First Session of the Alpha testing – Done!

On Monday 21/04 we visited with Omniscient & Omnivorous the Kaissacafe to play our first official session in Ennead.

Well...it wasn't that bad! :P

First of all I have to admit that after two glasses of sweet red wine, everything seems much better but still I must say I am quite hyped. The game went well, even though we had some complications that made us cut the session short.

Anyway... lets roll! ( pun intended :P )

For this first attempt we decided to try something generic enough so that we could try a multitude of different situations in the game. Omnivorous was the Narrator, me and Omniscient the players.

The plot revolved around an attempt to enter the Empire of Mithirriyal incognito. I was playing Seimon of Dragon's Perch, a Sjorlat Inquisitor of the Empire that had decided to preach Aethermarj's faith outside the Empire in order to redeem himself for the cruelties of the Inquisition, while Omniscient was playing Elyssa Anott , an Iset Dvetto, member of a trading caravan that had recently learned that her brother was captured by the Inquisition being accused of heresy.

In my case, I just want to return home while Elyssa wants to save her brother, however anyone entering the Empire through the wildlands has to either pass through the gate where Inquisitors interrogate anyone entering or leaving, or find a way to bypass the wall that isolated the Empire of Mithirriyal from the rest of the world. Elyssa for obvious reasons would not be allowed entrance, while Seimon wants to avoid recognition at all costs.

During this first session we introduced our characters, met each other and agreed on a common mission whereas Elyssa would help Seimon bypass the gates uninhibited, while he will escort Elyssa inside the Empire using his contacts as an Inquisitor.

We had some interesting moments like our first meeting, a closely avoided encounter with some thugs (courtesy of my character's unwillingness to part with his golden jewelry while casually strolling through a bad neighbourhood ) and a glimpse of a Cene Kahat-imbued guy that was stalking us.

It was fun. We managed to see some of the core aspects of the world as far as the setting is concerned, mainly the way people live in a village in the Apostate region, an Iset Dvetto caravan and some first experience with Aethermarjian faith.

Of course, our playtest did not only happen for sightseeing but also to try Fate in relation to our setting. As expected from a heavily roleplaying-friendly system I felt that it suited our purpose just fine. It did not slow down or in any case impede our game while it offered just the bare minimum mechanics we needed to get the story going with our mind to verisimilitude. Even though the actual character creation was not a stroll in the park, especially since your character is influenced mainly by what you actually want to play and not by some premade templates, it was very rewarding when tried in-game. Still, it is too early to judge the use of the system, since we did not have as many examples of its use as we would have wanted too.

We got our baptism through fire though!

I am looking forward to our second session where hopefully we will be able to extract more information ( have a mock battle or two ;-) ) and start formulating some basic updates we need to make so that our game will be fully emulated with Fate. ( for example finish the Magic system )

That's all for now!!

Omnipotent

P.S A very interesting fact was that Fate system was pretty famous in kaissakafe, there were people there already familiar with it. Gets me thinking...

P.S 2 Omniscient saw the need for props. As good the system is by itself, there is a need for items such as counters for fate points, cards, or something related, to jot down aspects and other minor things like that. She will upload a relative post soon!