History: 2010 Apr. 15 Actual Play

Tim Dyke
Toph Marshall
Brad Murray
Byron Kerr
JB Bell (GM)

- Introduced Toph's character, a balloonist who is addicted to daemon blood
- Introduced Marcus, Gace's successor (we agree that that killing Gace preserved rather than destroyed the community asset, so the exemplar slot needs to be filled).
- Marcus wants us to take a letter to Bianca.
- We balloon straight to Mount Dease but encounter a swarm of mutant hallucinagenic flying jellyfish (wandering monsters!) that really tear us up. Toph heroically snipes a few and swerves the balloon around a lot while Tim swings on one of the landing lines and smacks some down. Jax (Byron) has some concoctions in his kit that seem to repel them a bit. Rowan (Brad) blasts a couple with explosive bullets but is reduced to a catatonic shuddering mess by the hallucinations (concession). Eventually we get clear but it is a near and harrowing escape.
- In Mount Dease we make contact with Alma the Druid and with Bianca. Alma cannot heal Rowan but suspects that Bianca can. Bianca is eager to help after we rescued her so daringly and she comforts Rowan until he regains his sense.
- A Black Carriage is seen heading towards Mount Dease and we know that means an assassination. Not certain which exemplar is the target, we warn Alma and she buttons up with her security team. We send couriers with decoys away from Dease in all directions to make the Carriage's destination uncertain and we fly to Ambrose by balloon with Bianca to keep her safe.
- We land in Ambrose amidst well wishes. Toph's character is compelled (new mechanism: GM can compel any Distinction or Scar for some choice that might be fun and pay by removing Desperation -- players can haggle over how much but you can only be compelled when you're desperate) to head into the Blue Lamp district to score some daemon blood. Once he leaves, the crowd suddenly scatters as the Black Carriage careens up the road to the balloon landing site! How could they know?
- Well it turns out they were after US and not an exemplar so they just followed our balloon. Drat!
Big fght (24 dice) and we are down a man. This is bad.
- The carriage is flying diplomatic flags that indicate its mission is sanctioned by Ambrose officials. We are not going to get a lot of help here. So we do not wait to find out what's happening and instead immeadiately ambush the carriage with a volley of explosive bullets (new rule: ambush -- when the story demands surprise, the surprisers roll their paths without modification and count all successes as hits, immediately removing dice from the opposition pool). The ambush goes well and subsequent rounds go our way -- the system has a very wide variation in results and the number of dice doesn't realiable imply an outcome. We offer a concession and the sabre-wielding deaemon escapes and acquires a Name. We have a nemesis.

^BJM: There was a lot of conversational role-playing tonight, which is what I really wanted to see. Very satisfying evening.^

^CWM: so, there was a lot of rules to be written based on this night:
1. Introducing new characters
2. Replacing exemplars when the last story was a win (when a loss, they aren't replaced, communities are hit)
3. Compels
4. Ambush, strategy: is the spoiler mechanism sufficent for all cases? It would then *not* be something tied to being human or whatever, but a tactical effect
5. Number of dice of opposition depends on players, not characters present (you can be down a man; this is incentive not to split up)
6. Replacing old scars with new ones
7. The times you don't want to bring in that last aspect (was this written out?)
8. Promotion rules to be adjusted (community possible at 12, must be by 26), assuming a cap of 5
9. Is 4 human communities suggested, mandated, or what?
10. Does the ref sometimes have a mission written down. Can the players require that?
11. at the end of one session or the beginning of the other:
* a. every player gets one experience point.
* b. maybe there are other points to be given, but perhaps not.
* c. community stats are adjusted based on the session actions (numbers change, etc.)
* d. maybe there is a daemon attack on one community. done by die roll? Must be community where action was centered? (that last makes this a PC-centered universe; do you want that implicit purpose, JB?)^

^New character (Toph):

!!Corporal Tamivar, originally from Ambrose

!!!Balloonist (4)
Good lungs
Knows the land
Sees things far off
Don't need much

!!!Sniper (3)
Steady On
Clean weapons
Great Scope

!!!Naturalist (2)
Helpful plants
Harmful plants

!!!Addict (1)
More daemon blood

__Desperation__: no dice at the end.

__Scars__: (1) sees dancing swirls (from jellyfish)

__Possessions__: Sniper rifle, bag o'herbs, hot air balloon with a harpoon gun, boatloads of trust.

!!!Observations:
adding a character was fairly easy. Unlike Diaspora, the character's connections with their hometown are purely cosmetic, and (I think) don't even need to be stated. It is possible to make a character at home in advance of play, and let them join in the game (like D&D, for example, but not Diaspora). This is a feature, and should be made explicit -- bringing in a character is easy. The only difference is in whether you always start with a 10-pt character, or whether your points equal the lowest total of the players playing. (so if I were joining a game with Two 14 point characters and a 12 point character, I'd get 12 to start. If you are coming in, you Cannot come in as an exemplar (that always requires at least a session of play) and so you can't have more than 5 Paths to start, and there's an implicit cap that you can't start at higher than a 25-pt character (if the game has gone epic).^