Category: Sagas of the Icelanders

Some questions/comments after our first session of Sagas last week

1. the advancement rules really direct the PCs towards their relationships. I reckon this will take a while to sink in with some of the players; it’s a big change from previous PbtA games we’ve played.

How rigid are people with the instruction “When one of your moves targets a character that you have a relationship with”? 

If a character’s honour is questioned by someone they have a relationship with, does that count?

2. In the moves which allow characters (Shield Maiden and Godi) to pick moves from rolesbooks of the other gender, they say “If it uses Gendered, you use Wyrd instead.”, but there are very few of those I can spot (Child: Play; Woman: Running the house, Family Chest; Man: Man’s work) and some of those seem very specific to that role and not really transferable – am I missing something?

Also, given that Monster and Thrall can be chosen with either gender, I presume they’d be fair game to pick?

3. In the Armour move, one of the choices is that the armour gets “irrevocably destroyed” that’s obviously expensive if it comes to mail; but there’s nothing that forces someone to do that.

Though “You regain the hold spent only when you have plenty of time to fix and readjust your armour” makes me suspect that this mightn’t actually be irrevocable after all.

In the Weapons section, spears destroy mail automatically. Is that also irrevocable or is it temporary?

4. In Battle, how many of the PCs group should we assume are harmed by default? I would have guessed at a few…but then the ‘you watch each other’s back’ choice would be pointless, so half?

Also, what would you suggest for a PC participating in a battle – accepting a physical challenge?

(I love these battle rules by the way, talk about hard choices!)