RP with Parents - UP, Part 2

Contrary to my belief, we did end up playing the second session. Sadly, my mom was actually pretty tired and she had trouble focusing. She was also trying to think up a follow-up to the story bit she made up during the first session and, I think, lost a lot of energy/concentration on this. Once I knew, I told her she didn't *have* to... Mythic would help us build upon her seed. She just felt obliged to finish what she had started alone :|

Note: I haven't given details on what has actually happened in the story so far (nor even who the characters are), to avoid spoiling the movie "UP". I'll continue this way for now, but I might make a summary of the whole adventure in a clearly spoiler-marked post.

After some random obstacle from Mythic, the heroes actually reached their destination! And yet, things didn't seem finished. A bit of thinking revealed a new goal for my mom's character... but my dad's was pretty much done with his adventure and I was scared he would have nothing to do for the rest of the session.
Thankfully, that's when Mythic threw us a bone to gnaw at: a new character! It ended up being mine, meaning I would finally leave my GM seat for a player seat, leaving the obstacles fully to Mythic. My character gave an opportunity for my mom's to reach his goal... but they would have to stick together first. We used the occasion to bring my dad's character back in, too, and the adventure went on.

Not that much happened after that and we didn't have much time left. Obviously, we wouldn't be able to finish the new goals in a single session, so we just stopped at a quiet point. I seriously doubt we will ever finish this adventure either (it's hard to resume months after...) but it was quite fun while it lasted.

I also notice it's near impossible to describe anything interesting without giving details, so... I'll make a spoilery post later where I explain exactly what happened during the adventure.

RP with Parents - UP

As my parents were here for the holidays, I couldn't help but get them into another roleplay session. At first we were going to continue the pulp adventures started during our last vacation, but then we watched UP, by Disney/Pixar. What happened is that we didn't like the movie that much... but we liked its beginning very much. After discussing this, I suddenly exclaimed: "I know! We should reset their story to when we stopped liking it and do our own version by playing the characters, and use Mythic to guide us." And that's what we did yesterday night.

Technicals

I didn't want to bog down enthusiasm with rules like the FATE ones we used last time, and since I've been into the Mythic rules lately, I went with a variation of these. The result was a mix of FATE, Mythic, Risus and recently discovered Lady Blackbird.
The characters were described through two attributes: Body and Mind, 0 being average, 1 above average, -1 below average, etc... These work like Mythic attributes. Then, I went "Risus"/"FATE v3" and simply described the characters with little sentences such as "Wannabe Explorer" and "Fan of that Cool Explorer Guy". It was pretty easy to find four or five short phrases describing each main character.
At first, I gave these ratings (1, 2, ...) but then I discovered Lady Blackbird that very day and used their system: if one of the phrases fits the situation, add a bonus rank to your roll (+10% with Mythic). If you're trying to calm down a wild animal and you have "Best Friend of all Animals" as a description of your character, you'll start with your Mind attribute and add a rank. If you have "Explorer of the Wild", you'll add another rank because, well, it's a wild animal.
Of note: I picked something from FATE v3 in that some of the phrases were goals and motivations rather than skills, just like Aspects might be. This would yield bonus ranks if your action happened to follow one of these goals directly.

Apart from game mechanics, Mythic was used to generate obstacles and the scene system was used with its characters and threads lists.

How it went

Pretty good! It seemed like everyone actually enjoyed the session more genuinely than it might have been last time. The "describing phrases" system was grasped very quickly and dice rolls were easy to prepare: pick Body or Mind depending on wether it was a physical or intellectual challenge, then go through the character description and add a rank for each fitting phrase. This would give us xx% chances of success, followed by the d100 roll of course.
I also kept Mythic's "Extreme Yes/No" rolls which gave us some interesting surprises.

Mythic's GM emulator was mostly used by myself, since I didn't have any character to play at first (I was waiting for a new NPC to appear and take its role). I asked questions that I hoped would yield some obstacles or fun situations. Following my lead, my parents soon started asking questions of their own. Furthermore, my mother came up with a story of her own at some point and I let her explain it. I only stopped her after some good exposition to keep her surprised by having Mythic decide a few of the finishing touches.
From that point on, though, Mythic took a nap because everyone was getting a good idea of where things were going. I tried to push Mythic forward once or twice to avoid having a single player tell the whole story, but it felt forced. I did use it still to settle some little disputes ("The next room is bigger" "Uhh, I'd have thought it would be smaller" -> "Is the room bigger? *roll*")

The GM emulator helped us a few times with its random events. Once it got us out of a rather uneventful situation and later it created tension where a character had to hide from a threat. The characters list was also used for these events. The threads list was updated with mysteries encountered during the story but didn't come up through events so far.

Considering how things went once everyone was comfortable with the story and mechanics, I think my parents would actually work better with a story-game. Probably not one with systems that push players to create stories within a framework (FATE Aspects were, I think, too restricting and meta), but one that allows everyone to chip in with bits of story. Heck, they might enjoy not *being* the characters but controlling them all "from above", so to speak. Collaborative storytelling... I know I found a game that used chips that players would use to introduce facts in a story and that could be payed off by others if they didn't like it... I bet this would work well for them.

The future

We're supposed to resume this game this afternoon but I don't know if it will be possible. My parents are leaving tomorrow and they're already tensed up (one day of car trip). If it keeps up like this, they won't be in the right mood for it and prone to bickering. We'll see...

In any case, I'll study the simplified system we used as I might enjoy it for my own games. It's easy to describe characters and very easy to find out bonuses.

Spirit of the Century with my parents - Part 2

Report of the second session of roleplaying with my parents, using Spirit of the Century, with a Savage Worlds scenario.

We left our heroes on a trip to North Africa, Tobrouk. There they were supposed to meet a local guide who accompanied the Hunter Museum agent and would lead them to where he was seen last.

Upon arriving though, the only welcome they get is from a young taxi. The heroes don't believe he can drive his nice Peugeot and get suspicious, asking for proof. The boy does know the established password though. Thus, Alband takes the wheel and the group drives to the guide's location.

Or at least tries! Soon enough, two white cars appear, and one shot breaks the rear window. This is a pursuit!



Here I wanted to try the chase rules from Spirit of the Century. Their originality is that they put the driver in the... front seat, so to speak, and have every other ally act only as a helper: the driver picks the best roll among the PCs'.

Two things were awkward here :

My dad kept describing a bit too much compared to the rules. He would keep saying his action defeated the pursuing car, but the rolls showed only some damage was done. I can't blame him one bit though. First, it was still a "first time" with roleplaying games, and we all know one of the early mistakes as a player is to try to control too much of what happens. Second, he was just enjoying the game! The results he described simply made sense based on the action he attempted (and yes, he did succeed, just didn't do enough damage). For this, I have to say I felt bad for even trying to explain why it didn't work. I prided myself in focusing on what my parents would find fun, but there I failed, sticking a bit too close to the rules. My parents just wanted a fun story, and if "easier/quicker" means "funnier", then that's what I should have gone with.

The other thing was the rules themselves. I was not entirely satisfied with how it went. While the driver was put forward, Alband, my dad's character, was not *that* great at driving (+2 bonus where +4 or +5 would have been the very good value). He did have an ally (Aqua) with a gun and some wit, and he could also have had another ally in the form of the young taxi, but things went well enough that I didn't feel forced to use him. I had difficulties with how the rounds went. The driver has to decide on a driving feat to try for the round, and assign a difficulty (this was very hard for my father to do, and I tried to suggest things as much as possible). It's a game of gamble where you bet you'll do better than the pursuer (who had +0 for driving). We kept having +1 or +2 as a difficulty which was fair given Alband's skill.

What went wrong is that my dad couldn't come up with anything interesting after two rounds. He seemed really lost and I think he was getting frustrated that the run was still on. I'm still amazed at how much imagination they displayed these two evenings, but I can understand the well runs dry at some point, especially if the context doesn't change much. Help came from Aqua: as the "helper", she tried other things to slow the pursuers. She shot a jar of olive oil to make a slippy road, shot some tires and... oh yeah, predicted some road hazard (she has visions). According to the rules, though, I don't think the helpers are meant to create trouble for the driver, but it's what we did here, so my dad's roll would mean something. Jars of oil? Even though it was meant for the pursuers, the shot is too early and Alband has to avoid the oil too. The predicted road hazard also affects Alband. While it worked, it felt weird and I don't think that's what the rules intended. I don't remember the rules mentioning maneuvers from helpers either, even though it makes sense that one would drive, and another would place a "slippy street" aspect on the scene for example.

In the end, I think it would have been easier to do it as a regular battle, everyone helping everyone. I would have allowed extra actions such as shooting while driving if needed, and I would have put forward any cool driving action to make this a focus on Alband.

Finally, the two white cars have taken enough bumps from walls of market stands that they stop. The scenario suggested explosions but I wanted to keep it family friendly. It also suggested the players would go look at the wreckage... not my parents ^^;. So I had to put up a police barrage a bit further to put them back on the rails (ohhh bad, I know, but I'm a beginner too...) The point was not to have them look at the cars, but to have them arrested so the local guide (a man with relations) can get them out of jail.

I changed two things so far to tailor the scenario to my group: the taxi boy was supposed to be the driver in the chase, leaving others time to shoot and stuff. Since Alband said he wouldn't let the kid drive and I did want to have him at the center of the chase, I just went with this happily. Then, I had them arrested for all the ruckus (market day, quite a bit of damage, though not all their fault of course). But Alband, another one to have relations, didn't stay put in the cell and had a phone call to one important local guy. Of course they would be free anyway, but since he went through this trouble, I included this in the following scene where the guide only "made things a bit quicker". I hope it was enough to not steal their thunder.

Follows a long explanation of what happened with the museum agent, where he went, how they had troubles from the get-go and how he foolishly went into the desert once he got information on the whereabouts of the Lost Army (the Mc Guffin of the scenario). Of course, our heroes were not to be so hasty and needed preparations.
I first planned to stop there, but it seemed we could push a bit further, reaching a nice cliffhanger to end the session, and since everyone was go, that's what we did.

FATE not being too big on precise inventory, I just asked what kind of rather unique items they might bring with them. Alband hired a bunch of extra armed aides, bought weapons for them, and some for himself. Not sure what Aqua got anymore...

Here, the scenario has you go through the desert to reach a hidden temple. It contains the famed whereabouts of the Lost Army, key to finding our lost agent. But we didn't go there right away! My mom, during the first session, helped me find an incentive for her character's presence in this mission (she's an artist, not *really* an adventurer, even though adventure follows her): she would be looking for a rare pigment in a rocky region of the desert. So that's where we went first. I didn't want to drag things too much though, so the pigment was found and gathered easily enough. I think I had them do an Endurance roll for colors ("the sun is starting to get to you and you sweat much more than you can bear").

Finally, they reached the temple where a well was uncovered: it was the alternate entrance to the ruined temple. They went down with a rope, found a tunnel halfway down and started exploring. Lit only with a petrol lantern, they looked around old halls of stone, walls covered in hieroglyphs (which they couldn't read... oh well, just some background story missed). Once they reached a circular room, a slithering noise came from the walls: snakes! Why does it always have to be snakes?!

And that's where we stopped the session. I don't know when we will be able to continue, considering the vacation is over (it's been a week), but who knows... maybe next holidays :)

Lessons learned

Keep It Simple! Simple is fun. Still too many rules or too complex ones. Fights might not even be a good idea anymore: just roll some skills, freestyle.

Try to give some more narrating powers to my parents next time. More than once, I've seen them step forward far enough to start stepping on my GM toes. I could tell them "no" and explain how it's the GM's role and stuff, but I think it will be easier and funnier to just say "okay, tell me what happens then" and roll with it, possibly with a skill roll if it seems a bit too farfetched or controling.

Going even further than this, I'm tempted to try using Mythic to let us all play together as PCs. It might be a bit scary to them (and me), but at least it would allow us to have a truely tailored scenario. It's even more important given that the current scenario goes on in a very Mummy-esque way, with too much fantasy stuff for their taste... so Mythic would help veer this elsewhere without me having to come up with a whole new scenario on my own.

Playing Spirit of the Century with my parents

Yesterday, I launched a new rpg adventure of Spirit of the Century (SotC)... with my parents.

We had already tried a game back in April, when they visited, as a way of showing them what roleplaying games are like, and because I felt like DMing a tabletop game, which I hadn't done in quite a while. Back then, sadly, my father was not really into it because he had something to do early in the next morning and it kept him preoccupied. But at my big surprise, my mother said she thought it was enjoyable, and not how she envisioned it. Of course, I made sure to cater to their preferences, avoiding big supernatural happenings, monsters or even combat. Even more surprising was when my mother asked, mid-game, if her character could use telekinesis. Accommodating, and happy to see such an unexpected thing, I agreed and we added this to the character: a toned down telekinesis power.

Back to now. I'm on vacation at my parents' and I brought my roleplaying materials, having asked beforehand if they were interested in a more complete rpg experience. And so we got to it last night. It started on a sour note as my dad was once again distracted by a coming storm (we're in the country and storms need to be prepared for). Thankfully, the storm was quiet enough and we got a whole evening of gaming.

I wanted to try an actual character creation (last time we just picked a few skills, vague character types and went on with it) and we spent about 2 hours on it. I limited it to three phases : youth, first adventure and common adventure. I introduced Aspects, but it was obviously a bit too complex so early on, so we worked together to work out what happened in each phase and I tried to come up with interesting Aspects from what had been said. We ended up with a famous french artist with mystic powers (mainly sixth sense and premonitions, but occasionally other things like telekinesis, by paying a Fate Point) and a bit of an investigative streak, and a son of a rich entrepreneur, all about charming and charging head on, not caring much about wasting money, but very attached to his own properties.

Once the characters were done, there was still some time, and I knew we could get the very first part of the adventure done... And I thought it was necessary to avoid the feeling that this session was "wasted" (apparently it really didn't feel like actual playing, and I can understand that).
The first part has the PCs called by a museum manager for a mission, but before anything is told, African tribal warriors crash into the room, looking for revenge upon the manager (who visibly stole some artifact from them). Combat ensues...


This was yet another new thing : battles. I knew my parents wouldn't be too much into such things, based on what they tend to like, and how they react to games I show to them, but I wanted to try it at least once. It went pretty quickly, with only 4 minions to beat up. Surprisingly, to me, my parents didn't hesitate using their firearms to get rid of the enemies. To keep things "clean", though, I always described things as non mortal wounds and without any gorey effects (I don't care much for them in a pulp setting, and I know it might have put them off). I tried to explain Maneuvers at that point, too, but it was too much, so we just ignored it.
In the end, two warriors were scared away as the mystical artist managed to tap into her telekinetic powers to crash a book shelf near them (she made incantation-like moves, pretending to be a sorceress of sorts), and the two others were taken care of by the rich son's rifle-cane. Very pulpy :)

The museum manager then explained the mission he had for them, and we just brushed over some preparations for the trip (we still had a few minutes and I thought it would allow us to jump straight into the action for the next session).

Overall, I'm very happy with this session! My father, in particular, who didn't seem into it at first, ended up with a well developed character and apparently had fun doing this. But really, even my mom seemed to get into it as I suggested possibilities for her powers and such (she doesn't like "weird stuff", but I guess some of it is fine).
I don't know how much the battle was enjoyed, if any. I'll have to ask. At least, it didn't seem to annoy at the time.

Next session will start with a car chase in the middle of a north african market, which should be quite involving since my dad's character has Drive as a skill :)


Addendum

The scenario played is "L'Armée Perdue", a french scenario for Savage Worlds.

The characters novels were :

• Aqua Martre and the Phantom of the Louvre: about the theft of many paintings, then returned... but as fakes! Aqua reveals they're fake and goes after the Phantom, but he eludes her, and one painting is still missing.
• Alband Duchiron in The Theft of the Trophy: where Alband's well deserved golf trophy is stolen as he is about to receive it. It is retrieved after a thrilling car chase and Alband discovers the trophy was actually an ancient artifact disguised by a coat of fake gold.
• Aqua Martre and Alband Duchiron against the Pacific Pirates: where both heroes meet for the first time, battling against modern pirates as they were sailing towards New York. Alband shows he doesn't care for mysticism and Aqua makes use of her innocent looks to deceive the pirates.