Session 5 of the Luddites playtest game. The AP report is below.
Playtest comments
* The new Assist action works well. We like that.
* The score generation tables are excellent, the claim ones slightly less so. Scores are easy to come up with, especially when combined with the Concept Cards I use for locations and characters. That’s all really bringing Duskwall to life.
* The rumours/background events rolls are also fun.
* I was told (rightly) that my selection of Actions to roll is uneven. The only place they’re described is in the chargen summary page. There’s a lot of white space on Player handout 1. Could you fit the half-column of Action descriptions on the player handout?
* High-stress characters in downtime are in a quandary. Indulging their vice may only clear a few stress points, leaving them prone to stressing out early in the next score. What they’d like to do is get the “out of action from trauma” out of the way in downtime, perhaps losing downtime actions as a cost. The few players with trauma zero characters really felt this, as playing to trauma is a good way to gain XP.
* What’s the timing between the crew rolling for benefits from claims and changes in Heat (both gaining Heat from scores and taking downtime actions to reduce Heat)? The benefits for some claims (e.g. the crew’s new gambling den) is affected by current Heat.
* I’m not a fan of the current Show of Force entanglement. As written, it seems to have a much higher cost to the Crew than the other entanglements, especially the drop in tier and loss of downtime actions for going to war.
AP summary report
After last session, the gang had their eyes on taking over the dog-baiting Claim from the Red Sashes. This would be enough to give the gang Tier 2, and also drop the Red Sashes down to Tier 1, ending the gang war for the while. Echo’s investigations last session had revealed that Ruby, the Skovlan patriarch running the dog-baiting ring, was keen to get out from Red Sashes control as well. She also found out she was a follower of the Forgotten Gods. The Lord and The Man (Cutter/leader and Slide respectively) met Ruby to discuss terms. Ruby said he’d happily pay for the Luddites “protection,” but would need something to stop the Red Sashes exacting revenge. The Luddites could either repel the Red Sashes directly, or get a holy statue for Ruby to give him the spiritual protection to hold them off himself. The Luddites went for the holy statue, which was seized booty in the vaults of a local Church of the Ecstasy of the Flesh.
Meanwhile, Lomond, a soldier who served with Flint (the Hound) in Iruvia, was dealing with some fallout from an assassination he’d done. He needed transport from the temporary safe house he was in to a particular cargo train leaving Gaddoc rail station.
Two simultaneous jobs! One claim seizure, one score. I did the two jobs in parallel, cutting from one to the other typically after each decision point; this gave the players time to think about what they were doing next. Interestingly, the people without Prowl had to sneak into the church during a service, while the people without Sway had to talk their way into Goddoc station freight terminal.
Both jobs went off quite smoothly. A couple of highlights:
The Lord, left to watch the escape route in the church, giving in to temptation and joining the service. When The Man and Echo emerged from the crypt with the aurora-shaped stone sculpture, they saw The Lord, half-naked, tied in front of the altar, being whipped into ecstasy [Over-indulging Vice outside of downtime. It was fun, so I allowed it]. When the Luddites’ cohort of killers went to capture him, their savage nature meant the Church are now out for revenge for the deaths [Gang trouble entanglement].
At Goddoc station, Shadowrunner (the Whisper) got rid of the interfering Eel members by just shoving money at them, while Duck was taken in for questioning by the Bluecoats. Duck (the Leech) broke under interrogation [Interrogation entanglement, resisted, took stress to flip over to trauma]. He knows he told the Bluecoats something, but has no idea what.
The extra entanglement from Lord’s overindulgence was an offer from a powerful demon: an artist, patronised by a leviathan hunter captain, was painting pictures of power. The demon wants the artist killed and the pictures destroyed, but can’t do it directly because of the captain’s effective wards. If they do it, the demon will serve them for a week and a day. The “killing” part of the deal led to debate in the crew, what with Shadowrunner’s aversion to killing (“Soft” trauma). The players are looking forward to how that internal conflict makes life interesting.
Next session, they’re off to infiltrate a high-class masked ball with lots of the great and the good in attendance. Should be fun!
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Thanks for the AP, Neil! This is great.
* Actions on the player reference sheet. Good call.
* Timing of claims: Roll for income from claims at the end of downtime.
* Show of Force: It’s pretty rough, yeah. But you don’t drop in Tier. You have to give up 1 claim. I think I’ll probably cut the bit about vice purveyors — it’s not really necessary.
John Harper The “drop in tier” comment was about a crew (e.g. the Luddites) with Weak Hold going to war to defend the claim. Poor wording on my part.
Oh, I see. Yeah, that’s pretty brutal.
In practice, the enemy faction may not want war, either, so you might immediately go to negotiations to resolve it. That’s one way to modulate the difficulty of that entanglement, anyway.