29 October 2014 Session

Josh was delayed at work, but managed to arrive in time for the big ritual on Liberty Island. Gaylord had done some research about Liberty Island. Apparently, it is available for weddings, but these are only allowed at night. One needs a minimum of 500 guests, and I think one is limited to an hour, though I'm not sure on that last point. The paperwork for the correct permits are handled for the couple, for free, as the wedding will be rather expensive to begin with.

So, Arthur contemplated asking Audrey Finch, his mortal enemy with whom he had a budding romance, to marry him.

Someone: Apparently, the correct forms are filled out in your heart.

Regardless, he wanted to make sure that they had the appropriate permits. Otherwise, they would be trespassing!

Jimmy: I would trespass to save the city.

Arthur: But are we saving the city if we're breaking the law?

Jimmy: Arthur, man, that's conflicted stuff that goes on in your brain.

Arthur / Gaylord: No, I have an even worse idea than that!

Rather than propose directly, what if Arthur got Audrey to come to the island and sort of, oh, tricked her into believing that she wasn't really getting married to him when she was?

Me: Ms. Piggy tried that on Kermit!

He did have an alternate plan, I think.

Arthur: Huge walls around Liberty Island -- it's either that or get married to her. (musing) I don't even know if she'd say yes.

Me: To the walls?

Arthur: To the wedding.

However, there was a saner way to get a permit for a ritual on Liberty Island. Arthur used his skill as a bureaucrat, with Bernard signing off on it, to say that Vic Nim needed to have a religious ceremony on Liberty Island, and that it would be at least 30 years before conditions were again right. Audrey tried to block this, but after last session's defeat, she was more hated than feared. Arthur now had the Advantage: I Have the Proper Permits.

He sent Audrey email asking if he could meet her on a personal matter. She replied that he could drop by basically when the work day ended. He showed up five minutes early and spent that time awkwardly, ah, admiring the, er, filing cabinets.

When Audrey was finished, he asked her out to dinner. He'd even brought her flowers, lilies, I think.

Audrey (boggled): Should I... put them... in water?

Arthur: I can make it into a corsage.

She agreed. He still insisted that it wasn't a date. (After all, we know he doesn't date vampires!)

Jimmy's Player: Wait, this is your second NotDate.

Kelly's Player: Traditionally, on the third NotDate, you have NotSex.

Kelly and Jimmy met with Jimmy's Uncle Bash, who gave Jimmy a hammer from the Winter Court as a token of the court lending him a Mantle: Emissary of the Winter Court, Weight Class 2. Jimmy would, of course, owe the court, and he and Bash spat to seal the deal.

Someone: Potion of Troll Spit.

Naturally, the restaurant where they were making this agreement is the one where Arthur took Audrey for some oysters and sparkling wine. Jimmy and Kelly stared, Jimmy rather worried that Audrey had used some vampire mojo on Arthur.

Jimmy: Doesn't he look kind of glassy eyed?

Kelly: Don't they -both- look kind of glassy eyed?

Gaylord wanted to upgrade the Budding Romance to Crazy Stupid Love. I thought that this was moving a bit too quickly, so I set a Difficulty of 8, which turned out to be way, way, too low. Gaylord had a 5 after rolling, plus he could invoke Budding Romance for free, so he only needed to Invoke one Aspect.

This is why I have said that I don't care what words you put next to the numbers -- I needed to have had a better sense of what the player could easily reach to make the task appropriately difficult.

Someone: Did Arthur propose marriage --

I forget the context of this:

What have you told Vic?

Nothing -- good luck! Bye!

Regardless, the PCs had aid from House Raith and the Winter Court. The Winter Court's aid was a Mantle with Weight Class 2. House Raith's aid was to send White Court vampires to oppose Audrey and the Cleavers, who were also White Court vampires. I figured that this meant that when I revealed the hidden villain, the White Court vampires could fight it out off to the side so that I had fewer complicating factors. I was trying specifically to test Weight Class and see where it broke.

Jimmy had fixed the orerry that Kelly had found so that it was now Better Than New.

Jimmy: I even took Pluto off.

Kelly: Put it back on -- it's still a planet mystically -- symbolically.

Arthur, who can sew, had made robes for everyone -- My Little Pony robes.

Kelly: Do we have to have tattoos on our butts?

Jimmy: I'm not having a tattoo on my butt!

Gaylord: Arthur puts the tattoo machine away.

Pony Robes:

• Jimmy = Apple Jack? No, Pinkie Pie
• Kelly = Twilight Sparkle
• Kara = Rainbow Dash
• Vic = Fluttershy
• Arthur = Rarity
• Bernard = Apple Jack

A question about warding came up: Does warding work against humans? The text of Dresden Accelerated didn't seem to answer this, but we all thought that it doe NOT work against humans. Is this accurate?

Meanwhile, Kelly was suspicious of Bernard, who Just Happened to have led the perfect ritual while claiming not to know anything about magic. (I forget if there were other things tipping her off, but I really wasn't going for subtle here.) So, she decided to slip into Bernard's apartment while the therapist was at work.

She was able to use her magic (Earth) to open the lock. There didn't seem to be any special wards up. There didn't seem to be any Secretly Evil Books. Bernard had a computer, but it was an old, rather crappy model. (Again, we had a brief moment of not-quite-confusion as Dresden Accelerated Alpha doesn't have rules for modeling a wizard's problem with technology.)

Avram: Does Bernard's apartment have a hidden room?

Me: No, this is still a New York apartment.

Kelly started going through drawers. In one of them, she found a silver coin that whispered to her. Recognizing one of the 30 Denarii, she recoiled. I offered Avram a fate point to trigger Kelly's trouble. So, because Kelly is Easily Flustered, she broke a flower pot, clear evidence of her presence.

She did take the coin, being careful not to touch it with bare flesh. It was possible, perhaps, that Bernard was keeping it safe, but highly unlikely. It was more likely that, oh, he had a coin of his own and had left this one here to tempt anyone breaking in to a strangely unwarded place -- well, if he had been a wizard for some time, it certainly was strange.

Kelly got into a cab with Jimmy, still shaken. She brought him up to date.

Jimmy: We can't tell Arthur about any of this!

Meanwhile, Arthur was meeting with Audrey. He had figured out some budget cuts that could be made to trim away actual fat.

Arthur's Romantic Gesture: I know you like cuts, so here are some cuts for you.

Avram: It's like the mix tape of bureaucracy.

Audrey, of course, did not want to make that kind of cut. She wanted to make cuts that would keep people afraid and miserable.

Arthur invited her to the ritual on Liberty Island. Audrey was probably as surprised as the players and I were, but kept her focus.

Audrey: Might I bring a couple of friends?

Arthur: I don't see why not.

Meanwhile, in the other scene:

Jimmy (in blissful innocence): So, what are we gonna do if Audrey Finch shows up?

At this point, we had a brief digression. I mentioned the Hocus Focus playset for Fiasco. Avram had an idea of a Fiasco playset along those lines with James Bond Villain's Minions, with the tilt being "And the James Bond arrived..."

Other people were invited, such as a bunch of My Little Pony fans (who should probably have been an Aspect, and I'm still not how hoards of chanting normal people should be handled). Arthur also invited Reverend Willard, the Unitarian City Chaplain, just in case, oh, there needed to be an officiant for a wedding.

As for what to do if Audrey Finch showed up, well, with House Raith there, maybe mud wrestling?

Jimmy: Hey, I could get a pool of mud going...

Kelly: You're going to video tape this and sell it on the internet?

Jimmy: No! Hey! That's a great idea!

Arthur arranged for a cake and talked to their friend Boris down at the gym.

Arthur: There's supposed to be some Babylonian mud wrestling on Statue of Liberty and cake will be served afterwards.

That sounded good enough to Boris as a reason to come.

Arthur: No one please use the cake in the fight!

Someone: How can you -not- use the cake?

Everyone made their way to Liberty Island. Aspects included:

• Cake
• Vampires fighting
• Mud Pit
• Arthur: I have the Proper Permits
• Jimmy: Materials on Hand (to fix the statue)
• The Orerry that was Better Than New
• Kelly: I know how the ritual was done
• Kelly: Dirt and grass from Liberty Island
• Bernard: The Apple

By now Josh had arrived.

So, the vampires had their own fight off to the side, and I didn't worry about that. Bernard, in a sudden-but-inevitable betrayal, reversed his Apple Jack robe, revealing the costume of Nightmare Moon! (I gather there was a better MLP villain to use, but my familiarity with MLP, while existent, isn't that great.)

Vic, as the emissary of Ninkilim, aka Lord Rodent, moved to stand with Bernard. Basically, here's how the villain factions more or less worked:

Audrey wanted more fear, and didn't really want the wards on Liberty Island renewed. A plague god awakening and spreading plague in the city was Just Fine.

Ward and June Cleaver wanted despair. They didn't care whether the island was warded or not, but if it was, they wanted the wards tweaked to include things that would maximize despair, and they wanted the plague god awake and active.

Bernard wanted to control how the wards got set. He didn't care whether or not there was a plague, but having one would be just fine. Intimations of mortality from the plague and from the apple which now had the energy from the Brooklyn Clocktower ritual would drive more people to be willing to do anything not to die or to keep their loved ones from death, and that's where the Denarian could do his work.

Vic was a vessel for Lord Rodent, and Lord Rodent had planned to stand with the plague god. But, Vic also had formed a Budding Friendship with Arthur, who had consistently treated him with compassion and respect, and indeed, the two were now roommates. (Arthur was fine with rat pets -- this wasn't against any law.)

Arthur's roll to convince Vic to change sides was successful. Vic liked Arthur and Arthur's city, and he moved to stand with Arthur and Kelly.

This meant that the Weight Class for Team Good was now 4 for the purpose of casting the ritual: Vic's Emissary of Lord Ninkilim mantle applied, but his Lycanthropy mantle didn't. That was the highest mantle, at Weight Class 2. Arthur's True Faith and Kelly's Minor Practitioner mantles applied, adding 1 each, for a total of 4.

That was certainly enough to do the ritual, especially given the work over the entire game to get all of the necessary elements and ingredients in place. And, at the moment, they were working unopposed, for Jimmy and Kara squared off against Bernard.

Bernard had three mantles: Wizard (3), Denarian (2), and Hellfire (2). At several points, folks stopped me as we did a quick check to see which ones applied. The consensus we reached was that when he was attacking, he was at 5. He was often at 4 on defense, I think -- it might have been 5 sometimes? Anyone remember? When he tried to wrest control of the ritual, he was at 4, as Hellfire did not apply.

This meant:

• Jimmy, acting alone, was at Weight Class 2, Emissary of the Winter Court, at a disadvantage of 2 or 3 -- until we realized we forgot that he could add in his Changeling Troll-Blood Mantle.
• Kara, acting alone, was at Weight Class 1, Einherjar, at a disadvantage of 3 or 4, depending on what Bernard was doing.
• Jimmy and Kara acting together were at Weight Class 3 -- and, once we remembered Jimmy had two mantles that applied, at Weight Class 4 -- at a disadvantage of 2, 1, or 0, depending on what we remembered and what was going on.

It would have been easier if I'd packed the cheat sheets Avram made me or if he remembered he had them on his tablet, but the real issue was how things broke in play. This was deliberate on my part, as I wanted to know where and how they broke.

Bernard started with a psychological attack against Jimmy, using the free invoke he had for having been Jimmy's therapist, although this didn't do a lot. Kara wound up at a disadvantage, so Josh created an Aspect to reflect that.

Kara's Self Compel: I have him right where he wants me.

His plan was to create an Advantage at the cost of sacrificing herself, given that if you have a PC who can come back from the dead, you want to have fun with her dying from time to time. This didn't work out because of the Weight Class rules. Essentially, after a self-compel to waste an action, he couldn't make a roll to do what he wanted. He could only overcome and defend.

This led to a lot of talk. It's not that Josh could do nothing. But, he didn't like the options. Putting all the Weight Classes in one pile, which I admit is how I expected things to go, felt boring. Attacking the ground, rather than Bernard, to create a Door to Valhalla, while totally an option, and the one I think he eventually went with, felt like playing the system, not the game. Eventually, Josh was persuaded to hand the fate point back. He wasn't suffering the lack of fate points, and I didn't want to make him stick with a situation where Kara couldn't do cool things.

She and Jimmy managed to do some damage to Bernard, giving him a consequence of Angry. We weren't sure whether Jimmy could loan Kara his Emissary-ness by loaning her the hammer, but one way or another, possibly with both of them guiding the hammer (anyone remember?), they knocked a hole in the ground that would lead to Valhalla.

Jimmy (or was it Arthur?): We're going to have to fix that!

My notes say:

Create advantage
Attack
Bernard: WC5
+2 +2
Th Th

I'm not sure of what all of that meant.

My notes for Jimmy say "J -- WC2 +4 -> -2 WSan Not a lot of Psych here" -- I think this meant that Jimmy was trying to use psychology on Bernard, but not doing a very good job, and that Gareth said, "There's not a lot of psychology here."

Jimmy and Kara combined mantles, so they were now Weight Class 3 working together, with Josh making the roll for Kara. Kara was using her best approach, Flashy, and Invoking Bernard's Anger. My notes say that Bernard was at Weight Class 1, but I'm not sure how that happened. There was a success with style.

I think that this may have been around where Bernard got the medium sized consequence of Stuck in a Hole.

At this point, we realized a couple of things. First, I'd totally forgotten, again, about Wizard Debt. Both Kelly and Bernard had earned it for the scene. And, we don't know if or how players can use the NPC's Weight Class debt.

Second, this was when we realized that Gareth should have been able to add Jimmy's Troll-Blood mantle to his Emissary mantle, making him Weight Class 3, not 2.

Me (going for the No Prize): You've been holding back!

Jimmy: Well, I didn't want to hurt him. He's my therapist!

Bernard tried to seize control of the ritual. He had a Weight Class of 3, I see, not 4, for this. I'm guessing this meant we thought Wizard and Hellfire applied, but Denarian did not. This meant that Team Good was one Weight Class up on him, which was fine, as I'd intended Vic to be the spoiler since Arthur befriended him, and, as I assured Josh, Bernard had actually always been the hidden villain.

If I read my notes correctly, Bernard had a total of 4, while Kelly (with Arthur's and Vic's help) had a total of 5.

But, Bernard was a Thaumaturgical Therapist, so his total was now 6. Kelly, however, was a Mage Historian in her element, so her total was now 7. At least, I think that's how it shook out. My notes also say:

+2 +3 = 5 -> 7
-> 4 -> 6 -> Angry -> 8

As Angry was Bernard's small consequence, this means that there was some conflict where he had a 7 and the opposition got to 8 by using Angry.

At this point, Kara finished punching through the ground, making the hole got to Elsewhere, and trying to punch Bernard to Elsewhere

Arthur: As long as you -fix- this.

Jimmy and Kara now had a combined Weight Class of 4 to Bernard's defense of 5. My notes say:

-> WC Attack 4: 4->2
-> WC Defense 5: -1 -> 1

I'm not sure how we get from 4 to 2, but I think the -1 was what Bernard rolled, and that brought his total to a 1, which, however I read my notes, was enough for a success.

Note: Indeed, this session, folks were hoping they'd succeed by no more than 2 when the Weight Class difference was not in their favor and was great enough that they couldn't succeed with style. Well, at least, this was the case if they wouldn't take more than a minor cost if they didn't succeed with style.

Kara: Elsewhere you will go!

Arthur: This is a historic monument! Don't hurt the grass!

Essentially, Kara was invoking Winter Court mantleness, because Jimmy's hammer was magical. This meant that it had the ability to punch through to other places.

Kara: It can punch him through into Valhalla -- or Jotunland!

Arthur: This still does not solve any problems!

Bernard was sent through the hole to Elsewhere. Josh decided that Kara went through the hole with him because it was a cool thing to have happen, and that she then re-appeared on the Rainbow Bridge above the group, on her horse Mist. After all, Josh pointed out, I had decided that Kara's pony costume was Rainbow Dash.

Arthur: Guys, let's finish the ritual and have some cake.

They even had the apple, which had not gone through to Elsewhere with Bernard.

I forget the context of this:

Someone: Arthur might not like that.

Arthur: Oh, there's historic areas.

I suspect it had to do with the aspect Jimmy added to New York City.

We decided that the best way to model the folks doing the ritual adding things to the wards was to let each character involve create or change a city aspect. Vic, Jimmy, and Kara each chose aspects for their Patron, and I agreed that this would settle Jimmy's debt to the Winter Court, which meant he'd merely owe a debt to House Raith.

We started with Vic and I think deliberately left Arthur for last.

Vic's Aspect, for Ninkilim, was: NYC is Rat Friendly.

Someone: That's no different.

Jimmy's Aspect, for the Winter Court, was: Frozen in Time.

Some places can be frozen in time, just the way they always were -- and that's okay.

As for Kara's Aspect, for Odin, at first Josh chose Heroes in the Street, but then decided to change that. I forget whether Josh or someone else came up with it, but the Aspect was: Lines in the Sand.

Kelly decided to change Austerity Politics to Prosperity Politics. She added "just a little twist to the apple", taking the intimations of mortality and re-defining it as "Eh, you can't take it with you."

And Arthur's Aspect? Only in New York!

Gaylord decided to change Arthur's Aspect "I think I'm finally over Kara" to "I'm working things out with Audrey".

Arthur: What? This is our third NotDate!

In fact, he decided that he -did- date vampires after all, and asked Audrey out on a date.

Audrey (probably somewhat battered and definitely mud-splattered): What's. Your idea. Of a date?

Arthur (looking around): Pretty much this.

Kara: Mist? Mist?

Josh: And Mist is nuzzling Kelly, of course. (Early on, Josh had changed Kara's Aspect "It's worth looking out for Kelly" to "Mist likes Kelly better than me".)

-- -- --

Comments from Josh, appended here to keep all the material in one place:

Ok. Basically, there's a bit of layering.

First, by and large, narratively, the way mantle layering is handled doesn't work for me. It makes sense that to a minor practioner (without shenatigans) Titania, Mab, the Archive, or the like would be literally untouchable.

But Lisa wasn't doing that -- her Big Bad, Bernard, was a wizard (wc2) with a Denarius (wc3) and hellfire (wc1). And in no way, in no world, did it make sense, even if you could justify all of that working together (combat, say) that that kind of smorgasbord would be even -more- untouchable than Titania. [and similarly, the layering on a party level doesn't work either, really--I mean, really, should a party be able to overmatch Titania by combining a pile of level 2 mantles? Really? How does that work again?]

The situation was that I was playing Kara, a low-powered valkerie, built not on the Valkerie skin, but the Einherar one. I was good with weapons (a stunt, plus my mantle, plus "I am always armed"), had a magical shapeshifting horse (an aspect, plus a driving stunt), could come back from [apparent] death once a session (another stunt, plus "Oh, please, I'm immortal"), could talk to birds (an aspect), and tended to do stuff over the top (+3 Flashy). All well and good.

Well, Lisa brought out her mechanically implausible overpowered NPC, with the base intent being that we face off against him in a competitive ritual as a group.  So, naturally, I went "screw that, this is where I get to go out in a blaze of glory" -- after all, when you create a character who can come back from death occasionally, you want them to, well, die on occasion or what's the point?

So, I took a compel point from her "Oh, please, I'm immortal" aspect, and figured that she'd (stupidly, but hopefully enough to have a quixotic effect) go agro on Bernard, be a momentary distraction, die, and I could have her return on the Bifrost [So not worrying about Dresden canon here] in time to help out at the end. The problem: Kara's Mantle 1. Bernard is Mantle 6 (I think Lisa was playing him as Mantle 5, but really not helpful). So Kara couldn't make attacks against him. She couldn't even make an apparent "attack" that was effectively an attempt to create advantage, because that's also verboten. She could only Defend (which didn't fit the whole "step on up" compel) or Overcome (which...it's not even really clear what she'd be overcoming; what action the Overcome would unlock in this case, unless it could unlock an attack of Advantage attempt, in which case this really isn't clear).

So in the end, I returned the fp for he compel, and had her create advantage to make a hole in the island behind Bernard (not a direct Create Advantage, after all) and eventually combine forces with the party troll to take him out, with her very effective hole.

In the end, my issues with mantles as they're currently set up are:

1. Stacking mantles seems way too powerful and easy. It's not too hard to justify combining powers, and doing so is a trivial way to reach orders of magnitude than are normally available to you. This is true for a single character with multiple stacked mantles, as well as a party with a combination of abilities that can apply to the same situation.

2. Mantle disadvantages just aren't that important, until they are. If you can manage to maintain a numerical advantage, even mantle +3 doesn't bother you that much--as long as you're succeeding with style every time, you're just suffering minor inconveniences and can wear down a superior foe--and mantle +2 and +1 are pretty meaningless except that they nullify the effect of good luck (which frankly is mostly just unfun. I think this needs a rework--what if a +1 limited how many invokes (for +2 at least) you could use, rather than your maximum success? That way you'd be hard limited in how much you could push the die up, but a lucky roll would stil be a lucky roll)., since as long as you can succeed with style you suffer no disadvantage aside from the combat being really slow (nibbled to death by ducks comes to mind).

 And then there's +4 where you're completely reduced to slingshots; a huge penalty when at +3 you were still giving as good as you got (with good luck or fate points).

3. The approach to overcomig superior mantles just feels very unfate-like. As set up, the only way to do it is to combine mantles (see #1) or a ritual -- and a rituals's requirement on calling on a higher power makes it feel like any significant one is going to have to be rare. What I'd -like- to see when the PCs are outclassed mantle-wise was setting up advantages and tapping them to let them offset the enemy's advantages--but particularly when you're at +4 you're not even able to set up advantages (except very indirect ones) much less use them.

Basically, I love the mantle concept; it seems so much more workable than Kerberos Fate's scaling system (tiers). But in practice, I don't think it's working at the moment.

-- -- --

Josh's comments on Avram's comments on Josh's comments:

On 11/5/2014 4:44 AM, Avram Grumer wrote:

   Looking back over the playtest rules, Bernard should have never been acting
   higher than weight class 5,

He never was; that was my backformation. But even at WC5, it doesn't work narratively; the same "oomph" that justifies a Titania doesn't really justify him having a similar power level.

     and even that should have been something he
   could only achieve by combining all three of his mantles. (Denarian, at WC
   3, is his best, and then +1 each for Wizard and Hellfire.) I can imagine
   narrating a combat attack that combines all three of those— he’d use his
   Denarian speed to take fast aim, and attack with a combination of a
   Hellfire blast and some kind of Wizard evocation. Or he picks up a heavy
   object with Denarian strength, wreaths it in Hellfire, hurls it, and guides
   it with evocation.

Well, that's the question, isn't it? Is the combination rule "you have to narrate the mantles combining?" Or is it "they have to all apply?" The former was certainly not true; all his mantles were -active-, but Lisa wasn't worrying about how he combined them. But they clearly all "applied" -- all three explicitly apply to combat, and Denarian and Wizard both clearly have a direct impact on a ritual.

   Defensively, he should have been at best WC 4, since Hellfire looks like
   it’s only usable for attacks. (I could maybe get all rules-lawyerly and
   justify a defensive use, but’s let’s assume I’m not.) Again, that assumes
   he’s combining evocation with strength or speed.

   The rules aren’t clear on when two separate characters can stack their
   mantles (except for some rules specific to rituals). Maybe this is
   intentional, something left for players to explore and GMs to judge, but
   the rules should have some discussion of possibilities.

Yes. It also isn't clear how the action economy works here -- does one player have to give up their action to do the combination? Or make a maneuver or something?

   I’ve also just realized that the rule for how mantles stack — highest +1
   for each — is the same mechanic used for teamwork in *Fate Core*. Maybe
   calling this out would make it easier to remember.

That seems clear -- but that's a rule that interacts with aspects -- rather than one that supercedes them and to a limited extent is superceded by them.