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 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.