Some first session issues

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Some first session issues
« on: November 01, 2015, 09:06:50 PM »
We got to play Freebooting Venus last Saturday. We had fun and some questions, so I'll go with those:

Hiring people on the first session:
The characters wanted to hire a guide during the first mission but we had no idea how to pay people with unexamined treasure.

How we solve it: the characters paid the guide after examining the treasure at the end of the session.

After we wrapped up I revised the character creation chapter. There is an option to start with treasure. Maybe one of the players should have chosen it during character creation if they wanted to purchase stuff or services during the first session.

Capturing/Incapacitating/Judo-Chopping Creatures
The meat of the session was about capturing a creature and returning it alive to a museum. There's no "knock out" option among the NPC bad experiences.

How we solved it: a character sneaked in and attacked [the creature] helpless with a rope, 0 harm, "it cannot escape" as a bad consequence. We started a group fight and chose the "It's wounded and flees" experience, since we established that the creature couldn't escape, it was wounded and tied down.

One of the players was disappointed he didn't had a streamlined way for nonlethal combat/capture someone. Should I improvise an special bad experience next time? Or the differentiated list have a design agenda I'm missing?

I have a really positive view of the game. There's a lot of rules that break expectation or, dunno, change some paradigms common to the medium in a really interesting direction. I want to see more of that.

I really missed a "Read a Situation" kind of move during play.

Also: rolling for NPCs in a PbtA game feels weeeeeeeeeeird!

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lumpley

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Re: Some first session issues
« Reply #1 on: November 01, 2015, 09:29:24 PM »
Excellent!

1. Let them examine their treasure during the session instead of waiting for the end. That's going straight into the rules.

2. Capturing monsters! I'll figure out how that should work.

Thank you!

-Vincent


Re: Some first session issues
« Reply #2 on: November 02, 2015, 12:03:40 AM »
1. Let them examine their treasure during the session instead of waiting for the end. That's going straight into the rules.
How about starting treasure? Can it be spent or is just about the joy of having a neat piece of treasure?

I like both options, though :P

Re: Some first session issues
« Reply #3 on: November 03, 2015, 01:05:39 PM »
What up with the tabulated experience, like "Founded a seclusium? Create it and record its experience! >>" I couldn't understand why they were differentiated and why they didn't have a bubble to mark.

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lumpley

  • 1293
Re: Some first session issues
« Reply #4 on: November 03, 2015, 01:07:01 PM »
Each of those opens up a new character sheet, which I haven't created yet. I hope to have some of them ready by the time you playtesters need them, but we'll see!

-Vincent

Re: Some first session issues
« Reply #5 on: November 03, 2015, 01:56:21 PM »
Awesome!