OOC Chatter

I'm enjoying it as well! I wish I'd found Ironsworn earlier, instead of struggling with other systems.

For my part, I've never been much concerned with XP and mechanics; good ol' RP keeps me coming back to games. And IMO, the Assets in Ironsworn are underwhelming anyway.

However, I'm not opposed to homebrewing a way to gain more XP. Quests, Bonds, & Discoveries does seem a bit too much, though. Maybe we say journeys also give you XP? Or vows give double XP?

On the other hand, I also understand journeys feeling like unnecessary preludes. We're both eager to start hacking away at those vows, right?

Some other ideas:

1.) Maybe make a Super-Easy journey, with 7+ progress per waypoint, so we can feasibly roll Reach Your Destination after only one waypoint.

2.) Combine the journey and vow tracks. After all, traveling to a specific location is part of a quest, right?

3.) Handwave it, and just appear where we need to be. Maybe we could each roll one move (like we did with Sojourn), and use those outcomes to determine whether we arrive hale and hearty or injured and demoralized.

I don't have Starforged; like you, sci-fi ain't my jam. I probably won't pick it up, unless you think it's so amazing I have to.

Do you have any experience with Elegy? It's an Ironsworn hack. Vampires ain't my thing (unless I'm killing them as a PC), but it has good reviews.

Fair enough. I also like the RP more than the gaining of XP. In what way do you find the assets underwhelming? I don't mind that they don't give you super powers. In that sense, I agree they are pretty straight forward. But I do like the narrative behind them. Of course that's up to the player to really lean into. And you could just as easily do it without an asset, I guess. Hehe.

No need to change anything at this point. I was just mentioning what I tried :) I haven't even done enough playing to really make a good estimate of what's the better way.

Of your suggestions, I'd go for number 3. We can just finish a journey with a single face danger roll if need be.

From what I've read, the starforged moves are more balanced, according to both the author and the community. It's like a 2nd edition in a way. But that doesn't mean the original is bad :)

I've never heard of Elegy. I've played some Vampire the Maskerade, but just like you it's not my preferred setting. I might check out the moves though, just for inspiration.

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BTW, I had another idea about our story. Instead of the formidable journey, how about we turn it into a delve? I don't know if you're interested in that expansion set. I've used it before and have mixed feelings about it.
Pro:
- it's more fun than a journey
- it has some more interesting moves than just the plain "undertake a journey" move
Con:
- it's a bit complicated to set up imo
- it's more administration

If you want to give it a try, we can definitely do so. But don't feel obligated.

Oh forgot to say. Nothing prevents us from finding vow milestones while on the journey, of course :)

Regarding Assets: some are decent, but others are ultra-specific or just flat-out weak.

Take Wayfinder, one of Etta's assets. It fits the character, but for the first rank, only +1 momentum for a strong hit? And an additional +1 momentum if you burn momentum? Meh.

Take Waterborn. Again, good for flavor, but why take this unless the campaign is going to feature numerous adventures near water sources? It seems like a player with this Asset would be creating situations to use it, instead of a free-flowing (pun intended!) campaign.

Then you have the Rituals. Bind: "When you wear an animal pelt and dance in moonlight...." Uh, OK? Is that the only way to do that, or....?

An asset like Infiltrator, on the other hand, feels like a good choice...especially if Shadow is your +3, which will make the second and third ranks excellent.

Again, I'm not a power-gamer, but I still want plenty of cool choices.

I'll pass on a delve. I enjoyed the flavor/lore/oracles presented in Delve, but the extra moves don't add enough spark or coolness to persuade me to use them.

OK, we can Face Danger in the future, to skip through a tedious journey. This will be especially useful during a return trip, when we're eager to complete our vow and get XP, and probably aren't keen on having 10 more adventures.

I see what you mean about the assets. Yes, those you mention are not the best. I suppose you'd only pick waterborn if you're planning some kind of pirate campaign. Though the first option does give you a wide range of options because it says "related to your knowledge of". Doesn't mean you have to be on a ship. You could use it to cross a river for example.

But even then, the '+1 when you do X' assets are a bit boring. Though more useful than some of the rituals. I think, just like interpreting the oracles and such, you have to make them interesting.

From my games, I feel like it's a bad idea to go all-in on one stat. Yes, you could be the best sneaky guy ever, but you'll fail so many +heart and +wits rolls that it will either make your games boring (since you're always choosing to sneak) or make it very easy for misses to stack. I've found that an asset giving you +1 on a bad stat is often more interesting :)

Alright. No delve is also fine :D I'm having fun either way

Are you sure? You know I'll just use random rolls/the oracles, right? :P

I wanted Sann's "superior forces" to be an unknown at first. But now one has skedaddled. Coward!

Yeah, I wish the Assets were spicier. Like for Wayfinder, you could reroll an Undertake Journey. Or take +2, but a miss causes you to suffer 2 stress and/or some other negative thing. Or a strong hit gives extra progress. Or...I could go on. 😎

The one who ran could still bring us trouble later on :)

Yeah I get what you mean and I agree 😁 I'm not opposed to some homebrew assets if you so wish.

Cool! We can workshop some awesome stuff when it's time to add an asset.

What does "ph" mean? Post happening?
Just curious :D

Ah, I had also set the fight to dangerous, but didn't realize that you added it to Etta's sheet.
Maybe we need a shared sheet that we can both edit for the shared tracks.

If you increase the number of allowed character sheets for this game, I can add a sheet with only the tracks for us to use. As the GM you should be able to also make changes on my sheets. What do you think?

"Ph" means "placeholder." Though "post happening" is also appropriate!

I don't usually like to write much until I know how the rolls turn out.

It's not a big deal about progress/ranks and whatnot; I can just look back if we get confused. But if you want to do some tech wizardry, go for it. I'm adjusting the sheets allowed now.

Ah that makes sense too now :D

Yeah, I noticed that before. Hehe. A different process from mine, but we get to the same result. I now understand why your notes on the roll are at the top of that post instead of at the top of the next post like I usually do :)
It's all fine by me.

Cool, I'll add one soon.

Nice! It does actually make things cleaner. 👍

I marked one progress for three of the empties, to make sure I can alter the sheet. Do you see them? If so, you can remove them.

Yup I see them and removed them :)

In case you don't know this yet, you can find them at the bottom of the page for easy access. If you do, ignore this.

At some point in the past, I did know that...but typically forgot.

I only have 1 point in my Tech Knowledge stat.

Haha! :D

Gonna try to post today, but things are a bit busy so I might not get the time.

Oof, I managed. Boy this week is crazy busy for me :/
It seemed almost inevitable that we (mostly Etta :P) would get the husk angry. Hehehe.

You mean you don't organize your life around PbP?!

For shame! 🤣