The Glory of My Name, Part II

So, getting into the game proper. Overall, I'd describe the energy level as medium-high. I think Agon is one of those games that's not hard to learn or play for the first time, per se, but benefits hugely from all the participants being intimately familiar with the game. Polaris is another good example of this - the Key Phrases are at their heart very simple, but there's often a bit of a gap between when people understand them in the sense of "okay, this is how it works," and when they really get them and understand how they shape and inform play. In Agon, the real crux is, I think, the side-by-side economies of Glory and Strife. It's a constant balancing act of "if we give the GM more Strife, we can earn more Glory... but too much Strife, and we might run into big trouble." I don't think my players really picked up on that relationship in an intuitive way until near the end of the second session.

Anyway, I'll start with my general impressions.

I find it really refreshing when a game is well-designed and balanced enough that you can really stop pulling your punches, play hard, and let the dice fall where they may. Keep in mind that I don't mean balance in the sense of character balance and niche protection and all that stuff (which I find is entirely context-based anyway), but rather in the sense that we players, the people around the table, are on an even playing field. The only other games I can think of that made me feel this way are all without a GM - Universalis, Polaris, and Capes. I think it's quite a feat that Agon managed this while still having a GM. Primetime Adventures has a smidgen of this feeling, but it's too collaborative for me to get that sense of honest competition. (That's not a bad thing, just a different thing.) All this ties into one of Vincent's Anyway posts that really resonated with me, about the coolness of rules that keep us from holding back during play. Unfortunately, I cannot for the life of me find that post. Consider this a placeholder until I find it or someone points it out to me.

Now, moving on to instances of play.

The contest with the wise woman to learn how to brew the antidote went pretty much exactly as I planned it. The characters found her, told her what they wanted to know, and listened to her tell them her condition. I watched the players' faces go through this cycle of "Aw shit, we're gonna get our asses handed to us," to "...Wait a sec, I know how to handle this!" It was cool. The characters ran off to ponder how to farm advantages. Icarus went looking for the island's premiere historian. Kind of on a whim, I decided to go against stereotype and make it a really fit guy - an athlete - instead of a bookish type. David (Icarus' player) challenged him to a foot race! "If I win, you'll tell me the most obscure facts about this island's history that you can think of." That was way cool in my book. He won, netting himself a d8 Advantage die. That advantage die and a Creative Ability ("I wanna add Music to my roll! Because I know some songs about this island's legends!") shifted the contest in their favor. Objective 1 achieved.

The second objective was a lot more straightforward - Billy just did a Heal contest to get the high priest lucid enough to talk. David tossed him a Helping Die by using Cunning to stick close and get Ceas any supplies he needed. At this point, we were all really jazzed about the way that Advantages, Creative Abilities, and Helping were working. It reminded me a lot of the way Fan Mail works in Primetime Adventures, augments in HeroQuest, and (duh) the Helping Dice in The Shadow of Yesterday. I thought it was even more effective, though, for three reasons. First, there were more shades of possibilities - it was like if you took augments, fan mail, helping dice, and the currency from Sorcerer and mashed them all together. Second, they felt more integral to the core resolution system, to me. Third, there's this neat tension produced by the fact that using a creative ability or giving a helping die impairs your Ability - I'm a sucker for these sorts of gameplay choices that have real impact. Anyway, long story short, the heroes get to put a big check mark in the box for Objective 2.

It was at this point that we had to end the first session. I'd spent a little bit of Strife over the course of these two conflicts, and was getting seriously low. Luckily for me, the second session started with an Interlude, which helped to refresh my flagging antagonistic power. During the Interlude, David chose to try to get rid of some of his impairment, while Billy had Ceas make a sacrifice to Apollo - with which he netted a God Oath, that he later used to awesome effect.

On the way to their 3rd objective (the slaying of the Scorpion), I had the bandit leader and his lackeys attack. This went pretty much according to plan. On reflection, though, I wish I hadn't given the bandit minions shields, just because they ended up lasting until the 4th exchange, when I had sort of intended for them to go down pretty much immediately - they were really just meant to test out/showcase the minion rules. Even aside from the minions, the fight ended up being surprisingly tough for Icarus and Ceas, mostly due to the fact that Charax was really good with a bow, and both the PCs sucked at ranged combat. Eventually though they managed to close to melee and eviscerate him. At first Billy found the range strips kind of weird, but when I explained their abstract nature and how they weren't meant to reflect actual positioning he got it, and after the battle was over he said he liked it.

So, I'd spent myself down to a mere 2 Strife after that battle, but luckily the heroes were in need of some healing and refreshing. They decided to do 3 Interlude scenes. I barely managed to not cackle with evil glee. This was definitely a matter of lack of experience with the system. The players weren't 100% used to the friendly-competition stance of the GM in Agon, and didn't realize that it can be important to game the Interludes to make sure that they strike a balance between making sure that they were prepared for the coming trial and giving me more resources than they could handle. We talked about it after the session, and they agreed that it was a neat idea, that it kept the game from languishing too much with endless downtime, and that they'd have to be more careful in the future.

The battle against the Scorpion was suitably exciting. It went very smoothly, thanks in part to our having worked out our unfamiliarity with the system in the combat with the bandits. There was one great use of the Tactics special maneuver where David had Icarus lure the Scorpion into striking a rock ledge with its deadly stinger, starting a small landslide that ended up handicapping the beast on the turn that it was defeated. Ceas was the one that struck the killing blow, calling on Apollo for aid and using that massive d12 to drive his two swords deep into the Scorpion's brains. Way cool.

Finally came the medical battle to heal the high priest. Billy and David both really shone, here - Billy used a couple creative abilities, and David tossed him helping dice like crazy (and accrued a stockpile of Oaths for himself). It was fun, and I was pleased to see that Agon does handle non-combat battles well. I wouldn't say it was quite as tense as the battle against the Scorpion, though - Agon's combat system is just too kick-ass to be outdone - so I think I'll use non-combat battles to end a quest more as a spice, and keep combat as the main course.

So to wrap this thing up: Much fun was had by all. I am thoroughly impressed with Agon. Go out and play it for yourself, if you haven't already.

The Glory of My Name, Part I

So, I got a chance to play my first game of Agon over the weekend. I had two players, David and Billy. We started on Friday night, but unfortunately didn't have a lot of time that night, so we were unable to complete the first quest. We got back together Saturday evening and finished.

I'll start with the notes I made for the session, which I scrawled down desperately between helping the players make their characters. The characters were normal starting characters, and I decided on a short quest, with 3 objectives, which gave me a starting Strife pool of 30, and a single NPC limit of 16.

Here's the stuff I rolled on Agon's nifty tables:

Island: Burning sands & red stone canyons
Communities: Devout worshipers with temples
Events: Recovering from natural disaster
Gods: Aphrodite, Dionysus, Athena
Desires: Hide, Incite, Slay
Artifacts: Ring or Amulet
Beasts: Obsidian Scorpion
Men: Pirates of the Red Banner
Monsters: Centaur

Hot damn, that's a sweet setup. A burning desert with red stone canyons populated by an Obsidian Scorpion? Sign me up! I may have been extra jazzed for this because I've recently been reading Judd's excellent Dictionary of Mu, and thus the phrase "burning sands" immediately slaps my brain into submission.

So, I thought about some further detail on the island. Recent natural disaster, eh? Well, when I looked at the type of community, an earthquake was the obvious answer. There's something sad about seeing beautiful white marble temples in ruin. Especially if the community is built into the terraced sides of a winding series of red rock cliff faces. So, at that point, I was starting to get a definite feel for this island. Agon's little charts made it very easy... and they didn't stop there.

So, a divine directive to Slay matches up pretty obviously with the Obsidian Scorpion - that's a no-brainer. The question, though, is which god? I decided on Aphrodite. Her head priest in the temple city had been stung by the Scorpion, and lay dying of its primordial venom. She wants the heroes to slay the scorpion and brew an antidote from its venom. This came to me in a flash as I noticed that Billy's character - Ceas, son of Abas - favored Apollo and had a d10 in Heal. I figured it would be interesting to have a big fight against a monstrous beast - and then have the real climax be a battle of medicine to save the head priest. It would also give me a chance to test out how Agon's battle system handled both a physical fight, and something a bit more abstract. I'll admit I was also thinking about the coolness of healing conflicts in Dogs in the Vineyard.

So, here's the quest as it stood so far:

Athena wants you to use the Obsidian Scorpion's venom to heal the head priest of her temple.

• Find out how to brew the antidote from the Scorpion's venom.
• Find out where the lair is.
• Slay the Obsidian Scorpion.

So, I figured that for the first objective, a creepy old wise woman would know how, and would agree to teach the heroes if they could tell her something true about the history of the island that she didn't already know. I kind of did this to tease my players, since neither of them took a high Lore skill, so I knew they'd need to scrounge up some Advantages and possibly use some Creative Abilities.

For the second objective, I figured that only the stricken high priest would know - since the Scorpion migrates across the desert in patterns arcane and unknowable. Easy enough, right? Except that the high priest was delirious with the effects of the venom. They'd need to win a Contest to get him lucid enough to divulge the Scorpion's current whereabouts.

So, at this point, the two characters were finished. We had:

Fleet-Footed Icarus, Son of Kratos (d6)
Beloved of Hermes
Insight d6, Grace d10, Might d6, Spirit d6
Heal d6, Lore d4, Music d8, Orate d6
Athletics d6, Cunning d8, Hunt d6, Wrestle d4
Aim d4, Shield d6, Spear d8, Sword d6
Weapons: Bow d8+1, Spear d8 d6, Shield d8, Sword 2d6

and

Far-Reaching Ceas, Son of Abas (d6)
Beloved of Apollo
Insight d6, Grace, d8, Might d6, Spirit d6
Heal d10, Lore d6, Music d4, Orate d4
Athletics d8, Cunning d6, Hunt d6, Wrestle d4
Aim d4, Shield d6, Spear d6, Sword d10
Weapons: Javelin d6+1, Sword 2d6, Sword 2d6, Shield d8

Achievements went pretty well - each of them earned an Oath from the other. I followed the book's advice and used the Achievements to establish a prior relationship between the characters. Both scenes took place during the recent war, and I felt this whole process really helped not only to cement the comrade/rival relationship between the two characters, but also to give them a little more depth of character.

So, after that, I gave the two of them a break to grab drinks or whatnot while I scribbled down a few NPCs. I knew that I had to create the Obsidian Scorpion and the old wise woman. I figured I'd also create a bandit leader, so that I could have a quick, simple battle to get a better handle on the system before the big fight with the Scorpion.

Obsidian Scorpion (d8)
Strife: 15
Insight d4, Grace d6, Might d8, Spirit d8
Heal d4, Lore d4, Music d4, Orate d4
Athletics d8, Cunning d8, Hunt d8, Wrestle d4
Aim d8, Shield d4, Spear d4, Sword d10
Armor d10, Divine Favor: 6
Weapons: Claws 2d6/2d6 (swords), Stinger d6+1 (javelin)
Powers: Natural Weapons, Multi-Strike

Old Anteia (d6)
Strife: 4
Insight d8, Grace d4, Might d4, Spirit d8
Heal d10, Lore d10, Music d4, Orate d4
Athletics d6, Cunning d10, Hunt d4, Wrestle d4
Aim d6, Shield d6, Spear d6, Sword d6

Charax, Bandit Chieftan (d6)
Strife: 5
Insight d6, Grace d6, Might d6, Spirit d6
Heal d6, Lore d6, Music d6, Orate d6
Athletics d8, Cunning d4, Hunt d6, Wrestle d6
Aim d10, Shield d6, Spear d8, Sword d4
Weapons: Bow d8+1, Spear d8 d6, Shield d8

And I figured I'd give Charax two bandit minions:

Bandits
Strife: 1 each
Arete d6, Battle d8, Craft d4, Sport d6
Weapons: Spear d8 d6, Shield d8

The cool part is that creating these NPCs only took about 4 or 5 minutes. David and Billy were barely back from getting their drinks by the time I was done.

Now, a note about the range strip. For miniatures, I decided to use the pieces from Risk: Godstorm, since they have a decidedly Greek flavor to them. I decided that I'd use the men for men (duh), the elephants for Beasts, and then either one of the gods or an elephant for Monsters, whichever fit the Monster's appearance better. It worked out really well in play.

Anyway, that's enough for the first part. I wanted to go into a lot of detail on the creation of the quest to highlight just how easy it was. Agon does a really good job of providing you with the building blocks you need to make a good session. I'll get into the meat of play with my next post. That will be written as more of an overview, rather than the step-by-step approach I took here.

Spirit of Iron, Part IV

Warjacks and Warbeasts
Warjacks are the metal behemoths of the Iron Kingdoms setting, titanic weapons of war powered by steam and sorcery. Similarly, warbeasts are powerful and intelligent beasts of the wilds, far from the cities of humankind, whose unbridled fury can only be harnessed by the sorcerous will of a warlock. This section contains rules for making your own 'jacks and 'beasts.

Warjack Handling: Personal Warjack
Requires an Aspect reflecting your character's nature as a warcaster
Your character has a light warjack that is either his, or on "permanent loan" from whatever nation or mercenary outfit he represents. 'Jacks are treated as a special type of Gadget. By default, a light warjack has a Quality of Fair, a Stress capacity of 3, and the Independent, Armed, and Skilled (see below) improvements. A light warjack's weapons (whatever their nature) automatically cause +2 Stress during conflict, and a light warjack automatically has armor with a Stress reduction of -3 and an Impairment of -3. You may take this Stunt multiple times, either gaining a new 'jack or improving your old one. If you take this Stunt to improve an already existing 'jack, you may select two additional improvements from the following list.

Quality: Increases the warjack's Quality by 1 step, to a maximum of Great for light warjacks or Superb for heavy warjacks.
Armed: The warjack gains a new gun or other weapon.
Tough: Any time the 'jack takes 1 point of Stress, that point does not roll up even if the box is already checked off.
Conscious: The 'jack is capable of more advanced reasoning and more independent action. This is meant to reflect special 'jacks, like the Avatar of Menoth or the Deathjack.
Rugged: The 'jack gains 2 extra boxes of Stress capacity.
Extra Plating/Shield: The 'jack's Stress reduction and Impairment increase by 1.
Strong: The 'jack's bonus to Stress increases by 1, but so does its Impairment.
Quick: Reduce the 'jack's Impairment by 1.
Skilled: Each time this improvement is taken, the 'jack gains 1 Skill equal to its Quality, or 2 at Quality -1, or 3 at Quality -2. 'Jacks can have the following Skills: Athletics, Fists, Guns, Might, Stealth, and Weapons.

Warjack Handling: Heavy Warjack
Requires Personal Warjack
The character has heavy 'jack instead of the light 'jack provided by the Personal Warjack Stunt, above. This Stunt "covers up" the first instance of the Personal Warjack Stunt, but that Stunt may still be taken multiple times in order to have one (or more) light warjacks in addition to the heavy 'jack. By default a heavy warjack has a quality of Good, a Stress capacity of 5, the Independent, Armed, Skilled, and Maximize improvements. A heavy 'jack's weapons (whatever their nature) automatically cause +3 Stress in battle, and a heavy 'jack automatically has armor with a Stress reduction of -4 and an Impairment of -4. You may take this Stunt multiple times, either gaining a new 'jack or improving your old one. If you take this Stunt to improve an already existing 'jack, you may select two additional improvements from the list under Personal Warjack, above.

Warbeast Handling: Personal Warbeast
Requires an Aspect reflecting your character's nature as a warlock
Your character has a light warbeast that is either his, whether he treats it as a pet or a companion. 'Beasts are treated as a special type of Gadget. By default, a light warbeast has a quality of Fair, a Stress capacity of 3, and the Independent, Armed, and Skilled (see below) improvements. A light warbeast's weapons (whatever their nature) automatically cause +2 Stress during conflict, and a light warbeast automatically has armor with a Stress reduction of -3 and an Impairment of -3. You may take this Stunt multiple times, either gaining a new 'beast or improving your old one. If you take this Stunt to improve an already existing 'beast, you may select two additional improvements from the following list.

Quality: Increases the warbeast's Quality by 1 step, to a maximum of Great for light warbeasts or Superb for heavy warbeasts.
Armed: The warbeast gains a new gun or other weapon.
Tough: Any time the 'beast takes 1 point of Stress, that point does not roll up even if the box is already checked off.
Conscious: The 'beast is capable of more advanced reasoning and more independent action. This is meant to reflect special, possibly unique warbeasts.
Rugged: The 'beast gains 2 extra boxes of Stress capacity.
Thick Hide/Shield: The 'beast's Stress reduction and Impairment increase by 1.
Strong: The 'beast's bonus to Stress increases by 1, but so does its Impairment.
Quick: Reduce the 'beast's Impairment by 1.
Skilled: Each time this improvement is taken, the 'beast gains 1 Skill equal to its Quality, or 2 at Quality -1, or 3 at Quality -2. 'Beasts can have the following Skills: Athletics, Fists, Guns, Might, Stealth, and Weapons.

Warbeast Handling: Heavy Warbeast
Requires Personal Warbeast
The character has heavy 'beast instead of the light 'beast provided by the Personal Warbeast Stunt, above. This Stunt "covers up" the first instance of the Personal Warbeast Stunt, but that Stunt may still be taken multiple times in order to have one (or more) light warbeasts in addition to the heavy 'beast. By default a heavy warbeast has a quality of Good, a Stress capacity of 5, the Independent, Armed, Skilled, and Maximize improvements. A heavy 'beast's weapons (whatever their nature) automatically cause +3 Stress in battle, and a heavy 'beast automatically has armor with a Stress reduction of -4 and an Impairment of -4. You may take this Stunt multiple times, either gaining a new 'beast or improving your old one. If you take this Stunt to improve an already existing 'beast, you may select two additional improvements from the list under Personal Warbeast, above.

Spirit of Iron, Part III

Weapons and Armor

Weapons
In Spirit of Iron, weapons add Stress after a successful hit. If the attack misses, the Stress bonus has no effect.

Weapon	Stress
Fists, Feet, etc.	+0
One-handed Weapons	+1
Two-handed Weapons	+2
Light Warjack/Warbeast	+2
Heavy Warjack/Warbeast	+3

Armor
In Spirit of Iron, armor provides Stress reduction, but may also impair certain skill rolls, especially those involving stealth, swimming, running, and fatigue. Stress reduction is subtracted from the amount of Stress inflicted on the Health track.

Armor	Stress Reduction	Impairment
Cloth	-0	-0
Leather	-1	-1
Metal	-2	-2
Mechanika*	-3	-3
Shield**	-1	-1
Light Warjack/Warbeast	-3	-3
Heavy Warjack/Warbeast	-4	-4

*Must be aquired as an Artifact; counts as metal armor with the Craftsmanship and Maximization improvements.
**A shield's Stress reduction & impairment is added to that of any other armor the character is wearing.

Spirit of Iron, Part II

Stunts
Specific changes to SotC's stunts are as follows.

Athletics: Equestrian - "The character can use Athletics instead of Survival..." becomes "The character can use Athletics instead of Ride..."

Drive: Custom Ride - Becomes Exceptional Mount. The character owns an excellent horse instead of a car.

Drive: Prototype Car - Becomes Exotic Mount. The character owns some kind of weird creature as a mount, a dinosaur or something similarly impressive.

Drive: Car Mechanic - Becomes Mount First Aid. The character can perform first aid on his mount according to the rules for medical treatment in SotC.

Drive: Defensive Driving - Becomes Defensive Riding.

Drive: One Hand on the Wheel - Becomes One Hand on the Reins.

Engineering: Personal Gadget - Becomes Personal Mechanika.

Engineering: Universal Gadget - Becomes Universal Mechanika.

Mysteries: Herbal Remedies - Moved to Survival.

Mysteries: Psychic - Removed.

Mysteries: Spirit Companion - Removed.

Mysteries: Voices From Beyond - Removed.

Mysteries: Words on the Wind - Removed.

Sorcery: Meteor Swarm - New Stunt.

Sorcery: Prismatic Sphere - New Stunt.

Sorcery: Polymorph - New Stunt.

Pilot: Barnstormer - Becomes Big Leash.

Pilot: Flawless Navigation - Removed.

Pilot: Fly By Night - Removed.

Pilot: Flying Ace - Removed.

Pilot: Death From Above - Removed.

Pilot: Walk Away From It - Removed.

Pilot: Personal Aircraft - Becomes Personal Warjack/Warbeast. A warcaster character receives a light warjack, while a warlock character receives a light warbeast.

Pilot: Prototype Aircraft - Becomes Heavy Warjack/Warbeast.

Pilot: Plane Mechanic - Becomes Jack Mechanic/Beast Healer. The character can remove Stress from his warjack or warbeast according to the rules for medical attention in SotC.

Science: Doctor - Is moved from Science (which no longer exists) to Academics. Instead of giving a +2 to the medical attention roll, it just makes the roll possible.

Science: Weird Science - Is moved from Science to Artificing, and renamed Advanced Artificing.

Science: Mad Science - Is moved from Science to Artificing, and renamed Expert Artificing.

Survival: Hands Free - Removed.

Survival: Hell Bent for Leather - Moved to Ride.

Survival: Ride Anything - Moved to Ride.

New Stunts

Sorcery: Meteor Swarm
Requires at least one other Sorcery Stunt
The character can hurl balls of fire, bolts of lightning, swarms of magic missiles, or cause fiery rocks to rain down from the sky, and similarly destructive sorcerous effects. The character can use Sorcery instead of Guns when casting destructive spells. If the player spends a Fate point, these sorcerous effects cause +2 Stress for the rest of this conflict.

Sorcery: Prismatic Sphere
Requires at least one other Sorcery Stunt
The character can use a maneuver during a conflict in order to surround themselves with a protective sphere that provides them with armor. Roll Sorcery against a difficulty of Mediocre. 1-5 shifts gives the character a Stress reduction of 1 for the rest of the scene. 6 or more shifts gives the character a Stress reduction of 2 for the rest of the scene. Armor provided by Prismatic Sphere is only applicable to Health Stress.

Sorcery: Polymorph
Requires two other Sorcery Stunts
When one of the character's opponents is Taken Out during a conflict, if both the character's player and the victim's player (or the GM, in the case of an NPC) agree, the victim may be polymorphed into some innocuous form, such as a toad or a weasel.

Faith: Initiate of Morrow
The character can roll Faith in order to heal himself or another character, as per the rules for medical attention in SotC. In addition, the character gets a +1 bonus to uses of the Prayer and Blessing Trappings of the Faith Skill.

Faith: Priest of Morrow
Requires Initiate of Morrow
The character gets a +2 bonus on Faith rolls to heal himself or another character, as long as he is not a worshiper of Thamar. In addition, the character's bonus to uses of Prayer and Blessing increases to +2.

Faith: Initiate of Dhunia
The character can roll Faith to heal himself or another character. In addition, the character can use his Faith skill to Supplement Survival rolls.

Faith: Shaman of Dhunia
Requires Initiate of Dhunia
The character gets a +2 bonus on Faith rolls to heal himself or another character. In addition, the character can assume the form of an animal, which functions in a manner analogous to the Master of Disguise Stunt for Deceit.

Faith: Initiate of Menoth
The character can roll Faith to heal himself or another character, as long as the other character is a faithful of Menoth. In addition, the character causes 1 extra Stress to worshipers of the Devourer Wurm in all conflicts.

Faith: Priest of Menoth
Requires Initiate of Menoth
The character gets a +2 bonus on Faith rolls to heal himself or another character, as long as he is a faithful of Menoth. In addition, when in conflict with a character who worships any god other than Menoth, the character can pay a Fate point to roll Faith instead of Fists, Guns, or Weapons during this exchange. This can be explained however the player desires - whether it's simply smiting the infidels, or holy fire falling from the sky.

Trollkin: Fell Calling
Only available to Trollkin
The character can pay a Fate point in order to roll Intimidation instead of Guns or Leadership during this exchange.

Spirit of Iron, Part I

It struck me today like an eighteen-wheeler that Spirit of the Century just might be the perfect match for the Iron Kingdoms (the setting of the Warmachine and Hordes miniature games). I had recently been doing some thinking about adapting SotC to Conan, as you can see in this thread from RPGnet. See, I've always felt that the Iron Kingdoms D&D setting was inadequate for really expressing the coolness of this setting, so I've done a few quick homebrew conversions in the past (most notably one for The Shadow of Yesterday), but none of them really satisfied me. But as I was rereading the GMing section in SotC, it struck me that the Gadget rules would model the arcane mechanika of the Iron Kingdoms world very well. Then I started thinking about a potential conversion, and it become clear to me that IK is, in fact, very pulpy. I know, I'm sure most of you have already realized this, but it hit me like lightning. No wonder I'd been dissatisfied with IK using D&D! It didn't have any explicit mechanical support for the type of action and narrative I was looking for! And so I was off, full-steam ahead on some conversion notes. I present them here.

Character Creation
Character creation is mostly the same as in SotC proper; I'll only note the differences here.

Phase 1: Background - You must choose your nationality or race, and describe the circumstances of your birth and early childhood. At least 1 of the Aspects chosen during this Phase must reflect your nationality or race.

Phase 2: The Shadow of War - You must describe your young-adulthood, in particular what effects the looming threat of war had on your life.

Phase 3: Novel - Come up with the title for a war story starring your character. At this point, hostilities have broken out between the major nations of Western Immoren, and no one is left untouched. Come up with 2 or 3 sentences to act as a "back cover blurb" for your war story.

Phases 4 and 5: Guest Star - Functionally the same as in SotC, except you're guest starring in the other characters' war stories, instead of pulp novels.

Skill Pyramid - There are a few changes to specific skills, detailed later.

Select Stunts - In addition to selecting stunts based on your skills, there are some stunts that may be selected based on nationality or race.

Skills
Changes to SotC's skills are as noted:

Art is removed.

Drive is renamed Ride.

Engineering is renamed Artificing.

Mysteries is renamed Sorcery.

Pilot is renamed Jack/Beast Handling. When taking this skill, a player must take either Jack or Beast Handling, never both. Taking the Jack Handling skill requires an Aspect reflecting your character's nature as a warcaster. Taking the Beast Handling skill requires an Aspect reflecting your character's nature as a warlock. Characters who do not have such an Aspect cannot use the Jack/Beast Handling skill at all, instead of it defaulting to Mediocre.

Science is removed.

New skill: Faith. If the Faith skill is taken at any level above Mediocre, the player must specify which deity the character worships.

The Faith Skill
Faith is a skill representing your character's personal connection to the god he worships. Faith Stunts allow the character to become a priest or shaman of the god or goddess he worships, as well as a druid if he follows the faith of the Blackclad. Trappings are as follows:

Prayer: The character can recite a prayer, setting his own heart, and the hearts of any believers who listen, at ease. This functions much like the Medical Attention trapping of the Science skill in SotC, except that it can only remove check marks from Composure Stress.

Providence: The player may initiate maneuvers during a conflict that revolve around prayer. If successful, such a maneuver allows the player to place an Aspect on his enemy that centers around luck or divine providence.

Blessing: The player may roll, as a maneuver, to place temporary Aspects on fellow believers that they may Invoke in the pursuit of a specific endeavor, indicated by the nature of the blessing and the wording of the Aspect.

Weapons of the Century, Spirit of the Gods

So, one thing that I've been thinking about lately is temporary mechanical bits that get added to your character and modify either the way he acts in the narrative or the way he interacts with the mechanics. This could be something as simple and video gamey as a status condition - like "blind" or "on fire" or whatever - or something more story game-ish - like temporary Aspects in Spirit of the Century. In my mind it's a nifty technique that we (in the sense of the collective aggregate of gamers, as well as the more specific sense of hippie gamers) haven't nearly wrung dry. Seriously, lots of mileage there yet.

To my mind, the best use of these is something that a) expands, rather than limits, the players options; and b) leaves the choice ultimately in the player's hands. I know that the second one seems to follow logically from the first (and it does, really) but I'm saying specifically that it should be the player's option to use these or not, at least under most circumstances. This puts me in mind of the way the Secret Arts work in Weapons of the Gods. They place a chi condition on your character, which either gives you a bonus for taking them into account in your decisions and descriptions, or a penalty for ignoring them. Aspects also work this way, although on the surface they appear to limit choices; after all, that's what Compelling an Aspect is supposed to be about, right? But Compelling limits the character's choices, not the player's; in fact, they expand the player's choices, because he can still do whatever he would have done in the first place (albeit with a cost, by refusing the compel), and has the additional option of gaining a resource (Fate points) if he accepts the limitation. So, both these implementations get an "A" in my book.

But there's a key difference between the two. In Spirit of the Century, the Aspects are very off-the-cuff and in-the-moment. They're not really intended to affect behavior over the medium- or long-term. Weapons of the Gods is kind of the opposite; these Chi Conditions work as kind of a buff or debuff (to use MMO terms). They're usually set up in advance, and are more a way of subtly manipulating things in your favor than a neat trick to pull during conflicts.

So, finally approaching something like a conclusion: I'm thinking there's a lot of potential in something that kind of combines the two.

And yes, this is part of the seed of the idea for a game in my head.

On the "Strange Coincidences" Front...

I recently found out that I share something in common with Clinton R. Nixon, author of The Shadow of Yesterday and The Princes' Kingdom (among others) and co-maintainer of the Forge: We're both graduates of the Korean language course at the Defense Language Institute. Of course, he was in the Army while I was in the Air Force, and he attended some time during the Bronze Age (by which I mean the Nineties), while by the time I got there we were using Space Age implements such as ballpoint pens and white boards, but hey.

Truthfully though, it kind of threw me for a loop. I mean, Korean linguists are a pretty small (some might say "elite," though I have trouble doing so with a straight face) cadre of folks. Equally, indie gamers are a subset of a hobby that's not titanic in proportion to begin with. What are the chances of these two, utterly separate, statistically minuscule populations crossing over like that? I mean, I own some of Clinton's games, for crying out loud. Seriously, how weird is that?

But anyway, from my limited interaction with Clinton up to that point (and by "interaction" I obviously mean "reading his posts at the Forge and Story Games"), he seemed like a really nice guy. Stellar, in fact. So, I put my trepidation aside and... asked him how he liked his bibimbap. Because, as we connoisseurs (some might say "victims") of Korean food know, it's just not bibimbap without the dolsot. A test, if you will.

I'm happy to say, Clinton passed with flying colors. I look forward to chatting more with him in the future.

Scene Framing and Afraid

My first post is a pretty short one. I recently read Vincent Baker's playtest documents for Afraid and, to me, the most impressive thing about it (among a laundry list of impressive tidbits) is what he does with scene framing - specifically the way Circumstances are logical values that help to determine the nature and content of that character's next scene. It's ... intriguing, and inspirational, and an area with lots of unexplored space.

I really hope it's an area that more story games start to explore in the (near) future.