|
|
Rank: Advanced Member
Groups: Member
Joined: 8/14/2009
Posts: 47
Points: 141
Location: Norway
|
So, Spellbound Kingdoms. Take Two. I get together with my old gaming buddies twice a year to do a whole week-end of gaming. My contribution to the last two gatherings have been to run Spellbound Kingdoms. And last time I started a game I plan to continue next time. This will be a mix of play report, impressions and reflections from that game. The campaign is set up around a noble character that is fleeing unknown enemies. While the young character is technically the new duke of noble house from Akra, his Scope 1 noble house is all that remains after the unknown foe annihilated his family and the rest of his house. The other characters play trusted retainers that were hand-picked to follow the young heir into exile as the battles raged. The campaign picks up just after the characters have managed to slip away from the slaughter. In addition to the noble the other characters are sergeant of the guard (warrior), noble islander fosterling (warrior), young scholar (wizard) and captain of the ship (rogue). All served the old duke and must now decide if the young heir is worthy of their loyalty, and what they want to do with their lives now that their past lies in ruins. I find that Ninebloods to outstrip the other human types, so I boosted the islander to make them a more attractive option: In my game “Islanders’ Luck”, their ability to lower the Doom by one, applies to any roll against doom. As an experiment I made all the players, except for the one playing the noble, randomly pick a secret with a mandatory inspiration. - One is the older, illegitimate half-brother of the heir. Inspiration: seek recognition (sergeant of the guard) - One helped the house’s enemies into castle, not realizing that they intended to kill everyone. Inspiration: fear being discovered (young scholar) - One is madly in love with a servant girl in the noble’s entourage. Problem is that the girl is in love with a random other character. Inspiration: Love woman (the captain is in love with a girl that turned out to only have eyes for the young nobleman) - One is cursed with a highly contagious magical illness that can only be kept from breaking out with expensive medicines. Inspiration: Fear of being banished as a plague bearer. For this campaign I really wanted to try out scene order play, and I decided to frame the first scene in media res: Your ship is boarded by pirates, what do you do? The player running the noble wanted to do an inspirational speech before the boarding, so I immediately let him run a short flashback scene. The player was delighted by the fact that this had a mechanical effect when the speech gave the other characters a point of mood. Cut back to the fighting, where the characters successfully drive off the pirates. They will be back at some point though. I must admit that I still struggle a bit to run fights. There are so many sheets to keep track of and moves to plan. In addition I find it hard to narrate the simultaneous resolution. Especially since there are two sets of rolls involved (attack vs defense for both parties). The results would have been so much easier to narrate if there only was one roll for each fighter. I also wonder if a simplified mook style sheet could be a good idea. Only a handful of iconic moves such as: Gang Up, Fanatic rush, Duke-it-out and Flee. Perhaps combined with a mechanic to run a horde of mooks as a single character? The next scenes found the characters in a colony town (since I wanted a Pirates of The Caribbean vibe) called Williamtown (since I found this beautiful map on the net: http://www.storyweaver.com/Portals/1/LiveContent/616/Images/Williamtown.jpg). The noble trying to dig up news about his house, get in touch with the local nobles and find out who killed his family. We are used to traditional role playing games, so framing scenes was hard for us all. Both in the sense that they had to define what they, as a player, wanted to achieve before playing the scene and especially by letting a scene end. As a traditional group we are very used to make a scene go on and on. I was a bit lost to what my role as a gm would be in scene order play, so I just used my turn to frame scenes to attack the players’ inspirations. This included a scene with a conversation the sergeant had in a bar where a drunken sailor kept on talking about that the character resembled someone he had met once. Someone important. But he just couldn’t say who. And a conversation between the captain and the girl he loves (that of course considers him her best friend and confidant :) about how gorgeous, handsome and brave the young duke is. Both scenes worked very well and both characters got a hit to their inspirations and went away grumbling. We ended the game after the players had discovered the house that most likely attacked and annihilated the duke’s family, dug up dirt on that house’s slaving operation, the duke having barely avoiding a love inspiration for the leader of the enemy house and the group having put themselves in dept to another noble house. All in all I think the game went over well. The players were a bit overwhelmed by the openness of scene order play and the complexities of the mechanic, but this might be easier next time. Especially when they realize that they don’t need to do world shaking stuff every time they frame a scene make it easier. Using scenes to just regain mood and attack other peoples inspirations don’t have to be very clever or complex. And doing this is very useful. Fun was had by all and I'm looking forward to next round. Probably in October.
|
|
Rank: Advanced Member
Groups: Member
Joined: 5/8/2009
Posts: 182
Points: 258
Location: Morgantown, WV
|
Glad to see you got a chance to run the game, sir! Even better, y'all enjoyed it! ^_^ Arkat wrote:I must admit that I still struggle a bit to run fights. There are so many sheets to keep track of and moves to plan. I haven't had a chance to actually run SK but I think a good solution would be to create miniature versions of the combat sheets. This can be done pretty easily with a program like Excel if you don't have art skills (like myself). However, the combat styles are suppose to be condensed a bit when the 'complete' SK releases so that will likely make it a bit easier to manage things. How did you organize the NPCs' combat sheets? Likely many of the baddies used the same style, yeah? So I'm guessing you used colored/numbered tokens or something to illustrate where each one was? Quote:I also wonder if a simplified mook style sheet could be a good idea. Only a handful of iconic moves such as: Gang Up, Fanatic rush, Duke-it-out and Flee. Perhaps combined with a mechanic to run a horde of mooks as a single character? I agree with this completely. Thing is, as I mentioned previously the styles are having their moves cut... but a Mook Horde Combat Style would be a very good idea. That said, handling an enemy 'unit' as multiple lesser foes doesn't necessarily need any special rules. Cinematically speaking, of course. =P They deal damage as a unit and are defeated as a unit. Allows for more colorful narrations, I'd imagine. =D In any event, thanks for the impressions.
/*~Matthew Miller~*\
|
|
Rank: Advanced Member
Groups: Member
Joined: 5/8/2009
Posts: 182
Points: 258
Location: Morgantown, WV
|
Arkat wrote:I find that Ninebloods to outstrip the other human types, so I boosted the islander to make them a more attractive option: In my game “Islanders’ Luck”, their ability to lower the Doom by one, applies to any roll against doom. I have a few ideas about "streamlining" the species/races. Nothing playtested, just some ideas I was throwing around a while back... Probably won't be much use once the revised SK hits. =P Here it is anyways... 
/*~Matthew Miller~*\
|
|
Rank: Advanced Member
Groups: Member
Joined: 8/14/2009
Posts: 47
Points: 141
Location: Norway
|
Nice! I like it!
Although I still think you can safely let islanders reduce Doom on all rolls. The Ninebloods' bonus to heart and ability to channel an inspiration twice each encounter is just that good.
|
|
Rank: Advanced Member
Groups: Member
Joined: 5/8/2009
Posts: 182
Points: 258
Location: Morgantown, WV
|
Arkat wrote:Nice! I like it! Thanks. =) I felt like there should be four races for each species. I like symmetry. =P Plus, the tables are a nice visual aid. Quote:I still think you can safely let islanders reduce Doom on all rolls. The Ninebloods' bonus to heart and ability to channel an inspiration twice each encounter is just that good. Agreed. I worded it in such a way that it simply reduces the Doom by 1 for an entire scene... so that it affects everyone rolling against the Doom.
/*~Matthew Miller~*\
|
|
Rank: Administration
Groups: Administration
Joined: 3/12/2008
Posts: 234
Points: 569
|
Great report! I like your set-up a lot. Funny that you started in media res with a ship battle; I did much the same thing with a zeppelin battle in a pre-Gen Con game. I'm going to try to put up a report on that in another thread right after this.
I like how you tied the secrets and inspirations together (yet did not overdo it, only one per character). Very cool. That is also great about the inspirational speech and the mechanical effect (mood increase). I've found that to be one of the things new SK players consistently are surprised by and enjoy: that roleplaying and speeches have mechanical, even tactical and physical, effects.
About the combined mook combat style: Doh! I actually had to look back in the SK pdf to see that it's not there. I have one, called Mob style, that's been sitting around here forever. Yeah, without a doubt, it needs to be there. There might even be references to it in the text (erroneous references, since it's not included...). Anyway, yeah, you are totally right, there should be one.
About managing all the different rolls and sheets during combat: Yep. I agree. I have been struggling with what to do about this. Here are my thoughts: in my games, I started having something called Slow monsters. These monsters - zombies, corpulent lizards, golems - were so plodding and deliberate that they had to reveal their moves before everyone else chose theirs. The players liked this a lot, and it made it much easier to narrate and manage combat. That made me think that despite my love for simultaneous choices, it might be better for gameplay/narration to sacrifice a bit of realism and go with an old-school initiative order.
So right now in the full version there is Duel Initiative and Melee Initiative. Duel Initiative is the same as before, but it is used only for 1-on-1 duels or very small, easy to manage combats. That is where the "simultaneous reveal" shines, in my opinion. For the Melee Initiative, I went old school, sort of. Combat goes in order of Quickness. But since it's often advantageous to see your enemy's maneuver first, people delay and the slowest person is forced to act first. Then whoever wants to can come off delay; if two people try to jump in at the same time, the higher quickness jumps in first. I explain that by saying that in melee, there's so much chaos that it's impossible to perfectly execute your forms, and the quickest people can delay until the last minute, see what you are doing, and then still manage to strike.
Let me know what you think of that! The disadvantage, of course, is that it's a bit less realistic. The advantage, though, is that it helps narration a ton. People get to hear what everyone else is doing. It also lets them make a more informed choice about their next maneuver, and gives them time to study their foe's maneuver sheet to see what might be coming. I like it.
I haven't had much trouble with the fact that there are two dice - offense and defense - for combat. Perhaps that's because most of my games are only with 3 or sometimes 4 PCs. The only times I have had six have been at Gen Con (although actually I didn't have trouble with the two dice system then, either). Hm. Try the Melee Initiative I mentioned above and see if that helps with the two dice.
Scene order play is definitely a challenge at first. But I've found that the people I play with really get into it. Of course, I often have a list of things out in front of the players like: 1) Find bandit's lair; 2) Research elixir's formula; 3) Gather bella donna for elixir; 4) Gather "breath of a virgin" for elixir; 5) Pour elixir into bandit leader's drink or force leader to drink elixir. Then the players look at the list for ideas of what the goals for their scenes could be. My lists are usually handwritten right before the game starts. The players are always welcome to go off in other directions, too, of course, and frequently do. But the list can provide a nice framework. Still, there's no doubt that scene order play can be a challenge. The greatest advantage is that the players can help set the pace, tone, and focus of the game by using it; if they like the pace, tone, and focus of the game already, then there may not be a need for it.
I am so glad that you are having fun with the game! That is what it's all about, and it makes me really happy to hear.
Oh, about the races: yeah, they are streamlined a lot in the full version. All humans get +1 heart, and then one race-specific power each (ninebloods still get an extra inspiration use per scene, which is huge, but the other races have an even more powerful, though less generally useful, ability). If any human wishes, he can replace his race-specific ability with the "increase die size by one when resisting magic" ability. Trolls get 1 body/(hour or two combat tricks) plus their choice of one body part that functions remotely (if you're an eye troll, you can detach your eye, leave it up to a mile away on a shelf, and have it spy for you; if you're a hand troll, you can toss your hand in a fixer's wagon, then at night crawl it out, feel your way to the door, and unlock it from the inside to let the rest of your body in). Beyond that, seradynn get +1 Magic and rain trolls get skills that start at 6 (skills have been revamped... much simpler now, I love the system, the skills from the incomplete version were my least favorite thing).
Hm. Mac, I really like some of your racial abilities in that post. Cave and Cloud trolls. Hm. Double hm hm...
|
|
Rank: Advanced Member
Groups: Member
Joined: 5/8/2009
Posts: 182
Points: 258
Location: Morgantown, WV
|
YcoreRixle wrote:About the combined mook combat style: Doh! I actually had to look back in the SK pdf to see that it's not there. I have one, called Mob style, that's been sitting around here forever. Great to hear. =D Quote:So right now in the full version there is Duel Initiative and Melee Initiative. Sounds really awesome. =D As a personal preference when it comes to GMing I know that I'll end up using the Duel Initiative method more often than Melee... simply because I like small, tense fights. Quote:about the races: yeah, they are streamlined a lot in the full version. Everything in this part of your post is both interesting and awesome. =D CANNOT WAIT FOR THE FULL VERSION!!!Quote:Hm. Mac, I really like some of your racial abilities in that post. Cave and Cloud trolls. Hm. Double hm hm... Glad ya like it. =P If'n you want to add Cave and Cloud Trolls to SK, I wouldn't mind. ;) I like the idea of having a tribal cousin to the other trolls that dwells primarily beneath the earth.
/*~Matthew Miller~*\
|
|
Rank: Advanced Member
Groups: Member
Joined: 8/14/2009
Posts: 47
Points: 141
Location: Norway
|
Interesting, very interesting.
Look forward to the mook horde style! I really think it will help with combats where there are a lot of low level opponents (like boarding actions and the like). Now if you really want to make my wishes come through, the style is astract enought so that you can run a group of mooks as an aggregate. Where I just have to note something like this: 10 Mooks, Bod 20, Horde Style. And then have the opportunity to select moves for them as a group. That would rock!
I also like what you have done with initiative. Although I would have simplified it even more. Either it is simultaneous or the npcs reveal first. No comparing quickness. If it is simultaneous, then the players don't get a chance to discuss their moves among themselves and when the enemies reveal first I'd let them discuss their moves a bit. But this should be easy to house rule.
When it comes to narrating simultaneous actions, it is just that I haven't gotten the hang of it yet. I have no reason to believe that this will not get better with practice. It is just so unlike the way I narrate actions in other games, that it takes some getting used to. I think I start to roll for the npc attack first and use this roll to narrate the intensity of the exchange, and then roll for the pc's attack last and use this to narrate how the exchange ended... that might do the trick.
I like the way you prepare for scene order play. Especially that the steps are in the open for all to see. I'm so stealing that trick!
Oh and there is something I forgot to ask about inspirations in the other thread. Hope you don't mind me asking here. Do you still differentiate between simple inspiration and stunting?
|
|
Rank: Administration
Groups: Administration
Joined: 3/12/2008
Posts: 234
Points: 569
|
Mac, I don't know about adding cloud and cave trolls as such (although maybe I'll drop in a line about them... we will see), but I do like what you did with the +1 Body. Hm. I've already incorporated for the most part your idea about armor adding body (well, maybe not adding body, but soaking up what would otherwise hit body, so effectively the same thing). At least, I think that was you who was advocating that. I was avoiding it because I wanted to keep body totals low to push things away from dungeon crawling, so that everyone would see the other parts of the game. But everyone has said they like to dungeon crawl, and hey, I do too, so adding a little more body in helps that without hurting the ability to do any other type of scene. It's just that now the game doesn't push you away from it, which is probably a good thing, to support all kinds of play styles.
|
|
Rank: Administration
Groups: Administration
Joined: 3/12/2008
Posts: 234
Points: 569
|
Yes, that is exactly what the Mob style is! Except you need to record Mood, too, since Mood can take up some damage now. So you would need to write down: 10 Mooks, Body 12, Mood 4, Mob Style. Since Mood can be used to soak damage by some, including a mob, that means that a swashbuckler can help break up a mob faster by making a speech (consequently lowering the mob's mood). Also, the mastery maneuvers in Mob style are based on its Body. So once you do enough damage to the mob, it can't use the Hysterical Crush maneuver, for example.
Speaking of mastery maneuvers, they are still there. But grand styles have been rolled into the mastery maneuvers. This simplifies things because now you don't have two tiers of fighting styles that are further subdivided into mastery and non-mastery maneuvers; just one tier with mastery and non-mastery maneuvers. It also means that there's a much steeper gradient between a balancing maneuver and an ultimate maneuver, making re-balancing much more important than it had been.
Initiative and narration... I hear you. It's kind of like dialogue in a book. In real life, no one speaks in turns, but in books they do. In real life, the melee is a chaotic messed-up place, but in the game, it is sometimes easier to go in turns. I'm not sure I want to go as far as "NPCs always reveal first." Although I was also tinkering with the idea of "Everybody rolls quickness, highest roll decides for his side whether to reveal first or second." Sometimes, I've found people actually want to reveal first, usually because they're hoping to dictate the action and force the opponent toward or away from a certain maneuver. That was one of the cool surprises for me - I thought everyone would always want to reveal last.
All action still goes off simultaneously, though. Only the reveals happen a split second before each other. For narrating simultaneous actions, again, since I can't speak three sentences at once, I just go around the table. After everyone has revealed, I just start with one player, narrate the attacks (and counter-attacks if any), narrate the result, and then just go on to the player next to him. That way everyone gets to hear what everyone else is doing.
Yes, there's still a bonus for stunting (in this case, narrating how your character's inspirations relate to the task at hand). The rule is now: "If you use an inspiration, you get the maximum roll on your Heart die and the maximum roll on your current die. If your inspiration has value 2 or more and you narrate, then both dice also explode." Short, sweet, powerful, I think! There's currently no bonus for stunting if your inspiration only has value 1, which encourages people to have fewer but more powerful inspirations (keeping the drama up, I hope).
|
|
Rank: Advanced Member
Groups: Member
Joined: 5/8/2009
Posts: 182
Points: 258
Location: Morgantown, WV
|
YcoreRixle wrote:Mac, I don't know about adding cloud and cave trolls as such (although maybe I'll drop in a line about them... we will see), but I do like what you did with the +1 Body. Coolio. :) Either way is fine with me. I know eventually I'd like to write up an alternate setting for SK to accommodate epic high fantasy. :D Quote:I've already incorporated for the most part your idea about armor adding body (well, maybe not adding body, but soaking up what would otherwise hit body, so effectively the same thing). At least, I think that was you who was advocating that. Yeah, that was me. :) Does armor soak up a certain amount of damage per Attack or per Battle? Quote:I was avoiding it because I wanted to keep body totals low to push things away from dungeon crawling, so that everyone would see the other parts of the game. But everyone has said they like to dungeon crawl, and hey, I do too, so adding a little more body in helps that without hurting the ability to do any other type of scene. It's just that now the game doesn't push you away from it, which is probably a good thing, to support all kinds of play styles. Yeah, I understand. In my own little designs I have been trying to keep numbers as small as possible. It works especially well for SK cuz everything is designed to move very fast. :D YcoreRixle wrote:Yes, that is exactly what the Mob style is! Also, the mastery maneuvers in Mob style are based on its Body. So once you do enough damage to the mob, it can't use the Hysterical Crush maneuver, for example. Liking what I am reading here. :) Quote:Speaking of mastery maneuvers, they are still there. But grand styles have been rolled into the mastery maneuvers. This is one of my primary interests for the 'complete' SK. I had expressed concerns previously about the power difference between regular styles and grand styles... and this is the perfect fix. :D This does bring to mind a question... Did you alter any of the grand styles to become normal styles? Of particular concern is Blackpowder Musketeer.
/*~Matthew Miller~*\
|
|
Rank: Administration
Groups: Administration
Joined: 3/12/2008
Posts: 234
Points: 569
|
Yep, all of the grand styles, actually, are still there. As are all of the regular styles. They just have a steeper gradient from balancing maneuvers to ultimate maneuvers. There's still a system of soft counters (like styles with a lot of forced rebalancing being good against Five Seasons, which takes a while to develop) and a few hard counters too (along the lines of armored styles being good against Dagger-and-Wine).
What was the concern with Blackpowder Musketeer? There's another gun-fighting style in there now too, so if the concern was that there weren't enough opportunities for gunplay, well, I absolutely I agreed, and now there is at least one more style. I doubt I'll have time for a third but you never know.
|
|
Rank: Advanced Member
Groups: Member
Joined: 5/8/2009
Posts: 182
Points: 258
Location: Morgantown, WV
|
Good stuff. :D
The concern was that without the Grand Combat Styles that there would be no style supporting guns... but considering this new information, that concern has been laid to rest. :)
/*~Matthew Miller~*\
|
|
Rank: Advanced Member
Groups: Member
Joined: 8/14/2009
Posts: 47
Points: 141
Location: Norway
|
Hi folks. My issue with blackpowder musketeer (a style I love, btw) was the fact that it seemed to miss a rebalancing move that enable you to simply fire your weapon. You had a move to fire two weapons, but not a single gun. In effect, it was impossible to carry a loaded gun and press the trigger on your first turn.
And I must say I'm very pleased with the changes you have made to the styles. Giving styles a steeper gradient is just perfect. I hope you have done this with magic too. It makes it so much easier to stick to a concept defining style. If you want to really play a druid, you don't have to play sub-optiomally if you stick to druidic magic.
Now for something elsen: I'm not sure how to ask this without sounding too forward, but I wonder if it would possible for you to post the _old_ version of Mob style somwhere on this site? Since you are revising the styles and all. You see, I might have a game upcomming and having Mob style would be really nice.
Anywhay, no harm in asking, right?
|
|
Rank: Administration
Groups: Administration
Joined: 3/12/2008
Posts: 234
Points: 569
|
Ah, thanks Arkat! Yeah, there should be a single gun opening shot maneuver. I wonder what happened there... anyway, I will correct if for the complete version. It's coming, it's coming. Yes, magic styles have the same steeper gradient that regular styles do, now. Here's the Mob style: http://spellboundkingdoms.com/MobStyle/SKCMobStyle.pdf I like this style because it really emphasizes how if the mob can engulf a single person, it can keep them down (by rebalancing) and pretty much tear them up. This is kind of an in-between version of the style. It's the one I have handy. It is mostly the newer set-up, but it has some older features too. Trample is supposed to have an area-effect type deal because Mobs should have the ability to hit more than one person in an area. Anyway, you can see some of the new version effects, like steeper gradient, slightly fewer maneuvers, slightly more "Ah, I can see what he's building towards" factor (which is further emphasized here because it's a monster style), more damage because people can soak more now with mood (some), armor, and Strength recovery after a fight. Edit: Ah, yeah, for your upcoming game... definitely tone down the damage. :) And the body of the mob, because the older fighting styles didn't do as much damage. I'd say 8 Body or so, and 2 or 3 body is enough to make it rebalance (depending on if the mob is going to be a solo monster against your party or not, or how tough you want it to be), and I'd say lower most of the attack dice by one or two sizes.
|
|
Rank: Advanced Member
Groups: Member
Joined: 8/14/2009
Posts: 47
Points: 141
Location: Norway
|
Sorry about the late reply. My job have taken me to all four corners of my country in just over a week. Interesting but exhausting.
Anyway, thanks a lot for the Mob-style sheet. The service you provide us fans is truly above and beyond! And I must say I like the way you have created the sheet. It'll prove very useful I think. But it does raise the question: should there be more sheets like this? Swarm style (monsters like rats and insects), Skrimish style (light infantry) etc? Sort of like an intermediate level between personal combat and mass combat.
Hmm, there is an idea. Perhaps it is possible to use the mass combat units as basic group styles... hmm
|
|
|
Guest |