Prima Nomina Playtest
BEFORE WE START
What a lucky day for the stars to align. Commitments fell through, Players were available (thank you for the kindness, Argent and Rspbrykat), and quickly enough, a game was played.
Through Discord and PlayingCards.io - which performed much better than I ever hoped for - we got this going.
Also, the playingcards game will be uploaded on Itch.io as well. Very handy.
The game ended up mostly scene by scene; considering I had done zero prep and used a major city from another campaign as the setting, I didn't have many NPCs or situations at hand - everything that happened was emergent and improvised from the five cards.
MEET THE SPEAKERS
Amos, a PROPHET FAITHFUL of INBETWEEN ♣.
Echo, a CATALYST MEDDLER of LIFE AND DECAY ♥ and DEEDS ♠.
Echo decided to align with LIFE AND DECAY for this Shuffle.
STARTING HANDS
Echo's hand.
Amos' hand.
The GM'S HAND, therefore the challenges to be faced in this Shuffle.
WE START AT THE GATES OF A CAPITAL CITY.
An unbearable WIND. The gates lie shut ahead, a crowd gathering on the outside.
Most already decided it was to no avail, hunkering down into makeshift tents set in-between the Walls of the City and the carts, full of trade.
Guards give away half assed excuses, deep bags under his eyes, ignoring any banging and pleads. An old woman, more frail than the rest, falls back with the blasts of wind punishing each and every soul.
Amos, taking the front of the gate, attempts to make this conversation smoother, SILKIER, succeeding.
With some convincing, the guards open the gate, a violent gust cutting through, as all start to move ahead with difficulty.
Echo calls for the sturdiness of TREES in the wind, to rally all inside, to great results.
Inside the gates
The Speakers talk briefly with Carlos, the guard.
He tells of a violent ocean, spitting back any ship that tries to sail it, and rumors of a tornado approaching. When inquired by the Speakers about the deep bags under his eyes, he tells the city's luck has ran out; even if you manage to sleep under this noise, dreams are even worse.
While searching for information and some shelter - a tavern sign is set loose, flying violently in the direction of Echo.
Both Speakers attempt to defend, speaking ENDURE, PROTECTION and REFLECTION. Amos endures, and Echo protects. The sign falls flat on the ground, while their hands burn lightly from impact of the wood.
With those situations resolved, the strong wind dies down, spent from its shenanigans, and the GM discards the WIND into the discard pile. They follow the trail of the sign...
... And into an inn...
... packed to the brink with the townsfolk hunkering down in this weather emergency.
Amos attempts to SPEAK with the EMOTIONS around the place and gather some information, so does Echo as they attempt to LEARN more.
With some successes - and this excellent rolling will continue until the end of the session - both find out that DREAMS have been plaguing the city's sleep, beyond the noisy wind taking away roofs and windows.
Dreams of people stuck deep into the ROOTS of a dead forest.
So, tired from the trip here, the Speakers decide it is as good as time as any, and find a tight spot in a massively overcrowded room.
But they realize they must keep their senses about it, and not just fall into the same trap.
Amos appeals to remembering why they are there, searching their MEMORY. Echo appeals to their sense, the SOUND, the world around them.
No easy sleep
Successfully retaining their will, both find themselves stuck inbetween the vines and roots of a foggy forest of dried trees and brambled uproots on a greyish soil.
No problem for Echo, calling upon the many offspring of LIFE AND DECAY, a SWARM of rats to chew them free from the roots. Not of Amos, though, who remains stuck and asks for AID.
Up and about, the Speaker see what seems to be the source of this; a massive dried out tree, up many meters in the sky above a pyramid of living roots that squirm like maggots and worms below.
"Let's set it on fire." - Amos says, staring at LIGHTNING in their hand.
"OK, let it CONSUME the tree." - Echo replies.
At this point, I was fully ready to RIP Lightning for an act of violence.
But only Consume succeed; and when prompted if that changed anything for Echo, they pondered. Why yes, the consumption would then be by their small friends.
The rats.
Quickly munching, the roots recoil, away from the many sharp teeth. Soon, the Root is no more, and is then discarded.
But the Dream raged on, now unbound by a singular theme. All the city was dreaming the same dream, all dreams clashing into one another, and suddenly an entire house - appearing out of nowhere - almost crushed another person.
But as everything stands between LIGHT and SHADOW, Amos asked the VOID to clear everyone's mind of these dreams into a peaceful sleep.
And albeit this Test needed two Hits to pass without difficulties, and also rolling a 1 and discarding the LIGHT, they succeed.
The Dream is swallowed by the Void, discarded, both born out of INBETWEEN now back into slumber.
All asleep awaken from the best sleep in their lives.
What remains
Calling upon the STONES and the PREDATORS, Echo searched for the troubles still at bay.
And at bay they were; seagulls flocking the beaches in a cloud of chaos, as the WAVES throw fish after fish to the sand and wood and stones of the coast.
On the river, before the ocean waters, ship after ship hid from their violence of the sea. Any that dare that against it can be found in pieces, all around the water.
"BREAK."
"REST."
They were done with winds and waves and seas. Enough of the ELEMENTS.
With again two successes, the waves rescind and calm. Wave is discarded.
All that is left is the one INBETWEEN, causing every problem to be indelicate, to be scandalous.
MASS is discarded. Session ends.
The aftermath
It is easy to affirm the gameplay loop works; Players had tons of fun casting their names as abilities/skills, and using them beyond their obvious meanings.
Special shoutout to:
- SILK as a way to make conversation smoother.
- SWARM, then AID, then CONSUME all building into the emergent rat allies.
- LIGHT, SHADOW and VOID to clear out ALL dreams.
- PREDATOR and STONE being used as scouting skills!
Players, however, didn't attempt to solve problems without cards, which we can attribute to the bare minimum narrative establishment we created: I was narrating macro scenes and not micro, so solutions quickly became macro. A highlight of this situation was Argent, playing Amos, looking for clues and direction in the tavern throwing in Speak and Emotion, but I would probably just have accepted their descriptions or active roleplaying as positive results.
As I realized before the game that 5 cards couldn't all be a climax, I entered the session very focused on using Cards upfront, and not leave them for later.
Every scene must be about a Card.
With that said, I accepted them as spent way too fast, which led to the main issue we found: the major loop.
The Cards, albeit smart to be the challenge for each Session and each Shuffle, need a metric.
And well, my solution may be an exaggeration, but:
The number of the Card is how many Hits related to the Name it takes to calm it. Investigate, solve, help. Accumulate story points: this means Players can calm down a FIRE simply by helping out those in trouble, or can investigate a BONE by going after an undead source.
This means a 10, and all Face and Aces, need ten full hits to beat. This, in a no modifier scenario, would take thirty cards on average. It's a lot, but they do have modifiers - and boons, and abilities, and I would expect one HIT to count for more than one Name from time to time. But this also means clearing the names is a bigger challenge, which means it needs a bigger reward.
Here is the new MISSION:
The Shuffle is the loop. The shuffle is the beginning and the end. The shuffle is an adventure entirely. With a shuffle, the goal is to clear the GM hand as fast as possible, in order to achieve their new goal: if they clear the GM hand before the deck ends, they trigger a Shuffle, but they upgrade all cards that remain in hand, which is absolutely great.
So every Shuffle is a clock. Some will be easier, with lower numbered cards, some will be a nightmare. But once the Deck ends, it's mission failed: the Speakers didn't end the threat, and a new beginning restarts it all. Even son, they may still upgrade a card here and there with their hits to spare.
- Also, but not less important, a clearer metric on which tests are hard or easy. The metric it had before was absolutely impossible to use. The fun part is: the new metric is narrative related.
Let's upload this again on Itch.io and run it from the start!