So I had to *graduate* to find a regular gaming group?
As I've mentioned on other occasions, I've been having an absolute blast playing with the "Nova Small-Press RPG" folks on Thursday nights at the Strategist. I "took the night off" from gaming to apply for a job at Smithsonian magazine, and while I was figuring out how to blow them away with my cover-letter, I joined the forums at TechSpot. I think I helped some cats out with free computer advice after I got the application in. Speaking of getting paperwork in, all I have to do is sign and mail my Articles of Organization for Facetime Continuum LLC, and I sent the proper forms over to Richard so he can get his recording company, One Note Shy, registered as well.
So two weeks ago I played The Mountain Witch with the Thursday crew, and last week we played Dogs in the Vineyard. I will now write about them in reverse order. I love the bidding, the seeing, the free-form traits, the fallout/experience system, and the escalating on the Dogs end. I will gladly talk about these things at length, but its late and I have other things that I want to write right now. I wish the setting were more explicitly historical, though I think I understand why the game is detached from its real-world antecedents. Despite my enthusiasm for the system, the setting, and my Adventures of Huckleberry Finn-inspired river-outlaw turned holy-man character, the game I really want to play again is The Mountain Witch.
Now, The Mountain Witch is really narrow in scope: as written, you can only use the system to tell the story of a group of ronin who are hired to kill the Witch of Mt. Fuji. The game does everything it can to hit all the powerful themes it can within those restraints. To quote an RPGnet review, "In the authors words, it’s 'a self-contained role-playing adventure that combines elements of Japanese mythology, horror, and film noir in a tale of trust, betrayal, and confronting one’s fate.' It’s Seven Samurai meets Resevoir Dogs." So much potential for betrayal! So much incentive to trust! Like Dogs, I'll get in the nitty-gritty later - I'm not done gushing yet!
Every player is secretly given a "Dark Fate." Every Dark Fate has the potential to mean Betrayal, and one Dark Fate in particular does. However, within certain constraints, what this Dark Fate actually means is entirely up to the player. In fact, a lot of things are entirely up to the player. An overly simplistic example of "The Mountain Witch Trick" is this: the GM says 'You see a man - who is it?' Are there any mechanics for determining whether the player's answer is right or wrong? Heck no! Is being put on the spot all the time draining? Yeah, but it's damn-rewarding! Is the whole game about a million kinds of awesome? Why the heck do you think I want to get back to the game so much! We've only finished one "chapter"! People have foreshadowed what their Dark Fates are! We've been lead into the misty woods by ghostly children, fought off dozens of ravenous wolves, one of our number may have been replaced with a shape-changer, and that same ronin cut of the head of his identical brother's corpse, because another ronin can speak to the dead! I think half of the folks at the table have some great twists planned. I know that I've set up something juicy!
Which leads me to my only complaint about this gaming group: we've got too many balls in the air. It's great when we can get something done in one sitting, but even with a mini-campaign like The Mountain Witch, it's tough to get the right people together on the right week to get back to an ongoing game in a timely fashion. Yeah, that's it. Not a bad problem to have, eh?
So two weeks ago I played The Mountain Witch with the Thursday crew, and last week we played Dogs in the Vineyard. I will now write about them in reverse order. I love the bidding, the seeing, the free-form traits, the fallout/experience system, and the escalating on the Dogs end. I will gladly talk about these things at length, but its late and I have other things that I want to write right now. I wish the setting were more explicitly historical, though I think I understand why the game is detached from its real-world antecedents. Despite my enthusiasm for the system, the setting, and my Adventures of Huckleberry Finn-inspired river-outlaw turned holy-man character, the game I really want to play again is The Mountain Witch.
Now, The Mountain Witch is really narrow in scope: as written, you can only use the system to tell the story of a group of ronin who are hired to kill the Witch of Mt. Fuji. The game does everything it can to hit all the powerful themes it can within those restraints. To quote an RPGnet review, "In the authors words, it’s 'a self-contained role-playing adventure that combines elements of Japanese mythology, horror, and film noir in a tale of trust, betrayal, and confronting one’s fate.' It’s Seven Samurai meets Resevoir Dogs." So much potential for betrayal! So much incentive to trust! Like Dogs, I'll get in the nitty-gritty later - I'm not done gushing yet!
Every player is secretly given a "Dark Fate." Every Dark Fate has the potential to mean Betrayal, and one Dark Fate in particular does. However, within certain constraints, what this Dark Fate actually means is entirely up to the player. In fact, a lot of things are entirely up to the player. An overly simplistic example of "The Mountain Witch Trick" is this: the GM says 'You see a man - who is it?' Are there any mechanics for determining whether the player's answer is right or wrong? Heck no! Is being put on the spot all the time draining? Yeah, but it's damn-rewarding! Is the whole game about a million kinds of awesome? Why the heck do you think I want to get back to the game so much! We've only finished one "chapter"! People have foreshadowed what their Dark Fates are! We've been lead into the misty woods by ghostly children, fought off dozens of ravenous wolves, one of our number may have been replaced with a shape-changer, and that same ronin cut of the head of his identical brother's corpse, because another ronin can speak to the dead! I think half of the folks at the table have some great twists planned. I know that I've set up something juicy!
Which leads me to my only complaint about this gaming group: we've got too many balls in the air. It's great when we can get something done in one sitting, but even with a mini-campaign like The Mountain Witch, it's tough to get the right people together on the right week to get back to an ongoing game in a timely fashion. Yeah, that's it. Not a bad problem to have, eh?