Tonight was my first play with a group.
Tonight was my first play with a group. We had six players. For our first game we randomized the assets and drew 3 random. Then we traded and discussed a bit. A few of us discarded an asset for another draw. We were having fun with the options but wanted to make some that was our own. It was great, because I originally wanted to play a Wizardy type and ended up with my nomad tribesman Wayfinder named Quiet and his Hawk Suno (and Totem!). The rest of the group included: One player who always plays barbarian types ended up with a sort of Mystical investigator with the Sight, Divination, & I'm forgetting what else a Raven. A Storyteller who was afflicted with a disease that made him a sword-fighting savant (Swordmaster & Duelist). A stoner/surfer Slayer monk who fights with a Staff and has a Hound companion. A young girl with an ominous birthmark with a penchant for stealth and deception (and litigiousness). And finally a Ranger Herbalist who just wanted to stay out of fights (I forget what her other assets were).
We used a lot of the promps from "Your world, your truth" to get our bonds and backstories lined up. Quiet happened upon a dying warden with map that needed to be delivered to a Wizard in a nearby town. The wizard recognized the map as only one half, the other half belonging to the sister of the warden, who was a monster hunter that recently went missing who was also the mentor of our stoner monk slayer. With the help of a little girl who dreams of places she's never seen we began to piece together the steps we'd need to undertake to save a nearby village from a horrible plague, tension with a nearby city resulted in increased hostilities as they didn't want the infection to spread.
So we set of to the Ragged Coast to search some ruins for the missing beast slayer and the other half to a map that would supposedly lead to a cure. Halfway through the journey we were ambushed by some bandits outside of a small town. We defeated them and found out the town was a series of yurts owned by a nomad tribe who wintered near the border of Have/Deep Forest. After bonding with the townsfolk and learning the rudiments of their language (with the help of Quiet who by luck of the oracle could speak their language as it was similar to his own native tongue) [At first we were going to require Quiet to use Aid for each conversation, but instead we just took -1 on all die rolls until they learned the language.] We suspected our lost slayer had come this way so we parlayed with the Hetman but a major twist revealed a horrible secret, something about the Hetman's answers weren't up. We put two and two together and realized the ambush wasn't from a nearby rival tribe, but the village itself and they intended to do us it and possibly eat us. The once meek Herbalist swore a vow to see the village pay and our monk tried to find the well but got caught snooping around, the sneaky prophet girl was tailing him and a quick dagger to the throat put him down but not before he yelled out. The fight was joined by the Hetman and his two bodyguards. Thankfully the noise attracted the rest of our group and we had a big fight. Some very nice hits from the swordsman who burned some momentum and we ended it very quickly. The herbalist poisoned the well and we moved on.
Probably the only problem we had was with Sojourn, the wording was a little difficult to make out exactly who got what and what sections we could choose from. Also, if we were able to choose the same thing twice? I decided we could not and we moved on. Even though we were playing co-op, I'm usually the GM of our group so they deferred to me on a lot of things... however, with a few pointers they really started joining in on riffing the fiction. It was a great time had by all and they're already blowing up my phone excited to play again!
We used a lot of the promps from "Your world, your truth" to get our bonds and backstories lined up. Quiet happened upon a dying warden with map that needed to be delivered to a Wizard in a nearby town. The wizard recognized the map as only one half, the other half belonging to the sister of the warden, who was a monster hunter that recently went missing who was also the mentor of our stoner monk slayer. With the help of a little girl who dreams of places she's never seen we began to piece together the steps we'd need to undertake to save a nearby village from a horrible plague, tension with a nearby city resulted in increased hostilities as they didn't want the infection to spread.
So we set of to the Ragged Coast to search some ruins for the missing beast slayer and the other half to a map that would supposedly lead to a cure. Halfway through the journey we were ambushed by some bandits outside of a small town. We defeated them and found out the town was a series of yurts owned by a nomad tribe who wintered near the border of Have/Deep Forest. After bonding with the townsfolk and learning the rudiments of their language (with the help of Quiet who by luck of the oracle could speak their language as it was similar to his own native tongue) [At first we were going to require Quiet to use Aid for each conversation, but instead we just took -1 on all die rolls until they learned the language.] We suspected our lost slayer had come this way so we parlayed with the Hetman but a major twist revealed a horrible secret, something about the Hetman's answers weren't up. We put two and two together and realized the ambush wasn't from a nearby rival tribe, but the village itself and they intended to do us it and possibly eat us. The once meek Herbalist swore a vow to see the village pay and our monk tried to find the well but got caught snooping around, the sneaky prophet girl was tailing him and a quick dagger to the throat put him down but not before he yelled out. The fight was joined by the Hetman and his two bodyguards. Thankfully the noise attracted the rest of our group and we had a big fight. Some very nice hits from the swordsman who burned some momentum and we ended it very quickly. The herbalist poisoned the well and we moved on.
Probably the only problem we had was with Sojourn, the wording was a little difficult to make out exactly who got what and what sections we could choose from. Also, if we were able to choose the same thing twice? I decided we could not and we moved on. Even though we were playing co-op, I'm usually the GM of our group so they deferred to me on a lot of things... however, with a few pointers they really started joining in on riffing the fiction. It was a great time had by all and they're already blowing up my phone excited to play again!
That sounds like an awesome game!
ReplyDeleteHi, Colin Madden. Sorry for the confusion with Sojourn. Especially with 6 players, I can imagine it's a bit hard to parse.
ReplyDeleteHere's what you do:
- 1 player makes the Sojourn roll as the representative for your group. In the fiction, this is the person with the strongest attachment to this community, or the one who speaks for the group if this community is unknown to you. Or, it's just whoever is feeling lucky with the dice
- On a strong hit, everyone gets to pick 2 items from the list for their own character. For example, one player might pick Mend, Provision, and Plan. If they do, their character clears the wounded debility and takes +1 health (for mend), +2 momentum (for provision), and then gives the group +2 supply (for provision) since the supply track is shared.
- One player may not pick the same item for their character twice (unless they focus -- see below), but you can have players choosing the same item as each other. For example, if two players were wounded, they could each choose mend.
- On a weak hit, same as above, but each player picks only one item from the list
- Having a bond with the community adds 1 item on a hit
- Remember that the reference for "companions" (recuperate) is for assets, not other player characters.
- If you score a strong hit or weak hit, any player can also choose to focus on one of the recover actions (recuperate, consort, provision, or plan) to make another roll and add another +2 to the result (on a strong hit), +1 (on a weak hit) or undo the benefits of that choice (on a miss). Generally, a player would choose to focus if they are facing a particularly dire situation on any track. If they do, zoom into the scene and have them describe their intent and the outcome.
- On a miss, bad stuff happens
With 6 players, you will find it super-easy to refill your supply when you Sojourn and Resupply (assuming a hit). With that in mind, I would consider hitting the supply track as an outcome of weak hits and misses when you are out in the field (not just on the Undertake a Journey move) to put some pressure on it. Also, making communities remote and distant from each other will make Sojourn feel a bit more special and justify the fiddliness of this move when 6 characters rolling into town.
Hope that helps! Let me know if not.
Your session and the characters sound awesome!
Thanks Shawn Tomkin we did hit the supply track a lot. With totem and hawk I was the one rolling for journey and each strong hit I always took +1 momentum for -1 supply. We wanted to emphasize we were moving fast so our trackers could pick up the trail (monk had Hound and the apothecary had Ranger) so we did not soujorn until we had marked 6 boxes on our formidable journey. Also during some side quests we punished supply.
ReplyDelete