Clan Bok's Folly
From Burning Wiki
Clan Bok's Folly is a campaign set in the vikingesque lands of Nordheim, run by Dave Lawson. Players include Sanjeev Pshah, Nick Ranger, James Di Vito, Amanda Lau and J.F. Gauthier.
Clan Bok is in dire straights. Per Sveriksson, the clan chieftain has fallen ill. But this is no normal sickness. He is fevered and delusional, talking and screaming at things that aren't there. Out of respect for the man's past, nobody has supplanted him as chief. His passing on is imminent, and they are waiting until then to make their claims for the throne. Per has no offspring to hand down the leadership of the clan to, and is in no condition to select and heir from amongst the healthy thegns.
As if these problems weren't enough, the clan's ancestral spirits are turning their back on the living. All manner of mischevious spirit run about the clan lands, causing no end of trouble for the clan folk.
The game begins with the players scramble to make sense of the chaos running rampant through the clan. Supersitions are aflame, and tempers are short. Everyone is blaming everyone for what is happening, and there is no law-talker to settle disputes.
The clan spirits require reconciliation, and a new heir needs to be chosen. The stakes are high for the players and for the clan.
JF will be playing the part of Brynehilde Ingridsdottir,who actually prefers to be known as HERGERSDOTTIR, a young tomboy coming to terms with her responsibilities as a woman in the clan and her family. She has lived her life thus far as a boy, attending raids, and whooping it up at the moots, but now that Herger Torvaldsson, her father, has decided it is time to cement her future by marrying her, she is forced into situations she is most uncomfortable with. This is made all the more difficult for her by Gere Frost-Mane, for whom she really does want to be a wife, yet see hers more as a kid sister.
Sanj bowed out due to a lack of time. A shame!
Jimi's character is Egil Torvaldsson.
Nick's character is the skald Vörn Pàllsson.
Amanda will be playing the role of Inga, a nursemaid and mistress to Herger's household.
Contents |
Session Log
This will contain log of our sessions as well as the perceptions of the players. Now, when I'm writing the log, I am of course writing it from my own memory, and we have been made aware of just how fallible my grey matter has become of late. So, please take a look at the log and fill out the parts of it that I neglected to detail. Also, after every session, each player will describe one thing that they particularly disliked about the session, and another that they liked, and then explain why in both cases. Something like will help all of us to adapt our playstyles for a better game!
Session 1
Good:
- I was happy with how Herger came across. He was a very difficult character to play because he is a broken man in a society where not a lot of slack is cut. He managed to skirt the fundamental issues without really addressing them, which is more or less his game plan. He's playing the waiting game until Brynehilde gets herself married. Barbar
- Generally fun session, especially for a bunch of noobs like us. I liked the way Barbar banged at our beliefs. It was not too contrived. For my character, I was especially into that last little jab you pulled hinting at Wylief possibly backing Egil for some wort of clan leadership. Now that I know this and various other tid bits about the way the whole thing is starting to unwrap, I'm gonna modify my each of beliefs a bit and hone them more to what we are doing. Jimi
Bad:
- I'm going to cheat and list two gripes I had. First of all I made a mistake with that first scene. I made it too long. I wanted it really just to be an introduction to the clan prior to the actual banquet, but look at what it turned into! It was both awesome and awful. It became a cool scene with the test of pain between Soriel and Egil, and the typical drunken revelry, but the longer it went, the longer Amanda went without playing. I should have involved Inga in the festival, perhaps she was dragged outside to help dispensing the mead? Who knows... I wasn't thinking. Barbar
- My second gripe was a tougher one to resolve. I had intended to put in the raid scene from the get go. Something galvanising for the clan. I was NOT looking for a mass battle, as such would take far too long and really isn't the focus of our game! More than enough time was spent by the players to allow the raiders to escape unscathed. A couple of minutes following the alarm was all that was required for them to round up the booty and start to head off. The mistake I made was having characters test skills/stats to see if they were able to get up quickly etc, when it was infact irrelevant. Either I shouldn't have let people make these rolls, or I shouldn't have railroaded the raid away before you guys took action. Something I'm gonna have to discuss a bit with Sanj. Barbar
- I was disappointed when I had a good chance to put forward some sort of agenda when sitting with Herger. I had some vague War discussion, which I wasn't prepared enough for and didn't care enough about. Again, I think that tighter, more forceful beliefs would have helped. Jimi
Session 2
Good:
- Alright last night session was very nice...we advanced quite a few belief driven goals or at least have made some nice headway with many of them. Although the actual story content didn't move ahead as quickly as I think Dave wanted it to it was none the less a very productive session...Clan Bok now has temporary leadership and Thora, now blind, has been swayed, at least for the moment, into helping us out more. Brynehilde actually started working on her Gere related belief and Egil is now the clan's temporary leader. All of these things are excellent. JF
- A lot of beliefs came out last session. I particularly enjoyed the curve that Brynehilde is on. Definitely didn't expect to see her dressing up for Gere! Barbar
- I liked the debate about what to do next in repsonse to the Lismelder raid. I prefer when things involve everyone at least a little bit, and everyone had something interesting to say and seemed genuinly opinionated on the subject. Jimi
Bad:
- Ok my only problem at the moment is with certain parts of the system...I find, that even though it's probably the best RPG system I've played in many year of gaming, certain aspects in it really bog down gameplay. As much as combat is a very precise and extremely realistic the actual mechanics behind the combat system are very arduous to go through. They really slow down the game. OK, I have to admit that we are mostly a beginning group and that as we get better with the mechanics the slow-down in gameplay will become less obvious, however at the moment I find them a little taxing. JF
- Pacing. I don't seem to have it. I have no idea how long things take to play out. Barbar
- I think we need to stop earlier and, as a group, do some updating. I think its too much to ask for people to do homework in terms of what they want to do next time and where their BITs are going. Besides, that takes away the shared authorship aspect of character creation and evolution. If we get together on this stuff more, we'll have BITs that are more focused towards making good stories together instead of being the standard self-centered approach. On top of all this, things like the DoW for who is going to be chief should be done earlier than later. It makes a good conclusion, but it felt anti-climatic with everyone winding down to leave. Jimi
Session 3
Good:
- We really only had the one scene, but it was a good one. I enjoyed being challenged by the young Lismelder brat and having to choose between Egil's idiomatic rashness and the good of the clan. To restate the obvious; the best scenes are ones that put BITs in conflict with one another. Jimi
Bad:
- The scene time that people got was not balanced. I'd like to suggest we borrow some scene economy theory from BE, but the biggest fault lies with the lack of time we had. Still, its a good idea to be a bit more rigourous to the point of artificial (seriously like a chess clock) to make sure everyone get's their time to shine. Step one might be to make sure that when its someone's turn, that everyone knows it is their turn. By making it very explicit, I think the tendency would be for people to start thinking about how that person can have something cool happen. Anyways, we'll talk. Jimi
