Tag: Nathan Roberts

So the Spectral Sisters have a new side deal: Importing electroplasmic jellied eels from Lockport. They are innocuous as food, but when passed through the Sister’s processing distillery make a version of Lightning oil that leaves leviathan blood a cold, crude oil by comparison. Only thing is,  their shipping partner – The Erstwhile Eels (faction), are starting to take liberties with the price of their product. Methinks some good ol’ fashioned shakedown hijinks are in order!

http://vignette4.wikia.nocookie.net/dishonoredvideogame/images/3/3b/Pratchett_jellied_eels_sign.png/revision/latest?cb=20141206015851

We’ve been intrigued about lasting effects. There are only a couple mentioned as examples in the QS, and that’s great – it allows for group discussion on what ‘conditions’ require time and effort to remove.

I like the idea that the default is 6-8 segments, citing a broken leg and being seduced. Given that time is ephemeral in the game, what with flashbacks, aggressive scene framing and ghostly powers, there is not much point comparatively mitigating your -1D dis-function with ‘time’.  

Though our Hound, Lord Malcolm did just that. On a whim, I gave him both a broken leg and the horrific concept of being seduced… post falling from a roof top duel and during his subsequent capture suffering the attentions of an EXTREMELY tempting daemon. He was fortunately liberated by his colleagues, suffering both an 8 segment broken leg and 6 segment seduced recovery.

In RL, a broken leg ‘normally’ heals in around 8 weeks (segments). and post the score in Downtime, Don wanted Lord Malcolm to heal his leg via this well worn method of convalescence.

It was a controlled situation and he aced the action roll, though his effect roll still left him with some time left to heal. (he had indulged in some heavy drinking to relieve stress). He pushed for more Downtime, advancing faction clocks and costing him coin in lost machinations. The second recovery roll was not so successful, it escalated to risky and we fictionalised this through the danger of his on-going seduced state and imminent possession by his daemon paramour. His  6 segment recovery clock for daemonic seduction is now a push-pull clock. That when it reaches 12 full segments, he is possessed.

He also took the devil’s bargain of forever walking with a cane during the effect roll, clearing the clock with a 6. So we stand to start the next session narrated as roughly 8 weeks later, a lovely montage of Lord Malcolm’s troubled Manor-bound recovery; beset by daemons, both self-inflicted and stalking. His horribly fractured leg both healed and scarred but his very soul tempted by the daemon that lovingly caresses his every thought.

So a few thoughts – clocks can resolve in a few moments or months of gametime – This disparity is brilliant and acts like a narrative pacing mechanism rather than a direct time/effect scale. We are prone to accepting that recovery clocks being (roughly) one week per segment. This gives our audience stance some time to reflect on the Duskwall getting on with business, and pressures against the PCs impending. It also has heightened our montage narration skill, something the ‘in the moment’ action storytelling of a score tends to avoid.

The other cool thing is the emergent story of the action choices taken to alleviate lasting effects.  _Stitch_ is the obvious healing action, but Lord Malcolm engaged his Consort action  to convince his NPC friend of Dr. Frakenstein to apply his ministrations for recovery. 

What other recovery clocks have folks had during play? I think it might be nice to have a boxed example in the final rules with a few ideas….

Stabbed in the eye – 12 segments

 Badly Broken leg – 8 segments

Seduced by a daemon – 6 segments

Belittled by nemesis – 8 segments

So for some direct inspirational goodness….

The cult of whispers (named The Spook Sisters) had infiltrated the Red Sashes inner sanctum, done away with the sword wielding bravados through wile and seduction and stood with the safe cracked and open…

In a flash of opportunity (since I had been playing waaaaay too much dishonoured), I said that instead of parcels of coin, or maps of the city or barrels of demon blood, there was a heart; a huge beating leviathan heart. Replete with clockwork mechanisms and spectral vapours propelling its undeniable beat.

What does it mean? Clamoured the sisters as they grasped its ectoplasmic soaked flesh in their quavering hands… What does it do? How can we use this? Pondered – this was all in the moment mind – and I went with the obvious:

Point the Heart at an object, person, or hulking mass of architecture and it responds with a succinct datum, ranging from inner turmoil to long quashed hopes and dreams. Anyone can be the voice of the heart, so long as we don’t contradict established canon. The secrets it whispers will narratively inject life into Duskwall we might otherwise have stolen away from through rolls and mechanics without story. NPCs become more than just walking shells for you gals to inhabit or eradicate on a sociopathic (spectral) whim; they become people, with lives and hopes and dreams, walking products of this blighted city that’s become their prison.

In effect,  it became a rather macabre in-game macguffin ‘talking stick’ that has encouraged the players to develop the world before we go to the dice, and ramped up their reputation and accountability in the fiction. Folks now want them deadybones.

Thanks to the Heart, the plight of the poor and the avarice of the elite are subtly highlighted, giving dark meaning to Duskwall’s unjust factional structures. The players themselves  can’t escape from the Heart’s omniscience. With it we  have learned of the whaler’s deaths accrued in the construction of ‘The Leviathan’s Curse’ Pub,  and of the watered-down ink black blood that they serve there.

With this ‘insider knowledge’ the players can use the Heart and bestow structures or locations in Duskwall that they find significant with a history all of their own design. They have a place amidst the ghosts and the grime,  not just a convenient corner to disappear into the shadows. They have an in-game artefact that lets them wrap themselves wholeheartedly (pun unintentional!) in the author stance. The conversations at the table are hectic and full of promise.

I can’t wait to see how this evolves through more play!