Strife Player: Sean Nittner
Heroes: Manon, Vick, Patrick, Sam, and Moore
System: AGON
Many thanks to Banana for making this happen. She worked with the GDC staff and got me into the Play with the Designers track to run AGON. I was a speaker even, which came with a food voucher for the Moscone Center sandwiches. So fancy!
It had been a while since I ran AGON so I ran Nimos, as that island is ingrained in my brain. Our heroes were Forgemaster Xenon who sought Apollo’s brilliance in engineering new inventions, Deceitful-Interrogator Kyriakou who trusted no one, Eumenes the Anvil-Forged son of Prometheus and dedicated to sharing light with the world as his father did, Spear-Breaker Hesperos, the forger of peace, and Hathor the Iron-Minded, dauntless even when in terrible woe, and leader of our heroes.
Our heroes befriending the king, defined the queen, and broke priest Harkon’s hold over the prince’s soul, sending him to Hades realm instead of allowing him to be used for terrible necromancy. This final gesture shined Apollo’s light on the sinister pries and woke the Serpent of Nimos. The battled the great creature and defeated it, but the good king died in the battle. He ran into the palace to be with his son just as the building collapsed. Though they suffered, the heroes prevailed!
Thoughts on the Game
Having taken a few years away from running AGON I was surprised to see how much delight the players had narrating suffering or prevailing compared to engaging in the mechanics, which felt mostly like a means to an end. Though there was some sense of scarcity with pathos, divine favor, etc., the most powerful influencers were always the fiction. Xenon could not abide Apollo’s wisdom being perverted, Hathor would not be denied seeing the dead prince, and Kyriakou could not resist finding a secret.
Though I love the PARAGON engine for longer term play, and while I think making those decisions about spending resources and accumulating glory give it a sense of “game” that would be missed if we didn’t have the mechanics, in that session, I could have also just handed our cards that say you suffered, prevailed, or were best, and I think the players would have been equally delighted.
Oh, folks loved my dice tower (thank you Karen!). If you also want a rad custom made dice tower from a book, check out KnowledgeIsTower and get our own!
