Session 46: Through the Glare of Blue Light
8/13/23-9/5/23, Paused Time at Critical Juncture
PC: Redcorn, Luther, Gwendolyn
Hench: Amadayo, Mahin, Madroff, Beyza, Eggie, Jaylen, Jarod, Mulligan
Mercs: Army of nearly 300 mixed troops
Downtime chatter was minimal this week, with the options being Team A on military action or Team C which several of the available players were resistant to join. Some of our players limit their PC pool to two PCs, which is their prerogative, but it does make time jailed party selection a bit tricky.
By process of elimination they settled on running Team A as they marched in search of an area to settle a new domain in. Redcorn is eager to establish himself, but the other PCs are still on the fence about that part of the game. I’ll speak more about that at the end.
The army had proceeded along the Teesar in downtime to avoid the clash between Deinwick and Talston. They did not want to get drafted into fighting for either side. We picked up their travel and it was mostly uneventful until they camped in the swamp outside of Riverstride. An overnight visit from the infamous Meowster Mittens the Magnificent and his pride of fellow Sphinxes ended in most of the army fleeing the field and the party shelling out a couple magic items in way of a toll on the road. This is the second time the party has gotten shaken down by the arrogant cat-thing.
The rest of the travel towards Bellport, the capital of the region, was uneventful and they rested there a few days to try to pick up rumors on the landscape to the north. It was coastal and had several features pleasing to the group if they were to start a domain, but it had been under enemy control for a decade and a lot can happen in that time.
Gwen and Luther took their crews to drum up info while Redcorn made an appointment at the castle. He requested to see the Baron, but unfortunately the Baron wasn’t in, still embroiled in the occupation of Loch Lucerne to the east. This was not communicated and the party was much dismayed when they finally got their appointment 3 days later.
The info-gathering crew was very successful, learning quite a bit about the region and even some of the other areas in nearby enemy territory. There was actually a coastal town along the bay with maybe serviceable roads leading to it. It used to be part of a fiefdom but information just wasn’t available about its current status. One of Gwen’s henchmen, Amadayo, was imprisoned for gambling during this time, but fortunately his trial only took a few days and at great expense he was acquitted with damages. You might be stymied in a similar situation with a random arrest and trial during session. It took me about 2 minutes to adjudicate all of it because, of course, ACKS already does that. Easy to implement consequences for criminal activity are just one of many features of the robust system.
It turned out that the Baron’s proxy in Bellport was Sir Lionel Deinwick, brother to Lord Grueller Deinwick and Lord of Vennor in his own right, a smallish mining territory to the north. The party wanted access to the Baron’s maps of the area from the war and Sir Lionel was open to the idea but if they were going to establish a domain north of him, he insisted that they join the Barony as a vassal to Vennor. The players responded poorly to being shaken down by some noble that they had only just met and after much discussion and spewing of anti-feudal vitriol, they put off any agreement and left without maps.
The army marched north to recon in force after Redcorn verified the location of the coastal town of Paulsville. As they closed in, recon rolls started for both sides, giving a bit of strategic information but nothing super detailed. They knew that Paulsville had around 5 units (at platoon scale) in defense of the walled town. They felt confident with their newly acquired siege equipment that they could take it with time.
Unfortunately as they closed in, the army’s scouts informed them that there was a relief force of another 5 platoons marching to reinforce the town. After a brief war council, the group decided to try to intercept the reinforcements before they reached Paulsville. I decided opposing Strategic Ability rolls would suffice for whether or not they could achieve the goal, which they tied, so it was a coin flip which the party won.
The enemy army of hobgoblins, mostly medium cavalry with some light cavalry and longbowmen, were outnumbered pretty heavily but a bit tougher man for man compared to the human troops that the party fielded. The PCs took on a heroic foray, eliminating the longbowmen through devastating use of the insect plague spell, and then engaged in the battle. I prefer the abstracted resolution from Domains at War: Campaigns in these situations and after a single round, the invaders were victorious, routing the remaining hobgoblin cavalry which they pursued and defeated afterwards.
Confident that their flanks were secure, they applied triage and marched towards Paulsville to begin their siege. I decided on a small but cumulative percentage chance that the enemy learned of the battle and unfortunately hit that only 3 days into the siege, where their fresh catapults and ballista had already opened a breach in the defenses. Recon rolls went out again and the invaders learned that another seven platoons of reinforcements were on the march. The players weren’t sure whether to assault the town then defend against the reinforcements, turn and fight the reinforcements, or retreat. It was getting late in the session and we were weeks into the future, so I was ok stopping there to let them pick it up later.
Musings:
ACKS is a wonderfully robust game that has answers for things that most other systems either leave to DM fiat or have never even considered. It’s designed for a single party to pursue their interests together and by its nature pushes adventurers into conquering domains and ruling them as kings.
What I’m observing in two separate 1:1 ACKS games (Dubzaron and Oberholt) is a disconnect with party cohesion during the transition from Adventurer to Conqueror. The players with the will to develop and maintain armies are taking the initiative to do so with little involvement from other players. They then split off and engage in solo play during downtime to clear lairs, establish domains, etc using the abstracted rules from D@W:C. There is little engagement or investment from other players into the military action which leads to a disinterest in sessions that involve it and ultimately into the next phases of the game altogether.
One player is responsible for driving most of the military action in Oberholt and this session was challenged by the apathy of the other players regarding the army-specific events. Many queries for input were met with shrugs or claims of having no ownership of the army so no say in its actions, despite each player being a division commander in the order of the battle. Observing this disappointed me as a DM and my knee jerk reaction was “this must be fixed.” Whenever most of the table is staring at their phones is a sure sign the session isn’t engaging.
I talked it out a bit after the session and then contemplated it while getting my ass handed to me in a particularly brutal run of MtG Commander games. I ask myself in these moments whether the problem at hand is a GM, Player, or System issue.
ACKS is not designed to use 1:1 time. We’re breaking the system with that implementation but not in a significant enough way to abandon it and not related to the problem at hand. It’s not the system.
The game is adjudicated fairly and consistently. Rules are implemented as efficiently as I can. I can certainly improve in that way, but a game is served best when the table is up to speed on the rules that are being used during session. It’s not the DM.
The type of game we’re running encourages the players to choose their adventure. This requires some level of cohesion, some communication, some goal setting agreed upon by the group. If this is absent, we run into the diminished cohesion and lack of teamwork that makes sessions one-sided and boring. These issues can only be addressed by the players. They have to work together, at least during sessions, to pursue common goals. Otherwise it’s just herding cats.
To be clear, this isn’t a pursuit of “blame”, it’s just identifying where and what correction can be applied to achieve the results that we all want: a fun, engaging adventure game for the group of players involved. I share these musings after the reports to be as transparent as possible with how these games are running, where they can improve, and why they’re so much fun. My advice to players and DMs running this style of game is to take ownership of your portion of it. Read the rules. Strive to grow in your role within the group by practicing, and failing, and ultimately succeeding. It’s the same here as everywhere else in life. Thanks for reading and see you next week.
No comments:
Post a Comment