Session 4 - The Christmas Ball
Tried out a looser structure this session and it went pretty well. I went in quite anxious because I had prepped very little, mostly a list of names, but yesterday (Friday) I decided to own it and do it off the dome. It certainly hurts the delivery a bit but it always leads to surprising outcomes.
The two big events this time around were: Corina (Cora's twin sister, NPC) was told last session she was a changeling and therefore unwanted, and then we had the Christmas Ball.
At the start of the session I stuck to the original format to buy time. Cora went out with Belina (NPC) to build some roads into asking her out for the Christmas Ball, Fiorello tried becoming more Valorous, and Alessa had another chance encounter with the Mourning Dove (NPC) and slapped him, thus changing the nature of their relationship towards something a bit more hostile.
A while later they were paired into groups due to a random event and Alessa was paired with Corina, this is when they found out she had disappeared. Alessa requested the Mourning Dove to find her, and he did, so they gathered a little posse to get her. They found her as a birdlike dragon, 50 meters of wingspan (164 ft) inside a ravine, shouting out white clouds from its mouth. Knowing there was not much they could do about it, they decided to do this later.
For the Christmas Ball, I used the Bad Doctor's scenario, which I summarised into:
Rings: Carno Carsi and Rina di Boiardi
There are 3 rings of proximity. The 3rd ring is unified.
You can approach them by:
Making the party in the current ring about you. This is done by overhearing people discussing your antics (1/2) different times, determined by ring. When you eavesdrop, someone is discussing you X/6 times where X is the number of reasons they have to do so.
Taking someone's place in the next ring, by making their leave their current ring.
Actions that get people talking about you typically net 2 Glory too.
The players had some trouble at first to figure out what they could even do, but eventually they hit their stride by making conversation, juggling beetles, and fighting a nonlethal duel between Cora and Fiorello when he accidentally killed a beetle named after Corina (Cora was a bit on edge). I would say it went quite well, though since this was mostly done in about an hour, it was good to have it simplified. For a longer version I would likely do as the Bad Doctor suggests and have more circles.
While all of this was happening, Corina and Belina snuck away and shared a kiss at Sogno Beach, the snow around them melting as gentle sunlight glowed from their hearts, witnessed only by the Milky Way above.
I also decided to be more proactive with requesting rolls for traits this time around, getting the players to roll even if, by the rules, they shouldn't really have to. I think this produced interesting effects as, even though I do not enjoy rolling dice, it drew their attention towards that element of their characters and made them feel more like agents.
Overall, there were many moments of the players raising from their chairs in hype and going "Whooooa!!!!" so I consider it a great success. I also did some light worldbuilding by repeating once again the tragedy of Lyonesse, introducing the concept of Alexander the Great as a historical factor and solidifying this idea in their mind. I think I have brought this up at least once per session but my thesis is that repetition is required to get this kind of non-gameable worldbuilding to stick and feel real, and I hope to prove it with time.
For next session I intend on dropping the week-by-week action so currently the objectives are:
All of them want to help Corina go back to normal
Fiorello would like to become more Knightly, and look for Arthur's golden treasure which was mentioned offhandedly in the first session so that he can get his own mech without the undignified help of his rich friend Alessa
Alessa wants to become more religious to tap into the saintly power of the era
And Cora wants to train to beat up the monsters who will come after Belina, the Bride
These are all good hooks but, at the same time, the personality stuff should be coming at the table and through adventures, so for the next sessions I should endeavour to put them in more situations where they can test themselves and how they act.