The Price: Final Thoughts

Originally published July 25, 2014

Now we reach the end of my material from the Price. There's more that I might share but I think I've shown the best work that exists. Now I want to look back at what worked and what didn't in my campaign, to discuss what lessons I've drawn from the 21 sessions of play using Changeling: the Lost, the God-Machine rules, and World of Darkness: Innocents.

What Worked

When I replaced the Court system in Changeling with Guilds, groups devoted to a particular purpose and roles in the Freehold society, I untangled a large knot that had hinder me and my player's enjoyment of the game. On paper I love the Courts, with their emotional resonances, and Entitlements, with their pledge based duties. But in practice, I found neither satisfactory.

Entitlements asked so much but gave so little. Characters took on responsibility and filled out odd requirements for a 3 dot token and the option to call yourself a noble. I never liked how "nobility" could easily doled out in a society with only a few dozen members. You need peasants.

Courts were less troublesome to me but bothered my players more. They lacked a defined purpose beyond a support network and their government made little sense to True Fae and mortals alike. Does a community of 100 (like Miami) need more than half-dozen officials? Why would their positions rotate every 3 months? Wouldn't that make them much less efficient? Why not just use democracy to confuse the True Fae?

Guilds took the best from both ideas: defined organizational roles (Entitlements), a support network (Courts), and actual magical or temporal power (Courts).

Using Innocents and starting the characters as children went really well. I enjoyed exploring bullying, dealing with bedtimes, and other issues of childhood. The players also enjoyed it a lot. When we did the time skip and filled in the years from childhood to adulthood, that also was nice because we had this history established of how they were as children and could then see how time changed them.

Mechanically, I had great luck this game abstracting the results of rolls. I adapted the Social Maneuvering rolls to navigating a haunted house, turned social rolls into a way to create temporary Staff, and computer rolls to build some temporary Resources. I discovered that Professional Training was a sort of super Merit, so much so that I felt bad for the one PC who didn't exploit it. It really helped round out characters though in their day-to-day lives.

In terms of the plot, I was well satisfied. It took about 3 sessions for the story to solidify but then everything worked as planned. In my original write-up the Queen of Shadows wasn't the mother of the McQueen boys and Feral Tom's character was fused with her. It wasn't until session 3 that an interesting suggest from my wife split the two creating a somewhat sympathetic figure from the Queen and creating Feral Tom to continue the plot line I stole from Baron Fairweather in Night Horrors: Grim Fears. The plot element of the Quill of Fate wasn't fixed until I had a chance to play up Hedge the time traveler. After that it was just a matter to run the long con.

What Didn't

So I love the idea of Conditions but in practice they are a bit of a pain. It is relatively easy for a character to build up 3 or 4 of them which then need to be tracked. I had one player that was clearly frustrated at not being able to resolve some of them (because they were tied to specific characters or situations). And with Conditions from Integrity rolls, I felt like I didn't have enough options.

All of this would be fine, if they were not also a way to gain Experience. Since they were, I ended up adding a tracking method for my game (which is online), attempted to brainstorm more Conditions, and interpreted the Resolution mechanics more broadly. But it was a bit frustrating.

Aspirations also were a bit hit or miss, at least until I enforced a period at the end of each session to refresh them. It did require additional bookkeeping and I realize I was not always the best at incorporating the players' goals into the next adventure.

Indeed, I felt several times like I was failing to keep all of my players happy. The player of Rocco was stunned at one point with how soon I planned to end the campaign. Nikki's player was bothered by the group's secretiveness and general lack of planning. And I know I let Marco's plot arc hanging for most of the game.

What Would I Do Differently?

Most things can helped with better communication. Certainly that would have helped Rocco's confusion and did improve the situation with Aspirations. Perhaps I could have facilitated a group discussion to resolve Nikki's frustration. Keeper better and more open track of Aspirations and Conditions earlier on would certainly help everyone stay on the same page.

For my part I need to tie my player's plots in deeper into the main story so that they advance more regularly. I did that with Miroslav and they advanced well. But it wasn't until the last session that Marco's plot of taking down the Mob became a main feature.

I also find myself want to run slower games, to dig deeper into the lives of the characters. Especially in the second half, when the characters were adults, I felt that I glossed over who they were.

Am I Done With Changeling?

The final question is whether I will return to Changeling. I think it comes down to what themes I haven't run yet. My first Changeling game, Into the Hedge, focused on dreams while The Price dealt with Pledges and the Goblin Market.

The theme I remain interested in is the idea of "You can't go home again." Its a central theme of Changeling: the Lost, one tied directly to fetches. My first game was supposed to explore this but I was thwarted by my player's character concepts, all of which involved being missing for decades.

I think to make the theme most powerful, you need the hope and seeming opportunity of stepping back into your life. So if I was to run another game, I would enforce the rule that the characters were all taken or changed no earlier than a few years before the game begins and that they remain, physically at least, roughly the same age as their fetches. This would allow them the illusion of being able to step back into their lives. Obviously I would make it clear to the players that their characters would have to really struggle (and likely fail) to accomplish this.

I would also like to reuse Alice and Hedge, seeing as they are both characters who cannot go home and thus reinforce the theme. I might even use Rosebriar again.

It is something to consider for the future.