What is your understanding of this Mark on the Raven playbook?: “Change posts for the wrong reasons”
What is your understanding of this Mark on the Raven playbook?: “Change posts for the wrong reasons”
What does “posts” mean here?
I have been thinking about ways to increase the rate at which we get through missions.
I have been thinking about ways to increase the rate at which we get through missions. Since we only play once a month and only for about 3.5 hours each session, if we only get through one mission per session it is going to take us years of real time to do the whole campaign. My preference would be to do three missions per session; we are at Duty Station 3 now so at that rate we complete the war in another eight sessions. That seems a good pace but I do not want to have to railroad the players through set-piece scenarios to do that.
To that end, I experimented with a couple of things in our last session:
Firstly, at the start of play I put a great big timer on the table, visible to all players, with a countdown of 45 minutes of real time until the first mission. The players were a little intimidated at first but they snapped into action pretty quickly, looking for ways to get that Mission Pool. They really had to throw themselves into trouble of their own accord and the story unfolded urgently but naturally – a great effort for a “cold start” type situation. They ended up getting 4 Mission Pool for the first mission and had lots of excellent rolls so it turned out to be a pretty easy run (they only used 1 Mission Pool).
Secondly, as soon as they landed from that first mission, I had that smug bastard Lt Gen Igor Miroshnichenko waiting for them at Debriefing and he sent them straight back out for another mission. I probably wouldn’t have done this if they had no Mission Pool left from the first mission (but then again maybe I would have…). The second mission was another success and gave the women opportunities for confronting the patriarchy and hierarchy for their callous disregard for the safety of the regiment.
I did not use the countdown again in this session and there was a noticeable relaxing of the mood. The general pace of the fiction slowed but we still got a third mission in.
After the game, the players all commented on how much they liked the countdown gimmick and I think I will use it on a regular basis. I especially like the idea of varying the amount of time on the clock in different sessions. Imagine starting a game with only 15 minutes to go before the first mission. Watch the scramble for that Mission Pool!
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 the success of playing a one-off set in Trud Gornyaka, we decided to “reboot” and go back to training.
After the success of playing a one-off set in Trud Gornyaka, we decided to “reboot” and go back to training. We did the Engels Aerodrome duty station, with all three training missions in one 3-hour session (so I could deliberately set the pace very fast) with four players and me as GM.
Training was punctuated by encounters with a psychotic, goat-kicking officer trainee scarred by her experiences in Soviet orphanages and with a sleazy boiled-egg eating military police who was sitting on a stash of vodka.
The highlight was when it turned out that the Raven Adventurer was a former ballet dancer from Moscow, forced to retire through injury and now living only to fly. The Owl Zealot wrote a letter to the editor of the Red Army Gazetta praising her comrade and this caught the attention of the 218th brass who demanded that she perform for the men. Although accompanied by the conservatory-trained Hawk Misanthrope on piano, the performance was a disaster (miss on a Tempt Fate roll) leading to further injury and resounding humiliation from the men.
The session was called “Black Swan Down”.
1. Wayfind
1. Wayfind
There seems to be a contradiction between what is stated about Wayfind Moves on p41 and what is stated about Wayfind Moves on p95.
On p41 it reads that if the lead navigator misses her Wayfind roll, she can “scrub the mission” or “make your [her] own Attack Run”. Other planes relying on the lead navigator’s Wayfind roll can choose which of these two miss conditions they prefer. Thus, the other planes (the ones without the lead navigator) have only two choices if the lead navigator’s Wayfind roll is a miss result: either return to base or make their own Attack Run. Thus, ONLY the lead navigator ever makes a Wayfind Move.
This is contradicted by the information on p95 which states that if the lead navigator fails the Wayfind Move then “another PC in a rear seat in the Section can try to find the target” and “If everyone fails to Wayfind, the Section can’t find the target”. The notion that the section gets a second or third chance to make a Wayfind Move undermines the pressure on the lead navigator and also simply contradicts the point that a miss on the Wayfind presents the other planes with only two options: “scrub the mission” or make their “own Attack Run”. The additional statement on p95 that “Multiple navigators can Wayfind individually if they like” similarly seems to contradict the way a mission is planned and executed as outlined on pp40 and 97.
Escalating from a failed Wayfind to multiple Attack Runs also seems consistent with the rule on p41 whereby if the lead pilot gets a miss on her Attack Run roll, the other pilots must choose to “abort the attack” or “press on, Tempting Fate”. The statement on p95 (p107 of the PDF) that “Another PC in a front seat in the section can try to attack the target” makes more sense here although properly speaking the attack is done as a Tempt Fate Move rather than an Attack Run Move to “attack the target” in this situation.
So to clarify (in my opinion):
a. If the lead navigator gets a miss result on her initial Wayfind Move then all planes must proceed to make individual Attack Run Moves or return to base. No other Wayfind Moves are made. In this situation the lead pilot no longer gets to lead the attack.
b. If the lead pilot gets a miss result when leading the Attack Run, she may still try to attack but now makes a Tempt Fate Move. Other planes may make an Attack Run Move but do not get the +1 forward because the lead pilot did not succeed on the initial Attack Run Move.
c. Any pilot who makes an Attack Run Move and gets a miss result can choose to proceed with an attack but does so by making a Tempt Fate Move.
2. Character Moves
a. Sparrow – Ghosts (p44): Can this Move be used more than once? Logically, a Sparrow could use this move once for every “dead comrade” she has but the term “comrade” is not defined. I would rule that these comrades have to be PCs but a player might argue that any deceased Soviet military person they have some connection to is a “dead comrade”. Also, where it reads “Every time you do this you are also Harmed or Marked” what does doing “this” actually refer to – choosing the dead comrade (that is, making this Move) or spending the hold? The latter seems to be a more appropriate cost for the benefit of an automatic 10+ success. There seems to be some potential for abuse in this Move – a PC could make the Move every time she hears a comrade has died and build up a large number of holds which are then spent for 1-Harm (a reasonable cost if no more than 1 hold is spent per day).
b. Hawk – People’s Hero (p45): Can this Move be used more than once? A PC could end up with a whole cadre of high-ranking officials who have a personal interest in her career.
c. Owl – Greater Good (p45): Can this move be used more than once? Can it be used to rewrite “Embrace Death and face your final destiny”?
d. Pigeon – Shit Talking (p46): Rolling “+regard” does not seem to make any sense in this context. The Regard bonus is “always +1” (p21) and that bonus would apply in this Move automatically if you had Regard for “another player character you despise” and ONLY if you have Regard for “another player character you despise”.
e. Raven – Fortune’s Fool (p46): When the PC first gains this Move, does she have to nominate one single other Move which Fortune’s Fool ONLY ever applies to thereafter?
f. On p95 it states that when you make a Wayfind Move or an Attack Run Move you can improve the odds by asking “your Vedomaya for help”. This does not seem to make any sense. A Vedomaya’s role is to absorb/suffer some of the consequences that arise from other PCs’ Moves. A Vedomaya cannot add to the Wayfind or Attack Run roll and so in that sense cannot “improve the odds” at all.
These observations and questions have come out of a process of thinking about this game with increasing affection and a desire to explore it further.
Dear friends
Dear friends,
Please use the below link for a write-up of our first game that may be of interest to you. It is strictly narrative so has no reference to the mechanics of the game. Please forgive the turgid prose and the length of the piece.
www.dropbox.com/s/67c00mz0v2clqxs/NKVD%20Report.pdf?dl=0
For context, this was a one-off with one GM (me) and six players, forming one complete air section. The game session lasted four hours; the players made their character individually beforehand and they started play with only five remaining Marks which worked out to be a good number for create a bit of tension and suspense when they did get marked (even in a one -off Embracing Death was a real possibility).
Before play started properly, we did a collaborative introduction process where I asked some question, the players introduced themselves and established Regard for each other. We then collaboratively mapped out the airfield. The session was set at Trud Gornyaka.
The whole session worked very well – it was in fact one of the best games I’ve ever run and involved players with greatly varying degrees of experience in role playing. The most important lesson I learned was to work out when to stop creating complications in the narrative and start pulling all the narrative threads together into a satisfying and cohesive story. I wouldn’t have been so concerned about doing this in an ongoing campaign but for a one-off I wanted a clear sense of narrative conclusion. Hopefully the attached write-up will give some sense of that.
Any comments are welcome.
Jerry