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The rulebook suggests that Ironsworn is best for small groups.
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The rulebook suggests that Ironsworn is best for small groups. If I play Ironsworn with a slightly larger group (1 GM plus five players) what kind of trouble might I encounter?
- Managing the spotlight. As with any game, keeping everyone engaged and participating can be a challenge. Depending on the characters and assets in play at your table, you might have characters naturally inclined to be making more moves and getting more spotlight time. For example, If you've got someone with assets that make them the natural choice to make journey moves. On the other hand, there's also less niche protection than in something like D&D or playbook-based PbtA games, so you can't necessarily introduce situations to give each role their moment. Just keep things moving, ask questions, and get your players involved in the framing of scenes and the outcome of moves. If you're the GM, feel free to offer prompts to players to make supporting moves, such as Aid Your Ally, until they get into a rhythm.
- More players = more moves, which can make things feel a bit mechanical. Just make sure you're taking the time to explore the moments between moves. Mix things up, particularly in something like a journey.
- Might be a bit of a narrative challenge to get everyone on board with a particular quest. Ironsworn's vow-based structure encourages protagonist-centric play, but you don't want four players just tagging along on the personal quest for the fifth. During character creation and worldbuilding, build connections between the characters and look for opportunities for an inciting incident that feels like a compelling shared vow. Having them part of the same community or faction, and facing a threat which impacts them all, will do the trick.
- Combat might be a bit of a breeze, even against higher ranked opponents. More players means more opportunities to inflict harm. To offset this, you can up the ranks of your foes and/or add more foes (don't necessarily combine them into packs). Also, feel free to hit the characters a bit harder on failed moves in a fight. If they are fighting a formidable foe, a loss of 3 to anyone's health track will cause them to take notice.
- I've heard some concerns about matches feeling too commonplace with more players and more dice rolling, and it can sap your creative energy to translate those results into complications/twists. The book has a remedy for this if it turns out to be a concern for you (ignore odd matches). -
I worry a bit about the supply track with than many players, since it's a shared resource. Might be fine, or might shatter the space/time continuum. On one hand, it's fairly easy to manage your supply with Sojourn because you only need one player to choose that option on a hit. On the other hand, suffering -supply in the field impacts everyone. I hope it balances out, but I haven't personally tested it at a larger table. Particularly in a GM'd game, I suspect it'll be fine because you can hit them a bit harder with -supply outcomes or take your foot off the gas, as needed.
A few things to be on the lookout for:
ReplyDelete- Managing the spotlight. As with any game, keeping everyone engaged and participating can be a challenge. Depending on the characters and assets in play at your table, you might have characters naturally inclined to be making more moves and getting more spotlight time. For example, If you've got someone with assets that make them the natural choice to make journey moves. On the other hand, there's also less niche protection than in something like D&D or playbook-based PbtA games, so you can't necessarily introduce situations to give each role their moment. Just keep things moving, ask questions, and get your players involved in the framing of scenes and the outcome of moves. If you're the GM, feel free to offer prompts to players to make supporting moves, such as Aid Your Ally, until they get into a rhythm.
- More players = more moves, which can make things feel a bit mechanical. Just make sure you're taking the time to explore the moments between moves. Mix things up, particularly in something like a journey.
- Might be a bit of a narrative challenge to get everyone on board with a particular quest. Ironsworn's vow-based structure encourages protagonist-centric play, but you don't want four players just tagging along on the personal quest for the fifth. During character creation and worldbuilding, build connections between the characters and look for opportunities for an inciting incident that feels like a compelling shared vow. Having them part of the same community or faction, and facing a threat which impacts them all, will do the trick.
- Combat might be a bit of a breeze, even against higher ranked opponents. More players means more opportunities to inflict harm. To offset this, you can up the ranks of your foes and/or add more foes (don't necessarily combine them into packs). Also, feel free to hit the characters a bit harder on failed moves in a fight. If they are fighting a formidable foe, a loss of 3 to anyone's health track will cause them to take notice.
- I've heard some concerns about matches feeling too commonplace with more players and more dice rolling, and it can sap your creative energy to translate those results into complications/twists. The book has a remedy for this if it turns out to be a concern for you (ignore odd matches). -
I worry a bit about the supply track with than many players, since it's a shared resource. Might be fine, or might shatter the space/time continuum. On one hand, it's fairly easy to manage your supply with Sojourn because you only need one player to choose that option on a hit. On the other hand, suffering -supply in the field impacts everyone. I hope it balances out, but I haven't personally tested it at a larger table. Particularly in a GM'd game, I suspect it'll be fine because you can hit them a bit harder with -supply outcomes or take your foot off the gas, as needed.
There's my long-winded two cents.
Shawn Tomkin Thanks for the tips!
ReplyDelete