hawkeyefan
Legend
So two members of my longtime gaming group needed a game for our Monday night session via Discord when another game was placed on hold. We decided that it might be interesting to play Ironsworn with no GM. The game is designed to be played with a GM, or solo with no GM, or cooperative with no GM. It provides a collection of tables to help shape events in play… these are collectively known as The Oracle.
It was suggested to me by @pemerton that an actual play thread might prove interesting, so I figured I’d give it a try. We weren’t sure how long we’d stick with it… there was some concern that while it might be entertaining, the novelty of playing with no GM might wear off. We’re now five sessions into play, and everyone’s enjoying it enough that we’ve no plan to stop.
Before I get into it, I should mention that the game in its entirety can be had for free as a digital download at this link:
Ironsworn
So what I’ll do in this first post is go over some very basics of play and procedures, then next post I’ll go over our session zero and characters.
Ironsworn’s system is a take on Powered by the Apocalypse. It has moves for players to make, and the results of those moves dictate the outcome of the action. There are three tiers of results: a Strong Hit (full success), a Weak Hit (success with complication, or a mixed result), and a Miss (failure). Anyone familiar with PbtA games will immediately recognize this.
Where Ironsworn is different is in the roll itself. Instead of 2d6+stat versus a static target number, in Ironsworn the player rolls a d6+stat and then compares that result against two d10 Opposition Dice that they roll at the same time. If the total of the d6+stat exceeds both Opposition Dice, you have a strong hit. If it exceeds only one Opposition Die, you have a Weak Hit. If it fails to exceed either, you have a Miss.
Any player declared action where the outcome is in doubt and something is at risk is some type of Move. The game has a few different types of Moves: Adventure, Relationship, Combat, Suffer, Quest, and Fate Moves. The kind of catch-all Mo e to use if unsure what Move applies is the Face Danger Move, which can be used along with any Stat, depending on the circumstances.
There are five primary Stats, ranging in value from 1 to 3, which is the value added to any Action Roll. They are:
Edge: Quickness, agility, and prowess in ranged combat.
Heart: Courage, willpower, empathy, sociability, and loyalty.
Iron: Physical strength, endurance, aggressiveness, and prowess in close combat.
Shadow: Sneakiness, deceptiveness, and cunning.
Wits: Expertise, knowledge, and observation.
In addition to these Stats, each character has three additional values, ranging from 0 to +5. They are:
Health: a measurement of your physical state and how harmed you are.
Spirit: a measurement of your mental state and how stressed you are.
Supply: this is an abstraction of your preparedness, and covers your gear beyond specific items you may have listed.
These values will go down as PCs are hurt or stressed or use up supplies, and can go up when healed or calmed or resupplied. In addition to these values, there are also Debilities that can be marked. These are typically marked once Health, Spirit, or Supply are depleted, but they can also be marked as the result of a move. For instance, Wounded is a debility that gets marked when you hit 0 Health or as a consequence of a failed Action Roll. When Wounded, you cannot gain back Health… so it’s important to resolve the Wounded debility first.
Beyond this, characters have no class or playbook. What they have instead are Assets. Each PC begins play with two Assets, which further define their character. There are four types of Assets: Companions, Paths, Combat Talents, and Rituals. I’ll provide examples when I make my next post about session zero and the characters we created.
Finally, each PC has Momentum. This is a special mechanic that ranges in value from -6 to +10. It represents your overall momentum and success (or lack thereof). When you have positive Momentum, things are generally going your way. When you have negative Momentum, things are going poorly. You can gain and lose Momentum as a result from certain moves. You can also spend Momentum to trigger use of certain Assets. And finally, if your Health or Spirit are depleted to 0, your Momentum then serves as a backup pool. If you are out of Momentum and then go down to 0 Health or 0 Spirit… well, you’re in some serious trouble.
As you build Momentum, you can spend it to remove any opposition dive of lesser value. So you can spend your Momentum of 8 to erase an opposition die of 7 or lower, for example. This allows a player to turn a Miss into a Weak Hit or maybe even a Strong Hit, or a Weak Hit into a Strong Hit. Once spent in this way, Momentum then resets to 2, by default. When you have negative Momentum, the negative value gets subtracted from your d6 roll… making success very difficult.
So those are the basics. In my next post, I’ll get into the session zero process and the world we crafted and the PCs we made.
It was suggested to me by @pemerton that an actual play thread might prove interesting, so I figured I’d give it a try. We weren’t sure how long we’d stick with it… there was some concern that while it might be entertaining, the novelty of playing with no GM might wear off. We’re now five sessions into play, and everyone’s enjoying it enough that we’ve no plan to stop.
Before I get into it, I should mention that the game in its entirety can be had for free as a digital download at this link:
Ironsworn
So what I’ll do in this first post is go over some very basics of play and procedures, then next post I’ll go over our session zero and characters.
Ironsworn’s system is a take on Powered by the Apocalypse. It has moves for players to make, and the results of those moves dictate the outcome of the action. There are three tiers of results: a Strong Hit (full success), a Weak Hit (success with complication, or a mixed result), and a Miss (failure). Anyone familiar with PbtA games will immediately recognize this.
Where Ironsworn is different is in the roll itself. Instead of 2d6+stat versus a static target number, in Ironsworn the player rolls a d6+stat and then compares that result against two d10 Opposition Dice that they roll at the same time. If the total of the d6+stat exceeds both Opposition Dice, you have a strong hit. If it exceeds only one Opposition Die, you have a Weak Hit. If it fails to exceed either, you have a Miss.
Any player declared action where the outcome is in doubt and something is at risk is some type of Move. The game has a few different types of Moves: Adventure, Relationship, Combat, Suffer, Quest, and Fate Moves. The kind of catch-all Mo e to use if unsure what Move applies is the Face Danger Move, which can be used along with any Stat, depending on the circumstances.
There are five primary Stats, ranging in value from 1 to 3, which is the value added to any Action Roll. They are:
Edge: Quickness, agility, and prowess in ranged combat.
Heart: Courage, willpower, empathy, sociability, and loyalty.
Iron: Physical strength, endurance, aggressiveness, and prowess in close combat.
Shadow: Sneakiness, deceptiveness, and cunning.
Wits: Expertise, knowledge, and observation.
In addition to these Stats, each character has three additional values, ranging from 0 to +5. They are:
Health: a measurement of your physical state and how harmed you are.
Spirit: a measurement of your mental state and how stressed you are.
Supply: this is an abstraction of your preparedness, and covers your gear beyond specific items you may have listed.
These values will go down as PCs are hurt or stressed or use up supplies, and can go up when healed or calmed or resupplied. In addition to these values, there are also Debilities that can be marked. These are typically marked once Health, Spirit, or Supply are depleted, but they can also be marked as the result of a move. For instance, Wounded is a debility that gets marked when you hit 0 Health or as a consequence of a failed Action Roll. When Wounded, you cannot gain back Health… so it’s important to resolve the Wounded debility first.
Beyond this, characters have no class or playbook. What they have instead are Assets. Each PC begins play with two Assets, which further define their character. There are four types of Assets: Companions, Paths, Combat Talents, and Rituals. I’ll provide examples when I make my next post about session zero and the characters we created.
Finally, each PC has Momentum. This is a special mechanic that ranges in value from -6 to +10. It represents your overall momentum and success (or lack thereof). When you have positive Momentum, things are generally going your way. When you have negative Momentum, things are going poorly. You can gain and lose Momentum as a result from certain moves. You can also spend Momentum to trigger use of certain Assets. And finally, if your Health or Spirit are depleted to 0, your Momentum then serves as a backup pool. If you are out of Momentum and then go down to 0 Health or 0 Spirit… well, you’re in some serious trouble.
As you build Momentum, you can spend it to remove any opposition dive of lesser value. So you can spend your Momentum of 8 to erase an opposition die of 7 or lower, for example. This allows a player to turn a Miss into a Weak Hit or maybe even a Strong Hit, or a Weak Hit into a Strong Hit. Once spent in this way, Momentum then resets to 2, by default. When you have negative Momentum, the negative value gets subtracted from your d6 roll… making success very difficult.
So those are the basics. In my next post, I’ll get into the session zero process and the world we crafted and the PCs we made.
