Today, Wil and I played Beast Hunters in a downtown Seattle food court during our lunchtimes. We only had about forty minutes to throw down, but it was a good forty minutes, so we're going to continue.

I think we're a good pair for Beast Hunters. I go absolutely batshit crazy for color-heavy combat with a lot of narrative freedom, and Wil likes to get his teeth into tightly focused mechanics -- he's a big Burning Wheel fan.

Playing in public was a bit weird. The people next to us gave us some sideways glances, though I overheard that they did understand that we were playing a game. I smiled at them, but didn't engage them further on that. I was very conscious that my performing voice is way different than my conversational voice. Also, strangely, the salute was, for me, more natural in public than it was in private.

Onto the Beast Hunters stuff: I am the Challenger, and Wil is playing Katari, a half-softling Hunter who is socially oriented. If anyone wants, I'll post his sheet here, but I don't want to make this post any longer.

Katari's mother was a mercenary, but her battle service was not the only stigma she faced when she returned home to her nadan. At her side were a softling husband and a half-breed child. To regain her standing, Katari's mother fought a deadly ritual combat. She was killed, but her sister Sorkka, the chief and namesake of the nadan, was so impressed by her bravery that she allowed the husband and child to remain with the nadan. Their lives were not easy, but neither is that of the Beast Hunter, and the constant sorrows young Katari endured prepared him well for his duty as a Hunter.

During character creation, it was tough to come up with cool resources. The book isn't much help here, as there are many, many trait examples but very few resource ones. The requirement that the resource can be taken away in a challenge is a difficult constraint to work around.

Wil chose a Pifnir beast hunt for his first adventure -- a 25/5 adventure -- but we didn't get anywhere near the beast. In 40 minutes of play, I spent nine adversity points.

Two of them were to challenge Katari's access to Chief Sorkka, who was suffering from a mysterious illness and sequestered in her tent. Katari's rival Anqhela -- the very warrior who killed Katari's mother twenty years ago -- barred Katari's way into the tent. I gave at the Elaboration stage here, because I sensed that I wasn't getting a lot out of this conflict. I see the formal negotiation phase as kind of a trial run for a conflict. If there's no energy in the negotiation, there likely won't be any in the conflict phase. Plus, a sneaky Challenger can goad the Hunter into preactivating something during Elaboration and then give on the Complication phase -- this prevents the Hunter from preactivating that trait at any other time in the adventure.

Our second, seven-point conflict went through Complication and then onto Resolution. The conflict was a social one, to drive away the malign spirit that was tormenting Sorkka. I statted up the spirit on the fly, giving it a +4 Lingering SD trait and a +2 Convulsions SO resource. (I'm kinda proud of the Convulsions.)

Lots of fun stuff happened during resolution. I'll share a couple highlights:

Early on, the spirit forced Sorkka to tear her own hair out (as an offensive maneuver). Katari, in response, calmly directed an attending wise woman to comb Sorkka's hair with a silver comb.

My favorite bit came when Wil purchased a special effect to find out the identity of the spirit. I gave him a low price because I wanted him to know that the spirit was that of his mother, and that she had been twisted and withered by twenty years in the underworld. I'm not sure whether Wil had a notion of who the spirit was, or if he was just tossing me an opportunity to narrate. However it came about, that special effect gave an energy bump to the game. The mother spirit started tossing heavy mother guilt at poor Katari -- wishing he hadn't been born, etc.

In the end, the hateful spirit was driven out, but Katari took a heavy social wound. His enemies are still in the nadan, and they too know the identity of the spirit...and if the mother is evil, how can the son be otherwise?

One rules wobble: we weren't sure whether declaring the special effect consumed a turn or not. We assumed so, but we couldn't find a citation in the book to be sure about that.

BH performed as promised for us. We'll play it down in the food court some more, and keep posting here if people are digging the AP. Hell, maybe we'll even take some photos.

Sounds awesome.

Here is Kitari:

Initiative: M2, P2, S3

Traits

+2 PO A cool head when attacked
+2 MO Lore of Beasts
+1 MO Clever as a woman
+1 MO Anqhela killed my mother, she will pay
+3 SO I sing the songs of my people

+2 PD The beatings made me stronger
+1 PD I ran beside the horses
+3 MD My father taught me of a wider world
+2 SD Beloved of the Spirit Stone
+1 SD A traitors son must have a thick skin

Resources

+2 PO My mother's Sword
+3 SO My father's Mbira
+1 SO Bard's staff
+1 PD The armor I took from D'Humka
+2 MD Fragment of the Spirit Stone
+1 SD My aunt is the chief of the Sorkka

Oh...I meant to say before.

It's fascinating that you guys are talking about "cool story". Because, as I understood it, Beast Hunters wasn't designed for cool story, so much as challenge.

Nothing wrong with it, just interesting how you're using it.

Graham

Cool story is something that's part of roleplaying independently of an agenda-thing like challenges. It can be part of a thematic game, or a genre emulation game, or whatnot.

That's a fair point.

That ought not to surprise anybody - in order to make the challenges relevant, we have to be engaged in people, background, social relations etc. Only in that way we will be interested enough in the challenges to make them exciting. Step On Up! consequently means our intellectual or emotional investment.

That's a load of bollocks.

Graham

For me, Beast Hunters is all about entertaining the other player(s). Cool story is a great way to entertain, and might be the optimal strategy for BH play. A well-described parkour stunt or wuxia move lasts only for a moment and then is gone, but cool story will fuel challenge narration with nuclear sub-like endurance.

I'm hearing more more and about gamers getting together for their lunch hours to game and the idea intrigues the hell out of me.

I'd love to hear more about this.

We had session two of Beast Lunchers today. I noticed that once again we saluted in, and forgot to salute out :) I appreciated the salute at the start today, because it provided a real firm line between "hows your day" over food and "we are playing now."

Katari left his aunts tent, intending to seek the Pifnir in the nearby ruins. He was intercepted by his dad (Ahkiban), who wanted to come along, because he was feeling increasingly unwelcome in the tribe. Katari told him that he was free to walk where he may, as any Chel'queri might, but he (Katari) could make no guarantees to his safety. Katari's duties as a beast hunter outweigh his duty to his father. Despite this Ahkiban chose to come along. The two were then intercepted by Anqhela and her pack of bully boys, who insulted them and told them never to return to the Sorkka. Anqhela's father took the bait, and said he'd be glad to see the last of the nadan, but Katari made it clear to Anqhela that while as a beast hunter his responsibility was to all Chel'qhueri, and not just the Sorkka, she should not think that she had seen the last of him.

These two challenges were resolved within the initial negotiation process. These two encounters, plus a later interlude featuring a hornet, made us realize that there can be no pointless choices in Beast Hunters. If the Challenger frames a situation that requires the hunter to take action, it is a challenge and must come from the adversity budget.

We also braved the world of mental challenges, first an attempt to track and trick a lone Pifnir that was carrying a golden bracelet, and then later, after discovering the tunnel that the Pifnir are using to enter and exit the ruins, an attempt to snare one so that its struggles and mental distress call will bring the rest of the pack. It was a bit of challenge, especially with the snare to keep the narration around the actions in the spirit of the domain. Johnzo made good use of the character of Ahkiban, and his attempts to "help" as a source of adversity in the narration. Unfortunately we had to leave that conflict off in the middle due to time, but plan to finish it tomorrow, after which we'll have the final battle with the Pifnir.

One issue I'm currently pondering with BH is that it provides no way for the player to maneuver for situational advantage across conflicts. Let's take the current situation with the snare. The challenge was set up such that it exhausted the Challengers pool, which means regardless of mechanical outcome, Katari will face the fight with the beasts. However, in the narrative space, if he wins the snare challenge, one of the pack members is immobilized, and he faces the rest on ground of his choosing, while if the snare fails, the lone Pifnir escapes, he pursues it, and encounters the pack on perhaps less favorable terms. Yet no mechanical advantage or disadvantage accrues either way.

Lots of cool stuff here. I really appreciate you guys writing it all up :)

You've come across a special case here with regard to carrying advantages forward. You're already handling the beast before it's the official end of the beast hunt. In any other case, the advantage would likely come in the way the Challenger buys the follow-up adversity. In this case, one thing you could do is to implement the optional Karma rules.

We finished off Katari's first hunt. The snare was successful, but the following physical challenge versus the Pifnir pack was nip and tuck. It turned into a running battle, ranging from ruins to forest to swamp, with Akhiban being imperiled, and Katari having to come to his rescue. Johnzo got a good whack at me early on, with a Heavy wound, but fortunately his dice went cold shortly after that, giving me a chance. I was -1 in both offense and defense compared to the Pifnir, which meant I had to work for my advantage points.

We looked briefly over the Karma rules, but didn't wind up doing anything to account for an advantage stemming from the snare challenge.

Katari was a little battered at the end of the adventure with heavy wounds in all categories, plus a medium in physical. The fact that the major challenges had spread out pretty evenly across the three domains prevented attrition from being a problem though.

All in all, a good first adventure. For the future, we plan to follow up with non-beast hunt that deals with the spirit of my mother that now resides within my bard staff. But next time, its my turn to be the Challenger, as Johnzo brings some heavy metal thunder in the form of his hunter, Voss (sp?).

Posted By: johnzoWith all the careful timing of a bull-baiter, he withdrew his hand and replaced it with his blade. The steel of Katari's mother was the last thing the rodent would taste -- it was cleaved in twain and fell to the mud, both halves writhing...

...and that, boys and girls, is why you should keep a professional writer around to clean it up for you in post :)

Beast Hunters: the Game of Narrative Bravado!

Today Wil and I made my Beast Hunter. His name was Mazu, but he is now known as Voss.

Mazu was once a bold young warrior of the Yoppa nadan. As a youth he learned all the tribal secrets -- the swaying war-dance of the serpent, the throaty and paralyzing battle-roar, the night eyes of the owl. He made good use of these secrets, bringing many gifts of plundered steel and jewels to his people. In his fifteenth summer he was taken as a third husband by Great Yoppa, the wisest and most exalted woman of the nadan. His potence eclipsed that of all her other husbands, and he gave her two daughters and a son in the next three years.

But as quickly as he ascended, he fell. He had plundered more than gold from the softlings. He also took their perfumes and their strange dream-oils and lore-dust, which he poured out on the rocks in the steam chamber. Warriors of good reputation began to question his will in battle. One day, as he slept through his watch, softling slavers kidnapped ten Yoppa laundrymen from their riverbank.

For this transgression, Mazu was condemned to die by the Great Yoppa, but before she could impose her justice, he fled the nadan. His punishment thus fell upon his children. They were turned out of Great Yoppa's encampment and forced to dine on the garbage of the tribe. They can only return to honor if they kill Mazu, and his two eldest daughters have sworn to do just that. His youngest son, born after his flight, yearns to know his father, though.

For fifteen years, Mazu lived as a hermit in the Berengad, avoiding all contact. Gradually his fighting powers returned to him. He sought danger recklessly, striving to prove that he was no coward, but his conscience would not be silenced. In despair, he tried to commit suicide in the smouldering brimstone pits of Vossa. His warriorly nature trumped his despair and he dragged himself free of the pits -- burned to the point of unrecognizability, but alive.

Only the Spirit Stone can reshape a soul, and in Mazu it recognized one who could be molded. Mazu heard its call and dragged himself to it. The elder Beast Hunters tried him sorely. They starved him, flogged him, whispered torments in his ears, abandoned him in the cold, and sent him on a hopeless quest to retrieve the Swords of Fire and Lightning from underneath the Morgoth glacier. Nothing they did shook him. In the end, the Spirit Stone was greatly impressed, and it gave him a new name. He was now Voss, named after the sulfurous pits where his despair was burned away.

Initiative: M1 P4 S2

Traits:

PO+3 Secret Defender
PO+2 At Home In The Dark
PO+1 Deafening Battle Roar
MO+2 My Son Will Know His Father
SO+3 Basso Profundo

PD+2 Reborn In Fire
PD+1 Only My Daughters May Kill Me
MD+1 We Survived The Winter
MD+1 I Chose The Owl Claw
SD+2 No One Will Recognize Me Now

Resources:

PO+3 Twin Swords Of Fire and Lightning
MO+1 My Ancestors Still Believe In Me
SO+2 There Is Great Nobility In My Ugliness

PD+2 Serpent's Battle-Dance
MD+1 I Have Forgotten So Much
SD+1 I Have Nothing Left To Lose

We now take a brief moment for some cross thread pollution

2. Your traits are abstract things instead of Sneaking and Small Boat Sailing in D&D ilk. You have traits like "My Mother Didn't Let Me Watch Ninja Turtles For Feel It Would Cause Me To Be Violent" and "In My Nightmares I Am a Unicorn Ecoterrorist." A key part of the game is out-emo the other players during character creation by coming up with the traits that make the other players say "DUDE, AWESOME!!!" the loudest.

I CAN HAS BEAST HUNTERS?!?