luke
04-04-2005, 07:57 PM
So we had what we call an "interim session" last night at Game Headquarters. A session in which we tie up loose ends. In the old days, we did this via roleplaying and GM fiat. No longer!
Danny, Pete and Chris picked up their ten-year old uber-powerful characters and we updated them to the Revision.
In their previous campaign arc, the characters had just raided the treasury of a vastly powerful underworld organization. For their first time in their careers as adventurers, rebels, captains and leaders, they were rich. Filthy rich.
So we started off our game last night with me announcing (GM fiat!): "You've all got a B10 Resources."
"How about G10?" asked Pete. "How do you get a G10?"
"If one character took all the wealth for himself, I'd give a G10, but since you are dividing it up, it's a B10 each."
Why B10? Because as the GM, I wanted these characters to be as wealthy as they could be. A deliberate choice on my part.
Each player then produced a "to-do" list for their character. Each character is a recently ennobled Duke and had been granted huge tracts of land -- except for Pete's character. His Duchy consisted of a major port city and a smaller parcel of land.
Danny set out to build a temple to his religion and a great castle. Two Ob 10 tests. He begged help from Pete and Chris, but they wouldn't give up their dice unless he promised to spend a Deeds point. He agreed. Suddenly he had 24 dice to play with. I informed him that he could up the obstacle and make his temple even more grand and opulent. He ended up taking an Ob 15 Resouces test. Off the charts!
He failed the test miserably. I invoked the Gift of Kindness rule: He gets what he's after, but he's got to accept the Tax. If he doesn't want the Tax, he can use the Cut Your Losses rule and decline the Gift of Kindness and take reduced Tax...
But Chris and Pete were howling. Danny's bad roll was going to bankrupt them. The temple would be built, but they were ALL going to lose 7D to their Resources. Such is the cost of help with Resources.
Danny was flustered. His first roll of the night and he botched it. ...So he spent a second Deeds point to reroll his failures. OUCH. But it got his temple built, and saved their collective fortune.
Pete had another fun angle: His character had extracted an agreement from the other two. They had agreed to invest in his city, and left him with capital to dispose of on his own. As the Resources dice started to get Taxed, Danny and Chris started to grumble.
You see, Pete was rebuilding his war-torn city and luring in other investments, but he was doing it with Danny and Chris' Resources (via Help). Every time he lost a die, they lost a die toward their own endeavors.
It amounted to a great synergy and teamwork. And it felt very much like an economy. What happened in the city affected the outlying duchies, and vice versa. There was a great moment where Pete had to spend a Fate point in order not to completely bankrupt Chris!
Once their Resources had be drained, it came time to recover. This was really fun (for sadistic ol' me). In order to Recover your resources, you have to work at it. You test an appropriate skill (the performance of your job, really). The obstacle to recover is 1+ the number of dice lost. Heh. Chris and Danny had lost 7D each! Pete lost 5D to tax.
Now running a city or a duchy isn't the same as riding circuit or running a fruit stand. Administration, Bureaucracy, or Estate Management are really the only viable skills. Pete's character had a B5 Bureaucracy. He crowed in triumph. "I knew all those years in the Zirconian Bureaucracy would pay off!" Chris grumbled even louder now. He didn't have any of the necessary skills. His character is a tremendous battlefield leader, and a powerful (if mad) sorcerer to boot, but he's not an administrator.
So they helped each other. The narration/color involved the characters traveling to each other's estates and pouring over the accounts and books. Again, in a few rolls and a small bit of roleplay, we had a great sense of teamwork and comraderie. And, important for me, I think they felt like there was some stake and some legitimacy to their characters' new positions.
Later, we had a conflict where Chris' character was seeking out one of his most loyal friends (an NPC). Unfortunately, their characters were on a deadline and there was no time to conduct a thorough search. After a few minutes of IC arguing, I called for a Duel of Wits. Chris readily agreed (it was either a DoW or drop it).
Neither Danny nor Chris were familiar with the rules, but after about 10 or 15 minutes we had the argument resolved (via a compromise). I was much pleased. This was the kind of argument that, in the past, would have absorbed hours of game time as the players stubbornly butted heads.
The final element of last night's game ended up being pure roleplay. Which was interesting, because I was expecting a massive Duel of Wits. The characters traveled across a wide sea to the southern polar glacier to make good on a promise to three powerful necromancers.
Once they had paid the debt they owed to the black wizards, Pete immediately reopened negotiations. He wanted answers to new questions. I won't bore you with our gory campaign details, but suffice to say that they were big questions whose answers would have a profound effect on the game.
I named a price: They had to capture and return to the necromancers a certain dragon. You should have seen Pete's eyes light up! He agreed readily. He didn't know how he was going to pull that off, but he was eager to try. He's such a glory hound.
Chris asked the necromancers to summon the shade of a powerful sorcerer who forged the spear and other artifacts he bears. The price? The safe capture of the rogue demon which Chris, Danny and Pete's characters are currently hunting. Their nemesis -- bound and remanded to the necromancers! Muhahaah!
I figured we'd debate the price. They weren't interested. The most cool aspect of the session was that they realized if the price were so high, the power of the answers must be tremendous. So tremendous as to fundamentally change the characters. Danny and Chris both openly debated whether or not such a change would be a good thing -- beneficial to the world at large -- and questioned whether or not they even wanted such a thing.
It was simply an excellent "dealing with the devil" moment. It crystalized years of campaign play: We know we are about to learn a great secret we have labored for, but which will only unlock an even greater question. We know this might destroy us or change us irrevocably. Is this the right path? Is there another way?
The answers will be had next session.
Hotness.
-L
Danny, Pete and Chris picked up their ten-year old uber-powerful characters and we updated them to the Revision.
In their previous campaign arc, the characters had just raided the treasury of a vastly powerful underworld organization. For their first time in their careers as adventurers, rebels, captains and leaders, they were rich. Filthy rich.
So we started off our game last night with me announcing (GM fiat!): "You've all got a B10 Resources."
"How about G10?" asked Pete. "How do you get a G10?"
"If one character took all the wealth for himself, I'd give a G10, but since you are dividing it up, it's a B10 each."
Why B10? Because as the GM, I wanted these characters to be as wealthy as they could be. A deliberate choice on my part.
Each player then produced a "to-do" list for their character. Each character is a recently ennobled Duke and had been granted huge tracts of land -- except for Pete's character. His Duchy consisted of a major port city and a smaller parcel of land.
Danny set out to build a temple to his religion and a great castle. Two Ob 10 tests. He begged help from Pete and Chris, but they wouldn't give up their dice unless he promised to spend a Deeds point. He agreed. Suddenly he had 24 dice to play with. I informed him that he could up the obstacle and make his temple even more grand and opulent. He ended up taking an Ob 15 Resouces test. Off the charts!
He failed the test miserably. I invoked the Gift of Kindness rule: He gets what he's after, but he's got to accept the Tax. If he doesn't want the Tax, he can use the Cut Your Losses rule and decline the Gift of Kindness and take reduced Tax...
But Chris and Pete were howling. Danny's bad roll was going to bankrupt them. The temple would be built, but they were ALL going to lose 7D to their Resources. Such is the cost of help with Resources.
Danny was flustered. His first roll of the night and he botched it. ...So he spent a second Deeds point to reroll his failures. OUCH. But it got his temple built, and saved their collective fortune.
Pete had another fun angle: His character had extracted an agreement from the other two. They had agreed to invest in his city, and left him with capital to dispose of on his own. As the Resources dice started to get Taxed, Danny and Chris started to grumble.
You see, Pete was rebuilding his war-torn city and luring in other investments, but he was doing it with Danny and Chris' Resources (via Help). Every time he lost a die, they lost a die toward their own endeavors.
It amounted to a great synergy and teamwork. And it felt very much like an economy. What happened in the city affected the outlying duchies, and vice versa. There was a great moment where Pete had to spend a Fate point in order not to completely bankrupt Chris!
Once their Resources had be drained, it came time to recover. This was really fun (for sadistic ol' me). In order to Recover your resources, you have to work at it. You test an appropriate skill (the performance of your job, really). The obstacle to recover is 1+ the number of dice lost. Heh. Chris and Danny had lost 7D each! Pete lost 5D to tax.
Now running a city or a duchy isn't the same as riding circuit or running a fruit stand. Administration, Bureaucracy, or Estate Management are really the only viable skills. Pete's character had a B5 Bureaucracy. He crowed in triumph. "I knew all those years in the Zirconian Bureaucracy would pay off!" Chris grumbled even louder now. He didn't have any of the necessary skills. His character is a tremendous battlefield leader, and a powerful (if mad) sorcerer to boot, but he's not an administrator.
So they helped each other. The narration/color involved the characters traveling to each other's estates and pouring over the accounts and books. Again, in a few rolls and a small bit of roleplay, we had a great sense of teamwork and comraderie. And, important for me, I think they felt like there was some stake and some legitimacy to their characters' new positions.
Later, we had a conflict where Chris' character was seeking out one of his most loyal friends (an NPC). Unfortunately, their characters were on a deadline and there was no time to conduct a thorough search. After a few minutes of IC arguing, I called for a Duel of Wits. Chris readily agreed (it was either a DoW or drop it).
Neither Danny nor Chris were familiar with the rules, but after about 10 or 15 minutes we had the argument resolved (via a compromise). I was much pleased. This was the kind of argument that, in the past, would have absorbed hours of game time as the players stubbornly butted heads.
The final element of last night's game ended up being pure roleplay. Which was interesting, because I was expecting a massive Duel of Wits. The characters traveled across a wide sea to the southern polar glacier to make good on a promise to three powerful necromancers.
Once they had paid the debt they owed to the black wizards, Pete immediately reopened negotiations. He wanted answers to new questions. I won't bore you with our gory campaign details, but suffice to say that they were big questions whose answers would have a profound effect on the game.
I named a price: They had to capture and return to the necromancers a certain dragon. You should have seen Pete's eyes light up! He agreed readily. He didn't know how he was going to pull that off, but he was eager to try. He's such a glory hound.
Chris asked the necromancers to summon the shade of a powerful sorcerer who forged the spear and other artifacts he bears. The price? The safe capture of the rogue demon which Chris, Danny and Pete's characters are currently hunting. Their nemesis -- bound and remanded to the necromancers! Muhahaah!
I figured we'd debate the price. They weren't interested. The most cool aspect of the session was that they realized if the price were so high, the power of the answers must be tremendous. So tremendous as to fundamentally change the characters. Danny and Chris both openly debated whether or not such a change would be a good thing -- beneficial to the world at large -- and questioned whether or not they even wanted such a thing.
It was simply an excellent "dealing with the devil" moment. It crystalized years of campaign play: We know we are about to learn a great secret we have labored for, but which will only unlock an even greater question. We know this might destroy us or change us irrevocably. Is this the right path? Is there another way?
The answers will be had next session.
Hotness.
-L