When I was playing in a 5e game that was sticking to a published adventure (something heist?) set in Waterdeep one of the newer players recommended we steal valor and call ourselves the West Coast Harpers. Im glad I knew enough Farun geography to know that was an even dumber idea than he knew so of course I co-signed it.
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Writing those recaps was fun.
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In WUtC you gain levels by boasting and delivering upon your boast. A player can raise the stakes and take the boast as their own, gaining two levels at once. The other player can take back the boast if they accept those terms and the stakes can be raised again and so-on. There are a few other details but thats more or less it.
Ruda has taken her first boast before my first session. She will be drinking a strange potion without any protection from God, shirking all matter of divine protection going forward.
If this drink does not kill her outright she will be the highest level character in the active party but will have serious drawbacks in regard to warding spells. It means I may never take any charms of protection for the character’s entire duration.
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I saw this illustration in a Vampire book at a garage sale in like 2002 and I’ve been trying to remember which one it was ever since (the original version of the Nosferatu Clan Book). I wanted to use it for a flyer a couple years back but it’s less self evidently goofy than I remember so it wouldn’t have worked anyway. I never want anyone to think I’m sincere about anything.
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After the next couple sessions we’re switching to a modified Old School Essentials for Daemonium which has me very excited. I rolled my stats tonight and now I cant stop thinking about it. I will be writing journal entries for Gene after the switch. My brother is building an extensive hex map and will start tracking weather and shit which has me doubly hyped.
We’re on a diplomatic mission with the wood elves who sound hilarious and inventive. Elves are tied to the world of dreams and the wood elves take drugs to stave off their dreaming. Gene doesnt technically know any of this though. I am mostly interested in Giants, since Gene has Giants blood coursing thru his veins.
The party will be dealing with an invasion in retaliation for the events in Portia. We’ll be given a rough timeframe to prepare and I have some pretty cool ideas for how I want to go about it. There’s an Ettin we met who fancies himself a king. Gene will forge him a sword to get him our side for the invasion. Then we’ll give him great javelins or a massive bow to help deal with the enemy’s air superiority. I also want to make an arrangement with a dragon to help fight Aeon’s airforce. We only have one airship and theyre obscenely expensive to produce.
One thing I am worried about is that the military leader at Fort Cheswick, Harry Magnusson, will be leaving to get an ancient set of armor at the ruins of the Red Duke’s Fortress. In the meantime, Gene Eriksson will be given command of 150 men. This is a soft introduction to domain play, something I have never done before. I know for sure Gene will have them do training exercises but I dont know what else we will do in the meantime. I dont want to suffer any losses, because the enemy force is already more than double our own but I should also make use of the manpower somehow.
The other thing is Gene has an idea to use the Unicorn Tufts he acquired a little ways back to make either boots of haste or, with some other ingredients, boots of flying. Boots of flying would mean he can meet the enemy in the air, but it would require some questing to slay a griffon (we know there is one at Mirror Mountain) as well as finding and slaying a pegasus for materials. He has an unbreakable dwarven sword as well which is great and will eventually be reforged into “ENDER”, the magical sword he dreamt of at the start of our campaign. That will probaly not be done until after the incoming attack on Fort Cheswick. The shield he dreamt of is nearly complete, which will come in useful. It is called BLAST SHIELD “MASTIFF” and can fire grenades or shot, I am not sure what is decided. It features a mastiff’s face on the front with the barrel hidden in the jaws. Cool as Hell.
If we fail to defeat Aeon the campaign does not end, but their goals to kill the gods and bring forth the demons will be successful. Then we’ll learn the true meaning of Daemonium.
With the move from 5e to OSE we will also be moving away from milestone levelling into xp based on defeating monsters and accruing gold. I think we should also get xp for completing quests or personal goals established with the referee, but thats hard to measure… I will talk to my brother about the idea, tho. Maybe its a bad idea because incentives should stand on their own merit. I dont know. We already have the incentive to gather treasure and slay foes though so maybe it isnt a problem. I think action is its own reward, and freeing people from bondage or saving victims and all that is good to do in its own right, but then so is amassing wealth and defeating enemies, yet we’re rewarded xp for that. This is something I like in Wolves Upon the Coast, it neatly sidesteps all that with its Boasts mechanic for levelling.
Wish I could play today! Gotta wait for Saturday tho. I hope that shield is completed because I really want to use it.
I have a long-term goal for Gene now, which is to open a training school. This is his retirement plan. He also has to become a True Hero and failure to do so should see him meet an unfortunate end. My very first character, Sluice Slimegate, appeared in this campaign as a revenant. The idea is that people with strong enough wills can remain on this earth after death if they have not achieved satisfaction or growth. Basically, in this canon, Sluice tried to integrate with surface society but could not do so correctly and returned to the sewers (he was born in a sewer). He could never integrate properly and was a horrible person but his lingering will animated his body and he remained.
Gene’s backstory is that he worked his way up the ranks in the Cashuan army for his immense fighting prowess, until he was ordered to lead his men to their deaths in a wall of bodies strategy against Aeon’s rifles. Basically, their numbers were supposed to overwhelm the enemy’s firepower. This was not the case. His men were slaughtered and he hid under the corpse of a bannerman. He keeps a tatter of that man’s flag on him at all times. He was one of the only survivors and upon his return was lauded a hero. When he went home to his village, he was elected Sheriff and celebrated as a war hero. This was an empty life built on a lie. He was not a particularly good sheriff, tho he was known to show almost suicidal daring at desperate times. When the Cashuan King surrendered to Aeon and the occupation began, he was quick to volunteer for the rebellion, not strictly because of the cause but largely because he wanted to be put to use and possibly redeem himself. He sees himself as someone who is only good for following orders. He is slowly getting over his deathwish. But if he cannot become a real hero or if he succumbs to his worst tendencies and somehow survives, I can only imagine that he, too, would become a revenant. When he takes command of Fort Cheswick in Harry’s absence he will be full of doubt. Doubt that he can lead well, doubt that he can protect the lives of his soldiers, doubt that he deserves his position. I hope he can overcome that doubt.
Its funny, because my brother has given me this responsibility particularly because it is the kind of thing I avoid. So he almost wants to see me grow alongside Gene. What a lovely hobby this is!
update: Oh, one of the things Im excited for with the switch to OSE! We’re using a modified Turn Undead table for Grappling and to give fighters a touch more flavour we have something called Arts of War, with Gene getting Expert Grappler as his native Art of War. This is because I always grapple shit. He previously learned the Tavern Brawler feat from a Saejima homage so he will have that, too. What this means is he grapples two levels above his own and can immediately pin or throw 1HD enemies. So, conceivably, Gene could grab a goblin and break it against another goblin in one move. Immense!
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not very relevant to anything but had to laff
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Getting xp for certain concrete actions at the end of a session isn’t about getting a reward for playing how you would already play, its about taking a moment to remind yourselves of the things you did during that session.
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Yeah it’s extremely rare that we haven’t gotten the “learned something new or important about the world” end of session xp in nora but it’s a good chance to make one last joke about all the incredibly stupid bullshit that we got up to
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But dont you think the purest play might arise solely from diegetic growth?
How are we defining “pure” here?
and diegetic - just things that are in character, no external talking / planning?
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Based solely on roleplaying decisions instead of minmaxing and engineering mechanics in their favour.
I don’t think this would even be the best way to play a game but I am interested in exploring a diminished metagame. I suppose that’s what I mean by pure – a game where as little as possible is player facing so the player cannot make decisions based on game incentives but instead must rely solely on in-character decision-making. Something like this probably couldn’t allow for downtime mechanics since they’re necessarily somewhat transparent.
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Exactly. We use a lot of diegetic growth in our D&D games but it’s a collaborative kind that is a bit less immersive, where we set goals and the referee directs us within reason. Like, “I want to learn to forge a sword”, “well, there’s a blacksmith the party met earliest, you could talk to him”. Then we travel x-number of hexes and pay x number of gp and spend x-amount of time between adventures studying blacksmithing. This is part of why companions are encouraged, so that we can engage in downtime and adventures at the same time…
I think this is most fun and reasonable but I would love to play a game without level ups, without player facing rules, etc.
I get what you’re saying; why not just do improv in that case? Cut mechanics out of the conversation entirely.
I suppose it’s because I am comfortable in a tabletop setting and the referee and dice are impartial adjudicators. I think what I am looking for would be most attainable thru the FKR style of play. Procedures are everything to generating a believable world.
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Adjudicators of what though. What conflicts are going to arise in the game you are imagining that will require these sorts of methods to resolve? There are GMless ttrps, diceless ttrpgs, collaborative storytelling ttrpgs with less than one page of rules… it sounds like you want to prioritize suspension of disbelief which means making the secondary world seem more “objective”, which demands more mechanics (because mechanics narrow the scope of action and take choices out of the players’ hands, making them seem like a secondary physics, an internal logic of the secondary world that operates without the players’ presence) which then introduces player incentives.
yeah, sounds simulationist, wanting emergent behaviour from interacting systems that are not player-centred.
I’ve been playing a Star Trek Adventures ttrpg game with an Achewood group every other Saturday, and I gotta say, Star Trek does not make for the best fit for an improv adventure.
Turns out, being in Star Trek is just being at work!! It sucks!!!
Everyone is in their own specific room for their specific job, and when the ship encounters a problem, the problem is brought to the correct person in the chain. If it’s a medical problem, it goes to the doctor, who must now solo figure out the medical problem with the nurses. If it’s a security problem, the player playing the security officer goes and detains that person, and then we try to stand there as players trying to figure out how the fuck the justice system works in a utopian future.
It is very boring!! Nothing unexpected happens! We just investigate the problem, determine a course of action, call a meeting to discuss, identify who in the command structure has what responsibility, and then do the plan. That’s the whole thing fellas!!!
We don’t even interact almost ever, because with the rigid command structure of Starfleet, we’re essentially on a naval vessel where we don’t really have reason to intermingle between ranks while on-duty (also in this group doesn’t really do in-character stuff or voices).
I dunno I normally would not continue to play this game but I do love talking to the other players about Star Trek for long stretches of time afterwards, so
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It’s interesting that a lot of Star Trek the TV show doesn’t actually follow this formula. Like I always feel like a Star Trek show is losing it’s footing when a thing happens, people talk, and then technobabble solves it.
That isn’t how like, any Worf focused episode works for example. That isn’t like when Jake Sisko has to watch a man die. Or Our Man Bashir plays with the structure of a holodeck episode so they keep needing to think of how to keep anyone from dying in a James Bond movie.
…y’know having a mix of unhinged starfleet weirdos who are all loose cannons and a bunch of non starfleet guys is probably why DS9 works so well for stories.
But still! I think TNG does stuff other than this a lot, or even if it is that, creates interesting problems while the behind the scenes technobabble is happening.
But Star Trek Adventures is a super trad style game so I imagine there’s not a lot of latitude for character driven moral dilemmas or drama other than procedural die rolls?
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In the Daemonium campaign one of the characters set off on their own quest so I rolled a side character to support their bounty hunter. His name is Prishop Fehr and he is a 13 year old autistic savant obsessed with machines. 18 INT!!! Part of the fun with this character is I am going to have his behaviour heavily influenced by the people around him. For instance, this time he learned about surrender when the duo defeated a group of bandits with the help of the local mayor. The bandits were surrendering but he thought he was still supposed to fight and he shot his gun again, taking a bandits ear off in the process. But he was reprimanded afterward and now he has this as a “rule” of behaviour. This is kind of how I learned about things growing up, but I wasnt a savant just the normal kind of ASD.