Spirit of the Century: First Impressions

The game group and I played our very first session of Spirit of the Century on Monday, and it was a combination of fun, awkward, fast-paced, halting, spontaneous, creative, and overwrought all at the same time, kind of like a teenager out on their very first date EVAR!

The Arctic Club ballroom as it appears today

Everyone seemed to have a really good time and I tried to drop something into the scenario for each player. Most of the awkwardness came from the fact that I had not been able to internalize the rules having never played the game, but only perused the rulebook. This experience really made me realize just how important actual play is to the learning process for games. I had played D&D for quite some time before ever trying to run a game, and even with a system as rules-flexible as SoTC, running it cold was a challenge.

I also have certain players who like to push the boundaries of a game's rules. To their credit, they are very creative with their ideas, but as they attempt to chain action on top of action, while justifying everything as a single move, it can really test a new (to the rules) GM's resolve. "I think that sounds like too much to be allowable, so I am going to say no." *thinking: I really hope I'm not stifling their creativity!* Turns out, I may have actually been a little too lenient in some spots.

Crowds gather around the planes of the first world flight at Seattle's Sand Point

I set the first adventure in a pulp version of my home town, Seattle and centered it on a real event that took place here in 1924, the launch of the first flight around the world. The adventure opened in two locations. Most of the group was at a party at the Arctic Club (a real location, which is now part of a swanky hotel) while the others were in a secret lab behind a fictional speakeasy called the Jewelry Box. The Jewel Box Theater is a room at an actual bar, but in the story, the location had been shifted across town.

I felt like the familiarity of Seattle as the setting helped open up some of my players who are normally fairly reserved in their play. People who normally play in third person shifted to first person on occasion. Spirit of the Century's system of "Aspects" also seemed to help draw people into the game. My group really played them up, whether it was the pilot with his aspect "What a Guy!" running into a burning kitchen to rescue the unconscious chef, the German scientist with his "In good time" aspect plodding along while his companion was desperate to rescue her sister, or the grease-monkey motor head with "subtlety is not my strongsuit" plowing her car headlong into a crowd of bad guys trying to make their escape from the Arctic Club. Having aspects as a prompt did wonders to steer people's actions beyond simple move and hit mechanics that can become the norm in some games.

After the session ended at 10 pm, I was so jazzed, and determined to figure out how to smooth the rough spots, that I ended up reading the game book and taking notes until 1am! I was definitely a tired boy the next day.

Colored Note Cards! Spirit of the Century!

I am gearing up for my very first session running Spirit of the Century this coming Monday, and as I mentioned in my previous post on the subject, I have decided to try running the game entirely from 3 x 5 note cards. Why the break from my usual OneNote/MS Surface system? I figured that note cards would force me to be brief in my prep and descriptions, which is very much in line with the improv-optimized FATE system on which SoTC is based.

I have worked out the particulars of my card system and discovered that I have inadvertently stumbled on yet another conversion of Johnn Four's five-buckets of sanity system. I picked up some multi-colored cards from Staples because office supply stores are my second Kryptonite after game stores. But, BUT!!! After picking up the cards, I realized there were five colors, like the five buckets. What's more, I figured out that I could have the name of the colors correspond with the type of things that are on the cards! So, in my Spirit of the Century game, my cards will be organized as follows:

• Blue for Baddies and Buddies (NPCs)
• Emerald for Events
• Purple for Places
• Gold for Goodies and Gear
• Red for Rules and other Random things

I also created a FATE dice converter (white note card) to make it easier for my players and I to use regular dice during the game. (FATE dice have two blank sides, two with + on them and two with - on them. It's weird, I know.

I'm both excited and nervous for the first session, because everyone in our group is brand new to the system, including myself. I've been reading through the book during my lunch breaks at work, but I've only really had time to hop around between key parts. I am really excited however for the first adventure I have in mind. The story will begin in Seattle on Valentine's Day in 1924. The adventure title is: Icy Hearts Aflame!

Our final player, who was absent during the character creation session has also worked up his general character concept and is in the process of ironing out the details. I think his character has a lot of potential to create some really interesting dynamics within the group. He is...

Captain Flint Ironstag of the Royal Flying Corps, daredevil test pilot and youngest person to earn his wings during WWI. An orphan raised in a strict boarding school, he learned to watch his six from an early age. He enlisted in the RFC when the war broke out, where he earned a rep as a formiddable pilot, and a heck of a nice guy!

We'll see how that goes over with the hard-as-nails businesswoman, the man-eating diva and  the cute, but socially oblivious greasemonkey.

I'm considering including short story write-ups of the story that unfolds adventure 'zine style here on the blog. So keep an eye out. This is gonna be epic!

Character Creation: Spirit of the Century

Rendered with the Pulp-o-mizer

My game group ran a character-creation session for Spirit of the Century on Monday, and it was a blast. The character generation process definitely felt more involved than the default process for D&D. In part, I think this is because SoTC characters are already supposed to be established heroes with several adventures under their belts. As such, the number of abilities the players need to select is similar to a mid-level D&D hero. The collaborative nature of SoTC's FATE system also makes the process much more involved, because, in a way, the players are creating the world itself in addition to their characters. While you can certainly do these things as part of a D&D session, it is optional. With SoTC, it is the default.

The SoTC creation process has a lot going for it, and I can see value in adopting it for other game systems, or even for creative writing purposes. As the process develops, the characters establish relationships, and strongly tie their own traits into their backstory.

The process breaks down into five phases:

1. Background: After each player comes up with a general concept, and name for his or her character, they describe how their character spent their childhood up through age 14. As members of the Century Club, from which the game derives its name, the PCs were all born on January 1, 1900.
2. War Years: Each player describes how their character spent World War I, which takes place during their formative teens.
3. First Novel: Each player comes up with the title and description for a novel that featured their character. The novel is set after the conclusion of the War.
4. Guest Appearance 1: Here's where things get interesting. The players all swap novel titles, and work with another player to work that other character into their novel as a guest star.
5. Guest Appearance 2: The players swap novels again, and add a second guest star in the same manner.

 Once the characters' backstories are complete, they come up with skills and special abilities (called "stunts").

During our three hour session, my players only got through the first four phases of the backstory generation. This was largely because they were having a lot of fun generating cool concepts, but also because we were all new to the process, and because I only had one rule book handy.

Nevertheless, the characters are shaping up to be really cool! The group consists of:

• Sophie Steele, globetrotting tycoon, purveyor of advanced mechanisms, jingoist, and president of America Corp.
• Ruby Valentine, an orphan who clawed her way up through the mean streets to become a successful singer and owner of her own speakeasy/club. She possesses an air of cynical glamor.
• Violet Fairweather, Ruby's long lost twin. Violet was raised by a loving foster father, who taught her the ways of machines. She has a sunny disposition beneath her grimy exterior. She took up barnstorming after the war. Though she is the spitting image of Ruby when cleaned up, they couldn't be more different.
• Heinrich Stumpf, the "Bavarian Machine", a German scientist afflicted with polio as a child. Stumpf worked on early chemical weapons experiments during the war. Afterward, he acquired a set of powerful mechanical legs, which he uses to stomp out evil.
• Sri Lumani, Avatar of Vishnu manifested strange powers at an early age. Sent to the legendary land of Shangri-La to gain control of her powers, she now finds herself in the West, with only her mysterious companion to accompany her.

The group has one more player who wasn't able to make Monday's session who will be worked in after the fact.

One of the core mechanics of the FATE system is character "aspects". These are things that define each of the characters, and which ideally will indicate what the players want out of the game. The characters choose two aspects during each of the five character creation phases. These aspects can be anything from a signature item, to a catchphrase, to a personality trait. Some of the aspects my group invoked include, Violet's "Subtlety is not my strong suit", Ruby's "wrapped around my finger" and Heinrich's "indoor kid" They are meant to sound a little ambiguous to outsiders, and to have the potential to cause both help and hinder the character's progress.

Another change-up that I'm making from my D&D game is that I plan to run this one from notecards! I'm trying to go with the limited-prep, improvisational spirit of the FATE system. We'll see how that goes.

I have posed the idea of giving each of the player characters a feature post here on the ol' blog, some have already expressed interest, so you may get to hear more about the exploits and adventures of this little game as it gets rolling.

Spirit of the Century

I am a HUGE sucker for action-serial style pulp. I love the Indiana Jones films, as well as Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow and the Mummy films. As a kid, I loved Disney's Tale Spin, and still would if the dang furries hadn't ruined Don Karnage for anyone who doesn't want to see a cartoon fox drawn anatomically correct. I chose a career in museums, in part because I could see myself winding up like Marcus Brodie in my later years, and getting lost in my own museum actually sounds appealing.

Also, remember that time when the Fiancee and I went as alt-history air pirates for Halloween?

Yes, that is Black Mario over my shoulder.

You get the picture.

Now that we have established my love for pulp, it should be no surprise that I jumped at the chance to pick up a copy of Spirit of the Century when I saw it on the shelf at Powell's last weekend. SotC bills itself as "A Pulp Pickup Roleplaying Game". It uses the FATE roleplaying system, which is highly customizable, dice light, and roleplaying heavy. This makes it simultaneously easy and quick to pick up and play, but likely not accessible for someone new to roleplaying games. While SotC provides a basic rules metric, it is on the players and the GM to come up with their own character types, skills and other unique characteristics. It is definitely not for someone hesitant about jumping into roleplay with both feet.

The framing premise behind SotC is that the PCs are all part of the Century Club, a group of extraordinary individuals born on January 1, 1901. Set in the roaring 20s after the PCs have come of age, the members of the Century Club attempt to better the world by seeking out new knowledge, defending the march of progress and battling the forces of darkness who would seek to disrupt it. They use Science! (complete with exclamation point) as their weapon of choice--whether it take the form of jet packs, ray guns, mechanical know-how, or a PC playing a talking gorilla, escaped from a research facility.

I presented the idea of dabbling in some SotC sessions to my regular D&D group on Monday night. We had just completed the final regular game night of our long-running campaign, and determined that it will be mid to late summer before we are all free to indulge in a weekend grand finale blowout. Since we all like gaming together, everyone seemed excited to try something that presents a change of pace, setting and mechanics. We have a character creation session scheduled for two weeks from now. I'll keep you posted on how it goes.