DaimonGames : yet another design blog

Here is the second part, from Gregory.

Read the first part here

Part 2 of my first game of COJ

As Azim & Zeno were taking possession of the shipment of opium, screams and shouts started to be heard in the vincinity. (I forgot to mention that Zeno’s gang stayed in front of the first house where the PCs met Timeus giving his speech to the crowd)
Brother Timeus and several other members of his congregation ran towards the direction of what started to appear to the PCs as a battle going on.

Azim decided that their mission came first and therefore stayed with the mule while Zeno rushed towards the battle, running through the houses now deserted. When he arrived where he left his brothers in arms he found them fighting fiercely in a shield wall formation (he chose the move at character creation) against what appeared to be a larger group of guards mostly made of Westerner fighters. Two of his men were already wounded, one of them showing a grim and bloody injury where a crossbow bolt hit him. Quickly Zeno, assessed the situation (he made a perception move in battle and asked for the best escape route which was back towards where the mule was) and then decided to block the entry of the house he was in collapsing the ceiling. He managed to gather the other raiders without more losses and to destroy a joist (face danger + steel with a 10+).
The gang then started to run back towards where Zeno left Azim who had a lot of difficulties in having the mule advancing (at least the way HE wanted). But no time was to lose as the collapsing roof wouldn’t delay the guards for too long.

NOTA : Perhaps my mistake here was that I wanted to have them face a moral dilemma having the girl from the well and/or Timeus being targeted by the guards but as Zeno succeeded his move I decided to go along.

They decided to flee through the Essenian district. (I called for a Face Danger +edge for Zeno as he had to keep it together and +steel for Azim as pulling the mule was pretty exhausting

NOTA : I thought to made a move for the mule but didn’t really have time and thought in the end that a face danger would do the trick. But anyway the mule could still be the target of some of my move : it’s kinda difficult to transport some barrels through a city like Jerusalem and its rocky countryside ‘well that is to say if they don’t have a gang helping them)

Azim managed to drag the mule (and the opium) without too much trouble but Zeno got a 7-9. So I had him to make a choice between saving one of his man who was shot by a crossbow but then all the ennemy gang will finally find them or basically leaving his man to die but he would then escape the guards. He chose the second option and then took a -1 spirit as a raider.
Then i don’t recall exactly what happened but if i remember it correctly the PCs started to argue about what course of action they should do regarding of the shipment…in a middle of a chase. So after a while (and told them that it was dangerous, that they were still chased…) I decided to go for a hard move : as they finally agreed to go on with the mission and finally got out of the Essenian district, they faced a smaller gang of guards (actually I thought that the guards splitted in two smaller gangs : one chasing, and the other one surronding them). At once Zeno and his men shot several of the opposition (thanks of another move he took from the raider’s playbook) and decided to go for the kill (he chose the option of being ready for a mêlée fight). The battle was as quick as it was bloody and the gang was (almost too quickly) dispatched.

NOTA : it was during this fight that we started to have some questions about the raider as I’ve discussed in another post.

Azim, Zeno (and the mule) finally got to the walls and one of the gate (I decided it surely was one towards the port) and as they assessed the situation (one of them successfully managed to score a 10+ on a perception check) they saw a shadowy figure leaving the guarrison followed by what appeared to be the captain visibly smiling at the mysterious emissary and poking something in his hand with content (I thought it was obvious he just received a bribe and didn’t want to make things too easier for the PCs either so I didn’t described more than that. But nevertheless, Azim and Zeno took the mule and walked directly towards the gate…

NOTA : at that moment I was thinking : “the guards captain just got a bribe to look for some sucpicious individual who will probably try to pass through the gate with a shipment of opium, and they are going right at him…” so at first I thought this was a very bad idea and wanted to make a hard move but then I realized that I wasn’t probably clear enough about the bribe thing so I decided to let them try away to see what happens.

Two guards speaking loud in frank and visibly drunk (stereotype here? maybe back then! haha) stopped them as they approached and asked them what they were carrying in those barrels. A glimpse of envy sparkled in their ox looking eyes…and Azim stated it was oliva oil. (He made a fance danger+Shadow and brilliantly scored a 10+). The guards looked at him with disgust (and a big disapointment!) and let them through.

The two Fraeters left the high walls of the City of Judas lit by torches and braseros behind them as they were entering into the darkness of the countryside. Will they reach the port of Ashdod in time and alive?…. Let’s see what happened to them in the last part!

Link to the original G+ post

Continues here

A play-report from Gregoy, divided in three parts.

Link to G+

So this is a report of our last session of COJ (and the fist!).

First of all, the casting :
- we had the veteran, Azim Ben Arrabas a follower of the book of Q who fought during the crusades (against the crusaders) and stayed at Jerusalem afterwards with a wish of redeeming himself through combat for some things (which stayed a mystery for now) he’s done during the siege of the holy city. That’s why he joined the Iron Fist.
- then there was Zeno the raider, a local from Jerusalem who was, alongside with his men, a bandit and made the most of the crusades to raid and plunder the poor soulswho managed to escape the war. Then when things calmed down he had no choice but to join the brotherhood to avoid getting revenge from those he stole from (especially a noble family from whom he killed a member). NOTE : the player didn’t chose the leader move so he was considered by his gang as a founding and important member but no more. He came up with several names for other important members of his gangs and we discussed a bit about their relatioships between one another. Turned out that the former leader of the gang (Tobias) led it to a bad situation (which has to be defined) and disappeared during it. Was he left for dead? Did he run away? The gang’s opinion on that matter is divided between the two.

As suggested in the book, I chose to run a focused mission for this first game, so here it was : The characters were sent by the Magister Geoffrey (from Anglia and looking a lot alike with Liam Neeson) to bring a package (of opium) to the port of Ashdod (roughly half a day of Jerusalem) for the benefit of the Judaists. They’ll have first, to pick up the package at a Judaist priest’s place, brother Timeus located in the Essenian district. (I came up with the name after seeing an older map of Jerusalem and made it like a maze like place with many small alleys and a potential nest for thieves). The brother Timeus will then tell them on what vessel they’ll have to drop the opium.

Before dropping them into action, I presented couple more Blood Brothers (as I didn’t see another way to name them, I called them Fraeters to stick with the Magister and Caesar nomenclature (not even sure if it makes sense!). Then they were on their own…

The plot roughly was that a Venitian merchant had some connection inside of the Iron Fist’s fortress and was told about the package and therefore will try to snatch it for himself. His plan was simple : to bribe some guards (as a matter of fact christians) to get the opium shipment as soon as the players will get it and if it doesn’t work he’ll have a gang of mercenaries at the port.

Azim the veteran deicded to check if they were followed as soon as they left the fortress and as he succeeded his perception move, I oltd him that effectively they were. They tried to ambush whoever was following them when they reached the Essenian district but failed. I made a move and decided that the spies managed to avoid the ambush and to follow them again more cautiously (if they had got a 7-9 rather than a 6-, I’d probably stated that they scared the spies and that they wouldn’t have been able to be on their tail again).

By the end of the day, as darkness fell upon the city of Judas, they reached a small plaza where a priest of Judas was giving a hateful speech against the christians at a small crowd and where a young woman was giving water to the old and the weak from a nearby well. She then turned to the PCs and asked them if they were thirsty telling them that Christ gave water to Judas as Judas quenched the thirst of blood of the people of Jerusalem. (I was hoping to introduce differences between Judaists and Christians here and build up the fiction. Not really sure if it worked but well).

They finally managed to talk to the priest who was delivering his spiteful speech. They’d found brother Timeus. He led them through some houses (some of which were occupied by families who looked at him with radiant smiles and respect even if he was accompagnied by a band of bloodthirsty cutthroats. They had a little chat during which he told them the name of the vessel they were supposed to deliver the package (le Fol Ventoux from Frankia) insisting on the fact that the captain of the ship was in a hurry and if they didn’t get a hold on him by mid-day (that is to say the next day) he’ll leave and they’d have failed the mission. Time wasn’t their ally… He then showed them the package : two sturdy barrels placed on each side of a mean looking mule. He gave to Azim some carrots and a stick when screams started to be heard from nearby…

End of the first part. I apologize in advance for the grammar and vocabulary as I can’t really review it right now (I’m as well in a kind of a hurry!^^). At this point they didn’t really make lots of move and the fact that the spies were still tailing them meant that I advanced my front to one step which will lead to what happens in the next episode.

Continues here

Again about the design process of City of Judas. This time it’s about accepting good advice - and about how I reduced the number of Moves in the game.

Here is the first part, here the second and here is the third.

The number of Moves
The first drafts of the game had a lot of Moves. There were a lot of Basic Moves and a lot of Peripheral Moves, and also a lot of Combat Moves. For example, in combat you had a standard move to fight, one to be more on a defensive stance, and one to be attacking in full force.
Several of the feedback I received were clear about this: there were way too many Moves.
My initial response was to be defensive. It’s normal to be defensive I guess: it was my game, it was for free, and I wanted advice but most of all I wanted to be given compliments and confirmation. Still, while it’s legitimate to say: that’s the game, play it as it is or don’t play it at all, well… feedback is exactly that: telling you what you did right, and what you should perhaps consider to change.
What I did with the number of moves, was indeed was to change and simplify.

There are a couple of reasons for this: one is indeed that I recognized the wisdom of the commentators that insisted that there were too many moves. A lot of them were smart people that in other cases I found myself agreeing with.
Perhaps this time they were wrong, or perhaps I thought they were wrong just because they were talking about my own work. Yes, of course the real reason was the latter, I was just being defensive.

More importantly (the second reason for this change), I thought about the process I followed when doing other work: when I write fiction, I write following the inspiration, but then I need to review and clean my work, and a lot of it involves taking out stuff.
Same when I write code: when you get the job done quickly, there’s a lot of clutter in the code. When you take your time to tidy up, you usually end up with a better script, which is also shorter.
So yes: I reduced the number of Moves, and in some cases that paired up with reducing the number of Counters.

Bottom line: usually good people give good advice, and while it’s good in an early stage to throw into a game all the ideas you have about that subject, later on you will need to simplify and cut away some useless (or nearly useless) chunks.
An example: Rings were used to improve your rank within the Iron Fist; they had a special rule and a dedicated counter.
Now the rank is just a single Advancement you take with XP. From a rule and a counter, to a single checkbox, without actually removing anything relevant from the game.

So, how’s your experience with your own game design? Does it feel painful to cut certain pieces of your work, to simplify? Or perhaps you don’t have this problem at all?
And as a player/GM, do you find yourself house-ruling to simplify games that are too (unnecessarily) complex? (of course, again, this is often a matter of taste)

Click here if you prefer to comment on G+.

Here is another short report; this is about a sorcerer and the Hunting Demons (see the preview image below).

Hunting demons are relatively weak monsters, although I wouldn’t underestimate them unless I was playing a seriously martial playbook like the Veteran or the Sellsword (or the Raider, with my gang covering my ass). The annoying thing about Hunting demons: they can be raised from corpses, even random pieces of dead meat assembling together and coming to life fueled by the dark force of sorcery. Sometimes, they appear as an animated statue or an empty armor. So, basically, they can appear almost anywhere, without notice.
They are evoked by the GM by spending points on the Taint Tracker; which is increased by characters taking -1 to Spirit. For a brief comment about Spirit, see +Michael Sands quick and cool review here on G+.

When you invoke with the Taint Tracker, as GM, you act as the Hell Prince himself: you know how to find your targets (including the character!). This is really a pain in the ass for my players (in a good way).

One of my best players (say hello to Tom, everybody) plays a Sorcerer.
His first encounter with a Hunting demon (in the form of an empty armor coming to life) was within a tower, while he was sleeping. He had no time to prepare a spell, so he just went for his mace (he’s got quite an attitude, combining spells and furious mace swings). He made it out of the room, while the Raider and his gang came to his aid, blocking the demon inside the room while the sorcerer ran out.
Then the Barber stepped in, got hurt, and the Sorcerer got mad. They finally burned the bastard after breaking the armor into pieces.
The next time, in the desert, the Sorcerer (I have a soft spot for him, I know…) was on duty watching the camp, and was attacked by another Hunting demon (this time a collection of pieces of – mostly – human corpses, with dogs heads instead of hands). He had a big fire next to him, and managed to use his elementals powers to get rid of the beast.

Now, after a third encounter with a Hunting demon, our Sorcerer is gaining a strange reputation among the ranks of the Iron Fist.
He’s already quite a peculiar subject, with a nasty attitude (and dresses like a scarecrow basically). Add to that, that now he demands to have always a big fire lit in his room at night (remember, we’re in quite a warm climate), or several buckets of water always at his disposal (he likes to use water to confuse enemies and then strike with the mace). He needs the fire or the water to cast his spells fast enough to be able to fight the next Hunting demon.
I am inclined to let the mercenaries of the Iron Fist think he’s a paranoid, crazy bastard. And then to bring up a Hunting demon just so that he can go all smug on them with his “I told you so”.
What’d you think? :-)

If you’d like to comment on G+ click here.

Against the Cult of Nergal is an actual play from the playtest phase of City of Judas, by Richard Sardinas.
See the original post on G+ here.

Cast:
Aberlardus – The barber indebted to Geilar for saving his life. Played by Fred.
Eban – The Sorcerer. Hungry for magical power. Played by Adrian.
Geilar – The Raider. A Vandal prince who stole the ring of the King of Corsica. Played by Ray.

We started the game in media-res. The caravan the characters were escorting was attacked by what appear to be indigenous nomads. The sorcerer acts first, and with some foresight, by creating a stone barrier around one of the nomads who is trapped there. Geilar charges a large concentration of raiders with his gang, but is repulsed. Geilar took the move Last Stand so elects to face the enemy force by himself on one flank, while the rest of the group attempts to attack the other flank. Aberlardus goes to Geilar’s aide. With a few good rolls the nomads are beaten back and retreat. The character’s have a prisoner.
The caravan master, Calix of Damascus, tells the characters that his rare beetles (a delicacy around these parts) have been stolen, but even worse the nomads kidnapped his daughter. He beseeches the characters to go find her. The characters agree for a fee then interrogate the prisoner. The raider starts torturing him, allowing Eban to manipulate the captive. The nomad talks saying they took her to an abandoned barn and adds cryptically that “She is to be give to the One that rises from Meslam”.
The captured raider leads the group to the barn. The nomad claims that they have taken the girl into the tunnels under it. Eban casts the light spell on the captive. They go into the tunnel and after a long walk enter a large room where the captive is shot in the chest and killed by 2 other raiders. They run, but the sorcerer casts a fire spell blocking the way. One of the raider knocks the other one into the fire, and he is subsequently killed by Geilar’s gang. Since it’s difficult to carry a glowing body Geiler decides to cut the body to pieces and hands out body parts to the group to use as torches. (I added a level of taint here because this was pretty gruesome and the players were treating the captive pretty callously.) Eban took the create fire, but not the control fire spell, so the fire can’t be stopped. He had to cast Stone Spell to turn the burning stones away from the tunnel. They continue and emerge from a trap door into a house.
The house is empty right now. Eventually the players leave (Geilar’s gang stays behind in the house waiting for the sign) and poke around town, finding a few things. The name of the town is Karak and there are several issues going on. Animal pit fights, infighting amongst the ruling houses, and of course mysterious disappearances. The characters ignore the pit fights and go directly to the militia and bully help from them by showing them the glowing body parts, claiming they are from some weird cult. The militia captain admits he has heard rumors that the cult of Nergal has been up to no good, but that cult has been dead for hundreds of years. We assumed that most of the inhabitants are Christian with a few Judiasts here and there. With amazing perception rolls they figure out that everything points to one of the weakest noble families.

They convince the militia to give them authority to search the family’s compound. While there they use perception moves to find a secret doorway. Once inside they come to a large room with some demonic statue at one end. There are body parts all over the place (all those disappeared people) and 3 masked nomads. Spirit rolls are made, but the barber gets a minimum success; he takes the -1 spirit and we move on. The nomads attack the characters. Abelardus jumps to block the attackers to prevent harm befalling Geilar, and is badly wounded (received the unstable condition). A fight ensues, with 1 of the nomads getting killed and the rest escaping. Geiller gives the signal, the sorcerer causes the body parts to flash, and his gang is on its way. One of the nomads ends up killing several of the militia guards and then scales the walls of the compound like a spider. The other nomad is killed by Geiler’s gang. The killing of the guards causes the family to escape and a chase ensues.
They reach the outskirts of the city and Eban causes the groundsunder the family head to rumble and they all fall. The group catches up to them and slaughters most of the family except one of the servants who agrees to take them to the Temple of Nergal.
The characters arrive at the ruined temple and come up on a ceremony. The sorcerer can tell that the ceremony is charged with magic energies. Geiler tells Eban to prepare the Stone Spell to collapse the temple. The characters charge in, and with crazy rolls manage to push back the cultists who outnumber them. Abelardus then runs up and grabs the girl, but he is hit by the high priest (who is the surviving nomad from the shrine encounter in the city). He rolls over the altar with the girl and they escape. The rest of the group pulls back, and Eban causes the temple to collapse on all the cultists killing them.
The characters head back and collect their reward.
Epilogue:
The final scene shows the blood of all the dead cultists running to the altar. It then opens and two large Hell Knights step through. The end.