Sorcerer and Sword: The Sodden Lands of Snia Mer, Session Two

Click here to see the actual play video of session two of my “Sodden Lands of Snia Mer” campaign.

A few comments:

I often consider myself a “slow burn” type—I’m a GM who enjoys the gradual build-ups. But I often worry how this will come across to my players, who might be interested in a more pulse-pounding pacing. As I was editing this video, there are some signs of payoff to my slow burn approach:

The start of the session involves the two sorcerers meeting up on the destroyed village of Tainu. After some Q and A, the two settle in for the night, but Nagimo wakes up to find that his NPC companion has gone missing, and he makes a search, which leads him to his hireling Skintu and a discovery that there is some strange presence on the island. There is plenty of mystery that is mounting here, but it is a slowly rising arc. If you are looking for an actual play session to be the same as a rapid fire, Hollywood movie, you will be disappointed.

But then, leap to half way through the video—to the part carrying the subtitle “Demon Contact.” The other sorcerer, Balder, has joined Nagimo to get to the bottom of what lured Skintu onto the island in the middle of the night, and this leads to a decision to attempt a Contact ritual. The ritual succeeds (at the price of Humanity loss), and there is a suitably creepy exchange between the sorcerers and a “Sentinel Demon” named Asmund.

I notice a number of things clicking in the scene. When the demon calls his refrain, “Come closer,” there is some genuine, unsettled laughter around the table: All of us realized that this was a scene that was dripping with consequence, but we also didn’t know exactly where the fiction was going to break, so this resulted in some pregnant, high-level suspense. The scene also had some duration, and the nervous energy was sustained for the length. This energy wouldn’t have been possible without the slow build. Nor would it have been possible if I had scripted a narrative in advance. Part of what made it all work was the perceived sense that the outcome depended on what the sorcerers were deciding (and upon the outcome of some key dice rolls).

The sorcerers ultimately acceded to caution and opted not to push a confrontation with the demon. I think some GMs might have been disappointed with that direction, but I was delighted. The fact that they didn’t force a conflict with Asmund means that there is a powerful chord of mystery and tension playing in the background. Of course, I would have been happy to play along with other decisions as well, but I’m relishing the rich suspense created by that unresolved encounter.

At the close of the session, the sorcerers run across a hybrid monstrosity—a combination crocodile and bear—and you’ll see us working through the combat mechanics. It was an exciting encounter, though I’m also working hard to keep faithful to the mechanics. Here again, some might fault me for slowing down the pace to get the rules right. But for the fans of the slow burn, there are continued payoffs, such as one roll where Nagimo and the “Beardile” monstrosity match their highest three dice, so Nagimo finally gets a victory on his fourth highest die.

Due to schedules, we skipped this past Friday, but session three is lined up for this week. The sorcerers are landing at the garrison of Muskcross Grange, and it’s quite possible that at least one of the kickers will be resolved. Nagimo has heard that one of his tribe is working at the garrison for the enemy, and he is determined to find out what’s up with that apparent act of double-cross. Will he discover the truth behind his friend? And if so, where will that lead him? I don’t know, but I’m eager to find out.

Putting the Gaming Irons in the Fire in 2020

January is the month when, like its titular god, we look forward and look back.

2019 was an active year on the gaming table. A few highlights:

• I rolled out a playtest of Becoming Beowulf, my original classroom game about Anglo-Saxon culture. The game relies on resource management, strategizing, and roleplaying, and, while it had a few glitches (which I’m working out), it was quite successful.
• I played many new games, largely due to the Gauntlet, an online gaming community.
• The gaming club I sponsor at school has kicked it into high gear. Free moments during the school day saw an army of kids in my classroom relaxing, socializing, and playing games.
• I led a presentation titled “Beyond Gamification” at the FCIS (Florida Council of Independent Schools) annual convention. That talk discussed ways of hacking and designing games for the school environment, and it used numerous examples of specific games that I have modified and created.
• Our Legendary Lives group completed an amazing 18-session campaign. That was an immensely satisfying and thought provoking experience. The game is a so-called “Fantasy Heartbreaker,” and it remains a rich, complex game. The major weak spot in the rulebook is a lack of awareness of how to turn the game into a campaign, but Ross, our GM, was brave in facing the challenge, and in the process, he showed me much about GM strategies that have impacted my own approach.
• I remained active on Ron Edwards’ Adept Play website. My sense is that twitter remains one of the go-to places for gamers to discuss the hobby. Despite years of tinkering with twitter, I’ve come to the conclusion that that “short form” format is not conducive to the kind of probing, non-posturing discussions I most enjoy. Adept Play is a place which fulfills many of my needs for provocative, informed discussion of games.

So what’s up for 2020?

I’m still going to be active on the Gauntlet, but I’ve decided that the long form is where it’s at with rpgs. So I’m working on building some groups which might be willing to carry a game forward without setting a specific number of sessions at the outset.

Currently, I’ve started a Sorcerer and Sword campaign which has some legs: It’s set in a world where vast areas are swamp land, and the two players came up with kickers and pasts that opened the way to some compelling scenario building. That game has also sparked a renewed interest in the kind of no-holds-barred sword and sorcery genre that enthralled me in high school. I’m now reading Wagner’s Kane stories, and I plan to continue to delve into the literature and to bring that spirit to my games.

I’ve also started an Over the Edge campaign. Stay tuned for more thoughts about this groundbreaking game from the 90s. I’ve been looking at the most recent 3rd edition which came out in 2019, but I opted to go with the WaRP system and materials of the first two. I’ll let you know more about my reasons for that. This campaign is rather unique in the makeup of its players. My daughter graduated from high school last year, and the gaming group that she participated in has moved to various schools. I volunteered to run a game for her and her friends via video call, and four of them were enthusiastic. We did some character creation yesterday, and we’ll be landing in Al Amarja on the first of February!

I bought a new “gaming laptop” with some Christmas funds, and I’m using it to edit some actual play videos. So I’m hoping to stay active on that front. If you are interested in Sorcerer and Sword or Over the Edge, you will probably see some postings in the coming months with links to my videos.

I’m hoping to present my Beowulf game at the Lausanne learning institute, and I’m also applying for a fellowship grant from FCIS which would assist in my educational gaming initiative. If I get that grant, it might lead to a full-on teacher workshop that would bring in some select game designers to help teachers reflect upon bringing games into the classroom.

Accompanying this presence in the educator arena, I'm going to be making some steps into full-fledged gaming conventions. Next month, for example, I'll be travelling to New Jersey to attend Dreamation 2020.

One last item: I’m moving forward on teaching ttrpgs as a medium of communication and an art form.  In February, I have played a 3-week unit devoted to the topic. The centerpiece of the unit will involve students playing games in small groups and then reporting upon those experiences to the class.

Those are just a few of the gaming irons that I have in the fire. It promises to be a thrilling and satisfying year. I’ll continue to post here to keep you abreast of the developments!

The Sodden Lands of Snia Mer: Session One

We held our first session of “The Sodden Lands of Snia Mer,” which is using Ron Edwards “Sorcerer and Sword” setting for his game Sorcerer. If you want to see the video, click here. I should note that this session comes on the heels of a one-page setting sketch and a 2-hour “Session Zero” where the players created their characters and started to fill in the setting.

Sorcerer is a game that favors small groups: 2-3 players with a GM is, in my mind, the ideal size.  You’ll see me open the session by letting the players know that there was no expectation that they wind up with each other. They had established during character creation that they lived in the same proximity and had an acquaintance with each other. The players also imagined characters that had some experiences in common: Most importantly, both have experienced devastation at the hands of the Ado Empire. But I emphasized that this didn’t need to a “party adventure game.”

At the same time, the characters they created had kickers that were begging for some interweaving. Here, in brief, are the kickers:

• Nagimo, who has a parasite demon of a catfish spirit, hears that a member of his destroyed tribe might be alive and working for the enemy that brought desolation to his people. 
• Balder, who has a very formidable object demon (a gem) fused to his chest, gets a vision of another object demon which could provide him even more formidable powers. 

I won’t provide too many spoilers here, but there was plenty for me to work with as I prepared for the opening session, and I wasn’t holding back on the opportunity to create some points of contact between the kickers.

A few items of note for this particular session:

First, with the demise of Hangouts On-Air, I have been trying to get back into the recording of some actual play. So I used some Christmas gift funds to purchase a modest “gaming computer,” loaded up OBS (a free, open-source video recording program), and learned how to use Microsoft’s Video Editor (which came already provided to me via Microsoft Windows). I’ve had some bumps and blips. My computer apparently has two video cards, which initially confused OBS. And I forgot to hit “Record” during our session zero. But I managed to get everything working for Session One, and I love the fact that I can now take out some distracting interruptions and add some text notes (which I wasn’t able to do when using Hangouts On-Air).

My goal is humble: I’m not looking for a slick, professional video production, but I’d like a video that shows a GM and some players in the trenches and working hard at playing a challenging ttrpg. In this particular project, I’d like the videos to give interested parties a sense of how “Sorcerer and Sword” operates. If it also sparks some discussion of techniques at the table, so much the better. I’m open to suggestions that will help me with this new chapter in putting together some solid actual play material.

For Session One, the spotlight is the kickers. Both players had provided me with the key crisis or concern which was troubling their characters, and instead of putting the kickers in the past, I brought them vividly into the present. So the kickers really get some meat (and intrigue) added to them as we play. The Sorcerer Chart--which helps to spotlight relationships between elements of kickers, price, lore, and past/cover--was a key part of my prep, and the play benefited from attending to those elements. If you decide to play Sorcerer, don't neglect that chart! And I would say that that chart can be adapted and repurposed for other games. It will give you a good way of taking elements provided by your players and weaving them into situations that will propel their characters.

This was, in my mind, an instructive “Session One” of Sorcerer. The players are working to flesh out the nature of their demons, some intriguing NPCs are shifting about in the shadows, there is some good scaffolding work done in terms of the resolution mechanics, and Balder opted to seek out Nagimo (as a result of a vision), so it seems like the two protagonists will be joining forces during r the immediate future.

One item that I feel I nailed well was the handling of failures on rolls. For example, at about the 1:05 mark, you will see Balder using his demon to pick up some potential weak spots in a prison. After a failed Perception, I allowed Balder to draw some conclusions, but that action also triggered some mockery from a couple guards who happened to see Balder doing his surveillance (with the use of a demonic ability). Ozeman, Balder’s demon, has a need to be worshipped and adored, so obviously this mockery (brought about by the failed Perception roll) was a stinging blow that required some type of “saving face” action. That got us into a brief combat. Balder opted not to push things as far as he could, but there might be repercussions down the road, as Ozeman is still, no doubt, resentful, and the guards who have now encountered a Psychic Blast, might be passing on information to others.

Nagimo also failed when trying to hire out a fellow swamp dweller to join him on a bit of spy work. Instead of making this a whiff, I made the “hire” more costly. To achieve his goal of getting Skintu (the NPC) to join him, he had to offer the entire amount of coins provided by a scout named Masho as his payment, and he has also promised that, if successful, his “hireling” will share in the spoils.