Memorial Day weekend 2023, maybe three new players and two vets. Playset: Animal Royalty (think Tiger King meets Mr Potter’s Penguins). A stripper named Candy with a dream of podcasting, a cult in garbage bag dresses raising unusually large kangaroos, and “a Tony Montana sized pile of cocaine.”

@Tristan Fishel : Here are my initial ideas on where to put my playbook advance: - Spider: Foresight (2 assists without stress) “I packed something special for you.” - Spider: Calculating (one free downtime) “Here’s a little something to help you stay awake.” - Spider: Functioning Vice (adjust vice rolls) - “People talk at the gambling table..:” - Whisper: Iron Will (+1d to resist with resolve) - “I call it… Corwin’s Liniment” - Lurk: Ghost Veil (become shadowy and insubstantial) - “At last, my science allows me to pierce the veil.” Probably just going with Foresight. You know how I love assisting. 😁

@Tristan Fishel : I’m kinda house-ruling it. There’s not much in the book. I use a regular action roll, allowing players to use whatever skill they want, as long as it’s justified in the fiction. Then we interpret the roll. Sometimes a roll goes really bad (failure with fear) and it blows up into a full-fledged encounter, so this method works a lot like a random table, except player-fed.

6th Session: The Chrysalis Revolver 🌳 Opening Ritual — Mindy’s Tree Each player wrote a short prayer, confession, or desire on an index card to represent something Mindy found in her tree. Then we passed them once, maybe added a line, and took turns reading them aloud. I was expecting it to help with tone. What I wasn’t expecting was how much material it gave me to echo later. Then we went around and had some moments with the PCs, and I largely asked the players to play these NPCs and develop those relationships: 🐝 Sally & Persephone Sally and Persephone checking on the bee, passing through the fungus crops and getting rumors from Mayor Sleeve Dustice. (Drew played Sally.) Then… Sally screams. 🎭 Lily & Pitt (Centerpiece) Smash cut to a makeshift infirmary in the church. (Bed sheets for curtains, Oldbottom sauntering around talking and healing.) I handed Lily to another player with some ideas on an index card: - Emotion: hurt expressed as anger - Some anchor lines to hit: - “You just can’t stand to see anyone happy, can you?” - “Ajax is gone… and you’re still here.” - And a rule: Do not forgive him The player leaned into a physical, standoffish style, which wasn’t what I would’ve done. And it worked really well. When Pitt pushed for answers and the player started speculating, we cut to... 🐎 Flashback — Pitt & Ajax Desert ride. Quiet conversation. - established their dynamic, solidified Ajax’s demeanor: Classic stoic cowboy who still sees things. - reframed Lily (Ajax implies she knows more than Pitt thinks) - deepened the mystery of Ajax’s disappearance - A callback or Easter egg to Dolemite’s destruction: The mountains burn. - We will be revisiting this scene over the next few games, or longer, to find what really happened. Kind of like Arrow. What’s neat is now Pitt is a question, not just a character: - Is he good? (As Persephone believes) - Is he dangerous? (As Lily believes) - Has he always been one or the other? 🕳 The Well — Discovery & Myth Creation

@Eric Person : “He shall know your ways as if born to them.” 😁

Agreed with what Eric said. You can always stitch some shorter adventures together, and getting some momentum will be good for morale. I’m also going to be honest: Consider a simpler system. If they’re new to roleplaying, maybe a one-night game of Fiasco or For the Queen might be nice. Or, if they’re not glued to fantasy, a less rulesy game like Monster of the Week or Masks might get their feet wet. I’ve also heard good things about Mouse Guard. And Magical Kitties Save the Day is surprisingly easy to GM. Edit: Cairn and Knave are both pretty simple systems that have that gritty fantasy feel. If you must play D&D, maybe find ways to ease all of you, players and GM alike, into the rules with a few specific encounters that teach the rules as you go. I’m a big fan of the “rule of the day.”