General Chat

Happy to start early next week! :)

Should I roll for Business as Usual here in this thread, or do you prefer that I do that in the game thread once it's open?

Happy to start next week

I prefer to keep game rolls in RP threads.

However, if you think you might need time to work out the results before we start you can roll now, probably in the Character Creation thread so all the non-RP character stuff is in one place.

I am generally not much of a fan of secret notes, I usually expect players to be able to keep what their characters know and don't know separate from what the players know.

Benji's ability also seems like something that should be roleplayed when you meet and he learns this secret. I am not sure how well that will fit into a general RP, though, maybe we will need to make a place for it in the first few scenes you have together or we can flash back to a recent scene you just had as it becomes appropriate.

This is a 'when time passes' Move, so a flashback or a scene where all the hints come together may be the way to do it? We can play it by ear when it happens in the RP.

It's okay, I'm fine with rolling in the RP thread once it's ready. I just wasn't sure if you wanted to know the details of the scheme before spinning that thread up.

If you know anything about what you want for your first Scheme (a bit hard without knowing if it is a 6-:), then you can share it in the Character Creation thread, maybe something you and your partner in crime, Rhiannon, are concocting together?

Else we can pick it up when the RP starts. Waiting for the RP does mean you will be dealing with the (probably unrelated) RP when your Scheme starts, but does also mean you could, sometimes, tailor your Scheme to fit the current events.

Your Schemes do seem like something you are trying to do despite whatever is happening in the rest of the fiction. But they may sometimes form the basis of the main events that draw everyone else in. We will have to see how they work in play.

No problem
A secret about Rhiannon: Sometimes she's not sure how much she really believes she's actually chosen for anything. Sometimes she thinks that maybe her birthmark is just a mole that looks a bit like a Raven when you squint right...

In case it is helpful. The sheets allow you to 'easily' roll your Moves.

Click on your character name below the 'Add new roll' block below the text area, then you can click on the bubble containing the number and it will fill in the dice roller with the Reason and the dice code. You can edit either part of the dice roller if you need to.


For instance: Jacob can roll Business and Usual by clicking here:



Or Put a Name to a Face (or any Move) with Wild by clicking here:

Wow, this is so cool, thanks! Happy that we have a GP power user as our GM!

I have removed the Test Sheet. With only one sheet in each of your lists it does not add the 'Jacob: ...' part to the roll, so it is less messy. :)

Getting information from NPCs

We should decide as a group how we want to handle this sort of thing. The nature of the NPC will affect the answers, but the game will be affected by the general answer you decide on.

There are currently a few —maybe interconnected— 'mysteries' that you are aware of. There seems to be a general move to offload these to NPCs by just asking for answers. Some are simple to deal with, Slippery Jim will not risk his own skin going against wizards and demons [ref], so there are no easy and direct answers there [ref], but other are more complex.

Jena [ref] and Charles Whittier [ref] are part of the players' sheet and a feature of the Playbook, they are tools you are meant to use to solve your problems. But they are also still people with individual needs that should to be taken into account, and they have limitations. Such resources should be available to you most of the time, and only very rarely should you be denied access (other than when the fiction makes such denial obvious), if we roll the dice they would mainly dictate timeframes rather than outright 'failures' and should produce some sort of answer, even if that answer sends you to another person for more. They might not be able to give the sort of answers you are looking for in the timeframes you are needing them, (GM Move: Activate their stuff's Downside), but they should not make your life harder.

Absent a more specific Move, Hit the Streets is probably the Move to use for such things. In the case of Playbook NPCs the most common consequences would be 'that it will take time for them to come up with answers', but they may sometimes have their own problems they need you to help them deal with (if it does not complicate the current story too much). Other NPCs (Jim, Kenedi, anyone not part of the character sheets) will add a lot more complication on a Miss or a Partial Success, the sheet NPCs should be safer for more frequent use.

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The question is: Do you want to have NPCs just give you answers to the 'mysteries' proposed by the story? That is fine, but it takes away that part of the game and could make it more action-orientated as you jump from resolution to resolution while the NPCs do the legwork. It makes sense for you to ask for help —it gets frustrating when 'silly PCs' assume they are the protagonist and try to do it all themselves— but the players need to decide how effective this help will be and what that does to the story. I don't want to constantly shut down such enquiries.

A middle-ground is that we rely on Moves like Hit the Streets and deal with the consequences of the dice rolls. This will range from 'some answers' on a 10+; to 'answers later' or 'answers that will cost you' on a 7-9 or 'no answers' if you are unwilling to pay the cost (you choice); to 'bad things' or 'additional complications' on a 6-.

How do we want to handle these things? Everyone should answer.

They don't need to ask for a favour. If they help you you will owe them a Debt by the mechanics, either you reward them then and there —Cash in a Debt, or some in-fiction reward that they agree to— or you end up owing them a Debt that they can call in later to suit their needs.

Mine is not an action oriented character, so my answer to this would be no. NPCs can give us clues to point us to the good direction, but shouldn't give us the answers to mysteries. It's more fun to find out by ourselves. :)

That's my general opinion. But then I am not 'playing'. :)

I agree that NPCs should be able to give us clues or ‘pieces of the puzzle’, but shouldn’t be able to solve the whole mystery for us

How are we feeling about the game?
Any feedback? Questions?

With the loss of Ysolde and Rhiannon, do we want to add another player? Let me know.

All good here! I don’t mind either way about adding another player

Ah! Sure, we can have another player.

Ah, sorry, I missed this. I'm okay with adding another player, although we're also doing fine with just the three of us, so whatever you see fit works for me!