I like that the party's disbelief that there could be any Saxons left on the mainland when Cynrain has been crusading endlessly against them is justified by the admission that these are fresh Saxons brought in from the mainland. That's a development that is hardly worrying or ominous at all!
And I remember Cynrain and Cormac cradling Roderick's body and being devastated at being the sole survivors of Uther's court. Apart from their legacy in establishing a new romantic tradition I'm surprised he didn't also institute a mandatory food and wine taster for Earl Robert, and possibly everyone else.
The Saxons thing was part disbelief, part utter relief that our Hate: Saxons passions wouldn't languish at some strange past roadside forever.
And seriously, if Edern didn't hate saxons before I don't understand why he isn't hating on them now.
Also: My personal reason for not instating such an important wine-tasting NPC is that I get the feeling that if we did create that position, Des would be running that character, and all of his successors. In life outside tabletop, I'll admit that I will eat anything Des puts in front of me. When it comes to dice rolls, though?
How many times does the leadership of Logres have to be wiped out through poison before you consider this an important role to put in? Is it more than once? Because it's been once already!
I can see Edern not hating Saxons because they weren't really very effective in that fight. He was mowing them down with Cynrain-like efficiency, and they couldn't even beat up an old man in the dark! Plus he was under the throes of Fey-infatuation at the time.
Also was Wulfram's Homage score recalculated? When he became a Circular Table Order member I thought it was set to something ridiculous like 30, and then it was only 19 in this episode.
Yeah, if I remember correctly it was like 31. Seems like when Larkins did the edits on Wulfrum's character sheet (also dropping him from a 6d6 damage to 5d6) he corrected the Loyalty: Pendragon passion.
Indeed. I misread the rules on how to calculate an RT knight's Loyalty (Pendragon) passion (which does _not_ replace the Homage passion, another mistake of mine), so it got corrected. And yeah, it was part of a larger overhaul of Wulfram's sheet, because I couldn't abide such a messy character sheet at my table.
Which brings up an interesting question about the GM's responsibility to monitor players' sheets over the course of a campaign. Hmm...I think I'm off to write a blog post about that!
It's something I should do more often in my GMing, as not only does it keep players honest (intentionally or unintentionally), but it also gives me insight to their strengths and weaknesses as characters, so I can tailor games to them more effectively.
I do the same thing, as well as trying to encourage people to keep their Wiki sheet updated. Being able to tailor adventures to take use of various people's Knowledge/Social skills save me a lot of time during an actual session.
I really tried to make a pitch at the beginning of the campaign for people to keep updated copies of their sheets available online (first via a shared Google Doc folder and then via Obsidian Portal), and even framed it with the same argument - that it made things easier for me _and_ benefits players, since I can track their changing strengths and weaknesses - but it was an excellent example of the old "leading a horse to water" axiom for certain members of the group. (You can figure out who's who by looking at which sheets are most up to date on the OP wiki.) Ah well.
I have had players ask me how much EXP they have spent up until now, whether or not their sheet is up to date, if they had purchased some skill or talent. I (usually) don't keep track of those things, but I get around this by saying if they DON'T have that information on hand, then they go by the Wiki which tends to be quite underpowered from what they have.
Admittedly there's no good Rogue Trader character sheet for Obsidian Portal so they have some excuse, but even a scratchpad Wiki page would be helpful.
I coded them a character sheet in HTML. No one bothered to learn how to use it (SO SIMPLE), so I wait for them to send me their updates so I can change it. I'm even willing to do the work for them!
I may have missed something, but did Edern get a chance to sleep with his wife and turn his amor into love? If he had, wouldn't he have had a chance to dice off love v. fey? I may have missed that, but I am not sure.
Also, the fact that he has the love passion for both of the fae lovers as well as (potentially) his wife strikes me as a hook upon which much drama may hang. If I recall correctly, he's got 16 in the former and something rather higher than that in Amor for his new wife. Both are notable, surely... Also, the half-fae daughter. I'm sure she won't be making any appearances in twenty odd years. >_>
He both did, and did. His Fey passions were set to 0, but rather ominously Jade was told not to cross them off, because they could potentially come back...
I'm sure that's the ominous event everyone keeps referring to in two years time. Medieval Maury Povich announcing that Edern... IS the father.
I wasn't going to point that out, David, because I didn't want to spoil the surprise that you guys might get. It appears that that won't be happening, unfortunately.
Ah, so I didn't notice it. Good to know, now I have to go and re-listen to the thing to figure out when. Thanks Jake.
I think I remembered about it towards the end of the session. But that's just as well, as I don't think I called for any opposed Fey passion rolls during the session either. So it all came out in the wash!
To answer the other question about getting a chance to turn Amor to Love, it's assumed that "wedding" equals "sex" unless otherwise explicitly contravened by scenario events ("You've just sat down to your wedding banquet when suddenly a giant rips the roof off your manor hall!").
I wasn't certain whether the news of Saxon invasion and the setting out at once meant something similar, but I presume that there was intervening time between the marriage and the hunt that I didn't pick up on.
Yeah, that's the hazard of making plans with a player off-mic and then forgetting to clarify said plans during the session--I had sent Jade details of Edern's new holdings (including the legend of the Moose-Pig) during the week, and she said she wanted to hold a hunt for the Beast the morning after the wedding.
The loss of the Fae passions happens about halfway through the episode at about the 1:30 mark I believe. You're literally halfway through setting up the battle when you remember to roll to get rid of the Fae passion.
I had thought the hunt was the equivalent of the post-wedding reception, and assumed Arthur was bro-tier enough to allow Edern his wedding night before taking his army, Cynrain's army, and his wife out to fight Saxons.
Wow. I've finally caught up with all of these. I should say that I'm really enjoying them (as you might expect, given I've been listening to a 3 hour podcast every day for several weeks now).
And I must say, you allow a lot more passion rolls than I tend to. I'm surprised you don't see more madness (and shock).
Thanks! Glad to hear you're enjoying our shenanigans.
When I first started running, I think I was bit more parsimonious about allowing Passion rolls. But then I realized, they're there to be used, and as long as the players are using them in good faith, I'm more than happy to let them risk madness... ;)
(But yeah, you'd think that statistically there'd have been more episodes with the amount of rolls this group makes.)
As for shock, that's always been a bit of a blind spot for me with the rules. Granted, most of the time the players succeed when they're impassioned, but I do tend to forget to apply shock penalties when they fail. On the other hand, I think the shock rules are there to use as a stick against players abusing the Passion rules, and (as I said above) I don't feel any of my players have been doing that, so maybe it's all good after all.
It sounds like your players all have pretty high passions (often over 20), so that might be why there isn't much madness.
That's one of those things that's a little weird about Pendragon - you'd think a high passion would make you more prone to madness, not less, in keeping with the general idea that you have less control over a character with high traits and passions.
And I'll agree with you as to the intent of the shock rules.
I like that the party's disbelief that there could be any Saxons left on the mainland when Cynrain has been crusading endlessly against them is justified by the admission that these are fresh Saxons brought in from the mainland. That's a development that is hardly worrying or ominous at all!
ReplyDeleteAnd I remember Cynrain and Cormac cradling Roderick's body and being devastated at being the sole survivors of Uther's court. Apart from their legacy in establishing a new romantic tradition I'm surprised he didn't also institute a mandatory food and wine taster for Earl Robert, and possibly everyone else.
The Saxons thing was part disbelief, part utter relief that our Hate: Saxons passions wouldn't languish at some strange past roadside forever.
DeleteAnd seriously, if Edern didn't hate saxons before I don't understand why he isn't hating on them now.
Also: My personal reason for not instating such an important wine-tasting NPC is that I get the feeling that if we did create that position, Des would be running that character, and all of his successors. In life outside tabletop, I'll admit that I will eat anything Des puts in front of me. When it comes to dice rolls, though?
She's running Blains Jr, man.
How many times does the leadership of Logres have to be wiped out through poison before you consider this an important role to put in? Is it more than once? Because it's been once already!
DeleteI can see Edern not hating Saxons because they weren't really very effective in that fight. He was mowing them down with Cynrain-like efficiency, and they couldn't even beat up an old man in the dark! Plus he was under the throes of Fey-infatuation at the time.
Also was Wulfram's Homage score recalculated? When he became a Circular Table Order member I thought it was set to something ridiculous like 30, and then it was only 19 in this episode.
Yeah, if I remember correctly it was like 31. Seems like when Larkins did the edits on Wulfrum's character sheet (also dropping him from a 6d6 damage to 5d6) he corrected the Loyalty: Pendragon passion.
Delete"Also was Wulfram's Homage score recalculated?"
DeleteIndeed. I misread the rules on how to calculate an RT knight's Loyalty (Pendragon) passion (which does _not_ replace the Homage passion, another mistake of mine), so it got corrected. And yeah, it was part of a larger overhaul of Wulfram's sheet, because I couldn't abide such a messy character sheet at my table.
Which brings up an interesting question about the GM's responsibility to monitor players' sheets over the course of a campaign. Hmm...I think I'm off to write a blog post about that!
It's something I should do more often in my GMing, as not only does it keep players honest (intentionally or unintentionally), but it also gives me insight to their strengths and weaknesses as characters, so I can tailor games to them more effectively.
DeleteI do the same thing, as well as trying to encourage people to keep their Wiki sheet updated. Being able to tailor adventures to take use of various people's Knowledge/Social skills save me a lot of time during an actual session.
DeleteI really tried to make a pitch at the beginning of the campaign for people to keep updated copies of their sheets available online (first via a shared Google Doc folder and then via Obsidian Portal), and even framed it with the same argument - that it made things easier for me _and_ benefits players, since I can track their changing strengths and weaknesses - but it was an excellent example of the old "leading a horse to water" axiom for certain members of the group. (You can figure out who's who by looking at which sheets are most up to date on the OP wiki.) Ah well.
DeleteI have had players ask me how much EXP they have spent up until now, whether or not their sheet is up to date, if they had purchased some skill or talent. I (usually) don't keep track of those things, but I get around this by saying if they DON'T have that information on hand, then they go by the Wiki which tends to be quite underpowered from what they have.
DeleteAdmittedly there's no good Rogue Trader character sheet for Obsidian Portal so they have some excuse, but even a scratchpad Wiki page would be helpful.
Bah. If they had any kind of the obsessive drive that I do they'd make their own OP character sheet.
DeleteI coded them a character sheet in HTML. No one bothered to learn how to use it (SO SIMPLE), so I wait for them to send me their updates so I can change it. I'm even willing to do the work for them!
DeleteI may have missed something, but did Edern get a chance to sleep with his wife and turn his amor into love? If he had, wouldn't he have had a chance to dice off love v. fey? I may have missed that, but I am not sure.
ReplyDeleteAlso, the fact that he has the love passion for both of the fae lovers as well as (potentially) his wife strikes me as a hook upon which much drama may hang. If I recall correctly, he's got 16 in the former and something rather higher than that in Amor for his new wife. Both are notable, surely... Also, the half-fae daughter. I'm sure she won't be making any appearances in twenty odd years. >_>
Remember that time can move...differently...in the lands of the Fey. She may show up next year, and be of a marriageable age.
DeleteHe both did, and did. His Fey passions were set to 0, but rather ominously Jade was told not to cross them off, because they could potentially come back...
DeleteI'm sure that's the ominous event everyone keeps referring to in two years time. Medieval Maury Povich announcing that Edern... IS the father.
I wasn't going to point that out, David, because I didn't want to spoil the surprise that you guys might get. It appears that that won't be happening, unfortunately.
DeleteAh, so I didn't notice it. Good to know, now I have to go and re-listen to the thing to figure out when. Thanks Jake.
I think I remembered about it towards the end of the session. But that's just as well, as I don't think I called for any opposed Fey passion rolls during the session either. So it all came out in the wash!
DeleteTo answer the other question about getting a chance to turn Amor to Love, it's assumed that "wedding" equals "sex" unless otherwise explicitly contravened by scenario events ("You've just sat down to your wedding banquet when suddenly a giant rips the roof off your manor hall!").
I wasn't certain whether the news of Saxon invasion and the setting out at once meant something similar, but I presume that there was intervening time between the marriage and the hunt that I didn't pick up on.
DeleteYeah, that's the hazard of making plans with a player off-mic and then forgetting to clarify said plans during the session--I had sent Jade details of Edern's new holdings (including the legend of the Moose-Pig) during the week, and she said she wanted to hold a hunt for the Beast the morning after the wedding.
DeleteThe loss of the Fae passions happens about halfway through the episode at about the 1:30 mark I believe. You're literally halfway through setting up the battle when you remember to roll to get rid of the Fae passion.
DeleteI had thought the hunt was the equivalent of the post-wedding reception, and assumed Arthur was bro-tier enough to allow Edern his wedding night before taking his army, Cynrain's army, and his wife out to fight Saxons.
Wow. I've finally caught up with all of these. I should say that I'm really enjoying them (as you might expect, given I've been listening to a 3 hour podcast every day for several weeks now).
ReplyDeleteAnd I must say, you allow a lot more passion rolls than I tend to. I'm surprised you don't see more madness (and shock).
Thanks! Glad to hear you're enjoying our shenanigans.
DeleteWhen I first started running, I think I was bit more parsimonious about allowing Passion rolls. But then I realized, they're there to be used, and as long as the players are using them in good faith, I'm more than happy to let them risk madness... ;)
(But yeah, you'd think that statistically there'd have been more episodes with the amount of rolls this group makes.)
As for shock, that's always been a bit of a blind spot for me with the rules. Granted, most of the time the players succeed when they're impassioned, but I do tend to forget to apply shock penalties when they fail. On the other hand, I think the shock rules are there to use as a stick against players abusing the Passion rules, and (as I said above) I don't feel any of my players have been doing that, so maybe it's all good after all.
It sounds like your players all have pretty high passions (often over 20), so that might be why there isn't much madness.
DeleteThat's one of those things that's a little weird about Pendragon - you'd think a high passion would make you more prone to madness, not less, in keeping with the general idea that you have less control over a character with high traits and passions.
And I'll agree with you as to the intent of the shock rules.