[Actual Play] The Mountain Witch - Now we may go back again

[Mike Montesa]

Well, we had our first session of tMW today and it went swimmingly, I'm happy to report. Only managed to get through chargen and Act 1 but it played itself out quite naturally and we ended on a high note and a good beat.

The characters are:
Gorobei (Jay) - A young and superstitious man with a likable face, thrown out of his clan for incompetence. He wants the gold from this mission so he can retire to a life of luxury. The tattoo of Buddha on his chest whispers truths to him, He keeps a vial of liquid (as yet unidentified in his belt).

Shingen (Cam) - A man who can see spirits, and attracts them to him as well. This curse brought shame upon his house and thus he was cast out. By taking this mission he hopes to be able to pay someone to remove the curse. His iron cast liver keeps him drinking all night while he composes poetry.

Juzo (Ryan) - A proud man whose clan has fallen on hard times. His fiefdom bankrupt, he was cut loose from the clan. He seeks to restore his family to honor with the money from this mission. He keeps a number of weaposn secreted about his person, as well as a shakuhachi. In time of need he can use his prodigious leap to avoid harm.

Kentaro (Refik) - Grim faced and dour, he failed to protect his lord from their enemies and was made masterless. With the money he hopes to help his dead lord's daughter regain her fiefdom. He has a nose for danger and can improvise weapons in a pinch. The silver locket around his neck speaks to something he lost long ago.

O-Iro (Jenny) - Oiro dressed as a boy in order to train as a man. But when she fell in love with her sensei she was discovered and cast out. If she can, she wants to return with the money and show her clan that she is easily their equal. In her travels she has learned she is lucky at games of chance, and has an uncanny accuracy with thrown stones.

We spent our first hour or so doing chargen and a quick rundown of the rules. The thing that took people the most time was deciding on their special abilities. Some of them were dicussed together, with myself and the other players making suggestions. This went pretty well and some good ideas were made better after a bit of discussion.

I had 5 players (one guy had to go on a business trip and couldn't make it). Jenny was new to roleplaying - she'd never played anything before. The other guys were all crusty old gaming grognards but everyone was very helpful to Jen and at the same time allowed her to find her own feet. She did really well.

We opened with the characters approaching the outskirts of the Aokigahara-jukai, the spirit and ghost filled forest that surounds the base of Mt. Fuji. Traditionally this forest is thought to be haunted (really) with the spirits of people who went in there to commit suicide, or the ghosts of murder victims whose bodies have been disposed of there. It's also notoriously easy to get lost, and as the region is volcanic, pockets of poisonous gas also pose considerable obstacle. The characters' travel through the forest was to be Act 1.

I'd prepped several bangs for this part, and used all of them by the time we wrappd for the day. Two of the grognard players were a bit hesitant at first - they were unfamiliar with having so much player power in their hands. However, I'd invited them to this game because I thought that once they twigged to this they would run with it, and I was right.

Throughout Act 1, I reminded everyone of what they could do with Trust points, and reiterated the idea that it was their responsibility to begin to foreshadow their Fates. I think they all did this really well actually, giving hints of the Fates they'd drawn but not giving too much away yet. Since the cards were drawn secretly, I didn't know what fates they had either and this made it interesting for me as well.

This is just the first part of our Mountain Witch game. I tried to be brief but yeek! It got very long, so I've broken it up by scenes over the next few posts. Here we go...

[Mike Montesa]

吹くとふく風な恨みそ花の春
もみぢの残る秋あればこそ
雨雲のおほへる月も胸の霧も
はらひにけりな秋のゆふかぜ
我身いま消とやいかにおもふべき
空より来りくうに帰れば
Autumn wind of eve,
blow away the clouds that mass
over the moon's pure light
and the mists that cloud our mind,
do thou sweep away as well.
Now we disappear,
well, what must we think of it?
From the sky we came.
Now we may go back again
That is at least one point of view
- Hojo Ujimasa, 1538 - 1590

Act 1- Introduction
Chapter One – The Aokigahara-jukai
Scene 1 – Into the Woods
We opened with each player describing their character and his or her appearance, manner, and background – a flashback to the group standing in the audience hall of Lord Asai, the patron who sent them on the mission, as they all gaze greedily at the huge stack of gold coins that has been promised to them if they kill the Mountain Witch.

The players seemed to take a strong cue as to initial alliances from the Chinese zodiac signs of their characters (we used each player’s real zodiac sign for each character). Gorobei and Juzo seemed to be at odds right from the start (as enemy zodiacs). Juzo took the lead and as they entered the difficult terrain of the forest, I hit them with the first conflict – do they go off course? I wanted to do something fairly quickly to actually put the game mechanics to use and see how they worked out. Jay got a mixed success so I narrated that they reached a kind of clear area and saw that Mt. Fuji was no longer in front of them but on their left – they’d been going around back the way they’d come. Then I handed it over to Jay for his partial, and he narrated a dried up streambed they could more easily walk on.

Off they went, heading toward the mountain again, the snow still falling. As they walked along, Kentaro smells something strange – they’re in a volcanic gas pocket! Or at least that’s what I was about to hit them with but Ryan beat me to the punch and suggested there was a rocky vent somewhere nearby spewing poisonous gas into the gully. Cool. They all make their rolls save Kentaro, who can’t seem to get out. He’s about to succumb to the gas, and here we get our first use of Trust. Both O-Iro and Gorobei spend Trust and help Kentaro get out of the gully. Unfortunately in their haste, they’ve scrambled out on either side of the streambed – Gorobei, O-Iro, and Kentaro on one side and Shingen and Juzo on the other. There is some discussion of who should try to cross over to who that goes unresolved (Gorobei and Juzo butt heads again).

[Mike Montesa]

Scene 2 – Restless Night
As night is falling they decide to stay where they are and wait til dawn to find a way to rejoin. Shingen and Juzo start talking. Juzo it seems wants to get some time to himself in the woods and tries to put Shingen to sleep by boring him with repetitive tales of his exploits. Juzo also wants to get Shingen to maybe let something slip and offers him sake from his bottle. This became our first character v. character conflict roll, resulting in a partial for Juzo – Shingen got drowsy but both of them nodded off at the same time.

On the other side of the gully, Gorobei suggests taking turns on watch. Kentaro insists he can stay awake all night. Gorobei tries to convince him he needs to be fresh for the next day’s travel. We decide to make it conflict roll. Jay’s desired outcome if he wins is that Kentaro falls asleep after all, thus opening him up to shame and possible suspicion. I also told him he could narrate the success as damage – perhaps Kentaro managed to stay awake all night but was so fatigued from doing so it counted as a chapter wound. However, Jay didn’t want to penalize Refik’s character (and perhaps the group as well) so early on. Jay won the roll, and while on his watch, Kentaro falls asleep.

Kentaro then awakens to the sound of O-Iro’s voice calling him from the darkness (kodama tree spirits were attempting to lure him into a trap). Kentaro calls out but can’t see her. He starts stumbling into the dark. I actually provided the voice, saying, “You hear O-Iro calling to you”) and now I wonder if I might have had Jenny do it. I didn’t because I thought it might take some control away from her, and she didn't know what I was up to. At any rate, Refik (Kentaro’s player) said that of course, Kentaro would think it was O-Iro, so he went with it. Becoming a bit suspicious, Kentaro stopped. O-Iro’s voice was then joined by Gorobei’s, urging Kentaro to run. At this point Kentaro noticed the trees around him bending their branches in his direction. He drew his sword and prepared to fight.

Since Kentaro was making a lot of noise now, everyone was up. O-Iro immediately charges off toward Kentaro’s voice (Jenny seemed pretty ready to get into the action). Gorobei followed somewhat more hesitantly. Shingen wants to cross over and help out, but Juzo balks at first – he’s blind in one eye (with one of those sword hilt eyepatches) and in the dark and in the mist he says it’s too dangerous. They roll it off, with Cam getting a mixed success – Shingen convinces Juzo to go across but as they do, Ryan takes his partial and says that Juzo slips, and testily regains his footing while waving off Shingen with an “I told you this was a bad idea” look.

The bloodsucking trees are about to make a meal of Kentaro as O-Iro and Gorobei arrive. Jenny has O-Iro spend Trust to help Kentaro and he manages to cut his way free with only some minor scratches (mixed success, flesh wound for him). They all get clear and rejoin Juzo and Shingen who’ve just come back across the gas filled gully. When explaining what happened, Kentaro says he heard Gorobei calling to him (Refik made a point of not mentioning that O-Iro’s voice was heard at all – an interesting bit of player knowledge separated from character knowledge all round the table here).

Gorobei is annoyed and Kentaro is suspicious. Gorobei says he doesn’t care whether Kentaro believes him or not – he just wants to get out of there and up the mountain. Gorobei’s been pushing for the party to move faster since they started. Here I said, “Isn’t it strange how much a hurry Gorobei seems to be in?” which got a round of “Yeah!” from everyone. Refik backed off and had Kentaro stand down from his questioning.

[Mike Montesa]

Scene 3 – Talking Heads
Before setting off Jenny suggested that O-Iro would climb a tree to get a look around and see where they were (and we added climbing as her third ability at that point). Up she went, finally breaking out of the treetops to overlook a sea of trees all around with Mt. Fuji looming up in the moonlight, the barest outline of a castle keep visible at the top of the mountain. The she felt something behind her.

Jen knows her movie pacing! “O-Iro slowly turns around to see what it is.” This drew some approval from everyone for a well-played shot as I dug up a picture of the fiery, disembodied head floating in the air behind her.

“Samurai!” it said. “Everything is going according to plan, yes?” This was my variation on the confused tengu I’ve seen used in other AP posts to try and sow some discord among the players. I wondered what Jen would say. “Yes,” she replied to some wide-eyed looks from the other players. “Good!” said the head. “Our master will see to it that you are properly rewarded for your service!” O-Iro climbs down, reports the skies are clearing and the direction of the mountain, and that’s all. Very interesting! I have no idea what Dark Fate card Jenny pulled and I’m wondering if she has the Dark Pact card, but she maintains ambiguity in regard to this later on.

[Mike Montesa]

Scene 4 – Damned Foreigners!
Off they go again. As dawn breaks, Kentaro hears some noise ahead (Refik initiated this in order, he said, to allow me to hit them with something else!) The bang I used next I’d originally intended to use first but didn’t and I was looking for a good point to introduce it when Refik handed me the opportunity! Cool!

It’s come out that Juzo was once a commander of his lord’s armies and knows some strategy. He takes command and splits O-Iro and Gorobei off to go left, while he and the others go right and find out what’s ahead. It’s a narrow deeply rutted track. There are two ox-carts being drawn along and a procession of about 20 soldiers, heading toward the mountain. At the head of the column ona horse is an outlandishly dressed and extremely odd-looking man with a huge nose (by Japanese standards) with oddly straw colored hair, and a huge beard. On the left, O-Iro and Gorobei try to stay hidden. On the right, Shingen wants to attack this “ally of the Witch” and excites Kentaro for a fight as well. Juzo also wants to confront this stranger. He brazenly walks out onto the road.

The oddly dressed man and his troop are startled and level their weapons. The stranger draws a pistol from his belt and levels it at Juzo. In mangled Japanese he demands to know who Juzo is. Juzo asks the same of this barbarian foreigner. The man says something indecipherable, and then, manages to say his ridiculously unpronounceable name, “Brownstone-sama,” adding the honorific ‘sama’ himself (incorrectly assuming airs). Wincing at the horrible Japanese and the equally foul smell of the man before him, Juzo asks is he is an ally of the Witch. Brownstone seemingly cannot understand Juzo and angrily orders his men to get moving, using the tone and language of man who learned his Japanese in order to boss around eta and dockside whores. Standing his ground, Juzo moves his sword to a ready position. Angered, Brownstone clicks back the lock on his pistol and mutters “Foolish monkeys never learn!”

Upon hearing the pistol being readied, Kentaro and Shingen charge! Things start happening very quickly. Here I set out a die to represent Brownstone, and one die for each group of 5 soldiers, for a total of four groups. The players then put their dice up against the groups they wanted to engage. Juzo wanted to cut down Brownstone, and the gaijin trader wanted to get away. Shingen and Kentaro engaged two groups of soldiers, going back to back to fight them. With a war cry, O-Iro readied her naginata and charged, followed by a cursing Gorobei.

Juzo and Brownstone were one-to-one, and I rolled a success. I narrated that Juzo went low and cut Brownstone’s mount from under him, but the foreigner hit the ground and dropped some sort of sulphurous smoke bomb behind him to effect his escape.

With a trust point from Gorobei, O-Iro lays into the soldiers in front of her. She got a double success, and I rolled for the bad guys as a group so I told Jenny to describe how she took down five soldiers with Gorobei’s help. O-Iro impaled two on the end of her halberd, then whipped the butt end around and knocked out two more, while Gorobei dispatched the fifth, “in a big spray of blood.” You go girl!

Cam and Refik decide to take a group roll with no Trust spent against their attackers. They both roll the same number and I get a partial. Surrounded by enemies, it’s all they can do to defend against the flurry of blades and each takes a flesh wound (“Cool cosmetic scars!”)

A squad of soldiers levels their muskets at Juzo who tries to leap away. Unfortunately, one of them tags Juzo for a chapter wound and the proud ronin crashes to the ground. Gorobei lays into the musketeers, with O-Iro spending Trust this time, supporting him by hurling stones at the soldiers. Gorobei makes short and bloody work of them.

Finally, Kentaro spends Trust on Shingen, and this time, they nail the roll with a double, cutting their enemies to ribbons.

This was the first real blade-to-blade combat and it went more smoothly than I expected. Using a die to represent a whole group of combatants worked very well (I was thinking of them as mooks anyway). I also started to really understand the strength of various types of bad guys with regard to their ability to injure or hinder the characters. Everyone also seemed to enjoy the narrative freedom of the fight. Refik, a big D&D player, said it was liberating to play out a fight this way, without being pinned down to a grid map.

They pull the tarp off the wagon and discover that it is loaded with powder and shot. Brownstone was obviously bringing this load of ammunition to the Witch. They figure they’ll see Brownstone again, but the Witch won’t see his supplies. Juzo lays a trail of powder away from the wagon (after Kentaro un-hitches and frees the oxen), and with a few strikes of his flint, the powder sparks off. Cam narrates a shot of the five of them walking away from the cart in slow motion as it goes off in a big fireball, with the blast wave dramatically whipping their clothes and hair around (“A Jerry Bruckheimer moment!”)

Gorobei is not too happy with Juzo’s confrontational tactics and lets his displeasure be known. The others back him down, saying at least now the Witch won’t have the powder and shot he needs. In a huff, Gorobei insists they get going again.

[Mike Montesa]

Scene 5 – Curse of the Spider Woman
They travel along the narrow road toward Mt. Fuji, and reach the lower slope. The sun is going down and they decide to camp, and assault the mountain in the morning. Juzo lights a fire and Kentaro and Shingen share sake. Gorobei sits by himself praying. O-Iro gets up and says she’s going to walk the perimeter. Shingen asks if she’d like someone to go with her, but O-Iro insists she’ll be fine. I took this to mean Jenny wanted another encounter with the sougenbi (based on O-Iro’s reaction when she first ran into it). So as she was walking along, sure enough, she hears the thing whispering to her. “Samurai. You have done well to lead them here. Now, stay where you are. If you go back to your comrades it will be your death.”

At the campsite, a gust of wind twirls the fire into a column of flame (Kentaro’s sixth sense working again) and from the trees comes a strange looking woman with spiders crawling all over her and in and out of her hair. “Are you servants of Lord Asai?” she asks. Juzo says, “Yes, and we have come destroy your evil master and send you back to hell!”

The woman replies, “My evil master? You serve the man who flayed my family alive before me and tell me my master is evil? No, I am here to cleanse the stain of your foulness from this forest, and revenge myself on Lord Asai and all who serve him,” she opens her arms wide and from all around the characters a black roiling mass is closing in on them – huge bowling ball sized spiders.

O-Iro can see her friends are in trouble. “I must go back,” she says. The sougenbi looks confused. “If you do you will die. The plan is going so well. Why destroy yourself when you will be so richly rewarded? You serve the Witch do you not?”

“No,” O-Iro says and turns away, readying her naginata. Whoa! What is Jenny up to? Is O-Iro a servant of the Witch or not? I don’t know what her Fate is, so this was a very interesting scene!

The fight is a tough one, with everyone except Juzo taking a chapter wound as the spiders crawl over them and inflict painful poisonous bites. When O-Iro joins the fight Gorobei tosses another point of Trust her way and she does likewise. Again Kentaro and Shingen help each other and Juzo take on the spider woman, who has sprouted eight hairy legs from her midsection and is flinging globs of webbing at them. She manages to pin Shingen to a tree, but in the end Juzo takes her head off.

They stand down from the fight. Juzo picks up the spider womans head and shouts a challenge up at the mountain, but as he does, the dead woman’s face and body return to that of a normal human being, one that O-Iro recognizes as a servant who went off to Lord Asai’s castle to work there. Sobered, they leave the site and move to another camp on the other side of the road.

When I had the spider woman transform, I told the players, “One of you recognizes her, who?” and I wanted one of them to pick it up. They all kind of looked at each other, but finally Jenny kicked in and went with it. I think I messed up here and I should have just picked one of the players. However, not knowing what Fates they had checked me. If had known who might be most susceptible to having their friend’s head shoved in their face, I think I could have avoided that, “Not me,” moment. So Jenny saved my GM bacon there!

It was getting late and we’d reached the end of the chapter so I decided to stop there. Before we did though, Ryan wanted another scene (Ryan is really hot on player authorship). While on his watch, Juzo is walking around the camp. He stops, listening to the silence in the forest. Someone puts their hand on his shoulder. Juzo turns around and says, “Oh, it’s you.”

つずく...(to be continued...)

[Mike Montesa]

Follow-up
So, we’ll find out who it is that Juzo met in the woods next session. I don’t want Ryan to give away his Fate just yet, but a scene like that sure does create suspicion! Fortunately I have several NPCs to choose from. I think Ryan’s just handed me the opportunity to bring another one in.

When it came time to award trust Gorobei actually gained a point of Trust from Juzo (to which Gorobei did not reciprocate – his Trust in Juzo remained 0). He also picked up one from O-Iro and Shingen. Kentaro was still suspicious – it was Gorobei’s voice he heard that led him into the ambush by the bloodsucking trees (and O-Iro’s voice as well, but Kentaro gave her a point of Trust anyway!) Kentaro lost a point from Gorobei (who thinks Kentaro is a whiny coward) and gained one from Shingen, which made perfect sense given how they’d helped each other out (and I’m starting to wonder about Shingen’s motives; he’s been awfully buddy-buddy with Kentaro). Shingen picked up a point from Kentaro and Juzo, but O-Iro and Gorobei’s Trust in him stayed the same. Juzo got Trust from O-Iro and Shingen, while Kentaro respects him but not enough to increase his trust in him. Finally, O-Iro and Gorobei both raised their Trust in each other to four (from three, wow!) O-Iro basically got a point of Trust from everyone (and I think she’s totally setting them up!)

No one used Trust to narrate another characters’ success, though I mentioned they could do that more than once (I’m reminding them of that too) and I will try to push it next time as well). No one used trust to betray either, although I am sure that’s coming!

All the players said they had a good time and want to continue. I saw Jen today at work and she said she was at home last night thinking about how to get more information out of the others next time – she definitely is into this now! For a newbie, she did just fine, as I expected. Jay and Refik, who had little knowledge of the game going in, said it was great not having to sweat the details of the fight scenes and just be badasses. On the walk back to the station, listening to Refik talk about the game, I think he was experiencing some sort of gaming paradigm shift (“I’m tired of D&D”) Cam and Ryan and I, who all have been waiting for the chance to run or play tMW, are of course revved up for more!

As the GM, I’m not really having any trouble keeping things going. I kinda think it would be helpful to know what the characters’ Fates are so I could better aim bangs at them. I suppose this could lead to me inadvertently giving them away, and I do kinda like not knowing, but it seems to not be that much of a problem. Anyway, we’re going to keep the Fates secret until the end.

[SpringsBoundlessThorns]

sugoii ne! i just wish i was playing! but reading is fun too! keep 'em coming!

[The Eye]

Originally Posted by Mike Montesa

As the GM, I’m not really having any trouble keeping things going. I kinda think it would be helpful to know what the characters’ Fates are so I could better aim bangs at them. I suppose this could lead to me inadvertently giving them away, and I do kinda like not knowing, but it seems to not be that much of a problem. Anyway, we’re going to keep the Fates secret until the end.

One technique that I think might help is just to aim Bangs at the Fates, even if you don't know who has which one...

What kind of bangs did you use?

[Mike Montesa]

Originally Posted by dyjoots

One technique that I think might help is just to aim Bangs at the Fates, even if you don't know who has which one...

That's what I'm doing. Feels a bit like shooting blind but now that we have some stuff happening I can fine tune them a bit more.

What kind of bangs did you use?

The Fate specific bangs in the intro were the floating head (oriented towards the Unholy Pact), the ammunition caravan (Unholy Pact or True Motives), and the spider woman, which I'd intended to say something about Desperately in Love but turned out more like Revenge.

I still don't have a very good idea what Fates are out there as yet, though I can make some guesses. Act 2 is going to be where the players really start pushing their Fates more so by the time it's over, I should be able to aim Bangs at them with much more precision, rather than just throwing hand grenades, so to speak.