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This was the first real session. We had done clustergen and chargen in a previous sitting.
I just want to note some thoughts about how the players reacted to the game.
We have
B and M who’s played roleplaying games but they have apparently been very different from fate.
S (that’s me, yours truly 2097) I have a lot of freeform background but I was the only one who knew the rulebook in and out, so I was the “caller” all the time.
L who has never played roleplaying games before. She also did a good job reigning in the others, bringing them back on track when they were spacing out.
I’ve said that we should maybe take turns being the GM since we all made a character during chargen. (This was something that I really liked, that Diaspora suggested this.) I offered to be GM for now since I had some ideas to get us started. M said yes please, because he didn’t have anything prepared, but he wants to be GM some day soon, he used to be GM in his old group. B and L really shied away from the thought. I’m trying to present it as GM means the one who comes up with, and plays, the NPCs, she doesn’t need to be responsible for knowing all the rules, someone else can be “caller”. So we’ll see. I want to see all four of us try their hand at being the GM, but if I end up doing it all the time, that’s fine too.
(I don’t say referee because in my mind referee sounds more like the job the “caller” is doing, e.g. knowing the rules and stuff.)
Some notes:
Buying off story-based compels happened twice.
The first time there was a fight scene kinda similar to the “poachers” example in the Diaspora book. The fight was to be composure based but still use the personal combat subsystem. (I think composure and economic battles in this system are fertile ground. I made the division: location based battles = personal combat system, abstract/goal-based battles = social combat system, and made a point that they were kinda misnamed for what they have become.) But the heroes bought off the compel, they were so scared of my narration of these threat level three fish monster people! The fish monsters wanted to buy drugs from B’s character, this super junkie, and I offered the compel that he was so attached to his stash that he would decline, but he bought it off and parted with some of his narcotics. So I made it that they instead became friends with them.
Then there was a huge social combat scene with a big map with many target squares.
L’s character wanted to move B’s and M’s lowly goon characters from a square “membership in the death squadron The Black Birds” to “membership in the death squadron The Black Wolves”, a squadron she commands. I filled the board with many other squares like they could be re-educated, they could be “dismissed” (i.e. killed), they could escape from the Otian army, they could get a few days off to relax and I made some empty squares between the squares to represent “on the way between”. (I should’ve maybe made more of these because it was very easy to move from one side to the other.) L started out the social combat with a ++++ roll composure attack to the NPC leader of The Black Birds who wanted to keep B and M on her team! Nine shifts! She had to take three consequences. But she spent her next turn putting the aspect “still cool” on herself which helped her survive further composure attacks. But the combat ended quickly because it was so easy to move B and M over to the “Members of Black Wolves” square.
(BTW the PCs were infiltrating the Otian army of death.)
One issue here was that M, seasoned player of traditional role-playing games that he is, wanted to “step out of protocol” all the time to discuss things in character. I didn’t stop that because I’m not used to running combats or the more structured parts of games, I tried to make the fiction mesh with the system as best we could.
Then they spent a lot of time really stalling and discussing among themselves “in story mode”. I thought they were having fun so I said nothing, they were in character and they were bantering back and forth.
But when I asked them if they were having fun, they said they were frustrated that they couldn’t agree with each other. I tried to introduce a side quest related to one of L’s aspect (a close friend in trouble) but L bought it off. She didn’t want me to touch that part of the character.
Maybe that’s a good thing, if they want to choose sandbox over aspect-driven hooks it’s their choice.
So to resolve their conflict they had between each other, I could’ve drawn another social map or something but instead I talked to them.
Which was weird because I didn’t have an NPC or PC in the room, I just was this disembodied voice of GM.
M wanted to go on the evil Otian plunder mission that the Death Baron requested. L wanted them to somehow get an Otian ship and leave this evil place and go on adventure of their own. (Wonder where she got that trope from.)
None of the aspects that they currently have are really about “good” or “evil”. M is a lot more comfortable with the evil Otian army than I as GM am.
So I kinda took part in the discussions because they were so stuck, in my disembodied GM voice. I’m not sure if it was me or someone else but it came up that since L is head of the 800 soldiers strong Black Wolves and we had already established that each of the Death Baron’s 600 death squadrons had relative autonomy, why didn’t they phrase one of their good rescue missions in a way that the Death Baron of Ot would believe was the type of (evil) pillage mission he approves of? E.g. they want to rescue a lot of prisoners trapped by another bad guy in another system in the cluster. The Otian forces always wants new fresh bodies to make into soldiers so it would be a perfectly acceptable mission.
So they went away on their mission and the first thing that happens when they warp into the target system, Manxestr, is that they’re met by a ship of Edarian spoiled rich kids out with their fathers ship who is trying to gun them down. (It’s legal under Edarian law for anyone to kill Otians, since Otians are the scourge of the cluster. Edara is this kinda earth-like (but bigger) paradise system, they value paperwork and swordfighting. Both Edara and Ot are T2 systems (we had to use the slipstream guarantee.)) Our heroes made short work of them and now they have a civilian ship that they can use for things!
The entire table joined in in describing these Edarian kids, adding aspect after aspect to them and their ships.
So we ended the session there. Nice to wrap things up early on the clock and we still got to use many cool maps and ships and things. I use icehouse pyramids for ships (laying down) and characters (standing up, since facing doesn’t matter in Diaspora) and, unexpectedly, these were a big hit with some in the group, L perhaps most vocally.
L was always asking rules questions and she really seem to enjoy playing this system rules-as-written. She said that loves it when things “get concrete” with the minigames. She helps me co-call, handing out dice and helping me sort out my files.
When we’re in story mode she’s always in character too, and she’s quick thinking up ideas. The others are too, all three really shine in story mode, but the guys (B & M) they’re not comfortable with the subgames and crunch yet, but they want to learn the system. B keeps confusing aspects and skills all the time and M (the only one who I know hang out on the geek, hi M if you read this!) briefly mixed up aspects and stunt at one time (but seemed to get it sorted out quickly). L, who’s never played RPGs, got the difference between skills and aspects down cold.
Perhaps it’s not to be unexpected that the most veteran roleplayers think Fate is super weird.
But they seem to be happy that we created this world together.
Now some thoughts on play balance.
Both fights were over really quick, it was so one-sided. I need to be better to have the NPCs really use their fate points. I want to see stories of defeat, too, because then the victories can really mean something. I think. Maybe.
I’m not ever going to willingly hurt a PC but that’s why I need the subgames. That’s where the dice fall as they fall.
thousands of edits, because I find grammar/spelling mistakes and mixing up “planet” with “system” and so on
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The game made us happy. For a few hours we were in a world where we were happy.
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William Hostman
United States
Eagle River
Alaska
Gaming in Greater Anchorage area, Alaska since 1978. Looking for Indy-willing RPG players in Eagle River (or willing to drive to Eagle River). Geekmail me if interested.
Yes, this really is what I looked like when I uploaded that avatar. Not that it's quite current anymore.
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2097 wrote: The game made us happy. For a few hours we were in a world where we were happy.
That's the best thing about RPGing.
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Brad Murray
Canada
Toronto
Ontario
http://www.vsca.ca/Hollowpoint
Hollowpoint is out! Be a bad man.
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Great stuff here -- I'm so glad you're having fun with our game! One thing about defeat, though, even in physical, violent combat: push hard if you want to keep the tension up. You can do this in FATE because of the Concession rule -- it never *needs* to end in death. Anyone can offer a Concession to end combat and change the direction of the story. This is the core mechanism by which FATE allows things like the capture of PCs -- a fight goes badly and the players think their characters are at risk of death and so they offer to end the combat but they are captured and have to escape. Or some other twist that implies loss of the fight but not of life.
If the players start using this rule, you can push as hard as the situation demands and not worry about balancing encounters at all.
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just a few seconds ago
I got mail from one of the players
I won’t say which
but said “think too much minigames! not enough roleplaying!”
but I need the minigames
minigames are the machine that makes story
I don’t know what to do now
is the campaign dead
I am scared
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William Hostman
United States
Eagle River
Alaska
Gaming in Greater Anchorage area, Alaska since 1978. Looking for Indy-willing RPG players in Eagle River (or willing to drive to Eagle River). Geekmail me if interested.
Yes, this really is what I looked like when I uploaded that avatar. Not that it's quite current anymore.
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Put more roleplay into the minigames when you use them. Make certain that every action is described, and described well.
Finding the right balance is tricky; Burning Wheel has the same issues there, and it's a matter of not using the minigames when you don't have to, but not shying away when you do need them.
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Brad Murray
Canada
Toronto
Ontario
http://www.vsca.ca/Hollowpoint
Hollowpoint is out! Be a bad man.
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When we play we often go whole sessions without stepping into a minigame at all. They are tools to assist the session when it needs it -- you don't need to bring them out for every conflict.
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Posted Fri Feb 3, 2012 9:49 pm
