<< Go to part 3 15 [Weise Schildkröte] Dramatic Driven by his promise to Zornige Löwin, Weise Schildkröte tries to reconcile Silberblick and Falkenauge, but the scout still insists that Silberblick’s leadership is weak and indecisive, resisting the priest’s petition (and giving him a drama token). 16 [GM] Dramatic Now armed with two Drama tokens, […]
Tag Archives: Hillfolk
<< Go to part 2 8 [Weise Schildkröte] Dramatic Weise Schildkröte calls his son into the priest’s cave (by now an often used location) warning him of Falkenauge’s ambitions and urging him to move pro-actively against his rival – though he remains ambiguous and unclear of what Silberblick should do exactly. He can’t really convince […]
by Ralf Schemmann Situation: The Grasseater tribe has been subjugated by the Rock-Mighty (the player’s tribe) and been forcefully integrated. In exchange for food (they were facing a famine), the Grasseaters had to collect iron ore for the Rock-Mighty from a canyon in the hills. A year has passed. For a map of the setting […]
by Ralf Schemmann Continuing our recent spate of playtests for Pelgrane Press, we’ve played a session of Hillfolk the first game using Robin Laws’ new DramaSystem engine. I had the pleasure to play a session with Robin and Simon (among others) around Dragonmeet and was looking forward to dropping it on my group. The game […]
On my return from London, the players in the ongoing Hillfolk game wanted a full report on what went down in the one-shot I ran for the Pelgrane crew, pre-Dragonmeet. Who were their alternate universe counterparts, and what did they get up to? As the game moves into outside playtesting, it’s an issue I’ll be […]
Commenter Carl, over at my See P. XX intro to DramaSystem, asks about the role deceit plays in the game. Is there a mechanism to ensure that characters who are deceived act accordingly? It depends on whether the interaction is procedural or dramatic. In the first instance, it occurs in pursuit of a pragmatic goal, […]
At first glance, the survival horror cable series “The Walking Dead” would seem clearly procedural, devoted as it is to the efforts of a small band of people to tough out a zombie apocalypse. Certainly, many of its most memorable scenes pit characters against practical problems: finding a missing party member, snagging needed medical supplies, […]
A column on roleplaying by Robin D. Laws As mentioned last time, implementation of DramaSystem’s core goal—fostering emotional character interactions that play out as they do in drama and fiction—leads, as a series of follow-on effects, to a highly distinctive play experience. Procedural narratives, in which the heroes pursue a practical goal (identifying a killer, […]
Last week I presented a series of synopses from the in-house Hillfolk playtest, to show the sort of narrative you might develop over the course of a DramaSystem series. This time I thought I’d zoom in a bit with a detailed account of the action that unfolds during a single episode. This is from our […]
For a look at sort of broad-strokes narrative that might emerge over longterm DramaSystem play, I thought I’d provide you with the following synopses. These cover the first distinct chunk of episodes, analogous to a season of a serialized drama. The system doesn’t impose a particular arc on the group; rather, it provides a framework […]