Les Ombres d'Esteren - Forum officiel

(Here's a summary of our last session and conclusion of Poison. My comments about what went well or what could have worked better are in bold italics.)

We resumed the session with the PCs entering Melwan. I described the sounds of inhuman screaming and the sight of the Damathairs' house on fire. The PCs could see groups of people fighting back against or being attacked by enraged villagers, and off in the distance they saw the Damathairs leading a group of the children and elderly towards the castle, where Aessan and some other soldiers were waiting at the bridge and on the rampart.

(Note: Setting this scene is really important. This is a great opportunity to mix in zombie horror visuals, such as the PCs witnessing the Enraged chasing someone helpless and killing the person. The players have to get a sense of urgency and disaster, and how important it is that the safest location in town is ablaze)

I described the Damathairs, armed and armored, calling out to the PCs for help. A group of the Enraged emerged from behind a building, and the Damathairs moved to intercept them while the PCs helped the weak get to the castle.

(Note: This turned out to be a good way to show the players the role of the Damathairs in the village and that their talents aren't limited to just education! If I were to go back and do it over again, I would have described the Damathairs holding their own against the Enraged as the PCs escaped)

At the castle bridge, Aessan told the wounded PCs to help get the vulnerable inside the castle and asked whether anyone was well enough to help him hold the bridge. Since the PCs had Talacien and his remaining 3 mercenaries, Talacien ordered the mercs to help in the defense. Basically, the purpose of this scene was a way to ask the players: "Do you want to play a scene where you defend the bridge?" All of the PCs except one offered to help, although two went up to the ramparts to fight from a distance. They also used this chance to get a quick status update on what was going on.

While I had Aessan give a quick report, I realized that I had forgotten to give one of the players of a temporarily insane PC (Ninel) one of my slips of paper with a hallucination described on it. Given how vital it was to the scene I wanted to create, I interrupted my own narration and said: "As Aessan is describing how the villagers suddenly went mad and began attacking, Ninel suddenly seizes up and stares off into the distance. Ninel, you see a vision of Melwan in ruins, with bodies littering the landscape. You suddenly call out..." And here I handed the slip to the player, pointing to what I wanted her to read aloud. It was: "They have come to witness the beginning -- to remake Esteren anew with blood-stained hands." (A reference to an earlier hallucination from the previous session [and bonus points to anyone who can guess where the line originally comes from!]). Of course, since that scene happened later than I had intended, I had to have Aessan react appropriately!

One of the players asked whether there was a cart in the castle courtyard. Naturally, I said yes. Her PC, Nesa the Magientist, suggested building a barricade on the bridge, so I narrated her and the mercenaries being able to drag the cart over and build a hasty barricade just in time for the Enraged to attack. Cue the epic battle music...

(Note: I'm just giving a summary here, but what Clovis says about describing the environment and PCs' sensations applies just as much to scenes like this. One lesson I think that I came away with is that it's better to have a well-described scene and take some liberties with the mechanics, than to turn what should be a thrilling scene into something dry and mechanical with poor pacing)

I wanted this battle to seem like a high-stakes climax, but the extra resources that the players had in the form of friendly NPCs would ensure that there wasn't really a chance of a TPK. The setup was as follows:
-There were two ranks of combatants on the bridge, 3 abreast, and one rank on the rampart. The NPC archers on the rampart were just set dressing, narrated as picking off Enraged from a distance, but I let the PC archers get involved in the battle. Aessan was front and center, Father Harn the priest to one side, and Nesa on the other. Ninel and the two mercenaries were in the second rank. I narrated a group of Enraged running towards the bridge and the role of the archers in taking some down from a distance.
-I said that 5 Enraged had made it to the bridge, and the combat began as the Enraged began climbing on or around the barricade. To reward the players for their resourceful thinking, I let them roll twice and keep the higher roll on any attack on an Enraged stuck on the barricade.
-In order to give some of the spotlight back to the players, I gave one of the players (whose PC was up on the rampart but wasn't able to contribute much do to his lack of combat skills) the stats that I had quickly thrown together for Aessan. Unfortunately, the player got frustrated with being unable to quickly figure out what Aessan's attack rating was and asked whether it wouldn't be faster if I just did it myself. Then another player chimed in saying that they wouldn't be offended if I, the GL, played an NPC. I hastily tried to explain my rationale, but in the interests of not throwing off the pace of the encounter, decided to just play Aessan myself.
(Note: I still think that letting a player control an allied NPC during battle is a good idea, especially if one player is more or less sitting the encounter out, but to make sure it doesn't slow the game down more, you need to have the stats for the NPC drawn up in advance and written in a clear, simplified way for the player to read.)
-During the battle, it was actually one of the players who reminded me that killing villagers that they knew was probably pretty unsettling, so I described the feeling that Ned (the only one from Melwan) and, to a lesser extent, the other PCs felt during the battle, killing people that they knew.
(Note: Anyone familiar with zombie movies should know the "anxiety and revulsion over killing a friend who's now a monster" trope. I hadn't thought of it too much at the time, but that's another way to give this scene a great emotional impact)
-I said that one of the Enraged was actually Naelan, whom the PCs had thought they had seen die the previous morning. Ned, who was a friend of Naelan, was the one who got the killing blow, and here I remembered the point about the Enraged's eyes having a silvery, reptilian quality, which I narrated Ned noticing even from his position up on the rampart. Ninel, the one who had had the dream about the snake, was especially disturbed!
-The setup worked well. Over the course of the battle, Father Harn was knocked out, and a mercenary shifted forward to take his place on the mercenaries' turn. Nesa was able to kill an Enraged with her energetic gauntlets and then shifted back, allowing Ninel to take her place on her turn.

After the battle, we roleplayed a few things before moving on: Nesa went with Aessan and the soldiers, who were patrolling to find any more Enraged, in order to study the corpses; Ned went with Maiwenn the Damathair to find Maltaria, who was safe in the ale cellar of her inn.

The survivors of the event were all piled into the Mac Lyrs' castle. A council meeting would be held in the morning. In the meantime, Wailen the Demorthen came and got a report from the PCs. This led to the following...
-They deduced that Octar was working with Naelan in the mine and got him to confess, since they knew everything. He dreadfully awaited the council meeting the following morning.
-They asked Octar how they knew to dig in that exact location for the fossil Flux, and he told them that, a few months back, a stranger had told them about it and turned out to be right. They pressed him for more info, but he could only remember that man said that his name was Erik and that he was from the Dukedom of Seol (which they figured could have been a false identity), and a description: A Tarish-looking fellow with uniquely-identifying scars on his face. Maltaria the innkeeper vaguely remembered such a man, but didn't find anything out of the ordinary about him at the time.
(Note: Here's another example of players surprising me. Everything about the mysterious stranger I had made up on the spot when they asked for more info. It turned out to be a good, albeit unexpected, way to drop another clue to the premise of my overarching campaign, which is about a conspiracy across Tri-Kazel.)
-Nesa, with a high Science roll, was able to deduce from people's descriptions of their ill family and friends all of the different stages of Flux poisoning and that only a few were resulted in attempts at murderous rage. She recommended quarantining and restraining those showing signs of madness. Unfortunately, this meant that Ned and Ninel were at risk of just such a thing...

Next post: The council meeting!

The council meeting was another huge encounter in the session. Highlights:
-Lady Mac Lyr was intent that someone must be held accountable and executed for causing the death of her son and putting the village on the brink of ruin.
-Talacien was put on trial. He insisted that he had been intending to warn the village of the threat as soon as he determined that he could not use his filter to stop the contamination, but that his accidental contact with the Flux made him go temporarily mad. Some of the PCs asked for a lighter sentence, while others asked that he be held accountable, but none of them wanted him to be executed.
-Since the PCs were able to save Herven from death, at the culmination of the trial, Maltaria appeared, helping an injured Herven hobble into the courtroom. He was able to corroborate Talacien's story and gave an impassioned speech begging the council to see that Talacien was a good man.
(Note: As a reward to the players for their resourcefulness in saving Herven, I made this an instant success in keeping Talacien out of prison, regardless of the result of their Relations rolls.)
-Next, Octar was on trial. The PCs advocated that Octar was only the unwilling pawn of a stranger. Lady Mac Lyr was unconvinced and accused Octar of conspiring with Naelan and outside forces to kill the ruling family. Either way, his greed and cowardice in not telling anyone what had happened in the mine had led to great disaster. Father Harn accused Octar of working as part of a plot to instigate instability by contaminating the land with fossil Flux and summoning demons from Limbo. The other PCs were unable to convince the council to completely rule out execution, but the sentence was as such: Octar would be imprisoned in the dungeon for no less than two years, at the end of which he would be executed unless evidence could be found that his participation in this conspiracy was against his will)
-As a reward for their heroic efforts in saving the town, the PCs were all rewarded with 5 Ad each. In addition, Lady Mac Lyr offered them all an additional 5 Ad for "ensuring that justice was served" (i.e. offering someone up for execution).

Here's where things got really intense!

The council then brought up the issue of the town's current state and reconstruction. The PCs all offered suggestions for how the town could be aided:
-Nesa and Ninel (and Talacien, too) suggested that they bring in Magientists to extract the fossil Flux from the mountain, ensuring that it does not pose any further risk to the town. Additionally, the profits from such a deal would be a massive benefit to the town and its reconstruction.
-Father Harn and Ned suggested sending for assistance from Gwidre, whose priests could purify the land of the fossil Flux's contamination.
There were some great arguments from both sides, and the players really got into it. The argument was so heated, and both sides so persuasive, however, that I had to come up with some way of adjudicating the outcome of the negotiation. Here's what I did:
-Since there were two sides, I had made it a contested roll for Relations (one side rolling against the other).
-One person from each side would make a Relations roll.
-The other negotiators from that side could also make a Relations roll with a difficulty of Easy (8). If they succeeded, they added a +2 to the main roll from their side. If they failed, they added a -1 penalty.
-One player successfully convinced me to let them use Reason instead of Empathy to modify the Relations roll. However, since all of the players have high Reason and low Empathy, this probably had very little impact.
-One PC was on the fence. I let him roll for one side or the other, or for neither side. He chose to side with the Gwidrites, making it 3 vs. 3, including Talacien arguing for the Reizhites.

The result:
Added all together, the Gwidrites won the roll-off by one point. As a result, I narrated that, after an intense discussion, the room seemed to be swayed slightly in favor of asking the Temple for support, although some were in favor of the Magientists.

(Note: I completely invented this resolution mechanic on the spot, borrowing the rules for aiding or hindering a skill roll from D&D 4e. It wasn't the most complex solution, but I thought it had a graceful simplicity to it. The players all made such good arguments that I didn't think I could make a decision for which way the council would go on my own -- we needed some sort of objective measure of handling the outcome of the negotiation. If I had thought more about it, I would have ruled that Ned and Ninel couldn't participate in the negotiation because they would be too insane by this point -- they could keep themselves focused enough to survive during the investigation, but not to come up with a rational argument)

After the negotiation, the PCs spent a few days resting. But first...

Ned and Ninel were locked away in quarantine to ride out the possibility of them turning homicidal. I narrated Ned suddenly waking up in the night, wracked with feverish nightmares. Maltaria sat next to him, tending to his medical needs, and asked him what was wrong. Ned's player said that Ned was going to assume that this was another illusion and try to resist it, so even though she was real I let him make an Influence+3 test, which he passed. Ned told Maltaria that he refused to believe that she was there, which struck her as incredible. Suddenly, another Maltaria appeared and sat down on the bed next to him. She said, "You're right, Ned, she's not real. You have to kill her -- kill all of them."

Ned's player tried resisting this illusion, but I told him that the compulsion was so strong that he was unable. I described the rage welling up inside of him, as Maltaria's expression took on one of horror. I said that his hands moved up to crush Maltaria's neck... but were held back by the restraints that kept him tied to the bed! Maltaria ran to get help from Wailen.

(Note: I thought this scene played out great, if I say so myself. I had come up with the idea of what would happen at the apex of Ned's madness a while back, and I picked up on Nesa's idea to restrain the infected. The players seemed to breathe a sigh of relief when I told them about the restraints.)

Over the next day, Father Harn prayed over Ned and Ninel, who was also in quarantine. Ned recovered the next day, but Ninel still had one day left of her madness. Father Harn tried to heal her disease with his healing miracle, but was unable. (The player suggested, and I agreed, that he should only be able to try it once per day, since otherwise he could just keep trying until it worked, since you only lose Exaltation if you succeed or roll a 1). Ninel recovered the following day.

Speaking of Father Harn, during this time, some of the villagers (5 families, with children), came up to him and thanked him for solving the mystery and credited him for keeping their families from getting sick by creating fresh, pure snow for drinking water. One man described how he had to kill his enraged neighbor, who was about to kill his wife and son. It was an emotional scene, and at the end the man asked Father Harn if he would teach them about the One God. It was another successful moment for Father Harn, whose successful conversion gained him a few points of Exaltation.

Before they left, Vector Jaber and Blade Knight Urvan returned from Loch Varn. Jaber told Father Harn that the corruption at Loch Varn was too great for him alone to purify, and that they would need to send for more of the Elect. In the meantime, he would minister to the new converts in Melwan.

Jearon the Varigal offered to escort the PCs back to Reizh, and the council provisioned them with supplies for the journey. But on their way, they had to pass through Dearg...

(Sorry for the length of these posts! Once I get writing, it's hard to stop. As usual, if anyone has any suggestions or additional input, I welcome them)

Holy moley, now that must have been an epic scene indeed! Did you remember to have the PCs make their Mental Resistance rolls during the battle? It's not that I'm a particularly nitpicky or sadistic GL, but it seems vital to me to stress how unsettling and scarring it can be to fight people that previously greeted you warmly in the street... unless of course your Players portrayed the shock of their Characters particularly well, in which case this can fall under the "Avoiding Mental Resistance Rolls" rule presented on p.272 of Book 1.

Kudos to you for clearly managing to set a siege scene very well, with everyone having a part to play and contributing. The having-a-PC-play-Aessan thing was indeed a good idea, but I guess the Player was kinda ticked off that his/her PC had to remain idle, and did not want to feel like you were giving him/her an NPC to play with out of pity.

At any rate, it indeed is better to take some liberties with the system instead of having a fight boil down to "Roll... ok, roll again... roll one more time...". That's what I tend to do more and more as a GL, the hardest part being to keep things as logical and realistic as possible!

I really like what you've done with the council and its aftermath. It's probably not how I would have handled things (I would probably have granted the PCs less influence, considering there were such important personalities as Maoda Mac Lyr and Wailen whose words presumably carry more weight), and there were indeed a few things that could've been handled better, but overall, you were able to roll with the punches, and that's commendable! Ned's scene, in particular, must have really kept your Players on the edges of their seats!

About that, it seems that your Players are really getting involved in your campaign and in your universe in general. That is truly flattering and heartening to see that Esteren is definitely adadpter to an American audience as well.

And don't worry about the length of your posts; as far as I'm concerned, it's always a pleasure to read about your game. I simply hope that you don't feel that the feedback is to meager compared to how detailed you are!

As always, looking forward to hearing more about your campaign, Dragoslav!

Clovis a écrit :Holy moley, now that must have been an epic scene indeed! Did you remember to have the PCs make their Mental Resistance rolls during the battle?

Unfortunately, no. But I've been a little harsh on them with Mental Resistance rolls, so neglecting to call for one then probably isn't the end of the world.

Clovis a écrit : I really like what you've done with the council and its aftermath. It's probably not how I would have handled things (I would probably have granted the PCs less influence, considering there were such important personalities as Maoda Mac Lyr and Wailen whose words presumably carry more weight), and there were indeed a few things that could've been handled better, but overall, you were able to roll with the punches, and that's commendable! Ned's scene, in particular, must have really kept your Players on the edges of their seats!

Thanks. I'm still getting a feel for the Skills system in Esteren, and I think that's something I should try to be more aware of -- for example, I've been thinking about the negotiation scene and think that it might have been a good idea to let players use some of their PCs' other skills to sway the council during the debate, like Magience, Prayer, or Erudition to persuade the council how their faction could help the village. Can you say more about how you would have handled things differently? I'm always interested in comparing thoughts on how to run different scenes.

Dragoslav a écrit :I've been thinking about the negotiation scene and think that it might have been a good idea to let players use some of their PCs' other skills to sway the council during the debate, like Magience, Prayer, or Erudition to persuade the council how their faction could help the village.

That's a possibility, but I think the simplest option is to stick to Relation (or Performance, since the PCs were making speeches) nonetheless, since it's precisely the Domain about social interaction, persuasion, etc. However, what Magience, Prayer, Erudition, etc. could have been used for is for the PCs to gain good arguments in case they don't know what to say. After all, as the GL, you have a good global vision of the universe and of the present stakes, so you can feed your PCs knowledge according to their skills.

Dragoslav a écrit :Can you say more about how you would have handled things differently? I'm always interested in comparing thoughts on how to run different scenes.

Well, I think I would've played Maoda Mac Lyr, Wailen, the head Dàmàthair (if she survived the battle!), and all the other local figures debating about which option to choose. After all, it is their village, so to me, it stands to reason that their opinions should be duly taken into account for the future of Melwan. Of course, it does not mean that the PCs would have had to stand back and listen. They would've been able to interject and argue too, but they wouldn't have been the center of the debate.

My point is that I feel the PCs had a lot of spotlight for people who are, after all, strangers, except for Ned. Obviously, it is important to let the Players be active and able to carry change, but I am always careful not to let my Players have too much influence over the world.

But as always, it is just my personal opinion

Clovis a écrit : My point is that I feel the PCs had a lot of spotlight for people who are, after all, strangers, except for Ned. Obviously, it is important to let the Players be active and able to carry change, but I am always careful not to let my Players have too much influence over the world.

Good thing to keep in mind. I want the PCs to ultimately have a profound impact on Tri-Kazel, but it's important to remember that you have to work your way up from nothing before you can become a hero.

Fortunately, Melwan and its surroundings aren't going to play a very significant role in my campaign beyond these first three adventures, so whatever the Melwan council decides to do (which I haven't decided yet) isn't going to play a prominent role in the grand scheme of things. Everything that happens now is more of a tutorial preparing them for what to expect in the big, wide world!

Indeed, the scenarios from Prologue are a good way to have the PCs experience life-threatening and life-changing adventures while restricting the impact of these adventures to a relatively small area. After all, that's what Esteren is also about: you don't need to have god-like powers and be able to change the fate of thousands of people to get a kick out of the Characters you play! As you put it, it is a good tutorial before the GL gets to unleash the full extent of its sadistic imagination

Lots and lots of great tips here, and I'll think I will use this in my Poision adventure.

- Instead of having the one premade being sick, I think I will go with the Bear making the last to hit it sick with the re-gorged bile.

- The Nightmare will be two-part: The actual nightmare for the one who is sick, and the real nightmare for his/her comrades looking for their lost friend - only to find said friend in a less then good condition.

- If time is good, having a council meeting that is harsh and where the npc's of the village point fingers and maybe setting of a "witch-hunt"

kjetilkverndokken a écrit :- Instead of having the one premade being sick, I think I will go with the Bear making the last to hit it sick with the re-gorged bile.

That's a possiblity indeed.

kjetilkverndokken a écrit :- The Nightmare will be two-part: The actual nightmare for the one who is sick, and the real nightmare for his/her comrades looking for their lost friend - only to find said friend in a less then good condition.

Do you mean that the non-sick Players will also experience a nightmare, or do you say "nightmare" in a less literal way, meaning that the PCs will go through the anxiety and toil of having to look for their delirious comrade?

kjetilkverndokken a écrit :- If time is good, having a council meeting that is harsh and where the npc's of the village point fingers and maybe setting of a "witch-hunt"

This can be a very involving moment for the PCs, particularly if they know some of the villagers well. Just be careful not to portray them as brutal stereotypes of ignorance and boorishness. Depicting them as human beings who are simply frightened and panicked will be the most efficient way for the Players to feel the tension and take it seriously!

No, only the sick will have the actual nightmare, but the others will have to feel the horror of his/her nightmare "and the real nightmare for his/her comrades looking for their lost friend - only to find said friend in a less then good condition." as written, the real nightmare of looking for a lost friend and then finding him/her in a pretty bad condition somewhere in the wild. (said friend is the one with the nightmares, that have sleepwalked somewhere out in the wild and still hallucinates)

I never - ever; do stereotypes. In my own fantasy world of "Profetien" (The Prophecy), I had several sessions in the beginning of the campaign were players only met the common man, experienced common problems and built relations - before the more mystical part started to come to the surface. That's one of the things that makes me like Esteren, as it builds on my view on how to portray a world