Tag: Peter G. Ghazarian

We’ve just started running with rotating GM duties. Our plan is that the GM shifts after every score, and that everyone who plays GMs, but that it can shift from anyone to anyone.

We have players with multiple characters, as well, for when people are too busy recovering to go out on a score or for (in the past) when characters got lost in their vice (something I kind of miss, to be honest). To deal with this, we’ve gone with 2 free downtime actions per player (not per PC) and the end of session coin is also per player.

Anyway, to make GMing not feel like a punishment, we still give the GM-player a payout at the end of the session and access to downtime actions during the downtime phase. For me, as a former full-time GM, this really gives me a greater sense of the pressure and resource management side of things for everyone.

I’m big into spreadsheets. I’m that kind of dude. But I trashed my spreadsheet and we set down the rule of “only that which is established in the fiction (and written down on one of our many faction project clocks or campaign clocks) is real” — meaning every GM has the freedom to interpret things as they wish (sample faction clock below). After a score, the GM makes a fortune roll based on tier for the faction clocks that may have advanced. Some clocks fill up without any of us ever knowing what that faction was working on, beyond the scale (4/6/8 clock) — so that is open to interpretation. This really dovetails nicely with the play to find out ethos.

Do others have any experience with rotating GMing? Does anything here sound fishy to you? Comments or advice?

So far, I’m loving it.

Our third or forth session since rebooting after losing the first gang to wanted level 4. This is with the newest version of the rules (4a?)

A few characters have carried over (1? 2?) — but the new gang is mostly new charcters, with some interest in recovering one of the characters from the earlier gang from prison. This new gang has focused on maintaining a good relationship with the authorities (positive relations with both the Investigators and Bluecoats) in the effort to avoid going the way of the Little Sisters.

The gang decided to remove a secret device planted on a Leviathan Hunter ship for research purposes. To do so, they had to sneak passed Seaside Docker Sentries (they are at war with them and rolled a 5 on the engagement role — it made sense anyway, given the location). A devil’s bargain resulted an a second group also targeting the same ship for unknown reasons.

Once passed the Docker sentries in the district and the Hunter marines on the gangplank, the players ran into the second team running a job aboard the ship — Red Sashes. The Red Sashes seemed to be part of an operation to steal the ship and planning to remove the same device the PCs were targeting. The Red Sashes tried to talk, but the PCs shocked and gassed them into unconsciousness. They did hear a warning that the device would destroy the ship somehow if not removed.

The ship cast off. One player character rushed for the device, the other for the engine room to disable the ship to prevent the device from detonating (countdown clock running). One player flashbacked to making a deal with a Naiad (from a prior job and with whom he had developed a permanent psychological link as a devil’s bargain) to aid them in pushing the ship off course and back towards Duskwall. It bought them more time. 

One stubborn engineer refused to go the way of his companion in the engine room, tying up one of the PCs for a long while. The other PC tried to draw on the mental link with the Naiad to help locate the device on the ship. A serious complication led to the Naiad temporarily possessing him. That player tried to negotiate with the Naiad, but another serious complication led to the Naiad attempting to absorb his identity in a permanent possession. The PC was at 3 trauma and nearly full on the stress track and clearly was feeling anxious about how to fish his character out of the situation intact.

Meanwhile, the PC in the engine room finally took out the final engineer, but the bastard collapsed on him in his death throes in alchemist fire, also burning the hell out of the PC. He tossed a gunk-up temporary gear stopper in the engine to buy some time and electrocuted himself trying to rewire it. We ended in the middle of the challenge as we ran out of time. 

After this second session with the latest iteration of the rules, I for one am very much enjoying the grittier feel from limiting the bonus dice pool and emphasizing tier/quality, scope, and potency a bit more on the challenges. I’m not sure the players share this enthusiasm. I also offered to start rotating GMing — I’d like to try it out.

Overall, I like everything in the newest rule set. There are some details that remain fuzzy, but I think we are working them out in play. Happy with the direction we are sailing.

Session XI. Last to use 3e. Due to real life interfering in fun, there was just one PC this session — Tal the Dagger Islander Hound. 

 The crew’s unreliable gang led by Tomas Billingsworth finally returned from their absence, broken and exhausted. They had attempted to make the run out of Duskwall into the deadlands to recover riches from the lost Billingsworth Enterprises mine stash, but returned empty handed and missing half their members.

Baszo Basz requested audience with the Little Sisters but Tal stalled and asked to meet again in the future.

Mr. Higgins (a demon bent on usurping control of Duskwall) said he would offer the Little Sisters one more chance after they blew him off when he requested the last job. He asked for the Little Sisters to acquire the ring of keys kept on the 4th floor of the City Watch HQ auxiliary vault. Tal agreed and attempted the job but was thwarted by a mass of Bluecoats and a wicked lightening storm.

Realizing she couldn’t do the job alone, Tal fished for an invitation to a party being thrown by Mr. Higgins at his Garden Overlook in Brightstone. She slipped past the doorman and avoided sadistic socialites, known enemies, and strange curiosities. She negotiated more time from Mr. Higgins to complete the job and managed to improve his view of the Little Sisters.

*Comments on the System*

The system worked unexpectedly well with just one PC, though there were some slight issues. Clocks make challenges more complicated and give more than one PC a chance to contribute to success. With just one PC working on a clock, the player was tempted to repeat the same action after some time — creativity fatigue in trying to make it fit with other actions (for fewer dice) was an issue. 

We also tried out a tug-of-war clock for the first time for an argument. It didn’t really have the desired effect — with only player rolls it is hard as the GM to really move the clock the opposite direction. I think in the future I will use a countdown clock together with a regular challenge clock (i.e. countdown “He’s sick of all your bullshit and tells you to leave.” with simultaneous challenge “Convince him to give you more time to complete the job.”)

Otherwise, awesome. 

Session X. To retaliate for having their HQ seized, the Little Sisters ask around to determine how the Bluecoats are weakening themselves by having so many people hidden for the trap they have set up at the seized HQ. The Little Sisters find that the Bluecoat station watchtower is operating on a skeleton staff and decide to sneak in, rig up explosives and flammables, and light it up.

Long story short, they send the place up in smoke. But they get pretty badly hurt in the process, kill a friendly NPC, destroy a sacred Skovlander scripture, and bump the crew’s wanted rating up to III.

Up to session 9. This time, the Little Sisters learned that the Hive are behind a new power consolidating control over the Six Towers through a trade compact called the “The Seventh Tower” and that the compact is looking to spread.

The Little Sisters ran a heist to rob well-to-do folks going to a theater function by blocking passage over the Lesser Marble Street Bridge. The job went relatively well as a freak fire in Dunslough distracted the blue coats until the tail end of the job. Ghazeb and Hook (PCs) were both injured but got away with the coin.

Unfortunately, the Inspectors made great strides in the case they had been working on against the Little Sisters (faction longterm project) and got enough evidence to seize their HQ. The Little Sisters have since done a lot of recon against the Investigators and have found the Investigators and Bluecoats have set a trap should the gang try to reclaim their HQ through force.

This also means they have lost access to all of their turf until they establish a new HQ or reclaim their old one.