Friday, July 25, 2014

Going Underground

When we last left our heroes, they were eating Chinese take-out in a backalley by the light of a burning helicopter. Before they left the scene, however, they had the decency to call the local authorities.

"Tell me again how the helicopter fell over the side of the building?" an officer asked.

"The guy tripped and fell into it." Papana explained with an amicable smile.

The trio then went back to their homes to rest up. Eric lives in a penthouse in downtown Los Angeles, while Papana and Shiver reside in a small rental home in the suburbs. The next day, Eric spent the morning sleeping, while Papana trained "lightly": a two-hour jog, chopping wood by hand, and then meditation. Shiver participated in the jog and stacked the wood for Papana, but while the Mugen would meditate, Shiver would watch the next-door neighbor sneak over, put fresh cords of wood next to the chopping stump, and then make off with the chopped wood. This had been going on for years, apparently, with Shiver not making Papana any the wiser. Good exercise, he figured.

Papana also received a call from an old friend. This friend was there when Papana first went public as a Mugen, and has been writing down all of his "adventures" ever since. They are greatly embellished, of course, and the market is saturated with pulp action novels featuring the Exalted, but this friend keeps raking in the dough, poor Papana never receiving more than a phone call asking him how he's been.

The trio paused at some point during their day to reflect on their desired goals. Papana simply wants to be the very best (like no one ever was). As Blake put it, he wants to "Level Up!" -- there may need to be an opportunity for going Super Saiyan in the future. Shiver descended from the moon, as Okami do, to combat one of the deadly sins of Man. Wade chose that Shiver would combat Strife, or needless conflict. Eric realized that, as the owner of several multi-million dollar corporations, he has already "won" in the financial sense. As such, Jaime decided that Eric wants to become the champion of an underground martial arts circuit. "Why underground?" I asked. "It's tougher." Jaime explained.

The group then decided the game would be based in LA, instead of New York. I guess we felt it was closer to home, since we all live in Washington State. I should probably do some research on the city, or at least its layout. Could be useful for a rooftop or high-speed car chase scene. Or something...

Shiver decided to take the initiative and hunt down some of the members of two rival gangs in the area in order to provide the locals with some peace and quiet. He and Papana witnessed a pretty smooth drug transaction. Shiver followed after the buyer (the one who walked away from the street corner). When they were suitably hidden, Shiver sat there and stared the junkie in the eyes while he shot up. When the drug hit, Shiver transformed into his half-man, half-wolf spirit form, turning the man's trip irrevocably bad. He ran out of the alley, screaming like a lunatic. Shiver sauntered out as a wolf, feeling pleased with himself. In the meantime, Papana chatted up the dealer, who was wearing a red sweatshirt, offering him free bananas. The dealer got real irritated real fast and pulled a gun on Papana. The Mugen smiled, placed his hand on the gun, and focused just enough Sun ki to destroy it. The dealer ran away, shouting a steady stream of expletives in panic.

At that point, Eric pulled up in a sporty convertible, which looked dangerously out of place in this part of town, having tracked down Papana with a GPS locator he installed in the Mugen's cell phone. He excitedly explains that he "asked around" and found a decent underground fighting ring in the Hollywood district. His excitement was infectious, and the other two hopped in--Shiver in the passenger seat. Poor Shiver, however, had not yet developed a resistance to paparazzi flares. Eric has developed a reputation, having roughed up a number of intrusive photographers. All he has to do now is say "Do I have to punch you?" to disperse the mob.

They drove to a particularly seedy part of Hollywood, complete with junkies, soiled doves and pimps, and gangsters. They drove to the address Eric procured from his mysterious contact, parking his car in the street with some serious audacity. The "arena" was an abandoned warehouse with two stories. The bottom floor was bare except for a few support pillars, while the second floor had a balcony running its perimeter. The trio signed up, Papana writing Shiver in, and waited for the tournament to begin. The announcer explained the rules: No weapons, try to avoid killing, and combatants would be drawn at random from a hat. Losers would be left out, while the winners would be put in. "Yes, that means that would you could be fighting your fellow ninety-nine combatants in a row. If that happens, well, sucks to be you."

Before we got into the actual tournament, we took a moment to discuss ways of accelerating combat, since the fights last week took forever. So, I gave three suggestions:
1) Damage as a static value: Instead of rolling for damage, they would simply be levels of damage. This would speed things up in two ways, as we wouldn't have to spend time counting successes and hits would be a little more damaging.
2) Crushing Victory: Victorious Techniques do not give the opponent an opportunity to resist damage.
3) Inspiring Victory: Victorious Techniques give 2 points of Overdrive instead of 1.
After a productive group discussion, we decided to adopt ideas 2 and 3, plus the addition of threshold successes: Any successes you score over the opponent are held "in reserve." After calculating your final damage pool, the threshold successes can potentially double your pool. So, if you score 3 threshold successes, but your final damage pool is only 1 die, your threshold successes can bring your pool up to 2 dice. This definitely helped speed things up, as particularly accurate attacks produced some pretty nasty damage rolls.

The first fight featuring the trio was Papana ("Papaya? Papaya! Sorry...Banana?") versus Douglas Smith, a big, burly boxer. The boxer was relentless, cleaning the floor with Papana. A deadly, rib-cracking grapple and following one-two combo put Papana in a world of hurt, draining him of two or three of his five Health Stocks. Papana had more endurance than Douglas (i.e. more Health Stocks), and simply outlasted his onslaught before knocking him out.

The next fight was Eric versus Enrique, the Snake, a flamboyant but quick fighter. It was an awesome match, featuring two high-speed combatants. Like Papana's match, however, Eric won through sheer tenacity--but a particularly devastating Reversal helped, too.

After this was Shiver versus the Rat. When Shiver loped out in his wolf form, the crowd murmured with confusion. The announcer and other officials congregated. According to the rules, there was nothing barring an animal from fighting on its owner's behalf (Shiver growled at this). The Rat didn't seem to have any qualms; indeed, he thought it would be an easy fight. He opened with a strong counterattack, but then didn't have any hard-hitting attacks. He took Shiver down attack by little attack, until he bopped the wolf on the nose so hard that Shiver crumpled (rolling no successes on a four-die pool was unheard of in this game).

Papana then strode into the arena, challenging the Rat to combat. The announcer let it happen, and the two exchanged blows until Papana hit the Rat with a strong attack. In response, the Rat fired a bolt of smoke and shadow from his palm at Papana, who charged through it. When the bolt hit him, the Rat dissolved into smoke himself and raced along the projectile's trail, reappearing to strike Papana--and to receive the Mugen's fist deep in his gut. He crumpled and whined his way off the area floor.

The crowd became uneasy. "Shit! No one said we'd be fighting Exalts. That's not fair!" a number of them complained. "Hey! Remember how Douglas nearly took him down without any ki?" another quipped. That seemed to placate the masses. As Papana rejoined the crowd, he saw a familiar face: the dealer in his red sweatshirt, whose gun he had destroyed earlier that day. The dealer ran off, leaving a waving Papana a little confused.

Next up was Eric against the Boulder, a stout man with a large but rock-solid belly. "Well, since ki is allowed, I guess I can cut loose!" he said happily, stomping his foot into the ground and emitting a seismic shockwave. Eric, however, was too nimble for the Boulder to keep up with, even when the Boulder started using his Earth Binding to use the concrete to propel his sizable bulk. In the end, Eric just barely sent the Boulder over his last Health Stock, causing the massive man to teeter a bit before finally falling over, almost on top of Eric, who was yelling "Timber!"

Relishing his recent victory, Eric was about to climb back up to the viewing balcony when the side of the announcer's head exploded, followed shortly by the sound of a gunshot. The crowd shouted in confusion, promptly followed by streams of red-clothed men charging in, guns blazing. When the players looked at me in confusion, I explained that the gangster thought that Papana was trailing him, and that he may have embellished his story a little... And that's where we wrapped things up for the night!

What we liked

  • Our new combat system. The combination of the three new mechanics definitely helped speed things up, especially now that threshold successes make attacks more lethal. Having Victorious Techniques bypass the foe's defenses also placed an emphasis on anticipating a foe's attack, as well as a well-timed Reversal. Finally, having Victorious Techniques charge up Overdrive faster means that Overdrives will happen more often, further accelerating combat time.
  • Player cards. I decided to splurge a little and bought my players their own card sleeves to make their attacks different from my own. I use solid green sleeves for the NPCs, while they use really cool black sleeves with a red flame on it. 
  • Powerful mortals. So, this may not be exactly a pleasant thing to like, but it is kind of refreshing for Exalted to have mortals being able to stand their own and even defeat the Exalted. As in the case of Douglas Smith, he gave Papana a serious run for his money.
What we didn't like
  • Not using ki. This one was kind of self-imposed by the players. I didn't stop them, but they thought that, in a public, albeit low-key, fighting venue, using their ki and showing their Exalted nature would get them in trouble. That's probably a holdover from the core Exalted setting, but it definitely did limit the number of attacks they had at their disposal, as well as their ability to stunt their cooler, flashier Techniques.
What we learned
  • Rolling dice feels good. I know, this one probably goes without saying. When I gave my ideas for accelerating combat, I was talked out of treating damage as static values. Blake offered the sage advice of "When I'm gaming, I want to roll dice." Truth be told, I'm glad they talked me out of that idea. While it would have helped a little, it also would have removed some of the tension from battle: no more opportunities for the thrill of little dice pools rolling big, or the disappointment of large dice pools rolling small. 
  • Using ki isn't necessarily a bad thing. In fact, it's a clear sign that you're powerful and should not be messed with. Using it in the presence of someone who believes that channeling ki is a sin, well...the consequences of that have yet to be seen.
What we're going to try next time
  • Modular environments. I spent the week leading up to this session planning a pretty cool modular environment system (in my opinion, at least). Due to the narrative, I didn't get an opportunity to test it out. I'm glad for it, since we spent some time cutting cards, putting them in sleeves, playing the game, and discussing modifications to the combat system. Adding my explanation of the modular environment system would've added too much theory and not enough ass-kicking practice.
  • Using Backgrounds. I know, these are the same two things I said we'd try next time, last time. I'll try to remember to remind the players that they can potentially use their Backgrounds to influence the narrative in their favor.
Closing Thoughts
This is shaping up to be a pretty exciting series! This session got off to a little bit of a slow start, but finally picked up speed when we started focusing on the underground fighting tournament. I felt a little guilty of having my players sit on the sidelines just watching the fights, but they seemed to enjoy watching the back-and-forth action and cheering their companions when they did well or inspiring them when they did poorly (or jeering). The modifications to the combat system have increased the lethality of the system (and, thus, the speed), resulting in battles that took half the time of those in the last session, but not so much that one bad roll will doom you. We will be breaking from Burn Legend to play our FATE-based game next week, so there will be another update in two weeks!

Friday, July 18, 2014

The Burning Legend Begins!

I've been wanting to create a blog about my gaming experiences for a while, and I figured this would be the best time to do so. My group has just started up a Burn Legend campaign to pass away the time until Exalted Third Edition releases. We are all long-time fans of Exalted and are looking forward to the release of the new edition.

I'll be honest: When I first read Shards of the Exalted Dream, I wasn't excited about Burn Legend. I thought it was shallow, since it didn't have any social or academic elements, instead focusing solely on combat. About a year ago, I watched the entire series of Avatar: The Last Airbender, and I knew it would be awesome to combine it with Exalted. I tried my own homebrew creation, but it seemed clunky, and I wanted to create something simple, as we had a very inexperienced gamer in the group. I asked the wonderful people on the Internet for help, and someone suggested I use Burn Legend as a basis, since the Ryuujin styles closely resembled bending from Avatar. That was when I gave Burn Legend a serious look and found that I really liked it! The rock-paper-scissors aspect really intrigued me, since it would add depth and tension to any fight. I played around with the idea for a while and found myself increasingly wanting to play it or run it, and so I got my chance!

Before I really get into this, I'll be discussing both the mechanical and narrative aspects of this series. What works well? What do we end up changing to improve the system for us and the kind of game we want? How was the story furthered? What did the players and their characters enjoy? What do we want to try next?

We actually started last week. One of the players had a work meeting and was running our other game, which uses the FATE system. I felt kind of bad for seizing the opportunity and offering to run Burn Legend, but he seemed to have a good time when he was playing! (Sidenote: We all agreed that we would alternate between the two, since we both enjoy running our respective games) There are three PCs:

Papana of the Mugen,  is played by Blake. Blake said he was going to try his best to avoid making a Goku rip-off. Papana is an easy-going, almost hippy character, whose best attack is Heavenly Storm, a Technique where the practitioner fires a beam of energy from his hands. Oops!

Shiver, the Untamed, of the Okami, is played by Wade. Early on, Blake and Wade agreed that Papana and Shiver would have a close relationship. Shiver ended up being a wolf-totem Okami, so they agreed Shiver would masquerade as Papana's canine companion.

Eric, of the Air Ryuujin, is played by Jaime. He is a billionaire playboy who is very publicly Ryuujin and specializes in the lightning Techniques of the advanced Air style. When I heard his character concept, I pointed out that he was kung-fu Tony Stark. He seemed okay with that.

We agreed that this would be a very modern setting, abandoning Creation for Earth and playing in 2014. The mystical martial arts have been hidden until very recently. revealed only because the forces of Hell have become brazen and martial arts masters realize they need greater numbers to combat the growing hordes. The media has sensationalized the emergence of these so-called Exalted martial artists, turning many of them famous, like Papana (who was one of the first, but was almost forgotten due to a combination of more famous people "coming out" as Exalted and accusations of lying), and, to a much larger extent, Eric. Religious organizations across the world have spoken out against the Exalted, claiming their powers to be sinful, demonic, unnatural, and blasphemous. Through the establishment of this setting, it was also decided upon that Presidents Obama and Putin are also Exalted, but have yet to reveal such. Finally, the Ryuujin pass their enlightenment through blood, and in an effort to restore the vivacity of their bloodlines, have congregated into several Great Houses. In an effort to establish solidarity, a new religious city-state named the Scarlet Dynasty forged an alliance with China and is currently occupying its northwestern corner.

The game began with the three heroes bound and gagged. They found themselves in an abandoned warehouse, which obviously had not been used in a long time, complete with visible collections of dust and many cobwebs. Papana, who had been sleeping, was woken by a slap in the face. A tall man with spiked red hair accused him of trying to steal a Radiant Scroll of Solar Excellence, which he held under Papana's nose. Shiver was bound and locked in a cage, while Eric was also tied up. The man, named Tepet Ymol, ordered his goons to kill Papana and Shiver, while he had another escort Eric away, fully intending to hold him hostage for ransom. The heroes freed themselves, scaring off Ymol and his relative, Tepet Fione. This was essentially a tutorial fight: the three heroes versus seven extras. Papana did fairly well, even managing to use his Overdrive Technique, Heaven Thunder Hammer. He and a goon punched each other's fists, resulting in the goon having his entire arm blown away. Shiver did well, notably being shot at a lot and never being hit. Eric stole the show here, displaying his powerful lightning Techniques. At one point, he placed his hand against a breaker box and redirected the flow of electricity to barbecue a goon. Shiver was pleased. They managed to defeat six of the seven goons before the last one gave up. Papana offered to spare his life if the goon agreed to get Chinese take-out for them. The goon agreed.

The three then followed after Ymol and Fione, chasing them up a flight of stairs. Eric took them one flight at a time; Papana ended up having to carry Shiver because the wolf didn't like stairs (and refused to transform into his spirit or human forms). Eric posted a video of it to YouTube. It should have at least 10,000 hits before the end of the night. They then burst out of the top of the stairwell to find Ymol, Fione, and a pilot shouting at each other while a helicopter prepared for take off. Papana melted the rear rotor with a blast of sun-ki, while Eric fried the engine and console. Stranded, the pilot removed himself and pointed a gun at the three of them. Eric and Fione had been making googly eyes at each downstairs, so he managed to convince her to abandon them and they found a spot for, ahem, aggressive negotiations. Papana paired up with Ymol, while Shiver paired with the pilot, named Jet. Papana and Ymol were fairly evenly matched; even so, Ymol did hardly any damage to Papana. Papana landed a few good hits toward the end and his Overdrive finished Ymol off hard. Shiver was unable to be touched by bullets it seemed, as Jet managed to hit only once or twice. Still, Shiver didn't deal much damage. Papana's final blow sent Ymol crashing into the helicopter, twisting the metal around him, then crashing off the side of the building--smashing the goon who was returning with take-out and interrupting Eric and Fione's negotiations. Jet surrendered and inquired about repaying a life-debt. Papana pointed out that his life-debt belonged to Shiver, who wanted a nice steak.

The night ended with Papana, Shiver, Eric, and Fione sitting in the backalley, eating Chinese take-out by the light of the fiery helicopter. Fione explained that now that they had killed Ymol, it was very likely others members of House Tepet would want blood vengeance, and Jet would want to restore his lost honor.

I think it was a great first session! We got a lot of kinks smoothed out and definitely felt the charm of the setting. I was a little disappointed that no one screamed out the names of their techniques, especially their Overdrives, though.

What we liked

  • There is always a chance for failure. Your Techniques could be curbstomped multiple times in a row, putting you in a world of hurt. This adds a good amount of tension to combat.
  • The setting. Oh god, the setting. It's modern kung-fu. We're just dying to add pop culture references to our narrative.
  • The Technique system. We took the time to cut out copies of each Technique printed in the Shards book. We then put unused Magic cards into card sleeves, then put the Technique cards into those sleeves. It adds weight and substance to the Techniques, which is a little thing, but it's more satisfying than putting down a dinky piece of paper.
What we didn't like
  • Combat was pretty slow. Each individual round was fast, but it takes a looong time to take someone down in this system. With 5 Health Stocks and 7 Health Points per stock, your opponents could have potentially 35 health levels. When you're only rolling maybe 3 dice of damage, this could take a really long time. Even after we learned that damaging Techniques automatically deal one point of damage, this is still a problem. Using Overdrive will be necessary to do any significant damage to an opponent. Halfway through the second fight, I'll admit I was starting to lose steam, but it could also be because of:
  • The "white room." This was intentional, but still boring. For the first night, I wanted things to be really simple. I intentionally kept the environments simple and nondescript. I wanted us to focus on the main combat mechanics, intending to add dynamic and hazardous environments later.
  • The movement and range rules. Since this isn't D&D, it's really difficult to keep track of who is where in relation to everyone else. As such, we decided to simply ignore it, and it didn't seemed to have to much impact on our fights.
What we learned
  • Damaging Techniques always deal one point of damage automatically, plus any from the Damage roll
  • Overdrive accumulates whenever the target is damaged. I had originally said that Overdrive still increases even if the attack deals no damage (before realizing that all damaging Techniques automatically deal one point of damage), but this ended up being a moot point.
  • Overdrive is retained as long as your adrenaline levels are maintained (houserule). 
  • Ki runs out fast, especially if you're using flashy lightning-based Techniques.
  • Never try to shoot a wolf. It doesn't work.
  • Have more than 3 Techniques available for your antagonists to use. Players learn quickly.
What we're going to try next time
  • Using Backgrounds. Since this week was all about learning the combat mechanics, we haven't had a chance to experiment with Backgrounds. We won't have to worry about creating characters or cutting up cards, so we should have a full session!
  • Modular environments. Now that we're comfortable with the combat system (and kicking ass with it), we feel we're ready to add a little variety to the locations we're fighting in. I'll be spending this week creating different locations and areas within them. What I'd like to have happen is if a character moves into a different area (willingly or not), they will flip over a card from a deck designed for that location and "attach" it to the area they're leaving, thereby allowing others to enter this new area. There are additional mechanics involved, such as reintroducing the movement and range traits and sending someone into another area unwillingly. I'll discuss those in the next post.
Closing Thoughts
This is a very fun system to play! Character creation took very little time. Combat is tight and tense, but can get drawn out. But it is that tension that everyone agreed on was the best part of combat and was superior to Exalted 2e's own combat mechanics. They agreed that it was more exciting (and, thus, fun) to have that chance for failure, rather than pump your attack so full of Essence that you simply cannot fail. I love the characters my players have created, and I can only hope I create equally cool antagonists!