I played the goði in one of the one-shots Jason Morningstar ran at Origins, Arnar Firebeard. I imagined him as the Stringer Bell of the Icelandic Commonwealth: a man capable of terrible violence, trying to make it all just business. My family kept wanting to leap to treachery, deceit, and betrayal, but I cautioned them to keep those as back-up plans when all else failed. Well, when I walked into my daughter’s home to find my adopted son over the dead body of the son I was about to marry to a rival goði’s daughter, that’s about when all else failed. I came up with a plan to save my bacon with lies and treachery, which immediately blew up in my face.
It was a great game. Getting the PDF when I got home, I saw some of the changes between the version Jason had to run, and the final version. In particular, I keep thinking about how differently things might have gone for Arnar if considering an uneasy situation had been a move available to him. I almost certainly would have used that when I walked in on that scene, rather than going straight to the treachery that cost me everything. I probably would have asked “What is the most I can make out of this situation?” and “What is a honourable way out?”
It was a great game; I’m just reflecting on how these small changes could have had a really big impact on how it unfolded.
The new move definitely makes playing a male character a somewhat safer endeavour.
It might be the only move that lets them be careful and reasonable about stuff.