Got a start on one of the Ironsworn games I wanted to.
Got a start on one of the Ironsworn games I wanted to. For this one I'm using a post-apocalypse Earth setting that basically mimics the basic setting conceits of Ironsworn, though interpreted through a different lens.
I had intended for the first episode to carry the Wanderer from Iron Vow to first milestone, but a string of spectacularly bad rolls ended up burning the local bar down instead and leaves our hero no closer to the goal of finding the macguffin that will restore pure water to the people of his tribe.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1AP38-kwBD-ZTwzHksXKgTQLl_E9cJt4hssX0oqAv1-g/edit?usp=sharing
I had intended for the first episode to carry the Wanderer from Iron Vow to first milestone, but a string of spectacularly bad rolls ended up burning the local bar down instead and leaves our hero no closer to the goal of finding the macguffin that will restore pure water to the people of his tribe.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1AP38-kwBD-ZTwzHksXKgTQLl_E9cJt4hssX0oqAv1-g/edit?usp=sharing
Love the patheon, Justin Gordon! I'd like to say I'd be one of the devout of the cult of Ford, but in my heart I know the song of Lady Starbucks would call to me.
ReplyDeleteYou rolled a heck of a lot of misses there. Either the dice hate you or I've got my math wrong :)
Any frustration or confusion as you played? Can you tell me what assets you selected?
Regarding post-apocalypse earth settings... There is a nod to this in "Legacies" on page 51. It was less subtle in a previous edit :)
Shawn Tomkin Yeah I was surprised by the number of misses as well. I'm playing a game with my fiance, and I think I missed more during this game than we did together during our first couple sessions! I think the math is fine, my dice are just out to get me, lol.
ReplyDeleteI didn't have any rules problems come up during the session, of course I only managed to make it across the street before blowing up the bar and nearly dying. Hopefully next session I can make some progress!
The character sheet is linked in the AP if you want all the details, but for this character I chose Devotant (Ford, +wits), Blademaster, and Wright (Machinery).
My goal for next session is to use all three of my asset moves at least once... And making it out of the village would be nice too
Thanks Justin Gordon. Missed the link to the character sheet. That Google sheet turned out great.
ReplyDeleteThanks, it was a collaborative effort between me and Toimu and it helped that the original character sheet was so well designed!
ReplyDeleteJustin Gordon, really enjoyed the read. I especially like that, having read a couple solo plays of Ironsworn, and maybe it is true for other rule sets I don't know, but the... surprise factor (?) is really great! As an example, I imagine if this was a group play through with a GM, that the GM would have started this all out with some form of encounter as a caravan guard or some such after the time complication - or that's what I would have probably done as a GM :( Not as a 'barn burner' that adds even more of a conundrum to the issues of the village! I love that!
ReplyDeleteNow to get to a question I have as I attempt to grasp the rules and their implementation better, it seems that you used "Face Danger" where I would have thought some other fighting move (don't have the rules in front of me and can't remember the name of the move I am thinking of) would have been used instead. I guess the vernacular of the system throws me and I fear if I give it a go myself, I just won't know which move to use or how they flow together (that's why I appreciate and enjoy the write ups like this and Zack MacDonald's). "Face Danger" for me is for use against things you... can't fight / destroy, though you did destroy something LOL... if that makes sense? An avalanche, a strong current, etc. So, the question is, what made you use "Face Danger" over a different move?
+John Risus ... I'll let Justin chime in, but I'll note that Face Danger can also be used as a purely defensive move in a fight, as well as a means to oppose someone who is not necessarily trying to directly wound you with their attack.The text for this is a bit contradictory on page 81-82 (other moves in combat), which I just went and tidied up.
ReplyDeleteThe text on page 82 had the right of it:
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"When would you Face Danger instead of using Clash against an imminent threat in combat? If you are fighting back, that’s probably Clash. If you are trying to avoid an attack by focusing on defense, getting out of the way, ducking behind your shield, or seeking cover, that’s Face Danger. Also, if you envision your foe taking an action to put you at a disadvantage, or you’re dealing with a situational threat, you’ll likely Face Danger. This is especially true if you are leveraging a stat other than iron or edge. If in doubt, go with what makes the most sense or creates the most interesting narrative."
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In gamey terms, there's also a mechanical choice. Do you clash and risk a more severe outcome on a weak hit (in exchange for being able to harm your foe)? Or do you Face Danger for a bit less risk while missing out on the opportunity to inflict your harm? Clash means wading into the thick of it. Face Danger means falling back, dodging, blocking, etc.
Finally, don't fret about it too much. The main thing in combat is not to get stuck in a rut of strike/clash. Look through pages 80-84 for advice on mixing it up with other moves.
John Risus just think of it as a fight you really are having. If you pick the "wrong" thing, why did it turn out bad? If the character lives through it, make them reflect and learn from their mistake (as you also do learning how to use the rules for your play style).
ReplyDeleteInteresting. Thanks for the responses. I might just have to go and try a solo game, I mean what do I have to lose, a fictional character? ;)
ReplyDeleteJohn Risus I think Shawn Tomkin pretty much covered my thoughts on the issue. For me, many of those rolls were me just trying to get away from the enemy. Especially once I was on the ground. To me the Clash move says "I want to fight and hurt you" whereas the Face Danger move is me retreating or as Shawn said focusing on defense.
ReplyDeleteFrom a gaming perspective, Face Danger is a way to help my character gain the narrative footing to engage in combat.
Hope that helps!
Justin Gordon it does help. I have been thinking, I think, about how moves are a direct response or initiative rather than a means to a desired result. I need to be thinking, "What do I need to do to get the result I want?" rather than, "What is the right reaction/move to this situation?" If that makes sense?
ReplyDeleteYep, +John Risus. I probably don't hammer on it as hard as I should in Ironsworn, but translating your action and intent into a move rather than vice-versa is a great, fiction-first approach.
ReplyDeleteSome PbtA games go to the extent of "never say your move", which is a principle I'm not applying, but it speaks to the general goal of letting the fiction drive the mechanics.
However....Ironsworn is a little bit looser in the fiction-first philosophy. I think it's OK, for example, to just Make Camp, or Sojourn, as a mechanical incentive. Then, you play out the scenes as appropriate, or just gloss over it. It's all good. When you're zoomed into an action scene or some-such, and the moves get more intense, thinking in terms of the fiction, then the move, helps keep things from feeling like an exercise in rolling and shifting around tracks.
Thats my view Shawn Tomkin, some moves are just moves, things that drive the game. Things like Undertake a Journey, Make Camp, or Forage. These are things you do to manage your resources and manage scenes. Other moves like Face Danger, Secure an Advantage, and Strike/Clash/Battle are fiction first moves. "Based on how I described my action, what move could this trigger"
ReplyDeleteIt's a completely different way of doing roleplay from the world of D&D but it's incredibly freeing once it clicks
Justin Gordon just finished it. Great read, and some poor dice!
ReplyDeleteHey Justin Gordon, loved reading the game and can’t wait for the next instalment.
ReplyDeleteI just wanted to add, albeit quite late, that defy danger has the added benefit of giving you a means of avoiding damage while trying to roll that strong hit to regain the initiative; fictionally, it probably represents biding your time and defending yourself while waiting for that perfect opening. The trade off, of course, is loss of momentum on a weak hit, which fits pretty well narratively as you’re choosing to be on the back foot and loosing ground to try to gain a decisive opportunity to attack or otherwise turn the tables. Face Danger effectively feels sort of like the Secure an Advantage move for when you don’t have initiative. Something I missed in my playthrough, but recognized in yours; thanks for posting it!
Justin Gordon, Scene Two... pure awesome sauce! Bring me glorious Scene Three that you tease with just a header... meany!
ReplyDeleteAt work, so don't have rules handy, but for some reason I was thinking you lost progress when you tried to finish a fight and roll badly, or am I remembering incorrectly? Either way I'm not sure I care, because if my memory is correct or faulty it doesn't matter because this is generating a truly epic tale!
Justin Gordon, I'm ready...
ReplyDeleteJohn Risus haha, I'm doing some work tonight but hopefully I'll have time to sit down and bang out a scene, just want to make sure I have the time to do it justice. I'm glad you enjoyed it, I quite like writing fight scenes, but I'm going to do my level best to make the next session largely roleplay (given the theme of the next scene that seems right to me)
ReplyDeleteAs far as the End the Fight move works, I didn't see anything that would revert progress, though I know that the other progress moves revert your progress on a miss.
Justin Gordon, right, I was just going off memory, and my memory is for crap. I'm reading the most recent release of the rules again, which is the first time since reading your write ups, and it is making a lot more sense to me now! Thanks.
ReplyDeleteIt doesn't hurt that it is an awesome, well written, joy to read. That's true, but I am hoping the flattery will spur on the next scene. There are a lot of good solo write ups coming out, but I guess yours holds my attention a tad more because of the setting, as it is similar - or at least in my mind's eye - to what I would run. I want to try a Horizon Zero Dawn inspired setting solo run through.... eventually.
John Risus I didn't get the chance to play Horizon but from what I've seen I think Ironsworn would handle it capably. Do you think Ironsworn would need any kind of custom bits to do it?
ReplyDeleteJustin Gordon, I haven't gotten to play it either, but got hooked on it watching YouTube play throughs. I think in stock form Ironsworn should be able to handle a good facsimile of the setting.
ReplyDeleteI am not sure how to emulate elemental effect damage, weaknesses, and such in combat though, since that seems to be a big part of the HZD setting. Or even sure that I need to.
Hey, if you are responding to me... your not working on scene three... chop chop.. LOL just kidding... well, kind of.
I think that Gather Information to learn a monsters weakness and secure an advantage to apply it during combat would do. I think the Slayer Path Asset offers some bonuses in that regard
ReplyDeleteHey, for what it’s worth, I think in a pinch Secure an Advantage and Momentum could work to represent preparing for a fight with a given robo-dinosaur in terms of knowing weaknesses and using elemental based ammo/traps; burning momentum could represent running out, building it back up could be finding weak spots and working to create an opening to take advantage of them. If you ever do get the chance to play it, it’s pretty great; cool setting and fun gameplay. Also really looking forward to the next part of your game, but no pressure.
ReplyDeleteZack MacDonald, no, no, we need to apply pressure (Justin Gordon) LOL. I need MORE!
ReplyDeleteI like both your ideas on using Gather Information and Secure an Advantage. Not sure I understand, yet, about burning Momentum and how it would equate to running out of that Advantage. I was thinking that Supply would be the obvious choice, but not sure how Supplies can be depleted in combat.
Hmm, good point on supplies +John Risus, I’ll have to think about how that would work and go over the rules again, but yeah, that does make more sense.
ReplyDeleteIn fairness I sort of think of Momentum as preparation and a lot of the intangibles that might get roleplayed, like morale of information that gives detail on an enemy of pursuit, but doesn’t typically have mechanical weight in a system like pre-5th Edition D&D, despite it maybe feeling like it should contribute to a character’s ability to perform a task. 5th adds advantage and Disadvantage to rolls (if anyone’s unfamiliar, roll twice and keep the better/worse result respectively), which helps, but I’m finding I prefer the granularity of Momentum more, personally.
That digression out of the way, I think in this case it depends on how you see momentum in your game. I’d probably do a Gather Information (which I need to use more in my game) giving a sense of what would be the right tool to fight something, then a Secure an Advantage to build the tool; gain 2 momentum representing the tool, and when you burn momentum, you’ve used up the tool, whether it’s traps or elemental arrows. You could use Secure an Advantage or Gather Information in the fight as well to look for the weak points to hit with the arrows and give yourself some more momentum representing your knowledge of that spot or otherwise knowing the situational advantage of having an opening to fire on it.
Ugh, I write too much. Hopefully that gives a sense of where I’m coming from with Momentum. I’ll see how supply could work into combat when I get a chance; I really like that idea.
Zack MacDonald I think I get your usage of Momentum in the context of HZD... maybe. How I envision what you are saying is in that context is Momentum is as if it is the making of the arrows/traps during the combat and the Supply is having those raw materials on hand to do so?
ReplyDeleteOr that is the visual I get.
My current thought of Supply is... well more of a supply of a finished product to be expended, and is less video gamey and more toward a conventional PnP RPG, which might be a preferred method?
The Archer asset has a supply move in combat. You can suffer -supply to reroll any dice as a representation of sacrificing ammo. Other than this, I haven't really leveraged supply in combat except as a soak for failures, and it's an interesting space to fiddle around with.
ReplyDeleteI haven't played Horizon Zero Down, but I love the design of the setting and seems like something that would be really cool in a tabletop RPG.
Hmm, I’d probably be making the moves that generate the Momentum before the combat. Maybe the Witcher is a better example to go by; first you do some investigation to figure out what you’re fighting with Gather Information, then you’d craft a blade oil, maybe some potions (which would be Secure an Advantage, which generates Momentum). Then you can try and track down and fight the creature, and if you have to burn momentum, maybe fictionally the blade oil wears off but it’s done it’s job in helping you through the fight. Weak hits on the crafting could be having to work with substandard materials or insufficient amounts, so the usefulness of the crafted product in the fiction is less, equating to less momentum generated.
ReplyDeleteI’d imagine you could roll a few Secure an Advantages to build traps, select a good spot to fight the monster you’re hunting, or to figure out the right time to attack it by watching it stealthily to learn its routine. All of which would happen before the fight. (Though it’s worth noting you could go sort of non-linear with the time of things occur to you you feel your character would have done; sort of like how in Ocean’s 11 the heist happens, then it cuts back as things seem to go sideways to show how they prepped for each obstacle. I feel like you’d need the initiative to do that sort of thing, and I’m not sure it’d be using the rules as intended, but I think it could sort of work if you aren’t following the character every moment in the fiction.)
As for supply as finished products, that does make sense, for sure. And I think a reasonable complication on a weak hit would be as simple as -1 supply to represent using some of those products to produce an effect in future combat. On a Strong hit presumably you don’t use enough supplies in the fiction to effect the abstracted ‘Supply’ total, or manage to find most of what you need lying around or something. In the rules I’ve got right now I haven’t seen anything about supply being used in combat directly except as part of Pay the Price. But I believe there’s a new set of rules up. Also, I think the Wright Asset could provide a way to represent a character specialized in building weapons/traps/ammo for a particular fight or enemy (and has a -1 supply as a cost to increase Momentum by 1 on a hit using the Asset).
Anyway, hopefully that makes sense. If not don’t worry about it; at some point I’m sure there’ll be a fight I’ll have to have my character prepare for, and then I can show off what I mean through an example. If you’re interested I’ll make sure to do the ‘plus name thing’ so it comes up in your alerts when I post such an example. (Is there a term for that? Is it a tag, or shout out, or something?)
Also, I think the Assets Archer, Wright and either Skirmisher (or maybe Longarm) would make for a pretty good Aloy (Horizon’s main character) if anyone wanted to emulate her style. Not sure about the stats though.
ReplyDeleteThis is an interesting discussion you guys are having. I know Ironsworn can be a bit obscure in how to apply moves to different situations and which move might be appropriate. Some of that is built into the design on purpose, and some of it is probably just deficiencies in the text.
ReplyDeleteLet's say, for example, I am hunting an elder bear. I decide that I am going to build a trap to try to give myself an edge in the fight.
First of all, can my character build a trap? If I've got a related asset like Slayer or Ranger I might decide that, fictionally, it's appropriate for my character to know how to build and set up traps.
If not, I'll need someone to do it for me. That opens up some story possibilities. Who does it? What do they want in return? The cool thing, in this case, is that getting a trap suitable for an elder bear becomes a part of my quest, and I get to mark progress when someone agrees to make it for me.
But let's go back to the initial plan and say I'm out in the wilds and I"m going to try to trap this thing. What does that mean in terms of a move? Face Danger? Secure an Advantage? My inclination would be to make it the latter.
Per the Secure an Advantage summary on page 56:
"You’re evaluating, strengthening your position, pushing for advantage. You bring your expertise or abilities to bear to set yourself up for success."
That sounds like an appropriate move to me. I always start from the standpoint of thinking of Secure an Advantage as evaluation, set-up or preparation, and Face Danger as reaction. If I was hurriedly assembling some half-assed trap while being pursued? Yeah, that sounds more like Face Danger.
So let's use Secure an Advantage. If a score a strong hit, I get the trap prepped. Maybe there are more rolls as part of this process, like Gather Information to track the beast or decide where to set the trap. That would give me even more momentum in exchange for some risk of blowing it all on a failed move.
But let's say, fictionally, I've already got a clear idea of where this bear hunts and I just let the narration of the Secure an Advantage move get me to a place where the trap is prepped and baited, and I'm laying in wait.
Now, I've got that momentum bonus from the move to help me, and I also get the fictional bonus of what it means in a fight when this bear is trapped. I might Ask the Oracle how that plays out. I don't envision this huge beast being held for long, and it sure wouldn't be fun to plink it with arrows until dead, but I should get some fictional benefit. I'd roll Enter the Fray with shadow, and depending on how that goes I'd probably keep the bear's actions initially limited. My spirit might take a hit or two on failed moves as I face down this terrifying creature, but I'd allow for at least a couple of ranged attacks without the bear being able to immediately maul and/or eat me. Hopefully I've got some momentum to burn to make one of those initial Strike's count.
If I had rolled a weak hit on Secure an Advantage? Maybe I''d Ask the Oracle: "Does this mean I use up some supply or does it mean the trap won't hold for more than a moment?"
If I had scored a failure on Secure an Advantage? Not being able to build the trap is a reasonable result. A more exciting option is to have my character think the trap is good-to-go, when in reality it will fail completely and piss this bear off even more.
And one more note: If I had the Wright asset, with a blacksmith specialty, maybe I could build an iron-jaw trap and get a better chance of success and more momentum on a hit. Cool!
Shawn Tomkin my character is a Ranger Archer, I really like the idea of building a trap and the moves you used to do it!
ReplyDelete