Okay! Aleph was super-tired, I waited a bit before replying to this primary post. I also hope to at some point tonight post session 8 logs for reals.
For all Aleph says she's floundering as a newbie ST, she's doing a lot better than I did my first time though. I think one thing we've been guilty of especially in Session 8 was that we felt too rushed, mostly due to our highly fluctuating real-life schedules. Quality drops like a rock when players and ST are not in their groove. But yes, I have been playing since 2008 or so, and been in over 15 games, maybe more. Some only lasted a handful of sessions, others lasted a year or more. I personally hold a record of running a game for nearly 3.5 years, before my meatspace job made me stop. That's a bit more than 150 sessions, for just
one game. It got up to about 3000+xp i think. On top of this, I actually went to college for game art and design, so while I may lack some foundational skills that ES and Aleph both have in greater quantities, I am still trained in design.
Of course, I deliberately set out to avoid over-homebrewing in inksgame, simply because I wanted to keep the amount of 'make it up as we go' play to a minimum. Time spent homebrewing on day-of-session is time not spent playing the game, and for a very long time, i was frustrated at my inability to A: test homebrew, B: make good homebrew. Since I stopped trying so hard, I've had more fun. (See Aleph, I can do stream of consciousness too!).
Here we acknowledge that Inks is reaching very far- possibly too far. A common response to 'players doing something' is for the ST to freeze, be permissive, to not think through the action or to even guarantee that it's applicable. I don't want to boil gamerunning down to a flowchart, but there
is a certain level of decision making and intake of input that follows the model. "Can Inks do this- what happens if she succeeds/fails? what if she can't do it at all?'
The most straight-across advice I can give to Aleph directly, and any Storyteller in general is this: Failure states shoudl be gradated, and the 'scenario' of dealing with them should itself be a fun or interesting setpiece.
It's kind of backwards logic, but if a problem comes up, the storyteller can essentially make it explode, and then put the player in the position to defuse it or otherwise fix the problem. Let's take the orphanage for example. It's going to Not Work eventually. Probably soon.
There are a few ways this can be modeled or approached. Perhaps Aleph demands Inks roll bureaucracy to keep the orphanage afloat from season to season. If it's really dicey, she demands those rolls every month or week- more rolls means more points of failure, and depending on how the rolls are packaged, they may even preclude OTHER actions as this monopolizes Inks's attention.
This demand creates a challenge with a clear mechanical hook: she wants to roll less often. From here she can identify what one needs to 'roll' in her place and secure it with her assets or other actions.
But what if she fails one of these rolls, or something else tips the balance? This leads to a Setpiece or Climatic Engagement, which may or may not be 'on camera' or resolved as a wide-angle dramatic action, but in either case, the center will not hold and Inks must act to resolve the situation. Depending on the actual upset, returning to the status quo might be impossible. The important thing to do here as a storyteller, is to make sure the player can
progress, even if they aren't going back to what they had before exactly.
like, any failure condition, and resolving of same, should instruct the player in some way. Note that this isn't how you design encounters for players who make stupid decisions like taunting the wyld hunt. I don't advocate killing players or stacking the deck against them.
So in the case of the orphanage, maybe the children start speaking in tongues and causes a riot. Inks has to quell the riot. From there she has to then figure out what to do wtih the children AND the neomah bordello. Gem likely wouldn't let her keep on as she had been unless she takes extra effort to win them over again, but let's say for the example she can't. The storyteller here has a situation in which they can teach the player something, and also present the player new options or directions to take their plot/plan.
I'm having trouble thinking of specific usecases, but the idea here is that when failure happens, it shouldn't end in binary consequences, and there should be wiggle room to climb back up.
So with regards to 'modelling' a limiting factor, putting demand/limits on her time is generally a good standby. Past that, take good notes- copious notes. Having the logs are fine, but a list of things Going On is much more useful and easier to manage than a multi-session ctrl+f frenzy.
The point about the bordello and 'aren't any better demons' is a point of conveyance, and one that gets worked out as people get used to each other's playing style. I'm used to playing as 'I want to do it this way' instead of asking 'how can I do this'. The latter of which tends to frustrate me because it feels like the ST is playing for me. Obviously this is not always true. as ES pointed out, Inks has access to cattle blood, so all I need to do is sit down with Aleph and hash out the latitude Inks has when dealing with Neomah: "Can you make livestock, stuff that isn't sapient/sophont?"
With regard to Chronicle, Aleph and I finally did figure out a good power we both like for it, but I'll save it for when we reveal it in-session.
The advantage of El-Galabi right now, is that it's paced at the player's speed- if i step over a line and get trapped, then that's on me, but Aleph isn't
forcing me to trip a trap, which is a huge thing.
That about covers my reply here.
