Night Witches – Page 9 – Powered by the Apocalypse G+ Archives

More photos I forgot to add from my trip to the museum.

More photos I forgot to add from my trip to the museum. Rear view of the same plane. The Russian on the side translates to “Vengeance for Duchia!” who was a pilot in the Night Witches killed in battle. The 23 on the tail fin was chosen to commemorate the 23 pilots who were awarded HSUs.

The plane apparently came from Poland where it was discovered wrecked and restored by an aviation society. Before bought by Paul Allen. Not sure about the rest of the history surrounding it.

In addition, right next to the PO-2 was a German searchlight and generator. Apparently the searchlights operated in three truck groups. One with a searchlight, one towed the generator and the third carried the visual range finding and sighting equipment and a audio direction finder. Operated by a crew of 13 people.

After work today I ran across the street to the Flying Heritage Museum and snapped some pictures of their Po-2.

After work today I ran across the street to the Flying Heritage Museum and snapped some pictures of their Po-2. The thing that struck me the most was the control mechanism is nothing more than an external lever that pulls a cable to adjust the flaps and ailerons. You can clearly see it on the middle of the fuselage. In addition to the flap elevation cables that run from the front to the rear. It’s very primitive with just foot pedals that pivot the wires via tension.

I was able to reach out and touch the wing. it’s about as sturdy as cardboard.I asked the museum people if I could get a closeup of the control panels. But, they wouldn’t let me cross the barrier to snap a picture. Much sadness.

So, i was browsing around the community in preparation for a game and noticed a disturbing lack of this…

So, i was browsing around the community in preparation for a game and noticed a disturbing lack of this show. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0gKZcGFEmNU&list=PLhuA9d7RIOdaPW6tvhlrXyu8VPmyRyeDw&index=9

It gets a bit out there at times. The special effects are a bit iffy and made for television as well. But still worth a watch.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0gKZcGFEmNU&list=PLhuA9d7RIOdaPW6tvhlrXyu8VPmyRyeDw&index=9

Hi all

Hi all,

I’ve been asked to run Night Witches as a one-shot at an upcoming game day. Has anyone done one-shots? The game seems really suited to longform play, but I am a little unsure how to run it as a game that won’t move on into a campaign. Does anyone have any advice?

Thanks!

Hi, folks! I came across Night Witches via The Warren and had a question.

Does it ever happen that the GM can directly prevent a player from achieving an advance? For example, the Pigeon/Protector uses her Bedside Manner to try to patch someone up but misses the roll, and the GM chooses “Have death collect what is due,” thereby preventing her from earning an advance by saving someone’s life.

Just curious whether this might happen frequently, rarely, or not at all.

In our last game (still at Trud Gornyaka), Sergeant Nastya Primakova went to considerable lengths to get hold of a…

In our last game (still at Trud Gornyaka), Sergeant Nastya Primakova went to considerable lengths to get hold of a TT-30 pistol (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TT_pistol) of the sort the boys in the 218th Regiment are issued. (I realise that the Night Witches probably were issued with sidearms but my rule of thumb is that if a player wants something they have to earn it.)

As a result of a Scrounge roll, Nastya attracted unwanted attention and incurred a debt. She got the gun but at no small cost in personal dignity (in case you think I’m being coy, it involved sex) and this is likely to lead to further complications in later games.

However, It occurs to me that there is no particular mechanical benefit that comes from Nastya getting the gun. I realise that the fiction is the main thing to worry about but in mechanical terms a pistol or other piece of useful equipment does not do anything more for the character than having a gutsy attitude or a winning personality would, even though getting the gun came at a genuine (and ongoing) narrative and personal cost for the character. This wouldn’t be a big deal in a one-shot game but over the course of a campaign I like the idea that you can accrue useful gear (although I am mindful of not overdoing this). I also think there out to be a bit of “Chekhov’s gun” pay-off at work as well – Nastya got the gun so she ought to be able to make use of it in a way that can affect the game at a mechanical level.

So, I came up with the following rule for Nastya: “Hold one. When you use the TT-30 to threaten or intimidate someone as part of Acting Up like a hooligan, spend this hold to succeed as if you had rolled a 10+.”

As you can see, this is based on the Sparrow’s Ghost Move but made more specific and without any cost; I think the character has already paid the price for getting the gun and narratively there might be consequences for sticking a pistol in someone’s face anyway. I have attached a picture of a little card prop I made for the player as reminder to hold onto until she is ready to use it.

Any thoughts or comments are quite welcome.

After missing a session, my Monday crew were back at Pashkovskaya today.

After missing a session, my Monday crew were back at Pashkovskaya today. We had a few disasters, had to perform in a talent show (it was a total disaster), and finished off the duty station with mission C.

This week our daytime misadventures went from bad to worse, and only scrambling for that final mission saved us from facing some nasty consequences. My pilot Galya blew up her hand with some illicit munitions (she didn’t know about them – spoils of previous scrounging), Vera was malingering in the infirmary and ran into a keen young doctor with lots of treatments he wanted to try out. Everyone else was working on this stupid show we had to put on. Then we screwed that up, in front of the Lt General too.

Galya also saved the life of our mechanic, hit by debris from a failed wheels down roll. That was a bit of a turning point for her, from “everything is fucked and we’re all going to die” to “maybe some of us will make it through”. I guess time will tell if that’s optimism or pessimism.

We lost Captain Liza Vorapeyeva to flak on that last mission, although it was otherwise successful. She’d been there from the beginning, and from being hated by the others had finally gotten some respect from those under her command, so it was quite a loss.

Our replacements have all hardened into natural-born Soviet airwomen now, although rather fatalistic and traumatized with it. I’m looking forward to seeing how our new squadron commander handles things (in fact, one character might take the promotion to Major advance, which would be… interesting).

We’re also switching GM again, to Liza’s player now that she’s no longer with us.

Here are some guys who played a bunch of Night Witches and recorded it.

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?action_edit=1&list=PLOTilBK2SqLPzEy-oS-vmOM5VbKI1RRTo

I had my first Night Witches game last night.

I had my first Night Witches game last night. I’m running a one-shot at a local convention in November, and wanted to get a feel for the rules before I subjected five players to my fumbling. I was lucky in that my four players last night had all played AW or MonsterHearts, and so had a pretty good grounding on flow and how the moves worked, and when the best time was to use the moves.

Coming from a diceless, heavy RP gaming background, this was quite different. Fun, but different. While I find all RP to be community storytelling, Night Witches really rewards narrative in a much greater way than I am used to. It also requires openness for the players, which is challenging to many of my extended gaming group. For them, you make a character, and you have sole control over that character. Night Witches asks them to have faith in the unspooling of the narrative and to incorporate that narrative into their character. The goal isn’t to “win”, it’s to tell a good story together.

We had 5.5 hours to play. The creating of characters took 1.5 hours instead of .5 hours, and while we had a few side conversations, they were brief and we didn’t dawdle over most of it. But we were all pretty happy with the characters, and as GM, I was happy with the various hooks they’d given me to run with. I gave them 5 advancements instead of 4, and encouraged them to take regard as advancement. Three of them did, and it added quite a bit to the initial storytelling.

We ran Paskovskaya, and made it through three night runs. They skated on one run, pulled another run out of their collective tuckuses by a daring use of Tempt Fate, and had a horrible middle run. The Section Leader took personal responsibility for the three lives lost over the course of two days (all NPCS), the one PC crew woman who was severely harmed (they used moves to heal her up enough to fly the next night), and the fiery wreck of one of their planes. She’s now in serious trouble with the Brass and the NKVD. I challenged them with lack of materiel to fix the planes, the visit of the Lieutenant General, zealot Olga, and the 218th taking credit as well as using seniority to impose unwelcome attention on their fellow airwomen.

At the end of the evening, I felt as if I was getting a solid handle on the flow and how to push the players, and they all said they wanted to play more, and loved the story they were weaving together. I call that a successful night of gaming!

Next game is at the end of the month. I’ll let you know how it goes.

Fans of Night Witches will probably be very interested in this new anthology of games about women in World War 2.

Fans of Night Witches will probably be very interested in this new anthology of games about women in World War 2. It features work by Mo Jave, Kira Magrann, and Claudia Cangini, all of whom were a big part of making Night Witches a success.

Originally shared by Unruly Designs

We are pleased to announce that the War Birds Kickstarter has launched!

War Birds is a collection of larp and freeform games about the experience and contribution of women during World War II.

Please check it out!

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/721113354/war-birds-0