Weapons of the Gods: Session 6

Rounding out my hell week, I’ve finished the 6th session of WotG.  I’m too exhausted to give you the sort of cool exploration of what we did that I like to do, but I can hit the highlights.

We were missing our shaky player again, and he’s having a hard time fitting in.  It wouldn’t surprise me if he dropped out entirely, and I wouldn’t be sure if he would be making the wrong choice if he did (but I will say I would miss him if he left.  I missed him in the game).  One of the players, after finally grasping what the game was really about, changed his character, and I think the new character is a wonderful fit.

We hadn’t played for two months, so you’d think fitting back in would be slow, but this time, I focused on one of my strengths: Character.  I have numerous characters and a somewhat complex plot, but by simplifying it and reiterating it, and then showing the world from the perspective of those characters, I was able to bring some neglected NPCs back to the fore:

• Prince Hei: The heir to the Dong Clan who struggles with his sexual orientation and the obvious love interest of one of our player characters.  I’ve wanted to highlight that scandal, that element of forbidden love, the tragedy and love/hate of the stereotypical kung-fu relationship, and this session, I got it in spades with Jimmy’s beauty and the truth of his profession triggered a tantrum that cost Hei the tournament and made it appear that Jimmy had set up Hei (when he had not).
• Fen-Fen: Bee’s handmaiden has a tragic back-story, and I’d never really touched on it, as it’s important for later story elements involving her.  Finally, I wrenched the story to the side and showed people her story.  It’s turning her into a bit of a woobie, but I suppose that’s fair.  She lives a hard life and faces it stoically.  She’s never relied on others to take care of her, but that doesn’t mean they don’t want to give her a big hug.
• “Littlest” Ping and Li: The “crown prince” of Southern Liang draws a great deal of inspiration from Prince Tai, though I’m working hard to make them distinct.  Where Tai was a cunning little bastard, Ping is growing into an irresponsible but contagious idealist, and Li is, while not bright, terribly practical, and asks uncomfortable questions (when Li ran off to help Ping with his madcap adventure and was later criticized for it, he pointed out that Ping is a prince, and thus Li is obligated to follow his commands.  When the player couldn’t answer that, another player pointed out “You’re losing a debate to a little boy.”  Priceless).  WotG fares so well when you point out the differences in generation, so bringing the kids in with the adults helps a lot.
• Evil Sage: (one of) the big bads of the game has been referred to, but we haven’t seen him.  So he played a song with one player character, and then casually murdered another (it’s ok, he got better).  He’s not etched onto the consciousness of the players (“Uhhhh, that kung-fu’s not very nice…”), and that’s good.
• Jun Zhi: The King’s brother, ambitious, competent and powerful, needed to be more than a brooding-but-awesome guy lurking in the background.  We brought him to the fore as a powerful ally of the players, so they should be looking to him more often, making his role as a major player in the politics of the region more sensible.

We finally had the beginning of our tournament (only one player made it to the second round by pummeling a very inexperienced character on his way to more important things), while the other forfeited in favor of protecting his princess.  I didn’t actually get a chance to reveal more about the mystery, but the pieces are set into place so that the players will know more in the next session.  All in all, we had a nice, tight game that felt like it flowed and I felt “in control,” in the sense that I wasn’t scrambling or terrified about the game.  It was easy.  This is the way a game is supposed to feel: I’m where I need to be.  At last.

WotG: Session 4 After Action Report

I think I mentioned this before: This session mattered alot.  Until now, I’ve had a rough storyline, similar to my story with my first group where we tackled some minor, unimportant task (bandits) and then moved on to bigger things, I used a similarly small scale story (Bandits.  And an evil cult.  And politics.  Ok, perhaps less simple) to initiate the learning process for my players.

Now, we needed to get into the game, actually introduce some characters, lay some foundations, and get to actually sparking the fire of player creativity.

I originally intended to have a few travel sessions where the players got to know one another, but I decided that, given that we only play once a month and that we’d spend 3 sessions in “tutorial” already, it was time to simply get to the good stuff.  So, after a quick “What happened to you during the trip,”  We brought them right to Orchid Tea City (Bee and I bought an orchid as decoration) and tangled them instantly in the politics.  After Sun Lan Hua, princess of Southern Liang (Bee) had conquered the small village of Memorial on behalf of her kingdom (Southern Liang), Hanzhou, Southern Liang’s rivals, are understandably upset and have sent a decadent and effete ambassador to threaten war and gain some concessions.  Meanwhile, in the court itself, the factions of the Shadow Minister and the Flying General contend for the desolate heart and mind of the king, one advising peace (the Shadow Minister, master of the Gu clan and Erik’s father), and War (The Flying General, lord of the Ma clan, and father of Ma Wu Tai), while Sun Lan Hua deals with family troubles caused by her missing elder brother, her pesky younger brother, and her sultry, too-young step-mother (and, naturally, master Courtier).  Already, politics swirls around the revelation that Street Saint was Prince Hei, heir to the Dong clan, and the cruel, arrogant and stupid prince of the Xi, Brash Stallion, guest of the Royal Sun family here in Orchid Tea City, wants him humiliated by lending truth to the rumors that Prince Hei is gay.  There just happens to be a player-character male courtesan they can hire (And, indeed, was enjoyed over the night for a high price by Shouren, the effete ambassador of Hanzhou).  Meanwhile, the other two heroes, Gou Ying (our Street Sage) and Wolf Devil, find themselves wrapped in a noir fairy tale as a body falls from the roof and smashed into their table and when the incompetent local sheriff (used to helping drunks, not solving murder mysteries) refuses to tackle the case, the gothic, beautiful femme fatale “wife” of the victim begs them to investigate (and lands a curse on Gou Ying that forces him to “bring the noir” with him wherever he goes, which he promptly yin-yanged into a beneficial curse for his Might.  Grrrr, Daoists).  We ended on the revelation that the dead man was, in fact, a member of the Hanzhou emissaries, and that Gu Zan Xue’s (Erik’s) sister might have had something to do with it.

I thought it turned out well, more so now that I look back at it after writing that monster paragraph about it.  It had depth, complexity, much of which I’ve fluttered over.  My measuring stick has really been Bee, who is easily bored lately by any lack of quality, and she complained when I didn’t bring in a certain “irritating” PC into the game (someone she’s obviously picked out as a contrarian love interest), and she had quite a few comments after the game (the only thing she disliked was how easily the king was “duped” by his blushing bride, but there are factors she hasn’t yet picked up on).  The rest seem to be loving it…. except for Wolf Devil and Gou Ying, who were neglected slightly during the game.  They’ve asked for a private session, and I’ve eagerly accepted, as once-a-month is just too slow for me, and this gives me a middle point where I can set up a quick game, establish some of the personalities for the up-and-coming tournament and some of the evil spies and villains lurking at the edge of Orchid Tea City’s virtuous utopia.

WotG: Session 3 After Action Report

At long last, after many delays, we finally finished our introduction.  I focused entirely on the Great Game, and it went really well.  I managed to fix the problem my previous group had with the lack of kung fu in the game by offering Challenge Stones (for example, one player charged a group and I said if he killed 10 guys in 3 turns, he’d wipe some of the Force Stone off the board).  In general, I allowed alot more personal action, which I think the Great Game is designed to do.  As a result, everyone quite enjoyed themselves.

Except for Bee. Bee was bored.  She wasn’t as bored, I think, as she let on, as she had things to do, but I think I see where she’s coming from.  The introduction has been light and easy, a simple scenario meant to let you understand the game.  But it lacks the sparkle, the dazzle, the intensity that gives a game its X factor.  Bee is enjoying the game “well enough,” and the rest are enjoying it quite nicely, but I don’t want that.  I want them addicted and obsessed.  And that means kicking it up a notch.

I have two more games this week, one GURPS, one WotG.  I’ll have to see if I can pull out the awesome in that amount of time.  Wish me luck.

WotG: Session 2 After Action Report

The heroes still find themselves in the town of Memorial, having finally defeated and purged the area of the Writhing Sickness Cult, and after loudly proclaiming how they intended to win it back for Southern Liang, the Hanzhou troops show up.

Once again, I didn’t get through more than one major fight (though I had a minor, small fight too), partially because one of our players showed up very late again (he said so in advance).  We were also missing another friend.  However!  The fights were excellent.  The players have shifted from simply rolling dice to see what happens and have begun to engage in the tactics of the game.  We’ve also begun to see quite a bit of the Secret Arts (mostly cursing from Rene, who already knows the system, and the Secret Art of Genius from Erik).  So, we seem to be getting the system quickly enough (and no surprise, it’s actually pretty easy).

Most importantly, the game flowed nicely.  Everyone felt in character, I was comfortable with the setting and the spelling out of the tale, and everyone enjoyed the game quite a bit.  The final battle against the cult was somewhat anti-climactic (Erik declared the Writhing Sickness Cult particularly vulnerable to Knock Back and, of course, the evil temple was filled with lava, so naturally, the big bad warrior tossed off an AoE KB effect, and that was pretty much the entire fight), though a bigger fight against the dark, ebil Hell Clan guy was quite a bit more engaging (humorously, every character involved in rescuing the girl from Tiger Knight, including the NPC, was gay. It just kinda worked out that way.  Poor girl).  Happily, both of my gay players have expressed interest in *cough* Street Saint, which means I’m playing him correctly.  The real challenge will be next session, when I reveal Soldier, if Bee has proper chemistry with him.

Next session we dig into the Great Game, and that’s the end of the first arc.

WotG: Romancing Tigers

I haven’t discussed my Weapons of the Gods game, something I should remedy.

Anyone who knows me probably knows of my love of Weapons of the Gods by now.  It’s a slick, sleak game that, while not without flaws, consistently provides for interesting combat, player involvement in stories, and tangled intrigues, encouraging exactly the sort of play that I want out of a game.  After my overwhelmingly positive experience with Weapons of the Gods and the Newton group, I felt it was time to spring it on the Eindhoven group.

Where Newton is filled with power-gaming, wish-fulfillment adventurers, Eindhoven is all about intrigue, drama and very stylish combat. Unsurprisingly, three of our 6 players are courtiers (if we land the 7th, she’ll be a courtier too), with a single scholar, and two (just two) warriors.  And yes, we have another kung-fu courtesan (male this time.  Also associated with the Jade Dragon Society.  Those Jade Dragons and their prostitution, I swear…)

Romancing Tigers, thus, will be a political game.  I drew considerable inspiration from Smiling, Proud Wanderer and Red Cliff, and so I hope to have a multi-layered game where what seems to be going on is only a thin veneer over what’s really going on, and that our battles are more often solved with a simple cup of tea than martial excellence.

The game will feature three major cities: Orchid Tea City, the beautiful and heavenly capital of vibrant Southern Liang (Home to the Dong), Perpetual Peace, the ancient, decaying and prestigious old capital of Hanzhou (Home to the Hell Clan), and Dragon Bennison, a ruthless and oppressive city ruled by a fierce general within the Jin Empire (Home to the Nan Clan).  At first, we’ll merely introduce each location to the players, moving them along with a swiftly flowing story, then we’ll unleash the real plot, and set the players loose on it.  In a way, it resembles Slaughter City in its location-based game design, though it will begin a little less free.

Tomorrow will be our second session, and hopefully, we can finish our introduction and move on to the “real” beginning of the story.

Changing Gears: Weapons of the Gods

So after a couple of months of obsessing on Vampire, and with Mass Effect 2 right around the corner (I should have it in my hot little hands today or tomorrow), I’ve decided to run… Weapons of the Gods.  Yeah, that was clever. 😦

My Eindhoven crowd has long heard tales of how awesome the game is, and they were really some of the first to help me understand the game (Jimmy and Menno in particular, and Rene more recently), so I’ve wanted to run this for them for a long time.  Bee also hasn’t really enjoyed a table top game since Exalted, and I hope/think that WotG will scratch that itch for her.  I can already see her tentatively expressing interest in this element or that.

I’m glad this game appeals to me so much.  Without even meaning to, I find myself falling into the WotG mode, imagining awesome fights, over-the-top characters and melodramatic intrigue.  Thankfully, Weapons of the Gods is very much a game that helps you come up with stories, so after the players made their characters, I’m already buzzing with ideas.  I’ve drawn inspiration from some of the most unexpected sources: once again, Tengou Tenghe, despite being a sub-par anime/manga, really fires me up.  Wuxia movies I had dismissed (the Banquet in particular) keep coming up in my head, offering more and more ideas.

After the enormous success and pleasure of Slaughter City, I want to write Romancing Tigers the same way, but I’m unsure if it’s a good idea.  Heaven’s Hand, my Newton game, sort of wrote itself over time.  I had an overall arc in mind, and then I simply filled out the details as we moved from session to session, allowing the players’ actions and interests to inform my choices.  Furthermore, Slaughter City is about vampires in a static location.  I need only design the people of a city, and prior relationships with the characters don’t exist, as vampires “in the world, but not of it.”  Weapons of the Gods generally favors more of a “quest” style gameplay, where characters run around, meet new people, and fight them.  Kung fu warriors are fundamentally tied to their setting, part of secret societies, clans, families and kingdoms.

On the other hand, Weapons of the Gods demands detail.  You really can’t fake a character’s martial or secret arts.  They need to be detailed.  Moreover, Weapons of the Gods encourages you to use “relationship charts” to track how NPCs feel about one another.  These two things combined encouraged me to stat all my NPCs in Heaven’s Hand, which in turn inspired the statting craze of Slaughter City.  So we’ll see.

Wuxia Weekend

So, I finally got everyone together and had them watch a bunch of Kung Fu movies. We managed to get through Forbidden Kingdom and Red Cliff before exhaustion swept over everyone (Red Cliff is a great movie, but heavy), and we had to quit. Also, I was too sick to cook, so we had to order out. Even so, I managed to pull it off, and I’m very pleased. It’s fun to organize a party and have it go without a hitch.

And next came the WotG invitations. I actually have someone who rightfully doesn’t have time to join us seriously considering it. I’ll know soon enough, I’m sure. Mission accomplished.

On a related note, I had struggled for awhile to know what my story was “about.” In general, I know I need a “trick,” something that makes the story fun. In this case, it would be three different courts and lots of social interaction, with a solid dollop of the Great Game. But I also generally need a “twist,” a cool thing that happens at the climax that shifts the tone of the game and immediately points to where the game is going, and explains why everything just turned up a notch. I had nothing for a very long time, until after Wuxia Weekend, the thought finally hit me: If some of the kewl new Wuxia can steal from Shakespeare, why can’t I? Ironically, this thought had nothing to do with Wuxia Weekend itself, but with movies I didn’t even actually show.

^_^

Weapons of the Gods

Someone offered me one of the nicest things one gamer can offer a game master: a seat at his table as a player in one of his favorite games. In this case, I had inspired someone with my WotG oneshot who has since purchased the books and begun to run the game, much to the acclaim of several players. He wanted some help with the Secret Arts, so I whipped up my own character (rather similar to Grey Lotus, actually, except less medical skill and more White Crane. Mmmm. White Crane)

I’ve tried not to touch WotG since I finished our last campaign, fearing that I would “burn out” on it like I burned out on Exalted or 7th Sea, but after re-opening that part of my life and feeling the utter exhiliration of the game again, I wonder. Did I burn out on Exalted and 7th Sea because I played them “too much,” or because they sucked. Forgive me if you loved those particular games, but their systems certainly could have been better. Walter, for example, wanted very much to love 7th Sea even while the reputation system was graphically violating his character concept and encouraging all the players to waste their points in useless knacks (Fortunately, everyone wasted their points the same way, so we didn’t see discrepencies. We should probably thank our stars that Roomie wasn’t playing, or he’d have dissected the system and put everyone’s characters to shame). Was I tired of Exalted because of running it so much, or because I got sick of sifting through 50 charms whenever I wanted to make a powerful NPC and hassling through endless, pointless fights with eternal perfects, insurmountable defenses and absurd armor that resulted in miniscule chances of anyone involved taking even a single HL of damage?

I mean, I’m not tired of GURPS yet, or World of Darkness (the new one, which is actually pretty good), despite years of playing them. Maybe the problem isn’t that I get sick of a game, but that I get sick of doing all the mechanical heavy lifting and pretending a game is good when it isn’t.