, I could find another group, but I wanted to see if maybe I'd missed something. A negative reaction that strong means I may have done something wrong, regardless of how much I enjoyed it. So I had to ask the question, if only to satisfy my at-times crippling self-doubt.

And before someone says it, yes there are objective markers on whether or not you're running a game as was intended. Whether or not you enjoy how you're doing things is, as always, a subjective thing. I am making no claim as to whether or not "YOU'RE BAD' for sticking with the intent of a design or not. I am claiming that I find that objective reality important to my enjoyment, however. The sanity of that importance may be argued. But I have what I have. And so I decided to look it up. Turns out that The Gauntlet folks have released a number of podcasts on the subject. I've listened to almost all of them.

Dear God I did it all wrong.

First off, Trophy Gold is not an OSR game in the sense that many of those games are. Lethality is supposed to be rare. The game does not entirely hinge upon gold gotten, although the more gold you get the faster your character advances and heals. Trophy Gold is an OSR game because of the narrative built outside the game, as OSR games are mostly the story of the players braving the dungeon, with characters as avatars. There are explicitly two stories being told in Trophy Gold: the story of the characters making their way through this awful awful place they found, and the players trying to screw each other in the darkest and (sometimes) most hilarious ways they can imagine. Two thirds of the rolls have you polling the group, asking either "what could go wrong" or "what do you want to go wrong". 

Yes, there is a difference. 

Almost every time a roll comes up you're polling the group for bad stuff. This has the effect of letting the players be a lot more okay with bad stuff happening, as it's their ideas being selected from, almost all the time. Even if your bad idea isn't selected by the GM or another player, be patient; you can learn your group and sharpen your bad idea pitches. There's a level of collaborativeness that I've not really seen since Tenra Bansho Zero... in a system with half the crunch. Which means all you're focusing on is this delicious back and forth. It's a multiple-way game of chicken as everyone goads each other into a game of mutually assured destruction.

It's amazing.

And I never would have done it if my players didn't have the guts to tell me "No, we didn't like that." Turns out that listening and re-examining pays off! Who knew?

Impact!: Making the Minotaur

So the original idea was to burn up the whole stock, life paths and all. And I got a setting done, more or less, not to mention a general idea of minotaur society. I'd been leaning on the Monster Burner as heavily as the tome deserves and couldn't wait to do some more.

Real life is a bitch. More specifically, work. Some stuff's going on with that and I've got absolutely no extra brain space. I contacted Will and asked him if we could just burn up an example, with the societal stuff I'd come up with. Will, who also has been rather swamped, agreed. Grabbing the Monster Burner we sat down and went after it.

So in the overarching idea of the setting, about 1500 years ago The Flame, source of all goodness for everyone on the planet, was lit. Everyone has some conception of this event, regardless of their opinion of such event. Minotaurs decided that they would find the Flame. And they did. 1500 years of tunneling later, and minotaurs can get pretty much anywhere they want to go and jealously guard those tunnels. 

Here's the Traits we agreed upon:

Character Traits

Elf Hater (Minotaurs were were rendered almost sterile by the elves, eons ago. Minotaurs have never forgotten. Or forgiven), Bovine Head, Cloven Feet, Flame-Oriented, Taciturn

Dice Traits

Massive Stature (MW Base 6, all weapons at +1 length), Infallible Underground Sense (can't get lost while underground), Massive Horns (IMS TBD)

Minotaurs have what are called Comesos, cities on the surface where they breed and guard the entrances to their tunnels. Minotaurs are a rather porous society, practically caste-less. They view life as one continuous journey, and that change is a natural part of that journey. That being said, minotaurs are extremely insular... except for one particular comeso, Bando, is known for frequent trade deals with Great Wolves.

Somehow Will's minotaur managed to be the head of a Great Wolf pack, thanks to some obscure agreement that pack had made with Bando, way back. Nobody remembered it or cared until the Lone Keep wiped out all of the Alpha Pack. Somehow, some way, Will's character is the inheritor of a promise made long ago that nobody really took seriously. Except now. And now everyone's pissed off.

As we continued on, we discussed the idea of branding. I posited that Minotaurs, needing very little light to travel, would resort to as many non-audio cues as possible. So I suggested that minotaurs would brand themselves the same way prisoners supposedly tattoo themselves. With one look you get all the relevant information you need about where that minotaur has been, what his skills are, and what others in those circles think of him. I kinda figured that each minotaur lifepath would get you an additional branding, as well as a permanent affiliation with that particular group.

I gotta tell ya, folks, God blessed me with an embarrassment of riches. Cause Will just took it and ran with it. His minotaur had four tattoos, kinda approximating four life paths. Will's PC had been born in Bando, which automatically made him a pariah to the rest of minotaur society. He tried to become a tunneller (empurrador), only to get into a fight and exiled after someone called him "Half-Breed" to his face, which references the common myth that minotaurs from Bando fuck wolves. He was given the trasa (exile) brand, and has been wandering for probably ten years now. 

Numbers

Oh, right, you're probably wanting to know what we did with stats and stuff, right? Fair enough. Now I've got a lot of thoughts about the Monster Burner, but the principle one is that it's freaking useful to have after a week at work when your brains have become jelly. So, say what you will about "You can do this yourself", but I've got news: sometimes you really can't. And I think the Monster Burner should be around for that, for everyone, not just me and whoever else got to buy the damn book before it went out of print.

Here's the stats. As per the book, we went through each and every stat and asked, as frankly as we could, what we thought Will's minotaur should have.

Will B3: This one was a bit tough to nail down but Will wanted a weakness of some sort. We certainly weren't going for a 2, and 4 just seemed... excessive... for what Will wanted to do with the character. He wanted someone who would grow into being a leader, not a leader now!

Perception B5: A creature raised to pay attention to silent tunnels just ain't gonna have a B3, folks. I couldn't really justify a B4, either. 

Agility B3: The entry literally talks about fat fingers and big hands. Not even a question.

 Speed B4: Literally the average. We didn't have an opinion, so the minotaur gets a B4.

Power B6: I wanted a B7, but the rules literally forbid it. Will was fine with it, but c'mon, the entry for B7 is for an ox, and I thought that appropriate. And hilarious.

 Forte B6: No way no how was a minotaur going to be less durable than a dwarf, by the tables. Absolutely not.  And yeah, that gives the PC a Mortal Wound of a friggin' B12. Gonna be tough as hell to kill, that's for sure.

Oh, and the Minotaur's name? Idiota. I stopped and asked him to confirm it, which he did. The minotaur was named such because even his own folks at Bando didn't like him. They had sent him to the tunnels out of sheer spite... where he'd gotten into a fight and was exile from there. Bando had always told its minotaurs they were the heirs, with no one really defining what they were an heir to. 

And then the wolves came.

And then Idiota had some purpose in life.