We had two games going for Story Game Sunday today. Rob ran Swords Without Master and Jessica ran our wrap-up session of Annalise.
I will let the guys who played Swords chime-in on with their thoughts. For now, though, I want to say a little bit about our story in Annalise.
Our game of Annalise was told over the course of three sessions and it was AMAZING! Easily one of my favorite stories so far this year. Our game took place in 16th century Venice and the three of us played naughty nobles getting into all manner of drunken debauchery. I played Judge Ordo Capellini, a depraved, predatory nobleman trying to settle a score with a social rival, Lady Carlotta. Jessica played Carmela Troya, a young girl who has just come out into society and who deeply resents her mother’s efforts to arrange a marriage for her. And Ferrell played Giuseppe, a narcissistic young nobleman who idealizes the performer’s life, but who is constrained by the pressures of his position.
I’m not going to do a tick-tock on the story, but I will just say it was filled with both lavish masquerade balls and wickedly intimate candlelight dinners; exquisitely appointed pleasure dens and dirty, whore-filled alleys; elaborate hedge mazes and pastoral country scenes. It was sex and murder and violence and hedonism. And I loved it.
There were several recurring themes and NPCs. Greek myth played a large part in the proceedings, with some of the party scenes being staged as reenactments of those classic tales (such as a deliciously twisted, gender-bent version of the story of Paris and Helen). There was also a traveling circus in the background of many scenes, as they were staying with Judge Ordo as his guests. This provided lots of fun scenes and NPCs, such as whenever anyone consulted with the tarot card reader, Madame Stormé.
Our ‘vampire’ turned out to be a hunchback circus dwarf who was actually a shape-shifting demon. It fed off the debauchery and depravity our characters got up to. In the end, Carmela and Giuseppe gave into him, but Judge Ordo – to that point the most twisted and debauched of the bunch – managed to resist him and chose to live out his days in country quietude.
It was a ton of fun. I became really attached to all these characters and I’m kind of sad we’re done with them.
Thanks to everyone who came out: Rob Ferguson Jessica Scott Ferrell Riley Aaron Scott Stephen Crawford Steve Mains and new guy, Isaac.
An excellent evening. I may of died, but I received my reward in the here-after!
I still feel like we should of been recording this and turned it into an opera. It just feels right.
An excellent evening. I may of died, but I received my reward in the here-after!
I still feel like we should of been recording this and turned it into an opera. It just feels right.
Also, my writeup:
“Finished our 3 session game of Annalise, and I have to say I’m kinda sad it’s over!
our story ended up taking place in 17th century Italy, where depraved and debauched nobles ended up being ensnared by the “vampire” of the circus, which turned out to be Cerberus in three parts: a hunchbacked dwarf, the African strong-man, and a large black dog with haunting yellow eyes. oddly enough, the only one of us not to fall to the vampire was the Judge who corrupted the other two of us, but he didn’t fully escape the vampire’s grasp, as his lover ended up becoming a thrall of the vampire.
My secret ended up being that I kept body parts in jars of strange fluids, which I played off by invoking reliquaries in my scenes. One of which was the eye of another character’s sister, who was my secret lover, and had been killed on the night we were to run off together.
The mechanics are a little crunchy, specially in the resolution phase, but all in all, an excellent time was had!”
Also, my writeup:
“Finished our 3 session game of Annalise, and I have to say I’m kinda sad it’s over!
our story ended up taking place in 17th century Italy, where depraved and debauched nobles ended up being ensnared by the “vampire” of the circus, which turned out to be Cerberus in three parts: a hunchbacked dwarf, the African strong-man, and a large black dog with haunting yellow eyes. oddly enough, the only one of us not to fall to the vampire was the Judge who corrupted the other two of us, but he didn’t fully escape the vampire’s grasp, as his lover ended up becoming a thrall of the vampire.
My secret ended up being that I kept body parts in jars of strange fluids, which I played off by invoking reliquaries in my scenes. One of which was the eye of another character’s sister, who was my secret lover, and had been killed on the night we were to run off together.
The mechanics are a little crunchy, specially in the resolution phase, but all in all, an excellent time was had!”
Swords Without Master. I dig it. Wasn’t really expecting to after a listen to the Jank Cast’s actual play episodes with the game, but now I’d really like the opportunity to play again.
So character creation is, with one exception I’ll get to, nice and easy. Sword and sorcery protagonists tend to be of the iconic hero ilk, so the fact that there’s not too much to the PCs mechanically isn’t a mark against the game. My favorite part is writing up a short description of your character doing something in a grim manner and something else in a jovial manner (more on tones later). It’s a neat little exercise to help envision your character in the fiction of the world. I didn’t quite grasp that these descriptions could come into play during the game, but that just makes it cooler.
What I didn’t like about character creation is that the very first thing you do is choose an “eidolon”–something or other that represents and/or sums up your PC. It can be a symbol, a character from fiction, an animal, a picture, a historical personage, a song, a couple lines from a poem–practically anything, really. And that’s the problem. Restriction breeds creativity, and “immediately sum up the character you just now thought of for the first time using anything at all in the world” is the least helpful thing I’ve ever encountered creating a player character. It’d be great if I came into things having an eidolon in mind, didn’t care what character I played, and/or had an easy fictional analog I knew of to turn to, but if that isn’t the case it’s really annoying. I did seem to be the only one that had a real problem with it, though, so it’s probably not a huge deal for most people.
During the game, every roll of the dice sets the tone for at least the player who’s rolling them. Roll either Grim or Jovial, and you alter your narration to suit. I was pleasantly surprised with how fitting this seemed. It doesn’t determine success/failure, but did seem like enough restriction to foster creativity in the description.
Playing without some of the more advanced rules, which was the way to go for our first time out, meant that the game was a little zoomed out for my tastes. I’d like more show, less tell. I get the impression the expanded rules would help out in this area.
But once we got going, there was plenty of nonstop swording and sorcerying, featuring such notable things as:
– a eunuch exploding into smaller, cannibalistic versions of himself
– a dead woman remade in the form of a locust demon
– the violent dismantling of a snow worm
– narrowly avoiding execution
– Morlock king Freddy Mercury
– the repeated dismemberment of Aaron’s character
– picking a fight in the worst possible place
– pteradactyls riding on top of men
– so many yetis
Swords Without Master. I dig it. Wasn’t really expecting to after a listen to the Jank Cast’s actual play episodes with the game, but now I’d really like the opportunity to play again.
So character creation is, with one exception I’ll get to, nice and easy. Sword and sorcery protagonists tend to be of the iconic hero ilk, so the fact that there’s not too much to the PCs mechanically isn’t a mark against the game. My favorite part is writing up a short description of your character doing something in a grim manner and something else in a jovial manner (more on tones later). It’s a neat little exercise to help envision your character in the fiction of the world. I didn’t quite grasp that these descriptions could come into play during the game, but that just makes it cooler.
What I didn’t like about character creation is that the very first thing you do is choose an “eidolon”–something or other that represents and/or sums up your PC. It can be a symbol, a character from fiction, an animal, a picture, a historical personage, a song, a couple lines from a poem–practically anything, really. And that’s the problem. Restriction breeds creativity, and “immediately sum up the character you just now thought of for the first time using anything at all in the world” is the least helpful thing I’ve ever encountered creating a player character. It’d be great if I came into things having an eidolon in mind, didn’t care what character I played, and/or had an easy fictional analog I knew of to turn to, but if that isn’t the case it’s really annoying. I did seem to be the only one that had a real problem with it, though, so it’s probably not a huge deal for most people.
During the game, every roll of the dice sets the tone for at least the player who’s rolling them. Roll either Grim or Jovial, and you alter your narration to suit. I was pleasantly surprised with how fitting this seemed. It doesn’t determine success/failure, but did seem like enough restriction to foster creativity in the description.
Playing without some of the more advanced rules, which was the way to go for our first time out, meant that the game was a little zoomed out for my tastes. I’d like more show, less tell. I get the impression the expanded rules would help out in this area.
But once we got going, there was plenty of nonstop swording and sorcerying, featuring such notable things as:
– a eunuch exploding into smaller, cannibalistic versions of himself
– a dead woman remade in the form of a locust demon
– the violent dismantling of a snow worm
– narrowly avoiding execution
– Morlock king Freddy Mercury
– the repeated dismemberment of Aaron’s character
– picking a fight in the worst possible place
– pteradactyls riding on top of men
– so many yetis
Cute baby yetis!
Cute baby yetis!
I liked SwoM bunches as well. So much so that I’m planning to sign up to run it at HoustonCon in August. What I saw someone post somewhere is that when they are the “Overplayer” (GM) at cons they put several images/objects on the table available as eidolons/simulacra for players to choose from. They also come prepared with pregen “feats” and “tricks” as suggestions. That seems like that would be helpful.
I liked SwoM bunches as well. So much so that I’m planning to sign up to run it at HoustonCon in August. What I saw someone post somewhere is that when they are the “Overplayer” (GM) at cons they put several images/objects on the table available as eidolons/simulacra for players to choose from. They also come prepared with pregen “feats” and “tricks” as suggestions. That seems like that would be helpful.
I was also glad to see that Issac, who was a first-timer, seemed to be into it, too.
I was also glad to see that Issac, who was a first-timer, seemed to be into it, too.