tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4491933635924780786.post3884647480442376909..comments2023-03-12T03:07:50.202-07:00Comments on Spirit of the Blank: Fantasy: Gateway Playtest AftermathMike Olsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11547961835994778883noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4491933635924780786.post-16725524145990724782008-09-03T15:49:00.000-07:002008-09-03T15:49:00.000-07:00It was a four-hour game. Well, four hours and 20 ...It was a four-hour game. Well, four hours and 20 minutes.<BR/><BR/>I'd say about 10 minutes of that was explaining basic concepts to the SotC virgins, and probably a good 20 minutes was everyone filling out their Adventure phase and coming up with two more aspects ("Architectural Gymnastics," BTW, was something Hamish came up with on the fly during his Adventure phase).<BR/><BR/>We probably spent... I dunno... 40 minutes or so playing through the Adventure phases. From my limited experience with those, I tend to run long in the beginning as I get my footing for that sort of thing, and then short in the end as I realize how long it's taken. <BR/><BR/>Still, it's a lot of fun, and the last player (Selene, playing Morwyn) to do her Adventure phase was probably the <I>most</I> fun. She'd written the beginning of an adventure down in that phase, but didn't know how to end it. The setup was that Morwyn was sent to quell a radical religious faction that claimed that Fae were demons, so her Adventure took the form of a debate, with the crowd taking... I dunno... "Persuasion stress."<BR/><BR/>I just thought it was fun to rant on about how and why her character was obviously a demon.<BR/><BR/>As for Salaberri and his Master of Disguise stunt -- yes, that's pretty much how it went. It's a risky stunt sometimes, because when you drop out you can never be sure when some random mooks will have a chance to show up and therefore get you back in the game. I didn't worry about how he'd gotten into cultists' garb, or how he'd gotten past the archway. He was just there, stabbing dudes in the gut.<BR/><BR/>And yeah, it was a dramatic reveal. As his group of minions was running towards the party, he whipped out a couple daggers and gutted the two guys on either side (I let him attack with Deceit, because it seemed cool, and because it'd pretty much guarantee he did well, which was a necessary thing for him to look even cooler). Then there was the "It is I, Paskal Salaberri!" moment. I think I had some minions applaud. Albert made a lot of use of Paskal's disguise-based stunts, which was, y'know, good.<BR/><BR/>(My regular SotC character -- and by "regular," I mean "I made him and played him once" -- is Incognito, a master of disguise. He's all about that stunt. I basically pay a Fate Point at the beginning of every scene, then show up as a random guy later on, then pay a Fate Point again to drop out again. He also has Disguise of the Mind, which lets him use Deceit -2 in place of <I>any skill</I> the person he's disguised as might have. It's pretty good, but it did make for an oddly personality-free character: He was always someone else, and never himself.)<BR/><BR/><I>"I got one player/character who's killing me with that kinda nonsense."</I><BR/><BR/>Y'know, I don't necessarily think it's a bad way to play, in and of itself, but in a con setting it's death.Mike Olsonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11547961835994778883noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4491933635924780786.post-84532206612230428862008-09-03T09:01:00.000-07:002008-09-03T09:01:00.000-07:00Nice writeup!I'll put my real comments up front, a...Nice writeup!<BR/><BR/>I'll put my real comments up front, and then put my geek-gushing afterwards...<BR/><BR/>Question: You said you ran over by 20 minutes, but how much real-time did all this play take?<BR/><BR/><I>"At the end of the fight, Paskal Salaberri, celebrated actor of Mallora, was missing. Wherever did he go, I wonder?"</I><BR/><BR/>...The play-experience of this interests me. So given where he shows up, did the player just kinda sit there and pick a point to drop back into the game with a dramatic reveal? How did this actually play out?<BR/><BR/><I>"One thing that's broken: stunts that let you inflict a consequence for a Fate Point. Minions with no Grit are just a Fate Point away from instant annhilation. But change it to an aspect instead of a consequence, and we're good."</I><BR/><BR/>...[quickly scribbling through spells]<BR/><BR/><I>"Compels are something a lot of us SotC GMs need to work on, from what I hear."</I><BR/><BR/>...Guilty of that myself. Any links you know of where GMs discuss / trade hints to address?<BR/><BR/>BEGIN GUSH<BR/><BR/><I>"no more characters who excel at avoiding everything,"</I><BR/><BR/>...I got one player/character who's killing me with that kinda nonsense. <BR/><BR/><I>"While Olarra invoked her 'Architectural Gymnastics' aspect for effect to see if she could remember where, in her many self-guided architectural tours about the city,"</I><BR/><BR/>...Consider that aspect stolen. My other player is gonna have a field day with that one.<BR/><BR/><I>"Egun the dwarf holding Berasko's head down in the vat of blood and, well, drowning him. METAL."</I><BR/><BR/>...METAL <B>INDEED</B>.<BR/><BR/>/GUSHAnonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16250749425368911284noreply@blogger.com