An Odd Bunch

Hi there,
we played our first session tonight and had quite a lot of fun! Together we were 4 people but we’re planning to play as a group of 5 in the future.

A lot of time went into chargen, what was okay, since it’s an entertaining minigame in itself and helped me introducing the rules. It took us about 4 1/2 hours to create characters and backstory.

My players came up with a super interesting Motif: They are the bastard children of a rather lusty parisian bishop, who died under suspicious circumstances shortly after he told them that he was their father. The players think that he was the victim of a conspiracy against him and want to investigate his death now, partly out of fear, they could be the next victims.

My players rolled quite different characters:

Bonifaz de la Meuse, a noble affiliated Jesuit with outstandingly high stats, who lives with his cousin, niece and spouse (his housekeeper) in a rented apartment.

Babette, a strong and solid female Factotum, affiliated with the nobility, works for a grand dame at the Cour der Miracles, who runs several shady businesses in the court, and only “employs” women (Oliver Twist was the biggest inspiration Here). She lives with her brother, cousin, and infirm grandmother in a rented apartment.

Mademoiselle Herman, a Harpsburg affiliated female clerk with super low stats. She is the most ordinary character of the bunch, but is troubled by many problems: high debt, low stats, weak body and mind. She is more like a dependent herself. But she set her mind to escape her dire straits. She lives with her infirm aunt and cousin in a rented apartment.

Originally, I planned to just create characters and start playing in the next session, but we had one hour left, and so I improvised a few scenes, so that we can hopefully rescue Monsieur Faucher in the next session.

After chargen I noticed a few oddities and questions that I couldn’t answer. I will conclude this post with these questions and hope that you can help me here.

  1. Our clerk rolled really low stats and couldn’t really shift much points around. That left her with a Constitution of 4. She then rolled really low on her Lifepath HP and would have started the game with 0 HP. Maybe we made a mistake or this is just a rare oddity. We are supposed to subtract the Constitution Modifier from the HP when we roll for 2nd, and 3rd level HP advancement, right? She began her Lifepath with 2HP, rolled then a 1 and another 1. From this we subtracted her Modifier (-2), what left us with 0HP. I simply granted her 1HP, but it seems weird nonetheless.

  2. My characters immediately began describing their everyday routine: waking up, going to work, dinner, going to bed. Right now the only situations in which the characters can come together are the evening or nighttime, because they are busy nonstop. How do you keep the game flowing and the group together in your games?

Hope, my insights are of help to you and that you can answer my questions. I will add reports of the upcomming sessions to this thread.

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Mme Herman is my favorite. You did the right thing with her HP. Minimum 1 always.

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General roleplaying suggestion rather than BW specific: give each of the characters an existing link to at least one other character.

For example, the L5R game which I’m in, the GM used “Fiasco” tables to create a link between characters (for example, “mutual friend murdered” which we then fluffed out into something that fitted fantasy Feudal Japan. Thus, at the start of the action, we already had some “this character recognises that one and knows a little bit about their personality/abilities” and some other looser connections such as “we’ve never met, but your aunt married my uncle”.

Having these ties give you options for getting people together “at work”: for example, someone is moving between two locations and sees someone in an argument, they might intervene; if they see the person who gave a moving elegy at their friend’s funeral, they will almost certainly intervene and be more inclined to put themselves to effort rather than break up a fight and move on.

They also allow you to draw characters into sub-plots: you need another swordsman to back you up? Another of the character’s trained with your instructor at the same time you did and was always up for making a night of it.

We finally concluded our second session today! Unfortunately, we were only 3 players this time, because one person couldn’t make it, but this gave us the opportunity to take our time to learn the rules while playing.

We continued where we left off the other day. The Jesuit, Bonifaz, was at home and noticed that his niece didn’t come home tonight. He knew that she was seeing a man called Faucher, and since he had some spare time until he had to return to church, he decided to visit this man in hope to find her. He vaguely knew where this man lived (he would never, of course, allow his niece to see a man of whom he doesn’t know the name and living place) and started searching.

Faucher lived in a rather poor neighborhood. Bonifaz asked the wife of a local smith if she knew the man and where he lived. We rolled for a quick parley check to find out if the woman could help him. He convinced her that he was on a mission for the catholic church, and so the woman showed Bonifaz where Faucher rented his appartement.

Unfortunately Faucher wasn’t at home, and only his landlord was answering. Bonifaz introduced himself as a man of the catholic church again. Here I decided to introduce the first division in the french society: Faucher’s landlord was a protestant! In order to get anything out of this man, Bonifaz had to roll a parley check -2. He succeeded, and the landlord told him that Faucher wasn’t at home right now and that he had a habit to stay away over night, but that he did’t know more about his tenant’s activities.

Bonifaz decided to make one more parlay check and asked the landlord if he could wait inside his house until Faucher comes home. He succeeded and the landlord let him in.

Meanwhile, Mademoiselle Jeanne Herman was at work and noticed that the accounts she was working on were incomplete. She asked the guild master what to do about it and was told to go and get the missing documents from the nearby tanners.

On the street she was approached by two men. One of them, a dashing young Asturian, spoke to her with a strong accent. She noticed that she knew this voice and identified the man as a friend of her brother. He told Jeanne that he worked for the Hapsburgs and had to find a man called Faucher to retrieve the bones of an important scholar, which were in the possession of Faucher.

The Asturian knew that Jeanne needed money to pay for food and shelter for her family and asked if she would help him find the man and retrieve the bones, since it’s dangerous for agents of the Hapsburgs in Paris and he was most certain that a young, unremarkable french woman would be more successful in finding informations about Faucher than he could ever be. He made clear that he was able to compensate her generously for this favor, but added, that he was in contact with the spanish inquisition and wouldn’t want to tell them that she worked against the interests of the Hapsburgs.

Jeanne decided to help the man. She was at work for the rest of the day and decided to meet the others in the evening.

Bonifaz was still waiting at Faucher’s. He was sitting the landlord’s kitchen and tried to get some more informations about Faucher, and told the landlord about his concerns that Faucher may indulged in fornication. After nearly and hour of waiting, Bonifaz decided to take action and stormed up the stairs to Faucher’s appartement. The landlord asked him to stop and we had our first DoW.

Having the higher precedence, Bonifaz acted first. He accused the man of covering up the immoral activities of his tenant, and landed a heavy hit. The landlord lost more than half of his Will and thus couldn’t react thos this accusation. As his next action, Bonifaz tried to implore. He asked the man to help him. Since they were both pious men, they needed to put an end to this potential debauchery. This was the finishing blow. The landlord gave in, and let Bonifaz search Faucher’s room. He wasn’t able to find anything besides a few very bad artworks.

Back at home, a servant of Madame de Chevreuse awaited Bonifaz. Chevreuse, a noble woman who often visits the mass of Bonifaz, had a mission for him, the servant told him. She trusted Bonifaz’s ability to converse, and offered him to forgive some of his debts if he would find a certain man called Faucher for her, and bring him to her. Bonifaz said, he would try his best, but couldn’t guarantee that he wouldn’t harm the man should he find out that Faucher laid hands on his niece.

We ended here.

The first thing I noticed was, that it’s really hard to describe the general society of 1648’s france. I had some general knowledge about the century, but often I wouldn’t know where the tanner’s guild would be placed logically inside Paris or when a clerk would make lunch break, for example. I need to research more when I prep the sessions.

Other than that we had a good time. Only the DoW took some time to get right, but we believe that this will get better in the fure.

Hope you enjoyed this report!

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Which victory result did you choose for the landlord: accuse or implore?

I choose ‘implore’ victory result. The landlord handed out the room keys, conceding that, while not actively covering up his tenant’s activities (of which he really didn’t know much), he had an interest in the morality of his tenants, and thus agreed that the Jesuit may search Faucher’s room.

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We spontaniously decided to delve deeper into the story of the fate of Monsioeur Faucher today.

We were 2 players and me, the GM, and played for about 3 hours.

After Jeanne and Bernard (Bonifaz’ player retconned the name of his character) received their missions in the last sessions, I decided that it was time to push them a bit now. We began the sessions with the group sitting in a tavern at evening of the same day, telling each other of their days. They told each other that they were hired to find Faucher. They tried to be as inconspicuous as possible, so I asked for a Sub-Rosa roll. They both had only a 1/10 chance and failed.

A drunken man noticed their conversation and told them that a man called Antoine Rovere was also looking for Faucher. Bernard rolled his Nationality and I told them what was known about Rovere. As the group tried to make sense Rovere and his intentions, another man entered the tavern, yelled that Rovere was gathering men to search for Faurer at the Cemetery of the holy Innocents.

This was the first time that the characters realized that the people of paris are indeed in a pretty bad mood and that Faurer was a most welcome target for their anger. The characters used the commotion to leave the tavern unseen.

As they got outside they witnessed the mob getting bigger and marching onto the cemetery. Luckily Babette knew a shortcut, so that they arrived the cemetery before everyone else. As they arrived at the cemetery, they tried to barricade the gate. I rolled a die of fate to determine if there was anything that they could use, but nothing was there.

They searched the entrance for tracks or clues, but found nothing (failed search check). Bernard spent his first year of life, but to no success.

They decided to split up: Bernard went to the church and Babette and Jeanne went to search for clues at the wall with the murals. I decided to roll on the events table here: A man of Rovere’s mob entered the cemetery and spotted Bernard. He mistook him for Faucher, so he yelled at him. This led the novices of the church waking up and confronting Bernard. But he simply told them that a mob of angry parisians was on their way to the cemetery. Frightened, the novices went back into the church.

Meanwhile, Jeanne and Babette found some tracks near the mural (successful search roll after Jeanne exerted herself) and followed them along the mural, not acknowledging the depiction of the danse makabre.

Bernard searched the church and well, but failed. He spent another year and found some gamine who told him that they heard scary voiced coming from the ossuary. Bernard decided to find his two sisters and catch this witch Faucher as fast as possible.

As Jeanne and Babette were following the tracks they found, they heard the light tread of a pack of wolves (successful listen check). The wolves were starving and ready to attack. Our first combat encounter!

Not keen on fighting six wolves (I rolled very high), they decided to flee. Little Jeanne found a locked door and showed unexpected strength as she slammed the door in (she spent one year to reroll a failed break cheack). Babette wasn’t as fast had some trouble running away from the wolves, but made it through the door eventually. Jeanne waited for her, ready to slam the door shut, but a wolve was on Babette’s heels and tried to attack Jeanne, as she slammed the door shut, leaving behind a crying wolf.

They had some trouble keeping the door closed, since Jeanne broke its lock. In another moment of strength, she pulled a bench from the corner of the room and barred the door (another year spent to succeed at a strength check). They were safe for now.

Bernard saw all this from safe distance and decided to climb one of the small buildings that can be found on the cemetery to get into saftey.

I described that he noticed Rovere’s mob entering the cemetery, and how the dancing flames of their torches illuminated the court and casted strange shadows. His gaze first followed the shadows to the mural and then to the wolves who waited impatiently infront of the door that seperated him from his sisters.

We concluded our session here. I would like to extract Faucher in the next session.

I had to press my players a bit to make use of their Mortal Coil, but once they tasted the sweetness of success, they willingly made use of it. They struggle a bit with the concept of experience conditions and have yet to earn a check.

In addition, I decided that they had earned their flaws and virtues.
Jeanne’s virtue: Clever; and her flaw: Sickly
Bernard’s virtue: Kind; and his flaw: Unseemly

I hope you enjoyed this report!

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Players have to be very focused to pursue experience in M&M. But the game master can also use the experience conditions to present situations. Once they get a couple of checks, they’ll get the hang of it.

Yes, I am aware that the experience conditions are also a tool for me as GM. Since it’s our introductory adventure and we are taking our time to learn the basics of the game, I stick rather tightly to the adventure. Once we enter the sandbox, I’ll definitely make use of the experience conditions.

We continued our adventure today. Since I moved last month, we used roll20 for this session. Unfortunately, we hade some connectivity issues, so we aborted the session after 3 hours. Also, I didn’t perform that good as a DM today, so it was for the best. One player was sick, so we were only 3.

Some things did happen, though. We had another round of Duel of Wits and we finally found (and captured) Monsieur Faucher.

We started with a quick recap of what happened last session. Then I described the scenery of the mob bursting through the cemetery gates to Bernhard’s player. He decided to help Jeanne and Babette by distracting the wolves with roof tiles he threw from the building he climbed on. He missed, but I decided that this lead to only 2 wolve leaving the pack and curiously searching for the cause of the noise. Meanwhile, the henchman of Revere found Bernhard sitting on the building. Just as he was asking Bernhard who he was and what he was doing up there, the 2 wolves became aware of him and attacked him. I rolled for damage and the man was torn apart by the hungry beasts.

Babette and Jeanne skipped their turn out of fear of the wolves.

With the beginning of the next turn the mob entered the cemetery. This led to the wolves fleeing the burial ground. Bernhard climbed down from the building, and Babette and Jeanne left their hiding spot. Bernhard searched the dead body of the man and gave him his last rites. Babette climbed up the Charnier and entered the hiding place of Faucher. She rolled a save against terror, but failed, losing 2 hp. Meanwhile, Jeanne tried to hide behind on of the columns of the Charnier.

In the next round the mob started building a stake. Bernhard approach a larger group of the mob. I let him roll a save against terror which he succeded. This situation was kind of awkward, because Bernhard just wanted to tell them that one of their guys was dead and that they should take a look. But I initiated a Duel of Wits which didn’t feel quite right in retrospect. Bernhard talked with Rovere who didn’t quite care for the dead man and was obsessed with finding Faucher. But Rovere was beaten by Bernhard in the end and complied. He sent some men looking for the dead guy.
Meanwhile, Babette found Faucher in the attic of the Charnier. He wouldn’t talk to her, so she slapped him really hard. She told him that he had to come with her. He grabbed his books and the skull of Vesalius and left the Charnier togethere with Babette. Together they decided to run to the north side of the cemetery, where they ran into two women who belonged to Rovere.

We had a slight misunderstanding here. My players weren’t aware that the mob spread out and that nearly everywhere were men or women of Rovere. This was partly my fault, because I didn’t describe the situation good enough. Anyway, they wanted walk past the two women unseen. I quickly rolled a search for the two women and they succeeded. My players then decided that they wanted to hide the small Faucher behind their bodies and lied to the two women that Faucher was found at the other end of the cemetery. I wasn’t sure how to handle lying, so I decided to let the one who talked roll a charisma check. Babette rolled - and failed.

We ended our session here. We weren’t in the best mood at this point of the evening and couldn’t stand another round of Duel of Wits or combat with all the connectivity issues. So, next round we have to decide if we engage in another Duel of Wits or go directly to combat.

Hope you enjoyed the report!
Stay safe!

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