Actual Play – Midnight Session 2

This isn’t a full write-up of the session or anything, just a few things I noticed.

This was the first session wherein my players used their actual characters. It stared off fairly low-key, a few players had some issues with gang members, another player was recruited for some help in the Shining Court, etc. etc. Nothing overly exciting happened as things are just beginning to build. It was primarily a session of introducing the PCs to the various NPCs that move in their respective circles as well as some setting up some later events.

Some observations:

– I personally felt that I didn’t fall into my usual trap of refusing to tell the PCs anything. Basically, anything they were wondering, they discovered. One player failed a few rolls near the end of the session, so he didn’t learn as much as he could have, but he presented an alternate plan to me as the session was wrapping up on how he could learn what he wanted to and it struck me as workable. So I’m sure he’ll learn the few other details he was interested in.

– One major flaw in my notes: I need to actually write out who is in charge of which district. I had this information available, but I stupidly buried it in NPC descriptions. So, in the midst of the game, I was frantically looking through my notes trying to figure out who was in charge of, for instance, the Bellows. I just need to write this information out in a seperate place for easier tracking. There was some flipping involved that I’d like to skip next time. Partially I blame this on it being a few months since I actually wrote my notes out, but the whole thing could have been prevented if I’d just made a master list.

– I felt that the Fantasy Craft system actually worked pretty well in play. We had a few critical errors activated, a few critical hits, and generally had game systems to fall back on for all the intrigue-stuff we were doing. I did a lot of handwaving of time taken for Investigation rolls, but I also wasn’t working on a deadline for any particular events in this early part of the game, so I didn’t think it mattered. The few players who spent time making money or making items were as supported by the system as those who snuck around the city spying on people.

– We already have stupid in-game jokes. We were sort of working out how legates would greet each other. We settled on “In Izrador’s name” or “The Shadow provides,” but we also have this Bela Lugosi cape-sweep maneuver (to substitute for the “stations of the cross” trope) that cracks us all up.

– Everyone seems to be playing the waiting game for right now. Nothing wrong with that in the short-term, but it was a little surprising to me that everyone decided to wait and see. I’ll be sure to spur them into action next time.