This was a pretty standard first session with a fair bit of introductory play to get the rules and the flavor of the game down and a brief investigation to add a little spice.
Our Player Characters were:
Dr. Goodchilde: A scheming surgeon turned Ventrue out to build up his status and destroy his sire, played by J.
Rod Shaftsmen: A Gangrel/beefcake biker who E insists is out of Tom of Finland, but whom I prefer to think of as Marlon Brando in the Wild One.
Elizabeth ‘Lizzie’ Lapin: A torch-singing Daughter of Cacophony with ambitions and daddy issues, played by V.
We started off in April 1961 with each of the PCs waking up on the evening when they were to be formally given Citizenship in the City, control of the Silverado Casino in Downtown Las Vegas and the responsibilities that come with this investiture. At 11 pm, they were to make their way to the Fortuna Hotel and Resort, a Board controlled casino on the Strip where they would meet with the Board and other Kindred residents of the city.
Each Player described where their PC camped out during the day and had the opportunity to feed if they wanted (allowing us to slowly introduce this mechanic).
In the course of feeding, Dr. Goodchilde suffered a mishap leading to a dead salesman in a room at the Fortuna that he had to smuggle out of the hotel ‘Weekend at Bernie’s’ style with the assistance of his ghoul retainer, Nurse Quinn. He was spotted trying to dispose of the body by at least one notable kindred in the hotel, an act which could be considered, at the very least, gauche.
The actual meeting with the Board and the other NPCs went fairly smoothly, allowing the PCs to interact with some of the non-player characters and get an insight into some of the relationships and conflicts among them. I’d get into more detail, but it might be a dull read.
After the formalities, the PCs were pulled into a corner of the room by Red Rogers, the ‘Sheriff’ (read Prince’s enforcer) of Las Vegas and a few members of the Board. Summer Daye, a lounge singer at the Golden Gate, had been attacked shortly after leaving a bar on Fremont street between sets. She had been bitten in the neck by someone and still showed the wounds. The Sheriff’s contacts with the LVPD sequestered her to a hospital room and the Board tasked the PCs with tracking down the vampire who had violated the ‘Don’t Touch the Headliners’ law and bring them before the Board.
This investigation took up the remainder of the session. Dr. Goodchilde questioned Summer at the hospital and, using misdirection, fed his own blood into her IV beginning the process of bonding her to him. He did this partially to ensure he was getting the answers he wanted and partially because the Golden Gate casino where Summer is performing also serves as the headquarters of his hated sire, Donald Harcourt.
Rod and Lizzie checked out the bar where Summer met her assailant and unsuccessfully chased Martin Meek, a Toreador fan of the singer who had overstayed his welcome in the city. Lizzie managed to charm the entire bar and arranged to sing there in future. She also learned that Summer had been talking to a shaggy, shabby loser who had been scene pacing up and down Fremont street in recent nights.
Between questioning Summer and their other inquiries, the PCs learned that this shabby man was named John, that he had attacked Summer and likely did not really understand what he was.
All three of the PCs wound up upsetting Donald Harcourt at one point in the session, a turn of events that will probably have consequences down the road. They also learned that Martin Meek, the Toreador staying illegally in the city, has been frequenting the Golden Gate.
During the search for this shabby man, Rod used his connections and streetwise to prowl the flop houses of the west side. He also noticed that he was being followed by a number of orange stripped ‘Tiger Kabs’ throughout his search. On the second night, Lizzie tracked down the shabby man to a west-side pool hall that had a number of illegal slot machines in the back room. She stealthily stalked him while she waited for Dr. Goodchilde and Rod to turn up.
There was a bit of a skirmish when she revealed herself and John, the shabby man attempted to flee. When he realized he was surrounded, he prepared himself for a fight, but Dr. Goodchilde and Lizzie managed to calm him down.
The PCs then brought John before the Prince and the assembled Board. The PCs presented John and explained his story in pretty empathetic terms. Nevertheless, we ended the session with the Prince declaring that ignorance of the law was no excuse and condemning John to final death.
Icons: Actual Play Observations
Last time, I discussed some of the issues I’ve had with Icons’ Character Creation process. Today, after playing a few sessions, I want to share two things I’ve noticed about Icons. First off, Icons might be a better game with a smaller group. In fairness, this is true for a lot of games and I should consider myself lucky that I’ve got a big group filled with people that are currently showing up.
Secondly, the absence of GM dice rolling makes it an odd game to run. Half the time, I wind up staring at my dice and twitching. It’s like suffering from phantom limb syndrome.
Why Size Might Matter
Icons has Aspect mechanics that were somewhat lifted from Fate. The key changes include renaming ‘Fate Points’ ‘Determination’ and modifying the rules for spending Determination in ways that restrict players along genre appropriate lines.
For instance, Players can spend Determination to get a bonus on rolls, but they must have failed at the task first (or only have one chance at it). I’ve heard some complaints about this, but to my mind, it captures that moment in a Supers narrative when Spidey has been flattened, everything looks grim, but he digs deep and saves the day. Without that first failure, there just isn’t a ton of drama when Spidey turns it around.
This is great in theory.
The problem I’m having is that because my group has six players, and each PC has 8 aspects, there’s a veritable ton of Aspects for me to keep track of. Remembering when to compel this many characters is a bit tricky, but I’m doing my best. And while I encourage my players to compel themselves, they rarely do, partly because they are rarely out of Determination.
Among the reasons they are always sitting on a pile of Determination is that my players were lucky when rolling their Abilities and are usually in a big enough group that, no matter the challenge, one of them has a very good chance of meeting it. They can cut through thugs like butter and puzzle out the greatest mystery with a bit of time. As a result, they rarely feel the need to spend Determination and, overall, I’m a little worried that the game isn’t challenging them.
No Roll Playing for the GM
This concern about challenging the Players is compounded by the fact that, like Apocalypse World, the GM never rolls the dice in Icons. Instead the Players roll against a difficulty set by the GM with ties going to the Player. Generally these difficulties are either based on the GM’s call or the statistics of the NPC or object the Players are acting against.
The result is that I always feel like I am reacting to the Players’ actions, which is cool since they should be the heroes of their own story. However, there is something frustrating about the static values of most NPCs, especially major ones. For example, if StarGuard is locked in combat with the Avant Guardians, the difficulty to hit Zorn, the Living Theremin, is always going to be the same from one round to the next. Moreover, his attacks will always be the same difficulty to dodge. This can feel a bit flat and vexing.
Taken together, the excellent Abilities of my group’s PCs, their judicious spending of Determination and having ties break in their favour, it is a real challenge for this GM to challenge them. As a result, I’m cooking up a few ways to keep the game interesting, but so far I’m not super-satisfied.
One option that I’ve caught myself doing is inflating the stats of key NPCs to make them an obstacle for the PCs. To do this with a straight face, I’ve had to stop seeing key NPCs as rival supers made by the same rules as the PCs, and I’ve started looking at them as just a collection of difficulty modifiers and aspects for the Players to roll against.
That still doesn’t scratch the whole ‘everything feels too static’ itch though. To meet that, I’m considering allowing NPCs to invoke aspects to raise the difficulty of beating them by two. I may give myself one Determination point per player at the table (including myself) as a pool to spend along these lines. Alternatively, I could start each session with one or two points and then add to my pool each time a Player spends a determination point.
All in all, my campaign has been fun so far, but I’m still on the fence as to whether it is because of or in spite of Icons’ mechanics.