mgholson
November 2nd, 2012, 17:18
I brought my MLWM game to an end last night, I think we had about 6 sessions and I expected the game to last 3 or 4.
This was my first experience with Master and my first experience with a "Story Game" or a game where the rules are built around the story.
I had two really excellent players Emily and SPiegel who had awesome characters, and I picked up a third player, Andrew who really understood the game near the end but only got in the last couple of sessions.
In Master you play the evil minions of an evil genius type master and have to do his bidding. Your only stats are Self Loathing, Weariness, and Love. The goal of the game is to eventually kill the master, the only way to do this is raise your love stat by making connections with townspeople.
I did so many things wrong GMing this game that it shouldn't even really count as a play test, but I realized it was going to be impossible for the players to ever defeat the Master. In order to defeat the master you must finally resist his commands. Without going into the details of the system at the end Emily had gained 5 love but when attempting to resist the Master it was 10d4 vs. 2d4, even with a a bonus d8 it was mathematically impossible.
I've read a bit more about the game and I think that the players have to be constantly on the look out to gain love from the the townsfolk and each other. Players have to be aggressively gaining love to ever have a chance to defeat the Master.
In this game the players have alot of control in how the story progresses, they get to call scenes in which they attempt to gain love. I don't think I explained just how much up to the characters the story can be.
If the point of a Story Game is to make up a great story then I think Mission Accomplished.
Our Master was known just as Herr Doctor, a mad Botanist trying to develop a sentient plant. He had been cast out of academia and was holed up in an abandoned castle with a nice greenhouse.
Spiegel was a musician and his music aided the plant growth, though his music sounded painful to him everyone else heard beauty. Emily was able to heal plants but couldn't talk during the daylight hours, they were both employed by the Master.
He first sent them out to gather brain matter from a corpse which he would turn into a substrate for his modified plant to grow in. It worked but the plant was dying it needed human blood to continue to grow.
He sent them out to gather gypsies to harvest blood from. Soon the plant was thriving but it needed more.
He sent the minions out to slightly manipulate the townsfolk and also to look for victims that wouldn't be missed. He also wanted to torture his old colleges who had cast him out.
Eventually Spiegel was ordered to kill the Constable when he came to investigate a missing person. Spiegel did this with great joy. Spiegel had put all his points into self loathing so it was very difficult to resist the master and he eventually quit trying. His high self loathing score made him very successful at violent acts and so he thought, well might as well do what I'm good at.
In what I thought was the most interesting part of the story Emily lured a young girl's father to the castle to be plant food. The father was abusive to the young girl. The young girl freaked out when he couldn't find her only parent and found out that Emily had been seen taking her father to the Castle. She began asking to many questions and the Master ordered her silenced.
When Emily failed to silence the only person in town she'd managed to really connect with the Doctor eventually turned his minions on each other. In a big Surprise Emily stabbed Spiegel with a pitchfork even though he got nearly twice as many dice as she did, but she was unable to resist the master and eventually gave in and did as she was told.
Emily was forced to feed the young girl to the plant, but in a surprise twist the father's mind was in the plant and he just apologized for beating her then she runs out of the castle. While the master is contemplating the plants reaction Spiegel rushes in bleeding to death and lights the place on fire. The plant goes up and The Doctor tries to save it, Emily's mind is completely broken and she spends her last moments clutching the Doctor's clothes begging for his love as they burn to death.
As the Castle becomes a raging inferno Spiegel feels great regret for all the evil he had done and rips out his own throat.
The End.
This was my first experience with Master and my first experience with a "Story Game" or a game where the rules are built around the story.
I had two really excellent players Emily and SPiegel who had awesome characters, and I picked up a third player, Andrew who really understood the game near the end but only got in the last couple of sessions.
In Master you play the evil minions of an evil genius type master and have to do his bidding. Your only stats are Self Loathing, Weariness, and Love. The goal of the game is to eventually kill the master, the only way to do this is raise your love stat by making connections with townspeople.
I did so many things wrong GMing this game that it shouldn't even really count as a play test, but I realized it was going to be impossible for the players to ever defeat the Master. In order to defeat the master you must finally resist his commands. Without going into the details of the system at the end Emily had gained 5 love but when attempting to resist the Master it was 10d4 vs. 2d4, even with a a bonus d8 it was mathematically impossible.
I've read a bit more about the game and I think that the players have to be constantly on the look out to gain love from the the townsfolk and each other. Players have to be aggressively gaining love to ever have a chance to defeat the Master.
In this game the players have alot of control in how the story progresses, they get to call scenes in which they attempt to gain love. I don't think I explained just how much up to the characters the story can be.
If the point of a Story Game is to make up a great story then I think Mission Accomplished.
Our Master was known just as Herr Doctor, a mad Botanist trying to develop a sentient plant. He had been cast out of academia and was holed up in an abandoned castle with a nice greenhouse.
Spiegel was a musician and his music aided the plant growth, though his music sounded painful to him everyone else heard beauty. Emily was able to heal plants but couldn't talk during the daylight hours, they were both employed by the Master.
He first sent them out to gather brain matter from a corpse which he would turn into a substrate for his modified plant to grow in. It worked but the plant was dying it needed human blood to continue to grow.
He sent them out to gather gypsies to harvest blood from. Soon the plant was thriving but it needed more.
He sent the minions out to slightly manipulate the townsfolk and also to look for victims that wouldn't be missed. He also wanted to torture his old colleges who had cast him out.
Eventually Spiegel was ordered to kill the Constable when he came to investigate a missing person. Spiegel did this with great joy. Spiegel had put all his points into self loathing so it was very difficult to resist the master and he eventually quit trying. His high self loathing score made him very successful at violent acts and so he thought, well might as well do what I'm good at.
In what I thought was the most interesting part of the story Emily lured a young girl's father to the castle to be plant food. The father was abusive to the young girl. The young girl freaked out when he couldn't find her only parent and found out that Emily had been seen taking her father to the Castle. She began asking to many questions and the Master ordered her silenced.
When Emily failed to silence the only person in town she'd managed to really connect with the Doctor eventually turned his minions on each other. In a big Surprise Emily stabbed Spiegel with a pitchfork even though he got nearly twice as many dice as she did, but she was unable to resist the master and eventually gave in and did as she was told.
Emily was forced to feed the young girl to the plant, but in a surprise twist the father's mind was in the plant and he just apologized for beating her then she runs out of the castle. While the master is contemplating the plants reaction Spiegel rushes in bleeding to death and lights the place on fire. The plant goes up and The Doctor tries to save it, Emily's mind is completely broken and she spends her last moments clutching the Doctor's clothes begging for his love as they burn to death.
As the Castle becomes a raging inferno Spiegel feels great regret for all the evil he had done and rips out his own throat.
The End.