Why am I reminded of Sir Humphrey Appleby's definitions of the words 'controversial' and 'courageous'?

I'm waiting for a post from Roland before moving on. I know he's active so it's not waiting in vain.

In reply to The Powers That Be (msg # 91):

Alright! Sorry about that, will get something up ASAP.

No worries. Just checking.

That was probably my last post for the session, setting up the next session for a big hunt, if that is okay with all of you. The floor is yours to answer and react, then we'll do end of session stuff, advance characters and talk about possible rules clarifications or changes.

Sounds great.

Ready to move on when you are.

Same here, I'm chatting but happy to move it on.

Apologies for the slight delay in posting, I got second jabbed yesterday and am definitely feeling it at the moment. Should be back on my feet shortly but not sure if I'll be able to get a post up tonight - we will see!

Congrats on that second jab!

Nice, yeah, second jab was a bit rough on me as well. I didn't notice at first, but got very sore muscles and very tired after a few days. Take your time!

I'm feeling better today, but was totally bedridden yesterday due to fatigue, headaches and muscle pain - worth it (obviously) and I'd planned to take leave for the day anyway, so that went well :)

Helena, if you want to add something to episode 1 still, you can, I will leave it open for now. I don't think it's needed, but an ending inner thoughts section wouldn't be bad. You're good at those.
We might roll for Helena's trading agreement and Roland's friend to come aid with the hunt. Or, depending on what we do with the rules, I'll just decide.

Otherwise we can review the session. Was it what we expected, was it not? What did you like, what did you not like? What would you like different? What did you find interesting.

I like the system, but think it doesn't quite give a lot of handholds as to how to use it. I've been treating the 'give 1-3 dice' as a difficulty measure but the game doesn't state that's the case.
Also, giving you a roll for something gives you a lot of narrative control, which might mean that you could do extraordinary things if you choose to take the Monologue Of Victory. (like killing a dragon in one blow or something). This means that the system doesn't give me a lot of tools to let the dice decide on what happens when I'm not sure. I think it kind of assume I just decide, which is not a style I'm very used to, so I might just make some tables or lists or use a fate die to decide certain things, but I think I might also have to learn to just decide what happens. In this game, the GM might not really be a passive and objective observer. So that's what has been on my mind for the system.

I agree with most of that, and I'd add: the system seems to rely A LOT on players and GM being in perfect sync as to where the story is going. On more than one sense.

At one level, it's a matter of let's say scale: your dragon-slaying example, or Anne deciding that her Monologue of Victory allows her to not just shame Catherina but also totally enthrall the castellan and make him forget Marie.

But not even going there, we also need sync in let's say direction: not just avoid Mary Sue-isms like that, also know what the GM intends for this scene. I sent Catherina away, but I have no idea if she was needed/wanted in the scene for some plot purpose. But anyway, now she's not there. Because (so far) we don't know where the story is going, we don't know if sending Catherina packing is advancing or hindering the plot. So our actions can end up feeling a bit directionless, just doing cool stuff for the sake of doing cool stuff, not feeling like we're going anywhere.

Not saying it's happening just yet, but it might quickly go there. All in all, I like the system but it's extremely barebones: we need to put some flesh on it, story-wise if not mechanics-wise.
This message was last edited by the player at 11:56, Wed 18 Aug 2021.

I will get a post up probably this evening - certainly within the next twelve hours just to round the scene off.

In terms of the session and the system, I do genuinely like it, although I accept the points that have been raised thus far, both by our GM about the 1-3 dice and Anne about scale and direction.

On the whole, I do like the fact that it manages to encapsulate a lot of character traits in a simple and narrative system. The 1-3 dice is similar to the GM's role in something like WoD (i.e. taking the raw character data and putting it into the context of a roll, rewarding players for thinking tactically and not biting off more than they can chew).

I think the scale issue can be resolved by both the player and the GM being very clear about what each roll is for. The GM can then apply or withold the bonus dice as much as they wish depending on how realistic they think the scope of the action is, or even put their foot down and say no if they think the action or intention is too unrealistic. This then sets the guidelines for a Monologue of Victory.

I suspect the Direction issue is possibly the bigger one, albeit again I think that's where a GM needs either to be agile or just limit the extent of what can occur in the monologue. I certainly agree that the GM needs to be quite an active participant, but then that's a style I'm used to myself and look for in a game, and that should probably be part of the enjoyment.

At the same time, I think it also encourages players to communicate with one another behind the scenes (which is easier when you have separate PMs and OOCs) to co-ordinate their plots and intentions, or indeed to identify areas of drama and push towards them.

Overall, I like it, but I don't object to having a bit more flesh put on the bones and I'm happy to discuss it further. I think your challenge is going to be finding ways for us all to be involved in the same situation, but I'm sure we have ways of getting there.

I'll be upfront in that I'm generally a player that likes a lot of granularity and mechanics.

My personal rule is that I don't do "freeform", generally because I find that collaborative storytelling without any real "conflict" either gets stale quickly, or that even with a modest cast of characters the chance of having one that verges on a "Mary Sue" is high in my experience, kind of ruining it for the most talented players.

That being said, from what little I have seen of this system, it's not bad. I am curious as to how it will hold up over a "novel" length story as opposed to a short chapter.

I think the "slaying the dragon" example is quite good. There is no real limit to the amount of power the PC's can leverage outside of the GM limiting bonus dice. Thankfully with a good group of players, it's easy enough to pick out things that our characters "shouldn't" do for the good of the game.

But that becomes more fuzzy when we approach goals that could be considered very difficult, but feasible.

The process of trying to have the character make a good impression at a party, and having the character do something truly difficult is much the same. Roll your pool. How that works with the story going forward, I guess we will see.

So yeah, I think restricting the scope of a Monologue of Victory is something we seem to agree on should be better defined. So far it's not really been a problem, but there's secrets to Catharina that might have resulted in different behavior. Still, it was a good Medieval Mean Girls scene, so I wasn't too concerned. (Be assured Anne now has a page in Catharina's Burn Book ;) )

One approach would be to ask for limits before making a Monologue of Victory. Another might be to have more of an "everyone's a director" approach, which I guess is more like the original game might have intended. In that case everyone might know the general gist and secrets about the scene, the NPC's, etc. It would be more like writing a story together, being able to grab absolute no-veto power over the story when you do a Monologue of Victory. We might find a way between as well if we want, because if we take the "everyone is a director" mode I'm not sure if a games master/referee is still needed. And it's fun to be surprised by revealing secrets, right?

Maybe in each scene, I could set a theme and goal and some things you could try to unlock with a Monologue of Victory. I could also give important NPC's short write-ups that might guide describing actions in a Monologue of Victory.

That's my brainstorm post for this. Does anyone want to add something, voice support/concern for certain options, etc?

I would probably go for setting a limit on the monologue of victory - it doesn't have to be very detailed, and would probably be easily communicated to the player at the same time as letting them know their dice pool for the roll, so it wouldn't take up extra time.

As much as I like the concept of a genuine 'everyone's the director' scene, I think we're at a disadvantage because it's PbP rather than IRL, and thus it's a lot harder to communicate and check with everyone around the table when coming up with something, and I'd rather we didn't end up in a situation with 5 OOC posts for every one IC. I also agree with the GM's point about wanting to have some secrets.

I also can't say I'd be particularly in favour of having a set theme/goal for every scene, because I suspect that would both put a lot of pressure on the GM to accomodate and foresee everyone and everything, and I'd also worry about feeling railroaded myself. There's no reason why the GM can't informally give some pointers or discuss the matter with the party beforehand or in the OOC, but I don't think formalising it would be that helpful.

Oh, also, everybody gets to add to their story. You get 15 extra words to add. The rules don’t say it has to do with the play we did (I guess you can also understand more where your character is coming from through how you played them) but any things you have done will only have an impact when you can make them into traits (like contacts, reputations, unknown dancing skills, etc.)

Also, because the nature of our setting I’m going to be a bit more liberal with the word count. Every title or name of a thing counts as only one word, rather than the entire string. We’ve got a lot of titles eating up words. Any words that you get extra can be added to the 15 words. If you don’t have anything to change, you an save the 15 words. I will rule that any words left over with the previous counting and the adjusted counting also are still free to use. So, to summarize:

• 50+15=65 words max for each story.
• Your own character’s name is not counted.
• Any title or nameing convention is counted as only one word for counting.

There’s a discussion we can have on wether or not we need a word count at all. I think it’s useful to keep things summarized and that it doesn’t give me pages of text to read, summarize and process.

I am out of town for a weekend with my wife, so I will rarely be online.

I know one thing that happened for me that was unexpected was that Anne kept mentioning Gerhard's stature, and likening him to a big bear of a man.

In his original write up he was described as "a little over average height", but I think we kind of ran with it and now it's "head canon" for me.

I think I will add. "A great bear of a man, he is perhaps best known for his herculean stature."

I am determined to have his summary read well, despite not being "optimised" for bonuses.

As much as I would like to include his new pen pal in Limburg, I may find a way to add him after the next chapter.

Ah, sorry if I mischaracterized you, Gerhard. Perharps Anne is just very smol, being a Medieval woman and all that, so you look gigantic to her.

No, no. I like it. It's one of those things that just kind of happened, and now the character is more than he was.

Master, what is the mechanical effect of adding 15 words to the description? Does it imply we can add traits too?

We're going to end up in a situation where every description of Gerhard is just going to make him larger and larger until he's literally banging his head on the walls and struggling to hide behind medium sized hillocks, aren't we?

Also, I'm probably not going to use mine at the moment, and save them until I get a bit further along. To be fair, I could probably get away with:

'Externally placcid, Helena's internal monologue has been the subject of eight Papal Encyclicals and two crusades.'

I am, alas, a word over the limit, unless I can get away with ignoring my own name.

I'm not sure what else to add to my description for Roland.

So yeah, the added words give possibility for new traits. It looks like you can add traits whenever you want, even in the middle of play or right before an important roll.