Tag: Michael G. Barford

Jedi Academy: Retrospective

I had the great pleasure of facilitating GM-less games in May, with the central theme of people connected to a Jedi Academy. Many thanks to David LaFreniere, josh gary, steven watkins, Tony Hahn, Johannes Oppermann, Mikael Tysvær, and Michael X. Heiligenstein; You were all great storytellers!

Our first game was Cheat Your Own Adventure. We managed to tell several very interesting stories in this session. A student tested by his mentor on a jungle planet; a young Jedi experiencing combat alongside soldiers in a desert environment; a soldier faced with Order 66. This was the first time I had played CYOA, and was excited to get this Gauntlet tradition under my belt.

What I learned from CYOA: These games are very fast. The mechanic is absolutely brilliant, in my mind. And, as has been stated before, the most fun you can get out of it is by manipulating the fail state. We had failure mean that you turn to the dark side, or that you follow Order 66. It was very compelling to play in this fashion. I would wholeheartedly recommend this game to anyone trying to introduce story games to players for the first time. It’s pretty hard not to have fun playing this game.

Our second game, Follow, did not make, unfortunately. This was due to a confluence of forgotten Mother’s Day obligations, miscommunication, and technological difficulties. I was looking forward to trying this game out and hope to still have a chance soon! Apologies to Keith Stetson and Megan Bennett-Burks; I hope we have a chance to play together again.

What I learned from Follow: Check the calendar for holidays before posting a game. This can be easy to forget when games are scheduled in advance. Don’t rely on Hangouts messages to relay information; not everyone gets these for some reason. Additionally, try to communicate through multiple technological channels. This may seem redundant or obnoxious, but it’s the best way to make sure none of your communications slip through the cracks.

Our third game was Boy x Boy. BxB is a game that has historically been difficult to fill on the Gauntlet Hangouts. I was very lucky to have the perfect number of players! Now, BxB is a game about cute anime boys going on adorable dates. “What does that have to do with Star Wars?” Well, at the back of the book, there is an example of how you might hack the system; a game titled “Jedi x Sith” where an “internal affairs” Jedi searches for Sith corruption within the organization.

What I learned from BxB: Sharing the spotlight in a game with multiple narrators is a challenge. Playing over Hangouts, even more so. All that being said, this game was a blast! The players all agreed that despite the issues of latency, etc. the game was enjoyable. There was a bit of mental gymnastics trying to figure out how to play our roles, but once we got into the groove things really synced up. I particularly enjoyed tempting the other Jedi into using their dark side powers and exploring the moral ambiguity of the Sith philosophy.

Our fourth and final game was Shooting the Moon. I’ve played StM with two players (with David LaFreniere) and this time we played with five. We had two teams of two players portraying a prospective Jedi yearning to earn the apprenticeship of our fifth player, portraying a Jedi Master. StM is at its heart a game about romance. I and my fellow players did not feel comfortable with teenagers being in a romantic relationship with an older teacher. Collaboratively we made an older Jedi Academy where the students were college-age as opposed to younglings. This way, romance as a subject matter did not have to be removed from the table. (Additionally, as is always the case for Gauntlet games, the X-Card was made available.)

What I learned from StM: Character creation was my favorite part of the experience. Our characters came out nuanced and surprising. After playing with two and five players, my current hypothesis is that the best way to play StM is with three players. At the least, the best way to play over Hangouts. Sharing the mic time was hard enough in BxB – when two players are sharing one character, this challenge really was an obstacle for our fun. Framing the scenes ended up taking more precedence than actually playing through them, possibly because only one person needed the mic at that time. There was some confusion over the roles of each player as well. I would like to try StM over Hangouts with three players again. I would also like to try sharing the portrayal of a single character again as well. Bluebeard’s Bride was my first taste of that, and I’d like to see what else is out there.

The Queen’s Heart

Great fun was had with David LaFreniere and Michael X. Heiligenstein in our impromptu game of Dungeon World.

Sometimes in one’s busy life you find a random nugget of precious free time, and what better way to spend in than with some games? Well, that was our opinion anyway. Due to the unplanned nature of the session, I decided to run DW because I’m familiar with it and it lends well to short form play without much preparation. I used a dungeon starter by Isaac Williams called “The Queen’s Heart” to frame our story on and it turned out great: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/1261682/dungeon-world/the-queens-heart.pdf

David played Androxous the Obscene, a character I was delighted to see return from a previous game. However, by his own admission, not many would be pleased to see the return of the elven bard, as he leaves mobs of angered priests in his wake through each Steading he travels through.

Michael X played Omar the Thief, a halfling who could be described as suave, debonair, and a little pudgy. In the end he won the Heart of the Queen, but gave it away to save his own skin.

Our fearless heroes won the adoration of a tribe of rabbit-folk after sealing a den of shadow-wolves. Of course, they couldn’t have done it without the help of a pair of stone golems who appreciated their song and dance that both venerated Leelith the Queen of Shadows and mocked her brother Reeth, the Sun God. The racket did, however, manage to draw some of the bloodthirsty dogs out of their den. Omar discoverd that their teeth were in fact real and painful. With the help of brave little Jimmy Red-Fur he managed to get his revenge. Androxous threw some shade-wolf directly into a flaming torch to finish the opposition. It wasn’t graceful, but it got the job done.

The celebration that ensued in the rabbit-folk’s local tavern (named The Flower Patch for the drinks brewed from flowers so ancient that they had begun to ferment) was joyous, indulgent, and quite possibly lewd. Our hungover heroes woke up just in time to intercept a raiding party of froglings who were dragging the soundly sleeping rabbit-folk away in sacks. Omar delivered such a devastatingly existential revelation to General Warty (and his army of six froglings) that he laid down his arms and declared peace with the rabbit-folk, ending their ancient clan war and forgiving them of their long-forgotten crimes.

Together with some more-sober rabbit-folk, the General led our heroes to the center of the Warlock’s Woods, past the poisonous jellyshrooms and up the Warlock’s ensorceled stone staircase (you can only go up backwards, okay?). There they found the sundial altar where the still-beating black heart of the Witch Queen Leelith was chained. When the rabbit-folk and froglings fled in terror, they shared a moment of camaraderie when they realized that they both resorted to hopping to escape from danger.

Androxous explained that the the ruins found in the woods were actually once a temple to the Sun God before His High Priest had been tempted by the Witch Queen’s dark magic. Omar snatched the heart and hid it from the sunlight in a leather pouch. The bard serenaded the heart to placate the Queen as he led the thief through the woods to a macabre marketplace. He revealed that he was a servant of Death Wolf, the last of a line of sorcerers twisted into the hideous form of a gigantic, multi-faced, ravenous wolf. His preferred meal consists of the souls of gods and goddesses that Androxous so loved to mock and insult. With a heavy heart, Omar reluctantly relinquished the living relic to the merchant of death. As a thief, he explained, he found shadows to be very useful for his profession and appreciated the goddess’s portfolio. But he also found his knees very important for his profession, and the crime lord Andrino would make quick work of those if he didn’t settle his debts soon.

The Death Wolf was very pleased with his purchase, and as his three lower mouths viciously tore at the mystic flesh, the fourth, higher mouth spread into a grin, as the torchlight in the cavern underlighting his face grew stronger with every bite.

The session went very well for being spontaneous, thanks to David and Michael’s lively interaction. Bonus points to David for three on-the-spot limericks. Seriously, this guy could be a real-life bard. Hopefully one day we will all find another golden window of free-time to continue the god-hunting adventures of Omar the Free and Androxous the Obscene.

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/1261682/dungeon-world/the-queens-heart.pdf

Had a fun impromptu session of Dungeon World with Phillip Wessels and Yoshi Creelman. I was inspired by Yoshi’s narrative description of his wizard’s spellcasting and made this magic item:

Lilliastre’s Lens Cloth (3 uses, 1 weight)

This scrap of cloth appears to have been cut from a luxurious wizard’s robe. It’s incredibly soft to touch and glimmers with an obvious magical sheen. When you rub a lens (such as on a pair of spectacles or a spyglass) with the cloth, roll+INT. On a hit, you can see the presence of magic through the lens for a short time, and the GM will tell you what here is magical. •On a 12+, the effect is permanent. •On a 7-9, the lens is smudged; your perception of the material plane will be altered while looking through the lens until the effect wears off.

Anybody have any magic items from recent games they’d like to share?

Looking for one or two more players to join David LaFreniere​, Joby Morey​, and myself for a game of DUNGEON PLANET on 12/23, 11am-2pm CST. If you’ve never played on Google Hangouts before no worries – I’ll walk you through it. Happy holidays!

I’ve been having a lot of fun playing Dungeon World with Daniel Fowler​.

Barbozar the Barbarian first died (ignominiously) when he was struck by a piece of masonry that was dislodged by a Kaiju. He was visited by his feline deity, who gave him another chance to seek a more glorious death. Barbozar died again the next day, taking with him the life of the dastardly snake cultist who had poisoned his mind and slit his throat. This also involved an awesome plummet from the top of the cultist’s temple to the bottom of their vipers’ pit, perhaps the most epic DDT in history. This death pleased his goddess, who offered him a deal.

At this point we all began to brainstorm. I suggested that he could choose to die a human or be transformed into a sabertooth tiger, serving Josh’s Ranger Durion as an animal companion (it’s worth noting that Durion had begun to worship the goddess of hunting as well). Matt suggested that Barbozar could choose to die a Barbarian or live as a Paladin, and swap the playbooks out completely. Daniel tasked me with finding a balance between these ideas.

The result was this compendium class, which steals mercilessly from the Paladin playbook but hopefully stands on its own. Let me know what you think, and if you have any deity-specific, Paladin-inspired compendium classes, please share them!

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Tz-qTkIW25BPRmuHg2f8dYgNWRLH7rLVIFn_XvJrsug/edit?usp=drive_web