Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 9517564" data-attributes="member: 42582">You're in luck - there's an active actual play Torchbearer 2e thread on these very boards! <a href="https://www.enworld.org/threads/torchbearer-2e-actual-play-of-this-awesome-system.691233/" target="_blank">Torchbearer 2e - actual play of this AWESOME system! (+)</a>Here is a brief extract of the actual play report of my most recent Torchbearer 2e session:And here is a bit of analysis/explanationThe test being performed is a search of a Dwarf-built stone structure, by Telemere the Elf.Golin the Dwarf declines to help (at the table, the player is confident Telemere will fail and doesn't want to pick up any more conditions on a failure; in the fiction Golin thinks that Elves need grounding in reality, in this case in the reality that there is nothing more to be found).So the fictional situation is that Telemere and Fea-bella are poking around at the base of the structure, while - as I (as GM) confirmed with Golin's player - Golin is looking out from atop the structure. This then provides the set-up for the twist consequent on the failure: Golin sees the pirates sailing down the river towards them!Why did I (as GM) choose river pirates? Because, for multiple reasons, the pirates are highly salient - Telemere had earlier been taken prisoner by them; the other PCs had bargained with them as part of bringing them into a relationship with Lareth and his cult; the PCs (and Lareth) subsequently had to flee the Moathouse when it was assaulted by the pirates; when the PCs had taken a recent town phase in Nulb, they had to sleep on the streets because (as per the town event roll) all the accommodations were full of pirates; and in that same town phase Telemere had picked up some gossip at the Nulb docks that the pirates were angry at some Dwarf called "Golin the Beardless", a rumour-mill's conflation of the names of (i) the PC Golin and (ii) a pirate-associated NPC Fori the Beardless.Here's what happened next:So there's not really such a thing as "lessening the conflict-charged situation" - it's the GM's job to maintain the pressure. In this example, the PCs escape the pirates but are lost in the woods; then they find their way back to the river but stumble into the pirates, who capture them (but not the prisoners they rescued from the Moathouse - they escape); then they persuade the pirates that they are friend of Tolub, and even manage to keep their silver bucket (the principal loot for the session) but have to give up some of their magic water (which grants bonuses to recover from Angry and Afraid).Even if the players succeed at a conflict with no compromise owed, or get through a test without generating a twist, they will move into a new situation which will require them to make decisions. Here are some illustrations, from the same session (before the pirate arrived):The successful capturing of the spirit is the prelude to another situation - the attempt to abjure it. Even had that succeeded with no hp lost by the PCs, it's not as if the game would have been over at that point with nothing more that might happen!</blockquote>

Verification