Actually, I'm finding difficulties on my play.
Actually, I'm finding difficulties on my play. They are related to the Supplies, the various moves linked to, and the fiction.
In short: I can totally understand the abstract inventory/supplies. Also, I like it, as I liked the similar mechanics in DUngeon Worlds (ammo, adventurer's pack etc.)
However, I'm not sold about the choice of the Out of Supply move (pag. 98).
"When your supply is exhausted (reduced to 0), mark unprepared....
...The unprepared debility can be cleared when you score a hit on the Sojourn move...
...While you are unprepared, you cannot increase your supply track."
So, is this totally intended? Let's say I did a part of a journey. I went to 0 Supply. Now I cannot make any move to try to resupply, even just a little... So I can't Hunt, for example.
If I have no near places to Sojourn (or I do the move, and I fail, for example - and, by the rules I CAN'T retry that move, in a whole "period" of time), I'm totally doomed.
Also, with those hard rules in play (like the one-shot for Sojourn move), how can I do fiction and stats coexist? For example: how if I'm Unprepared, and I failed a Sojourn move... And I decide to sell my body to keep me alive? Or, I decide to enter a farmer's house to do an "easy massacre", or an heartfelt speech to get a whole backpack full of supplies, adventuring tools, food, some weapon?
I do the move, and I arbitrarily choose a Supply value to add to my stat? Also, do I remove my Unprepared condition? So, what about the whole set of related moves?
Thanks in advance for your point of view.
In short: I can totally understand the abstract inventory/supplies. Also, I like it, as I liked the similar mechanics in DUngeon Worlds (ammo, adventurer's pack etc.)
However, I'm not sold about the choice of the Out of Supply move (pag. 98).
"When your supply is exhausted (reduced to 0), mark unprepared....
...The unprepared debility can be cleared when you score a hit on the Sojourn move...
...While you are unprepared, you cannot increase your supply track."
So, is this totally intended? Let's say I did a part of a journey. I went to 0 Supply. Now I cannot make any move to try to resupply, even just a little... So I can't Hunt, for example.
If I have no near places to Sojourn (or I do the move, and I fail, for example - and, by the rules I CAN'T retry that move, in a whole "period" of time), I'm totally doomed.
Also, with those hard rules in play (like the one-shot for Sojourn move), how can I do fiction and stats coexist? For example: how if I'm Unprepared, and I failed a Sojourn move... And I decide to sell my body to keep me alive? Or, I decide to enter a farmer's house to do an "easy massacre", or an heartfelt speech to get a whole backpack full of supplies, adventuring tools, food, some weapon?
I do the move, and I arbitrarily choose a Supply value to add to my stat? Also, do I remove my Unprepared condition? So, what about the whole set of related moves?
Thanks in advance for your point of view.
Probably the focus is on the moves that "block" other moves, or the fiction. If you insert those kind of moves, you are creating some "meta-game boundary" very difficult to manage. I can easily accept it in games like Blades in the Dark, for example, the rigid downtime "scene": I know that I have X time, and in that time I can only make a single "move", that represent my downtime "spotlight", my "main event". I do investigations: very well, the roll went bad, I have no more time for other investigations.
ReplyDeleteBut here, while I'm adventuring, I should have a fluid moves flow.
I suppose I'll run in the same problem when my Health will go down. If I can do a single Sojourn, then that means that I can only recover (let's say) 2 Health, then I have to continue my adventures with that value. I have no other chances to raise it, so my only hope is to "force" the game, and return to a 1) near 2) hospitable community hoping in another Sojourn.
(or am I missing something big?)
My take on this: I interpret conditions as being rather extreme, and the Ironlands a hostile place. One must be aware of this and do everything possible to always be prepared and physically and mentally sound. When you take a condition, it's too late: until someone helps you, you are not truly autonomous any more. Of course, these situations can lead to death. My party stops and goes hunting whenever supplies go down to 2.
ReplyDelete/sub
ReplyDeleteAndrea Parducci. Conditions tend to drive you back to a community. For better or worse, that's an intentional design decision to make recovery from a condition a narrative focus, and to create and reinforce connections with communities and drive the resultant potential story.
ReplyDeleteThere are multiple ways to manage your tracks when you're in the field. You may leave a community with +2 health, but you'll have opportunities to make moves to recover (such as Make Camp and Heal).
One final note: a "community" can be many things. A village. A tiny steading in remote lands. A traveling caravan. A camp of hunters. If you need to Sojourn, you have the narrative control to introduce a community in a way that fits your story and location.
One other point. Being unprepared won't send you into any sort of immediate death spiral. It saps a bit of your potential momentum, and will drain your status tracks if you continue to journey and score weak hits, but you have plenty of "failure sinks" in Ironsworn and it's pretty manageable -- especially if you are playing solo and you don't have a GM turning the knife. In and out of the fiction, having one or more conditions marked will create a "do I push forward or get help" decision.
ReplyDeleteSo, it's a bit harsh, but leaves you with options, and seems to work out in play. Would love to hear if others have experiences contrary to that, though! I'm always willing to be wrong. I've got vast experience on that front.
To add to whats been said before out of supply is not an immediate end game, mostly it just means you have to pay all supply costs in something else; Health, Spirit, Momentum so you are in trouble but you do have the means to carry on a bit. That said it does mean you have to get some where stable relatively soon.
ReplyDeleteAlso if you are getting low on supplies do the little top ups you were talking about - just do them before you get the condition, just think of that last supply as boiling your shoes and belt for soup... you did that one last thing that burned supplies but now you're walking though the snow barefoot and your pants keep falling down - and you knew you would put yourself in this spot when you burned your last supply.
Was it really worth pushing on that last stage of journey or should you have made camp and hunted? Was it worth cutting up your shirt and cloak to make bandages to get that 1 point of health back? Sometimes when your low on supplies its worth it to suffer for a while and let something else take the hit before jury-rigging a solution with critical gear that you'll now be without.
Mmmm... thank you all. I'll keep playing, trying to stay in the rules, and see how it goes.
ReplyDeleteShawn Tomkin Hi, I'm new to this community but very into this amazing game! To the topic of the supply, I think that some additional explanation would be helpful, since it's the only track that causes a debility upon reaching 0, a rule that complicates things. So, a scenario here would help: If a player has 0 supply and goes to a village to make a Sojourn move to get rid of the debility, but scores a weak hit, he gets to choose 1(no bonds). He can't take the Provision: +2 supply(due to the unprepared debility), so he takes the Equip: Clear an unprepared debility. But here comes the debate. After the Sojourn , he still has 0 supply, triggering the Out of Supply again, causing the debility again. Am I missing or misunderstanding something? This doesn't feel very right.
ReplyDeleteHi, +Giorgos Ch! No, you're correct here. It's actually an update that I neglected to roll forward. You should also get a take +1 for each of the "Clear a Condition" choices in order to avoid that loop. Oops! The drawback of not referring to the rules of your own game anymore because you think you have it memorized.
ReplyDeleteI'm rolling out an update today and will get this in there. May I credit you in the book? If so, under what name?
Thanks for the catch.
Shawn Tomkin No need for credit, I'm glad I contributed! Keep up the good work!
ReplyDelete