First Thoughts After Character Gen & Set Up

Fortunately we were just in the midst of deciding what to play yesterday so we gave this a go last night. I went over the bits of the game and the players choose the Outlaw Heir, Dragon Herald, War Herald and Wicker Wise. Set up took a little longer than AW or say Sagas of the Icelanders so we only made characters and the First Map, we were all excited to dive into play next week. 

- The Outlaw Heir is one of the coolest playbooks period. Beautiful & Doomed and Fate are probably the best moves in the game. Dragon Herald comes pretty close to being as interesting. In general the players really enjoyed the flavor and implied setting that the playbooks contained. 

- Between all of the playbooks there is a lot of holdings, ventures, people, stuff and more stuff. It was almost too much stuff to generate and it took the whole time we had to play. The player of the Outlaw Heir was clearly struggling and a little creatively fatigued by it. And as MC there was a little bit of WOAH SO MUCH STUFF as the players began to tell me their stuff. But then the map started to take shape and we had this really neat situation and setup that I can't wait to play. 

- Not sure how to make places have coherent contrasts. 

- On the First Map sheet it has a place for Holding and Interest Population, I am not sure how to make this number, do I sum up all of the player holdings? Do I add more holding on my own? Same for the Approximate Total Population. Then once I have these numbers, what do I do with them? I can see how I would use an individual holdings population in that you can say half of the city has been killed or driven off in the battle. But how do I use the larger number for the whole map? 

Some other thoughts on the basic rules: 

- Hold Steady - Curious about removing the flinch, hesitate or stall from the 7-9 like Act Under Fire had, the result of just holding steady seems uninteresting.

- Claim Your Right - this looks really interesting, looking forward to seeing how it works in play. 

- Go Into Battle - the PC vs PC timing choices are hot.

- Read Moves - I really like the "if you would like to ask more" bits and the cost of doing so. 

- Found myself missing a compel you to do something move like the Seduce or Manipulate from AW. Some of that is in the Draw Someone Out move, but I kinda want a more overt move. Maybe in a playbook if not a basic move. 

- Love the EXP system so much. So much.

- Fates are also awesome. Not a fan of the wording on the first 2 player ones though. Since those heal on their own everyone will live to be 100 or an advanced age.

- Helping is also neat, love that it plays right into Oaths and that the acting player has to request it. Want to see this in play.

- We all agreed that the rules for Dragons and how they interact with Dragon Heralds is awesome and cannot wait to unleash one in the game. 

Would it be possible for you to show a picture of your map?

I have a good reason for this request!

The first thing that hit me after reading DA is how less 'clean' it is in terms of how much more stuff there is and how less obviously connected to your character a lot of it is. [For example, a Gunlugger has his guns on him - a Trollslayer has a lot of his weapons "somewhere else"; a Chopper hangs with his crew - a War Herald separates from his band as seasons change.] This leads to a complicated mess of ownership relationships, obligations and possibilities - which is very Dark Age, as far as I know. Unfortunately, it also leads to lots of lists and keeping track on how population changes by percentage, apparently?

My intuition tells me that the only way to offload all of the property management stuff from your brain but still keep it close enough by that you can easily look it up is to have a good map.

@DWeird

One thing to try is to have a second, abstract map.
Like a Venn diagram or relationship map.
Which, I think, is what I might do myself!

- Alex

Totally plan on posting my terribly drawn map once I get home, for some reason I forgot to snap a pic of it last night.

It is kind of remarkable that PCs who are born in the Dark Ages, and just stay out of fights, by default live to be 100.

Nah. I mean, it looks that way, but that's because I haven't talked about disease yet. Disease works the same way wounds do. You get a fever, you start crossing off fate lines.

A PC who stays out of fights, never has accidents, and never gets sick lives to be 100. That seems fair to me.

-Vincent

So if you are an old man who has already lived well in an advanced age but not to a 100 and then gets sick you die when that fate gets marked and you have fulfilled the next fate? Or does the disease need to works it's way though all of your fates? If so does that last marked off fate get better in time if the sickness doesn't get worse and you get treatment?

 

Here is a snapshot of my poorly drawn map:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/zvqwvihh6649sfu/2014-03-05%2000.23.51.jpg

We ended up with a coastline described as if the Cliffs of Dover were smashed into fjords. High on one of the peaks is the Outlaw Heirs ancestral fortress from where her people once raided distant lands to extract tribute, but have now been conquered by a Xristos Crowned Head from a distant shore. To the south where the reefs and rocks are less treacherous is a bustling seaport town. To the east we have an ancient dark forest, in the center is the old village, the Wicker Wise's standing stones and orrery are near by. To the north of the village is an ancient manor keep where an ancient dragon cult meets under the Herald. Between the forest and hills in the northeast is an old Imperial watchtower held by the foriegn mercenary War Herald and his wolfpack.

Still need to add some proper names to these places and label them as such.