Actual Play – You’re a Witch! (11/4/2011)

GM: Shaun Hayworth
Players: Sean Nittner, Kristin Hayworth and Justin Diehl
System: Burning Wheel
Setting: Burning Theorsa

We missed our normal Tuesday slot for Burning Wheel but made up for it by having an extra long Friday game. Short BW games are rough, because even with three players, everyone trying to hit all of their beliefs is most likely at least nine scenes, presumably with conflicts in most of them. This was nice because each player got to do some pretty significant things with their characters.

Moya got the pirate captain arrested for immoral behavior. He’s likely to be stoned for his so called offences. In the process she also but the “Fear” in Sir Baldric, leaving him terrified of her witchcraft.

Eogin connected with the missionaries in the port city and after some fairly significant political and religious disputes worked his way into their library and discovered all kinds about the Crown of Kings (successful roll) and a serpent death cult (failed roll).

Baldric used the loyalist attention Eogin was getting to make his appearance as Sir Catamere in front of the soldiers and convince them to put him in the lead of an assault of a nearby city, with the hopes of getting in front of the new king’s army and finding the Crown of Kings before they do.

Thoughts on this game.

It was good to see Eogin prospering. Religious well-meaning characters are sometimes tough to challenge and tough to put in hot water. Eogin so far hasn’t met any opposition that really challenged his beliefs, but I think he is getting there. He went head to head with a Theorsan priest and seemed unstirred. I can’t wait till a Kashkyr priest asks him about his religious morality after he stood beside a leader that killed hundreds, maybe thousands of people to get through a wall.

Moya and Baldric had temporarily shifted their grievances with each other. Just as Baldric was ready to see eye to eye with her about the importance of duty over honor (how very L5R of us), they were again put at odds when she cast “The Fear” and Baldric was in the area of effect. He felt as though a great demon of the sea was surging out of the ocean to envelop him. Pretty much from that point on he’s been calling Moya a witch, refusing to look at her (it’s a new instinct) and convinced that she does in fact make deals with demons. Moya is exasperated and insulted by Baldric. So, same antagonism but from a different angle. Yay

Having longer to play did make the game feel a lot more like we were doing this “thing”. Other games have felt like episodes of Arrested Development; hilarious but by the time you know for sure the show (or in this case game) has really started, it’s nearly done.

Baldric beat the pirate captain down. Fight is really, REALLY brutal if you are hesitating for a volley or two, and even using his fists and a pommel strikes Baldric beat Cailin badly. Had it gone the other way, I think he would have gutted Baldric.

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