Fate of the Norns

I'm going to head on over and keep the convo goin'

edit: Looks like Andrew posted some biggish updates there!

double edit: GUYS! We have to hit the next book, the more I think about it, and the more I read about the Galdr and the specialization boards the more it just has to happen! I work crazy hours, but I travel for work so I can hit up a bunch of FLGS's in different cities. Can some champion volunteer to do a read through of the CRB like this thread? http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?719 ... st-Edition!

In the next 11 days we need to keep FOTN on the top of every forum *bump*! Andrew's doing a great job adding more and more content, we need to get the word out!

Peace!

end of work day edit: WTF!!! $59 short, c'mon dudes and dudettes get some extras! (I'm already in for both extras)

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Disir = 6

Time to declare a new Evangelist winner for the last period! I went over the analytics numbers last night and looked at the top sources of traffic to the website, forums and kickstarter. It wasn't an easy decision because many of the sources were attributed to quite a few of you. But the discussions from rpg.net made up the bulk of the traffic for the last 3 months and one account seemed to be in the thick of most of those discussions: Raleel is the winner!

Please send me your mailing address so we can ship out the loot bundle as a thank you!

And thanks to everyone who spread the word! Next evangelist milestone will be in July! Keep it up!

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https://twitter.com/avalkauskas
https://www.patreon.com/fateofthenorns

woot!! thanks!

That's a wrap for the Lord of the Geek convention in France! It was a joint convention with video game developers and players, so I opted for a simplified system (pre-made dwellers, simplified powers, etc.) and a single battle scene (around one and a half hour of play), designed to present FOTN to RPG-savvy people, complete beginners, and people with not enough time on their hands for a lenghty saga. It went very well my table was among the most active of the RPG area, with 7 groups of 3-4 people for the 2 days.

Everyone had a fun time, and were very interested in the game. They even took home flyers I had printed with the website's URL. Here are a couple of pics:

Convention crowd!




FOTN Setup!




Player group! (notice the special Viking hairdo :p )




More of the same group!

WOW! That's so incredibly awesome! Our first overseas con! I would have loved to play in your game- great props. Yeah I totally simplify my pre-gen dwellers for 1 to 2 hour games (some conventions don't have 4 hour options). I do away with Sacrifice, M and S damage as well as Pierce and Recover. This way there is less time spent on explanation of game concepts and more on play time. I'll carry full 4-page pre-gens for 4 hour slots and slimmed 2-page ones for 1 to 2 hour slots.

Where did you get the banners? Sweet! I think you'll have some Norn screens coming your way if you win in July. Very impressive, you're definitely in the lead! So any feedback from beautiful France?

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https://twitter.com/avalkauskas
https://www.patreon.com/fateofthenorns

I kept Pierce and M damage in the system, so that players could distract their ennemies and have them lose actions in the round, but did away with sacrifice (replaced by "you have the choice to take X damage to get this bonus") S damage, contingencies and recover.
I also did away with archetype specialisation: my pre-gens were all built differently (tanks/supports/warriors/mages/singers/etc.), and the void rune assigned to an immortal power, since the scenario was "you died gloriously, became an Einherjar, now it's up to you to defend Asgard from a Jotun attack".

I had one of the banners printed, and the second one was kindly offered by the con organisation now they double as wall decorations!


Feedback was very good, even with younger players. One group of the first day even came back for more on day 2, and some players from my city want me to organize sessions on a regular basis, so that they can come and play. They're all waiting for the french release, because sadly most french people are bad at english.

I just got my box set and I'll be running an all day game on July 5th. Everyone is really excited about it. At a later date I will run a campaign for the group I game with that is going to podcast all of our rp sessions. When we get to FotN:R I'll be sure to post a link here.

Great to hear Moldof, take some pics and we're looking forward to checking out the podcasts!

...come to think of it, has anyone done an "unboxing video"?

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https://twitter.com/avalkauskas
https://www.patreon.com/fateofthenorns

I just tore into mine. So it wouldn't have been that great of a video. Funny maybe. And I'll try to remember to take some pics of the all day game.

We had our first game. It was somewhat chaotic and slow going but everyone had a lot of fun. In fact, afterwards, all my players said they preferred using the runes to rolling dice. Only three of my players showed up and I ran Egil's saga. One used the prebuilt Galdr from Fafnir's Treasure. The other two built different versions of the Ulfhednar. One went the Eater of Eyes route and the other went the Wolfen route.

SPOILERS AHEAD

We started out on the longboat in the midst of a violent storm. As an intro to skill checks, I had them all Wyrd one skill they thought was applicable to helping the ship and crew survive. Then I narrated the event based on how well they did. The Galdr used his omens/portents skill to do a reading of the runes in hopes to get some guidance on the safest and quickest direction out of the storm. It was a tremendous failure. One Ulfhednar(our Wolfen) used athletics to run around and help where needed. He did very well. The Eater of Eyes used his repair skill to attempt to keep any damage under control. He just barely failed. Based on these skill checks, a wave crashed over the side of the ship while the Galdr was trying to look for an omen or portent in the runes and they were washed away. The Wolfen managed to keep his footing and grab the Galdr before he went overboard with his runes and several crew members. After patching a hole in the hull, the Eater of Eyes tried reinforcing the mast. But it was struck by lightening and exploded killing or knocking many crew members overboard before he was able. The damage and large loss of crew forced them to make for the nearest port, which happened to be the one in Egil's saga(go figure. lol).

While burying their crew they were attacked by wolves, which was a very easy fight meant to introduce them to combat. Then they went and paid homage to the jarl. Once escorted to their tent the two Ulfhednar immediately took to drinking heavily and were quickly tipsy. Our Galdr passed on drinking and wound up befriending Egil by dumb luck. Our Ulfhednar's were getting a little to wild and drunk for our Galdr. So he snatched the newest drinks brought to them and walked off to give them away. In response they started acting out and where quickly making their way to trouble. It's then that Egil was escorted in and already ranting about how poorly he was being treated. Our Galdr was near the entrance and just looks at Egil saying, "Here. You can have these." and runs back to deal with his friends. This made Egil very happy and he joined the group. After some more drinking and visiting(and complaining from Egil), they wound up getting invited into the main hall(basically just like it happens in the saga).

While there our Eater of Eyes plays braids. Because he is so tipsy it is impossible for him to succeed. He doesn't care and plays until he kills the girl. This led to more drinking, which ended with the Eater of Eyes passing out for a while. The Wolfen lost an arm wrestling match and the Galdr just tried to keep them out of to much trouble. Things escalated per the story. When Egil accused the jarl of attempting to poison him our wolven hid under the table, while the other players went outside with him and witnessed the murder. They tried to convince him to staff, but failed. The wolven came outside as Egil was running off and, after seeing the dead jarl, immediately gave chase. A fight began between the two, but Egil managed to escape.

After agreeing to help the king hunt him down and heading out, they arrived at the small fishing village. It was being attacked by Haugbhui. This battle got really bogged down and took about an hour. It was largely a result of everyone being new to the system. Another problem, in my opinion, was I built the Haugbhui with a lot of regeneration abilities but without very many high damage powers or modifiers. Our wolven had a lot of regen abiliites too. So we ended up trading damage only to heal most of it during upkeep. Near the end of the fight things began to click for them and they started seeing some of the ways they could work together more to get better results. We were running out of time, though, so I ended the fight by having other Haugbhui finish killing the 10 people, which caused this Haugbhui to just return to his grave. They were ok with it.

They asked around and found out where Egil had gone. After finding him and talking to him they began to have some doubts about bringing him in. They had a serious discussion/debate about whether they should help Egil or try to capture him. In the end, Egil convinced them he was in the right and they accepting his reward.

We all had a lot of fun, and they are eager to play again.