So today was an interesting session, and we got a lot done, feels good!
We open and pick up where we left off last time, with Inks having confronted The Exorcist and pinned her down. We now begin the game of talking, to solve problems. Truly an under-rated art.
We also learn, with minimal teeth-pulling, that this woman calls herself 'Tatters', which is oddly appropriate, though I don't know why.
There's a fair bit of back and forth in which Inks more or less voices out loud the central argument and pin of their relationshi- what does justice look like? Tatters is firmly in the 'Might is Right' camp, whereas Inks generally takes a longer view. Vigilante justice is immediate and satisfying, but not always the best choice. So Tatters is acting very much like a player character.
Thinking about it, you wonder how this is a 'reversal' of how Aleph normally sees and plays things. Keris is her primary play experience, and she's generally almost always more maneuverable and deadlier than her opposition. So 'Tatters' being cornered the way she did is almost a metatextual nod to the looming 'gotcha' that might befall Keris at some point in her career.
I generally don't bring up Kerisgame in context of Sunlit Sands, largely because I want to let the game stand on its own merits, but acknowledging Aleph's own experience is important to in turn express how she does things. I have myself spent more time running games than playing them, so I'm more used to making up characters and improvising plots on the fly. Maintaining consistent characterization is... not a challenge, but not something I've practiced in a while.
Anyway, Tatters is apparently quite tragic and also hopelessly besotted with Inks, as we discovered last session. I chose not to overdo that simply because it'd be kinda tacky and fliration in a dark alley is not Inks's MO. Having convinced Tatters to head back to the townhouse, planning can ensue.
I cannot underestimate this. Exalted as a game is intended to let you prepare the ground much more than most of its contemporaries. You are encouraged to choose when and where to make engagements, to game the environment and any number of other factors. Sometimes you need benefit of hindsight, and sometimes you just don't get the chance to plan, but Exalted really wants you to.
Now, as far as storytelling goes, Aleph executed a fantastic little trick here with Pipera- she's trying to be coy with plot elements, notably Pipera (and later Tatters) backstory. Because of the prompted awareness roll, Aleph is attempting to convey meaningful or interesting details as to Pipera's personality and nature. She's a westerner, for one, has tattoos, which is hardly surprising, though Inks doesn't know what they mean, and she's a woman. If you don't know, a lot of the canonical cultures in the West don't like women being on ocean-going vessels. I'm drastically oversimplifying, mind.
I can't remember what color Pipera's hair is either...
Anyway, Aleph expediently and without dialogue or blunt exposition fed me interesting details I can follow up on later. I have to emphasis this- dialgoue in a text format like IRC is glacial. Talking scenes take forever, and we're too much into writing witty dialogue to abstract it into pure mechanics just yet. Bear that in mind as you plan your own games.
Continuing on, we have to take a moment to reward Maji for being polite and handsome tiger-friend.
Taking a few moments to get a read on Tatters, we quickly determine that she's an overwrought, extremely touchy soul. And kinda Dead. Spooky.
Here we spend a bit hashing out some plans in character. I think Aleph was preparing for me to just interrogate her with sheer force of charisma, and practice using Judge's Ear, that I just purchased. I definitely still want to do that, but I was more concerned about getting the sword of damocles that is the Despot out from above her head. The man wanted to torture whoever was doing the killing; he has a vengeful, sadistic streak that Inks wil have to be careful managing in the future.
I take a moment also to determine the exact nature of the crimes, and again, Gem does not have an organized central justice or police force. It's not the same as Nexus's... I can't think of the word now, libertarian paradise? The point is, Gem is an ad-hoc, emergent polity and culture based around the Despot... being a despot. This isn't Whitewall with it's standing civil defense garrison or the Realm with actual law enforcement, even if that enforcement is acting with the Dynast's interests in mind.
So, having done all that, it's pretty clear that Inks can't just tell the Despot that the people Tatters killed were worse than she was.
I'm going to split up the analysis here, because there's two points that I want to more or less go through all-together instead of mixed in.
The first is that generally speaking, in Creation, the value of a mortal life is in continuity and what it Can do or Is Doing. Being alive is not valuable, being a knowledgable individual is valuable. Now I'm pretty sure that most people don't have an organized world view or religion reflecting this, they're nominally aware of Reincarnation, especially since it figures into the immaculate dogma, but creation inhabitants are as far as I can tell, fairly pragmatic about death and dying. You die, that's it. Respect the corpse or deal with a hungry ghost.
value of a person rooted in 'compassion' or the idea that life is sacred, inherently or externally, is an imposition upon the world. The idea of 'inherent right to live' is something that Exalted as a game very clearly wants players to pick up as a cause to champion. That's a cause Inks does not champion- she's not that bleeding heart compassionate (Rated 3).
Instead, Inks believes that murder has a cost- that the life taken will no longer increase in value or enrich the lives of those around it. Now not all lives are going to be value-increasing, as murderers and warlords can demonstrate, but Inks's approach to Tatters here, her immediate, reflexive willingness to protect her, is contingent on the following- I didn't express this in game either, so Aleph is going to read it for the first time here.
Inks believes Tatters should face justice for her actions, but she also believes that putting her to harm or death is a pointless waste. Tatter's utility, her ability to do and be and grow is fundamentally more valuable to Inks. Instead, Inks's approach to justice is Corrective. "Here's what you did wrong, and why it didn't work the way you wanted to. Try this instead."
So that's all in-character rationale and judgement. Out of character, Tatters is ostensibly Inks's mysterious 3 dot ally, though Aleph hasn't confirmed that explictly either. I as a player have an inherent bias and investment in protecting my character sheet, possibly even when I don't need to.
Further on the out of character, I have a moment of player cold-feed. Aleph prompts numerous solutions, and as I express in the log, I realize I don't feel confident that I can achieve a grand sweeping coup or victory. I think having considered it, I'm used to dealing with 'Despot' like challenges as having MDVs of 10+ before modifiers, which mechanically, is perfectly attainable for heroic mortals. WP 10 gives them 5 MDV right off the bat, but I don't know how much WP Rankar has.
My point is, unknowingly or not, I felt 'afraid', and likely irrationally so. I haven't mentioned it here, but the first character I ever played died, due in part to how the storyteller decided that my willingness to try an audacious plan deserved a brutal beating and no way out. I died because my recently-ST-changed perfect defense made me valor-flaw into a DB's anima flux.
That's left a mark on me as a player, dumb as it sounds.
So I'm often cagey, wary. I don't feel confident that I can make a big move. I should be, because Aleph tends to make certain claseses of challenges Less Demanding- crafting is so far the most difficult thing at Difficulty 5-6+ for the thaumaturgical materials.
Anyway, Having talked out my feelings, I decided to try a gutsy, bold move- convince Rankar that the 'ghost' was dead-er and that there would be no mor murders. It maintained Tatter's single connection to Inks, and in turn Inks can act as a moral and ethical leash on Tatters.
Aleph in turn was very good about making the acutal engagement with the Despot dynamic and interesting, in that she made a swerve to the venue itself, showing more of Gem off- note to Aleph: do stuff like this more- as well as revisiting older NPCs like Telalsi, and recent introductions like Janissa. Note to Shyft: Do something nice for Janissa. Note to Shyft: Take over The Heavenly Gates.
Now, Pipera gets to show more of her stuff- I know enough about Dragonblooded charms to have recognized a few standounds, like Sweeten the Tap Method; such a fun charm.
Anyway, the last few scenes were a touch rushed because I had to leave for errands, but overall a lot happened and we completed a story arc!
Now, I haven't taken the time to really dig into Tatter's backstory or Pipera's, I don't want to push or rush it. Trends being what they are, Inks may roll stupidly well and get 3-4 'beats' worth of content in a single go.
Aleph's goal for them both is to make sure that trying to get them to open up is a challenge, to manage their idiosyncracies without disrupting the flow of play. It's a constant challenge, that digressions and improvizations can enrich a play experience, but also risk stalling the action.
A good example is often any child character- Pelasa is being handled brilliantly, but the risk is always there that the child will monopolise player and NPC attention by dint of 'a child's antics are an easy lever to get something happening on screen'.
The challenge and risk of a character in any situation, is balancing 'antics' versus 'meaningful advancement'. Take a first-age ma-ha-suchi archetype, the debonair seductor. That's a fine character point, but if numerous scenes are interrupted by the horndog behavior, a worn out joke at that point, it stops being fun.
Now I'm saying all this as general advice or observations for everyone else to enjoy. Aleph hasn't done it yet. I doubt she will. I've had it happen to me or even by my hand when I ran games, to my regret.
Concluding this post mortem, I think we're realy hitting a narrative stride. Inks is starting to develop the tools she needs to dig hard into El-Galabi and by extension, resolve that hanging plot thread. I have a Dragonblooded who dislikes the malevolent dead, an exorcist who is... an exorcist, and a twilight with global economic domination in her eyes.
I'm also getting a real Charlie's Angels vibe from this whole situation now. But my question is, is Inks 'Charlie' and will she have three gorgeous agents hanging on her every word, or is she one of the Angels?
this unapologetically is one of Inks's visual/character cues.
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