13th Age Play Impressions/Reports/Thoughts

[Cadence]

Tonight was the second night of the 13th Age game we started last week. I put some of my issues about the first session over in http://www.enworld.org/forum/showth...immersion-question-and-5e-13thA-DoaM-question (but it mentioned the un-nameable and is in exile).

One of the problems I mentioned there was that my gnome cleric had a lot of buff powers that distracted me from getting in character during combat. So, before this session I put together index cards with the various powers and spells, and altered my spell selection a bit. The only potential combat situation was nicely defused without resorting to fisticuffs or bloodshed though so we'll have to wait til later to see if the cards and altered selection helped.

Near the beginning of the session I learned that I had missed the part where "daily" means "roughly four encounters". I can see that idea's use for avoiding the five minute work day, and can ignore how it seems really artificial. But it seems odd to have traveled and slept many times and still not have recovered a "daily". I wish they'd given it another name (chapter? episode? karma recharge?).

Maybe the most interesting part was that the GM broke out the montage mechanic (I think it's called) for the long journey. Only one of the five of us players seemed like we had ever seen something like that before or knew it was coming. So at different points on the long trek, he'd pick one of us to come up with an obstacle the party ran across and narrate it. Sometimes a different person was selected to narrate the solution and sometimes it was the same person. Sometimes the DM asked for a die roll (did we all wade successfully across the washed out part? did he manage to react quick enough to avoid being hit by lighting?) to see how it worked out, and for others he just let the narration go to its conclusion (the flashy spell scared off the giant snake).

We (the players) got better at coming up with things quickly once we knew we might be called on to do so, but could certainly use more practice. I can see it being a nice chance for everyone to show something about our characters or the world and add it to the story as we're going. It just felt very strange to just get to just narrate the solution though.

In any event, there was some good character interaction, lots of humor we'd be ashamed of 12-year olds for, and good beer - so an all around great evening.

Next week's session - our first icon rolls.

 

[pemerton]

[MENTION=6701124]Cadence[/MENTION], the XP well is dry but it's always good to see actual play reports.

 

[The Human Target]

[MENTION=6701124]Cadence[/MENTION], the XP well is dry but it's always good to see actual play reports.

I got ya.

That montage idea sounds great!

 

[Dungeoneer]

Near the beginning of the session I learned that I had missed the part where "daily" means "roughly four encounters". I can see that idea's use for avoiding the five minute work day, and can ignore how it seems really artificial. But it seems odd to have traveled and slept many times and still not have recovered a "daily". I wish they'd given it another name (chapter? episode? karma recharge?).

I agree that 'dailies' are miss-named.

Your lack of daily recoveries is really on your DM, though. Basically the rule in 13th Age is that a 'full heal-up' (which includes recharging all dailies) occurs after no more than four combats, but the DM may decide that it happens sooner. The DM may also allow partial recharges in the event of an allowed rest before the four combat milestone.

Personally if I knew my players were going to have combat downtime, I would have made sure that coincided with at least a partial and probably a full heal up. As you say, the idea that you are traveling and resting for several days without combat but have not recovered your powers seems silly.

 

[Tun Kai Poh]

I hadn't seen the montage mechanic until I started running some of the Organised Play adventures for 13th Age.

Believe it or not, the montage rules aren't in the rulebook. They're very well described in every one of Ash Law's organised play adventures, and they're really nifty keen - I use them in many of my games now.

I hope 13 True Ways includes a little section on how to do montages, because I can't imagine all those poor GMs going without this tool for one more day.

 

[Tun Kai Poh]

And here's a couple of cool GMing tricks taken from the Tales of the 13th Age organised play adventures:

Montage!
Sometimes you don’t want to go into details but do want to give a sense of time passing. Overland travel, random dungeon exploration, fortifying an old farmhouse against zombies. All these things can happen in a montage if they are not the focus of the Montage!

Go round the table and ask each player:
“Describe an obstacle that the party encountered but defeated.”
Then turn to the player to their left:
“Your character was the one to get the party past that. How did you succeed?”

They don’t need to roll for this - they just tell you an awesome thing that their character did that solved the problem.

Repeat this around the table until everybody has had a chance to come up with a death-trap or a wandering monster or whatever their imaginations can conjure up and a chance to overcome an obstacle. As each player tells you how their character saved the day narrate back to them what they have said and put a spin on it to highlight their heroism.

“Yes! The party encountered a minotaur’s ghost and you entertained him with your bagpipes. Not only did that pacify the ghost but several other ghosts appeared to hear you play and in gratitude led you part-way through the maze.”
“Awesome - you killed the magically animated pagoda with your mighty axe. Later you came to an underground river and crossed it using your foe’s remains. Good job.”
“Brilliant. With a flick of your wrist you turn over your last card. The skeletal guards are amazed by your winning streak and untie your companions as agreed. They are so impressed with your poker-face that they tell you how to get to the center of the maze. Congratulations - you have a better poker-face than skeletons and they don’t even have faces!”

Statements about the world
One of the cool things about 13th Age is that players help to define the world. There is no standard universal Dragon Empire, each game is different. This presents challenges for organized play and as a GM you need to be on your feet. Whenever a player mentions something about the world either via a background or one unique thing or just as a plain statement make a very quick note about it and repeat back to them what they have just said.

As an example:
Player: “... and then I bend down and look into the mechanism. Half orcs know a lot about this stuff. How hard is it to disable the trap?”
GM: “Half orcs do know a lot about traps - why is that?”
Player: “Oh I meant half orcs know a lot about breaking things. We love smashing clockwork.”
GM: “Why do half-orcs like smashing clockwork?”
Player: “It gives us headaches, nobody knows why.”
GM: “Ah, you need to get a 15 to break the trap without setting it off” (makes a note ‘Clockwork = causes headaches for half-orcs’).

Each session recap all the statements about the world and ask if anybody has extra input on them. Be sure to ask each player if they have anything to add to the world. It’s a little ritual that helps to build a stronger game for your players.

 

[Cadence]

And here's a couple of cool GMing tricks taken from the Tales of the 13th Age organised play adventures:

Thanks. Was trying to track it down and you saved me from having to harass our GM for it!

 

[Cadence]

Session 3 Report

Session three was last week.

Mentioned how it felt odd to have traveled several days and spent a night in an inn, and still not have gotten the dailies back. The GM's explanation of how we were on edge the whole way (including in the town given the encounter with the local youth on the way in) seemed sound -- at least the way he said it. I'm not sure I could make it sound as reasonable. I'm tempted to hear if he can justify why we're getting one back at the end of this latest session, while sleeping at a small homestead in the middle of a swamp after fighting off wolves and orcs.

The GM broke out the icon rolls this time. It felt like things were slotted in just because the rolls came up (opportunity to purchase a healing potion at lesser cost, identifying something that came up earlier as magic, a characters past being recognized, and a freebie narration chance later if it could be tied into the icon). I wonder if it would be better to just have the GM just roll them himself in between sessions and slot things in more naturally without telling us why they happened.

Our second combat flowed really well. I'm not sure if it was easier because I had looked the powers over again, or because they were on cards, or because I didn't have half my dailies back yet. Some of the other players are really good at narrating their attacks, so I'm going to work on that. (I'm also going to find something to stand my power index cards up on so that I don't get mocked for covering my section of the table.) It did seem that the combat wasn't quite as challenging as the GM had hoped it would be - two of us were one attack under full, the sorcerer was at half (but the cleric had healed him three times), and the rogue was just under half. Apparently the designers have said that the guidelines for encounters balancing make them a bit weak?

Plus for the system: I like the incremental advances system.

Negative for my luck?: Finally got to use two powers that gave free re-rolls to my allies in combat, but they never missed after that.

Negative for being cheap: I really wish I had a hard copy of the book at times. The .pdf just isn't quite as good for quickly flipping to a spot.

My homework for next week is to round out some details in my background, so I'm going to go over the copy of the map and the notes in the book on various locales to sketch out some of his previous life as a mercenary. Should help the GM on the icon rolls if nothing else.

 

[Doc_Klueless]

Enjoy reading your posts in this thread. Keep 'em coming. While I'm not playing 13th Age (nor will be in the foreseeable future), it's nice to read about how it is actually playing for someone who is new to it.

 

[fantasmamore]

Session three was last week.

Mentioned how it felt odd to have traveled several days and spent a night in an inn, and still not have gotten the dailies back. The GM's explanation of how we were on edge the whole way (including in the town given the encounter with the local youth on the way in) seemed sound -- at least the way he said it. I'm not sure I could make it sound as reasonable. I'm tempted to hear if he can justify why we're getting one back at the end of this latest session, while sleeping at a small homestead in the middle of a swamp after fighting off wolves and orcs.

I' m sure your GM is a great GM. However, we shouldn't let the rules become more important than the story. If you rest after 3 encounters and travel, sleep etc, you should take back your dailies. Actually, you could even rest after only 1 encounter and take back your dailies, if the battle was hard and meaningful. What's important IMO is always the story, something that feels right should always be possible, even when it's against the rules...