Bill and I were at Origins over the past weekend so this is our post-Origins wrap up! I only played three games–arriving Friday night and leaving very early Sunday, but I had a great time nonetheless. Two of the games were Fantasy Hero games using Hero System 6th Edition. Those games renewed my enthusiasm for Fantasy Hero! Both games were ran by Shane Harsch of Legendsmiths, Inc., who are working on a ton of Hero related products. I am looking forward to seeing what they come up with. One item we used during one of the games was a Quickstart character generation system that did a superb job of speeding character creation. Six of us (Mckenna, Ellen, Jason, Jason D., Bill and me) created characters in just over an hour. It was modular and flexible–and fun! I’ve added Legendsmiths to the list of links. The second game was also Fantasy Hero. The other players were Troy, Shelley, Dale and John. The third game was WEGS, ran by Will, one of the Wegshogs from Gamewick Games. WEGS is becoming ever more popular. The latest version of the game includes some new character ‘arks’ (character classes) that greatly expand the options available to the players. But I still like sticking to the old reliable Warriors, Rangers, and Tricksters! Bill ran his Trail of Cthulhu ‘Castle Bravo’ scenario as part of the regular schedule, as well as an Ashen Stars game as part of Games on Demand. We covered those games as part of our Dreamation summary, although we plan a future show comparing the different iterations of the games just to see what there is to see! Bill played in a FATE game entitled ‘Spirit of the Red Planet’, an homage to Burroughs’ Mars adventure stories, ran by Morgan Ellis. The other players were Phil Lewis and Aaron Sturgill. I’ve listened to it, and it sounds like it was a blast! This episode includes a short excerpt from that game. I hope you enjoy it! One surprise from Origins is that Bill was interviewed by the folks at Lone Shark Live, as part of their ‘Origins at Night’ series. I have linked to that show; Bill’s interview starts at 1:36 or so.
The episode clocks in at just under 60 minutes. Let us know what you think!
Mel
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Thank you both for joining in my games this Origins, I really enjoyed running the events for you. I also very much appreciate your observations of the events I ran and I am glad to see that many of my goals were accomplished. I am intrigued by your comments on the Narosia event, knowing what I know of the backstory and how the event played and I now know your preferences for the evolution of the story I find it interesting that our preferences are so similar and yet we ended up in two different places experientially.
In the podcast you state that you do not like the puzzle solving nature of the typically dungeon crawl, especially when the clues are spoon-fed (and I very much subscribe to the Gumshoe approach to clues). The interesting part of that statement was that the puzzles that you thought existed, did not in fact exist. The excerpt from the adventure where the Warder of Alantra performs an Empowered Channeling to destroy the statue was all story, and a result of the players wanting to explore and try to determine the story elements behind the location. In the pursuit of that we were uncovering many elements of the general backstory about tsvergic (dwarven) culture, the nature of the dead and care for the passing into death as administered by the goddess Aelos, the imprisonment of the Endori (dark hordes), and the roles the characters might play in a larger story. The purpose of that first room, other than to start the event out with a simple, yet hopefully exciting/scary combat, was to be creepy. To wonder at the history.
You are correct in that there was no mystery to be solved other than minor story elements. The question of the nature of the “dungeon”, with the unsanctioned veration of Aelos in here death guise. Why were the skratta (goblins) hiding from the gral (orcs) when both are Endrori and both ultimately trying to escape the Deepland Halls? In many ways those were all just setting and trappings for the larger realization, the “big reveal” as it were, that the whole “dungeon” was a dangerously random entrence into the old tsvergic city of Dor Pelithor which was now being used as a staging ground for a much larger force of Endrori, something that is both very not good and very rare.
The critical feedback is outstanding — in all the years of running the adventure I don’t think I have ever received feedback as insightful as yours. I like the idea of giving something else for the players to do… a sense of urgency as it were, the pursuit of which has them stumble across this whole greater mess.
I also think this is also a bit of a result of having a character like the Warder in the group. Anytime you have a purposeful character who only has one way to resolve particular situations, such was creating a Ward of Alantra to seal this surface breach, it changes the dynamic of the group’s focus.
The play style you allude to is much closer to how I run my home games, where play time is not critical relative to the story, allowing for a much freer exploration of the situation and the ability to uncover the clues in a way that is much more organic to the character’s choices than risk of not finding the clue because they didn’t do the right thing or solve the puzzle correctly.
The Narosia events I run at cons are meant to showcase the backstory of the world, the interaction with the gods, and exciting pace and options of the Hero System. That is a tall order, and we usually execute on that, but it is challenging to deliver that without imposing a little control over the path of the characters, so long as we don’t require specific actions. Ultimately that is I think where I am disappointed with my delivery of the adventure in that you interpreted my creative play with player choice vis-a-vis the statue (and other elements) as spoon feeding them the critical clues necessary to “win” the scenario, when in fact I was just allowing the player to explore and interact with the world in a character appropriate manner.
I am sincerely glad that you enjoyed both sessions and I am grateful to have the opportunity to reflect on the delivery of the scenario and my GM-ing style. I hope we have the opportunity to game together in the future. Thank you.
Shane,
Thanks for dropping in at Virtual Play! And thanks again for running a couple of great games at Origins. I hope my comments on the podcast do not appear negative–that is not my intent–far from it, in fact. The games were very enjoyable. I had a feeling that the scene with the statue was really just exploration. And I enjoy exploration–whether the setting or the NPCs or the characters themselves or whatever, but usually only when such exploration is necessary for the plot. Does that make sense? Or is exploration independent of the plot? For example, the destruction of the statue in our game was not necessary to plant the Warder’s seal. Nor was destroying heretical icons a pre-existing goal or mission or psych lim of the characters. So we let ourselves get distracted by the statue. I suppose the casks of grey powder hinted at their use for such demolition…but the powder could also have been placed in the dungeon as a means of sealing the entrances from the deep if their was no warder or as a means of fighting masses of creatures from the deeps.
I try to think about how I balance exploration with the essentials in a scenario. It’s a fine line because I want the players to feel like they can, through their characters, ‘do’ anything. But at the same time I want to try to reach a natural climax to the adventure in the time allotted. I don’t always get it right.
In the discussion about dungeon crawls in general, my takeaway is simply that I further realize that I do not like dungeon crawls in Fantasy Hero, probably because the characters all have too many other cool things they can do, considering all the area knowledges, languages, knowledge skills, etc.
In the case of the statue scene, rather than go through the sequence of the characters finding the room ‘unfinished’, and then the statue ‘odd’, and then either heretical or a desperate plea for power (which was the other guess at the statue’s ‘wrongness’, I may have just presented that information up front. ‘The statue before you displays the god in a form of mastery of the undead, a heretical aspect,’ and see how the players react to that ‘bang’. A heretical statue is a bang–a situation the characters must react to one way or another–an odd statue is a plot hook, but we were already on the hook!
Thinking some more about Bill’s question on how would I design a Fantasy Hero adventure, one other approach I would like to try would be to envision three or four set piece ‘battles’, using maps and counters or miniatures and link those battles with information that has to be discovered on the battlefield. The discovery is through dialogue with the opponents, finding hidden secrets in locked rooms or chests, or on the bodies of casualties. The trick is how to avoid making that a railroad…how to make player choices in one battle matter in the next. I’ll have to think about that some more.
In any case, I can’t wait to see the various Legendsmiths’ products and I will be sure to include them in future episodes!
Mel
Excellent. Thank you for your thoughtful response. It sounds like we actually share a similar view about dungeon crawling. On the one hand, it is a proud tradition. On the other hand, I despise dungeons that make no sense. IMO The Gates of Dor Pelithor is one that ‘makes sense’ and I think our approach to the reveal differs. For example, there are numerous ways to learn about the city of Dor Pelithor… one of the characters has a book, there’s the relief carvings in one of the halls, or any number of other skills. Based on which character asks, and the story behind it (i.e. book, skill, reflection on artwork) I will give out the essentials of the clue/story in the context in which they asked. If they roll well, I’ll give them more than the essentials, up to a ‘bang’, to borrow your phraseology, if they roll exceptionally well.
I had a few other general observations, and included it in my Origins 2012 report (with a link back to you guys as well).
Thank you, again.
- Shane
I subscribed to your podcast and this episode was listed as August 24, 2009, so it shows up weird in the listing. FYI.
http://virtualplay.podbus.com/?page_id=2
Shane,
Hmm…thanks for the tip on the date. I’ll see about tracking down that issue.
I agree completely that Dor Pelithor seemed to ‘make sense’ as a dungeon. It seemed to be a secret offshoot of the city for the heretical worshippers. Perhaps we would learn later that the whole city was full of heretics, but that seemed unlikely since Mos’s book had the other legitimate temples. And I can only applaud the introduction of the heretical statue as a means of providing clues as to the nature of the place. Your methodology on revealing information is similar to Cthulhu Dark (with the information ranging from just the essentials to everything that could possibly be known–and more, or Gumshoe, where skill point spends gain information or insights above the minimum. I think that makes sense as a methodology. I guess when I think back on the game, I had the most fun during the combats–Shiksaa is incredible!–so the other scenes may suffer in comparison. I suppose that is the problem with exploration–it has to answer the question ‘why’–why does it matter? Does the nature of the dungeon change our motivation or goals? If time were unlimited, I think I would be all for exploration for exploration’s sake, but if exploration is only significant to one character, or otherwise unlikely to change the characters’ goals, then it has to be balanced against other elements in the game. This is all theoretical! This did not happen in the Origins game. We were all interested in the mystery behind the statue–I hoped there was treasure. My point is simply that it did not matter to the characters what was the nature of the dungeon. I would have been just as invested in accomplishing the mission had we known up front that the dungeon was a lair of heretics; or had we realized the statue was heretical as soon as we saw it. In fact, had any of the characters had a Psych Lim dealing with eliminating heresy, that would make the statue a point of major significance. Or imagine if one of the PCs was a heretic! Then destroying the statue becomes a point of contention. Anyway, I frequently say that one thing that inspires me to run a game is after playing in a well run game. Yours were exactly that! So I am going to start putting together something that I hope you will get to play in eventually!
Mel
This should be the link for the RSS feed:
http://virtualplay.podbus.com/?feed=podcast
I cannot recreate the error but my web-fu is weak.
Shane,
This is proving a very useful conversation for me. You’re making me think more clearly about what I think! I’m thinking about these adventures too much from the perspective of how to solve the mystery, rather than react to the events unfolding around the character. It’s the same issue I had in the Trail of Cthulhu adventure, Castle Bravo.
Mel
Outstanding. If you would like to get in on the playtest of Narosia, you can sign up at http://www.legendsmiths.com/playtesting and get access to the materials. Regardless, perhaps I can catch your adventure at a regional con or at next year’s Origins.
Nice overview of your Origins experience. I am the guy who brought the 2 lovely ladies to the Fantasy Hero Quickstart and I also played Grange in the FH Narosia game. I also had a wonderful time. I had the pleasure of playing with Shane a few years ago with the FH Quickstart as well as a sort-of dystopia, futuristic game that I can’t remember what it was called… but great fun, none-the-less. So, I knew that Shane was a great GM.
FH Quickstart: My daughter and her friend said that this game was one of the highlights of Origins… They said it was a tie with a Mouse Guard game we tried and loved. I was mostly an observer for the Quickstart, but I helped my daughter make her character, which went smoothly due to Shane’s Quickstart rules.
FH Narosia: I played Grange, a hulking, tough, not-so-bright, combat character… I especially liked his Find Traps ability (which mostly consisted of him kicking down the door… lol) I generally agree with Mel on the outcome of the statue scene, it was the slow part of the session… I don’t think it would have been, had the player who chose the cleric-type chosen a different character, he was sort of obligated to investigate the “heresy” of the statue… but it all worked out. I was thinking that destroying the statues was a major goal of the mission due to the emphasis put on attempting to ascertain their purpose. I figured out, however, when we passed up the second statue with very little investigation, vowing to come back and destroy it, that they (the statues) were more of flavor to the world of Narosia and not of immediate concern for the mission. (I was a little worried with the second statue since it was portraid as a “Pay the Ferry Man” sort of trap… especially since Grange decided to ignore the statue and “check for traps” on the door leading out… I kept thinking that we would get attacked for not paying…) The flavor parts of the adventure would have been a lot more relevant if this was a home game where time was not hard-coded. Regardless, I really liked the setting and look forward to checking it out. The inclusion of the god-cards (I can’t remember what these were called) are very innovative and seems to be a nice addition to the Hero System… It allows for the characters to have a sense of destiny… the gods are watching the dealings of the heroes and sometimes intervene subtly on occasion. It kept Grange alive when Aelos, the god represented by the statues, changed a critical hit against him into a “normal” blow. In fact, I liked the card concept so much, I’m thinking of using something similar in a campaign I’m starting in a week. It allows a sort of “fudge-factor” that the players can use when the dice are not working in their favor, or when attempting a heroic important action and need a little god/fate influence… I wasn’t completely sure of how to play the cards, but I’m sure that would just come in time.
Mel, you should have included some of the awesome parts of Narosia… like when Grange disarms traps by throwing a bolder to set off the pit trap, or when Grange sweeps into the middle of those goblin like things and terrifies the shit out of them, or when Grange takes that huge hit from the boss that would have felled a tree, but Grange gets up laughing… (ok, I’m a little too biased towards Grange, but my point is the same…) I suppose you could have included the part where the wizard type blasts the goblin like shaman and destroys him with one hit…
Anyway, great fun was had by all!
Thanks to everyone!
Troy,
Thanks for checking in! You’re right–there were a lot more great scenes in the Narosia game that would be fun to listen to. It’s always tough to choose! I hope to return to Fantasy Hero and Narosia in the future, so there will be other opportunities to use excerpts from our games to talk about specific Hero System things–how combat works, how Complications work, etc. Shane’s explanations are a tutorial all by themselves!
And it was great fun playing alongside you in the afternoon game. You played a great Grange–stoic, brave, unstoppable. I was a little worried during the fight with the enemy chief. I thought Grange was a goner. But it all worked out in the end. I’m glad your daughter had a good time! She and her friend reminded me how fun these games were playing them way back when.
Mel
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