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Swooper
2008-08-25, 08:56 PM
Before I start this, anyone who knows me from this forum will likely know that I'm pretty exclusively a D&D 3.5 man. But yesterday, despite being hesitant at first, I tried a new game at the request of a friend who I've played with before, and I know to be a very good GM. A game completely different from anything I've played before, a very much hardcore storytelling game.

The game is called 'Houses of the Blooded' and is only very recently out, written by John Wick (the man behind Legend of the Five Rings, which is what I previously played with that GM - albeit in a D20 adaptation). In short, it was the most fun I've had in a roleplaying session for at least a couple of years.

I doubt many of you have even heard of, let alone tried, this system so I thought I'd write a little introduction.

HotB takes a totally new angle to the player/gamemaster roles. What do I mean, you ask? I'll explain with an example: In any roleplaying game, a pretty common scene is the characters walking into a room with a dead body. In most games, the ensuing sequence revolves around the characters investigating the scene, rolling Search, Perception, Investigation or similar skills/stats to see how much the GM will reveal about the murder. Not in HotB. In HotB, the players roll for how much they get to decide about the murder! I don't think any game has given players this much narrative power before. This, of course, requires the GM to be extremely adaptive because the players can radically change the course of the adventure by being inventive and imaginative. And that's what the whole thing is about! And I love it!

The mechanical aspect is very simple, but with a twist. In order to succeed at anything, you need to roll at least 10 on a set number of six sided dice. How many dice you roll depends on the base stat, or virtue, that applies to the roll. This will be from 0 to 5. You also get extra dice for any situational modifiers. Got the Swordsman aspect (aspects are a bit like advantages, traits, feats etc. in other systems, also used in FATE I think)? You roll three extra dice when you're using a sword. Is the true meaning of your name 'secretfinder'? You get an extra die on rolls involving finding things out. Are you doing this for your lover? You get extra dice depending on how deeply you love him/her (there's a simple subsystem for lots of things, including Romance!). And so on. But wait, you say - I only need to roll ten but with a decent stat and some modifiers, I can easily be rolling seven or eight dice - this is too easy! Succeeding can be easy, yes, but if you want to succeed greatly - find more clues, strike harder, create an even better poem - you have to wager dice. You roll less dice, increasing the chance of failure, but also increasing the stakes if you succeed. This may sound a bit complex, but trust me, when you're playing it it just works beautifully.

The focus of the game is politics, romance, court intrigue - that sort of thing, and the setting is a fictional era of the Earth's history, before the rise and eventual fall of Atlantis. In the session I played in, all the players were barons/baronesses under the same count, sent to a four-day party held by another baroness with the mission to secure a deal with her. We made no progress whatsoever getting her to sign, but had a blast exploring the castle, chatting with nobles, playing them against one another and finally ending the session with me killing a count in a duel for stealing my girl, our hostess (I got extra dicea against him for being Heartbroken, my name meant 'I do not forget', and my secret name (a bit like truename in certain fantasy literature) meant 'the unforgotten song' so I was getting a huge bonus against the bastard...). It was pretty epic. :smallbiggrin:

So, what say you Playgrounders? Anyone played this? Anyone think it sounds good and wants to know more? Anyone thinks this sounds terrible and won't touch it with an eleven foot pole? :smalltongue:

Ravyn
2008-08-25, 10:44 PM
I'm not sure that mechanic would work too well for me; it's already turned me off one game one of my friends tried to get me into. (Though the one-liner I got to give him about that was worth it.)

It always struck me as kind of cheating to change the world that way rather than by one's own character actions. Then again, that could be because for me half the fun in any given game is exploratory, particularly finding out what kind of people the NPCs are and what motivates them. Being able to actively affect that sort of information in any way other than "Being the GM's muse" doesn't seem near as enjoyable in that respect.

hamlet
2008-08-26, 07:17 AM
I don't think any game has given players this much narrative power before.

You've obviously never played Capes before . . .

This is not really that innovative.

BobVosh
2008-08-26, 07:48 AM
Well I think it sounds awesome. Although the problem with games noone has ever heard of is if you introduce it...almost invariably you run it.

TricksyAndFalse
2008-08-26, 07:49 AM
This mechanic was also suggested as an alternate rule in White Wolf's Changeling: The Dreaming Storyteller's Guide. I always wanted to try it in a White Wolf game, but my players prefered the more traditional approach.

Swooper
2008-10-22, 01:45 PM
http://www.housesoftheblooded.net/blog/?p=66

I feel so honoured.