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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Nytmare" data-source="post: 9386553" data-attributes="member: 55178">SPOILERS AHEAD!GAME TWO: THE DISCUSSIONThe second game was <s>NOT bad</s>.  [I change my mind.  Now that I've revisited the entire story, I realize that there were interesting pieces, but that overall it was pretty freaking painful.] It just suffered from having a mix of playstyles that I and (I think) one of the other players were not expecting and just found to be a little frustrating.Have you ever played in a game of D&D and had a player who was perfectly content to to just spend the entire session just going shopping?  And talking to the shopkeeper.  And finding out about the shopkeeper's family.  And asking the shop keeper if they had this suit of armor in a different color?Three of the five players we had in this game were that kind of player, and they were all sitting next to each other.This meant that on their turns, they'd each spend five or six or more minutes excitedly discussing their character choices and world building, each stacking and spiraling off each other, well beyond the scope of the prompt, and barreling past reminders to aim small and not dictate what future story beats and turns of the game should be miles down the road.And then it would get to mine, and the other player's turn and then, instead of then moving the Magus on to the next town down the road, the three of them would decide to revisit prompts in the same town and just spin and spin and spin and spin for another 15 to 20 minutes. But they were having so much freaking fun and the other player and I were trying hard not to squash it or look too distressed and headachey.All told, in a two hour span, the first game (with four people) was able to easily visit 13 locations with one bathroom break and a demo of another game in between.  This game, with five people and no breaks, was able to just barely make it to six locations before we ran out of time.  Thankfully, I think that we were still able to come up with a satisfying and interesting ending and didn't have to leave things on a "we're never going to see each other again" cliffhanger.But, on to our cast:Going clockwise around the table from me we had a Fox of Mistwood, a rakish rogue who left a broken heart in pretty much every town he visited.  Another Crabsinger, who in this game saw themselves as an oceanic druid.  A knight of Stormguard who hated and distrusted magic.  Another fox, who in this case, decided that they were an actual magical talking fox, enchanted by the Magus.  And I chose to be a Hero of Barleytown, a washed up war hero who had piled up too many gambling debts.We opened in Ravenhall, gathering to meet the Magus, and the discussion devolved into a need to define power levels and spell lists and abilities and I tried to bend things around and explain that this game wasn't necessarily going to need that level of detail, but that if we found ourselves needing it later, we could come back to it.  Talk also revolved heavily around what narrative course should be plotted for the Magus and there was a very distinct desire (with 3/5 of the group) for the Magus to be an untrusted villain that we were all travelling with apparently against our wills and that he was dangerous.I applauded the idea, but suggested that we keep things open and that we could steer things in that direction if the opportunity presented itself.  For now though, we should come up with a reason why we either liked and/or wanted to take this trip.  I pushed towards the idea that maybe magic wasn't dying per se, but that it was changing and the Magus was changing with it.  We all liked the idea of magic in the world maybe being more watery and constructive, but that the world had been plagued with longer and longer droughts and heat waves, and as that was happening, the kind of magic that existed in the world, and that the Magus was able to cast was more firey and destructive.We moved on to the second location and there was a request to maybe have the Magus turn evil now.  I said that we should probably stretch it out a little bit more, and that we should look at and take cues from the prompts.  We discovered that the roguish fox had a wife waiting for him back home, and that the crabsinger had a menagerie of different kinds of crab familiars hiding in the folds of his robes.I moved us on to our third location, Barelytown, where we discovered that the gates to the city were locked to us because they blamed the Magus for the droughts that had destroyed their crops.  The rogue decided that the princess of Barleytown had dressed herself as a commoner and snuck out of the castle and the two of them fell in love.  The crabsinger had hundreds if not thousands of crabs appear and put on a colorful dance routine which explained to the townsfolk that they should open the gates and let us in because the Magus was here to make rain.  The knight bought manacles in case we needed to handcuff the Magus.  I forget what the talking fox and I did.  I think I confessed to her that I had taken advantage of people and didn't consider myself to be a hero anymore.  It was at this point that I expected the rogue to move us on, but we went for round two in Barleytown.  The rogue seduced a woman at a farm.  We had a discussion about what kinds of magic the crabsinger could cast to make it rain on the barley fields or if the Magus should try to make it rain and accidentally incinerate everything.  The knight wanted to overhear the Magus in a confession booth admitting that he was turning evil.  The talking fox moved us on to our next location.  Crossing through the Stormguard Mountains, she described a wicked blizzard that was gathering in the mountain peaks.  I had us take shelter in an outpost of the Queen's Guard since she had ordered the pass closed until the storm passed.  I don't remember what the rogue did, but it probably had something to do with a story about an ex lover.  The crabsinger chose to have the storm worsen and we all decided that the blizzard turning into a rain of fire would fit the bill nicely.  The knight realized he could stack the deck and that he could theoretically have any of the "roll to see the effect" answers to the prompt "The danger you fear" equate to the Magus turning evil.  Lo and behold, the knight realizes that the rain of fire had been caused by the Magus.I suspiciously fail to point out that the talking fox skips her "her" turn and moves the Magus on instead, especially cause we realize we only have like 20 minutes of game time left.  The knight interrupts briefly because he has the idea that maybe the reason why the Magus brought the philandering rogue "fox" and his talking fox on this trip with him is because someone had told him a prophecy that he needed to bring "the fox" and he wasn't sure which one that meant.  Sure, sounds great, we add it to the pile.  The rogue beds a dancer... Jesus I hadn't realized just how much of this there had been.  I'm going up to edit my "Not Bad" vote.  The crabsinger wanders down a hall and accidentally ends up in the king's tomb where his crabs steal a magical bracelet.  The knight has the rogue get sent to horny court by the Queen.  Apparently her daughter is the princess of Barleytown and the Queen is also good friends with his wife.  He gets banished from the castle as punishment and we all get kicked out with him.We move on to a magic ice train, and then the city of Istallia, our last location.  The rogue has wife show up on the train and she files for a divorce.  The knight has the Magus try to magic the train for some reason and had it convert into a fire train and I really don't remember why.  At this point the talking fox and I are just trying to make it to the end of the session.In the city, the knight discovers that we have a legendary magic maguffin at our disposal that will solve all of our problems and deduces that the prophecy about "the fox" means that all he has to do is give the bracelet to the right fox and all our problems will be solved.  We've got minutes before the end of the session, and the talking fox is up next, so he gives it to her.The talking fox decides that the only logical solution at this point is that she is the wrong choice, and that as soon as the bracelet is put on her it dispels the enchantment and she wanders away a normal, ordinary fox.  meanwhile she has the Magus wade off into the ocean and boil it away as he goes supernova.     I'm really sorry about this one, I had really been looking back at this with some industrial strength rose freaking colored glasses.I swear to god the third and final session was probably one of the best role playing experiences I've ever had in my life.  Hopefully I'll have time tomorrow (today) to post it.</blockquote>

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