Playtest Report

So I've manage to write up about halfway into our second session. It's Really Really long. I have audio of it as well, that we're currently editing. The group would like to put it up for public consumption with your permission. Regardless if you're interested I can send it to you. I'm going to do another post(I feel like I'm spamming) with just our concerns and questions pulled out so people can see and discuss them without reading 6 pages and so it will be easier for you to see the things we felt we had issues with.

anyway

Play report from 1.5 sessions over two weeks.
5 players with various AW experience, all with experience in at least on hack, primarily Dungeon world.
MC(Me) had little experience in AW, never ran it. Decent experience in various hacks, ran DW a few times.
 
Fucked up right from the beginning. Passed out character sheets and players picked their playbooks before stronghold. I feel this actually was a problem as one player became the keep liege and the rest of the group had a different view of the stronghold and inhabitants that affected his character particularly his view of his wife was over-ruled as she was a notable character and the rest of the group wanted something else for her.
 
After they picked character sheets we created a stronghold. We were initially confused on whether a stronghold was a holding or not. While proceeding it became clear that multiple sheets were needed so the players could all see the different options. This came up frequently during that first session.
 
We picked defending a trading town on a road, with archer outlooks and watch towers. We went for the 4 cheapest armaments, only enough for 10. As mentioned earlier, there seems to be no mechanical OR NARATIVE benefit for taking the steel options.  I consider this a problem as you are trading mechanical power and appear to be getting nothing in return besides the warm fuzzy that you’re people look historically correct. That may be enough for some people. Not me. I‘ll likely house rule a difference in future games.
 
We put off creating our enemies until after we created our people. Again, needed more peoples sheet as reading it out loud and passing did not work.  We lost one our players in the middle and decided to go on without him. I do not suggest this. When coming back he had missed a few details that the rest of us agreed to that  caused minor hiccups in the RP when he said things in character that were clearly false.
 
We ended up with an odd combination. A land locked trading clan populated by a people based off the Vikings. For the most part that went without issue. Creating the notables was a bit harder as consensus was difficult to reach. Next time I think I will let each player create a single Notable, or give each player a single option in creating each notable instead of trying to reach consensus.
 
When we finally finished we had a trading town on a small lake next to a major road, populated mainly by a close family tribe all descended from a hero, Ulfgar, rumored to be a werewolf. We were enemies with an invading force very loosely based on the Francs and a sister tribe descended from  Borgicar, the brother of Ulfgar.
 
The players were mostly able to create characters on their own without issue. We were confused on households and whether they referred to family type units or to literal domiciles. I advised them it was the former for both peoples and character creation. All told this took at least 2 hours, it probably didn’t have to take so long but still felt a little bit too long and cumbersome. May have been adjusting to new system jitters though.  After creation we had
 
Geir(pronounced gear) the Peasant Beauty, head of a household on the lake. Spent the season performing Rites

Rollo, The War Champion, a member of Alfgar’s House, Spent the season Soldiering

Alfgar, the Keep Liege, head of the ruling household, Spent the season having a child

Rasmus, Spent the season traveling, a member of Alfgar’s household

Odd(pronounced ood) who spent the season hunting, a member of Geir’s household.
 
For the most part this was not enough to start the game.  There were a number of problems. I asked each of the players what happened during their move but very few gave anything with any real meat on them. I, for my part, did not ask enough leading questions about the seasonal moves to really draw out a story. So a story could have developed but it wasn’t a natural occurrence of creating the element and selecting moves.  It also may help with more players making their own household. It seems like those without their own house seem to have less stake in the town, giving them more vague motivations.
 
One problem was I was not aware enough of the households of the players as I spent this section creating the enemies. Because of this there were a number of potential hooks I missed out on that I could have used. I also think that there isn’t enough in the rights and household to generate interesting story elements without actively going into them. I think instead of spending time creating the enemy people the MC should spend the character creation portion asking questions looking for story. Things like why do they have the rights they do, where did they get the things in their house, how their drinking cup describes them. I think that will help all members have a clearer idea of who the party is and provide a more natural jumping off place.
 
There was little action for the first 30-60 minutes. Rollo ended up being owed back pay from his soldiering so he went to confront Alfgar,which could have been great drama, but ended up happening off screen with Alfgar simply promising to pay him later. Alfgar offered nothing interesting about his child and paused when being prompted about pay. I decided to give him time and moved on.

Geir combined the move about rites and his Right to receive offerings as he had essentially been holding festivals. We had some back and forth deciding what the festivals were, and opened a scene with him directing his thralls to set up his hall for a festival/feast. The Outranger, Odd, came in bearing some of his bounty from hunting, a boar for the festival/feast. There was some quick RP and I moved onto Rasmus, our troll killer.

I asked Rasmus what his season move had been and he said traveling and asked me what information he learned. I came up with a story about some kingdom across the sea claiming the holdings land. I wanted it to Show Evidence of What’s Coming and made it to far in the future saying it would take months to get ready. I also failed to ask where he had been traveling, which kinda left the move flat. I suggest changing it to tell the MC where you traveled. The MC will tell you what you learned in your travels.

Rasmus decided on returning it would be better to give his news at the gathering rather than give his news to the Keep Liege. As Alfgar had not picked demand and require someone bring themselves forth, it does not seem like his right was being denied, but that being spurned as such might have been a denial of right didn’t even come up at the time, which I think in retrospect it should have. Regardless it didn’t, Rasmus went to the hall and gave his news. I had planned to cut back after this to see the resolution of Rollo’s backpay, but they decided to do it off screen and by the time I came back, just said, “He decided to pay me later.” :(

So they march on down to the feast, Alfgar makes an offering and I ask Rollo what he brought to give as an offering. He said he would offer nothing. I took this to mean Geir, our Peasant Beauty was being denied his right to receive offerings on behalf of summer, earth, and the lake(yes we changed it from the river. The type of water seemed less important than that it was water). Quick discussion, we all agreed, and we had our first Denied Right. Woo Hoo.

Gier offered him the choice to serve him for a year(something I thought was extreme, but hey what the hell, not my move) and Rollo actually accepted. Nothing else interesting was happening at the feast so I said they all went to bed.

Picked the move show evidence of what’s coming with the principle think offscreen. One of the enemies had been patrolling in the Forests north of the Town and disturbed a dragon that was now rampaging. The town woke up to alarms and saw part of the forest burning. A quick Take S   tock let them know it was one of their watch posts on fire.

Geir grabbed some men and ran into the forest to chase after what he was sure were invaders. Due to poor reading comprehension, I had missed the inspire others part of Leap into Action so I went with Muster warriors, despite it not really fitting. Wooops. Anyway, we cleared that up later. Odd tried to scout around the fire, triggering yet another take stock, but he failed and gained pretty much nothing with his question. Rollo and Alfgar, climbed up to get a better view, trigger to more Take Stocks, with two more failures. I probably should have made 3 moves, but I just combined it into one really hard move.

Gier and the men he took got to the fire and noticed it was pretty much exclusively in the trees. As they were trying to figure out where it could have come from, a ring of fire roared up around them(Dragon breath). Geir attempted to Consult the Other world by asking his god’s for help. He failed and his answer came in the form of a flaming branch falling and crushing one of the men he came with. Odd once again tried to Take Stock, looking for ways to get them out of the fire. With his questions he was able to come up with if he soaked his rags in water he could probably run through the fire uninjured.

Rasmus decides to consult the other world and basically narrates stepping across the vale. As that seemed like a the Step Out of Your Earthly Life right I wasn’t sure what to do(still not) but he changed it to just peeking his head in. I was tired so I gave no poetry or imagery just told him straight up it was a dragon.

Around here I ran out of steam as it was 2 AM. We’d only been “playing” for 90 minutes or so, after completing the set up. I will say that the set up was fun, but felt a bit clunkier than say, a FATE set up. It took a little too long, to get too little good meaty narrative details. It also took to long to get to a interesting moments after creation, but that may have been partially us not really embracing our roles.


Session 2.

So, we start the second session with some people missing. At the last minute we find out that Odd, Alfgar, and Rasmus can’t make it till much later. We decided to go on without them and start where we left off.
I have at this point stated the dragon as having 6 harm(Modest claws +3 and size 3:1 +3) and 6 Armor(Skin as hard as iron +3 and size 3:1 +3). This one eviscerates all invaders in it’s home and can vomit out fire.  It’s fire was 5 harm, no size bonus. I also made it invisible instead of being smart or flying or anything, because why not? Anyway, This proved to be a problem. 

Rollo organizes the people into filling all buckets with water in case the fire spreads than head off in the direction of Gier as it was narratively convenient for them to get together. So he heads that way. While he’s traveling Gier attempts to get the his men to jump through the fire, he will stay behind and be the last one to leap through to make sure they all get out ok. I forget if I triggered a move here or not. Either way a man jumped through and the rest are able to see him almost land safely when he jerks in midair and there is a scream and wet crunching noises as the flame block him from view.

Gier realizes this won’t work and because I had informed them(mistakenly) that anyone could use enchantments(see some thread on rights) Gier thought he’d give it a try. In order to keep it a bit protected I didn’t tell them what types of effects he could get or how many sacrifices he had to make, just that he would have to describe a sacrifice. If he gets it wrong, bad things happen. However I realize that won’t really work as after a few session of casting enchantments players will learn a basic formulae.

Anyway, he convinced two people to give blood and he did himself(got 3 harm total). He called on the god’s to put down the fire, and since creating fire was an enchantment(example?) I let it work. The blood poured from them, growing as hit the ground and it continued to pour forth from them, more blood than any human body could contain. It flowed to the fire and hissing and boiling began to put it out. So they were now surrounded by a circle of blood.

Rollo showed up and they both caught a glimpse of the dragons shape, though they couldn’t really make it out. The beast fled after Rollo’s magic spear(may inflict wounds that never heal) actually hurt it. Rollo and Gier chased after the dragon, both undertaking great labours. Rollo succeeded at cost and the moment he almost had to quit was swimming a river and almost drowning in his armor, so he had to take it off and leave it in the water. Geir however failed.

I decided to narrate it as he had managed to get lost and the dragon, in the minutes that Rollo was slowed in the stream, had circled round to hunt him. He feels the warm breath on his back and turns round to a mouth full of fire.

Gier pulled up his shield to block it. I allow it, despite being wood, and trigger undertake great labor. He manages to succeed. Meanwhile Rollo has caught up and sees his friend and new liege being roasted. He throws his spear at the Dragon triggering Leap Into Action. He choose harm as established and I believe startle. I realize at this point, 6 armor 6 harm is too much. They’ll never be able to do anything, so I drop it size 2:1 and beastial strength for 4 harm and armored skin like crocodiles for 2 armor(I forget to put in the size bonus).

The spear deals 1 harm, but the startle + magic  suggest more to me. The spear actually goes fully through the back of it’s jaw and out it’s mouth getting stuck in Gier’s shield. This stops the fire. The Dragon turns and charges at Rollo. I decide to call this single combat.

I ran single combat slightly wrong. I want to make something kinda evocative of the setting so I got some polished stones that I thought would look like playing pieces for a dark ages game and used them to represent the spend. I had Rollo put out three pieces of paper, each with a different option upside down so I couldn’t see them. I did the same. We each put stones on the paper to represent the spend. However this had the unintended consequence of allowing each person to see if the other had a strategy of concentrating all options or spreading them out. Not sure if this is a problem or not. All but one player seemed to think it worked well. Will try without this week for comparison.

Anyway, Dragon gets 3, cause it’s a dragon, and spends all on harm, because it’s an enraged hateful monster. Rollo got 4 spend(3+ the 1 bonus due to his Right as a War Champion) he puts 1 defense, 2 harm, 1 in position. So he ends up dealing a total of 6 harm, Dragon takes 4 after armor. He takes 3 after armor, which made me panic a bit as I didn’t want to kill him in the first real session. Retconned to 2 spend cause I’m a pussy GM and he ends up with only 2 harm.

During this Gier asks if he could pull the spear from his shield and stab the dragon with it. I allow it. Before he does he asks if he sees a weak spot. A Size Up roll fails and I tell him that the hole left from the spear has no armor and a stab there will deal harm unreduced. He does so. However, because he failed, I decided the dragons death release was actually an explosion of Fire.

Again I give both a chance to undertake great labor to survive. Rollo makes his no problem, but Gier gets a 7. He makes it fine but Rollo’s enchanted spear burns in the fire. I’m not sure about my decision here. Should I have given him a choice instead of deciding the outcome? Does taking something away as a move count when the 7-9 results really only ask for a narration of when they almost broke? I don’t know. I love the story it provided but I think I may have cheated.

Anyway, Rollo’s right is clearly being denied. He decided to take issue with Gier and demands that Geir fix it or make a new one. Geir agrees to do so, to the best of his ability; if he can find a way he will let nothing stop him, but only if he finds a way. I thought this was weaker than the oath could have been but Rollo accepted and we moved on.

Gier, who is mostly uninjured goes to fetch Rollo’s chain shirt. He runs into a foreigner wearing full plate(not technically accurate to the period, but Rollo’s player really wanted it to be a thing, so Rollo could kill an armored knight) and they talk. We realize the problems with having people who don’t speak the same language interacting and wonder if there is a better way than just deciding if players speak other languages.

Regardless we get over the hurdle and I call for undertake great labor to swim down to the bottom of the river and retrieve Rollo’s shirt. Perhaps this was a bit frivolous but it seemed right at the time. He failed and I was unsure what to do. I get a hard move but does he necessarily have to fail? Can he succeed and something else bad happens or does his failure mean he fails? Our most experienced AW players was currently absent, so we went with he could succeed and I get to make a hard move, but that doesn’t feel right.

So he rises from the river to find himself surrounded by men with bows. They capture him and take him with them.

Back at the dragon the men of the village have finally caught up to Rollo and Gier. They build a sled to carry the dragon back. Rollo takes a few to go look for Gier but there is no sign of him at the river. He decided to head back where he divies up the dragon amongst the people claiming the hide and skull for himself.

He decides to try getting enchanted healing from our priestess. He asks her for help in searching for Gier. This probably should have been an Ask For Their Blessing move, but it wasn’t because I forgot people’s moves were a thing. Sorry. Anyway, he makes some sacrifices, I decide to have the enchantment go off without a hitch, because like I said, I’m a pussy MC.

At this point the rest of the group arrived. I'll do that in another post.

So, Odd, the outranger, Rasmus the troll killer, and Alfgar Keep liege all show up.

It’s quickly determined that they need to go find Geir and possibly free him from bondage. Alfgar musters troops successfully, and as it is still near morning I say he is able to round up the town warriors by the end of the day. They decide not to wait and head off into the forest during the night.

At the river things don’t proceed to well. They don’t find any trail. The game get held up when Rasmus ponders why he shouldn’t be able to use the track quarry ability for the Right he did not take, when he would be able to do other things that he doesn’t have the right to, like get married. This takes us over an hour of debate and we don’t actually ever reach an answer.

When we get back to it Odd rolls take stock as he tries to determine what happened and where to go. He misses. His one question is how best to proceed to find Geir. Because they are deep in the woods along a river it seems to make sense that any camp would be near it as it’s the closest fresh water source. If he follows the river he should come across any signs of human life in the woods. They decide to follow the river upstream.

Along the way Alfgar decides he wants to take stock(no real character action, just wants to trigger the move). When asked what he’s looking for he respond, “whoever took my cousin and any threats to me.” Considering there were no threats and Odd, who in the narrative is a better tracker, had informed the group there were no signs of the captors, it seemed to contradict the story to me to let him attempt the same move that Odd had done. It feels against the spirit of the game to just let people spam the “perception” option as if this were D&D until one of them gets the clue. So I didn’t let him roll. Not sure if that was justified or not.

They proceed on up the river, till they see torchlight. I inform them this likely means they too have been spotted as they are carrying torches. Odd attempts his Right to give them an order, but fails and they all laugh at him. Rollo and Alfgar begin to plan how they could attack and kill the bearers of those lights when Rasmus speaks up saying in his culture it’s usually polite to trying talking to strangers before resorting to murder. This triggers win someone over, which he botches. They continue talking and he asks Rollo who could convince him not to attack first. Rollo points to Alfgar. After a few minutes of talking Alfgar agrees to see their intent before killing them. However this is all pointless as an arrow flies into the middle of where they are talking and a voice from the darkness tells them to lay down their arms.

They comply.

We cut to Geir being walked into his captors camp hours ago. He is Radiant and Stunning as he enters, causing a man, dressed similar to him and different from his captors, to go running off deep into a cavern in the hill the men have made their camp at. He is locked in a small hut they have erected, his whole body bound in rope. After hours in the cabin he hears commotion outside and a man enters. He recognizes him as one the war heroes of the Borgicar, his tribal enemies. The man hauls him to his fee, puts a knife to his throat and starts to march him out of camp. They quip at each other as they go.

Back in the woods, Alfgar asks for Parley. A man of the Borgicar comes out of the darkness into the center of the light. Rollo decides to invoke his Right to be Known by Reputation. He misses. The man begins to make a speech, spots Rollo, recognizes him as the man who killed his brother and father last season and attacks in a blind fury. We enter single combat. Rollo rolls well, and spends all on harm or armor. The man spends on position, but harm is exchanged, he is unable to pierce Rollo’s armor and has his head removed before his advantage can come into play. Our first battle starts

The forces in the darkness lead an attack(probably should have been harass as there was no real way to counter attack since they were hidden and at range). They chose strike hard and strike unexpectedly, dealing an extra harm and preventing Alfgar’s men from defending themselves well. Alfgar in return chose to throw the enemy into disorder and maneuver to a new position, right up in the grills of the archers. Upon reflection I wonder if I should have allowed that as it wouldn’t be clear where in the dark the archers were firing from(plus in my mind they were just surround him and his men), but at the time I let it happen.

We rolled fighting in company and Odd got separated, killing a man on his way. We mistakenly thought we were supposed to count the fallen here which really slowed down the combat. Glad that’s not how it’s supposed to work. We did not count the man Odd killed, though upon reflection I wish we had. Considering the small scale most battles seem like they will be(the peoples sheet indicate no one having particularly large numbers of warriors) individual actions seem like they should matter. In the next battle I ran I did it that way it felt much better.

On the next round Alfgar attacks, striking hard, unexpectedly, and cuts his enemy off. Odd tries to make his way stealthily into the camp. We can’t come to a good way of doing this mechanically so instead go with Take stock to ask how he could accomplish it, and if he finds up he succeeds. Not happy with that. Rollo takes stock to find out how he can get to Geir. He figures out it would be best to leave the war company behind and go around the battle. Both Alfgar and Rasmus fail their fighting in company rolls and choose to be unhurt.

We cut over to Gier at this time. The man holding him has hesitated as he no longer knows what to do. His plan to use Gier as a bargain chip doesn’t work in the middle of a full on battle. Geir takes this opportunity to Leap into Action, Biting his arm, seizing control of it, trying to inflict harm, and cover the distance between himself and Jarl Alfgar. We decide he can’t inflict harm cause he’s unarmed which we also aren’t happy about. Because he’s seizing control of the arm holding him, we decide he can’t cover the distance and instead have Alfgar pop out from the battle charging in towards this man at the same time as Rollo. They dispatch him easily.

Rasmus ends up in the cavern the camp is set at and wanders inside. He finds 5 hatched dragon eggs and we cut the session there to do experience.


Session 3

Session 3 had no Jarl Alfgar but all our other “Heroes” were there. 

Rasmus, the trollkiller was looking at dragon eggs unhurt

Rollo, war champion, and Odd, Outranger, had both manage to escape harm in the battle and are busy freeing Geir, the peasant beauty, who is still suffering a single harm from his earlier sacrifice.

We open with Rollo gathering the remaining troops and driving off the last of their opponents. Upon inspection they have lost close to half their men and quite a few have suffered grievous injuries. They decided to rest in the camp for the night.

Rasmus decides to investigate the cave looking for clues. I decide just to tell him what he finds but I think I should have triggered take stock, upon a failure a dragon or some other beast was hiding in the cave. Anyway he comes back to explain that there are at least 3 dragons alive and kicking and they need to be put down. They all agree and go to sleep except Geir who exams the camp.

When he gets to the leaders pavillion, noticeable because it’s the largest, he looks around for signs what they were doing. I call for a Take stock. Rasmus thinks this is a poor call as there are no interesting consequences for failure. Upon reflection I think he’s right. Clearly I’m having trouble when to trigger this move.

From here I let them talk and figure out what they want to do as they carry back everything in the camp to their town. I try not to interfere, wondering what will happen if I don’t push the action. It’s slow going and they seem not exactly lost but not decisive for sure. It takes over an hour to really progress the plot. While I found this to be a problem the players seem ok with it when I talked to them after.

While trying to figure out there next move Rasmus talks to the preistest and gets some info on the dragons. Geir has a bible he found in the campe given to the Keep Lieges wife as we said she as  from an old Empire of the Eagles family and thus read latin. Finally after a while they decide to head to a neighboring town to muster some warriors.

The town is the middle of their harvest festival burning a wicker man. Geir triggers his radiant beauty and a young boy runs up to him trying to get his advice on how he can join the professional warriors that are part of Gier’s household. Rasmus wanders around asking about dragons and runs into an old guy only to happy to tell him about how his granpa fought dragons in this same area. Gier makes a speech calling for help, rolls muster warriors and succeeds perfectly. they all go to bed.

In the night they wake to find the town being raided. 12 men on horses wearing nice chain or lamellar armor burning houses and killing people. Rollo runs out with just his spear and helment. Leaping into action he closes the distance between himself and the town center,  Seizes hold of it, inspires the towns five warriors to join him. We enter regular combat.

Odd’s player had to leave for awhile so he doesn’t participate in this battle.

Rasmus comes out with his knife and Leaps into action, easily covering the distance to a horseman and seizing his horse. I pull him from the war party as he is now occupied.

The men on horseback lower or unstrap lances and charge, striking hard and cutting the enemy off by encircling them. Rollo rolls well and strikes back hard, defends himself well, and throws the horsemen into disorder. Because I calculated the considerations for harm wrong neither side is hurt. We briefly discuss whether the horsemen should get a come under attack roll, decide they should and continue on.

Rollo rolls and strikes hard, drives a wedge into them.

The horsemen maneuver to take up a new position. They also decide to strike Rollo individually as he is clearly the only thing keeping this line of men fighting. He takes 2 harm over his armor.

Gier finally finishes putting his armor on runs out, and Leaps both into action, and onto the back of one of the horses. He covers the distance and inflicts his harm. Both he and Rasmus enter single combat. It goes well for them. Rasmus defends and chooses position and is able to pull his opponent from his horse and put his blade to his throat taking no harm. Geir strikes hard and inflicts 2 harm. He gives up position but the man has taken 3 harm and wants nothing to do with this anymore, throws Gier from his horse and runs. Rasmus decided to knock his man out.

Rollo once again presses his attack as Rasmus and Geir run to join him. They both fail their rolls and pick are cut off. Rollo choose to drive them back, drive a wedge, and strike hard. The enemy, despite not taking harm yet decides to flee as they have been pushed back twice now and it seems the resistance is much stronger than they had hoped. I felt like the had to take a maneuver option because of the text of drive enemy back but I wonder it that is always true. On their way out they decide to inflict personal harm on Rollo again leaving him close to dead.

There is a brief interrogation scene where it is revealed the dragon burned the camp of these men(french invaders; the enemy set up in the first session) and they had decided it was the folks here that had done it so they came for revenge. Rasmus decides to let the man go, bringin word to his leader that the dragons are a threat to all, possibly leading to future diplomatic meetings. At this point we realize that Rollo will take another harm if nothing changes. So we as a group decide that everyone will take season move so Rollo can rest.

I now wonder if that would work. If he takes another harm at the next sunrise and crosses off I still draw breath a few minutes later, would the season healing move be too late to heal him? Regardless I opened the ungive future marking abandon this character to die and we did experience.


Next session in a few hours. I plan on pushing the make characters lives eventful and will try to do so in a non combat way since that seems to be the majority of what I've thrown their way so far.

Third session
Well, holy crap this session did not go as I expect. 2 dead PC’s, 1 hovering at  I will survive this, and half of the left over warriors of the Village dead.

The session starts off a little wild. The players are constantly throwing out jokes and I’m having trouble getting us focused. We are missing 2 of players, Rasmus the troll killer who will really push the plot in this session, and Odd, who has up to now pretty much just been an addendum, more of a tappable resource than a character.

At the end of the last session we had decided to start a new season, so we open this session talking about what moves they took. Because the last time we had done season moves, the beginning of the game, it hadn’t added much to the story I decided to try and make a corresponding MC move with each season move. Not sure how well that worked out. It felt a little awkward. I would like some guidance on what to do then, perhaps a special set of MC moves that only trigger on the change of the season or have MC moves built directly into the players season moves. I may try to come up with some version of a love letter for the next time I change seasons.

Rollo, the War Champion, who was sitting at I will live to see another day obviously picked Resting to heal. We are currently unsure if this would actually save him or not. I picked put someone in a tenuous spot, deciding his role as village badass was threatened by his injuries, with the younger warriors chomping at the bit to prove they were better,

Gier, The Peasant Beauty also picked rest, which would bring him back to living to 100 years. He also got a new right which be picked to be tend and keep a sacred site. Since the lake had already been foreshadowed as spiritually important to the people it was the obvious choice. We came up with the idea that he had been resting by the lake when a vision of the goddess of the lake appeared and told him he had been selected to care for the lake. I picked offer an opportunity with cost and said she demanded a willing human sacrifice or 3 different bounties non specified. I may have cocked that move up as I never really elucidated what the opportunity was. Hell I’m still not sure.

Alfgar took rites, part of which was spending time with the Priestess learning the ways of their heroic ancestor Ulfgar. I picked NPC act on their ambitions to have her try and push him to be more zealous, which would involve cracking down on other religious practices in the town, in particular his wife, who he tolerates her worship of hellenistic gods. I foresee good drama coming from this in the future.

Instead of starting in the new season, we opened with a flashback of Gier and Rollo coming to Algar’s door, Rollo bleeding out, to report what happened. It...did not go well. In part it was a lack of focus, but the interaction was also very stilted. I don’t know if there was anything mechanically that could have been done to help this.

Eventually Gier and Alfagar  begin yelling at each other over how the battle was handled last session. I wonder if this Gier’s actions are denying any of Alfgar’s rights and as we look at the sheer, Geir mentions he has the Right to Due Respect, which he feels is being denied. He chooses that the God’s are Angry at Alfgar for the way Alfgar is treating him, makes that declaration in game and leaves. I thought it was a bit overblown, but didn’t feel like I had any options, so I just went with it, and it will definitely pop up next game.

We broke to have a little discussion whether Alfgar’s ancestral right to rule the stronghold implied that those under his rule owed him respect. I wasn’t sure, Rollo and Alfgar both thought it did, but Geir was of the opinion that it might it might not. He thought it would apply to some people but not everyone as there were rights that specified respect from all, so this would only apply to certain citizens and only under the circumstance of him actually doing his job of ruler. In the end we thought it should have triggered but since the scene had resolved moved past it.

Rasmus and Odd show up and we cue into Rasmus actually filling Alfgar in on what happened. We resolve Rasmus and Odd’s moves, Rasmus takes resting and I skip over the narration and don’t pick a move. This may have helped him in his controlling the story over the session or perhaps not. Rasmus also got a right and picked +1 wary which we came up with no good explanation for it so skipped narrating it.  Odd takes tentat labor and works the land of Geir. Geir has hunting grounds for land, so we said Odd was out hunting. I’m now wondering if this is a problem since there is already a hunting move?

We raise curtain at a Winter Solstice feast in Alfgar’s longhouse. The doors burst open and a man comes in telling of the destruction of his village by a dragon. He is barely able to give any information before collapsing into a useless sobbing mess. Geir walks up close to speak to him.

We cut to Odd who is in the forest (I had picked seperate them as my move) hunting a bear. I tell him he feels a blade slide up underneath his throat. It felt kinda cheesy to do, as there was no move that would really allow him to hear the approach or to move before the knife got there. That may have just been on my end though as I heard no complaints. Odd hears a hissing voice and is give and recently skinned human face. While he looks at it the man with the blade vanishes and he doesn’t get a look at him.

An aside here. I’ve been opening each session with a quick targeted question to each PC, to learn more about them. Last session I had asked Rasmus what brought him to this village. He had responded that he was tracking a troll, that thought of itself as a man. I decided this would be a good session to bring that in.

Odd decides to finish laying his bear trap then head back to the village. Geir continues talking with the man who will do nothing but sob, triggering Win Someone Over. I forget how he rolled but the result was the man thought that they would get revenge tonight and ran out into the night while it was snowing. Alfgar lept into action to restrain him and was able to bring him back. Most of the town leaves now since the merry atmosphere has left the feast.

Odd shows up explains what happens and lays the face down in front of the assembled party. It is the fact of the King of the region, the king Alfgar is sworn too. A quick discussion over what to do, the dragon or the king. Rollo favors the king and Rasmus favors the dragon. Geir and Alfgar talk for a while figuring out their preference. Rasmus looks at the face closer and notices a wheel carved into the face. This is a symbol of his people’s vast cosmology and was used in profaning his people’s temple when the Troll-Man’s attack first put Rasmus on his trail. 

At this point I felt like there was more information to give(and to make up as I’m mostly an improv GM) based on characters asking questions which they weren’t. I wasn’t sure whether I should trigger a take stock though as there was no pressing consequence and it really felt like they should just be given the info dump. I was very uncomfortable with how to handle this scene.

He still decides the dragon is the immediate threat and Geir and Alfgar join him. Rollo continues to push, demanding justice for the King, triggering his move that lets him roll Strong when winning folk over. He asks what leverage he could gain to sway Alfgar and another. Alfgar informs him there is no leverage that could sway him, he is stuck on this path. Rollo relents.

In the morning Alfgar attempts to muster troops from those left after the last battle. He fails his roll. He asks for aid from Rollo, by being the people’s hero and getting them to join. I decide to use this moment to reveal his tenuous position and say that in order to offer aid he will have to prove himself against one of the warriors talking shit. There is some brief RP than single combat. I may have stacked the deck too hard against him. I said that if he killed the man it would mean that warriors would not muster as they would be disappointed. I did not give the same handicap to the kid and I probably should have or not had any handicap at all.

Regardless we went into Single combat. I had adjusted my earlier idea of using stones on cards to placing different colored stones in a covered fist and revealing at the same time. I thought it worked quite well this time. The kid had 2 and I placed them on strike hard and position. Rollo had 3 and spent all on position. The kids extra harm took Rollo down to I still draw breath. Rollo’s player spends a while picking a character(Dragon Herald) and building him. I’m unable to bring him into the plot before we end.

It was a bit unexpected (shouldn’t have been) and anti-climactic. We didn’t give the death it’s due in the story, nor the focus I still draw breath seems to imply. We didn’t zoom in and give his player a few moments to tell us how he died. That was partially us just moving past, but also felt like the mechanics hinting at it but not demanding it.

Anyway, Alfgar decides to use his right to impose laws and impart justice to demand the kid deliver Rollo’s enchanted ancestral spear to the next of Kin. He does so. There is still the problem that warriors are not mustered though. They are more dejected than ever with the death of Rollo. Alfgar turns to Rasmus, and asks for his aid. Rasmus has the right to demand assistance, so I just say it happens. Probably should have had a short scene here, but just skipped past it.  I say the muster 4 warriors as the men from Gier’s professional soldiers are out performing a vision quest type thing and the rest of the men are too injured to come.

So the 4 members of the party and 4 warriors head out. It takes 2 days till the get to the village which is mostly just ash now. Rasmus asks if there is a trail(I allowed him to change his initial rights and pick the trail one) and strikes it. He follows it back to it’s lair, which is the remains of an invading camp. There isn’t much there just horse corpses that have frozen and some burned and destroyed tents.

Alfgar looks for tactical positions triggering take stock and chooses where is he strong and weak and another one I forget. He realized that the horse corpses would make a great hiding place. They decide to wait for the dragon to go to sleep and kill it while it sleeps. Most of the men joined him in hiding in them, but Odd decides to hide in the snow instead. I call for undertake great labor and he nearly fails. I tell him he receives frost bite and takes 1 harm and just before he would have to leave they hear the stomping of the dragon.

For this dragon I gave it no powers, I just maxed out physical characteristics, making it a giant beast with skin as hard as stone. It does still breathe fire. So it has 6 harm and 7 armor and that’s about it. I wanted to see what happened if the players attempted to take out the “most powerful” mechanical troll. Somehow I missed the 4 harm for terrible slashing claws and rending teeth so it was not quite as powerful as it should have been.

The dragon appears, bites the head off of one the dead horses that contains one of the war party, but does not get him. The dragon lays down to eat and I use the Tell them the possible consequence and ask move to let them know the dragon may continue eating, and possibly kill one or more of them before it sleeps. Alfgar decides to burst forth calling the others to join him. I decide to let him use the war parties harass move, but not the Lead an Attack as that felt wrong.  Doing the considerations for harm I gave them the +3 for out numbering the dragon, but nothing for prepared defenses or being more experienced. I’m unsure if they would count as more experienced as while they fight together in a unit they don’t fight dragons that often. I do think they should have gotten the defense at least the first time.

Anyway, they harass and I allow them to just inflict harm as the dragon wasn’t ready. They also seize position, surrounding it. They deal 7 harm, so the dragon yet has no fear for it’s life. Odd pops up and tries to size the dragon up. He asks where is it vulnerable. I tell him the eyes and mouth appear to be just flesh so would not have any armor. Gier leaps, literally, into action, jumping onto the dragons back and stabs it in the eye.

After being peppered with arrows the dragon turns to breath fire on all he can see. I say that one of the war party, Odd and Alfgar are in front of him. Odd is a little confused as to why he would be in front and I just say that’s where he was. I give them all an undertake great labor to avoid the fire. Odd fails, takes 4 harm and is at I still draw breath. Again we skip past what could have been an awesome death scene as he decides he’d rather pick his next character. Alfgar succeeds but loses his man as he manages to dive under cover.

Rasmus continues to hide, sticking to the slay the beast while it sleeps plan. Alfgar rises up and attempts to harass again but fails his roll. The dragon turns to kill remaining men, rolling over them. Gier stabs it in the eye again and this time I decide it’s exchange instead of inflict harm. The dragon smashes his head into the ground and Gier takes 3 harm but the dragon dies.

We take some time after the session to discuss how the two character deaths made us feel. Rollo’s was far to anti-climatic, partially do to the lack of use of the built in I still draw breath mechanic and partially because I think I set up that fight poorly. We agreed though that alot of it came from him underestimating his opponent and how deadly the combat was. Everyone was fine with Odd’s death except I maybe didn’t make it clear enough to him that he was in danger and didn’t let him act to get out of the way. A typical flaw of non mapped combats.

When talking about how the use of a maxed out troll overall it seemed like it could have gone better. The fact that I gave it no cool powers made it seem less epic, but Geir said that the description of it and the way he went about killing it really gave it a Shadow of the Collusus feel which he thought was really cool.