I have been feeling a bit guilty that my longest post about HeroQuest is essentially a negative one, and I have even noticed that some of my group appear to think I am on a downer over HeroQuest; that I have somehow written it off or let it fall down my list of favourite games.
So I am going to explain the reasons why I think HeroQuest is a great game, and why its still up there as one of my favourites.
For starters, HeroQuest was my first experience of a game that changed the way I thought about role-playing. It took a while, and my views changed incrementally, but it took me to a whole other place.
Admittedly, I had a head start, having been introduced to gaming via Runequest and very quickly immersing myself in the rich and multi-faceted background of Glorantha, with its very particular take on mythology. This led onto reading about mythology and devouring Campbell's 'The Masks of God' then skimming alternative mythological views like Levi-Strauss and some of the earlier writers heavily influenced by Fraser that were then turning up in cheap public domain print versions.
Armed with this mishmash of ideas I then started trying to understand the powerful stories of our culture. Obviously Star Wars becomes a lot clearer once you have access to the very same tool-box from which it was constructed, but even otherwise trite TV shows suddenly became fascinating and I started to understand how and how not to construct a story; or more specifically what makes stories work for me and what doesn't.
And then there was roleplaying, and boy did that activity start to loose its shine in the light of this new found appreciation for story. Stripped of the ability to pretend we were making good stories only a few games seemed to stand up to scrutiny. One was Runequest's heroquesting, the activity that characters in the world perform in emulation of their own Gods' mythological stories. These still worked, partly because they had an inherent story structure that could then be played around with and partly because its a disguised form of meta-game; you are playing your characters who are in turn playing the roles of their gods. This has a subtle but tangible effect, it allows you to play a character that has one eye towards the story.
Another game that still worked for me was Call of Cthulhu, mainly because sanity was another reasonably transparent meta-game mechanic, which allowed the player to tell more interesting stories about his character, even if only to himself.
Other games seemed to fall short of my expectations, and it seemed to mainly stem from a frustration that myself and other players just didn't get something, we would all talk like there was this desire for epic story and seem to go through the motions, we would even look back and recognise some moments that had worked and shine those up like old pennies, but deep down there was something not quite there for me
It really hit home whilst watching an episode of Starsky and Hutch on daytime TV and thinking that I could just lift the plot for a game. As I watched it, and singled out the key scenes that made the rather naff mystery plot work I realised that Runequest, which I honestly believed could emulate anything at the time, has absolutely none of the tools necessary to pull off even this disposable TV show plot. The reason: the show was mainly about character! Every scene in the mystery was playing straight to those character elements, be it the relationship between the detectives or their blossoming relationships with the two guest star girls that wouldn't even be there in the next show.
So I went through a disillusioned period where I would only play games occasionally, but still read all of the books. Between games I imagined a probably infeasible game of Runequest that was truly epic by maintaining focus on heroquesting.
But of course there was always the constant promise that HeroQuest would be out next year. Any 80's RQ fan knows what I mean, Greg Stafford, recognising that Runequest didn't quite manage to pull off heroquesting, had been promising for donkeys years that he would one day write a game system that could handle it properly. We all imagined this was purely a scaling issue or something to do with how magic worked in Glorantha that wasn't being modelled in RQ properly.
What I didn't foresee, was that the game system had to be capable of handling conflict in a universal manner. And when HeroWars came out (which at the time could not be called HeroQuest for legal reasons) that new concept hit me so hard that I was blind to the rest of the game for months. One of my first thoughts was: here is a game that is actually capable of emulating a Starsky and Hutch episode! Obviously I didn't rush out and locate a copy of the show, but it was a startling realisation none the less.
And for that one slightly strange reason, I think HeroWars was the best RPG product that I ever bought. It was capable of handling any conflict that I had ever seen on TV or at the cinema or had read in novels, even the serious ones without space hardware in them.
My previous negative post is about the initial period of play with this product and HeroQuest which followed it, and about my groups growing pains with the often unnoticed shift from one style of play to another. But, I am convinced that HeroQuest will serve me well in the future ,because of this key flexibility, and its ability to play at an epic scale.
I know HeroQuest can do the things I want, its just a matter of finding a group that also wants the same, or convincing my group that its worth investing some time in. At the moment I am doing the latter and some are interested and some are less so, here's to an interesting future.
12 Mar 2008
11 Mar 2008
Premise Avoidance
A while back I voiced my concerns over our Spirit of the Century game at the Forge Actual Play forum.
Put succinctly, I was concerned that play consisted of too much story discussion and not enough actual exploration of the conflict at hand.
The discussion led me to consider that we were avoiding a direct addressing of premise, and that when premise was addressed it was done so with a light touch and with an expectation that pulp characters succeed.
My main concerns during play were firstly to introduce Spirit of the Century as a rule set, and to make clear what a Narrativist Agenda was. With both of these things I achieved some successes and some failures.
I succeeded in demonstrating how the Skills and Aspects work and the scope of Stunts, but didn't introduce enough Consequence to clearly demonstrate how failure works.
Related to this I was probably guilty of conspiring with the players over the story. In an attempt to clearly hand over story control I was openly working with them, but never successfully let go myself. Which meant I was't focusing on examples of premise to highlight and explore and I wasn't forcing conflicts.
But I have been reflecting since and have further thoughts over how premise is used in games.
So what is this Premise thing and what does Addressing it involve you may ask?
Lets use some simple definitions because these ideas can be a little high brow and as such loose some of their practical meaning.
Premise has a number of definitions, but for GNS theory the concept was derived from Lajos Egri and in this link he takes a whole chapter to define premise, both by example and by comparing other theories of play writing.
At it's heart the premise of a narrative is the key idea that the rest of the narrative is formed around, and attempts to resolve. Its the thing that moves the story forward and makes it worth telling. The underlying message that the writer is trying to convey. Premise places characters in a situation that involves conflict and demands a conclusion, and that journey is empowered by the writers stance on the issue.
But a role-playing game is not a play, and this provokes a key question that I believe cuts to the heart of the formation of GNS theories: what is a RPG from a story perspective. We have all read and or espoused that RPGs are part of the story telling tradition, but where do they fit in relation to the other forms.
Let us take screenplays for instance. Good examples are designed to involve the audience, and draw them into the story. They utilise characters that can either be identified with and/or are recognisable from real life. They take an emotive stance on the issues at hand, by provoking conflicts that hold the viewers opinions or preconceptions in question thereby provoking an emotional reaction. They drive the story towards its conclusion to heighten the feelings of involvement, adding a sense of urgency and escalating this emotive attention to the core issues.
In traditional games the GM decides what the key story elements are, and in this respect the GM is more like a writer, and his creation stands or falls based on how well his payers get involved with these ideas, or how adaptive he can be in changing or moulding these ideas to the players' play.
His goal is to carry the players with him on an emotive journey to the conclusion that he has possibly preconceived, or at the very least has the climactic scene pre-framed in his mind. To this end the premise in such games is a tool of the GM, one that helps him engage the players.
In Narrativist games the premise is the thing! If a Narrativist game is all about telling the story in the most satisfying manner, then the group have a responsibility to engage with premise, because that is the touchstone around which the story structure will form. The premise acts as a kind if measure for successful storytelling, because it's the premise that will allow the story to drive forward through conflict and rising tension. It becomes far more than a single tool in the GMs box, it becomes the focus of everyone.
But that doesn't answer the question 'who decides upon premise and how do we recognise it' and I believe this to be a stumbling block upon which many groups and theorists fall.
One solution is for the game itself to have a nascent premise that can be taken and formed by the group through play. My Life with Master is a good example, taking the single idea of monstrous dysfunctional relationships and allowing play to form this into a functioning premise. Dogs in the Vineyard does this too. By setting up a proto-premise for a town, stressing individual character judgement and placing the ultimate conclusion of the story clearly in the hands of the players, it literally begs the players to form and engage with an involving premise.
Such games do not guarantee a satisfying story but they place the idea of collaborating over premise front and centre thereby increasing their likelihood.
Which brings us back to Spirit of the Century. This too puts all of the tools on the table, and the advice throughout the book helps the GM both use and explain to the players how to use those tools. But, it is not as narrowly focused as MLWM and not as structured as DitV, so it is up to the group to define and engage with premise, and it is easy to use all of the tools without truly engaging with a premise. It is possible to tell stories without deep personal meaning or engaging conflict.
This is analogous to a screenplay that lacks a decent premise, but instead of this being a purely subjective thing that can be blamed on the GMs inability to grab his players attention, it is more likely that the group as a whole have not grasped their responsibility to the story.
So I look back at the Spirit of the Century game and see a number of things:
The story was satisfying in that it had a beginning a middle and an end. This is no small thing, as an exercise in collaborative story telling, at least it told a story.
The process of collaboration was enjoyable and often lead to some inspired and exited discussion, which was a new and enjoyable experience.
The willingness to really test and challenge the characters was muted. The competence of the characters and a protective sense of character concept by the players lead to a limited engagement over premise with no fundamental parts of character really being placed in conflict by either me the GM, or other players.
So what resulted was a form of collaborative story telling, where the players enjoyed the ability to mold the story around their characters, but were ultimately more concerned with how the characters performed and how pulp-like the action was, than forming a meaning to the story and engaging with that meaning to drive forward and escalate the plot.
Put succinctly, I was concerned that play consisted of too much story discussion and not enough actual exploration of the conflict at hand.
The discussion led me to consider that we were avoiding a direct addressing of premise, and that when premise was addressed it was done so with a light touch and with an expectation that pulp characters succeed.
My main concerns during play were firstly to introduce Spirit of the Century as a rule set, and to make clear what a Narrativist Agenda was. With both of these things I achieved some successes and some failures.
I succeeded in demonstrating how the Skills and Aspects work and the scope of Stunts, but didn't introduce enough Consequence to clearly demonstrate how failure works.
Related to this I was probably guilty of conspiring with the players over the story. In an attempt to clearly hand over story control I was openly working with them, but never successfully let go myself. Which meant I was't focusing on examples of premise to highlight and explore and I wasn't forcing conflicts.
But I have been reflecting since and have further thoughts over how premise is used in games.
So what is this Premise thing and what does Addressing it involve you may ask?
Lets use some simple definitions because these ideas can be a little high brow and as such loose some of their practical meaning.
Premise has a number of definitions, but for GNS theory the concept was derived from Lajos Egri and in this link he takes a whole chapter to define premise, both by example and by comparing other theories of play writing.
At it's heart the premise of a narrative is the key idea that the rest of the narrative is formed around, and attempts to resolve. Its the thing that moves the story forward and makes it worth telling. The underlying message that the writer is trying to convey. Premise places characters in a situation that involves conflict and demands a conclusion, and that journey is empowered by the writers stance on the issue.
But a role-playing game is not a play, and this provokes a key question that I believe cuts to the heart of the formation of GNS theories: what is a RPG from a story perspective. We have all read and or espoused that RPGs are part of the story telling tradition, but where do they fit in relation to the other forms.
Let us take screenplays for instance. Good examples are designed to involve the audience, and draw them into the story. They utilise characters that can either be identified with and/or are recognisable from real life. They take an emotive stance on the issues at hand, by provoking conflicts that hold the viewers opinions or preconceptions in question thereby provoking an emotional reaction. They drive the story towards its conclusion to heighten the feelings of involvement, adding a sense of urgency and escalating this emotive attention to the core issues.
In traditional games the GM decides what the key story elements are, and in this respect the GM is more like a writer, and his creation stands or falls based on how well his payers get involved with these ideas, or how adaptive he can be in changing or moulding these ideas to the players' play.
His goal is to carry the players with him on an emotive journey to the conclusion that he has possibly preconceived, or at the very least has the climactic scene pre-framed in his mind. To this end the premise in such games is a tool of the GM, one that helps him engage the players.
In Narrativist games the premise is the thing! If a Narrativist game is all about telling the story in the most satisfying manner, then the group have a responsibility to engage with premise, because that is the touchstone around which the story structure will form. The premise acts as a kind if measure for successful storytelling, because it's the premise that will allow the story to drive forward through conflict and rising tension. It becomes far more than a single tool in the GMs box, it becomes the focus of everyone.
But that doesn't answer the question 'who decides upon premise and how do we recognise it' and I believe this to be a stumbling block upon which many groups and theorists fall.
One solution is for the game itself to have a nascent premise that can be taken and formed by the group through play. My Life with Master is a good example, taking the single idea of monstrous dysfunctional relationships and allowing play to form this into a functioning premise. Dogs in the Vineyard does this too. By setting up a proto-premise for a town, stressing individual character judgement and placing the ultimate conclusion of the story clearly in the hands of the players, it literally begs the players to form and engage with an involving premise.
Such games do not guarantee a satisfying story but they place the idea of collaborating over premise front and centre thereby increasing their likelihood.
Which brings us back to Spirit of the Century. This too puts all of the tools on the table, and the advice throughout the book helps the GM both use and explain to the players how to use those tools. But, it is not as narrowly focused as MLWM and not as structured as DitV, so it is up to the group to define and engage with premise, and it is easy to use all of the tools without truly engaging with a premise. It is possible to tell stories without deep personal meaning or engaging conflict.
This is analogous to a screenplay that lacks a decent premise, but instead of this being a purely subjective thing that can be blamed on the GMs inability to grab his players attention, it is more likely that the group as a whole have not grasped their responsibility to the story.
So I look back at the Spirit of the Century game and see a number of things:
The story was satisfying in that it had a beginning a middle and an end. This is no small thing, as an exercise in collaborative story telling, at least it told a story.
The process of collaboration was enjoyable and often lead to some inspired and exited discussion, which was a new and enjoyable experience.
The willingness to really test and challenge the characters was muted. The competence of the characters and a protective sense of character concept by the players lead to a limited engagement over premise with no fundamental parts of character really being placed in conflict by either me the GM, or other players.
So what resulted was a form of collaborative story telling, where the players enjoyed the ability to mold the story around their characters, but were ultimately more concerned with how the characters performed and how pulp-like the action was, than forming a meaning to the story and engaging with that meaning to drive forward and escalate the plot.
6 Jan 2008
How HeroQuest Failed our Group
Heroquest is based solidly on a simplified and universally applied Conflict Resolution System. Outside of this is a large continuum, which starts as System and ends as Setting but doesn’t have any clear boundaries.
Heroquest in its current dominant form is also tied up with Glorantha, and until Mongoose resurrected RuneQuest it was the only system for Gloranthan gaming being actively supported by publication; with much of that community at least moved to have a go with the system, and many feeling that it was the natural move to make given this support.
The setting issue is not a trivial one; we are talking a massive and multifaceted universe of a setting, with an established community of opinion and debate. A setting that has spent most of its life being developed for RuneQuest in its varied forms, and as such has picked up many assumptions.
For example, here are some key assumptions that I think of when people talk of Gloranthan characters:
I could go on, and indeed I could define many other areas that contain assumptions, such as what constitutes a typical Gloranthan campaign, how scenarios tend to be constructed or what kind of adversity is expected.
Heroquest attempts to codify some of this into its rule set, for instance the magic section is huge. This is partly because the issue of magic in this setting is major, and partly because RuneQuest was well developed in this direction.
Also, the character creation system is assumed to create a starting character with skills that improve over time. (Interestingly, this starting level is higher than the old starting level, as the characters have at least the potential to be something other than average.)
We started playing HeroQuest (actually its precursor HeroWars) with a feeling of familiarity and continuity, recognising much of the construction as elegant ways of using this new resolution system to do the things we were used to in RuneQuest.
And, with RuneQuest informed expectations, the game seemed to hang together well, and was resilient to much initial poking around by the sceptical.
But, HeroQuest is not RuneQuest, and some of the habits that we developed playing with HeroQuest were actually RuneQuest informed habits. Extended conflict for instance was seen as similar in scope to the long fight that was often experienced at the end of RuneQuest scenarios, and Extended Conflict tactics were developed to replace the RuneQuest tactics that we were used to seeing in these scenes. And because HeroQuest is a flexible system it was easy to mould it to this end. Indeed some of the rules in the book were designed to achieve this end and were equally informed by RuneQuest.
Of course the flexibility of the Extended Conflict system is appealing, and demanded that we tried to explore other forms of conflict using it, and these in turn became equally tactical and best suited for the final scenes.
But there is a hidden pitfall at the heart of the game, and that is the Universal Resolution System itself. Symptoms of this problem were sometimes subtle and sometimes game halting. Here are a few:
If you see HeroQuest as providing tools to tell stories in a flexible and ongoing manner then you are not going to be too concerned about whether a certain skill can always be used in the same way every time. Use of any skill will be naturally informed by the specifics of the situation and the requirements of the scene. But, if you are concerned with developing tactics and carving out a niche of effectiveness that gains you leverage in the setting then this consistency will be vital, and attempts to downplay it will seem obtuse at best, if not deliberately obstructive to your idea of what the game is for.
The hard and stark fact of it all is that despite the numerous assumptions from RuneQuest, both built into the HeroQuest rules and brought to the table via players, the Resolution System at the heart of HeroQuest is not suited for RuneQuest like games. At best it can be made to work that way by conscious modification and unconscious filtering. At worst, it will continually throw up situations that reveal it to be ill-suited to that task.
In my experience it has done the latter constantly and consistently over a very long period, and during that period I have found HeroQuest to be equally unsuited to demonstrating what it is good at, because the assumptions from RuneQuest have had a profound effect on the way that the game has been constructed, the way that the setting has been integrated into it, and the way that we have played it as a group.
Heroquest in its current dominant form is also tied up with Glorantha, and until Mongoose resurrected RuneQuest it was the only system for Gloranthan gaming being actively supported by publication; with much of that community at least moved to have a go with the system, and many feeling that it was the natural move to make given this support.
The setting issue is not a trivial one; we are talking a massive and multifaceted universe of a setting, with an established community of opinion and debate. A setting that has spent most of its life being developed for RuneQuest in its varied forms, and as such has picked up many assumptions.
For example, here are some key assumptions that I think of when people talk of Gloranthan characters:
- Characters progress from average members of the community and become powerful individuals.
- Characters tend to be adventurers or have a reason to be out and about in the world.
- Characters are partly defined by the attitudes of their community.
- Characters have a profound relationship with magic, which itself is defined by their community.
I could go on, and indeed I could define many other areas that contain assumptions, such as what constitutes a typical Gloranthan campaign, how scenarios tend to be constructed or what kind of adversity is expected.
Heroquest attempts to codify some of this into its rule set, for instance the magic section is huge. This is partly because the issue of magic in this setting is major, and partly because RuneQuest was well developed in this direction.
Also, the character creation system is assumed to create a starting character with skills that improve over time. (Interestingly, this starting level is higher than the old starting level, as the characters have at least the potential to be something other than average.)
We started playing HeroQuest (actually its precursor HeroWars) with a feeling of familiarity and continuity, recognising much of the construction as elegant ways of using this new resolution system to do the things we were used to in RuneQuest.
And, with RuneQuest informed expectations, the game seemed to hang together well, and was resilient to much initial poking around by the sceptical.
But, HeroQuest is not RuneQuest, and some of the habits that we developed playing with HeroQuest were actually RuneQuest informed habits. Extended conflict for instance was seen as similar in scope to the long fight that was often experienced at the end of RuneQuest scenarios, and Extended Conflict tactics were developed to replace the RuneQuest tactics that we were used to seeing in these scenes. And because HeroQuest is a flexible system it was easy to mould it to this end. Indeed some of the rules in the book were designed to achieve this end and were equally informed by RuneQuest.
Of course the flexibility of the Extended Conflict system is appealing, and demanded that we tried to explore other forms of conflict using it, and these in turn became equally tactical and best suited for the final scenes.
But there is a hidden pitfall at the heart of the game, and that is the Universal Resolution System itself. Symptoms of this problem were sometimes subtle and sometimes game halting. Here are a few:
- Certain magics from the setting have decisive effects that always required specific rolls in RuneQuest. Something like Sever Spirit could be used in RuneQuest to attempt to kill a character outright. In the middle of Extended Conflict these either felt equivalent to any other action and so lost their appeal, or demanded separate resolution and so twisted the system.
- Use of skills became a very subjective affair, as many skills can be used to achieve a single goal, and this sometimes led to unresolved discussions over whether it was acceptable to use general sounding catch all skills like “Keen Senses” or “Quick” and poetically named magic like “One Thousand Tiny Leaps” in a wide variety of situations. This in turn, informed ongoing choices during character creation and development.
- Related to this augmentation became associated with tactics, as it is a way of increasing skill levels, but there is no easy way to define where skills can’t be used as an augment because of the same subjective nature of skills.
- Extended Conflicts could just break down, when one or more players realised that their understanding of the ongoing conflict was either undermined by the actions of others, or was countered in unexpected ways by the GM: the subjective nature of what could be done, sometimes undermined carefully constructed tactics. These instances were worse when underlying assumptions about the conflict were revealed to be totally different.
If you see HeroQuest as providing tools to tell stories in a flexible and ongoing manner then you are not going to be too concerned about whether a certain skill can always be used in the same way every time. Use of any skill will be naturally informed by the specifics of the situation and the requirements of the scene. But, if you are concerned with developing tactics and carving out a niche of effectiveness that gains you leverage in the setting then this consistency will be vital, and attempts to downplay it will seem obtuse at best, if not deliberately obstructive to your idea of what the game is for.
The hard and stark fact of it all is that despite the numerous assumptions from RuneQuest, both built into the HeroQuest rules and brought to the table via players, the Resolution System at the heart of HeroQuest is not suited for RuneQuest like games. At best it can be made to work that way by conscious modification and unconscious filtering. At worst, it will continually throw up situations that reveal it to be ill-suited to that task.
In my experience it has done the latter constantly and consistently over a very long period, and during that period I have found HeroQuest to be equally unsuited to demonstrating what it is good at, because the assumptions from RuneQuest have had a profound effect on the way that the game has been constructed, the way that the setting has been integrated into it, and the way that we have played it as a group.
5 Dec 2007
Spirit of the Century - Session 7
BLOOD!
As Clay clings on to the controls of the wild machine the unnatural illumination of the vast room reveals a section of the machinery, glowing and expanding.
Clay flings himself towards a covered vent in the floor, and pries it open, but the explosion throws him hurtling through the entrance. When the maelstrom subsides Clay comes-to and finds himself in the safety of the vent twitching uncontrollably. Sounds of a pitch battle emanate from above, between the Nautiloids and their rebelling Slave Race and Clay decides to find his way, via the vents, back to the office and his prone friend Oriole.
Oriole knows of death, he finds himself in the Endless Plain and looks down for the footprints he must follow to the Land of the Dead, and sees none. This is a time long ago, the first of his people to die has not yet walked the path for others to follow, Oriole realises with wonder that he must find his own path on a vision quest to wherever that may lead. He strikes out in the direction that feels right and wanders endlessly across the featureless plain until he comes across an oasis tainted with blood.
By now, the flooded office is red with blood, and Clay locates Oriole lying with a barbed harpoon dart straight through his chest. Clay lifts and cradles his dead friend, pulling the dart through from behind, a dark red cloud follows in it's wake. Clay reaches out with his mind in an attempt to make at least some slight contact with his fallen comrade, and remembering a terrible thing from his battles against the occult, he cuts his wrist open with the harpoon, and meditates upon the fresh blood that spills into the room. The blood flows out and forms a trail for him to follow.
Oriole is amazed to find himself next to his friend Clay, and greets him “How”, but Clay shrugs and says that he does not know.*
Doc and Sylvie contemplate the friends that they have left behind. Docs old Blood Brother scars begin to bleed and he senses that Oriole is somehow not dead but lost. Realising that he is now in the mysterious valley of Oriole's clan, he decides to recreate a ritual of self torture that he experienced in becoming Oriole's Blood Brother; in order to contact his adopted clan. As Doc performs these strange rights, Sylvie decides to have a look round, and comes upon a group of Apache, carrying an elder who says in broken English that he is following Docs call and is here to help bring back Oriole. Sylvie expresses her doubts, as Oriole is dead, but the seer states with conviction that Oriole is not yet in the Land of the Dead. The ancient Apache explains that Oriole could be brought back by creating a beacon in the spirit world, and offers Sylvie a central role in the painful and arduous rituals alongside Doc.
Oriole and Clay wander in the endless plain until Oriole espies a high hill, and explains to Clay that they must climb it in order to see far, as they are lost far back in time. They embark on a direct path, and come across the tracks of a big cat, Oriole is convinced they have nothing to fear from the tracks of a Mountain Lion but Clay suspects that, as they are so far back in the past, they may belong to a far more vicious creature. Clay persuades him to be more cautious and taking a sheltered route they spot a Sabre Toothed Lion on the side of the hill, and Oriole is grateful that they followed the Path of Friendship.
The Apache clansmen take down the unconscious body of Doc, and build a large tent in which to hold the beacon ritual. Sylvie declines their kind offer and asks if she can be useful in a less painful manner. The warriors ask Sylvie to stand guard with them outside the tent, as such rituals attract many foes. Doc surfaces from unconsciousness in a wild ritual of dancing and pain, and in his delirium he follows the guiding voice of the seer, to embrace his pain and stand tall in the spirit plain.
Outside, a beam of light flashes out from the brush, and scythes through two warriors on a path towards Sylvie. She leaps over the beam with catlike grace, and bounds towards it's source. Her lash arcs viciously into the brush, gripping and pulling the leg of the fiendish Martian bent on revenge. The Martian struggles, bearing his deadly weapon upon Sylvie at close range, but she evades it, by pulling him onto his back. The beam cuts wildly above, and disturbs a rock outcrop, and as Sylvie dives clear the rocks pin the Martian down and entomb him.
At the top of the hill Oriole and Clay peer over the strange and indistinct landscape of the spirit world, and Oriole sees a large figure on the horizon, which explodes into a cloud of blood. “We must go that way” says Oriole recognising it as a signal from Doc, and they set out towards the vision.
In the heady atmosphere at the heart of the ritual, amongst the wild dancing, and the heat and smoke from the fire, Oriole and Clay emerge from the shadows. They are embraced in great celebration at the return of lost friends.
And so our heroes have all returned from the distant past, the Martian's plan foiled. The Apache considered the Martian's punishment and settled on leaving him to his own fate, beneath the rocks, deep in the wilderness. We can only speculate on how the rebellion fared but the Nautiloid threat has not been felt since.
* Yes, we are aware that this greeting is not very Apache, but this is a pulp genre joke and we couldn't resist its corniness. http://www.native-languages.org/iaq16.htm
As Clay clings on to the controls of the wild machine the unnatural illumination of the vast room reveals a section of the machinery, glowing and expanding.
Clay flings himself towards a covered vent in the floor, and pries it open, but the explosion throws him hurtling through the entrance. When the maelstrom subsides Clay comes-to and finds himself in the safety of the vent twitching uncontrollably. Sounds of a pitch battle emanate from above, between the Nautiloids and their rebelling Slave Race and Clay decides to find his way, via the vents, back to the office and his prone friend Oriole.
Oriole knows of death, he finds himself in the Endless Plain and looks down for the footprints he must follow to the Land of the Dead, and sees none. This is a time long ago, the first of his people to die has not yet walked the path for others to follow, Oriole realises with wonder that he must find his own path on a vision quest to wherever that may lead. He strikes out in the direction that feels right and wanders endlessly across the featureless plain until he comes across an oasis tainted with blood.
By now, the flooded office is red with blood, and Clay locates Oriole lying with a barbed harpoon dart straight through his chest. Clay lifts and cradles his dead friend, pulling the dart through from behind, a dark red cloud follows in it's wake. Clay reaches out with his mind in an attempt to make at least some slight contact with his fallen comrade, and remembering a terrible thing from his battles against the occult, he cuts his wrist open with the harpoon, and meditates upon the fresh blood that spills into the room. The blood flows out and forms a trail for him to follow.
Oriole is amazed to find himself next to his friend Clay, and greets him “How”, but Clay shrugs and says that he does not know.*
Doc and Sylvie contemplate the friends that they have left behind. Docs old Blood Brother scars begin to bleed and he senses that Oriole is somehow not dead but lost. Realising that he is now in the mysterious valley of Oriole's clan, he decides to recreate a ritual of self torture that he experienced in becoming Oriole's Blood Brother; in order to contact his adopted clan. As Doc performs these strange rights, Sylvie decides to have a look round, and comes upon a group of Apache, carrying an elder who says in broken English that he is following Docs call and is here to help bring back Oriole. Sylvie expresses her doubts, as Oriole is dead, but the seer states with conviction that Oriole is not yet in the Land of the Dead. The ancient Apache explains that Oriole could be brought back by creating a beacon in the spirit world, and offers Sylvie a central role in the painful and arduous rituals alongside Doc.
Oriole and Clay wander in the endless plain until Oriole espies a high hill, and explains to Clay that they must climb it in order to see far, as they are lost far back in time. They embark on a direct path, and come across the tracks of a big cat, Oriole is convinced they have nothing to fear from the tracks of a Mountain Lion but Clay suspects that, as they are so far back in the past, they may belong to a far more vicious creature. Clay persuades him to be more cautious and taking a sheltered route they spot a Sabre Toothed Lion on the side of the hill, and Oriole is grateful that they followed the Path of Friendship.
The Apache clansmen take down the unconscious body of Doc, and build a large tent in which to hold the beacon ritual. Sylvie declines their kind offer and asks if she can be useful in a less painful manner. The warriors ask Sylvie to stand guard with them outside the tent, as such rituals attract many foes. Doc surfaces from unconsciousness in a wild ritual of dancing and pain, and in his delirium he follows the guiding voice of the seer, to embrace his pain and stand tall in the spirit plain.
Outside, a beam of light flashes out from the brush, and scythes through two warriors on a path towards Sylvie. She leaps over the beam with catlike grace, and bounds towards it's source. Her lash arcs viciously into the brush, gripping and pulling the leg of the fiendish Martian bent on revenge. The Martian struggles, bearing his deadly weapon upon Sylvie at close range, but she evades it, by pulling him onto his back. The beam cuts wildly above, and disturbs a rock outcrop, and as Sylvie dives clear the rocks pin the Martian down and entomb him.
At the top of the hill Oriole and Clay peer over the strange and indistinct landscape of the spirit world, and Oriole sees a large figure on the horizon, which explodes into a cloud of blood. “We must go that way” says Oriole recognising it as a signal from Doc, and they set out towards the vision.
In the heady atmosphere at the heart of the ritual, amongst the wild dancing, and the heat and smoke from the fire, Oriole and Clay emerge from the shadows. They are embraced in great celebration at the return of lost friends.
And so our heroes have all returned from the distant past, the Martian's plan foiled. The Apache considered the Martian's punishment and settled on leaving him to his own fate, beneath the rocks, deep in the wilderness. We can only speculate on how the rebellion fared but the Nautiloid threat has not been felt since.
* Yes, we are aware that this greeting is not very Apache, but this is a pulp genre joke and we couldn't resist its corniness. http://www.native-languages.org/iaq16.htm
25 Nov 2007
Player Scene Framing
Session six was most notable to me for the players insisting on a scene, taking on the role of scene framing usually reserved by the GM.
I had imagined that the fastest way towards resolution of the story as a whole would be to escape the guards somehow and cut straight to a scene in the hanger, and was prepared to engineer a situation with the Slave Race (so oppressed they don't even have a real name in our story) in the corridor.
But, the players were adamant that we should have an Evil Genius Monologue scene, and were actually disappointed that I hadn't pre-prepared the speech. So much so that I felt obliged to put a detailed monologue in the write-up to sew up the loose ends in the speech I used. That element of the write-up is really an exercise in Story After, but one that feels right in this instance.
Interestingly, I couldn't have properly prepared the speech anyway, because the actual NPC used was only settled as a Martian by Oriole's player using a fate point to declare that the bad guy wasn't a Nautiloid just as I narrated the swivel chair turning to face the PCs. That in itself is a demonstration of the massive shift towards narrativist play that we have taken whilst playing Spirit of the Century. So much of a shift in fact that I feel we now have issues of how much of the game should be dedicated to plot construction and associated meta-play as opposed to exploration of situation. I believe that Meta-play element is a key reason that Phantom's player decided to sit out of this and remaining sessions, stating that he isn't enjoying this style of game.
I had imagined that the fastest way towards resolution of the story as a whole would be to escape the guards somehow and cut straight to a scene in the hanger, and was prepared to engineer a situation with the Slave Race (so oppressed they don't even have a real name in our story) in the corridor.
But, the players were adamant that we should have an Evil Genius Monologue scene, and were actually disappointed that I hadn't pre-prepared the speech. So much so that I felt obliged to put a detailed monologue in the write-up to sew up the loose ends in the speech I used. That element of the write-up is really an exercise in Story After, but one that feels right in this instance.
Interestingly, I couldn't have properly prepared the speech anyway, because the actual NPC used was only settled as a Martian by Oriole's player using a fate point to declare that the bad guy wasn't a Nautiloid just as I narrated the swivel chair turning to face the PCs. That in itself is a demonstration of the massive shift towards narrativist play that we have taken whilst playing Spirit of the Century. So much of a shift in fact that I feel we now have issues of how much of the game should be dedicated to plot construction and associated meta-play as opposed to exploration of situation. I believe that Meta-play element is a key reason that Phantom's player decided to sit out of this and remaining sessions, stating that he isn't enjoying this style of game.
24 Nov 2007
Spirit of the Century - Session 6, Part 2
In which the Tide Turns
The remaining heroes are taken to the Tidal Machine, leaving Oriole's dead body alone in the office to slowly shroud itself in blood. Doc begins work on the machine, but in an act of bitter defiance he surreptitiously recalibrates the machine to only transport the inhabitants of the hanger into the future.
Just then, an explosion rocks the hanger as the slave race escalate their rebellion, breaking through a wall into the hanger. Sylvie takes her change to slip away from the guards in order to liberate any artefacts of weird science and technology from the Nautiloids lair. Whilst she peruses the hanger, Sylvie espies Nautiloid soldiers driving back the slave race incursion by use of a pain enslaving device. And, overhearing their boastful claims that the device will doom any rebellion, she locates the core of the device, and removes the biological empathic material that is the source of its amplified, projected pain.
The machine now back in operation and the tide rising, the machine roars into action, but at the last minute Doc realises that in order for it to work, and project the heroes and their captors back to his own time, someone must stay behind and hold in place the calibration lever. Clay bravely takes the task on, and everyone else disappears leaving Clay stranded in the distant past.
Doc and Sylvie appear in an ancient and empty version of the hanger in their own time, surrounded by the Martian and his Nautiloid guards. The Nautiloids, now devoid of water fall choking to the ground, and the Martian makes a dash for it. Evading Doc and Sylvie's attempts to confine him, partly due to Sylvie's shock at the sudden loss of Clay.
Is Oriole really dead? Will Clay be trapped forever in the distant turbulent past? Has the Martian commander escaped Oriole's predicted fate? Find out next week in the concluding episode of the Tides of Time.
The remaining heroes are taken to the Tidal Machine, leaving Oriole's dead body alone in the office to slowly shroud itself in blood. Doc begins work on the machine, but in an act of bitter defiance he surreptitiously recalibrates the machine to only transport the inhabitants of the hanger into the future.
Just then, an explosion rocks the hanger as the slave race escalate their rebellion, breaking through a wall into the hanger. Sylvie takes her change to slip away from the guards in order to liberate any artefacts of weird science and technology from the Nautiloids lair. Whilst she peruses the hanger, Sylvie espies Nautiloid soldiers driving back the slave race incursion by use of a pain enslaving device. And, overhearing their boastful claims that the device will doom any rebellion, she locates the core of the device, and removes the biological empathic material that is the source of its amplified, projected pain.
The machine now back in operation and the tide rising, the machine roars into action, but at the last minute Doc realises that in order for it to work, and project the heroes and their captors back to his own time, someone must stay behind and hold in place the calibration lever. Clay bravely takes the task on, and everyone else disappears leaving Clay stranded in the distant past.
Doc and Sylvie appear in an ancient and empty version of the hanger in their own time, surrounded by the Martian and his Nautiloid guards. The Nautiloids, now devoid of water fall choking to the ground, and the Martian makes a dash for it. Evading Doc and Sylvie's attempts to confine him, partly due to Sylvie's shock at the sudden loss of Clay.
Is Oriole really dead? Will Clay be trapped forever in the distant turbulent past? Has the Martian commander escaped Oriole's predicted fate? Find out next week in the concluding episode of the Tides of Time.
Spirit of the Century - Session 6, Part 1
In which all is revealed
Our heroes are disarmed and Sylvie has her Lash used to bind her arms to her body, before being led up to the flooded Base Commander’s office.
The Commander is sitting with his back to the door, behind a large wooden desk in a Nautiloid suit despite being underwater. He is monitoring the activity below through a huge window overlooking the hanger containing the tidal machine.
Once the captives are positioned before the desk, Nautiloid guards watching their every move, the Commander rotates in his chair to reveal himself as a Martian! “So we meet again Oriole” he says peering through the red mist contained in his suit. Oriole recognises the commander responsible for the huge invasion fleet which you will no doubt remember from that daring interplanetary adventure Red Indian, Red Planet.
“How you here, in deep past of my home?” asks Oriole, maintaining his composure by crossing his arms and holding himself proud in the face of his nemesis.
“When you destroyed my fleet you caused a massive explosion, and the wildly failing tachyon drives of our space ships caused a time distortion that threw me into the distant past of my world at the very height of the Martian civilisation. There I commandeered a space ship and flew to Earth, where I guided and moulded this promising race of Nautiloids. Manipulating their essential essences, making them as long lived as my race, I carefully selected the most aggressive of the species in a huge breeding program, which led inevitably to a new, world spanning empire capable of wiping from the face of the planet, the nascent potential of humanity before, they could forge the world that you know.
“But the islanders of Atlantis, proved tenacious and resourceful, their strange mechanical technologies thwarting me. So I hatched a plan to invade the future in an overwhelming surprise attack, oppressing humanity and stealing the technologies of your time. And, you have arrived here just in time to witness my tidal machine turn the oceans into a huge temporal vortex, allowing my amassed Nautiloid armies to sweep across the continents of your time, bending your whole planet to my will.
“Sit and watch with me” he says, gesturing to seats near the viewing window.
Doc Automatic peers down into the hanger with his expert eye at the reworking of his tidal machine, and spots a flashing warning light in an essential sub system of the grossly scaled up machinery. And, at this moment a Nautiloid scientist bursts in, hurriedly crosses the office and whispers a problem into the grim Martian’s ear.
Doc realises that the Nautiloids have not corrected the flaw in his original design which caused him to discard the tidal machine and leave it gathering dust amongst the many half finished prototypes in his laboratory. He delights in informing the Martian that the machine is doomed to failure without correcting and recalibrating that vital subsystem.
Oriel then has a vision of the Martian's fate, and pointing at him predicts that the use of technology beyond his ken will result in his destruction.
The provoked Martian raises his hand, and the Nautiloid guards level their guns at our heroes and the fiendish alien demands that Doc fix the problem or his friends will die. Quick as a flash Sylvie frees her hands and whips her lash across the room, dragging him and his chair across the room to face her.
Unphased the diabolical Commander raises a single finger and a Nautiloid fires his weapon felling our hero Oriole and leaving him on the floor, blood slowly clouding the water around his dead body.
“I do not bluff” says the Martian levelling his gaze at the distraught Doc, who screams in his distress.
“My Blood Brother!” Defeated and in shock, Doc agrees to mend the monstrous version of his machine.
Provoked into further action, Sylvie whips a Nautiloid’s gun from his grasp and into her hand levelling it at the Martian in front of her, but the Martian calmly directs her to shoot, and the gun clicks uselessly in the Martians face.
“Do you think I would let these guns work on me?” says the grinning alien commander.
Our heroes are disarmed and Sylvie has her Lash used to bind her arms to her body, before being led up to the flooded Base Commander’s office.
The Commander is sitting with his back to the door, behind a large wooden desk in a Nautiloid suit despite being underwater. He is monitoring the activity below through a huge window overlooking the hanger containing the tidal machine.
Once the captives are positioned before the desk, Nautiloid guards watching their every move, the Commander rotates in his chair to reveal himself as a Martian! “So we meet again Oriole” he says peering through the red mist contained in his suit. Oriole recognises the commander responsible for the huge invasion fleet which you will no doubt remember from that daring interplanetary adventure Red Indian, Red Planet.
“How you here, in deep past of my home?” asks Oriole, maintaining his composure by crossing his arms and holding himself proud in the face of his nemesis.
“When you destroyed my fleet you caused a massive explosion, and the wildly failing tachyon drives of our space ships caused a time distortion that threw me into the distant past of my world at the very height of the Martian civilisation. There I commandeered a space ship and flew to Earth, where I guided and moulded this promising race of Nautiloids. Manipulating their essential essences, making them as long lived as my race, I carefully selected the most aggressive of the species in a huge breeding program, which led inevitably to a new, world spanning empire capable of wiping from the face of the planet, the nascent potential of humanity before, they could forge the world that you know.
“But the islanders of Atlantis, proved tenacious and resourceful, their strange mechanical technologies thwarting me. So I hatched a plan to invade the future in an overwhelming surprise attack, oppressing humanity and stealing the technologies of your time. And, you have arrived here just in time to witness my tidal machine turn the oceans into a huge temporal vortex, allowing my amassed Nautiloid armies to sweep across the continents of your time, bending your whole planet to my will.
“Sit and watch with me” he says, gesturing to seats near the viewing window.
Doc Automatic peers down into the hanger with his expert eye at the reworking of his tidal machine, and spots a flashing warning light in an essential sub system of the grossly scaled up machinery. And, at this moment a Nautiloid scientist bursts in, hurriedly crosses the office and whispers a problem into the grim Martian’s ear.
Doc realises that the Nautiloids have not corrected the flaw in his original design which caused him to discard the tidal machine and leave it gathering dust amongst the many half finished prototypes in his laboratory. He delights in informing the Martian that the machine is doomed to failure without correcting and recalibrating that vital subsystem.
Oriel then has a vision of the Martian's fate, and pointing at him predicts that the use of technology beyond his ken will result in his destruction.
The provoked Martian raises his hand, and the Nautiloid guards level their guns at our heroes and the fiendish alien demands that Doc fix the problem or his friends will die. Quick as a flash Sylvie frees her hands and whips her lash across the room, dragging him and his chair across the room to face her.
Unphased the diabolical Commander raises a single finger and a Nautiloid fires his weapon felling our hero Oriole and leaving him on the floor, blood slowly clouding the water around his dead body.
“I do not bluff” says the Martian levelling his gaze at the distraught Doc, who screams in his distress.
“My Blood Brother!” Defeated and in shock, Doc agrees to mend the monstrous version of his machine.
Provoked into further action, Sylvie whips a Nautiloid’s gun from his grasp and into her hand levelling it at the Martian in front of her, but the Martian calmly directs her to shoot, and the gun clicks uselessly in the Martians face.
“Do you think I would let these guns work on me?” says the grinning alien commander.
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