The Fall of the King of Sota: Chapter One

 

So we got a limitation on these session reports: the players are still in real-time, plotting against each other, so I'm going to have be general. I will record my findings as non-spoilery as I can, even at the cost of "trust me bro". Someone wants further records, I can climb through my Discord DMs.

Ransu 21-27

So this was the first week where people started sending me orders. This was amazing to watch. More than half the players had moments where they went "Wait I can really do this?" and I simply said "Yes, and here's how long it takes for you to do so". There were multiple light bulb moments where players went "Oh wait I really do have total autonomy here". 

It was a very strange moment. I have prided myself on player choice for years. Years. You can go through all the campaigns I have posted on this blog. They're all more or less "self-directed" campaigns with players. But... just handing them 1:1 time and making PVP inherently freed the players, and they've been having a blast.

So what did they do? So far? Well, we got Laurentius trying to cause an overthrow of the Church of Elpida with his own "proper" version, and all the aristocrats he's pissing off there. Of the ten people involved, he's dragged about half of them into his decision to publicly decry the Church and the nobility as robbers.

And then we got about the other half of the group, who decided that Cleft Mountain (which is definitely haunted) is the place to go to! Whether it be Montsers who want a lair, or Heroes who want to go climbing for lost lore in the middle of a total meltdown... yeah. They just decided to do a dungeon delve. Time to pull out Appendix A, or Veins of the Earth!

And I Shouldn't Have Been Surprised By This

It is a known fact that killing people must be systemically enforced in the military. If there aren't officers right behind you, telling you to kill the enemy, right now, we know for a fact that people are highly unlikely to do it. We've recreated battles. We know that people kill a lot less than we think, because in those recreations that amount of deaths that happen are way higher than the actual death records we have. People talk a big game, but when it comes down to it... even with training, we don't want to enter into conflict and kill.

And yet conflict drives games. It is what makes them fun: conflict without the horrifying consequences of real life. This is literally why game rules exist, I am starting to suspect.  Because, once the players were put in a situation where the rules pushed them into conflict, and the Weaver assured them it was okay to do so... people started going off the rails, especially the Monster players.

Chapter One

And Then Chapter One happened. And holy shit. Everything that was built up, on that Discord server, suddenly exploded.

Laurentius just went apeshit... and was rewarded for it.

Mother Elise tried to keep the peace... and accidentally burned Lady Marie.

Lady Marie walked in with the best of intentions, and bungled things so hilariously badly that it was practically the highlight of the session... until Laurentinus set an old woman on fire to prove a point.

 

The previous issues with 1:1 time I was having went right out the window, as soon as PVP was baked into Crescendo's system. This is absolutely addictive. I want more. I need more.

I DON'T WANT TO QUIT.