So, I ran a one-shot of Dungeon World last night

So, I ran a session of Dungeon World last night and it was a mixed bag. 

I am still trying to get into the flow of this game. I enjoy it, but there is an amount of flow that you have to have for it to work. I got there eventually, but with only two players it felt kind of forced at times.

Not to mention, one of the players had really bad connection issues, which ended the game before the climax. Not his fault, mind you. :)

The bard and the ranger were sent by the High Priest of Avacyn (goddess of justice) to find the holy amulet that was stolen. Clues led them to a thieves guild that had a tattoo of a tear drop above their left eye. It was common knowledge that they were bad ass to say the least, and those that messed with them ended up with the fishes.

While in the city of Westin, they managed to piss off two different thieves guilds, fight off some thugs of one guild, and get taken by the city watch. Well, the city watch showed up as there were four dead bodies at their feet. The watch commander Celeste gave them a choice. Repair the damage done to the thieves guild or hang by a rope. She was afraid it could be open warfare if this was not resolved. She sent her second in command Johan to keep an eye on them. 

Information was gathered and it was discovered that thieves hung out at two bars. The Dragon Inn, and the Hog's Head. They brazenly walked into the Hog’s Head (after a joke about Butterbeer) bar with the member of the watch and all hell broke loose. You see, Johann was a bit corrupt and had tormented his share of people in the city. As they walked in, they immediately were surrounded and they had a choice. Save Johann, or escape. They tried to save him, and a fight broke out.

Yet, in the middle of the fight, the ranger had another choice...save his buddy the bard or save Johan. He turned in his back on the watchman and he died as a result. They were able to get out of the bar and go to the temple of Avacyn for sanctuary and a much needed rest.

This is where the game ended as one of the players dropped out due to a bad connection.
Unfortunately, we did not get to the finale as Celeste was going to come to the temple of Avacyn (with a couple of watchmen) after hearing what had happened to Johann. She was going to be enraged at the death of Johann (since he was he lover), cut the priestess down and attempt to murdereize our heroes. :)

Overall, fun. I need to read the book again and just do a better job of running the game, but not bad for my first time. I also think they had fun, which is the most important part. :)

Thoughts on running the game. It is certainly an adjustment to run this kind of game. I play games where there is a bit of narrative, but not many that really depend on it…almost like a mechanic. Two people made it harder for me as I had a hard time coming up with questions at the beginning. It is mostly just me getting used to how it runs/plays, rather than a problem with the game.

I did get into the flow after a bit and the game is a lot of fun. I just think I need to read the book again and be a bit more prepared next time. I did this on a whim last night, but it was fun and that is the point.

What I learned from the Fate Core fantasy game last night

So, I ran a session of Fate Core last night set in a high fantasy world.  It was the first time I have ran Fate in almost a year and the first time with the new Fate Core tweaks to the game.

So we got together and made characters and then ran a short scenario to check out how battle worked with the new system.

Things I learned:

I am a bit rusty on the rules, and made a few mistakes.

Also was the first time I have ran a game on hangout plus, so I hope I did not mess that up. :) Although I am aware that I do curse from time to time. 

Magic, although not really more powerful takes center stage due to the narrative flexibility. This isn’t really something new, but it was shown quite a bit last night. This is something I am still trying to figure out in our own game, but that is how it went down last night.

I got corrected today by Fred Hicks on something I did rarely. I was taught by the person that got me into Fate that you could compel someone to basically lose their turn. We had a discussion about it last night and it made me wonder about it afterwards. Fred said today that you should not do that. Ok, then….when Fred talks, I listen. It isn’t something I do very often, but one of the gamers was upset (not like angry, but he just did not like it) that it happened. That is fine…we all continue to learn and I will not be doing that again.

The battle went pretty smoothly and boosts really make the capability of someone getting hurt really badly, really quickly. It is still an amazing thing to actually see.

Character creation took a bit longer, but that was due to having someone play that has not played the game before. This tends to happen and is just part of the process.

As for our game. It was nice to just see a fantasy setting in action. I am running this as basically an ongoing playtest, and it went well for the most part. It has a long way to go but it was nice to see how the magic worked and it is continuing learning process.

We did have a good time, which is the point. Check out the video below.

Fate Core Star Wars...the recap.

So, we played our first session of the Fate Core Star Wars game last night. It was also the first time I really played the game with the new tweaks in the system. A lot of little changes that really speeds the game up, but makes it much more dangerous for the players.

So, this was a pretty hastily put together micro version of the Star Wars universe. Taking place at the beginning of the Jedi Knight order, and taking place in Corellia. The world had some of the usual tpes. A power hungry Hutt, the beginning of what would be the Sith, an alien type empire bent do conquering the galaxy…and only the Jedi to stop them!

You know, the usual.

The game itself ran pretty smoothly via hangout. One of the biggest issues is that one of our players is not a English speaker, so it is hard to understand him sometimes. That isn’t his fault, and for all I know he may have an equally hard time understand us. Is just one of those things you don’t have much control over.

A few highlights from the night.

My character Krax Inkari, doing a force jump and attacking a dark jedi in the face, while they were riding a dark side influence rancor. Yep, rancor.

Sadly, the next thing that happened was Zaen (one of the other jedi) then got stomped on by the Rancor and took an severe consequence not even 5 minutes into the fight. Holy shit.

The dark jedi ended up being Galen’s (the other jedi in the group) sister, and my ex-lover. She was being groomed by the evil jedi Taelros , and my character got a good enough roll to bring her away from the dark side.

As we were leaving some bounty hunter types that galen owed money, ambushed our party as we were getting into our ships. That is where we quit,

Thoughts?

Fate Core will #$@$ you up. The smaller health and mental tracks make the game so much more deadly. Especially with the addition of more ways to get advantages and boosts (what used to be called tags). A player almost died in the first fight. IT was nuts.

The game goes much faster, which has always been one of the issues with Fate sometimes. They cleaned up a lot of that and the game flows much better now. That is damn cool.

I like that you can play pretty much whatever you wish. Star Wars. WWII with steampunk. Old West. Knights of the Round table. It doesn’t matter, you just have to create the setting for it. This is why so many people are so excited about this.

It was a lot of fun.

You can go watch our you tube video of this at http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=h2_gJTMT5LQ