My group just finished a 9 session campaign of The Watch.
My group just finished a 9 session campaign of The Watch. Though I would share some of the pictures of the map. Main roads were added along with the Richti traveling path. A giant lake North of The Clan Lands border turned out to be The Shadow stronghold. The players started bringing colored markers and pencils and coloring in parts of the map.
After a lot of delays, it looks like we’re finally going to start our campaign this upcoming week.
After a lot of delays, it looks like we’re finally going to start our campaign this upcoming week. I plan on starting out with something fairly simple, just a mission to show them how it works and then an introduction to camp politics and a chance for them to chat between their characters. I’m considering ending with an advance on the main camp as a bit of cliffhanger to lead into the next session.
Is there anything you guys do to get a first session off the ground well? This is the first game I’m ever really GM-ing, so any advice at all would be great to hear. Thanks to this group for helping me out with all of this!
A moment from my Watch game.
A moment from my Watch game.
Just had our Session 0, it went really well!
Just had our Session 0, it went really well! We have a Spider, a Fox, a Bear, and a Lioness. One is nonbinary, two are trans women, and one is a cis woman. They came up with some super creative ideas to answer the clan questions, and I’m excited to start playing with them.
Well we did it.
Well we did it. Wednesday we sat down for four hours and created characters and put together the skeleton for the world.
Now I have about 8 weeks to dress that Skeleton in some meat and put some clothes on it. Here’s the PowerPoint I put together and projected onto my friends television as we worked through everything. Everyone seemed to like it as they had a reference going through everything. Here’s a link to the PDF with notes on what happened.
(I exported it to PDF since that’s viewable by most anyone, but I will happily share the PPT if anyone wants a copy).
https://www.dropbox.com/s/js3sxfqg6hd752h/The%20Watch%20First%20Session%20-%20NOTES.pdf?dl=0
https://www.dropbox.com/s/js3sxfqg6hd752h/The%20Watch%20First%20Session%20-%20NOTES.pdf?dl=0
One of the players in my Watch campaign, Lu Quade, drew this cool fan art from tonight’s session.
One of the players in my Watch campaign, Lu Quade, drew this cool fan art from tonight’s session. Here’s the explanation…
“I doodled this sword – the sword I took from my friend Papho, after I accidentally struck them down in the confusion of a fight with The Shadow. The sword was lovingly engraved by Papho with symbolic representations of those they were close to in The Watch – including myself… I was unworthy to carry it, and it shattered the first time I tried to use it. I returned to their grave and buried it with Papho: reclaiming my own sword. A cursed blade – bound to see me die in battle – hopefully heroically…”
At this point you should either be getting tired of hearing how FUCKEN FANTASTIC Bryanna Hitchcock’s game was, cause…
At this point you should either be getting tired of hearing how FUCKEN FANTASTIC Bryanna Hitchcock’s game was, cause all of us player’s keep gushing all over it, or more accurately: be wishing you were there.
I write up some of that in my little post, but it might be said better in Bryanna’s or Tor Erickson’s. But whatever, I’m gonna heap on some more love.
Well heck. I didn’t even know this community existed.
Well heck. I didn’t even know this community existed.
Last weekend I had a peak RPG experience running The Watch at Big Bad Con. Great players. Here’s my very long AP Report (the end is worth it):
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1HZc-T0OXgmy1DDKMBz5syaFUZ1S8xdgHHDyHRHBhg7c/edit?usp=sharing
Our setup for our new game of The Watch.
Our setup for our new game of The Watch.
(I probably should have posted here in the first place, rather than the playtest community.)
https://mechanteanemone.wordpress.com/2017/09/03/the-watch-game-setup/
Played in one session (of a 7 session story arc) of The Watch as a guest player.
Played in one session (of a 7 session story arc) of The Watch as a guest player. This was scheduled as part of The Gauntlet’s online gaming.
Overall, I had a blast. Love the way The Ties That Bind target both personal and clan themes (made it very easy to step into an existing game). It was my first PbtA game with dedicated missions (similar to Night Witches, maybe?), and for one session, I can say that I was into it. I’m used to playing story games with scene framing and I actually enjoyed the: let’s decide as players, let’s all roll, then let’s figure out how it all ties together narratively and play a couple of scenes.
One thing that came up in our post-session talk: Does anyone envision that Mission Moves may become stale after many sessions? Other than the final conflict, does anyone see the possibility of customizing Mission Moves for specific missions (maybe not all the time, but for specific parts of a game or story arc)?
http://www.supernovembergames.com/tomes-of-tomes/2017/7/11/the-gauntlet-and-the-watch