Friday
Grrr. Frustrating when program installs do not work as presented. Otherwise, the work week has been busy, but not overwhelming. It sure doesn't feel like it was only 4 days, though.
Tonight, thanks to gabefinder I get to go see the Saltfire Circus - a group of stage performers. I think they're doing some sort of "twisted fairy tales" thing, though I'm not altogether sure what to expect, honestly. It should be entertaining for the evening, though.
Last night, we squeezed in a partial-group session of the Dresden Files RPG. My character creation was crammed. The GM lacks experience. Still, it was fun.
A little fast and loose with the character creation phases, are we. At least so far. I crammed in a background, formative events, and first adventure while whipping up an FBI agent who's discovering his inheritted magical talents, thusfar in the area of talismancy. I misread, things, though, and should have left that phase 3/first adventure more open for another PC to factor in. We were able to fit someone into the phase 2 events more cleanly, which is not "by the book" but really accomplishes the same thing - creating ties between the PCs prior to play.
My character also got written into a phase 4 story that everyone collaborated on last time, and our phase 5 stories remain blank for the moment. Normally, everyone's phase 4 and 5 is a supporting role in someone else's phase 3 story. Again, the same general result, but doing things a bit differently. We are, however, one aspect short of the "norm" so far.
The game's running at the 8-refresh level, and I think just about all the characters have spent their maximum 7. My own character is a -5, so having 3 refresh free makes him the most "human" easily and means starting with the most Fate Points most of the time.
GM inexperience isn't game-breaking, but I do find it something of a hinderance. That's especially true as I have a character heavy in investigation, so he (and me, by extension) is busy trying to make sense of events and clues, but I get the distinct feeling that the GM has visualized these events, and has a idea of what's really going on/the end result, but he hasn't connected the dots between them. So when I ask myself "okay, how does this fit with what's happening," I feel like they answer is "it doesn't yet." That's a little disappointing to me as it feels like there's no possible way to deduce the correct answer.
Edit: Oh, and the cussing. I guess having an ex-Navy GM leads to all NPCs that "curse like a sailor" until the presumed some day when he can better divorce himself from them. ;)
Rules were blurred a little, I think. A manuever-based action to pin one PC was combined with a form of intimidation to keep the others at bay. It sort of makes sense logically (and dramatically), though I'm not sure that's allowed in the rules (seems like two actions rather than one) and could be dangerous precedent for later.
Aspects are still tricky, as some are simply a lot easy to invoke/compel than others.
Our one real combat incident glossed over damage somewhat, and ended very fast.
There's also the hazy area of coordinated effort and target numbers. One PC tackles/pins an NPC - that's fairly straightforward as a manuever, actually. Target gains the temporary aspect Pinned. The difficulty to remove it is based on the roll made. Another PC doesn't want the guy getting up, so he handcuffs the PC to the furniture. Well, that can be a manuever too, granted the Handcuffed to a Bar Stool aspect... but what do you roll to do/remove that? Realistically, it's easy to do and hard to get out of (without uber-strength, at least).
I knew I would like the option to leave potion slots as undefined, though I definitely have to delve more into what you can do with them. My only use thusfar came at the end of the session. Next time, I'll refresh Fate Points anyway, so as we were talking to a... talking dog, I spent one to define a potion.
Oh? Doggy wants incentive to talk more? Well, I just happened to have this vial of Essence of Bacon here with me that I was going to cook something with, but I guess you can have it...
Definitely not living up to the potential of a potion in that it really doesn't do much of anything, but it was cute and demonstrates the versatility of being able to have a potion you need for a particular situation.
Tonight, thanks to gabefinder I get to go see the Saltfire Circus - a group of stage performers. I think they're doing some sort of "twisted fairy tales" thing, though I'm not altogether sure what to expect, honestly. It should be entertaining for the evening, though.
Last night, we squeezed in a partial-group session of the Dresden Files RPG. My character creation was crammed. The GM lacks experience. Still, it was fun.
A little fast and loose with the character creation phases, are we. At least so far. I crammed in a background, formative events, and first adventure while whipping up an FBI agent who's discovering his inheritted magical talents, thusfar in the area of talismancy. I misread, things, though, and should have left that phase 3/first adventure more open for another PC to factor in. We were able to fit someone into the phase 2 events more cleanly, which is not "by the book" but really accomplishes the same thing - creating ties between the PCs prior to play.
My character also got written into a phase 4 story that everyone collaborated on last time, and our phase 5 stories remain blank for the moment. Normally, everyone's phase 4 and 5 is a supporting role in someone else's phase 3 story. Again, the same general result, but doing things a bit differently. We are, however, one aspect short of the "norm" so far.
The game's running at the 8-refresh level, and I think just about all the characters have spent their maximum 7. My own character is a -5, so having 3 refresh free makes him the most "human" easily and means starting with the most Fate Points most of the time.
GM inexperience isn't game-breaking, but I do find it something of a hinderance. That's especially true as I have a character heavy in investigation, so he (and me, by extension) is busy trying to make sense of events and clues, but I get the distinct feeling that the GM has visualized these events, and has a idea of what's really going on/the end result, but he hasn't connected the dots between them. So when I ask myself "okay, how does this fit with what's happening," I feel like they answer is "it doesn't yet." That's a little disappointing to me as it feels like there's no possible way to deduce the correct answer.
Edit: Oh, and the cussing. I guess having an ex-Navy GM leads to all NPCs that "curse like a sailor" until the presumed some day when he can better divorce himself from them. ;)
Rules were blurred a little, I think. A manuever-based action to pin one PC was combined with a form of intimidation to keep the others at bay. It sort of makes sense logically (and dramatically), though I'm not sure that's allowed in the rules (seems like two actions rather than one) and could be dangerous precedent for later.
Aspects are still tricky, as some are simply a lot easy to invoke/compel than others.
Our one real combat incident glossed over damage somewhat, and ended very fast.
There's also the hazy area of coordinated effort and target numbers. One PC tackles/pins an NPC - that's fairly straightforward as a manuever, actually. Target gains the temporary aspect Pinned. The difficulty to remove it is based on the roll made. Another PC doesn't want the guy getting up, so he handcuffs the PC to the furniture. Well, that can be a manuever too, granted the Handcuffed to a Bar Stool aspect... but what do you roll to do/remove that? Realistically, it's easy to do and hard to get out of (without uber-strength, at least).
I knew I would like the option to leave potion slots as undefined, though I definitely have to delve more into what you can do with them. My only use thusfar came at the end of the session. Next time, I'll refresh Fate Points anyway, so as we were talking to a... talking dog, I spent one to define a potion.
Oh? Doggy wants incentive to talk more? Well, I just happened to have this vial of Essence of Bacon here with me that I was going to cook something with, but I guess you can have it...
Definitely not living up to the potential of a potion in that it really doesn't do much of anything, but it was cute and demonstrates the versatility of being able to have a potion you need for a particular situation.
IT'S BACON!!!! No! It's new Bacon Essence, from Dres-Co!
ReplyDeleteHmm. This review isn't really selling me on the game mechanics unfortunately.
ReplyDeleteI am neither trying to sell you on game mechanics, nor seriously reviewing the mechanics here. ;)
ReplyDelete