Gauntlet Portland brought Slade Stolar’s The Indie Hack to the table last night!
The rich questions supplied with each class produced quality character background and motifs for the session. Death, represented by the Mother but also actual slain family members, as well as loss being part of a greater balance in nature fueled the story from this starting stage.
We began the adventure en media res, then when the action came to a head we paused to give flashbacks that spotlighted each character. This was an opportunity for players to tell some awesome and poignant story, as well as a way to retroactively procure items now on the character’s person in the present. I appreciated that scene framing was so open that we could do this without trouble!
The pacing wasn’t super focused, as a bunch of people offering different details took the story back and forth in different directions, but still led to a satisfying finale that brought the character development to a head. The Indie Hack did a great job of putting each person’s fiction at the forefront for maximum enjoyment!
The one area I struggled with as a GM was the notion of “Challenge Level”— there’s a bit of GM fiat determining the CL of certain opposition on the fly (opponents but also challenges like traps), and mechanically that +1 or even +2 on the GM’s die can really influence outcomes in a big way. I was tempted to totally drop CL and just write up Details for each challenge that I can then exploit for a bonus to my die, but I was concerned we’d create a mess of too many details to manage and time spent notating them, which is my biggest beef with FATE’s aspects. I wanted detail-rich, not detail-heavy.
I’d definitely bring The Indie Hack to the table again and look forward to seeing the developments Slade has coming down the pipeline. Big thanks to Noah Jay-Bonn, Sam Kusek, and Klint Finley for playing!
Nice!
Nice!
Glad to hear that your players were getting to put their fiction at the forefront! Detail-rich is the name of the game, I fully agree!
I like the idea of using flashbacks to enrich the backstory of characters.
The CL is a tricky one. I tend to use CL 0 unless there is a pretty good reason to believe that the players are facing something much more powerful/clever than themselves. (Roughly 60% of the monsters in the back are CL 0, after all.) [Somewhere in Apocalypse World Vincent writes that he had a difficulty level in the dice system, but most groups threw it out after two sessions. If CLs are a pain, I think that your solution is good, i.e., give the baddies a detail that they can exploit instead.]
An SRD is in the works, as are a few hacks from me (Elizabethan Sci-fi, Post-Apocalyptic) and others (Shellyian Monsters, JRPG)!
Glad to hear that your players were getting to put their fiction at the forefront! Detail-rich is the name of the game, I fully agree!
I like the idea of using flashbacks to enrich the backstory of characters.
The CL is a tricky one. I tend to use CL 0 unless there is a pretty good reason to believe that the players are facing something much more powerful/clever than themselves. (Roughly 60% of the monsters in the back are CL 0, after all.) [Somewhere in Apocalypse World Vincent writes that he had a difficulty level in the dice system, but most groups threw it out after two sessions. If CLs are a pain, I think that your solution is good, i.e., give the baddies a detail that they can exploit instead.]
An SRD is in the works, as are a few hacks from me (Elizabethan Sci-fi, Post-Apocalyptic) and others (Shellyian Monsters, JRPG)!
Cool. I picked this up too. Looking forward to hearing about more play experiences.
Cool. I picked this up too. Looking forward to hearing about more play experiences.
Bummed I missed this session, but it was my birthday so…
Bummed I missed this session, but it was my birthday so…
Happy birthday, Andrew Mayer! 😀 We’ll definitely have more of it on the calendar after our solid month of Apocalypse World January.
Happy birthday, Andrew Mayer! 😀 We’ll definitely have more of it on the calendar after our solid month of Apocalypse World January.
Slade Stolar I know this is late, but, I am glad I found this thread again.
Having an exploitable detail, giving a +1 to either die, is not so different than having a CL in place, mechanically.
So, would the excision of the CL be just for ease of gm-ing? I just want to make sure I’m following the discussion/logic, because this is going on the hangouts calendar in the not so distant future.
Slade Stolar I know this is late, but, I am glad I found this thread again.
Having an exploitable detail, giving a +1 to either die, is not so different than having a CL in place, mechanically.
So, would the excision of the CL be just for ease of gm-ing? I just want to make sure I’m following the discussion/logic, because this is going on the hangouts calendar in the not so distant future.
True! Mechanically, CL and exploiting a detail are the same for that roll; however, details can be used once, whereas CL always applies.
It might be a bit more to keep track of to have to apply the CL to each roll. And thus, more GM mental math.
AW applies just the player’s stat, with no MC “difficulty mod”. However, Old School play is filled with mods. And I kindof like them.
True! Mechanically, CL and exploiting a detail are the same for that roll; however, details can be used once, whereas CL always applies.
It might be a bit more to keep track of to have to apply the CL to each roll. And thus, more GM mental math.
AW applies just the player’s stat, with no MC “difficulty mod”. However, Old School play is filled with mods. And I kindof like them.