ECCC: The Avatar World Playtest (and other things)

Sure, a little more Metric. Lovin' this song. It's because of the indie music bent of the series and  Envy Adams' design (and the movie's song of course) but they make great music for Bryan Lee O'Malley's stuff. I'm stoked for Seconds, which will hopefully come out when he's finally done releasing the Color Editions.

So I wanted to talk about what I learned this weekend in my game of Avatar World. First, let me real quick set the stage for this.
I had three players. Jackson is a game designer and from Olympia who hasn't played Avatar World. Orion is also a designer and friend from Olympia who HAS played Avatar World once before, though that session was a bit of an anomaly (I'd been ready to play ApW that day, and the MC Robert and I both- well, mostly me I guess- kinda ended up pushing a darker style than the usual kid-friendliness of Avatar). Mark is a gamer I met at ECCC the previous night when I played Mouse Guard with him. None of them has significant experience with Avatar, basically at the premise of elemental-magic kung-fu action, which is all that's needed to play anyway. They had snippets of ideas from canon such as elements segregating into their own nations and airbenders being monk-like, but not much more. Jackson was an Airbender, Orion was an Aristocrat, and Mark was a Firebender.

The game had a political bent, with 14-year-old Princess Linmal the Aristocrat visiting the Fire Nation's (not the show country, just used the name) capital using Caes the Airbender and her friend Phil the Firebender as a bridge and local guide, respectively. What exactly happened is mostly irrelevant to my discussion today, but the central idea is that we spent the whole session in the city.

Here's the problem: Downtime exploring the city is completely outside the mechanics on its own. I found buttons where I could to give Linmal a thing to do because she felt she had a strong goal and I had an idea of where to push, a distant cousin from the branch families who was there to make sure she didn't cause trouble and was secretly there to assassinate her to take his place as heir to the Air Nation throne. The attempt didn't quite happen, which is fine but I probably should have accelerated that scene a little further.
But Linmal wasn't the problem. Caes and Phil did their own little thing that, while it felt Avatar-y, wasn't particularly engaging in mechanical terms. Phil didn't roll dice until the final encounter when they got into trouble with the Fire King. Now, there might have been opportunity and Mark got went past it (Mouse Guard the night before was the most story-game he'd done, so AvW was probably some of the most personal agency over his actions he'd experienced), but that also falls on me for poor spotlight control.

This is why I can't decide if the bulk of my issues are motivated by game issues or MC-skill issues. Among other things, one particular concept that's already in the book that I've always known but barely really understood is here:

You get to make a move whenever the players fail a roll, or when they look at you with expectation in their eyes.

I play a lot of Monsterhearts, and my other main *-world games are classic ApW and Sagas, all of which operate with the same safety net for me: the players will shove off each other very easily. In those games, I'm really more in control of situation than action, as the action is primarily powered by the characters being in conflict rather than aligned with each other. I rarely make moves without someone failing a roll because no one's really sitting around doing nothing.
Avatar World wants to be a little more like Dungeon World, where player characters might be uneasy or upset with each other but are rarely outright opposed. Personally, this is cause for concern: I'm really bad at running Dungeon World for exactly that reason. I need to be aggressive, and I'm very passive in that regard.
In looking back, I see a lot of places I could have started pushing harder, places where it was obvious that people weren't sure what to do narratively and I should have started making moves. I really feel bad about this situation in particular because this is not the first time downtime-exploring-in-the-city has shown this very problem for me - it happened in the very first game too. Its crazy - two thirds of Korra takes place in the middle of a metropolis, you'd think I could figure out how that show makes things exciting.

Another thing I want to potentially work on is some additional structure for starting up the game, forging the world and group. It took a LONG time, and the simplicity of playbooks helps but figuring out situation is hard so I'm gonna look into seeing if I can support that.

The Chi mechanic overall worked quite well! No Chi was spent on boosting moves, but it felt like a real option at least. Caes almost Improved too. However, one thing was a noticeable issue: we were running into situations where people wanted to be able to use their Chi but had no Tags available. This isn't an issue in combat, but in a talk-heavy session (we rolled Speak Honorably a LOT) it doesn't leave much room for Tags. I have four main options related to that: link Speak Honorably to the tag system, link Act Dishonorably to the tag system, confirm and emphasize Move With Intention's ability to be used as social positioning, and or weaken the requirement of Tags for the Chi system to function (which is the worst option and actually requires complicating the system further).

The flexibility of Tags combined with their binding nature was well-liked! Also, Orion basically liked all the moves the Aristocrat had to offer, though we found by the end that Mastermind might have a more interesting mechanic if it behaved a little differently ("when does it trigger, and how do I do it given that I'm not a mastermind myself" were the identified points of issue). After discussion, I'm considering a retroactive contingency thing. Orion had been torn between the aristocrat and the earthbender but chose against the EB because it had no real social-focus moves. This is not surprising to me as the earthbender continues to be a huge pain in the ass.
Jackson chose Redirection and kinda felt like the Airbender's moves were in the same boat as the MH Vampire, where only a couple moves are interesting to the point of overwhelming the others (namely Redirection and Soundbending). I mostly agree (with a caveat I'll get to in a moment), so I'll keep watching for any interesting ideas for Airbender moves.
Mark pretty quickly migrated to Sunsoul on the Firebender. In case you're not familiar with the playbook, that's the +1 Hot move. That's fine of course - it's a valid move, and I think it's helpful. EXCEPT: this is part of a trend I see in the *-World games when I play 'em with people who've never used the system before. Those +1 Stat moves are often very tempting to new players and completely ignored by folks who know how the system works - it's especially true if the player is new-ish to story games or even just plays trad games a lot too (using those words in the loosest sense). I think it's cuz the ability to be better at what you do is usually a great idea in trad games, whereas the *-world systems tend to shine brightest when you diversify your options and give yourself more opportunities to work with the mechanics, which is approximately the same reason I'm leery of stat-substitution moves (though not opposed, as I see those as significantly more useful). The +1 Stat moves are important for making the benders and the scholar really feel like the most natural, the hottest, the keenest, etc (as without those moves no one can reach a +3 stat) but I think they're not really the best thing in 1-shots. For that reason, I think when I put the playbooks on the table for a 1-shot con game or whatever I'm gonna cross out the +1 Stat moves. Besides, those are basically the least-needing of playtest feedback anyway.

So I learned a lot! Jackson and Orion talked with me some more afterward and had some good thoughts, as did Robert from his previous looks at the text (having run the game twice already).

Hey, while I'm here I might as well give the debrief on the rest of the con.
Games played:
Avatar World: Described above.
Fedora Noir: This unreleased game by Morgan Stinson is the best noir game you'll ever play. It's truly brilliant. I was The Detective, and it was so cool. Ask and I'll tell you the whole pitch. Orion was facilitating.
Mouse Guard: Played to fill a spot, this was my second experience with some variety of Burning Wheel, the other being a game of Torchbearer. BW's relatives are definitely a bit crunchy for me, and I don't know the comics, but it's cool.
Fiasco: I ran this off-menu at the drop of a hat on Sunday afternoon. Played the Tales From Suburbia playset with gamers who only had a bit of experience with Pathfinder but really wanted to see what this Fiasco thing was all about. It went really well - it moved swiftly, chaotically, satisfyingly, and with everyone getting into framing (which is the best, I love when new folks also do the framing - so often they fall back on the Resolve like a crutch).

Things Bought:

Lost At Sea is the original graphic novel by the guy who would go on to do Scott Pilgrim. It's a gorgeous book released really recently as a 10-Year Anniversary Edition. I almost got this the weekend before when I was in Portland at Powell's, but scoffed at the $25 price tag. Well, the price was the same but I'd been regretting not getting it all week so this was the one thing I came to the con knowing I would purchase.
It's still one of my absolute favorite comics ever. If you've not read it, go pick it up.

The Evil Editions of the Scott Pilgrim books are only available at cons and feature a higher price tag with the only major difference being the Evil Ex on the cover instead of one of the heroes. I don't own any other Evil Editions and had completely forgotten they even existed (as I read the comics for the first time AFTER PAX last year and haven't seen the Evils since), but the colourist was sellin' 'em and I wanted my absolute favorite one in the special edition and signed. Volume 4 is easily my favorite Scott Pilgrim book, which is in turn easily my favorite comic series (with second place going to Saga right now - I decided against buying Saga Volume 3 while there, but it was a serious consideration). Volume 4 has Lisa Miller and Knives' dad and Roxy and Scott and Ramona having troubles but getting past it and Scott actually taking the first major steps at growing up. It's my biggest issue with the movie that Scott doesn't learn anything at all and continues to be a huge dumb self-absorbed jerk (who is lovable) through the whole thing, while in the comics he actually displays, you know, growth of character. Volume 4 is where everything comes together in a perfect storm.

I've been considering getting Tony Dowler's Seattle Doomsday Map since it first came out, and I love it. It's gorgeous and smart and Tony's an awesome guy. I also got a microdungeon!

I confess: I haven't the slightest idea what to do with Avery's new thing. It's really nice feeling and sturdy and the font and text is beautiful and yet it's held together with a binder clip and I think you're supposed to color right on the pages? So can it only be used once completely? Do I photocopy it? Is there a PDF or something? I haven't read it enough to know if it's even something I would play, it's just a part of the collection. But like I said, it's a really pretty assembly thing.

These are just the autographs I got from the three webcomics folks I read on a daily basis, Jeph Jacques (Questionable Content), David Willis (Dumbing of Age, Shortpacked!), and Danielle Corsetto (Girls With Slingshots). I mostly post this image as an excuse to also talk about the crazy thing Orion did: have you ever played Broken Telephone or Exquisite Corpse or any of a dozen other names that game has? On a sheet of paper you write a description, the next person draws that thing, then you fold over the description and the next person tries to describe the picture, and the next person draws that, etc. Well, Orion went around Artist Alley on Sunday and had the actual artists playing off each other in sequence (and he had two simultaneous games going so every person did a drawing on one game and a description on the other). The end result was really funny and interesting, and there was some cool art in there. I'll post that up here on the blog too once Orion scans it in cuz it's so cool.

Anyway, I think that's it for actually getting. I photographed a ton of comics and artists I wanted to check out cuz they looked cool but couldn't buy their stuff. Some of this was just based on the covers, others were from experience with the premise. Here, if you want to know what I found interesting:
Rust by Royden Lepp.
Tale of Sand by Jim Henson.
Polarity by Max Bemis. I've already read the first volume of this one, it's pretty awesome.
The Midas Flesh by Ryan North. (WHAT? It's seriously by Ryan North?! Rad. Explains the velociraptor in a spacesuit picture I guess)
Dragon Age: The World of Thedas Volume 1 Art Book by Dark Horse. It's good, I've looked through it before.
The Last of Us Art Book by Dark Horse. Also excellent. Dark Horse makes really great art books, I own the Mass Effect one and the Assassin's Creed IV one.
EVE Source Art Book by Dark Horse. Holy shit, this looks awesome for a game that is ultimately kinda banal to me.
Dream Thief by Jan Nitz.
The Legend of Korra Art of the Animated Series Book One by Dark Horse.
Avatar The Last Airbender Art of the Animated Series by Dark Horse. Better than the Korra one even, and they're both really great.
Hinges: Book 1 Clockwork City by Meredith McClaren.
Prophet by Brandon Graham. Morgan bought the third volume and said it was a super great series.
Pax Romana by Jonathan Hickman.
The Red Wing by Jonathan Hickman.
The Manhattan Proects by Jonathan Hickman.
Red Mass For Mars by Jonathan Hickman. All these Hickman comics just had great covers.
Change by Ales Kot.
Mind the Gap by Jim McCann.
Zero Illustrations 07-09 by JM Ken Niimura.
The Activity by Nathan Edmonson.
Snapshot by Andy Diggle.
Planetoid by Ken Garing.
The Nightly News by Jonathan Hickman.
ATGO Transhuman by Jonathan Hickman.
Spontaneous by Joe Harris.
The Coldest City by Antony Johnston.
Wasteland by Antony Johnston.
Minor Acts of Heroism.
The Art of Isaac Hannaford.
Joshua Hale Fialkov.
reMind by Jason Brubaker.

If you check any of those out tell me what you think!
Later folks.
End Recording,
Ego.

Art & Fiasco: Stonefalcon Manor (also, FREE ART for YOUR project!)

Hey y'all, just wanted to toss out a quick post now that the thing has gone live. So, a few days ago, fella named John Adams makes this thread over on the Story Games forums that I lurk around over at (look for horn_head_o - if you didn't know, that's my standard username on places where Ego is either too short or already taken). This thread is about some cool stuff like the playset he's been working on and is putting the finishing touches on and stuff. It's called Stonefalcon Manor and it's kinda like the original Dark Shadows show from way back when (not the recent bleh movie starring Johnny Depp - which I reviewed!
), being in a UK town that's really just finally catching up with the times somewhere between the 50s and 70s. An interesting twist is it has this "Secret Dice" mechanic that throws a different little twist into the Fiasco formula. While it doesn't seem quite as simple as the base Fiasco, little additions like that that can modify Fiasco's basic equation (let's see how many math words I can use to talk about Fiasco...) to alter the way it plays are really neat. If you're curious, here's the Score for the playset so you can know if you're interested in it:

"The truth will out...

The year is 1965, and the times are slowly catching up with the quaint English village by the bay. The hemlines are rising, the necklines are plunging, and there’s even talk of finally paving the old road. But the same level of modernity cannot be seen in the large manor house looming on the hill in the distance. The past haunts Stonefalcon Manor and the people within like a vengeful spirit. Day in and day out, the Harrington family and their servants go about their business as if all is right and proper, never daring to utter the dreadful truth that they have concealed all of these years. But the Secret of Stonefalcon Manor has spent long enough in the shadows. The Secret of Stonefalcon Manor will be revealed. And when the Secret of Stone Falcon Manor is revealed, heaven help those unfortunate souls caught in its dark, terrorizing grasp."

"But Ego..." I hear you cry, "this post is tagged Art, why're you just talking about some dude's Fiasco playset?" And the answer is because posts tagged Art get more pageviews here. No, I'm kidding, that's not why (although Art posts DO get a lot of pageviews). So like I was saying, this John Adams guy posts his draft of the playbook. See, he's got this line in the post: "Also, you'll notice there is no art -- sorry, but I am not artistic!". And that is a damn shame, because it sounds like it has this kick-ass cover, and I kinda have this picture in my head that would look sweet and I think I'm good enough to make it work... So I ask him if he knows what he wants it to look like, and if it's not out of my reach I could totally try to make it, and I'd do it free! And turns out him vision sounds a lot like my vision too, so hey, I jump on GIMP and start the drawin'. Several dozen layers and a very annoying size-incompatibility later (I figured it probably should scale to Letter size, but my image, uh, didn't. So I had to clean up a bunch of lines I hadn't expected to), I had an image. I went through a couple tiny revisions to come up with something even cooler with John, and wound up with what I think is a pretty sweet final image.

So yeah, I guess I now count as a published artist! I got my name in there as a credit and a link back here and everything! (if you're coming here courtesy of the playset, welcome!) This is pretty damn exciting for me. See, I have this kind of fantasy goin' on at the back of my head that, while I never intend for artist to take any form of full-time job for me, I think it'd be pretty awesome eventually to be able to help out my income with some stuff.

However, jumping straight to taking commissions is presumptuous of me. I'm mostly an unknown factor as far as art goes! I mean, you've got the stuff I post here, and whatever I have laying around my deviantArt and PixelJoint accounts, but not much goin' on for work that's actually released and used for stuff. That's why I'm willing to - wait for it - work for free.

Yup. I figure, do some free stuff and get some work out there and visible, and then I might be able to charge a little bit for some cool stuff.

So seriously. Hit me up if you have interest in FREE ART for YOUR project. I can't guarantee awesomeness right off the bat, but I'll do my best and work with you to make sure what you end up with is what you want. And hey, I ain't chargin', so what harm could there be in asking?

Oh, and what kind of silly fella am I for forgettin' til now? This is the thread where John's talkin' bout his playset and stuff:

http://story-games.com/forums/discussion/17098/fiasco-stonefalcon-manor-a-gothic-fiasco-custom-playset-feedback-welcomed#Item_19

And here's a direct link to the playset itself, currently working through Google Docs/Drive/whatever it is: https://docs.google.com/a/plu.edu/file/d/0B0Ut5mF-spZyZ1pnTXUxRFFxOTg/edit?pli=1

Uh, let's see, talked about the art, the playset, gave links, talked about my free art dealio, oh, music now!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FWKO5cq-HvI&feature=player_embedded 

Revolution Roulette is both the name of the album, and the third track on the album, which is this. I gotta say, Poets of the Fall amazes me. First off, I've listened to all their albums, and love all of them. Okay, I admit, I'm not as into Temple of Thought, but hey, I still love it quite a bit. PotF are probably the only band I can think of that I absolutely love just about every track on every album they've released, even though they've released five whole albums (that's a lot of chance for me not to enjoy a song). I love the lead dude's voice. He's got a huge range, and, despite singing in perfect english and I would never imagine this guy was foreign, he's native to Finland and the band is based there and everything. They're dual-identity, Old Gods of Asgard, that they played as in the video game Alan Wake was a slam dunk (sitting inside a simply unbelievably good game). The guitar work is great, and the vocals are awesome, and they manage to change styles distinctly every album (though Carnival of Rust and Revolution Roulette have quite similar style). My favorite album is Twilight Theater - it's just perfect. You're Still Here is the weak point of that album, and it's still strong. Dreaming Wide Awake is simply perfect.

That's enough about them for now though. Gotta save something for when I inevitably repeat them in a Songaday sometime.

And one last thing: upcoming stuff. Now that I'm finally writing the GPNW stuff and I got the big Microscope piece out, it's coming a bit easier. Additionally, I'm writing up the Wrath of the Lamb commentary. Hold on, I'll review it right now:

"Hey, Edmund McMillen! Your game is fucking incredible and I've sunk several hundred hours into it and I love you, and will be buying it for every console I can when make those remakes you just announced and I can't wait for the expansion coming with that and I want The Basement Collection so bad right now!"

Also, on the Binding of Isaac note: I am a Platinum God. I am a victim of a known bug that doesn't save your unlocked secrets of Cain's Eye, Eve's Bird Foot, or The Left Hand, despite acquiring these several times and having all the achievements for them. My account will not call me one, but I am a Platinum God, and any naysayers can go fuck themselves.

There, ending on a cheery note. Later folks, enjoy the art and the playset and the music! And contact me if you want some of that free art!

End Recording,

Ego.

Double Actual Play Part 2: Fiasco (Last Frontier Infection)

"So, a double AP post.

Here's the story. Saturday was Kris's last gaming session with us in person before he heads off to college and I have to Skype him in. As such, I really wanted to be able to do some actual gaming. Sadly, Daniel's and Kenny's schedules are a little weird. Eventually, we come to a point where Kris is staying for the whole time, and Kenny joins us a bit later, and Daniel leaves earlier than the other two.
Kris and Dan and I just hang, and when Kenny shows up we're chatting and trying to figure out what to play. Kris has been wanting to run Lady Blackbird, so we go with that. When we get to the end point for the night (you'll see what it is) Daniel's parents show up and he gets picked up, leaving just Kris, Kenny, and I. We decide that we want to try to get  through a Fiasco. Unfortunately, we're a bit slower than we hoped, and leave it right at the start of Act II.
So that's why we have two different half-APs."

FIASCO - LAST FRONTIER INFECTION - SESSION 1
So now Daniel's gone, and we went through my list of playsets. There was one that the others had keyed on a couple of times, though it never really struck me as that much fun (due to genre/location, not quality of the playset), and that was the Last Frontier playset that takes place in southern Alaska. Here's the Score from the playset so you have an idea of the intended tone.
"SOUTHEAST ALASKA
Adding some pitch black and blood red to the great white north ... fishing villages and fishing village idiots, timber contracts and factory ships, State Troopers in floatplanes and the weird guys who hide when they fly over - set among the emerald forests of southeast Alaska’s vast archipelago, this playset drags an offbeat but familiar setting into the crosshairs."
However, Kris had something in his mind that he wanted that helped guide our playset choice - zombies. Kris had just watched 28 Days Later, and it seems it was overhyped for him (especially since fast/virus-zombies aren't new anymore) cuz he just didn't get why people think it's so great. Through it, he'd been thinking: "Wow, we could do a game way better than this." And we did. Back in November. We played my little 3:16 zombies reskin, and it was glorious (holy cow that was NOVEMBER?). But Kris wanted some zombie flare. And the startup of a zombie plague in a backwater Alaskan town? Yup. That had me sold on a playset I was iffy about. There was no modifications to the playset itself - we just knew that we wanted to guide the plot toward zombies.
So who are we, and what are our relationships?
* Kris, playing Wilford Brimley! Yup. Same appearance. Different personality, but we imagine in this little movie production, he was PLAYED by Brimley as well.
* Kenny, playing Rasputin Komovich! Russian indeed. Kenny apparently wanted to put on another accent all night - he always does enjoy that. Rasputin got some higher education in Russia, at least until the cash ran out.
* Myself (Ego), playing Silvio Ardale! Despite a foreign-sounding name, I'm from here. My parents wanted me to sound all sophisticated-like, and figured that the best way to do that was to give me a foreign-sounding name. My chief inspiration for how I'm playing this character is Drebin from Metal Gear Solid 4. I emulated his speech every chance I got (Indeed Ironicus, that guy manages to communicate bleached hair with his voice alone).
*Wilford and Silvio are Family - Distant relatives through obscure lineage. Wilford's mom's sister had sex with Wilford's dad's brother, the child was Silvio's (grand?)mother. (We're not entirely sure on how old that would make him if it was grand, so we're just leaving it vague).
* Silvio and Rasputin have a Crime - Bookie and Gambler relationsip. Silvio is the bookie - I played the addict in Boomtown, so I figured I'd try the other side. We decided that what folks mostly bet on around here is dog races - mostly greyhounds, but I make a good deal off of the dogsled races too.
* Rasputin and Wilford are Work - Skilled Work Barterers. They're plumbers.
* Between Wilford and Silvio is an Object: Ugly: Candid video of a former governer. We didn't talk any more about this beforehand.
* Between Silvio and Rasputin is an Object: Valuable: Aluminum suitcase full of cash.
* Between Rasputin and Wilford is a Need: Need to Get Out...of an obligation to a dangerous outsider.

Kris got the first scene. He put it with Wilford and Rasputin driving out in their truck (of course it's a truck - it may be Alaska, but that doesn't mean they're not enormous rednecks) to go fix someone's plumbing, when the engine starts burning and pull over. By coincidence, another guy is already on the side of the road, his motorcycle a wreck next to him - he's a totally badass biker. Real scary dude. As they come over out of the truck and step toward him, they notice some serious bites on his arm, but don't ask about them. Conversation ensues, and the guy tells them that he's a pretty decent mechanic and that he can fix up their truck right quick if they'll do him just this one favor. They need to give him a ride back into town, and they need to drop off this package at this botanist's place for him. Either they agree, or no deal and he'll just work on his bike instead of fixing their truck. They need to get to their appointment quick, so they agree. They get on the road.
Kenny's scene. It's them arriving and doing the work on the customer - turns out this would be where the former governer comes in. And come on - former governer? In Alaska? It could only be Sarah Palin. Hell, it sounds like the start of a really bad joke: So Wilford Brimley, Sarah Palin, and Rasputin walk into a bar... Anyway, big news from this scene is mostly just that the bker had been with them still and managed to piss off Palin real bad and we needed to get out of there before she shot us to bits and fed us to her wolves. We've now been BLACKLISTED by Sarah Palin. Great.
So they get back in town, and drop off the biker (at the bar) and are heading toward the botanist for the errand (because they need to get out of that obligation or that sucker will kill them) when Silvio stops them. He's looking for Rasputin to pay up - now. Enough conversation happens, and Wilford uses his family tie to me to convince me to back off and give him a little more time. Weasel. They leave, off to the botanist's house.
Actually, wait. Realizing now that the Palin scene wasn't actually a separate scene - the getting back into town was still Kenny's scene.
NOW it's Silvio's scene, and it's him talking to Wilford back at his place later in the day. It's mostly me talking, and I convince him to tell me about that package I saw in the back of the truck. He doesn't know what's in it, but Wilford tells Silvio they left it on the desk at the botanist's place - the guy wasn't there but the door had been open. Maybe it's still there. I left to go get it - this was my pos/neg resolution, whether it would still be there or not. It was there! By the way, by now I've said that Silvio needs the money now because of his own debts - to Sarah Palin. He begins to plot about how to maybe get back at her with Wilford (who's afraid of retribution over the biker, so he wants some leverage himself).
Cut over to Kris's scene. Having taken some serious pain meds, he's feeling pretty okay, and decides to go over to the bar for a drink (he is a stupid stupid old backcountry dumbass), where he finds Rasputin. As he's going near the bar though, he sees the biker being packed up in a body bag. When he asks Rasputin, apparently he had a heart attack. Rasputin complains then about how the package seemed to have leaked something on him when he was carrying it. Mostly this is them talking about how weird it was to go into the botanist's almost-abandoned place. When Wilford lets slip that he told Silvio where to find the package, Rasputin freaks about helping out that greedy asshole, and they head over to the botanist's again to find Silvio carrying the now-consistently-leaking package out of the house. We argue, and decide to open it. And inside is...
The botanist's head! Se7en style. Except the head seems to have been relatively cleaning severed, but you can tell there are very obvious sores and bite marks around the neck area.
We start investigating the house as Rasputin's scene. We find all sorts of research and stuff, and a whole bunch of plants covered in weird berries (from out-of-game convo, we know these berries are carrying the zombie virus), and he has all sorts of bizarre research material, including a text on, like, reanimation. We grab all sorts of the research and are getting out of the house, with Rasputin leaning over the head box to pick it up when the worst thing possible happens for this particular setup: a police car shows up, sees us walking out of a house with armloads of stuff, and one of us standing over a decapitated head in a box. He pulls his gun and we're all handcuffed when a knocking starts inside the house.
This is my scene. So we're going in right behind the cop (who won't let us out of his sight) and we find that the banging is coming from the basement trapdoor, like something is trying to get out. The cop opens the trapdoor and gets immediately yanked down the stairs by the zombie. By the way, this is a slow-zombie, in that it's person speed, not super fast like some medias. It's not a nnnnnnnnnnnnnnngh braaaaaaaains while staggering along one though. Seeing this walking corpse grab the cop, we bail. We're running through the woods away from the house as fast as we can, all of us with our hands cuffed behind our backs, as we're trying to escape the zombie. Those two fuckers (and I mean that in the nicest most amazing way), they said this scene goes badly for me, and I trip and the zombie slashes open my leg before I can get away, infecting me. Uh oh. And that was the sixth scene - the end of Act I.
We rolled and did the Tilt, picking:
* Innocence - Collateral Damage
* Failure - A tiny mistake leads to ruin.
While we could go back around on this, we're pretty sure the collateral damage is the infection of the entire hospital they brought the biker to and the failure is not killing me right away. That second one I'm not feeling super-evoked by, so we'll see.

And that was the Last Frontier Infection, part 1! I'm super-excited to get back to this.
Music, real quick-like.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rs_M0i3rjjQ&feature=player_embedded
I actually haven't put any listening time into Combichrist, but this too was on the Underworld: Awakening soundtrack. I like it, it's not awful to go with this AP, and it's an enjoyable song by a dude I'd dismissed without thinking about it.

End Recording,
Ego.

Fiasco Actual Play: Boomtown!

Okay, so we all got together again. There was a minute of discussion about what game we should play, and Kenny brought up Fiasco again as one he wanted to do another round of. This time through we had a full house - Me, Daniel, Kris, and Kenny - so we collectively pitched it to Daniel and he agreed to try it out. I showed off a bunch of playsets, and then focused in on the ones we'd discussed further last time.  Daniel's input helped us narrow it down until we had our destination:
Boomtown.

If you don't know, Boomtown is one of the "core" playsets in that it comes in the rulebook itself. It's one of the 4 in there. Boomtown is a Wild West town just waiting for outlaws and indians, sheriffs and gold, revolvers and quick-draws.
I must say, I am disappointed in one regard by the playsets in the book: All the additional playsets have, on their opening pages, a section called "The Score" that sets the tone and serves as very evocative read-aloud text for pitching the playset. The book playsets don't have one, and that made me sad since I'd been using those to pitch the playsets to the group and why I'd forgotten about the book ones last session. But without further ado:
Here's an image of the character map we made in the setup!...except not. I lost it. It's wherever the one for the Salem game is, and I have no idea where I put them. That's the peril in waiting three bloody months to write up the AP...Never doing it THAT late again.
But here's what I remember:
EDIT: I found 'em! Real character names incoming.
Kenny as Wilson Slater,
Daniel as Ethan Edwards,
Ego/Max as Jim Lockerton,
and Kris as Yong Lin Chu.
Relationships:
Wilson Slater - The Past, War Adversaries - Ethan Edwards. Wilson was the South - it gave Kenny an excuse to his his George W. Bush accent the whole session.
Ethan Edwards - Work, Ranch Hands - Jim Lockerton. This was modified slightly; Ethan is the current interim Sheriff and as such is not currently workign on the ranch. But we have history is what the relationship established for us.
Jim Lockerton - Crime, Chinese Opium Seller (Kris)/Addict (Ego) - Yong Lin Chu.
Yong Lin Chu - Crime, Crime Boss (Kenny)/Toady (Kris) - Wilson Slater.
The other stuff:
Between Jim and Ethan: Location, Across the Tracks, Town Jail.
Between Ethan and Wilson: Object, Information, A Faded Wanted Poster.
Between Wilson and Yong Lin: Need, To Get Away...with a magnificent swindle.
Between Yong Lin and Jim: Need, To Get Free...of a Crushing Debt coming due.

So what do we have? In this town, we've got the bigwig high-time well-to-do rich-as-hell white guy southerner Wilson Slater, holding ownership of the town saloon while at the same time running a major opium operation under everyone's nose. He keeps an old faded wanted poster of himself with him as a point of pride, as evidence of how badly they want him caught, but it was the only one of its kind here so no one knows he's a criminal. Beneath him is Yong Lin Chu, who was a very very chinese man who was directly in charge of the opium den under the saloon. He spoke with a heavy chinese accent, and Kenny decided his character could barely understand a word he says, and as a civil war southerner, he wasn't exactly the most politically sensitive guy to the asians. Yong Lin has control of a group of enforcers (his Ghost Dragon Warriors he called them). The two of them plan to get out of town after pulling an enormous job. My character, Jim Lockerton, was down on his luck - I'm an opium addict with a shit job on a ranch and I definitely can't pay my outrageous debt that I've racked up with Yong Lin, who has, for reasons unknown to me (the actual reason is because they're getting ready to blow town), been pushing for collection. I'm a former coworker of Ethan's. Ethan Edwards is now the interim Sheriff of the town after the last one died, and has been doing a pretty good job of it. His goal is to bring down the opium lords of the town, and he knew about my opium habit, so now that he's sheriff, he's dragged me up to the jail, which of course is in his office. That's where the game started.

Daniel started with the first scene. We're down in the Sheriff's office, me locked up and complainin' away at Ethan. I couldn't understand why he would suddenly bust me - he worked with me, he's known about my opium habit for years! Why suddenly bust me? Turns out now that he's sheriff he's supposed to do these things, and he needs to know where I get my drugs from. I squeal, and let him know about how I do a meet down along the tracks with a chinaman who gives 'em to me. On further pushing, I tell about how I've got a meet with him again at sundown, but that's all I know, I swear! Daniel leaves to go start setting up to ambush 'em. The following scene, my scene, was Yong Lin Chu coming into the sheriff's office with a couple of his Warriors and he was all intimidating me and stuff about how I had to get him the money right away, and I basically said I didn't have it in here and would get it to him later. He bought it (cuz I totally didn't have any cash) and left. Then came Kris's scene, which was the actual meet between Yong Lin and Ethan. In a twist, Ethan's surprise doesn't work very well and Yong Lin's Warriors overwhelm him. They leave him unconscious and head back into town. Meanwhile, Wilson decided to come have a little meet with Jim down in lock-up. Wilson's come with his shiny gold revolver to make sure he gets his money. Jim realizes who Wilson is - the crime lord - and Wilson gives him a choice: Give him his money or he'll give me a new whole in my head. Oh, but why does he need it so fast? Wilson replies that he's gonna be coming into some money soon, and then shortly after some trouble with the law, and that he's getting out of dodge, and he needs my cash before he goes. Jim's a bit of a coward, but of course, he's got no money. And so I do what I must: Jim confesses that he's got no money, but WAIT, I'll work for you! Let me in on your job, I'll do whatever you need me to do, just don't kill me! Wilson thinks it out and agrees, taking that fancy revolver and blowing the cell lock and we go off into the night. And the first round of play ends!
The second round starts, and Ethan is waking up. He's in the general store looking for something when he runs into Wilson Slater, who says some devious things that sound innocent unless you know that he's behind Yong Lin. Their debating the war and such and Wilson goes to leave when Ethan notices a piece of parchment in Wilson's back pocket. He asks about it, but Wilson just deflects it as a piece of business for the saloon. We know better - that's the Wanted Poster. Anyway, my turn comes and I'm in the opium den with Wilson and Yong Lin. Yong Lin is furious that I'm here, that he's sure I was the one who set him up for the sheriff. I'm confessin' it, but I had no choice! Wilson is pretty sure that I'm on his side, and describes the Big Job to us: we're hitting a bank vault. He starts talking about it, and eventually Yong Lin is arguing with me about my role in it, but it goes well for me and Wilson reprimands him, sending him off to go prep his Warriors. I don't remember the rest of the scenes in this round, but it's mostly us preparing and Ethan investigating. Oh yeah, one of them is again Ethan and Wilson, this time at the saloon, Ethan trying to track down the chinaman and the opium den, but having no luck.
Act 1 End. Tilt time! We roll it up, and I dunno who got to pick pieces, but we got:
* Paranoia. The Thing You Stole Has Been Stolen.
* Tragedy. Confusion, Followed By Pain.
So how'd we work it out? Well, the Tilt was the heist! Middle of the job and it turns out someone got out and now the fuckin' sheriff is here. We're all disguised, but bullets start flyin' away. Most of the Warriors get killed, as do a bunch of deputized locals, and Jim gets a hole blown in his leg. But we've got the stuff, and high tail it out of there. I'm bleeding like crazy, there's a huge body count, and we're sure as hell paranoid. But we got away clean, right? They dont know who we are, Wilson and Yong Lin and Jim's masks were good, we're free to get out of here? Tough luck - the thing you stole has been stolen. And I don't mean the money. In the battlefield of the bank, interim sheriff Ethan Edwards found a piece of paper; a wanted poster, for Boomtown's very own Wilson Slater. He rounds up another deputy and starts heading for the saloon. Begin Act II.
Okay, so we did something special out of the book for Act II: I'm pretty sure we played it acclerated. There's an option in the book about how if you don't think you can fill a whole Act II, just do one round of scenes and then pass the last rounds dice out like usual.
What were the scenes? Daniel had a scene of trying to find the opium den, and eventually succeeding. I took over the scene next and kept it playing, and Ethan stormed the place and we had another gunfight, with Yong Lin and Wilson getting out with the money. But not Jim. Jim is shot in the leg and can't run, and now he's shot in a couple more spots. Jim dies with his former friend over him. Next we got Wilson and Yong Lin loading the train to go. Yong Lin tries to usurp Wilson with his two remaining Warriors, but that ain't happenin'! Wilson blows one away before he can get close and the other one bails. For the insubordination, and because he's a treacherous bastard, Wilson shoots Yong Lin in the belly - he's gonna need medical attention or he's gonna die. Wilson finishes up loading as Yong Lin lies in the dust as the cops close in. Just as the train is leaving, Ethan leaps aboard. Kenny's scene is their shoot-out! I actually don't remember how it goes for sure, but I'm pretty sure it goes bad for Kenny. It ends right, with a quick-draw duel between the crime lord southerner and the sheriff from the north. Bang.
See, that's the trouble. I don't have the aftermath stuff written down. But here's what I'm pretty sure happened:
Jim is dead. That's it for him, just a tragic addict who got in over his head, shot and killed by his friend.
Ethan is doing great. He took down the whole opium network, and stopped a bank heist. He is instated as permanent sheriff - a ranch hand no more.
Yong Lin and Wilson aren't doing too great. Neither of their bullet wounds killed them, and now they've both betrayed each other, which is why they're cell mates now. Sucks for Wilson that he doesn't have a gun anymore, because Yong Lin knows how to fight in close quarters...

And that was Fiasco Session 2: Boomtown! We all loved it. I'm so happy with how both games went, and very little could have made it better. Well, maybe if I'd had this post written a little sooner... Anyway, we love Fiasco and it's always sitting there ready for the day we don't know what to do. It's not too much narration and it's not that hard, it doesn't take too long, and you're bound to have fun. Go play a round. As made quite clear on Wil Wheaton's Tabletop episodes, Fiasco works great with brand new folks, folks who have never gamed, or old pros. It's a great intro game to roleplaying for those storytellers you know, and anyone who likes improv acting should take a peek at it for fun. I can't recommend it enough.

And tonight's song is by The Megas! They're a great band who does covers of Megaman songs with lyrics of their own writing. Get Acoustic, the acoustic remix album of Get Equipped, is my favorite of their's. Seriously, go check 'em out, it's pretty great. This is The Quick and the Blue!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IXNnPuIme48&feature=player_embedded
Tomorrow? I'll see if I have enough to talk about the new pre-release PDF of Dungeon World to fill a post. If not, I'm thinking art. Less impressive than two days ago's, but still fun. Later!

End Recording,
Ego.

Fiasco Actual Play: Salem 1692

Wow, 9:00 rolled around faster than I expected tonight. Been a slow day on other fronts, a little bit very bored. Didn't do much writing though. Here's what I had for the Rapid-Fire Fiasco txt file I was working on - it covers my intro to the game with Kris and then my first session. The sequel to this post (which will come out soon enough, I promise) will contain our second session and then me talking about the game itself and what we liked and stuff.

Hey, so we've played two sessions of Fiasco! These were quite a while ago, but I'll try to recount them.
So I started the introduction of Fiasco to Kris before anyone else. A few days before, he'd been over and we'd been hanging out and the idea of it came up, mostly because it confused the hell out of him. Not Fiasco itself (he hadn't read it) but the concept of a GMless game. And so I grabbed a playset I liked from my collection (I picked White Hole) and did a quick 1-on-1 simulation of it with him. We imagined up a third group member (Tom) and did the whole setup, collaborating for Tom's stuff, and then did an example round of scenes (we basically came up with a premise, then the decision, then concluded and moved on). I showed him the Tilt and Aftermath and by this point he had a decent handle on how a GMless game can work, which was my point of the lesson. I had his buy-in to take full stab at the game with the group, as long as Daniel was up to some narrative effort.
Thankfully, he was!

So the first game. I went through my entire list of playsets with them and they pulled out a couple that sounded cool and then we talked through to which one to really use. The one we settled on was one that I hadn't even looked at before, actually: Salem 1692.
I seem to have gone and lost the sheets we did setup on, so here's what I remember.
It was Me, Kris, and Kenny. I believe Daniel couldn't make it. From the relationships:
- Kenny and I were Family, Brothers I think.
- Kris and I were Faith, Witch Hunters.
- Kris and Kenny were History, Killer and Witness. Kenny was the Killer in this case they decided.
The other stuff was: (while we placed Needs between people, we associated them more with a single person)
- Kenny had the Need "To Succumb to the Devil...by perverting Church doctrine". We considered this to be between him and me.
- Between Kris and Kenny was the Location "In Salem Town, Prison".
- I had the Need "To Get The Truth...Even if it kills them."

Our decided opening scenario was that Kris and I were witch hunters who came out of a witch-hunting training camp up north (Dogs in the Vineyard style) and have been working our way south. We've reached Salem, my hometown, and found my brother as the priest. The previous night, Kris had caught Kenny killing another person with his entourage of three young girl witches.
We woke up and went into town to find court in session, prosecuting one of the girls that was with Kenny for witchcraft. At some point Kenny revealed that he had been sent a vision that Gloria, a pregnant woman expecting very soon, needed to be sacrificed on the next moon to protect the town from evil. She fought against it, and Kris came forward in her defense, accusing Kenny, but the crowd believed their priest and Kris and the woman were taken to the prison for holding. I slipped out.
Kenny went next to see them and conversed. I forget most of the scene's details.
I confronted him afterward and he managed to out-religion me, making it sound like it was proper and Christian what they would do. It sucked - by which I mean the scene was awesome because neither of us are actually religious. What's with me and playing religious figures? This guy, my cleric, Dogs characters, hell, I played the freaking POPE in our Microscope game at GPNW.
We had some bits but the cool stuff that happened was Kris broke out of the prison and hid Gloria, and I went and took the girl one of Kenny's witch-girls, the one who had been being tried, and ambushed her by the river and lit her on fire and threw the ashes (she was a witch - ashes were all that remained) into the water, inciting religion the whole way. That was the last scene of Act I.
The other really cool scene of Act I was after Kris had broken out, he was stalking through the shadows of town at night. Kris saw light coming from the Church basement long after it should have been going, and decided to investigate. He went in and found Kenny in the middle of a ritual, him and two of his girls sacrificing the third - this is how they communicate with the Devil, by sacrificing one of the witches. It was now guaranteed that he knew they were the evil ones. They noticed him though and the two girls went all Harpy on him with their magic, chasing him down, but he got away. It was later that night that I ambushed one and torched them.
I don't remember both Tilt elements, but ONE of them was Failure - a tiny mistake leads to ruin. We decided that Kenny finished calling the Devil and was commanded to wait for the moon to do the sacrifice, but that afterward he was frightened by the incident and plotted to do the ritual immediately instead of the next day.
Kenny went and got out his Dark Lord robes, with the bull skull mask and all, and called upon his power to convert all the townspeople (who he'd been sowing the seeds of this spell in throuh corrupted wine and such) into his servants.
We had a chase scene with Kris trying to get Gloria away from a mob through the forest, but he failed and they got her.
Kenny brought Gloria to the front of the church and began the ritual. We made this one scene, the showdown, into a connected scene, where Kenny started it, then I continued it, and Kris finished it. Kenny had her there and, wielding his ritual dagger ready to sacrifice Gloria. I jumped in and wielded holy power and fire to keep him from finishing it when Kris directly struggled with him, got the knife, and slashed a great cross into his body, killing and destroying him. It was sweet and gruesome and horrible and awesome.
Our aftermaths were pretty great. Kenny pulled a flat zero - appropriate. He doesn't even get the Devil's approval, what with acting too hastily and all. Kris pulled White Five - his reputation was ruined. He had been accused as a witch and had just done horrible horrible destruction in front of everyone, they all think he's unhinged and violent. I managed Black 9 - I was fine. I'd succeeded, and was already a little jaded, and am even more so now, but I keep on witch hunting like normal.
I'm just very glad Kenny's rolls did nasty things to him - him coming out on top would not have worked after we literally killed the hell out of him.

That was session 1! In what was a bit of a surprise to me, after the game, Kenny immediately brought up that he would be totally down for doing another round of it next time. Also, doing a full game of it really drove home to me that this WAS something that Daniel's narrative hesitation wouldn't be an issue as long as we picked a playset he liked.
So yeah, probably within the next week I'll post the next one.

Also, my  musical obsession of the day: Greyhound by Swedish House Mafia is fuckin' amazing.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hBRKSIj2tMc&feature=player_embedded
Enjoy the hell out of it. So what's tomorrow? Hmmm. I need two more consecutive days of material to have been going daily for a week...well, the fallbacks I have are 2 posts worth of art, and then I need to write another day's worth of Fiasco and the Rapid-Fire GPNW stuff... Art again? Yeah. Art again. Check back tomorrow for some more cool art.

End Recording,
Ego.